Star Trek: Discovery - Season 5 Review

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I've reached the end of another TV series!

I finished writing about all of Babylon 5 a year back, so this brings my total completed TV shows up to... 2. I was supposed to have finished Star Trek: Picard by now as well, but I had to put it on hold due to a new season of Doctor Who appearing and demanding a slice of my time.

Star Trek: Discovery began in late 2017, but I started writing about it way earlier, when the first teaser trailer was released. It was just a reveal of the hero ship but I was so damn hyped for new Trek that I wrote about it anyway. Now it's five years later and I'm writing about Discovery's fifth and final season. Sorry, I mean eight years later, as they were kind of dragging their heels on releasing season 5.

There have been plenty of people who wrote the show off as being a ratings disaster and said it was going to get cancelled before its time, and I suppose it did. Oh well. But it's eerie how close it's run mirrors Star Trek: The Next Generation's, exactly 30 years later. TNG ran from Sep 1987 to May 1994, Disco went from Sep 2017 to May 2024. In fact, if you count the days from The Vulcan Hello to the release of Life, Itself, Discovery is actually the longest running Star Trek series of all time by 11 days!

Was the fifth season any good though? Was any of it any good? I'll be sharing my own thoughts below, so expect a few SPOILERS for Discovery, Picard, and other Trek.

Star Trek: Discovery 5-10: Life, Itself (Quick Review)

Episode:

65

|

Writer:

Kyle Jarrow & Michelle Paradise

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Director:

Olatunde Osunsanmi

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Air Date:

30-May-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm reviewing Life, Itself - the very last episode of Star Trek: Discovery. The series that kicked the Kurtzman era of Star Trek shows has reached its end of its voyage... a bit sooner than expected. Discovery kind of got cancelled, but they were at least allowed to shoot some extra scenes to properly wrap it up, so I do have some closure to look forward to.

Life, Itself is a member of a very exclusive club, and not just because its a Star Trek series finale. If you disqualify titles starting with 'A ' or 'The ', this is only the third time that a Trek show has had three consecutive episodes that start with the same letter. That's trivia so trivial that you won't find it anywhere else!

(If you're curious, the episodes are: Eye of the Needle, Ex Post Facto and Emanations in Voyager's first season, Sleeping Dogs, Shadows of P'Jem and Shuttlepod One in Enterprise's first season, and now we've got Labyrinths, Lagrange Point and Life, Itself.)

This review is going to include SPOILERS for a bunch of Star Trek stories from across the timeline.

Star Trek: Discovery 5-09: Lagrange Point (Quick Review)

Episode:

64

|

Writer:

Sean Cochran & Ari Friedman

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Director:

Jonathan Frakes

|

Air Date:

23-May-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing Lagrange Point, the penultimate episode of Star Trek: Discovery!

It's the last episode by director Jonathan Frakes and writer Sean Cochran, who have produced some of my favourite episodes of the series. In fact, they were both credited on Despite Yourself and New Eden, and if this ends up being that kind of quality I'll be more than satisfied. It's also the first episode for writer Ari Friedman, who picked a great time to join the show! Though she wouldn't have known back then that this was also going to be her last episode, as the news of the show's cancellation came after filming had finished.

There will be SPOILERS below for this and earlier Star Trek stories.

Star Trek: Discovery 5-08: Labyrinths (Quick Review)

Episode:

63

|

Writer:

Lauren Wilkinson & Eric J. Robbins

|

Director:

Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour

|

Air Date:

16-May-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching the antepenultimate episode of Star Trek: Discovery! Only two episodes left after this one and then the series is done.

That means that this will be the only Discovery episode that Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour will ever direct, though there are plenty of other Star Trek series for him to move onto afterwards. Well, two of them now. It's also the last episode for writers Lauren Wilkinson and Eric J. Robbins, who each have one other credit for Discovery. Robbins co-wrote my least favourite episode of season 4, All is Possible, and Wilkinson co-wrote my least favourite episode so far of this season, Jinaal. They should've teamed up with Kirsten Beyer, my season 1 and season 2 bad episode champion, and shown us just how low this series can go.

Just to be clear, I don't actually think that they're bad writers. Some of the most acclaimed Trek writers have scripted far worse than anything Discovery's done. Gene Coon - Spock's Brain, Ronald D. Moore - Aquiel, Joe Menosky - Masks, René Echevarria - The Muse, Ira Behr - all of DS9's bad Ferengi episodes, Brannon Braga - oh man, this one could take a while.

There will be SPOILERS below, for Discovery and probably some earlier Trek episodes as well. Plus I might make a reference you'll only get if you've seen Voyager.

Star Trek: Discovery 5-07: Erigah (Quick Review)

Episode:

62

|

Writer:

M. Raven Metzner

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Director:

Jon Dudkowski

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Air Date:

09-May-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm reviewing the Star Trek: Discovery episode unfortunately titled Erigah.

The episode was directed by Jon Dudkowski, who only has one other directing credit on IMDb, for season 3's Unification III. Though he's credited as the editor on 17 episodes of Discovery, including the pilot, so he probably gets the show's style.

It's the first Discovery episode to be written by M. Raven Metzner, he's entirely new to Star Trek, but it's far from his first credit on IMDb. In fact, I hope this is very far from it, as his first credit is the movie Elektra, which was so bad that it and Catwoman pretty much killed female-led superhero movies for over ten years. Then he became showrunner on the worst Netflix Marvel series, Iron Fist... but it's okay, he was the one who did the second season, not the first one. I've heard that it's a lot better.

Okay, there are going to be SPOILERS below for Star Trek episodes, including this one, obviously. So don't get caught out when I mention something that happened in Deep Space Nine or whatever.

Star Trek: Discovery 5-06: Whistlespeak (Quick Review)

Episode:

61

|

Writer:

Kenneth Lin & Brandon A. Schultz

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Director:

Chris Byrne

|

Air Date:

02-May-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Whistlespeak, which probably isn't about an expedition to the peak of Mount Whistles, but I've been wrong before. I was way off with my assumptions about the last episode, Mirrors.

Discovery used to have 13-15 episodes each season, but they slashed that to a miniscule 10 episodes for its final year, which means that I'm already past the halfway point. That's kind of crazy, as it feels like the season's only just started. Either the episodes so far have been well-paced and engaging, or barely anything's happened yet. Or both.

Alright, there will be SPOILERS below, for this and for earlier stories from series like Star Trek: The Next Generation and Strange New Worlds. But mostly this.

Star Trek: Discovery 5-05: Mirrors (Quick Review)

Episode:

60

|

Writer:

Johanna Lee & Carlos Cisco

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Director:

Jen McGowan

|

Air Date:

25-Apr-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching the 60th episode of Star Trek: Discovery! Okay that's not really that notable as a milestone, not compared to 50, but it's the last round number that the series will ever reach. And honestly, I don't think we'll see another Trek series reaching 60 in the foreseeable future. Short Treks made it to 10, Picard ended at 30, Prodigy seems like it's ending at 40 and Lower Decks is ending at 50.

It's a shame, because 60 episodes was nothing to the '90s shows; that'd barely get you into season 3. Though on the other hand, it brought Doctor Who from the start of Christopher Eccleston's run all the way up to Matt Smith, and it was all the Original Series had in it before it started going downhill, so you can be plenty iconic in just 60 stories. If they're really good.

Anyway, the episode's called Mirrors, and 'mirror' is an important word for Star Trek, especially when it's next to the word 'universe'. I don't think that's where they'll be going with this, for all kinds of reasons, but hey the episode could surprise me.

There will be SPOILERS below for this and other Star Trek shows. So if I do have reason to start talking about TOS' Mirror, Mirror or DS9's Crossover, I will.

Star Trek: Discovery 5-04: Face the Strange (Quick Review)

Episode:

59

|

Writer:

Sean Cochran

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Director:

Lee Rose

|

Air Date:

18-Apr-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing my thoughts about the latest Star Trek: Discovery episode, Face the Strange.

You can't judge an episode by its title, though it can certainly give you clues about what to expect. Like if you're watching a Star Trek episode called 'Prophet Margin' or 'Give Us a Q' or 'Those Bloody Tribbles are Still Trouble', you basically know what you're getting. So I'm going into Face the Strange expecting characters to face strangeness and if this doesn't happen I'm going to be very disappointed. Discovery's often been at its best when it's leaned into the weird, like in Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad and An Obol for Charon, and the series is about due for its next injection of creative chaos.

There will be SPOILERS below for Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek in general.

Star Trek: Discovery 5-03: Jinaal (Quick Review)

Episode:

58

|

Writer:

Kyle Jarrow & Lauren Wilkinson

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Director:

Andi Armaganian

|

Air Date:

11-Apr-2024

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching the third episode of Star Trek: Discovery's final season, Jinaal.

I've mentioned this before, but it's rarely a good sign when Star Trek decides to go with a short made-up word for an episode title. Sometimes it works out and you get a Sarek or a Darmok, but no one's dying to see Melora or Rajiin again. Personally I prefer the more poetic and evocative titles. Give me something like The City on the Edge of Forever, The Measure of a Man, or Parth Ferengi's Heart Place.

I mean, which of these sounds like it's going to be the better written episode: The Girl in the Fireplace or Praxeus? GROPOS or Intersections in Real Time? Though don't bring up the critically-acclaimed and beloved Star Wars series Andor, we're not talking about how it gets away with half its episodes having names like Kassa, Aldhani and Narkina 5.

Anyway, writer Kyle Jarrow has done a couple of episodes of Discovery's fourth season, one I liked, one I didn't like so much, but Lauren Wilkinson is new to the show. She's known for writing the novel American Spy and working on spy thriller series Citadel, so maybe this is going to have some spy stuff in it? That might not be so bad!

There will be SPOILERS below for Star Trek stories released on or before 11th April 2024, including this one.

Star Trek: Discovery 5-02: Under the Twin Moons (Quick Review)

Episode:

57

|

Writer:

Alan McElroy

|

Director:

Doug Aarniokoski

|

Air Date:

04-Apr-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing about the second episode of Star Trek: Discovery's final season, Under the Twin Moons! I need to pick up the pace though, as I'm falling behind. We waited two years for the series to return then they dropped two episodes on us on the same day, so they're a week ahead of me.

There are some familiar names up there under the picture. Director Doug Aarniokoski had been with the series since the beginning, or since the episode Lethe anyway. But he had more success over on Star Trek: Picard, with series highlights like Nepenthe, The Star Gazer and Penance having his name on them. Writer Alan McElroy hasn't impressed me as much, but I did like An Obol for Charon at least. I think there's the potential there for this to be a good one.

There will be SPOILERS after this point. Though I won't spoil anything that happens later, partly because episode 3 wasn't even out yet at the time I wrote this.

Star Trek: Discovery 5-01: Red Directive (Quick Review)

Episode:

56

|

Writer:

Michelle Paradise

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Director:

Olatunde Osunsanmi

|

Air Date:

04-Apr-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching some Star Trek!

Hey, remember Star Trek: Discovery? It was the first Star Trek spin-off of the modern era and lasted four seasons before completely disappearing in March 2022. It's been gone so long that Paramount has released 71 episodes of Star Trek in the meantime, split between five different series. That includes half of Lower Decks and Prodigy, most of Picard and the entirety of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

But after a two-year absence, Discovery is back for its final season! They didn't know it was going to be its final year when they were filming it and they probably would've liked it to go on for longer, but the series has had a good run. It didn't hit the traditional seven seasons, but it did run from 2017 to 2024, which matches Star Trek: The Next Generation's run of 1987 to 1994. And when it ends it'll have 65 episodes, which may turn out to be the best we'll get from a series during this era.

I've had my issues with Discovery in the past, but I do have my hopes up for this final year. Like I hope it doesn't have that unpleasant blue tint to it, and I hope characters start talking more like regular people (or regular Star Trek people at least). I also hope it's more about boldly going to new worlds rather than being traumatised by what happened on them.

Alright, this is going to be my review of season 5, episode 1, Red Directive, by showrunner Michelle Paradise. There will be SPOILERS beyond this point.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 4 Review, Part 3

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the climactic resolution to Star Trek: Discovery's fourth season!

In fact I'll be covering four episodes, telling the story of Discovery's journey... to do stuff. I'm not going to spoil anything in this intro. I don't have to, the episode titles are doing that for me.

• 4-10 - The Galactic Barrier
  
• 4-11 - Rosetta
  
• 4-12 - Species Ten-C
  
• 4-13 - Coming Home
  

There will be SPOILERS past this point though, for all four episodes and previous Trek stories. I won't spoil a thing about what happens next however. Mostly because I don't want to, but also because season 5 hasn't aired yet at the time I'm writing this and no one really knows what happens next.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 4 Review, Part 2

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I've finally reached the middle of Star Trek: Discovery's fourth season! Just five months later than planned. It's the season about the DMA blowing up planets if you've forgotten.

I'm sorry I disappeared for so long, I was supposed to get this article finished and published in September last year, but I decided to focus on getting Babylon 5's last season done instead and messed up all my plans. Then it just carried on slipping down my list of priorities, even though it was next in line to get published. Funny thing is, I wrote these reviews back in December 2021 right after watching each episode and all they needed was a bit of tidying up to make them readable.

Okay, most Trek series have 10 episode seasons these days and Discovery's going to join them this year, but season four featured 13 and that doesn't divide evenly into three articles. At first I thought about writing about 4.33 episodes in every article, but I figured it'd be simpler to just add a bonus review to this one and write about 5 this time:

• 4-05 - The Examples
  
• 4-06 - Stormy Weather
  
• 4-07 - ...But to Connect
  
• 4-08 - All In
  
• 4-09 - Rubicon

There will be huge SPOILERS for each of these episodes, and earlier series, but if you're watching the Discovery for the first time you don't have to worry about me spoiling anything that happens afterwards. I hadn't even seen the later episodes when I wrote these reviews.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 4 Review, Part 1

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the fourth season of Star Trek: Discovery! Because writing about Star Trek is extremely on-brand for science fiction website and I'm a bit of a fan. Plus it's traditional for the fourth series of a Star Trek series to be the peak of its quality, and I like quality.

It's also traditional for Star Trek series to burn through showrunners early on, and Discovery has definitely lived up to that tradition. Last season featured the third transition of power, as Michelle Paradise took over as showrunner (or co-showrunner with Alex Kurtzman) and sailed the series in yet another wildly different direction. She's still in the captain's chair for season four however, and it and seems like Discovery may have actually settled down a bit.

There were two major changes behind the scenes this season though: everyone had to deal with COVID-19 protocols, and they got a new AR wall to play with like the one used on The Mandalorian. So there was much less location filming, but they had better fake locations.

Okay, I've written reviews here for these four episodes:

• 4-01 - Kobayashi Maru
  
• 4-02 - Anomaly
  
• 4-03 - Choose to Live
  
• 4-04 - All is Possible

There will be MASSIVE SPOILERS for these stories (and lesser spoilers for earlier Trek stories) so I guess this is mostly for people who's already seen and formed their own opinion about the episodes and wants to read someone else's thoughts.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 3, Part 4

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the final part of my Star Trek: Discovery season 3 reviews, covering the last three episodes:

• 3-11 - Su'Kal
  
• 3-12 - There is a Tide…
  
• 3-13 - That Hope is You, Part 2
  

Weirdly all three episodes were known by different titles at first, as we heard that they were going to be called The Citadel, The Good of the People and Outside. I don't know what happened there.

I wrote the first draft of these reviews mere moments after watching the episodes for the first time so you get to see me being authentically unaware of where the story's going to go. You'll also get to see BIG SPOILERS.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 3, Part 3

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm continuing through Discovery's third season. This time I'm covering episodes 8 to 10:

• 3-08 - The Sanctuary
  
• 3-09 - Terra Firma, Part 1
  
• 3-10 - Terra Firma, Part 2
  

Have some more Disco trivia: the season was meant to be released before Lower Decks season one, but COVID-19 screwed up their schedule. They managed to finish filming days before the lockdown, but the post-production and soundtrack had to be completed remotely. That means all the visual effects this year were done from home and every instrument was recorded individually. It's amazing that the quality hasn't suffered at all, but it did take longer to finish.

These reviews were written back when I first watched the episodes so I'm not pretending that I don't know what happens next, I really didn't know at the time. There'll still be GIANT SPOILERS for the story so far though.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 3, Part 2

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still writing about Discovery's third season. This time I'm covering episodes 5 to 7:

• 3-05 - Die Trying
  
• 3-06 - Scavengers
  
• 3-07 - Unification III
  

Here's some trivia for Discovery's third year: it's the first season of the series to be run by the same showrunner from start to finish, with limited writers' room drama. Season one was started by Bryan Fuller and finished by Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts. They stayed for season two but were fired after episode 5 and replaced by executive producer Alex Kurtzman, who handed the series over to Michelle Paradise this year. This is actually fairly normal for Trek, but the series tend to get much better when someone finally sticks around for a while.

Alright, I already said this before but these reviews are basically from right after I watched the episodes, so I genuinely didn't know where the story was going. Beware of MASSIVE SPOILERS.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 3, Part 1

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing some words about the third season of Star Trek: Discovery. And by 'some' I mean 'lots'. In fact I'm going to have to split this up into four articles, with this first part covering the first four episodes:

• 3-01 - That Hope is You, Part 1
  
• 3-02 - Far From Home
  
• 3-03 - People of Earth
  
• 3-04 - Forget Me Not
  

Here's a fun fact about this season: they've changed the logo! Star Trek series do change their openings a bit sometimes, Enterprise even added the words 'Star Trek' to its title sequence a few episodes into the third year, but I can't think of a series ever changing its title font like this before. It's a good change I reckon and it fits the theme of this season being a fresh start, but then I like it when series have a different opening each season so of course I would say that.

This is one of those times where I already wrote these reviews right after watching the episodes, so was genuinely clueless about what was going to happen next, aside from the glimpses in the trailer after each episode. Well okay to be honest I wrote a first draft, these have been rewritten a bit since then, but I'm not exactly editing in correct guesses to make me seem like the best at Star Trek.

There will be HUGE SPOILERS for every episode this season, plus earlier episodes too. I mean I can't even mention the season's premise without spoiling the end of season 2.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 2 Review - Part 4

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I've ran out of Star Trek: Discovery episodes to review, so now I'm reviewing the series' second season overall. That's 12 or so hours of television, so it's lucky for me I've got a good memory. Wait, I forgot to include the Short Treks in that... or shouldn't they count?

Star Trek spin-offs have rarely had much luck with their second seasons, despite the 'Growing the Beard' trope getting its name from Will Riker's season 2 look, as at this point they were typically still sorting themselves out both in front of and behind the scenes. Sure their first seasons were often worse, but Trek's sophomore seasons have been plenty awkward in their own right. Discovery found itself with a new showrunner five episodes into the season, so it's been living up to Trek tradition behind the camera, but was its second year enough of a mess on screen for it to truly be considered proper Star Trek?

Honestly I don't think Discovery is set up in a way that allows it to fail as spectacularly as previous series, as it has much shorter seasons and it's too serialised. Sure it can put out some rubbish, but it just doesn't have what it takes to produce episodes as legendarily terrible as The Omega Glory, The Outrageous Okona, Threshold or A Night in Sickbay. And unless the budget gets slashed, there's no way it'll ever inflict a Shades of Gray style clip show on us either.

Though does that mean this has actually has a shot at being the best second season a Trek series has ever had? Is this block of episodes really capable of going up against the seasons that gave us The Trouble with Tribbles, The Measure of a Man, Whispers, Projections, and Regeneration? I am going to answer that question for you! Eventually. After I've rambled on about Michael Burnham and time travel for ages first.

I'll also be dropping SPOILERS for the whole season, from Brother to Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2, and maybe some older Trek as well, so if you haven't seen it yet you should probably go watch it first. Unless you don't care about having the whole plot ruined for you; I know some people aren't really that bothered.

Star Trek: Discovery - Season 2 Review - Part 3

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm reviewing the second half of Star Trek: Discovery's second season! That's If Memory Serves to Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2, all created during Alex Kurtzman's time as the show's showrunner. He was already the executive producer, plus he's the guy in charge of all the other new Trek projects being set up, but after five episodes he took the reins on Discovery personally, like an admiral or commodore taking command of a starship. Which usually goes pretty well in Star Trek to my recollection.

All these reviews were written right after I watched the episode and the next time trailer, so you're getting my first reactions and genuine predictions. You're getting SPOILERS as well, and not just for Discovery as I'm considering the rest of Trek to be fair game as well. Especially the Kelvin Timeline movies.