STAR TREK: DISCOVERY Season Three
In which Michael holds a Grudge
US CBS All Access, streaming now UK Netflix, streaming now
Showrunners Alex Kurtzman,
Michelle Paradise
Cast Sonequa Martin-green, Doug Jones, David Ajala, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, Wilson Cruz
Discovery’s third year offers the chance to reimagine the Star Trek universe, some seven centuries after the events of Picard. The results, however, are distinctly mixed.
After jumping to the 32nd century, Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-green) finds herself stranded and alone. When the Discovery finally catches up with her, she struggles to fit back in, but throws herself into solving the mystery of “the Burn” – a disastrous event that has crippled future Starfleet’s capacity to travel at warp. Meanwhile a brutal alliance of Orions and Andorians, the Emerald Chain, is muscling in on the galaxy.
Season three has a great first few episodes, a solid final pair and one hell of a mid-season wobble. All of the show’s strengths are on display, but its weaknesses feel more pronounced – namely an apparent need to bend everything around Michael, a weird reluctance to actually get out and explore this new future, and cheap answers to intriguing questions.
Take the Burn. It’s the central mystery this year, methodically teased over the course of the season, but its resolution is a cheat. You’ll never guess it in advance, sure, but that’s because the show plucks a goofy answer out of thin air: hugely unsatisfying.
It’s a recurrent problem. What’s the Federation like without infinite resources? Grumpy, but basically the same. How do the crew cope with being stranded hundreds of years in the future? Eh, they’re good because they have each other.
Then there’s Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh)… For most of the run she’s just sort of there, until a surprise two-parter sends her back in time to the Mirror Universe. It looks like the cast had a whale of a time panto-ing around, but it’s considerably less fun to watch. It’s frustrating, because Discovery remains a well-made show with a charismatic cast. The new characters are all intriguing, too. Adira (Blu del Barrio) and Gray (Ian Alexander) bring longoverdue trans and non-binary representation to Star Trek, while shady courier Book (David Ajala) proves an amiable romantic foil for Michael, and has a very good cat called Grudge.
It’s not quite enough. Star Trek at its best aims to please both the head and the heart. Discovery season three goes all in on the latter, but struggles with the former. It is, as Michael Burnham’s brother was so fond of saying, highly illogical.
The Verubin Nebula (point of origin of the Burn) was named in honour of American astronomer Vera Rubin (1928-2016).