Star Trek: Section 31 Review: Badly Goes Where Everyone Has Gone Before
Star Trek: Section 31 applies a veneer of Trek references to an ugly, forgettable TV movie.
Section 31 reveals that Georgiou has been living on the edges of Federation space, operating a disreputable bar under a pseudonym. Sheâs pulled back into service when a Section 31 team under the command of augment Alok (Omari Hardwick) needs her help to find an incredibly destructive weapon. Rounding out the team is Vulcan (sort of, but I wonât give that away here) Fuzz (Sven Ruygrok), the shapeshifting Quasi (Sam Richardson), the Deltan Melle (Humberly Gonzalez), a mech-suited warrior called Zeph (Robert Kazinsky), and human and Starfleet true believer Rachel Garrett (Kacey Rohl).
As that cast list shows, Section 31 is fond of making references to Trek lore. Garrett, of course, will become the Captain of the Enterprise-C and a major character in the beloved Next Generation episode âYesterdayâs Enterprise.â Quasi is a Chameloid, a member of the alien race played by Iman in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Alokâs augments tie him to the Eugenics War and Trek big bad Khan Noonien Singh.
But these references only serve as surface level easter eggs, which makes Section 31 more like a game of Fortnite with Star Trek skins than a feature-length continuation of the beloved franchise. In fact, Section 31 seems to pull most of its visual inspiration from video games, with shiny graphics and ostentatious camera movements. After the Mirror Universe prologue, weâre treated to a mission summary delivered directly to the audience, as if weâre players getting ready for the next level.
To those without much investment in Star Trek, the video game analogy may not sound so bad. After all, weâve had some really great video game adaptations lately, with Fallout and The Last of Us. But Section 31 feels more like last yearâs doomed Borderlands movie, done so much worse.
Yes, you read that right. All of the ugly visuals and self-satisfied humor that marred Borderlands appears in Section 31, except gaudier and louder. The characters speak in lingo thatâs gone out of date in 2025, let alone the far future (âChaos is my friend with benefits,â says Garrett as a way of expressing her growing acceptance of disorder). Section 31 presents its team as a band of outcasts who constantly squabble, a trope done best most recently by James Gunn in Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad.
But instead of making the characters interesting or likable in any way, screenwriter Craig Sweeny writes everyone as a jerks who insult one another to prove their toughness. That doesnât prevent director Olatunde Osunsanmi (a Discovery veteran, like Sweeny) from treating each toothless one-liner as a Don Rickles-level burn, and cutting to a close-up of the roaster cackling at their own joke each and every time.