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Reviews
Star Trek: Picard: Farewell (2022)
Cheap.
I knew it. I knew this episode wouldn't be up to the challenge. All the previous episodes had tried to hype it up, and to a point, they had even succeeded, and yet I was sure this last episode would fall short.
What can I say? It's cheap. Cheaply made, and cheaply written. Cheaply trying to pry a tear out of you as Picard bids farewell to a great many things, and yet, cheaply executed, and cheap in a few too many CGI shots(but I guess the CGI budget had already been exhausted in the latter part of the episode) and a painful and cheap ending to my beloved Jurati's timeline I had given trust to in the previous episode. That's on me.
A rather cheap ending to the storylines that have woven the tapestry of this series together, and a few too many plot hole that make a trekker's toes curl.
A very cheap way to get rid of some of our characters, thus making room for more TNG veterans, and a cheap way to end this season in a way that is eerily similar to the ending of the first, disastrous season of Picard.
What can I say? They did manage to get a tear or two out of me, in a cheap way that rather cheaply used my love for Q and Picard's unlikely friendship in TNG, or Elnor's cheaply arranged return, or my beloved Q's cheap demise.
For how much I can fathom this kind of series that lingers heavily on using the fans' love for a former series to have some kind of leverage, this series really should begin to keep itself afloat on it's own.
Bonus point for Rios's end point. Man, what a season for our Cristobal.
Star Trek: Picard: Hide and Seek (2022)
Decent.
While this episode is yet another step in the right direction, and partially helps Picard out of the hole this season has dragged the series into, there really is massive room for improvement.
The mise-en-scène of this episode is excellent, and helps you cope with what unfortunately is a rather low-effort Borg attack of sorts, with a painfully overacting Spiner as its commander in chief. The whole thing is somewhat dull, and the flashbacks are way over a few too many, and that doesn't help the rhythm of this episode, which is surprisingly enjoyable.
The plot holes and inconsistencies are becoming frustrating to say the least; a mere Google search would've sorted those out, and as of now, I'm not going to pass judgement on the latest event in Queen-Jurati's timeline, if anything, it is something different, and that's probably laying the bases for the finale, and likely for the beginning of the season, in an appreciable way, for once.
Hats off to Jeri Ryan as our beloved Seven once again rises to the challenge and pulls off yet another wonderful performance. She's definitely carrying this series on her Borg shoulders; and for once Raffi does a decent job alongside her.
The worst part of this episode, other than Rios living in his very own universe, is Stewart himself, unfortunately, offering a, dare I say, lacklustre performance in what should've been his time to shine.
Star Trek: Picard: Mercy (2022)
Not good enough
This episode is a sight better than the last one, although the latest instalment of Picard's second season is still plagued by the same awful writing issues.
The separate storylines that weave this season together are met with a rather hard wall in this episode, writing-wise, and while much is spent trying to hype things up for the finale, this episode still lacks the consistency to make things work. Not to mention this alleged hype-fest is extremely boring to watch as a standalone episode.
Jeri Ryan quite predictably steals the scene in this episode and every time we get to catch a glimpse of Seven's Borg trauma, it's a treat. Jeri is so good and makes that work extremely well, in my opinion, and that unfortunately completely eclipses Raffi's struggles that this season has painfully tried to impose onto us. Even Jurati's storyline, arguably the best one so far, also struggles in this episode, unfortunately.
In regards to Rios's own storyline in this season, well, let's just say the FBI-Fox Mulder wannabe guy got more character development in a half-episode's worth of screen time than Cristobal had in a couple of seasons. Unfortunately. And quite likely, FBI dude's own background, well, is a glaring inconsistency in regards to Vulcan lore we got from Enterprise, but you know what, who cares at this point. We chugged down every bit of random lore specifically created to make things work in this or that episode and then dropped, that's nothing, really.
In regards to the editing and the whole rhythm of this mess, there are improvements, somewhat, but the feeling of watching a 45-minutes long teaser trailer is there, is strong and it's not going to get away. And that's probably the worst thing about this episode, along with an obnoxiously baroque screenwriting.
Star Trek: Picard: Monsters (2022)
Going downhill
I'm not going to say this season had me fooled. With the exception of the second and third episodes, this season is not that good. So to speak.
What is disconcerting, though, is how hilariously bad this episode is. I like fillers alright, they are a fundamental part of what Star Trek is and what it always has been, allowing the relationships between our beloved characters to get deeper without the existential level threat of the day to hang on their heads. Yeah, a filler doesn't really allow the story arc to go on, but in the age of streaming, with a few episodes per season and a lot going on, a filler episode is like a balm. It helps, you know, to calm things down.
This does not qualify as a filler, though, but as a terrifying attempt at symbolism. I like that this season is trying to dig deeper in Picard's emotional tone in regards to interpersonal relationships, but the writing is nowhere near good enough to allow for this ill-thought and badly written symbolism to have a meaningful emotional impact, apart from laughter and cringing.
For the sake of brevity, I shall overlook the inconsistencies, way too many to count, and focus on the inexistent character development that plagues this series. We are thrown bones over and over again, and yet nothing gets explained. We seriously are on Star Trek Discovery-bad levels of writing and character development, unfortunately.
SPOILER THINGY
One of the most hilariously bad pieces of Star Trek writing is in STD Season 2, where we learn that Owosekun grew up in a Luddite community, because it was put there only because it helped the plot go forward, and it was so criminally late in the series. I used to think this was bad, and yet it is only in this episode that we learn that Rios is from Chile. Two-thirds into the Second Season.
If I think about the Picard characters, we don't know that much about them, and that's just sad. It kinda makes you hope you had a slightly less disastrous first PIC season, you know, something to help build the foundations, for our characters to grow organically, and have their backstories shown to us in a good way, and not through random anecdotes or vague one-liners that fail to entice us, because you know, you haven't got the foggiest of what happened or what's going on.
What's more, the whole temporal dynamics of this season, the rhythm of this so-called story, is a mess, but maybe that's only me.
A trash thing I don't really know if I like or not from this series, as it was already there in the last season, is the fact the every time Picard says something, the whole universe kinda stops in awe to hear him talk, even if it's something trivial. It's trashy, I know both Picard and Stewart have the eloquence, and I'd like it to be used, you know, when it really matters.