Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 2x04 - "Watcher"

[AntonyF]

You're upset that we've almost reached the actual year featured in the DS9 episode Past Tense about homelessness, there's an actual massive homelessness problem going on in the very city the writers work in, with associated mistreatment of the homeless by law enforcement, and the writers decided to do some social commentary on it?

It's not social commentary, that's my point. It's blunt force trauma.

If you're predicting what the writers do before they do it, it's not good writing.

And the problem with that is...?
And that is somehow different from what past Trek series have done because...?

Again, as I said and you chose to ignore, the writers were good with allegories. That was how Star Trek did it well. Now it's just blunt. And it's very Americanly blunt. Sure the writers are American predominantly I guess. But someone said to me "What is this ICE stuff they keep on about they seem obsessed?" The whole thing is predicated on an American world view, and it's not even done in a way that wider audiences an appreciate easily.

Seven has the collected knowledge of thousands of species, some of which I'm sure drove cars. She was friends with a guy (Tom Paris) who was a vintage car nut and had holodeck programs on fixing cars and movies about cars. She is friends with Picard who is a dune buggy enthusiast. She has photographic memory and rapid learning capability thanks to her Borg implants and could have looked up how to drive a 21st century vehicle and assimilated the information in seconds.

Sure....

 

[BillJ]

And it's very Americanly blunt. Sure the writers are American predominantly I guess. But someone said to me "What is this ICE stuff they keep on about they seem obsessed?" The whole thing is predicated on an American world view, and it's not even done in a way that wider audiences an appreciate easily.

Isn't that always a danger when watching a show from a different culture? When I watch Space Battleship Yamato, I don't want it Americanized, I want to watch something that shows how a different culture operates.

I'd have to go back and rewatch, but it seemed the show explained what ICE was across the episode. The guy at the police station even reads out the abbreviation, IIRC.

 

[cooleddie74]

Fawlty Towers is hilarious in its original British format. The attempts to Americanize the series sucked.

I love John Larroquette. But casting him in an American Fawlty remake was just abysmal decision making.

 

[Jayson1]

You haven't seen Shakespeare until you have seen it in it's original Klingon. Humans took out half of the violence.

 

[Noname Given]

The Star Trek franchise already crossed that bridge when they decided to canonize the events of Star Trek First Contact (specifically the debris of the destroyed Borg Sphere impacting in the Antarctic), in ENT S2 - "Regeneration". Given the events in that ENT episode, you'd have to assume that in the 'temporally updated' version of TNG S2 "Q-Who" (which we the audience never saw), Data DID find Starfleet records that had pictures of, and info on a cybernetic species...etc.

I thought of a better example that already crossed the 'history was re-written' line:

DS9 S5 - "Trials And Tribbilations".

If you're seen the original TOS S2 - "The Trouble With Tribbles" you already know how it all originally went -- but in the 24th century that DS9 (and the rest of Berman Trek) inhabits -- O'Brien and Bashir were personally chewed out by James T. Kirk (and not the original no name ensign in "The Trouble With Tribbles"); and Sisko spoke DIRECTLY to Kirk on the Bridge in a scene that wasn't a part of TTwT and was actually taken from the end of TOS S2 - "Mirror, Mirror" where Kirk is leering at Barbra Luna's Prime counterpart to her Mirror Universe "Captain's Woman" character.

But yeas - in DS9/24th century Berman Trek continuity the different events of "Trials And Tribbleations" happened and effectively overwrote the 'original' events depicted unaltered in TOS S2 - "The Trouble With Tribbles".

 

[Sci]

When I saw the young Guinan and Seven just driving a car 'just like that' I switched off. I can't be bothered as to what absurd excuses they have for not having Whoopi in the scene. I can't be bothered with car chases... this is meant to be Star Trek.

Wait wait wait. "Young Guinan?"

Guinan is nowhere in that scene. Seven steals an LAPD car with Raffi Musiker, a principal cast member who has been on the show since the first season. Raffi is played by Michelle Hurd, a 55-year-old actor who looks like this:

Young Guinan is played by Ito Aghayere, a 33-year-old actor who looks like this:

Did you seriously just whine about how you think PIC's social commentary is "hamfisted, poorly written nonsense" whose writers "just say what they think" and "clearly have an issue" with ICE and made the episode "just a soapbox"...

... and then immediately confuse two entirely different black actors who look nothing like one-another and were very clearly in different locations and addressed by different character names??



Christ, you can't even make this shit up. Your dogwhistle is broken, sir.

It's not social commentary, that's my point. It's blunt force trauma.

It's social commentary. You just don't like its message.

Again, as I said and you chose to ignore, the writers were good with allegories.

Allegories aren't the only form of legitimate social commentary, and also this is the same franchise that had the aliens who were black and white on opposite sides from one-another. You're clearly not actually upset at a lack of subtlety.

That was how Star Trek did it well. Now it's just blunt. And it's very Americanly blunt. Sure the writers are American predominantly I guess. But someone said to me "What is this ICE stuff they keep on about they seem obsessed?"

They explain what ICE is in the episode.

The whole thing is predicated on an American world view,

"Racism is bad" is not a uniquely American worldview, and Europe has plenty of problems with racist immigration agencies.

 

[BillJ]

Guinan is nowhere in that scene. Seven steals an LAPD car with Raffi Musiker, a principal cast member who has been on the show since the first season. Raffi is played by Michelle Hurd, a 55-year-old actor who looks like this:

I thought this too, but Musiker isn't actually driving at any point in the episode. Guinan is driving a vintage Ford Bronco around LA.

 

[Tuskin38]

The Star Trek franchise already crossed that bridge when they decided to canonize the events of Star Trek First Contact (specifically the debris of the destroyed Borg Sphere impacting in the Antarctic), in ENT S2 - "Regeneration". Given the events in that ENT episode, you'd have to assume that in the 'temporally updated' version of TNG S2 "Q-Who" (which we the audience never saw), Data DID find Starfleet records that had pictures of, and info on a cybernetic species...etc.

The events of First Contact were referenced by Voyager first. They called it a grandfather paradox. The Borg trying to prevent First Contact caused it in the first place.

The message the Borg send out at the end of ENT Regeneration is the reason why the Borg are in the Alpha Quadrant in the TNG Season 1 finale.

 

[jackoverfull]

While I don't disagree with the idea that the Confederation is the "proper" timeline and someone interfered, isn't that quite a slap in the face of the optimism that Star Trek is supposedly about? That humanity grew up, settled our differences and reached for the stars.

precisely, which is why I hate the idea. It would go against everything Star Trek is, especially TNG’s and Picard’s optimistic stances on humanity.

 

[jackoverfull]

It's not social commentary, that's my point. It's blunt force trauma.

If you're predicting what the writers do before they do it, it's not good writing.

i can often predict where a show is going way before it gets there, it’s not because of bad writing, it’s just that writing is often formulaic and about expectations. And nothing I’ve seen in this episode’s depiction of ICE seemed in any way ham-fisted or exaggerated. In fact, if anything, it seemed watered down.

 

[ThreeEdgedSword]

Well, but it *would* explain why such a huge amount of aliens (most of them far advanced) take such particular interest in humanity. Think about it: The Vulcans, Q, Guinan, Gary Seven/ Supervisors... They had to prevent the worst from happening! I like this explanation better than human exceptionalsm. But they won't do it.

ETA: My previous post refers to the "Confederate AU being the original timeline" theory.

 

[fireproof78]

Perhaps I'm too little informed to opinione but I take it as a serious of unfortunate events that culminate in something bad happening. That instead of doing like Captain Kirk and not giving in to the worse aspects of our nature with working towards space travel, the more negative and hostile voices became more dominant, possibly in response to a negative event. And with each step, instead of working to find a more cooperative solution, the more violent method was embraced.

 

[Chensams]

I’m admittedly not a fan of time travel in Trek as it’s been done so many times (some excellent, some not so much) but it hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be. I’m hoping it’s wrapped up soon and we return to the “current” time line but I imagine we won’t see that until the final episode of this season.

 

[Sci]

I just watched it, so sorry if what I write is a little bit redundant after 85 pages:

It was filler.

No. It was a transitional episode that elaborated on the thematic concerns of the season and moved important character arcs.

It was better when filler episodes in Trek were one-off stories. That way, we got more interesting plots per season.

Being upset at PIC for being serialized is like being upset at Titanic for not being a murder mystery. It's part of the fundamental premise of the show.

In this episode, there was a LOT of movement, but in the grand scheme of things, the only plot-important parts are the last two scenes (What is Laris? / Why did Q loose his powers?)

Don't be silly. Rios being mistreated by ICE was important; Raffi's and Seven's scenes were important in developing their character arcs and their relationship; Picard seeking out Guinan was important in developing the entire season's thematic concerns; and Agnes's scenes with the Borg Queen were important in advancing their relationship, the mystery of what else Agnes took from the Queen, and the Queen's true agenda.

Young "Guinan" was...something? Why put Whoopie Goldberg in your plot, if you're not going to put Whoopie in your plot?

Maybe she wasn't available. Maybe she didn't want to do it. Maybe COVID restrictions came into play in some manner. Maybe they wanted to dramatize the idea of young Guinan being a very different person. Maybe all of the above.

Doesn't help that THE EXACT SAME THING already happened on TNG, just better.

"Only better?" LOL! "Time's Arrow" was a deeply mediocre episode and "young Guinan-meets-future-Picard" is done way better here than in that episode.

One thing I didn't get:
Why are all the characters so angry/emotionally invested in the social injustices of present day Earth? It's history for them! They should have some witty snide remarks how awful everything is, and how comparatively better they have it in their time.

Rios is pissed off because he's now been personally victimized by the 21st Century U.S.'s racist law enforcement system, and because he has seen it hurt other innocent people (including a woman he is clearly developing feelings for). Raffi is pissed off because she's already been profoundly traumatized by losing Elnor, is frightened of losing Rios, feels trapped by Q's manipulations, and because the LAPD's stonewalling of her attempt to find Rios both made them an impediment to her and strikes her as a betrayal of what law enforcement is supposed to stand for.

These are completely plausible reactions. No one's gotten inappropriately emotionally invested.

They wouldn't be that emtional when they see Gladiatiors dying in the Colloseum for Entertainment in ancient Rome, or seeing the trans-Atlantic slave trade during time-travel, or, heck, any present day war area.

I don't agree at all.

Also -- if someone saw the trans-Atlantic slave trade firsthand and didn't become that emotional in response, I would wonder if they were a goddamn psychopath. We're talking about some of the most viscerally horrifying, personally violent human rights abuses in history, at an industrial scale.

Yes, San Francisco in 2024 isn't the greatest place on Earth. But it's by no means the darkest place of humanity, not even in the year 2024 itself.

Maybe the problem isn't that these Starfleet officers are too angry at the world of 2024. Maybe they're the sane ones and the real problem is that we the audience aren't angry enough at the world of 2024.

I liked the scene in "Django Unchained", where Chhristoph Waltz's character (Dr. Schultz) was "undercover" together with Django to buy Djangos wife from Mr. Candy. And they had to "play an act" undercover. And the reality of the situation hit him so hard that he started blasting, killing Mr. Candy, and blowing their cover.

That was a real good scene of someone being overwhelmed by the reality of the situation to start acting irrationally - in a way that was wrong and illogical for the situation, but very human and understandable to why he couldn't do anthing else.

I just don't think that kind of threshold was met by San Francisco in 2024.

Maybe you (and me, and the rest of the audience) are just too used to seeing that kind of suffering. I think someone who lives in a society that isn't absolutely insane would probably not react the way we do.

Especially for people that should know their history. It'd be way more difficult to witness, say, the Holocaust and doing nothing (see "killing Hitler in the past"). But homelessness, ICE, drug/poverty crisis just doesn't reach that level.

My mom died last August as a direct result of being too impoverished for most of her life to afford preventative care. Poverty absolutely reaches the level of being as upset as Raffi and Rios.

All these characters have visited planets with WAY worse problems during their Starfleet time, active war zones even, and just witnessed the diaspora of the Romulan people.

And none of them are used to seeing that stuff happen on Earth, their homeworld.

As someone NOT living in the US though - this all feels rather hollow and superficial. Why do they care so much more for 21th century US problems than literally any other event/problem of Earth?

1) They're reacting to what they're seeing in front of them.

2) They're not reacting with a level of emotion that's unprofessional.

3) They would probably argue that the problems they see in the U.S. are reflected in most other countries on 2020s Earth.

But just a few moments earlier, they were in a much worse place - a Mirror Universe, where they were commiting public executions and violent murder and suppression of aliens.

Given how often black men in the U.S. are shot to death by cops in the street for no reason, I'm not entirely persuaded that the Confederation of Earth is that much worse than the real-life United States.

And they DIDN'T get emotionally affected! Instead - they acted their professional parts, and tried to to their overall job - fix the timeline.

They're not that much more affected by 2024 Earth than Confederation Earth.

If he episode was better written I feel like they would have addressed these questions.

Addressing the obscure nitpicks of a trivia-obsessed minority of viewers would absolutely not have made the episode better.

Well it is tricky when your dealing with a existing character who is acting out of character

Not acting in accordance with your preconceived notions is not the same thing as acting out of character.

But how does one wear out the same way a human would when you have the kind of lifespan her species does?

It took her 130 years to get to this point. I'd say that's a lot more emotional resiliency than most Humans possess.

The Star Trek franchise already crossed that bridge when they decided to canonize the events of Star Trek First Contact

They canonized the events of Star Trek: First Contact on the day they released Star Trek: First Contact.

 

[fireproof78]

Also -- if someone saw the trans-Atlantic slave trade firsthand and didn't become that emotional in response, I would wonder if they were a goddamn psychopath. We're talking about some of the most viscerally horrifying, personally violent human rights abuses in history, at an industrial scale.

Which is often how heroes of Trek are expected to behave in some places. The lack of emotional investment is one of the hallmarks of early TNG best left behind, but it persists.

While probably not the intent, every time I see "being professional" it smacks more and more of Gary Mitchell than any sort of realistic interaction.

 

[GNDN18]

Picard: Oh, and there's a space for your bar on the ship. It's located on forward part of deck 10.
Guinan (smiles): 10 Forward. I like that,.

That’s some good writing there. I saw the scene play out as I read the lines.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Slave owners, that entire class, did not view black people as human.

Animals without souls.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Re: The Ten Forward thing.

These are a couple of questions to those who have a problem with the address of Guinan's bar being 10 Forward Avenue.

How did you rationalize that name of the Ten Forward recreational facility on the Enterprise-D was a play on words with the 20th century ten-code 10-4 used in Citizen's Band radio and other voice communication? Did that never bother you?

Picard: Oh, and there's a space for your bar on the ship. It's located on forward part of deck 10.
Guinan (smiles): 10 Forward. I like that,.

Works for me.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I'll agree that it's probably a little too fanciful, but I think would be neat to treat Ten Forward like the bar from lit verse, The Captain's Table. Wherever it needed to be, whenever it needed to be and in whatever form was appropriate for the host location. And always with Guinan, at whatever age, behind the bar.

 

[Nerys Myk]

It's not social commentary, that's my point. It's blunt force trauma.

Same thing in Star Trek.
More seriously, "a heavy strike" to head is sometimes needed to get people's attention.