S03.E10: Part Ten - The Last Generation

Prevailing Wind · April 26, 2023

53 minutes ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Picard has always been roughly 20 years older than Patrick Stewart, so he should be over a 100 now.

And, again, it doesn't really matter because he's an android.

PurpleTentacle · April 26, 2023

21 minutes ago, Prevailing Wind said:

And, again, it doesn't really matter because he's an android.

What does that have to do with anything? They programmed normal life span and aging into him.

Francie · April 26, 2023

6 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Picard and Beverly's husband were best friends.

So Beverly is going to honor the father of her child by naming their kid after his best friend ... who happens to be her dead husband? To me, the dead husband part trumps. She isn't naming the kid after the father's best friend. She's naming it after her own husband. Because, otherwise, that's like saying Jack Crusher's (the elder Jack Crusher) most important relationship was his friendship with Picard, and not his love affair and marriage with his wife, Beverly.

I think that's, overall, my second biggest problem with this show: the show runners kept disregarding and erasing what should be the most important thing. Take as a minor example, Worf's throwaway threesome 'joke.' Dorn delivered his line well, as did Frakes. But, to me, it didn't make sense because the scenario wasn't involving all three parties of the so-called love triangle. It involved three geriatric men (or geriatric-looking in Picard's case) going on an away mission. I know for many the joke worked, but for me, I was perplexed why Riker was interpreting Worf's comment as sexualized. And for Riker to read it that way, he had to assume Worf meant it as a dig against Riker. Like, "Heh, heh, I'm going to mention the word 'threesome' just to get your goat." All the meanwhile, the apex of that triangle, Deanna, is nowhere involved in the scenario or conversation.

All too often with this show it was the women who were being overlooked and disregarded. Kestra's well-being was treated as an afterthought that had to be clarified on social media. The show runners want credit for creating two "legacy" children, but they put all their focus and effort upon Jack and completely neglected to give Sidney any substance. And I agree, Alandra existed to placate Levar Burton (not that I blame him for wishing Geordi to have a second daughter or his being proud of his daughter's inclusion as the portrayer of that character).

I think the showrunners thought they wrote the women well because they had 'bad ass' women fighting and being all physical, and Beverly got to launch torpedoes, and Troi got to fly the saucer, and there were a lots of women on the Titan bridge. But the female bridge members weren't fleshed out characters, and being bad ass to me isn't the same as being well-rounded. Seven's story seemed to be limited to her displeasure at being dead-named. (Though she then turned around and called Data a "robot," which was kinda like, 'well, I guess your concern for properly addressing people only goes one way.' But I'll disregard that as bad writing and a cheap joke foisted upon her.)

As I mentioned that was my second biggest problem, my biggest problem was just the glibness of it all. All those moments where the writers were too afraid of sentimentality that they had to misdirect nearly every heartfelt line. Way too much of the dialogue was like, "I'd like to tell you all, after all these years .... [beat] ... i call dibs on the captain's chair!" It was all "I missed the carpet the most," and "ha!ha! my offscreen kidnapping amounted to 'good in bed, bad at pizza.'"

The only time where an emotional moment wasn't turned into a joke was when it involved a father and his son.

Ugh, I'm hoping by Memorial Day, I'll have this show exorcised. If I hadn't encounter these OG7 characters at an age and time where they became so important to me (and if I didn't resemble Holly Hunter's character in Broadcast News as much as I do), it would be out of my brain by Cinco de Mayo. My fear is that it'll be the Fourth of July before I run out of ammunition and my frustration has finally dissipated.

Edited April 26, 2023 by Francie

tv-talk · April 26, 2023

2 hours ago, Francie said:

But the female bridge members weren't fleshed out characters, and being bad ass to me isn't the same as being well-rounded.

How do you make brand new characters well-rounded when you have about half-a-dozen "legends" that need X amount of lines and screen time? This show was not about rando crewpeople on the bridge, male or female, it was about the TNG cast coming together for one last mission. Everything else was very much secondary, especially things that happened in Picard Season 1 and 2. Season 3 would never have been made aside from fact it was a chance to do a Great Reunion. And they pulled it off extremely well. I'm of the age where I watched the original with my dearly departed Mom, and I had tears in my eyes at various moments and definitely laughed out loud many times. What more could I want from a show with this premise ie the big reunion? Sure there was too much Jack and plenty of the standard plotholes you could sail a ship thru, but overall I found Season3 pretty wonderful for greatly executing exactly what it was meant to be.

Edited April 26, 2023 by tv-talk

PurpleTentacle · April 26, 2023

1 hour ago, Francie said:

So Beverly is going to honor the father of her child by naming their kid after his best friend ... who happens to be her dead husband? To me, the dead husband part trumps. She isn't naming the kid after the father's best friend. She's naming it after her own husband. Because, otherwise, that's like saying Jack Crusher's (the elder Jack Crusher) most important relationship was his friendship with Picard, and not his love affair and marriage with his wife, Beverly.

It's good enough for me. I have enough problems with this show and season. God knows I listed a ton.

I can see her thinking "what would Jean-Luc want to name him?" and come up with Jack. Maybe he even told her if he ever had a son, he'd name him Jack. It's fine.

I don't quite see the problem, tbh. Just because Jack was her husband doesn't mean that she can't name her son after him, because his father would have wanted it that way. It's really no judgement on Jack Sr. or how Beverly saw him at all. It's about what Picard would want to name his son and Beverly respecting that. At least that's how I interpret what was said on this show.

It's also not like she was still married to the guy or it had been recent. It had been about 25 years since he died.

If you want to point out something where the writers did Beverly dirty, it would be her not telling Picard about his son for 20 years. I think that is very out of character and would have needed a better reason than "uh, you were always so busy and maybe some people didn't like you.". I mean, even with him knowing about Jack, they could have still kept it under wraps that Picard had a son. It's not like he is the type of person, who would have insisted that they blast out a birth announcement to the whole galaxy.

2 hours ago, Francie said:

I think that's, overall, my second biggest problem with this show: the show runners kept disregarding and erasing what should be the most important thing. Take as a minor example, Worf's throwaway threesome 'joke.' Dorn delivered his line well, as did Frakes. But, to me, it didn't make sense because the scenario wasn't involving all three parties of the so-called love triangle. It involved three geriatric men (or geriatric-looking in Picard's case) going on an away mission. I know for many the joke worked, but for me, I was perplexed why Riker was interpreting Worf's comment as sexualized. And for Riker to read it that way, he had to assume Worf meant it as a dig against Riker. Like, "Heh, heh, I'm going to mention the word 'threesome' just to get your goat." All the meanwhile, the apex of that triangle, Deanna, is nowhere involved in the scenario or conversation.

Riker didn't interpret it as sexual, as that clearly wasn't Worf's intent, he just pointed out that it sounds sexual. Where else have you ever heard the word "threesome"? Maybe it used to mean something else in olden times, but now it only has sexual connotations.

That is also the only complaint I'd have here. That the word might not mean the same in 400 years anymore. With threesome, you could argue that it will be an evergreen, but they had quite a few phrases in the show, that wouldn't be in use anymore, like phrases revolving around paying. There is no money in the federation. Those things would have fallen out of fashion a while ago.

2 hours ago, Francie said:

As I mentioned that was my second biggest problem, my biggest problem was just the glibness of it all. All those moments where the writers were too afraid of sentimentality that they had to misdirect nearly every heartfelt line. Way too much of the dialogue was like, "I'd like to tell you all, after all these years .... [beat] ... i call dibs on the captain's chair!" It was all "I missed the carpet the most," and "ha!ha! my offscreen kidnapping amounted to 'good in bed, bad at pizza.'"

I mean I said in my first post that ~75% of the dialouge in this episode made me want to vomit and that was a big part of it. Star Trek is not a Marvel movie and even in those, the quips are way overdone nowadays.

18 minutes ago, tv-talk said:

And they pulled it off extremely well.

Disagreed. They pulled it off extremely awfull.

I don't know. The nostalgia part of my brain must be wired differently to most people's. For me if you bring back old characters, from a great show, my bar for it being good is at the level of the old show. It doesn't go way down just because I remember the characters, or how I felt watching them originially.

Francie · April 26, 2023

1 hour ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Riker didn't interpret it as sexual, as that clearly wasn't Worf's intent, he just pointed out that it sounds sexual. Where else have you ever heard the word "threesome"? Maybe it used to mean something else in olden times, but now it only has sexual connotations.

We're in agreement that I didn't take Worf's comment as sexual. But Riker sure did when he said, "Do you even hear yourself?"

Right? I mean, I'm also clearly not part of the designed audience for these show runners. Others perhaps need to weigh in -- those that found the comment funny, that was supposed to be a joke, right? One aimed at Riker being annoyed with Worf for intimating about his past with Troi?

1 hour ago, PurpleTentacle said:

If you want to point out something where the writers did Beverly dirty, it would be her not telling Picard about his son for 20 years. I think that is very out of character and would have needed a better reason than "uh, you were always so busy and maybe some people didn't like you.". I mean, even with him knowing about Jack, they could have still kept it under wraps that Picard had a son. It's not like he is the type of person, who would have insisted that they blast out a birth announcement to the whole galaxy.

First, why must I have to point that out? ;) I didn't realize there was a limit to bandwidth and that I needed to prioritize my issues in accordance with gravity of issue. I've commented on the stupidity of Beverly hiding Cousin Oliver sufficiently, and I certainly reserve the right to comment more on it should I wish. You can trust that I realize the square peg being pounded into the round hole to make that timing and explanation work.

I just find it oddly stupid, in an almost amusing way, that Beverly is supposedly 'honoring' Jean-Luc by naming his kid after her own dead husband. The reason you offer about time passing, to me, cuts against it being a great reason to pick that name as an homage to Jean-Luc. His best friend died nearly 50 years ago. Besides, according to this show, Will Riker is Jean-Luc's Sundance to his Butch Cassidy. So, to honor Jean-Luc, she should have named the kid Will? That might actually have been entertaining.

Frankly, if Beverly wanted to honor Jean-Luc then name the kid Jean-Luc or something J-L-ish, or Rene, after Jean-Luc's dead nephew. But to name him Jack, I just shake my head. That's all on the show runners, though, who clearly just liked the name Jack Crusher and went with it.

1 hour ago, tv-talk said:

How do you make brand new characters well-rounded when you have about half-a-dozen "legends" that need X amount of lines and screen time?

You have no disagreement from me that the there was a lot being crammed into this series. Frankly, though, they squandered it and it wasn't quite as limited. They had 600 minutes they could have played with. They didn't have to have only 45 minutes shows, which they did on multiple occasions. The show runners might complain that their budget limited them to that amount, but they could have written better, slightly longer, more meaningful scenes, especially when involving the characters simply talking with each other.

I'm also not advocating for this show to have been the Cousin Oliver and Sydney LaForge show instead of largely what it was, the Cousin Oliver ~~Hour~~ Three-quarter Hour. But I don't think the show runners should high fiving themselves as much as they have been about writing strong female characters.

We are in disagreement whether the reunion was worth it. For those that enjoyed the moments, great. For those that are happy the actors got to get back together, great. But, for me, those moments are largely unwatchable -- if I have the volume on. The dialogue, the plot, all of that, makes me cringe. It makes me sad. :( It was such wasted potential. All because the OG7 were mainly the source of comic relief for these show runners. For them, these OG7 characters were foisted upon them, while they wanted to be writing for Cousin Oliver and Over-the-top Amanda, and then shoving as many cameos and nostalgia-laden props as they could. And I personally think the OG7 got the short shrift. Again, I don't even quibble about how much time they got -- other than the scenes were poorly written and choppy and could have had a beat or two more to them.

I mean, take Worf rescuing Deanna and Will. That scenes plays like:

[Deanna hugs Worf and Will kinda side-hugs him]

Worf: Don't touch me!

Worf, continues: Hey baby, I've been thinking about you everyday .... [beat]

........................ just so I can tell you how I've been meditating!

Will: Inappropriate!

[Me -- you're a beat late with that quibble, my friend, because you now look like an idiot, because he 180'ed that before you complained]

Deanna: That's great! [No, literally, I think that's what she says. Maybe, "That's great, Worf." Please don't make me ever watch this scene again. And I write that as a HUGE Troi/Riker shipper]

Worf: We must now go to an exposition room where you can be provided some exposition.

Deanna and Will: Sounds great. We'll follow you.

[end scene]

I mean, yay?!!!

Edited April 26, 2023 by Francie

ML89 · April 26, 2023

5 minutes ago, Francie said:

All because the OG7 were mainly the source of comic relief for these show runners. For them, these OG7 characters were foisted upon them, while they wanted to be writing for Cousin Oliver and Over-the-top Amanda, and then shoving as many cameos and nostalgia-laden props as they could. And I personally think the OG7 got the short shift.

cf: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy. At least the OG7 got into one space several times, interacted, and no one died, so it's ahead on points. The humor may have been awful but hey, none of them got blamed for having a kid who destroyed the galaxy although, oopsie, Picard and Beverly actually did!

For me, the age jokes were just really flat and cringey.

OTOH, even the awfulness of Jack Crusher (and Beverly saying she was protecting him by dragging him into multiple galactic conflicts) was ahead of another season of Picard's Dickensian Childhood, which we knew nothing about until season 2 and if I never see that estate again, it'll be too soon. So I guess season 3 clears the relatively low bar of not being as awful as 1 or 2, but again, I look at these writers in despair. You're getting paid something (probably not as much as you should - although in this case...) to come up with decent plots and a ten episode arc and you're supposed to make me care about these folks and I basically shrugged until they killed off Shaw. So at least I cared about one new character. Although it would have been tactically stupid, because there was no guarantee Vadic would have left them alone, I would have been okay with sending Jack over. Hey, he might have done less damage than he eventually did!

Francie · April 26, 2023

1 hour ago, PurpleTentacle said:

The nostalgia part of my brain must be wired differently to most people's. For me if you bring back old characters, from a great show, my bar for it being good is at the level of the old show. It doesn't go way down just because I remember the characters, or how I felt watching them originially.

On that point, you and I are in total agreement. How about, let's meet up at a better-lit bar than that Blade Runner Bar from this show (I know, supposedly Guinan owns that bar, but I didn't watch the first two seasons, so I only know it as a wannabe Blade Runner bar), I'll buy (since money is now a thing in the future) you a drink of choice (points for it being prune juice), and we can make 'em throw up a couple TNG episodes on the big screen.

I'll bring Lower Decks, Chain of Command II, and - for actually comedy -- A Fistful of Datas.

FloatOn · April 26, 2023

About the Kestra thing- it's still ridiculous they didn't include or cut the scenes about where Kestra was once they took Deanna, but watching through the episodes with my boyfriend so he could watch the finale, she does get mentioned way more than I remembered. They bring her up by name at least twice in separate episodes and reference Riker and Deanna having a daughter a few others times as well in other episodes. Plus when they're kidnapped and are worrying about her being alone, Deanna says us a few times in regards to Riker pulling away from them and leaving them to be with Picard and she's obviously meaning her and Kestra. Still completely stupid she got blanked in the final two though, but watching the back to back, it doesn't come across as bad when everything is fresh in your mind.

As for why Riker didn't mention her when he thought he was going to die, I'm of two minds at this point. On one hand, completely should have added in something about her there. However, he presumably knows she's fine and safe. He though thinks he's about to die. He thinks Deanna could die too if things don't turn around. His son is dead. He probably didn't want to think about his daughter dying too. I can go with that line of thinking and I've seen it pointed out in a lot of places. I think adding her in the "we'll be waiting" thing would have sounded odd tbh since again, he probably doesn't want to think about her dying anytime soon. It's the overall same issue though with why after like one minute of panic, Geordi didn't seem at all concerned that his two daughters were Borgs and on a ship that was basically left to just Seven, Raffi, and whoever they rounded up. They put everyone's kids in danger and then didn't really want to follow through with how parents would act in those situations and what they would be thinking. They put the whole crew in danger to save Jack but didn't really want to follow through with what any of them would be thinking or going through is they really thought this was the end. A better written show would have thought out ways to make all the work onscreen, but alas.

ML89 · April 26, 2023

49 minutes ago, FloatOn said:

As for why Riker didn't mention her when he thought he was going to die, I'm of two minds at this point. On one hand, completely should have added in something about her there. However, he presumably knows she's fine and safe. He though thinks he's about to die. He thinks Deanna could die too if things don't turn around. His son is dead. He probably didn't want to think about his daughter dying too. I can go with that line of thinking and I've seen it pointed out in a lot of places. I think adding her in the "we'll be waiting" thing would have sounded odd tbh since again, he probably doesn't want to think about her dying anytime soon.

I took the line from Riker to be that he and Thad will be waiting for Troi in whatever afterlife as they would both be dead and she's still alive, but he should have said "We'll be waiting for you and Kestra." Although didn't someone note that he says he doesn't believe in an afterlife? So odd all around.

As for Geordi, I got nothing.

Starchild · April 26, 2023

On 4/24/2023 at 9:01 PM, paigow said:

Unless your avatar or name strongly indicates female, I default you to male.

The patriarchy in a nutshell lol.

21 hours ago, rtms77 said:

There is one thing I don’t understand. While the bio weapon was developed, it was done with humans in mind, as Data stated every species has their pattern /dna stored to make it easier for the transporters. Now humans develop way differently than bajorans, or Vulcans etc. So why were the aliens on board affected? They don’t come close to the same physiology as humans or even mature rate. Vulcans are considered young at 50 etc. Beverly’s reasoning was for humans only. None of that made sense.

I suspect it's just analogous. I think she mentioned 25 as the age that a human's brain reaches some level of maturity, after which the Borg DNA would no longer influence/change the brain. That level of maturity would be different in other species, 50 in Vulcans, 3 months old in Ocampans, whatever. So I think she was referring less to age and more to that stage of brain development.

4 hours ago, Francie said:

We're in agreement that I didn't take Worf's comment as sexual. But Riker sure did when he said, "Do you even hear yourself?"

Especially since, why should a Klingon, even one raised with humans, be fluent in human sexual terminology? (He's barely had Klingon sex, as far as we know). He's clearly using the primary dictionary definition of the word (Oxford: "a group of three people").

3 hours ago, FloatOn said:

About the Kestra thing... he presumably knows she's fine and safe.

Why, though?

She's under 25
Most humans under 25 who've gone through a transporter are infected.
I don't recall anything in the show that it was restricted to starship transporters
But even if it was, her parents are Starfleet, are you going to tell me they never once brought their kids onto a Starfleet vessel to see where Mommy and Daddy work?
And even if they didn't, surely Deanna beamed on/off one at some point during her pregnancy, and no one suggested that unborn fetuses would be safe from this thing

dovegrey · April 26, 2023

7 minutes ago, Starchild said:

Why, though?

She's under 25

Most humans under 25 who've gone through a transporter are infected.

I don't recall anything in the show that it was restricted to starship transporters

But even if it was, her parents are Starfleet, are you going to tell me they never once brought their kids onto a Starfleet vessel to see where Mommy and Daddy work?

And even if they didn't, surely Deanna beamed on/off one at some point during her pregnancy, and no one suggested that unborn fetuses would be safe from this thing

Dialogue from the previous episode indicated that the transporters didn’t have the Borg DNA until after Picard’s body was stolen from Daystrom, which happened “months” before the start of this season (and I believe Ro mentioned the transporters had had problems for four months, which related to her not wanting to use them). This wasn’t a long-term plot. I do find it hard to believe that everyone on all the ships had used the transporter in the last few months; they still use shuttles and many crew don’t leave the ship.

All in all, I don’t think anyone involved in what happened would assume someone they love is fine and safe. They either got assimilated and killed people, got killed, or got hunted by assimilated friends/coworkers. What actually happened does not match the tone of the episode, which is the same problem they had in the last episode when they listened to people get murdered and then laughed about carpet.

FloatOn · April 26, 2023

Yeah, Ro said it was only the transporters on certain starships and that it had been only for like three or four months that there had been issues. It was the changelings that were everywhere in Starfleet ranks, but they weren't the ones that started firing or taking over the ships in the fleet.

They also said in the last episode that Earth wasn't assimilated or effected I guess since one of them says Spacedock and the defense shields were the only thing standing between Earth being attacked by the Borg. I think we're supposed to think Earth is fine, it's just getting fired at by the fleet but the shields are stopping the attacks. Matalas said they filmed or cut a scene about her being at the Academy (either on Earth or maybe on some satellite campus somewhere I guess). If it's just the fleet that's effected and not Earth, then I think we're supposed to assume the Academy and whatever Starfleet personnel is on Earth is safe or relatively safe.

Obviously it doesn't super fit the tone of them acting like it's both an apocalyptic threat but also a small enough threat that most of them aren't worried about their loved ones and Starfleet and having time to wax poetic about the Enterprise. But that's just what I got.

Starchild · April 26, 2023

I do wish we'd seen more of the portal weapon that playing tag in space. It was pretty cool, could have done a lot with that.

But it was just a McGuffin.

dovegrey · April 27, 2023

3 hours ago, FloatOn said:

They also said in the last episode that Earth wasn't assimilated or effected I guess since one of them says Spacedock and the defense shields were the only thing standing between Earth being attacked by the Borg. I think we're supposed to think Earth is fine, it's just getting fired at by the fleet but the shields are stopping the attacks.

...

Obviously it doesn't super fit the tone of them acting like it's both an apocalyptic threat but also a small enough threat that most of them aren't worried about their loved ones and Starfleet and having time to wax poetic about the Enterprise. But that's just what I got.

It sounds like Jack's connection couldn't penetrate all the way to Earth's surface, but then it doesn't make sense that he was saying, "To the worlds of the Federation, hear us. Assimilation blah blah blah it's great you'll love it really blah blah" (paraphrasing that last part). If he could only speak to assimilated Starfleet people on ships orbiting Earth, why would he say that?

Overall, I think it's a case that the writers knew everything was going to be easily wrapped up and forgot to actually commit to the story; the season's pacing didn't help at all. They really had to scramble at the end, which didn't leave room for the characters or story to breathe...and they overly committed to this being Jack's story, rather than a story about Picard/Locutus/the Borg, about the Federation facing annihilation/an end-of-an-era catastrophe - or even about the OG TNG crew, who were essentially plot ornaments rather than characters who made a unique contribution to the story. Hell, Geordi couldn't even muster a word or two with Beverly about his daughters being Borg, while she wrung her hands about saving her son who made his daughters into Borg.

I try not to be too negative, but, looking back on the season, I just see a lot of wasted opportunity...and apparently a team so dismissive of the series' prior seasons that they'd rather commit to an incomprehensible plot with a nonsensical Borg Queen from ??somewhere??, than go the very obvious route of having "Friendly" Borg Queen Agnes who used to work at Daystrom and know all about organic/inorganic synthesis be the one behind it all. (Also, some alliance that turned out to be.)

Edited April 27, 2023 by dovegrey
rung = wrung whoops

Prevailing Wind · April 27, 2023

12 hours ago, Starchild said:

He's clearly using the primary dictionary definition of the word (Oxford: "a group of three people").

Perhaps it's a Universal Translator issue...

Was Worf raised speaking English or Russian? Some of his early history claims he was adopted and raised on some other Federation planet, until they cast Bikel & Brown as his parents from Minsk. His parents sure had the Russian accent (which really makes no sense with a Universal Translator - nobody should have an accent.) Sure, they're probably speaking English, but wouldn't the UT hear that and automatically smooth out the accents? How does Ro hear Bajoran with a Russian accent?

AllyB · April 27, 2023

I've unfortunately been giving this more thought than it deserves and the Borg on the cube were pretty close to physically wiped out. Just the queen and the few protecting the beacon. Her plan would have failed in minutes if Jack, who had evaded Changeling capture, hadn't come alone. If he hadn't had a tantrum as soon as he learned he was being used by the Borg, everyone could have come up with a plan to follow him to the queen. Then he'd have walked on to the cube, not been used a transmittor. Titan officers or Riker and Worf or whoever, could have killed the few walking Borg and either captured or killed the helpless queen. Or even better, they could have just blown up the cube from the Titan. No assimilation and subsequent slaughter would have occurred.

And while it wouldn't have been 'job done' as they still had a Changeling infestation problem to deal with. They could have just hung back and let Beverly invent her transporter adjustment to root them out while the befuddled Changelings wondered what to do with Queen Borg and Vadic dead.

Edited April 27, 2023 by AllyB

rtms77 · April 27, 2023

15 hours ago, Starchild said:

I suspect it's just analogous. I think she mentioned 25 as the age that a human's brain reaches some level of maturity, after which the Borg DNA would no longer influence/change the brain. That level of maturity would be different in other species, 50 in Vulcans, 3 months old in Ocampans, whatever. So I think she was referring less to age and more to that stage of brain development.

Except again alien brains can be wildly different than humans. As Kirk found out in ST6 Not everyone keeps their genitals in the same place(paraphrase). I don’t think the code was that adaptable even for Borg or intended. She was mad at humans, Picard and ( should have been)Janeway front and center.

10 hours ago, dovegrey said:

It sounds like Jack's connection couldn't penetrate all the way to Earth's surface, but then it doesn't make sense that he was saying, "To the worlds of the Federation, hear us. Assimilation blah blah blah it's great you'll love it really blah blah" (paraphrasing that last part). If he could only speak to assimilated Starfleet people on ships orbiting Earth, why would he say that?

The federation president says their young people are attacking them, and says for everyone to stay away. He was on earth and they were trying to get him to a safe bunker before being cut off. So either everyone got lazy and transports around on earth or it was in the system a lot longer than just a few months. The writing is full of plot holes when you look too closely, 😂 It means the Borg are either the best long term planners and strategists and planned for Picard to procreate at some point or the writers just pulled it out of their a** for a big event and didn’t think any of it through.

Starchild · April 27, 2023

8 minutes ago, rtms77 said:

The writing is full of plot holes when you look too closely, 😂 It means the Borg are either the best long term planners and strategists and planned for Picard to procreate at some point or the writers just pulled it out of their a** for a big event and didn’t think any of it through.

Hm, I wonder...

dovegrey · April 27, 2023

2 hours ago, rtms77 said:

Except again alien brains can be wildly different than humans. As Kirk found out in ST6 Not everyone keeps their genitals in the same place(paraphrase). I don’t think the code was that adaptable even for Borg or intended. She was mad at humans, Picard and ( should have been)Janeway front and center.

The federation president says their young people are attacking them, and says for everyone to stay away. He was on earth and they were trying to get him to a safe bunker before being cut off. So either everyone got lazy and transports around on earth or it was in the system a lot longer than just a few months. The writing is full of plot holes when you look too closely, 😂 It means the Borg are either the best long term planners and strategists and planned for Picard to procreate at some point or the writers just pulled it out of their a** for a big event and didn’t think any of it through.

It was specifically stated in the last episode that Picard’s body was stolen because the Changelings needed the DNA for the transporters. Dialogue from other episodes established it had been stolen just months earlier. The transporter DNA hadn’t been there for a long time. I agree that the breadth of assimilation doesn’t make sense, unless the Changeling replacements fabricated a reason for the presidential employees and most starship staff to use the transporters at some point, which is possible. But then I’m doing more work than the writers.

Edited April 27, 2023 by dovegrey

aemom · April 27, 2023

I've been ruminating over the last week to decide how I felt about this episode and the season overall because I'm always so happy to get new Trek, that it takes me a while to decide how good/bad it is?

It was great to see the whole cast together again. I have heard many times how they all love each other - even still after all these years - and that shone through in the season.

They did tie up some plot lines from years ago and they did mess a few up, but it's really hard to please everyone.

Overall it was well done, and I would be very interested in watching a show with Seven as Captain of the Ent-G. When Jeri Ryan started on ST:Voy, I rolled my eyes like many others, but I soon had to admit that she is a very talented actress, and I enjoy her very much. I don't have the same level of hate towards Jack as others, but I will agree that he doesn't look 20. I'm up for ST:Legacy or whatever they want to call it.

chaifan · April 27, 2023

6 hours ago, AllyB said:

I've unfortunately been giving this more thought than it deserves and the Borg on the cube were pretty close to physically wiped out. Just the queen and the few protecting the beacon. Her plan would have failed in minutes if Jack, who had evaded Changeling capture, hadn't come alone.

That was the first thing that crossed my mind during the episode... this is all Jack's fault! If he hadn't gone over to the cube at all - let alone going alone - the Queen would not have been able to execute her plan. All that planning, down the proverbial tube.

To me, all the deaths - that's on Jack. He was acting under his own will. This wasn't a Borg control situation. Yes, the Queen was speaking to him, but he clearly wasn't under her control. He just rushed out to try and do things on his own. And it got half the fleet killed. And yet, he's welcomed back with a warm embrace and put on Seven's ship. ugh.

Chicago Redshirt · April 27, 2023

So somewhat belatedly, I want to rant a little (OK, a lot) about what was so bad about this episode and the season.

For this season to work, the Borg had to have transmitted organic doohickeys to Picard back when he was assimilated in Best of Both Worlds that a) Beverly didn't catch b) that Starfleet didn't catch c) that were not caught by biofilters or comparing JLP's prior-to-assimilation transporter records to his post-assimilation transporter records. OK, fair enough.

But these organic transmitters also had to be things that were carried through JLP's sperm to Jack. And despite having had no known effect on JLP for basically 15 years, they have been active in Jack his entire life. Also, Seven of Nine and all the other ex-Borg either did not have knowledge of JLP still having organic transmitters that could be passed on to his offspring (which should be impossible given the hive mind and sharing all knowledge with all other Borg), or didn't bother to tell him or others in Starfleet. Jack has been hearing Borg voices from childhood. And not only are these Borg transmitters active in Jack (and not caught by any medical screenings of Jack, and Jack never reports that he's hearing these voices, and Beverly never notices that there is something different about Jack), but they also manifest in him the ability to enter into other people's heads and to control them. (Or at least, enter into some people's heads). For some reason, the Borg apparently knows that Jack has this ability, but has never decided for reasons to give other Borg this ability for the past 35 years. And for some reason, the Borg specifically want to incorporate Jack rather than just use some random Borg and give him Jack's abilities now that they have a better appreciation of what it is and what he can do. They construct an entire elaborate plan for revenge that is predicated on getting Jack to submit to them and using his special Borg sauce to Borgify and speak to people.

Also, for the 20 years and throughout this season, the Borg communicate with Jack in super cryptic ways. It's always "Come find me, Jack" as opposed to "Here are co-ordinates you should go to Jack" or "We can end your loneliness, Jack." And Jack as a kid/young (lol) adult has to be able to make the Red Door and fend off the Borg communications.

At some point that is never explained to us, the Borg meet the Rogue Changelings and set up an alliance. Why and how this happens is not explained. Why the Changelings (whose motive is apparently distrust of the solids and hatred for having been tortured by the Federation) can't see that the Borg have no particular reason to stop with wiping out the Federation and indeed might attack them or the Great Link eventually is unclear. Why the Borg need to use the Changelings is unclear. I guess it's shown that the Borg are in relatively bad shape, but why? Why can't they just assimilate a bunch of people/planets and get back on their feet again? And even accepting the premise that the Borg are in bad shape generally, what is it that the Rogue Changelings are doing that they Borg couldn't do easier themselves? It seems to me that the Borg being the masterminds sort of makes much of what the Changelings have done silly in retrospect. For instance, putting aside the notion that they could just tell Jack to meet them, the Borg could themselves go and find Jack, or build a synth to go find Jack or do any number of things. I guess arguably the Changelings are needed to get Starfleet to gather the fleet all in one place and to impose a Starfleet-wide patch to their transporters that secretly Borgifies people under 25 with the right signal. But I guess that raises the question of why, regardless of how many Changelings might have been complicit in this, the normal Starfleet people were not like, "Maybe gathering all our Starships in one place is not a good idea because it means that Tau Alpha 12 is completely vulnerable" and why no one checked this patch to see if there was something weird about it. There is also the question of why the Borg did not -- as long as they are messing around with transporters and people's DNA -- didn't have the transporters reprogrammed so that their trick would work on people over 25, or instruct those under 25 to create nanoprobes and assimilate, rather than exterminate the older folks. (I mean, other than because we need the Ent-D crew to have a fighting chance).

There was (or should have been) no need to break into Daystrom to get JLP's body so they can dig around in his corpse's head, so they can program the transporters with stuff from the Borg transmitters to make people all Borg. The Borg should know what they put into him 35 years ago. So they should be able to just say "Reprogram the transporters in this way." No need to do the break-in.

As an aside, the "Let's steal a big portal weapon and do a terror attack to distract from the theft of something smaller" only works if there is not a comprehensive archive of what was stolen. The investigators from Section 31 or Starfleet in general should have asked "What all was stolen?" and Data should have told them should have known that the thieves took not just the portal weapon but also JLP's body. And if Starfleet was remotely competent that should have raised questions about who might want to do that and why. Indeed, it seems like a lot of effort to call attention to the Changelings. If they had just taken the body of Picard, how would S31/Starfleet possibly connected it to what the actual plot was or done anything about it?

OK, let's jump ahead. Our heroes know that there's a big plan that is tied to Frontier Day, but they're on the run and they can't trust anybody. Why not simply do a wide broadcast to the entire Federation, the Klingons, everybody "Hey, there are these rogue Shapeshifters who are planning supersketchy stuff and we have reason to believe it's tied to Frontier Day" to everyone? The people contacted can't ALL be changelings. Surely someone non-changelings would say, "Hey just as a precaution, maybe we shouldn't gather the entire fleet in one place. Maybe we should trust these people who have saved the galaxy a half-dozen times to not be crazy/liars." I can understand that at first they are on the defensive and they might have little proof of their conspiracy theory. But at some point -- particularly after they defeat the Shrike -- they should have more than enough to give most rational people pause. They have the bodies of a number of neo-Changelings and can share the information as to how they differ from regular Changelings. They have the files downloaded from the Shrike. They had the opportunity to have recorded any of Vadic's monologues.

Troi's empathic powers kick in to see there's something wrong with Jack. (And again, no telepaths or empaths have apparently encountered him in his 23 (lol) years of life. She is able to determine that the Borg has been in contact with him. At this point, the fact that he can warg into people is known. Our heroes don't put him in stasis or sedate him or in a transporter buffer or anything, even though they know that he is seemingly the key to a plan to imminently take down the Federation. And Jack, despite presumably knowing who and what the Borg are, doesn't seem at all keen to fight joining them. Because why?

So Jack joins the Borg. The Borg's new mission isn't assimilate people and civilizations who would add biological and technological distinctiveness to their own. Nope, it's mass slaughter for...reasons.

The Borg have the entirety of Starfleet just outside Earth. But somehow, they cannot take over or destroy Earth's defenses itself. Somehow, the transporter patch wasn't sent to Earth proper to turn all 25 and under into Borg there. Also, no one on Earth can use the fact that Starfleet ships are all connected to remotely stop all those ships from doing stuff, or blow them up or anything like that.

As for the Titan, congrats on Seven of Nine and folks for retaking the ship. But why not transport-phaser the Borg into the Brig, or transport-pattern buffers, or anywhere other than a room that they can escape from? Why not flood that room with knockout gas?

I'm just going to ignore the stupidity of "The Borg ships can't take over the Titan because we have a cloaking device active." But spotting the show that, the Borg CAN either blow the crap out of the Titan by firing lots of phasers/torpedos at its last sighted location or they can neutralize the cloak by flooding the area with tachyons.

The Borg have for some reason left an Ent-D-sized path to the transmitter that is central to their plan and gave our heroes even a .00001 percent chance of blowing it up. The Borg also literally let Picard jack himself into the Collective Consciousness. Why this physically works, I've got no clue, because it's not as though he has something that he can plug the Borg wiring into. Why it works as a tactic, also no clue. One would think that either the Borg Queen would stop him virtually, or drones would stop him physically. But nope, don't even try. And the pep talk from the daddy he has known from like 3 days in real time and a handful of memories from that time is enough to get Jack to repent of the wholesale slaughter of everyone over 25 and disconnect from the Collective.

So a year later, Jack has already joined the newest Enterprise. Remember at the beginning of the season when Jack had all those warrants for his arrest and such? Those just go away? Also, wouldn't Starfleet care even a little bit that he was at the center of what has to be one of the biggest slaughters in human/Starfleet history. Pretty much everyone over 25 in a Starfleet ship was murdered on his orders. I can get that could be overlooked in the case of someone like JLP who a) had already proved himself for years as a captain b) clearly was taken and forced to do the Borg's bidding and c) redeemed himself by providing a solution to the Borg. But Jack doesn't have those attributes, he basically gave himself up to the Borg (maybe you can argue that he was being coerced by the Queen to find her or something, but that doesn't seem to be what happened -- as shown, he just decides to find her even though her location isn't clear, and so he goes out of his way to get there). And it's not Jack who saves the day.

Edited April 28, 2023 by Chicago Redshirt

dovegrey · April 28, 2023

2 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

For this season to work, the Borg had to have transmitted organic doohickeys to Picard back when he was assimilated in Best of Both Worlds that a) Beverly didn't catch b) that Starfleet didn't catch c) that were not caught by biofilters or comparing JLP's prior-to-assimilation transporter records to his post-assimilation transporter records. OK, fair enough.

But these organic transmitters also had to be things that were carried through JLP's sperm to Jack. And despite having had no known effect on JLP for basically 15 years, they have been active in Jack his entire life. Also, Seven of Nine and all the other ex-Borg either did not have knowledge of JLP still having organic transmitters that could be passed on to his offspring (which should be impossible given the hive mind and sharing all knowledge with all other Borg), or didn't bother to tell him or others in Starfleet. Jack has been hearing Borg voices from childhood. And not only are these Borg transmitters active in Jack (and not caught by any medical screenings of Jack, and Jack never reports that he's hearing these voices, and Beverly never notices that there is something different about Jack), but they also manifest in him the ability to enter into other people's heads and to control them. (Or at least, enter into some people's heads). For some reason, the Borg apparently knows that Jack has this ability, but has never decided for reasons to give other Borg this ability for the past 35 years. And for some reason, the Borg specifically want to incorporate Jack rather than just use some random Borg and give him Jack's abilities now that they have a better appreciation of what it is and what he can do. They construct an entire elaborate plan for revenge that is predicated on getting Jack to submit to them and using his special Borg sauce to Borgify and speak to people.

To be fair, the Borg stuff in Picard was the misdiagnosed Irumodic Syndrome. Beverly and Starfleet did catch it but they didn't know what it was. I can buy that. Starfleet had essentially just encountered the Borg en masse for the first time when Picard was assimilated, and, IIRC, he was the only person in the Federation who had been unassimilated, until Voyager came back with troves of Borg intel+technology and a half dozen friendly ex-Borg. I can buy that everyone missed it for what it was at that time.

I figured that Jack could only control people who had been infected with the Borg DNA. That ability seemed to manifest fairly recently, which tracks with the transporters being compromised about four months earlier. He also seemed to get weirder and more tuned in to the Borg stuff the longer he was around Picard (who somehow still has Borg stuff despite being a synth...)

I don't think using "the Borg" in this scenario is accurate. The Queen flat-out said that the Collective is gone - "Until recently, there was no Collective left." She meant that Jack had just created a new Collective out of Starfleet. Janeway's virus worked, and the Borg from TNG and Voyager are gone. This was the work of a single cube with a dying, starving Queen with no Collective who one day heard Jack's voice. It wasn't a 30-year plan; it was an opportunity. My read on the situation was that the Borg didn't plan for Locutus to be a trojan horse, and the Queen didn't know Jack existed until he subconsciously connected to her; by that time, all of her drones were dead, the Collective was gone, and she didn't have a way or the time to make another Locutus, have someone birth a Vox, and then spend years waiting for Baby Vox to be old enough to "transmit." She'd be dead by then. (So she decided to grab the dumbest Changeling she could find, who, instead of pretending to be Jack's mom and just kidnapping the idiot, chased him around the Alpha Quadrant for a while.)

That being said - yeah, it doesn't make any sense that the Queen and the Changelings somehow found each other, or how a dying Queen intimidated Vadic the way it was depicted on screen. I doubt the writers have an explanation for that. And, as I understand what happened and what the Queen said, Jack wasn't an expected development, so it doesn't make any sense to me that the Queen would know that Jack was a genetic transmitter to Picard's genetic receiver or whatever. And it was never explained why Picard was so special as Locutus that only his DNA could be used for the transporter plot. The only thing I can think is that the transmitter and receiver need to share DNA, and Jack is the only known off-spring of a fully-assimilated ex-drone (B'Elanna wasn't fully assimilated). (And, not to be gross, but, given that arms and eyeballs and even entire chunks of brains - sorry, Seven - are routinely disposed of, I so much doubt that the Borg let most long-term drones keep their reproductive organs intact. Picard may be the first and possibly only former drone to successfully have post-assimilation offspring. Edited to add: On Voyager, Seven clarified that Borg babies are assimilated like everyone else, not birthed by Borg; Riker was wrong in Q Who.)

Anyway, I'm not defending the inane story. It falls apart pretty quickly, and the writers, once again, did a poor job of telling a comprehensible story. It wasn't fully thought through, it was convoluted, and the Borg story was completely rushed to the point where it's just a giant WTF.

Edited April 28, 2023 by dovegrey
noted

Chicago Redshirt · April 28, 2023

58 minutes ago, dovegrey said:

To be fair, the Borg stuff in Picard was the misdiagnosed Irumodic Syndrome. Beverly and Starfleet did catch it but they didn't know what it was. I can buy that. Starfleet had essentially just encountered the Borg en masse for the first time when Picard was assimilated, and, IIRC, he was the only person in the Federation who had been unassimilated, until Voyager came back with troves of Borg intel+technology and a half dozen friendly ex-Borg. I can buy that everyone missed it for what it was at that time.

I figured that Jack could only control people who had been infected with the Borg DNA. That ability seemed to manifest fairly recently, which tracks with the transporters being compromised about four months earlier. He also seemed to get weirder and more tuned in to the Borg stuff the longer he was around Picard (who somehow still has Borg stuff despite being a synth...)

I don't think using "the Borg" in this scenario is accurate. The Queen flat-out said that the Collective is gone - "Until recently, there was no Collective left." She meant that Jack had just created a new Collective out of Starfleet. Janeway's virus worked, and the Borg from TNG and Voyager are gone. This was the work of a single cube with a dying, starving Queen with no Collective who one day heard Jack's voice. It wasn't a 30-year plan; it was an opportunity. My read on the situation was that the Borg didn't plan for Locutus to be a trojan horse, and the Queen didn't know Jack existed until he subconsciously connected to her; by that time, all of her drones were dead, the Collective was gone, and she didn't have a way or the time to make another Locutus, have someone birth a Vox, and then spend years waiting for Baby Vox to be old enough to "transmit." She'd be dead by then. (So she decided to grab the dumbest Changeling she could find, who, instead of pretending to be Jack's mom and just kidnapping the idiot, chased him around the Alpha Quadrant for a while.)

That being said - yeah, it doesn't make any sense that the Queen and the Changelings somehow found each other, or how a dying Queen intimidated Vadic the way it was depicted on screen. I doubt the writers have an explanation for that. And, as I understand what happened and what the Queen said, Jack wasn't an expected development, so it doesn't make any sense to me that the Queen would know that Jack was a genetic transmitter to Picard's genetic receiver or whatever. And it was never explained why Picard was so special as Locutus that only his DNA could be used for the transporter plot. The only thing I can think is that the transmitter and receiver need to share DNA, and Jack is the only known off-spring of a fully-assimilated ex-drone (B'Elanna wasn't fully assimilated). (And, not to be gross, but, given that arms and eyeballs and even entire chunks of brains - sorry, Seven - are routinely disposed of, I so much doubt that the Borg let most long-term drones keep their reproductive organs intact. Picard may be the first and possibly only former drone to successfully have post-assimilation offspring. Edited to add: On Voyager, Seven clarified that Borg babies are assimilated like everyone else, not birthed by Borg; Riker was wrong in Q Who.)

Anyway, I'm not defending the inane story. It falls apart pretty quickly, and the writers, once again, did a poor job of telling a comprehensible story. It wasn't fully thought through, it was convoluted, and the Borg story was completely rushed to the point where it's just a giant WTF.

I know the show retconned the Irumodic Syndrome into Picard still having Borg bits in him and that's how it manifested itself. But again, that retcon doesn't so much make sense to me. Remember, they only found out about the Irumodic Syndrome because of what happened in All Good Things. Alt-Future Picard had developed it, and so our Picard knew that he might have it and they specifically looked for it. Seems like the Borg transmitters would have manifested in more places than just his brain, and seems like Q and others might have hipped him to it not being Irumodic Syndrome.

But again, let's accept on face value that Starfleet just missed it. It seems hard to accept that none of the ex-Borg related that Borgishness can be sexually transmitted, or that the assimilation process included (either in general or in Picard's specific case) such transmitters.

It would make sense that Jack can only control Borg infected people. It might have been nice for the show to explicitly show/say that.

Maybe I'm not keeping track of the timeline of all this, but I don't think the transporters were compromised four months ago, were they? My sense is that they needed the break-in at Daystrom to get the Picard DNA to work the compromising of the transporter code, and that break-in was within the scope of the show. I'm under the impression that the show took place within like a week. When Riker and Picard meet in E1, Riker talks about how he's giving a speech at the Frontier Day thing next week. I suppose that the ground work for the compromising might have happened four months ago, but the Changelings only got Picard's DNA after the Daystrom breakin. Didn't that happen during the scope of the show?

If we take the show at face value, Jack has been hearing the Borg for all/most of his 23 years. Young Jack created the Red Door as a defense against the Borg communications.

I guess you could square the poisoning of the Borg by Janeway 20ish years ago in show time, with the Borg having connectivity with Jack all that time, and with the Borg not having done anything. Better writers could maybe have connected the dots -- Alt-Admiral Janeway's Borg pathogen prevented them from normal assimilation of people and tech, and Jurati's push for individuality fractured them further, old school Borg basically died out, leaving them separated and weak. They dwindled down to this one cube. and barely were hanging on. But again, the writers should have done this rather than just leaving it to the imagination.

It should also be pointed out how inept the Changelings are again like you said -- they could literally impersonate anyone they wanted. And yet they came at Jack with brute force and threats. All they had to do is reach out to him with a friendly hand, whether it was pretending to hire him for a job, or offering to clear one of his debts/crimes or even having two ships go after him and playing bad cop/good cop.

marinw · April 28, 2023

Were ALL the Starfleet ships at Earth For Frontier Day? That seems pretty stupid. There must have been some Designated Survivor ships somewhere.

dovegrey · April 28, 2023

7 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Maybe I'm not keeping track of the timeline of all this, but I don't think the transporters were compromised four months ago, were they? My sense is that they needed the break-in at Daystrom to get the Picard DNA to work the compromising of the transporter code, and that break-in was within the scope of the show. I'm under the impression that the show took place within like a week. When Riker and Picard meet in E1, Riker talks about how he's giving a speech at the Frontier Day thing next week. I suppose that the ground work for the compromising might have happened four months ago, but the Changelings only got Picard's DNA after the Daystrom breakin. Didn't that happen during the scope of the show?

If we take the show at face value, Jack has been hearing the Borg for all/most of his 23 years. Young Jack created the Red Door as a defense against the Borg communications.

I guess you could square the poisoning of the Borg by Janeway 20ish years ago in show time, with the Borg having connectivity with Jack all that time, and with the Borg not having done anything. Better writers could maybe have connected the dots -- Alt-Admiral Janeway's Borg pathogen prevented them from normal assimilation of people and tech, and Jurati's push for individuality fractured them further, old school Borg basically died out, leaving them separated and weak. They dwindled down to this one cube. and barely were hanging on. But again, the writers should have done this rather than just leaving it to the imagination.

Raffi said she had been investigating the Daystrom breakin and missing missiles for months. She and Worf then figured out the stolen missiles were a diversion from what was really stolen, which the crew later determined was the body. Ro said the transporters had been having problems for four months. The show started after the Daystrom breakin and, yes, literally days before Frontier Day would become Assimilation Day.

Would the Borg in the Delta Quadrant, who were just as sick as the Borg in this episode for the last ~20 years, have been able to hear 3-year-old Jack from Earth? Was he transmitting as a toddler? Did it go that far? Or did this Queen hear him as he got older and only because she was close by in our quadrant or solar system? Even if he was plugged into the whole Collective, what were they really going to be able to do as they were literally dying and losing their own connections to each other. Those cubes would have been absolute chaos. (Note: I forget why I’m saying this but at some point I figured it tied in - I don’t think and will not be convinced that this Queen is the same Queen from Endgame. No way.) Also, I’m fairly convinced Agnes doesn’t exist in this season, like that one TV sibling who was mentioned once and then never again. But it would have made sense if she was the one who saved the Borg and then did all this. Edited to add: I thought Beverly said the dreams and odd behavior got better as he got older, which would square with the Borg being annihilated in Endgame when he was 3-4 years old. Then this Queen comes around and starts talking again.

Edited April 28, 2023 by dovegrey
Noted

PurpleTentacle · April 28, 2023

I want to talk about the transporters again. Because that stupid lives rent free in my head and maybe this way I can get it out. Let's put aside that they don't work like that and never worked like that. Let's assume they work like it was described in this season and let's think of the ethical ramifications. There is some part of the genome the transporter just sees as "shared" for a species and doesn't even bother trying to recreate what the original DNA of the beamed person was, but just overrides it with that shared code. Even if there was such a thing as DNA that is exactly the same throughout all humans, which there isn't, unless you go to very small snipets, that would make this pretty much useless, then that still wouldn't account for genetic mutations that might make an individual unique. Now, there are harmfull mutations, neutral mutations and even helpfull mutations. But regardless of what they are, they are unique to that individual and it should be that individuals decision if they want those mutations removed. It isn't on Starfleet to just blanket homogenize their crews. That's something I'd expect from the terran empire not the Federation.

If it was something the Borg/Changelings had done to the transporter, fine. They don't have ethical qualms about those kind of things. But it was specifically described as a standard function of the transporter that got corrupted with Picard's Borg-DNA. I'm just still baffled. This might be worse than anything in season 1 and 2 and that is saying a lot.

I guess Bones and Barclay were right. Yout should stay away from the transporters.

On 4/26/2023 at 6:43 PM, Francie said:

Right? I mean, I'm also clearly not part of the designed audience for these show runners. Others perhaps need to weigh in -- those that found the comment funny, that was supposed to be a joke, right? One aimed at Riker being annoyed with Worf for intimating about his past with Troi?

It has nothing to do with Troi. It's about "threesome" only having sexual connotations nowadays and Worf being oblivious to it.

Troi wasn't even in the away party the threesome comment was made about.

It's just your average stupid Marvel-style quip with no deeper meaning.

On 4/26/2023 at 6:43 PM, Francie said:

I just find it oddly stupid, in an almost amusing way, that Beverly is supposedly 'honoring' Jean-Luc by naming his kid after her own dead husband. The reason you offer about time passing, to me, cuts against it being a great reason to pick that name as an homage to Jean-Luc. His best friend died nearly 50 years ago. Besides, according to this show, Will Riker is Jean-Luc's Sundance to his Butch Cassidy. So, to honor Jean-Luc, she should have named the kid Will? That might actually have been entertaining.

I guess we can go around in circles, but I still don't think it has any barring that Jack was her husband, when she was considering what Picard would like have liked to name his son.

On 4/26/2023 at 7:06 PM, Francie said:

I'll bring Lower Decks, Chain of Command II, and - for actually comedy -- A Fistful of Datas.

I'll bring Measure of a man and The inner light. (yes, I know, I'm basic)

8 hours ago, dovegrey said:

(Note: I forget why I’m saying this but at some point I figured it tied in - I don’t think and will not be convinced that this Queen is the same Queen from Endgame. No way.)

Then where is she from?

dovegrey · April 28, 2023

20 minutes ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Then where is she from?

There has long been speculation in Trek fan circles that there are multiple Borg Queens, possibly even clones because they look and sound alike, rather than one single Queen. The Confederation Queen who assimilated Agnes was different, and we have even seen Seven become a Queen. The Artifact had a specific Queen Cell when it was just a standard cube, which is suggestive that there is possibly a Queen for every cube. So, following that speculation, it could have been any Queen who survived the virus and was close to Earth. But the Queen from Endgame was infected by a virus, literally fell apart limb by limb, and was blown up on-screen with Janeway (we saw the explosion come up behind her then saw it from the exterior), then that entire transwarp hub to the Alpha Quadrant was completely destroyed. How would a dead infected blown up Queen with no body who is in the Delta Quadrant get to Jupiter? This show has done some dumb shit but, boy howdy, that would be a doozy.

I agree about the DNA. They shouldn’t have even explained it. The Borg made their own pathogen using Picard DNA and weaponised the transporters, the end. I swear, the more the writers tried to explain stuff through exposition, the worse it all got.

Chicago Redshirt · April 28, 2023

10 hours ago, marinw said:

Were ALL the Starfleet ships at Earth For Frontier Day? That seems pretty stupid. There must have been some Designated Survivor ships somewhere.

Pretty sure all the series is premised on every single Starfleet ship being on Earth for Frontier Day. I may go back and rewatch and point to specific dialogue saying that. Which is super stupid. It would be like the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines pulling all their mobile resources and redeploying them to Washington D.C. for the Fourth of July.

The sad thing is that the overall premise would work just as well if Starfleet was on regular deployment and the fleet was going to just take a moment to celebrate Frontier Day.

Everyone's tuned into the big Frontier Day broadcast. The Borg just use that to piggyback their Borgification signal throughout the Federation.

Or they use the "we networked all Starfleet ship computers" thing and say the Borg hijacked that to piggyback the Borgification signal.

That way, a) Starfleet don't look like idiots for literally putting everyone in range to get wiped out and pulling people from their vital duties to have a parade and b) it makes (more) sense that Earth can mount at least some sort of defense (i.e. against a dozen Borgified ships that happened to be in range of Earth rather than literally all of Starfleet)

Francie · April 28, 2023

On 4/26/2023 at 12:47 PM, FloatOn said:

About the Kestra thing- it's still ridiculous they didn't include or cut the scenes about where Kestra was once they took Deanna, but watching through the episodes with my boyfriend so he could watch the finale, she does get mentioned way more than I remembered. They bring her up by name at least twice in separate episodes

Kestra is named checked two or three times (I forget if she was mentioned in Riker's post going through the alien birth canal videocall), and both had to do with Riker's man-pain. He mentions in the first episode that he thought Kesta would like some time away from him, for instance.

That was my disappointment. Whether the PicardS3 show runners like it or not, Riker had his own family now, and it was shucked aside so that the showrunners could pretend Picard and Riker were some kind of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance duo.

1 hour ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Troi wasn't even in the away party the threesome comment was made about.

That was my point. Riker's faux annoyed (or real annoyed -- who knows) "Do you hear yourself?" is stupid if he isn't taking on real or pretend offense. And I agree with you that the writing is so bad and so trying to be all Marvel-esque that the joke doesn't work without extrapolation. But Riker's line was "Do you hear yourself?," and he should only be offended if the comment involved Deanna. The exact point I'm making -- how the women got erased out of this -- seems to be point you're making to say, "this wasn't even about a woman."

On 4/26/2023 at 6:03 PM, FloatOn said:

Matalas said they filmed or cut a scene about her being at the Academy (either on Earth or maybe on some satellite campus somewhere I guess).

He didn't say they shot or had a scene with Kestra at Starfleet Academy. They didn't re-hire the actress from Season 1 or have a Starfleet Academy set for a one-minute scene like that. TM said Kestra was at Starfleet Academy on social media because he was getting questioned about it there. At the time he shot the show, he quite clearly didn't know or care where Kestra was.

Now, whether he actually shot scenes with Deanna and Will that were cut from Season 7 is a little unclear. He said there were scenes that intercut with a Crazy Amanda. So those scenes were at the very least were scripted, and it seemed like they were shot. But even that he didn't confirm 100%.

On 4/26/2023 at 6:03 PM, FloatOn said:

If it's just the fleet that's effected and not Earth, then I think we're supposed to assume the Academy and whatever Starfleet personnel is on Earth is safe or relatively safe.

Given the threat they were under, no parents should have assumed and no reasonable, normal parents would have thought their child was safe. They would have -- and should have been -- worried sick. Like so many others have said, the tone of this show was so off.

Prevailing Wind · April 28, 2023

It WAS stated that all Starfleet vessels would be at "Frontier Day" - one of the first things Geordi says is he's in the midst of writing a letter (or something similar) to TPTB telling them how dumb that is.

dovegrey · April 28, 2023

7 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Pretty sure all the series is premised on every single Starfleet ship being on Earth for Frontier Day. I may go back and rewatch and point to specific dialogue saying that. Which is super stupid. It would be like the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines pulling all their mobile resources and redeploying them to Washington D.C. for the Fourth of July.

[snipped for brevity]

That way, a) Starfleet don't look like idiots for literally putting everyone in range to get wiped out and pulling people from their vital duties to have a parade and b) it makes (more) sense that Earth can mount at least some sort of defense (i.e. against a dozen Borgified ships that happened to be in range of Earth rather than literally all of Starfleet)

Right. I thought it was established that the Changelings infiltrated Starfleet's highest command levels and planned Frontier Day to be the stupidest thing the Federation could do, specifically so Earth couldn't mount a defense against the Borg. People who questioned or dissented or fought back got killed, like Ro.

Francie · April 28, 2023

2 minutes ago, Prevailing Wind said:

It WAS stated that all Starfleet vessels would be at "Frontier Day" - one of the first things Geordi says is he's in the midst of writing a letter (or something similar) to TPTB telling them how dumb that is.

I hate that lazy writing. The whole notion that, "Oh, we can totally get away with doing this insanely stupid thing if we have one character be the defeated voice of reason."

Any script writer whose television or movie offering relies on that should have their writers guild card revoked faster than one can say 'plot contrivance.'

Edited April 28, 2023 by Francie

Chicago Redshirt · April 28, 2023

20 minutes ago, dovegrey said:

Right. I thought it was established that the Changelings infiltrated Starfleet's highest command levels and planned Frontier Day to be the stupidest thing the Federation could do, specifically so Earth couldn't mount a defense against the Borg. People who questioned or dissented or fought back got killed, like Ro.

The trouble with this is that it is such a obviously stupid idea that it is incompatible with the notion of any version of an enlightened democratic republic that the Federation has been.

Even assuming the Changelings managed to 100 percent replace every high-ranking civilian and military leader to push this plan, there would presumably be literally trillions of civilians and military people for whom the galactic stupidity of the idea would be obvious, and who would protest the idea up the chain, or who simply wouldn't cooperate.

dovegrey · April 28, 2023

1 hour ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Even assuming the Changelings managed to 100 percent replace every high-ranking civilian and military leader to push this plan, there would presumably be literally trillions of civilians and military people for whom the galactic stupidity of the idea would be obvious, and who would protest the idea up the chain, or who simply wouldn't cooperate.

I don't think that trillions would protest a couple hours of starships being in Earth orbit during peacetime or that Starfleet officers would resign their careers/risk court martial over it; that would be an odd response to a stupid and pointless show of pomp, and I don't want to get into what society usually does when leaders violate norms, so I'll leave it at respectfully agree to disagree. 🙂 Connecting all the ships to the point where ship autonomy can be overridden is what I'd be more concerned about; where's Bill Adama when you need him 😆.

marinw · April 28, 2023

So there were no distress calls? No planetary disaster or diplomatic situation? Nothing in the whole freaking Alpha Quadrant that needed a Fed Starship to be somewhere besides Earth?

Edited April 29, 2023 by marinw

dovegrey · April 29, 2023

10 minutes ago, marinw said:

So there were no distress calls? No planetary disaster or diplomatic situation? Nothing n the whole freaking Alpha Quadrant that needed a Fed Starship to be somewhere besides Earth?

I guess I don't see what difference it would make if it had explicitly been "the entire fleet except ten ships." Let's say that ten ships didn't go to Frontier Day and stayed out on their mission, had an emergency call, maintained a minimal defense position around Federation space, or, oops, "forgot." Even if Enterprise had sent a call to arms (...which they should have...), how many of those ships would have been able to get to Earth in the short time it took the Borg to breech planetary defense and start targeting cities? And those people on those ships still got assimilated or killed, since Jack was talking to the "worlds of the Federation," but the ships simply didn't get used to target Earth. Even if the ships didn't get assimilated, they're screwed the minute they come anywhere near the assimilated fleet (the young get assimilated, the old get killed, and the ships get hijacked), and suddenly we're watching a badly written version of Star Trek: Galactica (which might have been cool actually 😝).

It might have been more palatable if the Changelings/Borg Queen somehow faked a situation that needed a heroic fleet-wide response, like Wolf 359, but I also think the Changelings were taking a very vindictive approach. Frontier Day was a mockery of the Federation - and it was meant to be. ~~But the writers forgot the Changelings existed once Vadic died.~~

marinw · April 29, 2023

54 minutes ago, dovegrey said:

oops, "forgot”

It would be like that family or work gathering you want to get out of. I can already see Captain Carol Freeman saying “Sorry we couldn’t make it to Frontier Day, my first officer accidentally developed god like powers. Yes. Let’s go with that.”

IIRC in “Amok Time” Kirk blew off some gathering of ships to help Spock.

Edited April 29, 2023 by marinw

supposebly · April 29, 2023

Wow, that was terrible. I watched season 1 and enjoyed it. I heard this was better than season 2 so I thought I'd watch it first.

So boring, so much unnatural and cringeworthy dialogue, so much technohandwaving magic even for Star Trek, so many bad and repetitive speeches. Since TNG is not my favorite, the nostalgia felt boring and self indulgent. And there was so much of it.

Just shows I shouldn't listen to reviews. Why did people think this was good? How bad was season 2 that this is considered improvement?

Most comments have already discussed what was so shitty but I really felt it's time to pack this up. It's just embarrassing if the only character I found remotely interesting and I was rooting for was Shaw. Of course later, they had to give him that tired old motivation of Picard killing his crew when he was Borg. It couldn't just be that Picard and Riker had no right to tell him where to go and he wasn't all that impressed with them to begin with. I loved that he put them in bunk beds.

This was certainly advertising for better condoms. You'd think unexpected pregnancies wouldn't happen anymore by then.

Edited April 29, 2023 by supposebly

Chit Chat · April 29, 2023

We still can't download the Ready Room on Paramount. We can get anything else on their network. Is anybody else having the same issue? Thanks.

chaifan · April 29, 2023

@Chit Chat When I watched it, the RR episodes were listed out of order, and there are no episode numbers. Look for the one with Jery Ryan and Terry M in the icon. I have Paramount through Prime, so maybe it's different.

Chit Chat · April 30, 2023

1 hour ago, chaifan said:

When I watched it, the RR episodes were listed out of order, and there are no episode numbers.

Thank you, but we can't even get that far with Paramount! We get the little arrow going in circles showing that it's trying to download. It's frustrating!

Prevailing Wind · April 30, 2023

8 hours ago, Chit Chat said:

We get the little arrow going in circles showing that it's trying to download.

I get that when I try to log in to my online pharmacy. Turns out, if I use Chrome instead of Firefox, it works just fine. But I guess streaming TV is different.

AllyB · April 30, 2023

On 4/28/2023 at 11:10 PM, Chicago Redshirt said:

Even assuming the Changelings managed to 100 percent replace every high-ranking civilian and military leader to push this plan,

I think it's fair to assume that Federation President Anton Chekov, a man who interjects random reminiscences about the father he sounds exactly like into his desperate message of terrible danger and imminent defeat, was not a Changeling. So the most powerful person in the Federation had not been replaced. And the people most immediately around him obviously weren't Changelings, as otherwise they would have killed him rather than be hustling him into an escape pod. So Changelings had replaced key personnel but certainly not everyone in power or in the vicinity of power.

Francie · April 30, 2023

14 hours ago, Chit Chat said:

Thank you, but we can't even get that far with Paramount! We get the little arrow going in circles showing that it's trying to download. It's frustrating!

Can you access you tube Paramount Plus channel? The channel puts up either the ready room interviews or whole shows on them (I've never watched it, but it comes into my youtube feed as 'suggestions.')

Otherwise, I agree that it might be a browser issue.

On 4/29/2023 at 12:47 AM, supposebly said:

Wow, that was terrible. I watched season 1 and enjoyed it. I heard this was better than season 2 so I thought I'd watch it first.

So boring, so much unnatural and cringeworthy dialogue, so much technohandwaving magic even for Star Trek, so many bad and repetitive speeches. Since TNG is not my favorite, the nostalgia felt boring and self indulgent. And there was so much of it.

Just shows I shouldn't listen to reviews. Why did people think this was good? How bad was season 2 that this is considered improvement?

Most comments have already discussed what was so shitty but I really felt it's time to pack this up. It's just embarrassing if the only character I found remotely interesting and I was rooting for was Shaw. Of course later, they had to give him that tired old motivation of Picard killing his crew when he was Borg. It couldn't just be that Picard and Riker had no right to tell him where to go and he wasn't all that impressed with them to begin with. I loved that he put them in bunk beds.

This was certainly advertising for better condoms. You'd think unexpected pregnancies wouldn't happen anymore by then.

Thank you! I thought I was going crazy with the near universal praise I see outside this forum. There've been two reviewers with whom I've been in near entire agreement, but as to the rest -- I was feeling like one of those minority of people who eats cilantro and tastes soap. I can't understand how so many others are tasting something else.

By the way, and mainly the reason I'm responding -- I absolutely love your screen name! I know that has nothing to do with what we're talking about here. One might say it's a moo point.

Edited April 30, 2023 by Francie

Chicago Redshirt · April 30, 2023

On 4/28/2023 at 6:43 PM, dovegrey said:

I don't think that trillions would protest a couple hours of starships being in Earth orbit during peacetime or that Starfleet officers would resign their careers/risk court martial over it; that would be an odd response to a stupid and pointless show of pomp, and I don't want to get into what society usually does when leaders violate norms, so I'll leave it at respectfully agree to disagree. 🙂 Connecting all the ships to the point where ship autonomy can be overridden is what I'd be more concerned about; where's Bill Adama when you need him 😆.

Then you haven't thought through the ramifications of such an order:

Stop whatever you are doing, whether it is defending the Federation from threats or conducting key scientific research or engaging in diplomacy or doing the exploration that is our primary goal.

No matter how important or time-sensitive your mission is, you are to take your ship to Earth.

It doesn't matter you are far enough out that it is a week's journey each way or longer.

There, you are ordered to participate in a parade and fireworks show to flex Federation muscle.

It is not just a stupid and pointless show of pomp. It is one that quite obviously leaves key parts of the Federation undefended and that is quite expensive in time and resources needed to bring about.

It is different from the notion of "Wherever you are, at noon Federation Standard Time on Frontier Day you will carry this broadcast." Diverting the entirety of the fleet to a single location is not something Starfleet commanders would blindly do. Nor would civilians just accept it. Again, think of the analogy if an American president said "I want all the American military to converge on Washington D.C. for the Fourth of July." No way would every military member say "That's what the commander in chief wants, so that's what the commander in chief gets." And no way would the Americans at large accept that decision -- between the people upset that he might be using them to pull off some martial law at home, the people concerned about the potential for America's enemies taking advantage of the move around the world, and other concerns, it would never get approved.

Edited April 30, 2023 by Chicago Redshirt

Chit Chat · April 30, 2023

15 minutes ago, Francie said:

Can you access you tube Paramount Plus channel? The channel puts up either the ready room interviews or whole shows on them (I've never watched it, but it comes into my youtube feed as 'suggestions.')

Thanks! We'll try that!

Chicago Redshirt · April 30, 2023

On 4/29/2023 at 12:47 AM, supposebly said:

Wow, that was terrible. I watched season 1 and enjoyed it. I heard this was better than season 2 so I thought I'd watch it first.

So boring, so much unnatural and cringeworthy dialogue, so much technohandwaving magic even for Star Trek, so many bad and repetitive speeches. Since TNG is not my favorite, the nostalgia felt boring and self indulgent. And there was so much of it.

Just shows I shouldn't listen to reviews. Why did people think this was good? How bad was season 2 that this is considered improvement?

As always, it's a matter of taste and people's mileage will vary.

I would say that if you enjoyed S1, you will probably enjoy S2 for the most part.

Without going into spoilers too deep, some of the ways I could see people enjoying this season more than 2:

1. If you are a TNG fan, seeing the old crew together again is huge and having the references to their old adventures, the same. Speaking personally, I liked the cast of S1 and 2 well enough but they just didn't have the chemistry of the TNG crew.

2. Although there aren't the sort of gaping plot and logic holes in S3, S2 does quite lag a bit in places.

3. This season has almost no social commentary and a lot of pew-pew starships fighting. S2 had a lot of social commentary and not a lot of starship combat. So certain fans are going to prefer this season on those fronts.

Chit Chat · April 30, 2023

1 hour ago, Francie said:

Can you access you tube Paramount Plus channel?

A big 'ol duh to us!! We finally found it on YouTube. We assumed it could only be seen through Paramount Plus, so we didn't bother to look for it anywhere else. Thanks again!

I found it interesting that the showrunner, Terry Matalas, said that Patrick Stewart didn't want this season to be about the Borg. He had to sell him on the idea. I hate all things Borg, so I wasn't too keen on the idea either. Also, Jack's character was introduced so late into the series that it was difficult for me to feel anything for the character. I would've been fine with the idea of Jack sacrificing himself for the good of humanity, but for Beverly & Picard's sake, I'm glad he was okay.

Apparently, it was the closure that Jean Luc needed with his time as a Borg (Matalas mentioned that), so I'm okay with it, I suppose.

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