Star Trek: Picard Catch-All [Spoilers]

Alien Love Gardener wrote:
T-Prime wrote:

That said, for me Season 1 of Picard takes the new title of "Best first season of Star Trek" away from Discovery.

Really? Really?

It's just not good unless you can literally see the fishing wire attached to the cardboard ship models, am I right?

thrawn82 wrote:
Alien Love Gardener wrote:
T-Prime wrote:

That said, for me Season 1 of Picard takes the new title of "Best first season of Star Trek" away from Discovery.

Really? Really?

It's just not good unless you can literally see the fishing wire attached to the cardboard ship models, am I right?

Look, if you want to make the argument that anything in Picard measures up to stone cold classics like Balance of Terror or The City on the Edge of Forever, I'm all ears.

I'll be honest, I'm a little bit young for TOS. It was great for it's time, but it never really held up for me. It's not bad, but I don't find it awesome like the people who watched it in the era it was new do. The heart of my fandom is really TNG (I was 5 when it premiered, I remember watching it with my mom) and DS9.

I enjoyed the series. I feel it realistic depicts the Star Trek universe more then TNG did. Even though there was an "ideal" in the Federation it was never really there and that was shown episode after episode in TNG and DS9.

I don't think there needed to be any transition time with golem Picard - it was still just Picard.

Didn't get a nice space battle like I wanted

One question - whatever happened to the Romulan brother? He was grabbed when they were trying to take down the tower and I don't think I saw him again?

As far as what next? I'd be fine with A-Team in space with this crew!

If anyone wants to watch this note that you get a month free of cbs all access when you sign up.

Apparently, all the ships in the Starfleet armada were visually identical to each other, because the visual effects weren't finished until days before the episode aired. My personal retcon is that is Starfleet's new battle fleet, built after the Dominion War showed them how unprepared they were for a serious fight. That's why they're all exactly alike. Cheaper to manufacture a lot of the same ship.

I don't know if it can be considered a recon if they never stated why all the ships look the same. Makes perfect sense they would mass produce warships after the recent conflicts with the Dominion.

The sad part was more that Picard's fake ships were all the same and the Romulan ships were all the same and the flowers were all the same. All of that makes sense but it also makes it kind of boring.

On a different note did no borg survive? Also can't they survive in space? I guess all the victim that were de-borged would die in space but would have thought some didn't get sucked out and would have survived the crash. Seem like there should have been some Romulans other than the brother and sister also.

Well this season of mass effect was enjoyable even with the problems. Looking forward to next season but hope they go with Fem Picard instead.

trichy wrote:

Apparently, all the ships in the Starfleet armada were visually identical to each other, because the visual effects weren't finished until days before the episode aired.

I'm curious where you heard this. Not that I doubt that it's true - I totally believe it, I just haven't heard anything like this and I feel like I'm pretty connected to Trek news.

Do you think they've developed starship scale replicators yet?

Baron Of Hell wrote:

On a different note did no borg survive? Also can't they survive in space? I guess all the victim that were de-borged would die in space but would have thought some didn't get sucked out and would have survived the crash. Seem like there should have been some Romulans other than the brother and sister also.

In Star Trek: First Contact, the borg were on the hull of the Enterprise without any protective gear.

maverickz wrote:

Do you think they've developed starship scale replicators yet?

I don't think so, maybe structural but not everything type of material can be replicated.

There are references to "industrial replicators" on DS9. Presumably large portions of starships can be replicated in pieces and then assembled.

Here's a pretty good Q&A with Chabon with some answers:

https://trekmovie.com/2020/03/28/mic...

I had plenty of issues with Picard, but I like Chabon. He clearly cares about Star Trek and I appreciate these Q&As that he does for the fans.

Memory Alpha is afire with debate (spoilers) over whether or not to create a new page for

Spoiler:

android Picard.

Ah, nerds.

Why do I find this hilarious...

Spoiler:

Someone new to Star Trek or hasn't watched the Picard series, navigating to Memory Alpha and reading:

"Jean-Luc Picard was a human and is a Soong-type Android..."

Just finished, using my free month. I mostly liked it, but there certainly are some issues. The first half feels like somebody's RPG campaign (I would use Scum and Villainy), as we assemble an absurdly colorful crew of ne'er-do-wells. You even have that one player who insists on playing a ninja in every game:

"There aren't any ninjas in Star Trek."
"What about the Romulans? They're so mysterious, I bet they have a secret society of lady ninjas that nobody mentioned yet."
"What? Your character isn't a woman."
"No, he's the exception, because he's special."

The second half actually had me firing up Stellaris again. It was starting to feel like that kind of plot: dig up some ancient secrets (not to mention a derelict Borg cube), summon a galaxy-spanning threat, get into a big space battle. The last episode was kind of deflating, though.

Speaking of digging up secrets: It's a shame Picard didn't do any archaeology. He loves that stuff, after all. I don't know what could have stopped him from traveling to the octo-star system himself to see what he could dig up. I think if I was writing it I would have tried to set the finale there, with Picard discovering the missing pieces and making the right connection to save the day.

Agathos wrote:

Speaking of digging up secrets: It's a shame Picard didn't do any archaeology. He loves that stuff, after all.

Yes, but the writers would have had to have watched TNG to know that, not just skimmed the Wikipedia entry.

Agathos wrote:

Just finished, using my free month. I mostly liked it, but there certainly are some issues. The first half feels like somebody's RPG campaign (I would use Scum and Villainy), as we assemble an absurdly colorful crew of ne'er-do-wells. You even have that one player who insists on playing a ninja in every game:

"There aren't any ninjas in Star Trek."
"What about the Romulans? They're so mysterious, I bet they have a secret society of lady ninjas that nobody mentioned yet."
"What? Your character isn't a woman."
"No, he's the exception, because he's special."

The second half actually had me firing up Stellaris again. It was starting to feel like that kind of plot: dig up some ancient secrets (not to mention a derelict Borg cube), summon a galaxy-spanning threat, get into a big space battle. The last episode was kind of deflating, though.

Same and mostly same.

Just watched this over the last week after watching Discovery both seasons the previous 20 days or so.

I really had some issues with Discovery. I spent a lot of time yelling at the screen. You can't do that, that didn't exist yet, no no no. But for 90% of this show there was not much of that.

Yeah I wondered how the Borg could be spaced, how 7 couldn't just transport them back, something. Like most of you I thought there were pacing issues. Minor stuff mostly.

I absolutely loved that they brought back Maddox, Hugh, and Icheb. Riker and Troi ep was spectacular. Reading some of the middle of this thread I thought many of you were just suffering from waiting week to week. When watching 1-2 episodes daily, the pacing issues didn't hurt the story as much.

But holy sh*t WTF was with that finale? I spent 90% if it yelling at the screen just like Discovery.

Spoiler:

After 5ish episodes of holograms running the ship, suddenly we don't have them anymore?! Bullsh*t. Why is Picard piloting? Why is Doctor (not medical) treating him instead of EMH? Did the writer of the finale not watch the other 8 episodes? WTF?!

Magical space repair tool that does whatever you want? sh*t maybe use that to shut down the beacon. Or repair the Borg ship and go kick the hell out of the romulan fleet. WTF.

Soong had a bio child? How? With his Android wife that died before Data even got an emotion chip? WTF.

Yeah so you did the recovered a piece of Data that contained all his real memories from B4 that was mentioned early on? So why didn't you put Data back in the new improved android bodies? Why didn't Bruce? Why the f*ck is he trapped in a simulation? All the clues early were pointing to Data being Maddox secret partner rebuilding android children. Instead it's someone that never could have existed. WTF.

So big assault to try and shut down the beacon. Fine the bomb doesn't work. But then Soong disables the lead android that killed another and started all this. But he just sits there and doesn't share anything for 10 minutes while there's a space standoff and they could all be killed any second? Everyone on the ground just does nothing and waits for a Picard speech to save the day? WTF useless people.

Soong needed the golem? Why? Is he sick? Maybe it's just his time. Or not, then build another one dammit. Give one to actual Data while you're at it. Also if it's so easy everyone is going to want to live forever and that's going to cause some issues in the future. Or they'll just forget about it.

Stupid mustache twirling romulan sister. How many goddamn times did she use an emergency teleport to save her from death? And now she can't use it when falling to doom? 7 should have just shot her in the head immediately. Hell, Elnor fighting with honor got Hugh killed.

Such promise, such interesting characters, such questions about the federation giving into fear, and so many ways this show could have been great. The last 90 minutes was a big joke.

I'm still mad about Hugh and forever will be.

Veloxi wrote:

I'm still mad about Hugh and forever will be.

I've never been so happy and then so sad in two episodes of a TV show.

And it was so senseless. Elnor killed so good. Just kill her.

My wife and I were watching Voyager at the same time as Picard, right around season 6 or 7, so we were very well acquainted with Icheb when Picard's writers decided to brutally and senselessly kill him off. Absolutely devastating and between that and the deaths of Hugh and Maddox this show overall has left a bitter taste in my mouth (and I'm very very lenient and forgiving when it comes to Star Trek).

Quoting myself earlier in the thread:

That said, for me Season 1 of Picard takes the new title of "Best first season of Star Trek" away from Discovery.

Now that the glow has worn off I retract that message. Discovery's season 1 was much better than Picard's. I would go back and re-watch Discovery S1, I don't think I have any desire to re-watch Picard S1.

Stele wrote:
Veloxi wrote:

I'm still mad about Hugh and forever will be.

I've never been so happy and then so sad in two episodes of a TV show.

And it was so senseless. Elnor killed so good. Just kill her.

f*cking right? Give us the first true moment of joy THE ENTIRE SEASON then rip our hearts out FOR NO f*ckING REASON other than just to do it. f*ck this show.

T-Prime wrote:

Now that the glow has worn off I retract that message. Discovery's season 1 was much better than Picard's. I would go back and re-watch Discovery S1, I don't think I have any desire to re-watch Picard S1.

For me it is like comparing Rise of Skywalker (Discovery) with the Phantom Menace(Picard). RoS was the worse of the two, but I am sure there are others that have the opposite opinion.

For me, Picard only really fell apart near the end. Discovery went south way way sooner.

I’m not going anywhere near that Star Wars comparison.

PaladinTom wrote:

For me, Picard only really fell apart near the end. Discovery went south way way sooner.

I’m not going anywhere near that Star Wars comparison.

I enjoyed picard pretty much all the way through. But the big battle at the end where someone either f'd up the production schedule or planned wrong or failed to communicate or what, where CGI ended up having to make a massive space battle with cut and paste of only two different ships... was frankly embarrassing.

Yes the finale was rushed. Rushed script, rushed effects (ships), rushed shooting (no holograms?), just a big clusterf*ck.

And it's a streaming show. There's no reason they have to cut it to 42 minutes unless they are planning to sell for syndication down the road or something. Just make the last episode an extra 20 minutes and make it make sense.

I think it aired on tv in other countries.

That finale just should've been at least 2 episodes. I really, really, really would've loved a classic Star Trek moral dilemma where the crew had a debate over resurrecting organic Picard into the Android body.

But, whatever, here we are. Hey, new Discovery a month from now!

I'm not done with the series yet. I know I am way late to the party. I think we just finished episode 7. Its the point where the big prophecy is explained where the system with 8 suns left a warning about synthetic life, the scientist announces she will turn herself in for murdering Maddox, they warp to the Borg way gate, and 7 of 9 hooks up to be a local borg queen to reclaim the cube (Elnor asks if he is going to be assimilated).

I am trying to shut off my brain for some of the science regarding the dangers of advanced technology. But I just have to get it out somewhere. So, we are a destructive species and very self destructive at that. If we never learn to temper that we will always bump into the realization that we will always risk annihilating ourselves or the planet long before the capability to warp stars into a solar system.

Things that will happen millennia before an octuple(sp?) system:
AI + automatons that supersede human capabilities - I'll be generous and say this won't take more than 50 years. In reality, we are nearly there already with robotics, AI and long lasting/rapid charging batteries

Warp - the second we get warp capability is the moment it can be used as a devastating weapon. We won't even have to get to the point where we warp stars when we will have the ability to warp nukes all over the planet. And even just the capability of warping decent sized chunks of matter could cause catastrophic environmental disasters: earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, mass asphyxiation or tornados, flooding, drought, sink holes, etc.

Gravity manipulation - The technology to master gravity to the extent that a planet can survive in an 8 star system is immense. But much tinier fractions of that and more local manipulation would be incredibly dangerous hundreds of generations sooner.

I AM enjoying the show. I just could not exorcise these thoughts that are eating at me.