Star Trek: Picard

[Copper Bezel]

Which is also dumb. Odo's pot must have come from the Bajoran scientist who found him, at the very earliest, if not something he picked much later. Any container will do. If I were an infiltrating Founder, I would bring a container that doesn't look like a container. But no, there is a pot very much like the one Odo was not born with.

You don't want them getting nightmares, do you? Good sleep is important when you're infiltrating the Federation.

The aesthetic of the pot made me assume it was a Bajoran thing too. Still, I don't remember what we know about Odo's Jor-El special baby pod, but I guess it's conceivable that the pot was in there and Odo had it his entire life. It is kinda dumb.

It would have been better if Seven just found a standard Starfleet beaker in that light fixture, and it would have served the same confirmatory purpose for both her and the audience, because Seven does identify the residue after she finds it. But the writers clearly wanted the audience to go "aha!", and I can't really fault them for wanting something visual to put on the screen rather than relaying plot information through a tricorder reading. Much as how all interaction between starships in external shots scales down the distances by a factor of 100 so we can actually see both ships at the same time.

 

[Axaday]

I feel a sort of soft disappointment that they worked so hard to tie Worf's story in. After First Contact made such a quick, convenient way to put Worf back on the Enterprise, I was really proud of Insurrection for just burying his had-to-be-contrived explanation in crowd noise. Yes. What they did is good TV and good story-telling, but I would have gotten a kick out of it if he had just materialized on the bridge and had no idea how he got there.

 

[Axaday]

The aesthetic of the pot made me assume it was a Bajoran thing too. Still, I don't remember what we know about Odo's Jor-El special baby pod, but I guess it's conceivable that the pot was in there and Odo had it his entire life. It is kinda dumb.

It is a continuation of the same gag that even after they had shown us the scientist that raised Odo and explained that Odo had patterned his humanoid form on that guy, they eventually show us that the Founders ALL have the same haircut as Odo when they aren't mimicking someone.

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

It is a continuation of the same gag that even after they had shown us the scientist that raised Odo and explained that Odo had patterned his humanoid form on that guy, they eventually show us that the Founders ALL have the same haircut as Odo when they aren't mimicking someone.

The Nitpicker's Guide to Deep Space Nine suggested that the Founders were copying Odo's "unfinished" look so that he (and presumably other members of "the Hundred") wouldn't feel bad at not being able to master the little details of "solid" facial physiognomy. The theory doesn't hold up in scenes where Odo isn't around, of course, but if the effects budget allowed we could have had a conversation between Founders that was a different shape for each shot of each character. Of course, they'd probably just do that crazy Linking thing and share the information that way, but then the writers would have to decide whether we want the audience in the dark or not....

 

[Andrusi]

Honestly, the more I think about it, the less weird it seems. Odo needed a container that could store a certain amount of liquid mass and was easy for him to get into and out of, and if the shape of the bucket he ended up with is any indication, he probably also wanted something stable enough that he wouldn't get spilled all over the security office the first time someone hit the station with a photon torpedo. Whether intentionally or not he also ended up with something easily portable and concealable. If we assume it's also a fairly common design and not something he brought with him from the Gamma Quadrant or had custom-made, then it'd be a readily available solution when the changeling was looking at the same problem Odo was.

Especially when you factor in that, what with the Great Link and all, the changeling would have known that this was what Odo went with and it got the job done.

Mental note: figure out how to stop imagining the Great Link as just the customer reviews on Amazon.

 

[Axaday]

It is probably the ice bucket they have at every Comfort Inn on every planet in the Alpha Quadrant.

 

[Cybersnark]

Spoiler

Ro's appearance here is actually kinda ironic given her status in the novelverse.

To wit: Ro's Maquis cell was one that lasted into the Dominion War and carried out guerilla raids on the Dominion. After the war, they were granted amnesty, and Ro eventually joined the Bajoran Militia. She was assigned to DS9 as their new security chief (replacing Odo; she arrived a few months after "What You Leave Behind").

When Bajor joined the Federation (and the militia got rolled into Starfleet), Ro was planning to resign her commission and retire, but she got a letter from Captain Picard urging her to give Starfleet another chance (i.e., the complete reverse of Jean-Luc's position here, that she failed them). She did so, ending up as a commander, and was eventually promoted to Captain and placed in charge of DS9 when Captain Kira retired.

She also dated Quark on-and-off for a while.

Also, Picard seems to have re-retconned Bajoran earrings:

When Ro was first introduced on TNG, the costume department decided that Bajoran earrings would be gender-segregated; women wore them on the left ear, while men wore them on the right.

In DS9, the writers introduced the traditional Bajoran greeting of gripping a person's ear (since most actors are right-handed, it's the left ear that gets touched). Naturally, you don't want the costume earrings getting knocked loose, so it became official policy that devout Bajorans only wore their earrings on the right ear (non-devout Bajorans wouldn't wear earrings at all).

Odds are, if Ro had appeared on DS9, her earring would've quietly changed sides and we'd all have pretended not to notice. Instead, the novels turned it into a character point, noting that Ro, to paraphrase Richard Riddick, "Absolutely believes in the Prophets. . . and hates the bastards," blaming them for abandoning Bajor during the Occupation.

Notably, the Pah-wraith cult also wears their earrings on the left, likely for similar reasons.

Note that Lieutenant Mura on the Titan also wears a (non-standard) earring on his left ear --either the DS9 retcon is out the window or he's a heretic too.[/spoiler]

 

[Dake]

Did they "downsize" the Bajoran nose-crinkles too? I thought they used to be more prominent.

 

[Axaday]

I didn't notice anything, but they were always pretty small. Just a few of them and no real protrusion. At least by DS9.

 

[TheSupernova]

I had a hard time noticing them, too, to be honest.

 

[Thefakelink]

I noticed it too. They looked almost drawn on as opposed to a makeup appliance.

 

[Dake]

Yeah - looking back at older pictures, they were more apparent early on.

 

[Axaday]

Not in DS9. But Kira looks more like that early Ro than Jadzia looks like a TNG trill. When there are going to be a lot of people and extended screen time, the makeup has to get easier.

 

[Agent X]

Made myself watch Picard S3 episodes 1-5, and after episode 5 I wished they saved Lore's reveal in the trailers as we're halfway through and that would've been a reveal to rival "Imposters" Commander.

 

[Axaday]

Made myself watch Picard S3 episodes 1-5, and after episode 5 I wished they saved Lore's reveal in the trailers as we're halfway through and that would've been a reveal to rival "Imposters" Commander.

I didn't exactly forget that Moriarty and Lore are in this. I was very iffy about what this show was going to be from the trailers and I am quite enjoying what it is, but am now concerned again that inserting Moriarty and Lore is going to mean some weirdness that I still don't trust them to manage.

 

[Copper Bezel]

There's no chance that the "sophisticated AI" they keep setting on the mantlepiece at Daystrom is anything but Moriarty. That leaves open the possibility, though, that Daystrom was just using him somehow and that he's not actually working for the bad guys, he's just going to be a minor bossfight along the way. I imagine that the person slowly taking over Daystrom from inside without raising general Starfleet alarm is Lore pulling an Age of Extinction Galvatron of some kind.

If that's all true though, Daystrom specifically and Starfleet generally kinda have what's coming to them, and it's unclear what the changelings are for. Over in the Vadic side of the plot, it kinda seems like the changelings are in the driver's seat and one of them really needs Jack's body for some reason, and the Daystrom tech is a means to an end. As much as I don't think this plot needs Lore right now, I'd hate to see him introduced as just a chump indirectly working for some angry changeling we don't know.

 

[Axaday]

I have seen absolutely no reason to think that Vadic is a Changeling working for a Changeling. A Changeling may be living on her arm and telling her what to do or she is a Changeling using a dumb communication device, but I don't think both of them are Changelings.

I still want Lore to have joined Starfleet a couple years ago when AI were legal again and he got himself assigned to the Fleet Museum and he's a constant thorn in Geordi's side, but is actually working for Starfleet unironically.

Edit - Moriarty being the security AI never occurred to me, but it is pretty obvious now that you mention it. I read a review before the show even premiered that said they had been shown 6 episodes and the show wasn't very good, but Moriarty and Lore make sense given what the show is. I disagree with them 5 episodes in, but I think that means we see them both in a couple days.

 

[Cybersnark]

I've seen speculation reversing that; that Lore (or something derived from him) is the one in control of Daystrom station, and Worf and Raffi have just acquired a program specifically-designed to defeat Soong-type androids: Dr. Moriarty.

 

[Thefakelink]

Well he is supposed to be capable of defeating Data. I hadn’t thought of that angle but that’s a great way to reintroduce Moriarty.

 

[The Predaking]

I've seen speculation reversing that; that Lore (or something derived from him) is the one in control of Daystrom station, and Worf and Raffi have just acquired a program specifically-designed to defeat Soong-type androids: Dr. Moriarty.

That would be awesome, but its something that the writers wouldn't think of. I learned in season 1 that we came up with better stuff here than the writers did.