Review: Star Trek: Discovery - first six episodes

I'm a bit of a late comer to Star Trek: Discovery for several reasons:

• Outside of the first of the recent films, none of them have quite gelled with me. 
• Its well documented production troubles were not exactly encouraging
• Most Trek series have taken at least one, and sometimes several seasons to find their feet - and I just don't have that kind of tolerance for poor TV anymore. 
• I felt Trek's time was probably past with its utopian exploration of strange new world's message and there's wasn't much left to say. 
• I was a big fan of the Next Generation, but have only watched a scattering of episodes from the other series. 

But buoyed by encouraging reviews on a forum I occasionally frequent I decided to give it a go.  Star Trek: Discovery turns out to be one of the more interesting TV Trek outings. 

The first couple of episodes are set up and they bring movie like production values to an edgy encounter with some new look Klingons at the frontier of Federation space. So far, so Star Trek.

But hold up, the second in command stages a mutiny and things go rapidly pear-shaped from there. It does not end well for a certain guest star and the ship which doesn't share its name with the title of the show.  They might as well as given them a red shirt. 

The mutineer eventually finds herself on a Black ops science vessel - the Discovery - now charged with giving the Federation an edge in a war they are losing with Klingons. And it's a game changer in more ways than one. It brings brand new technology and a moral ambiguity - particularly in the form of its traumatised yet determined to win at all costs captain.  

As each episode unfolds, the complexity of the situation and wider political dynamics is gradually revealed.  Add in rather more gruesome violence than we're used to - and while this is still Star Trek, it's not Trek as we know it.  It's Trek filtered through the lens of Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and Battlestar Galactica. 

But perhaps it's the Trek we deserve for a post-truth, post-911, post Iraq war world. 

Verdict: Early signs good, Captain.