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Star Trek: Discovery season one wrapped up the major storylines—The Klingon War has ended with an armistice, the crew successfully returned from the Mirror Universe, and the all-powerful Spore Drive is now offline.

The new season promises a lighter tone. It’s a fresh start, plot-wise, and this season starts off with a mystery: seven red energy bursts, each spread out across several thousand light years, have stumped Starfleet. Sensors don’t work on them, and they appear and disappear suddenly. The Discovery crew is tasked with finding out who or what they are. Yes, the premise does seem thin on paper, but the promise of a fun journey this time around is needed after the dark and serious atmosphere of the previous season.

Star Trek: Discovery wastes no time introducing the USS Enterprise and Captain Christopher Pike (portrayed by Anson Mount). Pike’s interaction with the Discovery crew is distinctly different from previous captains. He’s not as by-the-book as Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh); nor is he as militaristic as Lorca’s (Jason Issac) approach to leadership. Mount’s Pike is a bit laissez-faire and brings much-needed levity to the Captain’s chair.

Right from the get-go Pike acknowledges that the crew has had a rough time with their previous captains, and, in an effort to alleviate their suspicions of him, he pulls up his Starfleet record and encourages everyone to read through it. I love how this immediately sets his character up as being extremely honest and open to his subordinates. Pike’s tone and mannerisms are straight from the original series and could be summarized by the following exchange to Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green):

“Wherever our mission takes us, we’ll try to have a little fun along the way too, huh? Make a little noise? Ruffle a few feathers?”

In addition to the returning cast members (the ones still left alive, at least), the premiere introduced us to Jett Reno played by Tig Notaro. Crash-landed and stranded on an asteroid for almost a year, Jett, a Starfleet engineer, somehow managed to keep herself alive and those of her critically injured crew members as well. Not only is she resourceful, but her dry humor and snarky lines are quite charming too! Tig Notaro’s performance is one of the highlights of the premiere, and I hope to see more of her this season!

The visuals, once again, are absolutely stunning. There wasn’t any spore drive action this time around, but if you’re hungry for some eye candy you won’t be disappointed. From landing pods flying through a thick asteroid field, spacesuits deploying and retracting Iron Man-style, to the gravity simulator unfolding like something out of the Transformers, the visuals left me slack-jawed throughout the episode!

If there’s one word I’d use to describe this premiere, it’s FUN! There’s a lightheartedness here that I can’t quite articulate and didn’t even notice was absent last season. The tone of Star Trek just feels right. It makes me excited for the next episode. Hell, I haven’t even touched on some of the things the cast hinted in last year’s Comic Con panel: Spock’s appearance, his role on the Discovery, Mirror universe Georgiou’s role in Section 31, and what’s exactly on Saru’s homeworld. But if the rest of the season is as fun as this premiere was, I’m all in!

Watch Star Trek: Discovery on CBS: All Access every Thursday.

Photo Credits: CBS © 2019 CBS Interactive. All Rights Reserved.