Wednesday, December 1, 2021

Star Trek: Discovery Review: 4x02 "Anomaly"

Discovery always jumps into stories faster than I expect them too. Lots of things that I think will happen later in the season instead happen within the first couple of episodes.

In a perfect example of what I mean, we get to see what will hopefully be Gray's body in this episode! I thought they would still be searching for ways to even give him a body, but nope. We still don't know for sure that it will be successful, but they're much further in the process than I expected. I'm excited but also nervous that this means that something will go wrong in transferring Gray's consciousness to the body, as that would draw out the storyline until later in the season.

Saru also arrives back on the Discovery in this episode! An example of yet another thing that happened faster than I thought it would. Though I thought he might come back relatively early in the season, I thought we'd see a bit more indecision from him about leaving Kaminar first. Instead, he was right back at headquarters in this episode. Not that I'm complaining. (Though I would have found it cool to see more of what Kaminar is currently like too.)

This episode was an excellent reminder of the important role Saru plays among the crew. It was wonderful to see him comforting people and offering guidance. Discovery just isn't the same without him, and I'm so happy he's acting as Michael's number one. Even though they sometimes have conflict between them, I think they work well together and help compliment each other's strengths and weaknesses.

A dynamic that came out of nowhere this episode was Samets and Book. We get a lovely scene between them after they're able to complete their mission. I hadn't considered how Stamets would feel about Book's role in rescuing Culber and Adira (and Gray), but it makes sense that he would feel indebted to him in a way. I loved his promise to figure out what happened to Kwejian for Book's sake. It makes me excited for the possibility of a future friendship between them and perhaps Book becoming closer with other members of Discovery's crew, not just Michael.

Tilly and Culber have a scene together where Tilly opens up about not feeling like herself and asks to have an appointment where they can talk about it. I felt as awkward as Tilly while watching that scene, but I'm happy it was there. Detmer didn't seem all right last season either, but then that was kind of brushed aside later in the season and not dealt with again. I'm a little sad that Tilly is getting that storyline now. Though I love Tilly, we don't get to see Detmer that often, so it would have been nice to have that storyline with her. However, I'm glad the mental health of the crew is still being addressed somehow.

This is a small detail in the episode, but Michael reveals that the computer has named itself Zora. I do know of the short film about Zora and the theories surrounding that, so this moment was yet another connection between that short and Discovery. I kind of wish I didn't know about the short though. On one hand, it's fun to theorize, but on the other, I feel like I know too much about where the story might be heading. If you want to know more about that theory, then you can look it up yourself, since I don't want to reveal too much to people who might rather stay in the dark about it.

The data that they've gathered tells them that the anomaly is randomly changing direction in a way that they can't explain and that is unpredictable, so I'm guessing that will be the big mystery of the season. I'm curious to see where it goes. I've seen some suggestions that the anomaly could be alive. Between the tardigrade and the sphere or even Su'kal being the source of the Burn, that feels similar to what they've already done, but I'll wait and see.

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