I’m not sure what to make of the Picard we’re seeing in Picard. It’s been a few years since I’ve watched much Next Gen, but I can’t help thinking there’s a gap between the way Picard is now, and the way he once was, which I’m struggling to reconcile. To an extent, I believe this gap is intentional. Much of what we’ve seen in these first four episodes has been a commentary on the way Picard looms in the popular consciousness (a figure of compassionate, benevolent authority) and the way such an impression can fail to live up to its own standard. And yet, I can’t shake the feeling that we’re missing some piece of the puzzle to explain how then became now, something more complicated than simply “time.”
It might just be a matter of a different perspective from a different creative team than the original series, but watching “Absolute Candor,” I found myself wishing for a flashback that would explain just what made Picard give up so completely in the decade and change since he resigned. Obviously the failure of Starfleet (and the Federation) to live up to his ideals plays a major part in that change, and I don’t really want or need every episode to open with a 14-years-ago flashback. But while I support the complex criticisms of the way Starfleet’s lofty goals are often at odds with its politics (something which has been with the franchise almost from the start), I’m not sure I agree that Picard himself should be so thoroughly deconstructed.
“Candor” finds him at his best and his worst, diverting the ship’s course to make a quick trip to Vashti, the former Romulan Relocation hub which has since fallen into… well, let’s say “disrepair.” Apparently Picard had no notion of how bad things had gotten—which again, I have a hard time with. I get that the diagnosis he received earlier in the season could have substantial impact on his self-control and behavior, but I’m still not sure that it makes sense for him to have so completely and utterly dissociated himself from the rescue effort (and its fallout) when things went awry. And I don’t remember Picard being stupid before. There’s a level of presumptive idealism running through this version of the character which is simultaneously infuriating and endearing, but it infantalizes him in a way that I’m not sure I completely accept.
But I’ve spent three paragraphs on that already, and this is a pretty good episode, with its main plot focusing on Picard seeing how bad things have gotten on Vashti, seeking help from an old friend, and getting a new badass in his life: Elnor, a Romulan fighter who grew up in an order of warrior nuns. (The episode title comes from the path the nuns follow, the Way of Absolute Candor, which is obviously at odds with pretty much everything Romulan culture is about.) The entry opens with another flashback, showing Picard visiting Vashti when things were going well, and establishing his mentorship with young Elnor (he reads The Three Musketeers to him). Then the Mars attack happens, and Picard leaves the planet, apparently never to return again until present day, when he’s decided he needs the warrior nuns’ help to rescue Soji.
Like everything around Picard’s quest, this feels slightly under-baked (while simultaneously over-explained), but it’s possible to handwave it away as him wanting to revisit the place after getting a death sentence from his doctor. His stubbornness is in full effect throughout, listening to the concerns of the other people on the ship and more or less ignoring them; tearing down a “Romulans Only” sign and kicking off a swordfight in the process; and when Elnor decapitates a Romulan to save Picard, the admiral is furious, insisting that Elnor swear to obey his orders from then on. Picard’s steadfast commitment to what he believes is right has a certain quixotic quality to it—less horribly misguided than the original Knight of the Woeful Countenance, but the same capacity to both inspire and amuse. I think “Candor,” which was scripted by Michael Chabon, manages to walk the line well enough, showing both the ways Picard’s arrogance can lead into trouble, and the reason why people would still choose to follow him anyway, even if I think the character’s apparent lack of self-awareness is troubling.
Meanwhile, back at the Borg cube… Yeah, these scenes still aren’t working for me. Narek’s efforts to seduce Soji via floor-sliding are cute enough (although maybe not quite as emotionally fulfilling as the score seems to think they are), and I appreciate that he’s making an effort to unsettle her by poking holes into her backstory, but there’s no real tension here. At this point, the only way to make the relationship interesting would be for Narek to be developing actual feelings for his target, and while I wouldn’t be surprised if things went in that direction, I wouldn’t really believe it as anything more than a narrative convenience. Soji is nice but not much more than that, and we know little to nothing about Narek beyond the fact that he’s a spy and his sister is intense.
Well, “intense” is one word for it. I made a comment last week about getting incestual vibes off of Narek and Narissa’s scene together, but I assumed it was just a weird quirk of chemistry between the actors. This week, the show either doubles down on the inference or just decides to steer into the skid; Narissa wakes Narek up in bed, mocks him for his relationship with their target, and then chokes him until he calls Soji “the Destroyer.” It’s simultaneously off-putting and tedious, operating in cliches without any commentary or attempt to subvert them, and it’s the third time we’ve seen this basic conversation before. We get it. Narissa isn’t happy with Narek’s results. The show’s insistence on making sure we check back in on the Borg cube every week is leading to padded, repetitive writing, and all the creepy-sexy antics of Evil Romulan Sister isn’t going to change that.
Thankfully, Picard’s storyline takes most of the focus, and while it too leans on familiar ideas, it’s well-executed, and builds to an exciting conclusion. And an exciting cliffhanger as well. I’ve been waiting for Seven of Nine to show up for a while, and Jeri Ryan’s name in the opening credits of the episode more or less spoiled the surprise. But that doesn’t mean her arrival in the final scene wasn’t welcome. The Borg are clearly going to be relevant this season—it’s about time the Picard side of the show finally started to catch up.
Stray observations
- Speaking of the Borg, I apologize for completely missing the fact that Soji’s de-Borged companion last week was Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco), from the TNG episode “I, Borg.” It’s a smart bit of stunt casting that I really should’ve caught—I don’t think it would’ve changed my thoughts on the episode as a whole, but it was still worth mentioning. Hopefully he’ll pop up again soon.
- There’s not much to say about Seven of Nine at this point, but that’s a terrific entrance.
- Really enjoyed the awkward banter between Dr. Jerati and Rios near the beginning of the episode about the dullness of space travel. I also hope we get more of an explanation about just what’s going on with all of Rios’s holographic programs. It’s a fun quirk, regardless.
- I feel like we need to get to know a bit more about Raffi; right now she’s either raging about Picard or doing exactly what he wants, and while it’s possible to connect the two (in that part of her sarcasm comes from knowing she’ll do exactly what he wants), the character still feels under-defined.
- The warrior nuns who raised Elnor will only agree to help someone if they believe it’s a lost cause; this is a nice reveal at the end of the episode that suggest Picard may be at least a little cognizant of what’s going on than he lets on.
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My one complaint about this show, and it is a minor one, are that Narek and Narissa have had basically the same expositionary scene four times, four episodes in a row. It’s like this weird holdover from pre-serial broadcast television; checking in this week on the villain’s evil plan…yep, it’s still the same. Making them PG Lannisters doesn’t make that more interesting, and practically nothing could.It’s a very clumsy bit in an otherwise very smoothly articulated narrative, so I don’t get it.
I can’t help but feel that they should have saved up whatever story they’re telling with Soji, and then held off the reveal of her existence until later in the season. Right now a lot of this feels like filler, because they’re waiting until later in the season for stuff to actually happen.
hmm. It doesn’t to me. The mystery of the Borg reclamation, the destroyer prophecy stuff, the question of whether this romulan operative has nay real feekings for soji, I find it all interesting and making the story more of an epic narrative then it would otherwise be.
This show seems much more “star trek meets star wars meets an aged and vulnerable picard for his final mission”
and I’m really diggin it.
It’s pretty damn hilarious to me that GoT’s most lasting influence on television is likely to be the acceptability of incest plots in mainstream entertainment.
Yeah, right? But every copycat has missed the point of it all. Cerci and Jamie LOVED each other. She was ready to burn the world down for him. Well, for him and to excise her own deep-seated insecurities. And they took the time to world build. Now we’re just expected to care about these two exhausting, preening, horrible people because TV incest is cool.
Its not even that original. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch have been doing variations of it for decades. It’s instead just a sci-first cliche: the bad guys are probably also kinky, and they torture hamsters. Trek should be above such silliness.
Yeah, Pietro and Wanda have always seemed a little too close…
And in the Ultimate universe they fully embraced it.
Eh they didn’t love each other so much as suffer from deep pathological narcissism. Well in the books at least, the show, as ever flattened everything.
And it’s not just the scenes with Narek and his sister.Picard reexplains his entire story to Legolas again, for what felt like the 10th time.There’s obviously a plot reason for it, but writers really should have some better tricks than just recapping the entire show everytime that a new character is introduced.
See, I didn’t mind that much at all, because while sometimes it was the same information it was to different characters, with different emphases, often for different reasons, and consequently engendered different reactions that organically revealed insights about their characters and relationship with Picard, who is the character we know best by default. Whereas with the dom-sub siblings’ constant pretty-indiscreet-for-secret-secret-police chats, nothing new is revealed by the repetition, and nothing obvious changes or culminates as a result of their conversations.
I think all of it combines to make things worse.In every episode Picard tells someone about the great tale of Dahj. But the problem is that we already know it. We saw it happen, and we’ve seen him retell it, and we’ve watched the previouslies.And then the bigger problem is that we know the end: Soji.If all of the cube stuff were removed – Soji, Narek, and Narissa – then the mystery of Dahj might actually be interesting, because we would be following it along with Picard.But instead, it looks like this show might spend its whole first season building to a giant revelation which the audience has known about since the pilot.
“Legolas” made me laugh. I was thinking the same thing.
Narissa is really just the standard over-sexualized female villain, but she currently has no one to vamp on except her brother. It’s not like he’s encouraging her. Eventually she’ll find another scene partner, hopefully someone Peyton List can have more fun with. Personally, I’m rooting for her to get over her issue with AIs and have a fling with Emmett, the tactical and security holo (who was tragically left out of the recap, by the way). La Sirena has to reach the Artifact by season 2, anyway.I’m enjoying the mythology building that goes along with the Artifact sequences. Those sequences are much more than filler. They are laying out the blueprint for the series’ main mystery.Narissa told us that Narek has been preparing for his entire life to work with the Destroyer when she arrived. Does that mean the Zhat Vash prophecy came with a date or do they prepare agents in every generation?
Still enjoying this series so much, but that Romulan sister/spy is indeed annoying, even in (thankfully) small doses.
I start to like this crew a lot. There is chemistry, Elnor seems a nice addition and those EMHs are quite fun.
And there is Seven. My fav ST character after Picard, in the same room bridge with him..oooooohh (enter various nergasmic sounds).
Of course Jay El (© Raffi) knows our Seven.
I hope they gonna give us some background about her life after Voyager’s return (or even better, a spin off? ).
Btw, loved that bit with Picard letting his captain persona get out..giving a command to Rios during the battle.
The show needs more characters and situations involving people talking about what everyone else is saying and doing. Too often the show feels like a play for the deaf, dumb and blind.
Star Trek: Pinball?
Previously on Star Trek: Picard, Picard talked about what previously happened on Star Trek: Picard, where Picard talked about what previously happened on Star Trek: Picard, where Picard talked about what previously happened on Star Trek: Picard.
You left out a ‘previously on Star Trek: Picard, Picard talked about what previously happened on Star Trek: Picard’
I laughed out load when they did a recap – what’s to recap?
‘I think you’re Data’s daughter, oh no she’s dead! There’s another? Let’s find her!’
Picard: What a magnificent pilot!
Everyone: What. A. Magnificent. Pilot.
5 seconds later: BOOM!
I can’t help thinking there’s a gap between the way Picard is now, and the way he once wasjust what made Picard give up so completely in the decade and change since he resigned.Zack, I don’t know how old you are, but I have a hard time believing that anyone who’s reached at least their 40s would struggle with these concepts. I know you don’t want to boil things down to just the passage of time, but with the passage of time comes age, and with age come a whole host of things that point down the path toward detachment and disillusionment, especially in a world in which institutions one once not only trusted, but championed, turn out to be corrupt and hollow…not that any of us can identify with that given *waves around at everything*. When you’re young, fighting the good fight against dark forces against impossible odds and with no clear notion that you’ll ever see the fruits of your labor feels noble and romantic. As time goes on, it becomes exhausting and dispiriting, especially if, as is the case with Picard and Starfleet, things get worse despite your efforts instead of better because of them. Picard held onto that idealism and the motivation that comes with it far longer than most would…but the man is 94 in this show. I doubt even future space medicine has come up with the cure for the existential despair and soul-deep fatigue that comes with banging one’s head against a cement wall for literally decades with not a chip off the cement to show for it. Disassociation becomes more a survival tactic than a coping mechanism, and disassociation is only a hop, skip, and a jump away from detachment, such that it’s pretty easy to fall from one into the other.As a middle-aged person with a long history of activism and protest who’s had to stop reading the news in the past few years because of the toll it was taking on my sanity, Picard’s state makes perfect sense to me.
Tell that to all the grown men who are still crying actual tears about Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi.
They might just understand mythic fantasy works in different ways to science fiction.
For the first time, I empathize with those knuckleheads, even though TLJ gave us far more legitimate reasons why Luke gave up. (and we also have to give TLJ at least some leeway since it had no choice but to follow up on the nonsensical plotting of TFA. The Picard writers have no such excuse.)
I agree with Zack in one sense: I don’t think Picard would have given up immediately after the Federation did. All I need is one flashback that shows him trying something else and failing, and I’ll be good.
They touched on how stunned he was at offering to retire, and Starfleet taking him up on it. I see that as the breaking point for him – that his decades of service bought him no good will at the most needed time.
I still think he would have at least attempted to go rogue, or petition the Klingons, or something, before giving up completely.
It was mentioned that Starfleet was reluctant to proceed with the rescue at least partly because many Federation members were threatening to leave if Romulans were to be rescued. If that’s the case, I’m sure Klingons, long-time Romulan haters, won’t go for it either so there don’t appear to be too many alternative options. The only chance Picard may have had is if he could convince the profit-motivated Ferengi with some economic incentive to do something.
Yeah, I picked the Klingons because it’s exactly the sort of thing I could see a desperate Picard trying, and the Empire would definitely refuse. As the other major superpower in the area, they’d be in the best position to help in terms of resources.
Read what I wrote above. This show doesn’t seem to break with STO continuity, and the Federation-Klingon Alliance actually ended primarily because starfleet prevented the Klingons from taking advantage of the situation and overruning the romulan empire.
STO continuity includes Captain Data of the USS Enterprise-E, among other things. There’s been a significant break.
I’ve followed the STO continuity. Nothing here appears to contradict it, so the federation also lost their alliance with the klingons because they prevented the Klingons from taking advantage of the situation and overruning the romulan planets (there was more to it, but that was the main factor) so the Klingons and the Federation are back to a fragile cease fire.
Pretty hard to do *something* when you don’t have resources behind you, especially to go spacefaring.
Yep, I agree. I still think he would try.
Yeah, I don’t think the Klingons are going to help in a plan to save Romulans.
I agree. If we’re supposed to believe that Picard did nothing else for the Romulan cause after his post-resignation scene with Raffi. . . well, I don’t buy it. I need one more beat, seeing Picard trying to help the Romulans without Starfleet resources and something goes even more horribly wrong and it breaks what’s left of his heart. THEN I’ll accept it.
(Reminds me a bit of my quibble with BOOGIE NIGHTS: We go from Marky Mark quitting Burt Reynolds’ apparently top-shelf porn company directly to him spanking it in a parking lot for gawkers. I needed to see a middle step, maybe where he’s at a third-rate porn shoot and can’t hack it there. Otherwise, it’s too sudden a plummet for me to believe. )
Agreed, this plot plays like a “white man’s guilt” (or in this case “human man’s guilt”) story trope to absolve him of his ignorance of the state of the Romulan refugees after his bitter resignation – ‘How can I be held responsible for the crimes of my society?? I simply did not know!’. Yet unlike civilian Federation members, he had the methods and means to keep up with their fate if he wanted to – he deliberately chose to turn a blind eye, then comes back years later with the self-righteous, rabid determination of a 25 century SJW. This was lightly touched on in the previous episode, but it seems like the writers are going through great lengths to gloss over his own social sins so we see him as the morally infallible leader he was in ST-TNG.
Agree. He mentioned Dunkirk in the first episode. Although ordered by the military, it was essentially a flotilla of civilian ships. Hard to believe given Picard’s well-established stubbornness and his Federation-wide reputation that he wouldn’t have tried to raise a volunteer fleet to help. Are there no caring souls in the Federation? Trying to explain that away as “I let perfect be the enemy of good” is hard to accept.
I also wonder how used Picard is to failure (on that level), this is a man who in his prime saved whole worlds from certain doom, who changed the course of history with the force of his convictions.
It’s no surprise he retreated after experiencing such a profound failure.
Where the flaw is, I think, is in the writing. Picard’s disillusionment is being treated as a mystery, we have to tease it out in his behaviour. It’s JJ Abrams mystery-box writing, which is fine for a plot macguffin, but doesn’t work when you’re dealing with characterisation, because it just creates negative spaces where your beloved characters should be.
For me this is a different Picard, just because Picard isn’t the awayteam guy.We barely ever saw him wandering around on a planet, unless it was to negotiate Wesley out of diplomatic incident.It’s not the Picard I know, and that’s not necessarily bad, but it does feel weird.
Wasn’t Riker always on his case because he insisted on going on so many away missions?
Like 3 times out of 178 episodes? There are definitely times when Picard geeks-out over history or something, and overrules Riker. But normally he’s the bridge-guy, or the beams-down-with-10-minutes-left-to-negotiate-guy. Seeing him wandering around, alone, on a strange planet is definitely not what we’re used to seeing. It’s not bad, but it feels fundamentally different.But it’s also why Action! Picard! from the movies is such a strange fit. Watching Nemesis’ dunebuggy scene for the first time I honestly thought there was an implication of mind control, because Picard seems like he has gone insane.
Its strange that you feel it is mystery-box writing when, for me, it is so clearly underlined about the failures (definitely plural) to deal with the refugee crisis. There may be more revealing of the specifics of those failures but we’re talking the deaths of *billions*. It’s a colossal catastrophe and if that doesn’t break you, what can?
It seems like mystery box-writing to me, because the show presents us first with Picard blowing up during an interview, then some flashbacks. It’s colouring around the contours of Picard’s grief, giving us bits and pieces in a way that doesn’t directly confront the impact it had on Picard. It reminds me a bit of Chabon’s script for John Carter in which the reason for the character’s reluctance and misanthropy were only addressed obliquely until midway through the movie, when they edited in a flashback in the middle of a fight scene.That Picard is bitter over the failures of the rescue mission and Starfleet’s turn to isolationism isn’t a mystery. But the show seems to be keeping the particulars of Picard’s personal failures under wraps for no other reason than to create some tension.
Except it’s not much of a mystery. It’s more or less explained in the first episode, and is being fleshed out by the flashbacks.
Take your star, I completely agree with you. Just turned 40 this year and man, can I relate.
Zack needs to stop with this shit. The show has given us enough information. Stop harping on the fact that he’s different. You were warned by Patrick Stewart himself before the show even started! Being betrayed by the organization you gave your life to will break you. End of story. What’s he going to do afterward as a disgraced Starfleet admiral with no support from the Federation? He’s used to having a galaxy-wide organization back him up, and now he’s just some guy. What else could you possibly need to know?I have a harder time believing that Picard would joyride a dune buggy in Nemesis that the fact that he could become disillusioned.
Shit, I gave 12.5 years to an organization and they betrayed me (although, not at the level of this, but still pretty bad) and it nearly broke me. I totally buy this.
He “didn’t beat his head against the wall for decades.” The show explicitly tells us he beat his head against the wall once and then just…went home.
Thank you. Saves me having to write it myself (albeit with less clarity). I can see the people in my life who have aged – parents, mentors, friends – change in ways both fundamental and subtle. There’s a brittleness to their thinking. Something almost stubborn. Something that wants to be vital again even while they make constant adjustments to the reality that they are no longer so. I see all of that on screen. I do wonder, a bit, about just how broken this man would needed to have been in order to retreat from the whole universe all at once. This is the guy who told Star Fleet,”to hell with orders,” and took on the Borg. This is the man who saw four lights. This is the man whose discipline and sense of right drove every decision he ever made. So why he gave up, disappeared so abruptly is a question I don’t think they’ve answered to my full satisfaction. Maybe there were so many moving parts to the rescue mission that, as it all fell apart, he couldn’t follow up on all of them. But the man on screen? That old man whose pragmatism and people skills seem a little out of step? Yeah, I buy that.
I absolutely agree with this perspective. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve seen a number of people who just pack it in (and have probably been guilty of it a few times myself). While to the outside, it may look like one incident, it normally is a slow burn that is ignored until it slaps you in the face.
Picard’s shock that they just accepted his resignation was probably that moment. The belief that you’ve done so much, often at great sacrifice, for this organization only to have them welcome your resignation can break a person. To me, that Picard is no longer the Picard of TNG is easily believable and one of the most realistic character traits. And the shame of failing the people he loved (and who looked to him for leadership) absolutely could cause a person to break contact or never formally check-in. Heck, I have a few people like that in my life that I’ve consciously cut contact with over something far less awkward than not carrying out a massive rescue operation. It happens.
So, anyway. I think the Picard we see here is perfectly consistent with the Starfleet hero who feels unappreciated and also ashamed of his inability to push Starfleet to do what he thought it should. I don’t see it as a singular incident, but a final break that finally shatters the facade that had taken many, many blows before that moment.
Thank you for this.
Enrico, i agree with your sentiment, but i believe that in this particular instance, it was merely a poorly-written and directed episode.
As a middle-aged person with a long history of activism and protest who’s had to stop reading the news in the past few years because of the toll it was taking on my sanity, Picard’s state makes perfect sense to me. Same. There’s nothing mysterious about this at all for me. Part of me watches show thinking, “Great. Here we are at the end of the American Empire and now I don’t even have the Federation to believe in anymore.”
It’s pretty clear what happened. Starfleet was abandoning the resuce mission, reneging on it’s promise to the Romulans. Picard took one last gambit, offering his resignation if they went ahead… and he lost. At that point, there isn’t much he can do. Maybe is he marshals all his resources and allies, he can help out a few romulans on one of the resettlement worlds. But without starfleet’s backing, he really doesn’t have any power. He’s just a civilian.
He is essentially called on his bluff, so he’s forced into retirement where he writes memoirs and history books and is a critic of current federation policy. At that time, maybe he felt that was where he could make the most difference. He was already 83 by that point, and this show starts 11 years later. Picard himself admits he was sort of waiting to die. To him, starfleet, and the essential nobility of the organization was such a big part of who he was. I imagine he was already a bit jaded from the realities of the dominion war, then losing his rank and seeing a starfleet that in his mind had betrayed the people he personally promised to save and was invested in, he did sort of “give up” because there just really wasnt anything he could do. Starfleet was not going to continue the massive rescue operation after losing mars and their primary developmental shipyards, period- an operation they were never sold on to begin with. Let’s not forget the Vulcan science council actually had the means to prevent the supernova but neglected to use it, suppossedly out of fear the romulans could use it as a weapon, but in reality because they didn’t think the supernova was such a bad thing, and Spock had to steal it to even try. If Picard had some suspicion this was true, you could see why he could no longer feel there was anything he could do.
The detachment and disillusionment I get. Standing/sitting there like a dote and just taking everybody’s shit and not firing back is certainly not a symptom of old age. Quite the opposite. When you get older, you stop giving a shit what everyone thinks or says. You may lose your idealism but not your dignity.
This episode definitely felt the most Chabony, of the episodes so far. The old Romulan warbird, and the name of the Romulan warlord sounded very Edgar Rice Burroughs, it had a kind of the old-fashioned pulpy feel to it that he seems to love. Above all the way Picard seems to willingly go in over his head feels familiar. His books are full of men who know they’re committing themselves to a cause that will probably end in failure. Whether they’re writers, a stubborn yiddish detective in Alaska, or now an old starfleet captain.
I read an old interview with Chabon where he said the concept of the Kobayashi Maru had influenced almost every character and plot he’s ever written. He said it was one of the most profound concepts he’d ever seen in film, and he had personally thanked Nick Meyer for introducing it in Star Trek II.
He said the Kobayashi Maru was “one of the most profound concepts he’d ever seen in film”. Like, he said that out loud? Maybe by “in film” he meant “Star Trek films”? Was he drunk? I’m not sure how to process that statement.
How? Training Star Fleet command officers for encountering no win scenarios seems like a good idea to me.
Yeah, I can see that. Chabon is a fascinating writer because he so clearly loves the genre-entertainment of his youth, and it has influenced him deeply. I don’t know a lot of authors who can switch back and forth between the modes of serious literary fiction and genre entertainment without trivialising either of them.
David Mitchell does it really well.
Yes, he does. Funny how they’ve now both worked on big scifi franchises, Chabon has Star Trek, and Mitchell The Matrix.
Question now is when is Star Wars getting a novelist?
Someone call Toni Morrison!
you just reminded me that she is dead and the world is worse for it
Just imagine the great Star Wars she would have created and you’ll feel better.
Seriously, WTF was with the bird of prey subplot? It was so forced. Some random person happens to have a bird of prey and is attacking people for….reasons. We don’t see who this person is or what their goals are or what, if anything, they have to do with anything Picard doing, but it’s been four episodes without a space battle, so here we go.
Good :Space battles where you
can see whats going on ,actual phaser fire ,Anika Hanson !
Bad :Wow!
doubling down on the Picard is a dick ,….he never came back for the
kid ? Really? Elanor is going to be Spock’s kid isn’t he ?
Tilly
2.0 …ugh!
This show is hot garbage. It’s essentially unwatchable. We’ve barely gotten into it and it’s already comically bad, reaching new levels of stupid every episode. You can try to analyze the plot, but what’s the point? I genuinely think people put more time and effort into trying to make sense of it than was put into writing it in the first place. This show was designed by stupid people, for stupid people. Don’t ask questions, just wait for the sex and shooty bits.
And yet, I can’t shake the feeling that we’re missing some piece of the puzzle to explain how then became now, something more complicated than simply “time.”what on earth?! (or in space?!?)the entire show, every character intro, the. entire. thing. is about how picard suffered a serious trauma through institutional betrayal, handled it not so great, and now is picking up the pieces. seriously these opening grafs read like a book report from somebody who only read the back cover of the cliff’s notes. “i just don’t understand why edmund dantes is out for revenge, if only the book had included some explanation of how he got so upset after being such a fortunate young man.”would be super cool if the av club gave some work to a reviewer who is actually watching the show!
That’s a pretty small ship to have a holodeck…. And it’s quite some effort to recreate his damn chateau for such a short trip.Also – the new Tilly is ALREADY annoying…
Was it a holodeck? On a ship with a complete backup holocrew there are probably emitters in every cabin and deck. You could make each cabin look whatever way you want.
My question is, how big is that ship? We’ve gotten no sense of scale for it yet. It looks like a runabout with added bits, but it’s clearly a lot bigger based on the interiors.
Fair point… You still have to clear an empty room.. but I guess it is possible that Picard did turn his quarters into his home. Which… is still a little weird, I think, for someone who spent most of his life on spaceships to feel THAT homesick to the Chateau that he needs to take it with him wherever he goes.
I’m assuming it was convenient to shoot on the chateau Picard set rather than creating a new room for the ship…
Can they really be THAT constricted with the budget? It’s a small ship, guest quarters would naturally be small and furnished spartan. I guess it’s more “we have rented this Chateau and damn it we’re gonna use it, even if if doesn’t make any sense.”
I think that recreating his chateau down to the smallest detail would be repellent to Picard. I don’t think this show really understands the character. Were they just trying to save money on sets? I thought it was pointless and dumb.
I would bet that’s exactly what it was. “We spent all this money on designing Chateau Picard and now he’s leaving there for good? We need to get more mileage out of this set.” Meanwhile they just spent the first two episodes telling us he doesn’t feel at home there.
Which strikes me as ridiculous. I mean, how expensive would a simple set of crew quarters be?They’re pushing the holo-tech too much and, again, I just don’t think Picard would want to create a “fake” version of his home. Picard has always prized the authentic over the facsimile. And, as you point out, he never felt truly “at home” there anyway.
They were definitely saving money on sets, but I agree on the character. For most of his life he made his home on spaceships and now he can’t bear a short trip on one without making it look exactly like the place where he lived for the last couple of years.
I think the problem with holo-chateau-Picard is that it’s Picard’s Christmas Wonderland from Generations, all over again.The writers all seem to think that Picard has this deep need to be a cozy homebody. And maybe he learned to appreciate the quiet life in Inner Light? But it still feels like a weird fantasy for what we know of the character.
Sure, maybe. But “New Tilly” is played by the Babe Ruth of American actresses under 35. Allison Pill didn’t need this job. They clearly needed her. Maybe we’ll find out why.
Alison Pill is Canadian.
The Wayne Gretzky of American actresses under 35, then.
I hope so – because I really don’t want to see another “smart girl/socially awkward” trope character in this show.
I’ve have huge respect for Tilly if they developed her aspirational traits into something – but she’s stuck in an arrested development.
Wait, when the previous poster said “new Tilly” they were referring to the Alison Pill character? That’s just stupid.
I doubt it’d be that much effort. Just throw some kind of hovering tricorder into the middle of the room and do a full 3-D scan. It’d probably take less time than the Romulan CSI technobabble they tried on Dahj’s apartment.
Maybe, but still – why? (Other than the fact that the production rented the chateau and will use ever last drop of it..) Picard never was the type to care so much about his lodgings that he’d have his quarters be recreated to look exactly like home. Just give him a fishtank, a bookshelf and a replicator for his tea.
She’s Tilly with about 15 years of life experience and self-confidence. Less socially awkward, with banter that’s quirk-adjacent, but veers away from Tilly’s tendency towards lampshading her own geekiness. (And I say this as a fan of Tilly.) Frankly, she hasn’t done enough in the show so far to be annoying to me.
That whole rant about how big and boring space is really did it for me… 🙂 The Captain reads books about hos tragic life is, the navigator is angsty, and the scientist monologues about how she doesn’t like space.
It’s ST for crying out loud. Anyone exited about the Final Frontier? No? Pity.
I literally said ‘guh, ANOTHER Tilley’ in the episode.
I’m really not getting the Tilly comparisons. Both actress have light, curly hair, and their characters are over- or somewhat enthusiastic. That’s about it.
(I will say Pill’s character on THE NEWSROOM was fairly Tilly-ish, and I was relived to see her PICARD character has about 8000x more confidence. So while I might have feared some Tilly-osity initially based on the casting, I’m not seeing it in the performance).
When she started to play awkward-goofy on the ship I was ‘noooooooooooooo-nope-nopity nope nope’ don’t need that, none of that, you’ve introduced her. She’s a competent, passionate, scientist, we’re good.
It’s pretty clear now that every new ST needs a anachronistic, awkward millennial on the crew. Cause, you know…relates?She’s not nearly as bad as Tilly.*Disclaimer…I’m an early millennial
They always had the socially awkward outsider, but somehow until Tilly they managed to make them relatable (to the point where they’re always my favorite character of a ST show) without becoming a caricature of what the current old generation thinks of the current nerds.
and she didn’t have as much to do as Tilly, yet. If she goes on like she did in this epsiode, though…
Wait, so you find frickin’ Barclay less annoying than Tilly? Wow.
“Awkward nerd who talks too much” has been a character type since long before the term “millennial” was even coined, FYI. There’s nothing about the character specific to a generation, just to an age/phase of life.
And I believe when they were in his damn chateau that they refered to his qurters as being a seperate place. COuldn’t they just make his quarters and holo-chateau one and the same?
Given how there must be holo-emiters all over the place for his companion hologram, they could have.Occupying a whole room on a fairly small ship seems incredibly wasteful. (I still don’t know why Picard would WANT a facsimile of his place when he spent most of his life on spaceships, anyway.)
And I believe when they were in his damn chateau that they refered to his qurters as being a seperate place. COuldn’t they just make his quarters and holo-chateau one and the same?
I definitely caught that too, Picard leaves and says he’ll be in his quarters.
Holodeck technology could’ve gotten much better (and smaller and more efficient) since the last show. I buy it!
I don ‘t really doubt that they have the technology, but it’s a pretty small ship to waste a whole room for it. Unless it’s Picard’s quarters, and even then – he’s never been the type for whom life on a spaceship was so unbearable that he needs to decorate his quarters exactly like his home on Earth.
Recreating Picard’s study from his chateau is his way of creating an office space, or replacement ready room, on the La Sirena that’s his own, as opposed to Captain Rios’. For the first time in a long time, Picard isn’t the man in charge of the operation, whether it’s the vineyard, the Romulan rescue operation, or the starship. Given the hits his confidence has taken, including those that come with aging, Picard needs to sit behind that big desk and run meetings the way he did during the argument over the trip to Vashti. There’s no place else on Rios’ ship for him to do that. The fact that Zhaban knew he’d need the security he could draw from that space, even though he couldn’t wait to escape it, and sent the scans to the EHH, is especially endearing all around.
this is set some twenty to thirty years after TNG, so it makes sense thatt holodecks have gone from being the privilge of starships to common equipment.
It’s not so much the technology, its more the fact that a ship that size has whole woom to waste on Picard indulging in his hmsickness. and since when’s Picard homesick – in space?
who the fuck is Tilly?
What is this from?
nevermind. Discovery is up next after Picard, then I can cancel before my 30 days.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sylvia_Tilly
Now I’ve started into Discovery and I don’t know what the issues is. Tilly is a fucking babe.
Mileage may vary.You may find her a little more grating when you see more of her.
“And yet, I can’t shake the feeling that we’re missing some piece of the puzzle to explain how then became now, something more complicated than simply “time.””As I an a few others commented last week, I think that the Mars event and the aftermath has really damaged Picard. It has lead to his isolation and despair. I think that part of the story they are trying to tell is that this was a huge setback for Picard that has caused lasting damage, and this new mission is partly to reclaim some of what he lost.I think that the reason it feels like a piece is missing is because the show has not done a great job of showing the viewers the aftermath of what happened on Mars and how devastating it all was. We have a few short scenes and people talk about it a lot, but I just don’t think the enormity of this event is really impacting the people watching. In the minds of those behind the show, there is a direct link from this catastrophe to where Picard finds himself now. But I don’t think the show has done a very good job of building that bridge for us.I still like the show and am eager to see where it goes. Thank you for the always great review.
They said that Mars is still on fire to this day. How much more devastating could it be? It’s basically a stand in for 9/11. What are you expecting, footage on the ground of people running away covered in dust? We saw as much with the Crystalline Entity, and that was enough to convince you it was dangerous.
Picard and Discovery both employ a modern “edginess” and “naturalism” that was suuuper not present in any Star Trek to come before it, so of course it feels different. I can’t say definitively if this is a good or bad thing, but it definitely contributes to the feeling that we’re watching something totally new rather than a natural continuation of Next Gen, which is a bit of a bummer.
TNG definitely had a somewhat heightened/stylised tone, in which the language and behaviour of the characters seemed entirely natural. Part of that came from Roddenberry’s influence, and part of it was the restrictions of broadcast tv.
That’s why the TNG-movies already felt different from the show.
Replicating that tone though is probably impossible, I don’t know if it’s a good thing to even try. Replicating the spirit of TNG/Star Trek though shouldn’t be as hard, and that’s where Kurtzman-era trek has flailed so far.
The Orville comes closest in tone and style to TNG (minus the obligatory Seth McFarlane humor, which thankfully was damped down somewhat in S2), to the point of copyright infringement.
Oh absolutely, The Orville looks and sounds like a TNG knock off.
It reminds me a lot of Babylon 5 in the way that like that show you can so clearly see the things from Star Trek it’s riffing on; they both have their own versions of Klingons for example.
I wonder if the leap to Hulu is going to be used as a chance to further develop the show’s tone. By the end of season 2 The Orville started to resemble an actual show and not just a vehicle for jokes.
To be fair, while B5 was influenced by all sorts of past sci-fi, including Star Trek, DS9 (which I also love), took many, many cues from B5.
I’m enjoying Picard more than Discovery, but I do miss the tone of TNG era Trek. Sure, it could be a bit stodgy at times, but there’s probably a middle ground between that and the sometimes over-the-top edginess that characterises modern Trek. Everyone here is cranky and likes to smoke and wear leather.
So this is definitely going to show my age but I was waiting in line to get into the convention center for the 25th anniversary of Star Trek convention And someone voiced their problem with next generation which perfectly mirrors my problem. Hugely Trumatic things happen to these characters and by the next episode they’re perfectly fine everyone was far too well-adjusted. For me my favorite series with DS9, as long as you remove the first season
Edginess and naturalism would be fine if the shows were actually well-written, which is the main weakness. Logic and insightful character and plot are thrown out the window for stereotypical Hollywood excitement and intrigue.
If you want TNG Season 8, this is not your show. Of course, Stewart would not have come back for TNG Season 8. The only reason we’re getting these characters again is because Chabon convinced Stewart that ST:Picard would a different kettle of Antarean fish than TNG.
There was a Star Trek show on TV from 1987 to 2005. Look at the first episode of TNG, and the last episode of Enterprise. The style changed a lot over those years, because TV changed. In ‘87 TNG looked like Matlock, like every other TV show at the time. By the time Enterprise began, The Sopranos had hit, and TV was starting to look different. There’s much more handheld camera, the lighting is more naturalistic, and it was shot on digital instead of film. The acting is a little more “realistic” and less mannered. people talk over each other instead of just making speeches. (but there are speeches. This is Star Trek). There was a slow evolution in that 18 years.Now look at The original series. It looks nothing like TNG or any of the other shows, because it was on TV 20 years before. A lot changed in that time. TNG resembled the TOS movies, except it looked a little cheaper (the movies are another case of a completely different tone that wasn’t a natural continuation of the tone of previous Trek). The acting was better too, or was at least in line with the standard of acting ion TV at the time. Now we’re in much the same space as the TNG was in ‘87. Star Trek has been off the air for a long time. There have been movies in between. Obviously the shows will look more like the movies. But it’s not just that. This is what TV looks like now. This is how acting on TV is done now, and this is how writing on TV is done now.The Orville is an anomaly. It’s aping TNG down to the look. But a new Star Trek show can’t look like that anymore. Not after Battlestar Galactica or The Expanse. And the tone has to change as well. Acting standards on TV have changed. I don’t mean the quality has changed, but what’s acceptable in a modern TV show is different. As you can see on The Orville, the 90’s Star Trek look is basically the look of a modern sitcom. The high key lighting resembles The Big Bang Theory more than any modern drama with more naturalistic lighting.So I think it is a good thing that Picard looks the way it does. In Discovery the J.J. Abrams constantly moving camera and ridiculous lens flares were much more prominent, and as much as I think it’s style without substance, I could have accepted it if Discovery was a good show. I think Picard is a good show, and it talks about ideas in the way that Star Trek is supposed to. That’s the only element Star Trek needs to be Star Trek.
Personally I really love how the show is leaning to Picard’s hubris and its implications, both for good or for bad. That certainty has always carried and allowed him to be that certain in his actions, but it also made him require too much. I really like that while the show is indicating that Starfleet failed, it is also casting blame on Picard for giving up when the organization got scared instead of continuing the good fight.I keep writing this, and I’m sorry about it, but Picard continues to be such fascinating character study in the show. We’ve seen so many stories about the fall due to hubris, no matter how noble the cause, that it is interesting to watch a show about someone collecting themselves back after it.
I like it too, but it also feels like the hero of the old series would’ve rebounded a lot sooner. This is more “real” maybe, but less the idealized hero of the old show, and so feels off to many.
Valid point and I can see that. My counter-argument would be that the reason the TNG version of the character would rebound so fast would be because it was an episodic approach to storytelling, so that version of the character really never could have that long term story to begin with.
Good point, too! It’s different kinds of storytelling. Although even then I think in a perfect world, this story would take place like five years after Picard has his heart broken by the Federation and not twenty years later.
Really, though, just another flashback of him trying to launch some kind of campaign to help the Romulans and being shut down would help. But I’m okay if we don’t ever get it.
Similarly, in “Last Jedi” I think it would’ve really helped had Luke been trapped on the planet where Rey finds him (rather than choose self-imposed exile). So that he had been trying over and over to go after Kylo and turn him back to the light side of the force, but was stuck. As he’s one of the great fantasy heroes and while what they depicted was also more “real” it was even more upsetting to see in a Star Wars story than a (always a bit more realistic) Star Trek one. Ah well!
When Picard answered Elnor’s question about why Picard needed his blade ‘Because I am old and you are young’, I groaned so hard. Seriously, J.-L., how did you see that one playing out. However, it really worked with the presentation that Picard is still so focused on himself and his own failings that that is the first he considers.
As for the Borg Cube stuff, conceptually they are interesting, but I think it is hindered by them just assuming that if it is a woman and man, you are automatically invested in a flirtatious relationship between the two. It makes it annoying because it is by far the laziest storytelling part of the show, even if the other stuff related to the Borg is intriguing.
It’s interesting how much Picard’s own actions mirrors Starfleet’s. Picard giving up after failing to convince Starfleet isn’t that different than Starfleet giving up after the catastrophe on Mars. Starfleet could have continued the rescue effort, even if it was in a diminished capacity. Just like how Picard could have rallied support directly from Federation members, neutral parties, or Starfleet officers. We know there are a lot of idealists in Starfleet willing to fight for lost causes. The Maquis got enough support to fight the Cardassians and they were almost able to establish their own sovereign nation.It seems that like Picard, Starfleet didn’t give up because they didn’t care, they gave up because they were defeated and weary.
This show is really suffering from the serialization. There is clearly not a lot of story they plan to tell, so they’re really stretching it out slowly, but they also aren’t developing the characters very much along the way.
Agreed, the best episodes of Discovery (albeit a low bar), were the more self-contained ones. I think Star Trek does better with story arcs (dominion war) than they do serialization.Also, while I am enjoying Picard, I can’t help but think “damn, waited 18 years and this is it so far??” Feels like it’s only about 80% baked. And oh I’d really like to see some Federation ships at some point too!
God, yes. It’s amazing we’re 4 episodes in and this recent installment was devoted entirely to “and now Elnor has joined the game!” The pacing, both within each episode and across the season, is abysmal.
Are we supposed to think Picard is a little unhinged at this point? I get that he would be frustrated that things on Vashti had gone downhill, but walking into the “Romulans only” bar just seemed really stupid. And then to be angry with Elnor for decapitating that dude who definitely would have killed him. Unless we’re supposed to believe that Picard has crossed over into senility or just irrationality? Otherwise I’m finding it hard to get a handle on what motivates him.
Whilst it’s not expressly stated, I think it’s implied that Picard went there to start a bit of trouble – so that Elnore would come and save him. He hadn’t factored in that a rescue by a guy raised by an order of super-assassin nuns might involve lethal means.
I’m rapidly losing interest in this show. Here’s another episode that exists entirely to….just add one more member to the ensemble!And, of course, give us even more extraneous details about the show’s rich backstory while barely moving the needle in the present-day narrative.This makes the show feel ridiculously lopsided. A very large complex, emotionally fraught backstory…..and a plot that is FAR less stake-y in the present. After losing a billion Romulans, having thousands of people murdered on Mars…the entire point of the show now is to just save one single android.Which could work if the show didn’t keep reminding us that the real story and the real emotional fireworks are in the distant past. I honestly have no emotional investment in this. I only kind of like Soji, I have very little interest in the “sinister Romulan plot” or the Borg rehabilitation efforts and I can’t help but feel that the writers are fucking with us and that there’s no WAY we’ll ever actually meet Bruce Maddox. There’s so little to key into in this show…other than our love of Picard, there are scant few reasons to care about anything.
I just don’t buy how pissed off everyone is at Picard for over-promising, and then being let down by a giant bureaucracy. Years have passed, but no one has moved on? And they all blame him, specifically?It makes for a bunch of scowly drama, but feels really forced.
Totally agreed. The writers want to have their cake and eat it too. They want tension-filled antagonistic relationships and scenes, and everyone to pretty much hate Picard (the scene with the CNC was way over the top), but they can’t have Picard do anything that bad, i.e. he gave up and went home after trying pretty hard. So the rage and resentment is all really artificial. (And frankly, the Picard we knew wouldn’t have just taken his ball and gone home; that was done to create an artificial arc and also let Stewart act very un-Picard like, which I take was a condition of doing this show)
The toughest pill to swallow is that Picard did indeed apparently just up and quit (cutting off all personal relationships in the process, just…cuz). That’s a terrible misread of the character and a needlessly cruel way to get him to the emotional place they wanted him.I’m all for a cranky, resentful, disillusioned Picard, but not…that way.
I wholeheartedly agree with your phrase “needlessly cruel”. We’re seeing a lot of this sort of “cruelty porn” or “break the hero down” sequels these days, some well-executed (like Logan) and some not. Even for Logan, I take comfort knowing that that is only one future, and unfortunately, I have to regard Picard (and Discovery) the same way. They both happened in one timeline, just not the one that encompassed TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY (or more precisely, this is one possible future of those, just not the one “our” characters have). (I deliberately exclude ENT as well, as that had continuity issues, was pretty boring, and totally unnecessary)
Agreed and I also just don’t buy that Picard would get pissed at Starfleet, resign and then literally just retreat to the Chateau to never, ever make ANY kind of additional effort at saving lives, would cut off his friends and would never bother going back to check up on all the good he was doing with the refugees.It’s a terrible read on the character that’s wildly inconsistent with what we’ve seen before.
Have you ever worked for a large bureaucracy? I work in higher ed. I’ve been at a place for >15 years and I still hear stories involving people that left before I started and specific decisions that led us to where we are now. That a whole host of people still blame Picard seems utterly real. People in a bad situation love having a clear figure to blame, even if that figure was trying to help.
After episode 3 I concluded that this show is, at best, mediocre sci-fi that is only succeeding, and that I’m only watching, because it’s called Star Trek. It’s fun (at times, minus everything to do with Narek and Soji) but nothing more.
I find myself at least mildly entertained during each episode, but then left with major disappointment seconds after the episode ends. Four times in a row now. Sigh.
Yep, pretty much my emotional state as well. I just re-watched about half of Insurrection tonight; while it has many, many flaws I still put it creatively (and philosophically, though I don’t actually agree with Picard’s position) above what we’re seeing here.
If they’d dumped all the episodes in one we’d all be binging the hell out of it. This weekly grind isn’t helping the show.
I agree with everything Zach wrote. Which is why this episode deserves a C at best. Can’t imagine with the B+ is doing when the review is full of legitimate criticisms that strike to the very core of the show. Picard is QUITE different and in ways that don’t really make any sense. Sorry, but I can’t get behind a Picard that is so petty and so defeatist that he literally just went home after his kerfuffle with Starfleet and gave up utterly and completely, cutting off all meaningful contact with friends and abandoning the people he had worked so hard to help.Yes, Picard makes reference to the fact that without Starfleet’s help, mounting a massive rescue would be extremely difficult. But impossible? no. Certainly ANYTHING he could do to help would have been better than nothing.And surely there would be countless people in and outside of the Federation that could help. How about non-member planets like, say, Bajor? Couldn’t he persuade others to help out. Maybe even Worf and the Klingon Empire (highly unlikely, of course, but it would have been an attempt at least.)I can get behind an older, less idealistic, defeated Picard. I can’t get behind a Picard who apparently gave up THAT easily.
Zach is too soft on Trek generally, we saw the same with his Discovery reviews. He can’t turn his brain off so he clearly and accurately identifies the many weaknesses of the shows, but can’t bring himself to give them the mark they deserve and just say that the writing basically sucks, being filled as it is with lazy cliches and tropes. I understand where he’s coming from, as I love Star Trek and continue to watch, but yeah neither of these two new shows can be said to be anywhere near intelligent or insightful, or consistent with previous characterizations and continuity. All of that said, I’m still holding out hope for Lower Decks!
Lower Decks really sounds like a blast. Here’s hoping!
I really like what the writers have said about the show so far; a ship that specializes in “Second Contact”, where after all the intense and risky work is done, the guys show up to set up communications and find the best places to eat! Brilliant!!
I guess Kurtzman really loved The Last Jedi. What I dislike the most about both is that there’s a deeply rooted cynicism behind these stories in which a beloved hero commits the ultimate sin a hero can commit and quits. It’s this underlying attitude that heroism is false and needs to be exposed for the lie it is.
Heroes don’t have to be perfect, and they can go through self-doubt and they can fall, but there is a limit to our suspension of disbelief based on everything we know about the characters already.
I know lots of people didn’t like the last jedi and this is the only time I felt even a slight bit of empathy for them.But it works in the Last Jedi over Picard for numerous reasons, primarily because Luke is actually culpable. He actually DID make the universe demonstrably worse and did (even if briefly) flirt with a terrible impulse. Picard did nothing wrong (except for the act of running away after the fact.)Plus The Last Jedi is just so much better written than Picard.Plus we have to give the Last Jedi at least a little bit of leeway, since Johnson literally had no choice but to justify the awful storytelling decisions of TFA. It was TFA that turned Luke into a cowardly quitter and Johnson then had to do his damndest to try to justify that decision. Look, a flawless, kickass hero is a narrative dead-end. have Luke just be a super powerful, super wise Jedi master would have been a terrible decision.And I can get behind the idea of a disillusioned Picard…in theory. But this show just isn’t making that idea work at all. It’s trying to have it both ways. Picard is trying to atone while never having done anything wrong.
It’s funny because I’m enjoying this take on Picard immensely and think TLJ’s handling of Luke is extremely juvenile primarily because it’s 6th form level “psychological realism” shoehorned into what was mythic fantasy and here it’s simply continuing the more psychologically realistic style of Star Trek in comparison to Star Wars.
Where’s your head at? We’re not on a broadcast network anymore so we can turn the violence up to eleven and say fuck whenever we want. Picard looks pretty shocked but he knew that Elnor would interfere. He was provoking the Romulans on purpose. Well done. I like the new jaded Picard.
The captain is reading “The Tragic Sense Of Life In Men And Peoples (1912) by one of the greatest philosophers of his time Miguel de Unamuno. Miguel claims in the book that our existence is tragic because of the knowledge that we are to die. What gives life meaning is our longing to understand the “wherefore” of our destiny, and our “thirst for eternal life” But i disagree. My body is transient and slowly deteriorating. I rather be a non-physical entity. But this has the downside that i will miss good food and carnal pleasures. You can’t have it all i guess. But living in this body on this fucked up world forever? No way. At some point you have to go through the door that leads to nothingness. To understand that you should re-watch “The Good Place” one more time Miguel.If i had to quote a sentence from the book it has to be this one: “The moment love becomes happy and satisfied, it no longer desires and it is no longer love. The satisfied, the happy, do no love; they fall asleep in habit, near neighbor to annihilation. To fall into a habit is to begin to cease to be. Man is the more man — that is, the more divine —- the greater his capacity for suffering, or, rather, for anguish.”Wow. That’s some heavy shit man. He probably just watched the ending of Bojack Horseman on Netflix and was feeling a little emotional. Life sucks and then you keep living.I’m sorry about that. I don’t really know what the fuck i’m talking about. So i have to believe that the captain of the ship and former Starfleet officer is an intellectual and philosopher? I thought Starfleet was too busy conducting deep space exploration, research, defense, peacekeeping, and diplomacy. Maybe he left Starfleet to contemplate the meaning of life and then discovered that having your own spaceship to control all by yourself is pretty fucking awesome. Or something….
“I HATE THAT FUCKING HOSPITALITY HOLOGRAM”
When he started talking about the book he was reading I immediately thought of Thomas Ligotti. I would have died if they’d picked The Conspiracy Against the Human Race instead.
The series finale should feature Picard reading The Da Vinci Code.In all seriousness, Picard pushes philosophy fairly early in TNG. He equates it with being an explorer and a good captain.
Careful, or this will get copypastasted ti prove trek fans are intellectual snobs which will somehiw turn into them being alt-right trump supporters.
I so far am liking this show but I wish the exposition, world-building (for this series) and character introductions would have finished after the 3rd episode. We’re almost to the half-way point of the season and the table is still being set. Let’s get to the point already.Also, I like the cost-cutting of making Santiago Cabrera play multiple holo roles on his ship. If the show takes off, perhaps more actors can be hired to take over those roles.
I’m down with the Meanwhile Back at the Borg Cube interludes mostly because I’m waiting for when the Borg wake up and assimilate the hell outta everyone which could be way awesome (There’s just so many people there, it’s gonna be messy). Hopefully it doesn’t take until the end of episode 9 for it to happen. Also hey, Borg cube stuff! Picard at the bar was all kinds of great and the scene had a nice slow burn. And we have so many different Romulans, all of the smooth and various levels of forehead ridges so yah, that answers that. The decapitation of the Rommie may have been a wee bit much but what the hey. First Michael Chabon sole scripted episode! And I get the feeling they added Picard’s vineard to the holodeck just so they could reuse the set.
“I %$%#$ hate that Hospitality hologram!” was amazing and I hope they keep his hatred of it completely unexplained because it is so needlessly random.
Raffi really wants to get to Freecloud, she must have a hot tip on a Tribble race or something.
I think the scene with Romulan spy guy and Soji was meant to be heartwarming because he’s probably going to get the hell assimilated out of him. I admit for a minute I fell for the “ancient Borg ritual” because CBSAA era Trek has thrown in some odd continuity curveballs but he was joking. Probably.
Even Picard thinks that the plot is getting really complicated by now. And now we have mopey Sword Romulan fella, at least Picard chewing him out was great.
Damn episode titles for spoiling Seven’s return in this episode, don’t they sometimes put surprise Special Guest Star at the back of the credits? I wish they had done that here.
“you owe me a new ship, Picard” and passes out was great. Also her ugly little ship kind of looked like the Delta Flyer to me.
The “ancient borg ritual” thing actually was pretty good. But that’s only because we’re all now conditioned to expect that trek writers really will introduce some cringey new mysticism to make an even bigger mess of the borg.
“don’t they sometimes put surprise Special Guest Star at the back of the credits?”
The fold standard in this in Trek will always be the guest star in the DS9 episode “Heart of Stone”. If they had put the special guest star’s name in the opening credits it would’ve ruined that entire plot. Thanks goodness the producers convinced them to put their name in the end credits (according to Memory Alpha)
Zach has identified the weakness of this episode and the show generally, but he’s being too nice/not critical enough. While Picard is a step up from Discovery, in that it’s not downright stupid, it’s filled with lazy Hollywood cliche after cliche. Hero gets broken so the writers can build him back up and give him an arc. The former hotshot tactical officer or pilot, embittered and traumatized and looking for redemption. The plucky naive manic pixie girl looking for adventure. The super secret organization behind the organization you thought was secret. And now warrior elves who only follow lost causes. It’s all ridiculous.This episode was fun because Chabon was the sole credited writer and Frakes directed, which all helped, but there is nothing deep or meaningful here. Picard would never have just given up and hidden away, waiting to die. We also never saw him act remotely like he did in this episode toward children. And how many times had he met that kid? Twice? And their feelings for each other are that strong? Come on. We’re basically just watching Patrick Stewart getting to act however he wants, regardless of the character’s history: playful, bitter, disappointed , regretful, etc.Ad on top of all that, he doesn’t take responsibility for that guy’s death? He walked into their restaurant and disrespected their rule looking to pick a fight. Then when it comes to him. He tries to act noble and refuses? He couldn’t see the obvious violence he was going to incite?This show isn’t straight up stupid like Discovery, but it’s nowhere near the bastion of insight and social commentary the writers and producers want it to be.
I actually think I like Disco better than this. The trope-y-ness of Picard is just killing me. I enjoyed this first 3 episodes, but as this one went on a voice in my head just kept getting louder and louder shouting “this is so DUMB!”
I get what you’re saying; whereas Disco was clumsy and not well-thought out, this one has an obvious paint-by-numbers component. I had the same reaction to season 1 episode 4 of Disco, where the chief of security got killed by the tardigrade (and I’ve ranted about that elsewhere). SO DUMB
I think the show is implying, though not outright stating, that so long as there were advancements and developments made in synthetic life, that there was some hope Data was alive. When the synths attacked Mars, that put an end to that hope and that, combined with the betrayal of the Federation was the simple one-two punch that Picard could not tolerate, and he withdrew and hid in shame and fear.
Picard, like every single other scripted drama on television today, is about characters and themes. TNG, and previous series until Discovery, were about stories.I think that’s what makes this feel so different in an often unwelcome way. The 90s Trek series could always be counted on to tell a ripping yarn. That included DS9, which was ostensibly more character-driven.But it’s like all any television writer knows how to write anymore is emotions and introspection, and plot is only in service of moving from one moment of reflection or exposition to the next.
They’re also too timid to introduce characters more than one at a time. They think every single cast member requires breathing room for the audience to absorb them and learn what they’re all about. But writers in past decades knew the audience just wanted to get to the part where it gets good, and weren’t afraid to jump straight there and let the characters develop as they went.
I mean, look at Encounter at Farpoint. That’s no one’s idea of a great TV episode, but damn, it just dives right in within the first five minutes and gets the action going. It doesn’t “introduce” Picard, Data, Worf, Troi, or the rest… it just puts them into the action and lets us figure them out as we go.
It’s like what Sam Hamm said about writing Batman ‘89: The audience just wants to get to the part where the guy in the suit starts kicking ass.
I don’t hate Picard or anything: it’s decent, and it scratches a few itches for me here and there. I appreciate some of the attention to continuity in a series where the showrunners have lately shown little proclivity for staying true to past stories. I just really hope this slow start isn’t indicative of where it’s going.
It’s odd that you’re including Discovery in this. The plot is so breakneck that there’s no breathing room, and it takes longer than it should to get us caring about most of the characters. Everything is in service of the epic moment, which I guess you could say is a constant build to the emotional moment (minus the build). There needs to be a modern Trek show that finds the happy medium between drawing things out and kicking ass. Discovery has gotten better at that, and I imagine Picard will too, in the opposite direction.
I wasn’t really including Discovery in anything, only that Trek’s history of great storytelling ended with it.
I appreciate this take, it’s like the “prestige” TV stuff trickled down into all TV but with less talented writers and inaccurately over applied to pulpy genre stuff as well. I blame the prevalence of college screenwriting courses and MFA programs, people viewing their internal lives as intrinsically interesting and worth telling a story about, pure narcissism.
good trek shows are episodic. good trek died along with the death of the short story in favor of the open ended saga in written fiction.
Hey now, Trek can be done very well in serial form. Just look at DS9. The difference is that Moore and the rest were great writers of drama, political intrigue, snappy dialogue, and gripping scenarios.
They also weren’t consistently good at it for at least 20 episodes, if not more.
For those of who think DS9 was trek at it’s best, I disagree. I moreso agree with something I think I heard from the show’s runners. The world of star trek has the potential for all kinds of interesting stories. I don’t need or want trek to just be retreads of TOS/TNG. To me, that leads to Voyager, which I still hold to be the low point of the series.
Isn’t the point to all this—Picard’s unexplained abandonment, Rafi’s life, Rios’ exile from Starfleet, virtually everything else—SUPPOSED to be missing pieces of a puzzle? I mean, am I the only one looking at the opening credits and literally seeing pieces of a puzzle falling into place in Picard’s head?I’m personally okay with not knowing—so long as they pay it off by the end of the season. All will be revealed and make sense—or, if it isn’t, well, then the show isn’t any good. Meanwhile, a WAG: Stewart is playing Picard like Churchill after the failure of the Gallipoli campaign in World War I. Churchill took the rap for what was a government-wide failure, left the Cabinet and went off to the front as a soldier again. I’m very much getting that vibe here …
“The Way of Absolute Candor” has to be an inside joke on the order of the Vasquez Rocks, right? Like, let’s actually give an excuse for the script voicing everyone’s thoughts, needs and feelings? Picard’s crew could really use a side trip to the Society of Visual Shorthand soon.
I think the irony here is that these writers have absolutely no candor amongst themselves and seem to be patting each other on the back for their genius. Nobody is challenging anyone else in that room. All ego strokes.
The plot is moving slower than really expensive kanar.
I haven’t read it yet but suspect the new novel “The Last Best Hope” probably gives a fuller explanation as to why Picard gave up and retreated for all these years.
Jesus Christ will the Romulan sexy spies have their incestuous fuck already? Then we can get on with the show.
Here’s my rewrite for this season: get rid of the Soji stuff on the borg cube (and a bit of the Dahj stuff too). Because all that it does is weaken what should be a mystery. The story should have started with Dahj mysteriously showing up at Chateau Picard, and asking for help. Don’t show her “awakening.” Instead, show her kicking ass at Star Fleet HQ later on. That way the audience is surprised, along with Picard.In the next episode, use the CSI tech to show a recreation of her “awakening.” And that way the audience is surprised, along with Picard. Instead we got to watch a rerun.There’s a real structural problem here, because we know sooooo much more than our main character does. And it doesn’t generate dramatic irony – it just means that our hero keeps being surprised to learn things that we already know. Moments that should be big revelations are just boring. Every time that we check back in on the borg cube that just gets reinforced.
I still don’t get the Borg cube either? Who is running this thing? Is it some sort of inter-galactic, inter-species science project under the supervision of the Romulans? Private science fair project? How did Soji get there? How did she know about it? It’s bizarre, and wouldn’t take much to explain, IMHO.
Can someone please explain to me why lens flares are still considered a good idea? I was really blown away by just how many there were in this episode and it was incredibly distracting. Almost as distracting as… You know, the fact that Picard would choose to live on the spot his own family burned to death horribly.
What’s the verdict on Frakes direction? Not bad too me. The man can still set up a good space battle. Searing off the wing of that Bird of Prey was a nice shot.
Looks like he watched the 2009 movie and mistakenly thought lens flares were still in.
I have one major plot point that hasn’t been mentioned in Picard yet. The loss and presumed death of Ambassador Spock in his attempt to save Romulus. My guess is Picard knew what Spock was attempting and then Spock’s death/dissapearence was a major factor of him turning away from everything. Remember Picard did mind meld with Sarek, Spock’s father..and later share that with Spock. The loss and death of Ambassador Spock would have a profound effect on Picard.
So, how long was this review on the front page? Like twenty minutes?
Never saw it last night, even though I kept checking after I figured people must have had hours to see it, then had to go searching for it via the TV reviews page this morning, meanwhile I have to scroll past reviews for worthless shit like Survivor.
they have to push the content you wont go out of your way to read
This series is not perfect. But it is definitely the best Star Trek in 25 years – and it enriches the franchise in many ways.
– Love what they’re doing with the Romulans. These were always cartoon villains, and now they are portrayed as a complex, diverse society. That is what the best of Star Trek always did, from the Klingons in TNG to the Ferengi in DS9. They are for the first time taking Romulan civilization seriously, and keep finding new and interesting ways to explore them.
– Love the critical reinterpretation of Picard and the Federation. In TNG, the writers always uncritically adopted the perspective and self-perception of both Picard and the Federation. While this could result in those classic heartwarming and optimistic episodes – it was also onesided. Picard and the Federation were nearly always portrayed as superior and enlightened. Particularly in the early seasons of TNG this was cringeworthy, if not sometimes imperialistic and implicitly racist (remember those early episodes with the Ferengi?). ST:Picard still believes in and shows the uprightness of Picard, and it doesn’t question his intentions. But this series does show his naivete and the complex results of his idealism. This is great. The conversation between the Romulan senator and Picard in this episode was great. It’s a critical, adult take on the character and his world – as opposed to a cynical, dark version that has nothing to do with the original anymore, like Discovery.- Love the great amount of attention to worldbuilding in this show.- The characters are reasonably interesting and promising. I like Rios, the holograms are fun. Raffi was better now. Already a fan of Elnor. Love the Romulan carers at the vineyard. Soji and Narek though are less interesting.
– Its great that they focus so much on the 20 years of Picards life between TNG and the current era, and the people he met. No unnecessary callbacks or fanservice. This has the effect of pulling you into the series.
– I like the warm, measured tone of the series, and the slowish pace. They’re confidently taking their time. Not the ridiculously hyped-up pumped-up misery of Discovery.
After this episode, I’m reasonably confident this is gonna be good.
I’m just going to say it. The Star Trek men always bore me. This time it’s the super spy, the narcissistic pilot with multilingual holograms, and now a sword boy (who could have been a sword woman but noooooooooo we get the one sword boy from the coven of sword women). More girls and gays in space that’s all I’m asking for.
The condition he has something to do with his brain and where the borg implant was. I think they’re trying to show that it did affect the character more than people think he did when he was assimilated and then the death of data followed by Starfleet turning their back on him changed him. I would find it very interesting if they flushed out his condition a little bit more and talked about how it is affecting his decisions and his personality. The doctor already hinted that he could lose cognitive function, so we have to take that into account when watching this new series
Very true. People aren’t taking into account that this isn’t the story of a man making a triumphant comeback. This is the story of an old, sick man who is settling his affairs before he dies. I’ve seen multiple stories noting that this is the first Star Trek series that’s named after a person rather than a ship or a place (or the next generation). My expectation is that after 2 or 3 seasons, Picard will find his redemption and leave the ship, one way or another, possibly to become a recurring character. Then La Sirena will be renamed in honor of him and become the Picard, meaning the show will be named after a ship after all, while his former crew continue their adventures together.
It’s truly bizzare seeing Picard getting along with a kid. (let alone being a father figure to one)Them commenting on the fact that he hates kids doesn’t really seem to do it justice.
Picard had the reputation of not liking children for the first half (?) of TNG, and it was rightly earned. But I think it was Disaster episode where his feelings about children changed. After that episode you didn’t really see any episodes where Picard was uncomfortable around (or didn’t like) children like you saw in the early seasons.
I feel like a point worth noting here:We have prior sources placing the population of Romulus at nearly 20 billion.The comic book tie in implies years of evacuation.The flashback in episode 3 tells us there were 7 billion after the synth attack.This episode has the ex-senator tell us that the Romulans’ resourcefulness allowed them to survive.The first episode gives the death toll at around 900 million.It isn’t that people gave up (although Starfleet did). It’s that 95% of Romulans survived and ultimately that wasn’t good enough for Picard or the Romulans and it was good enough for Starfleet. This series is all about the tension between “perfect” and “good”, something Picard and really everyone in his orbit have trouble dealing with.
Did anyone else get really confused by that space battle?Honestly, without the running commentary from Rios I really couldn’t tell what was going on with all the random quick edits between the bridge and the psychotic camera spinning around.If they are going to have more space battles on this show they really need someone in charge who’s better at the visual side.
I don’t find this broken Picard confusing at all. I’m reminded of his PTSD after his Borg assimilation and how his role in killing 11,000 people at the Battle of Wolf 359. So much of his behavior now reminds me of the scene where he meets Ben Sisko for the first time and realizes that he killed Sisko’s wife. This current version of Picard is just that guy living with exponentially more grief and pain because in the end the Borg were right: resistance really was futile.tearing down a “Romulans Only” sign and kicking off a swordfight in the process;That drove me crazy. Rios told him the next transport window opened in seven minutes. All he had to do was wait. Instead he decided to engage in some kind of civil rights cosplay as if he were the victim of injustice and in the process managed to get a man, whose life he helped ruin, killed. I’m chalking that shit up to his brain issue.
I actually didn’t mind this bit too much, because to me it was evidence that Picard is still adjusting to living in the real world post-Federation. It’s exactly the sort of thing he’d have done on an away mission to that week’s Planet of the Hats, but with the Federation’s flagship in orbit to back him up they’d probably back down and agree that racism is wrong.It reinforces that dea that stuff like that is going to be much harder for him now he’s just Some Dude.
The show doesn’t tell us if this is true, but the prevailing theory online is that Picard knocked over the ROMULANS ONLY sign to create a scene so that Elnor would have to step in and save him.
I may the only one, but I can’t help getting a kick out of watching the second Mrs. Roger Sterling manhandle Dr. Victor Frankenstein…
The last seven minutes on Vashti was completely unnecessary, and did little more than further expose Picard as a feeble old man.
Picard holding up the sword getting ready to fence really brought that home. I don’t know if that was intentional.
And was the “Romulans Only” sign just for Picard? Because I don’t get the impression many non-Romulans visit that forgotten settlement.
That didn’t make any sense to me at all. It would be one thing if we had been shown an indigenous population that clashed with the Romulan settlers but I didn’t see any indication of that.
I’m giving it one more episode to see where it goes. I signed up for the CBS app to watch this, and while I’m at it I’ve been catching up on Discovery. I’m up to Season 2, Episode 2, but I’m about to give up on that one as well.
“Jean-Luc Picard, you sonuvabitch. I’m in. What’s the job?”
“Jeri Ryan’s name in the opening credits of the episode more or less spoiled the surprise.”This. I’m sure they could get the actress to agree to having her name at the end for one episode, no? I guess it’s a SAG union thing but they really should be able to make exceptions. If she’s not going to be a surprise why set up the story that way?
Just going to say that I am loving this take on Picard a lot, this Picard that can be wrong more than half of the times and that is not likeable. This is a human being, not like what happened on TNG or DS9. And for those that say that DS9 was the best, when was the last time you put an episode of that series to a date, partner or whatever and they said “oh my God you are right this series is the best”. In Zack’s, in many people here, I only see people that have not changed their tastes in decades, which is always a really bad sign.I agree on the pace being very weird though.
In this special episode, Picard visits the High Council Of Elves to petition for a warrior to join him on his quest…
I only have a couple of complaints about this show:It’s not Star Trek;It appears to function as an excuse for allegory with no real purpose to entertain. It is cut and paste science fiction/fantasy. It’s a jumbled mess;The characters suck. The only reason I gave it a shot was Picard, and I hate that character in his old age; andThe writing is almost CW worthy. Trite melodrama garbage.Lastly, did you give it a B+ or does someone else assign the letter grades?