Enlarge / "The Federation isn't just about ships. The Federation is its people." (credit: CBS | YouTube )

The most frequent complaint levied against Star Trek: Discovery during its first two seasons was: "This doesn't feel like the Star Trek I remember." The critics did indeed have a point—from the outset, Discovery tried to lean into the modern streaming prestige-drama mold, while also retaining its Starfleet soul. Those two goals don't necessarily align, and as a result Discovery sometimes seemed like a show that simply couldn't make up its mind.

In its third season, however, Discovery has finally picked a side. The show is now all-in on venerating the optimistic, wide-eyed Federation fans want to remember from the '80s and '90s, and it's bringing back the old planet-of-the-week format to do so. Now, the show's inner conflict has taken a whole new direction: for a story all about leaping a millennium into the future to explore the strangest possible new world, Discovery for the most part plays it startlingly safe.

(Spoilers below for the first two seasons of Discovery .)

Enlarge / Kate Mulgrew speaking on a panel during the 17th annual official Star Trek convention on August 4, 2018, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (credit: Gabe Ginsberg | Getty Images )

Actress Kate Mulgrew, who played Captain Kathryn Janeway in Star Trek: Voyager , is returning to the franchise to reprise her role in the upcoming Star Trek: Prodigy animated series, ViacomCBS announced today.

Mulgrew popped in to make made the surprise announcement during the end of a Star Trek panel at this year's all-virtual New York Comic Con. "I have invested every scintilla of my being in Captain Janeway, and I can’t wait to endow her with nuance that I never did before," Mulgrew said. "How thrilling to be able to introduce to these young minds an idea that has elevated the world for decades. To be at the helm again is going to be deeply gratifying in a new way for me."

Executive Producer Alex Kurtzman leveled a sideways blow at the sexism that dogged the first female Star Trek captain when she was cast in the 1990s, saying, "Captain Janeway was held to a different standard than her predecessors. She was asked to embody an inhuman level of perfection in order to be accepted as 'good enough' by the doubters but showed them all what it means to be truly outstanding. We can think of no better captain to inspire the next generation of dreamers on Nickelodeon, than she."

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  Just a retired admiral and his trusty Number One. [credit: YouTube/CBS All Access ]

Nobody can deliver lines with Shakespearean gravitas and comforting emotional resonance like Patrick Stewart, which is why the actor—and his famous Star Trek character, Jean-Luc Picard—remain so beloved in the franchise. He gives yet another sublime performance in the new CBS All Access series, Star Trek: Picard , anchoring the larger-than-life stakes of the broader narrative with his intensely personal portrayal of a grief-stricken, disillusioned retired Starfleet admiral who feels the world he once dominated has passed him by.

(Some spoilers below, but no major reveals.)

As Ars' Kate Cox noted in her review of the pilot episode, the events of 2002's Star Trek: Nemesis "are the plot and emotional scaffolding over which the initial episode of Picard is draped"—most notably, Data sacrificing his life to save the rest of the Enterprise crew. Honestly, that loss drives the entire season, along with 2009's Star Trek film reboot of the franchise.