[Frasier In The Media]

It looks like one of the sets for the new show could be that bar that features in the trailer.  I wonder how they will explain Frasier not going to Cheers?

The trailer is giving me “Joey” vibes:  as in, it doesn’t look great, but when you consider the talent involved, you hope.  🤷‍♀️ 

[S02.E02: The Real Deal]

I actually liked this episode better than the first one. 

Tony Danza looks fab. He’s been around in pop culture forever, so I was thinking he was older than he actually is:  he’s 72.  

I enjoy handbag YouTube as my escape indulgence. And I guess correspondingly, the outrageous/ fun/ funky/ trendy/ whatever fashion and handbags are my chief reason for watching this show.  To that end, the JW Anderson pigeon clutch brought it.  I mean, I do want to see some Fendi/ LV/ YSL/ Dior bags that I would actually drool over and aspire to buy (and have been a little disappointed on that front so far), but the pigeon clutch was fun for what it was.  It suits Carrie’s vibe.

[S02.E01: Met Cute]

7 hours ago, MaggieG said:

Am I the only one who was mad on Anthony's behalf that his invite got rescinded twice?

I was SO MAD about this (irrationally so, since I don’t care that much about this show or the characters).  Seema needs this more?  F off with that, Carrie.  I didn’t know the Met Gala was a needs-based event. And for Charlotte to treat her best friend like that was doubly crappy.

Carrie displayed remarkable patience with that dress situation.  The designer was so unprofessional throughout the whole ordeal.  But I get it, the designer is inexperienced in dealing with crises.  I didn’t think the cape looked fantastic with the dress, but I did kind of like the “repurposed pain” concept.

This show just isn’t very well written, though.  Like, to everyone’s “unrelatable problems” point above: it’s not just about how rich and entitled these people are.  It’s that nothing they do is even grounded in the reality of the wealth-drenched situations that they find themselves in.  Carrie is sleeping with her podcast producer for casual sex only.  That is so messy, and it seems weird that a woman of her age and life experience would be so blasé about it.  It’s not about “giving away your power” as Miranda or Charlotte-as-Miranda said:  it’s about:  can Carrie fire this guy?  (Presumably yes?)  So no consideration as to how this ends, how she could get sued, how she could get publicly called out for being predatory if things were to go bad?

I mean, I do get that this show is a friendship, relationship and sexual NYC fantasy, but then just give her a fun casual sex relationship with a neighbor so you don’t start thinking about how superficially this show is written.

[S03.E08: Chapter Twenty Four - The Return]

9 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

As for the Din and Grogu storyline, it seemed kind of anticlimactic for Din to officially adopt Grogu. They were already a clan of two, so this seems like it was just a formality. We never saw Din torn about whether or not he could be a father or denying that he could have that role. He's been accepting people calling Grogu his kid for a long time. It didn't seem like it was any kind of culmination of an internal struggle that led to him finally making a big decision (like, for instance, the season finale of Andor, when Andor finally accepted something he'd been running from all season).

I have similar complicated feelings about the scene and while I will also definitely take it at face value as an “awww” scene (and I would not trade the happy ending for anything different), I think that the adoption might have been better set up as more of an emotional climax to the whole season.  As has been noted on this board multiple times, Djarin (or Din, or whatever we are calling him) has been studiously avoiding referring to Grogu as his son, even as everyone around him did so in S2 and S3 (going all the way back to Ahsoka saying that Djarin is like a father to Grogu, and Djarin having no response whatsoever to that, as he holds Grogu super close because he doesn’t want to give him up to her …. 😭).

I think a through line that could have better bridged the journey to Djarin verbalizing his role was some outward acknowledgement to anyone this season (Bo, Armorer, Paz, Greef … R5, literally anyone) that in S1-S2, he couldn’t dare to think of himself as Grogu’s forever father because the situation was temporary (a continuation of the emotional beat in S2’s “The Tragedy,” when he is on his ship, trying to talk Grogu (and himself) into the idea that they need to part ways).  After it stopped being temporary, Djarin was then an apostate, so maybe he didn’t want to think about officially bringing Grogu into a dishonored family and back-burnered the thought, or maybe he didn’t fully get that Grogu was claiming him as “dad” and not just “Mandalorian tutor” when Grogu returned from Luke).  Then, after redemption, maybe he opted to focus on getting Nevarro straightened out as a safe place for the Mandalorians (where their children “could play in the sun”), so the status quo of being Grogu’s legal guardian was good enough until the finale, when it abruptly wasn’t.

So then there is the actual adoption scene.  Djarin reminds the Armorer that Grogu’s parent (singular) can give permission for apprenticeship.  By saying that, I think Djarin obviously already knows that he is it—the singular parent, and there should be no revelation.  The Armorer deliberately misunderstands him, referring to imaginary, far-off, possibly dead parents (plural), I think obviously to get Djarin to finally say the words for himself—that he is Grogu’s dad.  (Her emphatic “This is the Way” definitely read as, “it’s about damn time” — cue Duchess Lizzo).  And there, I would have liked just a little dialogue to acknowledge that while this is the first time he may have said it, it has never been hard to feel.

8 hours ago, Athena said:

I think the Darksaber is one of those things that mean a lot to certain fans and to certain characters, but it wasn't that important to our leads. Din didn't care about it and found it both literally and figuratively heavy to wield.  

I certainly did not care about the Darksaber as an item of lore, but I did kind of care about it in the context of what it was set up to represent vis-a-vis Djarin in The Book of Boba Fett.  He couldn’t wield it properly because of (basically) clinical depression over (1) losing his kid and (2) losing his connection to … his culture, the creed, his place in the world, etc.  He got the kid back and handled the Darksaber a little better, but there was certainly no mastery of it. So the hero of the story didn’t symbolically conquer whatever fears or reservations the Darksaber represented in the story.  And it’s not that he needed to successfully have done that, but by handing it over, there was no reckoning with it.

[S03.E10: Part Ten - The Last Generation]

I don’t think Deanna was particularly well-served as a character in this story at all, but I will say that one moment in this episode that did serve her well was that it was she who reminded Geordi, Data and Bev that they really had no choice but to fire on the cube and let their loved ones die.  It was an echo of her officer’s exam in TNG, where her final test was to order Geordi to his death.  I’m not sure if it was intentional, but it made me respect the strong “Commander Troi” who knows what needs to be done.

Tough situation for Beverly that she had to be the one to fire weapons and (presumably at that moment) kill her own kid.  A bit earlier, when Geordi was so impressed with her firing skills and she said she had picked some stuff up over 20 years, I was a little disappointed that her response didn’t involve the fact that she had command of that very ship on multiple occasions and retained her command rating for funsies because she was just that awesome.  I will forever love you, TNG Beverly, whom I sadly didn’t really see at all this season, what with the lying, and the willingness to do war crimes and the medical malpractice and ….

[S03.E08: Chapter Twenty Four - The Return]

One thing I just heard highlighted on a podcast (which I didn’t notice when I watched) is that when Ragnar is being baptized the second time on Mandalore, the Armorer changes the wording of the vows slightly:  before, it included an oath not to remove your helmet, and this time, it did not.

That would be an interesting development if the epic battle that they all engaged in together against the common enemy evolved the thinking on “what it means to be Mandalorian.”  I kind of wish that they had more explicitly explored that theme this season, but it’s an interesting possible point for the future.

[S03.E10: Part Ten - The Last Generation]

 

50 minutes ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Afaik Majel recorded so many soundfiles, before her death, that they could basically use her as the computer in any situation. But nowadays you could just train an AI on the voice files from the show and you wouldn't hear the difference. Advancements in AI are wild and scary (not because they might take over, but soon we won't be able to trust anything anymore).

They did that kind of AI training with Mark Hamill on the currently airing Star Wars shows on Disney+.  Even though Mark is still alive and could have done the voicework for Luke Skywalker, they just used Mark’s prior work (I think audiobook recordings) to generate the lines that they wanted Luke to say in the shows, then used a stand-in and CGI for his body.  I had just assumed that they did that for Majel’s voice here.  I had no idea she put so much work into preserving her voice before this tech was even developed.

[S03.E10: Part Ten - The Last Generation]

9 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

They just ripped out Jacks implants on the way to the Bridge? Well, he's dead.

Why did Jack have implants or cybernetic at all, since wasn’t the whole point of this organic assimilation (starting with Jack’s 20-something (lololol) generation) that implants weren’t necessary, due to the encoding of Picard’s DNA (which Jack already had), and Jack could therefore communicate with the Borg without implants?  I also don’t understand how Jack took over Sydney earlier this season of his own free will when it was stated again this episode that he was just a transmitter and conduit for Borg instructions, not really an initiator of instructions himself, but I may be parsing that one too closely.

9 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Borg Cubes are big, but they aren't so big that you can fly a galaxy class ship through them.

I totally didn’t understand what was happening at the end.  Was the ship flying through an atmosphere inside the Borg cube?  There needed to be life support in the cube, so did the Enterprise just fly through a force field to get inside there and move around?

But I had no expectations for the plot in this episode based on the previous 9, so I was just taking in the characters and kind of giggling at the rest.

[S03.E10: Part Ten - The Last Generation]

7 hours ago, KeithJ said:

I would not be interested in an Ensign Jack Crusher-Picard spinoff.

I was wondering why Jack’s position was as a “special counselor” on the bridge.  Isn’t any useful training he has in the medical field, or perhaps something like logistics?  I wish he had gone to medical school before the start of this season to make his nepotism-fueled career track a bit more plausible.  And does he have the rank of ensign? I don’t really understand ranks, but I thought it was Academy grads that got those types of rankings, and enlisted like O’Brien got different titles?

4 hours ago, Francie said:

Certainly an attempt at a pop culture reference like this would never have been thought as funny. No hehe, wouldn't it be funny to think that people will still be going to vacation in Orlando in the 25th century.

I don’t really think of Orlando as a pop culture reference.  People have been visiting the same European cities for hundreds of years for entertainment and culture, so I could see the same being true of certain American cities.  It was just supposed to sound mundane to us after Riker names imaginary celestial wonders, but has Troi even ever spent that much time on Earth?  It would probably be exotic to her.

8 hours ago, fatewemake said:

As long as the show is being nostalgic, I'll imagine that Picard and Beverly are now in a relationship that finally lasts.  Yes, there is no real evidence that will happen, but them sitting next to each other at the poker game was enough for me. 

It was very magnanimous of Jean-Luc to absolve Beverly of any and all guilt right before he thought he was going to die.  At this point, I’m with you on the “why not assume that they are together?” train, since I was a massive Crusher/Picard shipper back in the day and I “choose my own adventure” of happiness if they’re not going to tell me otherwise, and I don’t think Laris needs to be mixed up with all this mess the Crusher-Picards have going on.  If she posted on the AITA space subreddit about this situation, all the commenters would be like “red flags everywhere that he’s still in love with his old girlfriend and now they’re coparenting a kid together, run, girl!”

[S03.E10: Part Ten - The Last Generation]

This episode looked expensive.  It was a cute little touch at the start that they changed the Star Trek stinger to a Borg-infested one with glitching music.

With that post-credits scene with Q, I guess they are going all-in on Jack Crusher as the future.  Resistance is futile.  They must want to do their Jack stories before Ed Speleers hits retirement age.  (Sorry, had to get one last joke in for the good of the order.)

I was hoping the Titan’s rechristening would include a refit involving light switches and warmer lighting, but no dice.

It is hard to snark on an episode that ends with a classic poker game (obviously meant to evoke “All Good Things …”) and that lovable, lovable cast (who were good in all their scenes), although I did have to chuckle at the fact that as literally as one can possibly express, the power of love and hugs saved the day here (via Deanna and Picard), which is fine, it’s a nice message.  I also had to laugh a little that Jean-Luc said that Jack changed his life, as they showed flashbacks of their great(?) times together over the past … several trauma-filled days.

I have just watched 2 season/ series finales in the past 24 hours that ended happily, which is a trend I can get behind.  I’m so glad no one died this episode.

P.S.:  I am surprised at no Janeway cameo for all the times they mentioned her this season and how she couldn’t be gotten to.

[S03.E08: Chapter Twenty Four - The Return]

40 minutes ago, magdalene said:

I am glad there was no cliffhanger and I am hopeful there will be more but just in case I am grateful for this ending.

Yeah, you just never know, so it’s so nice to have an unqualified happy ending.  It actually threw me at first that there were no loose ends or post-credit threats (I didn’t trust it!), since I can’t remember the last show I watched where things ended completely happily.

It harkens back both to S1 when Omera suggested that Djarin stay in their community and raise “his boy” (where he clearly had a little bit of longing for some sort of more peaceful existence) and Djarin’s speech earlier this season about why they should help Nevarro (so that their children can freely “play in the sun”).

It’s also so nice that when you think back to season 1, when Greef Karga was going to kill Djarin, that they have come so far, are such good friends and that he was the last character we left before the house scene.

 

[S03.E08: Chapter Twenty Four - The Return]

1 hour ago, FnkyChkn34 said:

Did we see him around the forge at the end?  He made it, right?  He should have been with Mando on Nevarro at the end...

I’m pretty sure that I saw R5 in the N-1 Starfighter at the end.

That Praetorian Guard fight with Djarin and Grogu was my favorite fight choreography of the episode.  The way they had Grogu meaningfully helping Djarin defeat those guys (swiping away the lasso thing or shielding them both when Djarin got knocked down) really made them feel like a great team, especially when we learned last week that 1 Mandalorian likely cannot defeat 3 guards on their own. 

I’m just glad that Djarin and Grogu ended up with their happily ever after.  That’s all I really wanted from this show.  And if they do have some fun little S4 adventures or get pulled into the intended eventual movie, there is a setup for them to just go back to doing their thang on Nevarro when it’s all it over.

[S03.E08: Chapter Twenty Four - The Return]

1 hour ago, notagain said:

I enjoyed the season overall, but it has shown this show’s greatest weakness, the story it’s telling is too grand for the 30 minute, 8 episode season format.

Last week’s episode was 8 or 9 minutes longer, I think, and was much better for it.

I’ve got to hand it to the composer for taking the score to an 11 this episode. That dude did not hold back.

One cute moment that I liked was when Grogu was spraying IG-12’s bacta all over Djarin after Grogu rescued him. He’s saying he’s okay, but Grogu is just going to town to make sure dad is okay. How did Grogu get to him, though?  He and everyone else were trapped behind the blast door.

 

[S03.E08: Chapter Twenty Four - The Return]

I guess the family that slays together stays together.  Almost nothing about that episode (except the adoption) went the way I thought it would, but the fight scenes were very exciting.

I’m glad Axe turned out to be a solid dude and the Armorer didn’t betray them.  It is like I posted in the last episode thread:  I guess the real second spy was the friends we made along The Way.

The VFX shot of Grogu displacing the flames around Bo and Djarin (guess his surname was Din, mind blown there!) was really beautiful.

Everything after that fire shot was way, way too oddly pat in a way that made me actually suspicious of what I was seeing:  Ragnar swears the creed again as he did in the first episode, with no acknowledgement of his dead father; the IG-11 circuit that was impossible to find all season (stated by many characters to be absolutely impossible to locate) turns up too conveniently in a random bar where Djarin is also solving all his employment problems; they go to Nevarro where Djarin gets every last thing he ever wanted since the time of his parting with Grogu in S2.

It all makes me think of an interview pull quote I saw with Filoni this weekend when he said people would be satisfied with the ending, but then after you sit with it, you start to think about larger goings on in the galaxy (which this ep definitely does not do for me).  And that made me start thinking about this in the context of a mystery-with-clues show (like is Djarin in a coma because his real life has never gone this well all at once).  But this show definitely is not working on multiple levels, so I guess it was just an oddly paced happy ending.

At least our dude got to put his feet up with his kid and relax.

[S03.E07: Chapter Twenty Three - The Spies]

1 hour ago, Morrigan2575 said:

I'm going to laugh if we spent the last week debating who the other spy is/was and it turns out, it's none of the Mandalorians and is like some Spy for Thrawn that appeared briefly in the Imperial scene 😁😆

The real spies are the friends we made along The Way.  😉

[Spoil Me This, Mando: Spoilers for The Mandalorian]

1 hour ago, FnkyChkn34 said:

If he doesn't like his costume, that's one thing, but I doubt he clashes with anyone that much.

Well, if hard feelings between Favreau and Pascal have existed at any point over how much Pascal gets to show his face on camera (which is the basic outline of the persistent rumor that won’t die), it can’t be that momentous now, since like I said, they did some joint press together for this season.  And I don’t think they would have done something like that “snack food rankings” video together (that I got recommended on YouTube because apparently I am a Pedro Pascal fan now), if Pascal had demanded to leave the show.

I just posted in the TV Tropes thread here last week (before Paz died in this show, and I wasn’t even thinking about this show), that I don’t really love in general all the breathless speculation (bloodlust?) in every show nowadays over “who’s gonna die, and it’s a cop-out if it’s not someone important.”  The speculation over “who may be a spy” here is much more fun, but Character Death is something that audiences really seem to love, so that plus behind the scenes rumors make it an attractive topic, I guess.  I have seen it everywhere.

@Dani, I agree, and I also think it’s hard to have reasoned critique about a fandom-heavy show because valid critique can be dismissed as being a hater when sometimes you just want to think through how a character is being used.   Like, I actually do not think Din was overall well-used as a character in episodes 3 through 5, even maybe 6 in some regards, but I do enjoy Bo-Katan’s redemption tour.
 

 

[Spoil Me This, Mando: Spoilers for The Mandalorian]

Honestly, I think the main reason that there is speculation about Din Djarin being killed off in the finale is extracurricular to the story.  Those rumors about Pedro Pascal clashing with Jon Favreau from a few years ago just won’t die and have been making new rounds on YouTube and fan sites from people with “sources” other than Grace Randolph (the reporter of the original story), with additional rumors added about Favreau also more recently clashing with Kathleen Kennedy over her interference with his creative vision for the show.

Even Screen Crush, a very positive and upbeat YouTube channel about all the fandoms it covers and not in the business of trashing anyone from what I’ve seen, gently alluded to the rumors in one of their recent reviews where they were considering whether Din could kick the beskar bucket.

But all that said, I would bet significant monies that Din Djarin will not be killed off this season.  Probably all my monies, lol.  I can believe that there is some kind of behind the scenes drama, though, just not to the level where they would dump the main character—something like that would have leaked to a major publication, I think.  And Pascal and Favreau even did some limited joint press together for the season.

[S03.E07: Chapter Twenty Three - The Spies]

20 hours ago, Dani said:

He knew Bo had the dark saber. He wanted her to give it to him and order tell her people the planet is his. Which I didn’t realize that he shouldn’t know that until I read your post. 

So then someone at the saber handoff or someone back on Nevarro within the covert has to have been a spy (even if some or all of the survivors are, too), because Bo’s former squadron and the Children of the Watch should be the only people to know that Bo got it back.

Gideon seemed surprised at the start of the episode to learn from Elia that Children of the Watch and Axe’s group had united under Bo to defeat the pirates Gideon sent to Nevarro, but Gideon’s spy should have told him about this unification, since Gideon knows Bo has the Darksaber.  (On the other hand, time did pass, so maybe his spy only got word to him of everything that went down after Gideon talked to Elia.)

Axe, Kosha, the Armorer or that droid that is friends with Carson Teva are the only spy candidates then among actual characters (vs faceless Mandalorians), setting aside Bo, Din and Grogu.   Axe did leave the final fight, but he didn’t have a way out of the underground until Paz pointed it out the roof escape to him (vs. the Armorer, who never walked into the danger in the first place), and Axe and Paz were the ones to save Grogu from the land ship when the creature attacked it.  Axe did give a pensive look when one of the survivors mentioned that they had sent scouts down to the Great Forge, but none had survived, but that could be a lot of things.

Maybe it is Kosha, and Axe and the Armorer are the red herrings.

 

[S48.E18: Ana de Armas / Karol G]

I didn’t really like the American Girl sketch because the Barbie movie is supposed to be biting social commentary and parody, so what exactly was SNL trying to accomplish when the source material itself is parody (that no one is even familiar with because the movie doesn’t come out until July)?

[S03.E09: Part Nine - Vox]

24 minutes ago, greekmom said:

One thing I didn't get is why Jack allowed himself to be assimilated.

My friend and I were discussing this, she thinks that Jack had no choice as the Borg Queen was in his head. Personally, I don't think that and don't understand the reasoning.

Gawh. Have I mentioned how bad the writing is? 

I agree with you that I think Jack did have control enough to make a choice, although the level of his control will be dicey, I’m sure.  The only way this can logically end is if Jack gets control over the assimilated to stop the madness in some way.  Blind guess, but maybe the OG 7 come up with a way to get the Borg stuff out of DNA through another transporter trip.  Then they find a way to connect with Jack to have him send a message to the assimilated to go through the transporters to de-assimilate.

I’m still worried about all the olds on all these ships, though.  I hope they’re not all really dead.

[S03.E07: Chapter Twenty Three - The Spies]

It bummed me out a little that Din was so quick to disclaim teaching Grogu about how to defuse the beef between Paz and Axe, since in “The Marshal” episode, Din was a deft peace broker who worked overtime to settle tensions between the Tuskans and the Mos Pelgo people. I think the point of the line was to prop up Grogu’s Jedi influences, but Din should be recognized for passing on good qualities to his kid, too.

[S03.E09: Part Nine - Vox]

How did Vadic know what visions Jack was seeing?  She referred in a past episode to Jack seeing the red door, but how did she know this was Jack’s vision?  The Borg Queen told that disembodied head thing, who told Vadic?  Why bother? 

9 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Must...stop...analyzing...myriad...plot...holes....Instead...must...focus...on...nostalgia!

Once I just decided around episode 3 to set aside them trashing Beverly’s morality and character (which wasn’t easy, but I will always have TNG), I have kind of enjoyed watching the show on a slightly ironic/ slightly nostalgic level, and then coming here and seeing everyone (myself included) absolutely eviscerate the plotting and pacing of this show.  Not because I want to dunk on the hard work of the many professionals who put so much into this show (I saw somewhere that they rebuilt the D bridge set entirely for this, no CGI—that’s cool), but I just find the story decisions so baffling, they are actually legitimately funny to me.

Like, I will go back this weekend and watch for a second time them reminiscing on the D bridge just to see the old ship again and appreciate that wonderful, wonderful 90s TV lighting.  But in the moment of the episode, I was thinking that these people have no plan, no allies, an entire assimilated fleet against them, their children are in mortal danger, and in spite of all that, they are making carpet jokes, and as I said upthread, quite literally stepping over Shaw’s dead body to get to that point?  It’s so weird, it curves back around to being hilarious (to me). If they had first just developed a plan (ANY plan) that was a long shot, but there was nothing left to do but fire up the engines and give it a go, that scene would have played a million times better for me, because then I could have followed them drawing strength from a setting and friends that had led them do extraordinary things in the past.  But no, they just get on the ship as if that will be enough.  I’m sorry, that’s so weird, it’s funny.  I’m even a little sad the insanity ends next week.

[S03.E07: Chapter Twenty Three - The Spies]

If Axe were to be the spy, I don’t know why he would have bothered to get into a fight with Paz over space chess.  Seems like he would have just laid low and built some trust with the Paz’s group so that he would not be suspected when the time to betray them came, unless he planned to yield to Paz before Grogu interceded.

Although I didn’t catch it until it was pointed out here, the Mandalorian land pirate survivors probably make the most sense for spies, since everything about their appearance and role is all a matter of convenience.  Maybe they were there just to spur the scene of Bo making her big confession, though, since their plight moved her to be honest.  But dramatically, I think that the survivors being spies would be the least interesting, because we don’t really have any investment in them.

The Armorer would be the biggest gut punch, but as was discussed here, no clear motives.  But it is interesting that here and on other sites, it seems that multiple people simultaneously picked up on a vibe with her that just felt “off.”  Maybe she’s a red herring, but the episode seems to want us to feel some kind of way about her.

On another topic, Ryan Arey at Screen Crush noted that the Star Wars character helmet intro at the beginning of the show added a Mando helmet this season bathed in red light (and the red lighted helmets denote “bad guys”).  Din’s blood was taken in episode 2 and it was never explained why.  Din is about to get “debriefed,” and the mind flayer concept is still hanging out there.  I am continuing to think that Din is going to get brain scrambled, cloned or something else pretty bad.  

[S03.E09: Part Nine - Vox]

1 minute ago, paigow said:

Picard rammed The Scimitar [Shinzon] to prevent it from firing... Hence Enterprise F

It was apparently repaired, because I saw somewhere that one of the novels had Worf become the captain of the Enterprise-E eventually.  Not sure why everyone looked accusingly at Worf when the E was mentioned, though.  For me, the Enterprise-D >>>> than the E.  Years ago, the Honest Trailers for TNG called the D a cross between starship and Marriott convention center (with all the concerts and conferences), haha.

[S03.E09: Part Nine - Vox]

I was listening to the Bald Move Pulp podcast review of this episode, and they said something about how the one thing you don’t want in your counseling session is for your therapist to run crying from the room after a meditation or hypnosis sesh’, lol. Hard agree on that one.  Poor Jack.

1 hour ago, Lebanna said:

Wesley wasn’t the only kid on the bridge.  

In addition to your list, I saw a post a long time ago that Worf was supposed to be youngest of the TNG bridge crew and only supposed to be early-to-mid 20s at mission launch.  I don’t question that there would be a healthy dose of early-to-mid-20-somethings among all crew on all ships.  That, coupled with an endemic Changeling infiltration and ships that cannot be individually controlled (which may be the stupidest thing I have ever heard in all of Trek this side of an unexpected Romulan supernova), and I get how the takeover happens.  Did the Gen Zers (or Gen ZZZZZZers, since we’re hundreds of years from now) really proceed with murdering all the non-assimilated on all those ships?  I can’t imagine how Starfleet recovers from the total decimation of 2-3 generations of talent, even if the 20-somethings get restored. 

On the Borg reveal:  I’m neutral on it.  I was never able to get into DS9, so  pah wraiths and more Changeling stuff and Founders and whatever was never going to be my personal jam, and so I was relieved that the show doesn’t seem to be going harder on the DS9 lore, but on the other hand, the Borg stuff is so played.

What I do find kind of morbidly fascinating is that no TNG movie, and no season of this show, has ever been able to deliver on the promise of the best series finale of all time (IMO), where Q told Picard that the journey wasn’t mapping stars, but exploring the unlimited possibilities of existence (which I took to heart on the meta-level as using a space-time paradox story to say something interesting about how relationships change over time).  This story this season once again just seems to be scraping plot (“and then they did this, then this happened”) without the morality play, social commentary or emotional revelation that TNG was often great at.