Star Trek Picard: Episode 7 Review: The power of music

I can’t get over how well the creative team of Star Trek: Picard (STP) uses music and, to a lesser extent, sound effects to connect this exciting new series to the Star Trek canon, to give long-time Star Trek fans a sense of comfort even as they encounter a very different universe, a very different Federation and a very different approach to plot construction.

If you listen very carefully to the soundtrack, you will find yourself constantly surprised and delighted by the ways in which the original TOS theme, the new TOS theme developed in the Kirk-based movies and the theme from TNG are all integrated in often subtle ways.

In Episode 7, “Nepenthe”, for example, there’s a nice little flute playing runs from the TNG theme when Picard and Riker first meet, a piano playing the TNG theme when Soji is introduced to Riker, a french horn that picks up the same theme when Riker and Troi commit to help Picard (“Whatever it is, we can handle it”), more TNG music when Riker and Picard discuss things on the dock, and finally bells, then strings, then brass playing the TOS theme as the episode comes to an end.

And did you hear the sound the 3D printer makes when Jurati first initialises it? I believe that’s the door chime sound from TNG.

It’s really quite wonderful and very effective. Those earlier themes are as identifiably Star Trek as the characters themselves. They reassure us that, while there’s a lot of disturbing stuff going on in the universe, the familiar, beloved philosophies of Star Trek still beat quietly in the background.

Beyond that, Episode 7 is remarkable for one reason: Kestra Troi-Riker, as portrayed by Lulu Wilson. Kestra is not only charming and adorable, she also plays a pivotal role in the development of the relationship between Picard and Soji. And Wilson brings a convincing combination of child-like innocence and old-soul wisdom to the role, equally convincing for us as viewers and for Soji, who at this point is suffering emotionally and psychologically from the abusive manipulations of Narek and the realisation/acceptance that she is a synthetic life form.

I really enjoyed this episode. I continue to be pleased and delighted that the creative team is permitting STP to take the time to develop relationships, to recognise the impact of events on the characters, to permit the viewers to get to know, and love, the people we are being introduced to through this television show.

The scenes on Nepenthe are wonderfully presented. Picard’s relationships with Troi and Riker have clearly developed in depth and warmth over the 20 years since their voyages on Enterprise came to an end.  Perhaps even more importantly, Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes are possibly even better actors now than they were in the 1980s.

That scene, where Picard first encounters Troi and she hugs him, runs her hands down the side and back of his head, and immediately knows about his inner and outer suffering – beautifully acted and wonderfully effective.

Isa Briones is also remarkable in portraying the struggles of an android as she deals with the news that she is not human, that everything she knows of herself is a creation, that she cannot accept the truth of anything she sees, hears or experiences. I especially loved the moment in the garden with Troi when Soji says, “Where I was…” she forms a “b” on her lips to say “born”, then hesitates and changes it to “made”. Wonderful.

She and Wilson play well together in the bedroom scene where Kestra, the charming early teen who is delighted to have a fascinating new friend, time and again strikes chords with Soji while teaching her about her past, her family, about Data and Picard.

And it’s nice to see Riker and Troi challenge Picard, his arrogance and self-centredness, in repeated moments. Because, in this series, Picard is behaving arrogantly, he is seeing himself as the centre of all things, he is taking the position that, if something bothers Jean Luc Picard, it must be addressed, no matter the consequences to others. Even when he is attempting to soothe Soji at the dinner table, he prioritises his own needs (“But now I am alive and I have a mission”) over those of the Soji, the synths, and their home world.

“Nepenthe” features two other plot lines, now that Elnor has been left behind on the Borg Cube and Rios, Raffi and Jurati fly off on La Sirena in an attempt to join Picard and Soji at Nepenthe.

Elnor and Hugh provide the action – gruesome, brutal action to be sure, as the Romulans execute numerous ExBs in an effort force Hugh to reveal where Picard and Soji are – while the La Sirena group play cat and mouse with Narek out in deep space.

And, while these plot lines do move things forward and provide action and suspense to the episode, they are not without significant issues.

I don’t understand how Elnor, who has bound his blade to Picard’s cause, could simply abandon that vow to remain on the Cube and help the resistance there. I guess Elnor must somehow have convinced himself that helping Hugh is helping Picard but it seems to me to be a bit flimsy.

I am also significantly concerned about how Jurati is playing out. She is no longer making sense to me. Based on a mindmeld with an obviously manipulative Star Fleet Commodore (which, by the way, seems to present as much information about Commodore Oh’s own fate as it does of the planet’s), Jurati accepts a mission that appears to contradict her personal and professional commitments to synthetic life and also involves “terrible sacrifice” on her part?

Based on that scant, untrustworthy evidence, she then murders her former lover, the leading researcher into synthetic life?

At the point when she realises that the tracker Commodore Oh required her to ingest is actually being used by the Romulans, why doesn’t she just come out and say it? “I know how this Romulan dude is tracking us: I ingested a tracker back on earth which I received from someone who I now realise was a Romulan agent. Drop me at the next space port and you’ll be safe.”

Sure, sure, she tries. Briefly. She attempts to own up to Rios but lets him poo-poo her concerns while, bizarrely, casting suspicion at Raffi, a woman he has known and trusted for decades.

Instead, Jurati decides to take a drug to eliminate the tracker, a drug she knows will likely damage her brain beyond repair. Ugh.

The episode does offer some interesting lines that appear pivotal to me, with regard both to the past and the future:

·      “You ruined years of patient work by dozens of operatives across hundreds of star systems,” Zhat Vash operative Narissa Rizzo barks at Hugh, “… you may have doomed a trillion souls across half the galaxy.” – Hyperbole? The Zhat Vash clearly believe that synths represent a massive threat to the galaxy, but why? On what evidence?

·      “None of this is real. Just get on with the mind game”. – Oh oh oh… not only is this indicative of the tortured state into which Soji has been thrust but it also raises the question – what is truly real in this show?

·      “It’s just that, if something were to happen to Kestra…” – I immediately felt a chill when Troi said this. Is it foreshadowing? Kestra later makes a drawing of a sleeping Soji – will we have a scene in a later episode where Narissa Rizzo finds the drawing and then tortures Kestra to obtain Soji’s whereabouts?

·      “You could both have each other” – “Nepenthe” is about the importance of having a home and a family; is Kestra right that Picard and Soji could provide both for each other?

·      “The greatest Star Fleet captain ever.” – yeah, no. We all know that James T. Kirk was the greatest Star Fleet captain ever. Don’t even go there.