ST: Picard 1.02.
Jan. 31st, 2020 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which we learn more about (some) of the supporting cast, and also of their pov.
If I hadn'd brushed up on my Dead Prussians knowledge in recent months, I might have missed it, but the script lets Narek repurpose one of the better known Friedrich II anecdotes - "Can you keep a secret?" "Yes, Sire." "Well, so can I." Incidentally, I am pleased to note that other than Narek and Zhaban, both of whom get siginificantly less dialogue than the women they talk to, and of course Picard himself, all the talking in this episode is done by women. Including to each other, this time around. (Soji to the Trill, Admiral Clancy to Commander Oh, Commander Oh to "Lieutenant Rizzo".)
It's also a Romulans heavy episode. Laris gets so much profile and fleshing out that I'm a bit baffled as to why Zhaban should be the one getting into space with Picard, unless Laris is next on the list of characters to be killed, in which case I'll be very angry indeed, because she's great. I'm not that keen on yet another super secret service behind the secret service, not least because since DS9 pulled that one with Section 31 in ye olde 1990s, the "Deep State" conspiracist took over power in so many ways, but then again, secret organisations within secret organizsations are a standard trope for any kind of spy story. Aaaanyway. The Romulans as anti AI with a millennia old grudge - can't think of something in previous canon that explicitly stands in the way of that new canon, but given Discovery has just given Starfleet, not the Romulans, a Skynet eperience, it's a bit weird that Starfleet didn't get it first.
The Synthetics shown in the flashback at the start of the episode: were clearly hacked, but more to the point, I do hope they had the the same rights Data did post Measure of a Man, for otherwise slavery would have indeed arrived. (Same, of course, with sentient hologramms - I do wonder what became of the Doctor in the aftermath of the Mars disaster...)
Soji: is officially there on the former Borg cube, not in secret, along with other Federation scientists, so everyone knows the Romulans are doing this. Laris finding traces of her calls to Dahj on the one hand conflicts with what Dahj told Picard about herself, but otoh, I assume this is deliberate on the script's part, and we'll later learn that Dahj's memory was wiped and/or reordered three years ago when her Dahj identity starts. Another guess is that Soji, as opposed to Dahj, is already self aware. For both Doylist reasons (anothe "I'm a what?" would be repetitive), and Watsonian (she keeps her cards to her chest just like Narek does, no matter how enjoyable that sex had been). So I'm assuming she might actually be doing some spying of her own on the now-Romulan-owned former Borg cube.
Meanwhile, on Earth: continuity strikes again when Picard's Irodomatic Syndrome is brought up. (Last heard off in the TNG finale to poignant effect.) It occurs to me that finale had Old Picard trying to get a ship without Starfleet giving him one, too. Though All Good Things... had him the TNG gang for help, which he here declines to do for a reason that actually makes Watsonian sense (i.e. Data already having died for him). Though of course him then deciding to ask someone who hates his guts instead (can't wait for find out more about Rafi and why she does) means there's the shady subject of "and then I will feel less guilty should she die as well).
I'm also gratified that we learn a bit more here about why Starfleet made the decision it did back in the day, and in a way that doesn't make everyone else look terrible for not resigning. Kirsten Chancy, Admiral - btw, I'm assuming they tried to get Necheyev back and couldn't? - is but the most recent in the long tradition of Starfleet Admirals having it out with Starship Captains, and while in TOS and early TNG days these guys were inevitably in the wrong (and also inevitably male), Nechayev started to change the formula to "two thirds wrong, one third right". (Sisko on DS9 usually got male admirals, though I think Nechayev guest starred there once, though I might misremember.) (Archer got one fatherly sensible admiral and otherwise bureaucratic admirals, all male as far as I recall) (Disco, of course, got the best of admirals, Katrina Cornwell.) The episode also took care to let Chancy, after she'd, from her pov entirely justified, turned Picard down, still follow up his story about the Romulans just in case. (Which also makes sense, given all the backstory about undercover operations.)
Which is when the episode introduces two conspirators. Given that "Rizzo", aka Narek's older sister, now undercover as a human, is a Romulan, I'm assuming Oh is actually a Vulcan, just of the type all over Enterprise as antagonists more often than not. However, she might not be, and in any event it's clear why the make-up for Romulans in this show has gone back to being identical to the ones for Vulcans, as opposed to giving them a more pronounced forehead (which is what TNG did). Lucky new Romulans, say I, reflecting on the new Klingon make-up over in Discovery. Like mentioned earlier, I'm now wary of conspiracy tales the way I wasn't when DS9 revelled in them (I mean, the Founders were infiltrating everywhere, then there was Section 31); I'm also a bit leery - which I used to be even back then - from every institutional failure potentially declared by "it was those evil infiltrators, not us!". But: all these are just pre-emptive worries, which might turn out to be nothing.
Trivia: the way the android took over the Utopia Planetia network reminded me of Data taking over the Enterprise (the first time around, when Soong called him home).
Lastly: I find I like Dr. Agnes Jurati (the blond Daystrom scientist who seems to have become Picard’s go-to woman for cyber science. Given the nod to Asimov in that scene, it occured to me that she might be a homage to Dr. Susan Calvin. In any event, the take on the synthetics so far - yes, they can be incredibly dangerous, but if they are, it’s usually because humans screwed up/attempted to use them for evil designs, because by themselves, they are a wonder of creation - is very much in the spirit of the robot short stories.
If I hadn'd brushed up on my Dead Prussians knowledge in recent months, I might have missed it, but the script lets Narek repurpose one of the better known Friedrich II anecdotes - "Can you keep a secret?" "Yes, Sire." "Well, so can I." Incidentally, I am pleased to note that other than Narek and Zhaban, both of whom get siginificantly less dialogue than the women they talk to, and of course Picard himself, all the talking in this episode is done by women. Including to each other, this time around. (Soji to the Trill, Admiral Clancy to Commander Oh, Commander Oh to "Lieutenant Rizzo".)
It's also a Romulans heavy episode. Laris gets so much profile and fleshing out that I'm a bit baffled as to why Zhaban should be the one getting into space with Picard, unless Laris is next on the list of characters to be killed, in which case I'll be very angry indeed, because she's great. I'm not that keen on yet another super secret service behind the secret service, not least because since DS9 pulled that one with Section 31 in ye olde 1990s, the "Deep State" conspiracist took over power in so many ways, but then again, secret organisations within secret organizsations are a standard trope for any kind of spy story. Aaaanyway. The Romulans as anti AI with a millennia old grudge - can't think of something in previous canon that explicitly stands in the way of that new canon, but given Discovery has just given Starfleet, not the Romulans, a Skynet eperience, it's a bit weird that Starfleet didn't get it first.
The Synthetics shown in the flashback at the start of the episode: were clearly hacked, but more to the point, I do hope they had the the same rights Data did post Measure of a Man, for otherwise slavery would have indeed arrived. (Same, of course, with sentient hologramms - I do wonder what became of the Doctor in the aftermath of the Mars disaster...)
Soji: is officially there on the former Borg cube, not in secret, along with other Federation scientists, so everyone knows the Romulans are doing this. Laris finding traces of her calls to Dahj on the one hand conflicts with what Dahj told Picard about herself, but otoh, I assume this is deliberate on the script's part, and we'll later learn that Dahj's memory was wiped and/or reordered three years ago when her Dahj identity starts. Another guess is that Soji, as opposed to Dahj, is already self aware. For both Doylist reasons (anothe "I'm a what?" would be repetitive), and Watsonian (she keeps her cards to her chest just like Narek does, no matter how enjoyable that sex had been). So I'm assuming she might actually be doing some spying of her own on the now-Romulan-owned former Borg cube.
Meanwhile, on Earth: continuity strikes again when Picard's Irodomatic Syndrome is brought up. (Last heard off in the TNG finale to poignant effect.) It occurs to me that finale had Old Picard trying to get a ship without Starfleet giving him one, too. Though All Good Things... had him the TNG gang for help, which he here declines to do for a reason that actually makes Watsonian sense (i.e. Data already having died for him). Though of course him then deciding to ask someone who hates his guts instead (can't wait for find out more about Rafi and why she does) means there's the shady subject of "and then I will feel less guilty should she die as well).
I'm also gratified that we learn a bit more here about why Starfleet made the decision it did back in the day, and in a way that doesn't make everyone else look terrible for not resigning. Kirsten Chancy, Admiral - btw, I'm assuming they tried to get Necheyev back and couldn't? - is but the most recent in the long tradition of Starfleet Admirals having it out with Starship Captains, and while in TOS and early TNG days these guys were inevitably in the wrong (and also inevitably male), Nechayev started to change the formula to "two thirds wrong, one third right". (Sisko on DS9 usually got male admirals, though I think Nechayev guest starred there once, though I might misremember.) (Archer got one fatherly sensible admiral and otherwise bureaucratic admirals, all male as far as I recall) (Disco, of course, got the best of admirals, Katrina Cornwell.) The episode also took care to let Chancy, after she'd, from her pov entirely justified, turned Picard down, still follow up his story about the Romulans just in case. (Which also makes sense, given all the backstory about undercover operations.)
Which is when the episode introduces two conspirators. Given that "Rizzo", aka Narek's older sister, now undercover as a human, is a Romulan, I'm assuming Oh is actually a Vulcan, just of the type all over Enterprise as antagonists more often than not. However, she might not be, and in any event it's clear why the make-up for Romulans in this show has gone back to being identical to the ones for Vulcans, as opposed to giving them a more pronounced forehead (which is what TNG did). Lucky new Romulans, say I, reflecting on the new Klingon make-up over in Discovery. Like mentioned earlier, I'm now wary of conspiracy tales the way I wasn't when DS9 revelled in them (I mean, the Founders were infiltrating everywhere, then there was Section 31); I'm also a bit leery - which I used to be even back then - from every institutional failure potentially declared by "it was those evil infiltrators, not us!". But: all these are just pre-emptive worries, which might turn out to be nothing.
Trivia: the way the android took over the Utopia Planetia network reminded me of Data taking over the Enterprise (the first time around, when Soong called him home).
Lastly: I find I like Dr. Agnes Jurati (the blond Daystrom scientist who seems to have become Picard’s go-to woman for cyber science. Given the nod to Asimov in that scene, it occured to me that she might be a homage to Dr. Susan Calvin. In any event, the take on the synthetics so far - yes, they can be incredibly dangerous, but if they are, it’s usually because humans screwed up/attempted to use them for evil designs, because by themselves, they are a wonder of creation - is very much in the spirit of the robot short stories.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-31 08:05 pm (UTC)That's awesome! Aren't you glad SOMEONE got you brushing up on your Problematic Prussians (TM)?
no subject
Date: 2020-02-01 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-02-01 03:40 am (UTC)And it explains why we haven't heard from these guys before – they're not the faction that concerns themselves with the usual chess games across the Neutral Zone, they've got their own idiosyncratic goals they're focused on which doesn't directly align with the political and tactical schemes of the Romulan state.
(Though one does wonder how they reacted to the news that an android successfully infiltrated Romulus itself in “Unification”...)
no subject
Date: 2020-02-02 02:02 pm (UTC)Maybe Sela ended up with them afterwards?
no subject
Date: 2020-02-02 10:38 am (UTC)Those synthetics on Utopia Planetia really didn't look like they had the same rights as Data, by the way they were treated by their "co-workers" and also that the non-synthetics mostly got the holiday off work, leaving the skeleton team and synthetics to do the work. But, as with the mentions of Maddox, we do seem to be re-visiting a lot of Measure of a Man!
The Borg Cube reclamation project is fascinating, especially the way they are removing Borg prostheses from the Borg victims and trying to classify them, and arguing over appropriate treatment (all with respect) and I'm finding Narek's actor a lot more restrained here than he was in Penny Dreadful, which is probably appropriate, genre-wise!
no subject
Date: 2020-02-04 06:09 am (UTC)