I don't know if I can do this, everybody. The dumbness.... it's just so, so strong....
You know that famous bit from Peanuts/Charlie Brown, right? Where Lucy pulls the football away from Charlie Brown and poor Charlie goes flying in the air? So much of the fun is how you know it's going to happen, and yet you still kinda root for Charlie Brown to actually hit the darn thing. Maybe this is the time Lucy isn't an asshole!
Watching Star Trek: Picard is, for me, my Charlie Brown moment. Except not only do I see everything coming a mile away, and the football gets pulled away every time... but it also clonks me hard on the head somehow while I'm on the ground.
I really, really hate this show. Not only is it badly written (oh boy is it badly written), it's badly made! There are visual shots (at least in this episode) that are such glaring continuity errors... the kind that make you go "huh? Okay I guess". The only emotion I feel while watching this (beyond revulsion) is extreme laughter at the shows expense. Finding redeemable elements of it isn't scraping the bottom of the barrel, it's Barney Gumble drinking spilled beer from an ashtray.
I'd explain the plot of episode 3, except there's like maybe five minutes of actual plot here while the rest is either melodramatic bullshit or the writer's ode to Los Angeles. Fuck Los Angeles. (I've been, not a fan) and fuck Star Trek: Picard. You know this stupid show uses the song "California Dreaming" at one point? Except it's not the classic haunting Mamas and the Papas version (a great song you should be listening to instead of watching this garbage show), it's some shitty modern cover because goddamn it lets be modern! It's so cringe inducing, impressive for a show designed by professional cringe inducers.
Sigh.
The episode that puts the "ass" in Assimilation, finds our "heroes" held at gunpoint by Seven of Nine's "husband", but of course they escape and are able to do their time travel shenanigans (actually evoking Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home in doing so. Go watch that instead, Star Trek: IV is awesome). Oh, except one of the goons fatally shoots Elrond Howard (or whatever), the Romulan ninja guy... and his death affects Raffi pretty hard in some just completely brutal scenes to have to sit through and witness. Picard tries to give the most flaccid Picard Speech of all time, but sadly it seems Patrick Stewart has wandered into a high school level production. You don't feel anything for any of these characters because the emotions you're supposed to feel keep bludgeoning you over the head to the point of viewer exhaustion. This fucking show would be bad already if it didn't insist upon itself so much... but it does. It so does and it's naked badness would be almost admirable if it also wasn't so bloody painful.
Most of the episode's second half basically copies the Star Trek IV formula: our science fiction heroes thrown into modern times (in this case 2024 in LA) and classic fish out of water antics ensue. Thing is, Star Trek IV works so well because of how it really doesn't take itself seriously. Shatner and Nimoy's double act is so charming that you forgive the silliness of the premise, plus every other character gets a quotable moment. This show? This dumb fucking thing trying desperately to ape good vibes? These characters are so underdeveloped that these attempts at "comedy", like Raffi and Seven's scene where they're trying to get in somewhere... just come across as tedious and tired. It's a difficult dramatic line to walk when you kill off a main character and also have wacky situations in the same episode... and these writers clearly don't have the skill or the subtlety to pull it off.
Hey, remember that scene where ICE comes in to raid the Spanish speaking hospital that Rios ends up in? Do you think there's some kind of message there? Do you? Maybe it's lost between the lines, I dunno. Even the tiny aspects of this show I find myself liking... they consistently fuck it up! Rios is an interesting character, and I like this potential subplot of him befriending this doctor... except BOOM here's another allegory! GET IT??? We don't respect your intelligence at all! Charlie Brown and the football... right in the face.
Hey also, that whole connecting Agnes with the Borg Queen thing... meh. I was so distracted by the reality of: "Hey, aren't there only like six people on this ship? And three of them just beamed away, one just died and another is now connected to an irresistible hive mind? What if that goes wrong? Which it likely will! What if Agnes suddenly turns Borg and Picard (old man Picard) is the only person on the entire damn ship?" Ughhhhhh.... why is this so fucking dumb? Even if I didn't love Star Trek as much as I do, this would be horrible to watch. It defies any sense or logic.
Hey, remember when Picard says "Home" when Rios asks where Picard is crash landing the ship in 2024? I assumed he probably meant his vineyard in France, you know... countryside, less likely to attract attention (as a fucking spaceship crashing into our planet will probably garner). And yet... it's never referenced or acknowledged again. The fuck? Is this excessively stupid show trying to imply that Los Angeles is "home"? Starfleet headquarters is in San Francisco, you fucking idiots. This ain't some vague notion mentioned in a forgotten episode of Voyager or something... it's well established. Last I checked, San Francisco and LA are not the same place... nor are they even that close to each other. Man, this show fucking sucks.
Honestly I'd talk more about the story and what actually happens in this episode, except that's easily done in a single sentence. They go back to 2024, Romulan dude dies and we're supposed to feel something, then a lot of nothing happens and Borg Queen. That's all, folks. I'm outta here. If I can gather enough constitution to watch another episode of this crap, I'll see you next time. Fuck this. Fuck everything.
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