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Trekathon 799: That Hope is You (DIS)

October 17th, 2020

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Discovery is back. And to the future. Spoilers.

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Trekathon Season Review: Lower Decks, Season 1

October 11th, 2020

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So that’s season one of the eighth Star Trek series. I’ll try and keep this brief (and spoiler free).

This felt to me like a show that found its feet over the course of the season. It’s a little tricky to know how much was planned evolution, but the early episodes were quite shaky on character and striking the balance between fan service and story. But by the final episode of the season everything had come together strongly and coherently.

There’s still some room to improve, and the fundamental ‘joke’ nature of the show is going to keep it just out of the top bracket. But it’s the strongest ‘episodic’ first season yet (not counting Picard – that was really a single story broken up into 10 parts), and future seasons can build on a very strong foundation.

Most importantly, it is actually keeping to the philosophy of Trek, grappling with the ideas around first contact, the prime directive, and the way Star Fleet works. Only in as much depth as 22 minutes allows, but it’s still there.

Overall I’m going to put this one at the top of the Strong Performers bracket, losing a little bit of standing because of a few shaky bits in early episodes of the season (particularly around the Captain just being a bit too one note at times).

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