Star Trek Picard, Episode 5: Important Developments, Ridiculous Episode

I really don’t know what to say about the fifth episode of Star Trek: Picard (STP), “Stardust City Rag”. After the excellent fourth episode, I was confident STP had hit its stride and would continue to progress, visually strong, aurally compelling, complex in its plot and fascinating in its character development.

Then along comes “Stardust City Rag”. Yikes.

If it weren’t for a strongly acted, but minor story line involving Raffi attempting to reconnect with a now-grown son she abandoned in her crusade to expose the truth about the destruction of Mars, “Stardust City Rag” would have no redeeming qualities at all.

“Stardust City Rag” packages a lot of significant plot developments – Seven loses Icheb, Picard finds and rescues Maddox, Dr. Jurati is reunited with Maddox, Jurati murders Maddox and Picard discovers where Soji is to be found – in such a moronic, embarrassing wrapper that the importance of these events almost gets lost.

And I wonder if director Jonathan Frakes and the rest of the behind-the-camera-team decided that Kristen Beyer’s script was so bad they might as well take the week off as well. It’s a silly script presented with no particular style or panache.

I think “SCR” is supposed to be funny. I think… but I’m not sure.

It is not funny. But it is also not serious, nor dramatic, nor effective. And the development of several characters suffers in the process.

Jurati is left aboard La Sirena while the others head down to Freecloud to save Maddox. Jurati’s job is to staff the transporter, to be ready at the beep of a communicator to beam the others out of trouble. Sure, she’s always been a bit quirky but the depiction of Dr. Jurati in the episode is embarrassing – the world’s leading expert on synthetic life forms who works in a state-of-the-art lab, she’s presented as having no idea how to operate such basic 24^th century technology as a transporter. Not only is she unsure how to operate this machine but she deteriorates into a twittering child when she is left with this task.

This depiction of Jurati is embarrassing to the point of offensive. And, if she is not experienced with the transporter mechanism, why would they leave that important task to her?

And then there is Elnor. In this episode, he comes across as an immature buffoon, sulking about everything from the fact that Freecloud aims no electronic advertising at him to the fact that he has no clear role in the rescue. Despite his enormous physical gifts, he is not included in the plan to save Maddox nor does he play an part in it. He simply stands around.

Is it fun to watch Rios play the role of a cavalier deal-maker? Is it a hoot to see Picard as the flamboyant bounty hunter with the fake French accent? Sure, maybe some people out there got a kick out of these ventures into frivolity. But really? Is this where you want to have your audience placing their focus when key events are taking place?

And, despite the throw-away frivolity of this episode’s tone, some serious s—t goes down: Icheb is tortured in a remarkably graphic scene; Maddox is murdered in almost as gruesome a fashion; Seven of Nine goes through several levels of emotional turmoil in facing the loss of “son” and in facing down her persecutor …

Remember, we have spent the first four episodes of STP building toward the rescue of Bruce Maddox and that moment is thrown away, and the character is thrown away, in an explosion of silliness.

Not to mention the fact that, with “Stardust City Rag”, STP confirms the complete destruction of the ordered galaxy that Star Trek had worked so hard to establish. Star Fleet is no longer in control, the Federation is in tatters and the “frontier” is policed by vigilantes and run by war lords. Gene Roddenberry’s commitment to a future for the human race that is marked by peace, prosperity and inclusion, that is filled with hope – the commitment that has served as the philosophical underpinning for what Star Trek stands for – has been completely abandoned.

If you’ve ever taken part in a debate over which is better – Star Trek or Star Wars – you are now free to rest your debating muscles: with STP episode 5, Star Trek has degenerated into Star Wars.