M: Hello and welcome to a new episode of Stereo Geeks. Today, we’re diving into 5 seasons of Star Trek: Discovery. I’m Mon.
R: And, I’m Ron.
[music]
R: We’ve just finished watching the series finale of Star Trek: Discovery, or Disco as it’s also known. So, there will be spoilers.
Overall thoughts
R: I’ve loved Discovery since the first episode. It was so exciting and unusual, and tense! Yet it existed in a world we have known and loved for so long.
I was immediately taken by Michael Burnham, played by Sonequa Martin-Green. She has the best character arc of any Star Trek character, and there have been so many! She’s aspirational but oh so human. I am going to miss seeing Michael every week.
R: I would say season 5 is a great send off for this show and this gorgeous cast of characters. We got a very fun adventure story, high stakes, so many Easter eggs, and wonderful character relationships. That last episode was so Star Trek and so emotional.
M: Disco’s been a complex journey for me. I think season 5 is a particular high. The storyline and direction and acting has been outstanding. But I’ve grappled with a few demons with this show. I’ve often felt like I want to defend it, even when I don’t agree with it.
But I love these characters so much, and I wish we’d got to see more of them.
R: This is also the show that gave us Star Trek’s first canonically queer romance. We have Hugh Culber and Paul Stamets, played by Wilson Cruz and Anthony Rapp respectively, and they’re together from the very first season. They each have their own personal arcs but they go through so much together. Discovery always knew how to bring them back to each other without it seeming forced. I love them and their little family with Adira.
Criticisms
R: Seasons 3 and 4 were the weakest of the show. As much as I love the future Discovery landed up in, it felt like the show was a little lost with what to do when there wasn’t Star Trek lore ahead. I wish we’d got the cohesion of season 5 in season 3. I still love every season though!
M: Yeah, totes agree with you there. Season 4 actually made me wonder what the hell I was watching. But funnily enough, some people thought it was the Trekkiest thing the show had done. So, there’s a win out there for everyone.
M: If I’m honest, there’s a huge part of me that will never get over the heartbreak of losing the Shenzhou, its crew, its vibe, and especially its captain.
R: Absolutely. Captain Georgiou and the Shenzhou were what captured my attention in that very first episode. Seeing Michelle Yeoh in the captain’s chair made me realise how far we’ve come. For her to be taken away after just two episodes was so hard. I love Emperor Georgiou, but she’s not our Captain.
M: I have never seen an actor belong in a role and a franchise more than Michelle Yeoh as Captain Georgiou. I thought we were headed towards watching a show about a badass female captain of Asian origin, with her stone-cold Vulcan-raised Black female first officer, but we didn’t get that.
I’ve been trying to re-learn to love the show ever since. I do enjoy it, but my heart isn’t totally with Disco. It doesn’t help that Disco then made me fall in love with Ash Tyler, only for him to turn out to be a murdering turncoat Klingon.
R: Oh yeah, you can’t give us a wonderful character like Ash Tyler and then he turns out to be an evil Klingon in disguise! We have so few South Asians in Star Trek and Shazad Latif made Ash such a lovely and tortured character. And Ash’s romance with Michael, another pairing we rarely see, of a South Asian character and an African-American one. How could they take this away from us?
R: One of the characters I really enjoyed watching was Oded Fehr’s Admiral Vance. Not sure why there are so few ethnic names in Star Trek, by the way? But Fehr owned that uniform. The future that Discovery was in seemed so alien at times and it was good to have a familiar face guide viewers through it.
M: Yeah, loved Admiral Vance though we didn’t get to know that much about him. Weirdly, the show has given us some amazing white male captains/commanders–they’re not all good people, but they’re memorable. Jason Isaacs’ Gabriel Lorca, Anson Mount’s Christopher Pike, and now Callum Keith Rennie’s Rayner, why are they such outstanding characters, while our characters of colour have either been left behind, or weren’t given that much emotional heft?
R: I agree 100%. Pike was so loved, he got his own show. And I still miss Lorca, even though he was awful. We had so many people of colour on the Disco bridge but nobody got the kind of depth the white dudes did.
Having said that, I freaking love Callum Keith Rennie! Can we talk about what a fantastic addition he is to the Trek-verse? We’ve been watching him since we were kids and now he’s an angry first officer in Star Trek! He was amazing. Knew when to step aside and let Sonequa shine. Their chemistry as captain and commander was probably the best on the show. Just shows you what magic can happen when you’ve got great actors.
M: Funny how he pops up everywhere.
The final season
R: After season 1, this is my favourite. Every episode had at least one scene which made me go, oh this is so Star Trek. It’s how we felt about Picard season 3. Maybe having a finite end to the story forced the team to tighten up but whatever it is, this season was perfect for me.
M: The final season is literally the best of the show. It’s so tight, and so exciting–introducing the world of an old villain, the Breen. And the connections to the weirdest parts of Trek, the Progenitors, really work. I love that the message is, there is no end to learning, about us, about evolution, about anything. I love that.
R: I was unsure of Moll and L’ak as antagonists though. They’re lovers on the run. How interesting could that be? But the show kind of handled it well. They were like the Ferengi. Very foolish and impulsive. L’ak literally dies from a stupid mistake!
M: Yeah–the whole star-crossed lovers thing dragged on too long, when the real enemy was the Breen and we should have seen more of those political machinations at play.
R: Adira and Grey’s curtailed story was probably the biggest disappointment for me this season. Adira is the only nonbinary character in Star Trek, and played by a nonbinary actor, Blu Del Barrio. They are a joyful addition to the show. And complete the adorable queer family that is Hugh Culber and Paul Stamets. I’ve always loved how the two of them stepped up as Adira’s parents.
R: Grey was the first trans character played by a trans actor on Star Trek. He spent so much time being dead and then had this short and cute romantic storyline with Adira. But in season 5, they get one episode together and it’s to break up? Wouldn’t it have been better to have them decide to do the mature thing of working this out long distance? I hated seeing our queer munchkins breakup!
M: Grey deserved better in general on the show. I’m glad Ian Alexander came back for an episode, but to have a trans actor on the show and get so little screen and character time, sucked.
M: I feel guilty saying this, but the penultimate episode was so dang good that much of the finale fell a little flat for me.
R: That penultimate episode was stellar! The tension, the action, the humour, the editing, Jonathan Frakes in the director’s seat, he just knows this universe. Every time I see his name, I’m like, okay this is going to be the best episode. And it was!
M: I was very emotional during the goodbye scene in the finale though–when the characters were saying goodbye to each other, but it was also a way for the cast to say goodbye to each other, and give the viewer a chance to see allllll the Disco crew come together to say bye to them.
R: Michael Burnham looking directly at us got me.
Why you should watch this show
M: Disco has never got the love that it deserved. It was the first Star Trek show since Enterprise was unceremoniously cancelled in 2005. Disco heralded the era of Nu-Trek, which came about at the worst time—2017.
The world, especially the US, is being drowned by fools who can’t consume any form of media without tearing it apart for no other reason than it doesn’t star people who look and act exactly like them.
Disco came in swinging with a Black woman in the lead, gay characters and actors in the main cast, and lots of inclusive characters and plotlines across the seasons. People dunked on it because it didn’t feel like OG Star Trek–as if nothing new could ever come of a franchise that was created in the 1960s.
R: The reaction to Discovery and a Black woman being in the lead has made me wonder whether Star Trek fans ever really understood the point of Star Trek. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations has been the series motto but that was only okay for the “fans” when there was a white dude in charge. Don’t they understand the meaning of those words?
M: These people take passive viewing to a whole new level! They didn’t absorb even the most obvious point of Trek—being different is normal and accepted.
But we’ve loved Disco from the start. My criticisms aside, Disco is eminently watchable, and re-watchable. In fact, after finishing the whole series, I feel like I need to go back and watch the evolution of Michael and the rest of the characters’ relationships on the show.
Also, because of the serialized nature of its seasons, Disco is actually perfect for marathon-watching. You literally can’t stop watching from one episode to the next, especially as the clues for the plot are littered throughout the season, reeling you in.
The Characters
M: I do want to give a shoutout to the Disco Bridge crew—the actors and the characters. A lot of them are Canadians, because the show is shot in Toronto, so that’s extra special to us. But more than that, these supporting roles filled out the world of Discovery and I was always excited to see them get their character moments, even when they’re for only a scene here and there. In another universe, where Nu-Trek got 22-episode seasons, we’d be seeing Rhys, Detmer, Owosekun, Christopher, Linus, Bryce, Airiam, Nhan, as well as the season 5 crew, get full-on arcs. But that wasn’t to be. And yet, they’re a part of Star Trek and an integral part of why I love this franchise. I foresee them living on for a long time in Star Trek books and other media. I hope.
R: I missed seeing Owosekun and Detmer on the bridge in season 5. I understand the actors had other commitments and the new helm crew were incredible but I missed the two of them. But I loved that they came back, as did Bryce, for Face the Strange and the finale.
Speaking of Face the Strange, seeing Airiam again this season really got me. Season 2’s Project Deadulus was such a gut punch and seeing Airiam again was emotional, to say the least.
M: Project Deadulus was also directed by Frakes, I might add.
R: Ah. That’s why it’s so amazing!
Season 5 also brought Tilly back. I am so glad that Tilly got to be here all season. She’s one of the few plus-size characters in Star Trek and she’s such a joy to watch. Just happiness and understanding. She’s had such growth throughout the show and it always felt well-deserved.
R: We are going to miss Star Trek: Discovery but I’m so glad we live in a world where it exists. We got these amazing characters, great stories, and so many wonderful memories. For the very last time, Let’s Fly.