If his name isn’t Narek by his own admission, it must be Evil Spock. After last week’s piece of terrible Star Trek, which I’m still reserved to even call it that, “The Impossible Box” has editor Nick Zayas helming the story that actually gets us into the more interesting parts of that mystery box of a woman. With Frakes leaving the directorial chair (we’ll see him again) for the season, I once again get to talk about the direction from Maja Vrvilo. Probably best known for “Hegemony” and “Children of the Commet,” but also S.W.A.T. and The Wheel of Time.

“The Impossible Box” is all I wanted from Picard for four episodes now; something simple and direct but also plays off of the character we know. The summary of the episode could be done in a sentence or two. With Jean-Luc finally about to step aboard “The Artifact” (Borg Cube), Soji and Evil Spock make some progress towards the inevitable outcome of him finding the information he wanted and she activates. All the while, Picard has to come to terms with the reality that he will step aboard the thing he feared the most about himself, the Borg, and his assimilation.

Speaking of Locutus, I think Vrvilo finally made a case for these see-through, augmented reality, stupid soft-focused holo computers with one of the best shots of the whole series. Sure, it is almost four hours into the show overall, but we finally got a decent shot with this thing. It is just a simplified version of that mirror shot we’d previously gotten with actual screens. I’m of course speaking about the holo-Locutus over Jean-Luc.

This is the problem I have with Picard, we’ve just had one of the worst episodes of Star Trek and to juxtapose that we’ve just had one of the best episodes of the series thus far. I don’t mind neck-breaking quality in Doctor Who or British shows in general, though some of the killers of Doctor Who’s original run were TNG, Star Wars, Knight Rider, Quantum Leap, the second running of The Twilight Zone, and so on. The American imports that Star Trek was part of was the sign of quality, both in terms of visuals and writing. As we’ve seen so far, Chabon’s story is neither sign of quality.

After five episodes it feels like we’ve finally gotten some oomph into the series and it has given our director of choice this week something to work with. I said (providing it wasn’t edited out) I’d do something horrible to people if I saw another Dutch Angle. While that’s true, I think Vrvilo uses it correctly and with purpose in those shots of young Soji. It doesn’t feel thrown in there simply to make the shot look interesting, it is there for a narrative purpose.

What doesn’t have a narrative purpose, and in fact, made me want to dropkick Jean-Luc in his bald-smug little face is when everyone’s clapping for Raffi after she’s destroyed one of the few friendships she had left. I can’t say the word, but I’ve referred to it when talking about Kirk. You’re applauding someone for destroying their friendship as they drown themselves in alcohol after mistakes they’ve made, which means their kid doesn’t want to see them anymore. Take a good long hard look at yourselves in the mirror, you self-entitled assholes.

Her son, whose wife is giving birth soon to her grandchild, just rejected her on the grounds of past behavior. That past behavior included chasing down Federation-Romulan-linked ghosts that no one else can see. She’s depressed, clearly screaming for help mentally, and what do these idiots do? Applaud her as she stumbles back to her quarters on the ship clenching a bottle of something while pushing everyone away with the other. What happened to empathy, compassion, understanding, and you know, Star Trek’s whole thing of being a good person?

I’d like to say something about Allison Pill’s “I feel sad because I did the bad thing as an act of deceit” character moment, but if you’ve seen her do it once, you’ve seen her do it a hundred times. I know it isn’t any particular person’s fault but it pulls me out the same way seeing Sean Bean will tell you “Oh, he’s about to cop it in a minute.” If there was some variety to the performance, or there was variety to how it plays out for the character by Pill, I might have gotten invested. Sadly, this is the same character she played in The Newsroom.

Out of all that we’ve seen so far, “The Impossible Box” is the episode I’d watch time and time again. “Stardust City Rag” was the worst of it (maybe thus far, we’ll find out), but here in an episode with some pacing, some direction that follows the emotion, and some actual plot pushing us further into the characters without being bogged down in them, this is what I’ve wanted. It’s not perfect, I’d say quite a ways from it, but it does everything that the last five episodes needed to.

I’m invested in Soji, I care about Raffi, I’m intrigued by Rios and his obvious synth existence, and I want to headbutt Evil Spock as we fight over a bat’leth. We even got the reason to be excited about Hugh being part of the reclamation project. That’s how good the episode was, I’m even saying the nostalgia segment was good. I’ve rallied against nostalgia time and time again, but that little interaction between Jean-Luc and Hugh felt warm. It felt like Star Trek: Picard finally had some heart. Everything else is depressing, cynical even, and this was that spark of hope from Star Trek that I wanted.

Ultimately, if we trimmed “Remembrance” and “Maps and Legends” down, maintaining most of “Absolute Candor,” and thrown “Stardust City Rag” in the bin, “The Impossible Box” could have been a perfect third episode. The thrill is in the chase, as I’ve seen many times throughout wrestling storylines, but chasing a ghost as Jean-Luc has done for 6 episodes wasn’t how to get me invested as a viewer. Great direction, some engaging pacing, and brilliant character work, more of this please… which is impossible as the show ended last year after three seasons, but still I want more quality like this.

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Star Trek: Picard "The Impossible Box"

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• Finally some direction and and pacing.
• That shot of the holo-Locutus.
• An episode to finally get invested in.
• A purpose for Dutch Angle.

Cons

• Stop clapping you heartless idiots!