“Watcher”
Star Trek: Picard Season 2, Episode 4 – Debuted Thursday, March 24, 2022
Written by: Juliana James & Jane Maggs; Story by: Travis Fickett & Juliana James
Directed by Lea Thompson
The season hums along at a fun pace with “Watcher” delivering on a big mystery while adding more questions and taking some big swings with both the themes of the season and Trek lore.
WARNING: Spoilers below!
RECAP
“Who the hell are you, old man?”
As Jean-Luc and Jurati wait for La Sirena’s self-repair mode to finish, they take shelter from the cold in the Chateau Picard of 2024. As he tours the decrepit house, left deserted since World War II, Picard is haunted by childhood memories and flashbacks of his mother calming him. Out of communication with the rest of the team, they focus on their only lead: finding The Watcher. It turns out Agnes’ subconscious has been dropping clues that the point of time divergence is in just three days, on April 15. Combining this with last week’s coordinates, Picard returns to the ship to beam to LA to find The Watcher, leaving Agnes behind alone with her thoughts—and a Borg Queen who has taken an ominous keen interest in her.
Picard ends up outside the 10 Forward Avenue alley he’d visited in 2401, and he is delighted to see the bar is still in the same place back in 2024. He finds a younger Guinan with a whole new look and a more pessimistic view on humanity, complete with a sawed-off shotgun; this listener has heard enough from the “pressure cooker” planet and is packing up to leave. “They got one tiny ball in the entire galaxy and all this species wants to do is fight. I’ve given them long enough,” she says. It takes mentioning she is an alien and using her own future words for Picard to trigger her “time sickness” to get her full attention. Convinced she is The Watcher, he tells her she can’t run away from time: “This wrong must be righted, something which only you can help me do.”
“Why does the past hurt so much?”
As for Rios, he is being held in a cage with others swept up in an ICE raid, and the Starfleet captain soon learns how powerless he is at the point of a taser from a racist guard straight out of the cliché handbook. But he does get some time to flirt more with Doctor Teresa, who is still trying to figure him out after he holds back on an equal share of backstory. Unlike her, he has no papers, and Officer Jerk was not amused by Cristobal’s completely truthful account of his situation, right down to traveling through time with a “flesh and blood robot” admiral. So, it’s “adios, Juan,” and he is loaded onto a transport bus to be “disappeared.”
The good news? Raffi and Seven have turned their focus to rescue, and after a fun and familiar encounter on a bus and a fruitless attempt to get info from the LAPD, Raffi takes matters into her own hands by breaking into a police SUV to hack the computer. Seven is taken aback by Raffi’s action but soon finds herself behind the wheel as a surprisingly skilled getaway driver in a high-octane chase. Their only real chance is Jurati back in France, who finally sorts out the comms, but needs a moment for the wonky transporter—which, if you remember, is how this whole Rios situation got started. After some more excitement and banter, Agnes finally beams them away (in full view of at least one cop) to a highway to await Rios, kicking off a new debate about how many more butterflies they need to crush to get him off that fast-approaching bus.
“That is why you are so alone.”
Away from all the LA excitement, Agnes is left to deal with the now chatty Borg Queen. Her majesty relishes in taunting Jurati, mixing insults and backhanded compliments as some kind of negging manipulation. It was the Queen that got the transporters working after a broken promise from Jurati to keep the collective-missing Borg company. Through it all, the pair starts to have a sort of macabre chemistry as the stressed scientist parries with the taunting torso, perhaps bonding over shared loneliness. Jurati may feel she got the upper hand, but this Queen clearly has more Machiavellian moves to make.
“She is very much going to want to meet you.”
At 10 Forward, Picard pulls out the big guns, revealing who he is and how Guinan is destined to be his future bestie, along with a humanity that is worth the wait. And it works, as the (slightly less) jaded alien reveals she actually isn’t The Watcher, but she knows where one hangs out. This Watcher, also known as a Supervisor (where have we heard that before?), will definitely want to meet Jean-Luc Picard. After showing up at a park, it soon becomes clear The Watcher is no fan of Guinan as a white-eyed, possessed little girl starts issuing threats. The bartender beats a hasty retreat but convinces the creepy girl (and a sequence of more quickie-possessed Angelinos) to take Picard to The Watcher… who turns out to look exactly like Laris, sans pointed ears. WTF? Before that can get sorted, they’re transported away, leaving many, many questions.
“Your doubt is the loudest voice in your head.”
The episode wraps up with a sort of bonus scene featuring Q hanging out at a NASA facility, blending in as a member of the Europa Project. He seems fixated on a young woman who is busy reading an easter egg novel. Out of earshot he talks of losing nerve, fear, and doubt. Once done with his strange soliloquy, the superbeing deploys his trademark snap… but there is something amiss. Nothing happens, except the woman laughs as she reads away. A confused Q looks at his feckless fingers with bewilderment. “That’s unexpected… and most unfortunate.” Nope, that’s not ominous at all.
ANALYSIS
Taking chances
In “Watcher,” Picard sustains the good pace of the season, which remains focused even with storylines diverging along different character paths. The second season of Picard also continues to revel in the lore of the franchise with fun Easter eggs and deep dives to tie up some big plot threads. Even within the spaceship-free confines of 2024 Los Angeles, there’s still plenty of action and even some sci-fi discovery. Where things get less focused is the approach to social commentary, which while welcome and certainly part of Star Trek’s DNA, feels a bit scattershot and at times heavy-handed. But Picard should be applauded for having something to say and for taking some big swings.
One of the biggest swings was recasting Guinan, with Ito Aghayere stepping in to play a younger version of the iconic character. This was a smart and practical choice to keep the character part of the show in the past after bringing in Whoopi Goldberg to play the 25th-century Guinan in episode one, where she also cleverly explained how El-Aurians can alter how old they look. Aghayere did a fine job for the way the younger character was written; however, this more nihilistic version of the generally laid-back bartender may take some getting used to. Having the 21st-century Guinan reacting to the realities of this world fits well with the show’s larger themes and messages, but hopefully she can also play more of a role in the season’s story and perhaps get a character arc of her own. As for why she didn’t recognize Picard from their 19th-century encounter in TNG’s “Time’s Arrow,” you can be sure showrunner and time travel vet Terry Matalas has it all mapped out. We will be covering this in a future update, so stay tuned.
While there were also a lot of contemporary themes in the Rios rescue storyline, the show also found some time to add more depth to Raffi’s anguish and show off the great chemistry between Jeri Ryan and Michelle Hurd, who could certainly carry their own spin-off, as they jump from quips to action to heart effortlessly. Just how Seven can drive like she just walked out of the Fast and Furious franchise is dubious, and indicates a missed opportunity to explain that she got (offscreen) driving lessons from Tom Paris. But the most intriguing pair on the show continues to be Dr. Jurati and the Borg Queen, with Alison Pill and Annie Wersching delivering riveting performances in their weird but wonderful cat and mouse game.
Cue the Watcher
There was just enough momentum for the main season arc, adding some more insights into Picard’s life story and the history of the family. The mystery of the Frenchman’s British accent was finally explained; turns out the family escaped from France to England during World War II, only returning during Jean-Luc’s childhood centuries later. And as a side note, Picard answering simply “France” when Guinan asked where he was from was a nice nod to Kirk saying he was from Iowa when Dr. Gillian Taylor asked the same question in the 1980s in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. The episode also showed more of Jean-Luc’s troubled youth and the special bond he had with his mother, which does seem to be leading somewhere with all the talk about how fear has held him back—something Q keeps bringing up.
Speaking of the superbeing, his brief but fascinating appearance didn’t really feel like part of the episode, seeming more like a post-credit scene to set something up for later. But de Lancie’s Q is still riveting, with a new unhinged element. The scene set at NASA’s Europa Project confirms the importance of this hinted-at mission, with the woman he was focused on remaining a person of interest, but Q’s loss of powers opens up a whole set of intriguing possibilities of how he is likely going to need help to monkey around in the past.
A welcome element of episode four was to (mostly) pay off the whole Watcher mystery. After pushing past Guinan as the obvious red herring, we were presented with Orla Brady as The Watcher, looking a lot like a human Laris. And the Watcher was described as a “Supervisor” just like Gary Seven from the season two Star Trek episode “Assignment Earth,” and also using the same transported effect Gary Seven used. It’s good the show didn’t string along this mystery, and tying it back into the lore in this way was fun. We still don’t know what this Supervisor’s mission is, or why she looks exactly like Laris. This can’t just be a random coincidence, especially with Picard’s inability to commit to a relationship, Laris being a trigger for this whole “fear” theme, and the possibility that this is the reason Q is doing what he is doing… and The Watcher’s possessed white-eyed minions were wonderfully creepy.
Final thoughts
“Watcher” was a strong mix of action, heart, and humor, with some heavy themes that all added up to a solid hour of Star Trek entertainment. Questions are being answered with more left to come. We are close to halfway through the season, and so far there are only hints of things starting to drag.
Random bits
- Lea Thompson returns to direct her second episode in a row. She talked to The Hollywood Reporter about her Star Trek debut.
- This episode is the first writing credit for Juliana James, Jane Maggs, and Travis Fickett. James joined Picard as a staff writer for season two. Maggs is a supervising producer on The Man Who Fell to Earth, another sci-fi show executive produced by Alex Kurtzman, and Fickett was a writer and developer for 12 Monkeys, which was executive produced by Picard season 2 co-showrunner Terry Matalas.
- For the third episode in a row, Isa Briones (Soji) does not appear and is not credited.
- When Picard sorts out the clues about April 15th, Jurati says to him, “Look at you, Dixon Hill,” referring to the fictional detective and Picard favorite Dixon Hill.
- Later, the woman Q watches was reading The Pallid Son, a new entry in the Dixon Hill series “written” by Tracy Tormé, named for the TNG writer of the same name.
- Q and the woman were at Jackson Roykirk Plaza, named for the fictional 21st-century scientist behind the Nomad project from the TOS episode “The Changeling.”
- Kirk Thatcher reprises his role as the punk on the bus in 1986 San Francisco from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. In Picard, he was listening to an updated version of the 1986 song “I Hate You” titled “I Still Hate You.”
- The song playing in Guinan’s bar when Picard showed up was “So Good” by Jacopo Tittarelli Rubboli
- The Edith Piaf song “Non, Je ne regrette rien,” comes up again, with Picard explaining his mother played it to him to calm him.
- El-Aurians’ ability to sense changes in time is given the name “Af-kelt,” or “time sickness.”
- Guinan drives a classic Ford Bronco with license S02 E01, which references how the character was introduced in episode one of season two of Star Trek: The Next Generation (and also re-introduced in episode one of season two of Picard).
- Picard first saw evidence that Guinan was still tending bar at 10 Forward by spotting a bottle of Saurian Brandy.
- The implication of this episode is that Guinan’s Ten Forward Bar on the USS Enterprise-D was actually named for her original Los Angeles bar.
- Jean-Luc tells Guinan he hasn’t retired because “afternoon naps and jigsaw puzzles are not quite my speed,” but the real Sir Patrick Stewart actually loves puzzles.
- “Uncle Dale,” who takes the dog Luna for Guinan, was played by Brian “Q” Quinn, mostly known for the hidden camera show Impractical Jokers.
- The area outside of 10 Forward is a Sanctuary District and Rios was being taken to a different Sanctuary District “on the border.” We also saw one of these districts in the previous episode. Sanctuary Districts from 2024 were established in the Deep Space Nine episode “Past Tense.”
- Just down the street from the bar is a popup 21st Street Mission charitable giving station, a nod to the mission where Edith Keeler worked in “The City On The Edge of Forever.”
- Also just outside the bar is a classic easter egg first seen in a trailer for Picard season 2: the 1930s boxing poster from “City On The Edge of Forever,” similar (and sometimes identical) posters were seen in TNG, DS9, and Enterprise.
- Rios said the mean guard had a “face like a Ferengi.”
- Dr. Teresa’s last name was revealed as Ramirez.
- Seven saying a yellow light means “go faster” may be a reference to the 1984 sci-fi movie Starman.
- The meeting with The Watcher was shot in MacArthur Park, which is where Raffi said she had detected an alien signal in the previous episode.
- The newspaper Q was reading was dated January 21st, 2024, but Picard and crew arrived on April 12, 2024.
- The article about the Europa project quotes an engineer from the Argosy Foundation, a real charitable organization focused on environmental issues.
- The paper also has an article about Brynner Information Systems, a company established in DS9’s “Past Tense.”
More to come
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Keep up with all the Star Trek: Picard news and analysis.
So Guinan either later travelled back in time to the 19th Century (which doesn’t make sense as she didn’t recognise Picard in Time’s Arrow AFTER meeting him in 2024) or Guinan indeed has the ability to get younger as explained in the first episode of the season (which again doesn’t make sense as she should have recognised Picard AFTER meeting him the 19th Century), or have I missed something?
I assume they haven’t messed with such a memorable part of canon so we must get an explanation?
I read that someone from Paramount explained that because the 2024 was changed, then the ‘future’ in which Picard and the crew of the Enterprise D travelled to the 19th century never happened…so they didn’t end up meeting in the 1800’s because Picard was instead cleansing the Galaxy.
Hm that sounds contrary to how time travel worked in Star Trek before … So maybe there is no change in the timeline in the original timeline, ( which we assumed ) but instead Q transported them into a parallel universe where the timeline was different to begin with ( think Quantum Multiverse, every decisio netc.. produces a corresponding universe ) …
Which on the other hand would make the whole premise pointless as there is nothing to “fix”
This was my first thought as well but it would be a sloppy explanation given how inconsistent time travelling is in ST. Getting a Janeway’s headache here…
Where’s captain Braxton? What’s happened to the temporal accords?
Braxton would have beamed that girl from Scot Pilgrim dressed up as a borg on the stargazer bridge back into that borg ship and closed the temporal anomaly so they get stuck in the 21st century orbiting around the sun pretending to be a comet.
I like to believe thhe Temporal Cold wars wiped out all that Braxton stuff.
I’m not sure if writer tweets necessarily need to be taken as canon, otherwise Archer is Future Guy.
Enterprise, complete with Regeneration episode showing ‘First Contact’ happened, is still officially the prequel to the Kelvin Timeline per Star Trek’s official timeline image. No indication that this was magically erased from history after Nero’s incursion.
Bus Punk’s scene is rendered meaningless if he was never pinched by Spock in this timeline.
Personally, I’m going with Guinan ultimately did recognize Picard from 1893 upon finally hearing his name, unless we have scenes in future episodes that outright contradict this.
It’s a bit wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, but it kind of makes sense. “Time’s Arrow” didn’t happen (or happened very differently) because the Devidians were only a threat to a relatively small handful of humans in 19th century SF. But the whale probe was a threat to the entire Earth, so for the Confederation to exist in alt-2401 it must have survived the whale probe in alt-2286. So Colonel Kirk and alt-Spock must, at a minimum, have managed to grab George and Gracie and brought them back to the 23rd century.
So it makes sense that Colonel Picard maybe never went back to 1893, but Colonel Kirk and Spock still stopped the punk on the bus.
For that to make sense you have to pretend that girl Picard is dealing with is the actual Guinan, but it’s clearly not so I don’t know if the writers actually intend that recasting as Guinan and they’ve completely misjudged their audience again, or if it turns out that it’s just a different person with the same name, which pretty much everyone watching is assuming to be the case as the actor looks nothing like established 21st century Guinan, and doesn’t in any way play as Guinan.
??
What a terrible convoluted mess it’s become in just 2 short episodes. I think I will just let it air, read the spoiler reviews and then decide if it’s something I want to spend another 7 hours on as I’m pretty sure whatever the writers did for this season could have been done in a 2 hour movie with far less wall to wall filler. It’s made even worse by ripping off the voyage home peppered with ripping off first contact.
There’s a long-established tradition in TV, film and theatre of casting a different actor as the younger version of an existing character. It’s really not that hard to wrap your head around. Audiences in Victorian times understood when old Ebenezer Scrooge in a nightgown stood next to young Ebenezer Scrooge in Fezziwig’s.
The only difference here is that we saw the younger version of this character in the 1990s. It’s now possible to use computers to recreate a (rather stiff and sometimes unconvincing) version of a performance from decades ago, but just because it’s possible doesn’t mean it’s the only choice, or the best choice. Sometimes the energy of a live performance is just better.
Said recast character isn’t recast if the actor no longer plays the character, and the actor looks absolutely nothing like the character, especially so when it’s been clearly established that the character shouldn’t have aged at all.
It shows a lack of understanding in the source material, sloppy writing and the inevitable backlash from people wondering what the hell they are supposed to be watching.
It’s simply not Guinan, it’s more gen Z slop rewrites of canon murdering beloved characters. Everyone who I have spoken to feels it equally absurd and really doesn’t understand what the writers are supposed to be doing. Guinan is apparently a shape shifter now if you chose to continue watching, which many won’t, having given way more suspension of disbelief than it’s been due, and simply not interested in wasting another 7 hours of their life to see what absurd nonsense they come out with next.
Weird. “Everyone” you have spoken to feels it equally absurd. How many people would that be, approximately?
I haven’t talked to many people about it, but my wife instantly got that it was Guinan, and it even took her a second to realize it was a new actress instead of a digitally de-aged Whoopi Goldberg.
The character acts differently because she’s at a different point in her life, in a different environment. Yet I saw elements of the Guinan we know from the 24th century in Aghayere’s performance: the stillness, combined with a lack of willingness to tolerate bullshit.
Plus, the sawed-off shotgun is really the same as the gun she brought out from behind the bar in “Night Terrors.” (“That was setting #1. Anybody want to see setting #2?”)
This is the stupidest thing I’ve read today. There’s a bunch of instances of a different actor playing a younger version of a character, even if you only look within Star Trek.
Child Picard, Guinan, and Ro.
Tom Hardy Picard.
Multi Spocks on Genesis.
Multi Kelvin Spocks.
All of those happened whilst the original actor was still playing the role. So I guess you need to retroactively stop watching Star Trek? Or should they have had Leonard Nimoy dress as an infant?
And in how many of those cases was the recast necessary because those characters aged similarly to Humans (Vulcans slower but still noticeable)? Answer: All of them.
And how many of them established that the 500 year younger version of them still looked exactly like they did those 500 years later? Answer: None of them.
Now name which Star Trek Character ages so very very slowly that they don’t show one bit of aging in 500 years. Answer: Guinan.
Therefore, a Guinan of nearly 400 years earlier would have still looked exactly like Guinan. The proper thing to do would be to recast Guinan for all versions of her or let Whoopie play all versions of her. Using two separate actors for the role makes zero sense given what we know of El-Aurians aging process.
Why is this so hard for Trek fans to understand?
“Everyone who I have spoken to feels it equally absurd”
That doesn’t even make sense.
I totally agree with you,Josiah.
In fact, It never occurred to me that we would meet a younger version of Guinan.
I just assumed we would run into Whoopi,in the past.
So, it was a nice surprise for me.
Recasting is the way to go here, but they should have had her act like Guinan. We’ve seen Guinan in the 19th century, and the 24th/25th. This person did not come across as someone in between those places.
Others keep saying this and you’re not wrong, but we also have to remember the vast time gaps we are meeting Guinan in. Yes she was more upbeat in the 1900s, that was also before two world wars broke out and one of them ended with a nuclear bomb. Or could simply be the longer she lived there, the more cynical she became as she saw humans just being more apathetic to each other. Imagine if Picard met Guinan in the 1960s, no one would be questioning her cynicism.
But probably by the time the 24th century came around Earth was in a very different place by then and maybe so was she. But of course Guinan wasn’t even on Earth at that point until the Borg showed up, so who knows. We don’t know why Guinan left Earth in the first place, now maybe we are learning why?
I just think its weird for people to be shocked someone has different outlooks depending on their place in life since that’s something people have all the time. I used to be a very angry teenager; I wouldn’t recognize that person today and even ashamed in some ways. But I was also happier in my 20s than I am now, but that’s due to life issues and getting older I guess. I never been overly cynical although I grew up in a rough neighborhood but I’m actually more optimistic today even with my problems (watching lots of Star Trek ;)). Not everyone goes on one projectory and stays there.Some sure, but not everyone. And we’re talking centuries with Guinan.
Hell look at Picard lol. That guy carried the ‘get off my lawn’ chip on his shoulder for most of his adult life. The Picard we see today is so much more open and jolly with everyone. It’s still nuts this is the same Picard today vs the one who would avoid most socials unless it was mandatory by Starfleet or something Today he would be the one to throw one.
I agree. Probably the best thing they could have done was just use that same actor to play Guinan in all eras they needed Guinan to be in. Recasting would have been a perfectly reasonable thing to do for that particular character.
They probably found a way to blow the hell out of it. “Nuke the Whales”, indeed.
No, bus punk scene is not connected to TVH except as a callback to Trek past. It’s for the audience. Not meaningful to the show at hand.
They’re trying to be meta.
That’s absurd. it’s the same actor playing the same character and listening to the same song for the same sight gag. Of COURSE it’s connected to TVH.
It’s connected in that it’s a wink to the audience.
It’s essentially the Back to the Future rule of time travel – if you travel through time from an alternate place in time, then you travel to the past/future of that altered time.
when Loraine McFly directs an episode, what do you expect? ;)
That sounds right. Because Picard and friends went back in time from Q’s alternate “present”, if there is such a thing, none of the events of TNG likely happened. Since humans didn’t tolerate aliens in General Picard’s timeline, I doubt Picard had an alien bartender (Guinan) on the USS World Razer and had the adventure of “Time’s Arrow”. So from that timeline, Picard never went back to 1893 and met Guinan, Mark Twain and Jack London.
I thought it was a mistake at first but it makes sense.
This seems fairly straightforward to me, this timeline is still corrupted and they haven’t yet fixed the corruption that will stop the events in “Times Arrow” from happening. Am I wrong? I don’t get why this is confusing people.
Because time travel is confusing. I had to think about it myself.
OK. I get that now. But the thing is, Guinan knew Yesterday’s Enterprise was off. Why does this one not realize it? Past Guinan seemed to be pretty much the same as TNG Guinan. Seems to me she would care if there were consistencies in the character.
She didn’t “realize” it but she did throw up about it. The time displacement sickness thing was basically her timeline sense, less refined because she’s younger.
Actually I can come up with a better idea myself. The catalyst that changes things hasn’t happened yet. The only odd thing at this point was the presence of the future people. One might argue that she is less in tune with time travelers themselves than she is with the effects they do to the time line.
Time has been altered so that Starfleet is gone. Therefore, Picard will not go back in time for “Time’s Arrow,” so he and Guinan don’t meet until 2024.
And she should look exactly the same as she did in the 20th and 24th century. It’s not even as if it’s a younger Guinan, it’s a totally different character, I don’t understand what the writers are trying to do with it. Is she a Trill now?
I believe you’re overthinking this. The producers just wanted the character to look younger, younger than Whoopi can play, as a way of emphasizing the 400 year time difference between Picard’s meetings with her in episodes 1 and 4. That’s all. No deeper meaning implied.
I don’t even think we need to think that far. Whoopi is very busy.
Except that Whoopie still looked like Whoopie 140 years before the events of Picard. So that kinda blows a hole in the “we wanted Whoopie to look younger” theory.
I don’t understand they just got a different actress. Yeah she’s probably just a little younger than Whoopi overall when she first played the part but she’s still suppose to be playing her at the same age. I think this is just people over thinking it. And never forget, they hired a different actor that looked, acted or sounded nothing like Ricardo Montalban as Khan and literally thought people would accept him playing the exact same character without any explanations. And remember when people thought there WOULD be an explanation for it? So yeah.
Maybe there will be more, but doubt it. It was just a casting choice and they liked the actress.
Again, the casting of Khan in STID is not the same thing.
It doesn’t matter, the point is you KNOW that is suppose to be the same character. It’s all fiction, either you go with it or you don’t. I’m not saying people can’t be bothered by it, but it is what it is.
And the difference with Khan is they didn’t even try. They really really liked Cumberbatch and threw him in a role he had no business being in. Or at the very least didn’t bother to make a half ass backstory for him to give him an excuse to be Khan. Here, they didn’t WANT to recast Guinan obviously but real life circumstances forced their hand. It was just trying to find the best compromise.
Of course the irony is some people (not you) complained they didn’t have to explain why Guinan looked older in 2401 and that fans can just recognize the actress simply aged. Then cut to this episode and people seem genuinely bothered the actress was recast although it goes exactly to the same issue that some said didn’t need explaining in the first place. Now they need it explained ;).
I know, it’s not quite the same thing, but again everyone KNOWS the situation, it’s not suppose to be some big mystery in the story. Picard sees her 100% as his Guinan, I think everyone should follow his lead and just accept it.
I just realized I tripped on my own logic there. I guess the people who don’t care she aged in the 25th century probably still wouldn’t if they presented her in the 21st century as well and just suspend their disbelief on it. So a younger actress wouldn’t have been needed (from that POV).
Thinking about this myself, I’m not bothered by having another actress but I probably would’ve been fine if they just used Goldberg again but never bothered to explain any of it. But I have a h-a-r-d time believing that would’ve flew with most fans though. This was probably the better solution.
Again, Khan casting doesn’t apply here. Picard recognized her as Guinan because the script called for it. The audience doesn’t know it. At all. But… Had they just recast the character for all versions of Guinan, we would have saw the recast Guinan in the first episode. Then when Picard sees her in the past both he AND the audience would know exactly who it was. And they are still obeying the aging rules they made for her species. What they opted to do was throw out the established rules that applied to that species so they could do what they felt they needed to do with Guinan. Star Trek writers should not throw away some major character rules just because they get in the way of their story. It’s like suddenly deciding Klingons have a pacifist streak in them because you want a story that deals with that. It just won’t work in the prime universe.
You want to change the rules, do a reboot.
And honestly I don’t think it really mattered who played Khan in STID. At least not to me. They could have gotten Idris Elba to do it for all I care. I mean they already had a Latin actor play him. Not really sure what difference it makes. Further, if you wanted to to a reboot of TOS then I wouldn’t have a problem if they made Kirk a middle-eastern woman for that version. It’s a reboot. Do what you want if you think it makes for a good story. And besides, the actor who played Khan was NOT the primary reason the heavy Trek fans were in general not fond of that movie.
In YOUR opinion Khan doesn’t apply. For me it does. Agree to disagree and all of that.
Yeah. Well even though I consider obvious subjective comments to not need it, in this case I did add a “at least not to me.”
Agreed They just recasted the role. Picard didn’t in the slightest act like he was meeting a different version of Guinan, simply the one he’s known for decades.
The actors are just older and some of them are playing supposedly ageless roles so you have to suspend your disbelief.
And I think for all the talk about how easier it is to de-age actors with tech like defake, etc proves it’s probably a decade away from when you can do it cheaper and more reliable. It’s been done but mostly for big films and it’s probably not something you can do for more than a few minutes without it costing a ton on TV and why both Guinan and Q are basically the same age as the actors now.
It should be obvious that it’s a different actress because that’s usually what TV shows do for younger versions of characters. It is indeed a bit of a hole but it’s an almost inevitable one, just as the Kelvinverse actors are different from the originals. The de-aging technology they used for Data and Q (when he first appears) is incredibly expensive and looks uncanny if you look at it for too long – maybe it would have been doable on a Marvel budget!!
I think the actress they did cast was fine from an acting perspective (maybe she was different in personality but I think that’s what was written for her). They could have done a better job finding someone who looks more like Goldberg. Ito Aghayere’s facial structure is totally unlike Goldberg’s which I think makes it very hard to accept her no matter how she acts. Oyin Oladejo (Owosekun on Discovery) would have been a good fit but then of course people would have complained Guinan looked like Owosekun.
Your response and Phil’s would be correct… If it wasn’t already established that Guinan looked the same in the 1880’s as she did in the 2370. I get recasting. But they really should have found someone who looked a little more like Whoopie did 30 years ago. Either that or come up with another silly reason why she looks younger than she did in the 1880’s.
Yeah, I suppose they could have looked for a young Whoopi look-alike actress, but I thought the actress that they did hire did a very fine job. She probably had the best audition. I totally buy the conceit that she’s a younger Guinan, much more so in fact than I bought Robin Curtis as Saavik… And lets face it, When Whoopi filmed Time’s Arrow she was in her 30’s but now she’s in her 60’s… probably all parties thought they just couldn’t make that work.
Changing an actor for a role is different. It’s the same character. Just a different actor. I can easily accept that.
But given it has been established that El-Aurians age at an EXTREMELY slow rate I think they could have done a better job in casting. Adding to that is the fact that Whoopie already appeared on this show. Quite frankly they probably should have just recast Guinan altogether for this. Whoopie aged as a human would and they needed Guinan to be younger than Whoopie. They could have used the same actress for both versions. Personally I can accept a full on recasting better than having to come up with unsound reasons for Guinan to age faster than she should and then changing the actor that plays her in the 2024 segment.
Could it simply be that Whoopie could not work the entire filming schedule into her schedule, but wanted to be part of the show, so they created the scenario that they could change their appearance so that another actress could fill the bigger part?
Sure. It very well could be. If that was the case then producers should have said, “well, we’d love to have you but if you can’t do it then we’ll just recast the part. Take care, Whoopie.”
They don’t need to give explanations for every little thing like why an actor looks different. They are giving credit to their audience for being smart enough to just get that it’s the same character and a new actor. Happens all the time in movies and shows and nobody blinks an eye.
I guess they give you too much credit though!
If they had recast and used that same actor for both versions of Guinan then no explanation would have been needed.
The fact is they didn’t give me enough credit. I remember the characteristics of the species Guinan is a member of.
But they cast younger and older actors to play the same role in a movie or TV show all the time. Usually the younger actor is usually playing a kid so that can’t be helped. This case is obviously different but that’s all it is. They wanted to keep Whoopi because for fans she IS Guinan but they wanted the ‘young’ Guinan version for the story so there you go.
And they explained it, in the 25th century she is now aging like humans but in the 21st century that is suppose to be the same young Guinan as before.
No, they didn’t explain it. If they wanted Whoopie she should have played Guinan in 2400 as well as 2024 Guinan. And use the same excuse for why she looks older. Either that or have the same actor that played 2024 Guinan also play 2400 Guinan. Either one works. The option that DOESN’T work is to have Whoopie play 2400 Guinan and a different actor play 2024 Guinan. That makes no sense given what we know of her species.
Dude…you know the deal. You don’t have to like it or even think it works. But that’s simply what it is. I been responding to you for over five years now and I know when you want to keep arguing something to the point of tedium. You’re not wrong, but what’s point of arguing something you already know the answer to. It is what it is. Some things you just have to shrug and move on BECAUSE its fiction and they came up wit a compromise to keep Goldberg in the show as much as they realistically could and recasting her completely would’ve upsetted a lot of people even if it goes against canon in a way. That’s it. That’s the answer. We all have it at this point. But you can certainly still not like it of course.
Actually, we don’t know the answer. Did Matalas give an interview or Goldberg say why she only did that one thing? If not the the reason is nothing but speculation. And so far, that speculation just doesn’t make any sense. Sorry. It’s a pretty huge inconsistency for a show that has such nuanced easter eggs like Jackson Roykirk Plaza and then NOT understand how the aging process of a character they are bringing back work. This is a hill I will die on because it just makes what they ended up doing was so very nonsensical. And on top of that they could have easily gotten around it without affecting their show or story in any way whatsoever. All to get Whoopie to show up for one not very important scene. Guinan just isn’t that important nor is getting Whoopie to come back for a day’s shooting.
LOL what answer is there? Goldberg played ‘older’ Guinan and we got a ‘younger’ Guinan in this episode. And we know we will see Goldberg again this season.
OK, I’m done. Take it easy.
Except, and I can’t believe this needs to be explained to someone who is as familiar with TNG as I believe you are, ‘older’ Guinan looks exactly the same as ‘younger’ Guinan. As evidenced in Times Arrow and Generations. Doing what they did with Guinan was just them deciding to change the established rules for that Trek species. Which for a group that decided to throw in some extremely obscure references all over their show, to forget that… Something that is actually rather vital for the story rather than just window dressing… Is just inexcusable.
Its FICTION!! We know. We know, we know, we know! I said this multiple times, either you go with it or you don’t. Dude, it is what is. OK? I know as Star Trek fans we can trip over the tiniest things, but this is what they decided to do. Is it SO bad it’s going to derail the rest of the season for you? If the answer is yes, then just stop watching now man. What else can be said?
Yes, it is. And in fiction you establish rules for how things work and follow them. It’s bad writing and plotting to ignore established rules because they get in the way of what you decided you want to do. Sorry. I’m not a big “they must 100% stick to canon” guy. But when you establish things about your fictional world, it really is best if you stick to those things and not change them about. You don’t establish in one act that the caliber bullet being used will slice through 1 inch steel, then in act 3 show a one inch steel plate stopping that bullet. That’s just bad storytelling.
Agreed. We’re very fickle and obsessed fans who dotes on every item of miniature as if any of it is real, so as Chakotay once said, it’s just our nature. ;)
But something like this, it’s just a different actress playing a younger of the original so you have to chalk it up to that.
I understand the concept of using a younger actor to play a younger version. The problem is, once again, that they forgot that El_aurians age SUPER slowly. So slowly that there is no discernable age difference over 500 years. This rule has been established about that species. Therefore, Guinan should be played by the same actress for both these eras. Be it Whoopie or a recast. It should have been consistent. Period.
Again, would they have gone to a younger actor to play Picard from last week? I doubt it.
No, you’re being obtuse. It’s a recast because they didn’t want to spend the money to de-age Whoopi, when that rarely looks good anyway. Frankly, i’m very glad they did it.
Picard was briefly recast with a younger actor in Tapestry. This is just what happens.
Except Picard is human. He doesn’t look the same as he would have 40 years earlier. It has been established that due to their extremely long life spans, Guinan does.
But they weren’t consistent with it. In Tapestry, they recast Picard with a younger guy. In another EP of TNG I can’t remember, Beverly is having a flashback of Jack’s death and it is Stewart in a wig.
Even in Nemesis they made the guy bald as a teenager even though every flashback we saw of him as you pointed out he had hair up to a full adult.
We know the reason they did it, because they wanted audiences to see how much Picard looked like Shinzon at a younger age (even though he still didn’t) but yeah this is a common thing in a lot of shows and movies. Some do try really hard to make the semblance as close as possible, especially if they are going to have a real role beyond just being seen for a few minutes.
In this case, they got someone who at least can pass for a young Goldberg but it’s trickier as Guinan because we already seen what the character looked like a hundred years before then who happened to look exactly like Whoopi Goldberg at an even younger age. So yeah, you either go with it or you don’t. It’s not much they could really do because even if you bring back Goldberg in 2024, you then have to explain why she look so aged in the 21st century but younger in the 24th on the Enterprise?
And I was thinking if she was going to age herself, it would’ve made more sense to do it in past Earth since people obviously never met an alien before or the fact they age slower. It would’ve made more sense to do it then so people wouldn’t catch on (assuming she stayed at the bar for a long time) but that’s me thinking waaaay too hard about it lol.
But it all proves, no matter WHAT they did, people would question it. There is no real solution other than not using Goldberg at all (which would never fly) or trying to de-age her but that seemed out of the question for anything longer than a minute or something.
And its more proof the de-aging technology is still far away to be able to use it more reliably and most characters will probably just be recast for most productions. Marvel and Star Wars is really the only franchise I can even think that uses de-aging as much as they do. I just watched Fast and Furious 9 (don’t judge) and there is a young Dom Toretto in that movie played by a new actor in his 20s. They didn’t try to de-age Vin Diesel for that and it’s safe to say that franchise has the money if they really wanted to go that route. It’s just probably still too costly and time consuming for most productions.
Why would not using Goldberg never fly? I would think it would be obvious why they couldn’t use her. Guinan ages so very slowly that Whoopie aged out of the role. The end. Why would this be an issue? Even Spiner said he has aged out of ever playing Data again.
Because fans wanted to see the original actress in the role. It’s why Guinan is even there this season. This was just a compromise the same way they did for Q and Data who also aged out of their roles but most fans don’t really care because they want to see the original actors back. Having new actors wouldn’t be the same even if continuity wise they would fit better. Again you can certainly not like or agree with it, I’m only stating why they did it this way. And it’s all subjective. I knew the second we saw a new Guinan fans would be upset though lol.
Except… Q can opt to snap his fingers and look like whatever he wants. So no real issue there. Spiner was digitally de-aged for his short appearances. It was decided they could afford it for that. If they wanted to spend the money and digitally de-age Whoopie then fine. If they wanted to just do head replacement because Whoopie couldn’t find the time to all of it, then fine. But to use two separate actors for a character that looks exactly the same is just silly. Imagine a time travel story where Picard goes back in time one month. And they use Tom Hardy to play ‘younger’ Picard. That is essentially what they did with Guinan. It just doesn’t make sense.
Data didn’t look like Data from the past. They de-aged him a little but the guy still looked older, especially in the last scene with him.
Well, at least they tried. And it looked close enough for me.
So what? They were flashbacking to Picard’s youth. They HAD to get another actor play him because Stewart sure as hell couldn’t. No one looks the same at 22 as they do 62. Except Guinan. She looked exactly the same in 1880 as she did 500 years later. Therefore she should look the same in 2400 as she did in 2024. That is how her species ages. It has been established that is a thing. Therefore they had but two options. Use Whoopie for all of Guinans appearances or recast for all of Guinan’s appearances. They opted to throw the established aging cycle of El-aurians out the window for some oddball reason.
Why is this so difficult a concept for people to understand?
Same character, different actress.
Note that young Picard is not played by Patrick Stewart. I’d rather have this (with decent acting) over distracting, low-budget de-aging. Even good deaging is hard to do (Samuel L. Jackson, who barely visibly ages in real life anyway, in Captain Marvel is probably the lone exception).
For bad examples of deaging, see: Stewart in X-Men (the Phoenix one), Data in Picard, Tarkin in Rogue One, Catharine Keener in that new Ryan Reynolds Netflix movie, Luke in the Mandalorian (it’s a little better in Boba Fett) etc etc etc.
Tarkin wasn’t a de-age fwiw, given that Peter Cushing had been dead for decades
Again, that would be fine if it hadn’t been established that Guinan has looked like Guinan for the last 500 years. You recast for flashbacks when you need a 20something version of a 60 year old human character. But if you have a character who pretty much doesn’t age then instead of using the same actor who has aged 30 years it would just be better to recast the entire part so it fit better in the world you created.
The example of Stewart in X Men was actually one of the first time that was really tried in a film, so I thought it was pretty good for its time.
You can’t really count Tarkin though. Another actor played the role entirely, they just CGI Tarkin’s face. That’s an entirely different thing.
Yeah… For a show that has such nuances for fans like Jackson Roykirk Plaza for them to forget that Guinan and Picard have already met once… And Picard never brought it up when he was spilling the beans, too. In fact, it seemed like that was something he could have brought up without ruining any timey whimey stuff.
And odd that Guinan didn’t look like Guinan yet Picard recognized her right off the bat. Again, this is all odd behavior for a show that has so very many callbacks for long time fans to get off on.
Quite frankly, so far 40% into this story and it’s not good in any way shape or form. I’d say this entire season is even worse than Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.
That was my only complaint (once I had the “Time’s Arrow” issue straightened out): the show (thanks to exec edict) constantly CONSTANTLY restates the plot of the episode or even a character’s goal for the season arc, and yet when it comes to timey-wimey or sci-fantasy concepts, they only ever just throw them in and quickly move on. Picard getting Guinan to trust her (by way of expressing their past history) would’ve gone a long way towards setting up the idea (which may or may not get paid off later, who cares at this point, though?) that Picard restores Guinan’s faith in humanity (or faith in her belief of being optimistic about existence). Of course, then again, who cares? Because if the timeline gets fixed, then this jaded Guinan doesn’t exist anymore.
This has been explained a thousand times and makes perfect sense time travel wise. Get with it, you who claims to be the authoratative expert on all things Trek! Sheesh, you’re slow!
Try not to be rude please, we are all friends here.
If you paid attention to the time stamps you would see that I made that comment before being made aware of the explanation.
Would be better if you check the facts before you shoot off your mouth.
I think we have to accept that in-universe, she looks like Guinan. Just like in-universe, the TOS Enterprise and SNW Enterprise are the same. Given the state of technology, it does *seem* like they could do an adequate deep-fake but alas
Just saying it would have been better had they just used the same actor for 2400 Guinan as they did for 2024 Guinan.
But fans (and producers) want to see Whoopi again in the role. This is the entire reason Guinan is even in the show. You’re not wrong from a continuity standpoint but for a production one, this is the more popular way to go.
We know hard it is for fans to see new actors playing roles of characters they been doing for decades, especially when said actor is still around. That’s why it took over 40 years to finally recast the TOS actors. This was the better compromise.
If they really wanted Whoopie then Whoopie should have played 2024 Guinan as well. They could have used the same lame excuse she used in 2400 to explain her new aged look. If Whoopie couldn’t do it then recast or just eliminate the Guinan character completely. It’s really not a hard decision to make.
But then it would’ve felt too convoluted to explain. Why would she age herself in the 21st century only to be younger again later? Why not just, age like everyone else then?
Yes you like the idea, but it would’ve gotten just as much push back from others too because it makes no sense on its head. No mater what they did, fans would’ve complained about it. I agree they could’ve just not used Guinan at all OR just not have her be the one Picard meets in 2024, but it is what it is now.
How is it convoluted to explain? They already gave one silly explanation in the first episode. Fine. That’s why she looks that way. They could have still used Whoopie in 2024 and used the same explanation for why she looks older. If it was fine the first time it would work again the 2nd time. Quite frankly if they were really concerned fans wanted to see Whoopie then they should have had Whoopie play the entire role. If what you say is true that would have been the only way everyone would have been satisfied. Although, I think everyone would have been fine with the recast because most are aware that Whoopie has aged out of the role.
Why would she age herself but later deage herself again? Yeah it’s convoluted. It made since to do by the 25th century because at this point she is much older.
I don’t know. Why would she age herself to begin with? It wouldn’t be hard to come up with something. And since they just established she did it in the 25th century then there is no reason why she would do it again in the 21st. The reasoning might be silly but the concept is the opposite of convoluted.
Because they knew some fans would complain or at least highlight the fact Guinan isn’t suppose to age. I’ll say it again, it doesn’t matter WHAT they would’ve did, people would’ve complained about it. This was the best option in their minds.
Perhaps there would have been complaints either way. But the best option would have still been to be consistent with the established rules of the species. If in their minds the best option is to ignore some rules about alien species already established, then perhaps they aren’t the right people to be making Star Trek. Those characteristics are not miniscule things like the lighting on the new Enterprise or the shape of the nacelles or updating a display on the set.
They didn’t forget it, so your point is moot.
I’m hoping this is somehow actually the youngest Guinan we have seen so far. Her behaviour and character is also much younger than the 19th century self.
Poor writing, lack of understanding of the Trek universe.
***They*** understand the Trek universe just fine.
They didn’t seem to understand the slow rate at which El-Aurians age…
Okay, my take on this:
Perhaps in order to prevent people from catching on regarding her longevity, after Time’s Arrow Guinan first “naturally” aged, and then she jumped back to twenty-something again, so that she can pretend to be her own daughter or granddaughter? (A common trope for immortal characters after all.)
Also, the Whale Probe quite probably doesn’t care if the Federation or the Confederation is in charge of Earth, so the Confederation version of Kirk and Spock had to do their time travel too, thus the Punk on the Bus remembering them…
So a couple of questions
Because of the change they are there to stop, the future with Picard and crew on the Enterprise D hasn’t happened, warmonger Picard happened, so he and Guinan never met in the 1800’s.
Guinan came to earth in the 20th century and looked like Guinan, she then became not guinan in the 21st century, went back home, the Borg attacked her homeworld, she came back to earth looking like Guinan again all the way up to the 24th and 25th centuries?
Yet in this episode Guinan leaving earth is the wrong thing to do and Picard tries to get her to stay, which would surely mean that’s the opposite of what she should be doing otherwise she’ll never be in Generations as a refugee after returning to her homeworld?
The only possible conclusion is that this recasted role isn’t in fact Guinan at all, so who is she, and why does Picard recognise her as Guinan when not even the viewer can get on board with that?
*You* can’t get on board with that. I haven’t seen anybody else have a problem with accepting the recasting (especially since Whoopi Goldberg was in episode 1, and will probably be back at the end of the season).
That’s because you’re in an echo chamber
Except from a viewers perspective they didn’t recast Guinan. Whoopie Goldberg herself reprised the role in episode 1. So the show itself just told us Guinan still pretty much looks like Guinan and they also went out of their way to remind us that Guinan ages much slower. Then they made 2024 Guinan an entirely different actor. Did the time displacement also make El-Aurians age in reverse or something? They could have used Goldberg again and use the same excuse for why she appears older. If Goldberg wasn’t available for the show then just recast the character completely.
To sum up… The problem lies with Goldberg showing up to begin with. The entire situation could have been avoided with a complete recast.
Sorry, still not seeing the problem here. Viewers are smart enough to know that the real reason 1893 Guinan and 2368 Guinan looked the same is that both were played by 1992 Whoopi Goldberg, who was not available for filming in 2021. 2021 Whoopi is around, though, so we get her in a scene set in 2024, to honor her and the relationship she and Patrick Stewart have. Just like having Leonard Nimoy in the 2009 Star Trek, the presence of the actor who created the role helps pass the baton to the new one.
Sorry, no. If it had not already been established that 1880’s Guinan looked like 2370’s Guinan then getting a separate actor for the role would make some sense. But it was already established she looks the same. Therefore, the only obvious options are to use Whoopie for all versions and explain away the age or just recast the character for all versions. As it is, it is odd and makes no sense to people who are aware of Guinan’s slow aging process.
The way most serialized shows tend to work is they will setup a season’s big questions in the premiere or first two episodes, ask a bunch of other questions to distract from the main ones setup in 1-2 (because the actual answers are pretty straightforward but the writers don’t want you to know that), and then answer mainly the big ones in one big expo or action sequence dump in the finale.
The blonde one who killed her boyfriend in the first season is the borg queen on the stargazer trying to use the power to bring the ship through time, and all the people on the not borg ship are the illegals the blond one saved, and they have been roaming around space in a ship that looks like a comet for ages. Picard blowing the stargazer up while both versions of the blond one are on the bridge creates the paradox. At the end of the season we’ll see that same borg on the stargazer scene a 3rd time, but this time Picard will refuse to blow the stargazer up.
All of this could have been avoided if the writers didn’t put a stupid crash helmet on the borg that is actually the blond one.
And in the middle 9 episodes there’s melodrama on earth, because of Trump and Brexit probably.
I think that it could be misdirection re. the Borg Queen and Jurati. Maybe it’s one of the other characters under the mask.
The best hint is to stop watching and look at the reviews after to decide if it’s worth wasting your evenings further and binge it at 200% speed. Then you can cut through the crap and just get to the point, or not watch it at all.
It’s become a parody of Trek, literally.
It sounds like you’re just interested in getting the questions answered instead of seeing how the story unfolds to get to those answers. It’s more about the destination than the journey. And that’s fine, but if that’s the case, then yeah people like that shouldn’t bother watching it week to week. And I think we seen enough of these new shows to understand you’re not going to get any real answers until the very end of the season.
Unfortunately this may be Anna Pope’s best bet – wait for the season to finish and then binge-watch it.
I find trying to figure out the mysteries and the questions that the show poses to us entertaining.
Yeah I think so too. And of course that’s really how all these shows are designed to be; something you binge straight through once it’s completed for future viewers. All the new Trek shows minus LDS follows the same format of pretty much every streaming show these days, ie, connect the season to one story and tease things every episode but answer small things until the big reveal. Some obviously do it better than others but this is what the new normal is.
They say SNW will be more episodic, but even that I suspect they will still have some big story or theme throughout the season, it just won’t be connected in every episode like PIC, DIS or PRO mostly is.
Sorry, but I have to heartily disagree. This is not a parody at all. What is isn’t is a 26-episode season of mostly isolated episodes where a problem occurs and is solved in under an hour. And very little character development is done because it can’t be due to the time constraints and the need to move the plot from A to B to C.
I really haven’t found any supposed “crap” with this season at all. Not even close. There are a few things that I raised an eyebrow at, but that didn’t affect my enjoyment of the show.
It’s all about the journey. Not (necessarily) the destination. And so far the journey has been good. At least in my opinion.
In those 44 minute episodes they had plenty of time to explore characters. First, they had 26 episodes in a season. So there’s that. But on top of that they had so much extra time that often one story couldn’t fill up 44 minutes. So they added B stories. If they couldn’t dive into character development it was for sure not because they didn’t have time.
Valid points. To quote someone I just saw recently, “Bra-vo”.
I was “arguing” the wrong thing. I was arguing that the normal episodes were very focused on just moving the plot along, but your are correct – the episode have time for at least 2 plot lines normally (A & B) along with character moments woven in. And some episode are all about character moments. (Though I’d argue that the 2 plot lines were part of the traditional formula to keep more of the cast involved and thus more of the audience interested. Not just to soak up extra time)
But that actually proves my point. Even the standard episodes would take time for character moments and even just … take up time. And they were still good. Especially the character-oriented episodes. And we even had multi-episode and maybe even whole season arcs (eg: the Dominion War in DS9) Why would one hold this show to a different standard?
Am I misreading the poster’s complaints? It read like the poster didn’t like all the extra character moments and just wanted to get from A to B as fast as possible.
I wrote this elsewhere, but for an extreme example of that see Game of Thrones. Seasons 7 and especially 8 were very much A-to-B-to-C as quick as could be. And they suffered because of it.
That’s what I’m thinking. The Queen on the Stargazer looks too tall for Jurati.
And Jurati would call Picard either Mister or Locutus when she talked directly to him.
Maybe it’s Seven/Annika. She calls JL “Picard” mostly. She’s taller than JL. And she’s already been Queen For a Day (in season 1). Plus it provides a reason for her to have her Borg implants back after the timeline gets fixed.
Re: the Borg Queen:
It’s not just that her nanites have been disabled; she’s also separated from the Borg hive mind. So the only abilities she has are her ability to interface with machines and run-of-the-mill emotional manipulation.
Yep. The BQ doesn’t have the resources that she’d have if she was connected to a hive. She really can’t make a bunch of nanites or anything else. Plus she has no legs, so she is stuck in one place.
Of course, the alternative is that the BQ is just biding her time and waiting for the appropriate moment to strike. The humans on La Sirena need her, so she isn’t in any real danger from them. Not now, at any rate.
I think it’s set up so if she could somehow get control of La Sirena and Jurati then that could change very quickly. A bit like a virus the Borg could re-establish themselves from a low base, once she had them then she could move on to 2024 Earth.
That said I don’t think they’ll have time for that this season and it feels a bit too like First Contact.
Guinan being young made no sense to me. 140 years earlier she looked exactly like she did in TNG time. I guess as an audience we were supposed to suspend disbelief because otherwise they would have had to spend a ton or money de-aging Whoopie.
Honestly I was thinking that the Borg queen was causing the transporter malfunction to begin with. Agnes should just turn her off.
The watcher looking like human Laris I didn’t find to be a big deal. We’ll find out soon enough.
Also most deaging generally still looks fake and terrible, especially on a TV budget. See: Data last season
I’m guessing that’s the biggest reason for the recasting.
Although I wish Picard had been confused, momentarily, as to why she didn’t remember him from the 1800s.
Yeah, it would have helped the viewers a bit by having him mutter something under his breath like, “of course, our past meeting hasn’t happened now…”
I think most of these questions will be answered in the future episodes so you need to be patient. I also think The Watcher has some kind of a relationship with the Gary Seven character from TOS. I got the impression that Laris has always been a watcher even in the normal timeline and that there may be forces bigger than Q working behind the scenes. Maybe we might be a getting a big battle between the supernatural species of Trek.
I wonder if the cop-like person that Picard is shown talking to in the season trailers/teasers is Laris’ superior in the “Gary-7 Organization”.
The female astronaut that Q tried to mess with at the end of episode 4 is Renee Picard. Amazon’s X-Ray utility shows both John de Lancie as Q and Penelope Mitchell as Renee Picard for the scene.
I assume that Guinan has heard of Renee Picard. Either in relation to the Watcher or from all the media and publicity surrounding the Europa Mission, which Renee appears to be part of. Or both.
My theory was that the Watcher was protecting Renee and has some way to neutralize Q’s ability to directly affect her.
This looks to be borne out in the Trailer for Episode 5. Laris is indeed protecting Renee Picard. Q has to turn elsewhere for help to get done what he wants. And it looks like he turns to Adam Soong.
Would Laris be protecting others of the Picard family? Don’t know. Perhaps. Maybe JL. Or maybe a potential offspring of his. … Or maybe not.
There was a lot in this episode that just didn’t land properly and felt quite poorly executed. The Season got off to such a strong start but I’m feeling it slip back into Season 1 habits of poor writing with each episode. Still not Season 1 level bad but enough that I’m losing interest in the Season.
Yes exactly my thoughts… Season 1 started out great, and the mystery was really cool ( i thought we might get a borg origin story ) with the whole prophecy stuff and the secret society… But turned out to be rather .. meh …
I hope this time it will be better, right now it feels like Season 1 again…
Just rewatched 12 Monkeys …. i still give Terry Matalas the benefit of the doubt ….
I haven’t seen the show 12 Monkeys but we have 40% of the story and it’s just not good. Also, a lot of their “messaging” is being done with the subtlety of a sledge hammer. Trek has done that in the past but when they have those episodes have been among the worst episodes ever. I would have hoped Terry Matalas would have known better. That hope has been dashed.
If you like time travel, do me a favor: Watch 12 Monkeys… I have probably watched every SciFi show ever ( including every obscurve 1960 one ) and that by far the best scifi time travel show ever.. It resolves beautifully at the end… and i am still in awe of the careful planning Terry Matalas put into it….
I used to be a sucker for time travel when I was younger. Now I find it to be tired. It can still be done well but I’d just prefer to not do it any more.
I never had a desire to watch the show 12 Monkeys nor the feature film. Maybe will check it out at some point but given what you said about how it resolved it seems that this story will need to be seen played out before I opt to check out the 12 Monkey’s show.
Not good story so far? I have to disagree with that. I like it.
But you don’t. That’s fair. Just make sure that you are clear that it’s you that doesn’t like it and not use sweeping generalizations that include those who don’t actually fit in with those.
I do agree re. the sledge hammer for some of the social topic stuff. But I am OK with that. Trek has done it before, and it will do it again. No biggie. I’m not surprised that the messaging isn’t liked across the board. That’s OK too.
To be fair, when people make sweeping generalizations there is almost always subtext that implies “in my opinion” so I feel that rarely needs to get said.
Yes, Trek has done it before and I cannot think of one instance where they did that and the show or movie or season long story arc was any good. Some of the worst episodes were ones with overt sledge hammer messaging. And some of the better ones where ones where the messaging was much more subtle.
Appreciate this review. Thorough and fair-handed. Understand that these have to more or less be positive to maintain access, too, but I just want to say that I really like how well written these reviews are.
I stand in awe of the scam Secret Hideout is pulling on Paramount, though. Incredible that for all the money thrown at them, they still have the temerity to do a filler episode in a 10-episode season. So much pointless stuff throughout because they needed to mark time until they get to their setup beats for episode five:
Nobody learns anything relevant to character. People just talk at each other to either restate the plot or make a Star Trek reference or state their character persona. There’s no actual drama or tension. The transporters need to work when they need to work, and not work when there needs to be an artificial impediment. The ship can cloak but not do anything else, again, for plastic drama. The “Crystal Ball” joke sucked. That was one of the most boring, pointless car chases ever (Jurati couldn’t beam them out of there until they end because that’s just when they needed to be beamed away). Rios is a clown, basically Ricky Ricardo, but also given nothing good or interesting to do.
And as I write all this I realize that people who just like anything labeled Star Trek actually are living the best life. It’s TV. It exists just as a distraction. If that distraction makes you (me) angry, stop letting it be a distraction. I am glad people enjoy the show, but there’s certainly plenty of on paper execution in this episode to demonstrate that Mr. Matalas really let a massive turkey escape the barn.
It’s true that the Seven and Raffi story went nowhere. But this is not a filler episode.
Fine. It is just a very bad episode of television that wasted all its potential and was in no way economical with its storytelling in terms of the larger arc.
I didn’t think it was a bad hour of television. I happened to really enjoy it and I felt it propelled the arc of the story along quite nicely. Raffi and Seven’s storyline didn’t not go anywhere- because it’s being continued, presumably.
Same here. Other than the pointless car chase, I thought it was a solid Trek story.
I am in the same camp.
“Economical with its storytelling in terms of the larger arc” is overrated, in my opinion.
I prefer to enjoy a nice long and entertaining journey. But also a logical one, in universe. So far I am getting this from Season 2.
As an example of economical storytelling, I’ll point you to Game of Thrones Seasons 7 and, even more so, Season 8. From my perspective those were quite economical and moved from A to B to C to D very quickly. But they made a mess of the story and the characters because of just that.
I thought having the punk on the bus in it was too much like Star Wars Mandalorian or Rogue One style cameo casting , as in “Look who it is” drawing attention to itself.
Young Guinan – first Time’s Arrow? The actress seemed a bit abrasive, so it actually gave me a new appreciation for how Whoopi has played the role.
A lot of the guest actors seemed over the top and the dialogue wasn’t very subtle, to compare it to the Bell DS9 episodes , those episodes conveyed some similar ideas in much more thoughtful, subtle fashion.
Having the idea of “watchers” in Star Trek seems odd, we’ll see where they go with it.
The last scene with Q and Renee Picard (Amazon says that character is Renee Picard) was bizarre and I am hoping they aren’t going to do something where due to time travel Q or Rios is going to end up being Picard’s Great Great etc Grandfather.
“The actress seemed a bit abrasive, so it actually gave me a new appreciation for how Whoopi has played the role.”
There’s an interview by the new actress https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/star-trek-picard-young-guinan-ito-aghayere-whoopi-goldberg-1235213292/ that shows her to be a huge fan of Trek and Guinan in particular. And she had the same questions going in on why Guinan doesn’t recognize Picard from ‘Time’s Arrow’. If the character is abrasive, it’s because the director told her to play it that way because I have no doubt Ito would channel Whoopi’s Guinan if asked.
I’m hoping Lea Thompson won’t be back for more episodes to direct. I think she did a very mediocre job, not just for the way she directed Guinan.
That’s pretty rude to be honest.
Sometimes truth hurts, homeboy.
How is me not being a fan of her work rude? I’m not seeking her out on Twitter to blast her or something like that. I’m giving my opinion on a fan platform.
I don’t think, it’s the direction. Those writers don’t know how to write anything other than contemporary 21st century dialogue. Which doesn’t work here since almost none of the characters would have the necessary frame of reference to speak like that.
i wonder if she got advice from Whoopi
That’s interesting. She didn’t really look like Guinan. But that’s okay, if you don’t want to do a deepfake or something. But she really sounds like her hat that’s. That’s why I found it weird, that she played her nothing like the character we met in Times Arrow.
to be fair, it seems like this Guinan’s experiences are nothing like what Twain’s Guianan has experienced. I mean…carrying around a shotgun? She’s had a rough go. (Although…I’m reminded of the hand canon she had under the Ten Forward bar…)
As much as I adore and respect Kirk Thatcher, I was cringing watching his scene on the bus w/ Raffi and Seven. His acting had nothing to do with it but the scene was so unnecessary.
Yeah, same here. It was like watching our characters interact with a Futurama bit for a second. Or I guess Lower Decks would be more accurate now.
Anyway, really hamfisted stuff in an otherwise so-so episode.
Nonsense! It was a brilliant cameo, AND it fit with the episode’s theme: that change is possible, even if it sometimes takes longer than you want it to.
Wait… Was that the same guy? I recognized the situation but not the guy. Now the gag makes a little more sense.
I get that it was just a fun thing for the audience but if he was scared he would get neck pinched again, that implies the 1986 events from TVH happened. In spite of the time split, Kirk and Spock were still Federation and still went back in time to, *sigh* save the whales. Which might imply that while a 2024 event may have been the catalyst, it didn’t fully take hold until AFTER TVH.
This very well might be an example of the show people being too clever for their own good.
Yep, same actor – Kirk Thatcher, who also wrote and performed the song “I Hate You.”
Yeah, and the song in this episode was also written by Thatcher “I STILL Hate You”.
I enjoyed that scene a lot. Yes it was totally absurd, but I found myself smiling in the moments after.
Yeah, it reminded me a lot of that „Khan!“ Moment in Into Darkness. It might have worked, would it not have been so in your face.
The Spock “Khan” scream was an epic fail. It was a somber emotional moment with Kirk having just “died” and then Spock screams out something that has essentially turned into a joke over the years. It completely took the audience out of the moment.
I’m surprised you guys didn’t make the connection about the Supervisor. It has to be Isis. Same collar, similar mysterious abilities to change form.
Wait… Who changed form in this episode?
She’s now a human in 2024 who looks like Laris. So she changed form.
We have no idea who or what this is. You may be right but at this point it’s just a theory. I’m not yet ready to say it is or is not Laris for sure.
Twist! It turns out to be Sylvia
It wasn’t the same collar by any stretch of the imagination.
Cross-posted from the other thread for those interested as to the Guinan-Picard meeting discrepancies. NOT my comments, but I like and agree. Source: Engadget comments on Ep4:
No, the writers got it right. You’re not remembering that they’re in a changed timeline
Q merely shifted the consciousness of Prime/Federation reality Picard and crew into the changed Confederation timeline. It’s why Seven doesn’t have any Borg implants, and Picard is still an android because of Confederation Picard’s battle with Gul Dukat. They’re in the confederation timeline still.
So that means that Confederation Picard would never have gone back in time to meet Guinan in the 19th century, because the events of Time’s Arrow in TNG never occurred in the Confederation timeline (because they occurred in the Prime/Federation Timeline). Thus, Guinan never met Picard.
So in the Confederation timeline 2024, this is the first time she is meeting Picard (she’s actually meeting a time travelling Confederation Picard with the consciousness of Prime/Federation timeline Picard). So the writers are right to place this Confederation timeline Guinans’ first encounter with Picard at 10 Forward.
Give the writers more credit, it looks like their did their homework on this one!
Glad you reposted this i was just about to. It was a great episode as usual but you’re wasting your time. The people on here look for reasons every week to not like any new trek. They act like Star Trek isn’t already riddled with inconsistencies.
That’s not fair. Being critical of an episode or certain choices doesn’t mean you’re a hater. It’s just the way things work: we all have opinions and not just the positive ones are valid. For me episode 1 was a 10 and this one was a 6 at best. I’m allowed to say that and that doesn’t make me a troll.
Here’s the thing. Nearly all episodes of every show and movie have inconsistencies and continuity errors. But if the show or movie is good, those things matter less. But if the show is bad, they look like glaring weaknesses.
My favorite example is Wrath of Khan. The consensus is it was the best Trek movie so far. It’s my favorite as well. But even I have been known to pick the nits that are littered all over it. Doesn’t mean I don’t like the movie. Because the film was so well made that those little errors didn’t detract from it. So to people who do not like Secret Hideout shows, those errors are bigger deals just because the shows don’t work for them. It doesn’t make them “trolls”.
Actually, it’s pretty spot on.
I wouldn’t call you a troll for expressing your opinion. My point is that I believe a certain group of people hate to see any of the new shows being successful. Early on the producers said they wanted Discovery to go for five seasons and that they wanted to have numerous Trek shows. All remarkably different in tone. When SNW premieres and is a success like all the others people will say they finally got it right but in reality this is what they’ve been aiming for all along.
But that’s not true either. Look at Prodigy, that has been on just one season and pretty much every episode fans here has singed it’s praises. Even fans who THOUGHT they would not like it for being animated and a ‘kids’ show have changed their mind on it. Sure not everyone is in love with it, but the consensus, at least so far, is it’s a very well made show and does all the elements we think of Star Trek well.
Look up every episode review thread here and see what I’m talking about. So it’s not just fans looking for ways to hate ‘nu-Trek’ or even a vocal minority here. Yes, some are definitely not feeling the love but the overwhelming majority actually WANTS to like these new shows. They simply haven’t for many reasons. Part of it could be their own taste, another is that they simply think the quality is bad. It’s probably a little of both.
Discovery is just a very divided show for many reasons, a lot of it is their own fault. That’s not an opinion. And what I mean is they KNOW the fanbase they have. They basically tried to reboot the show but tell people it’s suppose to fit in with everything that came before if you simply don’t believe your eyes and ears. You would think after the beating of casting the wrong guy for Khan in STID they would understand you can’t just expect fans to see something as canon when it looks nothing like canon. They have gotten the message with the later shows but Discovery may have been in a different place if they either made different choices or just told people it’s its own thing.
Picard has different issues, but it’s certainly not people wanting to hate the show. Quite the opposite. I haven’t seen so much fanfare for Star Trek since it was announced Nimoy was playing Spock again in the new movies. Pretty much everyone was on board with that one, it just didn’t turn out to be very good for a lot of people, including me. I had many problems with both of these shows but still rooted for both, actively supported them and every season hope to be won over. Discovery has done that at about 60% of the time which is OK at this point I guess. Picard is better this season but still not amazing. I want to love both of these shows.
I do love LDS and PRO however which again proves none of it is black and white. People want to like everything, but that’s not always going to be possible; especially when shows like DIS and PIC are so different but not doing a great job of being different either.
Or… they are posting their opinions, which may differ from yours but are totally valid. The problem isn’t someone complaining about the things they dislike. The is the people who put them down for it. The problem is people who expect everyone’s opinion to match theirs.
Agreed 100%!
People can simply have different tastes. Now if you’re just one of these people who are just hate watching and wanting the show to end, then they are watching the show for the wrong reasons at this point. But the majority of people here are not doing that. They really want to like it, but they are having different issues with it for whatever reason.
Yep. A lot of people here get angry and call others “hater” if they dare to criticize the shows, which is so childish. (Plus, “hater” is such a TMZ/Kardashian/trashTV term, and I can’t take people seriously when they use it. I am a “hater” hater.)
It would also explain why they’re making a big deal out of the Europa Mission when in the original timeline the Botany Bay would already have been flung off into space in the mid 90’s/early 2000’s.
But the time is about right for Jackson Roykirk to be famous enough to have a city square named for him.
This actually makes sense. I just wish they’d spend some time discussing this among the characters in stead of certain other scenes. I mean it’s not like a lot else happened in this episode haha.
Did anyone notice how the Watcher transporter effect had more than a slight resemblance to Gary Seven’s transporter from Assignment: Earth?
Yes. Yes I did. I had guessed wildly last week that it was a Gary 7 type being, fully expecting to be wrong. I’m sorta thrilled that this may in fact turn out to be true.
Yep. And part of me was thinking of Gary 7 last week. In fact, when it wasn’t Guinan I was thinking it was either Gary 7 or the alien who he worked for.
maybe we will finally get that assignment earth spin off show 50 years late!
Wasn’t Gary 7 used as an agent by aliens who were bent on making sure events unfold they way they “should”? If so then one would think they would be aware of this change and were already doing what they need to do to repair it. The only thing that might upset this might be the presence of Q. Who very well may have been the cause of this to begin with.
they should put Q on trial and he could get picard to defend him!
Of the convoy of mediocre Star Trek shows that Secret Hideout is cooking up, this is the only idea that really makes sense.
So much awesome stuff in this episode, although I felt a little perplexed by the ending…at first. I didn’t realize Q was talking to himself while the camera was panning around the actress, strange cinematic choice, but then again I’m watching this at the crack of 2AM and not terribly sharp. This show is graced with perhaps the best cast a Star Trek show has ever had, I love every one of them. Remarkably, a show meant to lean on Patrick Stewart really doesn’t need him at all to shine. It’s a shame we only get 3-seasons with them. Guinan’s attitude problem certainly is jarring, perhaps a little too unrecognizable in-terms of language and mannerisms, she was always played so specifically by Whoopi Goldberg and the actress really didn’t embody her zen-like alieness. So for me..sadly…none of that worked, but I adore that they are finally giving some meaty backstory to Picard and Guinan, one they promised to do with Times Arrow, but failed to. But because all of this is happening in the corrupted timeline, it’s not clear how much will be reset by the end of this all. Also lovely that they explained the English accents of the Picard family, cleverly done and simple. Everybody had a fantastic roll to play, Rios in ICE custody, Seven and Raffi troubleshooting their way through 21st century Earth, Picard and Guinan, and Agnes with the Queen which is always my favorite part of every episode so far. And as much as they want to make the 21st century look like a hell-hole, LA is just so damn beautiful, such an awesome place to shoot on location. Love it all!
When they were in the police station looking for Rios, shouldn’t Raffi and Seven have been, like, “WTF is I.C.E.?”
I thought that’s basically what happened. They heard the clinic staffperson say “ICE” and they figured it was something like “police,” so they went to the LAPD precinct looking for answers. That’s why the guy with the Lay’s chips clued them in.
That’s what I thought, too. It’s weird how Rafi seems to know everything. In ST:IV Scotty didn’t even know how to use a mouse and keyboard 🤨
Characters in Trek time travel seem to all know everything they need to or not need to know for the plots and scenes to work.
Although what they did to Scotty in TVH was criminal. I’ve never seen him so utterly stupid. And McCoy wasn’t much better.
I would have to watch it again, but McCoy seemed pretty competent in the hospital. 🤔 … and the thing with Scotty also never bothered me. We’ve never seen a Starfleet Office use a Keyboard up to that point. And why would they, when there’s perfect voice recognition. Over a span of 300 Years I can see those things get obsolete. And he immediately used it perfectly, when it was explained to him.
I imagine it something like me travelling back in time and having to use a quill to write something down. I get the concept but it would take quite some time. Same is probably true for a typewriter even.
Yeah, Scotty’s unfamiliarity with a keyboard can be excused, but how was Raffi so familiar with seatbelts? We’ve never seen them on a starship LOL
Scotty was completely familiar with using a computer keyboard in STIV. He just originally assumed voice interaction. I recommend watching the scene again.
And why would he assume that? He acted as if he was speaking to the computer on the Enterprise. Scotty is NOT that stupid.
I don’t know. Scotty isn’t a real person, and I wasn’t involved with writing the script.
McCoy was running around the hospital as if he was pumped full of cordrizine. He was constantly whining about how barbaric the medicine was when he knew perfectly well he was IN THE PAST!!! What did he expect? Tricorders? Scotty was also guilty of this. He knew he was in the past. At the very least he should realize the computers would be ancient. So he acts like he is dealing with a computer in his own time! What the hell was he thinking? Then he talks into the mouse. Again, acting the imbecile. But then, out of the blue, starts typing in 1980’s code at a million miles an hour and he knows every single in and out of how to not program graphics. Good God it was sooooo dumb!
I’d wager that if you went back in time hundreds of years you wouldn’t expect them to have ball point pens at your disposal. And then Sulu knew how to not only get a hold of by fly an ancient flying vehicle… Ugh… I could go on and on and on with idiocy that permeated every single nook and crany of that awful movie. It wasn’t just a bad Star Trek movie. It was a bad movie movie.
Okay, I give you Sulu. They had a line in there that his ancestors flew helicopters but doesn’t make him a pilot.
As for McCoy: that felt in character to me. He wasn’t the type of guy that would be quiet if something annoyed him. And having to deal with antiquated ways of doing something, when you know there’s way more effective ways, is one of the worst things there is. I work in the public sector, I know that all to well 😅
That scotty would expect a computer to work like he’s known it to all his live isn’t too far of. Just a couple of decades later there were the first digital assistants and the difference between the 80s and the 2010s is something you can’t differentiate 300 years in the future unless you’re an actual historian. That he then learns how to do it quickly is a plot convenience, yes. But at least they thought about this problem at all instead of instantly having him know how everything in this timeperiod works.
Actually the worst example of what you’re criticising to me is in Star Trek VI when Uhura doesn’t know how to translate Klingon, because the authors needed a comedy scene. I love that movie, but that scene makes no sense.
We have to disagree about McCoy. Yes, it might annoy him. But he really should have known the dangers of saving lives in 1986. And I think even though he does feel that way he can be professional enough to keep a cool head. Scotty… Look. Either he knows or he doesn’t. That’s as far as I can go. He can’t go from fumbling around talking into the mouse to knowing perfectly how to write 1980’s code at a million miles an hour. And giving the guy the plans for transparent aluminum… That was just insane. And his reasoning, while it was supposed to be a joke, just didn’t fly.
And yes, I get the tone of the film was light so it’s not entirely fair to rip it for those things. But the thing is, it was meant to be light but there was no joy in the ‘fish out of water’ situations. They were just facepalming and groan inducing. If the film was fun to watch I could handle some character fluctuations for the purposes of keeping it light. But it had none of that.
I was waiting for a beat where they tried to figure out what ICE meant, but the scene cut before they were alone, so I figured they just sorted it out on their own between scenes, which is fine. Not to mention they went to the Police, which was the wrong place to go which was raised by the attorney in the waiting room. So much of this episode could have just been beats of them trying to figure out things we already know, but they edited it all very smartly. The only thing that didn’t quite make sense is Seven knowing how to drive a car, it would have been a fun moment if Seven revealed how (Tom Paris on the Holodeck for example). Considering how long the automobile will have existed, alongside the Holodeck and replicators, surely people are driving or know how to drive cars in some way, or have had opportunities to do so. One of the dumbest scenes in all of Star Trek was when the crew of Voyager didn’t recognize what an automobile was in “The 37’s”.
The ’10 Forward Avenue’ thing is incredibly dumb.
No.
Why would the Enterprise name it’s gathering area after a random bar on Earth?
Are they trying to say that Guinan named it that because it reminded her of her Earth bar, and it just so happened to be at the most popular and forward section of the Enterprise, and just happens to be on the 10th deck?
I don’t think the writers understand what they’re doing most of the time so it’s no surprise.
Wow, the negativity is strong here today.
I get what you are saying but I saw it as just a happenstance more than Guinan being attached to the name. I think the reaction shot of Picard smiling was him smiling at the fact that coincidence of it. Nothing more than that.
It was Picard’s ship. He can name things whatever he wants.
Oh man, come on. That’s a long way for a ham sandwich – and I guess now we have the address!
No, Guinan and Picard sat down with the ship builders at Utopia Planitia and designed the lounge together. /s
It was a cute reference, yet totally unnecessary. I have no trouble accepting that Guinan might have a bar in another timeline, but they could have come up with some other clever name for it. “The Nexus” or “Luna’s Lounge” perhaps…
Or “L. Lorien’s Bar”
Isn’t it possible that Guinan subconsciously found Picard again by finding out there was an opening for a bartender aboard the 1701-D and even saw the location of the bar as an omen, not unlike how Jurati subconsciously selected things with the number 15? It sounds like a Guinan thing to do, given her senses about things like that.
More likely a wizard did it.
Yes.
Agreed. Enough with the references already. Just match the shots with the previous episode. We’ll get it’s the same location. The address makes no sense here.
It’s like when they gave the “Bones” nickname a backstory. When writers have to basically frack IP for work, this is what it happens.
It’s going to turn out that Picard’s Mom was a seamstress who used to say ‘Make it sew’ to her favorite machine when knitting Jean Luc a sweater his Dad ripped while beating him.
You win the internet for today.
I have to agree. It’s frustrating because they always go too far with this stuff. It worked great in the first episode even if still a little forced (just happen to have the bar on a street named Forward Ave, well, OK.) but now it’s suggesting the name of the original bar came from this place and not the other other way around. Why do you have to do that? Just have her work in a different bar or place altogether in 2024.
LDS is now infamous with all the Easter eggs, but none of it feels forced like this either and anytime it does, it’s part of the joke. Picard is suppose to be a serious show and of course as fans its nice to have some of it, but you can go too far with it.
I guess one could see the Easter Eggs of LDX aren’t forced because they are the bulk of their gags. But if they aren’t the gags, then yes. They are all amazingly forced in like clowns in a VW bug in the circus.
But that’s what the show is. If people don’t like it, completely understandable. But Lower Decks is doing exactly what most adult animated shows do today and that is being very self referential. Just like how shows like Simpsons and South Park does it for the real world, LDS does the same with the Star Trek universe.
I don’t see it that way. I don’t think that is their intent. If it is, they are being so self reverential they are afraid to actually poke fun at themselves. Which in all honesty, and I say this as a Trek fan, they really SHOULD do. The Orville in the first season poked more fun at Star Trek than LDX ever did in 20 episodes. I don’t see Simpson’s and South Park as being self referential. Unless that is the same thing as satire. Which South Park does quite well. Rick & Morty I wouldn’t call that either. It’s not even satire. It’s just goofy funny.
Perhaps it was me. When I heard “adult Star Trek comedy” I thought they would poke fun at Trek. I thought it would be really funny. I did NOT expect it to just cram in as many references to old shows as they possibly could. I thought they might do some but to make that the very core of the show was a mistake.
OK man.
Another Easter Egg they missed: 21st street mission on the homeless assistance is a reference to City on the Edge of Forever. Edith Keeler. It was on the scene where Guinan was talking about her loss of faith in humanity.
Finally… They did what I had suspected might happen. So far there have been no consequences because we all knew Q could just snap everything right again. But that final thing where his snapping short circuited… NOW there could be a dilemma to deal with.
But… What was his narration about? I actually had no idea what was going on there. Still really don’t.
It will doubtless become more clear in future episodes, but it seemed pretty straightforward that Q was intending to plant a crippling self-doubt in the young woman (Renee Picard, apparently), but was unable to. We still don’t know why he wants to do that, but the scene was fairly straightforward.
I don’t see it as straight forward. It was odd. The audience has no idea who that woman was. Why did she command the attention of Q? It was a lot of mumbling just to establish that his snap doesn’t work. To me all the other stuff came across as irrelevant. I think a better way to do this would have been to have Q show up, tell Picard he’s bored or something and that he will snap everything back. But then fails.
No. This is when he changes the timeline, or tries to?
It seemed to me that Q changed things already and enabled Picard and his new friends with the opportunity to fix things. What he was doing with that woman, or what his intent was is a complete mystery at this time.
I think Q somehow messed up in the past, lost his powers, Picard and the watchers have to fix it and then Q will get his powers back and this season will end where it started in EP1.
That would be interesting. That Q started something he couldn’t finish and needed Picard to fix his mistake for a change. Based on their conversation in episode 2 that doesn’t sound like the case but it’s still so much we don’t know.
Who is Renee Picard supposed to be? The only Picard I am aware of with a name like that is René Picard, his nephew.
Didn’t he mention another Rene Picard while addressing the Academy in Episode 1?
Yes, he said that Renee Picard (a distant cousin) was instrumental in early exploration of the solar system. At the time I thought it was René (and probably who Jean-Luc’s late nephew was named for), but evidently it’s Renee, and it’s this woman.
And this scene was introducing a new character, who had been briefly mentioned before. The “other stuff” is establishing something about her character, while we also show that Q’s powers are on the blink.
Q has run out of infinity stones. The writers will probably find a way for him to collect them again through a series of trials as they love stealing IP from other more successful writers.
As you probably know, the only way Kurtzman’s version of Trek knows how to elevate characters is to destroy them first, so they can then can only write stories with an eventual payoff in reverting the characters back to what they were before they started rewriting, retconning and recasting.
Can’t be anyone important as virtually all women change their surname when they get married. It’s probably there to tell us what terrible misogynists we are for even suggesting such a thing.
I keep remembering this is coming from the guy that gave us 12 Monkeys. I really think this is Q from the past and this season will end back in the 25th century with Q telling Picard time is broken again.
I think that woman was part of the Europa Space Mission they keep dropping hints about.
Q was trying to Instill doubt in her so that she would not go on the Mission.
But he’s Q. He doesn’t need to instill doubt. He can just change her. And he doesn’t need a monolog to himself to do it. He does seem to crave an audience but not the audience watching the show. His audience is the characters in the show.
The monologue was a way of showing us (the audience) what he was doing — or trying to do, since it didn’t work.
Fair enough. But it came across as odd for those who have seen all of Q’s previous appearances.
It wasn’t strong, it was actually quite bad and I don’t even know where to begin. Season 2 dropped from a 10 (episode 1) to a 6 in 4 weeks time. I hope they’re not bringing back Lea Thompson because her directing was not good. It was actually boring. I’ve never seen such lackluster action/chase sequences (with still shots like we were watching soap opera dialogue).
This episode, together with episode 3 should’ve been a single one. Way too little happened. And the pacing – due to mediocre writing – was again weird. The episode – like episode 3 – felt like I was watching several shows simultaneously and flipping between the channels.
And I don’t want to talk about Guinan, but here I am. W…T…F… That was such a bad call. Maybe Whoopie wasn’t available, maybe the cost of de-aging vfx were too high, but this was such a mistake. How was that Guinan? Besides looking nothing like Whoopie, the way she was written and the way the actress portrayed her: nothing said Guinan. They better had made her a different character, heck, even her daughter. And I guess both Guinan and Picard forgot about Time’s Arrow.
I was so thrilled with the start of the season, but after last week and now this one. I’m anxious about what’s coming.
When we watched season 2 opening episode it began to look like Star Trek had gotten back to the optimistic Futurist science fiction show we all know and love.
But just as they had replaced season 1’s dystopia with season 2’s closer approximation of Trek, they decided to go all dystopian again.
They’re incapable of writing Star Trek, they don’t even know what it is.
It appears to be Patrick Stewart’s vanity project after being disappointed with Trump and Brexit, and it doesn’t even attempt to write an allegory, it’s just straight up political propaganda bludgeoning you across the head with it.
Climate change
Migrants
Fascism
Police Brutality
Healthcare
Racism
And it’s not just once either, every episode beats you upside your head with it over and over.
Yes Sir Patrick, we know these are terrible things, we’re living in it and the world is broke trying to fix it, we’re all taking massive personal financial hits to try and get off hydrocarbons, protesting against violence and the rest of it, and we keep trying. The message you’re repeatedly giving us is that our efforts won’t make any difference and everything is only going to get worse, and that anything that may have the slightest glimmer of positivity will always be snatched away again no matter what.
Picard used to be my hero, and I had so much respect for Patrick Stewart, but all of that is gone now. The character is destroyed and the man has used that character in a personal vanity project to complain about things, rather than set an example as Trek has always done.
It’s gut wrenchingly disappointing to have seen it first hand falling to this low, lazy, generic parody devoid of talent in virtually all areas of the productions.
Hi, you’re entitled to your opinion of course but I don’t share that opinion. That was not what my post was about. So I’m kinda curious as to why you decided to reply to me :)
Well I read your OP and I agree with what you were saying. I’m feeling exactly how you are feeling but I’m OK with the new actress playing Guinan. It’s only so much they can do with that IMO.
But the rest, this show, like season 1, started off SO strong and now it feels like its spinning its wheels again. So much of it just feels so wasted. We still have six episodes to go but it sucks to be feeling this way by episode 4 because I been here before.
“They’re incapable of writing Star Trek, they don’t even know what it is.”
Congrats. You have written the most ridiculous sentence in this thread. And that is saying a lot. Relax.
Actually that was exactly the way the year 2024 has been portrayed on Star Trek before. Namely in the DS9 two-parter “Past Tense”.
Picard continues to surprise and delight.
Lost count of how many cool references to past Trek time travel adventures they showed.If you haven’t seen yet- prepare for a terrific hour- and don’t blink!
Don’t blink? What I miss?
Don’t blink? This isn’t Doctor Who.
“This Guinan wouldn’t remember Picard because in this alternate timeline, the TNG episode “Time’s Arrow” never happened. Because there was no Federation, those events did not play out the same. No previous relationship exists. However, she still was likely traveling to Earth and, as we know, she hung around a bit. So this Guinan is different. But she, of course, can sense something is off. She’s going through a kind of time-sickness thanks to Q’s meddling with the timeline.”
-Terry Matalas
It appears they’re covered.
Except apparently the same guy who got neck pinched by Spock still got neck pinched. So there was no Confederation in Kirk’s time to prevent them from doing their time travel thing. Including that scene may have been a fun idea but it didn’t fit with their alternate future idea at all.
And apparently they still have transparent aluminum
In their defense in another article Matalas admits that having that guy on the bus doing what he did was a conceit. He was aware it doesn’t fit with the time line he set up but they did it anyway because he thought it was fun.
We’ve reached the point in the season where the cliché homages are coming across as badly written low brow attempts at being meta.
I’m assuming that “the Supervisor” is from the Aegis because they’re the only ones in Star Trek who use the title “Supervisor”. Maybe this woman who looks like Laris is Isis from the TOS episode Assignment: Earth? Isis could shape-shift so maybe it is her. Gary Seven said he was here for our benefit in Assignment: Earth but maybe that’s not the Aegis’ plan and that could put them in conflict with the Q?
Maybe we might see the return of Gary Seven? You know, people say that these guys don’t keep “MCU-level” surprises, well, they did a pretty good job at hiding the fact that they re-cast a younger actress to play Guinan. That’s a pretty major role and NOBODY heard or knew about the re-casting. That seems like an “MCU-level” secret to me.
So maybe they re-cast Gary Seven as well? If that woman who looks like Laris is Isis, then it stands to reason that Gary Seven can’t be too far behind her. I still have this nagging feeling that this isn’t the Prime Timeline. I feel that this is the Mirror Universe or the beginning of that Confederacy Earth.
It’s just little things adding up, such as Guinan not recognizing Admiral Picard. If it’s the past of the Confederacy Earth, that means they’re still in an alternate universe and, once again, that could be why Guinan does not remember Admiral Picard. Maybe, on this Earth, this version of Picard wiped out the Devidians so there’s no reason for him to travel back in time? I mean he killed Yoshi from Super Mario Bros. 😊😄🤣 so it’s not that big of a leap for him to kill the Devidians in this universe.
Also, once Picard and crew figure out how to fix what’s been broken and they get ready to head home, I don’t think they’re going to make it home. I think the Borg Queen will be the reason why too. Right now, I’m gonna make a prediction. I thought we might see Picard have a son in season 3 and then face him in a big battle where he would have to kill him to put the timeline back the way it was.
Well, now I think the Borg Queen is going to cause them to land in another alternate future where Soji is an evil Empress, maybe even Queen of the Borg herself, and the Synths and Borg have taken over and Picard is going to have to go up against her. The reason for my theory is because we have not seen Soji at all since episode 1. I don’t think she factors into this season too much. But she’s still a part of the cast so she probably will have a big role to play in next season.
They also hinted in season 1 at Soji becoming the Borg Queen. I know she didn’t. But maybe in one universe she did. That’s my new theory for season 3 now.
Live long and prosper, Trekmovie 🖖.
When was there a hint about Soji becoming the Borg Queen?
It’s implied in the first season when the Romulan woman is reading her cards and she calls Soji “the Destroyer” and then a certain area of the Borg Cube reactivates itself after being dormant for years and that’s not because she’s an android. The Cube recognized her somehow. I think all of those were hints about Soji possibly becoming part of the Collective as their next Queen. Then it was supposed to be Seven of Nine because there were hints for her about becoming the next Queen too.
Now the Queen is messing with Agnes so it might be her as the new Borg Queen. Live long and prosper, Josiah Rowe 🖖.
Wasn’t she ‘the destroyer’ because she (or one of the other Synths like her) opened the gateway for that mechanical race to destroy life?
I thought Narek had that area of the Cube reactivated to test Soji.
No, if you watch Narek was surprised when she landed on the Cube and it reactivated. And I believe he asked Soji “How’d you do that”? If Narek had the area reactivated, then why would he ask Soji how she reactivated it? Also, they never explained why Soji was called “the Destroyer”.
The term came from a Romulan myth about twin sisters that looked like Daj and Soji. I am speculating that in an ALTERNATE universe it is possible that Soji might’ve become the Borg Queen because of various things that were laid out in season 1. I didn’t say this is fact or it’s in the Prime Timeline. I said ALTERNATE universe because I believe the Borg Queen is not going to let Picard get back to 2401 right away or if he does, then it’s a future where synthetic life rules with Soji as their Queen.
It’s just an idea that stems from stuff I saw in season 1 such as a certain area of the Borg Cube reactivating after Soji touches it. And Narek didn’t reactivate it because when the Borg started to move, Narek was scared out of his mind. That’s my interpretation anyways 🙂. Live long and prosper, Thorny 🖖.
“They also hinted in season 1 at Soji becoming the Borg Queen.”
They didn’t.
Yes, the Romulan woman in the Borg cube made reference to it in season 1. She talked about Soji’s destiny and her being “the Destroyer” and because it’s on a Borg cube, it’s implied that she will lead the Borg at some point, at least that’s my view anyways. They don’t come out and say it but it’s heavily implied. There’s a reason why they thought Soji was “the Destroyer” and how the predictions the woman made all stemmed from the past.
Plus, when she’s on the Cube, a certain part of the Cube that was not active before became active again and that’s not just because she’s an android.The Cube reactivated itself because it recognized her. So, to me, those seem like hints they were dropping to bring Soji into the Collective. It’s just a theory I have but there’s a reason why Soji has not really been seen in any of these episodes so far.
And I believe that’s because she’s gonna play a bigger role next year. She was going to lead A.I. Soongs’ Synths in a revolt against the Federation and she was ready to sacrifice Picard to serve her greater good. So Soji is borderline on the good scale. It is entirely possible in an alternate universe that she could’ve become the Borg Queen.
Live long and prosper, Lorna Dune 🖖.
I don’t understand how a logic line gets drawn from Soji being called “the Destroyer” in season one to “Soji becomes the Borg Queen” in season 2 or 3 when at the end of season one she literally opens a portal to destroy all organic life in the universe. Picard literally talks her out of being the Destroyer. That would seem to be a clear line within the season it’s established, and there’s very little in season 2 to suggest that the larger story is continuing on or is significantly connected to the events of season 1.
I think there have been so many character changes from season 1 to 2 that holding season one accountable for anything that happens in season 2 is a mistake. As was said before, season 2 feels like a soft reboot.
I’m not holding anything “accountable”. Once again, I was talking about an ALTERNATE universe. I was talking about how the Borg Queen might shunt them into an alternate universe where synthetic life forms, like the Borg, rule and Soji might be their Queen, that’s all. It was a hypothetical.
I am allowed to speculate and pontificate all I want. It’s a hypothetical situation. It might be a reboot but I don’t think it is. It’s the same story otherwise why carry over the same cast?
It would’ve been a reboot if it was just Sir Patrick Stewart himself with a whole new cast. But it’s the same cast so it’s not a reboot. If that’s the case, then every season of TNG was a reboot and we know that’s not true, right? This is a 3 act play and we’re on act 2 right now.
Live long and prosper, ML31🖖.
I said “borderline good”. Those were my exact words. Picard got through to her in the very last minute but she was ready to exterminate ALL life that wasn’t synthetic. That doesn’t make her a hero, like Picard.
The possibility exists for her to be evil. I said “in an ALTERNATE universe”, it’s possible that she could’ve become the Borg Queen. That is a possibility. Just like James T. Kirk became Emperor Tiberius in the Mirror Universe in the Shatnerverse novels.
Just like Hoshi became Empress of the Mirror Universe on Enterprise. There’s MANY different alternate universes out there. Who’s to say how Soji turned out in them? If there was no Picard, then there’s no guiding force to make sure she does what’s right and that’s a fact.
She didn’t stop those creatures on her own. That was only because Picard didn’t give up on her. As for her being called “The Destroyer”, are you Michael Chabon? Who knows what he originally intended for Soji.
But if you rewatch the episode, the Romulan woman says that there’s a story in Romulan mythology about “the Destroyer” and explain how a certain area of the Borg Cube that was dormant for years all of a sudden reactivated itself when Soji landed bare foot on it. The Cube recognized her, from where I don’t know. These are threads that could be addressed in season 3 because, obviously, Soji’s not in this season too much. Usually, that means, since she still is a core character of the show, that they’ve got big plans for her next year.
But the potential exists for Soji to be evil. Remember, she’s not just related to Data but Lore too. Live long and prosper, Tiberius Mudd 🖖.
The Cube recognized her synthetic components, which was the entire part of her storyline where she’s coming to terms with acknowledging that she’s a 36-or-whatever-month old synthetic. And, no, I’m not brilliant novelist Michael Chabon. I am a dumb pile of humanity posting on a Star Trek message board.
The Cube did not recognize her synthetic components otherwise the same thing would’ve happened whenever Data set foot on a Borg Cube and it didn’t. So I don’t accept that theory. The Cube recognized HER. It KNEW her.
This part of the Cube has lain dormant for decades since the first season of TNG because the Cube in the first season of Picard was from “The Neutral Zone” episode of TNG. Soji got this area reactivated the minute she landed barefoot on it because the Cube recognized her. If the Cube just reactivated because she was a synthetic life form, then the same thing would’ve happened with Data on TNG. Whenever he went over on an away team, the Borg Cube would’ve come to life for him and they didn’t.
So I don’t accept this theory. You can accept it all day but I don’t. Live long and prosper, Tiberius Mudd 🖖.
They called her the Destroyer because she had a connection to a horrific machine intelligence in the distant future that was going to destroy everyone. At no point did they at all hint that she was the Borg Queen.
Hello, horrific machine intelligence!! That’s the Borg. The Borg were all over season 1. They implied a lot of things.
They didn’t come right out and say. Horrific machine intelligence from the future that could time travel, don’t you see it’s the Borg? It’s the only one that makes sense. But you believe what you want and I’ll believe what I want.
The Borg were all over season 1 of Picard and the Romulans were terrified of them. Their fear of synthetic life forms stems from contact with the Borg a long, long time again. And once again I don’t understand why you don’t understand what I’m saying about Soji. I didn’t say she’s a Borg Queen. I said it’s implied that she MIGHT become one.
That’s a lot different than saying she’s a Borg Queen. Read my messages. It is implied in the show that she has a connection to the Borg and it’s not because she’s an android. That has nothing to do with it.
If that was the case than every time Data set foot on a Borg Cube it should’ve responded to him and they didn’t. So the Cube didn’t respond to her because of her synthetic parts. It responded because it KNEW who SHE was. Live long and prosper, Lorna Dune 🖖.
It wasn’t the Borg. That much was pretty clear from the season. That’s why no one is agreeing with you.
No one needs to agree with me, Lorna Dune. I’ve been watching and reading Star Trek since 1991. I don’t say what I say for the validation of others. I know what I watched and I saw what was planted.
Just because you didn’t see it, doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Just like you said in your message ” Oh, she’s not the Destroyer because she stopped those creatures from coming in”. Did you see that Romulan woman again and did she say that there’s been a change in her reading? No, you didn’t.
Nobody did because the Romulan woman was never seen again so that fortune has not been changed. That is called an unresolved plot thread and it’s unresolved for a reason. The Romulan woman said that Soji would burn the galaxy down and it was never explained how she would do it. I didn’t see the cybernetic tentacle creatures on the card she was reading from, did you?
The Borg have Quantum Slipstream tech. They can travel back and forth through time with ease. So, to me, when she mentioned “horrific machine intelligence” and she mentioned that Romulus was attacked in the past by the two sisters, that screams the Borg to me because they’re the only machine race who can time travel!!! I’ve only been watching and reading Star Trek since the early- ’90s but, hey, what would I know, right?
And, if the La Sirena makes it back home, the Borg Queen will still be on that ship. And if Soji comes aboard, she will be on the ship with the Borg Queen and it is probably highly likely that the Queen will try to assimilate her when they meet because she is unique. If Soji gets assimilated, her first order of business will be to come after the Federation. Now maybe the Borg won’t acknowledge her as the Queen, maybe they’ll acknowledge her like they did Locutus?
But the Borg Queen is on this show for a reason and Soji has not been seen for a reason and so it stands to reason that the first time they meet, the Borg Queen may try to assimilate her. I’ve read your posts on this website and you like to argue with people whose opinions aren’t in line with yours. I am through discussing this. I have ideas and I am allowed to dream and speculate all I want.
If you don’t like those ideas, then don’t respond back – period!!!!!!!! Now I’m through with you belittling me and my ideas – got it!!!!!!!! Live long and prosper, Lorna Dune 🖖.
Sorry have to agree with the others. They never hinted Soji had anything to do with the Borg, simply that she would be involved in bringing in advance machines to wipe out the galaxy.
In season one, the Borg wasn’t the ‘threat’ the Romulans were worried about, it was artificial intelligence which the Borg is not. They are cybernetic humanoids, these are two different things.
What bothered me (and others) about season one is that the Borg was just there and not a main driver of the story. I actually think your idea would’ve been a great story in season one and that the Borg was looking for a new Queen and decided Soji was the best candidate because she was basically a biological android and the next step in their evolution…and the Romulans was trying to stop it. That could’ve been a very interesting story line but alas.
But yes, this could be a story line for season 2. I don’t think it is considering how much of a non-factor Soji has been so far, but you can’t rule anything out right now.
“So maybe they re-cast Gary Seven as well?”
Probably necessary given that Robert Lansing died in 1994.
I know Robert Lansing died. I was a fan of The Equalizer back in the ’90s when I was a teen when it was on A & E. I don’t reminded that he passed. Thanks.
I was phrasing my words in a way to mean that they re-casted Guinan without anybody knowing about it so it’s possible that they could’ve re-casted Gary Seven without word getting out about it. I’m 42 years old not 15. How about you look for the context behind the words before responding back. Thanks 👍 and live long and prosper, navamske 🖖.
I’m really enjoying the season so far. I have a few quibbles about this episode, but it wasn’t enough to keep me from being entertained. I can only speak for myself, but I watch Star Trek for entertainment. Sometimes it’s profound, sometimes it’s challenging, sometimes it’s downright silly. But it’s entertainment, and Star Trek Picard is well worth the investment of my time.
That said, there were a number of strong elements to this episode:
The weak elements for me were:
As for a new actress playing Guinan, it didn’t bother me. But then, I don’t get all caught up in canon to worry if all the pieces fit perfectly together.
Looking forward to see where all the story threads take us.
I think you’re watching Star Trek the best way and I’m jealous.
“It’s easy if you try.”
I’ve been watching Trek for 31 years and seen enough changes to the franchise to relax. I mean, far too often, people treat this stuff like it’s raw documentary footage from the future, not different production teams’ interpretations of the same events, themes, and characters. So, things like the aesthetic are going to be different with each team, but at the core, it’s still Trek. I mean, season one of TOS had “The Devil in the Dark,” and Discovery season four was basically a season-long riff on that episode, because it’s something we still need to learn, 55 years after that episode.
The biggest complaint I’ve heard lately is about pacing, but I just plain don’t see it. Each episode is an opportunity to hang out with these characters and see how they’re going to react to the situations presented to them. With any story, the plot is only really the car in which the characters travel. The real stuff we’re watching for are the conversations in the car, the music they’re listening to, the snacks on the way, etc.
I, too, have been watching Trek for 31 years and I have to remember that I stopped enjoying it mid-way through Voyager, and since that time, SO MUCH BETTER TV has come out, the bar has been raised across the board, and my main disappointments come from the fact that current Star Trek just doesn’t measure up to the best 21st century TV. Doesn’t even come close — at least, to me it doesn’t, and I’ve watched, perhaps, an unhealthy amount of TV in my lifetime. Which I acknowledge doesn’t make my dumb opinion(s) some objective truth or ultimate judge of Trek or even TV — I am a useless, pointless idiot writing on a Star Trek message board, after all. Like I said, I’m jealous that I can’t just accept Star Trek in all its forms.
This sounds superficially profound (credit the new oxymoron to my name!) — until it leads you to the absurd conclusion that you really could listen to Patrick Stewart reading the phone book and review it positively.
I don’t mind it when Trek makes changes that need to be made. Like no women Captains in the 23rd century. But somethings they change are just like… Why? Like a Spore drive in the 23rd century but Voyager stuck in the 24th. Or a suit that can travel through time and space but a 32nd century is crippled because no WARP.
The transporter effect at the end is pretty much exactly the same as Gary 7’s effect from TOS Assignment Earth.
DSC season four and PIC season one were criticized for their pacing. I think people expected more to happen in each episode. But the way I look at it, these episodes leave us wanting more. It’s the kind of showmanship George Costanza learned from Jerry Lewis. Picard and Jurati need to get warm, so they head over to the chateau where there’s a fireplace. Picard lets her know this was a time when the chateau was dormant. It’s most recent use as of 2024 was as a Nazi base of operations, when the Picards were not there, and had to flee to England, a playful nod to Picard’s more comfortable English accent. I wonder if it was Stewart’s home of Yorkshire. Picard’s mother would comfort him with the Edith Piaf song we heard in the season premiere. Jurati’s absent-minded repetition of the number 15 leads them to believe that the change that’s about to happen to the timeline will happen on April 15, 2024 (about five months before the Bell Riots, BTW), three days from now. With a bit more of a ticking clock, Picard decides that he needs to go search for the Watcher himself. This leaves Jurati alone with Hannibal Lector as she ponders the Faustian bargain she’s made in exchange for the intel she acquired for the mission. Okay, perhaps a bit of a mixed metaphor, but the more metaphors might make for more company to the lonely, something about which the two of them can commiserate, connect, assimilate. Seven and Raffi have to search for Rios. They track him down to Clinica Las Mariposas, since that’s where the badge was left behind, but all that’s left is one staff person who rightly curses out ICE. The duo head to the LAPD, via bus (encountering a very familiar punk, playing a very familiar song, but at least now he knows to listen when someone from the future tells him to turn off his boombox), only to find cops are uncooperative. They break into a police SUV to use its computer to track Rios down. Fortunately, ICE keeps the SUVs more up-to-date on their prey than precinct clerks. Through this, Raffi remains hotheaded and mourning, while Seven tries to maintain control. So, she drives the SUV while being chased by police. I suppose she’s the better choice, if she’s learned anything from Tom Paris, perhaps on a holodeck driving sim. While Raffi incorrectly, but not quite, interprets yellow to mean “go faster,” (similar to The Simpsons’ Mensa club’s ordinance to remove green lights in favor of just yellow and red), it’s fortunate that California allows for right turns on red, as there are some hairy curves throughout, not because they won’t get a ticket, but because maybe there’s a chance people will already be stopped. The chase finally ends when Jurati tells them to slam the brakes, as La Sirena’s transporters can’t do moving objects very well right now. They stand on a lone desert road, waiting for Rios. “I pledge allegiance to the flag. ¿Te hacen jurar lealtad? Que fue!” That’s basically the thesis statement of the Takei musical Allegiance. One of the issues with 24th century folks being thrown back to the 2020s, for better or worse, is that their more brazen with police than people who know this police state might be. So, he characterizes the indoctrination enforced on the undocumented as hard core, and he’s also much quicker to speak out about the injustices of the police. Teresa tries to determine if this makes Rios “brave or stupid.” He speaks out at the mistreatment of others and gets tased. When pressed on his occupation and place of origin, he defiantly tells the truth, knowing he won’t be believed. The ICE agent has no reply, except to book him on the next bus to get transferred, maybe to one of the concentration camps the US still has for the undocumented. Dear lord! Who knows where Teresa’s son Ricardo is? There’s another Simpsons episode I’ve thought about when fans have been pondering who the Watcher is for the past week, and that’s “El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer.” In that episode, Homer has a psychedelic experience that ends with a talking coyote telling him to find his soul mate. His first assumption is that it’s Marge. Of course, it is. But in speculating for the past week, I took the episode as a reminder that maybe we shouldn’t assume. The natural inclination is to think that it’s Guinan, as Picard does. He remembers that she was on Earth in 1893 San Francisco, so there’s a decent chance she’s still here. Jurati happens to beam him right where her bar would be in 2400, so there’s that. It turns out, she actually does still have a bar there, but she’s about to leave. The planet is so close to the tipping point toward extinction that her century of listening doesn’t seem to have done any good. Q did mention the fact that… Read more »
“Edith Piaf”
I liked her rice.
Did the borg Queen say “oh god?” To Jurati? It sure sounded like it.
It makes sense that she didn’t recognize Picard. Remember this a new time line. It likely General Picard never went back in time to the 19th century. Thus this Guinan wouldn’t have memories of that encounter because it didn’t happen.
I thought the episode was ok. It had moments where I was genuinely intrigued about where this is going, and moments where I rolled my eyes.
The Good:
The Bad:
Good points. If I had any “issue” with the depiction of ICE, if you even want to call it that, is that I’m surprised that they didn’t make up a similar sounding law enforcement agency. Using the fictional LCPD would’ve been a funny TJ Hooker nod. :)
One of the funniest lines from the previous episode was Jurati’s “Computer, dictate the file logged ‘Shit I stole from the Borg Queen’.”
In the recap before the start of this episode, they either used an alternate take or used clever editing so that the line was “Computer, dictate the file from the Borg Queen.”
For me it seems that this is the point that the thing has started to go downhill again.
I’m sick and tired of bad reboot recasting characters, or casting the same actor but acting completely out of character.
Episode one was great, episode 2 and 3 became mediocre, and this one was for sure a chore to watch through. It already feels like the 1st three episodes of the 1st season where nothing much happens, lots of teenage melodrama and completely unbelievable chains of events, and not 5 minutes goes by where there are contradictions and inconsistencies with established Star Trek.
It honestly feels like it’s gone back to that writing-by-committee mode again where they’re just brainstorming ideas and then trying to weave a plot through it all, deciding where they’ll put the cliff hangers, and dragging the viewer along laboriously from one scene to another.
We’re back to incompetent and unbelievable characters again, which doesn’t really leave much to entertain when you’ve not really got any interest in the mystery format NuTrek relies upon so heavily.
I feel bad that there’s already a 3rd season filmed as it saddens me to watch, and saddens me to miss. I don’t really feel this adds anything whatsoever to Picard, it’s just action and melodrama haphazardly assembled into a convoluted mess, once again.
What a shame :-(
Yeah. This is the era of managed IP. Some are managed better than others.
I feel it went downhill the instant Q showed up at the end of episode one. Nothing since then has been good. Which is unfortunate because 50 minutes of the first episode were intriguing and surprisingly decent.
That’s because the first episode was set in a close aproximation of the Star Trek universe.
Everything since then has been generic netflix stranger things ripoff with immature bumbling adults behaving like drunk teenagers trying to find a party, and some dodgy old man following them around at a snails pace dispensing completely uninteresting drivel with a serious issue getting his lines out, and no connection whatsoever with Star Trek. Nothing about it is Star Trek. It’s nonsense. Absolute nonsense.
The Times Arrow conundrum explained: In this reality- Picard ( Evil General Picard) was never in command of the Enterprise D- and never went back in time to battle the soul sucking aliens in old San Francisco. General Picard and young Guinan never met.
Probably a good thing.
And also a trill now who can take on a new body and completely different and obnoxious personality, then abruptly changes back again to the previous form and personality, and we never see or hear of their timelord regeneration ability again.
And somehow Picard recognises her.
And somehow Guinan managed to name the forward section of deck 10 on the enterprise D after a bar on earth at number 10 Forward street that has never changed hands or name over 300 years in spite of a world war 3.
And now instead of Guinan having a sense across altered timelines, she just throws up by the bar.
And in order to leave Earth she has to pack her belongings into the back of a truck.
And if you point any of it out, you’re probably a racist toxic fan.
I’ve no idea what you’re talking about here. There were no Trills in this episode, nor any other of Picard, so far as I can remember.
I’m guessing here, but the Trill complaint might be referring to Discovery.
I think its a sarcastic way of complaining about the recast.
No complaints! I’m loving Picard. Star Trek IV is the best Trek film, sorry TWOK, and I’m just having a great time. Great characters, social commentary, Whoo Wheee! Keep it coming P+
Wow- surprised at the negativity here. I thought this ep was highly entertaining.
Negative folks tend to hang out and fester at places that lack moderators. This is one of those places.
Not necessarily the case. Moderation has little to do with negative comments. Moderation is how much the moderator is willing to accept. It often is inconsistent, unfortunately.
Personally I prefer a looser and free-er environment where all things can be said without fear of retribution by an overseer. IMHO, only the most heinous and egregious of comments should be removed. And then, just the comments. Not the poster unless there are multiple major infractions. And I would also tend to give folks a lot of slack. I feel that when people are free to offer up their opinions there is the potential for everyone to be exposed to all sorts of ideas and views. Which I think is a good thing. But I guess that’s just me. I feel that curbing speech is never a good thing.
I bet you’re a big fan of Whil Weeton’s Ready Room.
You can find “the negativity” elsewhere, say, Tor dot com where professional Trek novelists and experts DeCandido and Bennett go into detail on the ample daftness of Picard. Bennett takes particular issue with Picard incorporating asinine Back to the Future rules of time travel fiction.
I’m surprised that Anthony didn’t mention the at least 3 references to City on the Edge of Forever-did you all see them?
I only caught two: the boxing poster and the 21st St. Mission. What was the third?
When Guinan and Picard are talking face to face you see Floyd’s Barber shop between them.😊😊
Just watched the Ready Room interview with Lea Thompson. What an amazing person to direct Star Trek on so many layers. I only knew her as an actor on Back to the Future, but I think she is a very genuine person who is clearly a huge fan of the franchise. So glad she had the opportunity to direct the last two episodes. I think she did a great job
I’m not sure how I feel about this episode or this season; partly my appraisal will hinge upon how it all is eventually resolved. So far, I think this season is shaping up to be better than the first, though regrettably that’s not saying much. But there’s still room for this season to become either good or terrible or anything in between.
Lots of other folks are making most of the other observations on the episode that I would, so I won’t rehash the same stuff for now. Instead I’ll just note that if I’m counting right (and I might be off by one or two, but I think no more than that), two more episodes with Seven in them will make Jeri Ryan tied with Leonard Nimoy for number of appearances in Star Trek (112), and the next episode after that will put her appearance count past his.
Worf
TERRIBLE WRITING AND VERY POORLY RESEARCHED. Recommendation to the writers room – go watch the TNG episode Time’s Arrow and you will see how you messed up.
Well that was disappointing. I am sure that many will right away notice the Guinan storyline in this episode makes no sense whatsoever. Matalas and the other showrunners should have caught this continuity problem as soon as someone in the writers room proposed this ridiculous storyline. They could have easily had the same social commentary, but perhaps with a relative of Guinan who was tending bar while she was away. It wouldn’t have taken much.
Not really sure what to think of the whole Agnus and Borg Queen banter. The Borg Queen is already motivated to help them because she wants the timeline restored – case closed. There is no need for any more conflict.
The Seven and Raffi plot was okay until the bad driving scene happened.
Overall, I would give this episode a 4/10 rating. Pretty poor effort guys, especially after such a promising start. If S3 were not already in the can, one thing they may have wanted to consider is to get rid of the use of multiple writers as this clearly isn’t working because some shows are good and others are absolutely terrible.
Not much can be done now, let’s just hope next week is better.
They can just deactivate the borg queen on demand now, so that’s the end of the Borg as a villain in Trek. Deactivate the queen and the whole collective is useless. The Romulans are buddies too, so they’re doing their absolute best to obliterate everything since TNG to rewrite it in their own grotesque image for what is quite obviously an obscure and failing streaming platform.
Never in my wildest dreams did I expect Trek to take such a massive nosedive for such a prolonged time, grabbing money from one streaming platform to another, and another, with no one held accountable, and nothing of the franchise remaining except for a few completely recast and rewritten characters in a phony attempt at continuity.
This is still an alternate timeline. We really don’t know what happened with the borg or the collective after Endgame in thee prime timeline.
That is a good and plausible explanation for this plot regarding a recast Guinan. Alternately, I was under the impression that the change in the timeline happened in 2024, but perhaps it affected Guinan in unexpected ways. If this is the intention of the writers, they should have done a better job explaining it – with Picard being confused about Guinan’s change in appearance and her lack of recognition of Picard, someone she previously met in the 19th century.
The future that Picard came from in Time’s Arrow doesn’t exist anymore. General Picard never travelled back in time, so Guinan never met Picard in the 19th century. As for her age, Guinan explained that El Aurians can control their aging process back in episode 1.
AHHHHHHHHH!!!! I get it now, because the future events never happened, neither did the past events like those depicted in Times Arrow!! Ok and Guinan chose to age differently in this timeline so she doesnt look the same as before!!
Okay, MY SINCERE APOLOGIES to the writers room for going off on them earlier!!!
MESSAGE TO TREKMOVIE.COM – go ahead and delete my scathing comments above as Legate Demar schooled me in temporal causality and reminded me that Time’s Arrow never took place because the Enterprise 1701-D and the Federation never existed!!! Sorry to everyone including the writers for my ignorance.
A lot of people made that mistake. Facebook comments sections were inundated with that criticism. Even after others patiently explained why the criticism was wrong, there are still stubborn bands of haters insisting they’re right.
I made the same mistake. It was not made clear. Admittedly it is a fine line to walk for how much to say and how much to infer for the viewers sake.
But that also means that there was no Spock to neck pinch ‘I Still Hate You’ guy. But they did own up to that conceit so credit where credit is due.
Sadly DeanH, I have to agree with nearly everything you said. I was so disappointed with this episode and somehow more disappointed than I was last week. It zapped all motivation for me which is weird since its only episode 4. They still have time to blow us away but I’m feeling like season 1 vibes all over again.
To make it clear, I think this is a better story than season one by far, but if it isn’t going anywhere, it doesn’t matter. This season is ten episodes long. I should be pretty riveted this early and I’m not. I’m still interested of course but man it sucks I went from ‘WOW’ to ‘eh’ this fast. I’m really hoping next week really picks up and gets going. But so far after two very strong episodes it’s feeling like season one and moving things along just enough to justify the show’s existence but not enough for a compelling story which is why we are here.
Anybody else catch the Easter Egg of Floyd’s Barbershop? You can see it in the pic of Picard and Guinan above. This was of course from Mayberry on the Andy Griffith Show, but the sets were reused for the TOS episode “City on the Edge of Forever,” and Kirk and Edith walk by the barbershop during their romantic stroll. That was a neat callback.
The best callback to previous Trek would be good writing, but it seams they are completely talentless in that regard, no matter how much money and lip services they attempt to pepper through their work with the previous excellent high brow work of other people, dragging an old man who has destroyed the character of Picard by recasting it as an anti-Brexit Patrick Stewart.
Intellectual property leaches.
I kind of wish they’d set this in San Francisco- a more interesting city and some parallels to Trek IV. I get that LA is cheaper – and works better with the ICE stuff, maybe.
I was fine with recasting Guinan – none of this is real and we haven’t seen a bitter, fed up, hopeless Guinan before. She was different in the 18th century when she was a century younger and it makes sense that she’d be different here. People change. Especially over centuries.
Yeah, the 10 Forward Avenue stuff is a stretch, but whatever.
My head canon is that she had some input in choosing the location of the Enterprise’s bar, and chose to put it on deck 10 so that she could keep the name.
Some of the comments now have me worried that we’re veering in Michael Burnham territory with Picard and his family somehow being at the center of all galactic history. A piece last week on National Review pointed out that we necessarily get a somewhat one-sided view of the future with Star Trek considering that we see everything from the perspective of, essentially, the military. OK, that’s Star Trek, what are you going to do. But to have *one individual* in said military (or two, in different series) be that central to *everything* is a bit far.
I found the sheer annoyingness of Seven- of all people!- letting some frankly unjustified personal feelings turn her into a senseless road rager, especially considering how much worse it made things for them, well, annoying, and also tilting in Discovery territory.
I echo the questions about Time’s Arrow, and, from the other end, why the name “Picard” did it for Guinan (see first paragraph, though). This is the Guinan who knew how Yar died across timelines, remember.
A minor question: I know all sorts of weird buildings are built these days, but how do you have an outdoor plaza about twenty stories up? Was that a real building?
And now the elephant in the room: I know better than to expect Hollywood products to reflect my own very sensible conservative beliefs. I also know better than to expect any sort of nuanced ideas from Hollywood screenwriters, so of course we’re going to get nonsensical “ICE evil white men with tasers and chain-link cages who kill innocent poor immigrants (who, bizarrely, have to *sign* their own papers) in undisclosed concentration camps.” Yeah, yeah, we get it. Rios is “Hispanic” (having Raffi say that out loud was *hilarious*, considering that she’s from *2400* and the actor who plays Rios is…well, leave that aside) and so this is a natural hit-you-on-the-head-with-it plot possibility.
But…”They took off their hoods and put on suits”? Seriously? Um, who wears suits in this world? Corporate executives. Hollywood studio bosses. Media personalities. Academics. I could go on, but…every last one of those people would probably shout endless “amens” to whatever platitudes Guinan or whoever says. I mean, the show was *written* and approved at the very top by a bunch of white guys in suits. So I guess…I’ll take all the platitudes for what they’re worth, and know who the real underclass is.
Big BUT: Punk on bus! Jackson Roykirk! All is forgiven! I love you, Picard! There are five lights!
I was mildly disappointed with “The Watcher,” for three reasons.
First, the Easter eggs are getting out of hand. A few Easter eggs may bring a smile to your face, but a torrent of them just takes you out of the moment. I could have accepted Kirk Thatcher cameoing as a completely different character on the bus in the spirit of the former. But the *same* character, listening to the *same* music, riding a bus with time travellers twice in his lifetime? That’s way too much of a coincidence.
Granted, there’s a part of that thinks we’re not visiting the real 2024, but instead an elaborate simulation by Q, like we saw in “Tapestry” and even “All Good Things,” which could make the scene less of a coincidence. More on that below.
Second, Guinan was *completely* out of character. It’s not that they recast the role to show a younger Guinan (although query how she never aged in GENERATIONS or “Time’s Arrow” but seems to age here. It’s not even that she didn’t remember Picard from “Times Arrow”; I can buy that General Picard of the Confederation never met the Drevidians from that episode. Or again, this might be a giant illusion by Q.
It *is* that Guinan never, ever been portrayed as a bitter cynic. She’s much more like Edith Keeler, or Mestral from “Carbon Creek,” someone who recognizes humanity’s potential.
However much racism may plague us today, it was surely much worse in the late 1800s, mere decades after the civil war, and well after we abandoned Reconstruction. And yet Guinan seemed positively serene back in 1890s San Francisco — she was the one lecturing the sardonic *Mark “Innocents Abroad” Twain* that *he* was too cynical (“some might say that humanity is like a jewel,” as she put it).
Complaining about self-centeredness and poverty? Guinan was the one who told Wesley, back in her very first appearance on TNG, that “sometimes you have to put yourself before others.”
Now, granted, some terrible experience in between 1890 and 2024 might have altered Guinan’s outlook (e.g., maybe she got caught in the middle of the Watts riots); still, I find that explanation difficult to swallow, because there was just too much continuity in the character from “Time’s Arrow” to “Generations” to TNG.
Then there’s her personality. Guinan from TNG (again including “Time’s Arrow”) exudes calmness and serenity, not sarcasm, not exuberance, not impulsiveness, with only very rare exceptions (“Yesterday’s Enterprise”). Those qualities seemed to be young Guinan’s default mode. (Admittedly, this explains why Whoopi Goldberg seemed off in “The Star Gazer”; I suspect she deliberately subtly altered her performance to match her character in 2024.)
And seriously — a pit bull? I get that Stewart likes the breed. I don’t; like Data once said of Klingons, they’re genetically prone to aggression. They’re responsible for about two-thirds of fatal dog attacks on humans over a roughly ten year period. They don’t have to be inserted into every season of PICARD, particularly when we see television inspiring ill-considered breed choices. A Weimareiner is much more in keeping with Guinan’s character.
Third, while I always enjoy the chemistry between Jeri Ryan and Michelle Hurd, their attempts to locate Rios came across as laughingly hamfisted. Seven of Nine knows how to keep a low profile (see VOY “Relativity,” for instance, where she blends in just fine while going incognito); there’s just no way she would drive like a maniac through the streets of Los Angeles *when she wasn’t even being chased*.
Some shorter takes:
– The scenes between Jurati and the Borg queen continue to be absolutely mezmerizing. Good stuff.
– Four episodes in, and still nothing more than a cameo by Soji. I hope they haven’t dropped her
– I love TOS “Assignment: Earth,” and I hope that the references here are more than mere Easter eggs.
– Finally an explanation for why Picard is such an Anglophile while simultaneously retaining some Gallic pride. It worked, and that’s all that’s needed.
– Why no hat on 2024 Guinan? This was yet another way in which she was out of character; she wore one even as a refugee in “Generations.”
I think the idea is that the 20th and 21st centuries just broke Guinan. She had probably only been on Earth for a little while in the 19th century and was full of hope that humanity would change. Then she sat by and listened through two world wars, a eugenics war, centuries of institutional racism, and the climate crisis, and lost hope that humanity could ever change. Picard will probably help to renew her hope and optimism over the course of the season.
…and yet somehow she becomes whole again by “Generations,” and witnessing her entire species assimilated fazes her not at all. Sorry, not buying it.
Thinking about this some more, I suppose you could say that Guinan from “Time’s Arrow” kept her sunny disposition by virtue of her meeting with Picard, which showed her humanity would survive the next 120 or so years. If you *have* to reconcile what we saw with canon, perhaps that works. Dramatically, though, it cheapens her character.
The easter eggs are over the top for me too… I enjoy a good call back/reference or a small easter egg that makes you go “Hey!”, but I feel that Picard has been SOOOO heavy handed with it. At this point they have made SO MANY jokes/references to his “earl grey, hot”. The latest one with “chocolate milk, hot” just made me role my eyes. I think the issue is that they are inserting these easter eggs into the actual story, like the actual characters are making fun/pointing out the easter eggs, vs. something that just the audience notice.
I tend to agree about Guinan. They already established things about her and her 2024 counterpart just does not fit with her from 1880’s or her from the 24th century. She is already pretty damn old and wise in 2024. She would absolutely not need to be schooled by JL Picard. Someone this version of her has never seen before. Hell, even if she did recall her Twain incident, she STILL wouldn’t need a lecture from him. She knows better. The only excuse I can come up with for this glaring inconsistency is that we do not yet know the full story. Based on what some have said about Matalas’s work on 12 Monkeys it only seems fair to see if things will ultimately tie together in a way that coincides with what we know of the Trek world.
It’s weird that Guinan didn’t recognize Picard from when he showed up in the 19th century. I assume that this is because time was rewritten so the events in Time’s Arrow never happened. But Guinan knew that the timeline had been altered in Yesterday’s Enterprise and even knew that Tasha Yar was destined to die despite never having met her. So how did she not know that she was destined to have met Picard in the 19th century even if Q altered those events? She didn’t even flinch at the sight of him. I thought that was odd. Regarding the Watcher: I’m assuming it’s the Guardian of Forever or one of his kind (I thought he was the only one) because the door Picard stepped through reminded me a bit of the door the Guardian sent Georgiou through on Discovery.
The door Picard stepped through looked a lot more like another portal we’ve seen before. Controlled by another person with the title of Supervisor.
So, is the human Laris “Supervisor” this show’s equivalent of the crying Kelpian? I really hope there’s a good reason for it. S2 is incredibly solid so far, so this can’t be just some coincidence to mess with Picard’s mind. Of course, the Borg Queen quoted his mother in episode 1, so maybe it’s all just android Picard’s electric dream.
My guess would be that the Watcher is a telepathic shapeshifter, and chose to take the form of somebody who is close to Picard. Maybe she’s Isis.
Indeed, for all we know, the Aegis *are* shapeshifters. McCoy said that Gary Seven was a perfect human specimen.
The “I’m from France” was a reference to what Data replied in “Times Arrow” part 1. Sorry to burst your bubble.
I thought he said South America? Or was that The Big Goodbye?
It was The Big Goodbye. Rewatched that episode a few weeks ago.
He said France in “Time’s Arrow” and when challenged by
Gul DukatFrederick Laroque spoke in fluent French.This episode, and the previous, were fun but also felt wwwaaayyyyy too stretched. Like 3 and 4 could have just been one episode. Q popping up at the end gives me hope that we will be moving along starting in ep 5 though!
After being reminded by Legate Demar that the Federation and the Enterprise D never existed, then the 19th century events of Time’s Arrow also NEVER HAPPENED. Consequently Guinan also decided to age differently in this timeline and she never ever met Picard in the past OR future.
Therefore, scrap my previous scathing review and here is my new rating – 7/10. This episode was much better than I originally gave it credit for, however the pacing was still somewhat slow so let’s hope things pick up a bit next week.
Once again my apologies to the writers room!!
Speaking of the boxing poster, near the mission donation station we see “Floyd’s Barbershop”, normally associated with Mayberry, but part of the Paramount backlot on which many famous Trek episodes such as “Miri” were shot.
They could have done a better job with a younger Guinan Character. She doesn’t come across as Guinan in any way, nor does she resemble a younger Whoopi Goldberg in any way. The former being far more important than the latter. Kind of like Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan. If you’re going to make a drastic change, something has to be familiar.
For me the last two episodes were basically setting the pieces episodes where the characters do weird stuff to get to the place the plot dictates that they need to get to. Also the first two episodes seemed more cinematic in nature while the last two were basically a TV episode. The Kirk Thatcher cameo was amusing but is it just me that is begginning to get a bit annoyed by all this “callbacks” or “easter eggs”. Although I think this isn’t really a problem of Star Trek but entertainment in general these days as nearly all the major shows and movies need to wink to the audience with their easter eggs (I blame the MCU for this). I also expected Q to appear more than what we got of him so far. I mean if you total all his screen time in the 4 aired episodes I doubt it’ll be more than 10 minutes in total. Also the tone of the show this year seems a bit jarring for me. There are certain situations parts of the episodes that get quite dark and serious but at the same time there are weird tonal shifts into comedy or wink territory.
it was called 10 Forward in TNG cause its on deck 10…..i thought it was cute in the 25th century this is where guinan set up her bar, as a fun pun / homage to her federation days…..but this coming before her joining the enterprise crew is lame and forced fan service
I agree and support this post.
Agreed. In the 25th century it made sense. In the 21st it makes none. Unless somehow in the 24th she convinced Picard to take a “forward” looking room and turn it into “10 Forward” for a bar. But that’s a stretch to be sure.
I suppose that’s what she did; the bar was on deck ten, which triggered her memories of LA, so she suggested the name. Still, even if you can contort it into canon, it still just strikes me as more unnecessary Easter eggs.
Fourth great episode in a row… I’m beginning to dislike the criticism… To each his/her own but no, I don’t have ANY issues with the Guinan recast, the GREAT performance of the new actor and the so-called “Time’s Arrow” condundrum, which doesn’t exist. In this timeline, Picard simply never found Data’s head and never went to the 19th century. Maybe that’s the very reason Guinan is time sick…
I loved the TVH scenes, I loved the “old” Ten Foward. Yes, this MAKES sense because Guinan would later insist her bar to be on Deck Ten of the D (there are loads of recreational decks in that section of D, but we only get to see a few of them)…
This season has been pure gold so far and that I say as someone who disliked lots about S1. I really hope the Watcher is connected to the people behind Gary Seven, the smokey vail / gateway had that vibe…
I saw the Floyd’s Barber Shop on Forward street from the TOS episode The City On the Edge of Forever and from the Mayberry RFD set.
is the “girl” that Q was trying to speak too outside the europia facility, do you think she is Gary 7’s assistant in disquise?
I’m just going to be honest, but I been really disappointed in the last two episodes so far. I’m kind of taken aback just how much I didn’t like the last two episodes to the point I’m feeling gutted about it. I had no idea I would feel this way this soon, especially for a season I have to admit are doing things I should really be enjoying. I like all the elements, but how they are bringing it all together just feels weak and frankly boring. It’s starting to feel like season one all over again which is crazy to say because it felt like this season was going to really dig in and not waste time on pointless scenes and set ups. It’s feeling a lot like Discovery’s previous season and they could’ve combined episodes together by cutting out a lot of fluff and scenes that feel like they are just there to get you to point B while presenting nothing enticing in point A. In Discovery’s case, points A-X mostly.
It is amazing how different people see things because reading this board, people do seem like they were blown away by this episode. And good for them. I want to feel that way too. I just can’t, it just feels like so much of the story is being squandered. It’s taking 3 episodes to bust Rios out from ICE. It could go longer than that. But there is just NO reason for that unless it’s going to be more than just showing how bad law enforcement can be. Fine, but is that the main story?? Is that why we are spending so much time on this? We all see the parallels between how the government look down on illegal immigrants and its connections to the altered timeline, but is this really a vital plot line? I doubt it of course and if not, Rios should’ve been set free. But maybe they are going somewhere bigger with it. Right now, it just feels like a side quest to give the characters something to do.
There is way more I can write, but honestly it’s all been said by now. It still has six episodes and the ending certainly gave the story a jolt so I’m looking forward to next week now. But I just don’t understand how these shows set up these HUGE stakes every season and then proceed to do the bare minimum in most of the story. It’s just characters repeating what they have to do and throwing in action scenes to distract a whole lot of nothing is really going on.
I was excited about Picard this season, I was but I’m already feeling more cynical about it as I was first season and first season didn’t really get there until around episode 6. This show has a lot of great elements in it and promise but it just doesn’t seem to really strike in a meaningful way. I still have faith in Matalas but I was riveted with every episode of 12 Monkeys that first season. That story really pushed in so many crazy and interesting ways just a few episodes in and I’m feeling the opposite here.
In general, I dislike these “fish out of water” time travel stories. A crew highly experienced in first contact missions, duck blind missions, and undercover missions on alien words should know how to blend in much better than they do. I think TVH (or at least the parts set in 1986) is highly overrated. (Seriously, how come all those people on the bus don’t immediately conclude Spock murdered the punk?) Time travel episodes like “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” “City on the Edge of Forever,” and FIRST CONTACT work better. I’m starting to think season 2 may be taking after the former, but we’ll see.
I never thought about that but that’s funny as hell.
Personally I don’t mind “fish out of water” scenarios but the fact is our Star Fleet crews know what they are getting into when they are time traveling and really should not be the “fish out of water”. They weren’t in the GOOD time travel episodes you mentioned.
I still find it hard to believe that the best politics they could find to try and throw at us is immigration, during an administration that doesn’t care at all about protecting our borders, and global warming (for like the billionth time). They still can’t give me an exact date / time that global warming will destroy the Earth. And I bet all these writers and actors who are so concerned about “global warming” all own beachside mansions.
A. Every administration has cared about protecting the borders. It’s always just easier said than done. And no building a wall wasn’t going to keep everyone out either but I won’t go there.
B. Star Trek is literally about open borders. The government is renamed United Earth in the 22nd century for a reason. It’s also what the Federation represents on a galactic scale. For our heroes, the entire debate about immigration is probably well, alien, to them since they live in a time where humans can just move around to any country on Earth in seconds the same way we can with any city at least within a country (but not in seconds ;)). Migration of humans is seen very differently by the 24th century because the entire planet is now just one big government and everyone is born with the same rights and privileges regardless of what country they were actually born in. Culturally whatever country you were born in still has a significance; but Earth itself is now just one entity humans share equally and its no longer fragmented or divided up to gain access anywhere (Maybe North Korea is still the last hold out ;)).
But the idea of ‘border protection’ is antithetical to Star Trek because you’re basically just keeping other humans away from each other on a really tiny planet. This is why Star Trek is, well, Star Trek.
C. We actually agree about global warming and its one of the rare subjects matters Trek has rarely if ever touched. They have touched on it VERY vaguely like in episodes of ‘Force of Nature’ and ‘Night’ but could be more direct. They have made a lot of references to it about past Earth, including The Voyage Home, but that’s been mostly it.
The crazy thing, Tiger, is that we are ALREADY SEEING the very thing environmentalists and “left wing fear mongerers” warned us about DECADES ago. A huge rise in natural disasters, unpredictable weather events, failure of our own infrastructure as a result.
Yet, those who did not heed the warnings continue to move the goal posts or re-contextualize what’s happening. What I fear is that it’s happening JUST slowly enough that tomorrow’s generation will see massive changes in climate, weather, natural disasters, and not even realize how bad they are, or that they could have been prevented. Because to them, it’s just how it’s always been.
Case in point, my son was surprised to learn that when we were kids, a 30 degree temperature swing from day to day was not normal.
Yep!
It’s no question that global warming is happening, it was just a question is if it was due to human action or not. And that’s pretty much conceded these days as well. It’s now become how much harm will it really do? This is the short term thinking that’s very frustrating when people don’t care what the planet will be like by the real 24th century.
I totally get how Star Trek characters would be shocked at the concept of borders existing between nations on Earth, though with their knowledge of Earth history they should at least know about it. What I’m saying is that in Biden’s America, the ICE raid that happens in 2024 would not have happened.
It’s not Star Trek’s politics I don’t like, it’s Hollywood’s.
OK, fair enough.
Well, we don’t know that there is one Earth Government in the 22nd century. We only know that Earth has apparently been renamed “United Earth” in the 32nd century. We also have no idea what the local governments on Earth are like. Obviously there is global representation at the UFP. But beyond that… No one knows. And it was good that Trek never got seriously into such a thing. It would be a hornet’s nest especially today. I do recall seeing non-canonical material saying things like Uhura being born in the United States of Africa, BTW.
And I would argue that Trek never touched on it because one way or another one can presume by the 22nd or 23rd century the issue has been dealt with in one way or the other.
Actually we do know. We have for decades now confirmed back in TNG:
“In 2150, the last of Earth’s nations joined the “World Government”, making United Earth truly global. (TNG: “Attached”)”
And Enterprise reaffirmed it in Terra Prime/Demons. So its definitely canon!
Reading up on it in Memory Alpha, the ‘United Earth’ label originally came around in 2067 but it was named as a new formation of the United Nations after WW 3 ended and where the United Earth Space Probe Agency was born from. Now this is ONLY my assumption, but my guess is that became a thing once Zefrum Cochrane’s warp flight happened and they created that to work on warp ships until it was renamed into Starfleet in the 22nd century.
But by the mid-22nd century, United Earth shifted into a world government but countries could decide to opt in if they wanted; but by 2150 everyone apparently did. So by the time the NX-01 started her maiden voyage Earth had become a one world government.
This was always pretty common knowledge. Or so I thought lol.
Edit: Reading up on UESPA on Memory Alpha, that agency was actually part of Starfleet until the 23rd century and didn’t fold in the 22nd century. I completely forgot that was suppose to be Starfeet in early TOS, but it would make sense it would be considered an arm of Starfleet back then.
If it was mentioned in an obscure TNG episode then I stand corrected. I still cling to the idea that the less we know of what the Earth’s government is in Star Trek land the better. I did not recall anyone calling the Earth “United Earth” until Star Trek Discovery. So I found that to be very odd indeed.
But the UESPA does not mean that is what the planet is called. And nearly no one referred to the Earth in Star Trek referred to “United Earth.”
Examples off the top of my head:
TMP: “Sir, it’s on a precise heading for Earth.” (Not United Earth)
ST:FC: “They went back and assimilated Earth.” (Not United Earth)
DS9: “The problem is Earth.” (Not United Earth)
And on Enterprise when they returned from the Xindi it was continually referred to as them saving The Earth. Not saving United Earth.
I would argue there are so very many more “Earth” references than “United Earth” references that just plain “Earth” is the name in spite of what Star Trek Discovery says.
But granted, I did not check out Memory Alpha. I would have noticed it I think if it happened in the episodes I have seen a lot of. Which is pretty much TOS and Enterprise. As much as I like DS9 I have only watched through the series 3 times. TNG and Voyager twice.
It wasn’t an ‘obscure’ episode and as I said it was mentioned on Enterprise as well (which you just said you watch a lot of). You can cling on to whatever you want, but yeah it’s canon. It’s been canon for over 30 years now lol. I was only correcting you after you tried correcting me, right?
But they don’t really delve in to Earth politics much, especially since we’re up to 800 hours of Star Trek and still know only a little about it. But yeah it’s a single government.
And it sounds like Discovery just renamed Earth to United Earth in the 32nd century, so no big deal. I wasn’t talking about that at all, I was talking about United Earth as the government, which I assumed it was being referred to on the other shows like on TOS, or Enterprise. They also renamed Vulcan into Ni’Var by the 32nd century too. Young minds, fresh ideas I guess! ;)
I don’t recall seeing anything on Star Trek anywhere (before Star Trek Discovery season 4 at least) that suggested all of Earth was a single government. I’ve seen seasons 3 & 4 of Enterprise quite a bit. Don’t recall it being mentioned there. The way I saw it was there are probably still independent governments around the Earth and they could have agreed that they handle their own issues but when it comes to certain things particularly on an interplanetary scale, it becomes a UFP matter. That is, a potential United States of Africa does not have the ability to represent the Earth to the UFP. The states of the Earth have all agreed on a way to have one or more representatives to the UFP. Or something to that effect.
But this is all wild speculation. Canonically I do not think it has ever been dealt with.
If there are mentions of Earth being a single government in the 22nd century onward, I would appreciate being made aware of it. At this point my guess is that any reference to it was probably vague and generalized enough so nothing really could or should be inferred from it.
Well that’s YOUR issue, not the show’s man lol. You acted like you knew it was a fact it wasn’t and proven wrong. So yeah. And I think you should know me well by now when I state something like that, it’s because I have a source. I watch the show. ;)
But yeah it’s been stated long long ago now. I just find it funny you tried to correct me when all you had to do was 30 seconds of Google to see in fact it was a world government and been stated for a very long time now. And it’s very strange you didn’t know since it’s been discussed a lot in the fanbase for decades. But maybe this is the only site you discuss Star Trek I guess. Anyway, you know now.
But I haven’t been proved wrong. I never presented my theory for future Earth was fact. What I did say was the show was always vague at best about future Earth government. I asked to show me where in the show it was mentioned. I’m waiting to see it. As I said, any mention of Earth’s government has been vague at best. So please… Since you have the source… Point out to me the episodes where the the Earth’s government format has been cleared up.
Further… I just looked at Memory Alpha and there is nothing in their references to support anything about Earth’s government. Only that it was mentioned that nations of Earth agreed to work together. That doesn’t mean they joined into one government. They reference a Star Trek Discovery episode I do not remember. So I have no idea what was said there. But beyond that, there just isn’t anything concrete as far as I have found. So please… Tell me what I am missing. Reference an episode that supports the concept.
Dude you said it wasn’t a world government, it is. I literally gave you the quote and the episode it’s from lol. They used the words ‘world government’ in the episode. What else does that imply? This is what gets annoying about you at times. You can’t just say I was wrong and move on but just want to split hairs. The Guinan stuff is subjective, so OK. But in this case, it’s been explicated stated Earth is under one government rule. It doesn’t mean countries don’t have some independence. I imagine it’s like America where you have a Federal government, but then the states have their own leaders and laws, just on a global level. That’s why it’s called a ‘United Earth’ because the planet is no longer divided politically.
And I don’t know how you can miss it on Memory Alpha, but here:
This took another 30 seconds to find.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/United_Earth#Structure
They make it very clear here that there were still individual countries and entities like the African Confederation, Russia, USA, etc after United Earth was formed early on; but it sounds like all of those eventually gave up their autonomy and became part of United Earth government by 2150 which was stated in ‘Attachments’. So it all fits under current canon well and made pretty clear.
OK. I misread the quote from that one episode. And since someone said it I guess that is a thing. However, still a lot of different things can still be inferred from that. One of them is exactly how loose or tight this “world government” is. And again, it is a can of worms that I think is best Trek never open. And your link is exactly what I looked at earlier when I said those references weren’t enough to make any kind of concrete conclusions about Earth’s government. And Earth was never called “United Earth” until Star Trek Discovery. No other character referred to it as that. Hence, all those quotes I cited in an above post.
I’m sorry you don’t like Star Trek’s politics. Feel free to go watch Scott Baio or Kevin Sorbo’s new shows, i’m sure their politics are more your style.
The irony here being of course that Kevin Sorbo was the star of a Gene Roddenberry show once upon a time.
I’m happy that conservatives like and watch Star Trek, but they have to stop pretending they are not watching a very liberal show. You can’t get around this basic fact. Star Trek is a hippified idea where Earth has done away with capitalism, all the nations are ruled under one government. people are handed everything to them to live a basic but fulfilling life and religion is practically non-existent. Star Trek is closer to Socialism in terms of government. No it’s not quite Socialism (since they can actually own property), but probably some new form of government that started in the 22nd century that clearly adopts those elements since it sounds like everything from education to healthcare is provided equally to everyone.
I think it’s kind of vague, to be honest (partially as a result of different writers making different points) but for me Star Trek takes place in a post-scarcity world where technology has provided an end to poverty and disease but people can still own property and land. Starfleet is obviously steeped in naval tradition/history and hierarchies still exist.
I’d say it has more in common with classical liberalism where there is a minimal state that ensures individual rights are protected, a defence force exists to protect against invaders (part of the purpose of starfleet), laws are put in place to protect citizens including protection of private property, building and maintaining public institutions and ensuring there is stable currency and roads, pathways (and transporters?) are maintained.
With regard to currency, we know there are ‘federation credits’ and the federation does trade with other organisations and planets outside of the federation, so they obviously have to ensure those credits maintain good value, as much as possible.
Earth is ruled under one government but we don’t really know any more specifics than that. Though we do know this: “Even after United Earth was formed, many nation-states and confederations of Earth retained their individual identities” (From Memory Alpha) so it’s quite possible these states are set up in slightly different ways. Some may be more socialist, some might not be. And again, it sounds like the overarching ‘United Earth’ government is quite minimal.
Captain Sisko once mentions running out of “Transporter Credits”, it might be that the government provides an allowance of those to everyone, or it might just be that people in starfleet or other jobs are ‘paid’ in credits which can be used on different things (transporter use, private holodeck usage, passage to other planets etc)
@trekmovie: thank you for naming the songs in the episode – it really helps with my Star Trek playlist :-)
Otherwise: fantastic season! :-) :-) :-)