‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Takes A Proactive Approach To Trauma
by Frank Martin
Emotional and mental trauma has always been fertile ground for storytelling. Audiences love to see characters struggle within themselves to overcome intangible obstacles in their way. But these issues are usually always retroactively dealt with. This means that characters don’t overcome their trauma — or at least acknowledge its presence — until after it has become an issue. Rarely do stories take a proactive approach in not only addressing it, but embracing that it’s there and can be a problem. Star Trek: Discovery handles this issue well.
By the time the third season of the show rolled around, the crew of the Discovery had been through a tremendous ordeal. Because of their unique nature, the ship and its company are often on their own in terms of resources and exploration. The crew, (often) led by Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), not only traveled to an alternate reality together, but they also traveled nearly a thousand years into the future, where their entire worldview was torn apart and everyone they had ever known or loved long since died. It was a unique situation that only the crew of the Discovery could relate to each other.
At the start of the third season, the Discovery crew was understandably shaken. But the officers on the ship took a proactive approach to deal with their emotional trauma. Usually, stories focus on individual trauma, single characters trying to overcome a personal obstacle. This show handles trauma much differently. It displays a group trauma that they all shared together. They also go out of their way to convince one another that they did experience trauma, even if they deny their own distressed mental state. This kind of approach is much different than how traumas are usually handled on television. More stories should have such a positive outlook on confronting traumatic events and the overall care of mental health.
Star Trek Discovery is now streaming on Paramount+.