Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 3x08 - "Surrender"

[Ronin'sCreamyCandle]

Watched this episode again and I gotta say that the scene in the ready room made me affronted for Captain Shaw. He's been totally sidelined, shown as weak and ineffective. But it's his ship. They don't even try to loop him in? I know, I know, a lot of y'all are watching for the reunions but I'm kind of disappointed by the story itself. Like it's too big and very narrow at the same time. I suppose these last two episodes will be the payoff. Hope there actually is a payoff.

Don't worry about Shaw.

 

[NCC-73515]

I suddenly want bunnicorn pizza.

I eat pizza every Wednesday because of PIC S1

I thought Kestra might be in the safekeeping of that freighter captain guy...what was his name?

Rupert Crandall or something like that

 

[NCC-73515]

I think some of these posts with are suggestive enough to be spoilers for the next 2 episodes

 

[Kzinti]

great episode and rip vadic you were a weak henchwoman/goop decent ship though

 

[Phoenix219]

just finished the episode for the first time, and before i delve into 75 pages of commentary, i just wanted to say... for how much fanwank and TOS movie call back there has been so far..... when Geordi asked Data how he feels... i was sitting there going "say i feel fine! say i feel fine, dammit!" and he didn't. The fanboy in me was quite disappointed at the missed opportunity.

The moment Datalore/Questor/whoever he is now started taunting over the intercom was freakin amazing. The entire retaking the ship sequence was fantastic. Not disappointed

 

[Phoenix219]

Didn't Beverly and her ancestors have green eyes when possessed? I think even the corpse got green eyes when it was briefly taken. Perhaps these lifeforms have different colors, and Jack is possessed by a red one (or perhaps males are green and females are red)

Gary Mitchell and Elizabeth Dehner both had silver eyes when they became super psi. So far Jack is mainly showing psychic abilities — telepathy, precognition, the ability to take control of another person’s body for a brief period — and is having a very hard time controlling it. There might be more cause for concern if he were evil or selfish but he seems to be using his powers for good thus far. It could be that he’s been possessed by some pah wraith or some other energy being and this creature is the source of the abilities, not Jack, or that it came from his parents. Maybe Charles Xavier is one of his ancestors.

I can't believe I've never noticed it before, but reading this.... early TOS, psychic powers, Gary Mitchell, next associated TOS tidbit? Charlie X? CHARLES XAVIER?? Professor X LITERALLY is Charlie X......

 

[Phoenix219]

Exactly. You know, we're getting across 10 Episodes (and in quantity especially the last 5), what Star Wars fans screamed for. They wanted Luke, Han and Leia together for one final adventure. They never got it. They were robbed by all the dysfunction Star Wars was going through (we coulda told them JJ Abrams sucked at everything). But we are getting it, in spades, with an iconic crew in their 60s, 70s and 80s, 20 years later, with a plot point from DS9 and a character from Voyager and some other new characters that are great, put together by a bunch of 90s Trek vets.

Seriously, how did this EVEN happen? It's crazy. But however it ends, we just have to keep in mind all the improbable things that had to happen to make this come together and enjoy it. Because as Picard said at the end of Generations:

"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe than time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important how we lived. After all, Number One, we're only mortal."

And boy, wouldn't that be one final trick for this season. To rehabilitate Generations.

I have two episodes left to go. We are almost there.

I grew up watching TNG, but was a TOS fan first, concurrently and foremost. Generations soured me, in so many ways, on the entirety of TNG, that I can truly say it is the one show, and set of movies, that I do NOT revisit. I tried but did not complete Picard S1 or S2, either.

Picard S3 is the best Trek I have seen outside of fanfilms, Lower Decks, and SNW, in 20 years. (I don't dislike Discovery, but its more of an idle curiosity than something I look forward to.) I am forcing myself to space it out and watch one a week. I am liking all of these characters so much more now, than I have since I was a kid. Picard is so much less stuffy. Riker is sooo incredibly likeable. Worf is badass. Data had me smiling and laughing like you wouldn't believe. I haven't felt this way about TNG-anything since the way they disrespected Kirk and TOS. (even how they treated Scotty. DS9 got it right. TNG has been my personal boycott.) And they even referenced that, with Kirk's body, the Genesis Device, and Project Phoenix. The Khan-style mustache twirling villain, the ressurection of a beloved character, Riker needing his pain, the Bird of Prey, having to rush to stop political chaos and death and a Federation Event.... this is such a Trek Movie Love Letter and I couldn't be happier with ALL of it.

 

[Phoenix219]

Oops. Honestly, that book was on a super-tight deadline. "Editing" mostly meant playing traffic director: acquiring the rights, doing the deal, making sure everything stayed on track, got approved by the studio in a timely manner, the contracts got signed before we went to press, the author got paid in a timely fashion, etc. As I recall, there was little actual line-editing involved.

I just checked the original script, and it definitely says Lewis and Clark, which is much more fitting for an exploratory spacecraft. It does not appear to be "Lois and Clark."

 

[Qonundrum]

Probably the best episode yet, which nimbly closes some doors, opens others, and makes acknowledgements with some very clever and tactful dialogue.

As usual, everyone gets something awesome, and feels natural of their characters.

The "BS" moment from Raffi was a good moment - the profanity when kept minimal and in context just sweetens the pot and doesn't feel overloaded (though to compare, I found that Khan and Chang, who didn't do that once despite getting angry, still felt most menacing, though - pardon the tangent's digression - Vadic is still more top tier than the other movie villains.

Data's "pissed off" line as self-proclaimed Purser had me rolling.

Crusher telling Data how he's timeless regardless of his appearance came out of nowhere and neither had the warm grin on my face.

The metaphor of Data's mind with his mental battle with Lore - I dunno, it just works. What we see on screen within Data's mind seems like a minute or two, but to LaForge and crew in the real universe outside Data's mind, it'd be longer - suggesting a longer struggle within the clock cycles of the positronic mind. (Plus, pardon this tangent, the moderndayisms weren't excessive and the throwback of 90s Unix terms definitely felt right at home.) The original Tron was mindful of computer speeds vs our speeds as well and there's no breach between the two temporal realms. Nicely done. (Data's proverbial poker was the giveaway when he handed the deck over to Lore...)

Jack's unknown device being a shield was terrific. But wasn't the top of the bridge with the transparent aluminum dome easier to design to open and close? (I can fathom new and advances on existing technologies that can one day make such a shuttering viewscreen work and it's never a window to begin with, so that's not the issue. Looked really cool, though!) Then again, with five baddies waiting to be blown out into space (a scene that didn't suck etiher way, har har ), the chance they'd all get stuck in the smaller opening... plus, when constructing the ship, that opening would come more in handy too.

If anything, the big bad Shrike is destroyed a little too easily, nor was the big bad setup given any real payoff. Are there more ships waiting for Frontier Day? (okay, I've seen a fair bit and highlights of the remaining episodes, so it's a mild downer, but this episode - as it stands - is pretty much top tier and then some.)

A marvelous season overall.

10/10

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Wow. Watched it in the North Beach Laundromat while waiting for an unplanned load, rigit at the end of my vacation. (Gotta add an extra marking to my portable DVD to distinguish the line in/out from the headphone!). Loved the way Data killed Lore with kindness, and the way Worf came to the rescue.

I also loved Vadic's precision f-strike, just before she was blown out into space, frozen solid, and smashed to bits.