Star Trek: Discovery

 was controversial from its inception, enduring online bashing, behind-the-scenes creative changes, and the pressures of being all things to all Star Trek fans in its first two seasons. Discovery's most radical change was jumping 930 years into an uncharted future, taking 

Star Trek to the 32nd century in Discovery's third season.

Perhaps more than any of its predecessors, Star Trek: Discovery is synonymous with its lead. The singularly talented Sonequa Martin-Green portrayed Commander Michael Burnham as a resolute and hyper-intelligent action hero who developed her morals and values to fully align with Starfleet's.

In Star Trek: Discovery season 3, Burnham is promoted to Captain, becoming the first African-American woman to lead a live-action Star Trek series. Burnham and Martin-Green are both powerhouses, and no 

Star Trek series was ever so focused on and decided by its lead character, sometimes to the detriment of the rest of the USS Discovery's crew.

Looking back on Star Trek: Discovery'

s legacy, it was the spark that brought Star Trek back to life, and its shields absorbed and repelled every real-life photon torpedo fired at it to lead Star Trek
 into a new renaissance on Paramount+.

Star Trek TV Was Dead Before Star Trek: Discovery Sparked A Rebirth

Star Trek: Discovery's premiere brought Star Trek's dead TV franchise back to life after 12 years. The 1990s golden era of 

Star Trek executive-produced by Rick Berman, which began with Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987, came to an inglorious end in 2005 when Star Trek: Enterprise was canceled.

Star Trek 

was rebooted on movie screens in 2009 with J.J. Abrams' Star Trek, which spawned two more films, 2013's Star Trek Into Darkness and 2016's Star Trek Beyond. However. Abrams' trilogy took place in an alternate timeline. The 

Star Trek fans had known since 1966 remained dormant.

Star Trek: Discovery was the franchise's great hope for a return to TV glory.

Star Trek: Discovery was the franchise's great hope for a return to TV glory. Modeled thematically and structurally after the biggest TV hits at the time, 

Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, Star Trek: Discovery brought Star Trek into the streaming era.

Discovery was darker Star Trek. It was violent. It was morally compromised. It's mid-23rd-century setting muddied canon, with technology like the displacement-activated spore drive Starfleet shouldn't have, and

 Discovery's re-imagining of the Klingons remains an outlier that's difficult to reconcile.

Yet, despite the flaws, issues, and disgruntled lifelong Trekkers, Star Trek: Discovery was riveting, propulsive, impeccably-acted, and challenging television. It was a new kind of 

Star Trek. Discovery may not have been perfect, but Star Trek was alive again.

Star Trek: Discovery Made Star Trek Better

Looking beyond Star Trek: Discovery's flaws, the first new 

Star Trek series in 12 years made sweeping changes that Star Trek needed to ensconce itself in the 21st century and the modern standards of television.

Star Trek: Discovery brought the blockbuster visual quality of J.J. Abrams'

 Star Trek movies to TV screens, and the franchise has not looked back to the cheaper sets and quaint VFX of decades past.

Although Star Trek: Discovery was fully serialized, as was 

Star Trek: Picard, the other series that followed went their own ways, with Star Trek: Lower Decks, Star Trek: Prodigy, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds creating a hybrid of episodic stories of the week, but with ongoing character arcs.

Indeed, Star Trek: Discovery was a success, and the proof is how it spawned five more Star Trek shows on Paramount+, including the upcoming Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. Strange New Worlds 

and Starfleet Academy are direct spinoffs of Star Trek: Discovery.

Perhaps most laudably, Star Trek: Discovery's commitment to diversity not only continued the multinational (and multi-species) starship bridge pioneered by 

Star Trek: The Original Series. Disco brought greater LGBTQ+ representation to Star Trek, with the franchise's first gay married couple and first transgender and non-binary characters.

Audiences also have Star Trek: Discovery to thank for introducing Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike, Rebecca Romijn as Number One, and Ethan Peck as Spock, revitalizing a pair of iconic characters who hadn't been seen in over 50 years, which led to the creation of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Counting Star Trek's first made-for-streaming feature film, Star Trek: Section 31, Star Trek: Discovery created more spinoffs than Star Trek: The Next Generation, doubling the number of shows in the franchise.

 

Discovery Also Symbolized Modern Star Trek’s Flaws

Star Trek: Discovery's design as the first modern streaming Star Trek show also rippled throughout all of the Star Trek that followed in its wake on Paramount+. Discovery forced permanent change, sometimes when it wasn't welcome, but Star Trek is now different because of it.

Star Trek: Discovery emphasized action, speed, and murky morality instead of exploration and optimism. While other Star Trek series that followed more closely captured Star Trek's original spirit, every live-action show has weathered criticisms of lacking the intellectual depth of classic Star Trek shows.

Star Trek: Discovery also led the way towards a new, unwelcome reality for longtime fans: short Star Trek seasons. Although Discovery will clock in as the Star Trek show with the most episodes, at 65 over 5 seasons, the standard for the rest of Star Trek on Paramount+ is 10 episodes per season.

Star Trek: Discovery originally planned to run for seven seasons, but Paramount+ ended the show in season 5, defining the unfortunate ceiling for how long modern Star Trek shows will last. Star Trek: Lower Decks ended at 50 episodes in 5 seasons, and so will Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, but with only 46 episodes.

 

Can Star Trek: Discovery Return?

Star Trek: Discovery ended in 2024, and there seems to be no direct avenue for a comeback. Nor is there a groundswell of desire to see more of Star Trek: Discovery - yet. Star Trek series are often underappreciated in their time.

This was the case with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise, all of which found new audiences and greater appreciation decades after they ended, thanks to streaming and binge-watching. How fans will feel about Star Trek: Discovery will evolve as time passes, just as it did for its Star Trek predecessors.

Of course, Star Trek is under new ownership at Paramount Skydance, and time will also tell whether Star Trek: Discovery and its legacy will be emphasized by Paramount's new owners, to the point where there could be interest in a Disco resurgence.

Meanwhile, there can be no Star Trek: Discovery comeback without Sonequa Martin-Green reprising Captain Michael Burnham. Martin-Green left Disco satisfied with Michael's arc and conclusion, and said she has no unfinished business with Burnham. Yet time will tell if that can change and if Sonequa will want to play Burnham again.

Entering its 60th year, Star Trek still has two Paramount+ shows streaming for two more seasons, and hope is bright for the future of the franchise.

Yet the last 8 years wouldn't have been possible, and would have been very different, without Star Trek: Discovery leaving Star Trek better than how it found it.