Seven of Nine kicks some ass this week and Picard goes full faux French. "Stardust City Rag" Another episode directed by Jonathan Frakes (after last week snuck under my radar). Unfortunately, you can't really tell, which is maybe the point in television. But he always gets the good episodes and he always does a great job. You can tell the cast feels comfortable having fun under his direction. This week is a Seven of Nine episode, as if she didn't get enough of them during her four-year stint on Voyager. The model Jeri Ryan was originally brought in to be eye-candy and wear a catsuit and act like a combination of fan-favorites Spock and Data with Borg appendages. Needless to say it worked in spite of itself, as the writers channeled all their efforts into her character development and it turned out she could act. She still can. Years have past since Voyager returned to Earth, and she's become something of a space-Batman, fighting crime in the lawless former Neutral Zone with a rag tag team of vigilante Rangers (not to be confused with the Power Rangers). She's grown her hair out and upgraded the catsuit to a leather jacket, but even as she's evolved a much more naturalistic affectation, you can still sense the layers of stiffness beneath the surface. Everyone likes a good caper episode. The crew have to play dress-up to infiltrate a criminal Casino Royale on Freecloud. We're talking eye patches, feathered caps and lizard mobsters, here. They have to make a deal to rescue Bruce Maddox. Remember him? He's the roboticist from TNG episode "Measure of a Man" (so many callbacks and returning actors!) who didn't think Data was a sentient person. He lost that "trial" but apparently went on to be integral in building Data's daughters (at least... I think that's the connection). Anyway, we've been hearing all about him and everyone is looking for him and he's finally here just long enough to be incapacitated. We learn Dr. Agnes Jurati had a romantic relationship with him, which makes sense (they're both robot nerds) and which also makes the ending all the more tragic. Spoilers: She kills him, and it's so perfectly executed. The clues were there for weeks, something was off about her arrival on this mission. But she wasn't a spy or a shapeshifter. She learned something, something that caused her to kill her lover. What could it be?! Conclusion: Another tight entry, possibly a series high, so far, with a clear and self-contained caper. Insular enough to feel satisfying, while still contributing to the larger season narrative. I criticized the earlier decompression, but this is exactly the pacing and the structure I'm looking for. More, please. Great hijinks and humor out of Elnor and Rios. Good drama out of Jurati and Seven of Nine and Picard. I could've skipped the Raffi family reunion, though. I get it, her obsession with the Mars Truther movement distracted her from raising her family and she hit bottom and became a junky. Sure it explains why she aimed a gun at Picard when he first recruited her, but otherwise it was too heavy-handed. Everything else: good old fashioned Trek.
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