Picard 2x09 - 'Hide and Seek' ~~ { ** Spoilers Within ** }

ilovesmybrick

Picard 2x09 - 'Hide and Seek' ~~ { ** Spoilers Within ** } Warning: This thread will contain spoilers 

ilovesmybrick

Honestly that Picards past subplot added almost nothing of note to the story, bar Baltar dad.

I'm quite annoyed with this episode. Okay, Jurati is Queen, I think that had been well flagged going back to the second episode. But she convinces the Borg to give up being Borg, and become an altruistic collective? I just don't find that believable in the slightest. And people complained about Voyager nerfing the collective...

The Elnor hologram probably wouldn't have annoyed me so much, except they have bent over backwards all season to shoehorn in characters wherever they can, between Soong, Kore, and Elnor it's too much for a short season.

I would probably be less irritated if there was more than one episode left, but again it seems to be the case that they have created so many overlapping storys to fill the season, with no real consideration of how they fit together, so it will be a rushed 40 minutes to tidy everything up. After such a good start I'm beginning to feel like I was overly generous with the past few episodes.

Also the mobile emitter makes no sense. Never mind the fact that we know that La Sirena has holograms all over the place, the fact that it's on a Confederation ship seems ludicrous, unless there was a Confederation Voyager, that had the exact same Delta Quadrant experience of being pulled back into the 1990s, and then it was reverse engineered. No need for it. Also Sevens kind of assimilation leaves her looking the exact same as previously..Give me a break.

liamtech

Yes this was a very polarizing episode for me -

Trekkie/Nerd/Canon-Geek Response

• NO they cant do that
• No way the Borg Queen would be willing to reform the collective - makes no sense
• Why the hell did the guards not assimilate more - become proper Drone-esque ala First Contact
• How the hell do they get home now???????
• What if the Borg present in the Delta Quadrant just assimilate this queen and immediately head to earth??
• Where the hell was Robert Picard
• BAAAAH ITS ALL MENTAL - BOOOO TO NEW TREK (shakes fist in general direction of writers, and also the delta quadrant)

Trekkie - Plain Simple Viewer

SAVAGE!

Really enjoyed it.

• Had a feeling Picards mum had died as a result of him letting her out
• Nice to see Dad in a proper genuine light - great acting, emotional
• OK so now the Borg make sense in episode 1 -
• Intrigued to see where Q fits into all of this
• Hoping the doctor and her kid come to the 25th century
• Soong was FANTASTIC this week - chewed up the furniture, very dark

So yea im divided - literally - I think if all of New Trek was like this (ignoring canon, making less sense, but enjoyable, interesting, well written) - i would be enthusiastic

Need a rewatch for sure

corkie

Jurati's innate decency is having a positive effect on curbing the Borg Queen's tyrannical ways and they struck a bargain to rebuild the Borg into a new and better Collective. But before they took La Sirena and left Earth, the Borg Queen left a riddle for Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart): "To succeed, there must be two Renées - one who lives and another who dies."

https://screenrant.com/star-trek-picard-borg-queen-riddle-two-renees-explained/

They don't mention it in the article saying someone must die pretending to be Renées or is it possible they maybe hinting at split timelines where both 'Confederation' and 'Prime' timeline exist, creating another Mirror Universe?

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Hide_and_Seek_%28episode%29

Note:- I was tempted to spoiler tag that quote, but as it has been mentioned already in the thread, don't see the need.

Spear

It felt bland and flat to me. Nothing particularly surprising, and all a bit going through the motions.

The only bit that was in any way a twist, was the Borg queen actually listening to reason and deciding to take a different path.

One thing that irked me was some fairly poor special effects. The drones beamed into rock look like simple flat images copied and pasted, the exploding phaser looked cheap, the night scenes looked lazily green screened etc.

Slydice

Oh no! I'm sooo torn!

On the one hand.. sure this could all just be a Q type time thing so no loose ends.. hell even nothing happened to begin with

On the other hand... returning to the future to see what becomes of this new version of the Borg!!

Also lol, totally called how crap the drones would be 😁 They made up for em in numbers I guess.

I swear .. Raffi and Seven .. like.. I dunno.. but like.. uh huh 🤪

fritzelly

Drones were naff - could you even call them drones, yet Seven gets all her implants back. Could the budget not have squeezed in some implants - utterly disappointing and frustrating.

And now all the borg stories are negated because they're going to be nice to everyone - makes no sense to me. Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey

Seven and Raffi bits seemed very hammy as well

eadrom

Awful everything.

Plot contrivances, dreadful acting, bonkers story.

Borgs with machine-guns. Wtf. Someone had to sit down and write this **** and it made it all the way to production. And why is Seven so blood thirsty? "These are BORGS >:-(" *zap* *zap*. These guys are barely infected -- what happened to stun setting? I hate that we're doing mindless, essentially-faceless, phaser-fodder in Star Trek these days. The Ensign Lynch's of this world deserve their solemn moments of reflection, damn it.

The composited / CGI exterior shots around the chateau are embarrassing. That shot with Spinner "standing on the lawn" with drones just mindlessly swaying side-to-side beside him was painful to witness. And just lots of silly things that break the disbelief, like Spinner being there at all or "we're borgs now so everything is green lights!". Transporters turn green when the Borgs are in control. All the guns have green lasers on them, ha! Remember Borgs?! Lasers?! AmIrigtht?!? Because Borgs have green lasers. That's what makes them cool.

Ugh, those flash backs. "ohhh, I knooow, we'll play hide-y seek like I did as a boy, mmmm". And bloody hell, going from pantomime villainy with the Borgs Queen to Picard's witnessing his mother's death was some tone shift.

Rafi and Seven have no chemistry whatsoever. It's a pity because Seven could still be interesting otherwise.

Soong is only there because he's Brent Spiner. He's just showing up and doing whatever at this point. Walking around like an underworld heavy, getting shot at, making speaches, surrounded by goons with guns. The guy was a relatively meek malpracticing scientist a few episodes ago. And where'd he go at the end there? The gun exploded, he dodged out the open door... and that's that? (I bet he's hiding away on the queen's ship)

I can't even start with the "borg are just lonely" thing.

You know I actually do think they have 3 or 4 reasonably decent episodes worth of stories going on in this season of Picard, but mashing them altogether and then stretching it all out over 10 episodes just does not work for them. I think I'd tolerate a few sub-par or even poor episodes to have just one golden-hour of a story we know Star Trek can tell. But anything good here, and there are shades of it, is just drip-fed too slowly and then drown out by all the rest.

corkie

Resistance is Futile!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtEaR1JU-ps

^^^ Ah, when borg where actual threatening?

Borg Queen (in Jurati's body) becomes: -

Resistance Is Optional.

You can choose to be assimilated if you want?

pah

What an absolute joke 😕

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118990559#Comment_118990559

The Borg are now the Knights who say Ni!

https://youtu.be/zIV4poUZAQo

CastorTroy

Jurati even kinda name dropping "Discovery" when trying to win over the evil Borg Queen using feelings.

So did Jurati have control of her body when she told (oh shall I go with this name) ECHnor to attack or was she somehow able to hear the voice in her head?

And he had all the emotions and thought up until Elnor's last breath? How does that work?

Also, isn't he invulnerable, being a hologram? So he should've easily dispatched the bad guys.

Did the Queen travel back to the future? Otherwise it would mess up the timeline.

It was night and they went to the tunnels yet was still all pretty well lit? How did that happen?

pah

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118991016#Comment_118991016

To answer your questions.....

Who knows? Who cares?

Certainly not the people running this show.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118990478#Comment_118990478

On the Borg as far as I am concerned this will just be a splinter group like Hugh's Borg. Out there somewhere are the actually scary ones we know and love.

AMKC

I am 30mins in and not really sure if I care about watching the rest of it. It's a drag. Is it worth it? Does it get better?

As for young Picard his mother and father maybe in the Confederations Universe it was like that but in the Prime Universe I refuse to believe it.

Edit: Actually yes it does get better.

Be interesting to see how they resolve this maybe Talinn will be able to help them get back to where they should be.

As for the Borg drones in this that they were not more like soldiers with extra powers but drones no.

breezy1985

If all the good and bad in the episode the bit I can't stop thinking about all morning is.

Why the hell do the Sirena transporters turn green when they transport the Borg. It's the Solo space train all over again.

Doodah7

In the best Catherine Tate's 'Granny' character voice: "Well that was a load of old sh1t!!"

corkie

@AMKC

As for young Picard his mother and father maybe in the Confederations Universe it was like that but in the Prime Universe I refuse to believe it.

Aren't we seeing 'Picards' memories from 'Prime', that is what I thought, as all of the main cast have their memories intact?

Seven remembering been Borg for example.

They left out the scene of Soong opening his wardrobe and muttering to himself; "Tsk. These won't do. These won't do AT ALL" and then popping off to to the shops to get himself some proper bad-guy clothes.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118993085#Comment_118993085

Hes gone senile none of it's true. His mother was a happy old woman with a French accent.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118993183#Comment_118993183

It's like as if Seal Team Borg just happened to have some evil henchman clothes just the perfect size lying around.

Evade

Still watching the episode but that's the exact opposite of what divide and conquer means.

EDIT: And then they literally bring a knife to a gunfight, this is getting very silly.

EDIT 2: Why would you hit a hologram on the nose?

Evade

It's all just a disjointed mess. Some of the individual plots might have made for some decent stand alone but sticking them in a blender and sprinkling them across all ten, well nine so far, episodes is just crap. After the promising opening we've slid below the quality of season one. I will watch the absolute car crash the next episode will be but I might be done after that.

Three more really annoying things.

• Starfleet rejecting Seven because she used to be Borg is just nonsense
• Seven coincidentally getting the exact same implants back
• Evil La Sirena going to warp while still in the atmosphere

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118994008#Comment_118994008

Icheb was seen in a Starfleet uniform in their own fkin show but yet Starfleet are anti Borg. Maybe 7 is just comforting herself with that excuse.

Evade

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118994047#Comment_118994047

I had completely forgotten that. They can't even adhere to their own continuity.

Sparko

How did Seven and Raffi cross the large area between the house and the ship, armed with basically nothing? Borg enhanced soldiers appear to be less competent than regular soldiers.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118994081#Comment_118994081

Their clothes were made of the same plotonium as Jamie Lannisters jacket.

AMKC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118994008#Comment_118994008

• Starfleet rejecting Seven because she used to be Borg is just nonsense

Yes I agree totally and that is exactly what I thought too.

• Seven coincidentally getting the exact same implants back
• Evil La Sirena going to warp while still in the atmosphere

Ye you can just see the writers now "oh I know let's make it go to warp in the atmosphere because that would be cool" not.

breezy1985

About the only things I will take from this show is 7 is still amazing (not just in a 90s Pornhub way ye derty fkkers) and I really like Rios.

I had liked Laris and Jurati but Laris 2 and Borgati were crap.

Edit: oh ya and I loved episode 1 back when we had things like ya know starships and people in Starfleet uniforms. Also Giaus frakking Baltar

mewso

Garbage from start to finish. Easily the worst episode of both seasons so far. The challenge now is can they do worse next episode. I believe in them. They can do it.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118994514#Comment_118994514

Definitely not the worst I mean things happen. Some of the previous episodes we didn't get that. I cant even tell you what happened in episode 8

mewso

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118994718#Comment_118994718

I'm not thinking about things happening. I'm measuring on stupid and this episode had a whole lotta stupid. If you are rating this show on things happening then it's a work of art.

PhiloCypher

Just binged episodes 7, 8 and 9 tonight after having watched the previous episodes Weekly. Either the quality shot up or they just work better when binged, not saying they were peak trek or anything but I felt more engaged in the individual stories.

Spoiler Warning

I thought James Callis as Picards Dad was superb. There were shades of that BSG ep where Baltar reveals his dirt poor upbringing to Tyrol by reverting his to the Aerilon accent he tried so hard to lose , in how he seemed to do an impression of Stewarts/Picard voice. Or was I just imagining it ??

Spoiler Warning

Similarly with Guinan I felt in this batch of episodes the new actress embodied her far better and at times even sounded like her.

murpho999

Absolute rubbish in almost every scene.

In last week’s thread there were apologists on say old trek fans are just struggling with he transition to New Trek. The fact is that this show is simply not Star Trek. Poor characters, poor acting,and canon being torn apart.

Also how the hell could all these drones only with laser sights manage to inflict only 1 bullet on target.ie Rios’s arm?

Worse shots than any WW2 Hollywood German Nazi soldier.

Truth is none of us would watch this if it wasn’t Star Trek as it’s so bad. Just that link to ST keeps us there.

fritzelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118996097#Comment_118996097

I think everyone is on singing from the same hymn sheet with this episode - whilst some have been more forgiving with past episodes this episode took the piss. I was like I will forgive all past transgressions but this took the biscuit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118996097#Comment_118996097

It was terrible.

1: Where is Robert?

2: Are we really meant to believe that mental health medicine is at the level of locking in rooms, in that distant future where the tech is near magic

3: Talking of tech. Why would someone, from our time, be able to use a medical tricorder?

4: Horrible use of laser sights to try to replicate their red beam look

5: Laser sights are for guided shooting, not for randomly walking around letting people see you coming.

6: Why "hide and Seek" and not just scan for them?

7: Why would a Borg Queen need a future ship. She has the knowledge of the future tech already to just build one. Enterprise already showed how Borg would begin to adapt local tech and advance with more resources. Ent was lucky to destroy them and would have lost given another few hours

8: WTF is this nonsense of her not being able to make proper nanites?

9: Borg Queen is only a poor misunderstood lonely lady, lashing out?

10: How does 7 get borg implants to completely match previous iterations?

11:Spiner can not act, stop making him be human characters.

12: All those shots and a single flesh wound (and it was only a flesh wound, his arm didn't even fall off)

13: Destroying the only other glimpse of Madam Picard we ever got by having JL (yeah this is not Captain Picard, it is JL) say that he use to just imagine her older offering him tea

Worst this about all this is that I think Rios could carry a show, competently written. They have lucked into a good character and very good actor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118988031#Comment_118988031

I forgot about the mobile emitter FFS made absolutely no sense

Rawr

Uhh…so disappointing that we came to this. One episode to go and they didn’t even set up for the last episode properly. Are they really going to try to resolve everything in the last 40 mins? What an awful waste, especially after they needlessly used up 2-3 episodes on filler.

I’m pretty much going to echo many here, but did the writers just not know about Robert Picard? Had they not seen Family, where we see Chateau Picard for the first time? I don’t think Robert was all that much older than Jean-Luc, so I doubt he’s away at some job or higher education. I did however like that Picard had an NX-Class and Miranda Class model/toy. That would make sense for a young Starfleet fan of that era.

I was afraid that the new Borg we’d get would be a damp squib, and sure enough they were. No robotic marching towards them, no danger of being injected by nanoprobes, just generic soldiers with some extra makeup and lazer sights. I don’t really mind the automatic weapons…but couldn’t they have been more…Borg-ish about it? Very let down there, but I don’t find myself surprised.

Seven’s impants may have just been for the sake of convenience, since they know how to do that makeup on her. However, again, have they not watched Voyager? The implants she had were left over components that The Doctor couldn’t take out. Her signature Occular Implant socket was supposed to go with an impant, it just appearing without explanation seems off.

The plan to “nice-ify” the Borg seems to forget that in 2024 the Borg already have a huge empire in the Delta Quadrant with thier own Queen. Why would they listen to the Jurati Queen? They’d be more inclined to consume her and LaSerena for every advantage they could get.

I am however really warming up to Rios. How about a Stargazer show with him as Captain? That might be good.

Speaking of Captains:

Raffi: “Seven, you would make a great Captain. Actually, you know what, as soon as we get back-“

You’ll do what Commander Raffi? In you capacity as non-flag Starfleet officer you’ll recommend an ex-NCO to be given a Starfleet commission and ship? Ignoring the stupidity of Starfleet somehow not wanting the best Borg expert they could ever hope for (with years of experience as a Starfleet Crewman to boot), Seven would have to go the Academy if she wants to be an officer…with all of the teens/ 20-somethings who are on their way to their first career posting.

Were’re suddenly going to see Seven as a commissioned officer at the end of this, aren’t we?

pc7

As said above Rios is just so likable, would love his own spin off

Evade

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118997854#Comment_118997854

As long as the Lower Decks staff are running it, the current live action group seemingly can't write.

Speaking of Rios, did he forget that that's not his La Sirena? He seemed just too attached to it despite it being a Confederation ship

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118997287#Comment_118997287

Robert is in boarding school according to an earlier scene. The rest I agree with especially Rios.

Imagine like Lower Decks he was part of a ship and crew with no memberberries baggage and no backstory from previous shows to rip to shreds. No Mummy Picard no Spock relations and no young Uhuras. New ship new crew.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118998351#Comment_118998351

Everyone forgot it was a different Sirena. Legolas was only on that Sirena for a minute before he was shot but the ship made a perfect hologram.

Crap ship anyway. I never fell for it as a lead ship and it felt like Star Trek just trying to rip off the Roci.

ilovesmybrick

I think what's annoying me more is that it's not quite as bad as Discovery, the writing is marginally better (probably helped by pre-existing characters) and at less there is more sense of an ensemble cast, and Christ if they leave Rios in the past and don't work him into another show...

It's just so bloody disappointing. This season started off so well, and it's not that it degenerated into a mess so much, it just degenerated into, nothing. There are individual parts that work well, but there's no focus, there are too many moving parts, and there's no concept of what this entire season is about? Okay, fix the past to prevent bad future, all in all very Star Trek. But why is any of this happening, why is it happening to these people, and how in the name of God does any of this tie together in the last episode without a Deus (Q) Ex Machina? Season one improved when watched as a binge. Maybe that's the case here too, but I doubt it. This episode in particular has really dampened down any hopes I had for SNW. The only Trek that seems to have competency at the moments is Lower Decks. The rest is just bad.

Evade

Neutering Q really didn't help this series. Half the fun of Q is him popping in to stir things up a bit before clicking away.

Bobtheman

I think its ploughing away. Very dark. Especially with the suicide of Picards mother.

It's not the best trek I ever saw but I never thought it was going to be with an 80 year old Stewart

Im just waiting for another forward moving trek series with new characters

Bobtheman

I would have liked to see Picard married to Beverly with a junior Picard.

Like the novels post tv

JayRoc

I had enjoyed the previous couple of episodes relatively speaking. This one was the worst of the series.

The egregious re-writing of established history (and the amount of people who seemed to accept the daft "the stuff that happened in TNG was actually not real, it was just wishful thinking" etc) was a joke. The mental health/suicide thing would have been a perfectly interesting albeit currently overdone subplot if it wasn't totally conradicting decades of stories in detail and tone.

And as for the "Borg Are Nice Now" ? I literally groaned.

Someone said earlier we wouldn't be giving this show the time of day if it didn't have Picard's name on it, and that is so true. The worst bit is I will 100% watch the next(last) series too.

But I bet only once...

flazio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118999016#Comment_118999016

Didn’t Generations confirm he was sterile or something like that?

Evade

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118999868#Comment_118999868

He lamented the fact that he hadn't started a family but I don't remember him saying, or even implying, he was incapable of it. Plus how sterile could you be in Star Trek? They can do a lot of genetic wizardry.

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118999912#Comment_118999912

I always assumed it was just that Picard was getting to old to start having kids. Now, in Trek at that stage life expectancy seemed to go beyond 100 years (McCoy was on the Enterprise D FFS!) but there’s only so far you can go with fertility of the mother. Even with Trek tech, he would have started to need a much younger girlfriend/wife if he wanted to have kids. I’m guessing that Picard’s thinking by around Generations was that this probably wasn’t going to happen.

Evade

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119000253#Comment_119000253

Beverly was 47 around that time and it wouldn't be unheard of to have a child at that age nowadays. Some Ba'ku planet related rejuvenation could stretch that window a little further