Star Trek Discovery: The Ultimate Power

The crew of the starship Discovery is adjusting to life in the 32^nd century, 900 years in their own future.  In the 5^th and final season of the series, Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) leads the Discovery family on a quest to find an ancient artifact that holds unfathomable power, racing to obtain it before less desirable elements get to it.  The artifact harkens back to an episode in the sixth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation called The Chase. It is an explanation of why most alien races are humanoid in appearance.  This episode is thought of as an important part of the Star Trek mythology and was on many must watch lists in preparation for Star Trek: Picard.

In the first episode of the new season, we are introduced to the season’s overarching plot and is full of great visuals with splashy special effects and loads of adventure, action, and laser battles.  It also starts the wrapping up of the many of the character’s stories, with Saru (Doug Jones) being offered a position as an ambassador and his budding romance with T’Rina (Tara Rosling) the Vulcan President.  Crewmember Tilly (Mary Wiseman) is teaching at the new Academy and Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) is questioning what his legacy will be now that the spore drive program has been shut down.  And of course, Book (David Ajala) and Captain Burnham must deal with their own relationship and how their interactions will affect the dynamics of each character, now that they are back in contact with each other.

Season 5 of the show premiered on April 4, 2024, with Paramount+ dropping the first two episodes simultaneously.  I have only had the opportunity to watch the first one, but I felt they did a good job of pulling the audience back in and explaining what has been happening. The episode starts with an action scene and then flashes back four hours to see how we got to that point.  The exposition was cunningly added naturally to the dialogue, cleverly giving the audience a hint of what we may see for each character moving forward through the season. The overall story of the episode seemed a bit light with more emphasis being placed on action and special effects than the actual dialogue of the characters.  But in those few moments where the characters can interact with each other, there are some wonderful touching and humorous moments.  Tilly’s drunken flirting, for example, or Michael and Book trying to resolve their feelings while Saru and T’Rina’s romance progression are all brief but wonderful moments within the episode.  On the whole, the first episode was fun and informative if a bit light on content and the rest of the season looks action packed with lots of excitement.  I just hope it ends on a happy note!