Tuesday TV Touchbase: Star Trek Picard

Hey, it’s Tuesday which means it’s time for the Tuesday TV Touchbase.

Maybe I should retitle this feature the Tuesday Trek Touchbase.

This will be the 3rd week in a row I’ve focused on Star Trek.

Yes, I have caught up on Outlander and Stumptown but given that last week was the season finale for Star Trek: Picard, we’re doing more Trek today.

(Next week, honestly, I will be talking about Outlander.)

Anyway, over the last two weeks, Picard’s quest came to a calamitous and climatic conclusion.  Picard and his crew on the La Sirena have made their way to Soji’s home planet, Coppelius.  It is here that we find a group of synthetic beings, androids, some like Data, others a bit more advanced. And one human: Dr. Altan Soong.

Yep, Brent Spiner is back playing a member of the Soong family again.

About 218 Romulan ships are blazing across the vast reaches of space to lay down a shit ton of fire and death on Coppelius  and destroy the androids who live there.

The knowledge that  218 Romulan ships are blazing across the vast reaches of space to kill them leads the synthetics to do the very thing the Romulans were afraid they would do: declare war on all organic life.

It doesn’t help that Narek (that treacherous Romulan son of a bitch) is on the planet and already killed an android named Saga.

Jean-Luc Picard lays down some classic Picard speechifying about working towards a better way.  It does not do one damn bit of good. Nope, the synthetics are going to do their thing. Picard is arrested while the androids with help from Soji and Agnes Jurati set up a beacon thingy to open a portal and summon some nasty mechanical life that will destroy everything.

Agnes, already duped once by Commander Oh, is not getting fooled again and springs Picard and they book it back to the La Sirena.

Meanwhile, Raffi, Chris and Narek (that treacherous Romulan son of a bitch) have teamed up to take out the beacon thingy before it can open a portal and summon nasty mechanical life that will destroy everything.

Meanwhile, back on the Borg Cube, Seven finds Narissa (that murdering Romulan bitch) and Seven kills her for killing Hugh (and maybe just for being a murdering Romulan bitch in general.)

Meanwhile, Altan Soong finds out that it wasn't Narek (that treacherous Romulan son of a bitch) but Sutra who killed Saga. A synthetic killing another synthetic in a plot of deception to convince the other androids that organic life cannot be trusted? Soong is, to say the least, disappointed.

Dr. Soong shuts down Sutra but Soji is still setting up the beacon after the plot by Raffi, Chris and Narek (that treacherous Romulan son of a bitch) to stop the beacon comes up short.

Meanwhile, Jean-Luc and Agnes are in space in the La Sirena, the only ship standing between Coppelius and the 218 Romulan ships that have shown up to blast everything synthetic to smithereens on orders from Commander Oh, no longer hiding by the façade of a Starfleet officer but showing her true colors as a Romulan commander.

Then a shit ton of Starfeet ships show up with (Ta da!) Captain William T. Riker all ready to chew gum and kick Romulan and damn it, he's out of gum.

Seriously, Riker's threat to Oh is probably the most bad ass thing I've ever seen Riker do on Star Trek. 

Here! Take a look! 

Damn, son! "Nothing would make me happier than you giving me an excuse to kick your treacherous Tal Shiar ass!"  

Whoa!  

Jean-Luc makes one last appeal to Soji to shut down the beacon thingy that will summon nasty mechanical life that will destroy everything.

It works, the Romulans haul ass out of there and then...

SPOILER ALERT!

I mean, seriously...

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

Jean-Luc Picard dies.

I mean, really. The brain thingy Dr. Crusher detected way back in the final Next Gen episode, "All Good Things". finally kills him.

Seriously, Jean-Luc Picard is dead.

And then...

SPOILER ALERT!

I mean, seriously...

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

Jean-Luc Picard get better.

What?

Altan Soong and Agnes Jurati did a cut and paste of Picard's brain and put his mind into an android.

OK, not a Data type of android with super smarts, super speed and super strength. It's an android body that looks and feels like Jean-Luc's old 94 year old body and with an algorithm that will allow him to eventually die.

What? What?

And then...

SPOILER ALERT!

I mean, seriously...

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

Data dies.

Hold on! Hold on!

What?

What the what what?

Isn’t Data already dead?

OK, Data dies… again.

It seems that Bruce Maddox had saved a neuron from Data's brain and transferred his awareness into a computer thing, existing in some kind of quantum state.

Before Jean-Luc's marbles are transferred to his new home, he has a heart to heart chat with Data in this quantum realm. 

It is very sweet and moving reunion, giving Picard the closure he was denied when Data was killed back in Nemesis. 

Before Picard leaves this realm to go to his new body, Data asks a favor: to terminate his consciousness.

So Picard honors his promise. As the isolinear chips are removed, we see Data slowly fading, his pallid android features aging as Jean-Luc Picard, in his Starfleet uniform, hold's Data's hand as Data dissipates into nothingness.

Why should I suffer this sadness alone? Watch this and try not to cry.

I'm not crying. You're crying.   

It is, maybe, the most emotionally wrenching moment in the history of Star Trek, right up there with a dying Spock telling Kirk he will always be his friend.

Damn!

So Jean-Luc Picard is a synthetic lifeform now?

OK, that's weird.

No, more than weird.

This off the hooking friggin' insane!

The episode ends with the a very crowded bridge of the La Sirena with Picard, Agnes, Chris, Soji, Elnor, Raffi and Seven (who apparently might be a couple now?) 

I gotta say that enjoyed the hell out of these 10 episodes of Star Trek: Picard. Yes, there were the touchpoints of nostalgia but it also challenged me as the universe of Star Trek moves forward in new and unexpected ways. 

I have NO idea where Star Trek: Picard might go next for Season 2.

And I can't wait to find out.  

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Next week on Tuesday TV Touchbase, we will catch up on Outlander.