“The Next Generation”
Star Trek: Picard Season 3, Episode 1 – Debuted Thursday, February 16, 2023
Written by Terry Matalas
Directed by Doug Aarniokoski
The third season nicely resets the series with more action, more familiar faces, an intriguing story, and a bit of humor.
I got your Hippocratic Oath right here.
WARNING: Spoilers below!
RECAP
“This is a woman out of options and she is asking you to help”
We return to the 25th century as the SS Eleos leisurely makes its way past a beautiful nebula, but the tranquility is quickly disrupted by an uninvited guest in the form of an angry-looking little shuttle. “They found us!” declares Dr. Beverly Crusher (squee) as she orders her old ship to power up for escape. She locks an unseen companion in the back room so she can go all John McClane on a couple of masked goon intruders. This is clearly not her first phaser rodeo as the former Starfleet doctor trades fire and gets tagged before she uses some clever distractions to brutally vaporize the baddies… welcome to the med bay, pals. But she’s not out of the woods yet as two more enemy ships warp in, so the badly injured Beverly desperately makes a call to her old captain as her ship warps away at the last minute.
Things are far more peaceful at Chateau Picard as Jean-Luc and Laris carry on like teenagers in love as they pack up the house for a big move to Chaltok IV; Picard is going to follow his girlfriend on her new job. As he sorts through the memories stored in his ancient home, he assures her he is happy to head off for a new adventure with her and write a new memoir with all his free time. Later, as he writes some thank you cards, he gets a call on his old Enterprise-D badge: He is greeted with that desperate call from Beverly warning him to trust no one, including Starfleet, along with some coordinates and the magic word “hellbird.” As he explains to Laris, this was quite the surprise coming from his on-again/off-again romantic interest who ghosted him over 20 years ago. The former Romulan intelligence officer sorts out that Beverly chose Picard for a reason and appears “terrified” and tells him he has to go help her. He feels guilty but Laris is cool with it, ready to save him a seat at her favorite bar on Chaltok IV as she kisses him goodbye and exits (the season?).
Jean-Luc isn’t going to do this alone. He seeks out the help of his old pal, Captain William “That’s Right” Riker, who ably decodes the meaning of hellbird (after an awkward Locutus name-drop) and locates Bev’s real coordinates, way out over the Federation border. Riker is apparently taking a little break from Deanna, so he has time to kill and a “workaround” on how they can get to the Ryton system. The plan finds the pair of them in a shuttle in spacedock, approaching the (mostly) brand-new USS Titan, Riker’s old command. Will has a “ruse” planned where they will get on board under the guise of an inspection ahead of the big Frontier Day event, and all it requires is the old admiral to adopt “sour expressions” for his inspection. He nails it, but then immediately beams when he is welcomed on board by his old La Sirena compatriot, Seven of Nine, now the Titan’s first officer. Then the first sign of trouble arises as she says the captain prefers “Commander Hansen,” warning them to lower their expectations when it comes to the ship’s commanding officer. Uh oh.
I totally could get her to give me her PADD number
“You have no idea how hard it is to be in this world”
Meanwhile, Raffaela Musiker, the last one not voted off Picard Island, is looking a bit rough as she skulks the mean streets of District Six on M’Talas Prime (we see what you did there, Terry). Looks like our girl has fallen off the wagon and she needs to score. She has a tale of woe about losing her job at Starfleet and getting dumped by her girlfriend (oh no!), and she’s desperate for anything to get back in the game—like some suspiciously specific intel on a WMD recently stolen from Starfleet. Her low-life Orion dealer is dubious, but after she coughs up some spacebucks, he tells her a rumor about something going down with the “red lady” before kicking her to the curb. Raffi slinks away to a quiet corner with her illicit fix, where she flips open her communicator and requests a debriefing. Turns out she’s on the job as a Starfleet Intelligence Officer, and the strung-out junkie thing was all part of her cover… but it takes her a beat before she drops her vial of space smack. File that one for later, I guess.
Later on La Sirena—handed down from Rios to Seven to Raffi—she texts with her Starfleet handler. Raffi is “spiraling” over this mission to find the stolen quantum tunneling tech before someone uses it as a weapon. Her “mysterious handler” is well aware of her past, but refuses a request for a face-to-face meeting. The disembodied texter orders her to stay on target, telling her to find the red lady, motivating her with “you are a warrior”… hmm. After running through all the obvious and less obvious options, Raffi eventually wonders if the Red Lady isn’t involved in the illegal transaction, but a target. Turns out there is an early Frontier Day event scheduled at a Starfleet Recruitment Center to dedicate a statue to Captain Rachel Garrett… a big red statue. Bingo. After a hop over to District Seven, Raffi tries to contact Starfleet, but she is too late and watches the entire recruitment center, red statue and all, inexplicably sucked into the ground only to emerge from a portal in the sky. She watches in horror, powerless to stop the carnage. Maybe Rios had it right and she should have stayed in 21st-century L.A.
Yes, I’m so lonely I am left talking to my ship.
“Welcome to the Titan”
Back on the bridge of the USS Titan, Picard meets Geordi’s kid Sidney, who Riker embarrasses by revealing her Academy nickname, “Crash La Forge”… foreshadowing alert? With Captain Shaw nowhere to be seen, Picard asks Commander Seven (sorry Hansen) to handle the beauty shot and swelling musical moment of the shiny new (yet so very retro) USS Titan graciously exiting Spacedock. Later, she joins Riker and Picard for Star Trek’s most uncomfortable dinner since General Chang’s gang dined on the Enterprise-A. Captain Liam Shaw greets his clearly unwanted guests with some hardcore passive (and not so passive) aggressive commentary on their storied careers. Turns out, he’s not a fan. From the wine to the jazz to the high-profile ship crashing… he has commentary on all of it, including a pointed Borg burn. Liam likes things orderly and quiet, and so no, he is not going to agree to their request to change course, dismissing Riker’s BS story. With “Titan is mine now” and nothing left after chewing up all of that scenery, Shaw leaves Picard and Riker to go stew in their assigned quarters… bunk beds. Double burn.
After getting over the humiliation and having a bit of a heart-to-heart about how Beverly and Picard parted on bad terms decades ago, the admonished officers are summoned by Seven, who takes her turn laying into the legends. She isn’t buying the inspection tour story and isn’t really loving life “taking shit” from her new her C.O., so yeah, thanks Jean-Luc (and Admiral Janeway) for talking her into joining Starfleet. After they tell her the truth, she reveals that she has already decided to trust them, diverting the ship to the Ryton System and arranging for a shuttle to be unguarded. As the pair depart towards Beverly’s ship, Shaw shows up to tell Seven her career has flown away with them. As for Riker and Jean-Luc, they are kind of having fun until they board the SS Eleos only to find the ship in shambles, the aftermath of a brutal firefight, and Beverly in a medical stasis pod. Oh and remember that unseen guy she was talking to? He shows up with Riker at phaser-point. Picard convinces the young man they are there to help and he sorts out Beverly would not have called just to save herself, but would do it to save someone important, someone, like … wait for it… her son. A stunned Picard only looks on when Beverly Jr. jumps into action as the ship begins to shudder under proximity alert, talking about how they are being hunted. Hunted by whom? Why, that big giant super-pointy evil-looking spaceship that just showed up. And with that, we’re out to the fancy new credits and so many new questions.
So you think Shaw is a jerk too?
ANALYSIS
A new familiar show
Now that is how you start a season of Star Trek TV. “The Next Generation” may have a familiar name, but it ushers in an entirely new approach for Picard while still holding on to key tenets and themes of the series. Many elements of the show have changed, from a darker palette thanks to a change in cinematographers to a more active score thanks to a new composer. With perfect pacing, director Doug Aarniokoski takes us on a wild ride, seamlessly jumping from action to character to a welcome degree of humor. Taken together, this holds up as a strong episode of modern peak TV aimed at an adult sensibility, but at the same time, it is entirely Star Trek. Picard himself told us early on what this season is all about, not letting the past define him as he yearns for a “new adventure.”
To be sure from the “In the 25th century…” beginning to mementos on Beverly’s ship and Picard’s chateau, to the classic music stings, and much more, this episode is built to evoke the franchise. However, for all the nods, Easter eggs, guest stars, and deep cuts, “The Next Generation” is actually not an exercise in nostalgia, or at least not nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. It may be a dream for writer (and showrunner) Terry Matalas to bring his TNG heroes into the series, but one only needs to look at how both Beverly Crusher and William T. Riker are crafted to see how this series is evolving these characters and Star Trek itself. Buoyed by strong performances from Gates McFadden and episode MVP Jonathan Frakes, both Crusher and Riker have changed in profound ways, especially in how they relate to the titular character. The new buddy cop dynamic between Riker and Picard is a delight, driving the plot while always finding ways to switch up the tone from serious character beats to laugh-out-loud gags, and even little touches like bringing back the Boatswain whistle have a purpose, reintroducing Starfleet (which hasn’t really been a big part of Picard) with a touch of the TOS-era naval tradition.
This show is still Star Trek: Picard, carrying over what works best in the series, especially in how it explores Jean-Luc Picard along with themes of memory, family, and aging… a subject it even plays with for some humor. Even with a bit of a reset, the episode offered a nice bridge from season 2, showing us how Jean-Luc himself has evolved and is now entirely present for his new love Laris, the result of the psychological gauntlet he went through last season. Thankfully, the always enchanting Orla Brady returned, if only to help with the handover. The character of Raffi has also gone back to her roots, finally showing us the super spy she always was, still haunted by her failed marriage and addiction issues. Michelle Hurd is clearly relishing the opportunity to, if not reinvent the character, reinvigorate her, leaving behind the whiny girlfriend of season 2. Jeri Ryan’s Seven has also evolved, finally in Starfleet but not fitting in. Her struggle to be an inspiration to other outcasts while facing prejudice is another example of how this show is willing to show the cracks in Trek’s (not always) utopian future.
Like my jacket? It once belonged to James T. Kirk but I dyed it blue.
Along with all the resetting and rejiggering, the season opener also introduces us to a number of new characters. Some, like Beverly’s son (Ed Speleers) and Sidney “Crash” La Forge (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut), offer up just a nice taste of what’s to come. With Captain Shaw, actor Todd Stashwick literally gives us a whole meal to relish. This daring new character is one to watch for season 3 as he goes head-on at our favorite heroes without being a feckless foil… so more Captain Jellico than Styles. Alas, for longtime fans of the show, original regulars (Rios, Jurati, Soji, and Elnor) are notably missing, and for some this will be a tough tradeoff to make room for all the TNG guest stars and new characters. However, this new character lineup, along with the other touches, makes season 3 an easy entry point to the series, especially for fans returning to Trek for the first time in a while.
When it comes to the production, the team behind the scenes has raised their game once again, with some new faces bringing in a whole new game. The production and costume design for M’Talas Prime District Six is one of the best realizations of an alien environment in the franchise, creating a believable future seedy underworld that evokes a bit of Blade Runner but is still very Trek, down to the little details. And it is this kind of balanced precision that was evident through Stephen Barton’s impressive score that knew just when to bring in a classic Star Trek movie sting, along with spectacular visual effects that were entirely modern, even in the retro design of the new USS Titan-A. DP Jon Joffin’s cinematic style helps realize Matalas’ vision of this season as the TNG crew’s final sendoff movie, with an eye to incentivizing viewers away from missing the full effect by watching it on a phone or tablet.
Dad never told me about all the drama on the bridge
On the frontier
Presented as just part 1 of what is to be a highly serialized season, episode one delivered just enough of a new story to keep viewers intrigued and asking for more. There are a few mysteries being introduced, but it doesn’t feel like a “mystery box” formula asking viewers to sort out a puzzle that risks disappointing by dragging the final pieces out until the last episode. For now, we can see the outline of two stories that are certain to come together later with the big bads hunting Beverly and son, and Raffi’s hunt for stolen Starfleet tech.
The technique of keeping Raffi’s Starfleet Intelligence handler anonymous for this episode was a bit cute, but it almost certainly is designed to leave room for the introduction of another familiar face later without overloading the season premiere; if you read it closely, you can probably guess. As for who is hunting the Crushers, all we have so far is some masked clicking guys and a big pointy ship; however, the episode dropped a few intriguing clues such as Beverly’s determined disintegration of the boarding party and how it left curious residue noted by Riker, her insistence that Picard not trust anyone, and Beverly junior’s intriguing mention of how the ones hunting “had different faces.” Once again, there are some top-of-mind guesses. There are also nice hints that there is some kind of conspiracy behind Beverly’s warning, possibly even in Starfleet, and maybe one of those guys during the Titan’s inspection lineup was a bit suspect.
The one thing that was mentioned in both storylines was Frontier Day, a new Star Trek holiday introduced for this season. The posters show that Frontier Day is a celebration of the 250th anniversary of Starfleet, which puts that date sometime during Captain Archer’s adventures on the NX-01 from Star Trek: Enterprise. Nitpickers will note that Earth Starfleet actually predated Archer’s Enterprise and the Federation’s Starfleet was established later, but surely Terry Matalas (who actually worked on Star Trek: Enterprise) knows this, so there may be more to reveal about this history. One thing is for sure, these two storylines seem headed to collide in a week after the events of episode one (when there will be a “parade through space”), indicating this season may tell a story within a short timeframe (under a ticking clock perhaps?).
Of course, when one scrutinizes the details you can start questioning some character choices, like why did Beverly send a coded message to Picard that he had no way to understand (instead of sending it to Riker or another non-Borged Enterprise crewmate)? Why did Jean-Luc have a secret meeting in a crowded place where they were clearly being spied on by a sketchy guy at the bar? Why would a phaser rifle announce to everyone around it was out of ammo? These types of things are all part of the sport of being Trek fan, but nothing on hand here falls into eye-rolling tropes or un-fillable holes. On the contrary, the characters for the most part are showing they are capable people, mostly using their smarts to navigate through, like Jean-Luc defusing the tense situation on the Eleos right before the reveal Beverly that had a son, leaving who the baby daddy is for a future episode… but again, there is a pretty obvious guess.
Will ponders how badly it can go if he tries the “Riker Maneuver” on the new bridge chairs.
Final thoughts
“The Next Generation” is certainly the best season opener for the series, and arguably for any new Trek show. It delivered on all the hype to set up a final send-off movie for the Next Gen cast, but the other meaning of the title was evident with the introduction of a new generation of characters and a new intriguing story. Picard has started off strong before only to struggle to follow through; however, there is no reason not to be optimistic that the third time is going to be the charm… and a gift to patient Star Trek fans.
I like this chair, I could get used to this.
BITS
- For the first time, Picard gets the Star Trek Universe intro, which uses the USS Titan as the featured ship.
- This is the third episode of the franchise to share the name with a series, along with Next Generation’s “Lower Decks,” and “Strange New Worlds” on Strange New Worlds.
- The main credit sequence has been replaced with a quick title card and episode title, with the main credits moved to the end.
- The end credits included a dedication “For Annie,” in honor of the late Annie Wersching, the season two actress who passed away in January.
- The list of series regulars is down to four for season three: Patrick Stewart, Jeri Ryan, Michelle Hurd, and Ed Speleers.
- Jonathan Frakes and Gates McFadden were credited as special guest stars, with Todd Stashick as guest star.
- This season has a new composer, Steven Barton.
- Season 1 and 2 composer Jeff Russo is credited with arranging the music for the title card and as a supervising producer.
- The episode featured a lot of identifiable music:
- It opened with the 1941 song “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire” by the Ink Spots, which is featured heavily in the Fallout series of video games.
- The music Picard was playing on his gramophone was “I Can’t Stop Crying,” a 2015 song by Will Grove-White done in 1920s style.
- Guinan’s Bar was playing “Guilty as Charged,” a 2012 blues song by Whitney Shay.
- Shaw was listening to Chopin’s “Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9, No.2.” Seven played a Chopin nocturne in the Voyager episode “Human Error,” and woke up to a different one in the Picard season two episode “Penance.”
- Beverly’s ship is the SS Eleos XII (NAR-221006). Eleos was the personification of mercy in Greek mythology.
- Even though the Eleos uses Starfleet standard LCARS interfaces, it is a private ship, although showrunner Terry Matalas has said it was formerly a Starfleet ship.
- Beverly’s phaser rifle used a “racking” action like a shotgun between each shot.
- The Myriad codec encryption was listed as 1701-D VER 2.4, indicating it was from the USS Enterprise-D.
- The young girl Raffi was watching in a recording is presumably her previously unseen granddaughter.
- Raffi’s file reveals she was born on 4/9/2353.
- Raffi’s mission is called “Operation Daybreak” with the operation number 8820 – 1701 – NS AJ, which could be a clue it is related to an Enterprise, or just an easter egg.
- According to Laris, Romulans don’t do “spring cleaning.”
- According to Picard, Geordi LaForge is running the Starfleet fleet museum.
- Picard was seen wearing reading glasses, although it isn’t clear if his android body (like James T. Kirk) is allergic to Retinax or if this is just an affectation.
- The ship models for sale were Eaglemoss Hero Collector model ships.
- M’Talas Prime (or Matalas Prime) was first mentioned on Star Trek: Enterprise, named in honor of Terry Matalas when he was a P.A. Terry recently Tweeted that the writers named “one of the most horrible places in the galaxy after me. Fitting!”
- The Daystrom Institute (first mentioned during TOS) played a role in the first season of the show as the location where B-4 was stored and where Dr. Jurati worked, although Raffi noted the theft took place at an “off-site station.”
- Quantum tunneling is a real scientific aspect of quantum mechanics in physics that already has practical applications.
- Deep Space 4 has been mentioned before, apparently shut down by the early 25th century, but this is the first mention of Deep Space 11.
- The USS Titan was described as a refit, but it had the new registry of NCC 80102-A. It was also described as being of a new class (Neo-Constinution); however, Shaw noted he had to “purge” Riker’s jazz from the computer, indicating it was based on his original USS Titan. Riker also said the Titan had a “new ship smell.” All of these apparent contradictions are explained in the official USS Titan Star Trek Log.
- The Titan’s maximum warp is 9.99, making it the fastest known Starfleet ship.
- The Titan also has Metaphasic shields
Stop grinning so much Jonathan this is a serious Star Trek show.
Easter eggs and more to come
The episode contained quite a few franchise references and Easter eggs not mentioned in the review, which will be the subject of a follow-up analysis. Also, we will discuss the episode in detail on Friday’s episode of All Access Star Trek. every Friday, the TrekMovie.com All Access Star Trek podcast covers the latest news in the Star Trek Universe. The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Stitcher and is part of the TrekMovie Podcast Network.
Picard streams exclusively on Paramount+ in the Americas, Europe, the Caribbean and South Korea. It also streams internationally on Amazon Prime Video in more than 200 countries and territories. In Canada, it airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave.
Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
Best closing credits ever!
I had to watch four times to catch everything.
The score was also outstanding. Appropriate and fitting, yet nostalgic.
I haven’t watched the episode yet but I did check out the opening/closing credits. The closing credits hit me right in the nostalgia. The score was phenomenal.
I found the score to be unoriginal and derivative at best.
To each their own.
Yeah. I’m also still on the fence about the whole thing. Derivative is actually a fitting term. They played here something straight and unironically that they did for shits and giggles at LD when they “horner-fied” the LD theme…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wykudfjTw1Q
It was okay for me, until they just played the “First Contact” theme without any context. It felt like some fan edit where they put old music over new visuals to “proof the music was better back then”…. pulled me right out of the immersion tbh.
“I wish I could kiss her and squeeze her” 😂. My God I love this scene, thank’s for the reminder!
This played during the credits like a classic movie or musical overture rather than a theme of its own. If you take it that way it works.
I was expecting more of the riffing and interweaving that Nami Melumad does as the composer of the episode scores for SNW and Prodigy.
Anyways, it’s a surprising choice.
The music during the episode was fine though. It didn’t impose or overwhelm any of the scenes or dialogue, or become excessively melodramatic at times the way Russo’s episode scoring for Discovery and Picard S1 & S2.
I have to say that I’ve been missing Russo’s theme for SNW. I hope that soundtrack gets released very soon.
Without any context – – yet.
It sounds like what might happen if you had an A.I. score a Trek show and it only had the movies to build from. Totally uninspired, and more than a little distracting. Also, boy I sure do hope it earns the Goldsmith/Horner/etc. estates some royalties, because in some cases it wasn’t homage so much as it was direct lift.
I didn’t notice but did they get a credit somewhere? If not it’s stealing.
I didn’t notice one, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
I should mention, by the way, that the music seemed pretty good when it wasn’t apeing existing scores; the action music in the opening scene was solid, for example. So maybe as the series progresses it will settle down with the homages.
The end credits mention “Original Star Trek Theme by Alexander Courage” and 2 tracks from First Contact by Jerry Goldsmith.
Ok, good — thanks for the clarification!
Doesn’t Paramount own the rights to all these scores? I believe they are allowed to use them as they see fit.
Apparently, that’s not how it works for scores. Nami Melumad has mentioned in interviews that she has to be very careful when quoting or paying homage to previous Trek scores in her work on Prodigy. Basically, if she reuses too much they have to pay royalties (which they generally want to avoid because it costs extra).
They do own them, but I don’t think they could just use them without giving proper credit, and probably not without paying royalties.
Not sure exactly how that works regarding the Goldsmith estate and the movie companies. But that really wasn’t my issue with using those cues seemingly exclusively.
True. But Trekkie’s love that stuff. I don’t.
Isn’t it just the First Contact score?
It’s funny, but I don’t like the recycling. I love Goldsmith’s TMP theme – I think that whole score is one of the best of all time — , but it bugged me even back in 1986, when they just reused it for TNG.
There was a strong presence of Eidelman’s Star Trek VI score as well.
That, and also some cues from TWOK/TSFS.
Yeah, i remember being disappointed when I heard the TNG theme for the first time back in ‘87 or so. But, the reuse is SO much better than the original theme they had. In hindsight, I’m really glad the direction they went.
Absolutely agree!
Yeah the score was great. Definitely steeped in sounds we’ve all heard before, but that’s ok.
Some might call it unoriginal but I think they were definitely going for call-backs and nostalgia in the score.
Yeah loved the score! The end credits scene is amazing and apparently gives out clues for the season.
Did you see the head with the blue dots!? Is it the Lore turned Data Hybrid?
Not sure how I missed this post until now, but actually I don’t remember that at all. Now I have a reason to look at it again.
Score good but the tease of what we will see at the Museum !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BETTER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I loved every second of the premiere! 😍
But then, I’m one of those that kinda liked the second season — at least better than the first. (I appreciated what they tried to do, and I’m a sucker for time travel.)
Now, I didn’t LOVE either one of those, but from everything I’ve read and watched, this season is a contender for the term! 🖖💛💫
Ok that was a really good season opener (I also just finished my TNG re-watch yesterday) it reminded me of the S2 opener which isn’t surprising since Terry Matalas was the showrunner for the first half of S2.
It did have a little pacing problem/felt a little rushed in parts imo but that isn’t a new thing
as all Trek old and new can suffer from this in some episodes.
I was disappointed that they got rid of the intro and the Picard theme as i enjoyed that in the previous seasons though the ending credits theme was great i liked the job they did with that especially with dedication to Annie Wersching.
It was neat seeing Picard/Laris together i hope we see her again in later episodes.
It was also great seeing Beverly Crusher again and she is a badass with a phaser rifle it was also great to see Riker and i loved the scenes between him, Picard and 7.
The Titan-A looks neat but Captain Shaw is a jerk i hope he changes his attitude through the season because he doesn’t act like a good captain with that attitude. Though he would make a great Admiral with that attitude since most of those seem to be ‘bad guys’ in the TNG era.
Raffi was awesome in this episode i like her being a spy working for Starfleet intelligence though i kind hope it actually was Section 31 she is working for especially with that weapon that was used as that would be the type of weapon they would be interested in making and getting back.
So Ed Speleers character is Beverly’s son yet i don’t believe he is Picards’ son though.
That strange ship looks cool it’s looks like a cross between the scimitar and Nero’s Nerada.
Overall i enjoyed this episode and can’t wait to see how the story unfolds in future episodes.
I loved S1/S2 of Picard i think they were great (yes i understand that a very small minority of fans didn’t like them but the majority of the fandom and most of the reviewers who are so postive of S3 loved the first 2 seasons as well).
If the rest of S3 is as great as those reviews have said (i hope so) then S3 will be a great(and maybe the best season) of an already great show.
My only problem, and this is not a minor nitpick, but also not a huge issue… is that they FINALLY give Beverly Crusher her due, and she’s used as a damsel in distress who needs to call Picard for help.
Now, I’m not saying it’s sexism by any means. Plenty of stories begin with a character requiring the help of the movie/show’s primary hero, in this case the title character Picard.
But given how poorly the women of TNG were written in this regard in the past, often mere window dressing, it seems like a missed opportunity to give Crusher more agency of her own.
Good point! Hadn’t considered this before but I think you hit the nail on the head with this. Interesting also that Speelers was seemingly fine whereas Crusher was the one in the pod too.
Beverly was injured in the attack so he probably put her in the pod to treat her properly later.
Yeah, it worked for the story. Not complaining about that. But… why that have to be the story? Rhetorical of course. I can live with it, mostly because like I said, in the story itself, it works just fine.
The episode literally opened with Beverly single-handedly defending her ship against multiple attackers. So I don’t really agree with the “damsel in distress” accusation.
Based on what we know, they are setting Vadic and her goons up as the big villain of the season so she will probably challenge much bigger, more powerful ships than what Beverly had.
It seemed he was yelling and banging on the hatch while Beverly was in the fire fight.
In fact, I wondered if Beverly had intentionally locked him away from the fight, or from whatever she was researching or the message she intended to send.
He was. I think she did that to protect him. He may be connected to the threat in some way; perhaps they were looking for him specifically?
Yeah, Bev was saving his ass…no damsel in distress there.
But Bev locked him into that compartment to save his life — so she was running the show, not him.
Well, she sure seemed much more badass in the first part of this ep than ever she had been before. And remember, she’s a doctor, not a red shirt.
I’ve been reflecting on your comment for a bit.
I can agree that it’s not ideal.
What makes having Beverly in the situation of asking Picard for help more tolerable is that she’s not the first. It is that seems just to be the device the show uses each season to get Picard out on and adventure.
Each season premiere starts with someone calling on him for help in a dire situation: Dahj, Q, and now Beverly. Hopefully, unlike them, she’ll survive the season.
“yes i understand that a very small minority of fans didn’t like them but the majority of the fandom and most of the reviewers who are so postive of S3 loved the first 2 seasons as well”
That, of course, is disingenuous. The first two seasons received a LOT of criticism from both fans and reviewers. CBS was well aware of this, which is why the third season is a course-correct. You have nothing on which to base the claim that the critics are a “very small minority,” nor do you know what “the majority of the fandom” thinks since you’ve not spoken to them. YOU may enjoy the seasons, and that’s fine. I enjoyed parts of them, too. But the undeniable fact is that a lot of fans, both here and elsewhere, did not. Pretending otherwise is not reality-based.
And yet you also don’t get to speak on behalf of the fans. So knock it off.
Speaking on behalf of the fans is the opposite of what I did. I didn’t say “a majority of” or “most” fans feel any given way. Nothing I said was incorrect. So I have no idea what you just said that.
I don’t think it’s ever fair to judge what a “majority” of people feel unless you’ve produced a well-run survey of thousands and thousands of viewers, with a good cross-section of fans, demographics, etc.
It’s fair to say there is a vocal group of people who hated Season 2 and called it “the worst Trek ever put to screen” which… I mean that just boggles the mind, but it’s an opinion so whatever.
How much of the viewership that represents is anyone’s guess though.
‘That, of course, is disingenuous. The first two seasons received a LOT of criticism from both fans and reviewers. CBS was well aware of this, which is why the third season is a course-correct. You have nothing on which to base the claim that the critics are a “very small minority,” nor do you know what “the majority of the fandom” thinks since you’ve not spoken to them. YOU may enjoy the seasons, and that’s fine. I enjoyed parts of them, too. But the undeniable fact is that a lot of fans, both here and elsewhere, did not. Pretending otherwise is not reality-based.’
I’m basing my comments on actually talking with other fans at conventions(I’ve been at many and have talked with a lot of people but also talk with a lot of Trekkies daily) and on other Trek forums i visit my friend.
I do see a lot of vocal people on sites such as here who don’t like S1/S2 (along with dislike for Discovery) and that is fine but i see a lot of people on Trek forums who have nothing but praise for those seasons and (Discovery).
Not only that but since Picard S1/S2 was in the top 10 of shows watched on Amazon when they were airing i feel safe in saying that the majority of fans enjoyed S1/S2 then a vocal minority of the fandom that didn’t.
Remember not every Trekkie in the world visit’s websites like this one or forums but i talk to many fellow Trekkies daily and at conventions too yet a lot of them don’t visit fan website’s or forums but i do talk to them via social media.
Also with all the positive reviews that i have read for S3 most of them have said that they loved S1/S2 so there is more proof that I’m basing my comments on.
As you yourself have said pretending otherwise is not reality-based that goes for you too friend.
You saying that a lot of fans didn’t like the first 2 seasons but that doesn’t make it a fact either.
I’m not saying what i said is complete fact either but i am going by an informed opinion and and an open mind. As i said I do visit over a dozen Trek sites and nearly a half a dozen forums so I’m basing my opinions on what i have read from other fans.
IDIC.
Viewership says nothing about quality. Emily in Paris and Selling Sunset are huge successes for Netflix.
The majority of reviewers on Twitter I have seen have said that there is no need to even watch season 1 or 2 in order to watch this season. If they loved those seasons they would at least have encouraged people to watch them, but they didn’t.
The Transformer movies have literally made a billion dollars multiple times and yet they have some of worst scores around. Something can be popular and not well liked at the same time.
And yes the fact you don’t have to watch the first two seasons is very telling. It’s obvious the season is a jumping off point from Nemesis since it sounds like it’s going to cover what happened to most of the crew since then.
I love me some contrarian arguments, but..”popular” is pretty much a synonym of “well-liked.”
Well obviously it’s popular! I think kids LOVE these movies for example. I’m not saying everyone hates them, but I do think more people hate them than love them judging by how badly they get rated (and most kids probably don’t write a lot of reviews online) but people go because it’s entertaining and a lot of spectacle. It’s brainless action and yeah those usually make a ton of money; hence what they tried to do with the Kelvin movies (and I don’t think those movies are brainless…just have to make that clear lol).
But I know they are very popular in China too, a big reason they made so much money. I was in China when the third one came out and it was like if Star Wars Episode 7 was coming lol. People were really excited about it including my friends there at the time. And that doesn’t translate to western sites, so I can be more fair about it and internationally they are probably more popular for sure. That’s where the BO really thrives.
I’ve seen every one of them in the theater myself and I’ve really only liked two of them personally, but yeah I get sucked in too lol. And I grew up with the original cartoon as well which was my favorite at the time. I had like 30 of the action figures growing up. I once dressed up as Optimus Prime for Halloween. I was a huge TF fan back in the day.
Not sure what to your point is :-/
The Transformers films and the Kardashian TV shows get a lot of viewers. Viewership and quality are entirely separate. Plus, this is Star Trek. People are going to keep turning in, even if they don’t like it, in the hope that it’ll get better. We saw it happen the past two seasons, and we see it happen with Discovery every year.
I’m basing my comments on actually talking with other fans at conventions(I’ve been at many and have talked with a lot of people but also talk with a lot of Trekkies daily) and on other Trek forums i visit my friend.
I recommend that you don’t mention friends or fans at conventions here ever to prove your point, or like me, you will get ridiculed/bullied by some here who simply don’t want to hear anything like that which doesn’t align with their old fan worldview — they “know better” and would prefer you just shut up…lol
The first two seasons received a LOT of criticism from both fans and reviewers. CBS was well aware of this, which is why the third season is a course-correct. You have nothing on which to base the claim that the critics are a “very small minority,” nor do you know what “the majority of the fandom” thinks since you’ve not spoken to them. YOU may enjoy the seasons, and that’s fine. I enjoyed parts of them, too. But the undeniable fact is that a lot of fans, both here and elsewhere, did not. Pretending otherwise is not reality-based.
Lorna, you are getting a lock of flak on this, but you are 100% correct — IT IS WHAT IT IS. And I even liked S1 myself (but could not stand S2).
This was NOT a course correct from CBS. Just because some people did not like season 1 and 2 does not mean it received a LOT of criticism. You do not speak for me or other fans. You may not have liked it, fine. But there were fans that DID enjoy it. And those are the fans that do not gripe and whine about everything on message boards. You may read into that there are a lot of fans here that complain about it… but it is usually the same ones… that post the same thing over and over.
“es i understand that a very small minority of fans didn’t like them but the majority of the fandom and most of the reviewers who are so postive of S3 loved the first 2 seasons as well”
I admire your commitment to the bit, I guess?
Exactly. Claiming the vast majority of people loved seasons one and two is absurd.
Which is why we don’t miss Rios, Jurati, Soji, and Elnor in the least.
I like that Raffi isn’t an intolerable character in this episode. What I don’t like, however, is that Starfleet would send an ex-addict on a mission where she has to fake being an addict – that seems super toxic to me. Seems like that’s the last thing you would want to do to someone, exploit them for their addiction, past or present.
I think you would discover this activity to be common in undercover/Intelligence. An ex-addict might be best suited for undercover work in the underworld.
It would also serve her cover story.
Starfleet has a loooong history of treating its officers poorly and not respecting their mental health, recovery, and past traumas, let alone problems with addiction.
Exactly this. For example: Reginald Barclay, who was treated like a joke on TNG and by the fans as a result.
Worf is her handler right? It’s pretty obvious he is.
If season 1 and 2 were as beloved by the majority of fans and reviewers alike as you say, why then has every season effectively been a re-do?
Season one happened and then none of the storylines were followed up on in season 2. i.e. nothing really mattered and the show went in another direction for season two. Aything that did affect the stories coming into season two happened off screen, like Seven and Raffi’s relationship.
Season two happened and then none of the storylines are being followed up on in season 3. i.e. nothing really mattered and the show went in another direction. In fact the majority of the cast were not even kept on. Does this sound like success to you?
Internally, as well as what we’ve seen on screen, it’s clear that the show just hasn’t been as successful as you think it has been. We see that with the constant changeover of showrunners, and we see that with how every season is effectively a different show. If something is a success then why keep changing it up? If it’s not broke don’t fix it. But they’ve tried fixing Picard now numerous times.
It’s the same with Discovery.
I wish people would look at the actual evidence and what has actually happened with Picard and get their heads out of the sand.
Exactly. Picard and Discovery have both struggled, year after year, and the writers have had to keep starting over as a result, well aware of the massive amounts of negative criticism.
DSC was always suppose to do a time jump, and DSC is much more popular than Picard, so I would not put them in the same boat. You are 100% right on Picard though.
But not as popular as Strange New Worlds. That being said, both saw drops in viewership for similar reasons. They’ve been course correcting over the past few years, much like the Star Wars franchise under Disney. Eventually you hit your stride and tap into a formula that works (or always worked).
In North America, correct, but worldwide DSC has higher numbers. Basically, we can consider them as neck-and-neck.
There is a reason why the other shows are more popular than Discovery because the course correcting has been working. SNW is basically anti-Discovery in every way. You watch the first episode of DIS and then the first episode of SNW, its like they were made by two different companies.
I won’t go into a tangent about Picard season 3 yet since it’s only been one episode, but if that show has course corrected itself as others been saying whose seen at least most of the season, then it’s more proof that Star Trek is not only being better written today but just feels closer to the formula of classic Trek fans knew and loved.
And while I’ve given up on Discovery basically, there is talk next season is suppose to be very different from what we got before but every season of that show feels like a restart lol. They are constantly tinkering with that show and I still don’t think it’s gotten any better outside of some elements (and less dire). But we’ll see I guess but I’m not sure what they can do at this point?
Well, you could argue that is just the show trying hard not to do the same thing, as that was certainly how it was sold to Patrick Stewart. It’s not the same as TNG, and season 2 is not the same as season 1. Plenty of shows shake things up even when the ratings are fine, just to keep it interesting.
I think that’s a very generous assumption on behalf of the creators innovation and intent.
I also can’t think of a single show that has dumped almost the entirely of their main cast in one fell swoop like Picard has in order to “shake things up”. That’s more than shaking things up, that’s completely changing the show and abandoning what has gone before. Perhaps why Matalas has called it “season 8” instead of “Picard”.
Maybe on an anthology show which is by it’s very nature designed to be changeable, but not a 3-year serialised show. Like it’s all pretty obvious that these decisions are a reaction to negative reception, I don’t know how people cannot see that.
David E. Kelley let most of the cast of Chicago Hope go to retool it for its final season. Steven Moffat would deliberately tweak the approach to every one of his series of Doctor Who. And Picard season 3 was written while season 2 was in production, so I think it was as much a conscious effort to change the status quo for the sake of creativity as it was to bring back wayward TNG fans.
Thanks for this, I wasn’t aware of the Chicago Hope thing – vey interesting. I am going to read up about that as I’m sure there’s an interesting story behind that.
True, but that was also because Chicago Hope was falling in the ratings too and the retool didn’t save it either since the show was still cancelled after that one.
Actually I kinda remember that awful show Charmed doing this in a way – they brought in Kaley Cuoco (post-8 Simple Rules fame but pre-Big Bang Theory super-fame) onboard as the main cast member for the final season and it did not go well. The three main cast members all wanted to take a step back after having done it for so long, and they still do appear but Cuoco was brought in to inject some youth and potentially carry on the show in a fresh direction, but it was cancelled after this season.
I guess it really isn’t unusual for shows that are up against it ratings-wise to try anything to keep going. Scrubs did this too.
Stargate’s final two seasons?
I’m not sure if this counts as the main cast members who had been on the show since the beginning like Samantha, Teal’c and Jackson, off course with few exceptions, were still present until the end. They just brought in some new blood along the way to inject some freshness if I remember correctly.
Seasons 2 and 3 were shot back-to-back so season 3 was already in the can when season 2 aired. That means they made this season before they knew how audiences would react to season 2.
I wonder if more plot points from season 1 would have returned in season 2 if Chabon had stayed on as showrunner. They originally planned to shoot season 2 in early 2020 when COVID hid, which delayed filming for about a year and reportedly led to a substantial rewrite. Based on interviews back during season 1, I got the impression that Chabon and Akiva Goldsman had somewhat different visions for the show. So with Chabon out and Matalas coming in, they apparently decided to go in a different direction with season 2. Also, I suspect that COVID production restrictions/concerns very much affected the season, with the characters split into small teams for much of the season (to reduce the risk of a positive case shutting down the whole production).
I think a lot of TV shows suffered in quality because of covid, and not just from protocols on the set.
From writing to editing and post-production, crews were working in a totally different manner, and I’d be willing to bet Picard S2 was hurt by this: writers, producers, unable to meet regularly, spitball ideas in a group, workshop stories and scripts alongside actors, make changes during production, etc.
In the years to come, you’ll probably start hearing stories from all over the industry how much Covid affected writing as much as it did filming.
Better Call Saul, Outlander, For All Mankind, House of the Dragon, The Boys and a number of other series were all shot during this period and delivered for fans. Did Covid impact television and film production? Sure, but good writing is good writing.
The Boys, great writing? Seriously?
Yeah, I’ll give you that on The Boys BUT the production itself wasn’t. impacted and consistent with previous seasons (for better or worse).
True!
Exactly! There have been a ton of shows made under covid that still turned out great. And while there was certainly restrictions on the production end, a lot of them had time to write their seasons they normally wouldn’t get and made stronger stories.
But that wasn’t the case with all of them either including DIS and PIC. I still think it was funny how Akiva Goldsman was practically bragging that Picard season 2 had a great advantage that they could write all the scripts before production started, unlike season 1, and still managed to deliver a worst product IMO. So more time doesn’t always equal better results, especially when its all based on just bad ideas from the start.
It seems like they did not take advantage of the situation. I found a Deadline article from March 2020 saying that the story for season 2 was broken by that point. But I also remember an interview with Patrick Stewart when shooting was already under way that he had only seen a few scripts. So apparently, they had their story in spring of 2020 but only finished writing the scripts while shooting was already under way a year later.
A few interesting points:
So it almost seems like neither Matalas nor Goldsman were very invested in writing season 2. Very different from Chabon in season 1.
I wonder if Goldsman was more focused on Strange New Worlds (which reportedly was his dream project ever since joining early Discovery) and Matalas was already planning season 3. Matalas has said that he pitched his season 3 idea to Jonathan Frakes while Frakes was directing an episode of season 2.
You could almost get the impression that Picard season 2 was caught in the middle of two showrunners (or 3 if you include Chabon) being more focused on other projects.
That’s not an excuse, but it could be an explanation for what we ended up with.
This is a great breakdown- very interesting, thanks for this!
Wow thanks, yeah that is interesting. It would explain a lot lol.
There is a video with RMB talking about this and Matalas didn’t come up with any of the story line in season 2, that was all Goldsman and he oversaw the first half of the season, but it was Goldsman who came up with the entire direction of season 2.
Now to add to the fire, someone I talked to and knew people who worked on season 2 said there was originally a different direction season 2 was suppose to take. It was always going to be time travel based but a much more intricate story than what we got. But then they mentioned that was changed by a producer. They never said the name, but I’m guessing it was Goldsman himself and it was probably to save money because it sounded a lot more involved and flashing to different eras, etc, kind of what a lot of us thought we were getting.
Again, if that was true, I’m only posting what was told to me directly so you can take all of it with a grain of salt.
We may only learn what truly went down decades from now in retrospectives ;-) Or never.
In interviews from early 2020 they said that season 2 would continue many threads from season 1, which didn’t really happen. I’ve also read that Chabon had mapped out two full episodes exploring the alternate 24th century, but that was cut down to 1 episode (and apparently he only got a “story-by” credit but didn’t write the final script). Maybe the season was scaled down due to budget concerns – not sure if they would be able to transfer money intended for season 2 over to season 3 but they certainly spent a lot of money on the Stargazer sets considering how little screen time the Stargazer got, which were repurposed as the Titan sets. Or maybe they were afraid that they wouldn’t be able to pull off a more elaborate story due to COVID.
Honestly I will never understand this argument. Ok, I’ve 100% tried to avoid this here but I’ve seen this come up a good few times as an excuse for season 2 and I just have to give my two cents from my own professional experience.
I used to work in the art department for various tv and film productions. That was my career for nearly a decade. The last one I worked on before I jumped ship was during Covid on a feature film. It was honestly one of the best experiences I ever had working in the industry. Before Covid it was a bit of a wild west scenario where anything went in terms of crew safety, bad behaviour and unprofessional power-mad egos let loose. Covid forced a lot of rules on productions that honestly should have been there from the start. For instance, on our shoot everyone was put into “bubbles”. These bubbles were numbered in terms of importance and limited your time on set depending on what your role was and what your department was. An example from our shoot; bubble 1 was the director, The DOP, The Main Cast, the standbys, the first assistant director, the script supervisor, etc. etc. The people who needed to be there every day. Then it went from 1 to 6, in our case. This actually led to the production being MORE efficient as there was less bodies around that didn’t need to be there and everything was planned for in a way more meticulous, effective and structured way. Down to the number of shots that we were allowed to take on any given scene. People came to work because they knew they had a limited time to make it happen. And also because of the pandemic, everyone had gained this sense of perspective and bad behaviour and power-mad BS was just not tolerated, for once!
It was also, socially, one of the most rewarding experiences as we all had to live together while shooting on an island. Every department had their own accommodation and every precaution was taken to make everything as safe as possible for everyone. Usually you’d have to find your own place to live if you were not a cast member or one of the HODs and you were shooting on location as opposed to in a studio, but they couldn’t risk that we’d end up with people who could potentially get us sick, and the rest of the crew with it.
That project was the Banshees of Inisherin btw, a product of the pandemic that will off course stand the test of time and is an incredible piece of cinema that we are all so proud of. A pandemic film that proves that serious quality work came from a terrible time.
BTW the industry was literally never busier than in 2020/2021, at least where I am. It was one of the few industries that actually flourished in those times. Usually there would always be colleagues around you that would not be working while you were working on something, and vice versa, but it remains the only time that every single person I know was working at the same time and productions were crying out for people.
Anyhow, that’s just my two cents. Covid definitely had an impact, but I think if the writing was there to begin with the product would’ve been good regardless. Covid can not be blamed for the utter shambles of season 2, the mind of the creators can though.
I agree that Picard has struggled with its direction but I personally found this episode to be a great episode and is rebooting the show a bad thing? We have all asked for shows in the TNG era and Picard season 3 could be just that.
Dude each season was a different chapter in the story. That was always the objective. They do the same with Disco. It’s pretty refreshing.
This isn’t true. There was an objective for Picard originally but then it was completely scrapped because it wasn’t working. See; consistent changeover of showrunners with different objectives.
The original objective of Picard per Chabon that this show would never be “The Next Generation Part Two”.
This is from a variety mag interview from March 2020.
And my word look where we are now!
To even imply that any of this was planned, or that the product of Picard as it exists now is what anyone intended, or is was anyones objective from the start, is completely wrong.
If we’re going down literary comparisons I’d argue that it has been more like a completely different book each time, written by different people with different points of view who have completely different agendas. And that’s fine, it is what it is, but it definitely was not planned to be this way. There was NO objective once the wheels fell off and they then had to scramble to create what we have seen and are about to see with this new season.
You really give these guys way too much credit.
“Yes i understand that a very small minority of fans didn’t like them but the majority of the fandom and most of the reviewers who are so postive of S3 loved the first 2 seasons as well.”
Dude, this is just weird denial and alternative facts. I don’t understand how some fans just can’t accept that just because they like something they have to tell themselves it’s actually really popular when everything to the contrary tells you differently. The first two seasons are not loved, not even close. At best they are divisive meaning there are some people who do love them but there are probably just as equally as many people who hate them.
Even the people who made those seasons know they basically sucked. Chabon just disappeared after he made the first season and apparently just washed his hands of the franchise and just moved on. You can’t even get Matalas to talk about season 2 beyond just the peripheral. It’s obvious he doesn’t like season 2 at all. And the fact season 3 basically ignores those seasons is also telling because they know people were disappointed and essentially rebooted the show oddly just like Discovery rebooted itself in season 3.
I don’t understand how some fans just can’t accept that just because they like something they have to tell themselves it’s actually really popular when everything to the contrary tells you differently.
You could literally argue the opposite. People who dislike things tend to stick together and don’t really accept other opinions. Communities become echo chambers. TrekMovie is one such chamber. The majority of commenters are united behind a common opinion. I clearly recall a lot of positive reactions to Season 2 on social media- although I’m sure i’ll be accused of me making that up by somebody. It might be helpful to realise that the Star Trek fandom isn’t just contained to this site.
There is no proof of ‘the opposite’ that’s the point. No one is talking about Trekmovie alone lol. It’s an entire cross section of boards, review sites and social media.
This is what gets really frustrating. People throw out, ‘well I know it’s popular because I saw people say it on Twitter or I went to a Star Trek convention and people seem to like it lol. Again, fine, it’s anecdotal only, but yes some people like it, great. But then when you actually try to give evidence like reviews and polls then people want to argue all day about it. It’s the oddest logic I’ve ever seen. You can’t say on one hand you know it’s actually popular because you seen people say that on the internet but then dismiss the wide swath of negative reviews on the internet because it goes against what you keep saying.
It’s very, very, very simple, if a show was popular, it would be very easy to show that on the internet. I just looked up the scores of the show The Last of Us. It has a 91% audience score on RT. That’s higher than every Trek show on there now and it’s only been on for a month. Watch any of the reviews on YT and people are praising the show. Go to any site and it’s overwhelming positive. Now, if the show ends badly, guess what, that will bare out too and ALL those people whose been praising it will tell you why it ultimately sucked.
That’s exactly what happened to both seasons of Picard and again why these discussions are frustrating. NO ONE is saying they hated everything about the show and again, just like right now the first episode of season 3 is being lauded as great, so were the first episodes of seasons 1 and 2. That bares out practically everywhere. But by the time people got to the end, the trend had changed, hard. Does it mean everyone hated it, of course not.
But if you’re going to sit here and tell us both seasons were mostly beloved by the end and that the majority of fans praised it then you’re just lying to yourself. Season 1 of Picard has a 52% audience score. Season 2 has a 40% audience score.
Do you know what the audience score of the first episode is for this episode currently is? It’s 90%. Look it up.
Now do you know what was the audience score after the first episode of season 2 was? It was 85% at the time. So that bares out that yes, shockingly, when something is deemed good, it’s rated very good lol. It’s very easy to find that consensus basically everywhere AS you can currently find people everywhere raving about this episode, correct?
But that obviously didn’t hold as the season progressed and why by the end of the season it went from 85% to 40% in ten episodes. And trust me, if season 3 ends up being a dud, the same progression will happen as it does on every show. If it stays a hit, it will, shockingly, be a high rating in the end. It may not stay at 90%, but it’s not going to be 40% either if the majority likes it.
Another example, SNW first episode had a score of 80% after it’s first episode. Guess what the score is now? It’s still 80% now. Funny how that works out. And it’s all literally being made by the same people. It’s also all being watched by the same people too, right? So what are we missing?
Are people suggesting it’s some campaign to overly like one show but overly hate the other? But that’s not even true because the show was actually well liked in the beginning. So Christopher is not wrong, there is plenty of proof in the beginning of the season it was a majority that liked it…the problem is there is no evidence to prove that trend held up. In fact, it’s the opposite.
And of course, what’s funny is if season 2 was rated as high as the first episode was, you and others would use that to prove it is indeed well liked. But because it’s the opposite, NOW they want to question it lol. This is why it’s a waste to have conversations with certain people online.
If people want to pretend you can’t find any consensus on these shows or episodes, then you’re being disingenuous. If Picard was well loved as a show, it would bare out pretty much everywhere and not just TM lol.
This is some good stuff Tiger2. Agree with you on all of this 100%
Also, totally off topic but picking up on one of your points, The Last of Us is GREAT! My word, the creators have an incredible talent for creating enthralling and multi-dimensional characters with real emotional depth. They knock it out of that park with that aspect.
They also fully take advantage of streaming by having episode lengths dictated by the needs of the story. So some episodes are well over an hour and some are just shy of the hour mark. This is something I wish Trek would start doing.
Thanks I appreciate that.
It just gets really frustrating with these conversations. If Christopher just said he thought the first two seasons of Picard was the greatest Star Trek he’s ever seen, fine, no one would’ve gotten on his case about it.
And like I said (and proved) it’s not black or white. Many people liked parts of the season, the question is did they like it overall and that’s where it gets murky. And it’s incredible how short term memories people have because season 2 in the first two episodes were being praised by practically everyone (as did season 1 before it and season 3 is now), but then we saw how it continued to fall in real time, episode after episode, everywhere. Christopher and others liked it throughout, again, great, but it’s ridiculous to try and pretend that was the consensus where everywhere you went it was non-stop complaints about it,,.and by many of the same people who loved the opening episodes. Not just TM. And not just the minority. You don’t get a 40% rating on ANYTHING if it was actually well liked lol.
As far as The Last of Us, yeah I’m really enjoying it too. Never heard of it or the game until it was announced. I had no plans to watch it either until I heard it was being made by the same people who made Chernobyl. That was an amazing mini-series and what convinced me to watch (and btw that show has a 97% audience score. It’s always shocking that the shows majority of people like seems to get the majority of high votes but when it’s a show someone likes but has a low rating, then it’s a conspiracy lol).
And yeah it’s getting praise everywhere, but we know if it ends badly then that will change in an instant.
That’s the problem when shows are serialized today, it doesn’t matter how great most of it is, if the ending is bad, then the show’s perception takes a major hit. But it won’t go from a 90% approval to a 40% based on a bad ending alone. People have to be generally dissatisfied with most of the show like many were with Picard
So true, and I totally understand that frustration. It totally derails any meaningful interactions.
And that’s very true about serialised shows taken as a whole and how the ending does effect the way people view the show as a whole, because off course it would! I think we can all agree that season 2 had a very strong start, so much to enjoy there but then it changed and the ratings definitely pointed to that as you mentioned.
And I was the same with The Last of Us! Never played the game but started watching based soley on word of mouth from friends. Zombie themed things are not my vibe in any way, but this one has struck a chord with me. I that will continue it’s streak of great episodes. I think there’s only four more to go for this season so finger crossed!
I think the additional element is whether people give up watching. I know I did with both S1 and S2. So 40% liking the final episode of S2 is worse if you include those who dropped out. I guess there are viewing figures to check.
I was an offering an alternative view but you have just proven my point spectacularly. You are vehemently against accepting that other people might feel differently to you. You’re determination to be proven right is exactly the problem with the community on this site. So utterly unwilling to accept that your opinion might not be shared by everybody. So much for IDIC when it goes against the hive mind. I suppose you’ll start attacking me next for not enjoying SNW because I find it tedious and reductive.
Im done. I’m out,
Enjoy your little groupthink for yourselves. I’ll find a community more accepting of alternative opinions. Hope you’re happy you’ve bullied somebody into submission. Trash.
From my experience this isn’t a groupthink. I have disagreed with Tiger2 and multiple other commentators here before but the difference is that we can talk it out without being reduced to name calling, which is what you’ve just done here.
Your last point is that this is a space that doesn’t allow for alternative opinions and that you’ve been “bullied into submission” for those opinions, yet you cannot seem to understand where Tiger2 is coming from at all and then finished it off my saying you’re done with it and calling them trash.
Look, we all have our own opinions and are so entitled to them. That’s the whole point of having these comment sections. But there’s literally no point in becoming so defensive about those opinions that you then totally disrespect someone else like you have. CHILL OUT.
I swear this is why this board needs an ignore button. And I don’t mean just for me, I mean for posters like this who is constantly offended lol. My god, we’re discussing TV shows, that’s it. Most of us understands that.
The guy just claimed I would attack him over his thoughts over SNW which I have seen many times, a show that has already played a full season and been off the air since last summer. I’m pretty sure if I was going to attack him for not liking it as much as me, I would’ve done it at least once by now.
He seems to think people here are sensitive as he is when someone says something to the contrary over a show or movie. No, most of us are adults and understands people will have different opinions on things. Ironically it’s why a lot of us even come here. Echo chambers get very boring fast.
But yes you get all types on the internet. I just wish we didn’t have to have the same conversations with them over and over again.
Um, I have no issues that someone loves this show man. None, zero, zip! I literally said it in my other post, if Christopher said he thinks Picard is the best Star Trek show ever, I wouldn’t have a single issue with that. Did I not say that???? I’m sure I said that, because it’s on this very thread that was posted hours ago now.
It’s when he tries to conflate his enjoyment of the show that it’s a consensus throughout the fanbase when A. he has presented no evidence of that and B. there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. Plenty. And yes just like it is with Discovery.
And the difference is I’m not trying to be proven right, I’m trying to be accurate. Two different things. No one is getting on his case for his opinions, they are getting on his case for making claims he never backs up. Again, two different things. And this is his M.O., he pulls this all the time. And he’s pulled it on another board which gets the same reactions as on this one every time he makes it there too btw. And the fact he never tries to back it up every time he says it and people go ‘what?” proves he knows what he’s doing.
Tell him to spend 5 minutes backing his claim up, maybe then people will agree with him.
And btw, I asked you to ignore me awhile ago when you got upset because I had the nerve to say something negative about Discovery and you called me a troll over it. Since you can’t seem to accept people just expressing their opinions here and have been told this multiple times by other posters, I told you to just leave me alone then. But since you responded and it was actually not any anger over it (for a change), but a decent argument, so I responded.
But M1701, 99.999% of my posts is never aimed at you at all and yet you still find a way to feel offended anyway lol. Not a single post man, not one has ever been about you directly until you respond to me first (like how this discussion started ;)) saying you were offended over it. Look at the comment you made about SNW. A. Have I ever commented over your issues with SNW? I’ve seen them dude, I don’t care. B. Have I ever gotten on anyone else’s case who doesn’t like the show? C. Have you never noticed I have also made critical comments about the show even though I like the show? Because they are just TV shows and not everything is in black and white and so most of us come here to discuss the pros and negatives of them?
Seriously man, I mean, yeah.
Dude, I’m going to keep saying this, if you are constantly looking to feel attacked on a message board about TV shows when the conversation isn’t even about you, you shouldn’t be here man.
So yeah, just ignore my posts then if ‘you’re done’. I don’t know what else to tell you?
This is why I don’t spend much time here. I probably won’t be back here until the last episode airs. For me fandom kills the fun. Later.
“yes i understand that a very small minority of fans didn’t like them but the majority of the fandom and most of the reviewers who are so positive of S3 loved the first 2 seasons as well).”
It wasn’t a small minority and definitely not a very small minority if TrekMovie is any indication. There was a lot of frustration by the end of season 1 and the only aspect of season 2 that was universally praised was the Stargazer.
I adore the Picard S1 opening theme (its rearrangement in S2, less so). I hope it returns at some point this season.
I was disappointed that they got rid of the intro and the Picard theme as i enjoyed that in the previous seasons
Hmm, I never was that impressed with the Picard intro…too focused on on person and not Trek enough for me.
Which was one of my biggest gripes. Yes, Picard was the lead in TNG but the show was never just about him.
Loved seeing the Voyager B when Raffi identified the attack location.
Totally missed that. Also noticed the “Enterprise F Slated for Early Decommission” when looking for it.
I didn’t hear about that until after I watched it. I saw the screen shot of it on Trek BBS and it looks pretty cool. I’m really hoping the A will be on Prodigy.
I would bet good money on that being the case.
The closing credits includes an inventory of ships in the Federation museum. Those include the Voyager and Enterprise-A. With Geordi in charge of the museum, could it be that we’ll see those classics in a future episode. It would be an ultimate Easter egg to see the 1701-A, the most beautiful of all Star Trek ships, to be seen again.
…that would be fantastic. As soon as Picard said Geordi was in charge of the museum, I was thrilled. Hopefully we’ll get some glimpses of some really cool classics.
This point actually took the episode down a notch for me. There’s very little reason for one of Starfleet’s most talented engineers to be curating a museum. “Museum curator” is a profession. Completely different skill set.
Mike Collins (Apollo11) did – and did spectacularly well.
Well…so he was. I was wrong, you were right! :)
It’s possible that this job allowed Geordi to settle down and start a family. No telling. I have always been fascinated by the idea of the fleet museum. Something mentioned many times, but to my knowledge, never seen. I believe the NX-01 is there, if I recall correctly. I wonder if there are more than one location for Starfleet museums, or if it’s just the one? Also, isn’t Cochrane’s Phoenix at a museum somewhere?
He’s a father of 2 and an engineer. What better way to pursue your hobbies and raise a family? Also, museum curators are always experts in their fields.
In the alternate future in All Good Things.. he was a novelist.
In the alternate future in Timeless he was a captain.
People can just have different careers later in life. I don’t see any issue with this.
Perhaps they could written in La Forge background story, that his meeting with “old Scotty” gave him the push to take up this Job and also to take care of Scotty’s Old Enterprise Ship. Sadly the Original Enterprise was refited into Enterprise-A so there is no original Ship anymore. So i think it was La Forge honor to look over the Old Ships and special about Enterprise-A for Scotty’s sake
Maybe an entry in the database is possible than now new voice lines are included. You know the fans wikipedia thing
The Enterprise (refit) was lost at Genesis. The Enterprise-A was a new ship.
Ah yes, now i remember again.
But the same model.
“Sadly the Original Enterprise was refited into Enterprise-A so there is no original Ship anymore.”
Nope. Separate ships. :)
You right! The Enterprise-A is a work of art. There’s not a more cinematic star ships in this universe or any other in my opinion and I’d love to see her again.
I gotta say that I have always thought the Galaxy Class was a beautiful design, just a beautiful looking ship from the outside.
no body wants or likes the fat one in the 25th century
I guess Raffi’s handler is Worf. Can’t wait to see him!
I mean… yeah, it’s obviously Worf. I think everyone was supposed to realize that. Just like they’re supposed to realize the villains are the aliens from “Conspiracy.”
I was thinking Georgiou, serving as a backdoor pilot for the S31 series.
“You are a Warrior!” that would fit for Worf more then for Georgiou, sry
I can’t recall who else it was, but a few of us here were thinking that finally following up on Conspiracy would be an interesting villain.
I’m still intrigued that it might be that, and wonder if Beverly’s son was screaming and isolated because he had been infected/possessed.
However, it’s not quite clear if it’s that.
It could be (or also be) another configuration of the mysterious Breen as they are a civilization that hides behind masks, breathers and suits.
In the Relaunch novels it was revealed that the Breen were several different humanoid alien species, not just one. In order to live together, including those who required different environmental conditions, they were concealed at all times they were outside their homes.
We saw one 2370s version of Breen environmental suits in DS9, but there is no reason why they might not have others or different types for different ships.
“In the Relaunch novels it was revealed that the Breen were several different humanoid alien species, not just one. In order to live together, including those who required different environmental conditions, they were concealed at all times they were outside their homes.”
So…. They’re Mandalorians.
Rather than a calling taken on as they grow into adulthood like Mandalorian, there is an entire civilization in the Breen Confederacy where they live in environmental suits every moment out of their home from earliest childhood.
The clicking was still very reminiscent of the “Schisms” aliens — a fact that I noted when we were dissecting the trailer! But that bit about “quantum tunnelling,” and the special effect of the Red Lady building channelling all the debris somewhere — that reminded me of the abduction special effects in “Schisms” as well.
Also an interesting hypothesis that’s TNG anchored.
I thought Worf too. The female computer voice was a nice distraction. That, or someone from Section 31.
I was wondering if her handler was a re-born CONTROL.
Would that make Raffi a kind of Trek Maxwell Smart?
Please please, Kahless, no!
Honestly I should have picked up on that clue. I missed that one.
Clearly… come into the light Son of Mogh!
So, no Warp 15?
Yeah, there were at least two instances in TOS where Warp 10 was significantly exceeded.
My understanding is that they use a different scale for warp in the TOS era than they do in the TNG and beyond era.
This is the explanation in all the technical manuals.
Yeah, but it never really made a lot of sense — basically a GR brain-fart.
Logarithmic scales make a lot of sense when you’re hitting the limits of a technology, but then they are technologically-specific.
Which is why other technologies such as Transwarp and Slipstream can suppass the maximum velocity achievable with warp.
I agree, but there is nothing in astrophysics that suggests a warp limit, unlike say the speed of light. The original formula in TOS, and published in The Making of Star Trek, was that each warp was the speed of light cubed. So, Warp 3 = 3*3*#= 27 times the speed of light, etc, etc. I found that much more elegant that just having it arbitralily be 10…and how arrogant that this supposed astrophysical property would use the human/Base 10 calculation to so coincidentally have that be the limit..lol
The original formula makes more sense, and it also is canon in TOS — so it never should have been changed. My opinion, anyway
I‘m actually celebrating that there are no opening credits. It spoils the whole experience knowing who will show up.
Several times I have mentioned this, here in my posts. A big thank you to Matalas and his Team.
Jellico was not a fan of Picard but he had faith in the crew Picard trained and would never put senior officers in a bunk. Shaw is an outright jerk, did the Enterprise D kill his parents???
or he know some dear to him, that he lost onto Wolf-359. Like Sisko’s start in DS9
Saw a Twitter post wondering if Shaw is a descendent of Areel Shaw from TOS. Now I can’t stop wondering that as well.
Yes, I just started wondering that too. Would totally make sense!
Yeah Shaw seemed out of line. Fan or no fan respect is due. Also I don’t like it when people aren’t nice to Seven. I mean she was assimilated as a little girl. Can’t we give her some freak’n grace? There are nicer Vulcans than Captain Shaw.
I’m loving Shaw. He was right to challenge and refuse them. It’s his ship and he has his orders.
Neither Picard nor Riker would have stood for someone without clear orders, with verification of authority, taking their ship on a surprise detour.
My spouse agreed, but also said he didn’t have to be an in-their-face jerk about it.
I note that he chose not to put himself or them in the position of countermanding them in from of anyone but his first officer. He intentionally avoided them outside of his quarters. It’s only when he found he had been directly disobeyed that he confronted Seven on the bridge.
But I’m a fan of Stashwick from 12 monkeys. I expect he has his reasons.
I also expect that he and Riker may be allies by the end of it, if not he and Picard.
Oh, he was right to refuse their questionable mission. It’s the breach of protocol that was problematic.
I’m loving Shaw too TG47!
I mean yeah I didn’t like how he spoke to them either, but people who has seen the entire season says he has his reasons and yes he will mellow out, but the character is just very head strong in general. Stashwick is knocking it out of the park! I cracked up so hard when he and Riker are talking and that laugh he gave back was so funny. He is not taking their crap!
And I made this observation on another board that Picard and Riker are now seen as rouge renegade cowboys of Starfleet to people like Shaw when Picard was basically the by-the-book hardass giving everyone a hard time whenever they stepped out of the perimeters of Federation protocols. He got on Ambassador Spock’s case when he fled to Romulus chastising him for his ‘cowboy diplomacy’ and now this guy is seen as the organizations bad boy by defying orders, questioning policy in the open, stealing ships and firing first when he has to. Man, how the tables have turned lol.
It was outrageous. I get that there are ways to slight people, but this one was just so outrageous that it took me out of the moment. Had Picard been on a more legitimate mission, Shaw should have had a good talking to about treating dignitaries that way.
I suspect that he had already used his time well to confirm with command and through his network that they had no authority to be there.
I was up at 2 am and I love the Episode and everything about it. The music was good the actors and action was great. It’s like putting in an old pair of gloves. Fit perfect
4/9/2023 is Easter Sunday. Coincidence? Resurrection theme? Hmmmm
That’s a bit of a stretch….
LOL, what???
Putting Seven in a professional environment where she has to be buttoned up is the best way to bring back a little of what made her so interesting to watch on Voyager. As in last season’s premiere, she is straddling the line between the old Seven and the more liberated one who has been let down constantly. I can finally buy the voice they’ve given her, hoping that keeps up.
The Picard/Riker scenes just zing, I love the easy rapport sprinkled with humor.
Making her Starfleet is perhaps the dumbest, laziest choice and I hate it. Much preferred her as a Fenris Ranger. Made much more sense for the character’s journey, and was the less-than-obvious choice, which I appreciated. Not everyone has to aspire to be a starfleet officer.
I’m wondering if they plan to make it Fenris is no longer active.
> Made much more sense for the character’s journey,
I’d argue that’s true and made sense only because Janeway’s pull was not enough to get her into Starfleet. They said as much in S1. They failed her, so she forged her own future.
I have to see where she goes this season. She may be in uniform right now, but there’s nothing stopping her from realizing she’s not a good fit and is out by the end, this time on her own terms.
If they’d been able to make her a Ranger and not totally screw with her voice so much that Jeri Ryan had a panic attack because she couldn’t recognize her, then sure, I’d have been all for that too. It works on paper until they saw fit to also change her personality too much.
Starfleet was her first choice but that was denied despite Janeway’s efforts, so she became a Ranger. Once Janeway and Picard were able to get her in, they saddled her with the most challenging assignment in Starfleet: First Officer on the Titan with a captain who apparently has an issue with former Borg, both 7 and Picard. To get where she is, she has had to overcome prejudice and bigotry.”
“Well, here’s one thing you can be sure of, mister: leave any bigotry in your quarters. There’s no room for it on the bridge.”
That theme is reoccurring here and makes for good storytelling.
Did we see the same ep?
I mean, within 30 minutes she completely disobeys the Captain and, like the Ranger that she really is, does what she knows to be right? Did we see the same ep? You are paying too much attention to her uniform and completely missing the point there, my friend.
I think that her loyalty to Janeway for making her human again and seeing Seven as a person really drove her to consider Starfleet, and I think Picard gave her (and Starfleet) the nudge she needed. Also, consider that by this point Janeway has been in the Admiralty for what, 20-25 years now? I can imaging her pull within Starfleet is much greater now than right after Voyager returned.
I find her dialogue more Sevenish…
What I am finding distracting is that the makeup on all the women (so far) seems heavy handed.
Beverly, Raffi, Seven, even Sidney, all seem overdone while the makeup on the men seems very natural. Raffi’s makeup makes sense given the undercover role she’s playing, but for the rest, it detracts.
They are all attractive women, working in a professional capacity. It seems to be the kind of nostalgia that isn’t for the better.
Hmm, I was actually thinking that Beverly could have used more makeup — she looked older than I think they could have made her look?
I think the heavy makeup had the unintended effect of making her appear older.
She looks like she’s lost her back teeth she’s so chiselled.
Ah, OK, that makes sense. Thanks
Yeah, putting her in a conflicted position as an officer makes her a bit more buttoned up, which brings out the “Old Seven.”
Agreed on the makeup too.
Stunning. Amazing. Crafted with talent and love. This is a game-changer. Terry M has pulled of something others have failed at.
Glad you enjoyed it so much Luke!
It’s obvious how much love went into this season. Matalas talks about it so lovingly and there is suppose to be a literal game changer by the end of the season, so can’t wait to see in what form.
Terry M has pulled of something others have failed at.
Yeah, so much better than the first two seasons, and a great set-up to capstone TNG once and for all.
The Titan-A is a refit of the 1777-Titan, right? Because it would make little sense to have it being a refit of the Luna-Class Titan, as they are having completely different space frames.
Space frames? Seriously? Who cares?
I do. I like ships, so I care about those things.
If you care about such things, you’ll realize none of it is worth scrutinizing when you’re talking about 25th century technology. Move along.
Its worth talking about if we enjoy talking about it. What’s wrong with that?
Talk is fine, debating details is part of the fun for sure… but sometimes it feels like these little nitpicks are cause for fans to complain and gripe about the quality of a show.
Ie: “The refit makes no sense, this show sucks!” Granted, he didn’t say that, but you have to admit there’s a LOT of that going around (not specifically here but in Trek fandom as a whole)
Then stop reading it. Burke, please continue.
This.
No offense dude, but you’re falling back to your old ways. You’re basically attacking anyone who has a different opinion. Telling people to ‘move along’ is eye rolling man. You can move along, others should be free to discuss what they want here.
If it’s too ‘nitpicky’ for you, then just ignore it. And guess what, if others feel the same, they will too. That’s how it works. But don’t try and shut down discussion just because you deem it so.
Burke, there is no need for you to move along. You are absolutely welcome to discuss this topic. AlphaPredator can move along instead of being a gatekeeper.
Me too
Clearly, Burke does — and probably other folks too. What’s the point of a snarky response if you’re not interested?
To paraphrase Alfred Pennyworth, some fans just want to watch the world burn.
Burke does.
There’s a whole subgenre of ship loving fans.
Some of us are here. And were ready to help Burke sort it out.
We roll with your focus on your preoccupations, and I welcome your perspectives from a very different experience and expertise than mine.
Could you kindly chill out and ignore ours if you’re not interested.
There is no way to call this a refit. Also why does it get the -A designation? I guess Discovery set that precedent that a refit is all it takes to get the letter, but in ships past the letter designation was for new ships, not refits. But yeah, I’m not buying it as a refit. Nor would I buy the idea of Starfleet refitting a modern starship with design elements hundreds of years old for nostalgia purposes.
It can make sense. Let me explain.
The first Titan 1777 was decommissioned, right? The next Titan, NCC-80102, was launched like 70 years later- and also decomissioned at some point. It is possible that they pulled the very first, decommissioned Titan 1777 from a surplus depot for the refit, disassembled it and then build a bunch of new Tech around the old space frame. In that case it would count as a refit of an old vessel. And since he ship was decommissioned before, it would need to be recommissioned and thus gets a new registry number. And this registry numbercan either be something like 99501or it can also very well be the 80102-A in honor of its predecessor (and somehow successor), also honoring Rikers run as a Captain.
Here’s how I’ve read things so far…
The Titan-A is supposed to be a reskinned Luna-class, according to the recently released “logs”. It gets a bit weird, which is why it doesn’t make sense, but they do explain it. This is reinforced by Shaw’s jerky comment about having to yank Riker’s jazz stuff out of the computer.
That said, I guess they’ve retconned the Titan to be a ‘big name’ in Starfleet history somewhere after Star Trek VI and before TNG while under Saavik’s command. The weird, awkward refit from Luna to the retro-inspired ‘Constitution III’ class is supposed to pay direct homage to the original, both in name and shape of the craft, hence the ‘A’.
It works, as long as you’re willing to accept some hand-wavy business. I think I’d be a lot less tolerant of this stuff if it didn’t flesh out Saavik’s story a little bit. Wasn’t asking for that, but I certainly welcome it. ;)
That kind of reskin is something that happens in real life. The first aircraft carrier, the HMS Argus, was an ocean liner that had its design changed halfway through the build stage. And if you look at the Titan horizontally, it shares a broadly similar curve to Sean Tourangeu’s original design.
Burke, the answer given in the logs (and by Drexler and Matalas in interviews) is that it was initially planned to be a refit of the Luna-class Titan, but during the project (managed by Riker) it was determined that they needed a rebuild instead, with a largely new space frame.
This was in part necessary to accommodate the multiple set of impulse engines that make Titan the fastest and most manoeuvrable ship in close quarters, and she has a close quarter planetary support configuration.
So, she’s a new ship with some internal parts carried over whereas a typical refit, as you say, preserves the frame/platform and replaces the components.
I’d also assume that after the Dominion War, the living construct attack and the attack on Mars, they may have had to reactivate old dormant/disused shipyards set up for constructing 2270s/80s style ships and components. So it might not have been just an aesthetic choice, but a necessary one.
Ooh, I like that.
Perhaps older fabricators (industrial replicators) are configured for certain construction designs and it would be efficient in a crisis of ship losses to go with the existing set ups.
Very neat and compelling opening episode. The score and spacedock scenes gave me some real nostalgic chills, which was nice. Of course we’ll have to see where the story goes, but I think this a very positive start, and nice way to ‘re-boot’ the series. No need to watch the abysmal first two seasons, imo – Raffi and Seven fit in organically and just fine, and I like what they did with Laris.
Agree with what I’ve read about Frakes really nailing the Riker character, he really looks comfortable in the role, and he and Stewart play off each other well. Some nicely-placed humor there.
Rachel Garrett statue dedication(!), nice shout-out to Yesterday’s Enterprise/Ent-C!
The Titan is a heck of a good-looking ship. I see a Hallmark Chirstmas ornament in my future :)
Just watched it on my phone here at work, going to do a second viewing on a proper screen tonight. Promising. Very promising. Excellent review, btw – damn hilarious in spots, Anthony! “I got your Hippocratic Oath right here.” Ha!
You like the Titan? What is it you like about it? The saucer is a tried and true design, but the entire secondary hull and nacelles look so incongruent to me.
At first look (and again, my first view of the episode was on my phone), is that it’s less sleek and a little more ‘beefy,’ if you will. It seems tough, able to take a pounding, if necessary. Reminds me of a new take on a ‘muscle car.’ Agreed, the aft section does look a little stocky.
I initially didn’t like the design after the first trailer. But after seeing turnarounds, CG models, and eventually the episode, I think it’s great.
That said, ship design was never something that really mattered to me. I can tell you a LOT of Trekkies hated the Enterprise-D when it was first unveiled.
Oh yeah, I remember that very well. And honestly, it is my least favorite E design, which I know may not be a terribly popular opinion. To each their own.
I was a kid in the ’80s, it was quickly my favorite because TNG was “my” Trek. My father on the other hand, absolutely hated it. Said it look like they’d melted the Enteprise. Eventually he came around, and he had models of it all over his workspace :)
Right, exactly. I was a kid in the early 70’s, so TOS was “mine,” so it took me a couple of seasons to get used to the stark differences between the Constitution and Galaxy classes. The ship never took me out of enjoying TNG when it aired, though. I was even sad to see it go in Generations.
I guess you like what you grew up with. I, too, loved the original. My favorite, however was the feature film refit even though I grew up with that original. Never ever warmed up to the D. And even friends were preferred TNG never cared for it all that much. It didn’t take away from enjoying the good episodes at all, however. But I will say I wasn’t sad in any way when it bit the dust in Generations. ;)
Same here. Grew up with TOS ship (well, from age 4 to 9, when TMP came out) but fell in love at first sight with the TMP ship. Always thought the TNG ship looked off (even though Andrew Probert worked on both). I liked the Enterprise-E better than the D — but that TOS movie Enterprise still gives me goosebumps every time I see it, 44 years later.
Interestingly, the JJ-Prize and, even more so, the STW enterprise don’t do much for me. Possibly because they just feel like CGI models and not actual ships?
That said, the “C” is still my absolute favorite Enterprise design. So sad we’ve never gotten to see more of that class.
That said, the “C” is still my absolute favorite Enterprise design. So sad we’ve never gotten to see more of that class.
The C was so f’ing cool…and especially the Probert painting of the C, which was even better that the VFX C.
Someone said earlier that it gave them warthog vibes.
I agree, but it’s not a bad concept for a close in planetary support ship as it’s intended.
The Vesta/Aventine slipstream designs by Mark Rademaker are my favourite.
I can accept that in a fleet with a few dedicated go-anywhere fast slipstream ships, but otherwise rapid transit options through old Transwarp corridors, that older designs might make a comeback.
That was me. Titan is the A-10 of Starfleet.
Glad we agree Thorny.
(I also still want to see Rademaker’s Aventine in canon.)
I like that analogy!
This Bervely Son thing. I dunno what i should think about this. If he is really the Son of Both, then why do Picard not remember the interaction to “create” him? I bet he did not forget about that… Please do not drag his Secret to long out. Or strange ideas of the Fans that admire Picard that much could arise
example: Even today some Soldiers are allowed to freeze some sperm, so in case of her Death a child can still be born… So. please do not make this a Fort Nox Secret to long
They left clues in the script to open up that door, especially when Laris brought up that Picard had attempted a romantic relationship with Bev… “Attempted being the operative word”. So we’ll see how this plays out and if it make sense, I’ve heard that it does work even if it sounds hard to believe.
A few years ago, I attended a conference on advances in fertility. Every indicator suggests that women one hundred years from now will be able to give birth until their sixties or seventies.
I suspect that Beverly’s son is actually the child of Jack and Beverly. There could be a surrogate involved and many other permutations. I bet she was bummed when Wesley became a Traveller and in essence, went back to the fridge.
Yes. because i saw some Clips where you see an Box with the Name of her Husband under some Desk. Perhaps this was also some “DNA Sample” of him inside it
I understood it to mean they’d hooked up — but it didn’t turn into a relationship.
especially when Laris brought up that Picard had attempted a romantic relationship with Bev… “Attempted being the operative word”
Yeah, unfortunately that foreshadows the David-Marcus-like Picard’s son deal that I think they are going to throw on us next week…lol
Perhaps he succeeded in attempting entry, so to speak…
The actor is in his mid 30s and looks it.
I can’t see anyone buying him as 19 years old.
This would mean he was born during TNG’s run, unless time travel or other twists are involved.
Same as SNW Captain Kirk, where the actor is too old
I really don’t get this kind of casting if so.
If anything the actors should be younger given that they age more slowly with their advanced science.
More, the kind of casting that had a 24 year old cast as a 14 year old Clark Kent in Smallville has been abandoned in the other franchises. A few years older is really the maximum even when casting teens.
I also have to chime in here. Picard is a decent person, that much we know. He would not be abusive of Beverly, so this potential situation just bugs me if it ends up going there.
Here’s the scenario: Jack is the son of Jean Luc and Beverly. Beverly hid this son from Jean Luc, and denied him any chance to be involved with an offspring of his. Jean Luc is not a bad guy, so this action would make Beverly’s actions contemptable, and seriously undermine her character. There’s no going back from something like this. Now it’s possible that Gates and Terry want her character to go there in order to give Gates some meat in her role, and that’s okay, as long as there is some acknowledgment that this would break her character for many viewers.
My understanding is that S3 is in 2403 (250 years since the launch of the NX-01), so Jack could be 24 years old at the most, unless he was born earlier, perhaps when Beverly was away. I don’t think he’s old enough to have been born when she was gone during S2 of TNG, but there could be other times when she was away (such as the gap between Generations and First Contact). Don’t know, but let’s see where it goes from here.
For what it’s worth, Memory Alpha has this episode dated to 2411, which means that if he were born right after Nemesis in 2379, then he could be 31 or 32 years old, although the “over 20 years” since Beverly spoke to any of her former shipmates doesn’t quite fit that. I guess we are assuming that she broke all contact right after Nemesis, but that may not necessarily be true.
Memory Alpha seems to have no back up for that other than an assumption that this 250 year anniversary of Starfleet maps to the establishment of the Federation.
Matalas suggested it might be otherwise….
In interviews he’s said that this season takes place a few years after season two. Which would make 2403 or 2404 more likely.
I just want to know if Shaw sleeps in the ready room. Like all of us fans! If so, memes please!
(yes, I loved the shot when he woke up and saw the nebula out his window.)
Perhaps to avoid these “guests”. I curious how much he dislike them. But he also is not really friendly with Seven and want to call her with her Human name. Not the one She is used to be and stand in front of him. But well, let’s see
I kinda liked it. It’s maybe a bit too fan service-y and feels a bit more like a TOS (Movie) script than a TNG one but after the horrible last two seasons I guess I’m finde with that. There’s still some weird anacronisms like the captain speaking of “pay grades” but overall the dialogue is a lot more Star Trek-y than previous seasons. Though nowhere near the level DS9 got it to.
The only thing I didn’t care for was rafis sub plot. Well the plot might get interesting and the effect of the terror attack looked really nice. I just could’ve done without Rafi …
Speaking of effects: The CG in the space shots isn’t great. It’s fine and it’s nice to finally have shots like that again but thinking back to something like The Expanse, those shot’s don’t really hold up.
Also: I looked up when the actor playing Beverlys son was born. 1988. Which is the year Gates McFadden was of TNG. I don’t think that’s on purpose but just fit’s nicely into the timeline.
I mean, “pay grades” is definitely an aphorism, as much as it can be taken literally. I’ve often used it out of the context of a paid job, such as when a family member asks me who is going to be hosting the annual holiday gathering lol
Totally greed on the space CGI.
There was one scene when the Titan is exiting the spacedock and there is a shot from the side showing the profile of the ship, it looked absolutely awful. And again when the shuttle carrying Picard and Riker docked on Beverly’s ship, that didn’t look great either.
But the terror attack looked great.
Definitely not a fan of how ships look right now. I can’t put my finger on what it is, exactly. They’re almost a bit too ‘silver’…? And it’s not simply a coat of paint or some other deliberate choice. It feels like how they’re rendering things. Even the Earth spacedock looks a bit weird.
Though I think some of that might be actually be trying to properly address the previous lack of sunlight in the scene. I think sometimes the harsh, bright light of the sun is forgotten with ships and structures around Earth. :)
Eeh, I’ll get used to it I guess.
I think it’s definitely a rendering thing. The surface textures of the hull plating are way too flat, the colour is too unified and it’s also too reflective. So whenever the light hits there is something unrealistic about the flatness of the reflectivity against the textures if that makes sense.
It’s the same issue with SNW, but they go overboard on the dirt textures on the hull and with the shininess/reflectiveness of it, so at least it’s not at that level.
Hmm, to me the CGI rendering of the E on SNW looks drastically better than the CGI rendering on the Titan that I saw in the premiere tonight. In fact, the overall VFX on SNW and DSC I think is much better than any of the VFX shots I saw in this premiere ep.
Yeah I’d definitely agree that DSC and SNW have better effects than anything on PIC.
If i was to rank the live action shows in terms of best visual effects it go DISCO, SNW and then Picard.
And in reference to SNW, I nerded out and made an example.
https://ibb.co/fxQ9WNZ
You can see the level of texture on the hull is A LOT, almost looks dirty at time, but yet also super reflective. To me that is very strange becaseu you’d expect that level of texture to kinda soak up some of that reflection somehow.
And here is that shot of Titan that I was referring too with the flat textures, and unified colours from the space dock scene. I’m not sure how this one got past the final edit like this.
https://ibb.co/61CmGqb
Nothing in Picard or SNW has come close to DSC level of visual effects for me. I’m not sure if they use a different effects house, but it’s pretty weird how they’re at different levels.
WOW, thanks for doing your homework on this, my friend. I mean the Titan looks freaking white-washed/slightly blurry…lol Yeah, you nailed this visually.
The CG in the space shots isn’t great. It’s fine and it’s nice to finally have shots like that again but thinking back to something like The Expanse, those shot’s don’t really hold up.
Yeah, as I mentioned in my overall review post, the VFX are surprising, well, low quality, and not up to par with those in DSC and SNW. I don’t quite understand that, unless perhaps they had to cut that budget to make up for all the actors paychecks to bring everyone back?
Budget yes, but also Matalas has said there were limits in vendor availability.
Ah! OK, interesting.
Loved the end credits. I did notice that there was a redacted performance eval from Captain Shaw of a Commander [Redacted]. I wonder if that’s regarding [spoiler’s] act of insubordination.
Holy cow, I had a grin on my face and tingles for almost the whole episode! Yes, there are plot holes and the Raffi stuff puts the breaks on, but damn does Terry Matalas just get it. It really shouldn’t even be called Star Trek: Picard any more because it’s like a totally different show. And what about those beautiful end credits – a true love letter to The Next Generation. Even Patrick Stewart seems more energised. Just like when TNG was handed over to Michael Piller for S3, this is what the show always should have been. I truly hope Terry Matalas is allowed to continue in this time period and with at least some of these characters.
“Even Patrick Stewart seems more energised….” Good point. I thought so as well!
I found Patrick Stewart’s face acting wonderfully well done.
A few of the spoken lines were a bit not quite convincing, as if body/face were not inhabiting the lines…but so much less so than we saw in season two. Also, it improved through the episode.
Jonathan Frakes is wonderful, so much of the lost Riker twinkle and charisma has been recaptured.
Even Patrick Stewart seems more energized
Yeah, and I think it was due to playin off of Riker…what a difference that made!
I think this was a deliberate acting choice on Stewart’s part. He had relatively little to be energized about after the attack on Mars.
How wonderful to see Jeri Ryan as Seven in the center seat. I hope it’s not the last time. A Shaw / Seven series would be amazing.
Also, I had to laugh out loud at how effortlessly Shaw roasted his guests with such a cadence that it exemplified his affection for meter, tempo and time. lol Loved it.
I loved it too.
I’m looking forward to more confrontations.
Also, I had to laugh out loud at how effortlessly Shaw roasted his guests with such a cadence that it exemplified his affection for meter, tempo and time.
Yeah, great scene, great line.
So far I’m Intrigued . I wish they had given us at least 2 episodes to start, to give better flavor , and I could see what the raves are really all about .
Plenty to quibble about ,but lets go to the positives ,
New ship Titan ,looks good but I wish it had less impulse engines .
Shaw is a welcome breath of Fresh air . He is GREAT !
Picard jr looks ok but its funny that he has an English accent
An episode of Picard that does not end with me pounding my head on a desk ….That’s kinda amazing I’ll be back.
Picard jr looks ok but its funny that he has an English accent
Yeah, like WTF is going on with that accent…is that an Trek fan inside joke perhaps that Stewart has always been a Brit actor playing a Frenchman? LOL
Why do Americans expect everyone in the Federation to speak with their accent?
It’s so not IDIC. It always surprises.
I agree, but I was commenting more on the inconsistency between his accent, Beverly’s and Picard’s, assuming they are all closely related.
It really depends where he went to school.
One of my parents was born in another English-speaking country. I had their accent until I started school at which time I picked up the accent of my country.
Good point…hopefully we learn soon a logical reason like this one. I have had enough, “it’s a white-Brit Khan” inexplicably dumb Trek character surprises for one lifetime…lol
A great season opener, although I would still say Season 2’s opener was more taught and exciting. I suppose the plot here isn’t as clear or intriguing yet. But there are a ton of things to love in this. It looks phenomenal, I love the sets, Cinematography, props, costumes, sound design, music, and FX. I’m not a fan of the Titan A, it looks like a weird clumsy kit-bash background ship from Wolf-359 and I like it less the more I see it. But the ship really isn’t that important to me at this point, the interior of the ship is perfect and that’s what matters more than anything.
Frakes and Stashwhick are absolutely phenomenal in this! What a revelation, it’s so gratifying to see a Riker renaissance after Frakes swore off acting and felt self-conscious about returning to the roll in “Napenthe”. I am absolutely smitten with Captain Shaw, but I’m one of those fans that loved Jellico and I know how divisive that character was. Stashwick just chews the scenery with his dialogue, it’s amazing and delicious to watch, he’s SOO good! I had to replay his dinning scene it was so great! Jeri Ryan is better than ever, somehow she sounds way more familiar now, as if she just stepped off the set of Voyager. Her appearances on Picard to this point have otherwise felt a little too unfamiliar.
As for the plot and conspiracy, my best guess are the Blue Gills from “Conspiracy” or the Founders, both of which infiltrated the Federation and caused similar paranoia. They made some reference to an enemy with changing faces which seemed to give it away for me, especially since we keep hearing how crucial the Dominion War and DS9 elements are to this season. But then again, why would Vadick be seeking vengeance on Picard in particular, we never saw his involvement in the Dominion War, that was Sisko’s triumph. Anyway, it’s always fun to speculate…which is somewhat undermined by the number of people who have already seen most of the season ;)
I responded to Lorna Dune above.
I have been one of the ones here hoping for Conspiracy to be woven in (and finally followed up on).
However, after Beverly’s son saying they are “different every time” my guess is that we might be seeing the Breen in new and different environmental suits. In the Relaunch novels, the Breen confederacy was made up of a diverse group of humanoid species. They do everything to avoid revealing their identities – auto incineration of the environmental suits and bodies at death would be a reasonable protocol.
Who knows? Perhaps the Breen were originally responsible for the Conspiracy?
Anyway, it’s always fun to speculate…which is somewhat undermined by the number of people who have already seen most of the season.
They really let way too many self-appointed, superfan blowhards see the series in advance.
It really built up their social media in advance, but may risk a big drop off in the next couple of weeks.
We’ll have to see.
Paramount will be happy if it holds onto the boomers and Gen-X subscribers that watch the Yellowstone franchise and gets them to try new Trek. They’ll like it even more if it manages to increase sign ups.
Paramount will be happy if it holds onto the boomers and Gen-X subscribers that watch the Yellowstone franchise and gets them to try new Trek.
That’s an interesting marketing strategy that I had not considered.
Riker notes the weird ashes left by the aliens Beverly vaporized. And her “son” said the bad guys have attacked them before and had “different faces” every time. Could these be Changelings?
Their Clicking sound they made, remembers me more of some Voyager or Enterprise (1) TV Series Aliens. So not really Changelings
Wasn’t there a species from one of the later seasons of TNG where the clicking was a thing? I seem to remember Riker and some other crew members getting abducted and moved to another dimension for medical experiments. Probably nothing to do with this, but the clicking made some old synapses in my brain click (hehe).
Breen. A multi species confederacy.
My call.
Perhaps some advanced version of the Jem Hadar? Those dudes really scared my back in the DS9 heyday…lol
Too Trek obscure for general viewers?
All these shows are bringing back obscure things though. SNW brought back Sybok lol. His name hasn’t even been uttered once anywhere in over 30 years.The Gorn are also just as obscure if you never watched TOS or ENT. And the Breen also showed up in LDS last year, so like the Gorn, they could be making a big reappearance in the franchise.
Tiger2, in addition to my other points in this sub thread, I found a few more things that line up with the Breen.
– At one point in DS9, the Breen directly attacked Starfleet in San Francisco.
– The smaller ships attacking the St Eleos have a configuration similar to Breen ships in DS9 and STO even if the mothership has a lot in common with the Narada.
– The letters in the writing in a museum display in the titles beside an image of a ship very similar to the ones attacking the St Eleos aren’t quite a match for Romulan or another established alien language. We didn’t really get a good look at Breen text in DS9 so it’s a possibility.
Really, looking back, the Breen were a more significant opponent in DS9 than I had recalled. Can’t truly say they are obscure with so many appearances.
People will have different meanings what ‘obscure’ means but for me, it’s mostly if some alien or character appeared once or twice on a show and never really dealt with again. Breen is a little different because they did have a pretty big role on DS9, but it wasn’t until the very end of season 7 and haven’t seen them since until LDS (who I think we will see again next season).
But unless you didn’t watch DS9, every fan is going to remember the Breen lol. How can you not? These are an utterly ruthless and mysterious species and yes only the second species to successfully attack Earth. The Xindi did it first, but that’s when Starfleet was still in its infancy and no Federation existed back then. So that’s an achievement.
I been saying it would’ve been interesting if they were the main foes on SNW instead of the Gorn since the Gorn’s presence really do break canon IMO but I’m sick of that discussion lol. And I don’t really care that much. But I think the Breen would be far more interesting in general and we know so little about them.
So if it’s them, that would be interesting for sure. So far reading all the theories, the leading contenders seem to be the conspiracy butt bugs, changelings, Schism aliens and now the Breen. I will include the Romulans too because they are like how Odo treats Quark and I just automatically include them in every conspiracy brewing. ;D
I saw a video RBM released yesterday and while he didn’t give any spoilers to who are the villains he did say their motives are ultimately political. So do what that as you must.
The clicking nightmare creatures in TNG Schisms are also obscure.
The thing is that when I listen carefully to Picard 3.01 the boarders make sounds that are not just clicking, but also other machine-processed animal-like sounds and speech.
The Breen in DS9 also had odd machine-modulated speech that standard Cardassian and Federation universal translators had to be specifically calibrated to comprehend.
I just reviewed an old DS9 season 7 episode, and while two languages have differences they are no less similar to what was in 3.01 than a comparison to the repetitive clicking sound in Schisms. In fact, unlike in Schisms, they both sound like some kind of language.
Anyhow, the Breen were not fully explored in DS9 and offer the potential for another major opponent to the Federation and her allies for the 25th century. It would make sense to pick up on that as the Litverse did.
For the first time in this show’s history, they let scenes and space shots linger a bit and the change in pacing really did make all the difference. They weren’t zipping from one scene to another to obfuscate a sweaty narrative; the plot was straightforward enough that the characters/actors could just play the emotions of the scene they were in rather than the larger season plot they were thrown into. And for the first time since the season two premiere, I did not go to bed so annoyed I couldn’t fall asleep right away.
It still must be pointed out that they did Orla Brady dirty, as she was tremendous in her brief sequence. I hope she pops up somewhere else in American TV soon. Pointy ears optional.
What a wonderful way to put it!
And agreed on Brady. Was glad she wasn’t just forgotten about like the other characters, but I do think they missed an opportunity as her and Stewart have great palpable onscreen chemistry which is hard to achieve. Laris and Picards scenes were the highlight of the episode for me. It will be very disappointing if that’s the last we ever see of her.
My guess is we’ll see her at that sunset she references, only alone because Picard has chosen to do whatever he needs to do. Or she gets taken out by the villain.
I hope it’s the first one and not the second!
For the first time in this show’s history, they let scenes and space shots linger a bit and the change in pacing really did make all the difference. They weren’t zipping from one scene to another to obfuscate a sweaty narrative; the plot was straightforward enough that the characters/actors could just play the emotions of the scene they were in rather than the larger season plot they were thrown into.
SO WELL SAID !!!!!
Well, I enjoyed every moment of that. This is how ‘Picard’ should have started.
Well, that was delightful. Honestly, the spy/mystery plot isn’t doing much for me, but I will keep tuning in for the Picard and Riker show. “Nice save, Admiral.” “Shut it, Will.”
Honestly the best thing Terry has done so far is to make this season a Riker/Picard show. Regardless of anything else that might occur this season, that dynamic has warmed this viewer’s heart. Frakes is a gem.
I wholeheartedly agree.
I thought it was fine. Not as strong an opener as S1 or S2, but hopefully it’ll have steadier quality over the season than either of those. Really enjoyed Raffi’s skullduggery plot; that mass teleporter weapon is truly terrifying. Shaw came across as cartoonish and bigoted; his having one valid point doesn’t change that I want him to eat a phaser. Don’t think I’ll be coming around on that guy. Seven telling off Picard and figuratively flipping off Shaw were great. Apart from some clunky exposition, the bits with the TNG crew were again, fine. Enjoyable as comfort food, but no big emotions yet. That’s not really a complaint, though; we’ve got all season for those and this is just the launch point. Looking forward to next week.
Well, since they show so much Trailers in the past of Riker and Picard being on the Titan’s Bridge and giving Battle Commands, i fear Capt. Shaw is out of the game very early. But it also could explain the lacking of Cmdr. Seven taking over. Perhaps these Two are the better choice, because of their Experience. They are battle proven Commanders. So, it do not mean deaths. But there was a split second in some trailer that concerns me about the Pilot, too. You know, i hope they know that the fans will explore every Frame of the Trailers out of curiosity
But since they also trow out some Pictures of the Titan being in red Alert and Sitting Duck out there with no Warp Drive. I could also imagine Capt. Shaw revert to his old used Section to repair the Critical Parts of the Ship, because the new Chief Engineer is not ready for this much “Devastation!”. That could explain the Command Transfer to Picard and Riker.
Well, let’s see
Matalas has said he hopes the guy will become a fan favorite, so as much as I’d love to be rid of him sooner rather than later, I expect he’ll be around for a bit. XD
I loathed Deacon when he first appeared in 12 monkeys, the previous series he worked on for Matalas. I was rooting for him in the end.
I expect Shaw has an arc, and is much more complex than we’ve yet to see.
Stashwick is a superb actor, with a strong theatre and improv background. (Second city alum.) He can hold his own with the rest so it’s likely he’s been given something meaty to deliver.
The only question is whether fans can come to understand and respect Shaw, the way they understood Sisko’s hostility to Picard, or will he like Jellico, be divisive.
I expect Shaw has an arc, and is much more complex than we’ve yet to see. Stashwick is a superb actor, with a strong theatre and improv background. (Second city alum.) He can hold his own with the rest so it’s likely he’s been given something meaty to deliver.
I agree — I think we will like him before the season is over, or at least appreciate him more. He’s going to come around and be a good guy I think.
I suspect we will get to see Shaw’s point of view, which will add depth. Forcing Seven to go by her birth name is a jerk face move, though. Riker prefers to be called Will, even though his birth name is William. If he were to ask a superior officer to call him Will, and said SO continued to call him William, that would be intentional conflict by the SO. Just because he can refer to her as Annika doesn’t make him less of a jerk face.
Agreed.
Such a clear homage to the scene where Kirk/landing party first encounter David in TWOK — and I LOVE IT! Fan service plus newness: something for everyone!
Yep!
Hm… any thoughts on who the aliens could be ? ( i assume they are an already known species )
My guesses so far ( taking into account the “changing faces” quote from this episode) and at least their leaders desire for vengeance..
The Jem Hadar and their Vorta’s was already talking here in the past. But then these Vorta’s need to know how to create this Drug for the Jem Hadar and i bet only the Changelings know about that
Didn’t Bashir work on a replacement already
Also yes the Jem’Hadar and Vorta both do speak, if not Federation standard, then a language that universal translators already know. Same with the Founders.
Breen
Breen
Breen
I’m not sure I’m following you on this, could you be more specific? 😅
So on Crave.ca here in Canada, I did not get the ‘In the 25th Century’ title card. Was it missing for anyone watching on P+ in the US?
Found it to be yet another needless throwback. WoK began with a “In the 23rd Century” card. Why copy it except to excite long time fans?
Regardless, it was visible for you? Just trying to figure out why I didn’t see it on Crave TV in Canada. Seems like they received a glitched copy of the episode if everyone else is seeing it.
Yep, it was visible here in (at least this part – east coast) of the U.S.
Weird. Just had the CBS Studios title card in the blue font here and then a black screen before the nebula popped on the screen. Out of curiosity, did the nebula backdrop fade in after seeing ‘in the 25th century’ or was it a hard cut and just pop in?
The nebula backdrop faded in. Soft transition, took a moment.
Interesting. Nebula was a hard cut here. Wonder if what we got here was a glitches cut of the episode. I tried contacting crave but their support portal was bugged.
It was indeed. In fact, when it appeared I groaned a little because I was thinking this was a portent of things to come…
Experienced the same on CTV Sci-fi channel.
Is it possible BellMedia doesn’t have the same version?
That is nuts!
I have heard from others over on Trek Core that Amazon Prime is missing the “25th Century” title as well as the fade in missing. Sounds like they received incorrect copies of the episode. Is there anyone here at Trekmovie who could contact CBS or whoever is in charge of distribution and get this corrected? My concern is that perhaps there are other effects or missing transitions.
Amazon Prime in the UK does NOT have In the 25th C. Starts with nebula and World on Fire.
Best part: NCC-1701-A lives on!!
That is what brought a tear to my eye.
And even though we knew it already, its somewhat blurred out, but you can see the listing for 1701-D’s saucer section right after Excelsior appeared.
How did I miss that? Where was that? Thanks in advance if you can point it out to me/
I thought this was fine. Definitely entertaining, but a bit underwhelming if I’m totally honest. Not really on par with the reviews I have been seeing pouring in.
When the episode ended it felt like whenever an episode of Prodigy would end – I was left with a “wait, it’s over? is that it?” feeling. But for Prodigy that was a product of the episode lengths being so short.
What I did really enjoy was Orla Brady. I was worried we would only be given a very short “goodbye” scene with Brady and then she would disappear into the ether like the other from the shows past, but I’m glad there was more emotional depth to the scenes with her and Stewart and pleasantly surprised that her character was the one to encourage Picard to go on this mission in search of Beverly. Brady and Stewart have really strong onscreen chemistry, it’s such a shame if this is the last time we ever see her in Trek.
I also enjoyed the tone of the interactions between Picard, Riker and Seven. They struck a nice playful tone within their dialogue which felt full of shared history, camaraderie and connection.
The closing credits were great too.
I rolled my eyes at Beverly absolutely blowing that guy to literal smithereens as a doctor, but hey – that’s Trek now.
I really wish they would’ve just released all of the episodes in one go. I was worried that our reaction and enjoyment as the audience would be lesser to those who had seen the 6 screener episodes because they got to binge watch them. I think that worry was justified now.
I think it need some forstory. Because she said “they found us!”. So perhaps she knew she must do it to get rid of them. But We do not know that much so far
I think you’re right. Crusher and whatever Ed Speeler’s name is definitely understand and know the threat, and that will be explained, but it’s still shocking to see someone on Trek being blasted into oblivion. For me anyhow. Like Seven in season one with Bjayzl. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.
I think this Beverly — decades later — is not the Beverly we once knew. We will learn more shortly, I am sure.
Before I begin I must point out that I am watching this through crap covered glasses. Perhaps unfair but one must admit that Secret Hideout has done this to themselves with the
garb.. sub par shows they have made over the years.There were tons of tropes in place. Not surprising since the writers are not very clever. The score was reused or derivative of what came before. Hard to make out any original cues. Everything is still annoyingly dark. Wish they would turn up the lights. Lots of plot holes but I guess producers figured fans wouldn’t notice because the point really was to get the band back together. The once semi-interesting Raffi has fallen to an annoyance. The presence of 7 of 9 feels like a contrivance. And I never thought I would say this but Frakes out acted Stewart in every scene. It’s unfortunate but looking at this and the last two seasons it’s obvious Stewart has lost his Picard charisma. Wouldn’t be surprised to see the Titan Captain turn out to be in league with the season big bad or an unwitting helper at the very least. And I truly hope beyond hope that Crusher’s son is not also Picard’s. But honestly I wouldn’t put it past this group.
Anyway… The episode elicited a giant Meh. The show might get better but the odds are it will only get worse. Time will tell.
You’re the definition of clinically insane. You just keep repeatedly punching yourself in the face. It’s truly mind-boggling. I’m so sorry for whatever happened in your life to lead you to this point.
I don’t agree with ML31’s review, either, but there’s no need to get personal and nasty.
Oh I have no problem with his review. But this is a guy who has hated just about everything Trek since 2017, and just keeps watching. What’s the expression, that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?
Why do fans of really bad ball clubs keep watching them lose? It’s called “hope”. Something you don’t seem to be familiar with. I truly pity someone who has no concept of hope.
Yes I agree with Wiley. The reason there is a comments section is for people to share their opinions. If you don’t like an opinion that’s fine, go on and have a civilised debate about it. But your comment is beyond out of order. There is absolutely no need for it.
As someone who has experienced cyber-bullying to try to silence my opinions, I agree 100%.
So according to Dr AlphaPredator, noted neurologist, anyone who thinks Secret Hideout has made a lot of bad Trek is “clinically insane”. Or is it just anyone you disagree with is insane?
Guess I need to call my doctor immediately so! 😅
“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”
― Edgar Allan Poe.
That’s… quite the reaction.
It’s a television show. He’s entitled to dislike it.
That dude seems thoughtful and make a lot of good points most of the time, and then out of nowhere he intermittently posts personal insults at people here — I’ve been on the end of a couple of those.
“You must learn to govern your passions; they will be your undoing.”
It seems to me as to lighting, all of Secret Hideout’s live-action offerings are/have been dark. I just re-watched SNW, and that felt a ‘little’ brighter at times. I find it a huge letdown as well, overall. I mean, they’re obviously spending so much on effects and production, actually let people SEE all of it! Same with the sfx shots as well – I’ve been complaining about this since the first episode of DSC. Take The Orville or The Expanse for example, the sfx on those shows are far and beyond better than SH has presented us with Nu-Trek. And I agree with the poster(s) above who said the attack on the Starfleet Recruitment Center looked fine. But that was an anomaly.
Just my opinion, though. I realize this is a contentious subject.
Your comment made me think of all the work that Dave Blass and the production design department would’ve put into the bridge of the Titan that we’ll never get to see properly because of the lighting.
I get that it’s a stylistic choice and they’re creating a mood and certain tone, but I just wish there was more variety of lighting. Why does every space have to be so dark? Even the first scene with Laris and Picard in the chateau is incredibly dark although it’s clearly daytime outside.
I think SNW strikes a good balance in that not every space is dimly lit – the corridors for example are really bright and so are the crew quarters, briefing room and sickbay.
I watched this episode of Picard in the daytime and I had to close the curtains during the shoot out between Beverly and the bad guys because I had no idea what was going on.
Even the first scene with Laris and Picard in the chateau is incredibly dark although it’s clearly daytime outside…I think SNW strikes a good balance in that not every space is dimly lit – the corridors for example are really bright and so are the crew quarters, briefing room and sickbay.
Fully agree!
I actually think the effects are acceptable. My main beef with nu-Trek is with producers and writers. Are they the best? Probably not. But Trek has been more about good stories than good effects. I suppose one might expect better given the costs and how few episodes there are now. And that seems like a legit complaint to me. But I carry that over to the producing and writing as well. There just is no excuse for it to be this bad. Perhaps the sets are designed to look better in the dark? I’m just spitballing here. But if that is the case then the sets should have been redesigned. The darkness is just tiresome to me.
Actually, maybe the darkness does serve a purpose in relation to the sets. You could be onto something there because I read from a few of the creatives that they had to re-use and redress a lot of the same sets throughout the season to cut down on production costs. They only had enough to build maybe one new set, but then had to use what they had already from previous seasons and get very creative about turning those existing spaces into multi-use sets.
So the dark lighting may have been used to obscure this.
Perhaps the sets are designed to look better in the dark? I’m just spitballing here. But if that is the case then the sets should have been redesigned. The darkness is just tiresome to me.
Interesting thought. In the era of 4K, perhaps they needed to save some budget on the sets and made it dark to hide defects in cheaper construction?
SNW is significantly brighter than Picard S3 ep 1. So is DSC, and so are the JJA movies.
Gee, what a surprise. You hated it.
I was not aware that a “meh” = “hatred”. Did the definition change in the last 5 minutes?
Let’s see, from first word to last (and several other replies down thread now), you spent the entirety of your post bitching about the episode. No one is going to read that and conclude anything other than you hated it, and it’ll also provide confirmation bias for those also predisposed to hate anything Kurtzman does with this franchise.
If you actually bothered to read the post, and given your response it seems you didn’t, you would see that from first word to last was NOT bitching. The sum up was “meh”. Anyone reading it would conclude that my response to the episode was “meh” as I said as much in the post. Any other conclusion is proof the post was not read all the way through.
Also of note I actually pointed out that my opinions have been swayed by history of what the production company has turned out. Quite a rare thing. I am honest and up front. Few here are that open.
Dude, just give up with this guy. He doesn’t even know what a neurologist is.
Interesting comment from someone who makes diagnoses based on if he agrees with someone or not.
I didn’t care for it either. After all the talk about how this was going to be a massive course correction I still found it to be the same, bland nu-Trek dish we’ve been served up again and again, just with extra fan service. I’m still hopeful the season has a few memorable moments ahead but if it’s just another Insurrection or Nemesis (or, dear god, S1 or S2), I guess it’s nice just to see the whole crew together and ambulatory one final time.
I really believe that the fact that the band is back together for this is going to get people to go lighter on this show than they normally would. The whole point of this seems to be a healthy does of ‘member berries more than anything else. I suppose there is nothing inherently wrong with that. A lot of people are really wanting it. I would just like to see some sort of substance to go along with it. It’s only one episode but in that one episode I’m not seeing it.
Is M113 your son?
If he is then my son lied to me about not liking Trek.
:-)
Before I begin I must point out that I am watching this through crap covered glasses.
WTF? :-)
It means that due to the extremely low quality of programming that has been churned out by the production company creating this content, my viewpoint heading into this watch is that the product will conform with what they have already made. Being not good. This is essentially the opposite of the well known term “looking at the world through rose colored glasses”. Meaning seeing things to be better than they may actually be. Something I’ve seen demonstrated by a number of people here when it comes to nu-Trek. At least I’m owning up to my biases.
Got it, thanks
I was hoping that this would be the Star Trek event of my adult life and after watching the first episode of season 3 it defiantly seems like it will be. I’m almost glad that they didn’t release the whole season last night (like Netflix) because if they had I would not have made it to work this morning for watching the whole 10 hours all together. I loved Dr. Bev’s commanding intro. It reminded me of when she had to take command during that rouge Born and Lore incident. Or when she went rouge herself during the Metaphasic shields incident. Riker is rikering and I could sip on that warm soup all day long. When he embarrasses baby La Forge I was like of course he would, he’s defiantly that kind of uncle. But he’s also just so ON throw-out the whole episode. There’s something whole about Picard himself this time around. Maybe Q did right by him after all or the writing is just better IDK. But I like it. Raffi is out there in space being the super spy/Star Fleet Security we’ve been waiting to see her be. I mean she was Picard’s first officer for years so this is very cool to see. It’s the Section 31 show I would actually be interested in seeing. Then there’s the visuals, A+ one and all. It looks so good. Then there’s the music, it sounds great. I really could go on and on but I’ll end here by saying I can’t wait for next week!
I wish they did release all the episodes. It was definitely enjoyable, but I also found it a bit underwhelming and definitely not on par with the rave reviews I have been seeing.
Maybe if they were all put up and I was able to watch them in quick succession I’d have the same rave reviews as the people who got access to the screeners.
I agree with you on Riker taking the absolute p*ss out of LaForge’s daughter. That was really fun!
And Stewart does seem to have more pep in his step in this episode too, he felt more vibrant to me.
I actually prefer the Netflix system of releasing all at once. Of course then autoplay becomes a problem. Even when you turn it off there are issues with it. I think the services the release episodes weekly have a large fear of quicker churn. They may be right to fear that now that I think about it.
Yeah I prefer it too, binge watching definitely obscures some of the weaker moments of a season as you don’t have time to linger on anything for too long! The problem for me though is that I will quickly forget about it then 😂.
But I get why they release weekly, I think you’re right on that. It is to get people to stay on the service, which makes sense.
I agree, or at least two per week, so you get sort of a movie-level watch each week.
Personally I can’t binge. I just can’t watch any show more than two episodes at once. I’m not a fan of long movies because of that. It’s hard for me to sit still that long. For me to do that the movie or show had better be REALLY good. So good that I forget how much time has passed. Trust me. That’s awfully rare these days.
For the Netflix stuff when it comes out I might watch two, maybe three episodes a week at best but I do try to stretch them out because I know the next season, if there is one, won’t appear for over a year.
I dislike the binge model, myself. Of course I’ll gobble up a show like candy if a whole season is put in front of me, but then I don’t get to talk about it the way we are doing now. You have to talk about it as a whole and that means some details of episodes get passed over, or you have to wait for others to catch up, or you avoid spoilers if you aren’t caught up.
Firmly believe in maintaining the weekly drip so shows feel like events and we have time to discuss them. It also means the efforts of all the people who made them get a sustained level of interest for months as opposed to a flurry of chatter over just a few weeks.
Raffi is out there in space being the super spy/Star Fleet Security we’ve been waiting to see her be. I mean she was Picard’s first officer for years so this is very cool to see. It’s the Section 31 show I would actually be interested in seeing.
Agreed. She, Michelle Y. and Worf together — can you imagine that as the Section 31 series!!!
Now THERE’S a show!
Yeah, think: Star Trek – Mod Squad !
Personally, I recall Crusher being rouge throughout TNG, although she became a blonde in Nemesis…
Someone needed to comment on this, so silly but made me chuckle.
IN THE 25th CENTURY…
I have to admit, seeing that in the beginning just made me smile! I kind of knew then we were going to be in for a chock full of nostalgia and call backs and I had no issues with any of it because overall it was a great episode that really set up both the characters and the stakes nicely.
It wasn’t perfect and I still think The Star Gazer was a bit stronger but this felt like true Star Trek again. So many fun and intriguing moments in it, but the best scenes were with Picard and Riker. It’s been reported Riker steals the show this season and this episode makes that clear. I laughed so much every time Frakes opened his mouth. He’s not really trying to be the comic relief, it’s obvious he has his own demons to work out but it’s still cool, calm and collective Riker. Knowing he’s in every episode already makes the season awesome for me.
The comedy bits were fun. I loved the bunk bed scene, but oddly what I laughed at the most was when Picard and Riker showed up on the Titan for their fake inspection and Picard stopped to straighten out an officer’s com badge. I don’t know why I laughed so hard at that. But that scene and the ‘shut it Will’ line were the funniest.
The rest of the story is off to a great start. I loved it started with Beverly under attack and she got to kick major ass. It’s really cool McFadden has such a big role in the story, finally, and can’t wait to see where she’s been the last 20 years. I also loved seeing Seven in uniform and yeah Shaw is a handful. Everyone is already hating that guy lol. But I heard he loosens up as the season goes on so I can’t wait to see more of him. And I loved how they set up Raffi as the spy on a top secret undercover mission. It was a great way to set her up. The scene of the weapon was cool and terrifying at the same time.
Oh and the music….just perfect! It all brings a smile to my face. Loved the First Contact score in the end too.
There are some things I didn’t like, but the biggest was I just frustrated I wanted more lol. The story just zipped by at warp 9. And I think I pretty much knew everything was going to happen for the most part, but that’s what happens when the trailers are mostly focused on the opening episode. And yeah it’s still too dark, but it’s fine I guess. It was nice to see Laris as we all knew we would, but it’s been confirmed by people who seen the whole season that’s the last we’ll see of her. We hardly knew you Laris…literally. And finally I still don’t know how I feel about the whole son thing but people who seen it says the character and actor is solid and a strong addition, so it sounds like it will be something interesting at least.
Overall it was great, but I remember saying that for both season premieres for only later feel immensely let down by the end. But I trust everyone who says this time it’s different and that everything this season is constructed well and everything shown has a point. Like Discovery, I really want to love this show so I’m hoping this will be the season and will set things up for the future well.
I’m just happy the TNG cast is back and so far it’s already a treat with the little we seen. Can’t wait for next week!
“…Laris as we all knew we would, but it’s been confirmed by people who seen the whole season that’s the last we’ll see of her.”
Didn’t catch that bit of news before. For some reason this bums me out…she and Picard had a nice rhythm going for those first few scenes.
Yep, sad but true. It’s so odd how they squandered this character. I thought they were going to set her up to have a much bigger role in season 2 and she was there literally ten minutes. The actress herself got more to do playing her ancestor, but it was just odd how this character, a former Tal Shire intelligence officer, got nothing more than be a house keeper and then have feelings out of nowhere for Picard that also went nowhere.
Maybe if the TNG cast didn’t come back, she would’ve had a bigger role in season 3, but they probably just couldn’t make room for her so she’s now gone too. I still don’t understand what was the point of the ‘romance’ if they knew she wasn’t going to be involved at all this season.
I think this is worst part of the obsession with “narrative.” Is it a better conclusion if Picard ends up with Crusher? I think not.
Well we don’t know if they will and the episode oddly suggested that Picard and Laris still had a relationship of some kind. I say oddly because if she’s really done. then I don’t even understand why they still are together? Like what is the point? And while I don’t mind them being together at all, it just feels so underdeveloped when they already had an entire season to do it with.
But if Picard and Beverly do end up together, it shouldn’t surprise anyone since many fans have been pushing for that since TNG. I’ve always said it was bold not to ultimately put them together on the show. But it’s been decades now so I wouldn’t be shocked if that’s how it ends. I don’t personally care one way or the other. If so, great, if not, no biggie at this point lol.
But they may want to give Picard a happy ending if this is truly the end of Stewart’s run.
Seeing her there was jarring, theoretically knowing she’s not going to be back. Because I would have loved to see an episode or an arc about Laris and Picard actually having a deep relationship. Sounds like a novel?
I just can’t buy into a relationship with a 30 or more year difference.
Yes, it reflects Stewart’s own marriage, but that takes me out of it every time, excellent acting and screen chemistry notwithstanding.
And I can’t help thinking we’d never see the reverse onscreen.
For example, that could have been Beverly’s late husband Jack Crusher surprisingly brought back from the dead, and holding firm to his wife against his old friend who’d been involved with his wife in his absence.
But no, we seem to be getting the rumours validated with a previously unknown son.
I try not to think of Picard and Laris as living under the same rules of age difference because Romulans, like Vulcans, can live longer.
To amplify your point, with that given, Laris is even younger, comparatively to Picard, than the age of the actress playing with Stewart.
And if, as you suggest, Beverly brought Jack Crusher to life, or decided to live with his clone… that would be a very science fictional story – and perhaps an episode of TNG. But it would play into other tropes about Beverly that I am sure McFadden and the Producers would want to avoid at the present.
I was thinking more along the lines of Jack Crusher having been in some kind of suspension, or in a transporter buffer along the lines of Scotty.
Having her late husband surprisingly reappear with the age he died at would be sufficient to divide her from the others.
That goes to all sorts of places.
Bev: “You’re my man, but pretend you’re my son. Much more fun.”
Either totally liberating and “sex positive” or… something else.
Yeah, I don’t get why they discarded her. She’s perfect for Picard, and that’s one of the few really great things about Picard S1 and S2 that happened that I liked.
Great review other than the phrase “true Star Trek again.” I hate to break this to everyone, but no matter how much you didn’t like DSC, PIC, LDS, or the JJ movies, they’re all true Star Trek.
I know. I think all the shows are true Star Trek, especially since I been highly supportive of all of them and has made clear every show should be deemed as such when people say stuff like the Kelvin movies or Discovery shouldn’t be deemed canon. I fight against it every time.
But I should’ve been more specific and said true TNG again. That’s what I was really trying to say, its evoking that show specifically in a way Picard didn’t and why it disappointed some people.
I don’t even think that’s quite a fair statement, but I get your meaning. It evokes TNG. The thing is I don’t actually agree. I don’t actually think this feels much like ’90s Trek, TNG, or even the TOS movies like people are saying.
I think that because it hits a few familiar beats, and gives some fans what they actually wanted (a TNG reunion), they’re getting that vibe.
Which is terribly ironic, because everyone from fans to critics spits all over “nostalgia bait” but clearly it’s what people want, when done well (WHEN DONE WELL)
For example, one prominent reviewer, slammed SNW for not being “something new” and criticized Picard Season 3 for just giving us “TNG again.” But flash back to 2019, the same reviewer said they wanted the Picard series to reunite the TNG crew…
Well that’s fine, we just have to agree to disagree. It certainly feels it way more than Picard did. And I imagine more so once we see them all together.
But we do agree nostalgia bait is what most people want, certainly casual fans. It’s why Picard even existed as a show. It’s why we have SNW today. To me, all of these new shows are nostalgia bait if you are bringing in tons of old characters and old story lines. But SNW, PIC and LDS is made directly for old fans first and foremost.
LDS and SNW feel like shows made in the 90s, they are both even episodic to please those people who grew up with that format. Picard originally tried to at least feel different in its first season even if it was clearly made for old fans but every season has made it closer to TNG in some way, this being the biggest obviously. And if we do get a spin off I wouldn’t be shocked that became more episodic as well.
Great review – glad you enjoyed it so much!
I found it a bit underwhelming but definitely enjoyable. I LOVED the scenes with Picard and Riker and then with Seven too. The scene where Riker took the absolute p*ss out of LaForge’s daughter was hilarious. Frakes is just such a charismatic onscreen presence, it’s impossible not to like him.
However I’m really sad to read that about Laris. Like Danpaine I missed this too. Brady and Stewart have such great chemistry. Their scenes together were my favourite of this episode. Firstly I was surprised she had so much screen time to begin with, but I was again surprised when it was Laris who encouraged Picard to go look for Beverly! She’s obviously in a relationship with Picard now, and knows fully of Crusher and Picard’s history but yet wanted him to go look for her instead of going off into the sunset with her. I just loved that.
Bitterly disappointed that that is the last we’ll see of her. Such a great actress and great addition to Trek. Watching her and Stewart acting together elevated the show.
I have definitely seen other reviews where people felt more underwhelmed. And I’m going to be honest, if I wasn’t such a fanboy of seeing Riker and Beverly back, then yeah I may have felt the same.
But I just loved those Riker moments so much. It is amazing how much chemistry Frakes and Stewart have. That was the other issue with Picard as a show, he wasn’t very close to any of the characters except Raffi and she spent half the show biting his head off. So it’s fun to see him with an old buddy and they know how to play off each other so well both as actors and characters.
But as I said, I still think The Star Gazer was the stronger opener but I’m going to rewatch this episode tonight and see how I feel then.
And obviously agree about Laris, but I was prepared for it. Someone here months ago read she only worked a few days on season 3 so I kind of knew that was it. I thought maybe she had film a scene for the end of the season or something to maybe show them together but I guess not.
I found the Star Gazer more meh than this one. Somehow Stewart and a few of the others were just not selling me in their performances and it took me out of it.
I’m quite delighted with this premiere, as is my spouse who actually joined me in first watch in real time!
OK fair enough! And I rewatched this episode again, I liked it even more! As I said, I liked it obviously and yes it’s probably one of the best episodes in years, I just liked the other one a little more. But let’s hope UNLIKE last season, the episodes gets stronger as they go for a change. ;)
I’m of the opinion that S2 E1 was a better start. Until Q showed up of course. But your comments confirms my theory. That TNG fanboys are likely to be over the moon for this and will be willing to accept a sub par story because of the excitement of the “band being back together” so to speak. I’m a bit surprised that I don’t recall seeing anyone wonder how they were able to travel from Earth to the “Edge of Federation space” in just 4-8 hours. This feels like KU level playing fast and loose with galactic geography. But that doesn’t matter because… Riker has scenes with Picard!
OK dude. I can tell it’s going to be another long season for you lol.
But funny thing is, I pointed out the short travel time too on another board, but I ranted so long in this one I left it out, but yes agreed, it is weird. But it’s still Secret Hideout Trek I guess that you like to mention. ;)
Even a mice learns quickly not to touch the electrified wire.
Well, I didn’t read every word in every post here. If someone mentioned it then I missed it. But it was a pretty darn obvious faux pas and was surprised it wasn’t mentioned. Usually fans being fans they tend to pick the episodes apart. But not so much this one here. And I think my theory for why applies. One must remember, I was never huge on TNG to begin with so I’m not all that excited about their return. I’d much rather see the Enterprise group return. Of course, only if some other production company were to produce it. ;)
Cool!
However I’m really sad to read that about Laris. Like Danpaine I missed this too. Brady and Stewart have such great chemistry. Their scenes together were my favourite of this episode. Firstly I was surprised she had so much screen time to begin with, but I was again surprised when it was Laris who encouraged Picard to go look for Beverly! She’s obviously in a relationship with Picard now, and knows fully of Crusher and Picard’s history but yet wanted him to go look for her instead of going off into the sunset with her. I just loved that. Bitterly disappointed that that is the last we’ll see of her. Such a great actress and great addition to Trek. Watching her and Stewart acting together elevated the show.
Well said — 100% agree. And I will categorically say that she’s a better life Partner for Picard than Beverly Crusher — my opinion.
Profound joy.
I am genuinely surprised the overall response is so widely positive, save the most vocal outliers who hate everything. I was expecting it to meet with a more mixed reaction. I liked it a lot, but I still didn’t think it was perfect, so thought a lot of those more critical of recent Trek would be bullish on it.
Nice to see it’s been (so far) widely enjoyed. I do wish they’d turn up the lights on the bridge though. Watching clips from Insurrection the other day, and even the “darker” Enterprise-E was still brightly well-lit by contrast!
Even the most vocal outliers like RMB and Dave Cullen likes it and yes those guys seem to hate everything dealing with NuTrek. And the fact they watched the whole thing and was more impressed by the end is more surprising. PIC has never had any problem being praised for its opening episodes. As far as trend goes, this is par for the course. It always seems to be after the second or third episodes where you really hear the grumblings begin.
But yes, everyone is saying this is different and why Paramount probably sent out six episodes this time because they knew that would bare out in the reviews and fortunately it has.
The guy watching Picard and Riker in the bar is the same guy Riker eyeballs on the Titan ,think Shaw was expecting them all along .
Those talking in click aliens have we not seen aliens that talk in clicks on Next gen ? I’m thinking of the frozen fish people?.
The Jake Crusher clone or aged up Picard kid , said something about the attackers changing appearance. …. they referred to 250 years ago “going boldly” celebration ….are the Aliens Suliban ?
If you’re talking about when Picard adjusted the guys comm badge and then Riker looked at that guy opposite him that was definitely not the same guy at the bar. I just went back and had a look – completely different people.
But you’re probably right about Shaw knowing more than he let on.
Nope, not that guy. The other guy on the right.
Guys, it’s not the same guy.
Here’s a screen grab of the guy listening in at the bar and then the two featured people on that Titan inspection; the guy with the commbadge and the guy opposite that Riker looks at.
https://ibb.co/KN49T9j
Nope, just pointing out which guy he thought was that guy. If that makes sense…
Oh yeah, my bad!
BUT just to be clear I was saying they were not the same person BUT I do believe that side-eye guy from the inspection is definitely in on whatever is going down- along with bar man – he was just way too sketchy not to be.
There was an Episode with similar Clicks Sounds. It was the one where Solanogen-based Alien lifeforms from Subspace universe Episode “Schisms” created an Bubble and hijack the Enterprise Crew and doing experiments on them. Where Riker risked his Life to catch them. They are living in the Subspace. Perhaps they found now a Way to manifest in this World with this Suits or such. But we will see
Okay episode (I always thought it borrowed from the TREK novel THE PROMETHEUS DESIGN a bit), but using that as the basis for a season sounds a little off, as in nobody will remember. It’d be like having WRATH OF THE NANOBOT as the theme for the season, or finding out Amanda Plummer is acting on behalf of a deaf former Federation mediator (actually never got through that episode.)
Come to think of it, WRATH OF TIN MAN might not be bad, kind of like doing a TMP followup.
This episode was a really great start to the final season! I loved the pacing of the story, and the musical score was great! Also, I loved the end credits and do hope we get a glimpse of the past hero ships in the fleet museum. Loving what I watched and I’m really optimistic for the rest of the season. However, I do have a couple minor nitpicks.
The computer voice in Picard’s house should have been processed more to sound like a computer. To me, it sounded more like someone standing off to the side and reading the lines. It was a bit distracting and made me think it was an unfinished mistake.
As much as I love the new USS Titan, the CGI wasn’t that great. It was good but seemed to be video game level good. The ship scenes inside the space dock looked a little flat to me and needed just a bit more polish and depth.
Everything else was great. Looking forward to next week!
And strange how this post got flagged for approval.
I agree with all of this. The pacing and the music was great. It took me back to the movies (which was the point obviously) but the voice in Picard’s house just sounded too normal. The CGI could’ve been a bit stronger too.
I’m hoping we see the Fleet museum again but in much more detail.
As much as I love the new USS Titan, the CGI wasn’t that great. It was good but seemed to be video game level good. The ship scenes inside the space dock looked a little flat to me and needed just a bit more polish and depth.
Agreed. I mentioned this is my full Ep 1 review post elsewhere here:
VFX: 5 (out of 10) — looked like the budget was less than on DSC/SNW — not movie quality and could see a lot of CGI artifacts. A bit disappointing. Loved the design of the Titan, but it looked very CGI’ish. And it’s just too dark, folks — I have a $7000+ set-up with HDR, 110-inch screen, 4K projector, but with all that some of the scenes are just way too dark.
I think that fans need to be more realistic about what’s possible for television, even well funded streaming series.
Matalas has said that even with a well funded show, compromises had to be made in vfx in postproduction, and not just to cut costs.
There just isn’t enough capacity in the industry to meet the demands of all the shows. At a certain point vendors said that they couldn’t extend their contracts as they had other commitments.
I get that, but surely our expectation level should be VFX consistency with DSC and SNW…why shouldn’t that be the average fan’s VFX expectation level for this series?
I disagree about the computer voice.
There is no technological reason it would sound artificial, processed or have a flat affect. They are centuries ahead of us.
Why should we expect a 25th century computer that’s really an AI not have more natural-sounding speech?
I had a lengthier post but it got flagged for some reason so I will just say I loved most of it.
Oddly enough I see it, and it says “Awaiting for Approval” even for me! That’s weird lol
It’s probably some word you used. It should come up when they see it.
Yeah it’s there now. I think it was the class name of the Titan that triggered the hold, but I edited it out to just the name of the ship. Who knows. LOL
The class name Riker gave was the neo-Constitution, which is the informal one. The official name on the plaque is Constitution III.
The log for the Titan-A mentioned both.
Sisko blaming Picard for Locutus was always stupid AF–a parody of traumatic stress that makes traumatized people seem like fact-immune assholes. Matalas quoting that stupidity is, for me, among the worst possible signs. Yes, worse that the insultingly anachronistic Titan A.
Not really. I have PTSD and I can tell you right now that something or someone that reminds you of your trauma is always gonna remind you of that trauma regardless of its role in that. I can’t deal with the entire franchise of Stargate because of my trauma and it barely was involved.
Also. The opinions of people like Ben Sisko can co-exist with the opinions of Picard and yours and others.
The mind and how it associates memories is a funny thing. There’s a band I used to love as a teenager who I can’t listen to anymore because of an experience I had much later in live when I was listening to them.
The hostility some fans have for writers, producers, or other behind-the-scenes folk for how they write episodes is truly fascinating. Jefferies Tuber, get over yourself.
I really liked that about Sisko. I think in that specific instance they were purposefully setting up DS9 as a different show to TNG. They were telling the audience that this is a different kind of commanding presence, and that this show was not going to be afraid of conflict.
I really liked that about Sisko. I think in that specific instance they were purposefully setting up DS9 as a different show to TNG. They were telling the audience that this is a different kind of commanding presence, and that this show was not going to be afraid of conflict.
Exactly!
Your post is bit off-putting, especially for anyone who knows someone who has been dealing with post-traumatic stress.
I think it’s exceedingly human. It’s less plausiable to assume a widower could totally disassociate his trauma and anger from the man who is the living embodiment of why his wife died only 3 years before.
And he’s not just an embodiment. He’s literally the guy responsible for his wife’s death.
Shaw’s own likely trauma is realistic, and Sisko wasn’t the only senior officer in Starfleet who retained scepticism about how truly divorced Picard was from Locutus’ actions as a Borg.
Frankly, whoever at Starfleet command was responsible for assigning Seven to Shaw likely consciously chose to put her with a Captain who had prejudice against XBs. Not everyone responsible for making those assignments would be as open minded as Janeway.
Seven is in an accelerated development program as a command level officer. Unfortunately, accelerated development programs often intentionally put their candidates through situations that risk breaking them if they can’t find a way through. I see the logic of making Seven deal directly with prejudice before she has her own command, but it may also be a systematic bias.
Sisko should have been hating on Worf about that when they met and forever after, because (for me at least), the biggest failure in BOBW is that Worf didn’t immediately kill Picard when there was a chance of his being taken by the Borg. I was and am flabbergasted that they never made a story point of that in the finale and again and again later on — Worf should have realized his honor had been besmirched by this enormous failing on his part.
The fact Picard seems almost annoyed with Sisko’s observation just pointed up for me how much I generally dislike Picard. Very rarely does anything ‘stick’ to him unless it is brought up as a main driving force of plot (like in FC.)
BTW, I rewatched FC and INS with the commentary on in the last few days. Frakes is somewhat informative and also funny, but man, on INS with Sirtis, they are a genuine crackup to listen to! At first you keep wanting Marina to shut up because she is talking about being home watching a soccer game or something when Frakes is talking about a tough scene, but then it just keeps getting funnier and funnier, and when Frakes busts up laughing at length a couple of times, we found it infectious. He also has a deadpan line abou a transport inhibitor ‘not doing ____” or words to that affect that had tears rolling out of my eyes.
I think I’ll only rewatch INS with the commentary in the future — the only scene I really wan to listen to in the whole movie anyway is the Picard/Doherty scene in midfilm and they don’t even interrupt it much, probably realizing, quiet this is thte good part.
Suprising how ignorant you are about the psychology of PTSD. Your brain doesn’t know the difference between the actual event that traumatized you and a subsequent event that triggers you. Your brain will react as if it’s the same event and trigger you accordingly. Saying Sisko blaming Picard is a parody that makes traumatized people seem like fact-immune AHoles is self-righteous ignorance. You come across as traumatized yourself, perhaps as someone who was the recipient of another’s triggered reaction and took it out on you?
Would anyone have been shocked if Crusher’s message was, “Help me Obi Wan, you’re my only hope?”
Lol!
I was thinking the opening scene of SW Ep 1 in that scene as well…lol
“Help me Jean-Luc. You’re my only hope…”
Just started a second watch. I didn’t catch the first time how we’re introduced to Picard he’s playing old love songs as well, just as Beverly is after drinking something blue before the aliens show up. I also found it very amusing that Jean-Luc made her the 25th century equivalent of a ‘mix-tape!’ before they broke up! (I could have told him that doesn’t work :)
The thing I noticed on the second watch, perhaps because I was dense the first time. But when Beverly is listening to his BOTW log, I thought initially that it was a very lame easter egg. Then later on second watch realized she was researching his battle tactics, for ways to hide from the enemy ships.
Nice observation, I did not consider that, was just thinking she wanted to hear his voice (to accompany the song list he left her). Listened twice now, wondering if that’s one of the actual capt’s. log from TNG, or a mocked-up one specifically for this scene? Fighting the urge to go back and BOBW to find out. Really enjoying the second view, picking new things up. Hopefully each episode this season will require a second watch, or three, or…
I looked it up after my first watch, that is the actual recording from BOTW, when they’re hiding from the Borg.
Captain’s log, stardate 43996.2. The Enterprise remains concealed in the dust cloud. And to my surprise, the Borg have maintained their position, waiting for us to come out of hiding. I have no explanation for their special interest in me or this ship. We continue to prepare our defenses for the inevitable confrontation, but I must admit, on this night I contemplate the distinct possibility that no defense may be adequate against this enemy.
“The thing I noticed on the second watch, perhaps because I was dense the first time. But when Beverly is listening to his BOTW log, I thought initially that it was a very lame easter egg. Then later on second watch realized she was researching his battle tactics, for ways to hide from the enemy ships.”
Someone who has seen the entire season says that will definitely come into play later and yes is important in the season.
I’ve seen the first 6, and i’m enjoying seeing people’s theories. Grinning like an idiot when someone guesses accurately, or is wildly off but seems so sure of themselves.
Well trust me when I say for me it’s usually the latter lol. It’s why I don’t even bother making theories anymore, it’s usually a waste; especially when the writers try to go so left field to keep people from knowing it.
The problem with going too deep into left field is that begins to venture into the “ridiculous” and even “absurd” category. It seems this production company have their own special version of Occam’s Razor.
Yeah, that’s how we get such gems as 23rd century time traveling space suits that can create wormholes and carry churches 50,000 light years to another planet or crying Kelpian kids destroying all dilithium in the galaxy. ;)
No one guessed any of that for a reason…because it was insanely dumb.
Unfortunately, some fans around here attack the latest shows for “having a special occam’s razor” and then out of the other side of their mouth decrying narrative choices they deem “too obvious” to be any good.
Some people just can’t make up their minds about what is good or bad, because ultimately no matter what is done, they’ll deem it bad.
Well that’s just called being human. ;)
It’s not related to one TV show alone, we all have our subjective tastes. Yeah I thought these twists really sucked but I will also admit if it was something more mundane than people would’ve complained more they saw it coming several light years away. And that happened too as many guessed that Tyler was Voq all along and complained it was too obvious. For the record, I didn’t pick up on it and was convinced it wasn’t true because everything about it just sounded stupid to me and I still feel that way lol.
The real problem is that stories, especially sci fi, has all adopted this big mystery box type of story telling that was never part of classic Star Trek. You didn’t have these end of the galaxy stakes and these major plot turns they set up in the first episode of the season that we got in DIS and PIC.
Shows like DS9 and ENT, for example, became serialized later, but they didn’t rely on these huge twists or this ‘I bet you can’t guess whose behind all of this’ approach. They would just tell their stories without setting up question after question. Sure, there would be twists and surprises, but it wasn’t a constant tease or drumbeat building up to that twist either, it would just happen organically or even better we didn’t realize a big reveal was coming until after it happened.
The best example is when we learned Bashir was replaced on the station by a Changeling. There was no major clues to any of it and what made it so satisfying at the time, no one expected it. And yes, it was logical and made sense within the show and universe. Same thing on Enterprise when we found out Romulans were helping Vulcans during the Syriannite purge. We weren’t asking ‘who is behind all of this? I bet it’s Section 31!!!” We found out it was a twist after the fact and it was gratifying in that way.because we didn’t spend all season creating constant theories over it as we are doing right now with Picard.
Now Enterprise did set up the Future Guy plotline from the start and we see how well that went (ugh). But I think that was suppose to be a mystery through the overall show, so it’s a bit different but yes I wish they didn’t do that either, especially seeing the non-results from it.
And I’m not saying not to do it, obviously it keeps people glued to the story. But yes, it still has to be something that feels satisfying and logical even if we can’t guess it. But a lot of these, especially on Discovery has felt the very opposite to me and made those seasons less rewatchable, but that’s solely my feelings on it of course.
I can’t speak for others but since you cited something I specifically said I feel I should mention that such criticisms can both be true. They can to too far to the ridiculous extreme one way and be too amazingly obvious the other extreme. When writing a mystery you want to leave clues but not so obvious everyone sees what’s coming. It’s not about not making up one’s mind. It’s about competent writing and storytelling.
I watched it at 3AM this morning because I haven’t been able to sleep. Jonathan Frakes was the MVP of the show. He’s terrific. They should rename it Star Trek: Riker.
It was an brilliant episode. Very cinematic. I’m confident we have a home run.
Dude I would have zero problems if they made a Riker focused show. Fans have been wanting that for years now and a Riker and Troi show on the Titan. It can still happen at least in animation form.
But I would prefer the Riker we have now of course. While I doubt the spin off would be about his character it would be a shame he didn’t at least have a recurring role in it.
Best Star Trek. A little too dark sometimes, they could brighten it up a bit. But it’s amazing
With the expectation that this season is fan service, everyone knocked it out of the park. Like last year, the opening episodes foreshadowed what’s to come.
I don’t know if this is a sign of good things to come, but I’ve never felt the need to watch “The Ready Room” before (sorry if that makes me a bad fan). But for this episode, I did watch it. And I recommend it.
I’ve seen it once and I don’t think I can handle seeing another one. Everything on it was just overly gushing praise for everything nu-Trek. I realize it’s mostly promo material but jeez… I’ve seen stuff like that for other shows and they aren’t nearly to the level of The Ready Room. That one I saw was just too much and I surmised that most are like that.
Wow, another thing you hate, what a surprise.
Wow. More trolling posts. Not a surprise.
I’ve watched every episode of the Ready Room, but I agree it gets a little too much at times lol. Wheaton just pours on the syrup to the point you start to feel sick of too much of it. But I actually do enjoy the interviews for the most part. I just accept the show is basically there to advertise the franchise.
And yes I watched this episode, I think the longest the show has ever been IIRC and it was a lot of good stuff in it.
I’m enjoying it so far.
– The “the ship’s leaving drydock, audience – listen to the jaunty swelling music!” bit was a little corny and overdone (we don’t know this ship or its crew). I get that it’s a nod to the TOS movies, but meh. It’s a looooong nod.
– I feel like Raffi could have found the red lady in 30 seconds with some decent Googling.
– Fleet day sounds lame. They go through all this rigmarole EVERY year?
– I love the First Contact theme – but it feels tacked on at the end. It would have been nice to hear a new theme that worked in those bits, maybe?
– it’s still odd to me that Guinan’s bar isn’t in San Francisco.
– I think this is the first episode of Picard that didn’t feel padded to me (although the Raffi stuff felt shoehorned in, pacing/editing-wise).
– All these refits confuse me. They gutted the ship but there’s still jazz in the computer? Or was he talking about the previous Titan, since he’s been captain if it for five years?
Sorry, these are bulleted responses but for some reason the bullets didn’t post…
Oops. Frontier Day. I missed the 250 years bit. So not annual, apparently.
That’s what I get for watching while “working.”
I feel like Raffi could have found the red lady in 30 seconds with some decent Googling.
LOL, yeah
I think this is the first episode of Picard that didn’t feel padded to me.
Yep, the pacing was superb.
Fleet Week is so lame. I can’t believe that the entire Bay Area goes through this every year.
I agree about the music. I’ve always loved references to old Trek themes, but stitching together parts of themes does not a tribute make. As opposed to most fans I wasn’t the biggest fan of the music. The previous composer did trubutes masterfully. Little nods shone through like little gems. With the new guy they were blatently copy and pastes. He could’ve been more creative about it.
Huh. I guess a lot of people loved that, but to me it seemed like a tired rehash of the TOS movies. Please, PLEASE don’t let the kid be Picard’s son.
As for the best season opener of any new Trek show, I’m afraid I consider that to be SNW’s “Strange New Worlds.”
To me that’s (being like TOS movies) is a good thing, not a bad thing. However, that scene with the angry son and Picard’s look on his face was almost laughingly similar to angry David talking to Kirk for the first time in Trek 2 — yeah, I think it’s his son, but not completely sure.
I enjoyed it, and my spouse says it’s very, very good.
I agree though that were getting an intentional remix of some of the TOS movies as a way to hit a kind of grounding, a reset button with fans that have been lost.
I’m ok however with a remix of plot because I trust the Showrunner to pull it off.
We’ve seen Matalas do it previously with 12 monkeys where he reframed and wove the story of the Brad Pitt – Bruce Willis movie into a fresh original plot and character arc. The four season television series was better than the movie, and had a deeper and more sophisticated science fiction premise.
That said, I really don’t like the idea of the David Marcus son of Kirk story being reprised in any way. I have hoped they aren’t going there, but I agree that it seems more and more likely to be the case. Hopefully, there is a deeper plot and character reason for that choice if so.
Like you, I am missing SNW. We are so fortunate that show has recaptured some of the energy and trippyness of television-era TOS. I’m concerned about that show’s future now that Goldsman has moved on to work for WB Studios with his newly announced deal.
I really loved it. Everything. They captured the look and feel of that timeliness well, the acting was great and the story was wonderful. I felt happy to have watched it. Hope it just keeps going like this.
Can we turn on some lights? Loved the episode but needed a tad more light
Yeah, I’ve got a videophile-level system, and that didn’t even help…I just watched the very dark B&W 4K Dr. Strangelove on my system last weekend, and that was freaking brighter than this…lol
STRANGELOVE has a ton of contrast, so the dark stuff is balanced out. I’ve never even considered it a dark movie (visually anyway), and I’ve seen it in the theater as well as at home.
For me the darkness taste test is probably LOST HIGHWAY for movies and the american version of THE KILLING (season 2) for TV. LH almost gets lost in the murk, but if you saw it in ideal conditions, it was something else! And TK got a lot of hatred for being too dark looking, but there was usually a bright highlight offsetting the darkness.
I do have a question for you. LIke most of the viewing public, I hated the WTF darkness in a couple of later GAME OF THRONES episode. But with your entertainment system, did it still register like a bad drive-in movie in terms of brightness? Reason I ask is that cinematographers and colorists used to do an SD pass as their main pass on the DI, and then the HD one, but more and more are focusing on the HD only now, so am thinking they just don’t care about viewers who don’t have fancy or mdoern sets. If GoT actually looked good on your set, that would evidence supporting this view.
I suspect you’re right kmart. Even a videophile television more than two years old may not read the newer shows as intended.
I’ve share the surprise we’ve experienced with our new OLED television. The difference between old HD and 4K is profound, and some HD linear shows ten years old or so look washed out off in colour.
The episode 3.01 wasn’t brightly lit, but it was in no way gloomy. The only scene where it could have been brighter was Picard’s last conversation with Laris. However, taking a seat in a shaded side of the house seems appropriate for that kind of conversation.
I completely upgraded my system in the last 12 months, so legacy issues are not the problems. Yeah, I can up the brightness, but I really don’t like doing that unless I have too.
There are like 20 people here who reported this issue — this is a bad production decision problem, not a viewer problem.
I agree, I was just using Strangelove to make the point given I watched it so recently. I will throw a GoT BR disc in this weekend and let you know. However, it’s standard BR, not 4K/HDR.