WHY WE LIKE IT: Hey, another Soong.
WHY WE DON'T: Nothing much happens.
REVIEW: In terms of telling a longer story, I think Discovery does it correctly, and Picard does not. Each episode of Disco still has its own focus, its own story to tell, catering to subplots in additional scenes. Picard Season 2 has decided to require cliffhangers, so no sub-story feels complete (at least, not beyond episode 2). Rios' run-in with ICE and subsequent rescue by Seven and Raffi should have been its own episode. Instead, we waited a week for them to create an EMP from their tricorder, which stopped the bus and allowed Rios to free himself. Bah. Then the episode gets into exposition gear, introduces new characters, yadda-yadda, and introduces the gala complication. The gala heist should have been its own episode, but we start it here, and just when it gets interesting, we cut to credits. Plotwise, it's a lot of talk and no memorable set piece.
The Watcher, or Supervisor... Her name is Tallinn and she looks exactly like Laris, without the Romulan ears. You know, on account of also being played by Orla Brady. An explanation is coming, but considering the episode also introduces yet another Soong played by Brent Spiner AND his test tube baby Kore played by Isa "Soji" Briones (the former because it's tradition - this is Spiner's fourth Soong, seventh if you count the android sons - the latter because Soji etc. must have been based on this "family member"). For that matter, Elnor shows up as a hallucination. Gotta keep our actors working, right? Tallinn is part of the same Agency we saw way back in Assignment: Earth, but unlike Gary Seven, who seemed to have more to do, she only protects a single person - Renée Picard, Jean-Luc's astronaut ancestor (so at least it still has to do with the space program). Picard can somehow recall Kirk's files about this, which is surprising and unnecessary. This is the second time he's referenced Kirk's Enterprise this season, so maybe they should have shown him reading Kirk's memoir. They can't quite explain Renée's importance to history yet - especially why she should be protected even as a child - other than saying the Europa Mission finds a micro-organism on Io that SHE believes is sentient. Anything's possible, but it's a stretch. Best guess is that our culture accepts the possibility of other sentient life out there, so our Zefram Cochrane responds well to the Vulcans. Absent that (and with eugenics/xenophobia rising), warp drive is still invented, but with terrible consequences for First Contact (see also Enterprise's In a Mirror, Darkly).
Enter Q who, despite being incapable of changing her already-doubting mind about the mission with a snap of his fingers, is still able to infiltrate NASA so he can pose as a Freud-accented therapist pushing her to quit AND create a compound that can save Soong's daughter. If he can't make her not go, he'll rope Adam Soong into doing so, or at least stop Picard from fixing things, in exchange for the cure. As we saw in Enterprise, the Soong family line was first interested in genetics before it switched to positronics. Making people, either way. Adam has been conducting illegal experiments with soldiers (evoking the Eugenics Wars) and by creating Kore, a young woman who can't go outside because she burns in the sun and is allergic to air. Feels like a fatal flaw, Adam. He just lost his funding, so he's desperate enough to take Q's bait. He's already pretty unscrupulous, so the match could work. Raising an eyebrow at the high-tech forcefield drones, but I guess we're a couple minutes in the future and he's a mad scientist.
And then of course there's the Borg Queen. I just realized who she reminds me of with her vague, florid pronouncements: the Cylon Hybrid on Battlestar Galactica. With more agency, of course. Here she calls the French cops so she can steal a body and/or use him as a hostage. This show will never not annoy me with its use of the French language. The cops speak French, no problem (the main copper is evidently from the South of the country from his accent, but definitely French, cuz you never hear that in American productions). My problem is that the Queen shows she can mimic any voice, and yet can't approximate a serviceable French accent. Does she think posing as a tourist will get her quicker service? The whole situation ends with Agnes apparently shooting her in the face, but nothing's so simple. A few minutes into the heist, it's revealed that the Queen has infected Jurati and is now a ghost by her side. And just when you thought Agnes had found her groove back with the red dress...
LESSON: Assignment: Earth could still get a series.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium: But only because it introduces three characters (plus the Agnes/Queen hybrid) who will be important going forward. The episode's structure is a real mess however.
Comments