Star Trek: Discovery Hit Its Stride in Season 2

Note: This article contains major spoilers for the second season of Star Trek: Discovery.

Star Trek TV series have always been a product of their respective times. The Original Series was heavily influenced by the Cold War and baby boomers’ growing distrust of the establishment, while Deep Space Nine was a reaction to the first Gulf War as well as an examination of the world coming to grips with cultural, political, cultural globalization. Even Enterprise, for all its flaws, was reflective of an in-between generation: just as the show was trying to find where it fit in with the Trek canon and consciousness, many of those who reached adulthood during its run were too young to be purely pre-Internet Gen Xers but too old to really feel part of the emerging cohort that would eventually be labeled millennials.

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After two gripping seasons, it’s apparent that Star Trek: Discovery is no different. It is a Trek for the multifaceted, labyrinthine, and exigent issues of our current era. While season 1 could be interpreted as an allegory mirroring (no pun intended) the burgeoning sociopolitical consciousness of viewers in the real world going through the first year of the Trump administration, season 2 is the mature and weathered veteran realizing that the our problems can’t be rectified through a simple—or even single—answer, whose naïvete has been discarded faster than Spock’s beard in the final scene of the recent season finale. I loved the first season of Discovery, but if season 1 was honors homework at a prestigious high school, season 2 is a final thesis at an Ivy League doctoral program.

The debut season was relatively straightforward, with the major arc of escaping the mirror universe as the underlying foundation upon which the episodes were constructed and the Klingons, Terran Empire, and occasionally Harry Mudd serving as the principal antagonists. Season 2 offered up a deceptively simpler premise. The core of the season is answering a question: what are these seven signals? But the way the mystery unfolds is astoundingly Daedalian, in that the true antagonist is the mystery itself, humankind’s oldest and most relentlessly prevalent fear—the unknown.

We pick up exactly where season 1 left off, as the USS Discovery, on its way to Vulcan to pick up a new commanding officer, receives a distress call from the USS Enterprise (“no bloody A, B, C, or D”). Captain Christopher Pike, played masterfully by Anson Mount, explains that the Federation flagship was investigating seven mysterious signals when it became heavily damaged. Our heroes soon discover another damaged starship, whose last few survivors have been kept alive thanks to the brilliant work of engineer Jett Reno (played with unparalleled, scene-stealing charisma by the incomparable Tig Notarao). Pike assumes command of Discovery, and the crew sets off to investigate the signals as well as track down Lieutenant Spock (Ethan Peck), Michael Burnham’s adopted brother, who’d taken a leave of absence to do some personal investigative work. The level of enigmatic intrigue rises higher when Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) learns that Spock had been suffering from nightmares about the very seven signals Enterprise was investigating.

The second season gives us a lot more backstory on the show’s secondary characters. Season 1 was definitely the Michael Burnham show, but while the sophomore stories still revolve around her, they dive deeper into the individuals of the bridge crew and supporting staff. This effort is made clear when Pike takes the captain’s chair on Discovery’s bridge and asks everyone to introduce themselves. For the first time, viewers got to learn names and ranks of the people we’d been watching for just over a year.

This sort of self-awareness with which the writers and producers are seemingly addressing fan complaints, but on their own terms in ways that fit naturally within the Discovery’s slice of the Trek universe, is one of the recurring highlights of season 2. It continues right through to the season finale, when the writers address the (justified) fan complaints about the technology we’ve seen in the series—particularly the namesake starship’s spore drive—being too advanced for a prequel show.

That said, the way they address this particular area of backlash is mildly insulting. Having Spock, Number One (Rebecca Romijn), and Pike speaking with Starfleet Command and agreeing that nobody would discuss the spore drive—or, really, any of the events of season 2—ever again is something you’d expect from an unsophisticated Saturday cartoon show. Had they done something even slightly less hacky, like having Section 31 delete the digital records and wipe the memories of the crew, then it would’ve landed a little more solidly. But instead, it was just two steps away from making the entire season having been a holodeck simulation. (Sorry, Enterprise fans. I know that still stings a little.)

Not all the ties to other series are as cleverly subtle as the bridge roll call, or as frustratingly facepalming as the gag order shortcut. We visit Saru’s (Doug Jones) homeworld. We find out what Terran Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) has been working on since joining Section 31. Hell, we even learn why the Enterprise has old-school buttons (Pike hates the fancy, floating digital displays) and why the Klingons in season 1 were bald (they shaved their heads for the war).

In the last major reveal of the season, we find out it’s Burnham who, from the future, places the seven mysterious signals to be discovered in the past in order for the past Discovery, Enterprise, Klingons, and Kelpiens to find their way to one point to defeat the rogue Section 31 AI from seizing the crucial data Discovery is guarding and unlock its endless capabilities. In order to hide the data in a way Control could never find it, the Discovery crew members hatch a plan to jump way into the future—about 930 years, to be exact, aiming to connect with Burnham’s mother and tying in nicely to the Short Trek installment “Calypso.”

It’s within the cinematic spectacle of the two-part finale that the show’s previously mentioned ties to the current consciousness of the Trump era become readily apparent. In the simplest terms, the overarching sociopolitical conflict of our time is one of progress versus stagnation. We must address the immediate needs of the present, but with considerations of the future fixed solidly to in front of our minds. The battle for equity and equality isn’t easily (or often) won via confrontations on the street, or through sharing hashtags online, but rather through meticulous machinations of vigilante strategy.

The iconic tagline of the Trek franchise—to boldly go—isn’t suggesting reckless abandon in the face of opposition, nor is it a simply a catchy piece of rhetoric. It’s a challenge in keeping with the fundamental philosophy of Star Trek. To be bold is not merely to perform acts of public (or, more specific to the series, interplanetary) bravery. Sometimes, perhaps more often than not, to be bold is a quiet, personal virtue. To persevere, even under the most daunting of circumstances.

When Star Trek: Discovery first launched, it gained massive amounts of praise (and unfortunately, criticism from some circles) for its depictions of racial, gender, and social diversity. The sophomore season continued to live up to the initial hype, and hope, by expanding exponentially on the principle that humanity is not limited to the confines of the status quo. The first season of Discovery, like most great Star Trek, was inspiring. The second season was empowering.

Both seasons of Star Trek: Discovery and the Short Treks anthology are streaming on CBS All Access.