Star Trek Picard: Two of One

The episode takes place at the top security gala given for the Europa astronauts.  Everyone is elegantly dressed, with top style honors going to Agnes Jurati, Borg Queen infused young scientist in a stunning red gown.

Luckily Picard gets a chance to talk to Renee Picard, giving her a strengthening talk about melancholy, and fear being a safety mechanism that keeps us alive.  Something like that.

I've seen a fair few write ups about this episode having plot holes. 

To me, the largest is that Agnes is left behind by everyone all the time.  Picard has Tallin, Rafi has Seven, and Agnes should have Rios, with whom she has a complex relationship.  

However they have Rios improbably falling for a 2024 doctor in a plot thread that really hasn't made much sense besides giving him screen time and isolating Jurati to be taken over unnoticed by the Borg Queen.

There are of course pros to having a Borg Queen helping you out. There's an emp burst that takes out the lights, then Agnes appears on a balcony, belting out Pat Benatar's Shadows of the Night in a strong voice.

It does give Picard the opportunity to follow and speak with Renee.  

She also, egged on by the Queen, grabs Rios for a big kiss before leaving the gala, striding down the street, dress flowing, taken over by the Borg Queen after having produced sufficient endorphins.

Soong has a few cheesy moments, somehow a jolly fellow at the gala for a large donation to the Europa program.  Wasn't he just tossed out of his job?

Failing there, he tries to run Renee down, but she's pushed to safety by Picard.

The episode goes to Agnes and her scaly girl pal!

Picard: Fly Me To The Moon (Paramount Plus)

 

Picard manages to talk at last to The Watcher.  

She's a dead ringer for his friend Laris from the future but is not Laris.  Her job has been to protect a single individual in this time period without ever being seen or detected by her in any way.

Her charge is to protect Renee Picard, an ancestor of Jean Luc's who is preparing for the historic Europa flight.

Picard urges Tallin to help him avert the upcoming time event, and tries to explain Q and his machinations to her. She's willing, but the last opportunity to protect Renee is at a gala with impossible to crack security.

Naturally Jurati, who's thrilled to try out the old code she once studied goes in first.  Captured by secuity almost immediately, as planned, she's soon in cuffs in the security center, right where she needs to be.

Unfortunately, she has the Borg queen like a devil on her shoulder tagging along. Agnes was forced to shoot the Borg Queen, but somehow the Queen at the last reached out and infected her somehow, and now the Queen is part of her.

Renee has been stressed and deeply depressed, and as part of her preparations, talks to a therapist who is revealed to be Q, encouraging her to allow her fears to take over and pull out of the mission.

Q has been very busy, as he's also got Adam Soong on a string, promising to help his genetically ailing daughter with a cure, if only Adam will help Q with an obstacle.

Rios is rescued handily by Seven and Rafi, once cool headed Seven takes over.

It's an action packed episode, and yet when it was over I was once again thinking "Wait! You're stopping there?"

The deeper we go, the more complex things get. It's another excellent season of Picard.

Picard: Watcher (Paramount Plus)

 I feared a CGI Guinan would appear eerily in this episode, but there is a young actress instead.  She's young and angry and has a very disillusioned view of 21st century humanity.

 She doesn't know Picard, doesn't trust him, and is closing up shop before the big time anomaly event can occur.

Seven and Rafi try to track down Rios who has been arrested by ICE and is on a bus to...somewhere.

Their sequence is all about cops and robbers, and since they've stolen a police car, they're both.

Poor Agnes remains on the La Sirena with the dangling Borg Queen.  The Queen finds Agnes fascinating and keeps picking at her.  Burati has such a baby face, but we know she's capable of cold blooded murder, so I'm not worried about her.

The episodes continue to combine thoughtful science fiction with roaring action sequences, and excellent personal moments.

Book Notes November 15, 2021

 Always my favorite subject.  Because I was so quiet, I was placed in a low reading group in elementary school.  Once we began reading, and reading aloud, however, I was placed in the top group.  Don't underestimate the quiet ones.

Perhaps these were plot cliches in 1959, but here in 2021, I think many of these plot ideas are fun twists.

https://www.writersdigest.com/be-inspired/plot-nots-avoid-plot-cliches

 

From Aunt Agatha, her favorite Cozies of 2021.  Not my favorite genre, but she does have some fun choices.

https://auntagathas.com/aa/2021/11/12/best-of-cozies-2021/

 

Excitingly, there will be a Myrtle Hardcastle Book 5 in 2023.  I am now reading Cold Blooded Myrtle Book 3.  So where is 4???

How I love Time Travel Stories.  Here's a list of 20, new and old featuring Time.

https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/2218-span-centuries-with-these-20-time-hopping-favorite-reads

 

 

Paradoxically Yours, Time Travel Stories

Since the paradoxes and counter-paradoxes of Lost have our heads spinning here at D.O.A. Central, we present a few time travel tales that are not merely about travelling through time, but which address those tricky time paradox issues that can crop up. There are tons more but these are ones that my co-hort and I have read and recommend. After lo those many years as a YA librarian, I still love and read plenty of YA and middle grade novels so you'll find those here as well.

The Time Tunnel by Murray Leinster

Flash Forward by Robert J. Sawyer

The Man who folded himself by David Gerrold

Time Patrol by Poul Anderson

Timescape by Gregory Benford

Gideon the Cutpurse: being the first part of the Gideon trilogy by Linda Buckley- Archer

A Wrinkle in time by Madeleine L' Engle

Time and again by Jack Finney

The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

Lightning by Dean R. Koontz

Mr. Was by Pete Hautman

The Navigator by Eoin McNamee

The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

A Shortcut in time by Charles Dickinson

Artemis Fowl: the Time Paradox by Eoin Colfer

"A sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury (short story)