I enjoyed it. It felt much more like a typical "Star Trek" epsiode than many past ones on Discovery. S3 was a step in the right direction and this episode continues it. I'm looking forward to more.
The good:
The good:
- The color grading of the new uniforms (which is done in post-production) is better than on the production photos and promotional stills. The refinements to the set looked great.
- When "Archer Spacedock" was unveiled and they pulled out the Archer theme, I grinned and choked up a little. It was cheap fan service but really appreciated.
- Also really like them discussing them developing next generation propulsion to put on their new generation of star ships (Spore Drive better not be it, it's still a stupid idea). "Reducing dependence on dilithium" is clearly an allegory for fossil fuels, and it works. It's smart. That's the kind of internal continuity Discovery needs to keep doing.
- How they use programmable matter now for tools, phasers and spacesuits. This makes the 32nd century feel quantifiably different than the 24th. Replicators changed the game in the 24th century, and programmable matter - essentially republicans everywhere on demand - changes it again. Big fan. They need to keep that up. It feels like real progression.
- The plot of the episode was overall very solid.
- The new Mandalorian-esque 3D sets their using really help the show's visual diversity.
- Loving the inter-species stuff going on, including the Federation President. By 3189, there should be vast interspecies hybridization. Almost nobody should be pureblood anything by that point, or necessarily bound to one-world-one-race. We saw some of this in S3, with the United Earth Defense Force having non-humans as part of it.
- The show's gotten much better about it, but the worst impulses of the creative staff just come out of their cell from time to time, and the ridiculous Butterfly people were no exception. They were perfectly fine until they went Super Saiyan. It looked ridiculous on screen. These should have been different (maybe non-humanoid) aliens.
- Burnham was fine across most of the episode but was awful in the opening scene. Janeway, Picard and Sisko could have handled that touchy contact without it getting anywhere close to violence. It got to violence because they wrote her as being sloppy. If there is one cardinal rule of Star Trek as a TV show, it's don't make the audience seriously doubt your protagonist''s (usually the Captain's) competence. Here, she looked extremely incompetent.
- I appreciate that the anomaly uses modern-ish real science that Berman era trek avoided ("gravitational lensing"), but I'm really not sure if this show benefits from a galaxy spanning disaster again. We just got over that with the Burn. Yes, this crisis is going to be the crucible in which the entire galaxy bands together to stop it, thus accelerating the Federation's rebuild. And if they want to do something shocking, they'll have to smash into Andor or Tellar or something. But I'd put it again as a symptom of creative staff's worse impulses. I think I'll enjoy the season if this episode is representative of it, but that'll be despite the anomaly plot hook, which shouldn't be the case.
- This is gonna come off as it's gonna come off, but Tilly does not look good at all right now. I was all about Tilly in S1 and S2. Having a different body type... no problem at all. In S3 there was some weight gain, but it was still fine for the most part. But in S4, it looks like there was Pandemic Pounds on Wiseman, like all of us (I'm working myself to lose it right now). Maybe it's the fit of the uniform, which seems very tight fitting around the torso, and the hairstyle that's gotten completely wild, but it was truly the first time in this show I ever said "wow, this doesn't look healthy one bit".
