Wow, so much to unpack here, let's see. I voted 8, subtracting points mainly for my dissatisfaction at how bluntly and rapidly the Romulan infiltration of Starfleet was revealed, but more on that later.
So we're upping the ante with not one, but two f-bombs. I haven't read through the thread but I can already smell the meltdown. I think both of them were justified, they showcased Laris' raw emotionality as well as the Admiral's (in her eyes) righteous outrage. But then again, even Tilly's f-bomb worked for me, so I might not be the person to judge this.
The opening teaser and the last scene gave us a beautiful framing for the episode, once again stating the glaringly obvious fact that the Federation is ridiculously gullible and susceptible to infiltration, despite the ever-growing set of evidence proving this crucial weakness over and over again, from Tyler and Darvin through Romulans serving as high-ranked members of the diplomatic corps to the Dominion War of recent memory. And once again, not only did someone, presumably the new Romulan enemy remotely reprogram a bunch of androids to destroy Utopia Planitia, but after the scene with Oh and Rizzo, it's even possible that the signal was even sent from the Presidio itself! I'm starting to suspect we'll learn in Discovery that the Federation was eventually destroyed from within.
Anyway, at least we have our villains now. Both Oh and Rizzo were overtly antagonistic their whole being, and I was actually disappointed that the series opted to out them as Romulans right away. The moment Oh appeared and started talking, my first thought was "Three hundred quatloos on her being a Romulan." But on the other hand, Rizzo was genuinely creepy and unsettling, and with the revelation that she was Narek's sister, I eventually almost expected her to call him Zuzu at some point from how she seemed to treat him. Their dynamic gave serious Azula v. Zuko vibes to me (I can't help it, I'm a serious
Avatar: The Last Airbender fan). I wonder if this will also extend to Narek's arc as well... will he eventually realize he's on the wrong side and have a change of heart, cutting strings with his own people to save the galaxy? He might be conducting a honey trap, but something tells me he does genuinely like Soji, or at least will end up having his doubts soon.
And poor Picard, he apparently can't escape Irumodic Syndrome after all. Even with that, it was so like him that the first thing after facing his mortality was to jump right into the action and make his remaining time worth something. His determination was palpable, even though it was very sad to see the Admiral's 'how the mighty have fallen' reaction to it. As for characterization, Soji's heart (mainly through her insistence that Borg are people too and her concentrated efforts to make her new colleague feel at ease) was portrayed nicely as well.
Random tidbits:
- Absolutely loved the replicator/microwave combo on Mars, complete with a ping! It reminded me of Leeloo eating chicken.
- Whoever did the reprogramming was very adept at covering their tracks, they even made sure to make the androids destroy their own brains just in case some didn't disintegrate in the bombing.
- I loved Laris' explanation of how machine learning works, even if it reminded me that I have work tomorrow doing basically the same thing.
- Everything about Dahj's apartment, like how it was in a perfectly ordinary 19th century block as well as how the interface of her civilian computer wasn't based on LCARS.
- Did the right monitor in the CNC's office show the Star Charts map? The color scheme and the relative positions of the blobs suggested so.
- Random (probably accidental) shout-out I loved: Oh is played by Tamlyn Tomita, who played the original XO of Babylon 5 in its pilot before opting out. She was originally planned to be the traitor working for Psi Corps through an implanted second personality, and who shot Garibaldi in the back to prevent him from stopping the President's assassination.
for that to be recognized as sarcasm.
