I just don't know anymore. I want to like Star Trek: Picard (STP). I like some of the actors in it, I think it has an interesting premise.
But the writing is just so... I hate to repeat it but... lazy.
And predictable.
Who didn't see that the Borg Queen would take advantage of their absolute lax security protocols and escape into the 21st Century?
Who didn't see that Guinan of the 21st Century would play a role?
Who didn't predict that Guinan would lead Picard to a 21st Century representative of the same distant alien race that has been monitoring and protecting Earth, using specially trained humans stolen from Earth in centuries past, since at least the days of Star Trek: The Original Series when Kirk and his crew met Gary Seven in the iconic episode "Assignment: Earth", which 21st Century representative looks exactly like Laris, the 24th Century Romulan woman who is madly in love with Picard but whom Picard clumsily spurned and, as a result, created the background emotional arc of STP?
Okay... okay. So maybe none of us predicted the third one.
But who could predict something so preposterous?
Or is it clever?
In Episode 5 of STP season 2, Picard and his gang of renegades start to make progress: they get Rios back, they figure out what the change in timely is likely to involve, they get this Gary Seven/Laris redux character (we'll call her GSL for now until we can figure out her actual name) to trust them enough to help them stop Q.
On the other hand, they encounter more complications.
The Borg Queen manages to accomplish the following: 1) get access to the ship's computers; 2) produce massive fleshy tentacles; 3) die; and 4) assimilate/take over Jurati.
Meanwhile, Q makes an ally of Dr. Soong (yes, Brent Spiner is back again) who we expect will join him in going after Picard's great grand aunt, who is apparently the focal point for the timeline change.
Great. But please please please someone tell me why:
- After doing such a lovely job of referencing Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home in the last episode (with the bus scene), they have to do such a clumsy job of introducing the Gary Seven connection? As soon as Picard and GSL materialise in the doorway of GSL's apartment, any true Star Trek fan said to themselves: "Cool, that's the Gary Seven transporter effect from TOS' "Assignment Earth"" and was completely onboard -- but the writers cannot leave it there: they have to have the old-as-the-hills Picard verbalize the connection by somehow pulling from his ancient memory banks an obscure adventure from a Captain (albeit the greatest starship captain of all time) who lived more than 100 years before he was born. Awful. Unnecessary. Unbelievable.
- After Raffi and Seven were content to be transported out of a police vehicle, while surrounded by LA cops, having taken said cops on a chase through the streets, the same two characters decide they cannot simply have Rios beamed out of the ICE bus but have instead to neutralize the bus using 24th Century tech, stun the driver using more tech, and free all of the other prisoners? There's no chance that intervention will impact the timeline.
- Although they have a phaser and have already used it in the 21st Century, Raffi and Seven have to devise some alternative tech way to stun the driver of the ICE bus rather than again using the phaser in a situation where no one will actually see them doing it?
- Jurati would chose to go into the abandoned Picard chateau for her incredibly deep sleep, leaving the Borg Queen (under woefully inadequate restraints) alone in the ship which is in the process of rebuilding itself? Isn't Jurati supposed to be monitoring both the Borg Queen and her own mates who are out and about in 21st Century LA?
- The French police officer, called to the Chateau to investigate reports of a woman being attacked, would fail to notice that a fire recently burned in the grate of the drawing room of the Chateau and then miss that a woman (perhaps the very woman who was reportedly being attacked) is lying motionless on a sofa in that same room? What is wrong with the training of these French police?
- The same French Police Officer would fail to call for backup the moment he realized that an alien space ship had crash landed on the property but chooses instead to investigate the said space ship entirely on his own?
- The Borg Queen is suddenly able to generate massive fleshy tentacles? And if she can do that, why wouldn't she have used them to press certain buttons on various ship consoles to free herself? Please note, in the entire history of the Borg, the instantaneous creation of tentacles has not appeared among their many talents.
- On a similar note, the Borg Queen can imitate any voice (note, her vocal chords etc appear to be flesh and blood so this ability does not seem reasonable), bypass thereby the ship's computer lockouts but, instead of ordering her own release, chooses this ridiculous cop-as-captive approach?
- The new version of Gary Seven uses fear and terror to control various people (like Guinan) and has the ability to take over the bodies of people at a whim -- two characteristics that Gary Seven definitely did not share?
