Having escaped the deadly nebula, the crew of the Titan rendezvous with another Starfleet ship, but there are “Imposters” everywhere in Picard Season 3 Episode 5, written by Cindy Appel & Chris Derrick, directed by Dan Liu.
Mark Turetsky: Well, the Titan has escaped the Shrike, none of the good guys died. Time to warp to a Starbase and do, I dunno, a survey mission or taxi a diplomat around the galaxy, right? God, I love me some Trek status quo!
Will Nevin: If this was Strange New Worlds, we’d be off to Captain Pike’s cooking class, a shore leave planet, another round of Enterprise bingo or some other such frivolity. But this is Picard — we ain’t got time for that shit.
And can I make a confession? I in no way think this series is good — the writing has been bad from day one, budgetary concessions continue to make themselves apparent and, overall, I think the character of Jean-Luc Picard could have done without these 25 episodes as a whole.
But you know what? After all that time, while it’s not great, this show is finally, at long fucking last, fun.
Mark: A man works through his trauma with his daughter figure and she gets murdered in a grisly explosion perpetrated by shape-changing aliens from the other side of the galaxy, and you call this fun?! How dare you sir.
You’re A Naughty One, Saucy Jack
Mark: I think the big ongoing question here is, what’s the deal with Jack? He’s seeing things, he’s snapping into some kind of Bourne Identity fighting mode at random, he’s having bad dreams, he lives with his mom. I can’t figure out how it’s possible, but it’s looking a lot like he’s a Changeling himself and doesn’t even know it.
Will: And assuming Beverly has raised him, that doesn’t make a whole heckuva lot of sense, does it? But there’s no denying that’s Vadic’s voice he hears in his visions (or whatever you wanna call ‘em). This is an angle that feels fresh and different — we’ve seen countless body takeover/alien possessions in Trek over the years, but nothing quite like this sense of unwilling programming and psychological horror.
Mark: TNG had “The Mind’s Eye” where Geordi was being controlled through his VISOR by Romulans, and there was season one of Discovery, but neither was quite like this.
Now, I need to tell you about “The Hundred.” A long time ago the Founders (what the Dominion calls the Changelings, the Changelings themselves aren’t big on names) sent out 100 Changeling infants into the wider galaxy to explore and gather information. We know what happened to only two of them: Odo and Laas, a Changeling who had been sentient for longer than Odo and proceeded to kinda maybe have an affair with Odo. In both cases, they had to learn how to become solid to mimic other people. If Jack is one of the Hundred, how could it be that he doesn’t know how to turn liquid? Why doesn’t he sleep in a bucket?
The other thing about the Hundred is that Odo had an irresistible biological urge to return to his people, which lines up pretty well with the voice that Jack hears, telling him to “find,” “hear” and “connect.” Maybe he’s patient zero in the Changeling “evolution” that led to them being able to mimic humans after death? Maybe the real Jack Crusher died long ago, and now we have a simulacrum of him (another parallel with his papa)?
Will: He clearly has some compulsion/obsession with returning to the Changelings, but the feeling appears to be mutual – they need him for some reason, and given all of their attempts and the pressure brought to bear on Vadic, it must be an important one. So if we accept Jack is a Changeling — and I think it lines up given what we’ve seen and how Beverly mentions that maybe he doesn’t sleep — where does that leave her? When did the switch happen? Was there ever a Jack Crusher? Is she also a Changeling? Anything appears to be possible.
Mark: One thing I really appreciated about this episode was that toward the end, when Beverly was pressing Jack about how he knew the four people he killed were Changelings, I was half convinced that she wanted to know because she’s one herself. It’s this sense of paranoia that this episode has managed to inject that’s making for a fun watching experience. As for the compulsion that Vadic feels to get Jack, I should also note that the Founders desperately wanted Odo back, and eventually surrendered in order to do so. And it’s not because Odo was special in any way, but just because he was one of them and they’re compelled to be together.
There’s also a huge taboo about Changelings killing each other. They just don’t do it, like, ever. Vadic and the Changelings from the Intrepid were always very careful to let no harm come to him. It all fits, and yet… how has he lived with Beverly and she hasn’t figured it out? The Changeling she did the autopsy on had no DNA (which also leads me to ask, how are they not using this fact to find the Changelings?). Surely living with a former Starfleet doctor would have led to a DNA test or two, especially when they can be performed with a wave of a little wand.
Will: Some of this Changeling “evolution” seems to be conveniently writing around this strangeness. Maybe Jack doesn’t get sick? Maybe he doesn’t need that many blood tests? In any case, it seems like this has to come to some sort of head in the next episode.
The mysteries in this series have not been that deep — how long did it take us to figure out Dr. Jurati was going to become the Borg Queen last year? — but the individual journeys have been fairly interesting.
An He-Ro-ic Return
Mark: On that note, let’s get to the emotional meat (eww) of the episode. The return and subsequent death of Ro Laren.
Will: What a goddamned good choice for a returning character!
Mark: And totally unexpected. Michelle Forbes has been, to my understanding, reluctant to return to Trek. She turned down a regular role on Deep Space Nine (which got rewritten as Major Kira) and moved on to bigger and better things (notably she was great on Homicide: Life on the Street). It took quite some doing to get her to play Admiral Cain in Battlestar Galactica because she was reluctant to even be involved in sci-fi. So seeing her return here was a real treat. If you had to guess, Will, how many episodes of TNG would you say Ro was in?
Will: If I was going to set an over/under, I’d go with five – and take the under.
Mark: She was in a total of eight. Still, I can’t think of anyone who had such an impact on the series in so few episodes as her. That’s far fewer than Dr. Pulaski, and I’d say Ro made a bigger splash than she ever did. Still, with The Maquis having such a major role in both DS9 and Voyager, her absence has really been noteworthy (though this week’s comic, Star Trek: Defiant #1 lays some of the groundwork for her relationship with Worf).
Will: No offense to Diana Muldaur (because she’s great!), but Pulaski as a character was a nothingburger. She’s around to be the ship’s doc, be a dick to Data and skedaddle when Gates McFadden was ready to return. I thought Ro’s return was especially timely given the air of conspiracy, and there are few characters — at least few characters associated with Starfleet — who are less trustworthy. And naturally, Picard and Riker would be skeptical of anyone claiming to be a Ro back in the Federation’s good graces and with an important position in Starfleet intelligence. It’s maybe a little too convenient (since I like to take digs at this show’s contrivances) but it worked here and gave us some good character moments.
Although I will say, I don’t know whether it’s the writing or Patrick Stewart’s range diminishing with age, but this version of Picard seems to have wild swings in emotions, including last episode when he easily dismisses Jack and this week when he goes from zero to full on rage at what he sees to be Ro’s disloyalty.
I remember a Picard being a little more reserved and stoic, notwithstanding a few scenes in First Contact. And if they want to change the character, that’s fine! But someone else should be commenting on that and pointing it out.
Mark: I dunno. The one time he really lost it with Wesley was in “The First Duty,” when Wesley’s Starfleet Academy squadron pulled a risky maneuver that ended in one of them dying. He wasn’t angry because Wes had done a dumb thing, he was angry because he lied about it. If Picard has filled the void his estrangement has left in his life with his Starfleet family, I think it’s absolutely believable that he would carry this much rage and resentment at Ro, whom he very much took under his wing and grew to love. He doesn’t give two shits about Jack as a person, but Ro’s betrayal got under his skin.
Will: For me, believability is a pretty important aspect of character development, and those are two moments that stick out as not necessarily being compatible with what we’ve seen of the character. But I will concede that other interpretations and milages may vary. And while we had another groan-inducing moment this week when the two of them ducked YET AGAIN into the 10 Forward Ave holodeck program, that exchange between the two — just them belting out enough emotional trauma to figure out that neither was a Changeling — was some good ass television that felt real.
Mark: That’s the key with this season, right? Because it’s Changelings, and the only way to tell if you’re dealing with one is to have a real emotional intimacy with the person they’re impersonating, then you have to go back to the people you’re closest with. So from this premise we get the inevitability of having to meet back up with the rest of the old TNG gang. It’s a pretty clever way to set up the ongoing reunion from a plot standpoint, rather than, oh, having someone say “there’s only one engineer who could do this” and then cutting to Geordi working in a junkyard or something.
Will: Ahhh, but, remember we talked about this in the office: We know Geordi is the head of the fleet museum, and we know this skeleton crew of now-outlaws will need more firepower to take on a compromised Starfleet. So in that way, it’s a wee bit less clever. Your point, though, stands.
Anyway, Ro has to have one of the all-time (apparent) on-screen deaths in Trek, right? Plowing your shuttle into a warp nacelle? Boss move.
Mark: I’ve seen this death referred to elsewhere as a fridging, and I can’t quite agree with that sentiment. Ro had the opportunity to fly back to the Titan and get beamed off, but instead she chose to disable the Intrepid so her friends could escape. And while it will certainly be an emotional motivating factor for Picard moving forward, it’s not the sole purpose for her death.
The one thing that bugged me about it is that while Picard was quite upset, Riker didn’t seem to be at all. Which is odd, especially since the writers seemed to have been writing an enemies-to-lovers plot for them that they abandoned. Still, maybe I’m putting too much weight on a relationship that didn’t quite happen 30+ years ago.
Will: …Or maybe Thomas Riker missed that part in the file?
Mark: At this point, I think Will being Thomas would be a real shark-jumping moment.
The Hierarchy Of Power Has Changed (In District Six)
Mark: Which leads us to our constant b-plot, the continuing adventures of Worf and Raffi. They need a new lead, and Worf’s files tease us with the potential of them questioning Morn, Brunt or the Outrageous Okona, but they settle on someone named Krinn. If Krinn’s name is found amongst those fan favorites, he better be an amazing and memorable character. What’d you think of him?
Will: Like most of the parts of the b-story not full of Worf, I found him entirely forgettable. I mean, it’s interesting to meet the galaxy’s second or third shady Vulcan, but other than that, this continues leaving me impatient to get back to the good shit on the Titan. At least these stories will be converging very soon.
Mark: Personally, I’m a big fan of Kirk Acevedo since Oz, where he was great, playing relatively grounded in a show that had a lot of big, broad performances. To have him here show up as a Vulcan who’s managed to cobble together some extraordinarily shitty logic to justify the choices he’s made was a ton of fun. It’s clear that Krinn wasn’t raised among Vulcans or by Vulcans, so he’s making up his own version of Vulcanhood as he goes along (kinda sorta like how Worf misses the mark on what it means to be Klingon so much of the time, because his experience of his people is secondhand).
The budget, once again, rears its ugly head. The only locations Worf and Raffi seem to have are the La Sirena and District Six, which, even if they redressed it to be District Five or District Seven, all basically looks the same. And Worf’s “We are feared. We are now the alphas of district six” seemed like something a party member would say in Mass Effect when returning to an old area of the game.
Will: That’s a good note on Worf — it was interesting in the beginning to see him around other Klingons, to see him watching their joy in life while he was always so stoic. And yeah, I have no idea why they didn’t redress the La Sirena — or at least board up that goddamned stained glass looking thing that was so central to last season. The economics of streaming television, Mark — they kinda suck.
Mark: You know what doesn’t suck, Will? By the end of the episode, they’ve finally tied Worf in with the rest of the crew, and Shaw has become a reluctant ally without betraying his character. I love that his first instinct when Picard tells him the Changelings have taken over is to call security to arrest them again. Perfect.
Will: And that was fucking fun. Finally.
Make It So On and So Forth
- It’s nice to know that Picard boned that pretty lady in Insurrection – or at least Starfleet history/gossip records him as doing so.
- The other time Geordi LaForge’s VISOR was a security risk was in Generations, which resulted in (1) the loss of the Enterprise and (2) a deleted scene that totally took the oomph out of Malcolm McDowell’s line, “His heart wasn’t in it.” (Yes, yes, it was needless exposition that explained how Geordi was being tortured with Borg nanoprobes that stopped his heart BUT STILL.)
- Good to see that the Titan’s doctor got *a* speaking line this week.
- Union rules, Will.
- Captain Shaw continues to be a full-on hoot.
- On the topic of Changeling “evolution,” it should be noted that the Founders were prodigious genetic manipulators, having created the Jem’Hadar and the Vorta from non-sentient animals, so that would be my bet, rather than evolution. But what do I know, I’m not a real doctor?
- Just a stray thought: why do we react so much differently between Pulaski mistreating Data and Bones mistreating Spock (the relationship that Pulaski/Data was clearly meant to mirror)? Is it because we had already spent a year with Data? Is it because we perceive Data as being more vulnerable (he constantly had his personhood called into question)? Is it because Data has a childlike innocence while Spock had a razor-sharp intelligence and would fight back?
- Will: At least Bones had other character traits.
- When Picard told Jack, “You know, many a rebel from all reaches of the galaxy have found their way to Starfleet.” My first thought was, “yeah, that didn’t exactly work out for Ensign Ro,” but then guess who showed up!
- If the Changeling infiltrator aboard the Titan could stay solid after death, why did they need a bucket at all?
- Ro doesn’t trust Picard and thinks he might be a Changeling, but at least she still respects his privacy while he’s reviewing personal medical records. That’s a federal law.
- “Starfleet is compromised at the highest level.” Again?
- Is the data in Ro’s earring the in-world basis for the visuals in the credit sequence?
- Will: I don’t think so? Seems like she wouldn’t have Picard’s security code in there…unless she was somehow monitoring Beverly’s transmission. But I 100% believe the end credits are a road map to the show, which means we have some chance of seeing a combination of Voyager, Excelsior and the Enterprise-A on screen before the end of this season.
- Picard suggests going to “Chancellor Roll,” but the only Roll I could find on Memory Alpha is the bread kind.
Will Nevin loves bourbon and AP style and gets paid to teach one of those things. He is on Twitter far too often.
