THERE.....IS......ONE......POST!

No, no, no. Admit it: There are *three* posts.

HOW MANY DO YOU SEE NOW?!?!?!?!?!?

THERE....ARE....FOUR....POSTS!!!!!!

I have a question. Does Picard actually know the defense plans or was he not told because of the fact he might have been tortured?

Also... watching Madred torture Picard, remembering that Garak used to do the same thing, only better..... interesting...

I have an even better question is it just my imagination or in Part 1 or 2 of this episode Chain of Command when Picard is being interrogated by the Cardassians. Picard says his place of birth,France then his Mother's first and last name, one of the Cardassians then says the word "Israeli". So is it possible that the character of Captain Picard is supposed to be part-Jewish??

I haven't seen it in a while, but I'd say a better chance is that he's supposed to be harking back to one of his ancestors being the British Prime Minister...Disraeli.

Just a guess, though. they haven't shown TNG in ages here.

Disraeli was Jewish

Half-Jewish, wasn't it? Through his mother?

Anyway, while it's not out of the realm of possibility (by the 24th-century, I'm assuming that everybody will more or less be part-everybody else) I doubt Picard is supposed to have definite roots in the Jewish culture.

To Saul: The Cardassian says: "He's Ready" not "Israeli"
Both of Disraeli's parents were Jewish, but his father converted their family to Christianity to advance in British society.
And Judaism is inherited matrilinearly, so if your mother is Jewish, you'd be fully Jewish not half Jewish.

Did the Cardassians take one of Picard's teeth in this episode as they did to O'Brien in the Deep Space Nine episode, Tribunal?

At the end of Part I, the torturer tells Picard that if he is not satisfied with Picard's answers Picard will die. Well in this episode when the torturer asks Picard about the defenses of Minos Korva and he isn't satisfied with Picard's answers, all he does is up the dosage of the chemical.

Why do the Cardassians think that Picard would even know the defenses at Minos Korva, especially since there was a chance that Picard would be captured? When the Cardassians are about send out someone on a mission where the operative might be captured do they make sure to tell the guy about all the latest defenses? ("Oh, and whatever you do, don't tell the enemy about the weakness in the shields of all Galor class warships!")

Captain Jellico is pulling some negotiating tricks on the Cardassians, but he has to explain them to Riker and Counselor Troi. So why didn't Starfleet transfer some officers who are used to Jellico's style to the Enterprise?

Maybe Gul Madred thinks of himself as the fifth light?

Having never been tortured, with the exception of High School, I can't say what torture victims do or don't think or feel, but the following are some thoughts that seem to me to be common sense.

Picard is told to say how many lights there are and he actually looks and counts them! Why not just make up a number? Since he counted them the first time, why does he need to keep recounting them? If his answer is going to be 4 every time, it is stup¡d to hurt his eyes recounting them.

Why is Picard so stubborn about not saying, "There are five lights"? One thing I learned in High School is that agreeing with your tormentor can be just as effective a form of resistance as fighting. This whole torture is based on the premise that Picard will say there are four lights because there are just four lights, but if Picard had agreed there were five lights the first time after Gul Madred "corrected" him, and continually agreed with whatever number Madred gave, Madred would soon realize that this technique is not working. Actually, I fail to see the value in this technique.

When Gul Madred turns on the torture device, two red lights on the end of the device come on which would be a fifth and sixth light.

Actually, there are quite a few glowing objects in that room which could be counted as lights.

Tactically gifted Picard made a real mistake assuming that the Cardassian was telling the truth about having Dr. Crusher. If they had reproduced Dr. Crusher's voice, or if Picard saw someone who could have been Dr. Crusher, then the assumption would have some merit, but Picard had no way to know that they really had her and since he knew that they had given him drugs to find out about Starfleet's defenses, he should have known that they could have gotten Worf and Crusher's names from him.

There is talk of the Cardassians taking over Minos Korva in this story, but according to information in Ensign Ro the Velo system is very close to Cardassian space, so why not take it over?

Ruminations: A great little touch from the Cardassians picking Picard up at the end. The gul looks around Madred's office as if to think, 'He's been doing that bloody lights thing again, hasn't he?'

Hm, with the above, might it even have been more effective as a final gesture if Picard had agreed there were five lights, then repeated there were four at the end? Or maybe he didn't want to give away the new tactical secret he'd discovered: the Cardassians are innumerate!

Did Madred really think that if Starfleet were running the risk of having told the Cardassians everything, that they'd keep all of their tactics the same? (Hey, if they can re-organise entire ship shift structures in an afternoon while on the job, new fighting tactics'd be a doddle!)

I've read somewhere that patrick stewart read reports from victims of torture to prepare for this role, and that he called it very exhausting.

I got the impression that they wanted to break picards spirit, to make him say whatever the torturer wanted. That why picard says to troi at the end not only that he was ready to give in, he was starting to really see 5 lights.

Of course, the lights are also a reference to "1984". (I don't have my nitpickers guide handy, so I don't know if it was already mentioned.).

It's interesting that picard wins against the torturer by drawing him out and finding his problems. What I've heard about the way torturers are trained, they aren't sadistic, they have everything in little compartments and can play peacefully with their children, because they believe that enemies of the state should be treated like that, and they have no compassion at all for enemies, so I think it unlikely to have a conversation with picard. But maybe the producers thought it would be too hard for the fans to see picard only at the receving end without giving him some opportunity to score, too. (but it would have been much more realistic to how torture victioms feel today.)

Maybe I have prejudices against the french, but I don't understand why picard hesitates to drink the egg with the little things inside. The french eat snails, shells, frog legs, inner organs and brains. So what about a few black worms?

Also, I would expect the Star Fleet Academy to put some importance on getting rid of typical human xenophobic behaviour to be as openminded as possible, and a typical training ground would be foreign-looking and tasting food.

Didn't Riker and Picard eat the grubs in "Conspiracy" with little or no hesitation? When I watched this episode, I thought Picard was worried about it being poisoned or drugged, but, then, I DID have food poisoning when I watched it, so my perceptions may have been just a bit biased....

No - Picard didn't touch them. Riker picked them up and was moving them towards his mouth, but instead of eating them he pulled his phaser.

Apparently Gul Muldred overlooked one thing about Picard...the reason why Picard resisted the torture...It is because Picard was assimilated by the Borg...which is no doubt MUCH WORSE TORTURE than any torture than Gul Muldred can dish out.

After Picard returns, Troi is still in standard uniform. Why not switch back to the bunny suit? (I'm not suggesting that I don't like her new uniform, it's still pretty dang hot. I just prefer the bunny suit!)

(BTW---Phil asked in one of his books "How comfortable would you be if you had a counselor dressed like Troi? [or something like that]---My reply? VERY COMFORTABLE!)

Erm, John...I'm not saying it's not possible to argue strenuously (and against all logical evidence) that Troi was nearly raped on one thread, and then call just as loudly for her to expose lots more of her body in a seductive manner on another...but it's very weird, all the same, eh?

I have a weird sense of humor & a weirder perspective on certain subjects.
But my respect for women remains unchanged.
If a woman wants to be a vixen, let her.
If a woman wants to be prim and proper, let her.
That's all I have to say about it.

PS...I never realized how much of a "following" I have here at Nitcentral! I really enjoy sharing nits, opinions & jokes with you people, I really do!

And boxes of tissues.

Well, I have to say that I could not understand Riker's reaction at all. Picard is kidnapped, and the Cardassians offer the Federation a choice: disavow Picard and keep the peace intact (giving Madred a chance to pick Picard's brain), or admit that Picard was on an official mission (making him a POW with legal standing) but granting a huge diplomatic concession to Cardassia. Despite the flaws in the story's overall premise, this was a beautiful concept here, and the Trek writers showed a rare grasp of politics.

Just one problem: why does Riker favor the latter option, the one that will save Picard? Does he really place Picard's safety (and Worf's and Crusher's) over the importance of maintaining the peace?

What if the Cardassians with their advanced torture techniques could worm some of the Borg's secrets out of Picard? (One which even the Feds don't know because it would require torture to bring them up). It's not as though Picard is just any prisoner, or even just any starship captain. What he knows could potentially make the Cardassians very dangerous indeed.

What does it say about the 'flagship' of Starfleet when the best shuttle pilot on board is not an actual shuttle pilot, but the First Officer? And add to that not only does Riker fly the mission, but he doesn;t even have an experienced shuttle pilot as a co-pilot, but rather Geordi?

I think Geordi is an experienced shuttle pilot, he told Jellico he could do the job, but then admitted Riker was a superior pilot.

Interesting how terms change during this episode. I believe Picard refers to the Soldonus Combention treatment of prisoners. Riker later calls it the Salonus Convention. Madred first calls the precious stone Jevonite then calls it Jenonite.

A little trouble with the script, perhaps...

One interesting aspect of Part 2 that might perhaps be otherwise overlooked is the consumption of the Cardassian taspar egg.

Much like Klingon gagh, the taspar is moving and still alive when Picard, who has been tortured nearly to death by Madred, cracks open the shell, peers in, and sees the bird fetus/ova still moving inside. He wolfs it down, much to Madred's pleasure, as he says "Wonderful! Wonderful! I like you, human. Most people would become ill at the sight of live taspar."

And Madred proceeds to tell Picard about his childhood on Cardassia (I forget the city) and how he was homeless and starving when he discovers a taspar nest with three eggs, one of which he immediatly ate. The other two he tried to save for later, but a larger youth saw him with them and took them from him, but had to break his arm to do it.

Also, the appearance of Jil Orra, Madred's daughter, with her pet wompat, and Madred telling her to take good care of it. He also tells her that human parents don't love their children the way Cardassian parents do. Boy, is that ever deception and manipulation on Madred's part, but of course, we would learn that tends to be the way of their people as a whole. On DS9, though, we would see exceptions to this, such as Aamin Marritza, but tragically, he was murdered by a Bajoran drunk *just* because he was Cardassian. Wow, that's some pretty heavy stuff right there!

No real nitpicks here, just food for thought.

TV Tropes has a category called Harsher In Hindsight and that applies here.

I'm talking about Madred bragging about what the "military has done for Cardassia".

Fast forward to the end of DS9, and Cardassia is in ruins, millions of Cardassians are dead, their empire is shattered and gone. Yeah, that is what the military has done for Cardassia.

One has to wonder, did Madred and Jil Orra survive? And, if so, what became of them? They would probably been in the same boat as the people of Germany were in 1945. They have no country, no government, and are totally at the mercy of the occupying powers. Be a hard adjustment for them both, IMO.

Here's an interview with Ronny Cox. In which he states that Capt. Jellico was possibly the best Captain in Enterprise history. (So much for Jellico not being sure of himself. )

The best captain!?

It's a wonder he wasn't chucked out an airlock long ago!