Picard, Season 1: Stardust City Rag

Picard, Season 1
"Stardust City Rag"
Airdate: February 20, 2020
5 of 10 produced
5 of 10 aired

Introduction

The latest episode of Picard wastes an entire hour killing two canon characters for no reason, delivering one piece of pertinent plot information (that we already knew), and SHOCK TWISTS one of the leads. Or, "another day another dollar" for Kurtzman-Trek.

"Ah em Pepe LePew! Please disregard ze gory murder you just witnessed and laugh along with ze hilariteee!"

Writing

Matthew: I miss Star Trek. It was a show about a universe in which humans had solved most of their earthly problems, and had struck out into the universe in a quest to learn, grow, and better themselves. Now it's a Generic Grim-Dark Space Opera, and one that is done significantly better in other places (e.g. "The Expanse," "Star Wars," "Firefly.") Here we have the sybaritic casino planet with intrusive advertising, monstrous gangsters, organ trading murderers, "ranger" vigilantes dual wielding pew pew guns.... and I'm just thinking "what happened to the thing that was in 700 hours of entertainment that I loved? This is wholly different." And look, I'm all for exploring the dark side of the Star Trek universe (e.g. Gambit), stories about a Federation that's lost its way (e.g. Homefront/Paradise Lost), and so on. But those stories only work if you are shown and are convinced that the brighter alternative still exists as a contrast. I have lost that faith here. There were a few moments here and there in this script that worked, such as Picard and Seven's conversation about regaining their humanity, but these sorts of nuggets really sink in a sea of grim, violent drek.


Kevin: It occurs to me that at some point, especially if all the announced films and movies comes to pass that there will more of this kind of Star Trek than the one we grew up liking. In a vague academic sense, I can appreciate trying to portray Star Trek through a more nuanced lens or even one that finds Rodenberry's unipolar optimism naive in way that could not be credibly portrayed in the modern streaming era. But at some point you can only push against what Star Trek used to be before you break it. Even if I agreed, which for the record I don't, that modern Star Trek requires more darkness to feel narratively credible, at some point, darkening Star Trek runs out of steam. And I think graphically torturing Icheb might be that tipping point. Not to lean on this example for the billionth time or anything, but when they tortured Picard in Chain of Command, it was to indict torture and torturers and drive home the notion that for whatever you think you get in terms of safety, you lose it in terms of humanity. To the extent I felt bad watching it happen, it came ultimately with a satisfying reaffirmation of my value system wrapped inside a compelling narrative. Here, it's just cheap fodder for a Seven revenge arc, something on par with a cheap slasher movie. Seven didn't need that to happen to have a motivation to help people, and I got nothing other than sad or angry watching it.

Matthew: Killing Icheb to give Seven of Nine a motivation for revenge was thoroughly repugnant. Icheb was a beautifully created character in the latter seasons of Voyager, who we really got to know in good episodes and lovely vignettes with Seven of Nine. He is dispensed with here as mere plot fodder. Seven is made to seem really foolish when Vajazzle (no, I will not look up the spelling) totally plays her for a sucker to get information on Icheb. Why did she volunteer any information about him to a faux "Borg Rescuer" when he was a Starfleet officer, a lieutenant no less, on a Starfleet vessel? It certainly doesn't seem like he needed rescuing. And wait, he was on leave, and a distress signal lured him there? Huh? I don't understand why the show runners of these... things... make these choices. Why attempt to trade on our nostalgia for a thing and then proceed to systematically shit on said thing? What was the point of killing Icheb so gratuitously and violently, and without even giving him more than a half line of dialogue for a sendoff? Wouldn't the story basically be the same if he had been kidnapped and Seven of Nine wanted to rescue him? But no, that's not "edgy" enough and doesn't "raise stakes" enough. Did they think long time fans would be pleased by seeing a beloved character again? Did they think we would me "moved" by his death scene? How did they surmise we would be anything but angry?


Kevin: Yeah, I have nothing really to add to this. It was just a bad idea. Even if you wanted to kill off Icheb to create some kind of stakes, doing it in this manner was terrible and bad and dumb. Also, when you get down to it, only the diehard fans who will be most mad at this will be the ones who even register it. Rios and Jurati leadenly restating Seven's history, and even Picard's time as Locutus, as if it weren't common knowledge felt like a ham-fisted attempt to get new viewers up to speed, but if you have to do that, why would Icheb's death matter to them?

Matthew: Then "Star Trek Picard" completes its slide into Discovery territory with the Big dumb Twist at the end. Dun Dun DUUUNNNNN.... Agnes Jurati is really a bad guy! She knows something horrible that necessitates her killing Maddox! Oh no! And she won't tell us what it is! Thank goodness they'll be able to drag that out for the next 4 episodes. Ugh. And won't the EMH know that she offed him? He totally saw her not treating Maddox's obviously fatal condition. This is the worst of Discovery, now back in full force - the drastic character reversal with no preamble or foreshadowing, carried out with no respect for story logic. The fact that they did it to one of the few actually likable characters they've created in Kurtzman Trek is the icing on the disgusting cake.

Kevin: I will say my read is that she was lied to/threatened/manipulated by Romulan sunglasses lady, so I assume she's not actually a bad guy. But what annoys the crap out of me is that we literally spent 5 episodes of a 10 episode arc to get this guy, and he's dead having said about twelve words in total. It heightens the sense that all these mileposts are just empty filler. The one piece of data he adds, that Soji is on the cube, which we knew since the premiere, so waiting a month and half for Picard to find out is not exactly exciting.

Matthew: On the one hand, there was no dumb Borg Cube crap in this episode. So that's a step up? But on the other, the only thing that really happened in this episode is that the main characters were told that they have to go to the Borg cube. Not only is this a monumental waste of screen time in a ten episode series, but it also means we are due for a bunch of interminable Borg Cube crap.

Kevin: I agree that not seeing Soji or the VC Andrews Romulan twins was great. My last complaint was the scene with Raffi. It was so rushed to reveal she had a son and that her obsession with the synth attack and addiction cost her a relationship with him and then have her just come back on board, all in the span of five minutes. Not to bang the drum too loud too often, but episodic stories would really help. An episode about Raffi would probably be pretty enjoyable given what we've seen of the actress so far.

Acting

Matthew: As far as guest stars go, we get John Ales instead of Brian Brophy as Bruce Maddox, and Casey King instead of Manu Intiraymi as Icheb. Why? Both actors are alive and physically capable of performing.  Now, I understand why they would reject the parts (especially Intiraymi), because the episode utterly shat upon their characters. But if the actors they got had added anything, it might make up for my unshakable feeling of "who the hell is that?" and "did Bruce Maddox get a space-perm?" when they appeared on screen. Suffice it to say, they didn't. As such, I was not only appalled by the way the characters were treated, but annoyed by the change in their appearance.


Kevin: Ultimately, neither was really allowed to act. They did some screaming and some mumbling. If it had been Brophy and Intiraymi, would we really have even had a chance to notice?

Matthew: Jeri Ryan gave it her best shot, elevating the reprehensible material she was given. I believed her anger at Icheb's murder, and her character's journey was identifiable to me. She had good chemistry with Patrick Stewart, and her action scene/tense standoff acting was excellent. Alison Pill also earns the coveted "they did their best with this bullshit" trophy.

Kevin: I'll say this. I do not like Star Trek as a dark action series, but if anyone is making a new one, hire her immediately. She really has the knack for the pacing and physicality. And for all of my outrage about how we got the character to this point, I can't deny that she acted the hell out of it. Rewatching Voyager just before this really highlights how much she brought from those episodes. Even the little way she points with her chin was just perfectly replicated in a way that felt connected rather than just mimicry. Scenes like the end with Picard really are a window into what this show could have been.

Matthew: Look, I'm sure Patrick Stewart enjoyed.... whatever the hell that was on the planet. But I didn't. Luckily, he was better in his non-fop scenes. Santiago Cabrera was pretty good! The actor has lots of charisma, and I enjoyed his scenes. Elnor was inscrutably played for laughs in the midst of the eye viscera plucking and phaser murders. O....K? I guess he was fine.


Kevin: Stewart should not have been allowed to do the French accent. I think we all agree. What I will say for Necar Zadegan's Bjayzl, and I am not the first one to clock this, is that she looks so much like season one Marina Sirtis, I was honestly waiting for some connection or reveal or it to turn out they ran her through the deaging CGI too. It's positively eerie.

Production Values

Matthew: Killing Icheb is one thing, a choice I vehemently disagree with. But whose decision was it to include the grotesque horror effects involved in it? It does not add to the story. It is gratuitous, it completely and totally shuts off any chance I had of showing this to my kids, and it is tonally inappropriate for Trek. Why can't Star Trek be Star Trek? Why does everyone think that every single television viewer wants a replica of Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead? When people say things like "The Orville is a better Star Trek show," this is the kind of stuff they're thinking of. Well, that and the coherent stories that explore science fiction ideas, and the optimistic universe peopled by likeable characters.

Kevin: Like I said, we're really running out of runway on this being some darker exploration of Star Trek and not some whole new material insisting it's Star Trek. For what it is, it's well realized, but that becomes a less meaningful compliment since it's easier to achieve now, and still just ends up looking like everything else. Say what you will about 60s and 80s Star Trek being cheesy, and it was at times, but at least it had an aesthetic that was its own.

Matthew: The stuff on "Freecloud" was distracting and pulled me out of the episode. I will never believe that advertisements like that would ever be effective. Do people crash their ships trying to rid themselves of them? How do a vast variety of aliens with different bodies figure out that they need to "punch the robot" to get rid of it?

Kevin: They did a great job of cramming a Star Wars world into a Star Trek episode. You have to give them that. One place I will heap unrestrained praise on the episode is Seven's wardrobe. They should go back in time and give her that outfit in Scorpion. It looked great, was still very flattering without making me roll my eyes at the 14 year old boys Paramount was apparently letting run the costume department in the 90s.

Conclusion

Matthew: I'm kind of at a loss. If this were an entirely different show and franchise, I would probably think this was a dumb but relatively entertaining episode. There was some decent tension in the face off between Seven and Vajazzle. But the longer this episode sits with me, the more intensely I dislike it. It starts with the gratuitous murder of a beloved canon character, with the sole purpose of giving another character motivation. It engages in inappropriate levels of gore and violence for a show that ought to be family friendly. Then it careens off on a bizarre tonal tangent with characters acting... comedically? Then Seven of Nine murders someone in cold blood. And then we are SHOCKED and SURPRISED when a likeable character who was given a few good scenes does a complete 180 for no good reason. This show is a complete and total mess. I'm stuck on a 1 here. If Discovery's severed Klingon baby head gets a 1, this has to as well.

You know, I used to watch Star Trek with my family as a kid. We would discuss the plot, debate the questions raised, and it would edify us all. Now I would rush to find the remote to turn it off before my kids enter the room.

Kevin: Hmm. Is this a 1 for me? Your analogy to the Klingon baby head is well taken, but I think I can say that Icheb's death while upsetting and graphic was not revealed immediately after to be a fakeout, and while I disagree that she needed the motivation, it was done to provide an in story reason for the difference between the Seven we saw on Voyager and the one we see here. Do I like or agree with any of the decisions? No. Just no. But I can't say it was as cheap as the Klingon baby head. I think on the strength of Jeri Ryan's acting, I think this squeaks into a 2, which is not exactly high praise, but here we are. That makes a total of 3.