Et In Arcadia Ego, Part 1

DVD, Star Trek: Picard S1 (Et In Arcadia Ego, Part 1)

Brent Spiner returns to 'Star Trek.' Again. That should be the headline for this episode and is possibly the biggest (maybe even only), draw for the penultimate episode of the debut season of 'Picard.' Spiner has had almost as many comebacks as William Shatner was planned to have, except in Spiner's case he did. Come back, I mean. Each of the 'TNG' films was a return to the franchise that made his name, but in those days there was no chance he was going to go back to Trek TV as he'd become a film star, but whatever happened I feel that he never had the success outside of Trek that compared with the adored position he had within it. And so come back he did. Even after the final 'TNG' feature, 'Nemesis,' bombed and ended the Prime Universe in filmland to this day (back when Trek didn't even actually have a 'Prime Universe,' it was simply the true timeline), he still returned to the then-current Trek series, 'Enterprise,' for a well received trilogy as an ancestor of Dr. Noonian Soong, Data's creator. He even recorded a single line for the 'Enterprise' finale for Data to say over the comm system. It was a real coup to get Spiner on 'Enterprise' and at the time I felt for sure that that was going to be his last contribution. Until they showed that he'd be back in 'Picard,' and not only that, but rather than fobbing us off with relatives, he'd be the one, the only, Lieutenant Commander Data himself! It turned out to be for only one episode (so far), which was a disappointment, and it turned out to be only dream sequences, which was expected, but he did bring Data back to the screen, and we loved it!

Yet Spiner still wasn't done, either as Data (see next episode), or as yet another member of the Soong family. He'd played ancestor Arik, Dr. Noonian (at three different ages), Data, Lore and B4, and now he was back, this time as Altan Inigo Soong, the unheard-of son to Dr. Soong. And I have to say, as much as it was gratifying to see him again, and this time without a CGI makeover, it made about as much sense as 'Star Trek Beyond' inventing a starship, the Franklin, which came before the Enterprise NX-01. That is to say, if you bend over backwards and really stretch, you can fit them in, but they don't slot neatly and organically into the history as we know it. As a way to bring Spiner back into a regular role for Trek I applaud it, but as a deft and subtle addition to Soong family canon I can't help but be a little put out and put off. Because he did come out of nowhere. There was never any evidence that Noonian had any biological children, and in essence the fact that he now does can only take away from the place Data and Lore had in his life. When he was dying whom did he summon? Data and Lore. Whom did he talk about? Data and Lore. Whom did he treat as his only offspring? Well, yes, it's Data and it's Lore. It simply doesn't make sense in character terms, even though Altan Soong can be made to fit in timeline terms - we know he married Dr. Juliana Tainer, who died, then recreated her as an android, but at no time were children ever mentioned and I feel from the implications that it was far more likely that Noonian had no living family of any kind which is why he relied on his android creations for comfort.

Of course, if the writers were well suited to Trek and its history we'd be getting to know Altan, we'd find out that he didn't get on with his Father, rather than just the merest hint of that in this episode when he says his Father had him, but created Data and never let him forget that. Writers need space to create, I acknowledge that reality, one reason why people said a 24th Century-set series could never be done again because there was too much baggage, the universe too heavily established to provide wriggle room for creativity. But that's forgetting the truth that constraint breeds creativity, and you could go one of two ways with such a series: either you embrace the continuity and canon and delve deeply into the rich history for suitable plunder to be exhumed and explored, or you keep away from it. The writers of this series seem to have chosen a middle ground where they're heavily tied into the canon, yet also somehow separate and feel they can do as they please, not paying attention to tone or sense of character and place, or even race (witness the pinkness of the Romulans, for example). I'm all for finding a role for Spiner, but when I first saw this episode I did wonder if they were setting up to bring back Data. I'd unfortunately been spoiled that an older-looking Spiner would appear simply thanks to the back sleeve of the DVD release, but I suppose that was a double-edged sword because if I hadn't known that in advance I'd have seen Spiner's Special Guest Star credit at the beginning of the episode and been expecting more of Data. And I'd have been disappointed!

At least knowing about white-haired Spiner gave me something to look forward to. Still, in keeping with both seasons of 'DSC,' they were gearing us up for a major letdown in the finale, three for three in failed season endings, but I'll leave that for my next and last review. When I saw the unfinished android body Altan's been preparing I had a couple of theories as to what was going to happen next: either he was going to transfer his consciousness into it and become a kind of Data, or, and this seemed likely at the time, he'd turn out to be Lore who needs a replacement because he's getting old and worn out, or, and this prediction proved to be the correct one, Picard himself would be getting the new body since the series was well known to have secured a second season and they weren't going to kill him off. The idea about Lore may not make sense on the face of it because it's so easy to forget about the ageing subroutine Soong androids (or at least Data), had within them that was mentioned in Season 7 of 'TNG' as a way of combating the actor's ageing, knowing they were going to be taking the character forward into a film career. It stands to reason that if Data can age (and they messed about with that by showing an ageless version of him in the 'TNG' finale's alternate future timeline in 'All Good Things…'), then so could Lore, and his brand of cynical, evil, 2D bad guy would seem to fit perfectly with the cynical, evil 2D world of 'Picard,' and would be just the kind of twist I would expect from these writers. But I was giving them too much credit.

It turns out in this episode that Soong is pretty bad enough without needing to be revealed as Lore, in keeping with the general delinquency of the family DNA (he even sounds like Arik when he talks of the androids as his children!) - he's willing to abandon all organic life in our galaxy to the mercy or otherwise of this ancient and powerful race of artificial lifeforms that had promised to come and rescue any synthetic life that had become intelligent enough to understand such things and were being oppressed by organics. At least this explanation helped make the Big Bad Monsters From Another Realm seem a little more believable than I took them for, from what had been said before and on first impression of the finale. We learn these beings have a powerful alliance spanning galaxies, which makes you wonder, if they're so powerful why aren't they rich. No, I mean, why haven't they already come to enslave all mankind (and Romulankind, and Klingonkind, etc), devastating our universe, since we already know there have been artificial lifeforms for years almost beyond count according to some 'TOS' episodes. It's a little strange that they created that octonary star system and its little energy railing as an emergency message, basically, for all artificial life to go there and learn what can be done, and yet they don't bother showing up just to check on our galaxy. Although it was said they've been watching us, so… Anyway, Soong is a traitor to his own kind, planning to pop his consciousness into the android body he's created, using it like a lifeboat so he can go with his 'children,' the synthetics that he and Bruce Maddox created. Their 'evolution' will be our extinction, as the message goes.

I really needed more explanation on the hows, the whys, the wherefores, and I didn't get them, or not enough, and I don't think they were touched on in the next episode, either. How did Maddox know Altan Soong? How did they come to work together? How did Altan become as talented as his late Father, did he steal his research? Apart from a desire to live on after the death of his biological body, what was Altan's work about? If he felt resentment over Data being more of a son than he was, is that his motivation? How did they find this particular planet? I don't know, this new Trek really likes to leave you guessing and that's not satisfying, either narratively or dramatically. It gives the impression they don't really care about the logic or background behind decisions or motivations. And I'd have liked some kind of reference to Dr. Ira Graves from 'The Schizoid Man,' whom we know actually did perfect the ability to transfer a biological mind into an artificial body. In that case it would have to be that Altan didn't know how he did it because it's effectively Dr. Jurati coming along with her knowledge of Maddox' work that will be the final piece of the jigsaw - as Soong says, he only knows about the android side of it, Maddox was the mind guy.

It's very handy that Soong has this fresh body all ready and prepared, while we know Picard is dying - he's been fine all season with little sign of the neurological condition that is supposed to be having a negative effect (unless you count all those times he'd seemingly lost his sense of wisdom and diplomacy, such as tearing down the 'Romulans Only' sign and walking into a segregated bar, that kind of reckless and thoughtless action!). Suddenly he succumbs to a stroke or something and we're reminded that he's in a bad way, but aside from the first episode or two he's been right as rain. And even after this little episode he's quickly up and about and ready for a hike of several kilometres across harsh desert and mountainous terrain! Whaddaguy. If they were going to play the 'Picard's dying' card I wish they'd done a better job of having it be the through-line of the season, because there's so little impression of nostalgia or regret, of reevaluating life, that he goes through - aside from the occasional hint, like saying he might not pass this way again, he's just been old, cranky Picard. I know that he's had a lot to think about and deal with, tracking down Soji and trying to rescue her (which now seems like a major flaw since she's willing to help her synth brethren call in the big boy synths to come and save them from the approaching Romulan fleet - and it's all Picard's fault!), but old Trek was so much better at including important character studies within episodes as well as all the action and alien weirdness.

We don't really do much exploring of alien weirdness in the series, and any time we do it's like a placeholder for what it would be like if we actually were meeting aliens - so we have a casino full of shady people on Freecloud, but while they may be aliens they may as well be humans for all the difference it makes, other than gimmicks (Mr. Vup and his special smelling ability). And here we have some fancy defensive constructions, giant orchid flowers that shoot into space and gobble up any invading vessels, taking out their systems and dropping them back to the planet. I mean, it was a nice visual, but it seemed like they realised there wasn't much alienness, and this is Trek so we ought to do something weird at this point. Okay, so how about giant flowers? I liked that there was a bit of rationale between the ability to take down La Sirena with one, while the gigantic Borg Cube needed several to incapacitate it, and it wasn't going to come to rest gently because the flowers weren't designed to take on something so large (can't help thinking we should have seen the crash). At the same time I'm not sure what the point of it all was - were they designed so as to capture the technology which could then be used by the synths? Did they want to keep the occupants of ships alive so it was meant as a nonlethal attack? Or was it that La Sirena was small enough that it didn't make too much of an impact on landing? Nothing is very clear, other than they don't have many more of these flower defenders, not anywhere near enough to take on a fleet of 218 Warbirds.

Another weirdness in the episode, and one that I certainly did not like, is Soji's gold-skinned lookalike, Sutra (the other half of Jana, the early twinned version of the Asha sisters that Rios' former Captain murdered in cold grease), being able to perform a Vulcan mind meld. So what, she read up on Surak's teachings and now she can do whatever a Vulcan does? NO! Vulcans aren't simply physical creatures, they're all about souls or katras, and something created artificially doesn't have that because humans (and other races), wouldn't know the first thing about creating that part of a person because it's not quantifiable! That could well have been an episode in its own right where they explore the idea of the soul and whether synthetics could be given such a thing, but that would be a heavy, deep metaphysical subject to tackle and Trek most commonly, and wisely, kept away from such concepts - they weren't rabidly atheistic about such things, they were pretty agnostic on it, the key line of dialogue that always stands out to me is when Captain Louvois, presiding over Data's hearing in 'The Measure of A Man,' ruled that she didn't know if Data had a soul, she admitted she didn't even know if she had one herself, but that Data should have the freedom to explore such ideas for himself. To show that Vulcan mysticism is simply a matter of learning some physical actions is utterly ludicrous - I can get onboard with an android performing a nerve pinch as Data did in 'TNG,' because it's most definitely always been portrayed as a physical technique, probably requiring the greater than average strength we know Vulcans have (leaving aside what may have been one by Picard in 'Starship Mine,' and definitely ignoring the ridiculousness of Michael Burnham pulling it off in 'DSC,' although in both those cases they'd melded with 'Sarek' and so that could be the explanation for it, although it would suggest a mental or psychological explanation more than physical, which doesn't help my point!), but I can't accept a mind meld.

It's purely to drive the plot, nothing else - Sutra, who looks evil right from the moment we first see her, so I don't know if it's just the slightly scrunched up face that Isa Briones has which was accentuated in gold makeup, or whether she was deliberately trying to seem sinister, comes across negatively, and I would have much preferred her to seem as innocent and neutral as Data, or even Dahj and Soji generally do. Instead of that she comes under the same general heading of villainy we'd already seen this season in the Romulan double-act, which is disappointing as then it would really have been a surprise when she turns on Picard and advocates using the signal Jurati has in her head from Oh's meld. Irony of ironies, the villains were the source of their own undoing, but then so were the heroes: because Oh gave Jurati the full sneak preview of the future, Sutra can then get it out of her, and because Picard went all out to save Soji, he's brought both her and the necessary knowledge to contact the synthetics together with those that will use it! So the Romulans were right all along to be afraid, as Soji shows. Unless she's just going along with it hoping to save her friends. Except I don't think so and she isn't that good of an actor. Once again, not a very optimistic take on our Trek characters since if Picard had stayed on Earth this wouldn't be happening. I sort of wanted to see a moment of horror when he realises because of the good he did it could end all life as we know it!

At least the setting and all those gold-skinned androids made the episode visually interesting. The downside is that it was this tiny community on this huge planet and yet both the Cube and La Sirena both come down quite close to it! I can buy it if the defence orchids were designed to bring them home, and it's one of those conventions that a planet, no matter how huge, only has one important centre of activity for our characters to visit, so I can't beat them up too much for that. I wanted to know what it was about twins that was so important. I feel like that was talked about early in the season as some kind of essential development in the Maddox android creation process, but I could have done with some reiteration of it because there are a lot of twins. And why did Dahj and Soji get created in the image of Jana and Sutra, who'd been formed at least fourteen years before (or whenever it was Jana made contact with the USS Ibn Majid), I know they must have been based on the 'Daughter' paintings Data had made, so why aren't all the androids the same? I liked that some of the men looked a bit like the midway stage of Lal, Data's actual daughter in 'TNG,' sort of bald and gold, and seeing all these gold skins and yellow eyes was good and somehow nostalgic, like a race of Datas. Why were some gold and some not, why were some less developed and some more, since Maddox and Soong could create a perfect cat in the image of Spot (well, not exactly like Data's cat, but similar), or artificial butterflies?

As is the norm with this generation of Trek, there are usually more things wrong than right and this episode was no exception. Aside from the niggles I've already mentioned, there are a couple more that stand out. One is only minor, but is one of those reminders that the strict adherence to Trek tech and rules had been largely abandoned: one of the British-speaking twins gives Raffi a hand device with which to fix La Sirena and when she asks how it works she replies 'use your imagination,' so it's like a wondrous fantasy tool that magically fixes anything and all it takes is imagination! That kind of thing really annoys, as does the constant insistence of going by feelings ('I love you'; lots of hugs), it's so far from the stoic and heroic way we've seen our main characters portrayed before as if to kowtow to the touchy-feely society we live in now and it's a bit sickly. Trek has so often been about overcoming feelings, be they revenge, anger, prejudice, fear or whatever, relying on training and duty and honour so it's very uncomfortable to see such things play out under the Trek name. And this brings me to the major problem with the episode: Jurati and her guilt. They've been a bit ambiguous as to whether it was all her decision to murder Maddox because of what she saw in the mind meld with Oh, or whether there was some kind of compulsion or persuasion inherent there. At other times Jurati seems to accept it was her choice and hers alone, that she had to do it, but it keeps going back and forth as if they don't want to pin themselves down about whether she should be punished for what she did, or it was actually outside her control and she was as much a victim.

It's a despicable approach to guilt, especially guilt of murder. Justice is very important in Trek, as is mercy, and we haven't seen a lot of either in the modern variety. Okay, so Jurati is cooperating, she's not trying to murder anyone else, neither is she backing away from her sense of responsibility, but she's certainly not been treated like a criminal: she hasn't been locked in her Quarters as we see her wander onto the Bridge, if you can call it that, after they exit the transwarp conduit, and she's surprised the trip to DS12 has been cancelled, or at least, postponed. She was certainly under the impression she'd been arrested as she asks if she's still under arrest, but it's all so lax and I can't imagine someone of Picard's strict disciplinarian background allowing this. I know it's not his ship and Rios is sweet on her, but even so, he does hold some sway here! Instead they entrust her with Picard's medical care when all the systems are down and he's gone into neural shock or whatever happened to him. For that matter, you'd think the synths would be executing her for killing their creator, Maddox, but no, she's allowed to hang around - they get the necessary data out of her, so she's been useful to them in that regard, but why would they have her stay? And even before that, Rios says Agnes is having a sleepover - so this self-admitted murderer is allowed to just stay overnight at the community and that's all fine?

It shouldn't be a surprise that it's a bit messy, as it has been that way all season, and as I say, there are things to enjoy about the episode: Briones continues in the best Trek tradition (already seen with Rios and his holograms), playing two or more parts opposite herself, and it's not a bad reveal that the Admonition, this warning message about synthetics, was actually meant for synth minds, a key to getting in touch and calling for help, even if it does come out of the mind meld. I like that Picard decides they must check for survivors on the Cube before approaching the community they've come for, finding Seven, Elnor and a number of XBs. But again, there was so much potential for a powerful scene when Picard first hears about Hugh's death, but all we have is him talking slightly regretfully. Granted, it's not like they were that close, they hadn't seen each other for years, but while there's an excess of emotion in places, there's an absence of it in others, and I can't help feeling that old Trek would have made more of such a character's death rather than making it such a throwaway. There's a discussion which ends with Soji wondering if killing is the only way to survive, which was interesting, but obviously against the Trek ethos that Picard is trying to get across, and while he shows compassion for those on the Cube it was also a relief to see him defend the damaged Narek, saying it's one thing to kill an attacking enemy, but quite another to watch a wounded one die. Soji just inherently doesn't seem to possess much compassion, acting like a spurned teenager, which to all intents and purposes she is, and it doesn't make her sympathetic, except maybe to all those teens watching that have been in a similar position, cheaply giving up their intimacy because they think it's 'freedom.' In that respect I suppose it is a kind of warning, though not strongly moral enough to make a difference.

The android community start panicking when they hear of this massed Romulan fleet on the way, but why didn't Picard ever tell them about the Starfleet 'squadron' that Clancy had promised? I thought she knew where they were heading, but I could be wrong, but then if the Romulans knew where to go why wouldn't Starfleet, and why was Picard trying to get in touch and failing? Surely the fleet's on its way? For that matter, how can a defeated, downed race as the Romulans have been portrayed as, have such a ridiculously vast fleet? That was just silly and another example of the modern Trek way of inflating everything in size like it's on steroids - whether it was the hundreds of shuttlecraft in 'Star Trek XI' or the vast size of the USS Discovery and other ships (to the extent they altered the dimensions of the Enterprise to fit with their out of control proportions - ugh!). Two hundred and eighteen Warbirds??? Needless to say, I wasn't attracted to the ugly ships, either, so far from the beauty of design of those old Romulan Warbirds we knew from the 'TNG' era and beyond. They'd already started going down the ugly design route in 'Nemesis' however, so it's not entirely their fault, although they've been happy to muck about with canon and the sense of history anyway so why not give us a proper, full-sized, old-style Warbird? They also had another chance to give us a lovely moment of nostalgia and missed the mark completely: when Jurati scans Picard with what she describes as an 'old-school Tricorder' why not use one from the 'TNG'/ 'DS9'/ 'Voyager' era, complete with that familiar bleeping configuration, that would have been a terrific moment!

Other annoyances that got at me were the 'Star Wars' inspiration of the space scenes, from the podracer engine sounds of the ships, to Phasers firing like bullets, to the terminology ('bogies'? When has bogies ever been used as a term in Trek - why is it you don't like 'Star Trek,' writers?). It turned out that there was an explanation for the bolts in that mini skirmish, as we hear Narek's 'Snakehead' ship has disruptor cannons, and at least La Sirena managed some actual Phaser beams, even though they were a little tame and could have been shown to be so much more powerful and dynamic if the direction had been there. But Akiva Goldsman, usually one of the writers, was directing, and I wasn't impressed. When he wasn't taking the time to show every character's reaction shot upon reaching the community settlement (I almost thought I was watching 'The Motion Picture'!), he's jiggling the camera about like some kind of documentary footage to add 'tension' or 'drama' into scenes of talking as if it's a Bourne film. And seatbelts? I get it, we can't have eighty-year-old Patrick Stewart rolling on the deck, he isn't up to all that now, but in Trek they don't do seatbelts, it's another 'Star Wars' thing. Yes, I know they had a deleted scene in 'Nemesis' where the Enterprise-E herself had them, but that was deleted and good riddance! Add to this list of problems the overly, and too constant, melodramatic music as if we have to keep the tempo going to cover the 'boredom' of people talking and it shows a lack of confidence in the material. Have these interesting discussions, explore characters, but don't have violins throbbing out a warning pulse all the time!

Finally, although we didn't have women moaning or shouting at Picard this time (they were too sad about his condition for that), he undermines himself by looking rather careless when he tells the crew about this condition he's known about for years and never did anything about. You'd think he'd have been searching out a cure or some kind of treatment that would delay the inevitable, but he makes it sound like he just lay down and accepted it, pushed it to the back of his mind, another example of un-Picard-like behaviour from a man who used to confront problems head on and deal with them. It could have been worse, I suppose, they could have reiterated the bizarre situation where the Riker-Trois son died because there was no positronic brain with which to develop a treatment for his very specific condition, and said the same for Picard, so at least there's that. And for all the poor developments coming in the finale I was still reasonably drawn into this episode, it did make for some exploration, if not enough, of an alternative culture, it brought the story to a head with Oh on the way leading her fleet of Warbirds, and Sutra, Soji and Soong all openly planning to alert the artificial powers-that-be that our galaxy needs a good rinsing. Oh, and why would Romulans trust a half-Vulcan, as Oh is? Oh, I don't know. Let's just say this episode could have been worse, as demonstrated by the next one!

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