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S02.E04: Watcher

formerlyfreedom

By formerlyfreedom
in Star Trek: Picard

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Llywela

Llywela

1 hour ago, marinw said:

I can accept the casting change, but Guinan going from chill, philosophical Guinan to angry Guinan is a bit much. I know people are shaped by thier life experience and wisdom can be gaine perspective can be gained from these experience's, but Guinan's baseline personality is just so different here. Is she on Earth before or after her home planet got Borged? Who knows.

The way I see it, this is a Guinan who has lived through all the atrocities of the last 130 years without having had a formative encounter with Jean Luc Picard in 1893 to give her any hope at all for the future. Our Guinan always had that to hang onto, that no matter how bad things got, the future would be brighter, humanity would eventually rise above it all and evolve, become better than they knew they could be. This Guinan has never had that. And she has lived through it all. All those horrific wars. The prejudice. The abuse. Atrocity after atrocity, and no one has ever offered her even the tiniest slither of hope to hang onto, so she has no reason to believe things will ever improve. Quite the reverse, she sees things getting steadily worse and worse all the time. This is a Guinan who has given humanity long enough and is not prepared to give them any more, because she does not believe they are worth it. She has lost all hope and has given up. And when you really think through her circumstances, that's fair enough, actually.

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Llywela
Llywela

Wow, you guys are buzzkills. So much negativity. 😟 Guinan doesn't recognise Picard because the timeline has been changed. The change hasn't happened yet, but the impact has, and it rippled both f

cambridgeguy
cambridgeguy

Simple - it was too expensive to digitally de-age Whoopi Goldberg for an entire episode, and even if they had tried people would have bitched about the dodgy effects.  Using present day Whoopi?  Peopl

Llywela
Llywela

The way I see it, this is a Guinan who has lived through all the atrocities of the last 130 years without having had a formative encounter with Jean Luc Picard in 1893 to give her any hope at all for

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Ottis

Ottis

(edited)

Terribly uninteresting. I only watched scenes with Guinan and Agnes/Borg queen, fast-forwarded through the meaningless, budget-saving 2024 shenanigans. And I don't think I missed a thing.

They can't get out of 2024 fast enough, IMO. What a waste.

I agree with others that the Guinan scenes made no sense. Neither in what she knew, how she behaved nor how she looked. And yet saying his name granted Picard instant access.

On 3/24/2022 at 1:23 PM, Llywela said:

Wow, you guys are buzzkills. So much negativity. 😟

Half of each episode is pointless, so we're only negative 50% of the time?

On 3/24/2022 at 1:23 PM, Llywela said:

Guinan doesn't recognise Picard because the timeline has been changed. The change hasn't happened yet, but the impact has, and it rippled both forward and backward in time.

That is an admirable effort. It only leaves out the fact that, even when timelines are different, the essence of the characters are the same. They may have gone good or bad, but their personalities, habits, mannerisms, way of speaking, etc., remain the same. That's why shows focus on events that created situational change but not always personality change. And this Guinan was like someone dropped a brand new character into the franchise.

Picard has been hugely disappointing. I enjoy Discovery far more, even with its overemoting Michaelness. And I hope, more than I should, probably, that Strange New Worlds is "just right."

Edited by Ottis
Pallas

Pallas

On 3/25/2022 at 11:16 AM, mrspidey said:

Here's an idea, based on the smoky portal sfx:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDyTVvPzNzU

 

When Guinan warned Picard that the Watcher might "scratch your eyelids off,"  I said, "Grudge."  Then her title "Supervisor" rang a bell and when the show was over, I told a friend about Gary-the-Original-Seven, Assignment Earth and 21-year-old Teri Garr as Roberta Lincoln, playing with the desk-set pens used to open the secret portal, and unfazed by elevating levels of weirdness. 

Isis, equally unfazed and poised on Gary's back, stepping closer to oversee his work as he lay prone on the gantry and tinkered with the steaming rocket. "That, Miss Lincoln, is simply my cat." 

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starri

starri

My mind went to Gary Seven as well.  To my mind, it would be deeply cool if this had anything to do with that.  The beta-canon said his employer was a group of aliens called the Aegis, who were, like the El-Aurians, sensitive to changes in the timeline and took it as their mission to protect it.  I'm not holding my breath that they'll make that actually canon, but I can dream.

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Guest

Guest

(edited)
6 hours ago, Llywela said:

The way I see it, this is a Guinan who has lived through all the atrocities of the last 130 years without having had a formative encounter with Jean Luc Picard in 1893 to give her any hope at all for the future. Our Guinan always had that to hang onto, that no matter how bad things got, the future would be brighter, humanity would eventually rise above it all and evolve, become better than they knew they could be. This Guinan has never had that. And she has lived through it all. All those horrific wars. The prejudice. The abuse. Atrocity after atrocity, and no one has ever offered her even the tiniest slither of hope to hang onto, so she has no reason to believe things will ever improve. Quite the reverse, she sees things getting steadily worse and worse all the time. This is a Guinan who has given humanity long enough and is not prepared to give them any more, because she does not believe they are worth it. She has lost all hope and has given up. And when you really think through her circumstances, that's fair enough, actually.

All of this. Plus is just unrealistic to think an naturally optimistic person can’t have periods of pessimism or anger particularly over a span of nearly 500 years. Even if this Guinan had met Picard and the others in the past I still wouldn’t have a problem with her being angry and cynical at a point that is being presented as a lynchpin moment for humanity. 

Edited by Guest
Hiyo

Hiyo

Quote

These guys cannot keep TNG canon going

The TNG people couldn't keep TNG canon going.

Quote

All of this. Plus is just unrealistic to think an naturally optimistic can’t have periods of pessimism or anger particularly over a span of nearly 500 years. Even if this Guinan had met Picard and the others in the past I still wouldn’t have a problem with her being angry and cynical at a point that is being presented as a lynchpin moment for humanity. 

Yup.

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starri

starri

I'm not much for shipping, generally, but I will absolutely ship Seven and Raffi.  Great chemistry, unapologetically queer, and both of them are over 50.  Any of those individually is a rarity on TV, so to have all three at one...

My favorite part, though, was how it happened because someone took a picture of Jeri and Michelle together and when they saw the finished product and how gorgeous they looked together, they asked the producers to lean into it.

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cambridgeguy

cambridgeguy

20 minutes ago, marinw said:

About that bus scene: I'm assuming Seven and Raffi replicated some money. Or maybe transit in 2024 LA is free. Free transit is catching on in several cities. I do wonder about reverse engineering a credit card using the tech from a fascist future. The crew knows they won't get far in 2024 without money.

Raffi took some cash and a metro card from the guy who tried to mug her last episode.  No reason to come up with some fancy high tech solution when you can just snag it from a local.  Looks like she got a bunch of ones though, so maybe the next criminal she runs into will have a roll of hundreds.

image.thumb.png.8d9432733a3dd815d9322d7c24a7640b.png

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Haleth

Haleth

It's been decades since I'd watched any of the other shows so I don't remember other time travel stories and any inconsistencies with this current one.  I'm just taking it at face value.  I was a little disappointed in how young Guinan was portrayed though.  If the narrative hadn't told me this was Guinan I would not have guessed it was her.  I do understand why they couldn't (or chose not to) de-age Whoopi but this young version seemed too emotional and angry.  It was more her personality than her appearance that concerned me.  But, whatever.  Go with the flow.

On 3/25/2022 at 12:02 PM, Chaos Theory said:

“You and I trade sad sack stories in between pressing catastrophes.”   If that does not signal the start of a beautiful friendship or the start of a fanfic community I don’t know what does?

Agnes should have brought back some of that pinot noir to share with the queen while trading stories.  THAT would have been fun to watch.

I'm afraid for Agnes.

Loving the Seven/Raffi adventures.

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salaydouk

salaydouk

1 minute ago, marinw said:

In "I, Borg,",Dr Chrusher mentioned the Borg make their nutrition out of energy. So as long as she's plugged in and can draw from the ship

s power, she won't starve.

Yeah.... i vaguely remember that.  But don't the Borg also have to go into a regeneration cycle too?  Or is the Borg Queen the exception since she feeds on the drones?  If so then how is she feeding/regenerating without a collective? 

Based on what we know of the food replicators they are doing the same thing, no?   Don't they  convert energy in to matter? So technically even the humans using them are doing the same thing as the Borg, just without the extra step of eating. 😜 

salaydouk

salaydouk

3 hours ago, TVbitch said:

I thought only Q could remove Q's powers? Are we in for a cameo from Corbin Bernsen? 

Why did young Picard have a French accent at the vineyard calling for his maman? 

 

Just guessing

1) That is the shows way of telling us he was "actually" speaking in French but they did not want to have to make the kid speak French and add subtitles later?  🙃 

2) He hasn't had his English tutor/governess yet. This was the non-canon explanation/in joke to explain the reason for why a Frenchman(Picard) spoke English with an English(Stewart's) accent. While supposedly an Iowan(Kirk) spoke English with an occasional French-Canadian accent(Shatner's) becuase he had a Quebecois nanny.  🙃  Example watch "Journey to Babel" and listen when Shatner says the word "delegates."

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paigow

paigow

32 minutes ago, tessaray said:

The Voyage Home is one of my favorite guilty pleasures, so I really enjoyed the callbacks in the episode.

An alien probe arrived in 2024 looking - not for whale songs - but broadcast signals of TOS episodes... Failing to find any, a global EMP was fired. Rios, Seven & Raffi must occupy a local TV station, reboot the transmitter with a tricorder and air Amok Time before the aliens escalate the devastation...

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txhorns79

txhorns79

11 hours ago, tessaray said:

Agnes and the Queen were creepy in a great way, though. I wouldn't mind a whole episode focused on them. 

They are my favorite part.  In some alternate universe, they are challenging Raffi and Seven for the the title of the show's power couple. 

As an aside, the actress who plays the Queen is really good.  She has no hive, she is missing half her body, but she is so menacing and scary. 

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marinw

marinw

2 hours ago, txhorns79 said:

As an aside, the actress who plays the Queen is really good.  She has no hive, she is missing half her body, but she is so menacing and scary. 

As I've said before, I've been a fan of Annie Werchang since 24. She's one of those "Working Actors" who never got her own series but has been on about a million different shows. Fun fact: her first acting role was on Enterprise.

I predict she will manipulate Agnes into fashioning her a pair of legs.

ML89

ML89

On 3/25/2022 at 5:39 AM, Llywela said:

So with Elnor already lost (and yeah, that was a relationship that needed more groundwork - even a single scene together in the season premiere would have helped),

Definitely. Am I the only one who thinks that whole bit is way over the top? 
 

On 3/25/2022 at 12:17 AM, Starchild said:

 

Minor point: those Confederation communicator badges are freakin' HUGE!

Major point: Seven and Raffi are the buddy cop movie I never knew I always needed.

 

They could wear those badges inside their jackets…I wonder why Agnes hasn’t hacked one of the satellites to make a relay.

On 3/24/2022 at 11:45 AM, MissLucas said:

The ongoing buddy movie that is Raffi and Seven was also great. It's so much fun to see Seven being the one with social grace for a change. A

Love the buddy cop movie but I’m really beginning to wonder if those Rangers Seven was hanging out with were a mastermind, a hacker, a hitter,  and a thief…

I also want Seven and Raffi to bust out Rios and then a US Marshall team start following them. Is there a train by that road? (which looks like the same terrain The A-Team used a lot).

Did like seeing the punk from Voyage Home has not changed and him feeling his neck when Seven yelled at him was a nice touch  but then again, if they wanted to have that conversation about all the big plot things around other people, maybe the music would have been a better cover?

I liked Nu Guinan well enough since I was never a huge fan of the character but I so hate the cryptic. I mean, Guinan couldn’t say “three days from now is X” even if it was just “Tax Day”?

I wish we’d spent more time in Futureworld before coming back to Bad Earth, because, really, what was rather light footed last week is turning into a slog. A little car chase would have gone a long way. The stuff at Chateau Picard is just dull. No one could turn on CNN  in the ship? Also GPS? So you’ve got a gadget that can track everything and it can’t bring up what’s going on in the world? Also too many people not on phones. Who was helpful dude at LAPD?

 

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Starchild

Starchild

4 hours ago, marinw said:

I predict she will manipulate Agnes into fashioning her a pair of legs.

Or strap her to her back, wookie-style.

 

3 hours ago, ML89 said:

I liked Nu Guinan well enough since I was never a huge fan of the character but I so hate the cryptic. I mean, Guinan couldn’t say “three days from now is X” even if it was just “Tax Day”?

Oh yeah that was the other thing that made me roll my eyes. 

Agnes: I keep getting the number "15"

Picard: Oh that must mean the inflection point is the 15th.

Um..that's kind of a leap

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DrBriCa

DrBriCa

On 3/27/2022 at 12:39 PM, salaydouk said:

Yeah.... i vaguely remember that.  But don't the Borg also have to go into a regeneration cycle too?  Or is the Borg Queen the exception since she feeds on the drones?  If so then how is she feeding/regenerating without a collective? 

She was knocked out after the crash landing, which in some ways could've allowed her to regenerate while "offline." Certainly her brief link with Agnes gave her a boost. We also didn't see whether the BQ was still awake or back to regenerating while JL & Agnes were strolling through Chateau Picard. Plus, presumably everything since the landing has been over the course of hours, so none of the characters are looking super sleep-deprived, even though the events leading up to their slingshot around the sun were already occurring in a SF eveningtime. (Though on that note, ICE in 2024 must be super fast at processing based on Rios's super long, no good, very bad day!)

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benteen

benteen

(edited)

Q affecting himself actually makes sense. Remember he was once depowered on TNG and had to take refuge on the Enterprise-D. It was because of his actions there that he got his powers back. With no Federation Enterprise, he never would have gotten his powers back. So if that is the case, the brilliant Q might have bit himself at his own game.

This episode was okay but was the weakest this season. Rios is spending way too much time in lock-up. Time to move it along. It's not a good storyline. Picard's scenes with Guinan are good. Fun to see the pink on the bus return. Some fun Easter Eggs like Jackson Roykirk and one no one seemed to catch the woman at the end was reading a book by Tracy Torme. Tracy is the son of the late Mel Torme and was a key writer during TNG's first 2 seasons. I have read that he and not Rick Berman was supposed to have become the next showrunner but left after a falling out.

Interesting bit about Chateau Picard being abandoned during the Nazi occupation and Picard having relatives in England. Probably explains his complete lack of a French accent.

Edited by benteen
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tennisgurl

tennisgurl

(edited)

I would love a whole episode of the Queen and Agnes, all of their scenes are so creepy. Huge kudos to the actress playing the Queen, she's got quite the uncanny valley thing going on, even without half of her body being gone. She's just so eerie, feeling very alien while also recognizably human in a way, which just making her even more off-putting.

I am sure that this has been discussed and probably explained, but it feels weird how little the past feels like what has been established by Trek cannon. Shouldn't we still be cleaning up after Khan and the other super people divided the world into kingdoms in the 90s? I am not even so much annoyed at continuity (Trek has always struggled with its older continuity) but I would have found that all to be more interesting than the gang just wondering around what is basically modern times so they can comment on every modern social issue they can find. Oh well, with all of the time travel hijinks that happens in Trek, it might just be that the timeline keeps changing so much that hardly any of that could be cannon right now, especially with the new darker future. 

Its taken a few decades, but we finally have an explanation for why the Picard's all speak with British accents despite being from France! 

I am a bit behind this season, but while some of the plots are a bit slow and I miss Elnor, I am still really liking this season! Star Trek 4 is one of my favorite Trek movies, so I am happy to get the shout outs, especially the punk rocker. 

Edited by tennisgurl
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marinw

marinw

(edited)

A key difference between this Season of Picard and The Voyage Home: In TVH, Kirk and Crew knew better than to try to change the timeline, they weren't trying to save the whales from extintion. They instead choose the bring the Whales into their time. I assume Spock gained concent from the Whales with a mindmeld. There were still a few ripples to the timeline, like the introduction of transperant Aluminium. Scotty was enough of a historic tech geek to master the the first Macintosh. Not everybody from the 23rd Century could have done that.

Edited by marinw
salaydouk

salaydouk

(edited)
4 hours ago, benteen said:

 Some fun Easter Eggs like Jackson Roykirk and one no one seemed to catch.

 Oh I caught that one... it was so in your face it was impossible to miss - "The Changling".  Ironic too be cause that darn machine got scrambled and had to eliminate imperfect biological infestations. Which is humanity no matter time or age. 🙄

1 hour ago, marinw said:

A key difference between this Season of Picard and The Voyage Home: In TVH, Kirk and Crew knew better than to try to change the timeline, they weren't trying to save the whales from extintion,  they instead choose the bring the Whales into their time, I assume Spock gained concent for this with a mindmeld. There were still a few ripples to the timeline, like the introduction of transperant Aluminium. Scotty was enough of a historic tech geek to master the the first Macintosh. Not everybody from the 23rd Century could have done that.

Well based on this threads assumptions, and what the writers supposedly "confirmed", since the divergence affected all events after 2024 and therefore any time travels of Kick and Picard to time before 2024 are also affected. So that means that the 2024 that we are currently seeing isn't even the correct timeline and therefore I don't believe they really need to be concerned about creating any ripples/changes. No? Because what they are already seeing is "dorked" and would be corrected if they prevent the divergence from happenining. 

1 hour ago, marinw said:

 Scotty was enough of a historic tech geek to master the the first Macintosh. Not everybody from the 23rd Century could have done that.

And Scotty... sigh... just pure awesomeness! Holds up mouse, "Hello Computer!" and "Keyboard, how quaint." Cracks knuckles and off to the races.... Forever engraved into my brain! 

 

Edited by salaydouk
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benteen

benteen

1 hour ago, salaydouk said:

 Oh I caught that one... it was so in your face it was impossible to miss - "The Changling".  Ironic too be cause that darn machine got scrambled and had to eliminate imperfect biological infestations. Which is humanity no matter time or age. 🙄

Well based on this threads assumptions, and what the writers supposedly "confirmed", since the divergence affected all events after 2024 and therefore any time travels of Kick and Picard to time before 2024 are also affected. So that means that the 2024 that we are currently seeing isn't even the correct timeline and therefore I don't believe they really need to be concerned about creating any ripples/changes. No? 

And Scotty... sigh... just pure awesomeness! Just awesome.  Holds up mouse, "Hello Computer!" and "Keyboard, how quaint." Cracks knuckles and off to the races.... Forever engraved into my brain! 

 

I just  fixed my error on that one. I meant to say the Tracy Torme Easter egg is the one no one seemed to pick up on.

salaydouk

salaydouk

(edited)
9 minutes ago, benteen said:

I just  fixed my error on that one. I meant to say the Tracy Torme Easter egg is the one no one seemed to pick up on.

no worries... because it seems like we might have been the only two to catch it.   And I missed the Torme one completely until you mentioned it.  I had been trying to figure out what about the actress was specifically so special to now realize it was the book, i am like duh!   

Edited by salaydouk
starri

starri

5 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I am sure that this has been discussed and probably explained, but it feels weird how little the past feels like what has been established by Trek cannon. Shouldn't we still be cleaning up after Khan and the other super people divided the world into kingdoms in the 90s? I am not even so much annoyed at continuity (Trek has always struggled with its older continuity) but I would have found that all to be more interesting than the gang just wondering around what is basically modern times so they can comment on every modern social issue they can find.

Star Trek IV showed us the 80s, Voyager showed us the 90s, Enterprise showed us the 00s, and DS9 already showed us 2024.  What we've been shown thus far is pretty consistent with the themes that DS9 explored.

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salaydouk

salaydouk

(edited)
6 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I am sure that this has been discussed and probably explained, but it feels weird how little the past feels like what has been established by Trek cannon. Shouldn't we still be cleaning up after Khan and the other super people divided the world into kingdoms in the 90s? I am not even so much annoyed at continuity (Trek has always struggled with its older continuity) but I would have found that all to be more interesting than the gang just wondering around what is basically modern times so they can comment on every modern social issue they can find. Oh well, with all of the time travel hijinks that happens in Trek, it might just be that the timeline keeps changing so much that hardly any of that could be cannon right now, especially with the new darker future. 

So in my opinion this is where the guessing of ST and the realities 20th/21st century life simply come into conflict.  So there are two choices: one keep to the original guess or two start to "delay" your guess.  ST TOS was shown in 1967-69 during arguably the height of the Cold War and the Space Race. At the time it was not a matter of if but a matter of when World War III would occur.  So with the 90s feeling like an eternity away ST decided to plant WWIII as occuring then using Khan and the Augments as the antagonists.  So if they kept to the original guess, you are correct the Earth would still be mopping up after a WW and the Earth shown should not resemble anything of what we know.   But following that route would then take ST out what I have always thought was its main point of showing where humanity on the planet now will be in 400 years. Also by the time we got around to TNG in the 90s we knew Eugenics was not yet possible and we were possibly the furthest away from a WW that we had ever been.  So "Encounter at Farpoint" would have looked/sounded pretty silly to viewers in 1987 if it stated the "post-atomic horror" happened in late 20th-century when there was only 14 years left to go. Which is why Picard instead said it(WWIII) happened in mid-21st century and based on the characters/Central Asia costuming in the episode the intent was still to imply the Eugenics Wars were still apart of a WWIII.  So I have always "rolled with ST" here because they did not remove events from the ST timeline just moved them. 

Edited by salaydouk
Llywela

Llywela

11 hours ago, marinw said:

A key difference between this Season of Picard and The Voyage Home: In TVH, Kirk and Crew knew better than to try to change the timeline, they weren't trying to save the whales from extintion. They instead choose the bring the Whales into their time. I assume Spock gained concent from the Whales with a mindmeld. There were still a few ripples to the timeline, like the introduction of transperant Aluminium. Scotty was enough of a historic tech geek to master the the first Macintosh. Not everybody from the 23rd Century could have done that.

The Picard crew aren't trying to change the timeline either - Agnes actively warned them before leaving the ship to be careful not to make any waves. They are trying to prevent a change to the timeline, which is a whole different ballgame.

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