At the time of Picard, it seems to me, the Federation doesn't have many real enemies to be scared of. The Borg have been AWOL for 10 years. The Founders have kept the truce as far as we know. The Romulan Star Empire is apparently a shell of its former self. The Klingons have been allies for decades. All that said, it seems beyond arrogant to pull ships from their posts around the galaxy for some fireworks and back-patting. Presumably, they have a purpose where they were. And one cannot know what might happen. I suppose that forgetting history and being doomed to repeat it is a thing. So is arrogance. There is also the notion that Changelings stacked the deck by replacing key personnel and approving this plan. If "Admiral Bigshot" says that it's a good idea to gather every single Federation starship in one place at the center of the Federation -- openly broadcasting that to friends and foe alike -- then that's admiral's orders.
I enjoyed this ep for the obvious reasons, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the convoluted plot got on my nerves. The Borg? Again? With Changelings? OK. It was nice to see "Admiral" Shelby too. I waswondering if we'd see any of the old TNG Admirals like Necheyev, but this is even better. Do we have any speculation as to what Worf did the the Enterprise E? My guess is that it had something to do with Prune Juice and one of the bathrooms.
This is dumb. Why do the Borg give a shit about disrupting frontier day? I could see the changelings wanting to mess up the Federation on their big holiday because they're used to running an empire, but the Borg shouldn't care about holidays or anniversaries or any of that. If the collective could alter Picard's DNA during the short period of time they had him, surely they could do the same thing to another drone, then harvest sperm from that drone to create as many drones with the same abilities as Jack. Why not just do that, since they could do it completely in secret? Do that, and then do the transporter hacking thing to infect all the young people, then just wait. Wait decades, until almost everyone in Starfleet is infected. Then activate the signal and convert everyone but a few ancient admirals and transporter-phobes. There was no rush. It's also annoying because the changelings had a legitimate beef with Starfleet, but the Borg are just the Borg. There's no gray area there. Season 2 was a hot mess, but Q and Picard being kind to each other and then Picard being there when the Borg request to join the Federation was an excellent way to end Picard's story. It was optimistic and peaceful and diplomatic, it fit the spirit of TNG. Watching the entire TNG cast hanging out together on a recreation of the Enterprise D bridge is something you go to a convention to see. You don't make ten episodes of nonsense just to squeeze it in at the end.
Hell, there should be some Cali class ships still running around that would be below the systems upgrade threshold... USS Atascadero would be a good candidate.
At this point I don't think I want any more cameos, since the writers will almost certainly make whoever it is look useless or stupid just to glorify the TNG gang.
I think that if they bring in Janeway as they've been hinting for a while, it will be actually the opposite and she'll be showing up the TNG gang with "And THAT'S how you deal with a Borg invasion."
Dave Cullen says there’s a mid credits scene next week. Robert Meyer Burnett has been saying for a long time that at the end of the final episode you’ll want to see a new series with a certain character as the star. He doesn’t say who. This leads me to believe that either Shaw isn’t dead, Shaw is dead and Seven is given the Enterprise F or there’s another big cameo coming. I highly doubt it’s Sisko. Oh and Tim Russ put out a tweet that he enjoyed filming two episodes of Picard so Tuvok is likely going to return.
That's exactly how it should be, but at this point the writing has me convinced they'd never do anything so realistic at the risk of undermining the TNG gang. Look no further than how extremely ornamental Seven of Nine has been for most of this season, or how Shelby just stood there and let herself get executed.
Oh, and Seven looks like a useless idiot for not sensing or realizing Jack was part Borg before Troi figured it out, and for not knowing Picard's brain defect was related to his assimilation.
Shaw or Riker or even Geordi getting command of the Enterprise F would make sense. Assuming the Enterprise is still the flagship, it would be weird if Seven got it for her first official posting as captain. I hope it's zombie Kirk.
First they need to blow up the Enterprise-F and then come out with the Enterprise-G. I'm serious. The Enterprise-F is the ugliest starship I've ever seen.
Looked like a cross between a Sovereign and a California class-- oh shit no wonder Carol Freeman didn't want the Cerritos upgraded after the Titan picked off the Pakleds from her ass. She knew. She fuckin' knew.
Pointed out elsewhere: If the changelings had already infiltrated Starfleet so completely and effectively, why did they have to break in to Daystrom station at all? If there's one thing Dana Carvey taught us in Master of Disguise, it's that you can just take whatever you want without any questions if you impersonate the right people. There was no need for a big showy heist, and no need to steal and use the portal tech to distract anyone from the theft of Picard's body. "Admiral Picard found out we've been keeping his corpse here and he's mad as shit, Admiral Janeway agrees it's fucked up, we're under orders to transfer it to the Intrepid later today for burial at a location they refuse to share with us for obvious reasons." Easy as that. Similarly if the changelings/Borg knew all along that Jack was Picard's secret son, and they're changelings, why didn't one of them just impersonate Picard and get to Jack that way? What's Bev gonna do when she receives a transmission from "Admiral Picard" aboard the Intrepid on his way to intercept her at maximum warp, mad as hell and demanding to see the son she hid from him for decades?
So I guess this line spoken by Picard in Generations (as he picks through the wreckage of the Enterprise-D bridge) pretty much means jack shit now: "Someone once told me that time is a predator that stalks us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment, because they'll never come again."
Presumably the Borg Queen passed that info down. She'd have detected Jack via the hive mind and realised what he was.
The only good thing I can say re: the Borg being the Big Bad is that the writers at least didn't completely asspull them into the episode, given that they at least foreshadowed them with the red branch tendrils when Jack was having his red door spell earlier in the season. Still. Not executed as cleanly as it could have been, nor even needed *unless* it was setting up a Jurati-hive vs Primary-hive in the finale. And that's probably a bigger asspull.
I sincerely hope someone else takes command of the F and speaks to Picard, just so he can respond "Who am I to argue with the captain of the Enterprise?" like Kirk once did to him.
After 12 Monkeys, I'm not bailing on Matalas, but I don't want him doing anything else that involves dredging up all the nostalgia feelings - he's just trying way to hard on that stuff and it interferes with his natural talent for good complex storytelling. In this case, you could have told a compelling relatively fresh story with either the changelings or the Borg (albeit S2 made it more difficult re the Borg and frankly, it's tiresome to even bring them in again after S2 whether you would have ended that one they way it ended or not). But trying to do both results in failing both. If you told me, for example, that you were going to hand Discovery over to Matalis I'd be intrigued. But let's not do this again. Nostalga and callbacks are bust done in moderation - Sulu in that one ep of Voyager, Relics, or Unification. But not try to build a whole show on cramming in every possible easter egg.
Yes of course, but the flyby music is a very distinctly different musical cue than the accelerated version used for the theme.
The E got really fucked up as part of the fleet in Prodigy. Speculation is that Worf was part of that battle and that the Ent-E was written off afterwards. I suspect they are leaving the E's fate a little ambiguous since Prodigy and Lower Decks are still taking place in that time period.