Star Trek: Discovery isn't sure what kind of hero it wants as it returns for Season 4

Gizmodo

"Star Trek’s legacy is built on heroes doing the kinds of things that, really, they shouldn’t: captains beaming down on missions that could get them killed, reckless, brave officers who dare first and ask questions later," says James Whitbrook. "It’s always been an accepted part of the narrative; Star Trek’s leads, commanders, engineers, scientists, are heroes, and the heroes win. Discovery is no exception, but entering its new season, it seems to want to start grappling with what that really means. It can be no more explicit in the fact that season four’s premiere is named for the iconic Starfleet Academy test, 'Kobayashi Maru'—the nature of which sits at the heart of the moral dilemma Discovery’s latest season opens with. It’s primarily an episode of stage-setting for drama to come: we get to see how Starfleet and the Federation have dusted themselves off in the time since season three’s end, and how Captain Michael Burnham now leads the way for a renewed sense of hope and connection across the galaxy, delivering dilithium and promises of reconciliation (to sometimes not always peaceful effect). While Saru is back on Kaminar establishing relations with his people in an attempt to encourage them back into the galaxy at large, Michael is, unequivocally, a hero in ways she hasn’t been able to be without question in prior series."

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• Star Trek: Discovery Season 4 looks better than any Star Trek to date: "Discovery went from being a prequel to The Original Series  to a show suddenly set 900 years later, with the title ship traveling through time to the far-flung 32nd century in its third season," says Christian Blauvelt. "And it proved an opportunity to shake up the look of the whole franchise. If Star Wars always featured planets defined by one climate, Star Trek all too often featured planets defined by one very set-looking set. Suddenly, though, the show featured location photography in Iceland! A new time period as its setting meant the need for a new aesthetic. In Season 4, the visual palette gets yet another new addition: the Toronto-based production featured an AR wall for the first time, as Trek franchise guru Alex Kurtzman previously told IndieWire, and it’s responsible for that underwater city set. The location? Kaminar, aquatic home of the Kelpiens and Ba’ul, now united after centuries earlier having been locked in a prey-and-predator relationship. Saru (Doug Jones), the Spock-like character of the show who always found himself between worlds, has settled on his home planet once again. But, of course, his heart remains with Starfleet."
• Showrunner Michelle Paradise was excited to see Michael Burnham as captain. "We have been waiting for that for three seasons, and so to finally get to see Burnham as captain, it's wonderful and opens up a lot of new storytelling opportunities for us," says Paradise. "So that's something that we definitely explore in Season 4: now that she's captain, who is she as captain, what kind of captain is she? And being captain is a very different thing, and there's a bit of a learning curve to that. And obviously, she's the best person for that chair and of course, way overqualified to be there. But what is she going to learn while she's in that chair over the course of the season, that was something we were really excited to explore. And then, in terms of the fresh snow of the world itself, there were still some elements from Season 3 that are not quite tied up at the end. We know that the Federation is coming back together at the end of Season 3, but it's not a done deal yet. There's still work to be done. So we were excited to continue that into Season 4 and explore what that meant for our heroes to continue that work and continue making the Federation as strong as it can be. So there were just a lot of exciting new places to play."
• ViacomCBS' decision to pull Discovery from Netflix outside the U.S. and Canada will lead to piracy