Star Trek - Picard show

[oy vey]

Some good points there on standalone versus arc style. Dark as it was, I always thought DS9 was the perfect hybrid of both.

[Default to the negative]

DS9 is the only Trek show I watched from beginning to end. The arcs could be either a strength or a weakness.

Dominion, Klingon and Cardassia arcs: Tippity-top notch.

Ferengi arc: Mostly decent but with a tendency towards direly unfunny comic relief. It also gave us 'Profit and Lace', the worst episode of DS9 and maybe even the worst of all Trek. I don't know of a lower point in the franchise.

Bajoran religion arc: Started out bad and only got worse. In the end, it ruined Gul Dukat's character and culminated in literal wizard fights.

[Blumf]

DS9 gave us an interesting direction to go with; life outside of The Federation. In particular, exploring why some cultures would rather not join in with the fully automated luxury communism pyjama party.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VhSm6G7cVk

[oy vey]

On the subject of worst of Trek Profit and Lace was utter utter bollocks but I think Voyager's Threshold is worse. TNGs Shades of Grey is arse and Enterprise's These Are the Voyages is a squat and shit on its own legacy. I don't get the hate for Spock's Brain. McCoy controlling Spock's body with an Atari 2600 paddle stick. What's not to love?

I agree the risks of a full arc series is that if the plot doesn't work the whole thing is arsed. Hence me giving up on Discovery. Will Picard fuck us over?

[Lemming]

Threshold largely deserves the hate it gets but I quite like it. The end is obviously stupid for the reasons everyone knows (salamanders) and the pacing/storytelling is weak but I love the idea that going at Warp 10 is something humans were never meant to be capable of, and doing it causes you to occupy every single point in the universe at once, which is such a terrifying experience that it shatters your mind and rewrites your DNA.

Spock's Brain is bad but its fun bad. Kirk uncharacteristically and suddenly lashing out at the guards, Spock directing his own brain surgery, "BRAIN AND BRAIN! WHAT IS BRAIN!", the aforementioned Atari 2600 joystick, it's all ace.

[Schmo Diddley]

DS9 is the only Trek show I watched from beginning to end. The arcs could be either a strength or a weakness.

Dominion, Klingon and Cardassia arcs: Tippity-top notch.

Ferengi arc: Mostly decent but with a tendency towards direly unfunny comic relief. It also gave us 'Profit and Lace', the worst episode of DS9 and maybe even the worst of all Trek. I don't know of a lower point in the franchise.

Bajoran religion arc: Started out bad and only got worse. In the end, it ruined Gul Dukat's character and culminated in literal wizard fights.

I watched DS9 back recently, what a fantastic series. The character arc for the cardassians as a species was brilliant, particularly Gil Dukat although his final descent was a travesty.

Quark was a good character but the tendency of the ferengis towards slapstick and banter was annoying.

[Cloud]

Oh god I'd almost flushed Profit and Lace from my brain.

Still, even if Ira Steven Behr got any flak for a cringey loltrans episode at least he didn't turn into a raging Twitter TERF

[Shaky]

Granted I'm not an ultra-fan - I've seen nearly all episodes of every series, I guess - but there is still a very palpable trad-Trek vibe in Picard, just packaged in a slightly new and shiny format as befitting 2020. A sad Jean-Luc taking the lift says a hell of a lot more about the character and his world than seeing an old man fight monsters on different planets every week. I'm not sure a show like that would leave much of a legacy these days. Maybe 10 years ago Stewart could've got away with it.

[earl_sleek]

DS9 gave us an interesting direction to go with; life outside of The Federation. In particular, exploring why some cultures would rather not join in with the fully automated luxury communism pyjama party.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VhSm6G7cVk

That's one of my favourite bits of all Trek. Despite the obvious differences, I've always viewed the Federation as an extension of the US, and the unquestioning "The Federations is a perfect society!!!!" line is gratingly similar to American patriotism. It's satisfying to see it taken down.

[Sony Walkman Prophecies]

Gone in with zero expectations and liking it so far. The only part I take issue with is the grumpy new pilot. Signaling that a character is a bit emotionally incontinent with tumblers of whisky, the odd cigar and a philosophy book is fine if it's a 1:45 film, but this is episodic telly. There should be plenty of time to lay groundwork for character development. Let the traits suggest themselves.

[MojoJojo]

Ferengi arc: Mostly decent but with a tendency towards direly unfunny comic relief. It also gave us 'Profit and Lace', the worst episode of DS9 and maybe even the worst of all Trek. I don't know of a lower point in the franchise.

Paris and Janeway would like a word.

(Yes I know people have brought it up already but I've already gone to the trouble of finding a picture now).

[Blumf]

A sad Jean-Luc taking the lift says a hell of a lot more about the character and his world than seeing an old man fight monsters on different planets every week.

Yeaaah, that's not the core of Trek, this is:

COCHRANE: Believe me, Captain, immortality consists largely of boredom. What's it like out there in the galaxy?
KIRK: We're on a thousand planets and spreading out. We cross fantastic distances and everything's alive, Cochrane. Life everywhere. We estimate there are millions of planets with intelligent life. We haven't begun to map them. Interesting?
COCHRANE: How would you like to sleep for a hundred and fifty years and wake up in a new world?
KIRK: It's all out there waiting for you, but we'll need your help to get away.

The fighting (and snogging) was just a bit of amusing action, the underlying idea was of exploration and improvement. That's what made the shows so memorable and loved. There have been many 'fighting' and 'snogging' sci-fi shows, before and since, most get forgotten because that isn't an interesting premise on it's own. What Trek fans love is the idea that we can make a better future, it's a show that genuinely inspires.

So far, we haven't seen much of anything in Picard, so it's hard to judge on that basis. But the xenophobia and isolationism of The Federation that we have seen isn't ideal (and doesn't really make sense considering how diverse and widespread it is). Once again DS9 does it better, when they dealt with the paranoia infecting society when it became apparent that shape-shifters may well have infiltrated The Federation.

[Lemming]

^ Good post, agreed. It's critical for a Star Trek production IMO that the Federation is portrayed as something to aspire to, to some degree. Whether it's the borderline-utopian vision of the Federation in parts of TNG and most of VOY, or the more complicated verisons in DS9 and TOS, the Federation is always an idealistic society full of people genuinely trying to do the best they can, even if they fuck it up.

It's not clear at all what the Federation in Picard actually stands for, other than racism. I wonder how new viewers who haven't seen previous Star Trek series are reacting to this new portrayal of the Federation.

Also I've always been dubious of the accusation that Star Trek supports American patriotism via Federation-as-America allegory - it's explicitly contrasted against America plenty of times to criticise the present and demonstrate how things ought to be better. It depends on the writer and the episode, I guess, but I can't immediately think of any episode in any series that strikes me as being overwhelmingly pro-America. Even trash like "The Omega Glory", which ends with Kirk reading the fucking constitution to aliens, at least appears to be trying to criticise modern day America. "A Private Little War" comes close to Vietnam apologia but Roddenberry is such a shit writer that I genuinely can't tell what the hell that episode is trying to say.

[Default to the negative]

So far, we haven't seen much of anything in Picard, so it's hard to judge on that basis. But the xenophobia and isolationism of The Federation that we have seen isn't ideal (and doesn't really make sense considering how diverse and widespread it is).

There is a precedent for Federation prejudice against pointy eared people. In Balance of Terror, Lieutenant Stiles gets his first look at a Romulan and then turns hostile towards Spock because of the physical resemblance between Romulans and Vulcans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV9c2fj9iPM

[Blumf]

There's so much that could have gone smoother is Spock, and Vulcans in general, would just speak up. I mean, they're supposed to be logical, so no need for embarrassment.

"Kirk, mate, I'm prone to get super horny/violent every now and then so, like, best let me go home on occasion. Yeah, it's a weird alien sex thing, soz. Oh and I've got some idiot of a brother who's a real religious berk. I believe you humans would call him a 'new age hippy twat'. No sisters though, even adopted, that is NOT a thing, and anybody who says otherwise is a liar!"

[Mobbd]

I'm with Mobbd - this but unironically.

I think we want the same thing. I was just cursed with a sarcastic tone of voice.

Genuinely love Spock's Brain and quite fond of Threshold. Gimme dat shit. But also the more serious DS9 stuff people are talking about. Love it.

We're trying to get into Enterprise at home. Neither of us ever liked it because we were afflicted with brains from an early age. But we want some new Trek, don't like the new Trek, and thought "you know, there's a whole bunch of Trek you've never really seen." Will withhold opinion until someone wants to start an Enterprise: Revisited thread.

[Mobbd]

There is a precedent for Federation prejudice against pointy eared people. In Balance of Terror, Lieutenant Stiles gets his first look at a Romulan and then turns hostile towards Spock because of the physical resemblance between Romulans and Vulcans.

Sure, but that's a one-man racist band. Dr McCoy used to be a right old racist to Spock as well. And Pulaski to Data.

Always a few cunts in the workplace.

[Alberon]

The fourth episode is a bit of a let down. They

Spoiler alert

pick up the Romulan samurai, battle a TOS era Romulan Bird of Prey, Seven of Nine shows up at the end, and Picard knows her, or knows of her. Meanwhile at the Borg cube - the wheels spin.

[close]

Hopefully all the pieces are in place now and they can get on with things, but...

The trailer for the fifth. It looks like they're trying for a comedy episode, or at least partly. It doesn't look good.

[Blumf]

Aren't these the episodes where Kurtzman takes over show running from Chabon?

[Lemming]

That wasn't up to much, aside from great set design/visuals/CGI/whatever on the planet. Where the hell are they by the way? We're already in the Beta Quadrant? Did they ever say where Freecloud is? Did they take a big diversion just to pick up this sword guy who, as was established, is literally useless if we run into anyone with a gun - ie. everyone in Star Trek?

Anyway the plot didn't really move forward but I liked the

Spoiler alert

confrontation with the guy in the bar at the end. That was the first genuinely interesting angle the show has ever put on the Romulan refugee crisis - some Romulans coming to believe that the Federation fucked the rescue effort on purpose to weaken the Empire by creating a huge disconnected diaspora of Romulans. The beheading was just lol though, what the fuck was that about. I appreciate that they had Picard get genuinely furious about it, but he's an idiot. "We need to get an assassin for our team. My god, the assassin assassinated someone! What the fuck! No way! This isn't what I hired an assassin for at all!"

[close]

Also like how Seven's first act was to show up, miss a shot, explode, and collapse. Great job Seven.

[Mobbd]

The fourth episode is a bit of a let down.

I struggled to get through the first 60% and I wondered if this was my stepping off point. But! things picked up a bit after the

Spoiler alert

encounter at the bar though, eh? And even at the bar, there was, as Lemming says, some intelligent ideas running around.

[close]

Spoiler alert

The fight with/flight from the Bird of Prey was the best part. I didn't even hate the pilot and his holograms. It was just nice to be flying around in a ship with a crew. And there was some decent character stuff from Pilot Man on realising that he might have to respect Picard's mad skillz as The Captain. And it was nice to see Seven.

[close]

Something that contributed to the grinding tedium of the first half (in addition to the usual lack of fun and the sepia grading) is a tendency in the script to waffle on about things that happened in the past rather than showing anything happening now. It's all "he was my friend and he died / she was killed by so-and-so / I lament what happened at / the Federation did something ten years ago." They even keep this up in the "14 years ago" segments. Stop telling and start showing, guys! It's like they're super-keen to guess at* the boring politics and melodramatic personal events between Nemesis and Picard but frightened of actually experiencing the world they've gone to the trouble of building sets for.

(*and that's weirdly what this backstory-filling feels like: guessing. It's as if they're belatedly afraid of stepping on canon despite the fact that they have the first opportunity in two prequel-obsessed decades to establish exciting new canon with impunity, which you'd think would be the most attractive thing about writing within the perimeters of a cogent and long-established fictional universe, no?).

I like P-Stew's slightly younger/extra buttery acting in the 14-years-ago segments. Baldy's got good range.

[Cloud]

I just hope he's also got his health.  I wasn't the only one in the household to pick up both in this and his appearance on HIGNFY a few years ago how he really has to choke out the words and sounds like he's been smoking 40 a day. 

Could just be though that he tends to use a "theatrical" voice on camera and simply finds it a bit harder to do with age.  The throatiness is more pronounced when he's at his scenery-chewiest ("IT WAS NO LONGER STAR FLEET" etc) so that would make sense.

[Sin Agog]

Going back to the serial/monster of the week debate, this series of Picard is (so far) proving that a lot of the worse serials are like tantric sex with either no orgasm at the end of it, or a brief puff of desultory man-dust.  They constantly lead you on, usually by doing that age-old penny dreadful technique of only making something interesting happen on the last page of an otherwise uneventful chapter.  You remember that moment and not the unmemorable stuff before it and dive straight into the next episode.  It's cheap, and only works for so long before people eventually cotton on (The Dalking Wead).  It is possible Picard will be one of those things which only makes sense taken as a whole season- I have noticed that programs tend to get better receptions from their fans when they're released all at once, Netflix-style- but the early reviews from people who'd seen all the episodes, positive though they were, didn't give me that impression.

[Mobbd]

Going back to the serial/monster of the week debate, this series of Picard is (so far) proving that a lot of the worse serials are like tantric sex with either no orgasm at the end of it, or a brief puff of desultory man-dust.

Aye, that's classic Kurtzman isn't it? I hoped Chabon's novel-writerliness would help us here but I'm not convinced it will. Also, his scripts feel like they were written by a teenager.

That skidding around in socks like on The Inbetweeners? That actually happened. That came out of Michael Chabon.

Sorry. No more scorn from me. Maybe it will all shape up nicely in the end. With only ten episodes, a reasonable story-with-an-ending was probably planned.

[Wonderful Butternut]

On the subject of worst of Trek Profit and Lace was utter utter bollocks but I think Voyager's Threshold is worse. TNGs Shades of Grey is arse and Enterprise's These Are the Voyages is a squat and shit on its own legacy. I don't get the hate for Spock's Brain. McCoy controlling Spock's body with an Atari 2600 paddle stick. What's not to love?

I agree the risks of a full arc series is that if the plot doesn't work the whole thing is arsed. Hence me giving up on Discovery. Will Picard fuck us over?

These Are the Voyages is the worst episode of Star Trek ever made, followed by A Night in Sickbay.


As a standalone product, Picard is okay. It's definitely got more promise than Enterprise which I feckin hated and Disco which is just an explosion of random ideas and illogical characterisations. The slow buildup isn't bothering me at the moment and I am hooking into the plot. Well maybe apart from the scenes with Soji on the cube, which for some reason are boring the hole off me. The characters are good, believable and well acted. Although Dr. Jurati, who's clearly about to turn into DIS Season 2 Tilly, is starting to annoy.

Main problem is it just doesn't feel like it's set in the Star Trek universe. It's the not the universe and the people I watched for so long.

[grainger]

Main problem is it just doesn't feel like it's set in the Star Trek universe. It's the not the universe and the people I watched for so long.

Yep. Well that, and it's very boring. And the script isn't very good.

Why is it set in 2020, but with spaceships, Romulans and Borg? Why has Picard (sorry, "JL") hired Legolas?

"Bite me". The showrunners of later-season TNG and DS9 were unable to talk about the show without saying the word "gangbusters" every two minutes, but they resisted the temptation to put their irritating LA TV industry vernacular into the scripts. But bite me.

Episode 4, and the show still has no vision at all. It may be a decent modern show[nb]Excep it isn't, because it's boring. And I so, so, so, so wanted this to be great.[/nb], but it isn't Star Trek[nb]And no, I'm not someone who wants it to be just like TNG. And Christ, not like VOY, please, anything but that. But at least give it the same ethos, not a philosophy of "all your efforts turn to shit so despair". I know I said this after episode 1, but I'm still hoping.... hoping for this show to turn it around. I suppose at least Stewart is too old to be wearing a vest and swinging from cables, firing dual rocket launchers at the Borg Queen, or having car chases, which he did in his movie years. But I guess I'm hoping for this show to be something it isn't. Star Trek. Instead of enjoying it for what it is. But what is that?[/nb].

[Cloud]

No complaints here, I liked it and the bit of backstory for the elf.  Nice to see some of what Picard got up to just before the shit hit the fan.

"Ooh look at me: now that I'm done plucking shrapnel out of my shoulder I'm reading a book on the existential dread of the presence of death" - okay Captain Edgelord.  Or should I say Captain Cringe.

Bit of racism / apartheid stuff to piss off right wing youtubers (Cullen et al), good.

Anyway yeah it was alright, not peak action but I didn't find it boring at all. 

[Wonderful Butternut]

Bit of racism / apartheid stuff to piss off right wing youtubers (Cullen et al), good.

I've been tempted to watch Cullen's reaction to it for the laugh, but then I remembered I don't want to give the stupid ginger cunt any views. He's such a moron, he might very well be praising it for having Captain Very Manly Man Cristobal instead of some "SJW" and ignoring everything else. Although, he's played by a South American actor, so that's inclusion which is bad. So yeah, he's probs just whining.

Yeah, the shrapnel, cigars, whiskey etc. are a bit cringe, but Cristobal is worth having around just for the holo-Cristobals.

[Cloud]

I've been tempted to watch Cullen's reaction to it for the laugh, but then I remembered I don't want to give the stupid ginger cunt any views. He's such a moron, he might very well be praising it for having Captain Very Manly Man Cristobal instead of some "SJW" and ignoring everything else. Although, he's played by a South American actor, so that's inclusion which is bad. So yeah, he's probs just whining.

Yeah, the shrapnel, cigars, whiskey etc. are a bit cringe, but Cristobal is worth having around just for the holo-Cristobals.

I suspect he wouldn't be praising it, more taking him as some kind of "token white guy" stereotype.  If not the "bladdy SJW" anti racism (well, speciesism) stuff he'd be saying too much time is being spent on the 1 or 2 lines the brown female had or something.  Okay perhaps I'm being a little unfair but he does get on my tits in the few videos I've seen.

True on the many holographic versions of Captain Cid

[Wonderful Butternut]

I suspect he wouldn't be praising it, more taking him as some kind of "token white guy" stereotype.  If not the "bladdy SJW" anti racism (well, speciesism) stuff he'd be saying too much time is being spent on the 1 or 2 lines the brown female had or something.  Okay perhaps I'm being a little unfair but he does get on my tits in the few videos I've seen.

You aren't. As best as I can tell, Cullen was happily making Youtube videos about computers, then one day he saw some alt-righters on t'internet and decided he wanted in with the popular kids. So he just spouts their catchphrases in an even more meaningless and scattergun manner than usual. He's a complete clown.