Yeah, I recently rewatched that episode and was really annoyed by it. The story only works because every crewmember behaves like a completely naive idiot.

So it kind of depends on how strictly you define “important.”

You’re right. Your list makes it quite clear that when the bar for importance is too low, 90% of all episodes end up being important. From season 1 I’d include 5 episodes in the list of important episodes: Encounter at Farpoint (setting up Q and everything), Where No One Has Gone Before (introduces the Traveller), Datalore (introduces Lore), Skin of Evil (kills of Tasha), The Neutral Zone (Romulans and Borg implied). Those episodes are a good example of what I was going for: none of them is above average but they’re still important. “Where No One Has Gone Before” maybe comes the closest to being good.

Sidenote: I recently rewatched TNG season 1 and found it oddly charming. There are a lot of bad episodes but almost every episode had something going for it. You could see what they were aiming for but often couldn’t stick the landing. And the music was really great, unlike in the rest of the Berman era.

I’ve also frequented Jammer’s Reviews for years because most of the time I agree with him. I also used it for the watchlist for my GF but building that list purely on good episodes gave me the idea to ask what the important episodes actually were.

I didn’t know about Kethinov. Thanks for that.

I see your point. What I tried to assess is: which episodes enhance the viewing experience by rewarding the viewer for sticking around. For example, watching “Datalore” before “Brothers” is definitely not required. But it gives you some good backstory on Lore. Similarly, watching the various Maquis episodes on TNG and DS9 is not necessary to understand the Maquis characters on VOY but it’s a nice slow buildup that contextualizes a few things. Or TNG’s “The Price” and VOY’s “False Profits” – neither of them are really good episodes but it’s a “oh hey, they picked up that storyline from years ago” moment that I feel is very rewarding.

And of course my all-time favorite joke when Worf hears that Keiko is having another baby and he reacts with “Now!?!?”. It only really works when you’ve seen “Disaster” before.

Well, at least they recognize Worf as one of the greats. {{:-)

But I find that “Duty! Honor! Service!” shouting really repulsive. I find it rather undignified. I can’t for one second imagine Picard, Riker or any of the other classic characters doing that in their academy years.

Wow, that looks great! I’m a bit envious. I need to learn how to do that to PRINT ALL THE SHIPS. 😄

Thanks for sharing.

You can’t just talk about your 3D-printed Akira Class and not show it. 🙃

Did they swap La’an’s and Erica’s characters? Now Erica has Gorn PTSD and La’an is the easygoing one? At least the latter seemed like a very abrupt character development.

And can the SNW costume designers finally get an Emmy Award please? Or all the awards for that matter? The costumes in this series have been amazing since day 1, and the second episode (particularly the wedding scene) is no exception.

Also, that cameo at the end was chef’s kiss.

I hope it’s not just a misdirection.

Some random thoughts:

• I like that this current era of Star Trek tries out new styles instead of simply copying the “7-ish crew members stand around on the bridge of a Starfleet ship and go on weekly adventures” formula. Some of those new styles work, others don’t. Section 31 unfortunately didn’t work. But this TV Movie format could be a neat way to try out new things.
• As a lifelong Star Trek fan I liked the species they’ve brought back (Deltans! Cherons!) and giving the tricorders the TNG sound effect was neat too. Also, I’ll have a closer look on the Federation map. I always love those canon tidbits.
• Speaking of canon tidbits, at the end of the movie they go on a mission on Turkana IV. That’s Tasha Yar’s home planet on which the government breaks down sometime in the 2330s. And judging by Rachel Garret being a Lieutenant Commander she’s probably still a decade or so away from commanding the Enterprise-C, so the Section 31 movie is set in 2330s. That means that Section 31 could have a hand in Turkana IV’s government collapse (either causing it or trying to prevent it).
• The characters in this movie behave just as nonsensical as the DISCO characters. They condemn Georgiou for being Literally Space Hitler but in the end they all hug and become best friends. WTF?
• Other than that, this is a generic sci-fi action movie. If it weren’t for the couple of species and namedrops, this wouldn’t have any connection to Star Trek.
• If I had a bar of gold-pressed latinum everytime they produce Star Trek movie featuring Section 31, and that movie then became the worst Star Trek movie at the time, then I had two bars of gold-pressed latinum. Which isn’t a lot but it’s still weird that they made that mistake twice.

My favorite little easter egg is that the LOWER DECKS font in the title card now has those blue streaks in the background. Because it’s the 5th season. Just like TNG added those blue streaks in its 5th season.

By the way, that’s why Ransom calls Una “the hottest First Officer in Starfleet history”.

One thing that the current era of Trek does right is giving each series a unique vibe. Remember when everyone complained that Voyager was just TNG 2.0? Definitely doesn’t happen nowadays.

Of course that means that not every series appeals to every Trekkie. And that’s okay. Just pick the ones you like.

I’m all for trying new things within the Star Trek universe!

I’m usually in the same boat. Because IDIC, you know? I like it when new shows expand the Trek universe and try something new. Just look at DS9. It got a lot of backlash in the 90s (“too dark”, “not Gene’s vision” etc.) and nowadays it’s very popular and often ranked somewhere around TNG.

But this Section 31 movie… I don’t know. Nothing about seems appealing. The main role is basically Space Hitler. It was already nonsense how they tried to redeem that character on Discovery while she had no redeeming qualities. Compare that to other Trek “villains” like Gul Dukat who at least had some sort of moral compass, even if it was a bit skewed. But Georgiou? There’s nothing. She’s just one-dimensionally evil. Do we really need a movie with her in the main role? 😕

And your cellphone even costs less. (unless you’ve bought a flagship phone)

This was … a DISCO episode.

Lengthy but meaningless action sequences? Check. Shaky cams all the damn time? Check. People talking about their feelings at the worst possible moment? Check. No apparent command structure and people just doing whatever they want? Check. One-dimensional villains? Check. Flamethrowers on the bridge? Check. (although, to be honest, those are so absurd that I’ll actually miss them)

I liked the future scenes because they were noticably slower and cerebral than pretty much anything that Discovery did during its five seasons. I wish they would have done something like that more often.

But yeah, that’s it. I’m somewhat glad it’s over. I liked the first two seasons of the show. Despite their flaws I appreciated that they’ve tried something new in the Star Trek franchise. And ultimately that led to Strange New Worlds, so I’ll have to give them credit for that. Anything after the season 3 time jump was not my cup of tea though. There was never enough worldbuilding for my taste because so much screentime was devoted to Burnham and Book, and that meant that the 31st century never really felt “real” to me.

Maybe I’ll rewatch seasons 1 and 2 somewhere down the line but I have no interest in watching seasons 3-5 again. I’ll just treat them as Burnham’s fever dream or something like that.

Will this be an international release or USA only?

They’re both cartoon villains. It works for a comedy movie, not so much for a serious TV show.

For a split second, when they looked at the paper with the list of scientists, I had hope that the Discovery would fly to Denobula. That would have been so much more interesting than what we’ve gotten. Although I give them credit for doing a more traditional Star Trek episode with a bunch of technobabble, prime directive shenanigans and the obligatory human-like pre-warp civilization.

Remember that teams will only be allowed to work on their 2026 car from the start of 2025

Genuine question: how is this even policed? You can’t stop people from thinking about solutions already.