Star Trek: Picard (1.06 - Finale)
Mar. 27th, 2020 06:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakSo, the first season of Star Trek: Picard has ended, and to the end, it was a mixed affair of "oooh, I like this" "eh" and "better not think about how that's supposed to work, because it doesn't" to me. In terms of the show itself, I don't think it presented as good a first season as Star Trek: Discovery did, and I suspect that if it hadn't gotten a second season pre release, we'd have gotten a slightly different ending; it reminded me of the Doctor Who Christmas special The Last Christmas that way, i.e. you could tell what Moffat added at the last minute when it turned out Jenna Colman did want to do one more season.
But "mixed bag" for me means also a lot of elements I enjoyed, and no, I don't just mean Patrick Stewart (and some other suspects of Yestertrek) back on my tv screen. I mean, for example: This was a show that celebrated affection in general and love in particular, in a completely uncynical way.
Sometimes the love in question caused pain, as with Raffi and her son - an different way, because he was murdered, Icheb and Seven - or was a lie, as with Soji and Narek. But most times, it was something that was joyful and wonderful for the characters to experience, even if it came with the knowledge of loss, like the Troi-Riker family (both among each other and with Picard). That Picard loved Data - and vice versa - turned out to be a read thread through the entire season, and thank you, scriptwriters, for not being coy, or just in case the audience gets ideas adding a "of course I mean this in a paternal way" disclaimer, for letting Soji, Picard and Data all use the word "love" and making those scenes among the most powerful of said season.
The Synthetics still by and large came across lke cousins of the rebooted BSG Cylons (and good lord, but did we have to make the "bad" Synth Sutra the one with an overtly sexualized body language?), but the message - that the day isn't won, the univrse isn't saved because of a battle but because of the combination of Picard trusting people (read: Soji, since none of the other Synths came eqipped with a personality) to make their choices for the better, not the worse, and being willing to offer his own life for this. It may be hamfisted in its message, but it's what I want from a Star Trek show starring Jean-Luc Picard - the idea that if the choices seem to be either organics wiping out synths or synths wiping out organics, the solution is neither, that even in extremis you don't have to make the lethal for others choice, that survival doesn't have to be a zero sum game.
The new kids on the block - Raffi, Rios, Elnor, Agnes Jurati, Soji - aren't yet loved by me like the old bunch, but come on: they don't have decades of history with me. (You can bet that by the end of s1 of TNG, an infamously shaky season, I did not love a single one of the TNG bunch. That started to happen - slowly - with s2 onwards.) I have come to care about them, though, and I look forward to getting to know them better.
Re: the Romulans - I still wish Picard would have done the logical thing and would have taken his ex Tal Shiar staff with him, because those two were sure as hell in three episodes more three dimensional and fleshed out than Narek and Narissa (spelling) over most of the season Narissa in particular only in the last two episodes got one scene each where the script gave her more to do than be evil McEvil - the scene with her aunt in the last but one episode, and the immediate reunion with Narek in the finale, which was the first time they credibly came across as siblings. Still, we got the Truth Telling Martial Arts Nuns and Elnor to add to the Romulan lore, and that was welcome.
re: Picard's fate. Now Michael Chabon did place the Chekovian gun on the mantel piece in time - we heard from yet another Dr. Soong that consciousness transfer was something they were working on, and we saw that still unformed, identity less body lying around a couple of times. Also, since Picard remembers dying, the implication is probably supposed to be that it's really him, not a copy of the original Picard the way, say, Ripley8 in Aliens: Resurrection is a clone while original Ripley is irrevocably dead as of the end of Aliens 3. But it does raise some existential questions for me, and I'm not sure they will ever be addressed. (Same with Picard being now in a Synth body.)
(Btw, the ban against Synths being easily revoked after the finale events is about as logical as Magneto not being suspected of being responsible for the almost global destruction at the end of X-Men: Apocalypse, and the mutants getting good PR out of this. But hey.)
Speaking of identity questions, Seven relatively easily being able to overcome re-assimilation after having turned herself temporarily into the queen of a new Collective seems a bit of a waste of good Borg angst, but then again, the Seven-Elnor scenes were endearing and less predictable character stuff, as was her confession to Rios later, and of course I'm on board with Seven/Raffi. I do hope that next season's scriptwriters remember that Seven is a scientist as well as action woman, though. (Oh, and kudos to the costume people for demonstrating that Jeri Ryan looks great and attractive if you put her into practical and comfortable clothing, you don't need a catsuit for this.)
In conclusion, I wasn't swept away by this first season, but what I liked, I really liked a lot, and I look forward to s2.
But "mixed bag" for me means also a lot of elements I enjoyed, and no, I don't just mean Patrick Stewart (and some other suspects of Yestertrek) back on my tv screen. I mean, for example: This was a show that celebrated affection in general and love in particular, in a completely uncynical way.
Sometimes the love in question caused pain, as with Raffi and her son - an different way, because he was murdered, Icheb and Seven - or was a lie, as with Soji and Narek. But most times, it was something that was joyful and wonderful for the characters to experience, even if it came with the knowledge of loss, like the Troi-Riker family (both among each other and with Picard). That Picard loved Data - and vice versa - turned out to be a read thread through the entire season, and thank you, scriptwriters, for not being coy, or just in case the audience gets ideas adding a "of course I mean this in a paternal way" disclaimer, for letting Soji, Picard and Data all use the word "love" and making those scenes among the most powerful of said season.
The Synthetics still by and large came across lke cousins of the rebooted BSG Cylons (and good lord, but did we have to make the "bad" Synth Sutra the one with an overtly sexualized body language?), but the message - that the day isn't won, the univrse isn't saved because of a battle but because of the combination of Picard trusting people (read: Soji, since none of the other Synths came eqipped with a personality) to make their choices for the better, not the worse, and being willing to offer his own life for this. It may be hamfisted in its message, but it's what I want from a Star Trek show starring Jean-Luc Picard - the idea that if the choices seem to be either organics wiping out synths or synths wiping out organics, the solution is neither, that even in extremis you don't have to make the lethal for others choice, that survival doesn't have to be a zero sum game.
The new kids on the block - Raffi, Rios, Elnor, Agnes Jurati, Soji - aren't yet loved by me like the old bunch, but come on: they don't have decades of history with me. (You can bet that by the end of s1 of TNG, an infamously shaky season, I did not love a single one of the TNG bunch. That started to happen - slowly - with s2 onwards.) I have come to care about them, though, and I look forward to getting to know them better.
Re: the Romulans - I still wish Picard would have done the logical thing and would have taken his ex Tal Shiar staff with him, because those two were sure as hell in three episodes more three dimensional and fleshed out than Narek and Narissa (spelling) over most of the season Narissa in particular only in the last two episodes got one scene each where the script gave her more to do than be evil McEvil - the scene with her aunt in the last but one episode, and the immediate reunion with Narek in the finale, which was the first time they credibly came across as siblings. Still, we got the Truth Telling Martial Arts Nuns and Elnor to add to the Romulan lore, and that was welcome.
re: Picard's fate. Now Michael Chabon did place the Chekovian gun on the mantel piece in time - we heard from yet another Dr. Soong that consciousness transfer was something they were working on, and we saw that still unformed, identity less body lying around a couple of times. Also, since Picard remembers dying, the implication is probably supposed to be that it's really him, not a copy of the original Picard the way, say, Ripley8 in Aliens: Resurrection is a clone while original Ripley is irrevocably dead as of the end of Aliens 3. But it does raise some existential questions for me, and I'm not sure they will ever be addressed. (Same with Picard being now in a Synth body.)
(Btw, the ban against Synths being easily revoked after the finale events is about as logical as Magneto not being suspected of being responsible for the almost global destruction at the end of X-Men: Apocalypse, and the mutants getting good PR out of this. But hey.)
Speaking of identity questions, Seven relatively easily being able to overcome re-assimilation after having turned herself temporarily into the queen of a new Collective seems a bit of a waste of good Borg angst, but then again, the Seven-Elnor scenes were endearing and less predictable character stuff, as was her confession to Rios later, and of course I'm on board with Seven/Raffi. I do hope that next season's scriptwriters remember that Seven is a scientist as well as action woman, though. (Oh, and kudos to the costume people for demonstrating that Jeri Ryan looks great and attractive if you put her into practical and comfortable clothing, you don't need a catsuit for this.)
In conclusion, I wasn't swept away by this first season, but what I liked, I really liked a lot, and I look forward to s2.
