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Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Eps. 1-2 Review: Burnham's Last Crusade

Star Trek: Discovery is off to a fast start with another galaxy-wide threat, an Indiana Jones-like chase, familiar faces reuniting & more.

You'd think after saving the galaxy twice since entering the 32nd century would have bought all the trust in the world for Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and her crew of the U.S.S. Discovery, but things still need to be operated on the down low when we start in season five of Star Trek: Discovery. Since this involves another mysterious ominous threat, Kovich (David Cronenberg) tasks Burnham to track down an 800-year-old Romulan ship trapped in the Beta Quadrant as a top-secret "Red Directive." It's also a point of interest for the season's two new villains, Moll (Eve Harlow) and L'ak (Elias Toufexis).

Star Trek: Discovery: The Chase Is On

Paramount+ released the first two episodes of season five, "Red Directive" and "Under the Twin Moons." "Red Directive" introduces all the new characters in the fold with Harlow, Toufexis, and Callum Keith Rennie, who plays Rayner, captain of the U.S.S. Antares. "Red Directive" references the top-secret nature of Discovery's mission. We get narratives to see how Mary Wiseman's Tilly (with Oded Fehr's Vance) and David Ajala's Booker thrust back into action despite the arcs that season four left them at.

The episodes set the scene for the season with ties to The Next Generation, but it's still puzzling at times how we haven't seen the races more firmly established on the series play a greater role in Discovery's greater narrative than Ni'Var. Klingons have largely disappeared since the first season. The Romulans and Vulcans are solely tied to Ni'Var. The Ferengi also don't have a presence at all as well. When they have any presence, it's largely as random bystanders. Could that change by the series end? I doubt it. As per previous seasons since season three, the narrative again leans on Ajala's character and it feels more like a crutch than an organic process, which makes it predictable, not to mention it glosses over his actions from the previous season. Directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi and written by Michelle Paradise, "Red Directive" does an adequate job setting up the excitement that's been on brand for the action-packed series.

"Under the Twin Moons" follows up the narrative of the end of the previous episode with a Federation hearing. It also follows the fateful Burnham's first officer, Captain Saru (Doug Jones), and his future in Starfleet, which also affects his relationship with Ni'Var President T'Rina (Tara Rosling). The captain and first officer attempt to retrieve the first major piece of the puzzle on a dangerous away mission. Paradise wasn't kidding when it came to leaning more on Indiana Jones for the ingenuity, action, and mystery as we're introduced to a variety of worlds, saving the inhabitants of one planet and trying to solve a giant death trap on another.

While we get the feel for Harlow and Toufexis' characters, it feels like Rennie's Rayner is another no-nonsense authority type I feel will start to grow on the audience, especially given his dynamic with Martin-Green's Burnham. It's tricky to write characters like Rayner because it's easy to pigeonhole them as reckless characters when it just might be a different flavor of ice cream. It's the kind of difference that typical fans may not be accustomed to, like Todd Stashwick's Liam Shaw from Picard or Ronny Cox's Edward Jellico from TNG/Prodigy. Directed by Doug Aariniokoski and written by Alan McElroy, "Under the Twin Moons" is more enclosed an episode, but effective that focuses more on the Burnham-Saru dynamic while the B-story focuses on solving the problem on the surface of the planet on hand. Star Trek: Discovery streams on Thursdays on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Discovery: Episode 1 & 2 Review: "Red Directive" & "Under Twin Moons"

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Review by Tom Chang

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7/10

Star Trek: Discovery is off to a fast start again in an action-packed two episode premiere with a season-wide arc tied directly to a franchise legacy series. Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, David Ajala, Mary Wiseman and Callum Keith Rennie work well off each other - with Rennie proving early on to be an outside-the-box ally and foil to the existing cameraderie.

Credits

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Director

Olatunde Osunsanmi

Director

Doug Aariniokoski

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