TL;DR – A season that is equal parts uplifting and frustrating  

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that viewed this episode.

Star Trek: Discovery Review –

When I was doing an overview of the site, I realised that there were a couple of missing moments that I was not able to tie up due to things happening at the time. Well, given that today is a public holiday, I thought it would be time to correct this, and the first thing we should do is look back at Season Four of Star Trek: Discovery. When I look at this season, what I see are two distinctly different parts, one which might be the best Star Trek has to offer, and the other which was an unfortunate anchor that weighed the entire series back, and today, we will break those two halves down.  

So to set the scene, after saving the galaxy by finding the cause of “The Burn” in Season Three. The USS Discovery-A has settled into being the leading edge of the resurgent Federation. Negotiating with new members and helping distribute dilithium. However, when a mysterious force destroys the entire planet of Kwejian, there is a race to try and work out who is scouring space before another planet is destroyed. Now, we will be looking at the season as a whole from here, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

Before we delve into the problems, I want to take a moment to talk about what worked. The hunt for what was causing the destruction, and then the desperate drive to contact those who have the power to exterminate entire solar systems with a wave of their metaphorical hands. Michael (Sonequa Martin-Green) has to work with the different factions across the galaxy first to understand what caused the destruction and then how best to locate them. It is a storyline that plays to Star Trek’s strengths: choosing diplomacy rather than violence when at all possible, using science to solve our problems, and always leaning towards compassion rather than revenge.

The strength of this is really seen toward the end of the season when they have to venture outside of the galaxy. Finding the homeworld of the alien’s Species Ten-C, working out their history, their motivations, how their tech works, how to communicate with them, trying to find some common ground who might just look at sentient creatures as we look at ants. This was a deeply compelling story that captivated you as it was about hope when you are at your worst. We also go on some fun side quests to a casino planet with a Changeling, a budding romance between Saru (Doug Jones) and the head of the Vulcan delegation, T’Rina (Tara Rosling), and get to meet wonderful new characters like Laira Rillak (Chelah Horsdal).

However, while this was going on, we got a side story exploring the impacts of trauma. Now, I don’t want to be too harsh on this front because I know some of these issues are likely caused by trying to film the story during Covid. Some of the exploration of trauma was profound, and it ends at the right point. Unfortunately, the journey to get there was full of frustration. A lot of annoyance stems from Michael and Booker (David Ajala), where the story felt like it only existed to force a separation of the characters rather than for an organic narrative reason. It also got creepy in places. Then there is the character of Ruon Tarka (Shawn Doyle), who is walking around with ‘I am the real bad guy this season’ in neon lights, but no one notices. Every time the story cut to them, you could feel the grinding of brakes the narrative made.

In the end, do we recommend Season Four of Star Trek Discovery? Yes, we would. For all its faults, it is still some of the strongest work that the series has done. When it leans into the strengths of Star Trek it shined, and it is a joy to watch.             

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen Star Trek Discovery yet?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.   

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Star Trek Discovery
Directed by – Olatunde Osunsanmi
Written by – Kyle Jarrow
Based off – Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry
Created by – Bryan Fuller & Alex Kurtzman  
Production/Distribution Companies – CBS Television Studios, Roddenberry Entertainment, Secret Hideout & Paramount+. 
Starring in Season 4 – Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Anthony Rapp, Wilson Cruz, Mary Wiseman, Blu del Barrio, Tig Notaro & David Ajala with Ian Alexander, Oded Fehr, Chelah Horsdal, Tara Rosling, David Cronenberg, Shawn Doyle, Phumzile Sitole, Sonja Sohn, Rachael Ancheril, Annabelle Wallis, Stacey Abrams, Emily Coutts, Patrick Kwok-Choon, Oyin Oladejo, Ronnie Rowe Jr., Sara Mitich, Raven Dauda, Orville Cummings, David Benjamin Tomlinson, Fabio Tassone & Grudge and Bill Irwin, Ayesha Mansur Gonsalves, Michael Greyeyes, Sarah Booth, Jonathan Goad, Sima Sepehri, Rothaford Gray, Daniel Kash, Luca Doulgeris, Rodrigo Fernandez-Stol, Ache Hernandez, Vanessa Jackson, Alex McCooeye, Adrian Walters, Amanda Arcuri, Seamus Patterson, Fabio Tassone, Mimi Côté, Giovanni Spina, Avaah Blackwell, Patrick Haye, Nck Name, Andreas Apergis, Giovanni Spina, Jason Gosbee, Claudia Jurt, Warren Scherer, JaNae Armogan, Hiro Kanagawa & Osric Chau
Episodes Covered – Kobayashi Maru, Anomaly, Choose to Live, All Is Possible, The Examples, Stormy Weather, …But To Connect, All In, Rubicon, The Galactic Barrier, Rosetta, Species Ten-C & Coming Home