So far as I know, Jean-Luc Picard and Seven of Nine have never shared screen time before. Maybe there was a bit of comic book or novel lore that I missed (I miss pretty much all of that stuff), but in terms of meaningful, mainstream continuity, the two haven’t really talked. Bringing them together on Picard is a fantastic opportunity to have two people with a deep connection with the Borg discuss their experiences; to try and get into just what it means to reclaim your body and identity after being absorbed by the Collective. “Stardust City Rag” tries to touch on this. There’s a thirty second conversation late in the episode where Seven asks Picard if he was able to regain his humanity after he was de-assimilated, and he says yes—then she asks him he never has doubts, and he says no. For what it is, it’s not bad, and if you squint, you could say that it casts a shadow over everything around it. But not much of one.
“Rag” moves at a good clip, staying focused entirely on the stories of Picard and his crew and their visit to Freecloud; no distracting, pointless side-trips to check in on Soji and the V.C. Andrews Assassins. Most of the hour is taken up with efforts to rescue Bruce Maddox from the clutches of a crime boss who wants to sell him to the Tal Shiar; Seven, who helped the La Sirena last week at the expense of her own ship, agrees to help, for what turn out to be reasons of her own. While Picard is dressing up like a French pirate, Raffi makes a brief detour trying to reconnect with her son. Everything wraps up in the end with a not-entirely-unexpected betrayal which will presumably have consequences when the show comes back next week.
This is, in a lot of ways, the sort of thing I’ve been wanting the show to do from the start. The con in Freecloud has all the hallmarks of a goofier Trek one-off; the main guest star gets a self-contained story; and, as previously mentioned, the episode doesn’t split its time reminding us that other characters in other places exist. Yet it still feels like a missed opportunity, right down to its shocking-but-not-really conclusion. Picard is still playing close to the vest with its secrets, and while there’s logic to that, it’s frustrating how slowly we’re building a head of steam. I honestly don’t know where all this is headed, but I’m reasonably comfortable in guessing that the big reveal of what’s actually going on will be a good one. But it means we’re still stuck waiting to see why all of this matters.
Let’s start with the end first. I’ve been suspicious of Agnes Jurati for a while now; her unexpected arrival at Picard’s chateau in the third episode, combined with how quickly the episode cut away from her meeting with Commodore Oh, suggested secrets were being kept. I thought she might be a spy of some sort, disguised to look like the good doctor, and I’m glad that theory turned out to be incorrect. She’s still herself; it’s just that something Oh showed her during their conversation has turned her around on the idea of synthetic life, to the point where she’s willing to murder her former lover to destroy all traces of their work together.
Having characters spend a large amount of time searching for someone, only to find that someone and have them die shortly after, is supposed to be a subversive twist, used to shake up the status quo and raise the stakes. But, much like Dahj’s death in the pilot, it’s a trick that’s been played a few to many times to really register. I can’t be the only one who saw Agnes lurking in the background while Picard chatted with the injured Maddox and knew what was coming, and while Pill plays the scene well, it felt rote in a way that worked against its intended effect.
“Rag” goes through all the right steps to make the doctor’s decision meaningful, establishing her relationship with Maddox in an earlier scene and making sure that Agnes is to be charming and goofy right up until shock sets in (there’s even a nice payoff to the EMH activating when it senses her blood-pressure spiking). But taking Maddox off the board so quickly feels like a huge missed opportunity. This wasn’t a simple guest star from TNG, this was a guy who wanted to dismantle Data to make more of him; and who, at some point between then and now, figured out a way to replicate Data’s internal workings with organic material. He’s a complicated figure, and getting rid of him almost as soon as he arrives means we never get to reckon with the choices he’s made, or how he may (or may not) have changed since that original appearance. Hell, he and Picard get a single scene together, and it’s literally just Bruce making breathless, vague comments about the “truth” before revealing where Soji is. If I hadn’t seen “The Measure of a Man,” I wouldn’t know that the two had ever been at odds.
Seven’s story fairs better, as Jeri Ryan is given more room to breathe, and there’s some appealing moral ambiguity to it all. She agrees to offer herself up as bait for the Maddox rescue because she wants to get close to the crime boss at the center of things, a woman who used to capture members of the Borg and strip them for parts. This resulted in the death of someone close to Seven—a brutal, agonizing death that we see in the cold open, as Seven arrives too late to rescue them. It was hard to pick up names during all of this, but I think the person Seven is trying to avenge is Icheb, who first appeared on Star Trek: Voyager in the episode “Collective” in that show’s sixth season. My Voyager watch hasn’t reached that point yet, but it’s safe to say from Seven’s behavior here that the character was important to her.
The moral ambiguity comes from Seven’s position as a “Fenris Ranger,” a group of vigilantes roaming the sections of space where the Federation’s efforts have failed, trying to enact some kind of justice and protecting those who need it. It’s a neat position for the character to have landed in (and seems tailor made for a spin-off), although we don’t get too much information of the organization behind her; just that Picard, who still believes in laws and government, doesn’t think too much of it, while still respecting her. When Seven comes face to face with her enemy, Picard temporarily talks her out of murdering the woman, only for Seven to return later in the episode and get her revenge.
It’s a lot of fun seeing Jeri Ryan running around kicking ass in comfortable clothes, and her following through on her threat makes sense. But we’ve never seen this crime boss figure before, and we don’t spend enough time with this version of Seven for her decision to open fire to matter much on a character level. I think the show is trying to build a more cynical view of the universe in contrast to TNG’s optimism, but its version of cynicism feels every bit as shallow as unearned optimism would. It’s not bad, but it is under-baked, and apart from having people treat Picard as an irritating relic, there’s not much of a perspective here yet.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up the goofy undercover operation that has Rios and Picard dressing up like pimps (oh sure, Raffi calls them “facers,” but c’mon, they’re pimps), and Patrick Stewart hamming it up to hell and back. I wouldn’t be surprised if audiences found this charming, and Stewart appears to be having fun, but it all felt exceptionally cringe-inducing, a silly, childish bit of fan service that undercuts the tension of the episode for no real reason. It makes the crime boss and her henchpeople look like idiots, and Picard’s outrageous French accent is… well, it’s bad. I hate saying that, given how much I love Stewart, but I just found this whole thing dumb, and not in a particularly fun way. Camp can work on Trek, but it needs the proper context to be effective. I don’t think this was it, especially not in an episode that began with a man getting his eye ripped out of its socket sans anesthesia.
“Rag” is entertaining enough, and in a lot of ways it shows a direction the show should be working towards, telling tighter stories that focus more on building the core ensemble’s relationships. (The scene with Raffi trying to make peace with her son was affecting, except the actor playing her son overplayed it to the point where I lost all sympathy for him. Michelle Hurd is great, though, and the fact that she ends up back on board the ship at the end was a relief.) It just doesn’t come together as sharply as it needs to, and it also seems to be losing sight of Picard himself. Presumably we’ll be getting more into why Soji is on the Borg cube next week, which will hopefully mean digging into Picard’s past as part of the collective, as well as Seven’s return at some point. Presumably it’s going to cohere into something. But we’re not quite there yet.
Stray observations
- The incredibly aggressive hologram ads that pop up as soon as La Sirena arrives in orbit around Freecloud are really funny and sharp.
- I’m not sure if the actor who plays Bruce Maddox is the same as the man who played him in the original episode.
- They introduce the idea that the crime boss’s lizardman can smell lies, which they then immediately subvert with an injection. Like… why even before if it was going to be that easy to bluff past. It’s like saying, “Okay, they have an unbreakable lock!” “Oh no!” “But we have a key.”
- Elnor is very good in this episode. He’s mostly stuck on not-quite-getting it jokes, but they all land well. I pretty much like all of the show’s core ensemble, which is a relief.
- I apologize if I didn’t spend enough time praising Jeri Ryan here, but she’s good, and I really hope this isn’t the last we see of her this season.
383 Comments
As someone who watched all of Voyager, that cold open with the tortured murder of Icheb was a proper shocker.
I’ve only seen a couple of the episodes he was in – I gave up on Trek around 96 or so – but I was thinking it was him before the dialogue confirmed it and was not expecting Seven to shoot him.
I didnt realise it was Icheb until after the episode – they recast the actor (even though the OG was portraying Icheb as recently as 2015 in fan-production ST: Renegades), then 7’s parting comments as she shot him, left me wondering if it was her & Chakotay’s son (which had me worried was going to indirectly interfere with the post-series Voyager novels, but then i saw Beyer’s name as episode writer & co-show-runner & she wrote pretty much all of them after the first 2 by Christie Golden, so if anyone’s going to try to keep those books canon, it’ll be her).
They left the Seven/Chakotay romance in the books? Even a brilliant writer is going to struggle to add chemistry were literally none existed for the four seasons she was on the show. I only ever read the first Voyager book, years ago, but I didn’t remember any stuff about them remaining together.
Yeah the whole Seven Chakotay romance was one of the worst thing they did. There was absolutely no need for it and the pairing just never had anything close to a spark.
Yes, that was odd. Its almost like they though “Seven is too hot to be alone, so let’s throw a dart at a dartboard and match her with…Chakotay!”
No, their rwlatuonship only worked in a bottle. Soon as they hit earth it dissolved. My worry initially was the show going against this.
They recast Maddox too. I can’t imagine why, unless Brian Brophy really had better things to do.
According to Memory Alpha the original actor is “currently the director of Theater Arts at the California Institute of Technology”, and according to IMDB he hasn’t acted professionally since 2014. So maybe he’s given it up.
Seven says Icheb’s name a few times during that flashback, a few more times when talking to Picard, and again when talking to the female gangster.
I must need closed captions/subtitles then. I didnt catch the name, though I do recall 7 saying A name.
Poor Icheb. She was essentially the mother clucker to those three borg chicks, in Voyager. Icheb was also the most promising of the children and went to Starfleet. To see him vivisected like that was understandable for her violent reaction.
I didn’t realize it was Icheb until she said it later. The flippant tone of the woman cutting him apart was heartbreaking enough, but to find out it was Icheb was gutting.
i guessed it was him in the trailers and have never before predicted something and still been totally shocked by it. what a terrible way to learn he got to become a starfleet officer. 😢
I really hate when writers do stuff like this.Bring back old established characters just to have them dramatically(and it this case over the top) murdered just to motivate their main characters. (It’s lazy and cheap)
I really do not understand your rating of a “B+” for this episode, when what I read in your review makes it seem like it might be a “C” at best. Would you explain in more detail why such a positive grade given the so many negative things you described in the episode?
I’ve long suspected that AV Club has a policy of not savaging shows in the grades. Even the TNG stuff that Zack hated got, at worst, a C.
“There’s a thirty second conversation late in the episode where Seven asks Picard if he was able to regain his humanity after he was de-assimilated, and he says yes—then she asks him he never has doubts, and he says no.”Seven asks him if he’s being entirely truthful about regaining his entire humanity and he counters with a no but he’s working on it to which she agrees and that they have to work on it “every damn day”.
The sound engineer weaving the Voyager theme-tune into 7’s last line & beam-out in that scene deserves all the awards. I rewatched that scene atvleast 3 times already – i got chills, i teared up, i yelped for joy.
The theme music is really my favourite part of Voyager.
The exchange between Picard and Seven happened a little differently than you remember, and I’m not sure if that’s because of the screener you got or what. But it went like this, more or less:
Seven: “After they… brought you back. From your time in the Collective. Do you really feel like you regained your humanity?”
Picard: “Yes.”
Seven: “…all of it?”
Picard: “…no. But we’re both working on it, aren’t we?”
Yup. Great scene. I really hope there is more seven of nine and she wasn’t killed.
also nice touch with the voyager theme in that scene.
This conversation was outstanding. I think the show would be better off if it focused more on little moments like this.
Just give me an hour of Patrick Stewart and Jeri Ryan ruminating on what it means to be human vs. Borg. I’d watch that.
Yes, that’s the kind of show I thought this was, from the first episode or two. Lots of character, less adventure. It makes a nice companion piece to the “fireworks factory” shows that coexist in the ST universe.
Thank you! I posted the same thing, but expanded on why this version was better, in my opinion.
Yup, that is how the conversation went – it was pretty powerful
I am super behind on this series but seeing Patrick Stewart with a beret and eye patch makes me want to binge it today!
So I guess this entire season isn’t about Picard and 7 of 9 teaming up? That is too bad. I guess I might still watch it anyway
I was more than a bit disappointed to see she’s a “special guest star” that they’ve setup to be slot in whenever Picard gives her a call. The advertising certainly made it seem like she was going to be a bit more involved than that.
But hey, the season is young…
…oh, wait, there’s only five episodes left this year. And at least one of those will be spent snuggling with Riker and Troi by the river.¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Jeri Ryan’s prominence in the promotions for this start to seem a bit misleading. Hopefully not though
They always do that with trailers. I never thought for one minute any of these returning actors would be sticking around for more than an episode.If they do bring back Guinan for Season 2, I could see her having an on and off again role. Whoopi Goldberg is more than ecstatic about returning to the role and her character was never a major presence in TNG to begin with.
You may know this, but for those who don’t, Whoppi was a really hot commodity during TNG’s original run (87-95). She won an Oscar in 86, and her commercial biggest hits, the Sister Act movies, were in the middle of TNG’s run. She was only available to be on set for like 3 days of the year (her appearance in a particular episode was usually filmed over one day), and everyone involved felt really fortunate just to have that with her.
Oh, yeah. She really was. Whoopi, Williams and Crystal were all pretty big then and they hosted that annual Comic Relief fundraiser for homeless in America.
Whoopi didn’t win an Oscar (for Ghost) until 1990. She was nominated for The Color Purple in 1985, but didn’t win.
You’re quite right. I mistook the list of Colour Purple nominations for a list of wins. Incredibly that movie received 11 nominations but didn’t win anything.In terms of chronology, the Oscars nominations were for movies released in the years 1985 and 1990, but the awards show itself is not until the following year.
You were right about Whoopi being a huge get at the time though.Regarding movie years, yeah that always throws me off at the trivia contest at my local bar.“This is the year when XXX won the Oscar for Best Film”
Me: “Oh, I know this. That movie came out in 1993. That’s the answer.”“The answer is: 1994″
Me: “Damnit!”
I really think all the season two talk is just a misdirect and they kill Picard at the end of this. Hence Chabon moving on.
I don’t think Stewart would’ve invited Goldberg into Picard season 2 on the View reducing the lady to the verge of near happy-tears – she’s an OG Trekkie – that would be too cruel.
On IMDB – Jeri ryan is a listed cast member for ep 5, 7, 8, 9& 10. So she’s in for half the season & we the viewers only have one more ep without her. IMDB isn’t perfect though – didn’t catch her last i checked for ep 4 beam-in tease.
Now I’m imagining the alternate version of this show that’s just a buddy comedy with Picard and 7 of 9.
It’s better, right?
Way better.
I would say “There’s season 2!” but then I just saw that Jeri Ryan got added for a season long arc on a different show just recently so she probably won’t be in Picard S2. Hopefully her return in S1 is something substantive.
She’s listed on imdb for the last 4 eps of this season. She’s listed as a main cast member for MacGyver’s next season so i dont know if she’ll be in Picard s2 to run into Picardo as either Zimmerman or the EMH Doctor if the deal works out.
I think she’s well-positioned to show up with the cavalry in the finale.
Kinda disappointed, myself. I didn’t love Seven on Voyaer, they used her nature as a solution waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many times. The idea of Borg nanoprobes is fundamentally kinda cool – like Iron Man’s Mk. 50 nanite technology, they can become, essentially whatever they need to. be. A near-infinite possibilities form of matter.But Iron Man had a limited supply. Seven regenerated them. So she could.. just.. fix most any issue, any number of times. She resurrected Neelix. Her probes combined with the Doctor’s holographic emitter to create a 29th century Borg, she used them as weapons..I was sure Jeri was more than boobs in a tight uniform that ALWAYS PUT THEM FRONT AND CENTER (fuck you, Rick Berman), it’s been nice to see her in other stuff. And to get to play Seven where she’s more than a walking talking exposition vehicle.Poor Icheb.
Unfortunately, it looks like the season’s going to be “Because timey wimey, Dajh and her sister turn out to be the origin of the Borg, and the governments all know this which is why they’re trying to stop them, and the attack on Mars was a false flag operation by the Federation”.Which would be cringeworthy.But really, anytime you bring the prophesied chosen one into sci-fi, you’re treading on thin ice.
God I hope none of this is true, but it seems like at least the false flag element is going to be confirmed.
on imdb, she is listed for all the remaining episodes except the next one.
You killed Icheb…..you bastards!
For Jeri Ryan fans: her guest appearance on Wil Wheaton’s TableTop is fantastic. Though they were on different Trek series & had never met, they do the “shimmy” the actors do when the bridge is under attack in perfect sync at 21:28
Fun fact: If Jeri Ryan’s husband at the time hadn’t been so thirsty about having his weirder sexual proclivities satisfied, we never would have gotten Obama as president.
An odd example of the butterfly effect
Most of human history becomes radically different if dudes just learned to keep it in their pants.
If you are in a relationship with Jeri Ryan and find that is not satisfying your horniness, I would suggest that you have a problem
It was far ickier than that. He was trying to pimp Jeri out for political favors to help his career.
Lookit, if I was banging Jeri Ryan I’d want witnesses, too.
You guys…. know Jeri Ryan’s husband raped her, right? Can we quit it with these jokes?
That’s a pretty puritanical way to describe what happened. He was into things she wasn’t, he didn’t force her, but she felt ambushed and pressured by it, neither’s needs were being met, and they got divorced, and her lawyers, reasonably from their perspective, used it against him. That happens a LOT. The only reason it was a big deal was because Americans think anything beyond missionary position initiated by the man in a married heterosexual relationship in the privacy of the home is not only abnormal, but scandalous, and that anyone who attempts to initiate anything beyond that is a deviant.
It’s also worth noting that Ryan was already polling between ten and twenty points below Obama a month BEFORE the records were released. The media just likes to make fun narratives that involve attractive people on TV shows. The fact that those records were sealed specifically at both parties’ requests to protect their special needs son, and that neither Jeri Ryan or even Obama wanted them unsealed (at least publicly), and seemingly the only people who DID want them unsealed were the Chicago Tribune and the presiding judge, is all just crap icing on the shit cake that whole fracus was. Obama was already winning, and that situation was all a huge “did not need to go there” thing, and they still went there because it was “in the public interest”. The public was interested alright: just makes them a shitty public.
We shouldn’t be laughing at what happened to Jack Ryan. Jeri Ryan certainly isn’t. We should be terrified at the possibility that Elizabeth Warren once owned a whip or Bernie Sanders swings, because it’ll be “news”, apparently, and that’ll be worse in the eyes of the extremely average American voter than Trump being a serial philanderer or keeping kids in cages.
Just ask Hillary about Carlos Danger.
It is a weird and wonderful story. That even has guest appearances by Alan Keys!
The story gets better! The election between Keys and Obama prompted one of the greatest political blog posts ever written:
John: … I mean, what will it take? That last speech literally made no sense. It was crazy drunken bar talk! Islamic radicals are like COMMUNISM?! (gets speech on laptop)
If we don’t fight terrorists in Iraq they’ll build a fundamentalist
terrorist state stretching from Spain to Indonesia? What the fuck?
Even assuming Spain, which last time I checked is 95% Roman Catholic,
goes down, you gotta assume France, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, all eight hundred million Hindus in India, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore would be somewhat of an obstacle.
Tyrone:
To be fair, you’re going west-to-east. Maybe he meant a fundamentalist
terrorist state stretching from Spain to Indonesia going east-to-west.
Going that way, there’s only the U.S. The President could be warning us
that if we don’t prevail in Iraq, the United States will become a
fundamentalist Islamic terrorist state.
John: … a little oblique, isn’t it?
Tyrone: The man is nothing if not subtle.
John: (calling up map on laptop)
You know, I guess if you start in Spain, swing hard south through
northern Africa, you got Algeria, Libya there, Egypt, cross the Red Sea
and you’re in the Middle East …
Tyrone: From there, if you spot him the Indian Ocean and India, you’re in Indonesia.
John: I am not spotting him eight hundred million Hindus. I call shenanigans.
Tyrone:
And again, I must point out Bush said “the militants believe that
controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, allowing them to
overthrow all moderate governments in the region.” That’s what the
militants believe. They may
just be delusional. He says that himself: “Some might be tempted to
dismiss these goals as fanatical or extreme. Well, they are fanatical
and extreme — and they should not be dismissed. Our enemy is utterly
committed.”
John: But
he’s citing that desire as a basis for our strategy. You can’t cite your
enemy’s delusional hopes as a basis for a rational strategy. Goals don’t exist in a vacuum, they’re linked to capability. David Koresh was utterly committed to being Jesus Christ. See how far that got him.
Either
Bush is making strategy based on a delusional goal of his opponent,
which is idiotic; or he’s saying he believes his opponent has the
capability of achieving this delusional goal, which is idiotic. Neither
bodes well for the republic.
Tyrone: Reading here, the speech boiled down to two points —
John:
Who cares? The Spain-to-Indonesia thing should automatically invalidate
the whole speech. I don’t care how good your investment advisor is, he
can spend three hours reviewing mutual funds, as soon as he says “And of
course, we can put your money into the Easter Bunny’s Egg Upgrades”, he
is out of —
Tyrone: — two points. First, Iraq is the keystone in the struggle between the West and Islamic Fundamentalism.
John: Which, if we accept the Administration’s own argument,
means that invading and destabilizing Iraq with insufficent post-war
planning (and all that entails), not enough personnel, and shitty
equipment for that personnel was the biggest screw-up in the War on
Terror.
Tyrone: He’s the
President: if he says it, it must be true. Second, Bush says we have
made a lot of progress in stopping al-Queda plots. Look: “Overall, the
United States and our partners have disrupted at least ten serious al
Qaeda terrorist plots since September the 11th, including three al Qaeda
plots to attack inside the United States. We’ve stopped at least five
more al-Qaeda efforts to case targets in the United States, or
infiltrate operatives into our country.”
John: What are they counting for those wins? Are they counting guys like Padilla?* This is all very gooey, like how we’ve killed like, nine of Osama Bin Laden’s #3 guys.
Tyrone:
Being #3 in Al-queda is like being a “creative vice president” at a
Hollywood studio. There are dozens of them … and they are expendable.
Listen, don’t do this, you’re just getting worked up. Have another
mozzarella stick.
John: Hey, Bush is now at 37% approval. I feel much less like Kevin McCarthy screaming in traffic. But I wonder what his base is —
Tyrone: 27%.
John: … you said that immmediately, and with some authority.
Tyrone: Obama vs. Alan Keyes.
Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established
political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out
racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit
crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted
for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever
ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5% of Democrats voted for
him. That’s crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27%
Crazification Factor in any population.
John: Objectively crazy or crazy vis-a-vis my own inertial reference frame for rational behaviour? I mean, are you creating the Theory of Special Crazification or General Crazification?
Tyrone: Hadn’t thought about it. Let’s split the difference. Half just have worldviews which lead them to disagree with what you
consider rationality even though they arrive at their positions through
rational means, and the other half are the core of the Crazification —
either genuinely crazy; or so woefully misinformed about how the world
works, the bases for their decision making is so flawed they may as well
be crazy.
John: You realize this leads to there being over 30 million crazy people in the US?
Tyrone: Does that seem wrong?
John: … a bit low, actually.
Tyrone: (shrugs) Probably right, then. Speaking of Obama, I need to get t-shirts printed up to sell.
John: I can do that on the web. What do they say?
Tyrone: Don’t You Dare Kill Obama
John: How about Don’t You Dare Kill Obama (… and we know you’re thinking about it)
Tyrone: Niiiiice.
John: Or You Kill Obama and WE WILL BURN SHIT DOWN
Tyrone: Even better. Nobody wants their shit burned down.
John: Glad to help.
Tyrone: I’m having you taken off the list for when the revolution comes.
John: … there’s really a list —
Tyrone: Oh yeah. Hell yeah.
As a born and bred Chicagoan, watching Alan Keyes get summarily stomped on was one of the few joys of the 2004 election cycle. Aside from not being a native to Illinois and generally being pants-crapping insane, he lost us when he said “You are doing what you believe to be required by your respect for God’s will, and I think that that’s what I’m doing in Illinois.” Oh, God wants you to run for Senate in Illinois? Really Alan?
That 27% of the vote he got was so glorious. The prosecution against Jeffrey Dahmer had less of a slam dunk. It was like Godzilla stepping on a cupcake.
I can’t believe CNN and Fox don’t still drag him out to dump on Democrats every so often
Obama still would have won the race.
Hey that’s my factoid to spit out. I’ll let it go in the name of peace though.
Hahaha I school my friends on this subject all the time. It states now that Obama had a clear lead in the polls against Jack Ryan, but you can never underestimate the Southern Illinois conservatives. It was close race. After the sealed court records came out about the Ryan marriage, Jack dropped out and Barrack won the Senate rave easily.
Or we would have gotten Obama in 2016 and Trump would have faded into obscurity.
I met that guy when he came to downstate Illinois. I thought I was seeing a future president.
I like Jeri Ryan, but I would rather gouge my own eye out with no anesthesia.
Oh my god those two are perfect.
Apparently there’s an extended version of this vid – is it worth watching or is the standard sufficient?
The regular version is tighter and more than adequate I think
I haven’t been watching this show, and have only a passing familiarity with the whole of the Star Trek universe, but I will always be grateful to Jeri Ryan for her role in the rise of Obama.
She’s had a role in many rises HEY-O
“It’s a lot of fun seeing Jeri Ryan running around kicking ass in comfortable clothes”Maybe, but the sexist pig in me who thinks she still looks great wouldn’t mind seeing her in something a little skimpier.
Yeah, it’s crazy how foxy she still as after all this time.She’s a sweet girl.
“The beast in me is caged by frail and fragile bars…”
God help the beast in me is all I’m saying…
I’m that weirdo who always found the female cast members of Star Trek more attractive in comfortable clothes. My favorite Troi outfit is when they finally stuck her in a damn uniform in the last season. She looked fantastic.
Can confirm that’s actually a pretty common sentiment, and is generally considered one of the unambiguously good things that Jellicoe changed about the Enterprise. I’d go even further and say that the blue uniform also looked a lot better on Seven than the catsuit, even though she only wore the uniform for one episode.Of course, it wasn’t perfect: there were a couple of times where those uniforms were so tight that you could clearly distinguish Nicole De Boer’s belly button. But honestly, I’m kind of surprised end-stage Gene Roddenberry and Maurice Hurley did not realize that you did not need a one-piece to make Marina Sirtis a striking woman.
Roddenberry was also shagging anybody he could still get his ailing hands on and Maurice Hurley was busy sexually harassing Gates McFadden off the show. I think tasteful clothing was the last thing on their minds.
Christ, look at the guest actors. Back in Season One, the extras in “Justice” were practically in speedos, literally rubbing oil all over one another, and they unambiguously establish in the first five minutes “These people do nothing but fuck all day.”
Season One of TNG is like some never-ending slurry of sexism, to the point that even in the episodes like “Code of Honor”, where the sexism isn’t actually the worst thing on display, the sexism is so. very. on. display.To be honest, my favorite anecdote about the working conditions behind the scenes in Season One is from “The Last Outpost”, which introduces the Ferengi. Apparently, Gene was going on and on about really detailed discussion about Ferengi government, society, culture and worldview (like, to George R.R. Martin levels of world-building), when without missing a beat or so much as changing his tone, he started discussing the Ferengi’s enormous genitalia and preferred sex positions. And he apparently kept going on for about five minutes or so before somebody finally piped up and noted that, since this was a network television show, none of what was being described was really relevant to any story they could tell.
The way I heard the Ferengi story, a production assistant more or less begged him to stop talking.And yeah, “Code of Honor” is my pick for the all-time worst TNG episode, and the sexism is still disgusting even if it’s not the main focus. The implication that Tasha was attracted to Lutan even after he kidnapped her is pretty egregious.
TASHA: Well, yes of course, it made me feel good when he…
ME: OH, DID IT NOW??
There are more than a few Trek episodes that need to be shot into the sun and removed from the collective memory, and Code of Honor is at the top of that list.
And then they made their ears their genitalia.
Hey, these lobes ain’t gonna oo-mox themselves.
You owe me money for making me read this
Cite the Rule of Acquisition that says that.
Maye be can pretend that Season 1 was just Farpoint and The Neutral Zone, and then the show picks up again at the beginning of Season 3.
The thought had never crystallized for me until now, but I completely agree!
I wouldn’t mind hearing less from the sexist pig in you.
I wouldn’t mind not hearing anything from you at all.
Be less creepy then
I don’t find looking at an attractive 51 year old woman creepy, especially considering she’s 5-6 years older than I am.
Too bad that’s not what you said
“she still looks great” – so while I find it a bit sexist, I don’t find it creepy. Learn to read.
Sexism is creepy by definition. And that was very definitely not the only thing you said.
It must be very, very tiring being you.
Listen, imagine how tiring it is for all the women who have to deal with sexist asshats like you every day.
Because a message board is the equivalent of real life. Apparently.
Oh I forgot, the rules are completely different when you’re online. Sexism magically doesn’t count here, for some reason.
It’s okay, I get it now: you’re a joyless dick with no sense of humor. Thanks for the instructional diatribe as well. Because a comment about how someone acknowledges that it’s sexist and states they wouldn’t mind seeing someone on a show dressed the way they used to dress on a previous show clearly is meant to be taken very, very seriously. I’ll get to work immediately on wiping out the internet of all humor, fun and comments you don’t approve of. Are there any books you need burned while I’m at it?
“You just have no sense of humor”–the cry of every creep who doesn’t understand why people object to him being openly sexist in public
Because again, the AV Club board is open in public and should be confused with real life. What you might want to do one day is, I dunno, actually go outside…
Still trying the “sexism is okay if it’s online” thing, huh? You haven’t really explained how that one works yet.
Yes, the world will surely end because someone thought a 51 year old woman would look attractive in the outfit she used to wear. On an internet comment board. Unrelated, but how are you and your pastor husband doing these days?
The world won’t end if a creepy dude is called a creep either
Won’t someone think of the creepy men?
A man has been criticized and can’t handle it!
I think you need to clutch your pearls harder, Helen…
You know that posting the same comment three times doesn’t really make your argument look all that strong, right?
I just think you need to clutch your pearls harder, Helen. Also:
Four times
Nope, it’s five…props on your advanced math skills though. From now on, any time, I see your brilliant and concise posts I know exactly what to respond with moving forward…
Six
Well, six when I respond to this one. I don’t include the clip of “Clutch The Pearls”. At this point poor Helen’s voice is getting hoarse.
More like your whole shtick is getting old
I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over your plaintive cries for the children…
Is this a tantrum yet
I couldn’t hear you Helen, can you say that again please?
You went away for two hours and still couldn’t come up with anything else, huh?
Pre-Deployment meeting with finalization of reporting metrics for post deployment metrics for success. Also
Military? Wow, the lack of seeing women as anything but objects makes a lot more sense now.
I also mock our veterans and people who are willing to defend our country with their lives. You’re a class act. Also, because you’ve never apparently worked in any sort of tech field I’ll clarify that this is part of an IT project. That and…Now clutch your pearls harder, Helen! CLUTCH!
“Defend our country” Try “bomb innocent people of color in the name of imperialism”
I really hated when they killed that Bin Laden guy. What monsters. Or beat the Axis powers. You’re not wrong 100% in your statement but you’re also using a mighty, mighty broad brush stroke. Of course, we’ve seen nuance isn’t your best trait, but at least you think of someone…who is it again?Oh, them. Don’t worry Adolf, we’ll think of the children. The Non-Jewish ones only of course, since we see how you think now you Nazi.
Funny you should mention. It seems like your gif is appropriate for the very first time, considering what the American military does to children.
Sure thing, Adolf. Don’t you have some Jews to hate somewhere?Oh, and of course:
You’re the one cheering on the murder of kids
Oh, you only cheer the murder of Jews. If it makes you feel better Adolf, I understand they killed women and children along with males. Now that I think about it, Not the grown up Jews, of course. Actually, I’m sure you don’t mind the deaths of any Jews. It’s fine, I understand there are some Alt-Right groups you can subscribe to.
And you don’t mind the death of children of color. What’s it like to be a giant racist as well as sexist?
So hating Jews isn’t racist, chief? How’s that glass house you live in?I’ll also add said bombings you linked to occur where your friends the Taliban use human shields. Even your own article states: Despite the growing number of civilian casualties, the report did acknowledge efforts by U.S. and Afghans forces and the Taliban to protect civilians.Maybe try not hiding among innocent civilians? Or trying to enforce religious views on those who don’t want them? So you’re against sexism but you’re all for keeping women subjugated, huh?I’ll also add you’ve not once said you don’t hate Jews, or don’t want them eradicated. You even were quiet about joining alt-right hate groups. That’s pretty disturbing. Now I feel like I should be the one who says:
Oh I see, fighting the Taliban makes it totally okay to kill innocent children! So I’m sure you wouldn’t mind if someone came and bombed your hometown because there was a wanted criminal there. Idiot racist.
I’m the racist idiot…the guy who sides with the Taliban and Nazi’s? Can you go on about how much you support women’s right, Taliban Adolf?This is too priceless: you’re defending Nazi’s and the Taliban and crying about sexism! Oh this is rich. I’ll put it this way: if Hitler was in my hometown and using human shields, while I wouldn’t want my hometown bombed I would understand why it happened. So to you, the Taliban is okay to use human shields. And you agree with Nazi’s. But you’re also worried about a sexist comment. But not enough to think the Taliban don’t have the right to treat women way, way worse. You’re a troll account, right? I mean, you support killing Jews and the holocaust (not once have you denied it) and you’re okay with the Taliban and their views, and using human shields, but you’re not alright with a sexist comment? I also like that you have to resort to name calling. Because being called an idiot is an insult to you, but being called Hitler or a Taliban supporter you’re fine with. Now I get why you’re so angry with skimpy clothing. Women shouldn’t be allowed to wear anything that you don’t approve of and that doesn’t cover everything.You are truly the worst.I think this calls for a double:
You’re still here defending the murder of children. And let’s just remember, this entire meltdown is because you couldn’t deal with your creepy sexism being pointed out.
Dude, you’re a Taliban and Nazi supporter. The fact that you see nothing wrong or won’t condemn the treatment of women by the Taliban speaks immense volumes of your own hypocrisy. I’m not defending the murder of children. I’m stating what your article literally posits, that your heroes the Taliban use human shields and try to hide among civilians. You’re the one defending the murder of Jews, Gypsies and other ‘lesser races’ as deemed by the Nazis, and defending the treatment of women by the Taliban. None of THAT seems creepy. Nope. Not a bit. And you’re not a racist, woman hating creep in any way.You’re genuinely disturbed. I hope other posters read this to see what a fucking monster you are. Why do you pay lip service to women and their rights when you support a group that literally subjugates them in every way?
Again this psychosis is because you couldn’t handle being pointed out as the creep you are
LOL – I love that you can call someone a creep when you literally are emphatic with Nazis and the Taliban. My “psychosis” seems a lot less than someone who thinks the Nazis and the Taliban are the good guys. Yes, a sexist comment throw away remark is exactly as evil as that. How about you share your enlightened view about the Jews and a woman’s place in society? I’ll wait.
See, this is who you are. Someone points out your behavior is inappropriate and instead of doing the grownup thing and apologizing, you just post paragraphs and paragraphs of weak-ass trolling. Are you looking forward to still being a creepy manchild when you’re in the nursing home?
I dunno…are you looking forward to defending the Taliban when you’re old and decrepit? To say nothing of slandering soldiers? Because you know, all they do is kill ‘brown skinned people’. Nothing else. I’m not weak ass trolling…I’m legit waiting for you to say you don’t agree with Nazism and the Taliban. I find it odd that you can only posit about killing “brown skinned people” and post a link to an article that literally says the blame is to be spread around to the US and the Taliban, but find the need to only blame the US. For daring to attack the Taliban. That and this will NEVER get old:Because that is literally who you are. Of course, the hypocrisy of a Helen Lovejoy and the symbolism of how it equates to you should be pretty self evident by now. From now on, any time I see your posts, Helen Lovejoy is getting a shout out.
Total weak-ass trolling. And I like that your defense for being a military stan is “look at all the good things the racist murderers do!”
Look, we get it: you think beating the Nazis and wanting to stop the Taliban is wrong. It’s fine. You can still clutch your pearls and exclaim…
Honestly I love that the only joke you can manage is “what if you were the real racist hurr durr” over and over again. Like, do you get how dumb you look?
Who’s joking? You’re a racist who, I notice, still has not defended himself to state that I’m wrong. So far all you’ve stated is that you see nothing wrong with the Taliban using human shields, their treatment of women, or the fact that soldiers and the US Army helped fight the Axis powers. All you’ve done is link to an article that literally, as I quoted, states that all three sides are trying to minimize damages. And you also won’t state that you see anything wrong with using human shields to hide weapons, or that the Taliban in Afghanistan might not be a good thing. Put it this way: tell me how you feel about Israel and the Jews. Or better yet, just clutch your pearls and post nonsensical remarks while you cry out: I am going to post this every time I see you on a board. It will NEVER grow old. Because this: THIS is the literal equivalent of you and your posts. Note how no one up-votes you, or agrees with you. You’re a wasted face, you’re a sad eyed lie, you’re a holocaust (denier more than likely, and I also doubt you get the reference I just made). You’re the Ignatius J. Reilly of internet posters but you are the confederacy of dunces, as opposed to being surrounded by them. Ah, what the hell….one more for the fuck of it.
I mean if you want to say you’re going to follow me around the site harassing me, that sure sounds like a quick way to get banned. Also you’ll do a hell of a job showing everyone else what an annoying weirdo you are. But continue having a meltdown because someone pointed out your creepy comment was creepy
More like if I just see you being annoying…no one wants to follow you around because to be honest you’re not interesting enough. Just annoying. It’s okay, Adolf. You can continue to clutch your pearls though. I love how you won’t even defend yourself in any way: I’ll take your silence as assent.You should listen to Bob Dylan’s “Positively 4th Street” – I know he’s a Jew so you probably hate him but he sums up how we all feel about you.
So just a limited harassment campaign then. I’m sure that’ll go over great with the mods.There’s no “we” here, dude. Nobody else is reading this. There’s literally just you being weird and screaming into the void because you couldn’t handle a one-sentence criticism. I imagine you take this approach to everyone who’s criticized you in your life, following them around in unreasoning rage and harassing them to the point of exhaustion. That’s pretty psychotic behavior; you should really look into therapy.
Check out the up-votes, Chief. They ain’t from me. Remove ‘limited’ from your post and that describes how almost every user here feels as soon as they read one of your posts. Don’t worry, Helen. You can go on hating the Jews and cheering for the Taliban.
Sure, buddy, sure. That’s why there’s only one on every single one of your posts. And I’m just laughing imaging you paste the URL and thinking, “I’ve posted this GIF twenty times now, but the 21st time will really show him!”
I can see your brilliant at math Adolf, but I will say one is still more than none. And again, this will NEVER grow old because this is you. You could move to a Taliban style country so those pesky women can’t wear any clothes that you don’t approve of. As I’m sure is your wont.
I mean you do strike me as the kind of person who’s simple-minded enough to laugh at the same joke twenty times in one day, so there’s that.
You strike me as a sanctimonious pile of shit who endorses the Taliban, so there’s that Helen.By the way, I like how you casually slandered everyone in the armed forces. That showed a lot of class.
Nah I just know enough not to act like a creep, or to have a psychotic meltdown when criticized. Oh no I slandered an organization dedicated to imperialism, genocide and sexual assault, what have I done.
But enough about the Taliban, amirite? Also you clearly don’t know enough to not act like creep, believe me. Your constant whiny preaching is exceedingly creepy Helen.
“Not act like creep?” I think you’re starting to break down from overexertion.
I’m sorry, can you say that again Helen?
Congratulations. That guy is a real ass-clown.
First, props on a Jeff Hornacek reference! And second…holy shit that guy is biggest sack of shit I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter
Yeah, I got into a back and forth with him similar to you a few months ago. He said that the Log Lady’s final scene in Twin Peaks (The Return) was as sad a good-bye moment as Frank Burns’ good-bye moment on MASH. Which is bizarre since the Log Lady character was dying of cancer, same as the actual actress who passed away shortly after filming her scenes. Meanwhile, Frank Burns was an unlikable buffoon that nobody missed when he left the show, and his departure was a series of humorous events – nothing sad about any of it.At first I thought he meant that he didn’t find the Log Lady’s good-bye sad at all, since Frank’s good-bye on MASH is played for laughs (which I wouldn’t have agreed with but at least it would make sense). But no, he thought the Log Lady’s good-bye was very sad, and so was Frank’s – equally so. Eventually I got the feeling that he had never watched a single episode of MASH before. He stopped trying to explain himself and responded with various GIFs (none of which had anything to do with his argument), then links to GIFs (I guess he forgot how to post GIFs?), and then just a single period.God, he was annoying.
I’m just shocked he didn’t lecture you on the ‘oppressive’ nature of MASH and how the Army and show is repressing him.You’re also 100% right, because Frank was the worst.
I mean, I liked Frank for what he was, but he was never a character to root for. Charles was definitely an improvement – a foil from Hawkeye and BJ but someone you wouldn’t be mad about if he won every once in awhile. And he definitely wasn’t a character whose departure from the series was seen as a sad moment.
I gave him the benefit of the doubt and thought he mixed up Colonel Blake’s good-bye. But no, he was definitely thinking about Frank Burns (aka Ferret Face).
Aye, they apparently recast Brian Brophy with John Ales. Very disappointing.
That’s no fault of Ales, of course. He was a completely fine replacement, but he only resembles Maddox in the absolute broadest of strokes. The sting of this is reduced by the character being killed off before the credits rolled, at least. (Though that, in itself, is yet another major bummer.)
Going to give benefit of the doubt, though, and assume Brophy was unavailable for some reason…Honestly, if they hadn’t name-dropped him as being Maddox, I wouldn’t have even known it was him. Probably would have been a bit easier to simply call the character one of Maddox’s star pupils, or something. They they could have cast a bit younger, matching Jurati’s age a bit better.Buuuuut then they couldn’t name drop Maddox directly and get everyone wet with continuity excitement, wondering for several weeks if the original guy was going to be back.So. Eeh? 😏
I can’t believe they recast a guy who barely acts anymore with someone who works constantly!Ales reminded me of Rainn Wilson.
It’s not like it would be unusual for Star Trek to bring back a one-off guest star for a cameo decades later. I can think of a half-dozen examples off the top of my head.(Kang, Kor, Koloth, Arne Darven, Amanda Grayson, and, um, let’s just agree all the times fan-films have done it add up to a sixth official example.).
Most of those actors worked a lot between Trek appearances (particularly “Kor” John Colicos and “Arne” Charlie Brill). Brian Brophy has made about 5 acting appearances this millennium, none since 2014. He probably has a day job and isn’t acting anymore.
Sometimes people can pull it off. David Lynch even got some people out of long term acting retirement like Everett McGill for the Twin Peaks revival.
Indeed, but he couldn’t get Michael Ontkean!
I’m surprised you didn’t mention Ricardo Montalban.
So? They brought back the same old coots who played Arne Darvin and the OG Klingons and none of them had terribly robust resumes at the time.Leaving out original Maddox was shitty.
This is not accurate, especially in the case of John Colicos.Brian Brophy has worked so little that it is very possible he is no longer acting at all. He probably had a day job he couldn’t get away from.
Yes, Brophy has acted very little, true. All I said was “their resumes weren’t ‘robust’” regarding the other guys, which is also true. Between “Galactica” and returning on DS9, Colicos worked 1-2 guest star parts a year. Yes, you could call that “steady”, but you could also call that “not working much.”
Arne Darvin being brought back happened due to a coincidence. Behr just happened to see him at a restaurant while they were writing this episode.And they’ve recast characters in Trek before. Toral was recast. Ziyal had 3 different actors. Cretak was recast. The Borg Queen was recast and then Alice Krige was brought back for Endgame.
They were already discussing using Darvin when they saw him. It was a funny coincidence, but not the reason they used the character. And they arguably would have at least tried to reach out to him, even if they didn’t spy him in that restaurant.
To be strictly accurate, Alice Krige was only brought back because Susanna Thompson was unavailable for the Voyager finale – they wanted Thomson.
A new actor played Icheb, too.
FUUUUUUUCK this show for not using the original Maddox!
He’s retired.
So? He’s apparently a professor at CalTech. I’m sure he could find an afternoon and make the 40 minute drive.
….I mean, how do you know they didn’t ask him and he declined? Given he’s *retired* and as you say has another job, he may not WANT to do it.
Everyone wants to make ten grand for two days work.
Not everyone wants to revisit a role they played decades ago.
As soon as Brophy admits in an interview that he was asked, but declined to appear, I will continue to be annoyed. And it’s less about “continuity” and more about throwing a nice bone to a guy whose career never really took off. Everyone deserves a nice break every now and then.
… His career did fine He stated years ago he was no longer interested in acting.
Especially considering they brought back Jonathan Del Arco. I really doubt they were like “LOL LET’S JUST RECAST *THIS* ROLE.” Although they didn’t bring back Manu Intiraymi to play Icheb, buuuuut they probably didn’t want people talking about how he thinks it’s terrible how Kevin Spacey was treated.
Yeah, they confirmed they didn’t bring back Manu because he was pretty awful to the Paul Stamets actor on twitter.
He’s not retired, he’s the director of the theatre program at Caltech. Dude is literally doing full time work in the field of acting.
He has not appeared on television or in film since 2011. He himself has stated he has retired from professional acting.
I mean, the original guy hasn’t acted since 2014. Maybe they asked him and he didn’t want to.
I double checked that too – then I checked Ales wasn’t Waleed Zuaiter because I thought he was Samir Abboud in s1 Altered Carbon
Yeah, it’s weird. This entire show is a nostalgia-play, and they go out of their way to reference the old shows (this week it was Rios’ fake reference “Mr Quark from Ferenginar”) and then they do weird stuff like “recast Bruce Maddox for some reason”. And that’s after they bothered to bring back Hugh for like a bit part.
It’s really hard to understand why they did this. The original actor had a very memorable and unique presence. I sensed none of that character and performance here, and was immediately suspicious, but the hair and beard threw me off.
They introduce the idea that the crime boss’s lizardman can smell lies, which they then immediately subvert with an injection. Like… why even before if it was going to be that easy to bluff past. It’s like saying, “Okay, they have an unbreakable lock!” “Oh no!” “But we have a key.”I ask a version of this question in basically every episode of Discovery.Are tv writers just not very good?
No, just Kurtzman.
This episode was written by Kirsten Beyer, and the showrunner is Michael Chabon…
Kurtzman is an executive producer, co-creator, and one of the writers of the general story. All CBS Access Trek is under his supervision now. Even if he didn’t directly write it, he could do something.
Chabon, that hack, what the hell has he contributed to the written word?
Unfortunately he and Beyer are being drowned out by the requirements of Kurtzman and Goldsman.
The whole thing was set up in a ‘how to write a heist for people with short term memory loss’ way. They kept introducing a threat/obstacle, and then flashing back to the work around.
It felt a little like an attempt at the sort of cleverness Steven Moffat liked to do on Doctor Who (not a surprising influence since Chabon is an admitted Who-fan).Mostly though I really wish that these writers were able to just write a straightforward tv episode. I know that Patrick Stewart has said he didn’t want to do the same thing as TNG again, but there’s a lot Kurtzman et al could learn from TNG and Deep Space 9 about what actually makes Star Trek work.
Not the least of which is simply a smaller budget forces writers to not rely on flash and cheap emotion.
Dismiss your fake Lizardo. Known troll trying to slander him for some dumb reason.
I didn’t even know that was possible. Thx.
You definitely can’t conclude that about TV writers generally, look at the pure GENIUS of Better Call Saul, The Good Place, Watchmen (discounting the last episode), and The Sopranos, The Wire and Deadwood back in the day. TV is where you’ll find the best writing these days. But they have put two hacks on Trek, and I don’t say that lightly because I don’t like the word, but it applies to Kurtzman and Goldsman, who are behind so many bad, bad sci-fi movies and shows.
Same thing they did with that CSI scene in the second episode. (in Dhaj’s apartment)
Kinda wish they’d chosen a name other than “Ranger”.
We live for the one, we die for the one.
Hmm, a bunch of vigilantes filling in as the law in a lawless frontier void. Yeah, “ranger” is an overused title that has only ever been used in sci-fi/fantasy.
If you ignore the existence of Texas, that is, which I wouldn’t blame you for.
I will be fine with these Rangers being a military unit (although that’s apparently not the case), or a baseball team, or even a bunch of anti-refugee militia-cosplayers could be interesting.(although I honestly didn’t expect Raffi to be a 9/11-truther)
I just really don’t want this to be some secret warrior caste which goes back to time immemorial and blah blah. Basically, I don’t think Jedi or Mandalorians are a great fit for trek.
Yeah, but now we get Seven as a ranger with Elrond. It’s geek fanfic paradise.
Yikes. Did not enjoy this one. It was a mix of cliche/predictable tropes and also kind of incoherent. What was the point of extracting the Borg tech? If the crime lady knew 7/9, then why didn’t she try and take her implants before? If the EMH can appear when it senses an emergency, why can it be turned off so easily? I know it’s a fictional TV show, not a documentary, but there are too many things that don’t make sense.The space pimp stuff was so very cringey! I also found the violence and gore in this episode off-putting; normally I’m not too bothered by that sort of thing, but all of the deaths seemed gratuitous here. Couldn’t help but wonder what Laris and Zhaban were up to during this episode…
This show has bottomed out. That was….absolutely fucking atrocious. Embarrassing to watch, often painful to sit through. The only character who doesn’t come out looking like a complete idiot, or just making me cringe, was Rios, despite his absurd, pimp-tastic outfit. So, despite the fact that one of the series’ major storylines is about the rehabilitation of former Borg, Seven’s appearance on this show is…utterly unrelated, random and incidental??And the crew just HAPPENS to cross paths with Seven at the exact moment when Seven herself would make the perfect bargaining chip with a random group of horribly cheesy, generic sci-fi bad guys who just….happen to have Bruce Maddox captured for no reason?I was a little concerned when I learned that Kristen Beyer, someone I’d never heard of with no TV experience, was the one who came up with the general concept for the show. Someone whose only writing experience is in the Trek novel world. I’ve read a few Trek novels over the years. It ain’t high art.And she was the sole credited writer on this episode, which is easily the worst of the bunch. I’ve complained about this show a lot, but usually it’s at least watchable, even if it’s a little disappointing. Last night was excruciating to watch, I felt embarrassed for the actors and the character of “Picard” (at least at times) bore absolutely zero relation to the one we’ve seen before.WTF is going on here?
Did you watch the episode? Maddox was getting resources from the criminal, who deals in stolen and illicit technology, to continue his research because Starfleet cut him off. He was there because his lab was destroyed by the Romulans so he couldn’t pay back what he owed.How is Seven being a good bargaining chip a problem? They already established that Borg technology is valuable. Even before Picard, back in Voyager, plenty of people wanted Seven and Borg technology. So how is it a stretch that a criminal who deals in advanced technology would want Seven?
I knew he was in hock to the criminal, but I missed the bit about his lab. For some reason, I thought he was referring to his old lab at Daystrom, but that wouldn’t have been hit by the Romulans. Thanks for the clarification. I can still gripe with the silliness of the entire space gangster subplot, though.And my complaint about Seven is that she just HAPPENS to be exactly what the crew needs and they just HAPPEN to cross paths with her in an utterly random, unmotivated way that has fuck all to do with the story. She’s just there at the right time for no organic reason and the show’s decision to include the most famous ex-Borg in the canon doesn’t even have anything to do with the massive story thread about rehabilitating ex-Borg.It’s very, very poorly done.
your response to this comment is pretty much how i think of these reviews each week. not clear to me these guys are even watching the show.
Yeah, that episode was a complete tonal misfire. I don’t just mean the wild shifts in tone between ‘comedy’ and gory drama, but it just did not feel like it was made by people who know what Star Trek is.
I’m willing to grant every creator their freedom, and each Star Trek show has put their own stamp on the concept; TNG was a completely different show from TOS, and DS9 developed its spin on that again. But with Kurtzman Trek I feel as though I’m constantly forced to find some rationalisation for whatever they come up with, in order to accept it as not breaking the universe.
Like we’ve seen Picard dress up and ham it up while undercover (I’m thinking specifically the acting troupe in Time’s Arrow), yet that worked whereas this time it felt excruciating. It’s disappointing, when Picard was announced and Chabon made showrunner I had hopes that we’d get something like his books; a story with adventure that also has depth. An exploration of Picard at a more fragile state in his life.
Instead it feels mostly the same as Discovery; a whole lot of noise and overwrought emotion.Whoever said the model for Picard should have been Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy should have been put in charge of the show instead of Beyer et al.
Yep, I had the same hopes, which have been completely dashed at this point. I would say both excruciating and manipulative, except “manipulative” is too high praise, as that implies that they were actually able to successfully manipulate our emotions.
“it just did not feel like it was made by people who know what Star Trek is.”This episode was literally directed by Jonathan Frakes.
“I’ve read a few Trek novels over the years. It ain’t high art.”Some of them are really really good though—DS9 Fallen Heroes still sticks out in my mind, despite not having read it in like 20 years.I agree, the trip to “Space Vegas” and the “Space Pimp” outfits were ridiculous, but I am really effing intrigued by the ending, which made up for the stupidity in the first 30 or so minutes.
The Steven Barnes novelization of Far Beyond the Stars is very, very good.
WTF indeed. I think the Tal Shiar are manipulating the reviews of this show. It’s soooo bad. The emotional moments are unearned, the jokes fall flat, there are too many characters to care about, and it does not have a kernel of Star Trek magic. Why is there a mute samurai on a space ship? Right when Seven of Nine started doing El Mariachi at the space bar I decided I hate this show and I’m cancelling CBS.
I just keep getting free trials with rotating sock email accounts, but that is getting tiresome. I’m going to take at least a couple weeks off.At the halfway mark, I can’t imagine how they’ll pull this one out of the dive.
There is absolutely no way. Episode 1 was the high point, with 4 at least being goofy fun. The rest is going to be a slog, and the best we can hope for is a well-executed actionroller coaster, which doesn’t seem likely …
I was speaking rhetorically. There’s no way they can salvage the show at this point. When half your season is garbage, you’ve got a bad show on your hands. This season at the very least is a lost cause.
Normally I would dismiss this as an extreme reaction and/or trolling, but I wholeheartedly agree. Last week I said this show is a step above Discovery, and I might have been wrong about that. It may be worse in a way, in terms of the talent it’s wasting, and trying to be something that it’s very clearly not …
I find it hard to disagree with anything you’re saying, but it’s Star Trek and I’m going to watch it no matter what. Very disappointed that Seven and Maddox aren’t really that important to the plot, as both seem like they should have been important elements. It’s getting to Discovery-level deep cut references, but no meaningful integration of those references to the story.
I too will keep watching because it’s Trek, but it’s almost a chore at this point, which makes me sad. I have to tell myself it’s an alternate timeline, and is not what happened to the characters we watched.
ABSOLUTELY AGREED. The show is rote, and cruel, and shallow, and cliched. I don’t say this lightly, but after this episode, I can confidently conclude that Picard fucking sucks. And it breaks my heart, because I love, love Trek. This is just cliche after cliche, attempted shock after shock, and callously tosses away characters and histories for cheap emotional responses.
Ryan and Stewart aren’t even playing 7 and Picard; everything about them is just different and opposite for its own sake. The writing is brutal (in both content and execution), and replicates the worst of TV dramas from the past decade or so. How long were they involve in an ethical conversation in the middle of tense, guns-out, surrounded by hostiles stand-off? Fifteen minutes in I started answering messages and thinking about other things, I was so embarrassed for this show.
Completely agreed. The characters of Picard and Seven are almost nothing like what they used to be. Seven should never have been in the series, at least not in this capacity.Her presence here is the worst kind of shitty fan service. Bringing back a fan fav character for literally no reason. I mean, half the show is about borg rehabilitation, but instead she’s just jammed into some unbelievably dumbass casino/gangster subplot that looks like it was lifted from 1980s era Buck Rogers? And her arrival on the show is the worst kind of contrivance. There’s a space battle at the end of episode 4 which has fuck all to do with that episode or anything else (the guy behind the attack was just an utterly random and unseen bad guy). So then Seven conveniently shows up just in the nick of time to be…the exact perfect “bargaining chip” with her former friend (and lover??) who also just happens to be the person holding (faux) Bruce Maddox, the macguffin for the rest of the show’s story?I mean, seriously? The writing here is mind-bogglingly fucking dumb and amateurish.I…I can’t even with this show anymore. It’s getting worse by leaps and bounds at this point.
So maybe… just a wild idea… stop watching? The characters of Picard and Seven are almost nothing like what they used to be. Wouldn’t it be strange, if they’d be still the same after almost 20 years? Are you the same character you were in 2001/3? I think you can clearly see how the events turned them into what they are now while still being recognizable as P and 7.
Dude, you’re hatewatching at this point. This can’t be healthy.
Darker! Make it Darker. Kill Icheb. Darker!Oh hey, here’s Picard dressed as a French Pirat and Rios dressed like a pimp! That’s hilarious.Now back to DARKER! 7 of 9 Revenge rampage and murdering your loved one. Well. If that isn’t Star Trek, I don’t know what is.
Im 100% fine with killing everything Voyager. FWIW, Platypus Man was the more interesting show.
Since they’re doing ALL THE CAMEOS, can we have Avery Brooks prophet his way into Picard’s brain to give him some vital clue, but spend most of the time trashing him to his face? The only person I would accept being salty at Picard is Sisko. Also get Alexander Siddig back.
Fine just give me Season 8 of DS9. I’d be happy with that, too.
Bajoran terrorists who are part of a Sisko death cult. They cause Picard trouble for the whole season. Second last episode ends with Sisko appearing out of the wormhole. Last episode squanders the premise with a big space fight.
There was a quick offhand mention of Quark. I would lovea Bill Sadler return
More than just a mention:
Honestly I would be pretty thrilled with just an HD conversion of DS9. The bit they’ve done as proof of concept looked SO good and the original show always looked so damn… foggy.
Yep, you got it, except your writing was more engaging!
While I think there is a place for “Dark Trek”, and I do enjoy it on some level, I don’t want it to become the new normal and the default style, as it seems to be turning into. Not to sound like a Puritan, but I don’t think the writers should lose sight of the fact that Star Trek itself has inspired a lot of kids over the decades. I would even argue on some level it is historically a kids’ franchise. There’s thousands of professional scientists, astronauts, engineers, writers, etc. that are doing the good work they’re doing because they were inspired by Spock, Picard, Crusher, Janeway, et al when they were watching in those formative years, influencing the trajectory of their lives. It certainly did so for me. These new shows seem to be designed only for the current adults who were originally fans as kids, who seem to now believe dark and gritty is truer to reality than hope and optimism. No kid is going to be inspired by Picard or Discovery, if they even watch at all. I think these writers are also misguided, if not just flat out wrong, when they speak about Trek as a way to reflect current geopolitical themes to rationalize the darker nature of the stories. While I think that’s true for a lot of sci-fi (Twilight Zone, for instance), I don’t think that’s necessarily the case with the history of Star Trek as a whole (the successful exception being The Undiscovered Country). Star Trek seemed more interested in the morals, codes, cultures, etc. that could be applied universally to any time and place. It wasn’t just a reflective lens about the time and place it was created in. The writers also don’t seem to have a good historical background, because if they did, they would realize that there has been darkness in the entirety of humanity. It’s not like 1992 was the greatest year in our history, like they seem to lecture us with rose colored glasses. And 1968 was probably one of the most turbulent years in America’s 20th century. If all you did was watch optimistic Star Trek airing that year, you would have no clue. Star Trek doesn’t need to reflect the darkness of our era to be relevant.
You killed Icheb…..you bastards!
Me have enjoyed Discovery and have been willing to forgive its flaws. But for whatever reason, me feel more and more “meh” about Picard with each successive episode, to point where, after reading this review, me probably not will watch episode and may just follow rest of season through Zack’s reviews instead of taking time to watch.Me think difference is, while Disco have pacing issues and sometimes not make lot of sense, it also fast-moving and lot of fun. Whereas Picard just feel ponderous. Me was intrigued by mysteries it set up in early going, and me love thematic connection between replicating Data and deconstructing Borg, but show really taking sweet time to get to any conclusions. Me feel like Picard is riding snail to fireworks factory, while Disco started inside fireworks factory that was in middle of firework fight with fireworks factory next door, which also have firework factory in basement. In terms of “is this well-written artistically worthy television,” me not sure either show wins. But me know which one me enjoy watching more.Now that me think about it, they should have combined both shows. Have Discovery’s crazy future technology actually exist in future (relative to TNG era), and somehow have Picard, post-Data androids, and empty Borg cube get swept up in that somehow. More fireworks! More COOKIES!!!!!!
I assume you prefer your cookies baked, not replicated.
Yes, but me not will turn up nose at Galaxy Scouts selling synthamoas!
So I’m coming in six weeks late, catching up via a free trial of CBS All Access during quarantine, but I want to read a bunch of symbolism into Maddox baking cookies as a parallel for his work in cybernetics. In Dahj and Soji, we’re told he’s made biological artificial life- my impression so far is that they’re at once sophisticated, but also nearly impossible to distinguish from run-of-the-mill humans like you and me. So he’s gone effectively done something form scratch, making intelligent life or cookies, that he could have done much more simply, either replicating cookies or… well, ask your father when your older. Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it.
I just find it kind of a fascinating comparison, and it’s a tendency I identify with myself, trying to make my own Fig Newtons instead of buying them at the store, or trying to figure out how to play a song even when it won’t sound as good as the recorded version. There was a quote attributed to the physicist Richard Feynman, “What I cannot create, I do not understand”, and I like to view this as a reflection of Maddox’s desire to understand the things in his world, from chocolate chip cookies to humans.
Good points as always, Cookie, though I disagree with reading Zack’s reviews before watching the show, or in place of watching the show at all. Zack’s a savage critic, and his reviews magnify flaws. Watching the show without a critic’s eye makes it much easier to be swept up in it, and enjoy it for what it is. That’s helped me a lot to enjoy Disco — I really enjoy discussing the show and reflecting on it, but the criticisms are a buzzkill, especially when they’re true and compelling (which with Zack, they very often are). A good critical eye is a curse.I do share the impression that with Picard the fireworks factory is a carrot on a string, and that is getting increasingly frustrating. I’m not inherently offended by a show that isn’t built around constant pew pew bang bang action, but it still needs dramatic action (which can be emotional, character-driven, or plot-driven, without loud noises or bright lights). I think the 1st and 3rd episode were actually pretty good at generating dramatic motion, even minus the space travel. The 2nd and 4th dragged more noticeably, especially with the Soji plotline. There is a lot of repetition of the exact same dramatic beats, over and over. Like, we get it, the hunky Romulan is trying to extract intel from Soji without triggering her self-defence terminator mode, and his equally hot sister is impatient and skeptical. We got that scene like 4 times. Also, Picard is old, and he gave up the fight after Mars, leaving others to fend for themselves—they resent him for it, and he’s trying to make up for his past mistakes before his advancing age robs him of the opportunity. We’ve had that scene like 8 times.At least now Picard knows as much as we do about Soji on the Cube, which I think was hugely necessary. We can’t have our protagonist being in the dark on things that we know for an extended period of time, because it makes them seem stupid and makes the plot movement feel stunted [its timely that season 2 of Umbrella Academy has started its ad campaign, because this was the biggest problem with its season 1].
Me think you pinpoint very well why Picard feel so slow-moving. And besides same dramatic beats being repeated, they often feel disconnected from each other. Maybe because we get “Picard earnestly wanted to help Romulans and then kind of gave up on everything after Federation backed away” in disjointed chunks, so it not feel like emotional throughline, just bunch of crumbs we have to piece together into cookie, which far less appealing than cookie fresh out of oven.Compare Picard to, say, Luke Skywalker, who also retreat into solitude after idealistic plans go awry. Now, those movies certainly have their issues, but movie tells us almost immediately in broad strokes why Luke went away — Kylo Ren turned evil and killed most of his trainees. Then, later, we get real emotional heft of how and why that happened. That effective storytelling.With Picard, we get both plot and emotional details in dribs and drabs. Picard is retired. No, wait, he quit. Something went wrong when he tried to rescue Romulans. Anyway, Picard still optimist who want to help people. Oh, btw, New Datas went insane, and Federation backed off from rescue, and that why Picard quit. Anyway, Picard pretty cynical now and has given up. Or maybe Federation had it in for Romulans and not wanted to help them. Anyway, Picard really helped these Romulans but then forgot about them completely. Or maybe Tal Shiar was behind it all.At some point, we get paralysis of choice, but with clues and mysteries and potential storylines. Me not want to go all way back to “there’s a distress call! Let’s reroute tachyon pulse through deflectors and save everyone!”, but me could use some straightforward plot to hang onto.
And in five whole episodes no one’s mentioned plasma conduits. wtf?
While Luke losing his idealism and retreating to a life of solitude is better told, it never felt earned to me. Luke Skywalker is the heroic protagonist of a fantasy space opera. He’s the one ho saw the good in Darth Vader and risked his life to fight to bring him to the light, and in doing so saved the galaxy. That he would give up and not go after his own nephew might be more “real” but doesn’t fit the movie series, regardless of how well that moment was revealed to the audience.
Star Trek, on the other hand, has always been a bit more grounded in reality, so I can almost buy Picard giving up, as people in real life do give up after a huge disillusionment. Maybe. Hoping there’s some more flashbacks to show he tried to do more before retreating to his vineyard, but we will see!
But I’m also enjoying the pace of the show (outside of the Raffi subplot this week) so sounds like we have different tastes. We both love cookies at least!
Honestly, me loved that Luke grows up to realize life not just winning battles and saving galaxy. (Excitement, adventure, etc.) And that, while he might be better Jedi knight than Obi-Wan, that not automatically qualify him to be better teacher than Yoda too. Original trilogy is coming-of-age story. Last Jedi is middle-age story, of man who had to come to terms with own limitations. Me know lots of fans want it to be “Pew! Pew! Luke wins again!” just like it was when they were 8. But me really appreciated that series tried to grow up, and have characters do same, at least for one movie.
I definitely can appreciate that perspective, and still enjoyed a lot of the movie (for me it’s definitely the best of the new trilogy, even if Rogue One is the one I liked most of the new films overall.)But yeah, I definitely wanted Pew! Pew! and then Luke helping save the day before passing the torch to Rey so she can finish saving the day (but without any of that whole Luke having spent a decade giving up first.) Ah well!
“It’s good as long as you turn your brain off.”
I didn’t say that. I’d say that entertainment is always more entertaining if it’s watched with a mind desirous of being entertained, rather than one desirous of spotting and deconstructing flaws. Unless I’m an MST3K-mode of hate watching something, I try to avoid thinking about a TV show as a TV show when I’m watching it. Afterwards (as is self-evident from my comments) I will still reflect back on how well the episode gripped and moved me, and think critically about why it did or didn’t do that. It’s not always an easy thing to shift in and out of, but whether I can suspend disbelief and forget for a moment that I’m watching a TV show is in itself a test of how good the episode is at transporting me into its world. If I’m watching Picard put on a eye patch and a thick French accent, and immediately thinking “Patrick Stewart is having fun” — rather than “Picard is having fun”, that’s symptomatic of the episode not working like it’s supposed to.
Yes, but that’s always the case for everyone. For example I actually found the eye patch ridiculous enough to just go with it – whereas earlier in the episode, when Captain Rios came up to Raffi and they started with ‘as you know Raffi, Seven of Nine is a Ranger and she’s a former Borg! Isn’t it also fascinating that Picard was also a Borg? I forgot about that, Raffi! But they don’t know each other. Also she’s a Ranger and from the Delta Quadrant, as you may know’ – I literally turned off the TV and went to do the dishes.
He makes up flaws, he doesn’t magnify them.
I mean, I appreciate how both shows are trying to do something modern. But until someone else takes the reigns of the franchise, I doubt they’ll do it successfully. They’re trying a little too hard to be ‘modern’, to the point where they’re losing sight of what makes the franchise special. Which DS9 totally got.
Picard’s a lot faster-paced than the Next Gen series – that was ALL postulation, no fireworks.
I see it the other way: that in five hours of Picard we’ve gotten half of one story so far, plus bits and pieces of backstory sprinkled throughout; but in five hours of TNG we would’ve gotten five separate stories, each presented to conclusion. If you mean that the action scenes in Picard are faster paced and more plentiful then I don’t disagree, but other than that the pacing of the storytelling is much slower.
I suspect you’re not keeping both eyes on the screen. Perhaps we can get them to show 24th century cookies and that may help.
while i disagree with your slight, i admire its sheer artistry. As a reward, sometime in the next 366 days, you’ll find a Vorpal Blade. It’ll just be on, or under, a table. It might be a broadsword, or a Swiss Army Knife. But it’ll be +3, and on an 18, 19, or 20, there goes your foe’s head. Assuming his neck is narrower than your blade is long.
How do you not respond to an in character cookie monster? I could have gone with the ‘perhaps your comprehension is like your eating… it all goes out the sides?’ the balance between being mean and funny is a tough line.
oh, Cookie Monster has been around these here places for a long time. He used to be known as “Cookie_Monster”, for example. He has a sharp mind and a keen eye. Also, a wobbly eye.
Well on a site that does so many reviews, I figured the natural option would be Oscar the Grouch singing ‘I love trash’, but, some choose the road not taken and it makes all the difference.
Oscar was here in the day, as were a couple of iterations of Warren Oates. We had fun.
The one big flaw of Discovery that I can’t get past is that it’s about nothing. There’s no real discussion of ethics or philosophy. It’s just bland space fights. Picard is about disillusionment, and whether we owe compassion to our enemies. In typical Star Trek fashion it’s a fairly shallow examination, but at least it’s doing the one thing that Star Trek is supposed to do.Picard is slow, and at first it didn’t bother me. I though the first episode was good, but since then it’s been dragging its ass. Almost every episode has begun with a flashback, and I feel like they could easily have been the whole first episode. It would make Picard’s feelings a little clearer if we could have seen him come to them linearly. If the first thing we saw was Picard working on the Romulan colony and being called away to the Mars Attacks (from episode 3), and then had a little time with him and Raffi. Then we could see his resignation, and subsequent disillusionment. Cut to the present day with him at the chateau. It makes sense right away why he feels the way he does. He does the interview, meets Dahj, and gets pulled back into action.As for a Discovery and Picard crossover. Please no. There’s no way that would be good.
Oh, me not meant crossover, just middle ground between two styles.And me do think Disco wrestle with ethics/philosophy at times — how much do you sacrifice Federation’s values to win war against Klingons, are you defined by your worst moments/choices, we get into Sarek’s complicated relationship with both children — it just not do big TOS/TNG-style speechifying about it. And in fairness, because things move so fast, it not stay preoccupied with ethical dilemma for very long.Thinking about Discovery more, other thing that me not really realize about Picard until just now is that, while Disco look fantastic, and like someone put lot of effort and money into special effects, Picard could have been filmed three years after TNG wrapped and would look exactly like it does now.
Disco does speechifying. That whole “We are Starfleet” speech at the end of season 1, despite never once defining what it means to be in Starfleet. Moving on from the ethical dilemma to get to the next space fight or undercooked plot twist is exactly the problem I have with the show. At least Picard doesn’t move on from ethical dilemmas when its own undercooked plot twists happen.Discovery looks expensive, but fantastic isn’t a word I would use to describe it. Too much of that always moving camera, lens flares everywhere, JJ Abrams style. Picard looks a bit like the TNG movies, but I don’t think a TV show in 1997 would look like that. Just look at DS9 and Voyager.
I agree. I am not invested in this version of Picard or the story at all yet. I am giving it a season because I promised my sister and nagged her to give The Mandalorian a full season. But watching almost feels like eating my vegetables or doing my homework at the moment.
This episode had a scene where a character literally made cookies. What more do you want?
Did Disco make sense at _some_ point? It’s a interesting how they first fanfared it to be the “serious” ST with more realistic approach. And it got even more silly than predecessors.With golden era of TV and (relative) success of Expanse I was kinda hoping that there would be more realistic and adult targeted scifi. It hasn’t yet quite panned out. I’ve had high hopes on upcoming Foundation, Hyperion and Culture based TV series. However I’m expecting that all of them will be filled with bad comedy and targeted at 12-14 year olds.
I was gonna be snarky and link you to IMDB to solve your Maddox Actor Conundrum, but that part went un-credited for some reason. Memory Alpha, the Trek wiki, confirms they are different actors. I haven’t seen the episode yet, so I don’t know if this is spoilers, but…no Chakotay?
No & i really hope not. Beyer who wrote this ep also wrote most of the post-series Voyager novels so she has added incentive to keep them canon & the couple didnt survive very long outside of the confined environment of Voyager.
Beltan has shit on the franchise too much of the years to get work on this. Well, maybe not the WHOLE franchise, but he’s never shy to complain about his time on Voyager. Not very forward thinking, IMHO.
Just praise the guy for not kissing ass at a shitty job after he no longer works it
The planet casino/club thing going on with Freecloud was very tacky. But seeing how lively and colorful it is, and how different it is compared to Starfleet and the Federation, I wonder if the Federation is culturally stagnant.Whenever they show a Federation world, everything is sterile, uniform, and rather boring. I think Garak’s complaint about how boring Romulan fashion is also applies to the Federation.While it’s understandable that Starfleet quarters would be kept very plain to maintain discipline, civilian living areas are also pretty boring. Most civilian homes have no personality, they feel like generic hotel rooms. I think the only civilian space that had some style was Sisko’s restaurant.Despite the “infinite diversity in infinite combinations” mantra, there’s really not that much diversity in the Federation.Also, I wish they had mentioned the Maquis as a parallel to the Fenris Rangers. Seven served with Maquis members. Her love interest at the end of Voyager was a Maquis leader.
Well, Picard and Raffi’s places on Earth have their own style, but you’re right about the Federation cities appearing very sterile and minimalistic.
The civilian places that do have style tend to have it due to history. Like Picard’s vineyard or Sisko’s restaurant. A modern Federation home kind of looks like a generic hotel.For example, look at Uxbridge home in “The Survivors.” That did not look like a home with a lifetime’s worth of memories. It looked like a newly built house that people are just starting to move stuff into.
Kevin Uxbridge is big on decluttering.
Root Beer.
Both Maddox and Icheb were recast, kind of a missed opportunity for a bit of continuity.
Those aggressive ad holograms were brilliant as they felt like a completely believable addition to the Trek verse that also grounded it. Also Picard’s evil guy accent was a gift that keeps on giving to me.While I enjoyed the show, I thought what made it soar was also a hindrance. The show is very focused on this one aspect, the mission to save the sister, and it does give a strong narrative push. However, it also wants to introduce new sides to the Federation and give it more depth. And while I think overall the traces and stories are good, it is so focused on the larger story that the show never stops to really examine those new elements.To give a comparison, the first few seasons of DS9 have been, rightfully so, often criticized, but what while they did meander about, while doing so they managed to flesh out the world itself in a way that the later seasons were able to build on.
Seven was awesome in this episode and I really loved they used her to reflect Picard’s journey. Both of them had fractured and stumbled, but while Picard still holds on that hope of a better world, Seven just gave in to the anger.However, having written that, I was so deeply confused/frustrated about the relationship between Seven and Bjayzl, especially with the latter’s several indications how close they had been. It’s not that I want everything to be spelled out, but they leaned so hard on the ambiguity of that relationship while continuously hinting about it that in the end it felt the ambiguity itself was the end goal. Which took away something from the moment from me because it stopped from feeling completely layered and organic.
I was waiting for the reveal that they were exes. Did the ghost of Rick Berman keep that from happening or something?
Yes that was Icheb. They call him by name several times, and she mentions him as another Borg from the Delta Quadrant that she adopted. That’s Icheb.Also: I shouldn’t know Jurati was bad news, whenever Allison Pill places a nice character, she’s always secretly bad.
Counterpoint: Pill in The Newsroom?
Countcounterpoint: She was BAD in The Newsroom!
She was secretly Dick Cheney the entire time, how did you miss that?
“They introduce the idea that the crime boss’s lizardman can smell lies, which they then immediately subvert with an injection. Like… why even before if it was going to be that easy to bluff past. It’s like saying, “Okay, they have an unbreakable lock!” “Oh no!” “But we have a key.””
I saw this as actually a bit of character work about Raffi. She introduced a scenario where she has a specific knowledge about the drugs it takes to subvert the abilities of the mercenary, and then later it is confirmed she had an addiction to drugs (and being a workaholic) that severed her relationship with her family. She’s vaping spaceweed when we meet her, but it stands to reason that her wide knowledge of illicit and and/or nontraditional uses led to a dependency on chemical enhancements that furthered her ability to engage in the high risk work she was doing with Picard. When Picard blew up their lives and everything they had worked towards it left her to spiral.
It could have seemed like a pointless throwaway, but I think it had a very intent purpose.
And then Janeway pulls up in a tricked-out Voyager, wearing weirdly opaque shades. “Picard! You have to come back with me!”“Back where?” he replies in surprise.“Back to the Future!”Then they have adventures. Q is involved.
One of my legit pitches for a Trek show is called “Q & Me” and it stars Wil Wheaton and Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Wes and a Q woman. Wes has been abandoned by The Traveler, but has practically Q-like powers in his own right now. Q (deLancie) sets him up with GMR to basically train him up to join the continuum. It’s a roadshow buddy comedy.
god, i would watch that.everyebody’d watch that.
That’s already superior to what we’re actually getting.
7 of 9 mercy-killing Icheb was counter to every bit of character building they’ve done on Star Trek. It was just so fucking stupid. No one gives up on people like that. If you killed a traumatized, likely drugged person like 7 of 9 did, you’d just be a straight up murderer. So contrary to the intent of the writers, I started off the episode thinking 7 of 9 was a piece of shit. They tried to give her personal stakes, but they pushed it so far, it violated her character, and made her unsympathetic. I’m halfway through the episode. It’s nearly unwatchable. I’ve clicked away nearly a dozen times. Some stray observations:Patrick Stewart is a great actor, but he’s just amusing himself at this point with his silly costume and bad accent. Remember how embarrassed Picard was to recite Shakespeare? Now Picard is an eager clown. That’s not where the funny is. The funny is in his discomfort.
Who the fuck is Rafi? We’ve seen her be bitter and angry, and spout techno-babble. It’s way too early in the show, and she’s way too unlikable to play all sentimental about her leaving. Well, I guess I’ll go back to it. Why does this show exist? I can’t figure it out.
It looked like his cortical node got pulled out of him so I doubt there was a chance he was gonna survive long after that.
He hadn’t had his cortical node for a while. He gave it to Seven to save her life back in the Delta Quadrant.
Yeah, you’re right I had forgotten about that (I just kind of went to that cause that’s what the doctor lady was bringing up). Either way it looked like some notable tech was taken out in a manner that was causing irreversible damage.
Good catch. That’s actually a great, subtle piece of continuity, and sadly ironic. They ripped him open looking for a part that wasn’t even there.
yeah, but Voyager S7 E2 established that the Borg cortical node was above the right eye just behind the forehead…not behind the left eye…
I can believe these doctors weren’t exactly the virtuosi of the medical arts. And if they’d gotten the location right, they still wouldn’t have found it, so I think the point stands.
I think the mercy killing was very evolved. People have a right to die.It’s the revenge where Seven lost herself.
You don’t have to watch it.
It seemed pretty clearly implied that the guy had been injured beyond recovery and was begging Seven to mercy kill him so he wouldn’t suffer. And it’s not like we haven’t seen Picard put on fake personas to fool people before. Remember the Gambit two-parter? Also Raffi isn’t unlikeable at all.
When Seven found Icheb he was dying and in pain from the torture – they didn’t even anesthetize him before removing his Borg parts. He knew he was beyond saving and begged her to put him out of his mercy. Seven spent years mentoring Icheb on Voyager – even before this episode she was a mother figure to him. So saying that her mercy-killing him was stupid and out of character just seems weird.I’m not sure what show you’re watching if you think Seven helping end Icheb’s pain makes her “a piece of shit”.
Would it have been so hard to have included a brief scene of Elnor asking ‘what’s Freecloud’, and someone explaining it was a capitalist planet (or whatever else it was supposed to be)?
I did not know that so thank you.
You mean instead of the audience figuring it out themselves when watching the episode?
Icheb’s scene was devastating…
When Seven said “my child” I remembered of the episode Drone and “you are hurting me”.. that really got me.
I enjoyed the episode, for me having Steward and Ryan sharing scenes is ST bliss. I’ve seen Ryan in many other roles, she good but never as good as when she plays Seven. She is amazing as Seven, for me better acting in the Star Trek universe, only coming second after Sir Pat.
I do not find Seven’s “evolution” out of character, she is constantly a “work in progress”. The whole episode made me wishing for a 7 spin off now.. At least I hope we will see her again in the series.
**Did anyone caught when 7 took something Rios left in a console?
*** I loved the mention of Quark!!!
**** Poor Icheb… damn…
she took the teleporter booster they used to get everyone out.
Only thing i find a little disappointing is that she has this great scientific brain – she had her own lab on Voyager & there space was at a premium! & now she’s a rebel bounty hunter.
What they did to Icheb was callous, cruel writing designed to elicit immediate horror/sympathy and give 7 a cheap, stereotypical motivation. The writers/director didn’t even attempt to make 7 resemble her Voyager self in any way, not even a hint of the old stiff delivery or posture. They’re just trying to be new, different, edgy and tragic without showing us anything we haven’t seen from hundreds of mediocre sci-fi and fantasy stories in the past couple of decades.
It’s been 20 years since 7 had arrived on earth/federation space with Voyager. Many things could had happened in this period, so I do not have a problem with her “evolution” as a character or lacking her old stiff delivery.
While on VOY, she has confined in a spaceship under very specific circumstances and she has a crew member with guidelines to follow. Combining it with the fragile nature of an ex-borg trying to explore her humanity, it actually makes sense that she decided to be on a mission again (as a ranger) than stay on earth and try to have a “normal” life. As for the Icheb’s death, the show likes to throw tons of angst to every direction, why make 7 an exeption?
Agreed that it was sensationalistic, cliche, formulaic, boring, drab, ugh.
“I do not find Seven’s ‘evolution’ out of character, she is constantly a ‘work in progress’.”Agreed. I am constantly confused by commenters who complain that returning characters we see in this show are not the same people we saw in previous series/movies. Yeah, it’s almost like 10-20 years have gone by.This just in: people change and evolve as they grow older and experience new things.
“I can’t be the only one who saw Agnes lurking in the background while
Picard chatted with the injured Maddox and knew what was coming,…”She was lurking in extreme close-up! Did kind of give it away.
yeah, and I’m glad they resolved this betrayal already. It was really really weird that she even survived her meeting with Oh, much less showed up at Picard’s chateau just in the nick of time. Though this means… the romulan kill squad was just sent in as cannon fodder? Maybe they sent the trainees.
It was given away when she conveniently showed up killing folk after having had an unseen meeting with the big bad. Trek is really bad these days at telegraphing twists.
Good catch.
Right at the start of the episode and I’m like “Icheb!” I thought it was him from the nose bridge bumps. And they tore his eyeball out and Seven euthanized him, yikes! “Where’s your cortical implant, buddy?” I didn’t notice Quark’s got a reference but what I noticed was Mott’s Hair Emporium. That’s two TNG-era franchisers out there?
I’m a sucker for Seven of Nine stuff so this had it in spades. I hope it’s not a done in one (but her giving Picard her “pager” seems she’ll be back, hopefully in a big capacity I would love to see her reaction to the Artifact and not just flying in for an assist resuce). After the Icheb opening and Seven being ticked I thought they were going for a heroic final last stand, which to be fair they kind of did but Seven is way too badass to go out like that. But she was definitely different here however it’s been 20 years since Voyager got home and she’s been through a lot, so I’m cool with her being way more emotional (her admitting her quest was pointless was oddly heartfelt). I saw some shades of classic Seven here though. “You need a feather.” “I am functional.” and her admitting she’s with the Rangers just so there could be “order” is something I can see Seven doing. Jeri Ryan is so great. I mean, Jeri Ryan is always great but she was extra great here. Quite interesting that she would be more valuable since she was assimilated at a young age in the Delta Quadrant, and also explains why she still has so much Borg tech in here when someone like Hugh has lost a lot and Picard had his Borg tech removed entirely. (Also she has Borg kidneys? How is that more efficient?) Her and Picard sharing their Borg emotional trauma for a moment was amazing.
There was some dopey stuff with the not-Seven and not-Picard portions of the crew but really only Raffi’s stuff was an actual drag. I wish they would swap Rafi for Seven but no such luck. I mean, Seven is grimdark mopey too but it seems more epic pathos than Raffi. Picard’s big dumb French criminal guy I thought was so out there it got a laugh out of me. Agnes turning traitor, not the most unexpected thing but her emotional response was unexpected, she isn’t just a cold blooded double-agent, she seems genuinely horrified. And Maddox’s death was really freaky.
But hopefully things are moving, nobody else needs introductions (unless you want to quibble that this was Seven’s introduction episode which I don’t view that as) and the seem to know to go to the Artifact. Oh and apparently people actually know about it, I guess it isn’t some super secret project since Picard just sort of raised his eyebrows about it. “Star Trek: Picard” is still a terrible title for this show. Moreso than Discovery (which you can argue is really about Burnham), this is an ensemble. But the name “Picard” sells subs. I still like my personal title “Star Trek: Hubris!”
I miss the optimistic future. Also, it’s too bad they recast Maddox. Maybe they had to, I don’t know. Anyway, still watching. I hope it keeps getting better.
Don’t worry, Seven is going to show up in the season finale, showing up in the nick of time to kick ass when it looks like the bad guys are about to prevail.
I had looked forward to Picard since the moment it was announced, but I have no tolerance for gore and the violence on the show surpasses violence into straight up gore. I hung in there until a Romulan was fully decapitated on screen and I bailed. It makes me sad. I know plenty of people enjoy it, but I don’t, and I reveled in the fact that the Star Trek I loved and grew up on didn’t cross that line.
Ah, damnit. Spoiler???…Pulling this out of my ass, but “I bake them. In my oven.” becomes a lot more sinister when you put together positronic brains and bodies that are indistinguishable from humans 😬. It would explain Agnes’ motivation…
“I’m not sure if the actor who plays Bruce Maddox is the same as the man who played him in the original episode.” Gee, if only there were some way to find that out. TNG Maddox was played by Brian Brophy. Picard Maddox was played by John Ales. That took me less than a minute to look up and type. Picard is terribly written and terribly executed. The only things in that resembles Star Trek are a few words and a few faces.
Thought this was the first really good episode of Picard. Moved at an excellent pace, some lines that made me genuinely laugh out loud, loved the mention of Quark, the Icheb scene was a little gory for my taste but was definitely shocked to see the character on screen again, 7 of 9 and Picard had good chemistry on screen, and I’m starting to like some of the other crew…..looking forward to next Thursday
This episode had three separate scenes where our main characters (I’m generously including Seven) emote their hearts out to other characters we know nothing about, about issues we also know nothing about. The writers (not just of this episode, but Picard and Discovery too) seem to think it’s enough just to depict dramatic confrontation without actually developing the characters or conflicts in advance, that we can jump to the emotional payout with any development work beforehand. It’s a lazy shortcut and I don’t think it works.
“She’s on the artifact” “You mean the captured borg cube?” would have been a heck a reveal in this episode…if we hadn’t already been spoiled 5 episodes ago.This episode makes a pretty good case for just leaving all of the Soji stuff from the early eps on the cutting room floor, and keeping her offscreen as a mystery until her appearance is actually important (and not a waste of time).
And just to say…I don’t know how the rest of the season will play out. But I am confident to say:The first 4 eps could have easily been condensed into 3. So pull out all of the borg stuff, and make a central mystery out of finding Maddox, and Dahj’s sister. That way the audience learns things along with Picard, instead of being 10 steps ahead of him.In this ep (which would now be #4) reintroduce the idea of the borg, with Seven, and the tech harvesters.And then at the end of this ep, the big reveal: “She’s on the artifact?” Boom! Give us our first look at Soji on the cleanup team.Then in the next 2 eps we see her and the Romulan hooking up, and the Romulan and his creepy sister hooking up, and etc. And honestly, probably save the Hugh reveal until Picard actually gets there so it actually has some weight to it, instead of being a throwaway.Contractually this means Treadway and Briones would have ended up with a few less episode credits, but it would have made the season flow so much better.
I have to roll my eyes whenever someone in these comments is sure what will happen in the rest of the season. Especially since earlier in the season there were many commenters who were sure that Bruce Maddox wouldn’t appear until the final episode of the season, that the search for him would be the main plot for the entire season. And look how that went prediction went.
This show loves to repeat stuff and hammer home points, esp if it doesn’t need to. Why is Picard saying “Seven of Nine?!” at the end of the last episode when we all know who she is? Also, how do they know each other? They’ve never interacted on screen or in movies.
I don’t mind that they know each other, or at least they know of each other. They would both be pretty famous.And I thought the Seven reveal last week was one of the things where the show did an okay job. She’s all over the trailers, so we obviously knew she would show up at some point. And there was a bit too much “Look at the balls on that manly-male pilot who is definitely a man” before they beamed her over. But it was still actually a surprise.If they’d treated Seven’s story like the Soji story:Episode 1: Seven gets a ship. Seven says “I am getting a ship. Soon I will fly this ship, which I just got.”
Episode 2: Seven is flying a ship. Seven says “I am flying a ship, which I just got. Soon I will reach my destination.”
Episode 3: Seven stops for gas. Seven says “I am getting gas for this ship. I just got this ship, and I had been flying it. Soon I will reach my destination.”
Episode 4: Picard is shocked – SHOCKED! – when Seven of Nine appears.
Jeri Ryan was in the opening credits of last week’s episode as a Special Guest Star, so once you say that and got to the 50 minute mark without her appearing, it was obvious that it was her on that ship that rescued Picard’s ship.
This. Or, show the Soji stuff but don’t make it clear where they are. We can see that they are Borg but we don’t realize that they are ON a Borg cube.But, I can see someone in Coolness Budgeting saying “no, these opening episodes aren’t sci-fi-y enough, we need more of our cool ideas to reveal themselves per episode to meet quota.I’m really thinking I might not watch this show anymore… especially because this rated a B+ from a “cynical” reviewer and to me, it was a C at best.
It’s amazing how little faith this show has in its built-in audience.Episode 1&2: Picard uncovers a conspiracy! Engage!
Episode 3: Hanging with Romulan elves! Antique Warbirds!
Episode 4: 7of9! And Soji is on “the artifact!”
Episode 5: All the borg cube stuff! And then maybe Picard shows up!?!If it had been structured like that it would have been plenty to keep the fans happy. But yeah, someone was worried that people would be bored.For me the one bright side is that now (halfway through the season) I think the story has finally caught up to where it should be. They really shot themselves in the foot with the pacing of these early episodes, but I hope that things can only get better from here?
Seven doesn’t ask if Picard has doubts. She asks if he really believes he got his humanity back, and he says yes.Then she says, “all of it?” And he says, “No,” which is a much bigger deal and something we haven’t considered since First Contact, that Picard might not be over his time as a Borg.
Agreed that this felt the most ‘Trek one off’ of the episodes so far and also was the weakest episode so far. I won’t go so far as to call it bad but it definitely fell short of expectations and hopes.
I enjoyed the shit out of this episode. I found Picard’s evil doctor completely satisfying and I loved the Shadowrun mission quality.
Lifelong Trekkie here…I have to say this show is…not great. Long story arcs didn’t work for Discovery, and they don’t work here.Just as I predicted that Michael was the Red Angel on Disco, this show is just a tool to bring Data back. Predictable, and already done in novelizations. They are so desperate to have that season finale money shot of Picard smiling at the newly reactivated Data with their faces super close together.
Killing poor Icheb like that was completely unnecessary.I have an issue with the trend with poor writing in beloved sci-fi franchises murdering well known and liked characters for the sheer shock of it. They didn’t need to vivisection a kid we saw on screen for years to prove how angry and edgy Seven had become. Simple good writing could have done that.This show is really starting to follow into the trash everything else Kurtzman has laid his hands on.
I must have misheard that conversation, because I thought she followed up regaining humanity, with “All of it?” and he said, “No.” Like there was still a small piece of themselves missing in their lives yet, and even Picard wasn’t fully himself anymore after that experience (which would track given his response in First Contact when Alfre Woodard pushed him about his tactics regarding blowing up the ship). I’ll have to rewatch the episode to discover which is correct…but I liked my version of it.
I really did not care for the Voyager-era Federally Mandated Arousal vis-a-vis Seven of Nine: “You WILL find her irresistibly sexy, damn you, YOU WILL! It is APE LAAAAAAW!!”
It wasn’t the same Maddox actor.Oh and Seven of Nine duel wielding phasers a la the Master Chief was great.Finally, there are Rangers in Star Trek. I wonder if they live for the one and die for the one.
After watching this episode, I am completely baffled as to what the creative team behind the show is doing. I have been uneasy for a bit, but willing to be patient. But I agree with all of the points in the review, and it was all a mess.There are so many story possibilities to bringing back Bruce Maddox after Measure of a Man-all of that should have been an absolute lay-up. Instead, he is killed off immediately, and for what? Shock value? We don’t care enough about Agnes or him at that point to care, so it all feels pointless. So we are going to build a story around late run Voyager, but Measure of a Man, one of the most consequential early TNG episodes, is too deep a cut? Ok. If that is the case, why make him Bruce Maddox at all, and not some random scientist?And speaking of late run Voyager, it was great to see Seven. But if the creative team wants that story to land, she needs to be part of the group from the start. The impact is limited by the abrupt nature of her story-she pops in, gets her revenge, and pops out. I hope everyone watched all of Voyager like I did, because if you did not there is very little reason to care about this (beyond being horrified by the first scene, which seemed a little much to pair with a wacky heist arc). No one is asking me to write a TV show for very good reasons, but this just seems really lazy.I really like the actors on this show, and Patrick Stewart continues to be absolutely wonderful. Picard is one of the best characters ever put on our TV. This should all be as close to easy as this kind of thing can be. But, for me, things have not been going well since the enjoyable pilot. I will keep watching because I am deep in the tank for TNG, but this has been really disappointing.
Maddox was killed to show us that there’s more at stake regarding the synth storyline that we suspected, and that Agnes has her own agenda. I’m on the fence as to whether it was a good idea to kill him off so fast (although whatever disappointment I have is blunted by the fact that they apparently couldn’t get the original actor) but there’s no question it moved the plot forward.And as per IMDb Jeri Ryan’s supposed to be back later in the season.
Sure, I get what they are trying to do. I just don’t think they are going about it the right way. Beyond what I wrote in my initial post, we already got big hints that there is more going on here than we know and that Agnes had her own agenda. Zack and many others called out the meeting with Starfleet that Agnes had earlier in the season as instantly suspicious, and we already had someone having a break down and screaming that Dr. Soji is “The Destroyer”. I just don’t think that discarding story possibilities to further hint at things already heavily hinted is a great way to tell an ongoing tale.And, while I was glad to read from you and the other comments that Seven will be back, the main thrust of my issue is that in order for Seven’s choice to kill to have any weight, it would have been better to build to that over time rather than cram it all into an episode. And maybe without a costume party/heist caper attached.
I do think it ups the stakes though. It’s one thing to suspect that Agnes isn’t being honest about her goals, it’s another to know that she’s willing to murder the man she loves to achieve them. Obviously whatever she thinks she knows is extremely troubling and raises the level of suspense. And admittedly I didn’t pick up on the hints about Agnes at all.
Jeri Ryan was never going to be a main cast member. The fact that the show got her for 2 (maybe 3 – IMDB says she’s back for the finale) is a gift. So any character development with her would have to be done in a single episode.
But…..the question isn’t about what we think her availability or shooting schedule might be. The question is: did the way they told this story work for you? If it did, I am truly glad you enjoyed it. It didn’t work for me, and apparently a few others.
It wasn’t about her availability or shooting schedule. This season was never going to be about Seven’s character like it is about the main cast characters. This was never planned to be a show where she was one of the main cast. She was always intended to only guest star in a few episodes.And the way they told her story worked great. They used Icheb, so Voyager watchers already knew about their relationship. They explained what she had been doing since Voyager ended. And they gave a good reason for why she is now a vigilante and hated female mob boss.If you don’t like that she isn’t exactly like she was on Voyager, that was 19 years ago. Most people aren’t like they were 19 years ago.
I am well aware that she is not a member of the main cast of Picard. She had an arc in this episode, which is what we are discussing. It worked for you, for all the reasons you described, which is great.It did not work for me, precisely because Voyager was 20 years ago. Instead of trying to bridge that gap with a short (admittedly brutal) scene at the start, I think it would have been better to build that story over episodes. I also think that if you are going to take care of it in 40 minutes, maybe less time with costumes and computer ads and more time with Seven.I don’t have any problems with them changing Seven, or the story they choose for her future after Voyager. The execution was rushed for me. Especially when you cram finding Maddox (a moment they have been building to since the pilot) and instantly killing him in the same episode.We just have a different opinion on whether they handled this the right way, which is fine. I am sincerely glad it is working for you, and wish it was working for me. But I think this series has been way too ponderous in some places and strangely rushed in others. Seven’s arc in this episode was rushed, and completely reliant on having watched later Voyager to give it any heft whatsoever.
I’m confused because if you knew she was not part of the main cast then why did you say she needed to be part of the group from the start. Because you’re describing a main cast member, not a guest star, which is what Seven was always going to be.What you’re describing with her appearing over multiple episodes, building her story – that’s Picard. He’s the star so he’s the one who they’re doing that with. Seven, as popular a character as she is, is just a guest star in this season. She’s got more development and screentime in this one episode than any other character they brought back.. What you’re describing can’t be done with a guest star.They managed to combine 2 separate stories, the “finding Maddox” story and the “Seven’s status quo” story into one storyline, and it worked. Still not sure how catching up with what she had been doing for the past 19 years was “rushed”.
I answered this in my very first post: “And speaking of late run Voyager, it was great to see Seven. But if the creative team wants that story to land, she needs to be part of the group from the start. The impact is limited by the abrupt nature of her story-she pops in, gets her revenge, and pops out. I hope everyone watched all of Voyager like I did, because if you did not there is very little reason to care about this (beyond being horrified by the first scene, which seemed a little much to pair with a wacky heist arc). No one is asking me to write a TV show for very good reasons, but this just seems really lazy.”So: a. I am aware she is not a main cast member. b. It is my opinion that her story does not work very well when she is a guest star in the middle of the first season and most of the character development provided for her is “I sure hope you watched Voyager”. Because that is all they had time to do in 40 minutes, especially when Maddox was also a focus of the episode. The options are to tell a different story, not have her as a guest star, or build her arc toward killing an unarmed person over multiple episodes. I am saying they should have gone a different route with it toward something that lands better instead of rushing it. The fact that she was only gonna be a guest star doesn’t mean this was the only way they could have handled a story with Seven in it. c. You think it worked and I don’t. I don’t think that is very confusing.
I did read your very first post, which is why I commented that Seven is not a main cast member. That post said that Seven should have appeared in multiple episodes so that all of her plot wasn’t included in this one episode. I had to explain that she is a guest star in this episode. What you describe would require her to be a cast member, which was never going to happen.I hope that cleared things up for you.
It cleared up for me that you continue to miss my point, which is that Jeri Ryan being a regular cast member and them rushing her story with a knowledge of Voyager substituting for character development were not the only two avenues forward that the Picard team had at their disposal to advance this story.
I think I got your original point, which was that you wanted Ryan to appear in multiple episodes, starting with the premiere, in order to give her character development to “better” explain how she was different from the last time we saw her.The problem with that point is that (a) this would have required Ryan be a regular cast member to appear on most of the episodes, (b) the show did not want Ryan to be a regular cast member – they wanted her to be a guest star, with Picard being the only regular cast member that was returning from previous Trek shows, and (c) this episode actually did a good job explaining what Seven had been doing for the past 19 years and why she wasn’t the same as the last time we saw her (plus, you know, people change when you don’t see them for 19 years). So none of what you explained would have worked, or was necessary.
Just a quick observation from someone who cringes when trope names like “bury your gays” and “black guy dies first” get thrown around recklessly as supposedly legitimate criticism:Icheb’s death is the definition of “fridging,” just with a different gender. As we see here, the death of a well-established character to provide motivation for a main character is not in and of itself a bad thing.
I was near the end of the episode when I realized the Aria T’Loak stand in’s name was Bjayzl. Up until that point I was hearing “The Jayzel.” And then when having “the” in front didn’t make sense, I was convinced they’d named a character “Vajazzle.”
You are not alone. It was a toss up between Vajazzle and Bejaysus.
“Vajazzle Bejaysus” sounds like a Sean Connery-ear Bond girl…
BejaysusBetween O’Brien saying bollocks in DS9, Laris saying feckers in DS9 and now this, Trek is just mining Hiberno-English for slang now.
I both thought it sounded vaguely like Vajazzle and that the character was essentially Aria T’Loak.
As a huge Star Trek fan (especially TNG) I hate to say this but this show….sucks. This last episode was easily the worst. The word “embarrassing,” pops into my head. But it has been bad overall. There are little things I could quibble about like things that are canonically inconsistent or special effects which are very fake and lazy but those would be minor gripes next to the dialogue and acting which are both really terrible. The script reads like a rushed first draft, full of cliches and the performances feel like amateurs over-acting. Even Stewart who is a titanic actor feels like he is playing a totally different character. I realize characters would change in 20 years but this guy doesn’t even resemble Jean-Luc Picard. Up until now I thought the plot was actually not bad but this episode falls apart and Zack pretty well dissects its flaws. I wanted to like it so badly, hoping it would be a redemption following the awful Kirk reboot films and went in with high hopes when the reviews were pretty good but after watching a couple all I could think was “What show are these critics watching?” I don’t recognize Star Trek but I do recognize CBS because this feels like a major network television show featuring all the things about network TV that have made me steer clear of it. I want to at least finish this first season but I don’t know if I am going to make it. I might just have to go back to watching TNG again.
The kind of actor Patrick Stewart is: he wasn’t bad at being a French Pirate. He was playing Picard being terrible at cosplay, which is easy to believe.
Another shout to our man Frakes. He’s still got it.I know it’s the previous episode, but that space fight with the Bird of Prey was brilliant….the way the ships tag team their phasers to saw off the wing is fantastic.
I’m a huge Voyager fan and Seven was my favourite character so I was excited for this episode. Jeri Ryan had said she panicked when she got the script as this a Seven had very little in common with the version of Seven we saw over 20 years ago, and I know what she meant. There was little of the cool logic that characterised Voyager Seven, but I loved seeing her single minded revenge for the death of Icheb (no! He doesn’t have a cortical node, he gave it to Seven in Imperfection- one of my favourite Voyager episodes!)What surprised me was that this ep could be all we get – her story arc of revenge was done by episode end. Ditto Bruce Maddox. Why bring him back to bump him off so quickly? Considering the slow pace of the first 4 eps, we raced through the story here. More Seven, less pantomime Dame Patrick Stewart!
According to IMDB Jeri Ryan will return for the finale.Bruce Maddox was never that important a character. He was the antagonist who wanted to disassemble Data in one episode, but that was his only appearance. Then in another episode Data wrote him a letter later. That’s it. His inclusion in this series was at best a deep cut for TNG fans. They could have easily created a new character for this role. His entire purpose in this season was to have created the twins and get everything rolling, for Picard to find him and learn where the other twin is, and then to die.
You probably shouldn’t be reviewing the Seven of Nine parts if you haven’t watched all of Voyager – yes, Icheb was VERY important to her. The reason the person couldn’t find Icheb’s corticle node is that he gave it to Seven of Nine in an act that could have killed him, but because Seven would have died without the “transplant”
Yeah Jerati’s betrayal seemed telegraphed since she showed up at Picard’s place. I thought the same thing: they didn’t show her conversation with the Star Fleet shaded villain, she just told Picard what supposedly happened, which immediately seemed like the writers were trying to hide something. And every scene with her after has been her being stressed or weirdly forward and obvious about getting on everyone’s good side.I really don’t know what to think about this episode. There were some cool parts, but they were mostly about setting up things to pay off later, or Seven being an action movie star. But Picard’s horrific accent work was so painful, and the whole story felt like a heist script haphazardly re-purposed for this show. Everything linked together rather poorly. It really seemed like this was fan fiction more than a professionally-written script.Also, while I get wanting to develop Raffi’s character, making the black woman on the show a recovering drug addict seemed somewhat problematic, particularly after following the hackneyed trope of killing off the black guy first, even if he was an alien.
I keep hearing Tal Shiar as Taha Yar, which adds a layer of interest!
Also be cool if it was named after Talia Shire.
It’s late, and I should go to bed.
“the actor playing her son overplayed it to the point where I lost all sympathy for him”He just has no time for Hufflepuffs.
Seven dual wielding phaser rifles at the end there felt a bit much.Almost as over the top as this.
Remember the transporter malfunction in the beginning of TMP? Like they had to get the idea that this wasn’t the 60s sci-fi show anymore out of the way as quickly as possible? It feels like in Picard they’re slowly peeling back the layers of idealism from TNG
like an onion. Every episode reveals something a little darker, a
little grimmer. I’m okay with that, even if some of the twists are as
subtle as a brick.
Once Roddenberry died the shows started doing darker stuff that he never would’ve let happen. Section 31 would have never gotten beyond the initial story stages if Roddenberry had still been in charge.
Wait a minute, you think horror wasn’t a common mode of the ‘60s show?
Lords, that was fun!
After all, it’s been clear that the show sucks big time since at least a couple of episodes ago, full of infantile attempts at portraying a complex world and characters, and abysmally dumb attempts at being clever, so now I’m just in it for the Patrick Stewart hijinks and the occasional, rare, brief, powerfully moving moment. A while back it was Picard’s gentle aside to Raffie “I may not be passing this way again” and the way the two of them communicated understanding the full weight and story behind that statement. This time it was that under-four-eyes talk with Seven, again, a minute of great passion and intensity.
Give me that, and Picard hamming it up as a French Space Privateer, and I’ll keep watching, no matter what other shit (and that’s some real shit) that the rest of the episode is made of.
Man, did I have a crush on Jeri Ryan back in the day..she still looks great
I still don’t see why so many people are angry about this show. Stewart was quite clear from the beginning that this was not gonna be a revisit to TNG. Sure, it has its flaws, but I’m still intrigued enough by the characters and the depiction of the changed world we’re returning to keep watching.I will say that I started humming the Futurama theme during that big pan over the skyline of Freecloud. And it’s pretty funny that the music of the future basically sounds like ‘90s industrial. But it’s also interesting because I feel like this is the first Trek show to really illustrate what life is like for the rest of the people in the Federation that don’t breathe the rariefied air of a starship. I’ve long suspected that there was a lot going on in this universe aside from what we saw through Starfleet’s eyes, and it’s nice to get confirmation of it. It was also a welcome development that this episode put the table-setting well and truly behind us and dealt with a specific crisis to be solved, while setting up more conflicts to come. I do hope Agnes’ deception doesn’t hold up for very long; Picard in particular should be very skeptical of Maddox dying in sickbay inexplicably.
Definitaly disappointed they couldn’t get Brian Brophy back for whatever reason. Maybe the poor guy just didn’t feel up to making his return to acting after however many decades with millions of eyeballs watching.
But then again…
No love for the Quark reference Zack?So he’s living on Ferenginar now, even though he said he’s never go back after Rom’s reforms? Has Rom been chucked off the Tower of Commerce? Who’s looking after the bar?
Also I’m just now realizing that the evil Romulan lieutenant who kind of wants to fuck her brother is both Captain Cold’s sister and Roger Sterling’s second wife.
Some commenters mentioned Rios’ references to Quark, but I’m surprised no one mentioned the sight of Quark’s Bar on Freecloud, right next to Mr. Mott’s Hair Emporium.
well, I guess I’m the dissenter here, but I thought this was awesome. I’ve always wanted to see a show that expanded on and explored the hugely built world outside of the same premise. This was clearly a ‘heist” episode, which i think people sort of missed- like the last episode they are doing this miny riffs on different story types. I thought the whole thing was very cool and I am really intrigued by the mystery. It’s looking more and more possible that Picard is *maybe* on the wrong side of things. i think this is where people are missing the significance of us knowing things Picard doesn’t know. It seems pretty clear that everybody who is in on this anti-synth conspiracy is acting “for the greater good.” Like they have knowledge of something terrible that is going to happen, something that to them justifies the staged attack on mars and certainly the killing of two androids. This scientist girl was shown something that made her regret her life’s work AND made her willing to kill her former lover.
What’s clearly being setup is a conflict between this “ends justify the means” morality and Picard’s “outdated” morality. I predict that will be the central conflict of the show eventually, where once Picard learns whatever it is that makes Soji “the destroyer” (and it has to be something that the romulan women learned when she was part of the borg, something that hasnt happened yet but will happen) he’s going to refuse to accept that she must be sacrificed for the greater good.
And my guess is, he may even turn out to be right. Like, what all these people think they are seeing may be misleading them into taking the actions to insure it happens?
It has something to do with the Borg and I would guess, Control from Discovery.
I don’t care about nebulous, subjective ideas of “what’s really Star Trek” and this was probably the episode I liked the most out of every one I’ve seen since they revived the franchise on TV. It was fucked up and goofy and seemed to come from a completely different show I’d rather be watching than Picard