***This review contains some spoilers***
Watch the SPOILER review on YouTube
In its fourth season, “Star Trek: Discovery” continues to find its groove, but weak pacing and some poor character development keeps the show from reaching its full potential.
This season’s overall plot is a solid one, and the DMA is an intriguing story mechanism. The investigations into it and all the plot twists that come from it are mostly captivating. Some parts of the story spin their wheels too much, and some of the side missions struggle to keep the whole thing cohesive. (There’s a thin line in a thirteen-episode season where a show must balance having a tight main story, and having a few detours, and the series still hasn’t nailed down the pacing on this.) The latter third of the season really clicks as the crew must learn to understand alien concepts beyond human comprehension, and it all feels like classic Trek as they do. However, the secondary plot with Booker and Tarka just never matches the stronger Discovery storyline.
As far as the characters go, despite some fantastic acting by just about the entire cast, their arcs were kind of all over. The biggest issue is that everyone besides Book and Michael would get a spotlight, and then get written off the show for an extended period of time. The Adira and Grey storyline, their newfound family dynamic, got pushed heavy the first half of the season, and then as soon as it reached its conclusion, they essentially disappeared without giving the resolution time to sink in with the audience. Tilly’s quest to find what makes her happy starts off slow and then jumps to the finish line too quickly, and the Zora sentience story gets wrapped up a little too neatly before being dropped altogether. Dr. Culber gets a few decent story beats, but they don’t to enough with it and then they just kind of consider it all wrapped up without really tying it up properly. (And Stamets really gets nothing major to do except support Culber and Adira.) Thankfully, Saru becomes a lynch pin this season, not only supporting the main cast, but getting his own romantic subplot that flows very nicely and has a great finish. Meanwhile, the secondary characters each seem to get a least one random moment where the just throw out some backstory element that feels shoe-horned into that episode’s plot.
The show, as usual, looks great. The effects look solid overall, and the aliens and technology are well designed and realized. I’m also a fan of the new uniforms, as they capture the colorfulness of the classic series and the more formal look of the earlier films.
Overall, “Star Trek: Discovery” has blossomed now that it’s in its own corner of the Trek timeline, and it’s been satisfying watching them lead the charge to build back the Federation. The main story was compelling, it stuck the landing with one of the strongest conclusions yet for the series. However, the character story beats lacked any cohesiveness with the main plot, and the standalone stories weren’t really memorable enough to take time away from the life and death drama taking place elsewhere.
*** out of *****