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Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 2x08 - "Mercy"

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So Q would seem to NOT want fascist Earth, or why drop crew there, cuz he KNOWS they’re going to try to change things. But why go back with them and try and stop them? I don’t get what Q wants.

Q says that the escape is what matters. So my theory is that Q tries to stop them just to see how they escape from the situation because the escape itself is the lesson. But Q could have some ulterior motive that we don't know about.

And how do you all seem to know what Renee will find? Did someone bts let it out? Or did I miss it? (I have missed the KEY line of dialog in the past, so I am really wondering. Also I don’t rewatch eps.

I think it was mentioned in a previous episode that Renee will find some unique microbe on the Europa mission. It will be the first discovery of actual extraterrestrial life (albeit microscopic life). Also, in this episode, they give us some more information, stating that the microbe discovery will help against climate change. If Renee does not find the microbes, the government, out of desperation to solve climate change, will turn to Adam Soong for help which will create the Confederation timeline.
 
I liked this episode but the arrest thing was dumb unless there is some kind of payoff beyond a really good Q/Guinan scene.

Queen Jurati is still great.

I’m a bit surprised they are taking the Soong family THIS dark.

7/10
 
Q: Don't use the Summoning just to catch up!

Also Q: [Massive exposition dump speech, essentially "catching up"]

I liked this one, eager to see what's next. But I don't buy Adam Soong's relevance being the decider of the world being blissful or fascist.
 
Ordinarily I'd chalk it up to the Borg Queen simply trying to manipulate him into helping her but he did seem to be a very important figure in the Confederation's future. I'm not sure how much I buy that either since his expertise is in genetic engineering instead of environmental science. Maybe the point is that he's going to help enhance humanity to survive a poisoned Earth?
 
After, 8 eps, I still don’t get what went on to get them to the past and why Q and BQ are doing what they do.

So Q didn’t send them to the past. Picard did? How? Blowing up the ship? I can’t remember.

Picard and crew traveled around the sun to travel to the past, so technically Q had nothing to do with it.


BQ doesn’t want Renee to find something on Europa, I guess. But why was Q getting in Renee’s head to assist the BQ ? Why does Q want the mission stopped? He was manipulating Soong to bump off Picard earlier. Q’s dying, but why stop a mission?

I could be wrong based on what is revealed in the last two episodes, but I think stopping the mission is just part of Q's trial. There has been no real reason presented as to why he would want to change the timeline. I don't think Q is trying to assist the BQ. I don't understand why q is working with Soong though? If he wanted to stop Renee, couldn't there be a number of ways he could do it rather than going to Soong? And why did he help Soong's daughter get away? It just feels like too late in the season to still be asking these questions.
 
An 8 this week. That was easily the best episode since the first two, finally adding a touch of urgency to the season.

Queen Jurati remains awesome. :borg:

I forgot the name of the character who was interrogating Picard and Guinan (Dutch from The Shield though, doing a good job), but I loved how he was (perhaps) a kid who saw the Vulcans from ENT's Carbon Creek when he was younger. :shifty::rommie:

Young Guinan is also acting more like herself after her first appearance.

It's interesting seeing Q being stuck in the past, and him saying that he's dying to Guinan as well, by gradually fading away was very bittersweet. I felt that a reference to Death Wish and Quinn would have worked well there.

I think the Rios portion of the story is getting repetitive.
 
The "mystery box" style of the show still annoys me when I think about it. Instead of dragging out what was going on with Q for the whole season, having Q tell Picard in episode 2 that he was dying and was giving him/humanity one last trial would have worked better for me than him just speaking in riddles to Picard.
 
The "mystery box" style of the show still annoys me when I think about it. Instead of dragging out what was going on with Q for the whole season, having Q tell Picard in episode 2 that he was dying and was giving him/humanity one last trial would have worked better for me than him just speaking in riddles to Picard.

I think part of that is how they are doing serialization of the show. They want the season to be one continuous story where the finale is the payoff to the mystery. Discovery does the same thing. They dragged on the mystery of 10-C way too long because they wanted the reveal to only happen in the finale.

In contrast, DS9 did serialization differently. It told individual self-contained stories each episode. There was just an overarching arc to them, like the Dominion war. So we got various episodes that moved the Dominion arc forward, but each episode was a self-contained story.

Personally, I think Trek should go back to self contained stories each episode. I know serialization is all the rage now (the Marvel shows on Disney+ do it too). But I don't think it really works. The main problem is that there is just not enough story to last 9 or so episodes. The Disney+ shows have the same issue as well. I think Trek would be better off telling self-contained stories. It would hopefully feel more satisfying because at the end of the episode, we could go "ok that was an interesting story with a clear beginning, middle and end".
 
I think part of that is how they are doing serialization of the show. They want the season to be one continuous story where the finale is the payoff to the mystery. Discovery does the same thing. They dragged on the mystery of 10-C way too long because they wanted the reveal to only happen in the finale.

In contrast, DS9 did serialization differently. It told individual self-contained stories each episode. There was just an overarching arc to them, like the Dominion war. So we got various episodes that moved the Dominion arc forward, but each episode was a self-contained story.

Personally, I think Trek should go back to self contained stories each episode. I know serialization is all the rage now (the Marvel shows on Disney+ do it too). But I don't think it really works. The main problem is that there is just not enough story to last 9 or so episodes. The Disney+ shows have the same issue as well. I think Trek would be better off telling self-contained stories. It would hopefully feel more satisfying because at the end of the episode, we could go "ok that was an interesting story with a clear beginning, middle and end".
Serialisation works better the way Agents of SHIELD did it - multiple overlapping, successional story arcs running through a season - often interrelated, but always distinct - so that no single story got stretched too thin, and as each story arc reached its conclusion, the seeds of the next had already been sown ready to take over.
 
I agree. I think if they continued with the serialized format though, I would like to see it continue with episodes that simply move the story forward without a mystery - like the retake Ds9 arc or the last 10 episodes of DS9 season 7. There doesn't have to be a mystery to keep people interested.
 
It's a nice idea, but it sorta ignores WWIII. Unless it's that man dedicates so many resources to slower than light exploration, that World War III becomes inevitable after the complete depletion of really important stuff.

Or perhaps the war never even takes place in the Confed timeline.
 
Carbon Creek took place in 1957, so if he was that kid -- who was about 12 -- Wells would be in his late 70s. Jay Karnes is only 58.

Forgot about CC being set in the 50s. Oh well.

I forgot to say after having a nosy at The X-Files last year for the first time, the detective definitely had a Mulder vibe to him.

TRUST NO ONE. :shifty:
 
Helpful, thanks, I had forgotten the slingshot.

So Q would seem to NOT want fascist Earth, or why drop crew there, cuz he KNOWS they’re going to try to change things. But why go back with them and try and stop them? I don’t get what Q wants.

And how do you all seem to know what Renee will find? Did someone bts let it out? Or did I miss it? (I have missed the KEY line of dialog in the past, so I am really wondering. Also I don’t rewatch eps.

Q is trying to teach Picard - and arguably the rest of the cast - some sort of lesson.

Remember, that the inference that what they had to do to fix the timeline came from stuff the Borg Queen said, not Q. And we now know that the Queen also wants to stop Renee Picard from launching for some reason or the other. Doesn't make much sense on the face of it, since we know that in the Confederation TL the Borg are defeated, and we have to presume she doesn't want that. But the whole Renee thing could be a red herring, and not have to do with the lesson Q is trying to teach.

Personally, I think Trek should go back to self contained stories each episode. I know serialization is all the rage now (the Marvel shows on Disney+ do it too). But I don't think it really works. The main problem is that there is just not enough story to last 9 or so episodes. The Disney+ shows have the same issue as well. I think Trek would be better off telling self-contained stories. It would hopefully feel more satisfying because at the end of the episode, we could go "ok that was an interesting story with a clear beginning, middle and end".

Disney + shows don't have the same issue, because they're shorter. WandVision was 9 episodes, and She-Hulk is supposedly 10, but everything else (other than the episodic What If?...) has only been six. They're mini-series in truth, not TV seasons, which helps to solve the issue of mid-season bloat.

Netflix dramas have been going in the same direction. They used to be 10 episodes or longer, but increasingly they're going with 8-episode seasons instead.
 
Or perhaps the war never even takes place in the Confed timeline.

Well that's what io said, because the show said half as much.

The federation Timeline is Because Rene discovers life on Europa, and every one looks to the stars, despite World War III meaning you can't see the stars through the nuclear winter, and there's a generation of young humans with 90 percent illiteracy who do not know how to spell "stars".

The Confederation Timeline is because Rene stays home and Adam builds a network of UV Shields to stop the ecological collapse of the Earth.

Greg Cox said that the tech that patched up the ozone layer could also rip holes in and weaponize the layer, or weaponize the absence of it. Whether that meant destructive heat beams or creating zones of super cancer I fail to recall.

Adam Soongs UV Shields could be used similarly, as well as be a defense shield against balistic missiles in a number of ways.

1. The UV shield is rocket proof.
2. The UV shield is a massive EM Battery that knocks out any missile guidance system.
3. The UV shield can focus em radiation into a cutting beam.
4. The UV Shield is global. If you launch a missile, you lose the right to be protected by the UV shields from the sun, and your entire population dies of super cancer.
5. Building the UV shield "quickly" required using every icbm on Earth to put a million tons of metal in orbit.

Point is, if there is a third world war, it's limited. No ballistic missiles, and maybe no nukes at all.
 
The more I think back on this episode the more I think the good stuff was really great and the bad things were a lot worse than I originally felt. This episode got so much right and when it missed the mark the arrow went right in the toilet.
 
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