Really? I didn't watch Prodigy. Maybe I'll check that out.
Prodigy is the best of the modern Star Trek’s in my opinion. Definitely check it out.
Now,
Vox. I do not even know where to begin. I think that I need to rank this episode on two scales, one of nostalgia and love which would make this episode 11/10 and one of story itself and how it fits in to the season, which I would have to give 6/10 - this is probably the weakest episode of the season so far in my opinion, relying on spectacle to make up for this fact, with the obvious flaws of the story hidden behind all of the bells and whistles of nostalgia. All of this is even forgiven by the time of the reveal of the Enterprise D and its bridge though… quite simply
beautiful and the best Star Trek I have seen since First Contact/Endgame. Can you see how I want to rate this 11/10? It has the most amazing and *ultimate* fanw*nk, but look *deeper* in to it… all of this is shamelessly hiding deeper routed problems. Season’s 1 and 2 had similar problems, but they did not have as much fanw*nk, characters, special effects and soothingly familiar music to cover these problems up with as season 3 does.
Young Picard opened a locked door in season 2 and saw his mother hanging from a noose, this time in season 3 his son opened a locked door which he was too scared to open and saw a Borg cube. Obviously a higher budget led to a better special effect this season? The parallels are too close not to be intentional though?
I'll elaborate further after watching
Vox again, but I find the coherence and pacing of this season, especially the latest episode, problematic. The latest episode seems like a somewhat rushed ‘curveball’ compared to the rest of the season, even though it‘s story developments were largely expected and predicted by the fans. This season has almost become like a chain of Star Trek episodes where each writer wrote a story without letting the previous or proceding writer read the story, with the next episodes writer only given the last sentence from the previous episode to continue the story from, though all the writers know the characters, the over arching general ‘major’ plot points and expected direction of the story which adds a loose ‘continuity’ though there is a constant and ad-hoc battle to maintain this flow and coherency of the story.
I know that this season was filmed over a year ago, but it gives the impression that this is all being written on the fly by a group of people doing there best to produce a show that they genuinely care about but at the same time struggling with time constraints and deadlines. I got this same feeling in season 1 and 2 of Picard too, but to a lesser extent this season as the production values are a lot higher this time around which ‘smooths’ everything together. I guess that we (I?) can blame COVID for this impression though, Picard season 3 was filmed during the pandemic back to back with season 2 so we need to remember that production conditions were not normal. The reveal of the Borg cube behind the door, for example, was a bit like the reveal of Jurati Borg Queen in season 2 - I felt like this was an undecided plot point at the start of season 2, with Jurati’s face even seemingly ‘deep faked’ in to the Borg Queen in the final episode. We never got to see the Borg Queen’s face in this weeks episode either, I am thinking that this is out of respect to Annie Wersching who I believe would have been cast in this role as prime universe Queen. Did they get Alice Krige back to do the Borg Queen voice over though? It did sound a lot like her?
I also think that the Borg, their behaviours and motives have been severely misunderstood and misrepresented in this episode, though perhaps the Queen can explain properly in next weeks episode. The Borg were playing a *very* long game with their plot involving Jack, it is a plot involving too many variables that I can only explain away with the Borg Queen having temporal intuition, knowing that the butterfly set in to motion with Picard’s ‘seed’ would pan out 35 years in the future. This however would also mean that the Borg are a faction in the Temoral (Cold) War - a time war is fought in all directions of the passages of time, temporal intuition is an ability which can be exploited by a faction in this conflict. Of course, the Borg have already conducted an actual temporal incursion in the movie
First Contact.
Are we now to assume that the Founders ‘Face’ was indeed the Borg or their Queen? The language used by the Face was not very Borg like, perhaps the writers had different plans for the Face and ended up having to retcon this character in to the Queen? I hope not, though. A bigger question, why did the Borg not assimilate the Changelings? Why did the Borg need to coerce the Changelings to do their biddings? Why could the Borg not use transporter assimilated drones ‘undercover’ to do the same job? These ‘organic tech’ drones are just as efficient undercover as Founders/Changelings.
Seven of Nine became Captain this week though, another reason to grade this episode 11/10. OMG Sqweeeeee!!!!
I’m expecting Q to turn up again next week somehow to help fix all of this, further bookending the TNG era. Perhaps this is all a part of Q’s trial that never ends. We never expected Data to come back after his beautiful send off in Picard season 1, so even if we do not expect a Q return it is entirely possible as the writers can do whatever they want. There is no logic to Star Trek any more it has obviously grown too big for people to manage effectively in regards to continuity, it is blank slate for people to do whatever they think and have fun with… I’m now just following Star Trek like I would ride a rollercoaster that I have never ridden before from now on and will hold my hat tight along the way. Nothing is sacred, no past storyline, character or plot point… and everything is open to interpretation and development in any direction at the whim of whoever is in charge of the show. The fate of Elizabeth Shelby included.
Star Trek now needs to start going in a boldly fashion, to wherever fun is to be had. I do not mind riding there on the Enterprise D. That ship *is* sacred…. Perhaps the D is on its way to the anti time anomaly from
All Good Things along with all the other versions of the Enterprise? That would be a cool finale... they could be ‘Bounty’ cloaked. Q….
