So it's becoming more and more apparent that these guys are ripping off video games which makes me think that they did in fact rip off Tardigrades. A lot of reviewers, including Rich Evens, are picking up on it.
You may have the germ of a point with a couple of those, but the hostile way you're presenting your views is not doing you any favours. Overall, a good episode. Some more answers which do justice to the build-up. And lots to look forward to in the finale.
Ehh, maybe. I don't think we need to solve Soong's son with a deep fan theory. Data's whole family tree has been retcons. Lore? Retcon. Lore surviving "Datalore", and popping up in "Brothers"? Retcon. Soong being alive? Retcon. Soong's wife existing, then turning out to be an android? Retcon. Data's dream program? Retcon. B9? Retcon. Arik Soong? Retcon. Soong having a secret biological son is par for the course. Hell, it's part of the tradition.
SPOILERS (obviously) The La Sirena crosses 25 light years in 15 minutes via the transwarp conduit, and now we get a real look at Coppelius, the name of the android homeworld that was started by Maddox and company. Speaking of "company," the romulan tail (which we know is likely Narek) arrives and started firing at the La Sirena, but is followed up moments later by the arrival of The Artifact, making an awesome entrance, and Narek's shitty little shuttle finds itself malfunctioning. Of course, before anything else can happen, giant space orchids surround the ships, disable them, and bring them to the surface of the planet, a little worse for wear. Sound weird? We're just getting warmed up. So Picard has an episode, not the show, but the man, and he wakes up in sickbay on the La Sirena, with Dr. Jurati overseeing his care. Turns out, his condition is getting worse. Picard makes a quick address to the others, and tells them "anyone who treats me like a dying man, runs the risk of pissing me off," which was just brilliant. A quick jaunt over to the Borg cube, er, Artifact, finds Seven and Elnor in good health. They manage to bring long range sensors on line and find that a Romulan fleet of 218 ships are on their way. Certain death for the rag tag crew and the colony itself. Picard and the others, sans Elnor and Seven who will stay on the Artifact and do as much repair work as they can, make the 5km trek to the colony, and meet the local synthetic flora and fauna. Androids, androids everywhere, and they look a lot like Data with the gold tone skin and the yellow eyes. I would assume that most of these androids are earlier models of Dahj and Soji, though there are quite a few variations. And so we meet, shortly thereafter, Dr. Alton Inigo Soong, Dr. Soong's biological son, and Data's human brother. He has carried on the work of his father, along with the help of recently departed Bruce Maddox. Brent Spiner is in the role, and is probably grateful not to wear 5 lbs of makeup on the hot summer day it clearly is on this world. A little while later, they are gathered together, save for Picard who is off by himself having a moment, and we meet Sutra, the synth twin to Dahlia (the woman who was killed by Rios' old commander). She offers to use a Vulcan technique (mind meld) to see the same "Admonition" that Jurati had been given by Commodore Oh. Turns out? The message made organics crazy because the message was meant for synthetic minds. A whole civilization of synthetic life forms have a coalition, and when called upon by new synth life forms, that coalition arrives and wipes away all organic life in as horrifying a way as you can imagine, because organic life will always turn on its creation and must be destroyed. Ouch. Sutra has taken this message to heart, later speaking with Soji about how it must happen, they must contact this synth civilization. Soji is torn, but Sutra is still determined to make it happen. So when Narek is brought in after being captured, she uses him to help set her plan into motion. Whatever that plan is, I don't know, but it can't be good. Meanwhile, after shaming Jurati about Bruce's death (hey, not entirely her fault guy), Soong offers her a chance for redemption, to help assemble the mind that Soong hopes he will inhabit in an android body of his own creation. So he may be looking for immortality via artifice. Regardless, she agrees. Sutra holds a gathering to honor a synth life taken by Narek (maybe?) and uses it as a stump speech to advocate signaling the advanced synth civilization to come and rescue them from the Romulan fleet. Picard does his best to persuade them not to do this, but he is placed under house arrest. We are taken to the Romulan fleet only 24 hours away from Coppelius, and on that shot we are shown the credits. This was just an amazing episode. I had so much fun watching it, and watching the tender personal moments, like where Raffi told Picard she loved him, and after a fashion he finally told her the same. It's sweet because we know that kind of confession from a man like Picard is difficult, not because he doesn't love these people, but because he has always hidden it behind his wall of impenetrable morality. Now we see it on display. The effects, the androids, seeing Brent Spiner again, all made for a terrific episode. This one gets an easy 8 from me, and it would almost be a 9, but not quite. Still, strong 8, and let's see how they finish out the season!
Fun fact: unless I fucked up the math, Voyager could have completed their journey back to the Alpha Quadrant in just shy of a month at this rate. This is also significantly slower than speeds previously clocked for transwarp travel. At the conclusion of VOY: Dark Frontier, Voyager clocked 20,000 light years of travel with a stolen transwarp coil in less than 48 hours. At the rate cited in this episode, the equivalent distance would take over eight days. Either way, it was a dick move of the individualized Borg in VOY: Unimatrix Zero to not give Voyager a couple more coils. Now, nerds: fight! Will the need for a consistent representation of transwarp velocities trump a one-off line from a show most fans would like to forget?
I'm assuming they traveled more slowly than Voyager did because La Sirena is a less sturdy civilian ship, and they didn't have Seven to help them.
There's also mention of the need for a chroniton field. Perhaps travelling any faster at transwarp incurs time dilation effects that might injure the crew?
My thoughts exactly. An aging program like Data's Mum had, plus a few alterations over time. And he'd still have all the emotion of someone saying that his father always preferred Data over him!
It looks like Soong wants his mind to be placed into an android body. It reminds me of Dr. Ira Graves from "Schizoid Man" (TNG S02E06). I don't think there's a direct connection, but I could be wrong.
1. I was a little bugged by the "25 light years in 15 minutes" line. In the Trek universe, that's not that far. Wolf 359, where the fleet gathered to fight the Borg in TNG:BOBW, is 8 light years from Earth. That shouldn't exactly be remote territory. 2. Sutra is obviously playing a bigger game, and Narek escaping suits her plan. 3. I think the Soong family reproduces through cloning. After all, Noonien Soong has shown a propensity for making things that resemble him. I think that's his vanity at work. 4. I really like Jurati and Rios, Raffi was better in this episode, Elron is still meh. I like this show better when Seven's in it.
It's not just you. Other words one could use to describe the show; convoluted, convenient, boring, confusing, condescending.
Mmm for me the show is somewhere in the middle. It has been entertaining but I find the writing to sometimes be questionable and derivative... also do not find many of the characters very interesting. I wouldn’t go so far so to say it is condescending or boring but I also don’t think it’s very innovative or smart either. I’ll keep watching for now.
Let's break those down. Thoughtful: Captain Picard is dressed down by every woman he encounters. Is told how arrogant he is. When he asks for help I believe the exact words were, "sheer fucking hubris!" Then later on is told to, "shut the fuck up!"A familiar well liked character from Voyager is killed unceremoniously. And for some reason had to be tortured and stripped for parts even though it would make more sense to sedate them so they're not squirming around. Another liked character from TNG is killed of for no fucking reason and again unceremoniously. Then yet another character from TNG on which the whole plot of the show revolves around is killed and nobody bats an eye. A former Romulan senator is beheaded and Elnor gets a slap on the wrist. Picard barely even does anything and is shown as a bumbling old fool even though the show is called Star Trek: Picard. Yeah, real thoughtful. Innovative: Yeah, so innovative it rips of video games and other sci-fi movies and TV shows. Detailed: Yeah, so detailed it forgets what has been established in previous shows and makes continuity mistakes within it's own show. Smart: You've got to be kidding me. If it's so smart, how did Rios know to beam up two people after Elnor chopped the Romulan's head off? Picard didn't say, "two to beam up." How did Picard and Soji "leap" to the exact spot where Riker's house would be when he didn't give Hugh any coordinates? Why didn't Elnor go with them? How long was Elnor on that Borg cube? How did he eat, where did he sleep? How did the Borg cube survive that crash landing? You can't seriously tell me you buy that? 25 light years in 15 minutes. Oh needs sunglasses on Earth, but not that other planet? Picard is so naive he lets Seven take phaser riffles even though he knew she wanted revenge on that woman. They let Jurati roam free after killing Maddox. They let her attend to Picard after she had just killed Maddox. I mean the list goes on. Engaging: It took three episodes to get on the fucking ship. Raffi, nuff' said about that. They bring back Seven and yet we barely get to spend much time with her. We spent eight episodes getting somewhere that could have been done in waaaay less time. Multi-leveled: Okay. Where are the Klingons? What's up with the "slave bots"? Why are they less sophisticated than the Maddox/Soong androids? What happened to all of the people that were working on the Borg cube? Why did the Federation turn into assholes? Does Picard not have anyone in Starfleet that would help him? Do the Romulans have a functional government or do they? There's so many questions you can ask about this show, it's like they didn't flesh any of this out. Adult: Oh yeah, plenty of F-bombs, definitely not for the family. Granted no fart jokes. Congratulations Kurtzman, you made it without any fart jokes.Plenty of puking though. Adult for sure, but not mature. It's like we're watching two completely different shows. But go ahead usual suspects, ignore this, mark it tl;dr, dumb or facepalm or whatever and keep watching with rose colored glasses and keep eating those memberberries.
Let me guess, you know you're right about these criticisms because you've heard them in every YouTube review you watched last night?
I mean when everyone and their brother compares it to Mass Effect 3, there’s got to be some truth to that.
Babylon 5 was just LOTR in space, but I still love it. TOS was just Wagon Train to the stars, but I don't mind it terribly.
how else would you describe walking into starfleet command and demanding your wishlist the day after calling them all a bunch of hypocritical chickenshits on the 11 oclock news? Hubris would seem like a good enough word if you happen to be Adm Clancy. "Shut the fuck up"?-I could see Wil Wheaton smile form four time zones away. And yeah, Picard was too busy talking to listen, so more than appropriate. Ichep was well liked? Wouldn't the show have had to have been well liked first? Maddox was a dick and a dirty old man taking advantage of his interns. Fuck you, space Weinstein! And he's obviously not integral to the plot, or he wouldn't be dead. The Senator was warned by a legally engaged bodyguard who's organization seemingly has the option of lethal force. Picard pointed out to Elnor that he is indeed a bumbling old man, which is why he needs him. I'll give you the lack of innovative... but there's only so much you can do in laying out an AI vs Organics story. Hopefully there's a twist/payoff, but I'm not feeling owed something groundbreaking. Technobabble and plot armor. It's Star Trek. It's how it works. Picard letting Seven take the phaser rifles had nothing to do with being naive. Man... i could keep going, but that'd mean matching your pedantry - if only in word count, not effort.
