Picard 1x10 “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2”

rating: ****

the story: Conflict resolution; saying goodbye to Data.

review: Yeah, that was about right. The general plot of the series was a juxtaposition between duty on a large scale and a small one. The large scale was confronting bigotry in opposing forces, and helping both sides realize there was more than one possible response. The small scale was finding peace with the death of Data.

For much of the season, the small scale goal was in the background, as Picard assembled his response to a crisis that in effect happened in large part because he was no longer in a position to prevent it, and that was largely because he no longer had Data at his side. “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2” is a much bigger success than its preceding component largely because it doesn’t allow itself to become lost in the details. In any proper ending, the details ought to be clear enough, and in this case they are because the goal was already explained in the beginning.

Except Data doesn’t return. He stays dead. He has a chance to explain why he actually prefers to remain dead, and it’s the perfect completion of the journey he began in his first appearance, finally understanding that the idea of being human is basically embracing the limits he was always determined to push.

Anyway, there’s also Riker’s pitch-perfect cameo (which sums up his command dynamic with Picard), characters who didn’t make sense last episode making sense (including yet another Problematic Soong Android being summarily deactivated; I’d really like if just one of them had a chance to be anything but binary).

Basically the best possible ending to the season, and everything it needed to be to celebrate Picard and his legacy. Until they figure out how to include, y’know, Guinan. Q. And, uh, the rest of the Next Generation gang...

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Final resolution for Nemesis. Maybe fans can decide to embrace it?
• series - A great ending to the season.
• character - The final statement on Data.
• essential - The final statement on Picard’s moral, heroic character.

notable guest-stars:

Brent Spiner (Data, Soong)

Jonathan Frakes (Riker)

Jeri Ryan (Seven)

Picard 1x9 “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1”

rating: **

the story: Picard’s team reaches their destination.

review: Sometimes the problem with serialized storytelling is that it boxes the story into elements that need to happen but become difficult to tell interestingly. That was always the biggest problem with Deep Space Nine, especially in the six- and ten-episode arcs that were laden with plot elements that squashed all opportunity to explore their potential. They ended up hammering points without elegance. What Enterprise accomplished so brilliantly in its third season was the ability to break its ideas down to concrete points, particularly as the importance of Degra blossomed. Even after he was necessarily taken off the table, there were enough moving parts still in play that even the inevitable was interesting.

With this penultimate episode of a season-long arc, we reach a point that ought to have been can’t-miss, and...it nearly does. The problem is in the introduction of two characters. One is a good addition handled poorly, and the other is a bad addition also...handled poorly. The first is another Brent Spiner Soong performance, but the character is almost completely marginalized, his significance taken for granted, perhaps. The other is another android played by Isa Briones (who also portrays Soji, the twin from the first episode, the one glimpsed last episode, and probably dozens of other iterations), who turns out to be the latest treacherous turncoat. The reveal is somewhat akin to the Founders in Deep Space Nine (in fact, the whole conflict is very similar), which is why I tended to have a problem with the Female Founder in that series; she had no nuance at all, in a series where shades of gray were everywhere.

There was a good way to handle all of this material, but I don’t think this was it. But let’s get to the point summary to clarify:

criteria analysis:

• franchise - I think you have to be invested for any of this to work. I think general viewers would be even more inclined to dismiss the creative approach to this episode than I am.
• series - I mean, it’s interesting and relevant, obviously. 
• character - The introduction of the new Soong was the only good thing about the episode.
• essential - The results are too perfunctory. After all the creative thought put into it, I would almost greatly prefer to Picard movie default ending of him needing to stop some giant machine from blowing up. Or having to blow the machine up. 

notable guest-stars

Brent Spiner (Soong)

Jeri Ryan (Seven)

Picard 1x1 "Remembrance"

rating: ****

the story: Jean-Luc Picard comes out of doleful retirement, realizing he's needed again.

review: I bet this comes as no surprise to anyone who has read my Star Trek reviews before, but I absolutely loved the first episode of Star Trek: Picard.

Right from the start, as many "easter egg" features have already covered, "Remembrance" caught me in the jellies (it's a term I'm stealing from Detective Pikachu).  I love Star Trek Nemesis.  I'm pretty much the only fan that does.  I got immediately that nice cyclical note they were playing, Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies" beginning Picard's adventures again, just as it ended them.  And the nod to "All Good Things...," and the nods to First Contact, and...

I've been a fan of Star Trek: Discovery, I really have, but I haven't felt as energized but creators responding to the rich legacy of the franchise since Star Trek Beyond, which was filled with resonant material, a movie that maybe doesn't on its own feel big but takes on greater weight the more you realize how much thought was out into it.  For fans like me (I don't know how many fans that actually is, but at least in the initial response to Picard, I'm starting to feel a little less lonely again), that's good stuff.

It doesn't have to speak to the past so much to be good, to approach greatness.  "Remembrance" does plenty that's all its own, too, but then there's even that link to the JJ Abrams Star Trek, the loss of Romulus, which until now, was only linked to Picard in comic books, and the additional, Next Generation centric link to "synthetics," which until now was represented mostly by Data and later Voyager's holographic Doctor.

Speaking of the Doctor, he's our last real link to the struggle "Remembrance" builds itself around, the Federation's complete inability to wrap itself around artificial life.  We thought we saw that resolved way back in "The Measure of a Man," but then when Data tried to give himself a daughter, Starfleet butted its head in again, and then the Doctor found out, when he attempted to publish a holonovel (Photons Be Free!, "Author, Author"), that he didn't have any real rights, and neither did the many copies of his basic program still in the Alpha Quadrant, long banished from starships, now reduced to menial labor...

And we had Admiral Dougherty in Star Trek: Insurrection, with his distinct lack of fondness for Data, referring to him just as easily as "the android" as by name, which he would never have done to Picard himself ("the human"), had roles somehow been reversed. 

So a tragedy is compounded by tragedy, and Picard no longer feels as if he belongs in Starfleet.  Anyone wondering if this is really out of character need only remember, again, Insurrection, in which he sets out to help a colony Starfleet has deemed as squatting on rather than inhabiting a planet of valuable resources.

Et tu, bigots?  In Gene Roddenberry's perfect future?  Well, just wait a minute!  Well before Star Trek: Enterprise, Spock was the victim of racism.  It's important to remember that the future Roddenberry envisioned was humanity's, which had finally resolved terrestrial affairs.  But the cycle began all over again...

So we have "synthetics" with no one to champion them.  Picard has retreated as much out of guilt over the death of Data in Nemesis as failure and frustration with what Starfleet has become.  Then he meets a girl...

This is a most extraordinary girl!  Bruce Maddox, who was so fascinated by Data, who overcame so much himself in years past, worked at the Daystrom Institute long enough to achieve a miracle, creating the next generation android, Data's daughter!  Daughters!  And they never knew!  So the episode plays out this discovery, and suddenly, Picard realizes everything he thought he'd lost, was just waiting to be found.

Including, it seems, a Borg cube now being inhabited by Romulans...

It's hugely intriguing, exactly what a premiere ought to be, and Patrick Stewart (recreating his melancholy from Logan) is once again an outstanding lead actor in Star Trek, as if there was ever any doubt, and the emerging cast around him offering new voices, waiting to be explored.  Let's see what's out there!

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Rings throughout Next Generation TV and movie lore (and maybe we'll see that guy, too!).
• series - And yet it is clearly its own entity, allowing Picard to once and for all take center stage.
• character - Well, it nails Picard pretty well, doesn't it?
• essential - It's exactly the story that needed to be told, in the most interesting way possible, if there was ever going to be a follow-up to Picard's adventures.

notable guest-stars:
Brent Spiner (Data)

The Next Generation 7x1 "Descent, Part 2"

rating: ***

the story: Data confronts Lore one last time.

what it all means: The seventh season of The Next Generation is often slagged as being meaningless space-filler material, after the grand storytelling contributions of the previous four seasons that measurably added to the legacy of Star Trek.  In contrast, "Descent, Part 2" already seems like it's treading water in comparison to predecessors like "Time's Arrow, Part 2" (sixth season premiere, finally explains why Guinan and Picard mean so much to each other), "Redemption, Part 2" (fifth season premiere, which concludes the Klingon epic), and the mother of them all, "The Best of Both Worlds, Part 2" (fourth season premiere, which finishes out a universally-acclaimed classic chapter in franchise history).

In contrast, "Descent, Part 2" seems to confirm all the neutering of the Borg established in its sixth season finale predecessor, and makes the whole thing more of a resolution of Data's relationship with Lore than anything else.  The later Enterprise fourth season premiere,"'Storm Front, Parts 1 & 2," similarly finishes up an arc (the equally long-standing Temporal Cold War) with a somewhat dismissive gesture.

What does it all mean?  As a Data/Lore episode, it's perhaps the most satisfying one from the whole series.  For once, Lore is at the advantage, and instead of trying to get Data out of the way, tries to get him to be more like himself, which is perhaps more chilling than the struggles Data experiences in the first part of the story, where no one really knows what's going on.  On that score, "Part 2" is definitely a step up from "Part 1."  But then, its conclusions are troubling.  Data simply decides to switch Lore off, indefinitely.  This is cold reasoning from Data, something that doesn't seem to be supported by the many other episodes where he championed not only his own rights, but those of his offspring as well.

It's tough to reconcile "Part 2" with the ideals of the series or franchise around it.  There are multiple episodes where characters find redemption.  "Part 2" doesn't even seem to consider that as an option, and worse still, Lore is never seen again.  A different Soong android pops up in Star Trek Nemesis, and one of the fascinating thing about that movie fans rarely consider is that it's an odd kind of redemption for Data, because initially he considers treating B4 the same way he does Lore, but eventually relents, with a little help from his friends, which ends up being justified.  That's the Star Trek message in a nutshell, no matter how many irredeemable villains there might be (even Dukat in Deep Space Nine had periods where he could be seen in a positive light).

"Part 2" is an important episode in the overall scheme of Next Generation, and it does set a tone for the season, in which other episodes question whether redemption really is possible.  More often than not, the conclusions are far different from the ones Data reaches in this episode, which actually serves to demonstrate his limitations, where more often than not he didn't seem to have any, except his ability to behave as a human would.

That being said, its limitations prevent "Part 2" from fulfilling its promise, even if those same limitations open up the season to go deeper into Next Generation's psyche than had ever been attempted. 

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Is not a great representation of the franchise.
• series - Is a good representation of the series.
• character - Is a good representation of a character.
• essential - Is an essential episode for Data, and the series.

notable guest-stars:
Brent Spiner (Lore)
Jonathan Del Arco (Hugh)
James Horan

The Next Generation 6x26 "Descent, Part 1"

rating: ****

the story: The Borg return, and Data gains emotions.

similar to: "The Search" (Deep Space Nine), "Darkling" (Voyager)

my thoughts: After the monumental "Best of Both Worlds" that served as the blockbuster introduction (for many, although they debuted in "Q Who?") to the Borg, and the much more contemplative follow-up "I, Borg," how the Collective showed up again was a crucial and probably doomed to be controversial affair, especially when later appearances (Star Trek: First Contact, Voyager) seemed to contradict the conclusions to be found in "Descent."

(For those who want explanation, it could be argued that the Borg who appear here are the remnant of the invasion force from "Best of Both Worlds," where the rest of the Collective remains as it always was in the Delta Quadrant.  Remember that the Borg were already at the fringes of Federation space as early as the end of the first season, probably a scout force that may or may not be related to the cube from "Best of Both Worlds.")

Putting aside Borg developments, the key component of this half of the story (it concludes in the seventh season premiere) is Data's struggles with emotions, how they become addictive and uncontrollable (in ways completely different, and darker, than depicted in Star Trek Generations).  Simply put, this is Data like you've never seen him before, and it makes for riveting drama.

Voyager's Doctor experiences a whole different artificial existence.  He would often manipulate his own programming, with wide-ranging results, some of them as nasty as what Data experiences here (see: "Darkling").  Data usually experienced that sort of thing due to the manipulation of his android brother, Lore, who is of course once again responsible (the plot thickens in the second part on that score).

"Descent" is foreshadowing for the kind of storytelling Deep Space Nine would tell on a regular basis, starting with the full reveal of the Dominion in the two-part "The Search," which opened its third season.  Aside from the Klingon saga (last touched on in "Rightful Heir" a few episodes ago), Next Generation was still a relatively episodic adventure, where big events were mostly self-contained.  Although the following seventh and final season continued this trend, it's easy to imagine that if the series had continued, it might have eventually embraced further serialization, and "Descent" is an example of what that might have looked like.  Lore had been around since the first season.  This is the story where his saga concludes, in impressive grandiose fashion.  But again, more on that next episode.

The first part of "Descent," meanwhile, is fascinating in its own right.  Like "Birthright" before it, the episode is an ambitious attempt to tell two separate, and yet related, stories.  This half is all about Data's initial journey, and it can't help but feel more vital than its follow-up, as we're in the familiar context of his fellow officers the whole time.

For the boldness of its vision, it's another of the unusual classics, but a classic all the same.

criteria analysis: franchise - series - character - essential (all criteria met)

notable guest-stars:
Brent Spiner (Lore)
Stephen Hawking
John Neville
Natalia Nogulich (Nechayev)

The Next Generation 4x3 "Brothers"

rating: ***

Memory Alpha summary

via Star Trek - Sci Fi Blog
I me my I me my I me my!

Picking up where the first season episode "Datalore" left off, "Brothers" features Data along with his "twin" Lore as well as their creator Noonian Soong in what is essentially the Jacob and Esau story from the Bible, introducing the concept of the emotion chip that would become a vital aspect of Data's further exploits both with Lore ("Descent") and without (the movies).

It is also Next Generation's chance to redo "Datalore" in a more mature form (even though "Datalore" itself was one of the better, which is to say less embarrassing, first season episodes).

And one of several instances where Brent Spiner plays multiple individuals or personalities ("Fistful of Datas," "Masks"), not just Lore but Soong as well (the latter unfortunately depicted in bad old age prosthetics).

The awesome potential for Data to defeat the entire crew is a highlight.  Less so the melodramatic circumstances in which Data does so, one of those instances where a perfectly good story is undercut with needless additional drama involving a young boy in dire need of special medical attention that is prevented by Data's family reunion.  Deep Space Nine's "Change of Heart" is generally a better example of interrupted priorities.

Mixed bag, but does what it needs to when it counts.

four quarter analysis
franchise * series * essential * character

notable guest-stars:
Brent Spiner
Colm Meaney

Enterprise 4x22 "These Are the Voyages..."

****

The final episode of Enterprise has weathered its fair share of criticism for the decision to prominently feature Riker, Troi, and the scenario of the Next Generation episode "The Pegasus."  Some of the less generous observers have even called it the worst episode of the series.

I've always loved "These Are the Voyages..."  For one, it puts a big spotlight on the show's best character, Trip Tucker.  (In Pocket Books continuity, criticism of the episode reaches the point of nullifying his death in the episode.  Oh, um SPOILER ALERT.)  That alone puts a smile on my face.  I love the structure.  I love that after his death, we receive what is arguably Trip's definitive scene, and speech.  I love that he's munching on a carrot during this scene.

I love that Shran is also a featured element of the episode.  I always loved Shran, too, thought he was one of the show's strongest and most distinguished elements.  Set six years after the events of the Terra Prime Dulogy (the preceding episodes), "Voyages" is all about shipping Archer to the big moment of actually getting to give the commencement speech to the Federation.  Complications arise.  Shran, for example, has seen better days.  (Oh, how rich it would have been to see that arc, Archer rising while Shran's fortunes fall.)  He's gotten into trouble and is looking to rescue his daughter from some thugs.  Archer agrees to help.  Things turn out well, except Trip sacrifices himself so Archer can survive the decision to help Shran.

All of this technically plays out on the holodeck, as Riker attempts to make his decision to rat on Terry O'Quinn, with a little encouragement from Troi (Data makes a vocal cameo as well).  The critics would have you believe that this is embarrassing, that the final episode of Enterprise is stolen by another series.  I would say instead that it's a remarkable tribute.

Being a prequel series, it was always hard to establish the connections other shows were able to accomplish on a regular basis, even Voyager (and not just with Q, mind you).  It was set a hundred years before everything else.  Having familiar actors appear is one thing, but having familiar characters show up is like an acknowledgement that this new Trek was a worthy endeavor.  Who would argue that the point of "Sarek" was anything else?

And besides, Riker using Archer's crew as a source of support (via Troi's suggestion, though she never accessed the program herself, another notable detail) is a direct show of support for the series.  That it features Next Generation characters and sets is also a way of supporting another Star Trek.  Until this point, the only nostalgic trip to another series was the original one ("Relics," Trials and Tribble-ations," "Flashback").  But Next Generation, despite the harsh failure of Nemesis was at one point the reason anyone cared about Star Trek.

The producers said at the time that they viewed "Voyages" as a finale to not only Enterprise but that phase of the franchise as a whole.  Kirk, Archer, and Picard can all be heard proclaiming the old mission statement in the closing moments of the episode.  And yet, short of trying to shoe-horn every cast into the episode, choosing to spotlight one other cast in some way was absolutely necessary to that goal.  And Next Generation made perfect sense.

And beyond that, Riker was always a charming and welcome presence, and Troi had already proven her crossover appeal in Voyager.  That I have things to say about the episode other than their presence proves that they did not, after all, dominate it.

Trip did that.  He dominated the whole series, even though his role was carefully balanced with T'Pol and Archer, who was the captain of the ship.  Trip did it effortlessly, from the very start, even when he became pregnant in the fourth episode of the series, a story that would have destroyed any other character.  That's how strong he was.  "Voyages" serves as a testament to him, and to the series as a whole.  Sure, Archer was important in the grand sense.  But Trip was what defined the series, held all the characters together.  And this was a series about character.

Ignore what you've heard.  This one's essential.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Jeffrey Combs
Jonathan Frakes
Marina Sirtis
Brent Spiner (voice)

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 4x6 "The Augments"

***

The blow-off to the Augments arc (conveniently named "The Augments") is the most satisfying installment, benefiting from the material that has come before it, which one would hope from any series of episodes.

Prior to this, it should be noted, the only time Star Trek had specifically done a series of three episodes for any one story was at the beginning of Deep Space Nine's second season.

Arik Soong becomes relevant, and his own arc more significant, in the conclusion to a desperate bid to shut down a group of genetic supermen reawakened from the batch that originally gave us Khan.  As I've said in previous comments, the whole point of this story is to provide links through the franchise, and Soong is established not only in connection to Khan, but officially to Data as well in the episode.  You can imagine a lot of stories to be based on the elements of the Augments arc.  Enterprise would itself do one with the Klingons several episodes later.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Brent Spiner
Alec Newman

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 4x5 "Cold Station 12"

***

The Augments trilogy begun in "Borderland" continues, and while the whole story is pretty interesting for fans of the franchise (because we revisit the genetic supermen that gave us Khan) and the series (because this whole arc kicks off the way the whole fourth season plays out), the real treat is that "Cold Station 12" finally allows us to meet Phlox's pen pal, Dr. Lucas.

Famously introduced in "Dear Doctor," Lucas is a key part of Enterprise lore.  While the whole Augments arc is a tad extraneous to the series (except when revisited several arcs later), it's a little more disheartening that when we finally meet Lucas, it's basically the same thing.  That's one of the hidden weaknesses of the season, which even fans who didn't particularly care for the series tended to like because of all the franchise stories, that it tended to disconnect from the rest of what Enterprise had done.

Being a fan of Phlox, I was always on the prowl for more material featuring the good Denobulan, and this was about as close to good Phlox material that the season featured.  It's worth a look.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Richard Riehle
Alec Newman
Brent Spiner

Memory Alpha summary.

Enterprise 4x4 "Borderland"

**

The start of the Augments arc and the way the rest of the season was to unspool, "Borderland" is the moment Enterprise started to play heavily with franchise lore.

(Ha!  Not that Lore, but close enough.)

In the first season, the series did a fair bit of this, and also in the second, but not in ways that fans had been expecting when news of the prequel concept first came down the pike (not that Pike!).  The fourth season became a totally different experience, building on the heavy arc nature of the third but broken into smaller narratives.

"Borderland" is the first time Star Trek deals directly with the idea of the Eugenics War since "Space Seed" and the famed second movie (Wrath of Khan), though it was a major point in the Deep Space Nine episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?"   It's a key piece of franchise history, though it's always been shrouded in mystery.  The Augments arc, set a hundred years after the late '90s event (there have been many attempts to explain how we lived through something like that, or how the Voyager story "Future's End," set during this time, failed to mention it), deals with protoypical Khans suddenly unleashed, thanks to an ancestor of the man who created Data.  (I don't normally reference actors in these capsules, but that's indeed Brent Spiner in these episodes.)

Also the first episode of the season to feature the Orions, but not the last.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Brent Spiner
Alec Newman

Memory Alpha summary.