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calliecat93 · 3 years

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ST; TNG S6 Watchthrough Episodes 10-13

Chain of Command: Alrighty folks, two parter time!

Part One: Picard gets assigned to a vital mission. One that he has to keep secret from even Riker, While he, Crusher, and Worf are gone, Starfleet assigns Captain Jellico to command the Enterprise and handle negotiations with the Cardassians, much to Riker and the others disdain. I’ve seen mixed reception on Jellico, but I’ll refrain from giving opinions until the Overall. But he’s much more authoritative and hard pushing than Picard. Though it’s funny cause Picard was also very authoritative in the beginning, but he has GREATLY mellowed out throughout the series. But the reason that Jellico has been given command? Among with having experience with the Cardassians… Picard has been outright relieved because he’s most likely not coming back. Yeah, we got some high stakes for this one folks. It was a pretty good episode. We establish Jellico and his command methods, the crews' feelings about it, and Picard, Crusher, and Worf prepping for a VERY intensive mission. Which the ending to the episode? Yeah, they made sure to make sure that the viewers came back the following week. Will Part 2 be able to keep it up, however? We shall see but very solid first half~! 4.5/5.

Part Two: Picard has been captured. The Cardassians bring this up during the negotiations… which Jellico denies and won’t allow any rescue misisons. Needless to say this does not go over well with Riker. Yeah this was… hard to watch. Not because it was bad. If anything the fact that hey did it well is what makes it hard to watch. They do NOT hold back in showing the intensity of Picard’s torture. Like whent he villain used the device to just send Picard into agony… that was just… rough. On board the Enterprise Riker wants to admit that Picard was under Starfleet orders… but admititng that Starfleet was on such a missionw hen they have a treaty witht he Cardassians would cause a whole hos tof problems. As such Jelico won’t admit it and give Picard protections as a POW, which infuriates Riker to the point that he gets relieved of duty. It’s hard because obviously I side with Riker here… but I also can’t say that Jellico is necessarially wrong. This is a highly dangerous, critical situation on a politica, military, and even diplomatic front. Do you sacrifice Picard and ensure the needs of the many? Or do you go screw it and rescue him, but risk outright war breaking out due to it? Whatever you pick you will face major consequences. Fortunateley they find a way to get Picard back and stop the Cardassians via Jellico’s efforts, but Picard is left with the trauma and outright admits had they even been one second too late, he would have broken. His defiace in spite of his agony was awesome to watch especially when he finally broke down the villin… but the fact is he still suffered and came dangeorusly close to breaking completeley. Nothing, not even admiration for remaining strong, will ever take that away. It was hard to watch, but I can’t say that it wasn’t effective. Very well done episode. 4.5/5

CoC Overall: That was an intense one. The Cardassians are terrifying. I guess I’ll see more of this in DS9 but the way they torture Picard? How the villain outright allows his child to see it and dehumanizes/says hateful things about humans right in front of his child? Dear God…that is just so horrid I don’t know where to begin. David Warner did such an excellent job as the villain, being effectively cold-hearted and monstrous but with a layer of calmness that makes it all the scarier. No wonder he got cast as Ra’s al Ghoul in Batman: TAS. As for Jellico… there’s no denying that he’s a hardass. I wish that the episode did better at acknowledging how his over-taxing methods were, well… over-taxing, but they avoided having to make the crew go into outright battle. Nevertheless, after we see how Picard gets treated, it does make sense and in the end, his captaincy was effective. I don’t like his methods, but I can’t say that they weren’t effective and in this kind of situation it may have been necessary. He and Riker never get to liking each other… but they are forced to acknowledge that they need to work together and recognize the other's ability to get the job done. I greatly prefer Picard, but Jellico works for this episode under these conditions. At the very least he doens’t come across as a bad person. Also on a lighter note, glad that Troi is now wearing her actual uniform. She looks a Hell of a lot better in that than any of those jumpsuits they kept making her wear. So yeah a good plot, difficult choices, scenes that are hard to watch but well-executed, great acting… yeah this was an excellent two-parter. IDK if I’d want to watch it again because I don’t know if I can make it through Picard’s torture. Which needless to say if something like this is triggery or too much for anyone thinking of watching it, I highly recommend skipping this one (or at least those particular scenes) or watch it with someone. But it was very well done, there’s no denying that. 5/5.

Ship in a Bottle: So you guys remember the episode Elementary, Dear Data from S2? The one with Data and Geordi and Sherlock as Watson and due to Geordi being bad at wording the Moriarty hologram became sentient? Yeah… looks like the show finally remembered cause they finally bring back up that Moriarty’s kinda just been stuck in the computers for over four seasons now. Barclay ends up unlocking him, and Moriarty isn’t at all happy to have been left and forgotten for over four years. I was not at all expecting a follow-up to this episode, but Hell yes I am all for it! I can’t blame Moriarty for being upset especially since the show never brought it back up until now, so to the audience it feels like they just up and forgot him without giving a damn about his extesential crisis just like he does. Moriarty is able to at last leave the Holodeck, to everyone’s surprise, and all he wants is for them to make his lover real, even taking over the ship whent hey refuse due to still not understandinghow Moriarty became real… but there’s a bit of a plot twist. One that I’m not gonna give away here, but it is wild. But this was an excellent episode and a great, long overdue follow-up to Elementary, Dear Data. The questions of being alive/sentient (which we already had a few episodes ago but done differently enough here that it works), the argument between Moriarty wanting a life and the others concern by all that has happened, the limits on what they know, Barclay being competent without being the main focus, it’s very well done. Moriarty isn’t evil, just despersate and pushed to his limit, hence why he does what he does here. The ending is very bittersweet, but is a proper conclusion with some kind of hopeful note. Very well done~! 4.5/5.

Aquiel: Well I thought after S4 we were done with the ‘Geordi in love’ plots… guess not. So… this is pretty much ST’s attempt at making The Thing. When going through files to investigate a potential murder, Geordi finds lots of Aquiel and sure enough, he falls in love with her based on that alone. So… guess he learned nothing from Galaxy’s Child then, though at least he doesn’t try to use the Nice Guy excuse this time. Plus tbf he didn’t know that she was alive so i’s not as bad as in Boody Trap and Galaxy’s Child, but still he should really know better by now. But as it turns out Aquiel is alive, but was in Klingon custody… and is now the prime suspect in the murder. While I don’t mind the general plot of the episode and a Thing-like episode actually sounds pretty interesting, the ‘Geordi in love with a girl he never met via her personal logs’ plot wasn’t necessary and they already did it once. I think they did it better, but it’s still annoying to see that they did this again. I can’t even be happy about them having a dog in this episode because of reasons I won’t spoil, but let’s just say that the big plot twist can be seen a mile away. It was alright, but writers if you can’t think of a better way to do a Geordi-led romantic plot… maybe don’t use a romantic plot? Just saying. 2/5.

Alright, we are at the halfway point! So far? S6 has been great! Just great episodes all around. Some fun, some intense, some… well some are just meh but overall the first half has been excellent. It feels like they got their second wind after last season and I am loving it~!

#st watchthrough

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