Monarch: Legacy of Monsters - TV-series Review

Warning, spoilers ahead. 

If posters on the wall are a sign of fandom, Godzilla is second only to my children in this household. I probably wouldn't call myself a hardcore fan (whatever that is), but I am definitely a big fan of the franchise and I curse the fact that most movies before 2010 are oddly difficult to get hold of here in Sweden in particular. 

And while far from every Godzilla movie is great or maybe even good, I wasn't truly disappointed by a Godzilla movie until the Gareth Edwards movie Godzilla that was released in 2014. That was the first time I watched a movie where I felt the creators had fundamentally misunderstood the reason fans like me return to watch Godzilla stomp, and get stomped.

I've enjoyed some fringe-picks before - the 1998 Roland Emmerich movie Godzilla was very entertaining and who can hate the cute baby Godzilla from Son of Godzilla (1967)? And every Godzilla movie has to find a balance between what you're there to see - big ass monsters punching, kicking and headbutting each other - with the filler stuff - humans and their reactions to big ass monsters punching, kicking and headbutting each other. No one cares about the people really, we accept them because we want to see the monsters and respect that budgets didn't allow for 90 minutes of that, back in the day.

But Godzilla 2014 completely missed the mark. The creators somehow thought that maybe we cared more about the people than the monsters, if only it was dramatic enough. Maybe they thought if we also cared about the people we'd enjoy the full 90 minutes and not the just the 10 minutes of kaiju fighting. This, in essence, is not a bad notion and Godzilla Minus One is a much better executed version of this idea (I have other thoughts on Godzilla Minus One, but that is another review for another day). But Godzilla 2014 tries so hard to make the humans interesting, they completely forget to make the kaiju interesting. And how could you even fail something like that, it's Godzilla!

And that brings me to Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. I know there are a few TV adaptations of the Godzilla world out there, and I've watched an episode here or there but nothing ever caught my interest. For some reason it didn't feel like the core idea of the Godzilla movies would translate well to the episodic nature of a TV-series. The structure of a Godzilla movie is generally very predictable, and trying to spread that out over however many episodes just means you will have some episodes that are 100% without Godzilla (or other kaiju) in it and ergo: boring.

So needless to say, my expectations for Monarch weren't particularly high and I'll be honest, the one thing that made me even watch the stuff was the fact that Kurt Russell was in it. I was hoping that maybe Kurt could make the Godzilla-less episodes at least bearable. 

The show takes place over two different time periods, and since nowadays it's apparently uncool to inform viewers on where and when they are, I more than once was confused as to which order things happened. Since the time in-between is quite far (60 years or so) you'd think it'd be obvious, but the jumps are also made some times within each time period to further confuse things. In the present time-line, we follow half-siblings Cate and Kentaro who are looking for their missing father. He seems to have something to do with an organization called Monarch who seems to have something to do with Godzilla. In the other time-line we follow Cate and Kentaro's grandparents as they set up was is to become Monarch. A common denominator here is Lee Shaw, played in the modern time-line by Kurt Russel and in the old time-line by Kurt Russel's extremely lookalike son, Wyatt Russell. Other characters correctly point out that this should make Lee Shaw close to 100 years old in present day, which he obviously doesn't seem to be anywhere close to - but it's mostly just shrugged off.

Let me try not to make the same mistake Monarch does here, by doing everything except get to the point.  This show will blue ball you for 10 hours of your life if you let it. Monarch is a showcase of how to beat around the bush and I've rarely felt my time more wasted than watching this show. It is about as filled with meaningful substance as an empty mug. I recall having similar feelings when watching the Resident Evil TV-series and yet again it amazes me to see show creators take all this brilliant lore and instead show us the same old teen-angst drama that no one on earth truly cares about.

The three main characters, Cate, Kentaro and their friend Mae, are so annoyingly bland and predictable I am at a lack for any good words to describe how frustrating it was to have to watch them do anything in this show. They were so pointless in fact, I had to google their names even after having just watched their shenanigans for hours. Their whole hunt for their father seems like it could've been cut out completely and it would've already been a much better show. Their time-line isn't entirely hopeless however or I would've probably honestly just skipped their scenes all together. Kurt Russel is always fun to watch, and some of the "evil" members of Monarch are at least not irritating.

The best parts of the show are the old-timey ones, where we see Keiko, Bill (the grandparents) and Lee Shaw hunt for kaijus and form the beginnings of what becomes Monarch. I could've easily done with just those parts and been much happier. Though I suspect I only truly enjoy these parts of the show because they are not as bad as the other ones, not because their particularly good in their own right.

After a few episodes me and my SO started feeling that watching this was more and more of a chore. With two episodes left to go I felt like I just couldn't put up with it any longer. I had to tell him he had to go on without me and leave me behind. I had absolutely zero interest in seeing what else was going to happen in this world, because I already knew it would amount to nothing.

So what about Godzilla? Yeah, he shows up. You get to see his eye or tail in a flashback here and there and he jumps out of a sand dune and rushes off in one episode. There are even some other kaijus that do basically nothing. Overall the ratio boring human relations vs cool kaiju stuff is about 1000/1. Don't bother showing up for this one.

Thoughts on Star Trek Picard S1E7 "Nepenthe"

Spoiler alert!

You know how I floated some theories about what the whole deal with Agnes was in my previous post? Well, this episode actually begins by answering some of those questions by giving us a flashback to that time when Commodore Oh confronted Agnes in front of the Daystrom Institute and told her something that made her convert everything she believed in.

Well, we weren't sure that is what happened before, but this flashback confirms it. Commodore Oh initiates a mind meld with Agnes and all we get to see is flashing images of horror and destruction. What conclusion are we supposed to draw from this? Presumably that allowing synthetics to exist will somehow cause mass destruction and death somewhere (everywhere? That can't be possible). It's enough to make Agnes vomit at least and as we know, to change her entire mind and life philosophy regarding synthetics. It's even enough to make her murder someone we understand she actually loved.

Here is what I don't understand about that though, and it is something I mentioned in my previous post as well. If this information is so powerful and for some reason believable enough - (for instance, how do these people know this is going to happen?) - to convert even someone like Agnes, then why don't they use it on everyone who stands in their way? Surely not even someone like Picard would be hard to talk down after he's been updated with information that allowing synthetics to exist will murder millions of people. Rizzo, Narek's sister, mentions a number later in the episode that I can't recall at the moment, but we're not talking just some village somewhere (let's have the discussion about whether you can morally quantify death some other time). It sounds like at least an entire star system is at peril. Exactly how or why this is the case is hopefully and probably blanks that will be filled in as the series goes on, but this is definitely a question I would like to have answered.

Narissa Rizzo, one of my least favorite characters so far.

Meanwhile, Picard and Soji have transported to the planet Nepenthe and Rios and Raffi are trying to go after them. Since the Tal Shiar also want to find out where Nepenthe is they let them go without much trouble.

On the Borg Cube we see poor Hugh being tortured. Not himself though, since that would violate some sort of treaty, but Rizzo kills off one XB after another in front of him in a pretty heartbreaking scene. All the more heartbreaking since we know that Hugh could've gone along with Picard when he teleported with Soji, at least I don't recall them giving a reason for why he couldn't. Was there some sort of "not enough energy to teleport three people?". That can't be the case since Picard pleaded for Elnor to join, so we know that three people for sure could've gone. Why did Picard leave Hugh behind? What did he think would happen to him? Why did Hugh choose to stay behind? What did he think was going to happen to him?! This actually really annoys me because at first I thought the reason was that maybe Hugh had some more part to play in the series by fighting the Romulans with his XBs on the Cube but no, he gets killed a bit later when Elnor shows up and fights Rizzo (in a pretty decent fight scene actually). So was he left behind just so the show writers could kill him off? That is never going to stop bothering me now.

So yeah, Elnor is still on the Cube and at first it seems he is rescuing Hugh and like I mentioned, that they together are going to stage a counter-attack on the Romulans. Then Hugh gets killed and suddenly Elnor is now all alone and confused on the Cube. He presses some sort of device he has which call for the help of the Fenris Rangers and I guess this is how Seven of Nine gets back in the show. Maybe when she sees what the Romulans have done to the XBs and to Hugh on the Cube she will go some sort of berserk, that could actually be interesting. But what a waste of Hugh that is though.

Narek pursues Rios and Raffi and he's not subtle about it either, they know he is tagging along behind them the entire time. Why on Earth (to use an expression that doesn't really work that well when you're in space) would they lead him straight to Nepenthe when they know he is right there? What is Narek thinking? Rios tries to shake him off but he keeps finding them over and over, why is that? In the flashback in the beginning of the episode we get to see that Commodore Oh gives Agnes a tracking device to ingest, so Narek is able to track Agnes wherever she goes. This is probably one of the main reasons Agnes joined the trip to begin with.

Ok, but what about Picard and Soji then? They're on Nepenthe, which looks a lot like Earth. I think Star Trek creators stopped trying somewhere at the end of The Original Series, because ever since then most planets they land on have been copies of Earth unless it's been specifically said that planet is a "Demon Class" planet. Anyway, they get shot at with arrows by a girl called Kestra whom Picard apparently knows. Two seconds later Kestra explains to Soji that "she would never have hurt them because she's a pacifist". What kind of pacifist shoots at people with real arrows?

Let's just say I miss the set pieces from TOS.

And this is where we get to the point in the series I have been dreading. Do you remember when I said in my first post that I didn't want this to be a reunion of the old TNG crew because I don't really care about them? Well, Kestra turns out to be the daughter of Riker and Troi, who live on Nepenthe in what looks like a very secluded life. A lot of this episode is about their little family. We learn that there was a boy as well and his illness was the reason they moved to Nepenthe because he had something that could've been cured if there had been synthetics around but then they were banned and the boy died, very sad. The boy, Thad, seems to have been some sort of linguistics expert because he created 14 or something languages out of which Kestra speaks a couple and she teaches Soji who learns them in a day. Is this all going to have any consequences for the story later on? It better have or half this episode is just filler that I definitely could've lived without.

You can tell Kestra hasn't met many other people because she looks like she is 20 but she speaks like she is 7. To me she just came off as annoying. Troi and Riker are... nice... I don't hate them. But they feel so unnecessary here. But ok, I guess the point here is to allow for a bit of a breather from the being chased where we are also allowed to see Soji develop a bit more as a character, it's quite necessary actually since she hasn't had much character development at all so far. She is understandably confused and very distrustful, of everyone. It hasn't been explained or really acknowledged so far why she doesn't seem to have memories of Picard the way Dahj did.

What the meeting with Riker and Troi do give this episode that isn't all bad is a bit more of Picards character development. Both Troi and Riker confront Picard about his arrogance, or what Riker calls the "classic Picard arrogance". Them having known Picard for as long as they have can of course give a good inside view on the fact that Picard might think higher of his capabilities and righteousness than he should. Riker has a good little speech where he first asks Picard if he can tell him why they're on the run. When Picard says that he can't, Riker slates him by saying that he likes to sit on his high horses and pick and choose who gets to be in the know. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I am coming around to thinking it's ok that they're in the episode. For the way they further develop Picards view of his ego it's not all bad.

I guess the reunion isn't all bad.

In another part of the galaxy, Agnes is starting to get frustrated. she obviously wants the whole endeavour to fail and lashes out and angrily asks Rios and Raffi why they're so eager to go to Nepenthe in the first place. Rios and Raffi are understandably confused since they thought it was Agnes life long dream to come into contact with a synthetic. They write it down to stress over the loss of her love however and Raffi decides to take her under her wing and says they're going to go eat some cake. It definitely sounds a lot like Raffi is about to offer Agnes some of her drugs though, but when we see them again later they are actually eating cake. A lot of it. So much that Agnes vomits again.

Rios is also getting frustrated that he can't shake Narek and when Agnes and Raffi come back from their little cake ordeal he takes Agnes to one side and confides that he thinks that Raffi has swapped sides. Agnes is very visibly upset by this since she seems to have bonded with Raffi over the cake and doesn't want Raffi to be blamed by the fact that she has a tracker on her. For a second it seems like she is going to own up to everything and it would've been kind of odd if she had been ok with murdering her lover to prevent synthetics from happening but not ok with throwing Raffi under the bus for the same reason. But to be fair, Agnes doesn't seem like the most mentally stable person right now so it wouldn't have been entirely implausible either. She doesn't go further than to say that Raffi isn't to blame, but Rios doesn't seem to think that is enough to drop his suspicions.

So instead Agnes replicates some sort of poison in sickbay and injects herself with it. Why is it so easy to replicate a poison that is potentially deadly to humans? Why does Agnes know that this poison will kill her (or do whatever it is she wants it to do). She is an expert at synthetics, not chemistry. Either way, injecting her with the poison doesn't seem to kill her but destroys the tracker and puts her in a coma. I am not sure I understand Agnes' reasoning here, because a few days ago she believed enough in the visions from the mind meld to kill her lover and now she is having seconds thoughts because Raffi was nice enough to give her some cake? Like I said, Agnes seems a bit unstable but this is still a stretch if you ask me.

This cake wasn't a lie.

On Nepenthe Picard is trying to get Soji to trust him. He's actually not the best at that. He is a bit rude and too straight forward. After everything Soji has just been through she is not ready to open up to another stranger who might betray her. Eventually though she does tell them about the dream she had and the two moons she saw with lightning storms on them. It takes Kestra about five seconds to find that the moons belong to the Ghulion system in the Vayt sector. This because she asked someone named Captain Crandall (or something like it) who was briefly mentioned earlier in the episode and seems to be a bit off an oddball. Clearly this is a character that is about to be introduced to the series.

As Soji and Picard are about to leave, Kestra gives her a compass that maybe will have some sort of impact on the story and then they pan up to the sky where we see three big moons and I am not sure if that has some importance too.

I am a bit conflicted about this episode, because while it had some good moments - especially regarding Picard - it was mostly filled with situations where I felt like people were acting in ways that didn't make sense. We still don't know much about these characters so to have them make 180 turns is really confusing. Agnes is starting to become extremely erratic, which might be understandable but isn't very well explained so far. How come they didn't save Hugh? How come not everyone in the galaxy gets to know about this extremely damning information regarding synthetics and how they are going to be the cause of death of millions of people? Who cares about Kestra, why was she even in this episode? What is Elnor going to try to achieve on the Cube? What is Narek trying to achieve by chasing Rios and Raffi, is the tracker in Agnes only short range?

And now they're introducing another captain, does that mean that Picard and Soji will be going one way and Rios/Raffi another? Will Elnor and Seven be a third arc we'll be following? Hopefully there will be more answers than questionmarks after the next episode.

Images from memory-alpha.fandom.com, dailymail.co.uk, superherohype.com, olivemagazine.com.

Thoughts on Star Trek Picard S1E6 "The Impossible Box"

SreliopsspoilerS

This is the episode that kickstarts everything that we've been waiting for and that the previous 5 have been building up for, and it did not disappoint. Probably my favorite episode so far (hence all the words).

It starts with a scene where we get to see Soji as young. It's unclear if it's a flashback or a dream, but as the scene plays out it seems more and more like a nightmare. Soji sneaks into her father laboratory to try to see what he is doing but she can't make it out. Before she has any answers she wakes up. She tells Narek about her nightmare who immediately becomes very interested.

Their relationship actually plays out really well. It's clear neither of them is showing themselves invested while at the same time both are trying to figure out each others mysteries. There is both coolness and passion and the actors do a decent job conveying both simultaneously. Obviously at the best of times I would've wanted this to get even more depth before the things that unfold in this episode, but considering their time table I think they've done it well enough.

Jump to scene where Agnes explains to Picard what happened to Maddox in the previous episode. Picard doesn't seem to have any suspicions about it, if he does he is hiding it very well. Agnes, who up until now has been a bit like the Tully of this series - fun but at times unclear what purpose they serve - has obviously done a huge character development here and I find that the actress plays the role well. She probably really did love Maddox but something has happened that made her feel that she needed to act the way she did. I read many fan theories on the internet and won't jump into any at any length here, but one that hadn't even occurred to me is that Agnes wasn't actually converted until Commander Oh first sought her out. My idea was that Agnes had been an undercover agent from the start and the love affair with Maddox was just part of that.

Agnes went from dullest to possibly among the most interesting characters just by murdering someone.

But of course the whole thing would be a lot more interesting if it turns out Agnes had been on Maddox' side to begin with and some information that was given to her along the way made her change her mind hard enough to actually kill the man she loved. What could that information possibly be? You'd think if it's enough to convert one of the biggest experts and supposedly fans of synthetics on Earth into wanting them all dead as well, it's something that would convert pretty much anyone, even Picard. Yet this isn't information that has been readily spread, so what could be the reason for this? Of course, all that only matters if the latter fan theory turns out to be the correct one, but I really hope it is.

Agnes goes on to tell Picard that Maddox created Dahj and Soji to find out why the ban was put into effect, which sounds a lot like was actually intending on using them as baits for the Tal Shiar all along. I mean what else could it mean? Then why did he implant memories of Picard in them? Is whatever is happening now, with Picard being part of the effort to uncover the conspiracy part of Maddox' plan all along?

Meanwhile they're closing in on the Artifact, as the decommissioned Borg Cube is called and Picard is becoming visibly anxious at the prospect of having to get back on board on one. This angst will only escalate into a right out panic attack but we're not quite there yet.

I wouldn't trust it either.

Elnor, who is every bit the "innocent and naïve young man"-trope, comes and talks his "absolute candor" with them, revealing that he can tell that Agnes has conflicting emotions and "something she is trying to hide". He says it completely without any afterthought however, it is clear he also does not suspect Agnes of any foul play. Yet.

Picard goes into his quarters and starts looking at images of the Borg. It doesn't actually seem to be making him feel better, rather the opposite, until he gets to a picture of Hugh who as we know is now the General Director of the Artifact. Hugh is an ex-borg like Seven of Nine, but unlike Seven Picard has a history with Hugh. A good one. He spawns an idea for how to get on the Artifact that is only half as crazy as the previous idea he went through with.

Cut to a scene I don't quite get. Rios is standing half naked by the comms kicking some ball or other when Agnes comes. It's apparently in the middle of the night and neither of them can sleep. They kiss (I mean ok?). They talk. Rios is being incredibly understanding, almost to the point where I wonder if this is another one of those holograms he uses because it doesn't really feel like the "real" Rios at all (unless this is his way of sweet talking her, and I mean sure that can be a thing). Agnes says she feels "hollow, hopeless, lonely, afraid". Apparently this makes her want company because then they go bang.

I don't mind fraternizing but I want it to have a purpose in the story if they're going to dedicate a long scene to it. Like I don't need to see people use the bathroom or have showers or any of those things that humans do regularly unless it will actually further the story some way. Is this scene going to do that? Are they a thing now? Is it to show that Agnes just goes from one guy to the next so she is actually stone hearted (which she clearly is not). Is Agnes actually a synthetic too? Now that would be a revelation.

Over at the Artifact Narek's sister says she has finally had it enough with Narek's softcore approach and it is time to bring in the big guns. Narek tells her about Soji's dreams and tells her that the dreams must fill a function. "Why would he make them dream?". He tells her he wants to use the dream to get into Soji's subconscious, where the information they want probably lies. Namely where the planet of synthetics is hidden, because apparently that is a thing and that is the thing they are looking for.

Maybe the same planet the changelings are from, coincidentally?

They've mentioned a "them" before so we already knew there were going to be more synthetics than Soji. How many more though? Now that they are talking about a planet of synthetics, do they actually mean a whole planet inhabited of synthetic people, like thousands?

Picard realizes that the only way to get onto the Artifact is to have some sort of diplomatic envoy documents from the Federation. He realizes he can't ask for them himself so he asks Raffi to pull some contacts. She does and manages to find an admiral or similar who understands that if Picard shows up at the Artifact without the right documentation it could lead to a much larger political problem than just handing the documents to him will. Raffi puts it bluntly when she says "Picard -is- Federation, his face is probably still on the damn brochures". Said and done, Picard has his green card to get on board to meet the General Director (ie Hugh), the snag is that he must go alone.

On board the Artifact Soji tells Narek more about the dream. She tells him that she intended to speak to her mom about it but fell asleep during the conversation, which is something we have seen before. Narek asks her if she knows if this happens often, but Soji is unsure. Narek tells her that the computer has recorded that Soji's messages to her mom, which she does every evening, always takes exactly 70 seconds. No more and no less. Obviously this makes Soji both confused and concerned, and the next time she speaks to her mother she tries to stay awake but fails.

When she wakes up again and realizes what happened she decides to look through all her old stuff - pictures, diaries, drawings - that she has saved and scan them for age. The scanner (which she conveniently has, is this standard equipment or where did she find one?) keeps telling her the items are approximately 37 months old, so almost precisely 3 years and definitely way too new to be part of her childhood. Every item she has is the exact same age so I'll be honest, after a while I would want to test the machine on something else that I did know the age of just to make sure it wasn't malfunctioning into saying "37 months" about everything.

The Impossible Box is not just a toy Narek has but clearly a reference to Soji herself.

Picard gets on board the Artifact and gets completely overwhelmed by all the old memories he has of being part of the Borg Collective. He has a panic attack but is saved by Hugh who pulls his mind back to safety. Patrick Stewart plays the scene perfectly of course and you can really see the sheer stress and panic he is feeling.

Soji tells Narek that everything she thought she knew up until know doesn't seem to be true and he suggests that her memories might be implanted into her for some purpose. To uncover that purpose he wants to lead Soji through the ancient Romulan meditation ritual of Zhal Makh, which is essentially the Vulcan mindmeld but without all the touching of faces. Soji agrees.

Meanwhile Hugh is giving Picard a bit of a tour of the establishment and showing him how they de-Borg the Borgs. Though they swap between the scenes of Soji and Picard fairly quickly (and in a nice way, it's never confusing) I didn't find it clear whether they were taking place simultaneously. We will soon find out that they seem to be.

On board Picards space ship (technically Rios' but whatever) Rios and Raffi have a conversation. Raffi wonders why the Tal Shiar has decided to keep Soji alive when they killed Dahj as soon as possible. Since they had all the information about what Dahj looked like they should have been able to find Soji without any trouble, as we know they have. We viewers know why the Romulans have kept her alive though and suspect that they won't trouble themselves with that much longer.

Soji and Narek go through the Zhal Makh together while Narek's sister is unknown to Soji watching them from another room. Narek takes Soji through her recurring nightmare since he believes that is the key to her subconscious. Before they start though, Narek reveals his true name to Soji, the one you only tell your beloved. But I wonder how that works then - for the person receiving the true name, how do you know for sure it's actually their true name? How does the person handing out the name know that the person receiving it is the right one and not someone you're actually going to divorce and hate in five years? Do you get yourself another true name then? Maybe Romulans don't behave like humans in that regard, once you've gotten someone's true name you're locked in with them forever. Sounds kind of scary actually.

Basically the Romulan equivalent of this.

In another part of the Artifact Picard and Hugh go to visit Soji but find that her quarters are not just empty, but also every item has been thrown around (we know Soji did this herself but Picard and Hugh do not know what happened in there). They try to find her with the computers, but the meditation chamber is sealed off, nothing in there can be found.

As Soji talks herself through her nightmare she manages to get further than she ever has before. As she gets into her fathers work shop, and goes beyond the part where she normally wakes up, she sees herself lying in parts on an operating table looking a lot like a wooden doll being assembled. As she looks up throught he sky view in the ceiling she sees two red moons covered in lightning storms. Nareks assumes this must be the moons of the planet they are looking for and tells Soji she is now done. Soji doesn't understand anything but before she can react, Narek leaves the meditation chamber and leaves behind a radiation-excreting device intended to kill her. Soji panics, goes into the same overdrive mode her sister did and smashes the floor open. As she jumps into the hole down into some sort of maintentance shaft, while Narek is watching from the other side of the glass, she also becomes visible to the computer again. Now it's a chase between Picard/Hugh and the Romulan security to try to get to her first.

As Picard runs through the Borg Cube with Hugh to try to find Soji someone calls out "Locutus?!". Picard barely reacts and reacts with confusion, but there is already so much at stake that the whole scene is easily missed. I am very curious to see if anything comes from this, because in that case it was a neat little foreshadowing.

Picard manages to find Soji first and also manages to convince her to trust him enough to come with him. Doesn't seem like she has very much of a choice though of course Soji doesn't understand much of what is going on. Hugh leads them to a secret old chamber previously used by the Borg Queen. The chamber holds a Spatial Trajector the Borgs assimilated from the Sikarians that allows you to teleport up to 40.000 light years away. Picard sends a message to Raffi that they are going to a place called Nepenthe and asks her to rendevouz them there. Before they manage to charge up the Spatial Trajector though, the Romulan security force finds them though and are just about to apprehend them when Elnor beams in and makes quick work of them. He offers to stay behind to kill off any more security forces coming and after Picard has hesitated a respectable amount of time, he even offers to release Elnor from his oath which would have made him effectively pointless in the series, he and Soji teleport off.

I find it a bit mean towards Hugh that Picard seems to have no qualms or second thoughts about leaving his old friend behind in the same situation, I can't even remember if he says good bye to him. After everything he did for him, tut tut tut. Picard seems to have a knack for discarding old friends.

While we don't get to see the fight, the episode ends with the implication of a lot of violence and presumably Elnor will be ok.

I guess they really wanted to make sure that we'd feel the pay off was worth the wait because wow - it was.  This episode brought to a heel everything that we have been waiting to come together, essentially Soji and Picard on the Artifact and Narek's probing into Soji's mind to find the hidden information. They didn't hold anything back but let it unfold pretty much perfectly, except for the sort of odd scene with Rios and Agnes (which don't get me wrong I didn't hate, I just don't understand the purpose of yet) there wasn't a dull moment. If the series keeps the pace and writing like this for the upcoming episodes it could be pretty epic. I doubt they'll manage that, but at least they got this one together nicely and this was one of the ones that really counted.

Images from memory-alpha.fandom.com, startrek.com, knowyourmeme.com.

Thoughts on Star Trek Picard S1E5 "Stardust City Rag"

Spoilers.

We start with a flashback to 13 years ago and a planet called Vergessen (which means "forget" in German). A young ex-borg is being seemingly tortured by a person and we find out this ex-borg is named Icheb. It can only be the Icheb of course. Seven of Nine storms in but she is too late, the wounds are going to kill him so she mercy-shoots him tearfully. This scene is important to understand a lot about Seven of Nines motivations for the episode, as we will soon find out. Also, what a tragic way to end that character.

Icheb, before he meets his unfortunate demise.

Jump forward to "two weeks ago" on the planet Freecloud, and we finally get to see the infamous Bruce Maddox. My theory that Bruce Maddox is actually Data somehow unfortunately seems wrong, this Bruce Maddox looks nothing like Data and seems painfully human. Maddox seeks up a woman named Bjayzl (another name that really irks me for some reason) and asks her for protection. Bjayzl, who also has a Beta Annari in her employment, doesn't seem too happy about having someone who is the target of the Tal Shiar under her roof and orders Maddox killed. She changes her mind within two seconds though and instead decides to auction him out.

Seems like if the Tal Shiar are after him an auction could be more hassle than it is worth? Is she hoping that the Tal Shiar will try to buy him off her, when they don't really seem the type to haggle but rather just grab what they want? To be fair, Bjayzl is portraid as a woman with a lot of power and influence, so it is quite possible the Tal Shiar can't just take something from her. We will soon find out however that taking things from Bjayzl is actually not that difficult.

Raffi finds out that Bjayzl is auctioning out Maddox and tells Picard that there just is no way they're going to get him now. Seven of Nine has a plan however, since she knows that Bjayzl deals in off-the-market borg technology and Seven of Nine is sort of a prize within that community. The Seven of Nine of this series is quite different from the one we left in Voyager. She is now part of the Fenris Rangers, which were mentioned in the previous part (though I didn't mention them in my post as they didn't seem important) who police the local area. Think of them as a wild west vigilante group. Picard asks Seven how she can take the law into her own hands and Seven cleverly answers "the law?". It's an overall pretty good dialogue but we've gotten to see too little to explain how Seven could've ended up here. The short scene in the beginning of the episode, where it seems like ex-borgs are basically being hunted for their parts (a pretty likely scenario), isn't enough to fill in the gap between the Seven in Voyager and the Seven we are just watching. But the night is still young and we now know that this series likes to give you tidbits thrown in here and there. We'll see how many of them will be about Seven though.

Annika isn't who she used to be.

We also get to see a short scene where Agnes watches some clips of her and Maddox. Turns out that Agnes actually used to be Maddox' lover. Is that really why she wanted to tag along? Nope, we're soon going to find out that Agnes has been hiding more than this.

We also see why Raffi wanted to come along to Freecloud. Apparently her estranged son lives here and she is trying to patch things up with him. Estranged because of her substance abuse and prioritizing trying to prove the Tal Shiar conspiracy on Earth rather than spend time with her family. The son, who has a Romulan or maybe Vulcan wife who is expecting a child, isn't interested in her trying to make things good again and asks her to leave. But we knew that that was going to happen, because Raffi wasn't really going to leave the crew. This gives us some insight to who she is as a person though and especially all she has been struggling with since Picard left her. It's told with few words and pointers, a lot has to be surmised and I like that.

Seven and Raffi come up with a plan to retrieve Maddox. Seven knows that Bjayzl would want to get her hands on her technology, so she suggests they are going to use herself as payment, outbidding the Tal Shiar for Maddox. Everyone gets to play dress up. Rios goes as the "introducer" or "interfacer", a role that seems entirely superfluous in the end (except for throwing in a reference to Quark from DS9). Picard dresses up as some sort of crazy, French accent-having pirate-looking guy who wants to trade Seven for Maddox. Picard hams it up like he's in a comedy all of a sudden and it's pretty hilarious to see. Picard had some funny moments in TNG too but for the most time he is fairly stoic and serious. I like that they expand a lot on his personality in this series but I will get back to this in a bit.

Not the first time Stewart dons the funny-mantle. Hopefully not the last.

Bjayzl presumably understands why the Tal Shiar are after Maddox but seems to have no wonders about who this crazy pirate guy is and how he managed to capture Seven. As Seven is brought up to Bjayzl and they start talking it becomes increasingly clear that they share quite a past, so Bjayzl if anyone should know perfectly well not only that Seven wants to kill her for all the ex-borgs she has killed (including Icheb) but also that she possesses superhuman qualities. Yet Bjayzl goes up and stands right next to her, with full faith that the tiny constraints around Sevens hands are going to be enough. Well, of course they aren't. Seven puts her hand around Bjayzls throat and threatens to kill her right there.

Rather than just doing that though, they talk. A lot. And Bjayzl, or someone on her team, manages to convince Seven that if she kills Bjayzl the rest of the people with her (namely Picard, Rios and Elnor) will have bounty hunters after them. Seven agrees to let Bjayzl go as long as they get to take Maddox with them. Said and done.

Back on the ship though, she tells Picard she needs to leave, asks to bring two rifles with her, beams back down and kills Bjayzl anyway. At least they did that, which was a pretty cool way to end it. Before she does that though she has a very interesting conversation with Picard. She asks him if he thinks he has regained his humanity after he was in the collective and he answers "yes". "All of it?" she asks. Short pause and Picard answers "no".

Maybe it changed Picard more than we think?

Now we're with Maddox in the sickbay. Picard has a conversation with him about where Soji is and the camera cuts to Agnes, who is taking care of him but standing at a distance. The way the scene is played out made me scribble down "Agnes is actually the bad guy?". She just seems odd there somehow, and I guess it was well done because as soon as Agnes is left alone with Maddox in the sickbay again she goes on to murder him. So apparently Agnes was an undercover agent for the Tal Shiar all along (I am assuming that is who she is working for, she could also just be crazy).

I find the character revelation pretty good because to be honest, Agnes hasn't really added much to the series otherwise. Of course, the writers already pointed this out two episodes ago when Agnes asked to be taken along for the ride. When Picard agrees, Raffi rightfully questions the fact that he doesn't actually know anything about her. "So we're letting strangers onto the ship now?" she basically asks. Picard pretty much just shrugs it off. Yet again we see how his arrogance (or is it aloofness? His absolutely certainty that he is doing the right thing at all times?) is hurting people around him.

Which brings me to the point I was starting to make earlier in the post. I like that they are developing Picard. I can see how it can anger some people, and I can also understand that you just don't want people to tamper with your darlings. The best way to see it is that there is the old Picard and the new Picard. The same way a sequel to a game doesn't change anything about the original game, yet some people still are angry about the fact that a sequel is made at all (same thing about movies actually). Development needed to happen. There was almost no reason to have this series if Picard was going to be exactly the same as he is in TNG. Also, who doesn't change over the course of 30 some years? Some people don't, but Picard clearly has. If some of the hints about what has going on during those 30 years is anything to go by, he has a lot of reason to have changed his mindset about certain things, though his core ideals are clearly very much intact. And I find that to be the most important thing. When I see this Picard I still see the Picard from TNG, but aged. Definitely not wiser, but different. Water has flown under his bridge and he has seen things.

Overall the show still balances right between "oh, not so great" and "hah, that was cool!". I am very much enjoying it still though and I am interested to see where they are taking things. Oh and in case you were wondering, Soji had no scenes in this episode.

Images from memory-alpha.fandom.com, syfy.com

Thoughts on Star Trek Picard S1E4 "Absolute Candor"

Zpoilerz.

This entire episode was a long line of addressing some of my questions about the writing. It worked out pretty well in the end actually.

First we get another flashback to 14 years ago. We see Picard in some sort of Romulan settlement and while the scene doesn't explain to us yet why it is necessary, it will become quite clear later in the episode. One very interesting thing about this scene however is that Picard really comes off as younger. And I don't mean that they've tried to de-age him, if they did I didn't really notice. But Patrick Stewart really plays Picard more energetically and jovially. That makes it so much more clear that the weary, quite tired and frankly damn old Picard that he plays in the rest of the series is exactly that, a carefully crafted character act. It's in fact not just an old actor playing himself, there is thought behind it. Damn, this man is good.

Picard visits some sort of convent looking thing where everyone, except a young boy named Elnor, are women. It's not explained outright yet, but it is clear that the convent obeys some sort of "open book" policy in which they never lie about their feelings. When the young boy happily greets Picard, his teacher/caretaker tells him to leave Picard be because he doesn't like children. The boy gets saddened and asks Picard "but I thought you liked me?". "But I do!" Picard answers and he seems genuine about it. Elnor is going to turn out to be another person that Picard has quite frankly just turned his back on, like Raffi. At this moment in the flashback they're still planning the evacuation and Picard gets the information that the synthetics have killed people on Mars. At that point he is still reassuring everyone that the evacuation will continue as planned, but we all know that it's not going to. We also know that for some reason, Picard chooses to just leave everyone involved in this behind and go hide at his chateau out of disappointment, presumably.

Sadly Guinan wasn't part of the convent.

We move back to present time and get a very scripted feeling conversation between Rios the pilot and Agnes the synthetics expert professor. I'm not really sure what it is meant to accomplish except maybe the feeling of team building, like we as viewers need to start cheering for these guys as a group (and not just Picard) but it just comes off as stiff and weird frankly. I guess that makes sense too though since they don't really know each other yet.

Picard has decided to take a detour to a planet named Vashti before heading to Freecloud. Raffi is very much against this, but we find out that this is where the convent place was and Picard wants to enlist someone from the convent as his personal super-warrior. Apparently these nuns are some sort of close combat battle-nuns, because of course they are. My first thought was - what use is an expert in close combat going to be in a time where there is mostly space ships and laser guns?

Vashti is apparently in a bit of a lawless zone at the moment and the area is sort of owned by some person called Kar Kantar. Not only do they need to keep out of his hair, but the planet itself has some sort of dangerous planetary defence that is going to turn out to be barely any trouble at all, especially considering the amount of time they spend building up the tension around it.

Before Picard beams down to the surface however we get to meet another one of Rios' holograms modelled after himself. This one is the "Greeter Hologram" or something like that, later on we also get to meet the "Gunner Hologram". They're all pretty distinct and I actually love the idea of having an entire ship inhabited with loads of holograms of the same person, none of them actually being that person though and all having their own, annoying, personality. Rios seems to strongly dislike most of them, which is another fun aspect to it.

And definitely a hundred times more fun than these gits.

Down on the surface of Vashti, Picard notices that most things seem to have gone to pits. For one thing, the Romulans have started segregating, making certain areas "Romulan only". He goes to the convent and meets the same lady from the flashback whom I swear looks exactly the same. Not a wrinkle in her face has changed during the 14 years. Just as I was thinking about that fact though, Picard points it out himself when he tells her that "she hasn't aged a day". Do Romulans age slower than humans too, like Vulcans do? Makes sense I guess.

We learn that the warrior-nuns are called the Qowat Milad and they are the sworn enemies of the Tal Shiar. How convenient for Picard.

Elnor on the other hand has changed a lot. He is now a young man who looks a lot like Legolas, only with dark instead of blonde hair. Though he wasn't meant to grow up in the convent, the aftermath of the attack on Mars meant they couldn't find another place for him. This meant he too was trained in the supreme battle skills of the battle nuns and guess who Picard then goes on to enscript (a word I just made up reflecting conscripting and enlisting) into his group of oddballs?

Elnor isn't too keen on the idea though since he too has felt completely abandoned by Picard all these years. What kind of asshole has Picard been? I've got to say, if this series achieves anything, it's going to be the slander and ruination of Picard pretty much spotless legacy. But maybe that is part of the idea, to make him more human?

As Picard leaves he decides to go have a drink in one of the "Romulans only" bar, but not before he pulls down the sign and kicks it away. What a great way to make friends. A Romulan ex-politician confronts him, and ends up challenging him to a duel with actual swords. At first Picard refuses, but the bad guy is about to kill him when Elnor shows up and ends it with a cool looking but probably useless spin-sword-slash. The entire scene is so obviously set up for them to be able to show us Elnor's skills because why else would Picard decide to behave this way? But then someone shows up with a blaster rifle and says something along the lines of "your combat skills won't be good against my gun" which also reminds me of that scene in Indiana Jones. It'll definitely be interesting to see how they plan to make Elnor's combat skills useful later on and hopefully he knows more than just how to swirl through the air with his sword.

When Picard asks Elnor why he changed his mind he basically just answers "ehhh I just felt like it". The writing in this can be both so extremely lazy and down right bad some times and other times it is gracefully subtle and clever. It's like there are several different people writing different scenes and that is probably the way it is too.

Let's go to Soji for a little bit though. She is finally addressing the fact that Narek is acting weird as hell and he needs to turn up the charm-dial a few notches to ease her mind. Ramdha, the liberated ex-borg Romulan from the last episode who accused Soji of being "The Destroyer" came from a ship called the Shaenor. I mentioned briefly in a previous post that this made her special somehow, but it hasn't been explained why yet. Narek and Soji both agree they need to dig deeper into this. Narek then confronts Soji with the fact that there are no records of how she came onto the cube. Soji seems to think he is just toying with her but Narek is actually divulging some pretty sensitive information. He is basically telling her that he knows that she has been doing some trickery which she A) either already knows and then presumably isn't to happy about him knowing or B) doesn't have a clue about and then he's just made her really confused. What is Narek trying to achieve?

But not much happens with this information, Soji seems to think he is just making things up, as mentioned and they quickly move on to other things.

Nareks sister (?) makes another appearance to see how things are getting along. While they are referring to eachother as siblings, I am not so sure they are. They're pretty handsy for being siblings, but then I'm not well versed in Romulan customs. In their conversation they refer to "the rest of them", implying they know there are a lot more synthetics out there somewhere and the plan is to try to get Soji to tell them where they are, either she knows it consciously or not. He tells his "sister" that he is planting the seed of doubt in Soji, though what kind of doubt it is is not entirely clear yet.

Back on board the ship they've of course been attacked by Kar Kantar. A short battle ensues which is literally just an excuse to allow yet another character to make a grand entrance as she saves their behinds. Just as her ship is about to be destroyed (after she has dealt with Kar Kantars Bird of Prey) she is beamed over and it is - Seven of Nine!

Yay! Now if the rest of the Voyager crew could join as well...

I've been waiting for this moment and it's going to be very interesting to see how she fits in with Picard rag tag team of weirdo's but also how she will fit in with Picard himself. Seven of Nine is arguably one of the best characters of Voyager (though she was apparently intended mostly as eye-candy the writers managed to make so much more out of her).

To wrap up, though more might and probably still will join;
Picard - needs no introduction.
Raffi - Picard ex-colleague, unknown role. Angry with Picard and claims she is just hitching a ride and will leave them as soon as they get where she needs to but we all know that's not going to happen.
Rios - Picards laid back pilot.
Agnes - Picards somewhat strung up synthetics expert of unknown usefulness.
Elnor - PIcards close combat expert of unknown usefulness.
Seven of Nine - Ex-borg of extreme usefulness.

This episode doesn't move the plot forward much but rather stacks the deck a bit higher. I don't mind that at all as I find it's necessary to build a good story. All this needs now is for these different characters to blend together well with great chemistry and we might actually have a very tasty soup.

Images from dailytimes.com, wikipedia.com, gamesradar.com.

Thoughts on Star Trek Picard S1E3 "The End Is The Beginning"

Yes, spoilers.

This episode too started with a bit more backstory and I actually quite like that story structure which allows you to learn a bit more about the reasons for why and how Picard is where he is at the current moment in time.

For instance we learn that the angry woman he meets at the end of the previous episode is called Raffi and used to know Picard quite intimately. I don't mean non-platonically but in the way that she calls him "J.L". And I don't know why but it makes my skin creep every time I hear it. Like Picard would never allow anyone to call him J.L. It just rings so wrong. It might not even be that I can't picture Picard enjoying being called J.L, I mean overall he is actually pretty easy going. But the character Raffi doesn't really sell in that she would call him J.L. I think I am getting way more hung up on this than I need to be, but I'm not the only one.

Too cringe.

Raffi knows about the Tal Shiars undertakings on Earth and says she even has proof. At first it isn't entirely clear why she was so angry with Picard. But as the backstory unfolds we learn that Picard lost his job when he put up an ultimatum against Starfleet in the hope that they would still go through with the rescue plan regarding the Romulans. The ultimatum was that he would resign if they didn't and it ends up with him having to resign. Apparently it also means Raffi, as his co-worker/subordinate also has to resign. And because she had been backing his unpopular plan all along she is thrown into disfavour and basically has to live in a hovel in disgrace.

She's not angry at Picard for that happening though, at least that's not the main reason. The main reason is that when Picard resigned/was fired he retreated to his chateau and just left her behind. Apparently he didn't bother calling up on her even once in all the years that have passed (10? 20? Something along those lines). Now that is just a very d*ck thing to do. Even I would be pissed with Picard after all that. But what an uncharacteristic thing for Picard to do though. I'm not really buying it and we don't get any reason for it either. Picard simply says he is sorry which means we'll have to accept Raffi's account as the truth. Come on Picard, that's just mean.

He asks her for help to find a pilot and a ship. She's not keen about it and asks him to leave.
Over to our other synthetic, Soji gets to talk to an ex-borg in command named Hugh, who tells her she is going to be allowed to talk to another ex-borg named Ramdha, who is very special apparently. They give an explanation for why a bit later into the episode but the explanation makes no sense to me, I'll get to that later though.

Remember this guy?

The ex-borg commander Hugh is the same character (and is played by the same actor) who played a borg in an episode of TNG and I think it's a great idea to tie him into this story this way. It's the kind of fan service nod that requires a bit more thinking than just having someone cameo in the background (or playing the TNG tune in the background as they do in this episode twice) and I am happy for it. Hugh also tells us that ex-borgs are in fact referred to as "XBs", and what is it with shitty acronyms in this episode?

Soji is lead into a room full of Borgs that have been liberated but aren't working very well. We get to know that all (or most?) of these borgs are Romulan. She tries to speak with this Ramdha person who is sitting at a table doing some sort of Romulan looking tarot cards. At first Ramdha isn't very forthcoming but Soji knows a lot about Romulan mythology and mysticism and manages to get Ramdha to talk to her.

Meanwhile Raffi has pulled through and introduces Picard to a pilot named Rios. Rios seems to have his own fair share of issues, and he also has an EMH which looks exactly like him but speaks with a completely different accent. It's actually a pretty funny juxtaposition and I think it works in this episode.

As Picard is getting ready at the chateau him and his Romulan friends get attacked by our mystery enemy. Laris and Zhaban as the Romulans are called manage to kill off the attackers and even get a prisoner. They interrogate him, humanely, and he reveals that Soji might not  be who they think she is. I mean, she is probably a synthetic, but for some reason they all think that she is really dangerous. As the prisoner reveals this information they're also cutting to Soji's talk with Ramdha, who reveals the same information in her own way. "Which sister are you?!" she screams and pulls a gun from a nearby guard. They both (Ramdha and prisoner) end up calling Soji "the destroyer" or Seb-Cheneb in Romulan (there is your next D&D character name). I mean that can't be a good thing right?

Janeway is chaotic evil?!

It's a good thing story wise though as it thickens up the plot and makes it even more interesting.

And also, Alison Pills synthetics expert who may be called Agnes (man my notes are shit some times) gets a visit from the (now confirmed) Vulcan commodore (who is definitely named Oh) who wants to know everything she has been saying to Picard. Agnes goes to visit Picard after this and actually walks right into their gun fight with the presumably Tal Shiar or Zat Vash force. It's actually a pretty funny scene where she guns one of the enemy down and flustered she says "maybe it was on stun?", Laris responds with a "Romulan weapons don't have a stun setting".

Agnes tells Picard about the visit from Commodore Oh and that she told her everything because she is a bad liar anyway. Picard says it's ok. Agnes says she needs to come with him because she would never forgive herself if she didn't see a real synthetic which has been her life dream since forever. They decide to go seek out Bruce Maddox in a place called Freecloud. I'm not sure in what way the Agnes character will turn out to be interesting to this story, because so far she has only been used as an exposition-deliverer. She as a character is completely blank to me. If everything she said had been delivered through text on a screen instead it wouldn't have made any difference (except the funny shooting scene I just mentioned).

Turns out Raffi has business in Freecloud too, what a coincidence considering the massive vastness of space and all, though we don't get to know what kind of business and probably never will. It's really just a reason to get her on the space ship with Picard though she makes it very clear that she actually doesn't want anything to do with his little rescue mission. Picard looks at the main screen and says the magic words - "engage". Yeah, that actually felt pretty good.

I have this sneaking suspicion that Bruce Maddox is actually Data somehow? Just a thought, but we'll see. Can I anagram Bruce Maddox into Data in some way....

Anyway.

Pretty decent episode, I like the way this one didn't throw blatant exposition into the dialogue like the first two episodes (though I forgive them for it) but the story telling has become a lot more "wait and see and hopefully you'll understand". It's just more fun when at first you wonder where they are going with something and then it clicks.

This series still has me interested (delayed review post or not) and not even Raffi's constant "J.L" can ruin my fun.

Images from gamespot.com, screenrant.com, community.gophersvids.com

Thoughts on Star Trek Picard S1E2 "Maps & Legends"

Spoilers, of course.

I had been looking forward to episode 2 and overall it did not let me down.

But man does Alison Pill look just like Ellen Page to me. And she plays someone who has spent an unjustifiably large amount of time and resources on something that is supposed to be banned. But anyhow...

I mean maybe not side-by-side but in the show...

This episode starts with a welcome flashback (never thought I'd say that), namely to something that we haven't seen but that has only been mentioned - the incident which got synthetics banned. It's a pretty cool scene where we get to see the regular stuff of synthetics/androids/whaddyamacallits being used and abused until something seems to make them snap and they kill everyone. It seems like one of them in particular is the one to instigate it all, rather than them all snapping at once and if that isn't just a coincidence then that could potentially matter quite a lot. This synthetic also ends itself through suicide, which seems like overkill (pardon the pun) at the time since it is about to be blown up anyway.

Also noteworthy is the weapon it uses to kill off the humans with, nothing less than a plasma cutter that looks like it has been taken straight out of the hands of Isaac Clarke in Dead Space. Is this an actual tool that exists, or at least is somewhat established as a future-item through long time exposure in sci-fi? Or is this actually almost a homage to that video game series? I doubt the latter, though that might have been the source of inspiration.

Not quite this cool though.

Then it cuts (man, the puns are strong today) to the intro and I didn't really reflect on it in the previous episode but I quite like it. It has a nice, solemn tune and interesting visuals that probably metaphorically tell you a lot about the plot if you are into and understand symbolisms (hint: I don't).

Picard and his Romulan friends (sorry, forgot to write down their names this time around as well, but one might be named Laris or something?) go over what seemed to have happened to Dahj. Laris decides to tell Picard about an undercover super-extra-secret society in the Romulan empire called the Zhat Vash. No one knows much about them except they seem to really hate synthetics. It is also not known why they hate them. Laris (if that is her name) is certain they are behind the killing of Dahj and Picard quickly decides that he needs to go after the twin (whom we know to be Soji) to try to save her.

They don't have much in terms of leads of where she could be though. Through some CSI style tinkering of "lipids" and "molecules" and whathaveyous in Dahj's room where she was first attacked they only find out that someone was there and cleaned out all the evidence. When they go through her computer however they manage to find out that Soji is not on Earth. Well, great. Because the rest of the Universe isn't a big place to search or anything. Picard let's out a "there is the ghost in the machine", though I am not entirely sure what he means at that point or if it is just intended as a somewhat badly placed reference.

There is a great danger in referencing material that is probably better than yours.

We get some scenes with Soji as well. She seems to be working on a Borg Cube that has been cut off from the collective without self-destructing. In here they work to disassemble/help the drones that were left behind, among other things. The Borg Cube is owned by the Romulans and it's not well explained why they allow what at least superficially seems like scrub non-Romulans to come aboard to help them disassemble and do research on the cube. Clearly there is some treaty between the Romulans and the Federation that allows for this but we have to take it face value.

Soji befriends a Romulan named Narek, whom we already briefly met in the previous episode. They hit it up but he is being very secretive about himself. Soji doesn't seem to care and goes about her daily routines.

Back to Picard then. To get the things he needs, like a ship and crew, Picard initially turns to some higher up in the Federation with whom he seems to have a somewhat thorny history. They have a shout-out and she flatly refuses him ship and crew (and frankly I think she is right since he doesn't really give her good reason to allow it). She says some poignant things that look like they hit home, things like Picard simply making stuff up to try to stay relevant.

Afterwards we do get to see how she contacts some "Commodore" about the information that Picard provided her, the thing about there being covert Romulan operations happening on Earth. The Commodore, whose name also escapes me of course (I really should get better at writing these names down, but oftentimes I am too busy enjoying the show to remember to scribble) is maybe a Vulcan? It is a bit unclear, since you can't actually see any difference between Vulcans and Romulans and the only thing I go off is whether they show emotion or not. She in turn contacts a human called Rizzo who will turn out to be the show's first real dud. It also seems like these people know a lot more about these covert operations than they should.

In fact, this Rizzo is actually a Romulan in disguise (unclear if the Vulcan Commodore is aware of this) and she is also the big sister of Narek who is also undercover doing something or other. The two of them share a scene... well I'll get back to that shortly.

I forgot to mention that before Picard goes to the higher up, he has a conversation with an old doctor-acquaintance who, after some reminiscing, tells him that he is very healthy but he is also dying. This so that we know that Picard is physically capable of doing what he is about to do but then he will die. He has nothing to lose, in other words.

Back on Earth Picard decides to sort out ship and crew on his own instead. Somewhere in all this there is another reference when someone (the doctor? Maybe Laris?) is reading "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov and Picard says "I never really cared for science-fiction. I guess I just didn't get it". Fun. The Robot series by Isaac Asimov are great by the way, but that is a side-note.

The movie is aight.

In the final scene we see how Picard visits a person who seems to hate him but decides to join his crew under the motto that the enemy of my enemy is my friend (i.e she hates the Romulans even more than she hates Picard). We'll see what the other crew members are going to be like.

I am glad they didn't assemble any more people from the old crew, partly because I don't like most of them particularly much and partly because it allows this series to go a lot more freely and build its own identity. Otherwise it would've most likely just come off as another episode of TNG and right now it really doesn't.

I am also glad the Romulans seem to be the bad guy or "alien of significance" in this series because they are familiar without being overdone. My feelings towards the Romulans has always been "Vulcans but with the rage" and this series doesn't seem to change that much so far. Romulans are very similar to Cardassians that way actually, secretive and quick to temper.

Back to Rizzo and Narek though. They unfortunately share one of the final scenes of the episode and up until that point I had really been enjoying myself. The plot was thickening at a good pace (too slow? Definitely not) and seemed to be building up to something that was going to interest me. But then these two have one of the worst dialogues I have seen in a long time. I don't know if the acting ruined the dialogue or the dialogue ruined the acting, but it was cringe-worthy c-movie style of passive aggressiveness trying to be cool. It didn't work and it even soured the entire experience for me. Oh god, I really hope these people either get a lot better stuff to work with or simply don't show up that much. Unfortunately it definitely leans towards that they have big roles in the plot.

Picard/Stewart, as usual, carries this entire series. There is just a kilometer wide gulch in quality between the scenes he is in and the ones he isn't. Unfortunately it makes me think that what I am watching is only good because he makes it so (yep, I said it) and not because it intrinsically is. Does that matter if I am still enjoying myself? So far I am going to say no, and I hope that feeling stays with me throughout.

I am still very eager to see the next episode, and that is a good review if any.

Images from IGN.de, thefilmstage.com, wikipedia.com, thewrap.com.

The Witcher (TV-Series) - Season 1 Review

I guess nowadays it's only fair to expect pretty much any IP to be viable for a TV-series, seeing as I am certain that most Streaming Services are constantly on the look for The Next Big Thing. They must have droves of people just scouring the internet and various books to find a potential money-maker. For better or worse Game of Thrones seems to have set some sort of standard as the way to go for the really big success - was it the mix of extreme violence and nudity? Was it the well developed characters and plots? Who knows but let's try to capture that lightning in a bottle again by just using a similar formula.

How obvious isn't it really then if you keep all those things in mind that the Witcher was going to get the TV-series treatment? It is essentially Game of Thrones in so many ways, though it actually predates it which means you also avoid any claims of just trying to be a copy-cat.

Yet I'll be honest, I was pretty confused when I first heard about The Witcher coming to Netflix. Why? And... how? At the time I had played the first two games (and loved them) and read four of the books (and enjoyed them enough) so I was in that borderland of kind of wanting more because I enjoyed it so much but also being worried that they'd mess up something I really loved.

I was especially worried about Geralt. Ever since the first game I had a gamer-crush on this exceptional character. He is fun to play and fun to be around. For me he hits every note of being well fleshed out without being overly obvious - we actually know very little about him yet I find his personality easy to grasp and understand. His actions, reactions and interactions not only make sense but they portray a multi-faceted and interesting person. As characters go he is among the best I've had the pleasure to encounter in gaming and reading.

The beard suits him.

In most ways this goes for the entire world that he lives in as well. The reason Geralt comes off as such a well-written character is probably because he has a lot of well-written lore and side-characters to work with and all these beautiful pieces come together and make an excellent whole.

When I heard that Henry Cavill was going to play Geralt I went something along the lines of "eehhh...". Not immediately bad but rather "was that the best they could come up with?". At that time, and pretty much still actually, the only other thing I know Henry Cavill has done is Superman and since I haven't actually seen those movies I only know of it because of the moustache-debacle. Having Cavill in Superman-tights as my only reference point didn't exactly make me think he was going to be perfect as Geralt.

Then pictures were leaked or released or what have you, of Cavill in that wig that everyone made fun of and I actually started thinking the opposite. "You know what, this might actually work". By the time the release date had been announced I had decided that I was going to look forward to this and try my very best to enjoy it. I usually try to not go into things with high expectations and I can't say they were particularly high for this show either, but I wasn't going to slate it until I had given it an honest chance.

And I am glad I did. The Witcher is one of the few shows I pretty much binged, as much as I am able to do that with my limited amount of free time. And while I didn't love every second of it, there wasn't any one thing I hated or really didn't like either. Now that I am through it I can with confidence say that I think it's quite good and well worth watching if magic, beasts and magic beasts are your thing.

Let's take a look at the things I wasn't too keen on first;
While I can see what they were going for, I think, the actual storytelling ends up being way more confusing than it has to be. Since I am ever the optimist I chose to view this as the show creators desire to tell us viewers that they had confidence in our intelligence and went with the most brain straining way possible to tell the story of these three protagonists. Maybe it is to reward rewatchings of the show, since I am sure you don't understand every scene unless you watch them a couple of times. Maybe it was to fully be able to use the effect of "aha, it was really this and he was actually there!".

Easy to follow yet blows your mind.

The Prestige is a good example of where you can blindside and confuse your audience throughout the story to be able to get the full effect of the puzzle coming together and all those scenes that made little sense on their own suddenly get a whole new meaning. The Witcher doesn't fully manage to do this. I'd say they don't manage to do this at all in fact and there are a bunch of ways they could've made the various jumping of timelines and stories so much easier to follow without removing too much of the surprise build up.

Even to me who have read some of the books and especially these particular books that this season is based off, a lot came off as confusing. Though I'll probably still have to say that in the end the confusion fortunately did little to detract much from the fun happening on the screen. In fact I have two friends who have watched it who have zero knowledge of The Witcher beforehand and they still enjoyed it so it's clear the Witcher manages to be more than just its storytelling.

My other issue is a similar one I had to the games. The Witcher's world is really comprised of two very different aspects - him as a monster hunter and him as a pawn in a massive chess board of politics. I find both these aspects necessary and interesting, but I definitely prefer the former over the latter. This is the reason I enjoyed The Witcher 1 much more than The Witcher 2. The first one builds up Geralts character as a monster hunter whereas the second one focuses a lot more around the politics and the wars and the factions and all that.

Because the show is trying to be about not just Geralt but also Yennefer and Ciri, there is a lot more about the politics than the monster hunting. And I'll be honest, I am actually not overly interested in Yennefer or Ciri. They're good side characters, just like Triss, Dandelion (I'm sorry, Jaskier), Zoltan Chivay and all the other people Geralt meets while running around the world. But I'm not interested enough in them for them to be main protagonists.

What does Geralt even see in her?

I find the show actually does an ok job not only with expanding on the characters, especially Yennefers, but building up the story around the three so that we care about what is going to happen to them. But I can't help but think what a different kind of show this would've been if it had focused more on Geralt and his monster hunting and maybe gotten to the heftier political stuff a bit further in instead. That way it would've had a similar arc to series like Supernatural and the X-files which starts out with "monster of the week" and slowly carries you into the "Big Things" that you then care about because you've become so invested in the world and the characters.

The Witcher tries to make you care about a lot of things really quickly and I'll give it big cred for actually succeeding well enough with this. But I think a show more to my liking would've dared to work this up slower. Maybe that is just not how TV-shows are made anymore, Star Trek Discovery has the exact same issue for instance.

That is because when I truly enjoy something I want it to linger. I don't want it to race past my eyes. When playing the Witcher 3 I can sometimes just walk slowly through the shrubbery because I want to immerse myself in the feeling of being in that world. The Witcher TV-series cuts out too much of that aspect for my tastes at the moment.

So to the things I did like then;
Henry Cavill as Geralt. I think you can really tell what respect he had for the character and the IP because overall I think he nails it. I have no trouble with the wig, I think he gets the facial expressions and demeanor just right without just trying to copy the games for instance. He makes Geralt to his own and manages to stay true to the character, hat off to Cavill for this.

Blue Steel

And Cavill is not the only one where I think they've got the casting right, in fact I am happy with pretty much everyone - except Triss. I did just mention that I am not that interested in the side characters, but they are an important part of the world building and immersiveness of said world. I can understand the reasoning behind focusing on the three characters they have now, but I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more of some others as the series moves along.

Queen Calanthe was excellent, loved her entire performance.

Just a quick word on Triss. Speaking on WoW to someone about the new Witcher series that person got really angry about the fact that they were going all "agenda" on Triss. I didn't even understand what this person was talking about, but I think it had something to do with the fact that she is not a red-head in the TV-series, though she is in the games. I hadn't even thought much of it, but when I looked it up it turns out that Triss isn't even supposed to be a red-head in the first place. The way she looks in the TV-series is actually more faithful to what she is "supposed" to look like than what they did to her in the games. I care little about exteriors though, as long as they are superficial. I have no issues with Triss whether she had been a red-head or not. The way she looks is not the problem I have with Triss.

I do feel however like the person they cast for the TV-series seemed to hone in on Triss' "gentle" trait a bit too much. Yes Triss is a gentle person who might even come off as nurturing for the untrained eye. I never thought she was just that. Triss is one of the more interesting characters in the Witcher games if you ask me, especially because she is so much more nuanced than what she initially seems like. I feel like they failed to capture this in the TV-series, and I hope upcoming seasons will do her more justice. The Triss in the books has a lot less "screen-time" (What do you call that in literature, page-time?) but then why even add her? It feels like they tried to cater to the game-lovers by adding her and giving her as much screen time as they do, but then they don't make her as interesting as she can be. This Triss seems like a bore and not someone anyone would like to get to know better. The Triss I know from the books and games is way more interesting and fun to be around.

No kisses.

But I seem to have gotten a bit sidetracked there from the things I liked.

The effects and fights were great. Love that they seem to have used a lot of practical effects, I am always a fan of that. My bf who is a bit of a fight choreography snob thought the fights were "ok" but I thought, especially that first one in Blaviken, they were really cool.

Most of the dialogue hit the right levels of cheesy/cool for me.  

I didn't mind them digging/making up background stories for Geralt and Yennefer because I think they actually turned out pretty neat. Sapkowski is in fact part in the creative process here (similarly to GRR Martin in Game of Thrones) so one can hope these background stories are actually something that he came up with at one point or other. Either way I don't think they betray any of the characters and definitely don't detract from the entertainment.

It's difficult I think to point to any particular things that this series gets right, because it actually has a lot of things I think it needs to improve. But in the end, somehow, they really manage to nail the Witcher feeling for me. If it is Cavill or whatever it is, I had so much fun watching it and just want more. If I could wish for anything for season 2 it would be to expand on the "witching" part of the series and maybe put a bit less effort on the "political" part of it, but seeing as Geralt has finally found Ciri I doubt that will happen. In any case I think it is lame that I have to wait another year for season 2.

Images from gp.se, imdb.com, reddit.com, cinemablend.com, winteriscoming.net, Youtube.com.