After months spent reconnecting the Federation with distant worlds, Captain Michael Burnham and the crew of the USS Discovery are sent to assist a damaged space station.

As season openers go, this is Discovery’s most assured and confident, but that certainly doesn’t make it the strongest. Unfortunately, a certain smugness and self-satisfaction has crept in to the crew. Burnham is now captain of a ship of annoying buddies, though to some degree this serves as a case of ‘pride comes before a fall’. I liked the edginess of Detmer’s psychological issues last year, and the sass from Georgiou – but what we now have is something very clinical. Hurray for the Federation President Laira Rillak (Chelah Horsdal, The Man in the High Castle) who calls out Burnham on her reckless actions and makes it very clear that she’s not ready for the next stage in her career.

There’s a cold open with Michael and Book being the first visitors to a planet after the Burn, bringing with them some dilithium as a gift. However, the locals suspect that Grudge the carnivorous cat is being held against her will, and they attack the envoy. But the main thrust of the episode is an attack on Deep Space Repair Beta 6 by an unknown anomaly, requiring Discovery to come to the rescue.

By the end of the hour, multiple crew members have discovered that things don’t always go to plan (the Kobayashi Maru no-win Starfleet training exercise referenced in the episode title), and they experience some hubris. The visual effects are pretty good, though an animated Michael in her spacesuit is less than convincing. Oh, and we get a couple of scenes of Saru on the Kelpian homeworld, though I’m sure he’ll soon be back on the bridge.

Verdict: Vanilla Star Trek that feels no different to a mid-season episode of Enterprise – it’s just not enough to have the crash bang boom if you’re not rooting for the characters. 6/10

Nick Joy