“Fly Me to the Moon”
Star Trek: Picard Season 2, Episode 5 – Debuted Thursday, March 31, 2022
Written by: Cindy Appel
Directed by Jonathan Frakes
A mixed bag of stories and genres moves the season plot forward in a big way.
WARNING: Spoilers below!
RECAP
“Fear can be your friend.”
Transported away to the LA apartment of the “The Watcher” who looks like a human Laris (which makes sense, since it is the same actress), Picard learns this “Supervisor” is actually named Tallinn. And her job has been to protect a single individual, someone who is really important to the fabric of the universe, although she doesn’t know exactly why. After learning he is a time traveler named Jean-Luc Picard trying to stop a divergence, she drops the bomb: Her particular charge is an ancestor of his named Renée Picard, who is set to go on a historic spaceflight in three days, which just so happens to be the exact timing of that divergence. Now we’re getting somewhere.
After seeing her brief introduction in that final scene with Q last episode, we start to get a better look at this Renée Picard. The former child prodigy turned NASA astronaut pilot is dealing with anxiety as she struggles in a Europa mission simulator. Picard and Tallin voyeuristically (but awkwardly, on Picard’s part) peer in on her mandatory psych evaluation as the young woman expresses her doubts. Tallinn is concerned Renée isn’t going to make it to her destined flight and her therapist isn’t exactly helping with stuff like “Perhaps you are not ready.” In fact, there is something oddly familiar about him… OMG, it’s Q! Everything snaps together for Jean-Luc; his old nemesis masquerading as an Austrian-wannabe shrink is using this 21st-century Picard to change the future. Scheisse!
“Imagine being loved.”
At Chateau Picard, the evil queen hacks La Sirena to ring the local gendarmes for help. The responding solo cop is too busy living up to the smoking Frenchman stereotype to notice the sleeping Agnes, but he does spot the flickering cloaked spaceship in the backyard. And he clearly hasn’t seen any horror movies as he enters the dimly-lit spooky sci-fi thing without calling for backup so yeah, he gets totally captured when tentacles pull him into the Queen’s web. But the Borg forgoes assimilation and instead uses him as a hostage, calling out to her real prey, Jurati. Queenie really has it bad for Agnes, launching into a whole thing about how great life would be if they were joined, but Agnes isn’t buying it, and with officer Leclerc’s life literally hanging in the balance, she fires the shotgun. Oh right, Jurati found an old shotgun… probably should have mentioned that.
Cohorts Seven and Raffi are still stalking Rios’ prison bus and debating butterfly effects, which seems to come a bit late after transporting out in the middle of a car chase last week. The more reasonable Seven uses her tricorder to shut down the bus and Rios catches on, getting some help from a compadre to take down Officer FerengiFace. After some fun banter, things get a bit weird as Raffi sees Elnor exiting the bus, but then it wasn’t Elnor. Is she going crazy or is this a glitch in the matrix? No time to sort that out as they beam back to La Sirena to find Agnes looking like she stepped into the Saw franchise. The Queen is hanging dead like a bloody side of beef, but the cop is alive… and his spleen is in a box. Yep, everything is fine.
“How far are you willing to go?”
We meet another Spiner, as Noonian Arik Altan Adam Soong advocates for a future “free from disease.” This geneticist argues you have to break a few illegal human-experimenting eggs to get to that promised land of no more genetic defects, like the ones keeping his daughter stuck in a sealed room as the outside world would kill her instantly. His “Imagine, if you will, I’m a god” bit probably didn’t help his case with the skeptical tribunal, who takes away his license to research and funding. Oh, and his daughter Kore looks just like Soji, because, once again, she is played by the same actress. This is a small universe, after all.
Out of options, this mad scientist gets a glimmer of hope in the form of an email full of promising cure clues from someone named “Q,” who may have lost his powers, but is really getting around. Soong meets Q for lunch and blusters his “teasing me with data” (we see what you did there). Q is here to trade, curing Soong’s daughter for unspecified future favors, and because Soong is desperate, he takes the deal and brings home a mysterious vial which actually works, allowing Kore to finally see the sun and swim—but cruelly, only for a limited time. There’s always a twist. Now the Faustian figure returns with the promise of more cure if the bad doctor can help him “remove an obstacle.” Without powers, Q needs a little help… with a certain problem named “Picard.”
“We’re stronger together.”
Team La Sirena reunites, along with a somewhat reluctant Tallin, and starts working on a plan to keep an eye on Renée at a fancy gala right before she is to go into quarantine. If they can just keep her from quitting for one more night, young Picard can go on the Europa Mission and the whole Confederation timeline will go poof. All their future tech won’t help get the team in, so they are going to have to go old-school. Surprisingly, Agnes is chosen to lead this impossible mission as she is the only one who can hack the ancient computers to get the rest of the team into the system. Astro-Picard is there, still obsessing over her failure in the simulator, so they’d better hurry up. But Agent Jurati in her extremely red dress doesn’t keep a low profile and is spotted and detained by security soon after entering the jazzy black-tie event.
But wait! As Jurati squirms, cuffed to a chair in the security room, we flash back to her Borg regicide… and there is more to the story. She couldn’t let the queen kill the cop, but she also couldn’t kill off the only navigator that could get them home. The dying Queen made one last plea: “You need me, Agnes. How will you survive without me?” Turns out Jurati is now carrying a cybernetic secret: She’s got a little bit of Queen in her. They can even have nice little chats, as her onboard Borg pooka compliments her plan to get captured. But what that plan is will have to wait for next week.
ANALYSIS
Too many licks and not enough comp
“Fly Me to the Moon” is another one of those frustrating outings that still has a lot going for it. Emblematic of the somewhat disjointed mid-season entries since episode two, episode five has some uneven pacing as it hops genres to keep up with each thread and introduces a lot of new characters. However, within each of the varied stories, there was much to enjoy and even love. And thanks to extended moments of exposition, there was a lot of progress on the main plot arc for the season.
It was a delight to see the return of Orla Brady, mysteriously playing the new character Tallinn. She and Sir Patrick Stewart quickly found a different dynamic that was still just as engaging as Picard and Laris’—and the way Picard looked into her eyes and didn’t see the same soul as his close Romulan friend was a nice, subtle moment. The introduction of Renée Picard was also intriguing, with Penelope Mitchell garnering the audience’s sympathy as she went up against Q, with John de Lancie chewing up the scenery as the fake psychiatrist. But it is his intense scene with Brent Spiner that is the standout of the episode as the two TNG vets sparred deliciously over who could be more ruthless and vulnerable at the same time.
The Raffi/Rios/Seven storyline again brought some action and humor to the episode along with more character insights, especially Michelle Hurd’s exploration of grief. But now that they have reunited with Picard, there is a sense that their three-episode adventure in LA was simply a distraction and a bit of literal wheel-spinning. While providing a vehicle for some social commentary, this subplot was a missed opportunity for some good time travel fish-out-of-water fun and in the end, provided no meaningful contribution to the season’s big mysteries or plot. This is in stark contrast to the Queen and Jurati horror movie played with relish by Annie Wersching and Alison Pill, with director Jonathan Frakes recreating some of his macabre best from First Contact. The final episode pivot to a heist movie vibe was fun but frustratingly short and maybe one genre too many, perhaps best held back for the next episode to fully embrace.
Haven’t we met before?
There was a lot of activity in this episode with the season’s main mysteries and plot arc, with The Watcher fully explained as a Supervisor. Picard even mentioned Kirk and Gary Seven, but of course Tallinn would not be aware of that due to the show’s time travel rules. Why Tallinn looks just like Laris is an oddity, and even with Raffi hanging a fun lantern on it with her “good talk” at the Chateau, this still needs an explanation and hopefully we’ll get one soon. Adding to the mystery is how some of Tallinn’s tech indicated possible Romulan origins.
We got a lot of Q in this episode as he pops into both the Adam Soong and Renée Picard storylines. While it’s spelled out that he’s trying to stop the young Picard from going on her mission, his true motivations are still unclear, as is how it all ties into some lesson he is teaching Jean-Luc about his fear. Tallinn’s Laris-like looks could possibly be connected to all of that. But lines like “I have taken time for granted of late and it seems she is threatening to abandon me” and “We are all hostages to what we love. The only way to truly be free is to love nothing” are probably more than just poetry and probably important to the plot.
Renée herself is an interesting character, and the brief mention of her destined discovery of a possible sentient organism on Jupiter’s moon Io could be a big clue about why she’s so important. One of the strengths of this season is how they have been dropping hints and clues along the way, like Renée being mentioned in episode one during Picard’s speech to the Academy.
As for why another Soong is in the mix, the answer is more likely practical: The team likes working with Brent Spiner, so why not? While it’s great to see him again, the character still feels like part of the family pattern, especially along the lines of Arik Soong. And there is certainly something odd going on with his daughter Kore, who may not be entirely a real girl if we are to read anything into his reaction when the subject of her mother came up. This Soong “daughter” could be the inspiration for Data’s future vision of a daughter, resulting in the creation of Soji. Also, besides the obvious eugenics angle, there is a hint about how this Soong is revered in the future Confederation timeline with his drone shields resembling the atmospheric shield the planet deploys in the 25th century.
Final thoughts
Hitting the halfway mark, the show has finally narrowed down some of the goals and mysteries for the season, while introducing a whole slew of new characters and questions. Diffused with great little moments of action, fright, warmth, and fun, “Fly Me to the Moon” had enough to keep us entertained, but in the end still felt like it was trying to keep too many plates spinning at once, turning it into more of a transitional episode. It did a fine job setting up what comes next, with season two still an improvement on the first, and Frakes’ second entry next week still highly anticipated.
Random bits
- The episode title refers to the 1954 song “Fly Me to the Moon,” which became associated with NASA when Frank Sinatra’s version was played on the Apollo 10 and Apollo 11 missions to the moon.
- The music for the song can be heard at the gala.
- At 41:16, the episode runtime is relatively short for modern Star Trek shows.
- This is the first Star Trek credit for writer Cindy Appel, who joined the series as a producer for season two.
- This is Jonathan Frakes’ 27th directing credit for the Star Trek franchise and third for Picard.
- Lea Thompson, who directed the previous two episodes, plays Dr. Diane Werner, the chairman of the committee dealing with Dr. Soong.
- Also on the committee is a character named Dr. Vasily Rozhenko, possibly an ancestor of Sergey Rozhenko, Worf’s adoptive father.
- Like Gary Seven, Tallinn’s transporter is housed inside a bank vault.
- Australian actress Penelope Mitchell (Renée Picard) had a recurring role on The Vampire Diaries, along with star Paul Wesley, who recently joined the season two cast of Strange New Worlds as James T. Kirk.
- As per family tradition, the French-born (Chateauneuf-Grasse) Renée Picard has an English accent. She also had a French flag on her NASA flight suit.
- Her birthday is November 22nd, 1996, which was the release date of Star Trek: First Contact, directed by Frakes.
- The date was shown on her French passport as 11 22 1996, but it should be 22 11 1996, in the European style.
- Agnes’ fake name was Holly Eva Visser.
- If you call the number on Q’s business card (323-634-5667) you get a real message from Q.
- What did they do with the spleen?
More to come
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Keep up with all the Star Trek: Picard news and analysis.
Couple of things:
1) LOVED this episode. Stronger than eps 3 and 4.
2) Did anyone notice the editing flaw, early in the episode as the bus quickly drives you’ll see the back side of it. It is reversed and the text is backwards (oops Frakes)
3) Also, pesky Borg Queens always gotta assimilate. Reminded me of the line the “J. Jonah Jameson” actor said in Terminator: Genesys or whatever it was. “GD time travelling robots!”
In TV, directors do not have final cut.
Editors then. My mistake.
Editors do not have final cut. They do the first assembly, then the director does their cut, and then the cut is finalized by the showrunner, who is also the head writer. Movies are primarily a director’s medium, but TV is a producer’s medium.
That said, it may have been done for continuity reasons, even though the backwards text would be incongruous. They may not have had time to fix it (or weren’t willing to expend budget money to do so).
Or, it could be one of those “Starbucks cup in Game of Thrones” mistakes. Rare, but there are times that mistakes get through even with a ton of eyes on the process.
That may have been intentional editing actually. If during editing they realized the scene would be stronger if the bus was going left-to-right instead of right-to-left, they might have just flipped it and figured the reversed text wasn’t important.
Printing adverts in reverse on buses billboards etc is an attention grabber that has been used on occasions, I can remember Guinness doing it in the UK in the sixties, so why not in 2024?
When I watch this I just see ex star trek actors in a skit.
I can’t watch it anymore, and won’t be a part of this echo chamber anymore either.
I noticed it was driving in the wrong set of lanes and that there were no other vehicles on that road, weirdly.
Unless looking at history through a mirror, in which case, the wonky text is a clue.
I missed the reverse lettering but I did notice the bus was on the wrong side of the road when it stopped. I’m loving this season, this episode included; you just have to pay close attention.
I love the amount of plot threats interweaving with each other in fun and engaging patterns. Before one resolves, another begins. It’s like the Expanse- in a good way.
Ha, I thought when they mentioned her finding something alien on a remote moon of Jupiter, I was like woah, what if they had said Phoebe… *bug eyes*
You thick or something mate?
Some more thoughts:
4) I believe this is the first time in all of Star Trek we see an actual Microsoft-branded product. Interesting, kinda cool.
5) I also loved some of the subtle gags – the gag where Raffi & Picard walked and talked about how Laris looks like this lady, and how when Picard and Tallinn go to the ship and they see the crew moving the officer’s body; funny bits.
Good episode i would give it a B.
The Borg queen calling the french police i thought was funny lol and loved the ‘talk’ between Picard and Raffi lol.
The scenes with Renee Picard i felt sad for her suffering through depression and Q under the guise of a therapist to manipulate her to not go in the mission was disturbing but typical of Q.
Adam Soong is an interesting character he reminds me of Arik Soong from Enterprise S4 which is not a surprise and i felt sad for his daughter Kore and her medical condition her father has been trying to cure.
Q using Adam’s daughter as a way to manipulate him to get what he wants is again disturbing but typical of him.
Loved Raffi and 7’s rescue of Rios from the ice/homeland bus and happy to see everyone is finally back together.
I liked the scenes between Picard and Laris look alike Tallinn and the Gary 7 call back and the talk about Renee Picard was interesting. It’s easy to forget that in 2401 they don’t have that many accurate records probably due to WW3.
The scenes with Jurati and the queen were again great i find this queen to be far more disturbing then the previous Borg queens in Trek especially when she used the police man and Jurati’s loneliness to get to her and now the queen is in her mind.
It will be interesting to see how what direction this goes but it gives more evidence to Jurati being the Borg Queen on the stargazer.
But how will they handle it as when they get back to 2401 and the stargazer won’t there be 2 Jurati’s? 1 as the queen and 1 not borgified Jurati on the stargazer?
I like the Gala scenes and will be interesting to see what happens next week.
Overall i enjoyed this episode it had some nice character moments for everyone.
S2 has been so far just as good as S1 though i hope they speed the story-line up next week as i feel they are trying to stretch out the 2024 story-line so they could solve everything in the final and i fear that the tying up of the seasons story-line will be rushed though i hope I’m wrong about that and we get a satisfying conclusion to the story-line.
Can’t wait for next weeks episode
Right. A good episode for sure, and left me wanting more.
Speaking of Q being a therapist, how is he able to do impersonate someone so easily without snapping it so? It would seem the only reason he is going through the trouble is because he could not snap her to act the way he wanted to begin with.
The manipulation of Soong using his daughter reminded me of Khan manipulating the Dr. Who actor into blowing up the Kelvin archives in STID. Was this an intentional parallel?
I don’t buy the lack of records in this time at all. Pretty much EVERYTHING is recorded. Especially important things like a manned space mission to Io. I call BS on that. Seems like something they made up because they needed it for their story to work.
I’m guessing that Q isn’t completely powerless – otherwise I don’t think he’d have been able to break into Soong’s computer so easily; just powerless enough as to not be able to snap things to his will.
As for the records, my take is that a lot of the records where destroyed during WWIII due to massive EMPs bursts caused by nuclear bombs.
That is why they probably should have focused on Q more. His situation is by far the most interesting thing going on at the moment. We don’t know what’s going on. And the way it was present he absolutely lost his mojo.
And I was under the impression that the Eugenics wars of the 90’s WAS WWIII in the Trek world. And this show opted, correctly IMHO, to ignore that.
No, WWIII and the Eugenics war have always been different affairs. The Eugenics war was fought b/w 1992-1996 (https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Eugenics_Wars) and WWIII from 2026-2053 (https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/World_War_III) – which made Picard’s speech to Guinan about humanity getting better rather ironic considering WWIII will break out in 2 years (from the time the episodes take place).
And I agree on the Q part. I’m really intrigued as to what is going on with him and we’ve only gotten very, very brief hints about it. Hopefully the writers aren’t waiting until the very end for the big reveal.
Originally the Eugenics war was WW 3 but when TNG came along, I think it was retcon to be a separate ordeal and started in the first half of the 21st century instead. I don’t remember when they gave it a specific date, but we now know it starts in 2026.
Then that explains it. I’ve never been that enamored with TNG. Until I did my very first rewatch of the series a few years ago I had only seen the bulk of the episodes once.
I find it odd that a tyrant the took over more than 1/4 of the Earth would not drag the so many of the world’s nations into the conflict that it would not be considered WWIII. But that is what TNG decided to do it seems.
November 22, 1996 is also the release date of First Contact, lol
Officer Leclerc! Love it.
Named after Marshall Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque? Who was also born on November 22 :O
Not that i’m _not_ enjoying Picard but S2 is definitely better than S1. I’m glad that S3 is the last one and will probably be the best one of the three as is normal for Trek shows. I’m imagining a full on TNG reunion on the bridge of the Stargazer. but it won’t be as good a send off as All Good Things.
I don’t think it’s all that hard to have a better sendoff than AGT. Mainly because it really wasn’t a sendoff. They went right into production of their movie the next week. And it never felt like a sendoff either. It felt like just another mediocre Q episode.
No, won’t be better than AGT, but it can be a second sendoff, and I think they all come to see Picard as his health declines OR at a funeral. Whether my two or yours, I think we get the remaining characters all together.
Solid episode! Really liked it. So intense. Each week is taking us to a deeper level. Did Jurati sold her soul to the Queen? Did she tricked her to help her crew? Who is the Queen from the Star Gazer? Agnes or Renee!? Who really messed up the timeline? Q or the Queen?
I am enjoying this season so much. Like the story, the pace, and the dynamic between the characters. Every episode gives me something to enjoy and something to look forward for the following week.
I have said this before. This is the first time I am truly enjoying the return of TV Star Trek. So happy we are finally picking up after All Good Things. Love all the other shows, but Picard Season 2 is officially the show that I have been waiting for.
This Season could open the door for DS9. I am watching this episode again tonight.
I’d love to see Sisko or others again for sure.
Waiting for decades now. :D
Europa could be the goo that got destroyed in “All Good Things’, in which case it’d be Picards fault (not Q or Borg Queen)
?
Since we know Adam Soong has descendants, that HAS to mean Kore survives.
Presumably, it must also mean that she will either be a single mother or keep her maiden name if she marries in order to keep the family line intact.
Not necessarily. There could be other Soongs in the family.
This is the second time I’ve seen someone suggest that a character in one of these shows who shares a surname with someone else may not actually be related to that other one. Over at Elsewhere here, it was La’an, with the suggestion being that she’s not related to Khan directly but maybe just his cousin or twin brother, or something.
When one hears hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras..
In context here, that means that if Adam is a Soong that HAS to make him Arik’s and Noonien’s ancestor, while if La’an is a Singh that HAS to make her Khan’s descendant in some way or another.
If he wasn’t their ancestor, why are we wasting time with him?
That is a possibility as well but my comment was along the lines of Adam Soong could have a brother or uncle or cousin that shares the name. Just because his daughter perishes it doesn’t mean the line is broken.
My question stands, if he’s not Arik’s and Noonien’s ancestor, why are we wasting time with him? It’s like watching Voyager’s 11:59 AM only to find out that the woman the episode was about was not Janeway’s ancestor at all.
No, more like details to tie “v’gr”, “best of both worlds” with enterprise avoiding borg in a nebula, STNG “all good things” and picard show leadin with image of ‘v’gr”/nebula hiding enterprise.
If use “first contact” scene with picard in holo suite being chased by borg.
Everything becomes a play on who’s in picard,guinnan, borg queen,Q,gary 7, #1, “data” and a few other roles (either in “first contact”, regular star trek, OST, voyager, picard, etc.)
What?
Then perhaps it wasn’t a question for me.
I tend not to try speculating too much about what’s coming along because I kind of believe that takes a bit of the fun out if I get too close to solving the season as I’m watching it. That doesn’t stop me from reading the speculation of others. A lot of the time, the fans are right, such as the twist involving Voq and Tyler in DSC season one. This is one of those times, on two fronts. First, they predicted that the cloudy door teleportation effect had a connection to Gary Seven from TOS’s “Assignment: Earth,” another story that took place roughly at the same time as it was released and featured a guardian and a pivotal spaceflight (this episode was produced as a backdoor pilot should Star Trek get cancelled, and it bore a striking resemblance to Doctor Who). The Watcher appears to be a similar guardian. The other fan prediction was that Jurati would become a Borg Queen. That hasn’t quite happened, but it looks much more inevitable after this week. But on top of that, we get some major revelations on what Brent Spiner’s character Adam Soong has to do with all this, and finally the reappearance of Isa Briones, also playing a new character (Spiner and Briones might set some kind of Trek records for most doppelgängers on their résumés). I also wonder if it kind of provides a clue as to why white guys that look like Spiner have the surname Soong (Keye Luke was originally going to play Dr. Soong way back in “Brothers,” until Spiner got the idea to do it himself, opening up a massive Pandora’s box of Spiner performances). This episode did a trick previously seen in episodes like “Maps and Legends” and the movie Don’t Look Up, in which the “present” scene is expository dialogue placed over visuals from the past and future to show that exposition in action. It begins with such a scene of Renée Picard, the woman reading Dixon Hill last week, in a flight simulator, her confidence shaken. She seeks a therapist, but Picard and Renée’s Watcher (who looks like Laris, but calls herself Tallinn) realize that therapist is Q. Orla Brady puts on an American accent (semi-successfully), and Q does one of his parodic accents, this time Freudian. One thing this episode also asked of its actors is a lot of playing with voices. I don’t really count the Borg Queen in this in terms of the actor, since Wersching was pantomiming the actual dialogue that Pill, Stewart, and Cabrera recorded, but diagetically speaking, it counts. So, the Borg Queen calls the cops on Château Picard, in order to lure Jurati back to La Sirena. The score sure believes ACAB, just as the rest of the season shows, but the show itself takes a fairly neutral stance on this particular cop. The queen takes the cop hostage, so Jurati kills the queen without sacrificing the knight. There’s a darkly humorous moment later when Picard explains to Tallinn that his colleagues dragging the unconscious policeman’s body probably has a good reason. And Raffi observes the resemblance to Laris to Picard, something he’s not in the mood to consider. Speaking of cops, Rios, Raffi, and Seven don’t quite have as much to do this week, but they get nice moments. Rios busts out of the ICE bus eliciting cheers in a somewhat more organic nod to the scene on the bus in Star Trek IV. He thanks Pedro for his help, and says goodbye. Raffi and Seven have the same banter they’ve shared the past few episodes, but conclude with more trust that they’ve got each other’s backs, and there’s a brief flash of Elnor in a vision from the release of prisoners. Meanwhile, we finally get to meet Adam Soong, along with a nifty Lea Thompson cameo. Given she’s an actor/director, and a Trek fan, it was nice to see. He’s giving a speech to a committee in search of a grant to continue research that would help cure his daughter Kore of her sensitivity to sunlight. She’s played by Isa Briones, which plants a centuries-long seed for Data’s painting and his eventual daughter (perhaps Adam Soong took his wife’s surname). This is one of those dreamlike scenes with back-and-forth editing that reveals he’s been experimenting on soldiers and culminates on a message from Q. They meet, kind of proving how dangerous the other is, when Adam claims to be capable of killing threats. He can certainly drop F bombs! In turn, Q invokes Oppenheimer and offers a Faustian vial that claims to be a cure, but is short-lived, when Kore can only stand a few minutes swimming in the sun. So, in exchange, he asks Adam to help prevent Renée from completing the Europa Mission. Eventually, this brings Tallinn and La Sirena’s crew together for a debriefing. The queen’s dead (their only calculator home), Tallinn says Renée will… Read more »
” … This episode did a trick previously seen in episodes like “Maps and Legends” and the movie Don’t Look Up, in which the “present” scene is expository dialogue placed over visuals from the past and future to show that exposition in action. It begins with such a scene of Renée Picard, the woman reading Dixon Hill last week, in a flight simulator, her confidence shaken. She seeks a therapist, but Picard and Renée’s Watcher (who looks like Laris, but calls herself Tallinn) realize that therapist is Q. Orla Brady puts on an American accent (semi-successfully), and Q does one of his parodic accents, this time Freudian. One thing this episode also asked of its actors is a lot of playing with voices ….”
Ah, yeah, what’s interesting is if pair up with stuff from ‘First Contact”, such as the dixon hill where “ensign lynch” borg chasing picard initial lead in at ending Q/Renee sequence from “The Watcher”
and played out in this episod as the astronaut party.
Is Q, Nicky the Nose?
Is Tallin, Ensign Lynch (aka smoky data portal as “borg node”) or Spiner via Q info
Is Renee, Cochran? (where finds sentient microbs on europa, a ‘safe’ borg theme)
Is Jurati/Borg Queen ‘holo deck controls’ or the two drones chasing picard into holodeck?
Keying in on several times Picard has comment about history not being as he recalled it,
is this whole season a play on the next genreation storylines involving data dreams?
aka
Per first season lead in, where Picard is now an android: (some of the ‘dream’ references)
1) data slurping up polypeptides as stand-in for proverbial surfing waves of time.
3) Is finding sentient microbs on Europa a polypeptide clue?
4) data learning how to dream and the “raven flying around” reference to ‘The Raven’ ship & 7 of 9
5) Blacksmith / forge -> Q “trial never ends” & Q providing info to Soong
er playing with voices: Perhaps referring to Borg queen not hearing voices?
Guess picard relative needing to find sentient micros could be a reference to goo that Q shows Picard in “All Good Things” (picard is 3 seasons, “All good things” has 3 picard enterprises)
You presumably mean an English accent. You know, one of the four separate countries that make up Britain.
Fair enough. Cheers
Whenever I’m in the US people always say British accent,but I guess English works too,lol! A cab driver DID say English accent once though.
Too much Spiner, not enough Rios, who is easily the most charismatic NuTrek character. I hope they give Rios a spinoff.
I agree I like Rios (the cast is quite good) but I also enjoyed Spiner. Just needs more Rios, sure.
Yeah, I agree. Somehow he really stood out in this episode.
Ummm….
Spine … errr spin her story backround.
Current situation in south west wold make for a very dry/dusty Rio story.
Hopefully as Captain of the Stargazer.
I’d actually prefer something on his ship, La Sirena, so we could see him with the holograms again. It would also have a different feel from the other shows. Other characters can come and go throughout the episodes and seasons.
Here too! I liked him better when he was independent with his holograms. That right there was enough to hold a 10 episode season in the right hands I should think.
I hate that ship so much I’m hoping it gets destroyed for good this season.
And he can always bring his holograms to the Stargazer. He is the Captain. I like them too.
I actually do think Rios is the most interesting character in the show. I feel they are underusing him here, too. I know he’s not the lead but still he’s the most interesting.
“… Turns out Jurati is now carrying a cybernetic secret: She’s got a little bit of Queen in her. ….”
So, at some point will there be a Juratian or Borgian Rrapsody? (substiuting Europa for Galilleo of course)
Protecting an ancestor of Jean-Luc Picard was the basic premise of the Enterprise ride at Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas.
Good call! I did that ride and can confirm.
I had TOTALLY forgotten about that narrative!!!
That’s no coincidence, it’s it?!!
Terry Matalas, what say you???
Hmm, thought Soong was going to be all “we should use artificial intelligence for this flight, I can build a flawless machine that equates with life and can do all the jobs of people without any disease or anything”, Picard: “That’s nonsensical, life is special, oh wait I am a flawless machine equal to life and just built an evacuation fleet out of synths I wanted to be lifeforms.” Q (mic drop): Hypocrite exposed! Later!
Borg Queen: “I’ll take that tech.. which is why I logically did not just go back in time and win Wolf 359”.
NASA: “Sorry peoples, this mission to Europa with SLS will cost too much and is cancelled.
Then Elon Musk walks in “Let’s save this mission with the reusable Starship that will cost less than a tenth of that.”
Government: “Sorry… we aren’t going to let you prove that. FAA, get in here!!! Block that launch!!”
Putin: “World War 3 time!!! Because that is supposed to happen right, like the Eugenics Wars? Or we only accept the Trek timeline for imaginary Sanctuary zones and Earth-Saturn missions?”
Colonel Shaun Geoffrey Christopher: I had better be heading up this mission that there is some kind of timeline consistency.
“…. Q (mic drop): Hypocrite exposed! Later!”
Ah, no, didn’t time jump to when the Army slogan was “Be all you can be.”
But even if had, in episode Soong did grumple about being a pawn of para-military groups.
I though Jonathan Frakes did a masterful job in directing this episode. Nice pacing and intersplicing back and forth between separate storylines. Kudos!
Well said ’66. The three plotlines interweaving together in the end reminded me of First Contact. Spiner and De Lancie were delicious here as well.
Things that stood out.
First, does the US switch sides of roads to drive on in the next two years? That bus was OBVIOUSLY driving on the wrong side of that highway. And no, roads don’t get closed when busses filled with illegals are moving somewhere. There should have been other vehicles on that highway. But that would interfere with their story, I guess. I also loved the insert of an entirely different landscape than the area where the actors were interacting with the bus. That’s the sort of thing you see in satire or super low budget productions. Sorry Star Trek Picard. Someone on the staff missed it.
And next… That’s a LOT of high tech security (that I guess gets invented in the next two years as well) for an astronaut party. It felt like something the next Bond villain might host. Good grief…
I know they are talking about the very near future but the show is truly stretching credibility for what will be invented in the next two years. Quite a bit.
Picard seems to have watched a lot of Star Trek to know every aspect of every mission Kirk had. It seems being turned into a robot has its advantages. He has files stored away of every mission Kirk, and I’m sure Janeway, Archer and Sisko, ever had.
Kinda wondering how Q got a hold of the exact substance Soong needed. He can’t snap his fingers any longer. So did he bring it with him? I got the impression he was only doing this because he COULDN’T snap things the way he wanted anymore. Really hoping those who claim that Matalas smartly ties everything up in the end are right because things aren’t making a whole lot of logical sense here.
And for the record… The assimilation was telegraphed. Although I thought it was done already rather than on the Borg’s deathbed. But still… It was the obvious next step of the plot.
And one last thing.. Disappointed we didn’t get into what is easily the most interesting plot element by light years. Why was Q not able to “snap” things anymore? And how is he still able to do all the things he is doing without it?
“First, does the US switch sides of roads to drive on in the next two years?”
Perhaps has something to do with the British accent comment noted else where.
Picard does doe a British accent.
if this is the Picard android dream sequence,then would make sense that remembers things on the other side of the road.
Alternatively, per text on back of bus is “reverse”, could be an allusion to looking at history through a mirror.
“Picard seems to have watched a lot of Star Trek to know every aspect of every mission Kirk had. It seems being turned into a robot has its advantages. He has files stored away of every mission Kirk, and I’m sure Janeway, Archer and Sisko, ever had.”
Good point. Maybe Picard took a special interest in Kirk’s adventures after meeting him in the Nexus.
I love the TOS callbacks. I’d have to think that Kirk’s history would be pretty familiar to a guy so intelligent and knowledgeable of Star Fleet history plus they shared a love… the Enterprise! This is a fun season.
I liked it. Made me miss Caprica. It was like a trailer for Caprica.
But Caprica alternate time line shouldn’
t be possible until this time line’s WW III
The Trek’s greatest hits tour continues, sight. The first two episodes were so strong, but the originality is dwindling. So much heavy handedness in the messaging, and the continued connectedness of all people is a bit ridiculous. Going to the 21st century is increasingly looking like a bad idea.
Good episode 👍!!! I’m always a fan of seeing more Q and he had a lot to do in this episode. By the way, I called that telephone number and it actually is a recorded message from John De Lancie, that’s wild 😄! Also, I knew the Borg Queen was eventually gonna assimilate somebody.
It’s what they’ve been doing since 1988! And if Agnes is the new Borg Queen, it’ll be interesting to see how she behaves as the Borg Queen. Because the good Dr.Juratti was all ready to join A.I. Soongs cause last year and destroy all sentient life in the galaxy. So, will she go on a similar bend if she becomes the Borg Queen?
That’s the big question. I knew that whole “Borg asking for peace” story in episode 1 was just a ruse. They probably would’ve attempted an invasion the first chance they got. In Voyager’s Endgame episode, Admiral Janeway herself even said that the Borg NEVER give up and that the Queen is very devious and she’s always coming up with three or four different situations herself to get ahead of her opponents.
If the Borg were really in trouble, they would’ve taken measures to help themselves. They would never go to the Federation for help. The Federation represents everything they hate about humanoid life forms and the Queen said that herself to Data in First Contact (the movie). So the LAST thing they would ever do is ask for help.
Then the question becomes do they help them? Just because they say they want peace, doesn’t mean they actually want peace? They could start reassimilating races in the future and then the Federation would have to live with the consequences of their actions and those consequences could be horrific. So do you put a temporary salve on a really bad situation just to look like the good guy or do you enforce the Prime Directive’s mandate not to meddle in a society’s affairs?
I know what the Prime Directive is and what it stands for and I also know that it doesn’t apply to the Borg because of how advanced they are. But that decision really is up to the Federation because the Borg are considered enemy combatants and if the Federation wanted a way out, they could say that the Prime Directive prevents them from getting involved in their affairs. Oh, on the subject of Kore, I wonder if that might be Soji displaced in time by Q. I hope not because that would be a pretty neat story then about Data painting that portrait in season 1 and why the woman looked so much like Soji.
If she is an actual ancestor of Data’s then the story they may be telling here is that she was the woman in the portrait from season 1. They never did explain about why Data painted that portrait of a woman who looked exactly like Soji nearly 20 years before she was built. If Kore really is an ancestor of Data’s, then it stands to reason that she “existed” somewhere in Data’s memory bank. He probably had memories of her and never understood why or where those memories came from because he didn’t even know who she was.
And Kore can’t go outside, so that may be why Data painted that picture of her walking on the beach and it felt like in that picture she was so isolated and so alone. That’s why the picture was painted in a grey color. That usually symbolizes loneliness or isolation or a sense of aloneness. And if Kore is the woman in the painting, then that’s a plot thread being wrapped up from season 1 and people have tried telling me that the Picard cast and crew are not paying attention to their story when, in fact, they are.
Sir Patrick is keeping a tight reign on the writer’s room and that’s why he said in an interview about season 3 that he’s arguing with them everyday 🙂. Live long and prosper, Trekmovie 🖖.
“So, will she go on a similar bend if she becomes the Borg Queen?”
Obviously this episode just scractch the surface on what’s going to happen.
“… And Kore can’t go outside,”
And when shown what happens if she does & isn’t protected makes it look like reference to picard’s knowledge of theta radiation & what happened to romulans in startrek:nemisys.
Umm…. do the lyrics in ‘California Dreamin’ in prior episode allude to Kore ‘gray painting/skies’, fits in with ‘sense of aloneness’.
Would seem at odds with ‘winter day’, especially when in season 1, the ‘flower machines’ saved the day.
The song is probably alluding to the fact that they’re in California in the past when music is still played on radio stations or streaming channels. All I’m doing is speculating about a painting that was shown in season 1 of a woman who looked like Soji walking on a beach under gray skies along the ocean and the ocean looked like it was in tumult.
I am surmising that the woman in the picture is Kore because it was never answered how Data could paint a picture of Soji 20 years before she was built. I simply said that would be a good way to solve that mystery if it was. And from what we just learned about Kore, she can’t go outside because of her medical condition. So she probably feels a sense of isolation or aloneness because of her disability.
We just met Kore so I don’t think the choice of song in the previous episode when we didn’t even know she existed matters. Live long and prosper, galaxy’s got talent 🖖.
One, it’s Thalaron radiation that the Scimitar used in Nemesis, not Theta. And that’s not Thalaron radiation used in this show because if it was, then Kore would’ve disintegrated because the bio-genic properties of Thalaron radiation cause it to disintegrate whoever or whatever comes into contact with it. The Scimitar would’ve completely destroyed the Enterprise-E and her crew because of the Thalaron radiation that resided within her. That was the point of getting the Enterprise free from the Scimitar.
And two, why wouldn’t Picard remember the events of Nemesis. It’s the same Jean-Luc Picard from the Prime Timeline. He was just switched over to the Confederacy Timeline so he remembers. I would hope he remembers since Sir Patrick Stewart co-wrote Nemesis and the events of Nemesis heavily inform this whole show🙂.
And about Dr.Juratti becoming the Borg Queen and what she might do, well, you should probably rewatch Picard season 1. Because in that season, Agnes sided with the synthetic life forms over the humanoids. She was on the side that wanted to exterminate all sentient life in favor of artificial life. So I theorized that if the writers are turning her into a Borg Queen, then it will be interesting to see what side she falls on: hero or genocidal maniac?
Remember Jean-Luc Picard couldn’t even stand up against the influence of the Borg when he was Locutus and look what happened at Wolf 359 because of it? Live long and prosper, galaxy’s got talent 🖖.
“picard’s knowledge of theta radiation”
thalaron
Is it a little on the nose to have Q peddling wild theories and secret facts ‘they’ don’t want you to know via the Internet? Hmmm lol
Well, does the delancie phone message include the radio frequency the borg queen is listening in on?
For a family that has flawed genes, I’m impressed that all of the Soong men look exactly alike. Even several hundred years later. That’s some strong genes. ;)
“Fly Me to the Moon” is another one of those frustrating outings…”
“episode five has some uneven pacing…”
You got is so wrong it’s frustrating. After last week’s disaster episode (which you were unrealistically positive about), this one was really good, fun and thrilling. I’m glad they’re back to it. 8/10
Note a couple of “Back to the Future” nods:
Leah Thompson doing her best Huey Lewis impression, wearing the “you’re too darn loud” glasses.
Q says, “Right on the tick”, which I’ve only otherwise heard when Doc Brown predicts when it will stop raining.
Yeah, but didn’t happen on 1/9 at 5:05
So, established shot song was ‘California Dreaming’.
Should the scene with Renee looking at the Saturn V launch have played ‘Hotel California’? (especially since Jurati is a prisoner of own device)
Or perhaps have to wait until ‘The Raven’ character declares ‘Never More!’
The episode held my attention but also has some problematic aspects to it.
Raffi has reverted almost completely to the human trainwreck she was in S1. For a Starfleet officer she shows remarkably poor judgment and downright pettiness again and again. Really get the feeling the writers are struggling to figure out her role in all of this.
The immigration bus escape struck me as odd. I understand needing to get Rios out. But knocking out the guards and then releasing all the other prisoners into the wild without any consideration as to who they may be or what they may do seemed especially strange in light of all the talk about trying not to corrupt the timeline.
Picard is really coming across as a Kirk fanboy; would have been fun to have Shatner do a cameo as Shatner (the NASA party would have been a perfect spot for this) if only to see Picard’s reaction.
Jurati’s story arc continues to be the most interesting part of the season so far for me; hope they don’t drop the ball with her.
It’s hard to make characters too distinct when you’re scrambling to keep a shaggy season arc going. Three-dimensional characters make choices, and sometimes those choices might not lead them to where you need them to be when you start paying off in episodes 8, 9, and 10 the stuff you setup in 1 & 2.
(It’s hard but the reward is that the show is better, which you might not have enough time & money to afford on account of shooting two seasons simultaneously and a dozen producers saying, “good enough, let’s move on.”)
Am I the only one who tried to call that number?
I only called it after I heard about the joke message.
Nope! It was great lol.
Loved it. Hope they keep it active a long time!
Again, the overwhelmingly positive response in these comments makes me wish I could see this show the way the majority of the audience seems to. You folks are being Star Trek fans the right way. All I could see was:
… The total pointlessness of Raffi-Seven-Rios’ original away mission. Even if Picard is the one who finds the Watcher, the fact that the three of them do nothing other than be 21st century tourists for the viewers — they do not gain any skills or meet any people that might help them in their mission (Star Trek IV did a good job of dividing up the crew and giving them or pairs of them mini missions) — is obnoxious. The La Sirena doesn’t work when it needs to and then does when the writers need it to, so the actors beamed away long enough for them to block shoot out the rest of their episodes for this and next season.
… If Q is posing as Renee’s NASA psychologist then he doesn’t need to nudge her, he could just recommend *to NASA* that she be scrubbed from the mission. If it’s more important that he convince her to give up, then that should’ve been made clearer. The other two storylines sort of muddy things up: Neither Q nor the Queen manipulate Soong or Jurati, respectively. They brute force their way to a desired result. But I don’t know, maybe the writers think poisoning someone’s daughter and holding an innocent person hostage is textbook manipulation.
… If the ship was repaired enough to bring the transporters back online and somehow repower the Queen enough so that she could throw around some nanoprobes, then why couldn’t Jurati just sleep in the ship? Oh, right, because they needed to contrive of a way to get her off the ship so the Queen could brute force her escape.
… A smart show would not leave THE BORG QUEEN alone. She doesn’t even have her baby forcefield on like she did when in the Confederation lab. That’s a Confederation ship. But Jurati has to ignore all of that so that we can get to the desired endpoint.
… Jurati knows how to use an ancient shotgun because she took an ancient Earth programming intro course at the Academy. WINK WINK.
… Jurati gets close enough to be touched by the Borg Queen because they need her to. EXCITING! (I think the “you’re alone” bit doesn’t really work — it’s played as though it IS working, but I never bought it, and this show hasn’t earned the right for me to “just go with it,” since they make a big intelligence-defying ask at least twice an episode already.
… The Picard-NotLaris scene(s) played a lot like the Guinan stuff in the last episode: perfunctory, expository dialogue that could’ve been spoken by anybody. Neither Picard nor NotLaris are characters. Nothing they do is motivated by character. And nothing they say is at all interesting.
… So much fake jeopardy/schmuck bait.
… Can really feel their 2-hour plot being stretched out over 10.
But again, I am fully wrong here. The people who like this show are watching it correctly.
No need to apologize for your opinion. If it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work for you. There is no incorrect way to watch something. (Unless you’re staring at your phone or hanging upside down. That’s incorrect.)
I’m glad its not just me. This episode really lost me but this season is just turning disappointing altogether. The first two episodes were great. But every since they got to 2024 it’s been feeling worse and worse for me. I agree with many of your points and said them in my own review too.
And no one is ‘wrong’, this is how opinions work. We just may be in the minority here, but it’s still just as valid as everyone else’s.
Exactly why I’m holding out now unt Ep 10 is out after watching 1st two episodes. They seem to be going for a 10 hour movie.. probably stupid to do. imo.
It’s a tv series afterall, so it needs to be structured as such.
ObiWan show for example is doing 6 episodes so that can still work if they want to go for a big cinematic extended movie sort of. But 10 hours is too much of a stretch here. The positive is the final act of the season may well go out with a bang as movies tend to do and seen in a ful context the whole season watched back might play much better.
Another Apollo 11 Easter egg: The “1202 Alarm” during Renée Picard’s crash drill is a reference to the same “1202 Program Alarm” that occurred during the final moments of Apollo 11 landing on the moon.
The committee’s description of Soong’s previous behavior ( “unmonitored, unregulated, illegal… genetic experiments with a privatized military organization; spearhead operations on soldiers”) seemed to imply he may have been involved in the Eugenics Wars.
I enjoyed this episode much more than 3 and 4. But my question is what is Q’s endgame here?
In all of TNG, Q was a jerk, and could be indifferent to human suffering. But it was in the way that a person has no feeling for an ant that it may step on. And, moreover, Q had moments where he seemed to genuinely care about Picard and Janeway, and show compassion.
This version of Q feels more outright malevolent.
I like your connection with the Eugenics Wars. Very good point!
Ok. Admit it. Eveyone called Q Lol. Yes. I did.
When the gala security system is explained, the date of birth on Renée Picard’s passport does not match the ID record on the scanner readout. (November 22 vs. July 1) You can see that these numbers are supposed to match when Dr. Jurati’s fake passport is scanned.
I noticed the November 22 vs July 1 discrepancy as well. I am speculating that the earlier date is the date that her parents created an ID for her in utero.
The passport contains further errors. The Numbers on the lower area of the passport do also encode birth date and gender of the owner, here (after the “FRA”) : birthdate 11.07.1989 and gender: male. The date de deliverance of the Passport is 27.09.2017, a sunday.
Good eye, Heiko242!
I agree that the episode was disjointed – some of the storylines were interesting and compelling but the Borg Queen Jurati storyline was lacking in so many ways.
Last week, I noted the Queen’s antagonistic attitude made no sense – simply because she too wanted the same thing as Picard and the rest of the team. As for Agnus, all she had to do was use a phaser to shut the Queen up for a few hours. No need for a shotgun. That storyline deserves a F.
As for the other storylines, each of them IMO deserved a passing grade for various levels of intrigue and interest. So far, the season is barely getting a passing grade, maybe a 6.5 out of 10. Let’s see what they come up with next week!
Haven’t even seen the ep yet, but absolutely loved the Q phone number easter egg! 😜
This episode was “meh.” I found myself bored this time. I’m losing interest. It’s become predictable and has a “been there done that” vibe. And I’m tired of the Soong family and Picard’s Kirk fetish. The first 3 episodes grabbed my interest, but these last two have left my eyes rolling. I hope it gets more interesting.
I’m sorry, but I am just not enjoying this season at all. Three straight disappointing episodes for me. Every one looks like it has promise until I watch them. I thought this one was going to be great. We finally know who the watcher is and would get a deep dive into Renee Picard. But it just felt meandering and a lot of time wasting for most of the episode.
Yes, I did like the watcher actually being connected to Gary Seven. That was pretty cool but it just went downhill for me after that. So Soong #47 is trying to cure his daughter through questionable genetics but the Eugenics Wars are never directly referenced. Star Trek it HAPPENED in canon, either deal with it or retcon it out of existence.
The entire ‘save Rios from evil ICE agents’ just felt like complete filler. Three episodes to basically bust him out and story over. Maybe they will swing it back to the doctor for some reason but does anyone truly care?
Seven and Raffi arguing over beaming Rios out of the bus and the ‘harm’ it can do if others saw, but somehow forgot the fact they just did that in the middle of downtown L.A. in front of a bunch of police officers. Did the writers truly forgot about that?
The stuff with Q being the therapist just felt really ridiculous. Really? He’s going to change history by having a session with her?
I really hate how everyone looks like other characters. Soong’s daughter, OK, I guess I have to buy Data or Soong of the 24th century decided to make a 400 year old ancestor the image of their new synth line. But fake Laris being the watcher? I thought there was going to be some big twist but nope, she just happens to look like Laris for some odd reason. We already discussed the Soongs to death.
I did like the Borg Queen cleverness with the officer. But c’mon, this is common lazy screenwriting where the officer doesn’t call for back up when he sees some cloaked space ship nonchalantly siting in the middle of a field but just goes in anyway. How do you not call THAT in???
The ‘heist’ scene looked interesting and will follow up next week but why couldn’t they just get to Renee BEFORE she entered it? Is there something needed besides her? They have transporters and a freaking Supervisor, I’m guessing they could’ve gotten to her before then. But maybe I’m forgetting something.
I’m just feeling disappointed in this season so far. Better than season one, but still making the same mistakes and mostly just feel like it’s spinning it’s wheels. I can see I’m the minority with my opinion here which is both good and bad. I REALLY want to like this season, it has all the elements I wanted, but it’s still just lacking overall for me.
Maybe next week will be better I guess.
I agree that, at least so far, the whole ICE plot line seems mostly like filler and an excuse to make some very on-the-nose commentary. I guess the main plot doesn’t give all characters something meaningful to do so they went on this side-plot. Maybe it’s best to think of it as A and B stories we often got on previous shows. Often, your main story just doesn’t involve all characters, and then you can either write them out of the episode or give them a B story.
I also agree that it’s getting ridiculous to see all these Soong ancestors that all look just like Brent Spiner. If you want to put blame, this was started during the Berman era (Arik Soong on ENT), the new shows are just continuing that trope. Spiner is pretty popular among fans so it makes sense from that sense to bring the actor back. As for Adam Soong’s daughter looking just like Soji, you can probably explain that away since Soji was an artificial creation that may have been designed after Kore. I guess now we know why Soji didn’t travel back in time with the rest of the crew: They didn’t want to have Isa Briones play two roles concurrently.
Could Laris be a future version of the watcher character we see here? Picard thinks she’s Laris but she doesn’t know who Laris is because that’s only in her future?
Wasn’t there a scene where the French officer tried to call in over the radio and only got static? Even complaining about “hating the countryside” or something?
Let’s no forget that this is rural France. There’s probably far less (gun) violence against police than in the US. He was the only officer on scene. Backup was far away, but there was probably also little reason for him to expect to be in any real danger. Cloaked ships do not exist in reality so he just saw some strange phenomenon that he couldn’t explain.
They don’t want to “get to Renee”. They just want to make sure Renee goes on her spaceflight, without anybody noticing. So they can’t kidnap her or anything. I think the watcher also mentioned that she is not allowed to make direct contact with Renee.
Save yourself and stop watching the show if you’re feeling soooo disappointed. Spare us also, from your negativity.
When Q’s business card appeared on-screen I immediately hit pause, called the number, and had myself a good chuckle…
Who else did so as well? 🤙😃
Can I just ask why a Board of Review would meet in a hallway?
You can survive without a spleen- my grandmother had hers removed and lived on for decades after the fact.
Was this the first Star Trek to have both French and Spanish in the same episode?
Man, did I love the Gary Seven connection this week. I had to stop the stream and play the KT end titles’ rendition of the TOS theme to celebrate this! I’m glad I have finally been right about something :-) And behold: the portal mist was blue that week as it was on TOS, not grey as last week…
Desperate dads, searching for a cure for their ailing daughters- accepting a miracle drug from a stranger. Sound familiar? Reminded me of Star Trek Into Darkness- with Q replacing Khan.
Picard is such a well made series full of great characters, but the writing in this episode wasn’t as tight as it has been this season. I think too much was left unexplained in this episode so I was deeply distracted by it. For example, why doesn’t Picard know much about Renee? What’s this convenient excuse that much of this time period was lost to history? How can Rene and the Europa mission be the key to paving the right path for Earth if we have already been set up to believe First Contact following WWIII is what set us on the right path? Whatever happens in 2024 is going to be meaningless by 2026 when WWIII begins so how can anything be relevant before that? We also get two characters showing up in this episode without any form of plausible explanation for their existence, hoping they will get around to it. Why does Soong have strange future tech in 2024, surely they aren’t suggesting we have drones with UV forcefields in 2024? Also, Agnes plucking a fully functioning shotgun off the fireplace mantle is another silly convenience in an episode that just has too many of them to overlook. And more importantly, why wasn’t the Watcher suspicious of the therapist? Surely you didn’t need Picard to figure that one out? And then there is Picard conveniently putting together Gary Seven for us in exposition, which was hamfisted to say the least. This episode also had some weird tonal shifts from scene to scene, even if the individual scenes themselves were great…they just didn’t fit together smoothly. There was also some editing issues I noticed here and there, mostly because they stood out as abrupt or confusing.
But on the bright side, Agnes and the Queen are so phenomenal, every scene they have together is a highlight for me. Just fantastic writing and performances, especially for Alison Pill who is a revelation this season.
Aaron Soong is great, I love the asshole billionaire mogul shtick, he’s playing it perfectly and convincingly. That entire scene with Q was perhaps my favorite of the episode, great writing and performances. This show is just nailing the two things they had to get right, Q and the Queen.
Another so-so episode. A big negative for me was making Picard’s ancestor the key to the future. Also another Soong is involved. It makes the universe feel small, and it’s getting awfully close to making these families the Skywalkers of Star Trek, with destiny and fate in the bloodline and all that.
Or maybe this is dream logic, all apart of Q’s illusions…? Right…? Nah, I can’t stretch that to make it work. It’s just mediocre writing.
Just an absolutely bizarre choice to introduce Renee in prior episode reading a book on a lunch break, and dressed like she’s an Apple Store specialist. There’s nothing about her in appearance or behavior that says she’s an astronaut. In the simulator scene, it played more like an actor doing a scene – as though Renee is an actor in a movie about an astronaut. Just shaggy.
Actually, my favorite part, is Picard has no idea about his ancestor’s role in the Europa Missions, but knows all about the importance of the Europa Missions. When they hand wave stuff, it’s so glaringly distracting and obvious.
Yes! It’s bizarre what they choose to double down on (constantly restating at the top of each scene what the episode objective) and what they decide to blow right past.
Picard actually mentioned Renee Picard in the season premiere so he knows she played a role in early exploration of the solar system but he may not know all details about her life.
Anyone notice the Frakes style camera work on the first shot of the Borg queen? Exactly like the first contact style…
Why didn’t the queen just turn the cop into a drone?
You guys forgot to mention something BIG in random bits.. Renee Picard… Renee Picard! Was Picards nephew that appeared in TNG multiple times and died in the fire with Picards brother in Generations!
Actually, that nephew of his was called René Picard.
After my feelings about jumping ship after episode 3, and being advised to stick with it just a bit longer, I am once again feeling appalled at the state of modern Trek. It’s rudderless. Jumping from one scene to the next with little true flow or understanding of how proper drama works. Or how Star Trek works. Or logic and intellect. So we’re halfway into this Season 2. And we’ve got further proof that the writers have ZERO idea of how things work in a professional organisation, or the chain of command. Which is why the crew were always more professional (and believable) in TOS, TNG etc. Writers often had had prior experience of doing service, or working in the Police force, or being familiar with those (family, friends) that had etc. Modern writers seemingly have none of that and seem to have as their only ‘rock’, pop culture references and winks and nods to far better written dramas and films from the past. None of these characters acts in a professional manner scene-to-scene. Take Rios. In episode 1, he told his crew to stop firing at the “Borg” “Queen”, and he had to issue that command three times before they ceased. Can you imagine Picard or Kirk or Janaway having to issue an order three times before the crew acted professionally? Officers are trained to react and still obey orders under considerable stress. There was no sign of that understanding whatsoever in that scene.
Take Raffi, as but one example. There is NO WAY somebody that ill tempered and ill disciplined would make the grade in the Starfleet we traditionally (at least) know from prior (pre 2009) productions. Michell Hurd – a superb actress – truly gives it her best shot in a badly written, haphazard and schizoid role. The appalling writing means there’s VERY little chance at all of any chance for crackling chemistry with Jeri Ryan. Her character would fit in far better in Discovery with it’s frequent and ludicrous use of over-emoting, bursting into tears, and “ACT-ing mo-ments”. Emotional moments placed there ‘just because’, not because it’s been earned by good quality writing to develop naturally from the scene, or that the writers really understand emotions beyond sitcom or soap level drivel. Acting moments are, like Star Trek moments, seemingly put into a blender and sh*t out at random and patchwork’d together with thin scripting, yet top quality production values to fool many into thinking they’re watching quality entertainment…
OK, so we haven’t had anything close to an eyeball being slowly pulled out whilst the victim screams in agony, like Season 1. But, we’ve had a Starfleet officer slitting throats (and Raffi wise-cracking afterwards!) (read that again if you don’t ‘get it’. Starfleet officers do not slit throats to get out of a scrape!). We’ve had the use of sh*t, pr*ck, and in episode 5, they couldn’t resist another F-bomb. Why am I so angry? I’m angry because episode 1 showed THEY CAN STILL DO IT, IF THEY WANT! Episode 1 (as MANY had commented joyfully) was quintessential Star Trek. Star Trek that is exciting, well written, well acted, has an edge, BUT has the class not to cross it, so it can be watched by every age group, so it’s ultimate message of ‘we can do better as a race working together’ can be appreciated, and inspiring to all! Instead it’s been snatched away from the younger audience members. And for what? Is having cussing and casual neck slitting violence in Trek warranted to make it “cool” by some in the audience? Do the producers and show runners truly think it makes Star Trek ‘less square’ (it survived VERY well being a somewhat niche show without pandering to the masses!) by being ‘edgy’ in some way?
I am disappointed and ANGRY with Sir Patrick, Frakes, Spiner, the snow runners, the script writers for allowing this to happen. Shame on you all! I was inspired by Star Trek as a kid, as were millions. And now you’ve rendered it suitable for 13/15 (depending upon the episode ratings!) year old demographics only! Bravo! Proud of yourselves?….. You shouldn’t be.
My last hope is Strange New Worlds. Though as Kurtzman is behind this one too, I am sure it’ll be “course correcting” episode to episode as it tries to pander towards every pop-culture whim that’s flavour of the month, rather than ploughing it’s own course. All his others shows have the same failure mechanisms – chopping and changing throughout and not knowing which direction they’re taking tonally, or in terms of demographics. Will Strange New Worlds be the live action FAMILY friendly Trek many fans desire? Time will tell, but my well of patience has pretty much run dry. This “franchise” needs a FAR more appropriate show runner.
@I, Mugsy — you are spot-on about the writers, especially the Discovery writers. The writing is just so juvenile and immature and inexperienced. I’m constantly thinking that these must be twenty-somethings writing the shows today, and as you said, apparently writing from no life experience at all. It’s really sad to see.
Just so we’re clear, NotLaris — Renee’s Watcher — can’t get close to her, necessitating the Ocean’s Eleven sequence in the next episode, but she CAN take over other people’s bodies to talk to and escort Picard to her in the previous episode?