Star Trek: Picard 1.01 - "Remembrance"

[lizbee]

I have watched the thing!

My initial reaction was, THAT WAS GREAT, I LOVE IT, I JUST HAVE SOME MINOR QUIBBLES!

Then my quibbles grew, eg:

• we have two characters played by black people; one is unceremoniously killed, the other is patronised by Picard in a scene which reminded me of Babylon 5 (and not in a good way)
• this is literally the second Trek premiere which presents an Asian woman as a lead, then kills her and subs in an identical replacement?
• like, really??????
• I can't believe we're doing Cylons
• there were a lot of women in this episode, but they didn't speak to each other
• this is not a show about relationships, but so far I'm seeing a lot of heterosexuality

I think that at least some of these problems will shake themselves out as the series goes on and the rest of the cast is introduced, but I feel like ... okay, I had this thought about The Mandalorian as well: if you know your show is going to be released week to week, then you should probably write and cast accordingly, so that you don't end up with (for example) three consecutive episodes and only one scene with a female character?

These problems aside, THAT WAS GREAT, I LOVE IT. On a purely contrarian note, I really enjoy that Modern Trek is all about brilliant female relatives of iconic male characters. And Brent Spiner's scenes were incredibly effective and affecting.

(I feel like Lal needed a more overt shoutout? I realise that this show needs to be accessible to new viewers, and also "The Offspring" is just an inferior version of "The Measure of a Man", but still!)

(Lore ... probably also needed a shoutout. I guess.)

I'm not into the whole synths storyline so far -- not least because it feels like Discovery has also touched on this, but the two series aren't quite in conversation with each other. And where do sentient holograms fit in? Was Maddox and his team really just building an army of synthetic beings in a factory? That seems ... ethically problematic.

(As does using Data's positrons to create posthumous offspring. Maybe Data arranged for that in his will? I've seen Star Trek, so I assume that Maddox is hanging out on an isolated planet with an inappropriately young wife, doing Mad Science, but maybe this whole thing with Dahj and Soji is actually just his self/Data babyfic gone too far.)

BUT I can easily buy that a lot of Federation citizens are prejudiced against synthetic life forms, even without the whole "destroyed Mars" business.

(Guys, they destroyed Mars.)

Like, consider the way Pulaski treated Data; the way a lot of people -- Voyager's crew, at first, but also Beverly -- treat the EMH. So that makes sense to me! But I have questions about ... look, Cylons? Again?

(I stand by my position that Michael Chabon is not necessarily a good or original writer of science fiction. Or women. Or women in science fiction.)

Comments

[aristofranes]

Yeah, I also had similar concerns about the treatment of POC which ... I'm really hoping they learned from the missteps of Discovery, in a what not to do sort of way rather than a follow this template kind of way

But on the whole - I'm in, albeit slightly more cautiously than I'd anticipated. It was an exposition-heavy ep, so hopefully now that the scene is set we can just get on with the plot.

[lizbee]

I'm really hoping they learned from the missteps of Discovery, in a what not to do sort of way rather than a follow this template kind of way

Yeah, Hanelle Culpeper spoke on Women at Warp about the drive to bring more diversity behind the scenes, but that's a long process. And then you have to keep them -- when it seems like CBS's "zero tolerance for discrimination" policy applies more to PoC than white dudes.

At least, on a narrative level, Picard has made it through a whole season without a showrunner change. So the story will be consistent, but maybe ... consistently not great with race?