3-07. Dominion.

Capt. Vadic is lured onto the Titan.

Original Air Date: Mar. 30, 2023. Written by: Jane Maggs. Directed by: Deborah Kampmeier.


THE PLOT:

The Titan crew are now aware that the target of the Daystrom theft was Picard's original dead body. Given that Picard was meant to be a part of the upcoming Frontier Day celebration, they determine that the event must be at the center of the changelings' plan - giving the team only 36 hours to stop them.

With little time and few options, Picard decides to set a trap. He allows Capt. Vadic to find the Titan, which is made to appear dead in space. When Vadic and a boarding party come aboard, they use force fields to separate their enemies, with Picard and Dr. Crusher taking the opportunity to stage an interrogation.

The plan works perfectly, save for an unexpected wild card: Data. Retrieving the "new" Data from Daystrom allowed Picard to figure out the changelings' plan. But Data's consciousness is sharing space with his evil brother, Lore. Data and Lore are vying for control of the android body - and at the moment, Lore is winning!


CHARACTERS:

Picard: When Jack goes to him to tell him about hearing other people's thoughts, he struggles with conveying the information. Picard waits patiently until the young man has a chance to coherently explain. He does not dismiss the concerns as a hallucination, even though the medical diagnosis of the previous episode would allow for that doubt. Instead, the information leads him to concocting a plan to more or less do what he kept pushing Riker to do in Seventeen Seconds: Lure Vadic into a trap so that they can take the fight to her.

Seven of Nine: In an attempt to find allies, she reaches out to an old friend: Tuvok. This results in an excellent scene as the two warily probe each other. Seven can't be certain if this truly is Tuvok or a changeling imposter. Meanwhile, Tuvok is either a changeling trying to trap her or a loyal Starfleet officer who has been told that her ship is a rogue vessel. The result is that each seems genuinely happy to see the other, and yet at the same time each is unable to fully trust the other.

Data/Lore: The first episode of TNG to feature Lore was titled, Datalore - which would be a reasonably accurate description of the current android. Before he died, Dr. Alton Soong was attempting to integrate both personalities into a single being, work that his death left unfinished. As a result, "Data" and "Lore" are conscious within the android body, warring for control. An early scene features Data attempting to provide assistance to Picard, while Lore repeatedly interrupts to sneer archly. At one point, Data cries out to Picard for help. Brent Spiner is excellent, swapping seamlessly from one personality to another within the same take.

Geordi: He is hesitant to try to "save" Data by erasing Lore, pointing out the complexities of this new android brain. "This is more art than engineering."  A nudge from Picard is enough for him to agree to plug Data into the ship's systems for analysis - and is it even a spoiler to reveal that Lore takes advantage of this at the worst possible moment? As predictable as this plot turn is, it does allow LeVar Burton to do some fine acting as he pleads with Data to fight back against Lore, reminding him of their long friendship.

Jack Crusher: Gains a new ability: telepathy. This manifests when he's awkwardly fliting with Sidney LaForge in the turbolift. She responds hesitantly, and he picks up thoughts that show that she's interested but wishes that he would do something more subtle, like brushing her hand... which he proceeds to do, creeping her out immediately. He has the sense to go straight to Picard, and in his stammering attempt to explain himself, he also reveals that he feels responsible for Riker's capture.

Capt. Vadic: The centerpiece of the episode is an extended conversation between her, Picard, and Dr. Crusher. She is all too happy to share exactly what happened to her during the Dominion War and why she bears such malice toward Starfleet and toward solids in general. She's no less a villain at the end of the scene. As Picard observes, knowing her background actually confirms that there's no chance of finding a peaceful solution. But we now understand what drives her, and Amanda Plummer is excellent as she conveys the depths of Vadic's pain and hatred.


THOUGHTS:

"How remarkable it is that an enlightened species can ignore each other's pain... The Federation took my family. Now I will take yours."
-Vadic reveals the depth of her hatred for solids in conversation with Picard.

Vadic insists that Starfleet/Section 31 devising a bio-weapon was unconscionable, and I'd be willing to acknowledge that it was morally wrong. But she then declares that the Dominion was merely engaged in standard warfare... which any Deep Space 9 viewer knows is not the truth. From swearing genocide against the Cardassians, to debating the destruction of Earth as a demonstration of power, to unleashing a virus against a civilian population, that series showed numerous examples of the changelings engaged in what would easily qualify as war crimes.

This isn't a criticism of the scene, which is superb. Vadic tells herself what she wishes to believe: That her side was good and that her enemies were the real monsters. But I think it's more a demonstration of the cycle of violence. The Dominion attacks, unleashing devastation; Section 31 infects the changelings with a genocidal virus; and now the survivors of that virus seek their own revenge. Per the iconic Gandhi quote: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

Outside of that scene, the rest of the episode is... fine. I was not as gripped by the Data/Lore struggle as the episode wanted me to be, or indeed as gripped as I think I should have been. Perhaps it's just that TNG covered this kind of ground with Lore and Data multiple times during its run, or perhaps it's that other threads had more of my interest than this one did. I wasn't bored or irritated by the Data scenes - but I found myself wanting to return to Picard and Vadic.

I'm withholding judgment on the Jack developments. A part of me wonders if it's a good idea to give your hitherto relatable new character superpowers, particularly in a show starring Patrick Stewart. But at least this episode manages to deliver a pretty good action scene. Also, the characters are thus far responding as they should: by being freaked out. In the end, how I feel about this thread will depend very much on where it ends up going and how it's ultimately dealt with.


OVERALL:

In a season that has mostly avoided pure "connector" episodes, Dominion seems to mainly serve this function. There are good scenes, but the episode doesn't have much of a story of its own. Instead, it serves to move the characters into position for the next installment. As is likely apparent by now, I find these to be the hardest types of episodes to review, both because they lack much identity in their own right and because their ultimate success is dependent on what comes next.

Dominion does benefit from the excellent scene between Picard, Vadic, and Dr. Crusher. Their conversation uses the Dominion War backstory to strong effect while convincingly presenting all three characters. By the end, Picard is able to recognize two critical things: Vadic is a victim of the war in her own right; and her hatred is such that there is zero chance of reasoning with her.

That scene elevates my ranking of this episode by a full point. But I hope with only three installments left, none of the remaining ones will exist just to set up the next bit.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Previous Episode: The Bounty
Next Episode: Surrender

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3-03. Seventeen Seconds.

Riker (Jonathan Frakes) clashes with Picard.

Original Air Date: Mar. 2, 2023. Written by: Jane Maggs, Cindy Appel. Directed by: Jonathan Frakes.


THE PLOT:

The Titan flees into the nebula, with Vadic's massive Shrike on its tail. Capt. Shaw's plan is to hide inside the nebula until Engineering is able to repair the warp engines. Before that can happen, Vadic finds them. Shaw is injured in the ensuing attack, and he places Riker in command before being taken to sickbay.

Jack and Seven are able to discover how the Shrike keeps finding them, which leads to a disagreement between Picard and Riker. Riker wants to create a false trail to buy time for them to run for safety. Picard thinks they should lay the same trail - but use it to lure Vadic's ship into an ambush, something Riker believes would amount to suicide!

Meanwhile, Raffi meets her secretive handler: Worf (Michael Dorn). He tells her that he isn't with Starfleet but is instead "freelance." He believes that the terrorist attack on Starfleet was a prelude for something even more devastating. Fortunately, he has a lead - and following it leads him and Raffi to a startling discovery!


CHARACTERS:

Picard: Though he tells Riker to start calling him "Number One," he refuses to accept that he's not in command. The problem is not that he argues with Riker about the correct approach. As Decker pointed out to Kirk in The Motion Picture, presenting alternatives is part of a First Officer's role, and there is strategic merit in his suggested course. But he openly bickers with Riker in front of the crew even after Riker has made his decision, and he doesn't seem to recognize how wildly inappropriate that is.

Riker: So far this season I've been more impressed with Jonathan Frakes's Riker than I have been with Picard himself, and this episode is his best showcase so far. Frakes dominates every scene he's in, balancing the character's humor and caution to good effect. He also plays a new note here: anger. After half an episode of being browbeaten by Picard, he flares up and reminds his old friend that he is the one in charge. This is effective - and his cold anger a little later is even more so.

Worf: "I am Worf: son of Mogh, House of Martok; son of Sergey, House of Rozhenko; bane to the Duras family; slayer of Gowron. I have made some chamomile tea. Do you take sugar?" The end of Disengage revealed Raffi's handler to be none other than Worf. This signals an important shift for the season - mainly, that I will no longer mind so much when the action cuts away to the Raffi subplot. Michael Dorn slips seemingly effortlessly back into the role, and his dry line deliveries are enormously entertaining. Critically, Worf has changed in the intervening years (which actually checks off one of my wishlist items). He's still ready for action, but he now prefers to think before acting. "A fight is rarely worth dying for," he proclaims - which marks a pretty big shift from, "Today is a good day to die!"

Raffi: She is experiencing withdrawal after taking a narcotic in front of the Ferengi gangster. This puts her even more on edge than usual, and I'll give actress Michelle Hurd credit in that there is actually a difference between "withdrawal Raffi" and normal Raffi. It's amusing to see her bicker with Worf, with him now having to be the voice of restraint for a hothead. Worf compliments her by telling her that she has the heart of a warrior - though I half expected him to add something about also having the brain of a Pakled.

Dr. Crusher: She doesn't flinch when the ship's doctor is dismissive toward her, ignoring the disrespect - right up until the doctor's lack of experience almost costs Shaw his life. When that happens, she all but elbows the younger woman out of the way to take over the captain's care. She meant to tell Picard about Jack, but multiple attempts on Picard's life convinced her not to. As she says, being Picard's son would have put a target on Jack. "As a mother, your whole being is about protecting your child. I thought I could protect mine. I didn't know if I could protect yours."

Capt. Shaw: I really wish his belligerence hadn't been so overdone in the first episode, because he's been nothing but well-written ever since. Once they have a temporary respite from the Shrike's assault, he tells the officers who have spent too many hours on duty to rest while they can, indicating that his concern for his crew's welfare is no act. After he's injured, he doesn't hesitate to put Riker in command. Even in sickbay, he still is thinking about his ship and the situation, asking Jack exactly how Vadic keeps finding them inside this nebula.

Jack Crusher: Shaw's question sets him to thinking. He looks at the bloody footprints on the floor of sickbay, and he reaches a realization: Vadic is finding them because they are leaving traces behind them. When he's denied access to the bridge, he goes to Seven with his suspicions, which leads directly to the episode's major revelation.


SEVENTEEN SECONDS AND THE VISUAL ELEMENT:

Seventeen Seconds returns Jonathan Frakes to the director's chair. Can he direct the rest of the season? He doesn't change the lighting style, but he makes it work. In this episode, the frame isn't just dark - Attention is given to where the light in a given shot is coming from, and the light sources are used in such a way that the focus of each scene is clearly visible even when the bulk of the frame is in shadow. The tone created by the darkness is maintained, but in a way that grants importance to whatever on screen isn't in darkness.

Frakes also uses the space between characters to good effect. When Picard talks to Beverly about Jack, they are on opposite sides of the frame, with the bulk of the shot being the empty space between them. Picard and Riker are also distanced within shots during their disagreements, this time less by proximity than focus. The focus shifts from one to the other, not only according to who is speaking but also to showcase their (particularly Riker's) reactions. Eventually, Riker loses his temper (not without reason) - at which point he is left alone in the frame in lighting that's both cold and diminishing as the shot ends.

All of this is highly effective, the visuals maintaining the style and tone of the season while also connecting to the characters and their relationships. The result is that a visual palette that I've been fairly vocal in disliking is suddenly made to work - though there's no saving the heavy-handed Blade Runner planet of the Raffi subplot. At least this episode ends with an indication that she's finally going to leave for a hopefully less derivative setting.


OTHER MUSINGS:

Beyond the excellent directing, Seventeen Seconds finally delivers a Season Three episode that I thoroughly enjoyed! The episode benefits from a good script that delivers strong character moments even as it moves the plot forward. The Raffi/Worf thread gets connected to the main story, mainly in that Worf and Raffi reach the same realization that the Titan crew do about the nature of the threat. This revelation also raises the potential for new directions.

It's well structured. The first Act allows the characters room to breathe as the Titan hides from the Shrike. Then the enemy ship finds them, Shaw is injured, and Riker is put in charge. Further complications ensue: The nebula is more than it seems, making it "ill-advised" to just try flying through it. Vadic seems prepared for their every move, even though it should be impossible for her to track them. Picard and Riker are at odds over strategy; critically, both present valid arguments, making the viewer uncertain which of them is right (though there's little question that Picard's behavior is inappropriate).

These and additional complications build and combine to strong effect. The reason Vadic can find them is linked to episode's major revelation, which itself feeds the Picard/Riker conflict. This is intercut with Worf and Raffi reaching the same realization, connecting the two strands even though they have yet to fully converge. Most importantly, every new development puts the heroes in a weaker and more perilous position, which makes for a gripping hour of television.


OVERALL:

Seventeen Seconds is easily the best episode yet of Picard's third season. Up to this point, I haven't been particularly gripped by Season Three. This episode changes that, and it does so right out the gate. For the first time this season, I find myself fully looking forward to the next installment.


Overall Rating: 9/10.

Previous Episode: Disengage
Next Episode: No-Win Scenario

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2-08. Mercy.

Jurati, possessed by the Borg Queen, attacks Raffi.

Original Air Date: Apr. 21, 2022. Written by: Cindy Appel, Kirsten Beyer. Directed by: Joe Menendez.


THE PLOT:

Picard and Guinan are in the custody of FBI Agent Martin Wells (Jay Karnes). It's not an official arrest. Wells has taken them to a basement in an FBI field office. He has nursed a lifelong obsession with the existence of extraterrestrials, and now he has evidence: surveillance video of Picard beaming onto the street outside Guinan's bar, photos of Picard and his crew infiltrating the gala, Picard's communications badge, and the scornfully true statement that Rios provided to ICE. It's enough, as Wells said, to bring agents who will make Picard and Guinan disappear forever!

Meanwhile, Seven and Raffi continue to track Jurati, who has been taken over by the Borg Queen. The Queen has a plan. She will build off Q's disruption of the Europa mission, enlisting the help - willing or not - of Dr. Adam Soong. Only her end game is not to create a future of mere human fascism. She will use the disrupted timeline to create the foundations for a galactic Borg Empire!


CHARACTERS:

Picard: There's a moment in this episode that showcases exactly what Patrick Stewart brings to this franchise. Picard has to persuade a man who has devoted his entire life to proving that aliens exist. All he has at his disposal are words. Give this same scene, with no changes, to a lesser actor, and it would fall ridiculously flat. Stewart, however, brings the right amounts of authority, empathy, and conviction to the moment that I actually believe it when it happens. 

Jurati: The Borg Queen is in full control... almost. When Raffi and Seven find her, she bats Seven away like a fly and is ready to kill Raffi - only to abruptly let her go before fleeing. As Seven observes: "Mercy is not a Borg quality." Jurati is still fighting the Queen on some level, and she manages in that moment to stop Raffi from being killed. I have no doubt her influence will come into play later.

Raffi: A flashback reveals the reason for her guilt over Elnor's death. He was considering delaying Starfleet Academy for a year to return home. Raffi was already losing Seven and couldn't stand the thought of being completely alone, so she passive/aggressively persuaded him to stay. In its way, her guilt is a kind of arrogance, an assumption that she had more control over Elnor's actions than he did. After all, within the same flashback, he observes how transparent her manipulations really are. Still, this makes sense for who Raffi is.

Seven: She's finally getting a taste of feeling truly human for the first time in her adult life. Her first scene sees her continuing to enjoy the sensation of people just naturally trusting her. Then circumstances force her to think like a Borh again. When Raffi is impressed at her ability to analyze the Queen's actions, Seven responds with bitterness: "You could be just a little less happy that I'm defective." These scenes allow Jeri Ryan, who has been pushed far too much to the background during the midseason, to remind us that she can actually act.

Capt. Rios: His relationship with Teresa doesn't so much move as get shoved forward in a forced scene midway through. Meanwhile, in Picard's strand, we learn that Rios is apparently much stupider than he's generally seemed. He didn't merely troll the ICE agent by telling him he was from the future - he gave details about the Borg Queen. This is like Jurati leaving the Queen unguarded - a generally competent regular suddenly losing their brain in order to advance the plot.

Adam Soong: Remember what I said about him being more sympathetic than other Dr. Soongs? Yeah, forget about that. In the space of this one episode, he makes himself the worst Soong - and given that his competition includes a guy who collaborated in an Augment revolution and another who was happy enough to see all organic life in the galaxy wiped out, that's saying something. The Borg Queen doesn't have to do much to get Soong to agree to help her. She teases him with a future that's better for him but dreadful for the rest of humanity, and he jumps at it. What matters to him is that he's remembered as a hero, with the actual welfare of humanity an absolute irrelevance.

Guinan: Ito Aghayere keeps getting better with each appearance. She quickly takes in the basement that's being used for her and Picard's interrogation and the unplugged camera and realizes that this is not a legitimate arrest. Her reaction to Wells's accusation of being an extra-terrestrial? "This guy is buckets of crazy." As much fun as she is with Picard and Wells, her best scene (and the episode's) comes when she meets Q. She matches John de Lancie's energy beat for beat, making for a memorable encounter.

Q: "We're all trapped in the past." In his scene with Guinan, Q finally reveals at least some of what's driving him. There is some terrific acting from de Lancie as Q moves between his accustomed scorn and sarcasm, a hint of anger, and even reflection and regret. The humor is also still there, such as when he snaps his fingers ineffectually while telling Guinan that he is sincerely trying to vaporize her right now - a bit that's all the funnier because I don't doubt for a second that he's telling the truth.


THOUGHTS:

"I know a haunted man when I see one. The things we hold onto, the pieces of emotional shrapnel that drive us all our lives."
-Picard gets into the head of his captor, FBI Agent Wells.

After a lackluster midseason, Picard finally delivers a good episode again! Mercy offers strong roles for all the regulars. It balances emotional material with plot movement, and it even finds time for a moment of danger when the Borg-possessed Jurati has Raffi literally by the throat.

In my last review, I complained that too many of the season's episodes seemed to be just setting characters up to do things later. Well, they finally start doing things here. Mercy fairly zips along. We get payoffs to Kore Soong (Isa Briones)'s discoveries about her father and Raffi's guilt about Elnor, we learn much more about the Borg Queen's plans and Q's changed situation, and we even get to see how Adam Soong fits in. There's very little dead space, with only the Rios/Teresa scene slowing things down.

I'll admit that I was not happy when Monsters ended with Picard being arrested, which just felt like a rerun of the Episode Three cliffhanger. This pays off much better, though, because it forces Picard to remain still. That leaves him in the right state of mind to process Guinan's revelation about Q, which equally applies to Wells: that people tend to get stuck in the past, wherever they were broken, until their minds find a way to resolve the problem. Picard the character is consistently at his best when he uses his intellect and empathy to solve problems, as is particularly shown by the scene in which he resolves the conflict with Wells simply by being open and honest.

This also creates some thematic unity in what might have been a fractured episode. "We're all trapped in the past." In addition to Wells and to Q, this applies across the various strands: Raffi, guilty over Elnor; Seven, haunted by her past Borg assimilation; Adam Soong, unable to move on from his research; his daughter, whose discoveries are forcing her to reevaluate her entire life; and Jurati, the most isolated of the crew, striving for connection only to have found the worst one possible. In a handful of lines, the script takes all these threads and makes them feel all of a piece.

It all ends with one of the season's most effective cliffhangers, leaving me very ready to see what happens next.


OVERALL:

Mercy is a legitimately good episode, arguably the first such one since Assimilation. It moves quickly, everyone gets something to do, and it all feels of a piece. Even better, there's a sense of the various threads coming together.

I wouldn't say it makes up for the weaknesses of the midseason. Still, this installment finally puts Picard's second season in place to be back on track. The season opened well, after all; and if the remaining two episodes follow through on the successes of this one, then there's a solid chance that the season can close as well as it started.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Episode: Monsters
Next Episode: Hide and Seek

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2-07. Monsters.

Picard must confront the monsters inside his own mind.

Original Air Date: Apr. 14, 2022. Written by: Jane Maggs. Directed by: Joe Menendez.


THE PLOT:

Picard is in a coma. He was injured while saving his ancestor, Renée. The others rushed him to Teresa's clinic, where the doctor was able to stabilize him and treat his physical wounds, but he is not waking up. Instead, he is imagining himself undergoing evaluation by a Starfleet psychiatrist (James Callis), who is pushing him about his childhood.

With no time to wait for him to recover on his own, Tallinn uses her tech to enter his subconscious. She finds herself in the labyrinth of tunnels beneath Chateau Picard. Here, Picard imagines himself as a child, fleeing from monsters alongside his mother (Madeline Wise).

Meanwhile, Seven and Raffi discover that Jurati is under the control of the Borg Queen. Jurati's actions seem erratic, but Seven realizes that everything she's doing is designed to release endorphins, which will speed up her assimilation. If they cannot find her and stop her, then Jurati's transformation may doom the entire planet!


CHARACTERS:

Picard: When he's imagining talking to a psychiatrist, he sees himself in space, just as he did in the dream sequence that opened the series' first episode. He also still sees himself as "captain," not as "admiral." Much of his dream journey sees him reconciling his childhood viewpoint of past events against the more complicated reality. It's not particularly unique or surprising when all is revealed, but I will say that it's well acted by both Patrick Stewart and Dylan Von Halle as the child Picard.

Capt. Rios: "I'm from Chile, I only work in outer space." I suspect a lot of people enjoyed hearing that line recycled from Star Trek IV. To me, it felt forced, because it seemed less like Rios speaking and more like the writers saying, "Remember this bit?" Rios opens up to Teresa, acknowledging that he tends to seek out father figures such as Picard. I wish this was demonstrated rather than just spoken outright, but Santiago Cabrera does at least manage to make the character exposition sound reasonably human.

Tallinn: "You do so much with this pain. You save worlds with it." She all but coos this to Picard's dream/child self when she sees some of the secrets he's hiding. Which begs the question: How does she know? All indications are that Tallinn is from the 21st century. Picard even speculates that she may be an ancestor of Laris's. She's grown to respect Picard very quickly, and he has mostly shown himself worthy of that, but there's nothing that she's observed that should mark him as a saver of worlds. Orla Brady's great, as always, but I'm not sure the character writing adds up.

Raffi/Seven: They get a nice exchange with Raffi envisioning them as an old couple "tripping teenagers on floaty things with (their) canes." Seven naturally takes this as a challenge, insisting that she'd be better at that than Raffi. That moment aside, they are consigned to subplot-land, their scenes existing purely to set up the next episodes.

Teresa: When she returns to the clinic to find that Rios has locked the door to Picard's room, she reacts immediately, turning to her son and telling him, "Mama's going to use some bad words." She is incensed that he would lock her out of rooms of her own clinic, and she's wary of the secrets he's keeping from her. Even so, her actions show that she believes him to be trustworthy. She lets him be around her son, and she allows him and the others to stay in her clinic unsupervised.

Gunian: Ito Aghayere feels much more like TNG's Guinan here than she did in Watcher. The anger has been dialed back, and a certain wry humor is visible in her line deliveries. She even nails some of Whoopi Goldberg's physical mannerisms. She reveals that there was a cold war between her people and the Q Continuum, one which ended over a bottle of wine. She attempts to summon Q (exactly replicating Whoopi Goldberg's claw gesture from Q Who?), and she is gobsmacked when the attempt fails.


THOUGHTS:

Dons 1990s David Spade Hat. "I liked this episode the first time I saw it... when it was called Family." Removes David Spade hat.

Monsters covers much of the same ground as the TNG episode Family, with both stories focusing on Picard grappling with difficult family relationships and memories. The TNG episode was given added texture because it was a direct follow-up to The Best of Both Worlds, in which Picard had just experienced the trauma of being assimilated by the Borg. By confronting his past, he was able to overcome his more recent pain and move on with his future.

Coming into this episode, I felt a moment of optimism that the writers might use the focus on Picard's subconscious to show some psychological reaction to his new synthetic body. When Tallinn enters his consciousness, she hears echoes from his encounter with (and assimilation by) the Borg, and I perked up. Finally, I thought. But... no. It doesn't even get a mention. Since this would have been the obvious episode to do something with that, I must resign myself to his synthetic body being occasionally reference checked but never meaningfully explored. Which just underscores what a bad idea it was in the first place.

At least the Picard strand benefits from good performances and strong atmosphere. Whenever the episode cuts away to the other characters, it becomes even weaker. I actually think Jeri Ryan and Michelle Hurd work well together on screen; but the "old lady" exchange aside, they might as well be dubbed The Exposition Couple.

Meanwhile, Rios not only tells Teresa the truth about himself... he actually beams her and her son to his ship. You know, the one with two dead bodies still aboard. I'm assuming they at least cleaned up the mess - but "don't step on butterflies" would certainly include not disposing of two aliens and a bunch of future technology, so both corpses must still be aboard La Sirena.

Now I really wish there was a scene with Teresa finding the Borg Queen's body: the one that looks like a woman was experimented on, chopped to pieces, and then finished off with a gunshot. I'd love to hear Rios's explanation: "No, she was actually an evil alien who was taking control of the ship with her space tentacles. Also, she's infected my ex-girlfriend and is taking her over, and we might have to kill her too! Why are you looking at me that way? Why are you brandishing a scalpel?"


OVERALL:

Monsters re-treads ground that was more effectively covered more than thirty years ago. At the same time, it features logic gaps that frankly snap my ability to suspend my disbelief, from Rios taking his new girlfriend and her child on a tour of his spaceship to Picard being up to walking around, pain free, less than 24 hours after being hit by a car going full speed. The result is, in my opinion, one of the season's weakest episodes.

I would rate it above Watcher. Ito Aghayere's Guinan feels more recognizable as her TNG counterpart, and the episode was at least well-paced and kept me entertained. But the dream plot builds to "Not Much," while the rest of the episode is once again about putting characters in position to do things in future installments. It's Episode 7 out of 10 - It's time for them to start doing things in the episode I'm actually watching!

At this point, I'm becoming very concerned about Season Two. The season started strong. But by this point, it feels as if the plot has been stretched so thin that it's practically transparent. The last three episodes will have to be very good to make up for the lackluster midseason - and I'm just not feeling a lot of confidence at the moment.


Overall Rating: 4/10.

Previous Episode: Two of One
Next Episode: Mercy

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2-06. Two of One.

Jurati gets a little too comfortable with the Borg Queen...

Original Air Date: Apr. 7, 2022. Written by: Cindy Appel, Jane Maggs. Directed by: Jonathan Frakes.


THE PLOT:

Tallinn assists Picard and his crew with the infiltration of an exclusive gala that will be the last public appearance of Renée Picard before her mission. If they can keep her from dropping out until the end of the event, then it will be much less likely that Q can get to her.

The first part of the plan calls for Jurati to get caught on purpose. When she's brought to Security, she'll be able to open the way for the others. However, no one expects her to be handcuffed. She has to allow the Borg Queen, now implanted in her subconscious, to take control in order to break free.

Tallinn monitors Renée's text messages, discovering that Q is still trying to convince the young woman to quit the mission. Picard decides to talk to her, to persuade her otherwise - which is when Dr. Adam Soong steps in, working on orders from Q to stop him!


CHARACTERS:

Picard: The episode's best scene is his conversation with Renée, in which he guides her toward her courage. Patrick Stewart is terrific in moments such as this, showing wisdom and kindness as he tells her that fear isn't an indication that she's not ready. "Fear is fear... Fear means you're smart, you understand the risks." When Renée tries to turn his words against him, demanding to know what he's afraid of, he simply chuckles and tells her that his own fears are too numerous to even list.

Dr. Jurati: Like the last episode, much of the script involves Jurati giving openings to the Borg Queen. Unlike the last episode, she doesn't come across as an idiot while doing so. The first time she cedes control, in the security office, there's no real option. Picard's plan is failing thanks to the handcuffs; if she doesn't allow the Queen in, then the mission is over. After that, circumstances keep making it convenient to give up control just one more time, as she grows a little too comfortable with her invisible companion and trusts a little too much in the assurance that she's the one in charge.

Capt. Rios: Seems to be enjoying himself a little too much, remarking to Raffi about how good the food and drink is while showing off a "real" cigar and a box of actual matches - things available only in blander, replicated format in their sanitized future. Raffi sees right through this, zeroing in on the source of his giddiness: his encounter with Teresa. He doesn't particularly deny this. It takes only the mention of the pretty young clinic doctor for him to start enthusing about her.

Raffi: Gets a couple of nice character beats in the scene at the bar. The script remembers her addiction issues, as she has to force herself to order a club soda when she really wants to order whiskey. She watches Seven, who is mingling effortlessly with the crowd, and admits to Rios that it's nice to see her relaxed in the absence of the Borg implants. She also has another split-second hallucination of Elnor.

Tallinn: She observes how Picard's voice changes when he talks about Laris. When he denies that Laris is of any importance, she thanks him with full sincerity: "Now I know what it looks like when you lie." She briefly echoes my own speculation from last episode, that maybe Q is right and Renée really isn't ready. Picard senses Tallinn's own maternal anxiety, urging her to believe in the job she's already done protecting Renée and to let the young woman go.

Adam Soong: I'm genuinely impressed with Brent Spiner's acting this season. When he confronts Picard, there are multiple levels to his urgings for Picard to stay out of the way. There's the surface level arrogance, the assumption of power by a man of influence. But we can also sense the desperation just below the surface. Then there is the scene in which Kore, his daughter, goes through his video logs. Each log is short as we track the arc of his life's work, and each of these excerpts sees him in a different emotional state. Spiner nails every shift in Adam throughout these logs, lending weight to what might have been a scene of pure exposition.

Teresa: When the episode opened with a flash-forward of Picard in need of medical treatment, I knew right away that she was going to be brought back into the story. Yes, the off-the-books clinic for patients who gasp, "No hospital," is where they take an injured Picard. Teresa helps him, but she knows that Rios and the others are concealing the truth from her. Rios tries to assure her that they are "the good guys" - something that life has taught her that actual good guys never say.

Borg Queen: Her manipulations of Jurati continue - and now that she's inside Jurati's head, there's no way for the other woman to just walk away. It goes without saying that the Queen is working toward her own agenda even as she helps with Picard's plan. Even her most impulsive action, as she pulls Rios in for a kiss, is given a new context at the episode's end, when we learn exactly what she needs to seize full control.


THOUGHTS:

Two of One is a short episode, clocking in at less than 40 minutes including credits. This is one benefit of streaming, that episodes neither have to be cut or padded to fit a timeslot. That said, I think this episode is a little too short, with elements that seem underdeveloped and some rather abrupt transitions.

One problem is that roughly half the crew is given nothing to do in the actual mission. Jurati gets them in; Tallinn tracks Renée's communications; Picard talks to Renée. Meanwhile, Raffi, Rios, and Seven are... present. The episode seems to be trying to echo Mission: Impossible and/or Ocean's Eleven - but those series always made sure that every member of the team had at least one important thing to do. A couple of good character bits aside, half of Picard's team amount to spare parts.

While I wish the plotting was a little sharper, the character material is excellent. I expected a fun plot-based episode. I was surprised to find it to be one of the series' better character episodes. There are several strong moments for the cast: Picard's confrontation with Soong, his sternness here a contrast with his gentler interactions opposite Tallinn and Renée; the conversations between Rios and Jurati, and then Rios and Raffi; Raffi balancing her stress and guilt about Elnor against the enjoyment of watching Seven genuinely enjoying herself; the Borg Queen's manipulations of Jurati; and Teresa's refusal to simply accept Rios's assurances at face value.

The episode excels at making the show's characters feel properly alive. If only the script had been given another pass to make the plot mechanics as sharp as the character scenes!


SHADOWS OF THE NIGHT:

The episode's big set piece comes when Soong tries to have security eject Picard. Jurati and the Borg Queen create a distraction, shutting down the lights and then drawing all eyes to Jurati while she performs the early 1980s song, Shadows of the Night.

I know this scene drew mixed reaction from Trek fans. For the record, I like it. A degree of goofiness has always been part of Star Trek's appeal for me, and stopping a caper episode for a musical number definitely fits that description. The song is well chosen, with the lyrics fitting the Borg Queen/Jurati relationship quite well. "It's a cold world, when you keep it all to yourself... You can't hide on the inside, all the pain you've ever felt." That sounds an awful lot like a musical version of the Queen's repeated statements that, without the Borg, Jurati will always be alone; and the chorus of "surrender all your dreams to me tonight" could just about be the Borg assimilation theme song.

Like other moments in this episode, though, the scene feels both abrupt and underdeveloped. The orchestra seems too happy to just play along. This could have been easily written around: had the episode inserted a shot with the Borg Queen sending the music to the orchestra, it would explain why they go along with this unscheduled performance and at the same time would show the Queen's growing influence.

As it stands, we go into the performance too quickly and cut out of it too abruptly. I think it's a good bit; but it's not as well integrated into the story as it should have been.


OVERALL:

Director Jonathan Frakes delivers some strong individual scenes, and I found Two of One to be enjoyable overall. It's briskly paced, and with all threads focused on the gala, it's never at risk of feeling fragmented.

The episode suffers from a sense of being rushed and underdeveloped. The regulars all get good character moments, but half of them never get any plot material. If Seven, Raffi, and Rios weren't at this event, the mission wouldn't be affected at all. 

Still, the brisk pace and short running time leave no opportunity for boredom. I had fun watching this. I just can't help but feel that it could have been and should have been a lot better.


Overall Rating: 6/10.

Previous Episode: Fly Me to the Moon
Next Episode: Monsters

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2-04. Watcher.

Picard reunites with an old friend (Ito Aghayere).

Original Air Date: Mar. 24, 2022. Teleplay by: Juliana James, Jane Maggs. Story by: Travis Fickett, Juliana James. Directed by: Lea Thompson.


THE PLOT:

Dr. Jurati's connection with the Borg Queen was a success. She got coordinates to help Picard find the mysterious "Watcher," and she even has a date: the 15th, a mere three days from now.

With no way to contact the others, Picard beams directly to those coordinates. To his joy, this leads him directly to Guinan's bar! But the young Guinan (Ito Aghayere) is packing her things, having given up on humanity. She doesn't know who Picard is (for some reason), and he has to convince her that he can be trusted while at the same time trying to persuade her not to turn her back on Earth.

Meanwhile, Rios has been confined by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is set to be deported. This leaves Seven and Raffi racing to rescue him - which somehow leads to them stealing a police car!


CHARACTERS:

Picard: "I know you're done with listening, but you are not done with humanity. Change always comes later than we think it should." Picard's idealism shines through in his interactions with the embittered young Guinan. He doesn't deny the legitimacy of her disappointment in humanity, but he pushes her to realize what she already knows: Better is possible, and it will eventually come. Patrick Stewart is particularly good here, helping these scenes to work better than much of the surrounding material.

Dr. Jurati: More than the rest of the crew, she recognizes that Picard - "the great man" - is just human, despite his synthetic body. At the dilapidated Chateau Picard, she recognizes that he's distracted and prods him back to the present. Despite (in part because of) her intelligence, she remains vulnerable. She tries to avoid engaging with the Borg Queen, but every complication brings her back - and her willingness to engage in verbal sparring seems all too likely to lead her into serious trouble.

Raffi/Seven: When Raffi is being overly hostile and aggressive to a desk officer at the police station, Seven pulls her back and smooths things out as best she can. Seven continues trying to be the Voice of Reason, right to the point at which they find themselves stealing a police car - at which point she starts driving with the care and precision of a teenager playing Grand Theft Auto. Wouldn't it have fit the two characters' emotional states better had Raffi been the driver, with Seven begging for her to slow down?

Capt. Rios: Santiago Cabrera, usually one of the cast standouts, gets lumbered with the weakest thread of a pretty weak episode. Rios ends up confined in the cleanest, least crowded immigration detention facility in history. When questioned by an ICE officer, he decides to tell the man the full truth, knowing that there's no chance that he'll be believed. He is outraged that Teresa Ramirez (Sol Rodriguez) was detained, proclaiming that where he came from, she would be considered a hero.

Guinan: I'm torn with regards to Ito Aghayere's Guinan. In terms of baseline acting of the role as written, she is quite good, infusing her lines with emotion and presence. If this was a new character, I would be singing her praises without hesitation. There's only one problem: There isn't a single second in which I believe that I'm watching Guinan. She's simply too brittle and human. I'm assuming that she'll appear again. I hope that when she does, she's able to capture a bit of the otherworldly quality that Whoopi Goldberg pulled off so well.

Borg Queen: She talks about her brief connection with Jurati as if discussing a one-night stand. When Picard leaves Jurati to hold the ship, it's an important task that only she can do; but the Queen wields this task as a weapon, sneering that Jurati has been left behind again. Then she tries to position herself as an admirer, telling her how impressed she is not only with her mind but with her ability to be "more cruel than (she) could have predicted." The Queen remains in a position of weakness, but she exploits every chance to gain even a little power. Annie Wersching makes the most of every line and glance, and her scenes are easily the best of the episode.


THOUGHTS:

This was the entertainment equivalent of whiplash, as Picard jerked from my favorite episode of this season to my least favorite of the series thus far.

As an episode, Watcher seems to exist purely to get the characters into position to do something in the next installment. Cutting between four different character strands, which in this episode only directly connect a couple of times, it also ends up being as choppy as it is transitional.

There really isn't much unifying these threads. A better script, tasked with the transitional issue, might have tried for some thematic focus. Take either Picard's urgings to Guinan that change is possible, or the longing for connection that keeps drawing Jurati back to the Borg Queen, and infuse the other threads with that. If there had been the sense of a single theme that ran through all the character interactions, then it might have worked.

But that doesn't happen. Instead, we just get a collection of scenes. The Picard scenes are good. The Jurati scenes are clever and suspenseful. The Seven scenes feel like they were pulled out of a bad '90s action/comedy. Worst are the Rios scenes, which attempt political commentary on the topic of immigration enforcement.

For the record, I have no issue with Star Trek tackling divisive issues head-on. TOS did so with racial unrest; DS9 did so with homelessness; and I found both episodes to be effective. I do take issue, however, with the reduction of the complex and messy into the simplistic and sanitized. There seems to be only one other detainee in the entire center with Rios. There's also only one guard, who is portrayed as a sadist - but whose abuse never threatens to be anything to actually disturb home viewers. And no, nothing here is as bad as TNG's clunkiest efforts (I refer you to The Outcast or Force of Nature)... but I'd hope for the writers to aim a little higher than that.


OVERALL:

Despite some strong scenes featuring Picard and Jurati, Watcher ends up being my least favorite episode so far. Not just of the season, but of the series. Threads cut in and out of each other abruptly, creating a sense of choppiness, and there is no sense of connection. It doesn't help that two of the four threads are pretty bad to start with.

It does end with a pair of interesting reveals, though, which at least leaves me with hope that the next episode will go back to engaging me.


Overall Rating: 3/10. And only that high because of the Picard/Guinan and Jurati/Borg Queen scenes. Take those away, and I'm not sure the rest would even merit a "2."

Previous Episode: Assimilation
Next Episode: Fly Me to the Moon

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