Story: Nepenthe
Written By: Samantha Humphrey & Michael Chabon
Series: Star Trek: Picard
Year: 2020
It's so refreshing to have an episode in which I find more good than bad. Once again a lot of my positivity has something to do with Jonathan Frakes. Just as his direction lifted me back up (if only briefly) with "Absolute Candor," his on-screen appearance has so much warmth and just feels like classic Riker that I was just happy to be watching this reunion. Also I was happy these characters weren't put into some dumb action scene.
It is also the first time Soji has been interesting to me. I still may hate the backstory that she is an android made from some piece of Data somehow miraculously found among the completely destroyed Scimitar, and then grown (???) with real human organs (thus not an android and more of a test tube baby?) and could only be made in pairs (what?)...at the very least she was given an actual character this time around. She is a person whose entire life has been upended, her past is apparantly a lie, her recent relationship was a lie. She was nearly murdered. And now she just met an old man who claims he wants to help but also could be just another lie. Or it is all a figment of her imagination. Her trying to grapple with all this was, at the very least, intriguing. And that is something that 6 weeks of her on a Borg Cube sliding down corridors with a fake boring Romulan boyfriend never provided.
The Rikers are great. Frakes really slips right back into that role. The man oozes charisma, and it is great to see him. Sirtis is also quite useful in her role as a psychologist here, which is more than she usually got back in the old days! And unlike everyone else on this show, the Rikers also have a sad piece of tragic backstory, but they are coping in a really positive way. Unlike Raffi who lost a JOB and somehow turned it into the biggest downward spiral imaginable and drove her family away...Troi and Riker lost a CHILD and are somehow managing to live their lives as best they can. That is a hope I have been longing for. Especially as it isn't regarded in the way Roddenberry claimed he would've liked back in the early TNG days (where they'd just be fine), but as a real loss that they definitely feel, but they are evolved enough to deal with it in their own way, and try to live their lives with hope for a good future for themselves and their surviving daughter.
Meanwhile, in the downsides of this episode, Elnor nearly takes out the boring sister of Narek, but just misses the mark...and she kills Hugh. That is a major shame. Hugh and his XBs were one of the more interest storylines in the show, and now I am sure it is done. I maintain that THAT whole plot would have been a better focus for this show than an action heavy Romulans vs Androids/Data's Daughter thing. But oh well. The Kurtzman era is going to focus more on action than well thought out ideas.
The Jurati storyline also moves forward as predicted. We see what Oh showed her, and basically Oh mind raped her wit ha meld, and shoved a bunch of doom and gloom imagery about Synths destroying us all if they are allowed to live, and Jurati immediately swallows a tracker and goes off to join Picard. I know Jurati was likely overwhelmed by seeing Control's plan (wait...was that Disco's plot...short on ideas there fellas? Maybe don't launch 10 shows then...), but it happens so fast that as a viewer I felt like she agreed to join rather quickly after getting a 10 second clip show of potential doom after a lifetime spent working in cybernetics. Anyhow in the present La Sirena is being chased by Narek, and they can't shake him...this is Jurati's tracker at work. But she is clearly losing her stomach for all this and wants to go home. She's murdered her boyfriend for it and now she is putting everyone else in danger. So she injected herself with something that deactivates the tracker and puts her in a coma.
The episode was really solid. The bulk of it takes place in the safety and warmth of the Riker homestead, and we got solid character development for Picard and Soji. Seeing the Rikers and where they are now was great. The Jurati story is still lame and predictable at every step, but at least I wasn't completely rolling my eyes at it this time. Once again the Borg cube disappoints, with Elnor's choreographed action scenes being dull and the death of Hugh being a major disappointment for me. But overall, one of the strongest episodes in the series thus far.
NEXT TIME: Hell Will Come Again
Written By: Samantha Humphrey & Michael Chabon
Series: Star Trek: Picard
Year: 2020
It's so refreshing to have an episode in which I find more good than bad. Once again a lot of my positivity has something to do with Jonathan Frakes. Just as his direction lifted me back up (if only briefly) with "Absolute Candor," his on-screen appearance has so much warmth and just feels like classic Riker that I was just happy to be watching this reunion. Also I was happy these characters weren't put into some dumb action scene.
The Rikers are great. Frakes really slips right back into that role. The man oozes charisma, and it is great to see him. Sirtis is also quite useful in her role as a psychologist here, which is more than she usually got back in the old days! And unlike everyone else on this show, the Rikers also have a sad piece of tragic backstory, but they are coping in a really positive way. Unlike Raffi who lost a JOB and somehow turned it into the biggest downward spiral imaginable and drove her family away...Troi and Riker lost a CHILD and are somehow managing to live their lives as best they can. That is a hope I have been longing for. Especially as it isn't regarded in the way Roddenberry claimed he would've liked back in the early TNG days (where they'd just be fine), but as a real loss that they definitely feel, but they are evolved enough to deal with it in their own way, and try to live their lives with hope for a good future for themselves and their surviving daughter.
Meanwhile, in the downsides of this episode, Elnor nearly takes out the boring sister of Narek, but just misses the mark...and she kills Hugh. That is a major shame. Hugh and his XBs were one of the more interest storylines in the show, and now I am sure it is done. I maintain that THAT whole plot would have been a better focus for this show than an action heavy Romulans vs Androids/Data's Daughter thing. But oh well. The Kurtzman era is going to focus more on action than well thought out ideas.
The Jurati storyline also moves forward as predicted. We see what Oh showed her, and basically Oh mind raped her wit ha meld, and shoved a bunch of doom and gloom imagery about Synths destroying us all if they are allowed to live, and Jurati immediately swallows a tracker and goes off to join Picard. I know Jurati was likely overwhelmed by seeing Control's plan (wait...was that Disco's plot...short on ideas there fellas? Maybe don't launch 10 shows then...), but it happens so fast that as a viewer I felt like she agreed to join rather quickly after getting a 10 second clip show of potential doom after a lifetime spent working in cybernetics. Anyhow in the present La Sirena is being chased by Narek, and they can't shake him...this is Jurati's tracker at work. But she is clearly losing her stomach for all this and wants to go home. She's murdered her boyfriend for it and now she is putting everyone else in danger. So she injected herself with something that deactivates the tracker and puts her in a coma.
The episode was really solid. The bulk of it takes place in the safety and warmth of the Riker homestead, and we got solid character development for Picard and Soji. Seeing the Rikers and where they are now was great. The Jurati story is still lame and predictable at every step, but at least I wasn't completely rolling my eyes at it this time. Once again the Borg cube disappoints, with Elnor's choreographed action scenes being dull and the death of Hugh being a major disappointment for me. But overall, one of the strongest episodes in the series thus far.
NEXT TIME: Hell Will Come Again
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