Picard 1x09 - "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1" [** SPOILERS WITHIN **]

Evade

Deleted User wrote: »

There has been numerous examples of cross species couples needing treatment, in Trek, for creating a family

There have been. But I think you know that's not the point I was making. In an American context that could easily be seen as a comment on pro-life/pro-choice.

pixelburp

Evade wrote: »

There have been. But I think you know that's not the point I was making. In an American context that could easily be seen as a comment on pro-life/pro-choice.

Not even in that context; fertility clinics are not the same as abortion, which presumably is what you're eluding to. IVF/IUI is incredibly common these days, more than you'd think. Not sure where Christian conservatives stand but I'd be surprised if they're against it. I think you're reaching a tad.

pixelburp

pixelburp wrote: »

Not even in that context; fertility clinics are not the same as abortion, which presumably is what you're eluding to. IVF/IUI is incredibly common these days, more than you'd think. Not sure where Christian conservatives stand but I'd be surprised if they're against it. I think you're reaching a tad.

A tad??

pah

pixelburp wrote: »

Social issues still exist they just become modern ones, while Picard hasn't even TOUCHED any of those -

You can't be serious.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-welcome-optimism-of-star-trek-picard

The seventy-nine-year-old English actor, also an executive producer on the show, has said that he wants science fiction to confront a world plagued by Trump and Brexit, by endless wars and immigration crises. “I am angry, disappointed, and embarrassed by our decision to leave the Union,” he told NPR recently.

pixelburp

pah wrote: »

You can't be serious.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-welcome-optimism-of-star-trek-picard

The seventy-nine-year-old English actor, also an executive producer on the show, has said that he wants science fiction to confront a world plagued by Trump and Brexit, by endless wars and immigration crises. “I am angry, disappointed, and embarrassed by our decision to leave the Union,” he told NPR recently.

I read the same interview before, yet none of this is on the screen. There's no Trump analogue, no Brexit parallel, so Stewart can say what he wants. If you saw those in the story feel free to point em out. The world is a weird, different place to the 1960s is the gist of his point. Given it was his idea to have Picard driving a dune buggy in Nemesis I'm not taking his POV as gospel here. The Romulan crisis was preexisting to Picard, nor made any strong allusions to real world beyond "helping a race after a supernova is a noble idea". How dreadfully SJW.

Evade

pixelburp wrote: »

Not even in that context; fertility clinics are not the same as abortion, which presumably is what you're eluding to. IVF/IUI is incredibly common these days, more than you'd think. Not sure where Christian conservatives stand but I'd be surprised if they're against it. I think you're reaching a tad.

It's called Stardust City Reproductive Health Services and looking up reproductive health on Wikipedia

Reproductive health implies that people are able to have a responsible, satisfying and safer sex life and that they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so.

pixelburp

Evade wrote: »

It's called Stardust City Reproductive Health Services and looking up reproductive health on Wikipedia

It can be called the Turkey Baster Enthusiasts Club for all it matters to what was on screen. We saw a clinic where an interspecies couple was having help conceive (which if nothing else would be needed in this universe), while the scene served an entirely different purpose. If you're digging out Wikipedia articles while mangling the semantics of a generic name then yeah, that's reaching. By your own admission you're not making judgement but you're kinda contriving agendas here. If it was called the Stopes Clinic, then you might have a point

Evade

pixelburp wrote: »

It can be called the Turkey Baster Enthusiasts Club for all it matters to what was on screen. We saw a clinic where an interspecies couple was having help conceive, while the scene served an entirely different purpose. If you're digging out Wikipedia articles while mangling the semantics of a generic name then yeah, that's reaching. By your own admission you're not making judgement but you're kinda contriving agendas here. If it was called the Stopes Clinic, then you might have a point

It was a few seconds of Googling, not some Herculean effort, and the reason I did it was because I thought I might be misremembering what the phrase meant but choice was right there in the definition. As far as the scene goes it could have taken place anywhere, the Vulcan woman was clearly pregnant, but they chose to set it there.

TheValeyard

Brent Spiner looks good for 71

pixelburp

Evade wrote: »

It was a few seconds of Googling, not some Herculean effort, and the reason I did it was because I thought I might be misremembering what the phrase meant but choice was right there in the definition. As far as the scene goes it could have taken place anywhere, the Vulcan woman was clearly pregnant, but they chose to set it there.

You can set any scene, anywhere, yes. True of fiction in general, it's all invention. What do you suppose then the agenda is here? Burden of proof n all that, you seem to think there was purpose here.

Maybe the writers just wanted a bit of worldbuilding alongside Rafi's realisation how out of touch with her son she was. TBH it was a good scene on that front - the story serving the world and vice versa. While answering an in universe question as to how interspecies couples have children. Of course they'd need help. All bundled into a heartbreaking scene of Rafi realising she won't meet her grandkid.

Nope. Instead you're... I dunno really. Implying agendas and purpose beyond the fictional world space, by mangling a generic word. What else would Space-IVF be except "Reproductive Health Services". TBH strikes more of the writers not putting much effort into a throwaway title. Generic Company Name.

Sometimes a thing is just the thing.

Stark

Maybe what they meant by "you'll never get to meet your grandkid" is they were there for a late term abortion :pac:

Evade

pixelburp wrote: »

You can set any scene, anywhere, yes. True of fiction in general, it's all invention. What do you suppose then the agenda is here? Burden of proof n all that, you seem to think there was purpose here.

Unnecessarily shoehorning the pro-life/pro-choice quagmire into Picard.

pixelburp wrote: »

Nope. Instead you're... I dunno really. Implying agendas and purpose beyond the fictional world space, by mangling a generic word. What else would Space-IVF be except "Reproductive Health Services". TBH strikes more of the writers not putting much effort into a throwaway title. Generic Company Name.

IVF Clinic or Interspecies Fertility Clinic. Keeps the worldbuilding removes the other connotations.

pixelburp

Evade wrote: »

Unnecessarily shoehorning the pro-life/pro-choice quagmire into Picard .

Nope. I think you're reaching and making a big swing at two plus two here. Making a read around a generic name, that's it. No subtext, no action or dialogue to actually use here. Just a clinic for interspecies couples to pop kids out. Hardly "pro" anything beyond the realities of incompatible sex organs.

Bit meh
No time spent with seven
Jay ell i love you jay ell
Mind meld machine was mad

Curious to see what happens with the super race though

Stark

pixelburp wrote: »

Nope. I think you're reaching and making a big swing at two plus two here. Making a read around a generic name, that's it. No subtext, no action or dialogue to actually use here. Just a clinic for interspecies couples to pop kids out. Hardly "pro" anything beyond the realities of incompatible sex organs.

Besides, as we've seen in DS9, in the 24th century, if you don't want the baby, you just have it beamed into a woman who does. :pac:

https://www.facebook.com/doyletrek/photos/d41d8cd9/843722925833747/

bluewolf

bluewolf wrote: »

Bit meh
No time spent with seven
Jay ell i love you jay ell
Mind meld machine was mad

Curious to see what happens with the super race though

Just finished second rewatch. I've said this before, the writers have a great knack of setting up an exciting scene and then puff it disappears. Rios' ship is being fired on by the Romulan scout ship, it's charging its disruptor cannon, things are looking bad, and suddenly the Borg cube arrives, piloted or Queen-ed by 7 of 9 and then... literally nothing.

Highlight of the episode? Soji looked very good in that tank top.

Perhaps it's the suspicious nature of my personality, but I'm assuming these AI gods, are not AI gods. Is the admonition actually a Borg Trojan Horse? Or the species who created the Borg? Either way, with the GreeksRomulans arriving soon, I'm not expecting its the cavalry coming over the hill.

pixelburp

One thing that has definitely irked me throughout has been the new Romulan ships. I don't mind the "snakehead" fighter craft, they're kinda cool, but the warships just don't have the same distinctive sense of size and threat like the TNG cruisers. They're grand but the chance to see those cruisers was there. Not sure if that's a creative choice or enforced by the rat's nest of licensing issues between CBS and paramount.

IvySlayer

Surely a mass extinction of organic life would have the Q be like wtf?

Rawr

Awwwww....man.....

I'm so disappointed. It was looking interesting throughout, they were building up to something interesting and then when they finally reveal the android planet and its all so......meh.

Never would I have thought that I would be so indifferent to a Borg Cube crashing onto a planet. Imagine! I'm just thinking back to younger me watching TNG, and being presented with the idea that in the future with movie-quality SFX there would be a Trek show where they'll crash a Cube onto a planet. That would have seemed like an incredibly exciting scene.

But no....Cube falls onto planet, lands UPRIGHT and produces a little bit of smoke....just a little bit. This is just one example, but I think it reflects my disappointment overall a good deal.

Also from the previous episode, I am very disappointed that in a show with so much Borg, we don't even get a flashback of them in action trying to assimilate people and just being menacing again. When Seven took over the cube, I fully expected (or hoped) that an army of drones would hunt down an assimilate the Romulans on the cube. But instead...."Meh, lets flush them all out to space". So no classic Borg moments in this show either, despite so much promise of one.

But the one main issue, which I fear may ruin any chance of my rewatching this show, is the whole *point* of this adventure. I was hoping for something far more interesting than "Robots bad...must kill robots....or Robot Gods will come". I was hoping for a Borg Origin, or some kind of ancient Romulan Horror or maybe even the Iconians. It essentially has just boiled down to "Robots bad, must kill robots.....because robots bad....."

I'm starting to feel like I did before the show started. I was hopeful and for the longest while it looked like my hopes were being fulfilled, but in the back of my head I was reminding myself "These people made Discovery". And now I fear that the next episode might play out like the Discovery Season 2 finale, where they just threw all of the plot threads into a blender, added a space battle and went "There! That's how you finish a season....right?"

I hope this finishes off better than I currently imagine

Rawr

pixelburp wrote: »

One thing that has definitely irked me throughout has been the new Romulan ships. I don't mind the "snakehead" fighter craft, they're kinda cool, but the warships just don't have the same distinctive sense of size and threat like the TNG cruisers. They're grand but the chance to see those cruisers was there. Not sure if that's a creative choice or enforced by the rat's nest of licensing issues between CBS and paramount.

They've been kind of going this way with Romulan ships since Nemesis.



I'm not a fan either. The old D'deridex Class was a classic design and looked both ginantic and dangerous. In turn, watching the Jem Hadar take out one or two of them made the Jem Hadar look even more dangerous

Not a fan of making Warbirds look like actual birds....is boring...

silverharp

its just dull, I cant even keep the plot in my head. worst Trek series ever, while Discovery is more irritating at least there is more going on.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Just finished second rewatch. I've said this before, the writers have a great knack of setting up an exciting scene and then puff it disappears. Rios' ship is being fired on by the Romulan scout ship, it's charging its disruptor cannon, things are looking bad, and suddenly the Borg cube arrives, piloted or Queen-ed by 7 of 9 and then... literally nothing.

Highlight of the episode? Soji looked very good in that tank top.

Perhaps it's the suspicious nature of my personality, but I'm assuming these AI gods, are not AI gods. Is the admonition actually a Borg Trojan Horse? Or the species who created the Borg? Either way, with the GreeksRomulans arriving soon, I'm not expecting its the cavalry coming over the hill.

i didn't think much about the ai ones to be honest, i was a bit more 'we all know evil-soji killed the british bot, right?! i wonder will they find out'
i also wondered if the admonition was real and the ai-version of it was actually a ruse planted by the original "organics" as a failsafe to help the ai destroy themselves.

The Megaphone

So I watched this again and it’s like all they’ve done is give us back the Edo but in colour!

Mysterious orbital defences, stupid attire, playful attitude and then minimal defences on the ground!

FFS even Riker’s log cabin had shields!

tromtipp

In view of the planet being called Coppelius I went to remind myself of the ballet Coppelia, which is clearly being referenced. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copp%C3%A9lia .

If AI Soong (and is he human or synth himself, with that name?) calls the planet that, does he see himself as Dr Coppelius? Or was that Maddox? And which of them was the Golem for? Have we any idea what happened to Maddox's body - did they incinerate it or space it? Looking forward to part 2.

GSPfan

Don’t forget there is a Federation Armada on its way so they will turn up in the nick of time.

If this whole Synth thing gets wrapped up in this next episode it’ll fall very flat.

Has it ever been explained why the daily calls to Soji’s mother made her fall asleep and why they were necessary? I’ve filled in the blanks myself and I’m assuming those calls were like an amnesia drug to her to keep her from remembering who she is.

pixelburp

I imagine Soji was operating on a limited palette of memories, so the calls were a way of resetting her experiences, as well as an emotional buffer for when or if things got complicated or stressful. A bit like the BladeRunner esque photos, the "mother" was a tether to keep check on Sojis potential spirals. After all, who doesn't ring their parents when things get heated? She would fall asleep, then awake partially reset and able to continue.

The other trailing question is who the Synth is in progress within Soongs lab. The obvious guess is Soong himself and age/illness is forcing him to consider a transfer. But perhaps it's Maddox part 2. A new Data (unlikely as I can't see Spiner wanting to go back to that well)

TheValeyard

Can I just say I HATE Bridge windows!!!!

Rawr

TheValeyard wrote: »

Can I just say I HATE Bridge windows!!!!

I still think they’re a massive tactical mistake with starship design. Want the kill the Command Crew or even just spy on them? Just head for the window

pah

pixelburp wrote: »

I imagine Soji was operating on a limited palette of memories,

Much like the writers

corkie

Aired on 26 Jul 2019, so pre picard series.


The SOONG-Type Androids

^^^ Human looking Android before Picard.


https://wiki.fed-space.com/index.php/Soong_type_android


^^^ Juliana Tainer ~~~ Forgot about her!

i had initially assumed the phone call was the only way for her to 'sleep' when dr frankenstein made a point of saying she did it every night, but obvs not

AllForIt

The best part was the Borg cube exiting the worm hole with accompanying sound effects : )
Someone moaned earlier that it landed 'upright'. Well it is a cube so there is no upright : )

I really didn't like the synth world. It was a bit too buddist/monk-ish feeling and therefore not particular original.

I've warmed to Soji as a character but her gold faced counterpart didn't work for me at all. Like with Rios playing multiple characters might be a reason for this.

Initially I though those 'flowers' were species 8472 from Voyager. Disappointingly they weren't, and they just came across a bit odd, just like elvish looking characters do in Star Trek.

Rafi and JL come across as a most unlikely love pairing. She must be a good 30 years younger than him too but personality wise they are miles apart.

I did actually quite like the updated look of the Romulans/Roumula fleet.

I really wish Rios would have a shower and a shave and cut his hair. And that thing with smoking a cigar when piloting really doesn't work.

pah

AllForIt wrote: »

Rafi and JL come across as a most unlikely love pairing. She must be a good 30 years younger than him too but personality wise they are miles apart.

I don't think it's supposed to be romantic.

Optimus Prime

I didn’t think it was either , until the last few minutes of this episode when it was forced onto us out of nowhere. That one really blindsided me.

AMKC

Well I watched it and it was a an ok episode but not great. There was some good parts to it

The Borg Cube emerging was cool but I was disappointed it did not fire any weapons at all.

The flowers were just well stupid.

I so wanted to see the cube destroy some of them.

I still don't really care much for the main story about some sort of AI gods from 300,000 thousand years ago. Its rubbish.
I hate the design of the new Romulan ships they look crap.

What was wrong with the Valdore class.? They could have used that with some slight changes and it would have looked amazing.

I am only watching this now because Patrick Stewart, Brent Spinner and Jeri Taylor are in it.

Cookie_Monster

GSPfan wrote: »

Don’t forget there is a Federation Armada on its way so they will turn up in the nick of time.

nope, they got directed to DS12 and no further comms after that, Picard couldn't get through remember.

TheValeyard wrote: »

Can I just say I HATE Bridge windows!!!!

transparent aluminium not glass remember, as strong as the surrounding material

Rawr

AllForIt wrote: »

Someone moaned earlier that it landed 'upright'. Well it is a cube so there is no upright : )

I suppose the main jist of my complaint is that they just plonked the cube onto the ground with very little disturbance to the surrounding environment. It is just resting flat on the ground by some water as if it was some kind of Minecraft biome.

Of course a large Cube could potentially crash head-on like that, but it is visually quite lazy looking. They could have it at an angle, half sunk into the ground, or smashed partially into a mountainside. The way they've done it kind of makes it apparent that the Cube is supposed to fly again. No doubt within the "Kitchen sink" plot-resolving battle that I fear this show will end with.

pixelburp

AMKC wrote: »

[...]
The flowers were just well stupid.

[...]

I really liked the Space Flowers, they were something that Star Trek just doesn't do enough for me: a proper, exotic sense of alienness. Maybe they weren't the most practical defensive weapon, but then neither is having your bridge the most exposed part of a battle ship either, or your engines connected by narrow & easily fired at beams

The flowers were quite beautiful, creepy and gave the scene a surreal, uncanny edge. More of that please, especially with this proposed Captain Pike show rumoured to be taking off.

is_that_so

Evade wrote: »

To paraphrase another awful continuation of a franchise "they have gods now!?" "they have gods now." This is so bad. Just a series of coincidences and treading water until pulling some actual tension out of no where in the second last episode.

• What good is hiding under a table on a spaceship?
• Scanners not showing Romulan ships doesn't mean there isn't one in spitting distance that you can't see for reasons
• Now Jaime has a cloaking device?
• Giant space flowers, ok
• Time to sour the milk
• Calm the lip quiver you've known him for a few days
• The crashing cube didn't obliterate everything in the area, they're probably alive
• Nice of the warbirds to not be cloaked
• If they wanted Picard to have these fatherly moments why not give him his own kid
• They're not all Soji/Dahj? Makes the Ibn Majid thing a huuuuuuuuuge coincidence
• Are these old style androids?
• Soong? Clone? Convenient
• Spiner looks better out of the Data makeup
• Answers? That'd be nice
• Mind melding androids, bull****
• They cloned Spot
• It's full on space magic now
• The clone tech will be awfully convenient when Picard dies in a heroic sacrifice and you can recast him with a younger actor
• Coloured science liquid on Maddox's desk
• The androids remind me of Logan's Run
• Android gods, why? Just why?
• The Federation didn't listen last time
• Convenient that Oh has the same rank in the Romulan fleet as she does in Starfleet

You can always just stop watching if you really have all that time to come with a list this extensive. Nobody is forcing you to suffer so intolerably

pah

is_that_so wrote: »

You can always just stop watching if you really have all that time to come with a list this extensive. Nobody is forcing you to suffer so intolerably

Another don't watch it if you don't like it proposer.

I have a similar list of complaints, I just didn't put them into words as coherently as that poster. Posting on a DISCUSSION board is a good way to point these things out, have others challenge your ideas etc.

Can you offer anything meaningful such as a rebuttal of points outlined? Maybe there is a good reason for some of them we haven't taken into account.

pah

pah wrote: »

Another don't watch it if you don't like it proposer.

I have a similar list of complaints, I just didn't put them into words as coherently as that poster. Posting on a DISCUSSION board is a good way to point these things out, have others challenge your ideas etc.

Can you offer anything meaningful such as a rebuttal of points outlined? Maybe there is a good reason for some of them we haven't taken into account.

I hate Gaelic Football so I don't watch it. Then I don't go onto the GAA forum and give out about how much I hate it.


I, literally, have other things I would rather do

is_that_so

pah wrote: »

Another don't watch it if you don't like it proposer.

I have a similar list of complaints, I just didn't put them into words as coherently as that poster. Posting on a DISCUSSION board is a good way to point these things out, have others challenge your ideas etc.

Can you offer anything meaningful such as a rebuttal of points outlined? Maybe there is a good reason for some of them we haven't taken into account.

It's really not high art, it's a TV show which you like or don't like. If a show annoys you so such that you obsessively fixate on every last flaw it might be time to let it go. That's not critique that's a rant. Personally going with the flow on it and overall I find it pleasing to me. When it doesn't I'll stop.

Evade

is_that_so wrote: »

You can always just stop watching if you really have all that time to come with a list this extensive. Nobody is forcing you to suffer so intolerably

I have a text document open while I'm watching the episode. It takes no extra time.

Where did the notion that it takes a lot of time to write posts/look up things on Google/make really short Youtube videos come from? You're the third person to post about it in the Star Trek forum in the last week or so.

Deleted User wrote: »

I hate Gaelic Football so I don't watch it. Then I don't go onto the GAA forum and give out about how much I hate it.

I, literally, have other things I would rather do

That's not the same thing, nobody here hates Star Trek.

is_that_so

Evade wrote: »

I have a text document open while I'm watching the episode. It takes no extra time.

Where did the notion that it takes a lot of time to write posts/look up things on Google/make really short Youtube videos come from? You're the third person to post about it in the Star Trek forum in the last week or so.


That's no the same thing, nobody here hates Star Trek.

As I said, obsessive and that's fine. I just watch, occasionally make mental notes and still find it watchable. I will say though, if Peyton List gets blown to kingdom come in the next episode I will cheer loudly.

Evade

Evade wrote: »

That's not the same thing, nobody here hates Star Trek.

It is. I do not hate sport, I hate that particular sport and do not waste my time with it. I certainly do not watch it just so that I can complain about it, what an absolute waste of time that would be

Goodshape

Deleted User wrote: »

I hate Gaelic Football so I don't watch it. Then I don't go onto the GAA forum and give out about how much I hate it.

Not a great analogy really. A lot of people watch "their" sports team religiously and have no shortage of opinions for how to do things better once the game is over.


But I do think people should put away the notebooks, grab a glass of whatever you're having yourself, and actually watch the show instead of setting out to critique it with a minute-by-minute bullet-pointed list of grievances.

I really couldn't imagine enjoying this if I were also making a note of every slip-up or miss-step in dialogue. Relax, at least. Take it as a whole.



(P.S. I'd still like someone to tell me what the supposed or expected/failed twists were in this episode)

Evade

Deleted User wrote: »

It is. I do not hate sport, I hate that particular sport and do not waste my time with it. I certainly do not watch it just so that I can complain about it, what an absolute waste of time that would be

It's not a great comparison. Star Trek is is GAA, Picard is a disappointing league or whatever it's called. There's nothing wrong with saying I want the current iteration of this thing I like to be better.

Johnny Storm

Goodshape wrote: »

(P.S. I'd still like someone to tell me what the supposed or expected/failed twists were in this episode)

well, just my guesses:
1) "JL"s terminal illness
2) Spiner appearing as Soong not Data (big mistake IMHO)



PS I really do hope that we get to Season 2 so that Colm Meany can appear in Roddy Doyle Star Trek style and tell us what he really thinks....

pixelburp

Johnny Storm wrote: »

well, just my guesses:
1) "JL"s terminal illness
2) Spiner appearing as Soong not Data (big mistake IMHO)



PS I really do hope that we get to Season 2 so that Colm Meany can appear in Roddy Doyle Star Trek style and tell us what he really thinks....

Point of order here, but the illness reveal was not a twist, not by any definition I'd be familiar with. A plot twist is something held from the audience and revealed as a surprise; a subversion of expectations. Here, the illness was simply information withheld from characters, a boilerplate Character Secret. If anything it simply felt like a reminder to the audience that the illness was A Thing, and that there's a non-zero chance it'll form part of the finale's plot. We'll see of course.

Same with Golden Soji: a little bit more of a twist, in that the audience weren't aware there might be yet more of that type, but it didn't linger long enough on the reveal for it to feel like Something Big.

Goodshape

Johnny Storm wrote: »

well, just my guesses:
1) "JL"s terminal illness
2) Spiner appearing as Soong not Data (big mistake IMHO)

Ah, I guess AI Soong was a thing. Although I was neither surprised nor disappointed at my lack of surprise. I thought Soong showing up on ST:Enterprise was a bit stupid. This time I got a chuckle that they were doing it again, but I enjoyed the chuckle.

Picard's illness we've known about since the first episode or two. Or actually since All Good Things!