S03.E10: Part Ten - The Last Generation

[Affogato]

Having them take off before we learned Seven's catchphrase is brilliant  because it indicates her legacy is not yet established and there is a push into the future.

I liked the first two seasons better, when the reunion characters were worked into the fabric of the show and the new characters were part of the story as well.

Yeah, this was stupid, boring and didn't make sense, but everyone forgot it because of the end scene. So a reunion show, I guess.

 

[Egg McMuffin]

The Borg Queen looked terrible, btw. Some moisturizer might work wonders.

[Affogato]

Just now, Egg McMuffin said:

The Borg Queen looked terrible, btw. Some moisturizer might work wonders.

WD40

[Chicago Redshirt]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

Topic: Can someone take me through the timeline of the Borg Queen? Was the one in this episode the one that Janeway infected in the final episode of Voyager? Wasn't the Borg Queen also destroyed in ST: First Contact? How many Borg Queens have there been and in what order were they destroyed? And am I correct in thinking this season completely ignored the timeline change from last season that made Agnes the new Borg Queen?

It has never really been made particularly clear if there is one Borg Queen period at any given time or multiple Borg Queens.

The concept of a Borg Queen was introduced in Star Trek: First Contact (i.e. ST:8). In that one, Picard basically says to the Borg Queen that he recognizes her from his assimilation in Best of Both Worlds and wonders how she survived. That Queen basically says: Silly human, thinking so three dimensionally.

I don't remember VOY all that well, but Janeway and Co. had various skirmishes with the Borg and a couple directly involving the Borg Queen. The S6/S7 two-parter Unimatrix Zero pertained to a rebellion among the Borg with some developing individuality. The Borg Queen wanted Voyager to help snuff it out in exchange for transwarp tech that would get them back to Earth. The VOY series finale Endgame involved an alternate future Admiral Janeway allowing herself to be assimilated because she had made herself toxic to the Borg. It seemed that the Borg Queen was the first to die as a result of this.

We don't really pick up directly from that situation at all, to the best of my recollection. 

In Picard S1, (which is probably about two-three decades after Endgame) we see various ex-Borg, but there is not really much mention of the/a queen and what happened to her or the rest of the Borg post-Endgame.

In Picard S2, we are introduced to some Borg who specifically request JLP and who ultimately prove to be of a faction led by Jurati. Q sends the crew to an alternate universe where the Borg have been all but defeated by a militaristic alternative Picard, where the only remnant seems to be a mostly defanged Queen. Our Heroes travel back from to a common past with that universe, where that Queen gets mostly killed, but enough of her exists to coax Jurati into Queendom. Jurati Queen says she's going to create a new collective where there is no more forced assimilation and people can join in if they want to.

Picard S3 seems to mostly ignore the previous seasons. It could be that the Jurati-led Borg still are out there. One of the many failings of this season IMO is that it should have explained what happened to the Jurati Borg and why Picard did not call on them for assistance in this latest Borg plot.

[ch1]

1 hour ago, TVbitch said:

The most hilarious part for me was when Picard hugged the "Borg" out of Jack and Jack starts remembering all their amazing times together as father and son ..such as that time Picard walked up to him, the time Picard looked at him, that other time Picard looked at him, and the one drink they had together. Powerful stuff. 🤣

Which is why Picard becoming a father now is too little too late.  Picard having a kid should have happened in one of the movies or the first season of this show.  Not when the man is like a hundred and you have 10 episodes to tell the story.
 

[jah1986]

I admit I felt let down by this finale. It was great seeing the OG cast together, but I was really hoping for a Wesley sighting. And while we're on the topic of hugs, why did "Crash" LaForge hug Seven when her sister was standing right there? Like, shouldn't you have a closer relationship with your sister?

Worf was my favorite of the returning crew and I did give a little "aww" at Admiral Anton Chekov, but did they kill him off too?

When is Lower Decks coming back?

[Egg McMuffin]

8 minutes ago, jah1986 said:

I admit I felt let down by this finale. It was great seeing the OG cast together, but I was really hoping for a Wesley sighting. And while we're on the topic of hugs, why did "Crash" LaForge hug Seven when her sister was standing right there? Like, shouldn't you have a closer relationship with your sister?

The pacing was off for the season. They spent a lot of timing building up to the real Big Bad, the Borg Queen, and had to rush through the resolution in two episodes. For example, the beacon stopped and the DNA of all the assimilated peeps immediately reverted to normal? Like in seconds? I seem to recall when Seven of Nine was broken from the collective, it took her several episodes (and some surgeries IIRC) before she was up and functioning as a human.

[Chicago Redshirt]

6 minutes ago, jah1986 said:

I admit I felt let down by this finale. It was great seeing the OG cast together, but I was really hoping for a Wesley sighting. And while we're on the topic of hugs, why did "Crash" LaForge hug Seven when her sister was standing right there? Like, shouldn't you have a closer relationship with your sister?

Worf was my favorite of the returning crew and I did give a little "aww" at Admiral Anton Chekov, but did they kill him off too?

When is Lower Decks coming back?

Given the choice between hugging one of my siblings and Seven, I know which I would choose. :)

I think they were saying Anton Chekov was the Federation president. So he was sending out a warning from San Francisco or somewhere else on Earth. Presumably he survived because the Millenial Borg were not able to actually start bombarding Earth.

The Internet seems to only say Lower Decks is coming this summer sometime. It appears that Strange New Worlds is running from June 15-August 17. I would guesstimate Lower Decks will start late August after SNW finishes.

[Frozendiva]

1 hour ago, Affogato said:

WD40

Calgon or Palmolive.

[Chicago Redshirt]

1 minute ago, Egg McMuffin said:

The pacing was off for the season. They spent a lot of timing building up to the real Big Bad, the Borg Queen, and had to rush through the resolution in two episodes. For example, the beacon stopped and the DNA of all the assimilated peeps immediately reverted to normal? Like in seconds? I seem to recall when Seven of Nine was broken from the collective, it took her several episodes (and some surgeries IIRC) before she was up and functioning as a human.

In fairness, Seven had spent 20+ years assimilated. The Millennial Borg was assimilated for maybe a day if we're being generous, and I would expect with assimilation the cliche holds true, easy come, easy go. 

[Affogato]

1 hour ago, ch1 said:

Which is why Picard becoming a father now is too little too late.  Picard having a kid should have happened in one of the movies or the first season of this show.  Not when the man is like a hundred and you have 10 episodes to tell the story.
 

It would have been interesting if they had a character all through the three seasons who turns out to have been his son, who showed up to scope him out without him knowing who he was.

[paigow]

2 hours ago, Affogato said:

Having them take off before we learned Seven's catchphrase is brilliant 

• Just Do It
• Push It... Push it Real Good
• All Aboard The Crazy Train
• Turn and Burn
• For Asgard, For Family

[Egg McMuffin]

Sit on it!

[Francie]

3 hours ago, TVbitch said:

While I will not be assimilating Picard into my ST memory, I hope the actors were paid well and enjoyed the hell out of themselves and I am forever grateful to them for TNG. I will always just think of Picard as some unfortunate fan fiction Patrick Stewart dreamt up. And as that, I hope it was everything he wanted. 

I like that sentiment.

I honestly hope I can wipe my memory of this season. Nothing happened - there wasn't a single moment where I thought -- oh, I want to revisit that. Every moment that starting leaning toward something I would appreciate would immediately be cut short or turned into a joke. I felt like the show runners were only using the TNG characters, other than "Frakes"* and Worf, to the extent they were contractually obligated. 

*The showrunners weren't writing for Riker. Other than the wholly new "my boy! My dear boy male son who is dead ... and a boy!" angst, they were writing Frakes into the scripts. 

My big take away of having watched this series:

Rotten Tomatoes no longer has any credibility with me.

I can't say I relied on it much, but I did use it as a casual reference tool. This season received a 100% fresh rating. That seemed to have been the result of show runners picking and choosing many sycophantic publications that were approved as reviewers and scraping by with only the most slightly positive ratings from more mainstream publications (Rolling Stone, TV Guide, etc.). Regardless, I'll never trust a high collective rating score ever again. 

Edited April 21, 2023 by Francie

[marinw]

I did like how Seven brought together some random crew people who were too old to get Borged and rallied them to do stuff. Not everybody in Starfleet wants to rise in the ranks, some people define success in other ways and that’s good too.

I'm handwaving the presence of the cook as being there because Shaw may have preferred “real” food to the replicator. See also: Pike.

Edited April 21, 2023 by marinw

[tennisgurl]

13 minutes ago, marinw said:

I'm handwaving the presence of the cook as being there because Shaw may have preferred “real” food to the replicator. See also: Pike.

Even with replicators I imagine that a lot of people still like to cook and eat home cooked food, on DS9 Captain Sisko really liked to cook and his dad owned a restaurant so there is still a market for people who want to eat food made by people and people who want to cook. I can imagine some ships have some actual people making food at times. 

Starfleet really should have thought more about the wisdom of fast tracking Jack to an important part of a crew, he doesn't seem to be the brightest phaser in the pack. Yeah Jack, go ahead and go to the villains with no backup plan whatsoever, giving them exactly what they want instead of waiting for five seconds to come up with a less stupid plan. Sure it looks all noble now, but if Picard hadn't been able to hug the Borg out of him he would have doomed the universe.  

[KeithJ]

On 4/20/2023 at 9:55 AM, greekmom said:

I guess Picard has forgotten all about Laris as much as Troi and Riker forgot about Kestra and Seven/Raffi with Elnor. 

On 4/20/2023 at 11:55 AM, Stardancer Supreme said:

Oh, and Terry Matalas also has to tell us what happened to Elnor.

On 4/20/2023 at 8:57 AM, FloatOn said:

And whatever happened to Laris? Or Elnor?

Just watched a video on YouTube which reminded me of something.  Elnor was assigned to the Excelsior.  He's now dead.

[catsitter]

On 4/20/2023 at 11:53 AM, AllyB said:

I don't think they ever fired on those cities. They were just gearing up to. For several very, very, very long minutes. But even with earth itself not being attacked, many Starfleet officers aged 26+ were killed on the ships and everyone at space dock was presumably killed. Which would have included any dignitaries on the dock for Frontier Day. Everyone at Starfleet, and probably everyone on earth who would have been terrified during the attack (and presumably there were killings on earth by under 25 year olds who'd been through the transportation system) would hate Jack. He wasn't even captured by the Changelings or the Borg like Picard was. He set off willingly to go to the queen, instead of taking even a few minutes to think about what might happen if he did exactly what earth's enemies clearly wanted him to do. He'll be even more despised than the last Ensign Crusher!

The line of the episode that summed up just how bad a fan fiction this whole thing felt like, was the Borg Queen taunting Jack in her defeat, moments from the cube exploding with: "Even if you do somehow survive........" It was all bad but the idea that in that moment of them being about to blow up, she's thinking vengefully about Jack feeling awkward and out of place after the escape the writers wanted you to be on the edge of your seat about. And then him and Picard taking the time to show her how much it will all be fine for Jack because his dad loves him. So she can be angry even though as far as everyone on the cube knows, they're about to explode. 

I'm genuinely very annoyed that so much great potential was wasted here for the sake of decent writing. But y'know, they got Walter Koenig to guest voice, and called Chekov's son Anton after Anton Yelchin. So memberberries. Hurray.

I assumed Anton was named after the playwright Anton Chekhov!

[paigow]

2 hours ago, marinw said:

I'm handwaving the presence of the cook as being there because Shaw may have preferred “real” food to the replicator. 

Only this guy should be a Starfleet Cook...

[Prevailing Wind]

3 hours ago, paigow said:

• Just Do It
• Push It... Push it Real Good
• All Aboard The Crazy Train
• Turn and Burn
• For Asgard, For Family

Comply.

[Chit Chat]

2 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Sure it looks all noble now, but if Picard hadn't been able to hug the Borg out of him he would have doomed the universe.  

Bwah!  If only they could've known ages ago how easy it was to deprogram someone from the Borg collective! Hugs! Hugs all around. 

[paigow]

2 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Even with replicators I imagine that a lot of people still like to cook and eat home cooked food, on DS9 Captain Sisko really liked to cook

Sisko could get food from Bajor... Did Shaw turn one of the cargo bays into a farm complete with Irish migrants???

[FloatOn]

2 hours ago, KeithJ said:

Just watched a video on YouTube which reminded me of something.  Elnor was assigned to the Excelsior.  He's now dead.

Since half of this show takes place in tidbits given to us by Terry Matalas in interviews, apparently we now know Elnor was not on the Excelsior and is fine.

[Egg McMuffin]

4 hours ago, marinw said:

I did like how Seven brought together some random crew people who were too old to get Borged and rallied them to do stuff. Not everybody in Starfleet wants to rise in the ranks, some people define success in other ways and that’s good too.

I'm handwaving the presence of the cook as being there because Shaw may have preferred “real” food to the replicator. See also: Pike.

That was one of the best parts of the finale - watching Seven be a real leader and rally the troops.

[Prevailing Wind]

I just cancelled Paramount+ & told them the reason was I have too many streaming services and Picard's 3rd season sucked.

 

[Chit Chat]

34 minutes ago, Egg McMuffin said:

That was one of the best parts of the finale - watching Seven be a real leader and rally the troops.

Yes, it was!  I would watch a spinoff with her and Raffi, and the rest of her crew.  I anxiously await her tagline, and it better not be as lame as "let's fly."  I need to hear something that matches her badass attitude!!

[Affogato]

2 minutes ago, Chit Chat said:

Yes, it was!  I would watch a spinoff with her and Raffi, and the rest of her crew.  I anxiously await her tagline, and it better not be as lame as "let's fly."  I need to hear something that matches her badass attitude!!

I never understood why people don’t like “let’s fly”. i like it better than most of them, in truth, and it suits Michael. It has an edge of freedom from constraint. Considering she was raised on vulcan, it suits. And it isn’t military. 
 

 

[Chit Chat]

5 minutes ago, Affogato said:

I never understood why people don’t like “let’s fly”.

I mean no disrespect to you, and I truly do appreciate everybody's point of view, but in the world of Star Trek, "let's fly" sounds so wimpy to me.  It does not project strength.  

[ML89]

On 4/20/2023 at 1:39 PM, AWhittle said:

Getting to the center of the cube... Return of the Jedi

Troi knowing where they are... Leia knowing where Luke was hanging in Empire Strikes Back😆

 

Riker saying he knows Picard’s feelings….ahem. Also Picard bringing Jack back with his family ties. (also YES on both references)

I was waiting for exterminate, not annihilate from the Borg.

Having watched so much M*A*S*H lately, I realize where they got the poker game from…

 

Edited April 22, 2023 by ML89

[Stardancer Supreme]

7 hours ago, jah1986 said:

I admit I felt let down by this finale. It was great seeing the OG cast together, but I was really hoping for a Wesley sighting. And while we're on the topic of hugs, why did "Crash" LaForge hug Seven when her sister was standing right there? Like, shouldn't you have a closer relationship with your sister?

 

Sidney has the utmost respect for Commander Seven, so coming to her senses realizing that she was pointing a phaser at her shocked Sidney to her core.  Plus it seemed that Alandra was closer to Geordi than Sidney was, so it wasn't really that out of bounds for Sidney to embrace Seven in front of her as opposed to her sister behind her.  Remember that when Seven showed the girls to their father onscreen, she was standing between them. 

[ML89]

7 hours ago, paigow said:

• Just Do It
• Push It... Push it Real Good
• All Aboard The Crazy Train
• Turn and Burn
• For Asgard, For Family

Let’s go steal what’s out there!

‘The pirate, the thief and the spy” had to be a Leverage nod.  

[Emily Thrace]

On 4/20/2023 at 12:28 PM, greekmom said:

Not at all.  They buried that hatchet years ago and do cons together.  I rather think that Kate Mulgrew knew it was a shit show and didn't want to join. They probably would have killed her off anyway like they did Ro and Shelby. 

I wonder if Matalas doesn't just want to save a Janeway and Seven reunion for the new show. When they have time to build a whole episode around it. Also a lot of this was filmed just post Covid so she may not have been available. 

[Stardancer Supreme]

8 hours ago, Egg McMuffin said:

The pacing was off for the season. They spent a lot of timing building up to the real Big Bad, the Borg Queen, and had to rush through the resolution in two episodes. For example, the beacon stopped and the DNA of all the assimilated peeps immediately reverted to normal? Like in seconds? I seem to recall when Seven of Nine was broken from the collective, it took her several episodes (and some surgeries IIRC) before she was up and functioning as a human.

 

The Borg had evolved with the help of the Changelings.  The young of Starfleet got that new improved cellular assimilation package.  Seven got the old fashioned metal and biological merger assimilation. She can't ever remove the implants on her face and hands. These kids got off light!

[Peace 47]

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 ….

Edited April 22, 2023 by Peace 47

[LJones41]

I guess I should have known better.  Like Seasons One and Two, Season Three ended up disappointing me.  I hate to say it, but this episode . . . and this season almost ended up feeling like a rehash of TNG's "Best of Both Worlds" and the 1996 movie, "First Contact" to me.  Very unoriginal and a lot of contrived writing.  Speaking of the latter, the idea that Seven-of-Nine ended up as a Starfleet captain some two years after the events of Season Two is just utterly ridiculous to me.  It's bad enough that within a year after that particular season, she ended up as a Commander and First Officer.  Even for fiction, I find that utterly contrived.

By the way, the Borg should have remained gone after the "Star Trek Voyager" series finale.

[paigow]

9 hours ago, Chit Chat said:

I mean no disrespect to you, and I truly do appreciate everybody's point of view, but in the world of Star Trek, "let's fly" sounds so 

redundant

[Francie]

16 hours ago, jah1986 said:

I admit I felt let down by this finale. It was great seeing the OG cast together, but I was really hoping for a Wesley sighting. And while we're on the topic of hugs, why did "Crash" LaForge hug Seven when her sister was standing right there? Like, shouldn't you have a closer relationship with your sister?

 

8 hours ago, Stardancer Supreme said:

Sidney has the utmost respect for Commander Seven, so coming to her senses realizing that she was pointing a phaser at her shocked Sidney to her core.  Plus it seemed that Alandra was closer to Geordi than Sidney was, so it wasn't really that out of bounds for Sidney to embrace Seven in front of her as opposed to her sister behind her.  Remember that when Seven showed the girls to their father onscreen, she was standing between them. 

I don't think there's any good narrative reason for it. 

Sidney hugged Seven because Seven is TM's favored character. Of course she'd get the attention and not the sister.

Unfortunately, Alandra only existed to give Geordi two daughters, because apparently having two children made him less incel than just the one. That was her sole purpose, and she was otherwise an afterthought to the showrunners. 

[Affogato]

1 hour ago, paigow said:

redundant

It is inclusive, something the group does together. Make it so is an order, so is hit it. 
 

warp me has a certain charm. Also a black woman. 

Edited April 22, 2023 by Affogato

[marinw]

As for the middle aged crew people it’s possible that they may have joined Starfleet later in life. I like that idea. IIRC McCoy joined after a career as a civilian doctor.

[paigow]

13 hours ago, marinw said:

IIRC McCoy joined after a career as a civilian doctor.

and TOS!Chapel, but they are outliers...

23 hours ago, Emily Thrace said:

I wonder if Matalas doesn't just want to save a Janeway and Seven reunion for the new show. When they have time to build a whole episode around it. 

This would be a five minute scene ... 

[Enterprise - G Ready Room]

[Video call in progress...]

Janeway: Congratulations Captain Seven!!

Seven: Thank you Admiral!

Janeway: Shaw was always an asshole...

Seven: No argument here... 

Raffi: [Off screen] Captain! Warp core breach!

Seven: Sorry Admiral, I must go.

Janeway: Very well. Good luck. Janeway out

Seven: Seven out. [Turns off monitor] Thank you Number One.

23 hours ago, Stardancer Supreme said:

The Borg had evolved with the help of the Changelings.  The young of Starfleet got that new improved cellular assimilation package.  

Jack got the O.G. Locutus face laser hand me down....

[marinw]

I like that Jack is self-aware enough to acknowledge that he's a nepo baby.

[Starchild]

On 4/21/2023 at 2:44 AM, Glade said:

I very much so want to see Star Trek: Legacy, for captain Seven

By the way, why "Legacy" as a series identifier?

[eelpout]

On 4/21/2023 at 12:48 PM, Francie said:

 

Rotten Tomatoes no longer has any credibility with me.

 

for me that Solanum lycopersicum went splat ages ago.

 

[Ottis]

On 4/20/2023 at 10:55 AM, greekmom said:

This should have been season 2 not 3.

That is for damn sure.

On 4/20/2023 at 3:15 PM, Linda956 said:

Having Q show up at the end makes me feel that everything that happened with Q in Season 2 was bullshit.

Everything that happened, period, in season 2 was bullshit ... it was *bad* bullshit, too.

So I enjoyed the fan service, thought the finale was satisfying emotionally, and will leave out nitpicks except for one question: When the Titan broke free and was buzzing through the fleet, firing, was it firing at *Starfleet ships* knowing that those ships almost certainly had crew members who were not yet assimilated (and could be fighting back) and that even those who were could be unassimilated if things went well? It seemed very un-Trek-like to be taking out their own ships. Did someone say they were only targeting weapons and I missed it?

Edited April 23, 2023 by Ottis

[paigow]

6 hours ago, Starchild said:

By the way, why "Legacy" as a series identifier?

Maybe these writers are Bosch fans... Bosch: Legacy focused on his daughter being a rookie cop and the extra pressure of her Legacy status... like a next generation college fraternity / sorority pledge...

Seven has no genetic link, but she could be defined as a Legacy Captain with her parents being Janeway & Picard... The worst case scenario is that Legacy refers to Jack...

[Starchild]

16 minutes ago, paigow said:

The worst case scenario is that Legacy refers to Jack...

Shudder to think. Hopefully TPTB will realize that focusing on Jack over Seven is a disaster waiting to happen.

[paigow]

7 hours ago, marinw said:

I like that Jack is self-aware enough to acknowledge that he's a nepo baby.

He should call Worf a coward... see how long that nepo shield lasts...

[CarpeFelis]

On 4/20/2023 at 5:45 PM, MissLucas said:

Not me, I enjoy Disco for the simple joy of  providing a snarkfeast supreme and because I started to write the diary of the only acceptable character of the show - a cat. Sadly I never managed to find that particular joy with Picard.

Dang, wish I could read that! Grudge was my favorite character. She is a Queen!

[MissLucas]

13 minutes ago, CarpeFelis said:

Dang, wish I could read that! Grudge was my favorite character. She is a Queen!

I only wrote two or three entries for the last couple of episodes of last season, they are in the episode threads. Too bad Spot was not in more episodes there might have been some potential 😁

[rtms77]

On 4/21/2023 at 10:05 AM, Chicago Redshirt said:

Seven presumably did not have to go back to the Academy to go from commander to captain.

Was there any indication last yr or this yr if Seven even went to the academy or was she just leap frogged into command because Picard and presumably Janeway said so?  I know she mentioned she tried one time but was rejected because she was Borg.