Star Trek: Picard -- "Et in Arcadia Ego, pt. 2"

Going into this week, there was exactly one way that I could imagine Picard saving itself from the dustbin of mediocrity: Seven-of-Nine and Elnor patch up the Artifact and leave the planet of the Synths to star in their own spin-off-spin-off series

Star Trek: Rangers of the Neutral Zone
"Decapitating people and fighting crime"

Alas, it was not to be, and once again I find myself holed up in the dark of night hate-blogging about my favorite deep space franchise.

I am going to go ahead and assume that much will be written about this season finale's abject failure to execute on the most basic elements of story telling. "Abusive Romulan Boyfriend" (that's what Raffi actually calls him, because he has no name) shows up at La Sirena, explaining to Captain Rios and Raffi, who left the city of the Synths long before the apocalyptic nature of Commodore Oh's vision was explained to anyone, that they have to work together to prevent Romulan Ragnarok. Captain Rios and Raffi, of course, believe him, because he has such penetrating blue eyes. Commodore Oh, possessed of a deep religious conviction that the Synths must die for the good of all life, when presented with a choice between carrying out her mission and defending her fleet of 200 warbirds against a holographic projection of 100 ships, each less than a third the size of a single warbird, chooses to take defensive action rather than carry out "planetary sterilization procedure 5" (because, of course the Romulans have more than 4 ways to wipe out all life on a planet). Captain Picard dies of an acute Irumodic attack, mourned by people who are not named Riker, Troi, LaForge, Worf, or Crusher, but it's alright because Doctor Jurati knows how to download brains into synthetic bodies. Apparently, you build synthetic life forms out of flesh and blood so that you don't have to deal with the mass opprobrium that would result from recasting one of the most beloved roles in all of science fiction simply because the actor who originated the role is too old to play an android. None of these moments make any sense or have any meaning and yet, without them, the story Picard was always trying to tell us would, I guess, not have been impossible. Perhaps this story should never have been told.

Star Trek has always been problematic -- it wasn't until mid-Deep Space Nine that its treatment of race got any more nuanced than "imagine a colorblind society," and I similarly doubt that anything pre-Kira and Dax could remotely be considered "feminist" -- but it has somehow managed to always remain simultaneously aspirational. Human society was perfectible, but only if we lived into our ideals better than we ever had before. At the intellectual fulcrum of this episode, as Jean-Luc and Doctor Jurati are strapping themselves into La Sirena, preparing to face down the Romulan fleet alone, Jean-Luc explains that the problem with the Synths, the reason that they are even contemplating wiping out all sex-based life in the galaxy, is that "no one has taught them what it means to be alive; what life is for...they're just children. They are going to have to learn the way all children do: by example." By Jean-Luc's example. Put another way, "we already had the key to our perfectible human society, but you doofuses lost it under the couch." This is more backward looking than I think Star Trek has ever been. The Synths are not children. They are not incapable of making their own moral choices in the universe. They are refugees from an attempted genocide. The Federation has outlawed their existence. The Romulans want to blow them up right now. Absent any sign of good faith from powers which have already attempted mass murder, the Synths are going to have to defend themselves. Admiral Picard wants them to run away and trust in his own beneficence ("I will be your advocated before the Federation; I will protect you") without any evidence beyond his own self-confidence in the face of past failures that his beneficence can turn the tide. He leans into the 24th century liberal humanism which has guided his entire life thus far without once stopping to consider that a Federation organized around that very liberal humanism brought about this mess by banning synthetic life. Admiral Picard is white America, wagging his finger as Baltimore takes to the streets without bothering to count in his head exactly how many unarmed black men have died at the hands of the police in the past... ever. Whatever happened to "She tried it Bruce Maddux's way; she tried it my way; let's try it her way, now"? That was two episodes ago.

I don't consume a lot of media about media. However, my understanding is that Patrick Stewart warmed to the idea of Picard because he thought it was an appropriate response to how the Anglo-Saxon world has unfolded in the quarter century since he sat down to a hand of poker with the crew of the Enterprise. The fragment of an interview I heard on NPR, Sir Patrick said something about the shame of Brexit. I cannot imagine that he is terribly pleased with how his adopted homeland has comported itself, either. I understand the impulse. Most well-meaning liberal reactions to the events of 2016 start somewhere in the vicinity of "but, we're better than this" (I suspect that is going to be the overarching theme of Joe Biden's general election campaign). Honest assessments of what happened, however, inevitably must turn that complaint into a question: "aren't we?" Large swaths of our well meaning liberal society stand ready too look deep into our eyes and whisper: "no." America did not accidentally arrive in the middle of a serious debate about whether or not we want to become a white ethnostate. We arrived here by allowing our faith in the meritorious individual to blind us to all the ways, large and small, that we had allowed our society to remain stratified by race long after we "knew" that it was wrong to do so. We did not accidentally become a society in which the chorus of misogynist trolls can exile women artists from digital communities. We became that society by assuming that all feminism demanded of us was to allow women to participate in our highly questionable model of masculinity without seriously examining whether or not that model weren't predicated on domination and the will to power. And then we invented social media. We have been living into our ideals just fine, Jean-Luc. The problem is that they were the wrong ideals. For a brief moment, I thought that maybe Star Trek was going to confront this terrifying reality at the same time that we are being forced to live through it. I'm sorry I was wrong. As I said: I need a Starfleet captain to scold me into shape every now and then. Jean-Luc Picard is no longer that captain.

Star Trek: Picard -- "Et in Arcadia Ego pt. 1"

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...

Star Trek: Picard -- "Broken Pieces"

If you ask most people to give an operational definition of Star Trek, they will probably say something about space and boldly going. I, however, am a child of the nineties. My Star Trek is irrevocably the Next Generation. For me, Star Trek is about well-meaning, intelligent people sitting around a table explaining the crap out of things. It only took us eight episodes, but we finally got there. The crew of La Sirena sat down in the mess hall and things got explained. Was that so hard?

Seriously: was any of this so hard? After the total disaster that was the last two episodes, this week's offering was thoroughly tolerable. Soji is aware that she is a synthetic lifeform and acting accordingly. She is longing for home, worried about her people, and more than a little annoyed that Doctor Jurati intended to murder her out of hand. Not, mind you, so annoyed as to forgo the obligatory "prick me, do I not bleed?" conversation with Doctor Jurati. This is, after all, Star Trek. Forgiveness is always possible, no matter how unearned. It is amazing how one basic detail (letting the character at the center of the entire plot be aware of who she is and what she wants and why anything that is happening to her is happening) can make the difference between a mildly enjoyable and an almost unwatchable television show. Doctor Jurati, for her part, has admitted that being evil was a bad move and has pinky-promised never to do it again (all it took was one murder!). Jean-Luc may or may not have admitted that he has been a bit of a jerk ("She's tried it Bruce Maddux's way; she's tried it my way; let's let her try it her way"). And Raffi was right! Raffi is always right. There has been a massive interstellar conspiracy this whole time.

Thousands of years ago, the Vorlons and the Shadows disagreed... no; wait; wrong TV show. Let me try again.

Thousands of years ago, a now dead civilization in what is currently Romulan space invented androids. Something Terrible noticed and destroyed them. Not the androids; the entire civilization. The Zhat Vash (it would be too much effort to learn how to actually spell those words) knows all of this and have devoted themselves to making sure no one ever again creates artificial intelligence true enough for Something Terrible to notice. It's unclear how the crew of La Sirena know all of this, too, but was it ever really clear how Data, Geordi and Wesley knew half of the things that they explained around a table? Honestly, the only thing that really bothers me about this explanation for literally everything that has happened so far is that it puts Star Trek on the "fantasy" side of my personal boundary between science fiction and fantasy.

To my mind, science fiction is about the future and fantasy is about the past relative to the characters. In my personal definition of science fiction, someone invents or discovers something that has never existed before in the world of the story and the characters proceed to explore the ramifications of that discovery. US Robotics and Mechanical Men builds quasi-people who obey three laws, the implications of which are not entirely understood, even by their authors. All of the communists leave Urras for Anarres to see see if they can actually make a go of it. Disillusioned by all of the ways humans can be brutal to each other, a radio astronomer announces Earth's existence to a universe characterized by soul-crushing scarcity. Fantasy (again: according to my personal definition) is about something that has been forgotten re-emerging from past. Forgetfulness, generally, has very negative consequences. Three thousand years ago, the Noldor let Sauron look over their shoulder as they made the Rings of Power (oops!). For a thousand generations, the Jedi held a Manichean view of how good and evil works in the universe and, as a result, completely misread their own prophecies. Aslan is an allegory for Jesus. This is obviously a porous and not terribly well-motivated definition, but it is my definition which is used by me. It leads to some non-traditional classifications. Star Wars is fantasy. Harry Potter is probably science fiction (Voldemort does take the theory of horcruxes to heretofore unexplored limits; also he appears to invent wizard fascism). Babylon 5 is complicated. It helps that, in my middle age, I don't actually care if something is science fiction or fantasy. I like robots, spaceships, and dragons -- the past and the future -- equally. I do care, however, about the themes that each represents. Science fiction is about looking forward and building a better (or worse) world out of our own potential. Fantasy is about restoring that which has been lost (the king at Minas Tirith; balance in the Force; whatever it is Aslan wanted that couldn't be accomplished without the aid of four middle class British children). Up until this point, I felt very confident that Star Trek was science fiction, which is to say: forward looking. Whatever went wrong was the result of mistakes made by the Federation. Whatever went right happened in spite of the choices made by the Federation. This story about an Eldritch Horror from the Deeps of Time that will consume all whose technological hubris proves too great is almost literally backward looking. Research into artificial intelligence was, apparently, outlawed, because the Romulans convinced everyone else to start looking over their shoulder before they leaped too far and suffered the consequences of someone else's mistake that no one can actually remember. I'm not saying that this story can't be enjoyable (ask me about Babylon 5; see if I ever stop talking). I might be saying that it isn't what I want from Star Trek.

Other things happened in this episode, nearly all of them on the Artifact. As usual: nothing that happened on the Artifact filled me with joy. Seven-of-Nine did show up. Turns out, bringing a gun to a gun fight is a good idea. Ultimately, she plugs herself into the Borg Queen's throne room (?) in an attempt to take direct control of the remaining fully assimilated Borg on the cube, organizing them into an armed revolt against Rizzo's tyrranical rule. It doesn't matter, though, because Rizzo has already decided to dump all of the Borg into space. Thankfully, the XBs have enough sense of self preservation to take down Rizzo on their own (or maybe Seven was controlling them, too, it's unclear, but they are XBs). As far as I can tell, all of this happened so that a) Seven-of-Nine can explain why using the Borg Queen's personal terminal to hijack the minds of the remaining drones is Very Unethical and b) Elnor (who is still on the Artifact, Daddy issues notwithstanding) can ask Seven "are you going to assimilate me now?" The answer is no. Seven passes the test and will go into the West and remain a poorly-justified bit of fan service. So far: nothing Borg-related in this series has made any sense or met any definition of the word "justified" as a story choice. Pour one out for Hugh.

Star Trek: Picard -- "Nepenthe"

There is something worse than the experience of being transparently emotionally manipulated by a television show: the experience of knowing that a television show thinks that it is emotionally manipulating you, but realizing that it isn't working. Jean-Luc and Soji have escaped to Nepenthe, adoptive homeworld of the Troi-Riker (henceforth: Triker) household. Lots of exposition happens in which Soji begins to comes to terms with the fact that she is an android, while the Trikers' daughter figures out where the planet with two moons and lightning is by texting the next door neighbor (who, from the look of it, probably lives about fifty miles away). Meanwhile, La Sirena has abandoned Elnor on the Romulan Reclamation Center. They won't get very far, though, as we learn via flashback that, after using a mind meld (finally! a certified Vulcan) to give Doctor Jurati a "Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2" style vision of what will happen if anyone ever builds another synthetic lifeform, Commodore Oh forced Doctor Jurati to consume a glowing Flintsone's vitamin which will allow the Romulans to track her anywhere she goes. A ridiculous game of cat-and-mouse ensues in which a) boyfriend Romulan is too stupid to realize that La Sirena knows he is tracking them b) Captain Rios is just stupid enough to think that Raffi is the one the Romulans are tracking and c) Doctor Jurati makes the odd decision that, while murdering her one time lover for the sake of Commodore Oh's cause was totally reasonable, letting these people she met three days ago get followed by a creepy Romulan boyband singer is a bridge too far. She poisons herself, and that somehow manages to neutralize the signal. Back on the Reclamation Center, Elnor decapitates a few more Tal Shi'ar/Zhat Vhash/let's just call them stormtroopers because they can't aim very well. Not while they are torturing Hugh by making him watch as they execute his favorite XBs. That would be too useful. But definitely after that. Lots of decapitations after that. Elnor fights Rizzo. Rizzo kills Hugh. Elnor activates a special beacon that, I guess, is going to call Seven-of-Nine to the rescue. If this all sounds a little to twee, it's because it is very twee. That is not why this episode is terrible.

This is the episode in which we are given our promised brief view into the post-Enterprise lives of William Thomas Riker and Deanna Troi, daughter-by-extension of the fifth house, heir (I assume) to the holy rings of Betazed. The dialog these two titans of Trek are given is among the most wooden written for a series characterized by its wooden dialog. That is not why this episode is terrible.

There are two reasons why this episode is terrible. They are, in ascending order of egregiousness:

While trying to help Soji come to terms with the fact that she's not "real" (where "real" somehow means "conceived via sex") and that "real is not necessarily better," Deanna reveals to us that, in addition to the daughter we see, she and Will once had a son named Thad. Thad died from a very rare disease that is usually treatable. "You just clone a something and something something poistronic matrix something. But, when Thad needed it, there were not positronic matrices, and no one was allowed to build any more. You see, Soji: real isn't always better." Her closing argument for why the ban on synthetic life forms was wrong is that it prevented sex-based lifeforms from using their positronic brains as testing grounds for medical technology. "I really wish my friend Data were still alive; if I'd used him as a lab rat, it might have saved my son." I do not understand how we are supposed to root for Jean-Luc's crusade if the best argument anyone can muster for the value of synthetic life is that it is useful for the fulfillment of sex-based life.

That is the episode's second most egregious offense.

The most egregious offense came in the opening credit sequence. As every week, cellos and flutes mingled with images of grapevines, Borg technology, and, I guess, dividing cells to remind us of what has been lost and what may yet be reclaimed. We see the list of the show's stars, and then, to much giddiness, the title card flashes "Special guest star: Jonathan Frakes." That is all. In case you skimmed my review to this point, Marina Sirtis was also in this episode. She gets billed in the closing credits. That is not acceptable. I don't care how few lines she has (as far as I can tell, she has at least as many as Frakes), Sirtis is one of the Interstellar Seven, the cast that defined Star Trek for my entire childhood. If she is on your show, she gets top billing. A few years ago, I stumbled into the opportunity to hear Sirtis speak live at Emeral City Comic Con. I say "stumbled" because, when I bought my ticket, LeVar Burton was scheduled to speak instead. He bowed out; Marina Sirtis stepped in. I am not proud to say that I was originally disappointed. She was the one of the Seven I was least interested in seeing live. My priorities were, of course, wrong, and I'm glad she came. She was an animated, hilarious, and very entertaining speaker. She loved us at least as much as we loved her. What little in-real-life reading I have done about celebrities since then has led me to believe that, of all of the Next Generation cast, she is the one you want to have a drink with. I bring all of this up by way of introducing the following paraphrased exchange:

Fan: "Can you say anything about what it was like to work with Sir Patrick Stewart?"

Sirtis: "You mean Old Baldy? Do you suppose Sir Old Baldy ever gets asked what it was like to work with me..." followed by a delightful story about working on the Next Generation that I cannot remember, because that's not the point.

Marina Sirtis endured seven years of being forced to wear that uniform only to have her contribution to the series summed up in the future timeline of All Good Things as "she died, which made Worf and Riker fight about who should have married her." Sure: I have heard the urban legend that Gates McFadden did a much better job advocating for her character and that is why Doctor Crusher is a more developed character (I have also heard that that is why Gates McFadden was temporarily fired to make way for Diane Muldaur). I don't care. Marina Sirtis shouldn't have had to advocate for her character. None of her male coworkers did, and they all got interesting story lines. Geordi got two separate story lines about how he principally pursues romantic relationships through stalking, and yet we still accept him as the galaxy's bestest friend sight unseen. And yet, in spite of all the indignities, Marina Sirtis persists as part of Star Trek's pantheon and deserves to be treated as such. Getting Marina Sirtis on a Star Trek episode should be a Big Deal. It is a Big Deal. There may be less patriarchal explanations for the way this week's credit's played. I will be the first to admit that I don't know how SAG contracts work. I would have an easier time swallowing that if the show hadn't already gone out of its way to point out that heroes "aren't in the habit of consulting lawyers before they do the right thing." Star Trek has made a lot of hay over the decades by convincing people that it is socially important in the real world. This week, that pill got just ever so slightly bigger and harder to swallow.

I'm not mad, Star Trek. I'm just disappointed. I am also mad.

Star Trek: Picard -- aside

 I actually wrote this before watching "Nepenthe," assuming that I could tack it on as the last two paragraphs of this week's post. It seemed unlikely that the feelings expressed below would change much over the course of one episode, however Triker-y. The feelings expressed below have not changed, however, my feelings about "Nepenthe" are strong enough to deserve their own post, so I am saying this now just to get it off my chest. Thoughts about "Nepenthe" will come once I have pulled myself back together:

When the dust settles and I am forced to realize that, in spite of all of the pretensious things that I have so far written on this blog, I actually did not enjoy Star Trek: Picard, I suspect that I will trace the moment at which my cautious optimism transformed into jaded disinterest to the moment when Jean-Luc bid adieu to the Irish Romulan family. Certainly the Irish Romulans were, like most of the characters in this series (and, if I am to be honest with myself, Star Trek writ large) hackneyed archetypes: former spies and assassins seeking refuge from their past life in idyllic seclusion, tending to the needs of another for whom they care deeply in an attempt to atone for a lifetime spent committing war crimes professionally. If one of them had declaimed "every time I think I'm out, they pull be back in," it would not have been out of place. For all that, however, they are the characters whose relationship with Jean-Luc felt the healthiest and the most genuine. There is no ham-handed flashback used to assert that these people have history with Jean-Luc. We simply see Irish Romulan straightening Jean-Luc's tie like a worried parent while her husband prepares breakfast for Jean-Luc's dog. This is to be contrasted with Elnor, who, even after an extensive pre-credit flashback of childhood hijinks and aborted fatherhood, feels the need to tell us that Jean-Luc's approbation "fills [him] with joy," for fear that we might forget that he has history with Jean-Luc. Irish Romulan's husband isn't not Alfred to Jean-Luc's Bruce Wayne, but they still feel comfortable enough to tell Jean-Luc when he is doing something stupid. This is to be contrasted with Captain Rios, who doesn't seem to be moving beyond the "I'm not in it for the revolution and I'm not in it for you" stage of the Han Solo development arc. The Irish Romulans don't appear to be as evil as Doctor Jurati. They do appear to be plot devices in the sense that they serve to give Jean-Luc easy access to Tal Shi'ar history and technology, but they also want things for themselves (for instance: life on a vineyard), or else they would have joined Jean-Luc as he tilted towards his cubical windmill. This is to be contrasted with Dahj and Soji, who simply do what they must to move the plot forward. The only other character with whom Jean-Luc has anything close to resembling a real relationship is Raffi and their relationship is decidedly not healthy. When we meet Raffi, we learn that, despite working as Admiral Picard's right hand during twilight of his career, he has not reached out to her even as her husband and son abandoned her and her life faded into a booze-filled haze of space vape. Last episode, when Jean-Luc needed a formal excuse to be granted access to the Romulan Reclamation Center, he dismissed out-of-hand Doctor Jurati's plan to use her scientific credentials, instead pressuring Raffi, who was still mourning the reaffirmation of her son's rejection, into badgering one of her few remaining friends in Starfleet to grant Jean-Luc temporary diplomatic credentials, in payment for which she was asked never to call said friend again. Jean-Luc applauded Raffi's sacrifice as Raffi slinked back into her bunk to finish of her fifth of space whiskey. A few months ago, a friend of mine asked me what defined Captain Picard as a character. I said that he was a philosopher king: he derives his authority from your realization that he is smarter, wiser, and more virtuous than you are. Apparently, if you strip away the philosopher king's access to formal structures of authority, he resorts to naked emotional manipulation to get you to do What Needs to be Done.

And so, here we are: the Next Generation, a show whose greatest strength was interplay amongst its rich ensemble, has been succeeded by a show in which an old man uses up everyone around him so that he can feel a little less guilty about that time one of his friends died in front of him. In the lead-up to Picard's premiere, there was much hand-wringing among the Trekerati about whether this would be our The Last Jedi. Would Trekkies be subjected to watching their indispensable hero laid low by the vagaries of age and the realization that the universe is too big and heavy to ride on his back alone? For the record: I enjoyed The Last Jedi. I enjoy it more every time I watch it. Luke Skywalker's response to the onset of nihilism may not have been responsible, but it evinced a very human frailty and fear, and, when it was necessary, he gave of himself one last time to help the next generation do better. Jean-Luc's response, to scream his relevance into the universe no matter the cost to those around him, is certainly another reaction to watching your life and legacy unravel around you, and maybe it's one that I should steel myself to witness. It would be easier to bear, I think, if those around him were at least aware of what was going on. Even a simple "he's Jean-Luc Picard, if he wants to go on one more mission, that's what we're going to do" would suffice, the difference being that Captain Beverly Picard, MD knew that there was a significant risk she was indulging the lunatic ravings of her ex-husband's Irumodic Syndrome, but she was willing to do it anyway because she loved him. They all -- Captain La Forge, Ret., Professor Data, Ambassador Worf, even Admiral Riker -- loved him. I'm not sure I believe that any of these people, Irish Romulans notwithstanding, love Jean-Luc, and I'm fairly certain that he doesn't love any of them. When I said I wanted a bleak Star Trek, I meant that I wanted a Star Trek in which a loyal and mutually devoted crew attempted to navigate a galaxy bent on twisting them into a reflection of its own cynicism. I did not want a Star Trek in which a group self-interested nihilists manipulated each other into having space adventures because they had nothing better to do. Before anyone accuses me of having unrealistic expectations, I would just like to point out that we are seven episodes into Picard. There are only twelve episodes of Firefly in existence. What I'm asking for is possible. The showrunners just had to want it.

Star Trek: Picard -- "The Impossible Box"

At the age of thirteen, I wanted to grow up to be JRR Tolkien. Not literally, of course.

Scratch that.

At the age of thirteen, I literally wanted to grow up to be JRR Tolkien. At the age of thirteen, I understood nothing about World War 1.

I didn't grow up to be JRR Tolkien, obviously. To compensate for this abject failure of perseverance I have, in my adulthood, taken up the art of Dungeon Mastering. At embarrassingly irregular intervals, I narrate a series of high fantasy hijinks that my friends try to make sense of through the lens of fictitious characters they have constructed according to the rules of Dungeons & Dragons. Thus I am given an excuse to build worlds as rich in politics, history, and mythology as I have the patience for without any of the pressure of having to be one of the world's most brilliant philologists. As George W. Bush once said: mission accomplished.

One of the great advantages of telling a story through a medium which requires the participation of other people, each with their own perspectives and agendas, is that you are not the one telling the story. You are all telling the story. While the Dungeon Master certainly bears the lion's share of the burden constructing the framework in which the story takes place (did I just domesticate lions?), the Dungeon Master has almost no control over who the principal characters are, what they want, or what they will do. This is terrifying, but it makes the story better. It is almost impossible to get a half dozen people to tacitly agree to do something nonsensical just because "that's what's supposed to happen." Those decisions have to be made explicitly and with multiple reminders that they make no sense. Star Trek: Picard could use some players right about now.

At long last, Jean-Luc and the crew of La Sirena have arrived at the Artifact formerly known as the Romulan Reclamation Center. They have arrived on a very important day: the day that Boyfriend Romulan has decided to extract the information he needs from Soji's subconscious and then murder her. Jean-Luc doesn't really do much to stop the murdering. He spends so much time admiring Hugh's good works disassimilating XBs that, by the time they get around to actually trying to locate Soji, she is deep into the process of being murdered. Thankfully, Romulan Boyfriend has decided to murder her by locking her in a room and filling it with poison gas released from a Rubik's cube. This leaves Soji plenty of time to activate her robot superpowers and punch her way to freedom through the floor. That is actually what happens. It's not clear that Romulan Boyfriend is upset by these developments. He still got his information (apparently, the android homeworld has two moons and lightning, which, I guess, is enough information to uniquely identify it among the tens of thousands of habitable or barely habitable worlds in known Star Trek space), and he might actually be in love with Soji (I am saying this both because his sister, who has now spent so much time openly as a Romulan I am forced to ask why she ever bothered going to the trouble of making herself look human, has insinuated it, and because "that's what's supposed to happen"). Hugh leads Jean-Luc and Soji to the top-secret room where the Borg Queen kept her magical interstellar transporter from back in the day when the Artifact was a functioning Borg cube. Elnor joins them and murders some Tal Shi'ar goons. Jean-Luc orders Hugh to beam him and Soji to the planet where, based on the teaser for next week, the Riker-Trois are homesteading, and Jean-Luc and Soji beam out alone while Hugh and Elnor cover their escape. I get why Hugh did not join them. He has his good works to attend to. Why is Elnor still on the artifact? They have a transporter, an instantaneous means of travel, with a range of 40,000 light years. "Covering their escape" is almost meaningless, because the entire Artifact is crawling with Tal Shi'ar and their surveillance equipment. Everyone knows who helped whom escape where. Elnor stays behind "because that's what's supposed to happen."

Most things that have furthered the plot of this show happen because they were supposed to. In reverse chronological order:

•  The crew of La Sirena did whatever you do with Bruce Maddux's body without bothering to ask the Emergency Medical Hologram about that time Doctor Jurati murdered him.
•  Doctor Jurati and Captain Rios had sex. I'm not kidding. 
•  Romulan Boyfriend decided to just assume that poison gas works on androids and conveniently forgot that, when threatened, the Soji sisters become very strong and very good at hitting things.
•  Bruce Maddux (whose name I intend to continue misspelling out of shear stubbornness) manufactured the Soji sisters out of "one of Data's neural pathways" and sent Soji to the Artifact "to learn the truth about the synth attack on Mars" (none of these things strike me as being terribly sequitur to anything). 
•  Seven-of-Nine decided to take a cruise around Vashti on the same day that La Sirena came under fire from a 22nd century Romulan Bird of Prey. 
•  Starfleet beamed Jean-Luc straight from the archives to his living room couch.
•  Dahj fled Chateau Picard barely five hours after fleeing to Chateau Picard.

These are the choices that have driven our plot so far.

Story arcs are hard. Worlds are big and conspiracies are complicated. Characters are harder. Each is their own little world of perspectives and wants, very few of which are likely reflect what the narrator says is actually happening or supposed to happen. While I have always loved Star Trek for its tales of interstellar politics moral quandaries, those quandaries were interpreted through characters I understood and trusted to behave in a self-consistent manner. This was easier in the framework of 1990s television. With the possible exception of Worf, the characters in the Next Generation did very little evolving over the course of seven years. In order to keep episodes perfectly interchangeable, it was important that characters begin each episode in the same emotional and intellectual space that they began the previous episode (how else do you explain Geordi's inability to learn the lessons of Booby Trap and Galaxy's Child in time to prevent the total disaster that was Aquiel?) Coming, as it does, in the age of Prestige Television, Picard cannot afford to be perfectly episodic, with episodes that can be viewed in any arbitrary order. Picard has to be presented to us as a handcrafted visual novel with a beginning, a middle, and an end that always must be thus. Circumstances and characters have to change, the more rapidly the better. One way to this effect is to create a world populated with characters who each want different things and see how they interact. Another way is to list out a series of beats designed to make a point and find the shortest path for your characters to take from point A to point C while still intersecting point B. The difference between the one and the other is whether anyone is standing up for the characters and pointing out to the narrator that "I don't think my character would do that." Some narrators are able to hold that advocacy in their own minds. Others get by with a little help from the players. Others choose to create a web of conspiracies so complicated that, they hope, their audience won't notice what is or isn't being done around them.

Star Trek: Picard -- "Stardust City Rag"

There's almost no point in talking about this episode. Imagine a heist movie. Better yet, imagine Ariel or Trash, the heist movie episodes of Firefly. You now know almost everything you need to know about this week's episode of Picard. How it was written. How it was shot (mastermind explains the plan to her dimwitted colleagues at the same time that we, the audience, watch those colleagues execute said plan). Just replace "the crew of the Serenity breaks into a highly secure hospital to gain access to its very advanced maguffinatron, only to have their plan nearly go to pieces with Jayne betrays them" with "the crew of La Sirena breaks into a highly disreputable space casino to gain access to Doctor Bruce Maddux, only to have their plan nearly go to pieces when Seven-of-Nine lies to Picard" and you're all caught up. We do learn some VERY IMPORTANT FACTS along the way:

• Raffi has a son from whom she became estranged when she became more focused on unraveling the conspiracy than burned Mars than on living life with her family.  Apparently "the Conclave of Eight" is a thing we are going to have to worry about.
• Seven-of-Nine is a member of the Fenris Rangers, a group of interstellar vigilantes trying to protect those in need in a post-Federation galaxy. You would think I would be more bullish on the idea that the lawless frontier is being guarded by a small band of Rangers. Unfortunately, the concept looks fair and feels foul.
• Doctor Jurati, who opened the episode watching very twee holovids in which she argues with Doctor Maddux about the virtues of replicated versus backed chocolate chip cookies (there may also be kissing), was so disturbed by whatever Commodore Oh told her that, shortly after helping the rest of the crew rescue Doctor Maddux from his space gangster captors, she murders him by turning off the "hemorrhagic reparative bibbledy-bonker" to which he is connected. She does this in full view of Captain Rios' Emergency Medical Holoself, so it is unclear how this is going to remain a mystery to the rest of the crew for more than fifteen minutes. Also EVIL. 
• There is a booming black market economy in Borg implants, harvested from largely unwilling disassimilated persons and used for... reasons.
• Patrick Stewart absolutely does not have a French accent in him.

And now the gang is off to The Artifact/Romulan Reclamation Center. Never stop never stopping.

I remain begrudgingly interested in the show. This episode was almost unrecognizable as Star Trek, possibly because it was instantly recognizable as Firefly, or even Star Wars. If Patrick Stewart had looked out from the bridge of La Sirena and intoned "Freecloud... you will never find a more wretched hive of scum, villainy, and personalized holographic advertisements" I would not have been offended. I, however, am starting to realize that I am less interested in the whacky space adventure we are currently than I am in learning how we got to a place where said whacky space adventure even makes sense. Freecloud -- a semi-lawless, late capitalist afterscape run by racketeers and human traffickers -- did not feel like a place that belonged in the Star Trek universe, and yet, it is. How? Has it always been like this on the frontier (just as Mars was always an industrial wasteland), or have things really gotten that bad? What did Seven-of-Nine mean that, after the Romulan evacuation ended "the Neutral Zone collapsed and the law broke down"? What does literally anyone else think about the Federation's isolationism and the fact of a Romulan refugee state? I cannot believe that neither the Vulcans nor the Klingons had anything to say about the demise of the Romulan Star Empire, and yet, we have yet to see anyone with pointy ears who isn't a Romulan, and Irish Romulan's Husband's off-hand mention of Worf has been this show's only concession to date that Klingons even exist. Also: whose idea was it to write episodes that were not about Irish Romulan and Her Husband?

In my first post, I worried that this show was going to descend into the same morass of needless conspiracy and subterfuge that swallowed Discovery. Picard is clearly oriented towards unmasking a massive conspiracy but, for the most part, they do seem to have abandoned the notion that they can or should try to fool the audience for long. Unfortunately, I cannot definitively say that they have eschewed Discovery's roughly sketched shocks in favor of highly detailed explanation. How did Jean-Luc end up on his sofa after the attack at the Starfleet archives? How did Seven-of-Nine end up at Vashti just in time to save La Sirena's keister at the end of the last episode? The heist-threatening twist in the middle of this episode is that Seven-of-Nine is only along for the ride so that she can murder the woman currently holding Doctor Maddux hostage.  Turns out, Maddux's captor once stripped one of Seven's ex-Borg friends down for parts. But Seven-of-Nine did not learn that Jean-Luc and company were even going to Freecloud until the second act of this episode. What was she doing at Vashti? Furthering the plot, of course.

I really was starting to like this show.