User Reviews

The previous episodes were very different in quality: Some good ones, but also many bad ones. The first part of "et in arcadia ego" is actually a very bad episode. The stupid, predictable, and rather boring story full of plotholes isn't even the worst. Allthough: You ask yourself many times: why is he / she doing this ...? Or: what's that ...? Even worse was the lengthy staging with rather strange camera shots. The dialogues were sometimes very, very bad, especially the emotional overacting about Picard's illness was very annoying. Brent Spiner's guest appearance was as pointless as it was unnecessary. You get the impression the makers just wanted to make the fans happy this way... Finally: How many times have you actually seen this story (an AI wants to wipe out all organic life)? Not only in Star Trek (and especially often there!), But also in Orville or Stargate. Not to mention many other SF- films. New ideas please!

Organics vs Synthetics, extragalactic synthetic Reapers coming to kill all Organics. Some writers played too much Mass Effect, but forgot to include the emotional connection and a solid narrative.

The Synthetics turned their back on Picard (and all organic lives) real quick. Maybe the Admonition contained "Reaper code" that turned Sutra mad. To claim Synthetics to be the next form of evolution but them being so fallible is just dumb.

Oh and there's an Ultron/Vision foreshadowing.

It would be interesting to see how the Borg fits into this narrative since they are half organic and half synthetic. ("the Green option" on Citadel) Though prepare to be disappointed yet again.

While one might have expected the Borg to be the ex of a looming final battle in Part 2, remember Wolf 359, but nope, it did nothing at all: arrived at the battle, and simply crashed before firing a shot. If I tell someone "four orchids crashed a Borg Cube", no one would ever believe me. But then, it happened. The VFX was quite well-done though, so kudos to the VFX team.

Looking forward to the next episode to see how these all add up, but only because the whole country's under quarantine and I've got nothing else to do.

This secret society of theirs was correct on the matter, at least. Synths are a threat, and there are Reapers... Eldritch Horrors... hm... ancient synthetic forces that are willing to wipe all organic life out.

Great.

Go romulans! Long live organics! p.s Also, where are D'deridex warbirds? These new warbirds romulans use are really lame.

As this, the first half of the two part season finale, opens with Picard and his allies navigating a Borg conduit. They emerge at Coppelius, the planet of Soji's creation and are almost immediately attacked by Narek, who had followed them. Shortly afterwards the Borg cube controlled by seven of Nine arrives. The fight is curtailed when something from the planet causes the ships to crash. After getting out of the ship our protagonists head to the Borg cube before continuing to the nearby settlement. Here they are met by a number of Synthetics and their creator; Dr Altan Inigo Soong. As the episode progresses it becomes apparent that the Romulan fear that a powerful synthetic civilisation will wipe out all organic life might not be paranoia... and the Synthetics might welcome it.

I enjoyed this episode. It opened well with a nice bit of action in the prologue before the main part of the story. This is more 'talky' as things are set up for the season finale. The obvious highlight of the episode was the appearance of Brent Spiner as Dr Soong... he may look like an older Data but clearly is a different man. I liked the possibility that the Romulans fears of Synthetics might be entirely justified; it will be interesting to see how/if Picard can find a solution that can save both organic and synthetic life. Overall I enjoyed this but ultimately it can only be fairly judged after the second episode airs... it feels like reviewing a movie at the half way point.

Too man subplot; too much contrived. This episode brings one surprise after another, but unlike well-crafted drama, they are just thrown together like a stew made from refrigerator leftovers. I guess Picard is dying. Could we have been let in on that earlier? The synthetics, who are the ones we've been rooting for have decided to kill all evolved species--and then do what? The Romulans are on their way. They are bad guys, but who's worse. We should remember that by composting, we are diminishing the amount of plastic in our environment. So it would have been wise to think of this ahead of time. I can't imaging that these issues can possibly be addressed in one hour (or less) episode. I see the next Picard offerings will be in January of next year. I hope Picard's head is still working (or will something happen in Episode 10 to straighten out his brain. It's all such a muddle.

The episode started off with the la sirena reaching soji's home planet where that pointy eared creep was waiting for them. That's fine I don't even mind the giant flowers but don't tease us with a brief glimpse of the Borg cube coming out if the trans warp hub then immediately crashes. Just one awesome moment then it lets you down. The finale episode should make up for it.... I hope

I had hope after the last couple of episodes that this show was moving in the right direction, but this episode has dashed those hopes.

A few of my criticisms:

• What is the point of the cube? Why did it return to 'save the day', crash immediately, and then after a very brief reunion, it's out of the story once more? I imagine it's going to come into play in the last episode in a big way; I just wish they'd built it in more organically, as at the moment, people are just showing up in a way that is very unrealistic and deus ex machina (Seven last week and the cube this week - the explanations are tenuous at best).

• Is it possible for an android to learn how to mind meld? I'm sure the Vulcans have to train extensively to be able to perform a mind meld, but surely, the more integral part of it relies on their physiology having telepathic abilities. Can you build a telepathic android? That seems highly dubious. It's also a HIGHLY clunky plot device for the android that Soji has 'descended' from (copy/pasted from) also happens to have an intense fascination with Vulcans. Maybe if they'd built that into Soji's character all along, it would seem a lot less clunky. It's silly, if I'm honest.

• The insertion of a biological son for Nunian Sung who happens to look exactly like Data. So Sung had a son, who was a child or teen presumably when Data was made (according to my vague memory of the time line), happens to have grown into a man who looks exactly like his father, whom Data's physiology/appearance was based on. And we've also never heard of this son before?? It feels like a cheap way to use Brent Spiner. I would have much preferred one of the older/senior androids at the base to have been made in Data's image, which still could have utilised Brent Spiner as a guest star.

• The new androids were supposedly created from Data's original positronic cells/neurons (whatever it is that they're calling them - they haven't been terribly forthcoming with the science there) - and yet they're all totally okay with wiping out all of humanity and every other organic being? Soji, believing herself to be organic till a few weeks/days ago, is totally okay with wiping out organic life everywhere? Really? How could any descendants of Data be okay with this? The lack of cerebral debate on this matter is truly appalling. The Soji-lookalike says we must kill all life in the galaxy to save ourselves (a group of maximum 40 androids) and everyone is just okay with that despite the fact that they have been based on Data's mind/memories, who was more 'human' than many of the real human characters we met over the years. It's truly appalling storytelling.

• Presumably CCTV isn't a thing in the future. I do accept they've never had a prisoner before and some of the androids seemed more akin to children in some ways, but why stick a valuable prisoner in an outhouse with one naive guard and no video monitors/alarm system in place? Maybe we'll find out next week that they did. Who knows at this point.

• I'm really surprised at how easily Agnes has been forgiven for killing Bruce - who was like a father to these androids.

• The notion of synthetic life killing humanity feels like a big rip off of Westworld.

It's not a 1/10 for me because the acting is still very strong for me and the production value was high. And I just love Patrick Stewart and Jean-Luc Picard.

I am dreading next week now.

Not terrible, but it seemed like a loud noise here, light talking there, and not a lot of meaningful drama in the episode despite running for a long time.

They need to get back to the kind of conflict we used to have, not whatever we are getting now.

My observations:

These super-advanced androids are surprisingly easy to kill. Also they are surprisingly dumb.

The crew is surprsingly forgiving and/or already forgot that this crazy doc needlessly murdered the guy they were looking for (Maddox) in the first place.

The borg cube must also have seatbelts or how did almost everybody survive the crash unharmed?

Seven seems to have an ambivalent feeling for her "collective". While she feels a strong bond to the XBs, she also mindlessly kicks away the bodies of deceased members.

Soong had a son that was never mentioned before, although they must have worked very closely, given the progress Soong jr. was able to make to the work of Soong sr.

And of course, as always: Not science fiction, but fantasy mixed with highschool drama. Raffi loves Picard, Picard loves Raffi. Rios loves Jurati. Narek loves Soji. Soji loves or hates Narek. The other android wants to bang Narek and dies trying .

It could be worse of course. Philippa Georgiou, mirror universe dictator, could show up and join the fight. Or the red angel could come to the rescue of Picard. But I don't want to jinx it. There is still one episode coming.

Picard has "his moments"! He accepted, that the "fellows" of his crew know, that his is ill and he will die. He would have never done this as Captain Picard, buut he is now "JL". And this is gerat!. Also when Raffie told him "I love you". The captain never accepted this, JL does. Great moment.Picard becames, beside his role as humanist, just an older man with fellings. Thats a good and realistic development. Good dialogs in the TNG way: Kill an enemy, who is "wounded". Kill some for the good of a great many?? I really like this. Seven still alive! I diddnt't how she "kicked" the corpes. I looking forward and I am waiting for the final show!

Soji mamanges to upgrade Rios's ship and arrive at Soji's home world, Coppelius in record time.

Despite all the experience Picard has had as a Starfleet officer. No cunning or guile was used to throw the Romulans off course.

A warbirds joins them and later the activated Borg Cube. Then some orchid type plants emerge from the planet.

Now the synths in Coppelius are in danger from Romulans.

Picard does not seem to consider if he is in danger. He just takes everyone on face value. Like he has never been duped or double crossed especially by people who look like Data.

At least it is enjoyable hokum but it should be better and more coherent.

Who wrote this poor episode?!

The flowers appear out of nowhere and within 5 seconds engulf the spaceships? The Borg cube does not even show any form of resistance? These defense flowers, instead of destroying the ships in space, take them down to the surface, but still let them crash? These synthetic forms are so emotional, just like organics? Allow themselves to be fooled by the prisoner?

So many 'I love you's' in this episode? Where did the feelings between Jurati and Rios suddenly come from to have such a strong emotional bond?

This Jurati character is weak and the only thing she is good for is producing emotional drama and breakdowns. She is almost always crying, shocked, terrified and look as if her whole world is crumbling? What good has this character brought to the story at all? Where are her strengths? She is like a fifth wheel that only causes trouble wherever she goes and people always have to give it oil to stop it from squeaking. She is insufferable!

Whoever wrote the story for this episode and directed it needs to stay away from Star Trek and science fiction and rather focus on high school teenager dramas such as 'Why didn't he text me yet?!'

Dr. Noonien Soong? Did he have organic kids? Glad to see Brent Spiner again. So this was an exciting episode, I have to believe the Borg have a part to play in saving the universe. Else why would a cube have ended up on that planet. Will 7 of 9 take the helm as queen again. The Borg as good guys, who'd have thought. I don't like the creepy girl who set the Romulus free. Overall this is a good first season even TNG took a season or 2 to really take off.