Star Trek Picard: 1x09/1x10 (Et in Arcadia Ego, Parts One and Two)
In which we get a two-parter where the second part is a bit of a letdown, and when you think about it, isn't that the most TNG thing of all?
Let's first cover the stuff that didn't quite work for me. First, Picard's death. It's not that I object to the basic concept of Picard being uploaded to a synthetic body. Star Trek's always had disembodied consciousnesses and the like as accepted aspects of the universe, and Picard maintains continuity of consciousness right up to his death, so I'm willing to accept that Picard 2.0 is the same entity as Picard Classic, not a duplicate or copy.
At the same time, it raises a lot of questions that the show doesn't seem at all interested in examining. Why can't Soong make Golem bodies for everyone now? Why couldn't Data be uploaded into an aging body? How different is Picard's new body from the original? Does he fully accept that he's the original? It seems like there were so many other ways they could have resurrected Picard without raising all these nagging questions - Seven could have healed him with Borg nanotechnology. The synth device could have repaired his brain damage. Soong could have discovered some new medical processes that would have helped as a side effect of his research into duplicating humanoid brains.
And if they had to go with the Golem solution, it feels like the synths should have played some role in the transfer, not just Soong Jr. It would have had a nice symmetry, where Picard gives his life for them and then they help restore it. Instead, the synth colonists just seem to vanish from the story in part two.
And then there's Data. This felt like a very specific form of fan-service, giving Data a better death than he had in Nemesis. (Not that that would be hard...) But again, it raises a lot of questions. Has Data been concious in the network for the last twenty years? Why wasn't he uploaded to a new synth body? His desire to die feels less like an embrace of mortality, and more a reaction to being trapped in purgatory for decades. It felt very underdeveloped.
And that was really the problem with a lot of the story; it felt like it needed at least one more episode to serve as denouement. Narek just vanishing from the story is the most obvious sign that this felt rushed.
Onto what I did like, and there was a lot more I liked than things I disliked.
I loved the general design and atmosphere of the android colony. It felt very TOS or early TNG; and some of it felt like deliberate homages to earlier android stories in Trek - the androids all having twins felt like “I, Mudd”, while the Golem and mind transfer called to mind both the android duplicator from “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” and the android bodies Sargon planned to transfer his conciousness into in “Return to Tomorrow”.
(Speaking of Sargon's people - Narek talks about his ancestors 'arriving' on Vulcan. Is he referring to a myth, or is this a reference to Spock's speculation that Vulcan was colonised by Sargon's people?)
I really appreciated that Narek didn't get any sort of redemption. It would have been very easy to have him switch sides and maybe give his life to save Soji in the end, but I felt it was more interesting and realistic to keep him as a professional and a genuine believer in Zhat Vash's mission. He might have some regrets about what he has to do, but in the end, he was willing to kill Soji once, and he'd do it again if he had to. And all his charm and seeming empathy was just a mask to achieve his ends.
It was satisfying to see Starfleet and the Federation somewhat redeemed after they'd been somewhat of an antagonist force for the first half of the season; ready to step forward to save a people in danger of anihilation. It was also nice that rather than a major battle, the situation was resolved through a standoff, negotiations and trust. In general, I was very satisfied with how the threat was presented; the Romulans, through their paranoia and secrecy, ensured that synths would become the very threat they feared. The overall themes, that history need not be prophesy, that fear blinds rather than illuminates, and the presentation of the synths as children who could not be expected to behave well when their elders fail to offer examples for them to live up to, these all felt like classic Star Trek.
All in all, I was generally satisfied with the first season of Picard, though I hope next season the general plot is better structured to fit the time available. I don't know if part of the problem was they felt they might only get the one season, and so had to throw everything in because they'd only get one shot, but there were a lot of great ideas and characters that felt very undeveloped. The ex-Borg, Raffi, and Elnor all stood out as needing more time, and hopefully we'll get that in season two.
After all... the sky's the limit.
Let's first cover the stuff that didn't quite work for me. First, Picard's death. It's not that I object to the basic concept of Picard being uploaded to a synthetic body. Star Trek's always had disembodied consciousnesses and the like as accepted aspects of the universe, and Picard maintains continuity of consciousness right up to his death, so I'm willing to accept that Picard 2.0 is the same entity as Picard Classic, not a duplicate or copy.
At the same time, it raises a lot of questions that the show doesn't seem at all interested in examining. Why can't Soong make Golem bodies for everyone now? Why couldn't Data be uploaded into an aging body? How different is Picard's new body from the original? Does he fully accept that he's the original? It seems like there were so many other ways they could have resurrected Picard without raising all these nagging questions - Seven could have healed him with Borg nanotechnology. The synth device could have repaired his brain damage. Soong could have discovered some new medical processes that would have helped as a side effect of his research into duplicating humanoid brains.
And if they had to go with the Golem solution, it feels like the synths should have played some role in the transfer, not just Soong Jr. It would have had a nice symmetry, where Picard gives his life for them and then they help restore it. Instead, the synth colonists just seem to vanish from the story in part two.
And then there's Data. This felt like a very specific form of fan-service, giving Data a better death than he had in Nemesis. (Not that that would be hard...) But again, it raises a lot of questions. Has Data been concious in the network for the last twenty years? Why wasn't he uploaded to a new synth body? His desire to die feels less like an embrace of mortality, and more a reaction to being trapped in purgatory for decades. It felt very underdeveloped.
And that was really the problem with a lot of the story; it felt like it needed at least one more episode to serve as denouement. Narek just vanishing from the story is the most obvious sign that this felt rushed.
Onto what I did like, and there was a lot more I liked than things I disliked.
I loved the general design and atmosphere of the android colony. It felt very TOS or early TNG; and some of it felt like deliberate homages to earlier android stories in Trek - the androids all having twins felt like “I, Mudd”, while the Golem and mind transfer called to mind both the android duplicator from “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” and the android bodies Sargon planned to transfer his conciousness into in “Return to Tomorrow”.
(Speaking of Sargon's people - Narek talks about his ancestors 'arriving' on Vulcan. Is he referring to a myth, or is this a reference to Spock's speculation that Vulcan was colonised by Sargon's people?)
I really appreciated that Narek didn't get any sort of redemption. It would have been very easy to have him switch sides and maybe give his life to save Soji in the end, but I felt it was more interesting and realistic to keep him as a professional and a genuine believer in Zhat Vash's mission. He might have some regrets about what he has to do, but in the end, he was willing to kill Soji once, and he'd do it again if he had to. And all his charm and seeming empathy was just a mask to achieve his ends.
It was satisfying to see Starfleet and the Federation somewhat redeemed after they'd been somewhat of an antagonist force for the first half of the season; ready to step forward to save a people in danger of anihilation. It was also nice that rather than a major battle, the situation was resolved through a standoff, negotiations and trust. In general, I was very satisfied with how the threat was presented; the Romulans, through their paranoia and secrecy, ensured that synths would become the very threat they feared. The overall themes, that history need not be prophesy, that fear blinds rather than illuminates, and the presentation of the synths as children who could not be expected to behave well when their elders fail to offer examples for them to live up to, these all felt like classic Star Trek.
All in all, I was generally satisfied with the first season of Picard, though I hope next season the general plot is better structured to fit the time available. I don't know if part of the problem was they felt they might only get the one season, and so had to throw everything in because they'd only get one shot, but there were a lot of great ideas and characters that felt very undeveloped. The ex-Borg, Raffi, and Elnor all stood out as needing more time, and hopefully we'll get that in season two.
After all... the sky's the limit.