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Posted in: Paramount+, Review, Star Trek, streaming, TV | Tagged: amanda plummer, Brent Spiner, Ed Speleers, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Marina Sirtis, paramount, patrick stewart, star trek, Star Trek Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Episode 8 Lets the Hammer Fall: Review
Star Trek: Picard S03E08 "Surrender" ties up many loose ends and could easily pass as a series finale - even with two episodes still to go.
There are some major developments resolved in the Star Trek: Picard episode "Surrender" you can swear it could pass for the series finale. When we last left our heroes, Vadic (Amanda Plummer) and the bulk of her fellow Changelings from the Shrike had taken over the bridge of the U.S.S. Titan-A, Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Troi (Marina Sirtis) are prisoners onboard the Shrike, and Geordi (LeVar Burton) is struggling to make sense of what's happening with his best friend in Data (Brent Spiner). The following contains minor spoilers for the episode.
Star Trek: Picard's Various Nuanced Arcs
There are three parts to this to break down. First is obvious, as Vadic is keeping the bulk of the remaining bridge crew hostage, isolating control of the ship to prevent any meaningful resistance in her attempt to draw Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers), who's itching to unleash his Neo-like abilities upon the invaders with his mother Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) reining him in so he doesn't lose control, emotionally, not physically. His father, Jean-Luc (Patrick Stewart), is on the fence, considering he's the risk taker but is hesitant as he also recognizes the inherent danger, he's in balancing the fact that he also might be their last chance to make it out alive. It plays out as expected in typical action film-level tension.
The second arc is the exposition we sorely missed all season between Frakes' Riker and Sirtis' Troi. While we got snippets in passing from a flashback and video calling shared between the two, we finally get down to brass tax when it comes to the problems they ran into. Honestly, we got spoiled from the surface-level build of the Riker-Troi relationship and the tease of the love triangle that also involved Michael Dorn's Worf. While The Next Generation only attempted Troi-Worf seriously in Dorn's multiverse in the season seven episode "Parallels," it's largely been Riker-Troi leading up to the characters' marriage in 2002's Nemesis and largely regulated Troi to a more domestic and maternal role even in her character's original return in the Picard season one episode "Nepenthe."
In "Surrender," we not only peel away at Riker and Troi's relationship in a far more nuanced way than TNG ever explored, but her character's abilities as an empath become that final major puzzle piece that might set Speleer's Jack in motion. While Dorn and Michelle Hurd's Raffi went missing in the previous episode, both make their return. The final major arc concerns Geordi and Data, which marks the final major cog in the episode that requires the former Enterprise-D chief engineer to hook his best friend and former lieutenant commander to the Titan, knowing his instability.
The hybrid version of Data not only contains the memory of the TNG crew's beloved android but also his psychopathic brother Lore. The prototype B-4 has largely been ignored for the purpose of pacing and time constraints, but that's okay. It would be hard not to shed a tear as a TNG or a Star Trek fan, in general, seeing old friends coming together again. It's not something we ever got from The Original Series because they never left each other until rather late in their respective games, and the journey back in Picard felt so rewarding – and we still have two episodes left. Director Deborah Kampmeier, writer Matt Okumura, and showrunner Terry Matalas knock another out of the ballpark. Star Trek: Picard streams Thursdays on Paramount+.
Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Episode 8 "Surrender"
9.5/10
The cast of Paramount+'s Star Trek: Picard episode "Surrender" shines thanks to the nuanced storytelling that was never as thoroughly explored stemming from their time during "The Next Generation." The biggest standouts are Marina Sirtis, Jonathan Frakes, Amanda Plummer, LeVar Burton, Brent Spiner... and Spot. Yes. He's a cat. Deal with it.
Credits
Director
Deborah Kampmeier
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