Star Trek Picard and Strange New Worlds

[Josephus]

I'm old.My short term memory sucks. If she was in STNG, even for 5 minutes, I would have recognized her. But Season One of Picard? Pfffft.

I see now, the actresses name, Orla Brady, was in the opening credits. 

[garbon]

ICE will never catch a break.

[Josquius]

This is the general star trek thread right?

Saw episode 1 of the new series of discovery....
This... Is not good. Everything was so very obvious. That the starbase guy was going to die was just painful.
And there were just zero stakes. So a starbase is in trouble because reasons?
Kind of villainy seeming president...
Yeah

[Crazy_Ivan80]

This is the general star trek thread right?

Saw episode 1 of the new series of discovery....
This... Is not good. Everything was so very obvious. That the starbase guy was going to die was just painful.
And there were just zero stakes. So a starbase is in trouble because reasons?
Kind of villainy seeming president...
Yeah

STD has it's own thread iirc
https://languish.org/forums/index.php/topic,15243.0.html

[Syt]

Teaser for Picard Season 3: https://twitter.com/StarTrekOnPPlus/status/1511388196398985219

[viper37]

Teaser for Picard Season 3: https://twitter.com/StarTrekOnPPlus/status/1511388196398985219

Huge spoiler for season 2:









They make it back to their own timeline 

[FunkMonk]

I've been watching an episode of TNG a night before bed and it's amazing the difference between Picard and it's predecessor. Yeah, I know it's a different era and a completely different television show but still, wow.

[Syt]

Ok, you guys know I'm generally quite lenient when it comes to sci-fi shows in franchises I like (Trek, Star Wars), because even if a story may not be great, I generally like seeing more of those settings.

But I'm honestly getting quite frustrated with Picard.

SPOILERS BELOW.

The season started with a pretty good mystery in its first few episodes. Why do the Borg show up and ask for Picard? They want to join the Federation? Whaaaa ... ? Then time travel! Q! An alternate timeline! What happened? Going back to 2024 to figure out what went wrong and fix it! ... All good stuff.

But since those first three or so episodes not much has happened. Well, a lot has happened, but not much with regards to that mystery. We have all these plot threads:
- Q and his loss of power (we learned in the recent episode he's dying which is not a huge shock at this point)
- Dr Soong and his genetic research that will somehow lead to Earth becoming determined exterminators (to use Stellaris' term). What does Dr Soong *actually* try to achieve, and how does that make mankind into space nazis? His whole (clone?) bloodline is big into creating perfect beings (e.g. the augmented in Enterprise, Data + Lore, the synths in Picard S.1 ...), but is that all?
- And what will happen with Kore now?
- Angela and the Borg Queen (excellent work by both actresses, btw)
- Picard and his childhood trauma (again, excellent, esp. in the recent episode with James Callis)
- Rene Picard and her voyage/the Supervisor and Q (+ Queenie) seeking to prevent the journey
- Guinan, I guess?
- Agent Wells - I assume he'll be back, because I refuse to believe his appearance was pure filler as it otherwise would be ... probably a heroic sacrifice that saves the heroes in some critical way, now that he's "seen the light."
- Rafi dealing with guilt over Elnor's death
- Seven being "herself" for the first time
- Rios doing his best to demolish the timeline by dragging the very cute and awesome doctor and her kid into things
Plus the mysteries mentioned above (what causes the change, what does Q want, etc.), and I might even be forgetting something.

Each episode, if you take it out of context and watch it by itself, is IMHO fine. The acting is good, the pacing is sometimes off, but the craftsmanship of each one is generally fine.

But looking at them as a larger narrative, the forward momentum is largely gone. There's been vague hints at the larger mystery, but I feel Discovery's season 4 handled theirs much better, IMHO. There, the problem was examined, clues were gathered, leading to new discoveries and questions, and leading the plot down a bit of a breadcrumb trail to its resolution.

Picard S2 started strong in that regard, but hasn't really done much with it in the last 3, 4 episodes. I guess you can start with the strong hook and then focus on more character focused bits, and they do that to some extent, but I also feel you need to dole out some morsels of the big plot question that underlies the season (Why does the timeline change; how can it be fixed; what do Q and the Borg Queen - presumably Jurati - really want?). They have two episodes left to tie it all together (see list above). I assume they'll start next episode, but it still seems a lot. Esp. since these finales tend to be quite action heavy, and there'll probably be a huge "WE'RE DOOMED!" cliffhanger at the end of the penultimate episode. Plus you want to have some room for denouement/epilogue in the final episode (at least I don't expect that they'll drag out the plot arc into the third season).

I can tell you, though, if this season ends with Q undoing all changes when he gets his powers back, and only Picard remembers the experience I will likely be quite pissed, because it's just a small step up from "Bobby being killed was just Pamela having a bad dream!"

[crazy canuck]

I agree with those comments.

In addition, I am not that interested in Picard's childhood/hangups.  But that seems to be all this season is about.

[FunkMonk]

Yeah this show sucks, but I'm in this far so I'll see how it ends. 

It's my understanding that Season 3 was filmed at the same time as 2 so I'm assuming this season will lead directly into 3, which might mean they don't completely tie up all the plotlines this season.

[Syt]

Yeah this show sucks, but I'm in this far so I'll see how it ends. 

It's my understanding that Season 3 was filmed at the same time as 2 so I'm assuming this season will lead directly into 3, which might mean they don't completely tie up all the plotlines this season.

Could be, though I was wondering if Stewart's age plays a role there. He doesn't seem exactly spry. His scenes are mostly him sitting down talking to people - I'm ok with that, he's a great enough actor to make that work. But in scenes with more "action" it seemed quite noticeable that they had him re-record his voice lines for those scenes. It's not uncommon (especially in Trek), but it seemed a bit off.

I'm totally here for his family backstory, though. We've only ever seen glimpses of that, so I like seeing more of his messed up family. A shame Robert isn't made part of the memories - after their difficult relationship seen in the TNG episode "Family" this would have been interesting.

[viper37]

SPOILERS BELOW.
The season started with a pretty good mystery in its first few episodes. Why do the Borg show up and ask for Picard? They want to join the Federation? Whaaaa ... ? Then time travel! Q! An alternate timeline! What happened? Going back to 2024 to figure out what went wrong and fix it! ... All good stuff.

Q first, then the alternate timeline, then the time travel to figure it out.

- Q and his loss of power (we learned in the recent episode he's dying which is not a huge shock at this point)
- Dr Soong and his genetic research that will somehow lead to Earth becoming determined exterminators (to use Stellaris' term). What does Dr Soong *actually* try to achieve, and how does that make mankind into space nazis? His whole (clone?) bloodline is big into creating perfect beings (e.g. the augmented in Enterprise, Data + Lore, the synths in Picard S.1 ...), but is that all?
- And what will happen with Kore now?

Ok, Q is straightforward, we knew he was off since the second episode he was in, Picard even mentions it.

Dr Soong is influence by the Borg Queen at this point.  But we know that so meone, in the original timeline, had created super soldiers (that was the 90s, Khan's rebellion) and tried to take over the Earth, leading to WW3.

I figure that if the Borg Queen helps him, this time, his research leads to a more militaristic society after vanquishing the super soldiers, maybe enhanced humans fighting other enhanced humans.

Kore is now free to party at will, try drugs and alcohol, becomes depressive and hangs herself.

The Borg Queen wants to create drones, retake La Sirena, move to outer space in an inhabited corner where she can find the necessary ressources, than assimilate some more drones and recreate her new Empire.  I figure that in the future, Agnes learns to retake control on the Borg Queen and that explains the scene from the season opener.

As for Rios, well... Honestly, can you blame him?  It's not the first time a guy makes some stupid move for some pretty eyes!

[Josephus]

Yeah, I thought it was really good when it first started, and it is still watchable, but doesn't have the same hook to it as it did in the first few episodes.

[FunkMonk]

I've been watching every episode of TNG from Season 2 onward and it always strikes me as funny how Picard just doesn't have the time of day for most people under his command, especially junior officers. Watching 'Q-Who' right now and Ensign Gomez just spilled hot chocolate on Captain Picard and the look on his face 

I dunno, maybe ST Picard is older and therefore kinder but younger Picard was basically a huge dick most of the time.

[Syt]

I think that's also because Patrick Stewart loosened up over time. When he first joined he had a very no-nonsense attitude to acting. When the rest of the crew was goofing around between takes or otherwise tried to make the long days a bit lighter he would admonish them and tell them to behave like adults/professionals. He eventually became a lot more relaxed.

I saw an interview with him a while back where he said that the cast and crew of TNG saved him, because he was quite a miserable, stodgy person to be around and that he learned from them to be more in the moment and just have more fun in life.