“Võx”
Star Trek: Picard Season 3, Episode 9 – Debuted Thursday, April 13, 2023
Written by Sean Tretta & Kiley Rossetter
Directed by Terry Matalas
An excellent start to the season (and series) finale, “Võx” is jam-packed with revelations and an emotional roller coaster of character moments.
I’m not opening it, you open it.
WARNING: Spoilers below!
RECAP
“Your son is dangerous.”
Things kick off inside Jack’s red door vision, now guided by a reassuring Deanna, who helps him realize the creepy vines are from a childhood memory about an arboretum visit and a fascination with flowers being connected, symbolizing his own primal need for connection. Deanna promises Jack he isn’t alone, but after finally opening that door, she shuts the whole thing down and makes a hasty exit. The shocked counselor runs to his parents, revealing what she saw… it’s the Borg. Dun dun duuun! After a bit of back and forth, the trio quickly puts the pieces together–when he was Locutus, the Borg changed something on an organic level to make him into a receiver, which later manifested as (misdiagnosed) Irumodic Syndrome. He passed this to Jack, where it has transformed into his new powers as a transmitter, which is why why the Borg want him. Picard takes the revelation hard, seeing that everything that has happened is his fault. As he heads off to inform Jack, Troi points out that there are protocols, specifically that Jack is clearly compromised by Starfleet’s greatest enemy who want to use him as a weapon. Jeez Deanna, as if Jean-Luc wasn’t feeling guilty enough.
Picard finds Jack clawing at walls and sits him down to tell the tale of when he was assimilated and how the Borg left something behind. This new twist on the birds and bees has Jack now understanding why he has always had a subconscious, Borg-like drive for perfection and shocked to learn of the “cybernetic authoritarianism” origins. The compassionate father and son bonding flips when Picard suggests Jack go to a Vulcan institution that deals with this sort of thing, but Jack isn’t having it, especially after the two security guys outside the door make it clear the admiral wasn’t just suggesting. After a sick burn about how Picard never learned the “protocols of a father,” Jack does his red eyes control thing on the security guys, creating a little collective to assist his escape. A desperate Beverly is unable to stop her son, who vows he’ll find the Borg Queen to tell her to buzz off… what could possibly go wrong with that plan? After stealing a shuttle, Jack senses his way to a transwarp conduit that leads straight to a Borg cube. Left behind, his parents are helpless to stop this joyride, but Beverly is determined to find answers and leaves Picard to commiserate with his old pal Data, who asks if now is the right time to “say something comforting.” Meet the new ‘droid, same as the old ‘droid.
Which one of us has to tell him his grandmother was a replicator?
“Happy Frontier Day, everyone.”
In Sickbay, Geordi and Data have been going over the Changeling database and have learned Altan Soong was studying how the Borg did some extra monkeying with Picard’s DNA, which is why the Changelings stole the body: to weaponize the code. The details of how Jack fits into the plan are still unclear, but everyone assumes it has something to do with the plot for Frontier Day, which is kicking off now with all of Starfleet gathering above Earth. A reluctant Shaw steers the ship back home, where they watch Admiral Shelby (on board the Enterprise-F!) give a nice speech about the launch of the first Enterprise starship 250 years ago, leading to the creation of the new Starfleet. The Titan gang gets salty (especially Riker, holding an old grudge) when they hear about the new “fleet formation” advancement, mocking the “Borg-like” connected ship “unity.” And speaking of the Borg, Jack has made his way into the cube to have a chat about Latin with the obscured Queen, who welcomes him “home” and dubs him “Vox.” (Title alert!) Dr. Jack wants to show her “mercy” at end of his phaser, but resistance is… well, you know the rest.
A triumphant Queen does some monologuing about vindication and revenge as the kid gets plugged in for the big show. How’s that plan working out, Jack? Back in sickbay, the Data/Geordi/Beverly braintrust has even more exposition: Changeling infiltrators coded Picard’s Borgified DNA into transporters across Starfleet. “They’ve been assimilating the entire fleet this whole time.” OMG! The Titan arrives at Earth, but they’re too late. Picard’s warning about the conspiracy is cut off by a Borg signal which starts assimilating the young crews across the fleet (something about the frontal cortex stopping development after age 25)… this includes Mura, the La Forge girls, and the rest of the Titan’s junior officers… who announce they are Borg! Seeing Shelby gunned down by some ensigns and the entire fleet quickly assimilated, the older folks decide it’s time to get off the Titan, which has gone total Logan’s Run.
I love having you back, but what’s with the goofy grin, dude?
“We’re the crew of the USS Enterprise.”
The gang struggles to find a safe deck to exit the turbolift as firefights rage across the ship, now commanded by BorgEsmar. A last-gasp message from the USS Excelsior over a maintenance channel gives Captain Grease Monkey an idea, so Shaw directs everyone old enough to remember round combadges to meet up at a repair shuttle, which importantly isn’t part of the new ship network. The Borg announce Starfleet has been added to the collective, and the “weak and willful” are soon to be eliminated as the synchronized fleet takes aim at Spacedock… and Earth. Everyone rallies on the maintenance deck and even as he struggles to deal with his daughters’ assimilation, Geordi is convinced to fight another day—and he has an idea of where to go. He and Data have some gallows humor prepping the shuttle as some Borgies show up to say “Okay, Boomers” with phasers. Shaw holds them off as one by one, the TNG vets get into the shuttle, but he takes a serious hit. Picard doesn’t want to leave him behind, but Seven tells him to go, leaving her and Raffi to tend to the dying man. We can see how far the two Titan officers have come as Shaw uses his last words to address her as “Seven of Nine,” telling the tearful commander she is captain now. Shaw dead? All I have to say to that is… No.
Once they arrive at the Fleet Museum, Geordi says they are going to need “something older” that isn’t connected to Starfleet’s new network and reveals what’s behind hanger door number 12. It’s the goddamn USS Enterprise-D! La Forge has been working on it as a pet project since Deanna crashed the saucer into Veridian III 30 years ago. Everyone—even Data—has all the feels of seeing their old ship and soon enough they are on the perfectly restored bridge, with Picard particularly nostalgic over the carpet. Somehow not blinded by bright lights after all their time on the Titan—and despite Worf griping about wanting the fancier weapons of the Enterprise-E—everyone is happy to be home and they soon settle into their old positions. Content with the familiar computer voice redubbing him“Captain Picard,” Jean-Luc assures his friends that together they can save their families, Starfleet, and the Federation because that is what they do. His simple “make it so” fills us all with the belief that they will.
Whatever you do, don’t let Deanna drive.
ANALYSIS
Whole lotta episodin’ goin’ on
Things really come together nicely in this first part of the season and series finale, while “Võx” delivers plenty to work as a standalone episode. If anything, there is too much going on, making a repeat viewing help to catch all the details. The (mostly) good pacing slowed down at just the right times for some key character moments, allowing for some strong performances and emotional beats. The season’s recurring theme of family was on full display with the Picard/Crusher and La Forge families being torn apart, with the hope that they will be brought together again by the reunited Enterprise-D family.
Of course, the big reveal in this episode was Jack’s Borg origin story, and Ed Speleers was outstanding as Jack came to grips with this shocking truth and the perceived betrayal of his parents, with heartbreaking moments from both Sir Patrick Stewart and Gates McFadden. Marina Sirtis continues to show the wait for her to arrive on the scene was worth it. She was the key to all of this heavy lifting, while also bringing some of the lighter moments, especially in the final act. When it comes to shocks and heavy moments, the death of Shaw was brutal, but beautifully earned with Todd Stashwick and Jeri Ryan bringing their arc to a close. It’s a testament to the actor and the writers that the passive-aggressive foil introduced in episode 1 went out like a boss in episode 9, and will be so missed. While mostly relegated to exposition, LeVar Burton and Brent Spiner also had a few moments to shine with some tough love and even some fun banter as their friendship evolves along with them.
And I thought inheriting your baldness was the worst thing.
After all the buildup, we finally arrived at Frontier Day, which included that fun cameo from Elizabeth Dennehy, playing a more seasoned Fleet Admiral Elizabeth Shelby. Her speech (and Frontier Day itself) was also a nice nod to Star Trek: Enterprise, although going along with this new fleet connectivity thing doesn’t reflect well on the character as it didn’t make a lot of sense and was clearly vulnerable to exploitation, presumably by design of the conspirators. Leaving all the big reveals until episode 9 required a lot of exposition scenes that impacted the pacing and were all a bit much to take in. Following two episodes that had a bit of filler, the story might have been better served had some of the reveals about Jack and the Borg/Changeling plot been put into the previous episodes to give a bit more detail and allow it all to sink in. The rush in this episode brought back the one major gripe for the season when the show jumps through some hoops to get to where it wants to go without explaining or showing things, like why it was so easy for Jack to escape the ship, seemingly without any attempt from the bridge crew to stop the shuttle. And later in the episode, it could have been clearer and more impactful (via a brief cutaway at the right moment) how the Queen was using Jack to send out her signal, which was sort of the point of the whole big conspiracy. The Queen briefly mentions Vadic, but time could have been spent showing how and why the Borg and the Changelings are working together, plus showing that “The Face” communicating with Vadic was the Queen (presumably) all along.
Of course, rushing through moments in the first two acts allowed time for the pitch-perfect reveal of Geordi’s pet project at the Fleet Museum. Nicely teased earlier in the season, the restored USS Enterprise-D was what he had hidden away in Hanger 12, although it was curious how Picard and the rest of the gang didn’t know the Prime Directive required Starfleet to retrieve the saucer from where it crashed in Star Trek Generations. It may be dismissed by some as mere fan service, but there was a legitimate plot reason to bring back the old ship and the reveal inside and out was beautifully done, with fantastic visual effects and amazing production design that made the ship look as good as it ever has, even down to that carpet — although that gag may have been delivered better by Frakes, who has been the more reliable jokester this season. It was nice that these moments on the bridge of the old ship were given some time for both the characters and the audience to take it all in, and we could all feel it, making us just as overwhelmed with emotion as Data. Even after all the death and destruction we just witnessed, this ship with this crew shined through, representing all the hope and optimism at the core of Star Trek. Can’t wait to see what it does in the finale.
Yes, that jazz bar program is still in the holodeck, why do you ask?
It’s all connected
While it may take a rewind to fully understand, this episode finally put all the pieces together with the big reveal that the rogue Changelings have been working with the Borg the entire time. Bringing back the Borg may be a bit of a repeat, but being the ultimate big bad fits with Jean-Luc Picard’s arc as a character. Doing a bit of retcon on Picard’s original assimilation works, explaining how the Borg gave Locutus more genetic manipulation, and this, combined with him having a son that evolved that genetic manipulation, worked out as a huge bonus for the Borg, giving them a whole new way to assimilate. This could be the key to a big comeback, decades after the Borg were set back by future Admiral Janeway. There was a mention in this episode about how the Borg hadn’t been seen in over a decade. The Jurati Borg featured in season 2 were actually separate from the main collective (they were a splinter group formed by Agnes Jurati in an alternate past), something noted earlier in the season by Captain Shaw when he said: “Forget all that weird shit on the Stargazer, the real Borg are still out there.”
The hints of the Borg hand behind the wheel have been there all season, but were still vague enough to keep plenty of other theories viable. Looking back at episode 1, there was foreshadowing for Changelings, The Borg, and the Enterprise-D, proving how season 3 stands above previous seasons of Picard in making things fit together from beginning to end. The Picard genetic manipulation plot even answers the curiosity of how Jean-Luc could still hear the Borg in Star Trek: First Contact, years after all of his cybernetic implants had been removed.
Tying everything to age offered up a clever way to turn the older crew (and their old ship) into the last great hope for the Federation. Leaving Raffi and Seven back on the Titan to allow for just the TNG crew to have their moment on the Enterprise-D was a bit obvious, so perhaps they should have been given a specific task, although they will surely play a part in the finale. There is also more to be revealed about the ultimate Borg goal, unless it is as simple as using their new transporter assimilation trick on the entire young population of the Federation and killing everyone else. This penultimate episode did hint that maybe Jack’s reckless move to deliver himself to the Queen can work out, if his ideals of fairness, mercy, and compassion can be used to fight back and perhaps transform the Borg from within. How fitting would it be for the Next Generation’s final hurrah to have the son of Jean-Luc Picard bring a peaceful end to his father’s greatest enemy?
Don’t mind the mess, this cube is a fixer-upper.
Final thoughts
All indications are that season 3 is sticking the landing. Part one of the season (and series) finale is full of memorable and profound moments, so the skipped steps it takes are worth it. These nine weeks have been some of the most fun for Star Trek fans, making the anticipation for the final almost unbearable.
Your son has daddy issues, mommy issues, and queenie issues.
BITS
- The late Majel Barrett was credited for providing the computer voice of the USS Enterprise-D, as she did for all seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
- Captain Benbassat of the USS Excelsior was voiced by prolific voice actor Nolan North, who has voiced a number of characters in Lower Decks and appeared in Star Trek Into Darkness.
- Season 1 and 2 main character Elnor was last known to be assigned to the USS Excelsior, so it’s possible he was killed when the ship was destroyed by the Borg.
- Star Trek: First Contact’s Alice Krige returns to voice the Borg Queen, but actress Jane Edwina Seymour played the Queen, credited as “Borg Queen body double.”
- The Borg Queen gave Jack (and the episode) the name “Vox,” meaning voice in Latin. She also referred to him in Latin as Regenerati (rebirth/regenerated) and Puer Dei (child of god).
- Speaking of Latin, the episode title “Vox” is written somewhat unusually with a tilde (~); typically the Latin word is written without an accent over the O, and the accepted accent for the word is to have a bar (a macron) as in Vōx.
- The Star Trek novel The Return included a Borg character named Vox who served as Speaker to the Romulan Empire.
- Picard recalls his time as Locutus, hearing his voice from the TNG episode “Best of Both Worlds, Part 1.”
- Jack’s vision included the song “I Can’t Stop Crying” by Will Grove-White, which was one of the songs from a mix Jean-Luc Picard gave Beverly, heard in the season 3 premiere.
- Raritan IV is named for Raritan, New Jersey, the birthplace of showrunner Terry Matalas.
- The rebuilt USS Enterprise-D used the drive section from the USS Syracuse, a ship referenced in the TNG season 7 episode “Eye of the Beholder.”
- Starfleet’s new “Fleet Formation Mode” was designated “Emergency Protocol NX12.11.”
- Picard wanted to send Jack to a Vulcan academy named Keslovar, which Jack described as an institution where they could “mind-meld and lobotomize” the Borg out of him.
- The Enterprise-F is based on a design from the game Star Trek Online.
- The fate of the Enterprise-E (last seen in Star Trek Nemesis) remains a mystery beyond Worf (who was the ship’s final captain) insisting it wasn’t his fault.
- The fleet of ships around Earth included the USS Okuda and the USS Drexler, named for designers Mike and Denise Okuda and Doug Drexler.
- Other ships included the USS John Kelly, named for the 21st century astronaut found in the Voyager episode “One Small Step,” the USS Forrest, named for 22nd century Starfleet Admiral Maxwell Forrest from Star Trek: Enterprise (who was named in honor or TOS star DeForest Kelly), and the USS Pulaski, named for the season 2 TNG character Dr. Katherine Pulaski.
Enterprise-Déjà vu.
More to come
We will discuss the episode in detail on Friday’s episode of All Access Star Trek. every Friday, the TrekMovie.com All Access Star Trek podcast covers the latest news in the Star Trek Universe. The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Stitcher and is part of the TrekMovie Podcast Network.
Picard streams exclusively on Paramount+ in the Americas, Europe, the Caribbean and South Korea. It also streams internationally on Amazon Prime Video in more than 200 countries and territories. In Canada, it airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave.
Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
A century later and Dr. McCoy’s concerns about the transporter are vindicated!
LOLOL! That’s exactly what I thought, too!
Yes!
Bones was so right! Pulaski too!
Love it
Hee! Perfect!
So much for that Shaw and Seven spinoff.
I kind of expected he’d bite it, but not for another episode. Ah well, let’s see if Seven remembers the nanoprobes this time.
Shaw’s death was disappointing. I had hopes for his future involvement in Star Trek. He was an interesting character.
Oh, don’t be silly. Shaw’s clearly not dead.
Really hope so.
Seven still has Borg nanoprobes in her system. They were once used to bring Neelix back to life after 19 hours. I don’t think Shaw is gone either.
It would actually be pretty interesting to see how he comes to terms with nanoprobes saving his life, considering how much he hates Borg.
It was not at all clear that Shaw is alive.
Do Seven’s own assimilation tubes work at this point?
Could she save him with her own Borg nanoprobes that had been heavily altered by The Doctor while on Voyager?
That would be full circle for Shaw – pulled from the brink of death by a local assimilation.
(I really don’t want him to die.)
Agree that having a captain with PTSD related to Borg trauma grappling with being saved again, but this time through Borg nano probes, would have lots of long term character work to chew through.
Perhaps we’ll see Seven give Shaw back his ship yet.
Clearly?
I am in denial. I am hoping either he gets assimilated to reanimate him and later save him or gets put in stasis/frozen.
Me, too…
Me too….
He’s not dead.
Maybe Seven uses her nanoprobes to bring him back. It worked with Neelix…
Maybe he’ll get into some of those Life Stasis Pods like Dr. Crusher at the Start teleports to keep him “frozen” until someone can tend to his Serious Wounds. Maybe EMH (Doctor of Voyager) has some Easter Egg screentime. Because “All Hands on Deck in the Mecial Station even all EMH!. This is not an exercise!”
LOL, remember a year ago it was the Rios and Seven spinoff. ;D
Then, Seven and Raffi.
I guess we riot.
Seven was not given the chance to show she’d earned the chair, quite the opposite.
Shaw’s final concession of her name felt too by the numbers, although appropriate for Shaw after he witnessed she wasn’t reassimilated.
I hope Elnor wasn’t still on the Excelsior!
That’d require the writers remembering that he exists. XD It’s fine. If they want to use him later, there are lots of reasons for him not to have been on board.
They didn’t seem to remember the change in the Borg, though.
That’s because you weren’t paying attention. The borg weren’t changed. There are TWO collectives now. Shaw even mentioned this earlier in the season, very specifically in very clear bit of foreshadowing. That you missed it is proof that we should just ignore your negative nancy opinions
Can you be a bit nicer on here, please?
Clearly not. He’s one the most obnoxious and negative people on this board. This is why we need ignore buttons.
Amen to that.
Please create an ignore button! I would like to read and post on these boards more often but certain “alpha” trolls make this place an unwelcome environment.
I have zero to do with this site other than posting on it but yes many of us have been asking for one for years now. And I would HAPPILY use it for people like this.
The only proof here is that you insist on being an arrogant obnoxious brat.
Agreed!
Sure would be nice if Jurati could swing by and help out.
Not sure why she’s allowing this now, though.
Her collective is an entirely separate entity from the “main” Borg Collective as shown in the season 2 finale and as implied by Shaw earlier this season.
Yeah, I saw the Matt Wright post earlier. I don’t recall him saying that and I didn’t recall that it was a splinter group. Which speaks to how memorable past seasons of Picard have been, quite frankly.
I think it’s funny how you blame it on the show, when you really just weren’t paying attention or didn’t understand basic story points. Hilarious.
Yes hilarious. We’re all laughing at you and your schoolyard bullying and gaslighting antics.
Maybe they will show up next week? I know Terry Matalas said they wouldn’t, but maybe it’s a misdirect?
I defended Matalas for saying that the Borg wouldn’t show up, but I have to wonder where that came from. I never personally saw him saying, and was going off the word of others who said he did. Because he’d otherwise been very honest with his twitter comments, so I’m quite annoyed that (if true) he outright lied.
AP, I think I read where what he actually said was that the second season Borg wouldn’t show up, but then was coy about the others. So maybe it wasn’t really a lie, just an evasion or misdirect?
I think he was being coy, like you said, but if I had read it at the time, i’d definitely have taken it as a clue that the true Borg would appear.
Disappointing, because the Borg are SO overused. Tired of them.
Aye, if some Titan Offspring gets Greenlight. I hope the Writer room comes with some other threat as the Borgs
Perhaps these Mechanics Lifeforms of the Rift at the end of Season 1
(Sorry, time run out for edit)
Hope it is formated like Strange New Worlds.
Breen, Breen, Breen.
They can be anything under those environmental suits.
Or many kinds of aliens if they take a lead from the novelverse.
They almost HAVE to definitively defeat them next week at this point, you know?
Jurati, the Klingons, literally any non-Starfleet allies who see this as a threat to their own systems….anyone?
Well, SNW has the Gorn’s back.. But Well.. Voyager where not always playing Angels in the Gama Quadrant and that could be an good entry point from here
I have no problem with a show bringing back a classic threat. But the Borg have been “brought back” so many times it’s like they never left.
Give us a chance to miss them.
yes, Picard here overused them. Season 1 they where victums some sort of PoW, Season 2. Well Temporary allies and Season 3 they are enemys again? I still belive or dream, that Jurati’s Borg can hijack the Borg collective Signal and return them back. “overriding” the call of the Borgs from subspace, because Jurati’s Borg signal is stronger. But well, this is a dream right now
I’m hoping he was.
He was probably on Earth at the Academy
I forgot all about that! Dang, I hope he wasn’t, I liked that character.
I thought he was awesome as well.
Same.
I like Elnor too, but don’t remotely miss him.
I’d be happy to have Elnor as the newbie ensign on the Titan.
Speaking of Excelsior, the captain who spoke over the comm was voiced by Nolan North most known for playing Nathan Drake in the Uncharted games
Terry has confirmed on Twitter that he wasn’t.
And I hope he was.
One of our wishes will come true, at least. **beer-clink**
:D
The episode while good had imo glaring potholes and bad pacing.
The big bad is finally revealed and to everyone’s shock… it’s exactly what was predicted even before the season started lol.
I’m tired of the Borg as we had some of them in S1/2 and I’m disappointed that Matalas went the easy route instead of having a more interesting villain imo.
With only 1 episode left and unless the next episode is at least an hour and a half or 2 hours. i don’t see them convincingly being able to sell a story about stopping the borgifed starfleet even with the Enterprise D and also stop the changelings and rescue everyone who was replacement by them.
This is why Adama sorry i meant Geordi didn’t want the Galactica sorry again i meant the Titan and the rest of the fleet to to be interconnected i was also hoping to hear a reference to the living construct from Prodigy but nope. (I do wonder if the rumors that Terry Matalas isn’t much of a fan of the other newer Trek shows (Prodigy,SNW,DSC etc.. is actually true.)
I hope Shaw is dead(Sorry I don’t like the character)but i don’t think we will be lucky i guess 7 and Raffi will save him with Borg Nano’s or something.
It was pretty obvious that the ship in Bay 12 was the Enterprise D. After all these years she is still a beautiful ship and it was great to hear Majel’s voice again. The set did look different but that is due to having to make it shorter to fit in the production studios and i wished the lighting was better. The extra light bulbs must be arriving on Tuesday.
I don’t think it was a great idea to hold off the Jack reveal until these final episodes. If the writers had done this sooner there would have been space for reflection and for more proper character development with this part of the story.
One thing that got a main priority over everything else this season was all the nostalgia. It has so far felt like nine hours of unboxing one of those time capsules to see what was put inside it.
I know that all this nostalgia has resonated emotionally with some fans and more power to them.
But i feel disappointed that despite growing up watching TNG that i find that much of it doesn’t work for me and it imo feels shoved into the season by Matalas to cover for/prop up a weak story-line.
How was it obvious it was the Ent-D? I was totally surprised! I guess I missed the clues.
It was revealed by Levar Burton himself in an interview we would be back on the Enterprise, so everyone knew it was coming. And once Geordi mentioned Cargo Bay 12 …and went no farther with it, everyone rightfully jumped on it lol.
I didn’t know that the D was coming, thank god! It is sometimes worth NOT reading or watching everything on line if you want to get the full experience. I was completely overwhelmed, blown away and loved it!
Additionally, when they were in production of S3 while S2 was airing, it was mentioned that we’d see the 1701-D bridge “among other things”. Between that info and the boatswain whistle photo going around, I’d assumed this season was going to be full of time travel shenanigans again. :)
This was my feeling as well. The episode is oddly paced, the story awkwardly told, with unsatisfying moments (not talking a certain potential death)… but because of the ending it’s being hailed as a masterpiece by some.
You know, I spent the better part of two hours last night writing a lengthy screed on just how dismal I thought this show was, how antithetical it felt to the values of the Trek I grew up with and loved, not to mention being creatively bankrupt besides. And now that it’s time to post it, I just can’t. Life is short, and fraught enough these days as it is. Let those who loved it love it in peace, say I. On a certain level, I even envy them.
Thank you, that a very considerate thing to (not) do. Have you had a chance to watch PRODIGY? Once I got past the first 2-3 episodes I found it to be the kind of TREK I’ve always loved filled with great stories and cool characters and you might, too…
Same! And why it’s my favorite out of the new stuff so far.
Yeah, that’s largely why I’m so down on people being so overly critical and angry and hyperbolically negative at DSC, or the first two seasons of PIC.
It’s TV show. I can’t care enough to be angry, bitter, or anything more than mildly annoyed.
Get a life.
So you missed the point of my post, then. In any case, stealing from The Shat is not a good look. 😎
Uh… he did, and that’s kind of what he’s saying
Actually I would’ve loved to have read that post Michael lol. But I really respect why you decided not to write it. But you know I value people to be as honest here as possible and say whatever is on their mind. I am loving this season and while I agree this episode definitely had problems, I really loved it too. But that’s probably the fanboy in me mostly talking. ;)
But the one thing I will say is, I am actually surprised how dark this season has been (and I don’t mean the lighting). It’s an incredibly dour season at the heart of it, something many fans have been really put off off by modern Trek, especially Discovery AND the first season of Picard. It’s funny I remember how people complained even in that season it felt too ‘dystopian’ but I don’t really see a huge difference with this season either. But I always disagreed about that argument with the first season too.
I guess because the TNG characters are so loved and actually very true to who they are this season, it has outweigh that issue for many maybe. And many seem to feel the story is also just better written. Yes, I know people still have some complaints over the plotting, this episode included, but considering the really crappy and downright cringy stuff we got in the first two seasons, its a vast improvement. Frankly I was completely bored by the middle of season 2 where I was just waiting for it to end. But this season, it goes sooo fast and I just want more does show how much more people are invested at least.
But I’m just sorry you didn’t like this season very much and I can’t see the finale changing your mind at this point.
Hey Tiger2,
If you’re really curious 😊 you can read my thoughts at tor.com on the Keith Candido thread. Warning, though: it’s pretty strongly-worded stuff, especially if you’re liking the show. I decided that I didn’t need to be harshing anyone’s mellow here, as so many seem to be enjoying it. But opinions are far more mixed over there, and what the hell, I had to vent somewhere.
And you’re probably right that my attitudes about this season are pretty locked-in at this point. But rest assured that I’ll be tuned-in next week, same bat channel, just to see how it all pans out.
I went over there just now, and except for the part where you cited dialog as being a strong suite in early parts of the season, am right there with you. Except that overall, I’m somehow enjoying it. Not sure why, fanservice has not worked on me in decades (or maybe it is that I’m only susceptible to certain kinds?) As I indicated upthread, can’t imagine sitting through all this again, but at least I sat through it once and took some joy from it (which is more than I can say for the most of the previous two seasons, or any of the DSC I saw that didn’t have Mount in it.)
Word.
I think we’re all on the same page here.
I’m not really convinced that Sirtis’ availability was the constraint as it happened either.
While she had to fly out literally right after the final night of her one woman show in London’s west end, she was still on set for 2 of the 6 months of shooting.
I feel like the reference to what happened to the Enterprise E was about the living construct
What was so special about Picard that the Borg assimilated him differently? Why him?
That’s really my biggest question.
Also, I think it would have been even more cool if ALL the ships at the museum were somehow returned to action. Imagine the E-A, the E-D, the Bounty, the Defiant, and Voyager all fighting side by side. It would have been a chance to get more incredible cameos, including following up on Project Phoenix.
Best of Both Worlds did say his DNA was being rewritten.
But what would make him more special than other drones? FC kind of changed a lot of what the Borg did. The Borg would take a spokesman, which in BOBW was Picard, but by FC, it was a bee sting that infected you.
I don’t think Picard was special until he was assimilated. Whatever process they used on Picard was clearly different, because he was given a name where no other Borg was. Locutus was meant to be a bridge or at least an intermediary between the Borg and the Federation. They did something different to him when he was assimilated.
This was I believe how the Borg were conceived. FC changed it all to make assimilation different. In BOBW, there were even baby Borg.
Q Who had baby Borg, not BOBW. And they retconned that in VOY by saying babies were assimilated and then placed in maturation chambers to age…
I was hoping that would be the case too, but I guess the budget for that many bridge sets would’ve been prohibitive. But maybe they’ll have to use them as fill in ships for the ones that get destroyed and there’ll be a shot like that at the end of the last episode!
I would not expect high Quality Fights with these Old Ships. it’s clearly that some Central Computer is flying them. They do not have that many Crew to fly them in this short time. So, i expect more Glass cannon Flying where some Damage could trow them out of Balance
Perhaps it’s Data and Gerodi together remote control all of them. But even they have Limits
Yeah I think a lot of people thought that and that Seven’s scene was really foreshadowing a big showdown later. Sure I would’ve loved it but it probably would’ve felt very fanboyish to the extreme lol.
And someone mentioned on YouTube that the other ships aren’t even flyable. They compared them to the planes at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum how none of those planes have fuel or working engines. Of course its fiction so they could all be fully flyable if it was needed in the story but it would make sense why they aren’t capable either.
I don’t think Terry intended for the Project Phoenix thing to be taken seriously. He loves whatever novel it came from and so it was a cute lil easter egg.
He meant to create an option it seems.
It also served as a reminder of the need to ensure everything is removed from a planet to avoid violating the Prime Directive.
You don’t drop a bomb like that as a joke. He said that he didn’t like Generations either, and this gave the character hope for another writer to pick up. They got Kirk off Veridian III. It was far more than a “cute lil easter egg.”
Oh, and one more thing–they created exactly ONE character that was not a legacy character that was amazing, and they just killed him off. That sucked.
Par for the course. How’s Captain Rios on the Stargazer?
Yeah Shaw’s death is something people are taking hard. Same time many were convinced the guy was a goner after the first episode lol. I loved Shaw from the beginning too but I was always prepared with the idea he wouldn’t make it out alive by the end of the season. But yes, it still sucks.
Count me surprised, simply from the POV of knowing that the producer put his friend in that role. To catch up to others here, Season 2 could have had Seven and Rios in exactly the same narrative arc – where Rios is pissed at Seven for not doing something about stopping Jurati from becoming a Borg.
Well he was there for 9 episodes, so he had a great role. And yeah maybe if it wasn’t the final season, he would’ve stuck around longer. Of course I know everyone is assuming we will get a spin off of some kind but I think they always had it in mind Seven would probably be the Captain if one happens.
And Rios is a good point, a character we all assumed would’ve stuck around regardless. If things worked out as people assumed, Seven should’ve been his first officer on the Stargazer this season. And yeah he should’ve been way more upset over what happened with Jurati but this is why season 2 was such a stinker. Nothing made sense.
After losing Hemmer last season in SNW, I am so done with new complex and interesting characters being created and fridged (killed off) just to advance some legacy character’s development.
It’s well established that this is a writer’s crutch. It’s not making things seem more real.
Having all the fridged characters be male doesn’t make it less objectionable or more defensible. All the more so when Hemmer was representing the differently abled, and Shaw has represented and resonated with veterans with PTSD.
No more please.
Just bring back Shaw. Let Seven assimilate him with her altered nanoprobes.
It was the first time for me at least, they created a decent new character.
To each his/her own. I never grew to like Shaw, just disliked him a little less. He really never came off as a particularly good Captain. Regardless, Seven will use nanoprobes to save him, I’m sure.
If he’s really dead.
I will say that I like Jack, Mystery Box or no. Speelers is obviously not 24 years old, but he’s very watchable as an actor. If he survives, I would happily tune into a show he’s in the ensemble of.
Completely agree. Lorac, (original) Georgiou, Rios, Sahil (waiting guy on Discovery)… I’m convinced Pike has only survived this long solely because his old age is TOS canon. The franchise just cannot survive if they keep killing off every character who has enough personality to lead a show.
Shaw was pretty inconsistent which I know was part of his character. The issue with him that I found irredeemable was when he essentially told Seven that it was hopeless and let his crew be murdered in the episode Surrender. Seven wanted to sacrifice herself for her crew, and Shaw talked her out of it. Seemed pretty cowardice in my opinion, especially for a Starfleet Captain.
Haven’t watched it yet, but f**k, this seems like a lot of fan service pandering. Hope I’m wrong, but since E6 I’ve been a bit disappointed.
So you are here to whine about it before you even watch it. Got it.
My reading comprehension skills are pretty good. Apparently, yours aren’t, as I was holding out hope to be wrong. I’ve seen it now, and my disappointment continues.
No, you were whining. Now you are trolling.
Anyone not slobbering affectionately all over this fan service is trolling. Gotcha.
Please tell me I’m not the only one who started balling when they revealed the Enterprise D? I couldn’t believe they did the thing! I never EVER thought they would spend the money to recreate the Enterprise D, what an astonishing gift! I can’t begin to describe the emotional gut punch this was for me, I saw my childhood flash in-front of my eyes in a way I never expected. I can’t begin to describe my gratitude for this! TNG has been honored and elevated in the best way possible.
Beyond that I love the story, very clever retcon that makes sense and elevates the Borg danger. I do wish this might have been revealed earlier so we didn’t have to rush through this and spend so little time with the Borg threat. I’m also confused by the “behind the head” view of the Borg Queen. I find that very unsatisfying because I was waiting for the face of Alice Krige to really put an exclamation point on this whole tie-in with First Contact. That whole thing nearly ruined the episode for me, but it recovered big time once we got to the Enterprise D.
Here’s the real question. Will they want to get more use out of the set, since they clearly spent a lot of money to build it?
Time for some Short Treks set during TNG, or even a full movie or Mini-Series! Let’s see the adventures of the night shift!
If I had to guess about Krige, she might not have wanted to get back into all that makeup for such a small cameo, but agreed to do the voiceover.
I hear they bulldozed all the Titan sets after production ended, so my guess is that they didn’t save the D either, but I sure hope they did! And indeed I assume they couldn’t come to an agreement to reprise the roll fully. I know it has to be really hard to get everything you want in a story like this.
I’ve read that too, but maybe it’s not true and it’s just a misdirect. I’m hoping they’ve being saving a STAR TREK: LEGACY announcement with 7 of 9 as the captain for next Wednesday during the IMAX events!
I’d be surprised if they actually did that. They could be repurposed, redressed, etc. They could also donate the ENT-D set to a museum or attraction.
There is a Star Trek set tour in Ticonderoga NY with an ambition to rebuild the TNG sets… And they work with the Okudas…
I really want to take their set tour one day, I think it would be mind blowing!
They’re the same sets that were used to film the fan series Star Trek: New voyages. I worked on them back in 2009 on an episode that never was released — my luck! — and they were indeed (esp the bridge) very impressive.
So production didn’t even have to build it? Maybe that explains why they have the side ramps but not the side consoles, a la GENERATIONS.
No, I was referring to the TOS reconstructions that Cawley has been building (and rebuilding) since the early Aughts. I didn’t even know that he was planning on doing the same with the TNG sets, which actually comes as something of a surprise, as he’s always been a self-described “TOS purist.”
(Just fyi my tenure on those sets was when I served in 2009 as a PA on the David Gerrold written-and-directed “Origins,” a Young Kirk story which has yet to see the light of day (and, I assume, never will). It was, sad to say, a very unpleasant experience in many ways, as now seems inevitable in retrospect given the starting point of a production headed-up by people with Hollywood-sized egos sans the talent or organizational skills and backed by those like myself who had little to bring to the table but their enthusiasm. Working with Gerrold turned out to be particularly problematic — he came off as a harsh and often petty autocrat, blissfully unaware that, unlike himself, none of us grunts were actually being paid to do what was, shorn of its Trek allure, a lot of hard, mostly boring work; in his defense he was under a lot of pressure and did work hard under very chaotic conditions. I had been very impressed with New Voyages’ “World Enough and Time,” and it would have been a disillusioning experience to see how the sausage actually got made even if “Origins” had turned out well. But there was one compensation for me. Early in the shoot, I happened to be on the bridge set when the lighting director asked me to sit in the Captain’s chair — something it had been made clear was absolutely forbidden to us mere mortals — to conduct tests, as James Cawley and I are roughly the same size. (I’m more muscular; he’s much better-looking.) Needless to say, that was quite something of a moment in the life of a middle-aged nerd. I still have the picture of me sitting in that chair, blissed-out and goofy as all hell.)
Somehow it is making me think of Wesley in the chair during FARPOINT, a moment that felt like it was meant for all of us dinosaurs. If I could write poetry (except for a limerick about getting a speeding ticket while hotrodding in my grandfather’s 62 Ford Galaxie, have come up empty my whole life when it comes to poetry, though I’m awesome at mishearing song lyrics), it would probably be about the center seat.
In GEN, the nexus was about all the roads not taken, but for me, GEN was about the alt history that would have arose if Kirk had sat in the seat and Harriman had gone belowdecks to save the day. Don’t know if there is a bloc of fanfic along those lines, but it seems one of the last new paths to chart.
Another quick anecdote about the center seat:
Along with Young Kirk, Gerrold’s script for “Origins” featured appearances by Christopher Pike, Young Carol Marcus (she was hot), Young Gary Mitchell, Kirk’s dad George, and Young Finnegan, who was played by a guy who bore such a close resemblance to Bruce Mars from “Shore Leave” that it was almost spooky. Pike was portrayed by an actual TV actor named Colin Somethingorother in a manner much closer to Jeff Hunter’s Angry Dad Captaiin than Anson Mount’s Best Bud Captain. (Seriously, can you imagine Hunter’s character dressing in an apron and preparing breakfast for his senior staff? Pshaw, says I). Colin did a pretty good job, I though, except for when Gerrold as director pushed his performance, as for example when he dresses-down Young Kirk, into hysteria (another story, perhaps for another time).
Anyhow, in the course of the story Young Kirk and Pike definitely have their issues, but Kirk comes through in the end and all is forgiven. In the tag, as Kirk Sr. looks on proudly, Pike gives the young officer a chance to try out the Captains chair, and as he settled in, Colin leaned over and said, sotto voce but loud enough for all who were present to film the scene to hear: “I farted in the chair.”
Speaking with him later, Colin sadly turned out to be something of a 2009 proto-MAGA, yet I nevertheless bless him in my mind for that moment of almost blooper reel-worthy moment of levity, which at that point in that hot, frustrating and exhausting shoot was definitely needed.
Yeah, I don’t want to see them go there. I don’t even live THAT far from them, and… no thanks. It’s just not worth the time to go visit. I’d like to see this set get the love and attention it deserves by getting an installation in a real museum.
I was thinking the Smithsonian, but maybe a Hollywood museum, heck, i’d settle for a Ripley’s believe it or not display with a few wax figures of characters.
Not Ticonderoga though. They have their own version of the bridge already.
I live 2 hours away and had my photo taken with Shatner on the bridge set last November, so I would happily give Ti my money one more time to see the 1701-D.
Opinions may vary.
There was also the re-creation of the 1701-D bridge set at Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas!
I got to see that while The Experience was still in operation. Very impressive, as I always liked Howard Zimmerman’s TNG designs much more than the exterior of the ship.
Madame Tussaud’s, with wax figures of the characters?
Sadly NY is to far away oversea and i can not afford even an Flight ticket… i wish i could make some Tour in real.. no VR tour. i get fast Motions sickness
they are currently in the process of building the TNG sets in a warehouse next-door and its slated to open this fall.
I would love it if they did that, I went to a traveling science exhibit in the early nineties that had a mock-up of that bridge that you could interact with and it was very cool. Seeing the real thing would be even better…
They’re not going to make more shows in California. Picard was done there as a concession to / condition of Stewart’s. The tax credits aren’t ongoing, and Ontario’s are likely more generous.
Repurposing the sets would have been smart, but if they’ve held onto the interior fittings, sets can be rebuilt with those.
They had to do that for the long term set for the Enterprise for SNW since the version built for Discovery season two was at Pinewood but SNW uses CBS Stages clear past the other side of Toronto, in Mississauga in adjacent Peel county.
could be, but i think they will use the Slot that Discovery would give up. So, time will tell and no need to rush it out. Let the Writer room have enough Flesh and Bones before starting production
“Annika still has work to do.” – Borg Queen stated through 7 of 9 during Season 2
They saved key interior fittings from season three and packed them for shipping and storage according to the production designers.
Sounds like they’ve been sent up to CBS Stages in Mississauga.
Some miniseries or something like that would be delightful! Doesn’t even have to be on the Enterprise. I remember that when I was a kid, I was obsessed with the Yamato, the Enterprise’s “sister ship.” There’s, of course, the Syracuse. The Venture. The Challenger.
Now I’m thinking of a short anthology series where every episode is a different bottle episode with a different crew on a Galaxy class ship. Could be neat.
Like I said, i’d even settle for some short treks…
I agree completely, I really enjoyed the SHORT TREKS they made and wish they’d do some more, especially if the space between shows will be longer…
I’ve said this more than once: Short Treks may have been done out of a kind of desperation — a cheap way to provide content in between seasons — but it really is an example of the benefits of streaming that I’m not sure anyone else has yet to take full advantage of.
Remember web-only content? Those were usually limited to 2-minutes due to slow internet speeds but today, there’s no reason shows can’t film 5, 10, even 15 minute mini episodes and release them during their hiatus.
I wish Trek would embrace them again for what they offer creatively, rather than just a cheap way to keep people subscribing. To quote Zoidberg… why not both?
EXACTLY.
Just my personal taste, but I thought “Children of Mars” was way cooler and more stylish than just about anything seen on the Picard series that followed it, in any season. More of that, please.
initially I wasn’t really on board with Short Treks, but probably more from a content-averse side, rather than a concept-averse side. Not liking DSC, I kind of bounced off of the first set of Short Treks, and never really bothered to go further.
That said, I think you’re right that they provide a really nice kind of pressure release valve when waiting for “big” stuff. Tell quirky or interesting little stories that don’t need a “full” episode. Different eras. Different ships. Different techniques! Different styles! Lots of options. And who knows, maybe a set of them proves to be so popular that a full series goes to order from a concept within.
If they want to use this Enterprise D Bridge setup for the future, then only with an Refit of the Galaxy Class. It’s now to old.. No even the 3rd Warp Nacelle when Admiral Riker used it, would not do it. Perhaps someone should look at the STO Ship’s design and look what “fresh” look would fit for this Spinoff
I can co-sign that the tears came when they showed her and also when they were all on the bridge and MAJEL’S VOICE was heard. It reminded me of that trailer shot of Han and Chewy for THE FORCE AWAKENS except these characters are being treated with respect and I have faith that the final episode will be AWESOME!!
I think you mean “bawling.” When I was a kid, the other word was considered quite rude, just fyi.
After all the times the Enterprise was destroyed…we got one back. That felt SOOOO good! Thankyou to the writers, actors, set people…..everyone who made it happen. This was like a gift!
I’m right there with you! Tears of joy, overwhelmed, blown away. So glad I did not know the ‘D’ was coming!
Forget all the plot holes and convenient Borg exposition.
The death of Shaw hit me hard, and then moments later I literally cried and cheered when the Enterprise D came on screen. That feelings alone made me feel like I was a teen in the 90s and made this episode all worth it!
Same here!! :)
You were not alone. They threw a lot of money and love at that CGI model and bridge set.
A big amen to that!
Maybe now all those 1701-D models that Guinan has been sitting on will finally get the respect they deserve…
Such a great piece of foreshadowing!
It really was!
YES!!
Yep, the D returns and becomes the hero to the galaxy once again!
I’m sure Kestra is fine and there was definitely no need for her parents to worry about her, especially since Matalas made such a big stink for the past week that she’s at the Academy and in Starfleet now and that she’s for sure safe. Given that they just saw all people in Starfleet under 25 that were around a transporter are now assimilated, there was definitely no need for worry on her parents’ part! Definitely also no need for Geordi to be more panicked and upset that he just left his two kids on a ship assimilated and controlled by the Borg that could be blown up at any time. Also I guess RIP Elnor yet again?
I actually thought this was one of the weaker episodes, along with 7, if we take out the last 15 minutes and the TNG cast stuff. They drug out the Jack stuff way too long. I don’t see how this all gets wrapped up in a compelling way in a 45 minute episode. They spent way too much time in that nebula, but in retrospect, that was when the show was the strongest. Star Trek: The Jack Chronicles just isn’t it for me, despite enjoying a lot of this season. Nice to hear Alice Krige again though as the Borg Queen and the Shelby stuff was fun and the kind of fan service I actually enjoy.
The ship stuff at the end was great though and the computer voice made me tear up. Sure it would have basically been nothing but nostalgia, but I really wish this show had been more in that zone this season in the end than sleeper cell agent Jack.
Also, wild that Deanna just went missing for like a 30 minute stretch there. She wasn’t anywhere in the group scenes till they got on the shuttle. They’ve been hyping up out how important she is in the last three, and unless there’s some big stuff in the finale, it’s been a letdown outside of the stuff with her and Riker last episode.
I don’t see how this all gets wrapped up in a compelling way in a 45 minute episode
It’s going to be tough. But in some ways, ’twas ever thus. Modern ST has made kind of a habit of rushing endings.
it’s still a little unclear about who’s using who in terms of the villains. Why exactly are the Changlings working with the Borg, or vice-versa? Motivations other than:
“At last we will reveal ourselves to the
JediStarfleet. At last, we will have revenge” aren’t exactly clearFrom the evidence of the season I doubt the writers have thought beyond that, much less care. But, we’ll see.
perhaps Season 2 Borg Queen has their hand on this. She came from some other Timeline and could had contact with the Changelings on their side. Something like the Terran Imperator, just in Borg
Yeah there is a HUGE piece of backstory we’re missing lol. Like how did the Changelings even meet the Borg??? And who came to who? Maybe that will get resolved next week but not holding my breath either.
So many questions. Why a partner? Doesn’t make sense these group of Changelings weren’t assimilated. The Borg even assimilated Zero on Prodigy.
The funny thing is I actually made a joke about that on another thread. I can’t remember which one but I remember saying if the ‘face’ turned out to be the Borg Queen, Vadic and her group will be assimilated 5 minutes after they assimilate Starfleet. The Borg doesn’t believe in a true partnership. Ask Janeway about that. ;)
But now thinking about it, this probably would’ve been another Scorpion scenario and they would’ve tried to assimilate the Changelings once they accomplished their mission.
Totally forgot about Scorpion. Now I want to see that episode again before Part 10.
I can’t see how the Changeling could ever be assimilated. They have no bones, blood, brain, central nervous system ect
WHEN LOCUTUS MET SALOME?
I guess because both of them are weak and vulnerable. These Changelings are a separate faction with no Jem’Hadar or Vorta / Dominion to help them and the Borg are still weak from Voyager finale. They share the same outlook on individuality as a menace to a civilization (Hive mind and the Great link ). The Federation made them not galactic super powers anymore. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
My take on that too and I think it is not a stretch. I don’t need more explanation, it wouldn’t benefit the show to have detailed scenes dedicated to explanation.
The Borg were weakened to the point of being vulnerable and ineffectual from Future Janeway’s neurolytic pathogen, and these Changelings were a splinter group, cut off from the Great Link, so they had no real support from the wider Dominion forces. However, both groups had a strong desire to strike at the Federation. For Vadic, simple revenge for her mistreatment; for the Borg, they needed to build a new Collective that would be free of the pathogen’s effects. They’re both using each other, and both think they have the upper hand in that partnership.
It seemed clear to me what all of their motivations were. Vadic: Revenge. Borg: Prevent their own extinction. Both were too weak on their own to accomplish what they desired most.
That makes sense.
I do wonder how much it would have cost to build that Enterprise D Set? And just for two episodes when the original set stood for around eight years.
Also I’d note the fact that the set reflects the TV show version, the Season 7 version by the looks I think and not the version we saw in Generations. I suppose it could make sense (in-universe) in the fact that the bridge was smashed up on Veridian 3 and when it was brought back up and restored in the museum, it made sense to just restore the bridge to its original ‘default’ look.
I personally would have preferred to see the Generations version. That of course would be even more expensive though I guess and building this set even in its TV form is not too cheap for just two episodes of a TV show.
sure seems like an awful waste to build that thing and never use it after this…..
Enterprise recreated the TOS Enterprise for their two parter. Then demolished it. It’s not unheard of.
Did the gentleman in New York buy parts of that set for the big complex and tour he built up there? I seem to recall reading that somewhere back in the day…
James helped work on the bridge and was doing his own. I’m curious if he will get this set as part of his tour.
I would prefer this set be donated to someplace bigger, like the Smithsonian or something.
The Smithsonian has NO interest in set recreations, period.
.
Ticonderoga is the perfect place. It’s a great destination exhibit.
James is working on his own TNG set recreations, and IIRC they’re getting close to being done.
This new set build is already in the Trek archives, according to an article from Variety.
I wouldn’t know. I do recall the only way Enterprise justified the creation of the sets was to make the episode a two parter. That’s about it from my end.
Yep I remember realing that as well. It was a reason why In the Mirror, Darkly was a two parter so they could justify building the entire Constitution class ship.
But I think about Trials and Tribble-ations and they did literally the same thing for one episode. But it really makes you appreciate what they manage to do for the classic shows given they had even smaller budgets and so many more episodes to shoot per season.
I remember either reading (or it being in a special features for DS9 or something similar) that the didn’t recreate the full sets for Trials and Tribble-ations, they did small sections and then composited the shots over original TOS shots so that they didn’t have the rebuild the entire set on the parts that contained the DS9 cast or something similar to that. I’ll have to dig around and see where I can find that information again.
Trials and Tribbleations was notoriously expensive – not only the production costs (Ron Moore commented how expensive it was to composite people into the scenes so seamlessly), but also the residuals needed to be paid out to the cast.
All the bottle episodes we’ve gotten so far (only one episode with location filming, too) definitely look to be paying for what we get in these last two episodes.
This episode did have some elaborate (though, to my mind, not very memorable) VFX sequences, but it still felt very contained and not at all epic, much like the rest of the season. Maybe next week there’ll be a real blowout, but quality issues aside, for my money Season 1 of “Picard” felt far grander in scope than this one.
I wouldn’t dispute your comparison to season 1, but at that time, they didn’t have so many legacy actors’ agents to contend with. If I was the producer and had to make a choice between bringing back the old stars and getting in more location filming or new sets, it’s a no-brained what to pick. You need the writing for them to zing, of course, to compensate. It’s debatable if the show did that or the last few weeks before really picking up the narrative again now, but I still applaud the approach to the season overall.
They built their set from scratch.
It wasn’t demolished. It was auctioned off by Christies.
Perhaps some Fan Fiction Sets creations are mixed with the TV Sets….
I was wondering… with the TNG set getting ready to open in Ticonderoga in the fall if maybe the cast flew into NY to shoot that scene to save on budget? My first thought when I saw the set was could it be the fan set? But there has been little news regarding the progress of that set so I doubt that there was time for that set to get finished in time for shooting S3 since it was shot back to back with S2.
My father was a retail manager in the 70’s when I was a kid and as a result we moved around a lot. One thing we shared was watching STAR TREK, both the original and animated series. We never missed an episode and spent hours playing with MEGO figures and building AMT model kits. Every time we moved to a new place he would buy a TV Guide, find the local channel that was airing them and say, “See? Our friends came with us!”. It made those moves bearable and those characters really became my friends. I completely related to Fry’s speech in FUTURAMA when he described what made those people and that world important to him. My favorite characters were Uhura, McCoy and Spock and I wanted to reflect their nobility, humor and intelligence in my own personality. I was six when my dad took me to see STAR WARS and STAR TREK took a back seat for a few years. But as the movies came out and my dad and I went, it was like meeting up with old friends. I was sixteen when THE NEXT GENERATION premiered and its vision of the future was the one I most wanted to be a part of full of diversity, humor, family and love. It and the various series that followed gave me a place to escape to, hope for and dream of. Because of STAR TREK and the way I was raised I grew up rooting for Princess Leia, Lando Calrissian, Wonder Woman, Jamie Summers, Charlie’s Angels, Apollo Creed, Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, Bruce Lee, Geordi LaForge, Laurie Strode, Benjamin Sisko and Kathryn Janeway right alongside their white male counterparts. To me a hero was a hero, no matter what they looked like and the same was true of my real world view. When my dad passed away I was only twenty-two and those characters in that universe became my family for an hour each week. When DISCOVERY premiered I was incredibly excited because I had enjoyed the newer films and it looked like that on the surface. Michael Burnham seemed to embody the characteristics of Uhura, McCoy and Spock that I admired and I really liked the actress who played her. But it became apparent that there wasn’t much of a place for someone who looked like me in that show, a trend I began seeing in other series and films and the media in general. Characters I grew up with like Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, James Bond, etc. being dressed down and killed off because the world would be better a better place without them. I stuck with DISCOVERY even though almost everyone I saw who looked like me was represented as a villain or a buffoon; someone to be hated, feared or mocked. I finally gave up after the ending of the season three episode, ironically titled “People of Earth”, that deliberately went out of its way in it’s ending scene under the tree to show I was not a welcome part of the future. That I was not wanted and didn’t matter…but I didn’t give up on STAR TREK. I watched and loved LOWER DECKS, PRODIGY, PICARD and STRANGE NEW WORLDS and gradually started to see myself represented again in a positive light. Not as a villain or a buffoon but as a noble, funny, smart, heroic and aspirational figure who was still welcomed and wanted. I know that at the end of the day everything made by Hollywood is done for money, but this season of PICARD (which I have an alarm wake me in the middle of the night so I can watch it as soon as possible) has given me that hope and escape that I’ve so missed and needed. The episode VOX, with its brilliant assimilation twist, said that a fifty-two year old non-racist, non-misogynist who has always strived to live a good, peaceful life uplifting others and humbling no one still had a place in the world. That I still MATTERED. Thank you to Terry Matalas for creating something that makes me feel like that six, sixteen and twenty-six year old kid I used to be and still am at heart. For giving me more time with these old friends before it was too late and treating them with respect. And thank you to whoever at Paramount made the decision to let me be represented in STAR TREK again. These days more than ever it means a lot and I wish other franchises would do the same…
not to diminish at all what you are saying, but – imagine how 99.9% of Arab or Muslim people have felt about being seen or only able to play terrorists for the past 40 years?
Maybe your joy at being ‘seen’ in media after hiatus of – what – 10 years at the most, is how other people felt after a half-century of not being represented at all and so there can be some newfound empathy with that experience to the same people that found similar joy in the Rose character in Star Wars, or the film Crazy Rich Asians, or the Black Panther films, or a black Little Mermaid, etc… representation does indeed matter.
For Star Trek it would be only one season of Discovery going by his reasons. There was the Kelvin movies and then Pike in season 2 of Discovery.
I grew up in Atlanta and spent my summers in the Washington DC area surrounded by diversity and I knew from experiences with friends, classmates and coworkers that type of representation was wrong. I’ve always been empathetic and sympathetic to it and it’s one of the reasons I was drawn to STAR TREK because, while not perfect, it was closer to the view I had of the world and the people in my life. I didn’t need a deliberate agenda by Hollywood to make me see and known that type of representation was wrong, I felt that way already and tried not to support those projects. The bad actions of a few in any group don’t make it right to punish everyone who look like that as well. I’m hoping the more balanced world view that projects developed in the last couple years have been depicting continue and remain the norm. I’ve always preferred and supported them because we’re all better for it, even if what I believe is a small group of vocal trolls can’t see it…
It’s not like nobody is casting white males in major roles. Even over the past decade, the overwhelming majority of main characters are still white and male.
Also, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and James Bond weren’t “killed off” because they’re straight white males, and I say that as a white male.
I’m sorry this guy feels diminished because there’s no white dude (not in makeup) on Discovery, but come on – the entitlement and obliviousness here is astounding.
Either that, or the guy is trolling.
There is a white dude on Discovery, he’s just not heteronormative, which seems also to be what Rob finds essential to be front and centre.
When I hear stuff like this, I always think of my mum-in-law. She’s a long-term sci-fi fan who was buying books, subscribing to the magazines and watching anything sci-fi in the 50s and 60s. She still is.
She never was represented the way Rob feels he needs to be until Kira and Janeway.
She still paid for the books, subscriptions, cable and movie tickets that Rob did. All those years she was subsidizing his feeling represented, seen – while she wasn’t.
But he’s not willing to pay it forward?
Fans can accept made-up aliens of all shapes, sizes, religions, and sexes. They can even grow to love such characters more than the actual people who surround them, and mourn them (see: Hemmer) when creatives decide to kill them off. But when it comes to humans and relatively insignificant differences in skin color or sex, it’s all about head counts. Nerd-dom is weird.
Lorca, Pike, Stamets, Vance, or Kovich?
Discovery had Pike for you in season 2.
It did and I thoroughly enjoyed it and even the first season, largely because of Michelle Yeoh who’ve I’ve been a fan of for years. I’m still wishing they’d make a film or miniseries about her Captain before the DISCOVERY pilot. But once they went to the future the series doubled-down on what has almost become a trope and I decided to take the hint from the message that was being repeatedly given on screen and stopped watching it. From what I’ve been told it’s continued on into the rest of the series, so I don’t think I made the wrong decision by moving on. Thankfully the other recent TREK projects didn’t take that route and I’ve supported all of them and will continue to do so…
Which was…what?
The only “message” there, dude, is the one in your head. Now, if you want to go the Cliff Clavin route and insist against all the evidence that a nondescript potato looks EXACTLY like Richard Nixon, that is of course entirely your right. Just as it’s the right of others to call you on it.
That seems to be some genuine white fragility right there. The whole point of Star Trek is that we are “represented” by our shared humanity, and should be able to relate to a person regardless of their appearance or skin colour? Why get tetchy if there aren’t enough white males for your taste? Did you feel the same about DS9, which really just had O’Brien and odo if you count non-humans? Anyway, IDIC.
Thank you. The whole idea that only people who “look like me” can be role models is ridiculous (as is judging who “looks like me” solely on the basis of skin pigmentation).
My LGBT butt sitting here like oh it must feel so nice to be represented in Trek again…
This is the stupidest comment I’ve ever seen here, and that’s saying a lot.
You’ve missed the entire point of Star Trek – and of representation.
There are still straight white males EVERYWHERE.
Why are you unable to see yourself represented in women and people with different coloured skin? How much like you does a protagonist need to be for basic human empathy and identity to kick in for you? Do they just have to be white or do they need the same coloured hair and eyes?
You’ve watched a show for decades without ever understanding what it was about. It wasn’t subtle, but you still missed it.
“Characters I grew up with like Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, James Bond, etc. being dressed down and killed off because the world would be better a better place without them.”
No disrespect intended, but that’s just entirely wrong. It’s only fairly recently in historical terms that there has been significant representation of POC onscreen at all; yet when you say “people like me” you sound like Whoopi Goldberg talking about how she felt when she saw Nichelle Nichols sitting on that bridge for the first time. Having seen my fellow Whites dominate media (including TOS and TNG) for most of my life, it never occurred to me to do a head count of them on “Discovery,” where Jason Isaacs dominated the first year (and Anson Mount much of the second) in any case. Seriously, where do people get these weird ideas?
Honestly, I was hoping for better. While the Enterprise-D was an amazing reveal and was like a dumptruck drop of nostalgia, the fact it was the Borg AGAIN really bothered me. We just had the Borg in the first two seasons. TNG was right to use them sparingly, but it is just too much right now. I’ll try to get over the Borg over-use, but it is too much. I’m hoping the Big Bad Face is actually something else and NOT the Borg Queen.
That said, I liked this episode a lot. I would like to see Seven of Nine use her Borg implants somehow to combat the assimilated kids, perhaps to un-assimilate them?
It was an OK episode, but it seems like the producers have been trying to substitute nostalgia for story this whole season, but for some, that’s enough and I can’t fault that. Interestingly, the commentariat over at TrekBBS has a much more jaundiced view of the series than the folks on this site.
As someone who loves the Borg and loved seeing them back, I can’t really disagree with you either. As you said, we have gotten some version of them for two seasons straight on this show already. But this is the true ‘authentic’ Borg we haven’t really seen for 22 years now since Janeway poisoned them. Even when they showed up on Prodigy, it was the Borg, but IIRC they had been cut off from the collective.
But this is the true Borg in what we saw in Q Who, BOBW, First Contact, Dark Frontier and Endgame. Who showed up to create chaos and for a lot of people, me included, it’s exciting to see again.
Considering the show is titled Picard, it was always going to be the Borg. If you had gone into this season assuming that the Borg were going to be the big bad, then you would have seen that the clues were there. Shaw pretty much said it outright: Forget about the stuff with the Stargazer and the Jurati Borg, the real Borg are still out there.
It should have been Bay 87, and the fan service would have been fully on the nose, but oh well.
Picard has been one long slog from S1, and I won’t say it’s been worth it to get to those last 10 min of S9, but it was nice to see.
It also makes me wish for a deep-faked anthology visit back to that era.
It was the dawn of the Third Age of Mankind
Thirty-Five years after the Earth-Borg War
The reconstituted USS Enterprise D was a dream given form by Commodore LaForge
Its goal to defeat the Borg threat thereby creating a place where humans and aliens could work together peacefully
Humans and one android wrapped in 2,500,000 tons of Warp-Drive capable metal
All alone in the night
It can be a dangerous place but it’s our last best hope for peace
This is the story of the last human battle with the Borg.
The year is 2503
The name of the ship, the ENTERPRISE D!
lol awesome – too bad we can’t have Commander Tomalak as a sometimes friend, sometimes enemy
LOL – I’d love to see someone make a Babylon 5 style intro sequence for TNG 2.0
I’m confused! What happened to the new Borg Collective that requested admission into the Federation at the end of Season 2? The line from Dr. Crusher, to the effect It’s been over a decade since anyone has seen or heard from the Borg. That is a major oversight, or there is one more big reveal to come! Hopefully, it will get wrapped up in the final episode.
That line was quite the head scratcher. Is this season of Picard separated from the last one by 10 years?
The Jurati Borg from S2 are basically a splinter Borg co-op group that have nothing to do the real Borg Collective that are in the Delta Quadrant who have been licking their wounds since VOY: Endgame.
If that is the case then it’s either something I completely forgot because the story was quite forgettable or something that wasn’t made all that clear. But thanks for clearing that up.
It was made clear multiple times, including once this season, as a reminder. Head scratching that so many people missed it.
Yeah, Jurati’s Borgs are an independent Bee Hive stock and the real ones are the Wasps
Wonder if Jurati will come to the rescue. Aren’t they supposed to hear each other!?
They just chose to ignore last season. Or, Queen Agnes rides to the rescue in E10. Sucks, either way.
It’s literally the same writers room, except Matalas was the sole showrunner.
They didn’t forget. They even had Shaw say that the real Borg are still out there.
Must people take everything so utterly literally? Crusher was clearly referring to the mainstream Borg, not the various offshoots.
My guess is most here are going to LOVE this episode. However I think this episode only works if one thought TNG was the best Trek series ever. I didn’t. So I was not thrilled at all with this. In fact, I found this episode to be the weakest of the 9.
*Sigh*
The Borg. AGAIN. Really tired of the Borg. Didn’t last season of Picard change the Borg up completely anyway? This seems very odd. Once we got the Borg reveal I kinda tuned out. It was obvious at that point the landing was missed. Which is unfortunate. The season has been fairly decent up to this point. And it’s pretty stinking obvious how this is going to get settled, too. Disappointed this will end up being super anti-climatic.
And then there was the thing everyone saw coming episodes ago. The bay 12 reveal. It wasn’t meant for me as I found that ship to be the ugliest thing in Trek. I hold no special love for it so that whole sequence did nothing for me. In fact, I was thinking “get on with it!” as it dragged out. I was secretly hoping they would give it the SNW treatment. Change things up all over so it looked a little better. No such luck. All we got was the lighting level was still quite low. Generations level low. But leave it to the best character to say the best line about the whole thing. “I prefer the E.” However, I get this was all for the TNG fans just as the Enterprise flyby was all for the big time fans in TMP. So I just got a small taste of my own medicine. LOL.
Few other things… I guess Geordi converted that ship meant to have a crew of 1000 to mostly automation. Like Scotty did in SFS. But still seems a bit of a stretch for me.
One thing I got a kick out of is only the 24 & younger crowd were stupid enough to allow their brains to get Borgified. Nice analogy to today! LOL But it was a little odd that so many of these crews are THAT young. Again, that’s an awfully large stretch.
I largely agree with you. The ending was sublime, but everything else missed the mark by a wide margin. Not BAD but not great at all. The first 5 eps are still the high water mark. There better be one hell of a finale in store.
Also, don’t appreciate your analogy to “young people” today. You sound like a bitter old man. I’ve found Gen Z to be far smarter than past generations were at their age, much savvier, while having to navigate are far more complex and challenging world.
I believe strongly in the intelligence, talent, and power of today’s young people.
I noticed that sh#tting on young people as well.
You write good posts, when you’re not being a d*ck.
Gen Z is all I’m pinning my hopes on at this point, tbh. My generation, the Boomers, turned out to suck beyond all measure. Maybe they can clean up our mess; I hope so for their sake.
Unfortunately, the Borg are well-known enough to the general public that Paramount+ needs that there really was no other choice. At least that’s what they’d tell you.
Not really. When I was an Air Force officer, the great majority of the officers in my wing were between 22-26. Like, most of them.
I’ll have to check with my cousin who was in the Air Force. But I have friends and colleagues who were in the Navy & Marines. I could check in there to see. It’s just that in TNG Trek there were precious few enlisted men and tons of officers. But I was told on actual Naval vessels there are far more crewmen than officers. I can’t believe that Star Fleet Academy is the one and only one way to get into the Star Fleet. Even though TNG made it seem that way. Which is why I thought that demo would not be as large in this fictional universe as it might be in the real world.
While not explicitly discussed, there was a very strong implication that Troi did not attend the Academy and that she instead studied at a university on Betazed. I also don’t recall any definitive statement that Bones McCoy or Crusher attended the Academy.
She wore a uniform in the first episode, but it almost seemed that they retconned her into a civilian for a while after that, before they put her in a regular Starfleet uniform at the end of the series.
Those are all medical people. What about actual crewmen? People who just enlisted. I’ve often wondered why they are so rare on TNG.
I was an ICBM operations officer, and missile crews are composed of two officers, (no enlisted or NCOs), with the bulk those crew members being lieutenants. That might skew things a little
Fair enough. Although I do have a co-worker who was in the Navy who did tell me the bulk of the crews on the ships weren’t officers.
It’s a stretch to say the kids allowed themselves to be Borgified. They weren’t the ones rewriting the transporter architecture bulls**t, it was the old timers who got swapped by the shape shifters laying the groundwork.
Nah, the vast majority of everyone in the military today is under 30, a high percentage under 25.
Yeah that’s such a weird comment lol. Especially after how intricate this plot was. The Borg never planned anything like this before and even used a proxy species to help them oo it. Usually they just show up and cause havoc lol.
It was hyperbole. Again, I thought that would be obvious. But then the developing brain age is a human thing. Seems reasonable to conclude that other member species develop at different rates. It may affect some better and others not at all. Why universally the under 24 year olds? Honestly this doesn’t feel very well thought out.
And if one has ever had kids, even college age ones… And mine is… The bulk of them aren’t bright. They are still in a learning and evolving stage at that point. Even our “illustrious” VP in a rare moment of clarity said they weren’t.
I’ve no idea what you’re saying. (For the record, this is not a political comment. I would have advised Biden to pick Rep. Val Demings, Sen. Cortez-Masto, or Sen. Klobuchar as veep, not then-Sen. Harris.)
In 2015 she famously said “18-24 year olds are stupid.” One can easily find the clip on YouTube and a simple google search.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/232711/number-of-active-duty-us-defense-force-personnel-by-age/
OK. My thing mainly was that in the TNG era there seem to be a ton of officers and not very many crewmen. Officers tend to be older. Therefore, in the universe as presented one might think there would not be a ton of younger people on these starships even though on our real world there are indeed a lot of younger people serving.
I felt like it was the weakest too. What I felt was working with this season up until now, was seeing how these characters and their relationships had evolved since we last saw them. That and the addition of fresh faces working alongside the legacy crew. But those characters have been relegated to the background more and more the past few episodes. With Pike’s death (major disappointment), leaving Seven behind, and now all the old fogies returning to the Enterprise, it felt like a step backward in favor of superficial nostalgia.
This show already did such a good job of establishing that we don’t need that ship to feel reunited with these characters. The whole reveal sequence, then turning on the lights, and closeups as they finally touch the LED panels once again, felt tired and forced for fan service. These characters didn’t feel washed up this whole season, until they were relegated to a “remember how much you used to love this? well, it’s back” scene.
It’s impossible to believe that a saucer section that sustained *that* much damage could really be restored to flightworthy condition. (It’s as if the remains of TWA800 could suddenly start plying the transatlantic routes again.) My headcanon explanation is that much of the saucer was also taken from USS Syracuse and combined here and there with components of the 1701-D saucer. The fact that the layout was pre-GENERATIONS also suggests this was the case.
You should have paid more attention. You clearly missed the sequence where they explained that the front cortex stops developing at 25, and after that point is no longer vulnerable to the Borg modified DNA code. The younger members of Starfleet were therefore targets not because of their “stupidity” but because of their physiology, on which they have no control.
You are clearly an older individual, with a very passive-aggressive attitude towards the younger generation. I’m probably not much younger than you (if at all) but I do appreciate the qualities of young people of today. TikTok is not representative of the young generation.
No, I did pay attention to all of that. My own kid is of that age and I have high hopes for him but still is learning. He’s sharp but still lacks wisdom. He’s planning on starting a business and wish him all the success he can get. But the fact remains people are still learning and growing and making huge mistakes at that age. We all did. I, myself, thought I was sharp back then but I realized much later I wasn’t as sharp as I thought I was.
People are just way too sensitive these days.
I thought it was all that and a bag of chips and I cried several times!
But… I also feel the first part of the episode (Jack finding out and escaping) should’ve been put in the previous episode. Would have freed up some needed time for other scenes that now felt rushed and expositiony and given the previous 2 less of a filler vibe. I’m still not sure how the Borg and Changelings worked together (and why??) but I guess that explanation is coming next week.
I’m not entirely sure what the point was to have Alice Krige back and not show her. I initially thought they didn’t show her because there was another reveal coming (at that point I thought the Queen was going to be a clone of Beverly). So I was actually kinda disappointed to find out in the credits it was ‘only’ Alice.
I believe the thing you mentioned about the stardrive is not correct. Geordi rebuilt it. Only the engines and nacelles came from the Syracuse. I was more surprised the bridge didn’t look like it did in Generations. I guess Geordi didn’t like the refit.
For me it was a solid 9.
Krige may only have provided the voice. I don’t know.
That is correct. The rest was a body double.
Wow.
That Enterprise D set is I think that one that someone salvaged from a traveling museum tour. It’s not perfect but was a lot cheaper to use that than rebuild the original from scratch. The giveaways are the off color upholstery and slightly off shape and size of the front con/ops seats and shape and curve of the wooden arch and slope of the ramps and height of the second level. It looks like it did get a nice upgrade to the LCARS. It could use a paint job though. There was something off about the color of the walls. However it was still very close and in HD the E-D bridge still looks great!
An in-universe explanation as to why the bridge did not look like the way it did in Generations exists in the TNG Technical manuals. The bridge Module is actually a lifeboat and is detachable and can fly on its own. This one might be the original one that was removed and was sitting in a starfleet surplus depot. OR it was the module from the USS Syracuse which may have been one of the first 6 and later 6 Galaxy class vessels built before or during the Dominion war. The bridge that crashed on Veridian III was pretty destroyed so maybe Geordi just popped this one in and called it a day. Switch out the dedication plate and say the slight differences in how it all looks is because it’s from a different Galaxy class vessel. It would be just like running down to the junk yard and taking a door off another identical car to your own that’s the same color. It’s the same but different life experiences it’s not quite the same.
That’s a great explanation! :D
Yeah, technicaly they could take off the Enterprise D Bridge and put it on some similar Nebula Class ship as Bridge.. some Spare parts and “Muscle car Ship” beef up. Stronger Weapons, better Shields and so on. If they want to
That was mentioned in the TNG Technical Manual that the bridge modules were interchangable.
The color of the famous carpet indeed seemed much more saturated than on TNG.
The E-D bridge was smashed beyond recognition at the end of GENERATIONS. This is a rebuild of it, done to the specifications of Geordi la Forge, who evidently preferred that version of it, just as the set was rebuilt in real life. No elaborate in-universe explanation is necessary.
Totally. This was a labor of love by a man who wanted to restore his ship for posterity as well as for himself (and surprise his friends one day – helluva secret to be able to keep!). As its curator, there was no reason why he’d need to retain the configuration it only had in its last few months of service. There was also no reason to give it a working warp drive and defensive systems, but… again, labor of love!
I’ve been watching Picard S3 quietly since it premiered and while it barely has an original bone in its body and comes across as a big budget fan-fic production to me, it has kept me very entertained and held my interest from week to week. The performances have been very good overall and I really like how certain characters like Worf and Data have evolved. That’s really more than I could ask for, especially given my distaste for 90% of Kurtzmann-Trek.
That said, there really haven’t been too many surprises. I’d pretty much guessed the Borg were behind everything the first time Jack saw the vines and then 7 of 9 was standing right in their midst in his vision; that connection was just too glaring to ignore, as was Shaw’s little PTSD speech in the holodeck where he comes right and says the REAL Borg are still out there.
The plotting also seems to be getting a little sloppy here at the end. The connection between the changelings and the Borg was glossed over at best and it might have been easier if the Borg had simply assimilated a few changelings to do their bidding. We still don’t know anything about Vadic’s hand puppet alien either and where it fits in. The show also show conveniently sidesteps (so far at least) Picard S2’s finale where we have a kinder gentler Borg complete with new Borg Queen who’s looking to make friends.
I’m also really disappointed at the apparent death of Shaw. The character quickly grew on me and I liked his different style of command; it was a welcome change of pace and breath of fresh air from other established captains we’ve gotten. Sadly, he really wasn’t given much to do and despite a heroic send-off I’d be just as happy if his wounds don’t end up being as fatal as they seem. It would also fit in with the more sentimental, borderline fan-fic writing we’ve gotten this season.
Still, overall this has been a fun ride and I’ll be curious to see how it ends, I just hope we don’t get a Starfleet is in ruins style cliffhanger.
One of the things I actually really appreciate about the season is the lack of surprises, ie: mind-blowing reveals. That is, outside of the Jack mystery, which was a disappointment.
More often, the questions the season posed were fairly simple and easy to guess, and never presented as if they’d be some kind of senses-shattering twist. Ie: we knew Jack would be his son and they telegraphed it a mile away even in dialogue.
Even the one lone surprise – the presence of the changelings – wasn’t presented as some kind of mystery.
Likewise, Jack being part-Borg is an easy guess, just like the rest, the problem is how they dragged it out and teased it as some kind of shocking twist. It feels like it was meant to be teased in Episode 8 and then revealed in Episode 9, but someone thought “hey, we need a longer tail on that to keep people interested.”
If this had been the first time we saw the Borg since Voyager or that one episode of Enterprise, this would have been a pretty good reveal. Dr. Crusher says it’s been 10 years since anyone last heard from them, but… it’s only been a year for the audience. So, this was as shocking as seeing Sherlock uncover another plot by Moriarty.
I’m not mad at the episode, though. It’s just average. Average modern nostalgic Trek, as challenging as one of those cozy old reunion TV movies from the 80s or 90s. But better than A Brady Bunch Christmas. High praise indeed.
Less than a year actually. Prodigy had them too.
Really? I haven’t watched Prodigy. But thanks.
They’re overused more than I thought.
Yeah since their introduction there’s only been two shows that they haven’t been seen on in some fashion. And that’s Discovery (which could still happen) and SNW.
You’re obviously not wrong in terms of appearances, but we haven’t seen the REAL Borg on Picard until now. The Borg in season 2 was just a very weird offshoot of them and Shaw even made that clear.
But yes, I get it obviously, we have been around the Borg for two straight seasons. It’s not going to bring the same GASP like the way it did when we saw that Borg cube show up in the first trailer of season one. That was the moment that told me the Star Trek of old was back. Now, everyone just kind of expect them to show up.
Well, that’s just it though, I’m not all that interested in seeing the real Borg again. Unless they’ve changed in some fascinating way, I guess. The way they assimilated Starfleet was novel. I’ll give them that.
Fair enough, but I love them so I’m personally happy to see them back. But that said, I would’ve been fine if it was just purely a Changeling story line too.
And yeah I do agree how they assimilated them was really innovative. But the Borg are pretty smart. ;)
It seems to me that the story might have flowed better if the whole thing was a long Changling plot. They could have come up with something else regarding Jack and him being a Maguffin. The Borg at this point, well after Voyager really, have become a huge tiresome bore.
The thing is, the Borg were (with apologies to Tomalak and Duras) really the defining antagonists in TNG, and to Picard specifically — much as the Klingons were for Kirk. The sendoff for Picard was bound to involve them, much as TUC did the Klingons.
True, though since they’re the obvious choice to use as a final antagonist, then that makes it even sillier to keep them behind a mysterious door for so long.
Recall how Star Trek: Picard, Season 1, Episode 6, “The Impossible Box” was so incredibly moving? It was to me. Picard truly faced his past.
But in the second season, we don’t really see Picard facing the Borg Queen, he just walks away and lets Jurati take over. And for all Stewart’s great acting abilities, and the fantastic, well-scripted scenes between Jurati and The Queen, we never see Picard and The Queen really get to the meat of a what Borg relationship is. And we don’t really get to see what Seven could have brought to the table. The confrontation is avoided – a very dramatic opportunity missed.
Which is why it’s shocking, as good as S3 is, that instead of a DS9-paced plot we are going to have a magical ending or a typical “TNG/Voyager” ending where somehow the fleet is saved and everyone is happy with their new Borg DNA – in the last ten minutes?
I can’t help but imagine the triangle that I hoped we would see: Beverly having many resources in the Federation and also reveling in how her exploits over the last years have given her a galaxy of friendships coming back to help solve this problem. And at the same time, Laris steps up to the plate. She brings Commodore Oh and other Romulans for help. And also to remind the Federation that Picard’s body should have been boxed up on Soong’s planet!
Finally, I fear some kind of a “Borgified Federation” is what the cast means when they have said in interviews that there are some loose ends at the end of the last episode. (“We’re all XB’s now!”)
I hope we get to see an original narrative chart for three seasons of Picard. The producers were too subtle, perhaps to fool the star himself. IMHO there is no way they could have had three seasons teasing and pushing Borg plot lines away from the center of the narrative without a plan.
Anyway, it’s a beautiful day outside!
Hey, look! It’s another cameo from a legacy character!
Aaaaand she’s dead.
LOL!! Yeah, I was waiting for her to morph into a changeling and instead she gets straight phasered! :O
Never understood why so many people liked her. She was a good character for BOBW, but the actor wasn’t anything special, and I never cared to see her again. Unlike Hugh, for example, her loss is of no concern to me.
I thought her acting in this episode was pretty poor, actually, brief as it was. That speech was actually terribly delivered.
You win the internet for today. Thanks for the chuckle.
How long until Majel Barnett’s computer voice will also be killed off?
I’m grateful O’Brien was smart enough to keep his head down for this one…
LOL yeah that was a punch in the gut. OMG, Shelby IS BA—damn!
Dang, I’m looking at this again and it STILL makes me laugh.
I’ve been waiting for Ent-D all series, yet when it arrived the tone of the scene didn’t fit in with the situation. If Starfleet has been assimilated, the situation is grave… so you’re not going to feel sentimental or calm like they all became in the last ten minutes.
Hearing Majel did make me emotional, though.
I’d have preferred Shaw have a better death scene. I think it’s final, I don’t think he’s coming back. It does open the door for a Legacy show with Seven as captain.
I’m also confused about the Borg. I thought they were dealt with in S2 and became allies. Just how many Borg queen’s are there?
It’s been said more than once, on screen and off, that Jurati’s collective is not the same as the collective we knew. There are two SEPARATE borg collectives. Shaw mentioned it on-screen earlier this season.
Above Matt Wright said the Jurarti Borg are just a Borg splinter group.
Understandable to not recall that. I completely forgot as well. I think it was because the season was so awful it’s tough to recall small things like that.
It’s not understandable for anyone who actually watched the season.
Some of us watch the show, but don’t remember every little detail…
It can be tricky to remember details that don’t make any darned sense.
Yeah, I didn’t like Shaw’s death scene as well. But oh whale!
If only there had been a class of ship designed specifically to fight the Borg. Hmmm. If only a ship of that class had been there at the fleet museum.Hmm! If only they had someone who had lived on that ship as part of their group. Hmm!
Good point!
Maybe in the last episode? That would be cool…
The Defiant does not have working engines or weapons, though. Geordi was working on the Ent-D as a personnel project, not part of the museum per se. So the Ent-D was ready to go, not the Defiant.
There’s no reason why he couldn’t have kept the Defiant running.
In the end credits, there is the titillating graphic that appears to show the Defiant flying around Spacedock…
Yeah but what I’m saying is that the Defiant would have been better suited for what they needed versus the Enterprise D. It’s a warship designed for a smaller crew that was intended to be used to fight the Borg plus it can take a beating and survive it. While the Galaxy Class who was not built for any of that and the Changelings alone could demolish it in no time.
it is a tough little ship
Little?
Plus the D would have had to have automated systems installed all over considering it was meant to have a crew of 1000. Also given their mission it also seems like they should have separated and used the bottom half. But using the “battle bridge” (God I always hated that) doesn’t give fans the ‘member berries they want. But remember, “When relived of her bulk the Enterprise becomes a formidable weapon.” At least according to Worf.
What I’m saying is that the end credits have included back-to-back Easter eggs that so far have all “come true,” so to speak. The Klingon cloaking device with labels translated into “Federation Standard.” Data/Lore’s positronic neural net with red and blue nodes. The holodeck simulation of Ten Forward with the safeties off. The DNA sequences. Shaw’s service record. The ships stored at Athan Prime. The musical score to “Pop Goes the Weasel”. The graphic (revealed this week) of Jack transmitting his Borgness to the under-25 crowd.
So the last item in the end credit that is yet to be explained clearly shows Spacedock being circled by a number of Starfleet ships… a number of them circled in red and identified by their registries, just as we saw several times in on-screen displays shown prominently in Episode 9. But three other ships are shown only as white silhouettes… no registry tags… and based on what we know now, these must be “offline” ships not linked with the Borg-ified fleet.
One of those ships is indistinct… but probably the 1701-D.
One is clearly the Defiant. No mistaking that outline.
The third is a Constitution Class… so I’ll put my money on 1701-A.
Okay but that’s still not what I meant. Okay cool it’s in the end credits. 🤷 It would have been better we actually got to see it in action in this episode.
7 days is too long to wait…?
How many times do I have to say what I meant. It would have been better. For what they needed to get a ship for. If they had taken the Defiant. Instead of the Enterprise D.
Yeah great the Defiant is in the end credits whoo effing hoo. Who knows when it will show up then. At the end of the episode when it can’t be if any help? In a mid credits scene? Why then when they could use it right now. Now it’s like it can’t be any use in this final battle because who is gonna operate it?
Hmm… good question. Who on the crew of the Enterprise-D knows how to pilot the Defiant. Let me think about that one…
How would Worf get back there though. Hmm.
You know, I actually thought that was where they should go. But somehow I knew we were going to get the D instead. Even though using the Defiant made a TON more sense.
Something I wrote got tagged as spam. If it shows up, I apologize.
Anyway, in short: S1 E6, where Picard visits the XBs is the high point for me. Picard fully was experiencing survivor’s syndrome, yet trying to move forward.
.
Season two was a wasted opportunity to further explore what it means to be Borg through scenes with Jurati, The Queen, Seven, and Picard – which we never got!
And… I wish Laris had been included in this season. Now is the time for Commodore Oh to show up and help. Help! And remind Picard she would have taken care of his corpse properly.
I miss Laris too, I’m hoping she comes back in the last episode.
The only way that you would see Lars again, is if Beverly Dies, in the next episode. I do not see that happening, do you?
I’ll just say that while Riker tested him in the first few episodes, Picard as a charcter showed few – if any – signs of leadership.
If I was him I would be contacting everyone possible and trying anything and everything to change this situation. So bringing back Laris would absolutely be more interesting while Beverly is still around.
Seeing the Big D is great. Since it’s a museum, it’s logical to assume the ships on display (Voyager, Defiant, etc.) don’t have working engines, just like planes on display at the Smithsonian. Since the D was kept inside and still a work-in-progress, that’s probably the only reason why a few of them couldn’t jump on the Defiant and join the D for the fight, for example. And a great episode! Can we talk about the music too? So good this season.
That’s how the Air and Space museum in D.C. is, so that’s a great explanation. The music has been INCREDIBLE!! I already preordered the soundtrack off iTunes and can’t wait for it to drop!
Yep I brought this up myself, those ships probably don’t work beyond the most basic. The D was clearly being built to be a ship again, even if not part of the fleet again.
A better example are the various museum ships around the world. They are preserved for appearance. To keep a ship functional, it needs to be maintained, something a museum wouldn’t have the staff or funds to do. That Geordi was hammering the E-D back together is just a gigantic suspension of disbelief. That’s a bridge too far for me, at least…
Drones could of done the bulk of the work. He did say they were filling up the photon torpedoes.
USS Constitution has been designated a museum ship for over a century, but she is still seaworthy and sailed in 1997 and 2012 (and did an extensive publicity voyage in 1934).
What’s a bridge too far is to suggest that Geordi did all this singlehandedly as a pet project. When I visited HMS Victory (which is in permanent drydock) in Portsmouth last year, there was renovation work being done on the starboard side of the ship, and an exhibit about all the contractors and subcontractors involved.
Not that they could launch her, but the Space Shuttle Discovery at the Dulles branch of the National Air and Space Museum does have real engines (Atlantis and Endeavour have dummy engines, but Discovery was kept pristine for future generations.)
OH – and the Enterprise D LCARS using full screen digital graphics (instead of printed overlays) – how cool was that!
I’m sure it had to be an incredibly emotional experience for the cast, being back together on that set after all these years. Those looks of awe and nostalgia didn’t require acting, because they were real.
Agreed. I wonder if that shot it “for real” so they didn’t see it until the first take and their reactions were genuine? I still can’t believe they managed to film all this with nothing getting out. Half the fun has been all the surprises! :D
I was wondering the same thing! I’m sure we’re getting bts footage of that.
LeVar Burton let slip we’d be seeing the D back in August. I recall he made a comment about the ramp being a little off.
Also also. As cool as it would have been to see the bridge from the refit in the Generations era, since the bridge was trashed after crashing, it makes sense for an eventual museum ship to be restored to what it was most commonly known/remembered as, which would be the bridge from Season 2-7 of TNG. Awesome.
Absolutely true! ;)
Not only that but they have the built-in excuse of “restoration” to explain away any discrepencies.
Could of also took the bridge module off the Syracuse and just changed the plaque.
That’s undoubtedly what happened. The vast majority of that ship was USS Syracuse, and a 1701-D label slapped on for marketing purposes. Which isn’t very sound historiography, to be sure.
Maybe not, but the Ship of Theseus conundrum isn’t unique to Starfleet museums. And speaking of which, what is this one, formerly Earth Spacedock, doing in orbit around another planet? How did it get there? That’s what’s keeping me awake nights.
“Undoubtedly,” he says. lol.
Well that explains why Picard was obsessed with AI – he was being farmed by the Borg!!
Also cool that the Borg assimilated most of the fleet, what a setup for a battle!!!!
Hopefully the ENT A gets to shine, the ENT D is a warp core breach in progress (great for kamakazes?).
I think though the Borg should really want robo Picard; he has it where they don’t need to assimilate anymore. Hell the Borg could be the Starships now with robo-Picard chips. Who needs organics?!?!
I’m sad they killed Admiral Shelby (my favourite character from TOBW) , though I sense a nonsensical TNG time loop coming, it is the TNG way.
I have not seen Ep 10 and have no connections to anyone who has, but I am not going to spill what I still think is the obvious conclusion here just to be safe. I’ll just say it’s not a nonsensical time loop.
I am torn. The best answer would be to trade robo-Picard tech for leaving the Federation alone. The rational Borg should actually go for it, no need for organics then and they just head out all happy they *finally* got what they wanted all along (i.e. the Borg only assimilate because they think they have to, that organic life is key to innovation and imagination like an evil V’ger). That would be a proper “sci-fi” peace with the Borg ending.
BUT.. BORING. So then the Borg should backstab them after the exchange and decide they don’t need organics so will destroy them instead. Have them turn on the Changlings too, which they work together with Starfleet to self destruct the ENT-D to save everything in a brief time period before the Borg reset.
That being said, let’s face it, they love nonsensical time loops or Q snapping his fingers where nothing really matters anyway which will leave us all wondering why not stop Wolf 359 and save all those crew members. But. at least then we get Admiral Shelby back?
Nope. I think the conclusion will be much simpler than that. I haven’t seen anyone mention it yet. Is it not as obvious as I think?
Picard’s son Matrix style decides just to order them to shut down? That would be too lame, no?
I think Jack will end up key to stopping it. He will sacrifice himself or Picard will communicate with him in some stirring sequence but yeah. He will be the one to make victory possible using his Borg link or whatever it is he has they want.
Instead of Data having Locutus say, “Sleep!”, Võx says, “Mercy!”?
Total guess on my part, but Jack takes out the Queen and becomes the Borg King? Then he and Jurati-borg get together and-BAM!-P+ has a new Star Trek sitcom ;-)
My prediction is that Jack will activate the portal device commandeered by the Changelings, have the fleet sail through it, and somehow en masse reverse the transporter malware that assimilated the under-25s.
Makes sense. Transporter technobabble used to assimilate can just be reversed to unassimilate. Similarly, the way that the fleet is all connected allowed the Borg to control them all in one fell swoop will allow our heroes to regain control of the ships in a similar manner…
Star Trek is very much a religion and it’s interesting to see the split in the faithful: those who can love it just for the the ritual, the symbols, the deity vs. those who need the emotional truth / meaningful story to back up all that.
When it becomes a religion Vs an action adventure show showing humanity moving forward despite imperfections and enemies, Star Trek sucks.
Something I learned the hard way.
Definitely. It’s tough because this season in particular is being made with either a real religious interest or a nod to all of that *while* still telling an action adventure sci-fantasy story.
That is it is done as a TOS movie era arc action-adventure story vs. S1/S2 is why this season is rocking it. Even I am enjoying it and I thought TNG was a snoozefest.
A religion? God I hope not.
hahahaha
Put this parishioner down for “meaningful story.”
Arguably the greatest Star Trek episode ever.
Oh brother, here comes the hyperbole… Outside of the last few minutes, the episode is fine. Just fine. But you’re nostalgia is coloring your view.
Inarguably nowhere close.
It’s not even close to the best episode THIS SEASON.
I’m hopeful that next week’s “The Last Generation” can rise to the occasion, but for me, I think “No Win Scenario” is #1 (for the season, I mean — no Star Trek: Picard episode should crack a TNG top 30, and definitely not an all-Trek top 100).
Yep. 100%. It’s easily in the top 2-3 of the past decade, and better than any episode of Enterprise and Voyager (and would be in the top 10 of DS9 were it part of that series)
Not even close. A decent episode of this series, but not even in the top ten of all ST.
You’re entitled to your opinions, but this episode requires a helluva lot of suspension of disbelief to work.
Yes, I’ll definitely argue with that one.
Even though I totally saw the Changeling/Borg alliance and Jack thing coming, here was another episode I should not have watched right before bed because I was on the edge my seat (well matrass) the whole hour and was holding back cheers by the end. I’m going to need a sedative for the finale.
Also when I saw that great lady at the end I sobbed. It is what it is. I was a mess.
I’m so happy Patrick Stewart slipped in a Picard Maneuver right before he said “Engage!” — I’m going to guess that was a Matalas call.
Also, Dennehy jumped right back into the role. So great. RIP to a real one
Not to quote Jadzia Dax but “if ever we needed a new ally, it’s right now.”
Commodore Oh. No question best for the job.
I would like the Romulans. I also would like the Dominion. Why not both.
Is it not as obvious who their ally is? I think a blind man could see it.
🤷 is it Odo?
Umm… No.
I thought this was an enormous letdown. The whole season is turning into a bust for me.
Been downhill since E6.
I agree. I was hopeful that the revelation of what’s going on with Jack might elevate those middle episodes a bit in retrospect. Instead, it’s showing that this whole thing has been an empty box all along. Some great character scenes along the way and some great acting from some of the principals, but overall? Sound and fury signifying nothing. Please let this be Matalas’s final involvement with the franchise (barring some sort of magical turnaround in the finale).
I feel like an absolute selfish asshole for saying this but unless something big happens in the finale, after this they really kinda owe DS9 and ENT fans huge for using both shows for this mess and not really giving the fans anything really for it.
Agreed, AND the argument could be made that they owe TNG fans — or “Picard” fans (if such a thing exists) — another one for having all that present to begin with and distracting from what they could have been doing. Personally, I don’t mind them having mixed some content from the other shows into the stew, since all of it fits together anyways. But it seems clear now that there was a serious lack of focus in the planning of this season.
Yes if they had mixed all four [TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT] shows together in a way that worked, it wouldn’t have been a problem. As it is, with how it is now, it felt like they just used all four and TOS and it stinks bad.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.
The Enterprise-D was MADE for widescreen. Not “literally” since all of TNG was in 4×3, but look at her. The idea that the producers thought she wouldn’t hold up to being in a theatrical movie was ludicrous. Seeing all these new shots from different perspectives instead of the recycled ones we got in TNG is so refreshing.
And mad props to the VFX artists who worked on this rendition. It looks so much like the filming model down to the frost-lit buzzards, the glow from the nacelles and the hazy blue light from the main deflector. I could just lose myself in knowing that this was the Ent-D without defaulting to “That’s an obvious CGI model”.
The reason the producers (of STG) thought the set wouldn’t stand big screen scrutiny wasn’t because of the design: It was because in those days, there was no such thing as HD TV, and since time is money, sets (and props, and costumes, etc) were made with only the amount of detail absolutely necessary. That’s why all the reused TV sets were lit somewhat darkly.
Rand Corporation used the TOS bridge as a template for military command centers with the ability for a commander to look up information and talk with his crew.
The ENT-D bridge is used I think by safety companies to show how bad design choices can lead to unnecessary back injuries from unnecessarily standing all bored while checking out the walls of unnecessary blinky hard drive lights.
Still… vs. Discovery and the Titan-A at least when looking at Picard from the front it isn’t just a door behind him which is nice.
I was talking about the Ship, not the set.
I completely agree!
I am sourcing Majel’s computer voice…
“Authorization acknowledged” = Starship Mine
“USS Enterprise now under command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard” = Chain of Command, Part II
nice.
The Borg Queen in Voyager reviewed a similar plan with Seven of Nine to assimilate humanity slowly, and while they were unaware. This seems to be a variation of that original plan, simply using the Changelings to do it instead of the original delivery method! Dark Frontier is the episode, I think.
I had an Hunch, since they said somewhere in the Past they filmed Season 3 back to back with Season 2. So their best Enemy was also on the Set. And since She is from an alternative timeline, she could had subdued the Changelings and could put it now to good use. Even if she goes up into the Season 2 Doctor.
But lets see. Perhaps They reactivate other non-Starfleet Ships to help repel this. But i wonder how they stop them in their moves. Healing these corrupted “Borg Drones” is easy. They just need to reset the Teleport Filters and use some old “Data” to get the Borg influence out of their Bodies. I just hope they have these Old Backup’s. But to freeze their Actions to attack them and doing that on the fly while fighting. That is the Masterpiece i am curious about
So Jack is indeed now some sort of Borg King. His Telephatics skills are in reality “remote control” of the well hidden Borg Nanomachines in the bodies of others. But what will happen with his Ego when he come into touch with the Borg collective? Will he get blown away or can he still hold to himself. That Ladies and gentelmen could be one of the True Endgame solution in Episode 10, the other is how Picard can filter out the Borg “magic” out of Starfleet
It remember me of some St: Prodigy cliffhanger Episode with an Living Construct… Perhaps this Episodes triggered this Idea for the “Endgame” just little modified
or Janeway rush like Capt. Riker in End of Season 1 with some “The best of the best Starfleet Ships and Crew” to stand down the corrupted Ships with Force fields or Tractor beams…. Ship’s Override codes to shut all of them Down before more happen. Perhaps it#s Dr. Juratis Borgs little Cubes that do this Job. You know, Janeway and Borg’s are Buddies in the bad and good Way.
i can dream, right? I know that all is recorded and in stone. Just my imagination is running wild
SHAW!!! Gutted. Otherwise, wow what an ep. LOVED seeing the ENT-D back in action, and in HD. That bridge into section choked me up.
Also…they did Shelby dirty lol.
Not that the episode was badly done or unenjoyable, but… fandom has been rampant all season with people predicting that the big bad turns out to be the Borg, that something implanted in Locutus figures in it somehow, that the Enterprise D was hidden in hangar 12, and I was thinking all along that these were all too obvious, and that surely the writers had some clever surprise twist up their sleeves to raise a Vulcan eyebrow. But no… they did what people were generally expecting, so mild letdown.
Also, as others have mentioned, the Borg seem a bit overused at this point having figured prominently in Seasons 1 & 2. For goodness sake, we’re seeing our third Borg Queen of the past two seasons! They couldn’t think of anything else?
But it’s not over yet, so perhaps they have some surprises yet in store.
Fan service is fairly transparent. I suspect all that transporter architecture bulls**t probably laid the groundwork for some fix that’ll let our heroes sail off into the sunset, having saved the galaxy from the dreaded Borg yet again.
It’s just a transporter database update, a cycle through the transporters for all the young crew.
How they get control of the ships to do that is the trick…
But then they have networked ships and two characters with positronic brains.
Well, they would have asked Annie Wersching to appear if she hadn’t perhaps been too ill a few months later to film at the end of S3…
It’s been nearly 500 minutes of setup – nearly as long as TWOK, TSFS, TVH and TUC combined — and, arguably, not all that much has happened (plot- or character-wise).
It’s nice to see everyone together – and I got teary, as I was meant to be, seeing them on the bridge of the D. But there’s a heck of a lot to resolve in one more episode (even if it’s two hours).
Also, why isn’t the E available? Wasn’t it repaired after Nemesis? Is this some DS9 thing?
The E was destroyed and no it’s not some DS9 thing. As a DS9 fan I feel like this season has just given me the middle finger.
Was the E destroyed? The last we saw of the E was getting repaired in dry dock orbiting the Earth over the Mediterranean.
When was the E destroyed?
We don’t know when, but this episode has the second reference to the destruction of the Enterprise-E.
As far as the audience knows it hasn’t been. As has been said the last we saw it was being repaired.
I believe it was said in the lead up to this season so don’t take it up with me.
Personally I think it was in the mid 2380s.
It was mentioned in the previous season?
All I saw here was Worf saying “sorry” for something but it wasn’t clear what he was talking about. That’s another problem with this episode. They really rushed through some things.
Did you watch the episode? It’s pretty clear that Worf was responsible for the destruction of the ship. Seriously, you need to stop playing Candy Crush while the episode is on. Or better yet, just stop watching entirely. It’s clear you don’t even want to.
Yes. I heard that, jerk. But I wondered if I’d missed this previously mentioned somewhere.
I was not responding to you. ML31 however, legitimately doesn’t watch the episode and then complains about things he missed.
Or if you were referring to him as a jerk, IE: “I heard that jerk” and your comma was a typo, well then… totally understood.
If Worf was Captain of the E when the Living Construct took control and had the fleet turn on itself, that wouldn’t be his fault but devastating all the same.
It was pretty heavily implied.
But that’s an assumption. It’s pretty vague. I thought it was a hard point that I missed somewhere along the line. Seems I didn’t. At this point if they really wanted to use the ship it seems they still could.
Side note: Sending Hugh back to the Collective as a bomb all those years ago probably sounds pretty good right about now huh? Just saying lol
Well Picard definitely would not have gone if only because he was unknowingly and subconsciously in communication with the Borg.
I think this is also why post Starfleet he becomes obsessed with AI, Data, etc. I’d argue they were farming the Federation for a tech to make organics assimilation obsolete.
LOL yeah sadly true. I agreed even way back then genocide was not the option, especially considering as Hugh himself showed, all of them are basically victims. But yeah, the Borg will never stop being the Borg, so what do you do?
Your question will truly test the writers. Because that is the question right? Even after Wolf 359, after the First Contact incident, after Janeway decimated them at the end of Voy. They keep coming back. At this point it’s either genocide or peace. And how does one make peace with the Borg?
That was actually the most interesting thing about season 2 in the beginning when we thought it was the ‘real’ Borg who wanted peace. Of course people were questioning if it was real only to reveal later it was not the true Borg. But it was an interesting idea, if they could make peace with them, what exactly would that look like?
Well now we know the real Borg is still not ready to play nice lol. They are still just as determined as ever to turn the Federation into a collective. Outside of First Contact, this is the most they’ve ever succeeded. I do wonder if they will they bring up the possibility next week of trying to wipe them out again via Janeway’s virus or something similar? I don’t expect them to use it but I do wonder will if it will even be discussed since at the very least it crippled them for a long time.
And then again, the Borg may be well prepared against something that deadly now. So I can’t wait to see how they resolve it.
Isn’t that exactly what the Face is doing with Jack?
First – great review, as always. And thanks for using a still at the top that doesn’t give away the show.
I agree that the exposition gets rushed in the first half; I still don’t quite get why the Changelings aligned with the Borg, but maybe that’ll be cleared up next week.
It was obvious that all the ships at Frontier Day would be taken over by network control — Episode 6 clearly set that up — but I didn’t expect a Clone Order 66 to Borgify everyone under the age of 25. That was shocking. And I had anticipated that Geordi’s Bay 12’s surprise would be the Enterprise-E; I never expected to see the big E-D onscreen again, outside of a flashback.
Not gonna lie, I was emotionally compromised at that reveal. Loved that it echoed the scene in STIV when Kirk and crew see that their new ship is the Enterprise-A. When Picard’s turbolift opened onto the bridge, seeing that set, and hearing Majel’s computer voice… I was bawling. Let’s just say I’m glad I wasn’t in public.
I thought the final episode would have all the ships in Geordi’s museum powering up and entering the fray against the new ships. (I thought they’d use the big LED wall set to simulate the various bridges, and have trustworthy legacy characters [O’Brien? Barclay? Kim?] at the conn.)
But I’m happy to settle for the Galaxy class hero riding in to save the day. What a ride!
That was amazing.
Of course it was the Borg. While everything pointed to that anyway, it makes sense. The Borg were introduced in TNG. They were THE villains of that cast/story. (The Paw Wraiths were the DS9 villains. And they were never going to show up here for SO many reasons.) PIC season one brought the Borg in… sort of. Season two brought them in again… sort of. They both botched the landing though by either making them irrelevant side-stories or trying to change the nature of the Borg in a way that wasn’t personal to Picard at all. It makes sense that Terry Matalas wanted to end the TNG story by actually bringing the Borg storyline to an end in a way that was actually satisfying. (I don’t know what that is because I don’t know what happens next week, but I know that S1 and S2 did not accomplish that goal and this season is kicking some ass in the right direction.) Matalas said that he wanted this to be a proper sendoff for this crew. The Borg had to be involved. (Q would be the only other option and they ended his story last season and really wrapped up the Q/Picard thing SO WELL in “All Good Things…”) And it works because it’s such a personal journey for Picard. As much as Voyager tried to give Janeway (who absolutely has to cameo next week) a personal tie to the Borg, they were always inextricably tied to Picard in a way they could never be to anyone else.
And to everyone asking “Why Picard? Why humans?” The answer is obvious. Clearly nobody had ever pushed back against the Borg like humans had. They were intrigued with humans in a way that they weren’t with other species. Right or wrong, in the ST Universe, humans and humanity have something that no other species seems to have and it results in a fascination with humanity by more powerful species/beings. This has come up time and time again with Q, The Borg, the Traveller, etc…
We can nitpick (yeah… they probably should have given us the info about Jack in the opening of the third act of the season and let it play out a bit more) but damn… this is a good story and is entertaining as hell to watch. If this had been the first season of PIC, everyone would be crapping their pants with how good it is and would have no issues with the return of the Borg.
So, nitpick all you want (and you will because we’re all nerds here and it’s what we do) but while acknowledging the nitpicks, I’ll be enjoying the hell out of this ride all the way to the end.
“As much as Voyager tried to give Janeway (who absolutely has to cameo next week) a personal tie to the Borg, they were always inextricably tied to Picard in a way they could never be to anyone else.”
Seven of Nine, who was assimilated much longer than Picard ever was, would like a word.
Voyager:
Perhaps The Voyager on the Museum is still Fly ready. Sure got not Upgrades since her return and Parking lot. But Fly ready. Perhaps Admiral Janeway can still remote Control the Ship to awake from it’s Sleep and fly to the designation Points. Because. she has one Extra Beef, what all these ones has not… Borg Armory. i bet it can hold out longer against their Weapons. But that only buy some time, and we would lose her in the end… So as i wished i could see Voyager back in action, losing her is to harmful for their fans
Seven:
Seven of Nine was not important enough for special treatment for the Borg. That’s her luck. Also Seven has some “secret” in her History book. to be more precise her Picard Season 1 book. Even if she just play this Cube Bee Hive Queen to save them it was enough to make her one of them and immune to their call
What I’m saying is that Picard is not the only one that’s so tied to the Borg.
After all, does he go by his designation all the time and has never been allowed to go back to his old name or even pick a new one? Does anyone remember an episode where Jeffrey Combs made him fight Dwayne Johnson just because he used to be Borg and that would draw in more viewers? How are his status as a former Borg effected his relationships with the people around him? Did it prevent him from staying in Starfleet even when very important people were sticking up for him?
The answer to all of that is: No! It didn’t! Unlike Seven so to claim that Picard is more tied to his status as a former Borg is unfair to her!
I do not know. But perhaps they did not wanted to put so many weight on her Shoulders. Also the Series is called Picard not Seven of Nine. So perhaps it was the best conclusion to bet it all on Picard’s shoulders. Also he still have this trauma that he carry around him, even after these years.
So perhaps finally he get it right and also got the best change to call his buddy back to the Show and took some others under his Umbrella. Seven and Raffi. Also “Uncle Picard” introduce his new family members, the Children of La Forge, sadly Riker and Troy’s child seem like forgotten. But perhaps they did not wanted the same fate as Wesley
I am just guessing stuff
Ha ha! Obviously, Seven has her history with the Borg and, in many ways, became Janeway’s personal tie to them. I wasn’t denying that. I’m just saying that when you look at a series and the leader of that series, the Borg have been Picard’s personal nemesis for the audience from their first introduction. (Obviously, in universe, Seven was assimilated before Picard and stayed that way for a long long time.) Janeway handled the Borg well and had more encounters with them than Picard ever did. But for the audience, they were always tied to Picard first.
And the audience can learn to associate them with other characters. Sure maybe they were in TNG first. But they were the main villains of Voyager. They were the people that killed Jennifer Sisko. And that is how I think of them, as the main villains of Voyager and as the people who killed Jennifer Sisko.
At the end of the day the Borg obviously started on TNG and yes made it personal for Picard. But I liked that the Borg has become synonymous for pain and suffering for so many in Starfleet as Shaw’s great Wolf 359 speech displayed. After all, they also tie in to Sisko’s backstory as well and how he lost his wife. We never saw them on the show beyond the flashback (and still the biggest irony of them all since Rick Berman and Michael Piller originally played with the idea the Borg would be the main villains of that show), but it was a constant reminder of how much that single attack on Starfleet had repercussions for decades.
I think by the time we saw them on Voyager and met Seven, the Borg had become very iconic and it was the first time we got to truly learn about them. Some didn’t like it and I guess revealed too much about them, but not for me. And I still think what great about them is there is still tons about them we still don’t know. I know they been fleshed more in novels like Destiny but canon wise they are still both a mystery and a threat in so many ways.
That’s really the beauty of the Borg in terms of being a villain. Every time you think they are down for good, they adapt.
Seven didn’t kill half of Starfleet and nearly destroy Earth.
Does that invalidate my point in any way