This should’ve all been in the pilot. One of the biggest problems in modern television, as streaming and serialization have encouraged writers to value quantity over quality, is pacing. It’s a difficult balance to strike in any medium, and it’s probably an exaggeration on my part to claim that things are significantly worse now, but the shift of focus from “episodic stories” to “season stories” means we get stuff like “Maps And Legends:” a pretty good collection of scenes which nonetheless end up somehow feeling padded. If Picard had been forced to cram the plot of its first two (three, if I’m guessing right about next week’s entry) into a single pilot, it might have been a bit rushed, and we would’ve certainly lost some nuance in perspective, but it would also have ended with stronger momentum. As is, we’ve got something that still works, but leans a little too hard into the assumption that our affection for the titular character is enough to get us invested in the plot.
It’s not that the story that’s building here isn’t interesting. A secret Romulan organization dedicated to the destruction of artificial life that is currently targeting flesh and blood androids that were built using Data’s neurons, and also there’s a Borg cube involved? It’s a lot to take in all at once, but one of the strengths of both the first episode and this one is that it doesn’t feel incoherent or flying-by-the-seat-of-the-pants in terms of plotting. We’re being introduced to a mystery, and the pieces are coming into place, slowly but surely; and while I begrudged the “slowly” a little more in “Maps And Legends,” I appreciate being able to trust that this is going somewhere. There are scenes in the episode whose necessity is arguable, but none which fail to feel considered as a part of a larger whole. I’ve seen streaming shows were entire characters seemed superfluous. The worst I can say here is, a few more darlings probably needed killing before this one escaped.
Picard remains determined to uncover why Dahj was killed, and to find her sister and protect her if he can. It’s a noble goal, but, putting aside our affection for the character, it’s hard to say if he’s the right person for the task—he’s been retired for over a decade, he’s out of most every loop there is, and he managed to make a lot of enemies when he resigned from Starfleet. “Maps And Legends” spends some time underlining how questionable all of this is. A visit from a friendly doctor after Picard has a medical screening to prove he’s fit for interstellar duty reveals our hero has a failing parietal lobe, a condition which could lead to bad dreams and sudden shifts in temperment, and will ultimately, regardless of treatment, end in his death. And even if Picard can convince his friend to let him pass the screening, his meeting with with Admiral Kristen Clancy goes about as badly as it could.
There’s admirable subtlety here. If part of what made the first episode so appealing was the way it reinforced the comfortable, welcoming memories of Picard as a noble force of decency and compassion, this second episode complicates the situation, suggesting without ever explicitly stating that it’s possible the beloved hero might be in over his head. Picard never falters in his confidence, but that’s not always a good thing, and even if previous Treks have trained us to never trust a guest starring admiral (or any member of Starfleet bureaucracy who wasn’t a series regular), it’s hard to lay all the blame on Picard’s disastrous meeting with Admiral Clancy at Clancy’s feet. The possibility that Starfleet might turn down his request seems to never have occurred to him, and while Clancy’s reaction isn’t exactly supportive, it’s hard to imagine the Picard of twenty or thirty years ago not realizing what he was walking into. When you combine his inability to maintain anything like tact during their conversation with his earlier diagnosis of a troubled brain, it leads to all sorts of troubling suggestions about his competence; and the fact that Picard himself seems utterly unconcerned about the possibility he might not be up to the task makes those troubles even more uncomfortable.
The willingness to simultaneously embrace nostalgia and question it is a good impulse. It’s not so uncomfortable as to be out-right off-putting, and Picard quickly rallies from his failure to consider his options, but the friction is there, and I doubt it’s something that’s ever going to go away completely. Odds are, he’ll hold himself together for as long as the show lasts, but there will always be that lingering doubt, both for the characters in the show and the audience, that his motives might not be as pure as we’d like to believe.
The episode ends without Picard on a ship, which is part of the frustration I mentioned earlier; two episodes of him stuck on Earth feels like a waste, especially when his time spent at the vineyard, while not agonizing to watch, isn’t so meaningful as to register as a necessity. When I criticize the show’s pacing, I’m not referring individual scenes, all of which tend to move quickly and efficiently, or the overall energy. It’s just… well, it’s cool to find out that Laris used to work for the Romulan secret police and has access to super secret, super effective forensics technology (which is apparently banned by the Federation), but I’m not sure the scene of her and Picard exploring Dahj’s apartment was entirely necessary when all the information they really ended up with was “her sister is not on Earth.”
The same could be said for the reveal that the Romulan commodore knows about the Romulan attack on Dahj; finding out Narek is intentionally seducing Dahj’s sister isn’t exactly a shock, and while the character work between him and his own sister (who is apparently running the covert operation) is fun, it’s not immediately vital. I’m sure it will be relevant in the long run, but the problem with treating story as if it’s just information to be delivered—as though it doesn’t matter how scenes fit together beyond “well this happened after this.” Maybe it worked on, say, Game of Thrones, but that show’s sprawling cast was a big part of its appeal. I’m interested in other characters on Picard, but Picard himself, at least this early on, is main draw, and while I appreciate wanting to build up the supporting cast around him, these first few episodes really needed to make more of an effort to focus on his story.
Still, the little we learn about the Borg cube is fascinating—a long term, sustained effort to study the ship (which has been booted out of the collective) and “reclaim” the Borg passengers by reconstructing their bodies. Out of everything the show has done so far, this feels new, even if it is dealing with one of the franchise’s most iconic villains, and knowing that Jeri Ryan is going to show up at some point has me all the more interested to see where it’s going. “Maps And Legends” is a step down from last week’s episode, but not so much as to be concerning. Still: fingers crossed that it gets off the ground soon.
Stray observations
- I keep forgetting to mention, but I like the opening theme a lot, especially the way it ends.
- The cold open, which shows the day Mars went kablooey, is effectively unsettling. But while it seems obvious that the synthetic life forms were hacked to commit the attack (they don’t seem to have enough personality or sense of self to have made the decision on their own), I’m not sure if I can really fault the Federation for banning artificial lifeforms. I’ll be curious to see where the show goes with this.
- I’m gonna need a little more explanation as to why the Romulans have a super secret police force trying to wipe out artificial intelligence. Right now, it mostly plays like an intriguing but unlikely retcon.
- “The Federation does not get to decide if another species lives or dies.” “Yes we do, we absolutely do.” This exchange between Picard and Clancy is really good, as is this whole conversation where Clancy angrily justifies the decision to abandon the Romulan rescue mission—it shows Picard’s idealism, which seemed so foundational to Trek during the TNG years, coming into direct clash with the government’s supposed pragmatism, and offers the sort of complex philosophical discussion (where both sides have a point) that Discovery, for all its charms, lacks.
- “You need a crew! Riker, Worf, Laforge-” “No.” This feels like an attempt to explain why the show isn’t just “the old Enterprise gang, back on their bullshit,” but while I don’t begrudge them for not getting everyone back out of mothballs, Picard’s argument (that he can’t put his old friends at risk), while plausible, is too generic. The show might have been better off just not mentioning it.
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One thing that’s starting to bother me is Picard’s insane reverence for Data. Where did that come from? Definitely not TNG – Data and Picard are more acquaintances than friends there, and TNG Picard would never really elevate Data over the rest of the crew. Having recurring dreams about Data? Really? It plays out more like a “remember TNG? It had Picard, the Borg, tea, *and Data!*”, without the actual details being thought out.
Picard always admired Data and viewed him as a man coming to terms with sentience and existence in an almost childlike way that Picard always respected. Picard, especially, in Data-heavy episodes of TNG and the movies definitely viewed Data as a friend and someone he cared for almost like a brother.On top of that Picard also feels personally responsible for Data’s death in Nemesis where Data was the only bridge crew member he lost while aboard the Enterprise and that definitely has to haunt him as by that time Data and him were very close. I don’t think Picard thinks more highly of Data than anyone else in his Enterprise crew but he definitely feels like Data is the only one he failed to protect and that can be a haunting thought and with Synths being such taboo by the time of Picard he also probably feels like he failed Data’s legacy that Synths were real sentient people even more.
Tasha?
Tasha didn’t sacrifice herself to save Picard or the crew. It was a meaningless death, which was the point.
Even 30 years later it remains quite possibly the most batshit death of a main cast member on a dramatic TV show. I’m sure there are examples of off-screen deaths of fired actors that are given conspicuously short shrift (though the only examples immediately springing to mind are comedies, Poochie on Simpsons and Charlie Sheen on 2 1/2 men). But Crosby was totally on board to film her death, and film that bizarro holo self-eulogy speech. And yet the death itself was excruciatingly unheroic, like she was just some red shirt feeding meat into the grinder.
Crosby wasn’t fired – she wanted out of the show. The show/role was not what she thought it would be so she asked to be written off the show. I have no idea if Skin of Evil was already written and they substituted Yar’s death for a random nameless crewmember, or if they wrote the episode specifically with her death in mind. But the whole point of her death was that it was random and unheroic, which was used to good effect in Yesterday’s Enterprise when the alternate-Tasha learns how she died.
That is what it felt like and it’s hard for me to say that the writers didn’t intend it that way. Crosby seemed on board with it though and felt good enough to come back to the show several times.
“the most batshit death of a main cast member on a dramatic TV show”Robert Romano would like a word
I understand that, I was replying to “Data was the only bridge crew member he lost while aboard the Enterprise and that definitely has to haunt him”
Sorry, kinja messes me up sometimes.
Tasha also died quite early in Picard’s tenure aboard the Enterprise, so it wouldn’t have had the same impact as losing Data 16 years later (thanks Wikipedia!)
That was to save Troi.
Data was the son Picard never had. Picard’s responsibility as captain included safeguarding the lives of all his crew; but he went beyond that in protecting Data from some of the same “synths aren’t people” sentiments that underpin the new show.
Yeah, Picard and Data had an almost mentor/protege relationship that went well beyond acquaintances or colleagues. Data was always asking Picard for general guidance and life advice in a much different way than any of the other characters.
[snarls in Tasha Yar]
Yeah- I don’t understand where Red Letter Media is coming from where they think Picard is THAT cold towards his crewmembers. I’d expect him to have moved on a bit more in 20 years, but the events of this series would naturally bring some feelings up.
I don’t understand their whole review. They’re nitpicking the silliest things about the show, and bordering on shitty nerd-rage (they’ve always been teetering on the edge of this). I’m with them on Discovery, but Picard is definitely a step up, even with a more dystopian angle.
Yeah, they seem to both have a personal connection to Trek in a way they don’t with Star Wars. Their critiques of Star Wars tend to be more towards the plot and film rather than “lol why did vader make C3PO that ruins canon”. Their concerns over the plot itself are valid, but they wasted so much time getting pedantic over whether Picard would care about Data, when he definitely would, even before the TNG films. But especially after the TNG films, which as bad as they are, they happened. They’d effect the overall plot of Star Trek. And the writers definitely are paying attention to Star Trek more than they give credit for, I never expected a character like Maddox to ever be brought up again.
There were quite a few references to Nemesis in the first 2 episodes so we know the writers are accepting the TNG movies as canon and not shying away from it like the sequel trilogy does the prequels.
Nerd rage? No way. All their nerd rage is aimed at other nerds and how they enjoy things too much. I’ve always loved RLM but their attitude towards fandom has gone from ironic hate to actual hate.
Picard should count his lucky stars that Riker wasn’t in command in that climactic battle—he would have lost the entire crew and ship, not just Data.
Not watched Picard yet myself, but I’ll point out that he and Data were mind-networked during the Locutus period. Maybe that left something behind that’s started to manifest itself?
The relationship between Picard and Data was most significant during the TNG films, which makes sense given that Picard didn’t start to let his guard down with his crew until the series finale. Even before then, Picard certainly always took a special interest in Data’s quest to become human.But this episode spelled it out pretty clearly, I thought. Data sacrificed himself not just out of a sense of duty, but specifically to save Picard. I can’t think of any other crew member who did that, and it seems like the sort of thing that would stick with you.
Especially when you’re nearing “the end” and you’ve had 20 years to obsess over it
I think Data is just a really attractive character for people to write about, because you don’t have to go looking for ideas like you would for a plain human character. Also, Data was one of the most recognisable characters from TNG, which is probably why the movies became almost entirely about Picard and Data: to draw in the casual audience. If Brent Spiner was somehow ageless and could still play the part, we’d probably have a series about Picard and Data going on adventures.
I would not say at all that Data and Picard are only “acquaintances” by the end of TNG. Picard of course would be loath to play favorites, but I’d say out of the chief crew, the only people closer to him than Data were Beverly and Will. He had a very different kind of relationship with Data than he did with those other two, out of necessity, but I can easily see Picard being haunted by his death. Besides, anything that can repurpose Nemesis for good ends is ok with me.
Data and Picard are more acquaintances than friends thereI’m sorry, but I checked out of your comment with this sentence. I’d entertain an argument that they maybe weren’t as close as ST:P is selling us, but not one based on a total mischaracterization of Picard’s relationship with his crew, and Data in particular. Did you watch Measure of a Man, The Offspring, Final Mission, Lower Decks, All Good Things, and (regrettably) Nemesis? Picard frequently demonstrated much stronger feelings for his crew than just seeing them as “acquaintances” As for where it came from, he explained it in the episode. He watched Data sacrifice himself for him right in front of him. Even if I shared your read of their prior relationship (which I really don’t), seeing something like that will be devastating for anyone.
Agree entirely
I don’t know if you’re a fan of RedLetterMedia, but they broke it down perfectly.Ask someone who doesn’t know anything about The Next Generation what they know about TNG…and that’s the show we get.So Picard, Data, tea, “engage” etc.
We also get deep cuts like Maddox, so they obviously know TNG. I was disappointed with RLM’s review. I thought they would like Picard. At least Mike saw some promise.
I understand their lament that the politics are a bit more on the nose than previous installments, but it’s also because we were all much younger when TNG came out and probably didn’t get all the parallels. People definitely had the same complaints back then when it got too “preachy”. They also don’t like how dystopian Trek has become, but that all started with DS9, which is viewed as some of the best Trek that has been made. Even TNG had some moments that showed the potential for this sort of corruption and betrayal of the Federation’s ideals. I’m assuming the show will in fact let idealism prevail and not completely ignore what Starfleet is supposed to be. Unless JJ Abrams takes over of course. But they liked Trek ‘09 much more than I did.
Maddox, right? I was half expecting him to greet Picard at the Daystrom Institute just for a fun cameo, but they’re actually setting him up to be an important character in the series.TNG admirals were one interstellar incident away from all-out war with the Romulans. Starfleet was developing cloaking technology on the Pegasus against the Romulan treaty, so it’s not that surprising that something else came up that ramped up the Cold War. Rich saying he hates what they’ve done to the Federation (or was it Starfleet?) completely ignores the countless incidents of the exact same thing happening on TNG, but being stopped before it went to far.I think they’re being harder on Picard than they were Discovery, because they believe it actually has potential. But I’m surprised (should I be?) with the excessive nitpicking. I thought they were better than that. I’ve been watching a lot of nerd-identifying websites (mostly YouTube channels actually) slamming the show for minor canon variations that I don’t think matter that much. It makes me wonder if I was overreacting to Discovery (which I hate), but I think there’s more problems with that show than a few canon violations.
The first season of Discovery is a bit of a mess. There’s a lot of potential but the execution is not great.The second season is excellent, in my opinion. But I’m particularly invested in Spock Purity Tests so I think it’s reasonable if the handling of the character impacts ones enjoyment of the season. Anson Mount is a shining star and the universal translator episode is an instant classic.
canon violations are the least of Discovery (or Picard’s) problems.
One of my favourite episodes of TNG is Ensign Ro’s first appearance. In this episode, the Cardassian’s make it appear as though some Bajoran refugees made a vicious attack against a Starfleet settlement. To get revenge, a Starfleet Admiral dangles an arms deal as bait for Bajoran refugees to come out of hiding. Then he coordinates with the Cardassians to destroy the refugees. Naturally, Picard becomes wise to the plot and saves the day.
It has always seemed very obvious to me that TNG clearly shows that The Federation is not a utopia because of magic but because of people like Picard. This theme runs strong through all Star Trek series.
But that’s not what we’re getting here. At all. This show is rife with references to TNG past, especially where Data and his complex relationships are concerned (see: Maddox, Bruce). I legitimately don’t see how anyone watching this show with an open mind would walk away thinking the only things they took from the source material were Picard, Data, tea and “engage.”It’s why the Red Letter Media criticism reads more like butt-hurt fans who are angry that the current continuation of the story isn’t their continuation of the story (remember, Mike even created his own version of how he’d like this new series to work). To further their point, they’re oversimplifying the series to fit into their view. Ignore the intricacies of the original show, and all the plot developments that occurred after. . . like. . . Season Three, and you have a solid argument to hate all of the movies (“action schlock”) and this current series (there’s no way Starfleet would ever have behaved like this, Picard and Data would never actually be friends, etc.).
But that’s not what we’re getting here. At all. This show is rife with references to TNG past, especially where Data and his complex relationships are concerned (see: Maddox, Bruce). I legitimately don’t see how anyone watching this show with an open mind would walk away thinking the only things they took from the source material were Picard, Data, tea and “engage.”It’s why the Red Letter Media criticism reads more like butt-hurt fans who are angry that the current continuation of the story isn’t their continuation of the story (remember, Mike even created his own version of how he’d like this new series to work). To further their point, they’re oversimplifying the series to fit into their view. Ignore the intricacies of the original show, and all the plot developments that occurred after. . . like. . . Season Three, and you have a solid argument to hate all of the movies (“action schlock”) and this current series (there’s no way Starfleet would ever have behaved like this, Picard and Data would never actually be friends, etc.).
This was the first time I’ve disagreed with Mike about Star Trek. His observations about Data and Picard were wrong.
The line that irked me was, “I’ve been mourning for twenty years.” Jean-Luc, you’ve had close friends die on you countless times before. Some were a direct result of choices you made (Jack Crusher) and Data can’t be the first person who sacrificed himself so Picard could live.Yeah, they had a close relationship, but it does seem like Picard’s entire life is now built around the death of one friend from decades ago.
As a person that has had friends die, I can relate to Picard’s grief. My best friend killed himself in our last year of high school and to this day I would do whatever it takes to honor him.
Very sorry for your loss. I don’t have a problem with Picard going off to find Data’s “daughters”, I just thought the dialogue was a smidge overwrought. Perhaps I’m being too cranky about this one point.
And if Jack Crusher’s previously unknown great niece came to Picard for safety would you have expected him to behave any differently? Does the line “I’ve been mourning Jack Crusher for 50 years” seem out of place? Does that line nullify the other losses Picard has experienced in his long life?
A big part of the reason it appears that Picard’s entire life is built around the death of Data is because the chapter that this series wants to tell revolves around that relationship. How would you propose telling this story while also making it clear that Data isn’t the only dead friend Picard mourns? Does it serve any purpose to the story at hand to remind the audience of Jack Crusher? Of Tasha Yar? Of his fake real wife Eline? Imagine for a moment that this television series had decided instead to dip into Guinan’s past and her mysterious relationship with Picard. Data would barely be worth a mention! Yet he was a friend and coworker of both Picard and Guinan for 15 years. Through Data’s effort alone, Picard is alive to carry on this adventure with Guinan. And yet, in a Guinan centered story, the pain of that lost friendship would not make itself readily apparent. This, unfortunately, is how storytelling works.
The dreams are implied to be a symptom of Picard’s neurological disorder, according to the convo with his doctor.
Exactly! Their nitpicking over the dreams was ridiculous. It’s like they just want to be contrarian.
They made their reputation on being “the guys with the smart takedowns!” So now everything has to be negative in order to continue appealing to their increasingly toxic fanbase.They completely suck now, no matter how good their reviews might have been once upon a time.
I’m marking it up to Data being the only (longstanding) bridge crew officer he ever lost. He lost Yar, but that was quite early in his tenure aboard Enterprise.
I do think that if this series winds up with Picard eventually “saving” Data in one form or another, it would be appropriate to see Geordi involved in that on-screen somehow. And that’s not fan-service, to me that makes complete sense from a narrative perspective. Geordi and Data were best friends throughout most of TNG. If we are concentrating so much on Picard’s feelings for Data, I’d like to know how Geordi has been handling his death. The 3rd Picard comic issue shows Geordi’s desk which has a picture of him and Data on it…..maybe that’s foreshadowing of some type??
Picard and Data did became much closer during the TNG movies, and maybe post-Nemesis events of trying and ultimately failing to turn B4 into a second-coming of Data made Picard mourn Data’s death even more.
Data literally sacrificed his life so Picard could live. Even if they weren’t already crewmates and friends/family, that alone would have made Picard have reverence for Data.
Data sacrificed his life to save Picard’s in Nemesis. That is where it is coming from.
So – the major villain inside of Starfleet is a Vulcan.
Vulcans were my favorite species in ST – I am. SO. sick of new Trek not knowing what to do with them (other than Spock, who’s a babbling lunatic, now) than to cast them as heartless, calculating assholes.
Also – she’s definitely working for Section 31 with all that talk about undercover work. Another thing New Trek CANNOT get enough of. (Or all of Starfleet has been undermined by the Romulan anti-synthetics secret-SECRET police which… is hardly any better)
An undercover Romulan in the Federation… TNG used that as a plot to present paranoia inside Starfleet – Picard is going the full Discovery Klingon route with this.Picard goes Rogue.
I liked Ep. 1 – this one… is steering way too much into Disco territory for my taste.
Also – the Romulans are openly hiring people from the Federation for their Borg reclamation facility – so it has to be general knowledge what they’re doing, right? So – the same Federation that refused top help the Romulan Empire is A OK with their follow ups acquiring Borg technology?I like Laris. she’s the only one who has some sense…)
Vulcans were my favorite species in ST – I am. SO. sick of new Trek not knowing what to do with them (other than Spock, who’s a babbling lunatic, now) than to cast them as heartless, calculating assholes.I don’t get why it keeps happening because even the Kelvin universe doesn’t turn Spock into some emotionless twit – he bops his head to rock music, dates Uhura and even his initial conflict with Kirk is bathed in a solid dose of professional jealousy and pettiness. Vulcans as a concept aren’t THAT hard to write.
If you look into them for five seconds. I’m pretty sure most New Trek Writers don’t go beyond ”Vulcans don’t have feelings” and then leave it at that demonstrably false assessment.
VULCANS ARE RATHER LIKE SUPERMAN, IN THAT THEY ARE DIFFICULT TO WRITE PROPERLY. A PEOPLE SO EMOTIONAL THAT THEY WERE FORCED TO DEVOTE THEMSELVES TO LOGIC IN ORDER TO PREVENT SELF-DESTRUCTION IS A (PARDON THE TERM) FASCINATING PREMISE. MAKING A CHARACTER WORK THAT WAY IS NOT EASY. ODDLY, ABRAMS TREK HAD ONE OF THE BETTER EXAMPLES IN HIS HANDLING OF SAREK IN THE FIRST MOVIE.
Did you miss the TOS episodes where Spock plays a harp and sings?
Also – she’s definitely working for Section 31 with all that talk about undercover work.Plain, simple Starfleet Intelligence does undercover work all the time.
In the new, simplified version of Star Trek… Everything seems to come back to Section 31. They’re pretty obsessed with them, so I’ll stick with that prediction.
Honestly, the fanbase seems more obsessed with them than the writers, in my opinion.But hey, it might be true. S31 is a branch of Starfleet Intelligence, after all.
They turned from 2 time villain in DS9 to minor plot thread in Enterprise, to major plot thread in Disco to now getting their own show…
It is very strange how Section 31 is DS9’s most lasting contribution to the franchise, it seems.
You know, given the current state of Empress Georgiou, I remain unconvinced that her series will actually be a Section 31 show – they’ve got a lot of work to do in Discovery S3 if that’s the case.But yeah, it’s an idea that’s been expanded upon since its initial introduction. Kind of like…every recurring villain ever, since that’s how serialized fiction works.
Yeah, but the fact they they turned this recurring villain to pretty much a driving force in all of Starfleet is pretty telling.We really can’t seem to have an essentially good organization that has some bad apples in their ranks anymore. Now the bad apples run the show and the good guys are rogues, fighting the system. Like most other modern SciFi. Which can work, but Star Trek could really be an alternative to all that…
Yeah, I just don’t really agree with that assessment.Starfleet always had many, many high-ranking bad actors in its ranks well before Section 31 ever came around as a concept.I said this elsewhere either here or over at io9, but the most significant threat to the Federation is – and should be, in my opinion – its own members. I don’t like the perspective that it has to be perfect, all the time – it robs it of its humanity, and renders it ultimately useless as a concept, because a utopia that’s free of struggle to establish and maintain it is hollow.
I really like optimistic Trek — we don’t nuke ourselves; society gets more inclusive; quality of life will improve for most people — I think there is historical precedent for that. I don’t really like Pollyanna Trek — humans evolve beyond all flaws; there’s no more interpersonal conflict — there is no real precedent for that, it’s nearly impossible to write compellingly, and it’s pretty unforgiving in what it says about the writers when the characters inevitably fail to live up to it.
Yeah…you could argue that “Polyanna Trek” existed, briefly…the first 3/4 of TNG Season 1, maybe. But the writers backpedaled from that pretty hard, pretty fast.
I think it’s one of the two poles that Trek has been trying to thread its way between for most of its existence. It doesn’t help that it was Gene Roddenberry’s take toward the end of his life, and I think a lot of people miss that it was also just the late-period iteration of it. Bones and Spock were constantly sniping at each other, and in TOS, any non-cast member, non-love interest had like an 80% chance of being a total dick. But yeah, its primary unfiltered manifestation was in one of the worst seasons of the franchise.
So on the one hand, you have this group that wants to protect G.R.’s legacy by focusing on this one narrow interpretation of it, and another contingent that doesn’t see Trek as potentially any different than any of the thousands of dystopian futures that litter the sci-fi landscape. There’s a sweet spot in the middle that the best Trek hits, but it’s a bit of a tightrope act.
It’s funny, for years and years I heard the refrain that Next Generation was too unrealistic, that the idea that all of humanity’s problems were solved was outlandish and dull, that the only reason the show worked was in spite of its core philosophy of no conflict between the characters. And yet ever since the advent of Discovery, I keep encountering large groups of Trek fans who are up in arms about the way the new shows have slandered the good name of the Federation, have made things too dark and pessimistic and basically robbed Star Trek itself of its essential qualities. At this point I’m not even sure Trek fans know what they want.
I agree, but if it becomes the status quo (and it seems like that’s the case) it’s a little disappointing. However, I’m sure by the end of this season that Oh will likely be outed as a villain, if not removed from Starfleet.
Yeah. It was supposed to be rare and appalling with Starfleet members did something wrong (though obviously bad admirals was an overused trope that became a running joke.)But now it really feels like the system is broken.
Technically, S31 (Sloan) was in 3 DS9 episodes. Then it was into the execrable “Into Darkness.” And then DISC and, now, very likely, Picard. A “Section 31″ show is easily the worst idea for a Star Trek show ever.
It’s a pity that they only thing they took from DS9 (still the best Trek) going forward was the worst idea that show introduced.
They’re bringing back Quark’s cross-dressing??
Re: Section 31, I’m beginning to think Kurtzman spent too long locked in a writers’ room with Robert Orci who is an out-&-out, fever-pitched, Daffy Duck-level 9/11 Truther. I think it got to Kurtzman and now all of Star Trek is overrun by secret cabals and star chambers. Probably my least favorite development in all of NuTrek.
Yeah, but not super black ops.
Please dont drag Garak into this mess…
Agreed. Groundwork was laid by Rick “the sexist, homophobe who thinks he can write” Berman with Enterprise. Seriously, his name is on 30+ scripts in the early seasons. Vulcans were the bad guys NEARLY ALL THE TIME. I loved Vulcans. I was a smart, but very weird, nerd kid who, since I was depressed for being made fun of for being very weird, was put on a medication that sort of deadened my emotional range. A side effect, not the intent (it turns out giving a 15 year-old with a brain still developing a dose 50% higher than you’d give an adult was a bad thing).But I tried to be okay with it, because I loved characters like Data, Spock, Sarek, even Picard to an extent, who frequently had to approach things objectively.
But now the best punching bag in the universe has been the Vulcans. I don’t get it. It smells like the silly “the educated are elitists” narrative of modern politics (yes, I’m simplifying) given Science Fiction flesh. TNG didn’t pull this shit, Vulcans were treated as important partners – and the Romulans that they shared so much history and biology were what Vulcans would be if they had embraced a darker path.
I get where you’re coming from but, to be honest, I liked showing the Vulcans in a different light in Enterprise.
Why I think it’s interesting and one of the best parts of early Enterprise was that the groundwork was laid out. Both in the TOS and TNG era. It was played for laughs, but in his verbal sparring with McCoy, Spock was pretty damned arrogant. And in TNG Sela (Tasha’s Romulan daughter) does the whole, “I hate Vulcans. I hate the logic, I hate the arrogance,” etc when talking to Spock. And on DS9, Sisko’s got the long-running feud with that condescending Vulcan officer that goes back to their academy days.
And it would make sense that having any kind of disagreement with a Vulcan would be fucking infuriating since they don’t give an inch behind the bulletproof superiority of their logic (even though logic, itself, can be subjective and can be used to arrive at multiple conclusions).
Sure, Enterprise puts the audience on the side of Archer and his deeply earned dislike of Vulcans. And they are arrogant and condescending, but in that case they were also correct, in that they were only enforcing what would later be the Prime Directive by not giving humanity technological assistance. It was even addressed in an episode where Archer found himself on the other side of that divide in being asked for warp technology by a species that wasn’t ready for it.
The main difference is that with all their apparent condescending and arrogance and sense of superiority, most Vulcans were aware that their logic deep down had one purpose – peace and non violence. Vulcans who used their logic as defense for violence like Valeris were very much marked as having lost their way. Discovery introduced the “Vulcan Hello” – a shoot first, ask questions later policy, that may seem logical, but is far off anything a pacifist species like Vulcans would EVER have used in old Trek.
And Enterprise Vulcans used their religion to cover up breaking treaties and outright attack their enemies.Also whenever we used to get to know a Vulcan better, we understood that – that his smug arrogance and coldness covered up a rich landscape of emotion and a code of honour. Enterprise at least had a sympathetic Vulcan, but she could only became sympathetic after more or less turning away from her people, given what assholes those people were. TOS Spock could embrace his Vulcan side AND be sympathetic.
The only sympathetic Vulcan in New Trek is Spock, too, who’s unfortunately a bit of an idiot in this version and not the LEAST bit acting like a Vulcan.
And yes, Sisko’s arch nemesis was the first contender of a writer who didn’t get Vulcans – so despite all the blame for New Trek, DS9 is to blame also… carrying a personal grudge and feeling such a clear ealtion for beating a human who is clearly physically inferior to you because of your strength is… highly illogical (and the fact that he could get his whole crew koin him in his personal vendetta even more so.)
The ‘Vulcan hello’ was one of the most tonedeaf things ever, and that was fan-favourite Bryan Fuller.
Some of these apparent mischaracterisations can be chalked up to differences in personalities, not every Vulcan is going to be the same. And Enterprise actively tried to steer them in a different direction in the last season, portraying their whole society as corrupted.
In the end I think Vulcans are hard to write, with the writers often latching on to the qualities that will make them more of a foil for the protagonists.
We mostly see Vulcans who are in positions of authority. Seldom do we see Vulcans who are just living their lives outside of the military or political realm. The first glimpse of real Vulcan culture in Trek is when Spock got Pon Farr, and he had to fight Kirk, and he ended up killing him. As peaceful as they are, that certainly goes against everything else we know about Vulcans. So whenever I see a Vulcan being a petty dick, I just assume he’s getting PMS (Pon farr Menstrual Syndrome).But seriously, the idea that an entire race is completely homogenous in their ability to repress emotions and act on un-flawed logic isn’t realistic. Sarek and Spock had a terrible relationship, but surely they should have seen how illogical it was to be this way. I will agree that Nu-Trek doesn’t always understand Vulcans (the nadir of which was Spock yelling in anger while beating Khan senselessly). But I think seeing the downside of the Vulcan way of life isn’t a bad idea itself.I don’t mind the different take on Vulcans or the Federation abandoning the Romulans, because they both seem like expressions of the same thing: perfection takes work, and even if you work your hardest, you might fail at it anyway (another recurring theme in Trek). For all we know, Sisko’s baseball Vulcan ended up regretting his actions in later years, or was disciplined by the Vulcan authority on logic. I don’t know. All that being said, Discovery is trash, and knows nothing about Star Trek. I see Picard as being in more of a DS9 mold.
I liked how the Vulcans in Enterprise were trying to impede, or at least not contribute to, human progress. It seemed like something they might do, given that humans are crazy compared to Vulcans. It got a little out of hand later on, but I didn’t think it was totally out of character for Vulcans. It also made sense as a proto Prime Directive. It wasn’t the worst idea to have evil Vulcans just be bureaucratic. The whole plot about rogue mind-melding Vulcans didn’t totally land, but after 3 series with little to no Vulcans (except Tuvok) it was refreshing to see a new take on them.
It wouldn’t make sense if Vulcans weren’t a huge part of Enterprise, considering they’re the aliens that make first contact with Earth in First Contact. And it also makes sense that they would see humans as unready for space exploration and set many rules on them in their early space-faring days.
I’m calling it now: the Romulans must have had their own version of a Geth uprising if they hate synthetics so much that they sabotaged them on enemy soil, to their people’s detriment
I adore Laris already. And there’s something fitting about an Romulan with an Irish accent hanging around with a Frenchman with an English accent.It’s like a Scotsman with a French accent palling around with an Egyptian/Spaniard with a Scots accent.
I think it’s as simple as the new writers never having watched the show before, especially the original. A casual fan after one viewing could easily see plot holes and how things don’t add up in this new series.
“the new writers never having watched the show before”
Considering all the easter eggs so far in this series, that statement seems pretty wrong. Who saw Bruce Maddox being such a presence in this series?
Or she’s just a Romulan spy. That seemed like the obvious answer there. She knows about Zhat Vash, which is supposedly a “super” romulan secret and she’s the boss of a Romulan spy. None of that tracks with Section 31. (then again, Kurtzman and his team have no clue how to write Section 31, so….)
That was my reading of this scene is well. Seems obvious that she’s Romulan, not Vulcan. The Admiral even said as much—“That’s why I contacted you.”
she may be aware that the romulan is a romulan, but the way she talks to her brother about the commodore,the Commodore clearly isn’t involved in all of her plans. Its possible that the Romulan infiltration is so vast they developed factions, but given how New Trek is obsessed with section 31 that seems the more obvious choice to me.
It’s ambiguous at the moment with decent arguments on both sides. We’ll just have to wait and see. Dear god, please don’t be S31. It was a good idea on DS9, but was awful in STID and truly awful in Discovery.
Orla Brady should be in everything.
Is it a Vulcan or a Romulan spy posing as Vulcan? And then the other operative seemed to refer to her has Commodore Oh, which is a human name of Asian origin, which seems to reference the nationality of the actress playing the Vulcan, rather than the species she’s playing. It’s a bit confusing.
Give how the Romulan called the Commodore a useful asset, I don’t think Oh is in on whatever her plan is. And I don’t know why she would cut her ears off if the Vulcan was really a Romulan, too.
And I agree, Oh sounds more human than Vulcan… I don’t think they care too much…
It seemed like the Commodore was giving orders to the other operative about not using her brother for the op. So it’s a bit confusing. Who is manipulating who, and such? She might have cut off her ears if she needed to appear more human to make it easier to infiltrate something else she needed to get into, but did she get her blood replaced too? Like, if she accidentally cuts herself around people and they start wondering why their human friend has green blood. Would be a bit of a giveaway.And every time she beams somewhere, nobody notices the transporter scans a Romulan/Vulcan? That’s some deep-level tech espionage at work (unsurprising given the earlier “Romulans have magic spy tech” scene).
They ruined that a little bit by having a Klingon go undercover as a human in Disco…
Disco’s Klingon to Human subplot was so bad they dropped it faster than third-period French. And the weird thing about that was that it was an actual captured human who was stuffed with the Klingon’s personality or something dumb. So he would show up as human. The other weird part of that is that if they needed a Klingon to appear human as a spy there were millions of the human-looking Klingon half-augments in the empire during that period. And there were guys like Arne Darvin that even the Tribble could tell the difference about (and he scanned as Klingon with a simple tricorder, which really doesn’t speak well of Federation security procedures in general when it comes to its secure facilities).
Ash Tyler was a Klingon (V’oq) who was medically transformed into a human, not a human that had V’oq’s personality and memories grafted onto him.
I said it was something dumb. There was V’oq and there was a Starfleet officer named Ash Tyler, and the two were merged somehow. Who was merged or transformed into whom isn’t really materially relevant in the scheme of things.It’s just another bizarre plot development on a show rife with bizarre plot developments.
They weren’t merged. V’oq was a Klingon and he was physically transformed to a human that looked like Ash Tyler, who they had in custody but was already dead. There was no merging.“Who was merged or transformed into whom isn’t really materially relevant in the scheme of things.” Except them being merged was the basis of your argument. That basis being wrong is kind of important to your point.And as others have already pointed out, TOS had a Klingon that was physically changed to look like a human. So if you’re going to nitpick current Trek for a “bizarre plot development”, don’t make it sound like this is something that only current Trek did, because original Trek did this all the time. May I remind you there was an episode where Spock’s brain is removed and McCoy controls his body like a remote-control robot.
They had a Klingon agent who read as human to the sensors. How they did it wasn’t very material to the main point. All are equally “bizarre” and lead to the same outcome. The rest is just semantics.
Arne Darvin still read as Klingon to the sensors. Not the same thing as Voq. And the TOS Klingons already looked human, they just needed to shave. Certainly nothing like the procedure to create whatever Voq/Tyler is.Inconsistencies with how the transporter is supposed to scan things has really bugged me for all the shows, but not enough to not just go with it usually.“Bizarre plot developments” aren’t a problem. “Bizarre plot developments” that don’t fit the timeline can be.Discovery comes nowhere near the so bad it’s good quality of Spock’s Brain.
Darvin may have been an Klingon internally, but he was physically transformed on the outside to look like a human. Disco just took this idea and did it on the inside too, plus their version of Klingons looked much different on the outside so a lot more cosmetic surgery was required.TOS Klingons may have resembled humans but they all had dark skin and dark hair. Transforming Darvin physically still would have required a lot of work.Every new instance of Trek makes changes to things established in previous instances, either because what was established before no longer makes sense, or they can now do things with effects/makeup that were not possible in the previous instances.Trills in TNG could not use the transporter or they would be killed. When they introduced a Trill on DS9 they just ignored this rule because it would be too much trouble to never have Dax use a transporter. Did anyone care that they did this and never explained it? Maybe a few, but it didn’t really matter – it was a dumb rule that didn’t have to be.Same with TNG when they learned that warp drive was damaging space, so they put restrictions on using it. The show-runners said they wanted to make an environmental message, but quickly realized it would interfere with all future episodes. So after a few episodes they just ignored it and went back to normal. Did anyone care that they did this without explaining it? No, because it was a dumb rule and it worked out better without it.Spock’s Brain is so bad it’s bad. There is no joy in watching that episode. I remember a reviewer saying that he tried to get a friend interested in TOS when it first aired and they watched the next aired episode which turned out to be SB. He said his friend never took his opinion seriously on anything again. Every episode of Disco is so much better than SB.
I never had any clue which was supposed to be the case. It was deeply confusing and, arguably, wildly inconsistent, or at least utterly nonsensical.
They did a Klingon undercover as a human in TOS first.
Laris is definitely the most sensible character so far, and the scenes of Picard at home with her and Zhaban are the part of the show that work best so far (three good actors, with defined characters in a room, it’s hard to go wrong with that).
I’m not sure the commodore is a Vulcan, it’s not that difficult for a Romulan to pass as one. So who knows if she’s not replacing the actual commodore.
Even ‘Rizzo’ wouldn’t have to know.
One thing that stuck out was ‘Rizzo’s English accent. I understand that they wanted to have her match Narek, but it’s hard to imagine a Brit with that last name.The cooperation on the cube is interesting, they mention that it’s under the authority of the ‘Romulan free state’, so it could be that this new state is more cooperative of sorts with the Federation. And it begs the question is there also still a group of Romulans out there who are still calling themselves the empire?The influence of Kurtzman is obvious, but I think Picard so far feels more like what a contemporary Star Trek can be than Discovery. On Discovery they’d have raced through the plot of these two episodes in the first 30 minutes of the pilot with a lot more explosions and emotional manipulation.
Rizzo is definitely hiding her true agenda from the commodore, which makes me think the Commodore is legit Section31 working with the Zad Vash. Having the Romulans that infiltrate Starfleet splinter off into factions would be… quite convoluted… Not that I put it beyond them.
Laris is definitely the most sensible character so far, and the scenes of Picard at home with her and Zhaban are the part of the show that work best so far (three good actors, with defined characters in a room, it’s hard to go wrong with that).Is it wrong to want a show about Laris and Zhaban hanging out at home with Picard? They could just sit around drinking wine in their cozy sweaters.
Rizzo won’t work as a name for someone with a UK accent? Somebody better tell Peter Capaldi.
I think the Federation citizens are likely working for the Romulans without official Federation participation. I think they’re given a lot of leeway as to where they go, and now that the Roman Empire is weakened, if not totally destroyed, it’s seen as less of threat.
They say that the Zhat Vash is separate from the Tal Shiar and it’s been around for thousands upon thousands of years.So it’s possible that the Zhat Vash was around before the Vulcan Romulan split and there’s a Vulcan faction of the Zhat Vash and the Commodore is part of that faction.It’s also possible that the Commodore is a Tal Shiar agent who started working for the Zhat Vash.There’s also how the Vulcans have been infiltrated by the Romulans for centuries. In Enterprise, the leader of the Vulcan High Command was a Romulan agent and they never reveal if he was a Vulcan or a Romulan.
I see hilarious misunderstandings if the Commodore and Rizzo are both Romulans and didn’t know… I wouldn’t put it past them…
Well, a Romulan woman with an Irish accent that gets stronger when she gets angrier is just adorable to me, now sure it is, so.
This is the stale, soap opera take with old ideas by juvenile feminists. The writer’s room is full of Gilmore Girls idiots who don’t know science or pacing. Maybe you’ll get a resolution before the crap gets cancelled, maybe not. Nobody will stick around long enough to find out.
I’m pretty sure Commodore Oh is a Romulan masquerading as a Vulcan as a spy in the Federation.
I got the impression that they were both Romulans, one surgically altered to look like a Vulcan, and the other being the brother of the Romulan having sex with the android on the cube, surgically altered to look like a Human female
The review calls Commodore Oh a Romulan. And Memory Alpha says that she is a Romulan who is posing as a Vulcan. (Though she must have been doing that for a very long time in order to have had a whole Starfleet career culminating in such a high rank.)
I’d love to know the in universe reason a Romulan sounds exactly like an Irishwoman would….down to the “ take that one with you”The ‘cheeky feckers’ line had to be an ad lib too. 🙂
Same reason there’s a Vulcan named Oh: these planets have been intermingling long enough that accents, cultures and surnames spread and mix.Picard’s housekeeper must’ve spent some of her life in Ireland and picked up the accent. Or maybe her parents did and she was raised in an Irish accent household on who knows what planet.Commodore Oh must’ve married and taken the name of a human named Oh.It’s the future, see.
While I understand that “cold and emotionless” is hard to portray as anything other than Jason Voorhees, Vulcans have really been very poorly represented since Nimoy made the template. Spock was very good at masking emotions. Other Vulcans in Trek? Not so much. Now that they’ve lost the Romulan ridges, it’s even harder to tell the different ce between a Romulan and a Vulcan. Except that most of the Romulan we’ve seen so far seem to have found a new hairstyle over the past 25 years (thanks to whatever gods are listening for that miracle).
Sarek was good. Even Tuvok and T’Pol had their moments – they CAN wrote Vulcans well if they try, it’s jsut that for ever one that’s ot part of the crew or directly related they don’t seem to care.
And yes, the fact that it seems highly unclear if the Commodore is a Vulcan or a Romulan is not a good sign…
Minor quibble: I think Tim Russ nailed vulcans with Tuvok. Say what you will about Voyager (I’m a fan, though I know many aren’t), but I think he was far and away the best vulcan portrayal since Nimoy’s Spock.
I may have come across more harsh about him the I intended… I did like him. He was amazing in Year of Hell.
“other than Spock, who’s a babbling lunatic, now”I don’t know how much of Discovery season 2 you watched, but when Spock was first introduced he *was* acting like a babbling lunatic but that was because he was not himself and his mind was damaged. Once the damage was repaired he was his normal, half-Vulcan self. Modern Trek doesn’t seem to have a problem portraying Vulcans.
And we’ve seen Vulcans throughout all of Trek acting like “heartless, calculating assholes”. Spock in TOS acted like this a lot of the time; even Sarek when he visited Spock acted this way to an extreme.And we saw Vulcans in TNG that were outright villains. So it seems … illogical to state that “new Trek” doesn’t know how to portray Vulcans just because this show has a potential Vulcan villain. First, as we saw in this episode, there is a human that is actually a disguised Romulan – it’s presumptuous to say that the Commodore is a Vulcan because that’s what she looks like. This wouldn’t be the first time we saw a Romulan disguised as a Vulcan. And even if the Commodore is a Vulcan, previous versions of Trek (including TNG) have had Vulcans doing villainous things.
It’s time to retire the term “cold open.” It’s bullshit jargon that doesn’t mean anything. Show openings used to be called teasers and the vast majority of them have been like this for non-comedic shows since the early sixties. Every fucking “Saturday Night Live” has opened with a short skit since the show’s beginning. It’s not a “cold open.” Lets quit pretending we’ve reinvented television.I do agree about the awful pacing of TV these days and that it is largely a result of serialization but also lazy viewer habits as well as simply bad show running and writing. “Deep Space Nine” had the sharpest writers room of the whole franchise and it is a tragedy no one has reassembled these guys for a new show.
What do you think “cold open” means that offends your sensibilities so much?
Praxy’s suddenly full of weird, inexplicable reactions to random things lately.
For all the great work he did on DS9 (his penchant for Ferengi “comedy” episodes nothwithstanding), Ira Steven Behr’s post-DS9 career has been all that impressive. Maybe that’s why he personally directed a documentary about how amazing his work on DS9 was. Most of the rest of DS9’s heavy hitters have done just fine, especially Ron Moore.
“Fine” in this instance depends on how personally scarred any one viewer might have been by the BSG ending.
The DS9 team basically made “Battlestar Galactica,” moved on to “Outlander,” and are now on “For All Mankind.”If you mean re-assembled for a new “Star Trek” show, then yes, their absence from the franchise has been a glaring hole for 20 years. The way the story is unfolding on “Picard” makes me wonder if any of the new writers even know DS9 exists.
The tone seems a lot more DS9 than any other Trek series. It’s more nuanced in its view of a Utopian society, to the point that a lot of people are calling it dystopian. What is it about the story that makes you think this?
Crafting a show with a similar tone as DS9 because that’s the trend that most TV is going in is an entirely different thing than demonstrating specific understanding of the storylines and themes presented on that show.
Given there was a direct reference to Kassidy Yates in the pilot? Yes.
An easter egg on a billboard in the background is more likely a visual effects guy’s doing than anything the writers came up with.
By “DS9 Team”, you mean Ron Moore and that one Ds9 writing team he hired back a couple of times?
There’s quite a few of them.
A cold open is a real term that describes a genuine story telling method. It was just used incorrectly here.
It was definitely an exposition dump of an episode, but I don’t think there’s any way they could’ve fit this into a (1-hour) pilot.At least Picard’s learning this stuff as we are, and it’s not characters telling each other things they already know.
I agree. What it was lacking in set-piece action or rapid movement of plot, it sure made up for it with interesting world building and great character interactions. I hate the derogative connotation that “set-up episode” has, but they are necessary in a serialized show, and I have a feeling this episode might age really well by the end of the season.
If they needed the second episode to be just an exposition dump, the story is bad.
I have not watched this yet and stopped after your first paragraph. Maybe this episode considerably pumps the brakes, but I was very happy with the first episode and thought the pacing was fine.
This one’s good, but is incredibly exposition-heavy.
I keep forgetting to mention, but I like the opening theme a lot, especially the way it ends. I love the TNG tag at the end, but I feel like they should’ve timed it with Roddenberry’s name appearing onscreen, like they did with the TOS tag in the Discovery theme.
I’m not reading this until after I watch the episode tonight. I just want to get in here after watching the premiere last night and drop this spicy take:Picard > The Mandalorian
Agreed, so far.
I have issues with both of them! At least Picard is trying to give us actual characters and dialogue, though.
Fair enough. I’ve only seen the first episode, so I can’t comment yet beyond that, but at least Picard doesn’t have the Baby Yoda crutch, unless you count Dream Sequence Data.
“but at least Picard doesn’t have the Baby Yoda crutch, unless you count Dream Sequence Data.”Somehow, I don’t think the sales of “Old, balding, pudgy-faced Data” dolls are going to touch Baby Yoda, lol.
Because Picard doesn’t need the crutch.
The show is nothing without Baby Yoda.
And Baby Yoda at this point is nothing more than a Maguffin.
You’re wrong, but that’s okay.
I’m not, and it’s not even close.
this spicy take: Picard > The MandalorianComparing plot-and-character-based soft sci-fi with mood-based space fantasy is like comparing a week’s worth of bacon-infused middle-eastern fusion breakfasts with a month’s worth of special Friday and Satuday night one-off fizzy exotic cocktails. They fulfil different socio-dietary goals, despite both going into one’s mouth.
Indeed. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish this rerun of Paw Patrol.
I’m conflicted about your comment. On the one hand, I agree that the apples and oranges comparison between the two shows is pretty silly. On the other hand, I really hope that whoever invented the term “space fantasy” is in the Bad Place getting spiders shoved up his butthole.
re. your weird reation to the perfectly accurate descriptor “space fantasy”:
what would you prefer, erroneously calling it “science fiction” due to the presence of space ships and blaster bolts, or calling it “fantasy” and opening yourself up to one more “but it’s sci-fi cuz space ships durrr” conversation?
oh fuck, it’s happening ITS HAPPENING
1. I object to people trying to police genre boundaries2. I strongly object to people trying to evict space opera from science fiction. It’s like declaring that a hamburger isn’t American food because it’s named after a German city.3. I object to the idea that it’s only “science fiction” if it’s rigorously scientifically accurate. Or worse, the idea that something that’s obviously science fiction is not science fiction because it has some fantastic element or plot point.4. It’s complete bullshit to call something “fantasy” that doesn’t meet your lofty standards for science fiction. Fantasy is its own genre. You can’t accidentally write fantasy when you think you’re writing science fiction. It insults both genres. That’s like calling something Chinese food because it doesn’t meet your lofty standards for authentic Thai food; it insults both cuisines.5. All that aside, the idea that Star Wars and Star Trek are somehow in different genres is absurd. If Star Wars is “space fantasy” so is Star Trek. Of course, they’re really both examples of a classic science fiction subgenre: space opera.6. All of which is to say, yes, spaceships = sci-fi. That’s fucking obvious.
Alas, you’re mostly wrong, but also, right from time to time.
1. me too, my post was objecting to the policing of genre boundries innit
2. sorry i stepped on your genre bondry, rhanks for policing that
3. nobody said that. Typically, that’s the whole “hard sci-fi” / “soft sci-fi” spectrum.
4. Loosely speaking, “science fiction” covers a broad range of writings, but are typically examinations of the Human Condition, given either an extrapolated future, or a changed history. Loosely speaking, “fantasy” is about the Hero’s Journey.
5. Star Wars is total Hero’s Journey. From safety into the unknown and back again. Star Trek is the examination of Humanity once we’ve freed ourselves from material want, cured Human racism and class warfare, and are set into the larger galaxy.
6. this is jurst wromg.
What you’re saying is that genre is based on the plot? You take the exact same characters in the exact same setting, and put one character on a Hero’s Journey and that is fantasy, but if she does something else it would be science fiction? That makes the “hard sci fi” ideology make sense, by comparison. Are you saying that if our character falls in love, it’s not sci fi or fantasy, but romance? I think very little actual science fiction would meet your definition. And since the Mandalorian is a space western, you’re basically saying that westerns are fantasy.
not plot, but theme.
That is certainly an… idiosyncratic definition of genre. What happens to stories set in fantastic worlds that do not feature a Hero’s Journey? And how does The Mandalorian fit the Hero’s Journey template?
The Mandalorian, admittedly, demands one meditate on atmospheric criteria to figure out what’s going on. As you said, westerns and space opera are not the same thing… i suppose…. but i could argue about its inclusion as a tale of entry into the unknown, wrestling with oneself, and emerging complete on the other side.
As for fantastic worlds that do not feature a Hero’s Journey… i can’t think of any off the top of my head. “Mundane fantasy” like Terry Pratchett, i guess.
Fantasy that does not feature a Hero’s Journey: check out Maresca’s Maradaine books, set in a quintessential fantasy world (vaguely European renaissance-ish, magic and wizards) but more concerned with fighting crime than venturing off into the unknown. Also, Mieville’s Bas-Lag series. That’s just off the top of my head. I don’t think Jemisin’s fantasy works fit your template either.
Sounds like Mystery, or Crime Fiction. But Mieville mucks us things a bit.
As a child, my first two “in the theater” movie memories are Empire Strikes Back and Wrath of Khan. I’m old, and other oldies can back me up on this:
When I see “Picard vs. Mandalorian”, I see the greatest, most ancient nerd battle of all slowly stir from its slumber.
Be warned, young ones, no matter what points or arguments you make, we have a 1980’s version of them.
“Yo, The Empire Strikes Back, I’m really happy for you. I’mma let you finish, but The Wrath of Khan is one of the best movies of all time. One of the best movies of all time.”Or something like that…
Here’s the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek: Star Wars is fun. Star Trek is smart. No value judgements here, but this is the difference. Star Wars has good and evil. Star Trek has nuanced views ethics. That being said, Wrath of Khan is the funnest Star Trek movie. It’s light on philosophy, other than the bit about aging.
The older I get, the more Star Trek sticks with me vs Star Wars. There’s just a depth to Star Trek that Star Wars sorely lacks, I think a big reason is that Trek could explore these themes with more episodes for TV vs films, but it’s also more idealistic in principle.
I’ve always been a Trek over Wars guy for this exact reason.
Counterpoint: Sometimes Star Trek is super dumb and sometimes Star Wars isn’t fun at all.
I would say that was the status quo until Picard and The Mandalorian came out.
Both are very uneven and overrated!
I’m gonna Dark Saber Force Choke your whole Borg Cube turned Romulan Ale moonshine operation!
And I’m going to send some teenagers to womp rat your exhaust port. Wait, that doesn’t sound right at all.
Pretty sure that Commodore is a Vulcan, not a Romulan.
She sure was acting like a Romulan spy.
The woman the commodore was speaking to is the Romulan spy. She’s Nerek’s sister.
Yes, but I’m saying the commodore is also a Romulan spy. She knows about the Zhat Vash, which no one but the most super, super, super secret of Romulans knows about. Even many members of the Tal Shiar don’t know about it or doubt its existence.And she says “you almost blew OUR cover” implying that she has a cover to be blown. Not exactly how you’d refer to yourself if you weren’t posing as someone else.It is ambiguous at this point and there are arguments to be made on either side. So we’ll just have to wait and see.
The problem is that both were right out of central casting. All that was missing were mustaches to twirl. At least Narek is being sneaky.
People above seemed really convinced that she was Vulcan, so I figured they picked up on something I didn’t. But, yeah, on my reading it was quite clear that they were Romulan spies. Though it did occur to me that they must have really been playing quite a long time to infiltrate the fucking admiralty of star fleet, that’s not an entry level position.
Romulans have been able to pass off as Vulcans before. In TNG’s “Data’s Day,” it was revealed that a highly respected Vulcan diplomat was actually a Romulan spy. In Enterprise, the leader of the Vulcan High Command was working for the Romulans. Although, they never said if he was a Romulan spy or a Vulcan traitor. Starfleet and the Vulcans also never found out that he was working for the Romulans or that the Romulans had other agents in the Vulcan government.
I’m interested in other characters on Picard, but Picard himself, at least this early on, is main draw, and while I appreciate wanting to build up the supporting cast around him, these first few episodes really needed to make more of an effort to focus on his story.It’s not like the show’s named after him or anything.
“Zhat Vash” is the absolute dumbest (and most pointless) thing I’ve seen on Star Trek in quite a while. Why the fuck does the super secret Tal Shiar need an even MORE super secret “hidden” cabal within it, which was, I guess, the entire reason for the Tal Shiar in the first place. And has existed for “thousands of years”…and whose entire purpose is “we hate androids”?WTF? What a stupidly small and specific thing. And how long have androids really been an issue for Romulans? For thousands of years? That’s like suddenly learning that the CIA or KGB was secretly founded because their founders secretly hated gorillas. Sure, that’s gonna come up a lot……
Why the fuck does the super secret Tal Shiar need an even MORE super secret “hidden” cabal within it, which was, I guess, the entire reason for the Tal Shiar in the first place.When you get right down to it, it’s just a higher level of security clearance that happens to have a name. Nothing to get upset about.
Well, no. It’s a name and a “secret” goal that they pursue with a religious fervor and, if we’re to take everything in the episode at face value, it was the reason the Tal Shiar was created in the first place.Which makes no sense.
How so?
To be fair, it’s not without precedence. The Department of Homeland Security was rumored to exist for years before it was officially “created” in 2002.
I am middle class, male, and white. If I don’t get upset about Star Trek what else is there?
Sounds like classic Romulan shit to me. Even their secrets have secrets. That’s sort of their whole deal, man.
Secrets are fine. But dumb secrets are…dumb.
The Vulcans and Romulans have had advanced technology for much longer than humans. The Vulcans almost destroyed their world with nuclear weapons 2,000 years ago. It took them centuries to recover. That was also around the time the Vulcans and Romulans split. That means they’ve had interstellar travel for at least 2,000 years.
So, it’s entirely possible that the Vulcans did have AI thousands of years ago.
Why do they need a super secret death cult dedicated to the fanatical eradication of synthetic life/AI? Why was Data allowed to exist for as long as he did? Seriously dumb writing and, arguably, needless to tell this story.
Watch the show and find out why they exist. You’re assuming it makes no sense and their existence is a plot hole before they even tell you why it exists. Heck, we don’t even know if Laris is right. She said that the organization is a myth even in the Tal Shiar.
Of course “she’s right.” That’s not how TV works. You don’t say, “Hmm. I think it might be this super-mysterious cabal. Let’s pause the narrative while I give you 5 minutes of exposition about it.”And then it turns out it’s NOT the case.“oh, well. I was wrong. Sorry I wasted your time with that.” (looks at the camera.)And even before the follow-up, I’m allowed to think that a super secret sect WITHIN the most secretive organization in the galaxy is a friggin’ stupid and redundant idea, particularly when that super secret group only exists to hate androids. That’s a dumbass idea on its face, no matter what happens next.
My guess is that the “secret” is actually that Romulans are actually an ancient bio-synthetic race created by the ancient Vulcans.
Almost agreed. The “lets create *another* secret Romulan society out of whole cloth for no reason” is extremely pointless… this show is full of pointless conflicts.The most stupid, dumbest, idiotic thing I’ve ever seen in Trek though is those two-way transporter hoops. I mean… how do the people coming and going not bump into each other? Why would you ever situate them like that? What is the practicality? PEOPLE ARE GOING TO WALK INTO EACH OTHER WHEN THEY COME OUT! SO DUMB! WHY?!! FU JJ/KURTZMAN!!!
Theory: on one side of the door is the orange portal. On the other side is the blue. Each side is enter or exit only.
Ha! Yes I like Portal too.But… that wasn’t shown. Nor was it ever shown in any previous incarnation. It’s just a stupid stunt from Kurtzman and (probably) Stewart, whose directing credits includes the movie that drove Trek firmly into the firmament.
I was going to write that this is just nitpicking and doesn’t effect the plot, but that’s what we’re here for, isn’t it? Half the fun of Star Trek is talking about how the tech doesn’t make sense.
I think it is a pointless thing to hate the show over. People talk about internal logic established in universe but overlook things like holodeck science.
. . . you really don’t think they’d have developed a system to regulate the two-way transporter hoops? Are you suggesting the show stop to take a moment and explain how said two-way transporter hoops are regulated? I get not digging the new show but this is going to some pretty great lengths to hate on Alex Kurtzman and someone who isn’t even involved in the franchise anymore.
It’s Trek. It has to be internally consistent and at the very least *logical*. Go ahead and explain it to me, in in-universe terms, how people are not walking into each other when they are coming out and going in on BOTH SIDES.
Maybe you’ve never worked in a restaurant or something like that, but let me tell you, if you don’t have a system, chaos ensues!
Quite simply, it doesn’t let you. Why do the holodecks sometimes let people bring things like books out of the holodeck and sometimes if you toss an object like a book out of the holodeck it disappears?
Teleportation is typically displayed as instantaneous but there’s not, to my knowledge, any reason why a teleportee can’t be “held” in the system before being reincorporated. In fact, I believe there is evidence to support that this is absolutely doable.
So here’s how the system works: the teleporters can detect objects in front of them. Travellers only become corporated when there is sufficient clearance ahead of the teleporter. Zero collisions ensue. At high traffic times, a colored light appears above the teleporter indicating that they are exit or entrance only.This was not a very hard task and personally I really enjoy small visual details like this which help to flesh out the world of Star Trek.
Yes, exactly. Couldn’t have said it better.
Think of it like the conspiracy theories that the CIA was founded by the Illuminati or Masons (or Skull and Bones.) Secretive, ancient organizations being at the center of governmental intelligence agencies, subverting then and steering then in directions that aren’t necessarily in the best interest of the political entities the they are beholden to.
Personally I thought it worked well considering that point about Romulans has come up on TNG as well as DS9. It’s a good explanation for why the Romulans don’t use AI, a fact which has been established previous.
When has that come up before? I’m legit asking, because I don’t know and I’m assuming it’s something the Picard writers made up.Not that they’re not entitled to make stuff up, of course. (Everything is “made up”, after all.) And I don’t really care about Romulans not liking AI.but the fact that there’s an ultra secret group that is religiously devoted to killing AI that ALSO seems to be the “real” reason the Tal Shiar exists is just dumb, dumb, dumb and reductive. The Tal Shiar exists because the Romulan government is ruthless and authoritarian. Their terrifying KGB/Gestapo combo shouldn’t have been birthed because someone idiots somewhere didn’t like robots.
“this should have been in the pilot.”Having seen next week’s episode, I can tell you unambiguously that all 3 of the first episodes should have been the pilot. A double length pilot, perhaps, like the old days.But, no, this is the streaming world where we don’t have “episodes” of a show anymore, we have a “ten hour movie.”Well, that gets seriously annoying when you can only watch that movie in fits and starts. That model might work for the “season dump” strategy but not for one a week. It’s frustrating and annoying. The producers have said they consider the first three episodes as “one chapter”. Well, why not release those three at once, then? This episode was nothing but some very clumsy table setting and moving some pieces around. It wasn’t true storytelling and I promise no one will ever look back on this show down the line and say, “Hey, you know what episode I feel like rewatching? Episode 2 of Picard!”
Having seen all of the first 3 episodes, as well, I wholeheartedly disagree. Yes, the pace is somewhat languid, but I, personally, had zero problem with that. Things felt, to me, like they had time to breathe and get fleshed out, relationships are well-established, etc. I dunno. It’s all subjective but, for me, it worked.
You disagree? Well…that’s no fun.
Did you watch them one after the other, or did you wait a week between them?
There are benefits to the serialised model, but the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of one story, chopped into hourlong bits. So much of what made serialisation so enticing on genre shows was that it was doled out slowly across multiple stories. That’s something that seems to have been forgotten. Partially I think because it’s easier to produce one long story than come up with 9 or 10 different ones.
Shows these days are just designed to be binged, with moments and scenes standing out, not episodes.
Exactly. I love serialized storytelling, too, but the best shows still give those episodes an internal story arc with a beginning, middle and an end which is then part of the larger structure. It’s really hard, but it’s worth it. And then you get the occasional standalone episode which, while not impacting the larger arcs, per se, is still very meaningful in terms of character growth.And then you get shows like Picard. And it’s certainly far from the only one that does this…where you don’t ever bother to consider the episodes as anything more than “this is what happens from minute 100 to minute 145 of this story.”And that’s a lazy and crummy way of telling a story. And it’s particularly problematic in the “One a week” model. Sigh.
Picard is far from alone in this, pretty much every Netflix show does this. I’m not a fan of The Mandalorian, but it at least had a decent balance between serialisation and self contained stories.
I criticized the mandalorian for its lack of serialization, but I’m not a big fan of the Picard model, either. The best shows find a happier medium.
Exactly this. And if you’re going to embrace the heavily serialized/binge model then it helps if your show is actually available to binge.
“when all the information they really ended up with was “her sister is not on Earth.”Both the episode director, the episode composer and Patrick Stewart seem positively gobsmacked that Dahj’s sister is “not on Earth.” Like that’s some kind of massive, insane, utterly unforeseeable twist.Well, Earth is a damn minuscule part of their known universe. That would be like saying, “Hey, I’m trying to locate a missing person and, HOLY CRAP, are you telling me they’re not actually ON MY BLOCK! MIND BLOWN!”
I think the scene was necessary to establish the necessity of acquiring a ship. Picard couldn’t go around begging for favours (including from the Starfleet that he just trashed viciously on galactic holo TV) unless he knew that he needed to. If all you have is a bicycle, learning that someone you’re trying to find is out of the country is kind of a significant revelation.
When he finally does get ahold of a ship, it should be a Galaxy, for the feels and such.
Even that 5 minute opening of the pilot just felt right.Not that I’m a huge fan of that bloated glass-jawed luxury liner, but you think Jean Luc Picard, you think Galaxy class.
I’m betting a former officer whose been out of the service for fifteen years and has burned his bridges at Starfleet command isn’t getting his hands on a Galaxy class anytime soon.
Well, at this point in time the Galaxy class is probably like an Excelsior was back in Picard’s heyday. Heck, it wasn’t even the best ship the last time we saw Picard in command all those years ago—-the Sovereign was.
I’m not saying they didn’t need the information. I’m saying the way that scene was shot/acted/edited/scored made it like being off-world was the most earth-shattering revelation ever that they couldn’t have conceived was even possible a moment before when really it’s just the equivalent of not being literally in your own backyard.
I think the biggest problem with that scene is not just that it makes Picard look really dumb, but that we (the audience) also already know that she’s not on earth, because the final scene of the pilot had her in the borg cube.And so maybe it was an editing issue? Maybe they had planned to do the silly “Jean-Luc, she’s not…on…Earth!” reveal, and then cut to the borg cube for the *first* time? And that would genuinely have been a shock to us (even if it still made Picard look kindof dumb). But then at some point they realized they needed a cliffhanger for the pilot, so they tacked the borg stuff on there, which made this scene really boring and clunky because we already knew the answer.
I wonder how many “Star Trek” fans will be put off by the scene between Picard and the fleet admiral if only for the questions it raises regarding the prime timeline and the writing staff’s understanding of it and the source material they’re supposedly following up.Apparently the idea of helping the Romulans was so controversial that 14 Federation members were threatening to secede if aid were provided? This is, what, 10 years after they were the Federation’s allies in the Dominion War, after which there were no sustained hostilities, and actual overtures of peace? What happened in those 10 years that made everyone in the Federation hate the Romulans all over again? Sloan hinted at the Alpha Quadrant power struggle that would fill the vacuum after the Dominion War, and seeing that play out would probably have been more interesting than any of the “Star Trek” we’ve been getting the past few decades.So, the supposed anti-Romulan fervor presented as a stumbling block to Picard’s sense of duty doesn’t entirely ring true to me. Will this show even mention that the Romulans and Federation were allies more recently than they were enemies? There have been more than enough opportunities for someone to bring that up and yet it remains unsaid, as if it never happened. Like, Picard wouldn’t mentioned that in his defense of helping them to the TV reporter? Seems like an obvious thing.As for this “Federation’s oldest enemy” descriptor justifying the prejudice. Well, America’s oldest enemy is Britain. Things change. Also, I would think the Vulcans would have been more prominent in wanting to help the Romulans, what with their shared history and the prospects of Reunification, especially given that Spock was on Romulus hoping to spark just those sentiments. But not following up Spock’s story arc on Romulus was a story hole for the franchise long before this show came along. (Sure, it kind of comes up in Star Trek 2009, but in more of a fanon way).
This isn’t to say the prime timeline couldn’t have evolved from where it was after “DS9″ and “Voyager” and “Nemesis” into how it is being depicted on “Picard,” it would just be nice to have the show reference some of these things that seem obvious reference points (as it did with Bruce Maddox).
I don’t know, look at how easily liberals have slid into using cold war-era language over the past few years when it comes to Russia. The Soviet Union fell apart like 30 years ago and it only took some trolling online to make the supposed progressives in American society think Russia was a global villain again.
Not that I don’t think there are still a lot of question marks about this new status quo on Picard (the Vulcan-Romulan reunification supporters come to mind), but I suspect that some of those questions are really only interesting for people with a working knowledge of Deep Space 9 and Alpha-quadrant politics, not the average viewer.
I get that there could be some lingering concerns over the Romulans, but to suggest abandoning the Federation for helping them? Like, if a massive volcano suddenly swallows Moscow and the rest of Russia had a humanitarian crisis, I doubt California and New York would threaten to secede if the U.S. government wanted to help. However, I think the show envisions itself more as an analogy for taking in Syrian refugees. Which again is a clumsy metaphor, since in the real-life situation there are actual regional conflicts at play, whereas the Federation has had no outright hostilities with Romulus for centuries.In fact, given that the Romulans completely vanished from galactic politics for 50 years prior to the beginning of TNG, it would seem to me that an entire generation of Federation citizens would have no personal concerns about Romulans as an enemy, aside from Starfleet officers with direct encounters with them.Also, a good writing staff doesn’t need to abandon established backstory the “average viewer” isn’t aware of. That’s just an opportunity to expose more viewers to the previous shows, in the form of “What were the Dominion Wars” fan videos on YouTube, not unlike the revival of the Data backstory involving Bruce Maddox.
Come to think of it, there are a couple of instances of tying the current story to the backstory that might actually make more sense than just “The Romulan Star went Supernova.” Supernovas don’t just happen. They are the end result of a process that lasts for eons and would be detectable long before the 4-5 years the show suggests.
1)The Romulan star destablized as a result of experiments relating to their development of a trilithium weapon, as seen in Generations. In that movie, we learn trilithium is a nuclear inhibitor that causes stars to go nova, and that the Romulans had a large supply they were working with before Soren’s Klingon friends stole it. Maybe the Romulans had an accident with some of it where it got into their star, and since it wasn’t refined like Soren’s it took longer to disupt the star’s fusion.2)The Dominion left some sort of doomsday weapon to get revenge against the Romulans for betraying them, not unlike their attempts to destroy the Bajoran star at the beginning of the war. It just took longer to manifest.
The sudden supernova thing bothers me more than the discord in the Federation over aiding the Romulans.
Part of the problem here is that the situation with them has never been very clear, they’re aggressive and territorial, but also in complete isolation for long periods. Like in that 50 year period before TNG they did also attack the Klingon colony Worf was born on.
Suffice it to say, that it seems plausible to me that there would be long standing resentments towards them. And if you’re a Federation member from a world near their border you’re probably not going to be enthusiastic about resettling millions of Romulans across that border.(To continue the clumsy Russia analogy, imagine how Georgians would feel in such a situation)
I don’t know, look at how easily liberals have slid into using cold war-era language over the past few years when it comes to Russia. The Soviet Union fell apart like 30 years ago and it only took some trolling online to make the supposed progressives in American society think Russia was a global villain again.::: EYE ROLL:::Yes, in America it’s the liberals that are xenophobes. Nailed it
No, but you should know better.
Also, some “trolling online” is totally equivalent to hacking, and meddling in our elections.Seems like somebody’s been drinking at the Fox News water fountain a bit too much.
“it only took some trolling online to make the supposed progressives in American society think Russia was a global villain again.”
Ok, Glenn Greenwald. Helping vaporize entire cities in Syria, invading Ukraine and launching disinformation campaigns against a ton of democracies to purposefully internally destabilize them might make people think you’re a global villain.
And please don’t come back with whataboutery. Just because America’s shit stinks doesn’t absolve Russia of anything.
The Soviet Union fell apart like 30 years ago and it only took some trolling online to make the supposed progressives in American society think Russia was a global villain again.Nah, that was Putin’s global villainy.But there are plenty of examples of people reacting with irrational hostility to refugees from outgroups. And there’s plenty of contemporary WWIII-themed hostility to Germany despite the fact that they’ve been much better behaved than most other countries for the last 75 years or so.
I dunno, maybe because Russia is being run by a murdering ex-KGB agent dictator who is dedicated to weakening Western democracies at every turn?But you know how “liberals” tend to overreact. I guess we should follow your example and just be delighted that our brain-dead president is so willfully playing into his hands.
Didn`t the Romulans use a clone of Picard to attempt a genocide on Earth using a supervessel that essentially rendered Starfleet`s best attempts at interdiction moot, and would have sterilized the planet while cloaked in minutes? That kind of thing, coupled with lingering mistrust during the Romulan`s dark period, Romulus`s position as the ur-antagonist for the Federation and the uncertainty around the Supernova`s causes (Countdown/non-canon MMO Star Trek Online had it caused by misused Borg tech/meddling from the Iconians) could account for the uncertainty. If one or more of the founding races were in that 14, it could have been a major problem for the Federation, possibly leading to a splintering.The vagueness of the Federation`s structure isn`t helping here, since the arrangement of the member states has never been particularly well established.
Not quite. The Romulans had cloned Picard during the period they were dormant (pre-TNG). According to the timeline of Nemesis, the policy change that led to them ending their isolation led to them abandoning the cloning project. Shinzon was sent to die in the mines of Remus but instead led a revolution of the Romulan senate, using his secretly built Reman warbird and a cabal of opportunists within the Romulan fleet. Seeing that Shinzon was simply using the resources of Romulus to kidnap Picard to keep himself alive, and barring that, declaring war on the rest of the galaxy, and thinking this wasn’t a good policy, a number of high-ranking Romulan military commanders rebelled against Shinzon and allied with Picard to stop him. Since they were successful, that left a bit of a power vacuum at the top, with the surviving Romulan military heirarchy now more sympathetic with the Federation as a result.The synth revolt on Mars was just 6 years after Nemesis, so that’s only a gap of a few years during which the Federation would have presumably been helping the Romulans recover from Shinzon and then learning their star was about to supernova (maybe Shinzon leaving a failsafe could be yet another possibility). A post-Shinzon Romulus should also have benefited from a decade of Spock influencing a youth population more sympathetic to the Federation. (Of course, Nemesis should have dealt with this as a plot thread — Leonard Nimoy had already said the reason he didn’t want to be in Generations was that he was more interested in a follow-up to his Romulan arc, and yet when presented with the opportunity to do just that, the writers went with a lame Picard-clone storyline with a lot of timeline problems? Just a badly written movie.)The idea of the post-Shinzon government asking the Federation for help against the supernova makes sense. Likewise, the Federation agreeing to help makes sense along these lines too.
All of this doesn’t preclude some lingering resentments from members of the Federation either. It would just be nice to see some of these other plot developments from the wider franchise get some acknowledgement in the discussion of why so many in the Federation decided to turn their backs on Romulus at that point. Vulcan it would seem to be should have been a major proponent in helping the Romulans, which would go a long way to assuaging the concerns of other member worlds.
On the other hand, a general isolationist movement stemming directly from fears over another Dominion War (ie, a wish to curb Starfleet’s mandate of exploration — and thus minimize the risk of encountering dangerous alien empires such as the Dominion) would also make sense in the context of what we have been presented on the show. Again, though, it would be nice to hear such nuances addressed beyond “the Federation’s oldest enemy” as a blanket explanation.
“The federation’s oldest enemy” line came from a clearly shitty interviewer who was trying to get a rise out of Picard. I wouldn’t take it as Starfleet policy.
**“The federation’s oldest enemy” line came from a clearly shitty
interviewer who was trying to get a rise out of Picard. I wouldn’t take
it as Starfleet policy.**Well, the head of Starfleet basically said the same thing in episode 2.
No, the Remans did.
From the DS9 episode “The Reckoning:”SISKO: The Romulans have forced the Dominion to retreat from the Benzite system.ODO: That is good news. The question is, will the Romulans be willing
to leave Benzar after the war is over? Once they capture territory,
they very rarely give it up.
Maybe the Romulans decided not to leave some of the Federation planets they took back from the Dominion. It could have been a post-WWII type situation where the Soviets took over all the countries it liberated from the Nazis.
Maybe. Too bad there wasn’t a show or movie to explore that. Nemesis could have, but whatever.
How did America go from Obama to Trump? Seems realistic to me.
I’ve been left wondering the same thing, all this talk of Romulans but no mention of their help in the Dominion war or of the war itself at all. Really hope they aren’t wiping away the DS9 era!
I love that Orla Brady gets to use her natural accent but not sure how it fits with being a Romulan.
She’s Tal Shiar, I’m sure she had a cover identity ready in case she ever needed to go undercover in the Federation, hers just happened to be Irish.
Or she learned English from chief O’Brien.
Take your pick.
Ye cheeky fecker!
For that matter – handsome Romulan Borg guy sounds British. Uh, how does that work? I get different races within species but that’s so clearly a UK accent, how do they explain that in the show universe?
Maybe they get to register whatever accent they think sounds good on them with the Universal Translator.Troi should have probably thought it over longer.
Since neither Lwaxana or her husband speak with that accent, my fanwank explanation is that the Trois left Deanna with a family friend for an extended period in her formative years. Deanna started to speak like the caregiver while her parents were away. When they got back, Lwaxana was SO furious at the sound of Deanna’s new accent that she forbade Mr. Homm from even speaking aloud again. . . ; )
Is he actually handsome?All I can see is those giant buck teeth every time he speaks, so I can’t rightly tell.
I go by what the womens say – and both of them almost slid through the scanners when they looked at him
If the Borg Queen had a prettier but overlooked sister, she’d be all over him.
He also played Dr. Frankenstein in Penny Dreadful. Personally, I do find him hot. He has a sweet, somehow childish face, but he is really good at having some cold, cerebral energy going in the eyes and the contrast works for me.
Same way they explain all the American accents Romulans previously had.
Lots of planets have an Ireland!
something something Bringloidi ..( actually hopefully the romulans raised that fucking colony to the ground)
Between Laris and O’Brien, I think it’s pretty clear we just need a Space Dublin to show up.
Haven’t gotten to it yet, but I am looking forward to a slowly paced plot. The first one was borderline too much with the explosions and fighting, and Trek needs a good non-action packed story.
That admiral scene was so fantastic. Not just because you could see both sides of the argument there, but also because it truly managed to portray Picard as believably flawed. Which instantly made him even more appealing as this older main character who still views himself as one of the greatest heroes of Starfleet. Hell, even when he arrived to Starfleet, his apparent annoyance about having to explain who he was brilliant.I can’t explain how much I loved not just his request to the Admiral, but his genuine belief that he was condeeding so much stuff there. Like he was willing to accept a demotion to captain, y’all.
Agreed, it felt very Kirk-like in a way.
And I especially enjoyed how she wasn’t the Romulan plant. She was just an Admiral that still believed in Starfleet and the Federation and was just sick and tired of Jean Lucs bullshit. We all side with Picard by default but I like how the show frames it that neither side is perfect and there are still plenty of humans who believe in Starfleet doing the right thing even if it’s different than what Picard thinks is the right thing. Plus, yeah Picard definitely deserved to be called out for just assuming he could have a ship and crew after trashing the organization on intergalactic news.
The demotion to captain was what he wanted, just like Kirk.It would have been great if that was Admiral Nachayev, or even any other TNG era admiral. But Nechayev especially. She was always a thorn in Picard’s side.
Yeah, I didn’t like the scene because I thought the actress way overplayed it.For all she knows Picard is just a doddering old man, and to jump right to swearing at him is way overboard, when she should have just laughed at him and showed him the door.But if it had been Nechayev I would have been more forgiving.
I think they implied that they had a past together. You don’t get to be a Starfleet admiral without knowing Picard. The scene would have played differently in TNG, because the admiral would have been a lot calmer. She would have been a little stern at the end, but definitely wouldn’t have cursed. I think the exact same scene would have played better here if it was Nechayev, just because there is a history.
Glad it wasn’t Nechayev since her relationship turned a corner with Picard during her last two appearances (due mostly to Picard preparing her favorite snack.)
Ok, first things first. I love ST:P. I simply love it. It hits all the right notes for me. And as far as pacing goes, its befits a show about a man who was once one of the most important figures in the quadrant, but today is… old, a bit slow, slightly bitter and cantankerous. But also full of compassion, warmth and friendliness.This isn’t the Picard of TNG. Because that man has lived 30 years ago. 30 years is a long time. However, this is the Picard who, given the history of the 30 years in between, has logically become of the man he used to be. I believe this Picard. He’s authentic. And, what’s truly important, and in stark contrast with TNG, he is now imperfect and fallible. He is, after all, an old man now, much past his prime.What hasn’t changed is his passion for justice, his thirst for knowledge, and his sense of importance. And this justifies everything that happens here.I find it a nice touch they still remember the aberration in his brain – recall why people were reluctant to believe him in All good things…? And it is a good plot device that adds a sense of urgency. It is truly his last (or one of the last) adventure.As for the secret cabal within the Tal Shiar, it’s not such a huge stretch. Remember Dune? How synthetics and AI turned on humanity, and how, after the Butlerian jihad, all AI and computers became outlawed? Why Romulans would ever have to keep their hatred of synthetics a secret, though, is another matter entirely.Anyway, so far so good. I knew that once Michael Chabon entered the fray, we would get delivered a very warm, yet very macabre story, and I can feel his DNA in the writing of the show, but truly the show has surpassed my expectations not just in writing, but in acting and cinematography as well.
The problem is that all that trivia isn’t really what makes a story good
I absolutely left this episode craving more progression of the plot, but I don’t consider that to really be a negative. It’s the nature of serialized storytelling that you never finish an episode having all the answers that you want. Even seasons often end in cliffhangers. I didn’t think the episode was plodding or that it stretched out the progression of the plot in a frustrating way. It moved pretty snapily from scene to scene, and from my perspective the run time absolutely flew by. I was gripped from start to finish. I think that being forced to wait a week for the next episode, and spending the interim thinking about and reflecting upon the previous episode, is something that ultimately deepens the viewing experience. The instant gratification of a longer binge is great in the moment, but makes for a far less memorable experience.
One thing I’m sort of confused about— and maybe it’s a bit of New Star Trek lore that I missed— is that everyone takes the existence of “synths” for granted. To me it seemed kind of out of place. Like, one of the big issues in Measure of a Man was that Maddox wanted to study Data in order to possibly make more androids, but Picard argues against creating an army of Datas because Data is a unique individual, not merely a machine. I also vaguely remember a Voyager plotline where the EMH was upset that holograms were being used as essentially slave labor. I’m sure there’s no in-show reason for this and I’m probably thinking too much, but it seems like a real shift from thinking that even mechanical life is valued, to using androids as drones and calling them “Plastic People”
It’s the usual shift seen in multi-series genre TV franchises: a shift backwards, so they can tell variations of the same story over and over without having to think up anything new.
Are the androids drones? My sense was that they were just workers like everyone else, they just got treated like weirdos because they were so different.
Interesting– I just assumed they were drones because they seemed to be stored in a closet overnight, until the worker came and let them out in the morning.
Maybe that’s just how they sleep. They seemed to have their own personalities, what with the one guy trying to understand jokes or whatever.
Seemed to me like they were unsophisticated androids, lacking complete sentience. That’s speculation, but it jibes with the fact that they live in a friggin’ closet and have very rudimentary programming/personality.
They don’t seem to be sentient, at least not like Data. It felt like they were just worker drones who look like humans. Jurati said they couldn’t replicate Soong androids, which I think is why they ended up cloning them instead.
I also wondered about that, especially with the holograms, and the holo-rights stuff from Voyager. Why wouldn’t Utopia Planitia of all places just be filled will holo-emiters, and have a holo-skeleton crew running around?If there is one thing to take from the opening though, it’s that Data was always extremely dangerous, and all of the various times that he took over the Enterprise could have gone much worse. Picard really should have put a stop to that immediately.
Yes, it’s comical how many times Data nearly gets everyone killed, but the crew just kind of shrugs it off.
Data’s abilities saved the Enterprise far more than he endangered it.
The Voyager episode is called “Author Author,” though I believe neither that episode or “Measure of a Man” definitively settled the issues. Instead, the judges ruled very narrowly in favor of the Doctor and Data’s specific legal rights in those situations and kicked the proverbial can down the road with regard to the legal rights of artificial life forms.
“one of the big issues in Measure of a Man was that Maddox wanted to study Data in order to possibly make more androids, but Picard argues against creating an army of Datas because Data is a unique individual, not merely a machine.”The problem Data (and Picard) had with Maddox’s plans was that he would have to disassemble Data to create more of him, and that he didn’t know if he’d be able to reassemble Data as he was. Data didn’t want to go through with it if there was a chance that he might cease to be.
How is it that Picard keeps welcoming people to his estate winery without a wine tasting?“Lets get things started with our gewurztraminer, tell me what you think…”Apart from that I enjoyed the scene with his Romulan minders where he is sitting at his desk, which reminded me of countless ready-room discussion scenes on TNG. Also the “ number of days since an assimilation” sign on the borg cube. Actually the whole Borg cube thing strikes me as quite an original idea for a tired enemy and reminds me of YouTube “Chernobyl exploration” videos. I love this idea of a huge haunted ghost ship that is only partially reclaimed.If this series was directed by David Lynch it would be 12 episodes of Picard wandering absently around his beautiful vineyards before suddenly remembering his name and beaming up to the Enterprise. I would watch that too. “Ghost in the machine” => ‘ere I am JH’ ?
Harvest is still a month away.
DZ-015
“ghost in the machine” -cuts to Dr. Crusher, sound asleep with a big smile on her face
Regarding assimilation prevention, the Romulans must have discovered that even though resistors are futile, a good insulator does the trick.
Boo! 😛
Dear CBS please stop trying to edge Trek with F bombs.
Yeah, the one in particular was very out-of-place. Especially given that there was none in the first episode (did they even say “shit” in the first episode?)
It is sheer fucking hubris to think that they haven’t invented new curse words in 400 years
Maybe in TNG times they’ve gone “retro” and went back to early 21st century cursing
“A little too much LDS.”
They might not have been written down often, but most of the popular ones now do have histories at least that long.
Shit and fuck (among others) are also hundreds of years old and YOU’RE still using them!
I think the biggest problem with this ep was it just felt padded in a few places. There were a couple of scenes where it just felt like the dialogue got pretty repetitive with characters making the same points more than once; all the banter about secrets with Narek and Dahj’s sister; both the scenes with the Romulan lieutenant where she’s having the urgency of the mission impressed upon her and then impressing it upon Narek in return. All of them could have probably been trimmed to half their length and would have worked better. That said, wow, does that lieutenant remind me of an evil Jadzia Dax. Probably no connection there, but it does make me wonder how many other representatives from noted Star Trek races will we see. Any other Trills out there? Ferengi? Betazed? Cardassians? One thing I was disappointed in the Star Wars sequels was that we saw so few of the alien races established in the earlier films; it’d be a shame if that was carried over here. (This is not an invitation to start another argument about the Star Wars sequels.) But overall, I do get a sense of narrative confidence; this show knows where it’s going, even if it may be idling its engine a bit too much in the beginning. Interesting choice for an episode title. Is Picard an R.E.M. fan? He is a classicist, after all.Did anyone catch the graffiti on the Borg Cube? “It has been 1458 days since our last assimilation” or something like that.
One of the news crew in episode 1 was a Trill, and apparently the woman Soji talked to in episode 2 was too(she mentioned attending a Trill university, but I couldn’t make out any spots against the colour of her skin after they mentioned it, but I will keep an eye out when I rewatch). The news crew also had a Tellarite and a Bajoran, and there were some Andorians on the Artefact as well.
The spots are there, yes.
Yeah, I spotted (boom boom) them when I rewatched and was looking for them.
The “days since assimilation” thing was in the trailer for the show a few months back
If you think Star Trek is “too slow” you probably don’t really get Star Trek and would be happier with the Abrams reboot with the Fast and the Furious director. Leave Chabon’s thing for the rest of us.
I’m actually liking the slowish pacing, but they should definitely have planned for a two-parter intro (they did it for DISCO after all). We don’t need to be introduced to his whole crew right away, but getting all the balls in the air (re)establishing Picard and the basic goals would have made for a good self-contained pilot. A week in and I’m still not sure what the plan is. I think they’re taking their audience for granted.
They’re writing a show that demands to be binge-watched but giving it an episodic release strategy.
That whole CSI scene in Dahj’s apartment was some A-grade technobabble.It seems like the writers have a very vague understanding of how computers or forensic residue work. (even advanced futurist ones)Though it does seem very Trek like to introduce a made up bullshit problem with no apparent solution and then immediately solve it in a made up bullshit way.
How do forensics recreate dialogue??
I cannot help but notice how much deeper and nuanced this is than I thought it was going to be. The simplistic idealism and (almost) perfect morality of TNG – especially the early episodes – are gone. For example, the workers on Mars are kind of dicks toward the Synth, and while I’m sure that wasn’t a factor in what happened, it is refreshing to see.
It’s like everyone’s Barclay. I mean that in the best way possible. They’re not perfect.
Every time I see Barclay, all I can think of is his role as Howlin’ Mad Murdoch from The A-Team.
I’m the other way around.
Yes, the simplistic idealism is certainly gone. On a smaller scale people being dicks to synthetics, on a larger scale the Federation devolving into just another superpower that allows billions to die because it’s politically expedient. Also we should have Superman break people’s necks every so often, because it’s not realistic that he never kills anyone and the best way to explore that aspect of his character is to first have him kill a few people and then talk about that.
Despite all the pearl-clutching at Superman killing Zod in Man of Steel, the idea of Superman killing someone shouldn’t be that shocking: https://www.cbr.com/times-superman-killed-someone/
With over 80 years of monthly publications, it’s not a surprise that a character such as Superman has been, and done, everything under the (yellow) Sun. Everyone knows that Batman also used to shoot people on the regular – but those traits are so far from the core of either character that their movie adaptations would be well-served to focus entirely on other things.The same goes for the Federation. We’ve always had xenophobic Federation types and just plain dumbasses butting heads against our favorite Captains over the years, but the core idea was that the Federation as a whole could be, should be, and was better than those individuals within it. The Federation, being a fictional construct, was granted the ability to actually be the shining city on a hill that that fucker Reagan used to bullshit people about. That does not mean it would be free from conflict, it just meant it was capable of doing the right thing. In the context of ST Picard, that would mean that we could actually get to see the Federation grappling with a refugee crisis as it was happening at the time, and we could see what it would take to do the right thing, and how it could be done. Instead we start with an entity that has already fallen from grace, just so we can watch it trying to redeem itself.Is that more realistic? Yes. You know what’s also more realistic? They could spend a minute or two in each episode to show all the characters going to the shitter. But realism is not a goal in itself, and making things more realistic needs to be a considered decision when doing so loses you a part of the core of the property.
The majority of those examples of Superman killing people are not from the golden age, so as much as people might like to say “Oh, Superman only killed people in his first couple of years”, that list proves that is not true. Many superheroes that have a rule about not killing people have actually done the deed – even Spider-Man has killed about a dozen people through his history.But this is about Star Trek. As much as Gene Roddenberry wanted his vision of the future to be everybody getting along, no conflict, and a Utopian Earth, that just wasn’t realistic. Any organization, no matter how well intentioned, is going to do bad things for a good reason. And every time we see this in the various Trek series you know what we also get? The good guys seeing this and doing something to stop it.
I wasn’t suggesting it was Golden Age, that was Batman – Superman did all kinds of weird things for decades afterwards, in fact most of the Silver Age was Superman being a weird dick. And more recent as well, in some badly written stories.If you read my comment you’ll note that I specifically said I don’t mean no conflict; that was Rodenberry’s late-stage obsession, not an actual good idea. I mean exactly what you said, bad things happen and good guys do something.The point is that the good guys didn’t do something, and billions of Romulans are dead. It’s over. The bad thing has already happened. And it didn’t happen because of misguided good intentions either, it happened because of fear and politics. The show has clearly spelled out that the Federation now has the blood of billions on its hands. This is the Star Trek where the bad things don’t get stopped – instead we wring our hands about them and retire from Starfleet after the damage has already been done. I don’t need a sci-fi TV show to show me that, I can get that if I look out the window.Note that if by the end of the season Picard time travels back and saves all the Romulans I take back everything I’ve said. But it just doesn’t seem that we’re headed in that direction.
Superman and Batman have killed people throughout their careers, not only in the golden age. Google it, it happened. Sorry if you think they’re “bad stories” (first time I’ve heard someone say “Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow” is a bad story) but they’re canon.The Federation is a group made up of different groups. Not everyone is going to have the same ideas, and not everyone is going to want to do the same thing. The idea that every decision the Federation made would be 100% approved is laughable, not matter how much of a Utopian society some people may want Trek to be. Even in TOS there were decisions that Starfleet/Federation made that Kirk didn’t agree with. So this is not something unique to modern Trek.
The plural noun for Romulans is a conspiracy. And within those conspiracies, there are further conspiracies. I think it’s a compulsion within their psychology. A conspiracy of Romulans goes in together to order pizza and wings. They then conspire to tip the driver. Someone walks in. “GARY. YOU SAW NOTHING.”
Given the politics of today, I’m a little wary that the writers have chosen to make this show about a refugee crisis (topical!), but that because the refugees are Romulans they will almost certainly turn out to be evil and bent on destroying humanity.It’s sortof like when Trublood used vampirism as an allegory for people’s fears of LGBTQ…except that vampires really were killing and converting people.I’m not sure if writers are actually very good at this, is what I’m saying.
Yeah, and the whole “Romulan super-secret spies working/leading on with Starfleet Security” smacks a little too much of “the Russkies are running the government”, once you start thinking of them having ripped ideas from the headlines.
I thought the first part of Season 1 of Discovery was really interesting, because everyone followed Lorca – who was clearly sketchy if not outright evil – just because he was the captain. The crew was complicit in a bunch of questionable stuff, but he was their guy, on their team, and that was all that they needed to know.That is potentially some very nice ripped-from-the-headlines allegory, right there.But then: everyone gets medals! And let us never speak of it again.
So yeah, I don’t have super high hopes that they’ve put any more thought into Picard.
I watched the free premiere on YouTube. I liked it quite a bit. When all 10 eps drop, might buck up and binge. Don’t need another streaming right now (note to self- remember to drop Disney Hulu Espn+)Observations 1) Trek belongs on TV, not film. Period. This show cements that.2) Romulan Warbird redesign is groovy.3) I actually like this being on earth so far. Fill in the gaps of what everyday life is like. Need more of this. Ok, Picard lives in a storybook, but beyond that, the brief glimpses of Boston at night were intriguing. 4) Patrick Stewart is looking old. But, he’s still got it. 5) Digging the 2 Romulan assistants, and feel they are not quite what they seem. Like that.6) Will they mention Data’s daughter that he actually built??
I totally agree with the Earth sentiment. So many people are just waiting for him to get into space, but I don’t think it matters that much.
So much exposition and talking about what they’re already saying and doing.
I actually enjoyed how some of the plot in the first episode reminded me of The Undiscovered Country what with the Romulan predicament being similar to the crisis facing the Klingons in that movie and I liked that the second episode reminded me a lot of The Search for Spock with Picard trying to convince Star Fleet to give him a ship so he can go save his thought-dead friend. As long as they keep cribbing from the original Trek movies, I’ll be happy. Bring on the humpbacks!
“Excuse me…why does God need a French vineyard?”
Admiral Clancy made a poor argument to Picard as to why the Federation had to abandon the rescue of the Romulans. If the Federation contains “thousands” of species, as Clancy said, then the threatened withdrawal of fourteen of them could not have caused the Federation to “implode”.
Fair point, but not all members are truly equal, no matter what the politics might suggest.Vulcans and other founding members deciding to fuck right off would carry way more weight than, say, that planet where they kill children for stepping on the flowers.
Yeah, the Vulcans and the Klingons alone deciding to fuck off would have galaxy shattering ramifications, and you still have 12 other species to pick from.
Klingons aren’t in the UFP.
Weren’t they?
No, that was an error in one episode. There are countless other episodes that make it clear that they aren’t and never were. I believe the full line was supposed to be, “Was that before the Klingons joined the Federation….for cocktails?”
You say error, but reading the entire page, it seems pretty damn clear the original intention was for them to be members. Hence, the production diary and Federation logo on a Klingon bridge. But it was then retconned, but really only in a half-assed way, which leaves A LOT of wiggle room.And when Archer was brought to the future during Enterprise, they were explicitly named as members.And this is WAY more nerding out than I am comfortable with from myself.
There is zero wiggle room. Maybe it was a retcon from the original intention in the series, but even that’s not clear, as several other episodes of TNG imply the Klingons and Federation are separate, even ones that predate “Samaritan Snare.”And if you want to call it a retcon, fine, but once so retconned, it was utterly unambiguous that the Klingon Empire is and was always separate (Archer being brought into the future doesn’t count, since it’s the friggin’ future.)Here are just a partial list of episodes which confirm this:Sins of the Father, Reunion, Redemption, Rightful Heir, Yesterday’s Enterprise, The Mind’s Eye, The Drumhead, Way of the Warrior, Sword of Kahless, Sons of Mogh, Apocalypse Rising, By Inferno’s Light, Tacking into the Wind.Sorry, one throwaway line in the second season doesn’t override more than a dozen subsequent episodes where the Klingon Empire being its own entity was literally a driving factor of the story and a major part of the tapestry of the universe. Mistakes happen.
Checkmate, nerd.
allow me to reiterate -Sins of the Father, Reunion, Redemption, Rightful Heir, Yesterday’s Enterprise, The Mind’s Eye, The Drumhead, Way of the Warrior, Sword of Kahless, Sons of Mogh, Apocalypse Rising, By Inferno’s Light, Tacking into the Wind.
Too late, you’re in checkmate.
Sorry, I’m playing 3-D chess and you’re ignoring most of the board.
Now, good day to you sir!
At last count, the Federation had 150 planet members. That was 2o years ago, but “thousands of species” feels like a stretch.
What I don’t get is why the writers made it this hard for themselves. Why make the secret-secret Romulan police thousands of years old, while you could have made them a recent offspring of the Tal Shiar that hate synths because they doomed millions of Romulans?
I feel like scifi writing today has inherited a bunch of tropes from fantasy and videogames that aren’t a great fit.I would never pretend that Trek is “hard” scifi, and SW certainly isn’t. And neither of them were ever perfect. But the newest iterations lean a lot more heavily on quest-y, magic key, super-secret whatevers than they used to.
I feel like a lot of stuff we’re seeing in Picard is 2020 blockbuster writing 101. A seecret secret police, a conspiracy that goes all the way to the top, a dormant superweapon… An ancient order that the protagonist must fight against is practically a given. This all reeks of Alex Kurtzman to be honest, but when you also have Akiva Goldsman involved it’s hard to be sure who’s responsible for which piece of hack writing.
I’m being a little unfair to fantasy, because this is probably all Lost’s fault as much as anything else.But there’s just such a big difference from TNG & DS9 making the matter-of-fact statement that “Obviously all of the great powers have a secret service,” to “OOOoooOOOOhhhh,a spoooooooky cult of Romulan luddite super spies.”
Well, because obviously there’s more to learn about who was responsible for the synth rebellion and it’ll be (sadly) one of the show’s larger mysteries.
I’ve seen articles and online comments saying Star Trek: Picard is too slowly paced and has too much exposition, and I’ve seen articles and online comments saying that Discovery is too quickly paced and doesn’t have the “interactions between characters that Star Trek fans love”.
Y’know, it’s almost as if Star Trek fans, or entertainment media franchise fans in general, don’t know what the hell they want but think they should have it all anyway, and maybe these franchises shouldn’t listen to fans at all and just make the stories they want to make and if people like them, AWESOME. If they don’t, too freaking bad.
I actually thought it was pretty great so far, though I can’t exactly disagree with the points about the pacing.On repeat viewings, the only negatives that jump out at me are my usual problems with Alison Pill’s “affectations that pass for acting”-style, and the way all the villains seem super obvious, which makes every plot beat land a fraction earlier than the show seems to think it will.I still love the changes they’re taking with canon and — let’s have it— they seem to be threading the needle successfully so far, when it comes to nostalgia versus innovation. I’d give it 4.5 synthetics’ yellow irises.
* changes = chances
“You need a crew! Riker, Worf, Laforge-” “No.” This feels like an attempt to explain why the show isn’t just “the old Enterprise gang, back on their bullshit,” but while I don’t begrudge them for not getting everyone back out of mothballs, Picard’s argument (that he can’t put his old friends at risk), while plausible, is too generic. The show might have been better off just not mentioning it.I disagree – it makes total sense if you’ve just watched “All Good Things…” right before the premiere of Picard. You understand that he has already put them through something like this and was a microsecond of getting them all killed (in that timeline). I think Picard is especially cognizant of this fact since it has now been confirmed for him that he has ended up developing irumodic syndrome right on schedule. He doesn’t want to repeat the past (or future?).
since it has now been confirmed for him that he has ended up developing irumodic syndrome right on schedule. Finally watching the show and reading these comments two years later than everyone else. I was actually surprised no one else had mentioned this. It was the first think I thought of when the doctor was talking to him and I haven’t even watched All Good Things recently.
1) The pacing felt off in ep 2, reminded me of Discovery pacing (not good), I think Star Trek struggles with non-episodic TV, they can do story ARCs (DS9), but something about a 10 hour movie just doesn’t translate for Trek, I thought some of the best Discovery episodes were the more self contained ones (Mudd from s1 and the church planet ep from s2)2) So far Picard seems to have continued Discovery’s path of casting women in a majority of roles that have any consequence, obviously I have no problem with having plenty of ladies in Trek, but this feels unbalanced and forced. It seems like at least two members of Picard’s “crew” will be male, so that should help even it out.3) I really hope we get some references to DS9, the fact that the first two episodes have been so Romulan heavy but nobody has mentioned their help in the Dominion war (or the Dominion war at all) makes me nervous that DS9 has been forgotten.4) I hope we get to see some current Federation starships out in space….including the Enterprise E.5) Picard being ostracised from Starfleet doesn’t feel right, I’m guessing this all ends with Picard being the one who “saves” Starfleet, either right before his death or with him being reinstated6) If this ends with some kind of Data resurrection it would be cool for Geordi to play an on-screen roll in that, they were such close friends for the whole TNG era
I have an idea why the Romulans might have a secret organisation that hates artificial life. What if, thousands of years ago, they created artificial life? What if it rebelled, or rejected them, and was either exiled or left. What if the Romulans inadvertently created The Borg?
That idea is so terrible that you might be right :-/But at the very least it’s definitely to do with some kind of artificial life they created thousands of years ago, and if the writers are bad they’ll have it be the Borg.
If the Romulans “created” the Borg it would be the most catastrophic writing decision in Trek history and I would write off the franchise for the next 50 years.
So far so good. I love a good mystery and, so far, the show feels less like a Star Trek show and more like a show set in the Star Trek universe. At this point, I want the latter more than the former.
The commodore was dragonlady.mp4 and you hate to see it
A learned colleague of mine once said that the Tal Shiar was sloppy.Another colleague, while a twisted sadist, had a keen observation that Romulans are predictably treacherous. That being the case, why wouldn’t we expect the Romulans to have a superfluous double-secret intelligence agency within the Tal Shiar?The whole reason Romulus was lost is because they were too busy with their worthless secrets to bother with the obvious.
And why is Picard taking medical advice from Harry Drake? That seems dodgy.
What is the deal with comment approval?Where are some comments days in waiting for approval while others aren’t?
Always a pleasure to see your reviews, Zack! (meant to write that for Ep.1 but missed it somehow)
After the hot mess that was Discovery, it’s hard to not be seriously worried with all the red flags Picard’s throwing up of being the same kind of mystery-box, look-at-how-clever-we-are, all-you-thought-sofar-was-wrong, by-the-numbers product. Super-secret spies, assassinations, a totally cynical view on the Federation and the whole world, and calculated shots of nostalgia to tug at the heartstrings, not a good mix. This is the kind of show that thinks it would be a brilliant twist if the Romulan siblings turn out to be synthetics infiltrating the calndestine group infilitrating the Federation to pursue synthetics. It is infuriating. Especially so when you have scenes like that totally tone-deaf scene of Picard and Her Admiralship’s confrontation following that superb meeting between Picard and Doctor Benayoun, which is sensational and easily conveys their years of friendship with moving subtlety. You can see they can do better but are choosing not to.
Actually, Picard’s speech to the reporter in Episode 1 reflects (I’m sure unintentionally, this is not that intelligent a show) the discomfort some of us fans feel. He resigned from Starfleet when it no longer was driven by the ideals that he was always serving, do we bail on Trek now that it’s similarly changed or do we soldier on in hope? How much loyalty do we owe an institution that has given up what inspired that loyalty in the first place? In situations like that, a lot of folks are kept on because they replace their attachment to the organisation or the ideal with attachment to a person who embodies them, even if the organisation no longer does, and it seems to me that here it’s the character Picard who plays that role for the fans. Let’s see how long he can bear that weight.
In terms of the apartment investigation scene- it breaks up what would otherwise be some heavy exposition about the Secret Romulan group, and develops the female Romulan character more as a fomer Talshiar agent and excellent forensic investigator, which I’m sure will come up later when she eventually joins Picard’s new crew.
In so far as the secret Romulan anti AI cult- it’s clearly a mystery. If it has existed for thousands of years, it might have gone back to when the romulans were on Vulcan. We don’t know what’s up with it, and we don’t know what’s up with the commodore who is co-operating. This could be a “bad guys” who are serving a “good” purpose but going to extremes. Maybe they received information from the future and are trying to prevent an AI takeover. It would make sense why they might have supporters in other intelligence organizations. And why they would want to stop the advance of AI and counter the borg. I feel like it almost has to be something like that.. like something they are trying to prevent.
Oh wait… Control! duh. That would be something the romulans would legit be afraid of and possibly had an uber secret agency to prevent that from every happening. Keep in mind, by Picard’s time, Control is top secret section 31 history.
Especially if Control did things in the past that could cause it to re-emerge in the future. Like making the Romulan sun go nova? In Star Trek Online that’s the Iconians, but I think the shows are allowed precedence to change canon.