Star Trek Picard - Season 1 Episode 7 - Nepenthe (Spoilers)
Mar 10, 2020 15:22:16 GMT
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Post by stargazer1682 on Mar 10, 2020 15:22:16 GMT
I feel like the nostalgia failed to outweigh the clear lack of any plot advancement; it was a filler episode in a 10 episode season that has already been bogged down by a plodding plot. They should have just called it, "Randomly, Riker".
The only thing that happened was catching Soji up on who and what she is - which come on JL, how are you suddenly so tactless as to tell someone they're an android for the first time so casually and in the course of telling someone else such a fact?
Did Soji ever do the head tilt prior to this episode? I honestly don't remember her doing it; and it's obviously a distinctive enough mannerism to stand out, that they included it in this episode, seemingly out of the blue, to telegraph what she is. Now the real test of time will be if she ever does it again.
Didn't Riker used to be a terrible cook? I know he liked to cook, but unlike Sisko, the one instance they actually showed him cooking for any of his shipmates, pretty much everyone hated it (except Worf, with his titanium stomach).
They really like racking up the body count on this series; and in this episode alone they kill Hugh (which seems pointless for them to spared him in the first place.) And they give Will and Deanne kids, only two retroactively kill one of them off; because this show exits in the darkest timeline where everybody has to be fucking miserable and hope no longer exists.
It's super convenient that the only cure for Thad's illness had to be cultivated in a stable positronic matrix or whatever. Especially seeing as how Data and Lore were the first successfully created androids with a positronic brain. I know Bashir replaced parts of Bareil's brain with a positronic brain; something they kind of glossed over at the time like it was no big deal. But just how common was this technology in the first place, either in artificial intelligence or for other purposes? For that matter, why does the positronic matrix for creating a silicone virus culture/treatment require creating a synth? Is there legitimately no way of having one without the other? You can't just create a rudimentary "positronic matrix" that isn't a brain for an android or does anything other than produce cure for this deadly disease?
Why did Elnor and Hugh split up after leaving the Queen Cell? I mean, the only reason would be so Hugh has to be alone while his compariots get mowed down; and then Elnor suddenly pops back up.....
The Borg are pretty much invincible now, with this spatial trajector technology they've assimilated, right? I mean, it's almost on par with the Iconian gateway; which was a danger to let fall into the hands of either the Romulans or the Jem'Hedar. Just how much worse can it be for the Borg to have that kind of technology?
But, oh, it's okay, because I guess only the queen uses it and only in the case of an emergency? Because the Borg are apparently that stupid.
And then there's Agnes. What a let down. Don't get me wrong, I expected her to already have some sort of history with Commodore Oh; and that she was a much more deep cover operative, who's appearance at Picard' chateau, much less her convenient timing shooting the Romulan attackers wasn't a coincidence. So I guess there's something to be said for not being so predictable. But on the other hand, this just more of the same underwhelming tripe as the rest of the episode. Oh randomly pops up next to her, wearing sunglasses that a Vulcan (or presumably a Romulan) wouldn't need; forces a mind meld on her that forces Agnes to vomit. And whatever cluster fuck of images she just saw, it's enough for her to not only follow Picard, but kill Maddox.
And how did she know to put the tracker in her mouth? That would not have been my first or even fifth guess after handed a blinking piece of what appears to be plastic; never mind chewing it. For that matter, how does chewing a device enable them to be tracked across the vast distances of space? Also, why did Agnes, an intelligent scientist, think that just killing herself would somehow make her body less trackable? It'd still be in her system, still doing whatever it's doing. Short of using that drug Dukat was going to have the Pah-Wraith cult take that would turn their body to dust; I don't see how that would have been a solution to their problem.
Lastly, and this is a fairly minor knit pick, I know, but it just seemed weird hearing Deanna call Picard by his first name. I know they're no longer serving together, but I feel like she would still call him "Captain" - not because of chain or command or what have you. I'd argue that, because of their history and because she was her captain for so long, even though he had since been promoted to admiral and now neither of them are still in service with Starfleet, "captain" would conceivably become a term of endearment for some like Deanna; and probably Riker too. It'd be reflexive, also, but in certain ways he acted as, maybe not a "father figure" per se, but there was certainly something patriarchal about his role as their captain - they looked to him for guidance and held him in a certain level of reverence. And I think in a moment like the one where Deanna is tell him about what happened with Thad and how she's not as brave as she used to be, she wouldn't be sharing this moment of vulnerability with "Jean-Luc the wine maker," but with her captain; and I'd reason that she would have found something comfortable and more familiar in calling him captain than by his first name.
The only thing that happened was catching Soji up on who and what she is - which come on JL, how are you suddenly so tactless as to tell someone they're an android for the first time so casually and in the course of telling someone else such a fact?
Did Soji ever do the head tilt prior to this episode? I honestly don't remember her doing it; and it's obviously a distinctive enough mannerism to stand out, that they included it in this episode, seemingly out of the blue, to telegraph what she is. Now the real test of time will be if she ever does it again.
Didn't Riker used to be a terrible cook? I know he liked to cook, but unlike Sisko, the one instance they actually showed him cooking for any of his shipmates, pretty much everyone hated it (except Worf, with his titanium stomach).
They really like racking up the body count on this series; and in this episode alone they kill Hugh (which seems pointless for them to spared him in the first place.) And they give Will and Deanne kids, only two retroactively kill one of them off; because this show exits in the darkest timeline where everybody has to be fucking miserable and hope no longer exists.
It's super convenient that the only cure for Thad's illness had to be cultivated in a stable positronic matrix or whatever. Especially seeing as how Data and Lore were the first successfully created androids with a positronic brain. I know Bashir replaced parts of Bareil's brain with a positronic brain; something they kind of glossed over at the time like it was no big deal. But just how common was this technology in the first place, either in artificial intelligence or for other purposes? For that matter, why does the positronic matrix for creating a silicone virus culture/treatment require creating a synth? Is there legitimately no way of having one without the other? You can't just create a rudimentary "positronic matrix" that isn't a brain for an android or does anything other than produce cure for this deadly disease?
Why did Elnor and Hugh split up after leaving the Queen Cell? I mean, the only reason would be so Hugh has to be alone while his compariots get mowed down; and then Elnor suddenly pops back up.....
The Borg are pretty much invincible now, with this spatial trajector technology they've assimilated, right? I mean, it's almost on par with the Iconian gateway; which was a danger to let fall into the hands of either the Romulans or the Jem'Hedar. Just how much worse can it be for the Borg to have that kind of technology?
But, oh, it's okay, because I guess only the queen uses it and only in the case of an emergency? Because the Borg are apparently that stupid.
And then there's Agnes. What a let down. Don't get me wrong, I expected her to already have some sort of history with Commodore Oh; and that she was a much more deep cover operative, who's appearance at Picard' chateau, much less her convenient timing shooting the Romulan attackers wasn't a coincidence. So I guess there's something to be said for not being so predictable. But on the other hand, this just more of the same underwhelming tripe as the rest of the episode. Oh randomly pops up next to her, wearing sunglasses that a Vulcan (or presumably a Romulan) wouldn't need; forces a mind meld on her that forces Agnes to vomit. And whatever cluster fuck of images she just saw, it's enough for her to not only follow Picard, but kill Maddox.
And how did she know to put the tracker in her mouth? That would not have been my first or even fifth guess after handed a blinking piece of what appears to be plastic; never mind chewing it. For that matter, how does chewing a device enable them to be tracked across the vast distances of space? Also, why did Agnes, an intelligent scientist, think that just killing herself would somehow make her body less trackable? It'd still be in her system, still doing whatever it's doing. Short of using that drug Dukat was going to have the Pah-Wraith cult take that would turn their body to dust; I don't see how that would have been a solution to their problem.
Lastly, and this is a fairly minor knit pick, I know, but it just seemed weird hearing Deanna call Picard by his first name. I know they're no longer serving together, but I feel like she would still call him "Captain" - not because of chain or command or what have you. I'd argue that, because of their history and because she was her captain for so long, even though he had since been promoted to admiral and now neither of them are still in service with Starfleet, "captain" would conceivably become a term of endearment for some like Deanna; and probably Riker too. It'd be reflexive, also, but in certain ways he acted as, maybe not a "father figure" per se, but there was certainly something patriarchal about his role as their captain - they looked to him for guidance and held him in a certain level of reverence. And I think in a moment like the one where Deanna is tell him about what happened with Thad and how she's not as brave as she used to be, she wouldn't be sharing this moment of vulnerability with "Jean-Luc the wine maker," but with her captain; and I'd reason that she would have found something comfortable and more familiar in calling him captain than by his first name.
