| Episode: | 23 | | | Writer: | Jane Maggs & Cindy Appel | | | Director: | Jonathan Frakes | | | Air Date: | 02-Mar-2023 |
This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Seventeen Seconds, written by Jane Maggs & Cindy Appel.
Those two were the writers for the weak middle chapters of Star Trek: Picard's second season, but who knows how much of its weakness was due to their writing and how much was because of the story they'd been given to tell. I mean director Jonathan Frakes also worked on those episodes, and he's got a fairly solid track record! He's is the only Star Trek: The Next Generation director to still be directing Star Trek to this day, and the only live-action Trek spin-off he's missed out on directing for so far is Enterprise. I guess he was too busy directing Clockstoppers and Thunderbirds at the time.
There will be SPOILERS ahead.
RECAP
The Shrike chases the Titan into the nebula and Captain Shaw is injured in their attack, passing command over to Riker (he's still in a mood with his first officer, Seven, because of her mutiny). Trying to leave the nebula doesn't work as the Shrike is equipped with the portal device used to destroy that Starfleet building in episode 1. Every time the Titan flies away, a portal brings them right back. Picard takes the role of Riker's first officer, advising him to lure the Shrike into a trap, but Riker would rather not take a risk that could get their crew killed.
Meanwhile, Jack and Seven discover that a Changeling has sabotaged the ship, giving Vadic a gas trail to follow. Over in the Raffi plot, she and Worf capture a Changeling of their own, part of a terrorist faction that broke away from the Great Link after their surrender at the end of the Dominion War.
Riker finally listens to Picard and attacks the Shrike with "everything we've got" (four torpedoes), but the Shrike just uses a portal to redirect the Titan's torpedoes right back at them. Now their engines are disabled and they're falling into a gravity well. This really pisses Riker off, who tells Picard he's killed them all and orders him off the bridge.
REVIEW
That's partly because the Raffi plot is a hundred times more watchable now that Worf is around. The actual events still didn't interest me much, except for the Changeling confirmation (and the Odo reference), but it seems like they'll finally be done with that bloody alleyway on M'Talas after this! I read somewhere that season three was going to be a 'bottle season' that used limited sets to save money and that's ringing true so far. The sets it has are very impressive, but they're also getting very familiar.
The Picard and Riker side of the story had things I liked and things I didn't like, and I'm a little surprised which things ended up in which column.
It's a good scene though, and it's well acted. In fact, all the character scenes with Riker talking about becoming a father, Picard talking to Crusher about why she disappeared, Riker talking to Jack, I thought they were all great. Even Captain Shaw was momentarily likeable, which I suppose was a clue that he was about to get seriously injured.
Man, it's lucky for Shaw that they beamed over a competent doctor last episode, because it's starting to seem like the Titan's crew aren't Starfleet's best and brightest. They're also being a bit of a dick to Jack, which isn't very enlightened of them. Speaking of that, what was up with Starfleet officers not taking Sydney seriously because she wanted to be an pilot instead of an engineer like her famous father? I couldn't buy that at all... and not just because her dad piloted the Enterprise when he was her age. He had a red uniform and everything.
Crusher reveals here that she disappeared and kept her son a secret in order to protect him from Picard's enemies, which is really dark for Star Trek! Especially as Picard's dangerous lifestyle has mostly involved sitting on his ass in a vineyard for the past decade or so. And this is Star Trek: Picard so of course Jack Crusher hasn't been working in a lab on a utopian world this whole time, sheltered from the dangers of the world. He's been a rogue doctor who trades weapons to get into war zones!
But the scene where they discuss this was good, so I suppose it kind of works?
The trouble is that a lot of the battle was just Captain Riker and his first officer Picard disagreeing over what to do next. Picard says 'we have to fight!', Riker says 'we have to run', and this happens over and over again. It might have worked better if the two characters put any real arguments forward to explain why their strategy is superior. It's been made abundantly clear that the Titan is just a weak explorer vessel (as opposed to strong explorer vessels like the Enterprise), and the Shrike is a monster covered in guns, so Picard really needed to tell us why his plan to get behind their enemy and surprise them would work.
And then the episode ends with Riker telling Picard "Remove yourself from the bridge, you've just killed us all", which is a line that should've never made it into a Star Trek script. And not just because it was Riker himself who carried out the plan, after the sabotage to their warp core left them with no alternative.
It's interesting though, seeing characters switch roles. I'm not talking about Picard and Riker, I'm talking about Picard and Worf.
Worf has calmed down a bit and gotten wiser, Picard keeps insisting that they have to fight, and being continually shut down by the captain. Worf is leading a mission and getting stuff done, Picard is getting distracted by a son he didn't know he had. Also, Picard does a better job as a tactical officer than as a first officer, which I suppose makes sense considering that he's never had that job. I think he was just a helmsman on the Stargazer when he was forced to take command of the ship.
I'm not sure what to think about Zen Worf right now. I like that the character has evolved, and 'wise martial arts master' is a very fitting direction for him to go in, but it's hard to really judge when he's also playing the role of good cop here.
Though the episode also confirms that there isn't a window in front of him, interestingly, as the viewscreen was glitching out in the nebula. It's nice for consistency's sake that the Kelvin films' influence is waning a little and some ships have a traditional screen again.
Another positive is that we get an explanation for why the Shrike is overpowered to the point it can take on a Starfleet starship: it has Dominion backing. Well, kind of. It's a crew of Rogue Changelings. The concept seems kind of counter to Changeling nature, but that's fine, there are always exceptions. And as an extra positive, the ships actually move like giant vessels instead of swooping around like in Strange New Worlds! I didn't even know I was taking that for granted until these modern series came out.
So now the series is putting Next Gen and Voyager characters up against Deep Space Nine's Changelings! That's something brand new. I hope the series can continue to surprise me like this as season 2 was too predictable and I already have suspicions about what the Changelings stole from Daystrom.
RATING
To properly figure out what I think about Seventeen Seconds I'm going to put it up against the third episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation's third season, The Survivors. That's the one where Picard is suspicious of a mysterious elderly couple and Troi gets a song stuck in her head. On paper it doesn't sound like it'd be particularly stand-out episode, but I liked it. In fact, I'm ranking it above Seventeen Seconds. Sorry Picard, you're up against TNG s3 now, these fights aren't going to be so easy anymore.
Though Seventeen Seconds was fairly decent as well. I want to subtract a point for the "Remove yourself from the bridge, you've just killed us all" line, but I'll be nice because a lot of the other writing was strong. So the final score is yet another...
7/10
COMING EVENTUALLY
If you want to share your thoughts on Seventeen Seconds, you can use the box below! Or you could record a YouTube video I suppose. Plus there are forums still, and Reddit. You've got options. The comment box is right there though.
the only live-action Trek spin-off he's missed out on directing for so far is Enterprise.
ReplyDeleteBut he was in absolutely the worst episode of that show. Maybe if he'd been directing too it wouldn't have been so bad.
Allan Kroeker had to direct all season finales, that had been Star Trek law for 6 years at this point. He was one of the best directors they had though, so I'm not sure anyone could've saved TATV.
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