There is a lot that happens in this week’s Star Trek: Picard, which has a very apt title in “Surrender,” as there’s a lot of surrendering and playing at surrendering and surrendering and going back on it, and so on.
There’s also a moment that royally pissed me off, several unanswered questions, some superb acting—including at least one instance of it that draws a bit too much attention to itself—proof that I was right about something last week that several folks thought I was wrong about, and a moment we’ve been waiting all season for.
Let’s get the annoyances out of the way. First of all, there’s the thing that royally pissed me off, which is that Vadic kills someone. Holding the bridge crew hostage, and threatening to kill a hostage every ten minutes unless Jack gets his ass to the bridge, Vadic makes good on that threat after the first ten minutes.
We’re teased with who she’ll kill—she asks both Esmar and Mura to identify themselves by name, and we figure she’ll shoot one of them. But then she turns and shoots T’Veen, instead.
Okay, I’m way more invested in Titan’s bridge crew than perhaps I should be, given that they’re little more than ciphers, but I’m curious. I want to know why Mura has a given name of Matthew when he’s Bajoran. I want to know how telepathic Esmar is—there had to be a reason why they were the one who said they knew who Jack was in his hallucination, and they’re a Halian, established in TNG‘s “Aquiel” as being telepathic—and I want to know more about T’Veen and now we never will because she’s dead. Dagnabbit. I really like Stephanie Czajkowski from her work on Doom Patrol, and I’m hugely disappointed that we won’t be seeing her again.
Sigh.
All right, moving on, the moment that we find out that Mura’s given name is Matthew is right before he has a lovely moment of awesome where he refuses to give in to Vadic in any way, even though it’ll leave his son without a father, because he’s Starfleet.
And that happened right after Jack took over his body and had him try to enter Picard’s code that would allow them to take control of the ship back. Despite what some folks said in the comments last week—which was contradicted by what was actually onscreen in “Dominion,” but whatever—Jack does, in fact, telepathically manipulate people, as he does to Mura in this episode before Vadic catches him out.
It’s a good plan that fails, because sometimes you roll a 20 and sometimes you roll a 5. And so they go to Plan B, which involves getting Data to take over the ship. But that requires that they lower the partition between Data and Lore and hope that Data wins. Which is a problem, because Data has ethics and Lore really really doesn’t.
The battle between them is at once pure fan service and also pure actor service. It’s primarily an acting exercise for Brent Spiner, who gets to stand in a room with himself and alternate between Data’s deadpan and Lore’s OTT shtick. The fan service is in what happens, as Data, seeing that Lore is succeeding in taking over their shared body and stealing his memories, decides to simply give Lore his memories. We get a greatest hits of Data’s past, including his interest in Sherlock Holmes (we even get audio flashbacks to Data and La Forge playing at Holmes and Watson on the holodeck from TNG’s “Elementary, Dear Data”) and poker, his fling with Tasha Yar (from TNG’s “The Naked Now,” as represented by the hologram he kept of her, seen in TNG‘s “The Measure of a Man” and “The Most Toys”), and, of course, his cat Spot.
And because you are what you eat, Lore absorbing all those memories makes him, in essence, become Data. Data only pretended to surrender to Lore, and the result is a new being who combines Data’s personality and compassion with Lore’s snottiness. Yes, Data has now become every single male lead in an action movie in the twenty-first century! Oh, and he can use contractions now, which has to be a relief for both Spiner and the scripters.
For all that it’s self-indulgent, it does provide a lovely moment when La Forge asks Data how he feels, and Data hesitates, and then says, simply, “I feel.” It’s a beautiful moment, and in many ways, the culmination of all of Data’s prior appearances, as he finally gets to take a shot at being human. Well, human-ish, anyhow…
Meantime, we finally look in on Riker and Troi, with this week at last giving Marina Sirtis a role of substance after three glorified cameos. Kudos to scripter Matt Okumura as well as to Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes, who do a beautiful job with their spousal banter, and also finally explaining what’s been happening with the two of them. We find out that Troi was using her telepathic bond with Riker to tamp down his grief to help him deal with it—and also to help her deal with it, because as a telepath/empath, she felt her own grief as well as her husband’s (and, presumably, their daughter’s). Belatedly—as they sit in a prison cell—she remembers that there are no short-cuts in therapy, including the grieving process. She also forgot that counselors shouldn’t treat family.
But it explains why Riker needed to get away, as he said in “The Next Generation,” but also how him having issues with Thad’s death is causing problems now when he and Troi seemed—if not fine—at least in decent shape in “Nepenthe.” They also have a hilarious bit where they both realize that they absolutely hate living on Nepenthe. It was where they went in the hopes of helping Thad, and then they just stayed there out of inertia, and watching them come to the realization is a delight.
Buy the Book
Dead Country
They’re rescued by Worf and Musiker, and this episode solidifies what I joked about in my review of “Seventeen Seconds”: the next Secret Hideout Trek show should be Worf and Raffi, Agents of Starfleet. Their chemistry is perfect, and I love that they’ve settled into a mentor/student relationship, with Worf criticizing her fighting technique after she singlehandedly takes out a mess of Vadic’s thugs. (Riker’s only comment is a very respectful and impressed, “You’re scary.”)
In general, I’m loving how easily Michelle Hurd is sliding into the ensemble. Her first meeting with Troi as she’s downloading Shrike’s database is beautifully done. “Raffi.” “Deanna. Strange days, huh?” “Tell me about it.”
In addition, we get the first misstep in Worf’s characterization, as his reunion with Troi results in him waxing rhapsodic about how much he’s thought about her over the years as he’s worked to improve himself, and does so in a manner that is, well, pretty creepy. And which also calls back to the abortive Worf-Troi romance of the seventh season of TNG, which nobody was crying out for. Troi is much better with Riker and Worf was much better with Jadzia Dax, and this was just weird.
However, we also get another clue to why the changelings stole Picard’s body. Worf and Musiker find it on Shrike, and the changelings dissected his brain, removing the bits of his parietal lobe that were infected with Irumodic Syndrome. Musiker downloads the database, but we don’t get to find out what’s in it this week, nor why Picard’s (and Jack’s) Irumodic Syndrome is so important.
They abandon ship once they’re discovered, just in time for Data to retake control of Titan from Vadic, enabling them to come on board. Data is able to do so because Jack was kind enough to distract Vadic. Another of our fake surrenders is Jack finally going to the bridge before anyone else is killed, but holding what looks like a grenade, resulting in a standoff. Jack says he’ll activate it, and while it may not kill Vadic, it will kill Jack. Since Vadic wants him alive, that’s a problem. Vadic lets the bridge crew go—but Seven stays behind. (More on that in a bit.)
Vadic doesn’t quite make good on her promise to tell Jack what he is. What she does reveal is that she knows all about what he’s going through: the voices he hears and the red door he keeps seeing. But she never actually tells him what he is, even though she obviously knows—
—and then Data wakes up, plugs in, and takes over the ship. “Greetings, U.S.S. Titan, this is your friendly positronic pissed-off security system, back online. Unwanted guests and monologuing protoplasms: I am issuing an immediate shift change.” (Monologuing Protoplasms is the name of my next band…) At this point, we find out that Jack’s grenade isn’t a grenade at all—it’s a force field. He activates it around himself and Seven and then Picard orders the evacuation hatch in the viewscreen blown. Vadic’s last words are, “Fucking solids” before she and her thugs are blown out into space.
Seven—who got to declare, “Get off my bridge!” at Vadic before she got spaced—has an interesting little mini-arc here. Shaw rebukes her for not blowing the turbolift last week, but she wasn’t willing to sacrifice the captain’s life. Seven spent twenty of the first twenty-six of her years as a Borg drone not valuing, or even entirely understanding, individual life. Then she spent four years on Voyager being taught the value of a person’s life, and also experiencing grief for personal loss. (Notably in Voyager’s “Drone” and “One Small Step.”) Later on, once back in the Alpha Quadrant, she had to euthanize her son figure, Icheb (“Stardust City Rag”).
So she is absolutely not going to sacrifice a life if she can avoid it. She has the most extreme reaction to Vadic’s desire to kill someone, and Vadic sees that and makes her be the one to inform everyone that T’Veen was the one vaporized. Shaw dings her for this—she won’t always have that luxury, and there are consequences. Seven accepts those consequences when she decides to stay on the bridge with Jack and his pseudo-grenade.
Seven also says something to Shaw that she should’ve said when she first reported to Titan: that her name is Seven of Nine. That’s the name she chose, not the one she was born with and which was taken from her at age six, and Shaw’s continued insistence on using it is absolutely despicable and shouldn’t be something anyone does now, much less in the enlightened future of the Federation.
I must mention that we get another shot taken at Château Picard wine. Worf referred to it as “sour mead” in “The Bounty,” and La Forge and Picard are able to prove that the other isn’t a changeling with an exchange about a gift of Château Picard bordeaux that La Forge thought was too dry because, as Picard says, “your taste in wine is pedestrian at best.”
And then, in the end, we get the moment we’ve been waiting eight friggin’ episodes for: the big seven, all sitting around a table, having a meeting. Just like the good old days. (Hard to say what the best line in that lovely scene is, but my vote is for Worf saying that he slew many enemies over the years and considered sending their heads to everyone at the table, but decided it would be passive-aggressive.)
In addition to her various catharses with her husband, Troi also gets to do an old standby of hers: looking constipated due to something she feels with her empathic powers. In this case, it’s Jack—or, more specifically, the darkness she senses around Jack. So she has a one-on-one therapy session with him, in which they’re going to try to open that red door together.
But we won’t find that out till next week at the earliest, as that’s where the episode ends.
We still don’t know what the big deal is about Irumodic Syndrome. We still don’t know what the changelings are going to do exactly on Frontier Day.
Oh, and one big unanswered question: what happened to Picard’s body? Riker, Troi, Worf, and Musiker stand around it on the Shrike, and then they run off, and seem to leave the body behind. Later on, Shaw has Seven destroy the Shrike. Was Picard’s body still on board? Is it blown up now? What about the bits of his parietal lobe?
There’s only two episodes left, so one hopes at least some of these questions will be answered. Especially since now we finally have the whole band back together at last…
Keith R.A. DeCandido’s Star Trek: The Next Generation fiction includes the novels Diplomatic Implausibility, Q & A, The Brave and the Bold Book 2, and A Time for War, a Time for Peace, the novella Enterprises of Great Pitch and Moment (part of the Slings and Arrows eBook miniseries), the short story “Four Lights” in The Sky’s the Limit, and the comic book miniseries Perchance to Dream.
Sorry, all I could hear in my head when Jack pulled the device from his pocket was C-3PO exclaiming, “He’s holding a thermal detonator!”
Okay, I was willing to give him a pass last week, but Shaw continuing to call Seven “Hansen” after she explicitly just told him she prefers “Seven” is a d*ck move! I get that he was traumatized by the Borg and doesn’t think it’s appropriate for her to use that name, but he needs to get over himself. It’s not about his wants.
I’m confused on the Troi/Riker interacting. She “took” his grief away. She’s never had the ability to do that before. Or is it because they have a unique emotional/mental connection? Such as was evidenced in Encounter at Farpoint when her voice was in his head.
I’ve seen the theory that Jack is inhabited by a pagh-wrait. Originally, I dismissed it as unlikely but now I’m wondering if that’s it. While his abilities don’t quite match up, they’re closer to pagh-wrait than changeling. Jack’s abilities also remind me of Tallin the Traveler from last season but she didn’t have the red eyes. I still worry about whether I’ll think the reveal is stupid or not.
I had a feeling Data giving Lore his mementos would be the key to vanquishing Lore. It was so awesome when that happened! DATA FTW!!
I really liked the fake-out where it seemed like Esmar would be executed and it was T’Veen instead. Poor T’Veen though–we hardly knew you.
The scene with Worf waxing poetic about how thoughts of Deanna have calmed him over the years and Will’s “inappropriate!” was great.
I can’t believe Vadic is gone with two weeks left to go.
While I fully expected a cliffhanger, I thought it’d be bigger–sort of like last week. This was big but it centered more on character than an actual event.
This was another fun one. As soon as Lore started to pretend smoke the pipe and mock Data I thought Data is baiting him, he has a plan! Love the cast being together again. Thought it was a little odd that the Changelings froze in space. But I waived it away, as there are advantage and disadvantages to these more “solid” Changelings.
-Kefka
Correction: Deb directed the episode. Matt Okumura wrote it.
At times this felt like a drinking game “The starship is taken over”. Drink. Starfleet IT systems have no security. Drink. LCounselor Troi feels something!” Drink. “Lore and Data struggle for control.” Drink! I get that this is greatest hits time but I found myself wondering why no one ever tried to blow up the ship, that a senior command code to override the ship can be blocked, and why for some reason the heroes went neither to main engineering or a battle bridge but rather hung out in sickbay and some random closet looking place. (The answer is obviously budgetary).
Quick aside: it’s obvious that the Star Trek and Star Wars writers watch each others shows. Yesterdays mandalorian episode had droids drinking Nepenthe and Jack is almost beat for beat pulling a thermal detonator at Jabbas palace.
We’re 8 episodes in and we still have no clue what is happening at Frontier day, why the need Picard and Jack and since we just offed Vadic we have to introduce, explain and defeat the true enemy all within two episodes. The pacing just seems off here and that’s annoying me.
One last thing that really bothered me- Troi is a half betazed and it’s made clear that she is empathic not telepathic. Now apparently she can not only suppress emotions (what are the ethics of that???) but can pull a Spock and get Lieutenant Valerie to name her co-conspirators…. I mean dive deep into Jacks subconscious and start pulling images out of his brain. It seems the writers gave her a power up considerably. I thought the only thing that happened to Betazed women as the aged was a quadrupling of their sex drives but apparently they develop whatever psychic powers the plot requires as well
And yes it annoyed me that now Worf is acting like Troi is the love of his life which completely informed the entire character of Jadzia Dax
It’s nice to get a resolution to the Data-Lore story — that doesn’t involve Data simply shooting his evil brother. Brent Spiner gives a fine performance alternating between the two extremes, and his conversation with Geordi in the corridor may be my favorite scene in the entire series thus far. “I feel” indeed.
I’m less enthused about the Jack mystery, which ends this week like it did last week. Ideally, a good story will give some iota of new information with each chapter, yes? Well, here is the door again. Yessir, that’s a red door alright… Maybe try a different cryptic image for us to wonder about?
As much as I enjoyed watching Amanda Plummer, I don’t think I’m going to miss Vadic. She came, she saw, she hammed it up. Time to move on…
…to whomever is pulling the strings. I just hope it isn’t the Borg again. I’d take LQ Sonny Clemmons or Mark Twain over the Borg. Honestly.
It was wonderful to see the TNG cast together again (and Spot!), and there were some nice moments between them, but overall this episode definitely felt more like filler to spin the wheels until the finale.
The last episode closed with Vadic saying “it’s time to find out who you really are” and then…we didn’t. Vadic saying that it was appropriate Seven should be there on the bridge definitely makes me think it’s Borg-related, but other than that? No answers.
I’m disappointed that Jack’s deal does appear to be only one-way (and nonconsensual?), as I feel like it would have been more interesting otherwise…as it is it just makes him even more of a Mr. Special Macguffin. I guess it doesn’t work on Changelings, since he could have presumably controlled Vadic instead if so.
I’m assuming Picard’s body was blown up with the Shrike since the Changelings got what they wanted in terms of his brain bits…
I haven’t seen enough Trek to know–are evacuation hatches on the bridge common?
Also, how did Picard et al. get to the La Forges and Data so easily when Vadic supposedly had control of ship’s systems? At least a little bit of technobabble or outsmarting would’ve been nice there.
Even if everything else in the season sucked (it doesn’t), the whole thing would still be worthwhile for that one scene between Geordi and Data; their dynamic was my favourite thing on TNG, and it’s amazing to see it brought back thirty years later.
More generally, I liked all of the moments between the TNG crew! There’s a reason why that series remains so popular, and it’s because these are so likeable and so much fun to spend time with. So, the meeting scene–even though it probably came a few episodes after it should have–was delightful.
It was also lovely to see Seven finally assert her identity; of course, Shaw goes and ruins it by immediately calling her “Hansen” anyway, because f*ck him.
But alas.
I had been holding out hope that that absolutely dreadful scene in the previous episode in which Picard and Dr. Crusher resolve to murder Vadic was just a feint of some kind, but no: apparently it was serious. Our paragon of a captain and the moral heart of the team are a couple of cold-blooded war criminals now, apparently, and this fact is given absolutely zero weight. Even worse, we get scenes of Worf roaming the halls, phasering fallen Changelings; so basically our heroes are on par with redcoats bayonetting the wounded and the dying after the Battle of Culloden.
Meanwhile, Jack continues to be a sucking vortex of mediocrity, so much so that I can’t even bring myself to care what’s up with him. The producers must have really, really wanted Ed Speleers, given that they cast him in spite of being visibly about 15 years too old for the part, but I can’t imagine why. That line about always feeling different could have been absolutely heartbreaking in the mouth of a better actor, but as it is, it just sits there. If he is part-Borg, maybe that would explain it; he has the affect of a drone.
Anyways; 2 episodes left. I look forward to seeing how they resolve this whole conspiracy.
I get the frustration with dragging Jack’s reveal out, because I share it, but I would still argue that it’s not totally contrived. And I don’t mind because, as has been happening all season, there are still plenty of lovely character moments and at least some important plot things happened: Vadic is dead and Data is back. That’s pretty significant.
I yelled “Not T’Veen!” when Vadic vaporized her, because I thought Stephanie Czajkowski has done a terrific job playing a Vulcan (which is hard). I do wonder if maybe Czajkowski’s cancer treatments would interfere with her being a regular on any spinoff, so she was the best choice to kill. Speaking of the Titan crew, I love that Mura’s first name is Matthew. Like Jennifer the Andorian, the idea of different Federation species appropriating others’ names is at once realistic and very cool. Plus, Matthew means “Gift of God,” so I can see why it would appeal to Bajorans.
I’ve seen some complaints about how Troi essentially trying to erase Riker’s grief over Thad, but I thought it was a brilliant callback to “Dark Page.” At least Deanna didn’t try to erase everybody’s memories of Thad. I’m very interested to see how she helps Jack (or maybe doesn’t, judging by the Ready Room clip).
Data’s trap for Lore was brilliant, and I like how they didn’t try to redeem Lore. Data telling Lore that he knew that Lore would try to make Data’s memories into trophies was a good reminder that Lore is essentially a serial killer.
I know the Pagh-Wraith theory is attractive to many, but it just doesn’t make sense to me. I thought there were plenty of clues (to be added the existing mountain) in this episode that Jack’s “powers” are Borg-related. Even little details such as the use of a fish-eye lens when Jack inhabited that officer’s mind add to that, plus Vadic telling Seven that it was appropriate that she was present for the big reveal and Jack just saying “there’s no point to resistance.” Also, the parietal lobe has been tied to Borg implants in multiple episodes, including “The Best of Both Worlds.”
Next week’s episode is “Vox” (voice), where I expect to be reintroduced to the “speaker” (locutor).
@5 Nepenthe was originally a drug described in the Odyssey that Helen used to make people forget their sorrows.
@11 oh I know… I have scars from the odyssey (at least no one is named Telemachus in the sho) but there’s a lot of other mythical concoctions we could borrow from it’s just interesting that the two biggest Sci-Fi (well fantasy at least) franchises are using it in close proximity.
I have to admit, I was very glad to see Vadic go in this episode. I grew tired of her scenery-chewing monologues, to be honest. It goes to show that a little of that goes a long way, and lot of it is too much. But I still have a sneaky suspicion they’ll find a way to bring her back.
And I’m very concerned that they have way too much story to cover in two episodes.
@7 / Dingo:
It’s nice to get a resolution to the Data-Lore story — that doesn’t involve Data simply shooting his evil brother.
Yeah, it was a very classical Trek resolution: Showing compassion to a hated enemy and helping them move past it and become better.
Thematically, this definitely also feels like the right ending to the overarching story of not just Daa or Lore, but the entire Soong family saga.
Red door
Jack Crusher
Red Jack
Redjac
Man, I hope that’s not the case but it just seems that they’re making it an obvious connection. It wouldn’t be the first time they changed something to make a story work. I’m looking at you, Guardian of Forever.
Has Deanna been hanging out with Sybok? She can read emotions but she’s only been telepathic with Betazoids.
So Vadic was just around to drop hints until she’s airlocked? Also, she wouldn’t freeze anywhere near that fast. And we’ve seen a Changeling able to survive in space. Why didn’t she shapeshift? Oh right, wouldn’t fit the plot.
Ditto to those who thought thermal detonator.
Sure Worf was a little out of line but he credits Deanna with his personal growth and he’s not the one who walked out on her.
Quoth kkozoriz: “Sure Worf was a little out of line but he credits Deanna with his personal growth and he’s not the one who walked out on her.”
Um, excuse me? It was never established how Worf and Troi’s relationship ended. They were a couple in “All Good Things…,” it didn’t really come up in Generations, and the next time we saw either of them was in “The Way of the Warrior,” with Worf having spent months on leave on Boreth. We don’t know who walked out on who.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@15 I took Worf’s comments toward Deanna to be sincere expressions of platonic gratitude, and I think that’s how Deanna took it as well. But I can also understand why Riker did not. I thought it was funny, not creepy. Worf’s been probably bursting to tell Deanna how much he appreciates her example for years now, but didn’t think contacting her directly would be appropriate. He’s been holding in his enthusiasm.
But a severed head could have easily showed his appreciation as well!
The Lore/Data fusion by way of unrestricted memory exchange is cool, but would be more impressive if the webtoon Order of the Stick hadn’t done the exact same plot point five whole years ago. I wonder if the showrunners are fans? Regardless, cool part of a cool episode.
Given that whole fleets of Federation starships used DS9 as a base during the Dominion War, I don’t think there’s much mystery to how Mura has a human first name. This is what navies do.
Oh lord. I hope it isn’t, kkozoriz. Jack’s eyes going red is throwing me. And with channelings, it does feel like this ancient and faint voice has to be coming from a fire cave, right? Maybe a little chirping of a Gul? I don’t know.
I enjoyed this one. Th show does feel like it could have used an episode or 2 less. Or used those for a post-plot the gang hanging out and glimpses of their futures type thing.
Geordi and Data.
Krad, I wasn’t bothered by the Worf/Troi interaction or found it creepy. I actually didn’t think Worf was talking about Troi in a romantic sense at all but rather that Troi, because of her role as a therapist, was a calming influence on him and helped him transform into the individual he is at present. It was Riker who rather humorously, made out Worf’s comments to be something romantic.
Goodbye T’Veen. Rather cruel fake-out on Vadic’s part to act like she was going to kill someone else but then turn the phaser on the science officer. At least it was a quick death. Speaking of deaths, it seems multiple other Titan officers were killed. I’m doubting we’ll get any dialogue memorializing them or even referencing T’Veen. And what about all of the Changelings on the ship? It seems they were systematically executed by Worf and company. I get that they’re the bad guys, but it just seems wrong for Star Trek.
Spot’s a “he” again? That threw me off. Spot had a litter of kittens after all. Maybe Spot is some kind of alien or Changeling cat that changes genders and breeds back and forth at will.
I liked this episode overall and better than the previous week. Lots of great moments from the band all being back together, to plenty of Worf humor, to the emergence of the new Data. Oh, and loved Vadic’s closing line before kicking the bucket. And Seven had a great line to her too but I think it would have been perfected if she had said, “Get off my bridge, you bitch! Hehehe.
Now that Vadic is out of way, I guess we’ll see the real baddie pulling the strings. Only 2 more episodes left! Arrgh!
@17/Chase
That’s how I took it as well. Thoughts of Deanna–and what she might say–may’ve helped him deal better with the loss of Jadzia.
For whatever reason the writers have placed Worf on the same spectrum as Data this season. He recounts the precise years, months, and days since he’s last seen someone; he obsesses over details; he expresses his emotions awkwardly with people. I took his greeting Deanna as just more of that wonky “comedy” writing they feel the need to keep shoehorning in there. Not creepy, just odd.
@15/kkozoriz: Troi has been telepathic with Riker before (“Encounter at Farpoint”).
Even though the Troi/Worf romance was aborted after the 7th season, I always found that relationship cute and charming and that character interaction was interesting character growth and highlight in otherwise dreary season.
@16 – Worf was at the wedding, Deanna was at his promotion, she seemed genuinely glad to see him. There’s no sign it didn’t end amicably. Most likely, they realized they weren’t right for each other and parted friends.
show me some evidence that it didn’t and I’ll take it under advisement.
The most obvious explanation is that Mura is half human (or some fraction thereof). After all, he doesn’t use the Bajoran naming custom, or he would have identified himself as Lieutenant Mura Matthew.
kkozoriz: Um, that’s not what you said. What you said was, “he’s not the one who walked out on her,” which implies that she walked out on him, of which there is no evidence whatsoever.
Adam Holmberg: Thank you for that, it’s been fixed.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido, slave to the edit function
@26/matt74205
More likely his parents worked on DS9 and he was named after a human Starfleet officer who was also stationed there.
As for the non-standard naming convention, I don’t see that as definitive of anything.
I don’t mind aliens having human-sounding names, but I wish that it worked the other way around too. Like some guy named Klugg Jones after his dad’s best Klingon friend.
Except the aliens don’t have “human-sounding” names, they have American white-person names.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
“The whole band back together at last…” is the name of my next band.
Just saying.
@27 – Sorry I wasn’t clear. I meant Riker was the one who walked out on Deanna. There’s no indication that Worf did anything similar.
As others have said, I just saw it as Worf expressing gratitude to Deanna for his personal Growth and Riker getting snarky and possessive.
@30 – Deanna Troi. Just saying. Besides, as we’ve seen throughout Trek, Earth consists of the USA and mostly insignificant bits barely worth mentioning.
Chris Gren: Very meta. I approve.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
kkozoriz: Oh! Okay, you’re right, that wasn’t clear at all. *laughs* No worries.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
By this point, I think we all know how the show will resolve the mystery of Jack Crusher.
In the last episode with 3 minutes to go, Vadic returns and sneeringly tells Jack once again, “It’s time for you to find out who you really are.”
Jack responds, “No, I already know who I am.” After a dramatic pause as the camera slowly pans into his face, Jack says …
“I am the very model of a modern major-general …”
The rest of the cast joins in with a big song-and-dance number on the bridge of the new-new (or new-old) Enterprise (they even turn on the interior lights because that’s how big this number is).
The changelings, content that their true sinister plot of delivering a rousing and satisfying climax to the Federation’s Frontier Day celebrations has been fulfilled, also join in along with the rest of the Federation Starfleet.
End credits.
It’s nice Marina Sirtis was finally given something substantial to do and that looks to continue into the next episode. Loved all of the sweet reconnections she had with Beverly and Data and Worf. And fortunately none of the TNG main group are Changelings as some had speculated. Riker did mention Troi was tortured by the Changelings but we don’t see any evidence of that beyond that one reference. In fact, I find it kind of hard to believe that Vadic didn’t inflict some serious damage on Troi or Riker because she reported to the floating head that she couldn’t get any of Picard’s friends to break which would indicate she had to use some gruesome methods in her attempts.
I’m heavily suspecting that Picard never had Irrumodic Syndrome or at least never acquired it naturally. It would seem to be that he was given the condition or something mimicking it during the original run of TNG. Perhaps it had something to do with being transformed into Locutus? I’m really hoping that’s not the case though because I’m just tired of everything always come back to the Borg since we’ve already done that the past two seasons of this show.
@36 Wouldn’t his initial assimilation have corrected any “defects” in his brain? That tells me that whatever is in his parietal lobe was either put there by the Borg, or developed afterward.
Keith, Esmar goes by they/them pronouns, not she/her. We heard Seven refer to them that way in this episode, and Terry Matalas confirmed it on Twitter weeks ago.
Well, this is by far my favorite episode of Picard overall, not just this season. It wasn’t perfect — I got so damn sick of Vadic’s endless monologuing, even after she said it was time to tell Jack who he was and it was just vamping for no good reason — but there was some fantastic stuff here. I loved the Data-Lore confrontation. It’s so beautiful that Data defeated Lore with giving, with compassion, with yielding. I love it that Spot was the ultimate embodiment of Data’s ability to love. The one part I didn’t like was Data saying “Goodbye, Lore” as if he’d killed him; as became clear later, it’s more that Data and Lore have integrated now into one being, with the completeness that the two of them both craved. It was also really nice to see Data and Geordi’s reunion.
I was hesitant before to use the deadnaming analogy for Shaw calling Seven “Commander Hansen,” since I didn’t want to presume it was the right analogy without more information, but Seven’s angry reaction here is that additional information I needed, making it quite clear that it is an appropriate analogy. Which makes it more disturbing that Shaw still doesn’t respect her choice. I see people on social media saying they want a Shaw series, but I think he’s a terrible captain. Sure, Todd Stashwick is great at playing total bastards, but total bastards have no place on a Starfleet bridge.
As much as I hated Vadic as a character, her final line was quite funny. And I had to roll my eyes at the “freezing instantly in space” thing. Why does no one understand thermodynamics? You freeze faster in water than in air, because water is denser and has more material to conduct and convect heat away. Thus, it should follow obviously that you freeze slower in vacuum. Vacuum is an insulator, which is why thermos bottles keep coffee hot. Yes, “space is cold,” but only in places that have been out of direct sunlight long enough to lose their heat. It’s not a Mr. Freeze ray gun.
While we’re at it, getting sucked out into space by rushing air is a myth too, since the mass of the air in a single room isn’t nearly great enough to pick up and accelerate an adult human body, and most of it would flow around them anyway. There’s a reason cannonballs and bullets have to be the same width as their barrels.
I hated the reference to Picard’s brain being “infected with Irumodic Syndrome.” Irumodic isn’t an “infection,” it’s a condition arising from an innate neurological defect. That’s like saying someone’s “infected” with multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s.
@8/miaulements: “I’m disappointed that Jack’s deal does appear to be only one-way (and nonconsensual?), as I feel like it would have been more interesting otherwise…as it is it just makes him even more of a Mr. Special Macguffin.”
I agree. It really didn’t look coercive last week; it looked like he was guiding Sidney’s body with her consent and participation, like a dancing couple. Nothing about her expression or body language suggested she wasn’t fully conscious and participating. And it’s a lot more disturbing if it was an act of coercive control rather than an equal sharing.
@12/MikeKelm: “it’s just interesting that the two biggest Sci-Fi (well fantasy at least) franchises are using it in close proximity.”
That very proximity proves it’s a coincidence, since it takes months to make these and there’s no way they could’ve known about each others’ upcoming use of the term. Contrary to laypeople’s assumptions, the reality is that most creators try very hard to avoid duplicating what others are doing, to the point that feature films have spent millions of dollars to reshoot sequences upon learning that they were too similar to some other recent film. Nobody wants to be accused of being imitative, so that kind of similarity usually only happens by accident.
@38 You can tell what a great actor Spiner is that he was able to deliver lines about a cat teaching him to love without breaking character. It must have been agony for him (as I recall, Spiner famously hates cats).
@39 – How can anyone hate cats? I have, like, a bajillion cat photos on my phone.
@35 John M Ford would be proud. And laughing.
Re: Esmar–we’ve updated the post, thanks!
@38/Christopher
I still think Shaw will end up calling Seven by her preferred name. It’ll probably be in ep. 10. I think it’d be better to do it sooner rather than later, but I do suspect a moment is coming.
@43/Mary
I suspect you’re right that it’s coming, but it’s 25th century Starfleet, not 21st century Florida. This would be as if a kinda jackass commodore from TOS insisted on referring to Uhura by the N-word, but learned his lesson at the end of the episode, and the music swelled as he finally called her Uhura. His attitude isn’t just horrifically regressive, it makes no sense for the setting, no matter what his problems with the Borg are. I won’t feel anything but annoyance when he finally calls her Seven, simply because it’ll be a “see, he learned, and now we all must forgive him, because the onus was on us all along to accept that he needed time” moment, not a “man, that jackass got what he deserved” moment.
Frankly, if he behaves this way towards Seven, I suspect he behaves this way with others, and whatever equivalent to HR Starfleet hopefully has must have a file ten miles deep on him. How did he get command of a starship?
@CLB. The Nepenthe episode aired 5 March 2020. Certainly enough time for someone to think it’s cool sounding and decide to use it later
#43. I thought when Seven killed the Changeling posing as Sidney LaForge was a good moment for Shaw to acknowledge Seven’s identity. Alas, they do have to stretch everything out to the point of being tiresome, it seems.
On the other hand, it was refreshing how quickly they wrapped up the Data-Lore conflict.
@45/MikeKelm: Again, nepenthe has been a well-known term in Western mythology for several thousand years. Obviously both things were referencing that. Picard was referencing its meaning as a cure for sorrow, the place where Riker and Troi went to start over after the death of their son. The Mandalorian was making a simpler reference to nepenthe as the name of a drug. These are just two of the many references that have no doubt been made to it in popular culture.
Christopher: ARGH! I knew that about Esmar, and yet I went and used “she” again. This is what happens when you write in a rush. Sigh.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I don’t usually agree with complaints about “mystery box storytelling,” but I am starting to get annoyed with the constant teasing of what’s going on with Jack. It makes perfect sense plot- and character-wise to have Troi be the one to figure it out, but it would be a bit less annoying if they didn’t have Vadic know but be too monologuey to actually say straight-out and have that be lamp-shaded by the characters. That’s a bit much.
That being said, I continue to follow along and enjoy the season. Bringing Data back to life was always something I was going to be resistant to, but like others the resolution to the Data-Lore conflict was surprisingly good and effective, so I’m willing to accept it. And at least it overwrites the fairly horrible use of Data at the end of S1.
It’s also a bit frustrating how much the show has de-powered Changelings to the point of being able to be taken out by bladed weapons (something that clearly posed no threat at all to Odo on DS9), but at least there’s an in-story reason for it in their being more “locked into” their particular forms thanks to Vadic’s bargain. Though you’d think that some Changeling somewhere would get the memo that they were losing and change faces to escape instead of fighting to the death…well, we’ll see.
I guess there is also some plot reason for these Changelings to be stupider and easier to detect, since they’ve made the decision to leave the Link and give up their immortality in exchange for vengeance–and even in DS9, the Changeling who was most easily detected in Paradise Lost was detected because he was angry at Odo and couldn’t conceal that properly. It makes sense that the Link would ordinarily provide them with a sense of calm and purpose that would make them effective infiltrators and which these Changelings would lack.
The Troi-Riker story I thought was really quite good also; I’ve always liked that relationship. The resolution to Vadic and that plotline was maybe a little too overly clean, but having Data be behind it made sense and paid off dramatically. Again, I’m still onboard and enjoying myself.
A lot still rides on what the answer for Jack is, though. It seems very Pah-Wraithy so far; I would find the Borg kind of disappointing, but it could work also; or they could bring in some new evil alien entity I guess. But it has to pay off dramatically and character-wise, and not just be a “Red Angel” wet noodle.
@KeithCandido: “Except the aliens don’t have “human-sounding” names, they have American white-person names.”
Yeah I agree with people who like the Bajoran with the name Matthew. I’ve long wanted to see more intercultural blending among species and civilizations. I would be intrigued to learn what’s behind it character-wise.
And it’s really not true that “Matthew” in the year of our Lord 2023 is just an “American white-person name” (though yes, it is also that). It’s a Hebrew name from Palestine passed down into Europe and through Europe America through Christianity but present for the same reason throughout many different cultures where Christianity has been and is present, which even in the Middle Ages included places as far afield as India and China and Russia but now includes North and South America and much of Africa and Asia as well. These days, you’re just about as likely to encounter someone with the name “Matthew” or other common Hebrew or Greek Biblical or Saint names in Sub-Saharan Africa as you are in America. After all, there are something like 80 million Christians in Nigeria alone, which is more people than there are in France.
In fact, I have a number of friends from places like Nigeria and Vietnam and South Korea who have “Christian names” that in their native countries are pronounced or interpreted according to their local languages (just as “Matthew” is really a particular anglicized pronunciation and adaptation of the original Hebrew, which comes out differently in other European languages) but which they Anglicize in English-language contexts. It’s an interesting cultural thing and is only going to grow more common over the next decades.
This season could’ve probably been whittled down to a tight and thrilling two and a half hour cinematic feature film that was less wheel-spinning and repetitive villainous monologuing.
You know the villain’s monologuing has gotten out of hand when even Data starts complaining about it…
OMG I am so frustrated! The last episode ended with the suggestion that we were about to learn the truth about Jack, and so does this one. Hey have spent the whole season building this reveal up, so if it ends up being stupid, I will be so disappointed. I guess that’s a good thing, since it demonstrates how invested in the show I am this time. I kind of let season 2 just wash over me, since it was too ridiculous to actually care about what was happening, but this time I NEED the plot to work, because I care!
Anyway, I thought this was the strongest episode yet. I especially loved the scenes between Data and Lore, even though I figured out early on what Data was doing. I also loved the scene between Data and LaForge. This show continues to celebrate their friendship. I loved the scene between Riker and Troi as well. I don’t care that she shouldn’t have the power to subdue Riker’s emotions. It worked for the story, and it retroactively explained why Riker seemed alright in season one. I even loved the scene where Worf effused his appreciation for Troi. I am sure he meant it as a friend and especially as a counselor, since he’s been spending so much time working on himself.
The only part of the episode which made me cringe was when they opened the hatch and blew Vadic into space, and that’s only because I knew Christopher L Bennett was going Bennett be annoyed.
I can’t help but wonder if maybe they’d been better off telling us upfront what’s going on with Jack, so then we could have more room to invest in him as a person and not so much this Grand Mystery Box… oooo… ahhh… mysteeery.
I know they keep talking about a Star Trek: Legacy spinoff with these characters. The thing is, though, I still don’t know who Jack is, really, other than being your standard space rogue. Even Picard’s fake son in that one episode got a hobby outside of his criminal activities with rock-climbing. What does Jack do besides shifting, no pun intended, between looking pained and looking cocky?
What with Poker Face reviving the old Columbo formula of the “howcatchem,” I wish these Trek series would follow suit. Even in serialization, mystery doesn’t have to be everything.
Also, who designs a spaceship bridge with a big door to space in front? Why does it even have that capability?
@54/CLB: For emergency situations when you need to blow the intruders on the bridge out the airlock.
@55 Way back in “The Naked Now,” the Tsiolkovsky had a hatch kind of like the Titan‘s that had been opened to space. It’d make sense to have some kind of escape hatch in case you have to crash land the ship.
@49 / Captain Peabody:
I don’t usually agree with complaints about “mystery box storytelling,” but I am starting to get annoyed with the constant teasing of what’s going on with Jack. It makes perfect sense plot- and character-wise to have Troi be the one to figure it out, but it would be a bit less annoying if they didn’t have Vadic know but be too monologuey to actually say straight-out and have that be lamp-shaded by the characters. That’s a bit much.
I wonder if we might have learned more earlier in the Season had Marina Sirtis’ availability not forced Matalas to limit Troi’s appearances to tail end of the series.
The Troi/Riker scenes were my favourite parts of this episode. Their chemistry remains magnificent and and the dialogue was very nice. There does seem to be a lot more of Sirtis in troi then there used to be and I think the character is better for it. Apart from that, I found Vadic’s endless monologuing to be incredibly tiresome and I was glad when she got sucked out the pointless bridge space door, Jack Crusher is still boring, and Levar Burton is still killing it.
I cried. I had a stronger emotional reaction to this family reunion than to my own family reunion. From Data and Geordi reuniting and reaffirming that they are best friends, to when they sat down at that table and realized they were together again for the very first time, it was just happy tears.
I had a feeling that Data was giving Lore the oki doke by surrendering. Very Neo and Smith. While I pointed out how evil Lore was last week, and it was verified this week, Lore did have some emotional reasoning that he displayed, though I could never tell if he was sincere. When he found out Noonien was dying he showed concern. He was also interested in Soong fixing him. To the point that he stole Data’s emotion chip. Lore knew he was…not right. He just embraced it. I also think still though that he was just incredibly alone, but because he was a sociopath who couldn’t form connections with people despite having emotions. Which is what he raged at Data about this episode, that despite him not having emotions everyone loved him. By uniting with Data he gains the one thing he truly lacked more than anything else and in a way gives Data what he also lacked. They both gained the ability…. to connect. Data can now feel, and Lore can now feel for others. Data gets a new lease on life and Lore gains redemption, a happy ending.
Will and Deanna fulfilled the grand destiny Gene envisioned for them as the Next Generation’s Decker and Illia….to be an old married couple…and happy. That married couple banter was fantastic. They came alive with it.
I also took Worf as being platonic tinged with romantic. But he clarified it with his “I have been working on myself” and she seemed quite happy to hear it. It seems Worf was actually inspired by her and took the many things she told him over the years to heart. Also if he was still romantically inclined he wouldn’t have been offput by her hugging him. By the way, Worf is still winning this season.
I knew people would be complaining about the changelings being blown out of the bridge. I’d like to give a benefit of the doubt and the Gale Force wind is actually an environmental controls protocol for dealing with intruders. As for Vadic dying from it, it’s an interesting question. As a liquid person I would think changelings might disperse in the vacuum of space. I know Laas was not only able to survive n space but travel at warp because he shifted into the form of a cosmozoan, but I think a Changeling would be vulnerable without adopting that specific physiology. Despite their more locked in forms do these Changelings actually need to breathe? I would’ve actually liked it if Vadic and her second hadn’t died from exposure, but landed on the hull of their ship…then died when Seven blew them out of the stars.
Also, I wish in all her monologuing someone has asked Vadic why she smoked. How does a Changeling in the body of a researcher pickup a cigar habit?
Matthew Arliss Mura. You know I had assumed that his name was Matthew, and his Bajoran name in correct order was Arliss Mura, thus giving him both name orders simultaneously. I don’t know how I came to that conclusion. I would’ve guessed he was half human before we saw Ro’s Bajoran makeup. They’ve made the nose way too subtle for my taste.
Vadic killing Esmar would’ve been really painful. They were so scared. It would’ve been like throttling a puppy. I think that’s why she didn’t do it too. Esmar was by far the most scared of her, T’Veen as a Vulcan was the least scared. And she was trying to instill fear.
Raffi is doing well sliding into the family. Perhaps there’s some logic there as well. Of all the people in Picard’s ragtag bunch of misfits, Raffis the one closest to his old Starfleet Career.
Back to Deanna. I wonder if she is linking into Jack’s own telepathic powers to enable herself to enter into his mind. While Deanna isn’t a full telepath to non-telepaths, she is a full telepath to other telepaths.
As far as Jack’s telepathy, there’s a difference in text and execution here. Jack was clearly giving instructions to Sydney, the control idea is incongruous with that. However, as a plot function Jack being able to directly mind control and override people would also be a much more useful tool for this Changeling revenge plot than him being able to form a telepathic cooperative with them.
And then there’s Liam and Seven. I think there’s a fundamental disconnect with how Shaw is interpreting Seven. A logical one too. There was a little girl who loved the color red and strawberries whose parents were a couple of eccentric scientists with an overdeveloped sense of optimism. One day their brilliance failed them and the whole family was assimilated by the Borg. The little girl became a drone that was designated Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One. Twenty years later Seven of Nine , Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One was pulled out of the Borg Collective and started life as an individual anew. Shaw is operating under the assumption and belief that the person was was pulled out of the Collective is Annika Hansen. I’m not sure he understands (and perhaps he doesn’t want to) that while the physical body of the person was Annika Hansen has been removed from the collective, that that person isn’t actually who or what Annika Hansen would’ve grown up to be. Annika wanted to be a Ballerina. Not a hero, not a Fenris Ranger, not a Starfleet Officer. Annika died in the collective, and she didn’t really come back. The Annika who is now, is free of the Collective, but the Borg Collective is still a part of her and is a part of her identity. It is her pain. It’s part of what makes her who she is. She’s not the Tertiarty Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One, but who she is now…is Seven of Nine. It’s not her Borg Designation. It’s her name. It’s who she is. The best parts of the Borg and the Woman. Maybe he’ll figure it out, maybe he won’t.
Look upon my wall of text ye mighty and despair!
@55/garreth: “For emergency situations when you need to blow the intruders on the bridge out the airlock.”
Leaving aside the fact that “blowing out” people is a myth for the reasons I mentioned above, how likely is it that the situation will allow ejecting the intruders and nobody else? Jack had to get the rest of the crew off the bridge first and have a convenient force field projector for it to work.
Speaking of which, if they have portable force field projectors now, why don’t they use them in combat situations? Those things would’ve come in real handy all the times that people have been shooting at our heroes.
Also, Jack and Seven should’ve needed to wait for the bridge to repressurize before dropping the field.
@56/Chase: “It’d make sense to have some kind of escape hatch in case you have to crash land the ship.”
It’d make sense to have a double hatch that would work as an airlock. If you have to crash land, there’s no guarantee the exterior conditions will be amenable; indeed, the vast majority of planetary or subplanetary surfaces in the galaxy will not be habitable. And there’s always the risk of malfunctions or damage to the doors, so just in general, it’s common sense for every exterior hatch on a starship to be an airlock. Redundancy is important, and so is redundancy. (That should probably even go for a hangar bay, though only Enterprise NX-01 was designed that way.)
@59/mr_d: “I’d like to give a benefit of the doubt and the Gale Force wind is actually an environmental controls protocol for dealing with intruders.”
An incredibly inefficient and wasteful protocol. You don’t just casually throw away a big part of your spaceship’s air supply — you need that to live. Wouldn’t it make more sense to use the transporter? Or one of those bridge-dome phaser arrays like in “Beyond the Farthest Star”?
I must say, I like the recurring motif of good/evil cybernetic mind-fusions on this series. It’s a weirdly specific thing to have happened twice, but I enjoyed it both times.
@38 CLB
Besides Keith and myself, I saw numerous comments and commentators on various YouTube channels/else where that assumed Jack was controlling Sidney for various overlapping reasons. Be it the acting, the lack of reaction time being an issue, the thoughts of Jack and/or the reaction of Sidney after it was done that it was clear she was being controlled. Your explanation worked, but I thought it overly convoluted ** and hard to argue for based on the reasons I listed in my prior comment. In other words, many folks read the scene differently than you and correctly guessed the explanation.
Moreover, I still don’t think the Sidney takeover was particularly coercive (or at least she did not view it that way), Sidney was desperate and needed help. I would guess most people in that situation would be happy about being saved and less concerned that explicit consent to use of body was adhered to. Consider various social interactions where something would be considered a horrible violation in one scenario and not in another. A woman falls, she is going to hit concrete, a man saves her and accidentally touches her on her breast in the process, or someone in a state of undress suddenly has a medical emergency, HELP! Random stranger rushes to help, reaction: “thanks for saving me!”. “Kinda embarrassing I was naked, but at least I’m alive!”
One thing I can say that does not quite align for me onscreen is I pointed out how during the prior episode, Jack watches Sidney throughout the fight, that makes no sense. In this episode, the persons that are being controlled are not even in the same room as Jack, he sees what they see. So in the prior episode, he should not have been staring at her during the fight since he sees through the “host’s” eyes. The scenes with the other crew members being taken over by Jack I would also guess those people would be ok with it after the fact. This of course leaves the door open for other less reasonable uses of this power.
@Keith
About Worf/Troi: The two characters were pretty close long before the romance started, Deanna was basically the mother figure for a time in Alexanders life’s after his mom died. Even Loxannna became something of a grandmother to Alexander. Worf and her bonded and became good friends because of this relationship. This is what I thought of when Worf saved her, certainly not any of the creepy implications Keith brings up.
The more I think about the Data Lore interaction, the more I like it. I have long thought TNG dropped the ball on Lore as a character. I did not like that during each of his appearances, Lore gets the upper hand on Data fairly easily, someone otherwise showed to be one of the smartest characters in Star Trek history. Furthermore, I did not like how the brothers arc ended in “Descent, Part II”. While there were occasional moments I liked with Lore, overall I was disappointed.
But this episode pays off this storyline similar to Ro’s payoff in ep5. Here we get a Data’s greatest hits sort of thing which I loved right away with Yar and Spot being the highlights for me. Then we get teased as yet another time Lore will get one over on Data (oh Noes!!!). Yet all along Data has been playing Lore, he has learned from prior experience to not trust anything Lore says. In addition, he correctly predicts Lore won’t be able to help himself from taking in Data’s memories, undermining Lore himself. Data wins and does it the right way and there is a goodbye from the brothers to each other, so even Lore get to shows something more at the end. Thus, there is closure on the family side of the relationship as well. Nice.
Plus, I love the back and forth between the two. Even better, Laforge and the old cast’s reaction to the new Data. Awesome.
**I understand Occam’s Razor does not really/inherently apply to fiction and overly complicated explanations/storylines can be fun at times, but there is a limit to my suspension of disbelief.
-Kefka
@60/CLB: Redundancy is important, and so is redundancy.
I salute you, sir!
@60 – Not having airlocks has been a Trek tradition all the way back to The Galileo Seven.
I imagine the automated bridge defense system was removed from service because Starfleet wasn’t comfortable with an AI having access to lethal weapons. Sure, they could just limit it to a stun setting but we’ve seen numerous cases of targets being resistant or immune to stun.
@62 – That’s pretty much how I saw the Worf / Deanna interaction and Riker acting like the jealous husband when an old boyfriend comes to town. If Deanna had a problem with it, she’s more than capable of handling it by herself.
CLB @38
“That’s like saying someone’s “infected” with multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s.” From NIH:
Study suggests Epstein-Barr virus may cause multiple sclerosis
I always enjoy the comments but this week’s are especially interesting, thanks to all who have contributed. My own scattershot reactions:
As a few others have noted, even the writers knew that all Vadic was really good for was yapping. Monologuing protoplasms, exactly. I was worried when I saw her drifting toward the Shrike, thinking suddenly some docking port would suddenly open up and she’d drift in and fly away. Please, I dig Amanda Plummer, but for the love of Kahless, let Vadic be deader than disco.
So this leaves the question, who’s the real bad guy now? I wonder whether we’re going to get at least one more special guest from the past, because I cannot imagine getting invested in a new bad guy with only two episodes left, unless it’s someone we’ve seen before.
Have to agree with those who find the whole Jack glowy eyes red door tease a bit tedious at this point.
I’m not one of those who thinks Trek should stay strictly beholden to the past and never offer up a bit more gore and violence to meet the expectations of younger audiences who expect all sorts of depraved s*** from watching other shows, But I admit I was taking aback with T’veens sad and brutal demise cutting abruptly to cutesy spousal reminiscing between Riker and Deanna.
And while I completely understand why so many enjoyed the Data/Lore/Geordi scenes, I just couldn’t really get into it knowing what was going to happen all along. We’ve all seen hundreds of movies and shows where a character in distress is being exhorted by friends to snap out of it to save the day, And I suppose the reason we’ve seen it so often is because when it’s done well it can be very poignant, but I saw nothing special about this one honestly. Just another paint by numbers Let Spiner Do His Thing routine.
As for the good, I agree the Raffi/Worf chemistry is palpable, and I hope They find a way to keep these two together somehow as Picard signs off and we continue going boldly where no one has gone before.
Agree that I would bet my house Shaw ends up acknowledging Seven of Nines agency and identity and calls her by her name. Also agree that this doesn’t absolve him from being a total jackwagon for so long. He’s an interesting character though. Obviously loves his ship and has a strong sense of duty, And he’s a competent Captain from a certain perspective. But again. What a dick.
From a consistency point of view I’m kind of wondering, what happened last week when Picard and Beverly kept shooting at the protoplasm as it oozed between them and escaped, But in this episode they are susceptible to being cut with old school blades and easily vaporized. Or am I missing something?
Lastly, my favorite moment, which Krad and others have been mentioned, has to be “I’m Starfleet”. Duty is not always easy to serve in desperate moments. That was badass.
@62/kefka: “IBe it the acting, the lack of reaction time being an issue, the thoughts of Jack and/or the reaction of Sidney after it was done that it was clear she was being controlled.”
I drew exactly the opposite conclusion. Jack could be heard thinking instructions to her, which implies that he was guiding her rather than just reducing her to a mindless puppet. And her reaction afterward was simply “Was that you in my head?”, which sounds to me more like communication than full-on domination. So I didn’t get any sense that she was being controlled, and I’m surprised that they’re now claiming that she was.
I think a lot of people are focusing on a different distinction than I am, and we’re talking past each other. Was Jack physically making Sidney’s body move rather than simply telling her how to move? Yes. People are misunderstanding me if they think I’m saying he wasn’t. But there are two different ways that can happen — with her voluntary participation and without it. The question is not about what Jack is doing, it’s about the nature of Sidney’s role, whether she’s an active or passive recipient.
That’s why I keep bringing up the dancing analogy. If an instructor is teaching you a dance move for the first time, they will physically direct the movement of your limbs and body, but that is not “control,” since it only happens because you choose to move along with them. If you just stood there limply, they could still pull you around (depending on their relative size and strength), and that would be control. So their role is the same either way, but your side of it is what makes the difference between whether they’re controlling your movement or simply guiding it.
It’s much like the theme of this episode, “Surrender,” particularly in the Data-Lore scene. Lore started out forcibly taking Data’s memories, but then Data started giving them to him, voluntarily allowing him to take them. And that made a profound difference in the balance of power between them. Control can be one-sided, or it can be mutually negotiated. Jack and Sidney’s fight-dance looked to me like the latter, and it’s disturbing and disappointing that they’ve clarified it as the former.
“So in the prior episode, he should not have been staring at her during the fight since he sees through the “host’s” eyes.”
“Should?” No reason it’s limited to working only one way. Lots of skills can be adapted to different situations in different ways — for instance, you need to stretch your arms out to your sides when walking on a balance beam or tightrope, but not when you’re walking on flat ground. Same ability, different situational needs.
Indeed, since Jack’s only just discovering these abilities, maybe he didn’t know he could see through Sidney’s eyes — and he didn’t have to try, because she was right in front of him. This situation was different, because he was trying to connect to people in different rooms, so that required taking the link further.
Jack could also see what was happening behind Sydney. Good reason to be looking at her
@68 CLB
That is my point, you drew a different conclusion from others, but those others drew a common conclusion based on the same evidence. It is a fictional show, it is not a big deal that we understood what Matalas was going for. Again from my prior comments: Jack thinking instructions to Sidney makes no sense due to the delayed reaction time, the instructions are also ambiguous, punch, roll or dodge are quite vague in the scheme of things.
Your dance analogy has always been weak to me, as it is not based on a set of complex movements needed to neutralize a threat at the time. Much of what I said I feel vindicated for.
We are not talking past each other, I already conceded in a prior post, both explanations work. But Jack was controlling Sidney based on the evidence at hand. Also, I think I have explained why any given person would be open to the control Jack has controlled them given the situation and given that they were Starfleet.
You’re right about it working in many ways, Jack might have only understood it in the context at the time of the events it happened.
-Kefka
@49 My son is adopted from Vietnam and his middle name is his birth name Lac a traditional Vietnamese Buddhist name meaning “Peace” or “Peaceful”. His first name in English is John which makes most English speakers then hear his full name as John Locke ***** rather than John Lac ***** and they assume we named him for the English political philosopher. :)
Our names are stories in themselves.
@60/CLB: Yes, I get that it’s more proper to say “sucked out” than “blown out” (just like how Data corrects Riker in “The Naked Now”) but “blown out” to me just sounds better, not to mention less obscene than “sucked out” hahaha.
Is no one else worried that Troi is a changeling? How does she know about the red door? The only other one who did was Vadic… I’m a little concerned we didn’t get an explicit “Ok, Deanna’s not a changeling” moment the way we have with others.
Speaking of which, what happened to Beverly’s discovery about how to detect the new changelings via radiation signature? Why aren’t they just scanning everyone with that now.
Anyway, Deanna’s got me on edge, and not in a good way. Interfered with my ability to fully enjoy the reunion around the table, and I don’t trust the writing on this show enough to not yank the tablecloth out and end up breaking all the fine china and crystal.
@70/kefka: “Again from my prior comments: Jack thinking instructions to Sidney makes no sense due to the delayed reaction time, the instructions are also ambiguous, punch, roll or dodge are quite vague in the scheme of things.”
As I’ve tried to explain, that’s a complete misunderstanding of what I’m suggesting. It’s not verbal instructions, it’s physical synchronization of body reactions, so that she shares in his physical sensation and muscle memory in real time.
Let me try another analogy: “I know kung fu.” In The Matrix, Neo gets the physical skill of martial arts uploaded into his brain, not just instructions but the direct knowledge and experience and muscle memory of how to perform them. What I thought was going on was similar to that, a sharing of motor skills and the sensation of body movement as opposed to mere concepts or words — but not an upload so much as synching, so that both brains are drawing on Jack’s motor skills simultaneously.
Or it’s like TNG: “Sarek,” when Sarek melded with Picard to draw on his emotional control and discipline. Sarek was still in control of his own mind, but he was borrowing another mind’s capabilities in real time, sharing in them equally. Picard was providing the emotional management for both of them at once.
“Your dance analogy has always been weak to me, as it is not based on a set of complex movements needed to neutralize a threat at the time.”
Wow, totally missing the point. It’s not about the complexity of the moves at all; it’s about the very simple fact that the lead dancer physically directs the follower’s body but the follower is actively participating in the movement rather than being forced to move. The point is simply that guiding is not the same thing as controlling, because it’s two-sided rather than one-sided.
“But Jack was controlling Sidney based on the evidence at hand.”
That has now been made explicit, yes, and I wish it hadn’t been. Voluntary sharing of physical skill is cool; actual mind control is creepy and ugly. And it’s in especially bad taste when it’s a white man doing it to a black woman.
@72/garreth: “Yes, I get that it’s more proper to say “sucked out” than “blown out””
What? No, my point is that it wouldn’t physically happen no matter what you call it, as I explained in comment #38.
@73/PG: Given that the Changelings in this series have been depicted as far less skilled at convincing impersonation than the likes of Changeling Martok or Bashir in DS9, I think the rapport between Riker and Troi here was too genuine for there to be any doubt that she’s the real deal.
@62 / Kefka:
Yet all along Data has been playing Lore, he has learned from prior experience to not trust anything Lore says. In addition, he correctly predicts Lore won’t be able to help himself from taking in Data’s memories, undermining Lore himself. Data wins and does it the right way and there is a goodbye from the brothers to each other, so even Lore get to shows something more at the end. Thus, there is closure on the family side of the relationship as well. Nice.
I loved that Data subtly tipped his hand during that sequence — specifically when he handed over the Poker memories.
Now, what did Data learn while playing the weekly poker games? What did Riker try to school him in again and again?
The art of bluffing your opponent.
I love that Lore was subtly getting trolled and didn’t realize it.
Killing off the only well-defined antagonist is an odd choice to make this late in the season. But I was finding Vadic exhausting. I did love her mentioning she was keeping the comfy captain’s chair from the Titan.
Having to accommodate the original cast, plus the carryover characters from seasons one and two, plus the inclusion of new characters who have gotten a lot of screen time has meant this season’s felt really overstuffed. There’s just too many moving parts relative to the number of episodes they have to work with. Clearly they want the viewer invested in Jack’s big secret but they need to handle that, plus introduce the final villain, plus resolve outstanding character arcs, plus dedicate time to the finale farewell. That’s a lot to accomplish in two episodes and the pacing this season has been uneven.
Hey, have we gone three episodes without a Ten Forward scene?
I’m not 100% convinced Vadic is dead, but then I said the same about Han Solo after Episode 7, so take that for what it’s worth.
This is an off the wall guess, but: could Jack be one of the Hundred? Or related to them somehow? Maybe he somehow merged with one of them? It would explain his connection to the Changelings, but not his apparent psychic abilities.
Alternatively, maybe his brother has put some sort of whammy on him, for an as-yet-unknown special Traveler mission he has yet to undertake.
Just spitballing here, of course.
Was Jack thinking instructions for Sidney’s benefit, or for the audience’s?
The thing that pisses me off about Shaw is that his losses to the Borg pale in comparison to Seven’s losses. Seven is a victim, Shaw is a traumatized bystander. And Locutus wasn’t given a name because he was deadly- it’s roughly Latin for “speaker” which is more function than name.
Deanna may be exhibiting greater powers of telepathy than she did previously, but that’s okay. She’s had decades to work on it.
@73/PG: Troi can’t be a Changeling because she has telepathic powers and no Changeling has that. That she’s going into Jack’s mind is one such example of her powers and that it’s really her.
Where is Kestra, by the way? Could she be with Mr. Homm so we get a Carol Struyken cameo?
I confess that I was hoping, when Data’s Sherlockian props made an appearance, that we would be getting another Daniel Davis appearance. (I’d been underwhelmed by the first appearance of Moriarty.) Ah, well.
Is the finale slated to be a standard hour/hour-and-fifteen minute episode? Because at the rate they’re going, I can’t see how they wrap everything up in the time left.
Poor Captain Shaw. His ship has been hijacked on two levels. First is Vadic taking over the ship. Then is the cast from an entirely different show, whose characters are all mostly retired at this point, are taking away all his authority to make decisions.
I also LOLed when Vadic turned out the lights on the ship. I thought “oh geez, they’re going to make the show even darker?”
Otherwise, the show continues to be solid with lots of great character moments, though the dragged out mystery box is a bit grating.
A thought on the Jack controlling/guiding of Sydney and Mura.
There is no reason why both are not possible. Sydney was directly in front of him. She mentally, if unintentionally, calls for help and Jack slips into her and guides her. Mura is in another room. Jack has to more direct and overriding, both to gain the control and keep Mura from inadvertently making some noise or movement to alert the Changelings.
@79 – Unfortunately, I think Mr. Homn was killed by the Jem’Hadar during the Dominion occupation of Betazed.
Re names: I now want to see a Klingon named something like Temujin or Subotai; it would be entirely appropriate, a nod from one warrior culture to another. We already have a (mostly) Klingon named Alexander, but that name is common enough that the connection to the most famous person bearing it isn’t always clear.
As for the other way around, how about the brothers Kor, Kang, and Koloth Greenberg …?
#78. I’m not excusing Shaw’s behavior, but I’m not sure there’s such a thing as a “traumatized bystander,” especially when it comes to the Borg. If you’re traumatized by some one or some thing with a broad indifference to suffering, then you’re also a victim.
@83: Mr. Homn’s “death” is non-canon so he could still show up yet this season.
markvolund: Mr. Homn’s death was in the short story “The Ceremony of Innocence is Drowned” in Tales of the Dominion War, written by some hack with two middle initials (ahem), but the stuff onscreen isn’t beholden to that. And since Carel Struycken is still alive, so too could Mr. Homn be (unlike Troi’s mom, sigh).
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
On a different note, my wife asked how is Data supposed to know how to buckle up when there are no seatbelts on any of these ships? No matter, loved it.
“In addition, we get the first misstep in Worf’s characterization, as his reunion with Troi results in him waxing rhapsodic about how much he’s thought about her over the years as he’s worked to improve himself, and does so in a manner that is, well, pretty creepy. And which also calls back to the abortive Worf-Troi romance of the seventh season of TNG, which nobody was crying out for. Troi is much better with Riker and Worf was much better with Jadzia Dax, and this was just weird.”
I thought it was hilarious. But, then again, humor is obviously a subjective thing. But as some others have mentioned, I also felt that Worf was not really intending to express romantic sentiments (although it certainly came across that way to Riker; I absolutely loved his closing line of, “Excuse me. Is this a rescue mission or a continuing of the torture?) but instead an outpouring of what he’s been wanting to tell her for so long, the change in his mindset and emotional/spiritual being which he apparently feels she planted the seeds for earlier on. Beyond their brief romantic relationship, Troi most likely counseled him (or attempted to) at various times both before and after that. His first scene here was like, “I have so much to tell you! I’ve come so far and you have been my inspiration!” (Who knows? She may have even reached out to Worf after the death of Jadzia. Knowing Worf then, he probably thanked her but declined any actual counseling as it’s not the Klingon warrior way, plus they were at war with the Dominion at the time.)
But yeah, Riker’s and Troi’s reactions were great. (And, hey, I just thought of another possibility. Maybe that whole thing was also Worf getting back at Riker’s ribbing him back at the Daystom facility.)
@81/Tim: Yeah, I did kind of wonder why Shaw wasn’t at that conference room meeting (and probably Seven, too). I mean, thematically it’s obvious what they were doing there. Giving us that full TNG cast moment we’ve all been waiting for. But story wise it didn’t make a lot of sense. I guess Shaw could have agreed with Picard off screen that Picard should led things in terms of the threat to the Frontier Day festivities while Shaw and Seven see to getting the ship back in shape (and also see to the needs of the surviving crew; it was unfortunate that Picard and company didn’t even mention all of those who had just died once they’d retaken the ship).
@18 Thank you! I knew what Data was doing and I knew it was because I’d seen that trick before, but I couldn’t for the life of me place it. Partly because I thought I’d seen it much more recently than it turns out to have been.
(Though that sequence in The Order of the Stick was only a couple days ago in internal story time.)
One thing that kind of bugged me a bit (or at least got me thinking) was when Deanna said, “I could tell they were imposters right from the start. Not that I can really read changelings.” But, wait, if she can’t “read” a changeling’s emotions, wouldn’t that be pretty obvious then when she can’t read the emotions of someone she should be able to? Wouldn’t they be like a blank slate to her? (Of course, she then goes on to describe Vadic’s emotional state in great detail.)
Also, did anyone else feel it a bit funny that they didn’t even at least briefly talk about if Kestra was home when the changelings arrived and if she’s somewhere safe?
No voices anymore; I want to be just Jack – continuing the “Paint It Black” rewrite, this time at the end of the episode.
To me, this was the most psychological episode of Picard yet, which is why it was so viscerally satisfying to me. The mystery of Riker’s non-prolonged grief disorder in “Nepenthe” is solved with Deanna’s untoward telepathic powers that seemed well enough established in “Encounter at Farpoint” among imzadi to be believable here. The disturbing aspect of her actions with her husband that’s gone unstated so far is that he didn’t give consent – let alone informed consent – for her mental ministrations. It’s not about skipping to the end, it’s not about treating a family member – it’s about exceeding the bounds of fundamental professional decency, of which someone who’s been mind raped as often as Deanna would ordinarily be acutely aware. To me, the fact she ignored this indicated how much Thad’s death violated her mental well-being as well.
The psychological battle between Data and Lore was brilliantly executed for me. Data demonstrated he learned of Lore’s consistently deceptive ways and was finally no longer the sucker for Lore’s overpowering gambits, the first two of which also involved identity switching in “Datalore” and “Brothers”. I hope this is truly the end of Lore, being assimilated into Data for his greed at Data’s memories. It was a lovely way to send off that character. Lore articulated a strongly agentic conceptualization of success, whereas Data not just endorsed but espoused a strongly communal view of success in his bonds to others through his memories. Communal victory Trojaned horsed by the abnegation of domination – beautiful.
Indeed, the gathering of the TNG crew around the table was an emotionally satisfying communal success. The payoff was worth the delay for me, seeing all of the ways in which the crew had changed since their callow S1 days, reminiscing about the mental connections they’d maintained through their absences. The one thing that frustrated me again was that Picard S2 never dealt with Picard’s assimilation into the golem, which would have given him and Data another bonding point over assimilation into new forms. Such a huge missed opportunity was S2.
I though Jack’s subversion of the thermal detonator gambit was a great use of reverse psychology in warfare. Not a weapon did he hold, but a means of defense, subverting the truism that the best defense is a good offense. Speaking of offensive, I think Shaw’s trauma is still writ every time he calls Seven “Hansen.” He sees the best in her by having her as his first officer. But when stressed, he still hasn’t healed enough from Wolf 359 to accept her Borg-ness, instead rejecting to save himself from re-experiencing that trauma. Will Shaw and Jack have the psychological integrations that Picard and Data have been granted? Or will Shaw at least be able to experience his grief as Riker did when he fled, allowing him to admit his first officer’s Seven-ness as Riker and Troi both realized they had outgrown Nepenthe?
I enjoyed the conference involving the main characters—but it seemed odd for the story. They are on the Titan, Shaw’s ship. Seven and Raffi are both integral parts of the investigation of the Changeling threat, and post-TNG, Picard worked with Raffi for an extended period of time and became very close to Seven. So why aren’t Seven, Shaw and Raffi sitting at the table to discuss next steps? I do understand that the show is “about” the 7 mains, but they are going to have to persuade Shaw to go along with whatever they decide. And as a final nit, after watching Star Trek for decades, it’s the Admirals who usually turn evil. So why would there be command code over-rides for every Admiral in the fleet as Picard demonstrates, and why are they active even after retirement and why hasn’t every Admiral gone bad not used that power before? I did enjoy the realization that the Troi/Rikers both hate Nepenthe. Not a perfect show but a lot of fun for fans still.
“Greetings, U.S.S. Titan, this is your friendly positronic pissed-off security system, back online. Unwanted guests and monologuing protoplasms: I am issuing an immediate shift change.”
After waiting all week and seeing Vadic toying with the hostages, I’ve never been so ecstatic to hearing the word, “pissed-off”.
I am not convinced that Vadic being shattered into thousands of little pieces is not part of the villain’s plan. That odd separating hand ought to indicate that we’ve got something other than—or in addition to—one of the changed Changelings.
I finally had to ask myself, if this same story was set in a different sci-fi universe and didn’t feature TNG characters, would it be watchable? Not for me. I’ve read through all of the comments in this thread, and it’s telling that no one is discussing the ideas sparked by the story. Instead, we’re all trying to head-cannon away the plot holes and inconsistencies in the writing so that we can at least enjoy seeing our Enterprise-D heroes one more time. It’s a bummer.
I’d definitely watch a new series with Worf, Raffi, Seven, even Shaw. But please put the SNW or Lower Decks people in charge. Please.
But I did love the Data/Lore scene. I’m not a total crank.
The problem with dragging out a reveal like Jack’s “true nature” is that you either a) have to keep dropping clues to keep the plot moving and risk either giving away the game annoying people with red herrings or b) you don’t drop enough clues and the final reveal comes out of nowhere or makes no sense.
And, plotwise, it seems like if Jack so crucial to executing the Changeling’s Frontier Day plan they’d spend weeks hunting him down, Picard and company would want to send him as far away from the solar system as possible, which means of course they won’t.
It’s not remotely relevant to the story, but I can’t think of any reason a French wine made in Le Barre would be called a Bordeaux, or why a French vintner would name their wine by a completely different region. It’s not even as if Bordeaux is one particular grape either.
@96 a_risch
Of course, having the cast from one of my favorite TV shows come back again and actually act like themselves from TNG the show is going to add a lot of built-in enjoyment for many fans.
-Kefka
Has anyone else had the thought that the final boss in the last two episodes is going to turn out to be Jack? That whatever’s behind the red door is going to take him over and turn out to be the entity behind the floaty head guy Vadic worked for? For one thing, it would make more sense for the Big Bad to be an established member of the cast rather than some new actor introduced in the penultimate episode, and Jack’s the only credible candidate. For another, it raises the personal stakes if the Big Bad is someone with a close connection to the title character. It would also explain why Vadic was trying so hard to get her hands on Jack — maybe the floaty head entity is stuck inside him, sealed behind the door or something, and needs to be released.
Hadn’t thought of it, but now that you mention it, it would fall into place quite nicely. And then what would they do with him?
@101/srEDIT: “And then what would they do with him?”
Probably redeem him or free him from the evil force possessing him. Perhaps through The Power of Fatherly Love.
@100/CLB: That guess has merit for all the reasons you say, but I don’t think the Trek PTB would pull the rug out from under us like that. If the villain is an established character, I think it will be someone established in TNG or the first two seasons of Picard. Like Armus* or Daimon Bok.””
*I’m kidding!
**Still kidding!
@103/terracinque: I didn’t say the villain was likely to be an established TNG character; I said that in general, the final boss in a TV season is likely to be a character/actor who’s been part of that season long enough for the audience to have some investment in them, rather than a stranger who suddenly shows up in the home stretch. It’s the inverse corollary to Chekhov’s Gun — whatever pays off in the climax should be seeded well before it, rather than being introduced out of the blue. And with Vadic gone, Jack is the most likely candidate. We already know he has some mysterious dark force inside him and was all-important to Vadic.
And I don’t see it as pulling the rug out, since I expect him to be redeemed/cured at the end. And he’s bound to be put under some serious existential threat in the climax, and having him actually becoming or being taken over by the villain is more efficient plotting and casting than hiring some new actor who hasn’t already been a gun on the wall up to now.
Joe Clark: David Mack came up with a very clever explanation in one of his TNG novels about the changes in the soil in France after World War III that led to a major alteration in French wines that still held true in the twenty-fourth century. I don’t remember the specifics, but it was a good way to handwave the fact that every single person who’s written about Château Picard doesn’t really understand how wine works…. *laughs*
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@96/a_risch – the plot would draw too heavily on nostalgia for me under other circumstances, but what occurred to me when I saw the resolution to the “Data/Lore” subplot is that it’s actually kind of amazing to see a satisfying payoff to a character arc that has played out over 36 years and my entire life.
@105/krad:
How did the Lower Decks writers do with the raisin stuff in Season 3?
@35 Queso, and everyone speculating about Jack:
My money is on the show ending with a sincerely delivered ”I’m Jack … Jack Skywalker”
S
#100. Ah, I think you might have nailed it. That’s definitely the most intriguing theory I’ve seen so far. I keep running across people saying it’s Locutus or the Pah-Wraiths. Some even saying it’s Armus, heaven help us.
Me, I’m holding on to hope it’s Cyrus Redblock.
Dingo: Who the hell would play him? Lawrence Tierney died in 2002….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido, who actually thinks Michael Chiklis would be perfect in the role
#110. Meh, death ain’t a showstopper. Not anymore. Just ask Peter Cushing. ;-)
But yeah, Chiklis would be a good pick. Dean Norris might also work.
I would also like to point out that Leon Rippy is still with us, so be sure to keep L.Q. Sonny Clemmons on your bingo cards, folks. I sense a great darkness behind that guitar.
Points:
I thought this isn’t the real Data, it’s backup data?
Is Seven of Nine named Hansen in Starfleet records and they promise they will fix it… on her next posting?
I understand that Star Trek has a character named “Man who walks the earth but who only sees the sky”, Chakotay, but given Seven of Nine’s thing, maybe I’m wrong to contract that to “Sky walker”.
When you open the evacuation hatch, does the artificial gravity automatically switch to push everyone thataway? After all, you’re evacuating! Anyone who wants to stay can fasten their seatbelt… oh. ;-) Or has anyone written that they have backup artificial gravity in the seat cushion… though we seldom see that working either.
@112 The way I understand it, the Data who died in season 1 was also a backup Data, pulled from the same source (B-4’s memory). Old Man Data is just as much the “real” Data as that one.
What about all the Titan crew not on the bridge who got massacred?!
That was an incredibly shocking part of the ep. We heard their dying screams too.
No one even mentions it once the ship is recaptured.
@114/Antipodenaut: Also, when we heard the massacre of the crew over the intercom, why the hell were there machine-gun sounds?
@115/CLB: I think they were running Picard’s Dixon Hill program on the holodeck. A crew member grabbed a machine gun to assault the advancing Changelings and what you hear are the screams of the holographic bystanders.
@115/CLB: For the same reason, I would assume, that Beverly’s phaser rifle in the season premiere was both pump-action and needed to be cocked.
@100 I have considered that, yes. I’m still convinced that a disembodied Locutus is the driving malevolent force behind all of this, and it wouldn’t surprise me if opening the door allows Jack to be fully “assimilated.”
Tying into that, I’m kind of expecting that we’re going to learn that Picard was not the first Locutus, that he could be an ancient Borg evil even older than the Queen that is only used by the Borg when necessary. Maybe one reason the Borg seem obsessed with humans is that they’re the first ones to defeat Locutus.
@100 ChristopherLBennett
That is brilliant. The remaining mystery would be is Jack infected with a Changeling like Vadic’s researcher was, and if so when? Was he genetically modified by Section 31? How much does Beverly actually know? Those questions can be solved in one episode.
Conversely, how would floaty melty head have a way to carry out his threats against Vadic if she failed to find Jack if he’s trapped in Jack? Why wouldn’t the other Changeling on the Titan have known how important Jack was? If Jack dies will Floaty Melty Head be able to take over?
@91, David Young
Deanna is a trained psychologist and therapist in addition to being an empath. One thing I like about Picard even back on Nepenthe with Soji, they’ve leaned into Deanna not needing her Betazoid abilities to do her job, a lesson she learned on the E-D back in the day. That said, Betazoids can’t sense original recipe Changelings, so being able to sense the new variety itself is a tip off. She spoke of Vadic’s rage, and anger, and vengeance. So they can’t deceive Betazoids like they used to be able to.
@118/Chase: Locutus is not a “he.” The Borg Collective is not made up of individuals. The entire Collective is a single mind. It’s literally just one person living in billions of bodies. Locutus, the Queen, these are just interfaces that it communicates through from time to time. They’re organs in its body, not authority figures or cackling supervillains. Locutus simply means “he who has spoken” — nothing more than a specialized drone serving a specific communicative function. It might just as well have been called “Mouthpiece of Borg.” The only guiding mind behind Locutus is the same one behind every other Borg drone in existence.
Though, the fact that the next episode is called “Vox” (voice) does seem to support the idea that what’s going on with Jack is related in some way to Picard’s time as Locutus.
(Incidentally, I understand that Terry Matalas is a fan of The Return, by William Shatner and the Reeves-Stevenses; it’s been many years since I’ve read it, but I seem to remember “Vox” being the name of the Borg’s Locutus-equivalent in their dealings with the Romulan Empire)
@121/jaime: “Though, the fact that the next episode is called “Vox” (voice) does seem to support the idea that what’s going on with Jack is related in some way to Picard’s time as Locutus.”
Possibly. But it would be completely wrong to portray Locutus as a separate being from Picard, rather than just the label that Picard-as-drone was assigned by the Collective. (“Locutus” can be roughly translated as “Speaker,” so you could say that the Borg plugged Picard in as an audio output device.)
And though I strongly expect that the Big Bad will turn out to be connected to the Borg, I really, really hope it isn’t, because we just had a whole season about them and I’ve had enough already. At the end this week, when Jack was about to open the door in his mind and reveal what was behind it, I was literally muttering “Please don’t be the Borg. Please don’t be the Borg.”
I got a real kick out of Raffi’s bashful glee when Riker told her, “You’re scary.” Very cute (in a scary way, LOL)! She and Worf continue to be fantastic together. Shaw continues to be a butt, but he’s grown on me over the course of the season. I hope he eventually gets over his butt-ness.
The Data/Lore resolution was lovely and as perfect as could be. Data loves his brother and this was truly the only way to heal him. And oh my goodness, it’s Spot!!! I’ve been wishing for something like this ever since Nemesis, and my inner child’s heart is beyond happy to see my favorite fictional family reunited once more.
@122/ChristopherLBennett – If it’s the Borg, I will be upset that they went to all of the trouble of setting up Jurati with her own collective last season only to not reference or use her at all.
I’m pretty upset about that anyways, honestly.
@120 I think that’s overly pedantic at this point. Locutus has consistently been referred to as an individual of some kind, right from his introduction to the Enterprise crew: “I am Locutus of Borg.” Memory Alpha uses he/him pronouns in his article. *First Contact* clearly establishes that he was more than just an ordinary drone, that the Queen “wanted a human being with a mind of his own.”
But even if we do accept your interpretation of who Locutus was in “The Best of Both Worlds,” that doesn’t mean that is the whole story of Locutus. There are all sorts of creative ways to get explain why he could still exist as an individual of some kind, 35 years later.
In the words of the possibly the most important person in Starfleet history: “I’m you, you’re me, it doesn’t matter. Just go. Go!”
Locutus, sure. However, I have no idea how to claim that the Borg Queen isn’t a cackling supervillain with a straight face. She once made sure that, of all the cubes in the Delta Quadrant, that the drone who once was Seven’s father would be present on the cube encountering Voyager, just to piss her off.
– Durandal_1707, who just completed a “Click on all the bridges that appear in this picture” captcha and was disappointed not to see any starship bridges _or_ the bridge that fell on Captain Kirk in Generations
That drink I said I’d like to have with Shaw? I want to throw it in his face, because Seven told him her name is Seven of Nine, and he called her “Hansen” anyway. I agree @Mary: Shaw can get f*cked.
Even if Shaw does eventually address Seven by name, it would be too little, too late.
Data!
I could see what Data was doing, handing precious memories to Lore, and still enjoyed that entire sequence. Bonus: Spot! Data defeating Lore was indeed classic Trek: using compassion to overcome an adversary.
@20/davidjcochrane: Yes, Geordi and Data
. Letter-perfect, and LeVar Burton and Brent Spiner haven’t lost a beat.
I do hate that T’Veen is red-shirted, and there’s no mention of her or the other Titan crew who were murdered, especially since we see some of the crew who were brutally slaughtered, including poor Ensign Riggs (SNW handled this better, with Pike watching over the coffins of his fallen crew members. It would have gone a long way to redeeming Shaw if we got even a brief glimpse of him with his fallen crew, or maybe Seven of Nine could have done that; that would have been powerful. Alas…)
Finally, no more Vadic monologues…
And I agree @jamiebabb: this whole thing was worth it to see Data and Geordi together, and for the Big 7 to finally be all together in one room, even if didn’t really make sense story-wise (Shaw, Seven, and Raffi should have been there, but we’ve been waiting all season for that moment, and we got it).
Oh yeah, and we’re still doing this thing with Jack. Ugggggggghhhhhhh can we just find out already? I almost don’t care what Jack’s deal is at this point.
@125/Chase: “Locutus has consistently been referred to as an individual of some kind, right from his introduction to the Enterprise crew: “I am Locutus of Borg.””
I can put a puppet on my hand and have it say “I’m Fozzie Bear,”* but I’m still the one making it say that. The purpose of Locutus, as explicitly stated in “The Best of Both Worlds,” was to project the appearance of an authority figure to facilitate communication with hierarchical societies. It was a convenient fiction for the Collective to communicate through the facade of an individual spokesperson. Appearance does not equal reality.
*(In fact, I literally can and just did, since I still have a Fozzie puppet, although his hat is no longer attached to his head.)
“Memory Alpha uses he/him pronouns in his article.”
“He” being Picard. Locutus was the title the Borg assigned to Picard as a drone, not some separate being that possessed Picard’s body. Again, “Locutus” basically just means “Speaker.” He was saying “I am the Speaker for the Borg.” That’s all. It’s not the name of an individual, it’s a description of Picard’s function as a drone.
“*First Contact* clearly establishes that he was more than just an ordinary drone, that the Queen “wanted a human being with a mind of his own.””
Yes, a human being, namely Jean-Luc Picard. That’s the whole point of Picard’s line there, that the Queen wanted Picard himself to willingly become Locutus. That very line disproves the notion that Locutus is a separate being from Picard. Locutus is what Picard himself became under the Borg’s control.
Also, it’s only Picard who says they wanted him to have a mind of his own; the Queen never verifies it. Therefore, it’s hearsay and does not constitute proof of anything but Picard’s opinion. It’s a stupid line anyway. Nothing about BOBW suggested that Picard had his own mind or will as Locutus; on the contrary, Picard was buried so deep that it was a miracle he was even able to get out a single word, “Sleep,” with Data’s help. In “Family,” Picard had a whole sobbing speech to his brother about how he couldn’t stop the Collective from using his knowledge to destroy the fleet at Wolf 359, because he was utterly helpless to assert his own will. So the writers of FC having him say the Queen wanted him to have a mind of his own is an insane retcon, one that completely and bizarrely contradicts literally the entire point of the Locutus story. It’s a nonsense line, and it’s nonsense to throw out the preponderance of evidence in favor of a single line that contradicts it all.
@128/Dante: With you on Shaw. I see people on Twitter saying they want a Captain Shaw series, and I don’t see it. He’s such a terrible captain that it’s unbelievable Starfleet didn’t kick him out long ago. He deadnames his first officer. He pettily mistreats a visiting admiral and senior captain. In the midst of a crisis, when his crew are terrified that they’re all going to die, he does nothing to encourage or comfort them but just gives a depressing tirade about his own past trauma. He has done nothing to demonstrate that he deserves to be in command of anything. He’s a terrible person and a terrible leader.
I think what happened with Data and Lore is a tell for what is going on with Picard and Jack. Picard assimilated some of Locutus and then passed it on biologically to Jack. Jack is a borg-human hybrid who can “assimilate” others telepathically. It’s a power that can be used in accordance with human values (i.e. asking for consent and establishing mutual trust first) or not (by force/involuntarily). This is the struggle Deanna will help Jack work through in the next episode.
There have been other clues, I think, e.g. Vadic saying “don’t you hear the voices”?
@129/CLB – I personally interpret that line about the Queen wanting “a counterpart with a mind of its own” as being the reason why Picard was conscious of himself as an entity distinct from the rest of the Borg Collective at all during his time as Locutus. I’m thinking about all of the other assimilations that have taken place throughout the franchise and whether anyone else has been able to resist from “inside” as it were. Janeway, B’Elanna, and Tuvok were, but they had neurosuppressants (and Tuvok himself was basically gone the moment the suppressant wore-off, with no indication that he was still fighting from the inside); Zero was able to pull out, but their assimilation was voluntary and (I would argue) strictly via their own telepathy, and Medusans are naturally capable of forming and dissociating themselves from hiveminds in any case. And then there was Jurati, whose persona was explicitly being kept alive by the Queen because she was lonely (which may or may not be the same rationale as for Picard). In every other instance that I can think of, the “assimilee” has their personality completely suppressed almost immediately, with no indication that they’re still present within the Hive.
@130/Angela: “Picard assimilated some of Locutus and then passed it on biologically to Jack. Jack is a borg-human hybrid who can “assimilate” others telepathically.”
That’s sort of what I suspect too, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. I mean, if Picard’s Irumodic Syndrome was not an innate defect but a modification the Borg made to his brain, then it wouldn’t be hereditary, and there’s no way it could be passed on to an offspring any more than, say, his artificial heart could be. It’s possible some latent nanoprobes survived in his body and got passed on along with his gametes, but that would have nothing to do with his brain and all the Irumodic stuff they keep talking about. It’s a non sequitur.
Also, why the hell would Borg infestation make someone telepathic? Borg don’t need telepathy — they have tech for that. Okay, if there are latent nanoprobes in Jack’s body, then he could infect others with them and maybe communicate with their minds that way, a technological semblance of telepathy. But then, why haven’t the nanoprobes assimilated them the way we’ve seen them do in the past, as recently as season 2 of this show? So that doesn’t add up either. (Also, why would it make his eyes glow red when the trademark color that’s always been used for Borg stuff is green?)
So I’m afraid they are going for something like this, but I hope they aren’t, because if so, then it won’t make any sense.
@132 – “Borg don’t need telepathy — they have tech for that.”
Unless Picard does have some Borg tech left in him then telepathy is what we saw at the beginning of First Contact. Not only hearing the voices but knowing where to attack the cube.
@133/kkozoriz: Yes, exactly. A residual connection through his residual Borg technology, the same kind of connection the Borg always use to communicate among drones, making it totally unnecessary and a non sequitur to posit psychic phenomena.
And whether it’s residual nanotech or a physical alteration in his brain giving him telepathy, in neither case would it be hereditary, so it’s a moot distinction anyway.
Of course, there is the horrible, dark, alternate theory, one that will rip at the very heart of Trek as we know it and features one of the handful of Picard characters still standing…
…it’s Kestra. Not content with a one episode breakout performance, she has her sights set on galactic domination. Bumping into Jack at a “children born in/of weird Starfleet situations” convention, she spotted that he was a bit dim and open to suggestion and has been directing everything, everything, in this Season. That’s how the changelings were able to get Troi so easily.
I’ll get my coat.
Although, I doubt that the joking above is as far-fetched as what ever we’re about to be given. Thanks for the Borg theory, CLB, and I fear that you may be right. To misquote (slightly) O’Brien, “the way I see it, we have options, none of them good”…
I remained convinced until this week that the red eye nonsense was some sort of pah wraith nightmare, although I also wondered about it being a (sigh) Section 31 thing gone wrong. But the notion of Jack being “born with Borg” would explain a lot.
We’re running out of time, so, like the first two seasons, I fear that the next two episodes are going to be a madcap rush to the end.
I’ll go on the record right here and say that the Borg have nothing to do with anything this season.
@119/mr._d Thanks for your response. (You were the only one to do so.)
What I was trying to get at, though, was more how Deanna’s statement about not really (ever) being able to read Changelings, wouldn’t that mean that Betazoids (and perhaps other telepathic and empathic species like them) would have worked as “Changeling detectors” back during the Dominion War. I mean, any Changeling disguised as a human or any other species individual that a Betazoid *should* be able to read, couldn’t they immediately realize they can’t read that person and say to security, “Detain this person, I can’t get a reading on them. They might be a Changeling.” Then, again, I still haven’t read the novel, The Battle of Betazed, yet. Was that perhaps the reason the Dominion decided to annex Betazed (besides it being a symbolic victory, Betazed being an important Federation member)?
@134 – Actually, nano probes could be said to be heredity. Hitchhike on sperm and start rewriting the DNA of the fetus. Same result as inheriting a trait. He’s Picard and Crushers child with a Borg twist.
Not saying that’s what’s going to happen but it wouldn’t be anywhere near the most unrealistic bit of science that Trek as tossed up.
It’s possible that the Borg subtly altered Picard’s DNA, that the emergence of precursors to Irrumodic Syndrome over the next four years was a consequence of that alteration, and that he passed it onto his son.
Honestly, I don’t even care anymore, I just want them to stop dragging out the reveal. Jack isn’t an interesting enough character to make this build-up worthwhile to me.
Maybe when Sarek mind melded with Picard that messed with Picard’s brain. After all, Sarek wasn’t well when they melded. And then Picard passed on some of that funky katra to Jack. And Vulcans are telepathic so maybe that accounts for Jack’s superpowers. Anyway, I’d like this over anything involving the Borg because that’s so played out. I also think the answer/bad guy to the mystery would come from a significant and actually good episode of TNG than say Armus from “Skin of Evil” or the cloud energy entity that took over Picard in “Lonely Among Us”.
Dead naming someone is just vile. Seven is Seven. She’s not Aneka Hanson. Her identity is entirely based around her experiences as a Borg, and later as a former drone coming to terms with her individuality and humanity. She is tied to the name Seven of nine in a very fundamental way.
To me (even outside the trans issue of dead naming) calling someone by their birth name instead of their chosen name is rude and disrespectful at the very least. My uncle hated his birth name and when he was 18 changed it by deed poll. Everyone except my dad (his eldest brother) called him by his new name and they had many arguments where my uncle would tell him in no uncertain terms that his name was X and to kindly use it. Dad just said Y was the name he was born with and nothing could change that. My dad was an idiot and an unrepentant bigot. I still loved him, but I had no end of arguments with him about these things.
I would have expected Federation officers to respect peoples choices. I think that’s why I have a problem with new Trek, they try to be edgy with profanity and issues, none of which are necessary. This used to be a show where children could watch with adults. I was watching original Trek when my age was still in single digits. And my young nephews would borrow my videos of Next Generation and watch them over and over. Now it’s very much an adult show where torture, violence, profanity and nastiness mean it’s another show where you wouldn’t want kids below a certain age to watch unsupervised, which for the majority of Original, Next Gen and Voyager at least, you could. There were a few you maybe would have quietly skipped, but it’s not a Saturday afternoon or teatime show for the family any more.
I wonder if Matthew the Bajoran was a war orphan adopted by a Federation couple (back in the Bad Old Days of the Occupation), hence that unusual name?
Either that or he may have been born to parents who escaped to the Federation and decided to assimilate (or simply took a keen interest in Human culture); It’s also vaguely possible that, as is the case with some widely separated Earthly languages, there are Bajoran names that sound oddly like those of Earth, despite being linguistically unrelated.
In any case this episode struck me as having a little less spinning than in the last one, but as feeling almost equally frustrating: some excellent moments do not wholly compensate for the fact that the longer a season is, the more important it is to have breather episodes not directly relating to the core plot (so that the latter does not feel like too little butter scrapped over too much bread).
Having said that, seeing the Crew get back together was deeply lovely – seeing Mr Data make peace with that rotten brother of his was absolutely sweet (Spot being, as it were, the point where Lore’s heart grew three sizes that day was especially delightful) – and krad, Dahar Master or no, I have to disagree with you when it comes to the Big Troi/Worf reunion because Mr Worf is absolutely the sort of Grand Romantic who would lay on the old smoothie when dealing with an old flame (however brief a candle that might have been), especially if he can simultaneously give Captain Riker’s leg a good strong pull in the process.
Let’s hope we’ve gotten the preliminaries out of the way and can finally get into the real meat of this season’s plot.
Also, enquiring minds want to know, WHERE’S KESTRA?!?
@139/jaimebabb: “It’s possible that the Borg subtly altered Picard’s DNA, that the emergence of precursors to Irrumodic Syndrome over the next four years was a consequence of that alteration, and that he passed it onto his son.”
But why would that give him telepathic abilities? I still say that it would make far more sense for Jack to have gotten his superpowers from his mother, given that Wesley also has superpowers.
It would be so cool if it turned out to be Travelers behind that door instead of Borg.
@140/garreth: “Maybe when Sarek mind melded with Picard that messed with Picard’s brain. After all, Sarek wasn’t well when they melded. And then Picard passed on some of that funky katra to Jack. And Vulcans are telepathic so maybe that accounts for Jack’s superpowers.”
I’d say that bears no resemblance to how heredity actually works, but this is a universe where “Genesis” and “Threshold” happened, so I guess genetics can work however they want it to.
@141/Ade Lucas: “This used to be a show where children could watch with adults.”
It’s so odd to me that people think that. For its day, TOS was extremely racy and adult, pushing the boundaries of ’60s censorship in its skimpy costumes and sexual themes. It was the first non-anthology science fiction show that was consciously aimed at adults instead of children, created specifically to be an alternative to kid-oriented sci-fi like Lost in Space. But it was always popular with children in spite of that, especially once it went into syndicated reruns and was frequently shown in daytime slots. And by the ’70s, cultural standards had become less prudish, so what originally seemed racy ended up seeming tame. (TOS had to fight the censors to get permission to have Kirk say “Let’s get the hell out of here” at the end of “The City on the Edge of Forever,” but by the ’70s, such language had become commonplace on TV.)
Then we had TMP, where Roddenberry introduced the character of Ilia, who came from a highly sexually open society and had pheromones that drove men wild (like a more civilized version of the Orion women from “The Cage”), but the film ended up being given a G rating so that the open sexuality Roddenberry intended to put in was left largely implicit, with only his novelization addressing it overtly. I’ve always felt that if Roddenberry had been given free rein, TMP would’ve been R-rated. (The only other feature film Roddenberry produced was Roger Vadim’s dark sex comedy Pretty Maids All in a Row, which I believe was one of the first films to feature extensive sexual content and nudity after the R rating permitting it was introduced.)
In season 1 of TNG, Roddenberry was clearly trying to take advantage of the looser standards in the ’80s to inject more sexuality and skin in the show, as seen in “The Naked Now” and “Justice” in particular. That would surely have continued if he’d been healthy enough to remain in control of the series.
So it’s a profound mistake to believe that Trek was always intended as a family show and that making it adult-oriented is some sort of modern corruption. Roddenberry always wanted ST to be as adult as the standards of the day would allow, specifically because he was sick of the science fiction TV of his day being saddled with the stigma of children’s programming and lacking the sophistication of science fiction literature. His goal was to prove that SFTV could be made on the same level as the classiest adult dramas. Even the animated series was designed and promoted as the first Saturday morning cartoon aimed at adult audiences instead of just children.
@142/ED: ” I wonder if Matthew the Bajoran was a war orphan adopted by a Federation couple (back in the Bad Old Days of the Occupation), hence that unusual name?”
Quite possibly something like that. I noticed that he didn’t have a standard Bajoran earring, but had ear piercings instead. That suggests something other than the standard Bajoran practice, something more intercultural.
“It’s also vaguely possible that, as is the case with some widely separated Earthly languages, there are Bajoran names that sound oddly like those of Earth, despite being linguistically unrelated.”
It is certain that such names exist. Both “Kira” and “Nerys” are human names, though I think the latter is pronounced differently among humans. So are “Ro” and “Laren,” in fact. And “Winn,” though usually spelled “Wynn.” And “Sita,” though not “Jaxo.” There are no doubt plenty more.
Ade Lucas: Christopher already addressed this, but let me reiterate what he said — the original Star Trek was not geared toward kids. Quite the opposite. William Ware Theiss pushed the boundaries on costumes, and saying, “Let’s get the hell out of here” was SIGNFICANTLY more “edgy” and “racy” and controversial on a TV network in 1967 than saying, “Fucking solids” is on a streaming service in 2023. For that matter, Picard used “merde” as an interjection twice in season one before somebody in Paramount’s Broadcast Standards & Practices realized that that was the French word for “shit” and made them stop. (Buffy the Vampire Slayer had Spike doing the British equivalent of giving the finger in the opening credits for a couple years because nobody at Fox’s BS&P realized that flipping two fingers by a Brit was the same as a middle finger on this side of the Atlantic.)
Star Trek has, at its best, always pushed boundaries and was always intended to be for adults.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
That’s just it, though, using profanity and graphic violence stopped being edgy and boundary-pushing ages ago. It’s average now, and seeing the TNG cast placed in these situations looks desperate, awkward, and juvenile to my eyes. Oooh man, Picard dropped the F-bomb, dude! We’re so adult! Uh huh.
Star Trek trying to be hip just makes me think of Mr. Furley wearing shades and bell-bottoms, trying to hang with the younger kids and their streamer shows; when really it should embrace its own patented unapologetic lameness, that brainy joie de vivre that made it so approachable in the first place. You can’t get it anywhere else.
Watch that scene again with Data and Geordi in the corridor. Study it closely. That’s the stuff. It’s wonderful. It’s not violent, profane, dark, or edgy at all. And yet it’s adult. It’s two old friends enjoying each other’s company, discussing feelings. Which is what Picard should have been all along, a quiet, cozy reunion, not some breathless mystery box where the fate of the galaxy is at stake every season; that’s what Discovery is for.
But I digress.
Anyway, Star Trek — I’m not sure who it’s for exactly, but it does have it does have its own distinct flavor, if they’ll allow it. Granted, that flavor was created over time by a combination of network censorship and one man’s 60’s utopian, squeaky clean ideals concerning, I don’t know, free love and wall-to-wall carpeting. But, again, it’s distinct. And you don’t stand out by looking and acting like everyone else.
@146
If it’s average and commonplace now, then why complain? (this complaint irritates me as much as some of the writing we’re complaining about)
@146/Dingo: IIRC, it was Sir Patrick Stewart himself who insisted on using the F-word in that scene, since it felt appropriate to him.
“Star Trek trying to be hip just makes me think of Mr. Furley wearing shades and bell-bottoms, trying to hang with the younger kids and their streamer shows; when really it should embrace its own patented unapologetic lameness, that brainy joie de vivre that made it so approachable in the first place.”
This is as profound a misunderstanding as the earlier statement that Trek should not be aimed at adults. “In the first place,” i.e. the 1960s, Star Trek was very much on the cutting edge. It did not aspire to comfortable nostalgia like Star Wars, but strove to push the envelope and redefine television science fiction — in modern parlance, to disrupt how SFTV worked. It was always forward-looking.
And TNG was much the same. People look back on season 1 and call it terrible, but we loved it at the time, because just about everything else in pre-1987 SFTV was so very, very much stupider (with rare exceptions like the Twilight Zone remake, Max Headroom, and Starman). TNG was an exceptional show for its era, higher in quality and intelligence than any of its surviving contemporaries (not just in SF, but most TV drama in general), and its success paved the way for SFTV as a whole to become smarter and higher-quality in the late ’80s and beyond. It’s true that TNG eventually did become fairly staid and cozy once it was the SFTV establishment, but it got where it was by being daring and innovative in ways that transformed the entire industry.
“And you don’t stand out by looking and acting like everyone else.”
This much I’ll agree with. Trek used to be the smartest, highest-quality, conceptually boldest science fiction show on TV. These days, it’s just one of the pack. Partly that’s because the rest of SFTV has gotten so much better over the past 35 years, but partly it’s because a lot of the modern Trek shows aren’t really aspiring to be all that different from the rest.
But I don’t see what that has to do with the occasional use of language that’s commonplace in the culture today. I mean, 1960s audiences would’ve found the casual use of “hell” and “damn” in the TOS movies and TNG to be shocking, but they’re nothing to us. Standards change over time. Words that were once considered vulgar or obscene become casually acceptable. And it’s only natural for a show made in a certain era to reflect the language and standards of that era, instead of clinging to the norms of an earlier generation.
To be honest I’m not unsympathetic to those who would like a more all-ages friendly STAR TREK: Saying, quite accurately, that “Star Trek has always been for adults” need not mean that STAR TREK cannot be for anyone else.
@147. gwangung: I believe that the issue at the heart of this complaint is that the original commentator feels that STAR TREK should always strive to be Outstanding, rather than standard issue (I.E. They feel that production staff need to try harder and keep trying to do better, rather than settle into a comfortable rut).
#147. Because I’d like to watch something that isn’t so average and commonplace, especially when I’m paying to watch it. This goes for a lot of shows and movies. I’d like something more than just average “content.” It’s not unreasonable.
Look, I don’t mind profanity and violence. I often enjoy it — in other things. What I’m saying is that Star Trek, perhaps accidentally, created its own unique brand with TNG. We mock it sometimes, and it probably deserves it to some extent, but there was something special created there. Maybe it doesn’t connect with everyone now. I don’t know. But I do think that when something is taken from its more innocent, bright, and, yes, even naive, original form and made to be dark and edgy, I’m not impressed. Dark and edgy. It’s such an easy thing to do.
What I find interesting is how a “style” can be created over time by limitations. Black-and-white photography is the classic example. I’m sure when it was first developed, no pun intended, that no one had in mind that German expressionism and film noir would one day be something to admire. Well, to a lesser degree, that could be said of Star Trek at one time too, I suppose. It developed into something unique because of the various limitations placed on it.
Today, without those limitations, not only concerning adult content but also with its greater budgetary flourishes, I don’t find it quite as unique. It’s generally darker, edgier, with lots of nostalgia. It certainly looks more expensive. But still, it’s average content.
@144. ChristopherLBennett: Does anyone else get a thoroughly depressing mental image of the Cardassian Occupation Authorities on Bajor making efforts to gull well-meaning Federation (or other outside) types into more or less buying war orphans?
It strikes me as Very Cardassian to publicly proclaim your willingness to see War Orphans placed in good homes, while privately making a profit out of getting them off the expense account of The State (though it would be Supremely Cardassian to ‘persuade’ or genuinely persuade private citizens to adopt some nicely photogenic war orphans – for a discretely reasonable fee – all the better to make Cardassia look like the fountainhead of Family Values and Enlightened Paternalism*).
*Not to mention avoid making it look as though anyone, even the orphans of war, can do better outside Greater Cardassia.
@149/ED: “Saying, quite accurately, that “Star Trek has always been for adults” need not mean that STAR TREK cannot be for anyone else.”
Which is what Prodigy is for. There’s nothing new about a franchise offering different productions aimed at different age ranges, for instance Doctor Who having the mature-audiences Torchwood and the young-adult The Sarah Jane Adventures at the same time.
@137, David Young,
I’m not convinced they wouldn’t or didn’t use Betazoids as Changeling detectors, BUT, there is a terrifying reality there. The O’Brien changeling at Starfleet Headquarters said as a threat, “What if I told you there were only 4 Changelings in the Alpha Quadrant?” Yet they had caused that much chaos. Four Changelings, Four People who telepaths can’t read…in a populace of 900 billion people spread across 8000 light years. Even if you concentrated only on key areas, you’d never be able to cover every angle. It’s looking for a drop of red dye in a lake of blood. You might be able to set up effective telepathic security at bottle necks, choke points. Entry into key facilities. You should be able to keep them away from the President, the Federation Council, maybe Starfleet Top Brass. But you’d cede a hell of a lot of territory for the Changelings to do damage in.
If memory serves, Betazed fell because the fleet that was guarding it was caught out of position while doing a training exercise and the Dominion basically swooped in to an undefended target of opportunity. From the Doylist perspective they were originally going to have them take Vulcan, but the producers decided that was a bridge too far. Betazoid as another main character’s home world was deemed to have the appropriate level of emotional punch.
On the subject of Borg telepathy, surely the Borg have assimilated telepathic species. Making alterations to the brain to facilitate and increase the neural inter-connectivity of drones makes sense. Organic alterations supporting their technology. Once those alterations have been made, even removing the implants should leave some of the neural rewiring there. That would explain how despite having all his implants removed Picard can still hear the collective when they get close. In the same vein as he always has part of Sarek in him, he always has the Borg in him. I think it’s meant to be taken as a similar experience. Once minds are joined together it’s impossible for them to be fully separated again. Picard doesn’t have the ability to read Borg minds are transmit his thoughts to the Collective as he doesn’t have the hardware anymore, but the Collective is always broadcasting and his brain has been set up to be a receiver.
On the other hand, none of that should transfer to Jack.
@56, @72: Oh that’s right. I checked Memory Alpha web site’s page about “The Naked Now”, and yes, specifically Data explains that the Tsiolkovsky bridge crew were blown out of the hatch – not sucked out as Riker said. “A common misconception”, says Data, overlooking that either way is ghastly when sitting around on a starship bridge is most of your job. And it seems to exclude my idea that this is the one situation where artificial gravity flips into chucking you out of the hole. Unless bridge officers aren’t told about that part.
Physically, sucking doesn’t exist. What exists is reducing pressure on, say, the mouth end of an ethical drinking straw in your soda. Air pressure on everything else, then pushes the soda out of the glass, into the straw, into your mouth. So you don’t suck soda into your mouth, the entire atmosphere blows the soda into your mouth. Really.
@154/Robert Carnegie: Except, again, nobody would be “blown out” by escaping air from a spaceship, because the air is too low in mass and will mostly go around your body. You’d have to be in a narrow tube like a human cannonball to get blown out, or else be in a volume so vast that it can sustain hurricane-force winds for a significant amount of time. SFTV and movies usually show it as a sustained gale (this episode being no exception), but that’s stupid because there just isn’t that much air inside a room like a starship bridge. It would escape in a single quick burst — the reason it’s called explosive decompression — and it would just feel like a short powerful gust that quickly faded. If the Tsiolkovsky bridge crew were seated, they probably wouldn’t even have been knocked out of their seats. They could’ve just held the armrests. They would’ve suffocated, but they wouldn’t have been sucked/blown into space. I’m as sick of that trope as I am of the “instant freeze in vacuum” trope.
(The stupidest extreme of the trope I’ve seen was in Ron Moore’s Virtuality pilot, where a guy trapped in a closet-sized airlock was subjected to a gale-force torrent of air for over a minute before they closed the hatch. How is there that much air in a closet?????)
The stupidest version that I’ve seen was from an excruciating direct-to-video movie called Space Truckers, where the actor who played Norm on Cheers fell bum-first on a small hole in the hull and got sucked into space as a fleshy tube.
One thing still pisses me off though, all these mentions about Changelings and Dominion War and not even one (except for the fleeting mention of USS Defiant) reference to Deep Space Nine. Unless the Pah-wraith theory is true.
I can’t help wondering how much of the “sucked out” trope is due to people having mistaken the vacuum of empty space for the forcible hoovering of vacuum cleaners.
@158/Arben: Partly, perhaps, but also by analogy with our experience of powerful winds in gales, hurricanes, and tornadoes. We assume powerful winds in breached spaceships would work the same way, forgetting that the volume of air in a spaceship or station would be vastly less than that of the Earth’s atmosphere, so there just isn’t remotely as great an amount of air to continue pushing so forcefully for so long. On Earth, the air pressure is sustained by the immense weight of the dozens of kilometers of atmosphere above us, so as soon as some of the air blows away, there’s a limitless supply to take its place and the pressure stays relatively constant, so a storm-force wind can sustain itself long enough and have enough mass behind it to blow people and objects away. A spaceship maintains pressure by enclosing its much smaller amount of air, and once that pressure seal is breached to vacuum, the pressure would drop very swiftly, more analogous to a blown-out pressure cooker or scuba tank.
A large part of it, though, is just that getting “blown out into space” is a more dramatic peril than just being exposed to vacuum and suffocating, and more useful if you want to decisively and swiftly remove a character from a spaceship. So it’s favored in fiction even though it’s wrong, like people freezing instantly in space, crashed cars inevitably blowing up, a sudden neck twist being instantly lethal, a defibrillator restarting a stopped heart like jump-starting a car battery, and other such pervasive nonsense.
The one time I saw it done right was in an episode of The Expanse. A ship carrying refugees jettisoned them into space for some sinister reason, and instead of being blown out into space when the airlock opened, they just floated in the lock until the ship fired thrusters in the direction away from the open lock door, so the ship moved out from around the people instead of the people being moved out of the ship. It was accurate, but not as dramatic and visceral as the “sucked/blown into space” action trope.
@159/CLB:
The Expanse (both the TV series and the novels) worked hard to get the science right. There was a first-season episode where a projectile made a head-sized (literally) hole in the wall of a room where the series’ protagonists were being detained aboard a warship.
There was a continuing rush of air out that hole—but the room wasn’t an airlock, and I think it was implied that the ship’s life support system was trying to refill the room with air once the pressure dropped
@160/terracinque: Yeah, The Expanse was mostly great where the science was concerned, except for one thing necessitated by production realities: the damn magnetic boots so people could “walk” in free fall. Magnetic boots would never work. For one thing, spacecraft are mainly made of lightweight, non-magnetic materials, and for another, the magnetic fields would disrupt shipboard electronics. And it wouldn’t be like walking, since your feet are stuck to a surface rather than just resting on it. It would be totally impractical, like trying to swim by strapping on ankle weights and slogging along the bottom of the pool. It’s so much easier to move in space by floating and pulling yourself along. As long as the ship is designed with handholds always in reach, there’s absolutely no advantage to anchoring your feet to a surface, unless you’re an Earthbound production trying to fake free fall on a budget.
I would actually prefer it if they used a black-box artificial gravity system like most shows. At least it’s somewhat plausible that some future scientific breakthrough would allow artificial gravity in a way we don’t yet understand, similarly to how The Expanse‘s Epstein Drive allows a handwaved high-acceleration propulsion system beyond current physics. But we know exactly why magnetic boots wouldn’t work as shown, so their use is actually far more implausible than artificial gravity would be.
The show also has some design-logic problems where free fall is concerned, like having ordinary beds with loose pillows, using conventional drinking cans and vessels that wouldn’t work without gravity, or having a drip coffee maker on the Rocinante. Imagine the thrusters shutting down while the coffee maker was operating — you’d have blobs of scalding hot coffee drifting everywhere. It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.
There were also a few bits of nonsense science with the orbital mechanics, like a bit where an outer moon of Saturn was blown up and instantly fell into Saturn’s atmosphere, instead of forming a debris ring in its former orbit. But at least those were the exceptions rather than the rule as in most space shows.
@161/CLB: Well, the boots as depicted always seemed to be electromagnetic, and it was implied that if you moved or twisted your foot in just the right way, like a cyclist clipped into a pedal, they’d release and let you take the next step. And there would be steel treads on the walkways, and only on the walkways. Yes, this is a bit of a fan-wank on my part, but it does make sense.
As far as drinking vessels, in the novels the characters are always said to be drinking out of squeezable bulbs when not in gravity, so that error belongs only to the TV series.
Sorry for the thread hijack.
@162/terracinque: You only address the least of the many objections to magnetic boots. Again, even if the magnetic fields weren’t disruptive to electronics, there is simply no way that clomping along a surface is a better way to move in free fall. There are countless hours of video footage of space station astronauts you can find online. It doesn’t take much viewing to see that they can get around perfectly well without needing to attach their feet to anything, except occasionally to hook a foot under a rim or something to hold themselves in place — which is far easier to unhook from than any kind of magnetic attachment. After all the years astronauts have spent living and working in space, they still haven’t invented shoes with magnets or Velcro soles, because they really, really don’t need to simulate walking. There are much simpler, better ways of navigating in microgravity. It’s actually beneficial not to be limited to one surface, since you can take advantage of the whole volume. It’s more like swimming, except that the medium isn’t dense enough to propel yourself through so you need handholds in reach. But that’s a simple matter of design.
I understand the need to fake magnetic or Velcro boots in a filmed production, since wirework is complicated and expensive (though it’s been done well in some feature films, like the 2017 film Life). But what I don’t understand are prose authors who contrive ways for their characters to “walk” in microgravity. For me, it’s always been fun to write scenes in low gravity or free fall and explore how it affects the design of the environment and the way people move through it. The differences from scenes under gravity are what make it interesting to write about.
Although I’ll grant that it can be challenging to remind yourself constantly that the characters are in free fall. I’ve occasionally forgotten and written descriptions of the characters standing or walking. I generally catch them in editing, but I’ve read published novels whose authors made mistakes like that.
Even in animation, it can be tricky. Look at Cowboy Bebop. There are plenty of scenes on board the Bebop that are staged in what are supposed to be non-rotating free-fall areas of the ship but have characters standing or walking. Or scenes where the characters are floating but cigarette smoke is rising upward as it would only do with gravity to drive convection.
I’ve often thought I won’t truly be happy with filmic depictions of free fall until we start actually filming movies in space. My first unsold spec novel decades ago (which was set around now, the early 2020s) was about the first feature film shot in space. The title was On Location.
@163/CLB: Fair points all. But what about for EVAs?
@164/terracinque: “But what about for EVAs?”
Even worse. Again, most of the ship would not be magnetic to begin with. Also, what if you lose your connection and float off into space? There’s no backup, which is dumb. There are already much better methods for EVAs — tethers and thruster packs. Imagine how much faster Picard and Worf could’ve gotten to the deflector dish and stopped the Borg if they’d just flown there on thruster packs instead of slowly slogging across a gigantic spaceship hull on foot.
The only benefit I can see for anchoring your feet in space is if you’re doing some kind of repair or maintenance and have to stay in place for a while, or if you need to exert force in a way that requires leverage. But in that case it would be better to tether or strap yourself in place. Astronauts on the Space Shuttle’s arm stood on a platform with stirrups to hold their feet in place, as well as being hooked to the platform by a strap.
@CLB
Another space sci-fi show that gets a lot right is For All Mankind. It’s on Apple TV (along with the excellent Prehistoric Planet). It is a counterfactual history based on the premise that the Soviets landed first on the moon. I do find some of the side plots a bit uninteresting, but the main focus is space exploration.
-Kefka
@166/kefka: I love For All Mankind, and not for nothing, it’s made by Ronald D. Moore, who also made the best Trek.
@167 terracinque
I completely forgot about that. Now, I am slightly concerned about Moore landing the ending. For me (and the overwhelming consensus of fans) he knocked it out of the park with “All Good Things”. With that said, holy ham! I am not a fan of the final season of Battlestar Galactica with the series finale being one of my most disliked series finales of any show that I have seen.
Furthermore, I don’t like DS9‘s last season much and its finale even less, but I don’t know much about DS9 and the behind the scenes, so I don’t know how much this was Moore’s fault.
-Kefka
I am convinced the plan is to infect Starfleet with a virus based on the Imordius Syndrome as a counter strike for what was done to them
Even with just about everything having been picked over in the 150+ comments posted before I got to read them all, I’m compelled to add my virtual two cents’ worth.
“I really like Stephanie Czajkowski from her work on Doom Patrol, and I’m hugely disappointed that we won’t be seeing her again.”
This. So much. And the stuff KRAD said leading up to it but especially this.
I hated, hated, hated T’Veen’s murder. Which is partly the point from a dramatic perspective, yeah. The character was hardly enough of a known quantity to be a significant loss to the story, however, while at the same time made such an outsized impression based almost entirely on the actor’s presence that the move is all kinds of tremendously wasted potential. For anyone who’s seen enough TV it was clear that Vadic was going to pivot from knocking off the first crewmember she was toying with; I’m sorry it wasn’t Shaw.
Vadic not getting around to telling Jack and thereby us what his deal was sure felt like a cheat. We’d better find out why she said it was appropriate for Seven to be there, as well. I mean, obviously Borg stuff unless it’s a massive feint, but leaving that hanging for an entire episode seems bad form.
That casual dialogue exchange between Raffi and Deanna is a distillation of what’s best about crossovers to me, which despite this show being Picard it qualifies as this season with the old Enterprise crew getting billed as Special Guest Stars.
I also loved all the stuff between Geordi and Data. Such a great moment in the latter’s delivery of “I feel… [considers for a beat]… I feel.”
Plus, Troi saying that she never should’ve taught Riker the word “Imzadi” hit just right for me both in-universe and metatextually.
@170/Arben: IIRC, Deanna didn’t say she should never have taught Will Imzadi; she said she should’ve taught him additional Betazoid terms of endearment besides that one. Implicitly, she was getting tired of the lack of variety.
@171. ChristopherLBennett — Deanna says “I should have taught you another word,” after Will says “I’ve missed you, Imzadi” — which I took in the moment to mean “another word instead of that one” but I suppose it could be “along with that one” too. Him not knowing more Betzoid terms of endearment, playful or earnest or sarcastic, after so much time is a whole other thing.
@172/Arben: I’m sure she meant another word besides that one, since she then went on to try to teach him another Betazoid term of endearment.
@163 CLB
I love the title of that unsold spec novel. It reminds me of my favored meme to poke fun at moon landing deniers: “Sure, Stanley Kubrick filmed the Moon landings. But he was such a perfectionist, he insisted they shoot on location.”
@174/Agent6: The title was actually a reference to a joke from Hardware Wars, the short-film Star Wars spoof from 1978. The end credits of the short included the line “Filmed on location in space.”
@15 / Globular: Thanks for mentioning Order of the Stick, that’s exactly what I was thinking!
@38 Watching the Data/Lore final confrontation made me think of the original Dark Crystal. The urRu (mystics) finally won after a thousand years by voluntarily merging with the Skeksis. Like Lore, the Skeksis fought the process, but in the end the recombined UrSkeks found the completion that each of their halves had lacked.
@119 Floaty Melty Head. Is that like the Big Giant Head? Are we going to get Shatner? *snerk*
(I haven’t seen the finale yet, so for the love of God I hope not…)
We’re only just now catching up to the show, and there probably other things I could weigh in on if I had the inclination, but as many of these topics have been done to death already, I’m just gonna say one thing:
Spot is the best, and in my opinion, the best surprise cameo this show has given us so far (and frankly probably will be – we haven’t seen the final 2 episodes yet) and I damn near cried when he (she?) showed up.
(Also, I guess I’ll say one other thing, I thought Worf’s declaration to Troi was hilarious and endearing, not creepy – and I think Bashir is the biggest creep to have ever creeped, so it’s not that I never pick up on stuff like that – but to me it definitely did seem more like gratitude for how she helped him on his journey in general, not that he was pining for her romantically still. It was just overly florid/dramatic because that’s how Worf is. I have an ex I was quite close to for years afterwards. Time/family/distance/general life has led to that connection waning in recent years, but I feel like we would both say we were influential in each other’s lives and feel affection for that).
(Also thank you to CLB for pointing out that being ‘infected’ with Irumodic Syndrome makes no sense, and I have to admit I remembered our discussion in Mando about what happens when you get sucked out of an airlock lmao.)
(Also, yes, Vadic needs to shut the heck up, and also, why does she smoke? Does she form lungs specifically for the purpose of smoking? Do they take tar damage or does she preserve them from harm but still get the nicotine buzz? Is it just about the aesthetic? The experience?)
Ok, done for real now ;)