Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 1x09 - "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1"

[ThreeEdgedSword]

Oh, and while I remember, what was the point of Seven and Elnore in this one?

Just when it looks like Seven gets to do something dramatic and clever by turning up with The Artefact to rescue La Sirena, it turns out that all she actually gets to do is to crash the Cube, Deanna-stylee, aided and abetted by some bizarre defensive horticulture (I mean, seriously? This is back in weird-shit TOS and early-TNG territory) and then not much else — although I guess it’s setting up next week’s finale episode by getting all the gang in (roughly) the same place.

Also, where are all those scientists, Romulan and Federation, who worked on the cube? Chilling out at "Borg's", the café? Maybe all the Romulan ones got killed, but the rest?
ETA:
Review at tor.com: https://www.tor.com/2020/03/20/i-no...e-star-trek-picards-et-in-arcadia-ego-part-1/

 

[Greg Cox]

So if I'm getting all my sci-fi ducks in a row, currently "everybody" hates Discovery, Picard, and Star Wars and they're all terrible. This about right?

You forgot Doctor Who.

Apparently we're all supposed to hate that, too.

 

[Thomas Elliot]

To be fair, the "shame on you" reaction came from a mad scientist who is perfectly cool with wiping out organic life. Not sure he's supposed to be our arbiter of morality here.

No, I get that. But the overall tone of the response, outside of Picard's initial "you're-going-to-jail" comment is pretty much finger wagging. She has that poison in her head, she already murdered one person. She should have been locked up or something on the Sirena and not allowed to just walk freely anywhere.
But the writers don't want that, so for the viewer's benefit, Jurati says, "I'm done killing." It doesn't make sense for the crew to believe her, or take her word for it, but that's the cue for the audience. "ohhh, she's good again." It's kind of lazy writing in my opinion. They even try absolve her somewhat by implying it wasn't necessarily her, it was the effects of the vision, etc etc. The one good guy that kills but it's not THAT bad because it was the evil Oh that corrupted her. Not something completely from her own will.
Because we can't have her friends turn their backs on her for becoming a murder. We can't have her just get locked up foro the rest of the show. She has to redeem herself, show she's a good guy. Which is why we get the whole "Would you be willing to die for your children?" Question. Not subtle at all about what's in store for Jurati.

 

[Vger23]

It looks to me like at the beginning of the season, the "love" for Picard matched the "hate" for Discovery. A few episodes in, that wore off, then they disliked Picard as much as Discovery. Now the balance has tipped even further. They dislike Picard more than Discovery.

In other words: There was the euphoria that Picard was back, then it wore off, now resentment has seeped in. I noticed this particularly from "Stardust City Rag" on, this has been more and more the case. So you say you're seeing people say, "STD sucks! STP rules!" I saw this for the first episode. But that's not the situation I'm seeing at the end of the season.

Of course there are also people who like PIC who don't like DSC, but it's no different than what normally happens going from one series to the next. You gain some people, you lose some people, then you get them back. ENT lost me (well, technically it was late-VOY, but let's not split hairs) and then DSC gained me back. So it's the same thing in this case.

Well, it's actually pretty easy to follow.

People hated Discovery because it was the first Trek in many many years and it had a lot of things stacked against it right out of the gate (TEH CANNON, prequel, SJW, grimdark, very high expectations, etc)

Then PIC came. It's now the newest thing, and we all know that's automatically where the hate goes. But you also have the impact of a large portion of TNG fans who feel as though they've been starved for the past two decades because the staleness and unmarketability of the Breman Treks basically sidelined that style of storytelling and that era. They felt like they were finally getting their show. So the elation was extremely high and the rose colore glasses were on tightly for the first episode, particularly where you had Data and the Enterprise making appearances. But now that the show has fallen back down to earth, has proven to not be a whole lot like TNG, and is shaping up to have its own share of (gasp...perish the thought!!!) flaws... The pendulum is swinging heavily in the opposite direction.

It has always saddened me that fans expectations, myopic view of "what real Trek" is, and eye for mundane pedantic detail has caused them to be so limited and unable to be entertained at the most basic level.

But it is what it is. Everyone is entitled to their own tastes.

I just feel weird. I personally didn't find this episode much better or worse than any of the other ones in the season thus far. From my perspective the entire series has been extraordinarily steady thus far. Not great...but pretty good and ultimately entertaining.

 

[fireproof78]

Sounds like classic style Trek storytelling to me. Honestly, I find it more enjoyable this way.

 

[Vger23]

I also get perplexed at the arguments that PIC is "too slow," because you can just flip forums and you'll read that DSC is "too fast."



And if you want to see "slow....." holy shit go try to watch a typical TNG episode. It's a frigging SLOG these days. I've been trying to get through a rewatch for years now.

 

[Ovation]

So if I'm getting all my sci-fi ducks in a row, currently "everybody" hates Discovery, Picard, and Star Wars and they're all terrible. This about right?

You forgot Doctor Who.

Apparently we're all supposed to hate that, too.

In the immortal words of Charlie Brown when Lucy tells him he suffers from pantophobia: THAT'S IT!!!

 

[Ovation]

I also get perplexed at the arguments that PIC is "too slow," because you can just flip forums and you'll read that DSC is "too fast."



And if you want to see "slow....." holy shit go try to watch a typical TNG episode. It's a frigging SLOG these days. I've been trying to get through a rewatch for years now.

Or you could watch The Mandalorian.

 

[Cyrus]

So if I'm getting all my sci-fi ducks in a row, currently "everybody" hates Discovery, Picard, and Star Wars and they're all terrible. This about right?

No, but those who think that way are annoyingly nitpicking everything to death. I have been on this bbs a long time but just recently started putting some posters on ignore (works great!!).

And for the record I really like Discovery and think Picard is fantastic. As for Star Wars, yeah it has been terrible since the prequel movies.

 

[Yistaan]

Or you could watch The Mandalorian.

The Mandalorian would actually be a lot more interesting if he picked up a little crew like the La Sirena has on Picard. People like that village lady and her daughter, Cara Dune, Kuill, and IG-11 should have become part of the regular cast.

 

[rhllot]

So the Romulan Star Empire was the Soviet Union, Hobus was Chernobyl, and the Romulan Free State is modern Russia while there are also other, tinier nations.

more like roman empire

 

[Lord Garth]

more like roman empire

I'm not as familiar with Ancient History as I am the 20th Century. So I'm wondering in what way? I know the Roman Empire fell in the West, but it continued in the East and still thought of itself as the Roman Empire. I'm thinking the Romulan Free State might be the largest part of the former Romulan Star Empire but doesn't see itself as being the same as the Empire.

 

[Sci]

I mean, the Western Roman Empire basically fragmented into scores and scores of petty kingdoms which in turn would get swallowed up and then spat out from smaller Germanic kingdoms that rose to fill the void. So the comparison of the Star Empire fragmenting into the Free State and these other petty states is broadly valid, but I find the comparison to the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of the post-Soviet states (amongst whom one is clearly the largest and most powerful) to be more useful in its specificity.

The claim that Sutra was a cornered animal who just wants to protect her people would fly more if she hadn't cavalierly had her fellow synth murdered to further her agenda.

And nothing about that is inconsistent with the cornered animal comparison.

Remember: as far as Sutra is concerned, she's being forced to choose between the genocide of her people or the genocide of these "others."

It's an evil choice to make, but a lot of otherwise kind-hearted people end up dehumanizing cultures they feel threatened by. I'll never forget the time I went on a date with an Israeli girl who seemed very nice and generous and kind... but when we got to talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, she had grown up feeling so threatened by violence from some Palestinians that she broadly thought of it as being a choice between her people and their people -- and she could not choose anything but her people.

That doesn't make Sutra -- or that girl I went on a date with -- evil. But there's clearly a level of bigotry, of ethnocentrism, of dehumanization (or should I say de-personization?) present.

 

[Paul755]

I think Picard is at its worst...flawed but it has a solid foundation thanks in large part to Stewart. When it clicks, good god does click. Like the episode with the Rikers.

Not gonna drag Disco into this. It’s unfair to compare the two.

 

[Spock Must Diet!]

Aside from the supernova and subsequent fragmentation, which is relatively recent, the Romulan Star Empire has always seemed to me to have a natural parallel with China.

 

[Danny99]

This episode irritated me and mostly because of its writing. I have been extremely critical of the writing on this series, but it has been especially below average since the first episode Seven appeared in and this episode was probably the worst yet in that regard. I found it hard to find anything I liked in the writing of this episode.

The Borg cube shows up literally just for another holy moly moment to crash on the planet. Seven says she's here to help, but then they leave her on the cube. Was she kicking and throwing around Romulan bodies when we first see her? Otherwise, her throwing around dead Borg bodies is pretty callous given how broken up she was about making them into a mini-collective in the last episode. Elnor is also still here and wants to go with Picard, but Picard tells him to stay with the Borg. Why? Isn't this the whole reason we brought Elnor?

Elnor is trained to cut people to pieces with his sword, but that seems like the exact opposite of what Picard wants to do the entire series to this point. He has been extremely underdeveloped and shuttled off to unimportant parts of the story, away from Picard, who he sees as a surrogate father. They paired him up with Hugh for an episode and they were suddenly best buds that he was so crushed when Hugh died and then have paired him up with Seven. It feels like he was brought in to give the guest stars someone to talk to while they do their part of the story.

Brent Spiner plays another Soong the same way he played another Soong in Enterprise and pretty much has the same storyline where he rallies a group of outsiders to fight against the establishment. This is literally another version of the Augments. I was willing to give a Soong son a chance, but they quickly pissed away that.

Synthetic life seems very easy led. They are quite willing to follow Soong and Sutra without much second thought. It literally took one speech by Sutra to get them riled up and ready to let organic life die. The android that is eventually killed seemed especially stupid in her scenes with Narek. Data would never have fallen for something so blatant and she didn't seem more advanced.

Also, who approved that makeup? It looked like they found some spray paint in a closet. As another review said: "It looks like everyone was attacked by Goldfinger." How can you make the graphics of Rios' interface look so real and then skimp on the look of the synthetics.

Speaking of Rios, did I miss a scene or two between him and Juratti? I'm pretty sure they had one scene where they may or may not have had sex and now he is jumping up to say she shouldn't mind meld with Sutra (don't even get me started on a mind-melding android) and then their goodbye scene. Like Seven and Chakotay, it feels like it just appeared out of nowhere.

Narek seems awfully calm for someone meeting his worst nightmare. And don't tell me he's actually so infatuated with Soji that Sutra used that in order to use him as part of her grand scheme.

And Sutra's grand scheme. Did she suddenly have this idea thanks to sucking it out of Juratti's head? She seems pretty gung ho.

And why giant flowers? And ones they made?

I've previously applauded the episode for allowing Picard to show his age, but all Trekkies know the power of a Picard speech. In his final speech, he sounded and looked impotent. Did he really expect the synthetics to believe he could solve all their problems after they had been exiled? His offer is weak and I don't think the character would've expected that to work to change minds.

In the first three episodes of the series, I applauded the writing to build the universe we're now in. It wasn't perfect, but it was far superior to what we've gotten in the back half of the season. In your penultimate episode of the season, you shouldn't still be arranging the deck chairs. It feels like we are going to rush into a half cocked finale that is not going to pay off anything.

There were things I did like:

The cinematography of each of the crew lit by Rios' lighter after power is lost was awesome.

While I wouldn't have made them say "I love you," I thought the scene between Picard and Raffi as she leaves the city was well acted and needed. She worked super closely with him throughout an undetermined amount of time and to hear that he is suddenly dying and being overwhelmed is natural. Again, Michelle Hurd knocks it out of the park.

I'm crossing my fingers that we get a decent finale next week and not one that rushes to close up as many storylines as it can. The writing hasn't been as poor as Discovery's first season was (the Mirror Universe, really?) and it isn't because the Federation is evil like so many fans have used at their default position. We've wasted time with Narissa, Narek and the Borg cube and rushed through the story.

 

[Yistaan]

It's an evil choice to make, but a lot of otherwise kind-hearted people end up dehumanizing cultures they feel threatened by. I'll never forget the time I went on a date with an Israeli girl who seemed very nice and generous and kind... but when we got to talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, she had grown up feeling so threatened by violence from some Palestinians that she broadly thought of it as being a choice between her people and their people -- and she could not choose anything but her people.

That doesn't make Sutra -- or that girl I went on a date with -- evil. But there's clearly a level of bigotry, of ethnocentrism, of dehumanization (or should I say de-personization?) present.

Sounds like the Picard show is doing its job. The showrunners wanted to target this "us vs them" mentality that's increasingly prevalent in our society and address it head on.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

So if I'm getting all my sci-fi ducks in a row, currently "everybody" hates Discovery, Picard, and Star Wars and they're all terrible. This about right?

I don't hate DISCO or PIC (haven't seen Mandalorian, but love TLJ and dislike TROS).

I actually enjoy DISCO a great deal for what it is—an action-adventure show. It's not perfect but it's entertaining. And the show doesn't do story arcs particularly well either. But I like the characters—at least the ones the show does develop like Burnham, Stamets, Tilly, Saru, and Culber. The actors also elevate the somewhat lackluster scripts.

And I don't hate PIC. As I've explained elsewhere, it's a frustrating viewing experience. It has all these elements that could make a great story or theme, but the show is all over the map and isn't bringing these elements together in a captivating manner. Also, Picard is very passive for being the titular character. He just doesn't have a strong enough personal story here.

 

[Greg Cox]

Aside from the supernova and subsequent fragmentation, which is relatively recent, the Romulan Star Empire has always seemed to me to have a natural parallel with China.

As a kid, back in the Cold War, I always assumed that the Klingons were the Russians and the Romulans were the Red Chinese.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

As a kid, back in the Cold War, I always assumed that the Klingons were the Russians and the Romulans were the Red Chinese.

Me too.

BTW, did someone say a planet full of androids built in pairs... played by twins? Sounds like a job for Jim Kirk.