Star Trek - Discovery - Season 3 (Netflix)
I´m a Star Trek fan. Starting with the Original Series, of course. Afterwards I hesitated to jump in with TNG, but the movies made me seek it out, and I enjoyed it a lot, too. Voyager, well, I actually liked parts of it and got bored by others. Years later I tried out Enterprise, which had more to offer than I thought at first. And following that, I finally binged through DS9 and consider it now the best series since TOS.
Then came Discovery. And while I liked the first one and the second series even more, I approached the third one with a kind of “it´s Trek so I have to watch it”-feeling. While the second series tickled my nostalgia I never understood why the creative minds behind this had insisted on Discovery to be a prequel when so much of it just does not fit into the canon or had to be retrofitted to explain all the hugely advanced technology. The end of the second series finally tried to break free from the prequel setup by having the crew and the ship jump into the future. So… why not start there? To court the long time fans? That did not work at all, judging from all the backlash for the reasons mentioned above.
Now, the third series starts with all the chances one could associate with a Star Trek series that takes place so far removed from the others. And there are fantastic ideas in it (I won’t spoil it here for those who haven’t seen it yet). But in the end, it is again a kind of prequel, only this time for what is to come in Season 4. It’s as if the showrunners are constantly trying to build their world by explaining and explaining, instead of just doing a quit setup and then run with it. 13 episodes to explain how the Discovery crew will now proceed in this new universe?
And then there’s still Michael Burnham. I never understood why the show runners decided to center the series so much on one main character. Almost every storyline is revolving around her emotional state of mind, and while the main actress, Sonequa Martin-Green, is giving a passionate performance, either she is directed to fall back on two acting shortcuts (tears welling up, delivering dialogue in a dramatic whisper) or she just does not have more range. Besides, her character, Michael Burnham, is just not layered enough to carry all those storylines. The writers have thrown everything at this character, for sure, even making her a half-sister of Spocks. But in the end she always is torn between serving Starfleet or following her emotions, choosing the latter and thereby saving the day for Starfleet which finally excuses her behavior. Also, she is more of a superhero, surviving everything, having no injury stop her, going full John McClane in this season while also outsmarting everyone, even her crew.
And before you can say: But Kirk also always went stubbornly his way… no, he did not. He tried, and sometimes he had to pay a huge price for it. Usually, though, he always seeked out advice from Spock and McCoy. And this triangle actually made for the most interesting stories and decisions. So did the other crews, too. Up to Discovery, the heroes in Star Trek were ensemble players, they could only succeed by listening to others and working together. Discovery has the crew on the one side, and Michael Burnham on the other, with Burnham always saving the day, no matter whether the crew has advised her to do something else.
This is not to say that I did not enjoy Season 3. Visually it´s perfect eye candy - or should that be effects porn? And as I said before, there are many moments and ideas which are interesting and captivating. But it also has morphed a lot into Star Wars territory, with more space battles and phaser duels as ever. It does manage to inject more diversity and tolerance into the show, and this is great because Star Trek always was about that. Then again, it´s often a bit too much on the nose with that. And the two new characters in this season, for my perspective, lacked the kind of development I was hoping for. For instance: if you start out with a revolutionary Han Solo-like scoundrel, why do you also have to give him an esoteric superpower AND lose all his edge after a few episodes to become a love interest who is suddenly totally in tune with helping Starfleet? And if you include a transgender character (nothing new, actually, since DS9 already had one, although played by a very attractive woman) why make them a teenage genius who insists on being called “they”? The intention to include and maybe even educate the audience is ruined if it is so obvious.
I hope that Season 4 will offer more interesting stories and not fall into the trap of being another explanation to set up new circumstances for Discovery. They should rather now have the crew, the whole crew, go on their missions in this new universe and timeline, as it is set up in the last episode.
