The End is the Beginning

This week, I’m writing this review a few days after the release of the episode and it’s allowed me to read some of the drivel from various folks that can’t accept Star Trek changing.

Things like Raffi called Picard “JL” – a continued annoyance by the Federation News Network (because TV has become extinct, despite the fact that Jake reported on the Dominion occupation of DS9 during that series’ sixth season.) But at the end of the day, these things are now part of canon and they just don’t concern me at all.

Oh’s sunglass wearing visit to the Daystrom Institute could be a hint that she’s in fact not a Vulcan (as T’Pol said, they have inner eyelids to protect them…)

It’s great to finally see Hugh, and not just in a token cameo role. Michelle Hurd captured the emotion of Picard’s betrayal of Raffi in her opening episode – and it really just highlights a much larger relationship that we’re yet to see.

We also see, on Rios’ ship that emergency holograms are still in use – with both an EMH and an ENH operating. The ENH himself providing canonical evidence that several of TNG’s big moments are now public knowledge.

A beautiful touch during the fight scene at the Chateau was seeing phasers stashed throughout the living room, allowing the trio to survive the attack from those pesky assailants. But we did get a casual piece of dialogue that helped to explain away the differences between ridged and non ridged Romulans – the ridged are from the north!

And finally, he said the thing! Followed by a beautiful musical cue.