Star Trek: Picard S2, E9 – “Hide and Seek”

“Hide and Seek,” the penultimate episode of Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard, is structured like a video game. The episode resembles an attack mission in a first-person shooter games like Halo. But “Hide and Seek” is filled with several emotional moments that want to convey a deeper meaning. Unfortunately, all of these moments lack real impact.

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2 thoughts on “Star Trek: Picard S2, E9 – “Hide and Seek”

  1. It’s true that Elnor cannot be harmed by bullets. Please recall that Elnor said to Soong’s thugs “Who said I was hiding?”

    Also, Elnor had the mobile emitter because Jurati could not know for sure that Elnor wouldn’t have to step outside the ship momentarily in order to carry on the fight. It didn’t turn out that way, but to be prepared for that possibility makes sense. (It’s certainly better than the Janeway hologram standing at the door of the Protostar telling our heroes that she cannot leave the ship.)

    Speaking of the mobile emitter: I was shocked at your comments about the Doctor’s use of that device. The Doctor gaining the ability to leave sickbay was a great thing for the show; this helped make Voyager my favourite of all the Star Trek series (even though I know that The Next Generation was of overall higher quality). Robert Picardo is the best actor in what was the strongest cast that any Trek series has ever had.

    In universe, it was firmly established that the Doctor had achieved full sentience. In other words: he is a real person. This is not up for interpretation; it is a canon fact. Many times it was mentioned that whether a person is made of flesh and blood or of photons and force fields makes no difference. This kind of inclusion is well in keeping with Federation principles, and is analogous to the affirmation of Data’s personhood in “The Measure of a Man”. (And it underscores the offensiveness of the synth ban that has now been justly overturned.)

    Returning to Picard, dialogue in this episode established that the Confederation-timeline version of La Sirena scans everyone who boards the ship. Let us also realise that a copy of all of a person’s brain neurons would necessarily contain a copy of that person’s thoughts; so it follows that the hologram of Elnor knows what Elnor was thinking. Whether ships in our normal timeline have this thorough scanning functionality is not clear (though they probably should have it); but clearly this is something that is done in the Confederation timeline. I am perfectly fine with this plot point.

    That doesn’t mean that I cannot find nitpicks with the episode. I think you mentioned that the soldiers unnecessarily delayed shooting Picard, for just enough time for Rios to beam in and save the day. That was not handled smoothly. Also, when Picard saw the La Sirena flying away, he had no reaction, when he should have expressed alarm at losing the ship that represented their only way back home. (At that point he did not know about the deal that Raffi and Seven had struck with Borg-ati.) And it doesn’t make sense for Seven’s Borg implants to reappear in their original locations; she should have had Borg components at the site of her wound, in her stomach. That would have made for an interesting twist: Seven would have Borg parts again, but those Borg parts wouldn’t be visible to anyone apart from someone with whom she chooses to get intimate.

    Finally, there was some sloppy script editing. Seven’s use of the phrase “a fifty-yard sprint” was a mistake; someone from her time period would say “a fifty-metre sprint”, and would be only vaguely aware of the old pre-metric units. (Yes, I know that they frequently said “miles” in the original series. That, too, is a mistake.) And Picard should have said “my mother hanged (not ‘hung’) herself”. A painting is hung; a person is hanged.

    Despite these quibbles, I am fully invested in this show. The first season was excellent, and this season has exceeded even that high bar. I am sad to see the season end. And I wish that the people running Star Trek had not overlapped the ending of Picard’s season with the series premiere of Strange New Worlds, an act which will only have the effect of overshadowing the resolution of what has been a epic season.

    1. Ferdinand,

      I contend that if the writers of Voyager had taken all of the screen time devoted to the holographic Doctor and had divided it between episodes devoted to Chakotay and Tuvok,, Voyager would have been a far better show than it was. The EMH is a tool, not a sentient being. The episodes written about it were an abboration because Brandon Braga couldn’t think of anything more interesting than to repeat old Data stories.

      As for this season of Picard, you obviously see something I don’t. I think this season is worse than the first one. It’s been handled poorly. There was a story there. Unfortunately, they did everything they could to muddle it up.

      Gary

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