Spoilers So, what do we think of Season 2 now that it's done?

I should have thought of that. Each has it’s own strengths and weaknesses, but also each BTTF movie stands on its own. The second is a great movie as well. I’ve been meaning for a while to watch them again with my wife as I’m pretty sure she’s only seen the first one.

I also think to some degree that most trilogies are trilogies by happenstance rather than design. I don’t care what Lucas claims about always having episodes 1-9 of Star Wars mapped out, because it’s clear that originally the first Star Wars movie was designed to stand alone. It’s a complete narrative. The success of that film necessitated that they bolt on further stuff in the sequel and it’s only in The Empire Strikes Back that we have a cliffhanger ending and a wider ongoing story revealed.

So if Picard becomes a show that wraps up in Season 3 whilst maintaining the illusion of some kind of design in it’s three part structure then it’ll be in good company.

Not to make a glib joke, but all writers essentially just make things up as they go along.

 

Ive seen Picard also have high viewer rankings on the international Amazon streaming charts.

 

Exactly. The idea of planning out a trilogy or a series sounds good...on paper. What Star Wars became is completely different from what Lucas originally envisioned. And that's now a bad thing. It shows how art is a transitory process, that creativity is not just a one time thing but an ongoing effort to modify based on feedback. If Star Wars had not been successful, and the the film Fox expected to be successful, Damnation Alley, ruled the box office, then "Splinter in a Mind's Eye" and other novels would be the only follow up. No Empire, no Return of the Jedi. Luke and Leia are not siblings.

Art is an amazing and messy thing.

 

Yup.

That's why I don't like when some people act like a guy who smoked pot, drank heavily, and probably had all kinds of other substance abuse problems, with mistresses on the side, high turnover in his writing staff, all kinds of issues going on in the production process and post-production process, who was dealing with difficult personalities in front of the camera, behind the camera, and had unforgiving deadlines to meet... somehow had it all worked out. He didn't.

He figured out what he already had after the fact, and other people added to what was there besides him and had to make adjustments to make things work. That last part being the thing that Canonistas seem to have the most trouble with.

 

@fireproof78 and @Lord Garth: Great posts. I sort of like that after a year here I can talk just about on the level of the clever posters. I'm proud I can hold my own with the forum wordsmiths.

There are only two people I kind of believe had everything worked out from the start(ish). The first is JMS and Babylon 5. Even then he had to modify his plans through swathes of near-cancellations, cast changes and so on. The second is Tolkien with LotR. Tolkien was a very clever, meticulous writer I admire very much.

 

Hmm, Deltans flirting with humans? I guess if they're not in Starfleet then they don't have to take that oath.

Kor

 

Here's the funny thing about Tolkien-even he got it wrong. He wrote a letter complaining about his son, Christopher, catching little details between drafts that would frustrate Tolkien. He destroyed drafts over far lesser details, and even then, he still was working out the mythology, i.e. elves and beards. Tolkien's work is fascinating not just for the meticulous nature but also the process in which a writer has to work out. I always recommend Tolkien's letters for further insight.

Same thing with Star Wars. Lucas claims much was planned, but ultimately I think it was the feelings, the uplifting, the tragedy, and the journey of his heroes. I don't think the story was planned so much as the themes that really resonated with Lucas on a deeply personal level. And that might be why I'm more forgiving than most of the ST-the themes still resonate and it is clear how those themes impacted the writers of those films.

Back to Star Trek. I am far more forgiving of additions to characters because I am not a person to treat them as sacred. I treat many things in my life as sacred, but fiction is not one of them. Maybe it is because of my grounded nature in other spiritual things that Star Trek doesn't require a sacred approach. I don't know. All I know is I value characters over all else, and if a show has characters who grab my attention, no matter how imperfect, I will journey beside them.

I think this quote from the show, MASH, sums it up quite well for me:

 

According to the novels and games it's voluntary in Starfleet: at least by the 24th century.

 

In the end, it sucked.

 

The ending for S2 was good, almost amazing - I think it was the serialisation with being stuck around drab 2020s LA that outstayed its welcome.

 

I'm a little further into S2. Sanctuary districts, Supervisor with bank vault in the apartment, punk rock guy on the bus. Nice references digging into Trek lore in a way that adds something extra for long-time fans while not being distracting for those less familiar with the franchise.

Kor

 

I defended the show even as I was being critical of it for all the wheel spinning mid-season. I’m still absolutely astonished by the ending though. As in, I’m not sure what the writers were smoking. The use of Q ended up terribly disappointing, in spite of John De Lancie being on fire throughout. There was no explanation whatsoever (?) as to why an immortal, omnipotent being would die, and what was happening with the rest of the Q Continuum. It felt so vague because the writers seemingly didn’t know what they were doing.

The Agnes/Borg Queen plot started off wonderfully but had totally jumped the shark by the end; I simply couldn’t accept that one assimilation could completely transform the Borg to the extent that they basically end up joining (or working with) the Federation as allies. The worst part was probably the return of a certain ex-cast member and fan (non) favourite, whose jarring appearance came out of absolutely nowhere and provided a nonsensical conclusion to what amounted to an utterly pointless, redundant Kore storyline.

Maybe someday I’ll rewatch it to see if it makes any more sense. But, after a languid stretch of six or seven episodes, the finale felt chaotic and neurotic. Overall, season two started well but was less than the sum of its parts and I really feel the whole thing kind of collapsed at the end, like a soufflé that starts rising nicely, only to collapse and end up a squidgy mess of goo.

 

I finally finished Season 2. I thought the connection between the Travelers and the Supervisors was quite contrived (I almost groaned), and how the Borg turned out in the end stretched credibility. But overall I found the season entertaining.

Kor

 

I think Wesley being back as a Traveler here was just a reintroduction. Some eventual filling in on that backstory will help going forward.

At least, I hope it gets more. It will be a shame if that's all that there is, if there is nothing more. There's gotta be more in the works for them...

 

Wil Wheaton just seemed to be playing himself. He could have at least shaved or remembered some of Wesley’s mannerisms. I think we can just chalk the scene up to a random, left field bit of fan service. I’m glad to know Wesley still exists and he didn’t crawl back to Starfleet as Nemesis claimed, but I don’t need to see any more. It’s kind of sad that we’ve seen a large number of TNG and VOY characters now, but DS9 is all but forgotten. It feels like the 90’s all over again.

 

It could be just fan service. Sometimes a cameo is just a cameo.

 

Resurrect the same character traits he spent decades trying to shake off because of being ridiculed for?

 

At some point you got to own it.

 

I just binge-watched the series in two nights, and I have to say, I overall liked it, and I was convinced going-in I was going to hate it. I did hate one character who got to sing (and wondered who she slept with to get to do that bit in ST), but other than that one 'almost shut the TV off' moment, I liked most of what I saw. Yes, it wasn't like other Trek, but neither was DS9, so that's not always such a bad thing. The production was much more 'modern' than the old planet/species-of-the-week paradigm, and since I binge-watched, the serialized format worked for me.

Also not at all thrilled by the ending, but whatever - I'll wait and see. Could lead to something great, could lead to Starbucks cups being left on set. The fact that it got wrapped around the one character I absolutely couldn't stand (who literally GOT AWAY WITH MURDER!) doesn't give me high hopes, though.

Synths: I liked the take (they were all different, not just 'drones'), but hate the name. Leave that back in Fallout, thanks. Starting to truly despise the 'all Soongs look alike' thing. Just let that go already. UGH
There was also some inconsistencies with Pikard's past and Guinan, but whatever. After getting four flavors of Klingon, I can just roll with it now (at least the Guinan thing, Pikard's missing brother, not so much).

 

Alien brain scrambling defense.