Star Trek: Picard wrapped up its first season in March, setting its title character off to new adventures with the crew of the La Sirena. Now executive producer Akiva Goldsman is talking about the plans for season two, and offering some insights into season one.
Waiting to start up again for season two, delay can help make it better
Akiva Goldsman gave Collider an update on how the coronavirus lockdown has impacted work on the second season of Picard:
We were to start shooting in June, which I guarantee you we will not unless the world opens tomorrow. We had broken the season, we were about halfway through the writing of it. You know, we will start as soon as we can once the world opens, you know? Prep will have to resume, and then we’ll start.
The executive producer also offered some insight into plans for the second season:
We know what it is, and it’s cool. And we’re excited by it, and I feel like we learned a lot from season one.
Expanding on that, Goldsman found a silver lining in the production delay, indicating if they can complete writing work on the full season, they can go back and refine earlier episodes to ensure they better set up what is to come later in the season:
…it is fundamentally a gift to be able to do all of them [the episodes] if you can. Because unlike previous iterations of television, this serialized ten-hour narrative has setups and payoffs that require a thoughtful view of the object once it is completed. It’s very funny, in the first season of Picard, there were all these reviews of the beginning, ‘Oh it’s so dark, it’s so dark, it’s so dark.’ And I kept saying, ‘They’re reviewing the first act of a movie.’ The first act of a movie is always dark…So we’re in this weird world now where we create one narrative object but we dole it out bit by bit, which is fascinating. And can be kind of fun. But what you really want is to be able to refine your setups once you’ve written your payoffs… if in fact you could have the time to write 10 hours first, that would be amazing. And maybe we will.
His comments also indicate that season two, like season one, will have ten episodes. As for how long the show may go on, it has previously been reported that they have planned for three seasons. But Goldsman indicated to Collider that it could go longer saying, “Star Trek: Picard in my view will go as long as Patrick Stewart wants to do it.”
The crew of La Sirena as we last saw them in the season finale
How Uhura and Logan lead to Star Trek: Picard
As part of CBS’ Emmy campaign, Goldsman also talked to Gold Derby, earlier in the month, focusing on the first season. He began by explaining how the show was born out of an idea that would have brought back a classic Star Trek character:
We were creating that first season of Short Treks…We were imagining one, something we never made, which was some intersection with a very young Picard and an aging Uhura. Although we never made that, one of the things were thinking is could we take this young actor – not Tom Hardy – and sort of morph him at the end and actually use a shot of Patrick [Stewart]. Could we get Patrick? And Alex Kurtzman said, “Why not just get him for one, why not get him for a show?” We all sort of went, “Well, that’s impossible, isn’t it?” And off we went.
Goldsman also talked about how Patrick Stewart’s role in the 2017 X-Men film Logan helped inform how they convinced Stewart to return to the role of Picard and how his character would be portrayed:
We knew we had to go to him with something that wasn’t a replay…We were also, when it came to Patrick, on the specific heels of Logan and on the shoulders of Logan. What was so amazing about Logan to me was it was modern, it understood the passage of time. It was happy to embrace the promises of the future, both realized and not realized. It was really great acting and really great storytelling. We wanted to live up to that and obviously Patrick would insist we live up to it. And so those guideposts kept us on the straight and narrow when it came to not just redoing what had already been done.
Patrick Stewart as an older Charles Xavier in Logan
Keep up with all the Star Trek: Picard news, reviews, and analysis at TrekMovie.com.
“The first act of a movie is always dark…”
What is that even supposed to mean. Does not make any sense to me.
You have to set up the stakes and the drama, so it will always be grim. Think of the most cheerful of the Star Trek movies, “The Voyage Home.” The first act is all about the crew coming back to Earth to face trial, and the Earth is being devastated by a space probe. This is surely dark. The first act isn’t over in a drama if you’re not gearing toward “screwedesness.” :-)
Things don’t have to turn dire till the end of act 1, you can have fun&games, gathering the troops like a MAG 7 movie. So setting the stakes doesn’t mean you have a grind — most movies turn into a grind during the second half of act 2, when instead of complexifying, movies just kind of hover (TOP GUN after Goose’s death seems to stop dead for a 1/2 hr, and that’s from somebody who didn’t even like what came before.) TVH starts as a real grind, but
Sorry, it cut me off when I was editing the above.
TVH starts as a real grind (it seems like Shatner is playing himself after losing a salary dispute), but that’s because Bennett wrote that section — and based on TSFS couldn’t write ebullient to save his or Spock’s life — and probably also as a contrast to the fun&games of Meyer’s act2.
Speaking of TVH… I’ve often wondered what was whose idea in that. Whose idea was the time travel? Who came up with the whale portion of the plot? And was it really Nick Meyer who was responsible for the writing of the 1986 San Francisco stuff?
I remember watching a small behind the scenes documentary that came along with the VHS at the time (and I think is on Youtube now if you want to find it). But it was Leonard Nimoys idea who came up with the whale plot line after he saw a documentary about whales being hunted in the wild and their near extinction over it. I think he came up with the time travel angle too but not 100% sure.
And yes Nick Meyer wrote all the San Francisco scenes IIRC (if the literally references doesn’t give it away ;)).
It’s almost as if Nick Meyer learned nothing about the characters after working on WoK. And I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on Nimoy. He’s not a writer and doesn’t really know what would work story wise and what wouldn’t. The blame there really ought to go with whoever it was that allowed those bad ideas to get used.
I had no issues with it and its still one of my top movies (#4) but we all know how you feel about it.
I think Meyer was more concerned with learning what he needed about the lead actors rather than the characters. It’s like the guys who did the early writing said, you have to make it seem like Kirk has every idea, even when it comes from Spock, like Kirk ordering time travel after Spock spells it out. And as a hired hand, Meyer had no agenda to override the director or the producer, as opposed to TUC where he took things in directions different from what Nimoy intended, at least with respect to exploring Klingon culture. (the different two guys who did the early writing on TUC said their work reflected a sense of history with characters — probably mostly Klingons — from the past being reencountered when Kirk goes to Klingon jail, along with a much stronger connection to it being a last voyage a la ULYSSES)
My guess is that Meyer wrote something light and had certain ideas he felt would be funny or cute. The problem is, apart from those ideas not being funny or cute, was that it required the characters to act in ways that they absolutely were not. It did seem like the actors were enjoying it but enjoying it on the level of the way they enjoyed playing their MU counterparts. It wasn’t the same character.
The weird part is apart from perhaps the Borg stuff the show really wasn’t all that dark. And certainly not the opening act.
Picard had given up on doing anything meaningful in his life, and the woman who needs his help is murdered right in front of him, and before that her boyfriend gets murdered, the two people he need to help him are an alcoholic and a very troubled former starfleet officer, and Starfleet doesn’t care about it principles anymore.
Got dark? ;-)
Not dark. The assassinations were treated like action set pieces. Especially that one at Star Fleet. And none of them were characters anyone got to know enough to even care much about. Dark is a lot different than an action set piece that ends in assassination. Dark is more of an overall tone. Not so much individual events. Rafi had issues but we didn’t know anything about her until the 2nd act. I didn’t see Star Fleet NOT caring about principles. I saw them make a massive effort to help move a doomed people. Doesn’t get more Star Fleet than that. The one thing that MIGHT get labeled as “dark” was Picard still was struggling with closure over the Data sacrifice. Which led him to become a little bitter pretty much towards everything in life.
Well to me, fighting depression and feeling your life’s work was all for not in the first two eps is dark and and depressing. And I’ll also note that some other fans who posted here on the first two eps found Picard to be dark:
Trellium G
I’m not a fan of this dark Star Trek, and it seems like all the new stuff is going to be dark. It’s awful dystopian sci-fi dressed up in Star Trek clothing.
Cmd.Bremmon
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.
Kirk is in a dark place at the start of TWOK with a midlife crisis, but it isn’t handled in a dark way, just put out there so audience can understand. Same for Kirk in TMP after wormhole. It is coloring an incident, not an overall mood thing. I think the whole dark business with Picard is a case of a bad choice being made by interviewee in terms of wording and/or thinking.
Most shows with a seriously dark open act 1 are movies I don’t even stick with (MISSING IN ACTION so turned me off that I’ve never seen any of them, because there’s no way any retribution was going to make up for what was shown up front), though there are glorious exceptions like MISSISSIPPI BURNING (and yeah, I am still ambivalent — even guilty feeling — about so immensely enjoying a movie that plays loose and fast with important US history, but dang, it is a very compelling and entertaining film.)
I can see describing Kirk being in a “dark” place in those instances. But I do think it a bit of an exaggeration. Perhaps that’s because I do not consider a mid life crisis as a dark place. I see it more as a personal crossroads or something along those lines. Perhaps that’s just me? Could be I guess.
The article states that the first third of a movie is typically dark. For WOK, in addition to Kirk’s attitude, we have Pavel and his Captain captured and creatures put into their ears for control by Khan, and then we have McCoy and Kirk finding a mass murder season on that space station.
Yea, that’s a dark first 1/3 of that movie.
I did not see that Picard felt like his entire life’s work was for naught. It really wasn’t. His annoyance with Star Fleet was not his life’s work with them but merely one decision they made he had a personal problem with. This has happened before and he has dealt with it. What he was REALLY struggling with was lack of closure or maybe even understanding for why Data would save him. It was Data he was dreaming about. Not his life’s work.
I think he felt that that bad decision he made did cast a shadow on much of his life’s work, because he blames himself some for the federation changing in a bad way so that no longer feels like the Federation he was so proud of…that’s tearing him up. So much so that he drops all contact with everyone he ever worked with in Starfleet for years.
Was he blaming himself? Didn’t appear that way to me. He seemed to have an over inflated opinion of himself by thinking that resigning would change anything. Perhaps he was down because he thought his resignation would have an effect. When it didn’t he had to re-evaluate how much pull he REALLY had.
It means just what it says. It’s true for 90% of sf movies.
That’s malarkey. You need to watch a better mix of movies, SF or not.
No at all. Here is my personal list of the top science fiction movies of this past decade. I have reviewed this list, and I would argue that every single one of these movie, with the exception of Inception, had a “dark” chapter that starts the first one-third of the movie.
10. Silence
9. Snowpiercer
8. Star Wars TLJ
7. Gravity
6. Mad Max Fury Road
5. Star Trek 2009
4. The Martian
3. Blade Runner 20492. Inception
2. Inception
1. Interstellar
correction — A Quite Place at 10, not Silence. Lol
I’ve seen all of those except SILENCE, and while I remember almost nothing of FURY ROAD (just sound & fury, the opposite of ROAD WARRIOR IMO), none of them strike me as exceptionally dark act 1s, or particularly dark at all. 09 has a teaser that is supposed to play heroic rather than dark, though it achieves neither for me, and There is stuff on there like TLJ where the good guys are losing all the way through, but you can say the same about EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, which doesn’t make it some gloomy act 1 — just the opposite in fact.
GRAVITY probably SHOULD play like what you describe, but it instead it plays like a thriller, and it is only afterward when leaving the theater that you realized the human race is seriously screwed and back in the dark ages with this LEO debacle wiping out communications and setting things back a couple generations.
There are some good movies in there (and most are at least well-executed), but for SF-related stuff that I think top them all, I’d add two low-budget entries, HER — which is simply brilliant and will probably date better than any of these pics except the Nolan films — and UNDER THE SKIN, which is so far out there that it feels like it was directed (well) by an alien.
Here’s one I would say has a pretty dark act 1 – the ZORRO movie. You have bad stuff happening to Hopkins and his family and to most of the peasants, and Banderas’ bro/friend all in the early going, to the point that it is turning into a real grind, but then they turn it around with charm and good filmmaking.
Exactly
Basically he talks rubbish and Collider lap it up.
Nope… Its Only rubbish if you just Label everthing rubbish you dont understand.
With little effort you can understand it and its just a normal Statement. Nothing deep, nothing super special but clearly Not rubbish.
Feel free to explain it then?
I shared his comments with a masters level writing student who is nearing the end of his pHd. He said it sounds like someone picked up ‘screenwriting for dumbies’ and was quoting from it which I think is fair.
On the subject of books though, I’ve read ‘Save the Cat!’ and Straczynski’s “The Complete Book of Scriptwriting” as well as a few others, and studied how Kenneth Branagh brought Shakespeare to the big screen at degree level which included liaising with someone who worked on his adaptation of Hamlet (1996)
Akiva’s words on the subject are “the first act of a movie is always dark” in reference to criticism directed towards episodes 1 and 2.
Most movies follow the same structure and the first act of a movie is called “the setup”, where characters are introduced, the world they live in is established and a cataylst is introduced which sets the story in motion. The catalyst can be anything. Yes, it can be something “dark” or tragic, but to say “the first act of a movie is always dark” is (to quote Picard) a failure of imagination.
So Akiva is telling us the first 2 episodes of Picard are “dark” because the beginning of a movie is always “dark” (wrong) Well, he must’ve been shocked when “Stardust City Rag” came out because that episode was about as dark as it gets (for Star Trek).
Nope, pretty sure it’s still rubbish.
Agreed
I feel really hopeful of season 2. The season 1 ending left behind a lot of lose ends.
Maybe the coronavirus lockdown is a good thing in the long run. Now the writers and producers are taking things seriously and not rushing everything. Shooting was supposed to start in June but that’s obviously not happening anytime soon.
Minnesota has gradually started lifting the lockdown here. The stay at home order expired. People here in Minnesota wear masks and listen to the healthcare experts. The hospitals here are doing well. Minnesota is not in the same boat like New York or other states.
Akiva Goldsman said a lot of interesting things here. Like he said, Picard could go as long as Patrick Stewart wants to do it. Godspeed.
I honestly do not think the extra time will allow them to make the next season better. Case in point… STID kept getting delayed and the takeaway from the producers was “we’d rather take the time to get it right than to rush something out that was not as good.” How well did THAT work out?
Picard Season 1, while having some issues, was the best first season of any Star Trek series since TOS. First seasons of Trek series are nearly always weak — this was well above the first seasons of TNG, VOY, Enterprise and Discovery. One might argue maybe DS9 season 1 was about as good, but not the others.
Spoiled fans (not referring to you) lose their perspective. IT’S A FIRST SEASON OF A STAR TREK SERIES — SO BEING OK IS A WIN.
A: That’s an awfully low bar to set.
B: It’s also not appropriate to compare it to those other shows. The circumstances of this streaming short season show that really had no deadlines whatsoever are drastically different. Shows like Discovery and Picard should be held to a MUCH higher level than a show that had hard deadlines and had to produce as many as 24 episodes in a season.
A. We know from history that Star Trek series, TOS excepted, take a season, sometimes event 2 to 2.5, to get rolling as successful series. It is what it is. This is not something I am making up, obviously.
B. I disagree. I’ve simply never seen a direct relationship between quantity of eps versus quality of a season. Amazing Stories in the late 80’s in it’s full two season run was pretty decent, yet the new limited series on Apple TV+ stinks. Same with The Twilight Zone, and also with The Gilmore Girls in comparing the recent limited series versus the original good long-seasons runs they had. For all of these shows, the fully 25 approx eps seasons were better.
Also, Gene R had been developing concepts for TNG for years before the production green light in 86, and has scripts from Star Trek Phase II ready to be re-used, and that how did that go in terms of ensuring high quality?
You’re really mixing up facts with fiction. GR had not been developing TNG concepts, he wasn’t even involved in the original TNG concept, which was to be produced by one of the Strangis guys. And p2 scripts were hardly ready to be reused (look how few got used during the run of TNG) given the different century and characters.
GR himself was responsible for most of the problems on the show — also to a degree true for TOS, which succeeded in spite of his rewriting, presumably because the original work by others like John Black was so good it survived to some degree, plus, the one undeniable TOS intangible – Gene Coon, who could deal with GR while delivering immense quality.
Best season for me of TNG was s3, when they were so short on time they didn’t have time to rewrite scripts to death so originals weren’t getting ruined — and they had their best results ever. You can claim that is exception that proves the rule, but however you evaluate it, still points to source material relating to quality, and if a TREK series doesn’t have quality source material out of the gate, then the people up top are doing a bad job, and shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
All of this ‘bad first season’ or ‘bad first three seasons’ stuff is first-order excusemaking that can’t even be considered to apply elsewhere, and there’s nothing so special about this brand that should make it exempt from looking at s1s like they are different from THE WIRE or THE HOUR or THE SOPRANOS or UPLOAD or THE MANDALORIAN, except for the plain-out fact that quality-wise, none of them are remotely in the same ballpark as these trek brands (though DS9 is clearly way above the rest of the post TOS stuff, it is still all over the place compared to genuinely great TV.)
I was going to say something like this and add another thought or two but I think I’ll just endorse your response here. Even though I never liked THE SOPRANOS. :)
I haven’t been able to rewatch past s2 on SOPRANOS, but I did enjoy it first-run. Maybe it is just a one-time thing, which does make it different from the others I mentioned, which are going to be go-tos again & again for me forever.
For me it’s mainly that I’m not a fan of the mobster genre. So that could have a lot to do with it.
I’ll grant you that I overstated my case on the prep Roddenberry did for TNG — good point.
That being said, when you wrote:
“Best season for me of TNG was s3, when they were so short on time they didn’t have time to rewrite scripts to death so originals weren’t getting ruined — and they had their best results ever. You can claim that is exception that proves the rule, but however you evaluate it, still points to source material relating to quality, and if a TREK series doesn’t have quality source material out of the gate, then the people up top are doing a bad job, and shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”
I agree with this. But here are two huge reasons why this was possible that both are related to the show taking a couple of years to become a high quality series — which is the point I was making that is especially peculiar to Star Trek series’ over the years:
1. The writing team had two years under their belts — this directly reinforces my overall point that it takes awhile for Star Trek series to establish themselves creatively.
2. Roddenberry’s influenced on the production was reduced, and this freed up the creative team to have more drama with the crew…again, something that took them a couple years to iron out and correct.
If I have these details wrong, somebody call me on it, I’m doing this from memory …
The writing team from s1 was gone by s2 except for showrunner Hurley, and the s2 team was almost entirely gone by s3 … only Melinda Snodgrass remained, and she bailed (or was not retained) by midseason when her contract was up over issues with Berman and especially with Piller, who really turned her original HIGH GROUND concept from edgy and exciting and Trek like to something seriously mundane.
They did have a couple guys come back from s1 during s3, a writing team, but the new blood is what really invigorated s3: Ron Moore and Behr and the guy who did the Lal episode. Plus a lot of the new freelancers delivered strongly … much as I dislike him personally, Bailey’s TIN MAN is pretty good, buoyed by that single awesome Chattaway score before he got creatively castrated by Lauritson/Berman.
I’ll grant you that by s3, anybody on the show would have had some idea of what NOT to do, but if they had any smarts they’d’ve known that without having to see s1 & s2. Nobody needs a 50 episode learning curve, and nobody deserves one either, especially when there was a viable template from TOS that could have been updated through a volume of competent work.
Two issues:
1) that extra time won’t help
2) shows on streaming services don’t have deadlines
I don’t think you have a leg to stand on on either of these claims. Of course, extra time (especially in the scripting stage) will help. The problems pointed out in this article are exactly the problems with serialized storytelling. You set up the overall arc, but unless you are very lucky, the story and production alters as you go and not everything fits right. You then either just live with it not fitting perfectly, or you go back and edit the earlier stuff toe better align.
Too much time allowing the executives and other influences (too many cooks) to degrade the story is more a problem of overly meddlesome powers that be – and I don’t get the impression that there is a lot of heavy handedness from the studio on this project.
Streaming shows absolutely have deadlines. CBS still has quarterly budgets and revenue goals, they still have people that are getting paid, and they still have competition. Yeah, they don’t have the strict fall or winter TV start dates, but they still have contractual duties of their actors, crew and others, they have licensing deals, cross promotions, and other product and service launches. Streaming many have more flexibility that broadcast or cable tv, but they still have limits.
One other major factor is that Picard and Discovery are the first new Trek shows in like 13 years. Other than a few actors, and a few others, the entire cast and crew is new to these kind of productions. Writers are new to their characters, and new to their writer’s rooms. Unless you get really lucky like TOS season 1, it takes time to find the right rythem, getting production, writing, and acting all matured.
Even great from the start shows like “The Wire” can fall down a little (see Wire’s second season); but saying Picard can’t improve with time and effort is just hater talk.
You say the extra time will help. My point is not that it won’t but that there is no guarantee it will. History has shown that it doesn’t automatically make the writing better.
Regarding the deadlines… Perhaps I should have made it more clear. The deadlines for streaming shows are not nearly as solid as for the more traditional shows. Look how many delays streaming shows have. It seems to happen all the time. Yet you don’t see that with the more traditional 20+ season TV. The streaming limits exist but compared to the others it seems nearly non-existent.
I do not recall ever saying the show will never improve with time. I did say that the first season of a streaming show should be held to a far greater scrutiny than other shows simply because they have many luxuries those other productions simply do not have. They should be compared more closely to feature films. Especially so since many of their producers have compared their shows to features themselves. So there is no reason not to expect them to hit the ball on the screws on the first pitch.
Picking up any viewers is obviously a subsidiary issue to Stewart having fun.
I don’t think the later acts of the series were lighter than the start. It all didn’t really have a particular fun and optimistic tone.
And personally I think Logan was the least entertaining X-Men movie I have seen. Super dark and depressive. I don’t think it was a good role model for PIC. Xavier in it was particular sad to see. Old, dement and he has killed accidentally nearly all of his mutant friends and students. It really doesn’t get much more depressive than that.
Logan was okay but Deadpool is better.
Deadpool is a basically a comedy, so I wouldn’t really make that comparison.
Apples and oranges.
Logan was the only X-Men movie I liked. The others were just so cheesy and seemed like teenager-targeted movies…like big budget versions of The CW shows.
Disappointing the Coronamess has delayed and pushed back so many things (or course entertainment options is the least of our worries on that). Still very excited for season 2 even if season 1 felt like crushing disappointment by the end. And unfortunately when Goldsman says season 2 is going to be ‘cool’ for some reason it gives me the opposite reaction. But it is good they have time to really hash out the scripts with the delays and after watching first season, that will be a major plus. ;)
One thing I will agree with him though is for whatever reason I did not have an issue with the galaxy feeling more ‘dark’. I actually defended that part of the show and I thought it was a realistic progression knowing what has happened in the 24th century in the last 25 years. And I never saw it as permanent, it was always going to go back to the more uplifting spirit of Star Trek. But I understand why it bothered others if they watched this show because they wanted more TNG optimism and it’s why they don’t like Discovery much. Just never bothered me personally. And I did feel Discovery was waaaaay too cynical and cold in its first season but was mostly fine with how Picard did it.
A bit off topic but I caught the review of the show by Red Letter Media yesterday on Youtube. OMG, it is BRUTAL lol. But a lot of fun to watch if you seen the reviews of their other Star Trek and Star Wars videos. To say he was disappointed with Picard is being kind and he’s a huge TNG fan. Even if you loved the show and not too thin skin you should still give it a watch (its 90 minutes though so its a long watch ;)) but he makes a lot of great points about it, most I agree with but some I don’t.
Yeah COVID-19 is a mess but at least they are taking their time.
Logan is a really good movie. You guys should watch it. I won’t tell you spoilers around here.
Charles Xavier and Wolverine. Other X-Men characters were involved in Logan. That movie can get dark and depressing really quick. Watch it with a friend.
Logan is not your average superhero movie or Marvel movie. Deadpool and Deadpool 2 are my favorite X-Men films but Logan is also nice.
The X-Men belong to Disney now because of the Fox merger. Now the X-Men will be introduced into the MCU with the Avengers. Disney owns Marvel so yeah.
I think he died in Logan, don’t have a clear memory of it.
Uh dude, you said you wouldn’t give out spoilers to Logan and then you literally did in the end. Gotta be more careful man! I’m guessing most people here have seen it now at least.
But I agree with you about the movie which I really liked but its not a movie I can watch again and again either. It’s a little too depressing. But as Goldsman said, I know Logan was the direction Stewart saw for Picard as someone who is not as sharp or in command as they use to be and questioning their use at that stage in life. I think with Picard, it mostly worked. He still felt like Picard but yes older and more frail. I know some felt he came off a little too elderly but its realistic, especially since Picard is almost 100 years old now. And I generally like the more kinder and open version of Picard who can laugh and smile versus the more stodgy and closed book person he was on TNG (but still loved him).
Like Logan was to X Men Picard is a different Star Trek to TNG and in some ways better but yes some ways not so better. But they can still improve it. I’m just thrilled to be in the 24th century again so will continue to support it as much as possible!
I didn’t give out spoilers dude. Stop accusing me of your crap bull sh#$. Tiger2 you be careful now.
Logan and X-Men are different from Star Trek. I appreciate your enthusiasm. Picard is an old man who cheated death. Season 2 is going to be exciting.
What is with the hostility? Calm down. But yeah man, you SAID you his character dies in the end (its already up there kids) how is that NOT spoiling it???
Faze Ninja, I like you and I remembered who you were before here but dude you LITERALLY got into trouble here last time for spoiling another movie in the past. Do you not remember that? To be fair the difference there was that movie was brand new and not even out in all the theaters at the time. Here this is an older movie now so not as much off a big deal but seriously read your last line man. How is that NOT spoiling the movie????
But yes we agree on everything else. I appreciate Picard was different. Would I have liked that he was back on the Enterprise E with Riker, Crusher and Worf off exploring, SURE, but that’s not realistic either.
Tig, am I gonna want to know who Ninja was previously? There are a few people whose posts I just stopped reading before they got banned because it was pointless to challenge them, need to know whether this should be the case with this one too.
Ugh, I JUST responded to you and for reason it disappeared!! This has been happening quite a few times in the last few weeks.
So here we go again. To be clear I ONLY mentioned it because he mentioned it himself directly on another board a few days ago and said who he was before. He’s still here so I don’t think he’s going to get into any trouble and why I mentioned it at all. We know there are other banned members here using sock puppet accounts but I don’t personally care (as long as they keep ignoring me since I really don’t like them) and clearly neither does TM so I don’t think its a big deal. These boards are rarely moderated these days anyway.
Again since he said it himself, you probably remember Professor Spock. The irony is that’s how he got banned before, by spoiling a movie, a very big one too and people complained. This is NOT a big deal or like that situation because the movie is much older now. I just thought it was odd when he went out his way and said he wasn’t going to spoil the movie only to do it. If he didn’t say that first I don’t think I would’ve even thought about it.
He’s a good guy and I enjoy reading his posts but he can come off confusing and contradictory at times, this being a perfect example.
Thanks for the info, and sorry for the trouble getting the message up (happened to me twice this month too.)
He’s not one of the posters I was thinking of, so thanks for easing my tiny little mind.
No worries and I definitely hear you lol. That’s why I wish there was just an ignore button here instead of going through the drama of asking people to ignore you.
“I didn’t give out spoilers dude.”
Really? You REALLY believe that??
What do you call this ===> “I think he died in Logan,”
Fair point, but that sounds more like the dude is trying to remember what happened in a three-year old movie than saying he did in fact die at the end of the movie — and he obviously used a poor choice of words.
From seeing the trailer originally, I thought Dr. X would die myself.
This environment on this board by some is really geared toward the “gotcha” sort of discourse.
OK but I would argue you are giving him too great a leeway with the definition of the word “spoiler”.
Fair point.
Keep standing up for yourself, dude! In general, who cares who you were years ago…it’s not like these are are real names and we see each other at Starbucks every day. LOL
You are entitled to a fresh start without anyone trying to “score points” by outing you for a past ID that means nothing, given we are all anonymous here anyway. In a situation like this, no one cares except the bully.
Is it bullying to hold somebody accountable? I’d say the one who starts an issue is the bully, since without that impetus there is no issue to start with. It’s like how we tend to not punish violators with anywhere near enough severity, because we don’t come close to anything like justice for the victim. Don’t let instigators off, because they come back, reinvigorated. Nixon is a great example of that, and his most recent emulator. They feel entitled to get away with stuff because they don’t get smacked down hard and permanently.
40 years ago my oldest friend was at work and got shot and killed by a guy who was doing an arson at a McDonald’s. By accounts, we’re talking about somebody walking up behind a worker and executing him because he was in the way … yet the guy got something like manslaughter and was out within years, and I don’t think for a moment he was rehabilitated. Would it be bullying to hold him to a genuine accounting?
Wow, that’s an awful personal story you shared there. My sympathies!
Sorry for venting, it was just the 40th anniversary a couple weeks ago, so I’m feeling newly raw over it, having come across an old journal of mine where I was ranting about it. Then I discovered that the only film I have of the guy, from an unfinished Super-8 parody of THE PRISONER, somehow isn’t in my storage closet anymore, so he is really totally gone now. A bit of a jerk, but a charming jerk, and one of the three or four most brilliant minds I’ve ever come across.
Strange that the very best parts of the series were the first 20 mins of episode 1 and the last 20 mins of the finale
Ep 7 was by far the best part of the series.
I thought Episode’s 5 and 6 were the high points of the shows. It was the beginning and the ending that had the problems.
Yea, those were good eps too.
6, 7 & 8 were great.
The finales play better in isolation from the rest of the season. They’re actually quite good on their own, but as a season finale one just gets too caught up in waiting for resolutions of plot points that are never delivered.
My order of best Picard episodes: 6,7,1,8,4…the rest
I don’t like the fact he used the word “cool.” I wonder if “cool” to him is a giant space battle as opposed to character arcs and moments.
I’m like some cool and weird space phenomena and trippy aliens.
I’ve actually gone back and watched a few DIS episodes, even Season 1 ones.
My apologies to those who like Picard, and to Mr. Goldsman, but I don’t care one iota about Picard. Season 1 was a huge let down for me. Ten episodes of angst and little in the way of story.
Jerri Ryan becomes the Borg Queen and the writers do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WITH IT!? That’s just one of the many, many lost opportunities in that mess.
That what was so frustrating about this show, a lot of amazing set up but then just did nothing with a lot of it. Wasted opportunity over and over again.
I did like the show overall (certainly better than Discovery lol) but yeah it was still pretty weak overall sadly. I definitely wouldn’t say it was the weakest first season, but no where close to the strongest. Maybe somewhere in the middle with all the others.
Quite. And I’m not even talking juicy tidbits like the world-building with the Romulans or the repercussions of Agnes’ little murder binge or Picard’s new synth body (though I was surprised and disappointed that we got a one line “oh, they lifted the synth ban”; guys, that should be a big S2 hook!). That’s stuff I’d expect to see more of in the next season. But the xB storyline got dropped completely (and did a disservice to several characters in the process), there was so little emotional catharsis to so many moments because they were so rushed, and Narek got yanked off-stage by a giant cane and wasn’t seen again (not that I’m complaining, but you know). Mostly, I liked the season up to the finale episodes, even loved some of it. But I wish they’d utilized their time and talent a little better.
It seems really confusing to so many why things like this was ignored after you built them up for literally the entire season??? The Synth thing was just ODD. The entire story was built around it and we get a quick ‘happy ending’ everything is now OK because I guess they learned it was the Romulans who caused the Mars attack, although there was no resolution of it. It would’ve been nice if that part of the story was dealt with but like SO much of this story we just have to assume everyone was told and its the reason why the ban ended.
That should’ve been part of the resolution and outing the Romulans for what they did since, once again, the Mars attack was a huge part of the story backdrop. Its the entire motivation for Raffi’s character and her breakdown only for them to find out and NOTHING is acknowledged or resolved beyond that. Picard couldn’t even be bothered to tell Clancy Commodore Oh was behind everything when they spoke. It would’ve been interesting to see how she reacted knowing her head of Starfleet security was secretly plotting behind her back for YEARS and directly responsible for 90,000 people dead on Mars!
Remember how nuts Sisko got when he found out Eddington was part of the Maquis and secretly working against him??? And that guy was just hijacking replicators lol. But Oh faces no real consequences or punishment for what she did. She shows up with hundreds of ships ready to wipe out a planet just for Riker to show up with his hundreds of ships, threaten her and a few minutes later they simply leave. Done. That’s literally how its resolved. I don’t care they didn’t have a battle, but it just felt so ‘wait, that was it???’ The ONLY catharsis we got was seeing Seven kick Narissa’s ass down a shaft. But sadly practically everything else got the shaft including the Xbs as you said.
It’s a shame they had SO many avenues to really take or wrap up this story only for so much of it to be ignored or fall flat. The only memorable thing in the finale was Picard and Data which was nice but really had nothing to do with the story we were watching. I don’t get how so much of the ball was dropped?
Tiger, I see this unfortunate trend with almost all the seasons of Star Trek that Alex Kurtzman produced so far. He starts everything good and with a bang but seems to have trouble to really close everything in a satisfactory manner. Now I know some plot points need to be left open for upcoming season, but the whole closure of Season 1 was basically just 1 line about the synths. I call this the “Lost” Syndrome, where in general everything is good but when it comes to ending, they drop the ball.
So agreed! Because so many people had the same reaction to both season 2 of Discovery and season 1 of Picard. It starts off with a MAJOR bang and they are throwing around all these big mysteries, new characters, odd things happening and you’re completely wrapped up into the story by episode 2. Everyone is excited to see where it’s all going. But then by the time you get to the end of both, you’re like ‘what did we just watch????’
I will say with Picard I really liked the direction and elements of the story at least where as I DIDN’T like where Discovery went with all the convoluted Section 31 stuff, dead parents not really dead trope and Control/Terminator rip off with more confusing time travel. That went from something that was feeling very Star Trek in the beginning to just more generic sci fi you seen in so many other places.
Picard just failed by throwing in all these mysteries and either not developing them enough or just throwing in mystery just for the SAKE of mystery because by the end you realize a lot of it never needed to BE a mystery in the first place. They just wanted people to ask questions every episode to feel like things were really building up. But you later realize there was no real substance behind a lot of it, sadly like what happened with a lot of things in LOST as you said.
Let’s not forget new BSG in that.
We have the full set of DVDs and I haven’t rewatched the series.
And even the “resolution” with Narissa didn’t have much oopmh to it because it really did feel like Seven coming in and taking a moment that didn’t belong to her. Yeah, she’s an xB, but Elnor was the one who swore his sword to the xBs, the one who the audience saw emotionally connect with Hugh and the one who had to watch him die. If anyone was going to get a “This is for Hugh!” moment, it should have been Elnor, especially given that he had nothing else to do this season. I get *why* this was done and I even like action movie!Seven, but she shouldn’t have gotten another “woo, I’m a badass” moment at the expense of another character and especially not as the emotional catharsis over the death of a character we never even saw her interact with.
I honestly think the way they wrote Raffi’s dialogue was borderline racist. It must be so disheartening for talented actors of colour to be continually offered dumbed down roles; peppered with stereotypical dialogue, such as death by ‘honey’, the inability to say a two syllable name without subtituting it for a ‘trendy nickname’ (‘JL’ also having two syllables, so wow what a timesaver). The racially insensitive idea to make her the drug addict and historically negligent parent of the troupe too. Classy.
To be honest, these writers can’t write women realistically in general. Tilly is all kinds of brain dead, Jurati doesn’t seem as though she can even spell PhD and then there’s Admiral Fuck. Where are the females for my daughters to be inspired by?! Cornwell was just looking like she could be interesting, but they killed her off. The icing on the cake is that when it came to Seven, they deconstructed her well-earned, pre-existing intrigue and compelling nature by dismissing all previous character development. Kurtzman and co may as well write using actual faeces. Oh for a woman written properly, like Janeway, Kira or Kasidy Yates even – despite her more limited screen time. Yes, I dont have to watch, but what a tragedy it is that something we once so loved is now nothing more than a substandard facsimile devoid of dimension. I fear the worst for poor Number One in SNW with these clowns attempting to flesh out her character further.
What was setup in the first act or first 3 episodes was accomplished by the end of the series. If the whole season is looked at as one film or one episode it doesn’t work as a pilot. A pilot sets up the series. In the last episode what was setup on episodes 1-3 were achieved. The last episode makes it seem like they’re going off on a new adventure as a new crew. Picard, with a new body, isn’t ready to go back to France. It’s a more epic ending but it makes no sense. Obviously, season 2 will explain what’s going on but season 1 ends like a setup for a new adventure.
No thanks!
At this point I’ll just watch the Orville. I don’t care what they do with Picard or Trek. They need to get rid of Kurtzman and the other 3 producers. RedLetterMedia summed up all my feelings towards it.
I will say that RedLetterMedia review video was WELL done! It managed to bring up more points I didn’t think about myself or hear from other places that we all be talking about for the last few months. Sadly that review video was more entertaining than half the season of the show. ;)
Tiger2 at this point, I’ll just watch Netflix. I’m not watching The Orville because Hulu has that lol
Funny thing is I didn’t plan to watch season 3 of Orville either when I heard the show switched to Hulu since I didn’t have it, but ended up getting it for $2 a month lol. So I will be watching it after all, assuming it comes out this year. I really liked season 2 and sadly have to say I enjoyed it more than Discovery season 2 overall.
But I will always be more devoted to Star Trek regardless.
I have to agree with that, Infamous. Not only because I really enjoy The Orville, but because I’ve sadly become so ambivalent about what the new-Trek showrunners have supplied thus far, and thus ambivalent about future programming. It’s really disappointing, overall, what we’ve been presented with to this point, imo. I’m going to have to check out this RedLetterMedia review. They could have left Picard as a one-off season, and it would have been just fine with me.
I’m not in the business, so maybe I’m being naive.But it seems to me that if you are writing a single story over 10 1-hour episodes, you should ALWAYS finish writing all 10 before filming, and definitely before releasing. If a season of a show is truly to be thought of as a 10-hour movie, would it make sense for a movie producer to film Act 1 of the movie before the conclusion is even written?
Makes sense to me Mike2, and I keep advocating for it on this board, but clearly that hasn’t been the way CBSAA has been funding the workplace for these series projects.
I really appreciate that Goldsman acknowledged the benefit of getting the season written all the way through before production starts. The frankness is welcome on this point.
I’m hoping that writing the season through will help the coherence, but also am thinking the vfx teams will have longer lead time to develop new and cool things. It may also save time and money in shooting.
At any rate, it may turn out to be an accidental proof-of-concept for a different way of working.
You’re absolutely nailed it.
Season 1 was a pile of shit, let’s hope Season 2 gets off to a better start.
Lets hope season 2 is 2 piles of shit
Oh god. Corona. I just dreamed a naked Beverly Crusher CIS Investigates, with the help of geordi, that Rios has a secret. He fought in a war against some myterious species and the la sirena is actually a warship from this secret war of the fedration.
So the Story was basicly… Propably, that they wanted to prevent picard from taking Part in this war.
Funny is: when i saw crusher naked in this Dream I was genuinly suprised that she was naked… I wondered what Creative descicion this was and when the semi announced holodoctor would Show up.
…. Dreams
Only 60 comments. Most Trekkies have already given up on this unwatchable drivel.
Well. You obviously havent….
Yeah yeah, the strawman that if you dare to comment on the franchise being in its deaththroes somehow that’s evidence you’re fully signed up for the Kurtzman agenda. Gimme a break!
They just announced another Show. Sure the franchise is obviously dying… You… Just take a break..
But dude. You know… there is a world out there where it doesnt matter if there are 3 or 20 or 60 or 500000 million comments.
Some people love it, some hate it, some people just watch it.
And yes… so… why do you waste your time here when it is nothing for you. Seriously.
go outside. Take a walk… take a deep breath of fresh air. Even in times of corona this is possible. Meet someone nice… enjoy your time.
Because it seems that you not even enjoy disliking something.
Just relax… it makes everyging easier, for everyone.
Or at least… give us a proper rant. Something to think about. Somethinh controversial… I would understand this. I really dislike discovery and I really like it to talk about what i dislike about it.
But this…. nah… you should go outside, seriously!
Obviously you given up. You don’t speak for most of the Star Trek fandom. At this point, let’s just avoid Star Trek for a bit LOL
Really enjoyed the first season, and really looking forward to Season 2. The first was a solid 7 out of 10 (some incredible episodes, incredible characters, and a really interesting story weakened by some serious flaws).
Finally we got to see characters from a different era of television transmuted into modern drama, and it worked well. Had some issue with the story, I think the biggest issue was pacing: some elements dragged a bit, while it inexplicably felt rushed at the end.
I blame Stewart, and not for the reason you might think. I think he had a MASSIVE salary demand, and it didn’t leave much room in the budget for the ideal version of the story they wanted to tell, because some obvious story beats felt rushed at the end, while the FX and lavish sets seemed to all be used at the outset.
As an example, the “evil synths” felt like something they had bigger and better plans for, but ran out of time and money.
More broadly, I think the biggest thing the producers did wrong was simply that they focused too much on the excitement surrounding Picard’s return and not enough time spent polishing the script.
I also think 10 episodes were also just not enough to tell this story. This is why the pacing was all over the place. Either they couldn’t tighten up the plot to properly fit the 10 episodes or they realized a bit late that the season finale was approaching and they needed to finish up the story. Maybe 13 episodes were needed.
Interesting thought on salary, T’Pol’s Beard.
I’ve been wondering where the money went in the first season of Picard. Seriously.
While there were some Vfx heavy moments, especially for the Borg cube, it did seem that the production values weren’t quite as high as for Discovery despite a larger budget per episode.
Certainly, production costs are lower in Toronto due the differences in the Canadian $, but it did seem more significant a disparity given the total value spent on the 10 episodes.
That said, the push from TPTB to start production before a season is fully written seems to be a problem both shows have faced that may have cost $s and not just compromised quality/coherence.
Kurtzman spoke on the Deadline podcast about how costly it was to go back and add new content/reshoot for the first 3 episodes of Picard in order to address gaps that the writers identified down the line as they wrote later episodes. So, Goldsman may be speaking to a key challenge that they’ve identified rather than trying to put a positive spin on the Covid situation.
If they make 10 episodes then PLEASE make 10 real episodes… instead of stretching a double-episode to 10 episodes, were you have to wait 40 minutes until the story moves 5 minutes forward..
KURTZMAN and co.
‘Nuff said.
A delay of forever for more of this dirge will be fine.
All I have to say is…..Keep ’em coming!!!! Star Trek will live in my heart forever!!!
Star Trek …. forever!
Hopefully some of those lessons included writing and directing?
i love what he says here… i totally get it… as a writer i go in and write beginning middle end but then go back and marry the early with the later as things change… characters and story elements maybe shift and new ideas emerge… some people think all these shows have the whole season written before filming starts but they dont so this delay will prove to be beneficial for sure.
Akiva Goldsman directed the worst episodes. Even less subtlety than the already lacking amount necessary. Such weepy takes. Totally predictable drama. What horrible writing, too. This is better than Abrams’ stuff and has some great acting by all not named Patrick Stewart, who always looks like he’s inspired and grinning like an idiot, but it’s still freaking terrible and an embarrassment to the franchise and especially the show running of Michael Piller, which I’m watching the last year or so. Even the bare political commentary is so simplistically written, it’s barely useful and enlightening.