Discovery 2x2 "New Eden"

rating: ***

the story: Locating one of seven mysterious anomalies unexpectedly leads the crew to a distant human colony.

review: "New Eden" is Discovery in deep classic franchise mode, one of the very textbook episode archetypes.  If you don't recognize it from the above brief summary, you probably aren't a fan.  This one goes back to the original series, and there were even examples in both Voyager and Enterprise.  Actually, the episode's roots go so deep, it was directed by Jonathan Frakes (Riker from The Next Generation)!

The funny thing is, that's probably the least explored element of the episode.  As with most such attempts, Discovery seems only half-interested in such storytelling, as if to say that it knows what Star Trek's supposed to do, and it's enough merely to acknowledge.  But the second season so far has greatly deviated from the frenetic pattern of the first, and actually begins to look a lot like Enterprise's third season, the hunt for the Xindi that, like this arc, involved the search for anomalous objects in space (in Enterprise it was spheres).

What's perhaps more interesting about the episode is how it's helping Tilly take a more active role in the series.  Tilly is emerging as a polarizing figure among fans.  Some find her downright irritating.  This actually puts her in good company, as the franchise has frequently found characters like that (Wesley Crusher in Next Generation, any number of Ferengi in Deep Space Nine, Neelix in Voyager, among others) in the spotlight.  But in the first season, Tilly stood out in small moments, never really driving the plot, in a series composed of characters filled with lucrative intrigue.  In this season, she's taken on a far more active role, and even has started borrowing a little from Stamets, for instance, as she finds herself haunted by dead acquaintances.  This will, at any rate, by interesting to see develop.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - An old plot, and also echoes of a previous serialized season.
• series - A few interesting things to say about the season's arc.
• character - Tilly begins to emerge as a more important element of the series.
• essential - The clumsy way the old plot is handled is familiar to fans of the series by this point.