I thought Season 1 got off to a bad star, just to much pointless grim darkness for me. I think this peaked around The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry, which I would also put as my least favorite episode of the series. It got better around Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad and I think stayed pretty enjoyable from there on out. I felt like it made more appropriate use of violence and having our characters being tested by what they're going through much better in the Mirror Universe stuff than earlier. The ending felt a little rushed but it was mostly fine.
Season 2 is probably my favorite season of the show. I like the mystery, I like all the new characters introduced, I liked the big spaceship battle at the end, and I overall had a really good time.
Season 3 was a bit of a miss for me. I think of all of them this is the one that would have benefited most from the old 20+ episode seasons. They're trying to do too much and some of it was really good, but it never really came together. I really like Terra Firma I/II but in the grander context of the stuff around the Emerald Chain and the Burn I think it was maybe a mistake to heavily commit two episodes to Georgiou's story.
Season 4 had a weak start for me, but got significantly better as it went along. The scenes of Tarka's backstory in the Galactic Barrier are some of the best I think I've seen Trek period, it might be my favorite episode of the series just for that.
Season 5 was consistently enjoyable, I liked the way it balanced connecting back to older works and building out the 32nd Century setting.
Overall I think Discovery did a fine job, but had one of the most drastic changes I've seen in spirit and tone of a tv series. It went from incredibly dark and violent at the beginning to extremely optimistic and wearing its heart on its sleeve by the end.
The costuming and makeup are the best Trek's ever made. I didn't care for the Season 1 uniforms or the Klingon look but so much work went into every detail of all of it, and the ability to have a character like Saru with so much screentime is amazing.
I'd probably put it above The Animated Series, Enterprise, Picard, and Voyager in my personal rankings.
