Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 1x10 - "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
Was wondering that myself. I suspect we'll never really know, as it was ultimately immaterial to the plot.
So the opening credits, with the creation of a synthetic that turned out to be Picard, showed us explicitly how the story was going to end all along.
G
Gonzo
Guest
Just watched it.
No surprise that it was Sutra who killed Arcana.
Very quiet Ay Caramba from Rios when he used the macguffin.
Got a close up look at the Commodores ship and you can see inside the bridge, its actually pretty small itself, not much bigger than the Defiant with wide wings.
Happy landing Rissa, if she fell all the way she probably is truly dead.
Had a good look at the Starfleet ships, definitely three distinct variants, 300-400m long with around 10 decks.
Its odd though, when we had the reverse panning shot moving between the two fleets it made the Romulan ships look bigger (200m or so long) than they did originally but that could be down to camera angle and perspective.
Must admit Riker's dialogue and choice of words could have been better, still it had the desired effect on the Romulans, plus it does kind of indicate that we will be seeing those Starfleet classes again if they are indeed the most advanced warships/weapon platforms available, the closest match to existing designs (canon or not) seem to be the Noble class from STO but it could be something new, none of them match the Ibn Majid silhouette.
Not surprised that Riker decided to escort the Romulans out of Federation space, they are sly little buggers at the best of times.
Nice to have a proper sendoff for Data, I can appreciate how some will not be happy about a synth Picard, I have no real issue with it myself although I have no doubt some will say it isn't really Picard anymore, I see it has already started on Memory Alpha.
Nice to see Altan Soong survived though but we probably wont see him again, funny to note that he and Jurati know how long Picard has to live.
Even though the body he is in is time limited, he can be transferred to a new one easily enough, that particular Pandora's box can't be closed now it has been opened.
It gets a 10 from me.
No surprise that it was Sutra who killed Arcana.
Very quiet Ay Caramba from Rios when he used the macguffin.
Got a close up look at the Commodores ship and you can see inside the bridge, its actually pretty small itself, not much bigger than the Defiant with wide wings.
Happy landing Rissa, if she fell all the way she probably is truly dead.
Had a good look at the Starfleet ships, definitely three distinct variants, 300-400m long with around 10 decks.
Its odd though, when we had the reverse panning shot moving between the two fleets it made the Romulan ships look bigger (200m or so long) than they did originally but that could be down to camera angle and perspective.
Must admit Riker's dialogue and choice of words could have been better, still it had the desired effect on the Romulans, plus it does kind of indicate that we will be seeing those Starfleet classes again if they are indeed the most advanced warships/weapon platforms available, the closest match to existing designs (canon or not) seem to be the Noble class from STO but it could be something new, none of them match the Ibn Majid silhouette.
Not surprised that Riker decided to escort the Romulans out of Federation space, they are sly little buggers at the best of times.
Nice to have a proper sendoff for Data, I can appreciate how some will not be happy about a synth Picard, I have no real issue with it myself although I have no doubt some will say it isn't really Picard anymore, I see it has already started on Memory Alpha.
Nice to see Altan Soong survived though but we probably wont see him again, funny to note that he and Jurati know how long Picard has to live.
Even though the body he is in is time limited, he can be transferred to a new one easily enough, that particular Pandora's box can't be closed now it has been opened.
It gets a 10 from me.
This is a philosophical question we have no way of answering.
Presuming it was possible to make a perfect copy of someone - and simultaneously destroy the original, every external observer would conclude it was the same person.
The question is, what would the individual experience? Would the original person subjectively cease to exist, or would they experience continuity of consciousness into the "new body?" We have no way of answering that question unless we are personally the person it happens to, and in that case no one else will take our word for it.
If "transporter clones" do actually experience continual consciousness, it means that things like mind uploading are indeed possible. One could even argue that if the universe is infinite it would mean it would be inevitable that another you would pop into existence eventually somewhere, meaning everyone would get an "afterlife" even if there's really no such thing as a soul.
There’s quite a few unanswered questions that they just forgot aboutThere is one thing I did want to see—who was Beautiful Flower’s twin?
As long as Brian Brophy plays him next season, I’m content to wait.
I'll worry about it after the series is complete.
(Nah. I won't actually worry about it all--I'm never that invested in a TV show. Curious? Sure. Worry? Never.)
Same here. Why take away from my enjoyment of an overall entertaining and fun show.
So Data's great hurrah is to be not only a euthanasia advocate, but the worst possible one?
"Just let me die, I know you can make me a literal human being and I'll be able to live on this synth heaven planet, but just unplug me. I WANT to die. Being dead is the most human thing ever.
... and JL, I love you."
Really wanted to like it. I even got hyped from watching the spoilers in the Ready Room!
"Did you fuck them?" - canonized question now in Star Trek.
Sure feels like it.
"Just let me die, I know you can make me a literal human being and I'll be able to live on this synth heaven planet, but just unplug me. I WANT to die. Being dead is the most human thing ever.
... and JL, I love you."
Really wanted to like it. I even got hyped from watching the spoilers in the Ready Room!
"Did you fuck them?" - canonized question now in Star Trek.
Sure feels like it.
Just as alternate timeline O'Brien was the same O'Brien who died in 2371, just a version of himself from a few hours into the future who came back to replace the "original" Miles.
Are we even the same people we were a decade ago? All the cells in our bodies are replaced over that time frame. Beyond the fact that our experiences "make us a different person" over that time frame, we are also actually replaced on a physical level as well. Yet I would say I have had continual existence, unbroken over that same period. These questions can be explored, but probably never answered.
The same dilemma is explored in Discovery season 2
with Doctor Culber's experience.
Picard: "Hold my Earl Grey, bitch."
This episode made Nemesis good. In fact it made Nemesis almost essential viewing. Good job.
I don't know what to think of Picard 2.0. But I like that it's a question raised that I will have to mull over. Even if that was not the intention it's an interesting thing to ponder. The way NBSG did with the Cylons.
Overall the rest of the characters just haven't earned their place yet. Even when Picard 1.0 passed away it felt very tears for the sake of tears with everyone. Discovery is still the better series and it kinda hurts to say that.
I don't know what to think of Picard 2.0. But I like that it's a question raised that I will have to mull over. Even if that was not the intention it's an interesting thing to ponder. The way NBSG did with the Cylons.
Overall the rest of the characters just haven't earned their place yet. Even when Picard 1.0 passed away it felt very tears for the sake of tears with everyone. Discovery is still the better series and it kinda hurts to say that.
So...
Last week was:
ship-killer horticulture,
Seven having a Deanna moment,
lots of gold-skinned androids in season one TNG costumes
Picard speechifying
Brent Spiner playing Data's father's other son we just found out about.
This week was:
space bonfire of ship-killer horticulture,
Seven having a Punisher moment,
look at the size of my self-building tower!
the scary big fleet of the tiny secret organisation within a secret organisation,
the scary big metal octopus from outer, outer space (for about ten seconds),
the scary pretty gold-skinned android in a season one TNG costume,
the Romulan general they finally remembered was only a commodore in her fake news role,
whoa! the shiny blue sonic knuckleduster,
Rios doesn't get to kick his football,
the clearly missed opportunity of not having re-activated Commodore Will Riker say
"I'm a *real* Starfleet Commodore, you're just a cheap-ass Romulan fake!"
Picard speechifying
the overdone let's wring emotion from everyone because "he's died!"
followed by "oh, wait, no he hasn't -- but didn't we all know that anyway...?"
We've made you a new nonagenarian body,
Picard and Data get to say goodbye.
Quote Shakespeare
(I don't give a monkeys about Seven and Raffi -- and you're all reading waaaaaaay too much into that anyway!)
OK, snarky jokes aside, this really did feel like a bunch of hand-wavery and missed opportunities.
It was almost like they had set up the whole Zhat Vhash and Uber-synths-from-beyond thing to be too big, too old, and too complicated to be resolved in the way that they did. It felt like the timelines for the origin of the Zhat Vhash, the finding of the "Conclave of Eight" and the "Admonition" were all just a bit too jarring to really add up. Was Narek really telling us that they had, in fact, conflated what they thought they had understood from the Admonition with a much older proto-Romulan / early-Vulcan apocalypse myth? Most cultures seem to have such a myth, of one sort or another, so were the Zhat Vhash actually the remnants of an old proto-Romulan religious cult that re-purposed their apocalyptic beliefs after the Admonition was found?
The Romulan fleet of two-hundred-plus ships felt unnecessarily large and rather incongruous for a supposed secret organisation, even if one accepts that they were a controlling influence behind the Tal Shiar. A dozen of those ships could likely still have done the job -- and somehow it made the stand-off with the equivalent wall of Starfleet ships feel a little forced too. After everything they had set up about the fundamentalist and religiously fanatical aspects of the Zhat Vhash, it seemed entirely wrong that they would simply shrug their shoulders and go "oh well, big scary metal space octopus went back to The Matrix -- guess we'll go home now..."
It's always good to see Riker back. If they were gonna give him command of the flagship, why didn't they just properly establish him as having made flag rank before he retired? (and he really didn't need to describe himself to Oh as "acting" Captain -- they had clearly made the decision to reactivate his commission, even if only for the purpose of this one mission).
The articulated metal octopus of death really did look like a refugee from the Matrix sequels. I'm sure it served the purpose of "create an image of existential threat" for the general audience but it was a two-dimensional cardboard cut-out at best. I had hoped Chabon and Co would be far more clever and use something at least suggestive of the synthetic civilisation that sent back V'ger -- and which would actually turn up, but would then turn out to be far more intelligent and nuanced than just the ravening-black-monster-with-metal-pincers. It would have been far more of a "f*uck you" to the Zhat Vhash if the supposed big bad had indeed turned out to have long-since outgrown what they thought they had seen in the Admonition -- even better if they had actually turned up as part of a joint mission with their own associated organic civilisations before leaving the Federation and the un-banned synths to get on with it!
As it was, the implied monster was everything the Zhat Vhash feared -- a big lost opportunity to turn this on it's head.
The Picard and Data scenes rather reminded me of the Harry-meets-dead-Dumbledore-in-the-big-white-waiting-room scene. Strangely, they were none the worse for this. It did feel like closure for Picard, the lack of which was clearly a big part of his enduring trauma over the loss of Data. I was really expecting at least some passing quote related to "As I experience certain sensory input patterns, my mental pathways become accustomed to them. The input is eventually anticipated and even 'missed' when absent." The final scene of Data's revived consciousness shutting down was actually quite moving -- far more so than all the preceding hand-wringing in pairs about Picard's not-death.
In summary:
I like the characters; I really like the cast; I quite like some of the situations they have established.
But this felt like the conclusion of pretty much any other TNG two-parter; lots of build up, needed far more subtle and clever tying-up of the frayed loose-ends; and, in the end, was just far too reliant on plot device to finish the story.
(At least they didn't rely on sub-quantum particle-of-the-week and re-calibrating the deflector array...)
That sort of thing was just about forgivable when they only had 45 minutes to set things up in part 1 and then another 45 minutes to conclude them in part 2. Picard has had eight full episodes to set up these arcs and two episodes to pull them together. But still made the same mistakes.
Wasted.
Opportunity.
Last week was:
ship-killer horticulture,
Seven having a Deanna moment,
lots of gold-skinned androids in season one TNG costumes
Picard speechifying
Brent Spiner playing Data's father's other son we just found out about.
This week was:
space bonfire of ship-killer horticulture,
Seven having a Punisher moment,
look at the size of my self-building tower!
the scary big fleet of the tiny secret organisation within a secret organisation,
the scary big metal octopus from outer, outer space (for about ten seconds),
the scary pretty gold-skinned android in a season one TNG costume,
the Romulan general they finally remembered was only a commodore in her fake news role,
whoa! the shiny blue sonic knuckleduster,
Rios doesn't get to kick his football,
the clearly missed opportunity of not having re-activated Commodore Will Riker say
"I'm a *real* Starfleet Commodore, you're just a cheap-ass Romulan fake!"
Picard speechifying
the overdone let's wring emotion from everyone because "he's died!"
followed by "oh, wait, no he hasn't -- but didn't we all know that anyway...?"
We've made you a new nonagenarian body,
Picard and Data get to say goodbye.
Quote Shakespeare
(I don't give a monkeys about Seven and Raffi -- and you're all reading waaaaaaay too much into that anyway!)
OK, snarky jokes aside, this really did feel like a bunch of hand-wavery and missed opportunities.
It was almost like they had set up the whole Zhat Vhash and Uber-synths-from-beyond thing to be too big, too old, and too complicated to be resolved in the way that they did. It felt like the timelines for the origin of the Zhat Vhash, the finding of the "Conclave of Eight" and the "Admonition" were all just a bit too jarring to really add up. Was Narek really telling us that they had, in fact, conflated what they thought they had understood from the Admonition with a much older proto-Romulan / early-Vulcan apocalypse myth? Most cultures seem to have such a myth, of one sort or another, so were the Zhat Vhash actually the remnants of an old proto-Romulan religious cult that re-purposed their apocalyptic beliefs after the Admonition was found?
The Romulan fleet of two-hundred-plus ships felt unnecessarily large and rather incongruous for a supposed secret organisation, even if one accepts that they were a controlling influence behind the Tal Shiar. A dozen of those ships could likely still have done the job -- and somehow it made the stand-off with the equivalent wall of Starfleet ships feel a little forced too. After everything they had set up about the fundamentalist and religiously fanatical aspects of the Zhat Vhash, it seemed entirely wrong that they would simply shrug their shoulders and go "oh well, big scary metal space octopus went back to The Matrix -- guess we'll go home now..."
It's always good to see Riker back. If they were gonna give him command of the flagship, why didn't they just properly establish him as having made flag rank before he retired? (and he really didn't need to describe himself to Oh as "acting" Captain -- they had clearly made the decision to reactivate his commission, even if only for the purpose of this one mission).
The articulated metal octopus of death really did look like a refugee from the Matrix sequels. I'm sure it served the purpose of "create an image of existential threat" for the general audience but it was a two-dimensional cardboard cut-out at best. I had hoped Chabon and Co would be far more clever and use something at least suggestive of the synthetic civilisation that sent back V'ger -- and which would actually turn up, but would then turn out to be far more intelligent and nuanced than just the ravening-black-monster-with-metal-pincers. It would have been far more of a "f*uck you" to the Zhat Vhash if the supposed big bad had indeed turned out to have long-since outgrown what they thought they had seen in the Admonition -- even better if they had actually turned up as part of a joint mission with their own associated organic civilisations before leaving the Federation and the un-banned synths to get on with it!
As it was, the implied monster was everything the Zhat Vhash feared -- a big lost opportunity to turn this on it's head.
The Picard and Data scenes rather reminded me of the Harry-meets-dead-Dumbledore-in-the-big-white-waiting-room scene. Strangely, they were none the worse for this. It did feel like closure for Picard, the lack of which was clearly a big part of his enduring trauma over the loss of Data. I was really expecting at least some passing quote related to "As I experience certain sensory input patterns, my mental pathways become accustomed to them. The input is eventually anticipated and even 'missed' when absent." The final scene of Data's revived consciousness shutting down was actually quite moving -- far more so than all the preceding hand-wringing in pairs about Picard's not-death.
In summary:
I like the characters; I really like the cast; I quite like some of the situations they have established.
But this felt like the conclusion of pretty much any other TNG two-parter; lots of build up, needed far more subtle and clever tying-up of the frayed loose-ends; and, in the end, was just far too reliant on plot device to finish the story.
(At least they didn't rely on sub-quantum particle-of-the-week and re-calibrating the deflector array...)
That sort of thing was just about forgivable when they only had 45 minutes to set things up in part 1 and then another 45 minutes to conclude them in part 2. Picard has had eight full episodes to set up these arcs and two episodes to pull them together. But still made the same mistakes.
Wasted.
Opportunity.
As Starfleet officers, "weird is part of the job."
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Now I wonder if the Kirk reintegrated from his two halves living separate lives at the end of The Enemy Within should be considered the same old Kirk or a new person. Or if the Tuvok and Neelix reconstructed from Tuvix are the same people they were before the merger.
