quote:“They were the perfect villain because they can look like any anybody, and there’s an episode around the midpoint [of Season 3] where it is absolutely critical, where you’re not sure if the person sitting across from you is a changeling or not,” Matalas said. “And the only way that you can know is to have an emotional catharsis with that person. It gives you such incredible drama.”
But while the Changelings were an early part of Matalas’ plans for season 3, for a brief moment they were almost replaced by another hidden Star Trek villain, this time directly from Picard’s roots in TNG—the parasitic bugs from the infamous season 1 episode “Conspiracy.” In that episode, Picard and Riker uncover a plot by a race of alien bugs to infiltrate Starfleet command, burrowing into their unfortunate hosts and killing them, puppeting them in secret. Which was, for Matalas, the problem with bringing them back.
“I do like the conspiracy bugs, I did consider for a hot minute, the conspiracy bugs,” Matalas continued. “The issue with the conspiracy bugs is they kill their host. So that would mean anyone that you saw with a bug in them was dead, and you wouldn’t be able to do the paranoia thriller that you wanted to do if it was somebody you loved, that meant they were dead. So there [were] about three storylines I couldn’t do without killing legacy characters.”
But the only host we saw die was Dexter Remmick, who was inhabited by the "Queen" parasite ... and a big part of the reason he died was, y'know, Picard and Riker phasered his head into about a billion shards of bone flesh muscle and brain.
At the end of the episode, we learn that the others infected with a bug were making full recoveries.
Maybe Matalas should've done "more than consider it for a hot minute" and actually done some research, or, y'know, watched the episode.
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I’ve always been a bit meh about the Conspiracy aliens (they really need a proper name* but could one ever be devised now that wouldn’t sound forced?***). Sure it was a memorable episode with a visceral (literally) denouement, but it’s been too long, first of all I question whether a 35yo plot could be adequately picked up and expanded upon****. Secondly, they’ve found other ways to incorporate the paranoia and distrust and body horror, via the Borg and the Changelings etc.
Maybe I’m just scarred by another recent example of a showrunner deciding to pick up a long-forgotten plot line and completely ballsing up the whole franchise… *****
* What was the film where someone jokes about the Chinese Intelligence services not having a well-known acronym?** Kingsman? ** They do, by the way - the Ministry of State Security, or MSS. *** Una Chin-Riley? Really? **** Yeah yeah, Top Gun Maverick, shut up. ***** The “Timeless Child” storyline in Doctor Who has totally fucked up the character’s whole backstory and motivations by choosing to address one long-forgotten and mostly fan-hand-waved-away plot point in one 1970s episode, which suggested the Doctor had a lot of other previous incarnations.
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