Star Trek: Picard

[Cyke]

One thing I'll add in hindsight and appreciation: I did get a feeling of relief when the Big Bad of the season (I don't consider the advanced synth race as such) was confronted by an old favorite. The show has been uneven about using the foundation of TNG as emotional support imo, but it's good to see that up against new, vast, and existential threats, Riker in uniform -- facing down that Big Bad himself in classic Riker determination -- shows that there's no school like the old school.

Even if the synth space gods came through, we'd be seeing a 1980s creation hold the line against techno-Lovecraftian foe created in the 21st century unlike anything seen in the old show, and that's what I like to see in these legacy characters.

[marshal88]

and season 2 , guinan will appear since whoopi accepted stewart invitation to appear. hopefully they can get john de lancie as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsA61VvA8cw

[Celgress]

My friend is not happy with how Picard Season One ended lol. If you hated the episode or loved it you should give his video a watch. In fairness, he brings up a few valid points about the show's inability to pay off certain plot points -

[Silvermoth]

I loved it. I think it sort of waffled in the middle but the ending was amazing

[Anthony W]

Fun Fact

To all the people wondering why Riker wasn't on The Enterprise, Admiral Clancy was originally supposed to be the person who came to save the day on the bridge of the Zhang He. They reshot her scenes with Riker.

So be prepared to see a brand new captain for the Enterprise because this show already gave us Frakes as captain Riker so I doubt they are going to want to give us another TNG actor as a captain.

This comes from Ann Magnuson's Twitter account so it's legit. She isn't bitter about it. Here is a link...https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=...rc=typed_query

[Cyke]

Fun Fact

To all the people wondering why Riker wasn't on The Enterprise, Admiral Clancy was originally supposed to be the person who came to save the day on the bridge of the Zhang He. They reshot her scenes with Riker.

So be prepared to see a brand new captain for the Enterprise because this show already gave us Frakes as captain Riker so I doubt they are going to want to give us another TNG actor as a captain.

This comes from Ann Magnuson's Twitter account so it's legit. She isn't bitter about it. Here is a link...https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=...rc=typed_query

HAH, the photon torpedo with the capital "F"

[Hypestyle]

so does this season end in a way that promises a different season-long arc, or is it basically "to be continued"...? (no spoilers)

[nx01a]

so does this season end in a way that promises a different season-long arc, or is it basically "to be continued"...? (no spoilers)

It just ends.

[Pinsir]

So some people are praising Picard for its repetitive use of eye imagery and saying it connects to some sort of Greek myth (which I can't find and was erroneously ascribed as being in the title of the finale) and that this makes the show 'deep' and 'meaningful.' There definitely is a lot of eye stuff going on in this work, but you know what other sci-fi work is famously replete with eye imagery? Blade Runner.

[nx01a]

Spoilers below. Obviously...

>How did Incest Sister [Incister?] stay on the Cube? Didn't she teleport off? How did Incest Brother know she was still on the Cube?
>What happens to Incest Bro after the bombing failed? He literally never shows up again.
>I half wanted Rios to kick the ball containing the bomb between the antenna's pillars. GOOOOOOOOOAAALLL!!!
>Seven loves murdering hyper-sexualized women. Let's read into that, shall we?
>The Cube's weapons systems were online and Seven never used them to blast some of the Romulan ships?
>Seven and Rios would have been cute. Seven and Raffi is just as bad and as random as Seven and Chakotay. And Raffi's bi, too? That wasn't foreshadowed at all, perhaps intentionally in a 'it doesn't matter in the future' way.
>Raffi's been playing the black maternal figure for a few crying white people lately. That's a bad trope to buy into, Trek.
>The orchids are beautiful.
>If the extradimensional synth intelligence was summoned but the signal stopped and the gate closed, wouldn't they open another gate to see if the poor synths who tried to signal them were under attack from the eeeevil solid... er... organics?
>Nice Zheng He class ships. So, so many. They couldn't make at least one more ship class and duplicate that 50 times, too?
>After the pew pew boom boom of the DIS s2 finale, I'm actually glad the Fed and Romulan fleets didn't go at it... but part of me still wanted to see a Fed fleet AND a Borg Cube fighting side by side against Romulans.
>Fun fact: Zheng He was a Chinese Muslim eunuch in the early 15th C who captained an exploration armada called the Star Fleet. Well played, Michael Chabon. Well played.
>Modern Trek sure loves its older Asian female villains.
>Data aging and dying. A small yet significant portion of his memories are devoted to loving Picard? Damn you! The feels! Somewhere, Geordi is shook!!!
>A butterfly that can't die is still a butterfly, Data. Geez. And Picard worrying that he's immortal? I really hate sci-fi that tries to feed me the 'life is meaningful because it ends' BS. It's almost the 25th C. Humans should be evolving past that limited thinking by now.
>Picard's speeches finally have the desired effect! I felt inspired and finally thought this series embodied what I want Star Trek to be about: finding hope and expanding our views of how things 'are'.
>7 member crew assembled, The Mermaid warps off into the nebula-set to the strains of a far superior theme song to the one the show currently has. That's what DIS and PIC lack: epic theme music.

All in all, I enjoyed this finale and this season. If the show was just these 10 episodes, I'd be happy with that but I still need to see Crusher, La Forge, Worf, Guinan, and hopefully Q for season 2.

[Anthony W]

HAH, the photon torpedo with the capital "F"

Now that I think about it, why was Oh allowed to go?! She was a Romulan agent that managed to become the head of Starfleet Security.

No way should she have been allowed to leave.

The fallout from that should be insane and the writers are really going to have to follow up on how it affects the Federation. No wonder Kurtzman likes Section 31 so much. Starfleet is so incompetent that he has no choice but to use them.

[nx01a]

It'll probably affect the Federation horribly, leading to the crippled organization Michael will magically revitalize in DIS season 3.

[Brian Adkins]

Before seeing this was somewhat jokingly telling a friend that if something were to happen to Sir Patrick Stewart,the writers would come up with some wacky time travel story so they could get a younger actor to be Picard so the show could continue since they already announced another season. Thought they might be headed that direction near the end of this episode.

[Anthony W]

Before seeing this was somewhat jokingly telling a friend that if something were to happen to Sir Patrick Stewart,the writers would come up with some wacky time travel story so they could get a younger actor to be Picard so the show could continue since they already announced another season. Thought they might be headed that direction near the end of this episode.

They would never do it, but if (heaven forbid) Stewart dies they can just say that they had his brain patterns saved and then download them into a new body/actor.

Seven and Raffi is just as bad and as random as Seven and Chakotay.

In three years Raffi will live in the Okie Fanokie swamp complaining to Seven about her fancy Borg cube and her expensive regeneration pods and how Seven abandoned her. She will do this while vaping. Count on it. Her annoying nickname for Seven will be "Five Plus Two".

so does this season end in a way that promises a different season-long arc, or is it basically "to be continued"...? (no spoilers)

I think next season is going to focus on cosmic deities. We'll get to see Q and maybe even Sisco.

[Cyke]

The more I think about it, the more there are reasons for Clancy to go rather than Riker, but really:

- For Clancy: Picard's most visible and highest ranking opponent within Starfleet flying to his rescue would show that Picard and Stafleet have mended fences, and if Starfleet were truly evil it wouldn't have answered the call (she already said they were sending a fleet to help, but her dislike of Picard makes her even more fitting from a thematic standpoint). It would be another example of Picard turning an antagonist over thanks to his personal strength, fortitude, and standing, and for all the times he was yelled at this season, Picard would be right and Clancy/Starfleet would be redeemed.
- For Riker: Hitting upon the strongest emotional beats of the season while scratching that nostalgia itch. Plus, Clancy already redeemed herself when she agreed to send a fleet to help Picard (of course, having to drop another F bomb to do so), and so having Clancy fly in would be redundant. Moreso, assuming Riker was picked up and launched from his planet, he'd be in better position to reach Coppellius.
- The (geographic) case for neither: Considering that that La Sirena changed course from Deep Space 12 where they were supposed to rendezvous with the fleet, that La Sirena needed a Borg transwarp conduit to get to Coppellius, and that Picard sent his SOS between a few hours to a day before, Starfleet got there *incredibly* fast. Though of course, it is Trek tradition that FTL always travels at the speed of plot, with help arriving a split second before total destruction (ahem, the Klingon cavalry in the Dominion War, anyone?)

----

Anyway, Michael Chabon's been very good at answering fan questions on his instagram, but there are a few points I'd want to highlight. He doesn't quite say it outright, but the fact that so many useful scenes were left on the cutting room floor or intended but written out of the final draft tells me just how much this two-parter was overstuffed. Maybe Picard would have benefitted from a 12 to 15 episode order rather than 10, or maybe the writers (Chabon included) could have scaled back a bit. But some things to note:

- Editing makes it very unclear how much time has passed between Picard's death and resurrection. The cuts make it seem (at least to me the first time) that a day had passed, at best, going from daytime to breakfast. But according to Chabon, enough time passed that would have allowed Seven and Raffi to start dating rather than flirting and near-instant chemistry (again, that's what I saw and that's what I thought), as well as giving enough time for Jurati to lawyer-up -- both of those things should take a longer amount of time than 24 hours. Except that none of this is explained, even the time frame. Of note, Chabon dislikes captain's logs because he finds them stalling and unnecessary, giving the audience info they already know (seems like a logical enough reason to me, plus La Sirena is not Starfleet), but in this case a log by Captain Rios would've filled in that gap.

- The reason for having the Borg in this season would have been a build up to a parallel to the Synth colony. xBs struggling to regain their non-Borg identities would be a flip of the Synths being sentient beings, and also bring the show closer to the themes of Descent and the film First Contact. This would've been driven home by a scene of the xBs from the crashed Borg Cube meeting the Synths, joining together in shared interests and survival, and creating a wonderful combined society of the two. It would also further Picard's point about how the Borg mission may be evil but Borg drones/assimilees are victims, and it would be the greatest tribute to the fallen Hugh. Unfortunately, again, this scene just didn't make it, but for me it would have solidified a number of themes that I feel were good ideas but just not followed through. It seems like the Borg were in the season just for trailer bait, whereas editing really would have made them contribute a bit more to the Synths (and I said last week that my concern about the Synths was that it gave us a population that we're told to care about but not shown why -- the xBs were meant to show us why by proxy, but that link was not established in the final product).

- Again, because of editing: according to Chabon, Narek was indeed arrested and placed in Federation custody.

- Not that important, but Chabon says Rios returned the magical ocarina knuckles. I've mixed feelings about this device, in that it seems both too fantastical but also that Starfleet tools are ill-defined in function anyway that it might as well be the same thing. After all, 30 years later, we still don't know what self-sealing stem bolts do (even O'Brien didn't know). Still, if Rios took it as a permanent tool then Star Trek would have its own sonic screwdriver.

I suspect this two-parter would benefit greatly from a director's cut. Everything in this episode was almost too fast, including the scenes of characters simply talking to each other.

>Raffi's been playing the black maternal figure for a few crying white people lately. That's a bad trope to buy into, Trek.

The first death of the show was a Black man, too. That was disappointing.