Except in this case we are dealing with borg who were implanted as children. We know that their implants are so integrated into their bodies that they need them to survive.
Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 1x05 - "Stardust City Rag"
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Except in this case we are dealing with borg who were implanted as children. We know that their implants are so integrated into their bodies that they need them to survive.
Things picked up quite a bit in this one, I'm pleased to say. The only thing that felt uneven was some bits of Stewart's performance - but overall it was solid. Seven was great and the whole thing with Icheb was finally a really good use of calling back to past canon without over doing it. I'm equally glad they didn't feel the need to have 7 give whole monologue about how she got there since the end of Voyager.
The fact that there was no Soji or the Romulan siblings in this one really solidified my opinion that that is the weakest aspect of this show.
The fact that there was no Soji or the Romulan siblings in this one really solidified my opinion that that is the weakest aspect of this show.
I just accept I'm talking about a dramatic element in show about space ships, cyborgs, aliens, transportation beams and androids.
Ho boy, now that was a shocking twist at the end. I didn't expect Jurati to turn on us so early. Whatever Oh had shown her, it must have been horrific. I still feel sick in the stomach from thinking what Maddox's last seconds must have been like, being murdered by his own girlfriend as she stands crying over him.
The entire episode, or even this entire series has a very robust backbone in the concept of self-perceived failure and abandonment gnawing at everyone from within. Be it Picard abandoning the Romulans and Raffi after Starfleet shelving the rescue effort, Raffi abandoning her family in her obsessive pursuit of Romulan conspiracies and her substance abuse, Rios beating himself up for whatever happened to the captain of the ibn Majid, and now we've learned about Seven's colossal guilt over her perceived responsibility for Icheb's death because she had put him in Bjayzl's crosshairs. It was heartbreaking to see her so utterly bitter and broken. And of course, I believe Jurati's going to be consumed by her guilt over her actions very soon. Especially if it turns out that Oh had lied to her. Will her arc end with a heroic self-sacrifice or giving herself up to the authorities, I wonder?
Overall, I've found Picard and Raffi are much more similar than they are willing to admit to each other, and they both contribute to the thematic basis of the series: that you can't just walk out on the people who are counting on you without consequences. Nor can you simply pop back into their lives and expect everything to be as if nothing happened. Life goes on without you, and now that Raffi has seen the consequences of this as well, she has nowhere else to go than with Picard (of course she could go back to her cabin on Earth to waste her life away, but I think she knows very well that it would be the exact same thing she resents Picard for). Her scene with her son Gabriel tore open quite a lot of old personal wounds; even though my parents were physically living with me, every word he said about parental abandonment was intimately and painfully familiar. But I'm glad he has found happiness on his own. Sometimes it's better that way.
I loved Freecloud, and I found it quite believable that such wretched hives of scum and villainy could exist just outside the Federation's reach. Based on the ads, I first described it as Sealand crossed with Pirate Tortuga, but with all the shiny neon signs everywhere, maybe Nar Shaddaa would be a more apt comparison. Only the Hutt were missing. But I absolutely loved how Quark and Mr. Mot both had the same idea to start franchising. The costumes on Freecloud looked like they were lifted straight out of The Fifth Element, and their unhinged, colorful extravagance was quite fitting for such an insane place.
Little observations:
The entire episode, or even this entire series has a very robust backbone in the concept of self-perceived failure and abandonment gnawing at everyone from within. Be it Picard abandoning the Romulans and Raffi after Starfleet shelving the rescue effort, Raffi abandoning her family in her obsessive pursuit of Romulan conspiracies and her substance abuse, Rios beating himself up for whatever happened to the captain of the ibn Majid, and now we've learned about Seven's colossal guilt over her perceived responsibility for Icheb's death because she had put him in Bjayzl's crosshairs. It was heartbreaking to see her so utterly bitter and broken. And of course, I believe Jurati's going to be consumed by her guilt over her actions very soon. Especially if it turns out that Oh had lied to her. Will her arc end with a heroic self-sacrifice or giving herself up to the authorities, I wonder?
Overall, I've found Picard and Raffi are much more similar than they are willing to admit to each other, and they both contribute to the thematic basis of the series: that you can't just walk out on the people who are counting on you without consequences. Nor can you simply pop back into their lives and expect everything to be as if nothing happened. Life goes on without you, and now that Raffi has seen the consequences of this as well, she has nowhere else to go than with Picard (of course she could go back to her cabin on Earth to waste her life away, but I think she knows very well that it would be the exact same thing she resents Picard for). Her scene with her son Gabriel tore open quite a lot of old personal wounds; even though my parents were physically living with me, every word he said about parental abandonment was intimately and painfully familiar. But I'm glad he has found happiness on his own. Sometimes it's better that way.
I loved Freecloud, and I found it quite believable that such wretched hives of scum and villainy could exist just outside the Federation's reach. Based on the ads, I first described it as Sealand crossed with Pirate Tortuga, but with all the shiny neon signs everywhere, maybe Nar Shaddaa would be a more apt comparison. Only the Hutt were missing. But I absolutely loved how Quark and Mr. Mot both had the same idea to start franchising. The costumes on Freecloud looked like they were lifted straight out of The Fifth Element, and their unhinged, colorful extravagance was quite fitting for such an insane place.
Little observations:
- I just loved to hate all those Freecloud ads. Especially the personalized ones like the one Raffi got. Data harvesting is just that much easier in the 24th century, isn't it? Seeing all this, I'd vow to avoid Freecloud by at least a parsec forever... seriously, I just saw ads on my social media for a brand of beer we've merely discussed during our lunch break. Again.
- As I looked up the Annari makeup from Voyager, their forehead ridges and skin color looked quite similar to how the new Beta Annari look. Maybe they're a Beta Quadrant subspecies? We've met the Annari in VOY Season 7, they were quite close to the Beta Quadrant by then. But still, I loved how Vup still wore a 24th approximation of a pinstripe business suit. I was always fond of aliens wearing human clothes.
- Elnor is absolutely adorable with his childlike glee at witnessing his first ruse, "I don't know how to not be Elnor." and "Are we still pretending?" He's almost like what Data would've been like if he had his emotion chip from the beginning.
I remember from Voyager that the Doctor was unable to remove certain implants because they functioned as organs or parts of organs. There was one episode where one of 7's implants started to fail and it was killing her. Icheb had his transplanted into her because he could survive without it because he hadn't been assimilated as long.
His cortical node. That's why it was missing before he died and the Borg part harvester couldn't locate it.
G
Gonzo
Guest
Yeah, that particular implant was not as critical to him as it was to her.
Science fiction coincidences have been part in parcel of Trek from day one. It's not an error if it's a feature. TNG was built on the problem of the week specifically built around such coincidences. Starfleet historically hasn't hunted down people outside the federation for comparatively petty criminal activities. Picard has been through conspiracies at Star Fleet before and knows that the rot comes from the top, so he knows going back to Clancy or someone else is likely to get himself killed.
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Yeah, the cordical (sp) node, aka the glowy cylinder in the forehead.
There, I read the whole thread.
Exactly what happened to me, and my sentiments are similar. I've noticed people watching a half hour to forty-five minutes earlier than I can, but it's always been up by midnight. This time I waited till one AM and went to bed. Had to watch it in the cold light of day.
Can't wait till he sees the cat.
Also, I liked Icheb. I liked all the Borg children. There, I said it.
Exactly what happened to me, and my sentiments are similar. I've noticed people watching a half hour to forty-five minutes earlier than I can, but it's always been up by midnight. This time I waited till one AM and went to bed. Had to watch it in the cold light of day.
Can't wait till he sees the cat.
Also, I liked Icheb. I liked all the Borg children. There, I said it.
It also felt dramatically flat and unrealistic because of the need to hide from the audience why Agnes was killing Maddox. Realistically, Agnes would make sure Maddox knew why he had to die before she killed him. Maddox seemed just as confused as the audience.
G
Gonzo
Guest
That is the real question now that Commodore Oh went so far as to literally show Jurati what was at stake, we now need to know if it is in fact true or just manipulation by a greater conspiracy.
Is it going to end up tying in to Discovery and the big bad AI from the future or will it be linked to how the first Borg Queen was created.
Whatever it is they clearly believe it hook line and sinker, that now includes Jurati as well but no doubt she is going to spill her guts to Picard as I cant see them falling for her lies again, will she end up regretting it though.
As a kid I watched the horrific transporter accident in TMP, the gore in Wrath of Khan and I'm sure First Contact has been shown on TV enough times for a whole lot of kids to have seen it without any supervision. And you really have to be a threat to regional stability for Starfleet to go outside its juristiction to hunt you down.
I must be thick. Is snake venom injecting slang for heroin or some other deadly addictive drug?
The gore in TWOK, the PeptoBlood in TUC, the head exploding in Conspiracy, Picard getting stabbed through the chest in Tapestry...
Like...as a kid Tapestry was really hard to watch because I really liked Picard and that scene, both the flash back and seeing Picard proper getting ganked was tough.
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It's probably something related to Krokodil, trafficked by Klingons with Belorussian accents.
It's also worth mentioning that the actor who played Icheb looked pretty similar to the already canon-established Adult Icheb from "Shattered."
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https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net...dth-down/350?cb=20200220115017&path-prefix=en
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net...dth-down/180?cb=20050528032705&path-prefix=en
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The abuse Gem took at the hands of Vians in "The Empath", the lashings Kirk and Spock took in "Patterns of Force", evil Kirk's attempted rape of Yeoman Rand in "The Enemy Within" (which I still have a hard time watching to this day).
I didn't feel a problem with that personally. I felt it was enough to know she did it because of whatever Oh had shown to her, and definitely connected to Soji being called the Destroyer. And besides, it's a show with serial storytelling. Whatever they haven't told us today, we'll probably learn soon enough.
I also don't feel it would be that realistic for her to explain at length why she was doing it. Most killers don't spend their victims' last moments telling them why they have to die; it's more like a narrative device in my opinion. But it's one that wasn't missing for me in this specific case.