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Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 4x02 - "Anomaly"

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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.

I hope that's the case. They seem to be going in the mystery box direction with the whole "why did it change direction all of a sudden" but I suppose it's too early to say. It would also be nice if this anomaly thing didn't stretch out the entire season only to be neatly wrapped up in the finale.
 
This one gets a 5 from me.

And they really need to get rid of the random 'flame jet' generators on that Bridge set as that's the stupidest use I've seen in a Star Trek episode. You want to have an explosion when the ship is impacted by something, fine? But I swear those flame jets seemed to just randomly spout flame so many times during a scene it started being laughable to the [point it could be added to an ST: D drinking game - "Every time you see a jet of flame (in unison) from all sides on the Bridge, take a drink.":rommie:

Perhaps the flamethrowers are meant to compliment the floating turbolift chasms? :D
 
Pros:
* We finally get to see what happens when the grav plates stop working.
* The theme of loss, grief, and catharsis resonates with me right now.
* Mr. Saru

Cons:
* Wrestling ring flamethrower jets on the bridge still easily noticeable in the worst way.
* Galaxy destroying anomaly. Again.
* Too many emotional shortcuts, IMO, like Michael's speech before they went to black alert. Didn't like it.
* Too much reliance on holo this, and synth that. There comes a point where I can no longer connect to events because my brain tells me it will be solved by magic. Now, Star Trek has always been a mixture of fantasy and technology, but they've leaped so far ahead into the future that my brain finds dissonance between capability and ability when it comes to problem recognition and resolution. VOY had a bit of this trouble when it was on, DSC is doing it, too, but with a 600+ year technology jump. I'm having difficulty making those connections in the drama, and the story itself.

This one gets a 5/10 from me.
 
5 Light Years across is hardly Galaxy destroying.

It's not even Sector destroying considering one Sector is ~20 ly across on the Radial Sector system.

It however can easily devastate any lone Star System given it's 5 ly diameter and it's sudden appearance with no fore-warning and no methods of detecting it traveling in whatever layer of sub-space or other dimension that it came from.

That fact that you have no idea where it'll pop up, where it'll go, & when/if it'll go away

The entire new anomaly was created to reference IRL COVID-19 situation.

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SMG & Wil Wheaton talked about it on the Premier of "The Ready Room".

The anomaly was designed to be a problem you can't punch your way out of or blow up to solve.
 
5 Light Years across is hardly Galaxy destroying.
You do understand how large a 5 light year black hole actually is, right? The black hole at the center of Holm 15, considered an ultramassive black hole, and the largest one ever recorded, is approximately the size of our solar system.

It takes light from our Sun roughly 5 hours to reach Pluto.
The black hole in the episode is 5 light years, and not only moves unpredictably, but moves faster than light.

Sagittarius-A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, is 44 million kilometers in size, roughly the distance from the Sun to Mercury.

This black hole is roughly the distance between our Sun and Alpha Centauri B, with enough distance leftover to make it halfway to Barnard's Star. That's not counting the gravitational effects a 5 light year across black hole would create.

And again, it moves.
It moves faster than light.
Randomly.

If you don't consider that potentially galaxy destroying then I guess that's fine.
 
Nothing wrong with that.

Problems on a smaller scope / scale can make an entire season. Especially when it's personal.

The Xindi cut through Florida!!!

That's one reason I liked that arc so much. It was so personal. The Xindi weren't coming after the Vulcans. Or the Andorians. They were coming specifically for Earth and for humans, and if we were wiped from existence the entire history of the galaxy would change for the worst.
 
Finally got to watch, and I really enjoyed it! Great character work all across the board and it's nice to have these one on one character downbeats make up half an entire episode.

But did they really trade rocks falling out of the ceilings for straight up columns of fire? Why are there apparently fire conduits in very specific parts of the bridge, lol. Gas pipes? Absurdly distracting.
 
There are clearly further limitations though to what modern day HRT and surgery can do. Like if you're mtf, it can't undo the bone structure you've built up (or make you smaller), and your voice won't raise without training. It's much easier for ftm, but you're not going to have a growth spurt if you were 5'2" before and transition at 25 or something. I expect that Trek-level medical tech could deal with all of these quickly and easily, since it's no biggie to get surgery to pass as a Klingon (as one example) for a simple mission.
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.
 
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.
No... That's just Picard's hairsytyle... Has been since his Academy days given the picture we saw in Nemesis.
 
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.

Speaking more broadly, it is interesting that even though body modification tech seems easy/free, we don't see a bunch of perfectly idealized people wandering about. The only real ways to deal with this is to either accept the headcanon people are less shallow or to admit it's a concession to the realities of casting.

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.
 
NEM was wrong. He had hair when he was stabbed by the Nausicaan in 2327 and still had receding hair when Jack Crusher was killed in 2354. The original photo of Tom Hardy made for that scene showed Cadet Picard with hair but the producers stupidly jettisoned it, showing how little research they did before completing the film.
 
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