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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Blood Oath (1994)
Making Jadzia an honorary Klingon
2.19 "Blood Oath"
Decades earlier, three Klingons (who will be familiar to fans of The Original Series) and one Curzon Dax made a blood oath together to avenge the murders of the Klingons' sons. Now the Klingons have located the murderer and Jadzia must decide whether or not she should fulfill the oath made by her previous host.
I'm not sure there has ever been a more mixed bag episode than this one. I absolutely love many aspects of it, while also being completely appalled by some other aspects. I'm left with no clue how to rate it overall, so this will be the first (and hopefully only) review I leave on IMDB sans rating.
This is the second episode in a row that refuses to deal with the enormous consequences of its characters' actions. Dax goes AWOL. That's a court martial offense. In any reasonable universe her career would be over and she may also go to prison for participating in a premeditated mass murder. As great as it is to have the three iconic TOS Klingons back, as fun as it is to watch Jadzia interact with them, and as spectacular as Terry Farrel's performance is, this episode leaves me with a terrible taste in my mouth due to the massive lack of consequences and just outright unbelievability of it.
THE GOOD
-Iconic TOS Klingon characters
-Jadzia/Terry Farrel
-Jadzia interacting with the Klingons.
-Winrich Kolbe in the director's chair once again gets outstanding performances from everyone involved.
THE BAD
-Jadzia goes AWOL, participates in mass murder, and faces no consequences
-No O'Brien or Bashir
-Sisko is a pushover. There's no justification for him allowing Jadzia to go or allowing her to return to her position when she returns. Completely out of character for him.
THE UGLY
-I don't think Klingon life spans were ever addressed before this ep. Here it's established that they can live to be 150+, which is really odd considering how fast they grow up. Worf's son Alexander consistently seems to be the physical maturity of a human child twice his age (for example, he is only 8 years old when he enlists in the Klingon military but looks like a nearly fully grown adult human). You'd think if they age twice as fast they would live half as long but apparently not. As great as it is to see Kor, Koloth, and Kang return, I think Trek overall would have been much better off if this episode was never made. The Klingons' "live fast and die hard" approach to life would make way more sense if their lifespans really were half that of humans.
-It's unclear if The Albino is Klingon. He looks vaguely Klingon but he makes a comment about "that Klingon filth" so it's hard to say. I choose to believe he is Voq's grandson. Fine, I prefer to pretend DSC doesn't exist at all, but since it does exist I'm going to do my best to make it cooler than it is.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Profit and Loss (1994)
Wherefore art thou Ferengi
2.18 "Profit and Loss"
A damaged Cardassian shuttle comes aboard DS9 carrying three passengers, one of whom is an old flame of Quark's named Natima. He is determined to reignite their romance, but it quickly becomes clear that she is a political refugee and her focus is on the larger picture.
Cardassian politics, especially when they involve Garak, are usually a reliable source of good DS9 episodes, but this one focuses heavily on the not-very-believable romance between Quark and Natima and it hurts the episode overall. Romeo's professions of "love" may work in Shakespeare, but only because that play was a satire. This episode tries to play it straight and it doesn't work for me. Add in some sloppy writing towards the end of the ep and you have an average episode overall.
THE GOOD
-Garak
-Cardassian politics
-The scene in the tailor shop between Garak and Quark. Great dialogue and acting, especially from the incredible Andrew Robinson. He could have a YouTube channel called "Garak Talks Around Things" where each video he just talks about a subject without actually talking about it and I'd watch the hell out of that.
THE BAD
-Juvenile proclamations of love
-Unbelievable romance
-Odo disobeys orders and releases the Cardassians with seemingly no consequences. If the Bajorans found out what he did, he would be the one in prison. His betrayal of them here is massive and he makes the decision to betray them way too casually. The episode's failure to deal with the consequences of both Odo and Garak's actions in this ep is a major blow to its quality and it undermines DS9's premise as a show that deals with the consequences of its characters' actions.
THE UGLY
-Garak kills a Cardassian officer on a Bajoran station. The diplomatic fallout from that would be nightmarish but the ep doesn't address it.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Playing God (1994)
Jadzia is great; the rest is meh
2.17 "Playing God"
A Trill initiate named Arjin comes aboard DS9 to shadow Jadzia, but while on a mission in the Gamma Quadrant they accidentally bring a protouniverse back with them. Now Sisko must decide whether it is acceptable to destroy one universe in order to preserve another, and Jadzia must decide what to do with an initiate who is clearly not ready for Trill joining.
This episode is a mixed bag. On the one hand, it focuses heavily on Jadzia, and Terry Farrel absolutely radiates life with her performance. She has really grown into her role as someone who enjoys life the way a young woman should, but also has the perspective of an ancient being. On the other hand, Arjin is insufferable and the protouniverse plot line is hastily and sloppily handled. Overall this balances out to a pretty average episode.
As much as I love Jadzia, refusing to drum Arjin out of the program just to prove she's not Curzon is not a good motive. Arjin is clearly not fit to be joined in any way. He's emotionally unstable, weak-willed, and a pretty awful person. She's doing nobody any favors by allowing him to stay in the program; her only motivation is because she doesn't want to be "mean" to him like Curzon was to her. That's unfortunately rather cowardly of her. The episode would be more satisfying if either A) Arjin showed some redeeming qualities by the end, or B) Jadzia decides to have him kicked out of the program and has to grapple with her own issues with Curzon in a more meaningful way. As is, the ending feels wrong since it leaves open the possibility that Arjin will become joined, which he clearly should not be.
THE GOOD
-Jadzia and her invigorating zeal for life
-Good Dads Watch: Sisko is initially taken aback by the news that Jake is dating a Dabo girl, but he quickly decides to be supportive of his son instead.
THE BAD
-Arjin
-They just leave the protouniverse in the Gamma Quadrant so it can destroy the universe eventually anyway.
THE UGLY
-Verteron radiation/nodes are a fictional Trek creation. They are used throughout many ST shows. According to Memory Alpha, they are "subatomic particles capable of traveling faster than the speed of light."
-Runabout used: Mekong
-Rules of Acquisition quoted: 112 "Never have sex with the boss's sister"
Star Trek: Picard: Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2 (2020)
Operation Souless Cash Grab is a success
1.10 "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2"
Picard and Jurati escape the android colony and fly the La Sirena into orbit to try and stop the Romulans from wiping out the planet. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew (and Narek) works to infiltrate the colony and stop them from wiping out all organic life in the galaxy.
As we close out the season, I must conclude that this show was pretty much exactly what I expected. There were lots of good moments, mostly the ones featuring the TNG cast, but overall the writing and showrunning was extremely bad and some of the supporting cast was also not great. This ends up balancing out to a pretty average season of television, which is much better than DSC season 2, at least. The main advantage this show has over DSC is that the characters are overall more enjoyable to watch. Burnham is such a supremely terrible and unlikable human being and every episode focuses on her so much that it absolutely kills the entire show. Here we have a few unlikable characters (Jurati mainly; Raffi is growing on me and I might actually like her if she cut it out with the "JL" crap), but overall this crew is not as painful to watch as Burnham, Stamets, Hugh, Tilly, etc. The biggest weakness of the show has been how much it feels like a souless money grab, intending to cash in on the legacies and story elements that TNG's writers worked so hard to build.
It's also worth mentioning that as unimpressive as this season has been, it's not worse than the first ten episodes of TNG. TNG's second decade of episodes starts out really solid with "The Big Goodbye" and "Datalore" as episodes 11 and 12, so the bar is raised for PIC's second season, but for now I don't hate the show and am willing to continue giving it a chance to grow. It took TNG about 50 episodes to start to get really good, so I can definitely give this show at least another 10 before condemning it.
I need to take a minute to talk about Soji and Isa Briones. I basically haven't said anything about her all season, mainly because for most of the season she was mired in the boring (and pointless, as it turns out) Borg cube scenes. Then, 2/3rds of the way through the season, what little personality she had was changed when she became activated or whatever they call it. Because of this, we never really get to know her character and so I can't say one way or another if I like her. What I will say is that I have zero complaints about Briones' acting. She seems solid and I look forward to seeing what she can do with the character given (hopefully) better content to work with in the future.
But enough with the seasonal overview stuff. Let's analyze this finale episode, which is quite a mess.
THE GOOD
-The Data scene. Like most Trek fans, I didn't care for the way he was killed in Nemesis. It was heroic, yes, but still somehow felt disrespectful to the character (probably because of Nemesis director Stuart Baird admittedly not knowing or caring about Star Trek at all). Though I have serious issues with the way they killed him off again (see below), at least this time he got to have a real goodbye with his captain and friend. It was a great scene and was brilliant to bookend the season with Data scenes.
THE BAD
-In the end the Borg cube didn't play any real role in the story. The scenes there could have taken place in any location. I kept expecting them to somehow tie the Borg in with the AI gods or maybe the creation of Soji. But no. I guess some exec/showrunner just decided that the Borg are good for making money so they got shoehorned in for no reason. And Hugh and Icheb had to die for their greed. Infuriating.
-Yet another migraine-inducing cgi fest space battle. Who keeps greenlighting these nightmares? For once can't we have coherent action? Yet again I will refer you to The Expanse for an example of good, coherent depictions of space combat.
-"Killing" Picard, forcing us to sit through ten minutes of weepy scenes, and then immediately bringing him back. Y'nt yalagochukof, writers.
-As good as the Data scene was, the revelation that Data has been "alive" this whole time causes a host of issues. For one, how can his entire memory and personality be reconstructed from a single neuron? It's outrageous. He has petabytes of data; that can't be stored and preserved by a single neuron. Second, Picard wouldn't agree to kill Data. He fights constantly for the preservation of life. Ending Data's existence is antithetical to his worldview. And that leads to the third point, which is that they could have just made a body for Data instead of killing him. It was done so that the aging Spiner wouldn't have to play Data again, but it was handled very sloppily, just like most of the writing on this show. It also undoes the heroic sacrifice he made in Nemesis. There he gave his life to save Picard's. Here he takes the coward's way out. So while this episode does some nice things to honor Data in some ways, it totally dumps on his legacy and character in others.
-The magic wish-granting genie's lamp device. How stupid do you have to be to write something like that into your science fiction show. Y'nt yalagochukof, writers.
-A whole Federation fleet appears out of nowhere. Once again, sensors just don't exist in this version of Star Trek.
-Sure let's all just stand around talking while the literal end of all life happens.
-There's no reason or explanation for why the Federation suddenly changes its mind on synths. It just happens because the plot wants it to happen.
-More forced romances. First it's the chemistry-devoid Jurati and Rios, and now two characters who spent like 3 minutes on screen together the whole season in Seven and Raffi. Y'nt yalagochukof, writers.
-In the final scene, where are they going and what are they doing? Why are they even all still together? There's no reason for these people to still all be on the same ship together. The scene was obviously just contrived so the marketing department could have a clip of the whole main cast and Picard saying "engage."
THE UGLY
-The AI gods look like what Control sent back in time in the DSC ep "Light and Shadows." Is that on purpose or a coincidence? If it's the latter it would be yet another example of Hollywood's obsession with showing evil sentient AI as metallic clawed tentacles (The Matrix Revolutions, Spiderman 2, DSC, and now this show). If it's the former, that would make it less annoying that DSC season 2 and PIC season 1--airing back-to-back--both had evil AI as the Big Bads since they will presumably be revealed to be connected somehow in a future storyline.
-Is Jurati seriously just being allowed to go free? Even if the mental influence from the mind meld is factored in, she should still at least face a trial and possibly some charge less than murder. There needs to be some consequences for her killing Maddox.
Star Trek: Picard: Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1 (2020)
We've all heard this Soong before
1.09 "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1"
Picard's crew, Narek, and the Borg cube all arrive at Soji's homeworld and are brought down by the planet's defenses. There they find a commune of androids, including a couple of familiar faces.
In this episode we finally get to the meat of the season's conflict--not Romulan vs. Synthetic, but artificial lifeforms versus their organic creators. It's a conflict that has been done to death in scifi since the very genesis of the genre, and not the most interesting direction that the show could have chosen, though it is one that remains highly relevant especially with recent tectonic advancements in AI. That said, I'm not particularly interested in talking about that conflict right now.
What I am interested in talking about is ethics and morality. Though Star Trek has always had a stink of moral relativism wafting around it--a byproduct of Roddenberry's own secular humanism--classic Trek characters usually followed a more objective, ordered morality. Picard and even Sisko don't accept justifications like "but it's right according to me/my culture" (as an example, see how hard Sisko comes down on Worf in "Sons of Mogh" for trying to ritually murder his brother). The classic Trek captains knew that there is objective right and wrong and mostly adhered to that morality.
It probably goes without saying that modern Trek not only doesn't care for objective morality as a concept, it pretty much completely ignores questions of morality. Everyone in modern Trek is too busy loudly broadcasting their emotions and then animalistically acting on them; there is no time to stop and consider right and wrong. But for a brief moment in this episode, during the scene between Soji and Picard in Maddox's office, there is a half-hearted attempt to discuss the moral applications of what they are facing. Unfortunately, everybody talks in such wishy-washy language and the conversation gets cut short, so it ends up being very unsatisfying.
The reasons why the conversation is made obtuse and then truncated is twofold. First, the writers don't want to and are not capable of talking about morality in any coherent way. Second, any real discussion regarding the actions that the synths are about to take would reveal them to be exactly what they are--wildly immoral and unethical. Killing in self-defense is justifiable. Committing galactic genocide out of fear is not.
Which leads to the second point I want to talk about, which is: why in the name of Q would Maddox and Soong create a colony of Lores instead of a colony of Datas? One was a disaster and the other was triumph. Two things set Data apart from Lore-his ethical subroutine and his lack of emotion. Soong learned from the failure of Lore--how easily Lore turned evil--and created Data as a correction. His son would have known that, and yet he makes the exact same mistake by creating a bunch of emotional, unethical androids? Why would the writers choose to have him do that; it's completely outrageous if you think about it.
The reason, of course, is that Hollywood writers don't spend even one iota of their limited brain power considering ethics or morality. They don't care about it and so they can't imagine that an audience would either. As this show and DSC have proved, raw childish emotion is all they care about because it's all they are capable of, and thus it's all they want to show. To consider questions of ethics and morality requires you to have a worldview that is beyond that of an average six year old--something most Hollywood writers and producers simply don't possess.
THE GOOD
-This episode gets a few stars from the steady presence of Stewart and maybe some of the effects, but those are the only positives.
THE BAD
-This episode and the next one really illustrate how incompetent the writing is on this show. Sometimes the issue is inconsistent/unexplainable character motivations. Sometimes the issue is bad dialogue. Sometimes the issue is glaring plot holes. Here the biggest issue is pacing. After spending eight long episodes (many of them boring and plot-deficient) telling this story, it somehow feels rushed in the end, with so many loose threads and unexplained aspects that would lead you to think they were tight on screen time. Because when you are bad at writing, even nine hours worth is not enough to tell a coherent story, I guess.
-LoreSoji tells Jurati that she will know if she's lying, and yet in the next episode we see Jurati was lying. The real liars though are the writers. They aren't even intelligent enough to think of a believable misdirection, so they just straight-up lie to the audience to trick us into thinking maybe Jurati really did join Team Evil Android.
-While the cgi looks pretty, the ultra-accelerated physics-defying movement of ships in modern scifi is becoming a major pet peeve of mine. There are too many reasons to name for why The Expanse is the best scifi show of the last twenty years, but among those reasons is the way that ships on that show look like they have actual mass in the way they move. The weightless polygon movement of ships in this show and DSC (and countless other modern scifi projects, even otherwise good ones like The Orville) look so fake and cartoony and I hate it.
THE UGLY
-I can't fault this episode entirely, but androids having Vulcan mind powers does not make sense. Unfortunately, we see Data performing the Vulcan nerve pinch in TNG so the precedent was already there.
Star Trek: Picard: Broken Pieces (2020)
Santiago Cabrera carries this one
1.08 "Broken Pieces"
En route to Deep Space 12 for reinforcements, the crew is forced to confront a number of difficult truths about themselves and their mission. Meanwhile on the Borg cube, Elnor and Seven try to save the ex Bs from being slaughtered by their Romulan overseers.
THE GOOD
-I was initially skeptical of the holograms all being played by the same actor, but I have to admit after seeing him play them all in one ep, that I am extremely impressed by Santiago Cabrera. His performances were all highly entertaining.
-Raffi decided to stop with the self pity and instead makes herself useful. Detective Raffi was fun to watch.
-I'm glad the show is actually dealing with the murder of Maddox. It definitely looked for a minute like they were going to breeze right past that.
THE BAD
-Why is Jurati's dialogue always so awful? "You drink when you are thirsty? You are the pinnacle of creation!" and "I'm done committing murder now." She passed Raffi in this ep for being the new worst character on the show. I'll actually take the nails-on-chalkboard "JL" nickname over Jurati's braindead dialogue. That's how bad it is.
THE UGLY
-Picard's speech to Rios at the end is great, if only the show lived up to the vision he espouses. Still, between that and Picard's acknowledgement to Riker in the previous ep that his crew is incredibly overdramatic it feels like the writers are starting to have the tiniest measure of self-awareness and that gives me hope for the show's future.
-Picard mentions being an ensign on the USS Reliant. I recognized the name from The Wrath of Khan, but after some research I determined that the Reliant Picard served on was a different ship (obviously since that Reliant was destroyed at the end of the movie). It's a pet peeve of mine when Starfleet ship names get reused without the appended letter like the Enterprise gets, but the re-use of the Reliant name as Picard's first posting is actually first mentioned in the great TNG ep, "The Measure of a Man" and so that ep is the one that deserves my peevery, not this one.
Star Trek: Picard: Nepenthe (2020)
Riker and his daughter are great; the rest is not
1.07 "Nepenthe"
Arriving on Nepenthe, Picard and Soji find refuge with Riker and Troi. Meanwhile, the crew tries to get to them before the Romulans do, and Elnor and Hugh deal with the fallout of Soji's escape from the cube.
THE GOOD
-Nice to see Riker and Picard back together.
-The daughter was a charming character and her interactions with everybody were heartwarming in a classic Trek way.
THE BAD
-More terrible dialogue and just writing in general. The great chemistry between the TNG actors can only overcome so much awfulness, especially when they are only one out of three plotlines going on here and the other two are stupid crap we don't care about.
THE UGLY
-Feels disrespectful to the character to have Hugh killed off so casually. The guy overcame so much in his life only to be taken out by what looks like a clothespin. That's just wrong.
-Rios's master piloting involves...hitting the brakes? That's it? Do sensors not exist anymore? How lazy can these writers be? Remember when O'Brien used to use celestial bodies and magnetic distortions to shake pursuers? Modern Trek doesn't have time for anything sensible like that. Too busy seeing how many f bombs they can get away with.
-Troi lecturing Picard and telling the viewers what they already know was painful to endure. Troi was always my least favorite character on TNG. I joke that she was so ineffective as ship's counselor that the show brought in Guinan to do her job for her. But really it's not a joke. She was bad then and she continues to be bad. The nostalgia of seeing her and Riker reunited with Picard doesn't erase that. Picard was always open to her advice, useless as it often was, but that's not the same as letting her lecture him. Unfortunately, the show seems to love having Picard get lectured by women. It stinks of sexism to me.
Star Trek: Picard: The Impossible Box (2020)
Borg Scars
1.06 "The Impossible Box"
Picard goes to the Borg cube to try and rescue Soji, and is reunited with an old acquaintance while in the process, the former Borg Hugh. But Soji can't be found; Narek has taken her so that he can manipulate her into revealing where she was built.
THE GOOD
-Finally some significant plot movement. Picard finally finds Soji and Narek finally executes his plan.
-The scenes on the cube were all good, for a change. Seeing Picard and Hugh reunited was cool. And the reclamation of the "ex Bs" was interesting, as was the dream manipulation.
THE BAD
-The "romance" between Jurati and Rios is cringe-inducing. Their dialogue is especially painful. Neither of them have anything interesting or intelligent to say in their scenes together. Absolutely zero chemistry.
THE UGLY
-It got swept under the rug. "Maddox died? The EMH witnessed a murder? Ok who cares onto the next unnecessarily convoluted plot point."
-Elnor just appears on the cube. No explanation of how he got there. Elf powers, I guess.
Star Trek: Picard: Stardust City Rag (2020)
Butchering beloved characters = fan service?
1.05 "Stardust City Rag"
Maddox has been captured by a mob boss on Freecloud. The crew comes up with a plan to infiltrate the mob HQ and extract him, with Seven's help.
This one was at least entertaining, if stupid. One thing I have to talk about is how Seven seems to bear no resemblance to the character on Voyager. I am admittedly not a big fan of VOY-it's the only classic Trek show that I watched once many years ago and then never touched again. So it's possible that I just don't remember the show well enough, but I don't recognize this version of Seven at all. I mean she looks like her, but she doesn't talk like her or act like her. Again, not being a fan of VOY, her mischaracterization doesn't bother me too much, but I do wish that if the show wanted a completely different character they should have introduced a new person for that role. Butchering yet another classic character, one who is much beloved by many people, is not ok.
THE GOOD
-I enjoyed Picard's goofy French pirate character. You could tell Stewart was having fun with that role.
-Rios is slick and coolheaded. Starting to like his character.
-No boring scenes on the Borg cube.
THE BAD
-Seven's character is butchered worse than Icheb's eye
THE UGLY
-The EMH witnessed a murder. That better not get swept under the rug.
-Elnor's accent is all over the place. If the actor can't do a consistent accent just let him use his natural Australian one. He's already a samurai elf Romulan ninja monk. It won't be much more distracting for him to be a samurai elf Aussie Romulan ninja monk.
Star Trek: Picard: Absolute Candor (2020)
Introducing Ninja Legolas
1.04 "Absolute Candor"
Picard revisits a planet where he helped resettle Romulan refugees, seeking the help of a group of warrior nuns whom he had befriended. However, he finds the planet is not as he left it, and its inhabitants are not pleased to see him.
THE GOOD
-Finally some plot movement after essentially three straight episodes of exposition. Quite a refreshing change.
-Some really good acting from Patrick Stewart. So much of his acting talent is in his voice, and the hoarseness and weakness of it in his old age worried me that he wouldn't be able to summon the same dramatic power he once had. However, here he shows that he can still put power behind his voice when he really needs to and it was great to see.
THE BAD
-Some really bad writing. Tons of cringy dialogue and nonsensical character motivations. In particular, the scene where Picard gets into the fight with Romulans is a disaster. Why would he provoke them by knocking down the sign? And why are they so angry with him when all he did was try and help them? Because the plot wants a dramatic scene with the samurai elf saving Picard's life with ninja flips and a decapitation, that's why. Understandable character motivations be damned.
THE UGLY
-Did the Federation abandon its marketless system? First Raffi makes dumb comments about inequality, then they talk about paying the pilot character, and now they bribe the Romulans to let Picard on the planet. So much for the Federation not using money. And yes, I know Starfleet officers use money on DS9, but there they were living on a foreign station on the frontier, so they needed to adapt to using money. Picard shouldn't have money, and yet it appears he does, and a lot of it.
-Obviously I knew Seven of Nine would be in the show since she was featured in a lot of marketing images. I feel like all the boring scenes on the Borg cube have been there just as placeholders so that her role in the story as an ex-Borg wouldn't come out of left field, but it's a real shame it took them four episodes to finally start to make those scenes relevant.
Star Trek: Picard: The End Is the Beginning (2020)
Show Finally Starts to Take Direction
1.03 "The End is the Beginning"
Picard begins assembling a crew to help him find the man who may have created Data's "daughters."
Again not much happens, though at least the story seems to have a direction now. The heroes have their quest and have left the Shire, so to speak. Maybe now the show will actually start.
THE GOOD
-It's cool to see the EMH technology return. That was one of the most interesting aspects of Voyager.
-Major nostalgia hearing the TNG theme at the end.
THE BAD
-So far I hate everything about this Raffi character. I hate her casual familiarity with Picard. She has the pips of a commander in the flashback scene. Picard would never let anybody call him "JL," much less some random subordinate. She should be calling him "sir" or "Admiral." Remember in "Hide and Q" when Riker gets the powers of Q and he starts calling Picard "Jean Luc" as a way to show how arrogant and full of himself he was becoming? Well this random person whom we have never seen before, also a subordinate, is even more familiar and less respectful towards him than that. I also hate how self absorbed she is. Picard tried with all his effort and will to save millions, and her complaint about his failure is "wah my security clearance and also why don't you ever call or write." This Burnham all over again. "The world revolves around me and if things don't go the way I want I will cry and pout and throw a temper tantrum." Despicable.
-Raffi's comments about inequality undermines the entire Trek universe. It shows that the writers are mired in their primitive, 21st century thinking. Thanks to replicators, people on Earth can live however they want. The only acceptable in-universe reason for her to live in a hovel is because she chooses to live in a hovel. Piss right off with that thinly veiled white male privilege nonsense, writers. How tiny does your brain have to be to not understand that your incredibly narrow political views do not apply to the visionary, utopian world of Star Trek.
THE UGLY
-Why does the EMH look like the pilot? And what's with the weird incest vibe with the Romulan siblings? I feel like I need to physically wash the ickiness of this episode off me.
-I guess we're just going to ignore the fact that the EMH is an artificial lifeform, which are supposedly banned? Ok then.
-Actually, the above raises the question of what happened to Voyager's EMH. He's a fully sentient artificial lifeform. I have a feeling he'll appear later in the show, but if artificial lifeforms are not allowed, is he a fugitive? In digital prison? I hope we find out because he was a great character on that show.
-What is with the pilot having a piece of metal impaling his shoulder? What a random, nonsensical way to introduce the character.
Star Trek: Picard: Maps and Legends (2020)
Exposition Dump
1.02 "Maps and Legends"
Not a whole lot happens in this episode. It follows Picard around from set to set, as he and other characters spill a lot of exposition in the form of clunky dialogue.
There's not much here to analyze. In a bubble this is a bad episode and a big step down from the pilot. If the season's story ends up being a good one, spending an entire episode on expository dialogue could be worth it. But good storytelling incorporates exposition into the story; information vomit is a tool of a bad storyteller, and something we see DSC do a lot of too. Doesn't bode well for the show.
THE GOOD
-The sign in the Borg cube that read "This facility has gone 5843 days without an assimilation" made me laugh out loud.
-So far I don't hate any of the characters, which is a big step up from DSC.
THE BAD
-No plot, all exposition.
THE UGLY
-I find it unbelievable that the Federation would be using artificial lifeforms for menial labor after all the strides Data and Picard made in getting them recognized as people. Also, the bigotry of the Martian workers is extremely un-Trek-like.
-If there is some unseen force that has been working in the background to suppress AI lifeforms from coming into existence, it could explain why such lifeforms tend to be the exception rather than the norm in Trek. Even now, in 2023, AI is advancing at such a rate that it probably could easily pass a Turing test in a normal conversation. Hundreds of years in the future, AI lifeforms will be everywhere. And yet in Trek they are not. In Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, set thousands of years in the future, AI doesn't exist either. There the explanation is that a war between humans and AI nearly wiped out humanity, and so it was decided not to develop AI technology any more. It seems like some sort of similar thing may have happened in Romulus's past (remember that the Romulans have had interstellar travel for about two thousand years at this point so it would be very far in their distant past), leading to the Zhat Vash trying to ensure that sentient AI could never exist again. The show even nods to Asimov by showing Doctor Jurati holding one of his books. This raises the question, though, of why wouldn't the Zhat Vash have killed Data when he was first discovered?
Star Trek: Picard: Remembrance (2020)
Would You Like Some Plot With Your Earl Gray?
1.01 "Remembrance"
A young woman is attacked by mysterious assailants and she runs to Picard, now retired and living at his family vineyard in France, for help. But in spending time with her, he begins to realize that she may be connected to him in ways neither of them understand.
For lifelong Trek fans, seeing Picard return to the silver screen is very exciting. He is arguably the greatest captain Star Trek has seen, though I could make similar arguments for both Kirk and Sisko. Each is great in their own way, but Picard is probably the most aspirational of them all. He is a good man in the truest sense; nobody has ever cared more about doing the right thing at all times than Picard does. He has intense emotions, but he does not let them get in the way of him doing his duty and what is morally right, no matter the personal cost. This is the greatest legacy a person can have
Unfortunately, anybody who has watched Discovery or the Abrams movies knows that modern Trek can't be trusted to respect the legacies of iconic characters, stories, or worldbuilding concepts. Nor do they care about making morally upright characters. This leaves us in an awkward position of being optimistic about this show while also knowing that our optimism is probably foolish. I am eager to see Picard back to doing amazing Picard things, but I know that this show is likely to ruin his legacy, not reinforce it. I know this because even with the death of Leonard Nimoy being so recent, Discovery couldn't be bothered to adhere to his portrayal of Spock even a little with their version. The people in charge of modern Trek don't care at all about the integrity of the franchise, Roddenberry's vision, or telling good stories. They care only about making money, pretending they are smart, and pushing their twisted viewpoints onto others.
And so, full of both optimism and cynicism simultaneously, I begin my journey with Picard.
THE GOOD
-Competent television.
-Well paced, decent dialogue, and draws you in. Feels more mature than the adolescent comic book-wannabe style of DSC.
-Love the respectful honoring of Data's character, his service, and his sacrifice.
THE BAD
-Immediately starts off with the same blatantly unscientific nonsense DSC pulls. "They're created in pairs." Yeah but why? No explanation = the writers don't care enough to think of one.
-Obviously this show is looking to tell a season-long story. That doesn't have to be inherently bad (though it is overdone these days; episodic storytelling has become a lost art), however, the downside of such a style is that each episode tends to have very little storytelling meat, especially early in a season. Early episodes tend to be heavy on the exposition and light on actual story, which hurts their score. This episode suffers from that a little.
THE UGLY
-Really pushing earl gray. It came up three times just in the first 20 minutes. We get it, writers, you watched TNG. Now prove to us you understood what the show was about.
Star Trek: Discovery: Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2 (2019)
So Glad To Be Done With This Disaster Of A Season
2.14 "Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2"
A bunch of weightless polygons smash into each other as Discovery tries to escape into the future.
Finally we are finished with this season. It has been painful, and I am relieved to be done. Without a doubt this was the worst season of television I have ever watched. If it was anything other than Star Trek, I would have quit watching many episodes ago, but my lifelong fandom compels me to keep up with the franchise in the hopes that it will one day return to its roots of thoughtful storytelling, deep and complex characters, relevant social issues, and interesting science fiction. However, that day is not today.
Throughout this season I have been appalled at how adolescent, unscientific, and poorly run the show manages to be. Watching the migraine-inducing cgi fest that was this episode, it reminded me of the consistently terrible, cgi-dominated third acts of Marvel movies and it dawned on me that more than anything this season felt like a terrible comic book movie. I don't mean a run-of-the-mill bad one like Wakanda Forever, but like a really, offensively awful one like Batman vs. Superman. The writing combines sub-George Lucas levels of cringy dialogue with DCU's brainless plots to create the worst possible version of high budget modern film. Mix in a dose of woke politics and you have a disaster that will only look worse when we look back on it in 20 years. By contrast, I now go back and watch DS9 and marvel at how well written and run that show was. It and the other classic Trek series stand the test of time. DSC will not. It's bad already, and it will age like milk.
I hope that next season sees a major shakeup in the writing staff and/or showrunning department. If it doesn't, I don't know if I can suffer through yet another season of dreck as bad as this one was.
However, that won't be something I'll have to deal with for a while. I am watching all the new Trek shows in the order they were released, just in case one builds on something from a previous one. I don't want to be lost or have something spoiled due to watching them out of order. What that means for me and my reviews is that the next item on my agenda is Picard season 1. I haven't heard great things about that show either, but just like I was at the start of DSC, I can't help but be foolishly optimistic. TNG is tied with TOS and DS9 as my favorite Trek shows to date, and Patrick Stewart is one of the best actors of all time, so a show centered around him and some other alums of that show is something I find myself looking forward to watching, even though I know it will probably be ruined by bad writing and showrunning. The best part of watching it, though, is that it can't possibly be worse than DSC has been, so at least I have that positive.
Anyway, enough about big picture stuff. We still need to finish breaking down this final ep so let's get into the details.
THE GOOD
-Seeing Spock without the beard and in his blue science officer uniform at his classic science station post was cool.
THE BAD
-The stuff with the unexploded torpedo is pointless and stupid. It will destroy the entire ship but a single door protects Pike from the explosion? Come on.
-Nothing really happens. There's no plot just a ton of cgi and a few more overwrought emotional scenes.
THE UGLY
-Suddenly in this episode the show remembers how shields stop transporters from working and shuttles from launching. This wouldn't be worth mentioning if they hadn't violated the precepts of those pieces of technology multiple times throughout the season. What a mess.
-I'm guessing Spock's arc was supposed to show how he went from the grinning, emotional version in "The Cage" to the stoic version we see by the time of the third or fourth episode of TOS. Throughout his time in this season he has borne no resemblance to either version, but if you squint really hard you can pretend he is in some transitional phase of his life that leads to him becoming the Spock we know and love.
-The show tried to neatly wrap up the messy retcon of Burnham being in Spock's family. It sort of works, I guess. However, I waited all season for a mention of Sybok and there was never a single one. I guess the franchise wants us to forget about him because of how bad Where No Man Has Gone Before was? I can't forget, though. Even though that was a bad movie, it has a few all time great Trek character scenes (basically all the scenes at Yosemite), and I still enjoy it if only for those scenes. So yeah, where was Sybok during all of Burnham and Spock's childhood flashback scenes? And why was he never mentioned even once despite all the plotlines involving their family? #neverforgetSybok.
Star Trek: Discovery: Such Sweet Sorrow (2019)
Who Needs a Plot When You Can Have CRYING
2.13 "Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 1"
The crew comes up with a plan to send Discovery into the future to keep the sphere data away from Control.
Overall this is a really bad episode, but it seems like the showrunners are looking to massively shake up the show and that could mean improvement in season 3. They seem to be writing out a whole bunch of problems with this shift to a future timeline, including but not limited to canon inconsistencies, Spock, unconvincing romances, and unwillingness to adhere to Federation laws or Starfleet protocols. It's like they decided they weren't capable of making a good show within the restrictions they initially placed on themselves, thus a huge shift like this was the only way forward.
This is similar to what Enterprise did. The first two seasons of that show were lackluster (though much better than the abysmal first two seasons of DSC), and they went with a dramatic shift in the Xindi season-long arc for season 3. Ironically, the Xindi arc also proved to be not good, but the shakeup did seem to indirectly help the show, as the fourth and final season of ENT ended up being fantastic and one of the best seasons of any Trek show to date. As of this writing, DSC has been renewed for a fifth season, so I can only assume the show gets better for it to run as long as it has, so maybe this shakeup ends up being really good, either directly or indirectly. We shall see.
THE GOOD
-Seems to be writing out both the Burnham/Tyler and Stamets/Culber romances, which is fortunate because both are painful to watch.
-Major nostalgia factor seeing the Enterprise the way it was in TOS (more or less).
-The scene where Burnham says goodbye to Sarek and Amanda was surprisingly well done. Frain does a masterful job here, as Sarek doesn't show any overt emotions yet you get the sense of him being deeply moved anyway.
-The crew's silent honoring of Pike was powerful. I will miss his character and hope to see him again in Trek someday. Anson Mount deserves all the praise in the world for what he brought to the character and to the show.
THE BAD
-Not much story to speak of. Most of the episode's runtime is taken up with boring and overwrought emotional drama.
-Stopping in the middle of an emergency situation to have a dramatic personal scene that is in no way relevant to the moment is the most DSC thing ever.
THE UGLY
-Modern Trek writers don't seem to understand that space is HUGE. Ships and characters can't just appear wherever they want whenever they want, not while maintaining any sense of coherence for your story, anyway. Long travel times are part of the universe, and constantly ignoring time and distance subverts the sense that what you are watching is real. Sarek and Amanda suddenly appearing on the ship is physically jarring because it jolts you out of the world with which you are engaging, and reminds you that this is just a dumb, silly story being told by dumb, silly people. Good stories don't do that; DSC and the Abrams movies do.
-First the show tries to use "dark matter" to be some magical substance that does whatever the writers want, and now we get "dark energy" serving the same role. Dark energy is very similar to dark matter, in that it is scientific shorthand for a force in the universe that current science can't explain. Based on calculations of the known mass/energy density of the universe, the universe's expansion should be slowing and eventually it should reverse and collapse in on itself due to its own gravitational mass. However, observations have shown that the universe's expansion is actually accelerating, not decelerating, contrary to what scientists long predicted. Some unknown force is causing the universe to continue expanding against its own gravitational pull, and that force gets stronger the more the universe expands. None of this makes sense according to our current scientific knowledge, and yet many observations have verified it to be true. This unknown cause of expansion is referred to as dark energy. However, it doesn't necessarily have to even exist; for example, the mismatch between prediction and observation could be due to flaws in our understanding of how gravity works on very large scales. And even if dark energy really is an unknown form of energy, if it was ever discovered what that energy is, it would be called by a different name, not dark energy.
-A character mentions needing "planck level energy" to run the time crystal. Planck level energy is about as much as it released from the gasoline in a single car's gas tank. So, uh, fill 'er up I guess?
Star Trek: Discovery: Through the Valley of Shadows (2019)
Pike and Anson Mount Rise Above the Garbage Heap Surrounding Them
2.12 "Through the Valley of Shadows"
Another signal appears, this time over the Klingon planet where L'Rell and Voq's son is being kept safe. Pike goes down to try and find an object they need to stop Control. Meanwhile, Burnham and Spock investigate a suspicious Section 31 ship.
THE GOOD
-Pike is a true hero here, knowingly accepting the horrific fate that awaits him, and choosing duty and self-sacrifice over his own emotions or physical wellbeing. The aspirational nature of Trek characters is one of my favorite parts of the franchise and it is something that DSC's characters almost never lived up to...until now.
-Some amazing acting by Anson Mount. He's able to portray both overt emotions and subtle nonverbal ones with equal believability. He and his character are true lone bright spots on the show.
THE BAD
-Terrible dialogue. Sounds like it was written by a middleschooler.
-B plot with Spock and Burnham served no purpose and took up a ton of screen time. Episode would have been much stronger if it just focused on Pike and the Klingon monastery since those scenes were mostly above-average-to-good but the plot there needed more fleshing out.
THE UGLY
-More "time crystal" nonsense. Even if it does lead to some really great Pike scenes it doesn't make them any less insulting to the viewer's intelligence.
-Control standing around talking to Burnham and telling her its plan instead of just killing/infecting her is an example of probably the worst, dumbest, most overused villain trope of all time. When human villains do it, it's at least somewhat believable because human ego makes us do dumb things all the time, but an AI doing it makes the trope infinitely dumber than it already is.
-In the previous ep that plan was to move the sphere data to the Red Angel suit and send it far into the future so Control couldn't get it. Now we're being told they can't move the data off Discovery so they have to destroy the ship. The rudderless nature of the show continues to amaze me. There is apparently nobody in charge behind the scenes making sure there is even basic consistency from one episode to the next. What a disaster.
Star Trek: Discovery: Perpetual Infinity (2019)
Show Continues Its Epically Bad Run
2.11 "Perpetual Infinity"
The crew races against time to find answers and figure out a way to avert the cataclysmic future that seems certain.
The show is on a truly epic run of terribleness right now. Season 1 was up and down, but this season is consistently awful. Six of the last eight episodes I have rated 4 stars or below, including the only 1 star review I have ever given to an episode of Star Trek. This is without a doubt some of the worst television I have ever seen, and I can't believe the show has run for 5 seasons and counting. I can't wait to be done with this season so I can move onto watching something else.
THE GOOD
-Decent action scenes
-I love that Pike finally put his foot down and said no to Burnham's whining and cajoling. He has become by far the best character on this bad show-the only one who seems like an actual Starfleet officer and an adult. I would definitely watch a Pike spinoff show starring Mount.
THE BAD
-SO. MUCH. CRYING.
-To call the science aspect of this show bad would be the understatement of all time. Time Crystals? Skipping around the galaxy on a highway of mushrooms? Moms and daughters have identical DNA? Magical "dark matter"? Tardigrade DNA gives you superpowers? Even comic book writers would be embarrassed by some of this stuff. Fine, they wouldn't. But you get my point.
-Absolutely nothing about Burnham's mom's situation is explained. She says she's going to jump an hour into the past but then she somehow goes 950 years into the future. Why? No clue since every other time she travels she goes exactly when and where she wants. Then she always gets pulled back to the same time, 950 years in the future. Why? Nobody even asks that question. Also she knows everything, apparently, but didn't know they were setting a trap for her? The biggest ongoing problem with the show's writing, other than the fact that every character other than Pike (and maybe Georgiou) is terrible, unlikable, and stupid, is that absolutely nothing ever even tries to make sense and the show hopes that if it moves fast enough and loudly enough that we won't notice all the nonsensical garbage it throws at us.
-Spock's character keeps getting worse. He literally gets reduced to the intelligence level of an Imgur meme with his "I like science" line. DSC's version of Spock is starting to make Abrams' version look great by comparison.
-Usually when Trek utilizes Shakespeare quotes it's a home run, but DSC manages to even screw that up. If Burnham responded to the quote with a silent, knowing nod, it would have been a cool moment. Saying "Hamlet, hell yeah" in response ruins it.
THE UGLY
-If the sphere data can be moved but not deleted, they could just move it onto a portable drive and then physically destroy the drive. Would save a lot of hassle.
-It's ironic that Control plans to use the chain of command to seize power, because based on what I have seen the chain of command literally does not exist in this version of Starfleet, though Pike seems to be starting to change that a little.
Star Trek: Discovery: The Red Angel (2019)
New Low Point for the Show
2.10 "The Red Angel"
The crew captures the Red Angel (yes that is literally the whole plot).
From a storytelling perspective, this is a new low for the show. Three episodes into Spock playing a major role, I am being forced to eat my words and take back everything good I said about him initially. To call this episode a dumpster fire would be to insult burning piles of garbage everywhere. I'm not going to be as detailed in this review because it's not worth the effort anymore. I'm too die hard of a Trek fan to simply stop watching, but at this point I have no hope left for this show and I just want to get through it so I can move onto something else.
THE GOOD
-Nothing except maybe some of the visual effects.
THE BAD
-So much drama and crying.
-Stupid plot that isn't logical and full of holes and contrivances.
-Terrible acting, especially from Wilson Cruz.
-In any reasonable universe Burnham would at minimum be court martialed and stripped of her commision for assaulting a superior officer. Most likely she should also go to jail.
THE UGLY
-TIME CRYSTALS?! What the hell is this nonsense. This is the laziest, crappiest writing I have ever seen on a show. It's insulting to the viewer's intelligence to not even attempt a scientific explanation.
Star Trek: Discovery: Project Daedalus (2019)
Story of a Wallpaper
2.09 "Project Daedalus"
Admiral Cornwell comes aboard Discovery and reveals that Starfleet Command has been shut out of the threat assessment computer system--simply named Control--that is run by Section 31, and convinces Pike to go to 31's headquarters to try and re-establish the connection. But once there the crew starts to learn that the real enemy is not what they expected, and it is related to Spock's visions, the Red Angel, and the fate of the galaxy itself.
The basic plot of this episode is good, but the way many of the characters are handled ruins it. After a great start to Peck's Spock, we get the temper tantrum Spock of Abrams' movies back for this one, undoing any positives from the last ep.
THE GOOD
-For once the basic plot is a solid story. The pacing is good, too, most likely in large part thanks to Frakes' steady, solid directing skills.
-Pike is starting to look more like a captain. He is asserting his authority and pushing the crew to better performances in a way he hasn't previously.
THE BAD
-Aside from Pike, all the other characters are handled very sloppily. Most notably, trying to make us care about Airiam's death when the show has done zero leg work to develop her character before this ep. She has been nothing more than wallpaper for two seasons, and no amount of dramatic music, long closeup shots of faces, or crying and wailing can make her death a genuine emotional experience for the viewer.
-Soap opera drama with Spock and Burnham, as usual. Burnham being an emotionally compromised moron, as usual. Burnham disobeying orders without consequences, as usual.
-The security chief suspecting Airiam but not doing anything about it or informing the captain is beyond stupid. Can you imagine Worf just sitting there watching as somebody sabotages the Enterprise and undermines Picard, while doing nothing to stop it or warn anybody?
THE UGLY
-The mines aren't cloaked or anything. Discovery could just shoot them. Also the station apparently doesn't have shields so they could have just beamed Airiam out instead of killing her.
Star Trek: Discovery: If Memory Serves (2019)
Going Back to Trek's Roots
2.08 "If Memory Serves"
Burnham takes Spock to Talos, the location of the first TOS pilot, to be healed by the mind powers of the inhabitants. But they demand a price for the healing-Burnham and Spock must relive the memory of their emotional rift. While healing Spock, the Talosians also share with Burnham what he saw, and the consequences for the galaxy may be dire.
Very solid ep carried on the back of Ethan Peck, whose performance as Spock exceeded my expectations.
THE GOOD
-Peck's Spock. The first scene with Spock actually talking is fantastic. He is stoic yet witty just like Nimoy's spock. Best part is him putting Burnham in her place. He says what we as viewers wish we could tell her-basically, "Get over yourself." Him slapping down her repeated assertions that everything is about her is beautiful to behold. He manages to restore respectability to the show almost immediately, while putting that special little snowflake in her place. Just glorious.
-All the scenes with Vina and the Talosians were really good. Nothing stupid happens and they are well-paced and thoughtfully presented. And plus the nostalgia factor of seeing them in a modern Trek show is very high for me.
-Really cool visual of the "black hole." Not only is it gorgeously depicted, but it is done accurately according to our best current knowledge of what a black hole would look like. I would love to see more scientifically-accurate depictions of real phenomena like that one. As a space enthusiast it's a real thrill for me.
THE BAD
-The B plot with Hugh. It's soap opera-level drama. Hard pass.
THE UGLY
-It seemed like they were going to write the spore drive out of the show for green reasons. Now keep trying to use it but it's being sabotaged by the mysterious future threat, so I guess we'll see which direction they go for writing it out. I just wish they'd get to it. I hate everything about the spore drive.
Star Trek: Discovery: Light and Shadows (2019)
Welcome Aboard the USS Anarchy
2.07 "Light and Shadows"
In the wake of the Red Angel's latest apparition, a temporal rift forms at the spot from where she appeared. Pike and Tyler go to investigate but their shuttle gets sucked in and the crew must try and rescue them. Meanwhile Burnham does lots of random facial expressions while trying to find and cure Spock.
Overall not terrible. Continues lots of bad threads from previous episodes, but doesn't add anything overly bad to the mix and has some genuinely interesting scifi going on. A slightly above average episode of television.
THE GOOD
-I love anything with time anomalies.
-The Doc Ock-ified probe was pretty cool.
-Nice misdirection making us think that Pike was going to shoot Tyler but instead he is saving him.
-I don't often mention it because it's a near-constant, but the visual and auditory presentation of the show continues to be really good. Effects, music, and sound effects are all high quality and almost always earn each episode a star or two even while the writing, acting, and directing is a horrendous dumpster fire.
THE BAD
-Mostly stuff from previous episodes. Tardigrade DNA giving Stamets superpowers or Section 31 being common knowledge, for example. And of course the endlessly bad acting from SMG. I'm getting so sick of the camera lingering on her "distraught face" (I guess that's what it is? I honestly don't know what emotion she is trying to convey most of the time) where it looks like she is sniffing some bad lunch meat. They could just replace her head with an alternating series of five emojis and the show would be better off for it.
-Stamets and Tilly don't ask Saru (in command) for permission to pull their stunt to save the captain. The chain of command continues to not exist on this show. They should have named it the USS Anarchy.
THE UGLY
-In the last episode Saru beamed off the ship while shields were up, and in this ep Burnham is able to fly a stolen shuttle out the Section 31 ship when all they had to do to stop her was raise shields. I guess this show isn't written for Trek fans, since years of consistent portrayal of certain basic precepts have ingrained in us how the technology works, and this show blatantly disregards those precepts on a regular basis.
-Why would Leland give a crap if Burnham knows whatever it is Georgiou does about his involvement in her parents' deaths? Burnham is a nobody-a science officer on a ship he doesn't even serve on. And he's in Section 31; they exist outside the law. The fear on his face when Georgiou blackmails him makes no sense. The show continually seems to insist that Burnham is the center of everything and yet there is no rational backing for that idea. She literally doesn't matter.
-The format "### by ###" is not coordinates, it's a heading in 3D space (in degrees), and the destination it points to would depend on your starting location. There's no way Spock would be giving a heading from a random asteroid belt that points to the correct planet. Coordinates in 3D space would need to be three numbers, to represent the correct point on the x, y, and z axis.
Star Trek: Discovery: The Sound of Thunder (2019)
Look How They Massacred My Boy
2.06 "The Sound of Thunder"
Another red signal appears, this time over Saru's homeworld. Discovery investigates, but in doing so they risk confrontation with the planet's rulers and Saru with his commitment to Starfleet and the values it espouses.
Well they did it. They managed to ruin the only good character on Discovery, Saru, by turning him into an emotionally unstable, unprofessional, self-absorbed moron just like the rest of the crew. Between that and the blatant, completely unjustified Prime Directive violations committed by the crew, this is probably the worst episode so far.
THE GOOD
-Episode starts out very promising. Saru is (was) a good character and his species is very interesting and unique and I was excited to learn about his origins. The obelisk looming over the village was cool and definitely felt very Trek-like.
THE BAD
-Everything else. Saru violates his duty, his promise to Georgiou, and the most sacred laws of the Federation. Burnham is so emotionally compromised and unstable that she freezes at the mere reference of Spock. Neither Saru's crimes nor Burnham's dereliction of duty is punished, probably because Pike is not a real character on this show. The show technically needed a captain, but for some reason doesn't seem to want there to be one, and so Pike is merely a prop most of the time--passive and letting the crew take whatever illegal, stupid, inappropriate, or unethical actions their mood at that moment compels them to. Once again, this is a show made by immature, spoiled, moronic children who have never had real responsibility, faced real consequences, or dealt with real hardships, and they create characters like themselves-undisciplined adolescents who get what they want as long as they cry and stamp their feet loud enough. It's sickening to watch.
-It was infuriating to see Pike meekly go along with the crew's plan to play God and then not have to face the consequences of their arrogance thanks to the season's built-in deus ex machina.
THE UGLY
-"Evolution." You keep using that word; I don't think it means what you think it means.
Star Trek: Discovery: Saints of Imperfection (2019)
Mycelial Migraine
2.05 "Saints of Imperfection"
In order to rescue Tilly from the mushroom kingdom, the crew comes up with a plan to wedge the ship halfway into the fungal frontier while they look for her.
Bad but better than the last one due to at least having a plot.
THE GOOD
-I got way too much joy from the conversation with Leland where Burnham almost says something out of line and Pike cuts her off with a sharp hand gesture.
THE BAD
-Everything is so melodramatic. Why is everyone always running and shouting and crying and hugging? They are supposed to be mature, professional adults so maybe they should act like it. Unfortunately, this show seems to be written by children, and people write what they know.
-Once again there's no rational explanation for things. Hugh is alive because something something lightning rod. Bringing characters back from the dead is really bad writing most of the time because it cheapens the emotional impact of their death.
-Contriving not only to bring back Hugh but also Tyler. The show never had any original ideas to begin with, but it is so creatively bankrupt it can't even let go of the weak content it had.
-The opening and closing monologues are boring, melodramatic, and say nothing of value.
THE UGLY
-So everyone just knows about Section 31? When it was introduced in DS9, it was portrayed as an organization so secretive that not even Starfleet Command knew of their existence. But in this show they are common knowledge. Ok.
-Mention of tachyons, which are faster-than-light particles that are only theoretical in current science. They are mentioned a lot in Trek and mostly in the exact contexts Leland and Pike mention: time travel, cloaking devices, and transporters.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Shadowplay (1994)
Lightweight but wholesome and well-written
2.16 "Shadowplay"
While exploring a planet in the Gamma Quadrant, Dax and Odo encounter a village where people are mysteriously disappearing and they decide to help solve the mystery.
Some nice Odo moments, a Dominion teaser, and a pleasant but lightweight plot makes for an enjoyable ep overall.
I may be dating my review by mentioning this, but the recent proliferation of chatbots that can seemingly possess and express the personality of a real person, with feelings, hopes, and dreams that are all its own, makes the ethical issues raised in the ep feel quite relevant. In many scifi franchises, the dawn of AI is a single, dramatic moment where suddenly a computer program is sentient. But in real life it feels like we just keep blurring the lines more and more between sentience and not-between real person or not. This ep does that as well, for better or worse. Let's just hope that in real life we come up with a better definition of "real" than Odo's wishy-washy "if it feels real then it is real" definition because that is not a good way to define reality.
THE GOOD
-Absolutely love the opening scene. The banter between Odo and Dax is fantastic and it makes me realize that they are two characters who don't get nearly enough interactions in the series.
-Nice touching scenes with Odo and the little girl. And Odo and her grandfather. And Odo and the protector. It seems like the show can always count on Odo to get on base, so to speak. The floor is so high with his character and stories, in large part due to what a great actor Auberjonois is.
-Our third Dominion mention. I know we're only on season 2 but I am so stoked for the Dominion eps to start happening for real. I'm enjoying the hell out of the series already, but knowing it just keeps getting better and better is an amazing thing to think about.
-Good dads watch: I decided to start this recurring entry after watching "The Alternate" and realizing how good the dads are on DS9 and that they deserve to be highlighted. Also this recurring section is dedicated to my own dad, may he rest in peace. Here Sisko doesn't get upset that Jake doesn't want to follow in his footsteps by joining Starfleet. He just wants Jake to be happy and fulfilled. Really great to see.
THE BAD
-The B plot with Kira and Bariel. Painful. Also, she asks Bashir to watch Quark, he teases us with a mention of Garak, but then there's no Garak and no Bashir for the rest of the ep. What a strange bit of sloppiness in the script.
THE UGLY
-I instantly recognized the village set as being the same one from the TNG ep "Thine Own Self" when Data loses his memory and is stranded in a primitive village. Memory Alpha confirms it is the same set.
-Odo Shapeshift count: 1 as the spinning toy. Kind of cool how he starts to spin before the transformation. Good creative implementation of his shifting effect.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Paradise (1994)
Paradise Paradox
2.15 "Paradise"
O'Brien and Sisko are stranded on a planet where technology doesn't work. They encounter a group of human settlers who have embraced a simple lifestyle, but not all is as it seems, and the leader of the settlement is determined to maintain their way of life...at all costs.
No glaring flaws with the episode, but the story just isn't very interesting or consequential. Pretty weak overall.
THE GOOD
-We get to see the strength of Sisko's will. He has his version of a "four lights" moment when he climbs back in the hotbox rather than submit.
-O'Brien's primitive compass is genius. I love stuff like that. Between this episode and the previous one, we are seeing some incredible resourcefulness and tactical thinking from O'Brien. In the next ep, we finally hear his full rank of senior chief specialist, which is analogous to the highest possible military enlisted rank. Basically, he's the enlisted version of an admiral. The capabilities and skills he demonstrates shows that he deserves to hold that rank.
THE BAD
-I don't find Alixus to be particularly charismatic and don't know why these people would follow her. Her speeches in particular had me checking out mentally and emotionally.
-Boring, unsatisfying, and inconsequential ep.
THE UGLY
-O'Brien promises to get Jake "up to his elbows in thorium grease," but thorium is a radioactive metal. Without more info I can't say exactly where on the Ridiculous Pseudo Science scale that falls, but it sounds pretty freaking ridiculous to me.
-Sisko once again refers to his father in the past tense as if he is deceased. He also mentions having brothers, who are not ever seen or mentioned again, despite numerous eps focused on Joseph Sisko and his family restaurant in New Orleans. Since Trek shows always have available to its writers the series bibles laying out main character bio details, and this is the second time Sisko makes a reference to his father being dead, we can infer that the DS9 bible stated that as a fact and then was changed at a later point when they decided to incorporate Joseph into the show.
-Alixus blames the duonetic field on supposed nearby astatine deposits. Astatine is a really interesting element. It's so intensely radioactive that it's never been observed in anything larger than atomic-sized amounts because any macroscopic amount instantly vaporizes itself from the intensity of its own radiation. Needless to say, a metal like that can't exist as deposits of any meaningful quantity and even if it somehow did, the radiation and heat they would generate would destroy everything nearby.
-Inhibiting electromagnetic activity like the fictional duonetic field does in this ep would cause serious issues. Most obviously, the nervous systems of living beings operate using EM energy, so shutting off EM fields would kill everything with a nervous system. But more than that, the EM force is one of the four (or maybe three if you discount gravity) fundamental forces of nature. It's literally the glue that holds physics together. Preventing it from working would cause reality as we know to fragment.
-Runabout used: Rio Grande.