A giant anomaly is ripping its way through the galaxy and literally no one is safe as was tragically demonstrated last week when Clevland Booker’s home planet of Kwejian was destroyed along with all of his people and his family. Now, in a desperate bid to understand the anomaly and get data to predict its path, Captain Burnham reluctantly allows Booker to take his ship into the disturbance.
I’ll just get this out of the way: This was one of the most impactful and dramatic episodes that Discovery has done. It was an honest and frank look at how grief affects a person and how close to the edge it can drive a person. More than that, it was captivating. David Ajala submitted an incredible performance in this episode as did Sonequa Martin-Green , Anthony Rapp, and Doug Jones. “Anomaly” is not only Discovery at its best, but it is Star Trek at its best… exploring strange new worlds and the human condition.
“Anomaly,” aside from a couple of cringe-inducing moments of dialogue, was an outstanding episode from beginning to end. Sure, we’ve had galaxy-threatening antagonists before, but it’s rare that we see Starfleet or the crew of a hero ship so at the mercy of what is essentially a force of nature that they can’t negotiate or even beg with. There was a very dreadful sense of helplessness in this episode, not only in the face of the anomaly, but also in confronting the grief that is crippling one of their own.
It was the scenes inside of the Nautilus that really got me this week. Booker seeing flashes of his nephew running through the ship, seeing him lose – basically – the will to continue and go home. It was handled so well and so honestly. Anyone who has ever lost anybody can identify with that feeling.
I loved this episode. I loved almost everything about it. I love that Saru is back, I loved the heartfelt human emotions that radiated from it, and I loved how, in the end, it showed that, even in the face of unbelievable doom and destruction, we must save each other.
I’m on my feet applauding.
Jason Gaston 