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Re: SNW S2: Charades

"A Vulcan should have a more resilient bladder."

One of the best quotes in the pantheon of the Star Trek franchise. Up there with “Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.” and “With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.”

Re: SNW S2: Charades

@Jeffrey's Tube -
I did research work with UCLA's School of Nursing, with many nurses who were PhDs--all incredible scientists and doctors.

Re: SNW S2: Among the Lotus Eaters

The thing that reallys let's this episode down for me was Spock. For one of the smartest people in the Federation his decision to fly the ship into the asteroid belt was beyond f**king stupid.

Re: SNW S2: Among the Lotus Eaters

This was a very enjoyable episode, which this season (and series) seems to be aiming towards. Kinda like an updated take on comfort food.

I think the thread with Pike and Batel is that something bad will happen to her later in the season, which is why they've been playing up the relationship aspect.

I do agree that lifting the asteroid is a definite violation of the Prime Directive, but probably from the 24th/25th century perspective, which is where most of my understanding comes from. From a TOS perspective, probably par for the course, which is why there seemed to be no qualms.

Re: TNG S2: Samaritan Snare

This episode is so bad. The dialog is bad and so is the acting. The plot was unbelievably stupid and the way Riker reacted to those aliens was just inept.

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

Loved every single moment of it.

A few observations:

Tuvok's scene has probably been written for Janeway originally, but Mulgrew couldn't make it for whatever reason. Still happy to have had Tuvok back.
Sad that Guinan wasn't at the table with everyone. Would have also loved to see Ro, Shelby, and Kestra being ok. And Laris, of course.

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

Moments that made me sob/tear up that were totally earned because of the legacy TNG actors and their history with each other:

- When Picard told the crew "It's been an honor" when he was about to depart for the cube.
- The looks exchanged between Riker and Troi before he left with Picard.
- Picard's emotion-laden farewell to Riker (and Riker's reply) when he said that he can't be their captain anymore, because he had to be Jack's father.
- Beverly knowing the right thing was to acquiesce to sacrificing Picard and his son to save the many.
- Geordi on the edge of tears when he gives the order to fire on the beacon, knowing it will kill their comrades.
- Riker's goodbye to Troi, telling her that he and Thad will be waiting for her.

Honorable Mention:
- Picard telling Jack he was the missing part he didn't know about; explaining the loneliness/alienation feeling wasn't a Borg feeling, it was a shared feeling.
- Seven having her resignation denied by Tuvok

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

@Silly-
- I think Matalas intended it to close his narrative arc--in that he wasn't supposed to have survived Wolf 359. Some lieutenant who subsequently died, randomly chose him to go into the lifeboat. He was able to provide cover so that the TNG crew could escape into the maintenance shuttle.

That said, Matalas did say they have a pre-engineered solution to bring Shaw back should there be a Legacy show. My guess is that offscreen, Seven used her nanoprobes in a last-ditch effort to save him. Something like that. She did something similar to Neelix in Voyager to bring him back from dead too.

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

@jlj93byu:
- The Enterprise F was due to be decomissioned due to damage sustained on some mission. This was flashed on screen when Raffi was going through the intel trying to find out what the Red Woman was all about.

- IMHO, I have no qualms with nimble maneuverability of the Enterprise D, or the original 1701 as depicted in SNW. What we saw in those series was quite simply a function of the severe limitations from filming with scale models. In production, the Enterprise D, as well as any other ship models had to be held stationary while a massive computer controlled camera did the maneuvers four identical times to capture detail and lighting. In reality, RCS thrusters combined with impulse engines (with inertial dampening) would make even the D nimbly maneuverable. Battles would at least look like what they did in the final season of DS9 with the Dominion War.

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

I don't care. I loved it. Watching it again.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

@bok r'mor

Let me add the intelligent dialogue. In this epiaode, Picard and Jack's exchange was top-notch, and overall the season has been mostly like that.

Writing has become one of the worst handicaps in modern fiction ("somehow palpatine returned"), as if nobody was trying anymore to write sentences as, you know, an actual person would say them, be that brutish or with finesse. It has become one of my hobbies to watch current crap and think to myself how I would have worded the very same scene. PIC seasons 1 and 2 suffered from this same modern disiase.

But not here. And the last episode, particularly so.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

God damn, the MUSIC!!!!!!

Re: MAND S3: Chapter 23: The Spies

https://www.jammersreviews.com/mandalorian/s3/chapter23.php#comment-105095

Still, Grogu keeps feeling like a character that is useless to the plot, and they keep inventing things to do with him only because he is there and little else. Feels forced.

Re: PIC S3: Surrender

So Picard's old body was in the Shrike when it got blown up, right?

I suppose we have to start keeping track of those morbid whereabouts from now on, as a previous episode inaugurated that until-now mute concearn. I mean, for the past 20 years in never crossed my mind to think "I wonder where Kirk's body is right now", but that is a thing now so.... best to pay attention and start taking notes.

Picard's old biological body, sans half a brain lobe: blown off. The rest of it: on it's way to episodes 9/10.

Kirks body: still at Daystrom.

Re: PIC S3: Surrender

"Retro prairie hipsters". Heheheh

Re: PIC S3: Surrender

Loved this episode, overall. Again. Even the creepy hostage sequence in the beginning. So far, there hasn't been a single Episode in S3 that I didn't enjoy.

Data's scenes were brilliant enough that I made peace with the fact that his poignant "death" in season 1 has been essentially made meaningless. On the other hand, they brought him back in the way that I wished they had done in S1, so my-non cynical self is happy.
Deanna and Will were a blast. Loved Sirtis in this ep. Worf is a bit too goofy and Raffi a bit too over-the-top powerful, but it was alright.

Only thing I didn't like is the death of Vadic, I still want to see more of her.

Oh, and it's the Borg. 100% sure of it. A cube or 10 will appear on Frontier Day to engage the fleet. The only thing I'm weary of is how they will dispose of that threat this time, without cheapening the Borg menace as a whole again. Looking forward to seeing Janeway as well. Perhaps even Alice Krige?
Next week will tell!

Re: MAND S3: Chapter 22: Guns for Hire

Jack Black in a ridiculous role and Doctor Emmett Brown in an even mkore ridiculous role.

You know, when Emmett Brown is taken there before JB and Lizzo, and that poor and werk dialogue happens (but why, Emmett Brown? Oh because yadayadayada) I immediatelly though "oh no, this is just to fool Mando and Bo Katan. Something else is happening behind the scenes. Cant be just this". But..... no, that was it.

Re: PIC S3: Surrender

I agree with the sentiment about the Jack mystery being dragged out too far--they should have brought Troi back in much earlier to explicate the mystery. Having seen the preview clip for the next episode, I know that Troi is integral to the exploration of what's behind the door.

From a really recent interview, Terry Matalas said that part of the problem with Troi's limited appearances until this point was that scheduling her was extremely difficult, since she moved back to England after the death of her spouse. They were apparently lucky to get her this much. The earlier scenes with her on comms were done remotely.

In developing a season that is cross-dependent on key cast members being available, story beats might have been affected.

In the end, I think we'll get to know the contents of the mystery box next episode, with the finale fully dedicated to eradicating the changeling infiltration. I tend to concur with the notion that it probably is a pah wraith.... though one thing Vadic said when Seven ran back into the bridge to be with Jack, "How fitting it is for you to stay and witness..." suggests that there's maybe some Borg component to it as well.

If it is a pah-wraith thing, it would be absolutely delightful if one more DS9 character made a cameo--either Kira or Sisko.

The unfortunate thing about treating a season of episodes as a mega-sized movie, as the production is trying to do, is that moments and beats that are meant to change the direction or let something rest are stretched out. The annoying aspect comes from the fact that at the end of the episode we're cut off from the resolution for at least a week. In rewatching some of the episodes, aspects that annoyed or frustrated me weren't nearly as bad, since I knew that set-ups from one episode were serviced in the next. My hope is that the mystery door thing will seem that way in the end as well.

Side thoughts:
- Shattered frozen Vadic wasn't vaporized or phasered to death before freezing (unless her proximity to the Shrike did it), so there's a distinct possibility she could come back in some future iteration.
- People were complaining about how easy the Shrike was to destroy, but failed to note that any ship that doesn't have shields up or the hull polarized would easily be shredded by a barrage of weapons fire.
- Did they beam Picard's biological body back from the Shrike before they blew it up?
- Raffi's scene with the changelings was cool, but I'd have thought they would have had their disruptors.
- Sidney describing what Jack did to control her body, no matter how innocuous, just sounds... wrong.
- If they did recover Picard's body, does Jean-Luc have to look at it again? What do they do with it--shoot it out in a torpedo tube?
- Love that the recurring joke is that perhaps Chateau Picard isn't that great of a wine. This now coming from Geordi this episode.

Re: PIC S3: Dominion

Honestly, I watched the episode, expecting to hate it according to what was written here, but for me, it was another solid three stars at least. Possibly three and a half.
Tense, very well-acted (Amanda Plummer is a gift that keeps on giving, LeVar Burton was great), and well-scored. Much better than last week's nostalgia overload.

All the clues start to come together and I suspect the writers want us in the position of the characters that season, not knowing at all what's going on and constantly speculating. My take is, we shouldn't take everything our heroes say at face value.


My main takeaways:

-Who is Vadic working for? Possibly the Borg? The way Vadic is afraid of that face and its apparent power to end her entire race... it's odd.
She is being used and she knows it, but she doesn't seem to have any choice. Don't think her crew (them being Breen is a good possibility) knows, for them, it's all about vengeance and grand plans, hence her over-the-top villain speech to her crew last episode.

Personally, I don't think that vengeance in itself is a particularly strong motivation for Vadic, it's a red herring and a clever undoing of audience expectations for Star Trek villains nowadays.

-Vadic's sad backstory could be partly or entirely fake, similar to the Joker in "Dark Knight". As pointed out, she told Crusher and Picard what she wanted them to know (or not know). The way she immediately tore apart the fake good cop/bad cop show of Beverly was brilliant.

-Lore was with Vadic from the beginning and was expected to become involved eventually. I suspect that Raffi and Worf were played by the entire thing with the AI key and the gangsta Vulcan.
That's why Vadic was so calm when she was on the Titan, she knew she had an ace up her sleeve. No idea if the changelings knew about DataLore before stealing stuff from Daystrom, but recruiting him surely presented itself as a great opportunity.

-Them stealing Picard's body to create a perfect double or whatever is for sure another red herring. The way Vadic looked at Picard when he went "oh we know all about your evil plan".. oh please!

-The changelings seem to have infiltrated Starfleet for quite a while already. Frontier day, the way it is planned right now with the entire fleet in one place is quite obviously orchestrated by them specifically to wipe out the fleet in one go.
Another hint at the Borg, they're planning a Wolf 359-2, this time with the entire fleet.

-Picard and hence Jack possess some special gene or abilities linked to (and possibly misidentified) as Irumodic syndrome, an evolutionary step of mankind perhaps?
I think it is possible that this is linked to what Q said to Picard in All Good Things about exploring what lies beyond human existence and could be an explanation for why the Borg Queen was so personally interested in Picard.

Possibly that "organ/brain structure/whatever" is the next step in the Borg's journey to perfection, on the biological side, that's why they want both Jack and Picard's body. If it is indeed the Borg.

----

Anyway, just my ramblings.
I think the writers in this season are way smarter than people like to give them credit here, but I understand where the cynicism comes from. I surely hope the last few episodes won't prove me wrong.

Re: PIC S3: Dominion

Brent Spiner is just GOLD in this episode. The way he skids from Data to Lore....

Re: VOY S7: Natural Law

I like the general idea but the execution is very superficial. A crash, a little wildlife, a bit of action and then the usual seven/Janeway talk in the end. Feels like going through the motions. The only thing I enjoyed was seven of nines dialog.

Re: VOY S7: Homestead

Hmmm I thought this episode was okay, but it would have been more believable if the Talaxians lived on a planet. I just can’t believe Neelix would settle down in a cave so quickly.

I think it would have been better if he’d have helped the Talaxians and then stayed onboard with „his people“ and return to earth with them.

I struggled watching his appearances over the course of Seven seasons. Either get rid of the annoying character quickly but don’t „torture“ me and then get rid of him just before the finale 😂

Re: MAND S3: Chapter 20: The Foundling

This series is going nowhere awfully fast.

Re: VOY S5: Equinox, Part I

didn’t like Janeway in this episode, she was so self-righteous…

In exceptional circumstances, killing another to save oneself may be unpunishable under German law. In the case of the equinox crew, it is debatable whether the killings were really necessary to save oneself. After all, it was only a matter of getting home faster. Then again it could be argued that it was necessary to protect his crew. But protect from what? From coming home later?
I think there should have been more discussions about this.

But at least one can show empathy for their actions and understanding but least of all, allow for a debate. Janeway was acting horrible here.

Re: VOY S4: One

I thought mulgrews acting was awful this episode. :8