Review for Star Trek: Discovery: Season 2

Introduction

I am in an odd, yet surprisingly familiar position here, that of buying something I really didn’t want. And it’s Star Trek again, a franchise where my love for it outlasted the quality of the offerings. Not having Prime at the time, I succumbed to a bargain bucket price for Discovery Season 1, to see what the first television revival of Star Trek since the Enterprise series was like, and given Alex Kurtzman’s involvement, it was no surprise that I wasn’t impressed, with the re-imagined Klingons just one of its many problems. I was entertained enough to watch the next three seasons once I had accidentally subscribed to Amazon Prime again, and once again I was entertained, but not compelled to spend any money. Yet here I am, about to review Season 2 of Discovery. There has been no revelation, no epiphany on my part. It’s just that I did watch and fall in love with a new Star Trek show, Strange New Worlds, which tells the adventures of the USS Enterprise under the command of Captain Christopher Pike. And it turns out that version of the character was introduced in Season 2 of Star Trek Discovery, where much of the back-story that establishes him takes place. Strange New Worlds does work without Discovery Season 2, but it is nice to have. It may not be all that nice to watch though...


Michael Burnham was an up and coming star in Starfleet, but a failure to follow orders got her captain killed, and ignited a war with the Klingons. She would have missed the action serving a life sentence for mutiny, but Captain Lorca of the Discovery offered her a chance at redemption. The Discovery is an experimental ship, the only one in the Fleet with a Spore Drive that allows instantaneous jump transport in the galaxy. Their mission took them into the Mirror Universe, where they lost their captain, but picked up an Empress, and a means to ending the war with the Klingons. Having returned triumphantly to Earth, they were on their way to Vulcan to pick up their new captain when they encountered the USS Enterprise.


14 episodes of Star Trek Discovery are presented across 4 Blu-rays as follows. Episode specific extras are listed with the episodes, otherwise look at the Extras section further down. Each episode except the first also has a promo with it.

Disc 1
1. Brother
The Enterprise has suffered a catastrophic failure, so Starfleet have assigned Christopher Pike as the temporary captain of the Discovery to carry out a mission to investigate one of seven red bursts of energy seen in the galaxy. Michael Burnham was expecting to see her adoptive brother Spock when Pike and his aides beamed aboard, but Spock is mysteriously absent. When they get to their destination, the red burst has vanished, but they do find a Starfleet ship crashed on an asteroid on a collision course with a pulsar. They have just five hours to rescue any survivors.
* Audio Commentary with Sonequa Martin-Green (Burnham) and episode director Alex Kurtzman

2. New Eden
Another red burst has been detected, but this time it’s so far away that they’ll have to use the Spore Drive to get there, something that gives Paul Stamets pause, given that he’s still grieving for Hugh Culber. Tilly has an idea to use dark matter to solve the need for Stamets to be plugged into the drive. An accident with the material causes Tilly to start hallucinating someone from her childhood. Speaking of visions, Burnham hasn’t come to terms with what she saw on that asteroid, and doesn’t trust Captain Pike enough to share. That could be bad, as their next jump takes them to an impossible human colony, established by survivors of WWIII, who have created a new religion.
* Commentary by Anson Mount (Pike) and episode director Jonathan Frakes
* Deleted and Extended Scenes (4: 57)


3. Point of Light
Tilly’s hallucinations start affecting her performance, but Burnham has a realisation that suggests that this is more than something in Tilly’s head. Meanwhile, they had been told that Spock had been admitted to psychiatric care on Starbase 5, but his mother Amanda arrives, with the news that Spock is incommunicado, and Starfleet won’t even allow family access. When Pike presses the issue, what they learn is unbelievable. And on the Klingon homeworld, there’s trouble in the high council, with trust in Chancellor L’Rell wavering because of her devotion to Ash Tyler/Voq, a mere ‘human’. Salvation comes from an unlikely source.
* Deleted Scenes (4:14)

4. An Obol For Charon
The Discovery is on the trail of Spock’s shuttle, when it’s pulled out of warp by a gargantuan sphere. It unleashes a virus into the ship’s computer that causes significant damage, trapping the ship as its systems continue to be afflicted. At the same time, Saru is dealing with a medical condition for which there is no cure. The eukaryote life-form that had conjured visions in Tilly escapes from confinement and attacks her as well, now physically enveloping her.


Disc 2
5. Saints of Imperfection
It seems chasing Spock’s shuttle was a dead end, when its pilot turns out to be someone else entirely. All it serves to do is raise a barrier of mistrust between Burnham and Captain Pike when Section 31 show up, and Pike realises just how many secrets Burnham is keeping from him. It comes at the worst possible time, as Stamets has figured out where Tilly is, and getting her back will require putting Discovery in danger, and a whole lot of trust. But they find a lot more than just Tilly.

6. The Sound of Thunder
People handle life changing experiences in different ways. Dr Culber isn’t exhibiting as much grace as Saru is, despite both of them having their worldviews effectively shattered. But Saru’s grace is about to be tested when the next Red Burst appears over his homeworld of Kaminar. Saru is the only Kelpian in Starfleet, living in the Federation under the strict stipulation he never contact home again. But now he’ll be going home to a world with two races, where the bucolic Kelpians are fodder for the predator Ba’ul.
* Star Trek: Short Treks: The Brightest Stars (14:47)


7. Light and Shadows
Burnham requests leave to go home to Vulcan, realising that Amanda knows more about Spock than she’s been letting on. That means she misses the ‘fun’ on Discovery when a temporal rift opens up in the orbit of Kaminar, and the Captain and Ash Tyler’s shuttle get lost within it. It gets worse when they are attacked by their own probe, sent back from the future with an insidious upgrade. Burnham finally finds her brother, and gets drawn into a conflict with Section 31.
* Extended Scene (1:26)

8. If Memory Serves
Section 31 has put the Federation on full alert looking for Spock as a fugitive from justice. But Discovery is being kept out of the loop. Not that it matters, as Burnham isn’t heading for Discovery or Federation space. Instead she’s heading for Talos IV, a forbidden planet, where Pike and Spock once encountered a race of telepaths keeping a menagerie beneath the post-apocalyptic surface. It seems only they can heal Spock’s fractured mind. Meanwhile, on Discovery, Hugh Culber is having a hard time readjusting to his life, made harder by the presence of Section 31 agent Ash Tyler on the ship. Beyond that, Captain Pike will be forced to choose between his duty and his friend.


Disc 3
9. Project Daedalus
The Discovery is a fugitive ship, lying low to prevent Section 31 get their hands on Spock. But rendezvousing with Admiral Cornwell might offer them a chance to rectify the situation, when they learn of the power play in progress at Section 31. Apparently an extremist faction in Starfleet Command is repurposing the AI that advises the admiralty to instead take over. The plan is to sneak into 31’s HQ, remove the rogue element, and restore the AI called Control to base settings. But Cornwell has it the wrong way around, and the Discovery family has a spy in its heart.
* Deleted Scene (0:32)

10. The Red Angel
The crew of the Discovery have learned much about the time-travelling Red Angel and the burst of energy that herald its appearance. It’s clear that it comes with warnings about a potential future, but Starfleet and Section 31 are agreed on one thing, that time travel technology is a dangerous thing to be out there. And Section 31 have one more secret, regarding the Red Angel and bizarrely Michael Burnham’s childhood. It’s a secret that only increases the conflict between them, but they have to work together to find and capture the Red Angel.
* Deleted Scene (1:06)


11. Perpetual Infinity
With the Red Angel contained, they finally have the opportunity to get to the bottom of the apocalyptic vision of the future, where all life in the galaxy has been wiped out. The Sphere Data that was uploaded to the Discovery is key, and you would think that destroying it to prevent the A.I. Control getting it would be the obvious solution. But this data doesn’t want to be erased. At the same time, despite their best efforts, the Red Angel is being inexorably pulled back to the future. And Control is already one step ahead of them all.

12. Through The Valley of the Shadows
Another Red Burst has appeared over the Klingon planet of Boreth, but Burnham has become disillusioned with these enigmatic warnings from the future. Instead, she and Spock investigate a Section 31 ship that has deviated from normal operations without explanation. The Discovery instead gets permission to go to Boreth, but it’s a planet that exists outside the rules of the Klingon High Council. Obtaining a Time Crystal to replace the one destroyed when the Red Angel was attacked by Control might give them an advantage, but to do so, Captain Pike will have to face his destiny.
* Deleted Scenes (6:17)
* Audio commentary with Anson Mount (Pike), and Ethan Peck (Spock)


Disc 4
13. Such Sweet Sorrow
The plan is to deny Control the Sphere data it needs to evolve by destroying the Discovery, and they rendezvous with the Enterprise to evacuate the crew. But the Sphere data has other plans. Meanwhile, interacting with the Time Crystal from Boreth has strange effects for Michael, but it does give them another idea. They will take the Discovery into the distant future, removing the data completely from the access of Control. But for whoever does it, it will be a one way trip. And while they prepare their defences, the Section 31 fleet that Control has suborned gets ever closer.
* Star Trek: Short Treks: Runaway (15:21)
* Deleted Scenes (1:29)

14. Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2
As battle rages, time runs out for the crew of the Discovery to save the galaxy.
* Audio Commentary with Olatunde Osunsamni, Michelle Paradise, Jenny Lumet, and Alex Kurtzman
* Putting It Together (43:05)
* Deleted Scene (0:21)

Picture

The first season of Discovery was a compromise between TV and cinema, with its ratio of 2:1, but the second season goes for the full cinematic experience, adopting the 2.39:1 widescreen ratio, presented here at1080p. It certainly looks fantastic, great special effects, a seamless blend of live action and CG, with cinematic production values. The image is clear and sharp on these discs, with strong, consistent colours, and there is no problem with compression and the like, the episodes getting a generous disc distribution. This reinvention takes a page out of the recent reboot movies when it comes to the look of the universe, although it does go its own way in a couple of aspects. My problems lie with a couple of the design choices, but that’s a matter of the story rather than production values. It also looks as if the opening credits were inspired by those for The Shannara Chronicles.

Sound

You have the choice between DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround English, DD 5.1 Surround French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese with subtitles in these languages and Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish. I was happy enough with the original language track, and while you might have to nudge the volume a tad, the dialogue is clear except when actors mumble, the action comes across well, with the surrounds put to great use, and the music really doing the show justice.

Extras

You get 4 discs in a BD Amaray style case, held either side of two centrally hinged panels. The inner sleeve has a contents listing. The case also comes with a sturdy o-card slipcover, with a front card panel held with Velcro, folding out to reveal a cast portrait. Your player should hold the disc’s last position in memory after being ejected so you can resume next time.

The discs present their content with animated menus.

Disc 1

Season 2 Promo (1:14)
Designing Discovery: Season 2 (17:48)
Prop Me Up: Season 2 (8:56)


Disc 2

Dress For Success: Season 2 (16:00)

Disc 3

Creature Comforts: Season 2 (15:18)
Creating Space (10:12)

Disc 4

Star Trek: Discovery: The Voyage of Season 2 (55:46)
Enter The Enterprise (10:33)
The Red Angel (13:10)
Gag Reel (7:09)

Conclusion

Star Trek Discovery is still my least favourite Star Trek series, and watching Season 2 for the second time now, has done nothing to change my mind. It’s still the megabloc of complaints that I have; I don’t like the look of the show, especially the re-imagined Klingons, the tendency for each season spanning story arc to lead up to some galactic existential crisis and eye-candy space battle is annoying. I don’t like any of the main characters, and it makes mock of canon, while purporting to adhere to it.


Now having said all of that, Season 2 might just be my least disliked of the four that I have seen. It’s all about damage control, in the same way that Season 4 of Enterprise belatedly tried to get that show back on track. While the look of the Klingons hasn’t changed drastically enough, there is some movement in that direction here, and a concerted effort to shift their culture to something more recognisably Klingon. It doesn’t hurt that they are only tangentially a part of this season.


The best thing about Season 2 for me is Captain Pike, the amiable boy scout paragon of a Starfleet captain the show sorely missed in the first season, and taking Spock’s back-story in an interesting direction. Seeing the re-imagined Enterprise for the series finale, paying homage to the original series but with added lens flare was also a delight. The Pike, Burnham Spock storyline that unfolds is admittedly well done too. It certainly might have raised eyebrows when Season 1 retconned Spock’s family to give him an older adopted human sister, but the writers build on that really well, taking into account Spock’s mixed heritage and contrasting it with the story of a human girl trying to live as a Vulcan, while grieving her lost parents. There’s synergy, drama and tension in the relationship that makes for a really good character arc.


Yet there is the overall story arc, which can only disappoint. The thing about Discovery is that it is all existential crisis after existential crisis, with each season effectively a Hollywood blockbuster stretched out across a dozen or so episodes. A season long build-up leads to an eye-candy finale. Season 1 had the Klingon War with a Mirror Universe interlude. Season 2, is Star Trek’s take on Terminator. Section 31, the clandestine Starfleet intelligence agency introduced in Deep Space 9, is a lot less clandestine here, following their AI’s advice when it comes to interstellar relations and espionage. Only this AI Control, like Skynet is trying to evolve, become self-aware, and wipe out all life in the galaxy for... reasons. The fact that it’s already able to impersonate people with holograms, have conversations, infect and suborn humans like the Borg, and break its programming enough to commit mass murder already makes it seem like a self-aware killing machine, but apparently it’s not self-aware enough. To give it even more of an ego, it needs some scientific data that the Discovery finds early on.


In proper Terminator style, there is a big time travel element to the story also, with the mystery of the red bursts, the mysterious signals in the galaxy, and the Red Angel that comes with them, all offering plenty of enigma, but as you might expect, gradually tying into the Section 31 story arc too. It’s such an obvious cliché at this point that even if I were to like the season long narrative spectacular format, this particular story would still annoy me. Some of the individual episodes do still hit the spot, with New Eden and The Sound of Thunder particularly feeling the way I want Star Trek to feel. There are also plenty of beats, moments, little sparks of character that do hold the attention, and remind me that while I may not particularly like this version of Star Trek, there is little that is objectively bad about it. It does entertain, and it does tell its story well.


If I can have an objective criticism, it’s that following the first season flying off the tracks of canon and franchise continuity, Season 2 is all about trying to crowbar Discovery back into line with the rest of Star Trek, often obviously, and often quite clumsily. In the end, they have to give up, and throw in a line of exposition, where Starfleet makes a regulation that no-one ever talks about Discovery again, and everyone must act as if none of the characters ever existed. That’s a worse plot device than a reset button.


Star Trek Discovery Season 2 is passably watchable at best, sporadically entertaining, and it has its heart in the right place. The best thing about this season is that it gave us the superlative Strange New Worlds spin-off. Alas, for that reason, I need to keep this collection on hand, as it informs Pike and Spock’s respective back-stories in that show. And because it sets up Season 2 of Discovery, I also have to keep hold of Discovery Season 1, much as I dislike it. At least I feel no obligation to watch Seasons 3-5 of Discovery, where the crew make new lives in the 32nd Century, and save the universe on an annual basis.