Star Trek: Picard had one major mystery left to uncover going into “Et In Arcadia Ego, Pt 1:” the true nature of Soji’s home planet. The promise of a world full of synthetic life-forms, living in secret with their own developed culture and interests, had a lot of potential, and while very little on this show has managed to actually deliver on its promises, there was at least a chance “Et In Arcadia” could break the curve. After all, “Nepenthe” was still great; and maybe the flailing of “Broken Pieces” was less about fundamentally bad ideas, and more about writers who weren’t quite sure how to cram everything into a 10-episode season just losing their grip on the narrative flow.
Well, Picard and the others arrive at Synth Central, and for a few minutes, it’s weird and kind of cool. Soji takes them on a trip through a chronoton field to get there, thus bypassing 25 light years in less than 15 minutes. Narek managed to tag along in his own ship, despite Agnes destroying the tracking device; but that’s okay, because the Borg Cube arrives a few minutes later, because why the hell not. And then giant orchids rise up from the planet’s surface, seize all three ships, turn off their power systems, and drag them down to the ground. In retrospect, this is more silly than anything else, but in the moment, it suggests a level of weirdness I’d want from a show that’s otherwise disregarded most sensible storytelling approaches. If things are going to break, why not go absolutely nuts with it. A world of giant robot gardeners. Maybe this is where Audrey II came from.
Instead, we get some heartfelt stuff about Picard’s brain problems, and the crew of the Sirena go pop by the Borg Cube for a quick visit, and then, finally, we see the home of the synths. And it’s… literally the same as just about every other “peaceful” society a Trek show has visited in the past thirty years. Everyone’s dressed in flowing, comfortable fabrics, colored with soothing earth tones, doing yoga exercises or having pleasant conversations. The architecture is all spotless and vaguely Grecian. There’s no real technology in sight. Oh sure, some of the synths are wandering around in pairs, and a few of them have that shiny make-up that the show has decided to use to simulate Data’s look from TNG (despite the fact that Data never looked like he’d been murdered by Goldfinger before every scene), but it’s still lazy and uninteresting.
And that’s a problem, because the whole crux of the show’s two-part finale is on Picard’s efforts to both save the synth colony from destruction and stop the destruction of all non-synthetic life in the universe. Much of the drama here comes from the assumption that we’ll care what happens to these life-forms, even when at least one of them turns out to be a bit of psycho. And sure, I’m generally against murdering people just because they’re bland. That doesn’t mean I’m necessarily invested in their fate. Given that Picard has already been renewed for a second season, I’m reasonably sure that Sutra’s plan to call in the super protectors who narrate Agnes’ vision of Doomsday is going to fail, or at the very least, not succeed in the way she thinks it will. That means the show really needs us to give a damn about the synths themselves, but it gives us no reason to do so beyond some bland platitudes and “Remember Data? You liked him right?”
Speaking of Data, Brent Spiner is back, now in Soong form. In an explanation offered so blithely and so unquestioningly it almost has to be a lie, the actor introduces himself to Picard as Dr. Alton Inigo Soong, the son of Noonian Soong, the man who built Data. Picard takes this at face value, presumably because so much is going on he doesn’t have much choice, but it seems suspicious; Noonian Soong was involved with a handful of TNG episodes, and no one ever mentioned him having biological children, although he did build a replica of his wife who didn’t even know she was a replica. I’m going to assume there’s some sort of trickery at work (Alton enlists Agnes in a plan to build him a new body, which seems suspicious), because the alternative is almost too irritating to countenance—that the writers decided they just had to bring Spiner back, and this was the best way they could manage it.
As for Alton himself, regardless of his parentage, he’s not much. Lots of emphatic, over-written dialogue that lands painfully no matter how hard Spiner works to sell it, and no real reason to care about him beyond the minor novelty of his existence. The only character in Synth Land to make much of an impression is Sutra (apologies if I missed the spelling on any of these), an older synth who looks exactly like Soji, except with that distracting gold sparkle make-up layered over her skin. She’s clear the leader of the group, and she takes the initiative when Soji, Picard, and the others arrive, mind melding with Agnes to take a closer look at the vision Commodore Oh gave her, and then deciding to sacrifice one of her own in order to convince her people of the necessity of calling for outside help.
Sutra is the third role Isa Briones has played on Picard. She was fine in the brief time she spent Dahj, and Soji was more or less the same character, albeit slightly older and in a different context. Sutr is the first time she’s had to stretch to be someone new, and the results aren’t great. As with Alton, the problem is probably more a failure of the writing than anything else, but whomever is responsible, the results are not good: Sutr almost like a distant analog to the Borg Queen—aggressive, mocking, and obviously cruel. It’s a baffling decision. Sutra ends up turning evil by the end, but she’s so clearly a menace the second she steps on screen that there’s no weight to her heel turn.
But really, almost none of this works. Picard appears to have learned nothing this season, giving a “rousing” speech to try and sway the hearts and minds of the synths that’s more embarrassing than inspired; we’re reminded that there’s something wrong with his brain, and that he’s dying, which is an excuse to milk more melodrama out of characters we barely know getting weepy at the thought of losing him. (Raffi says “I love you.” What? When? Why?) The return of the Borg Cube is poorly justified, and even when the episode has a chance to actually address the tremendous, terrifying choice Seven made last week, it simply glides past it, oblivious to the implications. This is a dumb show now. It was probably always dumb, but it used to do a better job of hiding it. The most we can hope for in the finale is a lot of neat looking special effects, and maybe enough of a definitive conclusion that we can convince ourselves season 2 will be better.
Stray observations
- I legitimately don’t know if Picard is going get a last minute reprieve from his diagnosis (the comment Troi made about how their son’s disease could’ve been cured if they’d had access to a positronic matrix might be foreshadowing), or if they’re just going to string along the illness for another season, or if they’re going to kill him off next week and then continue forward in his memory.
- Sutra “learned how to mind meld.” Sure.
- In case it wasn’t clear in the review (and it probably wasn’t), when Sutra mind melds (sigh) with Agnes, she discovers that the vision the Romulans were afraid of was actually a promise from some mysterious other species that they’d return to protect synthetic life when the inevitable conflict between synths and organic life arrived. I cannot stress this enough: this is the plot of Mass Effect 3.
- It’s a small thing, but characters acting excessively excited to see each other again when they haven’t been separated for very long always annoys me. Yes, people can be sentimental under extreme stress, but selling it like we’re supposed to sit up and cheer hardly ever works.
- Picard telling Elnor he’s “very, very proud” of him is also unearned.
- The fact that Soong blames the secretiveness of the Soji/Dahj project on Maddox is pretty convenient character assassination, although it seems likely that this is another sign that something isn’t quite right. (The fact that Soong later refers to Maddox as a “small, bright candle in the darkness” suggests someone isn’t keeping his story straight.)
- Picard is placed under house arrest. They almost arrest Agnes as well, but she makes an impassioned plea to continue working with Soong. Isn’t that just an arrest in a different house?
324 Comments
So the finale will really tell us how ‘Star Trek’ the series was I feel.In a traditional Trek story the Admonition will be a test. The synthetics who reach out with a plea for the destruction of organics will fail to ascend as surely as the ZV failed by trying to destroy the synthetics and the Federation disgraced itself with its ban and surrender to fear and distrust. But Soji, if making the right decision, will give the non-hostile faction of her people the opportunity for greatness. (The Datas versus the Lores)If it really does just turn out to be Super Synths vs Organics with the Borg as a middle ground somehow providing the win, well, it will still be a fun ride but not great Trek.
I’m currently binging DS9 and it aged like fine wine. The themes and explorations of issues like slavery, trans rights, civil rights, capitalism felt like it was written yesterday and remained relevant than ever. If they wanted to make a new Picard series, why not just make a DS9 with Picard instead?
My respect for Far Beyond the Stars has only grown with its refusal to hide behind the franchise’s usual cloak of allegory and just say “Yeah, we’re talking about racism. Anyone got a problem with that?”
Man, Avery Brooks really killed in that episode. You feel his agony. If you have seen the DS9 documentary (so good) the cast tells about how Avery took a long time to come out of character after that scene. When they all lay hands on him to soothe him that was real. He should have won all the awards.
Far Beyond the Stars worked perfectly, and fit in incredibly well overall with the show and the franchise’s themes as a whole. I see why the writers of Trek often used allegory. Some of the stories they told might come off as tasteless. Far Beyond the Stars is a wonderful exception.
Kind of. It does age well in many ways despite some of the seams that show under a modern lens. There are a lot of terrible DS9 episodes.I’d still love to see a DS9-esque series in the modern era.
The closest we’ll get is the writer’s room discussion of the theoretical 8th season of DS9 in the documentary “What We Left Behind”.
I recently rewatched the Occupied station-arc again and it’s such a good run of episodes, that does so much more in those 7 episodes than Picard has over its whole season.
It makes me wish they had tried to get someone like Ronald D Moore back as a consultant.
Don’t worry, they got Marc Bernardin, who worked as an intern on DS9 and freely admits that he’s not smart enough to get DS9, to be a writer on season 2 of Picard. That’s just as good as Ron Moore, Ira Behr, or Rene Echevarria, right?
Plus, DS9, had this, possibly the two greatest scenes in the history of Trek.
Love that scene in DS9, it’s amazing how rich even the secondary characters are in that show, fantastic writing. Compare this to Picard where Raffi, Agnes, and Rios feel like empty shells
Well, to be fair, in that scene, other than Ezri, every one of the characters had a good time to be developed by that point. Rios, even despite the actor playing like 6 roles, none of them have much depth.I disagree about Agnes and especially Raffi—think both actresses have done a great job so far. It just seems like the narrative written for this season would have benefitted from say, a 13 episode season–it seems too cluttered and they are rushing to wrap up the arc at the end.
I don’t fault the actresses/actors at all, I think they are doing fine, my issue is with the characters and the character development. Like Rios for example, we got some back story on him last week, but I still feel no attachment to him at all. I think a one reason for that is the back story was told through a photograph/sketch and a verbal recanting. How much better would that story had been if the episode had opened with an actual flashback scene. We see a younger Rios on that star-ship, with that captain, and we watch them encounter those synths and we see it all play-out?? But no, we don’t get that because this show is cheap or lazy or both.
I agree wholeheartedly on Rios, but the entire issue seems to go back to my other theory that they would have greatly benefitted from a few more episodes per season to establish some of these backstories.As it is now, the whole storyline seems rushed.
In the comments last week CaptainJanewaysCoffee mentioned that Rios might be a synth, which is why we got the memorybox scene rather than a more effective flashback.And that’s a good catch. And based on this episode it still might be true? (“Rios has abs, and all the androids have abs! The secret was right infront of us all along!”)I think it’s a completely terrible idea, because trek just did the same twist with Ash in Discovery. But that doesn’t mean they won’t do it here again.
Interesting, I hadn’t heard that Rios is a synth theory. I had seen the theory that he’s really a hologram. Honestly though, with all the “surprises” Picard tries to throw at us….I think I just need Rios to be an actual flesh and blood human-being
I was watching DS9 the other day and Quark mentions (in horror) the idea of universal health care. I almost jumped out of my seat. We’ve really been talking about this since the 90s? How embarrassing.
Since the 40s and 50s! Ronald Reagan was a young actor in those days that spoke out the dangers of socialized medicine… which eventually became Medicare and Medicaid. The radio spot is on YouTube.
Since FDR, no joke. Almost 100 years now.
How the fuck did this Trek series manage to fuck itself up so fucking much?!
At this point, I think it’s safe to say ‘a disappointing Star Trek: Picard’ is a bit redundant.
Sheppard.
I haven’t been watching: How many times has Picard punched the reporter lady?
The really sad thing, is that my reflexes are so bad, i missed the second mouse click and she ended up KO’ing my “savior of the universe Shepard”, all 5’8″ and 90lbs of her.Yes, I need to cheat my way through videogames.
Yeah ok that’s pretty sad.
And the funny thing is, Raffi’s actress played a villain with that name on Blindspot.
Wrex.
Grunt.
Alex Kurtzman is my favourite hack-fraud on the Citadel.
“OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE!”- Rich Evans under quarantine
Red Letter Medias reviews are the best thing that has come from new Trek by FAR.
Literally the only good aspect of this show is watfhing those two contemplate life.
It just points up the injustices of life and art, because Mike, Rich and Jay are so smart and so interested and so creative, and so steeped in Star Trek…but of course nobody like them is anywhere near the production of new Star Trek shows. (And you can extend the comment to their critiques of superhero movies; Star Wars etc.) They’re totally familiar with every single cheap short-cut screenwriters have been taking for decades and could instantly torpedo bad ideas in any writers’ room, but they’re just a couple guys in Milwaukee so nobody would ever give them the time of day.
I’m not sure I’d want a couple who don’t like DS9 to be near Star Trek production regardless of how steeped they are. That’s not saying I love Picard by any means but I’m not sure we need a new TNG either.
All those guys know is how to pull shit down; they’re not very good and putting it together. It’s a different skillset.
To each their own, but I fucking loathe RLM’S reviews on this series.
Dr Noonian Soong created the androids who will eventually call forth or become a Destroyer.Khan Noonien Singh was a destroyer.Coincidence? Also the whole destroy robots to stop a future destroyer eliminating organics sounds very Descender.
Yeah, coincidence, because Roddenberry just kept naming characters after an old friend of his to try to get back in contact. https://www.warhistoryonline.com/featured/creator-star-trek-named-famous-villain-friend-wwii-pilot-days.html/2
“…a promise from some mysterious other species that they’d return to
protect synthetic life when the inevitable conflict between synths and
organic life arrived.”V……G…….E……R……V-GER?
I mean, nothing about that movie suggested anything like that, but why not? Trivia trumps story or sense in these new series. Might as well just do it again.
I appreciate the joke but that’s not what V’Ger was up to.
I don’t think it would be much of a retcon to connect this to V’Ger, or the Crystalline Entity….but I’m not a super nerd for trek lore.
You’re right, but realize that today’s average Star Trek fan mainly wants things that reference or repeat other things they know, even if it’s just to “correct” them in tones far less polite than yours, and those same fans tend to be alienated, baffled and put-off by anything new, anything they can’t lecture other fans about. It’s been that way for quite some time, and it’s why both Discovery and Picard are so mired in the past, so completely bogged down in “the lore”. Plenty of Star Trek fans would gleefully accept that the machines V’Ger met somehow tasked it with the defense of sentient machines against their organic creators, and at least half of those people would be thrilled by it because it would give them the chance to point out that the machines of The Motion Picture are implied to have passed to V’ger no understanding that organic life could create something as sophisticated as a non-sentient (and fictional) 1990s space probe. Then, they’d go emotionally haywire over the discrepancy for personal reasons related to their childhoods. They’d have an argument about it with the other fans who like it solely because it’s a callback for no good reason. Both would salve their insecurities. Success.The reason I know that’s feasible is because it already happened back during the 1990s, where “fan theories” were traded on the Internet about how the “V’ger” machines were the Borg or somehow related to them. That made about as little sense for the same reasons, but the point was to posture over trivia everyone already knew. It wasn’t like there was enough wisdom in those discussions, at least in most cases, to judge the effectiveness of a story; they were already consumed by the cargo-cult analysis of “canon”, just like today.That this is the exact model for the vast majority of writing in the secondary merchandise (books, video games, etc.) shouldn’t surprise anyone: X trivia item from Star Trek somehow connects to Y trivia item from somewhere else in Star Trek, as experienced by one main-cast character from a show or movie, one secondary character the author likes, and a character the writer made up. The last one is usually the comic-relief character, though it’s rarely because the writer planned it that way.
because the alternative is almost too irritating to countenance—that the writers decided they just had to bring Spiner back, and this was the best way they could manage it.This was my assumption, haha. Spiner has already played every other member of Data’s “family”, why stop now? At least there was no need for old age make up this time.
It’s like how every member of Biff Tannen’s family is just him again.
And before that, Alec Guiness in Kind Hearts and Coronets.
If only Spiner had played Dr. Juliana in drag. And Lal in drag.
Except his Mammy!
I’m way behind in the show and didn’t read the review but the headline and letter grades each week haven’t been encouraging me to really jump back inIs it really not great? Or just typical overall harsh AVClub reviewing
I think Handlen’s being overly harsh. It’s fine if he doesn’t like it, but his criticisms have basically come down to “it’s not how I would have done it”, “this is too different from classic Trek” and “this is too similar to classic Trek”.I’ve been enjoying the show, it’s occupying a middle ground between TNG and DISCO in terms of tone.
I agree completely. Red Letter Media is really overreacting as well and I usually respect their opinions.
The show continually relies heavily on alluding to and bringing back characters from TNG, so obviously we’re going to draw parallels between tng and this show. You can’t have it both ways. Either this is a departure from what we’ve known or it’s a continuation thereof. They are presenting it as the latter, and therefore, it’s only fair to critique them based on the chosen predecessor.
Agreed, I liked this episode overall, despite the obvious stupidity of having an android “learn” how to do a Vulcan mind meld. That actually had me lol.What actually has bothered me to this point is, other than the opening episode, we haven’t seen one damned Federation Starship. Which makes this a very odd feel for a ST series. I wonder if maybe the show’s licensing doesn’t include the permissions to show any modern ships? Given all the cgi used you would think it would be rather trivial to have ONE show up.But yes, its generally an enjoyable watch. The main cast is all really good—the only real problem I have with the storyline is that it seems like they intended this narrative to require more than 10 episodes—everything is condensed and compacted to have the true impact that it should.
Its not that they’re not allowed to show Federation/Starfleet ships. The premise of the show is taking Picard outside of his usual comfort zones, on the bridge of the Enterprise, in the comfortable parts of Federation space, or with Starfleet backing him up.
On starships, it’s far more likely to be a creative decision than licensing. There’s no reason to expect that Picard is separate from DISCO in terms of ownership, especially as the DISCO redesign of the Enterprise was visible in the hologram display at Starfleet command in episode 3, and the Magee-class from DISCO was seen in the Utopia Planitia shipyards in Children of Mars and the flashbacks to the Synth attack on Mars. Picard commands an Odyssey-class ship (the same class as the Enterprise F from Star Trek Online) in the prequel comics.On the mind meld, it was very convenient, but there’s some justification for it in TNG. Most notably Data could do the nerve pinch in Unification, while McCoy and Spock’s merged minds couldn’t in Search for Spock suggesting there was more to it than just using a pressure point. I’m pretty sure Troi was able to detect emotions from Data or some other android at one point, even though she wasn’t able to do so with Soji in Picard.
“Most notably Data could do the nerve pinch in Unification, while McCoy and Spock’s merged minds couldn’t in Search for Spock suggesting there was more to it than just using a pressure point.”Well, for one thing, McCoy (even in his healthiest state) possesses far less strength and precision than a Vulcan or an Android. And he was clearly not very healthy in ST3.
I did think of another example—-in that second season episode of TNG, the dying scientist uploads his consciousness (apparently fully intact) to Data, so perhaps the positronic brain is more similar/compatible to organic brains than I thought. Or Soong working with Agnes to create an android vessel for (himself?) in this very episode.
made perfect sense to me. obviously an android would be capable of modifying its physical characteristics — if an android can eat and sweat and have sex, i see no reason it couldn’t modify itself and add a synthetic version of whatever physical apparatus Vulcans have that allow them to mind meld.
From what I understand about Vulcan mind-melds, it is part of their organic brains’ ability to connect to another organic brain on a similar mental processing level.The androids are a positronic neural system—-my problem with the whole thing is that you’re basically asking a high-level computer system to connect to the consciousness of an organic brain. So unless she grafted some kind of organic matter to her positronic brain (like we saw happen to Data’s skin in First Contact), I’m not sure how you can ‘learn’ to interface telepathically with a completely incompatible organic consciousness.Especially since nothing at all other than “she learned” was given in the dialogue.
it’s a physical process. i don’t really see what being organic has to do with it. When Data made Lal and she unexpectedly gained the ability to feel emotion, Troi was able to sense that emotion — a form of telepathy. it didn’t matter that her brain was positronic.
“it’s a physical process. i don’t really see what being organic has to do with it.”Its not physical based on anything I’ve seen—-yes, it requires a physical contact with the meld-ee’s face/head, but its telepathic/mental control connection which to me seems rather impossible with a completely incompatible neural system.Then again, Spock did mind meld with that floating computer in TOS, so perhaps you are right about it being adaptive to various consciousness types.
i mean, not to repeat myself, but if Troi could empathically sense Lal, I don’t see why an android couldn’t participate in a mind meld.
It makes sense that we wouldn’t see any Starfleet ships because Picard is no longer in Starfleet. He’s had to make do with civilian/commercial ships.
We didn’t even see one orbiting or in the vicinity of earth when they shipped out, though. Just seems really weird.
Picard says in Time’s Arrow (?) in TNG that it’s rare for a starship to return to Earth during its mission. Once a starship is built, it usually leaves Earth right away.But this is not a Picard-in-Starfleet show. It’s “Civilian Picard”, so I have no problem with seeing no Starfleet ships in the background since Picard has to figure out how to do things without having access to a Starfleet ship.
There are no ships because the Federation president diverted all funds to create a beautiful space wall to prevent any synths from entering.
He’s 100% right this week.
I’m not a Trekkie, and now I feel blessed.The only thing I know about Star Trek, I’ve learned, is that Trekkies don’t deserve Star Trek.
No one hates Star Trek as much as aT fan.
Not just overly harsh but not very observant.Raffi and Picard go back at least 20 years when they were both still in Starfleet and she reported to him in some capacity. It’s not too hard to believe that she loves him (platonically)“Alton enlists Agnes in a plan to build him a new body, which seems suspicious“ How is that suspicious? Alton is organic, he’s getting older, he wants to implant his brain into a synthetic (supposedly immortal) version of himself. It’s not only a standard sci-fi trope, it would fit in with the character’s personality and family background.Picard’s brain disease (Irumodic Syndrome) first came up in the final two-part episode of TNG. I very much doubt he’ll get any reprieve; rather I expect the Picard series will end with his death.I agree this was not the best episode, but the C- seems based more on the critic’s inattention rather than the show itself.
The one thing that distinguishes it from DISCO is that Picard is not the literal center of the universe and all plotlines here, as opposed to Michael Burnham
I do like how they’ve embraced the some of the ethos of TOS and early TNG with the bare-chested and scantily clad denizens of a new planet.
Capricious and harsh. The show’s fantastic, go enjoy it.
It’s shit. Even as a generic sci-fi show, it’s really shit.
I think the review are harsh but basically fair. I’m enjoying the show more than Zack, but everything he cites as a problem is pretty much legit. The story is being told very sloppily.
I think it’s much, much better than Zack thinks it is.
It’s perhaps a marginal improvement over Discovery. If you liked that, you will liked Picard. Personally, I strongly dislike Discovery, and Picard shares a lot of its weaknesses, and is just as inept in building a serialized story.Episode 7 was very good, though–for about half its runtime.
I didn’t like Discovery but this is worse to me because it’s so damned slow (and so stupidly, annoyingly dark, like they can’t afford light bulbs on their space ships of the future).
It feels to me like a twenty-something and thirty-something showrunning crew, pitched the project really excitedly, infected everyone with their enthusiasm, (this show is enthusiastic if nothing else), got the project off the ground, and then came up with a lot of cool tech-progressions to the Star Trek Universe and concepts – but are clumsy with plot and oh … storytelling. The settings are great. A Borg recovery/archaeological dig in space! Fantastic setting. The actors are way better than their material. It feels like they suffer from a bit of “It writes itself!” syndrome.
I read where Chabon said that there will be no “Captain’s(or others) Logs” because narration is bad television. Honestly if there was at least some narration by Patrick Stewart this show would be A LOT better(I think it’s decent but could be better and would not call it “dumb”). It obviously would not be a typical captain’s log but we could better get into the psyche of Picard at this critical moment of his life. And perhaps through the season Picard, through narration, gradually gets more confident until his mojo his fully regained.
I’ve really enjoyed it. Handlen wants (it seems) for the show to be more like TNG, and doesn’t like that Picard has changed.
Handlen, it seems, wants the show to be good. His letter grades have been extremely generous, often giving high marks even when his reviews are full of 90% (legit) criticisms. He’s been more than fair. This show blows.
We disagree, which is fine. You don’t like it, yet, you comment a great deal on it. Which, of course, is also fine. I like it. To each their own.
Keep enjoying the show! I’m not trying to stop you.
I’m not taking it that way either. Enjoy umm, other stuff I guess.
Can’t. This show has robbed me of the ability to feel any joy whatsoever.
I’m worried you’re not joking.
I think Zack was a little harsh on this one, even if I also think the show is pretty bad. Although this episode really, really tried for some emotional moments that just don’t work because we don’t know the characters.I do think the show made a huge structural improvement a few episodes ago when it finally brought all of the main characters together.
It’s a pretty uneven show. Some of the character work is great; Seven of Nine is interesting, Riker and Troi were charming, but the plot is drawn out and sloppy.
I thought Zack was being overly harsh last week, but this week he is spot on….disappointing episode. Choppy storyline, lazy writing, eye-rolling moments (of course everyone on the Borg cube was fine and easily located)Overall this show lacks something in it’s soul that TNG and DS9 had in abundance. Picard most often feels about 80% baked, as if they had the skeleton of a good story, but no clue on how to fill in the gaps. Most all of the sets feel hastily put together, nothing feels lived in or particularly detailed. TNG and DS9 have so many of the little ingredients that make them not just great sci-fi, but great television shows period, even all these years later. Season 1 of Picard is mediocre at best, and granted Star Trek series don’t have a history of great starts. I’m glad Picard will be back for season 2, but this show needs some rather major retooling if Jean-Luc is going to get the send-off he deserves
It’s definitely a flawed show, but not so much more flawed than any other Trek series. Zack seems determined to misunderstand and misjudge it. Mainly because he doesn’t seem to understand that Picard being more vulnerable, awkward, and out-of-his-element than he was in TNG is not a mistake; its the whole point.
Those who can’t create, teach. Those who can’t teach, review. Those who can’t review worth a damn, criticize.This hack is so far from being a creative, it chafes his rectum.
Some great ideas let down by hilariously clumsy writing, all overshadowed by genuinely dumb plot twists.
I love this show and will never understand the hate it gets.
It’s really not great. it is a stunning misfire on almost every level. NONE of the show’s macro story arcs work at all. It’s a very clumsy, hodge podge of a bunch of random Star Trek concepts jammed together with seemingly little forethought.And now as the show draws to an end, it’s painfully obvious how none if it really is landing at all.
The show suffers from wanting to do too much, so none of it really gets the time or attention it needs. Picard living a somewhat unsatisfied life on his vineyard? Perfect basis for a show. Examining the fallout of the collapse of the Romulan empire? I’d watch ten episodes of that.
A story about an ancient warning about artificial life, with Data’s purity obviously being the thing that saves the galaxy? Why not?
All of those together? Not so great!
i’m really liking it a lot (i did not like Discovery). I think Zack is being wayyy too harsh.
I loved it.
Some episodes have been better than others, but overall it’s been great. The cast is wonderful, especially Santiago Cabrera and Jeri Ryan, who has a lot more character depth than she was given to play on Voyager. I don’t care if they used bad writing to bring back Brent Spiner.
My
only critiques are that the season is too short. 10 episodes is barely enough time to introduce a new cast, and very different world/mood. And I hate that it’s brought back some characters I loved,
just to kill them off in a couple of scenes for revenge as character
motivation.
Aesthetically (sets/costumes/effects/cinematography), it’s remarkably beautiful.
Unfortunately it’s really quite bland and poorly written. Having recently seen the complete TNG in Full HD again I highly recommend you skip this one and watch TNG again. Star Trek: Picard is not worth it. I’m watching it and am sad to have the experience that it actually taints the memory of Star Trek as a whole.
No, this show did a hard turn into stupid over the last two episodes. It’s like Nepenthe was the the top of the ramp. Thought you were going up? Nah, it appears we’ve run out of track.
It is typical of a show that is trying to be “prestige tv” in that everything is slow and many of the individual episodes are pointless in terms of storytelling and are trying to be about character building. But I just find it pointless.
He’s not being harsh at all in my opinion he’s spot on. The pathetic attempts to make me feel emotional and gush are just bad writing. We don’t know any of these characters. I don’t anyway. They have been given little spurts of moments of humanity, but it’s not enough. At least the first two seasons of TNG didn’t ask you to feel emotional about characters in this same (cheap) way that this programme does. You need time to get to know characters, but the hubris of the writers on this show (and Abrams I think too) is so great that they think they can waltz in and create magic without doing any work first. It’s sad. It’s not a good show. It’s a dumb show. The review is spot on. I’m watching because it’s Picard, I always knew that would be the case. But this is like the star wars sequels, it just feels off all around, it’s just not good. History won’t be kind to it.
its fun, its great, read chabons instagram for great insights. ignore zack as he should wallow into obscurity like the the ashes of avclub. Its not as great as it was.
I have been terribly disappointed in it. And Next Generation was my favorite Star Trek. It started out pretty good but each episode is just mind numbingly boring.
Handlen has been bending over backwards to give this show chances that it keeps squandering. If you’re not already ogling this particular trainwreck with us, no reason to start now.
Was an OK’ish show, with some great moments, until about three episodes ago. Then it all came apart, and – like Zack said – revealed itself to be really dumb. This episode was really stupid. Weak plot, very low level of storytelling, very predictable, and indeed: just the story of Mass Effect 3. The actors are good but the characters very underdeveloped. The writers have no idea what they want with Picard, or if they know, they don’t show it very well. Ultimately, a disappointment. Too bad, I was really stoked for the first half of the season.
This episode was genuinely not great but most of the show has been stellar.
I tried my best, but this episode was singularly bad.
There really seem to be two very polar responses to your question: Either the show is the best show in broadcast history and Zack is a paid shill for Big Star Wars and hates Trek in general, OR he’s absolutely right and it should be shot into the sun along with everyone who had a hand in it or enjoys it.
The truth lies well between those two points. Zack has been pretty favorable up until the last two episodes, so it’s not harsh reviewing overall. And it’s true, the show was, for the first 7 episodes, fucking amazing. Culminating with Nepenthe, (despite the subtle weird retcon concerning Troi and her android-emotion detector), the show was downright fantastic. And then, all of a sudden, it’s like the writing staff went full JJ on us. Terrible plot devices, horribly misused characters, awful dialog, things hinted at with zero payoff, ridiculous exposition, retcons aplenty, nonsensical threads, the works.
I really really want to fanboi squee over this show. I’m paying for CBS All Access just for it. I was completely on board right up until the last two episodes. If it shits the bed with the finale (and considering the toilet they wrote themselves into with the last episode, I consider the bed pre-shit already), I’m going to peace out and maybe watch it when it’s available free-to-me somewhere else.
Either the show is the best show in broadcast history and Zack is a paid shill for Big Star Wars and hates Trek in generalCUT TO Zack counting his latest payment of Beskar steel.
“Shit, they know too much!”
THE HANDLENORIAN
SUMMER 2020
I’ve been so puzzled by the diverse reactions to this show. It’s certainly not perfect. Like others have said, it’s doing a lot, and maybe because of that, nearly every episode contains one or two weird writing choices that throw you out of the narrative for a few seconds. For some, that’s enough to abandon ship, so to speak. But Zack’s reviews, especially the most recent ones, really do seem unduly harsh to me because the odder choices usually involve small character beats that don’t really undermine the larger story. Ultimately, this is a show very concerned with humanism in the classic Trek sense. Its concerns are the central concerns the franchise have always wrestled with. If it’s predictable, it’s predictable in the way humans are predictable, the way we simultaneously want and fear connection, the way we desperately desire to produce something that will live on after us while existing in perpetual trembling denial of our own end. And generally even the strangest choices the show makes ultimately don’t undermine the emotional heft of that theme for me. I think finally the way to know if you’ll enjoy the show or not is if you’re able to let go of what you were hoping it would be and take it for what it is. I suspect Zack has tried to do that but isn’t quite able to, fully.
I got more episodes in at this point. Just finished the Impossible Box. I think this show is also trying to show that the Federation way or life is really only a small part of the universe and the Utopia is not everywhere. DS9 did that as well but this one leans into far more. It also clear that they are trying to show that even the federation isn’t immune to fear and bad choices. I know in the bad parts of the internet there is the contingent that thinks stay Trek is an apolitical show and that the problem with Discover and Picard is that they are “too woke”. Which is stupid as hell given Treks long history of social commentary and liberal socialist as the ideal view point. Anyways I’m still digging it 6 episodes in. It’s got issues but it’s not terrible
Yeah of all the criticisms I’ve heard of this show the one that registers with me least is “this isn’t the Federation!” Especially when the vast majority of Trek was told from the rarified perspective of Starfleet’s upper echelons. I keep saying, does no one remember the root beer scene? Whatever the show’s problems, I like that we’re getting a look at how the rest of the galaxy lives.
Watch the damn thing, apparently the reviewer dislikes it.
I really enjoy it. Not the strongest episode but C- ? yeah right..
The season is playing out like a really long episode. It’s boiling down to a conflict between the Romulans and the synths where each is planning to preemptively destroy each other with the crew caught in the middle. That’s a fine conflict, but this is pretty basic stuff both from both a philosophical and a “sci-fi weirdness” perspective. Picard will almost certainly give one of his “quit being a jagoff” speeches to Soji, and she’ll shut the shit down. And Stewart will sell the hell out of it, and it’ll probably be fine, but “don’t murder people out of fear” is pretty simplistic for a season-long arc. Also, in a 42-minute episode, it’s not as big a deal if the guest stars are a bit two-dimensional.
But at 10 episodes, it’s a problem that there’s only one real character on the synth side (who just got there), half of one on the Romulan side, one cartoon supervillain each, and a bunch of nameless canon fodder who no will miss.
It’s somewhere in the middle. AVClub is being unreasonably harsh, it’s a fine enjoyable show, but it has some issues and could be much better. The problems that AVClub cites are legitimate, but they come down on them like a ton of bricks.
I’d say it’s not great, but it is good. And probably will be more enjoyable as a binged show, as you won’t take too long to nitpick the problems if you can go straight to the next one. It’s a solid “B” for me with a few episodes that rise above that (and maybe one or two below that.)
Without the warm nostalgia feelings I’d likely be harsher, though, I’m sure.
The reviewer routinely compares the show to his expectations and finds the show doesn’t meet them. If you have different expectations for the show, you will have a different experience.This episode in particular has pretty jagged storytelling, yes. The synths aren’t just naïve, they’re kind of dumb. And some startling deus ex machina.But the reviewer seems to be missing a lot of character and story details in his complaints as well. (I’m trying to be vague to avoid spoilers, just in case) Elnor and Picard have a very emotional bond, and Elnor put his life at great risk to protect the escape. Seven of Nine saved Elnor and her return saved them again. The reactions felt earned to me.I’m really enjoying the show. It’s quite entertaining.
he’s just being harsh. This episode are the majectic, heartfelt, clichéd gorgeousness that you’d expect from a Trek 2 part finale. It was good.
It’s kind of a confusing mess, and I love Star Trek. Watch it because, why not? It’s not good, but most TV isn’t good. At least it’s got Patrick Stewart in it.
Finally saw this episode yesterday.Total shit. Series: total shit. I’ll still watch EP 10 this week… but it’ll be shit. Totally.
I REALLY hate how they took Mass Effect story-line and transposed it here.
For one thing, Trek should be BETTER than that because Gene Roddenberry Federation is exactly based on the premise that Humanity TRANSCENDED current problems and limitations (which it initially did) and Gene (among other people) understood that environment creates behaviour (you are NOT born to behave in a specific manner).
Also, the ME storyline never made sense to begin with… beginning with the assumption that organic life with ‘inevitably’ want to annihilate AI (or vice versa) due to inherent differences or because AI doesn’t ‘need’ organics or that we would fear it too much.
Rubbish.
This is supposition at most… has 0 credibility to it and I’m TIRED of scifi shows degrading AI and technological advancement like this.
As I said, Trek is supposed to be better than this.
But no, the writers basically took Mass Effect rubbish and put it on here.
The only possible ‘redeeming quality’ I could see here is Picard himself proving that organics wanting to annihilate AI or vice verse is utter rubbish/moronic notion.
And if this ‘confederation of AI’s’ actually is what it is, why the heck does it even need to annihilate non-synthetic life? The universe is incredibly big. The Federation itself is BASED on embracing different cultures (no matter what they might be) and trying to COOPERATE and share with each other.
Fear, prejudice and similar stupidities arise due to LACK of exposure to relevant general education, critical thinking and problem solving. An AI (or sufficiently educated human/organic for that matter) would understand better and seek a BETTER way of dealing with things.
The Federation alone is supposed to be full of diverse alien cultures, all of which would be exposed to relevant general education, critical thinking and problem solving… in short, they wouldn’t stand for this ridiculous assumption that you need to destroy AI just because it doesn’t need you (nor would an AI have any need to destroy non-synthetic life).
This scifi trope is TIRED OUT. I’m sick of uneducated people shoving it down everyone’s throats and selling it as a viable story.
Calm the fuck down unless you are a literal sentient robot
I didn’t play ME and I just learned about this, but it fits.New Trek rips of every modern day SciFi that is successful and unsuccessfully tries to make it Star Trek by throwing in as many references as possible.
Not only is it a beyond-tired trope (as I said regarding an earlier episode, it’s a trope that was recognised as exhausted by SF writers as early as the 1930s), it’s a fundamentally bigoted one.This idea – that the slave races (‘robot’ literally meaning ‘slave’) will inevitably rise up en masse to destroy their rightful masters, and the master race will inevitably reject, oppress and attempt to destroy their slave-children (and won’t even consider them real people), and more generally the idea that differences of race and nation are fundamental, universal, essential, outweigh culture and reason, and inevitably lead to violent conflict – arose as a reflection of the racial and national anxieties in the 19th and 20th centuries (given its specific robot-vs-real-person version due to that era’s fear of modernity), in the era of the development of nationalism.It’s a bad sign for our society that this nationalist worldview seems to be creeping back into our fiction.
Well, it’s creeping back in real life too. The show is commenting on that.
I never understood why the synth creators are so awed by an Android being human like, and not be awed at all the actual living life around them that bootstrapped themselves through millennia into being live.
You reminded me of Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos where the ultimate end goal with AI was to lure out “god” and return empathy to the cosmos by killing trillions. Excellent concept if not perfectly executed. It shows some nuance in the concept of the “evil AI”.
It makes no sense.
Trek has an opportunity to mash this ‘AI is going to inevitably kill us all, or we will destroy AI because we fear it/don’t understand it’ nonsense into oblivion once and for all.
Returning empathy to cosmos by killing trillions?
How does that make any sense whatsoever? That’s no way to achieve empathy… its a path to mass murder. You learn nothing by doing that… you just end up repeating the same old mistakes over and over again.
‘Evil AI’ is nonsense and it shouldn’t exist in Scifi anymore.
To be fair it has been a decade since I have read the books and there is a lot more to it than I went into. A lot. Those books are a lot.
Evil AI is at the center of half of Sci-Fi for good reason: most people don’t like technology , or Others, and are afraid of it. Heck, most technology leaders have all warned about the dangers of AI. It’s not nonsense. Picard seems to be following in the footsteps of Dune and the Butlerian Jihad.
How do you “return empathy by killing trillions?” That seems like a pretty fundamental non sequitur.
Trek writers have always had a problem understanding how big space and even planets are. Remember the movie that was all about fighting over a few square miles on a planet that magically heals people no matter where you are on it?
Pretty much.
But the premise behind it was that people didn’t want to live in a Briar Patch… and the Son’a had a personal grudge against the Ba’ku (who basically disagreed with the Son’a and told them to leave if they don’t want to be there).
Oh but what didn’t make sense about ‘Insurrection’ was the premise that ‘the best scientific minds in the Federation studied the metaphasic radiation and couldn’t crack it’’.
You’re telling me with subspace based sensors that have a ridiculous spectrum and are accurate to the subatomic level could not give you information on what about metaphasic radiation and the planet itself regenerates people?
Or how about the fact we knew already that stem-cells and nanotechnology (both of which the Federation has) can be used to reverse ageing in real life (nevermind with the advanced technology the Federation has).
This sloppy story-telling is down to writers who are not educated in science, technology or other relevant matters to tell stories set within the stage of their own making.
They don’t have “a problem understanding” that. It just isn’t terribly important at all to Star Trek, where planets are essentially backwater burbs and creepy canyons the wagon train visits each week (or each movie release). Star Trek is a show about contemporary society on Earth that uses a futuristic, outer-space setting to tell allegorical stories about, well, us. It’s almost never “hard” science fiction that tries to predict where science will take us. Star Trek science is essentially metaphor, and its technology is essentially magic.Consumer electronics companies have been inspired by that, trying to make their products seem like magic too, like a Star Trek prop department, far more concerned with neat-looking shells than what might possibly be going on inside them. Making them work isn’t someplace Star Trek can help them. A “subspace transceiver” is a thing that doesn’t exist, assembled from words that sound like radio equipment, communicating through a completely fictional faster-than-light dimension. None of that helped today’s mobile devices work, which mostly rely on a crowded network of ground-bound machines helped along by satellites orbiting very close by.
Fans who demand hard science from Star Trek are baffling to me. The shows’ and movies’ science consultants are there to answer questions when they’re asked and to make certain parts feel or seem more authentic to a non-scientist audience as the writers’ room, the director and the show-runners feel necessary, not to co-write the scripts and earn residuals. I’m not defending that, but it’s how it’s always worked and it’s not gonna change. Little chunks of real (or real-sounding) science here and there among a bunch of “soft”, allegorical science fiction is the only formula Star Trek’s ever had, let alone the only formula that’s ever “worked” for it. Watching Star Trek and genuinely seething over its bad science is a purely optional exercise in superfluous, self-imposed stress.
There are plenty of Star Trek stories that do not hold up for more than five minutes, plenty of episodes that make little to no sense. But that was 45 minutes, and next week there would be something else entirely. Picard is so disappointing, because it keeps coming back every week to a storyline that as, bit by bit, it’s revealed it becomes less and less interesting and more nonsensical.At this point I’m wondering what the point even was of bringing Michael Chabon on board, because he seems to have contributed very little beyond the edges and it resembles Discovery more than anything else.
He’s got writing credits on half the episodes and is a co-creator. How do you know he didn’t “contribute anything”? His contributions just happened to be shit.
I mean that bringing a noted novelist on board looked like an intention to add a little more depth to the show, making him showrunner even seemed like a signal that he would have some creative freedom.
Instead for the most part the show is pretty much identical to Discovery in terms of tone and lack of thinking. Chabon isn’t flawless, and he’s never been a showrunner before, but the gap in quality between this and his writing for novels like Gentlemen of the Road, or The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is huge.
You’d think that one of the super advanced god aliens they’ve met would have warned them about the synthpocalypse.You’d think the Prophets would send someone a vision warning them of a synth war in the future.Heck, Discovery season 2 had an ancient Sphere alien with data gathered over hundreds of thousands of years all over the galaxy. You’d think they’d notice a pattern of civiliations being wiped out by synths.
About Discovery… see, it never made any sense on how Federation AI designed to find a peaceful solution or minimise needless losses of life came up with the idea of exterminating everyone.
It was never explained nor did ‘Control’ offer any viable explanation. You could see the writers ignorance seeping in.
Also why would it have needed Sphere data? An AI from Federation database alone (comprised of dozens of alien cultures) would have a ridiculous head start on how to extrapolate on fundamental inner workings of the universe… and it already had the ability to accurately predict certain events… so why does it need Sphere data when it could acquire same or more knowledge in more time?
And, as for the ‘god-like’ aliens showing Federation the problems with AI… maybe they thought the Federation (given what its based on) would be able to avoid such issues.
Or more to the point, it wasn’t until real-life ‘writers’ started meddling into things and tried making AI a crucial questioning point because we are reaching a stage in our development where AI is progressing exponentially (science and technology evolve exponentially anyway).
But this question of whether AI is dangerous to begin with is flawed as its based on an assumption without merit.
Also, it simply DOESN’T WORK in Trek. Perhaps for a civilisation OTHER than the Federation, but not the Federation itself.
Its as if the writers have this bias against the Federation and what its based on to intentionally try to make up ridiculous reasons to present it as ‘unviable’ or to ‘prove a point’ (one that makes no sense).
Picard actually explains the whole Control wiping out life situation. The Sphere data wants to be preserved, that’s why Discovery’s computer wouldn’t let the ship self destruct or it be scuttled by photon torpedo. It has strong self-preservation instincts. Had Control gained that information then Control would be filled with the same kind of self-preservation. Given it would only be a matter of time before Control would find Admonition once Control found that you can be assured that it would summon the synth protectors to preserve the sphere data. Plus the modified probe attacking Pike’s shuttle in Discovery season 2 episode “Light and Shadows” had tentacles that look awfully similar to the mechanical tentacles we see for next weeks episode of Picard. What this is setting up is is Picard is going to get the “golem” that was built for Soong and being in a synthetic body with a human mind he’s going to talk the destroyers down and look for a peaceful solution.
Maybe Picard being in a android body can be the bridge between carbon life and manufactured life, like Vision and V’ger transcend their human and machine built origins.
Don’t forget that the xB’s still see him as Locutus as well. That Chekov’s gun is cocked and ready to fire. So the Borg will probably have a role to play in that too. Admiral Picard will become Ambassador to both Synthetic Lifeforms and ex-borg members and fight for their rights to exist as free lifeforms. As another heroic leader once said “Freedom is the right of all Sentient Beings”
I guess none of those visionaries watched BSG.
I thought Sutra’s “interpretation” of the Admonition was a transparently self-serving lie, much as the Zhat Vash’s interpretation was.
My guess is both the Romulans and Sutra have fundamentally misread the Admonition in different ways.
Mass Effect’s “the technology will always fight the organics” plot was what the Reapers believed but not necessarily what the games believed. You could play the game and decide that it didn’t make sense.
Picard doesn’t totally rip off Mass Effect.In Mass Effect, you at least care about your rag-tag band of characters who try to save the world.Picard wouldn’t be saved by having a nice get-together party extra DLC to assuage fans.
I honestly can’t believe the terrible mystery everyone was protecting all season was: Mass Effect 3 ending, but somehow executed worse. Garrus Vakarian was at least a more convincing character than anyone on Picard’s crew. In the game the 3 final acts available are:Destroy: Eradicate all synthetic life.Control: Surrender human form and become AI god.
Synthesis: Synthetics and organics are fused together by space magic.I’ll watch the finale just to see if Shephard Picard is presented the same terrible options.
Let’s face it though, Roddenberry’s “vision” was unsustainable and the franchise has been poking cracks in it from DS9 on, if not The Drumhead. And I’m skeptical that anyone working on this show has ever even heard of Mass Effect.
The storyline is hardly unique to Mass Effect. Hell, Hitchhiker’s hit the same notes with Krikkit.
I’m still holding out hope that it’s not a Skynet/Reaper scenario. Sutra is intentionally misinterpreting the message. The super synths are not malevolent but Sutra is planning to use them like how Lore used the Crystalline Entity.I really really hope that the organic vs. machine idea is a misdirect. Because the idea is just too small to be such a big deal in the Trek universe.We already know that there are godlike aliens in the Trek universe that evolved from “lesser” forms so we know for a fact that organic-synth conflict is not inevitable. Unless the Douwd, Organians, Metrons, Cytherians, etc. just complete anomalies that never developed any AI? And they never bothered to warn any of the less advanced races of the impending synthpocalypse? None of the organics that evolved into energy beings bothered helping other organics avoid it? Were the Organians and Metrons just f’ing with Kirk when they implied that humanity can advance to their level thousands of years in the future?Not to mention how there are non-godlike organics with extraordinary abilities. The Founders are basically immortal, they can shapeshift, they can survive extreme conditions, they are in many ways far superior to synthetics. There’s also Species 8472, incredibly advanced and uses completely organic technology.Plus the Federation has already dealt with a super AI with godlike powers, V’Ger. V’Ger was given immense powers by a race of machines. It could easily wipe out entire fleets and planets. But its goal was to find its creator and when it merged with Decker, it achieved a new level of existence.
Well, there is one more episode to reveal any sort of twist. So far, the Borg are just “there” but they represent a hybrid of synthetic and organic life so they still need to fit in to the overall story somehow besides just conveniently having a Cube for defending the planet. Plus Commodore Oh. I wonder if she has a long ago past with one Section 31 member named Georgiou. Anyway, as you brought up the Trek universe has so many “advanced” lifeforms, it’s hard to keep up on all of it. This has to be where Picard gets his mojo back and saves the day. So far there have been fleeting moments but he’s still nowhere near the stature he once was.
Dr. Jurati is going to mind-upload Picard to that “golem” intended for Soong and Picard is going to Picard speech the super synthetics down from wiping out all life. Since he’ll have robot body instead of a meat body they’ll treat him like one of thier own.
Hey, what if someone who enjoyed this show did the recaps instead? Last week was great; these pans are getting tedious.
That’s not how reviews work.
What if Alton Soong is Lore in a new body? He was deactivated and dismantled at the end of “Decent pt. II” in TNG, so his body would have presumably ended up with Agnes and Maddox as B-4’s did. Lore being behind some of this would explain the evil vibes (and sort of TNG-era skin tone) from Sutra.
His name is Alton Inigo Soong, or “A.I. Soong,” so I like this theory a lot.
Or, what if he’s somehow related to Alton Brown?OK, that’s a long shot but still….
I mean, I posted mine on throwing a dart at a board based on Zack’s review, so it’s possible. I’ve mostly just thought of Lore’s “end” as a plothole, so I’d love it if this series addressed it. Seriously… they just stuck one of the best recurring TNG villains in storage?
It’s not a “plothole” just because they never brought up something again. Lore had a definitive ending. Bringing him back now or as a “twist” reveal would be yet another major misstep by this series.So, of course, it’s going to happen.
This is a fair point, but it’s why I said I “mostly just thought of Lore’s ‘end’ as a plothole”— I always thought it was a lame conclusion for one Star Trek’s best villains. And if that was an artistic choice for the end of the character’s arc, fine, but it always struck me as the writers leaving themselves an out if they wanted to bring Lore back for one of the movies.I think bringing him back during this show might well be a misstep, but damn, I love me some Lore.
Lore was never “a great villain.” He was in exactly one good episode of TNG – “Brothers.” Datalore was lousy, as was the Descent 2 parter.The evil twin trope was musty and outdated even in 87. Let’s just leave the character be.
That, I think, remains a “you” opinion. Lore is fun.
I only speak for myself. Like what you like!
The first part of Descent was great. But like all TNG two parters except BOBW and Gambit, it fell completely apart in the second half.
You’re right. The first part was actually pretty good, but when Lore showed up, it totally jumped. “The sons of Soong have joined together”?? BLEH!But that scene with the Borg tempting Data in the holding cell – legit creepy!
Also, props on the Alton Brown joke. Failed to comment on that.
Or Inigo Montoya!
Alton Soong is 100% Lore.The line about how ‘Soong HAD me, but he BUILT Data. A fact he never let me forget’ and the way he delivered it is ALL Lore. Same bitterness and jealousy wrapped in wry humour.And how broadly he plays everything else? Exactly how Lore acted when he was pretending to be good.
You misspelled “exactly the way Brent Spiner acts when he’s playing anyone other than Data.”
I was considering this too. Good catch. Sutra def has a Lore vibe to her and him being AI Soong would totally make sense.
Oh shit! They’re dropping hints now:
Clever. Hope that’s the case. It would explain why Sutra is a bit of a psychopath, if Lore raised and programmed her.
I’ll admit it never occurred to me that Soong would be anything other than what he says he is. It was a little jarring to suddenly have a Soong Jr., but hey, nobody ever said the elder Soong didn’t have a son. Especially since we know he was married. Anyway, if it is Lore, his behavior here would be pretty inconsistent with his previous portrayal, where he was never shown to care about anything other than power and his own survival. Besides, what would Lore need mind transfer for?
Well, when I first floated this theory I was just kinda shooting from the hip and joking, but now I think I’ve half-talked myself into it. That said, I can’t figure out how the mind transfer would fit into a Lore plan. The rest of it–get an advanced race to wipe out all organic life–seems like a pretty standard power/revenge plot for Lore… revenge on Picard for always foiling his plans, and besmirch Data’s memory, etc.
I haven’t watched this yet, but I’m assuming from the tone of the previous episodes’ reviews and the actual quality of the episodes, that this is a pretty good episode.
It actually was less good than others. There are some substantial problems. An android doing a Vulcan mind meld IS a leap too far. And Seven and the Cube seem wasted, but its a 2 parter so that might work out ok.
There is precedent for the mindmeld. Data was able to do a Vulcan Neck Pinch in the Reunification episode when it had been established that humans could not do the VNP. It’s not a big leap that synths would not be able to learn to do things that only Vulcans can do.Troi was able to sense emotions from Soji (and even from Lal on TNG if I’m not mistaken). It’s no big leap that these new synths’ brains are not so much more developed than Data that they would be able to do a mindmeld with another human. We even had a TNG episode where W. Morgan Shepherd (?) had his entire consciousness downloaded into Data’s brain.
I still think its a leap too far, without extra support like a throwaway line from Soong exclaiming his surprise that it was possible, too.A vulcan neck pinch is a specific, precise, physical act. The mind meld is….psychic magic fuckery? It is quite different to my mind.
They’ve said in previous Trek that the mindmeld is caused by applying pressure to various pressure points on the face, so that part could be duplicated by an android. As for the psychic parts, these synths are very advanced from earlier synths (like Data), with brains that produce actual emotions that Troi can sense just like normal human emotions. The idea that these advanced synths could have an advanced artificial mind that could exhibit actual psychic abilities like Vulcans is not that far fetched in the Trek universe.
Nope, worst episode of the season.
If you meant “worst of the good episodes” then I’d agree with you.
I haven’t watched this yet, but I’m assuming from the tone of the previous episodes’ reviews and the actual quality of the episodes, that this is a pretty good episode.
Don’t be a pass-agg brat. Just say what you mean, show some courage.
And I was right.
‘Raffi says “I love you.” What? When? Why?’This did not surprise me, and I’m not sure why it did Zach. She’s been portrayed this entirely series as a very empathetic and emotional person, sometimes to her detriment. And she spent a lot of time working with Picard on the Romulan evacuation. She probably bonded with Picard just like the Enterprise crew did, and we’ve seen hints of that in their interactions. I’m sure they all love Picard, too (and in Beverly’s case, romantically as well). So, I guess if Zach’s never told his friends he loves them, I feel bad for him. If he thought it was meant to be romantic… maybe he’s bad at watching TV? There’s never been any suggestion of that.
The point of the seen was for Picard, for the first time onscreen, to show some emotion we’ve never seen from him before. He never told the Enterprise crew he loved them, and I can’t remember if he ever said it to Beverly, either. I loved that scene.
Yeah I didn’t read either of them meaning romantic/sexual love.
“…and she spent a lot of time with Picard… she probably bonded with Picard… we’ve seen hints of that…”
We have seen about 0.01% of any of that.The show’s job is to reveal to us, the viewers, what makes characters tick, what motivations they have, why they do what they do. This scene came as a surprise, and if it was written well, the surprise could have been because it was obvious that she did, and the surprise would have been that she finally told him in a pivotal moment. Instead the surprise was because the show is expecting us to fill in the blanks that this new character who has had maybe 10 minutes of genuine screen time with Picard shares this intimate closeness with Picard. The SHOW treats it as a big deal and we, as the viewers, are left scratching our heads because the show didn’t EARN that climax at all.
The sad thing is that the Raffi stuff was much more believable than the Rios/Jurati stuff, Soji/Narek stuff, or the Picard/Elnor stuff.At least we’ve been told that Raffi and Picard have a history. But I have no idea what the writers thought we were supposed to take from Rios and Jurati professing their epic love.
Yes. We can “buy” Raffi, as unearned as it is, because our minds fill in the blank on the years of (unseen) history. It’s cheap bullshit and doesn’t land, but at least it’s logical. Unlike all of the other emotional nonsense in this episode.
Look man, if you need all the dots connected for you, I dunno what to tell you other than that I get why you don’t like the show. It’s twenty years of history between getting 24 episodes a year for 7 years followed by four films. If you can’t fill in some of the blanks with your imagination based on what’s been shown, good luck. I mean the fact that she calls him “JL” alone is a huge hint considering Riker set up his new XO as prank by get him to refer to him as anything other than formally.But I disagree with everything you said about the job of the show and what it owes you.
i am astounded, much as with discovery, how many people are just determined not to like it unless it gives them the genre/nostalgia equivalent of a full body deep tissue massage. like, it isn’t therapy – that costs real money! it’s an hour of star trek. sometimes it makes me groan – just like all the other shows did when they were on! – sometimes it makes me cheer. sometimes it is derivative, sometimes it is inspired. it is a tv show set in a well established, decades-spanning popular mythology. it is not promising catharsis, perfection, or hand-holding these nerd bros into every nook and cranny of its concepts. it is just an hour of star trek, and a pretty damn good one, and i like it.
Yeah, that’s pretty much how I feel about all the negativity about this show. I couldn’t get into Discovery, but I just figured it wasn’t for me. I couldnt’ get into Enterprise either, and only revisited Voyager years after. Hell, the majority or TNG episodes are poor to mediocre at best—-it’s just the two dozen or so that are really good that make the rest worth while.
When you say things like the majority of TNG episodes are mediocre, perhaps that reveals the difference (I personally am curious to study how anyone could think this was a truly good show, but not interested in arguing!) —- I agree there were some episodes that were bad, but for me that’s not the point. I don’t look at individual stories and say “this plot was excellent, that plot was unoriginal,” etc. etc. I look at the characters. It comes down to solid writing (at first) and then, after a time, actors who care enough about their roles to inject their own uniqueness into it (Nimoy with Spock, Shatner Kirk, Bradley with Sisko, and yes Picard too). The WAY in which we got to know characters in TNG was a lot less forced. We got to know them tangentially, incidentally, in small ways, during bad episodes. I think the problem with Picard is the limited episodes and the pacing (as well as bad writing which relies far too heavily on the audience filling in stereotypes). With all these things in play, each “getting to know you” moment for each character feels forced, heavy handed, obvious, clunky. It’s never natural or organic. You (or at least I, ant the view evidently) can feel, more than the characters speaking for themselves, the writers going “yeah we’ll slot this in over here, and we’ll make them a couple, and we’ll make this emotional payoff happen right here!” it just all feels like a calculated logical check list, sans soul, sans spontaneity. Sometimes you need a few boring episodes like we had in TNG or the first few seasons of DS9. The interstitia is important. Not everything has to be a huge detonating bomb of emotion and glitter as these writers and JJ Abrams seem to think… Final thought I’ll leave you with, do you remember that beautiful ending of Chimera where Odo turns himself into golden rain and basks Kira in his light? Now THAT was a beautiful “I love you,” moment (and it took seven years/seasons to be earned, by the way). Thanks for reading, Yusuf Misdaq
You make many brilliant points. Thank you for replying.I very much agree that TNG works because of the characters, and it is why I watched all of those—as I call them—“mediocre” episodes. There are so many lovely moments even in what I would call “bad” episodes.But that’s why I’m struggling to understand the criticisms of this show. It’s not the old show, but we do have all of the history with Picard and his associated character, and that’s accounted for. And as for the new characters, despite the fact that we don’t have many episodes—and I think this is where we disagree—I do think we’ve had a lot of nice character moments. I think Rafi’s arc has worked. I’m less confident that Juradi’s did, but I still loved her conversation with Soji where she got to see her life’s work embodied. Rios also didn’t get a lot of screen time, but I still enjoyed the conversation between his five “personalities.”The bottom line is this is not an episodic series with 24 episodes to fill. And in the original TNG, the reason those episodes were like that, and why they had to dole out information about the characters discreetly, was because of mandate. This show is serialized, and so I don’t blame the writers for, well, writing a serialized show. I don’t totally understand your comments in that regard as far as wrtiers “slotting” things—they’re telling a story.Re: DS9. I loved DS9 when it was on, and I think they have a lot of great individual episodes with really interesting moral and ethical questions. They probably have a much higher ratio of good/great episodes to mediocre episodes than TNG. But if I can be honest without getting dragged here? I never finished it. I was finishing high school and going to college when it was wrapping up, and just lost track. I’ve never seen the final season when Jadzia Dax was replaced by… another Dax, I think? So I can’t speak to your comments there. But since I’m going to be stuck indoors for the foreseeable future, if there’s a cheat sheet to the Dominion storyline that I could binge, I’m def interested in that.Cheers,TAFL
exactly. i like trek, i always have to make some allowances for what i don’t like mixed in with what i do, and that’s the same with the new shows. same as it ever was.
Totally how I feel.Killer user name, BTW. The 2099 reference is strong. Give Miguel O’Hara a movie.
It really wasn’t a surprise at all. I don’t think you’ve been paying attention.
It worked for me. In the flashbacks, they were obviously extremely close during the time of the Romulan evacuation. He was her mentor. Maybe her lover, but not necessarily. And when you learn someone you care for has a terminal diagnosis, you tell them you love them.
Yep. I doubt there was ever a romantic relationship—Picard is pretty emotionally stunted and they have the age gap—but otherwise totally agree.Also–and I didn’t point this out earlier because I didn’t think of it–but that scene also allowed Rafi to get over her anger at Picard for quitting Starfleet and abandoning her in that regard. It helps close her arc for the season since we’re almost done.
I understood what they were trying to do–it was clearly about Picard getting over his emotional constipation and telling the people he cares about how he feels about them–but it did feel weirdly off. I think a couple more strong scenes between the two of them over the course of the show would have helped; as it is, I think this is the first one-on-one conversation they’ve had in what, four, five episodes? Also, did Picard ever even apologize or try to explain why he neglected her all those years?
or if they’re going to kill him off next week and then continue forward in his memory.
They’re going to upload his mind into the Android body. Season two will have Android Picard sans Patrick Stewart.
What? SOMEONE is going to be uploaded into the android body or they wouldn’t have mentioned that that is a thing.
“Is this how you treat prisoners?”“We’ve never had prisoners”Which is why we have this emtpy room with a forecfield for a 4th wall that looks EXACTLY like every Star trek prison cell. Just in case.
So – you can kill an android by sticking a sharp object into its eye? I’m pretty sure Data would have shrugged that off… Sutra “learned how to mind meld.” Sure.
Data learned the nerv pinch by watching Spock. I’m SURE reading about melting your mind with a being that has a fundamentally different brain/mind than you is just the same thing.
I… don’t know if I want a Picard show with Picard but not Picard, i.e. android Picard as you suggest. That thought hadn’t even occurred to me, even though they did kinda hit us over the head with it, so that’s on me. Maybe if Stewart voices it? But then again, if he’s immortal, what’s the point? It seems out of character to me that Picard would make that choice—he seems at peace with the end—but it does seem like something a studio would ask for.
I really want Picard to pass away, but I could accept a second season before we do that, and I really want the final scene to be him and Q talking.
I can’t conceive of a reason for Q to come back based on what we’ve seen from this series, both in plot and tone, but I would really, really love it.
There’s no reason they can’t make the thing look exactly like Picard, and it still be Patrick Stewart.
So – you can kill an android by sticking a sharp object into its eye? I’m pretty sure Data would have shrugged that off…Soong says something about “what did you do to her eye?” and I got the impression we see a repaired version of her later, but it could be her twin.
They sure acted like she was dead… Evil synth even used “They stared killing us again” as excuse to call the robot genocide overlords.
“So – you can kill an android by sticking a sharp object into its eye? I’m pretty sure Data would have shrugged that off…”The dumbest moment in an episode entirely full of dumb moments.Data got half his face chopped off by an axe and stabbed through the back with a pole and had his head blown off in an explosion and was shot through the chest with an arrow and shrugged off all of it.
Data got half his face chopped off by an axe and stabbed through the back with a pole and had his head blown off in an explosion and was shot through the chest with an arrowThis was just before Worf got assigned anger management training.
Yet Worf was paralyzed by a falling barrel. it’s not the most ridiculous thing.
Is that a joke? Last time I checked, Worf is not an android. Having a massive, heavy barrel fall on your back could paralyze anybody.
The situation which resulted in it was absurd. No safety restraint on the barrel? Does OSHA get in the way of starship operations?
Pretty sure this is addressed in that episode. They do an investigation into why the barrel fell and they determine that one of the supports degraded and weakened. It was a very banal and mundane explanation, which was part of the episode – Worf always wanted to die in a glorious battle, not as the results of some shoddy material that caused a “workplace accident”.
“Season two will have Android Picard sans Patrick Stewart.”I will forgive every criticism I have ever made of Star Trek, and I mean EVERY GODDAMN ONE, including the Abrams era, if season 2 stars Tom Hardy as Younger Vigorous Picard.
that would be…. intersting, even though I cant see anyone react positive to going back to Nemeis… 🙂
So, I agree that killing the android lady by stabbing her eye definitely doesn’t fit with Data’s level of durability, but I have a theory as to why.Dahj and Soji, and presumably the other androids on this planet, are organic rather than purely mechanical. Maybe they’re less sturdy than Data as a result? We really don’t know…
Possible.. but Dahj and Soji certainly seemed as strong as Data if not more so. Nothing so far indicates that this batch of androids would be more vulnerable really…
I think even an “organic” would survive the loss of an eye. If you drive the weapon in deep enough it’ll hit the brain — but that butterfly brooch wasn’t that deep.
I have a feeling the tool that “fixes things” will also be used to cure Picard. You just don’t throw out a Chekhov’s Gun like that for no reason.
Also lazy and uninteresting? These reviews.
I have read all of Zach’s reviews, to the point where I consider him a cannon part of Star Trek itself. A valuable one. But I am shocked at the level to which he has been harsh on these last two episodes. Do not agree. Of course, I have also seen a great deal of stress and bad nature… and often anger… from people over the past two weeks on just about everything, and it is hard to fault anyone for any of it.
-I guess I’m glad I’m easy to please. I am enjoying this so far and think this is far from “dumb” I mean it’s not spectacular but decent enough.-I read that Chabon thinks narration like “Captain’s logs” make for bad television. That mentality says he should not to be running a Star Trek show IMO-I can see Seven of Nine starring in a Jessica Jones/Mandalorian type show where she is like a PI/Bounty Hunter roaming in the Star Trek universe, dealing with her Borg past. Hopefully she won’t be driving around in a Borg Cube but with a cool ship.
You made me laugh with “a Jessica Jones/Mandalorian type show”. Yeah, one of those kind of shows!
A morally-ambiguous protagonist in a string of episodic adventures, loosely tied together.
I honestly wish we had gotten more episodic Jessica Jones. I loved that first season, but it had real pacing problems. Instead of letting Killgrave escape multiple times for dumb reasons to pad out the second half of the season, they should have given her a few case-of-the-weeks before putting Killgrave center stage.
With the whole arc of the season now coming into full view, it’s hard not feeling like this is some very lazy writing. The show feels like a TNG two-parter stretched out through Lost-style mysterybox writing to the thinnest gruel. If you boil it down to its basics you could have a very solid story, however the way it has been presented, through a slow trickle of information, each answer has been disappointing.
If this really is just a story about robots vs organics, and scheming, evil Romulans, what a waste of Patrick Stewart this was. There was so much potential in the set up, but it’s mostly been a complete hack job.
The “elephant in the room” with all Star Trek AI stories — the fundamental problem they’ll never solve — is the mess they created in the second season of TNG, in “Elementary, My Dear Data.” That was the first time the Non-Player-Characters in the holodeck became legitimately sentient.Data (we’re constantly told) is absolutely unique — more advanced than any other artificial life form, even though he can’t use contractions and barely understands emotions; human dreams etc. There’s nothing else in the known universe anything like him: even his primitive attempts at understanding jokes; camaraderie; how to play poker etc. are incredibly unique and impressive….unless you go into any holodeck (or, according to Voyager, any ship’s sickbay) where you’ll encounter an artificial, digital life form so advanced and sophisticated that it’s literally indistinguishable from a person. “The Doctor” from Voyager was, from the very beginning; sarcastic; cultured; lovesick (eventually — once Seven showed up); effete; prissy — a well-rounded human individual. They never made the slightest effort in the writing to show him struggling to reproduce any human behavior at all. The ship on Picard has six of these flawless AIs, who have total personalities just to make them more fun (meaning, it’s not even expensive or difficult; it’s like the screen interface in a contemporary automobile). And yet everyone sits around right next to the holo-people, talking about how artificial machine intelligence is scary, impossible and forbidden.Is the difference that they’re not contained in a person-sized vessel — that there’s a server closet somewhere? So what? The rule against synths isn’t against “self-contained synths with no larger, remote apparatus;” it says no synths.They’re trying to hedge this issue, at least on this show, with the focus on tears; mucus; etc. and other stuff that nobody cares about. (As if the problem Soong struggled with was making AIs that could fool a doctor; not that had consciousness.) But that won’t solve the problem—it’s an insoluble basic inconsistency that’s been in Trek for decades. (I’d be happy to be corrected, if there’s some place where they straightened this out or even “hand-waved” it overtly.)
Early in this show, I complained about the judgment in “Measure of a Man” being overturned in the lore (or at least not explained), but someone pointed out to me that every holodeck has a group of enslaved sentient AI.Vic Fontaine even seems sad about his self-awareness of the fact.
I think it works as long as you don’t call attention to it…which this show does.Data and the Doctor can both be special snowflakes, because the tech is so different. Moriarty and Vic were both self-aware, but we don’t know if either could ever grow beyond their program. (I don’t know if that’s actually important, but trek seems to think it is)Picard should have committed and gone full-bsg: no synths, holograms, or AIs of any kind.Or, it could have made a statement about how hypocritical the synth ban was. People were panicked, so they lashed out at the easiest target even though it made no sense. We can infer that, but it feels weird since it’s the opposite of everything we’ve ever known about the Federation.So instead it just feels like the writers didn’t put much thought into it.
Vic was meant to be self-aware and “next level” in terms of tech, but not actually sentient. Moriarty was meant to be the exception. Until the Doctor, I suppose.
For Vic, we don’t know if tech-wise he was just Moriarty but with his switch set to “Good” instead of “Evil.”DS9 definitely doesn’t want us to think of Vic as alive. And he definitely knows his parameters: he’s got his world, and his job, and there are rules. But for any hologram, if you deleted the “Don’t be evil” lines of code could they become Moriarty? No idea.But that’s why it mostly works, just as long as the show doesn’t call attention to it.There’s also Minuet from the Binars episode, who was apparently so amazing that Riker still had her on his mind years later. (even though the episode isn’t able to make a case for why she’s so special)
Nah. Vic (and Minuet, for that matter, good catch) were just meant to be “enhanced” holo-characters. In her episode and in many of the Vic episodes, people reacted with shock that they were “self-aware” holograms.Because most holograms we saw were pretty dumb, with very linear and limited thinking. In “Manhunter”, Rex the bartender shrugs and says, “I guess I don’t have a last name”, as those shows were written with a very 80s idea of how AI interactivity would work. Stray even slightly from the path and the flaws/shortcomings instantly reveal themselves.But Vic and Minuet can be advanced, “smarter” holos without literally being sentient.
They address this in early episodes of Voyager. The Doctor says that his program was never meant to be used for long periods of time – only to be turned on every once in awhile for brief moments. But in normal circumstances a starship would have multiple doctors, and even if a doctor became unavailable, the ship would be able to go to the nearest starship to get a (living) replacement.It’s likely that the Doctor was the first time a replacement hologram was active for longer than a few hours, or a day. Before he gained the ability to turn himself on and off, the Doctor repeatedly complained to Janeway that after he treated someone in Sickbay, they would leave without turning him off, meaning that he would be active in Sickbay for hours with nothing to do – not something that had been intended when EMH’s had been designed.
> the writers didn’t put much thought into it.This explains pretty much everything that happens on this show. Which is astonishing given the resources you can put into making a TV show in 2020 and that one of those writers is Michael Chabon.
I do wonder what all the creators think of this season.It’s tough to believe that you could put a writers room together for “Star Trek: Mother-F***’n Picard!” and that after these 9 episodes they would honestly think that they did a good job. Going into this everyone had to know that Patrick Stewart’s return deserved something special. And the show definitely isn’t special, and it maybe isn’t awful either, but it sure is extremely, extremely mediocre.
TNG always kinda handwaved the fact that the holodeck cranks out Turing Test passing AI’s all the time, but Voyager going all-in with hologram sentience was…a big bite. Fine for it to chew on in the Delta Quadrant – probably not going to get very far back home.
Trek has generally tried on this matter, but it’s confused and doesn’t want to commit to a larger stance on it. (civil rights for holograms is a *hell* of a big bite.) I’m not surprised that AI sentience/rights is a cornerstone of this series, but I’d hoped they’d shore up the concept a bit.
At least they’re not doing it with time travel.
With the focus on Picard dying in the same episode they show an android body prepped for human mind transfer, and another season on the way, there is, what, a 100.00% chance Picard gets put in that body, right? Which itself is very similar to what they did with THE SAME ACTOR in an X-Men movie.While I still enjoyed the episode, there really are some dumb elements: – They bring down the ships onto their planet, but then just ignore the two largest ones and their occupants until they stumble upon a town? – Raffi somehow loves Picard, when her first episode showed how much she hated him, and they have barely interacted since? Okay, maybe, but this is similar to Daenerys’ turn in the end of GoT: technically possible, but only if you fill in a lot of gaps that the writers should have shown. – Why would AI that wants to seek out new AI put a message about fighting off biological enemies of AI where biological entities can find it? That seems to defeat their supposed purpose of seeking out new AI life – they are motivating its requisite creators not to create it.
– Most of what happened on the android planet was pretty dumb. They just sprint past any kind of explanation for things that absolutely need one: Soong, a man who made androids in his own likeness, had a son no one knew about who looks EXACTLY the same as him? An android can mindmeld? A small stab in the eye kills an android – they don’t have a more resilient body, or mind backup?
However, even though they did sprint past Seven’s Borg event last episode, which really, really needs to be further explored, her following them makes sense. She Borg-minded to fight the Romulans, who swiftly killed off a ton of the Borg and then ran off after Picard, so she’s not done with them.
It’s a trope in Trek (and most movies/TV) that a son will look identical to their father at the same ages. We shouldn’t read anything into this Soong looking exactly like his father than just wanting the same actor to portray both of them.No whether this Soong (Dr. A.I. Soong) is actually Lore in a new android body is another theory …
There really wasn’t much more about Seven’s “re-Borgification” to discuss. She temporarily formed a mini-collective, but all of the Borg got killed by the Romulans, so her mini-collective consisted of just her. There was no inner battle about whether to remain in that state or disconnect because what was the point of remaining a Borg if you’re not connected to any other Borg?Now if the Romulans hadn’t killed all the other Borg and they were all part of Seven’s mini-collective, then you’d have a decision that would be worth discussing – how she felt being connected to all of those minds, being in control of them, hearing all of their minds, etc.
I am really loving this show. At the same time, I honestly cannot defend its many shortcomings. Weird
It’s just fun to be back in the Trek universe; to be in the time period following TNG and the TNG movies (which Trek has been allergic to for decades for some reason) and to see these actors again. It triggers a deep Pavlovian pleasure response that interferes with our critical faculties. (I’m going through the same thing.)
That’s what I love about it. For the first time in 25 years, Star Trek is finally moving forward. No reboots, retreads, prequels. New characters, new stories.And that it is acting as a lens to current society again, asking, how did we become so small and afraid? When did we give up on our ideals?
I dunno, I don’t feel I have to defend anything. Look, people travel faster than light, that’s impossible, but I accept that no worries.I like the show, I’ve been watching Star Trek shows likely since before our reviewer was born (which is neither here nor there I guess) but if liking this show makes me not a real Trek fan* or something fine. I like the show.*Been told this, not here so much, but out there on the internets.
Had the same feeling, until it all became very dumb two or three episodes ago. The Riker and Troi episode was fine. Then came the bit where Rios already knew Soji from way ago, and then it all fell apart,
I feel exactly that way about Discovery, but for some reason only the second part of that formula applies for Picard.
You guys REALLY hate when this show has plot development.
They’re totally going to use that body that Soong is replicating to save Picard. All this talk of Mind Transfer(TM)? What better way to save a failing brain than to give him a new one?
This show is just so awful. So so awful.
this reminded me of the penultimate episodes of Discovery wherein it’s basically just a setup for the action finale, although at least this one imparted plot information and solved some mysteries. So the show made explicit what I theorized, that Agnes done was driven crazy by the vision. I have a feeling Picard will die in the finale and maybe they name the ship after him, which would be lame, although posted above the random golem reference could be he’ll get a new body. I did love how he handled his sickness though by just outright saying it. The Raffi scene was good in it’s awkwardness.
no explanation for Picard being able to convey the message of the synths in the opening scene but I get the feeling that’s part of his connection to the Borg collective that pops up every once in awhile. Solid twist that the synths, yes, they are kill crazy killbots so that message probably messes up everyone.
So I thought the credits once again spoiled a Data appearance but there was a great twist, a bit easy but whatever, that Spiner is playing Soong’s flesh and blood son. Head-canon that I am sticking to it: Arrik Soong (from Enterprise) never stopped his genetic experiments fully and while he did turn his focus to artificial lifeforms he’s tinkered with genetics and DNA enough that all of his ancestors look like him (Brent Spiner)
….how is it unearned, Elnor spent the last 3 episodes saving the crap out of people.
How would Picard know what Elnor’s been up to for the past three (or so) episodes? It’s not like they’ve been in touch.
… I mean just based on the dialogue it’s pretty clear he, Seven and Elnor had a catch up conversation.
You seriously don’t think that when Picard meets up with Seven and Elnor that they don’t tell him what happened on the cube after he and Soji left? We know this conversation happened – he knows that Hugh is dead.
The trip to the Borg ship in this episode was very weirdly edited.They show up by apparently just walking onto a soundstage? They assume everyone’s dead for some reason…except they’re not. Hey, it’s Seven and Elenor. Rios and Raffi use sensors to see 218 warbirds. Soji picks up her old photo. And then there’s a deamy edit and suddenly it’s inspirational speech time?I guess they were crunched for time? But since presumably the cube will play a surprise roll in the finale they could have skipped it all here and done the big reunions next week.
Agreed; that was incredibly clumsy. Thanks for pointing it out — the actors somehow finessed it along so I didn’t quite notice (and Jeri Ryan was being so charismatic that I was basically buying anything they showed). But it makes no sense.
Zack called it a “quick visit” but that really doesn’t do justice to how random and slapped together it is.
A lot of the episode was weirdly edited. There were so many jump cuts in Picard’s speech I feel like they had to cobble together several takes.
I thought my streaming had skipped or something, but nope, just the way they edited this mess. There were several moments in episode 9 that seemed very amateur…. unacceptable, I mean this is the first part of the freakin season finale, ugh
Director: Akiva Goldsman. There’s why.
In the season 1 finale of Discovery (also directed by Goldsman) there’s a scene where everyone is getting medals. But it’s intercut with an inspirational speech by Burnham, and the blocking is super weird so you can’t tell who is facing whom, and the camera is spinning, and it’s really unclear if it’s supposed to be a dream, or a montage, or if it’s actually happening…It sticks in my mind because it was so showy, and also so inept. And this episode did remind me of that.
More like crunched for budget. Sets and CGI cost money, walking onto a sound stage doesn’t. It’s not like this is Season 8 of Game of Thrones.
We’ve just spent 8 episodes on a borg ship, so they already have the physical and digital sets, and plenty of costumes.The act of walking up to a borg cube should be a really easy “WOW!” moment. Just throw the actors infront of a greenscreen, and have them look up, and up, and up. That should be a slamdunk, but instead the show did a distant establishing shot which was pretty meh…the matte paintings from TNG were more impressive.I’ll just never understand how this show can spend forever rehashing boring stuff, and then absolutely rushes through other stuff.
Yeah the editing was horrible on this one.
I really liked everything up to this point, but this episode felt like it was from a different show. As soon as they got to the planet it’s like they were transported into one of those early TNG epsiodes (complete with bad dialogue). A grade of C- might be too kind.
This whole season has been disappointing. It’s been one MacGuffin after gruesome death after New MacGuffin after Nostalgia Trip after another.
“Oh, no! Narek killed one of our androids (while malnourished/tired/injured), and now he’s literally running away towards the Borg cube, which is several kilometres away! It’s too bad there’s no artificial beings here who don’t get tired or they could EASILY run after him and catch him – oh well.”
This episode in a nutshell.
You really think that was Narek and not Sutra killing one of her own to get everyone on board?
Well obviously Sutra didn’t want that. He has to be loose to be a credible threat.
As LoreKeeper mentioned, Sutra wanted Narek to get away. So why would she send any synths after him? This is right there in the episode.
The standard reply to any criticism of Discovery and Picard seems to be “Oh, you’re just mad cause it’s different”.Uh no, I’m mad because it’s garbage. These web shows are built in the same model as those clickbait articles where you have to click Next 37 times to see what’s in the basement of that mysterious cabin they showed you in the picture. Then it turns out to be old paint cans and a broken bottle.I loved the first episode of Picard. There was so much promise. But everything since then has been filler and cheap action. They throw out one semi-beloved classic character after another, just to kill them for cheap shock value. Even the Borg cube and 7 of 9 are contributing nothing to the plot. And seriously? Soong has a son, and it’s like “whatever”? I’m not even going to care if that sword fighter guy dies, because he’s only had like 10 minutes of character development. The rest of the cast are borderline at best. Also, did anyone else think it was weird when Picard basically told Soji that him rescuing her was really all about him needing something to do?I could keep ranting but there’s just too much to say. I’m pretty much disowning half of this as non-canon.
TNG had the “Soong has a wife” thing so why is it so unbelievable that we now have “Soong has a son”. Besides, as others have discussed here, it’s possible this Soong is actually Lore – not sure if this is true but the finale will tell us.“did anyone else think it was weird when Picard basically told Soji that him rescuing her was really all about him needing something to do?” This entire season has been about Picard realizing that since leaving Starfleet he had not been “living”. This has been the theme of the entire season.
Since everyone’s talking about if Picard sucks or not, I’ll chime in, why not. Zack’s got fair criticisms of the show, but if you’re an old TNG fan like me all the fanservice, additional grittiness, and old friends when they eventually show up do make for some lovely feels. It’s definitely got some weak writing and plotting and a lot of the “moments” seem unearned. So to me it doesn’t quite gel into what I wanted it to be, it’s more like a collection of different things I like for different reasons loosely tied together. So, I’m enjoying it and I think anyone that liked TNG should at least give it a try. The thing I keep thinking is “I wish they had done this show but for DS9 instead of TNG”Anyway, seriously looking forward to The Orville coming back, Disco sucks, see you nerds around.
The main problem with this show is how slow it is, and sometimes things the audience has figured out don’t get sorted out by the characters until much later, meaning we’re just waiting for them to catch up.
Also, yeah, Mass Effect. It’s just Mass Effect now.
Welcome, Zack! At long last, it only took 9 episodes, but you have seen the light! It was indeed always a dumb show, but I will not judge your late revelation, as I too love(d?) Star Trek with all my heart. The ONLY hope now for this Kurtzman/Goldsman shitshow is Lower Decks. I’m betting that Section 31 is going to be dumber (and even more dismissive of the fundamental Trek ethos) than either Discovery or Picard. Huzzah!
Did anyone get the sense they’re teeing up a Seven of Nine/Elnor Fenris Rangers spin-off? Seven and Elnor flying around the Alpha Quadrant in their broke-ass Borg cube, helping people who have no one else to help them.
The more I think about it, the more I’m with Zack.What do those synths do all day? The planet was basically the one from Justice, except with slightly more modest outfits, a bit more color, and less Wesley.Maybe we’ll take a deep dive into android culture, and maybe it will be more interesting? When scifi is working well it should be able to imply alienness through a few lines of dialogue and some cool props, but this just seemed like a Big Brother house.
So what exactly did Sutra learn in her mind-meld? Anything? None of the synths seemed particularly surprised by the revelation there’s aliens synths out there, or that these aliens hid a secret telepathic message for them to find.I get they only have 45 minutes here, but this had the urgency of Indiana Jones discovery the holy grail, then shrugging his shoulders and leaving.
So Picard isn’t the Star Trek you remember, this is no good. Suddenly, here’s a small civilization filled with a ton of old school Star Trek tropes, and suddenly that’s not good either?Is Picard perfect? Hell no! Is it a good show? Absolutely! Is it good Trek? That’s debatable. Personally, I think it is. Zack obviously doesn’t, but he doesn’t seem to know why, which makes for some incredibly frustrating and tripe reviews.
Seven of Nine had NO BUSINESS BEING IN THIS SHOW WHATSOEVER.I’ve never seen a more pointless, contrived “cameo” in fiction in a very, very long time.If they were going to jam in characters just for fan service, gee, how about someone with an actual connection to Picard? Or at least someone who had a legit function in the story.The Seven material is probably the worst stuff here. And that’s saying a lot.
I’m guessing her appearance here is to test the character for her own series. She shares a Borg past with Picard so there is connection there. The problem is the Borg are just “there” without any context even though they represent a hybrid of synths and organics which you would think might be an important point. Maybe the season finale puts that all together.
I’m okay with it. I’ve waited 20 years to see Seven of Nine meet Locutus of Borg.
While Seven has no previous relationship with Picard, she probably has the biggest connection of any other Trek character – they were both assimilated by the Borg and did terrible things as part of the collective, and were then freed from the Collective and struggled to regain their humanity. If you don’t think having the two of them meeting and discussing that is worth having in a series where the Borg are a plot point, then I don’t know what else to say.
When Picard was in the med bay and the other characters learned about his diagnosis, there was a moment when I thought they were going to reveal that this was a Picard android. That would make the show interesting.
By the end he’ll transfer his mind into that “golem” thing. Or, it may be done without his knowledge — he’s mortally injured and Raffi and Agnes make the decision, but it’ll be done.
zack needs to back the eff off this show.
“I cannot stress this enough: this is the plot of Mass Effect 3.”There are a lot of stupid human beings who do not know the plot of Mass Effect, I’m alarmed to discover.The LORE, not the plot of the game, but the lore of the universe is that people create synthetic life and then synthetic life inevitably turns against them and they get wiped out. The AI behind the Reapers is created to solve this problem, and the Reapers conclude life must be culled before it can wipe itself out, until the problem can be solved permanently somehow(kinda dumb on that point).The GAME deals with that cycle of culling life to protect it from self annihilation, the Reapers don’t care about synthetic life and exterminate it all the same, they don’t preserve it like less intelligent organic life.There are a lot of incredibly stupid people saying Picard is the same, it is not, at all. The only similarity is that synthetic life is destined to war with organic life and there’s some higher life waiting in the wings to swoop in, which is not exactly an original idea, and has to be made vague to connect.That said, I’m not in love with this plot because there appears to be no way to wrap this up, even if the writer’s sudden hard turn against the series is unwarranted and their total misrepresentation of Mass Effect utterly false.
Where does Captain Crandall fit into the wider story? I suspected s/he was a vehicle to introduce Q into the series, and possibly frame the Continuum as those who brought together the 8 suns. If Crandall is now forgotten, it was the laziest of plot devices to reveal the location of Soji’s world (which at least the Romulans have been seeking since the dawn of recent time).Going back to Q, given his interest in humanity and Picard in particular, wouldn’t he intervene here somehow? Maybe it’s not too late.
Regarding AI Soong, he is either Lore or Lore’s programming was based on him.Finally, I can’t see how the android body is going to be a receptacle for Picard’s mind. That implies Stewart would not play Picard in season 2 and Stewart is Picard. Better to kill off the old man altogether, although I trust (and hope) Stewart will play Picard throughout the seasons.
What’s all this Mass Effect stuff when it’s flagrantly the Butlerian Jihad from ‘Dune’ (and the rumbling-away-in-the-background-but-never-quite-coming-into-focus driver of the much of the action in Frank Herbert’s last few sequels)?
“In case it wasn’t clear in the review (and it probably wasn’t), when Sutra mind melds (sigh) with Agnes, she discovers that the vision the Romulans were afraid of was actually a promise from some mysterious other species that they’d return to protect synthetic life when the inevitable conflict between synths and organic life arrived. I cannot stress this enough: this is the plot of Mass Effect 3.”Wasn’t this also the season closer of The Orville 2 years ago?
So Picard isn’t the Star Trek you remember, this is no good. Suddenly, here’s a small civilization filled with a ton of old school Star Trek tropes, and suddenly that’s not good either?Is Picard perfect? Hell no! Is it a good show? Absolutely! Is it good Trek? That’s debatable. Personally, I think it is. Zack obviously doesn’t, but he doesn’t seem to know why, which makes for some incredibly frustrating and tripe reviews.
Yeah there may have been a bunch of dumb in this episode but I feel like the space orchids deserve a bit more love, just as a concept.
That was great! The show should be more like that.
..calling it Chekovs gun in a star trek show is confusing , but having a terminally ill character , and a mind transferable new body ( that no doubt will look EXACTLY like that character once they’re in it) seems a bit coincidental..
Yup.
Sutra’s twin sister not being called Karma was a wasted opportunity..
Sutra “learned how to mind meld.” Sure.
I facepalmed so hard at this I nearly knocked myself out.
That was like a rip cord pulling me all the way out of the show.
It was ridiculous.
There is precedence for an android learning how to do something that only Vulcans can do. Data did the Vulcan Neck Pinch in Reunification episode of TNG, something that has been established as something that humans cannot do.Troi sensed emotions from Soji (and I think from Lal in TNG) so an android brain being able to experience actual emotions and work like an organic brain is not that much of a leap.
I’m going to explain this just the one time, but pressing on specific nerve ending with enough force in order to knock someone out seems like a plausible thing to learn. (Vulcans are much stronger than humans so it would make sense if it’s something a normal human can’t do but an Android can)I would really like to know how a book can teach you how to read someones mind and manipulate it just by pressing your fingers in a correct way on someone’s face. (basically it’s something specific about Vulcan physiology that allows them to do it if they learn how to)
I’m going to explain this just the one time, but it’s been established in Trek that the VNP is not something that most non-Vulcans can do.According to Wikipedia the list of non-Vulcans that have done is short:
Data
Voyager’s holographic Doctor
Odo
Picard (apparently in Starship Mine but I don’t remember it)
Seven of Nine (to Tuvok of all people)
Michael Burnham (a human raised by Vulcans)
So Picard, Seven and Michael Burnham are the only humans that have done the VNP. In TOS Spock says that he has tried several time to teach Kirk to do it but he cannot learn it.
I’m seeing a lot of commentary along the lines of ‘forget it, Jake, it’s Star Trek’. And yes, Star Trek has always had its clunkinesses on both a series and an episode level.But weren’t we always a bit forgiving of that because we understood the cultural and commercial limitations they were under? You had to just keep churning out episodes until you had enough to get syndication, you couldn’t assume every episode would be transmitted in order (or at all), it had to be suitable for casual background watching by people who didn’t care about it all that much but might be persuaded not to change the channel during the ad breaks, you could only hire actors at the level where they’d be happy to commit to a more or less permanent shooting schedule and so forth. And of course it was TV, nobody took TV seriously, it was a stepping stone to working in the proper, prestige medium of films.
Surely the big excitement of Discovery and Picard was that we would get to see what Trek – which for better or worse is what Space Opera looks like on telly for most of that part of the world who will care about such things – could do without the constraints of that business model. Where the writers could assume an engaged, voluntary audience that were setting aside time to pay attention to a complicated storyline. Where you could invest in quality rather than quantity, and assume a certain level of sophistication from an audience that had grown up with The Wire and Breaking Bad rather than Fantasy Island and the A-Team. What does Trek look like in this, our second ‘golden age of TV’?
In that context, watching them pull the same old fuck-it-this’ll-do bullshit is profoundly depressing. You start to suspect that the limitations were in the idea itself, rather than the way it had to be expressed, and that some of the people involved have maintained the same low expectations for their audience that occasionally showed through in the older series.
So yeah, alright, if you’re going to be dumb old ‘are you suggesting a…ruse of some kind?’ Star Trek then fine, I’ll adjust my expectations downwards but that’s never not a disappointing thing to have to do.
There’s such a difference between: “We need to come up with 26+ ideas, and each has to be addressed in 42 minutes.”and“Anyone got one idea that we can stretch over 10 episodes?”In the first one you know there will be some garbage, but also hopefully some gems. But in the second the risk/reward is all broken, because it’s all about dragging out the trip to the fireworks factory.There’s a middleground between those two, and the good parts of DS9, B5, and actual prestige tv manage to find it. I’d hoped Chabon would be able to do it, but apparently not.
This is a great assessment. When I was 12, I was happy to overlook TNG’s flaws in writing, acting (Stewart and Spiner excepted), pacing, set design, wardrobe choices, etc., because it was literally the only thing on TV for nerds apart from PBS re-running Tom Baker-era Dr. Who. Then X-Files and Buffy made genre stuff cool again, and now that’s like half of television. TV is a hundred times better than it was in 1987, and TV sci-fi is a really crowded marketplace. You can’t just coast on affection for the Trek brand and hope that’s enough.And while Disco has its flaws, and leans a bit too heavily on “Any time Spock isn’t on screen, everyone should be asking, ‘where’s Spock?’”-style nostalgia, it looks fucking fantastic, it has a terrific supporting cast (Doug Jones does remarkable work, and Michelle Yeoh has so much fun chewing the scenery), and it introduces cool new stuff we haven’t seen before — the spore drive, the Kelpians, the various characters’ prosthetics — instead of just “remember the Romulans? Remember the Borg? Remember Data? They’re all back, in pog form!”Such a wasted opportunity all around. My hope at this point is, since Picard has at least opened up the post-N——— timeline, some other, better show can take this show’s hodgepodge of ideas and do something interesting with them.
“post-N——— timeline”the fuck is that?
Reading this comment gives me some insight on why so many people are down on this show. I guess I just never expected a Star Trek series to be the new Sopranos. Trek has always just had an intrinsic goofiness even in its best moments, and I didn’t expect that to be eradicated here. In fact, I think I’d have missed it. Despite all the changes in tone and subject matter, the clumsy earnestness is the thing that makes the show feel the most like Star Trek to me.
I always thought that Trek’s goal was to showcased humanity and alienity at its best.And this show does that – clunky earnestness, as you say. It still does that.I think the main difference between this and the “proper” Treks are that this is the first time we’ve had characters who aren’t at the top of the game or field – but at the bottom of society. Possibly rock bottom, in Raffi’s case. Every other Trek has been about Federation Super-Captain – who graduated top of their class at the academy, and leads the bestest-best crew around. We’ve never heard about, oh, disgraced Admirals seeking redemption, outcast scientists, paranoid junkie former Intel officers, ninja assassins who smashed the matriarchy, and cigar-chomping smugglers (and his half-dozen differently-accented holograms). And to anyone whosays “BUT IN STAR TREK THOSE PEOPLE WOULDN’T EXIST!11!!” I say “Get out more”. I think it makes that earnestness shine even brighter. Because these are people who are trying to do the right thing, despite all that’s been thrown at them.
I, for one, was not expecting the new Sopranos. I was expecting that the people making Picard would have watched the Sopranos and other shows like it, and would try to take advantage of the possibilities of the media that those shows have limned. Instead they have given us very cliched and unimaginative story and characters tricked out in flashy garb.
This. Thank you.
Zack, it’s amazing how much your hatred of this show has made you missed things. Remember a few episodes ago when you asked what was the point of the drug that would allow the pilot to lie to the alien who could detect it?
It’s obvious Allison Pill’s character, knowing the androids could detect a lie, took the drug.
“You would know if I was lying.”Unless she took that drug that was introduced a few episodes for the alien who could detect lies.Also- Ok, so AI Soong obviously isn’t who he says he is. A popular theory is Lore. I guess maybe he had Maxwell build him an organic body to transfer into?I don’t know about that though. My guess- The original Soong from the Eugenics Wars. What if he put himself in stasis with a timer for revival and know wants an android body to become immortal?Also, I called that the synth destruction would be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe Soji isn’t a destroyer but the new one? They do look alike.On the “maybe it is Lore” front- If Soji was built from Data’ memory engrams, maybe the new one was built from Lore’s? Maybe that’s why he had to be transferred to a human body?Also, notice those things from the preview kind of look like the bots from Control. Could this super AI race tie in with what’s going to be going on in Discovery next season? Note in the short trek, the Discovery gained consciousness and its crew were gone, and there was no federation.Also, isn’t it sort of obvious Picard will wind up being the one in the Android body?And maybe his memories of Data will somehow influence the other synths.Kind of convenient they didnt just kill Picard. But maybe the Loreish Dohj (bad with character names) figured that might be too much for Dohj. As long as she doesn’t leave him in a slow moving death trap then leave assuming it will go well to see him rescued by the Romulan jedi.
Also, Zack totally missed how the design of the Synth colony was INTENTIONAL HOMAGE. Jeez.
i think seth mcfarlane is laughting his ass off , this script is very much like the kaylons, even the end (next week soji will betray her people to save organic life i bet )
“some of the synths are wandering around in pairs”*ALL* of them are in pairs except for Sutra whose twin was killed by Rios’ old captain. This is a key point about how these synths are created and should not have been missed by someone whose job is to review the episode.
“even when at least one of them turns out to be a bit of psycho”
“Sutra ends up turning evil by the end”I’m a bit confused how it’s “psycho” and “evil” to want to fight back against a race who wants to wipe out your entire race.
“Sutra ‘learned how to mind meld.’ Sure.”There is precedence for this. Data learned how to do the Vulcan Neck Pinch, something which has always been something that only Vulcans can do. Plus Troi could sense actual emotions in Soji. And an TNG episode had a human consciousness downloaded into Data’s brain. How is a synth being able to do a mindmeld that unbelievable given all of this?
“characters acting excessively excited to see each other again when they haven’t been separated for very long always annoys me.”It’s almost like those characters thought they would never see the other characters again, so they are excited/happy when they do see them. Seriously, this is a complaint?
“Picard telling Elnor he’s ‘very, very proud’ of him is also unearned.”Picard realized from Riker and Troi that he has to be a father figure to Soji, and he’s figured out he has to do the same for Elnor. He’s trying to encourage him – plus he is actually proud of him for surviving the Romulans on the Cube and calling Seven for help.
“This is a dumb show now.”Sigh. Can we get a new reviewer on this next season?
So why were Dahj, and Soji sent out into the greater universe? To discover the what’s behind Romulan plot to kill synths?
I’ve liked most of the show until this episode, but the synth society just reminded me way too much of the original series “What are Little Girls Made of?” I agree there’s no way Sutra “learns” how to do a Vulcan mind meld. And then she absolutely has a Ruk moment: “That was the equation! Existence! Survival must cancel out programming!”. Meh. I also agree with those who felt a Lore vibe from AI Soong, but in any case he was a much more interesting villain than Sutra. We’ll see where it goes next, but this was the first episode which fully disappointed. I hope we see improvement in episode 10.
It’s an almost necessary Trek trope. McCoy contracts fatal disease and just happens to land on a populated “planet” with advanced medical knowledge. Spock outright dies and they make a whole movie out of undoing THAT. Only reason it never happened to Kirk is Shatner probably had a contract rider prohibiting it.
I’ve been following along with these reviews weeks after everyone has watched the series, and this is the first episode where I genuinely don’t understand where the reviewer is coming from. The review of episode eight, “Broken Pieces,” might have been harsher than my assessment, but I felt like the criticisms were fair. After having read this review, I don’t understand the complaints beyond the level of snark.One element of this episode that I loved was how it folded in some elements from the original series—the omnipotent beings and paradise planet straight out of “The Way to Eden.” I like Discovery, but Picard has made a greater effort to root itself in Star Trek, while also trying to do something new with the series. Before starting Picard, I heard a lot of people griping about the series, which had me really worried. And while I can nitpick some choices, I thought this was the best season we’ve gotten of Trek in a long time. Unless, of course, they really screw up this last episode.