So for a moment there, I was thinking we were getting a whacky hijinks-filled Borg Queen-Jurati switcheroo type of situation. That could’ve been fun*, with the Queen constantly bemoaning her powerless state, yet gradually growing into a valued, if grumpy and threatening to assimilate anyone and anything crossing her, team member, and Jurati exploring the power of her cybernetic implants, always in danger of getting overwhelmed by them and succumbing to their pull, little things at first, accidentally calling Picard ‘Locutus’, talking of herself in the plural…
Also, nifty how those phasers have a critically-wound-the-main-character-but-incinerate-the-mooks-setting.
Other than that—sort of ‘wait and see’ on this one. Anybody has a guess at who this ‘Watcher’ is going to end up being?
I was expecting kind of the opposite. The Borg Queen would monologue about how she was going to all these horrible things and Blonde Doctor would flick a switch and turn her off as a gag.
When traveling between alternate realities, it’s easier to reach realities that have points of similarity with your own. Out of all the infinite alternate realities that led to realities like the Mirror Universe, the ones where the same people happened to get born are easier to get to than the ones where nobody in the Original Universe exists at all.
Even when traveling to universes that are radically different, such as one where the dinosaurs never went extinct and eventually evolved into a technological society, it’s easier to get to one where events evolved similar to our own universe, so you end up in universes that have a dinosaur Hitler, and shit like that.
I generally think it’s weird the extent to which Picard is given an arc in this series. I suppose it’s a bit ageist to say a 96 year old man can’t still change and grow but I wish his role was more as a man who has long since come to terms with his limitations and regrets. Rather than learning to be vulnerable and allow himself to be loved at this late hour, he should be helping others not follow in his footsteps.
There was a bit of that with him mentoring Rios and Raffi in season one* but honestly I’m not interested in exploring Picard’s deep character at this late hour. I know who he is as a person, he should know that too, and this show should really be about him being shaken out of his retirement to make one last impact on the people around him, without any of this saving the Federation and the galaxy nonsense.
I was happy that Season 1 was interested in fixing Data’s senseless death and giving the character the sendoff he deserved, even if they fumbled the ball on actually executing it. And I liked Season 1’s take on Picard being exiled and disrespected by Starfleet in his old age. I’m far less interested in Picard leading a team to save the day once again or having to face another of Q’s tests for humanity in his old age. Give me more of “Q is sick,” what if this season was about Picard trying to help his old frenemy instead of Star Trek Fights Fascism part 305?
My big takeaway from this show and Discovery is that I desperately miss the Star Trek that did episodic adventures. I want a show that explores some Sci-fi nonsense and shows how humanity can overcome any obstacle with bravery and hope and technobabble, and where the whole galaxy isn’t constantly at stake.
though frankly coming back to them and they’re both cleaned up and in Starfleet is weird, Starfleet shouldn’t be the only worthwhile thing to do in Star Trek’s universe.
Art imitates life. We wouldn’t need 305 versions of Star Trek fights fascism if humanity could ever start learning from our own history instead of having to fight off the fascists trying to seize (or maybe more accurately, keep) control of society again and again and again…
I see what you’re saying, but gestures widely around
OK, The Mirror Universe. When you realize that there is an infinite number of alternate universes out there, it seems less unlikely that there would be one that meets the criteria of having the characters having similar positions. In fact, you go back to “Mirror, Mirror” the exchange could only have taken place with a universe that did. Going into the novelverse there has been the suggestion that the two universes are “entangled” in some manner that reinforces the similarities.
So, who is “The Watcher”. Guinan? But are they going to “reverse age” her? Sisko? Doubt they could keep that secret. Wesley? That would be something. Personally, I’m thinking Gary Seven or a successor.
There’s already been quite a few really deep pulls in this season that indicates the writers are thinking, if only about deep Star Trek lore rather than a plot that makes sense. It’d be a weird pull, but not outside the realm of possibility for them to bring Roddenberry’s weird backdoor pilot back into canon. Now that I think about it, it’s interesting that nobody has ever bothered to circle around on that and have the Federation make contact with Gary Seven’s mysterious patrons, who are undoubtedly still elbow-deep interfering with other pre-warp civilizations. A powerful (but ostensibly benevolent) alien race that absolutely interferes extensively with other civilizations would be a really interesting foil for the Federation and the Prime Directive.
You have to assume the ‘Watcher’ has knowledge of the timeline and alternates to be able to assist - so it can’t generally be someone that is ‘in that timeline’.
Its that reason I think it has to be Guinan - she sensed the issue in Yesterday’s Enterprise - she was a foil for Q in ‘Q-Who’ and I believe Guinan was established to be in San Fransisco in ‘Times Arrow’ in 1893. They’ve already mentioned the Nexus (or was that in Lower Decks?) which gave her even more time shit to mess with.
@Mr.E - True enough - I still doubt it would be Gary Seven simply because that is too obscure for even TNG fans.
Of Course, if we want to have even more fun with it - it should be Doc Brown and a certain school teacher.
Don’t know if they’ve mentioned it, but World War 3 only starts in two more years (2026) in Trek Relative to Picard. Maybe the timeline divergence is WW3 is averted.
I always figured the Borg for an anarcho-syndicalist collective. But I was fooling myself: it is a dictatorship, a self-perpetuating autocracy. Here you have a queen. Who does she think she is? Did anyone vote for her? How did she become Queen, then?
But seriously…maybe Trek is trying to wrap a few mysteries up.
One: Guinan’s relationship with Q
two: How we got from the Borg being like locusts, to changing their mission ‘adding distinctiveness’ (whatever that means)…to realizing theyve bitten off more than they can chew.
I mean i know how behind the scenes, but maybe the writers are trying to tell a cohesive story. I think the Borg still have life in them. I mean yeah…what IS the Queen?? Is she the only creature out of trillions who gets anything out of this??
You could do an entire flashback ep from, her POV and i think it would be gangbusters.