Star Trek: Discovery - S2E04 - 'An Obol for Charon' - Reaction and Review (Spoilers!)

My reaction and review of episode 4 of Star Trek: Discovery's second season: "An Obol for Charon"

A mysterious sphere stops Discovery dead in her tracks, waylaying them from catching up with Spock's shuttle.

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[ToddWaters_tw]

One thing i am enjoying in S2 is, again, not just that the are writers answering our questions, rather that they are smoothly forecasting events/stories. Saru actually mentions knowing other languages in prior episode, for example. Also, Linus's voice not being registered by UT in ep 1.(This time he mentions that the UT sometimes misses his Clicks.) By doing these thing earlier, is leads to less clunky dialog later. So often in TV we hear something for the first time and we know what to expect 20 minutes later. This prevents some of that.

[rinehardt]

I really enjoyed this episode. I really like how they're getting other crew members involved so we can get to know these characters. I love what they did with saru because you knew he wasn't going to die it can seem little cheesy when they tease a main character's death but the way they did it was great. This episode was again them encounter a new life form pretty much a self contained but still sticking with the over-all Arc of the season. Commander Reno and Lieutenant stamets going back and forth was priceless. great to see Commander Nhan back I tweeted to the actress Rachel Ancheril and she tweeted back to me which was very nice and said it's been a great reaction to being a part of discovery. Again love is episode another great video Dan thank you

[sinewave]

lol, Reno " Weird dream i was playing drums for prince and there were doves and a beret " i just loved that. Overall a very good episode .

[AnthonyBerkshire]

I am imagined the universal translator differently but I enjoyed the scene a lot.

[Perplexum]

The episode felt a little too clustered, there were 5 subplots crammed into it, Spock, the Sphere, the virus, Tilly and Saru's condition, of which the Tilly one got really bizarre at the end. Other than that, the episode was quite enjoyable.

[neostar]

I think it's to soon to say this is the beginning of the end for the Spore drive. It's a claim made by May but we shouldn't automatically assume it's true. Especially given she as the green spore arrived at the time Mirror Stamets was using the spore technology in a completely different manner and we know what he was doing was destructive. This doesn't say or prove how Discovery is doing things is hurting the spore network.

[mkens]

I really enjoyed this Episode. I really like the Character building. Jett Reno is always great and I think the short visit from Number one was just a tease..from beginning to end a total thumbs up from me. Great review and look forward to them every week

[alexwoods]

Another very enjoyable video. Thanks so much for taking the time to share your thoughts. There’s so much toxic negativity out there about Discovery it’s untrue and it’s good to know I’m not the only one enjoying it and thankful that Trek is back in the TV again.

[SC-mqeh]

i mentioned in another vid that i think they did a great job with sarus "near death experience" - i knew that hes in future eps based off of previews, but i thought it was acted and written well enough to suck me in, even tho there was some overbaked parts to this plot!! and i thought this was better done than ep 2's OG trek homage, with great character development and less convenient resolution - still not perfect, but what trek ever is, tho nice to see DSC is still making strides!

[FishBoyBlue]

You know. I think the Saru Cliche could have been simply written better. The build was wonderful. The emotions and acting was wonderful, and agreed a little over the top. I honestly did not know if he was actually getting killed off. The magical recovery was as 90's trek as it gets. I think it could have been better.

Love your videos and thank you for being a positive channel that discusses this show calmly. You don't need a haircut until you look like Daniel Jackson...

i need a haircut.

[moawn]

I liked the episode just like the previous episodes of this season, however I am not in love with season like last season. Capt Lorca and the parallel universe was really exciting, till now the Red Angel is not that exciting. Overall I love Discovery and would consider top of 3 of the Star Trek Continuum

[rdalecowboy]

I think it has been confirmed that we will see more of Number One this season.

[utkarshed]

You forgot Leonard Nimoy between Patrick Stewart and Doug Jones!

[songyani]

one thing I‘ve been wondering though，is that whether universal translator was broken or malfunction

[DarthSharp]

Awesome reaction video again!

I'm just going to leave my Bad Robot easter egg references here, because you brilliantly touched on them in your wonderful analysis!

So where to start?!

Language Barriers - as a theme

Obviously this is not new to Trek, however the comedic/dramatic way it was done (virus and universal translator, communicating with the sphere, communicating with the spore-entity) is reminiscent to scenes in other Bad Robot works.


There's also the idea of character unexpectedly speaking another languages such as Charlotte Staples Lewis speaking Korean for instance and Dogan pretends he only speaks Japanese by having a fake translator.

As I may have mentioned on other threads, Tilly continues to remind me of Fringe's Walter Bishop with her enthusiasm. The way her story was presented here with Stamets and their singing, while they drill holes into her head for a communication device, reminds of two Fringe episodes that use the same piece of communication technology in them: The Ghost Network and Inner Child. In the Ghost Network there's a one shot character named Roy McComb who keeps having visions of future events and feels compelled to artistically replicate the images coming into his brain. We find out that he somehow taped into this frequency called the ghost network that relates to people conducting temporal experiments or The Pattern. Later Walter modifies this device (so no more drilling) to use it on The Child Observer, whose later revealed to be named Micheal, (*cough *cough) in order to read and understand his thoughts, since he doesn't speak. To get the device on him, Walter dances with it to the song, Love and Happiness by Al Greene. This also happens to be the same song Ash and Micheal dance to during Discovery's season one Harry Mudd/Loop episode!

Another Possible LOST reference??

The mark Pike gives on their way to Spock before finding the sphere is "108". This is a LOST number via all of the numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42) add up to 108. The number becomes more significant during LOST's second season, as the characters find out that hatch leads to underground military bunker left behind by the Dharma Initiative, where the characters have to re-enter the numbers into a computer every 108 mins! By the season's end one character finally contests this idea, which nearly results in near catastrophic events, but was stopped using a failsafe key that released some kind of stabilizing discharge isolating the implosion to the Swan station itself, leaving behind a crater. This caused another character to time travel back (or possibly to the past of another iteration of the time line) and returns unarmed, but with some new information filling in his memory gaps... The episode when this all happens is titled, Live together, Die Alone, which is also a big LOST theme about the importance of dying with someone (being in it together) or dying alone (every man for himself). Both the Sphere and Saru's plots seem to go hand in hand with that.

[WheelerinMiami]

Dan, Tell me what do you think about the new picard series? I heard that Guinan wants to join Picard... About this weeks episode, Saru had me worried since he was almost dead. I forget that in Star trek big named characters never die... I'm rewatching Voyager, and the episode where Kes leaves the Show made me think about how Saru's character might be leaving the show. What do you think?

[Blanzalot]

I don’t like Saroo but maybe his ganglia falling off makes him more interesting. I often wonder why someone who lacks initiative and leadership skills would ever get his own ship. He is weak and unfit to lead but somehow Trek nerds love him, I can see why but it still sucks. Mirror Phillipa was right to just eat his ganglia like jelly fish w some soy sauce. Yum!

[davidlandrum]

I’m so glad Star Trek is back on television. Enterprise was a let down, but now Discovery is scoring at every level. 🔥🤔🔥

[jameshirshfeld]

The universal translator problem was going to be a Star Trek voyager episode. But the producers of Star Trek voyager decided not to do that. So Star Trek Discovery stroll an idea from Star Trek voyager.

[ToddWaters_tw]

Another hanging thread, one you mentioned before. Discovery flying with Shuttle Bay door open, still.