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Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 1x05 - "Stardust City Rag"

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You know, I think that episode kind of pissed me off. My feelings on this series are starting to come to a middle.

First of all, why is it that this franchise in intent to look and behave like every other Sci-Fi property out there EXCEPT for Star Trek? The whole look and feel of this episode was just off and not right. I get that Trek as a whole is trying to go for a different look and all but. cripes, would it hurt to ease up on the darkness and the Blade Runner look just a BIT?!

And, fuck, of course what's her face is "in on it." Because, of course.

It's kind of a shame Seven is gone, I was hoping she'd be around for more of the season.

And it's official, every episode of this season is going to start in the past.

I'm still watching, but now mostly out of "wanting to see it to the end" because nothing about this for me really feels or looks good anymore. The only part I really liked was the stuff between Seven and Picard.

This was an ugly episode to watch, and we didn't need the "torture-porn gore" at the open.
 
John Clark said:
Glad I'm not the only one who thought that. After another look though, I remember her as one of the current (here at least) NCIS New Orleans actresses.
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I confess I mainly know Necar Zadegan from the lesbian movie Elena Undone, which I thought was pretty bad, though is somewhat noteworthy for breaking the record for the longest on screen kiss in cinema history.
 
Remember when we thought McCoy's butcher knives in episodes like "Space Seed" (despite McCoy himself criticizing them as primitive in Voyage Home) seemed anachronistic? Well apparently this is what Trek decided to bring back.

You think someone intent on getting Icheb's parts intact would just beam them out or something, rather than rely on clumsy primitive ways.
 
Cap'n Calhoun said:
Not pretending it's new, but it is unexpected (for the reasons I outlined before), and that's my issue.

It's up to everyone to set their standards for what they and their family will watch. If a family is comfortable setting their kids in front of an R-rated film like Alien, that's their business, not mine.

But if you can't at least empathize with the frustration we feel when we do prefer to avoid these things and get mixed messages as to what to expect, I don't know what else to say.
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I do empathize but I struggle with the frustration when the show is rated what it is rated.

Sorry, but I find things like David's death, and Valeris' mind rape extremely disturbing but don't see any calls for that being forewarned on the box or inappropriate for Trek or things like that.
 
The Old Mixer said:
In the case of Ben Sisko, that was specifically at the request of Avery Brooks.
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That's nice to hear? It irked me and had me wondering if stations or viewers or whoever didn't want to witness miscegenation or something else icky like that. I didn't think stations would also not air the Trill lesbian kiss but life surprises you for all sorts of reasons doesn't it.
 
I guess my feelings on the gore/cursing/sex is this..It's TV-MA for a reason. MA means adult/mature content. For TV-MA you should be pre-screening the show before just assuming "lol it's Star Trek that means it's fine for kids". The mental rapes in TNG were not okay, the mental rape in TUC was not okay. There's a very close up scene in FC where a crewman has their eye replaced with an implant point before an optical sensor is secured on it. There's a scene in FC with a bloody/partially bloody stump has a techno attachment point on it.

The eyeball scene was hard, it's done now. Guess what else was hard?

Seeing Picard getting stabbed from behind with the blade poking out of his chest

Having Data break a Borgs neck for no reason beyond...what? shock value?

The hyperbole around all this is hilarious, torture porn? Gore porn? Seriously...give it a break.
 
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The gore at the start of the episode felt exploitative and very unnecessary. That aside, I was quite bewildered by the decision to bring Icheb back literally just to instantaneously kill him. Also didn't like the ending, because I don't think Seven executing someone in this fashion adds anything to her character or the plot at all. The gang leader was written pretty cartoonishly and was far too one-dimensional to understand or relate to in any meaningful way, so the violence acted upon her had absolutely no emotional weight for me. It just felt like the writers really wanted something "dark" to happen (again) and so we end up with someone getting vaporised. Did Seven at least have the phasers set to stun when she ambushed the two bodyguards and then went on the absurd dual rifle spree against the worst security guards in the galaxy? That'd be something at least.

Maddox's last words about how the Federation is involved in the conspiracy don't sound promising. At first it was "secret Romulan assassins" operating on Earth, then it turns out the head of Starfleet Security is involved, and now it's just "Starfleet" generally. I'm not against writers branching out and testing the limits of Star Trek but I'm mostly just feeling alienated by this series. I hope the final five episodes see a turnaround and give us something to suggest that Starfleet is not actually a group of insane isolationist racists who send assassins after people.
 
Yistaan said:
Remember when we thought McCoy's butcher knives in episodes like "Space Seed" (despite McCoy himself criticizing them as primitive in Voyage Home) seemed anachronistic? Well apparently this is what Trek decided to bring back.

You think someone intent on getting Icheb's parts intact would just beam them out or something, rather than rely on clumsy primitive ways.
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They would actually have to care about the victim to do that.
It's pretty obvious that the folks harvesting the Borg parts don't give a chit about who the parts are in.
 
Arpy said:
(EDIT: There are HUGE SPOILERS in this reply. Skip if you haven't seen the episode yet are reading this thread for some ungodly reason.)

I don't understand the reaction to the gore. What do you think happens to the people off-camera that we play so fast and loose with on-camera? Oh, a planet was assimilated? So cool. The Borg are so chilling; I love them.

I think it was there to establish the plight of the Ex-B's and context to Seven's descent to murder.

What did strike me as disturbing was that it was Icheb. I wasn't a huge VOY fan, but he was, for lack of a better term, part of the family. That said, why shouldn't it be him instead of a nameless or short-lived redshirt?

Some qualms with the episode:
1. Picard should have never beemed down looking as he did -- his face would have been recognized.
2. It kind of annoyed me that Raffi's son's wife Pel(?) was the exact same shade as he was. She's a Romulan at least, but even more of a mixed-race couple would have been statistically more likely. Sisko and Jake also had wives, girlfriends, and romantic interests who were also almost always black.
3. I get that it was comic relief, but Rios in 1970's pimp outfit and Picard unusually flamboyant didn't work for me. Picard isn't the actor Stewart. Maybe it's part of Picard's growth over his long life, or maybe it's just out of character for him.
4. Maybe Manu declined the part given how brief it would have been, but it might have been really great if they got both he and the actor who played Maddox to reprise their roles. Maybe if it were the both of them, it would have been less awkward?

Things I liked about the episode:
1. The actor who played Raffi's son did a great job.
2. It was kind of heartbreaking and great seeing the additional collateral damage of the Synth attack in it destroying Raffi's family despite her probably being right. Life's complex that way.
3. I knew Jurati was a plant, but I didn't think she was that deep on the other side.
4. I feel like we're now really getting into the series. I'm curious to see where they'll take in in the next episode or two.
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My only issue with what you've said here is your issue with Raffi's son and his partner as well as the issue you have with Sisko and Jake and them having black human love interests or love interests played by black actresses. I've seen this complaint before for Sisko, but it's never there for the other captains, who have all largely had love interests of the same race (not completely but mostly). I've never seen any complaints about intraracial romantic relationships for any other characters except Sisko and now Jake and Raffi's son. Future statistics have never been an issue when it came to the mating/dating choices of the other captains or lead characters.

Gabriel's last name of Hwang, assuming that was Raffi's husband's last name, which is a good bet that Raffi was involved in an interracial relationship, and that Gabriel is mixed race. Further, in the real-world, the actress playing his partner Ayushi Chhabra is she is not from the same race(s), ethnicity as Gabriel actor Mason Gooding, so it is a depiction of the relationship you want to see.
 
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Starflight said:
Maddox's last words about how the Federation is involved in the conspiracy don't sound promising. At first it was "secret Romulan assassins" operating on Earth, then it turns out the head of Starfleet Security is involved, and now it's just "Starfleet" generally. I'm not against writers branching out and testing the limits of Star Trek but I'm mostly just feeling alienated by this series. I hope the final five episodes see a turnaround and give us something to suggest that Starfleet is not actually a group of insane isolationist racists who send assassins after people.
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I have a feeling it's going to be a cabal of people within the UFP / StarFleet / Romulan Tal Shiar / Zhat Vash / etc.

It's not going to be just one group of people from one species.
 
KamenRiderBlade said:
I have a feeling it's going to be a cabal of people within the UFP / StarFleet / Romulan Tal Shiar / Zhat Vash / etc.

It's not going to be just one group of people from one species.
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And as we have seen many times before, it only takes one or two high ranking Admirals attempting to enforce their own personal beliefs, to set the ball rolling in a disastrous way.
 
Starflight said:
The gore at the start of the episode felt exploitative and very unnecessary. That aside, I was quite bewildered by the decision to bring Icheb back literally just to instantaneously kill him. Also didn't like the ending, because I don't think Seven executing someone in this fashion adds anything to her character or the plot at all. The gang leader was written pretty cartoonishly and was far too one-dimensional to understand or relate to in any meaningful way, so the violence acted upon her had absolutely no emotional weight for me. It just felt like the writers really wanted something "dark" to happen (again) and so we end up with someone getting vaporised. Did Seven at least have the phasers set to stun when she ambushed the two bodyguards and then went on the absurd dual rifle spree against the worst security guards in the galaxy? That'd be something at least.
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7 was never a morally pure, upstanding character in Voyager.

Was she made better by her time on Voyager? Of course...but she had someone she had grown to love as a son tortured by people who viewed him as a commodity to be used. Can you really blame her for wanting to simply exterminate the person who was responsible?
 
Racefuel said:
7 was never a morally pure, upstanding character in Voyager.

Was she made better by her time on Voyager? Of course...but she had someone she had grown to love as a son tortured by people who viewed him as a commodity to be used. Can you really blame her for wanting to simply exterminate the person who was responsible?
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I would've been far more cruel to the horrible women who did that to Icheb.
I would've dissected her to make her suffer the same fate he did and torture her, revive her, then repeatedly torture her till she can revive no more.

But I'm a far more vengeful person that gets revenge for my loved ones.
 
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