Story: Absolute Candor
Written By:Michael Chabon
Series: Star Trek: Picard
Year: 2020
Clearly the best asset in the Kurtzman era of Trek has is Jonathan Frakes. Frakes is a great TV director, and his work in this modern era has always injected some life into the proceedings. Discovery's first season seemed to find it's momentum the moment Frakes sat in the director's chair. He also directed one of the strongest episode's of the second season. And while Picard had started off fairly strong in it's opener, the next two episodes felt off. Frakes comes in with a script by showrunner Chabon, and I felt truly engaged again. At least for the most part.
Before continuing onto Freecloud to find Maddox, Picard asks for a stop off at a planet of Romulans he helped to colonize before things went south with the Synths and Mars. His plan is to ask some kind of Romulan samurai nuns for assistance in his plan. But when he gets there he finds that the abandoning of help from Starfleet has left them in a rough way. And he is not a returning hero but the face of their distrust of the Federation and their promises. The nuns still like him though, and the young boy he had developed a bond with as a child is now not only grown, but also a sort of a Samurai himself.
Elnor, initially annoyed that Picard only wants him now that he seems useful, does decide to pledge himself (and his sword) to Picard's seemingly hopeless cause, and proves it by decapitating a Romulan threatening Picard. Picard disapproves of the unwarranted violence, but is pleased to add Elnor to the ragtag crew. For an episode that mostly reiterates the backstory of the show and is mostly in service of adding another character to the roster (and very little else), it is a surprisingly engaging episode.
The unfortunate thing is that even Frakes can't inject life into the fairly awful Romulan/Borg Cube stuff. Soji isn't that interesting. Narek is even less interesting. The badly thought out Narek/Sister incestuous grossness is nauseating to sit through (not so much because of the incest, but because of the horrible acting that comes with it). Then there are cutesy scenes of Narek and Soji sliding in a hallway. It is presented as if it is this romantic blossoming of a relationship, when really it is a robot that doesn't know she is a robot and a Romulan spy out to kill her. None of it is real. Should I care? That whole section of the show is bad. I wish they had a better reason for Picard to go out into space again, because I don't want to see any of these people again.
On the plus side though, La Sirena was being attacked by a very old Romulan Bird of Prey as they were hoping to leave the planet, but they are assisted in stopping the attack by a small ship piloted by a single person. When that ship is about to break up, they beam aboard the pilot: Seven of Nine! So we get some fun from her next week.
NEXT TIME: Seven is Back
Written By:Michael Chabon
Series: Star Trek: Picard
Year: 2020
Clearly the best asset in the Kurtzman era of Trek has is Jonathan Frakes. Frakes is a great TV director, and his work in this modern era has always injected some life into the proceedings. Discovery's first season seemed to find it's momentum the moment Frakes sat in the director's chair. He also directed one of the strongest episode's of the second season. And while Picard had started off fairly strong in it's opener, the next two episodes felt off. Frakes comes in with a script by showrunner Chabon, and I felt truly engaged again. At least for the most part.
Elnor, initially annoyed that Picard only wants him now that he seems useful, does decide to pledge himself (and his sword) to Picard's seemingly hopeless cause, and proves it by decapitating a Romulan threatening Picard. Picard disapproves of the unwarranted violence, but is pleased to add Elnor to the ragtag crew. For an episode that mostly reiterates the backstory of the show and is mostly in service of adding another character to the roster (and very little else), it is a surprisingly engaging episode.
The unfortunate thing is that even Frakes can't inject life into the fairly awful Romulan/Borg Cube stuff. Soji isn't that interesting. Narek is even less interesting. The badly thought out Narek/Sister incestuous grossness is nauseating to sit through (not so much because of the incest, but because of the horrible acting that comes with it). Then there are cutesy scenes of Narek and Soji sliding in a hallway. It is presented as if it is this romantic blossoming of a relationship, when really it is a robot that doesn't know she is a robot and a Romulan spy out to kill her. None of it is real. Should I care? That whole section of the show is bad. I wish they had a better reason for Picard to go out into space again, because I don't want to see any of these people again.
On the plus side though, La Sirena was being attacked by a very old Romulan Bird of Prey as they were hoping to leave the planet, but they are assisted in stopping the attack by a small ship piloted by a single person. When that ship is about to break up, they beam aboard the pilot: Seven of Nine! So we get some fun from her next week.
NEXT TIME: Seven is Back
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