Star Trek Picard – Episode 5 Warping Star Trek
Episode Five of Star Trek Picard waffles between predictable and dumb, then the reality sets in, that this series seems to be arguing that most Star Trek characters have been delusional and there never was a Federation paradise. This is probably the only way to explain the downright horror in this show, from it’s cynical characters to its drug-addicts, making a home in the Federation. Not to mention the Federation leaders, who are racist, evil, power hungry jerks. But they’re also cowards. Episode Five is probably the most gloomy and disgusting Star Trek episode I’ve ever seen, with its opening horror show shocking me and its intense levels of violence reminding me of the show’s themes.
Picard and his crew finally make it to Freecloud to find Bruce Maddox, and I’ve got to admit that the payoff wasn’t very satisfying. Picard chastises Seven of Nine for her new ruthless attitude but she reminds us that it’s justified given how the Federation abandoned everybody. I’ve lost count of how many times Picard has been embarrassed and looked down in absolute shame, mostly from arguing with other people over the shattered ideals of the Federation. How’d things get to this point? Star Trek Picard copies and pastes grey and dismal from other sci-fi, when it should be blazing new territory and exploring new story concepts. I’m not saying I need ships on rainbows, but this show is just like most shows with dystopian setting, and Picard even turns it up a notch by reminding us that the neutral zone collapsed and no law to govern the place, so we’re left with angry women with large rifles.
It’d be one thing if the side characters Picard met were horrible but his own pals are rotten and cowards in their own right. Never have I seen so much fear in characters without knowing what the heck they’re so afraid of. There’s at least three people who start tearing up in Episode Five, and one of them is Aggie, the AI expert who can’t operate a transporter. That’s supposed to be a joke but if you’re a scientist, a person who is THE foremost expert in AI and AI technology, why the heck is she scared of operating the transporter? I later figured out that it wasn’t the transporter itself she was scared of, she was afraid the group would be successful and bring home Bruce Maddox. It’s pretty obvious that the evil Commodore let her in on a little truth about Bruce Maddox, so she goes on to murder him for what she found out. The only reason the dumb writers have organized the story this way is to get us to come back to watch more episodes. It’s certainly not to develop anything, so keep watching and maybe you’ll get a payoff. Maybe.
The story is fairly predictable at this point. The only explanation is that Romulan ancestors created the Borg and that’s why the Tal’Shiar are so paranoid of Artificial Intelligence. Maddox must have discovered their long lost science and used it to create his twin androids, which is why they were called The Destroyer. It’s too bad Maddox is only in five minutes of Episode Five because I was looking forward to learning more about him but they cut my expectations off at the knees. Episode Five basically argues that the Universe really sucks, especially since people (the audience) aren’t stuck on a starship anymore, isolated from the “real world”. That’s pretty funny because the real world is way more boring than anything in this series, including Picard’s self-imposed exile on a vineyard.
The character work which seemed to hold up the series previously, becomes is weak link in Episode Five. Elnor is used for a couple of comedy moments then basically disappears. I don’t know what the point of this character is anymore. Seven of Nine has a brand new personality in Episode Five, and she’s now a brooding bounty hunter, a shadow of the character from Voyager. Maddox really doesn’t have any character and is only there to dump exposition. Raffi meets up with her son on Freecloud, who dumps all over her for abandoning him for her drug habit and crazy theorizing about the synth war on Mars, so her character arc is pretty much over and she’s gutted. Maybe she’ll be nicer now. Fat chance. And Picard is barely in the thing.
Overall, Episode Five is bad. I don’t think this show can get any more gloomy and cynical. There’s even a joke at the very beginning when Seven’s son is chopped up and mutilated. Yep it’s that bad. Now, I would be more positive if the crew were fighting back some of this gloomy crap, but they’re tied up in it too. That’s Raffi and Aggie basically. It’s one thing to be sorta grey and gritty on screen, but Raffi is really railed for being a bad Mom, and her character is made a scapegoat for themes of child abuse or bad parenting. There’s not one hopeful or positive thing for like 20 minutes, then Seven dupes Picard out of some rifles and executes somebody. Yep, he’s embarrassed again. Picard is basically the joke of this whole episode, the delusional old man clinging to a fantasy about a Federation paradise, when everyone’s REALLY living in a whole other world.