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Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 2x07 - "Monsters"

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We were talking about how with Dajh shutting down the signal the silly tech tentacle monsters she called just cut off their tentacles and said never mind, not the silly bottle. That was just badly executed, nothing more.
Soji. Dahj died in the very first episode. ;) (So many Isa Briones characters to keep straight!)
 
To be fair, I don't remember anything saying that the bottle would irresistibly compel him to appear... it could be something as much as basically a hotline that the Q agreed to answer as a courtesy. It also never referred to summoning a specific Q. There are so many of them, and they can go whenever and wherever they like in the space-time continuum, one of them might just as well decide to answer the call out of boredom.
 
The problem with the bottle was mostly why Guinan in particular had it. It's not like she's the President of El-Auria in absentia. Does every El-Aurian have a bottle or something?
 
The worst part of it for me is how some fans are seemingly perfectly satisfied with being given a [tech] explanation that merely sounds science-y enough to lend it some fake credence, when most of the technobabble, especially from Voyager on, has usually been nothing more than a bunch of technical terms vaguely connected to the topic stringed together, often ending up like Joey's attempt in Friends on using a thesaurus and turning "warm, nice people with big hearts" into "humid, prepossessing Homo Sapiens with full-sized aortic pumps."

And they complain when we get things like "time crystals", because it sounds like magic and real science would always use descriptive and technical language (yeah, like puffy planets, the hairy ball theorem, the Demon Core or the various Extremely Large Telescopes). I already said this back then during the time crystal debate, but if Trek fans were to give names to real-world scientific concepts, the Big Bang would be called a Rapid Primordial Volumetric Expansion Event.
 
The worst part of it for me is how some fans are seemingly perfectly satisfied with being given a [tech] explanation that merely sounds science-y enough to lend it some fake credence, when most of the technobabble, especially from Voyager on, has usually been nothing more than a bunch of technical terms vaguely connected to the topic stringed together, often ending up like Joey's attempt in Friends on using a thesaurus and turning "warm, nice people with big hearts" into "humid, prepossessing Homo Sapiens with full-sized aortic pumps."

And they complain when we get things like "time crystals", because it sounds like magic and real science would always use descriptive and technical language (yeah, like puffy planets, the hairy ball theorem, the Demon Core or the various Extremely Large Telescopes). I already said this back then during the time crystal debate, but if Trek fans were to give names to real-world scientific concepts, the Big Bang would be called a Rapid Primordial Volumetric Expansion Event.
The device the synths gave Rios to fix La Sirena in season one is a really good example of this. It was handed over with no explanation beyond 'use your imagination' and certain fans had a fit about it being magical and an example of how terrible modern Trek is - apparently not noticing that Agnes later gave it a nice, solid technobabble explanation, calling it a fundamental field replicator with a neurocotamic interface, which is the kind of pseudo-science that Trek fans usually eat up with a spoon. If the technobabble description had come first, I doubt anyone would have batted an eyelid, they'd have been all over it as an example of advances made in replicator technology. But because the 'use your imagination' instruction came first, they were all too busy clutching their pearls to even notice the technobabble.

(Incidentally, I hope the synths took out a patent on that thing!)
 
I already said this back then during the time crystal debate, but if Trek fans were to give names to real-world scientific concepts, the Big Bang would be called a Rapid Primordial Volumetric Expansion Event.

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The device the synths gave Rios to fix La Sirena in season one is a really good example of this. It was handed over with no explanation beyond 'use your imagination' and certain fans had a fit about it being magical and an example of how terrible modern Trek is - apparently not noticing that Agnes later gave it a nice, solid technobabble explanation.
Most of the complaints I've seen about the device is that it's very convenient overly-powerful gadget, especially considering it was invented by a tiny colony of Federation scientists. That's what makes it too magical, not a perceived lack of technobabble.

Personally I had the same reaction to the gadget and the bottle: I basically ignored them until they went away.
 
well, the bottle evocation was badly in concept and execution, reeeally cheesy. And mind you, I liked season one well enough and am loving this season, apparently more than most posters up here.
Apparently so.

And cheesy is something I tolerate way more than a lot of people so I get that.
Most of the complaints I've seen about the device is that it's very convenient overly-powerful gadget, especially considering it was invented by a tiny colony of Federation scientists. That's what makes it too magical, not a perceived lack of technobabble.

Personally I had the same reaction to the gadget and the bottle: I basically ignored them until they went away.
To me, it strikes me as similar to the "spirits" from Voyager's "Equinox." The aliens had a device that summoned the friendly spirits.
 
Most of the complaints I've seen about the device is that it's very convenient overly-powerful gadget, especially considering it was invented by a tiny colony of Federation scientists. That's what makes it too magical, not a perceived lack of technobabble.
That might have been your complaint, but all the ongoing criticisms I've seen have all been about the 'magical' nature of the device and lack of technobabble explanation, ignoring the fact that a technobabble explanation was given.
 
^ This is basically what I’ve been thinking but not saying because I didn’t quite know how to put things into words (emotional things are difficult for me, I very much share this trait with Jean-Luc) - that the entire scene with him exploring his deepest memories and what got him “stuck” and what happened only works to its full extent if you are REALLY invested in Jean-Luc as a character and have formed some kind of “relationship” with him. It loses its momentum and even starts to bore people if he’s just another character or a character you casually like.

1) I don't think it's unreasonable for the producers to assume that most people watching a show entitled Star Trek: Picard are emotionally invested in one of the most enduring and popular characters in American science fiction television.

2) I would say that Star Trek: Picard as a narrative expects its audience to be as invested in its characters as any modern television show. TV shows in general these days are written with the assumption that a deeper exploration of a character's psychology engenders audience investment into the characters rather than follows from audience investment into those characters.

This was easily the worst Picard episode of all and among the worst in all Star Trek.

Ridiculous hogwash. The worst episode in all of Star Trek is clearly the work of white supremacist propaganda that is TNG's "Code of Honor." But even setting that one aside, "Monsters" was miles better than numerous of Star Trek: Voyager's tiresome, heartless, reset button-pressing, all-plot-no-characterization paint-by-numbers.

Flashback scenes in general are always tedious and useless

The Godfather Part II was tedious and useless?

Are they "in general" tedious and useless, or are they "always" tedious and useless? Which is it?

What's with the ridiculous and long monster and dungeon scenes?

I'm sorry to hear that you don't understand metaphorical depictions of psychological complexes.
 
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1) I don't think it's unreasonable for the producers to assume that most people watching a show entitled Star Trek: Picard are emotionally invested in one of the most enduring and popular characters in American science fiction television.

2) I would say that Star Trek: Picard as a narrative expects its audience to be as invested in its characters as any modern television show. TV shows in general these days are written with the assumption that a deeper exploration of a character's psychology engenders audience investment into the characters rather than follows from audience investment into those characters.

I do agree here, no worries. I’m here for anything JLP, always. They could show him sitting on a chair, looking over the vineyard for the entire ten episodes and I’d watch with never-wavering enthusiasm because JEAN-LUC.

However, looking at some of the reactions here (and elsewhere) towards the exploration of Jean-Luc’s trauma, parts of the show’s audience clearly disagree with this much focus on Jean-Luc’s mind and seem to want for things to be resolved in a more TNG-like manner (meaning: quickly, not taking up TOO much of the plot, and by the end of an episode). ;)
 
However, looking at some of the reactions here (and elsewhere) towards the exploration of Jean-Luc’s trauma, parts of the show’s audience clearly disagree with this much focus on Jean-Luc’s mind and seem to want for things to be resolved in a more TNG-like manner (meaning: quickly, not taking up TOO much of the plot, and by the end of an episode). ;)

Yeah, there's a segment of fandom that wants shallow, two-dimensional writing that gives them pat answers and doesn't challenge them intellectually or emotionally, just like TNG.
 
I'm sorry to hear that you don't understand metaphorical depictions of psychological complexes.
No, not really. Dealing with psychology complexes, especially ones driven by trauma, is simply not Star Trek.
However, looking at some of the reactions here (and elsewhere) towards the exploration of Jean-Luc’s trauma, parts of the show’s audience clearly disagree with this much focus on Jean-Luc’s mind and seem to want for things to be resolved in a more TNG-like manner (meaning: quickly, not taking up TOO much of the plot, and by the end of an episode). ;)
It very much feels that way at times, yes.
 
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