| Episode: | 24 | | | Writer: | Terry Matalas & Sean Tretta | | | Director: | Jonathan Frakes | | | Air Date: | 09-Mar-2023 |
This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing about more Star Trek: Picard. It's season 3, episode 4: No Win Scenario.
In Star Trek, a no win scenario is a situation where there's no possible way to achieve any kind of good outcome. It's a mythical thing, like Rumpelstiltskin or the Greek god Apollo, except less likely to be encountered by a veteran crew with an ongoing series. Sure the heroes lose sometimes, but if they ever think a situation looks hopeless they're just not looking at it from the right perspective yet.
The episode was written by Terry Matalas and Sean Tretta, so the showrunner scripted this one personally. You'll see often a showrunner's name on the most crucial and impressive episodes in a season, the opening chapters, the epic finales, the format-breaking stories, the ones that reveal something about the characters... though on Deep Space Nine you'd also see it on all those Ferengi stories. Ira Behr did love them Ferengi.
I hope you're okay with SPOILERS because this is where they start.
RECAP
The mood isn't great on the Titan right now, as the Shrike's attack has left it losing power and falling into a gravity well. They're basically doomed, so Picard and Jack try to get to know each other in a holodeck simulation of Guinan's bar. Shaw comes and joins them, sharing a depressing story of how he survived the Borg attack at Wolf 359. It turns out that a lieutenant picked him to be one of the 10 crewmembers to leave their damaged ship on an escape pod, and he's been forced to live with that survivor's guilt.
The Shrike was supposed to capture Jack, not kill him, so Vadic has to leave the ship's portal gun behind and head into the nebula after them. But the Titan crew come up with a plan to recharge their systems with the energy pulses from the nebula, and the ship comes charging at the Shrike to throw an asteroid at them.
They see that the entity in the nebula has given birth to baby space creatures, which brings a bit of classic Star Trek wonder into their day. Plus they caught their Changeling infiltrator and escaped the Shrike, so things are looking up. Though the episode ends with Jack suffering from terrifying hallucinations.
REVIEW
The obvious one is Captain Dipshit, who finally gets an explanation for why he's so grumpy: he was an engineer. Also he's one of the victims of Wolf 359, but that was something we could've guessed from his hatred of the Borg. So with Seven of Nine and Locutus on his ship it's understandable why he's been acting this way. No Star Trek lead would have come across great if we'd met them when they were at their worst like this.
Though hang on, this is exactly how Sisko was introduced, and he was sympathetic and competent from the start!
In fact, the whole crew felt a lot more Starfleet here, which is a huge positive. Plus the episode uses the characters well, showing how they choose to spend their last moments in a hopeless situation. There are lots of thoughtful conversations in 10 Forward.
I liked how they've retroactively justified the season 2 uniform change by having the season 1 uniforms as a visual clue that a scene takes place in the recent past. They also retroactively justified Voyager's holodeck power weirdness by saying that the holodecks were given separate power supplies so they could be used as a sanctuary in a crisis. Personally I would've thought an extra power generator would been more useful to the crew in a crisis, but no one said Starfleet has to come to the same conclusions I do.
The episode's full of these stories of past events, each one extremely relevant by the end. Like the hunted becoming the hunter, and Picard and Jack Crusher working together to get out of a crisis.
But the twist I should have (and didn't) see coming, was that Jack was also at the bar with Picard five years ago. He didn't connect with his dad back then because the guy actually told him that Starfleet was the only family he ever needed, while laughing and smiling with a bunch of officers. Oops.
The nerdiest part of me was happy when they opened up the nacelles and it all looked right in there, with warp coils covered by a grille. It's less happy that they've confirmed now that this is definitely a 20 year old ship that's had a refit to make it look entirely different. It's like taking your car to the shop and it coming out as a van.
Anyway, I may not like the design of the Titan-A, but I can't say it doesn't look and move like a giant Starfleet vessel should do. Out of this, Strange New Worlds and Discovery, this has the most convincing and faithful effects shots, and I appreciate that.
Unfortunately the Riker stuff about his grief over his dead son didn't work so great for me, as I haven't noticed a hint of it before now, aside from one line in the first episode (plus I guess his out-of-character yelling at Picard last episode). The earlier Trek series could get away with introducing a problem like this and resolving it in the same episode, but Picard is too serialised.
Vadic was portrayed as pretty weak in this one, compared to her portrayal in the previous stories, and Riker easily cripples her awesome ship as soon as he finds a rock to throw at it! It was nice to see him doing the tactics though, after Picard got to do his thing to guide the ship out. The episode properly showcases what the Picard, Riker and Crusher we know would do in a no-win scenario: what they've trained their whole lives to be great at.
This is a bit of a reference failure as anyone who can recognise that as being Odo's bucket would probably also remember that he stopped using it when he got more experience and the other Changlings never used one. And even if they did, they wouldn't use the same Bajoran bucket he did. But hey, that's just a tiny nitpick. I can even handwave their horrible meaty goop effects as being because they're a rogue faction of Changlings, not the golden Great Link.
See, I'm willing to meet a series halfway when it comes to retconned aliens and designs! Leave enough room for there to be a plausible, satisfying explanation for a change and I'll go look for it myself.
RATING
I'll say one thing about these first four episodes: the season hasn't left me wishing that it'd stop spinning its wheels and get to the good bit already. In season 1 it took forever for Picard to get his team together and go on an adventure. Season 2 really had nothing to look forward to that wasn't spoiled by the trailer. But season 3 has already brought back half the Next Gen crew and wrapped up the nebula arc, so now I'm curious to see where it's going next.
Here's a question though: is No Win Scenario better than the fourth episode of Next Gen's third season, Who Watches the Watchers? It's perhaps not the best of TNG, but it's a more a notable story than No Win Scenario will be ever be, with its exploration of Prime Directive issues and the introduction of Picard's seat cover.
Personally though, I think I prefer No Win Scenario. In fact, it's probably my favourite episode of the season so far. Oh hang on, the episode doesn't continue Raffi's adventures in that alleyway on M'Talas Prime does it? Okay, it's definitely my favourite then. The show's tonal weirdness is still preventing me from getting fully invested, but this was legit good in many ways, so I'm giving it...
8/10
NEXT TIME
Comments about No Win Scenario must be typed into the comment box below.
Sisko was pretty chilly and passive aggressive with Picard early in the first episode of DS9, but we had the advantage of already seeing his backstory before that. Plus he got over it by the end of the episode.
ReplyDeleteThough hang on, this is exactly how Sisko was introduced, and he was sympathetic and competent from the start!
ReplyDeleteObviously there were a lot of people at Wolf 359, so it makes sense we'd see another survivor at some point, but I do wonder if there were plans for Sisko to be in this role at one point.
It's impossible for me to imagine a scene where Sisko started eating before his guests arrived, especially as he'd be the one who cooked the meal for them.
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