S01.E05: Stardust City Rag

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

The La Sirena crew begin an unpredictable and lively expedition on Freecloud to search for Bruce Maddox. When they learn Maddox has found himself in a precarious situation, a familiar face offers her assistance.

Promo:

Original air date: 2/20/20

Edited February 20, 2020 by ElectricBoogaloo

[paigow]

Freecloud looks like Risa designed by RuPaul....

[Hiyo]

Quote

Freecloud looks like Risa designed by RuPaul....

Which must make it a fucking fabulous place to visit.

[starri]

Patrick Stewart in an eyepatch?  I'm into it.

[Llywela]

14 minutes ago, starri said:

Patrick Stewart in an eyepatch?  I'm into it.

Plus Santiago Cabrera in a feather boa? Amazing.

Edited February 15, 2020 by Llywela

[paigow]

It makes no sense that Maddox is hiding on Freecloud...His stuck up snobby attitude would prevent him from blending in as some anonymous "bon vivant". One of his synthetic minions must be hacking the communication logs as a diversion...

[paigow]

(Interior: Holo Chateau Picard)

Raffi: Computer. Retrieve late 20th century Earth television shows referencing Gianni Versace and Freddie Mercury....

[Hiyo]

Quote

It makes no sense that Maddox is hiding on Freecloud...His stuck up snobby attitude would prevent him from blending in as some anonymous "bon vivant".

Wouldn't hiding out in a place nobody would expect you to hide out in be a good place to hide out in?

[paigow]

7 hours ago, Hiyo said:

Wouldn't hiding out in a place nobody would expect you to hide out in be a good place to hide out in?

Not if everybody knows you are a wacky hermit...

[Interior: Freecloud Studio 54]

Zhat Vash Assassin: [Holding up a tablet with a picture of Maddox]

Hey Bartender, you seen this guy around?

Bartender: Yeah, Dr. MadMan...Next tower over, Unit 735...

[Hiyo]

Assuming everybody does...

[paigow]

Founding Members Of The Zhat Vash

[ottoDbusdriver]

I hope that's not the last we have seen of Seven of Nine, but finding out that she has become a vigilante (or ranger) in sections of space that the Federation has abandoned was something I would never have guessed.  What happened to Chakotay ?

Let alone finding out that she killed Icheb after he had been stripped of Borg parts by a criminal syndicate, and that Seven was responsible Icheb being targeted -- that's pretty dark, but it does explain her quest for vengeance.

Even darker, Agnes killing Maddux.  Still not sure what that is about, especially considering that video she was watching of him -- they seemed to be romantically connected.

Not sure about Raffi's backstory either -- her estranged son, Gabriel Hwang, living on Freecloud with a pregnant Romulan wife.  Turns out Gabriel was born on Mars, and blames Raffi for what happened to Mars, though Raffi seems to know more about what happened with the synths than she has let on previously.  I wonder who Gabriel's father is.

And we are headed off to the Artifact next week.

[Capricasix]

The actress who played Maddox’s captor and Seven’s enemy looked so familiar... I thought it might have been Suzie Plakson, but it wasn’t. Her name is Necar Zadegan; she’s appeared in several TV series, most recently on NCIS New Orleans.

[Joimiaroxeu]

I loved Rios dressed like a pimp. He didn't have the walk quite down though.

Elnor doesn't know how to not be Elnor.

Aw, Raffi's gonna be a grandma. And did anyone doubt she'd be back on board? I'm sure Picard didn't.

What is the nature of Aggie's psychiatric emergency? Geez, how much time you got? Hopefully the hologram will tell on her to Rios. (Yeah, no, I know holograms don't work like that. Just wishful thinking. 🙄)

[Vandy10]

Well that took a sharp turn into Darksville. 

Good, but dark. 

I was with Seven; poor Icheb! I always liked the character. The actor who originally played him turned out to be problematic 😬 but the character was good.

I'm ready to get to the Artefact. Also ready to learn whatever mystical woo the Zhat Vash showed Agnes that was bad enough to turn her into a killer. End of days?

[greekmom]

This one was much better than the previous 2 episodes.  My thoughts:

1. Bjayzl looked like a young Troi. Damn they missed an opportunity.

2. Agnes was in love with Maddox but killed him. No no one saw her double cross coming.

3. Glad they gave closure to the Icheb storyline even if they did use another actor.  Sad that he died. Now what the frack happened to Chakotay??  

4. Did anyone get a vibe from Bjayzl that she and Seven were more than good friends? 

Can't wait to see what happens next week.

[Joimiaroxeu]

Quote

Bjayzl looked like a young Troi

She really did. I was looking really hard at first thinking it was Troi (with a lot of CGI) but then I did the math and realized it couldn't her.

Quote

Did anyone get a vibe from Bjayzl that she and Seven were more than good friends? 

Definitely. Guess they had a bad breakup. 😉

[Prower]

Urgh, this shit is dumb and annoying and I don't know how much more I can take. Why would anybody extract Borg parts without anesthesia? Obviously just to seem extra cruel to the viewer. Why would you extract 20 year old Borg parts anyway? They can't be worth that much anymore.

In the Voyager- era everything Borg was done with Borg nanobots. The assimiliation, the building of parts, etc. I could see those maybe being worth something, but you could extract those non-leathally and then just replicate them, so that wouldn't be SHOCKING.

Also great job, Seven, resorting to murdering your 'son' instead of disabling whatever was preventing beaming and getting him out of there. Or grabbing some of the medical equipment lying around and healing him.

Btw. how was that a deadly injury for him anyway? His Borg Nanobots should have been easily able to fix this. Let me guess, the writers forgot those were a thing.

Another thing the writers forgot: Medicine is basically magic in this time. Madox would have been fixed up in under a minute.

The talk between Picard and Seven was stupid. He was part of the collective for a hot second. Sure, it traumatised him, but how would he have ever lost his humanity?

I get Picard has morals and bla, but I also remember him being pragmatic. He might not approve of revenge but would he approve of just leaving a mass murderer roaming free to murder some more? I think not. That's some shitty, shitty writing.

Now that Aggi killed Madox because of "stuff she knows and she wished he knew, but she can't tell him even on his deathbed, because then the viewers would know and that would ruin the suspense and what do you mean that's not valid character motivation", I'm afraid the rest of Redlettermedia's predictions will come true. It's going to be so duuuuuuuumb. Urgh.

[marinw]

Icheb didn't even have a cortical implant (he gave it to Seven), the poor guy. But he made it into Starfleet even though he was an Ex- Borg with visible implants. That could not have been easy.

So does Picard have any leftover Borg bits? 

Sir Patrick, I love you  but that French accent made me cringe. Great outfit though.

I knew Dr. Agnes was nefarious.

Edited February 21, 2020 by marinw

[Kostgard]

This episode was fun, because Patrick Stewart was clearly having a ball hamming it up, Jeri Ryan was great, and of course you gotta dress like Huggy Bear from Starsky & Hutch when you go to the Vegas hellmouth planet. God that place seemed awful.

Not sure about Raffi and her son. Seems she went completely off the rails for a while there. She also told him she was clean, but we saw her vaping right before they left. I don’t know if “nothing in the last 48-72 hours” qualifies as “clean.”

Some called Agnes as up to no good, and it seems they were right. What was she shown/told that not only turned her against synths but also turned her into a murderer?

I love that because Elnor was raised with the practice of “absolute candor” he cannot lie and therefore cannot act.

[DrScottie]

1 hour ago, marinw said:

So does Picard have any leftover Borg bits? 

I don't think so. At the end of "The Best of Both Worlds," Dr. Crusher said she'd have no trouble removing the rest of the implants. 

[SourK]

LOL at past!me saying last week that I loved this show and hoped nothing happened to change that.

I still look forward to seeing Seven if/when she comes back again, but this transition feels weird to me. I know there was always some tension between her liking order because she was Borg vs her being kind of a rebel as a human, and it's valid to say that the rebel side won, but she's so different.

Also, when she killed Icheb and called him "my child," I know that what she meant was, "For those of you who didn't watch Voyager, or aren't huge nerds and don't remember, he was as a son to me," but what I heard was, "Remember how Kai Winn used to call everybody 'my child' before she did something really messed up?"

16 hours ago, ottoDbusdriver said:

What happened to Chakotay ?

I want to know that too, mostly because that was such a weird pairing to begin with, and because I think Janeway was actively destroying the timeline to break them up. Gimme that 20-year-old tea, Star Trek: Picard.

16 hours ago, ottoDbusdriver said:

Not sure about Raffi's backstory either -- her estranged son, Gabriel Hwang, living on Freecloud with a pregnant Romulan wife.  Turns out Gabriel was born on Mars, and blames Raffi for what happened to Mars, though Raffi seems to know more about what happened with the synths than she has let on previously.  I wonder who Gabriel's father is.

Yeah, I'm not thrilled about Raffi's story in general, but I was interested in that one part where her son goaded her into yelling like a crazy person about how there was a massive conspiracy on Mars. We know that she's probably right, but it's easy to see why everyone else thinks she's wrong, which I like.

1 hour ago, Prower said:

Also great job, Seven, resorting to murdering your 'son' instead of disabling whatever was preventing beaming and getting him out of there. Or grabbing some of the medical equipment lying around and healing him.

Yeah, that seemed like a weirdly intense solution to me, given that she hadn't tried much of anything else, and it also didn't sound like they managed to actually remove his cortical implant when they pulled out his eye? I wasn't super paying attention, though, so maybe there's a reason he was going to die.

1 hour ago, Prower said:

The talk between Picard and Seven was stupid. He was part of the collective for a hot second. Sure, it traumatised him, but how would he have ever lost his humanity?

I was kind of bummed out by that, too. I thought these characters would be able to have a really interesting conversation about the Borg, because their experiences were so different. In fact, I was waiting to see how they would each relate to this Borg cube rehabilitation situation, since they had such different POVs. Maybe that will still happen, but saying that they're both former Borg, as the show does here, is a huge oversimplification.

[thuganomics85]

That was an.... "interesting" mix of camp and darkness throughout the entire episode.

Oh, Icheb!  I kind of remember him a little from Voyager, but admittedly his death really only effected me because of how much it hurt Seven.  I do wish they had at least showed a moment to make it more obvious that he was dying and that was the only way out for him, but the basic idea works, I guess.  Like Picard, Seven's clearly gone through some shit!

Definitely great seeing Picard and Seven together.  Despite never actually working together before, Patrick Stewart and Jeri Ryan played off each other extremely well, and gave off a sense of history between the characters that I hope we see more of.  Too bad she's already off the ship, but her handing him that button or whatever is clearly a sign that she can return: wherever it is later this season or a future one.

Everything involving Freecloud was hilariously ridiculous, but I got a kick out of the dumb, invasive advertisements, outlandish outfits, and Picard/Patrick Stewart's hilariously bad French accent (I wonder if that was all a meta moment over how Picard is actually French, but always spoke in a British accent.)  Necar Zadegan is always welcomed and I liked her as Bjayzl, although, yes, she actually did look a lot like a young Troi in a lot of her shots.  Never saw that resemblance before.

Ah, Raffi's got a son that she has some issues with.  Even in the future, there will always be parent/child issues!

Agnes definitely got a lot more interesting!  Figured something was coming down soon, since it felt like Alison Pill was being underutilized so far.  I guess this all has something to do with that conversation she had with Commodore Oh episodes ago?

Elnor is starting to become a highlight here!

Can't say I really missed checking in on the Soji/Narek stuff, which isn't exactly a ringing endorsement for what is suppose to be the main driving force here.

[Llywela]

5 hours ago, SourK said:

Yeah, that seemed like a weirdly intense solution to me, given that she hadn't tried much of anything else, and it also didn't sound like they managed to actually remove his cortical implant when they pulled out his eye? I wasn't super paying attention, though, so maybe there's a reason he was going to die.

My understanding is, based on memories of Voyager, that when an individual is assimilated as a child, the implants become a much more integral part of them than those assimilated as adults, and they cannot survive without those implants. My reading of the scene was that Icheb had had too many integral parts removed to be able to survive, even if there were ready access to medical facilities, so Seven made the choice to end his suffering rather than let him die slowly in pain. (However, Icheb didn't have a cortical implant for the butcher to find - he donated it to Seven in a Voyager ep when hers failed, because she couldn't survive without it and Icheb gambled that because he was younger he might not be as reliant on it).

Voyager had a few episodes based around how valuable Borg implants could be on the black market, so this storyline picked up from that.

One of the things that interests me about this show is that it gives us such a different perspective on the Star Trek universe. Up till now, we've mostly viewed this world through the eyes of the 1%, in effect. We've been aboard flagship starships crewed by the elite, valiantly upholding the very loftiest of ideals no matter what. But one thing my recent TNG marathon drove home to me was that there was always a murkier side to this society - the seedy underworld we see in this episode was always there. Just that before, we only paid fleeting visits to that part of the universe, whereas now, this show is kinda living there.

My recent TNG marathon also reminded me that Starfleet command was never quite as committed to the Federation's lofty ideals as some of its officers, and that it was always vulnerable to corruption.

This episode was hard to watch in places, but there was some really strong and interesting character work here. I seem to remember from my TNG re-watch that Picard was never much of an actor, so it was amusing to see him hamming his way through the undercover role here. Rios did a better job, on the whole, and I thought showed glimpses of what an excellent Starfleet officer he must have once been - he was 100% alert and professional throughout the mission, saved Picard's life by taking out the lizard-alien whose name I forget, and successfully talked Seven down when Picard couldn't. Also, someone on the production team has definitely seen Cabrera's performance in The Musketeers and is eager to incorporate as many elements of it into this show as possible!

Elnor was underused but adorable. And Raffi's sub-plot added loads more layers of complexity to her character, showing us just how badly she spiralled out of control after the attack on Mars, her drug addiction and conspiracy theorist paranoia costing her her family. I totally expect her to ultimately be vindicated on the conspiracy theory front in the end, though.

...and then there's Agnes. I suspected earlier in the season that she might be a mole, whether knowingly or not - there was that whole unseen interview she had with the shady Admiral Oh, and then Raffi complained about Picard not running any background checks on her, which felt like a deliberate red flag. And so far we've seen very little of her beyond dorky naievety - how much of that was genuine and how much feigned, I wonder? Who will we find when the layers start to get peeled back now? Why did she feel compelled to kill Maddox - and how does she expect to cover it up?

Looking forward to seeing what happens next!

[MissLucas]

Well that was dark. The episode where Icheb donated his implant to Seven is my favorite episode of Voyager - not sure I can rewatch it now 😢

This is another stark reminder of how Ex-Borg are treated. I wonder how that will tie in to the whole synths plot. It can't be a coincidence that Soji is on that cube of all places. 

Man, the Federation really sucks in this version of Star Trek. Looks like they not only abandoned the rescued Romulans but a whole sector, letting it sink into chaos and disorder. Makes you wonder if it did not also have a hand behind the attack on Mars. Some of the things Maddox tried to say certainly pointed in that direction. In other words: Raffi you were not crazy but I doubt you'll ever get all the validation you deserve (this being such a dark take on Star Trek I see no shiny awards or appointments coming your way - you're lucky if you get to see your grandchild).

Of course Rios' hat needed a feather. I wonder how long they keep those nods to the Musketeers going. It was a bit of much needed comic relief as was Elnor's being adorably clueless about the whole sting - glad he got a moment of badass when it counted.

Thanks @Llywela for the reminder that Picard always sucked at acting because Stewart's horrible French accent and coming up with every French stereotype imaginable (he only lacked a baguette) was terrifying and hilarious at the same time.

Soooo - Agnes is definitely no longer this show's Tilly. And I begin to understand Rio's issues with the holograms. The EMH focusing on Agnes while Maddox was dying right there on the table was not a good look.

Also: I wouldn't mind a spin-off about the Fenris Rangers (and I loved Rios fangirling about Seven yet not being able to remember her correct designation).

[marinw]

3 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

Necar Zadegan

I remember her from 24! Always happy to see this gorgeous and talented actor. Her henchwomen looked fabulous.

[Llywela]

Browsing around the Interwebz this morning, I see a lot of outraged fanboys complaining that violence, gore and vengeance have no place on a Star Trek show, which leads me to wonder which Star Trek show they think they are fans of, because honestly...TNG alone had more than its fair share of all three!

I mean, Icheb's torture and death was graphic and unpleasant, that's for sure, and it is sad to see that Seven has spent so many years of her life seeking revenge, but neither is anything unusual for Trek. TNG had an episode where the whole of Starfleet command was infiltrated and possessed by aliens, and the climax of that episode saw Picard and Riker phasering a man until his head exploded. There was another episode where K'Ehleyr was stabbed to death in her quarters on the Enterprise and died in a pool of blood in front of her toddler son. This prompted Worf, a Starfleet officer, to run off and kill a high-ranking Klingon politician purely to avenge her death - an act which, incidentally, also decisively resolved the future leadership of the Klingon High Council - with absolutely zero consequences. There was loads of violence in TNG, some of it extremely graphic. I suppose the difference was that in TNG it was usually wrapped up in fairly sanitized storytelling, whereas here they are embracing their higher rating by not pulling the punch, so to speak.

[Quickbeam]

35 minutes ago, Llywela said:

Browsing around the Interwebz this morning, I see a lot of outraged fanboys complaining that violence, gore and vengeance have no place on a Star Trek show, which leads me to wonder which Star Trek show they think they are fans of, because honestly...TNG alone had more than its fair share of all three!

I mean, Icheb's torture and death was graphic and unpleasant, that's for sure, and it is sad to see that Seven has spent so many years of her life seeking revenge, but neither is anything unusual for Trek. TNG had an episode where the whole of Starfleet command was infiltrated and possessed by aliens, and the climax of that episode saw Picard and Riker phasering a man until his head exploded. There was another episode where K'Ehleyr was stabbed to death in her quarters on the Enterprise and died in a pool of blood in front of her toddler son. This prompted Worf, a Starfleet officer, to run off and kill a high-ranking Klingon politician purely to avenge her death - an act which, incidentally, also decisively resolved the future leadership of the Klingon High Council - with absolutely zero consequences. There was loads of violence in TNG, some of it extremely graphic. I suppose the difference was that in TNG it was usually wrapped up in fairly sanitized storytelling, whereas here they are embracing their higher rating by not pulling the punch, so to speak.

Plus the woman who slaughtered the crystalline entity for vengeance, my husband's favorite episode. 

[DavidJSnyder]

13 hours ago, greekmom said:

4. Did anyone get a vibe from Bjayzl that she and Seven were more than good friends? 

 

2 hours ago, MissLucas said:

Also: I wouldn't mind a spin-off about the Fenris Rangers (and I loved Rios fangirling about Seven yet not being able to remember her correct designation).

I am totally on board for a Seven of Nine, Pansexual Space Ranger show.

[greekmom]

9 hours ago, SourK said:

I want to know that too, mostly because that was such a weird pairing to begin with, and because I think Janeway was actively destroying the timeline to break them up. Gimme that 20-year-old tea, Star Trek: Picard.

I actually liked the Chakotay/Seven pairing. I remember remarking on this to Robert Beltran when I met him at Fan Expo years and years ago.  Writing it away with innuendos that Seven paired up with Bjayzl for a time makes me really sad that the writers just swept cannon under the rug.

Janeway fixed the timeline so Seven would survive along with Tuvok in the last two episodes of Voyager. 

At this point, if Agnes dies, I wouldn't care.  The character is so flat and boring. 

[Llywela]

20 minutes ago, greekmom said:

I actually liked the Chakotay/Seven pairing. I remember remarking on this to Robert Beltran when I met him at Fan Expo years and years ago.  Writing it away with innuendos that Seven paired up with Bjayzl for a time makes me really sad that the writers just swept cannon under the rug.

Janeway fixed the timeline so Seven would survive along with Tuvok in the last two episodes of Voyager. 

I do feel bad for people who were invested in relationships that have been shown not to have continued, but just because the timeline was altered so that Seven would live doesn't mean the relationship she had then just started to tentatively explore was necessarily going to last. Voyager was a really tiny community, which made for a very limited dating pool. Once the ship made it back to Earth, everything would have changed, for everyone on board. Their lives would have moved forward in a multitude of different directions, which would have proved a real test of relationships formed on board that had never had to face such a test before. Implying that Seven and Chakotay broke up doesn't alter canon* in any way, the relationship they had on Voyager still happened, all this show has done is continue that story by implying that the relationship didn't last. And honestly, their relationship happened so close to the end of the series and was so tentative that it doesn't seem unrealistic to me at all to learn that it didn't stand the test of time.

(* canon with only one n, unless you are planning to fire it at someone 😉 )

Edited February 21, 2020 by Llywela

[DavidJSnyder]

20 minutes ago, greekmom said:

I actually liked the Chakotay/Seven pairing. I remember remarking on this to Robert Beltran when I met him at Fan Expo years and years ago.  Writing it away with innuendos that Seven paired up with Bjayzl for a time makes me really sad that the writers just swept cannon under the rug.. 

I don't think that's writing it away.  Time had passed.  People breakup and move on to other romantic partners.  Doesn't mean the previous relationship didn't exist.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I can handle a lot of graphic stuff but eyeball stuff is where I draw the line. Blech!

[mrspidey]

10 hours ago, DrScottie said:

I don't think so. At the end of "The Best of Both Worlds," Dr. Crusher said she'd have no trouble removing the rest of the implants. 

And yet, in First Contact he "can still hear them". 

[marinw]

2 hours ago, Llywela said:

I mean, Icheb's torture and death was graphic and unpleasant, ... but neither is anything unusual for Trek.

ST Discovery has its' share of torture and mutilation.

And let us not forget the delightful Cardassian Torture Episode. 

Edited February 21, 2020 by marinw

[MissLucas]

3 hours ago, Llywela said:

Browsing around the Interwebz this morning, I see a lot of outraged fanboys complaining that violence, gore and vengeance have no place on a Star Trek show, which leads me to wonder which Star Trek show they think they are fans of, because honestly...TNG alone had more than its fair share of all three!

(...) I suppose the difference was that in TNG it was usually wrapped up in fairly sanitized storytelling, whereas here they are embracing their higher rating by not pulling the punch, so to speak.

Sounds a lot like what went down when TNG came out. It sounds trite but apparently folks tend to forget/ignore it but every iteration of Star Trek (and other shows) is also a reflection of its own time. TNG came out during a period of optimism where a lot seemed possible and there was talk of 'the end of history' (which always sounded crazy to me but that's another story) so it made sense to imagine a pretty utopian future (which still wasn't perfect). Now that history is once again biting us hard in our collective derrière the story-telling is reflecting that too.

Not to mention that DS9 had already started to show the cracks in ST's brave new world.

[oldCJ]

1 hour ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I can handle a lot of graphic stuff but eyeball stuff is where I draw the line. Blech!

I might be a big baby, but I turned it off. When did Star Trek turn into the next Saw or Hostel?

[TVbitch]

I finally caught up, so this is more of a general comment on the series thus far. 

I'm surprised some people are disappointed that there is not more action. For me, TNG was always more on the talky, philosophical, character study side of things with bits and bursts of action ...and that's why I liked it! I actually wanted to see/hear more about how Picard went from still seemingly being the Picard we knew in trying to rescue the Romulans, to being defeated, isolated and shut down for 14  years! 

Can't abide Picard doing the camp "hwah hawh" Frenchie acting. Jesus God, he used to be totally embarrassed and dismantled if Vash merely flirted with him! 

Some of the characters' personality cliches seem a bit extra. It's playing as more of a space soap opera to me, but I'm still in. 

Questions:

I can't remember, is there any precedent that Romulans do not think of incest as taboo?

Can Picard contact Q? Q adored Data, and I think would help out or even bring Data back. 

[marinw]

2 hours ago, TVbitch said:

Can Picard contact Q? Q adored Data, and I think would help out or even bring Data back. 

Good question. Q was driven by his whims, so who knows. Picard is loathe to ask Q for help with anything, and TPTB do have to be careful about using Q as a Deux Ex Machina too often. And they would need a way to explain John DeLancie's ageing, or have another Q visit Picard.

Edited February 21, 2020 by marinw

[Chit Chat]

3 hours ago, oldCJ said:

I might be a big baby, but I turned it off. When did Star Trek turn into the next Saw or Hostel?

I was yelling at Mr. Chat to hit the mute button as I covered my eyes!  Thing is, I think they needed that scene so that we'd be okay with Seven of Nine obliterating that lady (who did look like Troi to us too.)  I was totally on board with her beaming down guns blazing.  I'm sure we'll see her again, and for the record, thank goodness she wasn't in a catsuit! 

[F8.]

On 2/21/2020 at 3:36 AM, Capricasix said:

The actress who played Maddox’s captor and Seven’s enemy looked so familiar... I thought it might have been Suzie Plakson, but it wasn’t. Her name is Necar Zadegan; she’s appeared in several TV series, most recently on NCIS New Orleans.

I was the same and realised I knew her from "Crazy Ex Girlfriend" - now THIS is someone who has range!

On 2/21/2020 at 6:47 AM, Joimiaroxeu said:

I loved Rios dressed like a pimp. He didn't have the walk quite down though.

 

Ditto - in this episode he has gone from not to hot for me. He's REALLY loosened up and I likey.

 

[F8.]

20 hours ago, greekmom said:

This one was much better than the previous 2 episodes.  My thoughts:

1. Bjayzl looked like a young Troi. Damn they missed an opportunity.

2. Agnes was in love with Maddox but killed him. No no one saw her double cross coming.

3. Glad they gave closure to the Icheb storyline even if they did use another actor.  Sad that he died. Now what the frack happened to Chakotay??  

4. Did anyone get a vibe from Bjayzl that she and Seven were more than good friends? 

Can't wait to see what happens next week.

1. When I saw Bjayzl for a second or two I was stunned at how well Troi had aged - she really looked like her in those first few seconds.

2. Maybe that explains why she was hyperventilating before the transport and EMH appeared to try and calm her down.

4. Definitely - and it wouldn't be surprising to shoehorn in an LGBTQ vibe somewhere

Edited February 21, 2020 by F8.

[F8.]

16 hours ago, Kostgard said:

you gotta dress like Huggy Bear from Starsky & Hutch

Damn, you are showing my age! LOL

[F8.]

I'm realising why Raffi bugs me so much - apart from her calling Picard (ugh) "JL".

It was when she sat down with her son to try and reconcile in some way and went off the rails within seconds.

As soon as that happened I saw her for real - a skin stretched over bone crack head who is unstable.

It baffles me how she and Picard were so tight.

1 hour ago, TVbitch said:

I finally caught up, so this is more of a general comment on the series thus far. 

I'm surprised some people are disappointed that there is not more action. For me, TNG was always more on the talky, philosophical, character study side of things with bits and bursts of action ...and that's why I liked it! I actually wanted to see/hear more about how Picard went from still seemingly being the Picard we knew in trying to rescue the Romulans, to being defeated, isolated and shut down for 14  years! 

Can't abide Picard doing the camp "hwah hawh" Frenchie acting. Jesus God, he used to be totally embarrassed and dismantled if Vash merely flirted with him! 

Some of the characters' personality cliches seem a bit extra. It's playing as more of a space soap opera to me, but I'm still in. 

Questions:

I can't remember, is there any precedent that Romulans do not think of incest as taboo?

Can Picard contact Q? Q adored Data, and I think would help out or even bring Data back. 

The "new" Picard can be quite jilting and yep that french accent was awful. Someone mentioned him hamming it up but when you are surround by people who can literally sniff out a lie you'd try to be more convincing.

Comment about action confirmed something I though which was maybe this is more of a binge show than a long slow burn. 

Can't believe we are already more than halfway through series - I'm sulking! lol

[F8.]

11 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

I got a kick out of the dumb, invasive advertisements, outlandish outfits

Right? They were a perfect, You go to a disreputable website you get heaps of popups - go to a disreputable planet 100's of years later and the annoying popup ads become annoying popup holograms lol

[xfuse]

Quote

Urgh, this shit is dumb and annoying and I don't know how much more I can take. Why would anybody extract Borg parts without anesthesia? Obviously just to seem extra cruel to the viewer. Why would you extract 20 year old Borg parts anyway? They can't be worth that much anymore.

Not only could she had contained him and drained his nanobots for years she could have just set him up to take down more borg. He was genetically modified to take down borg cubes. Why not drug him, track him, put him in path of a borg cube and then they would have a cube full off spare parts. She could have done this for years.

[starri]

Look at the name of the bar!!!!!

[paigow]

WTF! Why was Maddox recast with a guy so physically different.???? Original Maddox was taller, clean shaven... It was like replacing Charlie Sheen with Charlie Day...

Rios needs to re-code his EMH to focus on the actual sick guy with real medical problems...

Conveniently, there will be no video surveillance footage from Sickbay and the EMH did not record what happened.

Mr. Mot left the Enterprise for Freecloud? Surprised he did not follow Picard to France

[mrspidey]

7 hours ago, oldCJ said:

I might be a big baby, but I turned it off. When did Star Trek turn into the next Saw or Hostel?

When Picard and Riker made some dude's head explode very graphically in the episode Conspiracy

Edited February 22, 2020 by mrspidey

[paigow]

1 hour ago, mrspidey said:

When Picard and Riker made some dude's head explode very graphically in the episode Conspiracy

The only way to be sure that the centipede parasite was dead....