Seth McFarlane is doing his best tng impression. You're not going to get a big budget show like that ever again from trek themselves.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Star Trek: Picard - Season 1 |OT| Re-ENGAGE!
- Thread starter Spectromixer
- Start date
Seth McFarlane is doing his best tng impression. You're not going to get a big budget show like that ever again from trek themselves.
The worst thing about it is that was the second time in a row that they used the Borg to hype up a moment only to completely deflate just seconds later. When they were all blown out into space i expected them to build a linking bridge like real life collectives do but no, the moment was over and they were all dead because space vacuum kills Borg now.
No kidding. I find myself more interested in when Jeri Ryan is showing up again than I am most of what's going on. She's being sorely underused.
Totally! A Seven show could be great. Ryan clearly has the acting chops for it.
It's refreshing to see you feeling so good about something again. I've seen some of your posts on TrekBBS recently and I was just thinking about that.
The biggest issue I've had with the show so far is that it hasn't earned a lot of the new crew character relationship moments, like Raffi and Picard's "Love You" bit or Rios moving to protect Agnes from the mild meld - or anything really in the Elnor/Picard side of things.
Thing is - I like most of the new characters, but they feel...scripted? Less organic? And it stood out even more after seeing Picard with Riker and Troi.
And yeah, the last episode felt way too rushed, which I think is inexcusable for a two-parter.
Hopefully, Picard S2 will be a little less on the mystery side - I think that would help it tremendously.
This might also be one of those shows that works better as a re-watch when you're not waiting a week between episodes.
Thing is - I like most of the new characters, but they feel...scripted? Less organic? And it stood out even more after seeing Picard with Riker and Troi.
And yeah, the last episode felt way too rushed, which I think is inexcusable for a two-parter.
Hopefully, Picard S2 will be a little less on the mystery side - I think that would help it tremendously.
This might also be one of those shows that works better as a re-watch when you're not waiting a week between episodes.
To say the ExB's have gone through tough times during Seven's tenure would be a massive understatement lol.
I really, really want to see the cube get powered back up and wreck the Romulan fleet. 200 vs 1, let's go. Remind us why the Borg were so feared in the earlier Trek canon. Looks like we'll have:
1) The ExB Cube under Seven's "leadership"
2) The Romulan fleet
3) The Flower-power armada
4) Starfleet reinforcements from Admiral Shut the Fuck Up Clancy (Riker reinstated? Can dreams come true?)
5) The ancient synthetics
Gonna be weird wrapping all this up in one episode.
and I think that the show this trek brain trust wants to write is perfect for the Rangers set up so...
Yeah, I'm really enjoying this. Its refreshing to have a serialized story in Trek.
One interesting side effect is that the funny thing is that right now it's probably easier to do a TNG-era sequel in the JJ-verse because there would be no baggage whatsoever.
Although maybe you'd have bitter Vulcans challenging Picard to a fight to the death instead of Romulans. lol
Although maybe you'd have bitter Vulcans challenging Picard to a fight to the death instead of Romulans. lol
The Romulans are only "right" because they are trying to wipe out synthetic life. If nobody is trying to wipe them out synths have no need to call the extra galactic synths. Romulans are wrong and they are risking the genocide of all organic life in the Milky Way.
Seems like this last episode has caused a lot of people to turn on the show. Better late than never I suppose!
Personally I don't even know what you salvage for a season 2. I don't want to keep any of the new characters around. I'm still attached to the Picard character but not to what Patrick Stewart is bringing to him. The only character (who hasn't been killed off) who has come off well to me is probably Seven, though in kind of a silly comic-book fanfic kind of way. Seven running a collective on a Borg cube is a way more interesting story to me than mind-melding robots, and we got all of 10 seconds of it. And I didn't even like Voyager!
Heck when midnight rolled around the other day and the episode went live, I was about to watch it, but then noticed that RLM had like a 70 minute review of the three previous episodes so I watched that instead. I definitely made the right call on that one.
Personally I don't even know what you salvage for a season 2. I don't want to keep any of the new characters around. I'm still attached to the Picard character but not to what Patrick Stewart is bringing to him. The only character (who hasn't been killed off) who has come off well to me is probably Seven, though in kind of a silly comic-book fanfic kind of way. Seven running a collective on a Borg cube is a way more interesting story to me than mind-melding robots, and we got all of 10 seconds of it. And I didn't even like Voyager!
Heck when midnight rolled around the other day and the episode went live, I was about to watch it, but then noticed that RLM had like a 70 minute review of the three previous episodes so I watched that instead. I definitely made the right call on that one.
Very well said. I have issues with Picard, but those issues and more are so often the dominant aspect of the discussion, it drowns the rest out.
I had a good time with the most recent episode. Brent Spiner being human is always so different for me. I'm intrigued what's going to happen with that golem. I wonder about Lore theories. I think the prophesy/apocalypse stuff is dumb, but on brand dumb and enjoyable dumb. I loved the space flowers. I love the cubefall. I'm eager for the next episode.
My biggest beef is still not treating Agnes like a murderer. I know they want to sell it as extenuating circumstances, but c'mon. Lock her up at least. She might flip out again.
But those extra galactic synths left an ad that says "We will wipe out organic life. Any time, any place! Here is a gory demonstration of how we'll do it. Our lines are open and waiting for your call."
And then left it for organics to find. We saw the effect it had on everyone who saw it. Even the ones who didn't die were probably stripped of all rationality and don't even know it.
Not really. The synthetic life that left the Admonition were clearly very, very hostile towards organic life and nothing indicates they're some heroic saviour that swoops in to protect endangered life. They created an artificial composition of stars that only sufficiently advanced synthetic life will see and at the centre of it is a message telling them how to get in touch, specifically stating they will wipe out all organic life afterwards. It's not like they said they'd only destroy organic life that threatened them, they're going to wipe out everything. It doesn't sound like they're open to discussion.
It's probably safe to assume what they did once they've done many times before. So if they show up every few hundred thousand years and wipe out all intelligent organic life, it's not as though the fears the Romulans have are unfounded. If anything it's even worse than they feared because it's not synthetic life they create that's the threat - it's the synthetic life out there somewhere that is not only capable of destroying everything, but also fully intends to wipe out all organic life they indiscriminately consider a threat.
That's why I don't like this "ancient evil" approach. Up until that was revealed, the Romulans were seemingly acting out of fear of something that might not ever happen. There was a discussion to be had about that fear, especially since it involved synthetic life being created by current technologies like the one that created Data, and the place synthetic life had in the Federation - even former hybrids, like the ex-Borg.
This "ancient evil" is a wholly external threat that immediately solves the issue by simply saying everyone just needs to team up against it and all the questions the show raised up to that point will just be brushed aside.
I love a good fleet battle but I feel like we're going to get something that's more of a mess than the fleet battle in Rise of the Skywalker.
I've been asking myself the same question for two episodes. Why is she still out there? She murdered someone in cold blood, she should at least be confined to her quarters...The writing on this show is so weird.
I'm sure she's free so she can do something to redeem herself in the finale since the synths think that she's on their side.
She was brain washed, don't you understand. BRAINWASHED.
Totally innocent. Now, let's get back to joking and treating her like part of the fam and forget the twitching corpse of Bruce Maddox nearby. Also, Rios can have sex with her now, just a mere two days after she killed her lover.
Without her, the androids wouldnt be able to read her mind/the admonition.
Literally the only reason she was brought along, is because the plot required her to be there. No other reason
Again, criticizing isn't the problem. But the person I was responding too isn't just criticizing or debating the negatives of the show. They themselves admitted they are also being told this in another forum! So they're obviously not just going around critiquing the writing or story. There's plenty of that here and wer'e not telling everyone to just shut up by saying "well, don't watch it". I just mentioned some things I didn't like about the episode!
But it gets annoying when every two posts, there's one from users that just randomly remember something else they hated and posts about it or keep responding to people who defend the show in a very... non-polite way. You complain about my supposed condensation, but have no issues with the low-grade critiques of the show here? "It's trash" every two post, and then something else in all caps.
If this show had anything really good I think people would be talking about it more. As it is, it's a rather middling show at best with only a few highlights to speak of. That's why it's easy to focus on the negatives I think. When you look at critically loved series, like The Wire, Breaking Bad, Early GoT, Sopranos etc. the discourse was/is rich and diverse. But that's because they're excellent through and through. Picard is just not even close.
What if this is like Fast and the Furious and it turned out that she never actually killed Maddox?
Eh, I just talked about a bunch of stuff I like.
I think the negative narrative has just taken root. I come to this thread infrequently because of it. When I do, I try to post what I liked mostly.
I just don't find the critical discussion interesting at all. I mean, mainstream sci-fi and long-standing franchises always have a ton you can complain about, if that's what you're after. While I am not uncritical of the show, the negativity here doesn't match my experience watching it at all.
I really can't imagine what this thread would look like after every episode of TOS through Enterprise, with each season being compared to The Wire, Breaking Bad, Early GOT, Sopranos, etc.
Like, why does a big chunk of the Trek fandom even watch Star Trek for if they are going to expect Prestige TV. That's my issue.
I can't explain it in more detail or maybe I can't express myself as much as I would like to, but I'm perfectly capable of enjoying the schlock of Trek and Star Wars without expecting Ozymandias from Breaking Bad every episode. It's not that I'm blind to the faults, but I wasn't a fan of TOS, TNG, DS9, and others for its spectacular acting and incredible plot coherence.
It's not even high sci-fi! Or even very accurate.
From a recent episode I watched:
Melora from DS9, that Starfleet ensign who appeared in just one episode, grew up in a low gravity environment so she needs a wheelchair and support to get around. And for some reason that has to do with the way the Cardassians built DS9, they couldn't use anti-gravity tech, so they needed wheelchair ramps installed. But her room is adjusted for her natural environment. But in her natural environment, she floats, apparently. Which doesn't make sense? Maybe humans might float a bit because they are used to heavier gravity, but her species would consider it normal gravity. It bugged the hell out of me when I watched the episode recently because it was very sloppy science fiction, but whatever, the point of that episode was to show the handicapped member of the crew struggling to get around. And I was ok with that. Not my favorite episode, but it was a pretty bold attempt.
Last edited:
I mean talking about stuff beyond just like or dislike. Really great film or television gives people things to think about and discuss at length. Most of the praise for Picard does seem mostly limited to 'that was cool' or whatever. I think this is in part because Picard relies so much on stock cliches or tropes and doesn't have a lot of depth to it. The writing isn't very nuanced. I think there's been potential, but it isn't being reached in this season, only glimpsed.
But that's not the point though is it? I mean, I'd certainly like Star Trek to be able to aspire to the writing of what haa been around since the days of old Star Trek. Chabon is an award winning novelist and yet that talent seems lacking in his transition to sci-fi television.
The other thing is that TNG was comparable to the best of television at the time. I would say that it was as good as like NYPD Blue or Homocide or whatever else was on in the late 80s/early 90s.
If Star Trek is supposed to be "good for what it is", then I'm not even sure what the goalposts are supposed to be? Should it be at least as good as The Expanse?
If Star Trek is supposed to be "good for what it is", then I'm not even sure what the goalposts are supposed to be? Should it be at least as good as The Expanse?
Any of the reviews has plenty of stuff to talk about. A lot of it is more thematic and character than plot and world-building, which is what the thread has focused on.
For instance, I find the Picard redemption arc fascinating. How do you write about a galaxy saving hero 20 years later? That he finally ran aground against Starfleet (who, let's be real, he was at odds with constantly if only for plot contrivanaces) makes sense. And him retreating in failure must have hurt hard. And now he has a chance to do good again, something meaningful. That's compelling.
Finding himself in the middle of what appears to be a conflict with no clear bad guy is also compelling. Yes, there's an underdog-- the synths-- but there's also something up with Sutra and Soong that seems potentially sinister. I'm game to see what happens next.
Redemption is such a heavy theme that while how they've treated Agnes is nonsensical, how they resolve it could be interesting.
And I do love that we're seeing Trek from outside Starfleet for all of this. We saw so little previously, and it was all very samey.
I mean, it sounds like your just moving the goalposts to justify Star Trek being what it is now. TNG was considered cream of the crop television at the time, it was not considered bargain bin schlock. Now you're basically saying that Star Trek has always been cheesy and never considered among the greats of TV and thus shouldn't be judged by that standard but instead be judged on something like a CW TV show level. Sure, by those standards Picard is fantastic.
When Neil Armstrong tracked a ship through warp, they explained it properly!
TNG had its quality moments, even relative to the 80s and 90s, that's true. For a brief period, Star Trek was indeed standing out. But that era didn't last long, even for DS9, which was arguably better than TNG in many regards, but became less popular due to the more focus on drama and there was more competition in the sci-fi show market.
Years ago after I started hanging out online in forums and got to know about the opinions of most of the online fanbase about Voyager, I was surprised at just how much it was hated and trashed, like when you find out your favorite movie as a kid has a 30% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Janeway apparently was a war criminal!
But Voyager is the most popular Trek show on Netflix, followed by TNG I think. Many have guessed it's because VOY simply is more fun and appealed (thanks to Janeway and the crew) to a more diverse fanbase too. And, because it was batshit crazy in a lot of episodes it might have pissed off a lot of more "serious" fans but made for really fun TV. Its low ratings have more to do with it being moved to the CW, but the popularity of Seven of Nine then and now is proof at just how much Voyager had a good impact on most fans that grew up with 90s Trek.
Few of the DS9 characters were that popular compared to the TNG and VOY crews, which is why I think more fans would go crazy if Janeway were to pop up than if Sisko somehow returned.
And yet, online, DS9 is much more well-regarded by Trek fans. It is a big discrepancy I see, in terms of expectations for Star Trek. So I'm not surprised Disco and now Picard is struggling to bridge the two.
On brand dumb is perfect, lol.
Loved the space flowers too. No Trek is complete without a Space Something, be it a hand, jellyfish, giant face, whale or ball of omniscient energy.
Last edited:
Well yes, Picard's story touches on what I see more as potential right now, but it's been a little meandering in depiction and not super thoughtful. It's part of what will keep me tuned in next season, but I'm still sceptical of seeing much more nuance being developed from it.
The no clear bad guy stuff just gets to some of the well worn cliches I'm talking about. On it's own it just isn't interesting enough, I think, to carry this plot forward. Part of it is that we have two sides with barely explored cultures in conflict. The Romulans are still the same as they ever were and haven't been all that thoughtfully developed beyond that. The Synths are basically a blank slate so there just isn't much they can portray by default.
For real, Star Trek has had some great television in its history. I'm not even super into what DS9 was about in it's deconstruction of some of TNG's ideals, but the Dominion storyline/arc is fucking excellent writing with richly layered characters. TNG from season 3-6 is some of the best sci-fi television ever made. TOS had the chemistry of the Kirk/Spock/Bones trio and Voyager to a lesser extent had Janeway, Seven and the Doctor.
Picard just doesn't have any of this and there's a lot of work to be done to even get close. Especially when they have these characters already interact like they are seasons into some amazing chemistry.
No, I'm not saying that.
Consider this: The expectations for television are different now. As opposed to just higher.
Star Trek is in fact, also changing to meet the different expectations of today's television productions. These attempts are met with criticism because some fans just want TNG 2.0, or something more akin to it.
Others want the changes because they say they don't want just TNG 2.0 (they have the Orville for that, I guess?), but yet, they want it to be Prestige TV. I haven't watched the Expanse yet (I want to!), but some here point to it as an example of prestige sci-fi right now.
All in all, if this thread is an example, I'm not sure the fandom online knows what they actually want right now out of Trek. But, overall, judging by the metrics, review aggregators and even the success of fan conventions and the fact CBS keeps ordering new seasons of Disco, Picard and is planning half a dozen shows, they are doing something right and a lot of us here agree.
It's not the "trash" some of you keep insisting it is.
I think people just want a good Star Trek show. They point to TNG because TNG was one of the best shows on television, is still considered peak sci-fi TV, was actually quite intelligent, and is readily comparable when you have a show centered around its central character. But, what people really want is just a smart, good, thought provoking show and they don't feel they are getting that from Picard or DISCO.
Okay just dropping this ill-considered theory down that popped into my head with no basis on anything solid
The new Soong is actually Lore in a new body but these bodies are created in twos (twins) and Data is also out there somewhere restored into the other twin body and at some point during the finale episode somebody will say "dear brother"
The new Soong is actually Lore in a new body but these bodies are created in twos (twins) and Data is also out there somewhere restored into the other twin body and at some point during the finale episode somebody will say "dear brother"
I thought the people saying "Oh they're definitely riffing on Mass Effect" in earlier episodes were exaggerating a bit...but now this episode, hooooly shit they're actually straight up lifting the main plot of Mass Effect, except they managed to inject it full of dumb.
The one thing I appreciated about this episode is that there's no lionizing synths as being this perfect race of beings, and are subject to the same fears as any other civilization. I don't think Sutra's evil -- just motivated by self preservation, especially at how her sister was murdered.
Also: the message clearly was for synths, but the romulans had to throw enough people at it in order to find some that can survive the transmission of the message. It's quite clear that it's meant to be a boon for synths -- but organics (romulans) saw it and immediately went 'we have to stop this'.
edit: I also think that the Reapers rip-off isn't a core point of the story. The real meat of the series, especially with this episode, is about how civilizations think of themselves, and how they respond to fear and world-changing circumstances. The 'Reapers' are just there to move the plot forward.
Also: the message clearly was for synths, but the romulans had to throw enough people at it in order to find some that can survive the transmission of the message. It's quite clear that it's meant to be a boon for synths -- but organics (romulans) saw it and immediately went 'we have to stop this'.
edit: I also think that the Reapers rip-off isn't a core point of the story. The real meat of the series, especially with this episode, is about how civilizations think of themselves, and how they respond to fear and world-changing circumstances. The 'Reapers' are just there to move the plot forward.
I'm trying to think of what was around in the late 90s and it was stuff like Buffy and X-files and Stargate, which was just doing much more interesting things than Star Trek at the time.
I found this list of episodes watched on Netflix: https://nerdist.com/article/star-trek-netflix-most-rewatched/
And it's like the big standalone episodes that were somewhat decent that people like, which makes sense because Voyager was essentially trying to remake TNG at some point (I have no fucking clue why Endgame would be the most watched thing though. lol)
But at that time, the Voyager premise was seen as wasted, there was much hay made about Ron D Moore joining and quitting the show after one episode to go on to make BSG. The failure there was that Voyager wasn't keeping up with the trends of television that was clearly developing, including the launch of serialized television and Lost-style series arcs. Incidentally it's probably why DS9 is seen was forward thinking and perhaps the constant bickering between Behr and Berman actually made it a better show by forcing them to include episodic stories alongside a highly serialized story arc.
I can't divorce myself from like 30 years of Star Trek nerdery (other than the fact that I don't care about the franchise anymore), so I'll always be coloured by the fact that TNG was quality television and Voyager was a complete and utter disappointment where I started watching what I considered better SF television at the time. But I accept the fact that people 10 years younger than me might not care that the Kazon story line was a pointless exercise or that Q went from an interesting antagonist for Picard to a horny alien who wants to bang Janeway. That's fine and maybe Voyager is the best Trek after all.
All that said, I have no idea what this new Picard show is supposed to be in the current context of TV shows. Is it supposed to be like Game of Thrones or The Expanse and fit within that type of genre serialized storytelling? Is it supposed to be a serious character study like Better Call Saul or Fargo or Chernobyl? I think it's fair to actually compare this show to what's currently airing now, because it's not like it exists in a complete vacuum.
TNG fit in very well with the late 80s/early 90s television, producing extremely strong episodic television that wasn't recognized because it was genre television. DS9 alienated a lot of people because it was 5-10 years too early for long form serialized storytelling... and when Voyager came around, people were already invested in shows like Buffy and X-Files where they had a perfect mix of story arcs and stand-alone episodes. When Enterprise finally came around, the old style of Star Trek was completely dead and people were into 24 and Lost and the Wire and Sopranos and all this much better TV that it couldn't compete with. I actually think it's useful to put Discovery and Picard into the same TV context, because it should be judged against the best of the medium if we want to take these things seriously as "art".
People act like the plot of Mass Effect was incredibly novel and unpredecented. Sci-fi has long explored the themes of "higher powers" regulating the expansion and development of younger species.
If Picard can basically give a huge speech and diplomatically engage with this multi-galaxy spanning federation of synthetic life next episode, then I can run with it.
I'm more than aware that Mass Effect was putting it's spin on already popular sci fi themes, but it's pretty suspect when the plots are now basically verbatim. It was "vaguely familiar" to Mass Effect before, now it's just about the same thing, down to progenitor races leaving behind artifacts that give mind-breaking visions of a coming apocalypse, to reclusive advanced AI civilizations (Both of which just so happen to don aesthetics inspired by aquatic life) purging the galaxy of organic life in cyclical genocides to preserve what they dicate as order.
You can say "Oh it's been done before" easily, because in sci fi, it definitely already has, but in this exact permutation? The parallels are explicit and impossible to ignore.
Is it weird that I think The Orville Season 2 is the only 'nuTrek' show that nailed its back end of episodes and got a decent ending? Discovery S1 was just silly after they got out of the Mirror Universe, and S2's Red Angel/Control plot line just didn't work for me after Project Daedalus.
Before this episode, Picard had 3 really good episodes in a row, and now *loud fart noise*.
Before this episode, Picard had 3 really good episodes in a row, and now *loud fart noise*.
The broad strokes of civilisation reaching a threshold and triggering a greater predatory species has been done a thousand times, but the beat-for-beat plot points are a precise match for Mass Effect in terms of story and presentation.
One of the tropes I really hate is an ancient civilization that is ready to destroy all living beings. Another trope I hate is how synthetic life and organic life can't coexist and synthetics must destroy organics to survive. Picard is mixing these two tropes. Hope they try to subvert this (most likely will, it is Picard. He will find a way to convince the synthetics and the Romulans to stop fighting), but this really soured me.
As for the new characters, only one I like is Rios. And that's because he swears in Spanish. Coño! Raffi is fine. Agnes can go to hell for all I care. And Space Legolas... what was the point of him anyways?
As for the new characters, only one I like is Rios. And that's because he swears in Spanish. Coño! Raffi is fine. Agnes can go to hell for all I care. And Space Legolas... what was the point of him anyways?
The last two episodes were so well done and then they do THIS. Not a fan and it's now basically a conflict between two parties that you both don't want to win. Obviously Picard will figure something out with Seven next episode to make the Picard side win, but still... I had so many different hopes and expectations for this episode than what it turned out to be.
So cool. I hope they fix it up so it can fly around some more.
Couldn't find one so I made this.