This spoiler-free review is based on Star Trek: Discovery season 5 episodes 1-4.
A lot of water has flowed under the (starship) bridge since the Disco crew fixed the Federation’s Dark Matter Anomaly problem in the season 4 finale. Two years later, multiple seasons of Strange New Worlds, Picard and Lower Decks have shown us a more exciting vision of the final frontier, but the top brass on Discovery’s fifth and final season don’t appear to have received the subspace memo. As a result, the four episodes we’ve been given for review feel like they were created in a mirror universe – a place where phasers are set to earnest and everyone is (dare we say it) a little bit dull.
