(courtesy IMP Awards)
Star Trek: Discovery has always been about people and the connections they forge in building a better, more just galactic society.
That might seem self evident since surely that is true of all iterations of a franchise that has held sway in the hearts and minds of its fans since 8 September 1966 when The Original Series (TOS) debuted primarily it was all about a bunch of dedicated Starfleet officers and crew against the universe.
But while that is very much true of everything from TOS through to The Next Generation (TNG), Deep Space Nine and beyond, in Discovery, which is lamentably entering its fifth and final season, it feels like the absolute essence of the show, the DNA that has glued a not-always-consistent but always engagingly good premise and execution and made us care about the crew like few before.
That’s not true of all fans because, rather mysteriously, Disco as it is affectionately known, has attracted a great deal of ire from certain sections of Star Trek fandom, but by and large we have cared for the show primarily because the crew cares for each other so damn much.
These unshakeable and warmly caring bonds are on full and gloriously affecting show in the two debut episodes of the final season, “Red Directive” and “Under Twin Moons”, which certainly give us a full speed ahead action-packed storyline full of future treasure and historical intrigue but every bit, if not more importantly, a sense of a family that will do anything for each other, especially when it appears great change is in the offing.
And it’s not only a final season that is about to rip everything asunder, so to speak.
As Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) is given an order, one with scant details – “red directives” are basically do this and question nothing orders from well up the food chain of Starfleet – other than they have to find an object, and bring it back no questions asked, from an 800-year-old Romulan science vessel floating out in the rubbish-strewn depths of space, a lot of people are on their way out of her redeemed orbit.
Tilly (Mary Wiseman) now has a thriving career at the newly-remade Starfleet Academy – if you recall, Burnham and crew are now in the 32nd century after a mission to stop a rogue AI destroying the Federation in their original timeline, only to find Federation is disarray which they obviously set about correcting – Saru (Doug Jones) is not only in love with Vulcan ambassador T’rina (Tara Rosling) but about to become an ambassador himself to shepherd vulnerable small worlds into the arms of the Federation, which means that he’s stepping down as Burnham’s Number One.
Michael is thrilled, of course, for both of them but, as you can well imagine, sad too to have two people she loves and admires not securely evident in her day-to-day life, and so the opportunity to have them back on board for an adventurous romp around the galaxy is a welcome one.
And adventure the crew of Discovery definitely do encounter.
The seemingly routine super-secret salvage op doesn’t go as planned, Michael discovers what the Red Directive is all about, an old TNG episode “The Chase” which is all about the origin of life is given a sequel and there’s a whole lot of Indian Jones-ish treasure hunting that takes the crew, in pursuit of danger-addicted, opportunistic scavengers named Moll and L’ak (Eve Harlow and Elias Toufexis respectively) who have quite the prize to the desert planet of Q’Mau and the funereal garden world of Lyrek.
That’s likely too many spoilers already so we’ll stop there but suffice to say, Discovery this season is all about the mother of all McGuffins (quite literally in a way) and how the future of all life in the galaxy, fractiously estranged or not, rests on a technology from the dim, dark primordial past.
All of which means we have a narrative that is thrilling, intriguing and full of all kinds of possibility, and which means that arc-dependent Discovery is able to get its TNG standalone episode on too.
It’s a beguiling mix and it works neatly in these two episodes which do a great job of setting the scene and putting everyone where they need to be for the eight seasons to come, and which establish once again how vital the bonds of togetherness are for the crew and those who interact with them.
There are some key scenes where everyone is together – thinking one in particular where Burnham, Saru, Tilly, Adira (Blu del Barrio) and Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) are trying to do some narrative propelling brainstorming upon which much resides – where you definitely get the sense of space professionals doing their job but where there’s also a palpable sense of belonging and family, of people who don’t just have to be together, they like being together.
Say what you will about the show, and yes, it did suffer from a bit of an identity issue in each of its previous four seasons, what has always anchored it in this fan’s affections at least, and which has given it an emotional constancy its narrative may have lacked (though it always executed well storytelling within each iteration) are the tightly-woven and richly and movingly depicted bonds between its various key characters.
These bonds are very much in evidence this season, especially as certain go their separate ways, with the biggest of them all, for Burnham at least, which is her relationship (or not, as the case may presently be) with Booker aka Book (David Ajala) very much an elephant room which needs to be addressed but which is and will be because if nothing else, Discovery is all about people, their connections and how much they need and sustain them through some pretty dramatic and intensely adventuresome moments.
While it is unbearably sad to be saying goodbye to such a warm and wonderful show, Discovery has kicked things off in fine fashion, giving us an exciting storyline, characters who matter hugely and the prospect of a fitting end to a series which began as a story of redemption through connection and which looks set, thanks in part to Burnham’s new Number One (shhhh spoilers!) to end much the same way.
Season five of Discovery screens on Paramount+ with the remaining eight episodes set to screen through to 30 May 2024.