In the first episode she said that Maddox "recruited her from Starfleet" and in the tie-in prequel novel (The Last Best Hope), we learn that she was a medical doctor in Starfleet before doing her cybernetics doctorate at Daystrom under Dr Maddox.
Spoilers Post Nepenthe Uneasiness Re: Chabon
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In the first episode she said that Maddox "recruited her from Starfleet" and in the tie-in prequel novel (The Last Best Hope), we learn that she was a medical doctor in Starfleet before doing her cybernetics doctorate at Daystrom under Dr Maddox.
I'm not sure what I could say others haven't said before, but I'm really glad to have a look at Picard from another angle. Of course I loved him during TNG, how he was this wise and cool, larger-than life figure who always seemed to have the right answers to the dilemmas of the week and how he shamed people into choosing the right thing with his magnificent speeches. But ultimately, if you look behind the curtain, he was actually really arrogant; it just didn't matter for me back then because his speeches were powerful and he was ultimately (almost) always right. Unfortunately, this also meant that he has gotten used to getting his way and his actions never had truly negative consequences. As he himself put it, he had allowed the perfect to become the enemy of the good because he didn't really have to compromise a lot, and without the Enterprise crew being there to remind him he was human, his complacency and sheer fucking hubris had grown to the point where he was convinced he could shame Starfleet into saving the Romulans through sheer force of will alone.
The last fourteen years have been a much-needed reality check for him, and his story is a classic deconstruction-reconstruction one: he has to reach rock bottom before he could start piecing himself back together, and I think he's finally reached it in Nepenthe, with the Rikers being brutally honest with him and reminding him that he needs to listen to others and allow them to help him. By the end of the episode, he'd seemed so much younger and more energetic... I think he's finally getting the message.
The last fourteen years have been a much-needed reality check for him, and his story is a classic deconstruction-reconstruction one: he has to reach rock bottom before he could start piecing himself back together, and I think he's finally reached it in Nepenthe, with the Rikers being brutally honest with him and reminding him that he needs to listen to others and allow them to help him. By the end of the episode, he'd seemed so much younger and more energetic... I think he's finally getting the message.
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I stand corrected.
(wow, that's never happened to me around here before ...
)
I'm still thinking it's quite possible for a person to be in Star Fleet and not been to space.
(as in beyond the Earth/Moon orbit)
My brother was in the Navy for 23 years as a land-based Aviation Electrician in New Jersey.
(he worked on the Blue Angels jets)
He didn't actually go to sea until he became a Recruiter after 13 years, and even then it was just for a week at a time on specific ships to get enlistees to re-up then he was right back to his home base.
Agnes apparently became a Doctor and then entered Star Fleet.
It seems that it was soon after joining that she started working with Maddox, so her saying she's never been to space is at least plausible.
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She could have been a civilian doctor working for Star Fleet and not been an officer of any kind.I stand corrected.
(wow, that's never happened to me around here before ...
I'm still thinking it's quite possible for a person to be in Star Fleet and not been to space.
(as in beyond the Earth/Moon orbit)
My brother was in the Navy for 23 years as a land-based Aviation Electrician in New Jersey.
(he worked on the Blue Angels jets)
He didn't actually go to sea until he became a Recruiter after 13 years, and even then it was just for a week at a time on specific ships to get enlistees to re-up then he was right back to his home base.
Agnes apparently became a Doctor and then entered Star Fleet.
It seems that it was soon after joining that she started working with Maddox, so her saying she's never been to space is at least plausible.
I'm not convinced it's arrogance, at least not at the core. Pride tho, yes. He has a LOT of that.
Sir Patrick once said that Jean-Luc is essentially a frightened child. Sure he comes across as arrogant occasionally, but that's just another wall he's build up around him. He's insecure, unsure and, like Sir Patrick said, frightened. And so, so very proud and stubborn. An interesting - and quite volatile - mix, to say the least. And he hides all that behind arrogance that he stuffs behind his captain's mask of calm perfection. He's incredibly vulnerable deep down inside, which is yet another reason why Starfleet's rejection shattered him the way it did, so much that he isolated himself on his vineyard - it's a mix of hurt feelings and hurt pride.
We do see him displaying this arrogant side on more than occasion on TNG, like when he's shrugging off Q with his "we are prepared for whatever is out there" attitude in "Q Who?", but like I said, that's just another mask. He knew he was backing himself into a corner with Q, but at the same time he couldn't allow him to become a member of the crew and besides, Q had kidnapped him and some ensign had spilled her cocoa on him and he was just DONE WITH THE ENTIRE DAY so he snapped, slipped on his "I'm gonna be arrogant now and pretend I know everything" mask and assured Q that his help was not needed because AIN'T NOBODY GONNA PUT ME, STUBBORN AND PROUD JEAN-LUC PICARD, INTO A CORNER, I'M GONNA WIN AT LEAST ONE ARGUMENT TODAY. And he probably thought the same stubbornness would get him somewhere with Starfleet when the Romulan crisis hit (and again when he went to asked to be given a ship just like that - lol, Jean-Luc, honey, what did you EXPECT? It's SO him to march in and just DEMAND FOR THINGS TO HAPPEN). Problem was, Starfleet didn't move an inch and there was no Q to snap him out of the situation after a "I NEED YOU" confession that, translated from Jean-Luc!English into normal English, simply means "okay okay, I know I messed up, sorry".
I really like this, because back in school I learned about a pretty common story structure in Arthurian tales called the Doppelwegstruktur (the double way structure) where the second round of adventures is supposed to be a correction of a flaw from the first round. In the first round the character defeats all his challenges, gets to be a knight of the round table and has won a wife and lands. But he has some character flaw which means he loses his position at the court, his wife and his lands and has to complete a second set of adventures which are more complex and of which usually the last directly correlates to the flaw. In the end, he permanently has his place at the round table, his wife and his lands back. The first adventures prove that he's capable and brave, but the second one proves that he is selfless and puts the needs of others before his own.
So this is Picard's second round of adventures, after he lost his hard won position of acclaim after his stint as exemplary captain. And if his flaw is hubris, that he let others down because he "let the perfect be the enemy of the good", then he has to overcome this hubris and realize that doing anything (like Hugh, like Seven) is better than doing nothing.
Also, unrelated, I wanted to see if there's an English article explaining the concept, but no luck there. But I found out that there's a language called Picard. That's all.
“Go back to your country”? No, this is my country. If you don’t like criticism, go watch State Television. Nothing I’ve written about the show or a Chabon suggests I don’t like them both quite a lot. Look at the nuanced point I’m making about his reinterpretation. Physician(s) heal thyself.
In the episode thread, you said Picard acted like an ass, but that he never did in TNG. As I pointed out in that thread, Picard specifically told Riker that part of his job as "Number One" was to make sure he didn't act like an ass. I think that is what we are seeing played out here. There is plenty of evidence in the series of him acting stiff and too by the book, they had whole episodes focused on it, so it makes sense that 15 years living on his vineyard he would revert to those traits.
He did call Riker a Commander, which is wrong, but can be chalked up to force of habit since he served with him on the Enterprise so long.
As for the Ready Room thing, I think she meant in the ready room they could be frank with him, trading ideas and advice, not as in "Our dinner table is an exact callback to all those scenes of everyone sitting around the table".
Agreed.
Yes.
I kind of disagree. But also, you are referring to him in Season 1, while the series was finding itself, not who we've known the character to be for 35 years. And to his dearest friends?
The fact is he did act like that throughout the series, not just season 1, it was just tempered over time. Think of all the jokes Q would make among other things.
As for the 35 years thing, the fact of the matter is we haven't been following him these 35 years. We followed for 7 years, with some glimpses through the movies after. We haven't seen him for 20 years (in universe, I realize Nemesis was only a but over 17 years ago), and it's completely understandable for his personality to have reverted and solidified into what we see in the series today.
I thought the "arrogant" line was a good natured jab from an old friend. Didn't think anything of it. In TNG, Crusher was about the only one who could point out Picard's flaws. Makes sense that Riker and he have progressed in their friendship to that point. And yeah, Picard was arrogant, just not in the way Kirk was.
I am a HUGE fan of the character and have been for a very long time. My read on what's happening here is that the series seems to be showing us a Picard who has had a (rare, for him) defeat, and how that derailed his life. He's trying to get his mojo back, and the Rikers threw some cold water on his face to remind him essentially who he is and should strive to be. It was more powerful than when the Romulan lady said it in the pilot, I thought.
I was nervous before the series started that it would be a total deconstruction, one that tore him down for what would essentially be Picard misery porn. But I feel an underlying optimism to the show or at least the character. It's another dimension to an already pretty 3-dimensional character. I think some people are a little hard on TNG but it was a very bold choice at the time to follow Kirk with a cerebral character and he ended up being one of the most memorable characters in the franchise.
I was nervous before the series started that it would be a total deconstruction, one that tore him down for what would essentially be Picard misery porn. But I feel an underlying optimism to the show or at least the character. It's another dimension to an already pretty 3-dimensional character. I think some people are a little hard on TNG but it was a very bold choice at the time to follow Kirk with a cerebral character and he ended up being one of the most memorable characters in the franchise.
Well, that escalated quickly.
All I'm saying is that if the characterization of Picard is different in this new series from that of TNG, then it was TNG that had a thinly-drawn character and you can hardly blame the writers of this show for not wanting to stick to that formula. They are asking you to reevaluate your view on who Picard really is and giving you reasons each week to do so. You can choose to go along for the ride or not, but complaining because he's not the way Picard used to be on TNG is pointless.
I don't see the writers being disingenuous in their "reframing," as you put it, of the dynamics of the TNG, because TNG was so two-dimensional most of the time to begin with.
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And it isn't just the writers. Stewart didn't want to come back to rehash TNG points and character development. I don't see Picard has fundamentally different that TNG. I think he experienced a lot of pain and trauma and decided to withdraw to protect himself. That's a very human reaction, to my mind.
That “thinly-drawn” character is who people fell in love with. I don’t think he was thinly drawn at all but that his decency and compassion are the very character traits that define him. As stated in the episode. “Over-drawing” drawing a character turns him into a caricature. Caricatures are easy for dramatists, but that’s not who Picard is.
I don't think Picard is overdrawn either.
Thinly drawn relative to today, of course. Obviously the late 80s and early 90s were a much different time for entertainment in general. Modern audience expect much more.
I don't think Picard's decency and compassion have ever been in question, nor do I think that small realizations of "hey maybe he wasn't this perfect human being either" detract in any way from his basic goodness, nor do they make him a "caricature." If anything, it's making the character less prone to caricature than he was before.
I don't think he's a radically different person either, we are simply being invited to see him on a deeper level than TNG allowed for, aside from a few brief moments.
I don't think Picard's decency and compassion have ever been in question, nor do I think that small realizations of "hey maybe he wasn't this perfect human being either" detract in any way from his basic goodness, nor do they make him a "caricature." If anything, it's making the character less prone to caricature than he was before.
I don't think he's a radically different person either, we are simply being invited to see him on a deeper level than TNG allowed for, aside from a few brief moments.
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That character trait. Frazier Crane was pompous too, but in a lovable way. If Picard has a patrician way about him, okay, but he isn’t outright rude to people.
Does that mean he could never be rude? I'm a lot more short tempered at times as I get older, especially when feeling depressed.
Worf might disagree.
"If you were any other man I would kill you where you stand."Worf might disagree.
I'm sure that was just Worf joking around with his old buddy, Jean-Luc.
I never saw any of the TOS characters as "larger than life". They were pretty grounded.That changed a bit with the films.
