Review: Star Trek Picard, Episode 10: Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2

CONTAINS SPOILERS

Last week's episode moved all the players into position:

Picard is under house arrest in Synth City, with Dahj free to move around, and Agnes helping Dr Soong with his work
Raffi and Rios are repairing the La Sirena, but I doubt it will fly anytime soon
Seven and Elnor were on the Borg cube, which is also stuck on the ground
Narek was making his escape to the Borg cube (expecting it to still be under Romulan control - I don't rate his chances of survival)
The synths were preparing for the Romulan attack - which is coming at maximum warp, Commodore Oh at the helm - and hoping to contact the extra-galactic synths who will save them from their evil organic overlords.

Also in play is the 'golem' - the android body without any consciousness - waiting to be used (probably) as a replacement body for one of the organics who suffers severe, catastrophic injuries during the upcoming battle.  The question is:  who?

Then there's the Federation fleet at Deep Space 12; presumably also too far away to be of any use (not withstanding that Picard has failed to make contact with Starfleet).  It all looks bleak.

The episode opens with Narek returning to the Borg cube, as I had anticipated.  Due to the first of many questionable plot developments, nobody on the cube notices his arrival, or that he steals twelve molecular solvent grenades.  Nobody, that is, except his sister Narissa, who was last seen struggling beneath a pile of angry and violent xBs, and who we all assumed had died in the fight.  What's more, the plot requires that all of the key characters (including Narissa) survived the fall from space to the planet without any real injuries.  While watching this, I wondered if Narissa was just a projection or a hallucination from Narek, but no.  The worst part of this scene is that Narek escapes with the grenades, very closely followed by Elnor (who later appears to be several minutes behind).  I have to say that the writing in this episode was completely inconsistent with the general good-to-high quality we've had throughout the series - there are gaps you could pilot a starship through).

Soji and Picard have their usual number of philosophical discussions, the highlight of which is Picard's line: "To say you have no choice shows a lack of imagination."

Rios and Raffi decide to use the synth device to fix the intermix reactor (think of it as the combustion chamber in the cylinders of a car engine).  Rios was given this device by Saga, who was the synth who was murdered last week - the naïve prison guard.  Anyway, in order to use the device, Rios needs to use his  imagination (there's that word again), and, as if by magic, the intermix chamber is repaired, and the whole ship miraculously goes from non-functional to flight-ready.  At which point, Narek starts lobbing rocks at the hull of the ship.  Where's Elnor?  He was barely five or six seconds behind Narek when they left the cube, but suddenly Narek is able to have a discussion with Rios and Raffi while Elnor plays catch-up.  Hmmm.

Anyway, Narek recounts Romulan mythical history about two sisters (not unlike Soji and Dahj) who are basically the harbingers of doom.  Seb-Natan, the first sister, warns of impending doom, while the second sister, Seb-Cheneb will actually cause the evil "ch'kalagu" to come from a split in the sky.  It's all very apocalyptic.  Narek explains that this "Is history.  But the fascinating thing about history is that it always repeats itself," and hence recruits Rios, Raffi and Elnor to his cause - to stop the synths from bringing the end of the world as we know it.  He concocts the classic prisoner plan (Luke Skywalker tried the same trick with Chewbacca on the Death Star; Princess Leia tried the same trick - also with Chewbacca - on Jabba's palace on Tattoine), and we see the team make a successful start on their plan.

Agnes decides it's time to rescue Picard from house arrest, and steals poor Saga's eye in order to open the secured locks on the doors.  The rescue actually proceeds without a hitch, even when Agnes delivers the fateful line, "I honestly thought I was the worst secret agent ever, but I'm honestly believing I have a gift."  I truly expected Sutra, or another synth, to appear in the doorway at that moment!  The two of them make it successfully to the La Sirena, where Picard delivers another brief speech: "Fear is an incompetent teacher," before piloting the ship up to meet the Romulan fleet.

Narissa, on board the remnants of the Borg cube, starts to track and target Picard's ship, until she is interrupted by Seven. The two of them have a brief fight, ending with Seven shoving Narissa off a precipice, which is a standard sci-fi device for 'really dead this time'.

Dr Soong, meanwhile, is able to access Saga's final memories and realises that she was killed by Sutra (I figured it was Narek) and goes to confront Sutra and the other synths.  On his way, he meets up with the crew of the La Sirena, who are preparing to throw a grenade at the base of the beacon which Sutra is building.  The beacon is a tall, metallic tower, also being grown by synth magic, and the grenade needs to be thrown at its base (according to Narek, who suddenly knows a lot about trans-dimensional beacons).  Soong provides a distraction by confronting Sutra and either stunning or deactivating her, while Rios struggles to get a clear shot at the tower. He tries and fails to hit the target- Soji intercepts his throw - and the beacon is completed. This is all very reminiscent of the Marvel universe where Loki opened up a rift over the skies of New York - even the incoming aliens looked familiar.

The Romulans arrive in the space above the planet, met by Picard and the flying orchids. It's bright, it's colourful and it's all a delay tactic while Picard Hope's that Starfleet can make it.  Picard is indeed a very rusty pilot and his antics at the helm are amusing.  Agnes asks him about using "The Picard Manoeuvre" which is a real throwback.  If you jump to warp and fly towards an enemy ship very, very briefly, you will arrive closer to the enemy ship before the light from your starting position, and hence appear to be in two places at once. As Picard explains, it was a long time ago, on his very first ship, the Stargazer (see The Next Generation episode "The Battle").

Instead, Agnes is able to use the synth magic wand to produce dozens of projections of the La Sirena, which buys Starfleet and the synths even more time. As I immediately thought, this kind of trick only works as long as the real ship isn't damaged: the Romulans get a lucky shot off and hit the La Sirena and the whole deception is off. Not to worry though, here comes Starfleet! With a suitable degree of fanfare and ceremony, we see the massed ranks of Starfleet arrive - big, grey with red and blue lights and unmistakably heroic.  At the helm? Captain Riker, fresh out of retirement.

The standoff between the two fleets is handled well, even if it looks a little too much CGI'd. I suppose 400+ ships is a lot for any studio to render.  It gives Picard the time he needs to plead his case with Soji, who agrees to close the portal - and just in time, too, as the transdimensional baddies were on their way.  It's all last-minute cliff-hanger material but it all seems a bit obvious (I would have liked to see the joint fleets take on some of the evil synth fleet, but that would be difficult to show with 400+ ships plus the aliens. The writers backed themselves into a corner there).

All this stress and strain has caused Picard's brain disease - irumatic syndrome - to flare up and, as the Romulans stand down and fly off, Soji beams Picard and Agnes back down to the planet as a medical emergency.  Since nobody has died, the rest of the episode goes through the steps of Picard dying, having his brain transferred to the synth blank, and being reborn as an android. The conversations between the crew lacked any emotional depth as we all know Picard isn't really dead, but there were some nice touches.  I liked Rios and Seven's conversation - "Never again," - each with their own regrets, Seven winning as she had the power to change her actions and avoid what she now regrets.  I wondered if these two might start a relationship, but I completely missed the mark.

There is an extended after-life scene between Picard and Data on the nature of mortality and life, concluding with Picard gaining consciousness in his new, not-improved, not-immortal, basically-the-same-as-before body.  I was hoping for more than the status quo, and I sincerely hope that something is made of this new body. 

Before his death in Star Trek Nemesis, Data transferred a full copy of his memories into a blank android called B4 (which we saw briefly, disassembled, in an earlier episode). Data has survived in this copied form - consciousness only - in the lab on the synths' planet, and Picard agrees to switch off this life-support system.  From Data's perspective, we see him getting older and more of his surroundings disappear until he and the original Captain Picard disappear.

The epilogue sees Rios and Agnes pair up, and Seven pair up with Raffi (See? I was way off the mark). Soji rejoins the crew, along with Elnor, and Picard sets off for the great unknown (second star to the left?).

I'll wrap up with some questions that highlight some of the holes in the plot and demonstrate why I only rated this episode as average.

Will Agnes face charges for killing Maddox?
What happened to Narek, last seen on the planet?
Is Picard in any way different now??
Will Elnor get any depth? Seven and Rios had a conversation; Elnor just cried on Raffi - is there nothing more to him?

So, overall very positive.  A lot of setup, which seems to be the new approach to televised sci-fi, instead of a starter episode and subsequent standalone episodes. I am certainly lookong forward to series 2.

Review: Star Trek Picard Episode 9: Et in Arcadia, Ego, Part 1

CONTAINS SPOILERS

Last week's episode saw a straightforward race to get to the synths' homeworld - Picard, Soji and the rest of the La Sirena crew using a Borg transwarp conduit as a short-cut to the planet, quietly followed by an unspecified ship of similar size. Was this Narek, or was it Seven and Elnor? I concluded it was probably the former, but hoped it was the latter. Or maybe Seven and Elnor could use the Borg's transporter to get directly there (if they learned where it was).

The title for this week's episode 'Et in Arcadia, Ego' translates as "And in Arcadia, there I am". The inference is that Arcadia is utopia or paradise, and "I" means death - hence "Even in paradise there is death".  So, who's going to die this week?

We resume with the La Sirena flying through the transwarp conduit, which enables them to cover 25 light years in 15 minutes.  Normal maximum speed in Star Trek is 1000 light years in 12 months, which is approximately 25 light years in a week, so the Borg transwarp conduit is a real time-saver.

However, the La Sirena was followed by their old Romulan shadow, Narek, who opens fire. It was a relief to not hear, "Shields at 80%... shields at 50%..." which is how battles used to progress on Voyager (the show became notorious for it). Before Narek can do any real damage, though, the Borg cube - "not broken" - comes charging through its own conduit (it seems cubes can produce their own) and into the fray. I cheered with delight at the sight of its arrival.  It doesn't have chance to influence the battle, however, as five enormous orchid flowers rise up from the planet and absorb the ships (the cube requires more than one orchid), cut all power and drag them down to the planet surface. It's a bit surreal, but it works for a largely peaceful and pacifist society.

The La Sirena safely crash lands (if that's possible) and the crew are unhurt. Picard remains unconscious, though, and channels a message,"Thank you for coming, everyone." Like many things in this episode, it's not followed up.

Agnes runs a series of scans on Picard and discovers his irumodic syndrome. This is like a form of dementia; progressive and terminal, and has been referenced in the original The Next Generation series (see the series conclusion, "All Good Things") and earlier in this series (the doctor who examined Picard before he set off on this mission reminded him of it).  Picard mentions this to the crew and then says he wants to hear nothing more on the subject.  Strange that the story brings it up just to close it down.

Anyway, the rest of the story moves along at a very brisk pace.  Rising smoke on the horizon shows where the Borg cube crash landed, which is in the opposite direction to Synth City (as Raffi calls it).  It doesn't matter, there's plenty of time to do both, but Soji says she'll come along with the crew instead of splitting up.  Again, mentioned but not followed up.  They reach the Borg cube without any incident, and meet up with the liberated Borg crew, who recognise Picard as Locutus (the Best of Both Worlds).  Seven and Elnor have both survived the crash landing, and the Borg have begun makeshift repairs to their cube - including power banks.  Picard asks about long-range sensors, and in an unseen discussion, Seven provides Rios and Raffi with a power bank to fire up the long-range sensors on La Sirena.  They discover 218 Romulan warbirds on their way to the synths' planet, Coppelia, and about a day's journey away.

Picard and the crew say goodbye (for the last time? I think not) to Seven and Elnor, leaving the Borg to continue repairs to their cube (which will surely feature next time).  Picard and crew make their way to Synth City, where they are met by most, if not all, of the synth inhabitants.  There is a very strange, alien feel to the city.  It reminded me of the village in the movie Star Trek Insurrection (it's one of the weaker films, but still) - an advanced alien population living in a seemingly low-tech environment.  They are also greeted by the son of Data's creator.  Data's creator was Dr Noonien Soong, and here we meet his biological son, Dr Altan Inigo Soong - who bears an uncanny and almost unrealistic likeness to his father (my children don't look exactly like me).  The crew are introduced to another copy of the Dahj/Soji synth model, named Sutra.  We assumed that Soji and Dahj were twins, but it seems there are at least three of them.  Sutra has studied Vulcan techniques and teachings, and is able to perform a mind-meld on Agnes.  Previously, only Vulcans or half-Vulcans could perform mind-melds, but these synths are advanced enough to have learned the skills.

Sutra is able to access the full message that Commodore Oh shared with Agnes, known as The Admonition.  From the perspective of organic life, the Admonition is a warning against allowing synthetic, artificial life to proliferate, otherwise a great destruction will come.  From the synths' perspective, however, the message reads differently: it says that there are great fleets and armies of synthetics living on the edge of time and space who will come into the galaxy and enable the synths to overthrow their organic masters.  The result is the same, the perspective is different.  It's a bit contrived, but it works, and when the mind meld ends, Sutra's comment, "Fascinating" was classic Spock.

Picard attempts, unsuccessfully, to make contact with Starfleet - this follows the recurring theme of him failing to connect with them.  Agnes visits various places around the village, and comes across the resident cat, "Spot 2" - named after Data's cat on the Enterprise.

Dr Soong calls out Agnes's behaviour in killing Maddox.  Agnes is already feeling guilty enough, but Dr Soong is justified in his response to her.  He later shows Agnes a new model of a 'golem' - a blank android with no consciousness or intelligence.  This would be the perfect way of saving a dying human - by transferring their consciousness into the android body.  So, back to my first question:  who's going to die this week?

The third remaining ship to have been pulled down to the planet belonged to Narek, and he's had a rough landing - and been picked up and imprisoned by the synths.  To quote Sutra, "look who the cat dragged in."  He is placed in a makeshift cell, and guarded by a worryingly naive synth.  Narek takes his best shot at manipulating his way out of the cell, but fails.  However, Sutra has another plan for Narek, and she allows him to escape - she's devious: "I was afraid my desire to kill you would outweigh my need for your services." She wants to use Narek in the same way as the Romulans used the synths on Mars - to spark a war.  She doesn't want a peaceful resolution between the Romulans, Starfleet and the synths; she wants to trigger a full-scale conflict and bring in the extra synth armies apparently waiting on the edge of time and space (or wherever).  Narek, being Narek, kills the naïve synth on his way of out of Synthville, and heads off towards the Borg cube (or at least out into the wilderness).  Point to consider: if the Borg cube and Synthville were in opposite directions from the La Sirena, is there a chance that Narek will find the La Sirena on his way to the cube??

The synths congregate for the funeral of the guard, with Picard and Agnes, and decide that the time has come to act.  The death of the naive guard (as mainpulated by Sutra) has set up a crisis point.  The synths want to put Picard and Agnes under house arrest and prepare for the impending Romulan attack.  Picard pleads his case, that he will be an advocate for the synths with Starfleet and that they will listen to him.  Really?  "No, they won't," says Dr Soong - echoing my thoughts exactly.  They've not listened to Picard at any point along the journey, except to send a fleet of ships to Deep Space 12 (presumably too far away to be of any use now, but who knows?).  House arrest it is, then.

There are some interesting discussions along the way, but these are largely designed (I fear) to pad out a single-story episode into two full episodes.  Soji considers the concept of sacrifice and Picard says, "It depends if you're the one holding the knife."  This points back to the time when Data sacrified himself for Picard (Nemesis) - Data understood sacrifice even if Soji doesn't yet.

The episode closes with Commodore Oh (no less), on the bridge of a Romulan warbird heading towards the synth planet at maximum warp, 24 hours away.

So the pieces are all in play.  Picard and Agnes seem to be out of the picture, so it's down to everybody else to play their part  The Borg cube, undergoing repairs; the Starfleet ships at Deep Space 12 (are they too far away?); the synths' defences - the orchids - surely useless against 218 ships; the 'golem' - the blank android - somebody's going to die, so who's that for?

Review: Star Trek Picard, Episode 8: Broken Pieces

CONTAINS SPOILERS

It seems that none of the crew of the La Sirena are entirely intact.  Raffi is heartbroken after a failed attempt to reconcile with her estranged son; Agnes is falling apart after killing Maddox, and is now in a coma; and Rios strikes me as a nihilistic narcissist (why else have all the holograms programmed to look like better versions of himself?).  Picard (distraught over the death of Dahj, and still dismayed at Starfleet's treatment of the Romulans) and Soji (who's not entirely sure what she is) aren't on the La Sirena, but they're not exactly in one piece, either.  The only member of the crew who seems to be intact is Elnor, the Romulan ninja with very little personality except "undying loyalty", and he's unlikely to last much longer on a Borg cube manned by Romulans who are out to get him.

Things are looking grim, but they could be worse.  Picard and Soji have made an apparently successful escape from the Artifact (although it cost Hugh his life, and the lives of many ex-Borg), and are due to reunite with the rest of the crew.  By the way, Picard is leaving a trail of destruction behind him that's unprecedented; I just hope the conclusion is worth it.

The episode begins by answering many of the questions we've had about the Romulans in this series.  Fourteen years ago, a group of Romulan women met one distant planet identified in orbit (or within) a system of eight stars.  It's virtually impossible to have a system of eight stars all orbiting neatly around each other - two stars (binary systems) are common, and there are some three-star (trinary) systems, but it's not really possible to get eight stars orbiting each other without two or more of them falling into each other due to gravity.  This makes the planet significant, and the eight stars are a galactic signpost.  On the planet is a circular beam of flaming light, and whoever touches it sees a message - a vision - of a future which will occur if the number of synths reaches a critical number.  The Romulans there are the Zhat Vash - more than just the ultra-secret police and more like religious fanatics.  Seeing the vision causes most of the Zhat Vash to go suicidally insane; three remain: Commodore Oh, Narissa and Ramdha - who went mad but remained alive (Soji met her on the Borg cube in what looked like an asylum - Ramdha called Soji 'the destroyer').

It turns out that Ramdha was assimilated by the Borg a few weeks later, and her unlimited depression permeated through the Borg and caused their collective mental breakdown and an entire Borg cube to go offline -  the Artifact. 

On the Artifact, Elnor is fighting a losing battle, but his SOS call is heard and Seven of Nine returns to save the day.  I've mentioned before that setting this entire part of the story on a Borg cube placed a time bomb in the story, and Seven, with her Borg knowledge is the one to detonate it - she reactivates the Borg cube (I cheered with glee).  However, the parasitic Romulans are not to be ousted from their Artifact and seeing the Borg cube regenerating prompts them to start shooting Borg drones on sight.

Realising that the Romulans are systematically slaughtering the newly-awakened drones leaves Seven with no option but to connect herself to the Borg and become a Borg Queen (see Star Trek First Contact for more on Borg Queens). This is a risky move - as she herself admits, the Borg will lose their individuality and although she will be able to separate herself from the collective afterwards, she may not want to. She would personally prefer not to form a collective, and when she says, "We are the Borg" you wonder if it's truly temporary.

Soji and Picard are picked up by the La Sirena, and as soon as they beam aboard, Rios acts like he's seen a ghost and immediately retreats to his quarters. This leads to a long and protracted series of discussions between Raffi and the set of holograms about Rios's strange reaction.  For the record, the five holograms are 

Engineering - Enoch (Scottish)
Weapons/Tactical - Spanish and dozy
Medical - American and formal
Hospitality - was that an English accent?
Navigation - Irish

I found this part of the episode a little irritating and longer than it needed to be, but the ends justify the means - but only just. And, in case you were wondering, these are the "broken pieces" of Rios, each containing part of his memories, but none of them having the complete picture.

Rios was, as Picard correctly surmised in the early episodes, "Starfleet through and through". Ina tragic tale, Rios was first officer on a Starfleet vessel that made initial contact with two humanoid aliens. The captain, Captain Vandermeer (not previously mentioned in Trek history), contacted the fleet admiral, who demanded that the captain kill the two aliens immediately, or suffer the destruction of the entire ship with all hands.  The aliens were synths; the fleet admiral was Commodore Oh (who, we discover is half-Romulan and half-Vulcan), on her mission to rid the galaxy of synths.  Captain Vandermeer carried out his orders, killing the two synths and thereby saved his ship, the USS ibn Majid (also new to Trek history) and subsequently killed himself, leaving Rios to pick up the pieces. Rios covered up the when incident, but suffered post traumatic "dysphoria" and left Starfleet six months later.

One of the synths that Rios met, Jana, looked exactly like Soji, and we realise that there are far, far more synths than just Dahj and Soji. It also explains why Rios was so distraught when he saw Soji.

Picard orders his crew to head to the nearest starbase, Deep Space 12.  However, his crew aren't impressed: Rios has retreated to his quarters, and Raffi takes Picard to task over inviting Agnes onto the ship.  

The story moves very quickly here - I wondered if the death of Maddo  would be played out as a mystery, but no. The Emergency Medical Hologram (the formal American one) and Raffi very quickly find the cause of Maddox's death: fatal interruption of his treatment, bu Agnes. The EMH also diagnoses Agnes's current condition and treatment. It's all handled very quickly: Agnes took the poison to counteract the veridium isotope tracker that was in her blood, and in the process nearly killed herself.  If the medicine is handled quickly, then the consequences are given plenty of time: Picard accuses Agnes of all she's done, and she confesses to everything, explaining her meeting with Commodore Oh; the mind-meld and the horrors trapped inside her mind. Agnes is well and truly in broken pieces, and comes across quite clearly as a victim, not as an evil villain. And she gets her moment of relief when she meets Soji. I thought this was a touching and important moment; Agnes comes across as an over-awed fangirl, "Do you eat? What do you do when you're thirsty?" but it's a key moment in her life and it gets its fair amount of time.

Picard speaks to Admiral Kirsten Clancy (the Admiral who told Picard he was arrogant when he first asked Starfleet for a ship) and he says he wants a full squadron of ships sent to meet him at Deep Space 12 - and he won't take no for an answer. Unfortunately, he won't shut up long enough to hear the answer, and Clancy has to tell him to shut up because she agrees. Picard and Soji will rendezvous with a squadron at DS 12.

Picard and Soji have a discussion about her personal history,  since she doesn't have the life she remembers and her memories are all fabricated. They have a positive conversation about the relationship between Data and Picard, where Soji concludes that Data loved Picard.  Data did indeed try to make his colleagues laugh, but succeeded most often when  he wasn't trying.

The full crew, including Agnes, are reunited around the dining table, and the full story comes out. The Zhat Vash did indeed cause the synths on Mars to attack the base and fleet stationed there, hoping that this would cause Starfleet to retaliate against the synths, as they indeed did. Maddox fled Starfleet to a distant planet (the planet with two moons and lightning, which Soji calls home and which the Riker family identified last episode). Soji is seen as 'the destroyer' by the Romulans who identify her as the key cause of future galactic destruction, according to the message on the planet in the eight-year system.  The Romulans have identified the synth's planet, where Maddox fled - Narek coerced Soji into sharing it - and are on their way there.

Indeed they are.  The Romulans are fleeing the Artifact as the Borg begin to take control. Narissa orders the air locks to be opened, venting many of the Borg  into space (this has been done before; in Star Trek Voyager's episode Scorpion, Captain Janeway vents Borg drones off her ship, only Seven survives).  However, the remaining Borg do make a fight of it, and the last we see of Narissa is the Borg swarming all over her.

On the La Sirena, Soji decides to take matters into her own hands, and turns the ship away from its course to Deep Space 12 and towards her home planet. If she can get there before the Romulans she can warn them. Rios retakes control of the ship, and points out that navigating a Borg transwarp conduit without accounting for gravimetric shear (they always talked about this on Voyager) and chronatons (they cause time travel, see Star Trek First Contact) is foolhardy. The crew agree to go along with Soji's plan (nobody else's has worked very well), and the last thing we see is the La Sirena heading into the transwarp conduit (like a wormhole) towards the synths' home... followed by a small scout vessel which decloaks before pursuing. I suspect this is Narek, the Romulan brother, but I have no idea how he found the conduit or the La Sirena. Maybe Agnes's tracking is still active? I'd like to hope it's Seven and Elnor, but I can't see how they'd know where to go to meet Picard.

This was another great episode which has been difficult to summarise since so much happened.  We learned why the synths attacked Mars; we discovered Commodore Oh's history; the Borg cube reactivated; Agnes regained consciousness and explained her role in events. Next? How many synths are there on their home world? Will there be enough time to prepare a defence? Do the Romulans have the whole message wrong? What about the fleet of ships at Deep Space 12?  So many questions; so many broken pieces.

Star Trek Picard: A Selected History

Amazon Prime's new hit series Star Trek Picard draws heavily from the previous episodes of previous series.  You don't need to have seen the earlier episodes to make sense of Picard or to enjoy the shows, but they help round out the story and pull some loose threads together.

Here are some of the key events in Picard's life, as told in episodes of The Next Generation, Voyager and two of the movies.

Background on robotics scientist Bruce Maddox and Data
The Measure Of A Man
TNG Season 2, Episode 9

First time the Enterprise meets the Borg
Q Who,
TNG Season 2, Episode 16

The Enterprise-D, Picard's ship during The Next Generation

Picard is assimilated by the Borg
The Best Of Both Worlds,
Part 1:  Season 3, Episode 26
Part 2:  Season 4, Episode 1

Introduction of Hugh
I, Borg
Season 5, Episode 23

More useful information on the Borg, and a good film. Not required viewing, but one of the best Star Trek films.
Star Trek First Contact - not available on Netflix or Amazon Prime (I can lend you the DVD).

First meeting with Seven of Nine (and more Borg)
Scorpion
Part 1: Star Trek Voyager, Season 3 Episode 26
Part 2: Star Trek Voyager, Season 4 Episode 1

Introduction of Icheb
Collective
Star Trek Voyager, Season 6, Episode 16

Icheb (far right) with a group of Borg Children, Collective

Icheb's feature episode
Child's Play
Star Trek Voyager, Season 6, Episode 19

The last time we saw Picard in uniform; Troi and Riker's wedding; the death of Data.
Star Trek Nemesis - also not available on Netflix or Amazon Prime (I can lend you the DVD)

Once you've watched some - or all - of these episodes from the archive, you'll understand more of the background behind Picard, and hopefully enjoy the new series even more.

Review: Star Trek Picard Episode 7: Nepenthe

CONTAINS SPOILERS

Last week, I concluded my review by asking who or what was on the planet of Nepenthe, the destination that Picard asked Hugh to send him and Soji to.  This week, we got our answer, and it was a delight.  We also left Elnor and Hugh on a Borg cube swarming with angry Romulans, and wondered what might happen to them. Their situation was far more dangerous and less likely to have a happy ending.

This week's episode starts (as many of the episodes have done) with a flashback scene that answers the question: "What did Commodore Oh say to Agnes during that apparently brief conversation?" I'm still not sure if Oh is Romulan or Vulcan. She certainly has Romulan ears (Vulcans' are more triangular and upright, while Romulans' are almost circular and drawn to a point), and she's working with the Romulans on the Artifact, but it surprises me that a Romulan could have risen through the ranks of Starfleet so quickly.  Did anybody else think that when Oh said, "Let me show you," and took off her sunglasses, that we'd see that she was an android?  No?  Just me, then.

Oh performs a mind-meld with Agnes - we've never seen what this is like for the participants, and we've never seen a Romulan perform one either. It's also highly debatable if the images that Oh forced on Agnes were actually true and accurate, or deliberately misleading. Nevertheless, Agnes swallows a tracker and agrees to follow Commodore Oh's plans.

Agnes' mental health declines rapidly and worryingly. We see that she's still feeling guilty about killing Maddox, but now has outbursts about tracking down Soji and instead suggests that they just go home.  She's a living homing beacon on a ship that's determined to track down its target, and as well as being a passenger in the crew, she's now a passenger in her own life, with the Romulans pulling the strings.

On the Borg cube, meanwhile, the Romulans are pulling triggers.  After a desperate and short fight, the Romulans have captured Elnor and Hugh, and a small group of ex-Borg.  Narissa (Narek's sister, and the weirder of the two siblings) is resorting to extreme measures to obtain Picard and Soji's destination after they disappeared off the cube in the previous episode.  She questions Hugh, then executes around a dozen ex-Borg in cold blood.  Hugh and Elnor are able to escape, briefly, but they face overwhelming odds on a Romulan-infested cube.  Things are not going to end well; I still wonder if the Borg are going to reawaken en masse, and start assimilating all the Romulans, and after the events of this episode, I'd be cheering them on.

Narissa tells Hugh that releasing the synth (Soji) has doomed half the galaxy and a trillion souls.  Commodore Oh shared similar visions with Agnes during their mind-meld.  Just what are the paranoid Romulans thinking of?  How do they know it's so bad?  If there's time travel and messengers from the future involved, I will NOT be happy.

The La Sirena is being held by the Romulans in a tractor beam, and Raffi and Rios are not happy about it.  Agnes suggests that they should tell the Romulans where Picard has gone, and then they'll be allowed to leave.  Despite Raffi's efforts, they are firmly in the tractor beam's grip, until Narek launches his scout vessel.  The La Sirena is released, and starts off on its journey to rendezvous with Picard on Nepenthe.  When Agnes asked Rios if his ship would be able to escape, Rios reminded me of Han Solo - Rios says his ship is fast enough (perhaps it did the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs?)

Nepenthe is an idyllic planet; warm, pleasant, sunny and bright - in stark contrast to the sterile walls of the Borg cube and the La Sirena.  There's no visible technology, and the difference is immediately noticeable.  Picard and Soji are greeted by a young girl, and Picard asks her to take them to her parents.  Picard mentions his heart is solid duritanium, and perhaps the girl should point her arrows at his head - this is a brief nod to an event when he was in the academy and was stabbed in the heart in a bar brawl (as seen in the Next Generation episode "Tapestry").

I wish I hadn't seen a spoiler from last week, as I knew that Picard was going to meet Riker and Troi.  Riker and Troi were both officers on the bridge of the Enterprise, and they married in the final Next Generation movie, Nemesis (the same film where Data sacrificed himself for Picard).  At the end of the film, Riker was being promoted to Captain, and was taking on his own command, the USS Titan.  Nothing else has been mentioned about them since then; everything else (their home, their career and family) is all new.  Troi is a half-Betazoid:  Betazoids are fully telepathic, but as Troi has a human father, she's only able to sense strong emotion and read more subtle telepathic cues; nevertheless, she can tell immediately that Soji is an android (but lets the moment pass without comment, and only mentions it to Picard later).

There is no 'action' or any major plot developments on Nepenthe.  Instead, we see Riker call Picard arrogant (it's a recurring theme), and tell Picard that he should ask for help instead of marching off on his mission on his own.  This is a mission which by Picard's own confession is not going to plan (not that he had a real plan anyway).  Instead, the episode takes its time to set up conversations between Riker and Picard; Soji and Troi; Troi and Picard, and Kestra (the young girl) and Soji.  

Introducing Kestra as Riker/Troi's daughter is a very clever move.  Data (Soji's 'father') was obsessed with human nature and has frequently been seen conversing with children in an attempt to better understand human life (there are multiple examples in the film Insurrection).  Kestra has almost no filter, and at various points in the story, I thought she was going to scare Soji into leaving immediately.  However, it seems that the adults are more likely to do this; as Soji and Troi both explain, their actions are very similar to Narek's - convince her that their intentions are genuine, then betray her.  It seems that Kestra builds the bridge between them all, since children generally - and Kestra in particular - are not capable of complex deception.  There are multiple references to Data in the conversations between Kestra and Soji:  telling jokes (Data wished he could); ballroom dancing (he took lessons); Sherlock Holmes (Data was fascinated with deduction and logic).  I could go on.

Soji opens up about the dream she shared with Narek - about the two red moons and the lightning, and Kestra is able to track down the planet that Soji will call home.  There is a large amount of interesting exposition around the Riker/Troi family, but I'm going to skip almost all of that and carry on with the main story.

It's a sad time for Agnes Jurati, and despite cake and consolation from Raffi, Agnes is not in a good place.  It turns out that Narek is able to track the La Sirena, despite all of Rios's expert tactics at evasion, and Agnes makes the horrifying conclusion that the Romulans are using the tracking device she swallowed on earth.  The scene where Rios talks with Agnes and shares his suspicions that Raffi is sabotaging the mission is truly fascinating.  On Nepenthe, everybody is confident that they're in a safe and secure place surrounded by friends (except Soji, who has to believe them), and there is absolute candour between them all.  On the La Sirena, everybody is deliberately concealing the truth and manipulating everybody else:  I truly didn't believe Rios's suggestion that Raffi had betrayed them, and I firmly believe he was trying to manipulate Agnes into confessing.  This doesn't work out, and by the end of the episode, she's taken a does of uranium hydride (not previously seen in Star Trek, but a real-world compound used in nuclear power) that causes her to go into a coma.

I thought that the uranium hydride would be lethal - the body count for this series is remarkable, and the writers have no issue in killing off characters - and I suspect that Agnes would have died if the Emergency Medical Hologram had not intervened.  It's an interesting plot development that the tracking device stops working when Agnes is in a coma.  Will restoring her consciousness cause the tracker to reactivate?  Is she like a synth, which is 'safe' until it's activated?

Things are equally bleak on the Borg cube.  Elnor and Hugh start looking to actively sabotage the Romulans, and are caught in the act.  Despite Elnor's best efforts, Narissa kills Hugh.  This was a truly tragic moment; Hugh has been completely loyal to Picard and deserved better.  The pile of bodies mounting up behind Picard's little escapade is growing week by week.  Who's next?  Elnor realises he's in a no-win situation (even by his standards) and calls for help, using the SOS device that Seven gave to Picard previously.  His situation may be delicate, but he's not lost yet.

Overall, this episode was good, but not as good as we've seen previously.  The plot moves on at a more moderate speed, and there's a welcome change of pace from the phasers and fighting we've seen recently.  After the high-speed escape and rescue of Soji, the plot takes time to go through the consequences of Soji's activation.  We've lost Hugh; Agnes is in a coma; Picard and Soji are taking the long way round to Soji's homeworld.  Elnor has called for Seven and the Ferris Rangers for support (I wonder if we'll see Seven, or if the writers have somebody else in mind) and I wonder if we've seen the last of Riker and Troi.

Analysis versus Interpretation

We have had a disappointingly mild winter.

It snowed on two days...

You will easily notice the bias in that sentence. Friends and long-time readers will know that I love snow, for many reasons. The data from the Meteorological Office puts the winter (1 December - 29 February) into context, using a technique that I've mentioned before - ranking the specific period against the rest of the data set.

So, by any measure, it was a wet and mild winter. Far more rain than usual (across the country), and temperatures were above average.

This was posted on Facebook, a website renowned for its lack of intelligent and considered discussion, and known for the sharp-shooting debates.  Was it really wetter than usual? Is global warming to blame? Is this an upward trend (there is insufficient data here) or a fluke?

And then there's the series of distraction questions - how long have records been held? Have the temperature and rainfall data been recorded since the same original date? Is any of that relevant? No.

In my experience, analysis is hard, but anybody, it seems, can carry out the interpretation.  However, interpretation is wide open to personal basis, and the real skill is in treating the data impartially and without bias, and interpreting it from that viewpoint. It requires additional data research - for example, is February's data an anomaly or is it a trend? Time to go and look in the archive and support your interpretation with more data.