Star Trek Picard and Discovery
Mar. 1st, 2023 01:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethYesterday I finished watching Picard season 2.
(trigger warnings: suicide, murder, death of characters we know)
... I dont know quite what I thought of it, but I know I felt ever so many things, probably as per their plan, including getting very big feelings about the whole age and mortality thing.
Picard as a show seems to be arguing in favor of death. Like, it seems to conclude that death is a necessary part of life, and then just hope for a good ending. And I totally get why - it's not like being grumpy about it will make us less mortal - but also, sod that. Science fiction holds out the possibility that being grumpy about it will, eventually, make us much less mortal, so I am not in fact liking the argument for death just being the next big adventure or whatever.
I am also not in favor of an argument for the tapestry that involves accepting *other people's* deaths. I mean, this whole season is a logical continuation of themes raised in Tapestry, wherein your own younger self made some Choices that your ageing self Regrets, but they are an integral part of who you turn out to be. The whole journey of know thyself and forgive it, that's important, that's reasonable and relevant understanding.
But it was a very literal bit of time travel in a show that demonstrates time travel can very much change things. So it's a different moral problem entirely. Forgiving the error you havent made yet? Not the same problem.
Rios made the choice to try and build a better tomorrow despite full knowing how it worked out once already. Ethical, principled, and not shown that way. His story was about falling in love with the past as much as with one woman, and that connected to the loneliness theme Jurati had, but I'll have to think about what the time travel part makes it say. He loved her for how she helps people, despite difficult circumstances, so hope in the face of experience is one read.
But there's a whiff of giving up on the future. I mean, when Avengers had Steve go back to the past for love, it read like a form of suicide. He didnt know how to live in the now sp he gave up on it. It... feels like that problem inheres in the living in the past narrative even if he's going to try and make things better.
I am not a fan of Q choosing to die, or anyone so choosing. It makes a powerful story and I love the moment he won't be alone, but, put that story next to the other one... Picard's mother didnt want to get help. Did Q? Why dont the stories talk to each other? Or do they, and just say something very sad?
I liked how they resolved the Borg. I think I disliked that the specific 400 year old borg queen they faced was still looking like Agnes, because is that really the point? She would give them a new legacy. A new way of living. They'd carrynthat forwards. But okay, the telling gets a lot simpler if she has the same face.
... the setup gets a lot less likely to go boom if... hmm, no, actually, even outside of the time travely bit, if the borg turn up looking like a friend, that's not going to endear them to anyone. Took the whole Darmok to make that meaning plain.
I like the basic ending of lets make friends and trust each other and that will work out.
I feel like 7 as Annika was experiencing that model of disability where it's about how people treat you. Like she could accept becoming 7 again because she knew it wasnt her, she could do fine if she wasnt treated so poorly. But that's not the only reading and it's interesting. Like, was she genuinely better at people without borg implants? Yet is okay with them again now? Different kind of interesting. Probably most interesting to read it as a bit of both.
I like 7 and Raffi.
I dont like what the story chose to do with Elnor.
I feel there's probably more to read in the whole thing if I go look again.
But, while I was watching it, when I watched most of the episodes in a row I got annoyed of the recaps, because I was just here, I have a memory, it's fine... but then I stopped for a day to do stuff and I just... didnt think about the story. Not directly. Just the feels. Lots of big feelings about time and age and mortality. Not much thinking about the plot.
So I dont know what I think of Picard, because it makes me feel.
Also the biggest feels were about the bits I saw on tumblr already.
I like the no surprises version fine, which is good, because tumblr be like that.
I do feel that Picard makes more sense as its own thing than it does if I think (or feel) too much about fitting it in with every other Trek. It tells a strong emotional arc that seems self contained.
But it did keep my whole attention, to the point that I put it on in theory while I did my exercise for the day, but in practice I only got the exercise done in the last hour of the day, because watching.
... I did get the second Perfect Month this year, and my 500 move goals since I got this watch, so, feeling pretty good about exercise. 🖖
When I finished with Picard I ate dinner and started watching Discovery seson 3.
Only the first episode so far.
That's feels heavy but in kind of an opposite direction?
Time travel, and heavy losses, but, hope.
Hope that Starfleet and the Federation is worth building, as many times as it takes.
So I stopped after that one episode, partly because it is one in the morning, but mostly because that is a much better set of feels to try and fall asleep on.
(trigger warnings: suicide, murder, death of characters we know)
... I dont know quite what I thought of it, but I know I felt ever so many things, probably as per their plan, including getting very big feelings about the whole age and mortality thing.
Picard as a show seems to be arguing in favor of death. Like, it seems to conclude that death is a necessary part of life, and then just hope for a good ending. And I totally get why - it's not like being grumpy about it will make us less mortal - but also, sod that. Science fiction holds out the possibility that being grumpy about it will, eventually, make us much less mortal, so I am not in fact liking the argument for death just being the next big adventure or whatever.
I am also not in favor of an argument for the tapestry that involves accepting *other people's* deaths. I mean, this whole season is a logical continuation of themes raised in Tapestry, wherein your own younger self made some Choices that your ageing self Regrets, but they are an integral part of who you turn out to be. The whole journey of know thyself and forgive it, that's important, that's reasonable and relevant understanding.
But it was a very literal bit of time travel in a show that demonstrates time travel can very much change things. So it's a different moral problem entirely. Forgiving the error you havent made yet? Not the same problem.
Rios made the choice to try and build a better tomorrow despite full knowing how it worked out once already. Ethical, principled, and not shown that way. His story was about falling in love with the past as much as with one woman, and that connected to the loneliness theme Jurati had, but I'll have to think about what the time travel part makes it say. He loved her for how she helps people, despite difficult circumstances, so hope in the face of experience is one read.
But there's a whiff of giving up on the future. I mean, when Avengers had Steve go back to the past for love, it read like a form of suicide. He didnt know how to live in the now sp he gave up on it. It... feels like that problem inheres in the living in the past narrative even if he's going to try and make things better.
I am not a fan of Q choosing to die, or anyone so choosing. It makes a powerful story and I love the moment he won't be alone, but, put that story next to the other one... Picard's mother didnt want to get help. Did Q? Why dont the stories talk to each other? Or do they, and just say something very sad?
I liked how they resolved the Borg. I think I disliked that the specific 400 year old borg queen they faced was still looking like Agnes, because is that really the point? She would give them a new legacy. A new way of living. They'd carrynthat forwards. But okay, the telling gets a lot simpler if she has the same face.
... the setup gets a lot less likely to go boom if... hmm, no, actually, even outside of the time travely bit, if the borg turn up looking like a friend, that's not going to endear them to anyone. Took the whole Darmok to make that meaning plain.
I like the basic ending of lets make friends and trust each other and that will work out.
I feel like 7 as Annika was experiencing that model of disability where it's about how people treat you. Like she could accept becoming 7 again because she knew it wasnt her, she could do fine if she wasnt treated so poorly. But that's not the only reading and it's interesting. Like, was she genuinely better at people without borg implants? Yet is okay with them again now? Different kind of interesting. Probably most interesting to read it as a bit of both.
I like 7 and Raffi.
I dont like what the story chose to do with Elnor.
I feel there's probably more to read in the whole thing if I go look again.
But, while I was watching it, when I watched most of the episodes in a row I got annoyed of the recaps, because I was just here, I have a memory, it's fine... but then I stopped for a day to do stuff and I just... didnt think about the story. Not directly. Just the feels. Lots of big feelings about time and age and mortality. Not much thinking about the plot.
So I dont know what I think of Picard, because it makes me feel.
Also the biggest feels were about the bits I saw on tumblr already.
I like the no surprises version fine, which is good, because tumblr be like that.
I do feel that Picard makes more sense as its own thing than it does if I think (or feel) too much about fitting it in with every other Trek. It tells a strong emotional arc that seems self contained.
But it did keep my whole attention, to the point that I put it on in theory while I did my exercise for the day, but in practice I only got the exercise done in the last hour of the day, because watching.
... I did get the second Perfect Month this year, and my 500 move goals since I got this watch, so, feeling pretty good about exercise. 🖖
When I finished with Picard I ate dinner and started watching Discovery seson 3.
Only the first episode so far.
That's feels heavy but in kind of an opposite direction?
Time travel, and heavy losses, but, hope.
Hope that Starfleet and the Federation is worth building, as many times as it takes.
So I stopped after that one episode, partly because it is one in the morning, but mostly because that is a much better set of feels to try and fall asleep on.