That was quite something, wasn't it? After 15 episodes, (spoiler alert) two universes and a lot of mycelial spores, we've finally made it to the end of season one of Star Trek: Discovery. All in all, it's been great. But the final two episodes, and the season finale in particular, raise a whole heap of questions. Where to start? WIRED's James Temperton and Andy Vandervell talk it out and discuss their hopes for Star Trek: Discovery season two...
James Temperton: Okay, let's get one thing straight: Star Trek: Discovery was great.... but there's a but?
Andy Vandervell: It was great... is great. So much to love, but I think you know what I'm about to say...
JT: Those last two episodes. What the?! Hands-down Discovery was a huge success and it ranks as a major return to form for the Star Trek series. But it went way, way off the rails towards the end. Which makes me all the more eager for season two. Fix things, please!
AV: Yes, that.
JT: So to summarise: the final episode took all the worst bits of Discovery and squished them down into a confusing mess, right?
AV 'Crushed' is the word I'd use, as that's how I feel - or maybe 'deflated'? I can see what they were trying to do with the finale in completing Michael Burnham's journey from mutineer to saviour of the Federation, both literally and figuratively, but the execution was so clumsy and anti-climactic it just undercut all the emotional weight of her story. I'm sad. Sad that a show I've really enjoyed ended on such a bum note and sad quite a few characters got such short thrift in the final. And I miss Lorca. He was fun. Did you like anything about it?
JT: The last five seconds were great. Wait... what, a distress call from another Federation ship? Who could that be? It sets up the second season nicely. Though most of the final two episodes of Discovery can do one. And what was with the weird celebration of the Federation medal-giving ceremony?
AV: Presumably Spock is on the Enterprise right now? That was a nice setup, especially with Sarek on the Discovery. The medal-giving ceremony was the least of the episode's problems, though. I had a nasty suspicion Discovery had jumped the shark when Georgiou appeared as captain at the end of the penultimate episode, and the finale proved it.
I have so many problems here. Let's start with the total lack of jeopardy. Ok, sure, the Klingons are approaching Earth, but we see that right at beginning of the episode and nothing is happening there. There's no epic battle, no scenes of panic, no real sense of truly cataclysmic fate that could befall the Federation. It just didn't seem real.
Instead we get the Discovery gang, minus Stamets and Saru, hanging out on Kronos shagging around, gambling, smoking volcanic dust (I mean, what?) and generally not behaving as if the fate of humanity is in their hands.
On the topic of volcanoes, surely a spaceship that can teleport into a different dimension can detect active volcanoes on a planet?
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JT: Oh boy, Spock. The closing credits music was probably the best thing about the last episode, to be fair. I was smiling ear to ear. I have strong opinions about the science in Discovery… and Star Trek in general. What, you know nothing about Kronos because it’s a bit cloudy? C’mon! The Georgiou plotline is all kinds of problematic. For one, the Terran version of Georgiou was a total fudge. She’s too one-dimensional and too evil. The sex scene on Kronos is daft, her kicking the crap out of L'Rell is even dafter.
I disagree about the scene on Kronos, though. It was sort of classic Next Generation, which Discovery was somewhat lacking in after its pivot to evil. The episode where Harry Mudd plays tricks with time, for example, was a great self-contained puzzle. Discovery didn’t have enough of that. The Discovery crew having a nice day-trip to Kronos was great, it just came at totally the wrong time. The set design there was amazing, I wanted to see more of it and spend more time outside the ship. That’s what Star Trek is all about, after all. Discovering new worlds. But lumping it in at a time when the Federation is on the brink of destruction was dumb.
It almost felt like there was too much squeezed into the final six-or-so episodes. There was so little justification for the final Georgiou plot-line other than to up the sense of drama. That it then flipped into a cunning last-minute ploy to use Federation values to out-scheme Terran Georgiou again felt totally rushed. You could cut so much storyline from the last two episodes and be way better off for it.
AV: They definitely needed more time. I feel like a two-part finale, rather like the prologue episodes, would have created a more satisfying ending.
As you say, the Georgiou plot line was a mess. The whole "it's dramatic because it's Burnham's bestie who she betrayed" schtick didn't fly with me at all. In my mind, it could have worked so much better if it were Admiral Cornwell in that position, showing how desperation had driven her to this end. Perhaps she's even acting on her own without the knowledge of Starfleet command, just like Burnham. Hell, scratch that, maybe even Tyler, wishing to take revenge on the Klingons on behalf of Voq. I like the sound of that even more, especially as the bomb achieves Voq's ultimate goal of clan unification. And if you must have Georgiou involved, she could have escaped at the end in dramatic fashion, setting up the inevitable drama for the next season.
You're right about Kronos, though. It did look really cool and the settlement of Orions there was a nice addition, albeit a rather throwaway one in the circumstances. I also liked how the Tyler/Burnham relationship resolved. In fact, one of the best things about Discovery is the relationships. Stamets and Culber was handled with a deftness Star Trek hasn't managed in the past, as was Tyler and Burnham. I also loved the dynamic between Saru and Burnham and how that evolved throughout the series.
What was your favourite thing about Discovery, or has the finale ruined it for you forever?
JT: That Voq plot would have been great and made a whole lot more sense. And I'm sure he'll be back – Tyler using his shared knowledge while hanging out with Klingons on Kronos hinted at that. My favourite thing about the series was how much time it gave to character development. We really got to know Tyler, Burham and Saru. Where it fell flat on its face was when it tried to be too dramatic and evil and end every damn episode on a massive cliffhanger. But I'm getting negative again.
The giant tardigrade was great; the use of the Klingon language was great (though they need to speak a bit quicker); its truthfulness to Star Trek was great; the visual effects were great. The amount of budget thrown behind this show was incredible and it could've totally fallen flat. But it didn't. Though, and this would be my major issue with it, I felt for a show that did optimism so well, it got a bit obsessed with being dark. Sure, the Terran Empire is evil, and so are the Klingons, but at times it verged on leg-slapping, pantomime evil for evil's sake. What are your hopes for season two?
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AV: Because I'm a lame AV nerd, I'd love it to be in 4K. It looked fantastic on my OLED TV with Dolby Vision and 4K would just sharpen things up a bit. I know, you don't care, but I do. I regret nothing.
As for the series, I'd like it to settle down into some more traditional Star Trek exploration. I really like the characters, I'm invested in them, so just seeing them dealing with the challenges of space would be fun. I hope it doesn't descend into a prolonged Georgiou chase sequence and I'd be amused if Q made an appearance because they were the Next Generation episodes I liked the most.
I'd also like Stamets to invent the holodeck and then immediately destroy it when he realises how incredibly tedious it'll become in future Star Trek series. You?
JT: More exploration! More time outside the Discovery! More aliens! More non-linear episodes! We've got loads of great characters, we've got an established storyline, so season two is a chance to have some fun with the Star Trek universe(s). Any more time spent on the Georgiou plot would be a disaster. More optimism and fun also wouldn't go amiss. The last two episodes were a major letdown, but I'm super excited for where the series could go next. Oh, and I really like the holodeck episodes. Ship in a Bottle is hands-down one of the greatest Next Generation episodes of all time. But no more holodeck Mark Twain, please.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
