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Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 1x04 - "Absolute Candor"

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I'm curious how do you feel about the Mandalorian? Do you watch it? Because it's season was about the same length, but also had a lot of filler episodes, moreso than this I feel. The 4th episode in of Mando had a Seven Samurai remake. This episode of Picard, also the 4th, felt better than that.

Honestly they're blurring the lines, I spent half the episode wondering if Soji was Control.

PIcard will actually end up with a running time about double the Mandalorian, and a good chunk of the Mandalorian was extended establishing shots, so the overall plot will likely turn out to be about 3x the actual content.
 
I'm getting very bored with this show. My free trial of CBS expires tomorrow and I don't think I'm going to bother with "picard" until it finishes its run and then get another free week to watch at all once. I just don't care to keep up with it anymore.

The story is SO low stakes and so poorly paced. The entire point of this episode was, "And then a NEW member joins the gang" with absolutely zero narrative momentum.

Yes, yes, plenty of more backstory of marginal quality.

And one of the show's biggest issues is just how small in scope and stakes the actual story is. Picard returns to the Romulan colony years after a catastrophic event and the major fallout from his inability to help.

"So, Picard, why have you returned? What is this new mission?" Well, um, it's no longer about saving nearly a billion people....it's just one random android that may or may not already be dead.

It's so unbalanced from the show's own history. It's not that that story couldn't work. But it's majorly hampered by the fact that the show puts so much focus on the events of its own past which are staggeringly more important.

It's almost as if the point of the story is that it is important to Picard and is the story of Picard and not a macro story of the entire Federation
 
Dunno. Looks like the Federation's fallen by then. Maybe this is what kicks it off?

AFAIK, whatever has happened to the Federation in DSC's future will have nothing to do with anything in PIC.

Makes sense, really. The Federation can't fall now, because we know it has to last until Daniels' time which is still centuries away.
 
I'm getting very bored with this show. My free trial of CBS expires tomorrow and I don't think I'm going to bother with "picard" until it finishes its run and then get another free week to watch at all once. I just don't care to keep up with it anymore.

The story is SO low stakes and so poorly paced. The entire point of this episode was, "And then a NEW member joins the gang" with absolutely zero narrative momentum.

Yes, yes, plenty of more backstory of marginal quality.

And one of the show's biggest issues is just how small in scope and stakes the actual story is. Picard returns to the Romulan colony years after a catastrophic event and the major fallout from his inability to help.

"So, Picard, why have you returned? What is this new mission?" Well, um, it's no longer about saving nearly a billion people....it's just one random android that may or may not already be dead.

It's so unbalanced from the show's own history. It's not that that story couldn't work. But it's majorly hampered by the fact that the show puts so much focus on the events of its own past which are staggeringly more important.

I do see where you're coming from. I hope you find some entertainment value from the series.

My own take on Picard is how it's simply the story of how one old man has coped with unfathomable, personal loss. Live long enough, and it'll happen to all of us. Family, friends, career, status, hopes, ambitions, dreams, all gone. And the new connections you make along the way don't necessarily fill that void. Picard's inviolable safety net is his own integrity. And we're seeing how that's being assaulted by events beyond his control. The search for Data's offspring is the search for new life, purpose, personal renewal, and resurrection of the dead past.
 
The story is SO low stakes and so poorly paced.

I suspect that we will find out the stakes are higher soon. The reference to Soji being "the destroyer" hints at that. My guess is that Picard will uncover some conspiracy between members of Starfleet and this Tal Shiar sub group that threatens millions or something.
 
The Rizzo/Narek incestuous sexual tension is making me uncomfortable. I really hope the brother/sister references actually mean that they are "[siblings]-at-arms" in the secret anti-synth cabal.
 
I love that it's the "Anti-Discovery." I was really sick of having two straight seasons of Micheal Burnham saves the Federation/Galaxy/Multiverse. Good stakes in fiction are personal stakes.

That said, the Soji stuff is hinting at the possibility of something quite apocalyptic involving the synths.
Yeah I think a lot could change when we find out, especially if the rest of the Alpha and Beta quadrants find out as well.

Or will Picard decide to bury the truth due to the damage it could do.
 
Could it be that revealing the truth behind the Zhat Vashs reason for existence is what causes the Federation to break apart, especially if it involves the Vulcans which at this point is highly likely.
 
Am I the only one who thinks The Relationship between Rizzo and Narek is very GOT Jamie/Cersei like?
I seem to be in a minority based on the previous comments, but I don't really see it. Maybe later seasons Jaime/Cersei if I squint, when he started getting fed up with her. But I'm seeing more of a one-sided, abusive mental game on Rizzo's part; she wants to make him squirm, to feel powerless and uncomfortable so that she could have control over him. Mentioning a cartoon probably won't get me far on a Star Trek forum as far as examples go but she's definitely giving off "Azula playing games with Zuko" vibes here for me.
 
And one of the show's biggest issues is just how small in scope and stakes the actual story is.
A widely beloved character trying to get a final chance to make up for past mistakes, with the limited time and resources available? It may or may not be a threat to all life in the universe he's facing, but the premise and the execution of the story so far are very engaging, IMO.
 
Last scene of Picard, taking up Elnor's sword after he was killed and walking into the Federation Council alone with the sword.

And I... will make you PAY for what you've done!

Roll credits

Disco season 3 shows Federation in ruins.

We did get a rather chilling line foreshadowing that possibility in this episode regarding the Great Jean Luc Picard:

"You couldn't save everyone, so you saved no one."
 
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