Category: Blogging The Next Generation
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Blogging the Next Generation: Picard — “Et In Arcadia Ego, Part 2”
“Something in my head seemed to just… go away. Like a child’s sandcastle collapsing.” So: what was Picard — season one anyway — about? Let’s start with logistics. Patrick Stewart is roughly 79 when Star Trek: Picard films its first season. The original Rick Berman productions were notorious for their shooting days — 16- or…
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Blogging the Next Generation: Picard: Canada Day Special — “Children of Mars”
“We could be heroes… just for one day.” I knew I forgot something! There’s a prequel to Star Trek: Picard, which also serves as the last episode of the two mini-seasons of Star Trek: Short Treks. I used to do the specials for the Next Gen feature films; kinda fun to do one for an…
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Blogging the Next Generation: Picard — “Et In Arcadia Ego, Part 1”
“It must have taken appalling brutality to turn such a gentle soul to violence.” After the season-high, one-two punch of “Nepenthe” and “Broken Pieces,” I cruised into Star Trek: Picard‘s two-part season finale more bullish on the show than I’d been since its announcement. And for a solid five minutes, I was not disappointed —…
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Blogging the Next Generation: Picard — “Broken Pieces”
“The future is left for us to write. And we have powerful tools!” “Nepenthe” was my favourite episode of season one of Star Trek: Picard and remains the odds-on favourite to keep the crown for the whole series; but, when I first watched it, “Broken Pieces” did a capable job of maintaining the level, and…
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Blogging the Next Generation: Picard — “Nepenthe”
“Oh, MAN!” After a furious week or so of writing and scheduling posts for this rebooted Blogging the Next Generation, I took about a month off between “The Impossible Box” and today’s entry. I recall something similar happening when the first season of Star Trek: Picard was airing: this show is a slog, man, particularly…
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Blogging the Next Generation: Picard — “The Impossible Box”
“That’s not my name.” In “The Impossible Box,” we arrive at what I’ve elsewhere described as ur-text of any modern Picard story: the now-seemingly-inevitable narrative debt to Locutus of Borg. “The Best of Both Worlds” gets trotted out for the umpteenth time as the defining trauma of Picard’s life, as Picard finally visits the Artifact…
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Blogging the Next Generation: Picard — “Stardust City Rag”
“What the hell are you doing out here, Picard?” Since Seven of Nine pops up at the end of the previous episode and now joins the cast of Star Trek: Picard (first irregularly, then permanently), some background context on my relationship with Star Trek: Voyager, from whence she hails, and this character particularly: it sucked,…
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Blogging the Next Generation: Picard — “Absolute Candor”
“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…
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Blogging the Next Generation: Picard — “The End is the Beginning”
“You are Starfleet. To the core.” Patrick Stewart does a better job of convincing me of the emotional contours of Picard’s departure from Starfleet in this episode; in the prologue flashback, we see him emerging from the immediately-post-Mars, let’s-still-save-Romulus meeting, having staked his career on their saying yes — and Starfleet having called his bluff…
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Blogging the Next Generation: Picard — “Maps and Legends”
“The sheer. Fucking. Hubris.” “Maps and Legends” opens with a banger flashback sequence where the androids (here called “synths”) commit their act of… terrorism? Sabotage?… on Mars. If you’ve ever played Alien: Isolation, you’ll recognize the vibe: ghost-eyed indestructible beings with the strength of dozens of people apiece, snapping necks, blowing brains out with industrial…