ON DEMAND CHOICE: Star Trek: Discovery

If you’d like some big-budget action on a Friday night, this Star Trek show begins its weekly third season on Netflix today, and both previous seasons are available. Here’s our guide…

What’s it about?

Set a decade before the original series that featured Kirk’s Enterprise, Discovery is named after a ship with a technology that allows it to leap through the universe. Seasons one and two take in a war with the Klingons and some mysterious galactic signals, and the key characters include mutineer Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-green), her mentor, Captain Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh), and the ruthless Captain Lorca (Jason Isaacs). We also meet Captain Pike (Anson Mount, right) and Michael’s adoptive brother, Spock (Ethan Peck), both characters from the original series.

What about season three?

Don’t read more if you’re not up to date but, in a Star Trek: Voyager-style twist, season three opens with the ship and its crew flung 930 years into a challenging future.

It’s worth watching…

If you like your sci-fi to have block buster level effects (each episode costs more than £6 million), epic stories and a sense of humour.

If you like this, try…

All previous Star Trek series (Netflix), Battlestar Galactica (iplayer), Ender’s Game (Netflix), Lost In Space (Netflix), Star Trek: Picard (Amazon), The Expanse (Amazon).