Star Trek: Discovery 4x2 "Anomaly" Review

 rating: ***

the story: Book takes the lead in investigating the cosmic disturbance that destroyed his world.

review: The season premiere was mostly about getting comfortable in the new future setting; "Anomaly" is, effectively, a second premiere, in that it establishes what the season will actually be exploring, a black hole phenomenon that will be causing cataclysmic destruction wherever it travels.  As I write that, I call to mind not just the Nexus ribbon from Star Trek Generations but the Crystalline Entity from The Next Generation, not to mention V'Ger from The Motion Picture and the probe in The Voyage Home...So there's a lot of history behind this new arc.  By the end of the episode, our crew learns one incredibly inconvenient fact about the phenomenon: unlike the others it won't be able to be tracked...

Book debuted last season as a kind of replacement for Ash Tyler, a would-be love interest for Burnham and a rogue agent playing by his own rules.  As is pointed out during this episode, he isn't even a part of Starfleet, and so he doesn't have to take orders.  Although it's also pointed out that as long as he works alongside our crew, his decisions still affect it and so he has to take that into account.  This leads to an adventure alongside...Stamets??

That's one of the reasons I like the episode.  Too often Stamets, even more than Culber, has been defined almost solely by his relationship with Culber.  Introduced initially as a brilliant scientist on the cutting edge, Stamets drifted away from the plot and started worrying only about his lingering connection to the spore drive, the fate of Culber, and then "adopting" Adira and Gray.  "Anomaly" feels like a direct attempt to course correct, forcing him to have a long episode with a different character, and even a whole experience that grounds him in matters that finally force him to focus on his abilities.  

Saru returns to help consult on the new crisis, and now we have him returning to his original role as a trusted ally of Michael Burnham, which like last episode feels like an attempt to remind viewers that, yes, Burnham is okay to like, her old reputation finally consigned to the past, if indeed it were ever applicable.  She takes very much a backseat the whole episode, actually, even though of course she has every reason to take a personal interest in Book's escapade.  

And yes, as the internet has pointed out, this is the first time two episodes in the franchise have exactly the same title.  Next Generation indeed had "The Emissary" and Deep Space Nine "Emissary," and "The Muse" while Voyager had "Muse," but this is the first time there's no quibbling.  Enterprise had "Anomaly," too, during its third season, in which it explored a region of space with weird properties and of course a whole crisis around them.  It seems fitting.

Also fitting are appearances from several familiar species, including a representative from the Ni'Var (the reunited Vulcan/Romulan peoples) and a Ferengi, the first live action appearance since Enterprise as Starfleet considers how to handle the crisis.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Given all the roving threats in Star Trek lore, it seems fitting for Discovery to explore such matters in one of its season arcs.
• series - Like the first season, which unrolled its premise over the course of several episodes, this second episode of the fourth season has as much to do as the premiere.
• character - It's a spotlight for a grieving Book, and a very welcome fresh look at Stamets.
• essential - I'll reserve full marks on this one if only because no definitive points are made.

notable guest-stars:

Oded Fehr (Vance)

Star Trek: Discovery 4x1 "Kobayashi Maru" Review

 rating: ****

the story: The crew sets out on its new mission of reconnecting the galaxy with the Federation.

review: Now that Discovery officially has its own timeframe and mission, its fourth season can...obviously kick off with the same kind of awesome tease the Abrams movies favored.  That means ten minutes of a wild contact mission that goes horribly wrong, until Discovery does its patented "we're Starfleet officers capable of doing really smart things" maneuver (it's honestly my favorite quirk of the series), solves the problem (all of it looking great, like the whole of the third season premiere, "That Hope Is You, Part 1"), and moves on.

Which means Burnham and her crew integrating into being a regular feature of a renewed Starfleet.  We get a nod to Enterprise (complete with the end credits theme some fans would still prefer as the series theme itself), and then Burnham once again butting heads with an authority figure, in this instance the new president of the Federation, who's half-Cardassian, half-Bajoran (which is itself a nod to Deep Space Nine, and kind of Voyager, which had Seska, who originally presented as Bajoran, but ended up revealed as Cardassian).

Now, you might argue that this is beyond repetitive, but then you have to consider that many fans still can't get over Burnham's introduction as a mutineer, which means any examination of her thought process is a constant reminder that the series itself knows her reputation (which itself is a commentary on the kind of heroics Kirk used to pull; Burnham is a Kirk in a post-Kirk world).

And all of this is posited on one of the most familiar elements of franchise lore, from which the title of the episode is derived, the no-win scenario all Starfleet cadets must face.  Introduced in The Wrath of Khan and then revisited in Star Trek, the Kobayashi Maru test is an attempt to drive home that all officers must face the reality of failure, not just the possibility.  Does someone like Burnham run on luck in forever apparently avoiding the worst effects of her decisions, or is she inevitably setting herself for a terrible fall?  

The episode also visits with Saru and Book as they pursue individual goals, one of which unexpectedly propels the episode into the season's arc, to be explored later.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A statement that resonates throughout Star Trek lore.
• series - And that emphasizes how Discovery itself has been making it all along.
• character - Specifically in Michael Burnham.
• character - Many fans have continued to question why they should care about Burnham.  This seems like as clear an explanation, in terms long-term fans can understand, as the series has made.

notable guest-stars:

Oded Fehr (Vance)

Star Trek: Prodigy 1x5 "Terror Firma" Review

 rating: ***

the story: The characters escape the predator planet, and perhaps the Diviner, too.

review: In the second part of the "Dream Catcher" story, Prodigy appears to take a big leap and complete an arc begun at the start of the series.  

Now that everyone knows what kind of planet they've really found, escape is the main objective.  But there's also the question of what to do with Gwyn, the daughter of the Diviner, the tyrant who previously kept them all prisoner and who also wanted the lost Starfleet ship they found and escaped in.  As a new kind of Star Trek, it was difficult to know exactly how all this would play out, how long it would play out (and of course, there's hardly a guarantee that the Diviner arc ends here, although it's difficult to imagine him finding a way to credibly stay in close contact with them now).

Serialized storytelling is hardly new in the franchise at this point, and in most of it, the story stretches at least for a whole season.  In Discovery, however, there were elements that resolved within the first handful of episodes, such as Michael Burnham's status in Starfleet and the nature of the tardigrade helping power the spore drive.  Prodigy, as of "Terror Firma," seems to be following that model, an extended arc that traditionally would have played out in a pilot as setup for the premise.  New era, new rules.

The episode teases along the solution that rounds out the dilemma, the big mystery at the heart of the Protostar, which turns to be a protostar, a new propulsion system that surely would have been handy in Voyager itself, the series Prodigy seems so eager to evoke.  

In the process of working all this out, it's perhaps the first satisfying episode of the series so far.  Having discarded the familiar element that drove "Dream Catcher," "Terror Firma" instead is free to challenge the characters on their own terms, leaving Gwyn finally as an accepted ally, as she was clearly set up to be from the start.  That itself is a completed arc.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Janeway's nudge this episode helps Starfleet's best service tradition remain true.
• series - A welcome conclusion to the initial arc of Prodigy.
• character - Gwyn finally joins the good guys.
• essential -  The lack of heroic resolve from the ostensible lead character, Dal, remains a drawback.

Star Trek: Prodigy 1x4 "Dream Catcher" Review

 rating: **

the story: The characters end up on a planet that seems to provide them with their heart's desires.

rating: The crucial question all incarnations of Star Trek must answer is how closely do they follow the traditional storytelling model?  Most of them have a Starfleet crew exploring space in a starship encountering weird mysteries.  As of "Dream Catcher," Prodigy fits that model.

Interestingly, it even has a version of Janeway in the Delta Quadrant, once again doggedly insisting they follow Starfleet protocol.

A lot of fans grumbled at how Voyager did that for seven seasons despite a premise that seemed to contradict such things.  Prodigy is in some ways Voyager revisited, and it wastes little time doing exactly the same thing.  By the end of the episode (which ends in a cliffhanger, so the implication plays out in the next one), even the Maquis parallel of the character who seems diametrically opposed to the interests of everyone else, Gwyn, has reached an impasse.

The particular franchise trope "Dream Catcher" follows traces all the way back to "Shore Leave" in the original series and can be found in later shows like Enterprise's "Dead Stop."  Again, the character who stands out in all this is Rok-Tahk, the scary monster with a child's voice who finds illusory acceptance from cuddly creatures projected by a predatory planet in the episode.

For younger viewers who have no real Star Trek background to draw from, it's probably easier to view any of this as fresh ground.  For seasoned viewers, it's either comforting or vaguely alarming that something so familiar is already being presented.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Prodigy announces itself as familiar territory.
• series - I think this is potentially a huge misstep so early in the run.
• character - On the other hand, it is a useful way to explore these characters.
• essential - Even if the limited details of the animation make the results, especially for Janeway, as difficult to enjoy as the ring of familiarity.

Star Trek: Prodigy 1x3 "Starstruck" Review

 rating: ***

the story: The erstwhile crew meets Hologram Janeway.

review: The first regular episode of the series is also the first to explore how exactly Janeway, or Hologram Janeway, factors into Prodigy.  For long-term fans, Voyager's captain was itself the key selling point of the series.  The original series and Next Generation had their own follow-up films to ensure revisiting for at least a while, but that was the first two in what became an expanding franchise of characters, many of whom would never appear in another incarnation of Star Trek.  From Deep Space Nine onward, many characters would end up appearing only in their originating shows, or so it seemed.  Voyager has now gotten to luckiest, in the new era, with Seven in Picard, Paris showing up in Lower Decks, and now Janeway as a main character in Prodigy.

Hologram Janeway, and the ship she projects from, is the only standard Star Trek element of Prodigy.  She herself assumes the characters around her are cadets, and none of them are in a rush to correct her, so that's the premise, as far as she knows.

Amazingly, Kate Mulgrew sounds exactly as she always did.  Some actors, regardless of aging issues, end up sounding different when doing voice work, unless they're seasoned veterans of the form.  The depiction of Hologram Janeway is exactly as fans saw her in Voyager, so there's little confusion possible.  Anyone watching without that context knows this character as a reference tool who also volunteers Starfleet protocol when necessary but who is nonetheless very much beholden to a given set of parameters.  She doesn't adopt the role of captain, she can't control the newbies.  In some ways she's an interactive version of the computer voice Majel Roddenberry provided across much of the franchise.  (There's a whole generation of fans who shudder at the very thought.  I prefer not to seek out their opinions.)

Other than that, the episode is the cast just trying to figure out how little they know about a Starfleet ship, and not much beyond that.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The next gig for a well-known Star Trek character is pretty notable.
• series - The integration of that character into Prodigy is kind of the whole point of the episode.
• character - And that character is, of course, Janeway, recognizable in all aspects except...being in command.
• essential - Is it ironic that Janeway, famously having a holographic doctor, herself became a hologram?  This series lacks such self-awareness, alas.

Star Trek: Prodigy 1x1/1x2 "Lost and Found" Review

 rating: ***

the story: Inhabitants of a penal colony in the Delta Quadrant find an unexpected opportunity for escape when they find a Starfleet ship.

review: There's a lot of chatter online about Prodigy being the first time parents have been able to show their kids Star Trek they end up actually interested in.  Of course that's the whole point.  As a Star Trek show it's certainly unique.  It's the first time ever there's a crew made up entirely of characters who aren't in Starfleet (the Janeway hologram doesn't count).

The results have to be interpreted through that lens.  Fans have long clamored for something like this, but they usually envisioned the results to be a familiar alien species like, say, the Klingons.  There are no familiar aliens in Prodigy's main cast (except the Tellarite, who doesn't really look like a Tellarite, and the Medusan), even though they're all Delta Quadrant natives and of course that's where Voyager spent its run.

That means that the vibe is very, very different.  The main conflict is similar to a subplot of Discovery's third season (intentionally or not), and as it plays out feels more like Star Wars than Star Trek (an assessment many fans still hold over the Abrams films), which is not necessarily a bad thing, but very unfamiliar franchise territory.

The cast of characters, unlike Lower Decks (for a whole host of reasons), feels like traditional animated characters, especially as you would find in an animated film.  (The animation itself would be subpar for an animated film.)  Every character is meant to stand out as a unique type, and they're fun to watch, but not even the ostensible lead, Dal, is close to traditional Starfleet material, more like the vision fans always had of what the Maquis ought to have been like.  

(In fact, you might view Prodigy as what fans thought Voyager should have been like as a whole.)

So far the standout characters are Zero, who sounds like Helen Mirren, and Rok-Tahk, the proverbial gentle giant, whose arc is particularly well-crafted in this debut episode.  The others are works in progress, although the goop creature Murf is fun.

Since this is very much serialized material, the overall strength of the storytelling is going to rely on how well individual beats are handled, and the cumulative effect.  Once more Star Trek sails into the unknown...

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A bold new vision of Star Trek.
• series - It's a solid setup that introduces all the characters and the central premise.
• character - Even if I'm not sold on all of them, the cast is well-represented.
• essential - It's such a radical departure, and the familiar elements saved for so late in the episode, that it's difficult to judge how well this succeeds as a Star Trek series on the pilot alone.

Star Trek: Lower Decks 2x10 "First First Contact" Review

 rating: ***

the story: Freeman is offered another command.

review: The season finale ends with Lower Decks' first cliffhanger(s), and most of it makes up for the bit that falls very, very flat for me.

Let's get that out of the way first.  This is a series of franchise references, in some ways, sometimes so many and so often it can feel like that's the whole point, but most of the time they're handled perfectly and hilariously.  "First First Contact" is a rare blunder, and infuriatingly, one that the episode feels the need to harmer repeatedly.  This is the insistence on emphasizing guest-character Sonya Gomez, a minor character from a few episodes of The Next Generation, previously best known for spilling hot chocolate on Picard, now a starship captain.  It's obnoxious and on the nose and not even in character with how the concept of the series has used its cast of minor Starfleet officers.

So anyway, putting that aside the episode pivots on Captain Freeman, finally circling back to her after having such a notable role in the first season as the subplot of her being Mariner's mom played out and having nowhere the writers felt like going this season.  Apart from hitting overly familiar notes with Mariner (and Tendi; it's baffling how often they hit the same notes with Tendi), Freeman's arc circles the series back to the idea that the Cerritos itself is a "lower decks" starship in the fleet, an assignment Freeman would be happy to give up in order to upgrade her career.  

By the time she decides she actually wants to stay, after an amazing bit of heroism from the crew, we're thrown the curve of Starfleet actually coming to arrest her!

Then we get advancement for one of the main characters: Rutherford finding out there's a hidden truth behind his implant.  Here's hoping the next season has a much better idea of what it wants to accomplish.  One gets the sense that when conceiving this season, all they prepared was the setup of Boimler's transfer to the Titan.  This time there's drama better integrated to the Cerritos, and the characters themselves.  

criteria analysis:

• franchise - I'm knocking this point off for the Gomez blunder.
• series - A confident stride toward another season begins here!
• character - Freeman at last breaks free from the constraints of being a senior officer in a junior officer series.  And what about Rutherford???
• essential - Anytime there's a season finale cliffhanger, it deserves attention.  And this one does.