Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 4x02 - "Anomaly"

[Lord Garth]

I just assume the sphere data is destined to go the way of Edy. Heck, they're already building a droid body for Gray, why not the sphere data?

I think Zora prefers being a ship. Being a human(oid) isn't for everyone.

 

[cultcross]

Only the Captain’s rank neck devices have pips to indicate rank, every other bridge officer has nothing above the two chevrons

Well I learnt something today - I'd been squinting at them trying to see people's rank. What are those throat devices for then if they don't show rank? And why does the captain need their rank in 4 places but everyone else gets the invisible badge only?

 

[JoaquinSlowly]

Well I learnt something today - I'd been squinting at them trying to see people's rank. What are those throat devices for then if they don't show rank? And why does the captain need their rank in 4 places but everyone else gets the invisible badge only?

‪I agree! At the end of season 3 I had thought the throat device *must* demonstrate rank as well, but eveyone has two offset chevrons of their division color, and that’s it.

‪‪I like the uniforms, but ‪‪I would like them even more if they all had the equivalent number of pips above the top chevron, just like the Captain’s uniforms.

 

[NCC-73515]

Yeah I wonder what magical particle of the season in combination with programmable matter we'll solve/ correct this anomaly?

My bet is on: "Gravitational De-Lensing Particles", deliver that via a specially treated probe composed of programmable matter.

They'll have to shoot Su'Kal into it, which makes everyone emotional, but it has to be, because only he can sing green matter into existence with his extra chromosomes. Green matter of course absorbs black holes instead of creating them like its better known movie-star brother.

 

[cooleddie74]

The Season 4 uniforms are my favorite DSC uniform design but yeah, none of them will ever rank anywhere high on my all-time Trek uniform Best Of lists. Too busy, rank pips too hard to see and overdesigned in most cases. TMP's are still the all-time worst but not by as much as one might think.

 

[Vger23]

And adding to that, I noticed that the combadge itself is very murky. There is no clear color contrast, nor is the shape clear as the delta blends too much into the oval. So much for the iconic Trek delta. Almost makes me miss the days of DIS seasons 1 and 2 where literally everything was branded all over with the delta (including the pajamas!).

Yes, this has been a disappointment of mine as well. It looks like they are wearing a little oval on their chests...looks VERY generic and unremarkable. That was a bad call by the prop/wardrobe department.

The Season 4 uniforms are my favorite DSC uniform design but yeah, none of them will ever rank anywhere high on my all-time Trek uniform Best Of lists. Too busy, rank pips too hard to see and overdesigned in most cases. TMP's are still the all-time worst but not by as much as one might think.

DSC's disjointed and varied approach to uniforms now rivals the approach taken in the feature films...which I thought would never be surpassed.

 

[eschaton]

DSC's disjointed and varied approach to uniforms now rivals the approach taken in the feature films...which I thought would never be surpassed.

Honestly, there's some commonality here with the Klingon "redesign." It seems in general the creative departments are given pretty free reign to do what they want (from costuming to VFX to practical effects) without strong coordination by the producers.

 

[Scionz]

The revamp and rescue of this show is going to be one of Star Trek's great stories. All Trek shows except TOS have had a tough first two years. Discovery had a disasterous first year, a solid second year, but the third and now especially the fourth have been what the show should have been all along. While the melodrama is just so agonizing to watch sometimes (who actually likes that shit?), it really felt like Star Trek again.

The Good

• Welcome to the 32nd century, for real. TNG had a true technological departure over TOS. Season 1 and 2 Discovery didn't fit with continuity much at all. Season 3 did better. But Season 4 really makes this feel like far, far past the 24th century. The programmable matter tether was something that simply couldn't have been done that way in the 24th century (woulda been with a tractor beam of some sort) and represents a legitimate (and visual) technological departure. The fact the ship can reconfigure itself internally and externally to suit the mission. Holodecks in every room (with programmable matter moving furniture presumably). Tricom teleportation instead of turbolifts. Holographic projection. An ship computer with a name and a personality (I know this is a Sphere thing but it should be an ALL ships thing - true AI on ships should be a 32nd century difference). Being able to replicate Soong's 800 year old tech in an afternoon. "Privacy mode" on the bridge. I'm sure I'm missing things. They really sat down and thought about how to make the 32nd century different front from the 24th and succeeded. Easy matter-energy manipulation made the 24th century quantifiably different than the 23rd, and now programmable matter, fully realized in its utility, has done it again and showed why it can be useful (especially when used along side matter-energy manipulation.
• The show's visual overhaul worked. When set photos came out, the boldness of the uniform colors looked off. It was call color grading. The color grading in the episodes, along with the repainting / redressing of the Discovery sets to make them 31st century really makes for a great looking show. The blue for science is probably the wrong shade - it ends up looking like black in some scenes. But the red and gold work well. This just proves once again Discovery should always have been a post-Nemesis show (I said, set in the 2420s) but was stupidly tethered to the 2350s by the tortured pre-production of it. Can we just forget Season 1 happened?
• Science Talk. Let's recall for a moment that the universe wasn't confirmed as expanding at an accelerating rate until around Season 5 of Voyager was airing, after DS9 and TNG went off the air. Astrophysical science was far less developed in the 1980s and 1990s. Major telescopes like Spitzer and Chandra had their best years ahead of them. Hubble had 3 refits ahead of it. There was LIGO. Theories of Dark Matter, Dark Energy and Black Holes were far less developed. 24th century shows had a lot of Star Trek physics technobabble that relied on particles and forces that don't exist like Tachyons and Nadions and Subspace. Discovery is the really the first Star Trek show to benefit from the Astrophysical revolution since the end of Voyager, and it's technobabble, while stretched for the purposes of the plot (as it should be), was much more grounded in hard science. What I would have liked to hear them say is that the Anomaly was caused by two merging intermediate mass black holes that are merging and had been ejected from two dwarf galaxies (or large globular clusters) the Milky Way was absorbing. I think that would have been the cherry on top.
• The Crew Comes together. Discovery started as a the first Star Trek show truly about a specific character - Burnham, with Lorca and Saru fellow co-leads, Tilly and Stamets supporting and everyone else a sub TNG Season 1-Worf glorified extra. It was about a character, not a ship or crew. That expanded somewhat in Season 2 and a lot more in Season 3. But many of the characters have been undeveloped extras with names that you often forget. While Discovery will never become like Voyager or TNG in it's crew-wide focus, it took a big step forward to defining the current bridge crew and taking a step towards an ensemble cast. It's better for it. They got good characters here. The Anomaly challenges is a great opportunity to flesh them out.
• Given that Soong's invention would be a pathway to immortality, the explanation for what it was abandoned was as good as could be expected.
• Saru is back . And great as always.
• The Vulcan stuff was superb. Obviously, they're coming back.
• The Tilly stuff is great just. I like the direction they're taking her this season.
• This was Stamets' best episode in a long time. I guess he's not just the Mushroom guy anymore but the general sciences guy? Good stuff here. Pairing him with Booker worked great. Those two acted the hell out of their scenes.
• Culber was well used and played a good role in the plot. They're finally using him right. I also liked that (being from the 23rd century) he has no idea who Picard is.
• Booker is still probably the best casting addition to the show over its 4 years. He gave an excellent performance in his scenes. The ghost of the Child, the survivors guild, his face when he saw the bird. Excellent, excellent stuff.
• This show is freaking gorgeous. Discovery is always a looker but it is really bringing it out in Season 4. The effects were truly cinematic quality.
• That haunting ending scene between Tilly and Saru. Perfection.
• It was just a damn good episode.

The Bad

• The Adira / Gray stuff is awful. The writers are doing a grave disservice to two very promising actors. They keep repeating the same shit over and over and over again. Adira being insecure and emotional while Gray grins and says cutesy lover shit to give Adira a pep talk. It was fine like the first 3 times, but enough. Once Gray gets their golem body, what is the point of Gray's character going be? A stray like Booker that Starfleet lets stay on Discovery? Booker has a transforming ship that very conveniently is sized for Discovery's shuttle bay. What does Gray have? The power of pep talks? Adira is a cool character. Gray being in their head ever present is a great concept (shamefully wasted as a pep talk generator). Getting Gray out of Adira's head is just going make Adira a less interesting character (only motivation: impress Tilly) and Gray an orphaned character who will probably get written out at the end of the season. Maybe (hopefully) the Golem will fail and Adira and Gray will be stuck together. But regardless, the writers need to use Gray better because there is epic potential here that's being squandered.
• Enough with the lens flares dude. Why did they make their return?
• As I said earlier, the blue uniforms don't work well with some of the set's lighting (like the Spore Drive room). It was the wrong shade. 24th century blue-green would have worked better.
• I sincerely hope the cheap melodrama is a "Discovery" thing that isn't carried forward to future series, because this episode, great as it was, was dragged down by it. Our characters dont need to always ben square jawed heroes, but seriously, there is a limit. They could cut the melodrama scenes and replace them with character development for undeveloped bridge crew characters.
• "The anomaly moved towards us". I hope that means truly random movement. The biggest own-goal this series could do is make the Anomaly the responsibility of some sinister force, like the Terran Empire reborn or something.

The Questions
Obviously the Anomaly is going to going to smash through more star systems, and probably name brand ones. So whose going lose their homeworld next? Tellar? Andoria? Ni'Var? Bajor? Cardassia? Qo'nos? Even Earth? The writers of this show - because they cannot help themselves - are going to stunt kill probably one of the planets on the list in a few episodes to raise the stakes, and then threaten another. I really hope they don't. Killing off Book's planet was enough and they should work with that. But to remind us of the threat, because this is how the show works, a name brand planet has mere weeks to live. $10 says they're going to destroy Bajor or Cardassia ( connecting the story to the Federation President), and the Anomaly's end of season target will be Ni'Var, which serves a bunch of different low hanging fruit plot directives (connects to Burnham, echoes of the Supernova of 2387 for the Romulans, has Burnham securing Spock's legacy in saving the day, brings Ni'Var back to the Federation when Starfleet saves the day).

 

[Scionz]

The Season 4 uniforms are my favorite DSC uniform design but yeah, none of them will ever rank anywhere high on my all-time Trek uniform Best Of lists. Too busy, rank pips too hard to see and overdesigned in most cases. TMP's are still the all-time worst but not by as much as one might think.

I think they're 85% the way there. My changes would have been as follows:
Getting rid of the shoulder ornaments for Captains.
Put some black (even if its just a stripe) on the shoulders/arms to break up the colors.
Keep the neck normanet but make the rank displayed it on it clearer. It's a good evolution of the 24th century design. Familiar-yet-different.
The Tricom badge is an awful design. The Starfleet arrow is iconic. The point of it is to be able to see it, clearly, even at a distance. In this version the starfleet arrow is hidden on an non-descript oval you can't see unless you look at it closely. This is probably the biggest thing the uniform has going against it. In Star Trek Online, if you thrown on the S4 uniform, it looks automatically better if you replace the combadge with literally anyone that has a pointed clear "star trek" shape to it over the default oval.
The shade of blue they use for sciences doesn't work with about half the sets in the show. It's way too dark a shade.

The best 'new' uniform remains this one from Adira's memory:

THey should have gone with that, with a different tricom badge (in a different spot). and maybe done something different with the rank pips.

The colors overall look fine, but I think sticking with Season 3 gray (maybe a different shade) would have worked better.

 

[cooleddie74]

The commbadge/personal transporter is too shiny and hard to see against the fabric of the uniform tunic. They really need to matte that thing down.

 

[fireproof78]

who actually likes that shit?)

I do.

 

[Commander Troi]

Quick takaways:

• I loved Book seeing his nephew everywhere. After years of making himself not miss home, to finally reconnect *and* have family and then have it disappear like ::fingersnap::? He's been in shock and maybe denial too. This is going to linger, but now he's ready to start grieving. As others mentioned, David did a terrific job.
• Stamets, like other engineer-types I've known, lacks social skills and has a tough time expressing feelings. This is why he married Hugh. Watching him try, stumbling, to connect to Book was beautifully done, including admitting why he's been avoiding Book.
• Speaking of Hugh, I love his Counselor side *so much*! It was great he realized that Tilly is having problems *and* great she realized he's right. I also loved the look on her face when Culber told her Adira looks up to her. Being the mentor instead of always the mentee is going to take getting used to.
• Why can't we get some seatbelts on the bridge! Also, someone get rid of those flamethrowers and fix the comm badges. So say we all!
• Nice lampshade on artificial bodies. I know it's disappointing, @Deks, but it's necessary to ensure the danger of dying doesn't become dramaless.
• The whole bridge crew participated in problem solving! I hope we see more of that. I want to get to know these people.
• I loved Michael and Saru's reunion. That hug... 'scuse me... something in my eye...

I think the anomaly changes behavior based on observation. Their predictions were based on previous data, but when they were prodding it and poking it, it became unpredictable and shifted activities.

I think this is why Tilly didn't "get" that the only variables were Discovery and Book's Ship With No Name. We know things change just by being observed, so that's probably already figured in to the ship's sensors to some extent, but something is different here. We just don't know what yet.

I hope it's not a mystery box. Just a spatial anomaly that will be explained (enough) in the next couple episodes, and then the deal is to try to figure out how to stop it or circumvent it.

Climate change or COVID are not mystery boxes, they're just disasters that require loads more teamwork than we seem to be capable of. That's, I think, where they're going with this story.

This season should have been about the squabbling and warfare between Federation worlds and how it threatened to ruin the post-Burn political environment. I'd be more interested in the Andorians rejoining the Federation but the Orions getting mad about the defeat of the Emerald Chain and attacking Andorian ships and bases because they want to abandon their old allies.

I'm hoping for a combination of the above. The anomaly has neither intelligence nor malice behind it. Everybody has to work together to deal with it, revealing the tensions among the various worlds. Squabbling and petty squirmishes ensue. The UFP struggles to be reborn.

The Xindi cut through Florida!!!

And there was much rejoicing.

Maybe people have gotten over the idea of cis centric standards of beauty. Much like how Picard doesn't wear a hairpiece because there is no stigma against baldness. The only reason trans people even try to pass now is due to bigotry and discrimination, something that should no longer exist by then.

THAT would be awesome!

I tend to think if humanity could easily alter our appearance most would be dreadfully shallow - though what that means would vary from person to person.

I sadly agree. I would be taller and thinner and not need glasses. But Star Trek is aspirational, right?

And medication alone is not as efficacious as talk therapy combined with medication, at least according to current research. It's why I find cures in narrative unbelievable.

I can confirm this, at least in my case. Decades of medication kept me from being suicidal, but medication + therapy is helping me change my life.

 

[Tuskin38]

The best 'new' uniform remains this one from Adira's memory:

Don't embed images from Wikis, they don't work.

 

[G. Boney]

I
Poor excuse - also, 24th century medicine was able to bring people back from the death (even before nanoprobes)... 32nd century = once you scan as dead... you're dead apparently... no going back from that (heck, even Grey didn't really survive a simple impalement... even though such a thing should/would be minor for 24th century... and those medical dones were there virtually instantly).

Gotta say I find this a strange issue to take with the show. People died all the time in the 24th century shows.

 

[cooleddie74]

And the 23rd century. I mean, how many Redshirts and other Enterprise crewmembers bit it between TOS and TUC?

 

[JoaquinSlowly]

Keep the neck normanet but make the rank displayed it on it clearer. It's a good evolution of the 24th century design. Familiar-yet-different.

‪‪Presently there is no rank displayed on the neck devices for any rank but Captain. ‪‪I think If they just extrapolated the pips on the Captain uniform to the rest of the crew it would make ranks a lot clearer than the tiny notches on the side of the badges.

 

[cooleddie74]

Or do the rank pips the way ENT and later PIC circa 2399 did them. In a row across the upper right-hand side of the breast.

 

[fireproof78]

And the 23rd century. I mean, how many Redshirts and other Enterprise crewmembers bit it between TOS and TUC?

According to some graphics 28 redshirts at least, plus various other crewmembers, especially gold shirts in early TOS were actually more common to die.

Death is not new to Star Trek. I find it odd to see the complaints of characters dying.

 

[cooleddie74]

TMP - a G-rated movie in its original theatrical cut - had Ilia killed by V'Ger and replaced by a lookalike probe and later Decker when he merged with the probe. I mean, a G-rated Trek had 2 fatalities even if Kirk's official log entry listed them as "missing."

 

[Nerys Myk]

Or do the rank pips the way ENT and later PIC circa 2399 did them. In a row across the upper right-hand side of the breast.

Stripes on the sleeves were always the best.