Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 1x03 - "The End is the Beginning"

[Hythlodeus]

Heh ...
They could probably make that into a 5 or 6 episode tale.

they could. but I prefer a 10 part arc that includes this part as well

 

[Alan Roi]

A lot of discussion as to whether she was fired, she quit, was reassigned, or discharged has to do with some poor writing choices and this was just one of them in the episode. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Picard, I actually really liked the first two episodes, but this third episode felt more poorly written to me.

"I never believed Starfleet would give into intolerance and fear" - uhh, have they not watched Deep Space Nine?

Not telling you everything at once about a character and her history isn't bad writing.

 

[BillJ]

In 0x03 when raffi is snapping at picard for living in his fancy house while she lives in her hovel in the desert...

Musiker sure in the Hell didn't look like she was living in a hovel, or was struggling for meals.

It feels to me like the motivation of the writers is to be cynical about the idea of the federation.

Sometimes a little cynicism can be a good thing. Not even the Federation is perfect, and never has been, and people do sometimes succumb to fear.

 

[DaveyNY]

Rafi is a drug addict.

How much of her anger is projection and self-loathing?

Just about all of it.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Yeah it’s the abandonment/hurt that’s really behind it all.

I think that's ultimately what matters no matter the "facts" of the situation.

 

[Alan Roi]

[QUOTE="DarthPipes”]The problem with the Raffi character, along with the fact that the show’s plot is juggling too much and some of it doesn’t make sense, is indicative of what the true problem with this show is. This show is DESPERATELY trying to be edgy, topical TV. At times it seems like it’s just copying Ron Moore’s playbook for Battlestar Galactica. Starfleet and the Federation have become evil and intolerant, check. A character is a drug addict, check. Another character has PTSD, check. Throw in a mystery box in Dahj (which could be interesting but past history suggests it won’t be) and the show wants to loudly declare that they are “daring” television. Just concentrate on being good television and the rest can fall into place.

Edgy is another one of those meaningless terms like Grimdark.

 

[Tombfyre]

Rafi is a drug addict.

How much of her anger is projection and self-loathing?

Oh i'm sure much of it is, but then getting her to that point needs to still make sense. It means believing that the federation had fallen so much by that point where they denied helping the romulans that it would create that situation where the character turned to those vices to cope with the failure. I have a hard time believing it went that far.

 

[Racefuel]

Ol' Bernd is being hard to please, reliably, again.

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/episodes/pic1.htm#theendisthebeginning

But overall, this all is a far cry from Roddenberry's idea of a humanity that has undergone a development. The late 24th century of Picard is a mere mirror of our time, and not any longer a vision of the future.

Yet he gave "In the Pale Moonlight" an 8 without mentioning the failings of humanity or how we're not evolved or a vision of the future.

 

[Danja]

I think that’s overstating the distance Starfleet has fallen. Aside from the one traitor, none of them seem evil, and only intolerant specifically toward people from nations they have been enemies with for a long time. That’s not the perfect idealist Starfleet of TNG’s era but it’s not evil.

I agree it wasn’t well explained why Rafi was drummed out of Starfleet instead of just getting reassigned.

She might've been reassigned (and consigned to Starfleet Siberia).

Hence, her resignation.

 

[Crewman6]

Rafi is a drug addict.

How much of her anger is projection and self-loathing?

She's not a drug addict until the show tells us she's a drug addict. Actor interviews don't count.

 

[Alan Roi]

After this episode... I'm really having a problem with using this new federation\starfleet image as a natural progression of the federation\starfleet we last saw in DS9\voyager. In 0x03 when raffi is snapping at picard for living in his fancy house while she lives in her hovel in the desert... it kind of throws into question everything I know about the state of living in the federation. Adding to the fact that they are producing humanoid androids and storing them in boxes for labour, choosing to not help the romulans makes no sense either.

It feels to me like the motivation of the writers is to be cynical about the idea of the federation. Trying to put current day values and government structures into one that was not intended to be that. Just so they can have the protagonist(s) struggle against them. I feel like that is backwards to what star trek was intended to be... which to me was writing stories that show how the more positive outlook of our future deals with situations we struggle with today or might struggle with.

The real story shouldn't be this synth story... but it should have been about how the people of the federation deal with a collapsing empire after a critical natural disaster.

I see it as a natural progression from DS9. A number Federation leaders and numerous higherups in Star Fleet were quite willing to abandon their principals to defeat the Dominion. And its those people who were most likely to be the ones in charge in the aftermath.

 

[Danja]

She's not a drug addict until the show tells us she's a drug addict. Actor interviews don't count.

She smokes snakeweed (the 24th Century equivalent of pot).

 

[Crewman6]

Most of the ideas for improving this part of the backstory for Raffi and Picard would involve giving Raffi even less of a reason for hating Picard. There in lies the problem. The braintrust of Picard producers apparently decided that Raffi needs to be furious with Picard, and this what they came up with. It falls dead flat. It makes no sense that she would be "fired", or to blame Picard for it or anything that happened to her in the years after that. It is just important that she be mad at him, for whatever reason, and so this is what they decided to do to establish that. It was yet another storytelling Fart.

Well, I disagree. There are plenty of ways you could have made it so Raffi had a beef with Picard that made more sense that what we got.

The writers instincts are correct - you want the characters to have organic conflicts with each other, not just be buddy-buddy all the time, like TNG.

Gene's "rules" about no-drama were pretty awful and restrictive and resulted in characters like Riker, who is just...a chummy and likable guy who practically worships Picard. In later seasons, he had virtually no purpose on the show at all. He was just...there.

That didn't work in the early 90s and it sure as shit wouldn't fly today. Having Picard with reluctant allies and interpersonal conflict is the absolute right way to go. But they could have done better to make Raffi's bitterness toward Picard make a little more sense than "I was fired because I was your friend" and Picard inexplicably cutting her off for 15 years, which is just terrible behavior that's inconsistent with what we know of JLP.

 

[Crewman6]

She smokes snakeweed (the 24th Century equivalent of pot).

Everyone who smokes pot is an addict? Nancy Reagan, is that you?

 

[Greg Cox]

Hugh was subtle, too subtle maybe in that if I didn't know ahead of time he was coming his namedrop by Soji might have been missed entirely by me and I wouldn't really know who this character was.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. The best Easter eggs are treats for long-time fans, but don't require newcomers to pick up on the references to enjoy the new show. I'm not sure it's necessary to recognize Hugh to get what part he plays in PICARD so far: "Oh, there's a former Borg running the reclamation project. That kinda makes sense."

Granted, his past may become more relevant if and when he and Picard come face to face.

 

[Danja]

Everyone who smokes pot is an addict? Nancy Reagan, is that you?

It's only been one episode.

 

[Alan Roi]

She's not a drug addict until the show tells us she's a drug addict. Actor interviews don't count.

Everyone who smokes pot is an addict? Nancy Reagan, is that you?

We'll likely get a demonstration of the extent of her substance abuse in future episodes, but her behavior so far does suggest that she is a substance abuser.

 

[Tombfyre]

Ol' Bernd is being hard to please, reliably, again.

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/episodes/pic1.htm#theendisthebeginning




Yet he gave "In the Pale Moonlight" an 8 without mentioning the failings of humanity or how we're not evolved or a vision of the future.

But wouldn't in the pale moonlight was more about sisko making the compromise. The underlying methods of federation in that situation would have resulted in failure to bring the romulans on side. So sisko compromising his values makes it a far more powerful story... imho

 

[Lord Garth]

It doesn't say explicitly that at all. It instead, IMO, implies that Picard provided her purpose and protection. When he resigned her behavior suggests that, and her reaction and rants during his visit to her, plus her providing of help and showing up on the ship tells us that as well.

Rafi is a drug addict.

How much of her anger is projection and self-loathing?

Because of her drug history, I think she's a somewhat unreliable narrator. Only somewhat. She's telling the truth as she sees it, but it's filtered through a lens. She was probably very good at what she does and that's probably also what kept her going.

Going into the weeds (no pun intended), he might've seen Musiker as being like Ro. Maybe he thought he could help Musiker succeed in Starfleet in a way that he couldn't with Ro.

 

[BillJ]

There are plenty of ways you could have made it so Raffi had a beef with Picard that made more sense that what we got.

I thought her beef made perfect sense. Picard resigned and ran away from life, including her, probably when she needed support the most. And I always thought good writing and acting and directing was from being able to communicate to the audience what is going on without spelling it all out.