Picard 1x8 "Broken Pieces"

rating: ***

the story: Rios grapples with his past as it catches up with him, and we learn...a lot.

review: If I weren't feeling particularly generous because I generally love the results of the series to date, I'd call this latest episode...a glorified infodump.  Basically it's...everyone...explaining...everything.  The exception is Rios (even though he's thoroughly wrapped up in it, too).  Between his holograms (best part of the episode) and how learning about his past informs his, and the show's, present, he finally grabs the spotlight, without any of the flashback material that might in hindsight seem something like a crutch elsewhere in the series.

Speaking of flashbacks, we see the evil Romulan conspiracy take shape, the continuingly fairly vague nature of the AI apocalypse, past and present, although now of course it looks all the more like fear-mongering (as I write this, I'm grappling with the effects of COVID-19 in American and personal activities, so I seem to have pretty relevant recent experience).  Someone on the internet, which is capable of reducing even the most complex concepts into the least helpful summaries possible (which, again, because I'm feeling cynical at the moment, seems to be the extent of human discourse, at least at the moment), pointed out that Picard and the second season of Discovery both have AI apocalypse plots.  The difference of course is in the storytelling, and in that you really have to go out of your way to worry about similarities.  Picard weaves a tale drawing on rich Star Trek tradition, where Discovery invented its out of sheer cloth (and maybe a Pocket Books novel). 

Anyway, Jurati comes clean, and even finds some peace and solace with what's happened, Seven (or, Annika) is back, and feeling somewhat ambiguous about bringing back a hive mind to kick Romulan ass, Soji is starting to understand the scope of what lies behind her (and ahead), Raffi is plunging well into the mess at last, Picard is playing a truly supporting role in his own show for the first time, and...

Rios!  The holograms have been around since he first appeared, but this is our first chance to truly enjoy them, and their relationship to Rios himself.  It's Raffi's best showing, too, by the way, trying to get information, any information out of them, through which she demonstrates her newfound commitment.  And we learn the circumstances of how Rios left Starfleet behind (really makes you wonder what Voyager would look like in the CBS All Access era), and how they directly tie into current events.  That part is extremely artful.  That's why I hesitate to dismiss "Broken Pieces" as infodump, because (and it's Michael Chabon writing solo, so maybe this is not surprising) the Rios elements are artful, in ways the episode, and the series, and maybe Star Trek itself, really need them to be.

It's the kind of episode that pushes along the narrative exceptionally well, the necessary connective stuff that doesn't look like it's as amazing as other, flashier episodes, but, for fans of Picard, is absolutely essential.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - I think the "infodump" nature would most affect viewers who aren't as invested in Picard as in Star Trek as a whole.
• series - And yet, this is crucial material that builds up everything that has come before, and will follow.
• character - Finally, the Rios spotlight!
• essential - The Rios spotlight probably no one could have expected, but becomes a definitive lynchpin of the season.

notable guest-stars:
Jeri Ryan (Seven)

Picard 1x7 "Nepenthe"

rating: ****

the story: Picard visits with old friends (you've probably heard of them).

review: It's official, then.  Riker became Little John.  (Give you a moment to remember.)  That's the wonderful memory and thought I had, anyway, watching "Nepenthe," among other happy reflections.  This was another solid episode.  At this point, I'm easily calling Picard the most rewarding series experience of the whole franchise, not just because I enjoy seeing Picard again, but because the season has been so consistently good, an excellent mix of everything, from ideas to characters new and old, and building on the rich legacy preceding it.

Let's talk about the ideas a little.  Finally we learn what convinced Jurati to kill her own friend and lover, Bruce Maddox, a vision of the future, and not just a vision, but that frequent vision of today, some dreaded apocalypse.  If we don't do this, this will happen.  And there's no convenient real world allegory here, no side to pick, in case you were worried.  It's just the times we live in, which is much as it was in the '60s, when Star Trek originally suggested it didn't have to be that way. 

But we begin to have an idea of why the Romulans, or anyone else, fear artificial life so much, and that's the key here, in this episode, that prejudice so often infused with some awful kernel but more often created by hysterical imagination, especially when the victim is so easy to dismiss as "other," as of course is always the case. 

No doubt we'll learn more.

In the meantime we have Picard and Soji visiting Riker and Troi and their daughter!  And, learning about what's happened in the meantime, who they lost, and how their lives have developed along the way.  Troi's there, but Riker receives more emphasis, and before anyone cries injustice, let me just suggest that Riker makes for better entertainment, and this might actually be his best-ever appearance in the franchise (across Next Generation, Voyager, Enterprise, and even his transporter duplicate in Deep Space Nine, and the movies, and now this, helping him, and Jonathan Frakes, set a new record, surpassing the likes of Nimoy/Spock and Dorn/Worf for most franchise appearances, that is unlikely to be broken).  And I'm not sure his height difference with Picard ever came across this sharply, either, at least for me.

For everything in the mix, it's another strong showing for Soji, who perhaps again most benefits from what might otherwise have seemed an obvious Picard spotlight, as she begins to accept who and what she is as she interacts with Picard's friends.

(Is it too early to suggest that the daughter gets her own series?)

Plus, unfortunately, the death of another familiar face, this time Hugh, as the Romulans officially switch into villainous gear.  Who else was seeing Narek, meanwhile, as a Star Trek Boba Fett?

(The title "Nepenthe," meanwhile, comes from The Odyssey, referencing a drug that cures a troubled mind.  Love the deep Greek mythology cut for that one, as with another recent Star Trek classic, Discovery's "An Obol for Charon.")

criteria analysis:

• franchise - I mean, gosh, it's great to see Riker and Troi again!
• series - But there's still plenty of room to celebrate what's happening in Picard, all you fans still paranoid about "These Are the Voyages..."
• character - Soji grapples with recent revelations, among other highlights.
• essential - Hardly a missed opportunity!

notable guest-stars:
Jonathan Frakes (Riker)
Marina Sirtis (Troi)
Jonathan Del Arco (Hugh)

Picard 1x6 "The Impossible Box"

rating: ****

the story: Picard reaches the Artifact (Borg cube).

review: Such is the emerging interest in Picard itself (which for many fans is contrasting with their perceptions of Discovery, which isn't the case for me, as I like them both, and they're doing two entirely separate things) that fans are starting to hype up the relevance of its events.  With "The Impossible Box" I've seen a rash of articles explaining its relevance to Star Trek: First Contact, how it explains and reconciles Picard's mood from what we've typically seen from him.  But we knew this already, from "Family" and of course, "I, Borg," both of which tackle his emotional response to the events of "The Best of Both Worlds," and from other episodes as well ("The Drumhead," for instance).

But the idea that his time as Locutus continues to bother Picard, that it has in fact becoming a lingering bigotry for him, is perhaps something new.  "I, Borg" touched on it (this is the episode where we originally meet Hugh, of course), but Picard seemed to use it as a definitive turning point.  Instead, as First Contact and "Impossible Box" make clear, it was an experience he had much more difficulty forgetting, much less getting over.

The funny thing is, "Impossible Box" features this aspect of the story much less directly than Seven's role in "Stardust City Rag," which was allowed to create a whole deviation from the flow of the series, so that we didn't even visit the Artifact that episode.  "Impossible Box," meanwhile, is the point the season has been building toward since the first episode, in which Picard finally meets the other sister, Soji (the naming scheme of the sisters can't help but call to mind another Picard movie, Insurrection, at least for me, which might even have been intentional; in a sense Data found a "kid brother" in it), who herself is in the midst of both finding out the truth about her Romulan lover, and her own origins.

In that sense, "Impossible Box" is much more of a Soji episode than it is another Picard spotlight, which is the second episode in a row for that to happen, and only second in six episodes.  Picard's reaction to the Artifact becomes icing on the cake.  In a sense, it's wonderful parallel storytelling, which is something that can sometimes feel like a lost art in the new franchise paradigm (though Discovery attempted, perhaps too much, exactly that in its second season, in successive character arcs throughout the season).

One last note: In his second Picard appearance, Hugh a last gets to soak in his legacy, which was sort of robbed of him the first time.  Viewers were left to either recognize him or not.  Here the context is at the surface.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - I wonder if fans ever really ever tire of revisiting the Borg.
• series - A crucial turning point of the season.
• character - Soji manages to upstage a key moment for Picard.
• essential - All that, plus learning more about that elusive Borg Queen, which amounts to another of Star Trek's spectacular gateways.

notable guest-stars:
Jonathan Del Arco (Hugh)