There are many types of two-part stories, but there are two that are most common. One is the type where each part is a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end, but the two are linked, and the events of Part 2 are dictated by the events of Part 1. A good popular example of this would be the most recent two Avengers movies, Infinity War and Endgame.
The second is what we get from “Et in Arcadia Ego,” to wit, a single story split in half. In those situations, Part 1 is often hard to review, because it’s almost all setup. However, I can say that Part 1 of Picard’s two-part season finale is, at the very least, good setup.
When I saw Brent Spiner listed as a special guest star for this episode, I was concerned. The cameo by Data in Picard’s opening dream sequence in “Remembrance” was a nice touch, but it went on just long enough to be justifiable and any more would’ve been disastrous. Plus, Spiner has aged considerably in two decades (and was really already too old to be playing Data anymore when Nemesis came out eighteen years ago), and while technology masked it up to a point, it wouldn’t bear sticking around very long.
There was another option, though, and I was amused to see the show take it. In addition to Data, Spiner has had four other roles in the franchise: Lore, Data’s evil twin, introduced in “Datalore” and deactivated in the “Descent” two-parter; B-4, Data and Lore’s prototype, introduced in Nemesis, and also seen disassembled in “Remembrance”; Noonian Soong, Data’s creator, in “Brothers” (alongside Lore), and seen again as a dream image and a holographic recording in “Birthright Part 1” and “Inheritance,” respectively; and Arik Soong, Noonian’s ancestor, in the Enterprise three-parter “Borderland”/”Cold Station 12″/”The Augments.”
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This episode adds a fifth, and it’s in keeping with the others: Altan Inigo Soong, the son of Noonian. (Though it’s not mentioned, his mother is presumably Noonian’s wife Juliana O’Donnell, established in “Inheritance.” I’m also just assuming his middle name is a tribute to the swordsman from The Princess Bride, and if it isn’t, I don’t care, because in my head it is, so there, nyah nyah.)
The revelation works, as Noonian was a reclusive scientist who liked to keep secrets, and it was clear in “Datalore,” “The Schizoid Man,” “Brothers,” and “Inheritance” that Data had no significant knowledge of his father’s life anywhere in his positronic brain, just secondhand accounts from the colonists on Omicron Ceti, and they obviously didn’t know much about him, really.
And Altan Soong is following in the family business, as he was working with Bruce Maddox at Coppelius Station on Ghurion IV, which we learn is the home of Soong and a whole lotta synths, and is the planet with two red moons that Soji remembered in “The Impossible Box.” The other synths on Coppelius, however, don’t look human the way the Asha sisters do. Instead, they’re more like Data, with golden skin and yellow eyes—including Sutra, who looks like Dahj and Soji (and is also played by Isa Briones, who is now up to three different roles on the show, though she’s still only halfway to Santiago Cabrera’s six).
The crew arrives by going through a Borg transwarp conduit (either Voyager didn’t destroy the entire network in “Endgame” or the Borg have managed to rebuild it), arriving ahead of the Romulan fleet, which will instead arrive just in time for the end of Part 1 to keep us in suspense for Part 2.
When they arrive, Jurati is surprised that they’re not at Deep Space 12 where she’s to turn herself in. Instead, she’s at the place Maddox fled to. She’s pretty much off the hook at this point—she says she now regrets killing Maddox and she’s a mess and wasn’t in her right mind, and all sorts of other bullshit. The best Soong can come up with in response to finding out that his friend and colleague was killed by his former lover is to say, I kid you not, “Shame on you.”
This walks back pretty much all my good will from last week, as it looks like Jurati is going to escape her crimes without punishment, continuing a long Trek tradition of opening-credits regulars not actually facing consequences for their actions (“The Menagerie,” “Operation—Annihilate!” The Final Frontier, “Brothers,” “The Die is Cast,” to name but five examples). She is doing penance, of a sort, helping Soong with a “golem” android, with the intention of having it be a receptacle for someone’s personality. We’ve seen this technology before, in “What are Little Girls Made Of?” “I, Mudd,” “Return to Tomorrow,” “The Schizoid Man,” and “Inheritance,” but no one knew how the androids on Exo III or Mudd’s Planet actually worked, Sargon’s people’s abilities were way over everyone’s heads, and both Ira Graves and Noonian Soong took their secrets on how to transfer a personality to their graves. Altan Soong wants to transfer his mind to a synth body even as his body is aging rapidly.
Soong isn’t the only one facing his mortality. La Sirena is forcibly brought down to Ghulion IV by Coppelius’s “orchids”—giant flowers that engulf a ship and depower it and bring it to the surface. It does so not just with La Sirena, but also with Narek’s ship, which followed them through the transwarp hub, and after a fashion with the Borg Cube, which Seven of Nine has brought to help save the day, and was only partly successful. Still, the Cube is being repaired, and one suspects that Seven, the surviving xB’s, and Elnor are going to play a significant role in the battle royale next week that this week’s events are setting up.
But the big news after the forced landing is when Jurati examines Picard and discovers the brain disease that is killing Picard. “All Good Things…” had a version of Picard from twenty-five years in that episode’s future (which is also four years in this episode’s past) suffering from Irumodic Syndrome—which is, basically, Space Alzheimer’s. While the syndrome isn’t named, it’s obvious that he has some version of it in this timeline also. He informs the rest of La Sirena’s crew that he’s dying and makes it clear that he refuses to be treated any differently. (Hearing the usually stolid Jean-Luc Picard declare “Anyone who treats me like a dying man will run the risk of pissing me off” is a crowning moment of awesome from the episode, too.)
We also learn more about the Admonition. The reason why it drives Romulan minds batshit is because it isn’t meant for organic brains, it’s meant for synthetic ones. It’s a message from a colloquy of synthetic beings who keep an eye on synthetic life all over the universe, and will come a-runnin’ if summoned. The synths on Coppelius are planning to do that very thing and then wipe out the organics who would destroy them.
This discovery that the synths are evil is disappointing, though I’m willing to wait to see what Sutra’s entire plan is before passing final judgment. (This is the challenge of reviewing the first part of a two-part episode, though it’s also an issue generally with reviewing a heavily serialized show. Cha cha cha.) Sutra is revealed to be pretty horrible, as she frees Narek and allows him to kill one of the synths so Sutra can then use her death for propaganda purposes to rally Soong and the synths (which is totally the name of my next band) to her notion of calling the big bad synth overlords and killing the organics.
In contrast to this, Picard tries to rally the synths to his side with a Classic Picard Speech—but it’s completely undermined by Soong. I have to think that Spiner really enjoyed being the one to puncture the Picard posturing here. The promise to advocate for the synths and convince the Federation to overturn the ban and defend them against the Romulans is utterly blown by Soong reminding everyone that Picard isn’t exactly on the best of terms with the Federation these days, and he already failed to convince them to save the Romulan refugees. Plus, he can’t even contact Starfleet, though it’s unclear if the Romulans are jamming transmissions or the synths are.
And so we end the episode with Picard under house arrest, Narek’s fate unknown, Musiker and Rios fixing La Sirena not knowing that their synth friends aren’t friendly anymore, Jurati helping Soong finish his work, Seven of Nine leading a gang of xB’s and Elnor to fix their Cube, and Commodore Oh leading a fleet of 218 Romulan ships to Ghurion IV to blow them out of the sky.
Gonna be a helluva finale…
Keith R.A. DeCandido loves the fact that this episode used the name ka’athyra to refer to the Vulcan lyre that we saw Spock and Uhura and Tuvok play at various points. It was first used in Margaret Wander Bonanno’s novel Dwellers in the Crucible in 1985 and has been used regularly in tie-in fiction since then, including by Keith in his 2009 novel A Singular Destiny. Stuff like that makes Keith’s nerdy heart go pitty-pat.
Sorry to burst your headcanon, but Soong’s middle name is probably an homage to Elizabethan architect Inigo Jones.
I find it implausible that three different generations of Soong are utterly identical — especially given Noonien’s penchant for building artificial beings that look just like him. I wouldn’t be surprised if Altan was actually Noonien in a cloned body. Or if Noonien was a clone of Arik. Arik studied the work of Eugenics War scientists, after all… so maybe he studied the work of Stavos Keniclius?
And all the synths aren’t evil, just Sutra. I suspect it’s because she got the Admonition from Agnes and was warped by it just like Agnes was.
Indeed, I don’t get why you’re still so hard on Agnes. She wasn’t in her right mind; the brainwashing overpowered her. She’s no more to blame for her actions than Data was on the various occasions when he was mind-controlled. Although I grant that is kind of a copout dramatically.
Also, I have to disagree about “Shame on you” being a dismissive line. It could seem that way as written, but Spiner imbued it with all the gravitas it needed.
“While the syndrome isn’t named, it’s obvious that he has some version of it in this timeline also.”
Not quite. Yes, the parietal lobe abnormality that’s killing him now is the same one that caused his Irumodic Syndrome in “All Good Things…,” but as Crusher said there, the abnormality could lead to a number of different neurological disorders including Irumodic. I think this must be a different one, because Picard shows no sign of the cognitive decline associated with Irumodic. Also, if it were Irumodic, they would’ve just said so.
I think this is the first episode without a flashback, unless you count the clips from earlier episodes flashing through Picard’s mind. Also I think it’s the first episode since Rios was introduced that doesn’t feature any of his holograms. I hope they’re okay.
A nice nod to the books: The episode canonized ka’athyra as the name for the Vulcan lyre, as coined by Margaret Wander Bonanno in the novel Dwellers in the Crucible in 1985. Well, it didn’t specify the lyre, just that it was a Vulcan musical instrument, but still, it’s a nice homage.
The episode made surprisingly little use of Seven and Elnor. Why were they even there if they hardly did anything? Well, maybe they’ll play more of a role in the finale. Although the bit with Picard telling Seven that saving the galaxy was in her hands now made me wonder if those rumors of a Fenris Rangers spinoff are legitimate. (The theme song writes itself. “Go, go, Fenris Rangers!”)
I realized that the Coppelian androids follow the precedent of Data and Lore in that they’re named after forms of writing or storytelling — Sutra, Saga, Codex, Rune, Arcana. However, I can’t find any such meanings for the names Soji, Dahj, or Jana.
Anyone else catch that Alten’s initials are AIs. It’s a missed opportunity to not have his middle name be Issac in any case. Looking forward to the finale. If it’s anything like they did the S2 of Discovery, it should be intense.
As with much of Picard watched it, loved it, but gods could it not be the 27th already please?
ref Jurati I take your point Keith, and honestly I’m Woking in the assumption now she’s going to get some sort of redemption in death in Part 2. But I think her whole arc is supposed to highlight how reprehensible Oh is, with the mind meld before she joined Picard & co instilling conditioning to take Maddox and the synths out. Unfortunately the show has really done a poor job of getting that across properly if that is the case, and the viewer is forced to rely almost entirely on Alison Pills superb performance to show how Agnes has been manipulated and directed into certain action
Or, the names were picked so we got Altan Inigo = A I Soong. Yup, AI, it’s right there in the name.
Christopher: Um, I mentioned ka’athyra‘s canonizing……
Sigh. Nobody ever reads the author bio.
If anything, I’m going too easy on Jurati. There’s no indication of brainwashing, and no indication that she’s crazy. If she was, she would’ve killed him as soon as she saw him. Instead she waited until she had him alone, was able to talk to him for several seconds, had the wherewithal to shut off the EMH, and then kill him. That’s not insanity or brainwashing, that’s calculated murder, and she does not get off the hook for it with me.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I mean yeah it was a pretty good episode, though Soong’s reveal as being Soong’s real son was a ‘wtf!’ moment for me, I dunno I guess. But anymore Mass Effect references and Bioware gets credit right? Cuz this show, and this ep especially, heavily seems to be aping from the Mass Effect series.
@2/Jason: Ooh, yeah, how did I miss the “AI” thing? I even tried plugging “Altan Inigo” into the Internet Anagram Server to see if it could mean anything, given its weird spelling. (“Gain: Ail not!” “La! Atoning, I.” “Gnat on Ilia?”)
@5/krad: “There’s no indication of brainwashing”
There was an actual line of dialogue where someone (Raffi, I think) explicitly said that Agnes probably wasn’t in her right mind and couldn’t be blamed.
@1 I also thought the “shame on you” line was effective.
I’m assuming we saw the borg cube on the wall in this half so it can be fired in the next one. I think the Borg are going to confound the ascended AIs or otherwise disrupt the Romulan vs synths fight they’re setting up.
I like the use of Data-style aesthetics in the vision of the Admonition. Assuming it comes from Sutra’s or Jurati’s mind, it nicely justifies why an ancient recording uses images we so easily recognized.
It’s been awhile but I don’t think Noonien Song aged as well as Arik, so maybe not identical?
@6 Sure, but it’s not like Mass Effect wasn’t already taking liberally from Star Trek, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica and any number of other franchises.
Man, you hate Jurati so much. It’s actually kinda comical now. I think it’s entirely fine if she’s redeemed. It’s not bullshit—anyone of us could be coerced by a high-ranking military official with mind control powers into killing someone. It’s not like Agnes is a crazy killer for shits ‘n giggles. And you say “escape her crimes.” She’s only committed one crime. Since then she’s proven herself a valuable team player. Albeit with a weak stomach. Heck, (spoiler for Counterpart on Amazon Prime *watch it!*): If Howard Prime and Baldwin can be redeemed and get to go home safe, anyone can.
Quoth Christopher: “There was an actual line of dialogue where someone (Raffi, I think) explicitly said that Agnes probably wasn’t in her right mind and couldn’t be blamed.”
It was Raffi, and I disagree with her completely based on how the event was actually constructed in “Stardust City Rag.” Also Raffi isn’t the final authority on such things, and isn’t exactly a model of mental health herself, so forgive me if I don’t make legal and moral judgments based on her dialogue.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I don’t hate Jurati! I actually think she’s a great character! But I also think, and call me crazy or old-fashioned if you want, that people who cold-bloodedly murder other people should be punished for that.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Quoth Christopher: “I find it implausible that three different generations of Soong are utterly identical”
I don’t, for the same reason why I don’t find it implausible that Saavik looks completely different after her first appearance. Casting the same actor as an ancestor or descendant is a common TV and movie trope, and it’s one that is meant to point up a family resemblance, that’s all.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@5 – But is the killing of one person really that big of a deal when the Federation has as a sold policy that less advanced races can be totally wiped out by natural disasters that the Federation tech could easily prevent?
One murder is totally off the charts but planetary genocide is unquestioned policy?
Picard ordered his crew to not take any action to save Sarjenka’s planet nor the one that Worf’s brother was trying to save.
Sarek planned genocide against the Klingons in Discovery and yet he’s held up as one of the Federations most revered citizens.
Kirk ordered planetary genocide against Eminair VII in order to save his own ass along with Spock.
Somehow, the Federation making a big deal about one death, particularly when it was set in motion by one of the highest members of Starfleet, should hardly raise an eyebrow.
@8 – And Raffi would be an expert on that in what way exactly? She’s neither a lawyer nor a medical professional. She’s just offering an unqualified opinion.
So, the Zhat Vash aren’t from the future, the Borg aren’t part of the AI uprising threat they were afraid of, and we won’t see collapsing timelines – a wrinkle in my otherwise accurate predictions since episode 3! The rest of this has been telegraphed so hard, including that both Soji’s better nature (Data essence) will win out over the idealogical virus Soji has contracted, and the Qowat Milat long shot victory approach will win out in the end, both thanks to Picard’s guidance. That said, with the glacial pace with which they approach the comparatively scant amount of material, this is going to end on a cliff hanger – the supreme AI will likely receive the message and arrive next season, with Guignan no doubt offering intel to Picard as gathered from her past life, much as she offered intel regarding the Borg. Jurati wasn’t lying when she said she’d die for her “children,” but she clearly won’t do so in the way Not-Jana is hoping. Fanfiction.
@2:
The theme song writes itself. “Go, go, Fenris Rangers!”
Heh, can’t breathe. Laughing too hard. :D
@13 krad: But she didn’t “cold-bloodedly” murder anyone! She was clearly weeping in agony while it happened! AARGH!!! *goes to palm face, remembers what time and place he lives in, goes washes hands instead*
Anyway… What are we making of the fact Dahj had a writhing orchid in her apartment and said her father named a variety after her?
My fanfiction finale:
The Romulans attack, and the Coppelius synths and XB’s start fighting them off. But they’re clearly outgunned. Just when it seems like they’re about to fail, in comes the Starfleet fleet from DS12 (who have been hanging on the wall like Chekhov’s Gun) to defend the synths (possibly rallied by Riker, whose inactive-but-still-on-call status was set up in “Nepenthe”) to briefly turn the tide of battle… but it’s too late, as Sutra has already sent out the signal to the Synth Army.
Synth Army shows up, sees that the Feds are taking big losses to defend synths rather than attacking them, decides that maybe the Fed organics don’t deserve to be destroyed… but the Romulan ones do. Until Picard stands up to defend the ordinary Romulans, revealing what neither the Feds nor most of the Romulans know, but we do: that the Zhat Vash was behind the synth revolt that destroyed Utopia Planitia and ended the Federation efforts to save the Romulans.
The ordinary Romulans, pissed off at the ZV for letting billions of Romulans die just for the sake of their agenda, turn against the ZV and stop attacking the Coppelius synths. The Feds open diplomatic relations with Coppelius synths (and possibly the Synth Army). Organics aren’t wiped off the face of the galaxy. Seven takes over as leader of the XBs. Picard gets redemption for having given up on the Romulans years ago, the Federation gets its mojo back, and someone (Soong? Picard? Jurati?) dies a sacrificial death because all of this always comes with the “…but at what cost?” question.
But that ending probably isn’t quite bleak enough for CBS All Access Trek, is it?
I can’t decide if Picard’s line about not being treated like a dying man is foreshadowing or refuting it. It’d be a bit too on-brand for Sir Patrick to play the death on-screen of another of his iconic roles but the show made a point of saying Picard didn’t have long to live. And there’s that pesky second season to consider.
Jurati’s willingness to die for her “children” and her murder makes her death foreshadowed, too.
I wonder if we’ll get proper Tal Shiar showing up, since this episode made a point of reminding us about Picard’s housekeeper friends.
What I’ve seen as of this episode is an informational virus that reprograms organic brains to wipe out synthetics, and reprograms synthetic brains to wipe out organics.
I’m also wondering if there’s a connection between the ascended AI beings that left the Admonition and the machine world that V’ger visited before its return.
@19 / James
I think you might have it!
Side note, I HATED how people kept referring to Jurati using increasingly proper versions of her full name throughout the episode. So hammy, such a hallmark of expositional dialogue.
Something about the direction or editing of this episode left me feeling cold. A Borg cube pops out right in front of Picard and they don’t show his immediate reaction. He of all people should be either scared to death or relieved that Elnor (and Hugh) were here to help. But the camera cuts to everyone except him. Same for that awkward scene where everyone is having a meeting and Picard is apparently still drinking water by himself.
I wondered if the Soong DNA is so strong because Arik was messing around with augment tech back in the 22nd century.
I’m not sure I call this Jurati getting “off the hook” – this isn’t Deep Space 12, the ship had semi-crashed (falling with style?) and no immediately apparent way off the planet and back to Federation space, and they weren’t yet sure what the planet would be like. Locking her in could have been a death sentence, and they aren’t that sort of people, though hiking around wasn’t any guarantee of safety either.
@1: I totally believe this series is like a backdoor pilot for Seven and the Fenris Rangers, and now featuring Elnor, as her young, painfully honest, Romulan buddy. Picard’s parting line to Seven in this episode was practically a blessing to her new series.
@2: Great catch!
I was beginning to think Jurati would tragically die in the finale as a penance for killing Maddox but, as mentioned about traditional hand waving away the serious crimes committed by the characters who are played by regular series, perhaps she will basically be forgiven and carry on as normal into season 2?
I did really enjoy this episode but my only minor quibble is that when Jurati does make Picard award that she knows of his medical condition, she acts all broken up about it (reading her facial expression). I didn’t buy that, because while that would sadden her, she really hasn’t known Picard all that well. Much more effective and believable for me, is both Elnor and Raffi’s reactions to discovering their beloved mentor/friend is dying.
I wonder how Commodore Oh got leave from Starfleet to lead, uh, a whole Romulan fleet on a genocidal mission?
Looks like Narek is going to pull a Jaime Lannister and betray Rizzo, to save his love Brianne, I mean, Soji, from the advancing murderous horde.
Lastly, the Borg cube emerging from the conduit was just an awesome scene! Now if that were an actual hive-connected Borg ship intent on assimilating a hapless ship or world even, that would have been truly frightening!
I just gotta say, this has been a truly very good first season of a Star Trek series, and given the track record with Trek first seasons, that is especially an impressive feat.
@10 Well yeah that’s all true, but I’m watching this show and getting larger Mass Effect vibes than I am Star Trek or anything else. Its not a criticism of the show, I think its more amusing and neat than anything else that the first I think of when watching Star Trek Picard is Mass Effect which also has Trek as an inspiration among many other things.
I mean look at the preview for the next episode with it’s planet to space beam and tell me you don’t immediately wonder if the Citadel is in orbit with the Catalyst and Seven is going to be the one to either destroy all synthetics, Synthesis the galaxy, or Control the synthetics.
@13/krad: “But I also think, and call me crazy or old-fashioned if you want, that people who cold-bloodedly murder other people should be punished for that.”
You must hate the Arrowverse, then. They have a tendency to let their regulars get away with murder as long as they say they won’t do it again (e.g. Harry Wells and Dinah Drake, the latter of whom actually became a police captain without ever being held accountable for the two premeditated murders she committed in her debut episode).
@14/krad: “Casting the same actor as an ancestor or descendant is a common TV and movie trope, and it’s one that is meant to point up a family resemblance, that’s all.”
Yes, of course, as a general practice. But in this specific case, we’re talking about a character with a well-established penchant for creating artificial beings in his image. A character whose ancestor followed in the footsteps of Eugenics Wars scientists, one of whom that we know of was big (pun intended) on cloning. So it’s hard not to wonder.
@19. You could actually have two sacrificial deaths; don’t forget there’s a blank android waiting to have someone’s consciousness dumped into it (and probably magically morph to resemble the previous actor).
I was thinking it could be used to resurrect Data (in a conveniently-older body), or give Picard a new non-terminal body.
What I loved about this episode was the fact that an intergalactic confederation of God-like AIs is by far the biggest threat that they’ve ever faced on Star Trek, and implies that, way back when Q introduced Picard to the Borg to give him some indication of “what was out there”, he was actually just introducing him to the smallest particle of the tip of the iceberg, and that’s actually quite terrifying.
Trek has never really done cosmic horror before, and honestly, I think I’m here for it.
Not my favorite episode of the bunch, but it was entertaining, and my son and I were glad to see Spot II. I hated that the dress code in Android Town was TOS Hippy Planet Chic, and HD filming and TVs make the Data make-up painfully obvious, you can seee the grainy textures.
Love seeing Brent Spiner again, but I don’t know what to think about Soong Jr., and while I disagree with you krad on Jurati’s culpability, his “shame on you” was very weaksauce. Is the golem he’s building for him or for Maddox? OR FOR PICARD?
Was Sutra was reprogrammed by the Admonition, or is she Lore-like? I have absolutely no issue with her being able to do a mind meld, since thoughts are just electrical impulses, and she might be much more advanced than Data.
@1 – Chris: I hope the holos are okay too. And Picard urging Elnor to stay with the xBs and Seven does heavily foreshadow a Fenris Rangers spinoff. I’d rather have that than S31. Nice catch with the names for the androids! I hated their names, but now it makes sense. So, others might be called Myth, Grimorium, Bible, etc?
@2 – Jason: You’re right, should have been Isaac.
@16 – Transceiver: I sure hope it doesn’t end in a cliffhanger.
@23 – Devin: Good one on Arik and DNA.
It’s perhaps worth noting that the dismissive “shame on you” reaction came from a mad scientist who is perfectly okay with wiping out all organic life. Not sure he’s supposed to be our moral arbiter here. :)
Meanwhile, would be be too nerdy if the mysterious A.I. alliance were known as the Questors?
@30/MaGnUs: “Is the golem he’s building for him or for Maddox? OR FOR PICARD?”
He only just met Picard, and he said he’s recently developed a new sense of urgency about his work. Obviously that means he’s dying.
Besides, no way is this series going to end with Picard becoming an immortal android. Patrick Stewart agreed to do the show because it let him revisit and wrap up Picard’s story in a way he found meaningful. I expect that to mean he intends to end his journey with Picard the same way he did with his other iconic genre role of Charles Xavier in Logan. After all, actors love playing death scenes.
“I have absolutely no issue with her being able to do a mind meld, since thoughts are just electrical impulses, and she might be much more advanced than Data.”
Hey, if they could install a chip to give Data emotions, they could install a psionic modem in Sutra.
@31/Greg: I still say there was nothing remotely dismissive about how Spiner delivered the “Shame on you” line. Soong meant it, in the truest sense of the word “shame.” Shame is not just embarrassment, it’s disgrace, ignominy, dishonor. It’s one of the most ancient forms of social sanction; those who were shamed by their peers would be judged, excluded, denied the benefits of society until they atoned or earned back respect. Shame can destroy a career, ruin a life, even provoke suicide. The expression “shame on you” may have come to seem trivial through overuse, but that obscures its true meaning.
@29:
Trek has never really done cosmic horror before, and honestly, I think I’m here for it.
Yeah, that’s actually a good point.
We’ve have existential and apocalyptic-level threats over the years, from the Borg and Species 8472 to V’Ger and Control. Bur never really anything on the level of the, heh, to borrow from Trek novelist David Mack, this Body Electric, if you will.
While i’m enjoying the show quite a few threads seem unfocused so far. Maybe that will be cleared up next week or next season or i’m just seeing/projecting things that aren’t there. We had the xb’s/borg mentioned a lot. We have two people who were assimilated into the borg. Now we have an evil AI and androids out to kill organic life. Xb’s have called picard locutis, which could be nothing but an emotional moment for him based on his history. It seems like there is something there about types of life, hybrids, androids and an opening for , well something, to do with the xb’s. Something with Picard and Seven and the xb’s having been hybrid machines/organic. Maybe it’s muddled or there is nothing holding together. It seems to me like there should be something tying all that together.
@29/Jaime: “Trek has never really done cosmic horror before”
I’d say the Borg as originally conceived in “Q Who” would qualify: A vast, impersonal power that went about its business with complete disregard for individuals, caring only about our technology and indifferent to those living beings that got in the way of their acquisition of it. But that was lost when they refocused Borg stories more on an individual, human level and eventually turned them into space zombies.
For that matter, what about the space amoeba in “The Immunity Syndrome?” A gigantic single cell infecting our galaxy like a disease, able to destroy entire planets and take no notice, merely operating on the simplest instinctive level beyond any chance of communication or negotiation.
@19/ Nicely done
@28/ I had the same thought about Data. They’ve repeatedly shown Soji’s necklace, and despite the silliness of reproducing a personality “from a single positronic neuron”, I’m guessing that Jurati uses that to rebirth Data in the golem, conveniently looking older and resolving the arc of grief that started the story. (I’m guessing that Jurati will die in the process.)
Keith, I realize it’s ambiguous, but I interpreted it as Sutra rather than Narek as having killed the other synth. She lets Narek go, does what she feels will have the right effect, and then blames him to achieve that effect. He did eye the bluebird, so it could be the other way, but why would he seek her out if released? That wouldn’t help him, and he probably could not expect to be able to best her in physical combat.
@1 “I realized that the Coppelian androids follow the precedent of Data and Lore in that they’re named after forms of writing or storytelling — Sutra, Saga, Codex, Rune, Arcana. However, I can’t find any such meanings for the names Soji, Dahj, or Jana.”
I’m far from an expert on the subject but I thought they were named in relation to flowers like the orchids in Soji’s dream or the flowers which attacked the ships.
Soji revealed that her father named an orchid after her: Orchidaceae Dahj oncidium.
Sutra. From Wikipedia: The Avatasaka Sūtra (Sanskrit; alternatively, the Mahāvaipulya Buddhāvata saka Sūtra) is one of the most influential Mahayana sutras of East Asian Buddhism. The title is rendered in English as Flower Garland Sutra, Flower Adornment Sutra, or Flower Ornament Scripture.
Arcana. There’s a track from Arcadia’s “So Red the Rose” titled Rose Arcana. Arcadia also in the title of the episode.
A search for Jana brought up the Spray Rose Jana on Sierra Flower Finder, while Saga brought up Mini Gerbera Saga.
Also, the male synth that died with Jana was called Beautiful Flower?
@35/ChristopherLBennet I had honestly forgotten about the space amoeba; that certainly counts.
As for the Borg, while the “horror” is certainly there, particularly in their earlier depictions, I would argue that their scale isn’t quite “cosmic” enough; powerful and inhuman as they are, they only operate on the scale of the galaxy, although they could have become a proper cosmic horror in the future (the comic ‘Alien Spotlight: Borg’ did a decent job of exploring this).
(Incidentally, when Picard was recovering from his stint as Locutus, I kind of wish that the writers had explored the implications of a man who had just experienced some level of consciousness on a galactic scale suddenly finding himself back within the confines of a single human mind. Perhaps his brain was just completely unable to hold on to the memory of it).
These new guys, though, seem to have a real Olaf Stapledon/Arthur C. Clarke/”Galaxies Like Grains of Sand”-type vibe to them, and it’s something that really doesn’t have much, if any, precedent in the Star Trek universe.
@37/JASON: “Sutra” is a generic name for an ancient Vedic aphorism or collection of teachings. There are many sutras on any number of topics, religious, philosophical, and otherwise. Given how sexily the android Sutra was acted and made up, my first thought was that she was named in honor of the Kama Sutra, the ancient manual of sexual positions and techniques.
“Arcana” is the plural of arcanum, meaning a mystery or secret writing in an occult tradition. The title “Et in Arcadia Ego” is in reference to a famous painting, with Arcadia being used in Renaissance arts to symbolize an unspoiled pastoral utopia. Neither of them has anything specifically to do with flowers.
And of course, naming an orchid after a person does not equate to naming a person after an orchid.
@5 KRAD: She would only have killed him as soon as she saw him if that was her only implanted directive from Commodore Oh. Oh would also have wanted her to stay alive and concealed to keep the tracker active. I interpreted the scene in which Agnes injected herself with the neutralizing compound as both her working up the courage as well as fighting the conditioning of the meld.
@krad I don’t hate Jurati! I actually think she’s a great character! But I also think, and call me crazy or old-fashioned if you want, that people who cold-bloodedly murder other people should be punished for that.
I agree and I’m fustrated that people are so ready to believe she was “mind-controlled”. We don’t know that. Her friends don’t know that. This is what trials are for and why friends or family don’t get to judge or vindicate you, but independent judges (or juries) with the counsel of medical/ psychiatrist experts do.
Many ideologically motivated murderer and terrorists (Nazis, political islamists and so on) believe they are doing the right thing to save mankind. That does not make it any better.
Remorse is fine. Redemption has to be earned. Right now, Jurati’s ‘penance’ is finally working her dream job again. Very touching. I’m sure she’ll eventually help her friends, but for me, that will not get her off the hook. Murder is murder and if she wasn’t ‘in her right mind’, she needs professional help anyway.
Yeah, if this is crazy and old-fashioned, I’ll gladly join the club.
I feel like I’m the only person on the planet who is disappointed in where episode 9 took us, story-wise. Altan Inigo Soong… really? Adding a long-lost son to a family that didn’t NEED a long-lost son just feels lazy to me. I love seeing Brent Spiner on screen as much as anyone, and I’m certainly not complaining about any performances – they continue to be brilliant – but it just feels contrived to me.
Then again, I still object to referring to Dahj, Soji, etc as Data’s daughters. Were they cloned from his neuron? Yes. But he didn’t have anything to do with their creation. He isn’t their guide or active role model. He may be their spiritual father, in a sense, but he isn’t their parent, and I feel like calling him that is asking us to accept more than is really being given.
I’m enjoying the show immensely. I feel like the places where Picard, Troi, Riker, Seven, etc, have ended up feel like natural evolutions of these characters. I’m happy to spend time with all these new characters, as well, Raffi and Rios especially. But… I confess a bit of disappointment with episode nine.
(I was so relieved when, after all the fan rumors, Dajh was NOT a reconstructed Lal. It would have cheapened her death. Similarly, I’m concerned about the desire among fans to bring Data back… do I miss the character? Of course. But even though I cried when I saw the end of Nemesis in the theatres back in 2002, I eventually came to agree that Data’s death gave him the understanding of the human condition he’d always wanted.)
It may be unfair of me to judge part I without seeing part II. And I’m really glad so many people loved the episode. I’m certainly not going to stop watching. I’m just disappointed.
As an aside: to all the people who have said Brent is too old to play Data (and ignoring Mr. Spiner’s own thoughts on it, because I disagree that Data only works as a youthful character): In the episode INHERITANCE when we meet the android known as Julianna Tainer, Geordi has a line, “She even has an aging program, like you do.” Sure, it was probably meant as a throw-away line to explain the fact that an all-too-human actor was showing his age, but it’s on screen. And frankly, I’d love to see what writers could have done with an older, more evolved Data. Something for fanfic, I guess.
Meanwhile, I’m resigned to having the unpopular opinion.
@42/MissMeliss: “Then again, I still object to referring to Dahj, Soji, etc as Data’s daughters. Were they cloned from his neuron? Yes. But he didn’t have anything to do with their creation. He isn’t their guide or active role model. He may be their spiritual father, in a sense, but he isn’t their parent, and I feel like calling him that is asking us to accept more than is really being given.”
Remember Soji’s head tilt in the Riker/Troi episode? She displayed a Data-like mannerism despite never having met Data — because she inherited it directly from him. She’s far closer to being his biological daughter than Lal was, because she’s actually replicated from a part of him, much as a biological offspring is replicated from its parents’ genes. Previous references to family relationships in Data’s life have always been figurative — his “father” was the guy who built him, his “daughter” was the android he built — but this is far more direct, and more analogous to biological reproduction. Data’s full consciousness may not be in the neurons used to create Dahj, Soji, and the rest, but they are direct inheritors of aspects of his nature, his psychology.
And yes, “Inheritance” said Data had an aging program, but Insurrection contradicted it by having Data say he was completely unchanged since he was first activated (belying the obvious visual evidence of Spiner’s aging).
Not to say anything against Spiner, but it always seemed to me that Data was a role it would be easy to recast. We saw that Lal was able to choose her own appearance, implying that an android could fairly easily transform their appearance however they wished. So rather than killing him off, it would’ve been easy enough to recast the role and say that Data decided to experiment with a different face and voice, maybe to differentiate himself more from Soong and assert more of his own identity. Or maybe he could’ve decided he wanted to experiment with being female.
There is also nothing to say that Data couldn’t have experimented with aging his appearance to feel closer to his friends. He sort of did that in All Good Things with the streak of white hair.
@42
I agree that it is lazy and contrived to introduce a long lost Soong son this late in the story. Then again, B4 was a lazy idea, too. And Lore never went much beyond evil twin soap opera villain. Why do we keep going back to this family? I was more than satisfied with dream Data as Spiner’s contribution.
@44/Tribbles: I’m not advocating it, just saying that Data’s nature as an android would’ve made him an easy character to recast if, theoretically, they’d decided to go that route. Just as Dax’s nature as a Trill made it easy to recast her.
Yeah, I kinda have to echo some of the same feelings about going back to the Noonien Soong well yet again.
Obviously, just as with the Romulan supernova, Data’s death in Nemesis had to be acknowledged in some capacity by Picard. And there have been interesting elements in exploring Data’s legacy.
But throughout the Season, I’ve just been…I share the frustrations with the show’s focus on AI given we’d just gotten a similar focus over in Discovery. By the Nemesis rolled around, I was also kinda sick and tired of Data stories. I know they were TNG’s bread and butter and, yeah, I love Spiner’s performances as always. But I’m just tired of it even now.
First thought: That android under construction is going to end up being either Data or Picard.
Second thought: With all the Easter eggs we’ve had so far, is it possible this extragalactic AI is going to be either the folks who augmented (pun intended) V’ger, and/or the folks who created Mudd’s androids?
The thing that bothered me the most is that poking that synth in the eye killed her outright, cut to funeral.
I was under the impression that these synths are a range of increasingly-organic models, starting with a Data-style android, and ending with an organic-style Soji.
But either way, she shouldn’t just be dead! We’ve seen Data take much more damage and just get repaired, and they have 24th-century medicine to fix a poked eyeball. Heck, that wouldn’t kill somebody with current 21st-century medicine. It might not have killed somebody with pre-modern medicine! If it doesn’t get infected, you wear an eye patch for the rest of your life, but you’re not just dead.
What was up with that?
@43/Christopher – I hadn’t forgotten the head-tilt. I think my issue is terminology more than anything. A brief chat with my husband just now gave me the additional perspective that I’m seeing all this through the lens of my own experiences with father-figures ranging from a man who was essentially a sperm donor (in terms of his presence in my life) to stepfathers, etc. Thanks for reminding me of the rest without making me feel stupid.
As to recasting Data – as a thought experiment, it’s a pretty cool notion.
(Unrelated: my husband is also a Christopher and he shares your other two initials.)
@47/Mr. Magic
“But throughout the Season, I’ve just been…I share the frustrations with the show’s focus on AI given we’d just gotten a similar focus over in Discovery.”
This. This exactly.
So, the super powerful entity isn’t coming to clean up AIs. The Admonitioners are coming, if they actually show up, to help the bots. From their point of view, Control’s plan was perfectly fine. It seems to be part of the background tapestry being set up for all the New Trek series.
Also, Soji was never the Destroyer, she just looks like Sutra, the actual Destroyer. The twin pattern seems to follow the Data/Lore dichotomy. Sutra’s twin on the Ibn Majid was the Data-like one, Sutra is Lore-like. And what are the chances that A.I. Sung isn’t human? Something’s off about him. Maybe Lore survived, like the countless times The Master came back from the dead.
I’m kind of on the fence about this episode, so I’ll reserve some criticism till we see how it plays out next week.
I didn’t buy the “JL, I love you” line, or his response. He abandoned Raffi after resigning and ignored her for 14 years. The moment wasn’t earned. Neither was Picard’s line to Elnor about being proud of him. Again, over a decade with no contact and he’s only interacted with him for a few days recently.
Agree with those who got a vibe about a possible Fenris Rangers spinoff. We know more shows are coming. CBS may have to change it’s name to the STC, Star Trek Channel.
The giant space flowers… so ridiculous. I loved Raffi’s dead pan reaction. (Raffi and Rios are in almost a tie for my favorite new characters, with Raffi in the lead.) And then they’re just mentioned in a blase manner after: “How many flowers you got left?” I suppose, why not? We already have space fungus that creates multidimensional travel networks in this current iteration of Trek.
@51 Meh, the flowers? They’re fine. Never forget the giant green glowing hand stopping the Enterprise :)
“The Destroyer” was such a bland name for the Romulan bogeyman that I tried to find some kind of reference it could be. The best I got was :
That’s Exodus 12:23, King James Version, describing massive violence by God himself against innocents to liberate slaves. Seems pretty close to what we got.
@51/Sunspear: “I didn’t buy the “JL, I love you” line, or his response. He abandoned Raffi after resigning and ignored her for 14 years. The moment wasn’t earned.”
On the contrary — she wouldn’t have been that bitter about his abandonment if she hadn’t cared deeply about him. It’s been set up all along.
“The giant space flowers… so ridiculous.”
Why? With that kind of synth technology, they can mimic whatever they want — humans, cats, butterflies, orchids. So why not make a spaceship look like an orchid? Prettier than a cube, certainly.
If we’re taking a vote, tally me as one who is wondering if the body-blank will be used to save Picard—although I hadn’t been following Stewart’s reasoning for doing this show, so maybe not?
Also, I loved the space-orchids. After all, this whole synth community apparently was built by someone who specialized in orchids.
@CLB “On the contrary — she wouldn’t have been that bitter about his abandonment if she hadn’t cared deeply about him. It’s been set up all along.”
I agree, that comment about the moment not being earned doesn’t work for me. Love isn’t a reward. As I’ve said before in comments to other episodes, Raffi is my favorite character, because she, like so many of us, has demons to contend with, but when she has them at bay, she is a force to contend with, and a friend to rely on.. Her feelings for Picard are strong and profound, and yes, she was very hurt by what she perceived as abandonment or even betrayal. But she loves him.
One thing about “Raffi’s abandonment” that I’ve wondered about. When did her marriage and estrangement from her husband and son happen? Picard’s resignation took place 14? years ago. Her son is in her early 20s?
A simple explanation can easily be that Picard figured Raffi was fine- after all she had a husband and son while HE had no one.
Does the time match?
@57/M: According to the tie-in novel The Last Best Hope (written in coordination with the show’s writing staff and thus presumably reflecting the character backstories authentically), Raffi’s divorce happened a few years into the evacuation effort, as a result of her being so absorbed in the work that she never had time for her family. However, IIRC, she tended not to talk about her personal life with her crewmates.
While it may not be satisfying from a Cosmic Justice point of view, it’s consistent with the Soong family tradition (somewhat Noonian and definitely Arik) of caring more about their work than conventional ideas of morality. So yeah, it’s an inadequate comeuppance for Agnes Jurati, but par for the course for the Soong family.
And I also find myself in agreement with CG256. It’s much more likely that Sutra killed the other Synth than Narek, who was wounded, would have been regarded warily, and probably wouldn’t have known the vulnerable points of a super-strong, super-fast Synth. (Yes, stabbing through the eye works for most species, but there’s not reason to automatically assume that it works for a synthetic life form.) Sutra seems to have concluded that contacting these uber-Synths is the right thing to do and demonstrating that organics are all dangerous seems like an obvious step.
Any thoughts about the name Coppelius? In the ballet Coppelia a human sacrifice is needed to bring Dr Coppelius’ perfect doll to life. His plans are thwarted when Swanhilda disguises herself as the doll, and then escapes with her lover. That has to give us some clues as to where we’re going with the golem and/or the synths.
Golem = Coppelia, synths = the other dolls, AI Soong = Dr Coppelius seems a bit too obvious a parallel, but they’ve used that name for a reason.
@53, there’s also:
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds” from the Bhagavad-Gita, famously quoted by Robert Oppenheimer, who worked on the original atomic bomb project.
Also, from the Remo Williams books:
“”I am created Shiva, the Destroyer; death, the shatterer of worlds. The dead night tiger made whole by the Master of Sinanju. Who is this dog meat that dares challenge me?”
Though I doubt that’s what anyone was thinking of.
Count me as one who wasn’t impressed by the episode but is cautiously hopeful for part 2.
I feel the pacing of the season overall has a lot of stops and starts – some episodes cram too much in and some episodes seem like they’re missing something.
I think we could have used a few more flashbacks of Picard and Raffi working together (and/or their friendship falling apart). We *definitely* could have used more time with Picard rebuilding his relationship with Elnor as they search for Soji. Or just getting to know the crew a bit more in general. An extra episode of hijinks before they get to the borg cube would have helped. Rios’ backstory reveal was well done, but we can’t care about Picard’s relationships with any of the new characters if we don’t know anything about the new characters.
Speaking of the borg cube… if the show decides that Narek actually loves Soji and that redeems him in some way, it’s going to feel totally unearned. I’m not sure how much was flat acting and how much was wheels-spinning writing. Our time with on the cube would have been better spent fleshing Soji and Narek out as separate characters.
I would have liked to see that Soji has many of Data’s mannerisms or that something about her changes when she remembers/realizes she’s a synth or even a bit more of her being a badass scientist. Her borg cube scenes were mostly in service of Narek’s character development and not successfully.
Either Narek is a covert operative who’s slowly realizing that synths are people too and being inspired by Soji’s compassion for the xBs (or inspired by her having more of any personality trait, frankly) OR Narek is a slimy evil dude who’s really good at his job of convincing Soji to tell him all her secrets. The former could be an interesting study of Romulan culture and the latter could have upped the stakes a little bit if we were at all worried Picard wouldn’t get there in time. Or if we didn’t know initially that he’s a bad guy. Or something more interesting than what we got.
I know it’s the Picard show, but Picard saving the day will give us more feels if we care about the people being saved.
/rant ove
What age is Altan Inigo Soong supposed to be? If the theory that Juliana Soong is his mother and (thanks to Memory Alpha) she and Soong married in 2328 then this would mean Altan would be 71 at the oldest possible age (weirdly enough Brent Spiner’s actual age). Our own real life current life expectancy is a higher than that and we have seen in Star Trek those with significant longer life spans… McCoy in the ST:TNG Premiere
The whole transfer yourself to a fresh new body felt a bit premature considering ST has shown that people live a lot longer in their universe. Granted he could be ill but it didn’t seem to be the case based on what was shown.
@57 I agree; I haven’t read the book, and the revelation that Raffi had a son let me to think that Picard would assume she had family. I didn’t get the impression that she went off the deep end about mysterious Romulan conspiracies until after Picard left–I mean, she clearly had theories (which Picard didn’t seem to believe), but I got the impression that she didn’t hide in them until after Mars.
All in all, I don’t really understand the anger at Picard for “abandoning” Raffi. She was an intelligent, capable person when he left Starfleet. She was an adult. She was still employed. She had a family. She didn’t have to retreat into drug use and obsession. Could she have used his help? Sure. Did she ask for it? Not that we know of. Could he have used her help? Definitely. Did he ask for it? Obviously not.
They are two human beings who each responded to a terrible loss in their own way. It wasn’t necessarily a healthy way, but that is what loss can do and depression does do. It saps a person of will and strength and leaves them thinking that everyone is better off without them.
These are two people who gave their lives to Starfleet and were, in different ways, let down by that organization. They both, in their ways, turned inward and gave up until Dahj and Soji burst in and gave Picard someone to rescue and Raffi a chance to say a giant “I told you so!” to all and sundry.
The thing that bothers me about Raffi isn’t so much that Picard retreated into himself and ignored her for so long. It’s that even after deciding that she would do him a favour and he saw her drug use, he didn’t even talk to her about it. Which makes me wonder about his bringing along the wine when he went to her trailer park. Did he already know about her alcoholism? Was it something that she had dealt with before, perhaps with his help? If he knew she was an alcoholic and he brought her wine, then he’s even more manipulative that he appeared at first glance.
It’s also very unrealistic that we get a couple of minutes of Raffi trying to get past the block she put on the replicator and then everything seems to be fine. No irritability. No further signs of craving. It’s like “Oh, OK, I’m not an addict any more”. Totally unrealistic portrayal of something that we know a lot about in the 21st century. And everyone applauding while she tosses away a friendship while obviously in the midst of a drinking binge and drug use still rankles me for the absolute blindness her friends have to her situation. I really want to like the character but she currently exists simply as a tool to further Picards quest.
Because this season has had one too many characters in my opinion, I wonder if Raffi and Rios could’ve been combined as the same character. They both have tragic backstories. Both former Starfleet. Maybe replace the substance abuse with holo-addiction to make it more interesting. I don’t know, they seem a little redundant to me.
@65 I doubt she was an alcoholic while serving in Starfleet. I doubt they’d stand for that.
It’s possible drug addiction has saved her life. I can’t think why else Commador Oh didn’t arrange for her to have an accident. A drug-addled conspiracy theorist helps keep the whole idea ridiculous. A sober one might get someone’s attention.
Not saying her addictions aren’t tragic, just thinking.
Yep.
As soon as I saw we weren’t going to Deep Space 12, I thought, “Yeah, Jurati’s gonna be let off the hook because story.” I guess I’m supposed to sympathize with Jurati for cold-blooded murder, but yeah, no. “Shame on you.” That’s all Alton Soong had to say to the woman who brutally murdered the man who helped create Soong’s “children.” Jurati may have had the suggestion to murder planted in her mind by Oh, but Jurati was very obviously in control of her actions. Jurati could simply have chosen not to murder Maddox, but she did, and should be punished.
Speaking of punished, Riker did remind Picard that no good deed goes unpunished. And here, once again, that bears out. I did love that moment between Picard and Raffi. Raffi tells Picard, “I love you, JL”, and Picard considers it, Raffi graciously gives Picard an out, and Picard turns to Raffi and says, “I love you too, Raffi.” Tears.
My wife compared Sutra to Lore, but Sutra is far more insidious than Lore ever was. Lore was a straight-up bad guy; Sutra cloaks her horrible actions in the guise of protecting her people. Sutra murdered, in essence, her own sister, to summon advanced synthetic beings to destroy all organic life.
Next week will be wild.
@68/Dante: “Cold-blooded” murder? Seriously? She was sobbing wretchedly the whole time. It tore her apart. “Cold-blooded” means feeling nothing, and that’s a gross mischaracterization.
Of course there’s no question that what she did was awful, but she did it because she was lied to and manipulated, because Commodore Oh convinced her that it was absolutely necessary to save the galaxy as she knew it. Remember that it bookended the episode along with Seven weeping as she killed Icheb, ending the life of someone she loved because she was convinced it was the only option she had. I’m convinced that parallel was intentional.
And despite believing it was essential to save trillions of lives, Jurati hated doing it and tore herself up with guilt after it. She quite literally poisoned herself and almost died trying to atone for it. And she was completely ready to turn herself in and face the consequences. She’s not some evil monster. She’ll spend the rest of her life trying to make amends for what Oh tricked her into doing. She’s not being let off the hook, because she’ll never let herself off the hook. She’s been punishing herself every moment since then.
Indeed, aren’t there a number of spy stories like this? A decent person is approached by an intelligence agent and convinced they need to become a spy, eventually they assassinate someone (or maybe a lot of people) for the good of the free world, and then they find out their superior lied to them and used them to commit murder, and they spend the rest of the story trying to make amends for it (though in those stories that usually entails exposing and/or killing the agent who tricked them). In those stories, it’s generally accepted that the real culpability is with the person who tricked the protagonist into killing. I don’t understand why this is so different.
@69/CLB: Yes, cold-blooded. Jurati looked her former lover in the eyes and said, “I have to kill you now.” Yes, she was sobbing, which underscores Jurati was fully in control. Indeed, it has torn her apart after the fact. It didn’t tear Jurati apart enough to stop it, or to not go through with it. I can’t sympathize with Jurati struggling with an action she simply could have chosen not to do. Now, seeing Jurati struggle with that choice, to have not murdered Maddox despite everything in her mind Oh planted telling her she has to kill Maddox? I could get behind that kind of struggle.
I don’t think Jurati is a monster. Jurati is a compelling character who did a truly horrible thing to someone she had previously loved.
As for similar stories, they’re probably are, but I’m not really a fan of those, either.
“Before I pass sentence on the accused for the crime of first degree murder, do you have anything to say?”
“Ues, your Honour. I’m really really, really sorry for what I did. I’ve never done it before and I promise not to kill again:
“Very well. I hereby sentence you to living on a planet with a clement climate and all sorts of advanced tech to play with where you can continue your life’s work. And I hope that this severe punishment isn’t too rough on you.”
Yeah, that’s how life works when you kill someone.
As I’ve said before, the Federation doesn’t just permit murder, it demands it in the case of civilizations that have’t yet discovered subspace radio or warp drive if they are threatened by a natural disaster.
After all, everything we’ve seen shows that Commodore Oh truly believed that organic life was in danger. Which it now, apparently, actually is. So the Romulans were right after all.
I just watched this episode and then TNG’s “Brothers” in quick succession, and I realized that of all of the families in Star Trek lore (no pun intended), the Soong family tree—both human and synth—has the most long lost family members who are retconned into existence whenever the story of the week demands it.
Besides being a murderer, Jurati’s flaw is being quite stupid. Someone from the government shows you a glorified conspiracy theory and you believe it? I guess box sets of The X-Files didn’t survive WWIII.
That one does seem to be more frequently used in SF.
@73 I thought it was less that Jurati was shown what Oh wanted to see, but that Oh downloaded it straight into her brain. The experience was enough to drive a majority who went through it mad. Even if Jurati got a “softer” version, I can understand her subsequent compulsion to murder, even if I can’t condone it.
@69: I think in this context “cold-blooded” refers not to a lack of feeling but to the fact it was done deliberately and pre-meditatedly and the victim had no opportunity to defend himself.
@70/Dante: “I don’t think Jurati is a monster. Jurati is a compelling character who did a truly horrible thing to someone she had previously loved.”
I agree. So I don’t understand why you and Keith and others are talking about her in such damning terms. There are characters in Trek who have done far, far worse with just as little punishment, e.g. Kira (a terrorist), Odo (a collaborator), and Garak (a career torturer and assassin). None of whom were tricked and manipulated into their actions the way that Jurati was.
” I can’t sympathize with Jurati struggling with an action she simply could have chosen not to do. “
“Simply?” There’s nothing simple about it. Imagine you were told that killing someone you loved was the only way to save your entire species from extermination. Imagine you were given a mind-meld filling you with horrific visions of the destruction that would result, and the absolute, fanatical conviction that it would happen if you didn’t kill that person. How is that “simple?” You’re trivializing something that was utterly wrenching and devastating to her.
Most people who see the Admonition kill themselves. It’s a horrific thing to endure. If anything, it’s a tribute to Jurati’s strength of character that she was able to overcome the brainwashing at all and recognize the wrongness of her actions, to be willing to atone for her crime rather than still trying to destroy the Coppelian synths.
@76/cap-mjb: If I were editing a manuscript and the author used “cold-blooded” in that way, I’d advise them to choose a different word. Just because an act is premeditated does not mean it’s done without emotion. Fiction is full of stories about people who commit premeditated murders or other crimes with great remorse or anguish, because they feel they have no other choice.
@60 I doubt that Chabon is refering to the ballet, I guess like most literary people he would refer to the original story, E.T.A Hoffmann’s The Sandman which is one of the major works of German literature. There is no sacrifice in the story, it is simply a reference to the creation of artificial mechanical life with a tragic twist.
As for the Jurati discussion I don’t quite see why we can’t take some middle ground between cold-blooded murder and innocent. I am pretty sure there are some mitigating circumstances. And indeed as Chris pointed out DS9 was literally wallowing in loveable shady figures up to the point where the authors realized that they had gone too far with Dukat – not an uncommon problem with in storytelling and noticeably so in Anglo-Saxon countries which have no clear historical experience and grasp on what state sponsored mass murder in your own country means and which treat the equivalent of concentration camp leaders as interesting psychological studies and colourful narrative devices. Jurati’s portrayal seems far less problematic to me.
Also I rather liked the last few episodes and I feel there is more Star Trek feeling in them, maybe it is Chabon’s increased and Kurtzman’s decreased influence. When the latter is finally out this summer and Discovery hopefully finished with the next season we might see some turnaround with people more suited for Star Trek stories.
A. Given that the original message drives people insane, any good lawyer would be able to get a not-guilty verdict for Jurati.
B. Is it possible that there is a third interpretation of the message? Perhaps neither side is correct so far?
First Star Trek episode where a character says “Su puta madre”.
@79/M: “Is it possible that there is a third interpretation of the message? Perhaps neither side is correct so far?”
Good thought. I hope there is. It would be a very Trekkian resolution if it turned out that the message wasn’t really saying one side must destroy the other, but was more like “Please don’t let this kind of destruction happen again, learn to coexist instead.”
@77/CLB: Yes, the choice was simple. As Picard and Maddox were talking in the Medbay, Jurati is clearly mulling over her next course of action: to become a murderer or not. To put stock in something Jurati saw through a mind-meld forced on her by a very shady person or not. As I said before, she could have talked to Maddox, to Picard, to Rios, to somebody, instead of deciding to go from scientist to first-degree murderer. Maddox’s life was in her hands, and Jurati chose to end it.
@82/Dante; It wasn’t just something she “saw,” it was something she felt with profound intensity. The vision caused most of the Romulans who saw it to go insane or kill themselves to stop the agony. And the survivors become fanatics, which suggests that anyone who survives the message utterly believes it to be true, not merely as a choice but as a desperate, driving imperative. Even if Agnes only got a reduced, secondhand dose of it, it must have been terrifying and traumatic for her, and Oh exploited that fear and convinced her the only course of action she had to prevent the horror was to follow Oh’s orders.
Also, even without the compulsion of the Admonition, Commodore Oh is the head of Starfleet Security, and she recruited Jurati for a classified, covert mission. Someone in such a situation cannot simply “talk to someone” about their classified orders; it would probably constitute treason to do so. Jurati was trapped, either by the Admonition’s compulsion or by Oh’s abuse of her legal authority, or both.
@79 re your point A, as an attorney, under modern American jurisprudence as to what the insanity defense entails, which is a total inability to know right from wrong, I disagree that Jurati would escape criminal repercussions for her act. A successful insanity defense is actually very rare. Jurati’s actions afterwards in trying to cover up the act by turning off the holographic doctor and then acting out of character by seducing Rios (not that she had to try very hard) all show consciousness of guilt The way our system works is that the defense would signal it was pursuing an insanity defense, the prosecution would have her tested by a court-appointed expert, and the parties would plead the charge down to something like manslaughter.
Not sure how it would work in the 24th century, but that’s how it works in the 21st.
Also if you’re found not guilty by reason of insanity, you’re then committed to a psychiatric facility for an indefinite time. It’s not “getting off” by any means.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@84/Stephenc202: “what the insanity defense entails, which is a total inability to know right from wrong”
That’s specifically the M’Naghten rule, which was devised in Victorian England and is rather outdated: “at the time of committing the act, the accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing or, if he did know it, that he did not know what he was doing was wrong.”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/insanity_defense
There are other standards, such as the “Irresistible Impulse” test: “a jury may find a defendant not guilty by reason of insanity where the defendant was laboring under a mental disease or defect that compelled him to commit the object offense,” even if they do comprehend that what they’re compelled to do is legally or morally wrong. The Admonition certainly seems to fit that standard.
The Model Penal Code devised in 1972 in the US defined insanity as a mental condition or disease that deprived the defendant of “substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law,” which is a blend of the M’Naghten and Irresistible Impulse rules, basically. Although Congress passed laws in 1984 that reverted to more of a M’Naghten-style standard. But of course, the Federation may have a different definition.
Anyway, defining right and wrong is not always a simple thing. What if you know that murder is wrong, but in your insanity you are utterly convinced that committing that wrong is necessary to do a greater right, i.e. saving your entire species from annihilation? You can recognize something as evil yet still be convinced it’s a necessary evil. And if that certainty is the result of a mental illness or compulsion, I think it would at least count as diminished capacity.
In any case, it was Commodore Oh who turned Jurati into her weapon and aimed her at Maddox. I think any court with full knowledge of the facts would find that Oh was the truly guilty party. And even Oh might be forgiven (ethically if not legally) as a victim of the Admonition’s compulsion.
@75 That’s the impression I got as well: Jurati wasn’t told what would happen, she experienced it. She didn’t just think she had to kill Maddox to keep the universe safe, she knew it, absolutely and completely. And then, to top it off, Oh added a metal command forbidding her to tell anyone.
“Let’s go back!” was the closest she could get until she was on the other side of a near-death experience herself (assuming she is, in fact, now free of the compulsion).
I may hate the Admonition as a story choice, but that is the way things are set up: The Admonition makes people experience the events so intensely that they go insane: Those who don’t flat out kill themselves emerge 100% convinced that they must do whatever it takes to stop them from coming to pass.
Now, one question I have is: Did these uber-synths deliberately set this up so it would drive organics insane and push them to the “inevitable” conflict, or was that an accidentals side effect caused through carelessness? I’m inclined to think the first, though I would be quite happy if the third option someone mentioned turns out to be true: That they were trying to warn both sides off of the fight and will turn out to be appalled that they instead drove it forward.
@87/IBookwyrme: “And then, to top it off, Oh added a metal command forbidding her to tell anyone.”
Oh, yes, I forgot that part. She couldn’t speak about it to the others. Even after they found out, she still had a mental block that wouldn’t let her say anything specific.
“Did these uber-synths deliberately set this up so it would drive organics insane and push them to the “inevitable” conflict, or was that an accidentals side effect caused through carelessness?”
According to Sutra, the message affected organic minds badly because it was never meant for them. Besides, if the purpose was to protect synths, then driving organics to feel compelled to murder synths is kind of counterproductive. So I’m going with accidental side effect.
@86 The only critique I’d add to your analysis is that “justice,” which is a term that’s very much in the eye of the beholder, also doesn’t happen in a vacuum like a legal casebook. It is carried out with people who like all of us carry prejudices and past careers which shape their decision making. So who is the prosecutor and what would their prejudices and inclinations be? If Oh’s plot is uncovered and forces hostile to Oh control the prosecution, then Jurati is probably in better shape. If the prosecutor is somehow aligned with Oh at least in sympathy, or shared history in intelligence/prosecution matters, then they would be less inclined to view the offense leniently.
Before you get to make your case to a (theoretically) neutral judge or jury, you’ve got to make it to a prosecutor who makes that charging/plea decision in the first place.
I’m a civil lawyer by trade but on the criminal side, justice is very much accomplished through rational deal-making by both sides based up the strength of the evidence, prevailing cultural norms, etc. not all of which we know right now in Dr. Jurati’s case. Trials are what happens when one side has “nothing to lose” due to a very weak hand.
By the way, you’d be surprised how much of our lives are still regulated by common law (perhaps later codified) judicial assumptions about human behavior made at the turn of the last century! Courts don’t typically fix what they don’t perceive as being broken
@89/Stephenc202: Honestly, I’m not interested in what a hypothetical fictional justice system might decide about Jurati’s culpability. None of that matters to us as the audience for this story, since this story is not about her trial. The question is whether we can understand and empathize with her, whether we can forgive her for the horrible mistake she was manipulated into making and is now desperate to atone for.
In many ways, guilt is a defining theme of the character arcs in this show. Picard feels guilty for failing to save the Romulans he was responsible for saving. Raffi feels guilty for losing her family and alienating her son. Rios feels guilty for what his captain did to Jana and Beautiful Flower under Oh’s orders. Agnes feels guilty for what Oh compelled her to do to Maddox. Seven’s whole character arc for decades has been about atoning for her guilt about the lives she took as a Borg drone. Even Narek might feel guilty about betraying Soji, though that may just be an act.
It seems like a lot of people ARE interested in whether Jurati gets time, for whatever reason!
If this was Season 3 of Picard, and she had been with the … er… crew throughout, then I’d say she’s safe. (See Data, Lt. Commander, “Brothers”). In this case, I think she probably disappears without a satisfying resolution. We shall see.
By the way, if Brothers had been written by Rick Berman today, that poor kid would be toast, so as to raise the stakes.
Picards guilt is more about Data sacrificing himself in Nemesis. He’s hardly shown any guilt about the Romulans, even going out of his way to provoke some of them which resulted in a death. And he didn’t show guilt over that, just disappointment that Elvor acted without his approval.
Yeah, I suppose Jurati could’ve been brainwashed into murder, much like Geordi was that one time.
I must admit I’ve always had difficulty relating to characters in those situations. As a plot device it works and can be entertaining in a suspenseful story (ie from the POV of someone like Data rushing to stop the assassin), but that’s about all the interest I can find. It pretty much ceases to be about a character with choices to make once that person becomes programmed to kill.
I think I would’ve preferred getting to know Jurati as a quirky scientist rather than as a victim of an intense mind meld. This soon in her story, anyway.
@93/JFWheeler: I think there’s a difference between being robotically programmed to kill and being instilled with the absolute conviction that killing someone is essential for the greater good. Imagine if, say, Seven had killed Icheb to end his suffering after he was mortally wounded… and then she discovered that she’d been in a telepathically induced delusion and had actually killed a perfectly healthy Icheb. She would have made the decision herself, but based on false convictions that were forced on her. Which is different from being directly forced to act.
@94
That’s a fair point.
Though I think they may have pulled the trigger, so to speak, on the Jurati/Maddox storyline too soon. Perhaps they should’ve revealed her murder plot from the beginning and let us wonder if she’ll go through with it in these final episodes. I mean, I find it far more interesting to watch a character struggle with whether to kill or not than having to deal with the aftermath of being duped into it.
Much like in the original Manchurian Candidate, the assassin is intercepted well before the assassination, there is an attempt made to alter his programming, then we’re left wondering until the very end whether that attempt was successful or not. And it turns out to be a choice made independently by the assassin that neither the antagonists nor the protagonists expected. Which is good drama, good suspense.
I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned it so far, but one of my favorite parts of the Season’s penultimate episode was the reprise of the VOY theme when Team Picard and Seven reconnect.
Jeff Russo’s had already reused part of the medley for “Stardust City Rag “, but just hearing a more full, more hopeful version of the Leitmotif really made my week.
@49 – Aerik: Yes, not all synths seemed as Data-like, some looked more natural.
@60 – elderberry: Good catch.
@63 – JLP: Or he just wants to be a synth, regardless of the life expectancy.
@69 – Chris: Add to that that Jurati was not convinced by Oh, rather, she was damaged by the Admonition, in a different way than those who went mad when receiving it directly, but still.
@79/81: The Admonishers show up and say “Hey everybody, thanks for inviting us the party, we bought pizza!”
@96: Speaking of the Voyager theme, I have a confession.
As I’ve been watching VOY (for the first time, to follow the rewatch posts) I keep finding myself humming a snatch of the theme from the Flintstones cartoon series. Took me awhile to realize that the first 3 notes are basically the same pattern…which apparently is all the prompting my brain needed to resurrect my past.
@98/srEDIT: Great, now none of us will be able to unhear that!
@81: That sound’s as if it would hew fairly closely to the plot of the Voyager episode Memorial. I’m not a fan of that episode, so I dearly hope it’s not.
Jurati is guilty of manslaughter or murder, just like Picard/Locutus. After all, Picard maintained enough of his autonomy to be able to send the “sleep” signal, so he obviously was able to resist the Borg collective. All that teary-eyed blather in “Family” about “I tried so hard, but I wasn’t strong enough” was just him trying to justify himself. Given the gravity of his failure, he should never have seen the light of day again.
Incidentally, I don’t believe any of that, but that’s pretty much how I’m taking those who think Jurati is definitively culpable. She was exposed to the Admonition via a mind-meld – the same Admonition that makes people tear their faces off and put phasers to their heads. Just because she is aware of what she is doing while she kills Maddox, and that she appears remorseful during and afterwards, does not mean she is necessarily culpable of a capital crime. Homicide can be excused as a product of duress or coercion. . A mind-meld of just a few seconds is enough to implant an entire Vulcan Katra into a human mind without the subject even knowing it – you don’t think it can be powerful enough to coerce someone into killing a loved one on the premise that the alternative is the Admonition?
I’m not down with the torches and pitchforks.
@101/fullyfunctional: “After all, Picard maintained enough of his autonomy to be able to send the “sleep” signal, so he obviously was able to resist the Borg collective.”
No, he didn’t, not on his own. All he was able to do was suggest that Data transmit the “sleep” command through his link to the Collective. It was Data who actually transmitted the command.
@102- true, although I think that’s a distinction without a difference, as I am primarily concerned with mens rea. To some extent, Picard retained his individuality, and was able to resist by communicating a thought to the detriment of the collective. So he still knew right from wrong, at least in terms of what an autonomous Picard would consider right and wrong.
Again, I don’t believe Picard is culpable at all. I’m comparing that situation to Jurati’s, and I believe it is highly possible that she simply was unable to resist killing Maddox, even if she knew she was killing him and even if she knew it was wrong.
@103/fullyfunctional: I think it’s debatable whether Picard’s ability to reassert some self-awareness while in Data’s lab proves that he had the same awareness while on the Borg cube. Data had been working for some time to try to sever his connection and recover his personality, after all. While he didn’t appear to succeed, his efforts may have eroded the Borg’s control enough to give Picard’s consciousness an opening.
And as for Jurati, as I’ve been saying, I don’t think it was a compulsion in the sense that she couldn’t stop herself, but in the sense that she had been instilled with the overriding conviction that all civilization would be exterminated if she didn’t do it. As I’ve said before, I believe the juxtaposition with Seven’s killing of Icheb at the beginning of the episode was an intentional parallel — they both hated what they were doing but were certain they had no other choice.
Am I the only one that had a problem with Jurati being ALONE in sickbay with Picard after he passes out?! I stress the words “alone-in-sickbay!!”. Who knows how many “directives” Oh planted in her head! The rest of the crew obviously had no problem with it. She should at least be under observation, right?
Nope, I noticed that too but I wrote it off the the Trek tradition of “no consequences for your actions”, at least among people with their names in the opening credits.
I am extremely disappointed in how not “family friendly” this show is. One of the things that made TNG great was how family friendly it was, now we have near nudity, f-bombs and other cursing, extreme violence (drilling into peoples heads (and yes I know this happened in TNG, but never on camera)). It is sad that people have become so desensitized to this kind of stuff, and sad that this isn’t a show I can bring my whole family (ages 6 to 14) to watch with me. My kids won’t have the same memories I have of watching star trek with my dad. Such a shame!
@107/stormman: “(drilling into peoples heads (and yes I know this happened in TNG, but never on camera))”
They graphically blew a guy’s head open on camera in “Conspiracy.” That was pretty shocking and controversial at the time. And a lot of TNG dealt with sexual themes, especially when Roddenberry was in charge and taking advantage of the greater freedom of ’80s syndicated TV versus ’60s network TV — the sexual antics of “The Naked Now,” the hedonist planet of “Justice,” naked Betazoid weddings, Lwaxana’s incessant horniness, etc. It wasn’t as “family-friendly” as you recall.
Standards change. Audiences from the ’60s would’ve been shocked by TNG’s casual use of “hell” and “damn,” but audiences from decades later recall it as tame. Similarly, TOS was very adult, racy, and boundary-pushing for its time, but has come to be seen as suitable for children.
Christopher is correct: TNG only seems family friendly now thirty years later.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
In olden days, a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking. Now, goodness knows, anything goes!
quoting 104 CLB: “I think it’s debatable whether Picard’s ability to reassert some self-awareness while in Data’s lab proves that he had the same awareness while on the Borg cube. Data had been working for some time to try to sever his connection and recover his personality, after all. While he didn’t appear to succeed, his efforts may have eroded the Borg’s control enough to give Picard’s consciousness an opening.”
Agree in part, especially since the way the scene is written, Data can’t find a way around the Borg implants at first but his efforts appear to somehow allow Picard to make direct contact. As I noted earlier, in “Brothers”, Picard says he tried so hard to resist, but wasn’t strong enough. We even saw a tear streaming down his cheek when he was assimilated. I think he was self-aware to some extent – but he remained incapable of resisting. Jurati wasn’t so directly coerced with Borg implants – but from what I saw of the Admonition, there’s a distinct possibility, in my view anyway, that she was psychologically manipulated to the extent that her actions, while she was aware of them, were not of her own volition.
I will say that the Narek/Soji bedroom scenes are appalling to me.
Not because of the implied sex. But because of the complete lack of chemistry between the actors. :)
@111/fully: “from what I saw of the Admonition, there’s a distinct possibility, in my view anyway, that she was psychologically manipulated to the extent that her actions, while she was aware of them, were not of her own volition.”
I just don’t see it that way. It’s not that your actions are out of your control, it’s that you’re instilled with a fanatical or overriding belief that acting to prevent the rise of synths is absolutely essential no matter the cost. If you’re absolutely convinced that the survival of your entire species depends on it, then that’s all the motivation that’s needed, no direct coercion required.
CLB – again, I don’t disagree with your conclusion about motivation – I just don’t see, in this instance, that there is necessarily a difference between coercion of action and instillation of belief in terms of whether Jurati had any choice here. It did not appear to me that Jurati simply saw some vision that convinced her that Maddox had to die so she decided kill him. I think there’s still an open question of whether she had the ability to make a choice at all.
@114/fully: ” It did not appear to me that Jurati simply saw some vision that convinced her that Maddox had to die so she decided kill him. I think there’s still an open question of whether she had the ability to make a choice at all.”
Of course I’m not saying she “simply saw” anything. I’m talking about an absolute, overriding conviction. It’s not that she lost the ability to choose, but that she became profoundly convinced that there was no choice because the fate of her entire species was at stake. Or rather, that the Admonition filled her with such profound Lovecraftian terror at that vision of annihilation that she was desperate to do anything to avert it.
It’s a subtle distinction, quite possibly irrelevant to the question of her guilt or innocence, but as I said, I don’t really care about that question, because we’re her audience, not her jury. What matters here is characterization and drama, and I think that it’s far less dramatically interesting if a character is merely mind-controlled. It’s more compelling if she theoretically had control of her actions but was manipulated or brainwashed into believing those actions were absolutely essential.
@108 ChristopherLBennet,
I think it is a shame that today’s standards are so different then they used to be. I think it says a lot about our society and culture that we have become a more crass and vulgar people. Shame indeed.
And the events from TNG that you mentioned are definitely on a different level than Picard. Also, they were more few and far between. I just think it is sad.
stormman: As a society and culture, we used to be perfectly okay with enslaving people because of the color of their skin. As a society and culture, we used to be perfectly okay with women not having the right to vote. As a society and culture, we used to be perfectly okay with treating people who aren’t cis-gendered or heterosexual as second-class citizens or just pretending they didn’t exist. As a society and culture, people who didn’t conform to a particular physical norm were laughed at and considered freaks and carnival attractions. As a society and culture, we were comfortable with genocide of Indigenous people.
We’re moving away from all those things as a society and culture, albeit not nearly quickly enough, and I’ll take that in exchange for a few uses of the word “fuck.”
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@116/stormman: Or maybe as a culture we’ve just become less ashamed by things that are essentially harmless.
“In our century, we’ve learned not to fear words.” — Nyota Uhura
@117, I’m just saying we should try and get rid of the bad and keep the good, not replace bad for different bad. We should call evil good, and good evil.
Sorry, meant shouldn’t, but can’t edit since I don’t have an account.
@119/stormman: A little frank language is not evil. Sexual openness is certainly not evil. As for the violence, I’m not crazy about it, but if you’re going to tell stories about violence, I think it’s better to be honest about how horrific it is than to try to sanitize it and make it seem inconsequential.
Folks may be interested to know that CBS All Access has just made the whole show free to non-subscribers for the next month.
@107
I agree. The eyeball ripping was absurd and gratuitous. I see people bringing up the exploding head in Conspiracy, but are we forgetting how bad early TNG was? Justice, Naked Now, Conspiracy — even then it was all terrible, schlocky stuff.
I would suggest they release a PG or PG-13 release of Picard for families, but are there that many kids even interested in Star Trek any more? Seems to be a very niche thing now. I mean, I can’t recall seeing any Trek toys in stores in recent years. Nothing like in the 90s. Maybe that will change after the new animated series launches, but I can’t imagine kids right now being excited for… Picard. Buckle up, children, and brace yourselves for the ennui!
@123/JFWheeler: “Maybe that will change after the new animated series launches, but I can’t imagine kids right now being excited for… Picard.”
But that’s the cool thing about having so many different Trek series in production at the same time — they don’t all have to be for the same audience. There will be something for everyone. It’s like when Doctor Who had two simultaneous spinoffs, the very adult Torchwood and the more kid-friendly The Sarah Jane Adventures, with Who itself falling between them in age range. Having multiple shows meant they could offer multiple approaches and widen their appeal beyond a single target audience.
Picard, after all, is a work rooted very much in concepts and characters from TNG and VGR, shows from the ’80s and ’90s. Is it really surprising that its target audience is adults? But it’s not the only game in town. There’s a lot of Trek coming over the next few years, so there will be a lot of different options for different tastes. That’s a good thing. If a specific show doesn’t appeal to you, that’s okay, because there will be others.
@124
That’s true. And I do hope kids get their own Trek in the future. Everyone deserves to get ‘that feeling’ we all know a good Star Trek story gives us.
About the toy thing, I was curious, so I did a search on Walmart.com and Amazon.com for “Star Trek toy” and there was very little Discovery and no Picard merch to be found; it’s almost all retro TOS and TNG stuff. The Discovery and La Sirena are pretty cool looking ships. I’m surprised there aren’t more models of them out there, beyond the specific Eaglemoss items that is.
@118, but we’ve become a culture terrified of certain words.
The upcoming animated series — not Lower Decks, but the other one, the title of which hasn’t been released yet — is being developed for Nickelodeon and is specifically aimed at being an entry point to Star Trek for kids.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@117 Krad: Preach!
I’d love to see a remake of TOS done with modern production values and writing. Keep the order of episodes the same, use more serialization such as callback to prior episodes, let Kirk drop an f-bomb now and then, show that people are calling out McCoy for being a racist, give us some hot and heavy bedroom action with Kirk and the babe of the week. Spock could even let Kirk in on the existence of Burnham.
Basically update the original series for the 21st century. They could even use the Enterprise sets that were used on Discovery.
@129: That sounds sacrilegious.
Anyway, the JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot films are pretty much what you just described.
Nope, the JJ reboot changed all sorts of stuff. McCoy being on the ship at the start. Sulu not an astrophysicist. Kirk becoming Captain while still a cadet. All the JJ verse stories are different, Khan for example. Vulcan destroyed. Amanda dead. No more Chekov.
I’m saying tell the same stories but rewrite them just enough, while keeping the plot, to make them more palatable for a modern audience. TOS gets a lot of grief from modern fans for it’s “Bad special effects” and “Cardboard sets”. Her’s a chance to keep TOS much as it happened but with just a few tweaks to bring it to the present. Rather than rewriting TOS in the modern stories, create a new TOS that takes advantage of the history that’s been presented in the later series.
And I’m a HUGE TOS fan.
@131: I was referring to the JJ movies because you referred to “modern production values and writing” and Kirk bedding hot women.
I just don’t see the point in redoing TOS “for a modern era”. That’s why we have any of the current and still to come Trek series for the modern era. TOS still holds up fine for today while still being a reflection of the era in which it was produced. Also, you may not be aware, but TOS was remastered around a decade ago or so and spruced up with brand new visuals to make it feel more modern.
I’m aware of the new effects that were done. Still not what I’m aiming at.
Less different than Battlestar Galactica, more than a shot by shot remake. A reimagining as opposed to a full reboot. Build up the recurring characters like Kyle. Show what Marla McGivers was doing before Space Seed. Make M’Benga a regular, or at least recurring character.
What would TOS be like if it told the same stories today
Just watched this again as I’m getting ready to sit down and watch part 2, and a couple of things struck me. First, Picard’s speech at the end made me cringe. “I’ll MAKE then listen.”. J.L, please…. I didn’t think it was necessary for Soong to puncture the Picard posturing, as I think Keith put it. Picard was never close….
The “I love you” scene between Raffi and Picard was played just right- Raffi all awkward and vulnerable… “You don’t have to say it back” – that’s code for you better say it back or I’ll be completely gutted. I say this after every episode, but Raffi has become my favorite character by far. Whoever called her Auntie Raffi the first time hit it right on the nose. Given her clearheaded empathy, it’s devastatingly sad how she is so estranged from her son.
Still have no use for Narek. Soji eviscerating him was fun, but then he ends up being released anyway Meh– worst villain ever. The only thing that could make it worse as if they end up making him an anti-villain.
Lastly, Jeri Ryan wasn’t on-screen that long in this episode but those Borg nanoprobes definitely keep her looking well.
The problem with Jurati’s redemption is that it’s not believable.
It’s made clear that she’s exposed to such horrifying vision of the future, that she’ll do anything to stop the synthetics, up to and including the cold-blooded murder of her former lover.
She states “if you’d seen what I’d seen” – she’s been convinced by terrible, incontrovertible facts. Now – those facts could be false, they could be made up. But if they are such a strong influence on her behaviour, then we should expect her also to do absolutely everything in her power to kill Soji or the other synthetics. But she doesn’t. We just get a really mealy-mouthed “oh now i”ve met you Soji and you’re so amazing and perfect I realise the error of my ways, I wish I hadn’t killed Bruce”
The writers can’t have it both ways – it can’t be both that the Admonition is so powerful that it forces her to kill her lover, but also it’s so easy to get over when she takes one look at Soji.
@135/tryptych: “The writers can’t have it both ways – it can’t be both that the Admonition is so powerful that it forces her to kill her lover, but also it’s so easy to get over when she takes one look at Soji.”
Yes, it can. Brainwashing can be resisted. A person can be torn between two conflicting drives at the same time, feeling they have to do something but really, profoundly wishing they didn’t. As long as that inner battle is being fought, if the two drives are close to evenly matched, then it doesn’t take that much of a shift for the tide to turn. Agnes clearly struggled with herself before shutting off Maddox’s life support, and in that case she lost the fight against the brainwashing. But her guilt overwhelmed her to the point that she risked killing herself to remove the tracker, so clearly she’d managed to resist the conditioning even before she met Soji. By that time, she’d already done a lot of the hard work to free herself from the conditioning.
Or, another possible explanation is that Oh specifically ordered/compelled her to kill Maddox because that was whom she was sent to find, but finding Soji was more of an uncertain variable so Oh didn’t think to give her orders for that situation.
The Admonition – It’s a dessert topping and a floor wax.
Imagine how different things would have turned out of Oh didn’t keep pausing in giving her order to fire to allow the forces that will stop her to arrive. How many orchids did the synths have? A fraction of the number of ships that Oh had under her command. And all it would have taken was for one ship to slip around the edge and fire a single shot. All those ships, knowledge of the exact location of the target and nobody even fires a single shot in the direction of the planet. Such bad set up by the writers.
@136 When Oh show’s her the Admonition she asks “what can I do?”. This isn’t some sort of specific brainwashing to do a single task (kill Maddox), it certainly appears as if it’s to create a create a genuine horror of synthetics.
That’s what happens to the Romulans who experience it. They are utterly driven by a desire to prevent the synthetic apocalypse because they’ve seen the result.
The Romulans often refer to the synthetics as “abominations”, which made me think of Iain M. Banks’ “The Algebraist” where the protagonists struggle with their own revulsion of AIs, and they’ve just been brought up in a culture as children that fears them. Not directly exposed to a vision that shows an intense visceral experience – so intense that those receiving the full blast often kill themselves or go mad.
We’re supposed to believe that Jurati, given an experience (albeit less intense), is able to get over it so quickly? I just don’t buy it. If the writers wanted to convince us that she was battling with some inner struggle between two courses of action, they could have at least spent some time with Jurati having to overcome her revulsion of viewing Soji as an abomination, rather than just immediately accepting her (basically because she nerds out on how cool Soji is) . It just doesn’t come across believable to me.
@138/tryptych: I said Oh may have “ordered/compelled” her to kill Maddox. There are other forms of compulsion besides brainwashing, e.g. the legal pressure that could be brought to bear by the head of Starfleet Security recruiting someone to conduct a vital mission for the safety of the Federation. And of course, as you say, the terror induced by the Admonition is severe enough to be a powerful compulsion on its own.
“We’re supposed to believe that Jurati, given an experience (albeit less intense), is able to get over it so quickly? I just don’t buy it. “
As you say, it was less intense. And it was hardly easy for her to overcome; she was completely falling apart for a couple of episodes, and she literally almost killed herself. The poison was meant to neutralize the tracker in her bloodstream, but the physiological and neurological shock of her brush with death might have helped undermine the conditioning, or “reset” her brain a little. If something’s going wrong with your computer, it never hurts to try turning it off and back on again. ;)
Also, keep in mind that Agnes Jurati is the Federation’s leading expert on synths, and she’s dreamed of creating something like Soji for most of her professional career. So she already has a powerful predisposition to think positively of androids, one that’s rooted far more deeply in her brain than the recent veneer of revulsion that was induced in her. Don’t underestimate the power of a lifetime of nerdiness.
I would also point out that “We must not allow synths to exist because they’ll bring down a Lovecraftian horror to destroy us” does not automatically equate to “Synths themselves are a Lovecraftian horror.” The Romulans drew that equivalence, but Romulan culture predisposes them to paranoia and xenophobia. It doesn’t automatically follow that Jurati would see the same equivalence.
The synths bought into the whole “We need to build the beacon to bring about the deaths of the organics” pretty darn fast.
It’s also interesting that Agnes couldn’t stop herself from killing Maddox but she didn’t simply kill herself to destroy the tracker. Usually you hear of people saying “I’ll do anything to save you” but for her, it was “I’m willing to kill you but I’m going to give myself a fighting chance to live”. Seems like she wasn’t quite as fond of him as she was of herself.
If they follow up on Maddox’s murder in the second season, I expect it’ll last about as long as Kirk’s demotion in Into Darkness, which is to say just a few minutes and she’ll be free.