Story: Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1
Written By: Michael Chabon & Ayelet Waldman
Series: Star Trek: Picard
Year: 2020
We are nearing the end, and as such we reach the destination of what will, inevitably, be the host of our big dumb finale action climax. On this planet we find a group of androids, apparently created by Maddox and Noonien Soong's son Alton (played, as you'd expect, by Brent Spiner). This is a village of androids living in peace and harmony. Though they also have giant space flowers that can bring ships and a giant Borg cube down to the surface.
They take Picard and the rest of the La Sirena crew and discuss the current predicament of 219 incoming Romulan ships, they also take Narek in as a prisoner. Elnor and Seven and the surviving XBs remain behind on the Borg Cube to work towards something or other. Another Soji model (a gold one called Sutra) mind melds (for plot expedience sake) with Jurati, and she interprets the message differently. Sort of. She frees Narek and then decides to rally the androids into destroying all organic lifeforms because...why not just fulfill that nasty idea, huh? And they essentially sound like the Borg, or that they want to team up with the Borg or something like the Borg out there. I am so tired.
Jurati joins the cause along with Soji, Picard is taken prisoner for trying to offer up a more peaceful way forward (Raffi and Rios went back to get the ship back up and running). Meanwhile Narek is free and the Romulans are on their way.
I know what the finale is going to be. It's going to be an hour of Picard pleading with Soji to reconsider being the destroyer, with plenty of dumb action (man-baby Elnor will fight in big choreographed swordplay, plenty of phaser fire and explosions in space, I suspect it shall be long and tedious), and then in the final moments Soji will do the right thing or something. At the zero hour when Soi makes good, suddenly Starfleet will show up, and the Enterprise will be there with some secret cameos of Worf or Geordi or both that is mostly going to be used as bait for fans to tune into next year, much as the appearance of the Enterprise was used to lure in fans at the end of Discovery's first season.
And I barely care. I don't find this android planet to be that interesting. It was sort of bland and then the evil Gold Soji decided to make a heel turn, and I just rolled my eyes. This was a true opportunity here. If the androids were truly peaceful, it would give me something to latch onto and root for. Instead, they are so easily swayed into mass genocide that I barely care if they survive now. This show could have actually been about something. It just feels like it is pretending it is about something, but really it just feels like more hollow action.
NEXT TIME: Big Dumb Finale Battle
Written By: Michael Chabon & Ayelet Waldman
Series: Star Trek: Picard
Year: 2020
We are nearing the end, and as such we reach the destination of what will, inevitably, be the host of our big dumb finale action climax. On this planet we find a group of androids, apparently created by Maddox and Noonien Soong's son Alton (played, as you'd expect, by Brent Spiner). This is a village of androids living in peace and harmony. Though they also have giant space flowers that can bring ships and a giant Borg cube down to the surface.
Jurati joins the cause along with Soji, Picard is taken prisoner for trying to offer up a more peaceful way forward (Raffi and Rios went back to get the ship back up and running). Meanwhile Narek is free and the Romulans are on their way.
I know what the finale is going to be. It's going to be an hour of Picard pleading with Soji to reconsider being the destroyer, with plenty of dumb action (man-baby Elnor will fight in big choreographed swordplay, plenty of phaser fire and explosions in space, I suspect it shall be long and tedious), and then in the final moments Soji will do the right thing or something. At the zero hour when Soi makes good, suddenly Starfleet will show up, and the Enterprise will be there with some secret cameos of Worf or Geordi or both that is mostly going to be used as bait for fans to tune into next year, much as the appearance of the Enterprise was used to lure in fans at the end of Discovery's first season.
And I barely care. I don't find this android planet to be that interesting. It was sort of bland and then the evil Gold Soji decided to make a heel turn, and I just rolled my eyes. This was a true opportunity here. If the androids were truly peaceful, it would give me something to latch onto and root for. Instead, they are so easily swayed into mass genocide that I barely care if they survive now. This show could have actually been about something. It just feels like it is pretending it is about something, but really it just feels like more hollow action.
NEXT TIME: Big Dumb Finale Battle
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