Category: Directors Vr

Star Trek: Picard (2020) s01e08 – Broken Pieces

Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon is writing solo again this episode and, I mean, there are some bad scenes but the cringe factor is gone. Of course “Picard” is going to have poorly written and acted scenes, what else would it have; there’s no surprise in them anymore.

This episode has Picard (Patrick Stewart) running back to Starfleet for help with the gigantic intergalactic conspiracy, knowing Tamlyn Tomita is running things from the inside. So basically he’s a trusting dope. Great protagonist. But he’s not because the show’s so drug out most of the episode is the supporting cast, which isn’t great.

Alison Pill and Isa Briones bond this episode, even as Pill’s processing being a double agent and everyone knows about her. Meanwhile Briones has full access to her genes’ memories, including knowing Data loved Picard, which should be a touching moment but barely elicits even an eye-roll. Chabon’s not capable of writing honest moments, so why bother getting worked up when the show can’t deliver them.

Also terrible this episode is Michelle Hurd trying to figure out what’s wrong with captain Santiago Cabrera. He freaks out when he sees Briones beam aboard and instead of it just being him explaining why he’s freaking out, he goes and hides for the entire episode, leaving Hurd to talk to all of his holograms. So if you’re a fan of Cabrera doing caricatures… this episode’s for you.

Hurd’s not good either.

Tomita’s bad, Briones’s bad, Evan Evagora’s not as bad, oh, yeah, the pointless inclusion of Jeri Ryan to drag out the Romulans chasing Picard… Ryan’s not as bad as she could be.

Some terrible, terrible scenes throughout with an ending straight out of Empire Strikes Back for the second time (the same Boba Fett action beat too). It’s like Stewart and Cabrera are just inept at captaining. It’d be concerning if it weren’t all so bad.

There’s a lot of exposition on the Romulan fear of androids and basically… Chabon watched a bunch of new “Battlestar” and puked it into the mix for this show. Or there are only so many stories you can do about secret societies and androids.

“Picard”’s fairly awful. It’s just about who’s getting through it and who’s not. So far, none of the regular cast are getting through. Pill’s gone from being welcome to terrible, Briones has had a similar arc. Stewart’s badness has gone from being a surprise to being the standard.

You’d really think he’d ask not to be written like such an absolute moron though. Chabon, quite obviously, can’t write him as anything else.

Star Trek: Picard (2020) s01e06 – The Impossible Box

This episode… really doesn’t impress. It ought to impress because it finally gets things moving—Picard (Patrick Stewart) heads to the Borg Cube to rescue Soji (Isa Briones). Briones is an android but doesn’t know it. Her lover, Harry Treadaway, knows she’s an android and wants to kill her for being an android because he’s a Romulan anti-android extremist and he’s basically nudging her towards realizing it. Will Stewart get there in time to save Briones from her self-discovery and whatever Treadaway’s got planned once she has it?

Initially, I liked Briones and Treadaway’s adventures on the Borg Cube because “Picard” was at least the fanfic takes on the Borg were interesting. Not lately. And definitely not this episode, which has Stewart hanging out with old Borg pal Jonathan Del Arco while suffering from PTSD while he walks through the Borg Cube. Incidentally, the empty Borg Cube looks like if someone built a TRON set instead of rendering it in CG. Doesn’t look good.

There’s a whole bunch of bad with Stewart and the Borg. Despite them using footage from Star Trek: First Contact, it turns out Picard hasn’t gotten much better about his time in the Borg Collective and he yells a lot about it at Alison Pill, who’s managed to become the show’s biggest liability at this point just because she’s pointless. I mean, Michelle Hurd’s pretty pointless too, but you’re at least supposed to feel sympathy for Hurd. She’s really bad during her big scene. It’s a chore. “Picard”’s a chore in general.

But Pill’s pointless. Her part’s crap. And her impromptu shagging of Santiago Cabrera is even more pointless.

There’s a big scene where Briones finds out she’s a Cylon but not done well. It leads to Treadaway taking her to a forbidden mediation chamber to psychologically damage her… but Briones’s such a slight character it doesn’t even matter. You can’t suspend the disbelief enough for Treadaway to actually be being a villain at the moment.

The show then fumbles a “Come with me if you want to live” scene, which shouldn’t even be possible.

Also, for fans of Star Trek: The Kelvin Timeline, it turns out the Borg made a trans warp drive. Hell yeah.

There’s another surprise at the cliffhanger, which I’m saving for next episode because I’m really hoping the show didn’t just spin its wheels with a character for three episodes for no damn point. But it really seems like there’s no point in hoping for “Picard” not to do something bad.