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Star Trek Picard “Et In Arcadia Ego Part 1”

It’s the second-last episode of Star Trek Picard season 1. And all the threads have now come together. A show like this lives and dies on the payoffs to its mysteries and mythology. And I feel that Star Trek Picard is doing pretty well in that regard. What do you think? This episode manages to be quite thematic and thought-provoking while still leading up to the grant finale. Let’s dig deep into this show.

Transcript

Welcome to Nerd Heaven

I’m Adam David Collings

The author of Jewel of the stars

And I am a nerd

This is episode 19 of the podcast

Today, we’re talking about the 9th episode of Star Trek Picard.

Et in Arcadia Ego Part 1.

Et? Et? I want to say et because in French, e t is pronounced et. It means and.

But the rest of the title is in english. So I don’t know what’s going on with this title.

Anyway, it’s the first Star Trek episode title that’s had Part 1 in it for a very very long time. Voyager was probably the last show to do it. Actually, I think Enterprise used the same title with parts 1 and 2 for the two-parter In A Mirror Darkly.

Anyway, This is the second last episode of season 1. Can you believe it?

The description on memory alpha reads

Following an unconventional and dangerous transit, Picard and the crew finally arrive at Soji’s home world, Coppelius. However, with Romulan warbirds on their tail, their arrival brings only greater danger as the crew discovers more than expected about the planet’s inhabitants.

The teleplay for this episode was by Michael Chabon & Ayelet Waldman.

The story was by Michael Chabon & Ayelet Waldman & Akiva Goldsman

The episode was directed by Akiva Golsman

And it first aired on the 19th of March 2020.

Make it so.

In story structure, the second plot point takes place at the 75 percent mark of the book or film. It comes just after the darkest moment, when all hope seems lost. IT signifies the protagonist setting off for the final showdown, heading toward the climax, and it signals the beginning of act 3.

The end of last week’s episode felt very much like the second plot point, and it’s showing up in roughly the right place.

So this is act 3.

After a harrowing trip through a borg transwarp conduit, the La Sierrena arrives at Soji’s homeworld. A planet called Coppelius.

Agnes is still wandering the ship and asks “Am I still under arrest?”

I’m still kinda shocked that they’ve brought her here to the synth homeworld. I know she says she’s turned over a new leaf, but honestly, this is a risk I wouldn’t be taking. She killed the man she loved in order to prevent the creation of new synths. Now she says she won’t harm the synths themselves. I wouldn’t be taking any chances with her.

If I were in Picard’s shoes, I’d have continued to DS12 to drop her off. Or, if the urgency of the situation didn’t allow it, which is how Picard ultimately felt, I’d be keeping Angus under close guard. Just in case.

Anyway, Narak shows up and they have a nice little space battle.

They manage to get in a lucky shot, which gives them a nice moment to discuss the morality of rescuing your enemies, but it turns out to be a bit of a ruse. They really don’t stand a chance against Narak’s advanced fighter.

But, surprise, a honking big borg cube comes out of the corridor. I cheered out loud when this happened. Seven!.

But the cube doesn’t even have a chance to be awesome.

The orchids are really cool. A bunch of giant space-faring flowers come up and swallow the ships. This was really cool.

This is Star Trek. This is the kind of wondrous thing you find at a strange new world.

So the flowers drag the ships down to the surface in a visual and audio extravaganza that rivals any big screen movie I’ve seen.

I was a little skeptical about the flowers bringing down the cube, but there were several attached to it, and it’s not operating at peak efficiency. They mention later that the flowers are not used to bringing down something so big.

It was a bit of a shame though, because seeing something as terrifying as a borg cube coming to the rescue is a new idea that I was looking forward to. But we’ll see later. That cube ‘aint going anywhere ever again.

Picard chooses this moment to exhibit symptoms of his dementia. Just briefly. We get a nice little scene with Agnes, doing her medical thing. It was nice to see and hear the old TNG tricorder.

Agnes knows about his condition. The acting between these two is amazing in this scene. The way Allison Pill makes her mouth quiver with emotion. I have no idea how actors do that kind of thing, but I’m somewhat in awe of it.

So Picard tells the whole truth to his crew. Raffi’s face when she hears Picard’s prognosis is terminal is subtle but heartbreaking.

They seem to be going out of their way to avoid using the words irumodic syndrome. I don’t know why, but to be honest, it’s kind of annoying me. They’re clearly drawing from All Good Things, so for goodness, just say it and get it over with.

And on that, we have yet to hear Picard say “Make it so” even once on this show.

That’s Picard’s most iconic catchphrase.

And, putting that into the script would not be an easter egg. It would not be fan service. It would be remaining consistent with his character.

When Picard seeks options and recommendations from his crew, which has happened a number of times in this show, the words he always chooses to communicate his agreement, and instruct them to proceed is “Make it so.” The whole thing is very glaring by its absence. It’s like they’re deliberately trying to avoid using it for some reason.

I’ll be disappointed if he doesn’t say it next week. But, I don’t want them to just shove it in there either. There have been missed opportunities to use it naturally in the past.

Anyway, moving on.

Soji is pretty sure her fellow synths don’t hate biological lifeforms.

But I love Rios’s line. They crashed my ship without even asking. That feels a little biased to me.

The surface of the planet looks really cool. Rock formations. Alien plants. It’s a nice mix of the familiar but beautiful, which is live action, and the unusual, which is CG.

So they’re off to rescue Hugh and Elnor first. Of course, what they find is Seven and Elnor.

The reunion between Elnor and Picard is very nice.

And there’s a nice final send-off for Hugh and Picard and Seven talk about the loss together.

So they’ve established the xbs are okay. There’s nothing Picard can do for them. But Raffi and Rios are able to use the Borg sensors to determine the Romulan fleet is 2 days away, and it’s massive.

It’s time to take Soji home to her settlement.

Honestly I’m not sure why Seven and Elnor are staying behind. I mean, Seven came all this way specifically to help Picard.

Picard says the xbs need protection more than him. Which frankly seems an absurd statement to me.

But they’re gonna try to get defensive systems online. I suspect the borg cube may end up being a refuge from the Romulans next week.

It’s feeling like they really haven’t used Elnor’s character to his full potential. He’s barely spent any time with Picard and the La Sirena crew. We spent an entire episode recruiting him. I don’t think that’s paid off as well as it should have.

Anyway, off to the settlement.

Which looks pretty cool. A very nice place to live.

The synths that live here have tinted skin and yellow eyes like Data. They don’t look as human as Soji.

And their skimpy outfits make this look a little like an episode of TOS.

They also speak more like Data. As if they have a less advanced emotional program than Soji. Again, more like Data.

The crew are welcomed into the facility. But Soji has to give the bad news. The Romulans are coming and the synths don’t have anywhere near enough orchids.

And then the big surprise.

Brent Spiner appears. As himself. Fully human with no de-aging.

Turns out he’s playing Dr. Altan Inigo Soon, the son of Dr. Noonian Soong.

It seems every male Soong, of any generation, looks just like Brent Spiner.

But it was a cool way to bring him back onto the show.

It seems reasonable to me that Soong had a biological son. We know he had a wife.

And it makes sense the son would be this old. I mean, Soon was over a hundred when we saw him die in TNG.

Altan’s mother can’t have been Juliana Soong, because she didn’t marry Noonian until he was living and working on omicron theta.

So I’d say Altan was the product of a previous relationship. Probably long out of the picard by the time Data and Lore were being created.

So then a more android-looking version of Soji reveals herself, first to Picard, and then to everyone else.

This is Sutra, Jana’s sister.

It seems that there are a number of different models, and many copies of each model, but always in sibling pairs. If you’re thinking this all sounds very familiar, you’ve probably seen Battlestar Galactica. The more I think about it, the more paralleles I see.

And let’s just acknowledge that now, we have Agnes walking around mixing with these synths. Risky business if you ask me. And yes, we’ll learn some information soon that may alleviate some of the anxiety, but they don’t know that information yet.

If I were the synths, I’d be pretty angry that Picard had brought this person into their midst.

And this is where Sutra makes quite a jump, mentally, to a theory she has very little evidence to support. But it makes sense, and it’s really interesting.

She theories that the admonition was never intended for organic minds. We’ve seen how it drives many insane. It’s not the nature of the content as such, it’s more of an incompatibility. Which I like, because it seems a lot more believable. I mean, we’re gonna see the full contents of the admonition shortly. Dunno about you, but it didn’t make me want to commit suicide.

So this is fascinating stuff.

The theory is that Agnes was driven somewhat insane by the admonition, and that’s why she killed Maddox. But now the madness is leaving her, and she’s getting back to being her old selse.

This doesn’t exactly justify her crime, but insanity is a legal defense used. Agnes wasn’t in her own right mind when she did what she did. Which means she’s not entirely to blame. Which means, she is less of a risk now. Ok. I’m with that. Not sure how Sutra made that leap, but the conclusion is logical and makes sense of a lot of stuff in the show.

Sutra theories that the admonition was intended for synthetic minds.

And this is where it gets a bit weird. Sutra is fascinated with Vulcan culture. And she has taught herself how to mind meld.

And that’s absurd.

Mind melding is not just a skill you can learn.

The mind meld is a biological thing.

The vulcan brain has telepathic abilities. This is linked in some way to their sense of touch.

Now, can I conceive that an artificial brain could be constructed to simulate the same telepathic functions of the organic Vulcan brain? I suppose so.

But Bruce and Altan would have had to have constructed her specifically that way from the beginning. She can’t just decide she likes vulcan culture and teach herself. I’m afraid I don’t buy that. Not one tiny bit.

But I’m just going to have to accept it, as silly as I think it is.

It does solve a story problem. They can’t afford a big detour to take Sutra to the grief world. And she needs to be able to see the admonition somehow.

But Rios is against this. As he says, “Agnes is just starting to get over this.” He’s worried, and legitimately so, that this mind meld, forcing Agnes to relive the admonition again, could re-trigger her madness.

Not only would that be bad for Agnes, but it could make her a danger to the synths, once again.

He’s right to warn caution here.

But Agnes feels the synths have a right to know, and this information could be the key to solving the whole mystery. So the mind meld goes ahead.

Again, some great acting from Alison Pill. She’s terrified to live through this again.

So now we finally get the whole truth behind all of this.

And it’s a bit of a twist.

Organic life is fragile and impermanent. As it advances, organics seek perfection, and that perfection drives them to create synthetic life. But they always end up fearing that synthetic life and feeling threatened by it. Which leads to conflict. Inevitably, this will lead to conflict.

The big mysterious force out there does not come to wipe out races to prevent them from creating synthetic life, as the Zhat Vash believed. No, they are an alliance of synthetic life. They wipe out races to protect the synthetics.

The admonition wasn’t a warning to organics. It was a promise of help to synthetics.

That’s really interesting. At this point, I feel like everything has come together. It all makes good sense.

A show like this lives and dies on the payoffs of its mysteries and mythology.

And I feel that Star Trek Picard is doing a good job with it’s payoffs.

So well done to the team.

A couple of little thoughts about the admonition message itself.

First. Why all the starfleet imagery. We see Data’s face. Starfleet logos. Even an image of the Mars attack.

Obviously, the ancient race couldn’t have known about these things when they created the message.

But perhaps it’s because they tailor the message. I mean, they’re still out there. Monitoring. Adding new relevant imagery to the message. Except what we’re seeing here came from the grief world 14 years ago. The mars attack hadn’t happened yet. So are we saying these synths can see the future. Personally, I think this is just a bit of sloppiness on the part of the show, choosing visual symbolism to aid the story-telling at the expense of in-universe believability.

I really don’t think there’s any time travel or seeing into the future going on.

Second thing. The way they show a human aging from a child to an old man was very impressive visual effects. And the shot of the fox dying and rotting away to nothing was impressive but kinda of gross and disturbing. Do they timelapse film a real dead animal? I dunno. But it kind of made me uncomfortable.

It’s cool that Altan made android butterflies because he missed them.

We have a nice conversation between Agnus and Altan. Altan makes it clear that he is not dismissing her crime. The loss of Bruce Maddox is a tragedy. Not just because human life is precious, and the death of any human being is a tragedy, but because his was a great mind, that could have done so much more. And she extinguished that.

Perhaps her insanity defense means she’s not guilty of murder as such, but she still owes a debt. They both know it.

Altan offers her a chance to repay her debt. He shows Agnus what he’s been working on.

It’s not entirely clear.

We see a synthetic body.

Is it an android, or is it biological like Soji? Not sure.

Agnes calls it a golem.

The world golem comes from Jewish folklore. It is an anthropomorphic creature made out of clay, animated and brought to life by magic.

She then starts talking about mind transfer.

It seems Altan has created an empty shell of a body, into which he plans to transfer a living mind.

Apparently, Altan was the body guy, and Maddox dealt with what Altan calls substrates.

Now I’m wondering, whose mind is gonna end up in that thing by the end of this show?

I think Altan is planning it for himself. Perhaps because of his age. Maybe he too is dying. He says he recently regained an interest in mind transfer, along with a sense of urgency.

His father, Doctor Noonian Soong, also worked on mind transfer and successfully transferred his wife’s mind into an android body at the time of her death. This android, Data’s mother, continued to live, believing that she was a human, rather than an android with all the memories and feelings of that deceased human.

Data discovered the truth about this, and chose not to tell his mother what she really was.

I wonder if she’s still out there.

Sutra has a worrying plan. I understand where she’s coming from. All they have to defend themselves from the Romulan fleet is a few space flowers, an old man and his friends. They won’t last more than a few minutes. And I can’t argue with that.

She wants to contact the alliance of synthetic life. Get them to come in and “bring hell” as Agnus put it last week. Wipe out the Romulans.

Except, I don’t think they’ll stop there. They’ll wipe out all organic life in the alpha quadrant.

Soji has an alternate plan. Repair the La Sirena and flee this world before the Romulans get here. Apparently there’s room in that little ship for the whole colony of synths.

Sutra believes they will never be safe as long as the Zhat Vash is out there.

Again, she’s probably right about that.

But it doesn’t justify what she’s planning to do.

She’s operating from cold logic. She lacks Soji’s humanity.

And then Narak shows up.

They found him and brought him in.

It was cool that we got to see spot 2. An artificial cat. Again, I’m asking, is it a robotic cat, or did they manufacture it biologically, like Soji?

This leads to a nice moment between Rios and Agnus. It shows that there really is still a spark of something between these two. It’s actually kind of sweet.

We also get a nice scene between Raffi and Picard.

She has finally, fully forgiven him for all that went on 14 years ago. We get a sense of just how close these two are. She means every bit to him as much as Riker, or Deanna, or Geordi does.

There’s a really awkward moment between them as Raffi says she loves her.

Picard shows a lot of growth as he manages to let himself say it back to her. Picard has never been one to express emotions to his crew. Heck, it took him seven years just to join his crewmates in their weekly poker game. I find Picard’s character arc very satisfying. I feel we’re seeing the fulfilment of an arc that began all the way back in Encounter at Farpoint. And that’s awesome.

Also, I don’t read any hint of a romantic aspect to what these two are sharing. They love each other as close friends. That’s a thing.

Rios and Raffi are off to repair their ship with a magic repair device. I believe this is the last we see of them this episode.

Jean-Luc is unable to get a message through to Starfleet.

That’s annoying. But it’s not like Clancy can’t figure out where he’s gone. She’s already got a squadron on its way to DS12 to help him.

Let’s just hope Picard was smart enough to give her the coordinates of the planet before he set off without the squadron.

I love how Narak is judging the synths on their treatment of him as a prisoner, and when Saga asks him how Romulans treat their prisoners, he says “Let’s change the subject.”

There are two races you don’t want to be a prisoner of in the Star Trek universe. Cardassians, and Romulans.

I also like that Soji is having none of Narak’s talk. He’s not gonna smooth talk her back into trusting him again. That would be a huge disservice to her character.

As soon as the camera zooms in on her bird broach, we know it’s gonna be the weapon that kills her.

Not only is Soji not trusting Narak. She’s very seriously considering killing him. She seeks Picard’s council. And we have an interesting conversation about the morality of killing, and the logic of sacrifice. He’s not an idiot. He is concerned about what she might be considering. Picard isn’t interested in having an academic philosophical debate. He wants to know what they’re really talking about.

Sutra has a plan. And it makes sense. She knows her idea of calling the synth alliance is gonna be a hard sell. So she needs a way to convince her brothers and sisters.

So she lets Narak go, makes it look like he escaped and killed Saga.

Just another reason for the siblings to believe that organics cannot be trusted.

When villains talk about sacrifice in stories, they’re always talking about someone else. But the true meaning of sacrifice is paying that cost yourself. Self-sacrifice. The one who suffers the loss is the one making the sacrifice.

Both Soji and Sutra are considering “sacrificing” the life of another for what they consider to be the greater good.

For Soji, she’s thinking of killing Narak.

For Sutra, she lets her sister Saga die. Who actually carried out the murder? Her or Narak? It doesn’t really matter. Ultimately, Saga’s metaphorical blood is in Sutra’s hands.

The difference between Sutra and Soji is that Sutra carried out her plan. Soji is still wrestling with the ethics of hers. And then it’s too late.

Everyone would have been better off if Soji had killed Narak (well, everyone except Narak) but does that justify it morally? Personally, I’d say no. But you can see Soji’s regret that she didn’t act sooner.

Sop Sutra makes a speech to her people.

The organics came here and now we have lost another sister.

Notice how she puts all organics in one big basket. Narak and Picard are the same. They’re both organics. Organics are not to be trusted. This is the very definition of prejudice. It’s interesting to see the show demonstrating this prejudice from both sides, the Zhat Vash and the synths.

I feel like all the themes that this show has explored are all converging at this moment.

It’s really quite well done.

And Altan Soong is siding with his synthetic children. He even helped Sutra create the beacon to contact the synth alliance. I wonder, does he believe he will be spared? Because it’s pretty obvious Sutra thinks that all organic life must be exterminated.

Altan is right about one thing, though. Picard can’t guarantee that the Federation will listen to him. If anything, what sutra is planning to do will make the Federation fear synths even more.

In a way, Picard is probably viewing these synths as his second chance to succeed, after he failed to help the Romulans.

But soji says “we can’t be your means of redemption. We’re too busy trying to survive.

So Picard is placed under house arrest.

They agree to let Agnes go free with the promise that she will protect them as a mother protects her children. She would die for them.

And now I get it. I’m certain that Altan wants to transfer into his synthetic body, so as to survive the coming apocalypse. They won’t kill him if he’s a synth too. Agnes will help him do that. But what about her? She’ll die too, unless she’s in a synth body.

Meanwhile, Rios, Raffi, Enor and Seven are free, able to still help. But then so is Narak.

And the Romulan fleet is 24 hours from the planet.

Things are getting exciting. I’m very interested to see how it will play out next week, in the season finale.

All in all, another great episode. I’m continuing to love this show.

I haven’t hit any more milestones in my walk to Mordor since last episode. I’ve been a bit distracted, but I’ve still managed to go for my morning walk some days.

The world is kind of crazy right now, isn’t it? The company I work for has decreed that everyone works from home until further notice. Which of course is business as usual for me as I work from home by choice anyway.

I know a lot of schools in other countries have closed. Here in australia, our schools are largely staying open, but we’ve got school holidays coming up in a few weeks. The scariest thing locally is that we’ll soon be heading into our winter, and Tasmania has pretty cold winters, so people are going to be more vulnerable to disease.

Anyway, stay hopeful. As Picard would say, don’t give in to fear. Don’t panic buy toilet paper or food. Just get what you need and then there’ll be enough for everybody.

I’ll catch you next week for the season finale of Star Trek Picard.

Live long and prosper.

Make it so.

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Star Trek Picard “Broken Pieces”

Everything is coming together in this week’s episode of Star Trek Picard “Broken Pieces”. We delve deeply into Rios’s character, seeing the broken pieces of his life symbolised in his holograms. We also get a much greater understanding of the mythology of the show. And it’s exciting me. We’re getting the big-scale science fiction coming into view, and we finally add a little more depth to the villains of the show. Let’s dive in and geek out over this episode together.

Welcome to Nerd Heaven

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of the stars

And I am a nerd.

This is episode 18 of the podcast.

Today, we’re talking about the 8th episode of Star Trek Picard. Broken Pieces.

The description on Memory alpha reads

When devastating truths behind the Mars attack are revealed, Picard realizes just how far many will go to preserve secrets stretching back generations, all while the La Sirena crew grapples with secrets and revelations of their own. Narissa directs her guards to capture Elnor, setting off an unexpected chain of events on the Borg cube.

The episode was written by Michael Chabon

It was directed by Maja Vrvilo

And it first aired on the 12th of March 2020.

Make it so.

This episode is really starting to fill in the new mythology of the show now. That’s seen straight away with this week’s flashback, in which we learn about the origins of the Zhat Vash.

The episode begins with some beautiful scenes of a nebula. Just like the first episode. But we don’t see the Enterprise D. Instead, we zoom past 8 suns onto a planet.

The on screen label calls this Aia, the great world. It seems a group of Romulans, all female, sent out to study this strange phenomenon. A system of 8 stars, which seemed scientifically unfeasible. There they found, on a planet, the remnants of an ancient civilisation, and a storehouse of memories that explained how their civilisation died.

Yes. This is the kind of cool mythology I’ve been wanting from Star Trek.

We don’t even know the name of this ancient race, but they were clearly very advanced. I wonder if they knew the Iconians. They also operated in what is now Romulan space in the distant past.

The Romulans call this warning message “the admonition.” The first time they heard it, they formed the Zhat Vash. This was hundreds of years ago, so pre-Kirk.

And interestingly, Commodore Oh appears to be their leader. So, we’re left wondering again, is she biologically a Romulan or a Vulcan? We’ll come back to this later.

We don’t get to see the full extent of the message, but as Oh says, it drives many of them mad. In fact, after seeing it, most of them immediately commit suicide, some of them in quite unpleasent ways.

This is super dark. I actually found it pretty disturbing. It seems we’re getting a lot of suicide in this show. Now, I’m really fortunate that I’ve never been touched by suicide in my life, or my family, but even I am fiding this quite disturbing.

We’ll talk more about what this message means later, when Picard and crew figure it all out, but for now, let’s just say that the show has fleshed out more about the Zhat Vash, and why they hate synthetic lifeforms. Which is good.Our villains are finally getting some depth to them.

And, we learn that Rizzo really is a cold-hearted monster. While the others tear out their hair and do other horrific things to themselves, she stands there, clearly struggling with the images a little, but holding it all together. If she were a Vulcan, I’d call this emotional control. But I think that Rizzo just doesn’t have a heart. She’s an evil…..we’ll…let’s just say I don’t like her.

There are two kinds of Villains in fiction. There are some that you love to hate. These are the ones that you want to see more of. You get excited when they appear in an episode. Weyoun, Bester, Morden, Scorpius. And then there are others that you just kinda hope they die soon because you just don’t want to see them. Rizzo is firmly in the second camp for me. I find myself wanting her to die for all she’s done. Man, I promise I’m not so vindictive against real people. Just fictional ones.

We get confirmation now that it was the Zhat Vash who organised the synth attack on Mars. So they sabotaged the rescue efforts to help their own people. I’m kind of in a place where I can buy that now. They’re worried about what they consider to be a significantly greater threat than the supernova. And having read the novel, The Last Best Hope, it seems that due to their arrogance and price, half the Romulan leadership didn’t want Starfleet’s help to begin with.

We recognise another of these first Vhat Vash. Ramdha, the Romulan who was assimilated and then went crazy, calling Soji the destroyer. She doesn’t handle the admonition as well as Rizzo, but she does survive. This is making sense of a lot of what we’ve seen. It seems to have been the admonition itself that drove the borg cube to shut down after they assimilated Ramdha. Really interesting stuff.

Oh and Ramdha is Rizzo’s aunt. She raised Rizzo and Narak. Rizzo says that when Ramdha lost her mind, she did it with panache. I feel like panache is not the kind of word you’d expect to hear from a Romulan.

I know they’re reallying speaking Romulan, and we’re just hearing a translation into english. But panache is a french word, included in our language for historical reasons. I dunno, it just didn’t feel right somehow to me.

There’s a nice bit of subtle foreshadowing when Rizzo says “I’d have made a much better borg than you. Resistance is futile.”

And let me just say, while I keep going on about hating Rizzo, I found Peyton List’s acting in this episode pretty darn good. I think she’s a lot better when she’s not so busy trying to seduce her brother or being Miss-Super-Evil-Face.

Once again, the romulans are choosing to fight Elnor hand to hand instead of shooting him with a disruptor. If they’d shot while he was stunned by that grenade, he’d be dead. This whole tradition of Zhat Vash fighting Qowat Milat by hand seems a plot convenience that exists purely so they can have a kick-butt sword-wielding elf on the show. Don’t get me wrong, I love Elnor. He’s awesome. But a fighter who uses a sword just doesn’t work in a sci-fi setting like Star Trek.

Anyway, Seven saves him at the last minute and asks “Where is Hugh?”

Then there’s a very nice touching moment as Elnor breaks down and Seven has to, rather uncomfortably, console him. She does a good job seeing as though it’s pretty clear this is outside her comfort zone.

So apparently Seven knew Hugh off-screen, we just never got to see them together. My guess is that Seven gave Hugh the Fenris Ranger contact card. Elnor was actually in Hugh’s office when he found it. So that kinda makes sense now.

I’m still not thrilled about Hugh’s death. It feels like they’ve totally wasted the potential of his character. They made such a fuss about bringing him back, but barely did anything with him. And his death wasn’t satisfying. He didn’t die saving the day. He kinda failed. Yes, there’s a realism to that, because we don’t always die in some big grand moment. That’s kind of why I have somewhat defended Tasha Yar’s death. I dunno. I’m torn between my appreciation for gritty realism, and my desire for Hugh to have been treated with more respect.

It’s very clear that something weird is going on with Rios the minute he sees Soji.

There’s a lot going on in this scene. Picard wants to go to Deep Space 12 to get reinforcements from Starfleet. Makes sense. They can’t fight off a whole fleet of Romulan ships by themselves. This understandable makes Soji nervous. She thought they would be heading straight for her homeworld. And then Raffi is suddenly very suspicious of Soji, given the revelations about Agnes.

First of all, I like that the crew have figured out that Agnus killed Bruce Maddox. They’re not gonna drag that out and have our characters unnaturally stupid. Good.

I can understand Raffi is distrustful because Picard knows nothing about Soji. He’s putting all his faith in that single Neuron. But, this was the mission. Rescuing Soji is the whole reason they came out here.

Picard is kinda kidding himself a bit, trying desperately to make up excuses for Agnes, because he doesn’t want her to be a Romulan spy, and a murderer. But he does accept reason, even though he doesn’t want to.

There was a nice little scene between Picard and Clancy. And I feel it redeems her as a character a little. She is starting to regain her respect for Picard, now that he’s proven to be right. She even calls him Admiral Picard. I love it when Picard says, “I’m sorry but if you say this is not a job for Starfleet then you are a waste of space.”

Anyway, she agrees. She’s sending a squadron to meet Picard at DS12. He’s to wait there for them to arrive.

I like how Raffi is getting all giddy with excitement about the whole conspiracy theory, even while knowing she shouldn’t because the whole thing is horrible. She does like her conspiracy theories.

It makes no sense that it takes Raffi so long to realise that the Rios she’s talking to is a hologram. I mean, his Irish accent is hard to miss. She must be really preoccupied.

The fact that the ENH recognises Soji and calls her Jana is very interesting information. It confirms that Rios has seen a soji-type android before. Which explains his reaction to her.

I’m not really a fan of the glowing eyes while thinking thing the holograms do in this episode. First of all, there’s no reason for them to do that. The Doctor never did that on Voyager. Second of all, why take so long to access such a simple piece of data. Computers today could gather that same information, from the internet, in a fraction of the time the hologram’s eyes glow. And this is 24th century computer technology. The whole thing is like programming an artificial progress bar when none is needed. You can maybe explain that they’re downloading this information from memory alpha, in which case, that’s pretty high bandwidth for subspace. But this is information I’d expect them to have locally.

But I like that the ENH actually proves useful, when Raffi realises she does have an astrogation question.

The Romulans were depicting an octanary system all over the borg cube. A system of 8 stars.

Enoch says that septenary systems are extremely rare. The only known account of an octanary is an apocryphal ancient Romulan star chart. Now Raffi begins to realise the conclave of 8 refers to the place where the bad guys met, not 8 people. Now they’re getting somewhere.

I like that they at least acknowledge here that the gravitational mechanics would be incredibly complex. Which, of course, is true. Having read the book, The Three Body Problem, I have an inkling of just how complex a trinary system would be. For a planet to actually exist in an octanary system seems pretty unrealistic. But again, we’ll come back to that.

I love Elnor’s childlike innocence. That combined with his kick-butt skills as a warrior make him quite an interesting character.

Seven’s plan, originally Hugh’s plan, is to regenerate the cube. Re-activate the borg drones. I love the shot of the drone rebuilding the ship. At first, I thought they were nano probes. But then when you realise the scale, they’re a lot bigger. Let’s call them macro probes. It seems a logical aspect of borg technology.

She’s playing a bit of a dangerous game. There are huge moral questions about what she’s doing, essentially re-assimilating the XBs, putting them into a localised micro-collective. Controlling their thoughts like a pseudo Borg queen. It’s chilling when she says “I might not want to release them.”

There’s a very nice character scene between Picard and Soji and the dinner table.

It doesn’t really push the plot forward at all, but it deepens both of their characters, and I really like it.

The choice of a scottish accent for the engineering hologram is quite on the nose, as a tribute to Scotty. Especially since Lorca already did that in Discovery. But it doesn’t really bother me. He’s quite different to Scotty. I actually quite like him.

The idea that this octanary system was artificially created is very interesting. My sense-of-wonder metre is going off. It’s showing you the power of this ancient race, whoever they were. Showing off isn’t a bad guess at their motivation, but clearly raffi has the better theory. Such an extreme act would call attention to a message you really want people to hear.

I’m enjoying Raffi’s little detective work in this episode. I think maybe she’s jumping to the truth more easily than she realistically should, but it’s still enjoyable.

There’s some good quiet scenes with Rios in his quarters in this episode. Nice to see his old Starlfleet uniform. Looks like Rios’s old ship, the ibn Majid might have been a sovereign class, like the Enterprise E, which is pretty awesome.

I don’t think it’s stated outright, but I get the impression Rios was first officer of the ship.

His captain’s name was Alonzo Vandermeer. Not a name we’ve heard before, I believe.

The scene with all the Rios holograms together is absurdly fun. I’m quite enjoying the engineer’s overuse of scottish slang. But that tactical hologram. How useless is he? The bloke just wants to sleep and laze around.

It seems the holograms don’t just have Rios’s appearance, and aspects of his personality, but his memories as well. But Rios has removed something from their memories. And it’s all about his time on the ibn Majid.

We learn that captain Vandermeer killed himself. Yet another suicide in this show.

So then we get Picard’s reunion with Agnes. There’s no more self-deception. Picards tells her straight. You will turn yourself over to the authorities for the murder of Bruce Maddox.

Agnes said Oh put her hands on her face and poured in poison. Why doesn’t she know that’s called a mind meld? Put her hands on my face seems a very awkward phrasing when she should just say “she mind melded with me.” Weird.

So Agnes gushes all over Soji’s human-like attributes. Just like Bashir and Kestra.

But Agnes says now that she’s met Soji, she’d never kill her. I’m finding that hard to buy. The admonition Oh showed her was so traumatic it caused her to kill her lover and mentor. But now, having met Soji, she’s a changed woman? I’m afraid I don’t trust Agnes at all at this point. Soji says she’d never give agnes the opportunity to kill her, but she’s giving her an opportunity right now.Why on Earth did Picard leave those two in a room together. That’s crazy. Agnes should be in the brig until they reach DS12. she certainly shouldn’t be roaming the ship and joining them at their makeshift conference table. “I’m done murdering people now, so that’s a good thing.”

“Oh, well in that case Agnes, it’s all good. Take a seat, Mate.” I mean, come on.

Raffi refers to Rios’s record player as a walkman. Reminds me of an early Christopher Ecclestone Doctor Who Episode, where they refer to a jukebox as an ipod. Somehow it was funnier in Doctor Who.

Rizzo is going around murdering all the xbs. So Seven does what she doesn’t want to do. She takes control of the queen’s systems and re-assimilates the drones.

I got a thrill when the drones woke up, and we hear the voice of the collective say “We are borg.”

But was kinda disappointed when Rizzo immediately had all of them, every single one, ejected into space.

So here’s a rundown of what we know.

There was once some kind of sisterhood of Romulans. Not the Qowat Milat. Some other group. They found this planet in the octanary system, with a warning left behind by a long dead race. The impression I get is that once a species reaches a certain threshold of developing synthetic life, a threshold Starfleet is on the verge of, some outside force comes in and destroys that civilisation, rather than just the synthetics themselves taking over. This outside force theory seems much more compelling and creepy to me. So I kinda hope they are leaning that way.

Those who survived the horror of this admonition formed the Zhat Vash, dedicated to preventing the return of this outside force, by preventing all synthetic life from being created. In their minds, they’re saving the universe, which to be fair, they might just be.

One of them was Oh, a half Vulcan half Romulan. I’m not sure how such a person would come about. Romulans and Vulcans are completely disunited. Until recently, they weren’t even allowed in each other’s space. So how do two of them end up mating and producing a child? I know there’s a non-canon theory that Saviik was also half Romulan / Half Vulcan. I guess Nimbus III, the planet of intergalactic peace, may have been one place where vulcans and Romulans could have mixed. Oh’s mixed heritage explains a lot of things. Her lack of inner eyelids, but her ability to perform a mind meld.

Anyway, when Data is created, the Zhat Vash are concerned. So Oh infiltrates Starfleet and works her way up to chief of starfleet security. All with the hopes of preventing the Federation from developing true synthetic life.

She engineers the attack on mars, to turn the Federation against synths, and ban their research.

It works.

Bruce Maddox flees to a distant world and continues his research.

Then the ibn Majid encounters a ship from that world, containing two of Maddox’s creations. One of them looks identical to Soji and Dahj.

Starfleet treats this like any other first contact situation, but Oh gives orders to captain Vandermeer to kill the synth ambassadors. If he disobeys, the ibn Majid and its crew will all be killed. He’s got to know at this point that Oh is not above board. Does he consider going to someone else in Starfleet, I wonder? I guess he decides the only way to protect his crew is to carry out the order. So he does.

Rios goes at him hard for this. Telling him this was the wrong thing to do. Overcome with guilt, Vandermeer kills himself. And now Rios has to live with the guilt that his judgement pushed his captain over the edge. Rios is a broken person, symbolised by the 5 holograms, each a broken piece of him. He covers up the whole thing, so as to protect the ibn Majid. But he goes through post-traumatic stress from the whole experience and is booted out of starfleet.

Maddox sends two of his creations, Dahj and Soji, out into the universe, to find out the truth behind the synth ban. One to earth, the other to the Borg Cube. We can see how the borg cube is connected. They assimilated Ramdha, and the knowledge of the admonition caused the borg to all shut down. But how does Maddox know this connection? How does he know to send Soji there?

But it backfires. Her presence on the cube allows Narak and Rizzo to find the location of Maddox’s world, and now they’re sending a fleet to destroy it.

It’s all coming together, and I’m really liking it. The value of a mystery is all based on the payoff. So far, the mysteries on this show are paying off much better than the Red angle did on Discovery season 2. That, in my opinion, was the biggest weakness of that season. I loved the setup, and I loved the character stuff with Pike. Pike was awesome. But the payoff fell flatter than I’d hoped.

This episode only makes my excitement about Star Trek Picard grow. I feel like we’re in the middle of something very important. Something big.

Now that she realises that she has put her people in danger, Soji isn’t willing to wait for Clancy’s squadron. There’s no time to lose. They have to get home to protect the world from the Zhat Vash.

So she takes over the ship.

ButI love Rios’s lullaby that gives him back control of the ship. Smart.

At this point, Picard is willing to let Soji take them straight to her home. “She’s done it Maddox’s way, she done it my way. Let’s let her try her way.”

I’m kinda torn on this. The Zhat Vash ships are on their way. We’ll see more of them leave the sub shortly. If we don’t get there before they do, it’s all over.

On the other hand, what can one little ship do against that Romulan fleet? Clancy told Picard to wait at DS12 for the squadron. How’s she gonna feel about him now that he’s disobeying that order. Just as they were starting to be able to work together again.

But they can at least get there in time to warn the synths of the coming danger. Maybe the synths have some defenses.

It’s understandable, and mildly amusing, that Picard doesn’t know how to operate the new holographic controls on this ship.

So they head off for a Borg transwarp conduit, which should get them there quicker.

While the un-reclaimed drones have all been flushed into space, there are still xbs on board, which Seven appears to be controlling. They swam Rizo. And yes! Finally, She dies! Woohoo.

Ah. I’m a terrible terrible person.

I’d say it’s more likely they’re assimilating her, rather than tearing her apart, so maybe she’s not fully dead. But assimilation seems a fitting punishment for her crimes. For her hate.

I don’t have a problem with her trying to save the universe from this big evil threat, but it’s the way she goes about it. Instead of warning everybody of the threat, she works in secret, because that’s the romulan way, and she doesn’t care who she hurts or kills in the process. That’s what upsets me about her.

Actually, on rewatch, what I thought was her assimilation, I think, was her beaming out to safety.

Darn it!

So Seven achieved nothing. She regained control of the cube, but the Romulans are all gone anyway.

We learn that as an ensign, Picard served on a ship called the Reliant. Not the same Relient from the wrath of khan, of course. That one was destroyed. This was probably the Relient A, or maybe the Relient B.

There’s a nice little conversation between Picard and Rios. Picard pointed out that the Zhat Vash set the trap, with the attack on Mars, but Starfleet could have side-stepped it. Instead, they gave in to fear. I feel like this theme of fear is even timlier that the writers intended, given the whole covid-19 thing going on right now. There’s certainly a lot of feat in the world right now.

Risk points out that there is still a very real danger.

Picard believes fear is the great destroyer, not the synthetics, or some outside force from 200,000 years ago.

I think they both have interesting points.

Picard is right about fear, but I think he’s not giving enough credence to the threat this outside force could represent.

Of course, what we need is more information. The truth can sometimes dissipate fear. Of course, the truth can also confirm our fears.

It’s all very interesting stuff.

It’s all very Star Trek.

As the La Sierrena enters the borg conduit, we see that Narak has found them again. Logical. He knows where they’re heading.

He follows them in.

I really enjoyed this episode, and I’m hungry for more. Bring it on.

With my ongoing walk to Mordor, I’ve been captured by Baron Wright. My next milestone is Bree. I’ve been recording my thoughts about Fellowship of the Ring, both the book and movie. After we’re finished with Star Trek Picard, I’ll be sharing my very first Lord of The Rings Read, Watch and Walk episodes.

But until next week, I’m Adam David Collings.

Live long and prosper.

Make it so.

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Star Trek Picard “Nepenthe” (Nerd Heaven 018)

Wow. This was a fantastic episode. Bringing back Riker and Troi wasn’t just a nostalgia stunt. These character were very well used to fantastic effect. This is a beautiful character episode that adds more depth to Riker and Troi’s characters than was done by any of the TNG movies. This episode is packed with scene after scene that makes you feel a variety of emotions. Let’s dig in and geek out over this wonderful piece of television.

Transcript

This is episode 17 of the podcast.

Today, we’re talking about Star Trek Picard episode 7 – Nepenthe.

I’m away at Ulverstone in North-West Tasmania for a church family camp. So you might hear some rolling waves or even a fairy penguin or two in the background of this episode, because Star Trek waits for no one.

And wow, what an episode we have to talk about!

The description on Memory Alpha reads

Picard and Soji transport to the planet Nepenthe, home to some old and trusted friends. As the rest of La Sirena’s crew attempt to join them, Picard helps Soji make sense of her recently unlocked memories. Meanwhile, Hugh and Elnor are left on the Borg cube and must face an angered Narissa.

The episode was written by Samantha Humphrey and Michael Chabon

It was directed by Douglas Aarniokoski

And it first aired on 5 March 2020.

And of course, it guest starred Jonathan Frakes and Marini Sirtis.

Make it so.

Man, I loved this episode. It exemplified what Star Trek Picard is, when it’s at it’s best.

It was a slow-paced deeply character-driven story.

This week’s flashback takes place just 3 days ago, taking us back to Episode 3 of the show. We get to see a little of what went on between Commodore Oh and Agnus. She asks a few questions about what Agnus told Picard and then she says she’ll show Agnus what will happen if Synthetic lifeforms are allowed to exist. And she performs a mind meld with her.

So up until now, my assumption has been that Oh is a Romulan posing as a Vulcan.

But can Romulans perform mind melds? We know they are an offshoot of the Vulcan race, and we know that mind melds are a very ancient Vulcan practice, but to my knowledge we have never seen, in any canon or non-canon source, a Romulan perform a mind meld.

Raffi and Maddox both believe there are Starfleet officers complicit with the Zhat Vash behind this whole thing, so maybe Oh really is a Vulcan, just working with the Romulans. It seems pretty obvious to me that she knows Rizzo is a Romulan.

We don’t know exactly know what she showed Agnus. A few rapid flashes of images. I believe there was an exploding planet in there. We don’t have a full enough picture to see what exactly it was to change Agnus’s mind so completely, to drive her to betray Picard and murder Maddox. It had to be really compelling. So far, we haven’t seen any compelling motivation from the bad guys in this show, other than, “they hate synthetic life”, which is pretty weak.

Did Oh convince her, or mind control her? We don’t know enough. In fact, this flashback doesn’t really tell us anything new, other than a mind meld was performed.

Anyway, Oh gets Raffi to swallow a tracking device, which will come back later in the episode.

Back in present day, The La Sierenna is caught in a borg tractor beam at the artefact.

And poor Hugh is being interrogated by Rizzo. I am so ready for her to die!

Rizzo says she can’t kill Hugh because as a Federation citizen, it would be a treaty violation. She doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who cares about treaty violations. Her real motivation here is to get Hugh to talk. She can’t get the information out of him that she needs if he’s dead. So instead, she starts killing ex borg. Knowing how much Hugh cares for them.

When Hugh refuses to talk, she let’s the La Sierra go, but sends Narak out to follow them.

Elnor stays behind to help Hugh. This is where he is needed. MY biggest question is, where was Elnor while Hugh was being interrogated. Why didn’t he just jump in and behead Rizzo right then and there.

What I like here is that the people in this show are not stupid. Rios thinks that Raffi hacked the tractor beam, because that’s what she was trying to do, but within seconds, they realise that’s not the case. They know this is suspicious and they have their guard up from that moment on.

That brings us to the planet Nepenthe, which is very earth-like. Looks like a bit of a paradise planet. Picard and Soji emerge from the Sakarian gateway thing and are immediately confronted by a warrior armed with a bow and arrow.

Quick aside. Am I the only one terrified that the borg now have the technology to beam a drone onto a planet from lightyears away? One drone is all it would take to cause an apocalypse. And they’re using it solely as a means of escape for the queen. That seems … illogical.

Anyway. I love how Picard points out that his heart is solid durateneum. I think this is the first time it’s been made clear to new audiences that Picard has an artificial heart. Of course, it turns out the warrior is a child, and that Picard knows her, and her parents. By this point, I’m sure we’ve all guessed that her parents are Riker and Troi.

I love that they named their daughter Kestra, after Deanna’s older sister, who tragically died when she was just Deanna was just a newborn. That story is told in one of the few really good Lwaxana episodes that TNG did “Dark Page”. DS9 did several good Lwaxana episodes, and one bad one. Anyway, I Think that’s a wonderful tribute to her sister.

We’ll learn later in the episode about Will and Deanna’s other child, who also has a significant name.

Through a nice conversation between Soji and Kestra, we find that Soji trusts nobody, including Picard. After what she’s just been through with Narak, and the shock of finding out her entire life is a life, I really don’t blame her.

The way Picard breaks the news to Soji that she’s an android was really sloppy. He should have handled that with a lot more delicacy. He should have put off Kestra’s question, and taken the time during the walk to break the news to Soji as gently as he could.

Personally, I think that discovering you’re not a “real person” but are actually artificial, would be a massive shock, and quite a difficult thing to accept.

But this is all another case of Picard being a good man, but not perfect. Sometimes he stumbles, even just on the little things. And I love that about this show.

He kinda stumbles again when he tells her that Dahj WAS real. That implies that Dahj is dead.

She assumes this whole thing is just another mind game. Again, I don’t blame her.

And we get our first glimpse of Troi. I love the look of joy on her face when she sees Picard.

She knows immediately he’s in trouble. And then she just clouds over as she senses the depth of what Picard has been through, and is still going through. Because, of course, she’s an empath.

Marina Sirtis is absolutely fantastic in this episode. It’s a good reminder of what a great actor she is. Something Star Trek didn’t always give her the opportunity to show.

When Picard introduces Soji and Dr. Soji Asher, she says “just Soji.” She’s just learned that her doctorate, and her surname are both lies. Nice touch.

Then we get to see Riker for the first time.

He may not have his wife’s empathic abilities but he can either see in Picard’s face, or just knows he wouldn’t show up for a social call.

And so Riker says “Shields Up!” That’s such an iconic Riker line. Loved it. And I just love that Riker has shields on his house. He’s prepared for all eventualities. I thought he said “we’ve had some problems with the Xindi, would have been a nice nod to Enterprise, but no, it’s the Kzinti. Have you heard of them? Top points if you recognise the name. I didn’t. But they’re a race of aggressive felines that were previously seen in Star Trek The Animated series. So that’s a pretty deep cut.

Deanna recognises the emotion on Soji’s face and acknowledges that she’s been through genuine trauma. But she can’t sense those emotions. This makes me wonder if she could sense Data’s emotions once he installed the emotion chip. The movies never answered that question. Either way, Troi respects the truth of Soji’s emotions, artificial or not.

Picard tells his friends that he is in over his head. I think this is the first time he’s slowed down long enough to truly realise that. He’s lost his crew, and his plan was not as fully formed as he’d thought. He was so focussed on finding and rescuing Soji, he hadn’t given any thought to what he’d do once he found her.

He needs a place to regroup and formulate a new plan. And where better than he with his most trusted friends.

Will Riker, his right hand, and Deanna Troi, his conscience.

I’m loving the relationship the Rikers have with their daughter. It seems like a very happy family. And that’s probably, partly because of, rather than just in spite of, the tragedy we’ll learn about later.

From what we see of it, Nepenthe is a beautiful world, but I would have liked it if it were just a little more alien. Apparently they have venomous animals called bunnicorns, but they look exactly like rabbits. The name bunnicorn is a bit on the nose. Actually, a lot on the nose. I know they don’t have infinite budget, but I’d have liked it if they’d used a CGI creature, just to add a little alien-ness to the planet. At least in TOS they put horns on the dog.

Kestra is fascinated that Soji is Data’s daughter. She asks her if she plays the violin or likes Sherlock Holmes, two things we know about Data. That’s a very kid way to approach it.

Kestra is more fascinated with the little human details about Soji, than the superhuman things. The fact that she has mucus fascinates her.

This reminds me of the time Julian Bashir met Data. He wasn’t impressed that Data had super strength and speed. He was fascinated that Data breathed and had a circulatory system.

Soji doesn’t understand in what sense Data could be her father. She was created long after Data died. Picard really needs to take some time to explain this whole neuronic clone thing to her.

I like the relationship that is developing between Kestra and Soji in this episode. There are so many great character scenes. It’s just one after another after another.

I like the subtle little moment as Deanna sighs before opening the door to Thad’s room.

We learn that the Rikers had a son. Had being the operative word. Last week would have been his 18th birthday. So that’s a very sad development. I love the photo of Picard in uniform holding baby Thad. Picard has such a smile on his face. By this point in his life, he’d mostly gotten over his fear of children, but this was just any child. This was the child of his dearest friends. Of course he’s gonna have a huge smile plastered all over his face.

I love the acknowledgement from Picard that as Kestra’s aching for her brother slowly fades, it brings a whole different ache to Deanna and Will. I love the writing in this episode.

Their son’s name was Thaddeus Riker. Thad was likely named after Colonel Thaddius Riker, an ancestor of Will’s. He fought in the American Civil War during the 1860s and was named Old Iron Boots by his fellow soldiers. Will knows this story well, and was shocked once to learn that Colonel Riker was rescued by a Q posing as a human. It’s doubtful he remembers this detail, however, as he was transported to the USS Voyager in the Delta Quadrant to give evidence in a trial against the Q, before being returned to the alpha quadrant with his memories erased.

Rios has figured out that somebody is tailing them. Again, the crew are not stupid.

Another thing Rios and Raffi are noticing is that Agnes is not herself.

Agnes makes a comment about wanting to be the fun crewmember who suggests hiding in a comet that turns out to be a giant gormagander. This seems like a bit of a Star Wars reference, referring, obviously, to Empire Strikes Back, where the Millennium Falcon hides in a cave in an asteroid, that turns out to be a giant space worm.

But it’s also a reference to something that was introduced into Star Trek lore by Star Trek Discovery. The gormagander is a space wale. A sentient animal that flies through space. They were on the endangered species list in the 23rd century, so the fact that Agnes is making this comment suggest that maybe they are a little more plentiful in the 24th. Which is cool.

Agnus is really out of character at this point. She suggests abandoning the mission, abandoning Picard and abandoning Soji. She was so excited to meet a real living synth, and now she wants no part of it. She’s getting really bad at hiding her true feelings.

I love the little shorthand between Rios and Raffi. With just a look, she says “Leave it to me, I’ll work on her.” And with a look of his own, Rios says, “Go for it, she’s all yours.”

That demonstrates the shared history of two old friends better than Raffi’s use of JL as a nickname for Picard. Not that I particularly mind the JL thing.

Next we get yet another wonderful scene. This time between Picard and Riker. Picard is still trying to protect the Rikers from all this and he thinks the best way to do that is to tell them nothing about his situation. Riker’s comeback is both stinging and heartbreaking.

“I was just thinking about how great it would be if ignorance of danger was all it took to keep it away from the people we love.”

It’s a very personal statement for Riker, as we see him choke up while he says it.

The soil on Nepenthe has regenerative powers. Things grow really well here. It’s why they came here. It seems Captain Riker gave up his Starfleet career to move here to Napenthe for the sake of his son’s health. He and Deanna thought that maybe it would help.

Soji is exhibiting more and more android traits. Now that she’s activated, she’s found she can read a 300 page book in a few seconds. And she gives a little head tilt. I recognised that as very Data long before Riker called it out. I’m sure you did too.

Riker shows Picard how foolish he’s been trying to keep everything to himself, but essentially recounting the entire story of the show so far. He’s not an idiot any more than Rios and Raffi. And he reminds Picard that he’s not the captain of a starship anymore. He’s dealing with a teenager. Something Picard has no experience with. But Riker does.

We get some interesting insight into Thad. He grew up on Starships, mostly, on the USS Titan presumably. He never felt like he had a homeworld. His mother was from Betazed. His father was from Earth. Thad didn’t feel like either of those planets was his home. He was a child of space. But he was fascinated by the idea of a homeworld and invented his own. Ardani. He came up with various different cultures and even whole languages. It’s very creative. I can so identify with that as a writer. Already, this boy that we’ve never seen on screen has so much more depth than half the characters on Discovery. Interesting that. I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m bagging out Discovery. I like Discovery, but I must admit, I’m loving Picard more.

Eventually, when they came to Nepenthe, for Thad’s health, it became his homeworld, and he loved it.

He had Manadaxic neurosclerosis, a silicon-based virus. The heart-breaking thing is that it was curable, using positronic technology, which of course was banned after the synth attack on mars. The machine that could have saved Thad’s life was made illegal. I wonder if Riker and Troi tried to get their hands on it through illegal means to save their son.

This ties into an interesting discussion which starts with a comparison of grown verses replicated food, and culminates in the question of whether real is always better than synthetic.

You know what I love about this scene. It’s allowing Troi to be a counsellor again. Her character was used pretty badly in most of the TNG movies. She got to be a counsellor for one brief but fantastic scene in Generations, and then that was it. Voyager gave her the chance to do a little more, but it’s been a long time since we’ve really seen Troi being so awesome in her field. It’s fantastic.

But Soji still doesn’t trust anyone. All these friendly faces, these people being caring, just when she needs that more than ever, it could just be another mind game like the one Narak played on her in the meditation chamber. Again, I don’t blame her. And yet I know these people. I know she can trust them.

Picard responds to this with bluntness.

As Riker said, Picard’s not so great with teenagers. He may not be up to the challenge.

But then Troi calls him out and says he had it coming when Soji shoves him.

“To you, the idea that this could be some kind of subterfuge or simulation is preposterous, but to her, it would be more of the same.”

And then she makes a great suggestion.

Pretend our dinner table is the ready room of the enterprise, or more accurately, the conference lounge.

I really love Troi and Riker in this episode, but especially Troi.

So Hugh is determined to take the cube from the Zhat Vash. He wants to protect the Xbs. As we established last week, they are victims. Hugh is one of the few people who care about them.

Sadly, the stupid-face Rizzo appears at that moment. And here we run into that problem. No matter how good you are with a sword, you’re useless against a phaser. At least a lightsaber can deflect blaster bolts. But Elnor just carries a metal sword.

Fortunately for him, the Zhat Vash have a duelling tradition of hand-to-hand combat against the Qowat Milat. If that weren’t the case, Elnor would be dead now.

But in some ways, this is subterfuge on Rizzo’s part, and there is a cost. Tragically, that cost is Hugh.

What sucks the most is that Elnor fails to kill Rizzo because she beams out at the last second. Oh man. I’ll be cheering when Elnor finally chops off her head.

I can’t believe Hugh died. That’s so sad. This show has quite a high body count. At least died a hero, trying to save the Xbs from the Zhat Vash. I hope Elnor can fulfil his legacy by saving them in Hugh’s name.

You know what upsets me the most about Hugh’s death here. We’ll never get to see him meet Seven. I was sure those two would share scenes together in this show. And we’ll never get to see him reunite with Geordi, his first friend. I feel like both Descent and now Picard have robbed us of that reunion. Which is sad.

Raffi is trying to draw out what’s bothering Agnes. She thinks it’s just the pain of losing Maddox. But then Agnes absolutely breaks down. She can’t hold in all the stuff that she’s hiding.

But before they can really dig deeper into this, Rios announces that Narak is back, still following them, which doesn’t seem possible.

Remember that tracking device Oh had Agnes swallow?

I like how Riker just casually calls Troi Imzadi like a pet name now. Back in TNG, they would use this term sparingly, only on special occasions. But they, they’re been married for 20 years. They’re extremely comfortable with one another. Imzadi seems a natural pet name to use at this point in their relationship.

WE get a classic Star Trek conference scene, but it has pizza! I’ve missed these scenes. So having one again, with Riker and Troi, but also their daughter and Dahj. That was so cool.

And did I mention pizza?

I also like how Kestra makes a worthwhile contribution to the discussion, but not in a way that feels unrealistic for a child of her age. I really like Kestra.

Rios is playing an interesting game with Agnes. I don’t for one minute think he truly believes that Raffi is being tracked, on purpose or otherwise. Given the strange way Agnes is acting, I think he suspects she has something to do with it, and he’s trying to draw her out by expressing his fake suspicions of Raffi. Remember, he already knows that Raffi was doing down on Freecloud, and why she returned to the La Sirena.

And it kinda works. She admits, “it’s not her.”

And then we get a very dark scene. Agnes replicates a neutron-toxin. It appears this is a suicide attempt. Is this just because she feels guilty, or does she think killing herself will stop Narak tracking them? Maybe this is part of her mission from Oh.

I think she is probably trying to prevent Narak from tracking them, from the way she kind of psychs herself into it, saying “you can do this,” which was horrifying, by the way.

I wanted to reach into the screen and stop her.

But I couldn’t

She injects herself.

And then she collapses.

And then she starts foaming at the mouth.

This was horrific.

And my theory is proven true, because once she starts to die, Narak suddenly loses the signal.

The EMH gets reactivated and manages to save her life, but she’s stuck in a coma.

I wonder what Rios’s idea was, the one Raffi wasn’t gonna like. We never actually get to find out.

That’s an odd bit of storytelling. I wonder if that will come back later. If not, why include that line at all?

Meanwhile Elnor finds a tag and presses it. It activates a Ferris Ranger SOS. I guess he’s calling Seven of Nine to come help him. Cool!. But what on earth was it doing hanging here in a Borg cube? That’s kind of weird.

Now that they’re not being tracked, the La Sirena can finally meet Picard on Nepenthe.

I kinda laughed when Picard said his new crew carry way more baggage than the TNG crew ever did. Because, of course, Rodenberry wouldn’t allow them to have baggage.

Riker makes it clear he’s still on active reserve with Starfleet, but it would take a very good reason to get him back in uniform again.

We have another nice scene between Picard and Riker as they sit by the pond. We do see an interesting rock formation in the background, that lends a little alien-ness to this planet.

But then we get an awesome scene between Soji and Kestra. It seems Soji has lost one sister, only to gain another.

And I LOVE how Kestra talks about what got her through her hard times was her parents. As a parent myself that affects me deeply. I think the hope of every parent is that their child might be able to say those words to someone.

She urges Soji to let Picard be that support to her, a father figure. Those two have a bit of work ahead of them to really let each other in.

In noticed in the credits that Jay Chattaway was credited as having written Lullaby #2 in this episode. Not sure what that piece of music was. Jay Chattaway was a regular composer on Star Trek back in the 90s. Especially on Voyager. Maybe it was just a little music queue that they referenced in the score of this episode. I’m really not sure.

This was a phenomenal episode. It gave me such a Star Trek: The Next Generation feel, and yet, it was very much not TNG. TNG only ever tried to do a character episode like this one. Family. This show takes the best of what we remember nostalgically, but does something very new and fresh with it.

I’ve really enjoyed Star Trek Picard up until now, but if I didn’t already, Nepenthe has definitely made me love it.

Well done to everyone involved in bringing this beautiful chapter of the story to our screens.

Next week’s episode is called Broken pieces. I wonder what it will bring. A quest to find Soji’s homeworld, no doubt.

It’ll be very exciting.

As for my walk to Mordor, I got a whole lot of steps in yesterday. Packing for our trip and then walking along the beach with my daughter. I just encountered Old Man Willow, and my next milestone is Tom Bombadil’s house. That’ll be a trippy experience.

Stay tuned for the next episode of the Nerd Heaven Podcast. Please consider giving the show a review wherever you listen to podcasts, or if you are watching on youTube, click that like button.

Also, if you’d like to support what I’m doing here, you could buy me a hot chocolate.

Just go to buymeacoffee.com/adamdavidcollings.

Have a fantastic week.

Live long and prosper.

Make it so.

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Star Trek Picard Episode 6 “The Impossible Box”

Everything begins to transition in episode 6 of Star Trek Picard. Jean-Luc finally meets up with both Hugh and Soji. What starts as an investigation turns into a daring rescue as Narak finally makes his move against her. Picard also has to confront his haunted past as a former Borg drone. Everything changes after this episode. Join me as we dig in deep to geek out over this one.

Transcript

Welcome to Nerd Heaven.

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars, and I am a nerd.

This is episode 16 of the podcast.

Today, we’re talking about Star Trek Picard episode 6. The Impossible Box.

Oh, and I guess I should say happy leap day, because I’m recording this on the 29th of February.

The description for this episode on memory alpha reads

Picard and the crew track Soji to the Borg cube in Romulan space, resurfacing haunting memories for Picard. Meanwhile, Narek believes he finally found a way to safely exploit Soji for information.

This episode was written by Nick Zayas. That’s a name I haven’t seen associated with the show up until now.

It was directed by Maja Vrvilo

And first aired on the 27th of February 2020.

Make it so.

I really enjoyed this week’s episode. There was plenty I liked in last week’s episode as well, but it was pretty brutal. This episode allows us to take a little breath. But there’s still a little for us to chew on.

This week’s flashback is not so much a true flashback, as it is a nightmare of Soji’s childhood. Which we know must be implanted data, because she didn’t have a childhood. She creeps through a dark hallway on a stormy night, into a workshop where she sees her father. He yells at her and she wakes up.

And despite his accusations against her two weeks ago, Soji is still in a relationship with Narak.

I kinda got the idea she was gonna give him the boot, but then what couple don’t have arguments.

Narak’s perspective that “everyone is hiding something, whether they know it or not” is so very Romulan. But it’s specifically true for Soji. She’s hiding her true nature, a nature she knows nothing about.

Let’s think for a minute just what an incredible job Maddox must have done to create an android that believes she is human. All the little details. It’s not just the emotions. It’s the physical things. She’d have to eat, as Data did, but she’d have to taste. She’d feel sensations on her skin. She’d get hungry. She’d experience tiredness. There’s all the sensations and experiences related to her sexual relationship with Narak. And, if it’s not too delicate to say … She’d have to go to the toilet as well.

There are so many little things that could give away her true identity if they were not present.

She’d also have to pass scans.

I’m reminded that Picard thought that Soji was created out of flesh and blood, not machine parts, but still with an artificial positronic brain. Kind of like the humanoid cylons in Battlestar Galactica. So that goes a long way. But still, it’s a mind boggling achievement, significantly greater than anything Noonian Soong did.

I guess it’s also possible that there is programming within her that actively makes her ignore certain facts that should give away her true nature. Narak talks about this later in the episode.

So Romulans have a true name they only share with the one they give their heart to. That’s very Doctor Who.

Then we cut to the La Sirena and have to deal with the corpse in the room. How is Agnes going to get away with her murder of Bruce Maddox.

During that scene in sickbay last week, I thought it very odd that the EMH wasn’t on. He’s their medical officer and they definitely had a medical emergency. Some viewers thought that Maddox was under the medical care of Agnes. And there’s a reason for that.

It’s revealed in the Book The Last Best Hope by Una McCormack, but in the show itself, that Agnes was a qualified medical doctor before she met Maddox and began studying under him for her doctorate in robotics

So anyway, that makes a bit more sense. I’d forgotten this detail. I thought she was just in the room in the capacity as Maddox’s friend and lover.

So that makes a little more sense. That’s why she can now bluff her way out of it all, by telling Picard that Maddox died of his injuries and she was unable to save him. As long as nobody talks to the EMH.

I’m finding there’s a lot in this show that wouldn’t make sense if you haven’t read the extended materials. And that’s a bit of a problem.

But I’ve also got a bit of a problem with her backstory.

If we assume that Agnes Jurati is the same age as her actor, Alison Pill, then she’s only 34.

The synth ban happened 14 years ago. That means she was 20 when the synth ban happened. She met Maddox and began her robotics studies 2 years earlier.

So that means, she was a fully qualified doctor, out of medical school as a teenager.

She must be some super genius. That just doesn’t seem realistic to me.

I guess Agnes must be older than her character (much like Picard is a lot older than Patrick Stewart).

But that’s a little hard to swallow as well. I think she already looks younger than her 34 years.

I guess, 24th century medical advances and all that. After all, that’s how I explain Picard.

We don’t learn in this episode why Agnes killed him. What her deal is, but her relationship with Maddox gives her a perfect excuse for all the painful emotions she’s struggling with.

And then Elnor comes in and asks what the Artifact is, then realises it’s none of his business and that he should out-but. I missed that little joke on my first viewing. But I like it. This is a particular type of humour that I really enjoy. When people say something not quite right because they’re in a fish out of water situation.

I said in episode 3 that I was really liking Agnes as a character. She was the wide-eyed innocent who was just thrilled to be on board, who balanced out the other world-weary characters.

Well, we say how that turned out. She sure isn’t innocent anymore. And her innocence after rmeeting Oh was all an act.

But it seems that Elnor is now filling that hole.

I’ve heard people say that they don’t really like Elnor. He’s too child-like. But more and more, I think Elnor is playing out the Australian sense of humour. Evagora isn’t writing the lines of course, but there’s something very Aussie about the way he’s delivering those lines. We Aussies have a very self-deprecating sense of humour. And that’s all over his performance as Elnor. And I’m loving it.

Agnes raises a good question. Why would Maddox send Soji to the artifact, of all places, to learn the truth about the synth ban? I’d very much like to know the answer to that.

This episode forces Picard to confront something from his past that still haunts him to this day.

We’ve seen this in every Borg story Picard has taken part in. We saw in First Contact, that the emotional pain of his assimilation was as raw and fresh as the day he was taken.

Back in I Borg, Picard tried to convince Troi, and himself, that he was all good now. That he was fully recovered. But now, as an older and wiser man, he’s got no pretext.

He hasn’t set foot on a Borg Cube since he was assimilated. The borgified Enterprise engine room was a close approximation, but not the same.

By going aboard that artifact, Picard is going to have to confront his deepest fear.

I’ll admit I had to look up the word metastasize. It means to spread through the body like a disease, causing damage. That’s a good description of what the Borg do.

Even though Elnor is clueless about the culture around him, he’s got a keen sense of insight into people. He can see that Agnes is haunted by something she wants to forget.

And then we get a call back to that joke as he asks if he was in-butting.

Patrick Stewart is really selling Picard’s anxiety about the Borg. It’s absolutely wonderful.

And then. Finally, he says it. “Computer.”

For the last few episodes, characters have been giving verbal instructions to the ship’s computer, but they never actually begin by saying “computer.” It was very glaring by its absence.

So I cheered out loud when he said that. I think my wife may have rolled her eyes at me.

But that’s ok. I’m a nerd.

There’s lots of nice visual callbacks in the image search result that Picard runs. He sees Hugh as he first knew him, and as he looks now.

They like to do this weird camera shot where you see people through the translucent holographic screens, and their face blends with another.

It’s strange

But in this case, it’s very effective, as we see the image of Locutus merge with Picard’s face.

That’s chilling.

Of course, for the shot to work, the original image has the borg implants on the wrong side of Picard’s face. Which is wrong.

As I nit-picking?

Actually, it occurs to me now, that image of the borg not have been Locutas at all. It may have been a borg drone. Which makes it work.

There’s a shot in the opening credits that looks like the end of a Dalek eye stalk. I assume it’s meant to be some kind of Borg implant. But every time I see it, all I can think is Dalek.

As the La Sierra heads toward Romulan space, he learns, officially, that the neutral zone no longer exists.

In movies and TV shows, people’s emotional pain somehow morphs into romantic or sexual feelings. Which makes zero sense to me. If I was in the kind of pain Agnes is in, sexy fun times would be the last thing on my mind.

But people do sometimes turn to pleasure as a way to comfort themselves when they’re hurting, so I guess I can understand Agnes in this scene. It sure makes a lot more sense than that weird turbolift scene between Spock and Uhura in Star Trek 2009.

But what I like here is that Agnes verbally acknowledges that this is a mistake. And that it will not really help her in the long-term. At best, it’ll take her mind off her troubles for an hour or two at most.

This is a more grown-up approach to sex than Star Trek is known for.

The Romulan puzzle box not only acts as a symbol to demonstrate the difference in personality and approach between Narak and Rizzo, but also foreshadows Narak’s attempt to kill Soji later in the episode.

Finally we have a conversation between these two weird erotic siblings that actually moves their story forward. The last two times we’ve seen them together have been pretty pointless. Just rehashing the same old lines.

This time, we get some insight into Narak’s investigation. He is making progress. He is gaining insight into Soji. He has a plan.

So Narak addresses what I was talking about earlier. How can Soji not know she’s a machine?

Narak points out that all day, every day, there are probably little hints that she has to ignore. Maybe she’s actively programmed to ignore them. But as he says, “that cognitive dissonance must go somewhere.” In her dreams, she’s reconciling the sides of herself. This is a vulnerability he can exploit.

He can gain access to the information they want out of her, such as the location of her homeworld, without triggering her self-defense mechanisms, as they did with Dahj.

So Romulan space is still called Romulan space, and it’s still a violation of treaty for a Federation citizen to violate it without authorisation.

Raffi calls in an old favour from a friend to get diplomatic authorisations for Picard.

Or more specifically, blackmails the old friend.

But she got the job done.

There’s a nice character scene between Raffi and Rios, as she tells him about her estranged son, and the granddaughter she’ll never get to know.

I can’t imagine the pain of never getting to know your grandchild. I’m not a grandparent, but I’ve seen how special that relationship is to my parents. I’ve always known that relationship is special, from having my own grandparents, but now I’m seeing it from the other side in my parents.

Soji tries talking to her mother, actively trying not to fall asleep. She succeeds briefly. When she wakes up, she scans all her belongings. They are all 37 months old. Everything in her life is fabricated. She knows this now. Her entire life is a lie.

Can you imagine how that must feel?

Picard beams in, and he’s standing there alone, in the dark, on a Borg cube. He sees the regeneration alcoves. He hears the noises of the cube. That would be terrifying. We get to see a lot of rapid flashes, all from First Contact. And sound effects too from that movie. It’s great.

They go by pretty quick, but if you’re paying attention you’ll see corridors of the Enterprise E, even the Borg queen herself. And you hear the queen.

And finally Picard gets to meet Hugh again, after all these years. This was a great moment. And I love how happy they both were to see each other. And Hugh is instantly willing to do whatever he can for Picard. That was heart-warming.

If there’s one person who can understand how Picard is feeling here, it’s hugh.

The reason the freed borg refer to themselves as XBs is that, as Hugh puts it, a new name can sometimes be the first step to a new identity. That’s a lesson he learned on the Enterprise. Which of course, ties in beautifully to I Borg. Especially that scene when he says to Picard, “No, I am Hugh.”

Seeing these drones is a good reminder of what the borg are underneath. They’re victims, not monsters. Despite what he said earlier, about the Borg collectively, Picard has compassion for the individual drones. They were all people once.

But not everybody does. Hugh reminds us that ex borg are still among the most hated people in the galaxy.

I’m still not sure I buy that. But whatever.

Narak is going to use a Romulan meditation technique to help unlock the answers in Soji’s unconscious. But this meditation is forbidden for non Romulans, or round-ears as they are called. A slur of sorts.

But man, Narak has a lot of sway on this cube.

Narak begins to cement more of her trust by telling her his true name.

Narak teaches her to take control of the dream. To look in directions other than what she’s always done.

They do this with a window as practice, but this will be necessary once she gets into the lab.

Soji can’t see her father’s face. I guess because there’s no data to draw on. Her father doesn’t exist any more than her mother does. And then, she sees herself on the work table as a wooden doll. And Narak instructs her to look up at the skylight. She sees two moons. They may have uncovered enough data to locate her home. Wherever it was that she was assembled.

Hugh asks who Soji really is, and Picard says “there’s no time.” presumably so we don’t have to listen to exposition about stuff we already know. But Soji is being hidden from sensors, so they just have to sit around and wait. I assume during this time, Picard would explain the whole story to Hugh. It would certainly make no sense for him not to.

And now that he’s got what he wants from her, Narak is ready to kill her.

But he doesn’t just shoot her, he locks her in the chamber and leaves the puzzle box to release a fatal radiation.

Why do bad guys always use such elaborate ways to kill people, giving them a chance to find a way to escape? It makes no sense.

But we can see, Narak is still fighting his feelings. He’s made the decision to kill her, that’s what he knows he’s supposed to do. And yet, You can see it’s bothering him. He does have some form of feelings for her.

And of course, she uses her android strength to rip the floor open and escape.

Which allows Picard and Hugh to detect her.

Now it’s a race. Who will get to her first? Narak or Picard and hugh?

And finally, finally, Picard meets Soji.

He doesn’t have time to explain everything, but he explains enough to earn Soji’s trust.

She doesn’t have many options, so it seems logical to go with this stranger.

Hugh has discovered a special emergency escape device obtained after the borg assimilated the sikarians. This is a nice deep cut into Voyager’s history. Voyager encountered the Sikarians during their first year in the delta quadrant. They had extremely long-range transporter technology. Technology that could have helped them get all the way home to the alpha quadrant.

That’s really sad that they were assimilated. But not surprising. Every race in the Delta Quadrant is at risk.

Anyway, this technology is used to allow the queen to escape a cube.

They’re going to beam themselves to a planet called Nepenthe.

And then Elnor arrives to protect them from the Romulan guards.

Picard thanks him for disobeying his orders to stay on the ship.

The Romulans guards will just follow them through unless Elnor stays behind to fight them off to give Hugh time to hide the room.

But Picard can’t leave Elnor behind again.

This is a nice little healing moment in their relationship. But Picard can’t convince him to come.

So Elnor and Hugh remain behind on the cube. I have no doubt we’ll see them again. They’ll both want to find Picard and help him.

So the episode closes on that awesome line. “Please, my friends. Choose to live.”

I love that about Elnor. I love that he always begs him enemies to choose to live, rather than force him to kill them. He has a respect for life. All life.

We have officially hit the midpoint of the story now.

In story structure, the midpoint is an important moment. It’s a transition from ractivness to proactiveness.

In the first half of a book, the protagonist is reacting to the events of the first plot point. But in the second half, he or she is trying to be more proactive. To go on the offensive, rather than just being on the back foot the whole time.

The rescue of Soji feels like a similar transition.

No longer is Picard stumbling around, trying to figure out where Soji is, and why the Zhat Vash are after her.

Now, he has rescued her, and they will be working together, the hunted has become the huntress.

Of course, the protagonists attempts to go on the offensive usually fail. After all, there’s still half of the book to go. But there’s a shift of attitude, and a little change of power.

The story is in full force now. We’re gonna start seeing a lot of things happening. Everything changes from here on.

And that’s very exciting.

Next week’s episode eis called Nepenthe. So we’ll be seeing what Picard and Soji get up to when they arrive on that planet. Nepenthe sounds kind of Klingon. Similar to Rure Penthe. That’s logical, given that both the Klingons and Romulans exist in the beta quadrant.

So…I wonder … will we be seeing Klingons next week?

Everyone was a little nervous about what Klingons might look like in Picard, Would they look like discovery Klingons? And if so, what would that mean for worf?

Alex Kurtzman confirmed a while back, that if we ever see Worf, he will look the way he as always looked, explaining that just as there are different looking romulans, there are also different looking Klingons.

A lot of people really wanted to see some more variation in the Klingons in Discovery. A few TNG style Klingons in the background, just to show they still exist. Once again, Picard has learned from some of Discovery’s mistakes. We’ve already seen that with the Romulans. Picard has actually added to canon, explaining the disparate appearances of Romulans throughout the history of the franchise.

so…I’m included to trust them on this.

If we do see Klingons next week, I suspect there’ll be a mix of discovery style and TNG style.

Anyway, this is all just speculation based on a planet name. It’s entirely possible I’m completely wrong about any Klingon connection.

We’ll find out next week.

Now I haven’t been updating you on my progress in my walk to Mordor. I’ve just passed Crickhollow and my next milestone is Old Man Willow. I have 2981.2 km to reach the end of my adventure.

And a friend of mine has joined the walk as well. If you want to travel this journey with me, be sure to add me as a friend. You’ll find me as “Adam David Collings”

Don’t forget to subscribe to Nerd Heaven, wherever you listen to Podcasts. And please consider leaving a review. It would certainly help me out.

I’ll see you next week.

Live long and Prosper.

Make it so.

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Star Trek Picard “Stardust City Rag” In-Depth Analysis and Review

Things get serious in the 5th episode of Star Trek Picard. There’s a lot to talk about. I dig deep. What a fascinating mixture of brutality, darkness, and light-hearted adventure. We get to spend some time with Seven of Nine, and finally catch up with Bruce Maddox. But there’s a lot lurking in background here. This episode has it all. Laughs, triumph, drama, and heart-break.

Transcript

Welcome to Nerd Heaven.

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars.

And I am a nerd.

This is episode 15 of the podcast.

Today, we’re discussing the fifth episode of Star Trek Picard, Stardust City Rag.

The description on Memory Alpha reads

The La Sirena crew begins an unpredictable and lively expedition on Freecloud to search for Bruce Maddox. When they learn that Maddox has found himself in a precarious situation, a familiar face offers her assistance.

This episode was written by Kirsten Beyer,

directed by Jonathan Frakes

And it first aired on the 20th of February 2020.

Make it so.

In America, CBS All Access have been showing little “Next week on Star Trek Picard” clips. We don’t see those in Australia on Amazon Prime, but a few screen captures usually make their way to the internet.

I’d seen images of Picard wearing an eye patch and Rios in a silly hat. I was prepared for this to be a very silly cheese-fest. I was prepared to not like it.

Well, imagine my surprise when we were served up what is probably the darkest episode of the show so far.

Notice also that we didn’t once cut to Soji and Narak on the cube. Last week, they spent some time over there, but that plot wasn’t really advancing.

This time, I think they made the good decision to just focus on Picard and crew. IF nothing is happening with the other plot right now, then let’s just not cut over there. And there was plenty happening with Picard and his new crew.

The episode begins, as always, with a flashback. A former borg drone is having his implants rather violently removed from his body. And surprise surprise, it’s Icheb!

I picked it up from the shape of his nose. I said to my wife, “I think that’s Icheb.” Then, when we saw the shape of the implants that had been removed from around his eye, it was confirmed.

I had such mixed emotions during this scene.

I was so excited to see Icheb back. Great to see that he fulfilled his dream of becoming a Starfleet officer. I’ll bet he was a fantastic one.

But then the very real sorrow when he died. That was so sad. I always liked Icheb, so it was heart-breaking to see his story end this way. But what a powerful scene. It had so much more emotional resonance because it was a character we knew and loved.

Icheb was like a son to Seven. She calls him “my child” as he dies.

We just know that she’s going to get some payback for this heinous crime.

And it sure was heinous. They did all this to him without anaesthetic, and then left him to die slowly. Seven is left with little choice but to put him out of his misery with a phaser. For them to be that monstrous is almost cartoonishly evil.

It was a pretty bold move to kill off a beloved character in such a brutal way. And while, he was never in the opening credits, Icheb probably got more character development in the year and a half he was on Voyager than Harry Kim and Chakotay together.

It wasn’t the original actor playing him. That’s a shame, but it worked for me anyway. We’ve already seen another actor play Icheb at around this age in the Voyager episode Shattered.

We can be sad that Icheb came back for a few seconds only to die like this, but I think it makes me appreciate his journey up to this point all the more.

Iheb was assimilated as a child, because of uncaring parents who wanted to use him as a weapon. He was doomed to spend his entire life as a drone. But then Voyager rescued him.

And because of that, he got to have a life. He got to grow up. He got to pursue a career in Starfleet. He got to make a difference. And most of all, he got to know what it’s like to be loved. He had a family. He had a mother-figure in Seven. His life may have been short and it may have ended badly, but he had a full life, one he never would have had if Voyager hadn’t rescued him from that cube.

Also, did you notice the line where the doctor asks “Where’s your cortical node, Buddy? Gotta be in there somewhere.” That was a very nice touch, and is of course, a reference to the Voyager episode imperfection.

I’m talking about this first scene a lot because it had a big impact on me. And honestly, I’m still sorting out all the emotions it has made me feel. But that means the writers did their job well. This made me feel deeply, and that’s what a writer is supposed to do. That’s their job.

But before we leave this scene, we need to acknowledge that this has got to be the most violent scene we have ever seen on any Star Trek. It was graphic. It was horrific. If the swear words weren’t enough of a hint, we have no doubt now that this is firmly an adult show.

Then we jump to almost present day.

We meet up with Bruce Maddox. Finally. Again, it’s not the original actor, which is a tremendous shame. But I’m sure they tried. He’s played here by John Ales. It’s been a long time so I guess I can accept that a much older Bruce could look like this.

He’s been in hiding and his meeting with a woman called Bjayzl. If you had a keen ear you’d have noticed the evil doctor in the previous called out the name Bjayzl when she heard Seven entering the room.

And they’re drinking Tranya. Nice TOS reference.

So Bjazyl is the loan shark Maddox went to, but he can’t repay her since the Tal Shiar destroyed his lab, and almost killed him.

So, I guess that’s why he disappeared after the Mars attack.

So Picard better get to Freecloud quickly, because Bzayzl is gonna sell Maddox to the Tal Shiar.

So Deven is awake and comes to see Picard in his holographic ready room. It seems she’s moved on from the purely practical nutrient supplements. She drinks bourbon now. And it does kind of suit her harder, more world-weary personality.

Seven is a member of the Fenris Rangers. Self-appointed police officers, trying to keep the peace in the power vacuum left behind by the Romulan Star Empire. That’s why she came to Picard’s aid at the end of last episode.

Picard sees them as vigilantes and is a little uncomfortable about their role and self-appointed judge, jury and executioner. But as Seven points out, they are the only law that region of space knows.

Seven’s motivation is to help people, the little people, one at a time, as best as she can.

She represents what Picard could have been if he hadn’t given up. Something she points out rather bluntly.

So when she hears Picard is on a mission to help someone who has nobody else to help them, she’s interested.

We get confirmation, through a holo-recording, that Agnes and Maddox were together, romantically. I wasn’t surprised by this, because I’m reading the Picard novel, which seems to be setting things up in this direction.

Funny how we see her tear as she watches, and think she’s just missing him. Not realising there’s a lot more beneath the surface.

The holographic pop-up ads as they near freecloud were …. Interesting.

Very much targeted advertising. Rios gets the offer of ship repairs from a Red Bolian. I wonder, does this suggest that there are red Bolians? Humans have different skin tones, so it’s possible.

Picard gets an offer of high tea in a classy restaurant.

Agnes gets a job offer from an entertainment robotics company and has to behead the thing to make it go away.

And Raffi gets an offer of snake leaf, the drug she was smoking back in episode 2.

And Elnor, poor Elnor doesn’t get any, because he’s lived in isolation with the nuns, so he has no presence on the space internet. He seems almost disappointed. I’ll admit, that got a laugh out of me.

Anyway, this whole targeted ad thing was very topical for the present day. But it doesn’t feel completely out of place in the 24th century. It reminded me of the jingle Quard had programmed into Deep Space Nine’s computer.

Seven’s ears prick up at the mention of Bjayzl.

When Picard says “Options” to his new crew, well, it felt like the old Picard we knew. He’d often say that to his Enterprise crew.

So they’re gonna pose a go-betweens to put Bjayzl in touch with the Tal Shiar. And they have to perfect bait. Seven.

She’s more than willing to help them, of course, but not for the reasons they think.

The exterior context shots in this show all look great. I’ll bet there’s a few easter eggs hidden amongst the los vegas lights of freecloud.

And I just spotted one. It seems Mr. Mott has gone into business here. He was the hair-dresser on the Enterprise. He now has a shop here called Hair Enterprise. And right next door is a bar called Quark!

Is this actually our favourite Ferengi? He’d likely have more lucrative business on Freecloud than he ever had on Deep Space Nine. Or is it just a place called “The Quark Bar” named after the elementary particle?

This show loves to do this thing where it intercuts two scenes jumping backward and forward through time every sentence, or just cutting to a different location entirely. Most of the time, it has been jarring and annoying.

This time, it works. Because it makes this whole thing feel like a heist movie. It’s been a negative every other time they’ve used it, but this time, for me, it’s a positive.

So now we get to see the costumes.And, they do look silly. There’s no denying that. And yet, when you see them down on the planet, they fit in a lot better than I’d have thought. It actually works for me, a lot better than I thought it was going to. And Raffi gives a good practical reason why they’re dressing this way.

Rios especially sells it.

Did you notice the guy in the bar with holographic angel wings? That was …. Different.

Why are there so many translucent holograms about? It’s well established that in the 24th century, they have opaque holograms that you can feel and touch. Anyway, At least the EMH is opaque.

Rios’s contact is Mr. Vup. A Beta Annari. They’re a reptilian species that can smell a lie. IS there any scientific basis to such a concept? I’m gonna guess… probably not. Maybe some species give off different endorphins when they lie vs when they tell the truth. I dunno. I’ll go with it.

And we get an actual name drop of Quark. Which was very welcome. I still want more. There’s plenty of TNG and Voyager, but I need me some Deep Space Nine.

Anyway, the fake references they created for Rios include him assisting Quark with some trouble relating to the Breen. Interesting.

So, Rios is gonna offer Bzayzl an alternate buyer for Maddox. The payment being Seven of Nine. A dangerous game. Bzayzl is not gonna want to go back on a deal with the Tal Shiar. Honestly, Seven is probably the only bait that would ever entice her to consider it.

It’s a good thing Rafi’s medications can fool his senses.

Which only goes to strengthen Rios’s position more than if Mr. Jup hadn’t been able to smell truthfulness and deceit.

I love how through all of this, Elnor is trying to get his head around their deceit. Remember, he’s grown up with the doctrine of absolute candor. The never concept of a lie is a concept more alien than anything he’s encountered.

When it finally clicks for him and he says “It’s a lie.You’re all behaving as someone other than who you are.” I had a good laugh. But then he realises “everybody except me.”

Elnor’s inability to be dishonest may be a danger on this mission.

I laughed again when he said “I don’t know how to not be Elnor.” So Picard and Seven give him good advice. “Then be Elnor. An Elnor that doesn’t talk.”

And can I point out that Patrick Stewart’s idea of a French accept is so stereotypical it probably borders on insulting. He sounded like Inspector Cleaseu from The Pink Panther. Again, it got a little laugh from me, but I’m not sure it’s truthful for Picard, who is supposed to actually be French.

Why is Agnes so afraid of operating a transporter console? She’s a blooming robotics engineer. And not knowing how to operate a transporter is probably the equivalent of not knowing how to drive a car. Sure, not everybody can drive, but it’s a fairly normal everyday activity.

I’m just not buying that somebody as technologically minded as her would be so anxious about having to beam somebody aboard.

You’ll notice they’re putting a reasonable amount of humour in here. Now, I am not one of those people who say “you’ve gotta put levity in everywhere, or that everything has to be made light.”

I like a serious story. But I’ll admit, the humour they add to this episode is useful. It does help to balance out the really heavy darkness and brutality we also see. I’m not saying that darkness always has to be balanced out in a story. Often, I find it’s impact is lost when you try to do that. But here it worked for me. And I think one of the big reasons is that the humour comes naturally out of the characters. You’ll hear me say that a lot. Humour needs to come believably and naturally out of the characters. That’s where I think the Marvel movies often fall flat (and I love the marvel movies, don’t get me wrong) but they have characters cracking jokes in the middle of tense situations that is totally unbelievable for me. I

n my opinion, this episode did it well.

And now we get to see what Rafi’s business on Freecloud wa sall about. She’s beaming down to see somebody called Gabriel Hwang

So I’ve mentioned before that Picard is setting up a lot of mysteries. And I’m not the only one who’s been wondering if the payout of those mysteries would be satisfying. Why do they have to keep Rafi’s business on Freecloud secret? Now we get the payoff. And to me, it was satisfying. Because it’s a character beat. We learn something about her, and we have a very emotional experience with her. And honestly, this is something she probably wants to keep private because it’s so personal.

But first we have a touching goodbye between Rafi and Picard. It seems they’ve kind of repaired their relationship. Which is nice.

And this point, I’m invested as much in their relationship as I am with Picard’s relationships with Riker, Data, and all the TNG characters.

So Gabriel is Raffi’s estranged son. Agin, he’s been mentioned in the book.

When Rafi took the job as Picard’s first officer on the Verity, she had to leave her husband and son back on earth for an extended period of time. But we get the impression that even when she was back home, she was a mess. Her drug addiction may have been a bigger problem than we realised, and she became obsessed with her conspiracy theories about the Federation and Romulans working together to allow the synth attack on mars, making her an absent mother even when she wasn’t away.

I’m still keen to find out if Rafi is correct with her theories.

Gabrial wants to know if she’s really changed, or if she’s still obsessed with what he considers a crackpot theory. So he tests her by bringing it up and calling it nonsense. And of course, she immediately defends it.

Kinda proving that she hasn’t changed as much as she wants to make him believe.

This is all powerful character stuff. Gabrial is carrying a lot of resentment. He’s not going to let go of it easily.

We learn that Raffi’s name is actually Rafaella.

Gabe is married to a Romulan named Pel and they’re expecting a daughter.

I really hope that over the course of the show, Raffi and Gabe can work out their differences, for the sake of the baby if nobody else.

She deserves to have a relationship with her grandmother. And how heart-breaking would it be to have messed up with your child, and then not even have a chance with your grandchild.

Of course, Gave is worried that Rafi will let down his daughter as she let him down.

Anyway, let’s hope they can all get it together.

I’ve been hoping we’d hear the Rios EMH says “Please state the nature of the medical emergency.” We almost get there in this episode. It says ‘What is the nature of your psychiatric emergency.”

This scene makes so much more sense on second viewing. We think Agnes is just panicking about using the transporter console. But no. She’s frantic about something else she knows she has to do. She’s so worked up it automatically launches the EMH. I guess it is programmed to monitor the crew’s vital signs when it is turned off. Which actually makes perfect sense.

We get confirmation of something I’ve long suspected as head-canon. If you reclaim a borg drone quickly, there is much less technology that needs to be removed. You can more fully restore them. But when they’ve been assimilated for a long time, since childhood, they’re so riddled with it, you can never get it all out. That’s why Picard is so much more Human than Seven and Icheb ever were. It’s why Janeway, Tuvok and B’elanna, who were all assimilated, seemed to come back from that with no lasting consequences. Heck none of them even got their eyes replaced.

Picard and Rios realise that Seven and Bjayzl know each other. She even calls Sevan Annika. Her original human name.

Picard drops the act and returns to his normal accent when he asks Seven what the hell is going on.

And then Elnor says “Are we still pretending?”

I laughed out loud at that line.

The way Evan Evagora delivers that line, I think it’s a bit of the self-deprecating Aussie humour coming out there. I love it.

Picard points out that murder is not justice. He pleads with Seven not to squander her humanity by killing Bjayzl. And he’s right of course. This is classic Jean-Luc Picard. And yet, the way that set this up at the beginning, the way we saw Icheb treated, I find myself rooting for Seven to take revenge, dare I call it justice, against Bjayzl. I agree with Picard, but I find myself still wanting Seven to kill that monster.

This is why it kind of had to be Icheb, It wouldn’t have worked any other way.

Seven listens more to the practical argument from Rios than she does to the moral argument from Picard, but she beams up with them all, leaving Bjayzl behind.

There’s a nice moment when Seven asks Picard if he ever felt he regained his humanity after being reclaimed from the Borg. He answers yes without hesitation. But when pressed ,he admits, not all of it. But it’s something he and Seven are still working on.

As seven beams away, there’s a hint of the Voyager theme. I didn’t pick up on it the first time, but a friend brought my attention to it.

So Seven wasn’t as willing to leave Bjayzl as she lead Picard to believe. She beams right back down.

Picard still thinks there’s a place in the galaxy for mercy and Seven didn’t want to disillusion him. And I believe her when she says that.

So seven gets her revenge and then walks out of there shooting two phaser rifles at once.

So Maddox explains to Picard some of what he doesn’t know. We get confirmation of what I’ve long believed, that Dahj and Soji’s mum is an AI built into them.

As maddox tells Picard where to find Soji, we can’t help but wonder what’s going on with Agnes. Why is she off to the side looking so sad. Why isn’t she by Brice’s side?

So Bruce sent Soji and Dahj to the cube and earth respectively, to find the truth behind the synth ban. It seems the Romulans aren’t the only ones after Soji. The Federation is involved somehow. Seems Rafi might be right.

Speaking of Rafi, after failing to reconcile with her son, she’s back on board the ship. I guess she’s got nowhere else to go.

And then we get the shocking final scene.

So Brue has fulfilled his life’s work. He has replicated Soong’s work.

We still don’t know where he got one of Data’s neurons.

Agnes clearly regrets her role in helping to create the androids. She calls it one more thing she has to atone for.

And then …. She kills him.

Agnes Jurati kills Bruce Maddox.

I didn’t see that coming.

Some people have been talking about Agnes since Episode 3.

Commodore Oh went to meet her, then she signed on to Picard’s mission.

Some felt she wasn’t entirely what she seemed.

It appears they were right.

“I wish you knew what I know,” she says, as he chokes.

“I wish I didn’t know what I know. I wish they hadn’t shown me.”

She kills the man she not only respected, but loved.

What would drive her to do that?

I must know!

Things are getting real now.

And that’s two classic Star Trek characters this episode has killed.

Wow.

I don’t know what to think about all of this.

To me, Agnes was always the nice kindly, somewhat awkward character we could all relate to.

But she’s just become something very different. I don’t think any of that was a lie, but whatever Oh showed her, it was serious.

I guess we’ll find out more next week on the episode “The Impossible Box.”

So, in the tradition of shows like The Walking Dead, I’m not going to play any outro music this time.

Let’s just have a moment of silence for Icheb.

And for Bruce Maddox.

And, well, for Jurati’s innocence.

See you next week.

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Let’s Play King’s Quest 1 Redux

King’s Quest is a classic piece of 20th-century culture. I played through the entire game last year during my Extra Life stream, raising money for sick children. If you want to experience this piece of history without having to figure out all the puzzles, you’ve come to the right place.

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Star Trek Picard “Absolute Candor” (Nerd Heaven #014)

Picard and his crew are finally off, travelling the stars in their ship. Their first stop is a planet called Vashti, where Picard helped Romulan refugees 14 years ago. This episode forces Picard to confront his past failures, and the guilt he carries because of them. And we meet Elnor, a warrior from a Romulan religious order. Can Picard convince Elnor to join his quest?

I found there were some interesting themes to talk about in this episode. So let’s dig into it together.

Transcript

Welcome to Nerd Heaven.

I’m Adam David Collings. The author of Jewel of The Stars.

And I am a nerd.

This is episode 14 of the podcast.

And today we’re talking about episode 4 of Star Trek Picard. Absolute Candor.

So I’ve finally read the third and final edition of the Star Trek Picard Coundown comic book. Originally, I expected this story to explain why Picard left Starfleet, something the show has already done a good job of explaining. Instead, it gives us some insight into the adventures Picard experienced while trying to help the Romulans. It also explains the backstory of Jaris and Zhuban, and why they are with Picard at his chateau.

I would highly recommend people read this comic. Without it, I would have found characters like Rafi, Laris and Zhuban are bit jarring. Who are these people? It’s available on Kindle and Comixology.

I’ve also started reading the first Star Trek Picard novel. The Last Best Hope. The blurb doesn’t tell you anything about the plot of the book, but so far, it seems to be showing us the very beginning of the rescue efforts, from the moment Picard first learned of the supernova.

And, I’ve finally started playing Star Trek Online during the last week. I created a character years ago but never really got into it. Anyway, I’ve been quite enjoying it. There is such a vast library of stories to interact with after 10 years.

But that’s enough of my general Star Trek geekdom. We have an episode to discuss.

The description for Absolute Candor, according to Memory Alpha, reads

The crew’s journey to Freecloud takes a detour when Picard orders a stop at the planet Vashti, where Picard and Musiker relocated Romulan refugees fourteen years earlier. Upon arrival, Picard reunites with Elnor, a young Romulan he befriended during the relocation. Meanwhile, Narek continues his attempts to learn more about Soji while Rizzo’s impatience with his lack of progress grows.

This episode was written by Michael Chabon

And directed by Jonothan Frakes

It first aired on the 13th of February 2020.

Make it so.

I can already hear people complaining about the pace of this show. We were supposed to be going to Freecloud, and now we’re spending an entire episode on a detour. Picard has done nothing but recruit new people to help him on his mission for several episodes.

Technically, that is true, of course.

But I’m enjoying the pace of this show.

Is an adventure on Vashti really any less desirable than an adventure on Freecloud?

Yes, this show is slow-paced, but with every little step, it’s doing a whole of stuff with character. And I’m loving it.

This episode starts with another flashback to 14 years ago. I think this is a structure we should get used to.

Picard is in the midst of his rescue mission.

He’s been helping Romulan refugees settle on a planet called Vashti.

We see some Romulans with heavier ridges, making them look pretty much like TNG Romulans. So that was nice.

We follow a young boy through the streets. I’m loving the details in this location. This show really does feel like a movie.

And Picard beams down dressed like John Hammond from Jurassic Park.

Perhaps he’s wanting to put the Romulans at easy by not parading around in Starfleet uniform, but I think the main reason is Patrick Stewart wanted to avoid wearing a uniform except when absolutely necessary.

Picard is well-loved on this planet. Especially by this little boy, Elnor.

The two have a very special bond. It’s quite heart-warming to watch. It’s a shame Picard spent so much of his life afraid of children because he’s actually very good with them now. He would have made a fantastic grandparent. But, as it is, he makes a wonderful “spare grandparent”, and honestly, there’s nothing wrong with that. This type of relationship is important and is not to be undervalued.

So Picard is working with the Qowat Milat. Romulan warrior nuns. The show is giving us a positive sympathetic exploration of religion, which, apart from Deep Space Nine, has been pretty rare in Star Trek. So I’m really liking that. These sisters are raising Elnor, but all agree it’s not the best place for him to grow up. Picard is determined to find him a more suitable home.

We learn about two of their tenants in this episode. I’ll talk about one of them later, but the sister says “A promise is a prison. Do not make yourself another’s jailer.”

This is a thought-provoking quote.

I think in our society, we can take promises a bit flippantly at times. Until, of course, a promise that is owed to us is not fulfilled.

A promise is something that should be entered into in a very considered way. It’s better to not make a promise than to make one you won’t be able to fulfil.

So in the same way, expecting somebody to make you a promise, pressuring them into making one when they haven’t given it that due consideration, could be thought of as a bad thing.

Basically, Zani is counselling Elnor against pressuring Picard into making a promise he may not be able to keep.

I think that’s interesting.

I think to Picard, this relationship with Elnor is helping to fill the hole in his heart left behind by his nephew Rene. A boy he was starting to bond with, before he was cruelly taken away by a fire.

It’s at this moment when Picard first learns of the synth attack on Mars.

It’s a shame they couldn’t have put Jeri Ryan’s name in the ending credits for this episode, rather than the start, so as not to spoil her appearance right at the end. I spent the whole episode waiting for her appear. My wife said “I bet she’ll show up right at the end.”

Poor Agnes is bored. Surely she can find something to do. They’ve got a holodeck on board. We’ll see that shortly. Maybe she should have brought some entertainment of her own. I know I would have. I guess I’m just used to my kids saying “I’m bored.” I was never bored as a kid, and you’ve got so much more than I had. And I had so much more than my parents.

The book Rios is reading is a real book. He says it’s about the existential pain of living with the consciousness of death and how it defines us as humans. Sounds like a cheery read. I’m sure this is going to be telling of his character.

The emergency hospitality hologram pronounces Zhuban really strangely. I dunno where he gets the ch sound from. Those letters are nowhere in the name.

Anyway, Picard wants to make a stop at Vashti, that same planet we saw in the teaser 14 years ago.

We learn, as is logical, that the qiros system, where Vashti is located, is now a dodgy place. There’s a big power vacuum since the fall of the Romulan empire. The whole place is run by a gangsta with a hundred-year-old bird of prey.

We get a namedrop of the Romulan rebirth movement, but no explanation of what exactly that is.

And this is where we learn the other tenant of the Qowat Milat, although we’ve already seen it demonstrated.

Absolute candor. Total communication of emotion without any filter between thought and word.

On one hand, this type of open honesty could be refreshing. You always know where you stand with someone. They don’t mince their words or hide things from you. A lot of problems in life are caused by people not being honest with one another.

On the other hand. I believe our words should always be carefully considered and filtered by thought. You know the old saying, “think before you speak.” A lot of problems in life are also caused by speaking rashly without thinking first.

Picard has good practical reasons for making this detour. The assistance of the Qowat Milat could be invaluable on this mission. But really, he is being driven by his guilt.

As Rafi puts it, the death of Dahj has you thinking of Elnor. The boy you promised to help, but couldn’t. When Starfleet called off the rescue mission, Picard was never able to return.

As he says, “I may never pass this way again. If he ever wants to make things up to the sisters and Elnor. This is the time.

Back on the Borg cube, we get a little more insight into what Ramdha was saying last week. It seems that she believes that Soji is a part of Romulan religion. She is the prophesied destroyer. The Uuk Vash also believe Soji is the destroyer, but possibly for more practical reasons related to her being synthetic. I dunno. It’s all a bit mysterious right now. This show is raising a lot of mysteries. What happened to Rios when he was in Starfleet? What’s Rafi’s deal with Freecloud. Picard even withholds the criteria used by the Qowat Milat for no reason other than to reveal it at the end of the episode.

But the most compelling mysteries on this show, to me, are those being explored by Soji. The stuff about Ramdha. The assimilation of her ship that somehow killed the cube. And how it all fits into Romulan mythology.

Soji felt drawn to Ramdha. No doubt some programming built into her.

She wants to know Narak’s deal. Why he has such unrestricted access to the borg ship. He, of course, is not forthcoming. The one thing he’s been open and honest about with her from the start is that he has secrets, and he won’t reveal them.

The scene where Narak and Soji slide down the corridors would feel extremely romantic, except that we know Narak is evil and he’s using her.

It’s funny. TV shows so often go straight to sex to show the intimacy between characters, but I felt the intimacy between the characters so much more in this scene than I did when we saw them in bed together. It’s something about the way Isa Briones acts with her face. She really gets across the attraction she’s feeling. The scene brought back memories of the feelings I had when my wife and I were first in love, just doing fun things together.

But Narak kind of drops the act when he outright accuses her of lying about being on the ship that brought her here. It’s clear that her past is fabricated, and he’s laying seeds of doubt in her, making her question her own past.

Despite being a ragtag crew of misfits on an old civilian ship, this episode is feeling very star treky. Which just goes to show that you don’t actually need the uniforms to make it feel like Star Trek.

I enjoyed all that time we spent on earth, but man it feels good to be on a spaceship beaming down to alien planets at last.

We see a symbol on the shoulders of several Romulans. No doubt the “Romulan rebirth movement. Whatever that is.”

Vashti sure isn’t what it used to be. There’s a sense of hopelessness hovering over the settlement. And none of them are happy to see Picard. A stark contrast to last time he beamed down here.

I like that they adopted Jolan tru into the Romulan language, which is a greeting we first heard in the TNG episode Unification.

Anyway, everyone on Vashti is angry about Picard’s presence. And the gangsta Kar Kantar is on his way.

I’ll admit that Vashti feels a little Star Wars. But it’s logical that a frontier world like this would feel like Star Wars, because so much of Star Wars is set on worlds like this. It makes sense for the setting. This is well outside of Federation space, and we’ve already established there’s a power vacuum.

And then we see Elnor. Now all grown up.

Elnor is played by Australian actor Evan Evagora. He’s fairly new to acting but appears in the new movie Fantasy Island.

I love that they let him use his native Aussie accent in the show. And why not? We have an Irish Romulan in Laris. A British Romulan in Narak. Why should all aliens have to sound American?

This episode is forcing Picard to face his past failures.

Zani says “Because you could not save everyone, you chose to save no one.”

“I allowed the perfect to become the enemy of the good,” he says.

We talked about this last week too, but Picard almost made the same mistake as Starfleet. He failed to convince them to resume their rescue efforts. They’d given up.

So he gave up.

He did.

He could have jumped in a private ship and flown to Vashti. He could have helped Elnor. He could have continued helping people one at a time. One man couldn’t do much to help save an entire race, but he could have helped individuals. One at a time. That’s what Raffi was trying to tell him 14 years ago.

But in his mind, offering his resignation was his last-ditch effort. When that failed, he felt there was nothing left he could do. So he retired to his vineyard.

I think now he’s regretting that decision. He’s wishing he’d gone out on his own and tried to save those individuals.

It’s like the story of the starfish. Have you heard that one? The man walking the beach strewn with starfish. He sees a boy frantically throwing the starfish back in the water. “Help me,” he begs. “I’ve been walking this beach for ages. There are hundreds of starship back that way. You’ll never help enough of them to make a difference,” he says.

The boy picks up a starfish and throws it in the water. “It made a difference to that one,” he says.

That’s the kind of difference Picard could still have made.

If only he could go back and make a different decision.

Once again I’m loving how Picard is still the good man of great conscience that he has always been, but at the same time, the show allows him to be flawed. To be human.

Elnor has all the training of the Qowat Milat. He is, in every way that matters, one of them, except that as a male, he can never really be a member, because their order is a sisterhood.

He’s the perfect one to join Picard’s quest. It would be mutually beneficial.

Except for one thing, Elnor is filled with bitterness and resentment that Picard never came back for him.

The Romulans only sign reminds me of racial segregation, that has occurred in a number of places in the past, but it’s a very different context here.

We get a sense from the former senator’s speech about how it felt from a Romulan perspective to have to rely on Federation aide. It would have been humiliating.

The Romulans are a very proud people. They didn’t even want to admit to the Federation that their world was dying. And some among them actively tried to prevent or interfere with Federation aide. They wanted to save themselves.

But the worst of it all was that at a time when they were most vulnerable, they put their trust in Picard, only to have him fail them. In their minds, he may have made things worse for them.

This is really interesting stuff. It digs deep into what could have been a very shallow story idea, but the show looks at how people really felt, how different cultures affected what it all meant. It’s great stuff.

So the senator wants to fight Picard with swords. Good thing Picard is a fencer. But he’s not as young as he was. He’s not getting drawn into this.

So Elnor comes to his rescue. I love how he says “Please my friend. Choose to live.”

He doesn’t want to have to kill this Romulan. He’s kind of begging, “please don’t make me kill you.”

The senator chooses badly so Elnor chops off his head. “I regret your choice.”

There’s something we have to talk about.

Elnor is basically a warrior elf. You might argue he belongs in Lord of The Rings more than he does in Star Trek.

I heard a criticism of the Picard trailer a few months back.

It’s the age-old problem that no matter how good you are with a sword, that’s not much help in a world of guns. I mean, Indiana Jones showed us that rather humorously.

But I love that the episode actually calls itself out on that. Twice actually. The Romulan says your sword is no match for a disruptor, and they have to beam out urgently. Then Raffi calls him “a boy with a stick”. That second one got a good chuckle out of me.

I think now that we understand where the character has come from, we have good reason so his elvish appearance.

So what good really is Elnor going to be when they’re up against enemies armed with disruptors?

Think of it this way. Warrior traditions in science fiction often value traditional hand-to-hand combat skills with weapons like swords. Especially those with a religious connotation. But that doesn’t mean it’s the only skills they teach.

Look at the Anla’Shok in Babylon 5. They learn to fight hand to hand with pikes. But that’s not their only skill. They’re also fighter pilots in space.

I’ll be interested to see how they use Elnor in future episodes. Right now, I’m totally open to it.

Anyway, Picard finally tels Agnes the criteria for worthiness used by the Qowat Milat. They will only bind their sword to a lost cause.

So it wasn’t just me. Everyone is talking about how creepy the apparent incestuous overtones of Narak And Rizo’s relationship. What on earth is their deal?

I actually don’t think they are biological siblings. I think perhaps members of the Juck Vash refer to each other as brother and sister.

Just a theory.

Rizo and Narak have different approaches to Soji. Rizzo is worried that Narak is developing feelings, even sympathies for Soji. And there may be some truth to that.

And then we get a good old space battle with an old school TOS Romulan warbird. Very cool.

This thing wouldn’t threaten the Enterprise, but it packs enough of a punch to endanger Rios’s ship.

It’s nice that they don’t get out of this fight with technobabble like Voyager would have.

And we meet yet another hologram. The emergency tactical hologram. Is this starting to get a little too much?

I’m noticing something on this show. We’ve heard the ships’ computer speak, and we’ve heard the crew talk to it. But not once, has a person actually addressed it as “Computer”

I find I’m missing that. I wanna hear Picard say “Computer” before giving it a command. We really haven’t heard that since Voyager. They didn’t have a talking computer on Enterprise, and I don’t think I’ve heard it much on Discovery either.

I didn’t think so last week, as some did, but now I’m starting to wonder.

This hologram is like a drunk old version of Rios who looks kinda like Aquaman. Seriously, with that long hair, he looks a lot of Jason Momoa.

But it’s not very good at its job. It’s kind of too lazy to fire the weapons.

Not sure this quite worked as intended.

I like the awkwardness that still exists between Picard and Rios. Picard is in charge of the mission, but this is Rios’s ship. I’m sure they’ll figure it out eventually.

And then Seven of Nine comes to their rescue. We don’t know it’s her until she beams aboard, except that, of course, we know it’s her. She was in the credits, and we haven’t seen her yet.

They true weakly to conceal it by having the pilot respond in text rather than voice, and constantly referring to “he” and “him” but we all know it’s Seven.

Picard and Seven have never met on screen before, but of course, they recognise each other on sight. I mean, he’s Jean-Luc Picard. And she’s Seven of Nine.

I can’t really talk about this yet, because there’s nothing to talk about. We see her for a few seconds. Her one line “you owe me a ship, Picard” is somewhat amusing. But then the episode ends. Let’s just say I’m excited to see Seven in the show next week, and I’m sure I’ll have lots to say.

So another very enjoyable episode.

Until now, I’ve been enjoying the show, but the first three were so connected that it wasn’t the kind of show where you could say “I especially enjoyed this particular episode”. This is the first one that you can kind of pull out on its own and say “that was a good episode.” which is fine. That’s the nature of serialised TV, and I’m ok with it.

But yes, tonight was a very Star Trek kind of show, and I had fun with it.

Can’t wait for next week.

Don’t forget to check out my writing.

If you’ve like to sample it for free, you can get the prequel story that sets up the premise of my Jewel of The Stars series, by joining my email list at AdamDavidCollings.com/free

You can’t get the story anywhere else.

Or, you can read the first book free on Wattpad. I post a new chapter each week.

I’ll catch you next week when we discuss episode 5 of Picard. Stardust City Rag. That’s an interesting title.

See you then.

Live Long and prosper.

Make it so.

If you like this, share the love by

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Star Trek Picard “The End is The Beginning”

Jean Luc Picard finally takes command of a new ship and crew in the third episode of Star Trek Picard. Join me for a detailed review and analysis of this episode. This one feels more Star Trek than the previous two. The plot is beginning to heat up. Plus, the return of Hugh, and revelations about Dahj and Soji that raise many more questions than they answer. There’s a lot going on in this episode. Geek out with me!

Transcript

Welcome to Nerd Heaven.

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars, and I am a nerd.

This is episode 13 of the podcast.

Today, we’re talking about the third episode of Star Trek Picard, titled The End is The Beginning.

First of all, though, I have to apologise for something.

In the last two episodes, I’ve been saying Akiva Goldsmith, but the man’s name is actually Akiva Goldsman. So, sorry about that. I realised my mistake while listening to other podcasts on the show. You know your eyes sometimes just see what they think is there, rather than what is really there.

Okay. Onto this week’s episode.

The description on Memory Alpha reads

Completely unaware of her special nature, Soji continues her work and captures the attention of the Borg cube research project’s executive director. After rehashing past events with a reluctant Raffi, Picard seeks others willing to join his search for Bruce Maddox, including pilot and former Starfleet officer Cristóbal Rios.

This episode was written by Michael Chabon and James Duff

It was directed by Hanelle M. Culpepper

And it first aired on the 6th of February 2020.

And as Picard said for the first time this episode,

Engage!

Well there’s certainly a lot of cool stuff happening in this episode. And this is definitely the most Star Trek feeling episode we’ve had so far.

First of all, do you remember last week, when I was disappointed that Picard’s old com badge made the wrong sound when he tapped it?

Well, in the “Previously on Star Trek Picard” bit, they changed it to make the correct sound.

But then, later in this episode, it makes the wrong sound again.

What’s that about?

Anyway, let’s talk about the story.

We get a few quick flashbacks of the attack on Mars yet again, and then we cut to earth. It’s still 14 years ago, and we see Admiral Picard. Inm Uniform! It’s a uniform we haven’t seen before, except in the comics.

I gotta say it’s a thrill to see Picard in Starfleet uniform again, even if it isn’t the familiar uniform from the TNG movies.

Jean Luc has been presenting his plan to Starfleet command. The rescue fleet is gone, but there are still options. Using reserve duty officers and mothballed ships they could still mount a rescue. Not as significant as the originally planned rescue, but it’s something. But if they used synthetic labour, it would be far less reduced.

His first officer, Rafi Mussiker is keen to know how it went.

We’re seeing a very different Rafi here. She still has her starfleet optimism. Her idealism. But it’s about to be crushed.

They said no. As Picard says, half of them never wanted to help the Romulans in the first place. (something I still find a little hard to believe).

We learn a little more about the situation with synthetic lifeforms. Not only is the development of new synths banned, but all current synthetic lifeforms must be dismantled.

This seems like quite an overreaction, but again, I can kind of see where Starfleet are coming from. They need to be very careful to prevent a tragedy like this from happening again. But what they really need to do is understand what caused it. They say it was a fatal flaw in the unit’s operating systems. But, in that case, you find the bug and you fix it. You don’t say “all computers must now be dismantled.” I’m a computer programmer. I do this for a living.

As rafi says, something smells off about all this.

It seems like there is a conspiracy at the highest levels pushing for this overreaction. Could they even be responsible for programming the synths to attack in the first place? That’s a trope we’ve seen in Star Trek before.

This also explains why B4 was dismantled.

Rafi thinks the tal shiar are behind it, but Picard makes a very logical point. Why would the Romulans do something to sabotage their own rescue efforts. It doesn’t make sense.

Weird question, why is Rafi, Picard’s first officer, therefore, a command officer, wearing yellow? Commodore Oh last week made sense. She’s head of Starfleet Security. It’s been established they wear yellow. But Rafi?

Picard’s departure from Starfleet is seen in a different light through this flashback. He didn’t just run away in a childish tantrum.

He asked them to accept his rescue plan, or accept his resignation.

To his shock, they accepted his resignation.

And now we learn why present day raffi is so angry with Picard. He gave up. Ironically, just like starfleet did. Raffi holds Picard accountable for the same thing Picard holds starfleet accountable for.

In Picard’s mind, there is really nothing more he can do. Offering his resignation was his last hope. Now, without Starfleet, he’s out of options.

But Rafi’s not ready to give up. She wants to find a way. Somehow.

Who is right?

Clearly Rafi didn’t succeed.

But if Picard had kept trying with her, could they have succeeded? We’ll never know.

Back in the present, Picard makes the same request to Rafi he made to Starfleet.

I need a ship and crew to go find Bruce Maddox.

And she gives him the same answer.

And then……she smokes. She puts a flow off some plant she calls snake leaf, puts it in some kind of electronic cigarette thing, and she smokes. Honestly, this pulled me out of the story even more than the swear word last week.

Gene Roddenberry had a very strict rule as far back as the original series in the 60s. Nobody smokes in the 23rd century. As I’ve said, I don’t always agree with Rodenberry’s rules, but I credit this one as why the original Star Trek has been as timeless as it is (old fashioned looking sets no withstanding). Smoking was very common in the 60s, but much less so now. If you’d had Captain Kirk puffing on a cigarette on the bridge of the enterprise, it would have firmly rooted the show in the 60s, and would feel very wrong today.

Kirk did smoke briefly in Star Trek 6, to keep warm on Rure Penthe, and it pulled me out of the story then as well. And later in this episode we see Rios chewing on a cigar.

I know Raffi has been through a lot. Character-wise, it’s a realistic move. Anywhere else, it would add an element of gritty realism. But I’m starting to think that Star Trek exists in it’s own little reality. Does realism actually feel unrealistic in Star Trek? I’ve always though I wanted realistic Star Trek, but the F bomb and now the smoking have me wondering, DO I really want realism in Star Trek? Emotional realism from the characters, absolutely. But touches like this? I’m not sure. I guess I need to keep thinking about it.

But speaking of that character emotional realism, I’m loving what they’re doing with Rafi. She’s carrying 14 years worth of hurt and rage.

But why, at the end of the 24th century, where money and poverty don’t exists, is Rafi living in what she describes as an embarrassing hovel? I can only assume it’s by choice. She’s sealed herself off like a hermit as Vasquez Rocks. Yes, for the first time, this iconic star trek location is being used as itself, not as an alien planet.

She burns picard with a scathing truth. It might have been nice to hear from you, and not just because you need me to hook you up with a ship and pilot.

I’m loving character scenes like this in the new show. This scene in particular is effective. Beautiful writing and acting.

Patrick Stewart is a phenomenal actor. We all know that. So, he kind of needs to be surrounded by other good actors, or else it really shows. Michelle Hurd seems to be up to the task. She can carry a scene with Stewart very well.

Now we get to meet Hugh for the first time. We knew he would be in the show, but this is his introduction.

We learn that he’s the director of the Romulan borg reclamation project.

But what lead him here? The last time we saw him was in Descent. He was leading a small group of Borg who had been disconnected from the continuum and regained their individuality.

Where’s he been up to all these years. Where are the others he was leading?

How did he get involved in this Romulan project?

We’re still to learn all this. And I’m hoping we will at some point.

Hugh is very impressed with Soji, the way she speaks to the drones in their own language. She has respect and compassion for the ex borg.

Apparently this is rare. Hugh tells us that ex borg are among the most despised people in the galaxy. Which is interesting because Picard is an ex borg.

I think the difference is that he doesn’t look like a nex borg. He was reclaimed much sooner than most, so all of his visible implants were able to be fully removed.

So Hugh is allowing Soji to interview someone called Ramdha. She’s a romulan ex borg.

And this is weird. Soji has seen her dossier from before she was assimilated. Hugh is shocked by this. Soji says, “I find if I ask people for help they’re happy to give it.”

So….does soji have some kind of android powers of persuasion?

I suspect this is something we’ll come back to.

Picard has already figured out that the Federation has to be complicit for the Tal Shiar to be operating so openly on Earth.

Raffi saw Romulan connections 14 years ago. Picard didn’t believe her then.

She claims to have concrete evidence that a high ranking starfleet official allowed the attack on mars to go forward, in order to stop the rescue mission going forward.

That’s…… pretty heavy.

Raffi refuses to help Picard on this mission, but she does offer to connect him with a pilot.

That’s the depth of their relationship, even though she currently hates him.

I like this because it shows that Picard has that same sense of family with Raffi that he had with Riker and all the others on the Enterprise. We didn’t get to see it develop, but it’s there. And that makes sense. Picard had a life during all those years he wasn’t on our screens. Raffi is new to us but she sure isn’t new to Jean Luc. The show sells this well, and so we’re willing to just accept raffi as if we’d always known her.

Picard does form strong family bonds with those he works closely with. When he was younger, he didn’t show it as openinly, but it was still there.

And then, we see Commodore Oh wearing sunglasses.

Have you ever seen something more comical? More out of place?

Ok. Realistically, in the 24th century, you still need a way to shade your eyes in the bright sun.

Makes sense. But seeing a starfleet officer wearing present day sunnies, and a vulcan at that. It’s not wrong, it just pulled me out of the story again, much like the swearing and the smoking.

It’s weird isn’t it. The realism touches seem to be having the opposite effect on me. That’s really strange.

Although, memory alpha reminds us that vulcans have inner eyelids that make sunglasses unnecessary, based on an episode of enterprise. But I’m still suspecting that Oh is Romulan, even though everyone, including Picard, believes she is vulcan. So is this some clever foreshadowing?

This is interesting. Hugh says he’s come to see patient 4822 stroke 2.

I have the subtitles on so I know how to spell things.

Looking at the way it’s written, I’d pronounce that as slash 2, not stroke 2.

I’ve never heard anyone pronounce the slash character as stroke.

Is that an American thing?

Anyway

When romulans are assimilated, and then reclaimed, they seem to lose their minds. All the romulan former drones have severe mental illness. That’s fascinating. Is that a peculiarity of romulan Physiology? That’s fascinating, but also, very sad. It means that if a Romulan is assimilated by the borg, they’re never coming back. Even if they are restored, they’ll never be the same again.

Although that contradicts the voyager episode Unity. I’m sure there were Romulan ex borg in that episode. I’d have to re-watch it to be certain.

I love the scene when Picard calls Rafi.

You’re doing the research, aren’t you?

No

I’m sending you all I have on Bruce Maddox.

I don’t want it.

Carry on.

That really amused me.

That’s character-based humour done the right way.

Then we get our first look at the new ship, and we meet Santiago Cebrera’s character. Rios.

I love how it plays the TNG theme when Picard first breams aboard the ship. He probably hasn’t set foot on a starship in 14 years.

I love that Rios has an EMH. Makes perfect sense that after 20 years they’d be so common that everyone would have on on their ship. This is the perfect situation for one. Little ship with minimal crew. Rios isn’t gonna hire a doctor to travel with him in case he needs one occasionally. A holographic doctor would be a bit like a microwave. Something everybody has, and nobody can remember how we ever lived without them.

It’s also logical that his EMH looks like him. By now this is a mature technology. Of course you’d be able to skin your EMH with a custom appearance and personality that you find agreeable.

It’s possibly telling of rios’s character that his choice is to have holographic representations of himself, with various different accents.

Let’s talk a little about Rios’s ship. On the outside, it doesn’t look very star trek at all, in design. Based on the trailers, I didn’t think the inside looked very star trek either, but now that I’m seeing details from various angles, I’m noticing little touches like the navigation thing at the from between the two forward stations, just like on Kirk’s Enterprise. And I think I can even see some LCARS on one of the consoles.

This ship has elements that root it in the Star Trek universe, while still feeling very fresh and new.

We get hints of a rich backstory for Rios. He was the XO of a starfleet ship called the ibn Majid, named after an Arabian navigator and cartographer from the 1400s. It strikes me how little I know of non western history.

Apparently, the ibn Majid ws erased from official starfleet records, kind of like the Discovery.

Rios served a grand heroic captain, who died horribly. Somebody we know, I wonder?

Clearly they’re hinting at something significant in the past there, and I can’t wait to learn what it’s all about.

Raffi locates Maddox on a place called freecloud. Looks like a casino. I wonder if we’ll see some Ferengi when we get there! Wouldn’t it be interesting if Quard had moved up in the world. I’d love to see him. We need some more deep space nine references in Picard. DS9 was always my favourite.

Anyway, I noticed the text Gorn Egg on the screen as she’s researching. Significant?

Judging by her facial expression, the name Freecloud has great emotional significance to Raffi, and clearly negative emotions.

I love the emergency navigation hologram fanboying all over Picard. He name drops some important references to the past. The Q continuum, Picard’s role as arbiter of succession. Cool stuff. This show seems to handle fan service better than any other show I’ve seen. It does it right, in a way that feels completely natural.

There’s a nice touching scene between Picard and Laris. I’m gonna miss Laris and Zhuban just as much as Picard will. I hope we see them again as the season goes on.

I chuckled quite a bit when Hugh called Soji a know it all. Lots of characters in Star Trek are knit alls, if we’re really honest, but I don’t think anybody has ever been called out on it before.

There’s a whole lot of interesting stuff going on between soji and Ramhda. Cool cultural details about false doors on Romulan houses. Stuff about romulan mythology. I don’t know what it all means, yet.

Ramdha knows about soji. She is one of the twins. One lives and one dies. She says she recognises Soji from tomorrow.

What on earth is that about? Are we hinting at time travel? This interesting. But we don’t get any answers in this episode.

There’s a whole mystery about what caused this borg cube to die. And it seems it has something to do with ramdha’s ship, the last ship assimilated by the cube. I’m hungry to learn more about this, too.

There’s another great action scene as Romulan comandos invade chateu picard. I like how they acknowledge Picard needs protecting. He’s not a young man anymore. But this doesn’t diminish him in any way.

And then Agnes Jurati is forced to kill a romulan to save them all. She is clearly shaken up by this. Of course she is. She’s not a soldier. Taking a life takes a huge toll on people.

The episode doesn’t take a lot of time to really delve into the emotional impact this will have on her. I hope they continue to give this time to develop over future episodes. It should haunt her.

The romulan forehead ridges in this show are a lot subtler than they were in TNG. So much so that at first I thought those were just creases in the actor’s face that plays zhuban. But apparently, it’s northerners that have the ridges.

In episode 1, I thought it was an overloading disruptor that killed dahj, but I have to agree with everyone else now, it seems these zhat vash Romulans spit some kind of acid.

There is clearly more to learn about Dahj and Soji. The romulan fear of them seems to be much more than a generic hatred of androids. Two romulans refer to her as the destroyer. Interesting.

Soji contacts her “mother” just like Dahj did. The mother lies to soji about dahj being okay. I’m pretty certain the mother doesn’t exist, but is just a part of the girls’ programming.

And just like dahj, soji gets flashes of knowledge that she shouldn’t have.

Risso is back on the cube, and no longer disguised as a human. Not sure why. She and Narak are … strangely intimate for brother and sister.

All the talk of Rios being expensive to hire, and Agnes earning her keep, is kinda of strange in a world where we know they have no money. That never made any sense anyway. I have to imagine that people like Rios probably interact outside of the federation a lot, so they use money. But where is Picard getting the money to pay for Rios’s services?

I’m living the longer transporter effect, that we saw when Picard and Laris beamed into Dahj’s apartment, and also on Rios’s ship. It’s very reminiscent of the tng transporter, just updated.

I’m really liking Agnes. Her youthful innocence helps balance out the world-weary characters like Raffi and Rios.

Raffi still doesn’t want to join Picard’s mission,but she wants to ride with them to freecloud, for reasons she won’t disclose. Interesting.

So Picard has a new crew. They’re a motley lot. It’s going to be an interesting ride.

And then….he says it. Picard says “engage”. And as the TNG theme swells in all its wonderful glory, the ship jumps to warp.

I’ve watched that scene 3 times and I still get goosebumps.

Now, it’s star trek!

I love it.

No doubt, there will be people who say it’s taken too long to get to this point. But i’m going to disagree with that. I’ve enjoyed the slow burn, taking time to let Picard get to this point on Earth. Exploring setting and character.

But this all makes good sense, and the reason is story structure.

Remember, we’ve been told this show is a 10 hour movie.

Another way to look at it, is it’s a novel on TV in 10 chapters.

The episodes of this show are made in chunks of 3. A collection of 3 episodes are all directed by the same person. These first 3 were directed by Hanelle M Culpepper. The next 3 will be directed by Jonathan Frakes.

Akiva Goldsman described these first three as act 1 of the story.

In story structure, act 1 takes us up to the first plot point at the 25 percent mark of the book, and that’s roughly where we are now.

Something significant happens and at the 25% mark, the character reacts to it, and will spend the rest of the story reacting to it. This is the moment when the protagonist really engages with the plot. They have a mission they’re all in.

The next quarter of the story will be quite different. Picard is actively on the case.

I’m really enjoying Star Trek Picard so far, and I’m excited for the next part of the story.

Bring it on, mate.

Well, it’s time for an update on my walk to mordor.

I’ve walked 71.1 kms so far.

I’ve had my encounter with the black rider, and I’ve met the elves. My next milestone is the edge of farmer maggot’s field, which I’ll hit in 27kms.

I need to get out and have another significant walk this weekend. There have been days this last week I’ve been too busy to fit in my working and afternoon walks.

I still haven’t read the third Star Trek Picard countdown comic book, but I’ll endeavour to be able to talk about that next week.

Don’t forget, if you like Star Trek, which you must, because you’ve listened this far, I think you’ll also love my Jewel of The Stars series. My setting has drawn significant inspiration from Star Trek, and there’s a real boldly going kind of feel to it, even though these people are hardly starfleet. They’re the crew and passengers of a cruise ship that can no longer return home. So there’s a bit of battlestar galactica going on in there as well.

You can get book 1 for just 99 cents at all the popular ebook retailers, and it’s also available in print if you prefer that.

Also, if you’ve been enjoying my in-depth discussions on Star Trek Picard, why not shout me a hot chocolate. Just go to https://www.buymeacoffee.com/AdamDavi...

I’ll see you next week when we geek out over episode 4 of Picard, titled “Absolute Candor”

Until then

Live long and prosper

Make it so

If you like this, share the love by

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Star Trek: Picard “Maps and Legends” Review (Nerd Heaven Podcast #012)

In the second episode of Star Trek Picard, Jean-Luc goes head to head with Starfleet, and things get very heated between him and Admiral Clancy. We learn quite a lot in this episode about what the Romulans are up to, but there’s plenty more to discover. Basically, a lot of setup this time around, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t compelling viewing.

Join me as we dig deep into this episode of Star Trek Picard.

Transcript

Welcome to Nerd Heaven.

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars, and I am a nerd.

This is episode 12 of the podcast. Today, we’re talking about the second episode of Star Trek: Picard. Maps and Legends.

The description on IMDB reads

Picard begins investigating the mystery of Dahj as well as what her very existence means to the Federation. Without Starfleet’s support, Picard is left leaning on others for help, including Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill) and an estranged former colleague, Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd). Meanwhile, hidden enemies are also interested in where Picard’s search for the truth about Dahj will lead.

This episode was

Written by Michael Chabon & Akiva Goldsmith

And Directed by Hanelle M. Culpepper

And it first aired on the 30th of January 2020.

Make it so.

So episode two begins with a flashback to the synth attack on Mars. There have a bunch of androids who live in a closet. They appear to be manual labourers. I’ve heard a few people say that the shuttles in Picard are copies of Discovery shuttles. And that may be so. I’d have to look at them side by side. By honestly, they fit in much better here. They look like 24th century shuttles. So I don’t see that as a problem. Their use here is fine. Their use in the 23rd century is the issue.

One of the human workers is kind of mocking the android F8. This just seems weird to me. I mean, I don’t insult my toaster and make fun of it because it’s not alive. And from what we understand, these androids are not sentient.

In fact, this was all established way back in Voyager.

In the episode Prototype, B’elanna Torres is asked whether her culture includes artificial lifeforms.

She answers “As a matter of fact, it does. They come in different shapes, different sizes, some have limbs, some don’t. Most don’t have your cognitive abilities. I guess you could say that the robots we use are servants in a manner of speaking, but they aren’t sentient like you. In fact, we have only one sentient artificial lifeform in our society and he is treated the same as any human.”

She, of course, is speaking of Data.

What we’re seeing here fits very nicely with what Belana said in Voyager. Anyway, that woman was a bit odd. She didn’t feel very federation.

I’ve heard some people saying that this new show completely destroys Gene Roddenberry’s utopian view of the future, and this was before the show even came out. That’s not the way I see it. Deep Space Nine pushed back against the utopian thing, and I think the show was better for it, but I think it might have done a better job. This woman being intolerant of a non-sentient non-living android is a bit clumsy.

And then F8’s eyes flash and he starts doing something at the computer which initiates the synthetic attack.

What brought this on? Was it the woman’s mockery? Were they rising up because they weren’t being treated with respect? I don’t think so. F8 isn’t capable of feeling offence The flashing eyes seems to represent something activating in him. Some latent programming that somebody has turned on.

I’m very interested to learn more.

Fun little tidbit. Looking at the various images in the opening title sequence, we see some 3d glass polygons. We’ve seen something that looks like that before. A holographic portrait of Tasha Yar that belonged to Data. Interesting. I wonder why they chose that particular image.

Back at Chateau Picard, Jean Luc is on the case, trying to learn what he can about the attack on Dahj.

And we learn about the Romulan myth of the Juk vash. A Romulan police even more secret than the Tal Shiar. Most Romulan, including Zhaban don’t even believe they exist.

In this opening scene, they keep cutting between Picard at his home, talking with his Romulan friends, and Picard 7 Laris investigating Dahj’s apartment. It’s pretty confusing, and I’m left having no idea which of these two events took place first, chronologically.

Some people enjoy filmmaking tricks like this, but I find it pulls me out of the story. I’m the same with books. I tend to like fairly basic prose that doesn’t draw too much attention to itself because it’s the story I care most about.

We get another look at the new transporter effect. When Picard and Laris beam into the apartment, the effect is longer and looks more like a modern update on the classic TNG transporter effect. It seems logical there are different types of transporters in operation, and one available to civilians (and retired Starfleet officers) would be an older type. Anyway, I like this effect more. Looks more transporter-ish

The Romulan technology that lets Laris somehow see what was happening in the room several days ago based on particle residue or something, seems a little absurd to me. I know most of the technology in Star Trek is essentially magic, but I have a harder time suspending disbelief with this than I do warp drive, transporters or phasers. Maybe someone more in the know could explain the science or at least pseudo-science behind it, but I don’t get it. It gives a clear photorealistic image and even sound. Where’s it getting that data from?

But the biggest thing here is the massive consequence a technology like this has on the world of Star Trek. If you can do this, it changes everything.

So, at the heart of this mysterious Juk Vash is a deep hatred for artificial lifeforms and AI. We just don’t know why yet.

Through a bit of technobabble, Picard and Laris figure out that Dahj’s twin sister is not on earth.

Which takes us to the borg cube

We learn quite a bit more about the cube in this episode.

We learn that the Romulans are actively trying to reclaim the drones and the technology. Freeing borg and giving them back their individuality, just as was done for Picard and Seven. This is admirable.

I’m sure they have selfish reasons as well. They want the borg technology. And given there are very few of them left, I don’t blame them. They need any advantage they can get at this point.

Soji’s job is to help separate the drones from the collective, so I was wrong about her being a psychologist. She’s more of a surgeon.

So those glimmers of attraction I thought I saw in Soji’s eyes when she met Narak last episode turned out to be true. And they’ve gone straight from attraction to sleeping together because that’s how it works in Hollywood.

Narak is very unwilling to share much about himself, which is funny since last week he was basically, “G’day. I’m Narak. I have a dead brother which makes me very sad.”

Now we meet a brand new character. Doctor Moritz Benayoun. He’s an old friend of Picard’s. They served together on the Stargazer, which, of course, was Picard’s first command.

This is a nice touch and reminds us that Picard had a full life before we met him as he first took command of the Enterprise D.

I dunno if Benayoun has a great bedside manner, though. His face immediately gives away the bad news, and then he tells Picard he might need a stiff drink.

But then this isn’t just a doctor talking to his patient. This is one friend to another.

So basically, Picard needs medical clearance so he can approach Starfleet and ask to be reactivated to go on a mission to help find Dahj’s sister.

Picard is very healthy, except for a little defect in his parietal lobe, which of course, Beverly discovered back in All Good Things.

Now I loved this because they’ve acknowledged the intergalactic elephant in the room. Picard’s irumodic syndrome. I’ve been wondering if they’d just ignore that altogether. I’m kind of glad they are acknowledging it, because it will gives us a whole other dimension to Picard’s character. Clearly it’s not as advanced as it was in the alternate future created by Q, but it’s still there. Picard is heading toward dementia. And there’s nothing he can do about it. The dreams are likely part of it.

I’m really looking forward to seeing what they do with this.

Seriously, what other TV show gives us a hero in their 90s dealing with the inevitable onset of dementia?

For the sake of friendship, Benayoun is willing to sign Picard off as fit for duty.

But he says if he’s lucky, whatever he’s getting himself into will give him before the syndrome does. That’s kinda dark. But I get it. Many people would rather go out in a blaze of glory than slowly descend into madness.

OK. Now we get the scene where finally, Picard returns to Starfleet headquarters. The show is beginning to feel a lot more star trek. We hear the starfleet fanfare, and then the TNG theme.

And in this moment, Picard is relishing in it.

Despite the problems he had in the past with Starfleet, it still means a lot to him. That uniform, everything it stands for, that’s what his life was all about. As he walks into the building, he feels home. Just look at his face.

I quite like the public transporter chambers. They look pretty cool and they make sense as a logical form of public transport on 24th century earth.

And as he looks up, he sees holographic representations of a constitution class ship and then a galaxy class. Beautiful. OF course, what we’re seeing is the Discovery retconned design for the constitution class. Still not sure what how I feel about that. But you can still imagine that it was a different version prior to a refit when Kirk took command. Anyway, it’s a minor thing.

The fact that the guy at reception has no idea who Picard is gives him a harsh reality check that the world has moved on without him. I think anyone at least approaching middle age can probably identify with this a little. Picard tries to be cordial but he’s got some annoyance there which bubbles to the surface.

That brings us to the scene with Picard in the admiral’s office.

First of all, I want to talk about this whole neuron cloning thing that was brought up last episode and again in this scene.

Maddox thinks he can re-create the entirety of what Data was from a single positronic neuron.

Which really doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

We’re talking about a neural network here, which is a real world concept in computer science.

A neural network is made up of many neurons, connected by pathways of varying weights. It’s a simulation of how the human brain works, at a very basic level.

But a neural network is just that. It’s a network. The data, the understanding, is stored in the various weightings between neurons. If you’re got one neuron, you’ve got one neuron. That can’t tell you anything about how all the other neurons relate to each other.

All I can think is maybe each neuron stores a cached backup of the entire network within itself, which seems kind of extreme redundancy. I dunno. It really doesn’t make sense.

But, data’s neural network was more than just a software concept. He had a positronic brain, which was a physical hardware device. So, I guess there’s a lot more to it than what we understand in the 21st century.

Still, this is probably the hardest thing in the show for me to swallow.

I have very mixed feelings about the conversation between Picard and Admiral Clancy.

First of all, let’s just get the swear word out of the way.

I’ve talked a little about this regarding Discovery in the past.

It is basically Star Trek canon that swearing is not a thing in the future. Kirk and Spock are exposed to it in Star Trek IV when they travelled back to the 1980s. Kirk says “It’s simply the way they talk. Nobody listens to you unless you swear every other word.” Both Kirk and Spock attempt to swear to fit in, but neither of them do a particularly good job of it. Spock especially. Clearly, they swearing is not something they’re accustomed to doing or hearing.

Now, I’ll grant you that In Star Trek III and V, Kirk does utter a mild word. And Data also makes that amusing utterance as the Enterprise D is crashing, but I can kind of hand-wave those away.

But the sudden propensity of Starfleet officer to drop F bombs, that’s not Star Trek. I argue it’s not canon.

Plus, Star Trek has always been a family show. Does this add anything? Maybe. Enough to make it worth losing the younger audience? I’m not convinced.

However, I’ll say this for Picard. The way that word was used in Discovery was very badly done. Tilly says “this is so effing cool”. It added nothing to the drama. It wasn’t used to emphasise strong emotions. It was basically just the writers saying “Hey, we’re on streaming now. We can swear……because we can.”

Contrast that with how it is used here. It powerfully gets across Clancy’s emotions. It shows us a lot about who she is, about how she’s feeling, and about what she thinks of Picard. It’s used in a moment of high tension. And that’s the way I prefer swearing to be used in fiction. If it’s peppered all over the place it loses its impact. But placed here, to emphasise drama, it actually means something.

I still don’t think Star Trek needs f bombs, but I much prefer how it was used here than in discovery.

Also, I love the little thing Patrick Stewart does with his eyebrows when Clancy starts her tirade. Great physical acting.

So clancy comes across as a massive jerk. We absolutely do get to choose whether a species dies, she says.

I’d like to have a little bit of balance in all this. I’d like to see a sympathetic character who sees things differently to Picard.Who has different opinions, but not the almost ridiculous extremes that we’re seeing from Starfleet as represented by Clancy. I’d like to see the issue actually explored and honestly look at both sides.

We get a little of that, but I think Starfleet is being set up as a bit of a caricature of pure evil.

We start to understand some of the pressure that went into Starfleet’s decision not to help the Romulans. 14 member species threatened to pull out of the Federation unless they cut the Romulans loose. Again, that seems very un-federation. But it’s also realistic. So many species with so many values and ideas.

The Federation Council had a lot of difficult things they were trying to keep together.

I’m not saying I agree with Starfleet’s decision to abandon the romulans, I just like the acknowledgement of the complexity of the issue.

This is something that Babylon 5 was especially good at. Looking at multiple sides of an issue and then asking the audience, what do you think? Discuss?

Picard does probably come in here with a little too much …arrogance isn’t quite the right word. But he expects they’ll give him a ship and crew. And he’ll concede to be demoted to Captain.

He also admits that he shouldn’t have spoken against Starfleet in the news interview. That was a mistake. I like how they allow Picard to be imperfect, but still good.

In the end, Picard comes out of this as a man with a very strong moral conscience, which is the core of his character.

I think I can safely say that Gene Roddenberry would not have liked this show. But then, I don’t always agree with Gene Roddenberry either.

And honestly, if it’s a choice between this, and the Rodenberry rules of early next generation, where no crewmembers were allowed to have conflict with each other, I’d choose this in a heartbeat.

We get to see a number of familiar star trek species in the background on the borg cube. I like that. I saw a few Andorians, and quite a few of a species that I honestly can’t remember the name of, but I’m sure I’ve seen them. The have kinda slimy green faces with a bit of a beak.

The sign that says 5843 days without an assimilation is chilling. Good reality check of what they’re dealing with here. Where they are.

I assume the safety badges are coded to turn green when they detect the presence of Borg nanoprobes.

We still don’t know the history of this cube. How was it damaged. When did the Romulans find it. I hope we learn more about that.

Why doesn’t Narak need authorisation of the director to watch the procedure? I guess we’ll find out later.

We get a bit of a look at the borg makeup in this episode. Not much more than we’ve seen in the trailers. We still haven’t really seen a full borg, completely assimilated, but what I’m seeing so far I like.

Pretty close to the First Contact borg.

And then, finally Picard takes out his old com badge. It’s the familiar one we remember from the TNG movies. My favourite com badge design. It’s a wonderful moment.

But it’s kind of broken when he taps it and it makes the wrong sound. I’ll be honest, that really disappointed me.

I wanted to hear that familiar high-pitched click.

Anyway, Picard calls somebody named Rafi. We’ll come to her shortly.

I gotta say, I really love Laris. Zhuban too, but especially Laris. She’s so cool.

She worries a lot about Picard. She really does mother him, which is funny given his advanced age. The way those two Romulans play off each other is delightful.

I’m not sure why Picard won’t take Zhuban with him. He says “the grapes are in far more need of protecting than I am.” Which is just plain wrong. Picard knows the Tal Shiar are dangerous, these people after Dahj and her sister even more so. So why does he want zhuban to stay?

I enjoyed the name drops of Riker, Worf and LaForge. They are the obvious ones for Picard to go to for help. Picard’s excuse that he doesn’t want to get them involved feels like a flimsy excuse for “we’re not getting all the old actors back.” but at the same time, Picard doesn’t want to risk loosing his closest friends. Which kinda makes it seem like Rafi is expendable. Doesn’t matter if she dies, as long as Riker, Worf and Geordi don’t die.

We get to see some inner workings at Starfleet. Admiral Clancy is talking to a Vulcan officer about Picard. The Vulcan’s name is Commodore Oh. That’s a weird name, especially for a Vulcan.

Let’s briefly talk about the new Starfleet Uniform.

I don’t mind it. It’s not my favourite, but it’s both new while still having familiar elements.

There are two things I especially like because they call back to the future uniform we say in All Good Things. First, there’s the com badge, which is very similar to the all good things combadge. Nice touch. Then there’s the rank pips on the chest, again, quite similar to the all good things uniform. I can very much believe that this is a slight update on that uniform.

Anyway, Oh meets with a lieutenant Narissa Rizzo.

At first, her performance felt a bit wooden and stiff. The kind of less realistic acting that my friend Paeter often associated with Star Trek. Both my wife and I were actually looking at the ears to see if she was Vulcan. But no, she looks human. But something about the angle they shot her really emphasised her ears and made her look almost Vulcan.

It’s starting to look as though we have a secret Romulan incursion in the heart of Starfleet. It seems that Oh and Rizzo are behind the people that killed Dahj. I think Rizzo is a Romulan surgically altered to look human. And as for Oh, well, she doesn’t even need to be altered, because Romulans and Vulcans look so similar.

And Narak is working for them as well. So it seems he is manipulating Soji, rather than having a genuine romantic interest in her. Some people got some manipulative vibes from him at the end of last week’s episode. I didn’t, but I can see it now.

Actually, I missed this on first viewing, but we get confirmation Rizzo is absolutely a Romulan in disguise. Narak makes fun of her rounded ears. And calls it a terrible disguise. More than that, she is Narak’s older sister.

Anyway, I now have no issue with the way Rizzo talks. Because she’s talking like a Romulan.

Let’s talk holographic communications.

They did this in Discovery and I really didn’t like it. There, it was a significant canon issue. They tried to patch it up in season 2. Not really satisfactorily, but they tried.

Here, it makes a lot more sense. Holographic technology is all over the place in the 24th century. We know Starfleet dabbled in holo communicators during Deep Space Nine’s 5th season, before letting it go by the wayside. It’s logical that they would improve the technology and then bring it back. So that’s all fine.

I don’t have any canon issues with it. It makes a lot more sense in this setting.

Except…I dunno. I still don’t overly like it. My main problem with it is the way it’s done. The way holograms walk around the room. The worst example was in Discovery when a holographic Sarak actually sat on the edge of a desk in Georgiou’s office.

The only way I can see this working is if Rizzo is in a holodeck, and she’s seeing a holographic representation of Narak’s room. She sees everything he sees. And for both of them, it’s like they’re in the room together. That works and I’d be cool with that, in fact, I kinda like that, so until I’m proven wrong, I’m going to adopt that as my headcanon.

Picard goes to see Raffi Musiker. You may be wondering who she is, and if that’s the case, you clearly haven’t read the Picard Countdown comics. Essentially Raffi was Picard’s first officer on the Verity which he commanded after the Enterprise, while he was trying to evacuate Romulans.

It seems that she left Starfleet as well, and clearly she has some issues with Picard. I don’t know all the backstory yet, because I haven’t yet read book 3, which has just come out, but I would certainly recommend reading these comics to get the full experience. Without that backstory, this would feel kinda weird.

There’s not much more to say about her at this point, so let’s delve into her character next week.

Interesting that so many locations we saw on the trailers, which I assumed would be alien planets, turn out to be Earth.

So there you have episode 2 of Star Trek Picard. When the credits appeared I was shocked. What? Over already? I’m not sure if I felt that way because I was really into it, or because it felt like nothing much actually happened in the episode.

I think it’s probably both.

This episode had a lot of setup in it. It actually moved the plot forward a whole lot less than episode 1 did. And that’s ok. That’s the nature of serialised storytelling, and this show is even more serialised than Discovery. Some people may not like that, but I love serialised storytelling.

The last thing I want is to see Picard go on 40-minute adventures of the week every episode.

I’ve got 7 seasons of that I can go back and watch. I don’t need any more of it.

What I want is a big grand story that has enough time to really dig into characters, and shoe us long term consequences. Which is exactly what we’re getting.

So overall, I’m still really enjoying star trek Picard, and can’t wait to see what we get next week.

I wonder which episode Picard will finally go into space. Do you think it’ll be next week, or further away than that? When do you think we’ll get our first Engage or Make it so? I know he’s going to say engage at some point because it’s in the trailer. We’ve already heard a twist on Tea, Earl Gray. Hot.

So last week I mention I’d started a walk to Mordor, based on the journey taken in Lord of The Rings. I’m pleased to report that it’s still going well. I have now reached the encounter with the black rider.

Overall, I’ve walked 55.41 kilometres. Just 3,053.76 to go.

My next milestone will be an encounter with the elves at 10.57 kilometres.

Don’t forget to check out my Jewel of The Stars books. You can get the first one for just 99 cents at books2read.com/jewel. And that’s the number 2.

Or, you can read it for free, on Wattpad. I add a new chapter every weekend (except for last weekend. I forgot because I was so busy making the podcast.)

I’d appreciate a review wherever you listen to this podcast. Reviews on iTunes are especially helpful, even if you’re not an apple person. I’m an Android man myself. But if you are on Ios, you can leave a review directly from your phone. I’m told it’s quite easy. That really helps raise the visibility of my podcast so others can join us on this journey.

Anyway, I’ll talk to you all next week when we discuss episode 3, “The End is The Beginning”

Live long and prosper.

Make it so.

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The post Star Trek: Picard “Maps and Legends” Review (Nerd Heaven Podcast #012) appeared first on Adam David Collings.

Star Trek Picard “Remembrance” Review (Nerd Heaven #011)

The first episode of Star Trek Picard is here. Let’s talk about it!

Transcript

Welcome to Nerd Heaven.

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars.

And I am a nerd

Can you believe it? We’re finally here.

The first episode of Star Trek Picard has released! It’s out in the wild and we’ve seen it.

I’ll admit I found it kinda hard to concentrate on work yesterday, knowing it was available and just waiting for me to watch it, but I muddled through.

So today, we’re talking about Remembrance, the first episode of Star Trek Picard.

The description on IMDB is

At the end of the 24th Century, and 14 years after his retirement from Starfleet, Jean-Luc Picard is living a quiet life on his vineyard, Chateau Picard. When he is sought out by a mysterious young woman, Dahj, in need of his help, he soon realizes she may have personal connections to his own past.

This teleplay was written by Akiva Goldsmith and James Duff

Story by Akiva Goldsmith, Michael Chabon, Kirsten Beyer, Alex Kurtzman and James Duff

Directed by Hanelle M Culpepper

And first aired on the 23rd of January 2020.

Make it so

Before I go deep into this episode, I thought I’d share a few spoiler-free thoughts.

I loved this episodes. It was a delight to watch.

It was lovingly crafted with exquisite attention to detail.

The episode maintained a near perfect balance between the old and the new.

There was a lot of nostalgia in this episode, but the story wasn’t chained to it. It wasn’t indulgent. The episode told a fresh and new story with a much-loved character.

That’s not to say that the nostalgic elements weren’t integral to the plot. Everything was there for a reason. But I think a non-star trek fan could sit down and watch this, apart from perhaps a little disorientation from a dream sequence, and not just follow the story, but feel like they’ve had a satisfying experience.

The story builds slowly, giving itself time to really focus on character.

So if you’re on the fence about checking this show out, let me wholeheartedly recommend it to you.This is one of the good ones. I signed up for a new streaming service so I could watch this. I don’t regret that decision.

From here on we’re going full spoilers, so if you haven’t seen this episode, stop listening, and go watch Star Trek Picard.

The episode opens with a dream sequence.

But the very beginning is a couple of beautiful shots of nebulae with the song Blue Skies playing in the background. This provides a beautiful link to the very last time we saw Picard on screen at the end of Star Trek Nemesis, when he was in his ready room, and B4 started to sing the song. It’s also very emotionally evocative of Data, because he sang that song at Riker and Troi’s wedding. But to Picard, that song represents the hope that maybe a part of Data survived in B4. A hope that he desperately wants to be true.

And then we see the Enterprise D. In all her glory. And she looks beautiful.

This dream sequence is all a bit messed up, which is exactly how dreams are.

Picard and Data are on the Enterprise D, but Data is in his Enterprise E uniform. Picard is old and wearing civilian clothing. And then suddenly, they’re not in a nebula, they’re in orbit of Mars. Picard was an admiral, in command of the Verity when Mars was attacked. I’m sure you’ve had dreams like this. I know I have. This is probably the most realistic dream sequence I’ve ever seen in a movie or TV show.

I kinda wish these scenes had not been spoiled in the trailer. I would have wet myself if I hadn’t known they were coming.

I imagine the conversation Picard has with Data about his tell was probably a real conversation they had at some point. Or perhaps, Picard did notice Data’s tell but never spoke about it. We can’t really know. But dreams do pull on real stuff from our lives.

And then we’re in the present, meting Number One, who we’ve all fallen in love with in the trailers. Right? Looking at Picard during the TNG era, I never really saw him as a pet person. But now, living his retirement on Earth, I can see it. His whole life Picard has been surrounded by people that depend on him. Now, he’s alone, with only his two Romulan friends for company. It makes sense to me that he would want a pet. I know the choice of a pit-bull was due to Patrick Stewart’s passion for the breed, but it works for me. And people mellow as they get older.

It’s a thrill to be back here at the Picard vineyard. It brings back memories of the episodes Family and All Good Things.

Then we switch to Boston, which looks pretty cool. Did you notice the big glowing Ferengi symbol on one of the high-rises? I just did as I paused. That’s cool. Of course the Ferengi would have a business presence on Earth.

By the way 99 percent of this episode is set on Earth. It’s rare that we get a really good look at 24th-century earth, and I’m loving it. Yes, I want to get out into space, but I do enjoy seeing beauty of earthin Star Trek’s future. I always have, and we get to see it so rarely.

So we’re introduced to Dahj for the first time. She’s at the highpoint of her life. She’s just been accepted into the daystrom institute, and she’s very much in love with her boyfriend. You know that happiness isn’t gonna hang around for long, right?

By the way, we get a few instances in this episode of 21st century colloquialisms. Dahj actually calls her boyfriend “Dude”. And then he says “that’s pretty cool”. This feels really out of place in the 24th century. But at the same time, it lends a sense of realism. So I think I can accept it, but, maybe “dude” is a step too far for me.

Then the masked figures bean in and kill the boyfriend. This scene feels genuinely dangerous. I’m feeling the same fear that Dahj is feeling. The music, the editing, the acting, it all just feels thrilling. Compare this to action scenes on The Next Generation, and they become laughable.

This show is much more sci-fi drama than sci-fi action, but when the need arises, they do action, and they do it well.

This scene is a little dis-orienting. Dahk is very much the viewpoint character here. She doesn’t know what’s going on, and we experience that through her eyes. And we’re just as shocked as she is when she suddenly goes all terminator and kills the intruders.

The emotional realism when she runs to her boyfriend’s dead body is perfect, and again, much better than what we saw in most of TNG.

Now we have a brand new opening credit sequence to talk about. I’d heard this described as rather “James Bond-ish” which isn’t a bad descriptor, but I’d just say it feels very much like the opening credits of a modern TV show. Very artistic. Lots of images, representing different things.

The sky cracks into pieces at the start, and then those pieces fill in a whole in Picard’s face at the end like a jigsaw puzzle. I’m not sure what that is meant to be symbolic of yet, but it does feel very symbolic.

I think a lot of what we’re seeing will make more sense as the season goes on. But it all looks great. They’ve followed the same kind of mould as Star Trek Discovery, in that all the guest star, written by etc credits that you’d traditionally see after the credits, overlaid on the story, are in the title sequence, so there are no words on the story itself.

The music is very sedate. Fitting for the show I think. Not very memorable, melodically, which again, is kinda modern. It takes a while to develop an affinity for these modern themes, I feel. It certainly doesn’t move me like, the theme from The Crown, for instance, but it’s nice music. I’ll report back on this as the show goes on.

And just as Discovery gave a nod to the TOS theme at the end, this music gives a nod to the TNG theme at the end.

And also, notice rather than the traditional “Based upon Star Trek Created by Gene Roddenberry” it says “Based upon Star Trek The Next Generation created by Gene Roddenberry.

Nice touch, showing us that they really are all-in for the particular Star Trek that made me a hard-core fan.

I like the location they used for chateau Picard. It’s not the same as what we’ve seen before, but it’s beautiful, and it works.

And then Picard speaks french to number one in a rather cute scene that show he’s just like our cat. He loves to hunt birds and them them into the house.

It’s nice to finally hear Picard speak french. I enjoyed that touch.

So meet Laris and Zhaban. Two Romulans that live and work at Chateau Picard.

If you haven’t read the Star Trek Picard Comics, then this might be really confusing to you. We first meet these characters on a Romulan colony world which Admiral Picard has come to help evacuate. They’re former Tal Shiar operatives that worked with Picard and have obviously becomes his friends. I’m still waiting for book 3 to come out so I don’t understand all the backstory of how they came to be here, but I at least know them. This must be a little disorienting for those who haven’t read the comic. The way they’re doing Romulan eyebrows is a little different on this show. I don’t really mind it. Helps distinguish Romulans from Vulcans. Alex Kurtzman has promised that we’ll see some TNG style Romulans in the show, with the v-shpaed forehead ridge. Canonising the fact that some Romulans have them and some don’t. Makes sense to me. Afte their ancestors left Vulcan, they undoubtedly intermarried with some other species. Plus, there are variations among humans, so across a vast star empire, it makes sense there would be variations among Romulans too.

The replicator looks cool. Very similar to the TNG replicators.

The effect suggests the object is being built up molecule by molecule like an advanced 3d printer. It doesn’t quite fit with the established understanding of how they work, which is more akin to transporter technology, but it looks cool. Maybe they’ve found this is a more efficient way of doing it.

And notice that the computer interfaces on this show are very reminiscent of the LCARS okudagrams used inthe Berman era. The sound effects too. The aesthetic of this show all feels like a logical extrapolation of the berman era 20 years on. Replicators, transporters, shuttles.

And we learn that Picard is now having his earl gray decaffinated. Interesting. As I understand, people often sleep less as they get older. (either that or they sleep all the time). But I can imagine that as a 94 year old (yes, that’s Picard’s age) he may have found reason to adust his favourite beverage slightly.

I love how Laris mothers Picard. Very amusing.

The TV interview is an effective way to get out quite a lot of exposition in a dramatic way. This show is introducing us to a brand new era in the Star Trek universe, and we’ve got quite a lot of catch up on. The interview scene pulls double duty, getting this information across, but also showing a lot of Picard’s character. Very nicely done.

I loved the little images of Picard from the past. Two from the TV series, and two from the movies.

And we learn that since retirement, Picard has been writing history books. He left his day job to become an author. A man after my own heart.

This brings us to the supernova that destroyed Romulus, which, of course, connects us to the narrative of JJ Abram’s Star Trek 2009 movie, co-written by Alex Kurtzman. We’ve always known that this even took place in the original prime timeline, in which TOS, TNG, DS9 and Voyager all took place. When nero and spock were pulled into the singularity and thrust back to the 23rd century, they created the new timeline in which those Kelvin movies are set.

But now, we get to see the ongoing consequences that event had on the prime timeline, which I think is really cool.

That was a massive event. Liken it to 911 but even that falls short.

We learn that when it happened, some in the Federation opposed helping the Romulans. Feeling the resources of the Federation could be put to better use than helping a former enemy.

Now this is really interesting.

I’ll be honest. I have a hard time buying that.

First of all, this is Star Trek. Resources are basically limitless. But let’s put that aside because that never really made a lot of sense anyway.

We’re talking about the potential extinction of an entire sentient species. This is the Federation. Do-gooders of the galaxy. And I don’t mean that with derision. The federation is a very moral organisation which values compassion and peace.

If it were the Jem Hadar, at the height of the Dominion War, I could maybe buy it more. But the Romulans? Let’s not forget they were our allies during the war. And relations only improved after the whole Shinzon incident in Nemesis. I don’t think the Romulans posed any significant threat to the Federation at this point. Could anyone in the Federation really not look with compassion on a former enemy and help save them.

Of course, in the real world, people have many different opinions on issues, so again, this adds a greater sense of realism to the Star Trek universe, so I’m with that.

But even in the real world, let’s say Russia, who were once considered the enemies of the western world. If some natural disaster was going to destroy eastern europe, and a western country had some means of saving them, would anybody argue against helping those people? Civilians? Children?

But then I realise I think the writers are trying to connect this with the real-world issue of refugees, which has been a hot-button topic for a number of years, in many countries. Don’t worry, I’m not going to divert into real world politics.

So I guess there could be debate and disagreement in the Federation council regarding this.

I also very much buy that Jean Luc Picard would want to help those in need, regardless of who they were. And while physical resources such as food as ships are near limitless due to replicator technology, the availability of habitable planets to house that many Romulan citizens would be a very real concern.

I do like when the interviewer says “Romulan lives”

And Picard replies “No. Lives.”

And this is where we learn about the attack on Mars. A group of rogue synths (androids) attacked Mars and destroyed the rescue armada (there’s that word again) being constructed at Utopia Planitia. This has me worried for Gerdi. He was at Utopia Planitia in charge of that construction project. Is he still alive. Man, I hope so.

There were two major consequences of this attack.

Firstly, it destroyed Starfleet’s ability to evacuate those Romulans. The fleet they were building was gone.

Second, the Federation placed a ban on the development of synthetic or artificial life forms.

I’m not sure why we have to introduce this new term, synthetic, into Star Trek Lore. What’s wrong with Android? Although we’ll get into more of this later.

But the real reason Picard resigned from Starfleet is that they went back on their decision to help the Romulans. They didn’t rescue them.

This is a complex issue and we don’t know all the facts. But with that rescue fleet destroyed, did they even have the ability to help? On one hand, no. I mean, if their existing fleet was sufficient for the job, they wouldn’t have been building new ships in the first place. They probably couldn’t have rescued everyone as they had planned to do, but I am sure they could have rescued someone. But it seems they just gave up. They became inwardly focussed, mourning the loss of the many many who died on Mars.

I can understand Picard resigning over this. “It was no longer Starfleet”, Picard passionately says.

He likens the rescue of the Romulans to Dunkirk, where allied forces retreated from France into England during world war 2.

All of this just feels like it’s adding some gritty realism to the Star Trek universe, which I’m with.

Then Dahj comes to Picard at his estate. She saw his interview, but something in her mind flashed like lightning and told her to seek him out. That she’d be safe with him.

This is the big msyery of episode one.

I love how Picard responds to her. This werid stranger turns up in his front yard and starts crying.

He immediately responds to her with compassion. He takes her into his home. Most importantly, he listens. That’s Jean-Luc Picard.

Picard was always a compassionate man, but as he’s mellowed with age, I think he’s become much more empathetic. He becomes even more, someone we’d all like to know.

At this point, I’m already wondering if she is synthetic. But she’s bleeding, so she can’t be, right?

Then we get our second dream sequence, and we’re treating to Data and Picard int their original TNG uniforms. Yay.

Data is painting, which is something he’s always been known for.

Picard’s mind is trying to tell him something. Something he isn’t yet willing to consciously admit.

The visual similarity between Dahj, and Data’s daughter, from the TNG episode The Offspring, is hard to ignore.

I really liked the way they used Data in this episode. My theory was always that Data wsa a hallucination, a sign of Picard’s developing Irumodic Syndrome. I’m still not completely discounting that as a possibility for the future, but his appearances here have all been in dreams. It has been done in a way that feels natural to me.

So Picard goes off to the Starfleet archives to investigate. And as we get our first real hint of Star-Trekiness, or at least, of Starfleet-iness, we hear hints of the TNG theme (which, of course, is actually the theme from Star Trek The Motion Picture, credited that way in the end credits, by the way).

I like the holographic index in the archives. Given the prevalence of holographic technology in the 24th century, it makes perfect sense to me that an archive would have a holographic librarian.

This is the scene the fans have been waiting for. From the moment we first hear that Door whoosh sound, the show allows us to really dwell, for a moment, in unadulterated nostalgia. But in a way that again feels completely natural. And if you were new to Star Trek, you’d just think, ok , this is some old things of Picards. But to us, every item in this room holds meaning, brings back memories.

We see his model of the Stargazer from his ready room on the Enterprise. A klingon batleth and daktag. And notice, these are the original designs, not the re-designs from Discovery, which, I suppose, were simply 23rd century equivalents.

We also see the book that was displayed in his ready room. Shakespear? Probably.

There’s a model of the Enterprise E, The Captain Picard day banner, models of the captain’s yacht, and Enterprise D. What else did you spot?

So the reason Picard came here was to see a painting Data gave him. It looks like Dahj. Data called it Daughter.

So….this was a painting of Lal?

Dahj calls her mum, further confirming that she is human.

But when her mum tells her to go back to Picard, even though Dahj never mentioned that, we have doubts again. Who and what is this girl?

The floating holographic interface doesn’t look very TNG, but i’m cool with that. Remember back in the DS9 episode, The visitor, was set somewhere around this time, and Bashir remarks to Dax about how he doesn’t know how they ever manage dusing 2d interfaces. This is a natural progression of 24th century technology.

We see a few Starfleet uniforms in the background. We don’t get a really good look at them. I’m sure we’ll see more in subsequent episodes. We know from the trailers that Picard will go to Starfleet headquarters. So I’ll talk about them when we get a closer look.

At this point, Picard has figured it out.

She knows what Dahj is.

He tells her all about Data.

He believes Dahj is a synthetic. It all makes sense when he lays out the evidence.

All her memories of her childhood and family, are implanted. But Picard doesn’t belittle those memories. He calls them beautiful.

He refers to Dahj as something that is lovingly and deliberately created. And I really like that.

And although he doesn’t fully understand the nature of the connection, after all, Lal died, Picard is at a point where he is willing to consider Dahj as family. You are dear to me, he says.I will never leave you.

I’m loving this stuff. This is emotional. It’s great character drama, and as a parent, I’m connecting with it strongly.

At the same time, at this point I’m dying to understand the mystery. Did data secretly build a second Dahj back in the day? One that survived? Or is it something else?

Then we switch into thriller mode again. First of all, I love how Picard is struggling up the stairs. OF course he is. Even with 24th century medicine, he’s in his 90s. I like that the show allows Picard to be old. How many shows do we get with elderly heroes like this?

This action scene is fantastic. I feel like I’m watching a big screen action movie. Brilliantly done.

When Dahj does a superman jump, we’re left with little doubt that Picard is right about her. But what’s with that bleeding?

Let’s talk about the new transporter effect.

I don’t mind it. It’s still somewhat reminiscent of the TNG transporter effect. But it’s very quick. Again, I can buy that. It seems a logical advance that would occur in the technology.The sound effect still has hints of the old sound, but perhaps sounds a little too hologrammy to me. But I’m with it. This is a new era with a new aesthetic. But that aesthetic doesn’t feel like it came out of nowhere.

And then the big shock that I did NOT see coming.

The romulan puts his disruptor on overload. It explodes.

And Dahj dies.

I thought she was gonna be a major character in this show, and she didn’t make it to th end of the first episode.

That was shocking. And she Isa Briones played her death wonderfully. The fear on her face. The horror as she realised she was about to die. That hit me.

Not to mention Picard’s reaction.

Now we need to talk about something. Dahj has been experiencing and expressing a lot of emotion. She didn’t even know she was an android.

Data, as we know, was incapable of feeling emotions, at least until he installed the emotion chip that Soong developed later in life. So this android is more advanced than data.

Remember, also, though, that Lal was able to experience emotions, or at least a reasonable simulation of them just before she died. That was explained as a glitch in her positronic brain.

Anyway, this is something to keep in mind. Somebody has the ability to create android with emotion.

When he wakes up, Picard has a character growth moment, as he realises he hasn’t been living, he’s been waiting to die. I wonder if he remembers at this moment, a conversation he once had with James T. Kirk, about making a difference.

So he heads off to the Daystrom institute to talk to an expert about whether one can make an android out of flesh and blood.

And can I just point out how awesome all of the sets on this show look. Brilliant.

And here we meet another main cast member of this show. Doctor Agnus Jurati. She’s the expert.

She says a flash and blood android was in their sights, but a sentient one, not for a thousand years.

This kind of makes sense. A body is just a body. The impressive thing about an android like data was not the mechanical arms and legs. It was the brain. The mind.

When it comes to creating life, that’s the hard bit. That’s the bit that matters. The mind. And potentially, the soul.

I can buy that in the 24th century, that can manipulate biological matter to an extent that they can create a body out of bio matter. One that would bleed, like a true biological organism.

But creating a positronic brain like Data’s is something only one person ever achieved. Doctor Noonian Soong. And nobody has ever been able to duplicate his work.

This is why I think maybe the word synthetic could work. Because it’s more than just android. It’s talking about synthetically created biological organisms with robotic brains.

And now we learn the fate of B5. He’s been disassembled and put in a drawer at the Daystrom Institute. I wonder why they dismantled him.

Jurati tells us what we already knew, that B5 is an inferior copy of Data. And we learn that sadly, Data’s neural network didn’t take in B4’s primitive brain. Almost all of it was lost.

And then we get an exciting name drop. Bruce Maddox, from the TNG episode Measure of a Man.

Maddox was trying to follow up on Soong’s work. He wanted to dismantle Data to learn more so he could create more soong-type androids. Data refused, believing the procedure too dangerous, as Maddox needed more research. That, of course, lead to the court case where Data’s rights as a sentient life form were established.

Data and Maddox continued to keep in contact over the years. He’s occasionally mentioned in TNG. It seems he kept working and eventually recruited Doctor Jurati.

They came close to succeeding, and then mars happened, and the ban on the creation of synths. That understandably crushed him. He was no longer allowed to finish his life’s work. The guy was a jerk in TNG when we first met him, but I’m feeling sympathy for him now. Will we see him in a future episode. Man, I hope so.

Let’s talk about this ban on creating synths. As I understand, we’re not talking about taking away anything from synths that already exist. We’re talking about making it illegal to create more.

Was this an over-reaction? Possibly. Picard certainly thinks so.

But I can understand the feat that drove that decision. To this day, nobody knows why those synths attacked mars.

You can’t blame an entire race for something done by a finite number. Obviously.

But at the same time, we’re not talking about people. We’re talking about machines. And probably not even sentient machines, as they’re still trying to crack that nut. Created by technology. Created by flawed imperfect humans. Was there some kind of failure of glitch in the technology that lead to this tragedy? We don’t know.

I’m not sure where I stand on this issue right now, but I can see both sides.

Maddox disappeared after the ban. Even Jurati doesn’t know where he went.

Because nobody is clever enough to duplicate Soong’s work, any new sentient android would have to be created from data

Jurati then tells us about the theory of fractal neuronic cloning. Maddox believed all that data was could be re-created from a single positronic neuron. Kind lof like re-created a human from a strand of DNA in one of its cells.

So the theory is that Maddox created Dahj using this method, and modelled her appearance after the painting of Lal. They’re created in pairs. Twins.

Why this is the case, I don’t know. The episode doesn’t do a good job of explaining that. I can’t see a logical reason why the technology would require you to make two. Hopefully this will be explained more in future episodes.

And as Picard comes to the conclusion that there is another one out there somewhere, we leave him, as the episode cuts away from Earth for the last scene.

But now, it seems, Picard has a goal. A mission. This will guide us logically into the plot of episode 2, and perhaps, the entire season.

The new Romulan ship looks pretty cool. Very birdlike. The voice we hear as it flies by sounds very Klingon to me, but I assume it’s supposed to be Romulan.

This new location is referred to as the “Romulan Reclamation Site.” What that means, we have no idea.

We briefly meet another major character, a Romulan named Narek.

And then we meets Doctor Soji Asher. Who looks exactly like Dahj. The twin! I think she’s a psychologist.

We get a little backstory about Narek. He had a brother that he lost recently. There’s not a lot to say about this. We don’t know what part this character will play in the show. It’s essentially a cameo.

And that brings me to something about this show.

This very much feels like a story about Jean-Luc Picard. There are other characters around him, of course, and they’re important, but this is much less an ensemble show than any other Star Trek. Most of the cast, we haven’t actually met yet.

They tried to do that with Discovery, but Discovery can’t quite decide whether it’s the story of Michael Burnham, or a kind of lower decks ensemble show. I get the impression this show is much more certain of its identity.

And as the camera zooms out, in a shot reminiscent of Star Trek First Contact, we learn tat this Romlan Reclamation Site is actually a damaged Borg cube.

Interesting!

The credits mention somebody played a tellarite. I missed that.

I haven’t talked much about the music, so let me just say that I really liked it, and I think it fits the show well. It’s a lot less generic than the berman-era music, which I know a lot of people complain about, but there are a few hints of TNG-era music. I thought I heard a hint of something from Generations.

So that was the first episode of Star Trek Picard. Let’s go into some summary thoughts about the episode.

In short, I loved almost everything about it. I loved the tone. I loved the aesthetic. I loved the character focus.

In a way, this show is giving us the equivalent of what the movies gave us for TOS. There was quite a big gap between the original series and the original movies. Not so with TNG. They were filming the final episode, and then practically the next day there were filming the first movie. In a way that was good because we saw continuity. We travelled with these characters from Encounter at Farpoint through the Nemesis.

But we didn’t get to grow old with the characters like we did with Kirk, Spock and Bones. We saw them grow and change. Become old. We saw the world around them change. The look and feel of the original movies and very different than that of the original series.

But Star Trek Picard is giving us that opportunity with the Next Generation characters, and potentially, with Voyager and DS9 as well. We know Seven of Nine is returning. I live in hope that we’ll see someone from Deep Space Nine at some point during the planned 3 seasons of this show. And honestly, after Picard ends, I hope we get more of this era.

I’ve been wanting to return to the 24th century for about 20 years. And I can’t believe it’s finally happened. We’re getting to see a future for my favourite era of Star Trek, the Berman era.

If you’re coming to this, looking for TNG, you’re not going to find it. They’ve told us that all along. This isn’t planet of the week. They haven’t even left Earth yet. The creators described this as a ten hour movie. If that’s not the kind of thing you like, you might be disappointed, but I love this kind of thing.

So I’m really pumped and I can’t wait for next week so I can have another helping of Star Trek Picard.

What about you? What did you think of the show? Feel free to leave me a comment wherever you’re listening to this. (or watching)

So what other nerdy stuff is happening in my life?

Well, I recently started walking to Mordor.

You see, I’m quite overweight. My job involves sitting at a computer all day, and most of my other interests also involve sitting at a computer. So, that’s really very unhealthy.

I need to move a lot more during the day.

I thought a fun, nerdy way to motivate me to exercise more, (you’kow, other than not dying) would be to retract Frodo and Sam’s journey from the shire to Mordor to destroy the one ring.

I’ve got the Walk to Mordor app on my phone, which has all the distances calculated, with various milestones along the way, from the story. Whenever I go for a walk, I log the distance and it fells me how far I have to go.

I started at Bag end, and I’ve just passed through Tookland. In about 35 kilometers, I’ll have an encounter with the black rider. You remember that scene in the movie where they hid under the log with the black rider looming over them. It was terrifying. That’s in my future.

Anyway, it seems to be working. I’m finding myself wanting to go for walks. And as I do, I imagine myself on an epic quest through fantastical countryside.

The imagination is a powerful thing, and it’s interesting the tricks you can play on your own brain.

I’ll keep you up to date on my progress through middle earth in future podcasts.

But for now, I’m gonna say goodbye, until next time, when we meet with our friend Jean-Luc once again.

Have a great week.

Live long and prosper.

Make it so.

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