Star Trek: Picard 1.07 - "Nepenthe"

[lizbee]

I was on a really nice post-ep high this morning, and then I made the mistake of looking at Michael Chabon's Instagram, where he answers fan questions after every episode. There was a query about the lack of queer characters, and he gave a bullshit "it needs to be organic to the story and the character" answer (I screencapped and ranted about it on Twitter).

I'm so glad he's moving on after this season, but I don't expect that to actually solve the problem. Thank heavens for the Disco writers, who, for all that they sometimes miss the mark, actually make an effort to think about this stuff.

ANYWAY.



I loved this ep a lot, and FINALLY they've figured out that they can take advantage of streaming to throw in an extra ten minutes of pure character development. But oddly I found myself enjoying the La Sirena scenes more, as Agnes's motivations become clearer, along with the fact that Rios is as thick as two planks.

Okay, that's not fair -- given the circumstances, it's not unreasonable to suspect Raffi. It's that he keeps on suspecting Raffi even after Agnes all but tells him it was her with the tracker -- well. (White privilege really is magic, eh?)

Some dot points before I start my day:

• I was ABSOLUTELY shipping Hugh/Elnor and then ... well.
• Anyway, judging by his reactions to Seven and Hugh, Elnor is Borgsexual.
• I'm slightly brokenhearted over Hugh's death, but at the same time Elnor is alive and that's all I wanted.
• Raffi's idea of kindness is offering drugs; Agnes's idea of getting high is eating cake until she pukes; I LOVE THEM SO MUCH
• Honestly the most mysterious thing about Agnes at this point is that she joined Starfleet? And they let her in????
• So what Commodore Oh showed Agnes was the Prothean beacon vision, because synthetic life is eternally at war with organic in an endless cycle of destruction until Shepard Picard finds a new solution. I hope Bioware's IP lawyers are having a nice day.
• Like, Mass Effect is very into mugging other SF franchises for their tropes, but the pile-up of similar or identical ideas is getting a bit ridiculous.
• I really need to finish up my Inquisition replay so I can replay the ME trilogy. Maybe I'll finally open that copy of Andromeda I bought before I even had an XBox.
• I bet Chabon chooses Synthesis every time.
• The whole Riker-Troi situation is AMAZING and HEARTBREAKING BUT IN A GOOD WAY
• Man, the TNG writers really wasted Marina Sirtis
• All those years they kept trying to get Frakes to act, and she was RIGHT THERE
• I mean, Frakes is fine
• BUT SIRTIS
• I can't tell you how disappointed I am that the entire La Sirena crew didn't wind up on Nepenthe, because by comparison Picard is a pretty low priority in the list of people who need therapy
• Maybe Deanna should have gone with him

Comments

[kore]

OH MY GOD, WHAT A BUNCH OF MEALYMOUTHED CORPORATE BABBLE MALE CISHET BLIND SMUG BULLSHIT.

AHEM.

I was bummed re Hugh, but RELIEVED re Elnor. Not least because the bb assassin, Evan Evagora, is half Maori IIRC, and did the CUTEST INTERVIEW EVER https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/picards-evan-evagora-says-patrick-stewart-taught-him-a-fun-star-trek-set-secret

Elnor grows up in a house around all women, but in real life, I’m the youngest of seven kids, and I have five older sisters. My house was filled with women all the time growing up. Elnor’s favorite book is Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers. My favorite book is Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. I came to L.A. to film this, and I’d never been here before. I’d never set foot here before. It was a new experience for me. Just as leaving his home is new for Elnor.

[kore]

I also kinda suspected Hugh was in trouble when he got all that soulful character development last time, because the actor was a guest star. In a lot of ways Chabon is a very predictable writer (and Hollywood pro writing follows a very predictable structure).

[lizbee]

Not least because the bb assassin, Evan Evagora, is half Maori IIRC, and did the CUTEST INTERVIEW EVER

He is! His mother is Maori, his father is Greek, and for reasons unknown they decided to make a life in Australia???? (Specifically Melbourne, which means I have just one question for Evagoria: which football team does he barrack for? I will be judging his answers.)

[lizbee]

I wondered the same thing, but hoped I was wrong.

[kore]

And he's SO CUTE. I am lucky they put the Romulan makeup on him, otherwise I'd drool every time he was onscreen and feel like a dirty old woman, hah.

[kore]

(The famous Disco T-shirt!)

Yeah, there's a certain quality to a lot of tv stories that isn't bad, but you can just really tell the author is following a certain emotional structure -- it doesn't even have to be predictable plotting, altho that's a big part of it. (It's all over those terrible mainstream How To Structure Your Novel pop type books, too.) Part of why Chabon aggravates me is I feel he's being really rewarded for being very formulaic and not really taking many chances. Disco had flaws, but at least in S1, it felt very un-formulaic and like they really wanted to take chances. And, like you emphasized, they were at least THINKING about 'hmmm why is the default lens straight white male.' What they DID with that was sometimes crummy for a while, like killing off Georgiou and Hugh, but they made up for it.

(Altho I will say that the portrayal of Raffi as an actress is fucking fabulous. That is how we behave -- the hostility, the ability to turn on the charm and pull things together by a thread, the collapse, the burning desire to make good somehow and the knowledge that you know sometimes you never will. And yet, she's also sympathetic and capable as hell and smart and still trying. If this portrayal were all together in a film, Michelle Hurd would be nominated for some awards, imhoe.)

[lizbee]

Yeah, there's a certain quality to a lot of tv stories that isn't bad, but you can just really tell the author is following a certain emotional structure -- it doesn't even have to be predictable plotting, altho that's a big part of it.

Yes! And yet at the same time, Chabon is taking an almost literary approach to the pacing -- taking his time, doling out pieces of plot here and there. But the story is too flimsy to reward that treatment. It feels lazy instead of leisurely.

(I think he's improving? Like, this week I feel like they've finally struck a balance between advancing the plot and developing the characters, and I think the extra running time helped. But surely they could have taken time to revise earlier scripts?)

(Altho I will say that the portrayal of Raffi as an actress is fucking fabulous. That is how we behave -- the hostility, the ability to turn on the charm and pull things together by a thread, the collapse, the burning desire to make good somehow and the knowledge that you know sometimes you never will. And yet, she's also sympathetic and capable as hell and smart and still trying. If this portrayal were all together in a film, Michelle Hurd would be nominated for some awards, imhoe.)

YES. Raffi is frankly remarkable. (I've seen criticism that a character with her addictions doesn't belong in Trek, and I'm like ... no. Even if they can cure the physical addiction with a hypospray, there's still a psychological component, and that can't be cured until the individual is ready to seek help and stick to it. And it's very clear that there were faultlines in Raffi's personality even before her life fell apart.)

tl;dr!

[kore]

Yes! And yet at the same time, Chabon is taking an almost literary approach to the pacing -- taking his time, doling out pieces of plot here and there. But the story is too flimsy to reward that treatment. It feels lazy instead of leisurely.

Yeah, I think there's a way for litfic type writers to do that -- in Atwood Handmaid's Tale, the pacing is at times excruciatingly slow, but also intense, and that's deliberate -- but it's not working so well here. I keep thinking what he really wants is a novel about Jean-Luc Picard, and despite all the "this is a novel for television" PR we've been hearing for decades, TV can't do what novels do. Which is fine! They also repeated "We're making a seven hour movie," which....okay. (Not that that can be leaned on as a BAD EXCUSE for the crap pacing, or anything.) I do think viewing it all at once helps solve the pacing problems. I liked Discovery S2 a lot better (except for certain FUCKING DUMB choices) watching it all at once.

this week I feel like they've finally struck a balance between advancing the plot and developing the characters

I didn't really mind the very slow buildup, but getting the gang together was pretty slow, and now the show is about half over! Maybe if there's some really smart idea that pulls it all together, like in some of Disco's plot threads, it'll feel less loose and meandering. But OMFG, the scenes between Evil Elf and Soji feel SO LONG, and SO BAD. Partly that is because I can't stand the actor, but the way they've set it up, it's the opposite of suspenseful. If suspense is when the audience knows there's a bomb under the train seat but the passenger doesn't, this should be a great setup: we know she's a synth/construct and she doesn't, and we also know he's a manipulative spy and she doesn't. But it's just....blah on both counts. (With the unfortunate result of making Soji look dumb as a stick. Fortunately the actress's portrayal is touching and sensitive enough she just seems very naive, because she was actually born yesterday three years ago.)

Like, with Raffi and Rios -- how do they know each other? How is he willing to do what he does for her? What is their background? We just haven't really gotten that in depth. Whereas there was a whole episode devoted to Picard and Elnor. And yeah, Picard is the "main" character, but it's also very much an ensemble show, and one of the things TV is supposed to be moving AWAY from is the predictable show where the "main" character is one white guy and everything revolves around him. (Ditto Agnes and Maddox -- okay, they were fucking! Which at the least implies a really clandestine, deep and possibly fucked-up relationship. But we get a lot of emoting from her....about how bad she feels re killing him, which, okay, but it's kind of centering the white dude again, and we just didn't get enough buildup re Agnes to make the decision compatible with her fluffy "omg was the stun on?" cute naive scientist presentation.)

I've seen criticism that a character with her addictions doesn't belong in Trek

I ROLLED MY EYES SO HARD I SAW MY OCCIPITAL BUN

I've seen people actually going on about how this Federation is a dystopia and "like BSG" and I'm just like...WHAT. Jesus. It's complicated! I am ENJOYING that part. (I wonder how many of these people grew up watching TNG as kids, because there's a certain "my childhood was betrayed" quality to it all.)

Even if they can cure the physical addiction with a hypospray, there's still a psychological component, and that can't be cured until the individual is ready to seek help and stick to it. And it's very clear that there were faultlines in Raffi's personality even before her life fell apart.

Yes, EXACTLY. That's so well put. (And frankly any civilization that can possibly cure addiction, cancer, &c &c whatever, with a hypo, is going to be way more advanced than any Trek version. And then how do you make sure everyone gets it who needs it? and so on.) It's not dystopian, just human, and unfortunately, humans gonna human, in all our messy, pathetic, noble, awesome, stupid glory. For all its flaws I think the show is really good at portraying that. And I don't think "utopia" means some kind of flawless Wonderland where everyone is safe and happy. Frankly I don't think that's really possible even....

[thewormthatflies]

> I was ABSOLUTELY shipping Hugh/Elnor and then ... well.

Oh, man. Same. Shortest-lived ship ever. ;_;

Re: tl;dr!

[lizbee]

I AGREE WITH EVERYTHING IN THIS COMMENT, BUT NEED TO REPLY TO THIS BIT IN PARTICULAR:

It's not dystopian, just human, and unfortunately, humans gonna human, in all our messy, pathetic, noble, awesome, stupid glory. For all its flaws I think the show is really good at portraying that.

I saw a really wise comment on the failmeme, to the effect that even if we assume (and I think it's safe to do so, at least for Earth) that all Federation citizens have access to good housing and medicine and all of that, there will always be people who prefer to opt out. And part of being a "utopia" is recognising that those refusers have civil rights, and they can't be forced to conform -- even when doing so would demonstrably be better for them and their mental health. As long as they're not a danger to themselves and others, that's a choice they're entitled to make.

Anyway, I need a Raffi icon.

[lizbee]

WE COULD HAVE HAD IT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

[thewormthatflies]

If nobody writes an AU fic about this, I'll be very disappointed.

[starlady]

I am also very sad about Hugh but very relieved about Elnor, whose actions in this episode made a lot of sense to me--he has the skills, but he doesn't have the experience to predict Nerissa's tactics.

I think I am coming around to the opinion that this show should have been eight episodes rather than 10. I'm less than thrilled about Chabon writing two episodes next season, but I'm glad he won't be in charge anymore.

Marina Sirtis was SO GOOD in this episode, and Frakes was quite good too. Their daughter was also A+.

I initially thought the scene with Rios in the sickbay was Rios and Raffi knowingly trying to get the truth out of Agnes…and then it kept going and it revealed that Rios apparently can't take Agnes seriously, at best. There are obvious reasons for that, but come on dude!

[lizbee]

I think I am coming around to the opinion that this show should have been eight episodes rather than 10. I'm less than thrilled about Chabon writing two episodes next season, but I'm glad he won't be in charge anymore.

AGREED. (I think I'd have not spread the first two eps out to three -- but given every episode an extra ten minutes to breathe -- and merged Vashti with Freecloud so that Elnor's introduction didn't feel like a sidequest.)

I initially thought the scene with Rios in the sickbay was Rios and Raffi knowingly trying to get the truth out of Agnes…and then it kept going and it revealed that Rios apparently can't take Agnes seriously, at best. There are obvious reasons for that, but come on dude!

RIGHT? (Apparently, going by my Tumblr notes, Rios fans don't like it when you suggest their boy isn't so bright. And I rewatched with the "Raffi and Rios are in it together with suspecting Agnes" theory in mind, but it doesn't hold up.)