5 Changes Star Trek: Discovery should make in its second season

 A greater focus on character building

Although Star Trek: Discovery has a lot of interesting characters, most of them don’t have a great deal of depth. As noted above, this is due to the fact that the show spent so much of its first season on the Klingon War/Mirror Universe arc. By telling that story, the show only really developed the characters of Michael Burnham, Ash Tyler, and Gabriel Lorca.

On the one hand, that makes sense since those three characters were at the heart of season’s main conflict. But it also meant that the rest of the Discovery’s crew got the short shrift in terms of development. This was especially problematic as the show’s season-long arc wasn’t exactly tightly plotted. If the show’s supporting cast were more fleshed out, the slow burn narrative wouldn’t have felt as languorous as it did.

The series’ lack of character development was particularly frustrating because Star Trek: Discovery has some really interesting supporting players. What we did learn about Saru, Sylvia Tilly, Paul Stamets, and Hugh Culber made them seem characters worth exploring in depth. If the series is to continue and thrive past its second season, it will need to make the show’s crew as multilayered as those featured on the best Star Trek series.