WiC Watches: Star Trek: Picard

David Harris (Razor)

“Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2” — Episode #110 — Pictured: Sir Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard of the the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: PICARD. Photo Cr: Trae Patton/CBS ??2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Sir Patrick Stewart is back as Jean-Luc Picard in his own standalone series, Star Trek: Picard. Taking place some 20 years after the destruction of the Romulan home planet in Star Trek: Nemesis, the show finds the aging former Admiral tending his vineyard with his loyal pup Number One, and two live-in Romulan staff members who help him with his day-to-day tasks.

Picard seems to be settling down into a comfortable life, until one day, a mysterious girl finds him and asks for his help…and just like that, he’s off on a new adventure.

As a successor, of sorts, to Star Trek: The Next Generation, Picard features some familiar faces like Jonathan Frakes as William Riker, Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi, Brent Spiner as Data, Jonathan Del Arco as Hugh, and Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine (Star Trek: Voyager).

Picard will deal with Romulans experimenting on former Borg drones (those unlucky beings who were assimilated into the Borg collective). The show will also deal with Picard’s own feelings of guilt over a Rogue Synth (androids) attack on Mars that snuffed out the lives of thousands of innocents in mere moments — an attack that left the planet a burning husk. We’ll also see Jean-Luc in mourning over the loss of his close friend, Data.

Star Trek has long been on the air in some form or another, but Stewart returning as Picard — he’s also a producer on the show — feels like a big deal. We’ll be watching and reviewing each and every episode of the show as they come out. Watch along with us!

Episode 101: “Remembrance”

“Remembrance” opens with Picard playing poker with Data aboard the Enterprise. The two are going back and forth, teasing each other about their tells, when Picard looks out the window to see Mars being destroyed. He then wakes up from his nightmare. Apparently he hasn’t been sleeping well in his old age, and it has to do with the guilt he feels over Starfleet abandoning the Romulan people before their planet was destroyed.

I’m not sure if de-aging technology was used to make Brent Spiner look like the Data of The Next Generation from the ’90s, but whatever the production team did really worked.

Anyway, it’s revealed that Admiral Picard resigned from Starfleet as a way to protest Starfleet’s use of the destruction of the Utopia Planitia Shipyards on Mars by the Rogue Synths as an excuse to stop the evacuation of Romulus.

Next, we meet the mysterious girl, Dahj (Isa Briones), who is at home in Greater Boston just hanging out with her boyfriend when assassins wearing helmets somehow beam into her apartment and attack the couple. The boyfriend is immediately killed, but before the assassins can kill Dahj, something inside her “activates” and she instantly becomes a living weapon, killing everyone in the room. She then has a vision of Picard, and after seeing him being interviewed on the Federation News Network, she locates him on his vineyard in France.

I wasn’t wild about the insta-travel from Boston to France, but this is the future, so maybe Dahj beamed over to Picard’s home? Who knows? And I’m not really sure it matters to the story.

So, Dahj seems to be content — for now — hanging out with Picard in France as he tries to figure out who she is. He remembers two paintings of a woman clad in a white cloak that Data made for him before his death. One hangs in his study at his vineyard, but in that one, the figure is shown from behind. The other painting is in storage, and when Dahj goes missing, something clicks for Picard, so he goes to look at that painting and the woman’s face can be seen…and it’s Dahj. When he asks the curator program the name of the painting, it replies, “Daughter.”

Pictured (l-r): Alison Pill as Jurati; Sir Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard; of the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: PICARD. Photo Cr: Trae Patton/CBS ©2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Meanwhile, Dahj runs into Picard again. He tries to convince her to come with him only to be interrupted by those darn assassins. This time, Dhaj manages to unmask a couple of them, and they’re revealed to be Romulan. However, before she can kill the last attacker, he blows her up. Dahj is dead.

But all is not lost, because apparently, back in the day, there was an experimental procedure known as fractal neuronic cloning, which meant Dahj and a twin sister are both androids with an organic body but a positronic brain. We know Dhaj has a twin because Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill) tells Picard the process always results in twins.

The episode ends in a Romulan reclamation site where a Romulan named Narek meets with Dahj’s twin, Soji. It doesn’t seem like Narek has anything pleasant in mind for her. As the final shot pans over the reclamation site, it’s revealed to be a damaged Borg Cube:

Dun dun duuuuun.

I enjoyed the first episode of Star Trek: Picard, but I must admit I was hoping for something along the lines of Star Trek: Discovery’s first action-packed episode. Once my expectations were tempered, I was able to sit back and enjoy watching Patrick Stewart reclaim the role of Picard. That being said, it’s clear Stewart isn’t going to be involved in many action scenes, and maybe that’s why a younger cast was brought on to be his crew.

Episode Grade: B

Episode 102, “Maps and Legends”

Picard continues to look into Dahj’s death and whether she has a twin sister somewhere. Along the way, he finds out all about the Romulan Gestapo called the Zhat Vash, a thousands-of-years-old top-secret organization filled with deadly assassins who really hate synthetic beings like Data. Apparently, the Zhat Vash has the capability to scrub away all trace of their existence, and they’re very efficient at their job.

The episode opens on the Utopia Planitia Shipyards on Mars, right before it was attacked and destroyed by rogue synthetics. We’re shown a synthetic named F8 who works with the humans and other species there. F8 is, as one might expect, robotic and analytical, taking everything said by its co-workers at face value.

Skip ahead to lunch break, and for some unknown reason F8 bugs out and kills everyone in the lunchroom. He drops the shipyard’s defenses, thus allowing warships in to destroy everything in their paths. Now we know why everyone hates androids…it’s literally like the plot of Westworld season 2.

Pictured(l-r): Orla Brady as Laris; Jamie McShane as Zhaban; Sir Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard; of the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: PICARD. Photo Cr: Trae Patton/CBS ©2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Meanwhile, Jean-Luc meets with an old doctor pal of his at his vineyard and is told he has some sort of brain tumor and doesn’t have long to live. I’m sure Picard’s tumor will get sorted out somehow before the end of season 1, unless they want season 2 to be about him finding a good space hospice.

Picard wants his friend to give him a medical clearance to take on another mission for Starfleet, and he does. However, when Picard goes to Starfleet headquarters, he’s met with hostility from an old colleague who didn’t appreciate the way he slammed the Federation in the premiere. Official permission is denied, so Jean-Luc has to find his own ship and crew. He starts by meeting with Raffi (Michelle Hurd), who lives in a silver camper in the desert.

At the Romulan reclamation site aboard the now-dead-but-still-ominous and terrifying Borg ship, Soji — Dahj’s twin — and Narek (Harry Treadaway) are shown in a post-coital embrace. It’s clear that Narek is there on behalf of the Zhat Vash in order to assassinate Soji, but for some reason, his method is to get into her pants before killing her.

A Romulan Commodore named Oh is told of Picard’s request to return to Starfleet for one last mission. She calls a member of the Zhat Vash operating undercover as the human Lieutenant Rizzo to come in and speak with her. Once they’re alone, Oh berates Rizzo for not staying on mission and tells her to get Narek under control.

Rizzo then appears to Narek by holo-communicator as he works in his office on the Borg ship, and it’s revealed that he’s her brother. I guess the Zhat Vash as an organization doesn’t have a problem with nepotism, but hating inanimate objects like androids is all wrong. Priorities, people.

Anyway, Rizzo warns Narek that if he does not persuade Soji to reveal the location of the “nest” where her synthetic siblings are hiding, she’ll have to come to the Borg ship and handle things herself.

“Maps and Legends” was a good episode that expanded the story and gave us a clear reason why the Romulans — and really, all of Starfleet — hate the synthetics. The Romulans were blamed for the attack that was carried out by the synthetics, forcing the Federation to abandon them to their home planet of Romulus before it imploded and was destroyed.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Star Trek: Picard, but it lacks the fun and exciting missions taken on by its sister-show, Star Trek: Discovery. Let’s hope the action gets turned up a notch or three in the next episode.

Episode Grade: B

“The End Is The Beginning” — Episode #103 — Pictured: Patrick Stewart as Picard of the the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: PICARD. Photo Cr: Trae Patton/CBS ©2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Episode 103: “The End is the Beginning”

The third episode of Picard opens with another flashback. This time, we see dejected Admiral Picard meet with Raffi at Starfleet headquarters, both wearing their Starfleet uniforms. Raffi is anxious to talk about how they are going to evacuate millions of Romulans off of the planet Romulus before it explodes.

Picard tells her that after the synthetic uprising on Mars, Starfleet command halted all rescue missions to Romulus. He then tendered his resignation and they accepted. With no Admiral Picard there to shield her, Raffi was immediately fired by Starfleet, and because he didn’t warn her or protect her, she quickly became bitter toward him.

“The End Is The Beginning” — Episode #103 — Pictured (l-r): Michelle Hurd as Raffi; Patrick Stewart as Picard of the the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: PICARD. Photo Cr: Trae Patton/CBS ©2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Raffi calls Jean-Luc “J.L.,” which suggests they were very close at some point because I don’t think I’ve ever heard another Star Trek character be so familiar with him.

This is another slow-burn episode, which is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I can appreciate a show that leans heavily on chemistry and dialogue between the characters. On the other hand, if you came to Star Trek: Picard hoping for the banter and constant action of the kind you’ll get on a show like Star Trek: Discovery, then you’re probably disappointed.

“The End Is The Beginning” — Episode #103 — Pictured: Jonathan Del Arco as Hugh of the the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: PICARD. Photo Cr: Trae Patton/CBS ©2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Speaking of action, “The End is the Beginning” had the most of this inaugural season so far, but every time Patrick Stewart needed to get involved in a fight scene, it ended up looking clunky and awkward. I guess when you’re 79 years old, delivering punches and kicks while ducking and diving around the room isn’t something you can do easily.

Episode 3 did see movement on Picard cobbling together his ragtag crew, which is definitely welcome. I really like Captain Rios (Santiago Cabrera), who seems like have the right amount of crazy to help punch-up the rest of the season.

As to new characters, a familiar face from The Next Generation pops up on the decommissioned Borg Cube/Romulan Reclamation Site. It seems Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco) was able to be rescued by the Romulans and had most of his Borg cybernetic implants removed, and now he’s the executive officer in charge of the entire project.

“The End Is The Beginning” — Episode #103 — Pictured: (l-r): Isa Briones as Soji; Jonathan Del Arco as Hugh; of the the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: PICARD. Photo Cr: Trae Patton/CBS ©2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Hugh takes a liking to Soji and allows her access to a handful of Romulans who were rescued from the Borg Collective. They’re all very creepy and seem to know that Soji is a synthetic. In fact, during an extremely intense scene, one of the formerly-Borg Romulans begins to scream that she knows who and what Soji is, disarming a guard and nearly shooting herself in the head. But Soji goes into super-android mode and uses super-speed to disarm her before any damage was done.

I don’t think anyone noticed, but Narek and his sister are on the Cube, and if they watch the footage from that incident, then Soji’s secret might be revealed. Also, there’s something strange going on with Soji’s mom, because after she contacted her through the hologram-phone thing and asked where her sister was, her mom began slowly talking about her day, which put Soji to sleep. I’m guessing that means her mother isn’t real, and someone who knows who and what Soji actually is is playing her.

“The End Is The Beginning” — Episode #103 — Pictured (l-r): Santiago Cabrera as Rios; Patrick Stewart as Picard of the the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: PICARD. Photo Cr: Trae Patton/CBS ©2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

In the final moments, Picard and his new crew get ready to jump into warp speed in a very cool-looking ship, and the last thing we hear is Picard uttering his famous words from The Next Generation: “Engage.”

“The End is the Beginning” was an improvement from last week’s episode, but there is still a whole lot of talk and not a lot of action. In fact, I found myself a bit bored halfway through, which I didn’t expect. Hopefully Episode 4 will pick up as Picard finds a sword-wielding Romulan bodyguard to join his crew. Bring on the action.

Episode Grade: B

Episode 104: “Absolute Candor”

“Absolute Candor” opens with yet another flashback. This time, we see Jean-Luc arrive on the planet Vashti, where he and Raffi plan to relocate hundreds of thousands of Romulans fleeing the destruction of their home planet. It’s 14 years ago.

Picard meets with the leader of an all-female group of Romulans who are highly-trained warriors who use swords and pledge themselves to lost causes. At the behest of Picard, the leader agrees to watch over a Romulan boy who idolizes the Starfleet admiral because he’s the only male he’s come in contact with.

We see Picard teach the boy how to fence (classic The Next Generation Picard) as well as read him classic stories like The Three Musketeers. Toward the end of the flashback, Picard receives a call from Raffi, who tells him that the rogue synthetics have just attacked Mars. Picard pleads with the women of the order to watch over the boy and promises to return as soon as he can.

Fourteen years later, Picard finally makes good on his promise. We’re now on present-day Vashti. The Romulan people are living in poverty and have secluded themselves from anyone who isn’t Romulan. It’s not the peaceful settlement he left all those years ago, and in fact, many of the Romulans are greeting him with open hostility, as they directly blame him for the Federation’s decision to abandon the Romulans who were left on Romulus before it was destroyed.

Picard seeks out the ancient all-female warriors and finds their leader is still his old friend from 14 years past. He’s seeking one of their kind to help protect him as he looks for Soji.

By the by, we get a brief glimpse of Soji as she and the Romulan assassin/spy Narek flirt. It’s clear that Soji is beginning to have doubts about Narek’s intentions toward her, and she even accuses him of spying on her. He deflects the questions and, I kid you not, takes Soji to a secret part of the abandoned Borg ship where he does his best Tom Cruise in Risky Business slide down a slippery corridor. Delighted, Soji tries it for herself and forgets about any potential espionage.

Back on Vashti, the boy that Jean-Luc befriended way back when appears, now all grown up. His name is Elnor (Evan Evagora), and he is the only male trained by the all-female warriors. He sees Picard and initially storms off. He too blames the former Starfleet admiral for abandoning his people, but eventually warms up to him and pledges his sword to Picard’s cause.

In a very cool scene, Picard is challenged to a fight by some Romulan ruffians who throw him a rapier and demand a duel. Picard refuses to fight and Elnor steps in and warns the ruffians to stand down or else. They don’t listen, and he proceeds to cut their heads off. As green Romulan blood drips down his sword’s blade, Elnor warns everyone else to back off, and just in time, Raffi beams Picard and his new bodyguard aboard the La Sirena — the ship owned and piloted by Rios and his rag-tag crew.

However, before they can escape Vashti’s orbit, a Romulan Bird of Prey (warship) attacks the La Sirena. It seems like Picard and his crew might lose their battle before the mission really begins when a smaller ship enters the fray and begins to fire on the Bird of Prey. The Bird of Prey is beaten away, but the mystery ship — which seems to have some kind of ace pilot at the helm — takes damage and begins to crash.

The pilot hails the La Sirena and requests to be beamed aboard before their ship is destroyed. Picard obliges, and when the beams of light materialize in front of him, Picard sees none other than Seven of Nine (Jerri Ryan)! She tells Picard he owes her a ship before she passes out due to a bit of head trauma taken during the battle.

This was probably my favorite episode of Star Trek: Picard yet. I enjoyed Elnor’s backstory, and even though I felt like I was watching Star Trek: Lord of the Rings in Rivendell, I still found it very interesting that there’s an entire Romulan order of all-female warriors who exist solely to pledge their swords to lost causes. This show is finally starting to pick up the pace, and I’m here for it.

Episode Grade: B+

Episode 105: “Stardust City Rag”

Note: David is out this week, so this review will be written by your friendly neighborhood WiC editor Dan Selcke, who has watched all of Star Trek: Picard so far but has never seen another Star Trek thing in his life. Let’s see how it goes!

What a great body horror opening! This week’s episode opens with a flashback, which is pretty much standard for the show at this point. A scientist is brutally dissecting a former Borg drone, and has the nerve to be cavalier about it. “Where’s your cortical node, buddy? Gotta be in there somewhere.” It’s pretty chilling. In bursts Seven of Nine, who kills the surgeon and reunites with the drone, who’s actually Icheb, the teenage former Borg Seven basically adopted on Star Trek: Voyager. He’s too far gone to save, so she tearfully mercy kills him.

Now, I’ve never watched another Star Trek show before this one, and I think the opening would have worked better for me were I familiar with Seven and Icheb’s relationship. Still, this is a striking opening that keeps pace with the bleak tone the series has been setting up; the optimistic days of Starfleet past are gone, given way to isolationism and chaos. If that weren’t clear from the opening, it crystalizes at episode’s end.

That said, most of this episode is actually a fun sci-fi romp — it just takes a dark turn later. The gang has reached Freecloud, where they’re looking for scientist Bruce Maddox, who can help Picard find Soji. He’s being held prisoner by a shady underworld type named Bjayzl, who hopes to sell him to the Tal Shiar. Picard and his crew have to go undercover on what basically amounts to space Vegas to get him back. Time for a caper!

And there is some fun to be had, starting with the wacky getups everyone wears as part of the infiltration. Picard even wears an eyepatch, with the exaggerated evil French accent to match. “I thought I looked…appropriately sinister.” Let it never be said that Stewart can’t ham it up.

In fact, the design of Freecloud in general is a lot of fun. It’s kind of Blade Runner meets The Fifth Element meets Atlantic City. I liked the spam holograms that popped up when the gang was approaching the planet, and the giant wireframe babies outside the building where Raffi reunites with her estranged son.

Oh yeah, that happens. Remember: Raffi was only tagging along with Picard because she had her own mission. Apparently being involved with Starfleet in the aftermath of the synthetic attack on Mars distracted Raffi from her parenting duties way back when, and her son — Gabriel Wong — has never forgiven her for it. Even now, he’s clearly still bearing a grudge, and doesn’t welcome her back into his good graces. It’s an affecting scene well played by all the actors involved. If Picard does indeed last for a long time, it’ll pay to set up Raffi’s family connections now.

Back in the A plot, Seven volunteers to help the gang get back Maddox by offering herself as a trade, since Bjayzl is known to chop up former Borg for parts to sell. The details of the exchange are, again, good fun, as is the twist: Seven really just wants revenge on Bjayzl for torturing Icheb years ago, and there’s a tense standoff slightly hampered by how easily the gang are able to get away. I mean, they talked about how good Bjayzl’s security was beforehand, but apparently there’s time to have a leisurely discussion about the ethics of revenge while all of her guards just stand there letting Seven throttle their boss?

Clearly, the show is more interested in saying something about revenge than writing an airtight plot, which is okay when the denouement is this surprising: after agreeing with Picard that killing Bjayzl in revenge won’t do any good, Seven returns to the ship and parts with the former Admiral under good terms, even giving him a way to contact her if he’s ever in need of a badass vigilante freedom fighter. And then she goes right back down to Bjayzl’s casino or whatever and explodes her but good. And then she easily shoots her way out.

Again, it’s a little, ‘Where’s the security in this joint?’ but the twist is genuinely shocking, and sets up some potentially rich philosophical conflicts in the future. Picard believes that the universe can be reordered, that there’s still room for decency and hope. But Seven is jaded, a state of mind inspired in part by Starfleet — the institution Picard believed in for years — stepping back and leaving the universe to its devices. Things do not tend toward order. They fall apart.

Bleak, I say. Bleak on bleak. It makes me wonder how the season will wrap up. What will win: hope or despair?

Another twist: once Maddox is back on the ship, Agnes — with whom he was once very close — kills him. “I wish I didn’t know what I know,” she cries. “I wish they hadn’t shown me.” Oh my god, what does she know? What did they show her?

I’m guessing it has to do with Soji, who probably wasn’t fingered as “the Destroyer” by that Romulan ex-Borg for nothing. Soji sits this episode out, by the way, which I was fine with; it gave our main cast of characters time to gel as a unit, although I’d like to see how they function without a special guest star like Seven in the mix. The dud was Elnor, who was introduced with a lot of fanfare but this week only gets a couple of lame, “I’m not good at pretending” jokes. He didn’t even get to use those sword skills.

Mainly, though, this was an enjoyable episode. Now that the story is properly underway, I bet I could really grow to like this crew.

Episode Grade: B

Episode 106: “The Impossible Box”

Things are starting to come together. We’re just over halfway done with the season, and Picard and his team have finally arrived at the Borg Reclamation Project, within sight of their goal of finding Soji. And the payoff is about as good as we could hope it to be, but not necessarily because of Picard. No, the best thing about “The Impossible Box” was the climax of the relationship between Soji and Narek, at least for me.

All along, I’ve thought actor Harry Treadaway had skillfully woven the needle with his dashing Romulan operative. Was he really falling for Soji, or was he just conning her to extract information? As it ends up, both. In this episode, Treadaway finally gets Soji to tell him where she was made, information that she herself didn’t even know until he carefully drew it out of her. This greatly pleases his sister (Peyton List), who’s been leaning on him for a while to turn up the charm. And while Narek does indeed leave Soji to die in a sealed room on the Cube, he’s clearly torn up about it. There’s no going back for the two of them, but I think this makes Narek a far more interesting character than if he had never never had real feelings for Soji, or if he had given into them completely. He’s torn, and that’s fertile ground for future stories. I don’t know whether I want Soji to kill him or for them to make up, and that’s a great place to be as a viewer.

Happily, Soji’s synthetic instincts activate and she escapes Narek’s trap, meeting up with Picard and hightailing it out of the Cube. Elnor and Hugh, who helps Picard find Soji, stay behind to face down the Romulan forces coming to stop Soji’s extraction. I have to believe Elnor will survive, because otherwise he’s pretty much been a waste of a character. I liked the episode where Picard picked him up but he’s had no development since. They wouldn’t introduce him just to write him off the show, would they?

Besides the Soji-Narek stuff, the best part of this episode was watching Picard struggle with his past as part of the Borg hive mind. Now, as someone who never watched a Star Trek show before this one, I didn’t fully understand what was going on, but Patrick Stewart is such an emotive actor that it still worked for me. He was clearly in pain, and I sympathized.

I think this was the best episode of Star Trek: Picard so far! And with a climax this early, I’m curious about what they have in store for the end of the season.

Episode Grade: A-

Bullet points, the final frontier

I wasn’t mad at Rios playing soccer on the bridge shirtless, just saying.
What the hell kind of future cigarette was Raffi smoking?
Raffi was solid this episode, by the way. She’s still despairing over her disastrous reunion with her son, but pulled it together enough to sweet talk the Federation officer into letting Picard board the Cube. “Every part of that guy who’s not ego is rampaging id.”
The set design on the Borg Cube is great, all hard angles and harsh metal lights.
The Romulan ethnic slur for humans is “round ears.”
It sounded like Narek said his true name was Ryan, but with a weird inflection.
Kudos to director Maja Vrvilo on the sequence where Soji was walking through the Romulan meditation exercise. All she was doing was putting one foot in front of the other, but it felt very tense.

Image: Star Trek: Picard/CBS All Access

Episode 107: “Nepenthe”

Thanks, Dan, I’ll take it from here…

This episode takes place in three different places: Picard and Soji on Nepenthe, Elnor and Hugh on the Borg Cube, and Rios, Raffi and Agnes Jurati aboard the La Sirena fleeing from Narek.

Picard and Soji travel to the planet Nepenthe, and just like that, we have an episode title! The pair are here to take safe harbor with Picard’s dearest friends, William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis). The couple have a daughter who is feisty and inquisitive, the perfect combination of her parents.

There are plenty of great moments when Picard reunites with his former officers from the Enterprise, with loads of emotion from everyone involved. That includes Soji, who has just been told she’s an android and that her sister was killed by the very same Romulans who tried to kill her.

Image: Star Trek: Picard/CBS All Access

The real payoff for this reunion is the chemistry between Picard and Riker. Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes slip right back into their easy familiarity from The Next Generation, continually riffing off each other. It was a masterclass in acting and I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it.

This was a strong episode for Soji, too. She interacted well with Riker and Troi’s daughter; I think I liked the chemistry between those two almost as much as I enjoyed Picard and Riker back together.

Both Troi and Riker can tell that Soji is an android, Troi because she can sense it and Riker because he notices that Soji has the same telltale head tilt that Data had. In a superb moment, he reveals he’d figured out Soji’s secret by listing everything he’d noticed about her since her arrival on the planet.

Image: Star Trek: Picard/CBS All Access

“Nepenthe” actually starts with a flashback to three weeks before the current events on the show. We see Agnes enjoying a lunch on Earth when she’s approached by Commodore Oh, the security chief for Starfleet Command. She tells Agnes that she’ll need her to go off-world with Picard to find Soji, and then has her chew and swallow a tracker.

Oh convinces Agnes to betray her new friends when she pulls a Vulcan Mind Meld and shows Agnes that Earth will be destroyed should synthetics be allowed to survive. And now we know why she killed her former lover Bruce Maddox.

This is probably Alison Pill’s best episode of the season. She displays raw emotion upon realizing what she has to do to stop Picard from saving Soji. For the first time, I felt like I could connect with this character.

Image: Star Trek: Picard/CBS All Access

In fact, this was a strong episode for just about every character. Raffi and Rios really shine during their attempts to escape the Romulans. Raffi plays the concerned mother to Agnes when she realizes the doctor is hiding something, and Rios’ skills are on display as he tries to out-maneuver Narek.

Aboard the Borg Cube, Narek’s sister is trying to get Hugh to reveal where Picard and Soji escaped to, but the former Borg won’t give up the information even when she threatens to kill him, so she begins killing former Borg drones, making Hugh cry out in desperation.

But still he won’t tell her what she wants to know, and she has a whole bunch of former Borg drones executed. She leaves him to sit among the bodies of his friends when Elnor drops in and tells Hugh he’ll stay and help him free the Borg ship from Romulan control.

However, it’s a trap, and Narek’s sister kills Hugh, leaving Elnor to fend for himself. Narek’s sister has a shot to kill Elnor, but he’s much quicker than she is, and almost kills her before she teleports away.

Finally, when Agnes realizes she’s the reason Rios and Raffi can’t escape Narek — and therefore can’t go rescue Picard on Nepenthe — she takes a toxin to flush her system of the tracker she was convinced to eat. Rios loses Narek and makes his way to Nepenthe, with Agnes in a coma from the toxic shot.

Star Trek: Picard has improved as it’s gone along, and I think “Nepenthe” is my favorite of the season so far. As a Next Generation fan, the nostalgia of Picard reuniting with Riker and Troi was really nice, but those sweet moments were balanced with intense action aboard the Borg Ship, as well as intrigue on the La Sirena.

Next week’s episode looks bonkers, with Seven of Nine seeming like she might become the new Borg Queen. I can’t wait to see how it all shakes out.

Episode Grade: A

Episode 108: “Broken Pieces”

As Star Trek: Picard heads into its final three episodes, “Broken Pieces” slows down and focuses on character development with little to no real action.

The episode opens with Picard and Soji being beamed aboard the La Sirena. Rios takes one look at Soji and freaks the f**k out. He activates all the emergency holograms that look exactly like him and nopes out to his quarters where he locks himself in, gets hammered, and looks at a sketch of a younger version of himself sitting next to a person who looks just like Soji.

While Raffi makes it her mission to speak to each one of the holograms to figure out why Rios is acting so strangely, Picard introduces Soji to Dr. Jurati. Jurati is taken aback at how lifelike Soji is, and after an intense round of questioning, the two decide to become best friends forever.

Meanwhile, aboard the Borg cube, Elnor activates an emergency distress signal that summons the Fenris Rangers. When Seven of Nine beams aboard, she saves his bacon and kills all the Romulan bad guys trying to kill him. Then the pair scamper off to the Borg Queen’s quarters where Seven of Nine allows herself to be plugged into the Queen’s interface with the ship, effectively becoming the new Borg Queen. Her plan is to activate all the hibernating Borg, as well as calling the Ex-Bs (ex-Borg) to action in order to expel the Romulans from the ship.

However, Narissa is prepared, and after slaughtering a bunch of Ex-Bs, she has her people open the airlocks on the Borg ship, sucking all of the newly awakened Borg out into the cold void. Then Narissa has her people evacuate the Cube because she now knows where the Synth world is, and she’s taking the Romulan army there to eradicate all the innocent little robots.

“Broken Pieces” — Episode #108 — Pictured (l-r): Santiago Cabrera as Crist–bal Rios; Isa Briones as Soji; Michelle Hurd as Raffi; of the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: PICARD. Photo Cr: Matt Kennedy/CBS ©2019 CBS

Why do I say innocent? Weren’t the Synths responsible for the attack on Mars? Well, no. You see, it’s revealed throughout the episode that the Romulans — about 300,000 years ago — very nearly created a sentient android, and that resulted in an apocalypse of sorts. So, in order to keep history from repeating itself, the Romulans attacked Mars and manipulated the situation to make it look like the Synths were to blame.

Picard was right the whole time.

With Starfleet now on his side, Picard orders Rios to take the La Sirena to the space station Deep Space 12, where a Starfleet squadron will meet him and begin protecting him and Soji. But wait, there’s more…

…remember that sketch of young Rios and a woman who looked like Soji? As it turns out, that woman was an ambassador from Soji’s homeworld, a planet inhabited by the Synths. When Rios was a young Starfleet officer, his captain ordered him to track a distress signal to a small ship where Soji’s brother and sister were aimlessly floating through space.

“Broken Pieces” — Episode #108 — Pictured: (counterclockwise): Santiago Cabrera as Crist–bal Rios; Michelle Hurd as Raffi; Sir Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard; Alison Pill as Agnes Jurati; Isa Briones as Soji; f the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: PICARD. Photo Cr: Trae Patton/CBS ©2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Rios’ captain has them beamed aboard the ship where they share french fries and peppermint ice-cream. When the captain sends a message to Starfleet about what he found, the head of Starfleet security, one Admiral Oh, orders him to kill both of the strangers. He does so right in front of Rios, then turns the phaser on himself. He couldn’t handle the guilt of killing two innocent people, regardless of the fact that Oh had told him they were dangerous Synths on the run after destroying Mars.

Oh yeah, and it’s revealed that Admiral Oh is actually half Vulcan and half Romulan, and along with Narissa had infiltrated Starfleet in order to carry out the destruction of Mars. Wow.

Oooookay, so…here’s the deal: I really want to say I liked this episode because of everything we learned about Star Trek Lore. However, this was Episode 8, and it felt like a bad choice to spend nearly the entire episode simply talking about past events, rather than punching up what could have been some very solid action with Elnor and Seven of Nine vs Narissa on the Borg ship.

Oh well, there are two episodes left, and I very much hope the show sticks the landing. If not, I can’t imagine I’ll be looking forward to a second season next year.

Episode Grade: C+

Photo: Aaron Epstein (CBS Interactive)

Episode 109: “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1”

I am Dan Selcke, and I am taking over for David to review the penultimate episode of Picard’s first season. Let’s begin!

The second-to-last episode of Star Trek: Picard is mainly concerned with setting up the last episode. Nothing of huge consequence happens here, or at least, it doesn’t feel like it does. We finally arrive on Soji’s home planet, a visit a civilization made up of synthetic lifeforms. Picard and crew have gotten here a couple days ahead of the Romulan fleet thanks to taking a shortcut through a chronoton field, although Narek and the Borb Cube were both close behind. But absent a cool sequence in the beginning of the episode where Picard’s ship is brought down to the planet by what looks like a giant space-faring flower (“They hit us with a flower,” says Agnes, bemused), there’s nothing much to distinguish this colony: the peace-loving synths walk around placidly in flowing fabrics and gold foundation.

Brent Spinner, who played Data in The Next Generation, returns as the lone human in the group: Dr. Alton Soong, the son of the guy who actually created Data and now an advocate for the synths. The most interesting new character is probably Sutra, a gold-covered synth who looks exactly like Soji. Isa Briones has fun playing a different sort of character here. Sutra is basically Evil Soji. She mind-melds with Agnes to see the apocalyptic vision Commander Oh showed Agnes a bunch of episodes back, but interprets it differently: apparently it’s an encoded message that only synths can understand, one prompting them to call out to some kind of advanced synthetic lifeform out there who can swoop down and save them from attack by organics, as for example the Romulan fleet currently barreling towards them. (Apparently the idea of a non-Vulcan performing the mind meld breaks Star Trek canon, but as a Trek virgin, it didn’t bother me.)

But to do it, she’s gotta be sneaky. After the synths capture Narek, whose ship they drag down to the planet’s surface after he tries and fails to take down Picard’s ship, Sutra lets him go, sacrificing one of her people in the process. She uses this as justification for calling that uber-synth lifeform. False flag, false flag!

Anyway, Sutra takes control of the colony in the end, locking up Picard after he fails to convince the rest of the synths to flee the planet with him in a rousing speech. Agnes, who’s devoted her life to studying synthetic life, talks herself out of the brig by saying she can help Dr. Soong with his work. Soji is cool with locking up Picard, too.

It's always a good day for a new episode of #StarTrekPicard. Stream it now. pic.twitter.com/ZVBYfaAqNq
— Alex Kurtzman (@Alex_Kurtzman) March 19, 2020

So a lot of stuff that happened, but in the moment, none of it feels like it has much weight. Soji and Agnes’ decisions to let Picard be locked feel like hard left turns, and Picard’s speech feels hopelessly naive; how could he possibly have expected to convince anyone with that plan?

Earlier, Picard and company visit the Borg Cube, which crash lands on the planet’s surface. (Everyone’s fine, somehow.) Picard reunites with Elnor, and then immediately says goodbye again. Once more, we have a scene that feels like it’s supposed to hit hard that kind of falls flat. Since meeting up, Picard and Elnor have spent very little time together, to the point where I’ve wondered why they even brought him onto the show. I mean, they don’t seem to have much for him to do.

There were two parts of the episode that consistently held my interest: I liked the opening sequence in space, and I liked pretty much every scene with Narek. What can I say? This guy’s a dynamic character! Does he have real feelings for Soji? He claims to, and Harry Treadaway certainly sells it, but obviously he can’t be trusted, and he’s still hoping for the Romulan fleet to rain down fire on the planet. Soji’s conflicted over him and so am I, and that’s interesting, more interesting than a lot of the other stuff going down.

Basically, this episode feels like it should have hit harder than it did. Here’s hoping the show can tie together all the threads for the grand finale.

Episode Grade: B-

Bullet points, the final frontier

Rios shouts a bunch of Spanish-language curse words during the opening
I liked the one synth touching Picard’s face. It reminded me of other scenes in movies where humans touch robots’ faces in awe of how lifelike it is.
Picard was so close to not returning Raffi’s “I love you.”
“Is this how you treat your prisoners?” “We’ve never had a prisoner before. How do Romulans treat their prisoners?” “Let’s change the subject.”
Narek and Soji had a full Star Wars moment there. “I love you.” “I know.”

“Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2” — Episode #110 — Pictured: Sir Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard of thed CBS All Access series STAR TREK: PICARD. Photo Cr: Trae Patton/CBS ??2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Episode 110: “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2”

The Picard season 1 finale was one weird wild trip that saw Picard himself die and be brought back as a Synth. Yeah, it happened, let’s try not to make a huge deal of it. Narek betrayed his sister, Narissa, who then had an epic fight with Seven of Nine.

That duel to the death ended with Seven throwing Narissa down a shaft in the Borg ship, which played like a wicked-cool homage to Darth Vader tossing Palpatine down the shaft of the second Death Star. Yes, I know I’m not supposed to mix the franchises, but this is my review and that means I can do what I want.

“Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2” — Episode #110 — Pictured: Santiago Cabrera as Crist–bal Rios of the the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: PICARD. Photo Cr: Trae Patton/CBS ??2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Narek then pops up outside the La Sirena, where he begins throwing rocks at the crash-landed spacecraft so that Raffi and Rios will pay attention to him. You see, as it turns out, Narek really wasn’t that much of a bad guy this season; he simply wanted to prevent an android apocalypse and save every living organism in space. What a good dude.

And that’s the difference between Narissa and Narek: she was a zealot and he was a student of history…and he didn’t want history to repeat itself.

Meanwhile, Jean-Luc is busy working out a plan with Agnes on how they can stop Soji from fulfilling her destiny as “The Destroyer,” whose sole purpose is to summon up a batch of super-destructive Synths from another dimension who will destroy everything.

“Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2” — Episode #110 — Pictured: Alison Pill as Agnes Jurati of the the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: PICARD. Photo Cr: Aaron Epstein/CBS ??2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Picard and Agnes’ plan has two parts: 1) a weird magic space thingy (no, not the technical term) that will help Soji summon her extra-dimensional android brethren to a place not of her own choosing, and 2) Picard is just gonna talk to her.

Somehow, his speech appealing to Soji’s better nature works, and the day is saved. Hooray!

Our #StarTrekPicard season finale is Thursday, and starting today until 4/23, you can watch for free on @CBSAllAccess in the US with the code: GIFT. https://t.co/i2IfFQN3I8

It's felt good to bring Picard back. I can't wait to reunite with our cast and crew for Season 2. pic.twitter.com/lSmtMxgrN8
— Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) March 24, 2020

Other neat things that happened this episode:

Riker and a fleet of Federation starships showed up to defend the newly-recognized Synth homeworld from a massive fleet of Romulan warbirds.
Elnor gives the best hugs in the universe. Picard was on the receiving end this time.
Picard really did die, and he was really brought back as a weird Synth hybrid? I dunno, it was crazy, but now we know how his tumor got fixed and how he’s able to have a second season.

Episode Grade: B+

Season Grade: B

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David Harris (Razor)

Writer/Editor: Winteriscoming.net -- Creator/Host: Take the Black PodcastHusband to the most wonderful, extraordinary, and beautiful wife in the multiverse. Father of three cats (yeah, I'm that guy). ASOIAF aficionado, avid bibliophile, lover of puns, connoisseur of fine television like Game of Thrones and Westworld, Star Wars nerd, gamer, rabid Arkansas Razorback fan.