Et In Arcadia Ego, Part 2

DVD, Star Trek: Picard S1 (Et In Arcadia Ego, Part 2)

How good it is to reach the end, but not for the reasons of finishing out an enjoyable return to the 24th Century era of Trek, merely a relief to conclude what has been an unhappy journey towards a difficult realisation: Trek is not now made for those that loved it. It's not a new understanding for me, I came to that conclusion with 'DSC' (let's just hope the season justifies all the poor choices… oh, nope, it didn't… let's just hope the next season improves and… oh, nope, it didn't, but maybe the ending will justify… no, nope, it didn't <sigh>), but 'Picard' is set in 'my' era, the one I grew up on and loved best. It suggested more hope because of those involved, and the lessons learned from 'DSC,' there being a much closer visual connection to what came before than the night and day jar between 'DSC' and other 23rd Century productions, but the same problems were evident in 'Picard' that had scuppered 'DSC.' The desperation of serialisation. The lack of creative freedom by forcing yourself down a set path instead of having the ability to explore different aspects of the galaxy, races, cultures, attitudes. There was very little exploration on offer here - where old Trek could do hard-hitting drama one week, lighthearted comedy the next, perhaps a Western, a heist, a story about technology, and all merged into this positive future where the history and the details formed something far greater than the individual parts on a regular basis. With the new Treks they're trapped in one story per season, be that galaxy-ending threats or… well, galaxy-ending threats… and best not mention the awful Klingon war…

The characters are contemporary, not of the future but of the now. They deliberately focus on the damaged, the anti-authority, the loose cannons on the outskirts of the Federation. One of the best moments of this episode and a recurring theme for me, was seeing Captain Riker warp into play leading the charge with an entire fleet of sleek Starfleet vessels, wearing the uniform, being a Starfleet officer. Because that's what Trek is! Sure, you can do some little offshoot tale about an old man rounding up a gang of misfits to track some android girl down and save her, but is that really the story we want to see? I know I don't. I'd much rather have 'just another crew on just another ship,' as some people complain. I'd like to see where the politics of this period are, beyond little mentions that some of the Federation worlds threatened to secede if the Romulans were helped out of their jam. Who leads the Klingons, how have the Ferengi changed after Grand Nagus Rom, and what are the current threats to the Federation in this time? We see a very small portion of a vast world in this series, it's always the seedy, downtrodden, broken, miserable side, and why would you choose to focus on that when you can explore wonders and have adventure and solve the galaxy's problems? That's what Trek is. I've long distilled Trek into a single sentence (and have probably included it in previous reviews!): an anthology of stage plays, often interconnected, about good people solving problems. So much for exploring Romulan culture and the ramifications of the destruction of the homeworld, there was about as much depth as 'DSC' had with the Klingons!

The very slight and occasional appearance of Starfleet officers or glimpses of Starfleet life (aside from miserable, cynical, foul-mouthed and terrible Clancy, whom I'm glad didn't appear in this episode), were the moments I tended to enjoy the most through the season, and it was almost like seeing Trek through a crack in the door, just little tastes of life, either fourteen years ago or 'now.' It doesn't make much sense that Riker would show up. They dropped in the hint during 'Nepenthe' that he was ready for the call up and could be activated any time, but in reality he's almost as old as Picard, he has a family and a life away from the service, and as much as I'd have loved to see a Captain Riker series, it appears that time has passed. Would they really recall someone like that and get him to lead an armada? Do they not have two decades or more of experienced and established Captains? And a Captain and his ship don't just meet and warp off, they have to get to know each other, learn each other's ways, it's not like taking a pleasure cruise! It sounds like I'm taking apart one of the things I liked about the episode, but that's because I can also acknowledge that, like most of what happens in this fantasy series, it doesn't make very much sense. But it's so lovely to see Will back in uniform, not only that, but to see the current uniform again as well as whatever the latest class of ship is. I'd have to agree with an online poster who described it as a 'cut and paste fleet,' as if they saved time on design by featuring only one type of vessel where in the past we've seen many.

Viewscreens! I love that we're back to viewscreens again after the 3D holographic debacle of 'DSC.' At the same time I still can't get past the insistence on aping the Kelvin films from another reality where all ships have a gigantic forward window through which the action takes place and upon which a viewscreen is superimposed. Had it been for one or two ships or a single Trek era I could buy it, but they've homogenised the look of 23rd and 24th Centuries, one of many things that has damaged Trek as a credible future history. It's less problematic with these new futuristic ships that we've never seen before, but it's still jarring when it's a design trope carried through since 2009, much like casual modern day speech and excessive swearing. Another poster hit the nail on the head when they wrote: 'The need to use profanity in any context, especially heated conversation, belies an inability to fully express yourself using other words, and possibly a deficiency in emotional regulation,' and I'd have to agree. Even in this last episode they casually throw in a couple of extreme words just for the sake of it. It doesn't have any impact in the way Clancy's aggressive examples did, other than a feeling of disgust that such language is portrayed as ordinary conversation for these people in a world that used to be seen as a moral and good one. Sure, there were sometimes swearwords used, but never the most extreme and usually in moments of agitation, not to say I accepted it in old Trek any more than here, and obviously it's all a product of loosening censorship and a philosophy of self-expression regardless of the offence caused or the degraded attitudes on display being acceptable, but it's one of those big things that has altered the very DNA of Trek's clean, wholesome image.

Atrocious language is only one small complaint I've had against the new regime and if there was no bad language at all it wouldn't change the fundamental problems with the story: the need to focus on a galaxy-ending crisis at the expense of personal exploration, which lest we forget, was revealed as the ultimate journey for humanity. It's why each race used to be portrayed in a very set way with specific characteristics, because they were representing different aspects of ourselves and it was fascinating to see how these were dealt with or how they played off each other - different cultures, different attitudes, true diversity. There isn't one culture explored in 'Picard' unless you count synthetic life, but 'explored' is a very loose term for what they did with these people. Are we supposed to root for Soji who seems to be at the very centre of the building of this beacon tower that will somehow, we don't know how, transmit a message to the synthetic creatures beyond our galaxy who will come and rescue their own kind from those pesky organics, whom, before we forget, wouldn't exist at all without them! Forget V'Ger coming home to seek its creator, these synths are more like moody teens who no one understands and have gone to live on a commune and got involved in dark forces. By the look of those cliched tentacled monsters writhing on the other side of the portal, they looked more like something that was going to come and feed on our galaxy, synth and organic life alike!

Or were they just the vanguard of attack forces who would have come through and ripped the Romulan and Starfleet ships apart before the true beings arrived and calmly offered assistance to the synths on the planet? The angry roiling mass certainly wasn't portrayed in any way as something that could be reasoned with and be understood and come to an understanding, which is the standard Trek resolution, or used to be. In this instance everything rides on whether Picard can persuade Soji to make the right choice. I'm not sure he was very persuasive myself, he basically said that Starfleet haven't fired on the planet and they aren't going to. Honestly I didn't really buy Soji's defection in the first place as she's gone along with this group who saved her and then she decides to put the whole galaxy at risk. It was poorly plotted, juvenile writing, much like the Marvel Universe - indeed I thought that's what I was watching as this devastating extragalactic threat prepares to come down and raze our worlds and I can imagine Thor, Iron Man and Hulk leaping around bashing them as they come. It's that level of intelligence displayed in this series. The beacon itself, this self-replicating structure that builds itself was typical of modern Trek, too. Rather than see the synths actually build it for themselves, it just pops up out of nowhere and nothing, but then these synths possess Magical Technology that operates on imagination.

You have to wonder if those in charge of the series ever watched Trek, and if they did, did they like anything in it? Not by the evidence of what they do when they're in control: Trek was about striving to achieve, it was about using your abilities and improving yourself, not technology that does everything for you. Sure, Transporters can save you travelling long distances and Replicators solve your food, drink and clothing needs, but once these basic needs are met you are then free to explore and get the most out of life. That's why they had doctors, scientists, engineers and these characters inspired people in the real world. Now none of that is necessary, you simply have a handheld device that fixes any problem by the power of thinking about it! We never need another engineer again. And if it can fix things, then why not build things too? Simply wave your hand and a new ship can be built to the specs in your imagination! And they said tech post-'Voyager' would be too magical to be believable. Hah! The argument in response will always be that famous quote about any sufficiently advanced technology seeming like magic to less developed people, but that doesn't account for the drama-ruining potential of such devices. It's true that in Trek you can do anything. Literally anything. But to make it have consequences and reality is what gives it a purpose for the story. I've said it before, it's not what you do, it's how you do it. I don't want to see magic wand devices that fix everything (why couldn't they fix Saga with that?), just as I don't want to see droids all over the place that patch up ships or, even more ludicrously, tidy up overturned chairs as in 'DSC' after the Tyler/Culber fight.

Perhaps the biggest problem with the whole story is that the Romulans were right. Those evil, fascistic, obscene villains were correct, the synths almost did destroy our galaxy by letting in untold horrors. Which makes me wonder, if these beings are so powerful why wouldn't they make their own gateway now that they know they were summoned? To them it would most likely seem that enemies of their own kind had prevented the portal from opening and so they'd know where to go next, wouldn't they? But that doesn't help the story to be wrapped up so such questions aren't even raised! I know the message is supposed to be that if you give someone a choice they'll hopefully make the right one, but it was a bit of a gamble to hang the fate of an entire galaxy on. I know we're supposed to see that as optimistic, but that everything hinged on one cybernetic girl's whims was a risk that Picard shouldn't have been taking. And even if he could convince Soji she's not the leader of the gang, or is synth society not a democracy, everyone does as they wish? In which case, and either way, it's entirely possible that others in that community would be pro keeping the beacon on. I wish it had been done so Soji was the only one who could operate it because of her physically identical nature to Sutra as that would have made more sense for her to be the key to everything. Sutra gets summarily taken out of the picture by Dr. Soong possessing a handy device that completely immobilises her with a single button press. Do the other synths know that he has this power over them? I would think that would make them just as wary of him as any other organic, even if he plans to become one of them by taking the mind transfer route into the spare body.

I don't know what to think of the synths. Perhaps they were just children ultimately and that's why we don't really get a sense of them as a society or culture because they just went along with whatever any leader decided. A major failed opportunity to explore what it means to be artificial and yet also sentient. Perhaps we'll explore that in future thanks to the major, major development at the end. Yes, I'm talking about altering a classic character, totally and irrevocably in the most misguided and fantastical move modern Trek has made: Picard becomes an android. I can see that there's some kind of poetic parallel being played out, that rather than Data becoming human, Picard ends up becoming an android, and they probably thought what a masterstroke, but to me it's a betrayal of one of the best-loved characters of Trek. What happened to all that in 'Generations' about mortality defining us, blah, blah, blah. And I know Picard didn't get the choice, they saved him by transferring his consciousness into the android body, but going along with the magical tech theme, this is about the limit. I know it was done in 'TNG,' Dr. Ira Graves successfully implanted his consciousness into Data, but if it had been a success it would have altered the very nature of life, and as much as the tech in Trek has done that, it's never been done quite to that level. Now it means that there's an imbalance in society, because why should one man be given the choice to live on in a synthetic body, what about all the other cases - what if Icheb could have had that option? Or Jadzia Dax, or any number of others?

Unless… they're just humouring Picard: 'yes, we gave you a new android body which ages at the same rate as the old one and has no greater strength or any other advantages (really Soong just fixed his brain issue!)What they've done is create a dangerous new precedent, unthinkingly. Very much a case of not thinking whether it should be done because they were too busy seeing if it could be. Trek has always been quite opposed to this direction, too, as we've seen in how the Federation views genetic enhancement, which was banned. To top it all off, not only do they give Jean-Luc a new body, they give him a wrinkled old one that looks identical to his real one (which by the way, did they give that some kind of funeral service or burial, what happened to the real Picard?), and just to please the old man they've made sure he's only going to live as long as he would have anyway and he doesn't have any 'super-powers' as they describe it so stupidly. This is truly comic book territory. Would Picard not have preferred to have a whole other lifetime, to go back to a young, fresh, vigorous body? It seems a waste otherwise. This smacks of pure marketing, that they didn't really want to change Picard because then he wouldn't be Picard, but they had to find a way around the illness he had. There are many ways he could have been cured or perhaps had some kind of improvement given to him so that he could live with the condition for much longer, but to introduce it only for him to be saved by becoming an android was a bizarre idea. Almost as bizarre as turning a productive member of the Voyager crew, a fan favourite, into a hard-bitten, hard-drinking, hardhearted revenge seeker, but more on Seven in a bit…

This could have been a way to write Patrick Stewart out of the series, and perhaps that was the morbid idea behind it: that if Stewart didn't live long enough to fulfil his commitment they could just have the character transfer his consciousness into a different body, thus another actor would take over? It only just occurred to me, but that sounds like the kind of business decision CBS would have made! There's also the fact they probably wanted people to tune in each week expecting this to be the last time we'll ever get to see Stewart playing his most famous role, only for the surprise at the end that, ta-da!, he's okay really! What about poor Dr. Soong? He seemed more than willing to give up the android body meant for himself, and he was a character who was never really given any sense of being a person. It's just a role created so Brent Spiner can be there without all the Data makeup. And oh, we'll get onto Data, yes indeed. If Picard becoming an android wasn't a big enough slap in the face, especially if you were willing, hoping and expecting Data's neurons to be reassembled and given the new body, they kill him off permanently. He'd already been killed in 'Nemesis,' something that most people seem to think was a terrible idea, and which I share, but we learn that because of a single neuron saved from B4 who had part of Data's mind, he's been somehow reconstituted and is hanging around in some kind of simulation, waiting to die properly.

I must admit, I was about to give the episode the lowest mark of the season with one star, but I had to add the extra star just for Data's appearance. I don't mean his physical appearance because he looks a bit wonky, just like the uniform he's wearing that shows zips and displays a lack of understanding on how Trek uniforms used to be: the only time they showed how they were done up was by mistake, like on 'TOS' occasionally. Data was wonky in the same way that the episode was wonky, which was in the same way that the season was wonky, which was in the same way as modern Trek is wonky. But even in spite of all that wonkiness, it was still beautiful to see and hear Commander Data, and get a discussion of Picard's last moments with him in 'Nemesis,' something you'd never have thought possible. He looked a lot better in the light when the door had opened than in the gloom of that darkened room, but the voice was there, the mannerisms and it just makes me sad that we have to give up this character that they could have brought back. It's not like it would undo such a great ending for the character in 'Nemesis' because it wasn't great, and let's be honest, even then they were planning to bring him back, that's why B4 existed! Perhaps they didn't mean to suggest Data might be the consciousness that ended up in the synth body, but if not that was a massive misstep because it's more cruel than his original death to give hope and then euthanise the last remains of him just because he wanted to die (read: so they didn't have to do more expensive CGI). Think what contributions he could still have made if he'd been given another chance, and it's not like they couldn't have whipped up another body, given time. Also a shame he didn't age into looking like old Noonien Soong when we see him die!

Jurati, whose murdering tendencies seem to have been completely forgotten, appears to be an expert on Maddox' work, able to finish what he started, so why not start churning out bodies for everyone? She's just as irritating as ever, chattering and gibbering away - throwing in a reference to the Picard Manoeuvre as a potential tactic in their confrontation with the Romulan fleet was extremely clunky and out of place (even more so for the very modern way of saying 'that's a thing'), only there as a fun reference (which it was), but so jarring because Picard then has to explain why it wouldn't be appropriate. Once again it shows we're dealing with people that don't get Trek, whether it be the characters themselves, or the writers who write them. Is it supposed to be endearing and a 'clever' way to interject a reference, because it was at the wrong time. And what was going on with that fleet anyway? And why aren't the Emergency Holograms in evidence at all? Did they say they'd been shut down or there wasn't enough power, because I didn't catch it, and you'd hope the EMH would be there to support Picard, an elderly and ill man? Likewise, the Emergency Navigator could have been flying instead of relying on Picard's rusty piloting skills! And as for Oh… Oh dear. The ex-Commodore in charge of the Romulans must have become soft from working inside Starfleet all those years - why would she tell her ships to ignore La Sirena, I know it's not much of a threat, but it would be typical Romulan efficiency to destroy the vessel, not ignore it as she commands her fleet! It made no sense, neither did the confrontation with Starfleet! But I did like the shoulder pads that recalled 'TNG' Romulan uniforms.

We might complain that Trek is too 'Star Wars' if they'd had a space battle, which they did to a small extent by blasting the defence flowers (how silly that sounds!), which really is 'Star Wars' thanks to all those tiny dogfighters that Trek never used to do, but is yet another influence co-opted from the more successful Star franchise. But these Romulans have lost almost everything for losing so much of their Empire's space (we assume), Oh has been infiltrating Starfleet for decades in order to be ready for this apocalyptic final battle at the end of time, like something out of Revelation, and all she does is stand on the Bridge of her ship and look a little blank. I understand that there's a fleet of the latest, greatest Starfleet vessels between her and the planet, but you'd think she'd fight tooth and nail, giving everything to this desperate struggle that would decide the fate of her entire race if she fails. Instead, she's comfortable waiting for Picard to have a chat with Soji about why it's really not a good idea to let the big scary man in. I know she's half-Vulcan which means she should be logical and more open to reason than her brethren (it was never even explored that she may have experienced bigotry for her Vulcan half and that it seems very unlikely her people would give her command of what must be their entire fleet through prejudice, but then these things only come up in specific ways in new Trek), but I didn't buy that she'd stand by and allow all this to take place after a lifetime of dedicated preparation. And it would have been a chance for a major battle like we used to see in 'DS9,' one that was genuinely justified.

Again, I think it's supposed to be a sign of the 'optimism' that was promised that they don't fight, but it was all a little pat and easy, Riker goes off after smiling broadly, Picard's okay… except he's not, and you'd think he'd want one of his best friends and former colleagues with him if he knew he was about to die instead of saying he had it in hand now. Think how Riker would have felt if he'd later learned Jean-Luc had died just after he left! And again, I defer to a poster online who wrote about Picard becoming an android: '…He was going to die soon, so now he’s been given another chance. For what, exactly?' It's true, why shouldn't he have died, other than for the fact that his image needs to make CBS more money! Someone else said: 'I was just more confused by the fact that the Romulans were actually right all along, but were still being portrayed as the enemy for some reason.' It's true, they were right, and the fact they were prevented from doing what was necessary almost spelt the end of everything. And again, the counter-argument would be that because of them it forced the synths to go into hiding and want to call on the evil forces to protect them, but I'm not sure that wouldn't have happened anyway. I get the attack on Mars Utopia Planitia was headed by the Jhat Vash in order to make the synths out to be evil, but I'm still not sure on that plot point and how it could have been taken like that. The ban is overturned anyway, in a little throwaway at the end, not for any good reason, just because it's the end. Would the Federation be that quick to cancel such a thing? Mind you, they were quick to institute it, so who knows?

It's not the Federation or Starfleet we knew, which adds further fuel to the fire of this seeming much more dystopian than ever before, even the height of the Dominion War when we saw characters do unsavoury things. Perhaps some of Sisko's actions actually began such un-Starfleet sentiments as ends justifying means and all that, and I love him, he's possibly my favourite Captain of all. Moral ambiguity is a problem though, it's crept into the franchise over time and Jean-Luc Picard was once the benchmark of honesty and integrity, but we've seen even him make plenty of questionable decisions and undiplomatic displays in this series. I put it down to age and the degenerative brain abnormality (which we're still not allowed to call Irumodic Syndrome or we'd have to pay the writers of 'All Good Things…' I reckon!), but that's another dissatisfaction with the series and the deconstruction of what made Trek so hopeful and captivating. There was even a slip of the tongue by Picard when he trots out that Data wanted to be human despite humanity's violence, corruption and wilful ignorance. Erm, hang on, that's not the humanity portrayed in any of the old Treks. That, more than anything else in the episode exposed the true attitudes of the writers, that they don't understand the fundamental bedrock position of Trek on such things. I'm not one that treats Trek as a religion and believes one day things will be like this (except in Heaven), but I like the positive attitudes of the series, and though I blanch at the humanism it also has parallels with some goodness and rightness.

Even though this was almost an hour long, I didn't feel the characters got their dues, much like in a Trek film. So Jurati's position as a murderer is never touched on, Raffi doesn't really have much to do, nor does Rios, whose plot to save the day by hiding a bomb in a football, didn't work at all. I didn't like the sunset scene with Seven and Rios kicking back and boozing together like old chums - this was the only moment Seven voices any kind of regret about the fact she can't help murdering people that deserve it, like it's a habit or something! It was such a paltry throwaway attempt at reconciling what she's done in this series that rather than make her more sympathetic it made her seem even harder and more lost. At the start of the episode she and Elnor discuss how the XBs have nowhere to go, no place to call home, but in the past the impression was that once they'd been freed from the Collective they could be rehabilitated as Seven was. Except in this continuity rather than Seven becoming less Borgified, losing some of her implants, etc, she became even more Borged up for no good reason! It was a terrible misstep to do what they did to her, taking a character of hope that had come so far and plunging her into the murderous mire. In this episode she kills Narissa by pushing her over the edge of the Borg Cube, like the Emperor being thrown down the shaft in the Death Star, and that's what it feels like, except weak and limp compared to that and without the complexity that was at work in the original 'Star Wars' trilogy.

Seven has become a horrifying character and it made me wonder what happened to her Voyager family, that was home to her? Did she quarrel with them all and refuse to have anything to do with them? That's the inference if she claims she has no place or family. It's truly disgusting what they did with her and it makes me hope they don't bring back any more classic characters if they're only planning to deconstruct and tear them apart rather than pay homage to an amazing legacy that they could never hope to come close to. Rather, this generation has tarnished Trek, almost beyond repair. They altered Seven in new and disturbing ways that were never in evidence in 'Voyager,' twisting a beloved character into any shape they feel like. I will give them one moment that worked for a character, and that was when Elnor goes to Raffi for comfort after Picard's 'died' - she's a kind of Mother figure and he was brought up by Mother figures so it was very fitting that he went to her, especially as he's little more than a child developmentally. I wasn't as keen on the earlier scene of Raffi, Rios and Elnor sitting round a campfire outside La Sirena telling stories. The whole Romulan myth side of the plot never worked and was just another element ripped from other franchises. Marvel, 'Star Wars,' 'The Lord of The Rings,' these are the influences now, and rather than Trek ploughing its own furrow it constantly tries to appeal by aping other things, except doing it badly. It's pitiful to see a once-proud name that led the way, meekly following and trying to compete with the 'big boys' of gore and other so-called 'adult' content which is more accurately described as coming from juvenile minds.

At least this time we didn't see the eyeball being removed, perhaps in reaction to the horror expressed at Icheb's treatment earlier. We just hear the squishy sounds as Jurati borrows Saga's eye to break Picard out, though I have to question whether that would work - wouldn't the system recognise a 'dead' eye compared to a live one? There's talk of the synths being manipulated by Sutra into an emotional jolt so they'd make the decision she wanted, but do they all have emotions? Are emotion chips ten a penny now? If humans can pop their minds into a machine body, then why not, I suppose… But there's no exploration of synthetic emotion or anything really - they're also supposed to be super strong as Data demonstrated, so that would mean organics would have no chance against the speed and reflexes in a fight, which made it ludicrous that Elnor and the others try to take them on even with the element of surprise! Narek being revealed as a Jhat Vash 'washout' in his words, at least gives him more context, but you'd think such a super-secret organisation would have killed anyone that failed. There's a moment of actual sibling affection between he and Narissa when they meet on the Cube, but it was too little, too late to make her any more real than a 2D villainess that we'd ever care about and she's right back into cliche territory when she fights Seven while throwing out terrible corny quips like it's an old James Bond film. There are no real consequences, the Romulans entering Federation space should be an act of war, the beacon's switched off as easy as that, nothing's said about the murders committed by characters, the ban on synths is lifted, but who's to say they might not do it again?

At one point Raffi asks what's happening and Rios replies 'nothing that makes any sense.' That was an excellent way to sum up the episode and season. It's amazing how each of the three seasons of current gen Trek I've watched have been just about equally bad, but for different reasons. I suppose 'Picard' has had the closest feel of Trek out of them all (despite being the first season since 'Enterprise' Season 3 not to feature a single Klingon - the photo of Worf doesn't count!), but it's still only a very pale imitation. He has some good things to say here, such as to be alive is a responsibility, not just a right (which sounds like they ripped off the famous Spider-Man line and thought they could get away with it!), but nothing is really dug down into, they can't afford to because they're trying to make Trek something it's not. The truth is, modern Trek was radically redesigned by JJ Abrams to be a twisted and distorted version of its former self that would appeal to a new generation that want action more than thought, a kind of false, forced diversity that isn't the true diversity of representing every point of view that is reasonable, one that has shown its poor morals in the way characters act, speak and think, not to mention the tearing down of authority and anything deemed patriarchal, such as Jean-Luc himself who became practically emasculated with this series. It's shown people who are damaged as the standard 'heroes' we are to follow, while avoiding true heroic types and it hasn't even given the characters it presents the kind of exploration and development they need to be rounded, interesting people.

The more I've thought about the series, the less I've liked it. I defer to an online poster again who described it as: 'All plot with little or nothing interesting (thematically) underlying it all. In other words, the stories are about a series of events that ultimately don’t mean much to me — the stories don’t show me anything interesting or meaningful about what it’s like to live life, i.e. the human condition or anything interesting about the world/universe.' I couldn't agree more, and because of that I've made the decision that this will be the last review I make of the current generation of Trek. It's become a chore which I don't look forward to, because as much of a relief as it is to get my thoughts out and provide a record of what is happening, or has happened to Trek in the context of the whole franchise, it also depresses, disgusts and disinterests. While they keep releasing the various productions on disc I'll keep buying because physical media's days are numbered, but I don't find myself being concerned any more that I'm going to miss out because I simply don't like what Trek has become. Maybe one day I'll get back to writing about what is still coming out, but for now I've had enough of analysing this thing with the name 'Star Trek,' but which is only bad Trek, with nothing more for me.

**