One thing I appreciate about Rick and Morty is how is regularly attempts to subvert sci-fi tropes, but for the most part I recognize that when it comes to storytelling, there ain't nothing new under the sun. "It's been done before" is a meaningless criticism when everything has been done before.
To be fair, though, you do tend to stoop pretty low in this forum. @Federal Farmer can hardly be blamed for his reaction considering your history.
Memba Riker? Memba Troi? Episode 7 was actually decent. It's pretty clear that this was a last-minute insertion in order to give the story some badly needed perspective and to add some membaberries. But, the membaberries actually work well here, as I feel like Stewart's acting chops are revived since he's working with people he's familiar with. The actress who plays Riker's daughter is really good and I liked her interaction with Soji. This is the approach that they should have been taking from the start. Other than that, I still don't get the hard-on that Kurtzman and Co seem to have for needlessly killing legacy characters. Wish we could have gotten more backstory on Hugh before he bit it. What happened to him and his group after Lore was defeated? How was he discovered and de-Borged? Was everyone else in his group de-Borged? Did he have a choice? This is why I have issues with a lot of the membaberries in STP. If you're going to bring in legacy characters, you need to give them proper exposition.
Just took in episode 7. Lots of warm nostalgia in this one. Very much enjoyed seeing Troi and Riker again, and Kestra had a lot of personality- stole every scene, basically. What I DID NOT like was another example of the weaponization / trivialization of the Vulcan mind meld. You'll know exactly whereof I speak when you see the scene. Remember the slow, emotion-laden, angsty times Spock and Sarek would reluctantly agree to a meld in TOS and the TOS movies? Long gone are those days. Now it should be relabeled 'Vulcan mental rape.' As time goes on, the crew of the ship are becoming a side show- does Picard actually really need them for anything? Other than a taxi service, I guess. End of a character we were excited to see again. The return of another character we were excited to see again is coming, probably next week. Loved how the quiet, rustic Troi-Riker spread was 'fully equipped' with tech embedded behind the scenes. That's how I imagine it would really be. Rom-chick remains deliciously hawt and evil. I could just sit and watch her in action all day, along with her villainous, evil, fake British accent. Okay, this episode had a few chinks in the armor but I'm still fully on board with it. Engaging me 1000x more than Disco.
This was a bit more of what I'm looking for from this show. I think the mind meld between Oh and Jurati helped me to process what it was that changed Jurati so much but still a bit of a cop out by not revealing too much of the plot too soon. I've been trying my best to like Raffi but I just... Her dialogue with Jurati just felt like she was reading from a bed time story. I do hope her character can be redeemed at some point... or not. Just do something interesting with her. Please. And what are they trying to do with her hair? We are supposed to understand that Raffi was Picard's #1 at one point. I'm guessing she was Starfleet Intelligence or a Chief of Security or something like that. Why is she on the bridge of a ship in her PJ's and covered with a blanket all the time? With LaForge, Dr. Crusher and Worf out there somewhere, why did Picard come to her FIRST when he needed help? Show us THAT Raffi. Please. It was awesome to see Riker & Troi again. So much of the interaction between the 3 of them felt so authentic to who they were and how they might have grown. I really liked the line from Deanna when she admitted to Picard that she's "not as brave as I used to be." That's just so real to me as someone who has matured a bit and understands that. And how Riker was all ready to drop everything and ready at a moment's notice to help his old friend. I hope to see them both again and soon. So this was episode 7 of 10... I don't know if I can handle a cliffhanger this season but I think I feel one coming.
Things do seem to be shaping up that way. I get it, I guess- if this all resolves in one season, what's left for Picard to do but head home and tend the grapes?
Hadn't really thought about it in that context, but you make a strong point here. Raffi has been singularly unimpressive as a character, other than her obvious skillset as a slicer / information warfare pro.
Yeah, there's some serious Boomer vibes happening there, right down to the actress being probably Asian but I haven't actually checked.
I mean, part of it was Raffi being a washed up druggie with nothing left to lose, unlike his other former subordinates that he didn't throw under the bus.... But yeah, hopefully there are some flashbacks coming showing Admiral Picard and his kickass XO Raffi before everything went to shit.
Man, S1E7 was great. I actually choked up when Will and Picard embraced in the house. Let me also make a point. The novelization of ST:VI TUC, went into a lot of detail about the mind meld between Spock and Valeris. How it was mental rape to do that and how hard it was for Spock. It was really deep and really rich. In that context, what Oh did to Jurati makes a lot of sense. It wasn't a sharing of memories and consciousness, it was an attack. Oh raped Jurati. The previews for next week looked great. Elnor needed an XB. Well, he's getting one...and hells coming with her.
SPOILERS Yep, 10. I'm not even gonna. It's a 10. I'm just going to talk about how awesome it was to see Riker and Troi, and their daughter Kestra. Yep! They have a daughter, she's a cutie pie, and her name is Kestra (clearly named after Deanna's dearly departed sister from when she was a child). The episode would have been a solid 7 or 8 all around anyway, it was very well done, but that Riker and Troi were there, in all their awesome, nostalgic glory, it pushed it to a 10. The cabin on Nepenthe, their first meeting after so many years, the reminiscing, watching as Kestra bonded with Soji, it was just fantastic. I could have watched an hour of Picard, Riker, and Troi catching up, and it would have been an hour well spent. Still, we finally find out why Dr. Jurati killed Maddox. She has been lead to believe by Commodore Oh that if she does not stop Soji, Earth, and other Federation worlds, will be obliterated by the Synths. Whether it's true or not, I can't rightly say, but I have a feeling the motivation was implanted in her along with that tracking chip. I believe Commodore Oh manipulated Jurati's mind to believe the Federation would be destroyed if she didn't succeed. It was also sad to watch as Hugh was killed by Narek's sister (forgot her name, don't like her, not looking her up). Elnor was there, though, as Hugh died, and I almost cried, because dammit, I like Hugh. Sad, so sad to see. So now Elnor's hiding out on the Borg cube, Narek is in deep space tracking down the La Sirena, so what's a guy to do? Call the Fenris Rangers. Hopefully that means we get to see Seven again (yay!). I'm glad that my hunch Jurati wasn't bad is playing out, and I hope it continues. In order to prevent Narek from finding the ship, she injects herself with a neurotoxin that puts her into a coma, killing the embedded tracking signal that allowed the Romulans to track the ship. Obviously, she feels immense guilt over what has happened, and doesn't want to kill Soji. We'll have to see what comes of it when everything is laid bare in the future. So, we get heartwarming moments, some sad events, old home week for us TNG fans, and just a great story that continues to speed up while taking time to let us savor everything that is happening. This probably would have been a 10 anyway, but I just loved it with all the extra goodies piled on top. Loved it.
Lady Wanderer: Voyager writers: "Nobody can make the Borg dumber than we did!" KurtzmanTrek writers: "Hold our beer!"
What can I say about episode seven that hasn't already been said? I really liked Riker and Troi's daughter. I forgot Oh and Narek's sister are working together. They haven't shown her at Starfleet since the one episode. Oh is definitely Vulcan so I'm still not sure why she's betraying Starfleet. Isn't Riker technically from the Moon? Small nitpick there, but yeah it's easier to just say Earth. I couldn't figure out what Elnor was holding until I read @Elwood 's post. Makes sense, call Seven. I knew we hadn't seen the last of her. I thought Picard had that thing though, how did Elnor get it? How does this treaty work, I must have missed that? I don't believe Jurati should have been able to replicate that drug she took. You'd think it would require Rios or the EMH to do so. Over all, not a bad episode.
Am I the only one questioning how Kestra got blonde hair from two brunette parents? Continuity!!! This show is #canceled!!!1! But no, that's just shitposting for what is a great episode, easily the strongest material Marina Sirtis has ever had to play off. Troi is actually a character, not cheesecake and she can read Picard without the overdramatic head reaching. Plus her attempting to bond with Soji and read the riot act to Picard? Priceless. Will Riker was awesome and I had not realized just how tall he really was until he gave Picard a hug. But I liked how he could read Picard like a book after so many years. And he's still in the active reserves, so who knows, hell probably show up behind the Captain's chair one day. I'm over killing the legacy characters, too. I was really shipping Elnor and Hugh
Genetics are a funny thing. I knew an immigrant Vietnamese couple who had two kids with blonde hair and blue eyes.
I was shipping Hugh and Elnor, too! I was thinking "come on, Elnor, you can give him a kiss." Also, Troi's best line was when she said to Picard "I know there are things ships counselors aren't supposed to say... but you had it coming."
I love that Riker still gets to shout "Shields up! Red Alert!" or some derivative thereof even at his rustic log cabin.
Am I the only one who found the show underwhelming this week? Having Riker and Troi was nice but it seemed fairly random and inconsequential. And I didn't like seeing Hugh being killed off one bit.
Will's father is dark haired, we never saw his mother. Her sister Kestra was blonde, her father was dark haired. So it's possible that Riker's mother was blonde, and that one of Troi's grandparents was blonde. So the recessive genes may have expressed themselves that way. Or she had some side dick. Or Riker and Troi wanted a blonde daughter, so a little gene splicing or modification. Yeah, I know thinking too deep. This episode was a 10, I would have really liked if the original run of TNG was written the same way as this. Not having to worry about censorship on broadcast TV really helps out the writing and the acting. I really was hoping he wouldn't be killed off. I felt for Hugh when he was forced to watch the other xB's die. Jonathan Del Arco played the emotion really well. Then having Narissa say she couldn't kill Hugh because he was a Federation citizen was a relief, but then killing took me by surprise. Watching him die was worse then watching Tasha die. I also enjoyed seeing Riker and Troi again. The three really pulled off the "old friends" seeing each other again extremely well. I would love to see more of them in season two of Picard,
I was so glad to see Riker and Troi not call Picard JL. I could even see Riker calling him Captain still, just out of habit.
If Riker and Troi both have Bb alleles instead of BB for the Brown/blonde hair color genes, each kid they have has a 25% chance of getting bb and coming out blonde. With human DNA anyway. Maybe brown hair is a recessive gene with Betazoids. Now, if they had a bunch of kids and all of them came out blonde, something would probably be up. Also, how they gonna have a Riker episode without him performing the Riker maneuver? THat's almost as unsettling as JEsse only saying "yeah bitch" once in El Camino. I also don't recall Picard performing the Picard maneuver at all in this series. Not the one where he jumps to warp for a fraction of a second to fuck with the Ferengi, the other Picard maneuver:
Was disappointed the episode ended. That is a first for me for Star Trek Picard. You know it's a good episode when your upset it's over. I would like to know how Commander Oh got the information about what happens to life in the galaxy if synths are allowed to exist. Is it from the future or just something that people made up in a simulation? Kill Hugh? Come on man....... It's too late to complain but I hate when they just casually kill people they introduce in the show. Kzinti still make problems for humanity? Just throw catnip at them. I wonder if Riker's house has phaser arrays and some microtorpedeo launchers hidden around. "Dad the Kzinti are back!" "Send out Rex. Full power!!!" Still unclear how Rios didn't ask the ship EMH how Maddox died and instead relied on Jurati who is a doctor but not a doctor of medicine. Also unclear as to why the EMH would not alert Rios to how Maddox died since Maddox was murdered. Certainly a EMH program would be programmed to report all murders to the ships captain. Instead of telling Rios that you swallowed a tracking device just go ahead and poison yourself in the belief that being in a coma will block the tracker. She's literally betting her life on this maneuver as she has no way of knowing that it will actually work. Liked the trailer for next week. Looking forward to it actually. If the show had come out of the gate like episode seven it would have been more well received. It was the best episode so far.
She took uranium hydroxide. That's not normally something you would predict a doctor might use to induce a coma. My take is that she knows the tracker gives off a radiation signature and that dosing herself with another radioactive compound would mask the signal - the coma was incidental, though she knew it was a risk. The computer warned her there might be neurotoxic side-effects and there were.
It's still a hell of a gamble. How about letting Rios know and than activate the EMH. Maybe it comes up with a solution that doesn't involve putting uranium hydroxide into yourself.
