After two problematic seasons, Star Trek Discovery returns for season 3 and with a bit more of a spring in its step, in ‘That Hope is You, Part 1’. This review includes *spoilers*!
Having become quite disillusioned with Discovery after season 1, with the shift in tone, timeline difficulties, and tech discrepancies, let alone the story issues, people found that Season 2 did pick up a bit. There were still issues though, and the great cast were definitely let down, but potentially they would be able to leave the mess behind going into Season 3.
It appears, from the evidence in this first episode, that the show may have found its salvation in jumping forward in time. There is now a bit of a blank slate, where Discovery can explore new worlds and stories, without screwing everything up for the established canon.
It all starts with Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) appearing in the future, colliding with a passing ship, and both of them then crashing onto a nearby planet. With Burnham unable to contact the Discovery, this episode focuses solely on her, while introducing a couple of key new characters. While we will want to see several of the usual cast in there, such as Tilly (Mary Wiseman) or Saru (Doug Jones), who always bring quality to the fore, this episode does have a strong line-up.
Martin-Green is excellent as ever and has no problems handling the bulk of the work here. She also has to give a much wider range of performance than we are used to. Obviously, we get the buttoned up attitude a Vulcan upbringing gets you, but Burnham is also put in several situations which require much more unusual reactions from Martin-Green, which she revels in.
Having crashed and sent her suit back through time to signal Spock (Ethan Peck), Burnham sets off to make contact with Discovery. She heads to the crashed ship she collided with, but encounters a less than helpful pilot, Book (David Ajala – Supergirl, Nightflyers, Falling Water). Being a fish out of water, or more accurately, time, Burnham has no choice but to put her trust in Book and plead for his help.
This sets up the new direction, and gives us some fresh perspective, while we learn all the things that have happened in the last 900 years. The main mysteries are ‘The Burn’, where the majority of the Dilithium in the galaxy exploded, and the ensuing disappearance of the Federation. It is the latter and the eventual meeting with Mr Sahil (Adil Hussain – Life of Pi) that will no doubt be at the centre of Burnham’s motivation this season.
Mirroring Burnham’s upbeat attitude near the end of the episode, there is a sense for the audience that we may have turned a corner. The first two seasons of Discovery just failed to meet expectations, and general disappointment has not been eased by the patchy first seasons of Picard and Lower Decks. Here it seems we may actually have something interesting and new to look at, which can be bold. The key will be making sure that going forward Discovery doesn’t descend into copying Voyager, and finds its own way of being far flung from home.
