Featured TV on DVD Review: Star Trek: Discovery: Season Two
November 11, 2019
Star Trek: Discovery: Season Two - Buy from Amazon: DVD or Blu-ray
I really liked the first season of Star Trek: Discovery and thought it was the best first season of any Star Trek series since the original. Was the show able to grow and improve? Or did it peak out of the gate?
At the end of season one, the crew of the Discovery rendezvous with the Enterprise, under the command of Captain Christopher Pike. He’s there to take command from Saru under extraordinary circumstances. Seven red lights appeared across the galaxy, simultaneously and then all but one disappeared as fast as they appeared. As Saru points out, the coordination rules out natural phenomenon. Captain Pike has arrived to take command to use Discovery to investigate the first of these signals are a friendly greeting, a warning, or a declaration of war. They tried to investigate it on the Enterprise, but every time they did, their computer went haywire. This does make the “declaration of war” option a little more likely.
Michael Burnham is quite excited to have some of the crew of the Enterprise join Discovery for this mission. Maybe excited isn’t the right word. Her foster brother, Spock, is the science officer aboard the Enterprise and their relationship is strained, to put it mildly. However, when the team beam over, Spock is not among them. He has taken a leave of absence. The first mission involves a rogue asteroid of unknown composition that is heading for a pulsar. There is a crashed Starfleet ship, so they mount a rescue mission. It is a success, mostly. Not every member of the team makes it back, but Jett Reno is rescued and joins Discovery and a new member of the engineering crew. Meanwhile, Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) realizes the asteroid is comprised of an exotic material, perhaps even Dark Matter and begins to try and capture a sample. This is exciting enough to get Lieutenant Paul Stamets involved, which is good news, as he was so upset by the death of Hugh Culber that he had put in a request for a transfer off of the ship. Having a scientific mystery to solve turns out to be a good method to through the grief.
The most import part of the mission is when Burnham is trapped and sees a red figure with wings. It shakes her up enough that she isn’t willing to tell Captain Pike, not even after Pike tells her where Spock really is. He checked himself into a mental hospital. They need to contact him right away, because they found proof that Spock knew about these signals months before they appeared. However, when they try and contact him... spoilers happen.
Season two of Star Trek: Discovery is a slight improvement over the first season, and since I liked the first season so much, this one is an easy recommendation. The central mystery has a slower burn to it and there isn’t such a big wow moment as when the Discovery jumped to the Mirror Universe in season one, but the tension is kept at a high level for longer here. Additionally, as fun as Lorca and Mirror Georgiou were last year, this year’s main bad guy is a lot more intimidating. Speaking of Mirror Georgiou, I know bringing her to this main universe doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I understand Michael Burnham’s emotional connection to the character, but she should have been logical enough to not bring her back. That said, I’m so glad she did. She’s a great character and I can’t wait for her spin-off. Or for the potential Captain Pike / Spock spin-off. Those two characters were fantastic additions to the show. Another major improvement for season two was the better use of the supporting cast. I do like Michael Burnham as a character, but Star Trek also worked better as a character and the show focused too much on Burnham in the first season. She is still the star of season two, but the show utilized the supporting cast a lot better this time and I hope that continues into season three.
On a side note, at the end of the season, and this isn’t a real spoiler, they explain why the U.S.S. Discovery isn’t mentioned in any other TV show, despite this being a prequel series and how important the events of the series have been so far. I wasn’t bothered by this, but some people have argued that the advanced tech on this show somehow prove this series isn’t real Star Trek and is instead an alternate universe Trek show. I have two words to counter that. Assignment: Earth. That’s the name of an episode of Star Trek, in which the crew of the Enterprise travel back in time to 1968 for... routine historical research. That’s right, time travel was so easy that it was used for routine historical research, for one episode. Then it was so difficult that it was essentially treated as a form of magic akin to Clarke’s Third Law. There is nothing more Star Trek than having a miracle technology used to save the day one episode that is then never seen or used again.
Each episode has a promo and there are audio commentary tracks on four episodes and extended / deleted scenes for eight of them. Disc one has an 18-minute featurette on the production design of the show, focusing on the sets, and there were a lot of changes to old sets and even more new sets created for this season. Prop Me Up is a nine-minute featurette on the props on the show. There is also the promo for season two. Disc two has a 16-minute look at the costumes, as well as The Brightest Star, a 15-minute long short film about the origin of Saru. Disc three starts with Creature Comforts, which is a 15-minute look at the creation of the aliens in the show. Meanwhile, Creating Space is a ten-minute look at digital special effects. The final disc has the second 15-minute short, Runaway, which is the introduction to Po (played by Yadira Guevara-Prip). Putting it Together is a 43-minute look at the season finale. There is also a 56-minute long overview of the second season that is very in-depth. There is a shorter, 13-minute look at The Red Angel and the central mystery of the season two. Finally, there are seven minutes of outtakes.
Star Trek: Discovery was one of only a handful of shows that I was excited to watch every week. Season Two is marginally better than season one and since I already loved season one, season two is an easy recommendation. The DVD / Blu-ray has loads of extras, making it a Pick of the Week contender.
The Show
Review
The Extras
The Verdict
Filed under: Video Review, Wilson Cruz, Jason Isaacs, Doug Jones, Sonequa Martin-Green, Anson Mount, Anthony Rapp, Michelle Yeoh, Ethan Peck, Tig Notaro