Star Trek: Discovery – Life, Itself & Season 5 – TV Review

TL;DR – While you can tell this was never meant to be a season finale, it did still give us a lovely swan song for the series.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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

The Binary Blackholes.

Star Trek: Discovery Review –

All good things come to an end, and while it was never meant to be the final episode, it is the end. In today’s review, we will first look at how the episode works as a finale. Then, we will take a look at Season 5 as a whole. Finally, we will take a moment to look back at the series in its entirety, the bastion of a new wave of Star Trek during the second golden age of Sci-Fi.    

So to set the scene, after spending all season trying to track down the Progenitor tech, the crew of the USS Discovery-A finally made it to the end of the treasure hunt. However, the Breen beat them to it in Lagrange Point. But as the portal to the tech gets flung into the binary black holes, Michael (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Mol (Eve Harlow) get trapped inside. Now, the Discovery is trapped outside with an angry Breen dreadnaught and a new fleet on its way if Saru (Doug Jones) can’t stop them. Now, we will be looking at the Episode, Season, and Series as a whole from here, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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Star Trek: Discovery – Face The Strange – TV Review

TL;DR – A fun romp through the past.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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

Moll and L'ak

Star Trek: Discovery Review –

As we continue our tour through the greatest hits of Star Trek Discovery, today’s episode takes that view almost literally. All of this is wrapped around one of Star Trek’s most tried and true go-to stories: Time Travel.

So to set the scene, at the end of Jinaal, we found that the next clue in the mission was in Tzenkethi space. However, before they left Trill, Moll (Eve Harlow) smuggled a Krenim time bug onto Adira (Blu del Barrio). On board, the bug runs around the ship until it gets to Engineering, where Stamets (Anthony Rapp) notices it just before it activates. Luckily, Michael (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie) were trying to teleport when the bug activated because they were now lost in time and constantly shifting as well. Now, we will be looking at the episode as a whole from here, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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Star Trek: Discovery – Red Directive – TV Review

TL;DR – With a welcome lighter tone, we get a great opening episode to set up the season.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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

The USS Discovery-A docks.

Star Trek: Discovery Review –

Well, it was a rocky start to Star Trek Discovery, and also, it seems it will be a rocky end. Which is a pity given everything they have thrown into it and how it has finally found its voice. However, if this is to be the final season, I am glad they look to be going out on a high.

So to set the scene, we open in a friendly Federation gathering full of ambassadors as the crew help shore up this new growing Federation that is starting to get close to the resurgent Tholian Republic or the Breen Imperium. But the dinner is interrupted by a Red Notice, and the crew of the USS Discovery-A have to make a rushed jump to the wreckage of an old 24-century Romulan ship and get what is inside before scavengers can get to it. Cut to scavengers Moll (Eve Harlow) and L’ak (Elias Toufexis) 100% getting there before anyone. Now, we will be looking at the episode as a whole from here, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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Star Trek: Discovery – Full Season 4 – TV Review

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

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

The crew get lifted into the air by a gravity wave.

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. 

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TV Review – Star Trek Discovery: Chapter 2 and Season 1 Overview   

TL;DR – We started with a group of people on a ship in space, and over the season, as adversity after adversity piled up, we ended with a crew. I mean I just wrote 1000 words just on the cast, the show is that good.

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

The USS Discovery being all majestic and what. Image Credit: CBS Studios.

Review

This year has been a strong year for Sci-Fi on TV we have Lost in Space, Altered Carbon, The Rain, as well as more Westworld, 3%, and The Expanse. In the middle of all this was a release, which for me was probably anticipated more than anything else, a new Star Trek series. Now the fact that I really like the Star Trek franchise should come as no surprise, indeed a wrote an article all about my love for Star Trek Deep Space Nine. However, there was also a lot of trepidation going in, since DS9 we had Voyager that had some great individual episodes but nothing really came together as a series, and Enterprise that took three seasons to find out what type of show it wanted to be and when it got there decided to end on just about the most insulting note that it could (yes I know it was not meant to be a series finale but still). However, I went into this thinking that I can at least give it a season, and boy what a season it was. So in the first season of Star Trek Discovery the broke it up into different chapters, we took a look at Chapter One here, and today we are going to take a look at Chapter Two which was the back half of the season but also some of the themes that transcend all of the season, you can also see all of our reviews for the individual episodes here. With this in mind, just a warning that we will be looking at the season as a whole, and as such there will be some major [SPOILERS] discussed in this review. So caution is advised if you have yet to finished Season One of Star Trek Discovery, and we would recommend you giving the first season a watch.

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TV Review – Star Trek Discovery: Will You Take My Hand?  

TL;DR – In the end, we started with a group of people on a ship in space, and over the season, as adversity after adversity piled up, we ended with a crew.

Score – 5 out of 5 stars

Will You Take My Hand?

Review

Oh wow, we have reached the end of Season One and what a season it was, there were jumps in time and space, war with the Klingons, even a sojourn in the Mirror Universe. Now all of this was like a freight train barrelling towards tonight’s finale and here we are. So today we are going to take some time to look at how the episode worked on its own, before looking at how the whole season worked as a while in an article a bit later this week.

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TV Review – Star Trek Discovery: The War Within, The War Without  

TL;DR – The season is hurtling towards the season finale and today is about putting all our ducks in a row waiting for next week’s growing dilemma.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

The War Without, The War Within

Review

It is hard to believe that we are almost at the end of the first season of Star Trek Discovery, and that today’s episode is the penultimate entry for the season. Now, this more than any episode this season was all about getting everything ready for what I am assuming is going to be a massive season finale. Which is good because you can see where it is going in the future, but does leave this being one of the weaker episodes this season, but given the strength of the season it still is a fascinating one to watch. Now as always, we will be going into depth with the episode, so there may be [SPOILERS] ahead.

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