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Star Trek Picard S2

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

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Ant Farm Keyboard

Why this exploration of Picard's psyché? Wasn't it already obvious from the flashbacks that his mother suffered from depression or another similar issue, that never required some fake suspense about it? Why the need to bring on Earth a Romulan to monitor Renée Picard while she's supposed to fade into the background to accomplish her mission?

The crazy thing is that, when they're trying to do something Star Trek had never done and they're patting themselves on the back for being that bold and edgy, like this episode and the previous one, they're doing the exact thing that hundreds of shows have already done, most of the time much better.

Alberon

I stopped watching this. Not a conscious decision, but there's always something better to try.

It's mad, the first episode seems to go, 'okay we've fixed what was wrong with the first season' and then immediately screw it all up again in new ways.

They've gone to the Chris Chibnall school of writing, proudly holding their turds out for our approval.

jamiefairlie

Star Trek and Dr Who, the two flagship sci-fi shows and both written so poorly that even diehard fans are stopping watching. Why? Is it so hard to find competent writers?

evilcommiedictator

I like how we've setup an interesting plot, with current-day Earth having so many bad an obvious issues, and now we're going to ignore it.

I like how we've setup an interesting plot, with the entire ICE/Police force on the lookout for two women, and now we're going to ignore it.

I like how we've setup an interesting plot with Guinan something something humanity something, and now we're going to ignore it.

I like how we've setup an interesting plot/reveal, with Q losing his powers, and now we're going to ignore it.

I like how we've setup an interesting plot/reveal, with Picard's Greatx8 Grandma and space and Q, and now we're going to ignore it.

I like how we've setup an interesting plot/revel, with the Borg Queen on a rampage and now we're going to ignore it.

I like how we've setup an interesting plot/reveal, with Picard's mum eventually being delusional and now it means nothing.

But hey, the FBI have picked up Picard, so that's an extra filler episode.

Spoon of Ploff

I hope they reprise the famous four lights episode.

Ant Farm Keyboard

Except that it will be Steve Bannon, Mike Lindell and Sidney Powell, all forcing Picard to acknowledge that Trump got more votes in the swing states.

olliebean

You know that game where somebody writes a paragraph of a story, then folds the paper over so only the last line is visible, then passes it on to the next person to continue the story?

That's what's going on here, isn't it?

Zero Gravitas

Quote from: olliebean on April 18, 2022, 12:43:51 PMYou know that game where somebody writes a paragraph of a story, then folds the paper over so only the last line is visible, then passes it on to the next person to continue the story?

That's what's going on here, isn't it?

It's called a progressive stack you chud!
Jesus, this is not the effect I envisaged new star trek having on me.

I've been musing, partially inspired by people calling out similarities to Who writing, that perhaps this is  the transformation of 'Trek' into a sub-genre of it's own and then being treated as you would any genre: as something not particularly interesting when worked within unironically but rather something that demands remix and subversion.

But then I think, no, that's an insane leap of rationalization you're only making because you're no longer down with the kids and this is good actually.

And then I remember how disgustingly terrifying, dirty and dark Emissary was, and how tonally weird the half chipper, half  mindless-idealistic, half conflicty Caretaker was and wonder what I'd feel about them had I been pulled into a pit of self-reinforcing online hate as I watched those.

But then I remember that it is shit, but then get worried that there is no objective basis for that belief about a piece of light entertainment, and even if there was, it's certainly better on all counts that 'Earth: Final Conflict' which I have nothing but pleasant memories of that shit being shit, rather than this passionate dislike spiking to negative evangelism.

And then I just don't know what to think, or if I can trust my own thoughts anymore.

I will however watch the next episode, so mission accomplished I suppose.

JamesTC

Picard is a robot whose mother was locked in a room for being mental.

Zero Gravitas

A frenzy of stuff this episode, I think the "what's in cell phone batteries"/"stabilizing metal" bit made me the angriest, but the high kicking gunplay was pretty close.

Quite excited to see a little Vulcan expedition quite disappointed to see them used in an explanation of why a random b-character thought aliens were dangerous perhaps he'll come back in one f the next two epsiodes - I kept expecting him to be a more direct Fox Mulder reference that'd have been fun.

Lemming

SPOILERS AHEAD for the new Picard episode

THE GOOD: Quite liked the resolution to the FBI plot, even if it came out of nowhere and was resolved in five lines of dialogue (Guinan giving Picard the phrase, Picard saying the phrase, Mulder saying "as a kid I met aliens", Picard saying "this is a mind meld", Mulder saying "you're free to go")

As for everything else...

- Hitler Data is about to be Borgified! Laughed out loud when he managed to get together a team of elite mercs within like, five minutes. Laughed even harder when they started getting Borged.

- Rios and the doc had fuck-all to do this time around. Declaration of love, there you go, there's your five seconds of screentime this episode.

- The writers apparently feared that the Raffi and Seven scenes were getting boring, so Seven started snapping at Raffi for no real reason. After Raffi is choked by the Borg Queen (and saved by Jurati, who managed to reassert control briefly?), this newly-introduced drama is resolved by Raffi admitting that she is indeed manipulative, a character trait I don't think has ever really been associated with her before. Luckily, the show shoved a flashback in to allay any concerns you might have that this came out of nowhere.

- Rios' lost commbadge returns! Except Mulder says "I just had the place searched". Rios returned to the clinic several times long after the dramatic shot of ICE being about to find his lost commbadge. I guess he forgot about it and just left it there in the entrance where it went unnoticed until now.

- What were the Vulcans doing on Earth? I'm not saying it's impossible for them to be there, or even that this is an example of questionable writing or anything, but why go down in person like that? The Carbon Creek incident happened within living memory, you'd think they'd want to take care. If it's some TNG movie lore or whatever, I'm oblivious. Also, they mind-melded with child-Mulder? Weren't mind melds illegal back then and hugely frowned upon, as seen in that one Enterprise episode where mind melds are a thinly-veiled allegory for homosexuality? I know this was about a century before Enterprise, so maybe the outlawing of mind melds was a new thing. Don't know, don't remember Enterprise's new additions to the lore too well.

- Guinan was going to leave Earth due to racism and poverty, but seeing Mulder sacrifice his career to save them convinces her that humanity itself is uniquely good. Yep, no other species in the galaxy has the ability to process memories and react to them! In fairness, "humans are very uniquely special, nobody else has emotions or personalities" is a crap theme that's pretty typical of all Star Trek, so no real hate to ST: Picard for falling back on it again. Love how limp it feels though - the series has a character voice her distress at devastating modern-day issues, and then totally fails to interrogate the issues in any way before sweeping them aside by having the same character conclude "humanity will get over all this violence and subjugation one day because Mulder is nice". Which, again, is pretty typical of Star Trek, I suppose, so maybe that's why it was my favourite subplot of the episode.

- Still bothered by the whole Time's Arrow situation. I get that we're currently watching a version of 2024 where the future has been changed to one in which Time's Arrow didn't happen, but surely if they succeed at their mission and Renee Picard goes to space, then Time's Arrow will happen... meaning the events we're currently seeing (which are necessary for Time's Arrow to happen) can't happen, because Time's Arrow already happened and therefore Guinan's behaviour in 2024 would be radically different, and she'd have already met Picard.

Was laughing out loud throughout this one, which is a nice change from the recent string of episodes that have been nothing but confusion and boredom inducing.

Zero Gravitas

Quote from: Lemming on April 22, 2022, 10:01:49 PM- Still bothered by the whole Time's Arrow situation. I get that we're currently watching a version of 2024 where the future has been changed to one in which Time's Arrow didn't happen, but surely if they succeed at their mission and Renee Picard goes to space, then Time's Arrow will happen... meaning the events we're currently seeing (which are necessary for Time's Arrow to happen) can't happen, because Time's Arrow already happened and therefore Guinan's behaviour in 2024 would be radically different, and she'd have already met Picard.

But there's no reason for them to travel back into the past of the confederation's timeline and meet her in it's 21st century if upon arriving in the 25th version of that timeline if it was nice enough for time's arrow to occur back in the 24th/19th so you get to sidestep that bit.

Quote from: Lemming on April 22, 2022, 10:01:49 PMthinly-veiled allegory for homosexuality?
Yep, I think I got beamed up not by his ship but by their version of paedophile hunters.

kalowski

I'm impressed that they wrote a script that filled an episode but didn't move the plot on one single bit. Fuck's sake.

Malcy

Quote from: kalowski on April 23, 2022, 11:33:01 PMI'm impressed that they wrote a script that filled an episode but didn't move the plot on one single bit. Fuck's sake.

6 weeks of that now...

kalowski


Malcy

Quote from: kalowski on April 24, 2022, 07:39:45 AMYet still I watch it...

Yeah same. Always hoping the next episode is the one they get right.

elliszeroed

Quote from: Malcy on April 24, 2022, 12:07:43 PMYeah same. Always hoping the next episode is the one they get right.

Are you Sam Beckett?

evilcommiedictator

I like how we've retconned the whole timeline now as Picard causing it by going back in time from a reality that existed because Picard went back in time (all caused by Q and Gerati-Borg).

I like how Raffi seemingly left the gun behind, and stayed to have a chat whilst Gerati was literally getting away. Kids playing on starships is nice, we already know he's staying behind, get on with it, oh, let's go now to the cheapest FBI interrogation set available, and Q doesn't want to speak directly to Picard, because we need to reveal that Q is no longer immortal/is dying. Well, who would have thought!

Zero Gravitas

Quote from: evilcommiedictator on April 26, 2022, 02:24:21 AMQ doesn't want to speak directly to Picard, because we need to reveal that Q is no longer immortal/is dying. Well, who would have thought!

But wasn't Picard able to intuit that over the course of their first conversation?

It'd be my first suspicion if a non-spatiotemporal omnipotent prankster started talking a little portentously.

beanheadmcginty

Why the hell am I still watching this colossal pile of dog eggs? It's so bad.

Malcy


JamesTC

I hope Enron murders a load of people.

Malcy

The whole Seven being rejected from Starfleet thing was ridiculous.

Just because she was ex-Borg. Picard is a huge risk in that regard as well, kept him at the Romulan Neutral Zone at when the cube came for Earth in First Contact but he saved the day.

This time the Borg show up and it's Jean-Luc HELP US NOW.

Why wouldn't they have that attitude with Seven. Especially with Janeway threatening to resign over it.

It just seems they want to fuck every character up as much as possible like they have a vendetta agains Trek or something.

Idiots.

Deanjam

Didn't Icheb get accepted into the academy? Almost like they don't really care ...

Spoon of Ploff


Malcy

Quote from: Deanjam on April 29, 2022, 11:41:45 AMDidn't Icheb get accepted into the academy? Almost like they don't really care ...

Forgot about that.

JamesTC

Quote from: Deanjam on April 29, 2022, 11:41:45 AMDidn't Icheb get accepted into the academy? Almost like they don't really care ...

They had a Picard Day banner. How can you say they don't care?!?

Nice of them to make Starfleet prejudiced again. They just love making everybody xenophobic.

JamesTC

Why does young Picard have a model of the NX-01 refit that was designed for Season 5 of Enterprise but never used due to the cancellation?

Mobbd

Quote from: JamesTC on April 29, 2022, 03:42:57 PMWhy does young Picard have a model of the NX-01 refit that was designed for Season 5 of Enterprise but never used due to the cancellation?

Must have been to some other dark timeline when the cameras weren't rolling.

Wonderful Butternut

Quote from: Malcy on April 29, 2022, 10:58:44 AMThe whole Seven being rejected from Starfleet thing was ridiculous.

Just because she was ex-Borg. Picard is a huge risk in that regard as well, kept him at the Romulan Neutral Zone at when the cube came for Earth in First Contact but he saved the day.

This time the Borg show up and it's Jean-Luc HELP US NOW.

Why wouldn't they have that attitude with Seven. Especially with Janeway threatening to resign over it.

It just seems they want to fuck every character up as much as possible like they have a vendetta agains Trek or something.

Idiots.

Worst part is there is no way Janeway would pull back from her resignation threat. Seven borders on being her daughter in Voyager at times, she would follow the fuck through and resign over her. The only way she'd back off is if Seven asked her not to resign over it. But even then I'd be surprised if she didn't just 'fuck it' and go on principle anyway.

Honestly the fan assumption that Seven ultimately decided not join (or not to remain if she had joined) in Starfleet because it didn't suit her moral center worked better.

I thought we were done making Starfleet into dickheads in season 1 anyway.

As for:

Spoiler alert
Jurati becoming a new, benign Borg queen; even with the massive holes in it about how assimilation works vs. every other time, this could have actually been good. The problem is it arises from Jurati flipping all the Borg Queen's comments about how lonely she (Jurati) is back on her and successfully persuading her it's a good idea to save lives instead of assimilate them in the length of time it takes you to read this sentence.

There really isn't any build up to this beyond the Borg Queen fucking around with Jurati, which is mostly about the latter being taken over by the former. Considering that they probably could've cut at least three episodes worth of run time of unnecessary fluff out of it so far, it's not like they couldn't have made time. Even something little, like if before the Queen went kidnapping cops, Jurati had been trying to keep her out of trouble for while, humouring her by talking to her or something (obviously she'd eventually have to stop to get away from the psycho bitch) and maybe suggested during the course of the convo that The Borg's stated need for perfection is actually a product of fear or something like that. Maybe more of Jurati talking in the Queen's head - not that I like that sort of shit, btw, but it seems to be one of nu-Trek's preferred tropes, so I'd like to see them at least employ it usefully - after she takes over? Come on guys, give us something.

And yeah, we can handwave that since Jurati hasn't been assimilated as a regular drone, and is in fact still physically Jurati, just with the Queen's personality imprinted on to her, and a small quantity of nanoprobles, until it eventually becomes dominant, it's acceptable that she has a lot more influence over the Queen than an ordinary drone. But it's beyond jarring to have this resolution just occur on the spot. Especially in a series that has been painfully slow paced for the most part.

On the plus side, at least that's Jurati gone. Who else can we get rid of in episode 10 to make room for Riker & Co?

Also fuck you, Rios, keep your mouth shut and let notData kill himself next time.
[close]

There were ideas with potential here, but it badly needed a fucking editor.