TV Talk - Star Trek: Discovery Season 3

We are definitely in another era of Star Trek right now. Star Trek Discovery has ended its fourth season, Star Trek: Picard just finished its second season, Star Trek: Prodigy is out there somewhere on Nickelodeon, and Strange New Worlds has been released. While I can’t say that I’m a big fan of everything Paramount is doing, I can say that they’re at least trying to do new things with Trek. So, how about I pick up where I left off with Discovery here? Previously, Commander Burnham and friends were trying to save the everything from a futuristic evil A.I. Things get wild on DISCO, folks. In order to do that, the crew had to take the Discovery through time to the 32^st century, and it would be a one-way trip. Season 2 concluded with them saving the day and taking the trip into the unknown.

Season 3 starts off with the crew making it to the 32^st century (3188) with some complications. After things are settled, they find out that an event from the century before ravaged the Alpha Quadrant. The Burn, as its called,  basically caused all dilithium in the galaxy to explode in the quadrant. This ravaged Starfleet and other major races. Starfleet has gone silent, and a new power called the Emerald Chain has risen in the Quadrant. Discovery then sets out to find where Starfleet may and what’s happened to the galaxy as a whole. During their adventures, they have some internal shifts and get new crew members.

 

PROS

You know the show's gonna get some pluses with some Black Love on the screen.

Alright, out the gate, I can say that this started out pretty good. Yes, it even beats the awesomeness of “Pike and Bearded Spock.” Now that we literally got thrown out of familiar waters, this gave DISCO its own space to grow. We get a new era to explore in Trek, and it’s not as bright as some want it to be. Heck, it never was in the first place. Anyway, one thing that really worked standalone vibe the season had. While you had the Discovery looking for causes into the Burn, you also had them catching up on what’s happened to the Federation.

Things were also pretty good here character-wise. This has Burnham at her best. While I may joke about her having a cape under that uniform, she does get to develop pretty well here. Heck, her track record even gets criticized here, and I really liked that because it was about dang time. Other characters that rocked were Saru, Culber, Tilly (at points), Emperor Georgiou and Stamets. We get quite a few new characters here and most of them rocked like Book (David Ajala), Admiral Vance (Oded Fehr), and Kovich (David Cronemburg). I never knew I would want Oded Fehr involved in Star Trek, but I thank God for that unknown prayer. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of Adira (Blu del Barrio) and Gray (Ian Alexander), I thought their connection was pretty interesting. You’ll see what I mean.

These are some surprising and nice additions to Star Trek.

The effects are as good as usual. With the crew and ship being in the future, we end up getting some upgrades to the uniforms and the ship. The futuristic version of Starfleet looks pretty sleek. Most of the uniforms look good while others (mainly the ones the crew get at the end of the season) look kinda bad. Thankfully, Season 4 does away with those suits. The action’s pretty good, and the music is nice as usual. Lastly, Burnham rocked those braids.

 

CONS

Man, those new suits sucked. I'm glad they didn't stay around long.

While I did like the season, there were some things that irked me a bit. my main issue (which is something that I’ve noticed with the show even with Season 4), is that we got the Discovery facing some big threat again. Now, I will say that the Burn is kinda low stakes (not a Klingon War nor futuristic AI destroying everything), but it’s still there. It really doesn’t turn into a problem until the end of the season where we find the truth about the Burn. I gotta say that the cause of the Burn was underwhelming, but I do like that it has some of its roots in old-school TOS. Think “Charlie X”. In fact, I think the conclusion of Season 3 was pretty lackluster overall. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the ending from the previous season either.

While Georgiou's two-parter felt a bit long, it was a fun ride.

I think the lackluster ending can also be attributed to the main antagonist of the season, the Emerald Chain. After the Burn, the Orions basically took over with their own tech and tried to subjugate worlds. Their leader, Osyrra (Janet Kidder), was interesting, but I didn’t like the group all that much. I also thought some story beats didn’t pan out well. There was one with Georgiou that was interesting, but  that took a little long to conclude. I didn’t think we needed to have two episodes in an alternate Mirror Universe, but what do I know. Then, there are some little niggles here and there. There was one plot point with Tilly that didn’t make much sense. The bridge crew is kinda forgotten about but they get a couple of moments to shine especially Lt. Demeter (the other redhead in the crew). Other than these things and small nitpicks, this was a good season.

The Emerald Chain was subpar, but at least they were snazzy dressers.

 

FAVORITE EPISODES

1.  That Hope is You, Part 1 – Burnham finds herself stranded in the future alone and gets a taste of this new era of the galaxy.
2.  People of Earth – Burnham and the crew get officially reunited, and they find out what has happened to Earth.
3. Die Trying – The Discovery finds what’s left of Starfleet and start to investigate the Burn.
4. Unification 3 – In order to find out more about the Burn, The Discovery travels to Ni’Var, home of the Vulcans AND Romulans.
5. Terra Firma – While the crew searches for the source of the Burn, Georgiou starts to get ill. Burnham and Georgiou end up finding a mysterious, familiar stranger that can help Georgiou.

……………………………………………………..

In the end, Season 3 of DISCO was a good one. While it wasn’t a perfect season, the pros outweighed the cons here. Throwing them into the future (permanently) was definitely a step in the right direction. As for where they go from here, there’s Season 4 to consider. That’ll have to wait though. I need to finish the last couple of episodes first. I haven’t even gotten passed the first episode of Picard’s second season (time constraints, y’all) , but something tells me I’ll be in for a surprise. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and be careful out there.