Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 2x04 - "Watcher"

[Sakonna]

This. In the episode, they say Rios is being sent to a Sanctuary District along the border, and maybe by 2024 that's what they'll be called, but right now they're immigration camps, or concentration camps if one such as myself prefers, and they are Sanctuary Districts in every way except the 1990s direct allegory of concrete walls.

It would seem my assumption that ICE is a fictional dystopian extra added to Homeland Security is incorrect, having just googled and seeing it's a thing.

I was wondering why the dialogue reference to Sanctuary Districts bugged me so much this week, and I just realized the reason is that it causes this story to feel more "fictional." Tragically, we have real things today that are as bad and worse than the Sanctuary Districts. Just call them what they really are. Making this actual point is more important than attending to continuity porn nuances.

Last week, I thought putting the Sanctuary District signs in homeless encampments was clever, as I thought it was making the point that our real conditions today are the same as what was dreamed up as a grim, brutal dystopia in the 90's. We did it all in real life, we just didn't give them that name. I thought it was lacerating & truthful commentary, not an attempt to reconcile this into "Past Tense."

 

[Amaris]

I was wondering why the dialogue reference to Sanctuary Districts bugged me so much this week, and I just realized the reason is that it causes this story to feel more "fictional." Tragically, we have real things today that are as bad and worse than the Sanctuary Districts. Just call them what they really are. Making the actual point is more important than attending to continuity porn nuances.

Last week, I thought just putting the Sanctuary District signs in homeless encampments was clever, as I thought it was making the point that our real conditions today are the same as what was dreamed up as a grim, brutal dystopia in the 90's. We did it all in real life, we just didn't give them that name. I thought it was lacerating & truthful commentary, not an attempt to reconcile this into "Past Tense."

Yep, dystopian in everything but name.

 

[daedalus5]

Kirk bloody Thatcher! Loved this episode. I don’t understand why Guinean doesn’t recognise Picard from Times Arrow though.

 

[UssGlenn]

Oh, and another favorite line that I almost forgot:

Rios: "I pledge allegiance to the flag... they make you swear allegiance here?"

Not all empires are faraway nations with unwashed hordes champing at the bit to invade.

I totally get what they were going for with that, but wouldn't Rios have sworn an oath of his own to the Federation and Starfleet when he got his commission?

Not exactly the same thing, but close.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Kirk bloody Thatcher! Loved this episode. I don’t understand why Guinean doesn’t recognise Picard from Times Arrow though.

Ripple effect. If Picard from the Confederation never travelled back to 1897, and it would seem that he didn't, then there would be changes in that era as well.

As the Doctor would say "Wibley wobbly".

 

[Awesome Possum]

I totally get what they were going for with that, but wouldn't Rios have sworn an oath of his own to the Federation and Starfleet when he got his commission?

Not exactly the same thing, but close.

There's a major difference between willingly taking on an oath and forcing everyone to make a loyalty oath in a prison.

 

[ToddCam]

You know what's driving me crazy? They recast Picard for the flashback scenes with his mother. Are we supposed to believe that child is Jean-Luc Picard? Picard is supposed to look like Patrick Stewart!

 

[thribs]

Man, the Star Trek 2020’s is such a depressing place. Thank heaven ours isn’t like that.

 

[cooleddie74]

Tell me about it. See those men's suits?

What a dystopia.

 

[Donald G]

You know what's driving me crazy? They recast Picard for the flashback scenes with his mother. Are we supposed to believe that child is Jean-Luc Picard? Picard is supposed to look like Patrick Stewart!

Canonically, Young Picard is supposed to look like David Tristan Birkin (who originally portrayed his nephew, Rene), but since Birkin is a year younger than my baby brother, at roughly 45, he has significantly aged out of the role.

 

[Vale]

The problem I have with the "they come from a timeline where Time's Arrow can't have happened" approach is that we have to then erase any other time travel than happened with Starfleet characters. (So does the whale probe f-up Earth?) And if Guinan leads to them correcting the timeline, then what happens when they fix it because she will then become a version of her that does know Picard, which means everything would have played out differently in 2024. And what happened to her ability to sense an "incorrect" timeline? None of these things have strict answers and can be handwaved away, but that's why it's tricky and vaguely unsatisfying to approach it this way.

...IMO.

I'd say its half wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey, and half Q doing his "things will change for only some things but not others" thing.

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

Possibility 1. Too busy killing off themselves and all other alien spieces to worry about killing whales. Some survived and probe was satisfied and left.

Possibility 2. Probe got wind of what all was going down on Earth and stayed the hell away. (Lock the doors, we're going past Earth!)

Possibility 3. Different timeline, any number of things could have happened to the probe. Maybe the Borg assimilatrd it.

Possibility 4. The whales took one look at the Confederation, said "Thanks for all the fish!" and left the planet to rendezvous with the probe in the Delta Quadrant, where they also met up with the dinosaurs and Amelia Earhart. Q's mission is to change the timeline back so the Dinowhalehart Confederation doesn't annihilate Earth in 1 unceremonious "KABLOOEY!"

 

[Finn]

I haven't had a chance to post until now and I viewed some posts during the day.

First of all...genius move having the Picards in Britain for centuries after Nazi invasion. It might be contrived, but I don't give a damn plus it's TV. But then it would have to mean either Picard's dad or paternal grandfather was the one who moved back to France, or Jean Luc wouldn't exhibit British accent

The Punk cameo was nice.

I admit the young Guinan appearance was weird. The glided age was a really fucked up time, with shit that we don't have today in the 2020s (especially not in the United States). I think that it's possible they have missed the initial divergence (years or decades) but the one the Borg Queen was talking about was an significant one. And why did she go "OH SHIT" when Picard identified himself. It was weird.

I'm looking forward to next week!

 

[Hythlodeus]

And why did she go "OH SHIT" when Picard identified himself. It was weird.

Probably because of René Picard who is all over the news at the same time

 

[Tuskin38]

And why did she go "OH SHIT" when Picard identified himself.

Because the Watcher she told him to is probably looking over a Picard.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Matalas clearly didn't overlook anything here though. He made a creative choice which differs from the one you would have made.

I think part of the issue is sloppy scripting? Some of the dialogue seems to indicate that the cast only has a few days to stop the change in the timeline. But clearly the change in the timeline already happened, since they're from that future (at least their bodies/ship, if not their minds). Hence it's really that they have three days to undo the change that has "already happened."

This of course makes no sense, because something which happens three days in the future can't have already happened, but it's hard to get away from this shit in time travel stories unless you go with strict causality loops - which makes for shit drama, since the characters have no agency.

In the future all their parents got jiggy, and then they were born, which must have happened, or they wouldn't be there.

Show not tell. The fact she doesn't recognize him shows that the timeline was changed.

That's what Terry meant by 'clearly'. It should be obvious, which it was, at least for me.

They are supposed to have gone back in time to a point were the past was still their past and not an alternate past, other wise when they fix shit, its still an unfixed wrong alternate present.

It's like when you;'re bisecting bowels. You have to track back past the cancer perforations and rot, till the meat is healthy, and then you cut.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Matalas clearly didn't overlook anything here though. He made a creative choice which differs from the one you would have made.

I think part of the issue is sloppy scripting? Some of the dialogue seems to indicate that the cast only has a few days to stop the change in the timeline. But clearly the change in the timeline already happened, since they're from that future (at least their bodies/ship, if not their minds). Hence it's really that they have three days to undo the change that has "already happened."

This of course makes no sense, because something which happens three days in the future can't have already happened, but it's hard to get away from this shit in time travel stories unless you go with strict causality loops - which makes for shit drama, since the characters have no agency.

In the future all their parents got jiggy, and then they were born, which must have happened, or they wouldn't be there.

I think the Watcher may be a new alien, maybe with shapeshifting abilities. So Laris makes herself look human in 2024 to blend and makes herself look Romulan in 2374 for Picard but she is really some other alien.

Gary Seven, and 6 thousand years worth of ancestors were modified, to be better Supervisors.

 

[Finn]

Probably because of René Picard who is all over the news at the same time

Because the Watcher she told him to is probably looking over a Picard.

Meh, not much to support that.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Well, if Guinan has the same extra-temporal sense that she demonstrated in Yesterday's Enterprise, then maybe she simply recognized "Jean-Luc Picard" as a name that she supposed to know. I realize that that's a big "if" and opens up a whole other can of worms about how exactly her temporal senses operate.

 

[Tuskin38]

Guinan implied he would be important to the Watcher.
And the end of the Episode showed Q trying to influence a Renee Picard (according to the Amazon X-Ray/Cast)

Lea Thompson with Kirk Thatcher
https://twitter.com/LeaKThompson/status/1507137491509211136/photo/1