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| Q transports Picard to an alternate reality in which he's a bloodthirsty, xenophobic conqueror. |
Original Air Date: Mar. 10, 2022. Teleplay by: Akiva Goldsman, Terry Matalas, Christopher Monfette. Story by: Michael Chabon, Akiva Goldsman, Terry Matalas, Christopher Monfette. Directed by: Douglas Aarniokoski.
THE PLOT:
After activating the self-destruct on The Star Gazer, Jean-Luc Picard is dead. Or at least, he should be.
Instead, he is back at Chateau Picard, and he has company: Q (John DeLancie), who portentously announces that Picard is at "the very end of the road not taken." Q shows him around the chateau as it is now. Picard has robotic servants. The work is still being done by displaced Romulans - slaves taken during the human conquest of Romulus. "General Picard" has a trophy room with the skulls of his enemies, including Gul Dukat, Martok, and Sarek.
It is an alternate reality, one in which the Earth is governed by the warlike and xenophobic "Confederation." Q has transferred all of Picard's crew to this new reality. Seven is Earth's President; Raffi, a security chief; Elnor, a dissident; Rios, a starship captain; and Jurati... well, she's pretty much herself - save, as she notes, for an upgrade in torture devices.
Today is Eradication Day, a holiday celebrating humanity's supremacy through the execution of "dissidents, alien sympathizers, (and) terrorists." Among the condemned is a Borg Queen (Annie Wersching), who is able to sense the changes to the timeline. Under questioning, the queen reveals that this reality resulted from a single change to the past. Picard and company will need to go back in time to set things right - but first they will need to escape the watchful eyes of the Confederation!
CHARACTERS:
Picard: Q gives him a head start in grasping the type of reality he's now in, but he still gathers his composure and plays the part of his Fascist Universe Counterpart faster than any of the others manages. Then again, he has a bit of experience at finding himself suddenly living an unfamiliar life. He shows his leadership qualities as soon as he starts meeting the others, improvising quickly but authoritatively to keep Raffi and Elnor out of trouble, then focusing the group on what needs to be done to return to their own timeline.
Seven of Nine: When she wakes up in the Presidential bedroom without her Borg implants, she runs a series of quick sensory tests to make sure that what she's experiencing is real. She tests pain by burning herself, but the most convincing result is smell: "You can't smell in a dream." She recoils at the sight of the Borg Queen. When it becomes clear that they will need the Queen to help them, she is brutal in confronting her, almost gloating at the "pitiful end to the Great Borg Empire."
Dr. Jurati: Though her circumstances are the least changed, she does the worst job of fitting in. The way she stammers and babbles... Well, let's just say that if the Confederation Magistrate didn't already suspect something was "off," then he certainly did after meeting Jurati. She's more effective when actually working a scientific problem, taking down Confederation defenses so that Rios can beam them all safely away. Even then, she can't quite resist having what feels a lot like a marital dispute mid-crisis: "I would hang up on you right now if it wasn't going to get us all killed."
Raffi/Elnor: They make an entertaining duo, with Raffi playing the part of Elnor's captor. Her story about exactly what intelligence she's hoping to extract keeps changing just a little with each new guard she speaks to. At one point, she uses him as a distraction, allowing a couple of guards to beat him while she accesses their security - only to tell him, "Elnor, they're yours," once she has what she needs, at which point he takes great pleasure in demonstrating his martial skills.
Pompous Earth Bureaucrat of the Week: Jon Jon Briones, father of Sonji actress Isa Briones, is the Magistrate - Seven's husband in this reality. The marriage doesn't appear to be overly burdened by love or affection, and the "dear" he punctuates his sentences with sounds more artificial than anything the androids in the show have ever said. He's a weasel, and it isn't hard for either Seven or Picard to bully him into granting them privacy. That said, he does not appear to be stupid, and his facial expressions show that he senses something not quite right about his wife by the end of their first scene together.
Borg Queen: I'll allow that there are still a few Voyager Borg episodes that I haven't seen. Even so, this is the first time I can recall seeing a Borg Queen in a position of helplessness. Her people have been eradicated, leaving her isolated and alone - and as Seven's early Voyager appearances showed, "alone" isn't something Borg manage well. She is able to sense the timeline disturbances, however, recognizing Seven both as Borg and not and Picard as both "Locutus" and not.
Q: Picard wonders if he's unstable. To me, it looks like he's suppressing rage. He talks about how this world is a result of Picard and/or humanity's own choices. "Show them a world of their own making, and they ask what you've done." Picard, confronted with his counterpart's slaves, protests, "I would never" - and Q cuts him off, sneering at these words as "the luxury of the victors" before taking glee in showing off the alternate Picard's collection of gruesome trophies: the skulls of such adversaries as Martok, Sarek, and Gul Dukat. I bet Sisko wouldn't have minded adorning his office with the last of those...
THOUGHTS:
"You're welcome to remain here, in the body of a madman, in the world of a madman - to attempt, like Macbeth, to wash the blood from your hands. But I assure you, Jean-Luc, it's un-washable."
-Q demands penance from Picard.
After The Star Gazer set up the characters' new places, both professionally and emotionally, it falls to this episode to kick-start the plot. An alternate reality/time travel plot - which makes me a bit nervous. Alternate reality and time travel shenanigans can be fun, and Star Trek has delivered some corkers in both areas. But a full season? I worry that it will get... old.
My reservations about the season aside, Penance does its job well. This is an efficient script. The Picard/Q scene sets up the new universe while at the same time giving both Patrick Stewart and John DeLancie to show that time has not diminished their screen rapport. The next Act establishes the new existences of each of the crew. Then the meat of the episode centers around them having to keep up appearances while finding a way to escape from Eradication Day (which really should have been the title of the episode).
AN UNCREATIVE TIMELINE:
My biggest gripe is that the alternate timeline isn't particularly interesting.
Star Trek has shown plenty of alternate realities before, often with memorable results. Mirror, Mirror was a "pure evil" timeline, but there was still a sense of character relationships and power dynamics, and enough of a sense of a society for future books and spinoff series to revel in. Yesterday's Enterprise presented a changed reality in which all the regulars were recognizably themselves, but were altered by living in a militaristic environment.
Penance presents... "The Fascist Future." And there's really nothing more to it than that. The only thing I could truly tell you about this society is that its xenophobic. There aren't even any memorable guest characters. Seven's husband is the only one whose screen time goes beyond "walk-on," and he's pretty much your standard issue weasel. Aside from Picard himself, I had little sense of how the regulars' alternate timeline personalities differed from their regular ones. Never mind the actual alternate timelines I mentioned above: This episode's society feels less lived in than the deliberately over-the-top "fake history" of Voyager's Living Witness!
None of this makes the episode bad. It's well structured, it moves quickly, and it's never less than entertaining. I just wish its alternate reality had a bit more to it.
OVERALL:
Despite the generic setting, Penance does what it needs to do. It sets up the season arc while at the same time giving the characters an episode-specific situation to overcome. It even ends on a pretty decent cliffhanger.
I am worried that the overarching story seems to be focused on time travel and alternate universes, as such stories are usually best reserved for one or two-parters. On its own terms, though, Penance is... well, it's much like Picard itself. It was good, and I enjoyed it - but I couldn't help but feeling that with a bit more creativity, it could have been better.
Overall Rating: 7/10.
Previous Episode: The Star Gazer
Next Episode: Assimilation
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