What’s it all about, Alfie?!
About 10 episodes of 45-50 minutes each. But other than that, I’m still left without a sense of the greater story they’re telling.
In other words, what’s it all about?
There are a lot of elements in the show in the show. You’ve got the Romulan refugees, the former Borg reclaiming their lives, the secret Romulan agency within a secret Romulan agency, and finally the prophecy that synths will end flesh-and-blood life.
But those elements
are not coming together in a cohesive story.
There’s also a lot of things that could possible be themes—i.e. what the story is about, exploring and trying to say something about it. There’s PTSD, shared trauma, etc.
However, none of these “thematic” possibilities are explored in any meaningful way. It’s all superficial. No substance. No weight.
"The initial germ of having Hugh involved," Chabon explained, "and that he would die came from the natural discussions of, what does it mean to have been Borg? So once we sort of committed to a big part of our season being about the lives of former Borg — Ex Bs, as we call them — and exploring how their lives are traumatized [from that experience], how they have or have not dealt with that trauma, and how they remain these objects of fear and hatred even though they were victimized by the Borg, to put Hugh in the center of that lead to what felt like a dramatic way to service the character's end.”
—Michael Chabon in
a recent Hollywood Reporter article.
That was about last week’s storyline. However, everything Chabon says may have been authorial intent but none of that is on the actual screen. It’s very hand-wavy. There’s no real exploration of that potential theme of shared trauma.
I say potential theme because the show has none it’s fully exploring. It’s using bits of what could be themes in the most unsubstantial ways.
We get really close to substance here with Rios's trauma and Agnes’s regret in this episode. Frankly, the Rios story made this episode a lot better for me than the last one. Yet, the show missed an opportunity with Rios’s holographic broken pieces.
The holograms should’ve been different aspects of Rios personality rather than different accented versions of himself. Think “Inside Me.” Fractured bits that represent Rios’s emotions and state of mind. But they're just there to exposit for Raffi’s investigation.
I’m afraid this show isn’t going to stick the landing in its final two episodes.
