Star Trek: Discovery (Season 1)

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Star Trek: Discovery
Season 1
Promotional poster
Starring	Sonequa Martin-Green Doug Jones Shazad Latif Anthony Rapp Mary Wiseman Jason Isaacs
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	15
Release
Original network	CBS (1x01) CBS All Access
Original run	September 24, 2017 – February 11, 2018
Season chronology
	Next → Season 2
List of Star Trek: Discovery episodes

The first season of the American television series Star Trek: Discovery is set roughly a decade before the events of the original Star Trek series, and follows the crew of the USS Discovery during the Federation–Klingon war. The season is produced by CBS Television Studios in association with Secret Hideout, Roddenberry Entertainment, and Living Dead Guy Productions, with Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts serving as showrunners, and Akiva Goldsman providing producing support.

Sonequa Martin-Green stars as Michael Burnham, first officer of the USS Shenzhou and later the Discovery, along with Doug Jones, Shazad Latif, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, and Jason Isaacs. The new series was announced in November 2015, and Bryan Fuller joined as showrunner the next February. He was replaced by Berg and Harberts in October 2016 following creative disagreements with CBS. The season's war storyline was intended to represent the divide between different political factions of the modern United States. The Klingon species was redesigned for the season, and its culture and biology was greatly developed. Filming took place in Toronto, Canada from January to October 2017, with additional filming on location in Jordan for the series premiere. The visual effects team, led by Pixomondo, and composer Jeff Russo aimed for the series' quality to be comparable to that of a feature film.

The season premiered on September 19, 2017, at ArcLight Hollywood, before debuting on CBS on September 24. The premiere episode was also made available on CBS All Access, where the rest of the 15-episode season was streamed weekly. The season was split into two chapters, with the first ending on November 12 and the second releasing from January 7 to February 11, 2018. The season's release led to record subscriptions for All Access, and generally positive reviews from critics who highlighted Martin-Green's performance, the series' production values, and its new additions to Star Trek canon. Some criticized the season's writing, particularly for the structure of the season and how its many subplots were handled. A second season was ordered in October 2017.

Contents 1 Episodes 2 Cast and characters 2.1 Main 2.2 Recurring 2.3 Notable guests 3 Production 3.1 Development 3.2 Writing 3.3 Casting 3.4 Design 3.4.1 Klingons 3.5 Filming 3.6 Visual effects 3.7 Music 4 Marketing 5 Release 5.1 Broadcast and streaming 5.2 Broadcast breach 5.3 Home media 6 Reception 6.1 Ratings and viewership 6.2 Critical response 6.3 Accolades 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links

[edit] Episodes

Main article: List of Star Trek: Discovery episodes

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date
Chapter 1
1	1	"The Vulcan Hello"	David Semel	Story by : Bryan Fuller & Alex Kurtzman Teleplay by : Akiva Goldsman & Bryan Fuller	September 24, 2017[a]
Investigating a damaged satellite near a binary star system on the edge of Federation space, the crew members of the USS Shenzhou discover an object obscured from their sensors. After First Officer Michael Burnham volunteers to investigate the object, she finds an ancient, carved vessel. She is attacked by a Klingon, and when trying to escape, she accidentally kills him. A group of Klingons mourn the death of their soldier, dubbed the "Torchbearer", before the outcast Voq volunteers to take his place. The Klingons, led by T'Kuvma, reveal themselves in a cloakable ship. T'Kuvma preaches to his followers of the Federation's attempts to usurp the individuality of the Klingons and their culture, and plans to fulfill an ancient prophecy by uniting the 24 great Klingon houses as was once done by Kahless. Voq activates a beacon that summons the Klingon leaders. Burnham, desperate to prevent a war, attempts to fire on the Klingons first, against the wishes of Captain Philippa Georgiou. Burnham is arrested for mutiny.
2	2	"Battle at the Binary Stars"	Adam Kane	Story by : Bryan Fuller Teleplay by : Gretchen J. Berg & Aaron Harberts	September 24, 2017
T'Kuvma convinces the majority of the Klingon leaders that he can lead them to victory over the Federation, as reinforcements for the Shenzhou arrive. Georgiou offers to resolve the situation peacefully, but the Klingons immediately open fire. Starfleet Admiral Anderson arrives and again offers peace to the Klingons, but his ship is rammed by another cloaked Klingon vessel. Anderson has his ship self-destruct, destroying the Klingon ship as well. Starfleet retreats, leaving the Klingons to collect their dead. In the remains of the Shenzhou, Burnham escapes her cell after encouragement from her guardian Sarek via a telepathic connection. She convinces Georgiou to try to take T'Kuvma prisoner, and they create a distraction by sending an explosive into his ship with a Klingon corpse. Boarding the vessel, Burnham overpowers Voq. Georgiou attempts to capture T'Kuvma, but is killed. T'Kuvma is fatally shot by Burnham, who is transported to safety. Voq promises that T'Kuvma's legacy will live on. Burnham is later sentenced to life in prison for her mutiny.
3	3	"Context Is for Kings"	Akiva Goldsman	Story by : Bryan Fuller & Gretchen J. Berg & Aaron Harberts Teleplay by : Gretchen J. Berg & Aaron Harberts & Craig Sweeny	October 1, 2017
Six months into her sentence, Burnham is on an unexpected prison transfer when an emergency forces her shuttle to be rescued by the USS Discovery. Spending several days on the ship, Burnham is ordered by its captain, the mysterious Gabriel Lorca, to assist with a scientific assignment. Burnham overhears Lieutenant Paul Stamets, an astromycologist who is leading the assignment, discuss an upcoming experiment with a colleague serving on another starship; Lorca is soon informed of an incident on the Discovery's sister ship, the USS Glenn, that has killed the entire crew. Stamets leads a boarding party to investigate and finds the dead crew hideously twisted and malformed, as well as a group of Klingons killed by an unknown creature. Lorca later asks Burnham to work for him, despite her sentence, explaining that he organized the circumstances that led her to him so she could help develop a new spore-based propulsion system that could win the war she started by killing T'Kuvma. He also secretly has the creature transported aboard the Discovery.
4	4	"The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry"	Olatunde Osunsanmi	Jesse Alexander & Aron Eli Coleite	October 8, 2017
Lorca assigns Burnham to study the creature from the Glenn, dubbed a Tardigrade, to find a way to use its biology as a weapon. Starfleet orders Discovery to the dilithium mining colony Corvan II, which is under Klingon attack. Stamets is reluctant to make such a long jump using the spores, and when the drive is activated the ship nearly collides with a star. Lorca sends Commander Landry to keep Burnham's research on track, and she attempts to sedate the Tardigrade (that she names Ripper) to cut off its claw; it kills her. Burnham believes that Ripper was acting in self-defense, and is drawn to the spores. Stamets and Burnham transport it to Engineering, where it connects to the spore drive and interfaces with the navigation system. The ship successfully makes the jump to Corvan II and saves the colony. On T'Kuvma's stranded ship, Klingon leader Kol earns the loyalty of T'Kuvma's desperate followers, and leaves Voq to die in the wreckage of the Shenzhou. L'Rell, secretly loyal to Voq, promises a way for them to win the war for the house of T'Kuvma.
5	5	"Choose Your Pain"	Lee Rose	Story by : Gretchen J. Berg & Aaron Harberts & Kemp Powers Teleplay by : Kemp Powers	October 15, 2017
After a month of successful operations, Lorca is ordered to protect the spore drive until it can be replicated for other Starfleet ships. As he returns to the Discovery, Lorca is taken captive by the Klingons. Burnham has grown concerned with the toll that the drive has taken on Ripper. Along with Stamets' partner, medical officer Hugh Culber, Burnham convinces Stamets to find an alternative to run the drive. Lorca is imprisoned with captured Starfleet officer Ash Tyler and human criminal Harry Mudd, and in discussions Lorca reveals that he killed his entire crew during an earlier battle to spare them from the Klingons' torture, but escaped himself. Lorca is tortured by L'Rell, who wants the secret behind Discovery's new form of travel, but Lorca and Tyler escape before the Klingons learn anything. For the final jump needed to escape the Klingons, with Lorca and Tyler on-board, Stamets connects to the spore drive himself using Ripper's DNA. Later, Burnham frees Ripper, while Stamets' reflection does not walk away from a mirror when he does.
6	6	"Lethe"	Douglas Aarniokoski	Joe Menosky & Ted Sullivan	October 22, 2017
On his way to broker a peace deal with renegade Klingon houses, Sarek is injured when a "logic extremist" attempts to assassinate him. Burnham senses this, and Lorca agrees to rescue Sarek. Admiral Katrina Cornwell questions this decision and others that Lorca has been making. Burnham searches for Sarek in a shuttle with her roommate, Cadet Sylvia Tilly, and Tyler. Burnham attempts to connect with Sarek's mind, and finds him remembering the time that her application for the Vulcan Expeditionary Group was rejected. She learns that the VEG would only admit one of Sarek's children, and he chose Spock, his half-human son. Spock ultimately chose to join Starfleet, rendering Sarek's decision futile. Burnham helps him regain consciousness and activate a locator beacon. Lorca and Cornwell have sex, but she is concerned by his paranoid behavior and plans to remove him from command of Discovery. With Sarek unable to meet the Klingons, Cornwell takes his place; however, the peace talks are actually a trap, and she is taken captive.
7	7	"Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad"	David M. Barrett	Aron Eli Coleite & Jesse Alexander	October 29, 2017
While attending a crew party, Burnham and Tyler are called to the bridge to deal with an endangered space creature that the Discovery has come across. When the creature is brought on board, it is revealed to be carrying a person: Harry Mudd. He plans to kill Lorca and sell the ship to the Klingons, but when he is caught he blows up the ship instead. Time returns to the party earlier, with Burnham and Tyler called to the bridge again. They are intercepted by Stamets, who is aware that they are in a time loop due to his interactions with Ripper. Over several time loops Stamets works with Burnham and Tyler to find a solution to the problem while Mudd gets further in his plan each time. They eventually convince Mudd that he has won, and he ends the time loop. Preparing to receive a boarding party of Klingons, Mudd is instead confronted by his "beloved" Stella and her father, from whom he had stolen her dowry. They take Mudd away. Stamets reveals to Burnham and Tyler that in one of the time loops they had danced together and kissed.
8	8	"Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum"	John S. Scott	Kirsten Beyer	November 5, 2017
Coming to the aid of another Federation ship, the Discovery is unable to prevent the ship's destruction by a Klingon ship with cloaking technology. Desperate for a way to detect these ships even when they are cloaked, Burnham, Tyler, and Saru are sent to Pahvo, a seemingly uninhabited planet with a naturally occurring crystalline transmitter that broadcasts the planet's vibrational frequency into space. They hope to use the transmitter to create a sonar for the hidden Klingon ships. They discover that Pahvo is inhabited with indigenous life that introduce Saru to their higher understanding of peace, and he attempts to force Burnham and Tyler to remain with him on the planet forever. Burnham is able to fight off Saru and broadcast the new signal. However, the Pahvo lifeforms adjust the signal to contact the Klingons as well, hoping to end the war. Kol receives the signal, after sentencing L'Rell to death: she had tried to help Cornwell escape in exchange for protection from Kol, leading to L'Rell apparently killing Cornwell to try save face with Kol.
9	9	"Into the Forest I Go"	Chris Byrne	Bo Yeon Kim & Erika Lippoldt	November 12, 2017
Lorca is ordered to flee before the Klingons arrive, but disobeys to protect the lifeforms on Pahvo and improve their chances of detecting the cloaked ships. When the Klingons arrive, Tyler and Burnham transport to their ship and plant sensors that will help create an algorithm for detecting the cloaked ships. They find an alive Cornwell hidden with L'Rell, but encountering the latter sends Tyler into shock due to the torture and rape she subjected him to. Lorca has Stamets make 133 micro-jumps in order to provide a three-dimensional reading of the sensors, while Burnham distracts Kol by challenging him to a fight. The jumps are completed, though not without trauma to Stamets. When the algorithm is calculated, Burnham, Tyler, Cornwell, and L'Rell (who wishes to defect) are transported back to the Discovery and the Klingon ship is destroyed. Stamets volunteers to make one more jump to safety, but tells Lorca it will be his last. However, Lorca changes the coordinates and they jump to an unknown destination surrounded by debris from Klingon ships.
Chapter 2
10	10	"Despite Yourself"	Jonathan Frakes	Sean Cochran	January 7, 2018
Discovery's crew determines that they have arrived in a parallel Mirror Universe, with Stamets now unconscious and unable to power the spore drive. Tyler confronts L'Rell, and she attempts to use a verbal cue to trigger something within him, though he fights this off. From a data core from a wrecked Klingon ship, they learn that this universe is ruled by the human Terran Empire, who are fighting a resistance that includes species such as Klingons and Vulcans. Here, Burnham is the former captain of the ISS Shenzhou, presumed dead after an attack by the fugitive Lorca. The ISS Discovery is captained by Sylvia Tilly's counterpart, so she and the crew pretend to be their Mirror selves. They deliver Burnham and Lorca to the Shenzhou, under the ruse that Burnham had been hunting Lorca since her presumed death and had now captured him. Tyler accompanies them, after first killing Culber when he informs Tyler that he appears to have undergone major surgical modifications. On the Shenzhou, Lorca is tortured while Burnham assumes command.
11	11	"The Wolf Inside"	T. J. Scott	Lisa Randolph	January 14, 2018
The ISS Shenzhou is given the coordinates of the resistance leadership, and ordered to kill them all. Burnham and Tyler travel as a landing party themselves and instead surrender to the resistance in hopes of learning how the Klingons of this universe have learned to work with other species; they find that the Mirror Voq is the leader. Burnham offers to give the group time to escape before their base is destroyed, and Mirror Sarek confirms she can be trusted after connecting to her mind. Listening to Voq triggers Tyler's programming, and he has to be restrained. Back on the ship, he reveals to Burnham that he now knows he was once Voq, and that he underwent surgery to appear human and infiltrate Starfleet. She has him beamed into space, where he is picked up by the USS Discovery. Saru and Tilly imprison him, having earlier found the body of Culber, and apparently failed to heal Stamets using spores. Burnham is reprimanded for not killing the resistance leaders immediately by the Emperor—the Mirror Georgiou.
12	12	"Vaulting Ambition"	Hanelle M. Culpepper	Jordon Nardino	January 21, 2018
Burnham and Lorca are summoned to the ISS Charon, the imperial flagship. Georgiou sends Lorca to a torturous agony booth, and has dinner with Burnham. Stamets finds himself within the mycelial network with the consciousness of his Mirror counterpart, learning that the network has been corrupted by the Mirror Stamets' experiments. Stamets encounters a representation of Culber and accepts his loss, before waking up to find his spore collection infected. Georgiou laments allowing Lorca to become a father figure for Burnham, only for the pair to fall in love and plot to overthrow her. She plans to execute Burnham, who reveals the truth about being from another universe. Explaining how they had crossed over, Georgiou trades the spore drive's schematics for information on alternative ways to cross between universes, which leads Burnham to realize that the Lorca she knows is actually from the Mirror Universe, and has been manipulating events to get close to her and back to the Mirror Universe. Lorca escapes from the agony booth.
13	13	"What's Past Is Prologue"	Olatunde Osunsanmi	Ted Sullivan	January 28, 2018
Lorca frees his old crew, who have been tortured since his disappearance, and with the help of Mirror Stamets they are able to kill those loyal to Georgiou and usurp her throne. She goes into hiding, while Burnham also evades capture and contacts the Discovery. They agree to a plan in which Burnham lowers the containment field around a large energy source originating from the mycelial network. The Discovery will then arrive to destroy the energy source, causing an explosion which they can ride into the mycelial network through which Stamets could navigate them home. Georgiou agrees to help Burnham, and they attack Lorca's group. Rejected and defeated by Burnham, Lorca is killed by Georgiou, who offers to sacrifice herself to allow Burnham's escape. The latter instead takes Georgiou with her as they are beamed to the Discovery, and the Charon is destroyed. Back in their own universe, the Discovery crew learns that they have arrived nine months after they left, and in the meantime, the Klingons have nearly won the war.
14	14	"The War Without, The War Within"	David Solomon	Lisa Randolph	February 4, 2018
The Discovery is boarded by Cornwell and Sarek, who explain that the Klingon houses remain divided, and fight between themselves to see which can destroy more Federation assets. The only safe refuge for Starfleet beyond Earth is now Starbase 1, and they warp there with Cornwell assuming command. After emergency surgery performed by L'Rell, Tyler now has his personality back, but can still access Voq's memories; Burnham is unable to forgive his actions as Voq. The crew finds Starbase 1 conquered by a Klingon house, and the remainder of Starfleet's command withdraws to protect Earth. Georgiou tells Burnham that she defeated the Klingons in the Mirror Universe with a surprise attack on their homeworld of Qo'noS, and Cornwell agrees to replicate that now. To jump into Klingon territory, Stamets terraforms a desolate moon to grow a new crop of spores so they can use the spore drive. Georgiou tells Sarek and Cornwell of other essential information she has, and they have her pose as Captain Georgiou to lead the mission.
15	15	"Will You Take My Hand?"	Akiva Goldsman	Story by : Akiva Goldsman & Gretchen J. Berg & Aaron Harberts Teleplay by : Gretchen J. Berg & Aaron Harberts	February 11, 2018
yler suggests that a drone enter Qo'noS's underground, dormant volcanic system to covertly search the planet for targets. Discovery jumps to a cave near the system's entrance, and a party of Georgiou, Burnham, Tilly, and Tyler pose as traders. Tilly discovers that the volcanic system is active, and that the "drone" Georgiou has is a hydro-bomb. Burnham confronts Cornwell, who admits that detonating the bomb in the active volcano will annihilate all life on Qo'noS, winning the war. Burnham insists that Starfleet not commit genocide, and convinces Georgiou to give up the detonator in exchange for her freedom. They give the detonator to L'Rell, who uses the threat of mass destruction to unite the Klingon houses under her leadership and end the war. The Discovery crew are hailed as heroes, and Burnham is issued a full pardon and restored to the rank of commander. Tyler chooses to remain with L'Rell. As Discovery warps to Vulcan to pick up its new captain, it receives a distress call from Captain Pike of the USS Enterprise.

In March 2018, a "secret scene" was released depicting an alternative ending to the season finale. It features Mirror Georgiou being approached by an operative of Section 31, a storyline that is further explored in the second season of the series.

[edit] Cast and characters

Main article: List of Star Trek: Discovery characters

[edit] Production

[edit] Development

[edit] Writing

[edit] Casting

[edit] Design

[edit] Klingons

[edit] Filming

[edit] Visual effects

[edit] Music

[edit] Marketing

[edit] Release

[edit] Broadcast and streaming

[edit] Broadcast breach

[edit] Home media

[edit] Reception

[edit] Ratings and viewership

[edit] Critical response

[edit] Accolades

Netflix listed Star Trek: Discovery fourth in its list of series most watched together by families in 2017. Martin-Green was named TVLine's Performer of the Week for her performance in "The Wolf Inside", in which Burnham is "put through the emotional wringer with a barrage of jaw-dropping twists, giving Martin-Green an opportunity to deliver her finest performance of the season." In January 2019, Comic Book Resources rated Discovery's first season as the ninth best season of all Star Trek series up to that time, comparing its high production values to a feature film and calling Michael Burnham "the most interesting character Trek has provided us in generations".

Year	Award	Category	Recipient	Result	Ref.

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

Template:Star Trek: Discovery