Picard 1x06 - "The Impossible Box" [** SPOILERS WITHIN **]

Evade

As glossed over as it was in Descent. If anything would have caused him to break being ambushed by drones at the end of part one and imprisoned in part two would have done it.

I, Borg went a long way towards him working through his issues before Descent and this just seems to be a regression.

[Deleted User]

Evade wrote: »

As glossed over as it was in Descent. If anything would have caused him to break being ambushed by drones at the end of part one and imprisoned in part two would have done it.

I, Borg went a long way towards him working through his issues before Descent and this just seems to be a regression.

Yeah the mind is a complex beast, who knew that it was the cube setting which would set him off and not drones

Stark

Or simply typical of the "end of episode reset" style of storytelling back then. The issue of Picard's recovery from the ordeal of being assimilated wasn't dealt with near enough in TNG.

pixelburp

I think between First Contact and Picard, you saw two different, but not incompatible approaches to Picard's trauma: with First Contact you saw the aggressive lashing out, Jean Luc trying to revenge upon the Borg for what they did to him, all ego or whatever. With "Picard", perhaps we saw the more insidious & lingering damage, the scars and the idea that his dotage has made Picard's vulnerabilities more apparent. He never truly moved on from that sense sense of violation, especially as his longterm health may have been effected.

Don't really know anything about trauma or PTSD, but it always struck as something akin to alcoholism: not something you're ever "cured" of, just a black dog that follows you around your whole life, and something you must always combat.

Evade

Stark wrote: »

Or simply typical of the "end of episode reset" style of storytelling back then. The issue of Picard's recovery from the ordeal of being assimilated wasn't dealt with near enough in TNG.

The episode after Best of Both Worlds had a scene of Picard broken and crying in the mud, not exactly an end of episode reset.

Mollyb60

5uspect wrote: »

It was a better episode but it’s still a poor show. Picard applauding Raffi after her cringy call was awful.

THIS. Christ it was unwatchable. I felt the tension from my sofa, there's no way he wouldn't feel it from 2 feet away. Really poor direction (assuming that's what it was and not an acting choice by Stewart).

The whole thing with pilot and scientist too is just cringy. Anyone else starting to think that pilot guy is also a hologram? Why else would there be multiple identical holograms of him crewing the ship? That's just creepy. Where did he get the ship from anyway?

Rawr

Evade wrote: »

The episode after Best of Both Worlds had a scene of Picard broken and crying in the mud, not exactly an end of episode reset.

For an episodic TV show of its time, I think they managed to do a pretty excellent job of showing the lingering effect of the Borg on Picard.
The aforementioned crying in the mud in "Family" was a surprising moment of character development with Picard trying to cope with what the Borg made him do, with them using the Starfleet knowledge he was most proud of, as a weapon to destroy that very same fleet.

This lines always stuck with me:
Picard: "You don't know, Robert, you don't know. They took everything I was. They used me to kill and to destroy, and I couldn't stop them! I should have been able to stop them! I tried. I tried so hard. But I wasn't strong enough! I wasn't good enough! I should have been able to stop them. I should, I should...

Robert: So, my brother is a Human being after all. This is going to be with you a long time, Jean-Luc. A long time.

Later on in The Drumhead, we visit this again:
Admiral Satie : Tell me, Captain, have you completely recovered from your experience with the Borg?

Picard: Yes.....I have completely recovered.

I always sort of wondered if Picard was lying there...and I guess First Contact (despite breaking from his usual character) made it appear that he was lying.

I feel that Picard's PTSD on the Artifact kind of makes sense. He's encountered the Borg since BoBW, but his nightmares live within a Borg Cube. His last visit to one was as a hostage being assimilated, it seems fitting that any visit to a Cube would trigger some kind of PTSD response, especially when he's visiting one alone, and without his Enterprise friends who saved him the last time.

TheValeyard

PTSD can lest decades or hit you years after an event. Picards reaction on the cube makes perfect sense. I'd say holocaust survivors would have the same issue if they went back to those camps for a memorial event or something. And yes I would equate a Borg cube to Auschwitz.

tromtipp

Picard had other traumas as well - the death of Jack Crusher and the loss of the Stargazer were already things that clearly disturbed him*, then the Borg assimilation, Wolf 359, then the separation - never addressed in TNG but in Voyager we got hints of the way being Borg even for a short while changes people, and that's now being brought up in Picard. The horrible tragic death of his entire family, The loss of another family in the Inner Light, being tortured by the Cardassians, the death of Data, the loss of Mars and who knows how many of his friends, and then the sense of impotence over the Romulan situation.

No wonder he had a breakdown.


*Maybe Starfleet put a counsellor on the Enterprise because they knew even that early that he could tip over the edge any time; Deanna as spotter.

The Megaphone

tromtipp wrote: »

Picard had other traumas as well - the death of Jack Crusher and the loss of the Stargazer were already things that clearly disturbed him*, then the Borg assimilation, Wolf 359, then the separation - never addressed in TNG but in Voyager we got hints of the way being Borg even for a short while changes people, and that's now being brought up in Picard. The horrible tragic death of his entire family, The loss of another family in the Inner Light, being tortured by the Cardassians, the death of Data, the loss of Mars and who knows how many of his friends, and then the sense of impotence over the Romulan situation.

Don't forget he was stabbed in the heart by a Nausicaan, and also diagnosed with irumodic syndrome but yet he continued to function at a high level!!

tromtipp

True, and I'm sure loads more beside. Physical trauma isn't quite the same as experiencing the violent death of people you love, or worse, being complicit it, or of realising that, given time, torture will undo all that you believe about yourself. But one way or another, there are plenty of reasons for JLP to be vulnerable to mental distress.

Acknowledging the role of traumatic experiences in shaping character another thing that DS9 did better than other Treks - Enterprise did it a little too.