Star Trek Discovery Review - “An Obol For Charon”

There is a lot in ‘An Obol for Charon’ to like if you are a fan of Classic Trek.  The plot and even the pacing at times feel like it could be an episode of ‘The Original Series’ or ‘The Next Generation’.  If you were looking for developments in the ongoing plot of this season you might leave a little disappointed.  The episode continues the traditions of making a big deal out of revealing very little. Saru takes most of the limelight in this episode, as we encounter a being trying to tell its story before it dies.  Unfortunately,  in trying to do so it disables Discovery and sends her systems into chaos.  It somehow also triggers ‘vaharai’ in Saru, which he describes as ‘the final stage of life’ in his people before they are slaughtered by the Ba’ul.  Ever since we were introduced to Saru and this ‘threat-ganglia’, it has felt inevitable that we’d have a moment where the character would somehow no longer be ruled by that emotion.  It would be nice to see the character not follow a predictable path from here though and instead use what life has already taught him in dealing with this new path.  Still, I can feel the ‘Saru-is-a-real-jerk-without-fear’ episode coming down the pike. Mai gets a bit more of an outing this week, ultimately retaking Tilly and sending her, Stamets, and Jett Reno on a bit of a trip.  Like a lot of the plot this season, we aren’t really offered much and nothing is really moved forward.  We know that she is an escapee of the Mycelium network here to tell us that the Spore Drive is causing damage to her world, but we don’t know much else and it isn’t really clear what else we need to know.   Yes, I realize that sounds like I haven’t really liked what I’ve seen so far and that isn’t quite true.  This season so far though has been a lot of exposition without a lot of explanation.  We know we’re up against something big but know so little about it that it’s becoming difficult to maintain interest in the plot at hand.  We need information and the show doesn’t seem to want to give it. The handling of the hook so far this season has also been a bit frustrating.  The hook I’m referring to is, of course, the appearance of Spock, Pike, and Number One from ‘The Original Series’.  You might be feeling just a bit disappointed, especially after this episode, with the amount of time you get to spend with these characters.  Pike is a bit of a write-off.  The series needs him to be an almost generic Star Fleet idealist and that is what he his.  His connection to Spock, other than being used to perhaps get information that otherwise might have been slightly more difficult to obtain, is almost irrelevant here.  And Number One, while fun to see brought to life again, could have been anyone in the grand scheme of things.  We don’t really get to spend any time seeing how Rebecca Romijn handles the part, much less how she and Pike interact.   A lot of this might be solved if we were to ever be introduced to Spock, but the show isn’t in any hurry to get there either.  I’m all for some mystery, but it’s starting to feel like there might not have been a plan and the producers are stalling.