Star Trek: Discovery - 8 Reasons Why It's The Best Series Since TNG

6. ...While Taking Cues From The Reboot

Star Trek Discovery Sarek
CBS

Much to the chagrin of Trek fans everywhere, it's true that J. J. Abrams reboot 2009 reboot (situated in the Kelvin Timeline) got a lot of things right about Roddenberry's original concept. Sure, it might've been a tad action-heavy, but it was just as Trek as any of the previous films that had come before it (and a certifiable improvement over Nemesis too).

While it's true that Discovery is very much a show made in the original Trek mould, it has taken some cues from the Abrams reboot, particularly in its presentation. Everything looks more cinematic this time around, and more urgent too, diverging away from the calmer and indeed slower-paced Trek that has come to typify the franchise's TV presence.

It works, and in many respects it feels as though Discovery has found the perfect balance between Abrams' spectacle-heavy blockbusters and the more thoughtful, pronounced Trek of yesteryear. Not only does this benefit the series critically, but commercially as well in that it also has the potential to bring in new audiences.

Those first two episodes pulled in an average 10.6 million viewers, and although CBS have bizarrely opted to air the show on its streaming service, the show has found a home internationally on Netflix. Following in the footsteps of the reboot hasn't engendered this success in a key way, but it can't hurt the show's chances in fostering a wide appeal that other Trek shows have struggled to match.

Advertisement
Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.