Watch: ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Teaser Debuts

Last week during the CBS Upfront presentation in New York, advertisers were shown a very brief (~5 second) clip of Star Trek: Picard. Today CBS has released a proper teaser for the new show.

STAR TREK: PICARD features Sir Patrick Stewart reprising his iconic role as Jean-Luc Picard, which he played for seven seasons on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” The new series will follow this iconic character into the next chapter of his life.

The video features imagery of the Picard family vineyards, and a voiceover that wonders why Admiral Picard left Starfleet, “15 years ago today you led us out of the darkness, you commanded the greatest rescue armada in history, then the unimaginable happened…” The teaser cuts to a dramatic shot of an aged Picard, and the video concludes with the tagline “The End Is Only The Beginning.”

EDIT: For those curious, the voiceover actress has been identified. It is Merrin Dungey, a prolific TV actress who has recently starred in The Fix and Big Little Lies. She had notable recurring roles on Alias and King of Queens among many others.

CBS – USA

Space – Canada

Amazon – International

Teaser poster too

15 years ago?

Executive producer Alex Kurtman has said that “Picard’s life was radically altered by the dissolution of the Romulan Empire.”

The destruction of Romulus was in 2387, and Picard is assumed to take place in 2399. So that wasn’t quite 15 years ago. They could be rounding for simplicity in the narration. It seems likely that “the greatest rescue armada in history” is referring to an effort to save as many Romulans before their home solar system was destroyed by the supernova.

First two episodes done filming

In other Picard news, as we previously reported, Hanelle Culpepper was chosen to kick off Picard with the first two episodes, and then Jonathan Frakes would direct the next two episodes. Today, Culpepper confirmed her block of episodes has finished shooting.


Star Trek: Picard is expected to be released in late 2019. It will be available on CBS All Access in the USA. Space and CraveTV in Canada, and on Amazon Prime Video for the rest of the world.

Keep up with all the Star Trek: Picard news at TrekMovie.

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Sure. Why not? Looks like Picard getting called back into action. Cue lots of “you’re just the consultant!” until things get stupid and he has to take charge.

Hijacking this comment.

Region free version here:
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/eA-GJNebJj0?v=eA-GJNebJj0&autoplay=1

He’ll be on the Enterprise F for a press event. The Enterprise will be unexpectedly called to deal with an emergency, and Picard will have to step up because the competent officers don’t arrive until Tuesday.

Now this is funny!

It is also podracing.

^^you win

The Enterprise E is in still a good shape. they cant be changing ships every 20 years. The Enterprise NCC1701A was over 50 years old when she was decommission

Discovery still functions great even though its been sitting in one place idly for literally a thousand years. Starfleet builds these things to last lol.

The Enterprise A was nowhere near fifty years old. It was introduced at the end of Voyage Home, and they were preparing to decommission it at the end of Undiscovered Country, so it was something like seven years old.

I always assumed the Enterprise A was an older Constitution ship they just renamed for Kirk’s crew. It may not be 50 years old but its probably older than 7 as well.

Off topic, I always loved how the end of that movie showed us the ‘A’ and then a year later TNG pops up with the E-D. I always wondered if they didn’t present an Enterprise A would TNG have introduced the D but a different ship entirely? Yes, nerdy shower thought lol.

The Yorktown was recommissioned and renamed the Enterprise A. The Yorktown was also going to be the original name for the ship.

I have found that trying to make sense of the events from TVH are a fools errand. The way those events transpired at the end was just the cherry on top of a badly assembled and tasteless sundae. Did they just have a new Constitution Class ship lying around doing nothing? Did they slap new paint on an existing one and tell that crew to screw off? Did the tribunal take so very long that they were able to build a new one? Very little in that film makes sense.

And to top it off, (and mind you this is even before TNG came around) when they showed that “-A” at the end of the name I performed the final of many many face palms. Never liked the letters after the name. Ever. And then, sadly, it was reinforced on TNG.

Man I guess I will never understand why you hate TVH so much but love Nemesis lol. Of course everyone has their own tastes. Its just the extremes of them that is interesting I guess.

As far the Enterprise A, in my head canon I always thought that end scene was a few months later or something after they faced the tribunal. And most likely just rechristened an old ship sitting in mothballs somewhere. Thats would also make sense why it was decommissioned in TUC.

Of course I doubt anyone really thought that hard about it, but there is nothing to suggest it wasn’t already an old ship at least. TFF basically reinforced that because nothing was working properly on it in that movie. Can you imagine a new ship on the other shows constantly breaking down like that?

In regards to Nemesis, I did enjoy the film and felt it was a very worthy send off for the TNG cast. But I am forced to admit it probably looks like I love it more than I do here because I feel compelled to defend it when I see people rip it. Undeservedly in my opinion. I mean, I ask what people’s problem with it was and I get no real concrete answer. People just want to hate it for some reason. But I digress…

Regarding TVH, to be honest if the film was working I would never have questioned it. It just was never working for me. Which was unfortunate as I went into it VERY excited about it. The fact that it was shot nearby in SF and at the Monterrey Bay Aquarium only added to my anticipation. But yeah, given the shape it was in in TFF it makes sense it was some junker Star Fleet had no immediate plans for. Although it seems like a tremendous safety violation to allow such a rust bucket out into service to begin with. The decommissioning in TUC I feel was more of a parallel for our crew. They were being “decommissioned” as well. I never made any connection other than that. Probably because we were coming off two unspectacular features and I felt it better to not really dwell on those events. :)

Looking at TFF things practically (not a smart idea with trek, granted), there probably should have been an inquest into why Admiral Bob would send a starship without a working transporter to rescue folks who could easily be retrieved via beamup. At the very least, send Enterprise with a tiny ship w/ beaming functional. But then you don’t have fun down on the planet, so it is just arbitrary as hell.

Regarding how TVH doesn’t work for you … I feel that way about the whole first act, and it is because Shatner is so dour, practically TMP-level dour. Not saying he doesn’t have reason to feel that way, just saying that both films have buoyancy issues owing to the leading man not bringing things up (and there are far worse examples — Tom Cruise in the second half of TOP GUN’s act 2, where he just mopes and the movie just lays there interminably, is my classic go-to in this regard.)

Anyway, for me the movie kicks into gear in a big way as soon as Meyer starts writing, when they’re back in time. It takes almost zero time to recover me from how irate I am about the 23rd century stuff. However, having said that … it still doesn’t sustain, owing to a lot of general dumbness about timetravel and such. I think the multiple climaxes ending of Bennett’s DOES work, but to be honest, I’ve only once gotten all the way through the movie in one sitting this century, and I have dozed off on it (again, last half of act 2, when stakes should be rising) multiple times. TVH is the closest thing to a one-and-done Trek experience for me, which is probably why it worked so well for the general public.

This might sound arrogant so please bear with me. My feeling is that TVH worked well with the general public because it was the least Star Trek of all the Star Trek movies. There was no real thought provoking theme. None of the characters grew or came to any new realizations. In fact, none of the characters acted like themselves at all. And the plot was so ridiculously simple it felt like more thought came out of the Saturday morning cartoon factory of the ’70’s.

how could you know the E is in good shape?
Maybe she was destroyed!

commanded by some Harrywoman ;)

Yassssss!

“Did I.Q.s just drop sharply while I was away?”

Man, I hope we get a flashback sequence of Picard commanding whatever mission that voiceover is referring to!

I doubt we will. The CGI cost for de-aging Picard is only really available to top blockbuster movies at the moment. Obviously I hope I’m wrong.
Unless they just show the externals / ship shots

I think he could pull off a 15 year younger version of himself with makeup tricks.

Or get Tom Hardy back.

Nah, he can perform himself, 15 years back!

Not true they used it in two episodes of Fringe to de-age Walter bishop in a 1980s flashback. They use it occasionally on This Is Us as well when we see pre-kids era for Jack and Rebecca.

Also was used for ‘young Kelly’ in the Orville 2-part season finale.

Westworld de-aged Anthony Hopkins. Others pointed out other examples of TV shows doing CGI de-aging. Plus, Patrick Stewart hasn’t changed radically over the last few years so they may not even need CGI.

In fact, when he was de-aged for X-Men The Last Stand I didn’t even know he was de-aged when I watched it!

Its funny but the first time I vividly remember seeing it done (where it was obvious) was with Patrick Stewart in X-Man The Last Stand. It looked a bit off but still really impressive at the time. How far its come today.

Now that I know I can look at it and kinda sorta see it. But it was a little more obvious with Ian than Patrick.

I distinctly remember all the hype circa 2006 around this effect for his “performance” and for Ian McKellen’s. I remember when I finally saw it in theatres that I felt it worked well enough.

Yes, they been deaging people on TV for a few years now. Coulson was recently deaged a lot in Captain Marvel but he and another character May were also deaged before in Agents of Shields.

Someone already mentioned Walter and Fringe.

They did it for the lead characters from The Americans as well.

These are only from the shows I watched of course but my guess is there are a lot of examples on TV, they just aren’t as prominent like the movies are who is now deaging actors by 30-40 years on a big screen and looks very convincing.

Did an excellent job de-aging Samuel Jackson in Capt Marvel.

that’s IDW Publishing sorted for a tie-in miniseries!

Forget a flashback. I hope they did what Discovery did, and use the first episode or two as a prologue. The first episode can be about Picard leading this rescue armada and ultimately deciding to leave Starfleet, and then there can be a 15 year time skip for the rest of the show.

Wow that would be cool!

That would indeed be very cool and I could be wrong, but considering they have been shooting outdoor scenes in California, it seems unlikely that the first two episodes are onboard a starship. Then you never know, we shall see. Hopefully we get a full trailer at Comic Con or STLV.

Do they shoot the episodes in the order they air?

Hanelle Culpeper said she was directing the pilot and directed those two episodes so it seems like they’re the first ones.

I think what they actually do is shoot in blocks of two. So there might well be out of order shooting across a block of two episodes (even both episodes intermingled), but not as a rule out of order shooting beyond that.

Yup, I am thoroughly teased. Sure sounds like a Romulan is during the narration.

I think it’s Domatra from Nemesis.

Dina Meyer then. Yeah, that might very well be her voice!

That’s funny, when my wife watched the promo she interrupted to ask, ‘why is Zoe from FIREFLY doing that voiceover?’ I’m beginning to think this is like that test where different people hear completely different words being spoken!

Although when I first heard it, I wondered if it was Alice Krige. Would be funny if it were Q with a different voice, though.

PLEASE let it be Q!!! John DeLancie can still play Q. He’ll “age” himself to make fun of Picard’s aging. He’ll have the female voice at first to “seduce” Picard or otherwise mess with him. I’d be happy if Q was in every episode.

People tend to hear what they want to hear!

Yeah thought the same. Sounded like a Romulan was narrating.

Um, what the heck does a Romulan sound like…? Am I missing something?

I assume that they are referring to the line about leading them out of the darkness. If Picard was rescuing Romulans, that line could suggest that it is a Romulan speaking. The stuff about Picard losing faith makes it sound more like it is someone in Starfleet speaking though.

Ah OK, I thought they meant something to do with the voice! I tend to agree with your analysis, I assumed it was someone in Starfleet.

The speaker refers to “us” twice – “faith in us” and “tell us”. I believe “us” is Starfleet. Not sure what this is implying for his future.

Well, if the Romulan homeworld was decimated in the supernova, and something horrific happened–enough to cause Picard to quit Starfleet, it could have been that they weren’t able to rescue a good proportion of the population.

With the collapse of the Empire, it could very well be that survivor Romulans joined Starfleet. That would then fit with the “leading us out of the darkness” (Romulans) as well as “lost faith in us” (Starfleet).

I’m really intrigued. Hopefully they take a more methodical approach to plot and development with this series.

They sound sneaky and clandestine … of course!

Really? What exactly do Romulans sound like?

Constipated Vulcans.

….I think their voices have ridges?

I thought it sounded a little like Ro.

It’s Michelle Hurd.

I suspect that the reference to the unimaginable that happened was not the destruction of Romulus but something that occurred as a result of the destruction of Romulus.

I’m intrigued.

Not only that, but that something was done by Starfleet that didn’t jive with Picard. Maybe Starfleet took the opportunity to overtake the Romulan empire under the guise of helping.

I would love that, a Federation overtaken by dangerous zealots grown war-weary from the Dominion, the Borg and finally the destruction of Romulus, dealing with a refugee crisis that threatens to destabilize society, so a bunch of conservative imperialists take power and steer the galaxy toward American-style domination. That would be a wonderful critique of current politics, and Patrick Stewart has the moral authority to deliver it.

Current politics? American-style domination? Sounds more like your analogy fits the colonial imperialism of Europe and the United _Kingdom_ from well over 100 years ago…

Naa it fits modern day America much more.

Uhh…. It really does sound more like Euro imperialism from over 150 years ago more than anything else. Those who forget history….

I think there are parallels to both.

To offer the Klingons a safe haven within Federation space is suicide. Klingons would become the alien trash of the galaxy. just replace with Romulans…sounds familiar huh?

“I would love that, a Federation overtaken by dangerous zealots grown war-weary from the Dominion, the Borg and finally the destruction of Romulus, dealing with a refugee crisis that threatens to destabilize society, so a bunch of conservative imperialists take power and steer the galaxy toward American-style domination. That would be a wonderful critique of current politics, and Patrick Stewart has the moral authority to deliver it.”

Yes its quite crazy of all the things that had happened with another Borg attack on Earth, the Dominion war taking its toll and the destruction of Romulus has maybe given the Federation pause on how to deal with these crisis and maybe even decided it has to have more control of the alpha quadrant to make things right but gone too far for Picard and why he quit Starfleet.

This is also why I love the 24th century so much, there is just so much going on and a lot of things to mine. The Federation could be in its golden age with so many of its enemies down (and assuming Janeway really did wipe out the Borg) or it could be in dark times after all the crisis and has lost its moral compass. Anything could happen!

Given the writers of Discovery, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was that transparent.

Since they don’t know why he left Starfleet, I think the “unimaginable” is his retiring. But likely a result of the destruction of Romulus and its aftermath.

To me that’s a huge overstatement for him retiring. It sounded like something much more important.

Yeah, maybe not if this is the character drama/thinkpiece they are leading us to believe it is, then it should all be focused on the character of Picard and his decisions and perspective. If the interviewer is stating it as “unthinkable” that the most respected captain of the Fleet up and left with no explanation, I think that fits perfectly.

I dunno, it seems like they are implying some sort of disaster happened. Like he failed at some major mission and got a bunch of people killed then hung up his uniform after that.

So, why doesn’t she know why Picard quit?

She’s probing for a deeper answer, rather than taking the obvious one at face value.

He could have retired after Wolf 359 but chose to carry on.

What made this particular unthinkable situation or eventdifferent?

TG47, I hope they do consider his entire history (also the Stargazer disaster and whatever happened with Jack Crusher) when they come up with “reasons” so it doesnt look as immediately ridiculous as Discovery regarding the bigger picture.

They do remember the vineyards, so its a good start :p

Because it’s just a voiceover recorded for a teaser, not actual plot dialogue?

Perhaps he leaves starfleet when he finds them accountable for the supernova, section 31 maybe. He leaves but doesn’t say why as whats left of the romulans would start a war the federation.

Two lines of thought:

First, he is literally washing his hands when she says the unimaginable. Symbolic of washing his hands of Starfleet maybe? Could it be that simple? He led the relief effort to save the Romulan refugees and then couldn’t take it anymore and washed his hands, walking away?

Thought two: Picard becomes an Admiral and becomes instrumental in reintroducing pacifism to the more militarized version of Starfleet we see in late DS9 and the TNG movies, basically, disarming them and returning to Enterprise-D era mentality. This move backfires somehow, probably related to Romulus, and he blames himself for it.

ohhh I love someone else is perceiving that difference in eras… families in ships please!! we loved that in our e-D… loving your thought two

I’m going to drop in the point that excluding families from naval ships is a Victorian idea.

If you visit the Constitution (18th century tall ship) in the Boston area, the tour guides stress that the families of the sailors lived on the gun deck…the origin of the term ‘son of a gun’.

And while the British Navy pressed their crew, the senior officers brought their wives with them in some cases, and put them off in launches before engagements.

That said, I think Trek has it right in thinking long range and peaceful exploration would need families in tow, but ships with a primarily military mission would not.

It never felt right that a ship doing exploring would have families, particularly children on board. They are sailing into the unknown. It’s an unwarranted gamble to take children along for that journey. Now if it were just a science vessel… No real deep exploring and certainly no military engagements, OK. But not the Starship Enterprise. When the pilot episode mentioned the families I threw up a little in my mouth. It felt like it was to be used mainly as a crutch for the writers. Fortunately the subject did not come up much after the first season.

How do you define unwarranted?

THIS is how I define unwarranted.

Um, so it’s better if exploration is restricted to people who choose not to raise children?

Or have them and then leave them to be raised by other family?

Yes, life expectancies are longer in Trek, but it still would rule out a lot of potential and expertise.

Yeah I never had a problem with that. The Enterprise D is basically a diplomatic and exploratory vessel, it wasn’t a combat ship. Sure I get there are dangers obviously but I didn’t think its anything children couldn’t be around for.

It really wasn’t until the Borg showed up you had to question it more but before them, the Federation only real galactic threat at that time were the Romulans and they basically stayed in their own space. Its not like every week the ship was being attacked by pirates or anything, nor did it spend its time in war zones

Um… Yeah. If I were in Star Fleet I wouldn’t want my kids anywhere NEAR an active duty Star Ship and would question any parent who would put their kids in harms way like that.

I’m not. That plot in the 09 movie was exceptionally stupid.

Yeah, I don’t get this whole destruction of Romulus thing. Picard was never tied to the Romulans in any in-depth way. He was far more involved with the Klingons and the Borg. The destruction of Romulus bothers me anyway. I’m kind of pissed at JJ for writing that in.

Don’t forget Vulcan went up in smoke too care of the JJverse. . . !

That’s the Kelvin timeline, not Prime

Genocide is a party parlour game for these people. But but “don’t normalize 45!1!11” :D

One is a TV show that needs a little tragedy to function, the other is reality (and it doesn’t).

I don’t think its that alone. It could also be the fact that Spock ‘died’ and his legacy of unification and ever lasting peace died with it. And Picard shared a bond with Spock after their mind meld. It was never Picard’s dream to see Romulus as an ally like Spock’s but he did want it. Thats what Nemesis was actually all about and trying to forge peace with the Romulans. My guess is the story will pick up a little from Nemesis combined with Spock trying to save Romulus in the 09 film and tie them both together somehow.

I hope Spock’s left out of it.

Well he definitely won’t be showing up. ;)

He might CGI. Call the Nimoy Family!!

@ Tom: Nimoy-Spock traveled back in time which led to the creation of the Kelvin timeline. So unless they do a flashback Spock is gone from the prime universe at this point in time.

“I don’t think its that alone.”

Picard does look haunted and traumatised in the trailer.

The most obvious explanation, as others here have suggested, is that something goes badly wrong under Picard’s command during the rescue mission. Maybe the mission fails (or it’s sabotaged) and a huge number of people die as a result, especially many Romulan refugees. Picard either blames himself or he’s framed for the disaster.

Other possibilities:

You’ll probably remember me previously suggesting that Section 31 secretly triggered the supernova to eliminate the Federation’s main geopolitical rival. Maybe that becomes public knowledge and Picard resigns in disgust — especially if it turns out high-ups in the Federation government and Starfleet Command also authorised the strike.

Another possibility is DS9’s “Pale Moonlight” conspiracy becoming public knowledge, either within Starfleet’s higher ranks (admirals etc) or among the Federation’s general population. Since Starfleet Command was shown to authorise Sisko’s plot, you can imagine a shocked Picard being outraged and disillusioned upon discovering the truth.

Maybe POTUFP and other senior figures in the Federation government also exploit Romulus’s destruction by annexing swathes of the former Romulan Empire. Picard would not be happy about that kind of shift in Federation policies either.

It could be a mixture of things, of course.

Also…The mysterious unseen woman doing the voiceover sounds just like Gina Torres. I wonder if it’s actually her.

Most of your possibilities are great. But with “In The Pale Moonlight” Sisko did what he needed to do to save the whole Alpha Quadrant from the Dominion. Picard fought in that war too. He knows how desperate it got. Plus, it had nothing to do with the destruction of Romulus. If Picard knew he wouldn’t like it, but he would understand that there weren’t really any other viable avenues. The only way that it would cause a real problem is if the Romulans found out, and that blew up in Starfleet’s face. But that wouldn’t make Picard resign. He didn’t have anything to do with it. Instead, he would probably be the head diplomat trying to put things back together.

Please tell me Q will be back (John DeLancie)!

The last thing this show needs is a magic genie.

He might be a magic genie but he’s absolutely magnetic to watch!

“The last thing this show needs is a magic genie.”

Right, we already have Discovery for that!

But if it did have one, I hope it’s blue and looks like Will Smith

aww hell no.

I’m forced to agree with A34 on this one. The show does not need a visit from the Great Gazoo. He belongs more in Lower Decks.

ML31, you made a lifelong friend today.

Q is so much a throwback to all those magical enemies from TOS. It’s just not interesting now.

By “magical enemies” I’m going to assume you mean the non-corporials or the ones who have evolved beyond our understanding.

Well A34, that is not why Q ought to be banned from the Picard show. It has nothing to do with “magical enemies.” It has to do with Q serving no purpose much greater than as a comic foil. And making him essentially a God doesn’t help, either.

Kirsten Beyer found some solid and dramatic uses for Q in her Voyager Relaunch Trek-lit novels.

She’s thought a lot about the Q as omnipotent beings that exist across all part-time in the Prime Universe.

So, given she wrote the original treatment, I wouldn’t rule out Q showing up. But he won’t be comic relief if he does.

I actually think he might be a better fit with Discovery given all the time wifey plotlines. But it could work in Picard.

Exactly! Q is an amazing character because he can be so many things. He can come off comedic like Q-Pid and that awful last episode we saw him in on Voyager. But he can also still come off threatening like Encounter at Farpoint and Q Who. But then immensely introspective like All Good Things and Tapestry.

Death Wish is still one of my favorite Q episodes because it presents what happens to a race when you have literally seen and done it all? What happens when there is simply nothing else to be challenged on or nothing new to explore? I would love more stories like that from their POV.

But what I love about Q is in his own way he pushes Picard to view his life in ways he never would have without him. Picard sees him as a nuisance but Q has actually opened his mind on how to look at life than just following a certain narrow path we all eventually doing. I can certainly see Q doing those things again in future seasons, NOT that I expect to see him but its certainly possible.

This is why he still so popular in the fanbase, because you can explore anything with him. Roddenberry did some terrible things in the first season of TNG, but Q is probably one of his best creations ever.

I am a fan of the introspective Q. Not really a fan of the rest, as charismatic as the actor is.

Introspective Q is my favorite as well, but I will take any side of him.

At his best, Q was great for holding a mirror to our characters, and examining humanity, in episodes like Deja Q, Tapestry, and All Good Things. I think if he hadn’t been a part of the series finale and Tapestry, using Q as a way of guiding Picard through his life and helping him with a galactic conundrum as he did in those episodes would make some sense.

But those stories are done, and I trust the producers know better than to revisit that character.

Tapestry was the only Q episode I kinda liked. But while he was teaching Picard a lesson (as if he was J-L’s parent which is another issue itself) he still comes across as a tiresome imp. He did ever since his first appearance in Farpoint. The lone exception was the comedic Robin Hood episode. Which showed that Q worked best when the episode went for the yuks instead of drama.

All great points Afterburn. He is a great mirror for humanity. That’s when Q is at his most interesting.

But I wouldn’t really ‘trust’ the producers lol, these are the same people who has brought back everything from Khan to Section 31, Talosians and Harry Mudd. In other words they are all about squeezing in fan service whenever they can. My guess is if someone has a great story for Q he’ll definitely be back some day. Now its possible to stick him anywhere now that Star Trek is going to be in the post Nemesis era for a few years so canon no longer stops them.

Imagine Q showing up in the 32nd century taunting Burnham and her crew? Its all now possible.

Q is annoying. But so is Burnham so that might work.

Q is suppose to be annoying! But Burnham, well…

I must say if Q turned up to taunt Burnham, I would probably re-up my CBSAA membership.

Maybe Q will snap his fingers and all the Discovery problems will be set right?

I think many would Danpaine! ;D

Well, most of us feel the same way about you, so…

It’s comments like that that get people to accuse you of trolling.

Please note, I have never stooped to your level myself. I just feel sorry for you that you pretend your opinion represents the majority. Very sad indeed.

Thanks for your pity ML31, it means so much to me.

Stop fighting kids or I’m sending both of you to your room!

“For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you had never considered. THAT is the exploration that awaits you. Not mapping stars and studying nebulae, but charting the unknown possibilities of existence.”

Still one of the coolest quotes in Star Trek 25 years later!

Aladdin opens this weekend. Enjoy.

Mon Capitan was present in TNG from the very beginning. Since TNG S1 Episode 1. Was present in many (MANY) episodes. And Mon Capitan was there in the S7 Finale. Mon Capitan closed TNG series. Mon Capitan in this series!? Hmm. I am not so sure Patrick Stewart (as the Executive Producer) and the new team (Alex Kurtzman and Company) would like to take that route.

Mon Capitan is closed.

Try breaking a record for freeclimbing Mon Capitan.

You could do a very psychological take on Q’s powers. HD up the flash effects with helixes and grid lines around materializing/dematerializing objects. Make it visually more like Dr. Strange or a David Fincher movie. Lots of angled camera work. Trim the speeches back and forth, more facial acting. These two don’t need to talk to communicate.

Maybe Q tested Picard over Romulus. Said, “Oh, I’ll reverse the destruction. But you have to tell me I’m right. Humanity is primitive. It’s not improved in thousands of years. Say those words and I’ll take it all back and clean up after your mess like I would for an infant. Refuse to say those words and we’re done. Finito. I’ll leave you primitive corporeal beings to your own messes.”

Picard refuses to admit Q is right. And so Romulus remains destroyed. It eats at Picard. He regrets his decision. It was pride that kept him from accepting Q’s offer. And that pride gnaws at him. He retreats inwards.

In Farpoint, Picard pled guilty to save his crew, and in Q Who he admitted to Q that they weren’t prepared for the Borg to convince him to save them. Picard will gladly let Q win an argument for the greater good. If the price of saving billions of Romulans was that Picard would have to swallow his pride, he would do it without a second thought.

Credit to John DeLancie for making the most of the material, but Q was a bad plot device, not much more. For a limited run series, he’d be no more interesting then having Picard follow the Nexus around, making the show a Quantum Leap reboot.

I think he was great. John DeLancie is a great actor. And many of Q stories were good, specially TNG Finale. But for the new series, not so sure.

Its amazing, until this board I never thought Q was anything but immensely popular lol. Sure not everyone will love him but its sort of like saying everyone doesn’t love Spock but you won’t find many who downright hate him. Everyone I know has always loved Q. And other boards I been on it seems to be the same.

THAT said, I also don’t think we need Q to return, but I imagine for the new show runners the temptation is out there because they can tell literally any story they want with him. I don’t think he will show up on this season since it looks like its going to be a more grounded story (of course I say that now ;)) but future seasons, who knows? And yes Q can now pop up on Discovery since there are no longer any canon issues there like the fist two seasons. So I do have a feeling we will see him again somewhere or one show or another.

It might not be the Q but a Q that shows up.

How about Suzie Plakson?

She is always riveting as a strong female character, and it would be interesting to see her return as the more cynical Q in the absence of Delancie.

As a kid I thought he was any other silly antagonist, it wasn’t until Deja Q that I enjoyed him, and it’s no coincidence that’s the episode where he lost his powers. An omnipotent, all-powerful being is just not that interesting.

When he’s a foil and story-propellent– such as in Deja Q, Tapestry, and AGT, he’s interesting. When he’s the actual antagonist, such as in EaFP, Hide & Q, QLess, and Q Who, he’s a lot less compelling.

In Voyager he was vaguely interesting, but more grating than anything else, though I found the WAY they used him more compelling than the actual execution/final product.

I think Q as a plot device worked much better with consistency in Voyager–but I suppose that was more due to the fact that his omnipotence wasn’t as all-powerful as it was in TNG.

I never liked Q from the moment he was introduced in Farpoint. The entire concept of the Q just felt like some of the worst of Roddenberry. It’s funny, GR felt that humanity would evolve beyond a need for a God and in his first episode the crew of the Enterprise meets… GOD!

I recall when the teaser for next weeks show would come on, whenever it would say, “Q returns and…” we would get a room full of face palms and eyerolls. He was not very popular among the people I watched the show with back in the day. (But we all loved the Robin Hood episode!) I knew there were some Q people out there but I have to be honest, the amount of Q love here I found to be astonishing.

I don’t think Q fits in with the tone of this series. Something just tells me there’s no chance.

I very much liked that he is at his vineyard like in “All Good Things…”. My preference, though, would have been for him to retire to the Ba’ku planet to be with Anij.

He looks far too old to have been living on a fountain of youth for the last 15 years! They’d only been there 5 minutes and Worf was squeezing zits.

Ugh, I can only imagine how weird that would feel to be de-aged so quickly. It sounds itchy

It certainly left Worf feeling aggressive tendencies.

Have you noticed how your boobs have started to firm up?

Yeah, that would have been a problem.

You mean “Insurrection” is canon? I thought for sure that would be retconned like “Threshold”…

/sarcasm

Threshold sucks, but it was never retconned. It is still very much a fact within the Star Trek canon that travelling at warp 10 will turn you into a slug.

Unless it happened over 80 years earlier.

Didn’t TOS use a different warp scale though? I don’t know what the conversions are, but I think Warp 13 on the TOS scale is less than warp 10 on the TNG scale,

Thats how fans always explained it away at least. I don’t think that was ever established in canon but it was clear by the time TNG came around, they had set a ‘limit’ that was never there on TOS. The ship just went as fast as the show needed it to and I doubt most people even bothered calculating real distances warp speed would take then.

I think that is how some have retconned the change. Full disclosure, I don’t really think that is one of the things that really matters all that much. It’s minutia. Does it break what was previously established? Yes. Does that change ruin the show? No.

So he could live forever? What would happen to “It’s our mortality that defines us…”?

Why would he go to live with Anij, a woman he knew for all of a week, some 20 years after they met?
Are we really to believe they were soulmates because of one movie? He had much better chemistry with his other romantic interests anyway (Beverly, Vash, Cmdr Darren).

That’s a valid point @Afterburn, you would have to assume that the intensity of his relationship with Anij would have been due in quite a large part to the hormonal effects of being on the Baku planet.

Frankly, I’d like to see him get together with someone half his age. You know, like Patrick Stewart did in real life.

So they could call it STAR TREK: CHARLIE CHAPLIN? or STAR TREK: POLANSKI

or Star Trek: Patrick Stewart.

Is Diana Muldour still with us? ;)

Muldaur isn’t that dour.

They better start aggressively marketing the wine if they want this to be a hit! LOOKS AWESOME

The last thing we need are drunk Trek fans.

Speak for yourself!

Ok, then just buy some 3 dollar wine from Walmart and make your own label. Go wild. :P

They closed the Walmart in my hometown but opened a Trader Joe’s instead so I’ll just stock up on some two buck Chuck

LOL… Two Buck Chuck sounds good.

“The last thing we need are drunk Trek fans.”

Too late bro, too late!

Yeah I know…

Sure do Albatrosity! Maybe Kurtzman and company will deliver us a really great story this time!! I’m not trying to get my hopes up too high but I’m very intrigued!

Starfleet leaves crop circles? Hmmm….

It’s so the USS Shenzou can beam him up

BAHAHAHAHA

For a moment I actually thought the voiceover was Michael Burnham . . .

I TOO THOUGHT THAT

Need to change the first vowel to an ‘a’ in ‘crop circles.’

That gave me chills. God, I hope this script is good. Please.

Here here Danpaine! I can’t wait! PLEASE BE GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my, this is another level of good.

Now that I’ve seen that trailer several times, and the chills are still there, I’m allowing myself to be super excited.

It didn’t give me chills. But I too hope for nothing more than a truly great story.

Oh man. That little bit of inner light flute playing at the end.

I noticed that as well.

Yes! The Ressican (sp?) flute! Exactly what I thought.

I just heard a bit of the main cue from Goldsmith’s TNG theme.

Yeah it was but it was played with picard\kamen’s flute

Perhaps that was coincidence that it was played on a woodwind. Or it could have been intentional. But I did not make that connection.

Admiral? I hope Picard was forced into it, because Kirk’s advice to never let them promote you was one of the better moments of Generations.

The Next generation theme in Picard’s Kamen flute brought tears to my eyes.

I agree. all the feels….

Not the melody-free 90s Trek music.

Fantastic!

True, if they improve on anything from the mid-TNG era I hope it’s the score!

Even the head composers of the day have been frankly public about the challenges of producing quality with a ‘no melodic music’ policy.

One of them presented at a CreationCon in the 90s I attended. He was incredibly pleased to have got approval for the melodic title theme for DS9 with 40+ horns.

I think we need to applaud them for what they were able to do within the constraints, but be thankful that Kurtzman is giving creative freedom to this era’s composer(s).

What would TNG (and DS9 and VOY) have been without the firing of Ron Jones!

I ask myself that question all of the time. His stuff is so good! Then the music became boring wallpaper music.

Say what you will about it being boring wallpaper music, you’re not wrong, but they had a reason for it and I respect them for doing it. They were trying to make a show that wasn’t just manipulating emotions at the expense of story. They wanted to avoid obvious themes that screamed “this is a bad guy” or “now is when you feel sad”. They wanted to respect the viewers’ intelligence to figure that stuff out on their own. That’s part of what used to separate something like Star Trek from something like Star Wars. But not anymore. Now it’s all melodrama without any subtlety.

I’ve never heard that perspective! I think we could have gotten something better, but I like what you said.

I did hear something along this line in the day Zinc Saucier, but the parameters went further to say ‘no melodic music’.

Not all melody has to be melodramatic or overwrought.

There was also a ‘no go’ on themes by character in the 90s. In TOS, individual characters had there own melodic motifs, e.g. Stock’s bass line. This was seen as dated in the 90s.

Some of the aliens were given specific themes that became well known, particularly the Klingons.

I never had a problem with the music in 90’s Star Trek and thats an interesting perspective. But I can’t blame people if they want the more bombastic stuff too. I can still listen so many of Horner stuff because its so much fun and make Star Trek feel big and cinematic.

I don’t think Ron Jones’ music screamed “this is a bad guy” or “now is when you feel sad”. Listen to the end piece to “Q Who?” (when Guinan and Picard realize the Borg will be coming) which is beautiful and haunting. TNG lost a lot when Berman & Co. decided sonic wallpaper was the order of the day.

Listen to the end piece to “Q Who?” (when Guinan and Picard realize the Borg will be coming) which is beautiful and haunting

Absolutely. One of my favorites, along with the montage from “The Offspring.”

I get what you are saying about not wanting to spackle over bad stories with better music, but I can’t agree with characterizing it as manipulating emotion. How is good evocative music any different from good writing, good editing, good acting, good cinematography, good direction? All work together to make a good story better if these things don’t evoke emotion then you aren’t making good entertainment.

“They were trying to make a show that wasn’t just manipulating emotions at the expense of story. ”

That’s a fascinating view, but I didn’t think Ron Jones’ music appealed to the lowest common denominator at any time. And kike TG47 said, TOS had far more interventive music and it certainly wasn’t a show “for the feels”. If anything it’s Discovery where the music drowns out the dialogue to amp up the tearjerkers.

yeah, the so-called ‘sonic wallpaper’ was very bad.

The music in 90s Trek was the best ever! First Contact Main Tittles, DS9 and Voyager Main Themes, episodes like Call to Arms, Timeless, Inner Light, Lower Decks, Blink of an Eye and much more had impressive emotiomal scores. The music in the new movies or series is crap compared with the 90s Trek music.

I think the last couple of really good scores in TREK are 28 or 30 years old now, TIN MAN and BEST OF BOTH WORLDS, so I can’t say that much of anything musically in the 90s moved me at all, and the current stuff doesn’t work for me at all. Goldsmith’s work for TNG sounded sweet in INS and dirge-like in FC, but really for me represented some of his least interesting work ever. Although JG is my favorite composer and I have listened to some of his stuff pretty much every day of my adult life, that is pretty much specific to his work from the 60s through to about TOTAL RECALL.

You mean the TMP theme.

Strangely got emotional watching this, like I flipped on my childhood. Where did that come from? It’s probably because I never thought I’d see that character again. I’m so happy to do so though lol don’t laugh lol

I wasn’t so fortunate. It only took me back to my 30’s.

Great point. The trailer actually did make me feel younger for a moment there. I was 21 when TNG began in 1987. Damn….

ADMIRAL!! :O

I wonder if they’re gonna do a Logan thing. Maybe the unimaginable thing that happens is the destruction of the Enterprise E under his command… with all hands except him.

Granted, this would be the most drastic explanation for why no TNG star except him was asked to star in the show (so far), but I can fully see the people who destroyed Romulus AND Vulcan in Trek 09 “for the lolz” killing off everybody we loved (but him) for the “drama” that delivers to Picard’s journey in this series. Kind of like Generations on steroids. We shall wait and see!

I thought that too. It absolutely sounds like what this team would do, for the “drama”. I hope we’re wrong.

I’m going with this as well, he loses most of his crew. Maybe badly injured himself and needs some time off, maybe some survivors guilt. It wouldn’t be the whole TNG cast because some time has passed so members have left or been reassigned elsewhere. Would leave the viewers guessing a little.

God, I swear if they did that…killed off the TNG crew (those who were left)…

I doubt they will kill off the TNG crew en masse like that. The question at the end of the trailer, “why did you leave Starfleet” wouldn’t make sense since it would have too obvious an answer.

I really think she’s referring to the explosion of Romulus and the death of Spock. How much more ‘unimaginable’ could something that? But I guess when it comes to Star Trek it could be anything lol.

Remember, these are the same people who felt that the huge rift between Spock and Burnham was Burnham calling Spock names thinking she was helping.

So……

No, that was a different group of writers.

There is almost certainly a number of crossovers in that writers room.

Who’s left on the E though? Riker & Troi are on the Titan, B4 wouldn’t still be on the Enterprise, Worf presumably didn’t stick around although they didn’t even try to explain his presence when last we saw him on DS9 he was the Klingon Ambassador. LaForge not important enough to Picard directly to be a big deal on its own. Crusher was going to Starfleet Medical, although that was a deleted scene so I can see them bringing her in for one episode and then her dying on the E. I think that’s not the way they’ll go with it though – remember these are the guys that made the Countdown comic series, where the Enterprise E is alive and well with Captain Data at the helm. Are they going to retcon their own universe? Actually I hope they do because Countdown is terrible.

Why do they bother region locking these things? It only annoys non US fans.

Space.ca has it available in Canada at:

https://youtu.be/eA-GJNebJj0

SO GOOD to hear Jerry Goldsmith’s theme again. Wonder if they’ll use it in the series proper.

Personally I hope that is not the main theme for the show. It doesn’t feel like it carries the right tone for what we are told the show is going to deal with.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear it over the credits in the season one finale, like we heard the TOS theme at the end of Discovery season one.

I got no region lock in the UK with that video like I did with all the disco ones.

That gave me all the feels. It doesn’t surprise me much that he is back at the vineyard or that he is (was) an Admiral. Very much looking forward to seeing more.

Did she say, “Why did you lose Starfleet?” or “Why did you leave Starfleet?”?

Leave

leave

Make it so !

this rescue op willve cost some of the TNG crew their lives ..im guessing maybe one of which was Troi (AGT is also getting ref here with the vineyard) so Picard and Riker can have a Cap/Tony Civil War thing going on when they meet again

I fear that too! His “life was radically altered” by leading that rescue armada, what else could that mean but losing his crew? Our crew!

Then why would the questioner not know why Picard left? Losing his beloved crew would be common knowledge.

Maybe Romulans have the same problems understanding human emotions as us Vulcans, after all ;)

Romulans feel all the same emotions that humans feel. Perhaps even more so, given that they are descended from emotionally volatile Vulcans.

It’s called a joke.

Coming from a Vulcan, it’s called irony.

Just sayin’.

I guess I just didn’t expect a joke coming from a Vulcan soul.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do ;)

It was just a voiceover. There’s no questioner.

I don’t “fear” that. It would actually make for a pretty good story line for him.

Yeah because killing off beloved characters as a plot device is never troublesome. Let’s fridge all the women!

Let’s be honest… After Picard, are any of the TNG crew really all that “beloved”? Not sure what your point is regarding the women. Care to explain yourself?

Reginald Barclay

“Fridging the women” is a lazy and sexist writing trope where a female character is killed off to give cheap drama and motivation (usually revenge) to a male character. It can also be done without the sexist angle (Kirk dying in Into Darkness?) but that’s typically how it happens. I personally would prefer a more interesting story that involves more than anger and angst.

One would hope that the backlash from Culber’s death in Discovery S1 would give TPTB strong incentive to avoid a repeat of fan outrage.

Not to mention how completely fridging the diversity representatives completely flies in the face of the Trek values that Kurtzman is emphasizing in interviews.

The only backlash I found from Culber’s “death” was the fact that the producers panicked and said he would be back immediately after the show “aired”. Everything that went down after the episode appeared was a mistake from the Discovery PTB.

>non-whites can’t die because it’s bad for diversity
Imagine actually thinking this.

For me Data and Worf, but they already killed off Data. :(

They can NEVER kill Worf though and many have tried. ;)

WTF? Do you think Picard was everyone’s favorite character? Sure, he’s the most prominent, but yeah, I’d be pretty pissed if they killed the others off.

The only TNG character who was even remotely interesting was Worf. I would be fine if every other character from TNG, including recurring characters (and I’m looking at you, Reginald Barlcay), were offed if it makes this Picard show better. And since we are unlikely to see Worf again anytime soon they can feel free to off him too.

It depends on how well its done. People die all the time, and it effecfs the people they leave behind.

Let’s just hope that they haven’t felt the need to go the way of the opening credits of Aliens III.

That was really good filmmaking, though, sort of like amped-up John Carpenter credits intercut with action. Too bad the movie went downhill after that sequence (though the ‘director’s cut is a zillion times better.)

I still wonder how Star Trek Online will work this series into the game’s lore. Depending on how divergent it is with the game’s timeline they just may shuffle it into an alternative timeline.

The Ressikan flute!! Oh man I’m in love with this!!!

I thought I was the only one who caught that!

I find the juxtaposition of the flute with the TNG/TMP theme very interesting.

I suspect any similarity between the instrument used for that cue and the flute from that episode are purely coincidental. Meaning, that sound felt right for the teaser. No other reason.

0% Action. 100% Vineyards. I approve :P

I thought that was a commercial for Chateau Picard!!

You know why he left Starfleet. No big mistery.

“There were all these beautiful bottles of wine lying around and they wouldn’t drink themselves!”

Since there is no money in the future that has got to be the reason he is making it!

It was!

Wouldn’t it be kind of cool if they didn’t even go to space for like 2 episodes? I think that’d be awesome. What is life on Earth like?

In my 38 years on this earth I have never been more excited for any television series / film / novel. The flute… I’m not going to lie. I’m at work and I had to excuse myself to go to the restroom for a moment when I heard the flute.

“Remember us.”

Well, we’ve remembered you, my captain. And I know I’ve deeply missed seeing my greatest fictional hero of all time.

Please, for all that is holy and righteous in this world, don’t screw this up.

I’m 38 as well. We were just kids the first time around. It was a great time to grow up.

So far so good!

Great teaser. I liked the vineyard and the flute at the end, maybe referring to The Inner Light. Not a fan of the voiceover.

Agreed! The voiceover was super cheesy, and terribly executed. Dreadful. Excited to see more!

After a season of resonant voice-overs in the openings of Discovery this season, I was very surprised by the voice and cadence. But I still got chills.

SO excited for this and strangely emotional watching this. It’s like a return to my childhood. Only with more wrinkles…like I’m starting to get :P

Sigh!:( I liked that more than I should, my strong intention not to sub Amazon Prime has become a little less likely.

To coin a phrase… Fascinating.

And “Admiral!” Didn’t Kirk tell him not to get promoted? :)

Who in their right mind would listen to THAT bloated old gasbag?

Spit take…

RIGHT?!

He stayed captain of the Enterprise for a very long time, but I suppose he could only avoid promotion for so long.

And there is probably another reality where Starfleet felt his time as captain was done so it could’ve been a move up or out situation too. We constantly look at Star Trek with wide eye imagination but its incredible how Starfleet itself is pretty bureaucratic, pragmatic and business like, just like our world today lol.

Yeah, like 25 years ago. You do get to a point where Captain just isn’t viable anymore. I’m sure he was probably Captain a few years past Nemesis and felt it was time to move on. I mean, he was Captain of the Stargazer for 20 years, then of the Enterprise for possibly 20 years. I think 40 years as a Captain is plenty.

Thats sort of what people forget but when we see Picard he’s already a well seasoned captain. All the others from Kirk to Archer they been captain for maybe a few years at best and all the ships we see them captain were literally their first duty as one.

But for Picard, he already had a long career as one on the Stargazer and Enterprise ended up being at least another 15 years. So it would make sense eventually he would be ready to hang it up eventually no matter what Kirk told him.

Picard feels like the kind of guy who wouldn’t leave his captaincy unless there was another challange for him to master. (It’s what driven people tend to do) Why would he want to start pushing papers when everyone who knows better tells him that is not as satisfying as being in charge on a starship? Kirk didn’t have such advice and had to find out on his own.

There’s also just a point in one’s life where there’s no challenge left in one’s own position, if he’s held it long enough. Not to mention that as he gets older and older, he is no longer as sharp or physically fit to command a starship– at least not one like the Enterprise. Starfleet may have requested he transfer to a research vessel, or a diplomatic missionary ship, and that might have felt like a step down.

You know, technically this negates the events of Star Trek Countdown. In that comic, he was an Ambassador retired from Starfleet, but in this he was an Admiral when he left Starfleet.

I can live with that.

But I’m rather hoping that they don’t negate the principal story arcs of the TNG Relaunch post-Nemisis books.

I suspect they will. I don’t think they’re going to want to deal with Picard being a father, or the fallout from Tezwa.

I also don’t remember him doing much to help with an evacuation in the comic,

I think they’re going to take bits and pieces of the comic. Like obviously Romulus exploding, but maybe they didn’t want to go with the whole B4 angle and instead put Picard in the Captain’s chair. The thing I DID like about Nemesis is how it honed in on the fact that Romulans/Romulus was Picards main tether during the time we knew him. Since they first came back in the episode Neutral Zone, Picard wanted to make peace. Sitting with Shinzon he was in awe of being able to see the floor of the Romulan Senate. Getting to see the factions on Romulus who wanted reunification with the Vulcans. I really think he would feel like saving the Romulan people was his ultimate mission. Having him go from Captain to Admiral instead of Ambassador works better there.

Hurd narrates, she’s playing Alana, the former Section 31 operative. So it makes sense for one former officer to refer to another former officer by rank rather than civilian title.

Wait is it confirmed she’s playing a former Section 31 operative. It’s Kurtzman, this guy clearly loves Section 31 lol, so wouldn’t be surprised. But I only heard one of the characters was a former intelligence officer but not Section 31 itself.

Crap they got me. It figures. I’m so weak.

Ha!

Oh man I just got goosebumps lol! This was a great teaser (and yes a teaser in every way possible but still great). Just like many of us suspected, Picard is no longer in Starfleet but sounds he will be involved in some mission that will ultimately pull him back in! And ADMIRAL Picard now! It was bound to happen I suppose. Kirk, Janeway and now Picard all succumb leaving the captain’s chair when they know their place is on a starship but it looks like its setting up an exciting come back tale!

Color me excited!!! :)

But did they really just imply that he spent FIFTEEN years tending to the vineyards after “he lost faith”? Maybe due to a personal failing even? So he retreated to some natural place doing basic stuff he is vastly overqualified for, until someone comes to pull him out of this misery for one last mission to save the universe?

This IS The Last Jedi after all! :P

All great questions! No idea lol But if he has been gone from Starfleet THAT long only to be brought back, there must be something very significant behind it obviously. What kind of mission that could be is the question, especially if he abandoned Starfleet. Really intrigued now!

While I’m totally not expecting this…

How about:

after a mostly failed evacuation and destruction of Romulus

and a disappointing political response from the Federation Council

Picard decides to focus on raising his son at his family vineyard.

But the wine has aged, and his son is off to college or the Academy,

So, Picard looks about, is frustrated with inward looking political leadership, or Starfleet leadership that is ignoring serious issues, and decides he needs to take action?

“Picard looks about, is frustrated with inward looking political leadership”

Hey, sounds better than one corrupted into launching an all-out assault on an independent alien society because of the desire to secure a valuable non-renewable resource!

But I guess we already had that in “Insurrection” :P

Ugh. Like moths to a flame this franchise goes.

Ugh. Like moths to a flame you trolls go.

I’m not a troll. Deal with it.

Keep digging under that bridge…

Oh YOU’RE the troll. My bad. Haven’t been here a while and gave you the benefit of the doubt. Won’t happen again.

I think you’re BOTH trolls!
#plottwist

Damn, I wasn’t expecting that.

meaning towards a brighter future with better success than the niche it was in before?

No, towards introversion and Trek fatigue.

It may be a good show–particularly if it’s 10 and ONLY 10 episodes long, the odds go up in its favor. As big a mistake as telling a bad story is not knowing when to stop telling the story.

They need to level up in their presentation though. To me it looks like they’re just pitching to you guys. And if it’s a one off homage to Trek fans well it’s a sweet thing to do. But if this is supposed to build an audience, I’m skeptical.

The downside to the miniseries concept is that if the overall story arc is not intriguing, the ENTIRE show sucks. Not just one episode being bad. The ENTIRE show.

True. On a number of levels this concept is a puzzling risk. As I listened to Alex explain I think he dropped a few clues that speak to his motivation for this show, and those make it even more doubtful that this is a well-thought out move.

More successful maybe, but at what cost? Star Trek, I feel, is at its core counter-culture. You can’t make it mainstream without changing what it is. And then something unique and beautiful is lost to make it just like everything else. Was it worth it? I guess if you’re CBS or Paramount and all you care about is the bottom dollar then yeah it was. But then I remember Star Trek used to have something to say about capitalism and the endless pursuit of profits too.

Star Trek was and is a product of capitalism. That’s people’s money they are spending to make these shows so you can’t ethically produce a flop on purpose.

But as for the future not having any money — Kirk was right. It’s going to be crypto, not money.

Seems like this show will be quite the thoughtful treat.

Let’s all wait and see instead of speculating.

Because we all know the Borg returned, conquered Romulus and Remus, the Cardassians, and tried to take on the Federation and Klingons before moving onto the Dominion. – That’s my movie in the making…

Picard on wine, you’ll repine.

“The destruction of Romulus was in 2387, and Picard is assumed to take place in 2399. So that wasn’t quite 15 years ago”

Maybe they forgot. They did forget about the “time crystal burns out after one jump” between two consecutive episodes (less than 30 minutes when binge watching), so…

But it’s also possible they knew the supernova was imminent, and began the evacuation a few years ahead of time.

Kirsten Beyer wrote the concept treatment and was in the writers room.

Given she’s the keeper of the timelines and has written novels in the post-Nemisis era, I doubt she’s got it wrong. So, the script should be right.

That said, something isn’t adding up. It doesn’t sound as though Beyer is being asked to vet the media lines and news releases.

My math goes this way:

18 years after Nemesis would put us at 2497, not 2499.

15 years earlier than 2497 would be 2482.

OR 2487 + 18 is 2505.

I’m actually not hung up on the years or the time frame. Such minutia is not all that important, to be brutally honest. Particularly in this time frame.

Maybe they’re just rounding. 2399 is twelve years after 2387, so it seems reasonable to say that it is either ten years later or fifteen years later. Or, we could all be wrong, and this rescue armada had nothing to do with Romulus.

The narration could just be Picard being interviewed after the events of this series. The series then takes place as a flash back three years earlier?

I’ve wondered if that is a possibility as well. Especially as Stewart has said it’s structured like a 10 hour movie.

So, the series could open with an interview taking place in 2302 (2387+15) wherein Picard looks back at 2399.

It’s too late because he’s seen everything.

Looks like they photoshopped his face.

Soft lighting on an elderly face will do that. I know exactly what you mean though

Fifteen years ago he was probably still commanding the Enterprise E so if we get a flashback we may actually see both that beautiful ship again and Picard in full uniform on that bridge doing his thing. It would be glorious to see!

It sounds like fifteen years ago was when he left Starfleet, so he was probably already an admiral. He could have been using the Enterprise as his flagship for the rescue mission though.

Actually to me, it sounds like he could’ve been promoted Admiral after that incident in the trailer but of course you could be completely right. Maybe he got promoted not long after Nemesis.

and maybe the Enterprise was destroyed during that rescue-mission and known main-characters died

This could easily be a movie after Star Trek Beyond.

And i’m glad it’s not. Trek is better in episodic format.

This series has been described by Stewart as a “ten hour movie”. So I wouldn’t bet on that.

Wow, you mean like, 10 episodes that connect into a large story? You mean– like a modern TV series? That is exactly what I was referring to. SMDH.

When you said “episodic” I took it to mean “a series of disconnected stories” rather than the serialized arc storytelling we generally have now. ie: how TNG was presented.

I can see how you might think that.

What I meant is, Trek is best when in installments, with a longer run time. Condensed into a 2 hour theatrical feature is not when Trek is at its best, even if i have enjoyed many of the films.

Yes, but “10-hour movie, but split across several episodes” is still not the “episodic format” that works for Star Trek. What made Star Trek work for TOS/TAS/TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT was not the specific LENGTH of an episode. It was the fact that the stories were SELF-CONTAINED tackling one problem at a time and then be done with it (this week we are investigating the effects of implanting someone memories of his 20-year prison sentence; this week we’ll explore time travel; this week we’ll explore the rights of a hologram). DIS proved beyond doubt that “serialized” (aka “10-hour long movie”) does not work.

DS9 and self-contained? PAH! DS9 was serialized in fact it started the trend on TV.

J.S.

I can go along with an assertion that it remains to be demonstrated or proven that serialized Trek can work in TV.

But ‘proved beyond doubt’ that it does not work, doesn’t fit the facts, or available data.

We have one series of two seasons (Discovery) wherein the showrunners and writing teams changed radically more than once.

All that established is that conflict and discontinuity in the writers room, makes for poor serialized Trek.

And as a counterpoint of evidence, the Trek Relaunch novels have been quite successful overall in Langford books and multitask series. And interesting enough, when they were less successful was 1) when they were first trying to get the writers to work together, 2) when the long time coordinating editor was let go.

Trek has worked when it has been serialized. DS9 had large serialized segments and season 3 of Enterprise was successful at a 20+ episode arc. But Discovery had major problems for their short season arcs. Both seasons. So their attempts at going with an overriding story arc seems to be more hit or miss more so than anything else. That said, I still think Trek works best in a more standalone episodic format. Perhaps a good compromise is what season 4 of Enterprise did. A few 3 episode stories. A couple of 2 parters and a few standalones.

I’m less convinced about the Xindi story line ML31.

The heavy serialization of DS9 at points was built on previous seasons of lighter serialization that was situated with episodes that stood on their own at the time.

My preference is probably the mixed solutions of Enterprise seasons 3 and 4.

But I’m open to a seeing what they do with Picard. If anyone can anchor something like that, it’s Patrick Stewart. And with two novelists in the writers room, the story arc is likely to be successful.

TG47, wasn’t Kirsten Beyer around in all of Discovery? Then why was the plotting in both seasons such a shallow mess?

Her role on Discovery has been as executive story editor.

She reminds them of what canon is – but they can decide to ignore it.

She also has had the writing credit for one story per season. In S2, she wrote Saints of Imperfection. Not surprised, given how she’s been able to write the Voyager novels out of some unfortunate boxes left by the previous writers, that she was given the unenviable task of bringing Culber back to life.

I also see her influence in the time and alternate universe concepts underpinning the season’s arc, but the writers from the latter half of the season didn’t really explain how it works.

In any event, it sounds as though she moved over to Picard full time as of September and was pretty engaged in the late spring and summer in working up the concept to propose to Patrick Stewart.

So, it doesn’t sound like she was in the Discovery writers room after the showrunners were fired.

“it doesn’t sound like she was in the Discovery writers room after the showrunners were fired.”

I hope one day we will hear the full story, but I can clearly see the story outcome was changed mid-season after the showrunners were fired which may be partly responsible for the mess. What the first half set up (science vs. religion, near-omnipotent Angel etc) wasn’t really followed up in the second half (everything just a secret S31 tech project?) , and their second half pivot to evil AI and St. Michael the Time travelling Angel & Mom” doesn’t really have any basis in the first half (how did Mom move an entire Church hundreds of years ahead into the Beta Quadrant???). Regardless of what they now claim to have planned “since before the season even began” (also the production designer very clearly expressed the regret she wont be able to build the Enterprise bridge!).

Exactly VS.

It’s essentially impossible to figure out what the original plan had been. I suspect this will be really only known in 20 years or so.

I can believe that the Red Angel costume design was foreseen and started early. I can also believe that it was always the plan to go into the future.

But the story arc to get there…did not last the change in management.

I think a key clue to the original intent is the season opening prologue story of the girl who threw the burning embers into the heavens and created a mystery in space and time.

By Chekov’s law, the season’s storyline should have sewed back to that, but it didn’t.

If anyone knows that myth and where to find it, I for one would be curious about how it plays out.

Stewart does have the charisma to make the show watchable. At least, he had the charisma to make the bad TNG episodes watchable back in the day. But his skill by itself cannot salvage a badly put together show. They are gambling on the overall story to be compelling. If it’s not (like season 1 discovery), or there are terrible elements in the telling of the tale (like season 2 of Discovery) then the show will still be in trouble. Not even Jean-Luc Picard can would be capable of saving it.

I agree. It’s a shame this’ll be serialized. They’ve described it as a 10-hour movie. *sigh*

Which sounds perfect. So tired of giant reset buttons and no continuation of what happened last week. DSC was getting really good about fixing that, despite the trolls in the fandom.

Me not like serialized Discovery and writing == Me troll

Ok, gotcha

Discovery was getting good at fixing their serialization problem? I have news for you. The problem with Discovery went WELL beyond serialization.

The irony in your statement though is most Trek films ARE basically episodic, certainly the Kelvin movies. Compare those three films to the last two seasons of Discovery, which feels like one long movie.

And its kind of weird because more people expected the Kelvin movies to be more connected to each other than they were considering other movie franchises today from Harry Potter to MCU have become very serialized. It was like the Trek movies have been taken a step back in that regard.

That’s not ironic: the films are not regularly released. Even Harry Potter had a film every year (Marvel had 2 or 3 a year). Who knows when and if we’ll see the Kelvin crew again…

I just mean the stories themselves. They are self contained like the early shows mostly were. There was a little tie in between STID and the 09 movie but outside of Vulcan destruction the stories had nothing to do with each other.

Kelvin movies operate very different than most movie franchises today which feels like every last film should have a ‘To be continued…’ stamp on it

Well you and other seems to be inferring that “episodic” only has one meaning: separate installments with no continuing story. That’s not the only definition. A movie series is techincally episodic, but because they’re not (usually) released with frequency, it’s harder to follow than a 10-episode run released weekly (or all at once on a place like Netflix).

OK, fair enough.

I think it was a conscious decision by Bad Robot/Paramount to make those movies as self-contained as possible. It’s almost as if they were afraid that the audience wouldn’t remember what happened in the previous movie. Also some of the character arcs in Into Darkness felt like just a repetition of the 2009 movie instead of a progression.

Agreed Diginon and in some ways that was probably the mistake too. By the time these movies rolled around audiences were getting use to more continuing story lines, definitely by the time STID came around because MCU was on fire by then and the first Avengers movie came out the year before that. There was no real build up to these movies outside of another one was coming. That was fine for TOS and TNG films because stories were more contained in every medium back then outside of a few exceptions like Star Wars.

But I think that was another problem Beyond had in itself. It felt TOO contained, like nothing that happened in the previous two films mattered. There was side talk about Kirk and his father and Spock needing to help rebuild Vulcan but those were just character moments, it had nothing to do with the actual story. Of course they probably did that after the backlash of STID and didn’t want to associate the movie with that one but they still could’ve done a story about the Vulcans or anything that connected to this new universe they set up. I still would’ve loved to have seen the story Orci came up with. It sounds like a lot of it connected to the first film.

But it really should’ve been done like a proper trilogy on day one where we see both the story and characters build through it. Maybe even had a villain that stuck around through all the movies. Nothing like a Darth Vader or anything, just an antagonist of some sort although I guess the plan probably was to bring back Khan in another movie and why they kept him alive.

You did get development with the characters since Kirk had obviously grew from the first film but the stories had no connection to each other. And with the 3-4 year wait between each movie, it was nothing to keep casual fans interested outside of just wanting more adventures with them and that clearly wasn’t enough for a lot of them.

I should not be this geeked out over this teeny-tiny teaser—BUT I TOTALLY AM!

ALL of the feels!

Bravo – Bravo!

Please be good! Love the brief look at the cinematography, and the music! I hope this is the Trek I’ve been waiting for since TNG ended (not a fan of any of the films post Voyage Home!).

Very happy from this little glimpse! :)

and later Picard and DSC comes to a point where Burnham and Picard meet and they decide decide to change the time and saving Romulus and Spock and erasing the Kelvin-Timeline

I want to see that now, just for the ‘Trekkies’ who hate anything not Braga/Burnam Trek to implode over whether to cheer PCD/DSC for killing the KT or to blast it as destroying their precious ‘canon’

I think most will just be happy to have Romulus back in the PU honestly.

It’s not like Romulus played an important role in Trek. The Romulans were recurring enemies but – with the exception of Star Trek Nemesis – we didn’t see much of Romulus as a planet. And being an empire, the Romulans shouldn’t be gone completely just because Romulus is gone.

In many ways the Romans are among the superficially explored of the major Trek Aliens.

Enterprise really took a deep dive with Shran and the Andorians.

But we’ve never got to know the Romans very well.

You’re speaking to the choir on that one. I remembered being yelled at by a half dozen posters here on another thread when I said I think they should keep its destruction as canon but many took offense to the idea although as you said Romulus was something that was constantly talked about but rarely ever shown in reality.

In fact I’m trying to recall how often we actually saw the planet in the franchise and the only time I recall has literally only been on TNG. The Romulans were barely developed on TOS outside of Balance of Terror but we never saw it on that show. The other shows like DS9 and obviously Voyager and Enterprise never went there either, so we only saw it in a few episodes on TNG and Nemesis, the only film to show it as you mentioned. And that was just a few minutes of the movie on one set.

But you know Trek fans, they can be a fickle bunch lol. Its always been there in their minds at least so it should always stay I guess although it really had no big influence in the franchise the way Vulcan or even Bajor had.

But to some it was always there, so all that matters.

Lol Tiger2, I’m amazed that you’re following my posts.

The spell corrector seems to be even more aggressive than usual today. Or maybe I’m subpar in fighting it.

But yes, I was talking about Romulans and not Romans.

LOL, I knew what you meant. And its easy to mistake since some of the Romulan terminology are based on the Romans anyway.

I’m ashamed to admit this now, but I didn’t know until much later Romulus was actually the name of a real person in Roman history and not just a cool planet name for chip on their shoulder Vulcan outcasts. ;)

Is it just me or is the star trek tune at the very end done on his flute from the Inner Light?

Hey, cool. Only a minute and I’m already getting that sappy cheesy melodramatic Kurtzman vibe. I think he calls it “like, cinematic.” He is adept at putting deltas on landscapes, though. Maybe he could go into advertising?

I see now why Star Trek has had problems transitioning out of its dated visual style and into a more modern aesthetic. Do anything modern and some fans just can’t wrap their brains around it.

Those fans just can’t move along home.

Since when is cheap sappy melodrama modern? It’s as old as time and they can save it for Star Wars. I expect something different from Star Trek.

“Only a minute and I’m already getting that sappy cheesy melodramatic Kurtzman vibe. I think he calls it “like, cinematic.””

He calls it “heart”.

Seriously hope this is having some BRAINS too (unlike a certain other series!)

Awesome poster with the vineyards forming the Starfleet insigna.

“Tell us, why did you leave Starfleet, Admiral?”
“My reasons are my own.”

Next thing Jean-Luc knows, he wakes up in a quaint village in… Wales? the Mediterranean? Risa? Wherever he is, he can’t leave.

And then Number One shows up…

Why did he resign? We will find out. By hook or by crook.

I am not a number! I am a free man! And there are FOUR lights!

Flashbacks to hanging around naked in the basement wasn’t playtime Beverly wanted to participate in, and he was quietly shown the door when Wesley filed the complaint.