Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 1x02 - "Maps and Legends"

[DaveyNY]

Spoiler

But was the experimentation really what was happening? Or was that a supposition? I just went back and watched the scene with the "experimentation." The only thing they were doing was removing the Borg parts of "the nameless." Based upon what's happening in that scene, based on Hugh's appearance here, based on why Soji is involved in this project, it seems to me that the more public task is to save the former drones one by one. What the Romulans are doing behind the scenes (because you know they are doing something) is much different. Not to add to that, the fact that they identified the director in a mysterious form as just "the director" suggests that its someone we know. It makes sense its Hugh, not only from that perspective but also from that of him being a former drone who obviously went through the same procedures himself, it absolutely makes sense that he would have a vested interest in their survival and their reacclimation into society. Even if it means making a deal with the Romulans. Does he know all that's going on on the Cube? Probably not, which is why we see him in promos helping Picard and Soji off the Cube. I do wonder if he won't make it out there with them as well.

I'm beginning to think that Hugh is the one Seven is holding on the floor in the trailers.

 

[Tuskin38]

I have a feeling -Brett- is just voting one for the hell of it.

 

[Campe]

I'm beginning to think that Hugh is the one Seven is holding on the floor in the trailers.

Me too.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

...the CSI scene was pretty silly. I love seeing advanced sci-fi tech, but that came off more like magic.

*see Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald.

 

[Amaris]

I like this slow burn approach they're using. We're being given plenty of time to familiarize ourselves with the state of the Federation, of our heroes, our villains, and the new people stepping in who signify change. The political and social edge of Star Trek is right where it should be, which is front and center. Picard doesn't waffle upon being challenged over something he truly believes is morally wrong. He still has strong, ethical principles, and he sticks by them no matter how unpopular it is with those who deign themselves as the ultimate of moral authorities, as Admiral Clancy does when she insists that the Federation gets to say who lives and who dies.

Clancy clearly believes in the idea that Romulan lives are worth less than Federation lives, and that is a constant issue in human history, where the small number of the "worthy" must be preserved at the cost of the "worthless" by comparison, and yet she is the one who claims Picard is moved by hubris. It is the desperate and self-righteous song of those who bang the table for America First, or Germany First, or Britain First, because the empire must be preserved, and if all it costs is a few million lives of "lesser" persons, then the price is worth it for the, ah, greater good. That is what I see here, and I like that this is the message being pushed. We need this message delivered boldly, and it looks like Star Trek: Picard is willing to do so. I applaud it.

As for the characterizations, well I don't think I could love Laris and Shabhan any more than I do already, but they continue to shine. Laris' quip of "Are you mad?! Is it dementia? Sorry, because you're not a stupid man, so when you have such a stupid idea I have to look for other explanations!" when Picard reveals his plans was delivered with such a combination of love and venom that you can easily believe she has been at Picard's side for decades, and knows him like the back of her hand.

Oh, and the visuals! The scenes 14 years prior at Utopia Planitia, the arrival at Starfleet HQ, the shots inside the Borg Cube, all do an excellent job of making the story feel real, that these locations carry weight, that they matter, that they are lived in, and people are a part of them. Very well done.

It sets up next week so perfectly, and I can't wait to see the conclusion of the "pilot." So far, though, I am very happy with what I've seen so far. This one gets a solid 9. For some it was a bit slow, and mostly table talk, but for me it is just the right speed out of the gate to flesh everything out. I'm into the story, I'm into our characters, and I want to see where it all leads.

 

[rocketdave]

Nice to see David Paymer as the former Stargazer doctor; I've always liked him as an actor.

If Picard has a fatal neurological condition, couldn't he just go to the Ba'ku planet and get that cleared up? Of course, now it's too late to make a trip since he has a new mission, plus he'd probably start to deteriorate again once he left the planet. One could ask why he didn't just settle on Ba'ku when he quit Starfleet, though it's not unreasonable to surmise that he'd prefer to spend his retirement years among familiar surroundings rather than live forever on some alien world. I wasn't even a fan of Insurrection, but seeing that the show is not shying away from other stuff that I might have preferred never happened, I wouldn't be shocked if Ba'ku at least gets mentioned at some point. Maybe he could go there once the series reaches its conclusion. That way, he could show up on Discovery. But that doesn't seem likely.

It's kind of funny how several creative decisions that I didn't love from the various movies are such important elements in the show: the deaths of Picard's brother and nephew, the death of Data and the destruction of Romulus. Naturally, much of that would be tough to ignore. I'm not even necessarily saying that any of those were bad ideas, per se (except maybe for the random, firey deaths of Picard's family in Generations, which felt needlessly cruel), but they weren't handled particularly well, imho. I was especially bothered by the Romulan supernova in the 09 film because A) it seemed to potentially undo everything Spock had spent half his life working on and B) at the time, despite being such a major event, it felt conceivable that we were unlikely to find out what happened afterward. That's why I'm happy that the Romulans are actually a prominent part of this series.

I'm really enjoying Picard's two Romulan friends/employees whose names I haven't quite memorized yet. I believe this has been noted before, but it's also nice seeing Romulans (and also the Vulcan commodore who is likely to actually be a Romulan) having a variety of hairstyles, much as they did on TOS, rather than the standard bowl cut.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

It definitely felt more like setting up the story rather than the story itself.

Well, I'm an old-school TV watcher, but isn't this the kind of thing that is actually common now, particularly with streaming shows that they produce all at the same time? II don't mean any snideness with this, I'm just thinking the way modern TV is, we should not expect any episode to actually feel like a complete story in and of itself (a prospect I sometimes have difficulty with, truth be told)

 

[Trekker4747]

I used to find Nechayev insanely attractive.

Same here. Her bossiness/domination played a big role in it.

 

[SolarisOne]

agree the dialog on Mars was odd. Actually, it was rather obvious dialog - "Look how rude we are to the androids/non-people".

Have you not seen The Undiscovered Country? Remember what those two enlisted fellows said about the Klingons who had just beamed over?

I do have to admit there was a brief period during the Vulcan commodore's dressing down of "Rizzo" I thought that she was Romulan - because she seemed to be emoting a bit too much for a Vulcan. However, I guess that can be chalked up to bad direction.

I would hope that the Vulcans aren't as monocultural as earlier series have implied. Maybe she's just from a subculture that isn't as strict about the suppression of emotion, without being outright V'tosh ka'tur.

 

[Marschallin]

Completely agree. And in her last two episodes, Journey's End and Preemptive Strike, she's much more emotionally accessible to Picard (due to his efforts to reach out to her) and we see how the weight of her command decisions weigh upon her mind.

I think she's a great character and definitely not in the same league as the corrupt/incompetent admirals like Admiral Kennelly (sp?) from "Ensign Ro."

Nechayev’s conflicts with Picard usually amounted to a sci-fi version of the Trolley Problem, and it annoyed me that, especially in Nechayev’s earlier appearances, the show seemed to want us to believe that Picard was clearly in the right. Even as a kid, I was like, “Whoa whoa whoa. This problem is way more complicated than he’s making it out to be.”

 

[Yistaan]

Not impressed that Picard again has some disease that 24th century medical science (which seems as backwards as our science) can't cure. I know it keeps continuity with irumodic syndrome in All Good Things, but even that could have been averted by saying that Picard brought back irumodic syndrome research knowledge from 2395 after that episode to accelerate science to a cure. Also, Picard is 94, relatively young per Star Trek standards considering how long Dr. McCoy lived.

We're told by Vulcans like Sarek that they need their logical ways, otherwise their emotions are much more violent than humans and they would descend into barbarism. How do these Vulcans explain Laris and Zhaban, who are basically normal Romulans (Vulcan relations) who can function without an overbearing logical lifestyle?

Spock's red matter operation is almost definitely now an underground unsanctioned by the Federation project despite the Jellyfish being commissioned by the Vulcan Science Academy. Otherwise the Admiral would have told Picard, "We didn't abandon the Romulans, we just changed our plans to have Spock use red matter to stop the supernova, and you can't blame us for that failing."

 

[AgentCoop]

Well, I'm an old-school TV watcher, but isn't this the kind of thing that is actually common now, particularly with streaming shows that they produce all at the same time? II don't mean any snideness with this, I'm just thinking the way modern TV is, we should not expect any episode to actually feel like a complete story in and of itself (a prospect I sometimes have difficulty with, truth be told)

Oh, for sure. I just think it's a bit of a problem when it's as noticeable as it is here. All stories need setting up. I just wish it felt a little more organic. It's like watching them make the sausage.

 

[Trekker4747]

In AGT I had always assumed his illness was planted by Q to give the future versions of the crew an excuse to question his behavior.

 

[bookworm8571]

Oh And I absoloutely loath the begining. There is no money in the future, but there is the working class eating shitty lunch rations. This is the future, people should be able to replicate whatever they want. I understand on Voyager, resources were limited. This is Mars in the federation. Picard can replicate whatever he wants in his home so can Dahj, yet people on Mars working on a holiday are eating shitty lunches.

i’ve never bought the “no money” utopian vision of the Federation. Given human nature, everyone is equal but some are a little more equal than others. I suspect that means everyone has a right to basic food, clothing, shelter, housing, education, health care but no one has a right to caviar or a mansion or to get into the Daystrom Institute or to interstellar travel. The Mars workers were the average Joes and Janes of the future, not particularly special or talented or destined for greatness and they got a crappy work schedule and a crappy lunch to go with it.

 

[thribs]

Picard doesn’t have the disease. Just the neural defect which can cause multiple neural disorders later in life.

 

[bookworm8571]

I'm beginning to think that Hugh is the one Seven is holding on the floor in the trailers.

I would say that has been my assumption all along. We have to care about who they kill off or it doesn’t have the same impact.

I also expect them to kill off one or both of Picard’s Romulan friends in the next episode. They served their purpose for storytelling about the secret cartel and we like them now so they have to die. That’s not a spoiler, just a guess.

 

[Yistaan]

Picard doesn’t have the disease. Just the neural defect which can cause multiple neural disorders later in life.

The grim tone of the doctor and the fact that he basically said "it all ends the same way" means he has something as bad as irumodic (if not irumodic itself) or worse, almost definitely.

i’ve never bought the “no money” utopian vision of the Federation. Given human nature, everyone is equal but some are a little more equal than others. I suspect that means everyone has a right to basic food, clothing, shelter, housing, education, health care but no one has a right to caviar or a mansion or to get into the Daystrom Institute or to interstellar travel. The Mars workers were the average Joes and Janes of the future, not particularly special or talented or destined for greatness and they got a crappy work schedule and a crappy lunch to go with it.

Maybe our system of money is eradicated in favor of some bizarre future version of bitcoin? I'll call it fitcoin. When Picard says, we work to better ourselves, maybe every Federation citizen has a chip installed that tracks neural connections, physical health, etc.

Working out, learning new languages and advanced science, performing tasks, etc. is loaded into a chip installed in every person. Personal improvement is the new bitcoin mining, called fitcoin mining. The more you work out and study, the more fitcoins you have.

Thus, when Picard says people work to better themselves, they are just mining more fitcoins. All other currency (dollars, renminbi, euros, even bitcoins) are eliminated in favor of fitcoins. Thus you reconcile statements saying there is no money since the late 22nd century with the obvious references to money in TOS etc.

Those money references are references to fitcoins, which people earn through bettering themselves.

 

[Marschallin]

i’ve never bought the “no money” utopian vision of the Federation. Given human nature, everyone is equal but some are a little more equal than others. I suspect that means everyone has a right to basic food, clothing, shelter, housing, education, child care but no one has a right to caviar or a mansion or to get into the Daystrom Institute or to interstellar travel. The Mars workers were the average Joes and Janes of the future, not particularly special or talented or destined for greatness and they got a crappy work schedule and a crappy lunch to go with it.

I always thought the “no money” thing was part of Rodenberry’s vision of the future as a utopia that subsequent writers wish they could ret-con but they can’t. So they dance around the edges of it in ways that make no sense (because class struggle and greed creates drama, and utopia doesn’t.)

 

[Yistaan]

I always thought the “no money” thing was part of Rodenberry’s vision of the future as a utopia that subsequent writers wish they could ret-con but they can’t. So they dance around the edges of it in ways that make no sense (because class struggle and greed creates drama, and utopia doesn’t.)

See my fitcoin post above yours where it all makes sense.

Picard should have just stayed a kid and grown back up again after that transporter accident in Rascals. I find it very hard to believe that Starfleet couldn't recreate this to just reverse people's agings whenever they want, and this episode was never addressed again.

 

[cooleddie74]

"Zhat Vash"! Does nobody check anymore to see if the are reusing names?

The Tal Shiar reuses both the name of a TOS Romulan as well as is an evolution of the Vulcan term "Tal Shaya," an ancient Vulcan method of execution. Trek rehashes a lot of names.