Vup To Something: Actor Dominic Burgess

PLEASE NOTE THIS INTERVIEW WAS CONDUCTED BEFORE THE CURRENT ACTORS STRIKE IN THE US

How many people can say that they have appeared in both Doctor Who and Star Trek?

You might jump immediately to mention Simon Pegg however there’s another name you should consider - Dominic Burgess.

Zapped by the Ann Droid during the first season of the Russell T Davies BBC reboot in 2005, Burgess would also add appearances in Batman Begins, The Flash and Agents of Shield to encompass the DC and Marvel universes plus a ton of others and more to come!

Hailing from my own neck of the woods in Stoke on Trent, Dominic would attend secondary school and go on to theatrical school before branching into TV and movies. Indeed, our conversations revealed a similar trend in TV viewing - Thunderbirds, Terrahawks, Knight Rider,  Lost in Space and The X-Files to name but a few. We may have diverted into memories of collecting VHS releases for the latter and THAT cliffhanger with Mulder in the buried box car. 

How about telling the Head of the National Theatre that your favourite media experience of the year had been Fellowship of the Ring and not Hamlet? He's even done that so yes, there was a lot of nerdy digression but let's stay on track here and now!

As a fan of Star Trek, nabbing a role in the franchise was always going to be on the bucket list and that’s exactly what came up for Picard’s first season episode Stardust City Rag. 

Born in Stoke, Dominic was brought up in Weston Coyney, schooling in Catterswall and Newcastle Under Lyme and having a summer job at nearby Alton Towers. Burgess remembers "...frequenting the haunts of Festival Park and Waterworld," as well as the Odeon Cinema where he saw First Contact.

Following that he chose to head off to Drama School; "there was no option to do GCSE drama or A-level drama. It was all very academically driven and I remember the career guidance counsellor pushing back saying I should do English with Drama...I was very adamant I would take a gap year, travel to the United States and work there at a summer camp and see the country."

"I'm very lucky to now be doing what I love," continued Dominic who is now working not only acting but writing screenplays and exploring the world of directing. "I had the best time at drama school and the way that mine operated was that the arts should sustain you and you should be working in a black box theatre on the Shetland Isles for £5 a night...and that wasn't my mentality. Los Angeles worked better for me than London because it was a business and network TV back then was eight day prep, eight day shoot, eight day post and a machine that you could quantifiably see a career. You could move from co-stars to guest stars and recurring guest stars and your career can get more elastic from there."

"Star Trek and Dr Who have parallels in how I went about getting them. I graduated from ALRA in 2004 and about that time they announced Dr Who would be coming back with Christopher Eccleston and I had grown up with the show. I tracked down the casting director, sent handwritten letters and that I would love the opportunity to audition. Andy Pryor the casting director brought me in for a couple of lines but that was enough to feed my soul!"

His memory of Eccleston is the complete opposite of how the actor was made out to be by the press at the time as he had stated that he would not be returning for a second series. "He was the first person I met when I got to basecamp. He was lovely and upbeat and ebullient. It was my only interaction with him but it was a delight."

However, his first job was actually in Batman Begins which he took a group of friends to see at the Odeon in Stoke, "only to find out Dominic was never in Batman." he recalled as the scene was cut from the final version however his name still remains in the credits!

Both these credits helped the actor to get his 01 visa to work in the US.  A visa that would lead to appearances in series such as The Thundermans, ANT Farm and also the recent Netflix drama, Dahmer.

Viewers may not know this but Burgess actually played the role of serial killer John Wayne Gacy. "I love working with accents and physicality. I watched a lot of video footage of the way he talked and moved. The way he processed information was so odd that right up until the end he denied any involvement in the murders and tried to pass them off on other people."

Not a subscriber to method acting, Burgess found it easy to separate himself from the part; "That first scene involved fight choreography and then next you cut to see Gacy holding a man's head in the bath...I was more concerned about safety and that I had it all down. There are other things which go through your mind while you're doing it so I can switch off."

But let's move forward once more to Star Trek. A self-confessed fan, Dominic's first introduction to he franchise was the films; "The Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home. Then I remember school finishing quite late at about 4pm and the bus would take me 50 minutes to get back home. It was always a conscious effort to try and get back before The Next Generation started on BBC2 or Sky One. 

"I missed out on Deep Space Nine and whenever that was airing there was always a football match. When Voyager aired it was the first series I watched from pilot to finale and so it it always special to me and I got the whole Trek journey."

Dominic, like many Trek fans collected the Voyager VHS tapes and the films up to First Contact.  It then expanded into model kits of Enterprise, Voyager and the Klingon Bird of Prey "...which are still probably at home in Stoke-on-Trent. One of them might even be in the window!"

Even at home in Los Angeles he's not without the DVD sets of DS9 and Voyager and a model of Janeway's Intrepid Class starship in there to boot.

With Voyager as his favourite series, it must have been a lifelong dream come true to work with Jeri Ryan? Actually, I might have suggested it was like Christmas.

"It was kept top secret and they had accidentally sent me the script to the episode to mine and with the cliffhanger I was thinking 'Where am I?'

"It's still one of my career highlights just to be in that show and to have a scene with Patrick Stewart and Jeri Ryan and to be directed by Jonathan Frakes was incredible. I went up to Santa Clarita to get fitted for the prosthetics and wardrobe and the team asked if I'd like to meet Jonathan Frakes as he was just in the dining hall.

"Just in the middle of the canteen he stood up as I walked in, threw his arms out and said 'There he is, there's Mr Vup! Welcome to the family!'

"There was no feeling of those are the main people over there and I need to sit in the corner and not get in the way. It was so wonderful and so warm. Just a treat from beginning to end. The whole thing is something I will always, always cherish."

In regards to the prosthetics, Dominic thought it wasn't too bad; "I worked on a show called The Magicians and they took about five hours for that but the Star Trek one was about an hour and a half. It was designed by Neville Page and it was effectively a foam cowl over your head with your face visible. Then there' a single piece they put on for that. The hands were effectively gloves. They took moulds of my hands for those so it was overall a very quick process. Probably the quickest prosthetics I've ever been in."

In a similar fashion to his interest in appearing in Dr Who, Dominic contacted his agent to start the ball rolling the second he heard Patrick Stewart announce that Picard was returning. "I found out it was through a casting agent called Liz Dean with UDK and luckily they knew my work already from Feud."

The actor wrote her a handwritten card recalling his weekly rush home to watch TNG and how much it would mean to get on Picard which was not something that was the done thing. "Normally you're told don't send cards saying you would love to be on a show, you have to be specific on a role. On this occasion I just said I'll be a sliding door, I'll be whatever you want me to be!"

But it worked because Dominic was asked in for auditions; "Again I had an existential crisis because there was such limited information on the character, not even saying what species I was."

It was only when he walked into the audition room that it was revealed he would be playing a new alien species, a 600 pound, rock solid individual. "I'd got to  point where I could go to auditions, do them, get past them and go and do something else for the rest of the day but with Star Trek I just wanted it so much that in the audition room I could feel the pressure. I kept falling over the technobabble and tripped over it four or five times. Liz asked if I needed to step outside because she could see I wanted it so much. Bless her, she took a shot and wrote the technobabble down for me behind the camera.

"I left kicking myself and thinking I blew it but then I got the call saying that I had it and I'm pretty sure there were happy tears. When I met Jonathan Frakes I'm sure that Liz had told him I was a fan!"

The scenes for Stardust City Rag, were filmed at a nightclub in Universal City. "In between takes Patrick and Jonathan would sit down and talk about old times. Everyone was included.  talked to Patrick and when I said I was from Stoke on Trent he remembered playing at the Victoria Theatre."

One of Dominic's best experiences was getting to sit in video village which is where all the monitors are set up for directors, producers and writers to be able to see what's being filmed. This gave him the chance to see how Jonathan Frakes worked ("If you're not sure what to do, my advice is low and wide!")

"I did the voice as I did on set with prosthetic teeth which helped lower the voice. Four or five months after I went back to loop and do all the lines all over again at different octaves to try and overlay it to try and show that I had several vocal folds. For a time there was a thought about doing this fun layering of his vocals.

"In the cowl there wasn't much room to move my neck so you have to move very purposefully and you have to really move it so that it reads through the prosthetics. I really enjoy that and find the physicalities in the role."

No longer a time for physical scripts, Dominic does regret one thing; "When I went in for the makeup test I was given a set of teeth to practice with and when I went back I returned them. I wish I'd kept them when they gave me the set I used onscreen."

As for the future, Dominic has some TOP SECRET projects coming up so watch out for those and if they're ever remaking Battlestar Galactica he's definitely available.

Reviewing where he was in 2003, Dominic certainly sees a big change in his answer; "Back then I would have given a flowery answer in terms of something that is fun and creative but now having had the experiences of The X-Files and Star Trek that's where I want to be."

While fans might hope Mr Vup's exit from the episode wasn't quite so final, one might hope the Beta Anorian has a brother but that might not be the case. So, what about if Jonathan Frakes called him tomorrow and gave him the option of coming back for more Star Trek? Any series, any character?

"I would love to do Legacy because that's where my heart is as a fan. I love Strange New Worlds and I think that there are a couple of writer from The Magicians who have gone over there. I would actually love to do a Star Trek show where I'm not in prosthetics. You get there early to get made up so I never met Patrick Stewart or Jeri Ryan as me. Jonathan Frakes didn't see me out of prosthetics until three weeks after shooting and he'd forgotten what I looked like!"

"Your call time can be 3am so you can start shooting at 9am. There are always bits falling off and you need touching up so you don't necessarily get a chance to interact in a "normal" way. If Rainn Wilson doesn't want to play Harry Mudd again in Strange New Worlds, I'd be there!"

USS Zheng He: Picard Starships Collection

The arrival of Starfleet in Picard's season one finale could have been incredible.

To a degree it was but perhaps not with the variety fans might have wanted to see. All that appeared on screen were two slight variants of a single design as Captain Will Riker swooped in to save the day.

The Inquiry Class USS Zheng He is allegedly Starfleet's most advanced ship at the end of the 24th Century and it takes its place as the second issue of the Picard starships collection. Issue one was the "regular" sized La Sirena but we've already covered that as part of the XLs where it has much more going for it.

Remember the days when starships were simple shapes and there was clear definition between the hulls? Yep? Well, that went out of the window a long time ago and now the Zheng He follows the more compact design process introduced in the run up to First Contact 25 years ago. 

Boxed up in the new black and silver packaging for the series, the starship is...ok. It's not a hugely inspiring design nor is it a departure from the familiar with the distinguishable saucer, engineering and engines assembly. The forward landing bay does make it look as though the ship has a bottom lip stuck out in a sulk but it makes sense to have a "fly through" design by this point. Also you can see in the "shoulders" either side of the primary hull a design lineage right back to the NX-01.

But what HeroCollector do convey in this one is just how basic the design is and how functional it needed to be for the appearance in Picard's finale. The model truly is skin and bones minimum and actually I really like that the model duplicates the "rushed" finish to the show that was needed - although there are a few videos out there that suggest it could have been done otherwise.

The mottled grey paint gives it a more realistic feel than a flat solid colour and takes away that plasticky feel that some of the models from this production house can give off from time to time. Note too how simplistic the panelling is. If it wasn't super necessary it didn't get done it appears although they did manage to put some windows in to add an element of life to the final creation.

Lifeboat hatches are embossed into the metal upper hull while the wise choice to paint the windows on has been taken and makes the effect work rather than having their outlines sunk into the surface. The shape of the Zheng He as it dives back towards the secondary hull is very reminiscent of the shape of Voyager as it sloped towards the rear shuttle bay. The curves follow a similar line and rise up towards the spine of the Inquiry Class ship with the same curve.

The panelling detail on the Zheng He is nice. There is definition and easily identifiable sections that look different to the main, flat hull surface. The warp engines themselves are another matter. The pylons are not the most durable and do bend easily while disappointingly  the bussard collectors are painted on and the warp grilles are grey/blue and lifeless. Perhaps this is the model's greatest weakness because it loses some of its onscreen magic without those translucent elements. In fact, on another look just now I've noticed even the bridge dome is unpainted. I was also the unlucky one to end up with two warp engines that were out of sync when viewed from the front with one pointing above the primary hull and the other below.

On the underneath, the Inquiry Class looks like a wider Voyager. The design remains simplistic and HeroCollector have done what they can with the material provided. The ship's problem isn't in the replication from the series to plastic and metal more in the fundementals of the shape. The forward deflector makes it look like a wide-mouthed frog and frankly fairly hideous - but once more it's not the company making the model that's to blame for that.

As it goes it's faithful to the screen but the lack of life in the warp engines and also in the impulse units at the rear of the primary hull take something away from the already very average result. This should have been an exciting issue release and the first of a few from that climactic battle sequence in Picard but instead the Zheng He feels like a bit of an apology in a box. There is also another variant out there for series subscribers - the USS Toussaint - which has slightly longer nacelles and a different colour scheme but not much else different. 

The magazine covers that variant in a sentence plus discusses the process of designing the most advanced ship in the fleet. There's the usual assortment of sketches, CG and views from John Eaves' work on the Inquiry Class but very little on the craft in universe. Maybe we'll see  more in the future and get some better information.

For now though, HeroCollector have produced a decent ship but it's one of the ultimate Marmite Starfleet ships. It's appearance in Picard was certainly a talking point but for the wrong reasons. Perhaps in that sense it's worth collecting up a piece of Star Trek history that might not see the screen again...?

Check out all our Starships posts HERE

You can find out more on the Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection by visiting the Hero Collector website HERE

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Guest Starring: Reflections on Picard

Like so many fans, I came to Star Trek as a child in the mid-90s. Unbeknownst to me, the franchise was in the middle of a renaissance with overlapping series and movies being released at the same time. It truly was the best of times. Trek fans were spoiled, and we didn’t even know it.

At the heart of this new resurgence, of course, lay Gene Roddenberry and his philosophy. After his death in 1991, the onus fell upon Rick Berman who tried his best to create television that Gene would have approved of. It was an approach that Berman himself has, at times, been critical of. Should he have permitted more serialised storytelling on The Next Generation and Voyager? Would darker themes have yielded higher ratings and therefore greater commercial success? Time certainly has been good to Deep Space Nine – once the ugly duckling of the franchise it is now experiencing a long overdue critical re-appraisal.

So, when Star Trek returned to television after more than a decade away, it was clear that many of the tropes of contemporary storytelling would be employed to bring the ageing franchise into the 21st century. The result was 2017’s Star Trek: Discovery.

I’ll admit it – I’ve never warmed to Discovery. It's certainly not for lack of trying (having watched every episode of the two seasons presently available). Sure, I could point to the unlikeable characters or the dour wartime storyline, but the cause of my discomfort lies deeper – it doesn’t feel like Star Trek.

When it was announced that Patrick Stewart would be returning to his iconic role as Jean-Luc Picard, I was elated. Not only was I excited to see one of the most beloved characters in all of science fiction return, but it symbolised a return to the 24th century (the first since 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis) and a re-engagement with established canon. As the first season of Star Trek: Picard unfolded, I began to sense a growing unease – not only in myself – but in certain segments of the fandom as well. This wasn’t the show we had hoped for, and it sure as hell didn’t feel like Star Trek. 

What follows is my personal laundry list of why Star Trek: Picard fell short of my expectations:

Patrick Stewart himself:

Patrick Stewart’s very name is synonymous with thespian excellence. His rich timbre and dedication to his craft have allowed him to create some unforgettable characters both on stage and screen. I’m saddened to say that I was less than impressed with his performance in Star Trek: Picard. His voice – one of his more formidable acting tools – is shot. No one is immune to the passage of time, and, without wanting to appear ageist, I believe he has simply aged out of the role.

Gore:

Episode five featured the now infamous eye gauging scene – it was the one and only time I have turned my head away from the screen during an episode of Star Trek. It wasn’t just the scene itself that I found distressing, rather the context. The audience watches as a familiar character has his eyeball forcibly extracted as he is restrained on a bloody bed, screaming in agony.

Some in the online fanbase were quick to respond: “Star Trek has always been violent; they were just hindered by network TV censorship standards”. Others cited Harry Kim’s spaghetti-like wound in Scorpion, Part I as precedent, or, better yet, Remmick’s exploding head from Conspiracy. It’s true, Picard is not beholden to the censorship standards of the 90s, but just because they can show gory content, it does not mean they should. 

At this point, I feel the need to qualify my critique by identifying myself as an ardent horror fan. I’m not “against” gore on television, but that kind of imagery is not what I want from Star Trek. 

Swearing & Contemporary dialogue:

Many reviewers have taken umbrage with some of the language used in the show (one foul mouthed Admiral in particular). I personally didn’t care for it, mainly because I feel it was it was used clumsily. Swearing for swearing’s sake. 

It reminded me of the scene between Kirk and Spock on the bus in Star Trek IV. Spock notices that contemporary speech is peppered with profanity. Kirk waves it away as a vernacular artefact of centuries past. In the Star Trek universe, this is the way humans on earth used to speak to each other. Swearing in dialogue and the use of contemporary phrases (like “dude” and “hell yeah”) shatters the illusion that we are in a future time. Which brings me to…

It breaks the reality of Star Trek:

What happened to the post scarcity utopia of the 24th century? It appears to have been supplanted by a much more cynical and nihilistic zeitgeist, almost completely embodied in the character of Raffi. Her entire motivation is driven by the trauma of her losing her “job” and her slow descent into poverty. She even compares her home to Picard’s – making reference to his “heirloom” furniture. The ugly image of a drug addicted black woman living in a trailer seems especially miscalculated given the current wave of social change that minorities around the world are attempting to initiate.

It’s depressing as hell:

Who would have thought that Seven of Nine, upon her return to the alpha quadrant, would  become a cynical, hard drinking murderer? Or that poor, gentle Icheb would be so brutally butchered that he would beg for euthanasia? The world of Star Trek: Picard is a frightening place populated by damaged characters. As the credits rolled on each episode, I was filled with a sinking feeling, disturbed by images of murder, poisonings, suicide, panic attacks, insanity and vivisections.

On social media, many of my criticisms of the show were shouted down or dismissed derisively as “you just want old Star Trek” and “OK Boomer”. Fair enough. The show is different, radically so in places. I accept that. I often try to remember what a shock it must have been like for viewers in 1987 tuning in to see Encounter at Farpoint for the first time. But this iteration of Trek doesn’t feel right.

So, what does Star Trek feel like to me?

It feels like a slice of media that challenges me with bold science fiction ideas. It feels intellectual, and at times, a little high minded. But mostly, it makes me think about the future – a time when all of the resources our planet currently devotes to war and interpersonal division will be funnelled into the exploration of space.

At least, that’s what Star Trek means to me. Here’s hoping season two can offer a less depressing vision of the 24th century.

Thanks to James Patrik for his article taking a look back at the first season of Picard.

Breaking Borg, Part III

The last time we saw the Borg, they were seemingly vanquished. The Queen has been corrupted and the virus implanted by Admiral Janeway had apparently sealed the fate of the Collective, infecting the core to destroy the body.

But is that where it all stopped? The Borg we’re back to their malevolent best - possibly their most dangerous form since Picard drew a line and allowed them to go no further. 

Picking up 18 years after the events of Nemesis, 2020’s Picard brought the Borg out of semi-retirement but this was a very unusual Collective and focused purely on one, lonely disconnected Cube.

A cube that had been severed from the Hive mind and subsequently held by the Romulans as a reclamation centre, repatriating drones (XB’s) from the horrors of the Collective. 

Led by director Hugh, the facility seeks to restore something to the lives of these apparently broken individuals and Picard shows us, within the events of The Impossible Box that these drones are struggling to regain themselves after a life of enforced servitude.

Del Arco's take on this version of Hugh is a lot lighter and more sensitive than I would have imagined. He is a shining example of someone who has truly regained his individuality and has sought to better others lives. I'm not in the least shocked by his extreme reaction to the execution of the other XBs by Narissa but Hugh is now the exception to the rule. While I, Borg may not have initially seemed a good idea, here we have the expansion of Picard's decision in the right way that Descent, Part II didn't quite muster. Here Hugh has a strong purpose, he leads and sees the positives everywhere while Picard and Seven actually have a leaning towards the darker events of the galaxy. 

Notably Picard chooses in no way to ‘cuddle’ the Borg and give them a humanising slant that we have witnessed before and has been done with every major alien race in Star Trek. In this series we are exposed psychologically and physically to the terrors of assimilation and years of torment associated with being part of the Borg Collective. 

The Impossible Box in fact takes us back to Wolf 359 and, as noted in the review of that episode, Star Trek actually addresses PTSD. Jean-Luc is visually shaken by his first trip back to a Borg cube since he was partially assimilated into the Collective and for a few moments we see him revisiting that traumatic time. It’s not something that dominates the series but it is addressed and dealt with alongside the correct material. Family dig into the immediate aftermath and here we have the long term effects and we have Jean-Luc interacting with the two people who can understand his pain the most; Hugh and Seven. 

Picard does nod to First Contact but it’s real focus is The Best of Both Worlds as well it should be. That was the keystone of his experiences with the Borg and the series hits the damage caused by their incursion head on.

Picard does nothing to make the Borg seem less than menacing. Seven’s own past with the Borg is resurrected with the savage murder of Icheb for the acquisition of Borg technology pushing the visual envelope of the franchise that bit further than ever before. This also reflects the severe hatred for the Borg - there’s no grace in removing the implants for profit and they are only seen as a resource nothing more even in XB’s.

The future of the Star Trek universe isn't quite the utopia we have seen before by the time we get to Picard. A lot's changed with contempt for the former Borg drones just being one tip on the iceberg. The Borg threat itself may not be as present as it was thanks to the intervention of Admiral Janeway but the fear of assimilation is still there.

When Seven reconnects with the limited-scale Collective in order to defeat the Romulans, one of her first actions is to reactivate the dormant drones and reconnect them to a smaller hive mind controlled by her. It's a dangerous narcotic for the former Borg with a demonstration that the Collective is a brutal force even in reduced numbers.

Ultimately these XB's - or whatever is left of them by the end of the series have chosen to stay away from returning to the unified consciousness. Perhaps the most telling moment of the season is the conversation between Seven and Picard as she leaves the La Sirena which delivers the blow that neither has ever truly been the same since their time with the Collective even though its two decades in the past. There's always going to be a part of each of them which will be associated to that period.

What Picard chooses NOT to do is answer what has happened to the Borg in the years since Endgame. The acquisition of the Artifact indicates that the Borg have been active since Voyager ended but it does nothing to indicate what damage was done to the Collective or how it survived or rebuilt itself following Admiral Janeway's attack. 

We don't even know if this was a lone cube which assimilated the only Romulans to ever to part of the Borg or if there was a fleet - it's all kept very vague and in some respects this goes right back to the more ambiguous roots that we discussed in Part I. 

Picard has taken just one element of the Borg and focused on it, choosing to dig into the torments and terror that comes from life after being separated from the hive mind and leaving us to imagine what has occurred elsewhere.

The cube is still terrifying and the fact that they have been collecting new drones nods to the fact that the Collective are back to their singular, emotionless focus to become better and strike down everything in their path. The Borg are, it seems, very much still out there....so maybe this isn't the last time we'll be seeing them in the franchise.

As we've seen in this three part overview, the Borg have certainly had their fair share of change - they have been adapted to the show and each of the times they have been utilised either on the big or small screen. Picard has returned the mysticism to the Collective while at the same time bringing the horrors of their actions back to the fore and away from the occasional sensitive mush that Voyager meandered into during its sixth season. 

Even if you don't agree with moving corridor walls and a slightly different aesthetic to the Borg (not the first time), you can't help but feel that Michael Chabon and his Picard team have really gone back to the roots of the Borg and what made them interesting. I was originally intending to deal with Seven in here but now I think she's worth her own future supplement - and that's on the way.

You can read the rest of Breaking Borg here

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Picard: Et in Arcadia Ego, Parts I and II

Making it to the synth homeworld, it seems that the mission will end in failure in sight of the end goal.

That is until the reactivated Borg cube arrives to save the La Sirena from Narek’s attacks.

Et in Arcadia Ego raises the stakes, places Picard firmly planetside and reveals more about the synthetic colony established in secret. 

The trip to the Borg cube to see if Elnor and Hugh survived does allow us to see the swordsman and Seven partnered up to save the remaining XB’s and provides Jean-Luc with a chance to say goodbye to the nearest approximation to a son that he’s had since the death of Data in Nemesis. 

It’s never felt as though this relationship ever really formed nor did we ever get to see Elnor truly at Picard’s side as his bodyguard. Most of his time has been spent on the Artifact away from La Sirena and even then Elnor has never truly evolved as a character and his presence has been sidelined in the few episodes in which he has appeared.

The bulk of the episode rightly focuses on the arrival of Soji back at the synth community. With the added element of trekking across to the crashed cube, I was almost exhausted and frustrated when we finally arrived because the episode felt like we were delaying the inevitable. I understand we needed to know what happened to anyone aboard the Artifact but it did slow the pacing of the episode down.

The biggest reveal of episode nine is the return of Brent Spiner. Not as Data, Lore or B4 but as Noonien Soong’s son (retcon!), Altan Inigo (A.I.). This guy is all for the synthetics of course, being the man responsible for the look of the android bodies while Maddox focused on the minds. Soong is creating a golem in which to place a human consciousness - nothing much revealed about it in this episode but you do sense that its something we need fo pay attention to for episode ten. 

So let's discuss these androids. My god, they seem to have developed a fashion sense off the back of The Original Series with lots of free-flowing fabric but what is quite unsettling and I would think intentionally so, is the choice to have them all gold skinned with distinct yellow eyes a la Data. Their skin tone is much more pronounced and makes them an eerie set of creations. The sister of Janna (whom Rios encountered on the USS ibn Majid is still there, looking like a much more artificial version of Soji.

But these synths have a bigger plan to contact an ancient cybernetic race and bring an end to the rule of the organics. Et in Arcadia Ego does plant a lot of set up in it's first part from the golem to the plight of the synths from the approaching 250 strong Romulan fleet. To be fair by the end of the first part you're not really sure who you should be rooting for - is it the synths who are threatened with extinction or should you be with the Romulans who, for all intents and purposes, are just looking to secure the future of organic life in the universe?

The belief that Jurati and Soji are both swift to change allegiances does to push your ability to believe a little although given their recent past it does seem understandable but the synths do have a tendancy to seem, with the possible exception of Soji-twin Sutra, to be wishy-washy at best with no real oomph behind them apart from the beliefs and drive of Altan Soong and to a minor extent, Jurati. 

The other problem is that the synths of Coppelius don't really play a huge part in the conclusion, Aside from a few reactive shots, most of the action around their enclosure in Part II focuses on Soji activating the beacon which will draw an ancient race to their location. It's not quite on a par with Veridian IV from Generations where we never even saw a native but they do get ridiculously sidelined especially Sutra who is responsible for Narek's escape from confinement. 

But that's not the heart of the conclusion to the season and actually, if I'm brutally honest here, the lack of golden androids doesn't take away from what I might controversially call the greatest episode of Star Trek for about 20 years.

This episode is full of emotional highs and lows, a true cliched roller-coaster of an episode that brings the Romulan navy and Starfleet face to face once more although a firefight (for the second time in the episode) is avoided.

Picard's neurological condition has played a big part since his departure from Earth and here it really comes to the fore leading to an unexpected moment of drama to which you know there has to be a get out clause. Perhaps this is actually the issue with Et in Arcadia Ergo, because for the first 30 minutes of the story there's a lot going on at breakneck speed. Narek teams up with the La Sirena crew, Seven takes on the Zhat Vash skills of Narissa (although she seems to give less of a fight than she did with Elnor disappointingly) and Picard is freed by Jurati with the pair of them flying Rios' ship against the Romulan warbirds.

It's a lot to take in but that piece of the season does end satisfyingly not without the help of an acting, familiar, starship captain and his own fleet of Arbiter Class vessels. While it's not clear if Acting Captain Riker (on a redress of the Discovery bridge) is in command of this fleet, it did raise a few questions for me - how come there's suddenly a huge and super-advanced Starfleet when it's been suggested that all is not well after the Mars attacks and surely they would have managed more than one design? This does feel a bit lazy from the designers but at least we've had one new starship design this season huh?!

However it's the latter half of the episode that really kicks and potentially lifts it from an average run of the mill finale packed with phaser battles and frantic pacing because it comes down to two core characters and a goodbye that wasn't completed.

My next couple of sentences are huge spoilers but there's no way to review this without doing so. There's the warning now...

Killing Jean-Luc Picard felt inevitable from the moment we heard he was developing a terminal condition although I was counting on it being something that would be stretched across a season or two with that being the ultimate endgame. I wasn't right and I should have taken the golem much more strongly into consideration for the admiral.

Being mentally scanned and saved, Picard gets to meet Data once more in a quantum simulation. This is the neuron that Maddox took from B-4 and from which he in turn spawned Dahj and Soji to uncover the real story behind the ban on synthetic life.

In what has to be one of the most moving and well written pieces of this new Star Trek era, Picard and Data have closure, a time to say goodbye and lay everything to rest. Indeed, Picard admits that he has been unable to get over that very event since the day it happened and now Data can also have his peace requesting that his consciousness be terminated. 

Flicking back to the dream sequence of Data and Picard in the vineyard, we realise that we have come full circle and it might be that the father/son tale here has been the stronger thread running along all the time. We successfully avoid Data coming back to life while also simultaneously celebrating the rebirth of Picard who keeps his promise to a very old friend.

The punch of this second half hour is incredible. Just to see "proper" Data and Picard in conversation once more is seriously emotional because there is such a strong whiff of finality. Capping it off wth Isa Briones' version of Blue Skies truly brings us back to Remembrance and to see Data pass visually of old age is a nod to his desire to become human. While Nemesis ended the story, Et in Arcadio Ego has provided a coda to the narrative and feels more satisfyingly conclusive than the last The Next Generation movie.  Picard's demons too and his health problems are now cast aside by the end of the episode as the crew come together to head out and explore the galaxy; 20 years of regret are done with.

Et in Arcadia Ego does a great job to tie up the season and makes the decent choice not to cliffhanger us over into season two unlike it's contemporary, Discovery. 

How Commodore/General Oh managing to escape scott free didn't sit too well with me - she must know a vast amount of Starfleet secrets and seems to have been able to just walk ut and also return to the Empire following her defeat over Coppelius. We also didn't really have a firm conclusion on what became of Narek and it's certainly annoying not to have a full conclusion but I suspect they might just pop up again in the future seasons of Picard. 

With all the doom, gloom and roundabouts of emotion powering through the second part, to have some closure and optimism for the future and for all the characters aboard La Sirena, it feels that Picard has come a long way since its more grey beginnings and less than positive outlook.

You can follow all our Picard season one reviews here

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Thanks to Chris Groves for assistance with screencaps