Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 3x08 - "Surrender"

[Char Kais]

My probably wrong theory is that Jack is possessed by a Pah-wraith and the rebel Changelings wanted him because with Sisko Prophet protecting the wormhole, they’re cut off from the Great Link, and who better to help than the Pah-wraiths?

I hope not.

I hope Jack's visions/capabilities don't have anything to do with Prophets/Pah-wraiths.
BUT, Picard has a Reckoning Tablet in his study.

Prophets/Pah-wraiths, Borg, candle ghosts, an aftereffect of the device from "Attached"? Nothing that I can think of would be a good resolution.

But the worst thing is the "Irumodic Syndrome" angle.
The "Irumodic Syndrome", the "overclocked brain", is Picard's and Jacks's "superpower".
The Picard that we knew from TNG was the way because he was "special", he had an "overclocked brain".
If the writers go that route it would be another character assassination.

 

[johnjm22]

A decent episode I guess.

It had some good.
It had some mid.
It had some cringe.

Worf was cringe factor 10 for sure. The Raffi action sequence got a laugh out of me.

 

[RuleofAcuisition17]

Dunno about you guys, but I have the self control to just.... not enter the thread when it's clearly marked "Spoilers" in a tag and Americans have a 24 hour lead time on me in the UK. (hence first contribution to the thread in the 30s) TrekCulture's only screwed up the once with a spoiler and has wisely kept all the subsequent images neutral.

Brilliant episode.

Still fine with the drawn out aspect of the Jack-In-The-Box mystery. What he is, what powers he has has been nicely utilized so far in the season. You all probably have some over the top idea in your head and have raised your expectations too high with every other aspect of this season. Chill, it will likely fit well.

Good end to Vadic, and another wonderful performance for Amanda Palmer.

Data/Lore scene and finally allowing Spiner to just be able to act on screen instead of either robota nonsense or moustache twirling villainy is wonderful. He can just be human on screen and seemed to enjoy the scenes.

Worf's speech to Troi was good, and not just in an amusing way. He's really relied on her advice and old relationship to develop and reflect upon himself. Riker's own cutting commentry was great as well. He still needs to work on his time and place.

 

[Char Kais]

Season 1 was the most expensive Trek show ever made, reportedly, by far.

Star Trek Picard S1 had a per-episode budget of $8–9 million.

Star Trek Discovery S1 had a budget of $10–15 million per episode.

 

[BBC 2 6pm]

Worf's speech to Troi was good, and not just in an amusing way. He's really relied on her advice and old relationship to develop and reflect upon himself. Riker's own cutting commentry was great as well. He still needs to work on his time and place.

Other way around for me! As someone said upthread, Worf was being a 'mall guru', and I thought Riker did a nice job of being a counterpoint to the pretension.

 

[Ronin'sCreamyCandle]

Star Trek Picard S1 had a per-episode budget of $8–9 million.

Star Trek Discovery S1 had a budget of $10–15 million per episode.

They wasted 15 million for that Discovery s1 trash?

Picard s3 is a masterpiece

 

[Scionz]

I like all your post but these bits are particularly spot on for me.

I really hope they stick the landing - and that we finally find out what the hell Jack is - but for all the moaning some have done about fanservice / fanwank, why are the changelings in TNG and whatever else, I'm genuinely enjoying seeing these people onscreen again. Even more than I'd expected to.

Exactly. You know, we're getting across 10 Episodes (and in quantity especially the last 5), what Star Wars fans screamed for. They wanted Luke, Han and Leia together for one final adventure. They never got it. They were robbed by all the dysfunction Star Wars was going through (we coulda told them JJ Abrams sucked at everything). But we are getting it, in spades, with an iconic crew in their 60s, 70s and 80s, 20 years later, with a plot point from DS9 and a character from Voyager and some other new characters that are great, put together by a bunch of 90s Trek vets.

Seriously, how did this EVEN happen? It's crazy. But however it ends, we just have to keep in mind all the improbable things that had to happen to make this come together and enjoy it. Because as Picard said at the end of Generations:

"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe than time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important how we lived. After all, Number One, we're only mortal."

And boy, wouldn't that be one final trick for this season. To rehabilitate Generations.

 

[Scionz]

Star Trek Picard S1 had a per-episode budget of $8–9 million.

Star Trek Discovery S1 had a budget of $10–15 million per episode.

Those numbers flipped are what TrekYards reported in Season 1.

 

[GothicPudding]

Just remembered that now they can detect these changelings because of that isotope that was used in the experiments.

Before this episode, I thought the mention that all the ships being "fully integrated" and talking to each other would be part of the changeling plan to take over the fleet.

I wonder if this could be part of the solution, where Data could take over scanners to identify and capture all changelings at once on every Starfleet vessel. That would probably be anticlimactic though.

Have we ever seen a portable force field generator before? Was it telegraphed at all?

There seemed to be some mystery about what that device was. Did anyone else on the bridge seem to recognize it before it was used? My assumption is that it was something Geordi rigged up in a few minutes, since it being recognizable as a field generator would make it harder to wield as a weapon.

Since the device only needed to protect against the vacuum of space, perhaps it was only powerful enough to protect them against the hatch opening, and would have been ineffective against a beam weapon.

 

[BBC 2 6pm]

Exactly. You know, we're getting across 10 Episodes (and in quantity especially the last 5), what Star Wars fans screamed for. They wanted Luke, Han and Leia together for one final adventure. They never got it. They were robbed by all the dysfunction Star Wars was going through (we coulda told them JJ Abrams sucked at everything). But we are getting it, in spades, with an iconic crew in their 60s, 70s and 80s, 20 years later, with a plot point from DS9 and a character from Voyager and some other new characters that are great, put together by a bunch of 90s Trek vets.

You are right about this!

 

[Char Kais]

They wasted 15 million for that Discovery s1 trash?

Star Trek Picard S1 had a per-episode budget of $8–9 million.

Star Trek Discovery S1 had a budget of $10–15 million per episode.

Those numbers flipped are what TrekYards reported in Season 1.

The Motion Picture Association Canada reported that Star Trek Discovery spent $257 million for two seasons.
$145.6 million for season 1.

https://www.mpa-canada.org/press/st...pending-over-257-million-in-just-two-seasons/

Season 1 had 15 episodes. That makes $9.7 million per episode.
This is only what was spent in Ontario.

This does not include:
Salary for the actors
Salary for the writers
Production costs in LA
Marketing costs
Costs for shooting in Jordan
And most importantly, VFX costs (9 studios)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5171438/companycredits/


Here is the PDF report:

Economic Impacts of Star Trek: Discovery
https://www.mpa-canada.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/MPA-Canada-Star-Trek-Discovery-FI.pdf

 

[Mitty]

I don't know why, but when Spot appeared and Data picked him/her up (yes, Spot was both male and female in TNG, someone fire the continuity person) I just lost it and burst into tears.

The music... my god the music is just wonderful.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

I have to add something as my mind crossed fandom streams. Data’s spirit is unbendable.

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[MrShinzoff]

I think the only time I ever cried watching TV before was at the end of Terminator 2 but I'm bursting into tears about 2 or 3 times an episode with this season. This has been a great and completely unexpected show and I'm really thankful it's been made.

 

[SithHappens]

Exactly. You know, we're getting across 10 Episodes (and in quantity especially the last 5), what Star Wars fans screamed for. They wanted Luke, Han and Leia together for one final adventure. They never got it.

You are right about this!

I know this is a ST discussion but I still cannot believe they didn't give us this, even if it was just a few minutes on screen together. Part of me still expected at the end when Leia and Lukes force ghosts appear that Han would materialise beside them, more because JJ tried to fix everything that had been done wrong in the first 2 movies.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Umm. Having an uncrewed ship with the shields down in that situation was dumb.

Vadic was overconfident and certain of victory. Data was the ace up the sleeve of the TNG cast and it blindsided her.

So Vadic was dumb. Maybe. But a few photon torpedoes taking out an unshielded ship (the thing the OP said was dumb) is perfectly fine and has precedent in previous Trek.

 

[SithHappens]

Plasma coils....Ok maybe not .

 

[Guy Gardener]

I shit you not but Picard and The Ark, two shows that cost radically different sums to produce, just resolved their conflict with the big bad on the say day a few hours apart, in almost the same way.

 

[Eckauskas]

I said after watching last weeks episode that a tear came to my eye during the scene with Geordie and Data. Well that one in the corridor was the exact same.

“I hope that you can sense as fully as any human has ever felt anything, how happy I am to have my friend back.”

Fuuuuuuuuuucccccckk, right in the feels.

 

[TheMadCloner]

This is everything I want from Star Trek.

Drama, action, science fiction, thematic relevance to society. It’s all there, and done exceptionally well.

A few things that blew me away:

- the music, it was incredible. The buildup from the Data scene to Vadic being sucked out into space was just auditory heaven.

- the subtle commentary on “nature vs. nurture” with Data’s memories/experiences integrating with Lore’s natural ego. Very well done.