#1 Star Wars - Boney vs the Borg
19/03/20 19:41
Recently, my husband and I have been ploughing through Picard. I say ‘ploughing’ advisedly, and it feels like we’re using a rusty old tool from Victorian Farm rather than a drone-controlled 24th century blade. Christ, it’s been tough. We’re both Trekkies, committed Jean-Luc lovers, and I have fond memories of sniggering as Deanna Troi murmured ‘Poverty was eliminated on Earth, a long time ago’ while sporting the biggest hair in the known universe. So we were excited to start Picard, join up with some old friends in deep space, rather than our real friends down the pub. What better than a bit of galactic self-isolation?
Well, I won’t lie, it’s been a slog. There’s just so much exposition. At 8 o’clock when the kids are finally in bed, and I’m trying to spin out my second glass of wine until 8.10pm, I’m feeling fuzzy and aimless, more suited to waiting for windows to arrive on Grand Designs than squinting at subtitles or getting my head round convoluted back stories. As Picard kicked off, I had to work out how Jean-Luc came to be retired and living on a French farm, why everyone’s having visions, and who this Dhaj is – oh, now she’s been killed. But there’s another one, and it’s the same actress but a different person/android, and she’s in a big Borg cube and all the Romulans are dead and I’ve lost the will to live.
As we’ve got deeper in, there’s been the occasional gift. We enjoy singing ‘his name is Rios!’ whenever the sexy pilot appears as himself, or as a helpful hologram who keeps getting dismissed. It was good to see Seven of Nine again. But I’ll be honest: I’ve started to wish Jean-Luc had stayed on his vineyard. We could just watch him check on the grapes, do a bit of light renovation on the farmhouse and fall in love with Laris, his hot Irish/Romulan manager. Wouldn’t that be vintage Picard?
Instead, I decided to dive in to Belgravia. Yes, I know, these testing times demand sacrifices. Everyone says it’s shit, which means it must be good. Or ‘terribrilliant’, as my friend Debora put it. And it is. No, bear with me. The dialogue’s clunky and it’s probably anachronistic if you’re a proper historian who presents BBC Two shows and reads The Telegraph, but for the rest of us it works like a fucking charm. There are lovely dresses, and a war on, and the magnificent Tamsin Greig and Harriet Walter, and - spoiler alert - a secret baby, and DCI Gene Hunt playing a vulgar tradesman, and what more do you want? It bloody well gets on with it; gets stuck in to silly intrigue and below-stairs gossip, with roaring fires in every room and the promise of rakish footmen getting fresh with uppity maids. This is what I want to wash down my wine with, as I try to resist our stockpile of mini-eggs. Nothing too taxing, nothing too serious, just frills, foppishness and a fortune for Julian Fellowes.
If you’re in need of Lockdown TV, then tell the Borg to bog off, and look no further than Belgravia – it’s Downton downtown.
Well, I won’t lie, it’s been a slog. There’s just so much exposition. At 8 o’clock when the kids are finally in bed, and I’m trying to spin out my second glass of wine until 8.10pm, I’m feeling fuzzy and aimless, more suited to waiting for windows to arrive on Grand Designs than squinting at subtitles or getting my head round convoluted back stories. As Picard kicked off, I had to work out how Jean-Luc came to be retired and living on a French farm, why everyone’s having visions, and who this Dhaj is – oh, now she’s been killed. But there’s another one, and it’s the same actress but a different person/android, and she’s in a big Borg cube and all the Romulans are dead and I’ve lost the will to live.
As we’ve got deeper in, there’s been the occasional gift. We enjoy singing ‘his name is Rios!’ whenever the sexy pilot appears as himself, or as a helpful hologram who keeps getting dismissed. It was good to see Seven of Nine again. But I’ll be honest: I’ve started to wish Jean-Luc had stayed on his vineyard. We could just watch him check on the grapes, do a bit of light renovation on the farmhouse and fall in love with Laris, his hot Irish/Romulan manager. Wouldn’t that be vintage Picard?
Instead, I decided to dive in to Belgravia. Yes, I know, these testing times demand sacrifices. Everyone says it’s shit, which means it must be good. Or ‘terribrilliant’, as my friend Debora put it. And it is. No, bear with me. The dialogue’s clunky and it’s probably anachronistic if you’re a proper historian who presents BBC Two shows and reads The Telegraph, but for the rest of us it works like a fucking charm. There are lovely dresses, and a war on, and the magnificent Tamsin Greig and Harriet Walter, and - spoiler alert - a secret baby, and DCI Gene Hunt playing a vulgar tradesman, and what more do you want? It bloody well gets on with it; gets stuck in to silly intrigue and below-stairs gossip, with roaring fires in every room and the promise of rakish footmen getting fresh with uppity maids. This is what I want to wash down my wine with, as I try to resist our stockpile of mini-eggs. Nothing too taxing, nothing too serious, just frills, foppishness and a fortune for Julian Fellowes.
If you’re in need of Lockdown TV, then tell the Borg to bog off, and look no further than Belgravia – it’s Downton downtown.
- Belgravia, ITV1, 15th March, 9pm
- Picard, CBS, Amazon Prime, 23rd Jan
