Star Trek: ‘Picard’ “Fly Me to the Moon” Brings Back an Almost Spin-Off
The second season of Star Trek: Picard is already all about the Earth’s past. In “Fly Me to the Moon” we finally find out how that past connects to the crew’s future.
Previously on Star Trek: Picard, Jean-Luc meets his old (but young) friend Guinan. She introduces Picard to a Watcher/Guardian/Supervisor who looks suspiciously like Laris, Meanwhile, Raffi and Seven mount a rescue for Rios who is in a detention center. And, of course, Agnes Jurati inches ever closer to making a mistake with the Borg Queen. How does it all play out? Let’s find out.
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To Boldly Recap
Once again, the plot of the episode is split across three storylines. The first revolves around Picard and our mystery watcher, the second re-introduces Brent Spiner and Isa Briones, and the third finally gets the Agnes/Borg Queen story where it was always heading. Let’s focus on the latter two as the Picard plot involves some classic Trek lore.
In “Penance,” we see a brief glimpse of a virtual statue for a man named Adam Soong. He is an ancient ancestor of Noonian Soong who created Data. It turns out Adam Soong has more in common with the Star Trek: Enterprise character Arik Soong than he does with Noonian.
Adam is a geneticist using some pretty illegal experiments on ex-soldiers to create a “more perfect” version of humanity. Fortunately for humanity, Soong loses his funding and his license is stripped by the board controlling his eugenics studies. Unfortunately, Soong’s daughter Kore (played by Isa Briones) really needs those studies. Kore has a genetic condition which makes her burn in the sun and her blood turn to poison in the open air.
Who can help? Why, Q, of course! Q sends Soong a business card through Soong’s digital printer seeking a meeting. When Soong shows up, Q offers him a potential cure for Kore in exchange for a favor. The cure works, albeit temporarily, and so Soong has to acquiesce to Q’s demands. More on that in a moment.
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Agnes, Queen of the Suckers
While Agnes Jurati slumbers in Chateau Picard, the Borg Queen gets up to some evildoing. She connects to the local cell phone tower so she can reach out and touch someone: the police. She feigns panic, telling the operator she heard screams coming from Chateau Picard. And when a police officer turns up to investigate, the Borg Queen scoops him up with her evil tentacles of doom. You know, as you do when you are a cyborg queen.
The Queen calls out to Agnes who returns to the La Sirena to discover a police officer being strangled by the Queen. Agnes pulls a rifle and the Queen points out that Agnes can’t kill her because then the crew can’t get home. Long story short: Agnes shoots the Queen anyway to save the police officer. Hang onto that plot thread because we’ll return to it in a moment.
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Remember Assignment: Earth?
At the end of Star Trek: The Original Series‘ second season, the Enterprise travels back in time to the 1960s in an episode called “Assignment: Earth“. There, they encounter a “Supervisor” named Gary Seven, a human man led by an advanced, alien species. Gary’s job on Earth is to avert a nuclear incident which would plunge Earth into darkness and possible human extinction.
Long story short: after fighting each other, Kirk and Spock work with Gary to prevent the tragedy. This episode was meant to be a spin-off for a new series, but it never materialized. In fact, despite their popularity, the “supervisors” haven’t been seen in the official canon of Star Trek since. Until now.
The woman Picard meets is Tallinn, a supervisor in charge of the fate of one woman: Renee Picard. And, yes, she is an ancestor of Jean-Luc’s. Renee is meant to captain the Europa mission, but she’s struggling with anxiety and depression to the point that she is considering dropping out. There’s someone egging Renee on to quit the program: Q pretending to be a therapist.
Picard convinces Tallinn that she must intervene to prevent Q from altering the timeline. At the same time, Q convinces Adam Soong to help him prevent Renee from taking part in the Europa mission. This is what we, in the business, call “conflict”.
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Hey, Hey, The Gang’s All Here
As Picard and Tallinn arrive on La Sirena, Raffi, Rios, and Seven help Agnes get the body of a police officer off the ship. No biggie. But also Jurati says she killed the Borg Queen so now they can’t get home. Oops!
Tallinn explains to the crew that Renee is headed to a gala before entering quarantine for the mission. If Q is going to do something to prevent Renee from heading the Europa mission, it’s going to happen there.
Picard wants to get the crew into the gala so they can protect Renee, but security is ridiculously tight. In other words, someone has to sneak into the security area and upload the crew’s information so everyone can get in. Who will be our secret agent? The soldier? The ranger? Literally anyone competent? Nah, let’s send Agnes, she knows computers, I guess!
And so the episode concludes with Agnes in a beautiful red dress crashing the gala and purposefully getting captured. There’s just one hitch: she didn’t kill the Borg Queen so much as she killed the Borg Queen’s body. Now the Borg Queen is sharing a mind with Agnes and we see the two talking in the security area about how to break free. What could possibly go wrong!
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To Boldly Review
Last week I told you that one of the best things about “Watcher” is how short it is. “Fly Me to the Moon” also greatly benefits from a shorter run-time: less than forty minutes minus the recap and credits. Everything moves fast, but not so fast that you lose track of the moving pieces or miss out on character beats. Star Trek: Discovery writers, please, take note.
Last week, there was a funny reference to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. This time, the reference to Star Trek: The Original Series is much more important to the plot of Star Trek: Picard and more important for long-time Trek fans as well. To say that “Assignment: Earth” is important to old school Trek fans is a massive understatement. Series creator Gene Roddenberry was desperate to make a show from that concept. In 1974, he even co-wrote the TV movie The Questor Tapes which repurposed many of the concepts of “Assignment: Earth”. None of that even touches on the non-canonical books and stories surrounding Gary Seven and the aliens he works for.
In other words, it’s a big deal that Tallinn is a Supervisor. And one of the great things about her story is that it slots perfectly into the this season’s Star Trek: Picard plot while also opening possibilities for the larger universe. Perhaps the Supervisors will turn up on Strange New Worlds, Discovery, or any of the other current and upcoming Trek series. The idea of this concept finally getting its due is nice and seeing Orla Brady back on Star Trek: Picard is gratifying.
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Not The Same Old Soong
It took five episodes for Brent Spiner and Isa Briones to really become part of the plot. Sure, Briones appeared in “Star Gazer” and we saw Spiner’s image in “Penance,” but I was beginning to wonder when, how, and if they would fit into this season. Once again, long-time Trek fans get a reward in the form of another Soong ancestor.
On Star Trek: Enterprise, Arik Soong is the father of the Augments humans which eventually leads to the Eugenics Wars. Adam Soong is sort of a progenitor for all of that. And whereas Arik is more of a hammy villain, Adam feels less evil and more misguided. This story where Q plays against Adam’s desperation to save his daughter’s life grants Spiner the chance for a much more nuanced performance.
I will say that Briones’ new character Kore’s lack of agency is a little frustrating, but this is only her first episode. It’ll be interesting to see what actions she takes in the episodes to come. In the meantime, she and Spiner are playing off each other better than they ever have before. The scene where Kore asks Adam if her mother was a good swimmer and he kind of balks before answering is intriguing.
Obviously Adam is hiding something from his daughter, but what? Regardless, it’s exciting to see them together and a relief that there’s room for them in what is already a pretty packed season.
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Q, Why?
One of the biggest, lingering questions of the season is, “Why is Q altering the timeline?” In “Fly Me to the Moon” he says something to Adam Soong that feels relevant to this question. “We’re all hostages to what we love,” he says. “The only way to truly be free is to love nothing. And how meaningless would that be?”
Is Q doing all of this out of love? If so, for whom? Picard? And none of those questions even touches on why Q can’t seem to use his powers on Renee Picard. Is there something about her or the Picard family entirely that stays his hand? John De Lancie gets to play all the mischievousness of Q, but he’s also playing all these other conflicted emotions. Just like with Spiner, De Lancie is getting some of the most nuanced work of his Star Trek career.
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The Original Star Gazer
The name Renee Picard is full of meaning for fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The first Renee Picard we ever meet is Jean-Luc’s nephew. Just like Jean-Luc, Renee looks up to the stars and dreams of life among them. Renee and his father Robert help heal Jean-Luc in the episode “Family” right after he is assimilated by the Borg. It is Renee who reminds Jean-Luc why he still loves captaining a starship. It is Renee who prevents Jean-Luc from giving up his commission out of grief and trauma.
And then, in Star Trek: Generations, Renee burns to death in a fire before he can ever join Starfleet Academy or fly himself to the moon and the heavens above. Trauma and grief are a part of why Jean-Luc keeps even the people he cares for most at arm’s length. And on this season of Star Trek: Picard we find out there is some trauma we don’t know about yet from his youth.
This week we meet the original Renee Picard. It turns out she is dealing with her own troubles in the form of generalized anxiety and clinical depression. She is afraid of failing the Europa mission and the guilt of something she hasn’t even done hangs on her neck like an albatross. It connects her to Jean-Luc in a powerful way while also dealing with mental illness head on in a way Star Trek has never really done before.
It all just works so beautifully. It’s kind of amazing how much the crammed into such a short episode.
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How Do You Solve A Problem Like Jurati?
Would that I could say that “Fly Me to the Moon” is a 10/10 perfect episode. Alas, there are two issues I had with this episode, and the biggest involves Agnes Jurati and the Borg Queen.
I’ve been trying to articulate what’s been bothering me about this plot thread for the last few recaps, and I think I’ve finally put my finger on it. Last season, Agnes Jurati murders Bruce Maddox in cold blood. She sees a vision of an apocalyptic future, she believes Maddox will cause that future, and so she kills him. It’s a terrible act, but by the end of the season all is forgiven.
At the beginning of Picard season 2, Agnes talks about how the mind meld with Commodore Oh caused temporary insanity, so she’s not to blame for her horrific action. I didn’t like that then, and I hate it even more now because it feels like we’re headed in the exact same direction this season. We’re already being set up to see Agnes as the victim because she doesn’t really have a choice but to allow the Borg Queen into her mind. Agnes Jurati: Our Lady of Perpetual Victimhood. Thanks, I hate it. Had we not just done this last season, it might bother me less. But we did and now here we are again. Second verse same as the first.
I think the witty repartee between Jurati and the Borg Queen will be fun, but the journey that got us here is an agency-free retread.
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Who Designed This Security System?
Listen. I love a side mission, but the security for the Europa gala defies all reason. Why does this event require an invite that has a radio frequency that connects to a database? Why does the interior of the party have cameras with facial recognition to correspond with said database? And why can’t Tallinn’s alien technology or Team Picard’s future gear outsmart anything from the 21st century?
I get it. We’re going to do a heist episode next week. That sounds very fun, but could the set up at least make something approaching sense? And the excuse for why Jurati’s got to be the one to go first? Come on! “I took intro to antique computers in school!” I hope that is a lie because the idea that Jurati actually took that class (let alone that such a class even exists) makes my head spin.
“Fly Me to the Moon” is a great episode except for these two problems, but that makes those problems stick out like the sorest of thumbs. Anyway, rant over. Let’s talk about some nifty keen observations, shall we?
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Stray Observation Deck
This episode was directed by Jonathan Frakes. It’s no surprise we got such riveting performances this episode thanks to arguably the best director working in Star Trek.
Last week we all assumed that Guinan recognizing Picard’s name means she knows him somehow. It’s nice to get a better explanation this week. Guinan just realized that Picard is a future relative of Renee Picard.
There’s a moment where Raffi sees a young man and thinks he is Elnor. I’m not sure if this is meant to be trauma or something else. I’d say it means something larger, but, then again, I kept waiting last season for all of Picard’s dreams to lead somewhere and they never did, so who knows!
Something that almost certainly will lead somewhere is Soong’s technology. The shield he uses to protect Cora looks virtually identical to the shield around the Earth in the fascist future. There is no chance that is a coincidence.
When Picard discusses Renee’s Europa mission he mentions she will discover sentient life on Io. There is no other information about the Europa mission because of how turbulent the 21st century is. Why are these sentient beings? And will this somehow add depth to the formation of the Federation?
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Questions, Queries, Quibbles
In addition to everything we talked about already, obviously the big question for next week relates to Jurati and the Borg Queen. We’ve seen from the trailers that Jurati will be able to run very fast in that red dress. Is the Borg Queen granting her super strength and speed? And how exactly will the Borg Queen take control of Agnes? Because she’s definitely taking control of Agnes, right? It’ll also be interesting to see if Picard meets Soong and how that might play out. What are your predictions for next week’s Star Trek: Picard? Tell us what you think will happen next!
Until then, this is your humble recapper signing off. Computer: end program.
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