1.07 "Nepenthe"
out of 5
And it's my first five out of five moons! That's not to say it's perfection, but it was very good and the best so far for me. I don't recall having such a positive feeling the first time around so definitely the context is different for me this time.
I felt overall this episode walked deftly and it was warm without being maudlin.
Firstly, Riker and Troi! Of course it'd be those two, it's always those two. Frakes I've always thought is just one of the most consistent Star Trek actors in his delivery and just making Riker feel very real. Troi was also good to see again, even if her face had clearly been to a few Federation clinics.
The introduction of their daughter was well done and I could see her being their offspring. I particularly enjoyed how she did the exposition dump on Data. Told through a child hearing stories at the dinner table of the days with Data (and Picard) just seemed very believable. And hearing second hand those impressions makes it carry more weight and not sound like exposition.
Riker kind of echoed what I said previously. "You get to make the decisions about who gets to take the chances and who doesn't, and who's in the loop, and who's out of the loop, and naturally, it always ends up with you. That's fine, on the bridge of your starship, Captain, but now you're dealing with a teenager, more or less." I said about how Picard is a leader, but without that support structure you start to see the flaws.
The shoehorning of Riker and Troi's son's death into some android narrative felt a step too far in trying to tie the story strands together. Not everything has to be interconnected.
It was touching seeing Elnor look after Hugh... even if the end result was sadly not successful. I don't feel Hugh's death made a huge amount of sense or feel very necessary other than I feel the writers felt they'd used him and his story was done. How it's dealt with by Picard will be telling, as right now his death feels detached from the person who would care most.
Rizzo is still Rizzo. She was hysterical that so much work had been lost by Soji going but that doesn't really ring true. They have the info they want, surely one rogue synth is not going to be of massive consequence? Similarly for years of work they went their entry into Dahj's life sure lacked any subtlety that the situation seemed to warrant. I continue to feel she is overall very poorly executed as a character. Her "I'm not going to kill you because of a treaty" rings entirely not true to the character she's meant to be portraying. Also, has no one noticed she's not in Starfleet right now?
There were some nice humour moments. Picard saying to aim for his head as his heart is duritanium. That's a nod to the past and funny without beating you over the head with continuity. Equally I just found Rios going "is that blood?" and Raffi going "red velvet" a nicer touch than her drinking herself to death and proof I can do humour in Star Trek, it just need to be less on the nose than Picard in an eyepatch.
Her quote "But I'm more like the wreckage of a good person. In an emergency, you can slap together a temporary good person out of the pieces" was sad, but quite well written. A line I also identify with, so perhaps some of the time I don't like Raffi because perhaps it just feels a bit to familiar.
It's now also becoming more apparent with Jurati did what she did - and the parallels between Soji and her both effectively manipulated from what was put into their mind is interesting. One by technology, one organically.
Overall a well executed episode, warm moments everywhere, and aside form the death of Hugh which felt a bit unnecessary there's little to find fault with. You can also see this setting the scene for the season three reunion that Stewart said he didn't want, as the genuine affection between the TNG cast is apparent.
out of 5
