star trek picard season 3 episode 9 recap

‘Star Trek: Picard’ Season 3 Episode 9 Recap: Oh Yes, She’ll Fly

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It is hard to believe that Star Trek: Picard is drawing to a close, but the penultimate episode of Season 3 delivers so much more than Star Trek fans could have ever dreamed of for the final grand adventure of The Next Generation crew. In “Võx,” the truth about Jack Crusher ( Ed Speleers ) finally comes out, and it sets the stage for one of the largest—if not the largest—threats that this cast of characters has ever faced before.

The episode opens mere moments after the end of Episode 8 , with Deanna Troi ( Marina Sirtis ) working her counselor magic on Jack to try to get him to finally open the red door and reveal the mystery that lies within it. As Will Grove-White croons the eerily perfect tune “I Can’t Stop Crying,” Deanna pushes Jack to analyze their surroundings—particularly the red vines that cover the floor and walls leading to the red door. Jack recalls the Crimson Arboretum that his mother ( Gates McFadden ) took him to as a young boy, and mulls over the fact that the vines are like the roots beneath the soil which connect everything together. The song, he explains, is one that his mother shared with him: something that was passed from his father ( Patrick Stewart ) to Beverly, and then to him.

Realizing that Jack isn’t going to open the door on his own, Deanna offers to do it for him and promises him that no matter what is on the other side he won’t be alone. However, once she opens the door and sees what has been hidden there all along, she immediately breaks that promise and flees to find his parents. It’s there, with Picard and Beverly, that Jack’s secret is revealed. The eerie voice inside his head is none other than the Borg Queen ( Alice Krige ) and it’s the Borg Cube waiting for him on the other side of that ominous red door. The truth is a tough pill to swallow for Beverly and Picard, and they both try to theorize their way out of accepting it. Beverly points out that Jack has never been assimilated, while Picard begins to reckon with the idea that he may have passed on something far worse than the Irumodic Syndrome. This, they realize, is why Vadic ( Amanda Plummer ) wanted Jack so desperately—he’s a dangerous weapon that can be used against humanity.

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Jack is pacing in crew quarters when Picard comes to finally put him out of his misery and tell him what Deanna saw behind the door. Understandably, he is quite frustrated and rather irate about how things have played out, especially with Deanna abandoning him. While Jack has heard a little about his father’s time as Locutus, thanks to Shaw’s ( Todd Stashwick ) tragic backstory, Picard gives him a brief refresher about his assimilation before revealing that the Irumodic Syndrome they both have was actually a misdiagnosis. Jack doesn’t take the news well that whatever Borg components were within Picard somehow “seeded” within him. Though the illusion with the blossoms and roots works quite nicely with that seeding comparison.

Discovering that he is connected to the Borg rocks the very foundation of who Jack believes himself to be. He quickly jumps to the realization that his long-held belief that the galaxy would be a better place if people talked, listened, and connected is just cybernetic authoritarianism in kinder packaging. And he’s never looked and acted quite so much like his father than when he’s ranting and raving and spiraling over the truth. Picard tries to soften the blow by suggesting that they transfer him to a research facility on Vulcan, but Jack recognizes that they’re trying to institutionalize him in a prison where he can be mind-melded into a lobotomy. Self-preservation, and maybe a little Borg drive, kicks in and Jack realizes he has to hightail it off the Titan before this happens, so he uses his handy abilities to take control of the officers and escape from Picard, and his mother. Jack isn’t just running because he doesn’t want to be experimented on, he escapes because he’s convinced he can take on the Borg queen on his own. The Picard genes are clearly strong with him.

When the red door was first introduced in Episode 3 , I jested that the allusion caused me to draw comparisons to the infamous red room in Jane Eyre , and once again “Võx” is forcing my hand again. While the writers behind Picard may not be intentionally making that connection, the throughline of what this visual signifier means within the language of cinema adds new layers to Jack’s plight. In the novel, this literary device is used to explore Jane’s isolation and imprisonment—it directly inhibits her sense of belonging. For Jack, the red door holds a similar value. Once the door is open, his sense of individualism is stripped away from him, and he is pushed toward the Collective. In Jane Eyre , Jane is imprisoned in the red room, but in Picard , opening the red door pushes Jack into a position where his parents look to imprison him, essentially jeopardizing his freedom in the same way that the red room holds the keys to that in the novel. It’s fascinating how, intended or otherwise, there are aspects of literature that work their way into the collective psyche (pun intended) and add new depth to plot devices that shows like Picard employ.

With Jack gone and concealing his whereabouts, Beverly and the rest of The Next Generation crew begin to work on answering how her son inherited the Borg from Picard. Picard may feel guilt about passing that horrible legacy onto his child, but Beverly seems to carry her own guilt, particularly when it comes to not seeing the truth sooner. She watched him so closely, but she never saw what was right in front of her. Geordi ( LeVar Burton ) calls Picard down to Sick Bay to continue discussing Jack, and he reveals that they have worked out that he is essentially the Borg’s transmitter, which they can use to send directions. They also discuss that this isn’t something new—this has been dormant inside of Jack his entire life. While it does seem like he’s been able to hold it off for nearly twenty years, Worf ( Michael Dorn ) points out that the entire Changeling conspiracy and the Borg’s plans are directly connected to Frontier Day.

Shaw is reluctant to take the Titan to Frontier Day, especially with the entirety of Starfleet after them, but Picard makes his case that this is what they have to do to save the day. It’s there that Picard reintroduces a very deep cut, by putting Admiral Elizabeth Shelby ( Elizabeth Dennehy ) front-and-center as the master of ceremonies, where she unveils brand-new tech that allows Starfleet’s armada to work as one. The new capabilities, which are hailed as the ultimate safeguard, are decidedly Borg-like in design—something that Picard recognizes almost immediately. But the Titan ’s arrival at Frontier Day is too little, too late.

On the other side of the galaxy, armed with a phaser and a lot of audacity, Jack has found himself transported to the Borg Cube via a transport conduit. The Borg Queen taunts him further, calling him “my flesh,” “my child,” and more importantly the name she has given him: Võx. Where his father’s name meant “to speak,” Jack is the “voice” of the Borg, just as the crew theorized about his role as a transmitter. Despite a valiant attempt to take out the Borg Queen (which was never going to happen), Jack finds himself assimilated and transformed into the weapon that is posed to turn Starfleet into the Borg. In the midst of the ensuing chaos of Frontier Day, the crew discovers that the Changelings had a larger plan at play when they began infiltrating Starfleet. Aboard each and every vessel, they uploaded a new data point into the transporter code—one that transformed Picard’s Borg-filled DNA into common biology. This is how the Borg planned to take control of every ship: by assimilating every member of the crew that was under 25 and had been through the transporters after the Changelings took over. Picard attempts to warn Admiral Shelby about what is about to happen, but the Borg seize control of not only the Starfleet armada but the Titan too.

Shaw’s worst nightmare comes to life as all the younger members of the crew—including Geordi’s daughters—are assimilated by the Borg. He and the rest of The Next Generation crew manage to escape the bridge and hunker down in the turbo lift long enough to come up with a plan. In the turbo lift, they listen to a message from the Captain of the U.S.S. Excelsior who has managed to take back control of the bridge, but before he can complete the message the Borg-controlled armada takes aim at the starship and destroys it, which makes them realize they’re not going to be able to shoot their way out of this situation: especially not with the armada-wide connection. Shaw comes up with a plan to get everyone down to the maintenance level, where they’ll be able to take an escape shuttle off the Titan , since the shuttles aren’t tied into the integration.

On the maintenance level, the crew’s reunion is short-lived as the Borg descend upon them, leading to a pretty epic firefight as they mount their escape. In a great example of “the rule of three,” Shaw is shot by one of the Borg-influenced officers, and this time he isn’t going to be able to get back up. As he lies dying, he is given the opportunity to become the commanding officer who decides who lives and dies, as he urges everyone to escape while they still can. And before he dies, Shaw finally calls Seven ( Jeri Ryan ) by her name, as he tells her the Titan is now her ship. Of course, there’s irony packed into the moment, considering the Borg have taken over the Titan and Seven is a former part of the Borg Collective. Even with his dying breath, Shaw is still the dipshit from Chicago that warmed over audiences with his surly disposition. While everyone else escapes, Raffi ( Michelle Hurd ) opts to stay behind with Seven, which will certainly give the rest of the crew an advantage as they presumably take on the Borg in the finale.

There are a lot of really great small moments tucked in between the larger drama of “Võx,” particularly where Data ( Brent Spiner ) is involved. Whether it’s the consoling hand he places on Picard’s shoulder while he frets over Jack’s inheritance or when he stops Geordi from spiraling over his daughters’ assimilation or—most comically—when Geordi tells him to be more positive, so he snarks “I hope we die quickly.” This new and improved version of the android is the MVP of the episode because he makes the most out of every single moment he has. The final ten minutes of “Võx” delivers an unexpected surprise for fans of The Next Generation . As the crew looks for a way to take on the Borg, Geordi reveals the ace he’s had up his sleeve. While he planned to unveil it under better circumstances, Geordi takes the crew back to the Fleet Museum to reveal a newly restored Enterprise-D , which may just be the last analog starship in existence that hasn’t been integrated with the fleet, and their best chance at defeating the Borg.

Seeing the crew of The Next Generation reunite on the Titan was one thing, but seeing them stand on the carpeted floors of the Enterprise is like a fever dream. You can almost feel the palpable joy bleeding through the screen as they marvel at the restoration and check out their old stomping ground. Picard, ever the poet, starts to make a great pronouncement about standing there with the crew and realizing what he missed, which was the carpet, obviously. As the episode draws to an end, they make a point of discussing how they’re all family—including their kids—and that wherever Picard goes, they’ll go too. With their limited weapons and their run, shoot, or hide prerogative, the crew is finally ready to face their greatest advisory and their last great adventure. Together .

The final season of Star Trek: Picard is streaming now on Paramount+.

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Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Episode 9 Review – Vox

The penultimate episode of Star Trek: Picard finally gives us the answers we've been waiting for -- and a whole lot of feelings too.

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This Star Trek: Picard review contains spoilers.

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Episode 9

The penultimate episode of Star Trek: Picard season 3 is an hour it feels like we’ve been waiting weeks to see. (Which, technically, I suppose we have, given how generally mediocre the last two episodes have been.) “Vox,” thankfully, seems to understand that there are two episodes left in this entire series and acts accordingly. The end result is an hour that may not be perfect from a narrative perspective, but that definitely hits all the right notes when it comes to the heart and emotion that have made this season of Picard such an improvement over the two that have come before it. 

After largely spinning its wheels through “Dominion” and “Surrender” , two mediocre installments notable only for the return of Deanna Troi and the successful merging of Data’s multiple personalities, the series’ sudden dash through a half dozen major plot points at once is certainly a welcome change, if only because it feels like things are finally happening again. In the course of an hour, we learn the truth of Jack’s secret history, lose a fan-favorite character, witness the return (again!) of Star Trek ’s all-time greatest villains, see the mysterious threat of an attack Frontier Day finally come to fruition, and watch our favorites head off together to save the day on the very ship we all fell in love with them on in the first place.

 If this is fan service, serve me forever, is what I’m saying. But, once again, the episode’s many Star Trek easter eggs , callbacks, and deep-cut references aren’t simply there to delight fans, although they surely do. They’re also relevant and necessary pieces of who these characters are and who they’ve become in the two decades since the events of Star Trek: The Next Generation .

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The return of the Borg was probably always the most natural place for this season (and Picard itself) to end. After all, they are Picard’s greatest nemesis and most crippling fear. There’s very little connective tissue between the three seasons of Picard , but the lingering trauma of Borg assimilation—for both Jean-Luc and Seven of Nine—has been one of the series’ few constants. It makes complete sense that this is the enemy Picard would have to face one last time, with the life of his child on the line. And, despite the fact that a lot of viewers had probably already guessed some portion of Jack’s heritage, the revelation still lands with plenty of emotional heft. After all, this is literally Picard’s worst nightmare and everything he’s ever been afraid of, all put into the body of the child who only just realized he had. That’s…a lot.

Granted, the revelation that Jack inherited organic Borg matter from his father would probably have been better served with a bit more time to breathe. Why Picard felt the need to drag this out for three episodes is indeed a mystery and I weep for the version of this season that told us who he really was back in “Dominion,” thereby allowing the story to dig into Picard’s complicated reaction for more than what felt like maybe ten minutes before his son literally ran away from him and the Borg attacked. It’s not hard to feel like that would have been a better story, even if it revealed the “twist” of the season’s true Big Bad a little bit earlier. 

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“Vox” also leaves plenty of questions unanswered and features several plot twists you’ll be a lot happier if you don’t think about too hard. Why are the Changelings working with the Borg in the first place? What does Jack have to do with any of this if they’ve already passed on their altered DNA to all of Starfleet’s youth? What, exactly, was Jack’s grand plan besides running straight to the Borg and surrendering immediately? Isn’t Agnes Jurati technically the Borg Queen now? And shouldn’t the events of Picard season 2 have made a whole lot of this Borg subplot impossible to begin with? Shrug emoji! Who knows! 

I realize I am part of the problem here, because, in truth, I’ve already accepted that Picard is likely never going to answer most (any?) of those questions, and I loved the crap out of this episode anyway. Primarily because it’s fully back on its nostalgia bullshit, and giving fans everything they wanted from this show in the first place: Our legacy favorites working together again to save the day against seemingly impossible odds, on a note-perfect recreation of the very set we first saw them take to the stars in. Yes, the reveal that Geordi’s been rebuilding the original The Next Generation Enterprise-D in what is essentially the Fleet Museum’s garage for the past two decades is kind of ridiculous on its face, but it’s also incredible , and my heart absolutely grew three sizes while everyone got emotional over the vintage carpet and antique weapons systems. Is this extended walk down memory lane the best use of everyone’s time while the Earth is under attack by a Borg-controlled Starfleet armada? Probably not. Do I care? Not even a little bit. 

With just one episode to go, there’s a lot of narrative ground to cover and we should probably accept that some of the specific plot questions we care about may not get answered satisfactorily. But if Picard Season 3 has taught me anything thus far, it’s that this outing still understands the emotional heart of these characters—and that’s what I really need from the conclusion of this story. Engage.

4.5 out of 5

Lacy Baugher

Lacy Baugher is a digital producer by day, but a television enthusiast pretty much all the time. Her writing has been featured in Paste Magazine, Collider,…

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Star Trek: Picard Reveals Jack’s True Identity and Brings Back an Old Friend

Dave nemetz, west coast bureau chief.

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Warning: This post contains spoilers for Thursday’s Star Trek: Picard .

The Star Trek: Picard crew is gearing up for next week’s series finale … and they have a nice ride to get them there.

Jack reaches the Queen and is prepared to hit her with a phaser, but she simply welcomes her prodigal son home before assimilating him into her collective. Meanwhile, Geordi and Data figure out that the Borg altered Jean-Luc’s DNA and used the Changelings to code that altered DNA into Starfleet transporters… so everyone who’s been through a transporter now has Borg in them. Yikes! Luckily, it only affects cadets under the age of 25, since their brains are still developing, but it’s enough for the Borg to assimilate all of the Titan ‘s young crew… including Geordi’s daughter. The Borgified youngsters take over every Starfleet ship, including the Titan , while the oldsters flee to a repair shuttle with Shaw giving them cover — and taking a fatal phaser blast. His dying words are to hand command over to Seven, calling her “Seven of Nine” for the first time. Awww… given how he started out, we can’t believe we’re actually going to miss that guy.

How much did you love seeing the TNG gang back on the Enterprise ? And what are you hoping to see in next week’s series finale? Beam down to the comments to share your thoughts.      

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I love that they used Majel Barrett voice for the computer!

Yes, that was a nice surprise.

Are the showrunners ignoring the second season of their own show? Beverley said the Borg hadn’t been heard from for ten years — was there a ten-year jump between seasons I missed? Aren’t the Borg kinda-sorta allies (or at least, at truce) with the Federation now? . I mean, if Borg!Jack shows up with a new Borg Queen consort and a fleet of cubes to stop the Changelings’ plan in the finale, cool. It’d be kind of a deus ex machina to end this fantastic nostalgia-bomb of a season, but at least they wouldn’t be ignoring their own show.

There was that whole time travel thing going on in season 2. I think the timeline was altered in the past skewing exactly when or how that encounter unfolded.

Agnes’s Borg and the regular Borg aren’t the same thing. Their time traveling created a secondary type of Borg.

I was initially confused as well, but this makes sense now. How cool would it be if Agnes’s borg showed up to fight the regular borg in the finale.

Thank you for explaining that! I was so confused.

Have to admit I got the warm and fuzzies when I saw the old Enterprise. The way the crew showed such reverence for her. Job well done.

I hate that they killed Elnor off camera. Worse than Icheb’s death last season.

Was the voice for the borg queen Allison Pill or the Late Annie Wersching? If it was Pill they better have a good explanation for her sudden turn back to being a heel. If it was Wersching that would explain not showing her face and probably means Pill’s Queen will swoop in to save the day in the finale.

It was Alice Krige. I believe like a bee colony, Borg Cubes have different Borg Queens & collectives.

The end credits list Alice Krige as the voice of the Born Queen, which makes sense. She has a history with Picard/Locutus.

When did they say Elnor was dead?

The ship Elnor was serving on was the one that was destroyed by the infected ships.

It would be very easy to write around that if Trek ever wants Elnor to return. He was on holiday or on secondment or had been transferred .and so on.

As there is no mention of him dying and Matals tweeted, that he wasn’t on the Excelsior, he should be fine. A Borg, but other than that fine.

Honestly, this is the best Star Trek stuff in years…I have been blown away by how good this has been especially given how awful last season was…I did not realize how much I missed all these guys together and on the bridge of Enterprise D, I had goosebumps.

I’ve never enjoyed the last ten minutes of a tv episode in my life more than this. There is really no other instance of a classic tv show getting the gang back together like this ever.

Well done to all.

Wow… how can they properly resolve everything with just one more episode. Two unexpected things happened: 1. Shaw dying – I thought there was a spinoff there. 2. Elizabeth Dennehy when they said the Admiral’s name commanding the 1701-F, my ears perked up. It looks like she met the same fate as Ro Lauren a couple of weeks back. 3. Do we know who is playing the Borg Queen? It didn’t sound like Allison Pill who borg’d out at the end of season 2. 4. I suspect Jack may be more than the Borg bargained for and is able to use his ability to control them.

Excellent episode. It was great to have Elizabeth Dennehy back, even if it was for a short time. I’m not embarrassed to say I got all the feels when Enterprise-D came into view. The best season of Picard, which is really just TNG Season 8.

As someone who watched TNG when it originally aired, I loved the ‘get off my lawn’ implication that the Borg code affects only those under 25. Across the centuries, young’uns will always be the worst.

Perfection!

Seeing the Enterprise D again was like getting an old friend back. I’ve always loved the Enterprise A along with the Enterprise E. While the e is down for the count, I hope the fleet museum and the older ships survive to see another day.

Best episode in the series!!!

Ridiculous. Not planning on watching the last episode now. Been a fan for years. This is the most disappointing direction they could have gone in… 5 minute star trek ending anyone? There was so much possibility SO MUCH and all of this just to see the Enterprise D.

Not worth the time. thanks for wasting my last 9 thursdays.

How exhausting it must be to be you

Crazy is apparently exhausting, so yeah.

Yeah…..right

You have literally never been more wrong about any internet comment you have left in your life.

Time to get your diaper changed.

This show is on a streaming site and can do away with some of the conventions of ad based time constraints of usual tv.

Hopefully they will have an extended version of the upcoming battle to save Star Fleet and the galaxy. To try and do a rescue, battle the Borg and celebrate their victory within the allotted 45 minutes of broadcast tv would be a disservice to the excellent third season and closing of a phenomenal chapter in the Star Trek series.

it’s written so as to add in commercials on Paramount+ (in the future if not now) but I’m guessing also for airing overseas on international broadcast tv or wherever else with ads eventually

I refuse to believe that Shaw is DEAD dead. 🙉

I hate the trope of killing off Shaw. I thought they got past that and he was clear sailing and part of the Star Trek future, but no, they had to give Seven her captainship this way. Uggg! I now understand why they didn’t kill him off in the first episodes. The captainship would have gone, permanently to Riker or Picard so when this episode happened handing over the ship to Seven would have been an asshat move just so they could be with their “old” crew, instead of staying on the Titan.

I don’t think that either Picard or Riker would have been a good move. I think, although it’s sad, this was the way it had to be. Besides, they let Shaw die “with honour” like a Klingon.

Slight correction. I believe the Borg have assimilated both of LaForge’s daughters.

Man if Voyager and Defiant make a last second appearance I will lose it!! And if Janeway shows up…..oh. my. God.

Both of those ships are at the spaceship museum. Even if those ships went back into use, I think it would be unlikely that any of the familiar characters from Voyager or DS9 would be among the crew.

If Janeway doesn’t come back curious if John Delance somehow wipes them out. Doubt Wesley crusher will. 1hour will not do it justice. Maybe 3hr finale lol.

This is all very bittersweet. I was just eleven years old when the original Star Trek made its debut. My hubby and I have been died in the wool Trekkers and watching Picard is a mixture of emotions to see it all come to an end, full circle. Job well done 👍

This season of “Picard” has been the best “Star Trek” television since “Voyager” left the airwaves! Each episode topped the previous week, which I didn’t think could be done. There were so many wonderful moments and Easter eggs throughout this season, but this episode, “Vox,” was the best so far! Finally revealing Jack’s true identity, returning the Borg to their Uber-villain status within Trek lore (though they better explain the big contradiction from the season 2 finale), to the return of Shelby, that glorious reveal with the Enterprise-F, and then of course the climax ending aboard the Enterprise-D! I got choked up and was almost in tears! TNG has always been my favorite incarnation of “Star Trek,” so to have this moment was priceless! And when Picard said “now that you’re all here together, I realize what I’ve missed the most…..the carpet!” My word, I fell out of bed laughing! And right after Worf’s own humorous line that he liked the Enterprise-E better. This episode was just superb “Star Trek” on every level! Promote Terry Matalas to Grand Bird of the Galaxy already, and at the very least, Paramount/CBS must give the green light to #StarTrekLegacy! Make it so!

Loved the USS Pulaski ship name…

Also spotted the USS Hikaru Sulu!

“Let’s make sure history never forgets the name… Enterprise.”

And man – did that “Engage” hit you in the feels, or what?

Since most of the command staff at Star Fleet over 25 years old have been killed by the under 25 year old Borg the new Star Fleet officers will be the youngest ones in the history of the Federation.

Talk about a really new next generation Star Trek.

Its a shame that the big reveal of the Borg plan did not live up to its expectations. It just feels somewhat contrived and un-Borg-like. Not to mention it has a serious case of megalomania oneupsmanship, like most sequels these days. Its a good thing Matales got almost everything else right so this misstep blunders the joy somewhat but it doesnt completely ruin it.

If you didn’t go a little nuts seeing the Enterprise-D at the end, you shouldn’t have been watching this show. I’ve loved watching this group get together again and while I was sorry to see Shaw go, this has been a fantastic season. I’ve heard some rumors that this might not actually be the last season; if season 4 would be up to this quality, I’d be very happy with that.

I thought the dr jarati was now the borg queen (last season). I am confused

As Shaw said, real Borg were still out there. Yurati’s Borg Queen is the product of an alternate time line and doesn’t effect the other Borg.

what alternate timeline ? they all time travelled and then returned to same point in time … didn’t they ? and Jarati took the long way back (ie. just living for a few hundred years to eventually catch up with them) I think ???

not an alt timeline – it’s still the same timeline I thought

Episode 9 was a shock but I sort of expected it was to do with the Borg . But wow what a twist . Sorry episode 10 has come around so quick .

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Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Picard Season 3, Episode 9 - "Vox." Star Trek: Picard season 3, episode 9, "Vox", ramps up the stakes for the finale, as the truth about Jack Crusher (Ed Speelers) is finally revealed, a Starfleet officer falls in battle, an old enemy returns, and Commodore Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) reveals what he's been keeping in Hangar 12. After eight episodes, and cryptic hints, a therapy session with Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) reveals the terrifying truth about Jack Crusher, which puts the entire future of the United Federation of Planets at risk. As the Frontier Day celebrations begin, a nightmarish alliance between two of Starfleet's biggest enemies disturbingly separates the last generation from the next.

To save the lives of their children, and the Federation itself, Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), and Commodore Geordi La Forge and the rest of their Star Trek: The Next Generation crewmates return to the Athan Prime Fleet Museum. Stored there is the one Starfleet vessel that is free of the dystopian Fleet Mode that has proved to be the armada's undoing. The identity of the starship, the major threat to Frontier Day, and Jack's quest for answers about his gifts set the stage for an epic Star Trek: Picard season 3 finale.

RELATED: Every Star Trek Ship In Picard’s Starfleet Museum

TNG's Enterprise-D Return Explained

In the emotional climax to Star Trek: Picard season 3, episode 9, it's revealed that the USS Enterprise-D is what Geordi's hiding in the Fleet Museum . Geordi explains that, after the Enterprise crashed on Veridian III in Star Trek: Generations , the Prime Directive dictated that all evidence of the starship be removed from the pre-warp planet. For the past two decades, Geordi has been working on restoring the classic ship in his free time, presumably with the help of Ensign Alandra La Forge (Mica Burton), as a father-daughter project. Because he's been restoring the ship as a period piece of 24th-century technology, it doesn't have the same systems installed as the 25th-century starships currently headed for Earth, making it impossible for the Enterprise to be assimilated into the new fleet.

Interestingly, Geordi reveals that they'd be unable to use the USS Enterprise-E, a loaded statement that puts Captain Worf (Michael Dorn) on the defensive, by stating that whatever happened to the starship wasn't his fault. It's a fun moment that tacitly hints Worf succeeded Jean-Luc Picard as Captain of the Enterprise , something previously mentioned in the Star Trek logs on Instagram. Hilariously, Worf reveals that he still has a preference for the Enterprise-E's weapons systems, an abrupt statement that comes across as incredibly dismissive of Geordi's painstaking reconstruction of the D. The Next Generation crew then take their former positions on the Enterprise, ready to fly into one last battle to save the Federation and Starfleet's next generation from the plans of the Changelings and their new allies - the Borg.

Jack Crusher Is VOX - Borg & Locutus History Revealed

After eight episodes, Star Trek: Picard season 3, episode 9 revealed what was behind Jack's red door - a Borg Cube. This revelation confirmed to Jean-Luc and the crew that Jack didn't inherit Irumodic Syndrome from his father, but organic Borg DNA left behind after his conversion into Locutus of Borg was reversed. Star Trek: First Contact set up Jack Crusher when it revealed that Jean-Luc was still able to hear the voice of the Borg Collective, thanks to the DNA that had been left behind. Breaking free of the USS Titan-A to seek further answers, Jack comes face-to-face with the Borg Queen, who says that while Locutus of Borg was a receiver of the voice of the Collective, Jack Crusher is VOX, the broadcaster of the Borg Collective. After confronting the Queen, Jack becomes fully wired up to the Collective, to broadcast its voice across the fleet.

This explains how Jack has been able to enter the minds of others, effectively creating a small-scale hive mind. The voices and nightmares that Jack has experienced since childhood have been visions of the Borg Collective, and the voice of the Borg Queen (Alice Krige), weakened after her final confrontation with the older Admiral Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew). The reason that Picard himself never manifested these gifts was because the Borg DNA effectively acted as a failsafe after he was separated from the Collective. While the Borg failed to assimilate the Federation 35 years earlier, passing that Borg DNA down to Jack has allowed them a second, much more successful attempt at assimilation.

RELATED: Star Trek Picard's Jack Crusher Powers Explained

First Contact's Original Borg Queen Is Back - Changeling Team-Up Explained

Star Trek: Picard has brought back Star Trek 's original Borg Queen , as played by Alice Krige, and she's been working with the Changelings. It's unclear who approached who in this ultimate team-up of Star Trek villains, but the Queen's reference to " what Vadic knew " suggests that it was the Changelings who discovered the Borg DNA and sought out their Queen to propose an alliance. Upon discovering the Borg DNA, the Changelings isolated the genetic code, and implanted it in the transporter signature, meaning that everyone that used a transporter was infected with Locutus DNA, allowing instantaneous assimilation. This explains why Changeling impersonators replaced transporter technicians like Ensign Foster (Chad Lindberg) as it gave them the access they needed to insert the code.

Presumably, the Changeling infiltration explains the installation of the controversial Fleet Mode that Picard describes as " Borg-like ". The Fleet Mode effectively turned the whole of Starfleet into a flotilla of Borg ships, headed toward Earth with the intention of destroying its defenses and assimilating the planet into the Collective. Why the Changelings would ally themselves with the Borg is inadvertently explained by Jack Crusher when he talks of how everyone sharing just one mind would instantly remove problematic personality traits like bigotry and selfishness. The Dominion has long sought to impose order on the Alpha Quadrant, so Starfleet and the Federation acting as one voice under the Borg Queen and Jack Crusher/Vox would finally fulfill this wish.

The Borg Assimilates Starfleet - But Only The Young Generation

It's explained that the Borg DNA can only affect brains that haven't fully developed, which means that anyone under the age of 25 becomes immediately assimilated into the Borg Collective. It's unclear what this means for alien species whose brains develop at different rates to Humans, but ultimately, every young officer on every starship in the fleet has become a Borg drone. While it's a neat narrative trick to ensure the older TNG generation get their last hurrah, it also leads to some genuinely heartbreaking moments in the episode. Data (Brent Spiner) offering comfort to Geordi as he worries about Alandra and Ensign Sidney La Forge (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut) is a great moment for the two friends that also emphasizes how far the new Data has come.

Interestingly, the young Borg drones don't attempt to assimilate their older crew mates and instead take the Borg mantra of " resistance is futile " to heart, by killing anyone who attempts to stop them. The USS Excelsior managed to briefly wrestle control back from the Borg drones, before being destroyed by the other ships when it broke away from the fleet. The same is true on the Titan-A, as the older generation race against time to make it off the starship before they're killed by the Borg drones that are in command of the starship.

Captain Shaw's Heroic Death & What It Means For Star Trek: Legacy

Captain Liam Shaw (Todd Stashwick) is once again faced with a Borg attack, after surviving the Battle of Wolf 359. Shaw's harrowing Borg story tragically set up his Star Trek: Picard death; like the senior officer who saved him aboard the USS Constance, Shaw gives his own life to ensure that Jean-Luc Picard made it to the shuttle. It's a devastating moment, but it shows how much Shaw has grown as a character, as his distrust of Picard has given way to respect. The most telling moment is when Shaw hands over command of the USS Titan-A to his Number One, to whom he finally refers as Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan).

With Shaw gone, it means that should Terry Matalas' proposed Star Trek: Legacy get a green light, it will be Captain Seven of Nine who's in command of the Titan. Star Trek: Picard 's finale could perfectly set this up, as the former Borg drone rescues the Federation from the Collective's latest plan. Seven has always had trouble fitting into Starfleet, but now that Shaw has finally accepted her, it feels like a big moment that marks her acceptance by Starfleet and sets her up as a lead in Star Trek: Legacy .

Riker's Rival Admiral Shelby Commands The Enterprise-F & Is Killed By The Borg

The final flight of the USS Enterprise-F begins Starfleet's Frontier Day celebrations, and the starship is commanded by Riker's TNG rival , Admiral Elizabeth Shelby (Elizabeth Dennehy). Riker is still not a big fan of Shelby, as he derides the former Borg expert's eager acceptance of the new Fleet Mode system. When Riker and Shelby first met in "The Best of Both Worlds", she was working with Starfleet Tactical on defensive planning for the inevitable attack by the Borg Collective. Shelby made no secret of her ambitions to replace Riker at Picard's side, and it's clear that her career ambitions have seen her surpass Riker by reaching the position of Admiral before him.

In a moment of dark irony, it's revealed that for all her time in Starfleet Tactical, Shelby didn't predict Star Trek: Picard 's new Borg attack. When the Borg assimilates the entire fleet's junior officers, she's immediately killed by phaser fire as she sits in the captain's chair of the Enterprise-F. In horror, Riker and Picard watch the events unfold, as they realize they haven't been staring down a repeat of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's Dominion War, but they're engaged in the high-stakes conclusion to a battle with the Borg that first began 30 years earlier.

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 streams Thursdays on Paramount+.

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'Star Trek: Picard' Series Finale Takes Flight with Proper 'TNG' Sendoff: How the Reunion Concluded

Picard concluded after three seasons on Thursday with one final grandiose adventure that's sure to give fans cheers and chills

Ryan Parker is the former Senior News Editor, Weekends for PEOPLE. He left PEOPLE in 2023.

Warning: This post contains spoilers for the season 3 finale episode of Star Trek: Picard.

Star Trek fans were treated to one final adventure with The Next Generation crew in their iconic ship from the popular '80s-'90s TV series in the finale of Picard .

In Thursday's finale episode astutely titled "The Last Generation," the crew of the rebuilt Enterprise-D took on the Borg one final time (maybe?) to save the day — and humanity.

The third and final season of the Paramount+ series reunited TNG stars Patrick Stewart , Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, LeVar Burton , Brent Spiner, Michael Dorn and Marina Sirtis for one last, grandiose adventure.

The finale also featured some wonderful Trek Easter eggs, including The Original Series star Walter Koenig voicing his character's son, Federation president Anton Chekov.

Essentially, Jean-Luc Picard (Stewart) discovered this season he had a son, Jack (Ed Speleers), whose mother was Dr. Beverly Crusher (McFadden). Jack heard Borg voices in his head due to Jean-Luc's passed down Borg-altered DNA from being assimilated in TNG .

In an attempt to once again rule humanity, what was left of the Borg and their Queen (voice by OG queen Alice Krige from the film First Contact ) used a combo of Picard DNA and Jack as a conduit to control the younger members of Starfleet in order to concur Earth.

Needless to say, only the TNG crew, along with the help of Picard series stars Jeri Ryan and Michelle Hurd, could save the day. And they did just that, by stopping the Borg moments before Earth was enslaved, thereby rescuing Jack and killing the Queen.

Each TNG character got to showcase their abilities and shine, the most rewarding of which for many fans was Geordi La Forge (Burton) taking the Enterprise captain's chair while Jean-Luc, Capt. Riker (Frakes) and Worf (Dorn) were aboard the Borg Cube to save Jack and stop the global assimilation.

The series concluded with Seven of Nine (Ryan) being named captain of a rechristened USS Enterprise-G, with Raffi (Hurd) as her first officer and Jack, named special councilor to the captain.

Before the credits rolled, the TNG crew gathered for one final drink — and a game of poker, which TNG fans will recall is exactly how that series concluded in May 1994.

In a mid-credits scene, Q (John de Lancie) returns to inform Jack that Jean-Luc's trial for humanity was indeed over — but his was just beginning, leading to fan speculation a new Star Trek series is in the works.

This season, and more specifically the finale, was fulfilling for many Star Trek fans (who shared their approval on social media resulting in the show's trending) as it was a proper sendoff for the TNG crew 20 years after the film Star Trek: Nemesis bombed at the box office, resulting in an unceremonious end to the TNG franchise.

Picard star Stewart told PEOPLE at the beginning of this season that the entire cast was disappointed with Nemesis , so having another bite at the TNG apple was a cherished opportunity.

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Star Trek: Picard season 3 can be streamed in full on Paramount+.

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The series bends over backward to reach the foes and families of the past and nearly breaks an otherwise solid season to get there.

Why is it always the Borg? The answer to that question is obvious. Because “The Best of Both Worlds”, the episode where Picard became Locutus and the Federation was nearly destroyed, is one of the high watermarks of The Next Generation and the franchise as a whole. And season 3 of Star Trek: Picard is nothing if not an extended attempt to dunk the audience in a warm bath of familiarity and nostalgia.

But by god, at this stage, Star Trek has litigated and relitigated the Borg to the point of exhaustion. They did it in “The Descent” during TNG ’s final season. They did it in Star Trek: First Contact . They did it repeatedly throughout Voyager . For some godforsaken reason, they even did it in an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise . Hell, they did it as recently as…in the last two seasons of Star Trek: Picard .

Along the way, Starfleet has attacked them with rotating weapons frequencies. It’s attacked them with the scourge of individuality, aliens from another dimension, holodeck machine guns, and even kindness and understanding. What is there left to do or say about these cybernetic boogeymen, more than thirty years later, when the franchise never really stopped drawing from that well?

But no. Here we are again. The Borg are the secret Big Bad. Alice Krige is vocally (though not physically) back as the Queen, here to threaten our heroes and tempt those closest to Picard ( Patrick Stewart ) once more. Her collective is attacking Earth yet again. Everything’s different, but everything’s the same.

At least the cheekily-titled “Võx” finally answers the question of what’s happening with Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers). It turns out that (sigh) when Picard was assimilated, the Borg secretly implanted some malicious, never-before-detected DNA code into his parietal lobe that makes him a “receiver” for the Collective. Except when Jack was conceived, Jean-Luc passed this “seed” on, and it slowly blossomed in a way that makes Junior an unwitting Borg bio-transmitter.

Of all the nonsense! I don’t mind the soft science, bordering on magic, that has long been the stock in trade of Star Trek . I do mind retconning thirty-year-old episodes in increasingly strained ways just to justify your “shocking twist” in the present. I do mind rehashing an, “Oh no, you inherited this malady from me!” conflict between Jean-Luc and Jack when the show essentially already covered it just a few episodes ago . I do mind the credulity-straining happenstance of Picard’s never-before-seen son just so happening to be the unwitting scion of his mortal enemies, in a way that nobody managed to discern until right this moment.

Everything’s different, but everything’s the same.

That’s not all though! if Jack being the Borgchurian Candidate weren’t enough, it turns out the Borg/Changeling alliance’s evil plan was to inject Picard’s time bomb DNA stands into the “transporter architecture” of Starfleet vessels so that the Collective can surreptitiously assimilate everyone who beams aboard without anyone realizing. How convenient!

This is the second time Star Trek: Picard has casually buffed up an old enemy so that the usual tricks don’t work, and it’s just plain lazy. If you’re going to invoke a former foe, at least have the decency to play by the established rules and find a clever new spin on them, rather than simply inventing some new danger-boosting upgrade out of whole cloth. Or at a minimum, treat the evolved threat as a fresh development, rather than something that was supposedly always in play lo these many years, but serendipitously never came up until this very minute.

The fig leaf “Võx” tries to place over the contrivance is that this new assimilation is neurological, not nanoprobe-based, and so only affects people whose parietal lobes haven’t fully developed, i.e. those under the age of twenty-five. (Query how that affects alien physiology given the Titan ’s crew complement, but whatever.) The instant switch to biological assimilation is a cheap shortcut designed to up the ante, while the conceit behind it is built on popsicle sticks and bubblegum. Worse yet, it’s a transparent excuse for why this problem must be solved by the elders aboard the Titan , which just so happens to be the old guard from the Next Generation days.

To complete that winnowing, though, Star Trek: Picard has to sideline Seven ( Jeri Ryan ), Raffi ( Michelle Hurd ), and especially Shaw (Todd Stashwick), so that the OG crew can have their reunion special safely away from the newbies. That said, in an episode full of narrative spackle, the excuses deployed here are at least more palatable and rooted in the characters.

For all his bilge and bluster, Shaw dies nobly while trying to fight off the Borg, so that Picard and his allies can escape. (At least until ol’ Liam miraculously recovers for the inevitable spinoff.) Shaw demonstrates real growth in his final moments, conveying that Seven has earned his respect as he grants her command of the Titan and, more importantly, calls her by her real name. Raffi’s reasons are understandably simpler but no less compelling — she won’t leave the woman she loves behind. “Võx” is otherwise rife with nonsense and narrative cheats, but the episode does manage to earn these moments.

Sadly, the same can’t be said for much else in the episode. As predicted, Frontier Day goes horribly awry. Starfleet’s new “Fleet Formation” technology, where all the ships are networked, proves to be its undoing when the Borg complete their takeover and start using the good guys’ own vessels to batter Earth’s planetary defenses. There is, theoretically, no ship left in the Quadrant that hasn’t been commandeered by the bad guys.

So never mind asking for help from the Klingons. Never mind requesting assistance from the Cardassians. Or hey, perish the thought of reaching out to Jurati’s Benevolent Borg from this same time last year. There’s apparently only one ship within spitting distance that’s capable of fending off this latest invasion — the friggin’ Enterprise-D .

You can practically feel the creative team trying to paper over its tenuous, shotgunned plot twists via the fans’ fond memories of the former show.

A return to the ship that ferried the Next Generation crew for so long should be a warm moment of reunion. Instead, the extended callback is all but emotionally neutered given how obviously it plays like a sop to longtime fans. I’m not immune to the rush of seeing Picard, Riker ( Jonathan Frakes ), Troi ( Marina Sirtis ), Worf ( Michael Dorn ), Dr. Crusher ( Gates McFadden ), Geordi ( LeVar Burton ), and Data ( Brent Spiner ) step onto that iconic bridge once more. But the whole heartstring-tugging moment feels unearned and manipulative. You can practically feel the creative team trying to paper over its tenuous, shotgunned plot twists via the fans’ fond memories of the former show.

The convenient circumstances that lead Picard and company to revisit their one-time home among the stars make it all too easy to see the narrative seams. The blunt declarations of “We are your family” lay an otherwise stirring notion on too thick. The glory shots of an unconvincing CGI Enterprise , its carpeted interior, and its lit-up panels play like the show cajoling you to subconsciously transpose your pleasant feelings from The Next Generation ’s original run onto a successor that’s done little to earn the same. I guess we can take solace in the fact that the return of the old Galaxy-class ship guarantees at least a few scenes with brighter lighting.

Nostalgia should be the frosting of a legacy sequel, not the whole cake. I can’t pretend it’s anything but a blast to see Elizabeth Dennehy as the now Admiral Shelby in live-action once more, commanding the Enterprise-F . It’s a treat to hear Majel Barrett’s voice as the ship’s computer again or a tribute to an old colleague by way of the USS Pulaski . Seeing the TNG crew sit in their usual spots one more time before they dive into the latest danger, has a power that comes from one-hundred seventy-eight episodes’ worth of glorious and endearing adventures.

But when the attempt to stir up fond memories of old rather than forge something new is so conspicuous, so contrived, so empty, the burst of nostalgia can’t help but feel hollow. The reason the Borg are back is that we already know them. The reason that the only people able to evade the villains’ biological and technological attacks turns out to be this fan-favorite crew back on their old ship is that we already know them. Even when you want to reach those emotional destinations, even when you want to embrace those fond recollections, taking such a flimsy and transparent path to get there makes them roundly unsatisfying.

Legacy sequels, particularly ones designed to give the familiar faces one last hurrah, deserve some leeway to conjure up memories of past glories and use them to fuel the happenings here and now. For the most part, Star Trek: Picard has done a good job of that this season, invoking plenty of high points from the prior era of Trek, but channeling them into new directions and challenges. In its penultimate episode, though, the series puts its biggest cards of the season on the table and hopes fans will be too blinded by the naked nostalgia and wild twists to call out the show’s final disappointing bluff.

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Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Rediscovers Its Voice In “Võx”

| April 13, 2023 | By: Anthony Pascale 536 comments so far

“Võx”

Star Trek: Picard Season 3, Episode 9 – Debuted Thursday, April 13, 2023 Written by Sean Tretta & Kiley Rossetter Directed by Terry Matalas

An excellent start to the season (and series) finale, “Võx” is jam-packed with revelations and an emotional roller coaster of character moments.

I’m not opening it, you open it.

WARNING: Spoilers below!

“Your son is dangerous.”

Things kick off inside Jack’s red door vision, now guided by a reassuring Deanna, who helps him realize the creepy vines are from a childhood memory about an arboretum visit and a fascination with flowers being connected, symbolizing his own primal need for connection. Deanna promises Jack he isn’t alone, but after finally opening that door, she shuts the whole thing down and makes a hasty exit. The shocked counselor runs to his parents, revealing what she saw… it’s the Borg. Dun dun duuun! After a bit of back and forth, the trio quickly puts the pieces together–when he was Locutus, the Borg changed something on an organic level to make him into a receiver, which later manifested as (misdiagnosed) Irumodic Syndrome. He passed this to Jack, where it has transformed into his new powers as a transmitter, which is why why the Borg want him. Picard takes the revelation hard, seeing that everything that has happened is his fault. As he heads off to inform Jack, Troi points out that there are protocols, specifically that Jack is clearly compromised by Starfleet’s greatest enemy who want to use him as a weapon. Jeez Deanna, as if Jean-Luc wasn’t feeling guilty enough.

Picard finds Jack clawing at walls and sits him down to tell the tale of when he was assimilated and how the Borg left something behind. This new twist on the birds and bees has Jack now understanding why he has always had a subconscious, Borg-like drive for perfection and shocked to learn of the “cybernetic authoritarianism” origins. The compassionate father and son bonding flips when Picard suggests Jack go to a Vulcan institution that deals with this sort of thing, but Jack isn’t having it, especially after the two security guys outside the door make it clear the admiral wasn’t just suggesting. After a sick burn about how Picard never learned the “protocols of a father,” Jack does his red eyes control thing on the security guys, creating a little collective to assist his escape. A desperate Beverly is unable to stop her son, who vows he’ll find the Borg Queen to tell her to buzz off… what could possibly go wrong with that plan? After stealing a shuttle, Jack senses his way to a transwarp conduit that leads straight to a Borg cube. Left behind, his parents are helpless to stop this joyride, but Beverly is determined to find answers and leaves Picard to commiserate with his old pal Data, who asks if now is the right time to “say something comforting.” Meet the new ‘droid, same as the old ‘droid.

Which one of us has to tell him his grandmother was a replicator?

“Happy Frontier Day, everyone.”

In Sickbay, Geordi and Data have been going over the Changeling database and have learned Altan Soong was studying how the Borg did some extra monkeying with Picard’s DNA, which is why the Changelings stole the body: to weaponize the code. The details of how Jack fits into the plan are still unclear, but everyone assumes it has something to do with the plot for Frontier Day, which is kicking off now with all of Starfleet gathering above Earth. A reluctant Shaw steers the ship back home, where they watch Admiral Shelby (on board the Enterprise-F!) give a nice speech about the launch of the first Enterprise starship 250 years ago, leading to the creation of the new Starfleet. The Titan gang gets salty (especially Riker, holding an old grudge ) when they hear about the new “fleet formation” advancement, mocking the “Borg-like” connected ship “unity.” And speaking of the Borg, Jack has made his way into the cube to have a chat about Latin with the obscured Queen, who welcomes him “home” and dubs him “Vox.” (Title alert!) Dr. Jack wants to show her “mercy” at end of his phaser, but resistance is… well, you know the rest.

A triumphant Queen does some monologuing about vindication and revenge as the kid gets plugged in for the big show. How’s that plan working out, Jack? Back in sickbay, the Data/Geordi/Beverly braintrust has even more exposition: Changeling infiltrators coded Picard’s Borgified DNA into transporters across Starfleet. “They’ve been assimilating the entire fleet this whole time.” OMG! The Titan arrives at Earth, but they’re too late. Picard’s warning about the conspiracy is cut off by a Borg signal which starts assimilating the young crews across the fleet (something about the frontal cortex stopping development after age 25)… this includes Mura, the La Forge girls, and the rest of the Titan’s junior officers… who announce they are Borg! Seeing Shelby gunned down by some ensigns and the entire fleet quickly assimilated, the older folks decide it’s time to get off the Titan, which has gone total Logan’s Run .

I love having you back, but what’s with the goofy grin, dude?

“We’re the crew of the USS Enterprise.”

The gang struggles to find a safe deck to exit the turbolift as firefights rage across the ship, now commanded by BorgEsmar. A last-gasp message from the USS Excelsior over a maintenance channel gives Captain Grease Monkey an idea, so Shaw directs everyone old enough to remember round combadges to meet up at a repair shuttle, which importantly isn’t part of the new ship network. The Borg announce Starfleet has been added to the collective, and the “weak and willful” are soon to be eliminated as the synchronized fleet takes aim at Spacedock… and Earth. Everyone rallies on the maintenance deck and even as he struggles to deal with his daughters’ assimilation, Geordi is convinced to fight another day—and he has an idea of where to go. He and Data have some gallows humor prepping the shuttle as some Borgies show up to say “Okay, Boomers” with phasers. Shaw holds them off as one by one, the TNG vets get into the shuttle, but he takes a serious hit. Picard doesn’t want to leave him behind, but Seven tells him to go, leaving her and Raffi to tend to the dying man. We can see how far the two Titan officers have come as Shaw uses his last words to address her as “Seven of Nine,” telling the tearful commander she is captain now. Shaw dead? All I have to say to that is… No .

Once they arrive at the Fleet Museum, Geordi says they are going to need “something older” that isn’t connected to Starfleet’s new network and reveals what’s behind hanger door number 12. It’s the goddamn USS Enterprise-D! La Forge has been working on it as a pet project since Deanna crashed the saucer into Veridian III 30 years ago. Everyone—even Data—has all the feels of seeing their old ship and soon enough they are on the perfectly restored bridge, with Picard particularly nostalgic over the carpet. Somehow not blinded by bright lights after all their time on the Titan—and despite Worf griping about wanting the fancier weapons of the Enterprise-E—everyone is happy to be home and they soon settle into their old positions. Content with the familiar computer voice redubbing him“Captain Picard,” Jean-Luc assures his friends that together they can save their families, Starfleet, and the Federation because that is what they do. His simple “make it so” fills us all with the belief that they will.

Whatever you do, don’t let Deanna drive.

Whole lotta episodin’ goin’ on

Things really come together nicely in this first part of the season and series finale, while “Võx” delivers plenty to work as a standalone episode. If anything, there is too much going on, making a repeat viewing help to catch all the details. The (mostly) good pacing slowed down at just the right times for some key character moments, allowing for some strong performances and emotional beats. The season’s recurring theme of family was on full display with the Picard/Crusher and La Forge families being torn apart, with the hope that they will be brought together again by the reunited Enterprise-D family.

Of course, the big reveal in this episode was Jack’s Borg origin story, and Ed Speleers was outstanding as Jack came to grips with this shocking truth and the perceived betrayal of his parents, with heartbreaking moments from both Sir Patrick Stewart and Gates McFadden. Marina Sirtis continues to show the wait for her to arrive on the scene was worth it. She was the key to all of this heavy lifting, while also bringing some of the lighter moments, especially in the final act. When it comes to shocks and heavy moments, the death of Shaw was brutal, but beautifully earned with Todd Stashwick and Jeri Ryan bringing their arc to a close. It’s a testament to the actor and the writers that the passive-aggressive foil introduced in episode 1 went out like a boss in episode 9, and will be so missed. While mostly relegated to exposition, LeVar Burton and Brent Spiner also had a few moments to shine with some tough love and even some fun banter as their friendship evolves along with them.

And I thought inheriting your baldness was the worst thing.

After all the buildup, we finally arrived at Frontier Day, which included that fun cameo from Elizabeth Dennehy, playing a more seasoned Fleet Admiral Elizabeth Shelby. Her speech (and Frontier Day itself) was also a nice nod to Star Trek: Enterprise , although going along with this new fleet connectivity thing doesn’t reflect well on the character as it didn’t make a lot of sense and was clearly vulnerable to exploitation, presumably by design of the conspirators. Leaving all the big reveals until episode 9 required a lot of exposition scenes that impacted the pacing and were all a bit much to take in. Following two episodes that had a bit of filler, the story might have been better served had some of the reveals about Jack and the Borg/Changeling plot been put into the previous episodes to give a bit more detail and allow it all to sink in. The rush in this episode brought back the one major gripe for the season when the show jumps through some hoops to get to where it wants to go without explaining or showing things, like why it was so easy for Jack to escape the ship, seemingly without any attempt from the bridge crew to stop the shuttle. And later in the episode, it could have been clearer and more impactful (via a brief cutaway at the right moment) how the Queen was using Jack to send out her signal, which was sort of the point of the whole big conspiracy. The Queen briefly mentions Vadic, but time could have been spent showing how and why the Borg and the Changelings are working together, plus showing that “The Face” communicating with Vadic was the Queen (presumably) all along.

Of course, rushing through moments in the first two acts allowed time for the pitch-perfect reveal of Geordi’s pet project at the Fleet Museum. Nicely teased earlier in the season, the restored USS Enterprise-D was what he had hidden away in Hanger 12, although it was curious how Picard and the rest of the gang didn’t know the Prime Directive required Starfleet to retrieve the saucer from where it crashed in Star Trek Generations . It may be dismissed by some as mere fan service, but there was a legitimate plot reason to bring back the old ship and the reveal inside and out was beautifully done, with fantastic visual effects and amazing production design that made the ship look as good as it ever has, even down to that carpet — although that gag may have been delivered better by Frakes, who has been the more reliable jokester this season. It was nice that these moments on the bridge of the old ship were given some time for both the characters and the audience to take it all in, and we could all feel it, making us just as overwhelmed with emotion as Data. Even after all the death and destruction we just witnessed, this ship with this crew shined through, representing all the hope and optimism at the core of Star Trek. Can’t wait to see what it does in the finale.

Yes, that jazz bar program is still in the holodeck, why do you ask?

It’s all connected

While it may take a rewind to fully understand, this episode finally put all the pieces together with the big reveal that the rogue Changelings have been working with the Borg the entire time. Bringing back the Borg may be a bit of a repeat, but being the ultimate big bad fits with Jean-Luc Picard’s arc as a character. Doing a bit of retcon on Picard’s original assimilation works, explaining how the Borg gave Locutus more genetic manipulation, and this, combined with him having a son that evolved that genetic manipulation, worked out as a huge bonus for the Borg, giving them a whole new way to assimilate. This could be the key to a big comeback, decades after the Borg were set back by future Admiral Janeway . There was a mention in this episode about how the Borg hadn’t been seen in over a decade. The Jurati Borg featured in season 2 were actually separate from the main collective (they were a splinter group formed by Agnes Jurati in an alternate past), something noted earlier in the season by Captain Shaw when he said: “Forget all that weird shit on the Stargazer, the real Borg are still out there.”

The hints of the Borg hand behind the wheel have been there all season, but were still vague enough to keep plenty of other theories viable . Looking back at episode 1, there was foreshadowing for Changelings, The Borg, and the Enterprise-D, proving how season 3 stands above previous seasons of Picard in making things fit together from beginning to end. The Picard genetic manipulation plot even answers the curiosity of how Jean-Luc could still hear the Borg in Star Trek: First Contact , years after all of his cybernetic implants had been removed.

Tying everything to age offered up a clever way to turn the older crew (and their old ship) into the last great hope for the Federation. Leaving Raffi and Seven back on the Titan to allow for just the TNG crew to have their moment on the Enterprise-D was a bit obvious, so perhaps they should have been given a specific task, although they will surely play a part in the finale. There is also more to be revealed about the ultimate Borg goal, unless it is as simple as using their new transporter assimilation trick on the entire young population of the Federation and killing everyone else. This penultimate episode did hint that maybe Jack’s reckless move to deliver himself to the Queen can work out, if his ideals of fairness, mercy, and compassion can be used to fight back and perhaps transform the Borg from within. How fitting would it be for the Next Generation’s final hurrah to have the son of Jean-Luc Picard bring a peaceful end to his father’s greatest enemy?

Don’t mind the mess, this cube is a fixer-upper.

Final thoughts

All indications are that season 3 is sticking the landing. Part one of the season (and series) finale is full of memorable and profound moments, so the skipped steps it takes are worth it. These nine weeks have been some of the most fun for Star Trek fans, making the anticipation for the final almost unbearable.

Your son has daddy issues, mommy issues, and queenie issues.

• The late Majel Barrett was credited for providing the computer voice of the USS Enterprise-D, as she did for all seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation .
• Captain Benbassat of the USS Excelsior was voiced by prolific voice actor Nolan North , who has voiced a number of characters in Lower Decks and appeared in Star Trek Into Darkness .
• Season 1 and 2 main character Elnor was last known to be assigned to the USS Excelsior, so it’s possible he was killed when the ship was destroyed by the Borg.
• Star Trek: First Contact’s Alice Krige returns to voice the Borg Queen, but actress Jane Edwina Seymour played the Queen, credited as “Borg Queen body double.”
• The Borg Queen gave Jack (and the episode) the name “Vox,” meaning voice in Latin . She also referred to him in Latin as Regenerati (rebirth/regenerated) and Puer Dei (child of god).
• Speaking of Latin, the episode title “Vox” is written somewhat unusually with a tilde (~); typically the Latin word is written without an accent over the O, and the accepted accent for the word is to have a bar (a macron) as in Vōx.
• The Star Trek novel The Return included a Borg character named Vox who served as Speaker to the Romulan Empire.
• Picard recalls his time as Locutus, hearing his voice from the TNG episode “Best of Both Worlds, Part 1.”
• Jack’s vision included the song “ I Can’t Stop Crying ” by Will Grove-White, which was one of the songs from a mix Jean-Luc Picard gave Beverly, heard in the season 3 premiere .
• Raritan IV is named for Raritan, New Jersey , the birthplace of showrunner Terry Matalas.
• The rebuilt USS Enterprise-D used the drive section from the USS Syracuse, a ship referenced in the TNG season 7 episode “Eye of the Beholder.”
• Starfleet’s new “Fleet Formation Mode” was designated “Emergency Protocol NX12.11.”
• Picard wanted to send Jack to a Vulcan academy named Keslovar, which Jack described as an institution where they could “mind-meld and lobotomize” the Borg out of him.
• The Enterprise-F is based on a design from the game Star Trek Online .
• The fate of the Enterprise-E (last seen in Star Trek Nemesis ) remains a mystery beyond Worf (who was the ship’s final captain) insisting it wasn’t his fault.
• The fleet of ships around Earth included the USS Okuda and the USS Drexler, named for designers Mike and Denise Okuda and Doug Drexler.
• Other ships included the USS John Kelly , named for the 21 st century astronaut found in the Voyager episode “One Small Step,” the USS Forrest, named for 22nd century Starfleet Admiral Maxwell Forrest from Star Trek: Enterprise (who was named in honor or TOS star DeForest Kelly), and the USS Pulaski, named for the season 2 TNG character Dr. Katherine Pulaski .

Enterprise-Déjà vu.

More to come

We will discuss the episode in detail on Friday’s episode of All Access Star Trek . every Friday, the TrekMovie.com All Access Star Trek podcast covers the latest news in the Star Trek Universe. The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts ,  Spotify ,  Pocket Casts ,  Stitcher and is part of the TrekMovie Podcast Network.

Picard streams exclusively on Paramount+ in the Americas, Europe, the Caribbean and South Korea. It also streams internationally on Amazon Prime Video in more than 200 countries and territories. In Canada, it airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave.

Keep up with news about the  Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com .

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A century later and Dr. McCoy’s concerns about the transporter are vindicated!

LOLOL! That’s exactly what I thought, too!

Bones was so right! Pulaski too!

Hee! Perfect!

So much for that Shaw and Seven spinoff.

I kind of expected he’d bite it, but not for another episode. Ah well, let’s see if Seven remembers the nanoprobes this time.

Shaw’s death was disappointing. I had hopes for his future involvement in Star Trek. He was an interesting character.

Oh, don’t be silly. Shaw’s clearly not dead.

Really hope so.

Seven still has Borg nanoprobes in her system. They were once used to bring Neelix back to life after 19 hours. I don’t think Shaw is gone either.

It would actually be pretty interesting to see how he comes to terms with nanoprobes saving his life, considering how much he hates Borg.

It was not at all clear that Shaw is alive.

Do Seven’s own assimilation tubes work at this point?

Could she save him with her own Borg nanoprobes that had been heavily altered by The Doctor while on Voyager?

That would be full circle for Shaw – pulled from the brink of death by a local assimilation.

(I really don’t want him to die.)

Agree that having a captain with PTSD related to Borg trauma grappling with being saved again, but this time through Borg nano probes, would have lots of long term character work to chew through.

Perhaps we’ll see Seven give Shaw back his ship yet.

I am in denial. I am hoping either he gets assimilated to reanimate him and later save him or gets put in stasis/frozen.

He’s not dead.

Maybe Seven uses her nanoprobes to bring him back. It worked with Neelix…

Maybe he’ll get into some of those Life Stasis Pods like Dr. Crusher at the Start teleports to keep him “frozen” until someone can tend to his Serious Wounds. Maybe EMH (Doctor of Voyager) has some Easter Egg screentime. Because “All Hands on Deck in the Mecial Station even all EMH!. This is not an exercise!”

LOL, remember a year ago it was the Rios and Seven spinoff. ;D

Then, Seven and Raffi.

I guess we riot.

Seven was not given the chance to show she’d earned the chair, quite the opposite.

Shaw’s final concession of her name felt too by the numbers, although appropriate for Shaw after he witnessed she wasn’t reassimilated.

I hope Elnor wasn’t still on the Excelsior!

That’d require the writers remembering that he exists. XD It’s fine. If they want to use him later, there are lots of reasons for him not to have been on board.

They didn’t seem to remember the change in the Borg, though.

That’s because you weren’t paying attention. The borg weren’t changed. There are TWO collectives now. Shaw even mentioned this earlier in the season, very specifically in very clear bit of foreshadowing. That you missed it is proof that we should just ignore your negative nancy opinions

Can you be a bit nicer on here, please?

Clearly not. He’s one the most obnoxious and negative people on this board. This is why we need ignore buttons.

Amen to that.

Please create an ignore button! I would like to read and post on these boards more often but certain “alpha” trolls make this place an unwelcome environment.

I have zero to do with this site other than posting on it but yes many of us have been asking for one for years now. And I would HAPPILY use it for people like this.

The only proof here is that you insist on being an arrogant obnoxious brat.

Sure would be nice if Jurati could swing by and help out.

Not sure why she’s allowing this now, though.

Her collective is an entirely separate entity from the “main” Borg Collective as shown in the season 2 finale and as implied by Shaw earlier this season.

Yeah, I saw the Matt Wright post earlier. I don’t recall him saying that and I didn’t recall that it was a splinter group. Which speaks to how memorable past seasons of Picard have been, quite frankly.

I think it’s funny how you blame it on the show, when you really just weren’t paying attention or didn’t understand basic story points. Hilarious.

Yes hilarious. We’re all laughing at you and your schoolyard bullying and gaslighting antics.

Maybe they will show up next week? I know Terry Matalas said they wouldn’t, but maybe it’s a misdirect?

I defended Matalas for saying that the Borg wouldn’t show up, but I have to wonder where that came from. I never personally saw him saying, and was going off the word of others who said he did. Because he’d otherwise been very honest with his twitter comments, so I’m quite annoyed that (if true) he outright lied.

AP, I think I read where what he actually said was that the second season Borg wouldn’t show up, but then was coy about the others. So maybe it wasn’t really a lie, just an evasion or misdirect?

I think he was being coy, like you said, but if I had read it at the time, i’d definitely have taken it as a clue that the true Borg would appear.

Disappointing, because the Borg are SO overused. Tired of them.

Aye, if some Titan Offspring gets Greenlight. I hope the Writer room comes with some other threat as the Borgs

Perhaps these Mechanics Lifeforms of the Rift at the end of Season 1

(Sorry, time run out for edit)

Hope it is formated like Strange New Worlds.

Breen, Breen, Breen.

They can be anything under those environmental suits.

Or many kinds of aliens if they take a lead from the novelverse.

They almost HAVE to definitively defeat them next week at this point, you know?

Jurati, the Klingons, literally any non-Starfleet allies who see this as a threat to their own systems….anyone?

Well, SNW has the Gorn’s back.. But Well.. Voyager where not always playing Angels in the Gama Quadrant and that could be an good entry point from here

I have no problem with a show bringing back a classic threat. But the Borg have been “brought back” so many times it’s like they never left.

Give us a chance to miss them.

yes, Picard here overused them. Season 1 they where victums some sort of PoW, Season 2. Well Temporary allies and Season 3 they are enemys again? I still belive or dream, that Jurati’s Borg can hijack the Borg collective Signal and return them back. “overriding” the call of the Borgs from subspace, because Jurati’s Borg signal is stronger. But well, this is a dream right now

I’m hoping he was.

He was probably on Earth at the Academy

I forgot all about that! Dang, I hope he wasn’t, I liked that character.

I thought he was awesome as well.

I like Elnor too, but don’t remotely miss him.

I’d be happy to have Elnor as the newbie ensign on the Titan.

Speaking of Excelsior, the captain who spoke over the comm was voiced by Nolan North most known for playing Nathan Drake in the Uncharted games

Terry has confirmed on Twitter that he wasn’t.

And I hope he was.

One of our wishes will come true, at least. **beer-clink**

The episode while good had imo glaring potholes and bad pacing. The big bad is finally revealed and to everyone’s shock… it’s exactly what was predicted even before the season started lol.

I’m tired of the Borg as we had some of them in S1/2 and I’m disappointed that Matalas went the easy route instead of having a more interesting villain imo.

With only 1 episode left and unless the next episode is at least an hour and a half or 2 hours. i don’t see them convincingly being able to sell a story about stopping the borgifed starfleet even with the Enterprise D and also stop the changelings and rescue everyone who was replacement by them.

This is why Adama sorry i meant Geordi didn’t want the Galactica sorry again i meant the Titan and the rest of the fleet to to be interconnected i was also hoping to hear a reference to the living construct from Prodigy but nope. (I do wonder if the rumors that Terry Matalas isn’t much of a fan of the other newer Trek shows (Prodigy,SNW,DSC etc.. is actually true.)

I hope Shaw is dead(Sorry I don’t like the character)but i don’t think we will be lucky i guess 7 and Raffi will save him with Borg Nano’s or something.

It was pretty obvious that the ship in Bay 12 was the Enterprise D. After all these years she is still a beautiful ship and it was great to hear Majel’s voice again. The set did look different but that is due to having to make it shorter to fit in the production studios and i wished the lighting was better. The extra light bulbs must be arriving on Tuesday.

I don’t think it was a great idea to hold off the Jack reveal until these final episodes. If the writers had done this sooner there would have been space for reflection and for more proper character development with this part of the story.

One thing that got a main priority over everything else this season was all the nostalgia. It has so far felt like nine hours of unboxing one of those time capsules to see what was put inside it.

I know that all this nostalgia has resonated emotionally with some fans and more power to them.

But i feel disappointed that despite growing up watching TNG that i find that much of it doesn’t work for me and it imo feels shoved into the season by Matalas to cover for/prop up a weak story-line.

How was it obvious it was the Ent-D? I was totally surprised! I guess I missed the clues.

It was revealed by Levar Burton himself in an interview we would be back on the Enterprise, so everyone knew it was coming. And once Geordi mentioned Cargo Bay 12 …and went no farther with it, everyone rightfully jumped on it lol.

I didn’t know that the D was coming, thank god! It is sometimes worth NOT reading or watching everything on line if you want to get the full experience. I was completely overwhelmed, blown away and loved it!

Additionally, when they were in production of S3 while S2 was airing, it was mentioned that we’d see the 1701-D bridge “among other things”. Between that info and the boatswain whistle photo going around, I’d assumed this season was going to be full of time travel shenanigans again. :)

This was my feeling as well. The episode is oddly paced, the story awkwardly told, with unsatisfying moments (not talking a certain potential death)… but because of the ending it’s being hailed as a masterpiece by some.

You know, I spent the better part of two hours last night writing a lengthy screed on just how dismal I thought this show was, how antithetical it felt to the values of the Trek I grew up with and loved, not to mention being creatively bankrupt besides. And now that it’s time to post it, I just can’t. Life is short, and fraught enough these days as it is. Let those who loved it love it in peace, say I. On a certain level, I even envy them.

Thank you, that a very considerate thing to (not) do. Have you had a chance to watch PRODIGY? Once I got past the first 2-3 episodes I found it to be the kind of TREK I’ve always loved filled with great stories and cool characters and you might, too…

Same! And why it’s my favorite out of the new stuff so far.

Yeah, that’s largely why I’m so down on people being so overly critical and angry and hyperbolically negative at DSC, or the first two seasons of PIC.

It’s TV show. I can’t care enough to be angry, bitter, or anything more than mildly annoyed.

Get a life.

So you missed the point of my post, then. In any case, stealing from The Shat is not a good look. 😎

Uh… he did, and that’s kind of what he’s saying

Actually I would’ve loved to have read that post Michael lol. But I really respect why you decided not to write it. But you know I value people to be as honest here as possible and say whatever is on their mind. I am loving this season and while I agree this episode definitely had problems, I really loved it too. But that’s probably the fanboy in me mostly talking. ;)

But the one thing I will say is, I am actually surprised how dark this season has been (and I don’t mean the lighting). It’s an incredibly dour season at the heart of it, something many fans have been really put off off by modern Trek, especially Discovery AND the first season of Picard. It’s funny I remember how people complained even in that season it felt too ‘dystopian’ but I don’t really see a huge difference with this season either. But I always disagreed about that argument with the first season too.

I guess because the TNG characters are so loved and actually very true to who they are this season, it has outweigh that issue for many maybe. And many seem to feel the story is also just better written. Yes, I know people still have some complaints over the plotting, this episode included, but considering the really crappy and downright cringy stuff we got in the first two seasons, its a vast improvement. Frankly I was completely bored by the middle of season 2 where I was just waiting for it to end. But this season, it goes sooo fast and I just want more does show how much more people are invested at least.

But I’m just sorry you didn’t like this season very much and I can’t see the finale changing your mind at this point.

Hey Tiger2,

If you’re really curious 😊 you can read my thoughts at tor.com on the Keith Candido thread. Warning, though: it’s pretty strongly-worded stuff, especially if you’re liking the show. I decided that I didn’t need to be harshing anyone’s mellow here, as so many seem to be enjoying it. But opinions are far more mixed over there, and what the hell, I had to vent somewhere.

And you’re probably right that my attitudes about this season are pretty locked-in at this point. But rest assured that I’ll be tuned-in next week, same bat channel, just to see how it all pans out.

I went over there just now, and except for the part where you cited dialog as being a strong suite in early parts of the season, am right there with you. Except that overall, I’m somehow enjoying it. Not sure why, fanservice has not worked on me in decades (or maybe it is that I’m only susceptible to certain kinds?) As I indicated upthread, can’t imagine sitting through all this again, but at least I sat through it once and took some joy from it (which is more than I can say for the most of the previous two seasons, or any of the DSC I saw that didn’t have Mount in it.)

I think we’re all on the same page here.

I’m not really convinced that Sirtis’ availability was the constraint as it happened either.

While she had to fly out literally right after the final night of her one woman show in London’s west end, she was still on set for 2 of the 6 months of shooting.

I feel like the reference to what happened to the Enterprise E was about the living construct

What was so special about Picard that the Borg assimilated him differently? Why him?

That’s really my biggest question.

Also, I think it would have been even more cool if ALL the ships at the museum were somehow returned to action. Imagine the E-A, the E-D, the Bounty, the Defiant, and Voyager all fighting side by side. It would have been a chance to get more incredible cameos, including following up on Project Phoenix.

Best of Both Worlds did say his DNA was being rewritten.

But what would make him more special than other drones? FC kind of changed a lot of what the Borg did. The Borg would take a spokesman, which in BOBW was Picard, but by FC, it was a bee sting that infected you.

I don’t think Picard was special until he was assimilated. Whatever process they used on Picard was clearly different, because he was given a name where no other Borg was. Locutus was meant to be a bridge or at least an intermediary between the Borg and the Federation. They did something different to him when he was assimilated.

This was I believe how the Borg were conceived. FC changed it all to make assimilation different. In BOBW, there were even baby Borg.

Q Who had baby Borg, not BOBW. And they retconned that in VOY by saying babies were assimilated and then placed in maturation chambers to age…

I was hoping that would be the case too, but I guess the budget for that many bridge sets would’ve been prohibitive. But maybe they’ll have to use them as fill in ships for the ones that get destroyed and there’ll be a shot like that at the end of the last episode!

I would not expect high Quality Fights with these Old Ships. it’s clearly that some Central Computer is flying them. They do not have that many Crew to fly them in this short time. So, i expect more Glass cannon Flying where some Damage could trow them out of Balance

Perhaps it’s Data and Gerodi together remote control all of them. But even they have Limits

Yeah I think a lot of people thought that and that Seven’s scene was really foreshadowing a big showdown later. Sure I would’ve loved it but it probably would’ve felt very fanboyish to the extreme lol.

And someone mentioned on YouTube that the other ships aren’t even flyable. They compared them to the planes at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum how none of those planes have fuel or working engines. Of course its fiction so they could all be fully flyable if it was needed in the story but it would make sense why they aren’t capable either.

I don’t think Terry intended for the Project Phoenix thing to be taken seriously. He loves whatever novel it came from and so it was a cute lil easter egg.

He meant to create an option it seems.

It also served as a reminder of the need to ensure everything is removed from a planet to avoid violating the Prime Directive.

You don’t drop a bomb like that as a joke. He said that he didn’t like Generations either, and this gave the character hope for another writer to pick up. They got Kirk off Veridian III. It was far more than a “cute lil easter egg.”

Oh, and one more thing–they created exactly ONE character that was not a legacy character that was amazing, and they just killed him off. That sucked.

Par for the course. How’s Captain Rios on the Stargazer?

Yeah Shaw’s death is something people are taking hard. Same time many were convinced the guy was a goner after the first episode lol. I loved Shaw from the beginning too but I was always prepared with the idea he wouldn’t make it out alive by the end of the season. But yes, it still sucks.

Count me surprised, simply from the POV of knowing that the producer put his friend in that role. To catch up to others here, Season 2 could have had Seven and Rios in exactly the same narrative arc – where Rios is pissed at Seven for not doing something about stopping Jurati from becoming a Borg.

Well he was there for 9 episodes, so he had a great role. And yeah maybe if it wasn’t the final season, he would’ve stuck around longer. Of course I know everyone is assuming we will get a spin off of some kind but I think they always had it in mind Seven would probably be the Captain if one happens.

And Rios is a good point, a character we all assumed would’ve stuck around regardless. If things worked out as people assumed, Seven should’ve been his first officer on the Stargazer this season. And yeah he should’ve been way more upset over what happened with Jurati but this is why season 2 was such a stinker. Nothing made sense.

After losing Hemmer last season in SNW, I am so done with new complex and interesting characters being created and fridged (killed off) just to advance some legacy character’s development.

It’s well established that this is a writer’s crutch. It’s not making things seem more real.

Having all the fridged characters be male doesn’t make it less objectionable or more defensible. All the more so when Hemmer was representing the differently abled, and Shaw has represented and resonated with veterans with PTSD.

No more please.

Just bring back Shaw. Let Seven assimilate him with her altered nanoprobes.

It was the first time for me at least, they created a decent new character.

To each his/her own. I never grew to like Shaw, just disliked him a little less. He really never came off as a particularly good Captain. Regardless, Seven will use nanoprobes to save him, I’m sure.

If he’s really dead.

I will say that I like Jack, Mystery Box or no. Speelers is obviously not 24 years old, but he’s very watchable as an actor. If he survives, I would happily tune into a show he’s in the ensemble of.

Completely agree. Lorac, (original) Georgiou, Rios, Sahil (waiting guy on Discovery)… I’m convinced Pike has only survived this long solely because his old age is TOS canon. The franchise just cannot survive if they keep killing off every character who has enough personality to lead a show.

Shaw was pretty inconsistent which I know was part of his character. The issue with him that I found irredeemable was when he essentially told Seven that it was hopeless and let his crew be murdered in the episode Surrender. Seven wanted to sacrifice herself for her crew, and Shaw talked her out of it. Seemed pretty cowardice in my opinion, especially for a Starfleet Captain.

Haven’t watched it yet, but f**k, this seems like a lot of fan service pandering. Hope I’m wrong, but since E6 I’ve been a bit disappointed.

So you are here to whine about it before you even watch it. Got it.

My reading comprehension skills are pretty good. Apparently, yours aren’t, as I was holding out hope to be wrong. I’ve seen it now, and my disappointment continues.

No, you were whining. Now you are trolling.

Anyone not slobbering affectionately all over this fan service is trolling. Gotcha.

Please tell me I’m not the only one who started balling when they revealed the Enterprise D? I couldn’t believe they did the thing! I never EVER thought they would spend the money to recreate the Enterprise D, what an astonishing gift! I can’t begin to describe the emotional gut punch this was for me, I saw my childhood flash in-front of my eyes in a way I never expected. I can’t begin to describe my gratitude for this! TNG has been honored and elevated in the best way possible.

Beyond that I love the story, very clever retcon that makes sense and elevates the Borg danger. I do wish this might have been revealed earlier so we didn’t have to rush through this and spend so little time with the Borg threat. I’m also confused by the “behind the head” view of the Borg Queen. I find that very unsatisfying because I was waiting for the face of Alice Krige to really put an exclamation point on this whole tie-in with First Contact. That whole thing nearly ruined the episode for me, but it recovered big time once we got to the Enterprise D.

Here’s the real question. Will they want to get more use out of the set, since they clearly spent a lot of money to build it?

Time for some Short Treks set during TNG, or even a full movie or Mini-Series! Let’s see the adventures of the night shift!

If I had to guess about Krige, she might not have wanted to get back into all that makeup for such a small cameo, but agreed to do the voiceover.

I hear they bulldozed all the Titan sets after production ended, so my guess is that they didn’t save the D either, but I sure hope they did! And indeed I assume they couldn’t come to an agreement to reprise the roll fully. I know it has to be really hard to get everything you want in a story like this.

I’ve read that too, but maybe it’s not true and it’s just a misdirect. I’m hoping they’ve being saving a STAR TREK: LEGACY announcement with 7 of 9 as the captain for next Wednesday during the IMAX events!

I’d be surprised if they actually did that. They could be repurposed, redressed, etc. They could also donate the ENT-D set to a museum or attraction.

There is a Star Trek set tour in Ticonderoga NY with an ambition to rebuild the TNG sets… And they work with the Okudas…

I really want to take their set tour one day, I think it would be mind blowing!

They’re the same sets that were used to film the fan series Star Trek: New voyages. I worked on them back in 2009 on an episode that never was released — my luck! — and they were indeed (esp the bridge) very impressive.

So production didn’t even have to build it? Maybe that explains why they have the side ramps but not the side consoles, a la GENERATIONS.

No, I was referring to the TOS reconstructions that Cawley has been building (and rebuilding) since the early Aughts. I didn’t even know that he was planning on doing the same with the TNG sets, which actually comes as something of a surprise, as he’s always been a self-described “TOS purist.”

(Just fyi my tenure on those sets was when I served in 2009 as a PA on the David Gerrold written-and-directed “Origins,” a Young Kirk story which has yet to see the light of day (and, I assume, never will). It was, sad to say, a very unpleasant experience in many ways, as now seems inevitable in retrospect given the starting point of a production headed-up by people with Hollywood-sized egos sans the talent or organizational skills and backed by those like myself who had little to bring to the table but their enthusiasm. Working with Gerrold turned out to be particularly problematic — he came off as a harsh and often petty autocrat, blissfully unaware that, unlike himself, none of us grunts were actually being paid to do what was, shorn of its Trek allure, a lot of hard, mostly boring work; in his defense he was under a lot of pressure and did work hard under very chaotic conditions. I had been very impressed with New Voyages’ “World Enough and Time,” and it would have been a disillusioning experience to see how the sausage actually got made even if “Origins” had turned out well. But there was one compensation for me. Early in the shoot, I happened to be on the bridge set when the lighting director asked me to sit in the Captain’s chair — something it had been made clear was absolutely forbidden to us mere mortals — to conduct tests, as James Cawley and I are roughly the same size. (I’m more muscular; he’s much better-looking.) Needless to say, that was quite something of a moment in the life of a middle-aged nerd. I still have the picture of me sitting in that chair, blissed-out and goofy as all hell.)

Somehow it is making me think of Wesley in the chair during FARPOINT, a moment that felt like it was meant for all of us dinosaurs. If I could write poetry (except for a limerick about getting a speeding ticket while hotrodding in my grandfather’s 62 Ford Galaxie, have come up empty my whole life when it comes to poetry, though I’m awesome at mishearing song lyrics), it would probably be about the center seat.

In GEN, the nexus was about all the roads not taken, but for me, GEN was about the alt history that would have arose if Kirk had sat in the seat and Harriman had gone belowdecks to save the day. Don’t know if there is a bloc of fanfic along those lines, but it seems one of the last new paths to chart.

Another quick anecdote about the center seat:

Along with Young Kirk, Gerrold’s script for “Origins” featured appearances by Christopher Pike, Young Carol Marcus (she was hot), Young Gary Mitchell, Kirk’s dad George, and Young Finnegan, who was played by a guy who bore such a close resemblance to Bruce Mars from “Shore Leave” that it was almost spooky. Pike was portrayed by an actual TV actor named Colin Somethingorother in a manner much closer to Jeff Hunter’s Angry Dad Captaiin than Anson Mount’s Best Bud Captain. (Seriously, can you imagine Hunter’s character dressing in an apron and preparing breakfast for his senior staff? Pshaw, says I). Colin did a pretty good job, I though, except for when Gerrold as director pushed his performance, as for example when he dresses-down Young Kirk, into hysteria (another story, perhaps for another time).

Anyhow, in the course of the story Young Kirk and Pike definitely have their issues, but Kirk comes through in the end and all is forgiven. In the tag, as Kirk Sr. looks on proudly, Pike gives the young officer a chance to try out the Captains chair, and as he settled in, Colin leaned over and said, sotto voce but loud enough for all who were present to film the scene to hear: “I farted in the chair.”

Speaking with him later, Colin sadly turned out to be something of a 2009 proto-MAGA, yet I nevertheless bless him in my mind for that moment of almost blooper reel-worthy moment of levity, which at that point in that hot, frustrating and exhausting shoot was definitely needed.

Yeah, I don’t want to see them go there. I don’t even live THAT far from them, and… no thanks. It’s just not worth the time to go visit. I’d like to see this set get the love and attention it deserves by getting an installation in a real museum.

I was thinking the Smithsonian, but maybe a Hollywood museum, heck, i’d settle for a Ripley’s believe it or not display with a few wax figures of characters.

Not Ticonderoga though. They have their own version of the bridge already.

I live 2 hours away and had my photo taken with Shatner on the bridge set last November, so I would happily give Ti my money one more time to see the 1701-D.

Opinions may vary.

There was also the re-creation of the 1701-D bridge set at Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas!

I got to see that while The Experience was still in operation. Very impressive, as I always liked Howard Zimmerman’s TNG designs much more than the exterior of the ship.

Madame Tussaud’s, with wax figures of the characters?

Sadly NY is to far away oversea and i can not afford even an Flight ticket… i wish i could make some Tour in real.. no VR tour. i get fast Motions sickness

they are currently in the process of building the TNG sets in a warehouse next-door and its slated to open this fall.

I would love it if they did that, I went to a traveling science exhibit in the early nineties that had a mock-up of that bridge that you could interact with and it was very cool. Seeing the real thing would be even better…

They’re not going to make more shows in California. Picard was done there as a concession to / condition of Stewart’s. The tax credits aren’t ongoing, and Ontario’s are likely more generous.

Repurposing the sets would have been smart, but if they’ve held onto the interior fittings, sets can be rebuilt with those.

They had to do that for the long term set for the Enterprise for SNW since the version built for Discovery season two was at Pinewood but SNW uses CBS Stages clear past the other side of Toronto, in Mississauga in adjacent Peel county.

could be, but i think they will use the Slot that Discovery would give up. So, time will tell and no need to rush it out. Let the Writer room have enough Flesh and Bones before starting production

“Annika still has work to do.” – Borg Queen stated through 7 of 9 during Season 2

They saved key interior fittings from season three and packed them for shipping and storage according to the production designers.

Sounds like they’ve been sent up to CBS Stages in Mississauga.

Some miniseries or something like that would be delightful! Doesn’t even have to be on the Enterprise. I remember that when I was a kid, I was obsessed with the Yamato, the Enterprise’s “sister ship.” There’s, of course, the Syracuse. The Venture. The Challenger.

Now I’m thinking of a short anthology series where every episode is a different bottle episode with a different crew on a Galaxy class ship. Could be neat.

Like I said, i’d even settle for some short treks…

I agree completely, I really enjoyed the SHORT TREKS they made and wish they’d do some more, especially if the space between shows will be longer…

I’ve said this more than once: Short Treks may have been done out of a kind of desperation — a cheap way to provide content in between seasons — but it really is an example of the benefits of streaming that I’m not sure anyone else has yet to take full advantage of.

Remember web-only content? Those were usually limited to 2-minutes due to slow internet speeds but today, there’s no reason shows can’t film 5, 10, even 15 minute mini episodes and release them during their hiatus.

I wish Trek would embrace them again for what they offer creatively, rather than just a cheap way to keep people subscribing. To quote Zoidberg… why not both?

Just my personal taste, but I thought “Children of Mars” was way cooler and more stylish than just about anything seen on the Picard series that followed it, in any season. More of that, please.

initially I wasn’t really on board with Short Treks, but probably more from a content-averse side, rather than a concept-averse side. Not liking DSC, I kind of bounced off of the first set of Short Treks, and never really bothered to go further.

That said, I think you’re right that they provide a really nice kind of pressure release valve when waiting for “big” stuff. Tell quirky or interesting little stories that don’t need a “full” episode. Different eras. Different ships. Different techniques! Different styles! Lots of options. And who knows, maybe a set of them proves to be so popular that a full series goes to order from a concept within.

If they want to use this Enterprise D Bridge setup for the future, then only with an Refit of the Galaxy Class. It’s now to old.. No even the 3rd Warp Nacelle when Admiral Riker used it, would not do it. Perhaps someone should look at the STO Ship’s design and look what “fresh” look would fit for this Spinoff

I can co-sign that the tears came when they showed her and also when they were all on the bridge and MAJEL’S VOICE was heard. It reminded me of that trailer shot of Han and Chewy for THE FORCE AWAKENS except these characters are being treated with respect and I have faith that the final episode will be AWESOME!!

I think you mean “bawling.” When I was a kid, the other word was considered quite rude, just fyi.

After all the times the Enterprise was destroyed…we got one back. That felt SOOOO good! Thankyou to the writers, actors, set people…..everyone who made it happen. This was like a gift!

I’m right there with you! Tears of joy, overwhelmed, blown away. So glad I did not know the ‘D’ was coming!

Forget all the plot holes and convenient Borg exposition.

The death of Shaw hit me hard, and then moments later I literally cried and cheered when the Enterprise D came on screen. That feelings alone made me feel like I was a teen in the 90s and made this episode all worth it!

Same here!! :)

You were not alone. They threw a lot of money and love at that CGI model and bridge set.

A big amen to that!

Maybe now all those 1701-D models that Guinan has been sitting on will finally get the respect they deserve…

Such a great piece of foreshadowing!

It really was!

Yep, the D returns and becomes the hero to the galaxy once again!

I’m sure Kestra is fine and there was definitely no need for her parents to worry about her, especially since Matalas made such a big stink for the past week that she’s at the Academy and in Starfleet now and that she’s for sure safe. Given that they just saw all people in Starfleet under 25 that were around a transporter are now assimilated, there was definitely no need for worry on her parents’ part! Definitely also no need for Geordi to be more panicked and upset that he just left his two kids on a ship assimilated and controlled by the Borg that could be blown up at any time. Also I guess RIP Elnor yet again?

I actually thought this was one of the weaker episodes, along with 7, if we take out the last 15 minutes and the TNG cast stuff. They drug out the Jack stuff way too long. I don’t see how this all gets wrapped up in a compelling way in a 45 minute episode. They spent way too much time in that nebula, but in retrospect, that was when the show was the strongest. Star Trek: The Jack Chronicles just isn’t it for me, despite enjoying a lot of this season. Nice to hear Alice Krige again though as the Borg Queen and the Shelby stuff was fun and the kind of fan service I actually enjoy.

The ship stuff at the end was great though and the computer voice made me tear up. Sure it would have basically been nothing but nostalgia, but I really wish this show had been more in that zone this season in the end than sleeper cell agent Jack.

Also, wild that Deanna just went missing for like a 30 minute stretch there. She wasn’t anywhere in the group scenes till they got on the shuttle. They’ve been hyping up out how important she is in the last three, and unless there’s some big stuff in the finale, it’s been a letdown outside of the stuff with her and Riker last episode.

I don’t see how this all gets wrapped up in a compelling way in a 45 minute episode

It’s going to be tough. But in some ways, ’twas ever thus. Modern ST has made kind of a habit of rushing endings.

it’s still a little unclear about who’s using who in terms of the villains. Why exactly are the Changlings working with the Borg, or vice-versa? Motivations other than:

“At last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi Starfleet. At last, we will have revenge” aren’t exactly clear

From the evidence of the season I doubt the writers have thought beyond that, much less care. But, we’ll see.

perhaps Season 2 Borg Queen has their hand on this. She came from some other Timeline and could had contact with the Changelings on their side. Something like the Terran Imperator, just in Borg

Yeah there is a HUGE piece of backstory we’re missing lol. Like how did the Changelings even meet the Borg??? And who came to who? Maybe that will get resolved next week but not holding my breath either.

So many questions. Why a partner? Doesn’t make sense these group of Changelings weren’t assimilated. The Borg even assimilated Zero on Prodigy.

The funny thing is I actually made a joke about that on another thread. I can’t remember which one but I remember saying if the ‘face’ turned out to be the Borg Queen, Vadic and her group will be assimilated 5 minutes after they assimilate Starfleet. The Borg doesn’t believe in a true partnership. Ask Janeway about that. ;)

But now thinking about it, this probably would’ve been another Scorpion scenario and they would’ve tried to assimilate the Changelings once they accomplished their mission.

Totally forgot about Scorpion. Now I want to see that episode again before Part 10.

I can’t see how the Changeling could ever be assimilated. They have no bones, blood, brain, central nervous system ect

WHEN LOCUTUS MET SALOME?

I guess because both of them are weak and vulnerable. These Changelings are a separate faction with no Jem’Hadar or Vorta / Dominion to help them and the Borg are still weak from Voyager finale. They share the same outlook on individuality as a menace to a civilization (Hive mind and the Great link ). The Federation made them not galactic super powers anymore. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

My take on that too and I think it is not a stretch. I don’t need more explanation, it wouldn’t benefit the show to have detailed scenes dedicated to explanation.

The Borg were weakened to the point of being vulnerable and ineffectual from Future Janeway’s neurolytic pathogen, and these Changelings were a splinter group, cut off from the Great Link, so they had no real support from the wider Dominion forces. However, both groups had a strong desire to strike at the Federation. For Vadic, simple revenge for her mistreatment; for the Borg, they needed to build a new Collective that would be free of the pathogen’s effects. They’re both using each other, and both think they have the upper hand in that partnership.

It seemed clear to me what all of their motivations were. Vadic: Revenge. Borg: Prevent their own extinction. Both were too weak on their own to accomplish what they desired most.

That makes sense.

I do wonder how much it would have cost to build that Enterprise D Set? And just for two episodes when the original set stood for around eight years.

Also I’d note the fact that the set reflects the TV show version, the Season 7 version by the looks I think and not the version we saw in Generations. I suppose it could make sense (in-universe) in the fact that the bridge was smashed up on Veridian 3 and when it was brought back up and restored in the museum, it made sense to just restore the bridge to its original ‘default’ look.

I personally would have preferred to see the Generations version. That of course would be even more expensive though I guess and building this set even in its TV form is not too cheap for just two episodes of a TV show.

sure seems like an awful waste to build that thing and never use it after this…..

Enterprise recreated the TOS Enterprise for their two parter. Then demolished it. It’s not unheard of.

Did the gentleman in New York buy parts of that set for the big complex and tour he built up there? I seem to recall reading that somewhere back in the day…

James helped work on the bridge and was doing his own. I’m curious if he will get this set as part of his tour.

I would prefer this set be donated to someplace bigger, like the Smithsonian or something.

The Smithsonian has NO interest in set recreations, period. . Ticonderoga is the perfect place. It’s a great destination exhibit.

James is working on his own TNG set recreations, and IIRC they’re getting close to being done.

This new set build is already in the Trek archives, according to an article from Variety.

I wouldn’t know. I do recall the only way Enterprise justified the creation of the sets was to make the episode a two parter. That’s about it from my end.

Yep I remember realing that as well. It was a reason why In the Mirror, Darkly was a two parter so they could justify building the entire Constitution class ship.

But I think about Trials and Tribble-ations and they did literally the same thing for one episode. But it really makes you appreciate what they manage to do for the classic shows given they had even smaller budgets and so many more episodes to shoot per season.

I remember either reading (or it being in a special features for DS9 or something similar) that the didn’t recreate the full sets for Trials and Tribble-ations, they did small sections and then composited the shots over original TOS shots so that they didn’t have the rebuild the entire set on the parts that contained the DS9 cast or something similar to that. I’ll have to dig around and see where I can find that information again.

Trials and Tribbleations was notoriously expensive – not only the production costs (Ron Moore commented how expensive it was to composite people into the scenes so seamlessly), but also the residuals needed to be paid out to the cast.

All the bottle episodes we’ve gotten so far (only one episode with location filming, too) definitely look to be paying for what we get in these last two episodes.

This episode did have some elaborate (though, to my mind, not very memorable) VFX sequences, but it still felt very contained and not at all epic, much like the rest of the season. Maybe next week there’ll be a real blowout, but quality issues aside, for my money Season 1 of “Picard” felt far grander in scope than this one.

I wouldn’t dispute your comparison to season 1, but at that time, they didn’t have so many legacy actors’ agents to contend with. If I was the producer and had to make a choice between bringing back the old stars and getting in more location filming or new sets, it’s a no-brained what to pick. You need the writing for them to zing, of course, to compensate. It’s debatable if the show did that or the last few weeks before really picking up the narrative again now, but I still applaud the approach to the season overall.

They built their set from scratch.

It wasn’t demolished. It was auctioned off by Christies.

Perhaps some Fan Fiction Sets creations are mixed with the TV Sets….

I was wondering… with the TNG set getting ready to open in Ticonderoga in the fall if maybe the cast flew into NY to shoot that scene to save on budget? My first thought when I saw the set was could it be the fan set? But there has been little news regarding the progress of that set so I doubt that there was time for that set to get finished in time for shooting S3 since it was shot back to back with S2.

My father was a retail manager in the 70’s when I was a kid and as a result we moved around a lot.  One thing we shared was watching STAR TREK, both the original and animated series.  We never missed an episode and spent hours playing with MEGO figures and building AMT model kits.  Every time we moved to a new place he would buy a TV Guide, find the local channel that was airing them and say, “See? Our friends came with us!”.  It made those moves bearable and those characters really became my friends.  I completely related to Fry’s speech in FUTURAMA when he described what made those people and that world important to him.  My favorite characters were Uhura, McCoy and Spock and I wanted to reflect their nobility, humor and intelligence in my own personality.  I was six when my dad took me to see STAR WARS and STAR TREK took a back seat for a few years.  But as the movies came out and my dad and I went, it was like meeting up with old friends.  I was sixteen when THE NEXT GENERATION premiered and its vision of the future was the one I most wanted to be a part of full of diversity, humor, family and love.  It and the various series that followed gave me a place to escape to, hope for and dream of.  Because of STAR TREK and the way I was raised I grew up rooting for Princess Leia, Lando Calrissian, Wonder Woman, Jamie Summers, Charlie’s Angels, Apollo Creed, Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, Bruce Lee, Geordi LaForge, Laurie Strode, Benjamin Sisko and Kathryn Janeway right alongside their white male counterparts.  To me a hero was a hero, no matter what they looked like and the same was true of my real world view.  When my dad passed away I was only twenty-two and those characters in that universe became my family for an hour each week.  When DISCOVERY premiered I was incredibly excited because I had enjoyed the newer films and it looked like that on the surface.  Michael Burnham seemed to embody the characteristics of Uhura, McCoy and Spock that I admired and I really liked the actress who played her.  But it became apparent that there wasn’t much of a place for someone who looked like me in that show, a trend I began seeing in other series and films and the media in general.  Characters I grew up with like Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, James Bond, etc. being dressed down and killed off because the world would be better a better place without them.  I stuck with DISCOVERY even though almost everyone I saw who looked like me was represented as a villain or a buffoon; someone to be hated, feared or mocked.  I finally gave up after the ending of the season three episode, ironically titled “People of Earth”, that deliberately went out of its way in it’s ending scene under the tree to show I was not a welcome part of the future.  That I was not wanted and didn’t matter…but I didn’t give up on STAR TREK.  I watched and loved LOWER DECKS, PRODIGY, PICARD and STRANGE NEW WORLDS and gradually started to see myself represented again in a positive light.  Not as a villain or a buffoon but as a noble, funny, smart, heroic and aspirational figure who was still welcomed and wanted.  I know that at the end of the day everything made by Hollywood is done for money, but this season of PICARD (which I have an alarm wake me in the middle of the night so I can watch it as soon as possible) has given me that hope and escape that I’ve so missed and needed.  The episode VOX, with its brilliant assimilation twist, said that a fifty-two year old non-racist, non-misogynist who has always strived to live a good, peaceful life uplifting others and humbling no one still had a place in the world.  That I still MATTERED.  Thank you to Terry Matalas for creating something that makes me feel like that six, sixteen and twenty-six year old kid I used to be and still am at heart.  For giving me more time with these old friends before it was too late and treating them with respect.  And thank you to whoever at Paramount made the decision to let me be represented in STAR TREK again.  These days more than ever it means a lot and I wish other franchises would do the same…

not to diminish at all what you are saying, but – imagine how 99.9% of Arab or Muslim people have felt about being seen or only able to play terrorists for the past 40 years?

Maybe your joy at being ‘seen’ in media after hiatus of – what – 10 years at the most, is how other people felt after a half-century of not being represented at all and so there can be some newfound empathy with that experience to the same people that found similar joy in the Rose character in Star Wars, or the film Crazy Rich Asians, or the Black Panther films, or a black Little Mermaid, etc… representation does indeed matter.

For Star Trek it would be only one season of Discovery going by his reasons. There was the Kelvin movies and then Pike in season 2 of Discovery.

I grew up in Atlanta and spent my summers in the Washington DC area surrounded by diversity and I knew from experiences with friends, classmates and coworkers that type of representation was wrong.  I’ve always been empathetic and sympathetic to it and it’s one of the reasons I was drawn to STAR TREK because, while not perfect, it was closer to the view I had of the world and the people in my life.  I didn’t need a deliberate agenda by Hollywood to make me see and known that type of representation was wrong, I felt that way already and tried not to support those projects.  The bad actions of a few in any group don’t make it right to punish everyone who look like that as well.  I’m hoping the more balanced world view that projects developed in the last couple years have been depicting continue and remain the norm.  I’ve always preferred and supported them because we’re all better for it, even if what I believe is a small group of vocal trolls can’t see it…

It’s not like nobody is casting white males in major roles. Even over the past decade, the overwhelming majority of main characters are still white and male.

Also, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and James Bond weren’t “killed off” because they’re straight white males, and I say that as a white male.

I’m sorry this guy feels diminished because there’s no white dude (not in makeup) on Discovery, but come on – the entitlement and obliviousness here is astounding.

Either that, or the guy is trolling.

There is a white dude on Discovery, he’s just not heteronormative, which seems also to be what Rob finds essential to be front and centre.

When I hear stuff like this, I always think of my mum-in-law. She’s a long-term sci-fi fan who was buying books, subscribing to the magazines and watching anything sci-fi in the 50s and 60s. She still is.

She never was represented the way Rob feels he needs to be until Kira and Janeway.

She still paid for the books, subscriptions, cable and movie tickets that Rob did. All those years she was subsidizing his feeling represented, seen – while she wasn’t.

But he’s not willing to pay it forward?

Fans can accept made-up aliens of all shapes, sizes, religions, and sexes. They can even grow to love such characters more than the actual people who surround them, and mourn them (see: Hemmer) when creatives decide to kill them off. But when it comes to humans and relatively insignificant differences in skin color or sex, it’s all about head counts. Nerd-dom is weird.

 there’s no white dude (not in makeup) on Discovery

Lorca, Pike, Stamets, Vance, or Kovich?

Discovery had Pike for you in season 2.

It did and I thoroughly enjoyed it and even the first season, largely because of Michelle Yeoh who’ve I’ve been a fan of for years. I’m still wishing they’d make a film or miniseries about her Captain before the DISCOVERY pilot. But once they went to the future the series doubled-down on what has almost become a trope and I decided to take the hint from the message that was being repeatedly given on screen and stopped watching it. From what I’ve been told it’s continued on into the rest of the series, so I don’t think I made the wrong decision by moving on. Thankfully the other recent TREK projects didn’t take that route and I’ve supported all of them and will continue to do so…

the message that was being repeatedly given on screen 

Which was…what?

The only “message” there, dude, is the one in your head. Now, if you want to go the Cliff Clavin route and insist against all the evidence that a nondescript potato looks EXACTLY like Richard Nixon, that is of course entirely your right. Just as it’s the right of others to call you on it.

That seems to be some genuine white fragility right there. The whole point of Star Trek is that we are “represented” by our shared humanity, and should be able to relate to a person regardless of their appearance or skin colour? Why get tetchy if there aren’t enough white males for your taste? Did you feel the same about DS9, which really just had O’Brien and odo if you count non-humans? Anyway, IDIC.

Thank you. The whole idea that only people who “look like me” can be role models is ridiculous (as is judging who “looks like me” solely on the basis of skin pigmentation).

My LGBT butt sitting here like oh it must feel so nice to be represented in Trek again…

This is the stupidest comment I’ve ever seen here, and that’s saying a lot.

You’ve missed the entire point of Star Trek – and of representation.

There are still straight white males EVERYWHERE.

Why are you unable to see yourself represented in women and people with different coloured skin? How much like you does a protagonist need to be for basic human empathy and identity to kick in for you? Do they just have to be white or do they need the same coloured hair and eyes?

You’ve watched a show for decades without ever understanding what it was about. It wasn’t subtle, but you still missed it.

“Characters I grew up with like Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, James Bond, etc. being dressed down and killed off because the world would be better a better place without them.”

No disrespect intended, but that’s just entirely wrong. It’s only fairly recently in historical terms that there has been significant representation of POC onscreen at all; yet when you say “people like me” you sound like Whoopi Goldberg talking about how she felt when she saw Nichelle Nichols sitting on that bridge for the first time. Having seen my fellow Whites dominate media (including TOS and TNG) for most of my life, it never occurred to me to do a head count of them on “Discovery,” where Jason Isaacs dominated the first year (and Anson Mount much of the second) in any case. Seriously, where do people get these weird ideas?

Honestly, I was hoping for better. While the Enterprise-D was an amazing reveal and was like a dumptruck drop of nostalgia, the fact it was the Borg AGAIN really bothered me. We just had the Borg in the first two seasons. TNG was right to use them sparingly, but it is just too much right now. I’ll try to get over the Borg over-use, but it is too much. I’m hoping the Big Bad Face is actually something else and NOT the Borg Queen.

That said, I liked this episode a lot. I would like to see Seven of Nine use her Borg implants somehow to combat the assimilated kids, perhaps to un-assimilate them?

It was an OK episode, but it seems like the producers have been trying to substitute nostalgia for story this whole season, but for some, that’s enough and I can’t fault that. Interestingly, the commentariat over at TrekBBS has a much more jaundiced view of the series than the folks on this site.

As someone who loves the Borg and loved seeing them back, I can’t really disagree with you either. As you said, we have gotten some version of them for two seasons straight on this show already. But this is the true ‘authentic’ Borg we haven’t really seen for 22 years now since Janeway poisoned them. Even when they showed up on Prodigy, it was the Borg, but IIRC they had been cut off from the collective.

But this is the true Borg in what we saw in Q Who, BOBW, First Contact, Dark Frontier and Endgame. Who showed up to create chaos and for a lot of people, me included, it’s exciting to see again.

Considering the show is titled Picard, it was always going to be the Borg. If you had gone into this season assuming that the Borg were going to be the big bad, then you would have seen that the clues were there. Shaw pretty much said it outright: Forget about the stuff with the Stargazer and the Jurati Borg, the real Borg are still out there.

It should have been Bay 87, and the fan service would have been fully on the nose, but oh well.

Picard has been one long slog from S1, and I won’t say it’s been worth it to get to those last 10 min of S9, but it was nice to see.

It also makes me wish for a deep-faked anthology visit back to that era.

It was the dawn of the Third Age of Mankind Thirty-Five years after the Earth-Borg War The reconstituted USS Enterprise D was a dream given form by Commodore LaForge Its goal to defeat the Borg threat thereby creating a place where humans and aliens could work together peacefully Humans and one android wrapped in 2,500,000 tons of Warp-Drive capable metal All alone in the night It can be a dangerous place but it’s our last best hope for peace This is the story of the last human battle with the Borg.  The year is 2503 The name of the ship, the ENTERPRISE D!

lol awesome – too bad we can’t have Commander Tomalak as a sometimes friend, sometimes enemy

LOL – I’d love to see someone make a Babylon 5 style intro sequence for TNG 2.0

I’m confused! What happened to the new Borg Collective that requested admission into the Federation at the end of Season 2? The line from Dr. Crusher, to the effect It’s been over a decade since anyone has seen or heard from the Borg. That is a major oversight, or there is one more big reveal to come! Hopefully, it will get wrapped up in the final episode.

That line was quite the head scratcher. Is this season of Picard separated from the last one by 10 years?

The Jurati Borg from S2 are basically a splinter Borg co-op group that have nothing to do the real Borg Collective that are in the Delta Quadrant who have been licking their wounds since VOY: Endgame.

If that is the case then it’s either something I completely forgot because the story was quite forgettable or something that wasn’t made all that clear. But thanks for clearing that up.

It was made clear multiple times, including once this season, as a reminder. Head scratching that so many people missed it.

Yeah, Jurati’s Borgs are an independent Bee Hive stock and the real ones are the Wasps

Wonder if Jurati will come to the rescue. Aren’t they supposed to hear each other!?

They just chose to ignore last season. Or, Queen Agnes rides to the rescue in E10. Sucks, either way.

It’s literally the same writers room, except Matalas was the sole showrunner.

They didn’t forget. They even had Shaw say that the real Borg are still out there.

Must people take everything so utterly literally? Crusher was clearly referring to the mainstream Borg, not the various offshoots.

My guess is most here are going to LOVE this episode. However I think this episode only works if one thought TNG was the best Trek series ever. I didn’t. So I was not thrilled at all with this. In fact, I found this episode to be the weakest of the 9.

The Borg. AGAIN. Really tired of the Borg. Didn’t last season of Picard change the Borg up completely anyway? This seems very odd. Once we got the Borg reveal I kinda tuned out. It was obvious at that point the landing was missed. Which is unfortunate. The season has been fairly decent up to this point. And it’s pretty stinking obvious how this is going to get settled, too. Disappointed this will end up being super anti-climatic.

And then there was the thing everyone saw coming episodes ago. The bay 12 reveal. It wasn’t meant for me as I found that ship to be the ugliest thing in Trek. I hold no special love for it so that whole sequence did nothing for me. In fact, I was thinking “get on with it!” as it dragged out. I was secretly hoping they would give it the SNW treatment. Change things up all over so it looked a little better. No such luck. All we got was the lighting level was still quite low. Generations level low. But leave it to the best character to say the best line about the whole thing. “I prefer the E.” However, I get this was all for the TNG fans just as the Enterprise flyby was all for the big time fans in TMP. So I just got a small taste of my own medicine. LOL.

Few other things… I guess Geordi converted that ship meant to have a crew of 1000 to mostly automation. Like Scotty did in SFS. But still seems a bit of a stretch for me.

One thing I got a kick out of is only the 24 & younger crowd were stupid enough to allow their brains to get Borgified. Nice analogy to today! LOL But it was a little odd that so many of these crews are THAT young. Again, that’s an awfully large stretch.

I largely agree with you. The ending was sublime, but everything else missed the mark by a wide margin. Not BAD but not great at all. The first 5 eps are still the high water mark. There better be one hell of a finale in store.

Also, don’t appreciate your analogy to “young people” today. You sound like a bitter old man. I’ve found Gen Z to be far smarter than past generations were at their age, much savvier, while having to navigate are far more complex and challenging world.

I believe strongly in the intelligence, talent, and power of today’s young people.

I noticed that sh#tting on young people as well.

You write good posts, when you’re not being a d*ck.

Gen Z is all I’m pinning my hopes on at this point, tbh. My generation, the Boomers, turned out to suck beyond all measure. Maybe they can clean up our mess; I hope so for their sake.

Unfortunately, the Borg are well-known enough to the general public that Paramount+ needs that there really was no other choice. At least that’s what they’d tell you.

But it was a little odd that so many of these crews are THAT young

Not really. When I was an Air Force officer, the great majority of the officers in my wing were between 22-26. Like, most of them.

I’ll have to check with my cousin who was in the Air Force. But I have friends and colleagues who were in the Navy & Marines. I could check in there to see. It’s just that in TNG Trek there were precious few enlisted men and tons of officers. But I was told on actual Naval vessels there are far more crewmen than officers. I can’t believe that Star Fleet Academy is the one and only one way to get into the Star Fleet. Even though TNG made it seem that way. Which is why I thought that demo would not be as large in this fictional universe as it might be in the real world.

Even though TNG made it seem that way

While not explicitly discussed, there was a very strong implication that Troi did not attend the Academy and that she instead studied at a university on Betazed. I also don’t recall any definitive statement that Bones McCoy or Crusher attended the Academy.

She wore a uniform in the first episode, but it almost seemed that they retconned her into a civilian for a while after that, before they put her in a regular Starfleet uniform at the end of the series.

Those are all medical people. What about actual crewmen? People who just enlisted. I’ve often wondered why they are so rare on TNG.

I was an ICBM operations officer, and missile crews are composed of two officers, (no enlisted or NCOs), with the bulk those crew members being lieutenants. That might skew things a little

Fair enough. Although I do have a co-worker who was in the Navy who did tell me the bulk of the crews on the ships weren’t officers.

It’s a stretch to say the kids allowed themselves to be Borgified. They weren’t the ones rewriting the transporter architecture bulls**t, it was the old timers who got swapped by the shape shifters laying the groundwork.

Nah, the vast majority of everyone in the military today is under 30, a high percentage under 25.

Yeah that’s such a weird comment lol. Especially after how intricate this plot was. The Borg never planned anything like this before and even used a proxy species to help them oo it. Usually they just show up and cause havoc lol.

It was hyperbole. Again, I thought that would be obvious. But then the developing brain age is a human thing. Seems reasonable to conclude that other member species develop at different rates. It may affect some better and others not at all. Why universally the under 24 year olds? Honestly this doesn’t feel very well thought out.

And if one has ever had kids, even college age ones… And mine is… The bulk of them aren’t bright. They are still in a learning and evolving stage at that point. Even our “illustrious” VP in a rare moment of clarity said they weren’t.

Even our “illustrious” VP in a rare moment of clarity said they weren’t.

I’ve no idea what you’re saying. (For the record, this is not a political comment. I would have advised Biden to pick Rep. Val Demings, Sen. Cortez-Masto, or Sen. Klobuchar as veep, not then-Sen. Harris.)

In 2015 she famously said “18-24 year olds are stupid.” One can easily find the clip on YouTube and a simple google search.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/232711/number-of-active-duty-us-defense-force-personnel-by-age/

OK. My thing mainly was that in the TNG era there seem to be a ton of officers and not very many crewmen. Officers tend to be older. Therefore, in the universe as presented one might think there would not be a ton of younger people on these starships even though on our real world there are indeed a lot of younger people serving.

I felt like it was the weakest too. What I felt was working with this season up until now, was seeing how these characters and their relationships had evolved since we last saw them. That and the addition of fresh faces working alongside the legacy crew. But those characters have been relegated to the background more and more the past few episodes. With Pike’s death (major disappointment), leaving Seven behind, and now all the old fogies returning to the Enterprise, it felt like a step backward in favor of superficial nostalgia.

This show already did such a good job of establishing that we don’t need that ship to feel reunited with these characters. The whole reveal sequence, then turning on the lights, and closeups as they finally touch the LED panels once again, felt tired and forced for fan service. These characters didn’t feel washed up this whole season, until they were relegated to a “remember how much you used to love this? well, it’s back” scene.

It’s impossible to believe that a saucer section that sustained *that* much damage could really be restored to flightworthy condition. (It’s as if the remains of TWA800 could suddenly start plying the transatlantic routes again.) My headcanon explanation is that much of the saucer was also taken from USS Syracuse and combined here and there with components of the 1701-D saucer. The fact that the layout was pre-GENERATIONS also suggests this was the case.

You should have paid more attention. You clearly missed the sequence where they explained that the front cortex stops developing at 25, and after that point is no longer vulnerable to the Borg modified DNA code. The younger members of Starfleet were therefore targets not because of their “stupidity” but because of their physiology, on which they have no control.

You are clearly an older individual, with a very passive-aggressive attitude towards the younger generation. I’m probably not much younger than you (if at all) but I do appreciate the qualities of young people of today. TikTok is not representative of the young generation.

No, I did pay attention to all of that. My own kid is of that age and I have high hopes for him but still is learning. He’s sharp but still lacks wisdom. He’s planning on starting a business and wish him all the success he can get. But the fact remains people are still learning and growing and making huge mistakes at that age. We all did. I, myself, thought I was sharp back then but I realized much later I wasn’t as sharp as I thought I was.

People are just way too sensitive these days.

I thought it was all that and a bag of chips and I cried several times!

But… I also feel the first part of the episode (Jack finding out and escaping) should’ve been put in the previous episode. Would have freed up some needed time for other scenes that now felt rushed and expositiony and given the previous 2 less of a filler vibe. I’m still not sure how the Borg and Changelings worked together (and why??) but I guess that explanation is coming next week.

I’m not entirely sure what the point was to have Alice Krige back and not show her. I initially thought they didn’t show her because there was another reveal coming (at that point I thought the Queen was going to be a clone of Beverly). So I was actually kinda disappointed to find out in the credits it was ‘only’ Alice.

I believe the thing you mentioned about the stardrive is not correct. Geordi rebuilt it. Only the engines and nacelles came from the Syracuse. I was more surprised the bridge didn’t look like it did in Generations. I guess Geordi didn’t like the refit.

For me it was a solid 9.

Krige may only have provided the voice. I don’t know.

That is correct. The rest was a body double.

That Enterprise D set is I think that one that someone salvaged from a traveling museum tour. It’s not perfect but was a lot cheaper to use that than rebuild the original from scratch. The giveaways are the off color upholstery and slightly off shape and size of the front con/ops seats and shape and curve of the wooden arch and slope of the ramps and height of the second level. It looks like it did get a nice upgrade to the LCARS. It could use a paint job though. There was something off about the color of the walls. However it was still very close and in HD the E-D bridge still looks great!

An in-universe explanation as to why the bridge did not look like the way it did in Generations exists in the TNG Technical manuals. The bridge Module is actually a lifeboat and is detachable and can fly on its own. This one might be the original one that was removed and was sitting in a starfleet surplus depot. OR it was the module from the USS Syracuse which may have been one of the first 6 and later 6 Galaxy class vessels built before or during the Dominion war. The bridge that crashed on Veridian III was pretty destroyed so maybe Geordi just popped this one in and called it a day. Switch out the dedication plate and say the slight differences in how it all looks is because it’s from a different Galaxy class vessel. It would be just like running down to the junk yard and taking a door off another identical car to your own that’s the same color. It’s the same but different life experiences it’s not quite the same.

That’s a great explanation! :D

Yeah, technicaly they could take off the Enterprise D Bridge and put it on some similar Nebula Class ship as Bridge.. some Spare parts and “Muscle car Ship” beef up. Stronger Weapons, better Shields and so on. If they want to

That was mentioned in the TNG Technical Manual that the bridge modules were interchangable.

The color of the famous carpet indeed seemed much more saturated than on TNG.

The E-D bridge was smashed beyond recognition at the end of GENERATIONS. This is a rebuild of it, done to the specifications of Geordi la Forge, who evidently preferred that version of it, just as the set was rebuilt in real life. No elaborate in-universe explanation is necessary.

Totally. This was a labor of love by a man who wanted to restore his ship for posterity as well as for himself (and surprise his friends one day – helluva secret to be able to keep!). As its curator, there was no reason why he’d need to retain the configuration it only had in its last few months of service. There was also no reason to give it a working warp drive and defensive systems, but… again, labor of love!

I’ve been watching Picard S3 quietly since it premiered and while it barely has an original bone in its body and comes across as a big budget fan-fic production to me, it has kept me very entertained and held my interest from week to week. The performances have been very good overall and I really like how certain characters like Worf and Data have evolved. That’s really more than I could ask for, especially given my distaste for 90% of Kurtzmann-Trek.

That said, there really haven’t been too many surprises. I’d pretty much guessed the Borg were behind everything the first time Jack saw the vines and then 7 of 9 was standing right in their midst in his vision; that connection was just too glaring to ignore, as was Shaw’s little PTSD speech in the holodeck where he comes right and says the REAL Borg are still out there.

The plotting also seems to be getting a little sloppy here at the end. The connection between the changelings and the Borg was glossed over at best and it might have been easier if the Borg had simply assimilated a few changelings to do their bidding. We still don’t know anything about Vadic’s hand puppet alien either and where it fits in. The show also show conveniently sidesteps (so far at least) Picard S2’s finale where we have a kinder gentler Borg complete with new Borg Queen who’s looking to make friends.

I’m also really disappointed at the apparent death of Shaw. The character quickly grew on me and I liked his different style of command; it was a welcome change of pace and breath of fresh air from other established captains we’ve gotten. Sadly, he really wasn’t given much to do and despite a heroic send-off I’d be just as happy if his wounds don’t end up being as fatal as they seem. It would also fit in with the more sentimental, borderline fan-fic writing we’ve gotten this season.

Still, overall this has been a fun ride and I’ll be curious to see how it ends, I just hope we don’t get a Starfleet is in ruins style cliffhanger.

One of the things I actually really appreciate about the season is the lack of surprises, ie: mind-blowing reveals. That is, outside of the Jack mystery, which was a disappointment.

More often, the questions the season posed were fairly simple and easy to guess, and never presented as if they’d be some kind of senses-shattering twist. Ie: we knew Jack would be his son and they telegraphed it a mile away even in dialogue.

Even the one lone surprise – the presence of the changelings – wasn’t presented as some kind of mystery.

Likewise, Jack being part-Borg is an easy guess, just like the rest, the problem is how they dragged it out and teased it as some kind of shocking twist. It feels like it was meant to be teased in Episode 8 and then revealed in Episode 9, but someone thought “hey, we need a longer tail on that to keep people interested.”

If this had been the first time we saw the Borg since Voyager or that one episode of Enterprise, this would have been a pretty good reveal. Dr. Crusher says it’s been 10 years since anyone last heard from them, but… it’s only been a year for the audience. So, this was as shocking as seeing Sherlock uncover another plot by Moriarty.

I’m not mad at the episode, though. It’s just average. Average modern nostalgic Trek, as challenging as one of those cozy old reunion TV movies from the 80s or 90s. But better than A Brady Bunch Christmas. High praise indeed.

Less than a year actually. Prodigy had them too.

Really? I haven’t watched Prodigy. But thanks.

They’re overused more than I thought.

Yeah since their introduction there’s only been two shows that they haven’t been seen on in some fashion. And that’s Discovery (which could still happen) and SNW.

You’re obviously not wrong in terms of appearances, but we haven’t seen the REAL Borg on Picard until now. The Borg in season 2 was just a very weird offshoot of them and Shaw even made that clear.

But yes, I get it obviously, we have been around the Borg for two straight seasons. It’s not going to bring the same GASP like the way it did when we saw that Borg cube show up in the first trailer of season one. That was the moment that told me the Star Trek of old was back. Now, everyone just kind of expect them to show up.

Well, that’s just it though, I’m not all that interested in seeing the real Borg again. Unless they’ve changed in some fascinating way, I guess. The way they assimilated Starfleet was novel. I’ll give them that.

Fair enough, but I love them so I’m personally happy to see them back. But that said, I would’ve been fine if it was just purely a Changeling story line too.

And yeah I do agree how they assimilated them was really innovative. But the Borg are pretty smart. ;)

It seems to me that the story might have flowed better if the whole thing was a long Changling plot. They could have come up with something else regarding Jack and him being a Maguffin. The Borg at this point, well after Voyager really, have become a huge tiresome bore.

The thing is, the Borg were (with apologies to Tomalak and Duras) really the defining antagonists in TNG, and to Picard specifically — much as the Klingons were for Kirk. The sendoff for Picard was bound to involve them, much as TUC did the Klingons.

True, though since they’re the obvious choice to use as a final antagonist, then that makes it even sillier to keep them behind a mysterious door for so long.

Recall how Star Trek: Picard , Season 1, Episode 6, “The Impossible Box” was so incredibly moving? It was to me. Picard truly faced his past.

But in the second season, we don’t really see Picard facing the Borg Queen, he just walks away and lets Jurati take over. And for all Stewart’s great acting abilities, and the fantastic, well-scripted scenes between Jurati and The Queen, we never see Picard and The Queen really get to the meat of a what Borg relationship is. And we don’t really get to see what Seven could have brought to the table. The confrontation is avoided – a very dramatic opportunity missed.

Which is why it’s shocking, as good as S3 is, that instead of a DS9-paced plot we are going to have a magical ending or a typical “TNG/Voyager” ending where somehow the fleet is saved and everyone is happy with their new Borg DNA – in the last ten minutes?

I can’t help but imagine the triangle that I hoped we would see: Beverly having many resources in the Federation and also reveling in how her exploits over the last years have given her a galaxy of friendships coming back to help solve this problem. And at the same time, Laris steps up to the plate. She brings Commodore Oh and other Romulans for help. And also to remind the Federation that Picard’s body should have been boxed up on Soong’s planet!

Finally, I fear some kind of a “Borgified Federation” is what the cast means when they have said in interviews that there are some loose ends at the end of the last episode. (“We’re all XB’s now!”)

I hope we get to see an original narrative chart for three seasons of Picard. The producers were too subtle, perhaps to fool the star himself. IMHO there is no way they could have had three seasons teasing and pushing Borg plot lines away from the center of the narrative without a plan.

Anyway, it’s a beautiful day outside!

Hey, look! It’s another cameo from a legacy character!

Aaaaand she’s dead.

LOL!! Yeah, I was waiting for her to morph into a changeling and instead she gets straight phasered! :O

Never understood why so many people liked her. She was a good character for BOBW, but the actor wasn’t anything special, and I never cared to see her again. Unlike Hugh, for example, her loss is of no concern to me.

I thought her acting in this episode was pretty poor, actually, brief as it was. That speech was actually terribly delivered.

You win the internet for today. Thanks for the chuckle.

How long until Majel Barnett’s computer voice will also be killed off?

I’m grateful O’Brien was smart enough to keep his head down for this one…

LOL yeah that was a punch in the gut. OMG, Shelby IS BA—damn!

Dang, I’m looking at this again and it STILL makes me laugh.

I’ve been waiting for Ent-D all series, yet when it arrived the tone of the scene didn’t fit in with the situation. If Starfleet has been assimilated, the situation is grave… so you’re not going to feel sentimental or calm like they all became in the last ten minutes.

Hearing Majel did make me emotional, though.

I’d have preferred Shaw have a better death scene. I think it’s final, I don’t think he’s coming back. It does open the door for a Legacy show with Seven as captain.

I’m also confused about the Borg. I thought they were dealt with in S2 and became allies. Just how many Borg queen’s are there?

It’s been said more than once, on screen and off, that Jurati’s collective is not the same as the collective we knew. There are two SEPARATE borg collectives. Shaw mentioned it on-screen earlier this season.

Above Matt Wright said the Jurarti Borg are just a Borg splinter group.

Understandable to not recall that. I completely forgot as well. I think it was because the season was so awful it’s tough to recall small things like that.

It’s not understandable for anyone who actually watched the season.

Some of us watch the show, but don’t remember every little detail…

It can be tricky to remember details that don’t make any darned sense.

Yeah, I didn’t like Shaw’s death scene as well. But oh whale!

If only there had been a class of ship designed specifically to fight the Borg. Hmmm. If only a ship of that class had been there at the fleet museum. Hmm! If only they had someone who had lived on that ship as part of their group. Hmm!

Good point!

Maybe in the last episode? That would be cool…

The Defiant does not have working engines or weapons, though. Geordi was working on the Ent-D as a personnel project, not part of the museum per se. So the Ent-D was ready to go, not the Defiant.

There’s no reason why he couldn’t have kept the Defiant running.

In the end credits, there is the titillating graphic that appears to show the Defiant flying around Spacedock…

Yeah but what I’m saying is that the Defiant would have been better suited for what they needed versus the Enterprise D. It’s a warship designed for a smaller crew that was intended to be used to fight the Borg plus it can take a beating and survive it. While the Galaxy Class who was not built for any of that and the Changelings alone could demolish it in no time.

it is a tough little ship

Plus the D would have had to have automated systems installed all over considering it was meant to have a crew of 1000. Also given their mission it also seems like they should have separated and used the bottom half. But using the “battle bridge” (God I always hated that) doesn’t give fans the ‘member berries they want. But remember, “When relived of her bulk the Enterprise becomes a formidable weapon.” At least according to Worf.

What I’m saying is that the end credits have included back-to-back Easter eggs that so far have all “come true,” so to speak. The Klingon cloaking device with labels translated into “Federation Standard.” Data/Lore’s positronic neural net with red and blue nodes. The holodeck simulation of Ten Forward with the safeties off. The DNA sequences. Shaw’s service record. The ships stored at Athan Prime. The musical score to “Pop Goes the Weasel”. The graphic (revealed this week) of Jack transmitting his Borgness to the under-25 crowd.

So the last item in the end credit that is yet to be explained clearly shows Spacedock being circled by a number of Starfleet ships… a number of them circled in red and identified by their registries, just as we saw several times in on-screen displays shown prominently in Episode 9. But three other ships are shown only as white silhouettes… no registry tags… and based on what we know now, these must be “offline” ships not linked with the Borg-ified fleet.

One of those ships is indistinct… but probably the 1701-D.

One is clearly the Defiant. No mistaking that outline.

The third is a Constitution Class… so I’ll put my money on 1701-A.

Okay but that’s still not what I meant. Okay cool it’s in the end credits. 🤷 It would have been better we actually got to see it in action in this episode.

7 days is too long to wait…?

How many times do I have to say what I meant. It would have been better. For what they needed to get a ship for. If they had taken the Defiant. Instead of the Enterprise D.

Yeah great the Defiant is in the end credits whoo effing hoo. Who knows when it will show up then. At the end of the episode when it can’t be if any help? In a mid credits scene? Why then when they could use it right now. Now it’s like it can’t be any use in this final battle because who is gonna operate it?

Hmm… good question. Who on the crew of the Enterprise-D knows how to pilot the Defiant. Let me think about that one…

How would Worf get back there though. Hmm.

You know, I actually thought that was where they should go. But somehow I knew we were going to get the D instead. Even though using the Defiant made a TON more sense.

Something I wrote got tagged as spam. If it shows up, I apologize.

Anyway, in short: S1 E6, where Picard visits the XBs is the high point for me. Picard fully was experiencing survivor’s syndrome, yet trying to move forward. . Season two was a wasted opportunity to further explore what it means to be Borg through scenes with Jurati, The Queen, Seven, and Picard – which we never got!

And… I wish Laris had been included in this season. Now is the time for Commodore Oh to show up and help. Help! And remind Picard she would have taken care of his corpse properly.

I miss Laris too, I’m hoping she comes back in the last episode.

The only way that you would see Lars again, is if Beverly Dies, in the next episode. I do not see that happening, do you?

I’ll just say that while Riker tested him in the first few episodes, Picard as a charcter showed few – if any – signs of leadership.

If I was him I would be contacting everyone possible and trying anything and everything to change this situation. So bringing back Laris would absolutely be more interesting while Beverly is still around.

Seeing the Big D is great. Since it’s a museum, it’s logical to assume the ships on display (Voyager, Defiant, etc.) don’t have working engines, just like planes on display at the Smithsonian. Since the D was kept inside and still a work-in-progress, that’s probably the only reason why a few of them couldn’t jump on the Defiant and join the D for the fight, for example. And a great episode! Can we talk about the music too? So good this season.

That’s how the Air and Space museum in D.C. is, so that’s a great explanation. The music has been INCREDIBLE!! I already preordered the soundtrack off iTunes and can’t wait for it to drop!

Yep I brought this up myself, those ships probably don’t work beyond the most basic. The D was clearly being built to be a ship again, even if not part of the fleet again.

A better example are the various museum ships around the world. They are preserved for appearance. To keep a ship functional, it needs to be maintained, something a museum wouldn’t have the staff or funds to do. That Geordi was hammering the E-D back together is just a gigantic suspension of disbelief. That’s a bridge too far for me, at least…

Drones could of done the bulk of the work. He did say they were filling up the photon torpedoes.

USS Constitution has been designated a museum ship for over a century, but she is still seaworthy and sailed in 1997 and 2012 (and did an extensive publicity voyage in 1934).

What’s a bridge too far is to suggest that Geordi did all this singlehandedly as a pet project. When I visited HMS Victory (which is in permanent drydock) in Portsmouth last year, there was renovation work being done on the starboard side of the ship, and an exhibit about all the contractors and subcontractors involved.

Not that they could launch her, but the Space Shuttle Discovery at the Dulles branch of the National Air and Space Museum does have real engines ( Atlantis and Endeavour have dummy engines, but Discovery was kept pristine for future generations.)

OH – and the Enterprise D LCARS using full screen digital graphics (instead of printed overlays) – how cool was that!

I’m sure it had to be an incredibly emotional experience for the cast, being back together on that set after all these years. Those looks of awe and nostalgia didn’t require acting, because they were real.

Agreed. I wonder if that shot it “for real” so they didn’t see it until the first take and their reactions were genuine? I still can’t believe they managed to film all this with nothing getting out. Half the fun has been all the surprises! :D

I was wondering the same thing! I’m sure we’re getting bts footage of that.

LeVar Burton let slip we’d be seeing the D back in August. I recall he made a comment about the ramp being a little off.

Also also. As cool as it would have been to see the bridge from the refit in the Generations era, since the bridge was trashed after crashing, it makes sense for an eventual museum ship to be restored to what it was most commonly known/remembered as, which would be the bridge from Season 2-7 of TNG. Awesome.

Absolutely true! ;)

Not only that but they have the built-in excuse of “restoration” to explain away any discrepencies.

Could of also took the bridge module off the Syracuse and just changed the plaque.

That’s undoubtedly what happened. The vast majority of that ship was USS Syracuse, and a 1701-D label slapped on for marketing purposes. Which isn’t very sound historiography, to be sure.

Maybe not, but the Ship of Theseus conundrum isn’t unique to Starfleet museums. And speaking of which, what is this one, formerly Earth Spacedock, doing in orbit around another planet? How did it get there? That’s what’s keeping me awake nights.

“Undoubtedly,” he says. lol.

Well that explains why Picard was obsessed with AI – he was being farmed by the Borg!! Also cool that the Borg assimilated most of the fleet, what a setup for a battle!!!! Hopefully the ENT A gets to shine, the ENT D is a warp core breach in progress (great for kamakazes?). I think though the Borg should really want robo Picard; he has it where they don’t need to assimilate anymore. Hell the Borg could be the Starships now with robo-Picard chips. Who needs organics?!?! I’m sad they killed Admiral Shelby (my favourite character from TOBW) , though I sense a nonsensical TNG time loop coming, it is the TNG way.

I have not seen Ep 10 and have no connections to anyone who has, but I am not going to spill what I still think is the obvious conclusion here just to be safe. I’ll just say it’s not a nonsensical time loop.

I am torn. The best answer would be to trade robo-Picard tech for leaving the Federation alone. The rational Borg should actually go for it, no need for organics then and they just head out all happy they *finally* got what they wanted all along (i.e. the Borg only assimilate because they think they have to, that organic life is key to innovation and imagination like an evil V’ger). That would be a proper “sci-fi” peace with the Borg ending. BUT.. BORING. So then the Borg should backstab them after the exchange and decide they don’t need organics so will destroy them instead. Have them turn on the Changlings too, which they work together with Starfleet to self destruct the ENT-D to save everything in a brief time period before the Borg reset.

That being said, let’s face it, they love nonsensical time loops or Q snapping his fingers where nothing really matters anyway which will leave us all wondering why not stop Wolf 359 and save all those crew members. But. at least then we get Admiral Shelby back?

Nope. I think the conclusion will be much simpler than that. I haven’t seen anyone mention it yet. Is it not as obvious as I think?

Picard’s son Matrix style decides just to order them to shut down? That would be too lame, no?

I think Jack will end up key to stopping it. He will sacrifice himself or Picard will communicate with him in some stirring sequence but yeah. He will be the one to make victory possible using his Borg link or whatever it is he has they want.

Instead of Data having Locutus say, “Sleep!”, Võx says, “Mercy!”?

Total guess on my part, but Jack takes out the Queen and becomes the Borg King? Then he and Jurati-borg get together and-BAM!-P+ has a new Star Trek sitcom ;-)

My prediction is that Jack will activate the portal device commandeered by the Changelings, have the fleet sail through it, and somehow en masse reverse the transporter malware that assimilated the under-25s.

Makes sense. Transporter technobabble used to assimilate can just be reversed to unassimilate. Similarly, the way that the fleet is all connected allowed the Borg to control them all in one fell swoop will allow our heroes to regain control of the ships in a similar manner…

Star Trek is very much a religion and it’s interesting to see the split in the faithful: those who can love it just for the the ritual, the symbols, the deity vs. those who need the emotional truth / meaningful story to back up all that.

When it becomes a religion Vs an action adventure show showing humanity moving forward despite imperfections and enemies, Star Trek sucks. Something I learned the hard way.

Definitely. It’s tough because this season in particular is being made with either a real religious interest or a nod to all of that *while* still telling an action adventure sci-fantasy story.

That is it is done as a TOS movie era arc action-adventure story vs. S1/S2 is why this season is rocking it. Even I am enjoying it and I thought TNG was a snoozefest.

A religion? God I hope not.

Put this parishioner down for “meaningful story.”

Arguably the greatest Star Trek episode ever.

Oh brother, here comes the hyperbole… Outside of the last few minutes, the episode is fine. Just fine. But you’re nostalgia is coloring your view.

Inarguably nowhere close.

It’s not even close to the best episode THIS SEASON.

I’m hopeful that next week’s “The Last Generation” can rise to the occasion, but for me, I think “No Win Scenario” is #1 (for the season, I mean — no Star Trek: Picard episode should crack a TNG top 30, and definitely not an all-Trek top 100).

Yep. 100%. It’s easily in the top 2-3 of the past decade, and better than any episode of Enterprise and Voyager (and would be in the top 10 of DS9 were it part of that series)

Not even close. A decent episode of this series, but not even in the top ten of all ST.

You’re entitled to your opinions, but this episode requires a helluva lot of suspension of disbelief to work.

Yes, I’ll definitely argue with that one.

Even though I totally saw the Changeling/Borg alliance and Jack thing coming, here was another episode I should not have watched right before bed because I was on the edge my seat (well matrass) the whole hour and was holding back cheers by the end. I’m going to need a sedative for the finale.

Also when I saw that great lady at the end I sobbed. It is what it is. I was a mess.

I’m so happy Patrick Stewart slipped in a Picard Maneuver right before he said “Engage!” — I’m going to guess that was a Matalas call.

Also, Dennehy jumped right back into the role. So great. RIP to a real one

Not to quote Jadzia Dax but “if ever we needed a new ally, it’s right now.”

Commodore Oh. No question best for the job.

I would like the Romulans. I also would like the Dominion. Why not both.

Is it not as obvious who their ally is? I think a blind man could see it.

🤷 is it Odo?

Umm… No.

I thought this was an enormous letdown. The whole season is turning into a bust for me.

Been downhill since E6.

I agree. I was hopeful that the revelation of what’s going on with Jack might elevate those middle episodes a bit in retrospect. Instead, it’s showing that this whole thing has been an empty box all along. Some great character scenes along the way and some great acting from some of the principals, but overall? Sound and fury signifying nothing. Please let this be Matalas’s final involvement with the franchise (barring some sort of magical turnaround in the finale).

I feel like an absolute selfish asshole for saying this but unless something big happens in the finale, after this they really kinda owe DS9 and ENT fans huge for using both shows for this mess and not really giving the fans anything really for it.

Agreed, AND the argument could be made that they owe TNG fans — or “Picard” fans (if such a thing exists) — another one for having all that present to begin with and distracting from what they could have been doing. Personally, I don’t mind them having mixed some content from the other shows into the stew, since all of it fits together anyways. But it seems clear now that there was a serious lack of focus in the planning of this season.

Yes if they had mixed all four [TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT] shows together in a way that worked, it wouldn’t have been a problem. As it is, with how it is now, it felt like they just used all four and TOS and it stinks bad.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.

The Enterprise-D was MADE for widescreen. Not “literally” since all of TNG was in 4×3, but look at her. The idea that the producers thought she wouldn’t hold up to being in a theatrical movie was ludicrous. Seeing all these new shots from different perspectives instead of the recycled ones we got in TNG is so refreshing.

And mad props to the VFX artists who worked on this rendition. It looks so much like the filming model down to the frost-lit buzzards, the glow from the nacelles and the hazy blue light from the main deflector. I could just lose myself in knowing that this was the Ent-D without defaulting to “That’s an obvious CGI model”.

The reason the producers (of STG) thought the set wouldn’t stand big screen scrutiny wasn’t because of the design: It was because in those days, there was no such thing as HD TV, and since time is money, sets (and props, and costumes, etc) were made with only the amount of detail absolutely necessary. That’s why all the reused TV sets were lit somewhat darkly.

Rand Corporation used the TOS bridge as a template for military command centers with the ability for a commander to look up information and talk with his crew. The ENT-D bridge is used I think by safety companies to show how bad design choices can lead to unnecessary back injuries from unnecessarily standing all bored while checking out the walls of unnecessary blinky hard drive lights. Still… vs. Discovery and the Titan-A at least when looking at Picard from the front it isn’t just a door behind him which is nice.

I was talking about the Ship, not the set.

I completely agree!

I am sourcing Majel’s computer voice… “Authorization acknowledged” = Starship Mine “USS Enterprise now under command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard” = Chain of Command, Part II

The Borg Queen in Voyager reviewed a similar plan with Seven of Nine to assimilate humanity slowly, and while they were unaware. This seems to be a variation of that original plan, simply using the Changelings to do it instead of the original delivery method! Dark Frontier is the episode, I think.

I had an Hunch, since they said somewhere in the Past they filmed Season 3 back to back with Season 2. So their best Enemy was also on the Set. And since She is from an alternative timeline, she could had subdued the Changelings and could put it now to good use. Even if she goes up into the Season 2 Doctor.

But lets see. Perhaps They reactivate other non-Starfleet Ships to help repel this. But i wonder how they stop them in their moves. Healing these corrupted “Borg Drones” is easy. They just need to reset the Teleport Filters and use some old “Data” to get the Borg influence out of their Bodies. I just hope they have these Old Backup’s. But to freeze their Actions to attack them and doing that on the fly while fighting. That is the Masterpiece i am curious about

So Jack is indeed now some sort of Borg King. His Telephatics skills are in reality “remote control” of the well hidden Borg Nanomachines in the bodies of others. But what will happen with his Ego when he come into touch with the Borg collective? Will he get blown away or can he still hold to himself. That Ladies and gentelmen could be one of the True Endgame solution in Episode 10, the other is how Picard can filter out the Borg “magic” out of Starfleet

It remember me of some St: Prodigy cliffhanger Episode with an Living Construct… Perhaps this Episodes triggered this Idea for the “Endgame” just little modified

or Janeway rush like Capt. Riker in End of Season 1 with some “The best of the best Starfleet Ships and Crew” to stand down the corrupted Ships with Force fields or Tractor beams…. Ship’s Override codes to shut all of them Down before more happen. Perhaps it#s Dr. Juratis Borgs little Cubes that do this Job. You know, Janeway and Borg’s are Buddies in the bad and good Way.

i can dream, right? I know that all is recorded and in stone. Just my imagination is running wild

SHAW!!! Gutted. Otherwise, wow what an ep. LOVED seeing the ENT-D back in action, and in HD. That bridge into section choked me up.

Also…they did Shelby dirty lol.

Not that the episode was badly done or unenjoyable, but… fandom has been rampant all season with people predicting that the big bad turns out to be the Borg, that something implanted in Locutus figures in it somehow, that the Enterprise D was hidden in hangar 12, and I was thinking all along that these were all too obvious, and that surely the writers had some clever surprise twist up their sleeves to raise a Vulcan eyebrow. But no… they did what people were generally expecting, so mild letdown. Also, as others have mentioned, the Borg seem a bit overused at this point having figured prominently in Seasons 1 & 2. For goodness sake, we’re seeing our third Borg Queen of the past two seasons! They couldn’t think of anything else? But it’s not over yet, so perhaps they have some surprises yet in store.

Fan service is fairly transparent. I suspect all that transporter architecture bulls**t probably laid the groundwork for some fix that’ll let our heroes sail off into the sunset, having saved the galaxy from the dreaded Borg yet again.

It’s just a transporter database update, a cycle through the transporters for all the young crew.

How they get control of the ships to do that is the trick…

But then they have networked ships and two characters with positronic brains.

Well, they would have asked Annie Wersching to appear if she hadn’t perhaps been too ill a few months later to film at the end of S3…

It’s been nearly 500 minutes of setup – nearly as long as TWOK, TSFS, TVH and TUC combined — and, arguably, not all that much has happened (plot- or character-wise).

It’s nice to see everyone together – and I got teary, as I was meant to be, seeing them on the bridge of the D. But there’s a heck of a lot to resolve in one more episode (even if it’s two hours).

Also, why isn’t the E available? Wasn’t it repaired after Nemesis? Is this some DS9 thing?

The E was destroyed and no it’s not some DS9 thing. As a DS9 fan I feel like this season has just given me the middle finger.

Was the E destroyed? The last we saw of the E was getting repaired in dry dock orbiting the Earth over the Mediterranean.

When was the E destroyed?

We don’t know when, but this episode has the second reference to the destruction of the Enterprise-E.

As far as the audience knows it hasn’t been. As has been said the last we saw it was being repaired.

I believe it was said in the lead up to this season so don’t take it up with me.

Personally I think it was in the mid 2380s.

It was mentioned in the previous season?

All I saw here was Worf saying “sorry” for something but it wasn’t clear what he was talking about. That’s another problem with this episode. They really rushed through some things.

Did you watch the episode? It’s pretty clear that Worf was responsible for the destruction of the ship. Seriously, you need to stop playing Candy Crush while the episode is on. Or better yet, just stop watching entirely. It’s clear you don’t even want to.

Yes. I heard that, jerk. But I wondered if I’d missed this previously mentioned somewhere.

I was not responding to you. ML31 however, legitimately doesn’t watch the episode and then complains about things he missed.

Or if you were referring to him as a jerk, IE: “I heard that jerk” and your comma was a typo, well then… totally understood.

If Worf was Captain of the E when the Living Construct took control and had the fleet turn on itself, that wouldn’t be his fault but devastating all the same.

It was pretty heavily implied.

But that’s an assumption. It’s pretty vague. I thought it was a hard point that I missed somewhere along the line. Seems I didn’t. At this point if they really wanted to use the ship it seems they still could.

Side note: Sending Hugh back to the Collective as a bomb all those years ago probably sounds pretty good right about now huh? Just saying lol

Well Picard definitely would not have gone if only because he was unknowingly and subconsciously in communication with the Borg. I think this is also why post Starfleet he becomes obsessed with AI, Data, etc. I’d argue they were farming the Federation for a tech to make organics assimilation obsolete.

LOL yeah sadly true. I agreed even way back then genocide was not the option, especially considering as Hugh himself showed, all of them are basically victims. But yeah, the Borg will never stop being the Borg, so what do you do?

Your question will truly test the writers. Because that is the question right? Even after Wolf 359, after the First Contact incident, after Janeway decimated them at the end of Voy. They keep coming back. At this point it’s either genocide or peace. And how does one make peace with the Borg?

That was actually the most interesting thing about season 2 in the beginning when we thought it was the ‘real’ Borg who wanted peace. Of course people were questioning if it was real only to reveal later it was not the true Borg. But it was an interesting idea, if they could make peace with them, what exactly would that look like?

Well now we know the real Borg is still not ready to play nice lol. They are still just as determined as ever to turn the Federation into a collective. Outside of First Contact, this is the most they’ve ever succeeded. I do wonder if they will they bring up the possibility next week of trying to wipe them out again via Janeway’s virus or something similar? I don’t expect them to use it but I do wonder will if it will even be discussed since at the very least it crippled them for a long time.

And then again, the Borg may be well prepared against something that deadly now. So I can’t wait to see how they resolve it.

Isn’t that exactly what the Face is doing with Jack?

First – great review, as always. And thanks for using a still at the top that doesn’t give away the show. I agree that the exposition gets rushed in the first half; I still don’t quite get why the Changelings aligned with the Borg, but maybe that’ll be cleared up next week. It was obvious that all the ships at Frontier Day would be taken over by network control — Episode 6 clearly set that up — but I didn’t expect a Clone Order 66 to Borgify everyone under the age of 25. That was shocking. And I had anticipated that Geordi’s Bay 12’s surprise would be the Enterprise-E; I never expected to see the big E-D onscreen again, outside of a flashback. Not gonna lie, I was emotionally compromised at that reveal. Loved that it echoed the scene in STIV when Kirk and crew see that their new ship is the Enterprise-A. When Picard’s turbolift opened onto the bridge, seeing that set, and hearing Majel’s computer voice… I was bawling. Let’s just say I’m glad I wasn’t in public. I thought the final episode would have all the ships in Geordi’s museum powering up and entering the fray against the new ships. (I thought they’d use the big LED wall set to simulate the various bridges, and have trustworthy legacy characters [O’Brien? Barclay? Kim?] at the conn.) But I’m happy to settle for the Galaxy class hero riding in to save the day. What a ride!

That was amazing.

Of course it was the Borg. While everything pointed to that anyway, it makes sense. The Borg were introduced in TNG. They were THE villains of that cast/story. (The Paw Wraiths were the DS9 villains. And they were never going to show up here for SO many reasons.) PIC season one brought the Borg in… sort of. Season two brought them in again… sort of. They both botched the landing though by either making them irrelevant side-stories or trying to change the nature of the Borg in a way that wasn’t personal to Picard at all. It makes sense that Terry Matalas wanted to end the TNG story by actually bringing the Borg storyline to an end in a way that was actually satisfying. (I don’t know what that is because I don’t know what happens next week, but I know that S1 and S2 did not accomplish that goal and this season is kicking some ass in the right direction.) Matalas said that he wanted this to be a proper sendoff for this crew. The Borg had to be involved. (Q would be the only other option and they ended his story last season and really wrapped up the Q/Picard thing SO WELL in “All Good Things…”) And it works because it’s such a personal journey for Picard. As much as Voyager tried to give Janeway (who absolutely has to cameo next week) a personal tie to the Borg, they were always inextricably tied to Picard in a way they could never be to anyone else.

And to everyone asking “Why Picard? Why humans?” The answer is obvious. Clearly nobody had ever pushed back against the Borg like humans had. They were intrigued with humans in a way that they weren’t with other species. Right or wrong, in the ST Universe, humans and humanity have something that no other species seems to have and it results in a fascination with humanity by more powerful species/beings. This has come up time and time again with Q, The Borg, the Traveller, etc…

We can nitpick (yeah… they probably should have given us the info about Jack in the opening of the third act of the season and let it play out a bit more) but damn… this is a good story and is entertaining as hell to watch. If this had been the first season of PIC, everyone would be crapping their pants with how good it is and would have no issues with the return of the Borg.

So, nitpick all you want (and you will because we’re all nerds here and it’s what we do) but while acknowledging the nitpicks, I’ll be enjoying the hell out of this ride all the way to the end.

“As much as Voyager tried to give Janeway (who absolutely has to cameo next week) a personal tie to the Borg, they were always inextricably tied to Picard in a way they could never be to anyone else.”

Seven of Nine, who was assimilated much longer than Picard ever was, would like a word.

Voyager: Perhaps The Voyager on the Museum is still Fly ready. Sure got not Upgrades since her return and Parking lot. But Fly ready. Perhaps Admiral Janeway can still remote Control the Ship to awake from it’s Sleep and fly to the designation Points. Because. she has one Extra Beef, what all these ones has not… Borg Armory. i bet it can hold out longer against their Weapons. But that only buy some time, and we would lose her in the end… So as i wished i could see Voyager back in action, losing her is to harmful for their fans

Seven: Seven of Nine was not important enough for special treatment for the Borg. That’s her luck. Also Seven has some “secret” in her History book. to be more precise her Picard Season 1 book. Even if she just play this Cube Bee Hive Queen to save them it was enough to make her one of them and immune to their call

What I’m saying is that Picard is not the only one that’s so tied to the Borg.

After all, does he go by his designation all the time and has never been allowed to go back to his old name or even pick a new one? Does anyone remember an episode where Jeffrey Combs made him fight Dwayne Johnson just because he used to be Borg and that would draw in more viewers? How are his status as a former Borg effected his relationships with the people around him? Did it prevent him from staying in Starfleet even when very important people were sticking up for him?

The answer to all of that is: No! It didn’t! Unlike Seven so to claim that Picard is more tied to his status as a former Borg is unfair to her!

I do not know. But perhaps they did not wanted to put so many weight on her Shoulders. Also the Series is called Picard not Seven of Nine. So perhaps it was the best conclusion to bet it all on Picard’s shoulders. Also he still have this trauma that he carry around him, even after these years.

So perhaps finally he get it right and also got the best change to call his buddy back to the Show and took some others under his Umbrella. Seven and Raffi. Also “Uncle Picard” introduce his new family members, the Children of La Forge, sadly Riker and Troy’s child seem like forgotten. But perhaps they did not wanted the same fate as Wesley

I am just guessing stuff

Ha ha! Obviously, Seven has her history with the Borg and, in many ways, became Janeway’s personal tie to them. I wasn’t denying that. I’m just saying that when you look at a series and the leader of that series, the Borg have been Picard’s personal nemesis for the audience from their first introduction. (Obviously, in universe, Seven was assimilated before Picard and stayed that way for a long long time.) Janeway handled the Borg well and had more encounters with them than Picard ever did. But for the audience, they were always tied to Picard first.

And the audience can learn to associate them with other characters. Sure maybe they were in TNG first. But they were the main villains of Voyager. They were the people that killed Jennifer Sisko. And that is how I think of them, as the main villains of Voyager and as the people who killed Jennifer Sisko.

At the end of the day the Borg obviously started on TNG and yes made it personal for Picard. But I liked that the Borg has become synonymous for pain and suffering for so many in Starfleet as Shaw’s great Wolf 359 speech displayed. After all, they also tie in to Sisko’s backstory as well and how he lost his wife. We never saw them on the show beyond the flashback (and still the biggest irony of them all since Rick Berman and Michael Piller originally played with the idea the Borg would be the main villains of that show), but it was a constant reminder of how much that single attack on Starfleet had repercussions for decades.

I think by the time we saw them on Voyager and met Seven, the Borg had become very iconic and it was the first time we got to truly learn about them. Some didn’t like it and I guess revealed too much about them, but not for me. And I still think what great about them is there is still tons about them we still don’t know. I know they been fleshed more in novels like Destiny but canon wise they are still both a mystery and a threat in so many ways.

That’s really the beauty of the Borg in terms of being a villain. Every time you think they are down for good, they adapt.

Seven didn’t kill half of Starfleet and nearly destroy Earth.

Does that invalidate my point in any way

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Episode 9 Recap: Võx

By: Author TV Fanatic Staff

• X (Twitter)

Troi supports Jack as he confronts the Red Door. She asks him to tell her about the vines. She prompts him to remember what they mean to him. With effort, he calls the Crimson Arboretum on Riverton-4. He comments that the thousands of flowers were very different and yet they were all connected beneath the soil. He sees this as a perfect state of being.

Troi interprets this to mean he’s looking for connection. She offers to open the Red Door and reveal his truth. She walks to the door, opens it, and jolts awake, breaking their connection.

Stunned, she stares at Jack for a moment before clumsily excusing herself. Jack demands to know what she saw through the door. She rushes away without answering him.

Troi finds Beverly and Picard. When they ask what’s happened, we see her opening the door and seeing a Borg cube ship.

Part Nine: “Võx”

Picard hears his address to Starfleet as Locutus as he processes what Troi has told them. He refutes it. Beverly points out Jack’s never been assimilated. Troi is firm that the voices in his head are Borg.

Beverly postulates that Picard never had Irumodic Syndrome. Whatever symptoms he’d had were the result of the Borg effect on him and he had passed the Borg element onto Jack.

Picard insists on telling Jack himself. Before he can go, Troi reminds him and Beverly that there are protocols upon discovering anything or anyone who can pose a threat to Starfleet and the Federation. Troi points out that Jack is the weapon Vadic was searching for. His ability to enter the minds of others and control them makes him a danger.

Picard finds Jack pacing in his quarters. He shares his experience of being assimilated. He explains that the effects of his assimilation caused the symptoms of Irumodic Syndrome and ultimately killed him but the seed the Borg planted in his genetics has been passed onto Jack.

Jack processes the news. Picard tells him they must take precautions because he knows what the Queen can make one do and has seen what Jack is capable of doing.

Picard suggests Jack go to K’Slava on Vulcan. Jack describes it as an institution where they’ll mindmeld and lobotomize him. He refuses to go and insists he can handle it himself.

When he tries to leave, he’s met with two armed officers. He confronts Picard about choosing duty to Starfleet over his responsibilities of being a father. With little effort, he takes psychic control of the guards who raise their weapons on Picard.

In the corridor, Beverly chases after Jack. The guards hold her off and Jack tells her that he’s going to find the Borg Queen, get answers, and then prove to everyone who and what he really is.

Stealing a shuttle, he lays in a course heading by listening to the voice in his head and warps away.

Beverly is determined to find something to help Jack and leaves Picard alone in the ready room. Data enters and reports the shuttle is not trackable. Wordlessly, he comforts Picard with a hand on his shoulder.

Geordi contacts Picard and tells him to come down to sickbay for more information on Jack.

Jack finds the end of a transwarp conduit at the coordinates he laid in. Suddenly, he holds his head as the Borg Queen’s cube arrives.

In sickbay, Geordi explains that when Picard was assimilated, new Borg genetic code was written and stored inside him, undetectable by the technology they had 35 years ago.

Alton Soong must have found the Borg code when he was transitioning Picard to his synth body. That’s when he decided to hold onto Picard’s biological remains and store them at Daystrom Station.

While Picard as Locutus was a receiver for the voice of the Borg collective and could still hear them after he’d had his Borg components removed, Jack appears to be a transmitter.

Picard questions how Jack could assimilate ensigns who had never been assimilated.

The team realizes the Borg and changelings have been working together from the beginning and their objective is to attack the Federation at the Frontier Day event when the entire fleet is gathered together in one place.

At the Frontier Day celebration, the Enterprise-F departs space dock under the command of Admiral Shelby. She makes a speech about how the launch of the Enterprise NX-01 would lead to the birth of Starfleet.

Jack beams aboard the cube ship. A voice welcomes him home.

The Titan’s crew watches Shelby wax poetic about how the fleet is now completely integrated. Fleet Formation synchronizes all the starships, having them act as one.

Picard points out the irony of her endorsing Fleet Formation, a very Borg-like development for the fleet.

The Borg Queen addresses Jack and names him Võx. Jack confronts her and prepares to kill her, but is unable to.

The Queen triumphs and encourages Jack to resist no longer and allow her to assimilate him.

On the Titan, Geordi and Data share their discovery with Beverly that the changelings have entered Picard’s Borg-altered DNA code into the transporter code. Beverly discovers the code in the Titan’s transporter architecture. She realizes by adding this code to all the starships the changelings infiltrated, they’ve added the Borg DNA code to anyone who uses the transporters, turning them into receivers for Borg direction.

On the bridge, the Titan’s systems are taken over as Fleet Formation is activated. Picard orders Esmar to break into Shelby’s address in order to warn them all.

As Picard makes contact with Shelby and Starfleet, the connection is lost. An energy spike is detected as the Borg ship begins to transmit. Seven feels the transmission and fights the directive.

In sickbay, Data, Geordi, and Beverly realize the changeling-Borg assimilation only activates in species up to a certain point in cognitive development. In humans, the cutoff is age twenty-five. The conclusion is the youngest members of the crew will be susceptible to the Borg signal.

On the bridge, Esmar, Mura, and both La Forge sisters are affected.

Sidney turns and announces they are Borg. Over the ship’s coms, Geordi hears and is devastated.

Shelby’s voice is heard announcing they are being attacked and her crew is being turned. On visual, she is seen briefly being surrounded and killed by crew members.

Esmar voices the order to eliminate all unassimilated crew. Riker, Picard, Seven, and Shaw escape in the incoming Borg-affected crew.

Data prevents Geordi from rushing to his daughters. He convinces Geordi they need a plan.

Esmar takes the captain’s chair on the bridge and announces the Titan has been taken. First ending.

On the turbolift, Riker, Picard, Seven, and Shaw receive a message from Captain Benbassat of the Excelsior on channel 99-D that they have retaken the ship from the Borg. Just as the captain announces this, he realizes the ship’s controls are not responding and the Excelsior is being positioned in front of the fleet in formation, which Riker noted earlier looks like a firing squad.

The Excelsior is destroyed by Borg-controlled Starfleet vessels.

Shaw realizes 99-D is a maintenance channel. That inspires him to redirect the turbolift to the maintenance deck where there is no one posted but there should be a maintenance shuttle they can use to escape the ship.

Picard orders any other non-assimilated crew to the maintenance sub-deck.

The Borg announce the fleet has been assimilated. Starfleet is now Borg. Second ending.

The gang reunites on the maintenance sub-deck. Picard vows to Geordi that they’ll save his daughters.

Data proposes they take a shuttle as the shuttles are autonomous and not included in Fleet Formation mode. Geordi has an even better idea.

Borg-affected crew arrive on the maintenance sub-deck and attack. Shaw and Seven take the lead returning fire to cover the rest escaping into the shuttle. Shaw is hit. Seven and Raffi are at his side as he dies. With his last breath, he gives the con to Seven.

In the shuttle, the Enterprise-D crew watch the Borg-controlled fleet as it targets the Space Dock with the goal to eliminate all planetary defenses.

Geordi brings the shuttle to the Fleet Museum. He reveals he’s restored the Enterprise-D. It’s in Hangar 12.

Back on the bridge of the Enterprise-D together for the first time in decades, they all commit to saving the Federation and their family from the Borg-changeling alliance.

Data lays in the course to Earth and Picard orders, “Engage.”

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Star Trek: Picard episode 9 recap: The first part of the season finale has a major revelation

Our spoiler-filled Star Trek: Picard episode 9 review

- Episode 9 (of 10), 'Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1 ' - Written by  Michael Chabon & Ayelet Waldman - Directed by Akiva Goldsman ★★★½

Spoilers follow .

After a bumpy ride, the La Sirena emerges from the Borg transwarp conduit and arrives at Soji's homeworld, Coppelius. Picard notes that by using the conduit, the ship has travelled 25 light years in just 15 minutes. Narek appears, opening fire, but Seven of Nine and her newly-acquired Borg Cube, the Artifact, intervenes. Then, suddenly, giant orchid-like flowers rise from the planet and grab hold of the La Sirena, the Cube, and Narek's Snakehead, dragging them down to the surface of Coppelius.

Everyone survives, but the La Sirena is out of action. Before they leave on foot to find a nearby settlement, Picard tells the crew about the terminal brain condition he learned about in episode 2. He says there's no effective treatment, but he doesn't want to be treated like a dying man. They exit the ship and find themselves in a desert, and later enter the wreckage of the crashed Artifact. Elnor and Seven of Nine are alive, and both say their goodbyes to Picard. He says Elnor must stay there and protect the ex-Borg. Raffi accesses a Borg computer and is troubled by the discovery that a fleet of 218 Romulan Warbirds is on its way to Coppelius.

• How to watch Star Trek in order
• Star Trek: Discovery season 3 : release date predictions and what we know
• Our Star Trek Picard episode 8 recap

Star Trek: Picard episode 1 recap Star Trek: Picard episode 2 recap Star Trek: Picard episode 3 recap Star Trek: Picard episode 4 recap Star Trek: Picard episode 5 recap Star Trek: Picard episode 6 recap Star Trek: Picard episode 7 recap Star Trek: Picard episode 8 recap

Picard and the others finally arrive at the settlement where Soji was created. The place is populated almost entirely with matching pairs of organic synths. Some of them – likely earlier models than Dahj and Soji – are closer to Data in appearance, with a golden shimmer on their skin and yellow eyes. A man introduces himself as Dr. Altan Inigo Soong, the son of Noonian Soong, the cyberneticist who built Data. A woman called Sutra who looks remarkably like Soji, but with Data's eyes, has learned how to perform a Vulcan Mind-Meld and uses it on Jurati to see the Admonition that Commodore Oh forced her to watch at the beginning of episode 7.

It seems the Admonition, on which the Zhat Vash based its entire anti-synth philosophy, was never meant for organic life. Sutra, a synth, sees the vision much more clearly. It's revealed to be a message left by a mysterious race of higher synthetic beings, as a warning for other synths. They say that eventually organics will turn on their creations, seeing them as a threat, and if that happens, these beings can be summoned to intervene. "Your evolution will be their extinction." Later, Sutra tries to convince Soji that summoning these powerful beings is the only way they can save themselves, even if it means wiping out all organic life in the galaxy.

Narek is captured by the synths, but is secretly released by Sutra, and he kills one of them in the escape. The last we see of him, he's running towards the Artifact. At a funeral for the murdered synth, Sutra reveals her plan to summon these higher beings. Picard is horrified and pleads with her to reconsider. He says he can keep them safe, make a deal with the Federation, but Soong laughs it off. Soong says they haven't listened to Picard since the attack on Mars. Picard is imprisoned by the synths as the massive Romulan fleet, led by Commodore Oh, approaches Coppelius.

Verdict: This episode sets the board for the season finale, feeling like the calm before an inevitable storm. The truth about the Admonition is a big moment, even if an advanced synthetic race wiping all organic life from the galaxy is hardly an original sci-fi concept. The highlight of this episode is Sutra, the Data-eyed Soji lookalike who has a real evil streak in her. And it's great seeing Brent Spiner again, playing another member of the Soong clan. This is a solid episode, but I really hope they stick the landing.

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• On the crashed Borg Cube, a former drone seems to recognise Picard and calls him Locutus. In the classic Next Generation episode The Best of Both Worlds (S3E26), Picard is captured and assimilated by the Borg and given this name, which is Latin for "the one who speaks."

• Altan Inigo Soong is the son of Noonian Soong, the brilliant Federation cyberneticist who created Data in his own image. Noonian Soong (played by Brent Spiner) has appeared in Star Trek several times, most notably the TNG episode Brothers (S4E03), where Data meets his maker.

• Altan Soong tells Picard about Sutra's fascination with Vulcan culture, and notes that she can play the ka'athyra. In the original 1960s Star Trek series, Spock could often be found playing this lute-like instrument, which was designed by legendary prop maker Wah Ming Chang.

Star Trek: Picard is available to watch on CBS All Access every Thursday in the US, and every Friday on Amazon Prime Video internationally.

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Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Episode 9 “Võx” Review: There’s no place like home

The penultimate episode of Star Trek: Picard is finally here… and it’s a doozy.

Review: Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Episode 9 “Võx”

In what’s sure to be remembered as a killer episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Picard , “Võx” exposes the true menace surrounding the Changeling threat, and sees our heroes slide into familiar roles as we warp full speed into the series finale.

After making a house call in Jack Crusher’s ( Ed Speleers ) mind to see what exactly is wrong with the man (a question to which we’re thankful to finally get an answer), Deanna Troi ( Marina Sirtis ) makes a horrific discovery. Upon opening the mysterious red door that has plagued Jack’s thoughts, Troi finds the true threat of Jack’s mind: the Borg. Yes, Jack apparently has some Borg in him, a result of Jean-Luc Picard’s ( Patrick Stewart ) assimilation decades ago. It seems Irumodic Syndrome was not what plagued Jean-Luc’s former biological self, but rather a subtle, ever-present side effect of his Borg assimilation.

While it wasn’t too much of a stretch to posit Jack somehow being connected to the Borg thanks to his father’s harrowing experience (and a healthy amount of foreshadowing throughout the season), to see the most memorable enemy from The Next Generation resurrected is quite the twist. Furthermore, to have the Changelings and Borg working together to spell doom for the Federation is a terrific pairing, and such a partnership only compounds the urgency our heroes face. After all, imagine what the Borg could do with someone like Jack, who could enter bodies at will and cause havoc.

“The Borg. That’s quite the explanation. A life of disconnection only to realize I’m emblematic of what? A bee? Seeking a hive, for a collective, a queen?” – Jack about his father’s revelation.

First, Picard must tell his son the bad news. In this one-on-one scene, both Speleers and Stewart sink their teeth into the angst each man feels about the situation. Indeed, this scene might be one of the best performances from Speleers yet, and Stewart profoundly radiates the anguish Picard feels at inadvertently poisoning his son. Instead of going to a Vulcan academy to remediate his condition, as his father suggests, Jack actually feels the urge to reunite with the Borg to sort out this mess and gain the connection he always wanted. Picard understandably prevents him from doing that – or, at least tries to. Jack uses his telepathic powers to get himself off the Titan in a stolen shuttle, and uses his tenuous connection with whatever Borg is out there to find his tormentors and some measure of peace and connection, something he has longed for his entire life.

Jack finds himself warping into a nebula in some unknown location (this exact location is one of our most pressing questions), and there he finds a Borg cube. Beaming aboard, a hauntingly familiar feminine voice guides her “flesh and blood” to a face-to-face encounter with the Borg Queen, although we never see her face in this episode. The Queen frames Jack as “vindication,” a way for the Borg and Changelings to achieve victory over the Federation. Unable to kill the Queen, Jack allows himself to be assimilated, and the Queen gives him a new name: Võx, which is Latin for “voice.” And best of all, the credits for this episode confirm our suspicion: Alice Krige of Star Trek: First Contact fame does indeed voice the Borg Queen in “Võx.”

Picard and his crew, meanwhile, set a course for Earth to stop whatever is about to happen to Starfleet on Frontier Day. Thus, a long-awaited moment arrives: the spectacular vista of dozens of Federation starships grouped around Spacedock in the Sol System. Front and center in this assembled fleet is the Enterprise-F , which gets a gorgeous grand reveal as it exits Spacedock amid a firework show. In our opinion, this is the first time we should have seen the Enterprise-F , instead of the quick blink-and-you-miss-it shot of it in Picard ’s trailers. It’s an Enterprise and deserves pomp and circumstance! And boy is the chonky Odyssey -class a looker.

Anyway, addressing the assembled fleet from the Enterprise is a familiar face: Admiral Elizabeth Shelby ( Elizabeth Dennehy , who is reprising her role from her memorable two-episode appearance in The Next Generation ). Shelby is there mainly to exhibit what Starfleet is doing on Frontier Day – debuting new technology which allows the fleet to link together and act as one unified force.

The admiral’s welcoming monologue is interrupted by a warning from Picard about the Borg/Changeling threat that is about to wreak havoc on Frontier Day, but it’s too late. Shortly after Beverley Crusher ( Gates McFadden ), Data ( Brent Spiner ), and Geordi La Forge ( LeVar Burton ) learn that Picard’s DNA – and therefore the Borg essence that remained in his body after “The Best of Both Worlds” – has actually been used in transporters across the fleet for some time now to slowly assimilate people, all the younger members of Starfleet start transforming into Borg thanks to an activation signal unleashed across the fleet. Apparently, the younger folks are vulnerable because of the way the Borg essence infects developing brains over time. It’s a frightening scene as the kids of our heroes get Borgified, and turmoil soon reins across the fleet. Poor Admiral Shelby falls victim to the Borg on her ship as Borg vs. Starfleet battles rage across the fleet. It seems people who make cameos on this show just can’t seem to stay alive.

Here’s a fascinating twist: the older age of our heroes now actually helps determine how the plot develops. Before “Võx,” this season addressed the decades-long passage of time since Nemesis by making jokes about age or using events from that interim to explain their shifted personalities. But like Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , the fact that our heroes are old is a driving element of the story. We approve!

The older folks must escape the rise of this young army of Borg, and escape the Titan aboard the shuttle. To aid their escape, Captain Liam Shaw ( Todd Stashwick ) puts up a fight against the encroaching Borg but is gunned down in the process. His last breath is uttered to Seven of Nine ( Jeri Ryan ), and nicely enough he finally has a change of heart and calls her by her preferred name. It isn’t exactly clear to us what caused Shaw’s change of heart. Seven didn’t do anything to earn his trust and respect more than she already had, and if anything, we would think Shaw would hate the Borg even more for destroying Starfleet from within. In any case, it appears Shaw really is down for the count, which is a shame. We loved the character and don’t want to see him go. In our eyes, he deserved a better send-off than what he gets in “Võx.” Alas, all good things…

“Hopefully we have enough juice to get us there.” “What makes you think ‘there’ hasn’t been destroyed already?” “Data, could you try to be a little more positive?” “I hope we die quickly.” – Geordi and Data as they prepare to warp to the fleet museum.

Where do our heroes run to now that the Titan and the Sol System fleet is under Borg control? As we expected, Geordi La Forge suggests returning to the fleet museum, but not to commandeer one of the previously seen ancient vessels. No, the engineer has a surprise in store for his friends: a replica USS Enterprise-D, a restoration project La Forge has been working on for 20 years. That ship’s saucer section was recovered from its resting place on Veridian III, and various vessels, such as one USS Syracuse, supplied the other needed parts. It’s a momentous homecoming for our heroes, and good luck holding back tears as the seven friends return to the familiar Galaxy-class bridge one final time. The episode ends with the Enterprise majestically leaving the fleet museum and warping to Earth to have a final showdown with the Borg.

You don’t need us to surmise for yourself why “Võx” is a bonkers episode. The arch-enemy of the Federation – and Picard in particular – comes back in a big way, as we learn they have been behind the Changeling threat all along. Moreover, Jack is now squarely in the clutches of the new Borg Queen, as are thousands of Starfleet officers and their respective ships. The long-simmering Borg takeover of Starfleet seems like a critical event for this universe; we have a feeling the landmark events of “Võx” will be referenced in Star Trek media for some time to come, much in the same way that, for example, the battle in New York was repeatedly referenced in post- The Avengers Marvel Cinematic Universe material.

But the revelation of the Borg plan isn’t even the greatest part of this episode. How astonishing is it that the TNG cast is back on the Enterprise , even if it’s something we saw coming a lightyear away? Granted, it’s not entirely their old ship, but it’s as close as they can possibly get. It’s the same bridge, at least!

Who among us hasn’t dreamed of this day? Who among us hasn’t pontificated to our friends or family about how awesome it would be to get that particular hit of dopamine again? It’s a wonderfully scripted scene in “Võx,” too, as our characters marvel at their old home and return to their familiar positions. Clearly, much love and thought were put into making this an exceptional moment. It’s nostalgia overdrive of a kind we haven’t seen in any new-age Star Trek , including when the Enterprise showed up in the Discovery first season finale . We can’t wait to see whatever behind-the-scenes featurette spotlights the restoration of the Enterprise-D set and the actors returning to it. It’ll likely be a great reason to pick up the eventual home media release of this season.

“I’m reluctant to ask you all to face this threat again.” “We’re the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise . But more than that, we’re your family.” – Picard and Riker.

Once the dopamine high wore off and our souls returned to Earth, we did have some questions about the final minutes of this episode. Firstly, Picard and the crew race off to Earth without a plan. How is one Galaxy­ -class ship, even if it was fully operational , going to handle an entire Starfleet armada, plus whatever the Borg is bringing their way? What does Picard plan to do? Surely there are other avenues worth entertaining, like calling as many allies as possible to Earth, much, in the same way, the young crew of the Protostar called upon the Federation’s allies and enemies to combat the Living Construct in “ Supernova, Part II .”

Second, just how is a crew of seven going to operate the entire ship? Did Geordi build the replica strictly for presentation, or is the ship fully operational, complete with remote control for various systems that none of the seven people could handle? Maybe the final episode will expand on the extent of Geordi’s creation, but for now, the nature of this Enterprise is in question. It’s also majorly convenient that Geordi happened to finish this 20-year-long restoration project in time for it to be used in this way.  

Finally, let’s not forget that in the time it took the Titan ‘s shuttle to get to the fleet museum, the TNG crew assume their stations on the Enterprise , and for the Enterprise to get back to Earth, there is a Borg fleet hanging out above Earth. What kind of damage will befall humanity’s home while our heroes get their act together?

The final episode of this season is sure to be explosive, and there are plenty of threads left hanging from this banger of a ride. Jack is assimilated, but it can’t be that simple. How will the hybrid Borg’s story end? And how exactly will the TNG cast take their final bow as we close out their long-awaited finale? Our hearts can barely handle thinking about it. “Võx” is edge-of-your-seat viewing, not because there’s an indulgent amount of action (although the episode itself is quite well-paced, complete with a killer soundtrack), but because we know our time remaining with this crew is severely limited.

Stray Thoughts:

• This episode was directed by showrunner and Patron Saint of Star Trek Terry Matalas.
• Troi asserts to Jack that she will support him as they venture through his mind together, but when she learns of the Borg influence on the young man, she all but sprints out of the room and doesn’t even tell Jack what she saw. That doesn’t seem like great counseling. No wonder Jack is so angsty when Picard sees him later.
• If you need more Elizabeth Shelby in your life, go read the excellent The New Frontier novels.
• As Shelby monologues, Frontier Day appears to celebrate specifically the maiden voyage of Jonathan Archer’s Enterprise , the adventures of which are chronicled in Star Trek: Enterprise .
• Did we hear comm chatter mentioning the U.S.S Pulaski during the Frontier Day exercises? If so, that ship is undoubtedly named after the one-season-long doctor of the Enterprise-D , Katherine Pulaski.
• U.S.S. Hikaru Sulu – this ship, named after the TOS crew member, was mentioned in Picard season two.
• U.S.S. Cochrane – likely named after warp drive creator Zefram Cochrane .
• U.S.S. Luna – perhaps this is the prototype of the Luna­­ -class ship, of which Will Riker’s Titan was one.
• U.S.S. Trumbull – surely named after Douglas Trumbull, the visual effects wizard.
• U.S.S. Reznick – this ship was seen in Probert Station in this season’s premiere.
• U.S.S. Mandel
• U.S.S. Gilgamesh
• U.S.S. Okuda – named after Star Trek production legends Michael and Denise Okuda.
• U.S.S. Drexler –named after veteran Star Trek designer Doug Drexler.
• U.S.S. Intrepid
• U.S.S. Firesword
• U.S.S. Venture
• U.S.S. Magellan
• U.S.S. Clark
• U.S.S. Ross
• It turns out Captain Shaw’s monologue in Ten Forward in “ No Win Scenario ,” which included a line about him thinking the Borg were out there somewhere despite the events of the Picard season two finale, was really foreshadowing the Borg’s reappearance.
• The Enterprise-F and its starship class originated in the video game Star Trek Online .
• During Todd Stashwick’s visit to The Ready Room , he described how Captain Shaw was modeled after Robert Shaw’s ill-fated character, Quint, in Jaws . Now, it seems Quinn and Shaw share the same fate by having their hated enemy be the end of them.
• This episode marks the off-screen destruction of the USS Excelsior , which was last seen in Picard season two.
• Why are shuttles spared from the fleet-wide synchronization system?
• Were no other older members of the Titan crew able to make it to the repair shuttle?
• When the repair shuttle drops out of warp, Picard asks Geordi why are they at the fleet museum. Surely, Geordi would have told Picard and everyone else his plan before then.
• Why does Geordi ask Picard if the Enterprise-D will fly? Isn’t the engineer the only one who could answer that? Sure, Picard gets the sentimental line about being ready to board that ship again, but realistically it’s Geordi’s call.
• The computer on the replica Enterprise appears to use the voice of the “classic” Starfleet computer, the late Majel Barrett Roddenberry. What a great touch by this episode’s producers.
• This episode asserts Worf is somehow responsible for the destruction or otherwise disabling of the Enterprise-E , but we don’t know how. Sounds like good tie-in media to us. Also, that makes him public enemy number one in our eyes.

The Star Trek: Picard series finale drops next Thursday, April 20th on Paramount+.

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Keep it locked on TrekNews.net for all the latest news related to Star Trek: Picard , Star Trek: Discovery, S tar Trek: Strange New Worlds , Star Trek: Lower Decks , Star Trek: Prodigy , and more.

Kyle Hadyniak has been a lifelong Star Trek fan, and isn't ashamed to admit that Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Star Trek: Nemesis are his favorite Star Trek movies. You can follow Kyle on Twitter @khady93 .

April 14, 2023 at 7:53 am

Picard season 2 changed the very nature of the borg and the borg queen. Now we’re supposed to accept that entire incident was just an off-shoot and an anomaly? That’s lazy writing that ignores the entire concept of canon. Let’s ignore what we said before if it doesn’t meet our needs today. That really took away from the believably of this episode and an otherwise enjoyable final season

JIM PERIGNY

April 14, 2023 at 2:52 pm

Is there any hope after this series best showing of Picard continuing to Season 4?

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'Star Trek: Picard' season 3 episode 9 is a predictable set up to an overkill of nostalgia

The show has yet again relied on the "What's in the box?!!" formula to get to this point that's little more than an excessive reliving of the past

Warning: Spoilers ahead for " Star Trek : Picard" Season 3, episode 9

We've said it before and after next week we won't have to say it ever again, but this third season of "Picard" would've really benefited from being the first. And the reason is this: The same basic plot formula has been used for all three seasons, relying oh, so heavily on the "What's in the box?!" approach to teasing a story and like overexcited, tail-wagging puppy dogs, the audience has been misdirected and missed the fact that the box, almost all of the time, has in fact been empty. 

And while this was more enticing for the first season, it has sadly, now become commonplace. That said, if the Season 3 finale sticks the landing next week, we might find ourselves, for five minutes at least, feeling like we've been a teeny-tiny bit overcritical. The thing is, I Just Don't Think That's Going To Happen. And no media outlets have seen the actual S03, E10 episode yet; Paramount is keeping that one close to its chest and releasing it only a day or so in advance of the air date. 

So yes, if the very first time this repetitive tactic had been used had been this season, it would've made the whole nostalgia revisit over the last three years and three seasons much more effective. Sure, there are still some nice ideas, occasionally some good dialogue and lots of explosions, but for the most part, it just doesn't go anywhere. 

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Well, the die hards who insist on reliving the past will definitely go into a frenzy and spoilers are going to be near impossible to avoid on social media. And there is a lot to unpack this week. Captain Shaw (Todd Stashwick) met a death as utterly pointless as Huw and Cristóbal Rios, so that was lame. And probably the other big takeaway is that yes, Jean-Luc Picard had Borg tech in his spermatozoa. And a little like actually quantifying the Force in "The Phantom Menace" by way of those pesky Midi-chlorians, that unique gift of being able to hear the Borg is now an identifiable physical attribute, rather than just being cool . 

And the terrorist threat or alien attack is always aimed at large social gatherings, so much so it makes you wonder why they're still considered a good idea. Admiral Shelby (Elizabeth Dennehy) last seen in the TNG episode "The Best of Both Worlds" (S03, E26) pops up and ... is that the voice of Alice Krige I hear as the Borg Queen? Pity we couldn't get to see her. 

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And just like the semi-assimilated Spearhead Operations soldiers that we saw in episode 9 no less, of last season, the crew of the Titan become cannon fodder for frighteningly formulaic set piece. Plus there's the giant fleet gathering for a giant space battle, the salvaged saucer section from Veridian III, drones loading torpedoes undetected and of course the non-networked USS Enterprise D. 

As Michael Okuda said on Twitter , "As others have noted before, it partly depends on how many subscribers stream Picard, and how many times they watch it." Which makes one wonder why spend so much money on a show like this and then just rely on a cookie-cutter story template. Is it true that the best and only plan is play it super-safe every time? Truth be told, "Picard" is not something I will go back and rewatch. "Stargate" is something I go back and rewatch. And even then, I would still hate to see the old cast dragged out back in front of the cameras for spin-off series. Instead, I'd like to see some new "Stargate." Maybe that's why the next "Star Trek" spin-off is set at the Academy, because its target audience could be considered an easier target. The younger folk are so much easier to please than us crumblies who still bang our fist on the table and insist on quality. Heck, we're a dying breed. 

Really well-written shows can also make money as well as being fun and engaging to watch and rewatch. Take "Game of Thrones" or "Ted Lasso" or "Severance" or "The Boys" or "The Orville" — these are amazing television shows and they made money for the network showing them. It's also worth noting "Picard" made its first ever appearance in the Nielsen rankings, finishing ninth among original series with 310 million minutes of viewing as it reached the midpoint of its third season. 

To put it in perspective, it's also worth noting that "Ted Lasso" put Apple TV+ back in the rankings, racking up 539 million minutes of watch time with the premiere episode of its third season. The takeaway from this is that this took a collective effort of half the season of "Picard" to enable it to appear in the rankings for the very first time. Just one episode — the third season premiere episode — of "Ted Lasso" had almost double the viewership. Not even the third season premiere episode of "Picard" — or the second , which was actually much better — managed that. 

And the science fiction genre can't be an impossible nut to crack, because other shows have managed it.

This season of "Picard" has been fun, don't misunderstand that, but I suspect all the folk who were turned off from this third season because of the first two, will feel vindicated. It's just disappointing that Paramount and Alex Kurtzman, with all of the wealth and talent at their disposal, still couldn't come up with something less formulaic. Anyone looking for cerebral sci-fi should probably skip "Star Trek" these days. 

" Star Trek: Picard " and every episode of every "Star Trek" show currently streams exclusively on Paramount Plus in the US. Internationally, the shows are available on  Paramount Plus  in Australia, Latin America, the U.K. and South Korea, as well as on Pluto TV in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland on the Pluto TV Sci-Fi channel. They also stream exclusively on Paramount Plus in Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. In Canada, they air on Bell Media's CTV Sci-Fi Channel and stream on Crave.

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When Scott's application to the NASA astronaut training program was turned down, he was naturally upset...as any 6-year-old boy would be. He chose instead to write as much as he possibly could about science, technology and space exploration. He graduated from The University of Coventry and received his training on Fleet Street in London. He still hopes to be the first journalist in space.

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‘Star Trek: Picard’ Series Finale Recap: Saying Farewell

In the end, the final season of “Picard” was a worthy send-off for the “Next Generation” crew.

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By Sopan Deb

Season 3, Episode 10: ‘The Last Generation’

“What began over 35 years ago ends tonight,” Jean-Luc Picard says, standing on his favorite bridge and glaring at his most distasteful enemy. It recalled his “The line must be drawn here!” from “First Contact.”

This was ostensibly a reference to the Federation’s longstanding battle with the Borg, but it also applies to “The Next Generation” franchise. (The show began airing in 1987 and 35 years ago would be 1988.) And if this is the last time we see these characters, that’s OK. Not because this season of “Picard” wasn’t a strong one. Quite the opposite, in fact: It was quite good and recaptured everything that made “Next Generation” what it was.

The characters all used special skills to work together and save humankind. Some of the dialogue was campy. There were plot holes. And there were classic “Star Trek” tropes, like Jean-Luc nonsensically going to the Borg cube, when he was likely the least physically capable of the old crew in fighting off the Borg.

But overall, this season was a worthy send-off for the crew. It wasn’t perfect, but neither were the show or any of the movies. But it was worth doing. The story justified its existence, advancing each of the main characters and filling in some gaps.

And it confirmed one last time that “The Next Generation” was greater than the sum of its parts. That might have been why the first two seasons of “Picard” didn’t work as well. Jean-Luc wasn’t the best character he could be without his old friends. The chemistry wasn’t as fluid, and the story wasn’t as deep.

In the finale, we learn a bit about what the Borg have been up to, though I remain baffled that no one brings up Jurati or the whole Good Borg thing from last season . (Maybe it was for the best.) There was no collective left — only the Borg Queen remained, she claimed, though we know from last season’s events that this isn’t exactly true.

It was Jack who found the Borg Queen, at least in her telling. She speaks in a way that is contrary to what we’ve known about the Borg: She says she was lonely and that the Borg were left to starve. (This kind of undercuts the Borg’s whole message of being the perfect beings.) But now, the Borg want to evolve rather than assimilate, and Jack is the perfect partner to do that. (In order to survive, the Borg Queen, I think, resorted to Borg cannibalism. Yikes! Hope those drones won Employee of the Month or something.)

The Borg and the changelings came to an agreement in which the changelings would be the Borg’s vehicle to carry out some villainous plan to help them procreate. Aside from an ill-fated revenge that they didn’t really need the Borg for, I don’t know what the changelings really got out of this alliance.

Elsewhere, classic Star Trekking happens. Worf and Riker fight off some baddies on the cube. Beverly uses her now finely honed combat skills to fire weapons. (It’s somewhat amusing that Geordi refurbished the Enterprise D for display at the fleet museum and also included a loaded torpedo system. Thank goodness he went above and beyond!) Data shows off his lightning fast piloting skills, assisted by his newly acquired gut instinct.

Beverly is faced with an impossible decision: Blow up her son and save the galaxy, or, uh, don’t. I loved that Geordi is the one who asks her permission, because he now understands a parent’s love for a child. And when it comes time to fire on the beacon, Geordi really, really doesn’t want to do it.

Jean-Luc finds another solution. He assimilates himself so he can get in contact with Jack in the Borg collective. Jean-Luc isn’t human, of course. He is an android — apparently, he can just plug himself in to the network like a flash drive. Jean-Luc tells Jack that he is the missing part of Jean-Luc’s life. (Patrick Stewart plays this perfectly.)

Jean-Luc is finally able to admit to himself how lonely he was outside of Starfleet, and that Starfleet merely covered up that loneliness rather than filling it entirely. Jean-Luc gives his son something he’s craved his whole life: approval and unconditional love. And Jean-Luc also won’t let his son go. He offers to stay in the hole with him so they can climb out together, and Jean-Luc gets to be the father he never knew he wanted to be.

Eventually, Jean-Luc pushes Jack to unassimilate himself and turn against the Queen. And that’s that: The universe is saved again. Our thanks to the crew of the Enterprise for the umpteenth time.

The episode ends in the only appropriate way for the “Next Generation” crew: They sit around and toast one another. Jean-Luc quotes Shakespeare, and then they whoop and play cards just like at the end of “All Good Things…,” the series finale of the original “Next Generation.”

The end wasn’t perfect, but it was proper. And that’s about all you can ask from a season like this. I don’t need any more — I want the Enterprise D crew to Costanza it and leave on a high note. They’ve earned it.

Odds and ends

Somewhat amusingly, Jean-Luc does not express any concern for or otherwise mention Laris throughout this season , another example of the team behind “Picard” trying to erase the first two seasons of the show from existence. But Laris, for her part, actually appeared in the season premiere and, one could argue, help put the events of the reunion in motion.

I keep thinking about that scene early this season with Riker and Jean-Luc at the bar, when Riker has to defend the honor of the Enterprise D. We didn't know it then, but that foreshadowed the whole season.

I would have liked to hear more about what Worf has been up to since the events of “Nemesis.” At the end of “Deep Space Nine,” Worf was named an ambassador to Qo’noS. In “Nemesis,” Worf somehow just becomes a member of the Enterprise crew again with little explanation. In this season, it is implied that Worf helped destroy the Enterprise E — more detail would have been nice.

The “Worf as comic relief” thing, as when he fell asleep on the bridge immediately after he helps to save civilization, also wore thin. But there is a fun callback in the last scene of the episode: Beverly saying Worf should have another glass of prune juice. A warrior’s drink!

Pavel Chekov’s son, Anton, being president of the Federation was a nice touch. Anton is likely a reference to Anton Yelchin, who played Chekov in the rebooted feature films beginning in 2009. He died in 2016 as a result of a car accident .

When Seven and Raffi figure out a way to transport assimilated crew members off the bridge using phaser rifles, it’s quite the deus ex machina. That technology would’ve been helpful all season!

That was a funny moment when the cook is ordered to pilot the Titan. He didn’t even finish flight training, why is Seven making him take the wheel? Have Raffi do it! (Within minutes, the cook executes complicated evasive maneuvers, so that must have been some training.)

At first, I found New Data to be jarring but after a couple episodes, this version grew on me. When he says he hates the Borg, you can see the Lore side of him burst through. It’s a fresh take on Data and Brent Spiner pulls it off.

That was a nice bit of wordless acting from Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis when Riker heads down to the cube for yet another mission with Jean-Luc. The swashbuckling Riker gives the slightest of smiles, as if to say, “You know who you married. You know why I have to do this.” And Troi reluctantly agrees. Later, when Troi tells Riker he will only have a minute or so to save Jean-Luc once the Enterprise fires on the Cube, he responds again with cool confidence in a near death situation.

There will certainly be some disappointment among fans that Kate Mulgrew did not reprise her role as Admiral Janeway this season. The events in “Voyager” presumably are the reason the Borg cube was in such terrible shape when Jean-Luc beams aboard. Given the multiple references to Janeway and what was happening on Earth, it would have been nice to have gotten a glimpse of her. (And man, how gnarly does the Borg Queen look now?)

Ah, there’s Tuvok, offering Seven her own ship. As Vulcan as ever.

In the grand scheme of things, this is still only the second most successful attack by the Borg on Earth. Sure, they get to Earth, bring down the planetary defense systems and attack cities directly, all while using Starfleet ships. But in “First Contact,” they actually went back in time and assimilated all of Earth before the pesky Enterprise crew initiated a do-over. And honestly, if Jean-Luc and his merry band hasn’t been able to rescue Earth from Evil Jack, they could have just done what they did last season or in “First Contact”: Go back in time. It’s easy!

Troi gets to drive the Enterprise D again. It went better than it did last time, when she crashed it.

Beverly is an admiral now? What a promotion, considering the decades she spent out of Starfleet running a rogue operation. I wonder if Riker, Geordi or any of the others were like, “Hey, what about us?”

Ed Speleers did an admirable job as Jack Crusher. It’s not easy to go toe-to-toe with Patrick Stewart, but Speleers fits in seamlessly as Beverly and Jean-Luc’s son. (While we’re here, what’s up with Jack’s brother, Wesley?)

I hope all of you stuck around for the post-credits scene. Q is still alive! Of course he is. We don’t acknowledge last season around these parts.

Sopan Deb is a basketball writer and a contributor to the Culture section. Before joining The Times, he covered Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign for CBS News. More about Sopan Deb

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REVIEW: Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Episode 9 Sets the Stage for Its Epic Finale

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As the familiar Star Trek: The Next Generation crew are finally reunited and ready to save the United Federation from an overwhelming threat one last time, Star Trek: Picard reaches its penultimate episode. The full scope of the Changeling plot and the mystery behind Jack Crusher's true nature and unique abilities stand revealed while the Titan races to stop it from coming to fruition. Establishing dire stakes while tightening the narrative focus to the TNG cast, the season's ninth episode, titled "Vox," manages to stand on its own while setting the stage for the series' grand finale.

Defeating the Changeling commander Vadic and reclaiming control of the Titan, Jean-Luc Picard and his old friends scramble to learn what the Changelings are up to with their plans to target the Federation on Frontier Day. Jack learns the truth behind his tumultuous background, sending him on a desperate mission to confront a sinister presence in the galaxy. These paths converge as the entirety of Starfleet's armada assembles near Earth for the Frontier Day festivities, unaware that a nefarious scheme is already underway.

On some level, the reveal of the Changeling conspiracy makes so much sense that it's a wonder it hadn't been spoiled earlier -- the mark of an earned and organic reveal. The revelation keeps the story centered on Picard as one of the more personal threats he and his family have ever known. The stakes impact the entire galaxy, but that level of intimacy behind the danger is also front and center. This distinction is clear throughout all the action.

There is plenty of action to go around, but what makes "Vox" work is how much is rooted in the performances. Whether they're in the heat of battle or in one of the episode's rare quiet moments, the actors all do excellent, emotive work. The reinvigorated friendship between Geordi La Forge and Data is among the subtler emotional throughlines o the episode, with Levar Burton and Brent Spiner masterfully playing it to the hilt. But as with the preceding episode, the real thrill of "Vox" is getting to see the TNG cast together as an ensemble again, with this episode providing plenty of moments that will have longtime fans grinning from ear to ear.

RELATED: Star Trek: Picard Reveals Why Riker Left Deanna Troi

With Picard as the first Star Trek series releasing new episodes on Paramount+ after Star Trek: Prodigy , there is a feeling that the finale will echo Prodigy 's first season finale. Some of the broader, thematic strokes are there, with all of Starfleet's armada present and a threat festering from within with only a lone starship capable of saving the day. Obviously, Picard presents this in a more intense manner, tailored to the perspective of its cast, but the similarities are noticeable.

It's bittersweet knowing there is only one episode left of Star Trek: Picard before the series, and likely its reunited ensemble, go quietly into the night. It's safe to say that the show has made a complete about-face in regard to quality, imbuing just enough fan service to hit major sentimental moments without overshadowing the story and characters. The stage is set for one Star Trek generation's last adventure, and hopefully, Picard has been saving its best for last.

Created by Akiva Goldsman, Michael Chabon, Kirsten Beyer, Alex Kurtzman, and Terry Matalas, Star Trek: Picard releases new episodes Thursdays on Paramount+.

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