Surrender

 DVD, Picard S3 (Surrender)

A revelation came to me after watching this, and that was the episode itself is playing out the battle between Data and Lore: the good parts are fighting to dominate, while the bad parts are doing the same, but unfortunately for the quality of the storytelling, unlike the events within it, the bad ultimately wins out! I so wanted this to work, I was toying with the idea of giving it a better rating, but while I liked it slightly better than on original viewing, and while I was once again hoping those memorable Data/Lore scenes weren't part of a weaker episode which turned out not to quite be the case, I couldn't justify the episode as a whole and seemed mostly filler designed to keep us treading water until the big two-part finale, as if taking four times as long to get there, like the opposite of Scotty's rule of giving repair estimates four times what it would actually take, the same dialogue over and over when Trek used to be so tight and had such a command of brevity to create its drama. For example, it showed elements of creative flair in the directing, from the opening looking out from the viewing port on the Bridge's ceiling, to the POV of Jack Crusher while he enters into his special powers of taking control of someone, but then they go and use annoying shaky-cam during simple dialogue scenes as if we're in a Bourne film, the viewer hovering breathlessly nearby as if spying out the scene. Some of the dialogue came out a bit unskilled, too, whether it be Sidney La Forge explaining Jack's ability, or notably Picard expressing his lack of understanding, to Vadic's various expressions in general. Yet I can be an angel's advocate even there, as I liked seeing Sidney support Jack, having experienced his ability firsthand, while Picard has never been more Picard in his own series than when he sits at the head of the Briefing Room table with all his old crew gathered around just like the old days.

Vadic, though, remains Vadic unto death. The only consolation with her is that she's finally dealt with, but it's been a long, slow dealing in a season that has mostly managed to distract from its gradual, almost glacial plotting progress with the sleight of hand of introducing each new 'TNG' character, but has still felt drawn out (just as Vadic takes her time here, enjoying torturing her captives slowly, evoking pleasure in power and evil). It just seems modern, serialised Trek is the toughest to get right, and while I'd take this season over all the other live action, it still shows so many of the same problems. A cartoonish villain being just one of many. There are always going to be holes in the story, no matter the Trek, but a couple of big ones that seemed very obvious to me were: one, that if Jack can take over people against their will, why not go for the target with the greatest power, namely Vadic; and two, why would a starship Bridge have an emergency evacuation hatch that can tip the whole lot out into space?! Neither of these made sense and appeared a way to, one, insert gratuitous scene of torture, and two, flush the villain out of the series because she's served her purpose in diverting the heroes from getting to grips with the 'real' villain of the piece too quickly. Vadic was really just one of those 'mysteries' so beloved of modern Trek, aping modern TV and film, to distract from a lack of substance, in the same vein as Jack's Real Identity, that is supposed to carry us through the trudging pace of the season, and to some extent the latter worked, but to no extent did Vadic work.

The idea of an offshoot group of Changelings wasn't a bad notion and does make sense, even if it took so long for them to get their own back on the victors of the Dominion War, but they weren't well portrayed or well set up - we're supposed to feel some sympathy towards Vadic (no one else because they're all faceless cannon fodder goons only there to be the muscle and to provide space for a 'cool' scene where Raffi can take them all out like a whirling dervish, nothing like the cunning, solitary threats faced from real Changelings), but I only felt horror that Starfleet sanctioned experiments on sentient beings, and I read one online comment that described them as deranged to think they could turn these experiments to their own use as spies, and I heartily agree! But it was the confused nature of these Changelings that was the ultimate downfall: are they flesh and blood, are they mimicking the same, are they something else? Why do the minions speak in clicks and grunts? What was really the point of it all except as a delaying tactic to give us plot to wade through until we get to the end of the season and series? It came home to me once again when Worf rescues Riker and Troi Riker-Troi (!), from the Brig of the Shrike by stabbing the masked Changeling guard right through the middle before blasting it (him?), to the usual uninspired shower of silly sparks that Phaser fire results in now. We see a little blood, and we know they have internal organs, but did that kill the guard, or was that why Worf also had to Phaser it to bits? And does Starfleet sanction wanton killing like that, could he not have stunned the guy?

But then that would give Starfleet a problem because it would have to confront its own immorality if the masked ones were unmasked and the sins put on show for all to see. That would have been a very Trekky way to go, to give these remaining Changelings an outlet, a new lease of life, perhaps if René Auberjonois had been alive when they were making the season they could have had a lovely cameo where he shows up to take the renegades into custody, perhaps even to offer them the rehabilitation of The Great Link, much like the ending to 'Insurrection' where some of Ru'afo's soldiers are allowed home to their own kind again and the hatred and bitter divide is laid aside for the sake of forgiveness and reunification. But modern Trek isn't very interested in those kind of values, never has been, it's much more about the violence and the twisted, and how heroes have to be compromised to beat the villains (see the shortly arriving 'Section 31' streaming film...), entirely antithetical to Trek's former ideals. In the same way as Picard and Crusher were contemplating executing Vadic in the previous episode, there's no sense of dealing with these enemies in any other way than with extreme prejudice. And yet, in keeping with the Data/Lore struggle, I can also point to a shining example of positivity, and bizarrely it comes from Captain Shaw, a character who has not represented that very much at all!

When Seven wants to intervene in the execution scene on the Bridge, Shaw stops her, but it's the line where he says she could have 'blown' the Turbolift, which would have ended the threat, though it would have killed Shaw as well - Starfleet officers don't have the luxury to only do things that feel, in Shaw's words, 'hunky-dory,' and it took me back to that episode of 'TNG' where Crusher has to send Geordi to his death to save the ship in a simulation and at first can't do it. It makes me think Seven is in no ways ready for her own command because she hasn't come to the understanding of what the priority of the moment is, and the hard decisions a Captain must be ready to make. Of course the episode itself isn't necessarily saying that, it's much more concerned with Seven's fierce defence of her 'chosen' identity where she continues to ridiculously assert her Borg designation over, what must be remembered, is her original human identity of Annika Hansen. It's always been this symbol between Captain and First Officer of their mutual incompatibility, and we're meant to side with Seven since it's a thinly veiled support of identity politics, not realising she could easily be considered to be unable to move on from her past (rather like Sisko in 'Emissary'), because she's holding onto something that doesn't exist instead of trying to accept who she really is, and instead it's just a weapon to attack Shaw with. Modern Trek is much more interested in that, but not to the extent they really delve into it because modern Trek is pretty shallow surface level overall!

Shaw going out in the Turbolift could have been a much more dramatic way to go, would have had exactly the horror and shock modern Trek likes to portray, but crucially would have given Seven the lesson in command that would make sense for her to take over as Captain at the end of the season (rather than the weak way Shaw would be dispatched purely to give her the centre seat in the next episode!). Sadly, Starfleet isn't shown to be at its best in this one, mostly through nondescript background characters (the officers rushing madly about on the Titan as they're gunned down, showing only panic and no thought or tactics to prove they belong in Starfleet!), but also in the slightly more developed members of the crew: in the line-up on the Bridge we see Esmar shed a shameful tear in front of Vadic as she walks up and down, prowling for a victim, which showed great weakness in a season where the lesser characters have been treated a lot better than on other recent Treks. And when it comes down to it I never liked the bald, green-faced woman anyway, an example of the kind of ugly alien design we've seen since Michael Westmore no longer had an influence, and while T'Veen was even balder (!), I'd have much preferred Esmar to be the executed example rather than what has been a relatively good example of a Vulcan, but it was meant to be a shock out of the blue, so it's no surprise why they did that.

Mura was the other candidate, chosen as he is to be Jack's avatar to take back control since apparently all consoles on the ship have been locked out to Bridge control except the ones on the Bridge! But to swing back the other way towards positivity, Mura's scene actually showed the qualities of a Starfleet officer: Vadic orders him to demand Picard send Jack to her, and he refuses because it isn't the Starfleet thing to do, and more impressively he's also a Father himself which suddenly gives the scene so much more weight as you can read into it that he wouldn't put Picard in that situation knowing what it would be like were the positions reversed. It could only have been better if Sidney had been among those in the line-up and you think she's going to be killed, since she's the most fleshed out of them all. I'll give them the solution Jack comes up with, too, even if it is a bit of a techy gimmick: we just happen to have a device that can provide a portable forcefield around a couple of people, which the baddies assume is an explosive device, so he was using a bit of blunt Poker face guile to fool them, though even there Seven almost messes things up by unnecessarily staying behind when the others are herded into the Briefing Room - and what happened to the Changelings in there with them? They could have been executed, since surely they had guards in there or they might be able to do something to get themselves out! And what about the Changelings throughout the ship that had been chasing people down? Yes, Vadic's dealt with (I'm guessing the fact she was experimented on was why she froze up in space when we know normal Changelings can survive quite comfortably out there), a relief to be rid of her, but there are other Changelings on the ship, so how were they dealt with?!

There's another rather large plot-hole: Geordi unplugs Data so Lore can't access the Titan's systems any more. But why did it take him so long to come to that course of action? It was all there to provide tension when Jack and Sidney are trapped previously, and an excuse to show off Jack's 'cool' powers of possession, which I'm still not sure make any sense! You could still be forgiven for guessing he's going to turn out to be a Pah-Wraith since they talk about something inside him, something old, etc, though it's all misdirection, except when you know, the light comes on when Vadic says it's fitting Seven is there for the reveal, since she's obviously Borg. But back to Geordi's brainwave of disconnecting Data - it doesn't make any difference anyway as Vadic now has control, and while it is all rather obvious when they build up to needing an advanced computer to be able to crack Vadic's control, it was still fun that it all comes back to Data, I just wished they'd had Picard say something like 'I know someone who can...' And so we come to the best of the episode: Data. He's not the only shining moment, there are pleasant scenes between Riker and Deanna, and the same reiterating their deep friendship between Geordi and Data at the end (something he never got to express due to Data's untimely demise in 'Nemesis'), and of course the wonderful, if overly delayed coming together of all the 'TNG' characters in one room (noticeably alone, as if the other characters created for this series aren't really that important, but I have to agree with that implied sentiment!), almost worth all the bad to get to.

It was a great idea to have Data surrender to his errant brother, and in so doing bring him into the light, Data's own memories and personalities overwhelming the evil represented by Lore. And it was all so Data in its approach, not some feat of speed, agility and violence as when they first faced off in 'Datalore' way back in Season 1 'TNG': moderate, thoughtful, yet also a shrewd cunning that defeats Lore's focused self-interest because he can't see beyond it, and all so expertly carried off so you think Data's time is over, Lore taking Data piece by piece, one memory at a time, when in fact surrender led to victory, even the way Data says it was perfect, soothing Lore's triumphant bitterness by saying that he had nothing while Data had everything. It's a terrific turnaround which almost overcame the problems of the episode. It's not achieved quite without Trekferences, but I'm not one of those people that hates connection to previous Treks, especially when its done in such a wonderful way: we get little cameos from two characters (you could almost say the only other characters that haven't featured in the season, though Dr. Pulaski and Wesley Crusher could certainly have been included), in the holo-recording of Tasha Yar (I don't remember it well enough to know if this is the exact same image, hands on hips, that was seen in 'TNG,' or whether they recreated it, but the clear multisided shape it's projected from certainly looked familiar), so Denise Crosby wasn't exactly wrong when she indicated she'd appear, or did she indicate she wouldn't, I don't recall, but it was important she had some recognition, especially as Data himself kept her memory alive for viewers throughout 'TNG.' And Spot the cat was the other one, not seen since 'Nemesis'!

Oh, but once again I do have to sound a negative knell because I loved the concept and potential for Data to have multiple personalities in one body, so that on occasion Lore or B4, Lal or Dr. Soong (one or more of them, who knows!), could rear their heads in a given moment. That's of course if we were ever going to see more of the character, which seems increasingly unlikely at this point, Season 3 essentially peak old Trek, maximum Trek, or Treximum shall we say! I'd have loved to see another season or more with Data, Geordi and the rest, and if we ever did get more (even a spinoff streaming film), they could still pull out any of those personalities with a bit of technobabble, so I'm not really complaining. It even suggests new ground for Data to cover since he now feels the rigours of old age thanks to this new body (which was never adequately explained, but who cares, we got Brent Spiner playing Data again, the rest is custard), and can commiserate with the aged Picard and all the others who have passed through the fire of time in which we burn. It also makes him less tragic because he hasn't stayed the same while all his friends have become old and degenerated, and there remains so much potential for this band, this happy group, though that remained to be seen at this point with two episodes left in which anyone could be sacrificed on the altar of shock twists (thankfully not, to spoil the 'surprise').

There were some little side digs that I wondered about: firstly, when Vadic implies the Captain's Chair is cosy and she's going to take it with her this could be a reference to the times the Chair was stolen from the set of at least a couple of the 'TNG' films, which I took as a fun, knowing in-joke. And when Lore says something about Data scanning through his 'meaningless memorabilia' I couldn't help but take that as a nudge at many of the fans who love to collect Trek stuff, though in Data's case he willingly gives it all up (to be human?). I felt there was a problem when Geordi states that Data's ethical subroutines don't permit him to take a life, any life, referring to battling Lore, but then I thought of the end of 'The Most Toys' when Data has his Phaser trained on Kivas Fajo with the strong suggestion he was about to execute the man, so I'm not sure it's quite as cut and dried as Geordi makes out, although it is refreshing to be reminded of a time when life was held to be so important Starfleet characters would do their best not to take life wherever possible, even if it inconvenienced them, which is completely at odds with the modern Treks where they vaporise enemies all the time without a second thought: case in point, why did they blast the Shrike to bits (reminding me of the end of 'Star Trek XI' and Nero's ship)? It was a threat, but with their leader gone maybe the Titan could have taken it over, and it'd have been far more use as a source of information on what was going on than the vague, unspoken questions within Jack Crusher's mind about his role and identity. Not to mention it was the last resting place of Jean-Luc's biological remains, which we see one last time before Worf, Raffi, Riker and Troi escape. Not that Picard's body was needed, but it was almost like when Data got blown up within the Scimitar in 'Nemesis,' his remains were vaporised.

That's a question: did Picard know that his body had been kept somewhere by Starfleet? Did he give his authorisation? Why would they keep it, surely it deserved a decent burial, even if the consciousness of the man had been transferred to a positronic form (which once again they felt they had to incorporate, though it really has no bearing on Picard's existence - the only intrigue was that part of his brain was taken out, though it must have been beamed out since his head looked entirely intact!). The Shrike doesn't feature much throughout the season, mainly showing the Bridge, so at least we got to see more of it here, and the chamber where Picard's body was kept felt quite solemn, like an actual burial chamber, even if Picard is really still alive, so there was a strangeness there more than anything else in the season. The scene with Riker and Deanna coming together was a highlight, it's so real, even if I didn't exactly buy all that was said. I'm generally in favour of the retconning of the previous seasons since so much of them was bad, but I felt it a shame to make out that the Riker-Troi's actually hated living on Nepenthe, since the episode of the same name in Season 1 was actually one of the better parts. It was sad to learn they were both living a falsehood then, and I'm sure Kestra (whom I was glad to hear mentioned), didn't feel that way and it would have been a joy to grow up there. It seemed so idyllic, but then you remember Deanna was a bit angry when Picard visited so maybe that's evidence she was harbouring conflicted feelings.

The scene did at least make more sense of how she and Riker could have come to the point where he had to leave for a while, and it tied it neatly into Deanna's Betazoid heritage, that she had numbed his pain, which (like Kirk in 'Star Trek V'), he'd been holding onto and she'd taken that away, but as she saw it, helped to shoulder the burden. I suppose it makes a statement about consent and choice, and that Riker needed to get through it rather than the quick fix she thought she was providing. Once again, the timing doesn't seem to make any sense whatsoever, since Thaddeus was born decades ago and it took this long for Riker to get through all that? It's a bit like the stuff with Dr. Crusher casting off all her old friends and colleagues for twenty years because Jean-Luc might put her son in danger, it made little sense and was really only a plot convenience, but it could have been worse, they could have killed her off and said that's why we never saw or heard of her again. There is one scene that had no backlash or any bad feeling in it whatsoever, and that was Geordi expressing his friendship to Data, and vice versa, as that was the final healing plaster over the top of the open wound of not just 'Nemesis,' but the ill-judged choice to euthanise the mental remains of Data at the end of Season 1 - they have to get their seal of approval on that, unfortunately, by Data saying that version of him is resting peacefully, but it also shows that he isn't human, that he can be copied, but more importantly he's started a new chapter of life which holds promise and if there was never any more of Data in Trek, allows him to be left in a state in which we can imagine him living on as Data always did: exploring, experimenting, learning, and living life as we all do, perhaps even appreciating it more now that he's experienced a kind of death.

That would be a nice place to leave this review, with a kind of hopeful optimism that was once inherent to Trek, but is now a rarity, or a blind, unfounded hope, but like the episode itself isn't the end of the season, and there's still the big two-part finale (and we know how good they are at finishing out serialised seasons...), I still have a few nits to pick: I come back to Raffi, once again misused because she really has no point in the season, other than as a conduit to bring Worf in. We could just as easily have seen the big Klingon doing all the investigating alone in the former episodes, but Raffi has to be there for some reason, and her 'big moment' has to be there for the sake of stupidity - Changelings, we can take them out with just a bit of elbow grease and a couple of long knives, 'cos that's what Trek's all about, isn't it? So she strides down a corridor and easily makes mincemeat out of these faceless goons who we were supposed to feel sympathy for since Starfleet experimented on them (or was it Section 31, but either way...), but were never given any dimension, indeed were deliberately portrayed as mindless heavies. If it'd been Jem'Hadar I could get behind it, and they'd have been only too pleased to have a puny human woman come at them with bladed weapons because they lived for battle. But it just sums up the uselessness of both the Changelings themselves, and the pointlessness of Raffi, too! Mindless action scene just for the sake of it when really it would have been better to make more time for the thoughtful scenes, like Data and just about anyone else. But sure, Raffi fights with knives: go to town.

It also irked me when (and this is a very tiny, minor moment to complain about), the guy Jack takes over says something in his thoughts about needing to regroup with his squad. I mean, when has Starfleet operated in squads, it's not the army! The white-haired alien girl who looks too much like a Changeling is seen in the best view we've had as she's standing in the line-up on the Bridge (I wonder if in thirty years' time they'll do a 'Trials and Tribble-ations' and have the characters of whatever Trek series is running then go back in time and stand in that line: "I lied to Captain Vadic!" Probably not, because judging by this modern generation of Trek the concept is on its last legs and I'm not sure how much longer it can last!), and you can tell better she's not one. Was it always the case that Betazoids couldn't read Changelings? And if so, wasn't that because they don't have a conventional brain, the same as certain other races can't be read due to their brains, whereas these different Changelings would have a physical brain since they have other organs? Not a nitpick, just a question to ponder. At least there was no 20th Century music to kick off the episode, post-title (and no sign of the ever-present bar set!), although we did have the wearying foghorn sound effect instead, which is almost as bad. I loved hearing Jack mentioning The Great Link as it really is cool to hear characters talk of things that were so integral to the days when Trek was great, though that's going to lead me to end on the bad and so saying, underline the point of my review that the episode couldn't fight the bad parts and win: Vadic's last line is another one of those entirely out of place 'cool' bits where she swears, "[bleeeep] Solids," and we're supposed to laugh, while the episode for the most part wasn't too offensive in language and content, it just shows how low the quality bar is when it comes to what is acceptable, though it's of course by no means limited to Trek and is yet another sign of it trying its best to appeal to the lowest common denominator against its better nature. Thus does it fall, thus does it fail, but it had its moments, this episode, it just ain't Data (but what is).

**