‘Section 31’ Is the ‘Single Worst’ Star Trek Ever, Say Reviews

Star Trek has endured for 60 years, on television and in movies, through high highs and low lows. If the critics are to be believed, the latest addition to the Trek canon — a streaming film called Star Trek: Section 31 starring Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh — may represent the absolute nadir of those decades of stories.

To be fair, the first reviews of the film, which debuts this week on Paramount+ after a lengthy development process, are not entirely uniform. There are a couple of mildly positive articles out there. The Verge, for example, said it’s “pretty damn fun.” /Film called Section 31 “B-movie trash (in a good way).” That is a compliment, I suppose, if a backhanded one.

But the vast majority of critics call it anywhere from “mediocre” to saying it is flat-out, no qualifications “the single worst thing” in the history of Star Trek. Yeoh plays Philippa Georgiou, a character she originated on Star Trek: Discovery. In the film, Georgiou — a former genocidal emperor from the Mirror Universe — joins the members of Starfleet’s secretive “Section 31,” a covert intelligence group, on an all-important mission.

The film was actually conceived as a TV series way back in early 2019. Paramount worked on various concepts for the show for years until, in 2023, they announced Section 31 would instead be a one-off streaming film on Paramount+.

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Here is a sampling of the Star Trek: Section 31 reviews so far:

Daniel Cooper, Engadget:

It is the single worst thing to carry the Star Trek name in living memory.

Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York Times:

A dog’s dinner of head-snapping reversals and explanatory dialogue — a movie with little on its mind but mayhem.

Jordan Hoffman, IGN:

My reaction is simple: ‘This isn’t Star Trek.’

Alex Perry, TrekCore.com:

Star Trek: Section 31 is the Kurtzman-era’s most spectacular miss … On nearly every level, Section 31 is a failure.

James Whitbrook, io9:

A mediocre action movie, and an even worse Star Trek one.

 

Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter:

Not even Michelle Yeoh can save Paramount+’s subpar spinoff movie.

James Dyer, Empire:

Re-tooled as a movie from episode scripts, it ends up feeling neither one nor the other: a bland comedy spacecapade stuck between two (strange new) worlds.

Clint Worthington, RogerEbert.com:

At best, it’s an olive branch to its contractually obligated megastar; at worst, it’s a Rebel Moon-level fiasco that doesn’t get why people watch Trek in the first place.

Samantha Coley, Collider:

A mediocre episodes of a television show that doesn’t exist.

David Opie, Total Film:

Is Section 31 deliberately camp in a knowing sense or is that an unintentional by-product of how some of the more serious moments fall flat? That’s not entirely clear.

It is not as if the people in charge of Star Trek have no idea what they’re doing. I haven’t kept up with all of the recent Star Trek shows, but I really like Strange New Worlds a lot. That’s as good a Star Trek show as there has been in decades. And Michelle Yeoh in her own Star Trek movie sounds pretty great. The film described in the reviews above … not so much.

If you want to see it and decide for yourself, Star Trek: Section 31 is set to debut on Paramount+ on January 24.