DVD, Smallville S2 (Vortex)
How could anything match the pure, frenetic rough and tumble of Season 1's finale? Few episodes could have stood up to that pummelling, but this opening to Season 2 has a good go, firmly setting out motivations old and new and cementing the characters back in their places, though the pieces have moved around a bit - as Lana says at the end, things won't go back to normal. Just as the meteor shower that affected all the town's lives so many years ago, this is another major disaster that will change things, a comment on the series itself as much as on the physical events. For me this is a bittersweet moment because 'Smallville' was so strong in its first year and against all odds proved itself as a brilliant Superman prequel with its own unique angle on the characters. Season 2 was to be pretty good, too, but it was the beginning of the unstable quality of the series, a loss of so much of its feel-good positivity and a sign that it could become a much less compelling drama than it had been. Season 3 was really where I went off it, and I still enjoyed the second year, but so much of what I loved was replaced by that terrible circuit of doom that was the Lana-Clark-Chloe triangle, and it begins right here in this first episode.
No longer were we to get powerfully optimistic endings to send us out on a high, as this episode's conclusion demonstrated: we'd be seeing a lot more negativity and at best, ambiguity. Lana gives Clark the chance to confirm what she thought happened in the midst of the cyclone, that against all reality he saved her, and he falls back on his usual faux taken aback gentle scorn instead of trusting her. Chloe gives him an out to bring them back to being mere friends again after the all-important school dance, and he takes it, almost too easily. This to-ing and fro-ing between the trio was what was to really drag down the mood of the seasons, exactly the kind of teen soapiness I'd dreaded when first hearing about the series and sceptically giving it a go to find I was largely wrong. Chloe looks a little overly self-absorbed by her focus on Clark leaving her to save Lana and all that, in the face of such devastation to the area and its inhabitants, but at least they do address it in dialogue as she opens up to her friend Pete (soon to be moving on from the series), so it doesn't come across quite so badly when she gets his sympathy.
Motivations are what this episode is all about, the driving forces of goodness and evil as we see the extremes of both, none more explicit than in Jonathan Kent and Roger Nixon's enforced captivity within a crypt, buried under a falling mobile home. Mr. Kent, despite his tempestuous anger (it could easily have turned into a way to kill off the character if they'd chosen to do that this early in the series), and various opportunities to protect his family by murdering his adversary, always makes the right moral decision and refuses to let him die, even though it would be so easy and solve their problems, and no one would ever be able to refute his story. He shows himself a man that stands by his morals, his catchphrase, 'we always have a choice, son,' ringing through the episode despite never being spoken aloud, even when pushed to the absolute limits and it's so heartening to see, especially in an age where morally ambiguous characters are seemingly preferred. His straight up adherence to right is inspirational and even more so because it costs him so much. He could easily have let the mobile home fall on Nixon, he didn't have to pull him out when Nixon himself, in a panic to be saved when Clark and friends are nearby (Clark doesn't have super-hearing yet so doesn't notice the noise they're making underground, nor can he see through the lead in the foundations), pulls down a landslide on top of them both. You think there might be some kind of understanding between them after this, Nixon appears to be at least a little sympathetic as Jonathan opens up about what their son means to them, even calling him Roger, but it's only until he has a chance to save his own life and still make his name.
He's so evil and numb to others he'll happily murder Mr. Kent even after he saved him, only a bullet from Lex prevents it, creating further murkiness: are Lex' motivations purely about getting in Jonathan's good books or was it more that he doesn't want his connection with Nixon to be clear? Unlike when he had the chance to let his Father die or save him, he has no hesitation here, reminding us of his nature even while he seems to act for the best. He can never give up the driving forces of his life, to best his Father, to get to the bottom of knowledge. But he still hasn't turned evil, as Nixon was, he still could be saved and so the battle of two halves remains to be played like a harp, whereas in later seasons things became a lot less balanced and lost much of their charm. Lionel Luthor becomes a member of the main cast, John Glover now in the titles (as Whitney is no longer, having gone off to join the Marines), and right away he continues to work up the cancer within his son, just as Jonathan is doing his best to serve Clark's best interests. Again, you're not sure if Lionel genuinely believes he's doing what's best for Lex, claiming he needed to toughen him up because their opponents are ruthless, but his twisted form of paternal nature makes of Lex what Jonathan's shining example makes of Clark. Lionel is now blind and tells Lex he made the wrong decision, further confusing the young man, but at least he and Jonathan shake hands and find respect for each other.
That Jonathan would have stayed in the crypt until both he and Nixon were dead, there's no doubt, only Nixon is wily enough to play whatever game it takes at the moment to ensure survival, as much as it pains him to give up the tape. Clark is the one who can find them and rescue them, but he continually becomes handicapped by those around him and the need to keep his powerful abilities secret - first it's Lex who wants to help, but is really hampering him, then it's his friends, Chloe and Pete. Wonder how it was explained that the mobile home had been pushed right out of the way? That's one of the things in the series you just have to ignore, one of an increasing number of facts that don't fit with reality, but after watching more modern fare it doesn't seem as bad, and the episode was well written, deftly throwing in heartfelt moments between characters to counteract the serious situations or the fierce opening in the heart of the storm. I don't like the increase in sad soapy stuff, such as Chloe sadly deleting each of the digital photos of her and Clark at the dance, then finally being unable to empty the waste bin, but it was one of many end scenes, and they certainly make you want to keep watching with Clark thinking he flew and the Kryptonite ship exposed in a corn field (the technology's not that great if a small piece of debris can knock the all-important octagonal key out of its slot, switching the ship off - what about meteorites in space!).
A young Rekha Sharma, before her 'Battlestar Galactica' days (and long before 'Star Trek: Discovery'), appears as a nurse or doctor at the Smallville Medical Centre, and Sheriff Ethan is there at the end doing his usual police interviews. But it's most heartening to see the cast all back, except for Whitney, of course, but he'd be seen again later in the season. I remember being pleased Lionel was in the cast now, and he went on to co-star for several seasons, but on the whole I'm not sure it worked out for the best. He worked better as someone who could come in, throw Lex' life into disarray and shake things up, before swanning out of the picture again, and I wasn't keen on the direction they took with him and Martha. But I can't fault this first episode, they managed to sustain the energy and fury of the last moments of the Season 1 finale, before bringing things back together for the series to continue on its way, and though I didn't much appreciate many of the changes of this season I did enjoy this episode and just thinking about watching the series again pleased me.
***
Tuesday, 18 May 2021
The Immunity Syndrome (2)
DVD, Star Trek S2 (The Immunity Syndrome) (2)
Immunity is exactly what I have towards the charms of this episode, which I felt was the least engaging since 'The Squire of Gothos.' Is it Kirk's tired crankiness? Is it the extensive level of technical talks (who says 'TNG' was the only series where they sit, or stand around talking about the problem so much, and I don't usually mind that!), slowing the story right down? Or is it that this seems to be a remake of 'The Doomsday Machine,' taking on a vast, galaxy-threatening creature intent on devouring all in its path? Why, only last week they were up against a non-humanoid being which had to be destroyed before it gave birth to lots of little terrors that would mean even more trouble for the edible galaxy at large! It's not even that there's nothing to like, we have Kirk forced to choose between his two best friends, which will he sacrifice on a potential suicide mission into the belly of the beast? The amoeba creature itself looks pretty nasty, all tentacles and shimmering colours, threatening even without having a recognisable body to telegraph intent. Maybe it's simply that the crew are all so whacked out and ready for the promised R&R they were on their way to enjoy at Starbase 6 that it's a grind going through this heavy experience with them?
Even the sight of Mr. Leslie (or one of the Leslie brothers, if we speculate), back at the Engineering console on the Bridge the episode after he was drained of all red blood cells by the honey monster in 'Obsession,' fails to drum up a sense of fun, and only the Bridge politics has much interest to dissect: Mr. Kyle, for some reason, perhaps wanting experience up top, is sitting in for Mr. Sulu, though he can't seem to decide whether he should be wearing his usual red shirt or the gold variant more common for that station - when we first glimpse him at the Helm he's in red, but then for the rest of the episode he's wearing gold! Okay, so the first scene he only appears on the edge of frame in the teaser, and it's post-opening titles that he's changed, so that could mean a little time later. Unless he came straight from Transporter duty with the gold shirt underneath and threw off the red once he'd got settled on the Bridge, worried that red might attract danger (more likely it was so he didn't stand out when they cut to stock shots of Chekov and the edge of a Goldshirt staring at the Viewscreen!). You can see that the episode is somewhat lacking when such trivial matters take so much attention - I'm sure Kirk calls him 'Mr. Cowell' at the end as he makes recommendations for citations in his log, Kyle the only other named crewmember on the Bridge, so it has to be a mispronunciation, surely? The he tells 'Mr. Cowell' to programme the fuse and seems to be talking to someone off camera towards Leslie, and Scotty also looks that way as we hear the bleeps and blorks of command inputs. But then he's definitely talking to Kyle when he asks 'Mr. Cowell' to back them out!
Astonishingly, Spock and McCoy agree on something, just for once, about the need for a man to take the Shuttlecraft into the amorphous blob for necessary readings that they hadn't been able to achieve sending probes (that noise when the probes lose contact was another negative strike for the episode as it was as uncomfortable to hear for the viewer as it was for the crew!), although the uncharacteristic support soon turns into opposition again as each believes he's the best man for the job. Spock is the one selected to take it on in the end and it turns out Kirk chose wisely as his Vulcan endurance enables him to take the battering in the shuttle and his constitution allows him to conserve power on life support by turning it down to a minimum, where every ounce of juice was needed. At the same time it could have been a risk sending a Vulcan considering that a starship, the USS Intrepid (forebear in name to the ship which launched the USS Voyager's class in the 24th Century), crewed entirely by four hundred of that race, were all lost, so there could have been a chance their physiology was more vulnerable to the creature than humans. It didn't turn out that way. I didn't quite believe in Spock's reasoning they'd died because they couldn't accept or understand the idea of being conquered because it isn't in their makeup, their planet never being conquered, it sounded a daft reason, but at least we got more evidence of Vulcan mental abilities.
If you can call hearing the deaths of them an ability! It could be deemed more of a curse (hmm, wonder where they got the idea for Jedi remotely sensing the deaths of so many lives being blown up with Alderaan in 'Star Wars'?), but it shows that Vulcans do have telepathic power much deeper than mere proximity, even though they're known as touch-telepaths, a reason why they don't like to touch people (though Spock shows himself most gentlemanly by helping a dazed Uhura back to her seat after she suffers from the effects of crossing into the 'dark zone' of starless space, a concept used again in both 'Voyager' and 'Enterprise,' 'Night' and 'Daedalus,' I believe, and possibly 'The Void'). Dr. McCoy expresses disbelief that the First Officer could know of the deaths and a somewhat philosophical argument ensues between them with Spock accusing humans of caring more about a single death than a multitude of them, but it doesn't go anywhere. I suppose it does give some small credence to the outlandish addition to canon 'DSC' foisted on us when Sarek could communicate with his ward, Burnham, across vast distances, though in that case he was said to have given her a 'piece of his katra,' which was much more silly. Still, I like that Spock has this sense, however horrible it was for him, and it had a slight precedent during Season 1's 'A Taste of Armageddon' where he was able to coerce a guard outside their prison to come and open the door, using mental power outside of touching distance, though not very far in that case.
I've always found it… yes, fascinating, that a Federation starship (we assume it isn't a Vulcan ship since it is a USS), could be crewed entirely of one race, but it fits with the Vulcan attitude: they were one of the founding races of the Federation and they probably made a few demands of their own, especially when you consider how much of a trial it is for Vulcans to live and work with other, inferior races such as humans, not least because of the smell (according to 'Enterprise'), but also because they have their own regimented way of doing things and I think it's very intriguing that they could have their own ships and continue their own methodologies from the time they had their own fleet, pre-Federation (especially as many of them would be old enough to have been alive at that time). I'd love to see an episode set on such a ship, just as they did with Riker on the Klingon vessel in 'A Matter of Honour,' though we came close with the numerous Vulcan episodes of 'Enterprise.' Spock is more suited to serving with humans because he at least had a human Mother and is half-human, so is uniquely qualified to deal with them, even if he does consider the Vulcan heritage he owns far superior, the human half what he must struggle against. Nimoy must have enjoyed the challenge, especially if you notice a rather out of place shot of him lounging in a doorway with a big cheeky grin on his face during the end credits - that has to be an outtake!
The conclusion they reach about this parasite is that it's invading our galaxy like a virus and that they are the antibodies in the body of the galaxy and must do all they can to kill it off, McCoy wondering if that is there one destiny. Scotty claims it couldn't swallow antimatter as they come up with the plan to deal with it, but surely if it had already absorbed the Intrepid it would have swallowed their antimatter? Unless that ship exploded before it reached the creature - there were plenty of rocky waves to weather before they got close, as we see from the traditional sight of Bridge crew being flung about the deck. At one point, Kirk warns them to secure for collision and we see people like Uhura brace themselves against their consoles, so it's obvious they don't have seatbelts if there was ever any doubt about that, one of those Trek conventions which doesn't make sense on the face of it (and which they unwisely changed in 'Picard,' though that may have been as a concession to Patrick Stewart's old age and not wanting to be chucked around!), but is there for the sake of drama, and you accept it because it does look good.
The few moments of shockwaves break up the long scenes of discussion a little, but despite the slow nature of the story it was pleasant to have a full briefing happening again in the Briefing Room, though I was more concerned with trying to see if the young Asian man seen very briefly at the start was Sulu, back at last! They weren't cutting to him at all and it wasn't until they get up at the end you see it wasn't Sulu at all. Very much a meeting out of the 'TNG' style, or to be precise, the 'TNG' style's origin came from scenes like this. Kirk's Quarters are seen again (as is the lab where the trio discuss an amoeba), as he deliberates on which man to send to his death - I noticed Spock and McCoy buzzed the door before walking in, though they never waited for confirmation they could enter and Kirk was talking on the comm system with Scotty at the time, so the door etiquette on this ship seems to have no definition! Later, McCoy shows up again (while Kirk is using the good old record tapes reader, tapes strewn all over his bunk), but this time fails to buzz and walks right in. Kirk doesn't get to be particularly heroic this time, leaving it all to Spock in the shuttle, but they make it clear he couldn't go as he's too valuable (another aspect 'TNG' revived), so he doesn't do much of note, other than a brisk speech on the intercom to the whole ship.
It was terrific to see the Hangar Bay again, complete with Shuttlecraft inside, just like in 'Journey To Babel' as we get Spock going through that double-thick door after the place has been pressurised from outside. Sadly, we still (and never will), get to peer inside and look around, but if you think about it, the orientation doesn't make sense: we know the Hangar is at the back of the ship, only a little wider on the outside from the view of the bay door which we see on the outside and from the inside when the shuttle enters or exits, so how can the door, complete with corridor straight behind it, be ninety degrees from where the shuttle is parked? We must be looking across at the other side of the bay because it's a blank wall, not the bay door! There simply wouldn't be the room for corridors off to the side of the bay judging by the shape of the model… Another inconsistency is the nacelle caps at the rear - I've noted before that they sometimes show up as flat with multiple exhaust ports, and at other times with a round bubble over each. Here we get both in quick succession, so perhaps the bubble is a literal cap that slots over the ports, that would seem to be the only explanation. The interior of the Shuttlecraft is also quite different to how it normally looks, with large machine cabinets and a grilled partition halfway through, though this could all have been installed specifically for Spock's mission as they do mention equipment being put in. You can see another influence on 'The Motion Picture' as Spock takes the shuttle into the maw of the creature, not much safer than travelling in a Thruster Suit!
Finally, the danger averted, the galaxy once again saved from potential destruction, they head for Starbase 6 where Kirk says he's looking forward to rest and recreation on some planet - does this mean they only park up the Enterprise there and are given a tour somewhere else for the actual shore leave? All in all it wasn't the most inspiring or dynamic episode, even a little tiresome and repetitive in places. There were no real guest actors other than the recurring faces such as Chapel (who doesn't get to do much), and Kyle (who gets to do more than he usually does), and while the effects work on the creature was visually strong, this is not one destined to go down as a classic in my eyes, for all its colourful brightness in the uniforms that really pop, and some goodness between the big three.
**
Immunity is exactly what I have towards the charms of this episode, which I felt was the least engaging since 'The Squire of Gothos.' Is it Kirk's tired crankiness? Is it the extensive level of technical talks (who says 'TNG' was the only series where they sit, or stand around talking about the problem so much, and I don't usually mind that!), slowing the story right down? Or is it that this seems to be a remake of 'The Doomsday Machine,' taking on a vast, galaxy-threatening creature intent on devouring all in its path? Why, only last week they were up against a non-humanoid being which had to be destroyed before it gave birth to lots of little terrors that would mean even more trouble for the edible galaxy at large! It's not even that there's nothing to like, we have Kirk forced to choose between his two best friends, which will he sacrifice on a potential suicide mission into the belly of the beast? The amoeba creature itself looks pretty nasty, all tentacles and shimmering colours, threatening even without having a recognisable body to telegraph intent. Maybe it's simply that the crew are all so whacked out and ready for the promised R&R they were on their way to enjoy at Starbase 6 that it's a grind going through this heavy experience with them?
Even the sight of Mr. Leslie (or one of the Leslie brothers, if we speculate), back at the Engineering console on the Bridge the episode after he was drained of all red blood cells by the honey monster in 'Obsession,' fails to drum up a sense of fun, and only the Bridge politics has much interest to dissect: Mr. Kyle, for some reason, perhaps wanting experience up top, is sitting in for Mr. Sulu, though he can't seem to decide whether he should be wearing his usual red shirt or the gold variant more common for that station - when we first glimpse him at the Helm he's in red, but then for the rest of the episode he's wearing gold! Okay, so the first scene he only appears on the edge of frame in the teaser, and it's post-opening titles that he's changed, so that could mean a little time later. Unless he came straight from Transporter duty with the gold shirt underneath and threw off the red once he'd got settled on the Bridge, worried that red might attract danger (more likely it was so he didn't stand out when they cut to stock shots of Chekov and the edge of a Goldshirt staring at the Viewscreen!). You can see that the episode is somewhat lacking when such trivial matters take so much attention - I'm sure Kirk calls him 'Mr. Cowell' at the end as he makes recommendations for citations in his log, Kyle the only other named crewmember on the Bridge, so it has to be a mispronunciation, surely? The he tells 'Mr. Cowell' to programme the fuse and seems to be talking to someone off camera towards Leslie, and Scotty also looks that way as we hear the bleeps and blorks of command inputs. But then he's definitely talking to Kyle when he asks 'Mr. Cowell' to back them out!
Astonishingly, Spock and McCoy agree on something, just for once, about the need for a man to take the Shuttlecraft into the amorphous blob for necessary readings that they hadn't been able to achieve sending probes (that noise when the probes lose contact was another negative strike for the episode as it was as uncomfortable to hear for the viewer as it was for the crew!), although the uncharacteristic support soon turns into opposition again as each believes he's the best man for the job. Spock is the one selected to take it on in the end and it turns out Kirk chose wisely as his Vulcan endurance enables him to take the battering in the shuttle and his constitution allows him to conserve power on life support by turning it down to a minimum, where every ounce of juice was needed. At the same time it could have been a risk sending a Vulcan considering that a starship, the USS Intrepid (forebear in name to the ship which launched the USS Voyager's class in the 24th Century), crewed entirely by four hundred of that race, were all lost, so there could have been a chance their physiology was more vulnerable to the creature than humans. It didn't turn out that way. I didn't quite believe in Spock's reasoning they'd died because they couldn't accept or understand the idea of being conquered because it isn't in their makeup, their planet never being conquered, it sounded a daft reason, but at least we got more evidence of Vulcan mental abilities.
If you can call hearing the deaths of them an ability! It could be deemed more of a curse (hmm, wonder where they got the idea for Jedi remotely sensing the deaths of so many lives being blown up with Alderaan in 'Star Wars'?), but it shows that Vulcans do have telepathic power much deeper than mere proximity, even though they're known as touch-telepaths, a reason why they don't like to touch people (though Spock shows himself most gentlemanly by helping a dazed Uhura back to her seat after she suffers from the effects of crossing into the 'dark zone' of starless space, a concept used again in both 'Voyager' and 'Enterprise,' 'Night' and 'Daedalus,' I believe, and possibly 'The Void'). Dr. McCoy expresses disbelief that the First Officer could know of the deaths and a somewhat philosophical argument ensues between them with Spock accusing humans of caring more about a single death than a multitude of them, but it doesn't go anywhere. I suppose it does give some small credence to the outlandish addition to canon 'DSC' foisted on us when Sarek could communicate with his ward, Burnham, across vast distances, though in that case he was said to have given her a 'piece of his katra,' which was much more silly. Still, I like that Spock has this sense, however horrible it was for him, and it had a slight precedent during Season 1's 'A Taste of Armageddon' where he was able to coerce a guard outside their prison to come and open the door, using mental power outside of touching distance, though not very far in that case.
I've always found it… yes, fascinating, that a Federation starship (we assume it isn't a Vulcan ship since it is a USS), could be crewed entirely of one race, but it fits with the Vulcan attitude: they were one of the founding races of the Federation and they probably made a few demands of their own, especially when you consider how much of a trial it is for Vulcans to live and work with other, inferior races such as humans, not least because of the smell (according to 'Enterprise'), but also because they have their own regimented way of doing things and I think it's very intriguing that they could have their own ships and continue their own methodologies from the time they had their own fleet, pre-Federation (especially as many of them would be old enough to have been alive at that time). I'd love to see an episode set on such a ship, just as they did with Riker on the Klingon vessel in 'A Matter of Honour,' though we came close with the numerous Vulcan episodes of 'Enterprise.' Spock is more suited to serving with humans because he at least had a human Mother and is half-human, so is uniquely qualified to deal with them, even if he does consider the Vulcan heritage he owns far superior, the human half what he must struggle against. Nimoy must have enjoyed the challenge, especially if you notice a rather out of place shot of him lounging in a doorway with a big cheeky grin on his face during the end credits - that has to be an outtake!
The conclusion they reach about this parasite is that it's invading our galaxy like a virus and that they are the antibodies in the body of the galaxy and must do all they can to kill it off, McCoy wondering if that is there one destiny. Scotty claims it couldn't swallow antimatter as they come up with the plan to deal with it, but surely if it had already absorbed the Intrepid it would have swallowed their antimatter? Unless that ship exploded before it reached the creature - there were plenty of rocky waves to weather before they got close, as we see from the traditional sight of Bridge crew being flung about the deck. At one point, Kirk warns them to secure for collision and we see people like Uhura brace themselves against their consoles, so it's obvious they don't have seatbelts if there was ever any doubt about that, one of those Trek conventions which doesn't make sense on the face of it (and which they unwisely changed in 'Picard,' though that may have been as a concession to Patrick Stewart's old age and not wanting to be chucked around!), but is there for the sake of drama, and you accept it because it does look good.
The few moments of shockwaves break up the long scenes of discussion a little, but despite the slow nature of the story it was pleasant to have a full briefing happening again in the Briefing Room, though I was more concerned with trying to see if the young Asian man seen very briefly at the start was Sulu, back at last! They weren't cutting to him at all and it wasn't until they get up at the end you see it wasn't Sulu at all. Very much a meeting out of the 'TNG' style, or to be precise, the 'TNG' style's origin came from scenes like this. Kirk's Quarters are seen again (as is the lab where the trio discuss an amoeba), as he deliberates on which man to send to his death - I noticed Spock and McCoy buzzed the door before walking in, though they never waited for confirmation they could enter and Kirk was talking on the comm system with Scotty at the time, so the door etiquette on this ship seems to have no definition! Later, McCoy shows up again (while Kirk is using the good old record tapes reader, tapes strewn all over his bunk), but this time fails to buzz and walks right in. Kirk doesn't get to be particularly heroic this time, leaving it all to Spock in the shuttle, but they make it clear he couldn't go as he's too valuable (another aspect 'TNG' revived), so he doesn't do much of note, other than a brisk speech on the intercom to the whole ship.
It was terrific to see the Hangar Bay again, complete with Shuttlecraft inside, just like in 'Journey To Babel' as we get Spock going through that double-thick door after the place has been pressurised from outside. Sadly, we still (and never will), get to peer inside and look around, but if you think about it, the orientation doesn't make sense: we know the Hangar is at the back of the ship, only a little wider on the outside from the view of the bay door which we see on the outside and from the inside when the shuttle enters or exits, so how can the door, complete with corridor straight behind it, be ninety degrees from where the shuttle is parked? We must be looking across at the other side of the bay because it's a blank wall, not the bay door! There simply wouldn't be the room for corridors off to the side of the bay judging by the shape of the model… Another inconsistency is the nacelle caps at the rear - I've noted before that they sometimes show up as flat with multiple exhaust ports, and at other times with a round bubble over each. Here we get both in quick succession, so perhaps the bubble is a literal cap that slots over the ports, that would seem to be the only explanation. The interior of the Shuttlecraft is also quite different to how it normally looks, with large machine cabinets and a grilled partition halfway through, though this could all have been installed specifically for Spock's mission as they do mention equipment being put in. You can see another influence on 'The Motion Picture' as Spock takes the shuttle into the maw of the creature, not much safer than travelling in a Thruster Suit!
Finally, the danger averted, the galaxy once again saved from potential destruction, they head for Starbase 6 where Kirk says he's looking forward to rest and recreation on some planet - does this mean they only park up the Enterprise there and are given a tour somewhere else for the actual shore leave? All in all it wasn't the most inspiring or dynamic episode, even a little tiresome and repetitive in places. There were no real guest actors other than the recurring faces such as Chapel (who doesn't get to do much), and Kyle (who gets to do more than he usually does), and while the effects work on the creature was visually strong, this is not one destined to go down as a classic in my eyes, for all its colourful brightness in the uniforms that really pop, and some goodness between the big three.
**
Stargate: The Ark of Truth
DVD, Stargate: The Ark of Truth (2008), film
Revivals of TV shows that have come to their natural end rarely work particularly well, from 'Highlander' to 'Babylon 5' they tend to be a mixed bag of trying to find something else to do, while not straying too far from what they're based on, attempting to appeal in the wider sense of an audience that may want to see it as its own thing, yet also playing to the dedicated who are most likely to be interested. The situation was slightly different in this case since it was a straight to DVD release that came out only a year after the series ended in 2007, so it's not like it was years afterward, the sets were still standing, the actors weren't far removed from their characters and the story had been left with enough threads to pick up and create an ending of larger scope than the one 'SG-1' bowed out with at the end of Season 10. It was also true that the 'Stargate' franchise had branched out and was going strong with 'Atlantis,' and 'SG-1' itself was no stranger to resurrection, one reason it had survived for a then unprecedented number of seasons to a full season length run of ten years. So all the pieces were in place for this to be a blockbuster encore after the great finale of Season 10, so why did it fail to grab me?
I think you have to look at the word 'blockbuster' to understand: the reason 'Unending,' the last ever episode of the series, was much more of a character piece and a science fiction idea explored in a meaningful way. 'The Ark of Truth' was a run at making an 'Indiana Jones' type of story, big, bold and brassy to make the purchase of a DVD worthwhile to the general public, which means all the action, ship battles and fisticuffs people have come to associate with the genre. The only problem is that the surface action isn't what the genre is really about, that would be characters and ideas, and no amount of throwing effects at the screen in the belief that you could compete with 'blockbuster' films was going to work. I shouldn't criticise 'SG-1' for being what it is, I just have to admit that those parts of it that I most enjoy are not the effects or action, fights or aliens, which is why the series as a whole I like it a lot, but don't love, nor carry it in the same regard as the Trek franchise. It's always been a bit of an imitation, taking the bits it wants and mixing them with the more popular and less taxing style of 'Star Wars' that appeals to simpler minds.
Thing is, this episode reminds me of so many things about 'SG-1' that I wasn't crazy about: the Replicators, running round the ship blasting the little critters into smithereens (and yet, somehow the walls and bulkheads never have a single bullet hole, and all that complicated circuitry and tech cluttering up the corridors is undamaged - not to mention that if the Replicators are being formed from bits of the ship, and there's so many of them, how come the ship isn't falling apart or venting atmosphere?). I found it, to its detriment, to be a set of things happening rather than personal events to be invested in. There are three plots: the search for the Ark, the battle against a vain IOA (the Stargate programme's oversight committee), plot to set Replicators on The Ori, and a visit to the SGC by a Prior. It almost sounds more interesting than it was. The characters don't really get a fair shout - though they all get their bits of business, whether it be Teal'c surviving a staff blast from the current cannon fodder minions of the enemy, making his hundred mile trek through mountains to save the others, or Daniel working out how to open the titular Ark that will spill forth the light of rightness and magically change all the minds of those following the Way of Origin that has incited them to religious war, Carter doing some technical thing to get the self-destruct to work, Mitchell fighting his arch-nemesis Marrick of the IOA, to Vala… being annoying. And even Landry getting his jabs in on the visiting Prior. None of it sparkles, it doesn't show much about the characters, they're just there as usual.
The film suffers from the same malady of Season 10, some niggling little impression that the characters weren't progressing any more, they'd gelled, but they weren't written so well, they were just fulfilling plot functions. It's difficult to describe, but I didn't feel that way during Season 9, or not as much, the new direction of this religious cult spreading like wildfire through the galaxy had potential, mixed in with Arthurian legend and the series' own lore of the Ancients. In that sense the film feels just like it's part of the series proper, in fact it could have been the true finale after that one where they get stuck in time. If you're wondering how things would be different now that Teal'c has lived decades and decades as the only person to survive through time then you'd be disappointed. Nothing is different, except he refuses to hide the streak of white hair on one side, the rich potential of such an idea has no place or time to be explored. We don't really get a sense of anything having changed for any of the characters, or of their lives, as we used to, and I would say the sole reason this exists is because they wanted to tie up The Ori arc, where perhaps they had left it open in case a last minute change of heart might have brought the series to an eleventh season. I have no idea, just pure speculation on my part.
So it's not that the film is doing anything different, it's just that it doesn't make any progress for the characters, and because it's mostly on the familiar sets, apart from some snowy mountain trekking, it does feel like a TV episode. That's not always a bad thing, I'd much rather see the familiar sets and places than have them recreated or remodelled (as I think the SGC was when seen in 'Universe'), but it's not doing anything more than coming up with a way to finish the story, and is therefore full of magical interventions (from Morgan La Fay, such as healing the stricken Teal'c), and really just rehashing things that had been done so many times before. Again, if you love the series that's what you want: same again, please. Except there are certain expectations when a film has been made specially and this doesn't fulfil that. It becomes derivative to the point where you're picking out where this or that comes from, most obviously the 'Terminator' stuff with Cam fighting Mr. Marrick who has been taken over by Replicators to get the override code for the destruct. It even goes so far as to have his mangled, electrocuted corpse disintegrate into a metal skeleton that stands up and comes after Mitchell just like a T-800. I'm not doubting the effects, but it was very derivative, and something else I noticed was that it was quite nasty in comparison to the series, almost going back to its roots with how the first couple of episodes were before they toned it down (and more swearing, too).
Marrick was an obnoxious sort right from the off, and you can't stand him, yet it's somehow nastier to kill him off in that way where his cell is overrun by Replicators - it was bad enough he didn't get a chance to redeem himself and show that he could think for himself, not merely a puppet for the IOA (replacing Wolsey who was busy with 'Atlantis,' fortunately, though he would have been more sympathetic). Then they compound that sense of negativity by having him be the evil representation of Replicator power for Mitchell to fight (why do people never learn when combating a superior, robot-like opponent: don't just keep trying to punch them out once they've thrown you across the room - but it has to look as if the good guy is failing before he can rally and win the day, not a good convention). Adding to this sense of misery is that Teal'c, even after ten years (and many more decades in 'Unending'!), has a personal philosophy that one can never forgive oneself for acts of atrocity committed in the past, and so he tells Tomin, Vala's sort-of-husband who had been the pawn of The Ori but is shown the error of his ways by the fact that a Prior can be killed. This was a most depressing part, and I can understand it was supposed to be some form of acceptance by Teal'c, a twisted kind of reassurance that there is life after all that has been done, but to suggest there can be no forgiveness is to doom us all!
Saying that, it is true to the kind of staunch, self-denying warrior that Teal'c is, that he would think that way, and he is an alien, let's not forget. I'm just relieved they didn't kill him off because every time there's another part of 'SG-1' I'm expecting his death simply for the fact he's the only original star not to show up in 'Universe,' and I thought he really was a goner when the staff zapped him in the back in the usual forest planet setting. But he was only injured - badly, but able to marshal the last of his resources to stagger on until he was miraculously healed. If the philosophy of the series and film is unhappy, it also comes across as rather simplistic, most obviously in that final scene between Vala and Tomin where she glibly suggests the sacred scripture of Origin should be altered to make it acceptable to the times. This is daft on a number of levels, because if they're making comments on specific religious books that so much of the population of Earth revere, then think that it would be as simple as a spot of adjustment then that's plainly mind-bending stupidity and shows a complete lack of understanding. On the other hand, if they're simply making comment about this evil book that has been enslaving races through the galaxy, yet suggesting there's some truth in there so some of it is still important, that's just as idiotic. Consign the whole to oblivion, it's evil. But it was just a thing thrown in at the end, it's not like the film was all about that, and makes it look all the worse.
While complaining about the end, it's also such an easy conclusion: simply open the magic box and everything's fine. It doesn't address the real issues of indoctrination or suggest that ways should be examined and tested to determine their truth (just as the Ancients, or Alterans, if they are one and the same, were saying at the beginning!). Then there's the Orici who just turns into fiery energy and fights with the swirly blue La Fay (reminded me of the end of 'DS9' episode 'The Reckoning'), and everything's okay. As I said, it's not that 'Stargate' usually gets this stuff dead-on and this is the aberration from the norm, it's just that a longer form episode shows up the flaws more heavily, and the issues I had with the team of characters in the final season is in sharper relief. It should be taken on its own terms, it is just derivative sci-fi and always has been, so there's no real reason to demand something more, except that there have been great episodes over the years, it can be done. There were things to like, such as the occasional reference to 'Atlantis' (Colonel Ellis of the Apollo has a tiny cameo), but in general that series has fast become a more appealing collection of stories and characters for me. Whether it could surpass 'SG-1' entirely I won't know until I see the final two seasons, and there is yet one more entry in the 'SG-1' canon to come with the second spinoff film, 'Continuum,' but it seems wise to hold off on that one for now.
In one sense I'm happy they brought back everything for a TV film, it is nice to see the characters again even when they're only working at half power, and they still have a chance to make one last great adventure. In the other sense it would have been better to leave with 'Unending' since that was so much better. But as I frequently find, sometimes, maybe always, it's better to have a series go a step or more too far, to show that the creative juices are no longer there, it's had its day, because the alternative is that you'd always be wondering what would have happened next, what if they could have made more? Now we know, and there's no longer that mental quest to go on, to think about what might have been, we've seen it, it was okay, nothing special, and now go and watch the old episodes you do like. At least they did give the option of a nine-minute prelude that runs through all the main plot points needed to remind what this story is all about, useful since the series was always heavily plot-focused with tons of lore to keep track of, probably one of the reasons its devotees are so devoted. Not sure why we didn't get some kind of 'Stargate'-related opening titles, and it is rather a trope that if you have any doubt start a film with sweeping shots of snowy mountains. Still, I appreciate the efforts to get everyone back, even minor characters like Tomin and the Priors, another reason making it soon after the series helped. And was Amanda Tapping pregnant? They kept her in dark clothing a lot and when she turns while talking to Mitchell in the last scene there seemed to be a bump. And is Carter supposed to be falling for him? There's no sign of O'Neill so she has her sights on the current SG-1 leader? Mmphf.
**
Revivals of TV shows that have come to their natural end rarely work particularly well, from 'Highlander' to 'Babylon 5' they tend to be a mixed bag of trying to find something else to do, while not straying too far from what they're based on, attempting to appeal in the wider sense of an audience that may want to see it as its own thing, yet also playing to the dedicated who are most likely to be interested. The situation was slightly different in this case since it was a straight to DVD release that came out only a year after the series ended in 2007, so it's not like it was years afterward, the sets were still standing, the actors weren't far removed from their characters and the story had been left with enough threads to pick up and create an ending of larger scope than the one 'SG-1' bowed out with at the end of Season 10. It was also true that the 'Stargate' franchise had branched out and was going strong with 'Atlantis,' and 'SG-1' itself was no stranger to resurrection, one reason it had survived for a then unprecedented number of seasons to a full season length run of ten years. So all the pieces were in place for this to be a blockbuster encore after the great finale of Season 10, so why did it fail to grab me?
I think you have to look at the word 'blockbuster' to understand: the reason 'Unending,' the last ever episode of the series, was much more of a character piece and a science fiction idea explored in a meaningful way. 'The Ark of Truth' was a run at making an 'Indiana Jones' type of story, big, bold and brassy to make the purchase of a DVD worthwhile to the general public, which means all the action, ship battles and fisticuffs people have come to associate with the genre. The only problem is that the surface action isn't what the genre is really about, that would be characters and ideas, and no amount of throwing effects at the screen in the belief that you could compete with 'blockbuster' films was going to work. I shouldn't criticise 'SG-1' for being what it is, I just have to admit that those parts of it that I most enjoy are not the effects or action, fights or aliens, which is why the series as a whole I like it a lot, but don't love, nor carry it in the same regard as the Trek franchise. It's always been a bit of an imitation, taking the bits it wants and mixing them with the more popular and less taxing style of 'Star Wars' that appeals to simpler minds.
Thing is, this episode reminds me of so many things about 'SG-1' that I wasn't crazy about: the Replicators, running round the ship blasting the little critters into smithereens (and yet, somehow the walls and bulkheads never have a single bullet hole, and all that complicated circuitry and tech cluttering up the corridors is undamaged - not to mention that if the Replicators are being formed from bits of the ship, and there's so many of them, how come the ship isn't falling apart or venting atmosphere?). I found it, to its detriment, to be a set of things happening rather than personal events to be invested in. There are three plots: the search for the Ark, the battle against a vain IOA (the Stargate programme's oversight committee), plot to set Replicators on The Ori, and a visit to the SGC by a Prior. It almost sounds more interesting than it was. The characters don't really get a fair shout - though they all get their bits of business, whether it be Teal'c surviving a staff blast from the current cannon fodder minions of the enemy, making his hundred mile trek through mountains to save the others, or Daniel working out how to open the titular Ark that will spill forth the light of rightness and magically change all the minds of those following the Way of Origin that has incited them to religious war, Carter doing some technical thing to get the self-destruct to work, Mitchell fighting his arch-nemesis Marrick of the IOA, to Vala… being annoying. And even Landry getting his jabs in on the visiting Prior. None of it sparkles, it doesn't show much about the characters, they're just there as usual.
The film suffers from the same malady of Season 10, some niggling little impression that the characters weren't progressing any more, they'd gelled, but they weren't written so well, they were just fulfilling plot functions. It's difficult to describe, but I didn't feel that way during Season 9, or not as much, the new direction of this religious cult spreading like wildfire through the galaxy had potential, mixed in with Arthurian legend and the series' own lore of the Ancients. In that sense the film feels just like it's part of the series proper, in fact it could have been the true finale after that one where they get stuck in time. If you're wondering how things would be different now that Teal'c has lived decades and decades as the only person to survive through time then you'd be disappointed. Nothing is different, except he refuses to hide the streak of white hair on one side, the rich potential of such an idea has no place or time to be explored. We don't really get a sense of anything having changed for any of the characters, or of their lives, as we used to, and I would say the sole reason this exists is because they wanted to tie up The Ori arc, where perhaps they had left it open in case a last minute change of heart might have brought the series to an eleventh season. I have no idea, just pure speculation on my part.
So it's not that the film is doing anything different, it's just that it doesn't make any progress for the characters, and because it's mostly on the familiar sets, apart from some snowy mountain trekking, it does feel like a TV episode. That's not always a bad thing, I'd much rather see the familiar sets and places than have them recreated or remodelled (as I think the SGC was when seen in 'Universe'), but it's not doing anything more than coming up with a way to finish the story, and is therefore full of magical interventions (from Morgan La Fay, such as healing the stricken Teal'c), and really just rehashing things that had been done so many times before. Again, if you love the series that's what you want: same again, please. Except there are certain expectations when a film has been made specially and this doesn't fulfil that. It becomes derivative to the point where you're picking out where this or that comes from, most obviously the 'Terminator' stuff with Cam fighting Mr. Marrick who has been taken over by Replicators to get the override code for the destruct. It even goes so far as to have his mangled, electrocuted corpse disintegrate into a metal skeleton that stands up and comes after Mitchell just like a T-800. I'm not doubting the effects, but it was very derivative, and something else I noticed was that it was quite nasty in comparison to the series, almost going back to its roots with how the first couple of episodes were before they toned it down (and more swearing, too).
Marrick was an obnoxious sort right from the off, and you can't stand him, yet it's somehow nastier to kill him off in that way where his cell is overrun by Replicators - it was bad enough he didn't get a chance to redeem himself and show that he could think for himself, not merely a puppet for the IOA (replacing Wolsey who was busy with 'Atlantis,' fortunately, though he would have been more sympathetic). Then they compound that sense of negativity by having him be the evil representation of Replicator power for Mitchell to fight (why do people never learn when combating a superior, robot-like opponent: don't just keep trying to punch them out once they've thrown you across the room - but it has to look as if the good guy is failing before he can rally and win the day, not a good convention). Adding to this sense of misery is that Teal'c, even after ten years (and many more decades in 'Unending'!), has a personal philosophy that one can never forgive oneself for acts of atrocity committed in the past, and so he tells Tomin, Vala's sort-of-husband who had been the pawn of The Ori but is shown the error of his ways by the fact that a Prior can be killed. This was a most depressing part, and I can understand it was supposed to be some form of acceptance by Teal'c, a twisted kind of reassurance that there is life after all that has been done, but to suggest there can be no forgiveness is to doom us all!
Saying that, it is true to the kind of staunch, self-denying warrior that Teal'c is, that he would think that way, and he is an alien, let's not forget. I'm just relieved they didn't kill him off because every time there's another part of 'SG-1' I'm expecting his death simply for the fact he's the only original star not to show up in 'Universe,' and I thought he really was a goner when the staff zapped him in the back in the usual forest planet setting. But he was only injured - badly, but able to marshal the last of his resources to stagger on until he was miraculously healed. If the philosophy of the series and film is unhappy, it also comes across as rather simplistic, most obviously in that final scene between Vala and Tomin where she glibly suggests the sacred scripture of Origin should be altered to make it acceptable to the times. This is daft on a number of levels, because if they're making comments on specific religious books that so much of the population of Earth revere, then think that it would be as simple as a spot of adjustment then that's plainly mind-bending stupidity and shows a complete lack of understanding. On the other hand, if they're simply making comment about this evil book that has been enslaving races through the galaxy, yet suggesting there's some truth in there so some of it is still important, that's just as idiotic. Consign the whole to oblivion, it's evil. But it was just a thing thrown in at the end, it's not like the film was all about that, and makes it look all the worse.
While complaining about the end, it's also such an easy conclusion: simply open the magic box and everything's fine. It doesn't address the real issues of indoctrination or suggest that ways should be examined and tested to determine their truth (just as the Ancients, or Alterans, if they are one and the same, were saying at the beginning!). Then there's the Orici who just turns into fiery energy and fights with the swirly blue La Fay (reminded me of the end of 'DS9' episode 'The Reckoning'), and everything's okay. As I said, it's not that 'Stargate' usually gets this stuff dead-on and this is the aberration from the norm, it's just that a longer form episode shows up the flaws more heavily, and the issues I had with the team of characters in the final season is in sharper relief. It should be taken on its own terms, it is just derivative sci-fi and always has been, so there's no real reason to demand something more, except that there have been great episodes over the years, it can be done. There were things to like, such as the occasional reference to 'Atlantis' (Colonel Ellis of the Apollo has a tiny cameo), but in general that series has fast become a more appealing collection of stories and characters for me. Whether it could surpass 'SG-1' entirely I won't know until I see the final two seasons, and there is yet one more entry in the 'SG-1' canon to come with the second spinoff film, 'Continuum,' but it seems wise to hold off on that one for now.
In one sense I'm happy they brought back everything for a TV film, it is nice to see the characters again even when they're only working at half power, and they still have a chance to make one last great adventure. In the other sense it would have been better to leave with 'Unending' since that was so much better. But as I frequently find, sometimes, maybe always, it's better to have a series go a step or more too far, to show that the creative juices are no longer there, it's had its day, because the alternative is that you'd always be wondering what would have happened next, what if they could have made more? Now we know, and there's no longer that mental quest to go on, to think about what might have been, we've seen it, it was okay, nothing special, and now go and watch the old episodes you do like. At least they did give the option of a nine-minute prelude that runs through all the main plot points needed to remind what this story is all about, useful since the series was always heavily plot-focused with tons of lore to keep track of, probably one of the reasons its devotees are so devoted. Not sure why we didn't get some kind of 'Stargate'-related opening titles, and it is rather a trope that if you have any doubt start a film with sweeping shots of snowy mountains. Still, I appreciate the efforts to get everyone back, even minor characters like Tomin and the Priors, another reason making it soon after the series helped. And was Amanda Tapping pregnant? They kept her in dark clothing a lot and when she turns while talking to Mitchell in the last scene there seemed to be a bump. And is Carter supposed to be falling for him? There's no sign of O'Neill so she has her sights on the current SG-1 leader? Mmphf.
**
Obsession (2)
DVD, Star Trek S2 (Obsession) (2)
I probably should expound upon how this story is inspired by 'Moby Dick,' the classic book about Captain Ahab who thrusts his heart and soul into bringing vengeance upon the white whale (white whale, white smoke creature…), a theme more famously picked up in the films 'Star Trek II' and 'First Contact,' where they directly reference the book, (and previously in 'The Doomsday Machine'), but the most dramatic development of this episode for me is they killed Mr. Leslie! That unassuming background character who's so often to be spotted at a station on the Bridge is one of the security team who are preyed upon by the vampiric dikironium cloud creature (or the honey monster as I like to call it). He's summarily led to his red corpuscle-stealing death without any ceremony (unless you count the honour of his name being spoken by the Captain), as so many Redshirts have been before him, and he is gone… Except he'll pop up again when they forgot he'd been killed off, one of the most enjoyable gaffes of 'TOS,' though it can be explained away by speculating he was one of a set of brothers; twins, triplets or perhaps even more considering we see him in so many different places on the ship. Or perhaps he was a clone? Do we know the status of cloning at this time in Federation history?
Another character to be summarily sidelined in this episode, though not in his case, unto death, is Chekov whom I associate with Security, though I'm not sure why as he's usually most visible in the navigation department. There was a moment on the Bridge when both his and Sulu's stations (George Takei still absent), were manned by complete strangers, not even a Mr. Hadley as familiar stand-in (though he does take the post later in the episode, alongside Chekov as usual), while Chekov himself was at Spock's station. Where was Spock at that juncture? I can't remember, that may have been the time he went down to Ensign Garrovick's Quarters to set the young man's emotionally charged human mind at rest on the subject of his dereliction of duty, or whatever his hesitation was designated when he should have been firing at the honey monster. For Garrovick appears to be the lead Security Guard in this episode, a somewhat convenient situation considering it was his own Father, Captain Garrovick, and the young Kirk's commanding officer from the day he left the Academy, serving under him on his first deep space assignment eleven years previous on the USS Farragut when he first encountered this creature and behaved exactly as the young Garrovick did here: faltering, apparently causing the deaths of half the crew and his Captain, those two hundred lives on his conscience.
It's easy to see why he becomes obsessed with killing the creature here, to the point where Dr. McCoy and Spock come to his Quarters to 'go by the book' and respectfully demand an explanation for his actions in order to decide if he's fit to continue being in command. Earlier he'd flown off the handle and accused Scotty of conspiring, and it was only in the previous episode that Spock discusses with McCoy and Scotty whether they might be about to mount a mutiny, so it seems to be a common theme at the moment! Kirk hasn't lost all sense of perspective, however, unlike the raging Captain Ahab, and despite doubting himself in his logs, is rational enough about it all to be able to level with his First Officer and Ship's Physician. It's not like talking down a nutty artificial intelligence, he has to make a reasonable case, and he can, explaining the creature is a danger to the galaxy at large - it's capabilities are manyfold, we see it outrun a starship at Warp 8, travelling in and out of the atmosphere of planets, and even able to shift its form to be impervious to both Phaser fire and Photon Torpedoes! This is quite some opponent, and one that is also impervious to our Captain's usual resources of verbal sparring and physical combat. What else does he have as a weapon against it? His mind, a mind that is thrown into disarray by the horror of the past caused by the creature, so is Kirk vulnerable? Therein lies the drama.
That's one of the best things about the episode, that it's another attempt at filling in some of the blanks about a character, in this case Kirk, bringing new information about his past career in Starfleet that is a hugely satisfying addition to his growing background. It's sad that we didn't have so many details about the other crewmembers, only Spock able to rival the Captain for personal history. Here, Kirk's mental health is at issue, haunted as he is by those events so many years ago. It's entirely possible this isn't the same creature, though they do like to have monsters be the last of their kind, or an isolated incident, be that the salt vampire, the Horta or the Gorn. But we know, somehow because Kirk believes it to be the case, that the creature is about to spawn and that it will metamorphose into a multitude of death for the galaxy when it does. On top of this there's a ticking clock with vital medicines needed for another planet and all it required was for some undiplomatic diplomat to be on the ship warning Kirk that no matter what they only have 'x' time before they must resume their mission, for it to be a complete set of problems. That the questioning of Kirk comes from his friends and fellow officers makes it that much more personal, suiting the experiences he's going through, but while an outsider would have caused him more trouble, Spock and McCoy are there to support him once they understand his motivations and the danger posed by the creature.
A quest for redemption is one of the most attractive kinds of stories, and the poignant parallels with his own younger self mirrored in Ensign Garrovick are what make the episode more than mere action adventure: the stakes are higher than that, greater than a galactic terror because they're as intimate as our own inner thoughts. We feel bad for Garrovick as he's relieved of duty and confined to Quarters, this is his first encounter with a Captain who served under his Father and naturally he'd wish to prove himself worthy of both, so it's more affecting when he appears to have let them down so badly to the tune of two men's deaths. Will he in turn become a capable commanding officer aboard another ship in a decade's time, haunted by the creature once more? No, the cycle of defeat ends here with Kirk able to pull himself together, realising the truth that Phasers wouldn't have made any difference even if he and Garrovick had fired promptly and with deadly accuracy, so the vindication is clear and a new plan is formulated. Even then, Garrovick, young and inexperienced as he is, makes a grave error that could have jeopardised his Captain's plan: thinking Kirk is going to sacrifice himself to lure the creature to its end, he tries to knock him out, but fortunately Kirk is the superior fighter - just then, at a moment of greatest tension, when Kirk's concentration is all on this precise course of action, and assuming complete compliance from the man he'd handpicked to join him in this redemptive action, he's sucker-chopped, and a lesser man would have let all the pent up frustrations out on Garrovick, but he stays in control, even the physical attack of a subordinate not enough to sway him from the critical course!
This was another of those terrific moments in the episode, although I didn't see it that way until I was writing this review, because it really does show how strong a leader Kirk is. Sure, he does throw back some warning at Garrovick, but he also quickly assures him he has no intention of sacrificing himself and goes straight on with the plan. Another great moment is when he earlier went to Garrovick after the attack on Spock in Garrovick's Quarters and reassures him that there was nothing either of them could have done in their solitary confrontations with the creature on the planet, faith in the young man restored. That he shows this faith in the man as his chosen partner in the mission to kill the creature, only makes it sweeter. And this is after Garrovick almost caused the death of Spock, too! It was only his green, copper-based Vulcan blood that made him distasteful to the creature which hungers for iron-based blood, that saved his life (although I do wish he'd pulled the blanket off the bed to use as a block on the vent through which the creatures flows instead of using bare hands, though perhaps those thin, sparkly futuristic coverings aren't much use in that regard - actually, I don't think we've ever seen ventilation in any Quarters before, but it was necessary for the story so we can let it pass). I'm not sure it was that advisable to flush the system with radiation waste, but then the vents were supposed to be closed.
It was only Garrovick's fit of pique, flinging the lid off the coloured square food he'd been left and hitting the vent's switch that prevented it closing as it should have! Nurse Chapel was very kind to visit the young man in his turmoil under the guise of medical care, bringing him food, but not indulging in his well of pity (at least he didn't fling the soup through the doorway as Spock did in 'Amok Time'!), and it's implied they know each other reasonably well as he calls her Christine, so although he's been on the Enterprise a short enough time for Kirk not to know about him being there, it was also long enough to establish some kind of friendship with Chapel. She also has a great character moment when she uses psychology on him to get him to eat and so feel better, claiming the order from McCoy to eat is on this record tape, which we later find out is just some report she'd borrowed from the Doctor's office! Well done Chapel, we need more of these little scenes, both amusing, but also necessary and kind, as she is. It would have been improved the episode (any episode), to allow something like that for some of the other characters, too, Chekov, Scotty and Uhura reduced to professional roles only in this episode (we actually see Uhura writing with a stylus on the PADD she's got, taking Kirk's message down).
Spock performs admirably, informing both Jim and Garrovick on separate occasions that their guilt is unwarranted with the evidence they've found. He does it in that Vulcan way, that it is correct and so he must pass it on, but you know he cares about Kirk and he knows that Garrovick needs the knowledge to end his wallowing, so though he claims not to understand emotion, he has a detailed grasp of psychology and proves a good friend, too. I especially appreciated the deferential, respectful way he confronted his Captain over his behaviour. McCoy's usual irascibility comes out, but only because he has his duties to the crew as much as his loyalty to Jim and wants to see neither destroyed. He accuses him of being so obsessed that he could destroy himself (and he didn't even knock or buzz the door when he marches into the Captain's Quarters! At least Chapel had the grace to buzz first before bringing the tray of dinner in to Garrovick). McCoy is the one to bring up the parallel of young Kirk and Garrovick and a discussion about guilt ensues. In the personal and psychological department the episode excels, perhaps only slightly let down by the less realistic planetary environments we see.
So often this season they've made terrific planet sets, but the ones we see here, while functioning adequately, appeared very confined and almost claustrophobic. They obviously wouldn't have been able to film on location as indoor set conditions were required for a creature partially created from smoke - it would be no good if it was blowing all over the place, though a wider coverage wouldn't have gone amiss (think 'Catspaw'). When it shifts into a visual effect it was very reminiscent of the Companion in 'Metamorphosis,' so there was a slight sense of reusing old effects rather than creating something new, but I wouldn't say it hurt the episode as it's much less about the creature itself than the effect it has on those who encounter it. That it could travel in space at such speeds (it had travelled over one thousand lightyears from where the Farragut's encounter occurred), is easily explainable as being just part of its unknown alien nature, Spock tying the fantasy nicely to some scientific theory by suggesting it used gravitational fields for propulsion. The episode that came to mind was 'Vox Sola' from 'Enterprise' which was also about a strange white floating creature that could travel through space, although that episode was a lot less interesting because it didn't have the personal drama and stakes this one did. It successfully tied in character history with a chance at redemption for two different people, navigating the waters of distrust from others and in oneself, but never preventing the Captain from showing what a great leader he is.
Another history was present in a different way as we hear of the USS Yorktown which the Enterprise is due to rendezvous with in order to pass on essential vaccines for a planet in needs - Yorktown was the original name Roddenberry planned to call the ship before settling on Enterprise (and even as late as 'Star Trek Beyond' it was referenced in that alternate universe when the large space station was also given that name in tribute to fifty years of Trek). It wouldn't be the last time we heard of the ship, either, as it was mentioned the Yorktown was incapacitated by the whale probe in 'Star Trek IV' - hang on, whale probe? Are we back in 'Moby Dick' territory again? While the episode is good at filling us in on some history it also works well with throwing in technology and reusing sets: we get a fancy anti-grav unit to carry an antimatter bomb with which the creature is eventually taken care of, Kirk and Garrovick seen to trundle it along from a handle on each side - I didn't realise we ever saw that kind of tech in 'TOS,' such units much more associated with 'TNG,' and I loved the design (it even says 'anti-grav' on its side so there can be no mistaking!). Then there's the use of shipboard visual communication as Kirk talks to Spock from the monitor in McCoy's office (and Scotty, also seemingly at his Bridge station, cuts in, though there's none of that rare split-screen seen later - I recall it happening in 'DS9,' and now of course 'DSC'). There also appeared to be some new background graphics added to the coloured block monitors around the Bridge, including such additions as engine schematics which I hadn't noticed before, adding colour both literally and technologically.
No mention of technology can pass without McCoy's hatred of Transporters and their unnatural scattering of a man's molecules across the galaxy, as he puts it, something I don't remember coming up often, but was a healthy part of his character, which is part of the lighthearted way the episode closes out - not with any particular joke, just a sense of comradeship, especially between Kirk and Garrovick, whom the former invites along to hear stories about his Father, ending things in upbeat style with a job well done. The young Garrovick wouldn't be seen again, so perhaps after his experiences here he requested a transfer - it was already going to be stressful dealing with the Captain as it was (he didn't expect special treatment, but neither did he expect as harsh a treatment as Kirk meted out early on!), and then to have to face such a draining test on your first mission must have been more of a challenge than even his eager desire to serve anticipated! Kirk, too, is really put through it, and I love that shot early on when this terrible memory is being dredged up by the clues and hints of the honey odour, and he sits in the Briefing Room as we hear his log, wondering why he's keeping the ship here and questioning himself - this self-doubt is a sign he hasn't lost his command ability. As well as that room we also see the Science Lab adjoined to McCoy's office again, and even better, a new cubbyhole in that office, further out from where the camera usually stands looking in, a more private area for Spock and McCoy to discuss their Captain.
On the first planet where they encounter the creature we see them collecting a sample of Tritanium which is apparently at least twenty times as hard as diamond - Spock has an interesting way of Phasering off the specimen: rather than slice a piece off an edge, he burns straight into it, so maybe the Phaser has a setting where it can burn a circle around a target without vaporising what's in the centre, a nice chunk certainly falls neatly to the ground! I didn't see the connection before, but this could be setting up how powerful a Phaser is so that we assume it would have devastated the creature, which we later learn is impervious, making it seem even more dangerous. I don't think we'd ever heard of 'Disruptor B' setting which Kirk instructs his men to switch their Phasers to, either before or since, so it appears even this late in the series they hadn't entirely settled on consistent terminology, or you could look at it as an expansion of what we know and this is a specific function that wasn't spoken onscreen at other times. Another detail like that is Kirk telling the Landing Party they're on Red Alert! I had no idea you could put a planetary team on that status - why were they not wearing little red lights with miniature klaxons? And as for him telling Scotty to lock onto them for a medical emergency, how do you lock onto two corpses - their Communicators?
There weren't many guest credits for this episode, but Rizzo (nothing to do with the rat from 'The Muppets'), was played by Jerry Ayres who'd previously played O'Herlihy in Season 1's 'Arena,' where he also died shortly into the episode! At least in this his character had a little more life afterwards as we hear that Garrovick was good friends with Rizzo and they'd been to the Academy together, making his moment of indecision more understandably guilt-stricken in the light of that. But it's really an episode for the main cast, specifically the big three where their friendship and command structure is tested in a different way by the protocols and adherence to regulation that makes Trek seem so real. Kirk must have really been affected as I thought I detected him sounding a little coldy sometimes, so perhaps the stress was taking its toll and he didn't feel able to go to the Doctor for relief, or didn't have time to spare on personal ailments, which makes him look even stronger. It could be questioned why more wasn't made of the decision to execute the creature, especially as it seemed to be sentient, but then it was also attributed as being malign and evil and could have spread that predatory horror outwards exponentially once it had successfully spawned, so it's hard to argue they had a humanitarian duty to it: sometimes a monster is just a monster and needs to be dealt with, and that includes personal ones like guilt and vengeance.
***
I probably should expound upon how this story is inspired by 'Moby Dick,' the classic book about Captain Ahab who thrusts his heart and soul into bringing vengeance upon the white whale (white whale, white smoke creature…), a theme more famously picked up in the films 'Star Trek II' and 'First Contact,' where they directly reference the book, (and previously in 'The Doomsday Machine'), but the most dramatic development of this episode for me is they killed Mr. Leslie! That unassuming background character who's so often to be spotted at a station on the Bridge is one of the security team who are preyed upon by the vampiric dikironium cloud creature (or the honey monster as I like to call it). He's summarily led to his red corpuscle-stealing death without any ceremony (unless you count the honour of his name being spoken by the Captain), as so many Redshirts have been before him, and he is gone… Except he'll pop up again when they forgot he'd been killed off, one of the most enjoyable gaffes of 'TOS,' though it can be explained away by speculating he was one of a set of brothers; twins, triplets or perhaps even more considering we see him in so many different places on the ship. Or perhaps he was a clone? Do we know the status of cloning at this time in Federation history?
Another character to be summarily sidelined in this episode, though not in his case, unto death, is Chekov whom I associate with Security, though I'm not sure why as he's usually most visible in the navigation department. There was a moment on the Bridge when both his and Sulu's stations (George Takei still absent), were manned by complete strangers, not even a Mr. Hadley as familiar stand-in (though he does take the post later in the episode, alongside Chekov as usual), while Chekov himself was at Spock's station. Where was Spock at that juncture? I can't remember, that may have been the time he went down to Ensign Garrovick's Quarters to set the young man's emotionally charged human mind at rest on the subject of his dereliction of duty, or whatever his hesitation was designated when he should have been firing at the honey monster. For Garrovick appears to be the lead Security Guard in this episode, a somewhat convenient situation considering it was his own Father, Captain Garrovick, and the young Kirk's commanding officer from the day he left the Academy, serving under him on his first deep space assignment eleven years previous on the USS Farragut when he first encountered this creature and behaved exactly as the young Garrovick did here: faltering, apparently causing the deaths of half the crew and his Captain, those two hundred lives on his conscience.
It's easy to see why he becomes obsessed with killing the creature here, to the point where Dr. McCoy and Spock come to his Quarters to 'go by the book' and respectfully demand an explanation for his actions in order to decide if he's fit to continue being in command. Earlier he'd flown off the handle and accused Scotty of conspiring, and it was only in the previous episode that Spock discusses with McCoy and Scotty whether they might be about to mount a mutiny, so it seems to be a common theme at the moment! Kirk hasn't lost all sense of perspective, however, unlike the raging Captain Ahab, and despite doubting himself in his logs, is rational enough about it all to be able to level with his First Officer and Ship's Physician. It's not like talking down a nutty artificial intelligence, he has to make a reasonable case, and he can, explaining the creature is a danger to the galaxy at large - it's capabilities are manyfold, we see it outrun a starship at Warp 8, travelling in and out of the atmosphere of planets, and even able to shift its form to be impervious to both Phaser fire and Photon Torpedoes! This is quite some opponent, and one that is also impervious to our Captain's usual resources of verbal sparring and physical combat. What else does he have as a weapon against it? His mind, a mind that is thrown into disarray by the horror of the past caused by the creature, so is Kirk vulnerable? Therein lies the drama.
That's one of the best things about the episode, that it's another attempt at filling in some of the blanks about a character, in this case Kirk, bringing new information about his past career in Starfleet that is a hugely satisfying addition to his growing background. It's sad that we didn't have so many details about the other crewmembers, only Spock able to rival the Captain for personal history. Here, Kirk's mental health is at issue, haunted as he is by those events so many years ago. It's entirely possible this isn't the same creature, though they do like to have monsters be the last of their kind, or an isolated incident, be that the salt vampire, the Horta or the Gorn. But we know, somehow because Kirk believes it to be the case, that the creature is about to spawn and that it will metamorphose into a multitude of death for the galaxy when it does. On top of this there's a ticking clock with vital medicines needed for another planet and all it required was for some undiplomatic diplomat to be on the ship warning Kirk that no matter what they only have 'x' time before they must resume their mission, for it to be a complete set of problems. That the questioning of Kirk comes from his friends and fellow officers makes it that much more personal, suiting the experiences he's going through, but while an outsider would have caused him more trouble, Spock and McCoy are there to support him once they understand his motivations and the danger posed by the creature.
A quest for redemption is one of the most attractive kinds of stories, and the poignant parallels with his own younger self mirrored in Ensign Garrovick are what make the episode more than mere action adventure: the stakes are higher than that, greater than a galactic terror because they're as intimate as our own inner thoughts. We feel bad for Garrovick as he's relieved of duty and confined to Quarters, this is his first encounter with a Captain who served under his Father and naturally he'd wish to prove himself worthy of both, so it's more affecting when he appears to have let them down so badly to the tune of two men's deaths. Will he in turn become a capable commanding officer aboard another ship in a decade's time, haunted by the creature once more? No, the cycle of defeat ends here with Kirk able to pull himself together, realising the truth that Phasers wouldn't have made any difference even if he and Garrovick had fired promptly and with deadly accuracy, so the vindication is clear and a new plan is formulated. Even then, Garrovick, young and inexperienced as he is, makes a grave error that could have jeopardised his Captain's plan: thinking Kirk is going to sacrifice himself to lure the creature to its end, he tries to knock him out, but fortunately Kirk is the superior fighter - just then, at a moment of greatest tension, when Kirk's concentration is all on this precise course of action, and assuming complete compliance from the man he'd handpicked to join him in this redemptive action, he's sucker-chopped, and a lesser man would have let all the pent up frustrations out on Garrovick, but he stays in control, even the physical attack of a subordinate not enough to sway him from the critical course!
This was another of those terrific moments in the episode, although I didn't see it that way until I was writing this review, because it really does show how strong a leader Kirk is. Sure, he does throw back some warning at Garrovick, but he also quickly assures him he has no intention of sacrificing himself and goes straight on with the plan. Another great moment is when he earlier went to Garrovick after the attack on Spock in Garrovick's Quarters and reassures him that there was nothing either of them could have done in their solitary confrontations with the creature on the planet, faith in the young man restored. That he shows this faith in the man as his chosen partner in the mission to kill the creature, only makes it sweeter. And this is after Garrovick almost caused the death of Spock, too! It was only his green, copper-based Vulcan blood that made him distasteful to the creature which hungers for iron-based blood, that saved his life (although I do wish he'd pulled the blanket off the bed to use as a block on the vent through which the creatures flows instead of using bare hands, though perhaps those thin, sparkly futuristic coverings aren't much use in that regard - actually, I don't think we've ever seen ventilation in any Quarters before, but it was necessary for the story so we can let it pass). I'm not sure it was that advisable to flush the system with radiation waste, but then the vents were supposed to be closed.
It was only Garrovick's fit of pique, flinging the lid off the coloured square food he'd been left and hitting the vent's switch that prevented it closing as it should have! Nurse Chapel was very kind to visit the young man in his turmoil under the guise of medical care, bringing him food, but not indulging in his well of pity (at least he didn't fling the soup through the doorway as Spock did in 'Amok Time'!), and it's implied they know each other reasonably well as he calls her Christine, so although he's been on the Enterprise a short enough time for Kirk not to know about him being there, it was also long enough to establish some kind of friendship with Chapel. She also has a great character moment when she uses psychology on him to get him to eat and so feel better, claiming the order from McCoy to eat is on this record tape, which we later find out is just some report she'd borrowed from the Doctor's office! Well done Chapel, we need more of these little scenes, both amusing, but also necessary and kind, as she is. It would have been improved the episode (any episode), to allow something like that for some of the other characters, too, Chekov, Scotty and Uhura reduced to professional roles only in this episode (we actually see Uhura writing with a stylus on the PADD she's got, taking Kirk's message down).
Spock performs admirably, informing both Jim and Garrovick on separate occasions that their guilt is unwarranted with the evidence they've found. He does it in that Vulcan way, that it is correct and so he must pass it on, but you know he cares about Kirk and he knows that Garrovick needs the knowledge to end his wallowing, so though he claims not to understand emotion, he has a detailed grasp of psychology and proves a good friend, too. I especially appreciated the deferential, respectful way he confronted his Captain over his behaviour. McCoy's usual irascibility comes out, but only because he has his duties to the crew as much as his loyalty to Jim and wants to see neither destroyed. He accuses him of being so obsessed that he could destroy himself (and he didn't even knock or buzz the door when he marches into the Captain's Quarters! At least Chapel had the grace to buzz first before bringing the tray of dinner in to Garrovick). McCoy is the one to bring up the parallel of young Kirk and Garrovick and a discussion about guilt ensues. In the personal and psychological department the episode excels, perhaps only slightly let down by the less realistic planetary environments we see.
So often this season they've made terrific planet sets, but the ones we see here, while functioning adequately, appeared very confined and almost claustrophobic. They obviously wouldn't have been able to film on location as indoor set conditions were required for a creature partially created from smoke - it would be no good if it was blowing all over the place, though a wider coverage wouldn't have gone amiss (think 'Catspaw'). When it shifts into a visual effect it was very reminiscent of the Companion in 'Metamorphosis,' so there was a slight sense of reusing old effects rather than creating something new, but I wouldn't say it hurt the episode as it's much less about the creature itself than the effect it has on those who encounter it. That it could travel in space at such speeds (it had travelled over one thousand lightyears from where the Farragut's encounter occurred), is easily explainable as being just part of its unknown alien nature, Spock tying the fantasy nicely to some scientific theory by suggesting it used gravitational fields for propulsion. The episode that came to mind was 'Vox Sola' from 'Enterprise' which was also about a strange white floating creature that could travel through space, although that episode was a lot less interesting because it didn't have the personal drama and stakes this one did. It successfully tied in character history with a chance at redemption for two different people, navigating the waters of distrust from others and in oneself, but never preventing the Captain from showing what a great leader he is.
Another history was present in a different way as we hear of the USS Yorktown which the Enterprise is due to rendezvous with in order to pass on essential vaccines for a planet in needs - Yorktown was the original name Roddenberry planned to call the ship before settling on Enterprise (and even as late as 'Star Trek Beyond' it was referenced in that alternate universe when the large space station was also given that name in tribute to fifty years of Trek). It wouldn't be the last time we heard of the ship, either, as it was mentioned the Yorktown was incapacitated by the whale probe in 'Star Trek IV' - hang on, whale probe? Are we back in 'Moby Dick' territory again? While the episode is good at filling us in on some history it also works well with throwing in technology and reusing sets: we get a fancy anti-grav unit to carry an antimatter bomb with which the creature is eventually taken care of, Kirk and Garrovick seen to trundle it along from a handle on each side - I didn't realise we ever saw that kind of tech in 'TOS,' such units much more associated with 'TNG,' and I loved the design (it even says 'anti-grav' on its side so there can be no mistaking!). Then there's the use of shipboard visual communication as Kirk talks to Spock from the monitor in McCoy's office (and Scotty, also seemingly at his Bridge station, cuts in, though there's none of that rare split-screen seen later - I recall it happening in 'DS9,' and now of course 'DSC'). There also appeared to be some new background graphics added to the coloured block monitors around the Bridge, including such additions as engine schematics which I hadn't noticed before, adding colour both literally and technologically.
No mention of technology can pass without McCoy's hatred of Transporters and their unnatural scattering of a man's molecules across the galaxy, as he puts it, something I don't remember coming up often, but was a healthy part of his character, which is part of the lighthearted way the episode closes out - not with any particular joke, just a sense of comradeship, especially between Kirk and Garrovick, whom the former invites along to hear stories about his Father, ending things in upbeat style with a job well done. The young Garrovick wouldn't be seen again, so perhaps after his experiences here he requested a transfer - it was already going to be stressful dealing with the Captain as it was (he didn't expect special treatment, but neither did he expect as harsh a treatment as Kirk meted out early on!), and then to have to face such a draining test on your first mission must have been more of a challenge than even his eager desire to serve anticipated! Kirk, too, is really put through it, and I love that shot early on when this terrible memory is being dredged up by the clues and hints of the honey odour, and he sits in the Briefing Room as we hear his log, wondering why he's keeping the ship here and questioning himself - this self-doubt is a sign he hasn't lost his command ability. As well as that room we also see the Science Lab adjoined to McCoy's office again, and even better, a new cubbyhole in that office, further out from where the camera usually stands looking in, a more private area for Spock and McCoy to discuss their Captain.
On the first planet where they encounter the creature we see them collecting a sample of Tritanium which is apparently at least twenty times as hard as diamond - Spock has an interesting way of Phasering off the specimen: rather than slice a piece off an edge, he burns straight into it, so maybe the Phaser has a setting where it can burn a circle around a target without vaporising what's in the centre, a nice chunk certainly falls neatly to the ground! I didn't see the connection before, but this could be setting up how powerful a Phaser is so that we assume it would have devastated the creature, which we later learn is impervious, making it seem even more dangerous. I don't think we'd ever heard of 'Disruptor B' setting which Kirk instructs his men to switch their Phasers to, either before or since, so it appears even this late in the series they hadn't entirely settled on consistent terminology, or you could look at it as an expansion of what we know and this is a specific function that wasn't spoken onscreen at other times. Another detail like that is Kirk telling the Landing Party they're on Red Alert! I had no idea you could put a planetary team on that status - why were they not wearing little red lights with miniature klaxons? And as for him telling Scotty to lock onto them for a medical emergency, how do you lock onto two corpses - their Communicators?
There weren't many guest credits for this episode, but Rizzo (nothing to do with the rat from 'The Muppets'), was played by Jerry Ayres who'd previously played O'Herlihy in Season 1's 'Arena,' where he also died shortly into the episode! At least in this his character had a little more life afterwards as we hear that Garrovick was good friends with Rizzo and they'd been to the Academy together, making his moment of indecision more understandably guilt-stricken in the light of that. But it's really an episode for the main cast, specifically the big three where their friendship and command structure is tested in a different way by the protocols and adherence to regulation that makes Trek seem so real. Kirk must have really been affected as I thought I detected him sounding a little coldy sometimes, so perhaps the stress was taking its toll and he didn't feel able to go to the Doctor for relief, or didn't have time to spare on personal ailments, which makes him look even stronger. It could be questioned why more wasn't made of the decision to execute the creature, especially as it seemed to be sentient, but then it was also attributed as being malign and evil and could have spread that predatory horror outwards exponentially once it had successfully spawned, so it's hard to argue they had a humanitarian duty to it: sometimes a monster is just a monster and needs to be dealt with, and that includes personal ones like guilt and vengeance.
***
First Strike
DVD, Stargate Atlantis S3 (First Strike)
Throughout, you're wondering what's going to go wrong, what cliffhanger ending are they going to leave us with this time, and it was a good one: floating in the middle of nowhere, the city of Atlantis has little power left before the shield will deactivate and all the atmosphere will flood out into space, killing them all! It was a much different episode than I expected, I thought it would have something to do with renegade Wraith Michael, as the previous episode seemed like setup. Or maybe it would be more Wraith coming for them, or both. But I never thought of the Replicators as the likely opposition after they were defeated earlier in the season. David Ogden Stiers even has a cameo as his Replicator character, Oberoth, whom we saw disintegrate previously. From his credit I assumed we'd see a lot more of him than just the misjudged attempt at diplomacy from the optimistic Dr. Weir - even in that petition for communication the Replicators use it as a chance to attack by sending a virus through, but I'm glad she tried, even if it was a fruitless effort. Things are further shaken up by the arrival of a new ship and a new commander, someone Weir doesn't have a rapport with. I suppose they had to bring the USS Apollo and Colonel Ellis in as Colonel Caldwell had become too cosy with our people and Weir knows how to deal with him. Ellis is even more down to business than most military commanders, so despite their differences it was gratifying to see he and Weir exchange respect at the end after all the spikiness.
Stargate Command has ordered a first strike (hey, that's where they got the title from!), on the Replicator's planet as the Daedalus apparently flies by there on every trip in order to keep tabs on any activity, and a good job they did, because it's been spotted that they're building a fleet of 'flesh and blood' (physical materials rather than Replicator tech), ships for a presumed attack on Earth. Best thing to do is blast 'em, though there are some slight qualms with Zelenka and McKay (as great as ever in their double act), considering sabotaging the efforts they've had to be involved in, ultimately deciding they don't want to be responsible for the Replicators turning up to take out the city. Turns out they did, sending a cunning weapon in the form of a Stargate embedded in a rudimentary satellite ship that can fire a sustained beam to attack the city, at the same time the beam itself powering the 'gate. I loved hearing about the lore with the reiteration of the Stargate's usual automatic shutoff after thirty-eight minutes, except in exceptional circumstances where enough power can keep it running indefinitely, which McKay reminds us was something the SGC faced in the past. Makes me want to go back and re-watch that series from the beginning (which I will once I've reviewed the spinoff films), and ties it comfortingly back into the 'Stargate' world again.
Not that it's comfortable for our characters who can do little but rely on the boffins for a plan to prevent Atlantis' destruction. The Apollo can't do much as it already sustained major shield damage on first activation of the 'gate weapon, so they come up with the plan to sink Atlantis beneath the waves as they've done before. The idea is that the water will dissipate some of the beam's power, thus buying more time to come up with a more permanent solution. My question would be what about the pressure of the water? If the shield is having to push back the deep pressure of all that volume of water wouldn't that put it under more strain? Maybe the shields can deal with water in their sleep since the city was designed for that, I think that would have to be the answer. The other question is why they couldn't just fly around underwater so that the weapon didn't know where they were. Granted, it's likely more manoeuvrable than them in comparison, from its much smaller size, but isn't there any underground caverns they could hide in? Maybe not for something so huge. I presume the Replicators could track the city otherwise how would they know where to fire, in which case didn't they detect the asteroid that was being pushed into place to block the beam? If they'd easily moved around it then that would have meant less drama as the plan wouldn't work so it just had to be that way. And I had in the back of my mind that Ellis could be a Replicator agent, along with his whole ship, but nothing that convoluted occurred.
The asteroid was a good idea, but I thought they were going to try and fling it at the satellite ship, building up momentum so the force was significant, but then its shield may well have simply shattered the asteroid on impact, so I can give them that. I loved how all the different parties were doing their bit to try and solve the situation, in contrast to the episode's beginning which featured examples of people trying to escape their responsibilities: Dr. Keller, Beckett's replacement, unhappy with the position she's been put in, having a crisis of confidence and needing reassurance it won't be for much longer (it never twigged that when Weir says she's happy to have her life in Keller's hands they were setting up exactly that for the end!), while both Rodney and Sheppard aren't taking their admin duties seriously. Though McKay may complain and constantly (delightfully), admit to not even knowing the underlings who work with or for him, he and Zelenka are still the brain-boxes that the city's survival relies on, and though they bicker, it's always a joy to see them work together. It's been a good season for McKay, but it's been a good season for most of the characters, the mix was right. Ronon has a wry observation that he needs to get into science since he has no help to give in situations like this, as if it was a comment by the writers that without physical goals the warrior characters are essentially useless.
For the most part, however, this has been a good season and certainly the best, not relying too much on the monsters of The Wraith, nor the recurring villainy of others, while still dealing with such things here and there. It's the writing for the characters as a team that has really worked well and I only hope that continues as the series boldly strode into its place as the only 'Stargate' series in production, as 'SG-1' had been concluded. One thing I can say for this episode in particular is that they excelled in their effects work: usually I don't care for what CGI shots look good, the drama and interplay between characters infinitely more important to a story, but the deployment of Horizon, the warhead delivery system, in the attack on the Replicator planet was terrific as we're given a lengthy view of its trajectory through the atmosphere culminating in the ignition of the warheads themselves, like something out of a good space film. The music, too, was noteworthy - I couldn't place what it reminded me of, but it was something good, I knew that. The effects had the power to play into the emotion of the moment, most keenly felt as the city submerges and Weir watches the wall of water pushed back by the shield slowly enveloping them. Most evocative. What was most important, though, was that they had a problem to solve, and like 'Star Trek,' they put their expertise together to do it, and that's what impresses me about, and draws me to, sci-fi.
When you add in the traditional civilian versus military angle which Weir experiences as she battles the authority of Colonel Ellis, the episode finishes out the season strongly. Things could have been more severe, as Sheppard's loyalty never really comes into conflict, and for it to be a truly great episode it needed that extra plunge into the depths of moral issues. That Weir actually considers resigning when all this is over shows how much of a toll constantly being second-guessed by the SGC and other organisations has taken on her own sense of purpose, but I loved that Teyla was there as the voice of reason so she didn't fly off on a tangent and fall into that rabbit hole - a scene where Teyla showed exactly the kind of unique capability she has, to be reasonable, not a quick-tempered reactor, something you wouldn't necessarily expect in a warrior woman, more like the qualities needed in a Jedi! Teyla, sadly, has been very underused this season, each part of her character cut off, whether that be the natives, the Athosians, who no longer reside on the planet, to her warrior status being taken by Ronon, and she's definitely been the one to suffer, so they showed they could still write her well. When Elizabeth's taken out in that shock, surgically precise explosion as a sliver of the beam just got through before the shield could reestablish, it was a tough moment. I didn't think they'd kill off another character so soon after Beckett's death, but you never know and it would be a real disappointment to lose any of the characters at this stage. I doubt she will die, but it was a well played scene and I can't wait to view the next season.
***
Throughout, you're wondering what's going to go wrong, what cliffhanger ending are they going to leave us with this time, and it was a good one: floating in the middle of nowhere, the city of Atlantis has little power left before the shield will deactivate and all the atmosphere will flood out into space, killing them all! It was a much different episode than I expected, I thought it would have something to do with renegade Wraith Michael, as the previous episode seemed like setup. Or maybe it would be more Wraith coming for them, or both. But I never thought of the Replicators as the likely opposition after they were defeated earlier in the season. David Ogden Stiers even has a cameo as his Replicator character, Oberoth, whom we saw disintegrate previously. From his credit I assumed we'd see a lot more of him than just the misjudged attempt at diplomacy from the optimistic Dr. Weir - even in that petition for communication the Replicators use it as a chance to attack by sending a virus through, but I'm glad she tried, even if it was a fruitless effort. Things are further shaken up by the arrival of a new ship and a new commander, someone Weir doesn't have a rapport with. I suppose they had to bring the USS Apollo and Colonel Ellis in as Colonel Caldwell had become too cosy with our people and Weir knows how to deal with him. Ellis is even more down to business than most military commanders, so despite their differences it was gratifying to see he and Weir exchange respect at the end after all the spikiness.
Stargate Command has ordered a first strike (hey, that's where they got the title from!), on the Replicator's planet as the Daedalus apparently flies by there on every trip in order to keep tabs on any activity, and a good job they did, because it's been spotted that they're building a fleet of 'flesh and blood' (physical materials rather than Replicator tech), ships for a presumed attack on Earth. Best thing to do is blast 'em, though there are some slight qualms with Zelenka and McKay (as great as ever in their double act), considering sabotaging the efforts they've had to be involved in, ultimately deciding they don't want to be responsible for the Replicators turning up to take out the city. Turns out they did, sending a cunning weapon in the form of a Stargate embedded in a rudimentary satellite ship that can fire a sustained beam to attack the city, at the same time the beam itself powering the 'gate. I loved hearing about the lore with the reiteration of the Stargate's usual automatic shutoff after thirty-eight minutes, except in exceptional circumstances where enough power can keep it running indefinitely, which McKay reminds us was something the SGC faced in the past. Makes me want to go back and re-watch that series from the beginning (which I will once I've reviewed the spinoff films), and ties it comfortingly back into the 'Stargate' world again.
Not that it's comfortable for our characters who can do little but rely on the boffins for a plan to prevent Atlantis' destruction. The Apollo can't do much as it already sustained major shield damage on first activation of the 'gate weapon, so they come up with the plan to sink Atlantis beneath the waves as they've done before. The idea is that the water will dissipate some of the beam's power, thus buying more time to come up with a more permanent solution. My question would be what about the pressure of the water? If the shield is having to push back the deep pressure of all that volume of water wouldn't that put it under more strain? Maybe the shields can deal with water in their sleep since the city was designed for that, I think that would have to be the answer. The other question is why they couldn't just fly around underwater so that the weapon didn't know where they were. Granted, it's likely more manoeuvrable than them in comparison, from its much smaller size, but isn't there any underground caverns they could hide in? Maybe not for something so huge. I presume the Replicators could track the city otherwise how would they know where to fire, in which case didn't they detect the asteroid that was being pushed into place to block the beam? If they'd easily moved around it then that would have meant less drama as the plan wouldn't work so it just had to be that way. And I had in the back of my mind that Ellis could be a Replicator agent, along with his whole ship, but nothing that convoluted occurred.
The asteroid was a good idea, but I thought they were going to try and fling it at the satellite ship, building up momentum so the force was significant, but then its shield may well have simply shattered the asteroid on impact, so I can give them that. I loved how all the different parties were doing their bit to try and solve the situation, in contrast to the episode's beginning which featured examples of people trying to escape their responsibilities: Dr. Keller, Beckett's replacement, unhappy with the position she's been put in, having a crisis of confidence and needing reassurance it won't be for much longer (it never twigged that when Weir says she's happy to have her life in Keller's hands they were setting up exactly that for the end!), while both Rodney and Sheppard aren't taking their admin duties seriously. Though McKay may complain and constantly (delightfully), admit to not even knowing the underlings who work with or for him, he and Zelenka are still the brain-boxes that the city's survival relies on, and though they bicker, it's always a joy to see them work together. It's been a good season for McKay, but it's been a good season for most of the characters, the mix was right. Ronon has a wry observation that he needs to get into science since he has no help to give in situations like this, as if it was a comment by the writers that without physical goals the warrior characters are essentially useless.
For the most part, however, this has been a good season and certainly the best, not relying too much on the monsters of The Wraith, nor the recurring villainy of others, while still dealing with such things here and there. It's the writing for the characters as a team that has really worked well and I only hope that continues as the series boldly strode into its place as the only 'Stargate' series in production, as 'SG-1' had been concluded. One thing I can say for this episode in particular is that they excelled in their effects work: usually I don't care for what CGI shots look good, the drama and interplay between characters infinitely more important to a story, but the deployment of Horizon, the warhead delivery system, in the attack on the Replicator planet was terrific as we're given a lengthy view of its trajectory through the atmosphere culminating in the ignition of the warheads themselves, like something out of a good space film. The music, too, was noteworthy - I couldn't place what it reminded me of, but it was something good, I knew that. The effects had the power to play into the emotion of the moment, most keenly felt as the city submerges and Weir watches the wall of water pushed back by the shield slowly enveloping them. Most evocative. What was most important, though, was that they had a problem to solve, and like 'Star Trek,' they put their expertise together to do it, and that's what impresses me about, and draws me to, sci-fi.
When you add in the traditional civilian versus military angle which Weir experiences as she battles the authority of Colonel Ellis, the episode finishes out the season strongly. Things could have been more severe, as Sheppard's loyalty never really comes into conflict, and for it to be a truly great episode it needed that extra plunge into the depths of moral issues. That Weir actually considers resigning when all this is over shows how much of a toll constantly being second-guessed by the SGC and other organisations has taken on her own sense of purpose, but I loved that Teyla was there as the voice of reason so she didn't fly off on a tangent and fall into that rabbit hole - a scene where Teyla showed exactly the kind of unique capability she has, to be reasonable, not a quick-tempered reactor, something you wouldn't necessarily expect in a warrior woman, more like the qualities needed in a Jedi! Teyla, sadly, has been very underused this season, each part of her character cut off, whether that be the natives, the Athosians, who no longer reside on the planet, to her warrior status being taken by Ronon, and she's definitely been the one to suffer, so they showed they could still write her well. When Elizabeth's taken out in that shock, surgically precise explosion as a sliver of the beam just got through before the shield could reestablish, it was a tough moment. I didn't think they'd kill off another character so soon after Beckett's death, but you never know and it would be a real disappointment to lose any of the characters at this stage. I doubt she will die, but it was a well played scene and I can't wait to view the next season.
***
Remembrance
DVD, Star Trek: Picard S1 (Remembrance)
Since 2002, when 'Star Trek Nemesis,' the final 'TNG' film in the series, marked the last foray into the 24th Century (the most explored era of Trek history), and perhaps even a year earlier when 'Voyager' ended in 2001, the last time a TV series had been set in that time, the faithful had been waiting and hoping for a continuation to the characters, political situations, planets, cultures and alliances of this uniquely developed world, with only the tantalising snack of a mind meld from an aged Mr. Spock in 'Star Trek XI' to revisit that time period. For the best part of two decades we had to put up with prequel series after prequel film after prequel series, reboots of characters and ships, and no sign of the pendulum swinging back towards the more nuanced evocation of Trek depicted in the 24th Century-set series', seemingly endless preference for a much simpler, action-based version that appealed to a generation brought up on live action comic book stories that harked back to the physical 1960s style of 'TOS,' though ramped up to a new level of effects-driven set-piece roller-coasters with little of the substance of even the grandparent series of it all. While the JJ Abrams film run choked and sputtered creatively and behind the scenes, at the same time raking in the cash and apparently ensuring Trek's future was to be in this new universe (dubbed the Kelvinverse to differentiate it from the established and rapidly diverging rich history that had been one of Trek's greatest appeals), it seemed that 'Star Trek,' as we knew it, was dead, Jim.
For me, this period post-'Enterprise,' the final series of the then-modern era, was the richest time of rediscovery - not that I'd ever grown tired of Trek, especially my favourite series', 'DS9' and 'Voyager,' but gradually I collected the entire set of Trek TV shows (and films), and steadily grew ever more knowledgeable in its world than I ever had been and appreciating its simplicity and complexity more and more, seeing it as a, regretfully, complete set of part works that had come together to form the most incredible range of stories and people. It had been a living, breathing universe that had continued expanding and growing, but now it was stopped dead, the 'Prime Universe' as it was labelled, before being consigned to a drawer in Starfleet's Quantum Archives, of no further significance in the plans of those who held the reins of power and wielded the creative decisions that could shape worlds. Hope was rekindled when 'Discovery' was announced and eventually confirmed as being set in that original universe thanks to the vagaries of rights and complicated legal issues born from the split in the property between Paramount and TV's CBS. I had no idea if I'd even get to see this new Trek series, billed as a premium streaming product to get audiences to invest in online viewing, something I had, and have, no interest in, preferring the personal control of physical media.
I was relieved and tentatively excited when the DVDs finally came out, but this quickly changed to discouragement, then to sadness as I saw a once great storytelling universe reduced to one in which the makers cared only selectively about which elements of Trek canon, continuity and consistency to enforce, and what modern attitudes to every aspect they brought, refusing to see the era they'd chosen (another prequel to 'TOS'), as period drama that should be respected as such, an opportunity to create more subtlety and depth for an era made in a less sophisticated time of TV creation, fifty-one years prior, but instead was more simplistic, more superficial, and more fantastical and ridiculous than ever before, as if they'd selected the worst episodes from Trek history and decided those were the tropes that should lead from the front. Season 2, while making course corrections, wasn't much better, just generally not very good in different ways to Season 1 (following the pattern set by the Kelvin films where they heard the criticisms of the first one, made some adjustments, but then made just as many wrong turns in the second! - funny how Alex Kurtzman has been instrumental in all three productions!), so the signs for this regime's control were not good, even for the great Captain Picard.
The return of Jean-Luc Picard was announced in the summer of 2018, months before release of the 'DSC' Season 1 DVD, so I had no frame of reference, other than noticing the worrying direction in the production photos of 'DSC' that showed they didn't care what the Starfleet uniforms looked like during this time period, or redesigning the look of the Klingons to make them more palatable to orc-loving 'Game of Thrones' viewers. Consequently, I was still somewhat caught up in a certain level of excitement that Trek would be returning to the era I love best and cautiously optimistic that Patrick Stewart agreeing to reprise his character must mean more than merely being offered a huge bag of cash. I hadn't forgotten his involvement in certain decisions dating back to even 'TNG' that weren't necessarily in the best interests of Trek and seemed more like an actor's growing influence coming to bear for his own benefit, as you'd expect: he wanted the repressed and intellectual Captain to have romance and get involved in more physical action, such as fistfights, and while this arguably gave the character another side, it also appeared to be moving Picard closer to the 'ideal' of Captain Kirk, despite the fact that he, too, was also a thinker at least as much as, and probably more than, an action hero. I wouldn't judge the attributes added to Picard as wrong, but there were signs in the film series that Stewart preferred a more action hero role that didn't necessarily sit as well with the image of such an impeccable leader as he'd been on the series.
Some of the additions he made, such as having the Captain and Worf sing Gilbert and Sullivan while attempting to capture a renegade Data, worked well, but others were purely there as enjoyment for the actor and didn't fit, a case in point being the Argo sequence in 'Nemesis' where instead of flying the shuttle to the correct spot, they break out a four-wheeled land vehicle for Picard to throw around at 'unsafe velocities.' My point is that Stewart's instincts don't particularly match his Trek era's style or come from logical sense. From these lessons I came to see Stewart's involvement in the decision-making process (he's credited as a Producer on this series, I believe), not as a guarantee of anything, especially when he made it clear that he didn't want to redo what had already been done with the character. And so we come to the crux: 'Picard' has been designed not to be 'TNG,' and it has succeeded in great measure. Something I hadn't entirely comprehended until I saw the series was that each new iteration of this current generation of Trek projects seems to be deliberately far from the Trek ethos and style as can be. This may be because they felt Trek no longer worked for younger viewers brought up with short attention spans and in need of pretty effects, and perhaps vainly attempted to reel in this fickle audience that have a multiplicity of choice, from just about every past TV show and film, to a vast array of new productions, to involving gaming worlds, and don't need to have any loyalty.
'DSC' was much, much more attuned to this young audience, deliberately provocative in its violence and gore, comfortable for them in its contemporary speech, but most importantly in its lack of discipline and desire for inclusivity more than a crew learning to fit in with each other and having to follow the rules and etiquette of an established organisation, rather everything was to bend to them. Its vision was split by multiple show-runners and even more multiple producers in both seasons, so 'Picard' is the first example made with a single vision, that of science fiction author Michael Chabon who'd been tested for the role with his 'Short Treks' episode 'Calypso.' That's not to say that he called the shots, he still had Kurtzman overseeing him and a room full of writers and producers, but so far this has been the closest to a consistent season as they've managed. But as I was saying, 'DSC' was designed to be very different to 'TOS' and its regimented style, it focused on a lesser and disgraced character rather than the Captain in order to set up an entirely different type of Trek series, and 'Picard,' too was designed with a completely atypical approach - yet again we don't get a standard view of Starfleet, a ship, a crew, led by the Captain, righting wrongs, treading the difficult moral paths of a political and culturally sensitive galaxy. And that approach, I hear, has continued with the cartoon series, 'Lower Decks' (a clean up ship that makes 'second contact' after the main starship has moved on to its next adventure), 'Section 31' (all about the awful and immoral clandestine anti-threat organisation, headed up by a mass murderer from the Mirror Universe), and 'Prodigy' (a gang of lawless teens).
Only the Pike's Enterprise series, 'Strange New Worlds' sounds like it's in the traditional mould, and that's a straight prequel (again!). All this is a roundabout way of saying that 'Picard' was, and is, the only series that looks like having the potential to fulfil what someone like myself has been wanting to see for almost twenty years: the continuation of the 24th Century. Of course no series could ride out the weight of two decades of expectation, and I wasn't expecting it to better what had been done in 'TDV' (as I'll abbreviate 'TNG,' 'DS9' and 'Voyager' from now on), nothing ever could - I watch those series' to this day, I don't see a time when I'd tire of them, they are quintessential Trek to me and I don't rate anything higher for entertainment and satisfaction value. At the same time, the current writers are standing on the considerably broad shoulders of giants and they have no excuse not to know the lore back to front if they're going to play in it, with untold resources of knowledge at their fingertips. And you expect them to know what they need to, but the reality is that too many people involved in Trek are simply people doing their day job, Trek isn't something they all specifically aspired towards and have been waiting for just this opportunity, for Trek to rise again. Some are, some have the credentials (Kirsten Beyer gets the most attention for her work continuing the 'Voyager' story in a series of novels), but like all creative endeavours they want to put their mark on it, they want it to be their thing, and that can cause conflict.
All that being said, I knew almost nothing about 'Picard,' wanting to be impressed with what they came up with. I hoped it would be true to what had gone before, but at the same time it had more free rein in which to experiment since it was set so many years after 'TDV.' Technology would have moved on, and that was one of the issues people had often cited with a series post 'Voyager.' When that ship returned home (in a whimper of glory), it brought with it specialist Borg tech from the future that had been appropriated by a future Janeway (let's not go into it here - you can see where some of the more fantastical elements of 'DSC' were given precedence), and then there was the EMH: a hologram that had gained sentience from long activation and experience, one of that series' most fascinating creations. He'd returned to the Alpha Quadrant with big ideas about the rights of holograms raising all kinds of issues, but we were denied exploration of such meaty topics because the series ended so abruptly in the final episode. These and more questions were what fuelled speculation about a post 'TDV' time. What is the situation between the Klingons and the Federation? (Note: the first time we see a normal Klingon since 'Enterprise' - Worf is in one of the publicity photos at the start of the FNN interview!). Are they still allies after the Dominion War? Were new missions raised to find a way to return to the Delta Quadrant? What happened to the ex-Maquis in Voyager's crew?
The only significant event we knew about before 'Picard' was the destruction of the Hobus star which took out Romulus (and presumably sister-planet Remus), but that was lore invented in the film series. Would they tie these things together? Yes, and that was the biggest draw: finding out what happened to the Romulans and the socio-political impact it had on the quadrant and the Federation. Will they be part of the Federation now? Would the Klingons and other races use their weakness to avenge themselves on past wrongs? There was, and is, so much potential and these were what gave me hope for a deeper experience than the shallow 'DSC' gave me. On the advice from my Manager at the time, a fellow Trekker, I made sure to watch 'Picard' in its entirety before casting judgement in reviews. I can see his point, as the serialised style isn't really designed to be analysed in parts, other than for speculative discussion of details and where it's going. These kinds of 'spoiler' mystery-led dramas aren't what I enjoy. I was never that keen on puzzles and working things out, my speculation is more about 'what does this mean for a culture?' or 'how will a character resolve this challenge?' and how it ties into morality and the known canon. I'd been strung along for two seasons of 'DSC' where you're supposed to accept whatever happens hoping it'll all make sense in the end, but when you reach that end you were supposed to have forgotten the details so the many plot points that didn't add up were swept away in an emotional, yet pretty senseless series of events, capped off by some small panacea like Burnham's speech about what Starfleet stands for, as if that makes up for all the inconsistency and character assassinations (see: Sarek), so this time I was resolved to experience the whole first, as so much more was at stake: if this Trek didn't work then I might as well pack up and ship off to another galaxy, taking my DVDs f old Trek with me!
I never warmed to serialisation in Trek. Two-parters were generally a good thing, and when 'DS9' originated multi-part stories I was all for it as a chance to expand the scope of a story. And in direct contravention of my statement, I loved the serial aspects of Trek, whether that be the ongoing Klingon opera of 'TNG,' the many threads weaving through 'DS9' and the occasional ongoing plots in 'Voyager.' The six-episode war arc on 'DS9' was terrific, but they were very clearly defined episodes. The nine-part finale was my first sense of not really liking that form as it seemed to tread water in a few episodes, and while the best parts stood out I found myself wishing they'd condensed certain plots. When it came to 'Enterprise' Season 3, the most serialised Trek before the current era, I felt it had a strong start, but didn't go into very interesting areas, and the standalone episodes that had only a tangential connection to the serial were often better. So I watched all of 'Picard' and took it in, the better to be able to voice my thoughts on each episode, but the same problems presented themselves as they had with 'DSC.' I will say that I find less to object to, comparatively, partly because it is so far into the future that it's hard to be upset about changes: time does change things, that's acceptable, unlike altering how things look and work in a previously established period as 'DSC' did so horribly. The characters were another matter, but since the series took its time introducing us to them over a span of episodes, I'll get to them in other reviews.
The best place to begin is at the beginning, and I was pleased by the opening as we hear the song 'Blue Skies' played out over a nebula in space, the very song which ended 24th Century continuity all those years ago at the end of 'Nemesis.' I hadn't expected to see the Enterprise-D, so that was a beautiful moment, despite being a ship that had already been resurrected before, both inside and out, in the terrific 'Enterprise' finale 'These Are The Voyages…' It's not a new effect to be able to zoom right into a room from the outside of the ship (most dramatically seen in reverse as the final shot of 'DS9' finale 'What You Leave Behind'), but I remember being very impressed when it was occasionally done in 'Voyager,' and they'd reached the CGI grunt to be able to achieve such visuals. I thought on first viewing that Ten Forward had been recreated via CGI rather than a real set, only because it looked so very white and unreal, but if you watch the DVD extras there are behind the scenes shots showing they did film on a set. Honestly I would have preferred to watch an entire episode (entire series!), of Picard and Data (complete with his film-era/ 'DS9' uniform, the best version ever created for Trek), just discussing life (and maybe death!), playing poker, sipping tea, all very civilised, and I have to say I agreed with Jean-Luc that his dream life was better than his real life! Data's face was slightly distracting, I don't know how much was makeup and how much computer de-ageing, but it was wonderful to have the pair of them like that together, though placing it right from the off, everything else was anticlimax.
It was almost worth watching the entire episode just for that and the subsequent appearance of Data later, this time painting (as he often did on the Enterprise-D), complete with his 'TNG'-era uniform and combadge, Picard going to him in his own Captain's uniform and the same combadge. Lovely! The attention to detail showed how accurately they could recreate a past era, throwing into sharp relief how poorly this was done with the period between 'The Cage' to 'TOS' portrayed in 'DSC,' and giving great hopes that this was to be a series worthy of the Trek name. But an episode can't live on dream sequences alone (despite the moment where Picard wakes up in his large house and sees Data in the distance, being the kind of uncertain reality I always loved in Trek), the general audience wouldn't watch it and it couldn't justify the vast budget ploughed into it. And that's where modern Trek's always likely to fall down, at least until viewers tire of the 'amazing' sights CGI can give us and realise that what matters is not how things look, but the substance underneath, not to say they're mutually exclusive, but effects and looks can disguise a multitude of sins. They, and the inserted action beats didn't disguise the poor pacing of the episode, for example.
I don't want to come down too hard on an effort to slow down Trek: this series is about an old man, he can't spring about yelling like the parody of Trek that 'DSC' and the Kelvin films gave us, in spite of the fact he very much is pulled into a sprint for one action sequence near the end, running up grey stairways then knocked off his feet several metres to fall on what looks like an ugly concrete car park, and somehow this, not just a fall, but a launch, doesn't kill the frail old guy! Time is taken to absorb his vineyard in Labarre, France. We get some beautiful dawn shots of the grounds, still and silent and this episode at least allows settings to breathe. It definitely succeeds in having a sense of place, even if there's no indication of why it looks nothing like the family vineyard we saw in 'Family,' no reference made to his deceased brother, Robert, nor his widow, Marie, so I can only speculate she followed her husband to the grave in the years after 'Generations' when he'd died in a fire - actually they had the perfect excuse there to explain the farmhouse had been partially rebuilt after the fire, or to see a small plot of land with headstones for Robert, Rene, and Marie. Just a little panning shot when we're exploring the ground would have been adequate reference to the Picard family past. I will say this about the season, it does continue a certain level of slow pace, but not much is developed from that, it's not like we get many meaty stage play scenes of moment between characters, and this makes the series feel padded out, like a film story dragged out to ten parts that could have played out across three hours, as if this streaming age is designed for one-watch wonders which you then move on from to the next new thing.
There are far too many extraneous scenes that don't move the story forward, or reiterate, like when Dahj is talking to her fake Mother on a 3D display (why did she want her to go to Picard - so they'd know her location? Was she supposed to do something to him? How did they know she'd go there and what difference does it make?). I do wonder how much could be cut out of the series, or this episode, and still have a story you can follow. I suspect quite a lot. It's as if the writers think that if 'DSC' is a 'speeding bullet,' as Kurtzman has described it, and this was designed to be more contemplative, they didn't realise it's not speed and action alone that make 'DSC' too fast, nor does having very little happen make it thoughtful, there's very little to chew on mentally in this or any episode. It's not just camera moves and flashiness of the effects, either, it's a combination, but more importantly it's the lack of real development and exploration - we heard in the 'TNG finale 'All Good Things…' that the real point of Trek is not the exploration of the galaxy, but that of ourselves, that was the poignant philosophy that finished out that version of Trek, and while they got some things right from that episode, the idea that we can discuss ideas and explore cultures seems to be quite far from the current vogue in Trek. It's good that we have Picard at the family vineyard, these things that were seen in his alternate future (which actually took place a few years prior to this series, amazingly!). I'd have loved him to wear the gruff white beard, even if it was just for one episode. We don't get Geordi La Forge visiting him, and his illness hasn't gripped hold as it had in that alternate future, but it will come into focus more in other episodes.
I don't see Picard as being the kind of man who would have a dog, especially a violent-looking breed as Number One is, but that comes under the same category as Burnham being the secret sister to Spock that had never been spoken of - we don't see every moment of every day, so who's to say she was never spoken of (yet still they felt the need to shroud her exit from the 23rd Century in secrecy!), and Picard could have changed his tastes in the twenty years since we last saw him. Maybe the loss of Livingston the fish (I assume, after the utter rubble made of the Enterprise in 'Generations,' though it was never mentioned), that showed his Ready Room to be a class above, meant he was put off having more, and life at the vineyard necessitated having a dog. In reality it's one of Stewart's own preferences, and I don't particularly begrudge him this, especially as the dog all but disappears shortly - you imagine his Romulan housekeepers would look after the mutt when he returned to space, but perhaps if it had worked out better it might have joined the quest, just as Captain Archer was famed for taking his dog along, except that the production reality, according to comments from the writers, was that it wasn't very good at following direction so wasn't used as much after episode one. Number One was of course a reference to his own Will Riker, the loyal First Officer whom had served under him on both Enterprises -D and -E.
Other changes to Picard are that he's reverted, as would be only natural if you were back on the family estate in France, of speaking French (complete with subtitles for viewers - also used for a spot of Romulan, which was new, although they switch to English during Dahj's interrogation, but what about the Universal Translator?), on occasion, something he hadn't done since perhaps Season 1 of 'TNG,' and was certainly a rarity, as his Gallic heritage was largely overlooked, to the extent that a casual viewer would assume he was as English as the actor that played him! His familiar drink of choice has become 'Tea, Earl Grey, decaf,' as I suppose a sort of joke on his age and being more careful with caffeine, or perhaps he doesn't sleep well with it in his system - not that this really makes any sense, since if a Replicator (yes, we have Replicators, as we should for this era, it's normal and right!), can create Synthehol, alcoholic beverages without the negative side effects, then it should be an easy matter to create tea without caffeine, but it's one of those things that probably hadn't been thought of and was there for people that knew the phrase ("Tea. Earl Grey. Hot."), and would find the alteration amusing. I don't mind, it's not important. Just as the use of automated anti-grav drone sprayers which fly over the crop, were one of those things I noticed in the trailer and instantly recoiled, since Picard would do things the traditional way, not using modern methods, but again, perhaps there's it was of necessity, or maybe his overbearing housekeeper, Loris, persuaded him.
The fact he lives with a couple of Romulans in his house, as if this shows what he means to that race, set up something that never came. I thought we'd hear how they became attached to him (maybe we do, but wasn't it something daft like they were special agents or something?), that they'd been drawn to him after his work in trying to relocate their kind and wanted to serve him, but all we hear (from Joban), is they came to find safety. Loris was one of the only things I specifically didn't like about this first episode, which was fairly acceptable to me on the whole. I didn't like the impression Picard isn't given the respect he's due for such a venerable and legendary character. It's part of that pomposity-bursting humour that is especially prevalent today, where very little can be taken seriously and authority isn't very clear or respected. I understand that it's like a continuation from the banter between the 'TNG' crew we saw in the films, but because we don't know these people it's uncomfortable to watch, as is Picard as this slightly crotchety old man whose rich, fruity voice has been reduced to a scratched hoarseness, wounded by time, which only makes him seem even more powerless and vulnerable, hard to accept for such a strong character, though it's his treatment as a relic of an old way of thinking in later episodes that rankles far more. There's no way around it, Picard is a sad old man, he's lost faith and hope in the organisation in which he served for so many years, he's lost his android best friend in a senseless film, and he seems far from the others of his crew he was so close to, Beverly Crusher not even deemed worthy of a mention all season!
Depression and misery are sadly the hallmarks of current Trek, with little of the optimism and hopefulness that made it what it was, such a powerful force. We see it in 'DSC,' though it's a little easier to accept there because we did see humans who were a little less developed in 'TOS,' but by the time of 'TDV,' Earth had become a paradise without problems, humanity was doing well and setting the galaxy to rights, and Picard was a leading figure in all that. Now he's weak, he believes he's wasted his last few years and he's clearly unhappy with life. That's not a good message. You can say that the series is all about him finding a place again, but I didn't get that at all. I feel like he should be content, with all the memories to look back on and his friends around him, a pleasant end to a well-lived life. Instead he's in turmoil, grumpy, unsettled. Captain Kirk said he should never leave the Bridge of the Enterprise, but did he listen to that advice? We get little nuggets of his history post-'Nemesis,' such as speaking and lecturing (which is how he thought Dahj may have known him, so he must have been doing that recently as she's quite young), as well as writing history books in continuation of his love of archeology, though he's dissatisfied with this career. He clearly sees the importance of history, though may be discouraged by younger generations' disinterest - he accuses the FNN interviewer of being a stranger to history and war, and from the way she talks he's probably right. The fact they go to the trouble of showing her having fussy holo-makeup applied only exacerbates that impression of vain ignorance, though it may be unintentional, in their attempt for further concessions to feminine interests whom Trek seems so desperate to appeal to in girly ways now with such irrelevant details.
The key events are also sketched out: we know he left the Enterprise (presumably the 'E'), in 2384, five years after 'Nemesis,' in which Data died. It was known as early as this that the Hobus star (sadly not called by name), was to go supernova, which happened in 2387. He convinced Starfleet to agree to a mass relocation of the Romulans, though we don't get as much detail as might have been expected since 'Nemesis' was all about potential peace with the Federation's archenemy, especially after the alliance during the Dominion War. Again, this history isn't referenced, but we hear he left the Enterprise to command the rescue armada of ten thousand warp capable ferries for the nine hundred million evacuees. How did this all play out, especially considering Romulans are very untrusting in nature? Did Spock play a part, as we know he was supposed to from 'Star Trek XI,' and how did reunification with the Vulcans play into this? The trouble is we're given all this in an info-dump in the form of a Federation News Network interview (the first Picard has ever agreed to), which was far too contemporary and felt more like 'Babylon 5' where they often played with that. We know there was a Federation News Service in the late 24th Century since Jake Sisko was a correspondent for them during the war (I do wish he'd been the interviewer instead of that forthright woman, though perhaps it would have been harder to push Picard), but they operate like a modern day film crew and Trek wisely stayed away from such mundane details before because you're only going to come up with typical stuff that's been done so many times in sci-fi before and that isn't Trek's style.
It wasn't a terrible way to get the information across, we get the main details that Picard was an ardent supporter, comparing it to the evacuation of Dunkirk (perhaps because it was in the public consciousness more due to the Christopher Nolan film of recent years), and that although the Federation was initially supportive of the rescue effort they changed their mind because… Okay, now this is where things became a bit muddy for me. We hear of an attack on the Mars Utopia Planitia Shipyards, a place known long in the Trekker consciousness for its importance in the genesis of many starships (for example, Sisko worked there before being assigned to DS9, helping to design the USS Defiant), and a specific location we'd heard of many times. It seems androids, or synthetic lifeforms as they call them, were behind the attack which led to a ban on their creation. Not sure why they'd be banned for the actions of a few, especially if they're only tools, but that actually does raise the question of whether they're sentient or were being used. I should know this after seeing the whole season, but I could not remember if we ever learned what this attack was all about and why these synths did it! Even more bizarrely, this is what led to the Federation no longer helping the Romulans? Why, what possible bearing does one event have on the other? Are they saying a terrorist attack changed their minds to become isolationist? I can't buy that of Starfleet, it doesn't make any sense - it's not as if there were never any significant events or attacks in the past! The 'recent' war of the 2370s was a pretty big deal!
We learn Picard resigned from Starfleet in disgust because 'it was no longer Starfleet,' and this again strikes me as ridiculous. Picard isn't the only one that was a 'good guy,' what happened to the rest of the vast majority of our Starfleet heroes? How far away this is from the utopian world we're supposed to believe in! It's not the first time Starfleet or the Federation did something wrong or our heroes had to go up against authority, and I suppose the message is that you can't let your guard down, paradise isn't guaranteed, you have to keep working at it and informing, and educating, and striving to keep things on the morally correct path, but this was all rather too much for me. In times like 'Insurrection' Picard turned from his duty because he saw it was wrong, but it was all a plot from an outside race with malicious motivation and a misguided Admiral that took things to that point, but the whole of Starfleet changing its mind? This is where it lost me a little and I never really came back because the series showed its credentials as wanting to pull apart the cracks of the positive future we'd seen for so many years, for the sake of trying to create drama, when there's so much drama inherent there in how Starfleet operates with other, less moral races. Picard never explains in detail because he's disgusted with the unpleasant interviewer who seems to want to do a hatchet job, highlighting his support of synths (it's almost like he's become the poster boy for unpopular groups, both Romulans and synths), because of his association with Data, so no wonder Picard's unhappy as the world he knew has been replaced by these new and un-Federation-like attitudes.
Adding to this sense of unease about the direction of this possibly dystopian vision for Trek, aligning it with most other sci-fi, are the clear influences of other sci-fi. I felt 'X-Men' was the template for Dahj Asher, this girl who's tracked down by Romulan agents wearing cumbersome biker outfits and helmets more in keeping with 'Star Trek XI' and the skydiving suits, and really just there as an excuse for some Action. She suddenly learns she isn't a normal girl with a bright future, but some kind of 'mutant' with special powers, and gets a vision of Picard, looking just like Professor X, whom she must run to for refuge. But the biggest influence must be 'Star Wars,' in keeping with the new fantasy-led Trek of the Kurtzman era where technology is magic and can do anything the story wants it to, practically without limit. She shows up at the ranch, sorry vineyard, a mysterious stranger in a hooded cloak, claiming special powers. That's the first sign of 'Star Wars,' although we'd already had several jumps to various places with the Kelvinverse style of location titles to let us know where we are rather than giving it to us in dialogue as Trek used to do, planet-hopping being a key ingredient in the 'Wars' takes of galactic adventure. The Quantum Archives look right out of 'Wars,' like that library Obi-Wan visited in Episode II, and finally the biggest, most 'Wars' moment is during the attack on the concrete car park where Dahj makes a giant leap for synth-kind that would have done a Jedi proud. And it looks about as realistic as something from the prequels, too!
There's even a 'Battlestar Galactica' suggestion when Picard visits the Daystrom Institute (another important piece of Trek lore, though this is the first time it's ever been seen, shown to be situated in Okinawa, Japan), and encounters Tilly, sorry Agnes Jurati, assistant to Bruce Maddox, a cybernetics expert going back to 'TNG' days, to make enquiries about the possibility of creating lifelike, biological synthetics that are human both outside and in. He does take rather a leap to believe Dahj must be an android, just because she tells him what she did and he finds a painting with her face on it, it's sketchy evidence to hang a theory on! While it was pleasing to finally get to see the Daystrom Institute after so many references across so many series' (in spite of the fact that Richard Daystrom was a nutter!), it doesn't have quite the same impact now we know we won't see locations as they were shown before, whether that be the vineyard or Starfleet Command in San Francisco - it looks similar from the air, with the familiar Golden Gate Bridge (now with ugly and ill-advised solar panels all over it, as if the technology hadn't been superceded in three hundred years!), although it's a little easier to accept given this is two decades removed from 'TDV,' obviously I'd like them to use the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant as the Academy if they go there, since it was so iconic.
Jurati does come across as this series' Tilly, that annoying crewmember full of irrepressible 'character' and inappropriate reactions in order to make her 'funny.' In fairness she's not nearly as awful as Sylvia (why does no one ever call her by her first name?), but I cringed when she bursts out laughing at Picard's enquiry, yet another example of a lack of dignity and respect given to the character and a typically raucous reaction rather than the subdued, more realistic one you'd expect in 'TDV,' though I suppose such things are nitpicking, I can't help totting up such divergences as the weight of them all collectively is what burdens me when viewing. Loris is another one that made me grit my teeth, not just the attitude, but that she's a Romulan with an Irish accent. An Irish accent? I like the simplicity of the races in Trek through which they could weave such intelligent stories, simple pieces that could be taken up and used, occasionally in atypical ways to show the difference to the norm (such as the mass murdering Vulcan in 'DS9'), but you need that norm to be well established and accents are something else that really irritates with this series as they strive for a non-American-centralised worldview for the purpose of worldwide mass appeal. In the interests of diversity they change the norms and it's jarring, it doesn't fit with the enjoyment of Trek as a cohesive world. If she'd been human it wouldn't have mattered (she looked pretty human, but more on the Romulan foreheads next time…), but there was worse to come.
I did like the cameo for B4, the Soong vessel into which Data's neural net was backed up so as to fix the inferior model, but which was really only a method of potentially bringing Data back from the dead in case they did a fifth feature film. At the time it seemed a real copout, as if it was easy to find another Soong android, he must have made a number of them, but in later viewings I got used to it and it wasn't the worst indignity of that film, plus the sequel was never produced so it was somewhat sad to know we'd not find out what happened in that regard. Until now! But it didn't end well, B4 failed, he was a less sophisticated version made be-fore Data (see?), so it's not that astonishing a revelation. It's right that they tied into 'Nemesis,' and they were brave to, because it is considered the worst of the films (until you get to 'Into Darkness' and suddenly you notice how much Trekkiness is in there in comparison!), and why would you want to connect your new prestige series to a box-office bomb? The only reason to do so is because 'Picard' rests on the character's friendship with Data and the impact his Second Officer's sacrifice had on him, something I applaud the series for as it would have been easier to consign 'Nemesis' to history with only the briefest of acknowledgements. Perhaps that's where Picard's guilt comes from that he's wasted the life since, bought at the cost of his best friend, doing nothing worthwhile for years, waiting to die, nursing his own offended dignity (not that it sounds like the great man we knew - he's really been brought low).
At least I understood better on this viewing where the last remaining floating ether of Data's remaining consciousness came from because that never seemed to make much sense given events to come in the final episode: B4 held some of Data's neurons and when he no longer functioned Maddox used these to create Dahj and Soji, and presumably that entire colony of androids (a term I prefer to 'synths' since that's what they used to be called). Yes, I still don't think it made sense that Data existed wholly in them so that he could actually communicate with his former Captain, but it was nice to see him again all the same. I just wish Data had been in it more - much like 'DSC' Season 1 where you get some flashbacks to Burnham's childhood and young adulthood early on, but it didn't continue through the season, I was expecting and hoping for regular dream meetings between Picard and Data, but it was not to be. I suspect one reason they offed B4 (he's only seen as parts - and the head STILL doesn't look as real as Brent Spiner's actual head, even with today's technology!), was so that Spiner couldn't come back as an android, a way of cutting off that avenue as he'd already said at the time of 'Nemesis' that he was getting too old to keep playing an ageless android (forgetting the introduction of an ageing program into Data's life in 'TNG' Season 7 - always forgotten, that is!), and now it was a further twenty years later! It's a real shame, because Data's calm, quiet persona is something modern Trek could really do with and they did fine with the look, which wasn't perfect but you don't expect it to look exactly as he was all that time ago - I can suspend my disbelief for the sake of a great actor returning to a great character again.
It's harder to suspend disbelief over Dr. Soong being the only person who could ever create a sentient android like Data since we'd seen other examples before on 'TOS,' and if B4 was able to be taken apart, which was what Maddox had wanted to do to Data, and which 'The Measure of A Man' was all about, then he must have found a way. Ah, but then he did and kept it all to himself, disappearing after the ban on synths when the Federation's Division of Advanced Synthetic Research was turned into an obsolete nothing, not allowed to make anything physical, surviving only on simulation and computer models. The androids he created were the ones who attacked Utopia Planitia, but I have no idea why, and that sequence is a whole other issue which I'll address when we get there. But no one was ever able to redevelop the science for a Data, and Jurati thinks it would take a thousand years to create a sentient android of flesh and blood. Not sure why, since the flesh and blood part seems as difficult, and here comes another issue - holograms can exist and they have the potential to become sentient so how are they allowed and not abandoned in the anti-synth legislation? We see an example of one at the Quantum Archives, she doesn't even have a name, designated 'Index,' which doesn't strike me as in line with what happened on 'Voyager' - surely the Doctor's return would have changed attitudes to holographic life? Or are they more careful to put safeguards in place to avoid dawning sentience? Index is perhaps deliberately made to be obviously artificial with an alien manner and affected voice, but after the distrust of synths it doesn't make sense…
I also don't understand the significance of creating twinned androids as Maddox did - there's some technobabble (and I do appreciate a hardcore return to the proper stuff, all positronic this, and fractal neuronic cloning that!), which explains the symbol of two interlocking circles Dahj and sister Soji wear, but in terms of the significance other than to set up more than one version of a synth character? No idea. Technobabble isn't the only aspect to make a comeback and make me feel a little more at home here than in 'DSC,' though sometimes it can seem a little excessive. The guilty part is when Picard visits the Archives (presumably just outside Starfleet Command?), and we see numerous artefacts of his past, ranging from models of old ships such as the Enterprise-E, Stargazer and even the Captain's Yacht from 'Insurrection' (a beautiful creation). I suppose he had the Klingon Bat'leth and D'k tahg because of his association with the Empire from his time as Arbiter of Succession, but I was just overjoyed to see a proper Bat'leth instead of the incredibly ugly and impractical redesign for 'DSC,' which just didn't work at all. Weirdly, he'd kept the Captain Picard Day banner from that episode, but why not? Maybe it meant more to him than we knew at the time. It was like Captain Lorca's mysterious stash, I just wanted to stay there and poke around. Is this archiving done with Transporter beams, locking things away as energy, just as Scotty was for all those decades? It was also nice to have LCARS back as the operating system (on an actual screen instead of the ephemeral holo-screens they seem to use all the time now!), if an updated version, which you'd expect. I even loved seeing a medical device 'sew' up Dahj's forehead wound: traditional Trek right there on screen. Gimme more!
It was also good to see something of the current day Starfleet uniforms (we'd be treated to another variation from fifteen years prior in further episodes), though you have to scour the background around Starfleet HQ to see them. They'd returned to a coloured shoulder style as popularised from early seasons of 'DS9' onward, most notably in 'Voyager.' Something tells me that this was all part of the effort to ingratiate the 'Voyager' fans since in market research it was shown a few years ago that many of the most viewed episodes on Netflix across all Trek were from that series! Is it a coincidence that they almost recreated the uniforms, not to mention bringing back characters and props? No, I'm sure it isn't, but I don't mind because I love that series. However, my personal preference was for them to continue with the more textured design direction of the 'TNG' film era and latter 'DS9' style, rather than a flat colour, or even recreate the future uniforms seen in several episodes, including 'All Good Things…' even though it's no violation because it was an unknown future and one of several years prior. Still, compared with the ugliness and out of canon versions worn in 'DSC' it's practically perfect! Full black with just colour at the top works well and they didn't reinvent the wheel. Trouble is, it is just one more thing that makes me wish they were doing a traditional Trek series. By all means bring Picard back, of course he'd be a bit old to command a starship, but I think many assumed he'd follow the alternate history and be an Ambassador, perhaps with a position on the Bridge of a starship.
I want Starfleet to be the good guys, I want to see some existing cultures further explored, I want to know the history of the last twenty years that I've missed, which was denied us because of the vagaries of TV and film. Unlike the 'TOS' cast we didn't get to see the other casts age through as many years, and that's sad. It also makes this Picard much more jarring, even with having seen and heard him doing promotion before ever setting eyes on the series. They went a different direction, one outside the purview of Starfleet, one in which they could have troubled, broken characters for apparently no reason other than they'd be more identifiable to general audiences than pristine, spick and span heroes. That wasn't an issue at this stage, one reason I didn't have too many problems with this episode. My negative thoughts were more towards the inconsequential nature of much of it. Like the way they quickly introduce Dahj with her Xahean boyfriend (didn't notice his race on first viewing and only caught it this time thanks to commentary from the DVD, though it is spoken in dialogue), in 'Greater Boston,' a race previously portrayed by a character on 'Short Treks' and 'DSC' who was even more annoying than Tilly, and an entirely forgettable alien design (design was also an issue for the only Tellarite we've ever seen in the 24th Century - I didn't even realise a member of the film crew was one until I saw the credit at the end and looked back to see him, though it was fun to 'spot' a Trill among them!). It's painful to watch the scenes of the pair of them, talking in their contemporary way to appeal to the 'yoof' (yes, she really did say 'dude'!).
As is the action. We can't just have a 'contemplative' series of an old man and his old associates, can we? The audience would be utterly bored, right? So they inject some action of Romulans… doing something. I don't know what their goal was, they ultimately destroy Dahj with acid in the second attack, but they also use (and leave!), a knife in the first, with which they could be identified (maybe that was a clue that someone in Security was in league?). Why not just beam her up, or send a bomb in, or… well, it doesn't matter because it's not designed for story needs, it's designed for the perceived short attention span audience, but if they gave us something to get our minds into then that would suffice! To be fair, the action is far less intrusive than on 'DSC,' it's just the story is as bland and unrewarding. We have seen Data's superior android strength and speed on many occasions, notably in a fight with brother Lore in the Cargo Bay, so why not utilise modern production methods to show just what an android can do (was the super-hearing, allowing her to pick out conversations a block away, also due to being 'activated' by the Romulans?), it's not like it took over the episode. I'm not against action, either, I just want depth to story and character. But that's not the way of Trek any more and never will be again (although, there is an episode this season…). I also disliked seeing a Paris that apparently still has dark alleyways, roadsigns and road markings centuries old! Wiser to show as little of Earth as possible, but that's not the attitude of today. I'm assuming that was Paris - it's possible the Eiffel Tower had been moved, or was a copy, or even a hologram, who knows? But for me, those dingy streets were the first sign of the loss of utopia in the episode.
Another issue with serious ramifications is the creepy tracking of Picard. Dahj apparently hacked into the system to be able to - he says it would've required a security clearance she doesn't have, so at least it's put in the context that it's not something anyone can do, but the freedom to exist without being watched has, generally at least, been implied in the manner in which Trek was made in the past. So many episodes of Trek could have been solved if they'd had surveillance cameras covering every room of a starship or planet, but while the computer can track combadges and sensors can detect life signs, you don't get people being watched and recorded. And that's because those writers wrote in a world in which privacy and freedom hadn't been sacrificed on the altar of security, the steps toward a totalitarian regime that we seem to be continually staggering towards! It's one of those fascinating conventions that isn't spelt out in Trek, but was just an assumed norm most of the time. There were rare occasions when there was evidence of surveillance, such as in 'Court Martial' when footage is shown from what happened on the Bridge, but it implies special use and only in key areas. If we now believe it's good to have no privacy and feel a false sense of security from ceaseless observation by authorities, this is a big change in attitude - yet so many feel happy to be tracked by their constant companion, a mobile phone, or share their lives in minute detail on social media to the extent that they don't feel the need for privacy, and that's creepy.
You have to know Trek very well to notice the unspoken rules and ways of doing things, but if you watch it enough you become fluent in it, like a visual language. Unfortunately, it's apparent that the makers of Trek post-'Enterprise' are not, and this is probably a large cause of the feeling of disconnect a keen viewer like myself feels when watching the modern films and TV - I'm not getting that instant connection, that feeling of belonging, a consistent world that, effectively, I've studied for years and know every nuance of, welcoming the familiarity of style and content. In that sense it would be impossible for me to like any new Trek because throwing in references to the past, as fun as that is, can't disguise the discontinuity of tone. And this is before we even come to issues like excessive nastiness and foul language. But we'll get to that. These reviews, I suppose, have become a form of expression to get out those niggles and discomforts I feel when watching. Here's another one: I don't like seeing umbrellas in Trek. I know, I know, it's silly, and it's not like we never do (there's that episode of 'Enterprise' where Archer dreams of a funeral, but it was only a dream), but it's one of those dramatic devices film and TV loves for enhancing the visual mood - there's nothing like rain and the slick sheen it leaves, to evoke misery and hopelessness! But while that works for 'The Matrix,' 'Blade Runner' or the many other dystopias, it just doesn't fit with Trek's sunny, positive outlook. Nor logically, since they have the ability to control planetary weather at this time.
Another niggle would be the mention of the police, after Picard has been brought back to his exquisite study (now I recognise the couch where the last remnant of Data dies in the quantum simulation, or whatever it was), and he talks with the housekeepers. Why would such a world as Earth has been described need police? It just doesn't work, and makes me wonder if the writers were thinking of that scene in 'Star Trek XI' when Kirk as a young tearaway terror is stopped by a robot policeman on a hover bike (ugh!), none of which fits in with Trek at all (more 'Star Wars'). And what was the Romulan plan, anyway? I've seen the whole season and I still don't get it. I know it's something to do with a Romulan secret cult, more secret even than the Tal Shiar, but none of it was memorable in the story sense. And while I'm in complaining mode I have to ask: why do we still not get an episode title on screen, what is this aversion to Trek conventions? Not that it really matters, it's just another of those minor irritations that are eclipsed by the disquiet greater whole. I actually wasn't looking forward to watching 'Picard' again knowing that, similar to 'DSC,' I don't really like it. There were a couple of episodes that stood out, for the most part, but that still leaves the majority which is almost a chore to approach. It's sad, and I wanted so much to get something out of it, but the more I see of this generation's attitude to Trek, the more unhappy with it I become. It's hard to think this, but it actually crossed my mind that in the very near future I may have to stop watching new Trek!
This isn't something I say lightly, I've been a viewer for almost thirty years, a devotee for a little under, but a dedicated one, and I'm actually considering giving it up, relinquishing it as something I get nothing from. Now I probably won't do that, at least not while DVDs continue to be released, because I'm sure eventually physical media will end completely on the grounds that they take up the planet's resources or some such ridiculous argument (might as well give up entertainment itself, that would help the environment! Not willing? I'm not surprised), so as much as it's hard to watch, I'm still grateful I have the opportunity to see it and comment. But I'm in the strangest position that I can imagine, not being interested in something that expands the Trek universe, and not being sad to think I'd miss part of it, either by coming to the end of life or being excluded by technology. It could always improve, it's possible, though unlikely. I can say I dislike 'Picard' less than 'DSC,' so that's something, but it's not by much and I continue to plug away at each new release, like a chore that must be endured, and that's no way to watch entertainment. It's not even just because it's 'modern,' I've enjoyed most of 'Cobra Kai,' another contemporary series based on an old property, but one that injects positivity and some good writing into its core. If only Trek was doing that.
The theme tune has a thoughtful, promising sound to it that evokes the kind of series I'd like 'Picard' to be, but just as they couldn't come up with a more inventive title than to name it after the man character, there isn't the reassuring nature of that world that is hinted at in the music. I did notice both Alexander Courage's 'Star Trek' theme, and Jerry Goldsmith's 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture' theme are credited at the end, so I don't know if they were in the episode proper or it was referring to bits used in the main titles. It's nice to see the names of such greats in the current credits, though it also makes me sad to think of all those people who were so successful at making Trek for so many years, but aren't involved now. And I don't wish to end on a negative note so I should point out some parts of this first episode that I did like, beyond what I've already commented on: dating it firmly to 2399 (weird we don't get a date on screen since we get almost every place named!), worked out by the reference to Data's 'Daughter' painting, said to be created in 2369, thirty years ago, although, oddly, this was after his experiment to create an actual daughter, Lal, in 2366, which suggests he still wanted one even after the tragic experiences of 'The Offspring.' It was also creepy that Index knew Picard kept the other painting in the set in his study, unless it got this information from somehow seeing the interview he gave to FNN…
It's also true to say the Borg Cube (the external view, anyway), was terrific, and a great way to end the episode by pulling out until you see the vast whole (was it a Tactical Cube? There was something of that about it, maybe just its newness). It would have had more of an impact if it hadn't been shown in the trailer, but even so, it ended the episode well, even if Romulan spy, Narek, was hard to take with his mop of boy band hair and un-Romulan demeanour. When he told Soji Asher he'd had a brother that was lost, was that true, or just a ploy for her to feel sorry for him? If he did have a brother I wouldn't be surprised if his twisted sister offed him, but she hasn't appeared yet so I'll hold fire on that subject for now. As much as the Romulan Reclamation Project was a good idea, I don't remember ever hearing a reason for it all, and now it feels more like that 'Voyager' marketing research I mentioned before: they like the Borg, throw in a Cube there! Where did the Cube come from, why are the Romulans working on it? And why are they partnering with humans and other races? And why does it look so neat and tidy in there, so far from the messy Cubes of old? Easier to film in, laziness? Surely not, but it does look more 'Tron' than Trek. If anything, there's a heavy 'Star Wars' feel, what with an Imperial shuttle landing in the Death Star to drop off the evil bad guy to the sound of proximity klaxons. There I go again, back to problems (how long did it take Picard and Dahj to get from where he was relaxing on the estate in bright sunlight, to the patio, where it's night? Either the sun sets very quickly or Picard is even more doddery than I thought!). I can't decide if it's worse or better that I've gone through it all before writing about it, because with 'DSC' I felt more critical, not having the benefit of hindsight, but with this there's also no hope that the season might end up working. Oh well, the struggle continues.
I'll just finish with a couple of extracts from letters to Starlog magazine that I saw recently as I read through the whole collection, which show that nothing ever really changes: Keith Roysdon wrote in the June 1982 issue '…I think it's about time that a major segment of 'Star Trek' fandom grew up. This is a fictional character, and we must face the fact that whoever holds licence to the character can do whatever… they want with it from now on…' He was talking about the potential death of Spock in the upcoming 'Star Trek II,' but you can see the parallels, and he was obviously right, he who holds the rights, controls the characters. And Ali Kayn wrote in the May 1982 issue: '…In the sixties… a child was born… It was called 'Star Trek.' And it cared… But times change… Today 'Star Trek' is an anachronism. The naivete of 'Star Trek's social concern has been replaced with the sophistication of 'Star Wars' escapism… Its audience have become misfitting. …It is immortal without conventions, spin-offs and mimeographed buffoonery, and without ever seeing another soundstage. In fact, it is the soundstage which might kill 'Star Trek's appealing personality. A 'Star Trek' made today must serve a different audience… we should never allow the concept of 'Trek' to be buried in the drek that it "inspires." Don't murder 'Star Trek' with violent resurrections. Let it live –with dignity.' Hear, hear!
**
Since 2002, when 'Star Trek Nemesis,' the final 'TNG' film in the series, marked the last foray into the 24th Century (the most explored era of Trek history), and perhaps even a year earlier when 'Voyager' ended in 2001, the last time a TV series had been set in that time, the faithful had been waiting and hoping for a continuation to the characters, political situations, planets, cultures and alliances of this uniquely developed world, with only the tantalising snack of a mind meld from an aged Mr. Spock in 'Star Trek XI' to revisit that time period. For the best part of two decades we had to put up with prequel series after prequel film after prequel series, reboots of characters and ships, and no sign of the pendulum swinging back towards the more nuanced evocation of Trek depicted in the 24th Century-set series', seemingly endless preference for a much simpler, action-based version that appealed to a generation brought up on live action comic book stories that harked back to the physical 1960s style of 'TOS,' though ramped up to a new level of effects-driven set-piece roller-coasters with little of the substance of even the grandparent series of it all. While the JJ Abrams film run choked and sputtered creatively and behind the scenes, at the same time raking in the cash and apparently ensuring Trek's future was to be in this new universe (dubbed the Kelvinverse to differentiate it from the established and rapidly diverging rich history that had been one of Trek's greatest appeals), it seemed that 'Star Trek,' as we knew it, was dead, Jim.
For me, this period post-'Enterprise,' the final series of the then-modern era, was the richest time of rediscovery - not that I'd ever grown tired of Trek, especially my favourite series', 'DS9' and 'Voyager,' but gradually I collected the entire set of Trek TV shows (and films), and steadily grew ever more knowledgeable in its world than I ever had been and appreciating its simplicity and complexity more and more, seeing it as a, regretfully, complete set of part works that had come together to form the most incredible range of stories and people. It had been a living, breathing universe that had continued expanding and growing, but now it was stopped dead, the 'Prime Universe' as it was labelled, before being consigned to a drawer in Starfleet's Quantum Archives, of no further significance in the plans of those who held the reins of power and wielded the creative decisions that could shape worlds. Hope was rekindled when 'Discovery' was announced and eventually confirmed as being set in that original universe thanks to the vagaries of rights and complicated legal issues born from the split in the property between Paramount and TV's CBS. I had no idea if I'd even get to see this new Trek series, billed as a premium streaming product to get audiences to invest in online viewing, something I had, and have, no interest in, preferring the personal control of physical media.
I was relieved and tentatively excited when the DVDs finally came out, but this quickly changed to discouragement, then to sadness as I saw a once great storytelling universe reduced to one in which the makers cared only selectively about which elements of Trek canon, continuity and consistency to enforce, and what modern attitudes to every aspect they brought, refusing to see the era they'd chosen (another prequel to 'TOS'), as period drama that should be respected as such, an opportunity to create more subtlety and depth for an era made in a less sophisticated time of TV creation, fifty-one years prior, but instead was more simplistic, more superficial, and more fantastical and ridiculous than ever before, as if they'd selected the worst episodes from Trek history and decided those were the tropes that should lead from the front. Season 2, while making course corrections, wasn't much better, just generally not very good in different ways to Season 1 (following the pattern set by the Kelvin films where they heard the criticisms of the first one, made some adjustments, but then made just as many wrong turns in the second! - funny how Alex Kurtzman has been instrumental in all three productions!), so the signs for this regime's control were not good, even for the great Captain Picard.
The return of Jean-Luc Picard was announced in the summer of 2018, months before release of the 'DSC' Season 1 DVD, so I had no frame of reference, other than noticing the worrying direction in the production photos of 'DSC' that showed they didn't care what the Starfleet uniforms looked like during this time period, or redesigning the look of the Klingons to make them more palatable to orc-loving 'Game of Thrones' viewers. Consequently, I was still somewhat caught up in a certain level of excitement that Trek would be returning to the era I love best and cautiously optimistic that Patrick Stewart agreeing to reprise his character must mean more than merely being offered a huge bag of cash. I hadn't forgotten his involvement in certain decisions dating back to even 'TNG' that weren't necessarily in the best interests of Trek and seemed more like an actor's growing influence coming to bear for his own benefit, as you'd expect: he wanted the repressed and intellectual Captain to have romance and get involved in more physical action, such as fistfights, and while this arguably gave the character another side, it also appeared to be moving Picard closer to the 'ideal' of Captain Kirk, despite the fact that he, too, was also a thinker at least as much as, and probably more than, an action hero. I wouldn't judge the attributes added to Picard as wrong, but there were signs in the film series that Stewart preferred a more action hero role that didn't necessarily sit as well with the image of such an impeccable leader as he'd been on the series.
Some of the additions he made, such as having the Captain and Worf sing Gilbert and Sullivan while attempting to capture a renegade Data, worked well, but others were purely there as enjoyment for the actor and didn't fit, a case in point being the Argo sequence in 'Nemesis' where instead of flying the shuttle to the correct spot, they break out a four-wheeled land vehicle for Picard to throw around at 'unsafe velocities.' My point is that Stewart's instincts don't particularly match his Trek era's style or come from logical sense. From these lessons I came to see Stewart's involvement in the decision-making process (he's credited as a Producer on this series, I believe), not as a guarantee of anything, especially when he made it clear that he didn't want to redo what had already been done with the character. And so we come to the crux: 'Picard' has been designed not to be 'TNG,' and it has succeeded in great measure. Something I hadn't entirely comprehended until I saw the series was that each new iteration of this current generation of Trek projects seems to be deliberately far from the Trek ethos and style as can be. This may be because they felt Trek no longer worked for younger viewers brought up with short attention spans and in need of pretty effects, and perhaps vainly attempted to reel in this fickle audience that have a multiplicity of choice, from just about every past TV show and film, to a vast array of new productions, to involving gaming worlds, and don't need to have any loyalty.
'DSC' was much, much more attuned to this young audience, deliberately provocative in its violence and gore, comfortable for them in its contemporary speech, but most importantly in its lack of discipline and desire for inclusivity more than a crew learning to fit in with each other and having to follow the rules and etiquette of an established organisation, rather everything was to bend to them. Its vision was split by multiple show-runners and even more multiple producers in both seasons, so 'Picard' is the first example made with a single vision, that of science fiction author Michael Chabon who'd been tested for the role with his 'Short Treks' episode 'Calypso.' That's not to say that he called the shots, he still had Kurtzman overseeing him and a room full of writers and producers, but so far this has been the closest to a consistent season as they've managed. But as I was saying, 'DSC' was designed to be very different to 'TOS' and its regimented style, it focused on a lesser and disgraced character rather than the Captain in order to set up an entirely different type of Trek series, and 'Picard,' too was designed with a completely atypical approach - yet again we don't get a standard view of Starfleet, a ship, a crew, led by the Captain, righting wrongs, treading the difficult moral paths of a political and culturally sensitive galaxy. And that approach, I hear, has continued with the cartoon series, 'Lower Decks' (a clean up ship that makes 'second contact' after the main starship has moved on to its next adventure), 'Section 31' (all about the awful and immoral clandestine anti-threat organisation, headed up by a mass murderer from the Mirror Universe), and 'Prodigy' (a gang of lawless teens).
Only the Pike's Enterprise series, 'Strange New Worlds' sounds like it's in the traditional mould, and that's a straight prequel (again!). All this is a roundabout way of saying that 'Picard' was, and is, the only series that looks like having the potential to fulfil what someone like myself has been wanting to see for almost twenty years: the continuation of the 24th Century. Of course no series could ride out the weight of two decades of expectation, and I wasn't expecting it to better what had been done in 'TDV' (as I'll abbreviate 'TNG,' 'DS9' and 'Voyager' from now on), nothing ever could - I watch those series' to this day, I don't see a time when I'd tire of them, they are quintessential Trek to me and I don't rate anything higher for entertainment and satisfaction value. At the same time, the current writers are standing on the considerably broad shoulders of giants and they have no excuse not to know the lore back to front if they're going to play in it, with untold resources of knowledge at their fingertips. And you expect them to know what they need to, but the reality is that too many people involved in Trek are simply people doing their day job, Trek isn't something they all specifically aspired towards and have been waiting for just this opportunity, for Trek to rise again. Some are, some have the credentials (Kirsten Beyer gets the most attention for her work continuing the 'Voyager' story in a series of novels), but like all creative endeavours they want to put their mark on it, they want it to be their thing, and that can cause conflict.
All that being said, I knew almost nothing about 'Picard,' wanting to be impressed with what they came up with. I hoped it would be true to what had gone before, but at the same time it had more free rein in which to experiment since it was set so many years after 'TDV.' Technology would have moved on, and that was one of the issues people had often cited with a series post 'Voyager.' When that ship returned home (in a whimper of glory), it brought with it specialist Borg tech from the future that had been appropriated by a future Janeway (let's not go into it here - you can see where some of the more fantastical elements of 'DSC' were given precedence), and then there was the EMH: a hologram that had gained sentience from long activation and experience, one of that series' most fascinating creations. He'd returned to the Alpha Quadrant with big ideas about the rights of holograms raising all kinds of issues, but we were denied exploration of such meaty topics because the series ended so abruptly in the final episode. These and more questions were what fuelled speculation about a post 'TDV' time. What is the situation between the Klingons and the Federation? (Note: the first time we see a normal Klingon since 'Enterprise' - Worf is in one of the publicity photos at the start of the FNN interview!). Are they still allies after the Dominion War? Were new missions raised to find a way to return to the Delta Quadrant? What happened to the ex-Maquis in Voyager's crew?
The only significant event we knew about before 'Picard' was the destruction of the Hobus star which took out Romulus (and presumably sister-planet Remus), but that was lore invented in the film series. Would they tie these things together? Yes, and that was the biggest draw: finding out what happened to the Romulans and the socio-political impact it had on the quadrant and the Federation. Will they be part of the Federation now? Would the Klingons and other races use their weakness to avenge themselves on past wrongs? There was, and is, so much potential and these were what gave me hope for a deeper experience than the shallow 'DSC' gave me. On the advice from my Manager at the time, a fellow Trekker, I made sure to watch 'Picard' in its entirety before casting judgement in reviews. I can see his point, as the serialised style isn't really designed to be analysed in parts, other than for speculative discussion of details and where it's going. These kinds of 'spoiler' mystery-led dramas aren't what I enjoy. I was never that keen on puzzles and working things out, my speculation is more about 'what does this mean for a culture?' or 'how will a character resolve this challenge?' and how it ties into morality and the known canon. I'd been strung along for two seasons of 'DSC' where you're supposed to accept whatever happens hoping it'll all make sense in the end, but when you reach that end you were supposed to have forgotten the details so the many plot points that didn't add up were swept away in an emotional, yet pretty senseless series of events, capped off by some small panacea like Burnham's speech about what Starfleet stands for, as if that makes up for all the inconsistency and character assassinations (see: Sarek), so this time I was resolved to experience the whole first, as so much more was at stake: if this Trek didn't work then I might as well pack up and ship off to another galaxy, taking my DVDs f old Trek with me!
I never warmed to serialisation in Trek. Two-parters were generally a good thing, and when 'DS9' originated multi-part stories I was all for it as a chance to expand the scope of a story. And in direct contravention of my statement, I loved the serial aspects of Trek, whether that be the ongoing Klingon opera of 'TNG,' the many threads weaving through 'DS9' and the occasional ongoing plots in 'Voyager.' The six-episode war arc on 'DS9' was terrific, but they were very clearly defined episodes. The nine-part finale was my first sense of not really liking that form as it seemed to tread water in a few episodes, and while the best parts stood out I found myself wishing they'd condensed certain plots. When it came to 'Enterprise' Season 3, the most serialised Trek before the current era, I felt it had a strong start, but didn't go into very interesting areas, and the standalone episodes that had only a tangential connection to the serial were often better. So I watched all of 'Picard' and took it in, the better to be able to voice my thoughts on each episode, but the same problems presented themselves as they had with 'DSC.' I will say that I find less to object to, comparatively, partly because it is so far into the future that it's hard to be upset about changes: time does change things, that's acceptable, unlike altering how things look and work in a previously established period as 'DSC' did so horribly. The characters were another matter, but since the series took its time introducing us to them over a span of episodes, I'll get to them in other reviews.
The best place to begin is at the beginning, and I was pleased by the opening as we hear the song 'Blue Skies' played out over a nebula in space, the very song which ended 24th Century continuity all those years ago at the end of 'Nemesis.' I hadn't expected to see the Enterprise-D, so that was a beautiful moment, despite being a ship that had already been resurrected before, both inside and out, in the terrific 'Enterprise' finale 'These Are The Voyages…' It's not a new effect to be able to zoom right into a room from the outside of the ship (most dramatically seen in reverse as the final shot of 'DS9' finale 'What You Leave Behind'), but I remember being very impressed when it was occasionally done in 'Voyager,' and they'd reached the CGI grunt to be able to achieve such visuals. I thought on first viewing that Ten Forward had been recreated via CGI rather than a real set, only because it looked so very white and unreal, but if you watch the DVD extras there are behind the scenes shots showing they did film on a set. Honestly I would have preferred to watch an entire episode (entire series!), of Picard and Data (complete with his film-era/ 'DS9' uniform, the best version ever created for Trek), just discussing life (and maybe death!), playing poker, sipping tea, all very civilised, and I have to say I agreed with Jean-Luc that his dream life was better than his real life! Data's face was slightly distracting, I don't know how much was makeup and how much computer de-ageing, but it was wonderful to have the pair of them like that together, though placing it right from the off, everything else was anticlimax.
It was almost worth watching the entire episode just for that and the subsequent appearance of Data later, this time painting (as he often did on the Enterprise-D), complete with his 'TNG'-era uniform and combadge, Picard going to him in his own Captain's uniform and the same combadge. Lovely! The attention to detail showed how accurately they could recreate a past era, throwing into sharp relief how poorly this was done with the period between 'The Cage' to 'TOS' portrayed in 'DSC,' and giving great hopes that this was to be a series worthy of the Trek name. But an episode can't live on dream sequences alone (despite the moment where Picard wakes up in his large house and sees Data in the distance, being the kind of uncertain reality I always loved in Trek), the general audience wouldn't watch it and it couldn't justify the vast budget ploughed into it. And that's where modern Trek's always likely to fall down, at least until viewers tire of the 'amazing' sights CGI can give us and realise that what matters is not how things look, but the substance underneath, not to say they're mutually exclusive, but effects and looks can disguise a multitude of sins. They, and the inserted action beats didn't disguise the poor pacing of the episode, for example.
I don't want to come down too hard on an effort to slow down Trek: this series is about an old man, he can't spring about yelling like the parody of Trek that 'DSC' and the Kelvin films gave us, in spite of the fact he very much is pulled into a sprint for one action sequence near the end, running up grey stairways then knocked off his feet several metres to fall on what looks like an ugly concrete car park, and somehow this, not just a fall, but a launch, doesn't kill the frail old guy! Time is taken to absorb his vineyard in Labarre, France. We get some beautiful dawn shots of the grounds, still and silent and this episode at least allows settings to breathe. It definitely succeeds in having a sense of place, even if there's no indication of why it looks nothing like the family vineyard we saw in 'Family,' no reference made to his deceased brother, Robert, nor his widow, Marie, so I can only speculate she followed her husband to the grave in the years after 'Generations' when he'd died in a fire - actually they had the perfect excuse there to explain the farmhouse had been partially rebuilt after the fire, or to see a small plot of land with headstones for Robert, Rene, and Marie. Just a little panning shot when we're exploring the ground would have been adequate reference to the Picard family past. I will say this about the season, it does continue a certain level of slow pace, but not much is developed from that, it's not like we get many meaty stage play scenes of moment between characters, and this makes the series feel padded out, like a film story dragged out to ten parts that could have played out across three hours, as if this streaming age is designed for one-watch wonders which you then move on from to the next new thing.
There are far too many extraneous scenes that don't move the story forward, or reiterate, like when Dahj is talking to her fake Mother on a 3D display (why did she want her to go to Picard - so they'd know her location? Was she supposed to do something to him? How did they know she'd go there and what difference does it make?). I do wonder how much could be cut out of the series, or this episode, and still have a story you can follow. I suspect quite a lot. It's as if the writers think that if 'DSC' is a 'speeding bullet,' as Kurtzman has described it, and this was designed to be more contemplative, they didn't realise it's not speed and action alone that make 'DSC' too fast, nor does having very little happen make it thoughtful, there's very little to chew on mentally in this or any episode. It's not just camera moves and flashiness of the effects, either, it's a combination, but more importantly it's the lack of real development and exploration - we heard in the 'TNG finale 'All Good Things…' that the real point of Trek is not the exploration of the galaxy, but that of ourselves, that was the poignant philosophy that finished out that version of Trek, and while they got some things right from that episode, the idea that we can discuss ideas and explore cultures seems to be quite far from the current vogue in Trek. It's good that we have Picard at the family vineyard, these things that were seen in his alternate future (which actually took place a few years prior to this series, amazingly!). I'd have loved him to wear the gruff white beard, even if it was just for one episode. We don't get Geordi La Forge visiting him, and his illness hasn't gripped hold as it had in that alternate future, but it will come into focus more in other episodes.
I don't see Picard as being the kind of man who would have a dog, especially a violent-looking breed as Number One is, but that comes under the same category as Burnham being the secret sister to Spock that had never been spoken of - we don't see every moment of every day, so who's to say she was never spoken of (yet still they felt the need to shroud her exit from the 23rd Century in secrecy!), and Picard could have changed his tastes in the twenty years since we last saw him. Maybe the loss of Livingston the fish (I assume, after the utter rubble made of the Enterprise in 'Generations,' though it was never mentioned), that showed his Ready Room to be a class above, meant he was put off having more, and life at the vineyard necessitated having a dog. In reality it's one of Stewart's own preferences, and I don't particularly begrudge him this, especially as the dog all but disappears shortly - you imagine his Romulan housekeepers would look after the mutt when he returned to space, but perhaps if it had worked out better it might have joined the quest, just as Captain Archer was famed for taking his dog along, except that the production reality, according to comments from the writers, was that it wasn't very good at following direction so wasn't used as much after episode one. Number One was of course a reference to his own Will Riker, the loyal First Officer whom had served under him on both Enterprises -D and -E.
Other changes to Picard are that he's reverted, as would be only natural if you were back on the family estate in France, of speaking French (complete with subtitles for viewers - also used for a spot of Romulan, which was new, although they switch to English during Dahj's interrogation, but what about the Universal Translator?), on occasion, something he hadn't done since perhaps Season 1 of 'TNG,' and was certainly a rarity, as his Gallic heritage was largely overlooked, to the extent that a casual viewer would assume he was as English as the actor that played him! His familiar drink of choice has become 'Tea, Earl Grey, decaf,' as I suppose a sort of joke on his age and being more careful with caffeine, or perhaps he doesn't sleep well with it in his system - not that this really makes any sense, since if a Replicator (yes, we have Replicators, as we should for this era, it's normal and right!), can create Synthehol, alcoholic beverages without the negative side effects, then it should be an easy matter to create tea without caffeine, but it's one of those things that probably hadn't been thought of and was there for people that knew the phrase ("Tea. Earl Grey. Hot."), and would find the alteration amusing. I don't mind, it's not important. Just as the use of automated anti-grav drone sprayers which fly over the crop, were one of those things I noticed in the trailer and instantly recoiled, since Picard would do things the traditional way, not using modern methods, but again, perhaps there's it was of necessity, or maybe his overbearing housekeeper, Loris, persuaded him.
The fact he lives with a couple of Romulans in his house, as if this shows what he means to that race, set up something that never came. I thought we'd hear how they became attached to him (maybe we do, but wasn't it something daft like they were special agents or something?), that they'd been drawn to him after his work in trying to relocate their kind and wanted to serve him, but all we hear (from Joban), is they came to find safety. Loris was one of the only things I specifically didn't like about this first episode, which was fairly acceptable to me on the whole. I didn't like the impression Picard isn't given the respect he's due for such a venerable and legendary character. It's part of that pomposity-bursting humour that is especially prevalent today, where very little can be taken seriously and authority isn't very clear or respected. I understand that it's like a continuation from the banter between the 'TNG' crew we saw in the films, but because we don't know these people it's uncomfortable to watch, as is Picard as this slightly crotchety old man whose rich, fruity voice has been reduced to a scratched hoarseness, wounded by time, which only makes him seem even more powerless and vulnerable, hard to accept for such a strong character, though it's his treatment as a relic of an old way of thinking in later episodes that rankles far more. There's no way around it, Picard is a sad old man, he's lost faith and hope in the organisation in which he served for so many years, he's lost his android best friend in a senseless film, and he seems far from the others of his crew he was so close to, Beverly Crusher not even deemed worthy of a mention all season!
Depression and misery are sadly the hallmarks of current Trek, with little of the optimism and hopefulness that made it what it was, such a powerful force. We see it in 'DSC,' though it's a little easier to accept there because we did see humans who were a little less developed in 'TOS,' but by the time of 'TDV,' Earth had become a paradise without problems, humanity was doing well and setting the galaxy to rights, and Picard was a leading figure in all that. Now he's weak, he believes he's wasted his last few years and he's clearly unhappy with life. That's not a good message. You can say that the series is all about him finding a place again, but I didn't get that at all. I feel like he should be content, with all the memories to look back on and his friends around him, a pleasant end to a well-lived life. Instead he's in turmoil, grumpy, unsettled. Captain Kirk said he should never leave the Bridge of the Enterprise, but did he listen to that advice? We get little nuggets of his history post-'Nemesis,' such as speaking and lecturing (which is how he thought Dahj may have known him, so he must have been doing that recently as she's quite young), as well as writing history books in continuation of his love of archeology, though he's dissatisfied with this career. He clearly sees the importance of history, though may be discouraged by younger generations' disinterest - he accuses the FNN interviewer of being a stranger to history and war, and from the way she talks he's probably right. The fact they go to the trouble of showing her having fussy holo-makeup applied only exacerbates that impression of vain ignorance, though it may be unintentional, in their attempt for further concessions to feminine interests whom Trek seems so desperate to appeal to in girly ways now with such irrelevant details.
The key events are also sketched out: we know he left the Enterprise (presumably the 'E'), in 2384, five years after 'Nemesis,' in which Data died. It was known as early as this that the Hobus star (sadly not called by name), was to go supernova, which happened in 2387. He convinced Starfleet to agree to a mass relocation of the Romulans, though we don't get as much detail as might have been expected since 'Nemesis' was all about potential peace with the Federation's archenemy, especially after the alliance during the Dominion War. Again, this history isn't referenced, but we hear he left the Enterprise to command the rescue armada of ten thousand warp capable ferries for the nine hundred million evacuees. How did this all play out, especially considering Romulans are very untrusting in nature? Did Spock play a part, as we know he was supposed to from 'Star Trek XI,' and how did reunification with the Vulcans play into this? The trouble is we're given all this in an info-dump in the form of a Federation News Network interview (the first Picard has ever agreed to), which was far too contemporary and felt more like 'Babylon 5' where they often played with that. We know there was a Federation News Service in the late 24th Century since Jake Sisko was a correspondent for them during the war (I do wish he'd been the interviewer instead of that forthright woman, though perhaps it would have been harder to push Picard), but they operate like a modern day film crew and Trek wisely stayed away from such mundane details before because you're only going to come up with typical stuff that's been done so many times in sci-fi before and that isn't Trek's style.
It wasn't a terrible way to get the information across, we get the main details that Picard was an ardent supporter, comparing it to the evacuation of Dunkirk (perhaps because it was in the public consciousness more due to the Christopher Nolan film of recent years), and that although the Federation was initially supportive of the rescue effort they changed their mind because… Okay, now this is where things became a bit muddy for me. We hear of an attack on the Mars Utopia Planitia Shipyards, a place known long in the Trekker consciousness for its importance in the genesis of many starships (for example, Sisko worked there before being assigned to DS9, helping to design the USS Defiant), and a specific location we'd heard of many times. It seems androids, or synthetic lifeforms as they call them, were behind the attack which led to a ban on their creation. Not sure why they'd be banned for the actions of a few, especially if they're only tools, but that actually does raise the question of whether they're sentient or were being used. I should know this after seeing the whole season, but I could not remember if we ever learned what this attack was all about and why these synths did it! Even more bizarrely, this is what led to the Federation no longer helping the Romulans? Why, what possible bearing does one event have on the other? Are they saying a terrorist attack changed their minds to become isolationist? I can't buy that of Starfleet, it doesn't make any sense - it's not as if there were never any significant events or attacks in the past! The 'recent' war of the 2370s was a pretty big deal!
We learn Picard resigned from Starfleet in disgust because 'it was no longer Starfleet,' and this again strikes me as ridiculous. Picard isn't the only one that was a 'good guy,' what happened to the rest of the vast majority of our Starfleet heroes? How far away this is from the utopian world we're supposed to believe in! It's not the first time Starfleet or the Federation did something wrong or our heroes had to go up against authority, and I suppose the message is that you can't let your guard down, paradise isn't guaranteed, you have to keep working at it and informing, and educating, and striving to keep things on the morally correct path, but this was all rather too much for me. In times like 'Insurrection' Picard turned from his duty because he saw it was wrong, but it was all a plot from an outside race with malicious motivation and a misguided Admiral that took things to that point, but the whole of Starfleet changing its mind? This is where it lost me a little and I never really came back because the series showed its credentials as wanting to pull apart the cracks of the positive future we'd seen for so many years, for the sake of trying to create drama, when there's so much drama inherent there in how Starfleet operates with other, less moral races. Picard never explains in detail because he's disgusted with the unpleasant interviewer who seems to want to do a hatchet job, highlighting his support of synths (it's almost like he's become the poster boy for unpopular groups, both Romulans and synths), because of his association with Data, so no wonder Picard's unhappy as the world he knew has been replaced by these new and un-Federation-like attitudes.
Adding to this sense of unease about the direction of this possibly dystopian vision for Trek, aligning it with most other sci-fi, are the clear influences of other sci-fi. I felt 'X-Men' was the template for Dahj Asher, this girl who's tracked down by Romulan agents wearing cumbersome biker outfits and helmets more in keeping with 'Star Trek XI' and the skydiving suits, and really just there as an excuse for some Action. She suddenly learns she isn't a normal girl with a bright future, but some kind of 'mutant' with special powers, and gets a vision of Picard, looking just like Professor X, whom she must run to for refuge. But the biggest influence must be 'Star Wars,' in keeping with the new fantasy-led Trek of the Kurtzman era where technology is magic and can do anything the story wants it to, practically without limit. She shows up at the ranch, sorry vineyard, a mysterious stranger in a hooded cloak, claiming special powers. That's the first sign of 'Star Wars,' although we'd already had several jumps to various places with the Kelvinverse style of location titles to let us know where we are rather than giving it to us in dialogue as Trek used to do, planet-hopping being a key ingredient in the 'Wars' takes of galactic adventure. The Quantum Archives look right out of 'Wars,' like that library Obi-Wan visited in Episode II, and finally the biggest, most 'Wars' moment is during the attack on the concrete car park where Dahj makes a giant leap for synth-kind that would have done a Jedi proud. And it looks about as realistic as something from the prequels, too!
There's even a 'Battlestar Galactica' suggestion when Picard visits the Daystrom Institute (another important piece of Trek lore, though this is the first time it's ever been seen, shown to be situated in Okinawa, Japan), and encounters Tilly, sorry Agnes Jurati, assistant to Bruce Maddox, a cybernetics expert going back to 'TNG' days, to make enquiries about the possibility of creating lifelike, biological synthetics that are human both outside and in. He does take rather a leap to believe Dahj must be an android, just because she tells him what she did and he finds a painting with her face on it, it's sketchy evidence to hang a theory on! While it was pleasing to finally get to see the Daystrom Institute after so many references across so many series' (in spite of the fact that Richard Daystrom was a nutter!), it doesn't have quite the same impact now we know we won't see locations as they were shown before, whether that be the vineyard or Starfleet Command in San Francisco - it looks similar from the air, with the familiar Golden Gate Bridge (now with ugly and ill-advised solar panels all over it, as if the technology hadn't been superceded in three hundred years!), although it's a little easier to accept given this is two decades removed from 'TDV,' obviously I'd like them to use the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant as the Academy if they go there, since it was so iconic.
Jurati does come across as this series' Tilly, that annoying crewmember full of irrepressible 'character' and inappropriate reactions in order to make her 'funny.' In fairness she's not nearly as awful as Sylvia (why does no one ever call her by her first name?), but I cringed when she bursts out laughing at Picard's enquiry, yet another example of a lack of dignity and respect given to the character and a typically raucous reaction rather than the subdued, more realistic one you'd expect in 'TDV,' though I suppose such things are nitpicking, I can't help totting up such divergences as the weight of them all collectively is what burdens me when viewing. Loris is another one that made me grit my teeth, not just the attitude, but that she's a Romulan with an Irish accent. An Irish accent? I like the simplicity of the races in Trek through which they could weave such intelligent stories, simple pieces that could be taken up and used, occasionally in atypical ways to show the difference to the norm (such as the mass murdering Vulcan in 'DS9'), but you need that norm to be well established and accents are something else that really irritates with this series as they strive for a non-American-centralised worldview for the purpose of worldwide mass appeal. In the interests of diversity they change the norms and it's jarring, it doesn't fit with the enjoyment of Trek as a cohesive world. If she'd been human it wouldn't have mattered (she looked pretty human, but more on the Romulan foreheads next time…), but there was worse to come.
I did like the cameo for B4, the Soong vessel into which Data's neural net was backed up so as to fix the inferior model, but which was really only a method of potentially bringing Data back from the dead in case they did a fifth feature film. At the time it seemed a real copout, as if it was easy to find another Soong android, he must have made a number of them, but in later viewings I got used to it and it wasn't the worst indignity of that film, plus the sequel was never produced so it was somewhat sad to know we'd not find out what happened in that regard. Until now! But it didn't end well, B4 failed, he was a less sophisticated version made be-fore Data (see?), so it's not that astonishing a revelation. It's right that they tied into 'Nemesis,' and they were brave to, because it is considered the worst of the films (until you get to 'Into Darkness' and suddenly you notice how much Trekkiness is in there in comparison!), and why would you want to connect your new prestige series to a box-office bomb? The only reason to do so is because 'Picard' rests on the character's friendship with Data and the impact his Second Officer's sacrifice had on him, something I applaud the series for as it would have been easier to consign 'Nemesis' to history with only the briefest of acknowledgements. Perhaps that's where Picard's guilt comes from that he's wasted the life since, bought at the cost of his best friend, doing nothing worthwhile for years, waiting to die, nursing his own offended dignity (not that it sounds like the great man we knew - he's really been brought low).
At least I understood better on this viewing where the last remaining floating ether of Data's remaining consciousness came from because that never seemed to make much sense given events to come in the final episode: B4 held some of Data's neurons and when he no longer functioned Maddox used these to create Dahj and Soji, and presumably that entire colony of androids (a term I prefer to 'synths' since that's what they used to be called). Yes, I still don't think it made sense that Data existed wholly in them so that he could actually communicate with his former Captain, but it was nice to see him again all the same. I just wish Data had been in it more - much like 'DSC' Season 1 where you get some flashbacks to Burnham's childhood and young adulthood early on, but it didn't continue through the season, I was expecting and hoping for regular dream meetings between Picard and Data, but it was not to be. I suspect one reason they offed B4 (he's only seen as parts - and the head STILL doesn't look as real as Brent Spiner's actual head, even with today's technology!), was so that Spiner couldn't come back as an android, a way of cutting off that avenue as he'd already said at the time of 'Nemesis' that he was getting too old to keep playing an ageless android (forgetting the introduction of an ageing program into Data's life in 'TNG' Season 7 - always forgotten, that is!), and now it was a further twenty years later! It's a real shame, because Data's calm, quiet persona is something modern Trek could really do with and they did fine with the look, which wasn't perfect but you don't expect it to look exactly as he was all that time ago - I can suspend my disbelief for the sake of a great actor returning to a great character again.
It's harder to suspend disbelief over Dr. Soong being the only person who could ever create a sentient android like Data since we'd seen other examples before on 'TOS,' and if B4 was able to be taken apart, which was what Maddox had wanted to do to Data, and which 'The Measure of A Man' was all about, then he must have found a way. Ah, but then he did and kept it all to himself, disappearing after the ban on synths when the Federation's Division of Advanced Synthetic Research was turned into an obsolete nothing, not allowed to make anything physical, surviving only on simulation and computer models. The androids he created were the ones who attacked Utopia Planitia, but I have no idea why, and that sequence is a whole other issue which I'll address when we get there. But no one was ever able to redevelop the science for a Data, and Jurati thinks it would take a thousand years to create a sentient android of flesh and blood. Not sure why, since the flesh and blood part seems as difficult, and here comes another issue - holograms can exist and they have the potential to become sentient so how are they allowed and not abandoned in the anti-synth legislation? We see an example of one at the Quantum Archives, she doesn't even have a name, designated 'Index,' which doesn't strike me as in line with what happened on 'Voyager' - surely the Doctor's return would have changed attitudes to holographic life? Or are they more careful to put safeguards in place to avoid dawning sentience? Index is perhaps deliberately made to be obviously artificial with an alien manner and affected voice, but after the distrust of synths it doesn't make sense…
I also don't understand the significance of creating twinned androids as Maddox did - there's some technobabble (and I do appreciate a hardcore return to the proper stuff, all positronic this, and fractal neuronic cloning that!), which explains the symbol of two interlocking circles Dahj and sister Soji wear, but in terms of the significance other than to set up more than one version of a synth character? No idea. Technobabble isn't the only aspect to make a comeback and make me feel a little more at home here than in 'DSC,' though sometimes it can seem a little excessive. The guilty part is when Picard visits the Archives (presumably just outside Starfleet Command?), and we see numerous artefacts of his past, ranging from models of old ships such as the Enterprise-E, Stargazer and even the Captain's Yacht from 'Insurrection' (a beautiful creation). I suppose he had the Klingon Bat'leth and D'k tahg because of his association with the Empire from his time as Arbiter of Succession, but I was just overjoyed to see a proper Bat'leth instead of the incredibly ugly and impractical redesign for 'DSC,' which just didn't work at all. Weirdly, he'd kept the Captain Picard Day banner from that episode, but why not? Maybe it meant more to him than we knew at the time. It was like Captain Lorca's mysterious stash, I just wanted to stay there and poke around. Is this archiving done with Transporter beams, locking things away as energy, just as Scotty was for all those decades? It was also nice to have LCARS back as the operating system (on an actual screen instead of the ephemeral holo-screens they seem to use all the time now!), if an updated version, which you'd expect. I even loved seeing a medical device 'sew' up Dahj's forehead wound: traditional Trek right there on screen. Gimme more!
It was also good to see something of the current day Starfleet uniforms (we'd be treated to another variation from fifteen years prior in further episodes), though you have to scour the background around Starfleet HQ to see them. They'd returned to a coloured shoulder style as popularised from early seasons of 'DS9' onward, most notably in 'Voyager.' Something tells me that this was all part of the effort to ingratiate the 'Voyager' fans since in market research it was shown a few years ago that many of the most viewed episodes on Netflix across all Trek were from that series! Is it a coincidence that they almost recreated the uniforms, not to mention bringing back characters and props? No, I'm sure it isn't, but I don't mind because I love that series. However, my personal preference was for them to continue with the more textured design direction of the 'TNG' film era and latter 'DS9' style, rather than a flat colour, or even recreate the future uniforms seen in several episodes, including 'All Good Things…' even though it's no violation because it was an unknown future and one of several years prior. Still, compared with the ugliness and out of canon versions worn in 'DSC' it's practically perfect! Full black with just colour at the top works well and they didn't reinvent the wheel. Trouble is, it is just one more thing that makes me wish they were doing a traditional Trek series. By all means bring Picard back, of course he'd be a bit old to command a starship, but I think many assumed he'd follow the alternate history and be an Ambassador, perhaps with a position on the Bridge of a starship.
I want Starfleet to be the good guys, I want to see some existing cultures further explored, I want to know the history of the last twenty years that I've missed, which was denied us because of the vagaries of TV and film. Unlike the 'TOS' cast we didn't get to see the other casts age through as many years, and that's sad. It also makes this Picard much more jarring, even with having seen and heard him doing promotion before ever setting eyes on the series. They went a different direction, one outside the purview of Starfleet, one in which they could have troubled, broken characters for apparently no reason other than they'd be more identifiable to general audiences than pristine, spick and span heroes. That wasn't an issue at this stage, one reason I didn't have too many problems with this episode. My negative thoughts were more towards the inconsequential nature of much of it. Like the way they quickly introduce Dahj with her Xahean boyfriend (didn't notice his race on first viewing and only caught it this time thanks to commentary from the DVD, though it is spoken in dialogue), in 'Greater Boston,' a race previously portrayed by a character on 'Short Treks' and 'DSC' who was even more annoying than Tilly, and an entirely forgettable alien design (design was also an issue for the only Tellarite we've ever seen in the 24th Century - I didn't even realise a member of the film crew was one until I saw the credit at the end and looked back to see him, though it was fun to 'spot' a Trill among them!). It's painful to watch the scenes of the pair of them, talking in their contemporary way to appeal to the 'yoof' (yes, she really did say 'dude'!).
As is the action. We can't just have a 'contemplative' series of an old man and his old associates, can we? The audience would be utterly bored, right? So they inject some action of Romulans… doing something. I don't know what their goal was, they ultimately destroy Dahj with acid in the second attack, but they also use (and leave!), a knife in the first, with which they could be identified (maybe that was a clue that someone in Security was in league?). Why not just beam her up, or send a bomb in, or… well, it doesn't matter because it's not designed for story needs, it's designed for the perceived short attention span audience, but if they gave us something to get our minds into then that would suffice! To be fair, the action is far less intrusive than on 'DSC,' it's just the story is as bland and unrewarding. We have seen Data's superior android strength and speed on many occasions, notably in a fight with brother Lore in the Cargo Bay, so why not utilise modern production methods to show just what an android can do (was the super-hearing, allowing her to pick out conversations a block away, also due to being 'activated' by the Romulans?), it's not like it took over the episode. I'm not against action, either, I just want depth to story and character. But that's not the way of Trek any more and never will be again (although, there is an episode this season…). I also disliked seeing a Paris that apparently still has dark alleyways, roadsigns and road markings centuries old! Wiser to show as little of Earth as possible, but that's not the attitude of today. I'm assuming that was Paris - it's possible the Eiffel Tower had been moved, or was a copy, or even a hologram, who knows? But for me, those dingy streets were the first sign of the loss of utopia in the episode.
Another issue with serious ramifications is the creepy tracking of Picard. Dahj apparently hacked into the system to be able to - he says it would've required a security clearance she doesn't have, so at least it's put in the context that it's not something anyone can do, but the freedom to exist without being watched has, generally at least, been implied in the manner in which Trek was made in the past. So many episodes of Trek could have been solved if they'd had surveillance cameras covering every room of a starship or planet, but while the computer can track combadges and sensors can detect life signs, you don't get people being watched and recorded. And that's because those writers wrote in a world in which privacy and freedom hadn't been sacrificed on the altar of security, the steps toward a totalitarian regime that we seem to be continually staggering towards! It's one of those fascinating conventions that isn't spelt out in Trek, but was just an assumed norm most of the time. There were rare occasions when there was evidence of surveillance, such as in 'Court Martial' when footage is shown from what happened on the Bridge, but it implies special use and only in key areas. If we now believe it's good to have no privacy and feel a false sense of security from ceaseless observation by authorities, this is a big change in attitude - yet so many feel happy to be tracked by their constant companion, a mobile phone, or share their lives in minute detail on social media to the extent that they don't feel the need for privacy, and that's creepy.
You have to know Trek very well to notice the unspoken rules and ways of doing things, but if you watch it enough you become fluent in it, like a visual language. Unfortunately, it's apparent that the makers of Trek post-'Enterprise' are not, and this is probably a large cause of the feeling of disconnect a keen viewer like myself feels when watching the modern films and TV - I'm not getting that instant connection, that feeling of belonging, a consistent world that, effectively, I've studied for years and know every nuance of, welcoming the familiarity of style and content. In that sense it would be impossible for me to like any new Trek because throwing in references to the past, as fun as that is, can't disguise the discontinuity of tone. And this is before we even come to issues like excessive nastiness and foul language. But we'll get to that. These reviews, I suppose, have become a form of expression to get out those niggles and discomforts I feel when watching. Here's another one: I don't like seeing umbrellas in Trek. I know, I know, it's silly, and it's not like we never do (there's that episode of 'Enterprise' where Archer dreams of a funeral, but it was only a dream), but it's one of those dramatic devices film and TV loves for enhancing the visual mood - there's nothing like rain and the slick sheen it leaves, to evoke misery and hopelessness! But while that works for 'The Matrix,' 'Blade Runner' or the many other dystopias, it just doesn't fit with Trek's sunny, positive outlook. Nor logically, since they have the ability to control planetary weather at this time.
Another niggle would be the mention of the police, after Picard has been brought back to his exquisite study (now I recognise the couch where the last remnant of Data dies in the quantum simulation, or whatever it was), and he talks with the housekeepers. Why would such a world as Earth has been described need police? It just doesn't work, and makes me wonder if the writers were thinking of that scene in 'Star Trek XI' when Kirk as a young tearaway terror is stopped by a robot policeman on a hover bike (ugh!), none of which fits in with Trek at all (more 'Star Wars'). And what was the Romulan plan, anyway? I've seen the whole season and I still don't get it. I know it's something to do with a Romulan secret cult, more secret even than the Tal Shiar, but none of it was memorable in the story sense. And while I'm in complaining mode I have to ask: why do we still not get an episode title on screen, what is this aversion to Trek conventions? Not that it really matters, it's just another of those minor irritations that are eclipsed by the disquiet greater whole. I actually wasn't looking forward to watching 'Picard' again knowing that, similar to 'DSC,' I don't really like it. There were a couple of episodes that stood out, for the most part, but that still leaves the majority which is almost a chore to approach. It's sad, and I wanted so much to get something out of it, but the more I see of this generation's attitude to Trek, the more unhappy with it I become. It's hard to think this, but it actually crossed my mind that in the very near future I may have to stop watching new Trek!
This isn't something I say lightly, I've been a viewer for almost thirty years, a devotee for a little under, but a dedicated one, and I'm actually considering giving it up, relinquishing it as something I get nothing from. Now I probably won't do that, at least not while DVDs continue to be released, because I'm sure eventually physical media will end completely on the grounds that they take up the planet's resources or some such ridiculous argument (might as well give up entertainment itself, that would help the environment! Not willing? I'm not surprised), so as much as it's hard to watch, I'm still grateful I have the opportunity to see it and comment. But I'm in the strangest position that I can imagine, not being interested in something that expands the Trek universe, and not being sad to think I'd miss part of it, either by coming to the end of life or being excluded by technology. It could always improve, it's possible, though unlikely. I can say I dislike 'Picard' less than 'DSC,' so that's something, but it's not by much and I continue to plug away at each new release, like a chore that must be endured, and that's no way to watch entertainment. It's not even just because it's 'modern,' I've enjoyed most of 'Cobra Kai,' another contemporary series based on an old property, but one that injects positivity and some good writing into its core. If only Trek was doing that.
The theme tune has a thoughtful, promising sound to it that evokes the kind of series I'd like 'Picard' to be, but just as they couldn't come up with a more inventive title than to name it after the man character, there isn't the reassuring nature of that world that is hinted at in the music. I did notice both Alexander Courage's 'Star Trek' theme, and Jerry Goldsmith's 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture' theme are credited at the end, so I don't know if they were in the episode proper or it was referring to bits used in the main titles. It's nice to see the names of such greats in the current credits, though it also makes me sad to think of all those people who were so successful at making Trek for so many years, but aren't involved now. And I don't wish to end on a negative note so I should point out some parts of this first episode that I did like, beyond what I've already commented on: dating it firmly to 2399 (weird we don't get a date on screen since we get almost every place named!), worked out by the reference to Data's 'Daughter' painting, said to be created in 2369, thirty years ago, although, oddly, this was after his experiment to create an actual daughter, Lal, in 2366, which suggests he still wanted one even after the tragic experiences of 'The Offspring.' It was also creepy that Index knew Picard kept the other painting in the set in his study, unless it got this information from somehow seeing the interview he gave to FNN…
It's also true to say the Borg Cube (the external view, anyway), was terrific, and a great way to end the episode by pulling out until you see the vast whole (was it a Tactical Cube? There was something of that about it, maybe just its newness). It would have had more of an impact if it hadn't been shown in the trailer, but even so, it ended the episode well, even if Romulan spy, Narek, was hard to take with his mop of boy band hair and un-Romulan demeanour. When he told Soji Asher he'd had a brother that was lost, was that true, or just a ploy for her to feel sorry for him? If he did have a brother I wouldn't be surprised if his twisted sister offed him, but she hasn't appeared yet so I'll hold fire on that subject for now. As much as the Romulan Reclamation Project was a good idea, I don't remember ever hearing a reason for it all, and now it feels more like that 'Voyager' marketing research I mentioned before: they like the Borg, throw in a Cube there! Where did the Cube come from, why are the Romulans working on it? And why are they partnering with humans and other races? And why does it look so neat and tidy in there, so far from the messy Cubes of old? Easier to film in, laziness? Surely not, but it does look more 'Tron' than Trek. If anything, there's a heavy 'Star Wars' feel, what with an Imperial shuttle landing in the Death Star to drop off the evil bad guy to the sound of proximity klaxons. There I go again, back to problems (how long did it take Picard and Dahj to get from where he was relaxing on the estate in bright sunlight, to the patio, where it's night? Either the sun sets very quickly or Picard is even more doddery than I thought!). I can't decide if it's worse or better that I've gone through it all before writing about it, because with 'DSC' I felt more critical, not having the benefit of hindsight, but with this there's also no hope that the season might end up working. Oh well, the struggle continues.
I'll just finish with a couple of extracts from letters to Starlog magazine that I saw recently as I read through the whole collection, which show that nothing ever really changes: Keith Roysdon wrote in the June 1982 issue '…I think it's about time that a major segment of 'Star Trek' fandom grew up. This is a fictional character, and we must face the fact that whoever holds licence to the character can do whatever… they want with it from now on…' He was talking about the potential death of Spock in the upcoming 'Star Trek II,' but you can see the parallels, and he was obviously right, he who holds the rights, controls the characters. And Ali Kayn wrote in the May 1982 issue: '…In the sixties… a child was born… It was called 'Star Trek.' And it cared… But times change… Today 'Star Trek' is an anachronism. The naivete of 'Star Trek's social concern has been replaced with the sophistication of 'Star Wars' escapism… Its audience have become misfitting. …It is immortal without conventions, spin-offs and mimeographed buffoonery, and without ever seeing another soundstage. In fact, it is the soundstage which might kill 'Star Trek's appealing personality. A 'Star Trek' made today must serve a different audience… we should never allow the concept of 'Trek' to be buried in the drek that it "inspires." Don't murder 'Star Trek' with violent resurrections. Let it live –with dignity.' Hear, hear!
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