‘Star Trek: Picard’ Season 1 Episode 10 Spoiler Discussion

We’ll have a review up later on, but for now, this is a spot to discuss the episode with your fellow Trekkies.

“Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2” — Episode #110 — Pictured: Sir Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard of the the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: PICARD. Photo Cr: Trae Patton/CBS ??2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

For people have haven’t seen the episode yet… stay away from the comments of this article.

 

Episode title: “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2”

Synopsis: A final confrontation on the synthetics’ homeworld, Coppelius, pits Picard and his team against the Romulans, as well as the synths who seek to safeguard their existence at all costs.


The new episode of Star Trek: Picard premieres today at 12:01 AM PT/3:01 AM ET on CBS All Access in the USA and on Crave in Canada, and then it will air later today on CTV Sci-Fi Channel at 6PM PT /9PM ET. It will be made available on Amazon Prime Video for the rest of the world on Friday morning.

Keep up with all the Star Trek: Picard news at TrekMovie.

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This episode started very slowly. The promos gave it a sense of being a big space battle where someone comes up with an improbable solution,maybe a bit like “Best Of Both Worlds II’.

Was I ever wrong.

The first half was a MacGuffin. The whole scheme to shut off the beacon was an action based ruse to get to the real heart of the episode and maybe the whole series. Life is only worth living if you have others,friends and family. But more importantly life is finite and that maybe the only answer to the question ‘What is the meaning of life?’ is in the relationships we make. Data lived alone in his quantum simulation and he asked for nothing more than death as a life alone is not really life.

1) Data’s final scene had many echos of 2001’s final scene. Not just because of the attire but ,like 2001, we were not really sure where Data was.

2) When Riker showed up I literally got up and cheered.

3) When Picard died I did cry. Yes I knew he would be resurrected but the enormous sadness was so profound

4) Seven’s conversation with Rios also circles back to the whole question of life. Even if someone does not respect life ,like Narissa , does it justify killing them

5) Narek says ‘when we arrived on Vulcan’. I thought the Romulans left Vulcan,not arrived.

6) Everytime the butterfly showed up I thought of that apocryphal quote “Am I a man who is dreaming he is a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he is a man”

7) The last scene was a great ending to the season

8) this is the first time in a long while an episode gave me such great joy.

By all means see this episode.

I think he’s implying that the Vulcans (and by extension the Romulans) are not native to the planet Vulcan and arrived there from some other world. The Romulans left at some time after that.

Yes, I thought Narek was referring to ancestors from eons ago who arrived on the planet to be known as Vulcan.

5) Narek says ‘when we arrived on Vulcan’. I thought the Romulans left Vulcan,not arrived.

This really threw me as well. Loved the last 20 minutes or so. Looking forward to Season 2.

In the TOS episode “Return to Tomorrow” it is hinted that the Vulcans were not native to the planet Vulcan. Sargon’s people may have settled it 500,000 years ago. I think that is what Narek is referencing.

I have three ideas for what Narek said.
1. The writers just messed up.
2. Perhaps the Romulans taught citizens that it was the Vulcans and other Vulcan off shoots were the ones that left.
3. Perhaps Vulcan is not the original homeworld. We don’t know much of their full history before Surak.

My assumption was it was your 3rd option.

The writers didn’t mess up at all. It’s been established since The Original Series that the Vulcans aren’t originally from Vulcan. Sargon’s people seeded them there.

KIRK: That’s twice you’ve referred to us as my children.
SARGON: Because it is possible you are our descendants, Captain Kirk. Six thousand centuries ago, our vessels were colonising this galaxy, just as your own starships have now begun to explore that vastness. As you now leave your own seed on distant planets, so we left our seed behind us. Perhaps your own legends of an Adam and an Eve were two of our travellers.
MULHALL: Our beliefs and our studies indicate that life on our planet, Earth, evolved independently.
SPOCK: That would tend, however, to explain certain elements of Vulcan prehistory.
SARGON: In either case, I do not know. It was so long ago, and the records of our travels were lost in the cataclysm which we loosened upon ourselves.

Sargon can’t tell for sure, but a random Romulan guy can? Nah.
There’s a much probable explanation: the writer knew that Romulans and Vulcans are originally the same people, and that one of them migrated from somewhere to somewhere else. There was 50:50 chance to get it right, but RNGesus wasn’t with us. ;)

Yes, I have to agree with you. Even though TOS and TNG allude to extraterrestrial origins for life on Vulcan, it doesn’t ring true that a “present”-day Romulan would refer to his species’ arrival on Vulcan as a set event in the past.

He said “when our ancestors arrived on Vulcan”, which implies that Vulcans weren’t native…to Vulcan. Which throw all established continuity out the window.

It actually doesn’t. We know that class M planets were “seeded” as part of cannon.

In fact, they’re plugging into deeper lore from TOS, potentially regarding Sargon’s people from TOS 2×22: “Return to Tomorrow”.

It also lends some credence to the whole “proto-Vulcan” term in the TNG episode with the Mintakans…Now that was some weird writing, it would have made sense if they were a species of early Vulcan-like hominids… but i digress… I really liked the Narek camp-fire scene and think it opened up a lot of mythos to explore

I actually was wondering if Narek would join Picard’s crew in the end.

Perhaps we shall see …

Yes! What happened to Narek, as well as, the remaining XB’s on the artifact at the end? Did they leave them behind?

Would totally fit to the team of:
1 fake human
1 mentally broken person
1 drug addict
1 mass murder and borg queen ad
1 murder of the person she loves
1 person who was about to kill all natural life, because she had a teenage outburst

It doesn’t at all. It completely jibes with established continuity, going all the way back to TOS.

I don’t think i’ve ever had such an emotional reaction to anything. I had tears streaming down my face for the last 10 minutes. I’m usually a very stoic guy…glad i was alone, lol

“Narek says ‘when we arrived on Vulcan’. I thought the Romulans left Vulcan,not arrived”.
I believe he’s referring to the race that arrived on Vulcan and spawned both Vulcans and Romulans. Wasn’t there a race we met in TNG that ‘seeded’ the galaxy with humanoid life forms?

Pretty sure the word “ancestors” was in there

I really enjoyed watching this Tv show come full circle with Data’s attempts at becoming human.

Yes! and full circle with “Blue Skies” too

In re #6, “the butterfly dream,” that was Chuang-tzu (Zhuangzi in Pinyin) in his eponymous work, chapter 2. Not apocryphal in either sense (doubtful, or obscured) of the word.

Thanks,I did not know the exact source, hence why the apocryphal description. I stand corrected.

Sorry to pick nits. The masters Lao and Chuang were the subjects of my graduate thesis in Taoist political thought.

You did not pick any nits as far as I am concerned :) Anytime I can learn something new I am grateful.

Vulcans aren’t native to Vulcan–they were seeded there by Sargon’s people.

I understand it as after Romulus was destroyed. As Romulans were on Earth and other Federation planets…I was assuming me meant when some of them went back to Vulcan as well. And that was what he was referring to.

So what happen to the xb’s on the borg cube???

I KNOW, right??
And the synths, what did they do when the tower shut down? Maybe they said “Oh well” and went to play ping-pong?

And as I mentioned elsewhere… That tower was not destroyed. They could easily do it again at any time for any reason. I would think not only the Romulans but the Federation would be worried such a thing existed. At any moment tentacled AI monsters could come and destroy everything.

Great question!!!!!

“1) Data’s final scene had many echos of 2001’s final scene”
YES!!!! That was also my impression.

“2) When Riker showed up I literally got up and cheered.”
The surprise would have been greater, if his name hadn’t been shown on the opening credits. That spoiled the moment. Why don’t they show the name at the end??

“3) When Picard died I did cry. Yes I knew he would be resurrected but the enormous sadness was so profound”
Me too. Now THAT’s how you show a dying scene… unlike Kirk’s death…

That episode saved the season from being a desaster…

The death of Jean-Luc Picard I was prepared for as soon as I saw that weird Golem thing last week.

The death of Data I was not expecting. Gotta admit, I cried pretty hard at that, even though it makes no f*ing sense at all!

Well… Data had already really been destroyed. That ‘simulation’ I think was mainly Picard’s subconscious wanting some sort of closure with Data.

I’m not so sure of that. I think that simulation was real – if you’ll excuse the oxymoron. In other words, since Data died, his consciousness was being kept “alive” in a computer. For a brief while, Picard’s consciousness was there as well, while it was waiting to be transferred back to the body. So they were literally “talking” as it were. And therefore, I don’t think it was Picard’s subconscious wanting closure, I think Data had tired of living in this perpetual state of limbo, and therefore, wanted to end his existence as part of his journey to be more human. But perhaps I’m misinterpreting your comment.

I don’t know if you are misinterpreting the comment or not. But I don’t see how it can be. It seems to be about as clear as I can make it. The entire sequence took place inside Picard’s head. Or his new synth head. Picard was the one who was having trouble dealing with Data’s sacrifice. It makes total sense that he would seek closure. So he manufactured this. Data was never there. He has been gone for 17 years. It’s a cinematic tool that is often used to represent something as reality. Like a character talking with a dead parent or friend in their head. That is what happened to Picard. And I thought it quite obvious.

I hear what you’re saying, it’s just not accurate. Picard et al. *literally* disconnect the source keeping Data’s memory engrams ‘alive.’ I believe you believe what you’re saying, it’s simply not supported by the script. It also seems to be clear that didn’t happen inside Picard’s head (either one). ‘Data’ told Picard (albeit in non-specific terms) where they were, that Picard had died, and that Picard had to leave (he was being ‘downloaded’ to the gollum, for want of a better term). It seems clear Picard was in whatever technology was keeping Data ‘alive’ because, for that brief period of time, it was keeping Picard alive too. The Picard-Data dialogue and everything that happens after Picard awakens supports this. It just does.

Forced to disagree. The script does not support your take here. The situation does indeed support this being Picard coming to terms with losing Data. Of course Data would say what is going on that way. It was a way for Picard to be able to achieve closure if he felt this sort of thing originated from his lost computer companion. Again, if it was from the download Data would not be aware of what transpired since the download. Assuming it even worked. Which it was established early on in this show it did not. All the evidence presented in the show supports this obvious interpretation of the matter.

So, what were Picard, Soong and Agnes unplugging at the end?

Sorry but the idea that this was all in Picard’s head doesn’t fit here. We know consciousness can be stored in a computer, we know Data downloaded his memories into B4 before his “death”, there is no reason to think this is all in Picard’s head.

It did also give Picard closure but that alone doesn’t mean it didn’t actually happen.

That is a bit of a mystery. I would think that perhaps it was the B-4 download. But it doesn’t make a lot of sense it would be there. But again, the “closure” data for lack of a better word, knew things actual data would not have. It HAD to be in Picard’s head. There is no other explanation that makes sense and still fits what went down in the scene. I get that there are a lot who would LIKE it to be actual data. Maybe it feels better and if you squint real hard perhaps it it might be interpreted that way. But when one looks at it as is it is very difficult to see it that way.

Data’s consciousness explained that he did not have the memory of Data’s death, because he was transferred into B-4, um, before that, but stated that he was aware of it. As a positronic entity, clearly he could receive additional input; that’s how he was informed of his death and the nature of his “home.” But apparently he could not generate output, thus his inability to ask for death. In any event, the show told us very explicitly:

1) Data’s consciousness was transferred from B-4 into the simulation.
2) That consciousness asked Picard to end Data’s existence by deactivating the simulation.
3) Picard deactivated the simulation, thus ending Data’s existence.

No squinting. No interpretation. A heck of a lot more concrete than Harry Potter and Dumbledore in the train station. If you want to conclude that what really happened is something other than what was presented on screen, it’s your prerogative.

Maybe Data was aware of the other one’s destruction. But he would not be aware of any of the thought processes that original data would have gone through. But the fact that the download did not take is enough to question how well such data is able to function. B-4 couldn’t. Why would it be able to inside a lesser machine?

It was very explicit in the episode that…

1. Data has no consciousness. All that was input was program files and computer instructions.

2. Picard’s consciousness created a data that asked him to end his life for him. Causing Picard to feel better about data’s sacrifice and allowing Picard to sleep better. This is a quite common tool in visual storytelling.

3. There was no simulation to deactivate. All he did was remove plastic props that presumably were data storage. He didn’t destroy them. They still exist. Therefore, the data files, if that was really them, are still there. If the show really wanted to Data could very easily come back. But hey, as I said before, I get that a number of people really like the data character and are wishing he really was there to ask Picard to murder him. If that makes you feel better about the scene then knock yourself out. I prefer to comprehend it as it was presented.

Sorry to pick nits, but the term is “golem.” Chabon is well versed in Jewish folklore and the golem is a significant legend.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem

“the golem is a highly mutable metaphor with seemingly limitless symbolism.” Seems to me it could apply quite well to androids.

The Hebrew letters on the creature’s head read “emet”, meaning “truth”. In some versions of the Chełm and Prague narratives, the Golem is killed by removing the first letter, making the word spell “met”, meaning “dead”.

I agree with Matt, Data wanted to move on experience everything there is to be human. Picard was interacting with Data before Picard was transferred to his new body. When Picard agreed to take Data offline he kept his promise as he woke on his new Body.

Agree 100% with Matt !

Incorrect, ML31. The episode clearly showed the computer in which Data’s simulation was being stored.

It showed Picard pulling out some plastic props. Which he wanted to believe contained the B4 download. It was cathartic for him to do this. And it may actually be that download but it doesn’t make sense it is. That download would more likely be stored at the Daystrom Institute if it is still intact at all.

It’s fine to be mistaken. It’s a failure of man to be unable to accept it. ML3, it’s ok big guy. None of it matters anyway since they’re all still in the Nexus.

STP unfortunately doesn’t address the Nexus at all (missed opportunity imho), but this whole story could still have taken place in there, so you can see it that way if you want. Would be cool if the writers came out and said that.

I believe you are correct, bmar. Mattox rebuilt Data’s consciousness and housed it in that contraption until Picard pulled the ‘stick drives’. I thought it was a cool way to bring ST: Nemesis and Data’s storyline to a conclusion

This is correct. Objectively correct.

bmar, That’s what I thought too.

Nope. The simulation was very clearly in a computer. They even showed the computer when Picard removed Data from it.

I imagine the ‘simulation’ – as we keep calling it – was for the benefit of Picard – who had never been 1’s and 0’s before – but also for Data, since he wanted to be human (‘real,’ i.e. not an android or 1’s and 0’s – which then benefited the audience and allowed us to see what was happening. It *did* happen though, even if Data and Picard were actually 1’s and 0’s at the time. It wasn’t something Picard imagined.

Hmmm… It feels like people’s love for the data character are blinding them a bit to what was going on there. It was quite obviously in Picard’s head. I really understand the desire to wish to see data again. I really do. A lot of people adored the character. But there are things in there that prove beyond doubt it was not. Showing some computer machine after does not prove it was “real”. They were in an AI lab. So there would be a lot of that stuff in the room. The main thing that disproves it was Data knowing what happened after the download. That information would not have been available to B4. And then there is Picard’s mental anguish over the sacrifice. It makes sense that his head would reach out for anything to bring him peace.

Except it very, very obviously — explicitly, even — WAS NOT in Picard’s head. Watch the episode again.

Except it very obviously – explicitly even – WAS IN Picard’s head. Watch the episode again. Listen to what Picard’s data hallucination says.

Hmmm…it feels like your misinterpretation of these scenes on first viewing is blinding you a bit to accepting that what happened in those scenes is what happened in those scenes. It’s very ungracious of you to not thank the many posters here who have pointed out all the information you missed in these scenes.

What is there to misinterpret? I’m only reacting to what I saw. They used a very common visual story telling tool. To create a scene that takes place entirely in the head of a character. Like in one of the Spider-Man sequels Peter is talking to his dead Uncle. In Batman V Superman Clark talks to his dead father. Here, Picard is talking to his dead friend Data. And it is quite obvious. But as said before, if you feel better thinking it was the real data more power to you.

“The main thing that disproves it was Data knowing what happened after the download. That information would not have been available to B4.”

But Picard explained Data’s death to B4 at the end of ST:Nemesis. Bruce Maddox downloaded B4’s memories (and Data’s along with it) later. B4’s processors weren’t able to make much sense of it all, but Data would have been able to figure it all out based on what Picard told B4 about Data’s death.

There’s a lot about this show that doesn’t make any sense, but this isn’t one of those things.

No, Picard was telling B-4 about Data’s goals and desires. Nothing about his destruction. Further, early in this show they flat out told us the download ultimately did not take. Why would it suddenly start working all by itself? I’m not saying the scene doesn’t make sense. It does. Picard is merely gaining closure. What doesn’t make sense is that data is still “alive” in some sort of computer limbo when everything before that told us that was not the case.

Picard is dead but he gets his name to live on as a copy of a perfect AI life form he always wanted… but is he ripped off? Poor guy, I don’t think he really got over being Borgified as Locutus, Ent-D, Mars loss that he chose to live in solitude that I hope he rests in peace. That being said I don’t get the copy, why wouldn’t they engineer AI Picard copy to have superior strength, be able to hologram himself, etc. It seems like they second guessed themselves, oh AI life = life and you can put a copy mind into it but hey we are going to ignore that you can electronically Data strength, live forever, engineer starships, holograms, etc?!?!? I think it kind of funny how they ended up being intolerant, we want you to accept engineered AI life but we don’t want to accept what AI life means and force limitations on them?

Picard clearly didn’t want any of that (and neither does any Trek fan).

Ironically no funeral for the organic Picard?? Is anyone hurt that in the future life is dehumanized to the point everyone is just like “yeah AI copy!! = total replacement!” I suppose organic Picard is non existent now so won’t care, but still??? I wasn’t a big fan of organic Picard but someone should give the guy a funeral – he was worth more than just a bunch of files to upload. And I feel for “new Picard” receiving a data upload to live but not being engineered to have Data capabilities, live forever, etc. Very NOT rational. Why would you be afraid of being immoral and being able to do what science allows if AI life = organic life??
Also on Data – why couldn’t anyone get a little molecule of him to build at least 100 copies.

I agree with the bio-Picard! Did Picard say, “Um, where’s my body…” Seems like a legit question for someone who has been transferred into a robot to ask, loL!

Is Beaming a transfer, or are they murdering the ppl on the platform and recreating copies somewhere else? so many questions.

It’s actually not fair to AI Picard – He was literally just born and his life will be curtailed to a mere what 20 years or so, just because bio-Picard who is dead anyway, wouldn’t want to live longer.

Matt, you don’t speak for “any Trek fan.” You speak only for yourself.

Ok, well you enjoy you Superman Picard fan fiction, newb.

But he’s NOT Superman Picard. They made it clear he’s no different than before, they gave him a body that wasn’t dying.

But I agree with you in general, I wish they avoided this direction altogether. I would’ve been fine if they cured him through a synth alternative of some kind but I don’t think there was a need to give him a new body.

Agreed, Tiger, on the medical angle. I liked the idea of human Picard fighting to help the synths.

But that may turn around in interesting ways, now that he’s a synth. We’ll see.

I think they should of had Q pop in and save him and pop away before anyone knew he was there

Should have. “Should of” has no meaning in English.

I swear, I was hoping the instance that Starfleet red/black TNG uniform came into view as Data was on the couch, that is was Q.

Like it!

He’s not a copy of Picard, it’s the same Picard in a new body.

Mind transference is nothing new to Trek just humans, and if anyone was to figure out how to it would be Soong and Maddox.

Keep in mind they’re working with centuries of knowledge, a wealth of discovery, in terms of what is possible.

For instance the TOS episode with Sargon’s brain possessing Kirk’s body or a similar episode from TNG. The data from those missions would be studied.

It’s NOT the same Picard. Every second makes us different to who we were previously, and the real Picard died some time after his brain/soul/whatever was duplicated. What lives now is the Picard we knew up to that point only, but not beyond it. Our Picard truly died. This is Picard V.2. And Star Trek has now officially jumped the shark with it…

And of course Ira Graves’ laboratory presumably was archived and his technology was studied later.

It’s a copy. Sorry but when you “scan” memories, you’re not transferring them any more than you are “transferring” pages from a book in your xerox machine.

Also, this was incredibly rushed. Where is his body? Did they just toss it? Who cares – off to the next mission I guess.

Picard was Locutus for an hour and his whole life was ruined. Now he just “died” and it’s no big deal.

These writers lol!

By Picard’s time, they may not be so attached to the human body as some of us are today. He seems to me like the kind of guy who would want his ashes scattered somewhere important to him.

He’s a copy because imagine they scanned bio-Picard’s brain, downloaded his consciousness (not a physical brain) into the Golem and then miraculously Bio-Picard didn’t die. Then there would be two entities. Bio-Picard and Synth-Picard, two very similar but yet different people (like the transporter copy Riker)

That’s a good question. Why would they not give him all the extra curriculars all the other synths have? Picard got ripped off. BTW… Picard can now be “programmed”. He should no longer be trusted. Especially since he was built by Soong. I found it odd that Soong would be confused by how his creations were acting. Of all people he should know how they would react. He created them. This series ended up similar to Discovery’s S1 finale. In that there are a ton of plot holes that make zero sense.

“I found it odd that Soong would be confused by how his creations were acting. Of all people he should know how they would react. He created them.”
Thats like saying just because my mother gave birth to me, she should always understand everything I do. Believe me, I have been surprising my mother since I came out of the womb. As something grows and evolves, it’s *supposed* to exceed the original design parameters. Soong androids are no different. Just look at Data!

J_Randomuser, that’s what the Romulans were using to justify their assault on AI life – that they would eventually see themselves as superior and not do what the creations would do. Ironically on that front they were right vs. Soong.

“Thats like saying just because my mother gave birth to me, she should always understand everything I do. ”

Incorrect. Your mother gave birth to a unique being with it’s own DNA. Soong physically built and programmed these machines. It is more like a driverless car being programmed to stop before hitting a wall. The creator programmed it to do that. Of all people the creator would have the best idea of how it would behave.

ML31, while I think you are right in reality, in the show they are saying that Soong has engineered electronic DNA and that organic DNA is obsolete. It’s nonsensical in my opinion, but what the show says has happened.

So the show is saying that Soong is indeed a God. That he is not just ‘playing’ one.

Yes. While I find that nonsensical, I think that’s what the show is saying.

@ML31 Respectfully disagree. Soong type androids are exceedingly complex pieces of hardware/software. I would make the argument that even though they are activated with a baseline software set, because of machine learning/AI, each unit grows and develops through it’s own set of experiences may well arrive at different updates to their software. So, long story short, each android becomes unique and therefore is totally capable of surprising their creator.

Then again, we are arguing about imaginary robots on a TV show, so take all of this with a grain of salt…

But they would lack an intuition. The ability to make “gut” decisions. They would possess no true inspiration. Whatever they preferred would have to be pre-programmed. These are all things that are embedded in organics but if a synthetic had it it would have to have been pre-programmed into them. You don’t learn likes and dislikes. It is what you are.

why can’t a super advanced robot mind make a gut decision? the idea something is special about us that allows a human to is, quite honestly silly. the human brain, as science has shown, is simply an insanely sophisticated computer, it should, in theory, be capable of doing something on par syntheticly, it’s just faaar beyond our science

I will give you that it may not be beyond the realm of possibility some sort of program in a hyper advanced robot would give it the ability to make gut decisions. And I will admit that perhaps my inability perceive such a thing shows a lack of imagination on my part, as JL would say. But… In this scene there are too many things that don’t add up to anything but being in Picard’s head. Also I find it a very scary thing when human beings can create life that has the ability for true inspiration. Something just feels “off” about that.

You are probably not a programmer. You would be surprised how often computer programs do things the programmer did not expect them to… ;-)

J_R, I agree, in that the positronic “seed” neuron grows a whole network and being … perhaps the resulting “person” would not be 100% predictable. As you say, Data! He was not 100% predictable.

Soong was the hardware guy. Maddox and now Jurati was the software person.

Maybe he’ll get terminator upgrades. That would be funny!

If we can accept a transported person to be the original and not a copy, then we can accept that Picard didn’t die but was instead transferred into the golem body, which is clearly how the show presents it. After all, if it’s just a copy, then why would Altan Soong feel the need to build the golem for himself in the first place if it wouldn’t have prolonged his life at all?

Depends – does the transporter *moves* the organic cells in question as opposed to destroying them and building new cells? If you read Diane Carey’s “Final frontier” she actually had it where Kirk’s Dad was horrified at the concept thinking he is just a copy and the original is dead only for Robert April to say that the cells have been *moved*.

This is indeed a philosophical question. What happens with your soul? Are you really yourself after you are beamed, or are you a copy/clone with the same memories who BELIEVES to be the same person?

And that whole knotty question of, is the “soul” a part of our brain, or is it a thing unto itself?

That was excellent. It wrapped things up quite nicely (except: what happened to Narek? what about Jurati surrending herself in?), and the whole of the series felt like one (long) episode of TNG. The crew looks good and the characters are interesting. They got me hook, line and sinker with what happened to Picard, Data and Riker.

“what happened to Narek? what about Jurati surrending herself in?”

Those are VERY good questions. But for me the bigger one is why is Soong being allowed to continue to play God?

Also, there is the very real possibility that the synths are programmed to open that transmitter. And they will eventually do it. This entire world really should be exterminated.

We don’t know what Soong will do next. Now that the Federation has lifted the ban on synths, he might become a very important figure, bridging the Synths and the Federation. He may not have time to play God, he’ll have to bring the Federation up to speed on Synths. Jurati should probably be involved too if she is cleared of murder charges, which she probably can be for various reasons (temporary insanity from the Admonition, mind-control by Oh, etc.) The Federation now has an enclave of Synths under its protection. That’s going to be some serious new ground to tread carefully on.

I think it pretty obvious what Soong will do. He is going to create a society that worships him even more. They will grow to resent their organic overlords and decide they have outgrown their creators. Shun them. And eradicate them. Similar things have happened throughout the history or Trek every time AI has been tried. There is no reason whatsoever to think this time it will be different.

“He is going to create a society that worships him even more.”

I really don’t think so. I think he was severely disillusioned by Sutra’s betrayal. He tells her, “You are no better than we are.” I think he also has learned from Picard’s example, which is why he allowed Picard to “have” his Golem synth body.

If he learned anything he would have let Picard die and destroyed all the synths.

I agree Agnes should have turned herself in, but I also submit that she would be cleared of all charges. Seeing a lot of Agnes/murderer talk on various boards, and realistically, there are extreme mitigating factors.

1. She was requested to kill Maddox as an independent operative of Starfleet, by a ranking member of the Starfleet hierarchy. We’re talking, maybe, third or fourth in command of Starfleet at least. Agnes didn’t know any better, and was following orders which she had no reason to believe were not sanctioned, AND she didn’t have the operational knowhow to be able to refuse those orders. The alternative very well may have been “aiding and abetting a plot against the Federation”.

2. She was under the influence of a mind meld and legitimately thought the fate of the universe was at stake. As well it may have been. Had Soji (and Agnes herself) not gone to Coppelius, the beacon wouldn’t have been built and crisis averted.

Not only was Jurati under orders and under the influence of a forced mind-meld, she was also under a compulsion that prevented her from speaking of it. More, there was ample evidence that the compulsion was causing severe psychiatric distress.

It was only after a near-suicidal attempt to eradicate the tracker that she was able to master the compulsion to do as ordered.

Not to be a cynic, but this could have been told in at least HALF as many episodes (5 instead of 10).

The Borg, Seven-of-Nine, and Riker and Troi stuff ended up being essentially unnecessary. They were fun, but in the end just “network time killer” stuff.

I love this new crew. Truly. And I want to know where Narek went and how. I hope he shows up in S2. He could be a sort of chaotic neutral or chaotic good character. Doing things out of love for Soji … he’s certainly not going to be able to be accepted among Romulans because he fell in love with a synth.

What was with Seven and Raffi holding hands. There was no buildup to that. The kiss between Rio’s and Agnes felt off. I mean did everyone suddenly forget she killed Bruce Maddox

That hand holding thing came out of left field. It was weird. Maybe Rafi is Pan?

Aren’t most characters supposed to be pan? I mean, there were many relationships between different species. How do you call that?

Pan doesn’t mean across races. Many here on Earth already do that. My wife is a different race from me. I mean pan across genders.

I’m guessing they all believe she was not acting on her own will when she killed Maddox.

I certainly believe that. She loved the man.

I can explain it: this events in this show have zero consequences.

I suppose the writers just wanted to check off a diversity box without being bothered to actually develop character relationship.

DS9 is still best, then Picard! excellent foray back into the future. Starfleet ships were meh, but Riker in that uniform again and kicking ass with words only, oh man, I’m here for that. Give us a Riker or Seven spin off!!!

I agree. The glimpse of Riker in uniform as captain on the bridge of a Starfleet ship was tantalizing. It would be fantastic to see those adventures!

The final episode had everything.
I wish data returns at some point. I thought Data’s favor was to take care of the children. The music was fabulous. Riker was there for fun. The meaning of life is the theme of this season. How life is hard for every single member of the crew, but sill they keep going.

“The meaning of life is the theme of this season. ”

Except it wasn’t. They spit all over that when they gave Picard a synthetic body. Had they allowed Picard to die or even had they given him some cure based on the AI research it could have been a theme. But alas… It wasn’t.

Well isn’t your description what Picard says is the “meaning of life”, i.e. there is no meaning the whole theme of the season? You are just an irrational organism tricked by your mind into thinking you are anything more than a engineered robot. If you ceased to exist but we made a copy of you, no one would care but then again your gone so who cares?

It’s NOT the same Picard. Every second makes us different to who we were previously, and the real Picard died some time after his brain/soul/whatever was duplicated. What lives now is the Picard we knew up to that point only, but not beyond it. Picard V1/The original truly died. This is Picard V.2. Slightly different to V1 as he hasn’t got JLs memories/experiences post the moment he was ‘downloaded’. At one point there were technically and briefly two JLs in existence… Opens a can of worms. Obviously what constitutes being human can be copied, cloned, duplicated. So no soul as such, just memory engrams that can be copied…

So, what about Tom Riker then?

I think we accept that both Will and Tom have souls, even if their experiences divided profoundly in the transporter accident.

I don’t know… I think the jury is still out on that question.

But he will have the same habits of mind. I don’t see how he changes so much. He’s not superstrong or any of that. His synth body will die in another 20 or so years. So he will not be immortal because he has stipulated he does not wish to be immortal.

The final episode had everything.
I wish data returns at some point. I thought Data’s favor was to take care of the children. The music was fabulous. Riker was there for fun. The meaning of life is the theme of this season. How life is hard for every single member of the crew, but sill they keep going.

The meaning of life as in you are a computer and that if we could make a copy of you, you’d be old news. LOL I still feel sorry for V’ger, searched the whole universe only to be wrong in merging with Decker when could have just engineered itself.

One of the Best Spin Offs. Held true to the original Gene Roddenberry Series. Could have lived without the end scene with Jurati and Rios kissing and what was up with 7of9 macking Raffi??!!….Kind of a weak happy ending when there was really no development in any of it. However it was a well done story line and I had to give the series a standing ovation in my living room. Well done!

I loved Raifi and Seven holding hands at the end. As a gay Trekkie, it’s great to see us in this future.

The episode was great. I felt it tied the whole series together at the end. Excited and hopeful that with cover-19, a second season is still produced.

What a beautiful end to Data. Just beautiful.

I don‘t mind her being a lesbian or probably bi and it makes sense, to pair those two up, but didn‘t you feel, that came a little out of nowhere (much like the Rios Jurati thing)? … I mean, I do have a lot of bad things to say about Discovery, but the relationship between Stamets and Culber is one of the strongest aspects of that show. Or Bortus ans Klyden over on the Orville, if we‘re not just talking about Trek.

Agreed. A lot of things came out of left field without any seeding in the finale.

I agree. They had minimal interaction during the show (Maybe on the way to Freecloud?) It felt like it came out of nowhere.

You mean just like the Seven-Chakotay thing that came out of nowhere? :P

That was established at the beginning of an episode, to serve as motivation for the main character (maybe even an episode before, which for Voyager is almost an arc) … it was still bad writing. But you‘re making my point here. Even on a bad day Voyagers character developement was better, than Picard is in what should be it‘s best episode.

Didn’t Seven and Chakotay get married at the end of Voyager? I have a dim memory of that happening in the last season ending.

That was the liquid metal crew that were copies and all died before getting back to a Demon class planet

LOL. It’s funny because it’s true.

That was Tom and B’elanna’s copies that got married in that ep.

We had hints that Seven might be gay/bi/curious/pan/whatever, and I figured she has the emotional maturity of maybe a 20-year-old. She’s still figuring out what makes her HER, and the Chakotay thing just probably wasn’t her deal. But not only have we not learned enough about Raffi to know what she’s all about (because not nearly enough time has been devoted to developing her character), but she’s exchanged maybe one or two lines with Seven. They don’t even know each other. It’d be like Elnor sharing any sort of “close personal friend” moment with Soji. They’ve barely even met, if at all. To say nothing of the romantic possibilities, these people barely count as acquaintances as far as we’ve seen.

Granted, they probably did this JUST to piss off the homophobes, because they do that for yuks. And it’s great to see them squirm. But I guess I need a little more foundation than shock value in any meaningful interaction between two characters I like. Some buildup. Tension. Will they, won’t they. This series has been all about slow burn, and they just threw these two on a hot griddle in the twilight seconds of the finale.

Just… dumb.

As far as Agnes/Rios, there was flirtation, mutual singlehood, and a “hey, ya wanna boink, because what else is there to do out here”? And they were like, “why not”? But at least we SAW that. And it grew over the course of a few small scenes over a couple episodes. That’s really all it takes.

But hand-holding over a game of ko-dis-kot? They know that touching fingers is basically hardcore Vulcan sex, right?

They weren’t playing Kadis-kot, they were playing Kal-toh.

And soon, they’ll be rubbing up against each other’s kal-tohs!

I’d rather have great gay characters where relationships feel earned than a walking gay rights billboard like Culber or this out of nowhere thing between 7 and Raffi done purely for all the SJWs out there.

Great end of the season. For me, the best part is that season 2 could really go anywhere now. I’m glad they made it seem that Seven is now a part of the crew. It’s very fun to think we’ll run into other characters next season. Peppering them in without making it about them was done great with Riker/Troi. My guess is filming by fall and maybe a summer 2021 release? Think that’s too hopeful.
And randomly…i’m surprised there hasn’t been more trailers/advertisements for Discovery.

AFAIK they would be filming season 2 now if it was not for the current health safety measures – and just this week, there were voices from within the team that said Discovery season 3 post-production is being moved to home office work, which is not easy (you need very beefy computers to render CGI at 4K resolution and the quality they use now), and that may delay the release.
That said, another “coming soon” teaser for Discovery season 3 was just released today and Heather Kadin said weeks ago that it would be ready in May. So, let’s see, I still suspect it will start before summer to minimize the amount of people who would cancel All Access.

VFX artists moving to home office does not mean that they are rendering the CGI on their private computers at home. They will most likely use a remote render farm. However, working from home makes communication between artists, supervisors and producers more complicated. That may slow down the post production process.

I like knowing this. Thanks “Dig”!

I suspect they wanted to remind those who were about to cancel that STD S3 is on its way in the hope they would opt to not cancel. But the fact that they did not give out an exact date means I doubt it will have all that great an effect. I still canceled mine…

Nice to see Riker again.

No Lore.

No Q.

Nice to see, finally after 10 episodes, actual Federation ships.

Still no Q though. Disappointed but glad it’s over. Hopefully Season 2 can be made under a reunited license.

I was 100% expecting Q sitting down in the other chair after the death scene. Wouldn‘t be the first time, he resurrected Picard.

Actually that was good. This is not ST:TNG. But the writers failed to be creative without using TNG characters as saviors.

Thank goodness. This was x 10000000 better than TNG in my opinion (ok which isn’t saying much).

And in the TNG finale, Q was going to tell him something and stopped himself. And he told Picard that his destiny was “charting the unknown realms of existence”, or words to that effect. So, from a certain point of view, this life change was teased way back in All Good Things. And I can imagine Q, watching from afar, smiling and saying “the human adventure is just beginning”. Cue theme music.

YKeeg, I like it!

Only complaint I had with the episode is all of the Federation ships looked exactly alike, just like the Romulan ones did.

If DS9 could do it for a big ship scene, surely they could too.

Yeah, what was up with THAT?? That fleet looked PAINFULLY generic. Thought I saw one Odyssey Class in there, but the rest were just kinda generic and identical.

How much of the fleet was destroyed in the Dominion War? Thousands of ships, wasn’t it? It could be Starfleet built a huge number of the same class to speed production and training.

Decades removed from that. I imagine it has something to do with the loss of the Utopia Planitia Shipyard.

But still, after the Dominion War, Starfleet had to build back up quickly. Think of them like Liberty Ships during World War II. They were still around for years after the war.

There was not 25% bs license thing, how many times to people need to be told this?

It is hater mantra. There will be no convincing them of facts that don’t fit their particular hate.

It’s way too late at night (1:14AM PST) for me to find the words but I was blown away! This is one of the best session finales in Star Trek ever.

440 am on the east coast. I stayed up for this one and boy am I happy I did. Riker’s return to the chair made my heart soar, and Data’s final farewell broke me down. I’ve missed these characters desperately. I’ve waited a long time to hear Picard say the word again and it brought a tear to my eye as I was taken back to the glory days of TNG. “Engage”.

I REALLY want to feel like you do right now but I was so mixed on a lot of it. Not totally surprising seeing how much I thought they did wrong in the last episode. Maybe I can sleep on it and feel better about it. Glad you enjoyed it though! :)

‘Mixed’ is how i feel… like a tossed salad of butterflies, flowers, artificial ingredients, TNG fan meat, some lettuce, duplicates of corn….with the only utensil to eat it is a Samurai sword. Overall some good moments this season and thrilled to see Trek continue past Nemesis, yet am relieved this big letdown synth-storyline is over. Hope they do something different for season 2 with a more episodic format and more TNG characters (Worf, Crusher, La Forge, Q, Guinan)

I don’t think the intent for S2 is to make TNG Phase II.

Patrick Stewart says he wants to see all the TNG characters show up eventually so my guess we will see more next season. We already know Guinan is on board at least. ;)

Now even you are saying this. Why do people think Stewart asking Goldberg on a talk show = Whoopi will show up in season 2? It’s possible but this is far from a certainty. Or does the wink mean you are joking about that?

Why would it not? Could it not happen, sure I guess. But I’m going to just assume it will happen until told other wise for now. Not a huge deal either way.

Sir Pat is an Executive Producer. I think it’ll happen even if it’s just one episode.

I really was hoping to see Captain Worf. But Riker was nice too.

Yeah I was hoping it would be Worf too lol. I guess we’ll have a few seasons to see the others eventually.

Perhaps I was half asleep watching the episode but I was disappointed. Data and Picard dying… got that and accept it. Yet Seven ditching the Cube? I was hoping that the Cube would come online for defense. Instead we get Starfleet coming to fight their own Commander Oh. Umm, I’m confused.

Yes, Narek, and the Borg Cube, what happened to THEM??

Are you drink? The show was shit in all aspects. This isn’t Star Trek. It’s so much woke/PC bullshit.

I’m sober and I disagree. I thought the show was for the most part very good.

I’m really surprised your comment wasn’t moderated

Some very poignant moments. But the overall plot fell extremely short of the promise of the expectations set with lots of flimsy and quick (rather unbelievable not to mention sloppy and half-ssed) resolutions to story lines. The series was set up well for 9 episodes but failed to be satisfactorily resolved in season finale. Again, the poignant and philosophical moments saved it from total failure. At least they gave Data a proper good bye. On a scale of 1 to 10 I would give it 4.5

I really do not have the strength, to talk about that show anymore. However, „A butterfly, that lives forever, is no butterfly at all“ must be one of the stupidest sentences ever written.

But it was nice to see some Starfleet ships at last. They actually looked quite nice, though a little tiny. And Rikers uniform looked a little better, than the ones seen throughout the show. Wouldn‘t actually mind a show with him in the captains chair after this. Though, thematically it would have made a lot more sense, to have Worf or Geordi in that chair. Or someone from the other shows.

Well it‘s over. I for one won‘t be watching the adventures of Robo-Picard 😅

PS: anyone thought, that Discovery Ad at the start was part of the episode at first? 😁

exactly. is a tortoise only a tortoise because it lives 100 yrs; it would still be a tortoise even if it only lived 5 yrs or 800. the length of time a life form is around doesn’t change what it is.

“one of the stupidest sentences ever written” haha. this made me chuckle thank you

Sascha, I think they’re talking about what the butterfly means to us. To us it is a brief, though beautiful life.

Daveb, when we humans think of tortoises, we think of a creature that will outlive us.

So, yes, a tortoise is a tortoise is a tortoise, but the interpretation of its being by observers is something else entirely.

Perfection. Absolutely loved this. From excitement (Riker) to gut wrenching (Picard) to resolution (Data)…this was everything you could ask for.

For those questioning the Romulans arriving on Vulcan issue- he is implying they are one and the same Vulcans-Romulans. They are. Romulans left Vulcan. He is describing their ancestors before it eventually became Vulcan.

A few random thoughts…

I thought for just a minute or two that next season might need to be a prequel, or there might be some other twist besides Picard becoming a synth, or a cliffhanger about that… this was mainly when Seven and Rios were chatting and the Raffi/Elnor crying scene. Felt like *maybe* the obvious was a decoy.

I did NOT see Data’s end coming. For some reason, that hit me really hard — big emotional impact. Perhaps because it was so final, and watching him lay down to die, and so forth. A human-like death did bring a fitting closure to the character, though, and the CGI de-aging worked well IMHO. (Why not the right wig, though?)

I don’t care for the Kelvinverse warping to exact coordinates and a full stop, but I guess we’re stuck with it. Perhaps that’s better than immense ships doing barrel rolls…

“I don’t care for the Kelvinverse warping to exact coordinates and a full stop, but I guess we’re stuck with it.”

Same here. It was pretty cool in Star Trek 2009 but it gets old fast.

It’s very Battlestar Galactica. Which was awesome in Battlestar Galactica. Not Trek.

The ‘warp to exact coordinates and a full stop effect’ was used in DS9 & Voyager in several episodes for dramatic effect. Maybe not as boom-punchy like ST 2009.

TNG had the gentle streaking lines slowly diminish when they came out of warp, it was tightened up more in Nemesis.

The new warp effect is actually more true to life. When you warp the ship is actually not moving. It is compressing space itself in front of the ship and expanding it behind the ship. So when it comes out of warp the ship is just standing still.

THANK you, Nebula.

“Trek” is not “The Expanse” where they have huge rockets and Epstein Drive and forces of gravity affecting the ships in space.

theyre warping spacetime and they need to keep moving, hence the impulse engines glowing even in warp. warp is not travel by itself.

Again Hugh is still dead.
Bummer.

Episode was 80 percent predictable yet enjoyed it.
Really thought Soong might be Lore…oh well.
Annika and Raffi…ok.
Jurati is unpunished?

So want happened to evil gold synth chick?
Did I miss something?

Overall the series is a 7/10 for me.
It washes the taste of the Kelvin trash out of the mouth and corrected Nemesis. So there is that.

For me this series was 4/10. Which is better than STD’s 0/10 1st season then 1/10 for their 2nd season.

I liked it WAY WAY better than TNG (exception – Best of Both Worlds). What should have put it over the top is Borg finding out he is a Borg double agent and then sacrificing himself to stop them from succeeding in using the Federation as a engineering AI development agency to eliminate the need for organics.
On the plus side we can now have super AI androids that are full life forms, live forever. Starships that can fly themselves and beam down holograms / networked copies of itself.
And organics have to live with the consequences, potentially fleeing their homeworlds to get the change to explore the universe and find a place in a universe where they are obsolete, that might be fun.

5/10. Even though there were some genuine, excellent moments in the show with both old characters and new, the writing never punched me in the gut and made me WANT more RIGHT away (see Breaking Bad, Walking Dead, GOT). Tall order I know, but collectively I love Trek above each of those shows, and expect it to rise to the occasion. And the inconsistencies you mentioned are all valid. Annika and Raffi are both hot, bonus.

Pretty sure Soong turned off Sutra [evil golden “chick”]

Pretty darn glad that Soong was NOT Lore. Ugh.

Jurati didn’t murder thousands as Picard did when he was Locutus. Neither has been tried because neither did the murders of their own volition.

Nice touch throwing in that Picard is in his 90s.

I suspect the reference to ‘history always repeating itself’ may be foreshadowing a Season 2 storyline with Soji (Data) and Sutra (Lore).

Picard should be completely disconnected from the Borg now.

So,,, every Starfleet ship is from the same class now? Not sure if that was a subtle nod to Starfleet losing the Utopia Planitia Shipyard (and needing to streamline and simplify its ship building process), or if was a budgetary thing, or a style thing.

Why not just build Data a new body (other than for dramatic purposes)?

Narissa is definitely still alive, if necessary.

So we’re all just good with Agnes killing Bruce Maddox now?

Great to see Riker back in uniform.

Need to see more Starfleet next season. Would be nice to see Q as well, and interesting to see Robin Lefler. Time for Ashley Judd to return to TV and Trek.

“Why not just build Data a new body”

Because Data was never there. He has been atomized. That entire sequence was imagined by Picard’s subconscious to give himself some closure. I thought that was rather obvious.

That’s objectively false, so, clearly, far from obvious. Go rewatch the last 10 minutes. The sequence didn’t occur in a physical location and the visual was for our benefit as viewers, but it certainly wasn’t imagined. Data remained ‘alive’ after he downloaded his memory engrams to the inferior B4. Maddox likely made this discovery, which is how ‘Data’ ended up on the planet, and likely how (almost?) all of those ‘children’ were created – from one of Data’s positronic neurons. Or was everyone just indulging Picard when he disconnected the system keeping Data ‘alive’ at the end of the episode? Go watch the last ten minutes. Seriously. You missed some nice moments.

Is it a Data replica or a figment of Picard’s conscious, that you shouldn’t care is the whole point of the series. Again at best all he saw was some electronics programmed to “think” it was Data. But was it the positronic neurons of Data or the organic neurons of Picard that created it. Who cares? Remember, the whole theme of the show is that all these characters are just robots who have senses tricking them into thinking they actually exist for a limited period of time. There are no “souls”.

No, it is subjectively false. By your reckoning. That couldn’t possibly be Data’s engrams. He wouldn’t know or recall anything regarding himself getting blown to bits or deciding to sacrifice himself for Picard. Picard knew all that therefore his mind version of Data knew it. It was Picard who was broken up over Data’s sacrifice. He has been dreaming about his ‘friend’ for years. He wasn’t getting past it. This was a way for his brain to deal with it. It gave him closure. The setting of the scene didn’t matter since it was in Picard’s head. It really could have been anywhere. There is no reason to think this was not imagined. It was revealed earlier that the download did not take. That was the end of that. Data was gone. Period The ‘children’ as you call them (everyone else calls them synths) are just the creations of a mad scientist who likes to think of himself as a God.

I’m starting to wonder if you actually watched the show. The synths – or “‘children’ as [I] call them” – were literally referred to as children in almost every episode. Dahj and Soji as Data’s children, Picard asking his crew to remember the synths are children. And Data *specifically* indicated he did not remember anything about his end. He remembered deciding what to do (why wouldn’t he – that’s just odd) and nothing after. I don’t mind having an intelligent discussion, but I’m not going to recap the show for you. Your supporting evidence argues against established facts. Pointless. All the best.

You don’t need to recap the show. I watched every episode and the finale just this morning. Only Soong referred to them as “HIS” children. Further cementing his God complex. (I still fail to understand why no one thinks this poses some sort of problem) When Picard wanted them to think of the synths as children that is not the same as being SOMEONE’s children. Just as Spock compared V’Ger to a child. Same deal. But V’Ger wasn’t anyone’s child. The Data to B4 download would not include anything that happened to Data post download. So not only would he know what he was wearing when he was blown to bits but he would also not recall deciding to make the sacrifice. All of those blanks were obviously filled in by a troubled Picard. There just is no other way it makes sense. Now this is a work of fiction and in stories there can be plot holes. If the intent was indeed to have this really be the Data download then they made a gigantic error as none of that was set up for such a thing. If your discussione has regressed to claiming I am not responding to what happened in the episode then I’m not interested in hearing your take on the matter because it will just come down to “you are wrong, didn’t you watch it?” And that is just pointless.

I’ve responded 3 times. You’re ignoring objective fact. You also seem confused about time. How would Data not recall what he was wearing (it was his uniform…) or deciding to sacrifice himself… these things happened *before* he ended. They’re part of his memory. He *specifically* says he doesn’t remember being destroyed. Go reread my original post, and note ‘children’ is in quotes. Then google the use of quotes for emphasis. You’re welcome.

But even though those things happened before Data ended, they happened AFTER his memory transfer to B4 so there should be no memory of it anywhere, since B4 only has Data’s memories and experiences up to the point the transfer happened. So the neuron they got from B4 has no information about Data’s sacrifice, etc, that happened after.

Preciously ACP. That is the fatal flaw here that no one seems to want to acknowledge.

Incorrect. I am operating under objective fact. Fact: The Data to B4 download happened BEFORE data opted to sacrifice himself so Picard could live. Fact: The B4 download would not have any Data data from AFTER when the download took place. This is not subjective, sir. This is absolute fact. None of your emphasis quotes (something I find to be rare in text, btw) change these facts. There is no way the download data would know what went through Data’s circuits when he decided to blow himself up. Period. I’m happy to debate conclusions but please to not confuse the facts.

Absolutely false. And if you can’t handle that, I suggest you read/view recent interviews with the writer…..

If there are interviews with the writer who claims it is indeed the for real Data then said writer made multiple errors. Which has happened in Trek before, particularly in Secret Hideout Trek. It would be a case where the set up the writer created did not support the situation the same writer wrote.

Oh PLEASE GOD no Evil Twin dynamics with Sutra/Soji or Narissa/Narek. U G H

Matt, Jurati was commandeered by and under the influence of Oh, just as Picard was commandeered by the Borg and made Locutus.

Just finished watching it. Honestly I don’t know HOW I feel about it. On one end it’s one of the most touching moments I seen in Trek in decades. But on another, it just left sooo many gaping holes lol. A lot of it just made no sense.

What I liked:

Yes, the number one moment (get it) was seeing Riker back in uniform on an actual STARFLEET ship and being his old self again. That bridged looked amazing. I could’ve stayed on that ship the whole time lol. It was weird how every ship was apparently the same class though. I mean, c’mon DS9 was showing DOZENS of different classes in their space battles 20 years ago with less time, money and FX (but this is the ‘positive’ side so I’ll drop it ;)).

Seven throwing Narrisa down the shaft almost Emperor Palpatine style. That was a sweet moment.

Every single second of Picard talking to Data. That was a nice bookend to the season (which I predicted a few weeks ago would happen and we see him in the first and last episode). I almost forgot the entire season started off because of his dream with Data. I loved their talk about death and mortality. Felt very Star Trek. And it was great how they subverted expectations with the whole thing. Many of us (not me) assumed that Data would be revived in the end and instead he was killed off for good. We saw the guy die 17 years ago and I was still getting emotional seeing it happen here again.

The space battles were fun. It didn’t happen with starfleet but I loved all the stuff with the flowers. None of it made any sense lol but there were a lot of fun moments.

The last scene with them all together on the ship (and very VERY happy Seven is now oficially with them!!). But there were some ‘issues’ with that which goes to the second half.

What I didn’t like (or understand):

So Agnes is not going to prison for the rest of her life??? They bypassed that a little too ridiculously easy. Seriously? I really liked her in the episode though, she made me laugh for a stone cold murderer and should’ve been thrown in a brig on Riker’s ship, but OK.

So what happened to all the Xbs stranded on the Synth planet exactly???? I mean, really, that’s how they left it? And I thought it was funny we saw Seven and Elnor at the beginning of the episode ‘protecting’ them and at the end I guess they’re on their own now? Couldn’t they at least thrown in a line stating what with them?? And man, I’m sorry the entire Borg subplot just feels like a waste now. I hope more comes next season but it just feels like the ball was dropped HARD there.

Picard being ‘healed’. We all saw it coming 10,000 light years away but it just felt WAY too easy. They basically gave him a new body (although he has the same brain?)). And then what was up with Data saying he was ‘dead’ but then said he wasn’t. Was that done JUST to fool us? OK, whatever. Oh and yes TOTALLY believable the guy was dying but would have Riker warp out without mentioning it…totally.

So Commodore Oh infiltrated Starfleet for what, 20 years, and just goes back to Romulus space just like that? A double agent who now knows practically every dark secret of Starfleet? They just wrapped so much of this stuff up to the point of ridiculousness.

Hey speaking of, remember when Romulus star blew up and left the Romulans weak and defenseless…I guess not?

The entire AI species they were calling. Wow, that felt pretty wasted and once again quickly shoved to the side. They looked pretty terrifying though lol. I’m hoping after this and Discovery last season these guys take a break from with bringing AIs wanting to destroy all life in the galaxy subplots for a while.

OK, there’s more but I’m tired ;). I don’t know, I want to say it’s been a pretty decent season but a LOT of it nags at me right now. I can at least say I thought it was better than BOTH Discovery season finales but I’m starting to wonder if this team can pull off these long season arcs? They all start off pretty strong but just end kind of end flat and a lot question marks to say the least.

Anyway, bring on season 2 now. ;)

Picard died.. his memory map, i.e his consciousness, memories etc were mapped and uploaded to a databank and then into the golem.

Riker already knew picards state from previous episode, and if you know Picards character at all, you know he wouldn’t make anything of his predictiment, he’d rather save his dignity and not say anything..

Well depends on your take on life. If you believe you are just a collection of neurons WHO CARES?!? The NEW Picard is better or should be!!!! Why that old organic Picard doesn’t even deserve a funeral because you have NEW Picard. But if that is so then why wouldn’t they put new Picard in a high quality body with super strength, ability to breathe in space, live forever?!?!? Poor new Picard, I guess wasn’t considered worthy of Data like strength because based on a unliked namesake.

Because they said that’s not what Picard would’ve wanted and I agree with them. But I rather they didn’t place his body in a new one and just found a more natural way to cure his disease. I’m not overly bothered by it but it just didn’t really feel necessary either, especially since they basically gave him another body just like his old one. Pretty ridiculous lol.

I guess a funeral wasn’t needed since it sound like it was maybe a few hours between his ‘death’.

I’m happy the rumor I heard was not true. The one saying Data would be reborn in Soji’s body. But I never expected Data to return unless it was in a different form. Spiner wasn’t going to do that nor were they going to budget head replacement for a regular character on a regular basis. I always felt that anyone thinking they were going to get a full return of Data was into wishful thinking. And I stand by the theory that all that stuff with Picard and Data was just Picard’s brain desiring some sort of closure.

I am wondering why the body as the problem was the brain. Couldn’t they at least have kept his human body? Making him a complete synth really seems to go against everything Picard has stood for regarding humanity over the years. And making that body age doesn’t get anyone off the hook.

And yeah… After however long it has been since the supernova it seems the Romulans are doing quite well for themselves.

Data might come back x 100000. Is there really not a single particle of him that we can create a couple more? Should have some spare Data’s next time so we can lose a couple and still be able to be “OMG, it’s DATA!!!”

Seem like if they wanted to bring Data back they would’ve done it now instead of killing him off (for a second time lol) for good.

I would argue that Data was not really killed off a 2nd time. This was just Picard creating his own closure on the matter. I liked the scene and it felt very cathartic for him if I am to be honest.

Well put.

Yes I understand it better now since I read some of the interview with Chabon and he made it more clear what that was and it was Data’s memories implanted into B4. Those memories were uploaded and who Picard was talking to, it wasn’t just his own hallucination though. It makes sense as much as this stuff can lol.

And I LOVED the scene, that was the one thing in the finale they were totally spot on for me, but it was confusing lol.

But again, if it was the B4 download how would he know about anything that went down after the download that did not revolve around B4? I would also expect that it likely since the download did not take that it would end up being corrupted in some way. So if that was indeed the intent they obviously did not think it through at all. But again, this seems to happen quite often in Secret Hideout Trek.

Yeah, I was convinced Data was just going to stay dead as well. I thought maybe they would transfer his memories to Soji like they did with B4, but they never hinted anywhere in the show Data was going to be brought back. Doesn’t mean he wasn’t coming back but once we didn’t see a new version of Data with the rest of the Synths last episode it seemed obvious they weren’t going that direction. You would think a new Data would be the first thing Soong and Maddox create considering he was the entire basis and inspiration of their work. And this one would be fully biological like the others. I understand from a fan perspective to see him but I think that was the smart direction to go in and made the finale more heartfelt. Even in Star Trek its OK to just let some characters stay dead. They certainly heeded that with prime Kirk lol.

And yes I don’t get it either, why did Picard need a new body if it was only a neurological issue??? That’s what is confusing. Just seem like they wanted to do something cool but it didn’t really make sense to the story. In fact I thought in the story with Riker and Deanna learning that Thad died because he needed a synth treatment that was the direction they were going in with Picard and that once the Synth ban was lifted Soong would just. conveniently of course, have some way to cure Picard that way. That would’ve been poignant to me anyway.

I’m happy they didn’t turn him into super Picard at least lol but it still didn’t feel needed.

That was another thing… While I felt it was silly to make a cure for Thad based on posatronic tech it would have bookended that pretty well if that same tech was used to save Picard. It fit with the story they were telling even though I wasn’t a fan of the concept. The entire android body? I was wondering “why”? It goes against everything Picard has stood for over the years. I guess when YOUR life is on the line your ethics on the matter change. LOL

Yeah I thought that’s how it was going to play out, they run into Soong and we come to learn he’s made many radical cures with synth technology, but none of it could be used since it was all banned; sort of the same way Arik Soong had theories for cures for many illnesses with augment genes but all disposed of. The characters in many ways are a mirror to each other but in this case this Soong would actually win out. I literally thought that’s where it was all going in episode 9 and was even going to post it as a possible theory of how Picard would get healed.

I guess someone decided they had to go BIG as these endings do though. I like the idea that Picard’s life was unknowingly saved by him desperately trying to save the synths lives. It’s a nice little circle of life kind of thing. It still works on that level obviously, but I think they went a bit too far with it lol.

Kind of reminds me of the Who lyric “I hope I die before I get old”… I guess that changed when Pete Townsend/Roger Daltry got old ;>

Haha Tiger2, you made almost all of my points, both positive and negative. I would throw in I really liked Soji making the right decision and that Soong was not some sort of version of Lore. I also liked Riker coming to the rescue. I thought he might make another appearance and although we didn’t hear “shields up, red alert” it was still great to see the Federation and Starfleet being what they should be, instead of fearing the synths and banning them. Also great to see a proper send off for Data instead of what we got with Nemesis – which was quite honestly badly done. Also nice to see each of the characters still battling (including Seven) but also each making progress with their demons.
On the negative side, all of what you said plus why didn’t Picard just use the Tactical and Navigation holos to help him fly the ship and what happened to Nerick?
Maybe I am just too picky now because I almost always point out flaws in Picard and Discovery. Watching TNG I never picked it apart but the other day, I saw an ond TNG episode and Picard says of Sarek, “I met him once at his son’s wedding!!” So Spock has another half brother or did Spock get married? In other words, there were probably always nits with Star Trek but we just didn’t care when we were young.
Overall, despite some choppy writing issues and plot holes plus one egregious scene way back when, I enjoyed S1 a lot and I too can’t wait until S2.

Oh yes, THANK KAHLESS Soong wasn’t Lore. I am SO happy that wasn’t even in the realm of reality lol. Fans are just trying to figure out the clues of course but things like that just feel so hackneyed I can only imagine the worst writers thinking that was a feasible idea (of course they still made Vog into Tyler so my argument just died lol).

Yeah but like I said, it wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t very good either IMO. They had a lot of great moments, the Data and Picard scene is going to stay with people for a long time. And I think for many fans those moments made up for all the dropped and contradictory story lines. I love seeing Riker. Man that made my day lol. And of course we would’ve loved to have seen him on the Enterprise but I think the writers were smart in that they KNEW most of us wanted that but didn’t want to just fanboy it up, so compromised by at least bringing in an iconic character to save the day while keeping the Enterprise under wraps. And yes people pointed out it would feel redundant if we saw yet another Enterprise at the end of the season like Discovery. I still think we will see it, just not this season. ;)

But I can’t ignore what I thought was just bad or shoddy writing either. Overall I think the show was good, but LIKE Discovery the more it went on the bigger the cracks were getting. Not AS big but still there.

I will watch it again soon (what else do I have to do these days lol) and maybe feel better about it but yeah I was let down. I was prepared for it after episode 9 but I was still hoping I could be won over. But I’m still excited for the show in general. We’re back in the 24th century after two decades, that alone keeps me happy. ;)

” it was still great to see the Federation and Starfleet being what they should be, instead of fearing the synths and banning them.”

I disagree. The Federation has every reason in the galaxy to fear the synths. Just like they had every reason to fear the Founders. It is not a bad thing to fear something whose ultimate goal is your own end.

Also, what was so wrong with Data’s sacrifice in Nemesis? It felt appropriate and very well earned. This scene wasn’t about Data at all. It was Picard coming to terms with said sacrifice.

Wait, hold-up…
Where’s Narek?
Where are the XB’s?
Why isn’t Jurati in custody?

With those lingering questions unresolved, I have to give this an A- BUT like everyone I cried when Picard died, I cried when Data’s program ended and I cheered seeing Riker back in “the chair” (that was pretty much the only surprise for me).

LOVED the ending and like another poster said, YAY for Seven and Raffi!

Also, a little confused about 2 other things:
How is it Agnes apparently knew about Soong’s existence (and what Maddox called his kung fu) but kept it a secret from Picard? Still not sure I trust her!
And we all know Data does not use contractions but he did in the quantum dream conversation with Picard, after the admiral died. Whassup with THAT?

It’s also heartwarming that to Data, and us, Picard is always “Captain Picard.”

Again, loved it, but I do wish the writers had plugged some of these holes.

Cannot wait for Discovery S3 and Picard S2!

“Still not sure I trust her!”

Well… She ought to be in the Brig but I guess all is well now that she helped shut down that device. That can still be activated at any time by anyone for any reason. And now that Picard is a programmable synthetic I don’t trust him one bit.

“And we all know Data does not use contractions but he did in the quantum dream conversation with Picard, after the admiral died. Whassup with THAT?”

Because it wasn’t really data. It was Picard’s subconscious wanting closure.

The XBs where all spaced in episode 8, I believe.

We literally saw the XBs all walking around in episode 9 with Seven and Elnor. In fact the reason why Elnor didn’t go with Picard in episode 9 because he was told to stay with the Xbs and help protect them.

A small group who we can assume stayed with the cube. Hundred and hundreds were spaced. I’m constantly amazed that this generation needs everything spoon fed to them. Like, each dot connected with a Sharpie. Inference and imagination are dead. It’s a shame.

Obviously we remembered the Borg getting sucked out of the cube but you’re getting it confused. Those were actually STILL Borg drones and NOT Xbs since they could be reactivated at anytime as we saw them with Seven. There were still thousands of those. The Xbs are actually the people who were completely disconnected from the Borg and were now rehabilitating back to their old selves and there were still plenty of them alive and well as shown. The ones we saw spaced were mostly still actual Borg in their cubicles.

No offence, but if you want to claim people need something ‘spoon fed’ to them, then at least be more accurate about it. Especially someone who literally just said they were ‘all’ ejected into space which was not even close to true and what my post was clarifying.

Valid point.

Cool! Let’s move on.

Matt, I’m 56. Stop being judgey. Sheesh. Tiger2 is right.

Thanks! And I do think that aspect disappointed so many people, certainly me, because they really did a good job making the Xbs look like victims and it was also something they gave Hugh as his passion project only to literally drop that story on a planet and disappear from that point on. They didn’t even bother with a throwaway line telling us what would happen to them after developing them all season long. I just don’t understand why some of these decisions were made????

There were a few XBs working with Seven on the cube after it made planetfall.

I think it was the Borg who were not YET XBs who were spaced by Nasty Narissa.

LOVED IT.
Had a tear in my eye for all the right reasons.

But what was up with DATA’s hairline?? How hard can it be to get it right?

I was trying really hard to ignore the hairline issue ;^]

Oh I’m happy they managed not to give us a lame Borg ‘origin’ story so many were predicting was going to happen….for the second time lol. Just avoid that Star Trek, it’s just not needed and thankfully it was never even hinted at.

I too appreciate that, but they put the Borg in there seemingly for no reason and left the cube and the XPs to basically rot on the planet. Wouldn’t it have been cool though to see a Borg origin story done well?

I’m not completely against a Borg origin story (although prefer not to see it) but I didn’t want it to be something so ridiculous as the Romulans creating them either. Last year the theory was Control created them. If they are going to do it, then DO IT RIGHT! Actually adhere to canon and base it on aliens in the Delta quadrant from tens of thousands of years ago. Don’t base it on someone from the Alpha quadrant and been around a short time because it just makes the universe feels too small.

The Xb storyline was just completely wasted. I’m hoping there will be some follow up in the next season but many of us it was no way they were going to be able to wrap up all the story lines in just one hour and that was one of them that fell to the way side.

It’s just funny how the episode before it they made such a big deal about Seven being there for them and then the next one she totally moved on joining Picard’s crew. Just so odd.

If you’re looking for the Alpha and Omega story of the Borg, pick up David Mack’s Destiny trilogy if you haven’t already (there’s an omnibus available).

Yes, it a tie-in novel, and the Relaunch universe appears to have parted ways with the Prime universe in about 2380, but it’s still excellent. In fact, it’s so good that any attempt at an on-screen Borg origin story risks seeming weakly done by comparison.

Surprisingly moving and Trek-like finale. It all hinged on this episode and it came together quite well.

This is a tough pill to swallow. The ending makes me have to think about so many things. What is real? Did Picard die? Is he alive? Is he Robocop? So many questions.

I didn’t really feel like the death was earned because it was so obvious that he would come back with his mind implanted in the golum. And there are zero consequences to it. His new body is programmed to be just like his old body and will die whenever he would have died. Just seemed to me like a sci-fi way to bring him back, but just having Q do it, or finding a miracle cure, would have had the same emotional reaction for me. At least it wasn’t done with Khan’s blood, ha!

I actually feel sorry for organic Picard, that his fans would just throw him away and his sacrifice for an AI copy and not see that sacrifice. I also feel sorry for the new life form copy of Picard who has been programmed to die just so people can feel like old Picard is back. Dehumanizing regarding the organic Picard, intolerant and racist towards the new AI life form.

Well…
I have to say, considering what they left themselves to do…this episode was extremely impressive.

It was the most cohesive and coherent episode so far. The choppy editing was still there and the little fight scene with Elnor and the creepy guy was poorly done BUT…

The space battle wasn’t over the top and despite all the usual clutter on the screen it made sense.

The scene with Picard and Data was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. They went along way to fixing the Nemesis ending. Maybe…just maybe this writing team has some talent after all. I just really hope they see the positive feedback from this episode and know they need to slow it down occasionally and give some heart.

I actually didn’t mind the way they pulled Picard from the dead. It’s a ‘Trek’ thing and certainly not the weirdest example. I didn’t mind the Raffi and Seven are the token lesbiens that all shows need nowadays because I’m just freaking happy that Seven is back and the writers have forgotten about Raffi’s drinking problem.

I’m also happy that the Soong brother was just a simple character and not some convulted mustache twirling villain (we have a few of those).

What I didn’t like though was Jurati getting off the hook…but the one thing I really hated…was the Starfleet Ships. Didn’t we all deserve to see a few ships we recognize? The Titan? A few Excelsior Class ships? Maybe some Intrepid class…yes I know it’s 30 years into the future of TNG but SOMETHING we recognize….and why do they all have to look the same???

Anyways, I have hand it to them. They weaved straw into go…well…not quite gold, but certainly Silver with streaks of gold in there somewhere.

Well Done…. now for Season Two…DON’T MAKE IT SO HARD ON YOURSELVES! Keep it simple :)

I don’t work in studios, but my thought is that CBS gave them less of a budget than Discovery which I attribute to the lack of variety in the ships.

Discovery had a plethora of Starfleet Designs and space battles. Picard for the most part has been void of any major starship engagements. I would have liked some new designs, but I honestly don’t think they were given the budget.

If that is the case it’s a shame, I thought it was a pretty sweet design though.

I don’t think it had anything to do with the budget, all these shows get enough lol. I think it was just a creative decision and they been purposely avoiding showing starships on this show on day one. It could just be a mandate by Stewart he doesn’t want it too Starfleet focused. Of course I don’t know that but considering how much he’s been saying he doesn’t want to be seen in a uniform I wouldn’t be shocked either.

Did no one else notice that Rikers captains chair was the same one from the bridge of discovery?!?!?! Probably the same set re dressed as the background was primarily in soft focus

It’s basically been determined that was a redress of the Discovery bridge.

“They went along way to fixing the Nemesis ending. ”

What exactly did they ‘fix’? There was nothing wrong with the Nemesis ending.

“’m also happy that the Soong brother was just a simple character and not some convulted mustache twirling villain ”

But isn’t he? He created an entire world. He thinks he’s God and his creations see him that way, too. This is not a good person. He is someone they are going to deal with sooner rather than later.

ML31 you are one of a very small number of us that like Nemesis. I respect you for championing that movie, even if I don’t get it.

For me, nothing can fix the problems in the tone of Nemesis, but I appreciate the closure this series has given Data.

But Data got no closure here nor was any necessary. It was Picard who got the closure. It very much felt like Data was completely comfortable with his sacrifice for his Captain. It was a good way to end a character whose journey had quite obviously gone as far as it was ever going to go.

I know, I was very underwhelmed at the cookie cutter fleet of hundreds of identical starships. I mean, the Reliant class and Excelsior class ships were STILL being used in TNG a hundred years after they were being used in movies. I find it preposterous that the Federation has, in 20 years, eliminated any ships that are more than 20 years old.

To be fair that design was still being used because it was a way for the TNG production to save money on a model that was already created.

I suspect that nothing you recognize would have been able to get their that fast.

Riker says that it’s the fastest ship type in the fleet.

Those ships would have to have a new drive and the hull configuration to match to make it from Federation space that quickly without using the Transwarp conduit network.

They went the Southwest Airlines route. One class of ship lol.

Episodes 1-8 were great. Then we get to this 2-parter and it all falls apart. The whole thing was so damned rushed!!! They needed a third episode to spread out plot better instead of just stuffing it all at us, including brand-new villains and a McGuffin or two, and to pay off where everyone ended up after synth-Picard returned to La Sirenna.

I’m not going to prattle on… just poor writing. But then again, what do you expect from the brains behind “Batman & Robin,” the 1998 “Lost in Space,” and “Transformers: The Last Knight?”

There. I said it. Tear me asunder.

Fun thing about TV and art in general is you are allowed to have a different opinion. I for one loved this series and absolutely loved its conclusion. Definitely a series I’ll be buying.

I agree it could have benefited from being longer and I wished there was some variety in Federation fleet, but otherwise I don’t have many complaints.

Maybe season 2 will be more to your liking!

Ohhh, you mean Mister “But I got an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind!”

There are plenty of Oscar-winners for subpar material.

Sybok,
Yeah, even within trek contributors – Logan’s last work on THE AVIATOR was something like 7 years before the movie came out, yet he got credited for it. And only his dialog for the baddie got used in GLADIATOR.

I agree Ambassador Sybok, the last two episodes were overall disappointing. I don’t think they were horrible but mostly bad because so much of the story either didn’t make a lot of sense or raised a LOT of questions that wasn’t close to being resolved. I think what saved it for a lot of people were the touching moments in the finale but overall for me it just didn’t sit right.

I still think this show was easily better than Discovery’s first two seasons but in the end it still had some of the same problems as that show does even if they avoided the bigger ones.

Yes, overall I think this was better than both seasons of STD. But they still have a ways to go before they get even a mediocre series. The good news is they have gotten better with each go round.

This was much more watchable than the first two seasons of DSC for me, but…it had Picard. And Data. And Seven. And the promise of Riker and Troi showing up. Even Hugh was especially excellent (and wasted). I don’t know if the story was any better than we’ve seen on DSC, but the characters (even the new ones) are vastly superior. And it was set in the era it belonged in.

That’s the crazy park Danpaine, the nostalgia/fan service factor REALLY REALLY worked. I’m actually STUNNED how right they seem to get all of the former characters. Even Discovery. I don’t REALLY count Pike in that because the guy was in one episode lol, but Anson’s Mount version of Pike is beloved now. I don’t think Peck TRULY emulated what Nimoy did with his Spock but it was close enough and everyone seem to love him too (and he probably had the hardest task out of everyone). I certainly think he’s better than Quinto’s Spock at least.

So while maybe the show Picard as a whole still has problems they seem to won many over by all those classic characters from Seven to Troi, although I agree Hugh was wasted.

And yes Picard was fully set in the 24th century and not some strange/alternate futuristic 23rd century hybrid Discovery was in. It all felt right and props to them on that.

I wonder what happened to Narek though?

Wow. This whole season even with all its foibles was about death, life and rebirth, resurrection and redemption. What excellent and deep concepts for a show now. Every character experienced redemption and rebirth whether it was Picard, Riker, Soji, Raffi, Rios, 7, even Data. The series ended with renewal and healing.

The death of Data has me in tears again this time it was so meaningful and brought an end to his character, a good end that ties up everything from 33 years ago to today. Picards death also was meaningful but Data’s was so final and beautiful and how he dreamed of Picard at the end. I watched the last few minutes twice and am still crying and I’m not an emotional person. In the end we all go through what Data and Picard did, the relationships, endings, beginnings and the finality of death of others than ourselves.

With everything going on in our world this show came at the right time And offered meaning. Thank you to Patrick Stewart and Michael Chabon what a beautiful season end to a great show in such an eventful time.

Very nicely put, Wes. A somber and thoughtful appraisal.

What were the robotic creatures coming out of the wormhole?

No idea, but I think we saw them in the Matrix. And we saw them in Discovery and will probably see them again in Disco Season 3

Intentionally creepy.

But it made me wonder about Narek’s claim that the story of the Destroyer was Romulan/Vulcan prehistory.

I’m wondering if Picard has the archeological inclination to find out.

Yeah, when they showed the planet exploding, I suddenly remembered that these were, like, the exact stakes of Disco S2. I guess everyone’s lucky Control never found the Admonition.

A plot device.

I forgot all about them until you mentioned it. Ha, there’s some $$ wasted on sfx.

I love this show. I was never really a fan of TNG when my dad used to watch it growing up. (Im 27) but this show has me hooked! I honestly think i like it more than mandalorian. Im not exactly sure and that is a bold statement but in a different type of way I feel it could be. Its not as cartoonish and has those heartfelt moments that draw you in and keep your attension. This episode was amazing to me and the series as a whole so far is as well. Its even got me watching TNG wondering why I never gave it a chance.

I liked The Mandalorian a TON more.

Oh, absolutely. I watched Mandalorian twice in a row and will probably go back for thirds, ML. I appreciate how PIC led you to explore TNG, Wooba. What a blast, discovering that for the first time, with no commercials or year-long breaks between cliffhangers! Enjoy!

I just wish Riker was there for the death.

Entertaining if predictable finale where you could pretty much see everything coming. I remember speculating about how the finale would play out and other than a couple of minor plot points I was surprised at how much I thought would happen actually came to pass.

Picard’s “death” felt hollow since, after all the tearful goodbyes, he was back and up and about in seemingly no time. It felt, to me, like the magic blood scene from STID.

Data’s wish to die was similarly head scratching since the technology clearly existed to put his consciousness into anther golem with a pre-defined life expectancy; that would have really let him feel what it was to be human and ultimately die a natural death. Obviously, Brent Spiner didn’t want to put on the makeup anymore though I would not be surprised to see Alton Soong again as he finally seemed to see the error of his ways.

Seeing Riker in command of the most powerful Federation ship was cool; and even as someone who hates the forced space battles I would have loved to see him blow Oh out of the stars, if only for her horrible taste in sunglasses and one note acting style. At the very least he should have hauled her in for espionage, masterminding the synth massacre on Mars, trying to have Picard murdered numerous times, and god knows what else. Instead, she was allowed to just return to Romulus. Strange.

What happened to Narek? He was just cast off without any explanation and really left in limbo. Likewise, the Borg ship with the xBs was quickly cast aside and Seven didn’t seem to have any qualms about leaving them behind and joining Picard’s new motley crew instead

Happy that Rios and Seven, who were my two favorite characters, made it to the end in one piece. I will be curious to see where this goes in season 2.

Oh, and that teaser of Burnham holding the tattered Federation flag was familiarly annoying. Burnham: the last, best hope of the Federation. Excuse me while I roll my eyes.

“Picard’s “death” felt hollow since, after all the tearful goodbyes, he was back and up and about in seemingly no time. It felt, to me, like the magic blood scene from STID”

This. Exactly. It felt hollow. It was not moving in anyway. Just like Pine Kirk in STID.

And for the record, I was unmoved by Data’s desire to end. We already saw that in Nemesis done for real. This was just Picard coming to to terms with it finally. The entire scene was in his head. That is rather obvious.

Poor organic Picard isn’t even missed enough to get a funeral, just replaced by a perfect copy. Kind of sad, even I think that character deserved better.

how do you know there was no funeral, just because it wasn’t shown? maybe it ended up on the cutting room floor, edited out because of time constraints. If so , it definitely should have been left in.

Spot-on review, TonyD. Many points similar to how I feel about it. And I’m kind of pissed they pushed that DSC promo in there so fast – had I known I would have turned…that…off.

Oh, like most repatriated moles, would be never be able to return to the Federation, but couldn’t be extradited.

Riker’s statement that he’d love to have to opportunity to blow her up was right on point because outside of combat, she was untouchable at that point.

A beautiful conclusion to a serious consideration of the human condition, leaving many threads to be explored in the future. It wasn’t about natural vs synthetic life, it was about mortality vs. immortality. An important sentence from Soong after he deactivated/neutralized/killed(?) Sutra: “You [synths] are just like us” (or words to that effect).

““You [synths] are just like us” (or words to that effect).”

Except, they’re not. They were programmed. By HIM! The synth stuff really didn’t make a lot of sense. Lot’s of plot holes there.

But they are capable of making autonomous decisions, thereby going beyond whatever programming they had. Coming at it from the other direction, we biological life forms are considerably “programmed” by our DNA.

But said decisions are based on however they are programmed by their creator. True in a sense we are programmed by our DNA. But did Soong create random DNA strands, too? Nothing was ever mentioned about it and I think it amazingly unlikely. If he did, it only further gives credence to the Soong wants to be God concept.

exactly, didn’t picard spend an entire episode of tng (Measure of a Man) arguing that Data (and therefore, the synths) are more than just “programmable robots, and are actually sentient and deserving of “human” rights.

He did but his arguments were based entirely on emotion while Riker’s were based on the facts. Subjectively in that instance it was Riker who made the better case. And even still it was not an absolute decision. It was a temporary stay more than anything else and it felt like the issue would be revisited in more detail at a later date.

When the golem was introduced, I figured it’d be used to save Picard, a la Juliana Soong Tainer (ST:TNG “Inheritance”).

Therefore, I was envisioning an ending where Picard is rushed into the lab for a miracle cure, leaves with his crew and the last scene being an empty golem chamber. Re: the Borg cube and xBs, I figured the synths would take them in.

LOL It’s funny because it didn’t SAVE Picard, it REPLACED Picard. The Picard’s neurons were toast, all that ‘transferred’ was his data. If you were Picard you’d be non living now, but I suppose he is dead so doesn’t really care anyway. Sad though his friends don’t see his organic self as worth a funeral.

Yeah, you could easily get into a long-winded discussion about whether the memories and life experiences of a person constitute their essence and what that kind of transfer does to their “soul”. The idea that a golem has been perfected would also suggest humanity is now within grasp of immortality; that would have quite the implications for organic society as well.

There would also be all sorts of ethical questions something like this would raise; What Are Little Girls Made Of explored some of the same ideas with a decidedly more negative opinion of its ultimate worth.

It’s a pretty heady subject but unfortunately in the episode it was reduced to a convenient plot contrivance to cure Picard’s irumodic syndrome and everybody quickly accepted it, completely ignored the implications, and moved on.

Picard clearly takes the position that you have no “soul” given there is absolutely no indication any research has been done into transferring a ‘soul’ / ‘creating a soul’ this yet engineered AI life forms = life. Therefore no soul for life. Does this contrast with TOS, maybe, but this all clear superceeds V’ger needing organic Decker for what could be considered a “soul” (imagination, etc), maybe but that is irrelevant.
Rationally if you were Picard you would be gone. That organism that thought/felt simply is gone. The AI Picard has been made to look like Picard, and act like Picard thanks to the uploading of Windows Picard 1.0.
That being said even if there was no ‘soul’ you’d think organic Picard still deserves to be celebrated for having been? I’m not even that big a fan but I watched for years, the organism deserves better no? I suppose this is too ‘humanizing’ / irrational and given the AI is life is now established.

I didn’t. I found the entire thing to be something that needed to be thoughtfully examined rather than glossed over as a means to preserve Picard. Just curing him would have been much better.

I tend to agree with this. What we have really isn’t Picard. It’s a facsimile. One that should not be trusted as it was programmed by Agnes and Soong. God knows what secret codes Soong put in there.

I think that what happened to Picard–and all your discussions about natural life and artificial life–is one of the major themes of all of Star Trek and science fiction. Is golem Picard the original Picard? You have stated your opinion that he is not. Here is another possible point of view.

Think of transporter technology. Is the reconstructed person still the same? Yes and No.

Think of Dax. Is Jadzia Curzon? Yes and No. The symbiont is transferred to a new host.

Maybe here the “essence” of Picard had been transferred to the new host. The “symbiont” is not tied to organic matter anymore, but encoded in patterns of the mind that can be transferred from host to host. Before with organic matter, next with inorganic matter, later just with pure energy. This is the evolution of life forms in the whole galaxy, which end up as Q beings after billions of years of evolution. TNG has mentioned that…

So is Picard still Picard? Yes and No. Is he human or synthetic? Not important. They are both just some generic life forms, just like any other all over the Quadrants of the Galaxy. ST:Picard is just showing the path to becoming life forms of pure energy and thought: you being you is not tied to the crude matter, and not even tied to space nor time! Luminous beings are we. (oops ;) It is tied to your thoughts and the constant never ending struggle to be a good person. You are still watched by Judge Q. And there is still hope yet.

Interesting concepts. And I give you the transporter thing but I tend to not dig too deeply into that bit of tech as it was designed as a work around to not have to land the ship on the planet every week more than anything else. So I tend to give that a pass.

I’d rather not get into the whole Q thing. Never liked that character except as a comic foil. It was hard to take Q seriously. Still is. But I still think there is a difference between natural life and what man creates mechanically. A huge difference.

I get you. Anyway, it’s just a science fiction tv show, so I’m not expecting it to provide any answers, only to provoke interesting thoughts.

I like the fact that sometimes the answer can also not just be a Yes or a No, but it can be both at the same time, to go beyond binary answers to more quantum mechanics answers. Spot II should have been named Schrodinger.

Depends – does the transporter *moves* the organic cells in question as opposed to destroying them and building them anew? If you read Diane Carey’s “Final frontier” she actually had it where Kirk’s Dad was horrified at the concept thinking he is just a copy and the original is dead only for Robert April to say that the cells have been *moved*.

Well, there have been many examples of the TNG crew being saved from various accidents using their “pattern” stored in the transporter buffer… not sure it is about moving particles, since they can restore a past “copy”.

Also, throughout the lifetime of an organic person, how often do you think the cells/atoms that make up a person is replaced? Do you think you have the same cells that you were born with? We constantly eat atoms to replace the atoms we lose constantly. Every time we breathe, we poop, we lose hair, we shed skin, we cut nails, we lose atoms that were once a part of us. Does it matter which specific carbon or oxygen or hydrogen atom is in your body at any given time? More dramatically, what if you lose an arm, or a leg, or a kidney, or replace a heart with a pig’s heart? Is the invalid the same person as they once were even though a bunch of atoms were moved elsewhere or replaced by atoms that came from somewhere else? When we die, the last pattern of atoms that made you just returns to nature, just as they were just atoms that your mum ate–from food while gestating. All these atoms, made eons ago in stars, have existed before our birth and will exist after our death, and are constantly replaced throughout our life.

I think Star Trek is trying to examine the science fiction question of whether a life is tied to the temporary arrangement of matter or to the pattern itself that governs the arrangement.

Yeah the simple fact is that organic Picard did not close his eyes and then open them in a new body.

A new body booted up with his memories.

I guess that’s good enough for people.

For me, for all intents and purposes Picard is dead. I’m wondering what they did with his body?

Bravo, bravo, bravissimo!

Very moved, very touched, very entertained by this season finale. *Thank You* to Chabon, Stewart and the entire Picard team, for your labor of love. 👏🖖

How long must we wait for Season II?!

Charles Xavier/Jean-Luc Picard: “You died and transferred your consciousness into an empty vessel too? We should be best friends!”

High-five to the only other person I’ve found so far, making this comparison. It makes me SICK. AND lose even more respect for patrick stewart. He should NEVER have allowed both his “mainstay” characters to duplicate the same death, let alone death-cheat.

Yeah, it was a misstep for sure.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t even REGISTER with Patrick Stewart. =P

Heh.

They got me with Riker. THAT was awesome!

Here’s what bugged me: why did Rios and the others need to do a campfire? La Sirena was repaired by then, so they could easily do that scene inside. Made no sense, other than the director wanted to have Narek explain the end of the world by a fire for effect. When your creative choices to increase the drama take the audience out of the story then you failed.

I’m glad no one truly died except for Data. Q should had been there in that scene with Data and Picard, that was a lost opportunity.

Overall good story, good ending, and I’m very excited for next season.

OK, so I need update my post. I went back and watched a random old TOS ep (Squire of Gothos) and a TNG one (Pegasus) and realized just how far down the quality has gone down since. I guess that the Picard show is the best we can get now. I guess I had high hopes for the same quality we got with TOS and TNG. Sure, they had some bad eps, but their good episodes were really, really good. The Picard show simply does not achieve that level. Just be thankful that we have a LOT of good Star Trek on Netflix. It’s just a bummer we will never get it that good again.

Patrick Stewart was amazing on TNG. On this Picard show, he’s still good, just not as good. It’s weird.

Great season ending, lovely touch of TNG-connectivity. Some things I was hoping for which would have been fun additions:
1. Beverly Crusher beaming down from Riker’s ship to save Picard’s life
2. Worf leading the Enterprise-F in the battle
3. Narissa not saying “have you f-ed any of them?”, because cursing is so un-Romulan
4. Troi on the bridge alongside Riker
5. Riker on the Titan
6. A 90-min finale to be more thoughtful in closing all the open stories (and they are still a few that weren’t addressed).

The Data ending was perfect. Picard the “speech maker” was brilliant with talking Soji out of her actions. Yes, a bit rushed to conclude, but really satisfying for those who grew up with TNG.

My only one wish was that I would have been able to watch the series with my young children (who love Trek)….just too many gratuitous F-bombs that spoil the “family-viewing” aspect of Star Trek. Michael Chabon seems to be a really decent down-to-earth man, so I’m surprised he was willing to alienate families from enjoying the show together.

Nonetheless, looking forward to Season 2 and hopefully a few more characters from past Series’.

Troi did say that she was not as brave as she used to be- and someone needed to stay with Kestra.

Great points! I’m with you on a bunch of them with minor tweaks.

1) Yes I wish Beverly had been in the mix. There was so much throughout TNG without her playing a role in Picard’s later years.
2) Yes, but I wanted to see him as Chancellor, or Governor, I love him in All Good Things doing the begrudging Klingon “I will help you but I don’t like it” motif. I really thought in this episode when we saw the “green” Romulan and “blue” Federation ships we would see the Klingons jump in with a Red motif and there was Rios’ ship with Picard in the middle at command… Oh well!
3) yeah, I agree…but I do love that we are casting Romulans in a sort of weird almost GOT Lannister motif, especially after their homeworld was destroyed…the cursing..yeah, sort of indifferent.
4) Yes totally! Where was that?
5) ditto
6) Season 2 baby! All I have to say there. So many open story lines. I really dug Narek’s character. And I don’t like that Hugh was killed because I thought there was a lot of potential there with the XB’s…

Best!

sorry for all the “motif’s” lol!

Nice points, all well taken. #3 cracks me up, that part actually took me out of the story when I saw it. So f-ing unnecessary.

Well, I had called into last week’s Mission Log Live and predicted that, since we hadn’t yet seen any Starfleet vessels of this era, we might see an Enterprise-F to bring in one of the old bridge crew next season (since Sir Patrick has indicated he’d like to make this happen). Almost happened in the finale–but what was the name of Riker’s ship? I would have liked a callback to at least one of the original Constitution-class names…

The Zheng He, named for a Chinese admiral.

I loved the whole series and especially the final of this season. One question I have is that it took Capt Picard and his crew a really short amount of time to get to Coppelius and the Romulans a very long in comparison. So how did Starfleet make it there at roughly the same time as the Romulans if Picard only sent his message to starfleet after some time on Coppelius? Or I am missing something?

No, you’re not missing anything. Just another instance of inconsistent writing.

Agreed. I didn’t even think about that until he mentioned it lol. The Romulans had a day head start from Starfleet did but Starfleet got there maybe an hour after they did. They could’ve at least covered that up better if Picard gave them directions to the transwarp conduit in his message.

Exactly, and such a simple fix. a one-liner.

Riker said it was the fastest ship.

They didn’t say slipstream, but I’m headcanoning that as slipstream technology could match or beat Borg Transwarp, and doesn’t require a network.

Not sure why they don’t bring in people to read the scripts and ask questions like that. Might save a lot of earned nitpicking.

If they did that they may have been able to save the Picard-Data scene, too.

Yeah, that was pretty weak writing. In addition, I assume it would have taken quite a bit of time to gather that many ships to form the armada and they also somehow had time to pick up Riker! Maybe Nepenthe was along the way, but still… Seemed unnecessary as I’m sure there were other qualified captains to lead the fleet… don’t get me wrong, though. I loved the scene and it was awesome to see Captain Riker in uniform!

Kind of reminds me of the old “Enterprise is the only available ship in the quadrant to stop the “insert generic galaxy/earth ending event”. Well FINE we’ll just have to save the day again, sigh.

Well… Not bad. Secret Hideout is definitely improving. Although it kind of does feel like I heard this before from Stewart in X-Men The Last Stand. Except that time he wasn’t listened to.

The stuff concerning Picard’s death could have been effective… If we didn’t know he was for sure returning for season 2. That stuff really should have been saved for the assumed 3rd season. It was as effective as Pine Kirk’s “death” in STID. It failed because we KNEW there would be a 3rd film. Although I expected the disease to be cured through some sort of synth related cure. The idea that they gave him a synth body that “ages” is weak. It feels very much like something Picard would NEVER accept. At least, not the man we saw for the last 30 years. His character would rather die than be placed in a synthetic body. The entire concept goes against a Star Trek theme that goes back to TOS. Just because the synth body “acts” like a human one does not make this OK. The only reason I could see for Picard accepting this is because as he grows older is view on that might change. But I would say that after talking with Data and seeing his example that Picard might realize that preservation of his self as a synth was not preservation at all. It was cheating. Something that our moralistic Captain would never allow. In the past. But then, he did seem to change a bit as he got older. He did act as judge, jury and executioner to Ru’ofu in Insurrection. So perhaps his morals started bending then?

Another issue I had was… Did NO ONE see what Soong was doing there? Did NO ONE have a problem with someone creating life at all levels including very likely an entire ecosystem? Creating it to their own whims? No one had any issues what the implications of that could bring? Soong thinks he’s a God! And to the Synths, he IS God. Does no one have a problem with that?

Here is my take on what could perhaps had been a better resolution. Cure Picard with a synth cure. If the Federation sent an Armada perhaps it would have been better had it been led by Capt. LaForge instead of Riker. Assuming LaForge was still active and not retired himself. Alternatively, Star Fleet could have ignored Picard’s plea and we end up with Worf showing up with a fleet of Klingon ships. Although that would have been difficult to stage as a surprise without feeling contrived.

Anyway… My CBSAA subscription will be dropped today.

ML31, I don’t think he “has been placed inside an AI body”. All that has happened is his brain pattern has been copied. The organic Picard is dead though I suppose given he is non existent now he doesn’t care. I am a little disturbed that they didn’t feel organic Picard deserved a funeral and that “hey we have a copy, so it’s all good”, rather dehumanizing. Also I feel for ‘new’ Picard because as an AI life form why wouldn’t they give it the chance to have extended life, Data strength, ability to live in space, etc. Why would you sadistically limit the capabilities of this new life form? I’d even say it deserves a new name, why would you force it to be someone who lived before as opposed allow it to see itself as the new life it is. Looks like some are still intolerant (racist?) against the capabilities of AI life and thus deliberately limit it even going so far as to program the life not to recognize it’s capabilities.

Love all of your posts. I always come here and read after an episode of Trek just to hear what fellow fans think and I always learn something new.

My take…

Yes, there were plot holes, unanswered questions, untidy ends. And none of that matters to me. This series (and certain aspects of DIS as well) is like a huge love letter to us Trek fans. Seeing Picard in action again as a deeper, more rounded character than 90s episodic network TV allowed back then. Seeing Riker and Troi talking about their relationship with Picard in real language. Cussing. Seven as a real multi-dimensional character grappling with the craziness that was her life: a human, a Borg, a transformation back to human. And Data…we get to continue the story of Nemesis after so many years. It didn’t matter to me that it wasn’t all perfect and sewn up tightly. It was just so much friggin’ fun seeing my favorite characters, in whom I’ve invested so many hours over the years watching and enjoying, back in action again. Props to CBS–and thank you!

I know DIS and Picard are geared towards a newer audience. However, with the constraints of network TV lifted, I feel like we’re getting more “real” Trek–how life aboard a Starship is actually like. The relationships, the dialogue, the dynamics between characters feel more realistic than the older Trek shows. Plus, we’re getting more money spent on episodes (I’m assuming), resulting in great sets and amazing special effect shots. Finally, I love all the odes to us as fans: alternate universes, TOS sounds on the DIS bridge, clips of key Trek music themes weaving their way through episodes.

I love how demanding we are as fans–how we want all the writing and plots to be air tight and adhering to canon. That’s why I love reading your critiques and reviews after an episode. For me, I also am so glad we have this much Trek back on the air. This Trek fan is so glad we’re still boldly going…

I have been a Star Trek fan since I was 13…… so for the last 27 years. I grew up with the next gen and instantly fell in love with the series, the cast and the story lines. There has been much debate about Disco and even to some extent Picard. I am not one to usually voice an opinion, BUT……… I think both series have been fabulous. The first season of Picard, while I agree had some weak moments, was all in all a huge win. The way they brought back characters, thoughtful storylines in true Roddenberry form, everything. I know many thought there should be more space or more space battles, but that is not all Star Trek is about, and that is Picard has shown us. I really felt Gene Roddenberry would have been proud of this series. Picard leaves you to think and to contemplate things as many story lines did in TNG. This was very personal for Picard for him to find peace and resolution to his human pain of losing Data and that’s what this season of Picard took a journey with us on. It followed, what I think for me at least, was a continuation of what Gene was trying to explore in humanity and whether or not the future of humanity still had a soul, love compassion and tolerance.

The last episode was super emotional, and yes I spent the better part of the episode balling my eyes out…… from Seven saying “this is for Hugh” to Riker showing up in uniform to come to the aid of his former captain and dearest friend to the “death” of the human body of Picard. It brought the proper closure to many things in the most human of ways. This series, even though was not TNG felt very TNG for all the right reasons.

Lets keep in mind too that we all want more Trek, and I really feel that they have delivered with Disco and Picard.

and now we have to wait a looooong time for season 2 because of the virus.

We would be waiting a LOOONG time even without the virus.

Nope! It was planed to resume filming soon for season two and three in a row ! Now the virus could destroy the entire conclusion if it takes to long .

That is not normally the case with these streaming shows. It’s normally more than a year turnaround. But to be honest, the turnaround of Picard is pretty low on my priority list when it comes to the effects of Covid19.

It is too early to know how much the coronavirus shutdown will affect things. At this point they are probably writing scripts and doing other pre-production work on the next seasons of Picard. That work can continue under virus lockdown conditions.

I didn’t love the robot Picard thing, and I’m hoping that that’s the last time we hear about it. But otherwise, that was so perfectly Trekkie.

Don’t worry, everyone seems ok with moving on past organic Picard in favor of his AI copy. Poor soul, good thing TNG Trek has it where souls don’t exist and such emotions are irrational. Why don’t you love the robot (sorry, “new life form”!!! Look I am still intolerant too!!!) , isn’t the whole theme of the show that to not embrace it is to be intolerant? I find it unfair that this new robot has been deliberately designed to be limited just to play into the need for organics to feel they still have something that looks like organic Picard.

Actually, The Ready Room behind the scenes video package sold me on it. The intention of it was very deliberate and very Trekkie.

Just watched “Scorpion” (VOY). I cringed when Janeway scoffed at the idea of going to pray to God for help with holo-DaVinci, but embraced the idea of “making a deal with the Devil.” I get the allusion, but TNG era – and especially VOY – is so down on any _religious_ spirituality that it’s a glaring choice that the writers made.

I enjoyed the episode very much. Not sure how I feel about the 7 and Raffi thing coming out of nowhere. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with it, just no build up.
As for my own expectations from the episode (whole season for that matter). The only elephant in the room for ME was The Enterprise. I understand they didn’t want to copy the end of season 1 of Discovery with 1701 showing up. But to not mention her is really a lost opportunity. As I have said in other posts. The Enterprise is part of the fabric of Star Trek whether the die hards want to admit it or not. It has been in every series and movie of Trek excluding Voyager. Maybe they are saving her for season 2, but then they would be following Discovery as mentioned above.
Time will tell.

Agreed. The ship is a character on the show. Always has been. Because it is their home.

On the topic of ships. Those horribly generic Romulan and Starfleet ships gave me a headache.

The last 20 minutes were some of the best moments ever of Star Trek.

I really did not like the lines given to Riker “we have a badass set of ships here that will kick your ass” sounded really off. And I would of assumed Oh knew about these ships as she was head of Starfleet Security. The set up battle scene had the hallmarks of Discovery, it felt all too pew pew pew.

What happened to Narek???

And the Enterprise no longer the flagship????

And have to say it again, those last 20 minutes….wow….what a beautiful ending. I actually hoped it was a double double cross and Picard would actually die and they manage to preserve his memories in data’s simulation so they could be together forever.

Rikers Ship was the flagship of the armada !

Yeah the moments between Picard and Data were amazing. It saved the episode for me. I didn’t have an issue with what Riker said but yes Oh would know all about the ships considering she was the head Starfleet security, but he was saying it more for the audience.

Yeah what happened Narek???

Was hoping to see the Enterprise too but I was happy to see Riker there so that made up for it.

I’m hoping that Oh only *thought* she was head of Starfleet Security. Perhaps Starfleet was like, “We know she’s a Romulan agent… let’s tell her she’s head of security – even though she’s a FRIGGIN’ COMMANDER – and start feeding her a line of bull.”

Fasafan. She was a Commodore. That is equivalent to a one star general.

So, in season 2 can they just un-kill Data by plugging his chips back in to the computer? they didn’t throw his chips into the fire or anything like that, so data is just turned off right?

Don’t give them any ideas. Then we have to see him die a third time.

LOL!

Or at least Data’s inoperable download is on those props.

Soong’s abilities surprised that of his father – being able to create “The Golum” is the pinnacle of his father’s work.

I don’t why he would limit “the Golum” to not have even Data capabilities (strength, long life) let alone synth capabilities (mind meld). Hell the EMH holograms have more capabilities than the Golum. Given there is nothing special to organic life, why limit yourself to something that didn’t matter in the first place (apart from intolerance).

Because anybody who knows Picard knows that Picard wouldn’t want any of that.

There was some TNG episode where a dying guy transferred himself into Data. I think this is a similar concept.

That episode was The Schizoid Man.