In Review: Star Trek: Picard (S3 – EP7) – Dominion

Synopsis: Crippled, cornered, and out of options, Picard stages a gambit to trap Vadic and reveal her true motive – a gamble that puts the Titan in the crosshairs and forces Picard and Beverly to question every moral code they’ve ever held.

The Story

Picking the story up from last week. The Titan is on the run and running out of places to hide. Captain Riker is a prisoner of Captain Vadic, which leaves Picard and the crew of the titan short-handed. Having run out of friends to contact within the Federation, which includes Tuvock who is revealed to be a changeling imposter. Picard is forced to throw away the proverbial box and risk all by putting The Titan directly in the crosshairs or Vadic. Thus forcing Picard and Beverly to question every moral code they ever held.

Complicating matters further is the fact that Lore manages to take over Titan’s computers at the exact moment that Picard starts to unleash his plan to capture Vadic and her army.

The Acting

We get some cracking performances this week from the entire cast. But some standout moments include Brent Spiner bringing back Lore’s sneering arch mannerisms as he proceeds to take over the ship with a chilling ‘The Enemy of my enemy is my friend’ speech. This leads to some brilliant emotive acting from LeVar Burton as Geordie tries to reach his friend Data who is sharing an android body with Lore.

We also get a great performance from Amanda Plummer as a captured Vadic reveals her backstory to Picard and Beverley while simultaneously taunting them about the true nature of Jack, which is yet to be fully revealed. In short, Vadic was experimented on during the Dominion War by a Starfleet Scientist working at the Daystrom Station. But when Vadic escaped she had changed to a more evolved Changeling who was able to spread among willing members of The Great Link.

Overall

This episode whooshed by and is the shorted episode of the season thus far at just 46 minutes. We got some solid acting performances and some great action beats as well as some decent story progression.