Up to episode 5 of Discovery and I'm really torn. In some ways, this does not feel like Star Trek. Which in itself is okay, because nothing stays the same forever and they had to move on from Roddenberry at some point, I'm just not sure if this was the best way to do it. It feels like a "dark Star Trek for dark times" which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing - The Nolan Batman movies and new Battlestar Galactica dealt with things like terrorism, surveillance and people (not) stooping to the levels of extremists when fighting extremists. Those were all very topical in the post 9/11, "War on Terror" world, and as mentioned above ST always deals with real world issues too but... from the Klingons' portrayal and a few lines that have been dropped I feel like I know what the impetus was for writing this show the way they did, and it just seems to me like a massive overreaction which has not really connected with the Zeitgeist. I feel in times when maybe people aren't getting along and dialogue has stalled, it's the kind of hopefulness of a better future that will connect and speak to people rather than a darker mirror of our own present.
But then there is some of that ST feel making it through. The Klingons have actually improved over the course of the last three episodes and become more complex than their obvious nationalist allegory in the first two, which I happily nodded my head to, since if Discovery wasn't even going to acknowledge the two sides of the story then that would be a pretty major betrayal of the franchise's guiding philosophy and have soured me on it pretty quick. The whole plot with the Tardigrade was classic Trek, but then it's a little jarring to see the crew members have such empathy for a space creature while apparently having little-to-none for the Klingons or sometimes even their fellow humans or crewmembers.
And the characters are good and the actors are doing a great job, the whole atmosphere's just feeling a bit... nasty - And it will probably surprise people who know my tastes that that's something which would bother me, and ordinarily it wouldn't. But is it what I want from Star Trek, one of the few generally hopeful and positive shows I watch? Time will tell, I guess.