The Impossible Box

 DVD, Star Trek: Picard S1 (The Impossible Box)

It's becoming something of a chore to go over these episodes because I really don't like so much about them and feel no positive feelings towards those responsible for writing, directing and creating this world that could almost be an alternate reality. I don't watch Trek to see mess-ups and failures, people reliant on alcohol and drugs, I want to see the best and the brightest and how these people operate their lives - it's about seeing inspirational people dealing with difficult subjects or issues, that's why we watch Trek. Not for a grinding dystopian vision of the future, not to feel pity or disgust for those wallowing in guilt and self-recrimination, and if we do have characters like that we see them come to the light, and with the help of others, rise above circumstances like Phoenixes. At least Captain Rios shows compassion, but even his best intentions are not always pure, as we see with him and Jurati. The episode isn't as morally reprehensible and downright stupid as the previous one, and in general it's less lecherous and repugnant, fewer swearwords, less of the disturbing tone. But it's also an episode that largely sends me to sleep. Not for a lack of action because the action-packed 'Discovery' sent me to sleep, too, but there isn't anything to dig into, it's just another piece of the grand puzzle, and if I found putting jigsaw puzzles together a satisfying pastime then it'd probably be more fun doing that than watching someone else do it.

The closest we have to a theme is Jean-Luc's growing apprehension at revisiting a Borg Cube, somewhere he hasn't been since 'First Contact' (we can assume), and a place that holds nightmarish images for him from his time being assimilated in 'The Best of Both Worlds.' I liked the callbacks, the flashes of Borg imagery that seemed to come from the film or 'Voyager' episodes, and I liked the very real reaction he has to setting foot in such a place again, but as with all modern Trek, it merely scratches the surface. A truly compelling story could have been explored relating to what was done to him and how it makes him feel even so many years later, but all we have are vague fears and an old man stumbling around inside the Cube (to the music of a 'Zelda' dungeon!). They haven't exactly formed a welcoming committee, or even raised the lighting in readiness for such a distinguished visitor! They rely on Raffi, a character who can only just pick herself up off her bed of despair, to make contact with (and blackmail), an old friend in Starfleet (and how good it was to see an actual Starfleet officer on an actual Viewscreen!), in order to gain diplomatic credentials to visit the Cube - in old Trek Picard himself would have contacted Hugh and made a connection. He knows Hugh's Director of this Borg Reclamation Project, a separate enclave by treaty (with Romulan forces?), within the 'Artefact' as the abandoned Cube is designated, so why couldn't Hugh arrange it all? It would have made sense and given us a little more time between these two old friends. I suspect it was partly to give Raffi something to do other than sobbing into her pillow, and so that Picard can have a contrived haunted house experience when Hugh isn't immediately there to greet him, whereas if he knew his friend was waiting expectantly it would have put a different spin on it.

They're always about artificially generating tension or drama instead of letting the story reach it organically, perhaps one reason serialisation, written by so many different writers, doesn't work very well. Picard's psychological issues would only be heightened by a visit to a Cube so they really didn't need to have him beam aboard alone and not be met. However, when he and Hugh do meet that is a highlight of the episode as you get a sense of the history there - if we didn't already get that from Picard's earlier research on a screen that shows Hugh as he was and as he is now. It was lovely to get that then-and-now imagery, just as it was fitting for Picard to examine the details so we see a very brief image of the Enterprise-E from 'First Contact.' I don't know whether they still had to be very careful with film-based stuff in these productions at that time, but surely you would want to show off such a beautiful ship as the E? I wasn't particularly keen on the things they love to do with having transparent screens, I find it very distracting (and as for the occasional use of Romulan subtitles, what is going on with the Universal Translator - either they need it or they don't!). Again, it seems like it was all for the visual trickery of seeing Locutus' face superimposed over Picard for a fancy shot, something unnecessary when we get all that from Patrick Stewart himself - we don't need to bash the nail on the head and actually show. Implication and subtlety is a lost art to Trek, it seems, sadly.

We hear about Hugh, the Borg Queen and Locutus, so it's not like they're ignoring the Trek history there, but I'm not sure I ever heard the word 'assimilation' even once. Or am I wrong? It sometimes seems that, although they embrace certain things or terminology of past Trek that there's still some kind of disconnect that is like they're trying to stamp their own authority on Trek now (e.g: calling androids, 'synths'), and that can be jarring to a seasoned Trekker. It's not generally as bad as on 'DSC,' but it's still there. I don't have a problem with the reclaimed Borg being designated 'XBs,' yet at the same time it smacks of a people group claiming an identity of victimhood. In the past when Borg were set free from the Collective they didn't consider themselves, or were looked upon, as being ex-Borg (other than in a prejudicial way), they were seen, at least in the eyes of Starfleet, as being whatever race they originally came from. Seven of Nine was human and learned about her human heritage. It's very much in the vein of people today that whatever happens you can't be a victim of your circumstances you have to 'reclaim' it and be proud to be part of a group even if it's injury or accident or abuse. It's a bit of a moot point anyway because the XBs never get explored as they would have been in past Trek, they're merely another puzzle piece or a coloured square on the Rubik's Cube or a slat on that wooden box Narek's so fond of.

There's another part of the episode that is daft and apparently just there to fill up time - we edge closer to Narek and his sister uncovering the homeworld of the synthetics. Excuse me? Homeworld? That doesn't even make sense in itself, although we later learn that there is indeed a world where they've all gathered in order to… erm… let in some galaxy-destroying nasties… or something. I know the Romulans were one of the few major races to remain largely undefined beyond the definition of secretive, but that has meant that modern writers can fill in, well, not the blanks, but add a load of silliness to their culture that is pretty much all nonsense. I'm not bothered about things like Romulans all have a secret name they only share with family members, that's reasonable, but it's also a sign of the belief that the Romulans are Secretive. And nothing else. It's difficult, I'm sure, to add to a culture (as was so successfully done with the Klingons over decades), when we know so little about them, and that's always the problem you have with leaving the door open for the future: past Trek was very concerned with not filling in too many details so as to leave plenty of room for development in later productions, but that also meant it gives far too much leeway for later writers to mess things up or hijack things to their own way of thinking. Not that it would have been outside of their MO to do that even if the Romulans were extremely well delineated - just look at the mess they made of canon in 'DSC' with both a Klingon war and the Mirror Universe!

I wasn't impressed with the wooden maze room that they just happened to have on this Borg Cube! Fair enough, if they'd set up a Holodeck and it was within that, but then we couldn't have had Soji smashing through wooden flooring to escape. As usual it comes across as contrivance for the sake of plot or action instead of a natural development from what we know of the Romulans or technology. And I'm not against the Romulans being portrayed as ridiculously secretive and xenophobic or whatever, the greatness of Trek's world comes from aliens being monocultures that represent an aspect of humanity which our heroes must encounter and react to in some way, learning something about themselves. But there hasn't been any of that complex-simplicity in the Kurtzman era, it's all about a messy vision - in fact vision isn't even the right word for it other than the vision to pump out as many different variations of life in the future as they can do while simultaneously making sure they're as different from what Trek always was as possible. Take the backstory of this Cube, the Artefact and the Reclamation Project: early on Elnor is asking about it and it looks like we're finally going to get some context and detail instead of this constant… I don't want to say stringing us along, but that's essentially what it's been - the mystery of not just the plot, but the whole era we're in and what this or that means, or where it comes from.

When things are explained it's done messily and things aren't structured neatly and succinctly as we expect from Trek where character development, plot and all was carefully parcelled out to us so that we knew where we were in this world, and that's part of the enjoyment. But now it's all very much plot-driven, mystery-driven, designed specifically for you to come back for the next part instead of being compelled to return because you felt the characters were compelling or the story opened your mind to new possibilities and concepts: imagination and inspiration are almost devoid in this new era. And it's not new, this is exactly what was done in 'DSC,' both Season 1 and 2, and they both ended badly after failing to be fulfilling on either a weekly basis or in the overall arc. That fate befell this series, too, but at least this episode gave the impression of progression, which was badly needed. Again, it's not the slow pace that was the problem it's that nothing was examined and explored in any detail so that it's a constantly dangling carrot trying to get the audience to 'find out next time,' or the time after that, or the time after that, or… oh, we've run out of episodes, but we've succeeded in our mission of getting people to keep watching. That's the business model.

If it was only that I was fed up with mystery and not being let in on the loop of the story, and if it was only that I was fed up with being drip-fed unsatisfying droplets of advancement, but the actual story was brilliant, the nuggets of plot and character were top-notch, then I probably wouldn't find it such a chore to get through, but it's also the cynical, negative attitude pervading the series that brings me such unhappiness. Jurati's view of space as being cold and empty and wanting to kill you is straight out of Alternate Timeline Dr. McCoy's dialogue from 'Star Trek XI' - it's no surprise because Kurtzman was a driving force in that, too. It's a dim, depressing view of space, the place where it should be that adventure lies and heroes are made. It's like an observation on the emptiness of life that Trek was able to overcome with its excitement and joy to be out there where no man had gone before. Trek now isn't about the mystery of space, it's about the mystery of secret government agencies and that sort of thing, like a half-baked 'Mission: Impossible.' 'Star Trek XI' is where so many of the bad habits and poor choices for Trek stem from (though some can be dated back to the Berman era with 'Enterprise' and 'Nemesis,' in fairness), even what was considered the most 'Trekky' of those films, 'Beyond,' wrongheadedly had an attitude of boredom from Kirk that had no place in Trek at all, and wherever I look and keep seeing new Trek series crawling out of the woodwork, and it should be a joy and a thrill, instead it's a heavyheartedness and a feeling of sadness that pervades my view.

I'm digressing, this isn't the time to be moaning about the state of Trek in general, it's about specific complaints about this one episode out of many, or even praise, and I like to be evenhanded so I will reiterate that it was lovely to have Hugh and Picard together again after so long (even if that was to be short-lived, Hugh to be yet another legacy character sacrificed on the altar of plot for no good reason). And Picard's gentle reassurance of Soji, while he doesn't have the power he used to, was still pleasant to see her trust in him. They even throw in a 'Voyager' reference in this Borg ship's Spatial Trajector with its forty-thousand lightyear range - ah, there's a technology I haven't heard in a long time, a long time. Going back to the first season of 'Voyager,' episode 'Prime Factors' when they visited the Sikarians who had the ability to send them home, but their own version of the Prime Directive to prevent helping other races. That's all well and good until you start to think it through: of all the Delta Quadrant species we met the Sikarians were the ones to be assimilated by the Borg? They had this Trajector tech, right? And why would the Borg even use it when they had Transwarp Hubs, or are we still thinking all those were destroyed by Voyager? It's all unexplained. Perhaps the whole race weren't assimilated, maybe they just got some of them and those had the detailed technical knowledge on their race's tech from which the Borg built it - maybe it's more reliable than Transwarp in some way? Still, if the Borg had got that far back into the Delta Quadrant does that mean they'd assimilated the majority of it?

So many questions arise from dropping just a simple little line of dialogue, and while I'd rather hear something like that than not, it is very much in the spirit of this era that they don't explain themselves - they prefer focusing down on details which should be avoided in my opinion (teeth cleaning, uniform manufacture, that sort of thing - see 'DSC'). It's not something that annoys me, but it is something we could do with more information on instead of being just a fun piece of trivia to drop in. Obviously it's also very convenient for Picard's immediate needs, too, which doesn't help its case. Can we surmise that Hugh had other motives aboard the Cube than being Director of reclaiming Borg lives? I'm not saying he was trying to secretly grow or resurrect a queen or create a new Borg army or anything underhand like that, but there is a question why, if he knew about such things as this secret compartment that had belonged to the queen, he kept it to himself - it isn't a respect for the queen because he's clearly against the Borg, so is it distrust of the Romulans and what they could do with the Trajector if they knew about it? For that matter why do we not ever hear about his life post-Lore, what happened to him in the last twenty-five years or so? And why would they trust an XB to head the project? We never find out, and judging by the mercenary approach to Trek now I wouldn't be surprised if you're supposed to read some comic to get information like that if it's even out there. All we know is he's a citizen of the Federation. And that the Neutral Zone no longer exists, which makes sense since the Romulan Star Empire also ceased to be, at least in its previous form.

I still want to know more about the history of this period, the placement of the various races and their politics - the Klingons are the big one, with 'All Good Things…' being a major influence on this series in many ways, from that episode we learned that they had taken over the Romulan Empire, and while events from that timeline aren't certain to take place, it's amazing how that does tie together - the fact that the Romulans are severely weakened so you could imagine the Klingons taking much of their space, especially considering they border each other in the Beta Quadrant. But the series isn't interested in answering these burning questions we have, it's more interested in pulling us along on wild goose chases that have very little purpose to them. At least the next episode would give us something we wanted in Riker and Troi (or Mr. and Mrs. Troi, or Riker-Troi, or Troi-Riker, but that's for the next review!). The trouble with this story is that it allows the audience in some ways to be so far ahead of the characters we're waiting for them to catch up to us: so we have the Romulan spies trying to get information from Soji who only in this episode finally realises she's not a real girl (complete with wooden Pinocchio manikin dream sequence). Picard is slowly catching up to her and succeeds at last, while Jurati is still a murderer who's gotten away with it - what happened to the EMH, did she permanently close him down (no - I know he's in it again, but I don't remember exactly what happened there).

We learn Soji and all her memories are no older than thirty-seven months. We learn the Borg ship were outcasts who were stranded under Romulan control and Jurati suggests may have changed. That shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the Collective. They don't have the ability to change, as Jurati, an expert on cybernetics, should know! Only in the sense that they could be cut off from the Collective. I wished we could have gone into Hugh's own background in shepherding a group of ex-Borg back in his day, and what happened to them? How did he become de-borgified? If they are the most hated people in the galaxy, which does sound credible, that's an issue well worth delving into, not dropping in a line then avoiding for wooden mazes and suchlike! Picard encourages Hugh when he expresses sadness that the rehabilitation, at least physically, of the XBs isn't perfect, but with the medical technology of the 24th Century I don't see why it wouldn't be? We've already seen Seven go from a full Borg to practically human, physically, so why wouldn't they be able to do an even better job years later? But then this series retconned that and took away the hope of Seven's full regeneration into human, typical of the negative approach and view of these modern writers - they found it more satisfying to turn her into a miserable, wretched, hopeless person it was a relief to see the back of so it's clear their view is as far from the optimistic Trek ethos as can be.

We're supposed to feel sorry for Raffi, too, but she seems to be a victim of herself and it's hard to feel anything for her other than disgust. Disgust is the prevailing attitude I have to most of the characters - it's not that they're broken that matters, it's the lack of moving toward wholeness, learning lessons from Picard, that sort of thing. I still don't come out of the episodes feeling good about the world, quite the opposite, and that's a major problem. Even if everything else was wrong, the canon, the characters, all of it, but yet it was still made optimistically, it would be a lot more attractive. Trouble is they focus on getting some of the details right, like the Borg and their implants, Picard saying they never forget one of their own, which is exactly right (the hive mind would always recognise Locutus especially as he was important to the queen and their invasion of humanity), but miss the bigger picture. At least at Nepenthe there'd be a measure of solace (even though when I first heard it I thought they'd said they were going to Rura Penthe, the Klingon prison!). The truth is I just want to see Starfleet and good people, I'm not interested in the dregs of this time period, even assuming there would be any - they have, or are supposed to have, a practically perfect society where everyone succeeds on merit, but there's no interest in portraying that - it's not that they're unhappy with the 'Roddenberry Box' of no conflict, it's that I get the impression most of the people behind 'Picard' and this whole era may not even have heard of it! And it really is hard work. I don't hate the series, but I also don't like it, and for a Trekker that's a hard truth to accept: that I may never like new Trek again.

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