I just finished watching the third episode of Star Trek Discovery for a second time, having given it an initial viewing late yesterday afternoon. I now think I’m ready to say how disappointed I am with Discovery: last week I was more than willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, but what I just found myself watching was utterly disappointing. The plot makes no sense, for one: why are they giving a known, convicted mutineer so much freedom on a new ship? Indeed, why is the program as a whole just focussing on one character, Burnham, in stark contrast to every other Trek incarnation? It is’t as if she is a particularly interesting character; indeed, she just strikes me as neurotic and melodramatic. The whole show just feels like an average american drama with the Star Trek title tagged on to it. It had none of the qualities we first fell in love with Trek for: instead of the depiction of a diverse group of people working together to explore space, this was merely about one rather irritating woman and her struggle to fit in. The fact that, despite having been convicted of mutiny she seemed able to roam the ship doing whatever she wanted, made no sense. On top of that there was a lot of psuedoscientific gibberish about some sort of biology-based propulsion system apparently faster than warp drive, totally out of keeping with the rest of Trek. Of course I’ll continue to watch Discovery – Trek is Trek – but, as it stands, it has a lot of work to do to redeem itself and bring itself alongside the likes of TNG and DS9.