‘Discovery’ watch – my thoughts and reactions – Part 38: ”Kobayashi Maru’ and ‘Anomaly’

OH GOD GOT TO GO FAST

So, for REASONS (read: capitalism), CBS has decided that they will no longer put Discovery on streaming sites. This made a lot of people very mad and so CBS instead decided to broadcast it on Pluto TV. Something I’d heard of but never really checked out. Long story short – it streams the episodes live every Friday. There’s a benefit here of being able to watch the show for free (kinda … erm, I still have Netflix, so I’m not saving anything), but because I can’t pause it, I am now having to write my reaction basically during the breaks, rather than as things happen. 

I guess this suits my more busy schedule a bit more, and means I don’t have to stress about screenshots (which tbh didn’t do much to help with the pacing of the show), but also means I have to rapidly write my thoughts during the breaks. And also catch up a wee bit because I forgot about this until 9 mins into the broadcast.

Soooooooo to catch up!

Burnham and Brooker are doing Starfleet things!

Starfleet Academy is back! (yay)

Saru is counselling Kaminar. 

Spaceship spinnnnnnn

Birds weird, no like bad gravity

The President keeps questioning Burnham’s decisions on the bridge and I’m like is this the time? If I was in charge I’d kick her off the bridge. 

Burnham manages to save the spaceship crew except for four, including the CO. The holographic display of the medical readout says ‘PATIENT DECEASED’ in BIG letters, which I’m like … not very discrete? Does it have to be that big? 

The President reveals she was evaluating Burnham for a new Discovery with a new spore drive, but because Burnham feels the need to save everyone and doesn’t believe in ‘no win scenarios’, she isn’t being considered. Burnham retorts she wouldn’t leave Discovery anyway. We get a nice bit of commentary on her ‘pendulum’ command record – which people have commented on before, with her constant promotions and demotions being a reflection. 

Then Booker arrives, in his damaged ship, and and the revelation his home has been destroyed by the gravitational anomalies. A lot of people criticised the fact we’ve gone from one ‘save the universe’ scenario to another (or well … a save the universe from a post-universe breaking situation) and then to another. We’ll see if that actually is the focus or not, but people forget NuTrek is much more serialised, as is TV in general, then ClassicTrek was able to be.  

And with that the first episode ends, but the second episode comes straight on next so I guess we’re still here! Also I forgot to say earlier – was nice we got the Archer’s Theme when Archer Spacedock was revealed, cute!

Booker is reliving the events just before his crash, as well as his last moments with his family, when Burnham arrives. She tries to comfort him, but Burnham is called away and Booker tells her to leave. She is greeted by Saru, back on the Discovery. Saru rightfully advises Burnham to let Booker deal with his grief in his way. Saru offers himself as Burnham’s advisor, following Georgiou’s teachings. Burnham appoints Saru as her XO (who was her XO before?? Poor him.)

Tilly and Staments hypothesises a binary black hole is what is causing the anomaly, hence why it was undetected. There is general panic and fear of unrest over the social ramifications of another threat. 

I don’t like the rank … badges? Especially the blue ones .. so hard to see the pips. I’d have to stick my head right into someone’s neck to see what rank they are!!! Like ooops sorry no idea if I you’re my senior or not let me bunt you real quick. 

I don’t like how hard the ranks are to see on the badges. I have to stick my head into someone’s chest just to know if they’re my senior or junior. 

Booker demands to go on the dangerous mission to get readings from the phenomena (which isn’t a binary black hole), despite his obvious emotionally compromised state. 

Meanwhile we get a callback to Picard as Culbert builds an android body for Gray Tal. Apparently the practice fell out of use because it was unreliable (foreshadowing Picard season 2??), but they’re giving it another attempt now. 

We get a beautiful shot of Niv’ar on Burnham’s personal holodeck in her quarters. The ship has called itself Zora (callback to the Short Trek). Burnham believes Booker is the best fit for the role, and Saru seems to agree, but helps with some suggestion for extra safety measures. They send Staments as a hologram to support Booker. I’m actually glad they moved past the animosity that they hinted at at the end of the last season – the conflict was interesting, but I don’t think someone like Staments would hold a grudge like that for five months, he’s too rational. 

I love how awkward Staments is at the idea of being alone with a grief-striken Booker. Culbert just tries to advise him that grief is grief, and to act how he wanted people to act with him when Culbert died. 

Staments completely struggles and is so awkward, it’s hilarious – until he makes an insensitive comment about the planet. Booker briefly hallucinates birds. Things get explodey and everyone becomes business. 

Suddenly Discovery gets hit by a series of gravitational bursts, causing gravity to fail and everyone to be thrown up and down. Tilly snaps at Tal during a command moment which is a great bit of growth from her. Burnham is forced to release the tether on Booker’s shop, 

Staments admits he hasn’t spoken to Booker because he feels guilty he wasn’t able to save the crew (Staments’ family) while Booker was. As they share that moment, the Discovery crew figure out a way for Booker to escape by riding the gravity waves, however after missing the first one, he gets distracted by his hallucinations. 

Burnham opens up a private channel to Booker (which surrounds her in a forcefield, which I find funny). Booker feels he should’ve senses the calamity and taken his family with him when he noticed the birds acting weird. She talks him out of it and he takes control of the ship again. Booker’s ship successfully escapes and the data is recovered. 

Staments thanks Booker for saving his family and promises to figure it out. 

Tilly is the best.

Saru and Tilly realise that the black hole can change its direction, seemingly on a whim, making their data useless. 

Shock.

Discovery openers tend to be quite weird, and I find don’t fully get you a feeling for the series until it hits its thematic rhythm, but I love seeing the crew again, the new uniform, the new Federation, and new Star Trek. 

The Star Trek franchise and logo is copyright of CBS.

Also Pluto has this weird tendency to put breaks just before the credits???? why?