Star Trek: Discovery

Last week’s screening of the first and second episodes of Discovery followed a Trek tradition of introducing audiences to a new crew across a double hander. Only it was more like a two-part origins story in which quite a few of the new crew we got to meet were killed off courtesy of a space-tacular battle between the Federation and a spiky Klingon faction trying to reunite the 24 noble houses and defend their culture against dilution from Earthy/Vulcany/Whoevery infiltration.

Then came this week’s third episode (the first aboard the actual ship Discovery) and the audience’s discovery, if you will, that this promises to be a darker, more intense Trek than the small screen has ever seen.

Michael Burnham, the pivotal focus of this series, is not the captain. Indeed she (it can be a woman’s name, get over yourself) is a mutineer en route to a penal colony where she is meant to spend the rest of her born naturals. Which would be boring unless they wanted to do Orange Is The New Trek. They don't want to do that. They want to show a pre-Kirk era Federation at war with the Klingons. And weird science. And they sort of want to reference any and all good science fiction as well as nodding at Trek’s history along the way.

Episode 3 alone paid homage to Alien, Doctor Who, Minority Report, Serenity and possibly even Star Wars as far as my nerd-dar could make out. Oh and quoted Alice In Wonderland. Yup, Burnham falls right down the rabbit hole but such moments are the least satisfying in Discovery, seeming over-egged and hinting at eyebrows arched higher than Spock himself could ever manage.

Good he came up: Burnham was fostered by Spock’s parents after her own (both human) parents were killed by the previous last Klingon attack some years ahead of the opening twinisodes. No, that's never come up in fifty years of Trekking. No, the Internet doesn't seem to have completely melted down over it. Yet.

I could spoiler you right up if I wanted to. Like mentioning that bit where…and the…with a melon…

Not gonna. Get the heck on Netflix and catch up. When Star Trek first aired in its original form in the sixties is was intended as both a reflection of the times and a pointer to a better future, as sci-fi often is unless it's all dystopian and shit. Diversity was key, intergalactic harmony as a metaphor for international peace in the real world? With Discovery things are less flower-power optimistic, just as modern politics is more shit-coloured and subject to interpretation by whomever controls the media lens through which it is dispersed. It shines a light on us, not on a plausible future. Which in truth has always been Trek’s purpose. Long and prosperously may it live.