Star Trek: Picard

disappointing that it's not like rhode island/aberdeen/pittsburgh accents, but at least the cigar tells us what's important

the kiwi romulan kid bugs me

He's a bit Ornaldo Bloomps, but I like him. I want to know why you don't like him, but I also don't want to know in case your reasons also make me not like him.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ENTpoc9XYAAisJm.jpg https://comicvine1.cbsistatic.com/uploads/original/11/119238/3578762-rivertam2.jpg

river tam = combination dahj/soji and elnor

not too clear on how our heroes suddenly and magically realized the entire plot, but i guess some stuff happened

I was a bit confused about this too, but then I remembered that in the previous episode, when we saw the stuff Commodore Oh mind-melded into Dr. Jurati's brain, it included visions of the Zhat Vash members going crazy because of the Admonition. So apparently she transferred the whole story of the Zhat Vash into Jurati's brain, not just the ancient warning about synthetic life, and the heroes somehow got her to explain it despite the psychic block Oh placed in her mind. How they got past the block wasn't explained, though.

But yeah, agree that this was a good episode, a nicely paced "right before the storm" story that revealed the stakes and put all the pieces in motion for the two-parter finale.

The only thing I didn't like is the revelation that Captain Rios has a history with the androids and the Zhat Vash conspiracy too, even though he was supposedly just a random pilot Musiker happened to know. I get it that they wanted him to have a personal stake in the conflict too, but they could've come up with some other way of doing that, something that wasn't such ridiculous coincidence.

not too clear on how our heroes suddenly and magically realized the entire plot

i missed any mention in previous eps of the 'conclave of eight' or any romulans drawing weird patterns, but i don't always pay close attention.

also synthetics involve past a certain point and then "someone bad shows up"? eh?

it's like discovering warp engine technology and the Vulcans showing up to say hi

only instead of saying hi, the mystery people destroy your civilizations

tbh they could take a cue from the Star Trek mirror universe and just activate a bunch of artificial lifeforms while having some super weapons parked in orbit

I just thought it was a strange way of putting it. Someone shows up? What? Who? 'They evolve past a certain point and then consider humanity redundant' makes more sense.

also synthetics involve past a certain point and then "someone bad shows up"? eh?

I've read some fan theories that this all ties to the Control plot of Discovery's season 2, and the prophecy seen there of Control destroying organic life in the entire galaxy is what this "someone bad" wants to avoid... I can't imagine they'd want to tie this series so closely to Discovery though, especially since (AFAIK) the plot was being written before Discovery's second season even came out. Apparently Michael Chabon wasn't even allowed to make overt references to DS9's Dominion War, so that it wouldn't confuse viewers not familiar with that series, even though that war is (according to Chabon) the biggest reason why the Federation has become more paranoid and isolationist.

lol i've been ignoring all this backstory nonsense bcz i only very intermittently watched the various later iterations of SW anyway. if i have to look it up it didn't happen!!

I don't think you're gonna find much backstory for this series in later iterations of Star Wars...

In all seriousness though, you should watch Deep Space Nine. It's the best Trek series, it touches some of the same themes as this one, and nowadays it's all on Netflix.

yes im probably not going to do that

eh ultimately it's not that good but it's a way to pass the time. worf shows up, gets to do some good straight man bits

"what did you do during the great self-isolation nuncle s?"
"why i rewatched all of DS9!"
*isolation door slammed shut and barred FROM THE OUTSIDE*

>=(

boooo DS9 is gr8

i cosign j.'s review.

Nah, even though Worf is indeed cool in Deep Space Nine and gets a better arc than he ever did in TNG, he's not even among the top 5 best characters of DS9.

Sisko, Kira, Garak, Martok, Nog?

Pretty much yeah, except replace Sisko with Odo, and maybe also Martok with Dax.

But Kira, Garak, Nog, yeah, those three are such compelling characters and they're given such great arcs that I can't really think anything comparable in other ST series... Maybe Data in TNG.

The scene where Nog stands up to Sisko in his office made me cry more than anything Star Trek related ever has. It's awesome how the DS9 managed to save the Ferengi from TNG's joke species into something so much more.

Nog made some bad career choices in retrospect.

Join the Federation, see the worlds, they said

it is worth watching this episode with a good stereo system merely for the fact someone had fun doing the “borg cube exits conduit” noise

Makeup effects crew really went to town with the shimmery highlighter palette

This felt more like a TNG episode than any of the previous ones. Our team enters a planet where the inhabitants are living in a communal utopia in small location wearing space togas and doing gymnastics on the town square, but turns out one of the leaders is corrupting them, Picard tries to steer them away from the leader with a Picard speech, appealing to their decency, but the evil leader counters him... I mean, it must be an intentional TNG homage, right? No way would the showmakers have had them wear those togas if it wasn't.

disappointed spiner didn't take the opportunity to differentiate the soong family by introducing Billy Bob Soong

never trust any of those Soongs

the soongs remain the same

these newfangled androids are totally soft, btw -- data survived far worse than that

otm

Someone shows up? What? Who? 'They evolve past a certain point and then consider humanity redundant' makes more sense.

So it was 'someone shows up' after all. I like my idea better. I doubt TNG actually featured more of that kind of existential threat than plain vanilla big baddies, but it feels like it might have done.

jlp: "it feels like i'm looking at data!"
the viewer: "it feels more like i'm typing data into a spreadsheet"

i am happy to accept this is mean but the dialogue very much delivered the open goal

I doubt TNG actually featured more of that kind of existential threat than plain vanilla big baddies, but it feels like it might have done.

The longest plot arc in TNG, which began in the very first episode and ended in the very last, was that humanity has evolved so far that the Q continuum has come to judge it and see if it's fit to go on.

Yes but you'd hardly know it as it's mostly played for laughs.

This was the first odd-numbered episode that I liked! I rolled me eyes at yet another secret Soong but Sutra (or was it Soji?) saying fascinating was just a delight.

This felt more like a TNG episode than any of the previous ones.

A first season one at that. I was wondering what was going to happen if one of them stepped on a plant. (That said, still enjoying the general flow of the whole season.)

that gold-skinned version of our android kid seemed like a threat from the get-go

ehh

a billion times better than part one

It was okay, and I loved that they found a nonviolent solution to the conflict in the spirit of TNG... But it still felt like every plot beat you expected to happen did: of course Starfleet will ride in as the cavalry, of course Picard's illness is gonna kick in right at the moment of climax, and of course they're gonna download him inside the android body they conveniently introduced last episode. The one thing I didn't expect was Data still being "alive", but OTOH the scene with him felt like total fanservice, just repeating the same points they already made when he died in Nemesis.

The fight between Seven of Nine and the Zhat Vash was completely extraneous and pointless, like did they really have to go for action movie of "good guys' tough girl fights the bad guys' tough girl in the end"? They could've just had SoN shoot her and still get the same ending for her.

Also, why the heck did all the Starfleet ships leave as soon as the Romulans left? Shouldn't one or two of them stayed behind just to oversee the situation, and to make sure some less diplomatically inclined Romulans wouldn't still try a sneak attack on the androids?

Uggghhh, this was so bad. I lose points for following it through to the end.

Felt like I was that meme of Picard facepalming while watching most of this episode

yeah it was ok but like Tuomas said a bit too neat, wrapping everything in perfect bows, it got a little rmde

and like with Picard dying they leaned so hard on the “sadness” like THIS IS SAD ARENT YOU SAD OH ITS SO SAD and it left me kinda cold

Also, the football