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Everything We Learned In the Animal Crossing: New Horizons Direct

The Animal Crossing Nintendo Direct is now live, and host Tom Nook is here to show us plenty of new things about the upcoming island adventure. He’s split the information into two informational sections, and the Direct finishes off his with an FAQ, all presented by our favorite entrepreneurial tanuki. All of it is covered here, just in case you’d rather not listen to his chirps.

If you’re looking for more information on what we’ve learned about New Horizons already, be sure to visit the IGN Animal Crossing: New Horizons wiki for more information on NookPhone Apps, all confirmed villagers (prior to the Direct), and more. We also recently learned more about how saves will work on the Switch.

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Seasons

The Direct kicks off with a very important part of Animal Crossing: seasons. For the first time, Animal Crossing: New Horizons allows you to choose either the Northern or Southern Hemisphere so that your season matches your local season. This was revealed back during Nintendo Treehouse’s E3 Live event, but rather than just being a comment in a stream, we got a nice preview of what we’ll see in New Horizons’ seasons. As always, there will be seasonal events and activities, like collecting seeds, leaves, and mushrooms. The furniture placed outdoors seems coordinated with each season too.

Island Services

The features tour continues with details on spots we’ve seen previously. The Resident Services tent is available 24/7 for crafting, tips, a shop, and a place to sell items. Then, the day after you arrive on the island, you’ll have access to the airport that also houses the post office and online portal that allows you to visit others.

NookPhone and Nook Miles

Also seen previously, the NookPhone is a new menu with several useful apps that are acquired over time. There’s a camera, map, DIY app, and plenty more. This smartphone also gives Nook a direct line to you. At the start of each day Nook will put on an island-wide broadcast about… something. Nook didn’t elaborate in the Nintendo Direct. Nook Miles were discussed again, though. Points earned through this acheivement-style system can be used to pay off the initial getaway package then used to purchase special rewards only available through Nook’s shop. You can also spend Nook Miles on a special ticket for a trip to a random deserted island. They’ll be filled with resources for crafting, fruit, and animals you can invite to visit your island.

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Island exploration

Wasps are, unfortunately, back, as are scorpions. Though scorpions used to be a rare find only on summer nights in Animal Crossing: New Leaf, it looks like they might be more common in New Horizons. A few short scenes also confirmed the return of special characters like Wisp and Gulliver. If you happen to end up in a bad spot, though, the Rescue Service app can instantly teleport you home. That home, by the way, is still upgradable like past games.

Home Upgrades/Decor

Home upgrades still cost a heavy chunk of change — 98,000 bells, we saw on the screen — but this time around they come with their own hidden storage. The Nintendo Direct didn’t reveal the size of this storage, though we did see that multiple items can be selected and moved all together.

Crafting

Crafting is as simple as learning a new DIY recipe, collecting the materials, and pressing a button to make it. We’ve seen this in previous New Horizon videos, but we learned that you’ll also be able to customize furniture too. You’ll also be able to learn new skills through workshops held at the Resident Services center.

Party Play

If you’ve got multiple Joy-Con handy, you can have up to four people play New Horizons on one Switch at a time (or up to eight in online multiplayer). This was revealed back at E3 2019, but the Nintendo Direct showed off more of the leader and followers feature and explained that any items found by followers will be stored in the recycling box. They can also have their own homes.

Nook Link

There isn’t an actual in-game voice chat for New Horizons. Instead, Nook Link is available through the Nintendo app that will instead facilitate voice and text chat along. More importantly, though, you can use Nook Like to read QR code designs from Happy Home Designer and Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Nook Link will be available after launch, but still some time in March 2020.

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Customizing the island

New Horizons is set on a deserted island, so it’s only fitting that when you’re building a community from scratch that you’d have a say in its development. This starts with choosing where your first new islanders live. Eventually, as shown in a montage, your island will grow into a reliable Animal Crossing town we’ve come accustomed to, complete with a museum, a full Nook shop, the Able Sisters shop, and eventually a campground for guests to visit. You can ask a guest that stays here to move onto the island. Upgrading Resident Services enough brings back Isabelle. It looks like she’ll help you proceed with an island evaluation, customize the island flag, and more.

Island activities

In addition to Isabelle the Direct showed off plenty of returning specialty characters like Celeste, Sahara, and plenty of others. The Direct also confirmed that things like fishing tourneys and bug offs return to New Horizons. There will be free updates with seasonal events, too.

Island Designer

We’ve seen new tools that make traversal a bit easier, like a way to pole-vault over rivers rather than walking over to an out of the way bridge. There’s also a ladder for scaling ledges and cliffs. As you progress more you’ll be able to build bridges and staircases, but after that, you’ll earn construction permits that’ll allow you to alter the terrain altogether. The Nintendo Direct showed how you’ll be able to expand or remove rivers, pave paths, modify cliffs.

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Frequently Asked Questions

The Direct also answered several frequently asked questions from fans, starting with an explainer for how multiple players on a single console will work. Only eight profiles can be made to use a Switch’s single island, but all eight of those profiles will get their own home.
Amiibo and Ambiibo cards are supported by New Horizons. These characters can visit your island’s campgrounds, but not quite all of them yet. The Nintendo Direct showed K.K. as one of the ones who were unable to visit. However, you can use these visitors in a new photoshoot mode called on the island of Photopia.
Visitors to your island can’t use axes and shovels to redesign the landscape unless you designate them as a “best friend.” This is a nice feature that should successfully prevent griefing.
There is no cloud backup support for Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but Nintendo is planning to offer backups from its own servers in select cases, such as if a Switch is stolen or broken. This service will be available sometime after launch.
Free seasonal event updates will be available through the year. The first of these updates will be available on launch day, with an event for Bunny Day coming in April.
There will also be some special in-game collaboration for Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, but specific details won’t be announced until later. It was confirmed that the collaboration will provide special items for both games.

For more, be sure to take a look at our hands-on preview of the first 30 minutes of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. We’ve also got all the news we have on Animal Crossing: New Horizons multiplayer, every villager we’ve seen so far, and all the big and small changes this entry is making to the series.

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Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter. Miranda Sanchez is an executive editor at IGN. She’s really excited to make a nice island and hope she’ll see Roscoe and Bones there. You can chat with Miranda about video games and anime on Twitter.

Star Trek: Picard Episode 5 Review

Full spoilers follow for this episode.

Episode 5 of Star Trek: Picard, “Stardust City Rag,” opens with the rather graphic mutilation of a semi-regular Star Trek: Voyager character of old — the former Borg known as Icheb. While by no means a recognizable face to casual viewers, Icheb was popular enough in some quarters. There was even a minor fan campaign to bring Icheb actor Manu Intiraymi back for Picard; the role has been recast here, however, and somehow one doubts this is what those fans had in mind for the character anyway.

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Still, it’s a striking and emotional scene, as Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine bursts in, phasers firing, only to find she’s too late to save her “child.” Back on Star Trek: Voyager, Seven formed a bond with the young man, as they had both escaped the Borg Collective, and it’s a nice play on continuity to bring him back into the fold here, even if it’s just to give Seven some revenge-based motivation on the new series.

This episode was written by Picard co-creator/supervising producer Kirsten Beyer, who has also penned an array of Voyager novels, and directed by Jonathan Frakes himself, so it’s no surprise that it would be particularly steeped in the details of Trek history. For in addition to reintroducing us to Seven — and introducing her to her fellow ex-Borg Picard for the first time — this is also the episode where we’re finally reunited with the Next Generation minor player Bruce Maddox, after the show spent the past four weeks talking about him.

Maddox has been recast as well (he’s now played by John Ales, who replaces Next Gen actor Brian Brophy), which seems sort of appropriate since much of this episode is about disguises. It starts with the Picard Squad donning disguises — some more outlandish than others — for a heist-style story, and also includes Seven disguising what she’s really up to on two different occasions.

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The big draw of this episode of course is seeing Jean-Luc and Seven finally interact, and these scenes pay off as the philosophies of the two iconic characters clash in the brave new world of Star Trek: Picard. It seems Seven’s Fenris Rangers have taken it upon themselves to hold the former Romulan Neutral Zone together as best they can in the chaotic aftermath of the supernova, whereas Picard, after resigning from Starfleet, essentially turned tail and went home. It’s not hard to see why Seven has a chip on her soldier when she meets Picard.

Both actors, Stewart and Ryan, meld perfectly together; Ryan is completely believable as this latter-day version of Seven, more human and yet still always struggling with her Borg side. And while the pair’s ultimate connection — that very Borg-ness — isn’t directly dwelled upon initially, it does become a linchpin of their relationship by episode’s end in the hour’s finest scene.

“After they brought you back from your time in the Collective, did you honestly feel that you regained your humanity?” she asks him. He responds yes, and she counters with “All of it?” To which Picard must admit, “No. But we’re both working on it, aren’t we?” “Every damned day of my life,” she answers.

It’s a great moment, but then in the next scene we see what’s really going on with Seven. Despite convincing Picard that he had talked her out of her revenge plan against the woman who tortured (and caused the death of) Icheb, she returns to Freecloud and disintegrates her. Despite how awful the woman was, this would seem to be an irredeemable act on the part of Seven. Is she so far gone that revenge killing is O.K. now? It’s troubling for a Star Trek hero to do this, but then again, she said it herself — she’s still working on regaining her humanity. After a lifetime as a Borg drone, Seven was an individual again for, what, less than 10 years? Who can say how far back she’s fallen after the trauma of the past 14 years?

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Elsewhere in the episode, the fun continues in Picard’s holo-office as the gang plays dress up for their mission, proving as in last week’s segment that this group of actors works really well when bouncing off of one another. Even Evan Evagora’s Elnor, who doesn’t get to do much this time around, is a laugh as his Romulan warrior plays catch up with everyone else.

Michelle Hurd does get a subplot in “Stardust City Rag” as we see that she’s been tracking her estranged son to Freecloud this whole time, but his rejection of her seems likely to drive her back to her drinking and vaping ways. The scene benefits from Hurd’s plaintive and sad performance, though the treacly music playing throughout doesn’t help, and it all seems a bit abrupt. She came all that way and then that’s it?

As for Maddox, it turns out he and Agnes Jurati used to be in a relationship, which isn’t surprising, and which also serves to set up the apparent heel turn at episode’s end that sees her killing her former lover. Before he went to the Great Robot Lounge in the Sky, Maddox did provide Picard with the next clue he needs to move this story along — Soji is on the Artifact — but you gotta figure there’s more going on here with Agnes. Just what did (presumably) Commodore Oh show her that so freaked her out?

And speaking of the Artifact, we skipped going there this week. Thankfully!

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Questions and Notes from the Q Continuum:

“Are we still pretending?”
Voyager gets a name drop, though we have no idea what happened to the rest of her crew.
It turns out that since Seven was assimilated at a young age, she is still full of Borg implants, unlike someone like Picard who could be de-Borgified much easier apparently.
Some fans were complaining last week that Seven should be going by her human name of Annika now, but it seems clear that she gave up that name after Icheb’s death and other troubling experiences as part of the Fenris Rangers.
Easter eggs abound on Freecloud, including signs for Mr. Mot and Quark’s!
What’s the Conclave of Eight that Raffi is on about?
Why was Agnes so nervous? She’s a cyberneticist but doesn’t know how to use a transporter? Or is it the return of Maddox that actually had her worried?
This season has now given us Picard speaking French and Picard playing a French stereotype. Oui oui!

First 13 Minutes Of Maneater Gameplay

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Star Trek: Picard Episode 5 – 10 Star Trek Easter Eggs And References

Star Trek: Picard Episode 5 – 10 Star Trek Easter Eggs And References – GameSpot

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By Phil Hornshaw | @philhornshaw on February 20, 2020 at 6:00AM PST

We’re halfway through the first season of Star Trek: Picard with Episode 5, “Stardust City Rag,” and the series continues to reach back into the annals of Trek history to recall major characters from a variety of sources. With Seven of Nine’s appearance in Episode 4, “Absolute Candor,” Star Trek: Picard is now dipping into Star Trek: Voyager’s history, but folks from old episodes of The Next Generation like Bruce Maddox are still having a big influence as well. There’s a lot of Trek to pull ideas and stories from, and Picard continues to demonstrate that it remembers everything.

We’ve dug through Episode 5 to uncover all the references and Easter eggs the show has hidden, and there are a couple of serious deep cuts. Here’s a rundown of all the callbacks, references, Easter eggs and history hidden in the latest episode of Star Trek: Picard.

Disclosure: ViacomCBS is GameSpot’s parent company.

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Oh No, Icheb!

Episode 5 opens with an unfortunate situation for a former Borg drone. When Seven of Nine shows up to attempt a rescue, we learn the identity of the person on the operating table: Icheb. He played a major role in Seven’s life back during Star Trek: Voyager. In that series, the Voyager crew discovered a group of Borg children who had been cut off from the Collective and rescued them. Seven became their de facto leader and teacher, and while most of the kids eventually found permanent homes, Icheb stuck around on Voyager and returned to the Alpha Quadrant.

Seven and Icheb got very close during their time together, with Seven coming to consider Icheb as a son. Apparently, Icheb accomplished his goal of joining Starfleet before he met a tragic end some 13 years before the start of Picard.

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We’ve Finally Found Bruce Maddox

Bruce Maddox has been an important figure in Star Trek: Picard so far, but up until now, the character has been missing. The cyberneticist appeared way back in The Next Generation episode “Measure of a Man,” where he argued in a Starfleet court that Data was Starfleet property, while Picard fought to have Data considered a person. Picard was successful in the case, but Maddox wound up striking up a friendship with Data while also studying him. We know that Maddox is responsible for creating Data’s daughters, Dahj and Soji, but not much else is known about how he created the two new androids.

Maddox has been in hiding for quite a while at this point, and now we know why: he’s being hunted by the Romulan Tal Shiar. That raises a question of how the Tal Shiar found out about the androids and Maddox in the first place–something we’ll likely find out before too much longer.

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Try Some Tranya

When Bajayzel has her meeting with Maddox, she offers him a particular orange drink: Tranya. That particular beverage is a callback to Star Trek: The Original Series, which Captain Kirk and his crew tried when they encountered an alien government called the First Federation. Kirk tried the drink in “The Corbonite Maneuver,” where Balok, played by Clint Howard, insisted on everyone trying it.

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Mr. Quark Vouches For Rios

Thanks to Raffi, Rios has a pretty decent pedigree when he heads to Stardust City to pose as a Facer. During the discussion of the deal Rios hopes to make to trade Seven of Nine for Bruce Maddox, Mr. Vup mentions that his references include a Mr. Quark of Ferenginar. Quark was a major character on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine–he owned a bar on the station and was usually involved in whatever seedy enterprises took place there.

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The Breen

The made-up deal Rios helped Quark strike was, apparently, with an alien race called the Breen. We’ve seen the Breen show up in a number of Star Trek series, but we don’t know very much about them. They’re a reclusive and warlike race that have faced off against the Federation a few times, and in Deep Space Nine, they allied with the Dominion against the Federation in an attempt to take over the Alpha Quadrant.

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Seven’s Borg Implants

Harvesting the cybernetic implants of former Borg drones is apparently big business in the Star Trek universe these days–so much so that criminals are willing to abduct Starfleet officers like Icheb in order to get them. Seven is such a price for Bajayzel because she has still has a large majority of her implants, despite many being removed by the Voyager crew after she was freed from the Collective. Picard notes that this is because Seven was assimilated by the Borg as a child. Her parents were researchers who studied the Borg before they were eventually captured and assimilated, and Seven spent most of her life as a member of the Collective.

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The Collapse Of The Neutral Zone

Back when the Romulan Star Empire was a major force in the galaxy, the region between its territory and the Federation was designated as the Neutral Zone, and both governments stayed out of that space and weren’t allowed to colonize there. Seven says that the Neutral Zone “collapsed” after the destruction of Romulus, suggesting that the area became a lawless region thanks to the power vacuum created by the absence of the Romulans and the Federation. The need to help the people who lived there gave rise to the Fenris Rangers, the vigilante group that Seven has been a part of for the last 14 years.

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Annika

When Bajayzel reveals her past relationship with Seven, she repeatedly refers to her as “Annika.” That’s a reference to Seven’s human name: before she was assimilated by the Borg, Seven was Annika Hansen. Seven spent her time on Voyager, and apparently the years since, trying to reclaim some of her humanity, but she obviously still doesn’t go by her original name–although it seems she might have for a time, before the loss of Icheb.

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Picard’s Humanity

Clearly, returning to life after being assimilated by the Borg is no easy feat. Seven has struggled with trying to find her humanity again since she escaped the Collective, and that’s something she shares with Picard, as we find in Episode 5. Picard was assimilated during The Next Generation before being saved by the crew of the Enterprise, but that experience has haunted him ever since. Picard’s personal struggle with what happened to him was the subject of several episodes of The Next Generation, with Picard even briefly considering resigning from Starfleet because of the trauma. It also was central to the story of Star Trek: First Contact, in which Picard dealt with a whole lot of anger and pain as he fought off the Borg capture of the Enterprise-E and the Borg Queen’s invasion of Earth.

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Maddox, Jurati, and Soong’s Breakthroughs

After Maddox is rescued from Bajayzel, he has a conversation with Agnes about Dahj and Soji, the two human-like androids he managed to create. Only one other person has been able to create sentient androids before: Noonien Soong, the man who created Data. Maddox used his studies of Soong’s work and Data himself to create Dahj and Soji, and he credits Agnes with essential contribution to the breakthrough that helped him create the androids. Apparently, Agnes is not as excited about being a part of cybernetic history.

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Disclosure: ViacomCBS is GameSpot’s parent company

Animal Crossing: New Horizons Adds A Tool Wheel And Other Much-Needed Improvements

Animal Crossing: New Horizons marks the franchise’s debut on Nintendo Switch. Though the traditional game loop of accruing additional home and character cosmetics, forging friendships, and paying off your sizable debt to Tom Nook returns, New Horizons makes some welcome quality-of-life adjustments to the Animal Crossing formula.

Perhaps the most notable addition is an unlockable tool wheel. Much like a weapon wheel in shooters, the tool wheel makes it easier to quickly switch between all of the items in your inventory–such as the shovel, fishing rod, and axe. No more need to equip each specific tool when you want to use it!

New Horizons also has a Rescue Service, which you can call whenever you’re stuck or lost. For a cost, the service will help you get back home in a pinch.

The storage system has also been reworked for New Horizons. Instead of having to manually put away each individual item into a cabinet, New Horizons allows you, from anywhere inside your house, to quickly put furniture into storage. Moving furniture around is just faster too. Though New Horizons still lets you drag your furniture around, you can also shift into a Happy Home Designer-style mode and place items freely.

If your need for control extends beyond your own home, New Horizons will allow you to direct the lives of others as well. The game gives you control over where other residents build their homes and you can use an in-game cell phone app to create paths, build bridges, shape slopes, and stack staircases in order to decree where people should walk.

Like its predecessors, New Horizons will see you take on debt that you’ll have to pay off. The game doesn’t force you to solely rely on using your hard-earned Bells, though. In New Horizons, some of your debt can be paid off using Bells or Nook Miles (points you earn sort of like flyer miles for airports in the real world), which should help you save up a few more Bells for that fancy new couch you’ve been eyeing.

Finally, there have been some changes to online play that will help put players at ease. Now, friends you invite to your island can’t bring certain tools, like shovels and axes, unless they’re registered as one of your Best Friends. That means people can’t just come to your town and cut down all your trees.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons releases for Nintendo Switch on March 2020–the same day as Doom Eternal. The fans for New Horizons and Doom Eternal have struck up a lovely friendship and have banded together to support both games.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

9-Movie Star Wars 4K Blu-ray Set Available for Preorder

The nine movies of the recently-named Skywalker Saga are coming home in one massive package at the end of next month, and you have two pretty excellent choices when it comes to completing your Star Wars numbered-episode movie collection in one fell swoop.

Preorder Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

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I’m not sure which versions of the original trilogy are on either one of these sets, but given the past, it’s most likely the specialized versions. I’m willing to look past that dumb Jabba scene shoehorned into the first movie, but personally I’d much rather have them as theatrical releases. Oh well, maybe someday. The massive amount of bonus features with both versions of this set might offset that for a lot of people.

Or you could watch the movies on Disney+. That’s fine, too.

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Seth Macy is IGN’s tech and commerce editor and just wants to be your friend. Find him on Twitter @sethmacy.

New Planet Of The Apes Director Confirms A Key Detail About The New Movie

A new Planet of the Apes movie is on the way from Maze Runner and Ruin director Wes Ball. At the time of its announcement, it wasn’t made clear if the film would be a continuation of the reboot series that begin in 2011, or a reboot of the entire franchise.

Ball has now himself confirmed on Twitter that “Caesar’s legacy will continue…” which seems to be a strong suggestion that this will be a follow-up to War for the Planet of the Apes instead of a reboot of the entire franchise. That being said, Ball’s brief statement does leave some wiggle room.

Ball’s comment came in response to a story that claimed the new movie would be a reboot that is not connected to the three films–Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and War for the Planet of the Apes–that were made by 20th Century Fox.

The Planet of the Apes series is based on the novel of the same name by Pierre Boulle, and was first made into a popular movie in 1968 starring Charlton Heston. That film led to many sequels and extensions on the screen and TV. In 2001, Tim Burton rebooted the series again with Mark Wahlberg and Helena Bonham Carter in starring roles.

The announcement of the new Planet of the Apes is no surprise, as Disney CEO Robert Iger said the Planet of the Apes series was a priority for the company following Disney’s acquisition of Fox.

The newest reboot series of Planet of the Apes has grossed more than $1.6 billion at the global box office across three instalments. Veteran motion-capture actor Andy Serkis played Caesar in the new films, with a supporting cast that included James Franco, Gary Oldman, and Woody Harrelson over the three instalments.

War for the Planet of the Apes was directed by Matt Reeves, who is now writing and directing the new Batman movie starring Robert Pattinson.

Fortnite Chapter 2 Season 2 Is Top Secret, Battle Pass features Deadpool

Fortnite Chapter 2, Season 2 has been revealed, and it’s Top Secret. No, not top secret as in we can’t tell you, but as in it’s all themed around spies and spec-ops missions.

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The cinematic trailer for the season features a variety of Fortnite characters engaging in spy behavior – hiding, wearing disguises, and definitely still making a mess in order to make it to the final circle. The music is distinctly Bond, which is well-timed considering No Time To Die releases in just a couple of months.

The Battle Pass trailer provides a little more detail on how Top Secret works: the pass unlocks a secret base and a set of agents, including Meowscles, Midas, Maya, and TNTina. Completing missions within matches of Fortnite will unlock variant skins for these battle pass agents – Ghost or Shadow versions – so you can customise your look with dark or light colours. The trailer also promises limited time operations that will “change the fate of the island.”

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Hinted at in the trailer, before being shown in the final battle pass poster, is a new Deadpool skin. It’s not clear yet how you’ll gain Deadpool, but as he’s part of the battle pass trailer it seems sensible to imagine that he’ll be a reward for battle pass holders.

Fortnite Season 2, Chapter 2 goes live today. Keep an eye out on IGN, as we’ll bring you news on what the update includes, as well as guides to help you learn your way around the new additions.

Star Trek: Picard Episode 5 Review – A Successful Assimilation

For its first four episodes, Star Trek: Picard was a pretty dark and dour affair. Unlike The Next Generation, the cheerier and often easier-going series it follows, Picard has been imagining a Star Trek galaxy where things are a little more lawless and people are a little less moral. That makes for an interesting deconstruction of a legendary Starfleet captain, but it also has meant that Picard has lacked some of the lighter moments that are also a big part of Star Trek. Episode 5, “Stardust City Rag,” corrects that issue to make for one of the more fun episodes the series has seen so far.

At the center of the episode is a fairly formulaic heist-type scenario, with Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the crew brokering a deal with criminals by pretending to be gangsters themselves. It’s a fairly worn idea, one that’s popped up on all sorts of TV shows, including Star Trek. But while the premise is played out, there’s a good reason these moments have become such a cliche: they push characters into unexpected situations and encourage them to do something other than brood. In “Stardust City Rag,” it seems like the cast is reveling in that opportunity, but nobody as much as Stewart himself.

Up to now, Picard’s plan has been to find Bruce Maddox, the cyberneticist who created Data’s daughters, in hopes of locating and rescuing Soji (Isa Briones). That takes him and his crew to a planet called Freecloud and its Star Trek equivalent of a seedier Las Vegas, Stardust City. A local criminal has Maddox, and in order to free him, the good guys are forced to pretend to be bad guys, with the help of the recently arrived Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan). In order to pull off the plan, everyone has to dress up and play comically over-the-top crooks.

The result is one of the lighter extended moments of Star Trek: Picard, largely thanks to Stewart. While Rios (Santiago Cabrera) dresses up as a flamboyant Facer, Picard dons not only an unnecessary eye patch, but also a fairly ridiculous French accent. It’s a goofy, nonsensical addition that does nothing to make Picard seem like a more trustworthy villain, but it lightens up the situation, and with it, the show as a whole. Star Trek: Picard has had a funny moment here or there, but this is the first time it’s tried something this playful. It’s a momentary return to the more relaxed feel of The Next Generation and its movies–likely because this episode had TNG actor and director Jonathan Frakes at the helm.

While Picard’s brief turn as a tough-to-parse one-eyed gangster is a nice change of pace to lighten the mood, the rest of Episode 5 is plenty dark as it continues to expand on the supporting characters. The fact that Picard’s current crew is a group of troubled, struggling spacefarers continues to be the engine that drives the show. This episode dips into the backstories of both Raffi (Michelle Hurd) and Seven, using both to explore Star Trek: Picard’s ongoing theme of one generation failing another, and learning to live with that failure.

The show continues plumbing Star Trek history, as well as the central conceits of its 1990s series, for ways to challenge its characters, and Seven of Nine in particular serves as a great mirror for Jean-Luc and his choices, as well as a fascinating expansion on her Star Trek: Voyager character. The more human, more damaged take on the former Borg character is a great expansion on the Seven fans will remember, and it’s great to see Picard draw from a series other than The Next Generation to shed new light on old story threads. Picard is having a deep and layered conversation with the rest of the Star Trek franchise, and the way it’s re-examining past characters and key Trek ideas is its best aspect.

It’s notable that “Stardust City Rag” doesn’t include any scenes on The Artifact, the captured Borg cube where the plots of Soji and Romulan spy Narek (Harry Treadaway) are taking place–and it might be better for it. That’s the plotline that seems to be indulging the show’s worst impulses, whether it’s falling into long explanations of made-up science that add little to the proceedings, or spending a lot of time establishing that yes, spies are doing spy things–and we still don’t know what they are. Episode 4 was useful in expanding on Soji and Narek and making their story a little more compelling, but for the most part, time spent on The Artifact has been confusing.

“Stardust City Rag” continues an upward trend with Star Trek: Picard, where the show continues to build on the foundation it painstakingly built in the first three, much slower episodes. Its lighter moments are a nice change of pace, even if they stray a little toward the goofy, but Episode 5 also brings in a lot of serious character development that’s further expounding on Picard’s themes. With Episode 5, Star Trek: Picard strikes a precarious balance between the fun Trek adventures of the past and its darker, grittier take on the franchise, and it’s one of the better episodes because of it.

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