During the 3-day UK Destination Star Trek Birmingham, last weekend, cast members from Picard, Lower Decks, and Discovery graced the stages of DST and shared a few new nuggets of information about what’s to come.
Star Trek: Picard
Picard’s admiral uniform
While the show finds Jean-Luc Picard retired from Starfleet, we know he was an admiral before leaving the service. Patrick Stewart will be wearing the admiral’s uniform in a few scenes, presumed to be flashbacks.
With filming wrapped on the first season of Picard, DST was the first event to show off the admiral’s uniform. It was rapidly shared on social media, with fans responding positively to the design. The design is a nice blend of the variety of admirals’ uniforms seen throughout TNG’s 7 seasons, plus a few updates reminiscent of Star Trek Online.
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- photo: Rachel Kirk
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- photo: Rachel Kirk
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- photo: Rachel Kirk
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- photo: Rachel Kirk
Sir Patrick Stewart
The Jean-Luc Picard actor (and executive producer of Picard) took to the stage in a packed room, starting things off by revealing, “You will learn a lot more about the Borg.”
He then recounted being persuaded to come back to the role of Picard, saying that he’d asked the producers to make Star Trek: Picard a new take on the Trek universe in the same way Logan was different from earlier X-Men films.
Stewart confirmed to the crowd that Picard is indeed in his nineties. Fans had been speculating on that, wondering whether Picard would be 94 as expected (based on his date of birth seen in TNG), or whether his age would be retconned to match Stewart’s (79).
Since fans have been eager for more information about Riker and Troi ever since the trailer was shown at New York Comic Con last month, Stewart shared a little bit more about their storyline, saying that they appear in an episode that is focused on Riker.
He also teased the audience with the idea of seeing more of the old TNG crew: “Will we see the rest of the group? I think so.” A fan then asked about the Crusher/Picard relationship; while remaining non-committal, Stewart said, “It would be great to find a way to bring her in.”
A fan asked if Picard would be suitable for children. Unsurprisingly, Stewart said, “No, there’s some adult language and subject matter that’s intense.”
Sir Patrick Stewart captivates the audience
Brent Spiner
Brent Spiner took the stage for a solo session, and praised the cast of Picard.
Brent Spiner on stage at DST
Perhaps most importantly, Spiner confirmed what many had assumed: The Data we’ve seen in the Picard trailer is not representative of what he’s going to look like in the show. They didn’t have time to make post-production tweaks in time for NYCC.
The Data seen in the NYCC trailer is not the final version.
Lower Decks
Mike McMahan, creator of the animated Trek show Lower Decks, couldn’t make it in person, but he did video conference in and give the crowd a presentation, much like was done for SDCC and STLV earlier this year. A few new tidbits came up during his Q&A session with fans.
A fan asked if any Star Trek alumni are going to appear. Predictably, McMahan was careful with his words, saying it certainly sounded possible and adding somewhat cryptically that he is a fan of everyone in Next Generation but that you might not get people you’d expect.
Something new is that McMahan was able to describe the writing structure of the show: there will be half-hour episodes with A, B, and C plots; the episodes will be mostly standalone but with some arching elements.
And of course, a big fan question about animated Trek is about canon. McMahan answered succinctly: “The short answer is, yes.”
Mike McMahan videochats with the audience
Discovery Season 3
Season 3 of Discovery is currently in production, but two of the show’s stars, Wilson Cruz and Anthony Rapp, were able to travel to the UK. While they were mostly focused on discussing season 2 with co-star Shazad Latif, they did share two small morsels of information about the third. Cruz told the crowd that Culber will be taking on more responsibility for the crew’s mental health in the new season, and Anthony Rapp revealed that someone will be getting a pet this season, but of course had to remain tight-lipped about the details.
Shazad Latif, Wilson Cruz, and Anthony Rapp on stage
DST will be back in 2020
Destination Star Trek UK will return to London for the 2020 event, at ExCeL London from 13-15 November. Click for more information.
Destination Star Trek Germany will also return in 2020, taking place in Dortmund from 8-10 May. Click here for details.
Special thanks to Rachel Kirk for her admiral’s uniform pictures.
“A fan asked if Picard would be suitable for children. Unsurprisingly, Stewart said, “No, there’s some adult language and subject matter that’s intense.””
There is no such thing as “adult” language. Depending on one’s attitude, this is either “bad” language or acceptable colloquial language. But there is absolutely no reason to shield children from those linguistic realities, neither from watching nor using those colorful metaphors. Why should there? What sense does it make to say “Okay, I’m an adult now, I can use it but you can’t little minor”…
That’s nonsense. It’s either out of line for both age groups or not at all for no one… Never got that attitude. It’s simply irrelevant outside the Anglo-American world.
As for the “intense subject matter”… Let’s see how far they go this time. I hope it’s not Logan 2.0
I wouldn’t be surprised if the forthcoming Picard series is as truly excellent as
the Logan was. Obviously the only sour note is that Hugh Jackman won’t be
in any forthcoming sequel and that effectively kills the character forever!
Picard will serve along side the Borg that will not only enhance his character
but the all around tone and expectations of the Borg that are encountered with
his future transpositions with Hugh. The mission could be of accelerated
conditioning of both worlds and the people inhabiting these various planets.
I learned every curse word on my first day of school.
So you never went to kindergarten? Parents can try to shield their kids from such language at home but as soon as they meet more people they will come in contact with such words.
I remember as an 8-year old in 1965 coming home from the movies where I had seen the Burt Lancaster movie “The Train” and asked my parents what ‘bastard’ meant. I think they were displeased.
That’s a great movie though.
You win….^, A34.
I think its not only which words are used, but which subject matter is discussed.
Even with leaving out swear words, discussions about sexual activity and violent acts would not be suited for everyone.
I disagree. While I certainly believe there is no such thing as a bad word, there are certainly words that are used more often then not in a profane context. There are hundreds of things we restrict minors from, because, as a society we have collectively come to the conclusion that there are things that require a certain amount of growth, maturity, and life experience to be able to do. The average 13 year old will have better reflexes and faster response times then the average 30 year old, but we’ve designed motor vehicles to be more suited to individuals taller then the average 13 year old. Because we have decided 13 year old individuals should not drive. Minors generally are restricted from working, driving, in many places from consuming alcohol, and some other beverages, they are restricted from using cannabis and other drugs where legally allowed, they are restricted from sexual activity, they are restricted from participation in politics, and are not eligible for any military drafts, just to name a few.
So yes it would sound odd to my ears to hear a child tell me to ‘go F* yourself’ or use other profane language that I would assume they have no context for in their own life yet. Sure, they probably know what the words they are saying mean, but the whole point of adult language is, adults have more context behind the words when they say them. That’s why adults tend to laugh at kids who accidentally swear when mimicking a parent, older sibling, or older relative/friends style of conversation, because it is a parody, the kid has no context for the words they are using. So it becomes cute to the adults around. You have to earn the right to swear just as you have to earn the right to drive. While there is no formal licensing process, you are expected to have reached a certain level of maturity, and life experience before you’re allowed to use profane language.
I disagree that adult language is irrelevant outside the Anglo-American world. What is considered acceptable changes from country to country but there certainly are rules for kids programming also in non-English speaking countries.
I do, however, agree that it is hypocritical for people to forbid their kids from using certain words and then using them themselves with other adults. If you think something is bad language then don’t use it at all.
As a parent of middle-graders, I always find it odd that the discussions here about coarse language, rarely take into account the social sanctions on kids who use that kind of language.
Yes, DIGINON, my spouse and I did have to clean up our language when our kids were preschoolers. Kids are designed to learn by copying.
Formal schooling starts at four our province in Canada. Modeling language that will get your kids spending part of their day in the Vice-Principal’s office for ‘behavioural discussions’, is not worth it.
We also became aware that there were certain characters on TV with behaviours that it wasn’t helpful for our kids to copy – even in ostensibly ‘kids TV’.
We ended up censoring out these shows until they were old enough to understand that the show was trying to teach them that these behaviours aren’t helpful – not to mention waiting until our kids’ forebrain executive function (that Superior Maximus is talking about above) was developed enough that our kids had the impulse control not to use a behaviour in an inappropriate situation.
Kids pay attention to the modeling of their favourite TV characters. It’s more subtle at 9-13 than at 3-5, but it’s still there. They’ve also still got a lot of brain development yet to go.
They also have antennae tuned to hypocrisy. If my spouse or I say a foul word when we drop something on our foot, we hear about it.
I appreciate Sir Patrick’s heads up. It seems clear that once again TPTB feel obligated to deliver a 14+ product just because it’s for streaming.
What this means for us is that, as for Discovery, we’ll need to ‘pre-watch’ episodes without the kids in order to be ready to have the inevitable discussions after we watch the show with the kids.
Fortunately, I like Trek enough that I’m happy to watch an episode 2-3 times in first run, and discuss the behaviour and choices of the characters afterward.
But will this mean is that for some families, the 14+ rating will mean that their preteens won’t be given the opportunity to see Picard.
It also will mean that most developmentally-informed families with kids 8 and under won’t be watching with their kids – no matter how happy the showrunners are to hear that people are watching these shows with their kindergartners.
We still don’t have a new Trek offering designed to be appreciated by all ages. While I like the strategic approach of a menu, it would be nice to have one show that we could watch as an entire extended family during holidays.
It sounds like the Nickelodeon show will be appropriate for everybody.
Star Trek taught me so many swears, particularly Generations! When I quoted Data saying Oh sh*t my mom got mad at me and told me it’s bad, and then I hid under the table afraid the cops were looking for me. Also I remember quoting Scotty saying all What the hell..lifesigns phasing in and out… and my kindergarten teacher overheard and told me not to use that language. So that movie in particular really sullied my vocabulary
You’re missing the best colorful metaphor in all of Trek. “Double dumb-ass on you.”
Riker said Hell and Damn all through TNG, Geordi said Damn a lot.
Of course I’d already seen Blazing Saddles before TNG ever came out, and TNG started when I was 10.
I am excited about ST:Picard.
The End.
I had a great time.
if you’ve never been, make the trip to the UK and see this convention
Looking forward to seeing the better – shall we say greater – final version of Data.
Same, I thought it was a weird look in the trailer and expected there to be more they could do about it
All sounds amazing! Picard and Lower Decks, the 24th century is back in less than 3 months and counting! We got it, thank god we finally got it again!
So does this Pictures mean Picard has been a four star Admiral ?
Then in his Admiral years he belonged to THE head of Starfleet?
Good point markus.
However, Trek has never been very careful about admirals’ ranks.
How did Janeway get to full admiral in just a couple of years of being back in the alpha-quadrant?
Better question why wasn’t Janeway thrown in prison
The courts give convicted Starfleet officers the option of prison or admiralty.
That would actually explain a lot.
Indeed!
Getting “kicked upstairs” maybe
Why do you hate Janeway?
I don’t hate her, but as a character her motivations and values often changed from one episode to the next and she did a bunch of questionable stuff out there
Mainly this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfB9yJCCiGM
That was great but a few of those were seriously out of contest. The scene where she shot someone never actually happened lol.
Why would Janeway have been thrown into prison? What are you talking about?
I assume for her multiple violations of the temporal prime directive in Endgame.
Hey, future Janeway gave her LIFE on that mission and she wiped the Borg out while doing it (or so we thought ;)). I say cut her some slack. She did a great thing in the end for the Federation!
But future Janeway wasn’t there to explain herself to Starfleet afterward. Which should have left complicit Janeway in the hotseat.
I don’t really buy that. The Janeway who caused all the problems was killed. And since she changed time, her younger self wasn’t going to repeat her mistakes.
But yes temporal mechanics being as weird as it is, I guess they could’ve charged Janeway when she was still a teenager and found a way to make it stick. ;)
She didn’t wipe out the Borg. She just killed the Queen, destroyed the unicomplex, and destroyed a transwarp hub. That’s a real blow to the Borg, but they will survive.
She also disrupted billions of lives to do it. Serena may not exist anymore. “Joe” may never be married. Harry may never become captain. There are decades worth of Voyager’s adventures that never happened now, and probably countless lives that they never saved. That being said, I’m not sure if you can really blame young Janeway for any of that. The admiral was responsible, and she is dead now.
Either way, its a huge blow. The biggest the Federation has ever done to the Borg up until that point. Before that, they were lucky if they could just take down one cube.
But we will probably find out just how much damage Janeway did to them exactly on Picard. And there are rumors the character Picard is suppose to protect could be a candidate for the new Borg queen but of course who knows.
And yes you can’t really blame young Janeway for it. It wasn’t her idea, it was future self who was now dead.
Janeway was still complicit in her future self’s actions. Her original response was “temporal prime directive blah blah blah, sorry, you threw your career away and came out here for nothing.” But then she went along with it.
Also what happens to your debts when you die? I think evading justice is the same thing when it just so happens you’re also technically very much still alive.
It probably depends on what the precise rules that the temporal prime directive lays out are. Obviously, it is illegal to go back and change the past, but if you have knowledge of the future then are you allowed to act on that? It all sort of goes back to the debate that Picard had with Rasmussen.
Endgame Admiral Janeway is probably why Future Starfleet locked up their Braxton when his future self went black hat. They couldn’t stop her from pruning her timeline or their world vanishes and she died, so past Janeway gets a walk. Still, I suspect Janeway would have willing accepted a comfy Federation Penal community like the place she picked up Tom Paris if she got her crew home safe.
OK that is a good point. She did ultimately go with her plan. Still I don’t see anyone that upset about it because it helped destroy a lot of the Borg.
And obviously Starfleet didn’t see it that way since she got a promotion out of it. Off topic but I do hope we eventually see Janeway back on Picard. I know it’s a long shot since Mulgrew doesn’t seem that interested in returning to Star Trek but Patrick Stewart felt the same way at one point ;).
Well just in theory, I would think having knowledge of the future makes your actions even more guilty and not less. And getting promoted doesn’t mean you’re innocent, rather it means you were skilled enough this time to avoid getting railroaded. Which is sort of already a given, since she’s the main character of a ST series. But we still don’t know what she reported and what she omitted.
I’m fairly certain my own stuttering, stammering @$$ would have gotten railroaded in her shoes.
I’m fine closing the book on Janeway (and VOY in general) if Mulgrew is not feeling it. The best hope for this series is to appeal to longtime TNG fans, while even more importantly not seeming too TNG-exclusive nor ST-exclusive for broader audiences. And not the movies TNG, nor the spinoffs TNG, but the TV series TNG which is what pop culture remembers. That’s why the grey FC uniforms are being silently forgotten. And that’s the balancing act that you hope the fandom-centric writers are focused on even when they throw in VOY backstory such as 7/9 and Borg.
To me it sounds like they are doing the opposite of that! They are basically open to ANYONE in the TNG era, as they should be. New fans don’t matter in this scenario, everyone is new to them lol. But this show is to grab A. Star Trek fans obviously and B. TNG era fans. This show sounds like its going to connect to Voyager, Nemesis, obviously TNG itself and at least the 09 film dealing with the destruction of Romulus. And we already know the Doctor may show up next season since Robert Picardo said they already talked to him about being in it and I suspect a few DS9 characters will show up eventually.
To me, I don’t think they look at it as a per show basis, but simply now a universe of characters. MAYBE back in the 90s this was how they thought, but MCU has changed all of that. Shared universes are very ‘in’ now and ironically Star Trek has been doing that since 1987 before anyone called it that. Now they can take that idea and run hard with it! I don’t mean we will suddenly see something crazy like Infinity War or anything but definitely on a level where characters from multiple shows will be coming in and out and why the Borg is probably in the first season to help cross reference a lot of these characters since so many have dealt with them.
I don’t remember if it was you or someone else I brought this up with months ago, but I remember arguing with someone who said they didn’t think bringing back the Borg would ever be done or a good idea where I had the complete opposite view and said it was now only a matter of WHEN and not if. Honestly for me, I think a BIG reason why they wanted a show back in this era so they had an excuse to bring the Borg back since they were off limits in Discovery.
It was a no-brainer and even I wasn’t really thinking it would happen in the first season lol. I thought most likely second or third. To happen this soon and to bring in so many other known characters kind of tell you they KNOW they have to get as many TNG era fans onboard as possible. Honestly my feeling is if it was up to CBS it would just be a direct TNG revival show with Picard, Riker, Worf and all the others back on the Enterprise and probably throw in a few VOY/DS9 characters on the ship as well. They are only going this direction because Stewart made it clear he didn’t want to redo TNG, which I completely understand why.
But these are same guys that brought in Pike and Spock on a show for an entire season that they didn’t even star in. I suspect we are going to get quite a few more TNG, VOY and even DS9 characters by third season. They just want to do it in a way where they can really use them and not just throw them in for a cameo which is what most fans DON’T want either.
And Lower Decks has made it clear ALL the previous shows and characters will likely make appearances in some form since they don’t have to worry about make up and age issues. But those guys are clearly huge TNG era fanboys. The creator named his dog after Riker, that tells you everything lol.
It doesn’t matter what popular culture remembers. Only hardcore viewers knew or cared who Pike even was and now he’s more popular than any of the characters from Discovery itself because they brought him back on that show and marketed him to death to all the old fans. THIS is the brain trust in charge of Star Trek today. They recognize the hardcore fans will watch any known characters regardless how obscure. I mean they are bringing Hugh back lol. That guy was in just two episodes over 25 years ago and supposedly has a major role on Picard. I imagine we are going to see a lot of this over the next few years.
Either way its an exciting time for us Trek fans! :)
Interesting analysis as usual Tiger2.
I was definitely one of the ones in the ‘done with Borg’ category.
I still feel that David Mack’s Relaunch novel trilogy ‘Destiny’ is the last best word on the Borg.
That said, while in Picard we’re clearly in a later point of time and a different timeline than the one of the post-Nemesis Relaunch novels, the concepts in Destiny for the the genesis and the final end to the Borg could still be woven in.
It would be the smart thing to do. Destiny is brilliant, and it would be hard to reconcile two completely different origin stories for the Borg.
The thing that was most cool about Destiny was that it was the taking off point for mixing all the Star Trek series together. Destiny includes ships and character from all 5 series, and set the standard for the ‘new normal’ of mixing in old characters in unexpected ways that we’ve seen Discovery, Short Treks and Picard.
I listened to a recent podcast with David Mack. He talked about how it works writing for-hire franchise novels.
Basically, the franchise owns all the storylines and characters he creates. They could use Destiny.
To be gracious, they could note that it was based on his work. There is no obligation to do so or further remuneration required. He got no acknowledgement for Control in Discovery S2.
By the way, while millions more fans watch Trek than read Trek, Destiny remains one of the highest selling Trek books of all time. It’s over a decade since it came out and it’s still selling.
Last thought, in Kirsten Beyer’s Voyager Relaunch novels, Admiral Janeway is returned to life after being dead for some time. (Killed off by another author earlier.)
Given that the Q said that she her death was a fixed point across all time streams, and this was the only one where Janeway was restored to life, some interesting gymnastics would be needed for Kirsten to reconcile her two storylines. Not that Kirsten hasn’t pulled it off before.
Man, I really need to read those Destiny books lol. But based on many people like you and others who have raved about the story it really does prove you can still do very exciting things with the Borg again if you’re inspired enough. And combining multiple crews and characters made it feel more epic. In fact it sounds like its the novelist who has been keeping much of the 24th century alive since Nemesis was the last we saw of it visually and have in fact created tons of new story lines with old characters across the universe (but I guess easier to do when you don’t have to pay anyone ;)). So it wouldn’t surprise me if they took some inspiration from those books as we in fact saw them do that with Mack’s Section 31 books for Discovery last season.
As for Beyer, she seems to be the one who really pushed for the Picard show in the first place and from what I hear even though her novels are all based around Voyager, like Mack, she uses characters from all the shows like DS9 and TNG to tell her stories. And since she is working on Picard my guess is she could be pushing to bring in any characters she feel will help tell the story and not limited to any one show. Again, I don’t even get the point of NOT bringing in known characters from every part of the universe if the characters are still around canon wise? What’s the point of ignoring them if you know just having one there will interest a fan to see them again and convince them to watch the show (or more importantly subscribe to AA to watch it)? Star Trek is literally a shared universe lol. So now is the time to use it as they already been doing with Discovery anyway.
Now they can mix all the characters HOWEVER they like, much more so when these shows were on because everyone from Voyager is back in the Alpha quadrant and plenty of people on DS9 could’ve left for other posts and ships so now you can do anything. And in Picard’s case you have the advantage of using basically all the original actors in this era which only brings more excitement to the fanbase and get more of them watching.
The response of seeing Seven and Data in that first trailer was HUGE. Fans salivated seeing them there along with the Borg. That’s how you bring real hype back to these shows, by relying on that universe and DECADES of characters and world building, not ignoring it. That makes zero sense for something like Star Trek.
I don’t see Harry Kim or Tom Paris crossing over into STP. I think I can rest assured of not seeing Neelix’s annoying face on there anytime soon as well. Unless I’m mistaken 7/9 is still the only confirmed VOY character so far. And she would be the most obvious choice even if STP weren’t in Borg mode (the fact that Jeri Ryan only appears more gorgeous as she ages probably didn’t hurt her chances either). And the EMH if he appeared would be the second most obvious choice of someone to consider. So nothing you’ve said there disproves any of what I’ve been saying.
I also don’t know of any DS9 people confirmed yet, which may be significant. DS9 has probably dozens of interesting characters you might consider rather than just a handful, and most of them are non-Starfleet. But I’d guess they haven’t figured a way to do that yet. And they’ve probably already got enough Greatest Hits on their playlist.
Bringing ST fans and TNG fans over to this show are not priorities A and B. They are priorities B and C. Priority A, as always, is to create whole new fans. These are the people ST actually needs, and they are the ones who happily sat out the latter TNG movies, the latter Berman Treks in general, and ST Beyond. They’re the ones who are already hip to the fact that ST is hit-and-miss, no matter how many times you try insisting to them otherwise. Star Trek’s biggest problem is its own history and its track record, and every ST wants (no, needs) to be mainstream even at the expense of any past Treks that couldn’t be.
This is why I suspect STD is in its last season. CBS won’t show it’s numbers, but they’re already as high as they’re ever going to be. Whatever those numbers are, CBS must either already be perfectly happy with them OR they’re waiting for STP to hopefully surpass them.
So no, reminding viewers that TNG already has half a dozen lesser spin-offs (and trust me, they’ll think they remember there being more of them then there actually are) is generally not a good idea when rebooting a franchise (and CBS Trek largely IS a reboot, just as TNG was in ’87). They can ultimately bring over whoever they’d like, but I wouldn’t expect 7/9 and EMH to be doing a lot of VOY reminiscing together on STP’s screen time.
I don’t believe I ever said the Borg would never show up. I’m sure I said I’d PREFER they didn’t, and I still don’t think they are a very good idea. VOY already did the Borg to death, just as they redid anything else from TNG whenever they were desperate. The last really interesting Borg story was TBOBWpt1. Seeing STP become another Borg show is something I can only give the frustrated shrug of inevitability to and just hope it works out for them.
What I have said is that Q should never be brought over. I’ve said he wouldn’t work in a serialized format, and I stand by that statement. For the same reason he would never work in a movie format (and I think it no coincidence they never used him in the TNG films, since in my estimation they WERE desperate enough to have used him if they possibly could).
OK fair enough, but I disagree with nearly all of it lol. I will say one thing and I don’t see the point of not including characters from other shows. It makes zero sense to me, especially when you are clearly bringing back a character and era that represented decades of world building and whose story does a deep dive into that world building millions of fans were invested in and still invested in to this day given the amount of Star Trek that is out there on every major stream site and multiple TV channels even now. There is 20 hours of Voyager reruns that airs every week on two separate channels six days a week alone here in L.A.
Trek is a huge shared universe that still builds on all these shows today with new media like games, comics and novels; most promoted right here on this site. They still make them because there is still a large enough fanbase out there who buys it even though these shows have been off for decades. You now have a show back in this era for the first time in nearly 20 years, so you can promote the new and old, which every major franchise does these days from Star Wars to DC. Star Trek is simply doing the same. So the more the merrier I say as long as they are relevant to the story. We’ll just leave it at that.
Well Kate Mulgrew felling like she’s already done ST is fairly good reason not to include her. She got her seven seasons and her cameo, I’m fine with closing the book on her. Interestingly enough, that’s how this discussion started. Did Robert Picardo say he was interested when they talked to him about appearing? I’d never question an actor who wasn’t interested in being in it.
Now suppose Andrew Robinson and Gates McFadden both happened to call on the same week to ask if there might be a part for them. Who do you think would be easier to work in? Who is the show about? And who is the audience? How many people know or give a damn about each of their characters? I think I’d love to see Garak again, but what is the story? See?
Would I be just fine with STP if Garrett Wang never called up? Actually I would.
If Kate Mulgrew doesn’t want to do Star Trek again, then sure that’s perfectly fine. I was only saying I would personally just like to see Janeway again since she’s one of my favorite characters, my third favorite captain after Picard and Kirk and obviously is a huge part of the franchise and has a big fanbase like most of the captains. I would be just as excited as I am to see Seven, Data and Riker as they are my favorites too. But its not a huge deal either way.
And we know how these tings go.
If I recall correctly, Leonard Nimoy had already retired and said he was completely done with acting entirely when the producers of the first Kelvin movie convinced him to come to the franchise to be in the movie. Patrick Stewart himself has stated multiple times, even on the press events for the show that he was convinced he would never want to play Picard again, that part of his life was over and yet here we are lol. So my guess is the door is NEVER truly closed for a lot of these actors if they give them something interesting to do or a good reason to come back. And Mulgrew never said she wouldn’t do Janeway again, just doesn’t feel the need to play Janeway, but that can obviously change. And she has said she would do it again under certain circumstances. So you never know.
And Robert Picardo did say he was interested, so if they do want his character back I imagine he would do it since he has said in the past he would do Star Trek again easily.
Of course no one is saying they should just throw in any random character, just as long as they are relevant to the story somehow. Garak is not a Starfleet officer, so obviously its not going to be as easy to have him there like Bashier, Paris or Geordi would be. But that said, its not impossible either. It’s still Star Trek lol. Garak use to be a spy, he could secretly be working with the Romulans in an effort to rebuild Cardassia after the Dominion war. Or actually working with Starfleet or Section 31 as a double agent to find out what the Romulans are up to. I mean NONE of this is really that difficult, it just depends on what the story is and how relevant they can be to it, right? But yes I agree completely, not everyone WILL be relevant, but since none of us really knows what is going on besides we know it’s related to the Romulans and Borg, no one knows how anyone would fit into this story line. The only thing we do know is that Picard feels like he has to involve himself that starts the story, that’s really it.
To be honest Sam, I think you just personally don’t like some of these shows or characters so you don’t want to see them back in future Trek projects. Again, if true, that’s fine of course, you can certainly feel that way. But I think its more about personal interests than objectively seeing what is really happening here, in the long term at least. But if I’m wrong, OK, I apologize.
To me, your argument just makes no sense on its head. Of course if producers don’t feel they don’t need or want to bring back certain characters or storylines, that’s perfectly fine. BUT if they want to bring back others then its it’s completely fine as well since ALL these shows and characters are canon and still relevant inside the fanbase. Voyager for example are still used in novels, comics and merchandise today because the show has a big enough following in the fanbase. If no one was making any money off this stuff, no one would be making it now.
Ironically Kirsten Beyer who came up with the Picard show entire Star Trek career exists because she’s been writing Voyager novels for the last 15 years. In fact I just found out she is still writing them and the next one will be out next year. So obviously there are not only big Voyager fans who are still out there, so are the people in charge of making Star Trek today. I know she would kill to get Mulgrew on this show lol. So I wouldn’t rule ANYTHING out completely. Not in the world of Star Trek anyway.
I see only five Trek veterans confirmed so far, and four of them are TNG if you count Jon Del Arco. So that’s a TNG representation ratio of 80 percent. Which I can almost guarantee is not a coincidence. Any average person who’s heard of ST knows there’s TOS, TNG, and… some dozen or so less popular shows that nearsighted Trekkies will happily recite the names of for you. I look at that list and it makes perfect sense to me that they would do that. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if a year from now the representation of past Trek characters on STP still showed between 60-80 percent favorability for TNG. But I also don’t predict they’re going to get “everybody”, and certainly not on a recurring basis. They won’t overkill it.
I don’t “rule out” including anybody. I don’t picture them going after Kate Mulgrew as enthusiastically as they did Nimoy and now Stewart. I also won’t pretend Mulgrew’s my first choice, and for that matter I probably WOULD roll my eyes if Garrett Wang showed up again. But whether I want to see them back is irrelevant. I happen to think I’m more objective than a lot of fans at understanding why they do these things. They never did try to use Q in the TNG feature films. They never ended up using Shatner in the Kelvin films (I feel like it’s pretty clear they always favored Nimoy over him). They DID end up needing to use some of the classic characters in order to reboot ST on TV again (I was ridiculed back in the day for saying that still needed to happen), and they’re doing it again now with TNG characters. Check, check and check. Most fans still insist on seeing everything in terms of Kelvin and Prime. Those are just labels, in practicality they mean almost nothing, especially since most of the intended audience doesn’t care about them. Kelvin exists at the whim of a couple screenwriters figuring out how to pitch the kind of TV-based movie Hollywood prefers while still having it be “canon”. And canon is constantly reinterpreted by the people actually producing the shows.
I’m still not sure how I feel about ST novelists writing the shows, and it’s been decades since I’ve read any ST paperbacks. I tend to think of them as writing fan fiction, and ENT reinforced that impression for me. I LOVED one of the two STD episodes Beyer is credited with, but it’s not the one fans seem to favor.
Obviously I’m not arguing there aren’t going to be more TNG characters involved. The show is called Picard, fans want to see him with characters he’s been with for 15+ years so naturally there will be a lot of TNG characters. Again no one is arguing that.
I’m saying that they don’t seem to be ruling anyone out in general. No one is saying this is a TNG based show only because most likely they want to leave the door for any relevant characters they can use. And why wouldn’t they? This is obvious and why Seven is there. Does it mean the entire cast of Voyager is in season 2, no, I’m only saying I wouldn’t be shocked to see someone else from that cast show up as we know they are supposedly interested in the doctor. Maybe no one from DS9 will show up, but I HIGHLY doubt they told themselves the door is closed on anyone, as long as they are relevant to future stories.
This isn’t rocket science, if you have a new show where you can put anyone you want and nothing in canon stops them, then why not put in a character that people know and that they can promote and market versus a brand new character no one knows? Did Seven of Nine HAVE to be there? Of course not. She’s not the only Borg who was freed from the collective. And if she was, they could’ve just made a new character to do that with. But clearly it makes WAY more sense to put someone who is very big and popular in the fanbase. This is why your argument makes no sense to me. Of course they are going to use the show to fill roles from various characters if that will entice at least one more viewer to watch vs a new character.
And you seem really obsessed with this idea that they only care about TOS and TNG. If that was the case, we wouldn’t have Discovery now. Or Lower Decks. Or Section 31 and the other 15 shows they will probably add in the next 10-20 years. They would just reboot TNG and TOS over and over and over and over again. Thank Kahless they aren’t doing that. Do you honestly think Discovery is going to be at the level of TOS or TNG? Saru seems to be a fan favorite, but do you think anyone NOT watching Discovery knows or cares who he is? Of course not. And Discovery is on All Access lol. Enterprise reruns probably gets more viewers than this show. I know people now that literally didn’t know a new Star Trek show was on until I told them about it and I live in Los Angeles.
The reality is even if any of these shows attract new audiences, 90% of them will be watched by the same fans whose been watching for decades now. And those people are VERY invested in the entire universe and they know that. Let’s call a spade a spade here. End of the day these shows survive by a devoted but still smaller and older fanbase. Yes new people watch these shows every day, someone on Reddit watched Enterprise for the first time a few days ago. But they are not going to ever break out to the mainstream like GOT or something. TNG did that but clearly that was a VERY different time and when we didn’t have the options of sci fi shows we do now. CBS knows who their audience is and why all the shows are still relevant now within the fanbase. Because to their credit they have kept them relevant via novels, comics, games, merchandise, etc.
And I’m talking loooooong term, ie, the next 10-20 years of stories. Picard is just the first step in what I imagine a LOT of possible spin offs in the future. Yes, maybe Q won’t show up next season, but you have to be naive if you never think he’ll never show up again. No one is off limits not with SO MUCH Star Trek being produced and so many eras and prequels, sequels etc coming our way. So I suspect we will be seeing a lot of returning faces in the next few years. I mean its happening now and Star Trek has only been back on ‘TV’ two years now. If Picard hits big, then I think we’re going to be in this era for a long time with tons of popular characters to fill it with.
Look I want to make this clear. If it was up to ME and I was running Star Trek (and that would probably be a total disaster lol), there would be NO old characters of any kind. There would be no Picard show. There would be no prequel show where the main lead is Kirk’s cousin. None of that would exist because if I was running Star Trek, these shows would be centuries ahead where they are now. There wouldn’t be direct prequels or sequels of any kind.
Ironically I would do what Discovery FINALLY had the guts to do and move the show centuries ahead and start anew (although I was thinking more like the 26th or 27th century). That’s where I wanted Discovery to be when it was originally announced so it wouldn’t just feel like a back door to bring in familiar characters. Or at least in the 25th century and they could just restart everything. That would’ve been my dream show like how TNG was done when it came on.
But now we have shows back in eras where basically any character they want to be brought back can be. It’s why we now have Spock, Mudd, Sarek, Pike, Seven, Hugh, Data, Riker, Troi, Una (Number One), Admanda and counting. Again, I’m only pointing out the obvious.
And keep this in mind, we are only talking 3 (short) seasons of Star Trek so far (and more could show up first season in Picard they are keeping secret). TNG went 70 episodes (yes I looked it up lol) until they had their real first appearance by someone from TOS which was Sarek.
With the advent of shows coming and many will most likely take place in the 23rd and 24th centuries, you think that number will get smaller or bigger? We all know the answer to that. I wouldn’t be surprised of anyone showing up now that they have opened door to it. Why would they now if they think it will bring in more subscribers?
Oh and I DEFINITELY disagree this is Discovery’s last season. Man, where are you GETTING this?? Nothing anywhere has suggested the show is in trouble. Yes I agree it may not have been as big a hit as CBS has hoped and yes there is or was probably a lot of backlash against it (certainly here lol) but nothing out there suggests the show is on its last legs either. NOTHING! It may not go seven years like TNG-DS9-VOY did but I have a feeling it will go at least a few more seasons, at least until more Star Trek is truly up and running on AA full time.
Personally (and this is JUST my opinion nothing more) I think if a Captain Pike show does happen, it will probably take this shows place in a few years though.
Not sure who you were responding to Tiger2 on the point that Discovery has more than a single season left.
I totally agree. S3 of Discovery is clearly intended to be the beginning of a multi-year run in a new era of Trek storytelling.
With seasons 1 & 2, now being sold to broadcast television, CBS is looking to continue to use Discovery to attract new audience for Trek. To do this, more than 27 hours of television is needed.
It depends on whether STD is paying for itself, doesn’t it? And nobody seems to know whether it is or isn’t.
If it’s not, CBS is going to need to stop the bleeding eventually. They don’t seem willing to do it before they have their planned franchise stabilized though.
They keep adding episodes to justify the cost to themselves, so I think it’s safe to say the show is not bringing in an excess of money.
They also don’t seem able to speak honestly about the series in general. The only thing they’ll say is stuff like they “couldn’t be happier” with how it’s doing. Their PR lacks a ring of authenticity to it as a result. They’re talking about a show that still doesn’t have a premise and doesn’t know what it’s about (we do know the second season was about nothing).
I think the series could actually have worn it’s first season (which was nowhere near as bad as fans made it out to be) and still clawed it’s way up from there. I don’t see evidence that it’s done so, and it seems unfathomable to me at this point that it could have. The show now wears two seasons of not having an identifiable premise or coherent themes, the second of which was literally about nothing.
It’s too late. Who knows if it’s doing well. With CBS’ PR, it feels more like they need it to be doing well (whether it is or not) so they can sell these other programs. But by now its audience will already be as large as it’s ever going to be. And either that’s “just fine” with CBS… or it’s not.
@ Sam: You are projecting a lot of your personal dislike into what you believe CBS must be feeling.
By all accounts the deal with Netflix is paying a big chunk of the production costs for Discovery. Even if you don’t like the show it is winning awards for CBS and is one of their most successful shows (whatever that means in absolute numbers).
Shows that are in trouble usually get their seasons shortened. Discovery’s first season was extended by several episodes, and I think season 2 was also extended (the finale was split into 2 parts). That doesn’t sound like CBS is cutting their losses.
Diginon, I have not heard of shows in trouble getting their seasons shortened in the streaming and cable world. Their seasons are already short. And Discovery got their season extended before a single episode was seen by anyone. There was no reason to conclude that decision was made because the show was “doing well”. No one knew how it would fare at that time. What I have heard (and actually seen) is shows that networks really want to work for one reason or another that find themselves in trouble get retooled. Sometimes small, other times huge. Like changing the entire setting of the show.
The season was extended by CBS based on what they had seen (either as scripts or as (early versions of) episodes), not based on audience reaction.
Maybe shortening seasons is more common for network shows than it is for cable/streaming shows. I don’t follow that too closely. If I remember correctly The Leftovers got their last season shortened because HBO wasn’t happy with the show’s performance but didn’t want to outright cancel it either.
Both seasons were extended specifically for budgetary reasons. This was talked about both times in the related Trekmovie articles, as well as by the shuttlepodcasters in the corresponding news-related podcasts. They needed the money spent to look better on paper by having gotten more episodes out of it.
Also Netflix’s support in paying the production costs makes it more paramount that the show (eventually) makes back its money, not less. If it’s not already doing that (and maybe it is) then it can’t.
So then what do we do?
Maybe we’re strategically continuing to bleed money over here, in the hopes that we can eventually make it back over there. But then at some point we’ll need to stop the bleeding altogether. But if we stop the bleeding right now, we may never make our money back over there.
From what I can recall the season got extended a bit so they could complete their story. And they had the money to do it. If they felt it was going swimmingly then that is just speculation on the part of the execs. Sort of like how Paramaunt signed Pine and Quinto to a 4th Trek film before seeing the actual results of Beyond.
In general, and there are exceptions to this, for the more standard 20+ season series new shows will get a partial season order. Perhaps 13 or so episodes. As the show airs the network may or may not decide to go ahead and give them a full season. If it is underperforming it is not usual for networks to pull the plug at any time no matter how many episodes are in the can. Sometimes they may burn off the episodes at a later date. Other times, they just eat them. Obviously this model does not work with short season shows.
Usually when a final season is short it was planned to be that way for whatever reason. Maybe the numbers were low but it had enough of a following to do a handful of episodes to wrap things up. Maybe that was all they needed to wrap up the story. Arrow, for example, is having a shortened final season as we speak by design. Although it was originally announced to be 8 episodes but it may be stretched to 10.
Sorry Sam, I have to agree with DIGINON here, this just sounds like your personal bias that you don’t like the show much and where its going and not really based on information you know the show is not doing well. For the record, you could be completely right, but it sounds like its nothing but sheer speculation on your part. I mean, don’t take offense over this, but you’re doing exactly the same thing all the naysayers on Youtube do every week with this show and just throwing out complete conjecture but treating it as a fact. There is not a single source for anything you have said here, at least none that you mentioned. You just seem to assume the show is doing bad enough to warrant cancellation for some reason.
And I guess I’m just confused on your thoughts on Discovery in general now. I thought you are a big fan of the show? Up until now, I thought you liked it. Now I seem to like it more than you lol. Did something change?
You’re agreeing with him because you got to reply to his posts sooner than I possibly could. I never claimed to have insider knowledge about the show, and my wording upon bringing the subject up made no such insinuation either. But I’m also not going to acknowledge it as “sheer” speculation after I’ve already articulated my reasons for deducing the show is underperforming. CBS behaves as though it’s underperforming, while publicly talking about the show as if they couldn’t be happier with it. There is an obviously huge disconnect there. It seems clear they need it to be a success in order to launch their franchise, and they’re the only ones who know if in fact it is successful.
Now I have no personal investment anymore if STD succeeds or not. I think we all want CBS Trek to succeed, regardless of whether STD can still be a part of that success. I’m not calling for it to end (Full disclosure, I *was* ready for ENT to end in 2005 because I felt Berman Trek had had its day). I’d still be very curious if they did say anything to the effect of this “lost Federation” concept of theirs being intended as a multi-season arc. But tell me you wouldn’t prefer if a whole new show had inherited this premise rather than one with a defective first two seasons. It’s like this new series idea is already getting the second-hand treatment. It doesn’t matter, I’ve mostly divorced myself from it (I’m not claiming to boycott it, and I wouldn’t believe any fan who did).
After S2, it’s clear to me the show’s writing room just never outlined let alone blocked their season. It’s REALLY mystifying, considering a mystery is what the season arc was supposed to be. They went through a bunch of moves and hoped the audience would choose to believe it made some kind of sense, when the story itself was like a snake swallowing its tail until it devours its own intestinal tract. While the better part of their focus went into “fixing” fan gripes such as bald Klingons, holograms, Saru’s threat ganglia, not to mention implausibly shush-shushing both the spore drive and Michael Burnham into historical obsucity. Then the season ended and the story was still about nothing.
But what’s going to actually hurt the show performance-wise is that practically everyone willing to give it a chance will have done so already. And I’ve distanced myself from it. Tilly and Saru deserved better though.
My biggest alarm is that whatever the frack happened with STD S2 may be indicative of CBS’/Kutzman’s overall attitude toward Trek: when in doubt, listen to the gripes of the fans, and consistency with every other Trek is apparently more important than story, theme and character.
Two things in here stand out for me. First, I totally agree with this observation… “CBS behaves as though it’s underperforming, while publicly talking about the show as if they couldn’t be happier with it.” This sort of behavior is pretty typical in the business.
The other thing, and more troubling from my perspective was this… “My biggest alarm is that whatever the frack happened with STD S2 may be indicative of CBS’/Kutzman’s overall attitude toward Trek” I have the same doubts.
I don’t understand it myself TG47, if this is truly Discovery’s last season, why would they reboot the show in such a huge way??? That’s what I don’t get with this reasoning. Clearly they are rebooting the show. What’s the point of completely changing its premise if you know you’re done in a year? Why are you spending MORE money then? I don’t care what anyone says, if you throw your show in a completely different setting that’s going to just cost more because you are redoing nearly everything from the ground up again minus the Discovery sets themselves. It just doesn’t make any sense.
Of course its a TV show, it can still just get cancelled if not enough watch in third season, but nothing has indicated the show is being prepared to end. To me, its the complete opposite and its just getting started, at least on a story level.
As for the FC uniforms, it’s been 20 years since we saw them, so it makes sense to change them by now (this why people don’t have a issue with it when you do it on a sequel show and not on a prequel, ala, Discovery ;)). BUT, I have a feeling we will see the FC uniforms in some form again, but probably done the same way the TOS uniforms are now done in Discovery, ie, not the MAIN uniforms but could still be worn by some in Starfleet.
I really like the new uniforms too and feel more like the updated versions of DS9/VOY so OK with those as well.
Not sure if this is on point, but anyone who can speak clearly and has ever played on Star Trek is fair game for any of these series. The new John Goodman show has an episode where they de-aged him, and in Picard, that’s what they are doing for Data. I suspect if I was Shatner I would say, “pay me to read the phone book in every dramatic style possible” and you then you can use my voice and likeness forever for $100,000,000. It wouldn’t be too much to ask.
Cuz she looks better in orange ;)
I think she got Vice Admiral (3 Stars). Since 1 Star seems not to be used anymore, she skipped 1 promotion.
In starfleet it seems possible to skip a rank. At least if you have the connections.
My guess: The job description of Janeway’s new job has Vice Admiral as requirement. But her new boss (maybe Admiral Paris?) wanted Janeway by his side, so he just promoted her Vice Admiral.
One star is for commodores in wet navy’s other than the United States. I may have this wrong, but I believe we saw at least one commodore in TOS.
So, I’ve figured that to finesse a conflict in canon while not confusing American viewers with an unfamiliar rank, we just happen to never see a Commodore. Instead we see ‘flag’ or ‘fleet’ captains, which is not a bad equivalent in the field.
Back to my comment about Janeway, it was not intended as shade on the character. Rather just seemed odd that she could progress so many stars in a couple of years given the admiralty boards and civilian government executive confirmations required for ranks at that level.
Surely she was a vice-admiral, not a full admiral. She had three pips in a frame rather than four, and it was confirmed by admiral Ross in DSS9 that this insignia is for vice-admiral. Presumably meaning Picard is a full admiral.
Yes, a Vice-Admiral. But even in the Federation, that’s an incredibly senior rank.
Captain to Rear Admiral could happen quickly in wartime, but Vice-Admirals are very few and on track for succession to the top post of Admiral of Starfleet.
It’s important to keep in mind that that with a single unified Starfleet service, the Admiral would be the equivalent of the chair of the joint Chiefs.
“Perhaps most importantly, Spiner confirmed what many had assumed: The Data we’ve seen in the Picard trailer is not representative of what he’s going to look like in the show. They didn’t have time to make post-production tweaks in time for NYCC.”
This would be a dig at all the people who viewed the trailer, and only had negative remarks about Brent’s appearance (He looks fat etc). Trailers are hardly indicative of the “final appearance” of anything. Trailers if anything, are often misleading. Any “reasonable” person assumed that they simply hadn’t “tweaked” his appearance yet, and the above confirms it.
Then again, most reasonable people don’t use scare quotes.
What the hell does that mean?
I gotta admit, way over-designed admirals’ uniforms is a pretty clever TNG easter egg.
I was there. Really enjoyed it. Talked to Denise Crosby, Dominic Keating and Anthony Rapp. Really great seeing Brent Spiner, Levar Burton as well as lots of other Trek actors. Amazing experience for me.
Thanks for sharing Coecludd!
Can you confirm the reports that Denise Crosby said in a panel that there had been some kind of conversations about bringing back Empress Sela?
I didn’t see anything about that but I wish I asked Denise about Sela. I only thought about it afterwards.
Love all those actors, I haven’t met Anthony but he’s on the list
Something about the admiral’s uniform reminds me of Iron Man or some other superhero’s suit. Maybe it’s the colors, the lines, I don’t know. An odd one though.
It looks weird.
Yep, I’m trying to think of ANY admiral’s uniform design that looked great…
Kirk’s In TMP and by extension, Pike’s in Into Darkness
Right, that was a good one.
You really couldn’t go wrong at all in the age of maroon jackets. Even if the medals worn by top brass seemed a little insane.
I am so glad the topic of Data’s appearance was addressed and confirmed to be a thing in progress. Everyone may have assumed so but this, at the very least, confirms they’re aware and they are taking steps to tweak his look, something which wasn’t necessarily guaranteed before.
I wonder if the Discovery shuttle that appeared in a few scenes of the trailer will also be fixed before the show airs. It wasn’t a big deal to me, but there were some fans who caught that and noted it was out of place. It really seems that, unlike Discovery, the producers are trying pretty hard to follow visual continuity as seen in previous shows. Until the script calls for a Klingon, ha!
at first i thought it was birmingham alabama lol.. i was like wow they really are pushing this show. but nice to see them pushing star trek on an international level.
I’m forced to admit, that was my first thought as well.
This was mentioned in the last thread but Denise Crosby was there and hinted we may see Sela on the show as well and confirmed she is still alive in the prime universe (it takes more than a supernova to keep a good Romulan down). One word, YIPEE!! If true, probably won’t happen until second season but I could even see her being teased at the end of season one finale to wet our appetite for season two if she is indeed coming back.
I’m still hoping the Doctor shows up in season 2 as well if Picardo was serious, one of my favorite characters. Just a lot of exciting possibilities!
neat
I hope the pet is a tardigrade.
I don’t understand why people are even asking if Lower Decks is canon or not. Why would they go to the time and effort and cost of making a show just to say it doesn’t count?
It’s so bizarre to me as well. Star Trek is going for full immersion and wants all the shows to be looked at as one big continuing story line even if they are different crews, eras and formats. And it would suck to a lot of people to see someone like Worf or Bashir show up on the show just to find out its not part of canon.
As weird as it is to some, for whatever reason people just becomes more invested in something when they know its canon and part of the bigger universe. The second you tell them it isn’t, you start to lose viewers and CBS wouldn’t want to risk that.
I agree Tiger2.
I’m not sure if these recurrent questions are due to the ‘off again, on again’ canon status of TAS, or a deeply held belief among some fans that animated series can’t be canon.
Roddenberry himself was inconsistent in his messaging about TAS, so I can accept that there is lingering confusion.
However, there seems to be little merit to creating new animated series to draw in a broader base of fans while at the same time allowing any doubt that these new shows are fully legitimate, canonical parts of the franchise.
Lower Decks and the Nickelodeon show have to be canon to fulfill their roles in the overall strategy.
IMHO the psychology goes like this: “To date you’ve structured the stories such that the effort of remembering obscure details has a pay-off, but in this latest version you’ve redefined those details, hence making a mockery of my investment.”
Or sometimes: “In this version you didn’t care enough to get the details right; if you’re *paid* to do this, why am I so much better at it?”
In terms of “has the saga grown so big that ‘canon’ is an impediment?”, “Star Trek”-on-screen occupies an awkward middle-ground. Something like Marvel or “Transformers” has had so many versions and creators that fans have become accustomed to a modular approach: *this* module uses familiar names and tropes, and is internally consistent, but is intentionally divergent from other modules. We do that for the novel, comic, and RPG iterations of “Trek”, but still aspire to the ideal that all of the moving-picture versions share a single tent.
Hypothesis: After the “Kelvin Timeline” movies and the tempests over visual and tech-capability canon in DSC, fans have become sensitized to the issue, and creators have become sensitized to fan-outrage — so McMahan et al are paying attention. Or at least being showbiz-diplomatic.
To what degree *their* idea of canon and *our* idea of canon are aligned, is yet to be demonstrated.
Lower Decks and the Nickelodeon show have David Mack as a consultant.
He’s a successful Trek author, but also has two script credits from DS9.
Mack has written books that cover the breadth of the franchise: all 5 series, Discovery and even Kelvin Trek.
He knows the minutiae of Trek, but also know that there are a plethora of inconsistencies – going right back to the first season of TOS.
Bringing Mack on board gives me a lot of confidence that the showrunners for these two shows want not only to line up with canon, but to have things make sense in the continuity of the Prime Trekverse.
A lot of updates for sure, but I would like to get an update on Tarantino, though I guess no update is the update.
Were any of the cast or crew from the Kelvin movies/Bad Robot present in Birmingham? If they are still pursuing the Tarantino Trek it seems to be on the back burner at best.
I think the entire focus is now with the streaming.
There will be another film eventually but it’s not a bad idea to leave that part of the property to hibernate and allow the streaming shows to breath.
Star Wars is going the same way by the looks of it after Solo box office failure (which IMO is because no one wanted a SOLO movie, and it was crap!!) as they seem to be changing course and entering the streaming market big time as well.
Terminator seems to be bombing too so franchise fatigue seems a real concern in the industry right now; Spending big money is not putting bums in seats so it’s very risky.
‘rise of skywalker’ will hit big.
SW ain’t finished on the big screen, just taking advantage of the arena of streaming for its tv content.
The comment that stood out to me most was “we will learn a lot more about the Borg”. I don’t know about others but to me the Borg have been done to death. If they can find a way to make them more interesting or relevant then I guess. It’s just that after Voyager I feel like the bulk of the Borg stories have been visited. If they can succeed on that front, more power to them. I hope they do.
And the other thing about it is… It rings too much like another line that for me at least has become something one should never say about a Star Trek project. It is too similar to “we are going to dive into the Klingons like never before.” Such comments now hold a place for me right along side “love letter to the fans.”
this is the first ‘trek’ series to feature the borg since that ENT ret con ep so enough time has passed for this to be a fresh take, especially with 7 and hugh involved.
I would say it’s not about how much time has gone by but what has been done with them already. We’ve seen a lot done with the Borg already. Obviously speaking for myself, I’m kinda Borged out. They have a ‘been there done that’ feel to them. But their presence is an excuse to include 7 of 9 and she was interesting enough that I was wondering what became of her when Voyager returned. In fact, the abrupt nature of the end of that show caused me to wonder what happened to ALL of them. But that’s another matter.
A lot of newer fans probably haven’t even watched Voyager anyway to be honest. Even less probably have watched Enterprise.
And I’d add that Endgame which was the last proper Borg episode was made 19 years ago by the time Picard launches in 2020. CGI and modern filmmaking is a mixed bag but I’m excited to see a modern version of the Borg because frankly the Borg on Voyager look fairly tame by today’s production values.
“A lot of newer fans probably haven’t even watched Voyager anyway to be honest. Even less probably have watched Enterprise.”
Exactly DataMat! This is what happens when you are in the bubble as we are. For a lot of people, these shows are OLD now. Very old. If you’re a college student today you are still younger than when Voyager even started. Most new fans watching the shows today do in fact seem to watch most of the shows at least based on what I read online, but that doesn’t mean all of them or every show either. And of course that doesn’t include all the newer fans who started with the Kelvin movies or now Discovery. There is a LOT of Trek out there today that many of those have still not seen or familiar with.
And yes as you also said, we are watching shows with decades old technology and make up. Many people would love to see how different something like the Borg would look with today’s FX. I was shocked how great (and scary) they made them look in First Contact compared to the shows because they simply had the time and money to really upgrade them for a movie audience. And thankfully that look stayed when they showed up on Voyager. But this was all decades ago now. They would probably be upgraded once again.
I respect ML31 and we agree as much as we disagree these days, but not everyone watch these shows over and over again on a weekly basis 20 years later as if they are all new. If you are constantly watching the same reruns as most of us here admittedly do from TOS to Enterprise, yes it probably does feel like old hat to you, because none of it never went away. But for people who are new or just more casual viewers, a lot of this stuff has not been seen by them in ages. They probably do welcome to see a lot of these things again in a new show and excited to see it come back.
I mean I always stress this but that’s the entire point of bringing Picard back himself IMO. He represents basically the entire 24th century era and everything that takes place in it, even if he didn’t directly experience all of it himself. It’s almost like how Iron Man represents the MCU even if he’s not involved in every facet of it. But Picard is a symbol of all of that and if you are excited to see HIM back then that could include everything that took place in this period as well.
I don’t understand why some can’t understand this? Especially since its been 20+ years since we seen most of it. But based everything we seen and heard, that’s what this is. Its not suppose to be a TNG sequel, it’s simply a continuation of the 24th century era and everything that encompass it and the Borg are a big part of that. Yes obviously TNG will be the forefront given its Picard who stars in it and its his story but its being treated more like a shared universe, hence why Seven is there and even have bigger a role than anyone else in the TNG cast that is showing up. Think about that. That should tip people off this isn’t about TNG anymore per se, but about the era itself as I been debating it with another member here in another part of the page.
I think the issue is the producers made it sound like this story would just be about some personal Picard story and very little beyond that. And sure character wise, that might true to some extent as he’s the lead, but its very clear now the show is really representing the era as a whole, its past, present and obviously future.
OK DataMat. To me it is less about the production values and more about what can they do with the Borg to make a good story. I’m not saying that well has dried. Only that 18 years later I still feel like the Borg have been used enough. Sort of like how many have claimed they feel the Klingons have been used enough.
I think you guys may have it backwards.
Voyager is likely more well known among younger fans than Picard in TNG.
Voyager is reported to be the most streamed of the older 5 Star Trek series on Netflix. It’s standing up better to the test of time than many expected.
Including Seven of Nine and the Borg in a continuation of 90s is a smart way to bring this new audience on board with the new Picard series.
But actually I would say it is. I mean it gets pointed out to me over and over again this show is not just to excite old fans but to bring in new ones as well. The Borg are one of the most popular and known species in the Star Trek franchise, so they clearly want to reintroduce them, not to just people who have been watching them for 30 years but to a new generation of fans who has probably never seen a Borg before and can get excited over them.
Yes we do have to remember most of this stuff hasn’t been seen for decades now so for a lot of people they would like to see them again or at least another take on them. And that includes people who are making the shows themselves. They are fans too lets not forget and they probably have tons of ideas they want to do with old species and characters. I’m convinced a huge part of the reason we have a post-Nemesis show now because they CAN use the Borg again. People on Discovery in the past have said they would love to have used the Borg, but obviously couldn’t.
It’s probably why Discovery is now a thousand years into the future as well. At first I just thought they did it so they can explain away the canon issues the show originally had and do anything they want story wise. But after watching that first trailer, now I think its because they want to just realign the dynamics of the galaxy as well with old species/groups giving them new directions and/or motives like they are obviously doing with the Federation. In Picard’s time, the Cardassians are seen as foes but who knows what they are by the 32nd century? So I think they want to just add their own twists to a lot of these things, Borg included.
In Picard, the Borg could actually be the victims for a change. We NEVER seen this before so that would be a new take if true. The only time we seen the Borg just a little inferior is when they were fighting Species 8472. So I’m really excited to see where its going.
Fair enough. To me this feeling does not come from rewatching the shows over and over again. In fact, I have only seen about 90% of TNG episodes only once. And have over the last decade rewatched ONCE DS9 and Voyager. It’s about knowing that Voyager used the Borg quite a bit in their run. And this feeling existed even before I rewatched the show. I just found the Borg to be simplistic. I think it obvious they were created because their new bad guys (Ferengi) didn’t work. So along come an enemy where it was impossible to talk to and reason with. They were almost entirely created as an excuse to fire phasers. Sure, at various times attempts were made to put some meat on their bones. And to some extent they succeeded. But they just feel done to me. A thing from Trek’s past that feels lazy to revisit YET again. To me, even diving back into Klingon culture feels like it has more potential.
I know how you feel about a Khan show or story. Think of it that way. You feel like his episode and movie are enough. Well, one could argue that as the main antagonist from arguably the most respected film of the franchise, his character could be fleshed out a lot more. And to be honest, while I do not feel it necessary even something featuring Khan feels like there is more untapped potential than just running back to the Borg.
Admittedly, Picard was never a favorite of mine. I place him behind Kirk, Sisko and Janeway. In that order. But this show does look to have potential. I’m really hoping they don’t dip into the ‘member berries too much. But I fear there very well could be a lot of that. I really think there is real potential to make Picard somewhat interesting here. I am hoping they can come through. I really do. There are a lot of doubts, however. I guess we will find out in a few months.
If you’re not a fan of the Borg personally, I understand that. But in terms of the fanbase, they are very popular and it was always going to be ‘when’ and not an ‘if’ they were used again. But let me make this clear, I have a feeling EVERYTHING will eventually be reused again, from Khan to Q the Xindi and everything in between. Maybe even Sybock might eventually be used (please don’t throw stones at me).
But no one they bring back would be a surprise to me. Look HOW MUCH they have brought back or plan to bring back in the last two years alone since DIS short time on the air? Did anyone ever think we would see both Captain Pike and Section 31 appear anytime soon if at all…and on the same show? We just got a tribble origin story a few weeks ago. They plan to keep Trek on the air for probably the next 10 to 15 years if it succeeds and there will always be someone who wants to bring back certain characters, groups and species. We know of five shows coming now. It’s just too many of them to NOT expect tons of reused species and characters, hence why there are Trills, Andorians and Cardassians in season 3 of Discovery even though that takes place a thousand years later. NONE of these groups are going anywhere, period. As long as everything stays in canon and there are enough fans who want to see these things, then of course eventually they will do them again. And as said, it will be a way to introduce them to new audiences as well. The Borg is the BIGGEST no-brainer in this regard.
As for Khan, I want to make this clear, I have no issues of seeing him again, I just don’t think there needs to be an entire show about him either, that’s all. It’s safe to say I would feel exactly the same way if they gave the Borg their own show (but I would be fascinated to see how they pull that off lol). I would be fine if they brought Khan on a few episodes of Discovery for example, but we know thats impossible and the entire issue with Khan as a character. We know his entire story and most of it is relegated to either the Eugenics wars or being stuck on a barren planet for 20 years. There is literally noting you can do with him inbetween those events because he’s floating through space. And we obviously know how he dies. The Borg is an entire species that’s been around thousands of years and just different everything else in Star Trek. Khan is just one guy. And I said I’m open to seeing something involving the Eugenics wars but we know that is fraught with a lot of issues and why no one seems to want to touch it.
But yes your feelings about the Borg was exactly how I felt when we were told Discovery first season would be about the Klingons. I just had no interest in a full on story with them because yeah THEY have been around forever. But yes, I also know Klingons are a really iconic group and basically defined the TOS era since, frankly, they are really the only villains during this time so obviously they were going to have a big part in the show. Unfortunately they sucked. ;) But they were always going to be there obviously.
I wish to make it clear that I did not mind the Borg when they first arrived. Even though I knew they were created to FORCE Picard to fire phasers. At the time an early complaint was that the Enterprise didn’t fire their weapons nearly enough for fans taste. That does NOT mean fans wanted nothing but pew pew. But that we (fans) did want a little excitement from time to time as a side dish to go along with our main course of moralistic monologues. I enjoyed seeing the Borg as much as anyone else. It felt appropriate to use them in a TNG feature film. Voyager started dipping into that well. Which I also did not mind at all. It’s just that after all that, it feels like Trek has become Borged out. Even Enterprise felt the need to go there. While that story did tie in with First Contact, that was when I sorta started thinking, “enough with the Borg, please!”
And let’s also be clear that bringing in existing aliens from the Trek universe (like characters who are Romulan, Trill or Andorian for example) is not the same thing as revolving and entire story line around a concept that feels like it has been done to death. (STD season 2 did that already with the AI terminat… er… thing.) It also makes perfect sense that mates from TNG would appear in Picard as the story would allow. That doesn’t bug me either because if feels like it could be super appropriate. But the thing about that is there is a line between an organic element of the story and just gratuitous stunt casting. And let’s be further clear, as much as I LOVED seeing Mount as Pike (after initially HATING the idea) it was still a stunt designed to help an under performing show. It’s why Burnham had a Spock connection. It was obviously a safety net to use in the event the show stagnated or had some other issue. And I don’t mind casting stunts per se… The fan in me actually LOVES it. I’d just prefer to keep them to a minimum. One thing I think TNG DID get right was how few references there were to TOS over their run. I think they could have gotten away with a few more but they erred on the side of caution and looking back it was probably the right call. I know the Borg are popular but back then TOS was popular, too. And TNG opted to do their own thing to the point where we never even say Andorians on TNG. Which I felt was a tad too much distancing. Seemed to work out OK for them.
I understand everything you’re saying. I feel differently on some of it, especially the Borg, but you’re not the first one who felt they were overdone either. But I still have to stress its been 18 years since anyone used them now. As stated there are new writers who probably have different ideas and approaches on what they could do with them. I mean we don’t even know HOW they are being used or fit into the story, so you may be surprised. But it was always going to be a when because in reality the Borg fascinates a lot of people and with so much Star Trek coming around and back in eras where they can be used, obviously someone was going to want to use them.
And I mean I can see other old species or groups given complete story lines in the future just like the Klingons were given in DIS first season and Section 31 in season 2. We obviously don’t know much about DIS season 3 yet but I wouldn’t be shocked if that is ultimately about the Trills, Romulans, Cardassians or whoever. I’m not saying it will be, I just wouldn’t be surprised if it was based on everything that has come so far.
But sometimes I admit, I don’t know why things like reusing characters and groups surprise people? This is how all popular entertainment is done. Comic books reuse the same characters over and over again for literally decades. How many stories have their been about the Joker, Lex Luthor, Hydra, Green Goblin, Hellfire Club, etc. Star Wars has basically been fighting the same one enemy since its existence. There has been different names and variations for it but its the same people for decades now when all said and done. No one seemed bothered about it all this time. Now they supposedly will be moving on from all of that after the next movie but we’ll see.
But this par for the course. There will just always be Klingons, Romulans, Borgs, Cardassians and so on. It doesn’t mean they will be a constant in every show or movie but as we are seeing now, eventually they will all show up at some point because they have become part of the mythology of the universe. I don’t any of them will ever be just forgotten which is why I’m convinced Khan will eventually show up again as he did in STID. People were BEGGING not to use Khan again and yet there he was lol.
But its proof its naive for people to expect they are just going to stop using them completely when that really doesn’t happen in most science fiction and fantasy stories where anything can happen. Even when they supposedly kill villains off completely some new writer finds a way to return them over and over again. The Horror genre is infamous for that lol.
I do agree that it is possible someone has come up with a new take on the Borg. And it is possible it could be a very good story line involving Picard. This I cannot deny. We must wait to see if this will be so. I just wish, without seeing the result, mind you, they went another way. That said, I was bummed they included Pike in Discovery and boy was I wrong about that.
I’m also not sure if you are talking to me or to the thread readers in general because I believe I already addressed my feelings regarding using characters and aliens vs creating new situations.
Oh and forgot to add, as far as Pike showing up on DIS, clearly it was stunt casting, no doubt. But it WORKED! More so than I think even the people who came up with it thought it would because now everyone is begging for a spin off show. That’s my other point too, end of the day Star Trek fans CLAIM they want different things (and a lot do) but they will also happily take the familiar as well.
And its nothing wrong with that obviously. I make it clear I would be fine with no attachments but this stuff excites me like everyone else obviously. I get excited too when I hear Riker, Seven or Spock are coming back. We’re fans, its always fun seeing your favorites again, even just for an episode or two.
And Pike hasn’t been explored at all canon wise, so I can see the appeal. But its exactly why I’m convinced you are going to see more and more returning characters show up. Picard is the first Star Trek show that is directly about a returning character and if it hits big, it obviously won’t be the last. I can easily see other TNG spin off character shows. Micheal Dorn could even get his Worf show (I hope not personally). It doesn’t mean it will happen soon but yes down the line anything is possible now. Once you open that door and you get so many positive responses over it, its hard to close it. It hasn’t happened yet but if a Pike show does happen and the Picard show is popular (and how can it not be, at least the first season), this can start a trend never truly done in Trek before.
But as long as they are still making original stuff too it may not be so bad and it could be the best of both worlds as we are getting something completely new with Discovery in season 3 (at least no returning characters and a completely new setting and era we never seen before) and a return to the TNG era in Picard.
Socially dysfunctional fans spend so much time worrying about the entirely irrelevant concept of “canon.”
Pick Hard, your comment seems intended to troll.
However, it’s an excellent opportunity for me to cite a couple of pithy lines from David Weber, an extremely popular, top-selling author of military science fiction and space opera.
Weber has written an intro essay to a new anthology of space opera entitled ” Infinite Stars: Dark Frontiers”. He concludes:
“Space Opera is collaboration on a grand scale between the imagination of the storyteller and the imagination of the audience. Neither can succeed without the other, but together they can take us on a voyage beyond any starship…”
He also notes that among the characteristics of readers of space opera is that they like conisistent world building, plots that make sense and authors who play fair with them with their favourite characters.
So, yes canon does matter to the extent that Trek is a franchise that is space opera to its core.
There’s lots of other good thoughts for Trek fans and Trek authors in Weber’s essay. This second Infinite Stars volume is also looking to be a solid anthology of short stories from a wide range of favourite authors.
Roll Tide!
That would be so cool is Saban dropped in.