Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 1x05 - "Stardust City Rag"
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As Seven beams off the ship, it's said that a few notes from the Voyager theme can be heard. I watched it about ten times listening for it and I couldn't hear it.
It's a riff on it. They don't play it EXACTLY.
I haven't read all 67 pages of posts here but Michael Chabon put out a response to a fan complaining about the "violence" at the beginning of the episode. I think his response is spot on.
"I am not unambivalent about the violence, myself. The choice was not made lightly, though it was made collaboratively, and therefore with a good deal of conversation and debate among the creators. And so I assure you that it is not there simply “because we can,” or because we are trying, as you somewhat uncharitably put it, to be “in.” My partners would all have their own reasons for its presence in this story, as some of us had our own reasons for shying away from it. For me, it came down to this: there has always been violence (and even torture) in Star Trek. Sometimes that violence has been implicit, sometimes explicit, according to the dictates of censorship, the nature of the situation being depicted, the aesthetic of individual creators, or technical and/or budgetary limitations. And the reason that there has always been violence in Trek is that Trek is art, and there has always been violence—implicit and explicit—in art. It belongs there. It belongs in any narrative about human beings, even human beings of the future. Violence, often, is the narrative. Its source. Its engine. The question of whether it’s “too much” or not is ultimately a matter of taste. Personally, I come out closer to the “less is more” end. But that is just me. In the end, I saw how little time and space we had to convey a sense of Seven’s history post-Voyager, and the things that drive and haunt her. I decided, with my partners, that intensity was warranted. Seven lives outside the rational confines of the Federation, because that is where she finds her sense of purpose. But life is hard, out there. If it wasn’t, people wouldn’t need her help so badly. And she wouldn’t have found such a compelling reason to carry on, in spite of her history of trauma. But, I hear you"
"I am not unambivalent about the violence, myself. The choice was not made lightly, though it was made collaboratively, and therefore with a good deal of conversation and debate among the creators. And so I assure you that it is not there simply “because we can,” or because we are trying, as you somewhat uncharitably put it, to be “in.” My partners would all have their own reasons for its presence in this story, as some of us had our own reasons for shying away from it. For me, it came down to this: there has always been violence (and even torture) in Star Trek. Sometimes that violence has been implicit, sometimes explicit, according to the dictates of censorship, the nature of the situation being depicted, the aesthetic of individual creators, or technical and/or budgetary limitations. And the reason that there has always been violence in Trek is that Trek is art, and there has always been violence—implicit and explicit—in art. It belongs there. It belongs in any narrative about human beings, even human beings of the future. Violence, often, is the narrative. Its source. Its engine. The question of whether it’s “too much” or not is ultimately a matter of taste. Personally, I come out closer to the “less is more” end. But that is just me. In the end, I saw how little time and space we had to convey a sense of Seven’s history post-Voyager, and the things that drive and haunt her. I decided, with my partners, that intensity was warranted. Seven lives outside the rational confines of the Federation, because that is where she finds her sense of purpose. But life is hard, out there. If it wasn’t, people wouldn’t need her help so badly. And she wouldn’t have found such a compelling reason to carry on, in spite of her history of trauma. But, I hear you"
I agree that it would be good if the rest of the cast had more material to work with, but I guess...the show is doing exactly what it says on the tin: telling Picard's story. Everyone else is an also-ran here. I like what we've seen of each of them so far, though. Raffi's backstory is full of complex layers - like, TNG often showed or spoke of Starfleet families separated for long periods because the parents had different postings, but Raffi's story really drills into that concept and shows how badly it could turn out, especially when disaster, drug addiction and obsessive paranoia are factored into the mix. Elnor was adorable in this episode, but we barely saw anything of him - after last week, we might have expected this kid who has been raised never to lie to lean toward brutal honesty, but instead he was really excited about getting to play at pretend...even if he had no idea how to do it. And I thought this episode gave a really clear sense of what an excellent Starfleet officer Rios must once have been - he was focused and alert throughout the mission, saved Picard's life from that lizard-alien whose name I forget, and talked Seven down when Picard couldn't.
Seven was able to beam back down because Rios left the pattern enhancer on the transporter control panel and she picked it back up from there.
Elnor was not raised on Freecloud, he grew up in the isolated backwater that is Vashti, we saw that last week. This is the first time he's been off-world since he was taken to Vashti as a child refugee, and although he is highly trained by the Qowat Milat, he has led a very sheltered life. I thought he handled his side of the mission well - he did as he was told, let everyone else do the talking, and took steps to secure the situation when necessary.
Icheb was on leave from his starship when he was captured - he'd gone to spend his leave helping Seven with the Fenris Rangers, so his ship was nowhere near and therefore unable to help him.
From what we know so far, I suspect Raffi's family breakdown was probably long-drawn out and complicated. We know that she was heavily involved with the Romulan rescue mission, which would have taken her away from home for weeks if not months at a time, which would have placed great strain on familial relationships anyway. Then the disaster of the Mars attack happened, followed by Picard's resignation, and we've seen that she reacted badly to that and lost her own job shortly thereafter. We know from Gabriel here that she quickly became obsessed with her conspiracy theories (I suspect we'll eventually learn she was right). And we know that she has since spiralled into drug addiction. That's a heady, complex cocktail of factors. So did she actually abandon her family or does Gabriel simply feel like she did because she was never around, was consumed with other things even when she was, and then failed to fight for him when the marriage broke down? As backstory, it works for me.
Not just teeming with Romulans, owned by Romulans. But they are working in cooperation with the Federation, we know that because there are a bunch of Federation scientists working there and we learned from Soji's Trill friend something about the visa system used to gain access.
It was a different actor, yes.
Yeah, I didn't catch it.
The repugnance I felt was due to the implication that their relationship may have been exploitative, with Maddox using her intelligence and admiration for his work/genius to accomplish questionable or even dangerous things. Something clearly damaged her mental health, and I fear her relationship with Maddox may have led to that breaking point.
Hmm. I agree with Chabon in principle, but not on the details. It is useful in media to remind viewers that violence is more than action, that it involves inflicting pain and death. However, I feel that Icheb's dissection was not a substitute for showing how meaningful the relationship was to him. And the episode had enough bloat to make some adjustments.
I appreciate that explanation - it's a promise (in a way) that such violence will only exist if the story absolutely requires that it exist.
Wow, that was very dark. Poor Itchy. 
It was good seeing Seven back, and I particualrly liked how much she'd changed, like Picard.
It felt a bit odd not following Soji and Narek's thread this week, but in retrospect, it allowed the plot to breathe more.
Jurati having seemilgly been involved with Bruce Maddox made sense, though I was totally thrown by her killing him. Now that was shocking.
I gave this one a 9 anyway. Lots of shocking, darker character moments, an a sprinkling of humour.
It was good seeing Seven back, and I particualrly liked how much she'd changed, like Picard.
It felt a bit odd not following Soji and Narek's thread this week, but in retrospect, it allowed the plot to breathe more.
Jurati having seemilgly been involved with Bruce Maddox made sense, though I was totally thrown by her killing him. Now that was shocking.
I gave this one a 9 anyway. Lots of shocking, darker character moments, an a sprinkling of humour.
All we needed was Seven viewing in the La Sirena, in private, some old Voyager clips of her and Icheb to emphasize the relationship.
It is a series made for the audience of today and casting young women all the time to play the love interests of clearly older guys just put out the message that 1. older women are unattractive and 2. youth and beauty is the most important attribute a woman can possess. Everything else is secondary.
Why didn't they cast someone younger for the role of Narek? If Data would have had sons who look like they were 20 year old, they would have never cast an actress as old looking as him to play the son's love interest. Not to mention Narek's older sister and boss is played by an actress who is 33 and therefore two years younger than Treadaway. So another reason to cast someone younger than him.
Or why didn't they cast someone older for the role of Jurati? Alison Pill is 34 and she plays someone who seemingly had worked for quite some time already on androids before the Mars attack happened 14 years before. Not to mention that she dates a guy who 34 years before wanted to take Data apart and study him and 58 years before was a member of the Starfleet admission board who objected Data's entry into Starfleet. When he died he must have been 80+ years old. Casting an older actress would have lessened the age difference to Maddox if they wanted a romance so much between them and it would have also made more sense why she bemoaned in an earlier episode that her life work was stopped with the ban of the synths. But I guess two main actresses out of 3 being a bit older was a no go for them. They wanted their "young female eye candy".
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That would have been better than the Maddox-Jurati affair.
I don't think that;s how it worked. If that was the case, they should have been able to locate and beam down directly to Maddox' holding location and beam him back up. They had to smuggle it in on 7's person (it was masquerading as one of her implants and Raffi even said they shouldn't be able to pick it up as what it was.).. There needed to be one left at the location they wanted to beam into for 7 to get right back there - and like I commented were that the case, you would think with all the security in place; once 7 was gone, it should have showed up.
There's a darker flip side to this less people talk about. The implication that younger men (or younger looking men) are unattractive and unwanted. This affects Asian men a lot, including myself.
I've had women make completely uncalled for jokes within my hearing about "how I look like a teenager or young kid" despite being 30+. One time was a female tour guide and it took everything not to walk out of the tour. The other time was at a meetup from meetup.com of half a dozen people at a cafe and one woman made some joke about how I look like a young boy, and I asked for an apology. When none was given I walked out. In both cases I didn't even interact with the people beforehand much or did anything remotely deserving of such taunting.
I think this is a really sound theory. If the sundering was some type of synthetic rebellion then perhaps the cognitive breakdown is a safety feature to prevent that programming from resurfacing. I'm really hoping the romulans as synths theory is accurate. I just think it's a really bold move for trek. A lot die hards will hate it which makes me love it even more
Yeah, I got a little twinge when she popped up in the previouslies.
(Get yer minds out of the gutter, people!)
I think our takeaway was supposed to be that Jurati killed Maddox in spite of their relationship, not because of it.
Yeah, the implication that Lore was just permanently dismantled has always bothered me. I preferred to think him being held in some bizarre high security scifi prison like a comicbook supervillain, Data and Bruce Maddox occasionally visiting him and him taunting them behind the forcefields.
It is actually pretty weird that Lore has not been mentioned at all. They especially told us what happened to B4, but Lore would be a much more important part of the picture.
