• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 3x09 - "Võx"

Engage!


  • Total voters
    357
This episode broke me. I was full on board of the Picard hype train when EP8 moved me to tears (I am glad I have my friend back.) and ready to overlook all the minor stuff that wasnt perfect. But then, it happened. Picard told Jack what is actually wrong with him, and a bit of dialogue pulled me right ot of the episode.

Jack: "So how much of me is me? Oh, funny! I've always known the world was imperfect. Broken systems, wars, suffering, violence, poverty, bigotry. And I always thought, if people could only see each other, hear each other, speak in one voice, act in one mind together...Who knew a little cybernetic authoritarianism was the answer?"

Who ever thought it was a good idea to write this bit of dialogue must either be totally unaware of the political and social climate, or be a massive troll. Oh watch out folks...its the authoritarians again and they sound like Bernie Sanders. Better dont open the red door.

From then on my brain was set on cynicism. And the next funny bit came along. Conveniently everybody under 25 is now controlled by the Borg. (Geordi should have never sent his daughter to college..) Damn millenials useless as always. But there was still one problem. One person who dared to question the best generation and their ways. Few moments later Shaw lies dead on the ground. Shot. ("If only he had more guns he could have stopped the bad guy" my brain chuckles and immediately follows up with "why did they have to make it political" decending into madness.)

Should have called the show Boomer saves the universe.
It's not political. Jack thinks this way because he has always been partly controlled by the Borg. And why would the Borg want older people? Get them while they're young.
 
He was Captain of the E before it was decommissioned.

The instagram logs said:
His time aboard the Enterprise-E was brief, having stepped down after the incident above Kriilar Prime.
And about the E's final mission: CLASSIFIED
Yeah, I imagine it was destroyed (in glorious Klingon tradition?) above Kriilar Prime. …is that a nod to Orville — Kril-lar Prime?

I loved it, i don't care if its a nostalgia fest.

Seeing the D was great, although come on Geordi, you were keeping it as a surprise? When for?
For when it was done, maybe. I also loved it and don’t care if it’s a nostalgia fest. At least, not right now. I’ll wonder what else they might have done later, but I would have loved it if whatever else they did, they included something like this as the icing on the cake, anyway.

Sssh, you're not supposed to remember Laris. You're supposed to be all over the massively toxic 'we tried five times to be together' Picard/Crusher shipper stuff and the Enterprise-D bridge and the general nostalgia overload this season is throwing at you (which is now reaching its peak with an overall plot that puts even the most extreme and nonsensical TNG reunion fan fic to shame).

You're not supposed to ask perfectly reasonable questions like "how is Jean-Luc going to explain to his girlfriend who he spent the whole last season agonizing over and was just about to start a new life with elsewhere that he has a son with his ex and that he wants to be a part of his son's life now that he knows the son exists and how come he hasn't mentioned that oh-so-important-last-season girlfriend even once ever since she conveniently disappeared from both the show and the plot despite being the perfect person to take with on his 'trust no one' mission, given how she's a former Tal'Shiar agent... etc... etc..."

Ssssssh. :shifty:;)
Laris wasn’t Crusher. The love of his life. With whom it turns out he has a son. It simply feels different with Crusher. On another level. They kept breaking up because they’re damaged people but they kept getting back together regardless whoever else they were with, for decades. Laris is a big girl. (And a Romulan.) She’ll understand. As she might have expected Picard to if Zhaban miraculously reappeared. I’d like a nod to her at the end (a whole episode if they were doing 26 a season) but I’m okay with this dynamic. Also it’s only been how long in-universe? Not much time to process everything.

Yes. Thats why I wrote that my brain was set on cynicism. It’s more of a commentary than an actual analysis.

In the end this series is (also) a piece of art in the tradition of a franchise that claims to be thoughtful and about social issues and philosophy and stuff. Its only fair to poke it with a stick and to explore what can be found in it.

Also shouldn’t be the worst thing to take a poke yourself. To ponder what ifs on what might be worrisome on your own political side. So allow for a little sci-fi departure and consideration, will ya? Plus, Shaw wasn’t asking for more guns at the end, he was honoring Seven’s chosen/correct name.
 
Pretty much this.

I wish Stewart had kept to his guns. Picard wouldn't be as massively talked about right now, but there'd be more deserved respect for its attempts at different things. Imagine a third season where Picard, Raffi, Elnor, Soji, Seven and Laris head out on a spy mission or something. They still could run across a few of the TNG folks.

But no...

Believe me, me too. I wish he hadn't given in, but, alas. (I love Sir Patrick a LOT but sometimes I do disagree with him. It happens. And I'm glad that it happens because it means I'm still my own person with my own thoughts.) I never wanted the hype around a TNG reunion - because people will now demand more. And the last thing I personally want is for Sir Patrick to play Jean-Luc Picard AGAIN. I didn't want for him to play him again for this series already. Because I predicted the exact things that happened - the fans were complaining and complaining and complaining and taking things he said out of context, piling hate on him on Youtube, etc etc; the past four and a half years have been the most exhausting years in my entire life as a Sir Patrick fan, and I don't care to add even MORE years to this. (I just want peace and quiet again in my little fannish Sir Patrick corner, is all.)

But yes. I wish they had kept the original cast around and had had maybe one or more TNG character guest appearances. That would have been fine. I'm not a fan of his relationship with Laris at all for various reasons, but it's still better than having the whole nonsense with Crusher and a kid she never told him about (which still makes me want to throw a few VERY bad words at her and makes me like her even less than I liked her before - if that's even possible). And the original PIC cast deserved better than being dumped like this for the biggest case of "a fanboy's personal TNG fan fic being turned into canon" I've ever witnessed. I mean seriously.

This latest episode? If I had written a fan fic with this exact plot people would have thrown tomatoes at me like "this is too fanboyish, unrealistic, plot hole galore, oh God and now the son is SPESHUL, he's a total GARY STU, can you not do this, tune it down", etc.
 
It's not political. Jack thinks this way because he has always been partly controlled by the Borg. And why would the Borg want older people? Get them while they're young.
It's an allegory about the effects of social media on youth. And given the portrayal of illegal immigrants and the reliance on technological solutions, overwriting Past Tense, I'm inclined to agree this season has a very conservative, anti-woke message.
 
For whatever they are worth, in no particular order, my thoughts:

1) So I'm hearing about different bridge configurations, but I'm clueless. Which season of TNG does the bridge look like this?

2) It's nice to see the D. I was never a fan originally, but it's grown on me over the years. Nice to see the bridge and gosh, Worf standing in his place, Data in his chair and LaForge too. I didn't tear up, but it was worth any amount of contrivance to me to make this moment happen.

3) Shaw made the expected about-face and apology with his dying breath.

4) Seven and Raffi were rapidly ejected from the plot, so that 2) could happen and I see the sense of it, but it was still very sudden.

5) Whatever bridge that was that Shelby was sitting on was the cheapest looking set I've seen on Star trek in years. In it's own way it looks like the kind of similar set they'd construct just a little bit of for ship to ship comms in TNG. Gosh though, that's our first look at the bridge of the Enterprise F?

6) Anyway, I don't mind that it's the Borg. Three out of three. Picard is That Borg Show. But, okay. Fine.

7) The thing is though, I actually liked where the Borg were at, at the end of Season 2. Like, healing and rehabilitating. Adapting to cooperate rather than enslave and... so that's gone is it?

8) One more... The Borg Starfleet seem to be in a significant formation, like musical notes?

9) It is a shame how much the budget has affected this. With some money we'd have had a more exciting build up to the bridge... I think like, from transporter room to the bridge.

Geordi in engineering with his warp core.

Data taking a look at his original quarters or whatever.

I like seeing the bridge, but I feel aware that it's a kind of conjuring trick. I watched 150 episodes or whatever of TNG and in that show you never get the sense that the ship ends at the bridge. Here... yeah, it's nice, but I would like to see a little more of that environment. I'd like to see Beverly in Sickbay or Geordi in the Engine Room.

Not meant as a criticism. I understand there's less money and so they did what they could, but hmm. It is what it is. But the lack of budget is becoming more visible, even down to having Borg that just need black contacts and sick people make-up.

Also, things like budget gave us the weakest Borg Queen reveal ever. I'm not sure it was even a person. Maybe just a dummy hanging there shot from behind.

Next week, I'd like to see some good old crazy looking' Borg like in TNG (First Contact) days.

Anyway, I've got 70-dd pages of you lot to read now so thanks for reading what I said.

SHIT. BUT TO CLARIFY.

I liked it. I did like it. There's a pleasure in seeing the gang together and taking their places. I'm glad it ends like this, in this place.

8/10
 
Last edited:
I really don't know what to make of this episode. My initial feelings are 'it was complete shit'.

We're supposed to believe that every ship in the fleet has a changeling onboard and the changes they have made to the transporter systems went completely unnoticed by anyone. No Starfleet doctor noticed that everyone under 25 was having their DNA REWRITTEN to become Borg? We're also supposed to believe that Starfleet thought having all of their ships networked was a good idea. I have trouble believing that any Starfleet Admiral or Captain would be ok with implementing a obvious tactical vulnerability into the entire fleet. We know that the changelings hadn't completely taken over the chain of command, so surely someone had to kick up a fuss about this.

The Borg plan hinges on the fact that Starfleet are apparently incredibly stupid and learned nothing from previous incidents with dangerous AI. The Borg are equally stupid. Why didn't tjust assimilate EVERYONE and not just the under 25's. Why allow such an obvious avenue of resistance from Starfleet veterans, some of whom have faced the Borg before and know how to beat them?

Shaw started out strong at the beginning of the season but he ended up being a complete nothing of a character, an ineffectual backseat driver on his own bridge ( i mean the few times he was actually in the centre seat). The fact that it took him getting a phaser hole in the chest to see the error of his ways and to stop being a bigot to Seven is just downright insulting.

The Borg coming in this late in this season just feels tacked on and their apparent alliance with the Changelings feels like it came out of nowhere. The reveal about what Jack is should have come at least an episode ago.

This episode was a convoluted mess and quite frankly if this had been an episode of Discovery, there's no way people would be praising this writing and this plot as 10 out of 10 stuff. Like no fucking way. There is no way that Discovery would get away with Starfleet being portrayed as so blatantly stupid and negligent, the Borg assimilating everyone under 25, the sheer amount of plot contrivances, and setting the fanwank to post no-nut november levels. Hypocrisy thy name is Trekkie.

I swear to god the finale better be two hours long for all this shit to make sense.
It's frankly ridiculous how they repeated the exact same bullshit from the season 1 finale:
A last minute villain swap in a completely different direction. Jack Crusher is essentially Soji 2.0, with the dramatic question being if he/she will destroy all life as we know it or not.

Only difference is the this time ridiculous amount of Starfleet-wide death already happening.

I still struggle why every single season of modern Trek must lead to the threat of all life as we ever knew it being destroyed. It's quite ridiculous frankly. Even MARVEL is more constraint with it's universe-ending stakes. And Marvel is ridiculous.
What happened to a season finale simply being "save the ship", or even "prevent war" or "protect a colony"?
 
Thank you. Though I'm still surprised but I guess that helps it a little.

Who knows, perhaps it's not a good idea to leave oodles and oodles of antimatter in a museum ship? Who would have thunk it?

Perfectly reasonable other ships are not able to 'fly'.
 
If Picard and Crusher end up together, I might scream. Not in a good way. One, Crusher, doesn’t deserve Picard. Two, they’ve made no effort to make that happen. It would be unearned. Three, I like Laris. And it would make me look at JL in a most unflattering light.
 
I would say it's terrible although I didn't hate it.







The plot is like they pulled Star Trek and Sci-fi words out of a Scrabble bag. They could have just had a 10 episode show where the crew meet up for a tour of the museum for Rikers birthday and it would have the same effect.







And I'm a big TNG fan.







I've never been a fan of these arc-based stories. Basically these 10-hour movies. The problem is they tend to move away from the main story sometimes or we get a lot of filler. With that said this was much better than let's say STD or the first two seasons of Picard. The episodes kept my interest and now we've got this great ending. Again I like the one episode format stories or movies about two and a half hours long. But I can see why they went this route. They wanted to give all the next-gen characters at least one episode. So no it wasn't perfect but it was darn entertaining. The best trek in a long long time except maybe for snw.
 
Oh I agree totally! But I think if they had done the reunion more like say, TWOK and the AGT scenes, it would have felt much less forced: some nods to how they are happy to be together again (with eg Chekov), but mostly forced together by circumstances and working together. Also let the 'new' characters (Seven/Shaw/Saavik) play a major role and don't force them to the side. If eg Seven and Shaw had taken up stations on the D and discussed their plans for when they get back to Sol, I think I would have felt much more nostalgic than just seeing the old gang and the old gang only forced back together.

I think Shaw gets as much to do as Terrell, Seven as Saavik, to use your TWOK Analogy.
 
I thought that's what made them good.
They were a force of nature just assimilating for the sake of it.

No reasoning or compromising, no treaties.
Completely agree. It was the inability to reason, or even talk, with them (when we first met them) that sent chills down my spine.
 
It's frankly ridiculous how they repeated the exact same bullshit from the season 1 finale:
A last minute villain swap in a completely different direction. Jack Crusher is essentially Soji 2.0, with the dramatic question being if he/she will destroy all life as we know it or not.

Only difference is the this time ridiculous amount of Starfleet-wide death already happening.

I still struggle why every single season of modern Trek must lead to the threat of all life as we ever knew it being destroyed. It's quite ridiculous frankly. Even MARVEL is more constraint with it's universe-ending stakes. And Marvel is ridiculous.
What happened to a season finale simply being "save the ship", or even "prevent war" or "protect a colony"?
We’ll they are bringing back the former crew of the flagship that saved the galaxy on numerous occasions, titanic figures both in-universe and in many of our memories, whose greatest adversary were the Borg…I kinda feel like they get to have this. We all get to have a giant romp like this. A better question might be why a random ship like Discovery felt with crazy high stakes and ended up the savior of the 32nd Century, and yeah it’s the Marvel thing, but even so, occasionally the stakes get that high…..and again, you’re bringing back legends for this one, let the stakes be legendary as well.
If Picard and Crusher end up together, I might scream. Not in a good way. One, Crusher, doesn’t deserve Picard. Two, they’ve made no effort to make that happen. It would be unearned. Three, I like Laris. And it would make me look at JL in a most unflattering light.
Life, a Romulan might tell you, is complicated. Crusher lost her parents, husband, and son to space, and Picard went barreling toward the most back-stabby aliens in it. He nearly got himself killed four times in short order while she was pregnant and cut to decades later he’s about to get her son killed again. It’s not black and white.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top