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March 28, 2024, 11:14:51 AM

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Star Trek Picard S2

Started by Malcy, June 16, 2021, 06:50:29 PM

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Mr Trumpet

I enjoyed it, predictably enough. Jeri Ryan is on excellent form - lots of little moments where we got a glimpse of the old Seven from Voyager.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Did they kill the horrible robot girl, or did they all forgive her attempt at committing universal genocide?

JamesTC

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on March 03, 2022, 06:54:37 PMDid they kill the horrible robot girl, or did they all forgive her attempt at committing universal genocide?

They seem to have forgiven the other murderers.

Chairman Yang

So this set at least four years after the last episode? With Legolas graduating, Picard in a position of semi-retired authority, Rios captaining his own wacky crew? It's basically a do-over, whatever.

Best of luck to those of you sticking with it, sincerely hope it picks up, but I can't do with the tin-eared dialogue and I have no faith or love to give the show, too busy running for the stars I guess.

Chairman Yang

I guess it could have been a commencement speech? Somewhere between 4 years and... 6 months. Whatever amount of time makes the least sense.

Malcy

The other Tal'Shiar turned vineyard worker has been dead 18 months. I think the Aussie Romulan has been in the academy a while as he was posted to the Excelsior which means he must have been there around 2 years. So I reckon 2-3 years have passed.

4 ship designs from Star Trek Online made it into the fleet. The Sutherland class which is just an updated Nebula is one. Presumably named after the ship Data briefly commanded in 'Redemption'.


Mr Trumpet

Quote from: JamesTC on March 03, 2022, 07:04:09 PMThey seem to have forgiven the other murderers.

It's always worth remembering that Worf once killed and partially devoured a fellow crewmember, in the devolution episode of TNG. I don't know if he had to go on a sensitivity course or what afterwards

JamesTC

Quote from: Mr Trumpet on March 03, 2022, 09:27:18 PMIt's always worth remembering that Worf once killed and partially devoured a fellow crewmember, in the devolution episode of TNG. I don't know if he had to go on a sensitivity course or what afterwards

He was infected with a mutated virus. Hardly fair to blame that on him. There are much better examples of murdering. He actually did murder Duras in Season 2 of TNG and Gowron in Season 7 of DS9. Prime Directive though. Respect the Klingon ways. I actually really like that as an analysis of how far the Prime Directive should go (although the episode Half a Life is far and away the best Prime Directive episode).

Whereas Seven murdered a bunch of people out of vengeance and Jurati murdered Maddox because she saw the universe dying (a fox decomposing). Jurati has justification, I suppose, even if the whole great secret that makes people rip their faces off is awful. I remember the ninja Romulan kid decapitating somebody but I don't remember the details.

My problem with the murdering is that the weight of it is not respected. In DS9 we have Sisko end up effectively responsible for the death of a Romulan officer however the weight of his decisions on his conscience is felt throughout. Characters murdering in Picard is far less of a weight on the characters.

And the key of it all is to ask how many of those murders were actually necessary. The two Worf murders were as they not only worked on a character level but a cultural level in understanding the Klingons. Sisko was necessary to show how far characters would go to stop the Dominion. Did Jurati need to kill Maddox? Possibly. Did the ninja kid need to decapitate somebody? No, it was just a cool special effect. Did Seven need to murder loads of people in revenge? No, it was just a cool action shot of her dual wielding phasers.

grainger

Occasionaly DS got it wrong. Sisko destroyed the biosphere of a planet to get revenge on that security guy, and then laughed it off with Dax at the end of the episode. Also, Dax went on a murdering spree with Worf (in that episode where they did an extracurricular special ops on that fortress), although I suppose that could be put down to Klingon cultural stuff.

I agree 100% about the violence in Picard S1 being weightless. It was the norm in Picard S1, not the exception, unlike earlier Treks.

Alberon

One of my favourite Worf moments is when he is captured by the Dominion. Weyoun shows up to gloat and Worf just grabs him and snaps his neck before the guards can react.

Mr Trumpet

Quote from: JamesTC on March 04, 2022, 02:57:00 PMDid Seven need to murder loads of people in revenge? No, it was just a cool action shot of her dual wielding phasers.


Now I appreciate this is splitting hairs but Seven killed one (1) person in the episode you're talking about. The visual language they go with now is red phaser = kill, blue phaser = stun. You can see her change the setting after bumping off her mobster ex. A crime of passion m'lud, for someone who started from zero in terms of her ethical sensibilities.

In fact you see the same in the latest episode, where Seven doesn't get shot at by the baddie because she's the only one firing on a stun setting.

Wonderful Butternut

Quote from: Malcy on March 03, 2022, 12:03:56 PM
Spoiler alert
And a proper fleet at last. I saw Sovereign, Nebula, Akira, Ambassador, Excelsior, Constellation, Steamrunner, the copy and paste class from last time and a Galaxy class as well i think.
[close]

I know right? Was that so fucking hard that they couldn't have done it in season 1? (Although apart from the new Stargazer class, the model quality wasn't great)

Also love Picard's reaction to Q. He actually hates him. Brilliant.

Lemming

Just saw the first episode, wave of negativity incoming. It feels like they're just completely distancing themselves from the first season, presenting us with new versions of the characters and a new version of the setting (Rios rejoined Starfleet as a captain even after receiving a "black flag directive" from them to murder Soji's sister, which made his captain/best mate/whatever shoot himself and haunted Rios to the point of becoming some weird guy who sails around with shrapnel in his arm?). Maybe that was resolved in season one, I honestly don't really remember. Either way everyone seems to reckon Starfleet is fine now and that it's a good idea to work for them, BLACK FLAG DIRECTIVES and all.

The only real reference to the violence committed by the crew in the first season was Jurati's joking mention of that time she suffocated Bruce Maddox to death by shutting down all his organs or whatever, because she had to protect the world from the secret so terrifying it sends you insane - CGI footage of Earth blowing up. I'm sure Legolas will do well as an officer of Starfleet after his repeated beheading sprees in the first season. At least Jeri Ryan seems to be able to play Seven more recognisably than she did in the previous season.

A course correction is a good thing though given the absolute state of the first season so it's tempting to give them the benefit of the doubt and just accept that they're trying again and let them run with it. But as a show it still feels so meandering. 55 minutes and there's less content than any given 20 min segment of the average TOS/TNG/VOY/DS9 episode. I know, serialised TV, it's LIKE A NOVEL IN VISUAL FORM, EACH EPISODE A CHAPTER and I'm insane and/or impatient for not clicking with it.

My favourite thing about this though is how Picard is the worst character in a series named after him. Systematically sucks the life out of any scene he's in. Completely passive, perpetually confused, and always downcast. He's often paired with much more dynamic and energetic characters too just to really highlight it.

Side note: why the fuck do phasers still have to be Star Wars blasters. It's so terrible, phasers were cool partially because you can't really have stupid elongated shootout scenes with them where someone sprints across a room with shaky camera dodging bullets like raindrops. How are the blasters even useful? What happens if you need to do wide-beam stun? You just shake your arm side to side really fast while desperately pulling the trigger over and over? What happens if you need to disintegrate a wall (eg "Return of the Archons") or heat rocks (eg "The Enemy Within", "Silicon Avatar")? You just break your finger firing a hundred times a minute while the gun makes cool noises?

Mobbd

I would probably prefer old-fashioned episodic format but we can't blame serialisation on New Trek's failings. Breaking Bad is serialised and it's one of the best things ever. New Trek just doesn't have the talent behind it, whatever the format.

Agree that course correction was a good decision but it would have been better to course correct into something clever or fun. You'd think that would go without saying but it's 2022 and we're talking about Alex Kurtzman and Akiva Goldsman.

Why ST:P can't just be Murder She Wrote in the Final Frontier is beyond me.

Malcy


evilcommiedictator

The funny thing to remember is that now Picard is an Android - and whilst we can forget that there are human-like Androids now, he's front and center.

That also means he's technically not Locutus now? I suppose after pissing the big baddy away in the wind last time, going back to a classic baddie was an easy decision.

Spoiler alert
Borg, again, yay. Although now we've time-travelled to the bad Earth? Again?
[close]

No need to do anything interesting, like a Romulan civil war between Tal-Shiar supporters and the rest, or anything like that, they've just gone home to tend to their vineyards and marry their human slaves I guess.

Wonderful Butternut

Well presumably he no longer has any residual Borg technology in him and thus couldn't 'hear' them like he could in First Contact. But the Borg should still know him and his personality (or at least what he was like 35 years ago) intimately from the time he was assimilated.

Malcy

I wondered why he looked at Seven for confirmation of it being the Borg at first then remembered that he probably couldn't hear them anymore as he's an android now.

I reckon S3 will end with Q giving him his old body back and him dying soon after.

Mobbd

So cool they're bringing back Zaphod Beeblebrox:


Small Man Big Horse

#139
I mostly enjoyed the first episode and I'm normally a big Q fan, but I'm halfway through the second episode and it's annoying me right now, I don't mind the odd bit of mirror / alternative universe (or timeline) fun in a long running series but if the whole season is set in this world it's surely going to be all a bit meaningless when the reset button is inevitably pushed and we're back in the normal world. This is all rather miserable stuff too, a good few alternative world stories have fun with their concept but this is essentially "What if humans were cunts?" and given that's our current reality it's not something I'm excited to see.

Alberon

And it's not like Discovery hasn't mined out the same patch already.

Malcy

Thought that was even better than last week. Really enjoying this. It's probably the last we are going to see of that timeline anyway as it makes the move to 2024 next episode.

This weeks mentions that I spotted

Spoiler alert
Dukat, Martok & Sarek's skulls on display!
Sisko, Spock and Amanda? Probaly more likely Perrin.
Spot!
And the Metreon Cascade from Voyager.
[close]


Mobbd

Quote from: Malcy on March 10, 2022, 08:19:04 PM
Spoiler alert
Dukat, Martok & Sarek's skulls on display!
[close]

I'm imagining you saying that in a Rich Evans voice.

Wonderful Butternut

#143
Quote from: Malcy on March 10, 2022, 08:19:04 PMThought that was even better than last week. Really enjoying this. It's probably the last we are going to see of that timeline anyway as it makes the move to 2024 next episode.

This weeks mentions that I spotted

Spoiler alert
Dukat, Martok & Sarek's skulls on display!
Sisko, Spock and Amanda? Probaly more likely Perrin.
Spot!
And the Metreon Cascade from Voyager.
[close]

Spoiler alert
Missed Adam Soong?

EDIT: Actually since it was a giant holo statue, Adam Soong is the Brent Spiner character they meet in the past. And probably he sets the whole planet towards the Evil future, but they can't just kill him because then the Soong bloodline and Data don't exist, so Picard has to talk him into being a nice bloke.

And General Sisko should've really been the one to have killed Dukat, even in the altered timeline.

If Q's apparently gone a bit strange, is it the case that the Original Timeline Borg Queen knew he was going to fuck up something eventually, using her transtemporal consciousness or whatever it was? And the reason she drew Picard to her and made him blow up the Stargazer was so Q would make whatever he was going to do involve Picard, who could then solve it, rather than letting Picard die?

Or maybe the Borg have found some way to attack the Continuum (as ludicrously improbable as that is) and this is all somehow intertwined in it.

Also I've decided that this Borg Queen is the best Borg Queen. All the little smirks out of her are brilliant. I bet they'll ruin her though.

Evil timeline Earth is about as interesting as I thought it would be. Which is to say it isn't very interesting at all. PUBLIC EXECUTIONS OMG! ERADICATION DAY! FASCISM! SO HARDCORE!
[close]

kalowski

How much better would this be without Agnes? Answer: 50,000,000 times better.

Wonderful Butternut

Quote from: kalowski on March 11, 2022, 10:41:20 PMHow much better would this be without Agnes? Answer: 50,000,000 times better.

Yeah, she's all over the fucking place. Are they trying to play the 'really smart but also really neurotic' angle with her or something?

Spoiler alert
Borg Queen is eyeing her up a lot. Hopefully there'll be some actual plot thread with payoff there and not just some stupid comedy scenes of "OMG I'm so scared of the Queen she's about to eat my brain oh no wait she's just making herself some nanoprobe coffee or something innocent lol nevermind."
[close]

kalowski

After episode 1 my wife asked me if I was enjoying it and  I said "I love it and hate it"
Love the concept and plot
Hate the dialogue. Genuine line of "Wait, what now?" In 2022.

Ant Farm Keyboard

You've all missed one reference.

Spoiler alert
Q says at some point, "How quaint. How provincial. How yesterday's Enterprise of you."
Which is basically the mood they're trying to recreate here.
[close]

Agnes is irritating, but she's harmless. This stuff is just filler. Coming from Discovery the day before, I loved her

Spoiler alert
"You know, I would hang up on you right now if it wasn't gonna get us all killed", just after she has a feud with Rios. Which denotes some self-awareness from the writers.
In Discovery, she would have hung up instead, and when she would have expressed regrets about acting impulsively, as it caused a ton of harm, we'd get a lecture from another character about how important it is to express one's feelings.
[close]

Malcy

Saw both of those references mentioned.

One I did miss was that the
Spoiler alert
Ferengi skull was accompanied by the Staff of the Grand Nagus. But was it Zak's or Rom's I wonder!
[close]

kalowski

Quote from: Ant Farm Keyboard on March 12, 2022, 12:25:47 AMYou've all missed one reference.

Spoiler alert
Q says at some point, "How quaint. How provincial. How yesterday's Enterprise of you."
Which is basically the mood they're trying to recreate here.
[close]

I spotted that!