Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 3x07 - "Dominion"

Felt like a much shorter episode. Had some plot movement, but not as much as earlier episodes. Lack of characters was felt.

 

Proteus was about turning 10 changelings into perfect spies to be used as weapons



They got injections





were ripped apart



burned



and boiled



And that's why we understand Vadic's reasons.

 

Feels like we're hitting the mid-season squishy middle a bit late in the game. Some very nice acting from Burton, and Jack and Sidney being drift compatible was fun. Didn't get a whole lot else out of it, though. Vadic's sympathetic backstory thudded on arrival for me and the lack of forward motion on the other character fronts made it felt like this one lagged a bit. But we're in the home stretch now, at least.

 

Section 31 Starfleet feels so incompetent for what amounts to be the best of the best or whatever. If anything they're like Pakled-tier.

Anyway, I loved the Geordi/Data scene, even if it felt like they were trying to ruin it for me with fanservice and evoking Wrath of Khan. Do I wish it in a different context and not simply Burton acting against a silent Spiner? Sure. But after the stupidity of season 1 and Geordi not even being there, I'll take what I can get I guess.

The rest of the episode is fine. I dunno. If Bashir was in this episode instead of Crusher, it would have just made more sense to me. YouTube reviewer Steve Shives has been complaining about how he doesn't like mashing the DS9 stuff into TNG for this season, and this is the first time I've really felt it. It's not that these characters wouldn't have feelings about the Dominion war, even though they were off doing god knows what during it, it's just that I don't really care about Picard and Crusher's feelings about it. Especially since all they can give is exposition to try to fill in the blanks.

But whatever, Geordi and Data was all I needed. I'm even fine with Tuvok being a corpse somewhere like Hugh from Season 1. Maybe Section 31/Daystrom can use his body to make another Tuvix. lol

Also even without the Geordi stuff, I'm just relieved by the general lack of fanservice compared to last week's episode.

 

More interesting bits: There is something inside Picard...



The irumodic syndrom diagnosis is questioned, and there was an inferior Picard

 

Except the episode came out much earlier than is typical. I came here at 11:20 PST to see if maybe it was up yet and immediately saw the photo you posted. At least I made it to Episode 7 without being spoiled. Thanks.

 

So if Picard didn't really have irumodic syndrome, what killed him in Season 1? And how does that connect with Jack now having telepathy?

 

I need to think about this episode some more. Initially I had a positive reaction to it, but then I read @firehawk12's post and I find a lot of agreement there. This probably would have more resonance if it was Doctor Bashir and not Doctor Crusher. I mean when the Dominion War was happening the TNG crew were in the Briar Patch dealing with the Son'a. I did appreciate we finally have Vadic's motivation though, and I really liked the intercutting scene between Geordi/Data and Crusher,Picard/Vadic and the musical score was on point in so many great ways.

I was also disappointed we didn't get Riker or Worf/Raffi. We're are now hanging between two cliffs now, what is Riker doing on the Shrike and why is Troi there, and Vadic taking over the ship.

I'm leaning towards giving this episode an 8, but I think I need to sleep on it a bit more.

 

I'm really beginning to hate cliff-hangers ...

9.9999999999999999999999999999

Thank goodness it's only a week.

 

This was both a good episode that moved the story forward but it also felt very frustrating. I'm still not sure what to think of it but the Tim Russ cameo and finally learning what happened to some of these Changelings were positive things to see.

 

Sounds like Tuvok is alive, but probably really unhappy with his current circumstances. The Changelings probably keep the really important figures around in case they need to extract information from them later - it's just the scrubs that get picked off as needed.

 

Yeah this was my feeling. I was dealing with an app that was slow and laggy, and it's 11:20 at night. I get the excitement, but I really do think there needs to be a little compromise in terms of the night owls and people who can't see the episode until the next day.

 

So did Vadic torture the command transfer codes out of Shaw during the turbolift ride? Otherwise how can she be in control of the ship? For that matter, Data's been shown to be able to lock out an entire ship computer within seconds (this was literally an entire secondary plot in First Contact). If Geordi can just keep Data for more than a few moments, Vadic's takeover could actually go south for her very quickly.

 

Captain Tuvok. Commander Seven. Captain Chakotay(possibly even higher in rank by 2401).

Ensign Kim must feel more awkward than usual.

 

At least for the first 24 hours, folks should have a little bit of common courtesy to keep pic's under spoiler wraps.

I know it's exciting to be the first to post them, but it's really not fair for folks who won't get to see the episode till the next day.

 

I got through everything I wanted to with DS9. I'm glad I watched "What You Leave Behind" immediately before watching this. All I'll say. A lot of twists. Dark episode. Great soundtrack. I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying those.

 

Altan Soong's reasoning for forcing Lore into Data's head to "help him be human" is nonsensical. Everyone apparently forgot that Data got an emotions chip in the movies, although he had it deactivated in the last 2.

 

Vadic said Jack was not really for them either... was he created by a changeling who took Picard's place?

 

Heh ... Beverly certainly isn't adverse to screwing around with non-human entities.

 

Season 3 thus far is a lot better than Season 2 was(which doesn't say as much as I wish it did, but still) but the next three episodes better have some amazing payoff. I've enjoyed most of the journey so far but I'm worried we might get another Season 1 finale, and nobody needs to experience the Shapeshifter and Frontier Day equivalent of robotic space tentacles and a copy-and-paste fleet.