Francie

Mothers, too, considering how they depict the Beverly/Jack relationship and Deanna such a big meanie to Will by empathically trying to take away his pain (and what the hell was that even all about? You know what, nevermind. I don't want to know). Oh, and the nagging housewife thing from that one episode. And the whole recounting of the 17-second trip where Will was only worried about his "unborn son," and couldn't give a sh*t about whether his wife was in medical danger. Have I mentioned I hate this show with the heat of 10,000 nuns? One more week, and my characters are free:

Wait, that was Shelby I was FF-ing past? Way to bring in not one, but two, bad ass female characters* from original TNG just to kill them off. I hate this show with the heat of 10,000 nuns. *Like her, hate her, or (like me) love to hate her, Shelby was bad ass.

THANK YOU!!!!! Gah! This show is SO filled with dumb pieces of dialogue that fail to hit the intended mark. Which makes it almost comical because the intended marks are sh*tty, at best. Data could have said, "At least we'll die quickly!" Can we just pause a moment to reflect on the fact that no one on the original Enterprise-D, other than Wesley, would have been affected? Tasha Yar and Geordi were the youngest bridge crew members, and their portrayers were 30 at the time they started filming the first episode.

Seriously. That was an oversold moment. The way they had her run off, one would have thought she just saw her dead son. Meanwhile, my expression when the big reveal behind the door was a borg cube:

Fun fact. It just came to light that a term of the Jerry Hall/Ruper Murdoch divorce settlement is that Jerry is not allowed to give storyline ideas to Succession.

(Internal monologue: Gah, why am I bothering even? Ehh, just get it out of my system and then I can forget this show and move on). I had a similar thought regarding Geordi's attitude. Sure, we see one moment of him all wanting to go after his girls, but then he follows that up by playing coy with his "I have a better idea." That only works because it's a tease of the viewer. Internally, for the story and for the characters it makes no sense. Geordi should be as intensely focused as Liam Neesan in Taken (just, his skill set is of a different nature). There's no time to stand around for carpet jokes and wax nostalgic about whether the deck is smaller than they remembered. That crew -- the crew *I* knew would have been strategizing about how to use the Enterprise-D while in the shuttle, not all, "Gee, where's Geordi taking us? Oh, let's walk around for awhile!" The tone was way off, which has been a recurrent problem. Granted, I ff-ed much of this episode, too, but what I did notice was that Deanna wasn't with the rest of the crew and then she suddenly appeared on the shuttle. There was never any sense of Will being worried about reconnecting with her. No 2-second hug upon reconnecting. Just - gah, these characters are empty vessels to the showrunners. And, did I miss it, or was the scene from the preview where Deanna's with Beverly and Raffi and they're pointing a phaser (and a screwdriver?) at something and Deanna wisecracks she's never been so happy to see wrinkles cut? Also, what was with the whole, "never get near a Betazoid again ... there's ethical conflicts" rant? Racist much, Jack? God, I'll be relieved when my beloved characters are released from this creative hostage situation.

That's not a great long-term strategy, though. Getting eyes on a program works if you are only selling that program. Streaming platforms rely on getting -- and keeping -- monthly and annual subscriptions. Sure, throwing tons of money at Harrison Ford (and hopefully Helen Mirren, too) and promoting the sh*t out of Patrick Stewart resurrecting Jean-Luc Picard, and then the rest of the cast for this season, might get new subscribers. But if all Paramount+ does is piss them off once they arrive, they'll leave just as quickly. The content has to be good, and stay good, to keep them. One may have to go to the effort of unsubscribing, but it's not like it's as onerous as getting out of a gym membership.

That was 15 minutes of content stretched out over 45. And that's actually a huge improvement over prior episodes. All those nostalgia buttons they were trying to push about the Enterprise-D deflated instantly with the lame, lame, lame, lame, lame "carpet" comment. I was half expecting Frakes (Terry Matalas's Riker is not Riker to me, just genial Frakes) to chime in with a brownnosing "Good one, Sir!" Mark me, decades from now, in a world where one will look back on the '20s with an almost wistful, "Remember when every entertainment source had its own streaming service and spent gross amounts of money to hire movie stars and resurrected past entertainment successes to induce people into subscribing to their own particular channel?," some soon-to-be befuddled souls will come across Picard. And they'll look upon it with the same incredulity and disdain that youtube watchers who stumble across The Brady Bunch Variety Hour today have. They too will ask, "What the f did I just watch and was there no one in charge who could have stepped in to prevent this embarrassment?" I think the showrunners have looted just about everything it could from TNG ("licensed looting" is what I've been calling it). There's nothing left to pilfer (err, or show I say 'burgle') to justify any further revisit. At least not by these showrunners with their "too cool for school" attitude and complete disregard for actual storytelling.

You clever bastards!

On rewatch, I had forgotten this gem of a line from the opening moments: "He just finds you visually aggravating right now." And I have now added "visually aggravating" to my own personal arsenal. Thank you, Jesse Armstrong.

Agreed. Although I would pay Geri untold amounts of money to keep her happy and and keep her from working for the other team.

Sure, the Roy kids are broken up, but can we have a moment of reflection for the person who may just miss Logan the most: Man, show, you sure got me. And it was all laid out for me. Logan having that conservation about the after-life with his body guard/driver? It's one of the best precursors to a character's death since Bobby and Tony talked about "You probably don't even hear it when it happens?" on Sopranos.

It’s just hitting me that Logan Roy could have – indeed should have – been spending that day with his children at his eldest son’s wedding. But instead of being surrounded by them, they were talking into cell phones doubting he was even hearing them. Well played show, well played. And even darker thought – had Logan not embarked on a long flight across the Atlantic, he wouldn’t have been taxing his heart quite so much that day. Also, for a show that started with a man barely surviving a near fatal stroke, continued to his mental incapacitation last season, and even had me nervous last week that he was going to seriously injure himself by falling off of a file box, his death still surprised me the point of disbelief and denial.

My all-time favorite parent death/telephone scene has to be Roseanne with Jackie having to notify relatives (scene written by Norm McDonald). They could have used her on that plane. Me watching the show: Ha! Logan's totally faking them out. Some kind of loyalty, who will talk to him sorta test. Me, 10 minutes later: OMG! They totally faked me out! I truly was in denial until 60 seconds after Shiv's "dead on arrival" report. Call me Roman, but when she first said that, I was all, "Hey, did they check with the doctors before they made that statement? [pause]. Of course they did. Wow. It's real." Let the reading of the will begin! Oh, Kerry, it was (not so) nice knowing you. She's not even going to be allowed to attend the funeral, is she? But the most biting, most real moment for me: Shiv acknowledging that she was hoping that it was her mother. Not that I blame her.

My conclusion:

I thought it was odd because nothing Worf said should've been construed as romantic in nature. That's the whole show in nutshell, my fellow poster. The whole show. Turns out, Marina's "limited availability" had nothing to do with why Troi and Riker were absent from the prior episode. They shot scenes, but were cut because they were "killing Vadic's monologue." https://collider.com/star-trek-picard-season-3-episode-8-riker-troi-terry-matalas-comments/ (Matalas explained: "We initially had them in seven, as well, but cutting between the Rikers and Vadic's monologue was killing Vadic's monologue, and killing the Rikers. It was breaking up the stories in ways that [were] not helping either one of them." and "So, at some point, you have to say, ‘We have to just pick a story.’ So, we decided seven was going to be the Vadic story.")

Turns out there were Riker and Worf and Raffi scenes in Episode 7, but all their scenes were cut: https://collider.com/star-trek-picard-season-3-episode-8-riker-troi-terry-matalas-comments/ Matalas explained: "We initially had them in seven, as well, but cutting between the Rikers and Vadic's monologue was killing Vadic's monologue, and killing the Rikers. It was breaking up the stories in ways that [were] not helping either one of them." "We had Raffi and Worf's story in seven and it was hurting Raffi and Worf to cut back to Vadic. So, at some point, you have to say, ‘We have to just pick a story.’ So, we decided seven was going to be the Vadic story. That was going to be Amanda Plummer's swan song. It's so hard, because [there are] so many great ideas and so many great things that go, but you don't have all the time and money to do it." So, yeah. I also noticed while the article tries to downplay that the scenes were cut and describes it as the story being "paused," if one reads closely, one can see they're talking about scenes being cut. That's why episode 7 ran so short too.

Based on the interwebs, the true target of the shitting on Nepenthe was a season 1 writer:

This was the moment that broke me (I'm paraphrasing because I'm not going back to watch this scene). Riker (when talking about the upside of being kidnapped with Deanna): At least it gives me one last chance to ... Me, automatically anticipating the next line in spite of myself: tell you how much I love you. Riker: use my ol' Riker charm. That broke me, and I became dead inside to this show at that point. If I were a flower, I would have wilted over in an instant. I thought I didn't have any expectations for this show, but there is no depth to which I would have to sink them. Glib and superficial. That's all this show is. It would have made more sense for the characters to have acknowledged that Nepenthe served its purpose and note some annoyances without completely shitting all over it. It was the last place they spent time with this beloved son, and being there allowed them to have more time with him. So dialogue more suited to that point where they acknowledge that and say, "I was only staying because I thought you wanted to," would have made more sense and been more enjoyable. YMMV. Behind the scenes-wise, I wonder if the showrunners were shitting all over it because it was the one moment from Season 1 that was hailed as a massive success. It didn't involve space ships and space fights and there wasn't a lot of glib one-liners and references to Escape from New York, etc. So it was a bit of rejection of what they quite apparently most enjoy. Either that or there was a show runner from that seasons who was largely responsible for that episode, and they wanted to shit all over him. I was going to say I would have liked to have seen that scene. But as someone here put very well, the writers would only butcher it. Given how short last week's episode was, the lack of any such scene wasn't due to time purposes. And the "limited availability" excuse is lame given that Marina was in Los Angeles for two months to film. I get how that would limit her from appearing in half of it, but they're making it out like she was only available for days. They're covering their asses on that one.

I finally am beaten down to the point of apathy. What's behind the door and what cameos and spaceship porn is left is of zero interest to me. My three takeaways: 1) This show/season (I only watched Nepenthe and I echo FloatOn's sentiment) has done one thing for me: it encouraged me to re-engage with a show that I had forgotten was so meaningful to me. For all my mocking of "memberberries," and I stand buy that disdain because what sparked my own memories and feelings were the actors themselves and not the pandering references, a flood of memories and emotions did came back. I'll occasionally catch an episode of TNG here and there on the Heroes and Icons channel, but I hadn't revisited the entire show since the mid-90s. I had forgotten how influential it was and how big a part of my teen and young adulthood years it was for me and my friends. For that prompting, I'm grateful. 2) I can do without Paramount+ until it gets serious about its original content. Now, apparently, I have 20 days to watch 6 seasons of The Good Fight before my subscription ends. 3) The next time I see a set as dark lit as the ones on this show, I know to run! RUN! Run like the wind!! Run like I'm George Costanza and someone's yelled FIRE! in a room full of children!!!

That's was Data's Day, from the 4th seasons. I love that episode. I don't know what you mean by her face and head appearing smaller, but Gates was 3 or 4 months pregnant when filming that scene.

I love Data. But that scene where he's pulling out memberberry after memberberry was painful. In a show filled with quip, move on, quip, move on, that scene became slow and clunky. Look it's a deck of cards - remember all those poker scenes!* And Spot -- remember Spot! All I could think was, "Data's not protecting the memberberries. He IS the memberberries." (*Because it's not really about the poker games themselves. It's just about the fact that there were poker games. I'll re-watch the final scene of All Good Things if I want to feel genuine emotion and sentiment.) Also, I had fun -- meaning I amused myself at least -- with this dialogue: Troi: "It's (She, I forget, and I don't care to look back) is so filled with rage and anger and ..." Me: Rage and anger are the same thing. Devil's advocate me: Well, rage is stronger than anger. Rage is strong, violent, uncontrollable anger. Me: Yes, but you agree then, rage is a certain type of anger. Anger is subsumed in the universe of rage. So, you don't need to say 'anger,' when you already have 'rage.'

I read somewhere that the budget for this season was $100 million. It's a shame no one thought to use some of that money to hire real writers.

Deep cut. I love it! I can't Mask my amusement. That wasn't I who said what was quoted. I was quoting it as well. But I get that's a quirk of the copy quote function.

They don't care about Pierce. They just wanted it because their dad wanted it. When they got it, they also got the satisfaction they were seeking -- their father's attention in that phone call. But, once they (practically) have it, Kendall and Roman just play around, and it's still not enough for Shiv. Now, with the Waystar sale to Mattson, Shiv thinks there's more money to be had (because she always has to be the smartest person in the room), Roman wants Logan's love, and Kendall's just happy he gets to screw over dad, again. How can a show be *so* devastatingly sad -- these miserable people all making themselves even more miserable -- and yet laugh out loud funny at the same time.It's brilliant that way. I mean: "It's a bit warm." / "What did it say?' / "Take care." I kinda like that Gerri is on on the skids right now. It gives her time to bounce back. I realize in this all this entitlement and misanthropy, I shouldn't root for anyone. But I can't help but be 100% in Gerri's corner. I want her her come out on top in a show where no one belongs on top. I want her to wind up with so much money and success by the time the show ends, she could buy a private island. Even though, this show has made it clear that such wealth only makes one miserable.