Star Trek: Picard 2.1: Cameos and Time Travel

The debut episode of the second season of Star Trek: Picard was enjoyable, notwithstanding the annoying commercial breaks which lacerated the narrative on the paying service.  (Yes, I'm too cheap to pay more for Paramount+ with no commercials.)

As was the case with the first season, the most fun in this episode was the return of memorable characters from The Next Generation TV series.   In this case, that would be Guinan and Q.  Let's hope we see more of them. It was also good to Seven of Nine back in action, continuing her role from the first season.

As for the story, it was an interesting melange of Picard's personal turmoils and outright battles in space. Although Picard has loved women in the past, he's now unable to fully express his love to Laris.  Maybe what happened to him at the end of the first season has gotten in the way, not of his physical libido, but the capacity of his soul to fully love another.

We also learn in the first episode that the Borg will be at least one of the primary villains, and time travel will play a major role.  This is confirmed by Picard, who comments at some point that time is a more challenging vista to explore than space.  Give that "Yesterday's Enterprise" was one of the very best episodes of the The Next Generation television series, it makes sense that Picard would feel that way.

It was great to see Patrick Stewart in the title role, and also Alison Pill, back from the first season as the highly intelligent Agnes.  And I thought Santiago Cabrera as Chris, cigar in mouth and hand, in the Captain's chair, was an effectively dashing figure.

So ... I'll suffer through the commercials, watch every episode, and be back here with reviews.  More than enough in this start of the second season to keep me interested.

See also Star Trek: Picard (Season One): Non-Pareil 

 

Star Trek: Picard: Non-Pareil

Just finished binging Star Trek: Picard on CBS All Access.  It's the best Star Trek since Star Trek: The Next Generation, which is where Jean-Luc Picard was introduced.  And unlike TNG which was episodic, this first season of Picard was serial, which is a big plus in my book.

But let me get this relatively minor point, in retrospect, out of the way: I thought the weakest part of Picard was the beginning, or the first episodes, which show a 90+ year-old retired Star Fleet admiral down on Earth.  This part of the story was good enough, and enjoyable.  But it's not until Picard literally takes off in a faster-than-light ship that the story really takes off.

The series meshes with TNG and with the entire Star Trek corpus just beautifully.  In addition to Picard, three of the major characters from TNG play important and very satisfying roles.  More minor characters also reprise roles and are equally effective.  And at least one iconic major character from another Star Trek series makes some game changing appearances in Picard.

And Picard borrows well from two titans of off-screen science fiction.  Isaac Asimov is read in this future in paper books, and Dr. Agnes Juradi (nicely played by Alison Pill, billed right after the non-pareil Patrick Stewart) reminds me of Susan Calvin, who figured prominently in Asimov's early robot stories.  And there are a group of warrior nuns in the mix, who echo the Bene Gesserit in Frank Herbert's Dune series.

The cinematography is splendid, reminiscent of Second Life (that's a compliment).  The battle scenes and the warp speeds are palpably portrayed.   The Borg and the Romulans figure crucially in the narrative, and we're introduced to some new planets and people, as well.

If you've noticed that I haven't said anything specific or much at all about the plot, you'd be right.  I don't want to spoil some of the many surprises for you.  But what I can tell you is that, if you're a sentient being, you'll be moved to tears, more than once, as well as laugh and be caught up in the combination of intellectual puzzle and sheer adventure that you'll find in this superb new series.

See also  Discovering Star Trek: Discovery ...   Star Trek: Discovery 2: Tour de Force Story and Characters

 

Fringe Evita

There was no Fringe to see tonight, so my wife and I went to see September - aka Michael Cerveris - in  the next-last-evening in the fine Broadway revival of Evita.   Our daughter, who is not a Fringe fan, bought us the tickets - because she knows my wife and I love Evita.  I'd say it's one of best musicals ever on Broadway, one of the best plays, period, on a par with with works of Shakespeare and the ancient Greeks.  I've used Evita and "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" in my graduate courses in Propaganda.  The Fringe connection was thus icing on the cake, and a superb icing it was.   September lives on in Evita - for at least one more night.

Ricky Martin as Che was the headliner, and he was fabulous tonight.   Not quite as wise as Mandy Patinkin's Che in the original Evita - which we saw back in 1979 - but he more than made up for it in style, voice, sass, and dance, and was better than Antonio Banderas in the movie.  Elena Roger as Evita did not sing as electrifyingly as Patti LuPone in the original or as well as Madonna in the movie, but she did offer a compelling interpretation, especially her "New Argentina" rendition, which was part rabble-rousing speech and part song.

Cerveris was the best Juan Peron I've seen.  The Peron in the original music was so unremarkable I can barely remember him and his performance.   Jonathan Pryce was better in the movie.   But Cerveris, much as he did in Fringe, commanded the stage every time he was on it in Evita, making Peron more of a partner than a supporting character in the story.

There's something about Fringe that seems to connect to the theater.  My wife and I saw Joshua Jackson and Patrick Stewart - in retrospect, Peter meets Picard - on the stage in London in 2005 in "A Life in the Theater".   Let me know if you hear about Walter or Olivia in any Broadway shows, and we'll be there.




See also Fringe 5.1: Paved Park and Shattered Memories ... Fringe 5.2: Saving Our Humanity ...Fringe 5.4: Ghosts of Fringes Past ... Fringe 5.5: "You Don't Even Know What You Don't Know ... Fringe 5.6: "Dad" ... Fringe 5.7: Father and Son ... Fringe 5.8: Love Triumphant ...Fringe 5.9: The Boy Observer in the Age of Aquarius ... Fringe 5.10: Montage Revelation ... Fringe 5.11: September with Hair ... Fringe Finale: A Review

See also Fringe Returns for Season 4: Almost with Peter ... Fringe 4.2: Better and Worse Selves... Fringe 4.3: Sanity and Son ... Fringe 4.4: Peter's Back, Ectoplasm, and McLuhan ... Fringe 4.5: Double Return ... Fringe 4.6: Time Slips ... Fringe 4.7: The Invisible Man ... Fringe 4.8: The Ramifications of Transformed Alternate Realities ... Fringe 4.9: Elizabeth ... Fringe 4.10: Deceit and Future Vision ... Fringe 4.11: Alternate Astrid ... Fringe 4.12: Double Westfield / Single Olivia... Fringe 4.13: Tea and Telepathy ... Fringe 4.14: Palimpsest ... Fringe 4.15: I Knew It! ... Fringe 4.16: Walter Likes Yiddish ... Fringe 4.17:  Second Chances ... Fringe 4.18: Broyled on Both Sides ... Future Fringe 4.19 ... Fringe 4.20: Bridge ... Fringe 4.21: Shocks ... Fringe Season 4 Finale: Death and Life

See also Fringe 3.1: The Other Olivia ... Fringe 3.2: Bad Olivia and Peter ... Fringe 3.3: Our/Their Olivia on the Other Side ... Fringe 3.5: Back from Hiatus, Back from the Amber ... Fringe 3.7: Two Universes Still Nearing Collision ... Fringe 3.8: Long Voyages Home ... Fringe 3.10: The Return of the Eternal Bald Observers ... Flowers for Fringenon in Fringe 3.11 ... Fringe 3.12: The Wrong Coffee  ... Fringe 3.13: Alternate Fringe ... Fringe 3.14: Amber Here ... Fringe 3.15: Young Peter and Olivia ... Fringe 3.16: Walter and Yoko ... Fringe 3.17: Bell, Olivia, Lee, and the Cow ... Fringe 3.18: Clever Walternate ... Fringe 3.19 meets Inception, The Walking Dead, Tron ... Fringe 3.20: Countdown to Season 3 Finale 1 of 3 ... Fringe 3.21:  Ben Frankin, Rimbaldi, and the Future ...Fringe Season 3 Finale: Here's What Happened ... Death Not Death in Fringe  

See also reviews of Season 2: Top Notch Return of Fringe Second Season ... Fringe 2.2 and The Mole People ... Fringe 2.3 and the Human Body as Bomb ... Fringe 2.4 Unfolds and Takes Wing... Fringe 2.5: Peter in Alternate Reality and Wi-Fi for the Mind ... A Different Stripe of Fringe in 2.6... The Kid Who Changed Minds in Fringe 2.7 ... Fringe 2.8: The Eternal Bald Observers ... Fringe 2.9: Walter's Journey ... Fringe 2.10: Walter's Brain, Harry Potter, and Flowers for Algernon ... New Fringe on Monday Night: In Alternate Universe? ... Fringe 2.12: Classic Science Fiction Chiante ... Fringe 2.13: "I Can't Let Peter Die Again" ... Fringe 2.14: Walter's Health, Books, and Father ... Fringe 2.15: I'll Take 'Manhatan' ... Fringe 2.16: Peter's Story ... Fringe 2.17: Will Olivia Tell Peter? ... Fringe 2.18: Strangeness on a Train ... Fringe 2.19: Two Plus Infinity ... Fringe the Noir Musical ... Fringe 2.21: Bring on the Alternates ... Fringe 2.22:  Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming ... Fringe Season 2 Finale: The Switch

See also reviews of Season One Fringe Begins ... Fringe 2 and 3: The Anthology Tightrope ... 4: The Eternal Bald Observer ... 7: A Bullet Can Scramble a Dead Brain's Transmission ... 8. Heroic Walter and Apple Through Steel ... 9. Razor-Tipped Butterflies of the Mind ... 10. Shattered Pieces Come Together Through Space and Times ... 11. A Traitor, a Crimimal, and a Lunatic ... 12, 13, 14: Fringe and Teleportation ... 15: Fringe is Back with Feral Child, Pheromones, and Bald Men ...17. Fringe in New York, with Oliva as Her Suspect ... 18. Heroes and Villains across Fringe ...Stephen King, Arthur C. Clarke, and Star Trek in Penultimate Fringe ... Fringe Alternate Reality Finale: Science Fiction At Its Best

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"As a genre-bending blend of police procedural and science fiction, The Silk Code delivers on its promises." -- Gerald Jonas, The New York Times Book Review

"A thinking person's time travel story... I felt like I was there." - SF Signal