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

[starlady]

I was very glad that I (re)watched The Measure of a Man this week, that's for sure. I stand by my idle speculation that Maddox could still show up in this show. I also think that they could go either way with his (presumably) having created the Soji and Dahj twins: either he did it on his own recognizance, or it's something that he and Data talked about in their ongoing correspondence after their meeting.

I think they did the best possible job they could getting Nemesis and Star Trek 2009 to make sense in the main timeline, and the Federation's treatment of Data, of holograms, and of genetically engineered people makes their attitude towards "synthetics" very plausible. That said, I'm extremely intrigued by the fact that the AI researcher is like "the synths that destroyed Mars came out of this lab" and yet she still has a job? Obviously a lot to unpack with her.

The Mars attack thing has reminded me powerfully of B5 since I saw "Children of Mars" (come on, the synth ships in there look quite a lot like Shadow vessels) and I am still powerfully reminded of B5 in general, especially since there's now a kind of narrative equivalence between Mars and Romulus. Having just rewatched Generations, though, where the media also get very short shrift, I don't think we need to go to B5 for Picard lecturing the anchor, we can stay in Trek just fine.

The artificial intelligence thing in general does feel awkward, given that Discovery just spent a whole season on it and jumped to the 29thC to avoid a very evil artificial intelligence. As with some of the other wince-worthy bits you point out, you can tell this show came out of the same brain trust, Michael Chabon (who I'm not really a fan of) notwithstanding.

[lizbee]

That said, I'm extremely intrigued by the fact that the AI researcher is like "the synths that destroyed Mars came out of this lab" and yet she still has a job?

If the character is the same age as the actress, she'd have been just 20 when Mars was destroyed -- definitely not involved firsthand. I'm more puzzled by the fact that she has a career at all, and that the Daystrom Institute is apparently still accepting research fellows into this dead-end field.

As with some of the other wince-worthy bits you point out, you can tell this show came out of the same brain trust, Michael Chabon (who I'm not really a fan of) notwithstanding.

Yeah, but it also feels a bit like DS9 covering the same ground as Voyager with holographic rights, and apparently not realising they weren't doing anything new? Like, I can see how the Discovery stuff can be integrated (clearly the whole "Control can never happen again" is why it takes a century to get from Mudd's androids to Data), but it's not clear yet.

[starlady]

My impression from the dialogue about Maddox recruiting her out of Starfleet, them coming so close, and her knowing so much about his theories (the necklace symbol, for instance) is that they had to have been working together before the Mars attack. (It's also not clear how long a lag there was between assault and ban.) PatStew is 79, but Picard is 93; there could be a similar presumed gap in Jurati's case. I'm sure we'll find out more soon.