Star Trek Discovery: 4x02 (Anomaly)
Dec. 2nd, 2021 08:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
4thofelevenIn which everyone grieves in their own way.
Discovery has a tendency to lean too much towards constant escalation and a break-neck pace, so it's really nice to get an episode like this that's largely just dealing with the emotional fallout of everyone's various traumas and gathering information about the threat. On that note, while the reveal that the anomaly is changing direction might indicate an intelligence behind it, for the moment I'm quite happy for it just to be a mindless threat, equivalent to the Doomsday Machine or the Crystalline Entity – and a threat that, while clearly a problem that needs to be solved, isn't another galactic crisis.
While Book's trauma was the primary focus, I was pleased to see that Stamets also got plenty of time to deal with the events of last season's finale, and it was interesting to see them both contrasted. Book's trauma is on a scale that's really hard to envision; one's entire planet and culture extinguished in a moment. Stamet's fear of being helpless to save his family again is a far more approachable and understandable fear. Although they weren't major parts of the story, it was also nice to see Tilly and Adira's trauma also be acknowledged, and that the overwhelming scale of Book's loss didn't completely dominate over everyone else's difficult experiences in recent events.
(Dr. Culber is doing an excellent job, but as I said last season – damn, Discovery needs a permanent councillor on board!)
(Also – Book, keep your cat on Discovery if you're flying into danger like that! Grudge probably didn't appreciate that turbulence at all!)
In the other storylines – I appreciated that Saru is back and that there was no drama over him accepting a demotion back to first officer. Not every character should be Kirk, and Star Trek has an occasional problem with assuming that being a starship captain should be the be-all and end-all of everyone's ambitions. Saru is a fine leader, but he's also an excellent advisor, and like Spock in the movies, he has no 'ego to bruise'; if he's happy stepping away from command for a time, that's great.
(It also helps sell that Starfleet really isn't a military organisation, if the hierarchy is treated as much more relaxed, and people simply slowly gravitate towards the positions that they enjoy and are best at.)
Meanwhile, Grey is due to return to corporeal form. I was apparently over-thinking things and assumed that when he discussed 'transitioning', he meant either accepting a Trill symbiote or becoming non-corporeal, but, no, the intent was that like his actor, Grey is trans. So, again, it's great to once again be reminded that Berman and his hateful stances have been scrubbed away from Star Trek, and that gender diversity no longer needs to be hidden behind awkward metaphors.
I also appreciated that Adira raises the obvious question – why shouldn't everyone upload to synth bodies if the technology exists? We get a namedrop of Picard and the obvious excuse that the technology is still highly experimental and unreliable. Of course, it really shouldn't be Discovery's job to fill in the plot holes left by Picard, but it's nice to see it addressed at least.
Discovery has a tendency to lean too much towards constant escalation and a break-neck pace, so it's really nice to get an episode like this that's largely just dealing with the emotional fallout of everyone's various traumas and gathering information about the threat. On that note, while the reveal that the anomaly is changing direction might indicate an intelligence behind it, for the moment I'm quite happy for it just to be a mindless threat, equivalent to the Doomsday Machine or the Crystalline Entity – and a threat that, while clearly a problem that needs to be solved, isn't another galactic crisis.
While Book's trauma was the primary focus, I was pleased to see that Stamets also got plenty of time to deal with the events of last season's finale, and it was interesting to see them both contrasted. Book's trauma is on a scale that's really hard to envision; one's entire planet and culture extinguished in a moment. Stamet's fear of being helpless to save his family again is a far more approachable and understandable fear. Although they weren't major parts of the story, it was also nice to see Tilly and Adira's trauma also be acknowledged, and that the overwhelming scale of Book's loss didn't completely dominate over everyone else's difficult experiences in recent events.
(Dr. Culber is doing an excellent job, but as I said last season – damn, Discovery needs a permanent councillor on board!)
(Also – Book, keep your cat on Discovery if you're flying into danger like that! Grudge probably didn't appreciate that turbulence at all!)
In the other storylines – I appreciated that Saru is back and that there was no drama over him accepting a demotion back to first officer. Not every character should be Kirk, and Star Trek has an occasional problem with assuming that being a starship captain should be the be-all and end-all of everyone's ambitions. Saru is a fine leader, but he's also an excellent advisor, and like Spock in the movies, he has no 'ego to bruise'; if he's happy stepping away from command for a time, that's great.
(It also helps sell that Starfleet really isn't a military organisation, if the hierarchy is treated as much more relaxed, and people simply slowly gravitate towards the positions that they enjoy and are best at.)
Meanwhile, Grey is due to return to corporeal form. I was apparently over-thinking things and assumed that when he discussed 'transitioning', he meant either accepting a Trill symbiote or becoming non-corporeal, but, no, the intent was that like his actor, Grey is trans. So, again, it's great to once again be reminded that Berman and his hateful stances have been scrubbed away from Star Trek, and that gender diversity no longer needs to be hidden behind awkward metaphors.
I also appreciated that Adira raises the obvious question – why shouldn't everyone upload to synth bodies if the technology exists? We get a namedrop of Picard and the obvious excuse that the technology is still highly experimental and unreliable. Of course, it really shouldn't be Discovery's job to fill in the plot holes left by Picard, but it's nice to see it addressed at least.