[Jonathan Frakes interview (with spoilers) starts at 02:47 / Picard episode review starts at 22:55]
Tony and Laurie are joined by Jonathan Frakes for part of the podcast this week! He talks about the PanCAN PurpleStride walk taking place on April 29 and how important it is to keep funding research to fight pancreatic cancer, how he and his TNG co-stars didn’t “dare hope” that they’d get to do what they’ve been doing on Star Trek: Picard, and what it was like filming THAT scene in episode 309. He also raves about the Strange New Worlds/Lower Decks crossover episode he directed and describes a new project he’s hoping will come to fruition with Brent Spiner.
News-wise, Laurie and Tony talk about the upcoming IMAX screenings for episodes 9 and 10 of Picard (and the accompanying kerfuffle), and review Picard episode 9, “Võx,” discussing the revelations about Jack, the Frontier Day plans to take over Starfleet, the surprise guest star, the surprise death, and that classic ship.
They wrap up with a new Star Trek event from the folks at The 7th Rule and a particularly fun episode of the Trek, Marry, Kill podcast.
Links:
‘Star Trek: Picard’ 2-Part Series Finale Will Be Shown In Select IMAX Theaters
Trek Against Pancreatic Cancer (Join the team or donate)
Jonathan Frakes Previews “Absurd” ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ / ‘Lower Decks’ Crossover Episode
The Terminator 2 Liquid T-1000 reassembles
David Mack’s Star Trek: Destiny trilogy
Trekbits:
Tony: Cirroc Lofton and The 7th Rule announce “The Sisko Day”
Laurie: Trek, Marry, Kill’s “Elysian Kingdom” episode
Let us know what you think of the episode in the comments, and should you be so inclined, please review us on Apple.
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Well it certainly has it surprises in this episode. For me, it was seeing an old friend once again… NCC1701-D. Welcome back, although part of me wanted to see NCC1701-A but thats because I grew up on TOS. So glad that Jonny Frakes is directing so many episodes!!!
Did I hear incorrectly or did Frakes spoil someone for the finale, early on in his interview?
I think he’s talking about Wheaton filming a Ready Room episode on the set.
Yep!
I think I might have run into what Remco is talking about. At one point Frakes mentions that the show ends with the potential for a spinoff, naming all of the younger characters we’ve seen…and one we haven’t. I don’t want to spoil it here because it would be a nice reveal and would close the loop on a major question.
Oh, now I know who you’re talking about! I think.
I heard it too. Are you guys talking about the M name he mentioned or the F name mentioned? I thought the way he mentioned the latter was interesting.
Geordi was like, “yeah, my little girls are assimilated, but you totally gotta check out what I’ve been working on in docking bay 12.”
Same with Beverly and Jean Luc. I think they needed a little bit of Discovery, hugs and whispers, due to the situation. :D
It’s actually true. All playing very cool knowing Jack, Sidney, and Alandra are in grave danger.
everybody is in danger. theyre also professionals. remember tng?
I felt like they had their moment of worrying about everyone, and then made the group decision to focus on taking care of the situation vs. taking more time to freak out about it. I think that’s what the Geordi/Jean-Luc moment was about as well as Troi bringing up some of the kids by name.I would’ve liked a Riker-Troi moment mentioning Kestra… all along I wanted that, but especially right then.
Eh, not so much. They aren’t little girls, they are Starfleet officers. Geordi had him moment, and Data got him to focus. I’d be upset if he was wandering the corridors, weeping inconsolably…
Gerordi already had his ‘I need to respect my daughters’ choice of service’ moment.
He’s also the child of Starfleet officers himself. Continuing to serve and work the problem is deeply wired.
People have called this element of TNG ‘competence p*rn’.
I think the show needs more of it, not less.
I hope we get that kind of cool headed, what weird thing’s next, we’ll work the problem together, competence in Trek.
That’s what my nostalgia was looking for that’s been missing in a lot of the effort to make Trek more real to younger, broader audiences.
Great interview guys, and podcast as usual…
Frakes said everybody loves Shaw… then continued with saying how that’s some great material for a spin-off (I’m paraphrasing)… Is that a spoiler that Shaw isn’t dead?
And before that he was talking about how Wil Wheaton was on the set… then appeared to catch himself and scrambled to explain that he was there to film his show… Do we believe him?
One can only hope. He’s been one of the biggest brights spots of the season, and it would be terribly short sighted to kill him off. If they do, it would mean they’ve killed off the best NEW character in every recent live-action Trek series:
-Lorca
-Hemmer
-Shaw
This is a stupid trend.
Thank you for saying that first on this thread.
I’m resigned about Lorca, still bitter about Hemmer. I’m in denial about Shaw.
The look on Seven’s face at the time of Shaw’s death indicated a moment of internal conflict. “Do I use my Borg nanoprobes to resurrect a man that passionately hates the Borg?”. At least that is how it appeared to me.
When Neelix was resurrected, he was not happy with Seven as he did not perceive an afterlife. I would expect that Shaw would not be happy with Seven if she chooses to resurrect him. Sets up potentially interesting storylines in a spinoff.
I’m amazed how many Borg apologists there are for a race that commits genocide.
I think it makes sense Shaw wants her to move on from a race who basically kidnapped her and used her body.
Also amazed how many people give ignoring the possibility of being compromised a pass to the point all Starfleet officers under 25 just got assimilated.
After rewatching with my spouse yesterday, and a couple of hours to mull it over, I think I have figured out a new angle to Shaw’s final words and sacrifice.
Yep, here comes a ‘hear me out’ theory…
When, on the bridge, the younger crew are assimilated and the ship is coming under Borg control, Shaw is shown pausing to enter a series of taps into the keypad in the left arm of his captain’s chair.
When he dies he says, “the ship is already yours anyway Seven of Nine.”
It’s possible Shaw formally transferred command to Seven before they left the bridge in the hope that, as Seven of Nine, Borg, she can take control back as she did the Borge cube in season one.
Perhaps Titan can be a Trojan Horse within the collective.
By the way, Matalas has said in new interviews that it was always Shaw’s arc to be the one to die to let others get to the shuttle just as the lieutenant on the Constance died for him.
I can accept that completion for him. He was stuck by trauma in that moment.
But I want to see him go past that and grow and change.
Seven needs to use those assimilation tubules still embedded in her hand and give him nanoprobes.
I’m with you on this one TG47. I want to see Shaw next week and beyond….
Could be that even though they mentioned they had seen the screener for 9 to him, he might have still just be in the mindset of only talking about stuff that had happened in what had aired to avoid spoilers (which it sounded like 8 was the most recent).
Gaping blaster holes in his (and Shelby’s) torso suggest they’re actually gone. Let’s assume Seven has a limited supply of nanoprobes, and move on from that ‘fix all’ prop device…
Fingers crossed you are right about Shaw.
Where’s the Ready Room episode this week?!?! You know they filmed all of them waling on the D bridge set for the first time. We’ve got to see that!!!
They posted on social media that they were delaying it until Saturday to give people more of a chance to watch the episode.
Thank you!
My appreciation for Frakes has certainly grown during this season, not only on the screen, but hearing him so much more when he does publicity. He’s been an MVP in S3 of Picard, and a terrific ambassador for Star Trek in general. I would love to see him in some sort of showrunning type of role for a new series. I think he has what it takes to go that path, with a partner like Terry.
I hope Paramount realizes what a gem Frakes is.
Watching TNG, I’d never thought there’d be a day where a Trek show got exponentially better every time Frakes was on screen.
His acting this season has been revelatory and it’s been a joy to watch.
Great discussion as always, thanks! I noted how you both said you needed to watch the episode twice to fully follow what was happening. I’ve only seen it once and still am unclear about the Borg – Changeling connection, concretely in terms of The Face and Vadek. How did Face disrupt Vader’s bodily stability, eg? And heretofore it was the Founders who were the amazing geneticists, not the Borg. My own more DS9-oriented pah wraith theory was proven totally wrong (though I think it was coherent with the wraiths’ established abilities and attitudes). Oh well. Now to see how the denouement plays out. Thanks again.
Surprised to hear there was no take on Seven calling the Data “the Robot”
It was on my “favorite lines” list but I forgot to get to it with all the other stuff in there.
Made me think of Pulaski a little bit. And I also thought of her because if there was some young officer who managed to avoid using the transporter because he had McCoy Syndrome, he could have been key to overtuning the takeover or aiding the escape, assuming they had set him up that way earlier in the season.
The way they handled the Jack situation bothered me. It would have been so easy to gather the relevant people and talk about what was happening with him and decide together how to go about solving it. Jack is a young man who takes it upon himself to solve things, were they really that naive to think he wold accept being sent to some Vulcan institute? But then again the story needed him to run off to the cube. And the fact that his mother wasn´t in the room with them was just stupid.
I really hope they give Raffi & Seven some good moments the last episode.
So, did Picard die of Irumodic syndrome or no? And if no, what did he die of?
Picard died of the partially developed changes to his parietal lobe caused by the genetic editing by the Borg.
As Data recorded as Soong’s conclusion, it was a misdiagnosis.
Thanks again for the great podcast and discussion. The interview with Jonathan Frakes was very well conducted. He so obviously feels very comfortable talking to you both and it showed in his responses.
I loved the episode and continue to be impressed by the degree to which details of the plot have remained hidden. Normally things are spoiled to high heaven before they air, but not so (much) with this series. For example, while many speculated about the Borg, it was uncertain that they were involved up until the reveal and I for one, was genuinely surprised and delighted to see the return of “Shelby”.
If I have a downer on the episode (and it’s a big one), it’s the “apparent” demise of Shaw. Todd Stashwick has been phenomenal this season and if he is truly gone, it will IMO be a big loss to this era of Star Trek. As other posters have commented, I also thought that Jonathan Frakes dropped a spoiler when he was talking about a future legacy show with Seven and Shaw et al, so perhaps we might get another “surprise” next week. I’d certainly be delighted if Captain Shaw is still around.
I´m not a fan of having the two legacy female guest characters, Ro and Shelby, both being killed off. I get why they did it for the story but I wish they had found another way.
And I´ve been thinking about my reaction to the Borg revelation. When we saw the cube I wasn´t really surprised. I sort of sighed and thought, well of course it´s the Borg. On one hand I understand it, another part of me wanted something different. The set-up of the Changelings/Vadic as the big bad being completely dismissed is a shame. Vadic was one of the most interesting, nuanced, villians in a long time.
Prior to Ro reappearing, there was chatter she didn’t survive the Dominion War, as the Maque were wiped out by the Dominion. In the context of what was presented, if the assimilated Starfleet was indiscriminately killing all over the age of twenty five, Shelby was just one of tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of Starfleet personel to meet their end at Frontier Day.
It begs a question, just how many assaults can Starfleet absorb before it ceases being a viable organization? The Dominion War, the Synth attack, the Living Construct, and now this, that’s a helluva lot of casualties over twenty years to absorb.
You guys seem to have a pretty good vide, it’s been a pleasure listening.
I spotted one of the auction items for the pancreatic cancer fundraiser. I didn’t win it, but ended up bidding it up about 30%. Every little bit helps.
I noticed, when the Excelsior made it’s break, that one of the ships gunning it down was the USS Hikaru Sulu. Kind of a morbid nod, there…
When Shelby refers to the fleet being incapacitated, she is not referring to the ships. She means the crews. If a crew or several crews or even the entire fleet were incapacitated by a virus or battle damage (lack of life support), then the ships could still operate under remote control.
I agree that Seven would have been very useful for the mission against the Borg, and her and Raffi staying behind on the Titan didn’t really make sense. And I was surprised that Picard and the others let them stay behind with so little protest…
Tony/Laurie,
S3 Picard is so good, I get up an hour and a half early to watch it on Thursday mornings. I’ve never done that for any other series. This last episode had me crying, cheering, and just excited! I went to work smiling and humming all day the FC theme. I didn’t see the Ent-D coming. I didn’t see those clues. I was thinking Delta Flyer or some other retro ship. I cheered and celebrated seeing it again. P+ needs to hire Terry. He’s fantastic. He has balanced nostalgia while advancing the story. It reminds me of Prodigy. Both shows found that equilibrium.
Your podcast made me laugh. Especially, Worf being the first one to leave. Both of you were terrific.
My Trek Tidbits:
I finally got a 4K player and watched TMP Directors edition. Wow! It looks and sounds amazing. It doesn’t look like a 1979 film anymore. Afterwards I put in TNG Bluray to watch Encounter at Farpoint. OMG! It’s beautiful remastered. The sound is crazily good. I want S3 Picard on 4K.
You are making me want a 4K player! (And glad you enjoyed the podcast.) I agree, this season is just a joy to watch (even when I’m crying).
Just wanted to say how much I love your podcast! I am a big Star Trek fan (got hooked watching TNG when it originally aired) but I’m not one who remembers every detail and story arc. So with the new series (Discovery, SNW, and Picard), I watch the episodes when they come out and as soon as I finish, I start to wonder what Tony and Laurie will say about it. You explain things that went over my head and help me make the connections to the other shows. And I love your critiques. You can laugh at the silly stuff without disparaging the show. After I listen to your podcast, I go back and watch the episode again and notice so much more. So thanks for helping me enjoy Star Trek even more!
Thank you so much! I can think of no better goal than helping someone enjoy Star Trek even more. Love it.