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Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 2x06 - "Two of One"

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So, Pat Benatar is now canon. Which, really, is all I got out of this one. And I'm happy with that.

This episode overall, though, was kind of a snore. Nothing happened (good or bad) and I gate the "start with tension moment" then "x-period of times later." That's compounded when it does it after every. Damn. Commercial. Break.

Dud rhat element add anything? Why not show us events occurring chronologically? And, apparently, tnis biomechanical android is so similar to people a 21st century doctor can work in it? But, oh, can't use a defibrillator. Huh?!

I like the stuff between Picard and this ancestor but it seems like that thread is in bed now, like the ICE/immigration narrative, and we're moving on to the stuff between Picard and this mom (the man is almost 100 years old, hasn't he worked this out by now?) and Q/Soong?

Ugh, this season seems to be drifting in the wind. I'm not checked out yet frim being disgusted and passed off like I was with S1 at this point, thus was just kind if a tepid episode.
 
  • Tallinn indicates despite all her powers she's more or less sat around doing nothing at all but observing 1 person for 24 years
As I wrote in my review, this episode reconfirmed to me that she really isn't cut from the same cloth as Gary Seven. Gary arrives on Earth to find that his two agents were killed in a car crash. So, he immediately sets out to complete their mission, which involved infiltrating a military base and sabotaging a rocket! He was not paralyzed by the fear of an inadvertent timeline change.

Meanwhile Talinn just watched and didn't realize that Q was undermining history without even using his powers. Further, when faced with this knowledge, Picard had to push her multiple times over several episodes to act!

I was thinking she was a pointless character, but I'm guessing that her plot rationale for existing is in the upcoming episode where she goes into Picard's head and presumably fixes whatever is going on.
 
I agree actually. I find it refreshing - given how self-important Discovery is (and Season 1 was) that this season seems willing to embrace that it's middlebrow schlock sometimes.

I'm always entertained in the moment, which I suppose is what's important here.
I'd agree. While it would be nice to be of high quality and entertaining, if you have to pick one or the other, I'd say go with entertaining. After all, if it's not entertaining, you're just not having fun.
 
This must just be all too high concept sci-if that I can’t get my head around. :shrug:

Or maybe it is dumbed down high concept sci-if and we needed the high concept version?:shrug:

No worries man, like I’ve said I got bored with this episode and watched it in parts, so the idea that this was the Queen getting inside Alice’s head and making her do things, like someone else explained earlier, it escaped me.

I don’t consume a lot of sci fi, I don’t watch everything or read the novels or know what’s canon or what isn’t. I just watch the series as they come on. I think it’s great that some of you can make all sorts of references back to earlier series and episodes, I really do, but I know none of that. I have no idea who Gary Seven is.

I like Star Trek but I get annoyed at some of the corny bits, like the singing and dancing and dressing up on the holodeck of TNG, or the mirror universe, which I know a lot of people like but I just think is corny “ooh wouldn’t it be fun if there was an evil version of the characters, and they could fight each other” - to me that just says they’ve run out of ideas.

So Alice singing on the balcony just seemed like more of that, in an episode where there was a lot of shots of the band etc which just seemed like filler. It just took too long to get to the bit they told us about 10 times, Picard is injured. And the writing is just very average at times - Renee tells Jean Luc she wants to be alone, he says one thing, suddenly she’s all warm and friendly towards him. To me, poor and corny writing.

But just my opinion, each to their own
 
:cold open:
Okay.. What's going on?

"34 minutes earlier."

Oh, so it's one of these.

Okay, this is going to get old.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of that approach either. Takes me out of the story somewhat whenever it's used.

But shows (and fiction in general) use it when they feel that there isn't a hook to keep the viewer involved that occurs early on naturally. So, it's a technique for introducing that hook earlier than it would normally. And you can see why they'd use it in this episode. Without it, you'd just have people maneuvering around at a party for a while. (Although, I did enjoy those character moments!)
 
I saw Henry Starling on a brand new Mr Mayor the other night.

332 acting credits on IMDB?

Has Ed Bagley Junior ever said never "no" to a gig?
 
7/10

Pretty standard filler episode. The Queen and Jurati stuff was good as usual. The flash back time jumping from 34 minutes to the present was annoying. But I always find that annoying in shows. Agnes can sing! The Picard synth body is a conundrum all unto itself. Is he a man? Kinda sorta. Should he be with the time jump? Not really. Why doesn't Seven have her implants then? The star of the evening, Renee Picard, is a hot mess and probably shouldn't be in the astronaut program. No way her handlers let her go off by herself if she is so important. Another contrivance was Adam Soong knowing that her and Jean Luc would be exiting a particular door and conveniently it's just the two of them? He then runs them down in a car and escapes scott free with all of the video surveillance and security at the party now not working.

Average episode score deserved. Not terrible, not particularly note worthy.
 
Well, one would hope people watch something and enjoy it rather than watch something to just shit on it. But, perhaps being a fan means being miserable all the time...:shrug:

Not liking an episode and saying so in a place that specifically asks for opinions and scores between 1 and 10 != “being miserable all the time.”

I’m still a fan so I’ll keep watching all iterations of the franchise. I’m not seeking your understanding.

Yep. Same.

But I have to admit I’m struggling to sit through Prodigy.
 
I’m not liking the storytelling this season. So much of the logic seems so arbitrary. Triggering endorphins is what BQ needs to control Agnes, and this is pulled out of nowhere.

Most sci-fi will have a couple of these contrivances in an episode which they will justify by establishing it before it’s important. Now they’re doing five times as many of them without the priming. It’s just plain sloppy writing. Then they arbitrarily take away Q’s powers.

And now Picard has fallen into the life stream and needs a magic journey through his brain to get him out of his emotion coma. How can we get Tifa at this time of night?

I don’t mind the ‘34 minutes earlier’ trope but it didn’t add anything in this case. But I’m outright groaning that they’re doing the “Emotion coma that requires a metaphorical journey through his brain to resolve his issues” trope.

I do like what they’re doing with the Eugenics storyline.
 
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Funny! Oh lordy, if that were the case my already lowered expectations would completely nose dive.

You are joking, right? Why would you joke about that?

You're not joking are you?

'Fraid not...

https://twitter.com/TerryMatalas/status/1511765640197017601?s=20&t=1M7vSh7_irVyjR_ZQEulOQ

Q: How did [Terry Matalas] and the team pull off writing these two seasons back to back? Did they know about TNG reunion coming in S3 as they wrote S2?

A: It was tricky! I had to split off about midway through Season 2. My partner, Akiva, brilliantly captained the rest of it while I dug into Season 3. I was very lucky to have such incredible support from, Alex, Akiva and the rest of the Picard team.
 
According to IMDb terry wrote 2.10 so he was still involved in the latter half of season 2, but maybe not the day to day activities of showrunner. This is actually a good thing I think. It means they were coming up with the plot for season 3 while season 2 was being written / filmed. Probably why they were ready to go with season 3 filming the day after season 2 finished
 
The assumption is that Romulans can't do telepathy or make it to 300 birthdays, because they don't do Logic or ponn far.

Telepathy comes from logic.

Longevity comes from prolonged abstinence.

If they stretched Ponn Far out to 21 years, its possible that some Vulcans might live for a thousand years.
Except we know that Vulcans were psionic before they embraced logic
. They had psi weapons that they abandoned after they started following Surak because they did not work against Vulcans who had embraced logic.
 
Except we know that Vulcans were psionic before they embraced logic
. They had psi weapons that they abandoned after they started following Surak because they did not work against Vulcans who had embraced logic.

Well it's a short cut to becoming a master mentalist.

Years of training, or wear a magic hat.

PS

Romulans are the original species on Vulcan. Vulcans came thousands of years later, when Romulans started embracing Logic, thereby transforming into Vulcans. I say thousands, because Vulcan is not the planet of origin for these specieses.
 
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There's also the fact that someone who's just a random old guy to her can give her a motivational speech to snap her out of everything is a bit credulity-stretching as anyone who's suffered from depression knows it doesn't work like that.
Don't forget Picard hasn't cured her depression he has just conned her into getting on the shuttle by making her fell better for the little bit it takes to go into quarantine.
 
I’m apprehensive at the thought of Tallin/Laris-lookalikie going into Picard’s mind to heal his psychological issues. They used this trope to death in 90’s Trek (going into a character’s mind) and I’ve always found it rather cheap storytelling. I still didnt entirely forgive DS9 for grinding the final run of episodes to a halt for the dreadful Sloan episode (“Extreme Measures”). I’ll reserve judgement, but my enthusiasm for the next episode is dampened.
 
If only enjoy this pablum if I cut off my air supply for about 3 minutes. How anyone can stand up for this complete and utter nonsense, I know most have been dumbed down but cmon this stuff is terrible
If you are going to talk about things being dumbed down, it would help if your sentence structures were correct (to support the pedestal you clearly are standing on) and when referencing BSG earlier you could also have tried to get the character correct.

You can love or hate the show as much as you want, and that is your right to - I'm not going to bore you to death trying to change your mind; if you are, however, going to shit on something it would probably get a better reaction and bring more people to your side if you were constructive in your criticisms and fleshed them out somewhat.
 
*Sigh* Is next week really going to be a trip into the main character's memories to resolve a trauma? This trope has been done to death, especially in Star Trek.

To be fair, it's amazing how infrequent this is, considering all the trauma those characters have gone through....holodeck accidents, transporter accidents, weird diseases, possessions, all that.
 
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