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Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 3x09 - "Võx"

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Alice Krige was credited as just the voice of the queen. I’m starting to doubt we’ll actually see her face. They had plenty of opportunity to show her in this episode
 
Man, my feelings on this season just continue to be complicated.

At least there was a sense of urgency after twiddling along since episode five.

As hard of a time as I’ve given the idea of Data coming back, I loved the scene with him and Picard. And the line in the scene with Geordi. And the look at Worf about the E and his response.

I cannot deny for one second the joys of seeing the crew of the Enterprise that I grew up with back on their ship for one last adventure. And Majel as the computer voice? Amazing. If that were it alone, my rating would be a 10.

Unfortunately, I can’t let nostalgia negate bad storytelling.

This just isn’t very good. Someone has equated it to bad fan fiction and that’s about where I have to put it. They said it themselves in the episode: Why would Starfleet, particularly led by Elizabeth Shelby (RIP, I guess…), a renowned expert on the Borg, allow for something so collective- like into their fleet? Why would they repeat something after what happened a decade or two previously as shown in Prodigy? I thought these showrunners talked to each other.

Why, when they’ve already talked about the networked vessels would they take Titan in without at least trying to stop it? Disabling it? Countermeasures obviously didn’t work. So, why didn’t we try other things before this being our “only choice?”

Why is the Enterprise-D the only non-networked ship? The other museum pieces are too? Other than the idea of it having to be the old guard who saves the day, it’s pretty convenient that it’s only the geezers who didn’t get assimilated on their old ship.

You have Troi, a trained psychologist, who just told Jack he’d never be alone, run out the door just two minutes later.

Not to mention the predictability. We’ve been talking about Locutus having something to do with Jack since the mystery box opened. Did this whole thing HAVE to be the Borg again? Do we have to continuously go back down this well? Could we maybe do something a little more interesting? Because it’s really a lot of sameness here. The Borg try, again, to assimilate Earth. And again, they’ll get their asses handed to them. Just give the fuck up already.

And yeah, lots of Borg drama. Someone who apparently knew what was going to happen when the spoilers came out about it being the Borg earlier this week said the Borg are scary. Yeah. If you hate monologuing.

I’m disappointed, but not surprised, it seems they killed off Shaw. I liked his character quite a bit. Even more so, I feel his character, while starting off extremely strongly, ended up being largely wasted since episode 6. Very disappointing.

But of course it, predictably, will lead to Seven getting command of Titan. Presuming she and Raffi survive this. And of course, they’ll bond and get back together as they fight death in the end.

Ultimately it seems this story was designed for one purpose: the end scene of this episode where they go back to Enterprise so the old folks can save the day. What’s the message here? Older is better?

Sorry, I was really hoping this episode would turn things around for me but it continues to disappoint. 5/10.
 
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Alice Krige was credited as just the voice of the queen. I’m starting to doubt we’ll actually see her face. They had plenty of opportunity to show her in this episode
I think we'll see it. But from the back, the Queen is... different. Way different from Season 2 even. They could have her look entirely different. Maybe even just her phase transposed on a Queen the likes of which we've never seen before (think Queen Xenomorph style).

I think we'll see it because next episode we'll see Vox-Jack assimilated (to a degree) and somehow after disabling the fleet near earth, Picard and co will take the D to the nebula to save Jack, and Picard will confront the Queen and Vox in her chamber and he'll save Jack and destroy the Queen. THat's the moment the reveal will come. To build it up, cinematic style.

One more crucial point: what Cube is this? How long has it been in that nebula. Is this the Borg Cube from Section J-25? Even in BOBW there was some question if that cube is the same cube that attacked earth. Did Picard get assimilated by the Borg by a cube in BOBW Part 1, and then transported to another cube sometime in BOBW Part 2, and that Cube attack Wolf 359 and Earth (remember, the Queen was there for some of it). Could this be the BOBW-era Queen waiting? Or is this a post-Voyager Queen in a new plot? Judging by the cube and the VERY retro interior that looks deactivated, I'm guessing this cube is from the 2360s and that Queen has been there for a long, long time.
 
They did spend a bit too much time gawking over the bridge. Like guys, the Borg
They could have spent more time. A lot more time. It was a moment 28 years in the making and correcting a very, very old wrong.

The realties of the plot didn't matter at that moment. The Enterprise-E is my favorite Trek ship ever, but the 1701D was done dirty, and Matalas and Team Season 3, who have spent the past 9 episodes tying up lose threads and fixing old mistakes (even Kirk's bad death... maybe... "Project Phoenix"), just fixed one of the oldest and biggest in all of Trek.
 
One thing that's left an odd feeling ... the old crew are overcome with emotion to be back on the D. But Riker (other than one "hello beautiful") seems completely uninterested in being back on the Titan, which after all was his first command! Surely there would have been some crew there he knew, etc.
 
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One thing that's left an odd feeling ... the old crew are overcome with emotion to be back on the D. But Riker (other than one "hello beautiful") seems completely uninterested in being back on the Titan, which after all was his first command! Surely there would have been some crew there he knew, etc.
That wasn’t his Titan
 
I thought it was pretty mediocre. Very rushed - some of this should have happened three episodes ago.

I don't understand why Picard only has two modes when it comes to nostalgia, the "everything is different this is dark and gritty!" of season 1, and the "look, look! feel nostalgia!" of the past episode. The final few minutes of them getting on the D wasn't all that emotional for me, because it had been so telegraphed.

I also thought it was pretty forced how they ended up with only the D bridge crew on the D... as others have pointed out, they could have dragged Shaw to the shuttle for Beverly to look at him, etc. As it is, things are a bit too convenient. Also, why are they immediately setting course for Earth? They'll get obliterated. Do they have a plan?

The bit about only people under 25 was a nice touch, and a fairly natural way to isolate the old crew. But really, there was nobody else over 25 on the Titan who made it down to the maintenance deck? Again, seems forced.

Some bits of plot wondering:
  • if the aim of the borg is to destroy the Feds and they are ruthless about it, why didn't they blow up spacedock and maybe Earth's 10 largest cities as soon as they got control of the fleet? That would give them much more breathing room to carry out their evil plan.
  • Did the youngborgs hear Picard's call for everyone to meet on the maintenance deck? If not, why not? And if so, how did the olds get there first?
I bet the Borg queen has Beverly's face or something.

I wish they had done the Game of Thrones thing (before it got crap) of having the climactic battle in the penultimate episode, leaving the final episode to show the aftermath. As things stand I can't see how the finale will be anythign but ultra rushed.
Also, the red door had to be red. Couldn't be green for obvious reasons.

These past few episodes have felt like the opposite of the slower-paced, more character driven first four episodes. People gripe about the nebula arc being too long, but it felt like an organic story, not a quick game of checkers.
 
They changed the end credits music again I think. I mean the post-animated sequence credits
Stephen Barton said these last two episodes have an entire unique cinematic score to them. 75 minutes of music or something.
My gut tells me that once Episode 10 / Part 2 airs, there will (eventually) be a combined feature-length "Star Trek: The Last Generation" unofficial fifth TNG movie edit put on Paramount+ that combines Episodes 9 and 10 (maybe with some changes?). It may even be what is being screened in IMAX next week.
 
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