3.04 Star Trek: Picard - No Win Scenario
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ctg
weaver of the unseen
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I really can't believe we are here in another desperate scenario. I also cannot believe the IMDB score, even though I had hints about it. Space.com one went against the ruff and lambasted the episode because of what they do, which is quite unbelievable, but kind of plausible Hail-Mary action after another.
Let's see how it unfolds...
Five years back, Picard was still an admiral. So it is believable that he was having lunch in Quinan's bar, when the fans approach him about his encounter with the Hirogen.
memory-alpha.fandom.com
I personally had no recollection of the episode. The interesting thing is that they are a species from another Quadrant, and the fans also brought in Janeway as if she's a miraculous traveller. And the whole thing they wanted to know as how Picard turned the tables, clearly applying it to the current situation as well. And this is what he said, "No matter how bleak and unwinnable a situation, as long as you and your crew remain steadfast in your dedication, one to another, you are never ever... without hope."
The Titan's situation, heavily damaged engineering section, and the power reserves depleting fast, as they spiral deeper into the gravity well. It's just they don't explain it very well, as the Titan crashed on the asteroids, that clearly weren't pulled into the anomaly? Why? Does the space rocks have a natural antigravity, and why is that the people inside the ship never felt the pressure, not talking about the weightlessness?
Riker's orders were to divert all power to life-support, gather people in the common areas, and hope for the best. The interesting thing is that they encountered a bioelectrical field. But before investigating it, he went to confess to Picard that he was scared of death, and the one taking away his son had run a wedge between him and Troi. He wanted Picard to get his affair in order, before it was too late, while he went to record a "Dear Deanna..." message in the ready room.
Man, Seven was sexy in the Voyager, maybe fuelling a lot of nerdist daydreams. But is still capturing it as a matured woman completely. Her mission while the ship were going down was to hunt that Changeling saboteur. Riker wanted Seven to keep it quiet, after she went to report the death of Ensign Frost to the captain, because of the crew morale.
Why is it that they can't use internal sensors and match them against Frost profile, and cross-reference it with the data on the changelings that they have through Odo? The power issue with lights on all over the freaking ship and nobody shivering?
The fix the sensory lack or not even thinking about, she went and enlisted Cpt Shaw in the mission, "because nobody knows the ship better," than him. Captain explained to her that to catch one they need to ask questions that only one could know, even though he explained that it's only superficial changes, never thinking about the sensors until it came up in the conversation on how to catch the b*stard. The key to that, the goo pot they go to rest into, and getting a sample of the residue goo for the computer to do a scan.
We also got the first reference on the cannabis in the whole ST history.
On her way to lab with the pot, she caught the one in another disguise and managed to hit 3 times, before it escaped. How many shots Changelings can take before they are destroyed?
"Well, would you like to have a drink with me?" Picard asked Jack on replicated Quinan's bar at the holodeck. "Sure," Jack replied, and neither one of them thought about how much power does it take to run the holosimulator. But he weren't interested in Dad's wine, to Picard's shock, as he only wanted "Some cheap whisky on the rocks."
I expected Admiral to do one his famous facepalms or even sullenly shake his head, but neither happened as daddy fixed the son a drink. And one for himself. It was at that point when son asked about the holodeck, and Picard explained that it had an independent power source. Instead of making ideas, Jack wanted to know about "the elephant in the room," Picard's loss of hair. LOL
He still has time, while daddy wanted to know about his childhood, while they sampled 12-year-old bottle of Jameson whisky. Daddy's lesson to the son after the crew rushed into their session was to look around and see that the people care for each other. Jack's reply was stubborn denial and a declaration of his independence, as if he'd just reached adulthood.
Then Jack asked about the name and Picard's relation to dead Mr Crusher. Not holding back, Admiral told the saucy tale about him and Jack getting stranded in a "borrowed" shuttle due to a meteorite strike. And how they used another system to power their drives to limp back home before Captain Shaw interrupted "family time," and told them how Picard had been Locustus during the Battle of Wolf 356... revealing the roots of his anger on the battle, where he lost his ship and felt helpless amongst 11 000 dead.
The old man was ready to give up and sulk alone, before Beverly encountered Daddy and Son in the hallways. Instead of allowing Picard to go to bury himself in leaves, she used her knowledge to determine that there's a living being inside the nebula. One giving a birth.
Dr Crusher suggested that they use the bioelectric "contractions" to power the impulse engines and fly away. Riker was completely against it as if the doom was the only solution and there was nothing they could do. When did the old men become so depressed about their past sins?
Life is meant to be lived, one way or another. And sometimes you have YOLO (You Only Live Once) it, because desperate times requires desperate means. You do what you can with what you got. God delivers the rest.
Riker wanted to use the opportunity to leave his message to missus. Beverly however were no where near ready to die, so she played what Deanna card on the table and reminded Riker about the trust. They are all in it together, as she said, "Let's do what we've spent our entire lives learning to be great at."
Picard added, "We have been here before, Will. If this is the end, let's face it together. Doing what we know we do best."
At that moment, Riker's head were turned, and he came up with the game plan. One that also included the a-hole Shaw in a crucial position on fixing the nacelles. Admiral on Conn they baited a wave, and Seven the saboteur.
It down, turned to whatever they went for it in one of the most thrilling rides in ST history. They even dealt with the Shriek by slingshotting a wave asteroid at them. Karma is a bitch.
Captain Vadic and a renegade Founder(?). It's interesting that she isn't in the charge of the whole operation on catching Jack. Instead she's in charge of the ship, and clearly she has her own motivation on doing her thing, instead of delivering the boy.
The Founder demanded her to dive into the gravity well and "acquire the asset," despite her objections and explanations.
Titan and space octopuses. All thanks to the fish. This is the best ST on a long, long time. No wonder why this episode got so high ranking. It was also revealed that young Jack also found about daddy, while he was on earth. And Riker called missus with an apology and a confession.
--
10/10
Let's see how it unfolds...
Five years back, Picard was still an admiral. So it is believable that he was having lunch in Quinan's bar, when the fans approach him about his encounter with the Hirogen.
Hirogen
The Hirogen were a nomadic species of hunters who roamed huge distances in the Delta Quadrant during the late-24th century. They viewed other lifeforms as prey and treated them as such, showing little evidence of compassion or empathy for other intelligent species. Hirogen adult males were quite...
memory-alpha.fandom.com
I personally had no recollection of the episode. The interesting thing is that they are a species from another Quadrant, and the fans also brought in Janeway as if she's a miraculous traveller. And the whole thing they wanted to know as how Picard turned the tables, clearly applying it to the current situation as well. And this is what he said, "No matter how bleak and unwinnable a situation, as long as you and your crew remain steadfast in your dedication, one to another, you are never ever... without hope."
The Titan's situation, heavily damaged engineering section, and the power reserves depleting fast, as they spiral deeper into the gravity well. It's just they don't explain it very well, as the Titan crashed on the asteroids, that clearly weren't pulled into the anomaly? Why? Does the space rocks have a natural antigravity, and why is that the people inside the ship never felt the pressure, not talking about the weightlessness?
Riker's orders were to divert all power to life-support, gather people in the common areas, and hope for the best. The interesting thing is that they encountered a bioelectrical field. But before investigating it, he went to confess to Picard that he was scared of death, and the one taking away his son had run a wedge between him and Troi. He wanted Picard to get his affair in order, before it was too late, while he went to record a "Dear Deanna..." message in the ready room.
Man, Seven was sexy in the Voyager, maybe fuelling a lot of nerdist daydreams. But is still capturing it as a matured woman completely. Her mission while the ship were going down was to hunt that Changeling saboteur. Riker wanted Seven to keep it quiet, after she went to report the death of Ensign Frost to the captain, because of the crew morale.
Why is it that they can't use internal sensors and match them against Frost profile, and cross-reference it with the data on the changelings that they have through Odo? The power issue with lights on all over the freaking ship and nobody shivering?
The fix the sensory lack or not even thinking about, she went and enlisted Cpt Shaw in the mission, "because nobody knows the ship better," than him. Captain explained to her that to catch one they need to ask questions that only one could know, even though he explained that it's only superficial changes, never thinking about the sensors until it came up in the conversation on how to catch the b*stard. The key to that, the goo pot they go to rest into, and getting a sample of the residue goo for the computer to do a scan.
We also got the first reference on the cannabis in the whole ST history.
On her way to lab with the pot, she caught the one in another disguise and managed to hit 3 times, before it escaped. How many shots Changelings can take before they are destroyed?
"Well, would you like to have a drink with me?" Picard asked Jack on replicated Quinan's bar at the holodeck. "Sure," Jack replied, and neither one of them thought about how much power does it take to run the holosimulator. But he weren't interested in Dad's wine, to Picard's shock, as he only wanted "Some cheap whisky on the rocks."
I expected Admiral to do one his famous facepalms or even sullenly shake his head, but neither happened as daddy fixed the son a drink. And one for himself. It was at that point when son asked about the holodeck, and Picard explained that it had an independent power source. Instead of making ideas, Jack wanted to know about "the elephant in the room," Picard's loss of hair. LOL
He still has time, while daddy wanted to know about his childhood, while they sampled 12-year-old bottle of Jameson whisky. Daddy's lesson to the son after the crew rushed into their session was to look around and see that the people care for each other. Jack's reply was stubborn denial and a declaration of his independence, as if he'd just reached adulthood.
Then Jack asked about the name and Picard's relation to dead Mr Crusher. Not holding back, Admiral told the saucy tale about him and Jack getting stranded in a "borrowed" shuttle due to a meteorite strike. And how they used another system to power their drives to limp back home before Captain Shaw interrupted "family time," and told them how Picard had been Locustus during the Battle of Wolf 356... revealing the roots of his anger on the battle, where he lost his ship and felt helpless amongst 11 000 dead.
The old man was ready to give up and sulk alone, before Beverly encountered Daddy and Son in the hallways. Instead of allowing Picard to go to bury himself in leaves, she used her knowledge to determine that there's a living being inside the nebula. One giving a birth.
Dr Crusher suggested that they use the bioelectric "contractions" to power the impulse engines and fly away. Riker was completely against it as if the doom was the only solution and there was nothing they could do. When did the old men become so depressed about their past sins?
Life is meant to be lived, one way or another. And sometimes you have YOLO (You Only Live Once) it, because desperate times requires desperate means. You do what you can with what you got. God delivers the rest.
Riker wanted to use the opportunity to leave his message to missus. Beverly however were no where near ready to die, so she played what Deanna card on the table and reminded Riker about the trust. They are all in it together, as she said, "Let's do what we've spent our entire lives learning to be great at."
Picard added, "We have been here before, Will. If this is the end, let's face it together. Doing what we know we do best."
At that moment, Riker's head were turned, and he came up with the game plan. One that also included the a-hole Shaw in a crucial position on fixing the nacelles. Admiral on Conn they baited a wave, and Seven the saboteur.
It down, turned to whatever they went for it in one of the most thrilling rides in ST history. They even dealt with the Shriek by slingshotting a wave asteroid at them. Karma is a bitch.
Captain Vadic and a renegade Founder(?). It's interesting that she isn't in the charge of the whole operation on catching Jack. Instead she's in charge of the ship, and clearly she has her own motivation on doing her thing, instead of delivering the boy.
The Founder demanded her to dive into the gravity well and "acquire the asset," despite her objections and explanations.
Titan and space octopuses. All thanks to the fish. This is the best ST on a long, long time. No wonder why this episode got so high ranking. It was also revealed that young Jack also found about daddy, while he was on earth. And Riker called missus with an apology and a confession.
--
10/10
I had noted that Le Forge called Seven, Commander Seven when all the others said Commander Hansen, and had thought it's bound to be important later. So there you go.
And while I'm sure that all product placement is good product placement, getting Jameson's Irish whiskey to be the cheap whisky of choice for Jack Crusher was interesting.
That it's good enough to exist in exactly the same form and bottles in the 25th century has to be a good marketing idea. Personally I agree that it's a nice whiskey at a good price though.
All told I enjoyed this episode.
A slight shame that the space jelly-fish had to have two very mammalian eyes though, as shown in the picture above , and very face-like forms.
Did they have eyes at Farpoint?
And while I'm sure that all product placement is good product placement, getting Jameson's Irish whiskey to be the cheap whisky of choice for Jack Crusher was interesting.
That it's good enough to exist in exactly the same form and bottles in the 25th century has to be a good marketing idea. Personally I agree that it's a nice whiskey at a good price though.
All told I enjoyed this episode.
A slight shame that the space jelly-fish had to have two very mammalian eyes though, as shown in the picture above , and very face-like forms.
Did they have eyes at Farpoint?
The funniest line of the episode, the season, the series and the franchise.
Was a bit disappointed that the first half an hour was spent with Riker and Picard feeling hopeless - even though I'm pretty sure they've been in similar if not worse situations throughout their careers and TNG episodes! Heck, this episode even had Picard telling a story about one of them! So why all the doom and gloom?
Even still, liked the flashback to Picard talking to the cadets, with Jack appearing at the end. Nice moment, and nice scene when the realization hits Picard.
Was not keen on what appeared to be a demonic blood ritual summoning and appearance of generic dark lord. This is Star Trek, not Supernatural! Also disappointing that after all The Shrike went through to avoid destroying the Titan, in the end they really were going to leave it to be destroyed - especially as not only does a Shrike impale its prey and leaves them for later, the writers then had to force The Shrike to try and save the Titan. Felt like a lack of continuity to me.
But, grumbles aside, this is an interesting series. Presumably next episode will focus on Worf and Raffi.
Even still, liked the flashback to Picard talking to the cadets, with Jack appearing at the end. Nice moment, and nice scene when the realization hits Picard.
Was not keen on what appeared to be a demonic blood ritual summoning and appearance of generic dark lord. This is Star Trek, not Supernatural! Also disappointing that after all The Shrike went through to avoid destroying the Titan, in the end they really were going to leave it to be destroyed - especially as not only does a Shrike impale its prey and leaves them for later, the writers then had to force The Shrike to try and save the Titan. Felt like a lack of continuity to me.
But, grumbles aside, this is an interesting series. Presumably next episode will focus on Worf and Raffi.
ctg
weaver of the unseen
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I think it was specifically written that way to give Picard a chance to be "the leader who got them out of it," ie. the head star. I would have preferred them altering one of the BSGs episodes, mainly from the first season pilot called 33, where they have a rentless time window between the jumps to do things, mainly defending the colony fleet.
I'd have written it as a big technical problem, that the crew can fix, while Picard uses all his wits and skills to escape the Shrike's hunt. It would have reminded people more about the Wrath of Khaaaaaan, but it would have been more satisfactory in that way. Not that this was a bad episode, as it was a classical one with twists.
Vladd67
Stake Holder
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@ctg you mentioned the fact that Picard and son gave no thought about the power use of the holosuite, Jack raised that point and Picard explained that the holosuite had an independent power source so in the case of the ship facing such a situation the crew could use the holosuite as a refuge from the impending disaster.
ctg
weaver of the unseen
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Yeah, like they did in the Voyager. It's just Picard clearly illustrated the concept in his Jack shuttle story, but they never thought really utilizing it or even extending their capabilities on achieving enough of power for the impulse drives. And even though they did turn down all the life support, the artificial gravity still remained operational, instead of Paramount investing money for making it more realistic.
Small flaw but acceptable in the classical ST theme. They also didn't invest time or resources to allow the science officer to go bonkers with the possibilities on utilizing natural sources within the nebula... (the breaking bad making of a battery to power the RV as a reference point)
They showed Titan having enough of power to make the tractor beam operational once they were in the bioelectric wave field. As if it had full power in the warp core. But once they'd slingshotted a wave asteroid onto the Shriek, they forgot the rest of the rocks that were propelled by the birth wave. I guess Paramount decided that they didn't want to show babies getting smacked by the rocks, diminishing their numbers due to the natural causes, and therefore hence for the need to have so many babies.
Maybe it would be enough to lower the given score to 9.5/10. It's just I really liked how the episode formed up at the end to give it a perfect 10.
As far as I'm aware, there was no episode or film where Picard met the Hirogen. Janeway met them in Voyager and they were a Delta Quadrant species.
This also irked me. They couldn't even keep the lights on on some of the other decks.
I missed that conversation, but really? And the other crew had to ask if it was okay to come in or not.
Okay, a precident.... Still seems wrong!
Well done! I didn't catch that, or else I just thought it was part of the anti-former-Borg-sentiment. The first series of Picard showed us that bigotry, racism and discrimination are all alive and well in the 25th Century, just as long as it is against the former Borg.
I'm sick of people doing that to Picard. Give the man a break! He's sufferred years of PTSD, and he surely must have redeemed himself with everything else he has done since. It wasn't his fault. He didn't get a choice. He was defiled, infected, raped by the Borg. And if Shaw hates former Borg so much, why is Seven his XO?
But now onto the parts of this episode that I really had some trouble understanding....
So, Vadic is really merely just a Bounty Hunter out to catch Jack for a bounty? Except in this military ship. And nothing has changed about the need to catch Jack, It was clearly an accident that the Titan ended up down the gravity well.
If so, then why does she have a "renegade" Founder as a hand (was that what we saw?)
Well, maybe it was that??? It just looked like a false hand to me.
If he is a "renegade" Founder, are the others also renegades like him? They all seem to have the same unknown mission, but are working at cross-purposes if they wish to achieve it, because if the Titan had stayed where it was there was no chance of recovering Jack.
Really? That's where I got very lost. Some kind of explanation of why Jack is important I think, involving a "flaming red door"??? What did that all mean?
I agree, it all seems more like Harry Potter than Star Trek.
And how does that all tie into what Worf and Raffi have found out? I'm looking for a good explanation.
ctg
weaver of the unseen
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I'm not sure, but we know that a part of them fled the virus, and then reappeared in this time. My suspicion is that the device she used to communicate is some sort of biodevice, for lack of better word. It is most certainly not a mechanical device, even if it hides itself as part of her bracelet or her hand.
I wrote about such a thing in book 2 and in the unpublished 3, but mine was clearly mechanical, while this thing mimics a function. It could even be a parasite, but it was clearly able to form a comchannel out of that nebula, which should be full of all sorts of signals. Or then it's still part of the nebula and Cpt Vadic can get help she needs.
The problem is that they never clearly identified a gravity well. Who knows if there is a wormhole in centre of the nebula, and the space octopuses were a migrating species from another quadrant?
No answers here, but on Twitter someone posted that Captain Shaw himself is a victim of Survivor Syndrome, Imposter Syndrome and PTSD, so maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to judge him. He is simply hiding his own pain behind the sarcasm, humour and abrasiveness, deliberately trying to keep people distant in order not to be hurt again.
