**This review contains some minor SPOILERS**
Watch the SPOILER review on YouTube
In what turned out to be its final season, “Star Trek: Discovery” embarked on a quest that promised to tie up a decades-old loose-end while delivering a fun, new adventure. And while season 5 works surprisingly-well as a final season despite not being written as such, ultimately everything wraps up fairly flat.
The basic plot starts off with plenty of promise, with each week promising to reveal another clue to the season’s big MacGuffin. While each episode does work well enough as standalone adventures that are part of the overall plot, it’s the part of the story dealing with the antagonists where things fall short. The early part of the season dealing with a more cat-and-mouse conflict with Moll and L’ak works quite well, but as things expand and get larger and more political, part of the charm is lost. And although the finale attempts to be grand, it feels mediocre.
Most of the individual character arcs are solid. While the show is still the Michael Burnham show, all the regular cast members have a chance to shine. After sitting out a portion of last season Ensign Tilly is back and is as delightful as ever. On the flipside, Saru only appears in a handful of episodes, taking his wisdom, and adorable love story, along with him. Almost all the character arcs feel strong and have hints of finality to them, but in the end, most of the payoffs are pretty weak. While the duo of Moll and L’ak grow to be intriguing to watch, their storyline derails in the final part of the season. However, the strongest addition to the show is Rayner, who makes a strong impression and has a solid arc with a decent payoff.
The show looks good, with some cool new ships and planets. There are some interesting, updated designs for legacy alien races. (Especially for some that haven’t had many appearances in previous Trek series.)
Overall, “Star Trek: Discovery” doesn’t end things on the strongest note. Despite an interesting concept and the framework for some good character arcs, things don’t live up to their potential. And even though they were able to film new material after the show was canceled to turn the season finale into a series finale, there wasn’t much resolution to the very strange journey that the show has taken us on over the years.
**1/2 out of *****