Was Picard being forced to live out an entire lifetime...
- Thread starter The Rock
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Sort of what happened to Barclay in The Nth Degree.
The episode leads me to believe that if the probe was destroyed Picard's head would explode Scanners style
I'd pay real money to see that.
There was an episode on VOY where B'Elanna was living someone else's life, only she did it in dreams, if I'm not mistaken. I forget how that happened, though. She met the person whose life she was dreaming though, I'm pretty sure of that. But this using the regular cast to play entirely other characters, either because of possession, or some odd mind control never really works for me. There's always something that rings false about it, except with Data who's more susceptible to having his personality altered, anyway. And even then, they overused Data way too much in this regard. At least this episode offers some novelty, like seeing Patrick Stewart's real-life son, and seeing Patrick under all of that makeup and everything ... but how this episode got to be a "Classic" has always mystified me.
I don't know, for me I found that the premise that these people who were technologically less advanced that we currently are, and hadn't successfully even put someone in space could build a probe that could cut through the enterprises shields, telepathically connect to someone and force a crew as advanced as the enterprise to sit back and watch a little hard to believe. As for him being able to function after the fact, it must have felt more like a dream afterwards or he definitely would not have been fit to command anymore.
They could have asked or hinted something before forcing someone (Picard is this case) to forget his former life and having to live another one.
What bothers me about this episode is that very soon (or immediately) Picard is back in command like nothing happened to him...
What bothers me about this episode is that very soon (or immediately) Picard is back in command like nothing happened to him...
But since that "crucial element" was part of the episode, this criticism makes no sense.
I think that proves that the effects of the probe were in fact benign and that they avoided causing any sort of post traumatic stress syndrome. From what we learned of them, they were kind people and meant well.
She could only pass on these memories to a woman though, to a guy... Let's just say that ST would never allow it.
It was an episode that dealt with revisionism, the notion that some people want to deny that the past ever happened.
Tora Ziyal, I just noted that if this episode had been written with a different cause for Picard to "live another life," then all of it would've had to be rewritten. Kamin's life in the actual story is only interesting because of his duality. Take that away and there's not alot of interest in this show. That's all I was trying to say ...
I just finished watching it.
Nicely acted and realized.
But I had the same moral problems with it.
Boy, it just occurs to me that Picard did not have a good couple of years between being forced to live 40 years and the Borg assimilation. Oh! And next season, he gets kidnapped by the Cardassians and tortured by David Warner. Greaaaaat.
Anyway, I kept wondering if Troi would appear, and was expecting her to walk into the ready room at the end, but she didn't show.
Nicely acted and realized.
But I had the same moral problems with it.
Boy, it just occurs to me that Picard did not have a good couple of years between being forced to live 40 years and the Borg assimilation. Oh! And next season, he gets kidnapped by the Cardassians and tortured by David Warner. Greaaaaat.
Anyway, I kept wondering if Troi would appear, and was expecting her to walk into the ready room at the end, but she didn't show.
Picard is not even complaining that he's lived this other life. In fact when he talks about it later to Nella, it's with a certain fondness.
The bright side of forgetting things is that you'll get more enjoyment when you'll watch these episodes again. It's not the same thing when you know everything that's going to happen.
That would be Stockholm Syndrome.
Picard is a grown man, a captain of a ship. he's capable of defending himself when he's been wronged. You're talking about him like he was a minor or someone with diminished capacity. "Stockholm syndrome" in practice applies to people with a weak personality or a below average IQ. Picard has neither.
If Picard believed he could see five lights, then I imagine he would be susceptible to Stockholm Syndrome as well.
Chain of Command II said:
I'm not sure the term stockhold syndrome applies in this situation. That is about bonding with captors maybe as a form of self preservation. But Picard was not even sure these people were his "captors" until the very end of it. For all he knew it was some spacial anomaly which popped him into this new existence, which may be the reason he eventually accepts his life there.
Admittedly, we're all playing amateur psychologists here.
But the mind rape wouldn't be an issue if the episode wasn't incredibly dull. Voyager handles the same concept better in the episode "Memorial".
There is no comparison between the two. "Memorial" is about inducing post traumatic stress syndrome into people.
Picard doesn't even show any signs of being unhappy about the experience.
That's apples and... pellets of poison!
(I'll let you guess, which is which)
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