Picard 1x2 "Maps and Legends"

rating: ***

the story: Picard begins to learn more about what happened, and moves toward his response.

review: This second episode settles Star Trek: Picard into a regular rhythm, a talky rhythm, which for me isn't a bad thing at all, something I've really wanted to see from the franchise for ages, just letting a story unfold without introducing formulaic elements to satisfy imagined requirements.  Characters have long conversations.  Some will consider the results "infodump," such as learning about an even more secret Romulan operation than the Tal Shiar, but again, I've never had a problem with that kind of storytelling.  If it's news to a character, as it is to Picard himself, it's worth talking about, period.  And that's kind of the whole episode.

Shockingly or not, Picard has one of those conversations with a belligerent Starfleet admiral who ends up rejecting his offer to rejoin the fleet so he can figure out what's happening.  This has been a Star Trek trope forever, with one of the first famous examples being Star Trek: The Motion Picture (although Kirk had a much more favorable outcome, in a scene viewers don't even get to witness).  Starfleet admirals are famously about the exact opposite of the main characters in a Star Trek series; they're darn close to antagonists most of the time.  And this one's no different.  It's just shocking that Picard (as Kirk experienced in a different movie, The Search for Spock) has to go rogue again (which, as I noted for the first episode, he did in Insurrection as well) rather than be welcomed back with open arms by a grateful Starfleet (as fans would expect for a beloved character).

We learn other things as well, such as the real role that hunky Vulcan will be playing (as to whether or not he actually fulfills it is perhaps another Ash Tyler experience, as depicted in Star Trek: Discovery).  We meet another of the main characters at the end of the episode.

But really, I think my favorite moment of the episode is Picard reuniting with...an old Stargazer colleague.  As obvious partisans to his Enterprise days, fans would expect Picard to have affection mostly for Next Generation characters, but even that series long acknowledged that Picard's career began well before then.  Aside from the occasional glimpse, we never really got to see too much of the Stargazer, and the life Picard led aboard it (aside from the Crushers, obviously), much less the people who used to define his life.  And this is twenty years after even Picard's Enterprise days.  For him, everything's in the past (and most depressingly, even his good friend Data).  So to spend some time with a Stargazer colleague is just one of the many ways the series allows Picard to inhabit a world far removed from shipboard activities, which as an admitted fan of Deep Space Nine, I always liked to see in the franchise (although even that series could've used time away from its station).

I like the leisurely approach.  I like that the series is letting itself breathe.  I like that there's ample time to talk, to reflect.  And yes, to anticipate.  There's plenty of time for other faces, bigger developments.  It's truly wonderful to be experience Star Trek in such a fresh way with such a dear friend.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Learning new things about the Romulans!
• series - Continues to let itself ease into the story, and its cast.
• character - An important moment for Picard as he realizes Starfleet won't help him.
• essential - If you yearn for more dramatic developments, you will probably find this one harder to appreciate.

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)

Short Treks 2x6 "Children of Mars"

rating: ****

the story: The daughters of separate Starfleet engineers at the Utopia Planetia shipyards are rivals until forced to discover common ground under the worst circumstances.

review: I think Short Treks is becoming the most reliable source of great franchise material we've ever seen.  "Children of Mars" continues its emerging tradition of bucking traditional Star Trek storytelling forms, and in the process gives us another transcendent experience, and could actually be the best of them yet.

A mostly wordless experience (much like "Ephraim and Dot"), we follow the arc of two girls who engage in fairly typical school behavior.  The whole thing becomes an object lesson not only in how these things happen, but reaches far beyond the franchise to speak at truly universal levels.  Again, Short Treks achieves something that can be viewed by someone who has never seen and never imagined liking Star Trek, and can easily be appreciated for its remarkable accomplishments.

The Star Trek ideal has always been at the heart of its appeal among fans, its idealistic vision of a future where humanity has reached, at last, a state of peace with itself.  But even in Kirk's day Spock still felt the sting of racism.  The integration of aliens into the culture was something Enterprise explored, with particularly compelling results in its final season.  By the time we see the image of Picard, and realize this is part of the Star Trek: Picard landscape, we realize that humanity still has a way to go.  This isn't Star Trek rejecting its own message, but continually affirming it. 

We won't know the particular relevance of "Children" to Picard until Picard itself  But that hardly stands in the way.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Speaks directly to the heart of Star Trek's message.
• series - Begins to emphasize that Short Treks itself has become a viable representative of the franchise.
• character - In this instance, Starfleet itself.
• essential - A breathtaking artistic achievement.

Discovery - Short Treks 2x5 "The Girl Who Made the Stars"

rating: **

the story: The young Michael Burnham learns a valuable lesson.

review: Sort of a bootleg Moana, "The Girl Who Made the Stars" combines subpar animation with an extrapolation of a tale Burnham recounts in Discovery's second season.  This is the sort of effort younger viewers won't complain as much about, compared with older ones.

It's nice, as a fan, to have a moment with the young Burnham and her dad (given how the second season played out, it's now easy to assume they had a much better relationship than Burnham and her mom...!), so I almost wish we could get more.

Just maybe, not in this style.  A stark contrast to the results with "Ephraim and Dot."

criteria analysis:

• franchise - You don't need to be a Star Trek fan to watch this one.
• series - But an appreciation of Discovery will help.
• character - A nice peak into Burnham's childhood.
• essential - It's not a great selling point for the franchise.

Discovery - Short Treks 2x4 "Ephraim and Dot"

rating: ****

the story: A tartigrade fable!

review: If Star Trek is to delve back into animation, this is the template for greatness.

Obviously, Star Trek has delved into animation before, the relatively short-lived Animated Series that, back in the early '70s, was actually the second incarnation of the franchise, a fairly cheap production that brought back the original cast and told new adventures much as the original series had, with the same basic execution, a pattern Star Trek was to follow for decades across four additional live action incarnations.

Discovery was the boldest break in the TV branch, not only because it was the first fully serialized version of the franchise, but because it freely embraced new narrative structures in ways no other version of Star Trek had before it, despite a few notable exceptions (such as Voyager's "Distant Origin," which featured the main cast in supporting roles). 

"Ephraim and Dot" is sort of like the Disney version of Star Trek.  I don't say this because of wholesome family values or any other current association that might readily come to mind, but because it feels like a Disney short, that most direct expression of the studio's best creative instincts.

It features a tartigrade, the weird alien life-form (based on a current science fad that's popped up any number of places in recent years) called the tartigrade, which factored heavily into key aspects of the first and second seasons of Discovery, enabling the show's ship to feature its innovative spore drive.  Discovery had already turned the creature into a "Devil in the Dark" morality tale, so "Ephraim and Dot" is free to presents its tartigrade at face value, and still, by the end, duplicate the feat.

At its most simple, the Short is sort of like Wall-E, with a fun little relationship that develops, mostly in silence, between the tartigrade and a Starfleet maintenance bot.  But the storytelling and animation push the whole package to exquisite heights.  This is something you will be able to enjoy or share with your kids for years to come, beyond any immediate need to delve into greater Star Trek lore.  Yet another classic Short Trek.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Lots of easter eggs for fans!
• series - Arguably the best tartigrade appearance in Discovery.
• character - And more than any previous appearance, makes you care for the creatures.
• essential - Pushes the boundaries of great Star Trek still further.

DS9's 2019 Losses...

2019 was a bad year for Deep Space Nine! 

First, Aron Eisenberg passed away September 21st.  Eisenberg ended up becoming the most successful of DS9's much-celebrated recurring guest stars when he was featured in his own episode during the final season, "It's Only a Paper Moon," in which Nog, Quark's nephew, grapples with PTSD with the help of holosuite lounge singer Vic Fontaine.  Having debuted as a naive youth, best friend of Jake Sisko, Eisenberg helped revolutionize the portrayal of Ferengi perhaps more than even Quark, rejecting his people's ideals even more radically than his father Rom, joining Starfleet and enjoying great success in his new career.  The What We Left Behind documentary, which I watched not long before Eisenberg's death, captures a bittersweet moment when the show's writers reunite to break an imaginary new episode, in which Nog is quickly killed off, with a quick cut to a distraught Eisenberg.  We would have mourned Nog, and we mourn Eisenberg himself greatly.

Then Rene Auberjonois!  The actor behind the CGI shapeshifting and rubber mask of Odo passed away December 8th.  Auberjonois had a number of distinguished roles during his career, including portraying father Mulcahy in the original film version of MASH, a supporting role in the long-running TV series Benson, and the chef in The Little Mermaid.  Star Trek fans also saw him in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, and Batman fans caught him in Batman Forever.  My favorite memory of him outside of Star Trek was The Patriot, which sees his dramatic death include a thrilling hand-off of a musket to Mel Gibson.  It's really hard to imagine the legacy of the Star Trek franchise without him.  DS9 itself would be infinitely poorer without Odo, and without Auberjonois brilliantly portraying him.  Not even considering Odo's specific relationships with Kira or Quark, his role in the series is still unique within the franchise, the kind of gruff even Bones could never approach, but the kind of gruff you want to have around, certainly for station's chief of security (Cardassian or Starfleet).

(It should be noted that the imagined new episode of the series mentioned above had two roles not specifically needed in the plot, and they were both played by these actors.  A curse!)

They will be greatly missed.

Death of D.C. Fontana, "Project Daedalus"

I figured I ought to acknowledge the passing of D.C. Fontana, one of the original guiding voices of Star Trek.  Fontana was instrumental in the development and execution of the first two seasons of the original series, and arguably, her departure from the regular writing staff in the third was part of the reason fans even today claim it was a marked downturn in quality.  She worked on The Animated Series, and the first season of Next Generation (again, an involvement that dovetails with popular fan sentiment; she left after one too many clashes with Gene Roddenberry), and wrote one episode of Deep Space Nine in its first season ("Dax"), as well as one of the fan-made Star Trek: New Voyages productions.  Aside from the films, her involvement was about as comprehensive as anyone's in the history of the franchise.  Star Trek literally wouldn't be what it is today without her.

And speaking about Star Trek today, I recently bought the DVD of Star Trek: Discovery's second season, and watching it again, in the classic binge fashion, was like experiencing it anew all over again.  The whole Spock arc plays out much differently when it doesn't seem like you're waiting forever for something to happen.  I didn't necessarily have a problem the first time around, but I did often wonder if they were dragging it out.  In binge mode it's pretty rapid progress.

As part of that I caught "Project Daedalus" again, obviously.  This is the episode pivoting around background player Airiam (the character who looked like a robot).  I stand by my original assertion that it's not as moving as he clearly wants to be, in much the way fans in a previous era worried that Harry Kim's random friend in Voyager's "Ashes to Ashes" lost some of its impact because it centered on someone we hadn't really met before.

But IGN included "Project Daedalus" in its best TV episodes of the year.  My problem with that has as much to do with the above sentiments as to the fact that the episode epitomizes the worse instincts of the season, not its best.  The writers spent a little too much time reiterating the same points, hoping it would lend the season greater resonance, when it really added endless repetition and a competition for relevance.  "Project Daedalus" will stand out for impatient viewers, who won't care to focus on better moments more entwined in series and franchise lore, and on that level it's fine.  The season, and series, has been light on such moments, rushing to embrace the trend of fully serialized storytelling.  What this ignores is that Star Trek has often been at its very best when it lingers on one brilliant moment, something that happened in episodic series past not because they were episodic, but because the opportunity was there.  Deep Space Nine and Enterprise both found landmark episodes in the midst of serialized material ("Far Beyond the Stars," "Twilight"), but when they hit a pause button on known characters, which was why they worked so well, and still work now. 

Airiam's death, and life, are fleeting elements even in "Project Daedalus."  So many new, and interesting!, characters were introduced in the second season, but Airiam still had to wait for one episode, and not even get to be the focal point, just the featured element, of the story, it was like a tacit acknowledgement of how much time had already been wasted with the character, and that the great weakness of the great strength of finally doing so was that the character herself hardly mattered.  Instead she packs an emotional wallop in a season full of them.  Too many.  And hers isn't, at least for me, the best of them, but rather...the worst.

Maybe in time, when I've watched the episode, and the season, and the series, this perspective will change.  I still care most for Saru learning the truth about his people, even if I think the idea itself was undercooked. I think it's a perfect, timeless moment, in an episode ("An Obel for Charon") that fires on all cylinders, the series at its absolute best.  That it centers on Saru, in a season that focuses most of its attention on Michael Burnham's relationship with her obscure foster brother (Spock? I think the name was), is all the better, because like Tilly, he was a character who in the first season stood ought despite having little material to truly justify it, and he and Tilly were both vindicated in the second (but Saru's materuak was better).  But maybe the randomness of Airiam and her tragic fate(s) will ring like the perfect echo of events truly epic in Star Trek lore.

If that's what those observers are thinking, I can get behind that.