“The End is the Beginning”
Star Trek: Picard Season 1, Episode 3 – Debuted Thursday, February 6, 2020
Written by Michael Chabon & James Duff
Directed by Hanelle Culpepper
Spoiler-Free Review
“The End is the Beginning” is an apt title, since this is the last of the three episodes that set up the story. I’ve been trying to resist comparisons to Star Trek: Discovery because it can be so divisive, and also because I’m a fan of the show despite its weaknesses. But it’s hard not compare the two set-ups. Discovery took two episodes to set up three basic facts: Michael Burnham mutinied thinking she was doing the right thing, Georgiou was her mentor, and she knows Saru.
What these three Star Trek: Picard episodes did was tell us everything we need to know about why Picard is going on this mission, why it matters to his conscience as well as his soul. It also sets up his companions elegantly, with just enough information to make us care about what happens to them next and be glad they’re along for the ride.
[WARNING: Spoilers from here on]
Episode Discussion
Another strong episode, and better, I think, than episode two. The big standout for me was Michelle Hurd as Raffi, and the complex, rich-in-backstory relationship she has with Picard. The fact that she calls him “J.L.”–which we’ve never heard before from anyone–speaks volumes about their connection, and everything she does feels 100% authentic… and very intense.
In a flashback, we learn that Picard’s break with Starfleet cost Raffi her career, and changed the course of her life. Her enthusiasm for their cause and her realization that she was being abandoned is beautifully drawn by both the writers and the actor, so when we find her 14 years later in (ahem) Vasquez Rocks, alone and vaping snakeleaf, her surroundings and her attitude change seem like a natural evolution. And now we know that Jean-Luc never really thought his resignation would be accepted, adding even more layers to his falling out with Starfleet.
Raffi and J.L. discuss the situation after the Mars incident.
I can’t say enough about Hurd’s performance—I’ve been a fan of hers for years. She brings so much to every line and every gesture, making us want to know more but not as if there’s some secret piece of information we don’t have. Her attitude towards his life of luxury while she lived in solitary “humiliation” makes perfect sense, given their history and the place where their paths diverged, and makes her an utterly compelling character.
I also loved the scenes at Picard’s “chateau,” as she called it, when they were attacked. Discovery has taught us that no character is safe, and it served Picard well in this episode, upping the stakes considerably. I felt that any moment, Zhaban or Laris could’ve been killed—remember, there is no “stun” setting on a Romulan disruptor—and was immensely relieved when they weren’t. Dr. Jurati’s well-timed arrival helped forge her connection to Picard, and his compassion for her after she realized she’d killed someone was, well… lovely. This new Picard has a deeper empathy than he used to; in his younger days he had compassion and sympathy, but now he seems to really understand what people are feeling, a type of wisdom that often comes with age. Deanna Troi would be proud.
The introduction of Rios, as well as his groovy-looking ship, was enjoyable. I’m hoping his over-the-top macho attitude–the cigar, the disinterest in the dermal regenerator–will provide some fuel for gentle mockery later by his traveling companions, but we did see his more thoughtful side as he read The Tragic Sense of Life by Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno. And his EMH and ENH were fun, with their different accents and saucy attitudes. They speak volumes about the ego of a guy who’d want holograms around that look just like him, but give him a hard time and offer commentary on his personality.
This ship is operated by the firm of Rios, Rios, and Rios.
Just being on Rios’ ship seemed to change Picard’s demeanor (despite his old man sweater—bring back the brown jacket!). He has a bit of a lilt in his voice, his body language is more relaxed, and he has more confidence. We didn’t need familiar music to remind us, although it was a nice touch: this man belongs on a starship, even if he hesitates, then walks past the captain’s chair.
Less effective this week were the scenes on the Borg cube, although it was great to see Hugh again after all these years. I am now filled with questions about everything that happened to him after the events of TNG’s “Descent.” What I’m not filled with questions about is the Romulan mythology plot, because they’re not giving me enough to grasp onto. There’s no hook. I will wait for it to play out and maybe then those scenes will start to come together, but I’m not invested in speculating yet. And the quick cutting from the cube to the vineyard and back, with just a few lines spoken in each scene, zapped the intensity away on both sides. I didn’t really see a reason for it.
The whole scene with the Romulan “disordered” was confusing, but did remind me a little bit of “Frame of Mind.” I kept waiting for Susanna Thompson to show up and talk into a spoon.
Soji reads Romulan Tarot cards with Ramdha.
The worst part of the episode: Lt. Rizzo Narissa’s turn as a faux-Georgiou, which I found rather annoying. She’s now in skintight leather and she and her brother Narek have a weirdly sexual vibe going on between them. Big yawn.
Do Romulan siblings always stand this close?
When Picard takes a quiet moment to look up at the stars, much as young René did at the end of TNG’s “Family,” we can almost see young Jean-Luc doing the same. His affectionate farewell to his vineyard life is touching, and true to his character. I’m glad he mentioned Number One, even if the dog hasn’t been seen in two episodes. (Michael Chabon and Hanelle Culpepper told Wil Wheaton that the dog wasn’t a very good actor in the first episode of The Ready Room, so I’m assuming that’s why, but he was missed.) And that moment is a great example of how deftly the writers are handling callbacks to TNG and other Trek series; they seem to be there for organic reasons, and work for both the Trek vet and the newbie.
The episode ends on a high note. Our crew is assembled, all fascinating, rich characters in their own way. And I’m not ashamed to admit it: When Rios said they were ready to go and Jean-Luc looked ahead at the viewscreen, I was on my couch saying, out loud, “Say it, say it, say it, say it, say it” and then he said it. “Engage.”
Picard says the magic word.
P.S. What is up with Soji’s mom? Is she just a phony? Is she in on it? Is she a simulation? Can she put Soji to sleep remotely? Why would Soji have a video screen that’s transparent so she can see her own foot through her mom’s face? Will have to wait for answers on that, minus the transparent screen question.
Random Observations
- Why is Rios smoking? That seems an incredibly odd habit to have when we know humans haven’t smoked in at least 200 years. It also just feels rather wrong in the world of Trek.
- Sunglasses, while less commonly seen, aren’t totally out of place in Trek. On Enterprise they were part of the standard field issue when in desert climates. In the the 24th century we’ve seen sunglasses on Geordi in First Contact and on Reg Barclay on the beach in Voyager.
- Raffi’s house is officially said to be in Vasquez Rocks, making this real-world location, used for so many other planets in Trek productions, now a canonical place on Earth.
- The synths working on Mars were model A-500 androids.
- Based on what Laris implies when talking to Zahban about the captured Zhat Vash operative, Northern Romulans have ridges, while those in other regions don’t.
- In a fun easter egg that’s a nod to the fact that Raffi lives in Vasquez Rocks (perhaps was most famously used as the location for the Kirk vs. Gorn fight in TOS: “Arena”) there’s a mention of a literal “egg” in form of a cryptographic algorithm called “Gorn Egg.”
Raffi finds a Gorn easter egg.
The Ready Room
This week brought a nice interview with Michelle Hurd, who delved into how her character is an addict. (Made me wonder about Picard’s choice to bring her a bottle of wine.) She talked about the importance of representation without all the producer pomp; it means something very personal to her as a biracial woman. You can tell she has thought deeply about her character, AND that she’s thrilled to be a new part of the Star Trek legacy. She and Wheaton had a nice talk about how much it means to them to be friends with Patrick Stewart, and she mentioned how careful he is with the scripts when he feels he’s being asked to do something fans would have issues with.
They had a segment with fan questions, which didn’t give us any new information, but I was fascinated by the fact that they described Patrick Stewart as the funny one on set, given the stories of how he was the serious one among the TNG actors until they taught him how to loosen up, all those years ago.
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New episodes of Star Trek: Picard are released on CBS All Access in the USA on Thursdays. In Canada it airs Thursdays on CTV Sci-Fi Channel at 6PM PT /9PM ET and streams on Crave. For the rest of the world it streams Fridays on Amazon Prime Video. Episodes are released weekly.
Keep up with all the Star Trek: Picard news at TrekMovie.
I like the cigar. While the idea that smoking should have diminished by the 24th century has real merit, seeing a character go against convention is kinda’ nice. It gives the universe some depth, that there are more than just pious characters in the story. People are people, and Star Fleet piousness isn’t the only law in the universe. Heck, even Kirk smoked a cigar on Rura Penthe.
Any idea why these elite groups of Romulan bikers keep getting defeated by beaming down to Picard as he hides behind things, instead of just beaming him and his female data / middle aged defenders up into the vacuum of space?
Maybe he has sensors throughout his home that would be able to register transport signatures?
I would guess that a person of such stature will have a personal transport blocking device to prevent unwarranted beaming. These type of technologies can be so small (as we’ve seen in the past) something like an implant under the skin. Heck, if I lived in a world like that, I would implant that kind of devices on every one around me.
The big secret that will literally break your mind to know it? Assimilation into a collective mind. This is why the Romulans hate AI, cybernetics and androids.
Romulans created the borg 1000 years in the past accidentally when they split from Vulcan, they sent out Von Neumann probes with artificial intelligence and the ability to self replicate, sent out into each quadrant to assimilate information and then return it to the Empire a couple of hundred years later. The delta quadrant probe was a disaster, it decided to assimilate not only information, but biological creatures and technology as part of it’s information gathering in it’s mission to perfect Romulan knowledge because they gave the AI the ability to make it’s own decisions. Thus, the borg were born. The Romulans received a transmission of this and were powerless to stop it.
Now (since two weeks ago?) the Romulans hate AI and (as described) cybernetics. That’s the important word mentioned. Did you miss it? The uber secret group of Romulans have been tasked with one thing, to ensure that AI with the ability to self replicate is obliterated at all costs and self replicating cyborgs can never exist again, otherwise it will destroy everything. What more perfect opportunity to stop the federation furthering AI than to destroy the Romulan rescue armada with hacked federation androids. Not only can they destroy the androids, but also dissuade the federation from pursuing AI and cyborgs in one fell swoop. As far as they are concerned 900 million Romulans dead is preferable to the Federation inadvertently creating cyborg again which will surely spread and wipe out the whole quadrant anyway.
And so we have the motive behind the android attacks, the need to kill off the android twins, and the reason the cube exists as a “reclamation” artifact. It disconnected from the collective the moment Romulans were assimilated, it had fulfilled it’s task of returning everything the collective assimilated back to the Romulans. Artifacts are of the past. Reclamation is reclaiming the result of their own initial probes. The assimilated Romulans knew of the original probes and what evolving AI ultimately results in, a destroyer of everything it encounters. The cubes to this day even use the trademark Romulan green colour palette, and all because the Romulans wanted to perfect their knowledge of the galaxy.
The bad guy Romulans are actually doing something right, they are trying to prevent another catastrophic accidental Borg 2.0 being created. Kurtzman likes retcons and twists, Picard will realise that the bad guy Romulans are actually the good guys, as is Commodore f-bomb, and in true Terminator 2 style, the 2nd twin will have to self sacrifice, just like Data. Picard will finally accept that Data dying was the best possible outcome, and be at peace with his past, along with 7 and Hugh who will also get closure. STD season 2 narrowly avoided another version of the Borg being created again. This is the plot that binds STD to Picard as one continuous story.
There, I just saved you an All Access subscription and 10 weeks of waiting for something to pay off.
Is that from your sources? Can you please clear up if this is your personal opinion or something you were told. Pretty easy Question, just asking.
By the way I can afford $10 a month I just want to know if your sources are as good as you say, if you believe in them then you should be confident in backing them up.
So I guess if you know the whole story then you won’t be watching or commenting anymore since you know it all right?
We’ve seen “transport inhibitors” previously. There’s surely technology like this installed in the personal residence of a flag officer, and probably among the population at large, for that matter.
Absolutely agree, transporter inhibitors for has to be widespread device due to security reasons.
Re: Smoking
Not to mention even with synthahol, we know they are still partaking of illegal drugs, i.e. Romulan ale. So why would nicotine be avoided by scofflaws?
Even the Iotians were sporting stogies, so the doomed ship must have been been toting tobacco plants in addition to the mob book?
And Federation citizens could safely learn how to partake of these substances on holdecks/suites.
And Mudd’s women certainly didn’t seem hesitant to ingest Harry’s drugs?
The Federation representative on the backwater planet Nimbus III in “Final Frontier” was smoking too. So it seems smoking in the 23rd and 24th century is mainly for people who ended up in “loser” positions within Federation society…
Was just about to point that out about Star Trek VI!
It really is an ugly and uninspiring ship. Somehow it’s worse than the Pizza Cutter, I mean, Discovery.
I disagree. Nothing is uglier and more uninspiring than Discovery.
It looks like what the Delta Flyer should have looked like if they had genuinely had 48 hours to design and build it to retrieve that probe from the gas giant. ie a crock.
Absolutely agree
Disagree there; this is nowhere near as good as Discovery 1031.
To me, it feel like someone saw the Normandy in Mass Effect and based the design off of it.
It’s just some generic ship you would see in most sci-fi movies and video games.
Agreed. It just feels too generic and as you said something you find in any sci fi story or video game. Even more so since everyone seems to keep comparing it to Mass Effect lol.
It just sucks THIS is the ship that will supposedly be the star of the show. And I thought Discovery was bad.
Agreed, Tiger. Very disappointing. Kurtzman-Trek does not do ships well, thus far.
Agreed, Hope the ‘La Sirena’ serves our heroes well and goes down and destroyed in a ‘blaze of glory’ by the end of the season, which would be a wonderful ST3 and Generations homage.
I hope they destroy it much more sooner and board that old romulan ship we see in trailers…
Yeah I’m not as hard on the ship designs as other people are here, but sadly the most beautiful design we gotten on this show appeared in the first few minutes of the first episode, the E-D, and nothing has been nearly close to that. We still have 2/3rds of the season to surprise us but not holding my breath for anything amazing.
This is not a show about the best and and most advanced ships in Starfleet, and at least they are being consistent to that idea (so far).
I totally agree VS. The name of the show is Picard, not La Sirena.
More, as I argued further down the thread, I suspect this is a state-of-the-art ship hiding under a mundane disguise.
How and why Rios has it when it’s so obviously a former Starfleet Intelligence ship is likely an interesting story. I’d like to see that in a Short Trek.
No but they could have made something that’s memorable and at least echoes something that looks like it’s from Star Trek. This ship is right out of any generic science fiction movie or video game.
Exactly Denny C! No one is saying the shop has to be the Enterprise, but it’s just generic and boring looking to some of us for a Star Trek show, that’s all.
The Defiant wasn’t a typical Star Trek ship but people loved it because it still had its own style while feeling very much in the world of Star Trek and not just any sci fi show or movie.
Exactly.. First sketches of Defiant are horrible, but final version is beautiful. Sirena looks like someone used first sketch and did not care it is ugly :(
And I’m not saying that it is. It can just be a better looking ship! ;)
Elon Musk designed it to stand out from all the other space pickup trucks.
After three episodes, I’m skeptical any one ship will be the star of the show, Tiger2. Maybe the disappointment is rooted in how long it took for the show to get to this point?
Just like Discovery, we didn’t see the star vehicle until the 3rd episode. This series’ 3rd episode is really the end of the pilot which took 3 weeks to view.
I wished we had more than 10 episodes, this season is already 1/3 done!
I’m with you!
I’m wondering if the season is actually 11 episodes.
From what we heard from the producers, the opening sequence was originally intended to be two rather than three episodes. The flashback scene to Mars in the cold open of episode 2 was shot later once they realized they could / had to extend the run time.
It’s possibly an error on Imdb, but the cast listing shows Patrick Stewart in 11 episodes. On the other hand, the directors listings only sum to 10 episodes.
Guess we’ll see…
@TG47 That would be nice if it is 11 episodes and certainly it’s not unprecedented as Discovery seasons have been extended. However, the 11 episodes as stated is not an error – it’s 10 episodes of season 1 and 1 from season 2. Whenever a show is renewed IMDB always lists the first episode of the newly announced season alongside the episodes already produced.
I don’t know… After seeing them we may decide that 10 is too many. I already think they could have done what they did in these three in two.
Aside from having the look of a generic sci fi ship, one would think that ‘a guy with a ship’ would have been flying around in something a bit older and likely repurposed based on his limited means (a runabout, old science vessel or scout ship).
Everyone seems to be enjoying the show but no one really seems to care for this ship.
The entire series so far seems like a Mass Effect 2 re-do in the Star Trek universe.
“It’s just some generic ship you would see in most sci-fi movies and video games.”
And that’s exactly what it’s supposed to be – a generic NON-STARFLEET private ship, a mercenary, freighter, whatever ship, steered by one man, NOT a Starfleet vessel that breaks the design lineage of the time period it is set in like Discovery (the 1970s design it is based on was shelved for a reason). I don’t get the hate for this ship. Have you seen the civilian ships and freighters in TNG? Compared to that, this is a beauty ;)
My thoughts exactly, VS. La Sirena is not a Starfleet battle cruiser with twin nacelles and a separate engineering section. It should be compared with an upgraded Xhosa than a Starfleet vessel with a crew of hundreds.
The 1970s design was not shelved. The movie it was supposed to go into (Planet of the Titans) was shelved, and the design was abandoned along with the director who had selected it. Several study models were built based on that design and eventually appeared as background ships in Star Trek, showing they are nothing but part of the canon… Discovery just followed this trail. Nothing wrong with that.
Exactly VS!
More to the point, the ship has a lot of less-than-obvious tech that an experienced Starfleet eye like Picard’s recognized immediately.
This is a retired Q-ship I bet. Looks like a merchant vessel, but is really quick, dangerous and has high end sensors and intelligence capacity – not to mention a crew of holograms.
Correct. Unlike the Xhosa mentioned above, it does not have outdated TOS-style computers but fancy holographic controls that are decidedly post-Nemesis even by Starfleet flagship standards. Like Rio wanted his ship be underestimated from the outside and flying under radar (literally) – that may be very handy for the kinds of jobs he does.
Interface is new. tech is old. Rios bought a new keyboard, so what?
TG47,
If I recall correctly, didn’t VOY’s Timecop say his cozy little timeship was internally holographic? Not to mention wasn’t said Timecop the source of the EMH’s mobile emitter? This would lead one to conclude his ship likely had a holocrew too?
Most TNG miscellaneous ships were represented by the ILM Merchantman model from TSFS or were redresses of the ship Andy Probert first designed for HAVEN. There was even that weird little thing in the teaser for s3’s THE HUNTED, which was a five inch battery powered toy that I actually already owned when the ep debuted … except for taking the activation switch off the top, I don’t think they changed anything on that, even the paint job.
My point exactly, kmart. Imagine the cries if they had put THAT into this show, and they could even claim they are adhering to TNG canon ;)
Exactly VS! But then again I’ve been a casual Trekker since TOS,and not very nit-picky or complain about everything. I just enjoy everything Trek for what it actually is,a tv show. And I buy whatever Trek merchandise that I actually like and want in my collection. Like I do with other tv shows or movies that I like.
For everyone to look through, here is a list of Freighters known in Star Trek.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Freighter#Freighters_by_race
agreed!
Reminded me of the fighters in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. (Only months away!)
BIDDI BIDDI! RIGHT BUCK!
I’m sure it crashes or something before the season is out, I doubt it’s meant to be the home of this cast forever.
I had hoped they’d commandeer a TOS Romulan Bird of Prey after seeing the trailers. Guess not … or maybe yet still?
La Sirena is the Trek version of previous rogue ships on many many dystopian space shows: Firefly’s Serenity, Killjoys’s Lucy, Expanse’s Rocinante, Andromeda’s Eureka Maru…you name it!
But we haven’t seen enough of her to judge whether there’s some deeper beauty in her or whether she’s supposed to be deliberately unimpressive…
I don’t think it’s ugly. Although I will admit it looks like it belongs in the Star Wars universe.
Sorry, but NCC-1701-E still wins that contest. But it’s followed closely by Discovery.
St. John Talbot prominently smoked in Trek V. Lidell Ren in Voyager’s Ex Post Facto smoked. When Guinan dressed up as Gloria to play in the Dixon Hill hologram she smoked.
I liked the episode overall, but not as much as the first two. This felt like a lot of wheel spinning and set up.
-I found the sunglasses weird for another more canon reason. Vulcans (and I would guess Romulans too, since they have the same origin) come from a homeworld with intense sunlight, to the point that in TOS we were told they have an inner eyelid as protection. Why would a Vulcan need to wear sunglasses on Earth?
-Dr. Jurati seems off to me and a character who has a twist coming. Initially, I thought it might come to a reveal she is an android/synthetic living in secret. But I could also see her somehow being a plant for the Romulans or working with Commodore Oh. I know they state in a previous episode that she is former Starfleet, but it made no sense she went from shooting a Romulan with a disruptor she somehow acquired to quivering and shaking the next second.
-I like Rios’s ship the more I saw of it. Although, it really doesn’t feel like anything from Star Trek, at least right now. Reminded me more of something out of Mass Effect.
-As far as Rios smoking, oddly enough, Star Trek II had “No Smoking” signs on the bridge of the Enterprise, implying it’s still a thing in the 23rd century. From listening to the commentary track for Wrath of Khan, Nicholas Meyer says something like he just didn’t believe people won’t be smoking 200 years from now. However, Quark isn’t aware of what cigarettes are in DS9’s “Little Green Men,” which one would think a guy that owns a bar and might like selling an addictive substance would see as a business opportunity if it was still a widely used substance in the 24th century.
-If Raffi is an addict, that opens all sorts of questions about human culture, Earth, and the Federation. I know the first season TNG episode “Symbiosis” is not exactly the show’s finest hour, especially with its Nancy Reagan “Just Say No” message, but the conversation between Wesley and Tasha Yar implies that drug addiction in human culture is so rare as to be something which Wesley isn’t aware of or understands.
-If Hugh is in charge of the Borg Reclamation Project, and working with the Romulans, could it be possible Dahj and Soji are based on Lore, instead of Data, since Lore has more of a connection to the disconnected Borg (TNG’s “Descent”).
-I still don’t get what the Romulans’ endgame is with Soji? If the Zhat Vash think all synthetic life is an abomination, the logical thing to do would be to kill her. So what exactly are they trying to extract from her? The location of Maddox? The location of other synthetics?
” Dr. Jurati seems off to me and a character who has a twist coming… ” I had the same taught – she is hiding something, maybe working secretly for Starfleet Security without the knowledge of the Romulan involvement?
I don’t think Jurati has a big twist coming up, I think she is there to represent us in the episodes to come. She’s the one Picard, Raffi, or Rios will explain things to and in the process explain it to the audience, since there won’t be a “Captain’s Log” this time around.
If there’s one valid criticism of this show so far, it is “too many info dumps”. Granted they have alot of explaining to do what changed in 20 years (let’s see how Discovery does this for 1000 years!) They should apply flashbacks (even) more often – it’s more fun to watch.
As expected… even worse than I would have believed, she kills Madox! (PIC 1X05)What’s her game plan? Is she knowingly involved with the Tal-Shiar or just Starfleet Security… maybe Section 31!?
“-I found the sunglasses weird for another more canon reason. Vulcans (and I would guess Romulans too, since they have the same origin) come from a homeworld with intense sunlight, to the point that in TOS we were told they have an inner eyelid as protection. Why would a Vulcan need to wear sunglasses on Earth?”
Yes that looked strange. At least she should have used that stylish futuristic Spock sunglasses! I think this is no coincidence. Just one word: M I R R O R -U N I V E R S E !!! Or… wait! She is a clone and was raised on the sark Reman homeworld and became sensitive to light.
Mirror universe characters such as Commodore Oh (likely replaced the original since Picard heard she’s good at her job??) could be an explanation. I hope not yet they are going to tie it into STD
“-I still don’t get what the Romulans’ endgame is with Soji?”
I still don’t get what the Romulan endgame is with the Borg cube in general. They haven’t even teased us and at this point I find myself caring less and less what they do with that cube and the Borg they revive.
The Tal Shiar probably already extracted a lot of tech. This thing has been around since before the supernova (ca 2383, nova was in 86), and is also likely the source of the Narada upgrades (Countdown ’09 comic mentions it was upgraded with Borg tech without explaing where it came from, guess now we know).
After the nova and the collapse of the Empire, the “Romulan Free State” took over the adminstration, and they brought in Hugh to assist with the X-Bs.
The Romulans don’t seem to really care what happens to the X-Bs, they might just have euthanized them after extracting the tech.
OK. Again, this is a lot of speculation. None of this came from STD. My point that the audience still has yet to even be teased about what is going on with that cube stands.
That’s STP, not D. Sorry. Force of habit.
Few issues with this episode, it feels like these episodes are made to watch at least twice, as it’s really difficult to follow what’s going on with a lot of information being thrown at you. The constant cutting back and forth between earth and the cube was infuriating.
Laris and Shaban remain the best supporting characters so far. Raffi, Romulan evil woman are the weakest characters right now. I actually don’t blame Michelle Hurd but the lines written for her are awful. That flashback scene at the start had no dramatic impact at all.
The fight in the chateau was good had it not had the JJ Abrams-esque camera work, couldnt keep up with what’s going on.
As most have been saying, the episodes have been getting weaker since Ep1, but hopefully now that some characters have been bedded in we may get a bit of a resurgence, especially with Seven ,Riker Troi still to make their appearances.
(PS Jurati is the villain!!!)
Ep ratings
Ep1: 9.5/10
Ep2: 7/10
Ep3: 6/10
Just curious, what makes you think Jurati is the villain?
I think it’s because we saw Oh had approached her and questioned her off camera. She then shows up just when the men in black show up. I felt she came clean with Oh’s visit and very open about it. BUT maybe that’s the writers way of making us think she isn’t working with Oh when she really is.
It’s like it was almost PLANNED that she show up and save the day in order to win Picard’s trust. Or it’s a red herring.
There was something decidedly awkward about her arrival.
Or they are playing the old “agent turns to the other side by a change of heart” angle. Something similiar going on with Narek/Soji. Clearly they want to let us keep guessing for most of the season if they will/won’t betray our people!
Jurati seems to mean ‘bold, brave or courageous’ in Maranathi.
This is likely not an accident.
Can anyone here with a good knowledge of South Asian languages and mythos weigh in please?
I still have no clue what they want with Cyborg girl. And the more they drag this out the more I’m not going to care anymore.
Killing off Dahj successfully engaged Picard, but in some ways it seems less successful in terms of attaching the audience to the survival of her twin Soji.
See? I don’t even remember their names. Not a good sign for a character who may be integral to the plot.
When they panned to the door like that I thought it would be Seven of Nine making a surprise entrance but it was Jurati… where on earth did she get that distruptor? Was is just lying on the ground? the whole thing was just off.
I’m calling it now I think she’s Maddox’s true daughter.
I think it was just lying on the ground. It probably belonged to one of the Romulans who had already been knocked out or killed.
I’ll have to re-watch. Wasn’t one of the assassins thrown out the door by Laris or Zhaban? The weapon was probably that guy’s.
I don’t think daughters often call their fathers by his first name. Jurati called him Bruce at least once. She doesn’t really have any reason to keep that secret, she’s already in career hell and Maddox has gone missing anyway.
I re-watched. It is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment but Laris does knock one guy back out the door with her phaser.
Also, the “xenomorph blood” is apparently some kind of cyanide capsule weapon the assassins have in their mouths. You hear the captured assassin break a tooth before he spits at Laris.
Moderately entertaining episode but Oh’s sunglasses looked, absolutely, laughably ridiculous and her delivery was the definition of bad acting. Once again, as is par for the course with KurtzTrek, more and more cracks in the writing and the show’s own internal logic appear:
– How did Picard’s resignation ruin Raffi’s career?
– After the attack at Chateau Picard, why didn’t he just call up the admiral, thumb his nose at her, and point to his delusions lying dead all over the floor?
– Seeing as the Romulans attacked right after Oh spoke to Agnes, you’d think somebody would put two and two together and mention just how fishy it sounded.
– We start veering into mumbo jumbo, pseudo-spiritual territory with the tarot reading.
The editing in this episode was also really bad; the fight at the chateau was really hard to follow (maybe necessary to hide the stunt doubles) and the constant cuts from the Borg cube to the chateau and back again were positively distracting. Rizzo/Narissa was nothing more than a caricature and the odd sexual tension between brother and sister was the sort of tired, cheap, unnecessarily sleazy thing I’ve come to expect from this producing team from time to time in their misguided efforts to give the shows a sense of “edginess”. Raffi’s poring over the computer data also felt like a rip-off of Tony Stark always using his holographic displays to figure out the latest problem vexing the Avengers.
Again, the main cast continues to be the show’s biggest strength; I really liked Rios and his holograms, the cigar and tats notwithstanding (because every mercenary pilot chews a cigar and has lots of tats). His backstory sounds downright interesting and I am curious to see where it goes. Hopefully now that they are in space things will pick up and start to make a little more sense and we can leave all this exposition behind.
“After the attack at Chateau Picard, why didn’t he just call up the admiral, thumb his nose at her, and point to his delusions lying dead all over the floor?”
My thoughts were that Picard left Starfleet out of the loop on this because Picard (I REFUSE to accept him being called “JL”) might have felt that either Starfleet or the Romulans would send a clean-up squad that might or might not clean up Picard and his friends in the process.
Just my 2 credits.
So just beam them up to Rios’ ship and contact the admiral from there. I think even Picard felt she was not compromised; clueless perhaps but not compromised.
IF (and I do say if) Clancy is compromised, calling her from Rios’ ship is just going to endanger another person in this little fellowship Picard has going on.
Clancy had her chance to play nicely with Picard, but she told him to eff off back to his vineyard — he owes her nothing.
From Picard’s perspective, his home gets shot up after speaking to Admiral Clancy. He has no reason to trust her, and every reason to believe that she may be involved with the Romulans.
Yah, Oh’s sunglasses were so funny, it did kill off the tension more then it was supposed to. At least the attack of the Chateau did reinstated her status, but that was a very misplaced piece of comedy.
She should have used the stylish Spock-visor from TOS. Or even better: the Spock-helmet!!!!!!
/revision/latest?cb=20140704095409
Hahaha thanks for sharing. That started my day off with a good laugh. It has absolutely no connection with Star Trek whatsoever except they put the name Spock on it haha. I especially like the antenna. I wonder how many of these things they sold?
Check out Ethan Peck’s unboxing video of the Spock helmet on the official site for more laughs.
The helmet has clearly become a trope for bad/irrelevant Trek merchandising.
I would have taken Commodore Oh more serious if she wore one of these instead of Agent Smith/MIB/RayBan sunglasses
– How did Picard’s resignation ruin Raffi’s career?
It did not, but she perceives it that way as she was terminated when Picard resorted to his “desperate attempt” of resignation to save Romulans.
– After the attack at Chateau Picard, why didn’t he just call up the admiral, thumb his nose at her, and point to his delusions lying dead all over the floor?
Picard has no idea who he can trust.
Your last two points are not worth discussion, but I think Picard’s first and foremost issue is that it not Starfleet that withdrew, it is Picard.
I don’t get why people see a lapse in logic in her getting fired after Picard resigns. She was the brain behind the Romulan rescue effort, so to speak, and “Picard’s woman”. This is NOT the same as “Picard getting fired and Riker taking over the ship”, especially not with this Starfleet and Federation that made a huge political turn. Firing Raffi clearly is a political decision in this context, to keep the pot from boiling over, not one based on her service record. I also have the strong suspicion there is more to her back story; more like the expulsion from Starfleet led to a string of events that saw her slide down a dark path.
“Picard’s Woman”? She was an officer. Even if she came up with the plan, at worst she would have been given the same ultimatum as Picard: fall in line or leave. If she had stuck to her principles and then regretted the consequences of her decision that would have one thing but to try to rationalize that she was kicked out because she came up with the idea (and we even don’t know if she did) or worked on the logistics of the plan (which seems more plausible) makes no sense to me.
Likewise, this whole notion that Picard won’t tell anyone about the Romulan attack on his villa because there is no one left in Starfleet who be trusted is another lazy writing gimmick that just stacks the deck and makes Picard look like the sole voice of reason against the entire Federation. It smacks more of vanity that trying to come up with a tight story.
But whatever, it is what it is. It’s obvious that this writing team has a very different definition of “Star Trek” and does not buy into the notion that mankind will have improved and we will live to outgrow our prejudices and vanity. It’s pretty obvious that to them Star Trek is just our current world with our current problems, but with lots of spaceships.
Musiker was clearly on Picard’s flag staff.
She prepared his briefing, including options and backpocket supporting information.
As his staff officer, especially one who had provided uncomfortable options and evidence that some wanted buried, Musiker would have been very vulnerable once her patron resigned suddenly.
Bad-admirals and machinations at the flag level have been a staple of Trek. It’s never been idealized.
“It’s pretty obvious that to them Star Trek is just our current world with our current problems, but with lots of spaceships.”
And Stewart pretty much announced as much a couple of weeks ago! I seemed to be the only one who didn’t take this lightly. I have moved on from it though as long as they don’t insult me with silly sledgehammer speeches like on Discovery.
It’s appreciated VS.
I hadn’t expected the two of us to have such common ground on this series.
I’m actually fairly flexible and open to changes / new ideas for Trek as long as they are not backwards (dumbing down), compelling and…
1. They keep it consistent and don’t break their own rules
2. They don’t overpromise and underdeliver
3. They don’t become insulting to their own audience (inclusiveness!)
I’m on the same exact page with that comment, VS. I, too, am open and flexible to changes and new ideas for Trek and am certainly not beholden to something as limiting as “Gene’s Vision” like that is something that came from the heavens themselves.
Those three points are dead on. Good call.
Yeah… You’d think there would be SOMEONE in Star Fleet he knows and trusts… Someone fairly high up the food chain, too.
“You’d think there would be SOMEONE in Star Fleet he knows and trusts… Someone fairly high up the food chain, too.”
I do hope we see Admiral Janeway (again) at some point, especially as she and Picard already had interactions in the much-referenced Nemesis.
The thing is that he blew the opportunity to seek out allies and work for a compromise solution when he gave the ultimatum of resigning.
He made a major tactical error in believing that his resignation would never be accepted.
The fact that his resignation did not work like he thought it would suggests strongly that there was a lot going on there that Picard was unaware of. If that is not the case then the show is overly simplistic. Something I feared after watching the first episode but wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt.
There is no logic in her getting fired after Picard resigns. So you have a seasoned experienced Starfleet officer. Trained and educated for years and years. Up to the point where she is working directly with *the* Admiral Picard. So Starfleet… the esteemed Starfleet we’ve seen for decades established on-screen…. takes a high ranking officer… working to try to save billions …. and “kicks her out”? This is beyond the pale ridiculous writing. It’s not the Trump Administration… it’s Starfleet Command.
ST:EXP staff officers, whatever their talent and expertise, become extensions of the persona that they support.
The experience and enlarged perspective can lead to rapid advancement, but it can also crash a career if their principal leaves under a cloud.
Picard, at minimum, ticked off the C-in-C.
Even if there weren’t those who were engaged in a cover-up, Musiker’s career would have taken damage.
“So you have a seasoned experienced Starfleet officer. Trained and educated for years and years. Up to the point where she is working directly with *the* Admiral Picard. So Starfleet… the esteemed Starfleet we’ve seen for decades established on-screen…. takes a high ranking officer… working to try to save billions …. and “kicks her out”? ”
It’s politics. Even institutions far in the future would not be impervious (as DS9 showed so vividly). That she was so deeply invested in the Romulan cause is precisely why she was axed. After the political decision was made not to engage with the Romulans, Starfleet felt she couldn’t credibly represent the organization anymore. It’s a breach of trust, as is common in other employment situations. It has nothing to do with whether she is skilled and capable, or not.
Yes, I guess this is what we’ll have to accept. Maybe it’s just that us as the audience is left to do sooooo much extrapolation on our own for these first 3 episodes. We have to build so much backstory and reasoning in our own heads based on a few sentences of dialogue which is supposed to represent a whole load of unseen events.
“It did not, but she perceives it that way as she was terminated when Picard resorted to his “desperate attempt” of resignation to save Romulans.”
That isn’t what what STRONGLY implied…
” How did Picard’s resignation ruin Raffi’s career?”
A very good question. I figured Star Fleet would be above guilt by association. They may have dishonorably discharged everyone on Picard’s staff? Which, agian, feels like replacing the entire house because you want a new sink.
This is typically how politics work. New administrations or changes in political will can have a rolling affect on current officers. If they do not like someone or feel they will not follow new directives to their liking it will be the door for them.
That only happens at the highest levels. Which Rafi most certainly did not seem to qualify. She wasn’t even a Vice Admiral. She was on Picard’s staff. Staff gets reassigned and such a thing would not be considered a black mark. Her career ought not have been ruined by Picard’s resignation. Again, unless this situation is way larger than Picard ever realized. Which I am still hoping it is but I fear this is all we are going to get told and this will be a simplistic 6th grade level plot.
Picard and Rafi were behind the whole development of the fleets. creating plans and trying to win the backs of Star Fleet and the Federation Council. If they kept Rafi on she would be a thorn in their sides and trying to rally others around her to support the now disposed Picard’s plans.
Removing her from her rank and power removed an obstacle.
I think Rafi wasn’t the only one removed. We just only see her.
First, I question the need to construct a bunch of ships for this purpose. It’s not like enough ships did not exist to make the exodus possible. If there wasn’t, then Picard’s Dunkirk comparison would not be correct.
Next, it was strongly implied that Rafi was just on Picard’s staff and it was Picard who was spearheading the effort. And even if she was severely a believer in JL’s plan, to arbitrarily dump her out of the Star Fleet feels like overkill. As I said, it would make no sense unless everyone Picard ever worked with was dumped as well. And so far, there is no indication of that.
Look, I WANT to believe there are more reasons behind this the audience has yet to be made aware of. That is the only thing that might justify the extreme decisions made by Starfleet top brass. I’m only saying that as of episode 3, there are none. The audience is forced to come up with fan theories for it. That is not a BAD thing. This is just the first 3rd. It’s just that my own fan theory is that this story will not dive particularly deep into it. Time will tell.
I enjoyed this episode as you can feel the energy starting to rise. I honestly felt chills when Rios looked at Picard waiting for him to say engage. It felt epic in so many ways.
For some reason, I felt nothing.
I guess I need more than just Picard to feel sentimental. IMO, Too much about the show is foreign and unrecognizable to the point of being a major distraction and preventing me from being pulled into this strange new world they are calling Star Trek.
Maybe my days as a fan have come to an end?
Maybe things will change and something will finally create a connection for me.
You’re not alone there, Trellium. I’ve been pondering the very same things myself.
You’re definitely not alone. I’ve been watching Star Trek since I was a kindergartner in the early 70s, and since the 2009 movie, I don’t recognize this universe anymore. I give every new show an eager chance, only to sit here and wonder why.
For all of its flaws, that universe as originally conceived made me want to live there. It made me want to aspire to be like those people whom I held up as heroes. It gave me a sense of wonder and a feeling that everyone, from any background, can be part of something grand. It made me reach for the stars.
These new shows? Not once.
I loved it too, I just wish we hadn’t already seen it repeatedly in the trailers.
I wish they wouldn’t score the entire thing on keys. It sounds cheap and fan fictionesque, like STD.
You say there hasn’t been smoking in the Star Trek universe in 200 years? So that’d be what…2199?
Where did you get that number from? The character that David Warner played in Star Trek V was a smoker. That was in 2287, only a little more then a hundred years prior. Also didn’t you notice that Raffi is a smoker in this too…Although she vapes…maybe that’s different but I think it’s more or less the same and just as bad if not worse of a habit.
I remember Tom Paris once said that Humans quit smoking “centuries ago,” when he saw an alien woman smoking. My guess is that he either didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, or that it was made illegal then.
Romulan ale was also illegal, but still widely consumed. Also, the Enterprise had a “No Smoking” sign in the transporter room in The Wrath of Khan. So, whether it was legal or not, people were still doing it.
I think this is an understandable thing. It shows that just because people may have unclean habits and make mistakes, they can still be included, they are still a valuable part of the crew. And it’d be silly to assume that just because this is a near-utopian society, that characters this heavily flawed wouldn’t still be around.
Isn’t that the problem? “Heavily flawed ” characters are a tired staple in modern TV. Because our world isn’t crappy enough right now, let’s pay CBS a monthly fee to watch some of TV’s best characters get put through the ringer.
Don’t normalize it.
The alternative to normalizing it is to imply that people are weird or less worthy if they have flaws or addictions. Flaws are normal, and perfect characters are both unrealistic and boring.
True that. That is why I could never latch on to Picard as a character. He’s too perfect. Perfect people are boring to watch. I mean, I do not recall the guy doubting himself or opening up to anyone about it. And while he is older and frailer here, he is still convinced he’s right and everyone else is wrong. And, of course, he is.
I’d rather watch flawed people than perfect, shiny, happy people.
Smoking dates back to 5000 BC. It’s perfectly believable that smoking is still a thing in 300 years from now. It might be a more niche thing. Medical science is a lot more advanced by then so perhaps the dangers of smoking are no longer even really an issue!
That’s the problem – since the 2009 film, there IS no near-utopian society. It’s just our current world with space ships.
Good episode, uninspired ship design. It reminded me of the Blackbird from BSG.
I thought this was the best episode so far.
I don’t understand how anyone can think the pilot was better or episode 2. But 2 was better than 1.
Really this is a 3 part pilot but this felt to me most like a TNG episode.
I don’t care about sunglasses or cigars. Get over it. Maybe they all came back into fashion since TNG.
Loved the holograms, flashback, the fight at the chateau, Raffi is fun and so are Rios and Agnes. I had goosebumps and a tear in my eye with the TNG/TMP theme when Picard said engage.
We haven’t heard that much of the theme since Nemesis in 2002 – I loved it.
You speak for me, too, Oliver, esp your 4th paragraph.
“I don’t care about sunglasses or cigars. Get over it. Maybe they all came back into fashion since TNG.”
I agree people are blowing minutiae (which I also don’t neccessarily agree with – though at least the sunglasses feel like a plot device) out of proportion. It’s like our first and foremost criticism of Discovery was the crew wearing T-Shirts. “Wow, so 21st century!” ;)
I had less of an issue with his smoking a cigar and more of an issue with his character coming off as a bit of a cliche. An unshaven, smoking, rogue-ish kind of guy with a past who has a ship for hire has been done before. I’m actually a bit more curious about the backstory of his EMH.
Yeah, people getting hung up on a pair on sunglasses absolutely baffles me. It feels like bashing for the sake of it.
They’re sunglasses and maybe they’re not JUST sunglasses. Dd not have an issue with that at all, either.
When you can remember each and every episode that has come before, and writers have gone out of their way to add something new to the universe that is Trek, such as Vulcans and Romulans having an inner eyelid (made a point of in multiple episodes and stories), to then do something in complete contradiction to that with no explanation becomes a WTF moment.
You may or may not have invested time in the franchise over the last 55 odd years, but to those who have it comes across as lazy when the audience know more about the universe than the current “writers”, which then breaks the 4th wall and pulls us out of the story.
Let’s be honest, STD and Picard do that every 30 seconds in some form or another, which begins to make it amateurish and unwatchable as they continue to pile up over time and it becomes apparent that it’s not a plot point that’s been done intentionally, but just canonical mistakes.
It’s become such a problem for Kurtzman that he’s basically had to reset the show and send the entire series 1000 years into the future, and he feels (somewhat naively) that will resolve the problems, when in fact it’s the writers and advisors (or lack thereof) that is the real problem.
The technology definitely works and feels like a natural evolution of what was presented during the TNG era. No complaints, really.
What I’m enjoying about this series is that it’s a mystery slowly unfolding week by week, allowing us to speculate on what actually occurred and what is occurring now.
The tech doesn’t look any more than a decade tops past what we saw on Discovery….
Which is mostly the entire problem with Discovery lol. On Picard, it flows nicely from the TNG era.
Agreed. This show does look like it flows from TNG some 30 years earlier. (Although the fashion looks like it ignored the feature film completely) And the tech was one of the MANY problems with Discovery. And again, one that this viewer could have overlooked had the show been better to begin with.
Is it just MY eyes, or is that a rather Van Halen-esque(circa 1980s) paint scheme on the La Sirena?
Dahj = Data
Soji = Lore
Thoughts?
I wondered if when all is said and done Data turns out to be Trek’s version of R. Daneel Olivaw.
I can’t really see Data trying to guide humanity’s destiny like that. Data isn’t bound by the 0th law. It is interesting that Jurati was reading Asimov though.
There definitely is the idea (from the Romulan tarot) that one twin must be good and the other ‘the destroyer’.
However, is that fair, or is it just another fatalistic prejudice that need to be taken on and turned on its head.
Really, it sounds too much like a ‘biology is destiny’ statement, even though it’s about an android.
To be fair, for most robots “biology is destiny” indeed because they cannot exceed, much less contradict, their initial programming.
Good God I hope not. Trek already had a massive fail when they came up with the soap opera cliche of Data’s evil twin. Please let’s not revisit that tired trope here.
Overall I enjoyed this one. I’m wracking my brains trying to figure out how Soji is “the destroyer” and whether or not the Tal Shiar / Zhat Vash sent those Romulans to the Borg for the express purpose of damaging the collective and/or capturing that cube.
A couple of things that irked me, though (have Trek will complain) included the fact that Raffi calls Picard JL. That bugged me – but I guess Picard could be taking after his old friend admiral JP Hansen and adopting a similar nickname.
The other thing was that I kept expecting Picard to pull the whole “I expect you to do your duty, commander” to pull Raffi out of her downward spiral. He’s had to deal with emotionally inward-looking crew members before and has always relied on that kind of motivational technique so it was unusual that he didn’t employ it here (it kinda surfaced later when he said “you’re doing the research – here’s the Maddox stuff, carry on!” – I loved that it!).
I also reckon that Rios has his Starfleet uniform stowed somewhere on that ship.
And I would like the EMH to say “the line” at some point…
Hi Dr C, as I noted on a previous thread, J-L (not J.L.) is exactly the familiar short form that a francophone superior would permit his anglophone staff to use in private. (In fact, it reflects my own experience with a boss who I called J-J in private, but by his title outside the circle of his staff.). It appears the writers consulted a francophone about permitted familiar names.
In terms of ‘duty’, Musiker is in forced retirement and Picard has not eased her transition to civilian life. She’s already called him on having the gall to call on her for assistance. Teasing her curiosity with a puzzle showed much more leadership insight about her motivations than an appeal to duty could have at this point.
“Teasing her curiosity with a puzzle showed much more leadership insight about her motivations than an appeal to duty could have at this point.”
A more sinister take is that he was also waving a bottle in front of an addict. Clearly this Picard has “evolved” from his 2364 version where he flat-out told Wesley: “Drugs are bad!!”
As far as we know, she’s not an alcoholic. It isn’t as if he tried to bribe her with those drugs that she’s addicted to.
VS, I have the idea that the bottle of ’86 from the Chateau was long-promised but never delivered.
The synth attack on Mars was in 2385, and Musiker was Picard’s staff officer then.
I can imagine him saying that they’d open a bottle of ’86 together once the ships were built and the rescue fleet on its way. If so, he didn’t dare show up without it.
“And I would like the EMH to say “the line” at some point…”
You mean, “Please state the nature of the navigational emergency”? Oh wait, that’d be the ENH 😜
Loving Picard, keep it coming, Stewart & team! 👍
I have no issues with her calling him JL. It shows how close they are. Or were. That relationship could have easily been forged in the last 14 years off screen. He seemed pretty close to his old Stargazer Doctor, too. Funny how he comes across as closer to both of those people than he ever did with his staff on the Enterprise.
“The worst part of the episode: Lt. Rizzo Narissa’s turn as a faux-Georgiou, which I found rather annoying. She’s now in skintight leather and she and her brother Narek have a weirdly sexual vibe going on between them. Big yawn.”
Maybe they are offsprings of House Lannister :-) I don’t think Narissa is faux-Georgiou, Georgiou is Commodore Oh… George Oh, so to speak. I wouldn’t be surprised if Oh actually was the daughter or granddaughter of Georgiou and a Romulan/Vulcan affair.
“Why is Rios smoking? That seems an incredibly odd habit to have when we know humans haven’t smoked in at least 200 years. It also just feels rather wrong in the world of Trek.”
It’s weird but to some degree, they are reverse-engineering the Trek universe’s morality. Back in the 80s and 90s, when smoking and drinking was still widely socially accepted, they tried to be progressive and enlightened about it.
But now that the Zeitgeist has turned against those ancient freedoms and overemphazises health issues, it seems to be quite adequat that Trek takes a stand against moralism and prohibitionism and promotes freedom of choice regarding those habits.
It’s not just Rios… Raffi seems to be on some sort of weed as well. Both seem to be heavy drinkers too.
Very weird: they recycled a cue or two from a DSC score when La Sirena was first shown on screen. I only noticed because I’ve listened to DSC scores time and again…
We saw in DS9 that Starfleet officers who had experienced trauma in large conflicts weren’t always ideally supported.
That is, Starfleet may have done well in peacetime in making sure trauma was dealt with, but at the scale of Wolf 359 or the Dominion War, not so much.
We also saw that officers who were on the cold face with other less ideal alien societies were at risk of picking up destructive habits.
Rios and Musiker both fit these exceptions, and are also both people that Starfleet clearly hoped would vanish into anonymity like Picard.
“That is, Starfleet may have done well in peacetime in making sure trauma was dealt with, but at the scale of Wolf 359 or the Dominion War, not so much.”
That fits well with the “It’s easy to be a saint in paradise” theme. Same as we had this short period of time in the 1990s when even accomplished academics would claim that we have reached the end of history and peace, prosperity and liberalism would now rule the globe, maybe this particular Utopia proved to be an illusion after all, and the children of Utopia were ill-prepared for the real world and its messy, complicated choices.
Just wondering how holographic AI’s are still legal when “synths” aren’t.
I assume that they can be controlled better and that they are limited to their area. It should be explained if starfleet was able to reverse engineer the mobile emitter. When 7of9 appears in tzhe next episodes, we hopefully will learn what happened to the crew of VOY in the last 20 years.
We don’t know that the holograms are legal.
Perhaps Rios is protecting them from being decommissioned by giving them his image and retaining them on his ship.
Starfleet is obviously sadistic still when it comes to holographic AIs, perhaps even more so by keeping them captive on their starships only to serve their needs in emergencies. Like Into Darkness the writers in trying to push an agenda have inadvertently made their characters genocidal criminals (poor poor Kahn, he just wanted his family back).
I reckon the Mother could be like a Metal Gear Solid 2 type of Roy Campbell: as Colonel Campbell was an AI created by GW, I reckon it is the same with this Mother of Dahj and Soji.
Oh my… Would Oh be from the Mirror Universe?? Her glasses and room… Vulcans have great resistance to intende light, that I recall.
Why would other species have issues with light? STD explained it as a Human genetic difference.
If the sunglasses are because she’s from the mirror universe, I think I’m done with Trek so long as Kurtzman is at the helm. That man is poison.
“They had a segment with fan questions, which didn’t give us any new information, but I was fascinated by the fact that they described Patrick Stewart as the funny one on set, given the stories of how he was the serious one among the TNG actors; looks like they really taught him how to loosen up, all those years ago.”
Patrick Stewart loosened up back in TNG days. Check out this cool story from Brent Spiner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5zQIKeh9B4
IMO this was my least favorite episode on the block of three. It is almost as if they ran out of the time to get the cast into space, so after the nice pacing of the first two and a half episodes, everything in the last 20 mins of E3 seemed rather rushed. Also unlike Disco where they extended some broadcast episodes to 70 or even 75 plus mins, Picard has been exactly 60 mins/episode. This one could have easily used an extra ten minutes.
Completely opposite reaction DeanH.
This was the first episode that didn’t have a flagging moment for me.
exactly 60 mins? It’s 37 mins once you take out the previews, recaps and title sequence.
I’m assuming DeanH watches the show with commercials.
Who in Star Trek benefits from destroying the Romulan rescue armada in Star Trek: Picard? Who’d want the Romulans to die that badly? Who hates the Romulans with enough passion to — okay, it’s Klingons. Klingons hate Romulans badly enough to want to see them vanquished.
They’d be my first suspects. Problem is, are Klingons smart enough to reprogram androids to use them as tools in a revenge ploy? Additionally, it’s not honorable.
They have the motivation, but do they have the means?
It would have to be a Klingon house devious enough to ally itself with someone smart enough to reprogram androids like F8 into destroying the armada.
Until proven wrong, Klingons remain my number one suspects, which would easily bring Worf into the narrative.
That’s not really the Klingons style. It’s not an honorable ploy.
Like I said, it would have to be a Klingon house devious enough. Think the House of Duras, not the House of Mog, for instance.
I would think that the House of Duras would benefit from keeping the Romulans around.
I wasn’t being literal, though. I was giving you an example of one devious Klingon house. Where there is one, there are others.
I suppose that if my namesake were still alive, then he might try something like that. It still seems too subtle a plan for a Klingon though.
Did Gowron have heirs? I don’t recall.
If not Klingons, who else might benefit or be motivated enough to do it?
“Who in Star Trek benefits from destroying the Romulan rescue armada in Star Trek: Picard? Who’d want the Romulans to die that badly? ”
I don’t find this notion that maybe some faction of Romulans boycotted their own rescue mission as far-fetched as both the characters of Picard and some viewers. It’s basically TUC’s “No peace in our time”. I’m sure many Romulans would loathe to be indebted to the Federation and possibly “slide” into an alliance with them, when some could profit from the power vaccuum after the fall of the Romulan Star Empire.
Interesting.
It’s the romulans. They don’t want the federation to continue developing AI, so they use this to create such a massive impact on the federation that they will ban AI, and also the synths destroyed themselves when they were done.
The romulans accidentally created the borg in the past when they sent out sentient von neumann probes into the galaxy to assimilate information, replicate themselves and return it to the Romulans hundreds of years later. Assimilation is the secret that will break your mind to know it. Reducing the romulan population in the attack is preferable to the federation accidentally creating their own borg and ultimately destroying the alpha quadrant.
As soon as that Borg ship assimilated Romulans it cut itself off from the collective ready for the Romulans to reclaim the tech and information the collective had gathered over the thousands of years since the probes were first sent out.
“As soon as that Borg ship assimilated Romulans it cut itself off from the collective ready for the Romulans to reclaim the tech and information the collective had gathered over the thousands of years since the probes were first sent out.”
How very V’ger of it, lol.
SUGGESTION for Trekmovie.com to pass onto the producers of Star Trek Picard. Instead of limiting the show to fit a 60 min timeslot in those regions who broadcast the show – offer CBSAA and streaming customers bonus extended episodes (an extra 5 mins or so). This would address what seemed to me to be a rather compressed or rushed episode 3 – the pacing of the first 2.5 episodes was great and that all went down the drain in the last 20-30 mins of yesterday’s show. It would also provide CBSAA customers with more value. To be fair, give the international broadcasters the choice. If its the 60 min timeslot, here is the edited version. Space Channel in Canada seemed to have no issue showing 70 or 75 minute Discovery S1 and S2 episodes.
Agreed DeanH.
I don’t think UK or Aus broadcast television would have issues with longer shows either.
The U.S. permits the greatest amount of advertising time per hour as far as I know. Canadian channels have filler to compensate.
That said, we’ll need to see what the run time of the remaining episodes will be. We’ve heard that the opening sequence was originally written to be two episodes, but then edited to be three with some additional scenes added (Mars flashback for example). So it could be that they added just enough to fit minimum broadcast times for those three.
Multiple versions of a single episode is an added expense so it’s ultimately a budgetary issue.
As for those 60 minute + episode, that’s what’s known as running off the clock. Schedules can be adjusted but typically there is a target runtime.
“Why is Rios smoking? That seems an incredibly odd habit to have when we know humans haven’t smoked in at least 200 years.”
He’s smoking cigars; it’s not necessarily habitual.
It may be an affectation, or a test to see if Picard can accept that La Sirena is not his Starfleet ship running under standing orders and regulations, but rather a private ship operating under Rios’s rules.
I love Discovery but after watching Picard I think I now understand why some people dislike the show…Discovery that is. I really like Picard, maybe more than TNG.
Picard is the better of the two. Discovery looks like it’s produced on a soundstage whereas Picard has the look of a feature film and feels like it’s part of a much larger world.
So true! It’s clear they went big for this show. And it feels like a much larger world because it is. The 23rd century era just feels much smaller compared to the 24th century because it didn’t have 3 shows , 20 seasons (and four films) of story telling. And even more so since DIS was a prequel to TOS so it didn’t even have that mythology to follow.
It’s exactly why its so much more exciting for many of us who wanted a return to this era.
I like this episode, but not as much as Episode 2 just because the flaws in the writing were so significant, and the discontinuity with TNG’s universe (smoking, drug abuse, poverty, cursing, depression, etc.) was particularly egregious for me. The entire front of the episode was a dense and clumsy exposition dump that really failed to establish a convincing reason for Raffi’s extreme anger at Picard. The Romulan Borg scene was very confusing and nonsensical and couldn’t decide what it wanted to focus on. This show badly needs some better script writers, the story ideas are there but they can’t seem to write it lean enough to let the ideas breath and evolve naturally, instead it’s crammed down our throats in an effort to get the story’s idea across. I like watching these characters, and I like the fan service, but there is also a point where the world they are in is too unrecognizable for me to enjoy the trappings enough to forgive the bad writing.
Did anyone else notice Dr what’s her name listening to the Kaseelian opera from Discovery Season 1? Just before she was approached by Commodore Oh? Coincidence as both scores written by Jeff Russo or could it mean something more?
You heard it here first folks! Dr. Jurati is Bruce Jenner, I mean Maddox. They’ll find out he/she, or whatever pronoun they prefer, re-wrote their DNA so they can fool a tricorder scan. This DNA re-writing is amply precedented in, TNG era particularly, Trek history. Maddox, in addition to his positronic skills, must have some competency in biology as well given that Dahj and Soji have flesh and blood bodies. It also fits with the Kurtzman crew’s M.O. of nobody is who they say they are. Ash Tyler is Voq, Georgiou is actually Evil Georgiou, Lorca etcetera.
Star Trek: Picard has been great so far. The characters we’ve been introduced to, from Zhaban, Laris, Agnes Jurati, Dahj/Soji, Commodore O, Narek and his sister and Raffi, are all interesting, likable and memorable. They all feel like they have purpose and I want to learn more about them – something that Discovery lacks outside of a few characters like Saru and Phillipa Georgeau. (I don’t count Pike because he was an established character already).
I also love the sprinkling of the Star Trek fanfare throughout the last two episodes, talk of his days on the Stargazer, mentions of Worf, Riker and LaForge.. all might be fan service but I still love that there’s a respect for TNG there and I’ll take it.
Hughe’s appearance felt a little underwhelming to me. I felt like he deserved a bit more of an entrance or hint of what his journey has been like the last 25 years. I’m sure more will be revealed in the coming episodes but overall I am happy with Picard – I just really wish they’d change the Show’s theme song – its so far the only thing I’m not too fond of.
I’m probably going to be in the minority, but i’m kinda disappointed 3 episodes in. I’m just tired of the cliche’d trope of the sinister government (or starfleet) conspiracy. It reeks of tired storytelling. In this day and age particularly, it would be nice to have some inspirational Trek. My other gripe is a bit of an oxymoron because i like slow methodical storytelling, but i feel like we could have gotten to this point in one episode. I’m finding myself bored. So… those are my 2 cents.
(*after reading through these posts, maybe not so much in the minority as i thought*)
I’m not really enjoying the show very much either. It’s gorgeous to look at, but the writing…while trying to be better than Discovery…isn’t really very good at all. I’m not looking at it from a ‘This isn’t exactly like TNG’ point of view, I expected that and was looking forward to it. The pure level of the writing is aiming pretty low….yet I get the feeling that the writers really feel they’re knocking this out of the park, like it’s mature, subtle and deep. It’s very surface level stuff.
What you see is the result of a mandate not the primarily make Star Trek but to be oh so smart with a message that just happens to have a Star Trek label. This is in contrast to Star Trek that was Star Trek first and had a powerful message within. This happened before with Into Darkness where the writers in trying to hit us over the head with “That’s George Bush firing drones you see!!!” they made it where you can beam across the Federation (in which case why have Starships at all?), fire photon torpedoes from the neutral zone at the Klingon home world (they are really that close? Where are the Klingon defenses?) and made Kahn just a poor guy just trying to get his family back from the evil Starfleet. Only they could have wrecked the return of Kahn… a no brainier for action and adventure.
In Picard they’ve made it now where TNG Starfleet basically engages in slavery and captivity with AI holograms, androids, etc and where you can electronically engineer life thus discriminating against organic life forms whom can’t be engineered (Eugenics ban) and have to develop at the cost of potential nuclear annihilation per the Prime Directive. Unfortunately the more they want perfect characters (and let’s face it hypothetical AI life can be whatever you want it to be, thus the ethical issues around it) the less relatable and boring the story will be and nonsensical when they try to throw in flaws that they themselves made difficult to put into the story.
You’re not wrong.
Another episode where many elements don’t seem to make any sense in the pre-established lore of the franchise. Instead of people here blindly defending the series… I’m inviting logical conversation….
1. In what form could Raffi possibly have lost her CAREER IN STARFLEET over Picard resigning???
A seasoned experienced Starfleet officer… trained and educated for years and years… Up to the point where she is working directly with *the* Admiral Picard… working to try to save billions …. is “kicked out”? This is ridiculous writing. It’s rare a 21st century real world organisation would get away with this without facing retribution from an employment lawyer. Nevermind thinking Starfleet Command would excise top talent this way.
2. Exactly why… in Gene Roddenberry’s 24th / 25th century… is she living unemployed in a shack in a California desert? (and why can’t Picard beam to that spot?) This has to be by choice out of self-pitty?
3. Picard is a 30 year on-screen established diplomat, leader, artist, caretaker, confident, etc…. and we are to believe he actually ignored her with zero contact for 14 years? It’s like there is no thought put into the history and precident of this character. This is how he would treat someone? I’m reading alot into 5 minutes of dialogue and screentime.. but c’mon folks.
4. To hammer home how this crop of writers want to distance themselves from the elevated calibre of character dialogue of established TNG…. they do everything in this show and in Discovery to make everyone talk like a 90’s Valley Girl. Imagine how Allison Pill’s character … with her scientific credentials at the Daystrom Institute …would talk in the TNG series. In this show she is reduced to lines like “Who are you, girl?!?”
There is this bizarre need to try to make 400 years in the future seem synonymous to lifestyle and diction of the 20th century. Now Picard is walking around with a cardigan and belt buckled khaki pants. The whole attraction of Star Trek was a vision of the future and watching the “best of the best” tackle a situation.
Now everyone is a mean spirited contradictory a-hole with a confusing agenda.
And why are they trying to make the brother/sister Romulan spy team the “creepy incest-twins”
An answer to #3 is that when you look at it Picard isn’t an established anything. His claim to fame is that he was the one that allowed himself to get assimilated to destroy half the fleet at Wolf 359 and almost take out Earth. In First Contact yes he stopped a cube but by knowing exactly where to target it, does that mean that he is still communicated with the Borg or that he deliberately did not inform the fleet of a weak spot leading to the destruction of additional starships. He lost the Federation flagship fighting a 50 year old bird of prey – yes he wasn’t in command but is not the Captain responsible for the conduct of his crew (or is that tradition dead in the 24th century)? Then he goes to build a rescue armada using androids sadistically programmed to have emotions which take out Mars. His “diplomacy” consisted of why humans are so perfect and everyone else is not and should be human. He also seems to have a soft spot regarding Data (we need more perfect engineered life but ignore eugenics bans, the Prime Directive, etc) and he certainly isn’t losing any sleep over having lost Tasha Yar. It is no wonder he ends up on his private vineyard alone. That being said, I hate perfect characters and so this series has me liking Picard (unlike TNG) so props to the writers on that.
He saved Earth in the past from assimilation, and he saved the entire federation and god knows who else from Shinzon, to say nothing for uncovering a plot to overthrow starfleet, keeping peace with the Romulans, preventing the Klingon empire from imploding, preventing a planet of hundreds of millions of people from being destroyed by Soran.. and ensured that all life in the galaxy wasn’t erased from the temporal anomaly in All Good Things. Need I go on?!!! He should be running Starfleet!
He should it’s crazy he has no allies
Picard was never my favorite, but he basically saved his whole universe in “All Good Things” and “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” not to mention personally saving the Enterprise in “Booby Trap” plus many others. And I wouldn’t include his STP actions as valid to his TNG history. Picards feelings and strategy to demostrate Data’s value as a person in “Measure of a Man” were masterful and heartfelt, and that episode, one of Trek’s finest, should not be dismissed because STP writers decided they needed a plot point. Rather than deconstructing Picard and Starfleet, and the Federation, and thereby the whole Star Trek concept, why not create something new? Your recitation of TNG events proves that he had human flaws and was hardly “perfect”.
he didn’t allow himself to be assimilated.
and his achievements predate ‘farpoint’.
WORF allowed him to be assimilated and should have fallen on his own sword for failing Starfleet/Fed so completely. 24th century enlightenment notwithstanding, a security chief in that situation should have had ‘kill’ defauts set up for the command staff in case of Borg incursion aboard, just based on Q WHO. I really thought BOBW pt 2 was going to focus on a Riker/Worf difficulty more than Shelby (who always seemed very 20th Century ALL ABOUT EVE with her scheming, and a far cry from the mandated 24th century perfectpeople) — then again, I also hoped they’d kill Picard, because I found the character unappealing even before season 2, which is when I first gave up on the show.
She probably didn’t lose her career in Starfleet, but she was apparently dismissed from the Romulan rescue planning when her patron and leader Picard left. To her, that probably did feel like the end of her career, and it looks like she also resigned from Starfleet and holed up in the desert, as Picard holed up at his vineyard.
They were both depressed and demoralized; not having contact with each other is believable to me.
She said that they revoked her security clearance.
Without a clearance, one can’t do anything in Starfleet or in the civilian bureaucracy of the Federation. More, given that her expertise was as an analyst, pulling he clearance would eliminate most non-government civilian jobs.
So, forced retirement compounded by destroying her reputation seems the established history.
For a bright mind that thrives on analytics, this would be tremendously damaging.
It looks like it was a ton more than just that. That would be something you could recover from. She doesn’t come across as someone who would quit at the first sign of adversity. So, no. I think she was a casualty of Picard’s resignation. There were undoubtedly others, too.
Maybe there will be more to it. Maybe it could simply be once she got addicted and never got herself out of it and that was the real downfall, even though losing her job was the catalyst. And thats VERY realistic. I grew up in Compton, I seen it time and time again (although its far from a utopia lol). I hope its something more than was shown but I don’t have an issue with HOW she is portrayed either. In fact its refreshing to me.
ML31, it seems you are right that there was something more.
A great deal of the backstory is coming out in The Ready Room and the Deadline podcast interviews with Kurtzman, Beyer and Culpepper.
Essentially, Musiker had deep-rooted fragility (rooted in growing up as child of mostly absent Starfleet officers), and Picard’s strength in being able to move on to after a mission or a command was finished meant that it never occurred to him to take care of her after he left Starfleet.
If what you say is true about more will get revealed about how deep this runs then it bodes well. At the moment if feels absurdly simplistic. Although I would think that someone as wise as Picard should have said something to someone along the lines of “There must be more to this than we know…”
If he just moved on and left her to take care of herself then his idea of their relationship was not the same as what she saw it as. Although I would think that since she referred to him in the amazingly informal “JL” that would be a giant clue to him. Picard has been portrayed as someone who would not be so oblivious to such things. That’s not a big complaint because I welcome anything that can humanize him. It’s just that it doesn’t seem like something our perfect captain would do. Just as succumbing to revenge in First Contact, as great as that was to see it did not fit the established character at all.
Even though I really like the show so far ST EXP, but I can’t disagree with many of your points either. The main one just having to do with the ‘falling out’ between Raffi and Picard. I mean out of ALL the things they could’ve done, this does seem like a really lazy direction to go in. They fired her because Picard resigned? I don’t understand the thinking of that at all. Were they afraid she was gong to be belligerent about it as Picard or something? And then she blames Picard, how was he suppose to know him quitting was going to cost her her job?
There were SO MANY ways they could’ve given them a real conflict. Maybe she was one of the people who just sided with the Federation after the Mars attack and Picard replaced her as his Number One. I mean she clearly doesn’t trust Romulans NOW so it wouldn’t be a stretch that she simply didn’t want to help them as much as Picad did. Or maybe something more deeper and tragic like she had a husband and a family who was killed on Mars, blamed Starfleet for employing synths and simply resigned out of grief and easier to buy how she ended up where she is. Or even take what the comic set up when she was imprisoned by the Romulans and maybe she turned against Picard after that incident because he was still willing to help them and she felt they would never completely change their nature.
There could’ve just been other ways to do it other than, “they fired my ass because you quit even though I did nothing wrong, so now I’m going to hate you for it.”
I’m not AS bothered by her downfall with drug issues or living a more bare bones life because I think she DID choose to live that way. I mean she basically just checked out of the system and fell out of society in general. You can’t just live how you want if you forego the rules and decide you don’t want to work. Everyone in the 24th century still has to contribute on SOME level if she wants most of the benefits of it. If you decide to just wallow in misery and be a pot head then of course you’re not going to have any of the benefits in a progressive society, in any society regardless.
And before I say this, I’m not talking about YOU but I don’t understand why people just assume ‘utopia’ means everyone is just super happy and well adjusted all the time? People can still be just PEOPLE and do bad things or, here is a shocker, just REJECT the system altogether because they simply refuse to follow the rules in it. Again, I actually watch the show. We seen it with Harry Mudd, we seen it with Tom Paris, we seen it with the Maquis and etc. In fact in an alternate timeline we saw what happened to Tom Paris if he never joined Voyager and someone who was aimless, unemployed and basically shunned from society. And he was living on Earth and his father was a Starfleet admiral. I don’t thunk he had a drug problem or anything but these things have been shown on Star Trek before.
In fact, we first met Paris in prison (but a very nice one lol), which suggests there are people still committing crimes even though there is no poverty, lack of opportunities/education or prejudice to speak of, but people still find ways to be people. Kirk even admitted humans will always be savages on some level and that has never changed.
Even in a ‘utopia’ people can fall through the system if they still can’t play in it and I’m very happy we have someone like Raffi to show that. But HOW they did it rings a bit hollow, agreed.
I appreciate the insight here. Gives me perspective.
Thanks! And I clearly love discussing it lol. I think I’ve always seen it a different ways from others I’m learning. But to me, no matter how great a society seems on the outside its not flawless either. Watching The Expanse for example, you would think that Earth is basically a utopia on that show as well (also set in the 23rd century) but then they made it very clear there is still a seedier and downtrodden side to it, no one just really talks about it. But I think it shows a reality that sadly no matter how great a society pretends to be it doesn’t mean everyone will be fully acclimated in it.
As much as I love Star Trek and its hopeful and progressive vision, it doesn’t mean it would be that way for everyone and we have seen those people…it’s just rare when we do.
I’m surprised that there’s so much dislike for this episode. I thought Ep 2 was a little messy, with too much exposition and not enough time spent on the individual moments and their aftermaths, but I really liked this one! We’re finally getting out of the exposition and into the plot, and I think by the end of the season, the deliberate plotting will have paid off. I’m glad they’re not rushing us into space and into combat. I don’t think Michelle Hurd is comfortable in her roll yet. Some of her dialogue was very cumbersome and I thought a lot of it was painfully delivered, but she has an excellent attitude and embodies the spirit of Trek so I think this criticism is just early growing pains, and even if this doesn’t improve, I find her so likable in person that I think I will forgive the clunky delivery. To the stars!
It’s not the episode itself that I am disliking, it’s the series as a whole. I have no issue with the type of story they’re trying to tell, but the way they’re executing this show, representing starfleet and writing the characters is contradictory to what came before. It’s the same stuff the JJ movies suffered from…I’m not intentionally trying to find fault in the episodes, but when I’m sitting there watching and being pulled out by numerous non-sensical things…gah. I remember in the 2009 Star Trek, when they spoke of the Hobus Star going super nova and threatening the galaxy…I was like..”WHAT?”. They’ve toned that down in Picard and changed it to the Romulan planets star…but man…they really needed to bring in some stronger writers to tighten this show up.
How about that episode 4 clip preview from “Ready Room?” I was hoping that planet Picard was visiting was Mintaka III … until I heard him say “Jolan Tru”
At least this greeting is 100% correct unlike Nero’s “Hi Chris” in ST2009.
Mintaka is definitely still pre-warp. Picard will never go back there.
He thinks engineering and programming AI life is awesome, why would he have a problem with teaching organic life?
The middling Jeff Russo music slathered over every scene is getting to be quite irritating. Mr. Kurtzman, you said you are making Star Trek’s first “adult drama.” Mr. Kurtzman, why don’t you go ahead and watch some acclaimed dramas? You could observe how such fare lets scenes breathe and lets actors act. You might notice how even a fantasy show like Game of Thrones doesn’t Mickey-Mouse every beat of every scene with musical slop, commanding the clueless viewers how to feel at every moment. If you insist on going the Merrie Melodies route, might I plea for you to hire a composer who sounds like he has actually studied classical composition?
The question about smoking is an interesting one. It could be that with medical technology being so advanced, the negative consequences of current-day vices are no longer an issue, so people can take them up simply for pleasure. Synthehol removes the worst aspects of alcohol, smoking (or vaping) is harmless because any problems can be solved with a quick shot or a few minutes on a bio bed. The fact that we don’t see a lot of overweight people might mean that everyone just eats healthier, or it could be that there are easy steps to take that allow you to eat whatever you want without gaining weight. Shoot, Captain Kirk had casual sex all over the Alpha Quadrant — did he always carry a space condom?
Presumably medics have advanced enough to completely obliterate addiction too, so who would want to subject the people around them to medical treatment for cancer and addiction with 2nd hand smoke? That would be pretty repugnant behavior. Here, have a hypospray and a few counseling sessions to get past your problems instead of wasting everyone’s time with unnecessary medical treatment. We’re supposed to be enlightened by the 24th century, not still 21’st century selfish assclowns.
It’s almost like the billions of people all over the federation aren’t one archetype, and are different people with different feelings and desires … Almost…almost like real life?
I have to ask if this reviewer has watched the previous 2 episodes. It is quite clear that Soji is investigating Romulan Mythology because Maddox wants to know why they hate Androids so that Mars never happens again.
The mother is very clearly a similation that only exists on screen, this isn’t even a question.
Robert Burnett has some VERY good discussion on the show so far. Begins from 17:30 on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va5QXH3fgP4
I find it’s best to just have it on, don’t bother sitting in front of it. Topic continues intermittently through the superchats at the end.
I’m still lost on what happened to the full “Romulan Empire”. Did the Romulan fleet/military just abandon the rest of the population on Romulus? It makes no sense why they needed outside help, and why they would be living poor refugee lives, when there were plenty of planets in the Empire to spread around to (it would seem anyways). Makes this “Empire” seem small and no big deal. Why did they need the Federation to help at all
A core world like Romulus would have a population in the billions TKW.
The Romulans realized they couldn’t get everyone out of the radius of the supernova on time.
Asking the Federation to transport 900 million out of billions seems proportional, and even if their are other worlds, they may not all be M-class or have infrastructure to support that large an influx within a couple of years.
I think the Fall of the Rom(ul)an Empire illustrates the achilles heel of strictly centralized, hierarchical societies kept together by the military and lethal force. When you cut off the head, the body cannot survive. Most likely Romulan military was based in the Romulus system. Worlds at the periphery of the empire that were kept in line by force seceded after the destruction of Romulus (similar to the dissolution of the Soviet Union). Interestingly, the Federation seemed to fear something similiar, seeing the threat of secession of (only) 17 member worlds as existential.
No, core world like Romulus has 900 m people until it’s established otherwise. Accept everything at face value and don’t give this production more credit than it’s earned.
Sam, that is just silly. The word help does not equal ‘do the complete task for us.’
Why would the Romulans ask the Federation to take responsibility for 100% of the evacuation of their core system?
Given how secretive Romulans are, they would ask non-Romulans to help with transport of the least security-sensitive people and essential materiel.
It sounds as though you are so determined to find fault with TPTB that you’re extrapolating to absurdity.
Not at all. I would love nothing better than for modern Trek (in this case Kurtzman Trek) to finally prove all them smug naysayers wrong. If that was ever going to happen though there’s no time like the present. They got Patrick Stewart out of semi-retirement; they’ll never have better motivation than that.
900m is the number they threw out, economy of storytelling would make it absurd extrapolation to assume that was anything other than the total number of people in need of relocation, regardless of who would have relocated them, unless specifically established otherwise. Who else was involved in the rescue is most likely unimportant — again for purposes of streamlined storytelling.
What likely IS important is the current state of Romulas: refugees, government, secret police, “secret” secret police, how many overall were saved and where do most of them reside — especially since we have a lot of these people running around. It’s even *possible* the show has yet to establish a better picture of this in the remaining 7 eps (I’d even approve holding back on a lot of this info rather than implausibly dumping it upfront).
But it also appears like a lot of what we’ve seen (in general) just wasn’t very thoroughly thought out.
Economy of storytelling means that we’re given the magnitude of the commitment that the Federation made, with no assumption that the Federation would do it all.
Don’t like it, point to the showrunners. Hold the series to a higher standard. That’s the number they spat out. Without further elaboration it refers to everyone who was in the path of the supernova.
Actually Sam, on rewatch of episode 3 I noticed that the writers offer Raffi saying that “billions are in the blast zone”.
Perhaps I had that in the back of my mind, but whatever we have been given that:
1) the Federation committed to relocate 900 million out of the blast zone
2) the total population at risk in the blast zone was in the billions.
Sam, I’ve found several of your posts quite reasonable, but as I’ve noted, in this thread you seem to be determined to quibble over minutia which in fact had been clarified by the writers in the episode we’re ostensibly discussing.
🤦♂️🤦♀️. Sigh facepalm.
I agree that’s the best interpretation available until they give us more. If they ever do. If they didn’t that would be fine.
But there’s also not enough here to dismiss it as a Kurtzman Trek inconsistency. And as I said above, the current state of Romulus (as a people) is more important, if they can give us more of that before season’s end. It’s already too late for them to patch up most of questions and holes left back on Earth — at least without very obviously playing catch-up as they did in the finale of STD S2.
I love the series in concept, and it’s got some good and even potentially great ideas, and I don’t even think the Brexit/Trump stuff is uncharacteristic of ST at all as others are complaining. But so far it just keeps piling on even more ideas rather than fleshing out the ones already in play. Not unlike STD (before STD fell apart in S1’s final act).
Ha! Seems we fans have had the same discussion since TUC and Praxis…. =P
BTW I agree with you, although the urgency of a supernova would outweigh the destruction of a moon. Evidently there are speed of light factors involved in RL novae, and the radiation can be deadly light years away (when it finally reaches a system).
should have used the stargazer, link to picards past and something never seen by the audience
The Stargazer appeared in the first season episode, “The Battle”. I only know this because I am in the process of rewatching TNG for the first time and I saw season one a few months ago.
all u nay-sayers….I’ve been a fan since TNG day 1, and while the franchise has had big problems (ie ST: DSC), I’m willing to wait and give it the benefit of the doubt. After all, we are only 3 episodes into a 10 ep 1st season of a show that has already been confirmed for a 2nd season. Remember how we all compared TNG S1 to the rest of the seasons?
I’m willing to overlook the bumps atm, because this show just FEELS like STAR TREK has come home (so far :) )
I too have been a fan since the start of TNG (cheers!), my first “Star Track” was TWOK, my first REAL exposure was TVH, very dim awareness that there even had been a TV series, but saw scattered eps of it when our local Fox5 picked it up in preparation for TNG.
And all throughout, my relationship with Trek has seemed to be exactly opposite of whatever was the talk on the street. TNG sucks? I was the perfect age for it, Wesley’s dorky striped uniform and all. DS9 sucks? It started getting really good right when TNG felt tired and soapish. DS9 still sucks thank god for VOY? I begged to differ. ST09 sucks? I was so done with Berman Trek that I still rank the movie at 3rd place. (The Meyer/Bennett movies remain my favorite re-creation of Trek.)
So naturally I loved STD while everyone said it sucked. Revisualize the universe? HELL yeah. Of course then the story fell apart in its 3rd act. “Oh well, we knew this would happen.” Then it re-stabilized (kind of?) for S2 before it fell apart again. I still have no idea what S2 was even about. It was about nothing. Plus after two years the show itself still has no premise.
STP has been an awkward mixture of everything I want from a new ST series (non-formula, driven by concept and character rather than setting), and everything I kind of fear about Kurtzman based on his history with Trek (even loving the 2009 movie as I do). And I just think WHATEVER the real long-term creative potential for Kurtzman Trek, it will have been determined by what’s already on film, face-down and waiting to be discovered in those unseen 7 episodes.
It just proves as a fanbase we’re not a monolith and there will never be a TRUE consensus of what people want in Star Trek, which sounds like its almost impossible for any of the shows or movies to ever completely win over everyone. And it is lol. FORTUNATELY though most Star Trek has been more successful than not because even when people moan and whine about not liking something, most still watch it just the same. That’s the power of the brand.
Even for me, I have watched every single iteration of Star Trek just like you starting with the TOS movies (that’s when I was getting ‘new’ Trek and not just old TOS reruns which I started with) all the way through today. Enterprise was the ONLY show I gave up on very early but I stuck it out with everything else even when I wasn’t that in love with it from the beginning. So that’s why although I am hard on shows when they just suck (as I felt Discovery and Enterprise first season did), I know from experience they usually all get better for me. Even with Enterprise once I went and watched the show (and this was when STID first arrived, I really never bothered to watch it until well after it was cancelled) I realized it too was a great show for me after all although its still on the lesser side of my favorites.
For me though, I really do love Star Trek in every iteration. 90s Star Trek will probably always be the best Star Trek for me. I been a fan since the late 70s but it was the 90s era that really turned me into a fanatic. And I think that was when there was just so much going on with it. It felt very mainstream at the time. So I really love Berman’s era of Star Trek even though it probably should’ve been a change by the end of Voyager. But I also loved the Bennet era as well but it was just a few movies basically. It wasn’t the ’empire’ Star Trek had become later, but they were fun and gave us more adventures with the TOS crew.
But I’m also fine with Abrams version of Star Trek and I like Kurtzman version too, even if I’m not in love with them yet. Because UNLIKE some people here, I don’t expect Star Trek to be the version in my head and I accept different people will have different ideas with it (but I generally love the direction Picard is in even if I still can admit I miss seeing him as captain on a star ship). That’s a GOOD thing because it needs to change to stay relevant for every generation. Star Trek was just 20 years old when TNG started but it was the perfect time to do something new and different with it. If we just got multiple versions of TOS, it would’ve died out looong ago IMO. The only issue is the execution of those changes. But TNG wasn’t TOS, DS9 wasn’t TNG, the Kelvin movies aren’t DS9 and Picard isn’t those movies either. They still have to represent the universes they are in (which is the other issue ;)) but they can certainly have their own unique identities and I will happily watch it all.
But it still has to be good! Or even just a little good lol. That is the one saving grace for me, ALL of Star Trek has all been a little good at least. ;D
Too right mate….so many people here keep banging on how this trek is supposed to be like 90s trek (which was the best) but can’t accept it changing and want it stuck in time, and use crappy YouTube channels and misinformation to trick people into thinking that it’s the mainstream opinion
Yeah as I said I love that era of Trek and I’m pretty convinced it will always be my favorite as well. I can probably watch those type of shows for the rest of my life and never complain. But I also believe in order to bring in new audiences and breath new life into the franchise you have to make a change at SOME point. It can’t just be nostalgia or the same formula all the time or it will never attract new people, just keep the old ones happy. Picard is sort of a best of both worlds, the TNG/DS9/VOY nostalgia is there and that aspect will probably only grow in later seasons as more characters show up from those shows; but its NOT any of those shows either and something on its own. That was a clever way to handle it IMO.
That’s why I’m really happy to see what Kurtzman is doing even if I’m not overly excited about every little thing coughSECTION31cough! But he’s trying to make it feel a lot more diverse with different types of characters, time periods and settings. And I just LOVE the fact he is taking real chances like setting Discovery a thousand years into the future. We needed something like that back in its first season IMO but it tells people like me who is real hungry for change that they are too!
It doesn’t mean all these new and current shows will be BETTER (and that’s the real issue I think for some who misses the TNG to ENT period of Star Trek) but hopefully it can still be good. Jury is still out but all I can say is I am enjoying it more and more and hopeful for the future shows.
But I do think with many Picard will probably be the make or break show in how they see the franchise going forward, especially if you were already disappointed in Discovery.
To many the best Trek was TOS. But I can understand that perhaps one of the best times to be a Trek fan was the 90’s.
Well for people who grew up with TOS like you and I (at least when it was the only Trek around if you didn’t catch its original run), sure. But for most people who didn’t, it isn’t. I know, all my friends who grew up with TNG era saw that as their favorite Star Trek. It’s really clear coming to this board where most people seem to be above 40 and then go to a place like Reddit where people are generally much younger and you see the stark difference easily between preferences for the two eras. And why I like both boards, because you do get a more well rounded view of it.
And yes maybe in time this new era will find another, excuse me, generation of new fans who will see Discovery and the others as their favorite part of the franchise as I felt the Kelvin movies were starting to before those movies deflated. Obviously the jury is still way out but this era is just getting started.
“FORTUNATELY though most Star Trek has been more successful than not because even when people moan and whine about not liking something, most still watch it just the same. ”
Fans are like that. I think Discovery season 1 and 2 have been absolute garbage. But God help me I’m a fan and will watch season 3 expecting it to be garbage and hoping it gets better. Just like fans of teams that suck sill watch each season hoping they get that player that can make the difference between sucking and competing. Even when all signs point to them still being crap. It’s just the nature of fandom.
I want to give them the benefit of the doubt as I am a Trek fan from back in the 70’s and really want the brand to give us good stuff. But Secret Hideout Trek is 0 for 2 from the first and 2nd seasons of Discovery. So while I am holding out hope for Picard, I am forced to think the likelihood of it being good, or even mediocre is low. It’s still early and the jury is still out. But rest assured this show can still go either way. At this point I will be stunned but pleased if it ends up being good and not at all surprised if it ends up being bad.
The fact they have a 2nd season is hardly evidence the show will end up being good. More likely the show had a 2nd season option going in and already had financing in place. The announcement was merely a formality like season 2 of Discovery.
OK, here’s a point NO ONE else has mentioned. Vasquez Rocks is a Los Angeles County Park, a short drive away from a heavily populated area. How the heck is someone in a run-down trailer living in it like it’s the middle of nowhere?
Basically considering this is fictional depiction of a world centuries into the future and post 21st century war, who knows what SoCal would be like in the late 24th century. We do know that NorCal SFO is still around along with Paris, etc., but as far as we know that part of LA Country may have been a wasteland after what TOS termed the the third world war or some other form of natural disaster.
Thanks DeanH.
Why is it that so many American Trek fans seem to think that WW III, a long established Trek canonical anchor somehow managed to leave the lower 48 states intact?
Probably because FIRST CONTACT made ww3 look more like a spoiled picnic rather than a nuclear winter.
When I first saw FC, my main distraction (besides how dark the movie looked, which was a problem with all the theaters at that point, just like GENERATIONS, which it turned out years later I found was shot wonderfully, just suffering from bad projection) was, ‘why aren’t they showing the devastation?’ All it would have taken is a shuttlecraft flight over a city to get a little taste of the horror.
Easy. Spock himself said Earth avoided nuclear war (but not WWIII). TNG decided to ignore that. Ergo, in my “vision of the future” (barf), there was a limited nuclear exchange – most likely attributable to Colonel Green’s War, except… ENT.
Because this was hundreds of years after said WWIII. And until TNG mentioned otherwise (a huge mistake IMHO) it was presumed that the 3rd WW was in regards to Khan. Who had taken over a quarter of the globe. None of which was in North America. Therefore it would be reasonable to conclude that part of the globe went through fairly unscathed. Further if the area was affected by such devastation it stands to reason the Vasquez Rocks would not look like the Vasquez Rocks we see today given it’s proximity to the nearby urban areas and military installations.
I mentioned it. I visited out there and there were a handful of people wandering about. It is not that far out of an urban area at all. So her living like she is “off the grid” (which she wasn’t as Picard was easily able to “call” her) seems like a stretch.
Yes, I know they did it as a “wink” to fans but that is the sort of fan service I do not like because it makes little sense. Had they put her in the middle of the Sahara or something where one would not expect anyone to be, even in the 24th century it might make more sense.
After all, the only way to get a real true Star Trek is to remaster DS9 and VOY at least to 1080p…
🤦♂️🤦♀️.
I never cease to be surprised how each succeeding generation of fans can be so insistent that they know what ‘real Star Trek’ is.
It’s funny, because I’m old enough to remember that when both series were originally airing, there were contingents of fans who didn’t believe either series was “real” Trek, too.
Absolutely, Edward Samuela!
It seems that the fans who can’t accept any Trek but the one they first attached to as kids or adolescents often have the loudest and shrillest voices on any board.
I, on the other hand, watched TOS in first-round as a young child, and have been enthusiastic to see every new Trek iteration.
I’ve found a lot to love in every series, even if some of them have disappointed me. (Enterprise was the only one that I largely gave up on, but even it has some episodes and arcs that are absolute gems.)
More, for the most part, the evolution of Trek has largely reflected my own changing perspectives and expectations.
I know I’m not the only one, in fact I suspect fans like me are more common if less vocal. I had friends who were dedicated TOS fan-club leaders who by the middle of TNGs sincerely admitted that TNG had become ‘their Trek’. I see the same pattern in our kids whose loyalty to different Trek shows has been evolving as they mature and new shows are available.
The odd thing is that given that so many of the negative fans speak about their love of Trek as exploration, they really aren’t wanting to explore or be challenged by new Trek.
That bird has flown.
I think that I should stop reading the comments. Some of you guys seem to consider ranting about *anything* one can think of, to be the actual entertainment drown from a TV show… it’s a damn fictional story but yet every box of your long list of expectations needs to be ticked. Hopefully, in a decade or so, we’ll have a fully interactive story-based TV type entertainment, so all of you aspiring directors, writers and producers would get your chance to adapt the story to your liking. Meanwhile, live long and prosper.
Alex..Bullseye! On the obsessive ranting.
“…fully interactive story-based TV entertainment…adapt the story to your liking” Like what Rios did with the EMH & ENH by making them a spitting image of himself to interact with on his ship. I can see Star Trek series becoming like STO video games where one subjectively chooses the ship, galaxy quadrant, time era, species, race, characters, style, skin, adversaries, storyline and have some randomness to keep things from repeating or fight for survival. All to keep trekkie die-hards satisfied for better or worse.
I’m really looking forward to something like that. Mosty likely will be something like what you’re describing, a hybrid Video game/live(or next gen life-like CGI) action content.
I am looking forward to time when some Artificial Inteligence will be able to (not only upscale DS9 and VOY into HD/4K if remaster will not still come but) transform TOS into Discovery look :D
Jonathan,
You could probably transform TOS into DSC look yourself right now. Just get a 35mm or 16mm print, project it through three layers of screen door material and transparent blue holiday wrap onto a wrinkled bedsheet, then add whatever idiotic amount of unmotivated lens flare you think is appropriate and ta-dah! You have the unwatchable DSC look, dumbed down immeasurably from TOS glorious 35mm shot on low-grain stocks.
Perfectly said, Alex. Sadly, Star Trek fans are the worst and would never survive living in the 23rd/24th century.
Sadly it’s not an exclusive privilege of ST fans.. happens everywhere, it’s the new norm. For example; The same was happening just a couple of months ago with Mandalorian which was a very entertaining show and I’ve enjoyed it (Was never a Star Wars fan but a good story is a good story nevertheless..) however, “fans” were ranting there for almost the same things. A few years ago we were starving for just ONE good Science fiction show…
I don’t know about that. The Mandalorian seemed to be rather well received by the hard core SW fans. Including those turned off by the sequel films.
I grok this show, but Raffi is the worst. I don’t buy her at all because she’s such a cliche. I hope she gets drunk and falls into the engines.
If Hank Azaria has to walk away from voicing Apu because of cultural sensibility, then for the love of Q STOP with the awful Irish accent by the E?H, it’s a disgrace and a slur on my people’s identity and heritage
Yeah, it’s absolutely shite. Laughable and offensive all in one.
I watched E3 again this afternoon and I really enjoyed the first 30 mins, sunglasses excluded haha. Btw the one acceptable reason why she was wearing sunglasses might be a confirmation to the fans that she is indeed Romulan and not Vulcan. No self-respecting Vulcan with inner eyelids would ever consider wearing eye protection from the sun. Ha, okay as for the 2nd half of the episode, MEH, but not as bad as I thought first time around and that said – I am really looking forward to E4.
Star Trek: Picard soundtrack is now available on iTunes. Stay away from the track listings, unless you’re ok with minor spoilers.
Its pretty awesome. Jeff Russo’s score is great. I’ve really warmed to the main theme.
I absolutely loved the first episode. The second episode laid out lots of exposition for what to expect, and while lacking the quality of the first episode, was serviceable. The third episode has me very worried about the series, as the writing and some of the acting was horrific! I have seen better writing on fan films. Stewart remains majestic, but the scenes with Raffi were awful. The relationship between these characters seemed so forced. Instead of Raffi, who we know nothing about and couldn’t care anyhow, they should have used a character that is familiar to us, like Dr. Crusher.
Fingers crossed that the show gets back on track, but that last episode was awful.
Yes, agree, dreadful episode. Episode 1 opening was the best with the big D and Data/Picard playing poker. The new characters suck so far, I liked Dahj but they killed her right away lol. No mention of current captain of USS Enterprise or letter e or f, I am hoping this gets better. Episode 1 A, episode 2 B, episode 3 D so far
It’s possible those who loved that first episode were more in love with seeing the E-D flying again and the presence of Data more so than it was seeing Picard in retirement. What the other episodes lacked was more familiar elements. Just putting that out there…
in order of my liked eps 1>3>2
I’d say 1=3>2.
1 had a particular magic, but 3 never flagged for me. 2 really suffered from the long conversations among the utterly-less-than-compelling villains.
I can’t even rate them. They are all part of the same arc and so far none of them have really been any better or worse than the others. At this point they are just sort of ‘there’ and I’m getting tired of set up. We are 3 full episodes in and what they did in three episodes could have easily been done in two. Based on 3 eps (not a good sample size but its all we got to go on at the moment) the show has a “get on with it!” feel. Part of me is thinking the final 3rd of the season will be overloaded with attempts to pay off the set up. Sort of like Discovery once they got back from the MU. There were far too many loose ends to tie up that they HAD to do. And even though the MU completely ruined the season the way the finished up did them no favors.
Funny… I felt like Picard had a stronger relationship with Rafi than anyone under his command on the Enterprise. Which made his choice to blow her off after his resignation all the much more the head scratcher. If they didn’t present their relationship to be as strong as it looked it might have been easier to take. Instead they presented them as having developed at worse a VERY close working relationship, if not outright friendship, over those years.
This series continues to plod along at a snail’s pace. I don’t care about any of these characters yet, including Jean Luc. The acting is solid, the blame falls squarely in the weak writing and plot. And we’re officially in soap-opera land now…where time stands still from from scene to the next. Scene1: ring the door bell, it opens, revealing an unexpected face. Cut to a 5 minute lover’s quarrel. Cut back to first 2 people still facing off on the front doorstep. “I wasn’t expecting you to be here!” No time has passed. Trademark soap opera film making. Sad to see this style in Trek….but with Discovery and now, Picard… it seems to be what the franchise has, tragically, morphed into, so I’m not surprised. Just disappointed. Patrick Stewart deserves better. Trek deserves better. Or, at least it used to, when it was synonymous with quality science-fiction. This franchise has seriously lost its way.
I actually agree, I was thinking e3 was the worst. The plot and writing is weak. Hoping it gets better. The best scenes was when Data was in them, would have been much better if Data never died and Data was with Picard in this new series.
They need to bring back the sci fi and twilight zone style TNG style stories with bizzare mysteries and a bigger hook. Q would have made things interesting and fun.
Nostalgia is driving your opinion. We don’t need to have all the old cast back, though nice to have it isn’t necessary. We need time to develop new cast and stories. Nothing needs to be answered all at once, I find it fun to try and figure out things as information is slowly revealed. Nothing needs to be fast paced.
Knowing human condition and inferring things from real life counterparts fills in how people react in this show.
With today’s serialized storytelling, the writers are conscious that they can’t switch across a large range of styles from episode to episode within a single series.
Basically, TNG offered a diversity of Sci-fi flavoured drama, action-adventure, mystery, twilight-zone, and comedy.
This isn’t possible in the dominant series format expected by peak-age viewers today. As much as many of us over 40 would like episodic Trek, we just aren’t going to provide the audience base to sustain Trek for the future.
So, TPTB are trying to mix things up across series instead of within a series. As well, Short Treks offer some opportunities to experiment with a broader range of styles and tones.
Can we say that we’d like TPTB to keep trying to stretch the envelope of what current peak age audiences will accept? Absolutely.
Should we dig our heels in and claim it can never be Trek because it isn’t precisely as it was? Not a chance in my view.
By the way, Chabon himself acknowledges that it took quite a while before he (as a childhood TOS fan) could accept TNG as really being Trek. All he’s asking is that fans give Picard the same time and patience to convince them that it is worthy Trek that he once gave to TNG.
I agree with everything here TG47 :D
Today’s audience is for binge watching, multiple ep arcs. Enclosed stories don’t work as they once did.
I love Trek no matter the formula. I grew up with TNG but fell in love with DS9.
You said everything I was thinking TG47…as usual.
And this is why so many people begging for a Pike show might be disappointed because so many seem to want the show also done in the TOS/TNG format which would be episodic and they find a new adventure every week. I just don’t see that happening. Whatever the show will be it will most likely be done like DIS and PIC and basically one main story driving the season. Hopefully it would be about exploration though (which is one o the biggest complaint against DIS and now PIC) but that trend of a single story every week has basically died out, especially in our binge watching world today. Unless its an anthology show like Short Treks essentially is then it will be heavily serialized.
The only way that I would accept a Pike show is if they just go on one big serialized adventure. If its episodic, then I’m just not sure what it adds that we haven’t already gotten from TOS, TAS, TNG, and Enterprise.
I sort of have to agree. I’m really looking forward to the idea of a Pike show but I don’t think it needs to be a TOS/TNG redux either. But it can still be a story dealing with exploration and not just more war stories, Section 31 or evil villain schemes. I would love a story line that deals with first contact of a new species and go from there.
IF they do a Pike show and that show is a serialized story then it has to be a good story to work. Anything less would be a failure. I think the risk/reward of that is awfully high. Which is why, and I’m not saying no more story arcs because I love me a good season long story arc, I think a Pike show might be better served to go with the episodic format or at least pull a season 4 Enterprise type of deal with three and two parters along with a handful of standalones.
So, you want to just do the same thing they did on TNG?
It hasn’t lost it’s way it has found the formula that is successful in todays television. I enjoy slow plots with lots of world building. I don’t need pew pew action or fast scenes all the time.
I was hoping with Discovery and now Picard, we would get WestWorld level of plotting and writing. Discovery pretty much failed with not being able to follow through with its twists and Picard is feeling like a soap and is lacking any hooks to make people want to binge it. And I love to binge shows.
I don’t get the- “Oh my gosh it is 2am but I have to see what happens next!”- feeling from the show at all.
“I don’t get the- “Oh my gosh it is 2am but I have to see what happens next!”- feeling from the show at all.”
I don’t get that feeling either and I certainly didn’t get it from Discovery either. Yet I have gotten it from other short season shows with season long arcs. I’ve sat through as many as THREE episodes in a row from time to time. For me, that is nearly an eternity of sitting on my couch!
this is not your usual ‘trek’ tv, everything wrapped up in 42 mins.
this is a big 10 chapter story being told at its own pace.
Yes, the show is plodding along. Slowly. I know they said this show would be more methodical but I expected it to slow down from Discovery. Not come to a near complete halt! I, too, find myself not caring about anyone. So far the most interesting character isn’t even alive! That is not a good thing.
.. anyone but wheeeeeaton!
I was excited after watching the first episode of Picard. Now, having watched the next two episodes……..meh. It’s mediocre at best. Other than Stewart and the female Romulan looking after him, the rest of the cast need acting lessons. Big time!
Picard should have stole the stargazer from the smithsonian and went on his mission with help from people he helped in tng. Dahj should have been on this mission to find her evil twin sister, with Q popping in now and then. I dont feel any connection with the new crew.
Well, some thoughts, that is an interesting pitch.
So, basically TNG, but on a needlessly stolen 60 year old ship?
I hope beyond hope that is said with tongue planted firmly in cheek.
Harry, you seem to have very high, or at least very specific ideas about what constitutes good acting.
My sense is that these new Trek series are trying to thread the needle between Trek’s Shakespearean style and some more naturalistic performances. I’m not sure the casting decisions have been fully conscious of matching actors to the target style.
Both Discovery and Picard have some very strong theatrical actors, and I’d say that Discovery’s regulars are second in craft only to DS9. I’m less critical of the Picard cast than you, but agree that the villains needed stronger actors.
TG47, I really appreciate your thoughts on the matter. I admit I am a picky bastard. I just find when you come across a really good actor, they jump off the screen and grab you by the throat. Call it charisma, talent or both. I just know it when I see it.
I tried really hard to get into this. Disappointed with what Picard has been written into here… to me he seems more like the counselor to all these broken unknown characters. This is not the Picard from Next Generation and the movies and this universe is not the universe I grew up with… sorry.. fail. So far its like Picard runs into the Firefly crew. The ship is so generic its painful.
I will hang in there like I always do, because I was also not a fan of the first season and a half of TNG. THe problem here is people really want to see the characters we know and love in a more (IMHO) More Good things kind of vibe. Also the political issues in trek used to make you think but rarely did the show take the side… for example they might have dealt with divisions but the overall theme was unity of purpose and chain of command was rarely challenged… Now everyone is like “Dude”!! and dropping F bombs and other weird language. This does not feel like Star Trek to me…
After watching every episode of every Star Trek, I have come to expect metaphors to life on our world. Are there metaphors to this life now in Picard? Sorry to be so dense. I’m not picking up on the metaphors. Maybe something about AI? I mean when a Ferengi says “once you have their money never give it back,” I think I can make a comparison to our world. It’s obvious that Ferengis are capitalist. Who are these people on Picard?
I thought perhaps the Federation separation anxiety was a shadow for Brexit as in isolationism. The problem is half of everyone takes sides in these things in life so Trek would always explore the concept but not pick the side… Now Trek picks the sides. When was the last time we hear the Prime Directive mentioned? This is so far simply not Star Trek.
Im sure a lot of hard work and resource went into making this but that does not make it something I chose to watch going forward perhaps, even tho I probably will struggle through and hope it gets right.
I will continue to watch because life without Star Trek for me is not complete. It’s just I need some practical application of what I am watching. Your example of Brexit is a good one. Give me the Irish side and the British side with Star Trek characters. I will be satisfied. Part of the fun is trying to figure who these characters represent.
I’m OK with action/adventure. The life I have led includes plenty of real life blood and guts. Most of the people who watch Star Trek have not seen folks getting blown-up in real time, or witnessed the tragedy of collateral damage.
But life is more than death and obscenities. There is an intellectual side which I find wanting in all the recent Star Trek offerings. I am willing to admit that I am slow to see the deeper meaning in everything I watch. I need a muse to help me with that aspect of TV viewing.
I’m kind of with you ALT. I’m just not seeing any kind of Brexit allegory here. The closest thing mentioned is the potential loss of 17 worlds, something NO ONE seemed to want. And certainly nothing relating to anything going on politically here in the States. Which I’m a bit relieved about, to be honest. I feared they would do some heavy handed badly done allegory that would tell viewers they should feel what the producers feel about it. Unfortunately so far (and yes, this is only after 3 episodes so obviously there is still time to remedy this) the plot has been amazingly shallow.
It could be that I am cursed and comfortable with looking at both sides of an issue. But I agree a badly done allegory might blow-up the series. So I guess action/adventure and Easter Eggs will have to suffice……..for now.
If Picard resigned, why he has still combadge?
This was a terrible episode, filled with cliché. Dreadful. Baddie wearing shades (though Vulcans/Romulans have inner eyelids), subordinate lieutenants calling their commanding ADMIRAL “JL” and cursing in their face, every single character is wounded psychologically, our new ship captain is the biggest “tough guy” trope I’ve seen in literature in ages.
It’s bad drama, bad writing, shaky acting, I had such high hopes.
I should add that another commentor took a lot of heat a week ago for noting that Picard is being literally yelled at by every female character on the show. This episode proved it once again.