Star Trek: Attack of Shatner's Toupee Tribble

[Lord Varys]

LOL, can anybody explain what the whole nonsense about them not having had contact with the Borg for decades ... when they fucking showed up in the last season of this show???

I think Jack's rant about the world being shitty and broken really hammers home why and how this setting sucks in general. It is just too damn grim.

I'm just rewatching the first season of 'Enterprise' and, man, are those boyscouts naively enthusiastic, positive, curious, adventurous, cocky, etc. ... everything you would expect these people to be at that point in this setting.

There is a striking contrast between that and the world we see in Picard.

35 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Yeah, that was really bad. It really shouldn't have been difficult to reach this -expected- point in a way that wasn't both terribly convoluted and yet utterly stupid. Jack going to the queen of his own volition was certainly the worst decision they could make: completely unnecessary, and making the entire plot they'd built meaningless.

Also, the way he did that. Just walking to the shuttle which then just leaves ... because we don't have any means to stop some shuttle in that setting.

Also - how does it make sense in any way that some Changelings who broke out of Starfleet's Frankenstein lab ... would chance on the Borg Queen and work with her??? How on earth does it make sense that they do not just, you know, return to the fucking Great Link to rejoin their folks?

Or come up with their own plan to wreak havoc because working with some solid collective intelligence isn't what they would want to do. The Founders and the Borg would never get along ... and I'm sure the Borg could not assimilate the Changelings.

[Werthead]

The Jurati-Borg were not the proper Borg-Borg. They have not been seen since the final episode of Voyager, which was ~23 years before this episode (not counting the Artifact and that rogue Borg cube in the opening credits of Lower Decks...which might be the Artifact anyway).

[Lord Varys]

7 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The Jurati-Borg were not the proper Borg-Borg. They have not been seen since the final episode of Voyager, which was ~23 years before this episode (not counting the Artifact and that rogue Borg cube in the opening credits of Lower Decks...which might be the Artifact anyway).

Yes, well, do they know that? Do they know there are still Borg-Borg? Couldn't the Jurati-Borg be the ones who pulled off this plan somehow?

I'd seriously consider that option if I were in their shoes ... not to mention that in a struggle with the Borg-Borg somebody might bring up the Jurati-Borg as potential allies ... especially since the showed up quite recently.

And, of course, the Artifact were also the Borg-Borg ... until it was shut down.

Finding the plot about Jack inheriting some Borg shit from his dad not bad at all ... but the plan they created around this is utterly ridiculous. How could they plan this when they would have not even have known that they would, eventually, have some weirdo Changeling allies which could actually make use of the Jack DNA thing?

Why not make it simpler ... like Jack being a sender who could shut down or enslave all Starfleet tech? Or have him act as a conduit who, if power by proper Borg technology, could telepathically freeze or temporarily enslave Starfleet personally ... allowing the Borg to easily assimilate them? Ideally Jack's specialness could also have been tied to some other stuff Bev and/or Jean-Luc had to live through during TNG that had nothing to do with the Locutus incident (ideally stuff that happened before that arc). That way there could have been added increased meaning to this plot.

[RumHam]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Also - how does it make sense in any way that some Changelings who broke out of Starfleet's Frankenstein lab ... would chance on the Borg Queen and work with her??? How on earth does it make sense that they do not just, you know, return to the fucking Great Link to rejoin their folks?

Or come up with their own plan to wreak havoc because working with some solid collective intelligence isn't what they would want to do. The Founders and the Borg would never get along ... and I'm sure the Borg could not assimilate the Changelings.

To be fair it's implied Vadic did return to the great link and recruited some changlings. They need far more than the nine from the lab to control starfleet. Plus Odo knew about her and warned Worf. 

It is quite funny that the Borg felt they needed this convoluted plan and an alliance with changlings to defeat the federation. Hey guys, have you ever considered sending more than one cube at a time? Because that absolutely would have done the job back in the Best of Both Worlds/First Contact days. 

Voyager even makes it clear they can trans-warp like, right to earth.  

[sifth]

Yea, the Borg teaming up with Changlings just feels weird and for both parities. Changlings hate solids and the Borg hate everyone.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

20 minutes ago, sifth said:

Yea, the Borg teaming up with Changlings just feels weird and for both parities. Changlings hate solids and the Borg hate everyone.

It’s the Star Trek “Evil League of Evil”… what happened to the “synthetic life message” story from the first season?

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, RumHam said:

To be fair it's implied Vadic did return to the great link and recruited some changlings. They need far more than the nine from the lab to control starfleet. Plus Odo knew about her and warned Worf. 

I half forgot that because it seemed to lead nowhere ... but Odo knowing stuff doesn't mean the Great Link had to have contact with Vadic's gang - they could have sensed that something was going on.

The really interesting question there is how and why they teamed up with the Borg Queen - but I'm sure they won't answer that.

2 hours ago, RumHam said:

It is quite funny that the Borg felt they needed this convoluted plan and an alliance with changlings to defeat the federation. Hey guys, have you ever considered sending more than one cube at a time? Because that absolutely would have done the job back in the Best of Both Worlds/First Contact days. 

Voyager even makes it clear they can trans-warp like, right to earth.  

Yeah, it literally makes no sense and I really see no reason why the hell they had to drag back the Borg as the 'ultimate threat'.

I still think that my idea about the whole Artifact thing from season 1 leading to artificial intelligence and stuff being the origin of the Borg would have been a much better story than everything they came up with in the three seasons of this show.

It is just all weird and unimaginative stories and badly plotted stuff that makes no sense ... sprincled with strange fan service. You really get the feeling the writers were struggling with Irumodic Syndrome the entire time.

[RumHam]

Thinking about the single borg cube remined me of my star trek game. When I first played Stellaris I was like "this is cool, but should be star trek" being half-moron, instead of modding the game I tried to make my own from the ground up. 

http://heylookoverthere.github.io/Space/

Can you form an alliance before the borg cube arrives? I can't cause I forget the controls. 

 

[DaveSumm]

7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Couldn't the Jurati-Borg be the ones who pulled off this plan somehow? I'd seriously consider that option if I were in their shoes 

It’s hilarious that no one has even considered Jurati being involved in this, just because it’s so clear that this show couldn’t give a fuck what it did in the first two seasons. It’d be legitimately more surprising for Jurati to show up than it would for Ashley Judd to appear cos hey! Remember Lefler? She was in TNG! Member?! 

I asked before but didn’t the second season leave a space mcguffin dangling for this season? Have I missed a mention of that? Or was it the trans warp hub Jack went to?

[sifth]

How did Jurati get away with killing that guy in season 1 again? I don't know why that bothers me so much, but it did for some daft reason.

[Jaxom 1974]

I refuse to rise to all of the criticism. Yes, some is warranted.  But at the same time, I've always been able to forgive much while trying to figure out why things work the way they do. Possibly that's a product of my love if the old book live, that doesn't do much time making things work mostly coherently. 

That said, this season is stronger than the first two. Particularly if you squint and don't look too closely for large, direct references to the first two seasons. 

It is true some clean up of dialog could have helped in a few instances.  Be clearer about the Borg status up front and earlier to differentiate Jurati from the rest.  Clear up the status of what fleet is at Earth, as is likely that it's only a combination of two or three actual fleets of ships that are nearest to Sector 001. (Though there was some reference to the idea that calling everything back seemed odd at least I think I remember that). 

If the finale opens with more references to how Geordi rebuilt the D with some kitbashing and maybe not every system is fully integrated, then it'll make a little more sense...

Ultimately I don't expect anything groundbreaking in the solution. I am concerned on the execution. 

I actually do have hope there is a springboard at the end for a new show, be it Legacy or another. I still like the idea of the Titan, or whichever ship, is take to the Fleet Museum and is out of missions for Commodore LaForge seeking out Trek history and working in unsolved mysteries. 

[Werthead]

30 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

I refuse to rise to all of the criticism. Yes, some is warranted.  But at the same time, I've always been able to forgive much while trying to figure out why things work the way they do. Possibly that's a product of my love if the old book live, that doesn't do much time making things work mostly coherently. 

It would be interesting if this kind of forum or social media discussion existed on a large scale for the full run of classic and Berman-era Trek (it did towards the end of DS9 and Voyager but none of this scale). I suspect those shows would have been absolutely slated in a way that makes the modern Treks look like works of genius. Enterprise was around when this kind of discussion was getting more popular, but the main result of that was it being almost utterly ignored.

I'm rewatching TNG right now and hoo boy, is there some utter dross in there (and some classics as well, and some underrated episodes).

That said, I do think the praise given to S3 of Picard (and S1 of Strange New Worlds for that matter) is a bit overblown. A lot of the traditional nu-Trek problems are very much present and correct. It's the best season of Picard, by far, and it has several genuinely solid character arcs, but it's coming from a low bar.

[Lord Varys]

5 hours ago, sifth said:

How did Jurati get away with killing that guy in season 1 again? I don't know why that bothers me so much, but it did for some daft reason.

It wasn't just a guy, it was Bruce Maddox.

That thing is never answered.

As I said, these people write things as if they are demented.

I mean, that Will-Deanna now have issues over dead plot device son might be the result of people criticizing that he was just plot device son ... but you can't just erase or readdress this issue that way. It is completely unbelievable.

Also them suddenly mocking the planet they chose to live at ... and never mentioning their adorable little girl just sucks.

Having Data back it strikes one as completely silly that nobody bothers mentioning Datas new android family on robot world as well as the daughter(s) he has.

I'm not sure how people see it, but I think the Discovery decision to have the distant future suck hard was a very big mistake. At least in this way. A dilithium crisis shouldn't have destroyed a society which had discovered and mastered time travel. It makes no sense they didn't foresee this nor that they were not able to travel back in time to prevent it.

[RumHam]

Yeah I was excited when Discovery stopped being a prequel, but it's version of the future is a real bummer and I've actually enjoyed the show less since then. It feels outside of the romulans and vulcans they don't really want to commit and tell us what happend to all the familiar species so they don't box in future shows. 

[Lord Varys]

5 hours ago, RumHam said:

Yeah I was excited when Discovery stopped being a prequel, but it's version of the future is a real bummer and I've actually enjoyed the show less since then. It feels outside of the romulans and vulcans they don't really want to commit and tell us what happend to all the familiar species so they don't box in future shows. 

The thing is, them having species show up really doesn't tell us anything. I mean, the President is a human-Cardassian woman so the species survived - but it tells us nothing about the political system the Cardassians had in the last millennium after DS9.

I think the obvious way to add flavor to things would have to have Changelings and Dominion species (perhaps some new ones) in the Federation, indicating how large it became in future centuries.

It is also really silly to have past crew revive the Federation when Burnham's gang never actually lived through much of the Federation. They didn't even see the TOS era.

Them having trouble in the future was not a bad idea but this kind of accidental thing sucked.

Also, in context, if you consider the magical tech these people had in all the time travel episodes in Enterprise and all the other shows future guys showed up ... it is really nonsensical they wouldn't have dealt with the extragalactical mining species from season 4 in no time. I mean, they got their dilithium fuel back, so magical tech should work again, too. Right?

Unless there is a good explanation as to why they no longer had magical tech in the 31th century they happened to have from the 28th to the 30th century.

But get back to the general setting:

Season 3 is thematically another rehash of season 1. What was Data's daughter in season 1 is now, obviously, Beverly's son in season 3. And while Picard is also Jack's dad now, he is invested in him in a similar way as he was invested in Data's daughter.

It is also quite fun to see how these people fail to actually go through with their ideas. Season 1 wanted the Federation to suck and put some misfits and outlaws and freaks into the center. They did that by making Picard a bitter old man, giving him a drug addict side kick nobody ever expected him to have, turned Seven of Nine into a new character, created a kind of fun guy with Rios, made us love awkward scientist turned murderer, and had a weirdo Romulan kid nobody knew what to do with ... only to double down on all that in season 2 by abandoning the robot plot, and effectively getting rid of all the new misfits characters they created.

I mean, honestly, who would actually do that and and why?

If I had been a writer on season 1 and the show had been a success (which it was, I think) then why would I not continue with those characters? Why go with weirdo alternative time travel Q shit?

And, for fuck's sake - season 3 could have seen the reunion we got easily enough if Picard and gang had been on Rios's ship then - or if they had all been aboard a new Starfleet ship under the command of Rios, with Seven as first officer, Jurati as engineer, Soji as science officer, Raffi as weirdo sidekick, etc. The LaForge girl could have joined that crew, etc.

There was just no consistency to any of that on the basis character level.

Also, of course ... why the fuck did they kill Data in season 1? Why not just transfer Data to an old body looking like that of Soong - like they did now? That wouldn't have been hard. Picard's dementia thing they could have dropped, they could have had the robots (or their gods) cure him, or they could have left that dangling for Q to heal him in season 2. Which I think would have been the best way to go there since the illness was first introduced in that two-parter with Q which ended TNG.

A Data living with his robot family for now could have been the perfect temporary ending for him ... and would also have been a nice closure to the robot story.

And if they wanted to revisit Borg shit why - why?! - not go with the Artifact which completely disappears from the show at the end of season 1. If they felt they had to make Jurati a Borg Queen for 'reasons' ... then why not go with the Artifact as a starting point?

I know I'm rambling here but this show is just so full of holes it is surprising that you actually see people on your screen.

Edited April 17, 2023 by Lord Varys

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

41 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

The thing is, them having species show up really doesn't tell us anything. I mean, the President is a human-Cardassian woman so the species survived - but it tells us nothing about the political system the Cardassians had in the last millennium after DS9.

I think the obvious way to add flavor to things would have to have Changelings and Dominion species (perhaps some new ones) in the Federation, indicating how large it became in future centuries.

It is also really silly to have past crew revive the Federation when Burnham's gang never actually lived through much of the Federation. They didn't even see the TOS era.

Them having trouble in the future was not a bad idea but this kind of accidental thing sucked.

Also, in context, if you consider the magical tech these people had in all the time travel episodes in Enterprise and all the other shows future guys showed up ... it is really nonsensical they wouldn't have done with the extragalactical mining species from season 4. I mean, they got their dilithium fuel back, so magical tech should work again, too. Right?

Unless there is a good explanation as to why they no longer had magical tech in the 31th century they happened to have from the 28th to the 30th century.

But get back to the general setting:

Season 3 is thematically another rehash of season 1. What was Data's daughter in season 1 is now, obviously, Beverly's son in season 3. And while Picard is also Jack's dad now, he is invested in him in a similar way as he was invested in Data's daughter.

It is also quite fun to see how these people fail to actually go through with their ideas. Season 1 wanted to the Federation to suck and put some misfits and outlaws and freaks into the center. They did that by making Picard a bitter old man, giving him a drug addict side kick nobody ever expected him to have, turned Seven of Nine into a new character, created a kind of fun guy with Rios, made us love awkward scientist turned murderer, and had a weirdo Romulan kid nobody knew what to do with ... only to double down on all that in season 2 by abandoning the robot plot, and effectively getting rid of all the new misfits characters they created.

I mean, honestly, who would actually do that and and why?

If I had been a writer on season 1 and the show had been a success (which it was, I think) then why would I not continue with those characters? Why go with weirdo alternative time travel Q shit?

And, for fuck's sake - season 3 could have seen the reunion we got easily enough if Picard and gang had been on Rios's ship then - or if they had all been aboard a new Starfleet ship under the command of Rios, with Seven as first officer, Jurati as engineer, Soji as science officer, Raffi as weirdo sidekick, etc. The LaForge girl could have joined that crew, etc.

There was just no consistency to any of that on the basis character level.

Also, of course ... why the fuck did they kill Data in season 1? Why not just transfer Data to an old body looking like that of Soong - like they did now? That wouldn't have been hard. Picard's dementia thing they could have dropped, they could have had the robots (or their gods) cure him, or they could have left that dangling for Q to heal him in season 2. Which I think would have been the best way to go there since the illness was first introduced in that two-parter with Q which ended TNG.

A Data living with his robot family for now could have been the perfect temporary ending for him ... and would also have been a nice closure to the robot story.

And if they wanted to revisit Borg shit why - why?! - not go with the Artifact which completely disappears from the show at the end of season 1. If they felt they had to make Jurati a Borg Queen for 'reasons' ... then why not go with the Artifact as a starting point?

I know I'm rambling here but this show is just so full of holes it is surprising that you actually see people on your screen.

You aren’t rambling.  The structure of the three seasons of Star Trek: Picard fell like they have the thinest veneer of connection.  The writers set things up only to drop and completely ignore important storylines (Data’s daughter… the “Synthetic super androids” who are coming to destroy them all).  Why tee that up and go nowhere with it?

It’s mind boggling.

@Jaxom 1974,

I appreciate the nostalgia.  But that’s all this show has going for it.  It’s plot holes are so huge they are impossible (for me) to ignore.

[sifth]

I have to ask, was season 2 of Picard filmed during Covid? It just feels so cheap, even by Star Trek Picard standards. They go back in time.............and naturally it's our current world and not the dystopian world, on the verge of WW:III, that we're constantly told about in Trek. Yea, they have a very brief mention to the shelters mentioned on the DS9 episode Past Tense, but it's very much kept in the background and never really part of the episode. Then to add insult to injury, they have actors playing multiple roles, as if they're trying to save money............really does every male member of the Soong family look like Brent Spiner...............are the inbreeding or something, lol

[DaveSumm]

Basically, this isn’t Season 3 of Picard, it’s Season 8 of TNG.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

I just finished season 3 of Lower Decks. Y'know, I grown to really like this show.

Yea it's a comedy and, yes, it's meant to be a parody, but it does it in a way that isn't nasty or mean spirited. It's actually pretty respectful and demonstrates a pretty deep knowledge of ST lore. It's also pretty funny, and I like the animation.

I like that T'Lyn joined the crew. I loved the episode showing the various "lower decks" crews on different ships. 

I'm giving serious thought to checking out the animated kids show. I've heard good things. 

[SpaceChampion]