ResurrectedContrarian
Suffers with mild autism
Finally had a chance to watch the whole episode last night.
It’s hard to express a reaction to this one. It wasn’t nearly as bad (in general, non-Trek TV terms) as episode 4’s fantasy ninja nun / elf village and its badly shoehorned, terribly scripted & acted Picard-abandoned-me daddy theme. That may well remain the low point of the whole franchise for years to come.
But “Freecloud” was very un-Trek in design, copied from space adventure franchises, and surprisingly cheap. I mean cheap as in—they clearly spend a lot on some of the production / effects of this series, so why are their sets always so terrible? We have basically one set for their ship—a cargo bay with a couple of light fixtures—and then all the planning scenes happen in Picard’s vineyard holodeck that filled up the pilot episodes, because I guess they can only have like 3 sets and have to keep reusing anything built. Having Picard continue to hang out and hold *all* his meetings in there makes him seem a bit senile, confused. Starfleet was a conference center with weird CGI ships in the background and people transporting in / out through gates. And now Freecloud—a fantasy trope of a lawless outpost—was basically one small bar room with a few weird aliens in the background. Seemed tiny, insignificant. It looks like they spent more on exterior CGI shots of the Borg cube than on all these physical sets combined.
That aside, the writing of on-screen brutality and revenge is boring and out of place. Especially the sexy-cruel woman villain, which is a trope they keep shoving on us, just like the sexy Romulan sister who tempts her brother in weird whispery incest hints and choke play. Violence in service of a story is one thing, but I’m seeing violence on this show as a sexualized fantasy element used very cheaply. It doesn’t belong in Trek and looks like someone desperately hunting to be cool like they think G.oThrones is.
I’ve also noticed that they have a new parallel to the old rule “you can make fun of a female character, if the guy making the joke is punched right after” (Futurama writers discussed this in context of Amazon Women episode). Here, the rule is: “you can have revenge, brutality, fantasy violence that wouldn’t fit into Trek, so long as Picard has a couple seconds to yell about it afterward.” In other words, Picard’s impotent “this isn’t our way” lines after all the killing and beheadings are just a cheap way to allow the show to be immoral fantasy garbage, while tricking the viewer into thinking it’s on the side of Picard’s old ideals, because he got to punch back for maybe 5 seconds.
But Picard spends every scene as a mere senile accessory to the action, confused and lost. I’m particularly irritated with the eyepatch disguise bit. He camped it up like an idiot, and it didn’t fit. He just feels like a joke now; he had zero impact on anything that happened in the bar. This show is basically "senile, grandfather Picard stands around while your favorite fan-fiction ideas (like 7of9 kicking ass and killing!) play out around him."
It’s hard to express a reaction to this one. It wasn’t nearly as bad (in general, non-Trek TV terms) as episode 4’s fantasy ninja nun / elf village and its badly shoehorned, terribly scripted & acted Picard-abandoned-me daddy theme. That may well remain the low point of the whole franchise for years to come.
But “Freecloud” was very un-Trek in design, copied from space adventure franchises, and surprisingly cheap. I mean cheap as in—they clearly spend a lot on some of the production / effects of this series, so why are their sets always so terrible? We have basically one set for their ship—a cargo bay with a couple of light fixtures—and then all the planning scenes happen in Picard’s vineyard holodeck that filled up the pilot episodes, because I guess they can only have like 3 sets and have to keep reusing anything built. Having Picard continue to hang out and hold *all* his meetings in there makes him seem a bit senile, confused. Starfleet was a conference center with weird CGI ships in the background and people transporting in / out through gates. And now Freecloud—a fantasy trope of a lawless outpost—was basically one small bar room with a few weird aliens in the background. Seemed tiny, insignificant. It looks like they spent more on exterior CGI shots of the Borg cube than on all these physical sets combined.
That aside, the writing of on-screen brutality and revenge is boring and out of place. Especially the sexy-cruel woman villain, which is a trope they keep shoving on us, just like the sexy Romulan sister who tempts her brother in weird whispery incest hints and choke play. Violence in service of a story is one thing, but I’m seeing violence on this show as a sexualized fantasy element used very cheaply. It doesn’t belong in Trek and looks like someone desperately hunting to be cool like they think G.oThrones is.
I’ve also noticed that they have a new parallel to the old rule “you can make fun of a female character, if the guy making the joke is punched right after” (Futurama writers discussed this in context of Amazon Women episode). Here, the rule is: “you can have revenge, brutality, fantasy violence that wouldn’t fit into Trek, so long as Picard has a couple seconds to yell about it afterward.” In other words, Picard’s impotent “this isn’t our way” lines after all the killing and beheadings are just a cheap way to allow the show to be immoral fantasy garbage, while tricking the viewer into thinking it’s on the side of Picard’s old ideals, because he got to punch back for maybe 5 seconds.
But Picard spends every scene as a mere senile accessory to the action, confused and lost. I’m particularly irritated with the eyepatch disguise bit. He camped it up like an idiot, and it didn’t fit. He just feels like a joke now; he had zero impact on anything that happened in the bar. This show is basically "senile, grandfather Picard stands around while your favorite fan-fiction ideas (like 7of9 kicking ass and killing!) play out around him."
