Star Trek: Picard 3-05: Imposters (Quick Review)

Episode:

25

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Writer:

Cindy Appel & Chris Derrick

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Director:

Dan Liu

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Air Date:

16-Mar-2023

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm finally back to writing about Star Trek: Picard's third and final season! It's only 10 episodes so you'd think I'd be done with it by now, but I had to put it to one side for a couple of months to get some other things written. Discovery's last season was coming out, I had a The Last Jedi review in the works for May the 4th, then the first season of Ncuti Gatwa's run of Doctor Who started as well, so there were a lot of things demanding my time.

But that's all done with now, almost, and I'm ready to give Picard my partially undivided attention for its remaining six episodes.

Imposters was the final story to be credited to Cindy Appel and Chris Derrick, who'd been on the show since season 2. Derrick did one story, Appel did a few, and none of them have been highlights so far. Director Dan Liu was new to Picard, but he'd also done some Strange New Worlds so I'm sure he knew the difference between a phaser and a phase inducer.

Warning, SPOILERS beyond this point.

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RECAP

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Captain Shaw retakes command of the Titan and calls Starfleet so they can come and arrest Picard and his co-conspirators for dragging his ship into danger. The USS Intrepid arrives and Picard is reunited with the treacherous Ro Laren, now a commander. The two of them have some issues to work out after she betrayed him and joined the Maquis, but they're able to make peace. She tells him that the Changelings are everywhere and gives him her Bajoran earring which turns out to contain all the intelligence she's amassed on the conspiracy.

As Ro returns to the Intrepid she discovers a Changeling bomb on her shuttle. She can't save herself so she decides to use it to cripple the ship's warp drive, giving the Titan a chance to escape and save Starfleet. Over on the ship, Changelings try to capture Jack but he's compelled to kill them because of his visions.

Meanwhile, Worf and Raffi return to that street on M'talis Prime again, where they're outplayed by Sneed's friend, a Vulcan crime boss called Krinn, and forced to fight to the death. Worf loses and is badly wounded... but not so bad that he can't turn the tables and get what they came for. The Vulcan gives him a device that will allow them to get past the AI security at Daystrom Station, and Worf contacts his handler, Commander Ro. Instead he finds himself talking to Picard on the Titan.


REVIEW

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It really sucks when you're searching YouTube for clips from Laserdiscs and the site decides to recommend a video about Ro Laren coming back and getting blown up in a shuttle. I didn't click it, but I know that's what it was about, because it said it in the thumbnail.

The episode had a lot working against it from the start for me, seeing as the spoiler put me in a bad mood, and Ro Laren's surprise return and shocking death was no longer a surprise or a shock. But I suppose it's a good sign that I care enough about the series to be pissed off about being spoiled. I wasn't even slightly tempted to skip the episode and look the story up on Wikipedia to save time!

Anyway, there are three plots in this one, Picard vs Ro, Raffi vs Worf, and Jack freaking out, and I didn't need a YouTube video to tell me that the Raffi plot would be the one I wasn't into.

I mean I like Worf, I like Raffi, and I like fight scenes, so it did have things going for it. And I certainly can't claim that someone faking their death to end a fight with a friend is something Star Trek would never do. Kirk Acevedo's logical Vulcan crime boss as well was pretty interesting too, especially considering that he grew up in the slums with a Ferengi, and not with a bunch of logical Vulcans. I guess when you wear an IDIC medallion you've got to get into character.

But Worf and Raffi already did the 'getting a name and going down to the alley on M'Talas to get info' thing in their last episode and I didn't like it then either. Finding the name they needed was way too trivial and the reuse of that alley set has become a running joke. Everyone they need to find, everyone Raffi knows in her life, they're all in that same street!

There's hope though that they'll be going somewhere else next episode, as they've finally connected with the Picard and Riker side of the story.

The Jack storyline reminded me of the secret Cylons on Battlestar Galactica. He knows something's wrong with him, something involving voices, connection and red vines, but he doesn't know what it is. He's dreaming of all the damage he can do, and we don't know if it's a reflection of his concerns or some kind of precognition. He certainly damaged the Changelings that tried to kidnap him.

Picard season 2 got less fun for me when I started guessing the right answers to all the mysteries, so I'm not even going to speculate on what's going on with Jack right now. I'm just going to say that I appreciated that the director did a good job of illustrating his state of mind, and leave it at that. Though we did learn that whatever's up with him has been there since he was a kid...

Nope, not thinking about it. Not. Thinking. Instead I'm wondering why these corridor sets aren't working for me. They look so good, but I just can't buy this as being a real starship like I always have in the past. Are they too elaborate? Too wide? Too dark?

The heart of the episode was the Picard and Ro story, which is good as that's the one featuring Patrick Stewart and Michelle Forbes in a room together doing acting. In fact, their performances were impressive enough to almost occasionally distract me from how faint Ro's nose ridges were. They were basically pencilled on.

I didn't entirely buy into the anger the two of them had with each other, but that's fine as Ro wasn't being completely honest and they both had plenty of reasons to be stressed and emotional. They also managed to resolve their issues in just one episode, which is a nice change from season 2's habit of ending each episode mid-story.

I'm less keen about Ro getting killed off, mostly because it's just so expected at this point. We've lost Bruce Maddox, Icheb, Hugh and Q. It doesn't raise the stakes or make me feel like 'anyone can die' as I had no doubt that Worf would survive being stabbed to death, it just makes me stop caring too much about any legacy character who didn't have their name in the TNG or Voyager opening credits.

It's not that you can't kill off characters from an earlier show, Next Gen killed Sarek, DS9 killed Koloth and Kang, but they didn't exactly make a habit of it!

The 'trust no one' Starfleet infiltration story is very familiar too, as we got it the Next Gen episode Conspiracy, and it was a part of Deep Space Nine. Though DS9 didn't really push the Body Snatchers paranoia as much as this is doing, outside of a handful of episodes.

I just remembered that Picard season 1 did it as well, with Commodore Oh and Narissa being Zhat Vash operatives. Man, at this point I'm worried that Admiral Janeway is the only high ranking Starfleet officer left in an organisation filled with Changelings and Zhat Vash. Maybe the lack of carpets and the low lighting are part of ongoing scheme to ruin Starfleet's vibe. It's working.

The concept of 'Starfleet is bad' must have a lot of gravity, as Star Trek just can't seem to escape it lately. So many infiltrators, secret projects, evil computers and rude officers. I suppose I should just be grateful that Raffi and Ro were working for Starfleet Intelligence and not Section 31.


RATING

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I felt like we got a lot of story here and most of it was good. In fact, I think it's almost tied with the last episode for me. This has the advantage of having the lights turned up very slightly, though it's held back by the return of the M'Talas plot and Ro's death.

But is it better than Next Gen season 3's fifth episode, The Bonding? That's the one where Worf loses an officer on an away mission and worries about her orphaned kid. It was Ronald D. Moore's first Star Trek script and generally considered to be one of the best... oh hang on, no it's not. I just assumed everyone really liked that story, but after doing the research it appears that people generally rank it fairly low. Well, that makes me feel better about saying I actually prefer Imposters. Maybe I'm not the worst TNG fan after all.

8/10

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COMING SOON

Star Trek: Picard will return with The Bounty. First though, it's my Doctor Who (2023 edition) Season Review! I definitely liked some of the episodes, but did I like enough of them?

I know it's been a while since Imposters was released, but if you've got any opinions you can share them in the box below.