“A promise is a prison, Elnor. Do not make yourself another’s jailer.”
Look: I like Elnor. I like him a lot! Giving Picard his own personal bodyguard Elf is nuts, but the Qowat Milat (Romulan ninja-Elves who only speak the bluntest version of the truth) are my kind of loony. Inventing a whole second sub-sect of Romulan whackos in almost as many episodes? Even loonier! Qowat Milat! Zhat Vash! Bibbledy-Bork! Qab jIH nagil!
Here’s that duplication problem again. The Zhat Vash are a scarier version of the Tal Shiar, and now because we haven’t enough embroidery applied to the Romulan mythos yet in Picard (we are in episode four), here is another group we’ve never heard of, that serve the story cuz reasons, and have a personal connection to Picard cuz reasons. This, officially, is where Picard begins to show its hand, and it’s not a good hand. This episode, and the one that follows it, are bad — silly, overplotted, misjudged. But I grew to really like Elnor, regardless of how “community-theatre-cum-cosplay” his introduction is handled here.
(And I can’t really get mad at showrunners who are as Romulans-mad as I was in my youth. Have you read The Romulan Way? Where’s that series, Paramount?!)
We begin in flashback in an episode of Firefly (based on the music), with genteel plantation owner Picard (based on the costume) visiting a Romulan refugee settlement and hanging out with Elnor as a child, reading Three Musketeers and play-fencing with the youngin’. It’s here that I began to think that Picard’s biggest problem was Stewart himself, and that Stewart simply wasn’t playing Picard — he was playing Patrick Stewart. He’s too friendly, for one; he has big smiles for everyone and an enthusiastic hug for Elnor, and even though a Romulan Nun reminds everyone that Picard doesn’t like children, that reticence is nowhere in evidence.
But also, the characterization of Picard in this episode is wildly uneven. Happy to the point of manic one minute, furiously angry another. More widely, this episode is doing the thing that NuTrek is notorious for: it establishes a set of emotional stakes and expects us to immediately adopt them, rather than earning those stakes over time. Here’s a colony: it meant a lot to Picard: Picard was happy here: now he’s not welcome: he is sad about it. Those starting principles are all presented to us fait accompli, before the episode has even taken off. Even Picard’s relationship with the Romulans is new to this series, starting just three episodes ago. Now we are required to invest in his return to, and redemption of, his relationship with these refugees. It’s too much to be carried for something we’ve never heard of before, and plays nearly as pantomime without having built any real emotional depth.
In the present tense, Picard is running a holographic duplication of his study at the chateau as a kind of ready room aboard La Sirena, and the crew are having Marvel Cinematic Universe-style banter-fights, and things are starting to get weird*. I didn’t even mention Rios’ holographic doubles (introduced last episode), or his fixation on reading (a paper copy of) The Tragic Sense of Life, or that we’re meant to absorb yet another worldbuilding component with the Fenris Rangers, who are going to become hugely important this season and introduce a brand-new concept to Star Trek (as far as I’m aware): rogue militias keeping the peace where the Federation isn’t bothering. Does the Federation entirely suck in this series, or what?
*This is also the episode where Soji and Romulan Fuckboi have their dance-slide-socks thing, which I can’t meaningfully incorporate into this entry, but is such a singular and daffy moment in this series that I needed to commemorate it anyway.
One nice thing about the Rios holos: they are a shortcut to appreciating just how fantastic Santiago Cabrera is on this show. He’s great as Rios; and his holographic alters are played just broadly enough to show that he’s completely in on how ridiculous this premise is. Rios is a bit of tragic missed opportunity on this show — I don’t like how his story resolves at all — but then, so is this entire supporting cast. The vibe is off, and it takes several more episodes for them to become a body that I would want to watch in further adventures; but by the time that happens, the Powers That Be have evidently already decided that this show ain’t about them, anyway, and they’re quietly shuffled off the stage, one by one.
There is a short, quite touching moment between Raffi and Picard. Raffi has sussed out that Picard is trying to clear out old debts by rerouting to Vashti to see Elnor. He says he may not pass this way again. The true arc of his mission is becoming clear, both to him and to his closest confidante. The storytelling is moving too fast, though, for it to resonate with us as an audience. Picard feels like it’s trying to have its first season and a final season at the same time.
Blogging the Next Generation: Picard runs Thursdays on tederick.com as I work my way through every episode of Star Trek: Picard. The original BTNG did the same for Star Trek: The Next Generation.