Star Trek: There! Are! 4! shows!

[RumHam]

Spoiler

If Encounter At Farpoint almost put you to sleep, well, then I'd suggest skipping Season 1 entirely

Amen.

See also: Season two. I can imagine a version of Shades of Gray that's worth watching but a recap of bad TV can only be bad TV.  

[Jaxom 1974]

28 minutes ago, RumHam said:

The speech was really good, well delivered, and I liked that Picard had to just fuck off in response. That said I wish we weren't calling it that. 

For starters Quint's mission was secret, his captain didn't steer them into battle. But mostly because Quint and his comrades suffered at the hands of nature after it was relevant. Nor during a battle. 

As effective as it was "we lost and had to make hard choices about who would live" is not a "USS Indianapolis" level story.

In the follow up Ready Room episode this week, Todd Stashwick essentially acknowledged that his character is basically named after Rober Shaw, thus leaning into whole, "Quint Speech". Though I won't say you're incorrect to say it has a wholly different level. I think the homage is meant in the manner of delivery in the end. 

[RumHam]

22 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

In the follow up Ready Room episode this week, Todd Stashwick essentially acknowledged that his character is basically named after Rober Shaw, thus leaning into whole, "Quint Speech". Though I won't say you're incorrect to say it has a wholly different level. I think the homage is meant in the manner of delivery in the end. 

That's actually pretty cool. I did not know that. I appreciate the homage and I did like it in the moment until the end where I thought he lost control. 

I'm not really interested in debating if the speech in question technically qualifies. or somehow qualifies by intention. 

For me at least, there need to be sharks circling.  Not "we need to generate drama before an act break" damage. 

[RumHam]

So, just to be clear for the cheap seats. this is the performance being compared to shaws rant

 

[RumHam]

6 minutes ago, RumHam said:

So, just to be clear for the cheap seats. this is the performance being compared to shaws rant

 

fuuuuck anyone trying to compare the two. It's no secret I don't have a lot of respect for the writers but damn. 

[RumHam]

hi!

[RumHam]

Tendi: Hi! 

[Lord Varys]

@RumHam

Spoiler

Yeah, the entire Riker-Troi plot is complete silliness. Do these people even remember season 1? They get along well as a family despite plot device's son's death. This entire plot could have made some sense if it had taken place shortly after the son's death and prior to season 1 of Picard. But at this point it is a joke.

And Riker beating himself up about 'the afterlife' nonsense is also quite ridiculous. This is the Star Trek universe where there are energy beings left and right, where death is but a dream, and techno bubble resolves every problem. If there is something a person would not be afraid in this setting it is whether 'death is the end' or other such crap.

The reason why he could beat himself up is for not actually doing everything in his power to save his son's life ... because that's actually something that makes no sense and should thus be something they all feel guilty for.

At least they addressed the holodeck issue - but the answer still makes no sense. It would have made more sense if they had been doing this at a mess hall, possibly one kind of reminiscent of the scenario where Jack earlier overheard Picard telling tales, with Picard simply talking about wanting to have this talk in the Ten Forward.

Really didn't give a shit about Shaw's silly speech. Get over it. It was the Borg, not Jean-Luc Picard, and you signed up for Starfleet, nobody forced you to go out into space. It was already childish when Sisko did it.

Also, again, guys ... watch fucking DS9! Only Odo uses some silly waste basket to regenerate. Proper Changelings don't have to do this. Now, if the Changelings were all youngsters, etc. this could make sense ... but the good guys wouldn't know that, so they would not expect them to be like Odo in this regard. Go back to the phaser thingy to sniff them out - that was in DS9, too. Or have Seven of Nine come up with some new technique by ways of Borg technology.

 

[Cas Stark]

I have nothing of substance to add.  I finally decided to give Picard a try, only to realize I had actually watched part of season 1 and completely blocked it out.  It didn't even register that I had seen it until half way through ep. 1.  So much for that idea.

 

[Werthead]

The episode did confirm the date. Stardate 78xxx is 31 years after the TNG finale, so 2401.

23 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

It's finally going to happen. I'm going to watch TNG.

But I'm not a masochist, and I need a good watch-list so I can avoid the crap and the horrible. Encounter at Farpoint already almost put me into a coma, and I know that's considered to be one of the best season 1 episodes.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a watch-list? I remember a few years ago, after I finished DS9, I floated the idea of watching TNG and a user posted what seemed like a good one. Unfortunately, it seems that thread has been deleted from the board.

For TNG:

Season 1: The Battle, Datalore, Heart of Glory, Skin of Evil, Conspiracy, The Neutral Zone

Season 2: Elementary, Dear Data, A Matter of Honor, The Measure of a Man, Contagion, Time Squared, Q Who?, The Emissary, Peak Performance

I'd say from this point that you're mostly golden, the "average quality" of a TNG episode quantum leaps upwards from Season 3 and it's rare to have a truly shit episode until Season 7, when they become a bit more commonplace. But if you want to only watch the cream of the crop:

Season 3: Booby Trap, The Enemy, The Defector, Deja Q, A Matter of Perspective, Yesterday's Enterprise, The Offspring, Sins of the Father, Captain's Holiday, Tin Man, Hollow Pursuits, Sarek, The Best of Both Worlds, Part I

Season 4: The Best of Both Worlds, Part II, Family, Brothers, Reunion, Final Mission, Data's Day, The Wounded, Qpid, The Drumhead, The Mind's Eye, Redemption, Part I

Season 5: Redemption, Part II, Darmok, Ensign Ro, Disaster, Unification, Part I and Part II, Cause and Effect, The First Duty, I, Borg, The Next Phase, The Inner Light

Season 6: Relics, A Fistful of Datas, Chain of Command, Part I and Part II, Ship in a Bottle, Face of the Enemy, Tapestry, Starship Mine, Rightful Heir, Second Chances, Timescape, Descent, Part I

Season 7: Descent, Part II, Gambit, Part I and Part II, Parallels, The Pegasus, Lower Decks, Journey's End, Preemptive Strike, All Good Things...

If you only want a small number of episodes and the absolute cream of the best, then Q Who?, Yesterday's Enterprise, The Best of Both Worlds, Family, The Inner Light, Chain of Command, Tapestry and All Good Things... should do the job.

15 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I acknowledge that Shaw’s speech was well done.  However… it felt like it came out of left field.

I mean, we were having this massive debate when Episode 1 aired and the Constance was mentioned as being at Wolf 359 that meant that Shaw was at Wolf 359 or maybe his parents were.

[DaveSumm]

I’m still really struggling with Picard. Yea, it’s better than the first two seasons so far. But I’m constantly distracted by things that are annoying me, I’m not immersed in this at all. I know the ‘I want my 90s Trek back’ debate has been done to death, but I still think there’s room to have a modern TV show that doesn’t complete upend Starfleet as a result.

I mean who the fuck are these people? Not only do they just give up in the face of adversity, they’ve specifically wired the ship up to have a special ‘giving up’ room where they can all wallow in self pity. Hey Shaw, sorry to interrupt your wallowing, but we’ve booted up the wallowing room! You can come and wallow with us, maybe lower morale with a tale or two of other times things were really bad! Thank god he handed command over to Riker, I’m sure he’ll be…

Oh, Riker’s given up too. Fuck it, don’t bother, go and tell Picard he’s gonna die. Say goodbye to your family. What’s that? An idea to get out? Nah, too risky. Don’t bother, let’s just all die here. At least Deanna will get a recorded message that way. 

Getting some real ‘Revenge of the Sith’ vibes from the reaction to this season. Last two entries were shit, but this is … OK? Isn’t it? Yea this one’s good! (It isn’t.)

[SpaceChampion]

Picard spoilers

Spoiler

This should put to rest talk of the Conspiracy parasites.  It was an early possibility for the villain but they quickly changed to the Changelings as the antagonists.

 

Quote

“I do like the conspiracy bugs, I did consider for a hot minute, the conspiracy bugs,” Matalas continued. “The issue with the conspiracy bugs is they kill their host. So that would mean anyone that you saw with a bug in them was dead, and you wouldn’t be able to do the paranoia thriller that you wanted to do if it was somebody you loved, that meant they were dead. So there [were] about three storylines I couldn’t do without killing legacy characters.”

 

 

[Jaxom 1974]

Spoiler

By the By, were they implying Vadek was also a Changeling...?

 

[RumHam]

38 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

Picard spoilers

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This should put to rest talk of the Conspiracy parasites.  It was an early possibility for the villain but they quickly changed to the Changelings as the antagonists.

 

 

 

Spoiler

Except they don't kill their hosts. It really feels like the writers are going off their memories of TNG and getting a lot wrong. That admiral dude made a full recovery when they killed the "queen" 

 

13 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

  Hide contents

By the By, were they implying Vadek was also a Changeling...?

 

Spoiler

Memory Alpha thinks so, but I got the impression something else was going on. She seems like a different person when ....whatever that demon head thing was was outside of her body. So I'm guessing she was a person who somehow bonded with a changeling or whatever that was. 

If she just was a changeling, drawing out part of herself to talk to it would be weird. 

 

[Jaxom 1974]

14 minutes ago, RumHam said:

  Hide contents

Except they don't kill their hosts. It really feels like the writers are going off their memories of TNG and getting a lot wrong. That admiral dude made a full recovery when they killed the "queen" 

  Hide contents

Memory Alpha thinks so, but I got the impression something else was going on. She seems like a different person when ....whatever that demon head thing was was outside of her body. So I'm guessing she was a person who somehow bonded with a changeling or whatever that was. 

If she just was a changeling, drawing out part of herself to talk to it would be weird. 

 

Then there is this...so who knows...

Spoiler

 

 

[RumHam]

Spoiler

Weird! So she must be a changeling with either another changeling or something else living inside of her? 

I'm not even going to ponder why a being with no respiratory system would smoke....

 

[Durckad]

1 hour ago, RumHam said:

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Weird! So she must be a changeling with either another changeling or something else living inside of her? 

I'm not even going to ponder why a being with no respiratory system would smoke....

 

Spoiler

Odo could actually "eat" and "drink" though the results were unpleasant. When having drinks with Garak he took to manifesting his own drink. Add to the fact that Laas could manifest as pure energy or vapor and it's possible Vadik is doing the same with her... vape?

Also, entirely possible that the writers just thought it would be cool if she spun around in her chair while smoking menacingly and didn't think much further than that. But nah, that's probably not it.

 

[Jaxom 1974]

1 hour ago, RumHam said:

  Hide contents

Weird! So she must be a changeling with either another changeling or something else living inside of her? 

I'm not even going to ponder why a being with no respiratory system would smoke....

 

Spoiler

In that Twitter thread, someone else asks why Vadek looks human and the others don't...and that something else seems to be going on, and Matalas agrees going, "Seems like it..." 

So there's still something else going on...I mean, if not for the totally different look, her henchmen could have been Breen...

 

[Werthead]

On the changelings need to regenerate, it's never really clarified in huge amounts of detail. We are told that Odo is pretty crap at changing shape compared to the other changelings and it is inferred that they don't have some of the same problems he does. However, it is never stated that the changelings do not need to regenerate ever, at all. It is certainly possible that experienced Founders can hold their shape for many days or weeks before needing to regenerate, but it is not stated that they never need to regenerate at all.

As counterpoints, Weyoun recommends the female changeling regenerate in Season 7 when the Section 31 illness is taking full hold, and in The Ship a fully-fledged Founder seems to die after not being able to regenerate for several days (although it is also said he was also injured in the ship crash, which is bizarre as changelings are not affected by blunt force trauma).

In addition, there is nothing to suggest these rogue changelings aren't younger and more inexperienced Founders in the first place.

[sifth]

Ever since the episode where Oda was tortured by Garak, I just assumed changlings die, if they can't return to their liquid state after a certain number of hours. We're never told any info on DS9 that really tells us otherwise, though non of the other Founders are really given much development.

Anyway, I loved this episode. It pretty much summed up everything I loved about Trek growing up, which was people working together to solve a problem. It sort of reminded me of my favorite bottle episode in all of Trek, Civil Defense. I love the Shaw character, though I've always been a fan of the token evil teammate trope; Garak being Trek's best example of this, IMO