Tag Archives: Star Trek: Picard

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Ok haven’t watched the latest Picard episode again yet. It may or may not have dropped this morning already (UK) but I will watch it later.

I just reread various wiki pages to see if my understanding of the Changelings and the motivation for the Dominion/the War was right. I’m coming to the end of season 3 of DS9 so I haven’t personally seen a lot yet. I don’t like to be wrong but I think I have it right (hope so or this will be embarrassing).

The Changelings want control (literally dominate hence dominion). They have “the great link” which makes for a sort of “hive mind” though they have individuality.

Last week we learned that Picard’s body was kidnapped and my mind instantly went to Borg – collective, and then went hmm control? Picard as a Borg wasn’t the usual drone. So what if the changelings could use that?

Imagine if they made like a ‘Borg collective’ out of the Alpha Quadrant. They would need to lead it like a Queen (or like Locutus) and not be subject to it. But that would sure be one way to dominate/control everyone. We know from Voyager how Seven prized efficiency and order, which is what the changelings like – order to totalitarianism. So it seems to match.

I can’t work out what the hell Jack Crusher has to do with it. From last episode where Vadic captured Riker, it seemed the priority was still getting hold of Jack. Why? Because he was the child of a ex-Borg?

Now if they had been hunting Soji that would have made more sense to me. The origins of the Borg are vague. They were once just bio life forms and at some point evolved. But I have a pet theory that they found the planet Soji made a portal to (to the sentient killer robots) and got infected by the machinery. It is this tech that drives the need to assimilate as you know side nod to Stargate replicators bwahaha. But seriously it makes as much sense as anything. Machinery can only replicate, not reproduce in the usual kind of way, so to ensure its own survival constantly devouring what it comes across to make more of itself, does make a certain primal sense. Wanting Soji to tell them the location of the robot planet so the changelings could understand how the Borg were created, and thus make their own version of the collective to control the solids, has a certain logic to it. But no they are hunting Jack Crusher and I don’t know why.

Anyway this is my current theory. It will probably be ruined this evening but no matter. I like it.

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I just made the mistake of trying to see if anyone out there is thinking like me about Picard.

This is really Once Upon a Time all over again.

Are we watching the same show? I feel like we must be existing in different realities. How did you get what you got from what I saw? Does not compute.

If the Seven spin-off happens and it turns into the Seven and Shaw show then I am out. I won’t be watching that. That is a step down the rabbit hole I just can’t make.

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I’m not watching Picard until later. I think sometimes it drops early but it isn’t supposed to drop until Friday in the UK, and so I watch it with pizza at dinner time.

Buuuut I have something to ramble about which I have mentioned in the good Trek discord before, and it’s sort of General show so not really spoilers.

I am a writer. Probably not a good one and not currently very active due to mental health. I am supposed to be working on an original novel trilogy but I digress. Point being I have written stories and I am familiar with what I would consider some easy mistakes/pitfalls.

One of the big ones I noticed during revision passes of a prior novel is that time didn’t really move all that much for characters if I wasn’t with them. It’s like if they weren’t active in a scene they were basically on a shelf just waiting. Some stuff obviously happened plot wise off screen but it was big picture, and it in no way accounted for the amount of time there had been. There wasn’t growth, there wasn’t life, there wasn’t realism. It was just sort of frozen to where it was convenient for me (the author) to move them around like chess pieces. It made for what I feel was a shallow and less engaging story. It was hard for the characters to feel 3D/real when they hadn’t had actual lives.

Ever since Picard season one I have basically been like “really?” because it feels like most of the characters have basically been ‘on hold’ in between their screen appearances. They haven’t talked to one another, they have been stuck in one pattern. Picard bummed around his vineyard for 20 years. Now this I was semi-ok with because it seemed to be a plot point that he had just been “waiting to die” as he had left StarFleet and lost his purpose. Season 1 was about finding that again.

But that kind of logic can’t be the same for every single character always. I don’t know. I feel like I’m not explaining this right. It’s just this sort of frustration that I feel like they just dashed off a single line to explain what characters had been doing for the intervening 20 years and left it at that. Life is more than that. I get that screentime is limited and there isn’t time but they can hint at things. But just having all the characters stop talking to one another until the “next adventure on screen” and just do one thing and not grow, is dare I say lazy?

Anyway I’m not sure I have made my point, or been clear at all, but this is just bugging me. Characters are supposed to have lives, not just stop on pause in between screen appearances.

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Nobody probably noticed that I didn’t ramble about Picard last Friday. Honestly I didn’t have the spoons and also honestly I just really didn’t care.

I think that was a situation where being less than halfway through TNG meant I didn’t have a stake in things. There was clearly an emotional callback with the guest character that I just had no context for.

BUT

Actually I think that is a sort of useful perspective? As without that nostalgia trip (as I only know what I read on wiki afterwards) I can tell you the episode made very little impact. It was like a non-episode.

I’m not sure do I still have to do spoilers? I guess it’s been less than a week, so warning.

The Worf and Raffi interaction was the highlight. Just give me a show of Raffi being badass snarky undercover.

They didn’t really bring the main plot along very much. It was like 2 mins around the “person from Picard’s past” nostalgia which just passed me by.

The whole “seeing peoples veins” thing that Jack Crusher is doing makes me think it’s connected to the changelings being able to replicate people more accurately. Honestly I still think he touched something he shouldn’t and maybe they need him to make their replicants perfect or something. I’m not sure. Honestly I’m expecting to be disappointed with this whole MacGuffin thing. It’s likely to fall flat.

@purlturtle theorised that Jack and Beverley were changelings. I would like this to be true as I really hate the plot of “secret baby” because they were friends before anything so still don’t understand why she would cut herself off from everyone to hide it. The whole “danger” thing… I don’t know. She just doesn’t strike me as someone afraid of hard decisions. Even if she made a decision made of fear when pregnant (and merlin knows I loathe blaming hormones because pregnant women can be sensible!) but yeah anyway, even handwaving she made an emotional fear decision, nothing stops her from taking it back. Yeah it would be “oh here’s a baby, sorry didn’t tell you sooner” but hiding it for 20 years? She is not that much of a coward.

Anyway I digress because while I hate this ^^ and think the character of Beverley Crusher deserves a hell of a lot better, I just can’t see that the proud writers who tweeted (oh boy I have something to say about that shit) about this “epic romance” when it came to Beverley and Picard talking when she explained keeping the secret – that wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t really Beverley. So it’s sad because it would be a cool theory but I just can’t see the writers going for that ‘moment’ and then be like ‘not really her’.

Anyway my last ramble is more of well kinda this I guess ^^ I am not on Twitter. Haven’t been in a decade or so. I had an account for a while when it first launched but deleted it. I saw some tweet feeds virtue of a Trek server I have now muted as I couldn’t take it anymore. I ranted about this in the nice Trek server a bit but people are shipping Seven and Shaw? Like I want to throw the man out of the airlock. He’s a piece of work. I haven’t experienced this level of dissonance of “hang on are we watching the same show?” since Once Upon a Time and the mess that was Hook and Emma as a ship.

I can’t believe that we’re getting to the half point of the season and Seven and Raffi haven’t been on screen together once. I want them very much to reunite and be together. I still want a spin-off. Give me Seven and Raffi and the Fenris Rangers, doing the friendly neighbourhood making a small part of the Galaxy better thing. Honestly though at this point I will settle for Seven just getting away from Shaw. It makes me blood boil that he has basically been emotionally abusive, taking advantage as the commanding officer, and there’s no justice.

Watching old Trek I have seen some gross stuff. I saw some last night on TNG with the holodeck producing Troi for Barclay to kiss. So so wrong. Where’s the consent? But anyway you can say it was 30 years ago and we can now see that’s wrong (it’s always been wrong but ok) but yet even new Trek seems to suffer from some very gross disturbing stuff and the poor female characters still don’t get any justice. I really would have hoped we were beyond this by now but apparently not.

Anyway hopefully next week will be better.

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Re: the theory of Beverly being a changeling I have been thinking about this some more 🤔 my immediate reaction was “that would be so cool but too clever for the writers tbh plus they wouldn’t do that for the emotional convo payoff”

Aaaaand then I realised that actually that kind of bait and switch is something they would probably enjoy. As they seem to have no regard for what infuriates people. They like it, so must everyone right?

So now I am pondering.

I mean can you imagine if Picard learned that Beverley hadn’t ghosted them all, that she had been a prisoner all this time, and that the guy he thought was his son, is actually not and may not even exist.

I mean we said about “how can 25th century birth control fail?” well who says it actually did. What if in the end Jack Crusher was a changeling plot, and never real? Then Picard would have to come to terms with “the son he never did actually have” which sounds like the type of Picard-centric pain the writers like. I mean let’s just ignore Elnor and all the other potential found family because blood is everything /sarcasm.

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I also think (and I haven’t said this before it just occurred to me) that the writers fuck-up started back in season one with a very key thing.

Intervening years? What intervening years?

True there was some stuff very soon after the last movie with the Romulans but then Picard sat in his vineyard for 15 years until the next TV show came around. Yeah they gave Riker a family but for the most part again kinda exiled on pause. Some more stuff is coming up now like he had command of the Titan at some point etc. but for the most part it feels like they had no idea what these guys did until the “next adventure” (aka now) and that is maybe partly why it feels so fake and weird.

I mean I write sometimes and creating a living breathing world is damn hard. I constantly find myself going “well what do these characters do all day?” “Where are there friends?” Because it is so easy to fall into the trap of them being in a bubble and only existing in written scenes and not much in between. But it makes for a very shallow life and poor motivation and emotional resonance.

Another problem with the nostalgia element is that it doesn’t let the characters grow properly.

Seriously I do wonder these days if people working on franchises get a kick out of seeing how little effort they need to make. It’s like “oh it has trek / Star Wars / marvel etc. in the name and that’s enough”

Dude no it isn’t.