TV Talk: ‘Star Trek’ does ‘Suicide Squad;’ ‘Watson’ worth watching?

“Star Trek: Section 31,” a new movie streaming Friday on Paramount+, is pretty much the “Star Trek” version of “Suicide Squad” as a group of rogues team up to save the galaxy.

Initially intended as a series, “Section 31” is set during the early seasons of “Star Trek: Discovery,” a time period before events of the original ‘60s “Star Trek” series.

Michelle Yeoh reprises her role as the Mirror Universe version of Philippa Georgiou who gets recruited to rejoin Starfleet’s secretive black ops unit, Section 31, to stop an annihilation device.

Because “Section 31” began life as a series, the movie feels both like a pilot episode and a truncated compilation of plots a first season would have covered. “Section 31” is full of action, but some of it is of the blurred-by-special-effects-chase-scene variety.

Yeoh appears effortlessly athletic in fight scenes as usual and the whole tone is significantly lighter and occasionally sillier than most “Trek,” including a dispute over the pronunciation of the name of the threatening device, whether it’s “God’s End” or “Godsend.”

“Trek” fans will appreciate the appearance of several aliens viewers haven’t seen in a while or often, including a Deltan Section 31 member (a la Persis Khambata’s character in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”) and a half-black, half-white Cheronian first seen in the original “Star Trek” episode “Let That be Your Last Battlefield.”

Members of the Section 31 team include a mechanical suit-clad grunt; an Irish-accented, laughing Vulcan who’s controlled by a tiny nano-creature (a cross between a shrimp and a parrot) that lives inside his head and a younger version of Starfleet office Rachel Garrett (Kacey Rohl, who also recurs as a baddie on “Watson”), a character introduced in the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise.”

Squirrel Hill native Craig Sweeny, who’s having a banner weekend with Sunday’s premiere of CBS’s Pittsburgh-set “Watson,” wrote the “Section 31” screenplay, based on a story by Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt (“Star Trek: Discovery”). Sweeny said he included Garrett because she’s his favorite kind of “Star Trek” character.

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“She appears out of nowhere in this impossibly evolving sci-fi dilemma (in her ‘ST: TNG’ episode) and she does the right thing and it costs her her life,” Sweeny said. “I’ve always just loved her. Tricia O’Neil, who did the performance (on ‘Next Generation’), was great. And I really wanted to do a younger version of her backstory. She’s that character who is in the middle of all these rogues of Section 31 and is — without being the schoolmarm — the imprimatur of Starfleet values.”

Sweeny first got involved in “Trek” when he worked on the latter half of the first season of “Discovery” after working with current “Trek” production company Secret Hangout on “Limitless.” He was involved in pitching “Section 31” to a green light as a series and again when it got reconceived as a movie.

“The essence of what I would have hoped the (series) would be remained the same,” Sweeny said during a conversation in his Vancouver, Canada, office near the “Watson” soundstages. “Many of the characters I wanted to use transposed pretty directly into the film. But you’re necessarily telling things in a much more brisk and efficient, shorthanded (way). We had the intention to explore this entire other unknown part of the galaxy called the Inari Veil, where they were posted over the course of the whole season, and you just can’t do that in a movie.”

Sweeeny said his love of “Star Trek” began in Point Breeze with his childhood babysitter, Marilyn Holloway, a Trekkie who gave him “a very thorough grounding in the values of ‘Trek’” as they watched episodes of the original series together.

“She did an amazing job of explaining to me what it meant to her,” Sweeny recalled. “She was like, ‘This is a version of the world where it’s about what are you contributing rather than what are you feeling?’ She broke it down in a way that I completely got.”

Sweeny said “Section 31” somewhat interrogates Starfleet values and explores “If you don’t and can’t fit into this version of the universe that supposedly accepts everybody, where do you go?”

“I was interested in the characters who don’t fit into (‘Star Trek’ creator Gene) Roddenberry’s utopia, and how they define themselves in cooperation to or opposition to it,” Sweeny said. “If you took the Federation and turned it on its side and shook it, everybody who didn’t have something to hang onto (goes) to the bottom and winds up in Section 31. That’s the sandbox that I wanted to play in.”

‘Watson’

CBS’s Pittsburgh-set “Watson” (10 p.m. Sunday, KDKA-TV) is not a straight medical drama akin to Max’s Pittsburgh-set “The Pitt.” Created by Squirrel Hill native Craig Sweeny (“Elementary”) “Watson” is more of a procedural about Watson (Morris Chestnut) and his team of doctors solving medical mysteries.

The medical case in the premiere is pretty dense and sometimes hard to follow but future episodes are more streamlined. Still, it’s not a show you can multitask through and completely grasp what is going on in the medical cases.

The show’s serialized story about a figure from Holmes’ past who’s out to get him intrigues, but that’s secondary to the less interesting “doc-tectives” resolving medical cases. Episode two airs in the show’s regular time period, 9 p.m. Sunday, on Feb. 16.

‘Pitt’ a hit?

Streaming service Max did not provide viewing numbers but says its Pittsburgh-set medical drama “The Pitt” debuted as one of the Top 5 most-watched Max original series premieres. After its two-episode debut Jan. 9, the show saw its audience grow almost tenfold in its first week on the streamer, doubling the average growth seen by other Max drama series.

“The Pitt” also ranked No. 9 among streaming shows/movies for the week of Jan. 9-15 on the ReelGood streaming chart.

Kept/canceled

Netflix renewed “The Lincoln Lawyer” for a 10-episode fourth season based on the sixth book in author Michael Connelly’s book series, “The Lincoln Law.”

ABC will bring back “High Potential” for a second season and “Abbott Elementary” for a fifth season.

Food Network will bring back competition series “Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking” for a second season.

Fox renewed “Murder in a Small Town” for a second season.

After renewing the show for a second season that began filming last fall, Apple TV+ has now canceled “The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin” after star Noel Fielding reportedly quit three-quarters of the way through production.

Peacock canceled “Teacup” after one season.

Paramount+ canceled its “Frasier” revival after two seasons.

Channel surfing

Super Bowl LIX will air on Fox and also stream in 4K on Fox-owned, ad-supported streaming service Tubi. … In February LIV Golf relocates from The CW to airing rounds on Fox, FS1, FS2, Fox Business Network or the Fox Sports app. … Despite almost no advance publicity, Mr. Beast’s “Beast Games” is Amazon Prime Video’s most-watched unscripted series in its first 25 days of release, per the streamer. … After seven years correspondent Dulcé Sloan exited “The Daily Show.” … Comcast Xfinity customers have access to a free preview of streaming service Acorn TV, home to programs from around the world, through Jan. 26 on X1 and the Xfinity Stream app. … Twice postponed “Critics Choice Awards” will now air 7-10 p.m. Feb. 7 on E! … Fox’s “Family Guy” will have its season premiere at 8 p.m. Feb. 16, giving “The Simpsons” a break, and then “Family Guy” slides to 8:30 March 30 when “The Simpsons” returns. … Netflix announced price hikes this week that includes its ad-supported tier (up $1 to $8 per month) and its premium tier (up $2 to $25 per month).