"Star Trek: Discovery," Year Two

Moderate spoilers ahead.

As any long term "Trek" fan knows, it takes a while for a new "Star Trek" series to find its groove, and "Discovery" is no exception.  Its first season had some good moments and good characters, but it often got tripped up by its own good intentions and some really bad choices involving the Klingons.  The second season has made some considerable improvements. It still has some rough edges, but it's a lot more self-assured. And a lot of this series' idiosyncrasies are starting to feel more like features rather than flaws.

First off, we have some major additions to the cast.  Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike and Ethan Peck as Lieutenant Spock are the big ones, but there's also Tig Notaro as the cranky new engineer, Jet Reno, and Alan van Sprang as Captain Leland, who works for a secret Federation outfit called Section 31.  Everyone's great, and I'm deeply unhappy that some of these new additions are only temporary. Pike and Spock are characters from the original 1960s "Star Trek" series, so this season of "Discovery" functions very much like a prequel. In fact, a few episodes are probably much more fun if you're a fan of Original Recipe "Trek" and are familiar with the future events being alluded to.

It takes a few episodes for the plot to be laid out fully, but the basics are that Discovery is assigned Pike as its temporary Captain while it investigates the appearance of several strange signals that have appeared throughout the galaxy, along the a figure that has been dubbed "The Red Angel."  Spock has a mysterious connection to the Angel, but getting to Spock is a complicated venture that requires Michael Burnham to rehash a lot of old childhood trauma. Spock is Michael's foster brother, and for various reasons their relationship has become very strained over the years. Also in play is the Federation's secretive black ops outfit, Section 31, which recruits Georgiou and Ash Tyler into its ranks.

As with the first season, "Discovery" is sticking with its serialized format and its more melodramatic approach to its characters.  That means a lot of Michael angst again, but it's more self-aware this time around. The addition of Spock is so good here, because it introduces a testy sibling dynamic that lets the show call Michael out for her flaws.  Meanwhile, Tilly continues to be peppy verging on annoying, and Stamets is still a grump, but they get some different people to play off of, and feel more comfortable in their roles. The presence of Anson Mount's charismatic PIke as an old school style "Trek" captain is very important as it makes all the standard "Trek" adventuring feel suitably Trek-y, even as the more unorthodox personal stories are playing out with other characters.

I like that the show has decided to lean into its silliness and very obvious progressive stances.  Michelle Yeoh's performance as Georgiou has become even more campy, and she gets all the best lines.  This makes me indescribably happy, even when it doesn't work. Stamets' love life continues to get more screen time than it reasonably should, and the number of female badass characters introduced or foregrounded this year far outweigh the male ones.  Jet, Po (Yadira Guevara-Prip), Airiam (Hannah Cheesman), Dettmer (Emily Coutts), Number One (Rebecca Romijn), Nhan (Rachael Ancheril), and a major spoiler are all given ample opportunity to shine.

At the same time, Discovery is more fully embracing its "Trek" roots.  In additional to the heavy presence of all the elements from the '60s "Star Trek," there are callbacks to other areas of "Trek" lore.  The Klingons are mostly back to normal. Sure, the effects are spiffier than ever and the social messages are a little different, but the earnest space adventure part of the equation is firing on all cylinders.  The show is clearly not trying to be "Battlestar Galactica" or "The Orville," though it may have picked up a few pointers from both.

Finally, there are a couple of bumps that are the result of CBS being in an awful big hurry to expand its "Star Trek" output, including a future Section 31 series.  There are also the "Short Treks," which watched about halfway through the series, that contain some interesting background stories relevant to this season's plot. And a totally irrelevant Harvey Mudd short that's the best of the lot.

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