Star Trek: Picard

Yeah, I think we need a full thread now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FySrgrKJguE

yeah, watched this trailer five minutes ago and I haven't stopped crying yet.

Has it gone? I get "video unavailable".

Nope, it's up -- try reloading. (Also maybe you have to look elsewhere if you're not in the US -- it's showing on Amazon Prime in the UK IIRC.)

Okay, that ending got to me more than all the nu-SW sequel reunions. Did not expect that.

How am I going to stay dark until the premiere? These three months are going to be painful!

Why is (redacted) in Kirk's Nexus house?

It's not like Kirk is using it.

Apparently the last scheduled Short Trek is going to be a Picard prequel!

The entire 7 seasons of TNG in two minutes!

Well that was fast: https://deadline.com/2019/12/star-trek-picard-renewed-season-two-patrick-stewart-cbs-all-access-1202809964/

Stuff like this is getting more common. (Amazon renewed their LOTR series and I still don't think they've even filmed anything yet.)

https://youtu.be/ksQg3NG861k

Two days!

Very much looking forward!

Stewart will always be Sejanus to me.

Wonderful role, one of the last ones I saw of his before TNG started.

The Children of Mars Short Trek was intriguing

If you sign up for CBS AA: https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/comments/essy1b/cbs_all_access_50_off_for_2_months/

Hmm, he said, having seen the first episode. I like it, don't mind the tonal shift in general, but this was definitely a laying-the-grounds episode first and foremost.

Agreed, though I was more let down with the second half of the episode. It felt like it was trying to cram in as many callbacks to TNG as it could to establish its Trek bona fides, so it was mired in the past (even if it's meant to be the leitmotif).

I wonder about Data's poker hand, though.

how well do you have to remember TNG? I haven't seen the later seasons since they aired

I think that the callbacks are explained to make it easy on new/casual viewers, which may be why I thought it was slow.

yeah i didnt find it too heavy going, and i couldnt even tell you the last episode of TNG i watched

I was only a casual TNG viewer but could comfortably follow what was going on xps

If you really want a refresher, judging from what we saw in the premiere, you could watch these (avert yer eyes if you don't want the SPOILERS):

The Measure of a Man
The Offspring
Inheritance

Thanks y’all. Might be fun to watch a few old eps

how's he gonna do it this time drinking DECAF

earl grey with no milk is the beverage of a sociopath

it’s highly disturbing

always bothered me

that's how i always drink it

you = also a monster

it was our DUTY

earl grey with no milk is the beverage of a sociopath

Eek, I’m married to a sociopath. She takes lemon.

I always thought it was strange that Picard with his French history and English accent would require to specify that the tea was "hot", like if he didn't say so, the computer would respond "do you mean hot tea... or iced tea" in a thick American drawl

Should I watch this? All I heard was that the first episode greatly resembled a certain early S4 episode

how well do you have to remember TNG?

My understanding is that Picard takes place in the Kelvin timeline of the J.J. Abrams/Alex Kurtzman films and ST:Discovery. Real life licencing legal battles have severed the Kelvin timeline from the E/OG/TNG/DS9/V timeline. So none of the events of 1965-2003 Star Trek occurred in Picard, at least not in the same way.

Picard is perhaps an examination of how different histories change character. Or a vanity project about Patrick Stewart's real life political concerns produced to maintain Viacom's IP.

My understanding is that Picard takes place in the Kelvin timeline of the J.J. Abrams/Alex Kurtzman films and ST:Discovery.

Wait, aren't these two different timelines entirely?

Kelvin timeline starts with a movie where OG Spock comes in from the 'real' timeline, following the destruction of Romulus. I was under the impression said 'real' timeline is both the timeline of Discovery and Picard, while the Kelvin timeline is just the three nu-Trek movies and any directly associated spinoff media.

I always thought it was strange that Picard with his French history and English accent would require to specify that the tea was "hot"

it is a character note, so you remember his commanding aura

Picard is in the Prime timeline: https://www.gamesradar.com/star-trek-picard-timeline-explained-alex-kurtzman/

I always figured since the replicator fabricates a cup of tea that never needed steeping, it’d give you the most instantly drinkable temperature by default. By specifying “hot,” Picard wants the experience of fresh-steeped tea that must be carefully sipped.

Yeah I guess that makes sense. I just got in my head an idea for a Hitchhiker/TNG spin-off. “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.” “Share and enjoy!” Data reads Vogon poetry to Spot. Fenchurch teaches Worf to fly and they have an aerial affair. Zaphod becomes assimilated. Deep Thought revises its answer to “Kill Wesley”, with tragic results

I reserve the right to judge the timeline by counting lens flares.

mh, yr no-prize is in the mail

I reserve the right to judge the timeline by counting lens flares.

fair

This was pretty ok!

I like the vibe so far - kind of Raymond Chandler in space, with Picard as the dishevelled ‘tec, stumbling from encounter to encounter, endangering his friends and getting lightly beaten up in the process.

I like Pill. The twin and the weirdly accented handsome on the cube ship were... less good.

This was okay, I liked that it had the more relaxed tempo of the '80s/'90s series instead of the more modern/actiony vibe of Discovery. I still think it was silly that they had to bring back Brent Spiner for fanservice though, as even the digital manipulation and choice of angles couldn't hide the fact he'd become chubbier and his face had changed with age. I guess his two scenes being dreams made it a bit easier to digest, but still... IIRC it was Spiner himself who wanted Data to die in the TNG movies, as it was obvious he couldn't be playing an ageless android for decades. Well, this episode proves he was right, and his presence here was really superfluous, they could've done the same plot with using only footage from TNG or something.

Also, the references to "The Offpsring" here made me at first excited and then disappointed. Because after seeing that episode, I always wondered why Data wouldn't try to create another daughter after Lal... Obviously losing her was traumatic to him, but in real life people still have kids after losing one, and you'd think traumatic loss wouldn't affect Data to the same extent as with humans? So when they first implied Dahj was his daughter, I was like, cool, he did build another child after all! But then it was revealed Dahj/Soji were only made after Data's death, so the question of why he never wanted another offspring remains. I get it that they didn't want to tie this series too much into old episodes of TNG, but on the other hand, the Picard wouldn't even exist if people weren't nostalgic for that series. So I do hope the following episodes will have some deeper connections to the lore than just fanservicey appearances of TNG actors.

deeper connections to the lore

i see what u did

Haha, that was actually unintentional!

They did seem to refer to Data/Lore with Allison Pill's weird comment about how androids are always made in pairs... Which I don't recall ever being a thing in TNG, IIRC the Soongs built Data to improve on Lore, not because there was some weird rule that you have to build two?

pill seemed to be implying that there was a biological reason for having to grow/build two at once, the ones in question being indistinguishable from human beings down to some level or something

nice callback to voyager with the 'we can literally harness energy from space mom's contractions but the holodeck is untappable'

"did you just.... throw an asteroid at them?!" was a great line.

Wow we almost got a CRAZY deep cut...but I have always wondered:

https://gizmodo.com/star-trek-picard-season-3-changelings-conspiracy-tng-1850214543

But while the Changelings were an early part of Matalas’ plans for season 3, for a brief moment they were almost replaced by another hidden Star Trek villain, this time directly from Picard’s roots in TNG—the parasitic bugs from the infamous season 1 episode “Conspiracy.” In that episode, Picard and Riker uncover a plot by a race of alien bugs to infiltrate Starfleet command, burrowing into their unfortunate hosts and killing them, puppeting them in secret. Which was, for Matalas, the problem with bringing them back.

“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.”

did I, for a moment, wonder during the interrogation of that guy at the hands of Worf and Raffi if that was going to be the reveal? maaaaybe

how funny would it have been if instead of looking sick and then being revealed as a changeling, we got one of those bugs bursting from the guy’s chest Alien-style

Side question - does watching this season spoil the end (or parts) of DS9? I’m only on season 3!

not so far

Oh wow, so the nubbins _WERE_ considered as the Star Fleet conspiracy. The hosts of the Greatest Generation/Trek podcast would be so proud their jokey prediction was more accurate than expected

Having only just finished watching DS9 in toto I found it helped. But I dont think its neccesary.

The pot thing bugged me though. That always seemed like an Odo-specific item, I dont see why another rogue changeling (I assume, one of the ones released like Odo was years earlier to "explore"?) would have the same kind of pot, given they all usually live in the Link, and the outliers... dont even know what they are initially if DS9's anything to go on?

indeed. and even odo -- who didn't know what he was, and therefore couldn't have known to create a special pot -- could at a pinch, liquidate himself in the . . . embrace of a friendly betazoid

It also bugged me that Seven found it so quickly hidden in a compartment!? I mean the titan is a fucking huge ship with multiple levels.

i realize that i'm complaining a lot and i don't really *mean* to do that

but!

if these producers are masterful enough to pull out changelings plus the rumored moriarty and/or lore, they should be better about the other, perhaps 'smaller' things that seem off

surely when Odo went back to the great link he shared his knowledge of the specific model of small bucket that serves as the perfect changeling resting vessel and they’re all replicating it when they visit the federation

Agreed that this was a good episode but it took a lot of exasperation to set the characters up on the chessboard in a way to make the story work, the most anti-Trek example of which is making Shaw an anti-Borg bigot who thinks little of dead naming 7. I'm not a "no conflict in Starfleet, ever" purist but you can make a jerk Trek captain (Jellico 4ever) without making him a stupid goon.

Whew...and I thought *last* week was good.

Yeah this was a great episode. I think I can see where things are panning out now, though Ive been wrong plenty before!

And we still have some key characters yet to surface! I do have half a guess myself but yeah I'm just content to let this play out some.

Great guest star this episode. I didn't expect how good that character resolution was.

I can read the changelings Conspiracy as being a meta-commentary on how the people running Trek behind the scenes are completely different now, resulting in Trek series that feel like imposters.

agree this was a pretty great episode

loved the guest reveal, and the storyline fitted them well i thought

can worf just kill rafi now
i’m still incredibly tired of her

Worf needs Raffi around so he can do his Weird Dad Worf thing.

:/

fantastic guest but we should have gotten more

although i have to say that said guest having rejoined starfleet feels unlikely to me

https://www.memorygongs.com/worf_bloodloss.png

farkn why cant I post any images succesfully lately.

agree re unlikelihood

they're not making it easy for themselves having to compress 20 years of backstory of what happened to Ro in 30 seconds of dialogue but amnesty for any maquis left after getting butchered in the dominion war who are willing to use guerrilla tactics against the Cardassian-Founder axis under some black ops section 31 shenanigans seems plausible enough but the writing doesn't really sell it, being 3/4 baked (which is still an improvement over how half-baked most of the earlier seasons were).

Yes that was my only issue - i guess we're still spoilerizing this are we Picard makes it clear he has Had It with Ro, she's dead to him because of what she did, he seems quite bitter about it in fact (and I have to be honest I don't recall her leaving TNG being THAT acrimonious?). Then she turns him around completely in one quick conversation? I get they had to speed things along but it was a little wham-bam.

oh, i don't doubt that starfleet might ultimately take ro back -- i mean two seasons ago a romulan spy was their chief of intelligence; their security is historically awful. i just don't think *she* would do it, particularly when a free bajor needed rebuilding

the whole interaction was necessarily speedy, but i do buy the general sense of it. he really liked and respected (at least??) her in TNG and was torn up when she defected. it's kind of funny how riker, who actually hooked up with her and later sympathized with her defection, was left out of it, but i guess the show isn't called 'riker'. (also beggars belief that these starfleet legends were unaware of her return while she built her career back up to commander, but whatevs)

Despite myself and the narrative whiplash and what is imo still kind of a boilerplate story, I agree that this was a genuinely good episode. They even made Worf an interesting character! To Mookie's last point, she said that she even went to the media, yet somehow Picard and Riker were still blindsided by her resilience.

Also, I'm really torn about how quickly Ro got reintroduced and disposed of, like was Michelle Forbes' availability limited to a one episode guest shot? In which case the slack dithering of the first 3-4 episodes feels a lot more egregious.

i def agree w that, it felt like too good of a “get” to be one and done.

I don’t know if I’ll continue to enjoy it if it stretches further, but the “revelation” that Picard was never this stoic figure, that he was very emotionally involved in his crew and his relationship to them, plays pretty well. Old man in his dotage, maybe. I thought for a minute that Picard and ~spoiler character~ were being implied as having a deeper bond offscreen, but I think it’s shown in the TNG episodes that he felt tested!

It’s not really revisionist per se, but just showing us what it meant to be Captain Jean-Luc Picard. They had to stick to the character and only show brief cracks or absolutely break him (see: Locutus) to make him fallible, and now we’re just getting all cracks

^^^ it was interesting and well-done to see the contrast between picard's interaction with sisko re: wolf 359 in the DS9 premiere (instantly went stiff and icy) vs. that with shaw last episode (sad but no excuses)

otm

they should throw a wrinkle in it and make it canon that Picard disliked Wesley, though

it's not?

I just want to hear someone say his name and see Picard noticeably grimace

they did the facepalm this episode. they could do "shut up wesley" too.

So episode 6 is another memberberry festival, like s3e1. Moriarty turned out to be another unexplained callback instead of a main villain.

I think Worf has said he's a pacifist in every episode he's been in. You'd think at least one writer would notice that the word isn't being used correctly.

There's something gross and unsettling about Picard's casual way of strip-mining fan nostalgia when
they literally have Kirk's corpse on display in a CIA Section 31 museum and if it ends up being actually intentional self-hating meta-commentary from the writer's room, I am down with it!

Also digging Plummer's power move in refusing to pronounce Picard anglo-style.

As I was saying on FB, they take Kirk's skeleton to the Enterprise-A, pose it in the captain's chair and take selfies with it -- "Hanging with the legend!"

Also digging Plummer's power move in refusing to pronounce Picard anglo-style.

Ha yeah that made me giggle. "Picarrrrr"

Some thoughts:
- Moriarty was basically just a security key aka fanservice cameo? Were we meant to think Sec31 set him up or he just decided to protecc the archive himself, like why would he use a melody only Riker would know?
- I kept thinking that I didn't like how the changelings goo looks now (lol not that it looked good in DS9), but it occurs to me now that it looks bad because it looks... diseased. On Reddit someone speculated that maybe they never quite cured everyone, and the disease mutated so they effectively banished the incurable from the greater Link, and its those changelings who are bitter and want revenge. Who knows, but its a theory I like!
- on this note, might we see the return of the breen? I doubt the Vorta will reappear. Though lol - good excuse for an Iggy cameo.
- the ref to a hangar where Geordie cuts his daughter off, is speculated thats the Ent-D being repaired, and that'll come into play because now clearly they need a ship that isnt networked to the compromised fleet.
- Expected Spiner to put on the schizopersonality thing, and we were clearly informed - TWICE - that the bot has "all the personalites unintegrated in there". So it was annoying when he shifted to a clearly Lore expression and said "I'm Lore!" ffs

- "We will not be prey. We will be ... friendly energy."

"I don't understand the world anymore."

i definitely was left a tad deflated by this ep vs the last one

but i do love the thread of family dynamics running through this season, like Geordi’s admission that as a dad he’s now fearful for his daughter over circumstances he himself would have embraced as a young crewmember - even just having him at odds with her is interesting to watch

and 7 talking about her Voyager family was v moving

Yeah "I was reborn there" was lovely.

and it led to our Voyager rewatch skipping to season 4 so we can watch her arc :D

which i only partly saw once so i am excite to revisit

When Sooong started talking about embracing the future I thought they were going to blow up all the old relics. Go full Last Jedi on them. But no, they were just there for nostalgia.

Thought parts of the latest were too crammed with so-so zings, which compounds the wonky pacing of this season. I wish they spent more time fleshing out Sydney's character more before this episode because she's kind of been a plot device before now and her actor still seems a little tentative.

Loved the clips show style callback to the actual TNG 'Shades of Grey' clips show episode.
(that was a tough sentence to write)

If it hadn’t been posted here yet, there’s a fun interview with Jonathan Frakes that Tawny Newsome and Paul F Thomkins did on the official Rod cast

https://www.audacy.com/podcast/star-trek-the-pod-directive-a7faf/episodes/the-actors-director-with-jonathan-frakes-1d9b7