Thoughts on Picard S3 E4
Mar. 10th, 2023 04:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amado1Oof! My roommate had some kind of nervous breakdown in the middle of this episode. I think because we weren't pausing it to air our grievances, so they all built up and burst out of him in the form of hysterical sobbing laughter and despair XD
It was the best episode of the season so far.
The good:
Our characters are largely competent again! Not necessarily in the EXACT ways that I would like, but I was greatly cheered by it. Beverly and Jack suss out the bio-electrical pulses in the nebula and come up with a great plan to get the Titan out of danger. Riker sends Seven off to covertly discover the Changeling, makes a good addition to the plan, and comes up with the meteor-throwing tactic that I've read about in like 6 different Timothy Zahn books. Shaw showcased some Changeling-hunting knowledge AND engineering skill. Picard piloted the ship blind -- er, well, he instructed while someone else piloted the ship blind! Same difference, I guess.
Frakes had some great acting again, and I liked the idea of Riker leaving home because he can't feel anything after the death of his son, and it's causing Deanna, an empath, distress.
Oh, and Amanda Plummer was lots of fun again! Loved her.
The bad:
Oh my god, every time I saw Picard's "Five Years Ago" flashbacks, where he's sitting at the bar telling cheesy stories to a group of fawning ensigns...barf. I can't imagine Picard doing that. I can't imagine any real ensigns -- sorry, cadets!!!! -- approaching a LIEUTENANT like that, let alone an admiral. The overwrought moral of every story, "Love your friends...your crew is your family..." 🤢
This is something I can imagine easily from post-series Riker, or from Deanna, but not from Picard! The reveal at the end, that a younger Jack was at the bar listening to all this, was hokey, but delicious to me, because I can't stand Jack XD When Picard said, "The Enterprise is the only family I ever needed" I was like TAKE THAT YOU SHIT.
(not nice of me)
(sorry)
What else? There's plenty more to list. I despised that Riker sent Seven to find the Changeling ... and she immediately went to Shaw, acting like a clueless kid. "Can you hewp me? I don't even know what IS a changewing 🥺". Ugh! Obviously they needed something for Shaw to do during this episode, and I admit, I can't think of a better way to integrate him into this storyline, EXCEPT FOR ONE MAJOR THING!
Fucking! Take this episode! Cut the excess fat! And squeeze it together with Episode 3!! Episode 3 was NOTHING but fat! It was nonstop filler. That was its major flaw. If you cut all the waffling incompetence and time-wasting from both episodes and pushed them together, you would get one tight, plotty, fun piece of Star Trek!
Other scenes to cut:
All the "Five Years Ago" scenes, obvs
The "bonding" between Picard and Jack in Ten-Forward
The SHOCKING reveal that Shaw was at Wolf 359 🙄
The long time-wasting scene of Riker trying to record a message for Deanna, where he never gets past the first sentence. (I feel guilty even including this one, because it's 100% something I would write, but it's also 100% something that I would reluctantly cut from the final draft for the sake of GOOD TV)
Speaking of Shaw: god, this guy. The way he just gives up his ship and mopes... the undignified whiny breakdown in Ten-Forward in front of his crew, and the snarky comment when he notices all the witnesses... jeez. I love the performance, I even like the character, but it seems like every episode is determined to change that XD I just can't see how this guy became a captain. He was an engineer; why did he decide to go the command path?? How did he climb the ranks when he's so unstable, so incompetent, and so eager to bite everyone's heads off? Clearly he's not playing the political game to earn favors. At the same time, Picard and Riker both came off as egregiously self-pitying in this episode. Picard's woe-is-me reaction to Shaw's backstory was galling. It was like a teenager flouncing off after an argument in the hopes that all their friends will rush after them to go "Omg Tony it wasn't true!! You're totally not a cocksucker!! Don't listen to Devin!" Riker, meanwhile, just seemed... not self-pitying, exactly, I take it back. But stubborn, and insistent on grinding his heels into the floor and giving up at the first sign of any obstacle. I found it hard to believe that he would argue AGAINST a well-reasoned plan to get them out of certain death.
"We can't do that!! It's certain death!" ...sir your current plan is to sit on your ass and wait for life support to run out or for the gravity well to crush you IN FOUR HOURS MAX.
Oh! Another point against this episode: sheer lack of Worf XD Although, granted, they couldn't have fit him in.
It was the best episode of the season so far.
The good:
Our characters are largely competent again! Not necessarily in the EXACT ways that I would like, but I was greatly cheered by it. Beverly and Jack suss out the bio-electrical pulses in the nebula and come up with a great plan to get the Titan out of danger. Riker sends Seven off to covertly discover the Changeling, makes a good addition to the plan, and comes up with the meteor-throwing tactic that I've read about in like 6 different Timothy Zahn books. Shaw showcased some Changeling-hunting knowledge AND engineering skill. Picard piloted the ship blind -- er, well, he instructed while someone else piloted the ship blind! Same difference, I guess.
Frakes had some great acting again, and I liked the idea of Riker leaving home because he can't feel anything after the death of his son, and it's causing Deanna, an empath, distress.
Oh, and Amanda Plummer was lots of fun again! Loved her.
The bad:
Oh my god, every time I saw Picard's "Five Years Ago" flashbacks, where he's sitting at the bar telling cheesy stories to a group of fawning ensigns...barf. I can't imagine Picard doing that. I can't imagine any real ensigns -- sorry, cadets!!!! -- approaching a LIEUTENANT like that, let alone an admiral. The overwrought moral of every story, "Love your friends...your crew is your family..." 🤢
This is something I can imagine easily from post-series Riker, or from Deanna, but not from Picard! The reveal at the end, that a younger Jack was at the bar listening to all this, was hokey, but delicious to me, because I can't stand Jack XD When Picard said, "The Enterprise is the only family I ever needed" I was like TAKE THAT YOU SHIT.
(not nice of me)
(sorry)
What else? There's plenty more to list. I despised that Riker sent Seven to find the Changeling ... and she immediately went to Shaw, acting like a clueless kid. "Can you hewp me? I don't even know what IS a changewing 🥺". Ugh! Obviously they needed something for Shaw to do during this episode, and I admit, I can't think of a better way to integrate him into this storyline, EXCEPT FOR ONE MAJOR THING!
Fucking! Take this episode! Cut the excess fat! And squeeze it together with Episode 3!! Episode 3 was NOTHING but fat! It was nonstop filler. That was its major flaw. If you cut all the waffling incompetence and time-wasting from both episodes and pushed them together, you would get one tight, plotty, fun piece of Star Trek!
Other scenes to cut:
All the "Five Years Ago" scenes, obvs
The "bonding" between Picard and Jack in Ten-Forward
The SHOCKING reveal that Shaw was at Wolf 359 🙄
The long time-wasting scene of Riker trying to record a message for Deanna, where he never gets past the first sentence. (I feel guilty even including this one, because it's 100% something I would write, but it's also 100% something that I would reluctantly cut from the final draft for the sake of GOOD TV)
Speaking of Shaw: god, this guy. The way he just gives up his ship and mopes... the undignified whiny breakdown in Ten-Forward in front of his crew, and the snarky comment when he notices all the witnesses... jeez. I love the performance, I even like the character, but it seems like every episode is determined to change that XD I just can't see how this guy became a captain. He was an engineer; why did he decide to go the command path?? How did he climb the ranks when he's so unstable, so incompetent, and so eager to bite everyone's heads off? Clearly he's not playing the political game to earn favors. At the same time, Picard and Riker both came off as egregiously self-pitying in this episode. Picard's woe-is-me reaction to Shaw's backstory was galling. It was like a teenager flouncing off after an argument in the hopes that all their friends will rush after them to go "Omg Tony it wasn't true!! You're totally not a cocksucker!! Don't listen to Devin!" Riker, meanwhile, just seemed... not self-pitying, exactly, I take it back. But stubborn, and insistent on grinding his heels into the floor and giving up at the first sign of any obstacle. I found it hard to believe that he would argue AGAINST a well-reasoned plan to get them out of certain death.
"We can't do that!! It's certain death!" ...sir your current plan is to sit on your ass and wait for life support to run out or for the gravity well to crush you IN FOUR HOURS MAX.
Oh! Another point against this episode: sheer lack of Worf XD Although, granted, they couldn't have fit him in.
