Anomaly

*** (3 stars out of 5)

In keeping with the theme where our heroes are actually the villains, anomalies are turning go into stop, up into down, and cats into dogs. The part of beagle Porthos will now be played by a capybara.

In the co-ed locker room, Archer addresses his tactical instructions to the MACOs boobs, which nod along diligently. Boarded by pirates, Enterprise racks up its first casualty when they lose one of their Crewman Fullers. Crew lady Fuller is probably fine. Boobs and all.

Orgoth the Osaarian is a killer jerk thief with a face twisted by spatial anomalies. He entered the Expanse as a simple trader, couldn't get back out, and turned to crime after being attacked by all the other trapped, tormented victims. So Archer throws him into an airlock and gives him 40 seconds WOO (with out oxygen) to tell him where to find some Xindi. Space water boarding is now acceptable! Just as long as you're sure you're the good guys.

Pitched battle and frenzied keyboarding nets them 90% of a stolen Xindi database. 88% of it is probably religious gibberish, porn, or pictures of kittehs, but if there's a page or two on Death Stars that might be good. Having based your war on terror entirely on anonymous hearsay, if might be nice to get some facts eventually.

"Anomaly" was written initially to feature Orion pirates, which would have been WAY better! From my point of view, they used entirely too many foreheads of the week and entirely too few familiar faces in a series set BY DESIGN in what will one day be the Federation's back yard. Provided you can even make a Federation out of this morally grey, jingoistic mess.