Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 1x03 - "The End is the Beginning"

[Crewman6]

How do we know that? How do we possibly have enough information about how Starfleet handles these kinds of situations to judge whether or not "it's BS?"

We don't.

You're right, I don't know how "Starfleet handles these things." But since it bears ZERO resemblance to how it would play out in the real world AND we've been told for 50+ years that Starfleet is better than the modern day world, I'd expect it to be no worse than how things would play out if something similar went down at my job as an accountant or whatever.

That is a supremely ridiculous argument.

 

[Kor]

You know what would give a futuristic flavor to the way people talk in this series? More variety in people's speech with unexpected expressions such as "shiny" and "gorram," and code-switching with random phrases in another Earth language such as Mandarin.

We do not scrap Demille's work. One only has to watch the recent remake of The Ten Commandments to understand why.

The Exodus movie with Christian Bale? I found it to be dull as dishwater.

Kor

 

[Yistaan]

Totally agree. I had the same reaction to "The Mandalorian" when everyone was saying "OMG! BEST SHOW EVURRRR!!"

Like, umm, have you seen any TV in the past twenty years? There is some great stuff out there. Truly great. Not this kind of wishy-washy, poorly paced, poorly structured silliness.

Just because a show is Star Wars or Star Trek doesn't mean we shouldn't hold it to the same standards we hold other shows. None of this stuff is actually good. It's...okay at best, but full of unforced errors in the writing, shoddy characterizations and just some crummy storytelling.

I think Picard still shows glimmers of potential and there are some story threads I'm lightly intrigued by, but so far, this has been a very slow, stumbling start. Fortunately, there's still plenty of truly wonderful TV out there to keep myself occupied. BCS comes back in just a couple weeks!

All the shows cited, Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, are about bad people doing very bad things. Trek can't really be compared to that (although it sounds like they're going to try with Section 31)

Of course they probably did; but why wouyld scanning a Black Hole show them it was created by a small craft, and said craft was piloted ny Mr. Spock?

Hell, assuming Spock did it on his own with just Geordi and the Vulcan Science Academy resources and never informed Star Fleet - (which would actually be very IN CHARACTER for Spock - given the events of STVI:TUC and TNG S5 - "Unification I & II"); and hell if you think that Spock knew about Star Fleet/The Federation ending the evacuation plan after the Synth attack; it even explains why it was all so 'last minute' on Spock's part.

Red matter is among the most dangerous substances in the galaxy. A rundown of all probable explanations for supernova disappearance would suggest red matter caused it to disappear.

Next, the Fed would want to know who has red matter and why (and if there is still more unaccounted for). If they can't even do that, they have bigger problems than not knowing about Spock.

 

[Yistaan]

sorry double post see my response above

 

[Kilana2]

Best episode so far. I liked Hugh's appearance.....

 

[Gonzo]

I think the best way to handle this is to have Picard sacrifice himself to bring Data back in a new body. Fans lose Picard but get back Data. Brent doesn't want to be Data again full time anyway and he can always just pop up as holographic Noonien Soong who Data talks up once in a while for advice.

I would love to have the character back but its unlikely as Brent had to have his arm twisted by Patrick to do this season, we can see him continue on in Soji or have another actor take his place as the technology clearly now exists for him to look however he wants.

Data may be properly gone or not as the body was not recovered plus they still have Lore's somewhere, surely Data would have known B4 would not have been suitable.

With the technology now existing to create synths they can literally go in any direction they want with it.

I am now curious to know what happened to Rios ship that would require them to blank it completely.

 

[Yistaan]

I would love to have the character back but its unlikely as Brent had to have his arm twisted by Patrick to do this season, we can see him continue on in Soji or have another actor take his place as the technology clearly now exists for him to look however he wants.

Data may be properly gone or not as the body was not recovered plus they still have Lore's somewhere, surely Data would have known B4 would not have been suitable.

With the technology now existing to create synths they can literally go in any direction they want with it.

I am now curious to know what happened to Rios ship that would require them to blank it completely.

I was thinking a Dr. Who thing where Data changes his body frequently. For all we know we're in for a surprise where Data is revived in a new body, and then he appears in another body in Discovery.

 

[Crewman6]

All the shows cited, Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, are about bad people doing very bad things. Trek can't really be compared to that (although it sounds like they're going to try with Section 31)

Terrible argument. There are plenty of excellent, modern shows that aren't about antiheroes that still have dimensional characters and compelling drama.

By comparison, modern Star Trek looks like nonsense.

 

[Gonzo]

I was thinking a Dr. Who thing where Data changes his body frequently. For all we know we're in for a surprise where Data is revived in a new body, and then he appears in another body in Discovery.

For all we know we could have already seen him, once you open up Pandora's box you cant close it again although the Zhat Vash are trying really hard.

At the moment its all very BSG, no doubt they are going to go off in a different direction though.

 

[Yistaan]

Terrible argument. There are plenty of excellent, modern shows that aren't about antiheroes that still have dimensional characters and compelling drama.

By comparison, modern Star Trek looks like nonsense.

Those were the shows cited in the post you were responding to, so those are the ones I mentioned.

 

[eschaton]

Terrible argument. There are plenty of excellent, modern shows that aren't about antiheroes that still have dimensional characters and compelling drama.

By comparison, modern Star Trek looks like nonsense.

It's not that I disagree with you, but you can't make an argument like this without citing examples.

 

[Crewman6]

Those were the shows cited in the post you were responding to, so those are the ones I mentioned.

The OP used those as examples of recent great TV. You said, "well, those shows have bad guys doing bad stuff." The implication was that Picard could never be a truly great show because it doesn't have a character like that.

If that wasn't your point, then you had no point at all.

 

[Yistaan]

The OP used those as examples of recent great TV. You said, "well, those shows have bad guys doing bad stuff." The implication was that Picard could never be a truly great show because it doesn't have a character like that.

If that wasn't your point, then you had no point at all.

My point was that those aren't the best examples to compare Picard against for the reasons stated. 24 with Jack Bauer as a heroic character would be a better one. @eschaton said it best

It's not that I disagree with you, but you can't make an argument like this without citing examples.

 

[Crewman6]

It's not that I disagree with you, but you can't make an argument like this without citing examples.

Examples of recent great shows with flawed heroes (as opposed to anti-heroes)?

Off the top of my head -

Justified
Homeland (sucks now, but it was good for a while)
True Detective
Mindhunter
Mr. Robot
Westworld
Watchmen
Killing Eve
Happy Valley
Terriers
Battlestar Galactica
Firefly

There's a lot of great TV out there and it doesn't all fall under the category of "shows about assholes."

 

[Crewman6]

My point was that those aren't the best examples to compare Picard against for the reasons stated. 24 with Jack Bauer as a heroic character would be a better one. @eschaton said it best

They were examples of shows with good writing. Which Picard lacks. That's the point. Hell, there are some kids' shows out there with better writing than Picard. The subject matter is irrelevant. It's not good by the standards of its own genre.

 

[Tuskin38]

yes, he was - at the very end. He was watching Soji speak to a reclaimed Borg in its own language and commented on it to himself.

No he wasn't. You're thinking of the preview scene for Episode 3.

 

[Yistaan]

Examples of recent great shows with flawed heroes (as opposed to anti-heroes)?

Off the top of my head -

Justified
Homeland (sucks now, but it was good for a while)
True Detective
Mindhunter
Mr. Robot
Westworld
Watchmen
Killing Eve
Happy Valley
Terriers
Battlestar Galactica
Firefly

Yes, that's what I wanted to see beforehand. I had the right to point out the examples cited before were limited to a very specific genre of shady character run shows.

 

[BillJ]

Most shows are able to accomplish this in one episode, not 3. We're 1/3 of the way into the season and we're "just getting started." That's just bad writing/poor planning right there.

I've been entertained for three episodes.

 

[Mojochi]

Everyone who is bored by this, what do you want exactly? This is best Trek in decades...
You all are entitled to your own wrong opinions...

If it can be wrong, it isn't an opinion. An opinion is just how I feel about the experience, and since I've been watching it with my dad, who like me, goes back to watching Trek 40 & 50 years respectively, I'm not alone. He's finding it dull too

That it is the best Trek in decades doesn't mean it isn't moving deliberately slow, & some of the premise doesn't really inspire me ...yet. I never said it was bad. Patrick Stewart is never bad.

The project as a whole just isn't landing well with me, despite having invested quite a lot to make it sharp looking, & much of the supporting cast is a little flat or inauthentic or something. I can't put my finger on it. It could just be new show shakedown stuff, that part anyway. All in all, it's a pretty dry take on Trek IMHO

& no I wouldn't prefer it be more like Discovery. I'm not all that impressed with it either. What do I want? I don't know, but I do know this. I (& my dad) found ourselves enjoying the Netflix reboot of Lost in Space way more than this, not that that show isn't without its flaws too

So I guess you can gauge my tastes from that, and I recall that there were times when Trek appealed in the same way

 

[Greg Cox]

There always was poverty in Trek, they just redefined poverty by saying "Is Raffi starving? She has a replicator right? She has a home even if its trailer sized? There, she's not poor."

The Enterprise crew owes Mark Twain, Lily, and all the people they boasted about eradicating poverty to an apology

To be fair, I always took Picard's various speeches to mean that profit was no longer the driving force in people's lives, that they didn't have to struggle to make money just to survive, or devoted their lives to becoming a multi-zillionaire or whatever, not that commerce itself had ceased to exist. Lord knows we see plenty of merchants and traders and such over the course of the franchise.

But, yes, there's poverty and "poverty." Raffi may have fallen on hard times, but, from what we see, she's certainly not living in Dickensian squalor nor worrying about where her next meal is coming from or ending up homeless.