Review of S1E5 of Picard

 So I watched S1E5 of Picard last night, Stardust City Rag, and I had so many thoughts I felt I needed to just vomit them out here immediately rather than waiting like I did for the first four. This will in some ways be a review of the episode, and in other ways just be some random additional thoughts on the series. So let’s dive right in.

First things first, Icheb. I’ve heard that the reason this scene is here is the actor who originally played Icheb on Voyager was a huge asshole, and out of spite they decided to recast his role AND kill it off, which seems like overkill. Also, I don’t feel like creative decisions should be made out of spite, generally. Moreover, while I don’t necessarily mind Star Trek having a darker tone if it serves some purpose, I do think the eye extraction scene here is wildly out of line. I honestly think all Star Trek should be family TV, and up through 2000s it was, whereas the latest generation of shows have been almost exclusively shows which at least occasionally feature graphic violence and graphic sex. It has felt out of place pretty much every time to me. I don’t say this as a prude - I like horror, I like gore, and I don’t mind sex, but Star Trek is not an edgy franchise. It doesn’t need them, it doesn’t add anything, but it does take away the ability to watch these shows with your kids, as my parents did with me and as I do with my kids. Thats how you breed new fans. Televisions continuing and escalating obsession with adding in graphic violence and sex where it adds nothing has grown tiresome in my opinion - I am not in favor of censorship, but I am in favor of restraint, and whoever is shoving all this into former family franchises needs to exercise some, in my opinion. It feels especially heinous here since the last time we saw Icheb he was a child, and his death here is used to motivate his mother, making it feel extra gross and gratuitous - and moreover, a child from a different show, so this also just feels like pissing in Voyager fans cheerios for no good reason. I downright think this was an atrocious creative choice, with no reason to have happened when the simple fact she’s been murdering ex Borg for their components would have been enough motivation for Seven to hate Bjayzl, we don’t need the eye extraction and it didn’t need to be Icheb. All that being said, I do think it was used effectively, and did end up feeling emotionally relevant by the end of the episode even if in the moment it was infuriating in a way that took me out of the show (which is the worst thing a scene can do). So like -800 points for dumb spiteful awful creative choice, +100 for using it well.

This is an incredibly minor thing, but I think they should have brought back the guy who played Bruce Maddox to play him again. At least ask. They didn’t even ask! Rude. It shows respect to the actor and the franchise to do your best to maintain cast, and the fact they put zero effort into it is disappointing. The guy who played him did a perfectly serviceable job - which is to say, the role required very little and he delivered everything required, but I would have liked to see the original actor in the role.

Regarding Bruce Maddox, for anyone not in the know, he originally appeared in the TNG episode The Measure of a Man where he wanted to transfer Data’s consciousness to a computer and then dismantle him to try to figure out how he works. He promises to reassemble Data afterwards, but Data is mistrustful and refuses, so Bruce tries to force him to agree through legal means, arguing Data is not a person and thus not entitled to refuse. Moreover, it revealed that Maddox’s goal is to create a slave race of androids, and ultimately Data is granted personhood. The idea that ruling otherwise could allow Maddox to create a slave race is specifically mentioned as a threat and a reason to rule otherwise.

I think it is super weird that we are five episodes into Picard and this has not been addressed, especially because we find out that despite this ruling, somehow Bruce went ahead and created a slave race anyway, that then committed a terrorist act on Mars. The show apparently is counting on its viewers remembering who Bruce Maddox is and what he wanted to do. Or are they? Because so far Bruce has not been portrayed as a bad guy. Dr. Jurati kills him at the end of this episode, and its unclear to me at this juncture why or whether it is indicative of bad motive on Maddox’s part, her part, or both. This isn’t even really a criticism at this point, just a, “There is a huge elephant in every scene of this show, is the show ever going to refer to the elephant?” Now I remember hearing that this slave race is non-sentient, but that has not yet been stated in the show, and honestly, I kind of disbelieve that even if the show tells me its true. We do not understand consciousness now, scientifically, and this is still true in Star Trek in both TNG and Voyager and little reason is given for us to think that had changed by the time of Picard, especially since no one has yet recreated Data except apparently Bruce by this weird neuron cloning method which would not require him to understand consciousness to do, anymore than cloning a human would require that, so if someone in the show tells me we made this slave race of definitely non sentient robots, I’m just going to assume they want an excuse to justify slavery, not that they understand how consciousness works and are certain these robots don’t have it.

Slavery is bad. I don’t think there is any reason to include enslaved humanoid robots in a scifi unless its to make that point, because humanoid robots make no sense practically and would only ever be made to allow humans to treat them like slaves for the emotional benefits some people apparently derive from abusing humans and things that look like them. And that includes sex as a subcategory of that before anyone asks. I’ll let Picard get around the making its point, but if the point isn’t slavery is bad, then this show is garbage.

I had a huge initial negative reaction to this episode due to the Icheb scene, but I it was mostly an upward cline since then. It was fun seeing everybody be silly pretending to be human traffickers, I like the reptiloid alien, Seven was amazing, and so honestly its hard to review because it pissed me off enormously but then was fine bordering on good. But like, hey, when you are doing a franchise revival/sequel, maybe don’t just murder random children from the previous series in incredibly gruesome ways far out of line with the typical tone of the series as cheap motivation, it’ll piss off fans of the original and that is simply a poor choice if you want people to like your show, no matter how good the rest of the show is, and so far Picard has not wowed me. The only nice thing I can say about this scene is at least they didn’t kill off another woman to motivate a man immediately after she was introduced like they did in episode 1. Instead it was killing off a man to motivate a woman immediately after he was introduced. So, that’s nice, I guess?

So, now to some more general thoughts that don’t necessarily only apply to this episode. Up until this episode I was honestly legitimately confuse by all the different emergency holograms looking like Rios, because I thought it was one actor playing all the holograms and that it was a different actor than the one playing Rios, and I was like, “Why did they cast someone who looks so similar to Rios? That’s so confusing!” I realized its just the same guy who plays Rios this episode though, which means it almost certainly is going to be explained at some point why he filled his ship with holograms of himself, and I’m just terrible at face recognition. So, feel free to laugh at me.

I also noticed that the show is extremely nonlinear. Not just flashbacks, but it also seems like they like to interweave scenes from only slightly different times nonlinearly. I forget exactly what it was but two scenes scene with Picard like an hour apart - maybe while preparing for the scam? were interwoven and like, I could follow okay, but I do gotta wonder, does all this nonlinearity add all that much? There is so much of it it kinda just feels like the writers think nonlinear storytelling is simply better because its fancy, rather than actually trying to achieve any particular effect. But maybe there is a point to it I am missing, or maybe there is a point but it will be only made clear later. So far I question whether it is improving the show, or perhaps even harming it, although even if so, its only a small harm, no biggie - it remind me of how Discovery was chock full of panning shots and circling shots as if the cameraman had just discovered he could do that. Doesn’t feel like it adds anything, just showing off.

The last thing I want to address, is capitalism. There has been numerous mentions of payment by people within the Federation and Starfleet in this series, including I believe the word “bucks”, and we also see Raffie is living in a hovel, which she describes as such, and bemoans her lack of resources compared to Picard and his vineyard. There is also obviously the ultracapitalist nature of Freecloud, although that is out of the Federation. Now, capitalism isn’t the existence of money, obviously, but this is a massively different depiction of both the Federation and the typical way trade is done in every other Star Trek to date, including TNG, the series this is a direct follow up to, Lower Decks, which was made at the same time and set slightly before, and Discovery, which was made at the same time and was the flagship series for Star Trek at the time, and like… its puzzling. The Federation has been explicitly moneyless since The Original Series if I’m not mistaken, definitely by the TNG era, and even when currency is used by someone - almost always aliens, usually Ferengi - its normally gold pressed latinum and referred to as such, sometimes various types of credits tied to a given non-Federation culture. Is this the writers not giving a shit about the Star Trek universe and being inconsistent with the lore? Maybe, but although it feels inconsistent, I don’t think anything is explicitly contradictory - we never have really been told how the Federation economy works, and the idea that it could be money free yet Raffie has to live in a hovel and Picard gets a villa is not impossible to square with that, if the government only provides basic housing and people can still own personal or private property and that property can be inherited - all of which moves the Federation closer to being capitalist. Is it suppose to be a sign of decay in the Federation, that it is moving to being capitalist again to the detriment of its people? Thats the most generous interpretation, and fits thematically, but I would like for someone to actually address it rather than it being inconsistent vibes, which leave me feeling like the writers don’t know anything about Star Trek. Again, the issue isn’t showing flaws in the Federation, its how its handled, and how its communicated to the viewer, or not, that is the problem.

So yeah, anyway, so far I kinda feel like I’m gonna end up feeling similar about Picard as I do Discovery - really liking some parts, really hating other parts to the point they fill me with furious anger. Hopefully I don’t ragequit.