Comment Stream

Re: SNW S2: Ad Astra Per Aspera

This was a nice tight courtroom drama, certainly nowhere near TNG's "The Measure of a Man," but it lands some appropriate social commentary. The characters are all well-written and well-acted. An improvement over last week.

Re: SNW S2: The Broken Circle

This episode didn't do it for me, and felt fairly weak as a kick-off to a new season. M'Benga and Chapel take some Marvel-esque serum and start fighting like Wolverine, dialogue is decidedly early-21st-century, and Pelia sounds so much like Gollum that I almost started laughing unintentionally (but did an eye roll instead). The story has some interesting parts (such as the Klingons making a "fake" Starfleet vessel), but ultimately I didn't feel this outing could overcome its own clunkiness.

Re: PIC S3: No Win Scenario

Another superb episode, and I am entirely on the same page with Jammer's review. Looking forward to the rest of the season!

Re: PIC S3: Imposters

Wow, we're five-for-five with good episodes this season. The Picard/Ro scenes were a delight in this episode, and Stewart and Forbes played them superbly.

I remain curious as to what Jack's "affliction" is. The last couple of episodes has me thinking he's "infected" by a Changeling...or perhaps he has an ability to detect them like a Tribble with a Klingon. :)

I'm very much looking forward to how Lore and Moriarty tie into this. Is one of them the "weapon" stolen from Daystrom station? I look forward to finding out!

Re: PIC S2: Hide and Seek

I give this episode ***/**** stars. The prior episode and this one have picked up the pace and started weaving the plot threads together without feeling like the "filler" of Eps 4-7. The new "spin" on the Borg is intriguing, and it seems inevitable the alt-timeline Jurati-Queen is what came through the rift in Ep 1 and perhaps genuinely is wanting to make peace with the Federation. That would be a pretty Trekkian idea to turn an implacable foe into an ally.

Really hoping we see Q again to help wrap up the season, along with being plopped back into the 25th century.

Re: PIC S2: Mercy

Okay, now we're cooking with gas. A definite improvement over the last 2-3 episodes and recaptures some of the momentum of the first 2-3 episodes of the season. Good character scenes all around--the Jurati-Queen was properly menacing and scary. The Elnor flashback also gives some context to why Raffi reacted so badly to his death. I retract my prior criticisms of Hurd's acting. And de Lancie continues to delight as Q--his various insults of "bipedal" life forms made me chuckle.

I think we're back on track. Ready to chart a course to next week!

Re: PIC S2: Monsters

@Sigh2000

"I'm from California. I just whale in outer space." ;)

Re: PIC S2: Monsters

I'm also going to bet that the "abusive father" storyline turns out not to be as it seems.

Re: PIC S2: Monsters

@Yanks: I didn't pick up on that aspect, but it does support the notion of JLP's mom being "locked away" in more of a metaphorical sense. I'm sure we'll get more clues before the end of the season.

Re: PIC S2: Monsters

And I wish there were an "edit" button for the typos (or that I took the time to proofread...but it's easier to blame tech for my laziness...lol).

Re: PIC S2: Monsters

Regarding JLP's mother's illness, I still we're still getting an incomplete picture filtered through a child's eyes. So I disagree with Jammer that she was literally "locked away"--it's probably something more metaphorical than that. And the young JLP having a key to open the door to the room in which she is locked away--I also suspect that is metaphorical.

As to the diagnosis, it's hinted that she has some paranoid delusions (fear of persecution, possible hallucinations). Given the family history of Renee also struggling with depression (and as I said above, Picard's knowing statement about how crippling depression can be in a human), I'm going to put on my mental health professional hat (it's my day job) and theorize that JLP's mom may have major depression with psychotic features. It could also be schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (or even bipolar disorder, type 1) from the little snippets we've been given, so I'm not going to make any bets.

Re: PIC S2: Monsters

Yeah, I'm curious to see how the situation with Dr. Ramirez plays out...lots of directions in which it can go.

Regarding the brain stabilizer thing that Raffi beamed down to Rios. It was a little wonky, but I assumed that it had some relationship to the imagine-the-fix tech from last season...the operator's brain-wave activity is used as a stable pattern to regulate those of the patient, and for reasons, it makes more sense for a doctor to do that. No more weird than how a cortical stimulator is supposed to work...always wonder why on TNG the patients jerked about as if they were being brain-defibrillated.

Re: PIC S2: Monsters

Similar to last week, I found this episode perfectly serviceable and making me want to see the next installment, so a success. I do miss the early 25th century, though.

Some plot threads are starting to come together. Talinn is an ancestor of Laris, and helps Picard realize that his mother suffered from what I'm going to guess was major depression with psychotic features based on what the show's revealed thus far. This gives context for Picard's knowing statement that depression in a human is debilitating and that there may be a family history of depression given Renee's struggles that Q was seemingly trying to exploit. I doubt that Picard's father literally locked her in a room. That's just what the show wants us to think at this point. How this ties in with the damage to the Q Continuum I'm not sure about yet.

The trailer for S2 and the trailer for next week suggest that Wells/Ducane saw Vulcans or Romulans on earth as a child, but it's also possible that we'll learn that there has been some other meddling. I think the boy we see receiving the mind meld is *not* young JLP, as I had initially thought.

The "I'm from Chile, I just work in outer space" line made me chuckle. I didn't find it corny at all.

Re: PIC S2: Two of One

We all remember how much people pooped on VOY and ENT when they were airing, right? History repeating itself.

Re: PIC S2: Two of One

Without fail, by the time I watch the episode over the weekend and come to the comment thread to post my impressions, the dang thing's gone down the proverbial sonic toilet.

Re: PIC S2: Two of One

I liked this episode. It had my wanting to tune in next week to see what happens, so that's a success for me. The gem of this episode was the scene between JL and Renee Picard. That definitely felt like vintage TNG Picard speech material, which was welcome. I also liked the reference to "Enterprise" with the ship model overhead ("Spike," as Renee called it), as we saw it in the opening credits of ENT.

I also enjoyed seeing Raffi be a bit more reasonable, both in declining to drink any alcohol and in her advice to a smitten Rios (Smrios? ;)). Perhaps Raffi's irrational behavior in the prior episodes really was her character's poor reaction to stress and loss, even if overplayed a bit by Michelle Hurd. I'm also wondering if Rios might contemplate staying in the 21st century, sort of a reverse of Gillian Taylor in Star Trek IV. I doubt it, though, as he's a main character.

I'm also really liking the current take on the Borg Queen. The seduction and the psychological manipulation feel on-target for the character. It also fits in with Picard's line in First Contact that she wanted him to "give himself freely" to her, presumably as a result of the psychological assimilation more than the physical one.

I am starting to miss the 25th century period, though, and I agree with Jammer if we spend the rest of the season in 2024. Hopefully we get to spend ~2 episodes back in 2500. I suspect next week will be mostly centered around Talinn's exploration of Picard's psyche. One of the flashbacks of the trauma regarding his mother showed what might have been a Romulan fighting with his mother. Did anyone freezeframe that to tell for sure? I also seem to remember seeing a Romulan interacting with a boy (young Picard?) in one of the trailers...so something interesting may be afoot there.

Re: PIC S2: Fly Me to the Moon

Oh, and I just called the number on Q's 3D-printed biz card (323-634-5667). Hilarious!

Re: PIC S2: Fly Me to the Moon

This episode was a defnite improvement over the last two, and although not quite reaching the standard set by the first two episodes, it nonetheless puts the season firmly back on track. I'd rate it *** out of 4 stars.

The pacing and weaving of the subplots were done well, no doubt due to Frakes' deft direction. I was pleased to see that the not-Laris Supervisor was a callback to Gary Seven (and it makes sense that Picard, a student of history and captain of an Enterprise, would be familiar with the exploits of prior captions of prior Enterprises). The Borg Queen and Jurati scenes were, once again, creepily effective (I can only think that their prior joining afforded the BQ unique insight into how to manipulate Jurati psychologically). I'm curious to see where this thread goes.

The Renee Picard storyline also worked for me. Not-Laris tells us that she will be on a mission to Io, but that isn't necessarily the mission launching in three days; it could be a later one. The description of depression was effective--those criticizing it seem not to have experienced depression nor known someone who has. I'm also curious to see how Q's apparently timeline-harming actions play out. The divergence seems to have injuried the Continuum and that alone is a fascinating concept I want to see explored.

The scenes between Spiner and DeLancie were a delight, as well. Did anyone else notice that the board that pulled Soong's funding included a Vasiliy Rozhenko? I'm also pretty sure Lea Thompson was one of the other board members. Cool.

I'm looking forward to next week!

Re: PIC S2: Watcher

And I'll add that just having watched the trailer for Ep 5, the Laris/Watcher thing seems to be more along the lines of the Gary Seven angle, which would be very much in keeping with Trek canon.

Re: PIC S2: Watcher

@Jason and @Jaxon: As another commenter pointed out, the "guardian" concept has appeared before...Gary Seven and, to a lesser extent, the Guardian of Forever. So I'm willing to see how the "Watcher" storyline develops. I agree that if the Watcher has an outsize role in directing events in a godlike manner, it could very well diminish Trek. So hopefully the showrunners don't play their hand too heavily with this.

Re: PIC S2: Watcher

Re Quincy's comment about Q losing his powers (way) above. I am not sure what to make of it, but it is intriguing. Q mentioned that he was "but a suture in the wound," which suggests that the altereted timeline is so heinous that even the Q Continuum is affected negatively. That could explain Q losing his powers and is in keeping with Picard being "the board on which the game is played."

The scene with the Watcher taking over the bodies of random people to lead Picard to her was also effectively done with a distinctly creepy vibe.

Re: PIC S2: Watcher

Getting back to the episode, it was mostly a "filler" installment to me, providing necesary connective tissue and setup for the next act of the season. It wasn't terrible though, so I would be a bit less harsh than our host and rank it two stars (**).

Punk Rock Guy (we should dub him PRG) and 10 Forward Avenue were fun little easter eggs; like Jammer, I didn't read into them more than that. I did, however, find the recast (but cut) Guinan to be distracting, precisely because we'd expect her to look about the same as Whoopi given what we saw in "Time's Arrow." The recast didn't work for me, although I understand why she would have no memory of Picard. Heck, that might explain her (uncharacteristic) bitterness--perhaps that encounter with Picard in 1893 affected her; without it, she is more jaded and hopeless.

I enjoyed the exposition about Picard's family and the scenes between Jurati and Picard at the dilapidated chateau. Well-written and a nice way to fill in some of Picard's history.

I also enjoyed the mind games between Jurati and the Borg Queen aboard the ship. I'm definitely curious to see where that leads.

Hopefully this episode is the low point of the season and we start building back up to an early-25th-century climax in the latter third of the season.

Re: PIC S2: Assimilation

Another interpretation of Raffi's "blame game" against Picard is that it is illustrating a character flaw. When Raffi feels overwhelmed, etc., she lashes out unfairly. She certainly wouldn't be the first person to do this, but I agree it came off a bit awkwardly, either due to the writing, Hurd's acting, or both. But it is a minor quibble IMHO.

Re: PIC S2: Assimilation

Jason, I recall the scene. Picard says more, but with a degree of annoyed rage that only Q can elicit. I found it fitting for his character.

But again, YMMV...

Re: PIC S2: Assimilation

Jason, your description seems more fitting to Raffi's outburst after Elnor's death than Picard's behavior, but hey, YMMV.