Star Trek Thread: Set Picard to Stun (spoilers)

[Werthead]

49 minutes ago, red snow said:

I enjoyed the episode. Plenty happening and forward momentum. Some comments and small nitpicks

 

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i liked the callback to the "stargate" tech/civilization from S1/2 of TNG. Always surprised there wasn't more on that civilization (although maybe they are mentioned again aa i do my rewatch) particularly given their presence as "hellfire" legends throughout the galaxy. 

Not sure why eloren couldn't walk through the stargate too? Is there a person limit or was it just forced so he could be heroically captured?

Also, my inner scientist would have definitely tested the "age recorder" machine on something that wasn't mine after the third "37 months" answer. The machine being broken is more likely than your entire life being artificial.

Rios is growing on me as a character and the romulan spy is getting better now he's busy doing the betrayal.

Interesting how the romulans are looking for a homeworld. Of synths or as a tech rich place they can make their new homeworld?

 

 

That wasn't an Iconian-derived gateway. They went extinct thousands upon thousands of years ago.

The device was of Sikarian origin. The Sikarians were the pleasure-devoted people Voyager encountered in Season 1 of that show, in Prime Factors. They had a "farcaster" portal that could teleport people up to 40,000 light-years. When Janeway tried to bargain for its use to help them get home, the Sikarians turned into massive dicks about it (then the Maquis crew tried to steal the device).

Still, seems a bit harsh they ended up getting assimilated in the meantime.

[red snow]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

That wasn't an Iconian-derived gateway. They went extinct thousands upon thousands of years ago.

The device was of Sikarian origin. The Sikarians were the pleasure-devoted people Voyager encountered in Season 1 of that show, in Prime Factors. They had a "farcaster" portal that could teleport people up to 40,000 light-years. When Janeway tried to bargain for its use to help them get home, the Sikarians turned into massive dicks about it (then the Maquis crew tried to steal the device).

Still, seems a bit harsh they ended up getting assimilated in the meantime.

Ah, that's a shame. It looked very similar to the one i thought. Seems a shame that storyline was dropped early on in the show.

Still not sure how i managed to watch all of voyager and forget so much.

[Derfel Cadarn]

49 minutes ago, red snow said:

Ah, that's a shame. It looked very similar to the one i thought. Seems a shame that storyline was dropped early on in the show.

Still not sure how i managed to watch all of voyager and forget so much.

Most of it being mediocre forgettable shit, possibly?

[Werthead]

21 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Most of it being mediocre forgettable shit, possibly?

Having watched almost every single episode (up to Season 7, Episode 7) in the last six weeks or so, I've found the show to be often terrible and frequently mediocre. When an episode is genuinely good it's surprising, and the number of "outstanding" episodes is near non-existent. It's notable that Voyager's all-time "classics," like Timeless, would not even rate against the Top 10 episodes of TNG or the Top 20 of DS9.

That said, the last episode I watched was a searing indictment of the US health system which was unexpectedly effective.

[Derfel Cadarn]

I liked Future’s End, Scorpion, the one with the Command Hologram, Message in a Bottle (whixh has the Defiant and a sister ship). Deadlock and Killing Ground, Year of Hell were pretty good.

Flashback is an episode I genuinely felt angry about the sheer wasted potential. They had the Excelsior ... Sulu! And instead of time travel we got a shitty ‘all in the mind’ episode. I was so looking forward to it.

 

[red snow]

2 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Most of it being mediocre forgettable shit, possibly?

I think that's the most likely explanation. If it had been really bad I'd have probably remembered it better. Considering DS9 overlapped with it there's a massive difference in my recollection of episodes and characters. 

Having seen kate mulgrew in other things i feel bad for what she was given in voyager. She could easily have been the equal of the other captains

The theme tune was grear though

[RumHam]

51 minutes ago, red snow said:

The theme tune was great though

Yes. you just made me realize that if Voyager and Enterprise swapped opening credits music there would be no question in my mind which was the worst trek show. 

God I hate that Enterprise song. 

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, RumHam said:

Yes. you just made me realize that if Voyager and Enterprise swapped opening credits music there would be no question in my mind which was the worst trek show. 

God I hate that Enterprise song. 

Never understood why people hated Enteprise's opening song so much. It never bothered me, and I like the title sequence. Also, if only in instrumental form...

 

[RumHam]

A) it has lyrics

B ) said lyrics are cheesy as hell. What the fuck is faith of the heart? and what does it have to do with Star Trek? 

I do like the visual aspect of the opening sequence. 

Oh I thought of one other thing I meant to mention: Why wouldn't the EMH tell Rios that the Dr. killed Maddox? Did I miss a throwaway line about her reprogramming him or something? 

[red snow]

10 hours ago, RumHam said:

A) it has lyrics

B ) said lyrics are cheesy as hell. What the fuck is faith of the heart? and what does it have to do with Star Trek? 

I do like the visual aspect of the opening sequence. 

Oh I thought of one other thing I meant to mention: Why wouldn't the EMH tell Rios that the Dr. killed Maddox? Did I miss a throwaway line about her reprogramming him or something? 

That opening was cheesy as hell and was the source of much amusement between me and my friends at the time. It was also very jarring to the themes of all the other trek shows which have all been great.

I was hoping at one point that it was the EMH she slept with and that he's playing some kind of game or trying to find out exactly what she is up to. I guess with her AI skills she could reprogram him. Maybe I've got it the wrong way around and she programmed the EMH to sleep with her?

[sifth]

6 hours ago, red snow said:

That opening was cheesy as hell and was the source of much amusement between me and my friends at the time. It was also very jarring to the themes of all the other trek shows which have all been great.

I was hoping at one point that it was the EMH she slept with and that he's playing some kind of game or trying to find out exactly what she is up to. I guess with her AI skills she could reprogram him. Maybe I've got it the wrong way around and she programmed the EMH to sleep with her?

I guess this is just another one of those lazy things, we're just going to have to assume, becomes the writers of this show could careless about the finer details of their story.

[red snow]

2 hours ago, sifth said:

I guess this is just another one of those lazy things, we're just going to have to assume, becomes the writers of this show could careless about the finer details of their story.

Unless a future episode clarifies this, i agree it's a "we just wanted to have a cool twist irrespective of whether it makes sense" situation.

A bit like how I'm fairly sure they never explained why elron couldn't go through the stargate with picard and soji

[Corvinus85]

19 minutes ago, red snow said:

Unless a future episode clarifies this, i agree it's a "we just wanted to have a cool twist irrespective of whether it makes sense" situation.

A bit like how I'm fairly sure they never explained why elron couldn't go through the stargate with picard and soji

Something about not wanting the Tal Shiar tracking where they went. Hugh gives a quick explanation, saying that the room will take a few minutes to purge the record of where the gate took Picard and Soji, or something like that. So Elnor was going to hold off the Tal Shiar until that happened. What I cringed at was the shot fading to dark and Elnor saying "Please, choose life".

[DaveSumm]

6 hours ago, red snow said:

A bit like how I'm fairly sure they never explained why elron couldn't go through the stargate with picard and soji

Were we to assume he wouldn’t make it out of there? Or will there be a rescue of him next week? Also, I may have missed it but how did he get there? Beam in? Why couldn’t Picard and Soji beam out then?

It made me realise a fairly big flaw with the show up to this point: it’s been a ‘get a team together’ show, gradually gathering up a motley crew to surround Picard with ... who have all then done nothing. Rafi’s entire purpose so far is to simply know a pilot, and talk to an admiral. Legolas was recruited and then served no purpose. The pilot has piloted, and for some reason was needed to meet someone so Picard could then meet them. Scientist lady has just killed Maddox, but hasn’t contributed. It’s like they thought it’d be cool if he had a crew and then went “oh shit, what do we actually need a crew for again”? If Picard has just climbed in a shuttle and gone to the Artifact by himself, the plot would largely be exactly where it is anyway.

[Werthead]

I did see some people getting annoyed about the inconsistencies with technology and scientific limitations on Picard and Discovery, which has been problematic. However, this is also nothing new. Watching Voyager they've so far managed to both beam massively outside of the maximum range of Federation transporters (40,000km, as established many times in TNG) and not been able to beam at much closer ranges; they been able to use the monitor to study ships 3 light-years away but have also not gotten a visual lock on ships until they're on top of them; at one point they seem to be using the impulse drive but travelling FTL (when full impulse is substantially less than lightspeed) to get to another system without warp; and whether they can beam straight through the shields or not completely changes on the whim of the writer, sometimes in the same episode.

Admittedly both TNG and especially DS9 were a lot better at the scientific consistency, but it's always very much served the needs of the moment.

[Impmk2]

I'm still watching this show hoping it finds its feet. But it's been not so great.

I too struggled to understand why romulan legolas didn't go with them. Stop me if I'm wrong, but it was only explained that it would take Hugh several minutes to cover their tracks after Picard beamed out, making the discussion before that seem very strange. Maybe something was lost in a cut.

OTOH, first seasons of Trek have always been notoriously bad. But I guess my main problem is this doesn't even feel like a Trek show. It's the adventures of old man Picard and some random people I don't care about, figuring out a plot I'm so far not particularly interested in.

[red snow]

16 hours ago, Corvinus said:

Something about not wanting the Tal Shiar tracking where they went. Hugh gives a quick explanation, saying that the room will take a few minutes to purge the record of where the gate took Picard and Soji, or something like that. So Elnor was going to hold off the Tal Shiar until that happened. What I cringed at was the shot fading to dark and Elnor saying "Please, choose life".

So he stayed to help Hugh cover their escape? Even though it looked like they'd done that prior to walking into corridor. I guess it almost works/makes sense.

I guess the weird thing is that giving the romulans access to the stargate thing is probably as damaging as letting them catch soji. Unless voyager introduced the tech to everyone? Wert probably knows from his rewatch.

I can imagine the romulans going "where did you send Picard and the robot? Anywhere within 40,000 light years? That's interesting. I wonder how this works. What about Picard and robot girl? I'm more interested in this stargate"

Let's hope eleanor kills everyone on board the cube or Hugh blows that transport room up in time.

8 hours ago, Werthead said:

I did see some people getting annoyed about the inconsistencies with technology and scientific limitations on Picard and Discovery, which has been problematic. However, this is also nothing new. Watching Voyager they've so far managed to both beam massively outside of the maximum range of Federation transporters (40,000km, as established many times in TNG) and not been able to beam at much closer ranges; they been able to use the monitor to study ships 3 light-years away but have also not gotten a visual lock on ships until they're on top of them; at one point they seem to be using the impulse drive but travelling FTL (when full impulse is substantially less than lightspeed) to get to another system without warp; and whether they can beam straight through the shields or not completely changes on the whim of the writer, sometimes in the same episode.

Admittedly both TNG and especially DS9 were a lot better at the scientific consistency, but it's always very much served the needs of the moment.

I'm more annoyed at the inconsistencies discovery has introduced as they still seem to be operating at levels beyond what we are seeing in Picard. The drones are the most glaring (as i guess mycelia network could be destroyed before the show ends) as there's no sensible reason why we have never seen such useful tech be used by other starships in battle. There has to be some line in one of the shows saying drones were abandoned as too much could go wrong when hacked by the enemy or advanced AI causing them to revert to ships with flesh and blood controlling them.

[Derfel Cadarn]

One DS9 error I recall was in Way of the Warrior when Sisko orders the Defiant to raise shields and cloak. One or the other, Sisko...

[RumHam]

I think they sent Elnor to the cube because they needed a main character there for when the badges flash green and it's time to run.

If Hugh gets re-assimilated I'm out, that's just mean. 

[karaddin]

@red snow Hugh said he was going to purge the information but also hide the room. If Elnor kills all the Romulans that show up then I think it stays secret - I got the impression it's a surveillance dead spot as well so it won't be possible to tell what happened other than someone with a sword killed a bunch of Romulans. Ideally Hugh can say they got attacked and he didn't see what happened to Picard and stays free, while Elnor has to hide in the cube until the badges flash green.

I wasn't annoyed by the drones in Disco as I took the difference as simply being down to what they can show - drones seemed a much more realistic projection of where our tech is going and also makes for a more engaging visual battle. That said if we see fighting between actual Star Fleet major vessels in Picard without the drones then yeah I'll be wanting explanations. I guess they didn't use them in S1 Disco either, so maybe they are going to link that into Control/AI or something.