2.07: Star Trek: Picard - Monsters
- Thread starter ctg
- Start date
Given everything else going on, I thought that Picard's mind trip was a waste of screen time.
I don't really care about Picard's mommy issues and his resultant personal relationship difficulties. I don't know how much help a human doctor could believably provide for a malfunctioning android. The defibrillator jolt should have been enough for a restart.
Being busted by the feds seems like an unnecessary and repetitive plot complication.
I don't really care about Picard's mommy issues and his resultant personal relationship difficulties. I don't know how much help a human doctor could believably provide for a malfunctioning android. The defibrillator jolt should have been enough for a restart.
Being busted by the feds seems like an unnecessary and repetitive plot complication.
ctg
weaver of the unseen
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I have to say that it bugs me that this series is dropping in score numbers as farther it ventures into this murky plot that involves so much around the TT concept. The most intriguing detail that they have not brought back in is the ST's Temporal Agency, which in theory should have noticed the variation in the primary timeline. Then again, most of the people, like I do, seems to also not remember that this is Alternative Reality and not the Real Thing.
Then as we dive into Picard's mind, straight at the beginning, we'll get this image,
and it reminded me about this
That is Mass Effect series antagonist called The Illusive Man and like Picard, he is a powerful character. There were so, so many things in the first brief that spoke about them being aligned more then symbolically. Especially the way Picard were trying to convince DS9's Dr Julian Bashir made me think about the Illusive Man narrative, but as we know from Bashir, he didn't give up on the fight.
I thought from Picard's PoV, it was a futile game. One he couldn't win. And the first story he brought up was a queen story, about the princess wanting to be more like the queen instead of the king, and then the monsters arrived to kidnap his mum.
When Doctor pushed him to finish the story, Picard refused and he claimed, "Sometime a story ends with a boy lost and alone in a dungeon." Man, what a spoil sport, but I get his reluctance on venturing into the darkness. It is a scary place, to think about death and desolation, as Bashir suggested with his, "There's a thousand ways to die out there..."
The intriguing thing is that he figured out that he wasn't alone, just as Tallinn entered into his mind to find the boy Picard lost without his mum, and he wasn't prepared to be the prince brace. Instead saving the queen was outsider's problem, not his.
Denial has been his weakness for a long time and instead of being the man-of-action, he has mostly dodged that and allowed others to do it on his behalf. It made me smile, when Julian pressed on that issue and forced Picard to admit that he's stuck.
Bashir analysed, "Why do you find it so difficult to be open, Jean-Luc? To let people in? You hold them, you hold everyone, at arm's length. Lest-lest what? Perhaps there's a version of yourself you're hiding? Something you're afraid others will see? A darker version, perhaps? A secret shame? A guilt? What is it... What is it that you define yourself by?"
Oh man, I loved it and I thought that the monster in closet was the Locustus and that Picard actually liked being him. The general instead of the captain, diplomat and an explorer of extraordinary things.
The twist is that at the end Picard saw Julian as the monster, the king from the story, the gatekeeper, who couldn't allow him to escape from his mind, even though he'd given him every opportunity. It was the doctor who saw behind the curtains to bring out the skeleton's from Picard's past, where his mum went bonkers and became violent. A monster.
So who really is the gatekeeper, Dr Julian Bashir or Adm. Picard?
Oh girls, why kissing Captain Rios is such a bad thing? I liked that Raffi suggested a relationship between two of them, now that the boy wonder were out of the picture. But like always Seven dodged it, never tying a knot on anything. Not even for fun.
I especially liked the imaginery of them two sitting on park benches, tripping teens with their canes as an old couple. It would suit them so well. Jagging and doing naught things. The last laugh was on the Borg Queen, for having encrypted and taken over all of their system as it was agreed before she got double barrel worth of shells in her face.
For some reason it also made me think about the ghost-in-the-shell concept and that being a real possibility since they've already crossed so many genre borders.
Oh man, I just love Cpt Rios. He is always doing something naughty and he always has an explanation that nobody believes. I especially liked, when the Doctor got offended of being locked out in her own clinic and then when she saw clearly alien tech, she screamed, "What the h*ll is going on?"
"A procedure," Rios answered, honestly and well knowing that 21st century person could not handle alien tech without freaking out. The whole conversation afterwards was a comedy brilliance to me, as he got accused of being a psycho freak, and god knows what else wasn't voiced out loud, he's answer was the classical, "I need to explain something to you..."
Oh, we men, we never learn from digging a hole underneath ourselves, when mansplain enters into our mind and comes from our lips, before realisation of being quiet would have been a better. Then again, I don't think there's nothing he could have done, when a woman has already set their mind. All he could really do was to stand firm and deny the doctor from disconnecting Picard from the alien connection.
He did the right thing by summoning the neural oscillator, but trusting that 21st century GP can handle 24, 25the century tech on fly was a stupid move. It as if you'd give a rifle to a monkey and expect it to fire accurately, just like that. And yet, somehow the doctor, not only figured out how to handle the business, but she also realised the alien connection.
Thing is, she didn't freaked out. Instead it looked as if she did find it a little bit exciting to be talking to "a man from Chile, that works outer space." And at the end she even liked Rios mansplaining his life. Even bring her and the boy to "his spaceship."
Agnes terminator moment. I would have loved seeing it in the Borg vision mode. But instead of going more deeper into it, her bashing the club windows to hear electronic emissions was super weird and it made no sense, at all. Why would she do that, when she could have done the same thing much better next to a telephone mast, or a junction box.
There. Pointy-ears. "Romulan," Picard snapped. "I knew it."
"Usually," she answered. "We are recruited to watch over our own, but, on occasion, a similar species." Man, Romulan camouflage tech once again, and it'll also explain why she's a bit older looking in the future. Maybe more important thing is that Picard finally realised that the story wasn't about him, but about Q, and that all of it was happening because he's tied to that god, like Sheridan was tied to Kosh.
The interesting thing is that when Picard tried to summon said god with help of Quinnan, the ******* didn't appear. Instead the Feds appeared.
Then as we dive into Picard's mind, straight at the beginning, we'll get this image,
and it reminded me about this
That is Mass Effect series antagonist called The Illusive Man and like Picard, he is a powerful character. There were so, so many things in the first brief that spoke about them being aligned more then symbolically. Especially the way Picard were trying to convince DS9's Dr Julian Bashir made me think about the Illusive Man narrative, but as we know from Bashir, he didn't give up on the fight.
I thought from Picard's PoV, it was a futile game. One he couldn't win. And the first story he brought up was a queen story, about the princess wanting to be more like the queen instead of the king, and then the monsters arrived to kidnap his mum.
When Doctor pushed him to finish the story, Picard refused and he claimed, "Sometime a story ends with a boy lost and alone in a dungeon." Man, what a spoil sport, but I get his reluctance on venturing into the darkness. It is a scary place, to think about death and desolation, as Bashir suggested with his, "There's a thousand ways to die out there..."
The intriguing thing is that he figured out that he wasn't alone, just as Tallinn entered into his mind to find the boy Picard lost without his mum, and he wasn't prepared to be the prince brace. Instead saving the queen was outsider's problem, not his.
Denial has been his weakness for a long time and instead of being the man-of-action, he has mostly dodged that and allowed others to do it on his behalf. It made me smile, when Julian pressed on that issue and forced Picard to admit that he's stuck.
Bashir analysed, "Why do you find it so difficult to be open, Jean-Luc? To let people in? You hold them, you hold everyone, at arm's length. Lest-lest what? Perhaps there's a version of yourself you're hiding? Something you're afraid others will see? A darker version, perhaps? A secret shame? A guilt? What is it... What is it that you define yourself by?"
Oh man, I loved it and I thought that the monster in closet was the Locustus and that Picard actually liked being him. The general instead of the captain, diplomat and an explorer of extraordinary things.
The twist is that at the end Picard saw Julian as the monster, the king from the story, the gatekeeper, who couldn't allow him to escape from his mind, even though he'd given him every opportunity. It was the doctor who saw behind the curtains to bring out the skeleton's from Picard's past, where his mum went bonkers and became violent. A monster.
So who really is the gatekeeper, Dr Julian Bashir or Adm. Picard?
Oh girls, why kissing Captain Rios is such a bad thing? I liked that Raffi suggested a relationship between two of them, now that the boy wonder were out of the picture. But like always Seven dodged it, never tying a knot on anything. Not even for fun.
I especially liked the imaginery of them two sitting on park benches, tripping teens with their canes as an old couple. It would suit them so well. Jagging and doing naught things. The last laugh was on the Borg Queen, for having encrypted and taken over all of their system as it was agreed before she got double barrel worth of shells in her face.
For some reason it also made me think about the ghost-in-the-shell concept and that being a real possibility since they've already crossed so many genre borders.
Oh man, I just love Cpt Rios. He is always doing something naughty and he always has an explanation that nobody believes. I especially liked, when the Doctor got offended of being locked out in her own clinic and then when she saw clearly alien tech, she screamed, "What the h*ll is going on?"
"A procedure," Rios answered, honestly and well knowing that 21st century person could not handle alien tech without freaking out. The whole conversation afterwards was a comedy brilliance to me, as he got accused of being a psycho freak, and god knows what else wasn't voiced out loud, he's answer was the classical, "I need to explain something to you..."
Oh, we men, we never learn from digging a hole underneath ourselves, when mansplain enters into our mind and comes from our lips, before realisation of being quiet would have been a better. Then again, I don't think there's nothing he could have done, when a woman has already set their mind. All he could really do was to stand firm and deny the doctor from disconnecting Picard from the alien connection.
He did the right thing by summoning the neural oscillator, but trusting that 21st century GP can handle 24, 25the century tech on fly was a stupid move. It as if you'd give a rifle to a monkey and expect it to fire accurately, just like that. And yet, somehow the doctor, not only figured out how to handle the business, but she also realised the alien connection.
Thing is, she didn't freaked out. Instead it looked as if she did find it a little bit exciting to be talking to "a man from Chile, that works outer space." And at the end she even liked Rios mansplaining his life. Even bring her and the boy to "his spaceship."
Agnes terminator moment. I would have loved seeing it in the Borg vision mode. But instead of going more deeper into it, her bashing the club windows to hear electronic emissions was super weird and it made no sense, at all. Why would she do that, when she could have done the same thing much better next to a telephone mast, or a junction box.
There. Pointy-ears. "Romulan," Picard snapped. "I knew it."
"Usually," she answered. "We are recruited to watch over our own, but, on occasion, a similar species." Man, Romulan camouflage tech once again, and it'll also explain why she's a bit older looking in the future. Maybe more important thing is that Picard finally realised that the story wasn't about him, but about Q, and that all of it was happening because he's tied to that god, like Sheridan was tied to Kosh.
The interesting thing is that when Picard tried to summon said god with help of Quinnan, the ******* didn't appear. Instead the Feds appeared.
ctg
weaver of the unseen
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2007
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- 9,829
Yeah, they wasted 60 percent of the time on that alone, when it could have been done in ten minutes or less.
It's Q again. Feds wouldn't be watching all cams. Would they?
Elckerlyc
"Philosophy will clip an angel's wings."
Totally agree. Besides, is there a law that prohibits beaming directly into a city? I could understand it if authorities would like a chat with aomeone who apparently has this ability. But apprehending someone for appearing out of nowhere and who (theoretically at least) could as easily beam away anytime he wishes seems ... er.... something only lazy script writers can think of.
But it explained why they have been beaming around in public without any precautions against being observed. The script writers needed it to cue some Feds in. It's for the same reason why Rios, without any apparent cause, ended up 10 meters up the sky at his first foray into the 21st century. The writers needed a doctor in the show.
I agree that it went on too long, but even so, there was still a lot to unpick in this episode.
Firstly, I'm very confused about the inner workings of Picard's mind. And it's not Bashir. He was a doctor, this was a psychologist. Or was it Picard's father? Or both? And what's wrong exactly with the mother? White doors? Voldemort?
Also, Jean-Luc had an elder brother, Robert Picard, six years older than him. Seen in ST: TNG: Where No One Has Gone Before Where is he?
Yet more nods and winks to ST: IV The Voyage Home here. Rios used a new spin on James Kirk's line, "I'm from Iowa, I only work in outer space," when he says, "No, I'm from Chile. I just…I work in outer space."
Rios was just showing off here. What point is there to show them his spaceship? Will it help them to keep his visit a secret, or make it more likely they will accidently part with the knowledge. In ST: IV The Voyage Home, Dr, Gillian Taylor was conveniently taken to the future by Kirk. If they do that here then they'd need to take her child too. How does Rios know if the child's life wouldn't be critically important to the future (like Captain John Christopher in the TOS episode Tomorrow is Yesterday.)
I didn't believe that!
But you were correct!
That's all new back story about the El Aurians and the Q Continuum, never explained before. It explains why Q once called Guinan "a witch" if she can summon him at will (usually).
True, most camera's are not continuously monitored, but there is software available, and some important cameras are. It is possible that Q slipped them a hint to take a look, but doesn't he seem to have other pressing problems if he has lost his powers and cannot be summoned.
I did wonder the very same thing. I guess Picard can say, "If I could really appear and disappear out of thin air, don't you think I would do that now, rather than have to sit and listen to your questions?"
ctg
weaver of the unseen
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Well, yeah, but I also did think that the Fed guy was really from Q continuum and there is some plot that we are not fully aware going at the background. They've played these games before, if my memory serves me correctly.
"Fed Ex Guy" (or Ex Fed Guy), who drinks wine and likes science fiction; he might have been from the Q Continuum, and his badge might be fake, but there were real agents with guns in the bar too. Are you suggesting that they don't know their boss is an alien imposter; or does he have a second job, side hustling as a Federal Agent; or are they just conjured up? Him being Q would explain why he isn't worried about Picard "disappearing," but in that case why were the guns and the badge showing necessary. Was it just to fuel Picard's insatiable desire for more Dixon Hill?
RE: The dive into Picard's brain... it's not a terrible, uninteresting, or even badly executed idea. It feels like a good idea for a stand-alone Picard-centered episode of TNG. It just doesn't belong in this story. We've just had Queen Jurati make the jump to a full-blown Marvel-style supervillain, Kora Soong has found out she's just the latest in a long line of clones, and Q's putting out hits on people. That whole chunk of episode felt like it would have made a blinding extra for the DVD box set, but right now I want to see what happens when Queen J runs across the local mob or PD.
