Star Trek: Section 31, the first ever Star Trek telefilm dropped quietly on Paramount+ yesterday and after watching it twice, I'm still trying to figure out what to make of it.
Set in the time period between Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and Star Trek: The Next Generation, Section 31 is centered upon Philippa Georgiou, the former empress of the mirror universe, last seen in Discovery, departing through the Guardian of Forever for points unknown to throw in her lot with Starfleet's Shadowy Section 31, a group charged with maintaining the integrity of the timeline.
My initial take on this movie is it's the least Trek-like of any Star Trek I've ever seen. It does not focus on Starfleet, is not set on a starship, and does not revolve around any familiar characters, beyond Georgiou, who is interesting mainly because of her moral ambivalence. Is she a 'good guy' or a 'bad guy'? Sometimes, she's both. The only other familiar character is a younger Rachael Garrett, who viewers first met as captain of the USS Enterprise, NCC 1701-C in the Next Generation episode "Yesterday's Enterprise".
Beyond that, the storytelling is a bit disjointed, and lacking those feel good moments, however fleeting, that make one feel like they're coming home to someplace familiar. At best, Section 31 resides on the very periphery of the familiar, and a huge part of what doesn't work for me here is that I never came to feel strongly about any of the characters. I never became invested.
It actually took two viewings for me to grasp what was supposed to be a major touch point in the movie, that it was a redemption story for Georgiou's character. To say more on this would be a spoiler, so I shall refrain. What was far more obvious, especially at the film's conclusion, is that it was setting the stage for future Section 31 projects, and that is perhaps also a way in which it falls flat. Like the pilot episode for a series, it spent too much time introducing characters and situations, and not enough time on substantive plot.
Originally conceived as a spinoff series from Star Trek: Discovery, it was finally re-imagined as a made-for-TV movie, possibly the first of several, dependent of course, on the success of this first one. Frankly, I'm on the fence about whether I want to see any more Section 31 movies.
For me, the original Star Trek offerings from Paramount+ have been quite a mixed bag. Picard and Strange New Worlds are both excellent, representing the best of what Star Trek has to offer, as was the animated series Prodigy, which got handed off to Netflix for its second season. While the story arc included a setup for a third season, there has been no word whether that will happen, and the longer it drags out, the less likely it is to happen. Discovery was uneven at best, although when it was good, it was very good. It just had more than its share of forgettable moments. And the series I wish I could forget completely is Lower Decks, which is just too low-brow for my tastes, to the point that I have to watch it in very small doses. I am relieved that it is in its final season. It will not be missed, at least by me.
Having watched Section 31 twice--I don't know that I can do a third viewing right now--it feels like it falls on the spectrum somewhere between Discovery and Lower Decks. The only thing I'm actually less excited about is the fourth J.J. Abrams feature film. The first one from 2009 was enjoyable, but the two sequels were both pretty awful. I'll gladly take quality over quantity, thank you very much.
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