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

[tomalak301]

I haven't talked about this episode since I watched it, but at the time I gave it an 8. I think thinking about it some more, I would bring that down to a 6. I actually thought it was a decent episode (Even though it's the weakest of the lot) and I still like Picard, but I really really did not like the opening scene. I just think it set the stage to an episode that didn't feel like Star Trek to me, or maybe I was too depressed to really enjoy the rest of it. Yeah Yeah, there's been gruesome before with Conspiracy and Star Trek II, but with TWOK, I wasn't allowed to see the Ceti Eel scene for a long time. As for Conspiracy, that was more cartoonish than gruesome, at least for today's standards. I just think you can have the same effect psychologically and emotionally rather than actually showing the eye getting squeezed out like we saw. I've seen people mention First Contact (The movie) as well and I think the reason why that worked for me was because we saw the needle hit the eye but then Picard wakes up. We still understood the gravity of that situation and how disturbing that scene was just because of the emotional toll it still had on Picard at that moment. I think nothing would have been lost if maybe we heard the screams but never saw Icheb at all and the next scene was 7 holding him crying. I'm not sure, but in reading this thread and thinking about it, I think this episode crossed a personal line that I have when it comes to a Star Trek series, and that brought the rest of the episode down.

As for the rest, my favorite scenes involved 7, and honestly I can understand Seven becoming a vigilante here in a part of space that was abandoned. Seven has never been one to "calm down", and I do anticipate we will see her again and get a better picture as to what she has been up to.

I'm really hoping the next episode isn't as graphic and violent. I have usually watched these episodes twice, and I don't really feel motivated to watch this episode again anytime soon. Also I've been doing a Voyager rewatch and I'm finding it hard to continue that after watching this Picard episode. I'll get back to it, but I'm not sure when.

 

[DaveyNY]

I like the fact that PICARD is explicitly showing us, that beyond the secure bridge walls of a Star Fleet Ship, it ain't all Unicorn's Farting Rainbows out there.

 

[tomalak301]

I like the fact that PICARD is explicitly showing us, that beyond the secure bridge walls of a Star Fleet Ship, it ain't all Unicorn's Farting Rainbows out there.

Way to take what I said to the extreme, much the same way I've noticed a lot in this thread. I don't mind Dark, I don't mind violence, but I can do without the unnecessarily gruesome side of it in Star Trek. That does not mean I can only tolerate sunshine and rainbows and unicorns.

 

[DaveyNY]

Way to take what I said to the extreme, much the same way I've noticed a lot in this thread. I don't mind Dark, I don't mind violence, but I can do without the unnecessarily gruesome side of it in Star Trek. That does not mean I can only tolerate sunshine and rainbows and unicorns.

What the Devil made you think I was explicitly talking about you?
I hadn't even seen nor read your post, before I sent mine.
(I was in the process of typing mine)

How about easing up on laying the guilty conscience syndrome on the rest of us.

 

[tomalak301]

What the Devil made you think I was explicitly talking about you?
I hadn't even seen nor read your post, before I sent mine.

How about easing up on the guilty conscience syndrome.

Ok, my apologies. What made me think you were talking about me? The fact that your post came 11 minutes after mine did.

 

[MrPointy]

How did no one recognise Picard, even though he was on the news and it was a BIG deal that he what on Starfleet?

Was his disguise that good?

 

[Nerys Myk]

How did no one recognise Picard, even though he was on the news and it was a BIG deal that he what on Starfleet?

Was his disguise that good?

Freecloud doesn't get FNN.

 

[DaveyNY]

How did no one recognise Picard, even though he was on the news and it was a BIG deal that he what on Starfleet?

Was his disguise that good?

Perhaps nobody in there right mind would believe that Admiral Jean-Luc Picard would be out there dressed up as a Talking French Mime and thus didn't put 7+9 together.

 

[tomalak301]

Freecloud doesn't get FNN.

I would have thought Picard would have been recognizable just by being Locutus or the number of times he's had to patrol the Romulan Neutral Zone in his career.

 

[DaveyNY]

Ok, my apologies. What made me think you were talking about me? The fact that your post came 11 minutes after mine did.

BTW: If I'm replying specifically to someone, I will always quote their posts.

I don't beat around the bush.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I would have thought Picard would have been recognizable just by being Locutus or the number of times he's had to patrol the Romulan Neutral Zone in his career.

All humans look alike.
Is Freecloud near the Neutral Zone?

 

[cooleddie74]

My guess it's somewhere near the former Neutral Zone based on the Fenris Rangers having operated in that region before this episode.

 

[DaveyNY]

I wonder how well STO will fit all these new places into Their map?

 

[MrPointy]

Freecloud hotels would have FNN and other channels for Federation guests. Its basically Vegas. Someone would have seen it

 

[DaveyNY]

Freecloud hotels would have FNN and other channels for Federation guests. Its basically Vegas. Someone would have seen it

I rather doubt anybody goes to Freecloud to watch TV.

 

[MrPointy]

I rather doubt anybody goes to Freecloud to watch TV.

Doesn't mean a hotel won't provide basic cable TV for guests who get bored of oomox from Deltans. Also people gotta get regular news from other AQ powers. Klingon news is probably a big deal.

 

[cooleddie74]

"Today on Qo'noS our glorious and great Chancellor Martok defeated a record-sized plate of rokeg blood pie and finished the challenge by impaling the empty plate with the d'ktagh given to him by his own father, used in glorious battle against the Romulans half a century ago! Glory to the Empire! Glory to our noble Chancellor and all who serve the Empire on the High Council!

Coming up: how to give your lavatory facility that 'just slayed an enemy' smell you and your guests so want."

 

[Bad Thoughts]

There's probably a good chance I would fail to recognize David Patreus or Norman Schwarzkopf if they were standing next to me.

 

[NCC-73515]

Wrong. Being dead means that you can open the will and divide the estate. It means that there is no way in hell to bring you back otherwise you're not dead.
[...]
Words are often used abusively. Get used to it.
[...]
There's no metabolism in viruses. Nucleic acids are found in nonliving things, like meteorites for example. If you list things that are found in living things as well nonliving, you may as well say, atoms, electrons... etc...

Wiki helps explain things, get used to it
"Cryonics procedures can begin only after clinical death, and cryonics 'patients' are legally dead."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics
Viruses are debated as not being lifeforms for precisely that reason. Some meteorites may have fragments, but nothing like longer sequences that would allow for gene expression such as DNA or RNA in plasmid, BAC, or chromosome form.

If you're squeamish about eye gore specifically then don't watch First Contact where a drill goes right up to Picard's eye and then an implant bursts out of his cheek.

Those scenes had no blood and no organs.

It was pretty long and disturbing imo

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About 20 frames here.

Cheers to the writers because every-time I watch a Voyager rerun and see Icheb, I will be like you might as well die now pal because your going to be brutally tortured in the future and murdered. I hate to see what happened to rest of Voyager Crew

I watched Child's Play and Imperfection again, and it's much more emotional now...

Not to mention stupid. Why she couldn't scan him to see where the technology was!!!
Unless the borg elements are somewhat "cloaked" in the body that kind of "exploratory surgery" is just imbecilic!!!
Do you realize that exploratory surgery is practically obsolete NOW!!!

She did scan him. She didn't cut him apart to see where they are, but to get them out XD

How did no one recognise Picard, even though he was on the news and it was a BIG deal that he what on Starfleet?
Was his disguise that good?

People also didn't seem to recognize him even at SFHQ

 

[cgervasi]

There's probably a good chance I would fail to recognize David Patreus or Norman Schwarzkopf if they were standing next to me.

Schwarzkopf is the exact analogy that came to my mind. Anyone in the us who watched TV news or read the papers knew his name and image in 1990 and 1991. But I suspect he could have walked around Vegas 25 years later (if he had lived that long) without being recognized.

I think that would be true even if he had resigned in protest. I imagine a scenario where he disagrees with not pressing forward after the Highway of Death, saying it was immoral to attack withdrawing troops unless it was to win more powerful concessions like some agreement for autonomy of Shia and Kurdish regions. I imagine all that happening and him going into relief efforts for Kurds affected by the war. Then some journalist wanting to interview him about his humanitarian work starts grilling him about the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 shows that pressing the attack forward as he wanted would not have resulted in more peaceful and stable Iraq. He has an outburst saying Americans and coalition allies who died died only to the chance to weaken the Iraqi military, partly by dishonorably creating a traffic jam and bombing it, setting the stage a quagmire 12 years later. The outburst gets replayed on other news networks and on YouTube and is fodder for pundits. Meanwhile some people in the underworld in Vegas, involved in murder and brokering transplant organs from executed criminals in China, don't follow the news and have no idea who Schwarzkopf is and don't recognize him.