IR TV Review: STAR TREK - PICARD - EPISODE 7 (“Dominion”) [Paramount+-S3]

The realization of loss continues to be a prevailing trend across mediums currently in film and tv. The texture of being able to reflect in a way helps to understand an eventual acceptance. Seemingly this was thought to be true in previous seasons of "Star Trek: Picard" but Season 3 seems to take regret to a new level. After the effects of the previous episode in "The Bounty", Episode 7 of Season 3: "Dominion" tries to explain the context with which Captain Vadic (Amanda Plummer) has come to be. Plummer has been an exceptional if unsung powerhouse this season (the irony being that her late father Christopher Plummer also played a Star Trek villain). In this episode however, especially in the closing moments, she takes on an operatic quality from how we understand her. The episode also has some of the main characters reflecting those traits that have set them on this path, whether right or wrong.

There is a fantastic moment with Geordi where you see the implementation of how much Data meant to him and changed who he was inherently. It is heartbreaking but true. The quandary of Jack Crusher still is in flux and to be very honest, the stakes of the end game in Frontier Day seems almost secondary at this point. A piece of all these people are broken and yet they continue hoping something will reconcile itself. It reflects in the fact of that, even if people are doing good, there are always repercussions, however unseen, that might not be as forward thinking or beneficial as expected. "Picard" now is about choice but the stakes have to cut to something much more powerful because until something is truly lost (without possibility of retreival), enlightment might never be gained. B

By Tim Wassberg