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Star Trek: Picard


Corvinus85

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2 hours ago, Datepalm said:

Michael Chabon is writing Star Trek now? The 2020s are so random.

If you have Netflix, and they carry Discovery, check out Short Treks, the episode "Calypso", written by Chabon. One of the most perfect things ever written in the Star Trek universe.

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Yes, "Calypso" is sweet. Very well done.

Can we leave out the spoiler tags for episode 2 stuff now?

Spoiler
  • Regarding Picard's health, as this is a more mature Trek show, I doubt he will be healed. (I'd prefer them to be more 'immature' in this case though!) I think there i a good chance tat the series will end with his death. Maybe Q will be there: "It is time, mon capitane!"
  • Aren't he lifespans in Trek much longer? So Jean-Luc should not be near death at 94?
  • In the same vein, I don't believe Data will be resurrected/ recovered. Although from a deleted scene of Nemesis, Geordi as his emotion chip...
  • I missed Number One. I gather the canine 'actor' was not a pro.
  • The Commodore: At first I thought she was a Romulan, but that doesn't make sense. So she is either a Vulcan, or someone else pretending to be a Vulcan. I wonder what's her agenda; don't think she is a member of that secret group within the secret service.

 

ETA: Sadly, Chabon is showrunner for season 1 only, he moved on to filming his own book. So I hope the writing won't decline after that.

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21 hours ago, Mindwalker said:

 

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    • So Picard is terminally ill, and I somehow doubt he will be healed in typical Star Trek fashion. Well, I hope it will take years. I won't be watching Picard without Picard.

     

Spoiler

The disease Picard has is Irumodic Syndrome. It was what the elder Picard had while he was tending his vineyards in the final TNG ep, All good things. It's the incurable neurological disease (I assume kinda like space dementia?) which made people doubt his story about time travel.

I'd forgotten, but google tells me he had Crusher test him for it at the time and she detected structural defect in his parietal lobe, so was expecting it.

 

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Spoiler

AFAIK, his structural defect meant that he could geet it, not that he necessarily would get it. OTOH, his current doctor seems to imply he does have it... I would have preferred he didn't, and for Picard to end on a more positive note (for him, not just the universe saved or younger folk having their whole future ahead of them etc.) Oh well.

 

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In the interview with PatStew from back in December that I linked a couple of weeks ago he said something to the effect of Logan having been the most satisfying/meaty work he'd done in a while, so with that in mind

Spoiler

I think Picard approaching his mortality and potentially decaying mental faculties is something he's happy to engage with. I wouldnt expect a cure.

 

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While I don't know anything about Logan, my impression of Stewart's interest in exploring these issues was the same.

Spoiler

I'd personally be happy with a 'it will break out some time in the future, but we don't know when, might take a looong time' kind of ending, but I don't think we will get it. He will either die or walk away into one of his last sunsets, so to speak. He might decide to sacrifice himself to save Data's daughter, which would be very poetic considering Data sacrificed himself for Picard.

In the same vein (of exploring real loss, sadness, regret, guilt), we won't get Data back. Maybe a last greeting from him, maybe he lives on in his 'children,' but we won't get the individual back.

Random note: I watched a Youtube video with all of Data's cat scenes (hilarious how often the cat attacked Riker...) and now I'm really mad at the makers of Nemesis. for killing him. Data, that is.

 

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Decent episode, although the length tripped me up: I think it was nearly 20 minutes shorter than episode 1 (42 minutes compared to 60). In fact, it was 2 minutes shorter than a standard Star Trek episode from the 1990s.

Stewart has signed for Season 2 and they start shooting in a month or two, so Picard seems likely to survive this season. Although:

Spoiler

Reportedly they did film a death scene for Picard as a banker in case they decided not to do any more. And of course some people have pointed out that maybe he does die and the show will continue with the new cast without him, and bigging up Season 2 with Stewart is an anti-spoiler measure.

 

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Because, frankly, if you count Voyager and the Hugh and Lore episodes then there are actually more episodes where the Borg are a joke than episodes/movies where they are a great threat.

 

It's extremely annoying that they retconned the Borg so heavily. The original Borg were terrifying and the Federation defeated them by the skin of their teeth in Best of Both Worlds. The novel Vendetta then had a second Borg invasion which was even more terrifying but the Federation managed to stop them with the help of the Doomsday Machine Mk. II (the first was the one in the TOS episode The Doomsday Machine) and was fairly logically written. There's a great bit where the Doomsday Machine's anti-proton beam - which the Borg have problems adapting to - shorts out the subspace field around a Borg cube and an Excelsior-class starship destroys it using the deflector dish weapon from BoBW (even leading Riker to satisfyingly note "It would have worked!").

Given the hoops the earlier writers had to jump through, I think it was pretty lame that First Contact just said, "Oh, now the Borg die if you just shoot them with enough phasers." And Voyager had to come up with new reasons each week why the Borg couldn't just destroy or assimilate Voyager. The Scorpion two-parter was reasonable for explaining that but in later episodes it got properly ridiculous.

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14 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Can I ask the same favour as last week, could someone let me know if Seven or any mention of Voyager is in this episode? Be your best friend?

Spoiler

None whatsoever

 

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I enjoyed episode 2. Always a good sign when I'm left wishing i could see more.

I really like the portrayal of romulans, they are actually a lot of fun in their embracing of emotions eg the romulan woman who works at the vineyard (the show could do with more of her).

I also liked the tongue-in-cheek "x days since our last assimilation" board.

Only part of episode I didn't like was the potty mouth of one character. Such crudity doesn't work for me as i figure the reason they never swore in the earlier shows was because humans didn't use that language anymore (or at least Starfleet doesn't). If it were an alien species we hadn't seen before (or little) or non Starfleet I'd be ok.

Speaking of alien species my curiosity was piqued by

some of the borg drones coming from an unknown species. I get the impression there's more to that and like the potential of it being a threat that the borg inadvertently removed from federation space. But not in a borg killer way more a powerful empire that was set back by the borg. Wasn't there in-continuity history of the romulans being at war with some other empire on the opposite side of their federation border territoy? Although i guess they'd know the species in that case.

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8 hours ago, Ran said:

If you have Netflix, and they carry Discovery, check out Short Treks, the episode "Calypso", written by Chabon. One of the most perfect things ever written in the Star Trek universe.

Will try!

I liked both episodes of Picard - didn't realize I'd been missing Star Trek. That said, its playing out as a horribly conservative narrative so far, well apart from its TNG roots.

So is Discovery dead then? I didn't love it but was wondering how it had gone, New-Weird mushroom fondness and all.

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1 minute ago, Datepalm said:

So is Discovery dead then? I didn't love it but was wondering how it had gone, New-Weird mushroom fondness and all.

Discoery's 3rd season will air in the next several months, I think.

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6 hours ago, karaddin said:

In the interview with PatStew from back in December that I linked a couple of weeks ago he said something to the effect of Logan having been the most satisfying/meaty work he'd done in a while, so with that in mind

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I think Picard approaching his mortality and potentially decaying mental faculties is something he's happy to engage with. I wouldnt expect a cure.

 

They will certainly play with that angle - had totally forgotten about the syndrome in the last episodes of TNG - but I expect the story here not to repeat Logan stuff. And since Stewart apparently quite recently recruited Whoopi Goldberg for the second season of Picard I very much doubt he or anyone is going to off the old man at this point.

I don't think they will drag on this plot throughout the entire show. But who knows.

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

It's extremely annoying that they retconned the Borg so heavily. The original Borg were terrifying and the Federation defeated them by the skin of their teeth in Best of Both Worlds. The novel Vendetta then had a second Borg invasion which was even more terrifying but the Federation managed to stop them with the help of the Doomsday Machine Mk. II (the first was the one in the TOS episode The Doomsday Machine) and was fairly logically written. There's a great bit where the Doomsday Machine's anti-proton beam - which the Borg have problems adapting to - shorts out the subspace field around a Borg cube and an Excelsior-class starship destroys it using the deflector dish weapon from BoBW (even leading Riker to satisfyingly note "It would have worked!").

Given the hoops the earlier writers had to jump through, I think it was pretty lame that First Contact just said, "Oh, now the Borg die if you just shoot them with enough phasers." And Voyager had to come up with new reasons each week why the Borg couldn't just destroy or assimilate Voyager. The Scorpion two-parter was reasonable for explaining that but in later episodes it got properly ridiculous.

Unless I'm mistaken the original Borg were already retconned space critters from that episode of season 1 where the Federation had been infiltrated by evil aliens. And the Borg from their first appearance were completely different from those in Best of Both Worlds. The original Borg did not assimilate people, they assimilated technology. They were interested in the Enterprise, not its crew. In fact, the whole assimilating of people actually makes no sense considering that would constantly change and possibly weaken or the collective whereas an assimilation of technology can, if it is better or more subtle than what they have, advance them in their search for hive mind/cyborg perfection.

The whole vampire angle came later, possibly only with First Contact. I mean, Picard-Locutus is the only human Borg we see in TNG, right?

Why the Borg being at the other end of the galaxy particularly care about Earth/the Federation also never made much sense. Why would they sent just one or a couple of ships rather than a bigger invasion fleet? And why race to the Federation and not instead first assimilate the species/planets in-between their territories?

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Unless I'm mistaken the original Borg were already retconned space critters from that episode of season 1 where the Federation had been infiltrated by evil aliens. And the Borg from their first appearance were completely different from those in Best of Both Worlds. The original Borg did not assimilate people, they assimilated technology. They were interested in the Enterprise, not its crew. In fact, the whole assimilating of people actually makes no sense considering that would constantly change and possibly weaken or the collective whereas an assimilation of technology can, if it is better or more subtle than what they have, advance them in their search for hive mind/cyborg perfection.

The whole vampire angle came later, possibly only with First Contact. I mean, Picard-Locutus is the only human Borg we see in TNG, right?

Why the Borg being at the other end of the galaxy particularly care about Earth/the Federation also never made much sense. Why would they sent just one or a couple of ships rather than a bigger invasion fleet? And why race to the Federation and not instead first assimilate the species/planets in-between their territories?

The Borg were originally an insectoid species. Not the ones from Conspiracy, but much bigger things like a cross between Aliens and the things in Starship Troopers. That proved unworkable and the writer's strike caused major problems so eventually they went for the "budget Cybermen" approach (which apparently the BBC did spend some time going, "Hmm..." about).

There are other human Borg. I believe Hugh was supposed to be human and quite a few others, taken from the colonies destroyed in The Neutral Zone.

I believe the general idea about the Borg was that the centre of their space is ~65-70,000 ly away in the Delta Quadrant, but they have scout ships all over the galaxy causing problems. It was one of these ships the Enterprise-D encountered 7,000 ly from Federation space in Q Who? (technically in the Beta Quadrant) and the same ship which (apparently) immediately made a bee-line for Federation space to show up eighteen months later in The Best of Both Worlds.

That said, the franchise's grasp of space and how long it takes to get anywhere has always been fragile at best.

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Haven't started this yet but I see mention of the destruction of Romulus. I thought that was just a Kelvin timeline event? That's TNG universe canon also? 

 

I like Trek but has always been funny that the Vulcans and Romulans just happy self-identify with the species and planet names given to them by the humans based on human mythology. 

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21 minutes ago, Vaughn said:

Haven't started this yet but I see mention of the destruction of Romulus. I thought that was just a Kelvin timeline event? That's TNG universe canon also? 

I like Trek but has always been funny that the Vulcans and Romulans just happy self-identify with the species and planet names given to them by the humans based on human mythology. 

The destruction of Romulus happened in the Prime timeline and propelled Spock into the Kelvin timeline. Ironically, in the Kelvin timeline Romulus is fine and it's Vulcan that has been destroyed.

Quote

I like Trek but has always been funny that the Vulcans and Romulans just happy self-identify with the species and planet names given to them by the humans based on human mythology. 

 

Presumably the same reason we call Germany Germany and Japan Japan, and not Deutschland and Nippon (or Nihon) which are both correct in their own languages but aren't what we're used to in English. In the Vulcan and Romulan languages, they're just calling their planets by whatever name they have for them but we never hear them because of the Universal Translator.

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Case in point, ever since Diane Duane it is known in beta-canon that the Romulans refer to themselves as Rihannsu in their own language. So yeah, that's the general assumptions.

I have now watched the latest episode. I must admit... I liked this episode much, much better than the last one. Probably because it didn't have too much of an opportunity to be stupid or a mindless action flick. It's still just an old man being the only sane guy in the world while starfleet is full of assholes. Granted, admirals being shady as fuck is nothing new, but usually the institution itself was supposed to be fine and Picard flying into a rage every time he is confronted with starfleet has me rolling my eyes.

But... for that matter, this episode I have started to see him as Picard. Seriously. Now that he is investigating there was a glimmer and dignity in his eyes that wasn't present in the first episode. Patrick Stewart is back on track I'd say. I'd also say that there are a lot of things they are doing right. For example after the horrid mess that is Discovery I have to genuinely praise the art department. Starfleet Headquarters actually looks like it should be. When Picard arrived it did look up like a scaled-up and more lifelike version of what we have seen before (like in that Voyager episode when Harry Kim was living on Earth). I also like the uniforms. They are simple and yet effective. They have the same futuristic air that I appreciate from Star Trek Online's "Odyssey" type uniforms, even if they are lacking in their intricacy (in fact they do somewhat resemble the [kinda bland] uniforms STO used as standard before they introduced their current uniforms, so it does even fit the timeline given that this takes place about 10 years before). For further musings:
 

Spoiler

 

This episode I also have started to like the Romulan couple living with Picard. I must admit I was quite on edge in the first episode because they had made it look like Romulans being space Mexicans was a thing. I guess what Discovery did to the Klingons is still making me vary. But now they have become proper characters with lots of funny banter and it seems like they actually have a purpose being there beyond owing him something or so.

Still sore about Earth police not being a thing. Come on! Also I find it hard to believe that these assassins are so great at cleaning up crime scenes when they are so inept at actually doing their job. Why they didn't just beam their victim out instead of beaming themselves in is still beyond me. And then there is Picard going to an admiral he knows hates his guts. Come on, Jean-Luc, you are better than this! Does nobody remember how ridiculously well-connected Picard was in TNG, always having someone owing him a favor? Especially among Starfleet. Stupid Fox News meltdown or not, it should have been a piece of cake to at least get someone to investigate and put Picard at their side, even when I generally agree with the admiral that giving a screaming old man a ship for a private business is itself ridiculous.

But hey, another thing I liked in this episode is that they dialed back Picard's 'longing' for Data to a reasonable degree. I recently saw the Redletter Media review of the first episode and they too pointed out how ridiculous it was. I mean come on, even though I agree that Data stupidly sacrificing himself for no reason for Picard might have been some traumatizing event, it's not like Picard and Data were all that close. Geordi was his best friend. Come to think of it, with Data's legacy being this prominent, this should have been Star Trek: LaForge! And Geordi could easyily investigate if he is still the captain of USS Challenger!

 

 

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6 hours ago, Werthead said:

The Borg were originally an insectoid species. Not the ones from Conspiracy, but much bigger things like a cross between Aliens and the things in Starship Troopers. That proved unworkable and the writer's strike caused major problems so eventually they went for the "budget Cybermen" approach (which apparently the BBC did spend some time going, "Hmm..." about).

But the threat from Conspiracy was supposed to come back in season 2, right? And this then changed to the Borg or was sort of retconned to become the Borg when they were the ones showing up after Q put the Enterprise in the path of the Borg, no? And in that sense the Borg were effectively retconned/rewritten before they had been properly introduced...

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

There are other human Borg. I believe Hugh was supposed to be human and quite a few others, taken from the colonies destroyed in The Neutral Zone.

Oh, I think all the Borg drones the gang encounters when they first mean them look humanoid ... but unless I'm mistaken Picard still is the only guy they ever assimilate in TNG, no? Or is the assimilation thing something they also do since the Locutus two-parter? They definitely didn't do that in Q Who.

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

I believe the general idea about the Borg was that the centre of their space is ~65-70,000 ly away in the Delta Quadrant, but they have scout ships all over the galaxy causing problems. It was one of these ships the Enterprise-D encountered 7,000 ly from Federation space in Q Who? (technically in the Beta Quadrant) and the same ship which (apparently) immediately made a bee-line for Federation space to show up eighteen months later in The Best of Both Worlds.

Ah, okay. Yet still somewhat stupid of them rush ahead in that fashion. I mean, if you believe you can win with one ship then the threat cannot be that big ... but if it isn't that big (like most of the non-assimilated species in the Beta and Delta Quadrant would have to be by default) then why do they race after Enterprise?

Overall issue with the Borg is not so much that they eventually became a joke, but that the writers really didn't keep the concept as such internally consistent and failed to come up with an idea as to what to do with the Borg (especially in Voyager which would have been ideally suited for that kind of thing, since they were crossing their space) once they could no longer be the big bad. I think the start with that extra-dimensional species wasn't that bad an idea - the enemy of my enemy can be my ally thing can work up to a point. But there could have been done a lot more, most notably an exploration why this collective intelligence wants assimilate (or rather: devour) everybody else. If there is no rational reason behind that they are just an virus running amok.

By the way - since you are doing a rewatch of Voyager right now. Can you check whether there's an explanation there why they have not yet taken over the entire Delta Quadrant? The guys they meet in the first two seasons or so are mostly not very impressive, and Borg space is not that far away from where they start their voyage.

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As for the Romulans:

Come on, guys? In-universe justification for the silly name? That's not necessary. Their world is named Romulus and they look like Romans in Balance of Terror.

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