Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 1x05 - "Stardust City Rag"
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What's the lesson? That hating androids is bad? I'm getting nothing else of meaning with this series.
It seems cracks have appeared in the Federation. I wonder if this is the beginning of the end that will eventuate with whatever form the Federation is in Discovery S3? It can take centuries for civilisations to fall after certain events, just as it can happen in a matter of years.
The villains don't care at all about respecting Icheb. But the fact of the matter is it's still a lot harder to operate on a thrashing, fighting victim than an unconscious one.
If someone wanted to rip a microchip out from inside a dog, would you leave him conscious so he can bite you or maul you? Or wouldn't you logically knock him out first?
A
Amaris
Guest
Not if you want him to suffer. He didn't seem to have much capability of fighting her, so it's possibly he had been subdued in other ways, while making him fully aware of the pain he was feeling. There have been examples all through history of groups and individuals causing as much human suffering as possible during experiments, in order to see how the human body reacts to such stress. Ghastly, barbaric experiments that were nonetheless performed, often at the behest of a government. This is someone doing it for profit, so it is likely any ethics that would exist were thrown out the window long before any actual cutting began.
I’ll admit to being on the fence about this series up til this episode. This one has finally won me over. Still not 100% sure about the big story arc making any sense, but at least we aren’t needlessly hanging around the Borg cube watching the most forced/cold on screen relationship since Voq/Burnham develop. And the actions of each individual are coming into their own and starting to make sense and developing nicely. Really liked the way they used seven.
I didn’t get the sense that Jurati was acting under duress or psychic manipulation; only that she felt she had to kill an old friend/lover for some as yet unknown reason. Not sure she is ‘bad’, so much as she knows info crucial to the plot that we are not privy to and it is affecting her actions. I was sure there was going to be a stupid evil ‘big bad’ in this series based on the scruffy Romulan on the cube, but now I am not sure that there will be, and that is what I think won me over. Shades of gray and competing motivations all well-intentioned make for much better tv than “this guy/cause is pure evil!”, which I think cheapens plots more than helps them.
I didn’t get the sense that Jurati was acting under duress or psychic manipulation; only that she felt she had to kill an old friend/lover for some as yet unknown reason. Not sure she is ‘bad’, so much as she knows info crucial to the plot that we are not privy to and it is affecting her actions. I was sure there was going to be a stupid evil ‘big bad’ in this series based on the scruffy Romulan on the cube, but now I am not sure that there will be, and that is what I think won me over. Shades of gray and competing motivations all well-intentioned make for much better tv than “this guy/cause is pure evil!”, which I think cheapens plots more than helps them.
Ok, then Saavik. Is there great outcry over that?
Those attitudes will be there for a while. Humans are very good at making other people less than themselves.
Phenomenal episode. Trek never grossed me out or disturbed me like that before.
Would have given it a 10 but knocked off 2 points because no Brian Brophy. So 8 it is.
Would have given it a 10 but knocked off 2 points because no Brian Brophy. So 8 it is.
This was my only complaint about this episode, and the only thing that kept me from giving it a ten. The intro was way over the top gory, and for no good reason than to say “look, this lady is baaaddd!” It is better to be subtle, and Seven finding Icheb’s mutilated corpse after his parts had been painlessly harvested after death would have been just as impactful. Maybe more so. But I feel like this episode pulled it off and I had almost forgotten about that scene by the end.
I don't know...Star Trek has had some weird scenes...
Ugh, I can't stand this scene to this day!
Ugh, I can't stand this scene to this day!
The gang is cheap and the techs probably don't have much in the way of medical training (too expensive and difficult to come by in the Neutral Zone).
800 years is too much and it hampers anything they might want to do in that time frame.
Prefacing this by saying I still like the show. But more and more this is feeling like just another generic sci-fi show and not Star Trek. It’s just missing...something.
Sometimes there is a spark and you can see something there, like the last exchange between Seven and Picard.
and why, between this and Discovery does there always have to be a big bad pulling the strings from behind the scenes.
as for this episode, I didn’t mind the violence or how Seven acts. She’s acting human the best way she knows how.
Killing off Icheb seemed unnecessary.
the costumes Picard, Rios and Elnor were wearing seemed totally like something we would have seen Kirk, Spock and McCoy be forced into.
Liked the shoutouts to Quark.
hated Raffi’s subplot.
Sometimes there is a spark and you can see something there, like the last exchange between Seven and Picard.
and why, between this and Discovery does there always have to be a big bad pulling the strings from behind the scenes.
as for this episode, I didn’t mind the violence or how Seven acts. She’s acting human the best way she knows how.
Killing off Icheb seemed unnecessary.
the costumes Picard, Rios and Elnor were wearing seemed totally like something we would have seen Kirk, Spock and McCoy be forced into.
Liked the shoutouts to Quark.
hated Raffi’s subplot.
Agree. The novel “the naked and the dead” has a lot of meaningless death, but is one of the better books on the senselessness of war that has ever been written (IMHO). Meaningless death can be quite powerful.
Meant to say earlier, but I genuinely appreciate this. Nice to have a respectful conversation about this sort of thing, even if we aren't completely in sync about it.
While I'm guessing there would be less demand for parental guides for the older stuff, I agree it would be nice to have it out there, especially for examples like the ones you mentioned. In addition to parental guidance notes, there are probably those who would appreciate other "trigger warnings" as well I'm sure.
Though if we're including older material I'm wondering if a wiki might be a more effective format than the boards, but that sounds like a much bigger project.
My then 9 year old nephew visited me last year and I showed him some episodes from Avatar The Last Airbender. And then he couldn't fall asleep for quite some time that night and according to his own words because of the series. It seems something in it has disturbed him and that despite being some years older than the minimum recommended age for watching it. Not all children are alike.
PIC is clearly not aimed at young kids at all. The TV rating is more than clear in this regard. So I think it is really irresponsible of CBS to advertise it using a 7 years old. Some parents might see it and think if this boy is fine watching it, it can't be so brutal and my kids will be fine with it, too. But that doesn't have to be the case, because as I said before all kids are different. They should follow their own TV rating and advertise it accordingly.
Seven: After they brought you back from your time in the Collective, do you honestly feel that you've regained your humanity?
Picard: Yes.
Seven: All of it?
Picard: No. But we're both working on it, aren't we?
Seven: Every damn day of my life.
Seven's attitude may well be something along the lines of Michael Corleone's ("It's not personal. This is business."). She really knows how to compartmentalize.
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Screw a novel, how about a show?