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Post by Angry Raisins on Feb 16, 2020 16:57:01 GMT -5
Narek dreads some day having to carry out a seduction mission on a ship with carpeted corridors, rendering his most devastating technique useless.
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Post by Hachiman on Feb 17, 2020 1:54:08 GMT -5
Alright, so regarding Episode 4, I was wrong about the last 3 episodes being a 90-minute movie that they re-edited, since this was also part of it. So we've had 4 episodes just getting their band together, which is kind of annoying for something on a weekly basis. This can work in a show where the main character has more to do prior to finding allies like "The Mandalorian" or "Altered Carbon" but if the plan is basically a 10-hour movie than I wish we got this whole thing at once so we aren't waiting over a month just for things to finally move forward. Desert Dweller's right about this episode muddling Nero's plan. But there's an one more additional wrinkle that we now have! Nero was mad that his family wasn't evacuated, but we learn that the evacuation was in progress prior to the Mars incident. We also know that Nero had his own ship and was working up to the supernova. So after the rescue fleet got destroyed, Nero didn't go "Starfleet isn't helping. Time to get back home to get as many people onto this flying wicker basket as possible and get them somewhere safe. We should have enough time to make a a good amount of trips!" He apparently just kept working on his mining ship doing his job, which doesn't make a lot of sense. You'd think the Romulan government would have gone all hands on deck for civilian and military ships to start ferrying people offworld. Its like they gave up because they couldn't move everyone at the same time. And that's another thing. Did the Romulans run out of ships? How and when? We've seen a few at the Cube and we saw that classic ship in this last episode, but none of the Warbirds we knew from TNG or DS9. Space travel within the former Romulan space seems really underdeveloped. The settlers are complaining like they can't leave or go anywhere. Even a Senator can't get a ride to somewhere they like more. That's... odd. Then there's the anarchy of the whole thing. You'd think the Federation or the other powers we know of would care about this lawless void where the Romulan Star Empire was, but everyone is cool with leaving it alone? Even the Breen and the Klingons? Nobody is trying to expand or get payback on old grudges? The Federation isn't trying to do any humanitarian work? Not even the Vulcans are helping? One final nitpick is that we've never seen Romulans be big on bladed weapons except for that one guy in Star Trek '09. Klingon's sure, but Romulans not so much. I don't mind the retcon, but I find it a bit odd since it doesn't jibe with what we know about their culture. You'd think they would be all about hidden daggers and throwing knives if knives were there thing. Maybe a line about "Romulans always have a knife on them!" which would have been funny. But its odd to see them suddenly going, "yeah, swords are totally our thing" Finally, they really, really need to either tone down whatever the hell is happening with Narek and Narissa or throw in a line like, "In our secret spy group, everyone calls each other 'brother' and 'sister.' Its weird, but nowhere near are wrong a robots!" Some writers are taking the wrong lessons from "Game of Thrones." |
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Post by Lurky McLurk on Feb 17, 2020 8:43:12 GMT -5
Ok overall I'm really enjoying this so far; yes it's slow (and the second episode in particular felt a bit wheel-spinny) but I'm getting old and I like slow TV shows about loss and regret now. Love the Romulan Murder Housekeepers. Also in favour of Romulan Murder Nuns. And jokes I don't get until someone points them out to me, like "Vasquez Rocks - Present Day".
An elven swordsman though? I mean... really? That's an idea Babylon 5 would have rejected for being too cheesy.
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Post by Prole Hole on Feb 17, 2020 11:34:56 GMT -5
(Yes I know I'm running late on this one, I'll try and get my thoughts down tomorrow!)
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 18, 2020 1:44:51 GMT -5
An elven swordsman though? I mean... really? That's an idea Babylon 5 would have rejected for being too cheesy.
His name is Ellnor. Ellnor! They're not even trying! In my head, I keep calling him Legolas. It is so ridiculous. I hope the actor is good and the character turns out to be interesting. Hopefully they can overcome this silly beginning.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 18, 2020 2:27:55 GMT -5
Desert Dweller 's right about this episode muddling Nero's plan. But there's an one more additional wrinkle that we now have! Nero was mad that his family wasn't evacuated, but we learn that the evacuation was in progress prior to the Mars incident. We also know that Nero had his own ship and was working up to the supernova. So after the rescue fleet got destroyed, Nero didn't go "Starfleet isn't helping. Time to get back home to get as many people onto this flying wicker basket as possible and get them somewhere safe. We should have enough time to make a a good amount of trips!" He apparently just kept working on his mining ship doing his job, which doesn't make a lot of sense. You'd think the Romulan government would have gone all hands on deck for civilian and military ships to start ferrying people offworld. Its like they gave up because they couldn't move everyone at the same time.
This is really the crux of my problem with the whole "Romulan star went nova" story. In Star Trek 09 I was exasperated with this idea, since they would have known they needed to evacuate and yet didn't. WHY NOT??
Star Trek: Picard at least handled the MOST nonsensical thing and said they were at least planning an evacuation. And in Episode 4, we see that an evacuation was ongoing at the time of the Utopia Planitia attack. This was TWO YEARS before the star went nova.
And, my God, I didn't even think about Nero's freaking giant ship and how many people he could have fit on that, to evacuate to another planet. I honestly never understood why his plan wasn't to just go straight to Romulus in the new timeline and tell them all to start evacuating THEN. Seriously, Nero, why didn't you rescue a bunch of people yourself? Why were you mining, for God's sake?!
But really, why couldn't the Romulans evacuate themselves? In, lets say, 3 years. They had 3 years and couldn't evacuate one planet? With a fleet of warp-capable ships? As you are asking, what the hell happened to their fleet? They weren't wiped out in the Dominion War. It shouldn't take 10 years to build ships. The events of "Nemesis" don't seem like enough to prevent the Romulans from enacting an evacuation.
After this 4th episode, I am now seeing more and more people ask this question on Twitter, and YouTube comments, and on other sites. Why weren't the Romulans able to evacuate themselves? It seems such an obvious question. It's a gaping hole in the backstory of both this show and Trek 09. Yet, I don't get the feeling that the writers of this show have even thought about this. It doesn't have the feel of information that is being purposefully withheld. But damn. I know *I* feel like there's a missing piece here.
And yes! I, too, was wondering why all these Romulans in episode 4 seemed like they were trapped on this planet. Why are conditions degrading? Just because they are evacuees doesn't mean they're stupid. They should know how to make things, build things. Why can't they leave? Can't they just build a freaking ship? WHERE ARE ALL THE ROMULAN SHIPS?? What happened to all the other planets in the Romulan empire? I'm so confused.
This all feels so weird! How is there a power vacuum? How does that happen in a universe with Klingons (or Breen) in it? You're telling me the Klingons wouldn't get some joy out of taking over former Romulan Empire planets while they're in disarray after the nova? Sure, Martok's a decent guy, but I can't see him allowing a lawless sector and power vacuum without jumping in to take control.
I have to wonder, again, if this is happening because the writers of this show didn't watch ST: DS9. I feel like if you only watched TNG and VOY, you might be able to get away with thinking the galaxy is just a bunch of unconnected planets, where the idea of an entire sector having a power vacuum seems like it could happen. Even with TNG, I feel it is only with "Redemption" that they get into some of the bigger politicking involved.
But, in DS9 the galaxy feels somewhat smaller. Or more connected. More controlled. We know the major players, we see the politicking a bit more. Maybe DS9 viewers just expect more in the way of galactic political infrastructure than people who only watched TNG and/or VOY
Otherwise.... yeah, again, I feel like there are some missing pieces here. What are the Klingons up to right now? Is the Federation retreating into full on isolationism? How is no one getting involved in Humanitarian efforts?
This all feels ludicrous to me considering we saw the Federation provide material support to the Cardassians for a revolution at the end of the Dominion War. *After* the Cardassians had allied with the Dominion, giving it a foothold in the Alpha Quadrant. But when Damar indicated he wanted to fight back, the Federation sent help. The Federation was planning on sending huge Industrial replicators to the Cardassians circa DS9 season 4, and that wasn't that long after a war between between the Cardassians and Federation.
What the hell is going on?
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Post by Prole Hole on Feb 18, 2020 7:46:42 GMT -5
Episode Four - Absolute Candour
I mean, what other picture was I going to go for?
This is a show which is absolutely split down the middle at the moment. Which is to say, to be blunt, the stuff with Picard - even if it doesn't always make the most logical sense - broadly works at least in part because, well, Patrick Stewart is on screen, and nothing on the Borg cube really does. That's disappointing in any number of ways, but the Borg cube material basically just exists for people to stand around either telling us things which we the audience already know - which is repetitive and boring, or they're playing with characters that they don't quite seem to know what to do with, which is frustrating. Take our Romulan brother and sister pairing, Narek and Narissa. They're baaaad. And they were baaaad last week as well (and the week before). And now they're baaaad but with weirdly incestuous undertones. Seriously, that scene were Narissa wakes Narek up? They're so near to just making out its untrue - but the problem here is that it's very unclear if that's what the show is going for. It might just be an over-read from the actors, playing sibling intimacy too strongly and landing on "we're gonna bone once the camera pans away". Or maybe they want to have that as part and parcel of these two characters? That would certainly be something new for a Star Trek series, but if so they need to commit to it not flirt around the edges because at the moment it just looks like they don't know how to handle these characters. For all its many (many, many, many) flaws, at least when Game Of Thrones wanted to have a incestuous relationship it was right up there in the middle of the mix. Here? We don't even know if that's what they want. If it seems like I'm over-focussing on this it's because these two characters act as a stand-in for everything that's going on in the Cube. Nobody seems to have a focus. The "sliding down the hallway" scene should either be genuinely cute - if there was a real bond between Narek and Soji forming despite his duplicity - or deeply unsettling as he uses his charm and power to increase his control over her. In the end it's neither - it's just two people sliding down a hallway. Yeah, the Cube stuff is a bust. But wait! What of Jean-Luc? Turns out he's... erm, decided to take side trip to a Romulan relocation planet for... reasons. He gets an onerous line about "maybe not passing this way again" and whatnot, but that's not the reason. It's just a transparent attempt to get our Manic Pixie Dream Romulan and Seven Of Nine on board. In terms of plot mechanics it's all pretty clunky, though it's a testament to how good Patrick Stewart is here that these scenes feel like they have genuine momentum to them, rather than - for the fourth episode in a row - yet another "let's get the band together" plot line. So - and surely everyone is familiar how this is going to lay out by this point - that means plenty of big chunky flashbacks, some heavy-handed exposition and then moving to the present where someone who doesn't want to come on Picard's mission does, in fact, come on Picard's mission. The further we get away from the first episode, the more nebulous this whole "mission" thing feels anyway. This episode could really have done with properly re-establishing what the stakes are here because it's all getting a bit washed out. We know Picard is going to find Soji because... well. Maybe something about Data being saved, or because he feels guilty about not being able to save Dahj, and perhaps something about artificial life, and, erm, Romulans and stuff. What we need is real clarity on what the point of any of this is, and the fact we don't get that clarification isn't because there's any kind of deliberate obfuscation going on, it's just that the show isn't very good at bringing those aspects across. They are there, but the mix of repetition and muddy scripting is diluting the potential power of what's going on. As a result Patrick Stewart remains the most compelling aspect of this show. Now, given that the whole reason for it's existence is to get him back in the Picard saddle again that's maybe not surprising, but here's the thing - the writing seems far too content to lean on Stewart's obvious brilliance as a crutch for writing which isn't quite sufficient. But here's also the thing - he can very nearly bridge that gap. I mean, there's a few big logic holes here which no actor in the world could cover (most notably, Picard saying in flashback that he'd "come back for the boy" then later expressing surprise that the warrior nuns haven't found somewhere else for him. I mean, fine, with him not returning it might be logical to expect the nuns to move the boy on at some point, but as per usual the show doesn't bother to explain this, the contradiction is simply allowed to stand). And yet and yet and yet... those flashback scenes between Picard and Elnor are absolutely charming. Picard's warmth and humanity come flooding out and we get to see Stewart working in a register the show hasn't really given him the chance to explore yet. It's delightful. Reading The Three Musketeers is a bit corny - especially considering the beheading late in the episode - but it's the right sort of corny, and it's absolutely a book Picard would read. When we meet Elnor as any given Final Fantasy character a grown man the "I don't like you" / "I'll join you on your mission" stuff is similarly pretty corny but it gets the job done, and again Stewart is able to bridge the gap between the writing and the character to make these scenes work in a way that they almost certainly wouldn't with anyone else in that role. And oh yes, Romulan warrior nuns who only fight with you when you're a lost cause. Apparently that's a thing now! Cute, show. There's not much sense that they're going to get developed any further but it's another peek into Romulan culture, which is appreciated, and it's again good to see that we're not falling back into the (very typical) Star Trek mistake of having one characteristic stand in for an entire species (Klingons are all violent warriors, Ferengi are all greedy and grasping etc). Here we get to see a part of Romulan society we've not encountered before - something akin to religion - and the work done to establish them is, if not massively detailed, still appreciated. The ideal that they follow the path of "absolute candour" (hence the episode title) certainly feels very much at odds with what we've generally seen of Romulan culture, so good solid work deserves acknowledgement. And generally that's how it goes with this episode - there's work done here, and what's done (off the Cube) is appreciated. There's still plenty of room for improvement, but hopefully now that we have the band together - surely we must have the band together at this point? - we can finally stop stalling on the Cube, have a decent story there, and get things moving. I'd take this episode over the last couple simply because there's at least some - if limited - amount of momentum, and because we have Stewart getting something interesting to do. But four episodes is a lot to spend on getting the band together when we only have ten in the season, and excuses like "well there's already a Season Two announced so they can afford to take their time" are only going to work for so long. There's a big difference between a slow burn and simply being slow, and right now that's where Picard's biggest weakness is because it's way more of the latter than the former. Oh and hey, Seven's on the show now. Seven! Any Other Business: • Yeah the Cube material is all basically just not working. I can only hope that when Picard reaches it - and surely he must do this next week? - it will somehow be enlivened because at the moment the show stops dead every time they need to go there and it's killing the momentum so badly. • Jonathan Frakes is in the director's chair this week! Honestly, it's not his finest work but he's clearly working with a fairly limited budget and there's only so much you can do to make vaguely identical bits of Borg cube look enticing. Maybe have a think about how you want to frame your brother and sister relationship though, eh? • So Elnor is our Manic Pixie Dream Romulan. 'Kay. • Picard's chateau is recreated on the ship for.. cost-saving reasons I guess? Picard explicitly said in the first episode that it "never felt like home" yet here it is. • I still don't care very much about anyone else on Picard's ship. • Picard being called JL sets my teeth on edge. It's not even a proper fucking contraction! • Perhaps I should have mentioned it last week - though it's hard to be that fussed about it, really - but Hugh, from the episode "I, Borg", was hanging about the place and he's here this week too. Which is nice. • It will surprise exactly nobody, but the Romulan relocation centre consists of one square, one house and a "Romulans Only" bar that must have cost about twenty bucks total. I hope this show is saving up its budget for something really spectacular... • The beheading near the end of the episode is about Supernatural-level of gruesomeness in terms of gore and quality of special effects. You can get away with that on a show that's just Hot Boys Fighting Monsters. On Picard it just looks cheap. • Yes, about that - what was Picard's plan when he walked in to the Romulans-only bar? He's disgusted by an openly racist sign and takes it down to symbolically walk all over it? Fine, perfectly in character. Then he goes in and provokes a fight for... reasons? I'm assuming it was an attempt to get Elnor to come to his rescue - which of course he did - but it's all very nebulous. I can't help but feel the old Picard might have thought things through a bit more. • Speaking of... I get that the Picard we have here is not the idealistic over-achiever and staunch patrician defender of All That Is Good we had in TNG. Of course not. A long time has passed, Picard has changed. That's fine. But the show isn't doing enough work to establish how that change came about. We understand that Mars happened and the Romulan rescue failed and so forth, but these are always presented as plot points, not character beats. We're told what the events are but we don't meaningfully get to see their impact on Picard. Even putting side the exceedingly heavy-handed flashback structure - of which I am no fan - there's no sense of transition between the idealistic captain of TNG and the defeated recluse we see in this series. In the last episode's flashback Picard threatened resignation to try and force his point through and was shocked his resignation was simply accepted. Fine. Of course that's going to affect him. That's the moment we need to see something - Picard breaking down, Picard tearfully explaining how the organisation he had dedicated his life to had turned its back on him and its beliefs, Picard getting drunk and losing his temper... something. Not just a bland cut back to the present as if ta-da that's everything explained then. Show us how it changed Picard, don't simply present it as is. • We get to see an old Romulan Bird Of Prey, back when they didn't look like Klingon knock-offs or big green pencil sharpeners. That's cute. • Seven! Seven's here! I was deeply excited when I found out she was going to be on the show, because - as anyone who's read my Voyager reviews will know - I adore Jeri Ryan, think she's an amazing actor, and I love Seven as a character. Now.. I'm ever so slightly nervous. Don't fuck it up, Picard!
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Tellyfier
TI Pariah 
Unwarned and dangerous
Posts: 2,552 
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Post by Tellyfier on Feb 18, 2020 7:47:40 GMT -5
Oh how I wish the Romulan evacuation was the only thing to get rationally angry about.
Nope, there's several more going sideways and for me they're really becoming an issue, if this wasn't Star Trek I would have stopped watching after this episode.
Maybe I have a severe case of 90's nostalgia here but I can't remember Jean-Luc Picard being an insufferable dick. The last time he visited the Lady Assassins he swore "to find a more suitable home for the boy". Then he comes back years later and actually asks them "How did YOU not find a more suitable home for the boy?" WTF Jean-Luc?
And walking right into this romulan only bar, for no other reason than the writers to showcase Legolas showing decapitation skills? My Captain Picard would have never done something so utterly foolish.
Also his name is not JL! Stop that! From now on I'll drink watch this. For every fucking "JL" I'll take a shot.
Hot romulan spy and his sister have a thing going on there because they did that in GoT or what?
God I wish it was still the 90's because then I would have a crt tv still which you can throw things at without breaking it!
I'll keep watching but they better put Jeri Ryan in a skintight suit asap. (Yes I'm that desperate for reasons to stay with the show)
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Post by Hachiman on Feb 18, 2020 21:54:58 GMT -5
Maybe I have a severe case of 90's nostalgia here but I can't remember Jean-Luc Picard being an insufferable dick. The last time he visited the Lady Assassins he swore "to find a more suitable home for the boy". Then he comes back years later and actually asks them "How did YOU not find a more suitable home for the boy?" WTF Jean-Luc? I've posted about this before, but I have always been bothered by Star Trek's habit of sending whatever crew we are watching into the middle of some horrible place or situation and having them go, "There's nothing that we can do here. No sir, no way. We can, however, give a speech and maybe say a nice thing before leaving." And it was nice to get an episode that they were finally called on that, but this wasn't quite the way I wanted to go about it. Picard obviously had an ongoing relationship with the Romulan kid, so it is terrible that he would drop everything and not go back or do anything else. There's not even a hint that maybe he sent some sort of sub-space message or anything after resigning. He just went off to HQ, lost his job, and never called them in the middle of an ongoing evacuation. If I quit my job tomorrow, I would still have to contact like 10 people to be like, "FYI, I'm leaving. Sorry, but this other person will help you. Here's my personal email if you ever want to grab coffee and chit-chat." Picard apparently didn't even do that. Who knows, maybe Picard's housekeepers wouldn't have minded adopting a kid. Again, maybe some more character development could have helped explain this departure from his character because this show is really showing how much he gave up and its becoming less sympathetic. As for Seven, I was also a huge fan of her (and the Doctor!) on Voyager so its good to see her again and find out how she is adjusting to life back in a home that she barely remembers. The thing is that now I am wondering what happened to Chakotay. Weren't they a thing? I feel like the Voyager ended with them being a thing. Maybe the show will address that, but I feel like they forgot. And that's fine since the show is stuffed enough as it is and its a question absolutely nobody is asking. However, I feel like one thread that exists on this show and Discovery is a sense that most of the writers never bothered to watch or do any research on what came before. Even the new Starfleet uniforms seemed like an odd step backwards and I say that as someone who liked the Voyager/DS9 uniforms. How hard is it to look at what came before and then make something new? I know they don't have time to watch all of the shows, but you'd think they would be paid enough to do some research to make things less jarring, or otherwise show some creativity. |
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Post by Lurky McLurk on Feb 20, 2020 8:08:23 GMT -5
Episode Four - Absolute Candour
• Speaking of... I get that the Picard we have here is not the idealistic over-achiever and staunch patrician defender of All That Is Good we had in TNG. Of course not. A long time has passed, Picard has changed. That's fine. But the show isn't doing enough work to establish how that change came about. We understand that Mars happened and the Romulan rescue failed and so forth, but these are always presented as plot points, not character beats. We're told what the events are but we don't meaningfully get to see their impact on Picard. Even putting side the exceedingly heavy-handed flashback structure - of which I am no fan - there's no sense of transition between the idealistic captain of TNG and the defeated recluse we see in this series. In the last episode's flashback Picard threatened resignation to try and force his point through and was shocked his resignation was simply accepted. Fine. Of course that's going to affect him. That's the moment we need to see something - Picard breaking down, Picard tearfully explaining how the organisation he had dedicated his life to had turned its back on him and its beliefs, Picard getting drunk and losing his temper... something. Not just a bland cut back to the present as if ta-da that's everything explained then. Show us how it changed Picard, don't simply present it as is. We need a scene of him getting drunk, smashing up a model ship (maybe the one from Elementary, Dear Data) and then vomiting on himself. |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 20, 2020 23:47:23 GMT -5
I've now seen episode 5.
Um, what? No, for real, what?
Hey, ST: Picard? You know how the writing for Star Trek: Discovery is so bad? Look, I know Beyer is listed as a co-creator, but maybe she shouldn't be allowed to write for this show?
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Post by Lt. Broccoli on Feb 21, 2020 8:17:34 GMT -5
Spoilers for Episode 5
AGGH GOD NO NOT THE EYE WHY ARE YOU SHOWING THIS
*later*
OH NOOO WHY ARE YOU FLASHING BACK TO THIS AGAIN
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 21, 2020 23:10:27 GMT -5
Spoilers for Episode 5 AGGH GOD NO NOT THE EYE WHY ARE YOU SHOWING THIS *later* OH NOOO WHY ARE YOU FLASHING BACK TO THIS AGAIN
Someone on my Twitter feed posted something like "Star Trek Picard producers, please put a 'Graphic Violence' warning ahead of this episode." I replied that they should just not ever show that level of violence on a Star Trek show. At all. Never.
And here I thought the beheading in the last episode was too much.
I couldn't even watch this. Flipped over to a different tab until I heard the theme music start. Um, producers? This is Star Trek. What exactly do you all think Star Trek is??
In any case, I still haven't really thought of anything else to say about this episode, other than "What?". I mean, I could go through how every scene (except one) was awful. And say exactly why they were so awful. But, honestly, I think "What?" sums it up pretty well.
At least I enjoyed Jeri Ryan's performance. *She* was good, even though I thought the episode was garbage.
My CBS All Access subscription expired Sunday, the 23rd. I actually went to cancel it after this episode. But when I tried to cancel, CBS All Access offered me a free month. So, I guess I'm watching a few more episodes of this.
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Tellyfier
TI Pariah
Unwarned and dangerous
Posts: 2,552
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Post by Tellyfier on Feb 22, 2020 9:12:03 GMT -5
First of all, I didn't mind the eye gouging, seen worse and the episode was labeled "16+" so I'd knew it's gonna be nasty.
Second of all, I loved this one!
Skintight suits (not as expected but I'll gladly take it), pimp hat, eyepatch, ridiculous fake accents, betrayal, even more betrayal, and some good old revenge, served perfectly chilled!
Best episode to date for me.
Stray Observation: They should really drop the act and admit it's all directed by Ophra: You get a backstory! And you get a backstory!
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Post by Angry Raisins on Feb 22, 2020 16:26:13 GMT -5
Ep 5: kind of a mess, but at least Seven asking him what he was doing didn't result in Picard telling the whole Daj story for the 17th time.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 22, 2020 17:13:48 GMT -5
Stray Observation: They should really drop the act and admit it's all directed by Ophra: You get a backstory! And you get a backstory!
First: It was rated TV-MA in the USA version on CBS All Access. But that twitter poster was correct. "Graphic violence" warnings do exist in USA television, even on top of the rating already given. And I maintain that was too graphic for Star Trek, and Star Trek should never be rated TV-MA in the first place.
Second: They can't do the Oprah thing because they aren't actually giving anyone a backstory. They are alluding to backstories, but treating all of them like a mystery. It's mysteries on top of mysteries. Characters had stuff happen in the past, but we're not going to tell you about it!
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 23, 2020 2:30:46 GMT -5
After watching episode 5 what I'm left thinking about is:
Wow, what if the Dominion had just waited 10 more years before attacking?
I do not know what the hell happened to the Federation, Romulans and the weirdly-MIA Klingons from 2375 to 2385, but it seems it all fell apart. What if the Dominion had attacked in 2383 instead? Or, actually in the 2385 time that ST:Picard keeps showing us?
Bummer. The Dominion is apparently thousands of years old. If they'd just been patient, played nice for about 10 years, they apparently could have overrun the entirety of the Alpha/Beta Quadrants quite easily by 2385.
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Post by Prole Hole on Feb 23, 2020 9:31:27 GMT -5
Episode Five - Stardust City Rag The Good, The Bad And The Pointy
A lot of the successes of Picard so far have tended to feel a little abstract - a bit more in-theory good and a bit less in-practice good. Stewart is obviously great and we have a series of intriguing mysteries, but one of the frustrations of the show is being able to see a lot of the potential whilst also seeing that the show really isn't capitalising on it. Complaints that the story has been slow up to this point are certainly valid, yet "slowness" is not in and of itself a problem - take a show like Better Call Saul which moves at a pace which makes continental drift seem snappy and impatient yet also manages to feel achingly tense and riveting. Picard as a show hasn't managed to get this balance right yet, mistaking slowness for thoughtfulness and number of so-so plot and character beats that just aren't finding any traction beyond "I intellectually understand why this these choices are being made but this has yet to become compelling television". It would be too harsh to call Picard boring at this point, but it's also something that's been hovering on the horizon ever since the credits rolled on episode one. Hark, then, at "Stardust City Rag" a preposterously enjoyable episode of television that actually manages to weld the basic structure of the series into a series of compelling scenes that are consistently entertaining for the whole 45-minute run-time. At last we get something which is top-to-bottom enjoyable - not just in a tick-chart, point-scoring sort of way but in a manner that actually suggests that, five episodes in, the writers have finally managed to figure out this whole "how to structure an episode" business and still make it Actually Entertaining. This isn't a perfect episode of television, and we'll get to some of the problems shortly, but it's fast-paced, fun, entertaining, has some proper character beats, and actually bothers to do something worthwhile. That's a lot for the episode to land, and let's start with the most obvious talking point - the return of Noted Prole Favourite, Seven Of Nine. At the end of the last write-up, I expressed concern about how they might handle Seven - "Don't fuck it up, Picard!", to be exact - and it is a matter of considerable relief to discover that, in fact, they did not fuck it up. In fact, having Jeri Ryan on the show is simply glorious - she immediately re-inhabits Seven, not quite the Seven we left at "Endgame" but more than familiar enough to be the same character. Jeri Ryan has immediate rapport with Patrick Stewart, and it's amazing just how much it lifts the show. Every scene they have together sparkles, Ryan's acerbic, dry Seven rubbing up against Stewart's more patrician Picard. Their best scene is, of course, the one where Picard admits that while he got his humanity back, post-Borg, he didn't get all of it back. It's a lovely scene, played to perfection by both Ryan and Stewart, and it just shows what a difference having an actor that can actually hold their own against Stewart makes, because Ryan's presence immediately makes it clear how short most of the rest of the cast are falling (I'll make an exception for our Manic Pixie Dream Romulan here, because he's not given a lot of material here). But even scenes of them hanging out in the holo-recreation of Picard's chateau have a warmth and closeness that just feels so much more alive than when the show has attempted the same kind of scene with, say, Raffi. The moral grey area Seven inhabits also feels consistent with her character - her revenge-movie for Icheb's (deeply unsettling live vivisection) death works, her actual execution of Bjayzl, his murderer, (even against Picard's pleas) is in line with Seven's personal take on morality (see, for a clear example of something similar, the fourth-season Voyager episode "Prey") and everything she does is just so much more vivid that our standard-issue hanging-about-the-place crew. It's not because we're already familiar with her, it's just that she's simply better.We're also spared pointless scenes on the Cube this week, which is something of a relief. The show doesn't for a moment miss the pointless will-they-wont-they brother-and-sister act that's been dragging the show down over the last couple of weeks, and indeed it's telling that it was only after the episode had finished I thought, "hey wait, they weren't actually in this!" Last week I had some hopes that Picard and the Scooby Gang might finally make their way to the Cube, but seeing this little side adventure just re-enforces the idea that the Cube material isn't (yet) working. Instead, what we get is Picard in an eyepatch and beret with an ouuuuutttrrrraagggeeeeooousssss Freeeeeench accent, Rios in a pimp's outfit that would make Huggy Bear proud, and a light heist plot that manages to actually be fun rather than "fun". Picard, and indeed Stewart, is clearly relishing the chance to get in on the action a bit more, so when we get phaser battles, tense negotiations or just hanging out at the bar, the fun element helps keep things engaging while Picard himself clearly - and at last - also gets to join in and unclench a bit as well. Seven offering herself as a bargaining chip to get close to her prey is a nice additional touch as they negotiate for Maddox, and while bits of it aren't always completely sensible, "sensible" isn't what's being aimed for. This episode gives us some much needed levity, and if the price of that levity is an occasional wonky bit of plotting then it's a price worth paying. Picard was in danger of tipping over into grimdark and while scenes of former Borg being torn asunder for parts keeps the horror aspects of what's happening alive, they're brief so they act successfully to anchor the show in what's come before (and to provide Seven's revenge motive) without simply drowning out the lightness of the episode. It's not an easy balance to walk but for the most part, "Stardust City Rag" nails it. Less successful is the whole Maddox story. We've been chasing him for a few episodes now, so there's some anticipation built up when we actually get to come face-to-face with him, especially after all the hoops the crew have to jump through in order to acquire him this time out. So what happens? He gets stuck on an operating table, mutters a few gnomic warnings about the "truth", tells them where Soji is, and is then promptly killed off by the World's Least Convincing Traitor. Come on, Jonathan Frakes (this episode's director), you can do better than this. Having your soon-to-be-exposed bad guy lurk in the background of a few scenes is one thing, but having her lurk in full-blown close-up while Picard and Maddox have the conversation we've been waiting half a season for? Erm no. And it's a shame because generally speaking this is a well-directed episode (full marks, obviously, for Seven's exit as she strides out all guns blazing) but that moment was supremely clumsy. I mean, ever since Agnes had her meeting with Commodore Oh (oh, really?) we knew something was up and so here it is, as she straight-up murders Maddox for... reasons. Reasons, we can assume, that will be revealed going forward, but even when they are the whole Maddox storyline feels like a bit of a bust. He's on screen exactly long enough to give Picard a clue, then dies. Yeah, that's not great writing. And speaking of not great writing, we have Raffi trying to reconnect with her son. Eesh. Those scenes are Not Good. Michelle Hurd does her best but honestly the material is just completely soap-opera hackneyed, and the actor playing her son is downright terrible, looking like he's always on the brink of smirking rather than looking upset or pissed off. Turns out she's been a bad mum in the past, he's about to become a father but can't forgive Raffi for what she's done in the past and then, just to cap it all off, in walks the heavily pregnant mother (was she a Romulan or Vulcan? The show doesn't bother to inform us) for the final brush off. The only thing it's missing is the final electric drums from the EastEnders theme tune. Still, ultimately this isn't an episode - despite the Maddox material - that's really invested in the idea of the ongoing story, it's basically here to have Picard and Seven meet and faff about in a space casino. And that's just fine, because that's the part of the episode that gets absolutely nailed. It's honestly hard for me to set aside my obvious love for Ryan and Seven to be objective, but everything about Seven's kick-ass adventures just seem so much more compelling that the rest of the show. I'd be more than happy with a spin-off that was just her and Picard out righting wrongs in the galaxy. Ah yes, that needs a mention - Seven is now a "ranger", doing just that. There's a clear parallel here with the Maquis - logical, given how much time Seven spent on Voyager interacting with former members of the Maquis - except that the Rangers are apparently defending whole regions rather than just a single planet. That chimes with both Seven's ideas of right and wrong and, again, the idea that she's more than happy to take the law into her own hands if she thinks it's the right thing to do. Hopefully, should we meet the Rangers in future, they'll prove to be a bit more interesting that the Maquis were - the Maquis being as big an in-theory success as Star Trek has ever managed - but just more of Seven swanning about the place, kicking ass and generally being awesome would be more than enough. If it happens to come with an eyepatch and a French acccent Allo Allo would have been ashamed of, well, so much the better. And it's for that reason that this episode deserves to be remembered. Sure not everything comes together, but when it does it's simply great. More like this please, show! Any Other Business: • Yeah the show did not miss the regular check-ins to the Borg Cube. The more linear storytelling on display here actually allowed some tension to build up, the thing Picard is noticeably bad at - attaching stakes to events. • Icheb was exactly nobody's favourite Star Trek character but what happens to him here is seriously brutal. It's a lovely, understated, piece of continuity that the cortical node they're trying to extract isn't even there, Icheb having given it to Seven to save her life during Voyager's final season. • The brutality could be seen as over-the-top but it's necessary to establish in some ways that this isn't the cosy universe of old, and this definitely achieve that. It also stops the episode from simply being a lightweight piece of fun. And Seven having to actually shoot him - it's not 100% clear but it looks all but certain there's no way Icheb could have survived what what we see happening to him - twists the knife further. Her revenge on Bjayzl therefore actually feels earned, a short but well-defined little character arc for her here. • Fuck me it's good to have Jeri Ryan back as Seven. Just. So. Good. Seven showing up at a plot-convenient time at the end of the last episode is a pretty big co-incidence but the show basically gets away with it. • Yet her presence does show up a big problem, because the rest of the crew just fade into the background and it's made clear where some of the problems with the show lie. Seven is a compelling character, well acted, and Ryan is someone who can hold her own with Stewart. Almost nobody else on the show can. The regular crew just wash out when faced with the scenes of Seven and Picard together. It's like Picard is an F1 race-car and the rest of the crew are a family hatch-back - they just can't keep up. Ryan can. • The pop-ups as they approach Space Vegas are genuinely funny - the show could do with a bit more of that energy. • Legolas Elnor gets fairly little in the way of lines this week despite his Big Introduction last week, though playing him for slightly oblivious light comedy works well enough. • The EMH popping up asking, "what is the nature of the psychiatric emergency?" is mildly amusing, and very nearly contributes something plot-wise! Nearly. • What's the point of the alien who can "smell lies", only for that to be immediately be overcome by a handy pill? I assume it's an attempt to clue us in to Raffi's understanding of drugs and give her a little character beat but it really doesn't work. • The bar is hilariously tacky and under-populated. • Yup, the Maddox storyline is a bust. • Bjayzl is played to the hilt as a pantomime villain, which works well enough against Dame Patrick's outsized performance, but is also a suitably nasty piece of work that it feels satisfying when Seven eventually takes her out. • Just to highlight it again, but the scene between Seven and Picard, when she asks him if he thinks he got all his humanity back and he bluntly admits that he didn't, is downright excellent and precisely the kind of scene this show needs to have an emotional fulcrum. We need a lot more of that. Needless to say Ryan and Stewart are amazing and I hope we get more of those scenes going forward. Her deception - telling Picard she wouldn't take revenge then doing just that - is also a terrific beat. • And Seven goes out all guns blazing. Of course she does.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 23, 2020 19:40:43 GMT -5
Maybe I do need to explain why every single scene in this episode is awful? Excepting the one between Seven and Picard where they discuss trying to regain their humanity. Don't get me wrong. I liked Jeri Ryan in the episode. Thought she was great. I hated everything else. Thought it was a pointless waste of time. And Beyer should have just written another novel if she wanted to tell this story, rather than waste everyone's time with a Seven revenge story that is based on stuff we didn't see and relationships we didn't see and characters we don't know. My God, Ryan was selling that with basically nothing in the script to back her up. Great job to her! I don't care about this woman. I HATE that the show insists on making everyone's backstory a mystery, and this was mystery just for the sake of it. Maddening. There were ZERO stakes to anything anyone did. Bafflingly, they introduce a threat - bodyguard can smell lies - and then immediately negate the threat with some drug. Why the hell even do this? Ellnor was reduced to being an idiot. God knows why a dozen bodyguards just let Seven grab that woman. I also don't know why everyone else beams out at the end and leaves this woman standing there. And absolutely none of this matters! Raffi's scenes were so, so, so bad. The scene with her and her son was utterly terrible. We don't know Raffi, this has no emotional weight. And making her son say that she's a crackpot over believing something the audience knows is true only serves to make him look dumb. And now we get even more mysteries about Jurati! Who was apparently shown something so terrible by Commodore Oh that it drives her to murder Maddox. Yet, this incredibly compelling evidence must remain a mystery. This information has made her question her entire life's work, but for some reason she won't simply tell Picard? And making this big push to find Maddox only to immediately kill him is ST: Discovery-level hack writing. Also, it drove me batty that they depicted Jurati as afraid of working the transporter. If they wanted to show some deep emotional conflict in her, they could have done that by having her tell Picard what she knew, have them hash it out, have her pretend to agree with him and then we would know she is nervous about bringing Maddox on board. As it is, she is depicted as a brilliant scientist who is afraid of working a transporter. Which is dumb. Fundamentally, I don't understand why we have a series talking about "reclaiming" Borg, what happens to those people afterwards, bans on synthetic life, etc, and yet they bring on Seven of Nine to deal with absolutely none of this. This 10-episode long show spent an entire episode on some meaningless revenge story that the audience is unfamiliar with. Hey, Seven doesn't like it when former Borg are mistreated. Super. That seems freaking obvious. Could we have actually tied that into the main story, do you think? But hey, at least we didn't have to spend time watching secretive Romulans have the same creepy conversation for the 5th time.
Edited to add: Oh, and the production design of the episode was also terrible
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Post by Prole Hole on Feb 24, 2020 3:31:20 GMT -5
To be fayyyaaaahhhh, Seven's revenge plot isn't out of nowhere. She and Icheb hada long-standing relationship from Voyager (one which was specifically designed to allow Seven to explore her maternal side), she came to regard him as a son (explained onscreen here), and his death drove the revenge plot of the episode. Sure, the pre-existing relationship between Icheb and Seven isn't from this series but it's absolutely something that existed. I think the episode does enough to establish what's going on, and Seven's back-story is the only one in the whole series other than Picard that we actually know anything about (or at least hasn't been delivered to us in a clumsy flashback, a technique I now actively hate in this show).
Yeah, Raffi's scenes were horrible. I'm really not sure what they're trying to do with Raffi, actually. Are we supposed to care that she nearly leaves the ship, then changes her mind at the last moment? Picard might be relived that she's decided to stick around but I can't say I was. Whatever it is Raffi is meant to be bringing to the table just isn't coming across.
The production design was horrible, and I'm fine with that. I am too far into Star Trek to worry about the fact that it sometimes looks cheap.
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Post by Hachiman on Feb 24, 2020 7:43:58 GMT -5
I liked this one. Stuff finally happened and the scenes with Jeri Ryan and Patrick Stewart were all pretty great.
The vivisection was just a bit too graphic. They could have definitely dialed it back. Plus, who the hell is buying Borg implants and for what exactly? I'm not saying I want a show about Borg hunters, but it seems odd since this hasn't been mentioned as a thing until now. You would think Hugh would have mentioned a black market in Borg parts.
The scenes with Rafi just felt unnecessary. We know that the fallout from the Mars incident wrecked her life and we didn't need it much more colored in then that. Hell, when she was berating Picard in like episode 3, the only issues she mentioned was her career being wrecked. You'd think she'd mention becoming estranged from her family. A better story beat would have been if she visited a former subordinate that also got drummed out of Starfleet in the fallout of Picard quitting. It would have made a nice echo to her anger at Picard that she also failed to protect her own subordinates and maybe given her some new motivation to set things right.
Between Rafi's daughter-in-law, the Picards housekeepers, everything we saw on Vashti, criminals acknowledging that the Tal Shiar is definitely still a thing, and Rios' comments about "Romulan Space" I really need an explanation as to what the hell exactly is the situation with the Romulans as a people and political entity. Because it feels like the show just shoves them everywhere without explaining why they would be everywhere, especially since some of the scenarios we see logically conflict. You would think whoever is running "Romulan Space" would care about the people stuck on Vashti or at least send a ship to pick up a former Senator. I don't want a ton of info here, but it is starting to seem kind of lazy.
The stuff with Maddox just upset me. We have spent a good portion of the show trying to find him, only for him to immediately get knocked off. I would have appreciated at least another episode with him. I feel bad for the actor who played Maddox. Between this and "Altered Carbon" that guy sure gets characters that get put through the ringer
Its not all bad though. We got 2 Quark shoutouts! They used him as a reference to set the meeting and there's a bar called "Quark's" when Rios beams in.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 25, 2020 21:05:54 GMT -5
To be fayyyaaaahhhh, Seven's revenge plot isn't out of nowhere. She and Icheb hada long-standing relationship from Voyager (one which was specifically designed to allow Seven to explore her maternal side), she came to regard him as a son (explained onscreen here), and his death drove the revenge plot of the episode. Sure, the pre-existing relationship between Icheb and Seven isn't from this series but it's absolutely something that existed. I think the episode does enough to establish what's going on, and Seven's back-story is the only one in the whole series other than Picard that we actually know anything about (or at least hasn't been delivered to us in a clumsy flashback, a technique I now actively hate in this show).
I know who Icheb is. I know Seven's relationship with him. That isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how the episode stops cold for approximately 10 minutes of its running time so this unknown woman and Seven can exchange cryptic comments about their prior relationship and how Seven feels so massively betrayed that she now has no choice but to murder her.
This is pointless. I could not believe how much dialogue was spent on "Annika, you feel betrayed" and "I trusted you!" etc. WE DON'T CARE ABOUT THIS! WE DIDN'T SEE THIS! WE DON'T KNOW THIS WOMAN!
What is the functional difference there between that mysterious nonsense and "I have been trying for 13 years to track down the person who killed Icheb. Now you'll pay! BOOM!" That would take 10 seconds.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 29, 2020 15:19:46 GMT -5
I watched episode 6 last night. "The impossible Box"
Well, I think this one does count for the ST Fuck Meter. Amusingly, neither of these characters seems particularly horny. More like depressed and lonely.
Since I'm on this, I'd like to talk a bit about Rios. I realized last night that Rios is essentially a useless character in this show. Ironically, he's also the character who feels the most like a real person. Though, perhaps those things are related. Since the writers don't need to use him to advance plot, he exists solely to interact with other characters. I feel like we know more about him than the other characters because of this. While it did feel a bit jarring to see him make out with Jurati, a woman he barely knows, it was nice to hear someone actually converse with her about what she's going through. I liked that he offered to listen.
And this got me to this: Is the show intentionally trying to make Picard seem so insensitve and oblivious to the people around him? I've been thinking about this ever since his first conversation with Rios wherein Rios told him Starfleet erased his ship from the record, and then Picard proceeded to deliver this triumphant speech about the merits of Starfleet concluding with "YOU ARE STARFLEET!" Kinda sounds like Starfleet may have, maybe, fucked this guy over. Not sure a "You're still one of them!" speech is the right thing to say?
And then in this episode, we got a truly strange scene where Raffi, who is drunk and clearly depressed, sacrifices one of her only remaining friendships to help Picard, and obviously feels shitty about it. And Picard.... gives her a standing ovation? While Rios grabs Raffi and takes her back to her quarters, actually listens to her problems, and tries to comfort her. And takes the alcohol away. Why was Picard applauding for her there? Is he really that insensitive to what she's going through?
And in this same episode, he seemed fairly oblivious to Jurati being a total wreck, which even Romulan Legolas figured out.
I can't determine if this is intentional writing meant to say something about Picard's mental state, or if the writers think this is just who Picard is.
Moving on, I winced when Narek and his sister started having the same damn conversation again in this episode as they have in all the other episodes, but I was encouraged when Narek finally wrested control. A couple episodes ago the sister mentioned that Narek has spent his whole life studying synthetic life. I thought that was interesting, since it would make him something of a scientist, and it is something we haven't seen from him at all. In this episode, Narek is given a chance to give a speech demonstrating his own knowledge. That really helped to make him seem more like a real person.
Of course, the show then reverted to cliche, showing that Narek had developed feelings for Soji. This was wild when the episode has Hugh mention that Narek had been on the Cube for two weeks. Two weeks! I give credit to Treadaway, here, for portraying what the script is asking for, even if it doesn't make much sense given what we've previously been shown. (And that it has been TWO WEEKS!) I liked Isa Briones' performance in this episode, also. So, even though I may not have entirely bought what the script was saying, I thought these two performed the hell out of it.
I also liked seeing Hugh in this episode. I liked his interactions with Picard. I liked that he tried to get some political help from Picard. I am quite interested in this whole idea of de-Borging all these people. The show doesn't seem as interested in this as I am, sadly. Does Seven know this is happening? You'd think she must know? Would love to hear what she'd have to say about this.
Otherwise, I guess it was an okay episode. I am glad that the two storylines finally merged. Makes the Romulan Cube stuff stop spinning its wheels, which is great. Hopefully now that Picard has met Soji we'll actually get a sense of what is going on. It is weird that we're 6 episodes in and we still don't really understand what this is about. Finding out who is behind the android attack on Utopia Planitia? That would kind of make it Raffi's story and not Picard's. So, I am pretty curious to see how this all goes.
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Post by Prole Hole on Mar 3, 2020 7:14:23 GMT -5
Episode Five - The Impossible Box
LCARS layout? Hugh don't say!
What, exactly, do people want from Star Trek? There has been a legitimate line of questioning around this ever since Discovery brought Star Trek back from the televisual hinterland of syndication. One of Star Trek's strengths has always been its ability to appeal to people beyond a hardcore of fandom - that's why it's the biggest science fiction franchise in the world (putting Marvel to one side, of course - that's a whole different conversation and I don't want to get bogged down in genre definitions at this point). The movies appeal to people who like sci-fi but aren't necessarily huge Trekkies. The original show has become part of the cultural landscape, one of science fiction's defining texts, and watchable by just about anyone. Is there some difficult-to-define over-arching appeal that can embrace TNG and Enterprise? Into Darkness and Picard? And if so, what is it? Over on TOC, Zack Handelin wrote, "A friend on Twitter recently pointed out that saying something “isn’t Star Trek” isn’t really an effective criticism". I strongly disagree with Zack's friend - I think it cuts to the absolute heart of the issue that people have with both Discovery and Picard, and it is to this we turn our attention. Regardless of one's views on its relative merits or otherwise, it's fair to say that Enterprise was not an overall success, being as it remains the only Star Trek show to suffer the ignominy of cancellation. It wobbled along for four seasons and then ended with an episode that has gone down in notoriety for it's sheer, dreadful wrong-headedness. Voyager - still patiently waiting on that critical reassessment I have done my best to spearhead - remains in the appreciation doldrums. Yet neither of these shows, flaws and all, were ever accused of "not being Star Trek" contemporaneously. They made mistakes, they mis-stepped - but then again there's no part of the franchise that hasn't done that, and both were still absolutely regarded as part of the same spectrum that embraced Kirk, Picard and Sisko. For better or worse, they were Star Trek. Things were a little different when it came to the Abramsverse, but given that it's an "alternative timeline" they have a get-out-of-jail-free card (and excellent casting at least helps to cover some of the cracks). But both Discovery and Picard have this new criticism - that somehow those shows are lacking something, the animating spark that raises a show from "normal sci-fi" to "actually Star Trek". Their katra, if one wanted to be a pretentiously indulgent fanboy. Discovery is relatively easy to parse out when it comes to that line of criticism - it often looks like Star Trek but at the expense of feeling like Star Trek. It has much of the right iconography - chevrons and ships, phasers and mirror universes. And it unquestionably does things that Star Trek ought to - it has, at long last, proper LGBTQ+ representation, we have a diverse cast, gender roles are not pre-defined and so on. But, ultimately, something is missing. That's partly because Discovery has struggled - so far anyway - to be actually about anything. Being about stuff is basically what Star Trek is for. All the obstacles the crew encounter are just that - obstacles to be overcome on the way to overcoming the next one. And then the next one. There's no real guiding moral or political philosophy beyond vague gestures towards inclusiveness. We're supposed to be invested in the journey the characters make, but the characters take journeys that aren't very interesting so this really struggles as a motivating reason for Discovery to exist. Take, by contrast and to finally bring us round to something approaching relevancy, an episode like the TNG's "Justice", from Season One. It's an absolute piece of shit episode, one of the very worst any iteration of Star Trek has ever produced, but, cack-handedly and insufficient though it is, it's trying to be about something - "there can be no justice so long as laws are absolute" Picard stentoriously informs us. It's a dreadful episode, but at least it's trying. This is the element Discovery struggles with so badly. Picard struggles with it to, but that fact is occluded by the fact that it's about, well, Picard and he's front and centre of the whole affair. But some of the same underlying problems with Discovery linger here, less visible thanks to the mighty presence of Patrick Stewart but still absolutely tangible. We're supposed to be invested in Picard's journey, from self-imposed recluse to... whenever all this is going. But the show isn't good enough and landing the character details for us to fully invest in that journey. Stewart's clearly a phenomenal actor and he can make up some of the distance but, at least at this point, his journey has been literal - from Earth to Space Vegas to the Borg cube in this episode - with not enough time invested in making us care about why he's doing any of this. We've had some backstory and exposition but it's not enough. There's a reason the most resonant scene in the whole show so far was between Picard and Seven - not because Seven is a familiar character but because for once we have an honest conversation between two people who have a shared experience discussing what it means to them. Those are the scenes, the details, the show badly needs and badly lacks. None of the other characters have really sprung into focus much - Raffi has a drink problem and an estranged son that could come from any given soap opera, Manic Pixie Dream Romualn hasn't had enough lines to care about yet, the Incest Romulans on the Cube are stock baddie characters who are being somewhat overplayed, Soji is a walking plot device and so on - so there's not much to get emotionally invested in. And, again, Picard just isn't about anything. It's been sold to us on the basis that we're exploring what happened to one of Star Trek's most beloved characters but we're not exploring it at all, we're just being told about it from time to time, usually in clumsy flashbacks. And there's no other morality, politics, philosophy or guiding ideas worth talking about to, erm, engage with. The Borg are being stripped down for parts, the bodies sometimes discarded and sometimes recovered - this ought to be the core of a moral horror, but it's not it's just a plot beat. * And we get some exploration of the Cube this episode, but it's mostly just tech, and there's less than zero sense of threat or danger on the Cube. High walkways people feel dizzy on, a trajector to escape the "Queen cell" and so on - it's just stuff. It's pretty shrug-worthy, and certainly no more than Another Plot Point. The whole Cube setting feels like such a wasted opportunity, and recalling the highs of "The Best Of Both Worlds" (an obvious, but effective, early shot where the current Picard is overlaid with an image of his assimilated self) isn't exactly helping their case. What are the Borg - once the greatest threat ever - these days? Just things. People complain Voyager neutered the Borg but that's pales by comparison to what's being done with them here - which is precisely nothing. They've been reduced to a series of corridors. And, despite what the series seems to think, we're not really being presented with a more "morally complex" look at the Federation either. We have a few can't-see-the-forest-for-the-trees higher-ups, a bar-slash-gambling-club and... um... someone drinks too much? DS9 gave us a more morally complex universe than anything Picard has shown us. So, to be frank, did TNG, and it was seriously wrapped up in utopia-vision (really, it's the only version of the show that has been). We don't get moral complexity here - or at least not yet - we get a YA version of what complexity looks like, occasionally mixed in with the word "fuck". And so on. That would be acceptable if there was anything else going on, but meaningfully there isn't. Oh there's events going on. Plot points get trundled out. Occasionally - if not often - they even brush up against effective. Soji's discovery that everything in her room is only thirty-six months old is pretty compelling, as is her reaction to this. But rather than explore that she falls for Narek's stupid lock-her-in-a-room trick, which doesn't make her look especially smart (I get that she's confused and all, but still). Then she has to punch her way through the wooden floor and out into the superstructure of the Cube before she's killed by the universe's slowest-moving gas released from a puzzle box that absolutely doesn't have anything to do with Hellraiser, honest guv. Narek himself is now lacking only a moustache to twirl to complete his baaad-guy image, and remains a curiously difficult character to care about - not, sadly, a trait that is in any way unique to him. Then Picard and co flee the ship to Some Unknown Destination while Romulan Legolas hangs back to cover their retreat. Oh great we'll get to see some cool sword action at least and maybe... oh, now the credits? But the show had, however briefly, actually built up a bit of momentum! Sigh. Oh hey, I forgot to mention we get to properly meet Hugh, another former drone! He's... nice I guess? I'm not sure more characters are what Picard needs at the moment, but hey, maybe? Hmm, let's see, what else... Um, Jurati is still a flake and almost everyone seems to realise it but it's not time for that plot point to be resolved so it can just sit there and stew for another week (or two weeks, or three weeks...). That whole "Raffi gets them permission to land on the Cube" beat was curious, though at least it gave her something to do this week. She's still drinking too, in case you were worried she strayed from her soap opera template. Look, this was a solid episode of Picard, it really was. A lot of the criticisms articulated here are more to do with the overall quality of the show than they are anything wrong with this specific episode. The otherwise-dreary hot-Romulan-on-synth action we've been watching for the last few weeks decisively moved on, the escape from the Cube was relatively exciting, Patrick Stewart got to do some great emoting outside of the show's default "seem warm" setting. That's all to the good. And hopefully the plot can move out of the holding pattern it's been stuck in for the past five episodes now Picard has finally arrived at (then immediately fled) the Cube. Great. This and the last episode have been a marked improvement over what came before and though the underlying problems remain Picard is demonstrating small but definite signs of improvement. It's becoming a good sci-fi show, hopefully. But it's still not actually about anything, and until that changes accusations of it "not being Star Trek" are going to remain. And they are going to have some justification. * Speaking of the Borg, what's happened to them anyway? Did Voyager manage to actually deliver a mortal wound in "Endgame" as planned, taking out the (or maybe a) Queen in the process? This is literally the last event to occur this far into the future that we've seen televised prior to Picard launching. So is that why this Cube was severed from the hive? Or was there a handy ion storm or something that knocked out its power systems and it's reactivation remains a lurking, ever-present threat? Are the Borg still out there, an existential threat to everything the Federation purports to stand for? As seems to be the now rather depressing default, Picard simply cannot be bothered to explain it to us. I get that this is something to be potentially explored in the future but a few stray lines to give us some idea of what's going on would be nice - and certainly more interesting than hearing the Incest Romulans relate the same fucking conversation for the fiftieth time. Any Other Business: • Stewart is terrific in those opening moments when he confronts his own assimilation - really great work, and the show badly needs to give him more chances to do that sort of thing because at the moment he's feeling weirdly under-utilized. • Yeah, the "overlay" scene deserves a special mention, well written, acted and directed. Terrific moment. • Did it really take them until they were three hours away from arriving at the Cube to think, "hey maybe someone might recognise Picard and maybe we should do something about that"? Great planning, Scooby Gang. • Yeah, how well-known is Picard anyway? In the first episode he's all over the news losing his temper (apparently a big deal), then he can turn up as Space Vegas with nothing more than an eyepatch, hat and outrageous French accent to disguise him, and here he's worried about being recognised on the Cube and we're told he's probably "still on the brochure" for the Federation. • Hugh's inclusion here is... nice. Quite the co-incidence that the Borg cube that got disabled was the one that our handy previously-encountered Borg was on though, wasn't it? • Rios was in this episode. • The exploration of the Cube really needs to done better. Nobody has directed it well, and this continues to be the case. It doesn't need to be all sliding Borg trombones and Dutch angles but as a setting the Cube should be seriously discombobulating whereas now it could be just any abandoned base. They're not doing nearly enough with it. • The not-from- Hellraiser puzzle box thing was a curious inclusion, and using it as a Rubik's Cube Of Doom to release green (what other colour would it be?) gas doesn't quite go far enough to explain its presence. We get the whole "you need patience" parable about opening it, which presumably is meant to elucidate the idea that Narissa is impatient, but we know that already because we've had about a dozen scenes of her telling Narek to just get on with it already. • Narissa, incidentally, really isn't working for the show and I'm fine if she dies on the way back to her home planet. Or bedroom. Whatever works. • The trajector in the Queen Cell is a pretty obscure Voyager reference - the episode "Prime Factors", from Season One, introduced the technology. • We get Riker and Troi next week! All hands, brace for cuddles!
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Post by Lt. Broccoli on Mar 3, 2020 9:16:58 GMT -5
I don't think that was necessarily the cube Hugh was on. I thought he escaped from the Borg, was rehabilitated with Federation help, and now he's the director of the project to salvage this Borg ship, but he was assigned there specifically for that job. That's my head canon anyway.
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Post by Prole Hole on Mar 3, 2020 10:32:59 GMT -5
I don't think that was necessarily the cube Hugh was on. I thought he escaped from the Borg, was rehabilitated with Federation help, and now he's the director of the project to salvage this Borg ship, but he was assigned there specifically for that job. That's my head canon anyway. This show requires altogether too much head-canon. |
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Post by Mr. Greene's October Surprise on Mar 3, 2020 13:00:38 GMT -5
Proley, you forget -- the original Star Trek was cancelled, too.
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Post by Prole Hole on Mar 3, 2020 13:50:52 GMT -5
Proley, you forget -- the original Star Trek was cancelled, too. I meant modern Trek shows, but yes that's true. |
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Post by Hachiman on Mar 3, 2020 21:45:09 GMT -5
I thought that the reason the Cube was disconnected had something to do with the fragmented Romulans. They were the only known Romulans to be assimilated, the Cube went offline after they were assimilated, and they are the only fragmented former drones. That's too many connections to ignore, but the show and the characters haven't put those pieces together. My head canon is that the Romulans had some sort of anti-assimilation implants installed (similar to Future Janeway in "Endgame") but that requires head-canon, and as Prole Hole correctly notes, this show requires way too much head-canon already. |
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Post by Prole Hole on Mar 6, 2020 9:19:36 GMT -5
Episode Seven - Nepenthe
 I have nothing to add
I really wanted to start this episode with a two-word review - "nothing happens". But that's not true. Plenty of things happen, though they're mostly low-key, character stuff. That's fine though at episode seven, whether "low-key" is really what Picard should be aiming for is certainly up for debate. But let's be clear from the outset - this is an episode specifically designed to do one thing, and one thing alone - tickle all those TNG feels and in that it's an undeniable success. The whole raison d'etre of this episode is Picard meeting up with Riker and Troi, hanging out for a while, then getting back to the main plot. And of course it's delightful to see those three characters on screen together again, because of course it fucking is. It's Riker! He's visibly drinking! I mean, what's not to love? Yet in a way this episode continues to show some of the problems Picard has. We're seven episodes in. Three to go. And we yet again spend an episode where, at least as far as the Picard plot is concerned, nothing moves forward. He flees the Borg cube with Soji, they arrive, spend time eating pizza and making friends, then leave. That's it. Watching them all interact with each other, catching up with what's happened to Riker and Troi - it's all lovely, and I'm sure as Bowlpup not going to be the one to claim otherwise. But that's it. Purely in terms of plot, nothing happens. This would have been an idea episode to have around... oh I don't know, maybe episode three? Logically, calling in on his old pals and having them make him face to up the fact that he's not the Jean-Luc that sat round Ready Room tables and made people give him opinions and options would have been a good call early in the season, acting as a motivator, helping him get back out there. It's not that the impulses of this episode are wrong, it's more that they've been misplaced or mistimed. It's easy to imagine a version of this show where, following the phaser fight at Starfleet when Dajl is killed, Picard is spooked, spends episode two picking up his "motley" crew, then heading off to visit Riker and Troi for sanctuary to come up with a plan, only for Troi to plant her metaphorical foot up his ass and tell him to get on with it already. All the right ideas are here but they're just not being deployed very well. But at least in this episode we get three clear narrative strands. Manic Pixie Dream Romulan gets to have a swordfight on the Borg cube, Rios and co... get to be in the episode again, and Picard hangs out with his old shipmates. With the slight exception of Romulan Legolas none of these advance the plot even slightly but at least by moving between them we get a bit of narrative momentum which stops us becoming bored. Actually let's deal with the Romulan Legolas - oh alright, Elnor - material first. Elnor so far doesn't actually have a character, just a series of dramatic poses which could come from any given videogame cut-scene. That means it's a bit hard to get emotionally invested in what's happening to him. He gets a fight - and it's an actual good fight - and do what he's clearly on the show to do, but that's it. Hugh - written out here in a fantastically stupid off-handed manner - at least had some emotional resonance with Picard, but he can't have that with Elnor, partly because they've barely spent more than five minutes in each other's company but mostly, again, because Elnor has no personality to speak of. The whole death of Hugh seems contrived just so he can deliver the, "how's this for a lost cause?" line as he died, while large IRONY!!!! signs flash away in the background. Jonathan Del Arco does a good job with the Hugh material and does his best to give it some pathos but it's dramatically fairly inert and his death is - again - stupid. Oh and Narissa unfortunately survived her encounter with Elnor, so I guess she's still on the show - ah well, never mind. Meanwhile, over on the good ship Good Ship they faff about a bit in case they turn up at the titular Nepenthe too early and Picard has to do another round of awkward introductions. This series is simply terrible at making plot threads intertwine successfully, so we once again have some stalling. This time it's because The Evil Villain, The Nefarious Narek! tm is hot on their tail. Because he's hot you see. As the show repeatedly told us. Hot? Tail? Oh please yourselves. Anyway, that's this episode's excuse for shamelessly stalling. Raffi - who's had the entirely logical character transition from inconsolable drunk to friendly on-board surrogate mom - is now mothering her way through the not-at-all suspicious Jurati's feelings, mostly via the medium of velvet cake. These scenes don't have a lot of resonance - as with Hugh and Elnor, how much actual interaction have Raffi and Jurati even had? - in terms of character, though both are played well. Alison Pill gets, at last, to show what she's actually meant to bring to the table and does really well with her "suicide" scenes and really helps broaden out Jurati's character. But - here we go again - there's something lacking. We get a(nother fucking) flashback to the meeting between Jurati and Commodore Oh (oh really? Yes, really!) and Oh persuades Jurati to take on the mission after giving her a decidedly non-consensual mind-meld with a horrific vision of the future should they fail to act. And Oh tells her doing this will extract the most terrible price, while giving her a tracker to explain how come The Evil Villain, The Nefarious Narek! tm can keep following them. Ok fine. That all works, even if the tracker thing is very mechanical writing. But it's a big fucking leap between "undertake secret mission" and "you need to murder this person you were really close to in cold blood". Jurati is, as far as we know, just some synth nerd (insert your Moog jokes here) who's been fine puttering about her lab for years, but now can kill. Sure, not without remorse, but all the same that's a long journey for a short conversation. Maybe we'll find out more about Jurati - in bloody flashback, no doubt - to explain that but as it stands Picard once again can't find a way to draw a line between the two character points. But all this is really just my way of shamelessly stalling because come on. We're here to talk about the central triumvirate of the episode - Picard, Riker and Troi. Well it's simply delightful to see them together again isn't it? I mean, whose heart couldn't be melted by that? There's a few quibbles - we'll come to those - but by and large these scenes are a resounding success and provide exactly the sort of heart and warmth the show has been so desperately needing. Riker messes about in the kitchen cooking - yup that works with his TNG-era side - and Troi enjoys puttering about growing things and generally being a good mum. Yeah, that works perfectly too. We get to explore a little of their post- Enterprise time together - specifically that they have a daughter now, and had a son who died due to a rare condition - and it all fits. Both Jonathan Frakes - now a vast bear of a man - and Marina Sirtis slide effortlessly back into their characters and it's just great to be able to spend some time with them. Their daughter also works surprisingly well - Star Trek has a beyond-terrible track record including children and adolescents, but Kestra turns out to be the rare exception that proves the rule. Not only is she an interesting character in her own right, she allows us to explore a new side of Soji. Soji's been a very limited character so far because she's only really existed in two modes - fawning over The Evil Villain, The Nefarious Narek! tm or teary. By pairing her off with a much younger character Soji finally gets the chance to work in a new emotional register and it really makes the character come alive. It obviously gives Isa Briones somewhere to go with her performance, and just little scenes of her haltingly eating a real tomato for the first time, or lying on a bunk and basically being allowed to be unburdened for five minutes go a long way to making the character in-actuality interesting rather than just on-paper interesting. Even the tentative scenes of her (emotionally) prodding the fact that she's an android finally allow us to explain the largest part of her character. All this is delivered well, and basically the show doesn't put a foot wrong and the more-than-welcome development of Soji actually make it possible to invest in her and care what happens to her. A dead brother could be an unforgivable cliché for Kestra, using that a jumping-off point for her bond to Soji, but the show treads lightly with this, allowing the shades of loneliness which Kestra clearly has to be at least temporarily assuaged by Soji's presence, leading to their tentative bond, and allowing Soji's slow emergence from being a trauma victim. Elsewhere, Picard and Riker just pal around and get to be generally bro-tastic together. There's something slightly disconcerting about the way that Riker just casually calls Picard "Jean-Luc" now, one of those minor quibbles which is more to do with expectation than anything else. These two are far more relaxed around each other than they ever were on the show, so it takes a little adjusting to when we see Riker casually sling his arm round Picard's shoulder as they sit together on a bench near the end of the episode, but these little moments are allowed to stand. We're at least spared some explain-everything flashback and so the growth in their friendship is allowed to simply be, and of course Riker (who is absolutely Rikered in this episode) is still played with the same lugubrious charm by Frakes as ever he was. Marina Sirtis, too, clearly relishes being back in the role of Troi, though she's moved on a little too. It's fascinating watching the scene where Soji basically unburdens herself to Troi because Sirtis absolutely does not play it as she would have done back in the days of TNG (or indeed her handful of Voyager appearances). Throughout Soji's unburdening Troi stands there, listening and absorbing what she's saying, but just look at her facial expression. This isn't someone blandly standing there while someone emotionally vomits everything out then coming back with some handy platitudes. Troi looks doubtful. She looks like she believes some of it and is mentally rolling her eyes at other bits, all without basically moving at all. It's a fantastic performance from her, and shows how Troi has developed since the end of TNG as well. Her reprimand to Picard is meant to be the big "oh shit, she said what?" moment but it's in the way she listens to Soji that we get the real change in Troi, and Sirtis is just phenomenal. So - as you may well have gathered - this is another episode which continues the uptick in quality that Picard has had recently and is a thoroughly lovely way to spend forty-five minutes. There's still some basic mistakes being made - stalling, flashbacks - but the fundamentals seem far better locked in for the back half of the season than they ever were in the front half. "Compelling" is yet to be an adjective that Picard has must relationship with, but at least if we are to slowly rumble along an episode like this, full of warmth and heart and humanity, provides a good reason to keep watching. I shall continue to lament the basic structural and storytelling problems the show has, but - for all the criticisms I laid out on the last episode - this feels like Star Trek in a way that no other episode has managed with quite the same consistency. Yes, of course some of that is catching up with familiar and well-loved characters, but it's also in the way they're written, acted and expanded upon. This episode does something I regretted the show didn't normally do last time - it's about something. It's about bonds, and friendship, and growth, and change. And loss. And it's a powerful reminder that Star Trek can be about all those things without simply seeming limp or hand-wringing. Strong performances, strong writing, a consistent theme. What more could I want from Star Trek? I'm not confident the show will be able to keep this up - it simply hasn't earned that level of good will or trust - but it would be nice to think this was an indicator of getting back to what Star Trek is best at. And even if it turns out to be the exception, not the rule, this is still a delightful episode and comes thoroughly recommended. You know, as long as you ignore the stuff on the Borg cube. As usual... Any Other Business: • Nepenthe is, in ancient Greek, a mythical drug used to treat sorrow, or sometimes more literally "that which chases sorrow away". • This episode sure does love the TNG theme doesn't it? It's delightful the first, second, third and maybe even the fourth time we hear it. However I think it's also fair to say it maybe hits that note (heh) once too often... • Riker's listening to jazz the first time we encounter him in his kitchen, which is nice. • God, though, Hugh's death pisses me off here. What a stupid way for the character to go out - he's just thrown away for that idiotic final line. Such a waste. • And yes, obviously it's meant to show what a super-awesome-hyper-amazing warrior Narissa is. But it doesn't achieve that. Narissa's just a boring rent-a-cliché villain, right down to slaughtering innocents to make a point and even having the, "it's your fault they're all dead!" line. Awful. • Hugh also tells Elnor to find another Ex-Borg to get into the Queen Cell. In unrelated news, Seven's back next week. • Riker and Troi's son is named Thaddeus, a reference to the Voyager episode "Death Wish" when we find out one of Riker's ancestors was called Thaddeus, or "old iron boots". Kestra is named for Troi's dead sister. So that must have been a cheery couple of naming ceremonies. • The episode really does do a good job of not leaning too hard on the dead-son cliché, a level of subtlety I would not have thus far expected from the show. Though it turns out he could have been saved if they'd been able to use a positronic graft (or something) but couldn't because of the ban on synth tech. Ah, there we go - the unnecessarily heavy-handed approach we've come to expect! • Rios was in this episode. • Not sure what else to say about Jurati's attempted suicide (or maybe just putting herself in a coma? Not clear), beyond how easy it is to replicate something fatal without any kind of check. Still the offhanded way the Rios-EMH says, "I'm more concerned with the fact she's in a coma" was genuinely funny. • Ill be curious to see if we return to the lives of Riker and Troi. There's a lot of ponderous, "I couldn't bear it if something happened to Kestra" and "we couldn't lose her"-type lines that sound worrying setup-ish. • Yes, Seven's back next week! WOOOOO!
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