Welcome, one and all, to my continuing ‘Quick Thoughts on Star Trek Discovery’ series. With today’s episode, ‘An Obol For Charon’, I am finally up to date on track time wise! Whoo! Anyway, these are my thoughts on the episode.
- In my opinion, this was the most Star Trek feeling episode Discovery has put out. The set up was a classic story in the canon, and even the pseudo-antagonist was reminiscent of old encounters. In fact, I’m pretty sure that Kirk and his crew encountered a similar spherical entity in one of the old novels.
- The big star of this episode was undoubtedly Saru. His whole arc this week was superb and in particular, I loved his interactions with Michael. The two have grown closer over the two seasons, and we got to learn a lot about him as a result of today’s developments. There were lots of subtle little touches to latch onto, such as Saru’s cold acceptance of his impending death coupled with the angry outbursts that would indicate he feels otherwise. The thing that impressed me the most though was how intricately his story played into so many others. Not only did we get growth for Saru, but his closeness to Michael sets her on a more dedicated course towards reconciling with Spock. He got to ensure the legacy of an ancient entity lived on too. And let’s not forget that the episode sets up more potential growth for him as he has now lost the fear that governed his existence and accepted his own strength. Oh, and his quarters were lovely; I hope we get to see them again.
- Tilly, Stamets and Jett made an interesting trio in engineering. You could certainly argue that their initial clash – which I noticed Tilly stayed out of – resolved itself and moved towards mutual respect a little quickly, but it seemed to fit with the circumstances. Their scenes were all important though, and we got to see a good contrast I how Tilly and Stamets viewed the fungal creature. Learning that the ship’s jumps were damaging the Network was unsurprising, but it’s good to have it confirmed. Given Stamets’ tired resignation not needing to pilot it, I can’t imagine he’s entirely unhappy about needing to shut it down permanently. It would also mean that Stamets’ vision of Hugh were almost certainly hallucinations though, which I expect them to deal with once they’ve started making headway on Tilly’s disappearance. Oh, and am I the only one that winced when they drilled a hole in Tilly’s head?
- These two arcs took most of the attention this week, but other characters had their moments too. Linus amused me greatly. The ongoing Spock storyline acted as a backbeat more than anything, keeping pace for both Michael and Captain Pike as they dealt with the immediate issues. Pike came off really well again, not just in his dedication to Spock, but in his final treatment of the sphere entity.
What about yourselves? Are you watch Star Trek Discovery? How are you finding this second season? What did you make of this episode? Let me know in the comments below.
Matt Doyle Media 