After watching various action series & catching up some that I have been following for the past few years, I was in the mood to try something else. I cannot remember where I read about this, but suddenly I remembered few days ago and decided to watch this one. I am a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation series and also the various movies based on the series, so I really hope this would be something I enjoyed as much as that one. Without further ado, let us get on with the series.
Brief Story Line
Years before the events of Star Trek: The Original Series, the United Federation of Planets were involved in a major war with the Klingons. Story focused on a Starfleet officer Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green - The Walking Dead TV series etc) who was a specialist on board USS Discovery trying to find solace from her previous actions by making sure Starfleet could win the war. USS Discovery was led by an unconventional & tough captain Gabrial Lorca (Jason Isaacs - Brotherhood TV series, Harry Potter movies etc). His First Officer was a species called Kespian named Saru (Doug Jones - The Shape of Water, Falling Skies TV series etc) and had a unique ability of sensing danger around him.
USS Discovery was given a special task by Starfleet which would give them the edge while fighting against Klingons. The task itself was being handled by Chief Engineer Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) who was assisted by a young cadet named Silvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman). Later on there would be a new Chief of Security Lieutenant Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif - The Commuter, Spooks TV series etc) on board the ship.
So could USS Discovery complete their assignment and win the war for Federation? Find them all in this surprisingly heavy, quite dark and intense new Star Trek series.
End of Brief Story Line
After finishing the whole 15 episodes of the first season, I noticed that this series to my opinion could be considered having 3 parts. The first part were the first & second episode which focused on the introduction of Michael Burnham (who was played very convincingly by Sonequa Martin-Green) plus her background. The second part was up to what I thought was the mid-season finale in episode 9. And finally the last part was starting from episode 10 till the season finale of episode 15.
For me personally, the first 2 episodes were truly interesting and was quite awesome as well with the appearance of special guest star Michelle Yeoh (Crazy Rich Asians and many more). The second part was also great in terms of the characters development and we became very attached to them. Now the third part however, was very unique and it gave us so many surprising twists. However, I thought the story arc was not something I would have liked to be shown in this series. I felt that kind of story would have been nicer if it's part of a different Sci-Fi series focusing on such matter. But then again, that's just a matter of opinion.
Now as a Star Trek series, there were quite a lot of things that really brought the nostalgic feeling to me, such as a glimpse of the theme song could be heard during the opening credit scene. Btw, the opening credit scene was pretty amazing. I thought it was very stylish as it seemed like combination of high tech/futuristic stuff with artsy parts. And obviously it was fun to see the phasers used for fights, the transport (beaming) from starship to different location and vice versa and many others. And the special effects in this series were absolutely wonderful. It made me realized how far we have come from those old 80s (The Next Generation) and the 60s-70s (Original Series) Star Trek series.
Coming back to the story itself, I thought the first season was a bit different from the previous series which focused only on exploring new worlds & civilizations. In here because the story was focusing on the war with Klingons, I felt the whole series were quite intense and there was only 1 episode which felt a bit lighter (episode 7). The rest were pretty dark and heavy, plus there were surprisingly foul language, brief love making scenes, violent fight scenes and scenes which I thought more suitable for adults (especially in the last episode). And of all the 15 episodes, there were only 1 or 2 episodes which had the exploration part. So if you miss and want to reminisce on those, this series might not really provide you the satisfaction.
Overall, I felt that for a brand new Star Trek series, this one would most likely be able to attract new audience especially with the intensity, twist, and the rather up to date matter. The cast were generally amazing in their characterizations. My favorite was definitely the Kespian Saru (with his amazing make up effects) and also Tilly who provided some comical relief in an otherwise very serious series. Finally I also like Jason Isaacs performance as this bad-ass Discovery captain. From what I understood, the second season would be airing soon which made me truly excited to watch, especially after that special surprising ending of the season finale.
So if you are looking to find a science fiction series with great character developments, wonderful special and make up effects and wanted to have a feel of Star Trek, then this one definitely could be an option. But do not expect something that was lighter like in Star Trek: The Next Generation. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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