Star Trek: Section 31 a non spoiler review

[Barry]

Good morning Mr. Phelps:

The woman in the photo on the bottom is Michelle Yeoh, the only woman to appear in my three favourite franchises: Star Trek, James Bond and Marvel. She is now starring in a new Star Trek movie, “Section 31.” Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to watch it and write a non spoiler review. As always, should you, or any of you AV posters be caught asleep, the Nielsen ratings service will disavow any knowledge of your watching. Please dispose of this message in the usual manner.

This is allegedly the first Star Trek movie made for TV.  But it is not.

Just like Mission Impossible, after an introduction to keep you watching, it opens with a recording and explains a mission to Yeoh. It turns out that Section 31 is the Impossible Missions force of the future. You then spend a half an hour meeting her crew, which is made up of all sorts of aliens. The aliens are from species introduced in other Star Trek series.

At this point, I realised this was NOT a movie, but a pilot episode to a possible series.  I won’t tell you the mission, but the structure is that of a series, not a movie.

And it was boring. Really boring. And, again, it was not the Star Trek I know and like. (I liked the original series, The Next Generation, Voyager, Strange new Worlds and movies 2,3,4,6,8, and maybe 9. Not a fan of Deep Space Nine, Enterprise or Discovery.)

The video and audio is impressive, especially if you used to the old episodes. The movie is streaming on Paramount plus.


I am always interested in the opinions here.

[David Vaughn]

I've heard that it's pretty bad....as in really bad!

I'm surprised you didn't like DS9...how many episodes did you give it? It may be my favorite series from a storytelling point of view, but I prefer the characters from TOS and TNG (if that makes any sense). I've also enjoyed Strange New Worlds. My daughter absolutely LOVES Lower Decks, but it must be geared to a younger crowd since I've given it 3 episodes and has yet to hook me. 

[DLCPhoto]

I was looking forward to this, based on her character in the prior series, but Ouch!! 20% audience, 20% critics on Rotten Tomatoes! Not very encouraging.

I'll watch it anyway, since it's streaming for free on Paramount+, and only 90 minutes, but dang!

[Barry]

I've heard that it's pretty bad....as in really bad!

I'm surprised you didn't like DS9...how many episodes did you give it? It may be my favorite series from a storytelling point of view, but I prefer the characters from TOS and TNG (if that makes any sense). I've also enjoyed Strange New Worlds. My daughter absolutely LOVES Lower Decks, but it must be geared to a younger crowd since I've given it 3 episodes and has yet to hook me.

I have seen every episode of DS9 twice! There are a few ones I like, usuallynwhen they went back in time. O’’ try lower decks and get back to,you.

[Barry]

Spoiler Alert! Spoiler Alert!Spoiler Alert!

I wanted to give sr better response to David, but I didn’t want to give anything away. To me, the best Star Treks always had an optimistic view of the future, with good people doing their best. So,I rooted for them. Here Yeoh, has the Evil witch of the west, from the Moro, mirror universe, replace the good witch of the north.  In the opening minutes Yeoh murders her family, husband and children!!  And then they want us to to root for her. And then we are introduced to sleezy people to help her.

There was no,one here I wanted to root for. This was just not Star Trek.