Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x04 - "An Obol for Charon"

This one is so Star Trek!

 

I wish the word 'filler' would die a fiery death.

The emotional character stuff is NOT filler to me. The exploration of the 'human' condition, the emotional journey our characters go through, are some of the best parts of Trek as far as I'm concerned.

 

You don’t have to pay for just mentioning them.

 

I’m telling you I’m enjoying this season more and more with each episode. Kinda wish they were doing a full 22-episode season instead of just 14 episodes but hey who am I to argue.

 

Saru's performance in that scene was quite literally the highlight of the entire season to date for me.

If only SMG's Burnham reflected it back with the same intensity. But we have to work with what we have I suppose.

 

That’s true. You don’t.

Perhaps the idea the producers had back in the TNG days was listening to classical music makes you more “enlightened?” I don’t know.

Seriously though, I like that they’re giving more credence to more modern music. I think with as much music as there will be in the 2250s it makes sense that much more than what we consider classical will BE timeless.

 

I love Jett Reno and her scenes with Stamets. Please keep her.

I also like Pike and Number One. A clever way to explain the view screens instead of holograms.

We also now know why there is no more traveling by microbe.

 

Really great stuff.

One of my least favorite tropes in any show is "I'm dying, fare thee well, remember me--NOPE, I'm better now!" and I'm happy to see that they cleverly avoided the inevitable dissatisfaction of that plot development by having it open up a new mystery that advances Saru's character. I really liked that, and that whole part of the story generally. Sonequa Martin-Green is a fantastic actor, and so is Doug Jones. Also, how great are Saru's quarters?

I also really enjoyed the universal translator malfunction. It's interesting that we've had three episodes in a row that referenced language, first with "New Eden" canonizing Federation Standard and suggesting that it might in fact be English, as suspected, then with "Point of Light" confirming that it's English, and now "An Obol for Charon" giving us a malfunction I can't believe we've never gotten before.

I continue to love Tig Notaro on this show, and I really enjoyed her scenes with Stamets. The Tilly storyline was solid, if not my favorite part, but I still felt that it worked.

I can't wait to see what they do with the space entity's 100,000 years of memory.

If there were things I didn't like as much, I guess it would be the use of Spock as a form of narrative urgency, which just wasn't needed, I don't think. There was a lot of plot happening here, and I wish we could maybe just have an A/B story rather than A/B/C?

Still, this was fantastic. Maybe one of my favorites thus far.

 

I think perhaps losing the ganglia and giving him his groove back is leading to Saru being Disco’s next Captain.

 

Middle of the road episode for me. Didn't care that much about Saru almost dying. Hope we get more Number One in future episodes. She's hot.

 

I'm wondering if the ganglia aren't actually parts of the Kelpiens at all, but are instead some sort of parasite the Ba'ul implant on Kelpiens to make them docile.

 

Without the ganglia, I bet we'll see an episode soon where Saru becomes too fearless for his own good. He's never had to weigh a dangerous situation without the ganglia automatically popping out. He won't know how to gauge a situation like we do.

 

Didn't that already happen in the first season?

 

My thoughts were that this was how the Federation learned about ancient races such as the Preservers, the T'Kon and the Iconians.

 

I strongly suggest folks watch this episode twice. There is so much dialogue and information to unpack, let alone the nuances and beats... I watched it twice, back to back, and like it more the second time. Gave it an 8 initially, really think it’s a 9 on second viewing. This season is so much more impressive than the 1st, I’m sticking around.

Q2

 

It did and it didn't. I'm talking about the reverse. He kept them in check. Now they're no longer there to keep in check. He knows how to resist giving in to fear. He doesn't know how to feel afriad or if he should feel afraid without the ganglia there letting him know he should, without it there sending the signal.

 

Ah yes, the T’Kon empire. That was Q’s fault you know.

 

I mean in the 8th episode, the Pahvans temporarily "disabled" his instinctive fear, and he kinda went crazy.

 

Interesting theory. I like it.

 

Yeah, that makes sense. It was always a question for me where some of the most...mythic knowledge came from (although I thought the Preservers were unknown until Spock read the musical notes on the obelisk?). I can't help but think that the Red Angel will indeed relate to one of those ancient known species.