If last week was an homage to the Next Generation's love of exposition, this week seems to have embraced the Original Series' love of...itself? "Very fit people in loosely draped yet still revealing clothes wander about a Mediterranean garden explaining how much better they are than you." Honestly, you would be hard-pressed to find an episode of the Original Series which did not fit this description. In 2020, the very fit people in question are synthetics. The way in which they are better than you is unclear. The crew of La Sirena (and, inexplicably, the Artifact) have crash landed on Soji's home planet and hiked into her home city where their arrival has sparked a debate about whether or not it is justifiable for the synthetics to commit a genocide against all sex-based life in order to prevent the Romulans from committing a genocide against the last remaining synthetic life in this quadrant. Apparently, the Linda Hamilton vision that Commodore Oh downloaded into Doctor Jurati's brain wasn't a warning to the sexies against the perils of building artificial intelligence; it was an invitation to the synthetics: "we are out there; if your sex-based overlords ever decide to kill you, call us, and we will kill them for you." No one really knows who "we" are in this proposition; my money is on the Vorlon god Boji. There's much to be infuriated about in this episode: the awkward debate between Jean-Luc and Soji over whether or not killing is ever justified; Jean-Luc's earnest belief that he can white savior his way out of this mess ("come with me and I will be your advocate to the Federation; you don't have to kill anyone; I will save you")*; Evil Soji's (because of course there's an Evil Soji) plan to release Romulan Boyfriend from jail so that she can frame him for the murder of Saga and rally her compatriots to the cause of "murder all the sexies." If you chose to hate this episode because Evil Soji taught herself the Vulcan mindmeld I wouldn't blame you. I am choosing to hate this episode because of how bloody long it took us to get here. "Romulans want to kill off a planet of androids. The androids plan to commit preemptive, self-defensive genocide. Captain McLiberal-Values must prevent the bloodshed by reminding everyone about life in a pluralistic democracy and the Rights of Man." Old school Star Trek, by which I mean anything pre-Enterprise (weird... I just had a hallucination in which there was a Star Trek series called Enterprise; it starred Scott Bakula for some reason... I must be more tired than I thought) would have told this story in one episode (two if they were feeling lazy at the season break). It has taken us an entire season to get to the rising action part of the story. Everything up until this point has been meaningless misdirection (of the characters, not the viewers; I don't know if that makes it better) or characterization of people, specifically Irish people, who are no longer a part of the story. I don't actually mind the story you are trying to tell, Star Trek -- I enjoyed What Are Little Girls Made Of? as much as the next thirteen year old -- I mind that this seems to be the only story you are trying to tell.**
Other things to be upset about that don't fit into my general narrative:
Saga, a synthetic, was killed by having a hummingbird broach jammed through her eye. In Time's Arrow Data's head was cut off. In Disaster Commander Riker removed Data's head. In Thine Own Self, a blacksmith ran Data through with a metal spike. In all cases, Data could be and in fact was repaired. Again, I ask: what is the point of making an android out of flesh and blood, anyway?
Doctor Noonian Soong had a biological son who is also played by Brent Spiner. Wouldn't we have known that already?
* I'm actually less annoyed by Jean-Luc's attempt to white savior his way out of it than I am by the sneaking suspicion that the lesson of part 2 will be that everything would have been fine if they had just trusted Jean-Luc to be their white savior. I guess, after all that we've been through, this is still Star Trek.
**Still better than Discovery...
Other things to be upset about that don't fit into my general narrative:
Saga, a synthetic, was killed by having a hummingbird broach jammed through her eye. In Time's Arrow Data's head was cut off. In Disaster Commander Riker removed Data's head. In Thine Own Self, a blacksmith ran Data through with a metal spike. In all cases, Data could be and in fact was repaired. Again, I ask: what is the point of making an android out of flesh and blood, anyway?
Doctor Noonian Soong had a biological son who is also played by Brent Spiner. Wouldn't we have known that already?
* I'm actually less annoyed by Jean-Luc's attempt to white savior his way out of it than I am by the sneaking suspicion that the lesson of part 2 will be that everything would have been fine if they had just trusted Jean-Luc to be their white savior. I guess, after all that we've been through, this is still Star Trek.
**Still better than Discovery...
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