Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 2x04 - "Watcher"

[Hythlodeus]

My exact reaction as well! AND it took me multiple scenes to realize that THIS WAS ACTUALLY SUPPOSED TO BE GUINAN. I thought it was a new character that was fucking with him!



I agree that it should have been Whoopi both times -- or Whoopi and a new character (I'm not willing to give up that Whoopi scene for anything). My interpretation of her line in the premiere was that she could both age and de-age herself. I agree digitally de-aging her for these scenes would have been a mistake, but they already introduced the explanation that makes that unnecessary.


I love the idea that this could have been one of Guinan's kids. They teased us with that a lot back in Berman Trek! They kept saying one of her kids would pop up on DS9, and I was disappointed it never happened. We could have finally gotten that payoff a few decades later!

What do you mean it never happened. It happened a lot

 

[Sakonna]

Or Raffi and Elnor suddenly having this strong relationship that developed off camera?

The most frustrating thing about that plot point is that they just needed one short Raffi/Elnor scene in the premiere to sell it.

What do you mean it never happened. It happened a lot

When?

 

[El Maestro]

I really just want to go on about the Guinan choices in this for awhile, which I think reflects some of the worst creative decision making in this show to date.

There was nothing of the Guinan we know in that performance. Nothing. And how could there be? Whoopi is iconic for a reason. If that was a different character, I would have thought the actress was great. But I feel like she was put in an impossible position, trying to play this character right after we see Whoopi picking it up for the first time in decades. There's no comparing to that.

This is like if we had Brent Spiner playing Data in the "Remembrance" dreams, and then a new 20-something playing Data for the final goodbye to Picard in "Et In Arcadia Ego."

While I did like the episode and like most of streaming Trek (I think this is one of the most interesting and exciting times to be a Trek fan) the issue of characterization is one criticism I think is very valid. It even goes all the way back to the TNG movies. Essentially, long-established characters don't act like themselves, or, are presented as radically different with little or no explanation for the change.

Guinan here is a perfect example. She's seething, spitting, and angry about what she sees humanity doing, especially to non-white people, and that is sort of presented as the reason for her behavior in this episode. Which, ok I guess, but Guinan was also on Earth as a black person in the US in the 19th century and wasn't nearly as angry/ready to leave. That is odd to me.

One of the things I've liked about S2 of PIC over S1 is that the characterization is better, but Guinan was off to me here. I'm fine with the re-casting. But they way she was written seems like whoever wrote it never watched Guinan interact with anyone. I can understand people finding this off-putting.

 

[Jayson1]

I think this criticism is valid to a certain extent but I would offer that the way it is being presented is that the issues the characters encounter are all intertwined into the general badness of the early 21st century in the real world. The environmental problems, xenophobia, rising authoritarianism inequality/economic issues, etc. are all symptoms of the late-capitalist hellscape we live in at the moment. So I don't think it's the writers trying to focus on too many issues at once; it's more that they're pulling a Hulk-in-Avengers "this all seems.....horrible" kind of observation.

It's funny, when Star Trek was first created in the 1960s it was also a very turbulent and uncertain time. But TOS had many more episodes in each season to address and respond to its time a little more deliberately.

I agree that is what they are going for. It's just they didn't do a good job of it, at least in this episode. I think maybe it's hurt by the fact that our heroes are just guests in this timeline and don't actually live and experience our world. Nothing bad happening in our world really effects their lives in an real way.

 

[jackoverfull]

I do want to say I really did like how the reactions of Rios, Raffi, and Seven to 2024 are not all that different from their reactions to the Confederation. They are seeing what is (almost) our present reality as dystopian - something that is completely understandable for anyone who comes from the future of the Federation, as seeing how everything could really be different casts the things we pass by every day (like homeless people encamped on the streets) in an entirely different, more sinister light.

thinking about it, how many people from our times would think that the confederation future is actually a positive one? After all humanity defeated all the horrible aliens and found a solution to pollution on earth, the planet is apparently unified under a democratic government, a woman is the president and racism (within the human race) is likely no longer a thing…Sure, it’s not perfect, but could be way worse!

 

[Anduinel]

I think this criticism is valid to a certain extent but I would offer that the way it is being presented is that the issues the characters encounter are all intertwined into the general badness of the early 21st century in the real world. The environmental problems, xenophobia, rising authoritarianism inequality/economic issues, etc. are all symptoms of the late-capitalist hellscape we live in at the moment. So I don't think it's the writers trying to focus on too many issues at once; it's more that they're pulling a Hulk-in-Avengers "this all seems.....horrible" kind of observation.

It's funny, when Star Trek was first created in the 1960s it was also a very turbulent and uncertain time. But TOS had many more episodes in each season to address and respond to its time a little more deliberately.

That's a good point...in lots of original and 80s/90s Trek, a whole episode might be spent exploring one social issue or moral question, either via allegory or head-on. In modern Trek, it usually feels more like a side dish or a sampler platter than a main course. Not a bad thing per se, but I do miss the episodic storytelling approach sometimes.

 

[eschaton]

I agree that is what they are going for. It's just they didn't do a good job of it, at least in this episode. I think maybe it's hurt by the fact that our heroes are just guests in this timeline and don't actually live and experience our world. Nothing bad happening in our world really effects their lives in an real way.

I think it's also hurt because it's not ideological enough, honestly. It still feels like it's kind of soft peddling - "everything sucks man" - either because the writers themselves don't have radical politics or because Paramount is only willing to let them go to a certain point and no further.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It's Ito Aghayere, not Isis J. Jones, which I find disappointing.

 

[Tuskin38]

I think Guinan’s bar was in a sanctuary district. There was more signage for them on a fence outside the alleyway

I think they made the right choice in recasting Guinan for her younger self. That being said her memory must be awful if she doesn't remember Picard from 1893 or she's had so much happen in the ensuing decades that a bald French man from the future no longer rings a bell.

They never met in this timeline. The future was altered so that Picard never went back in time and met her.

 

[El Maestro]

I think it's also hurt because it's not ideological enough, honestly. It still feels like it's kind of soft peddling - "everything sucks man" - either because the writers themselves don't have radical politics or because Paramount is only willing to let them go to a certain point and no further.

There might be something to this! We're in a weird cultural moment where unless you're on one extreme or the other you'll get criticized for being too centrist.

 

[cooleddie74]

They never met in this timeline. The future was altered so there was no Picard to go back in time and meet her.

Clearly. One keeps thinking the divergence doesn't happen until April 15, 2024 but clearly this whole reality is a skewed history.

 

[DaveyNY]

Something is amiss with the character.

I think she's being influenced without knowing it by the "Supervisors".

 

[cooleddie74]

In my head canon the bus punk behaved that way because he remembered the dude in the white hippie robes and headband knocking him unconscious back in 1986. He wasn't gonna risk that happening again.

 

[Sakonna]

Overall this was the weakest episode of the season for me, by an ENORMOUS margin.

I'm still on board, but I can't deny I'm worried by the trendlines -- a perfect premiere, a nearly-perfect second ep, a solid third ep, and then off a cliff in the fourth.

I haven't seen anyone else make these particular complaints, so maybe it was just me, but I really felt the hand of the writer this week in ways I hadn't the last three. I'm generally good at going with the Trek flow, but things just kept knocking me out of this one. They can transport to the other side of the planet, but they don't have comms. The transporter randomly goes down the minute a rescue is needed, and would take a full day for this super-genius to fix. The Borg Queen is hooked into the ship but also somehow blocked from accessing it. Seven & Raffi show up at the location of Rios's lost combadge, and make no effort to retrieve it before leaving. Seven is able to drive crazily for a ridiculously long time before any other cops appear. The Guinan thing was baffling, and really needed a line addressing why she wouldn't know him.

All episodes have their logical inconsistencies, but recently the plots have been well-crafted enough to carry me right over them. Not so this week.

Obviously, there were pleasures as well. The Seven/Raffi character interactions were delightful, and the dynamic between Jurati and the Borg Queen was also particularly well-played, despite being in a somewhat nonsensical plot context. I am also still having a lot of fun being in the past, and I like that they've paired that with direct commentary on the serious issues we face.

There is a lot that's working, but given the extent to which "serialized plotting" has been the Achilles heel of Streaming Trek (with Disco season 4 being the sole season thus far to do it successfully), I can't deny that my RED ALERT siren is triggered by all these fractures appearing in the plotting this week.

 

[eschaton]

You know, it strikes me, since we know now it's actually four months before Past Tense...they did this on purpose! Because they couldn't set it after Past Tense because Confederation Sisko wasn't the same person, and wouldn't go back in time to replace Gabriel Bell.

We know in the core TL, "Gabriel Bel"l is actually Sisko. The real Gabriel Bell probably never led a riot, he was just some rando who saved Sisko - and would not have changed history. Thus the Bell Riots would already be butterflied away, and Sanctuary Districts would remain in place.

 

[Seven of Five]

It was nice seeing Guinan again, even though it made no sense that Whoopi Goldberg wasn't playing her in this episode. I mean Time's Arrow established Guinan had already been on Earth for a long time, so I couldn't quite buy this new actress.

Seven and Raffi trying to find Rios is so much fun! It's fluff, but fun fluff.

I totally geeked out at the punk on the bus playing the same angry music from TVH! I just hope he has a job, except to annoy regular cast members that are in the past.

Q snapping at the end was omnious.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I think Guinan’s bar was in a sanctuary district. There was more signage for them on a fence outside the alleyway

The bar was closing down.

She can't run a bar inside a sanctuary district.

The Mayor's Office must have just bought the building and evicted Guinin.

It's a transitional period before the barbed wire fences.

 

[El Maestro]

Clearly. One keeps thinking the divergence doesn't happen until April 15, 2024 but clearly this whole reality is a skewed history.

I hate temporal mechanics.

 

[eschaton]

Obviously all episodes have their logical inconsistencies, but recently the plots have been so well-crafted I was carried right over them. Not so this week.

The first two episodes were mostly the work of Goldsman, Matalas, and Chabon. The last two have been written by...nobodies? Nobody I recognize anyway.

Edit: This episode - writer on Superman & Lois, Anne with an E, and 12 Moneys. The latter presumably someone Matalas worked with - he only has story credit.

 

[Jayson1]

That's a good point...in lots of original and 80s/90s Trek, a whole episode might be spent exploring one social issue or moral question, either via allegory or head-on. In modern Trek, it usually feels more like a side dish or a sampler platter than a main course. Not a bad thing per se, but I do miss the episodic storytelling approach sometimes.

It's also about finding new ways to say these things as oppose to just having a twitter rant style of conversation. What was fascinating about "Past Tense" is they created something new in the Sanctuary Districts in which homeless people would be put in them. They made something I think the local mayor or something at the time commented about how it was a good idea and something we should do in real life.

Not only that but you can look the Sanctuary Districts and see why people could actually believe this idea would actually help homeless people, thus why it was likely created. The homeless get shelter and free meals and you assume health care. But then you toss in bureaucracy and indifference because people have their own problems you can also see how such a idea to help would fall apart in the end.