She was assimilated at a very young age and has little memory of before. The situation is similar to people who are abducted at a very young age and grown up with a new name and then being reunited with their blood relatives decades later. No responsible person would then demand that this person would now adopt a completely foreign first or last name.
Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 3x01 - "The Next Generation"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
I believe this choice was made for two reasons:
- Matalas has made it clear he wants to have all of the characters start the series in very different places than where we last saw them. Riker is apparently the sole exception - he's basically the same guy - but everyone else is supposed to have been visibly changed by 20 years. So Bev goes from nice lady doctor to Sarah Conner.
- A big criticism of TNG that has occurred in retrospect is how it kept to dated tropes where Bev and Deanna were helpless damsels in distress. Like both of the actresses had experience with fencing - and Gates had experience with martial arts - yet they wouldn't let them pick up a sword or do anything more physical than breaking flowerpots over heads.
Shaw is probably an asshole in part because he survived Wolf 359 as a civilian kid or very young Starfleet officer and is pulling his own version of a Sisko in "Emissary, Part I(DS9)," holding Picard and Riker responsible for either causing the actual carnage as Locutus or not arriving in time to help as Captain Riker of the Enterprise-D.
We seem to think alike on these topics. The lighting is STILL bugging me thinking about it. No reason for everything to be so dimly lit.
As for Rafi, the best thing she was in was the book Second Self. She was developed in that far better than in Picard, and far less of a bad character.
Did you recognize the musical theme when Picard talks to Laris? It's from Insurrection. It was very subtle but noticeable.
Interesting, they just canonized another Star Trek Online ship...the U.S.S. Pioneer is a Class that was added to STO in 2016 with the "Agents Of Yesterday" Expansion to the game.These and the Excelsior are in the museum
(DOH - Ninja'd - I replied before reading am little further down in this thread.)
I love it when someone takes the time to come up with a reasonable In-Universe reason for something that many other folks will just waste their time bitchn' about.
So, I have a fundamental problem with the entire premise of season three of Star Trek: Picard, to be honest. When PIC premiered, they explicitly said that it was not a TNG reunion, that it was about Jean-Luc Picard at a very different time in his life, with a new set of relationships. And PIC S1 delivered on that. The crux of S1 was Jean-Luc's and Soji's relationship, and the climax of the season was the moment when they came to accept one-another as ersatz grandfather and granddaughter -- "That's why we're here. To save each other." It was a beautiful moment, and it was a promissory note to the audience that their familial relationship would be the cornerstone of the series going forward. And then... nothing. Soji has a brief cameo in S2 and gets dumped. They give Isa Briones an isolated side-plot playing an entirely different character that goes nowhere and does nothing (except give us a lovely but pointless cameo for Wil Wheaton as Wesley). Soji and Briones get ditched along with the rest of the PIC cast except Seven and Raffi.
And so instead of Star Trek: Picard, we're getting Star Trek: The Next Generation Season Eight. Which... I'm not opposed to bringing the TNG cast aboard, but I would much have preferred to see them integrated with the PIC cast. How lovely it would have been to see Geordi get to know his niece Soji! To see Will and Raffi bond as the only two people alive we know of who have been Jean-Luc's first officers! To see Worf bond with Elnor! To see Deanna maybe help Raffi get her shit together. To see Beverly get to know Jurati. To see Cris and Will get drunk together! What a missed opportunity.
And sure enough, "The Next Generation" symbolically affirms that Picard is abandoning its own unique identity, ditching the Picard theme song from Jeff Russo and the Picard main title graphics, and instead adopting The Wrath of Khan-style opening graphics, end title graphics in the style of The Next Generation, and adopting a combination of the First Contact and The Next Generation/The Motion Picture theme songs. (So I guess now the TMP theme song is has the honor of being the theme song for three Star Trek productions.) These decisions just really disappoint me.
But. Having said that, at a certain point, you do have to allow the premise and judge a work based on how well it executes that premise.
On that level...
Well, it's fine. It was really lovely to see Sir Patrick and Jonathan Frakes together -- they have wonderful chemistry and that chemistry really carries the episode. And it was great to see Gates McFadden back. I've felt, since doing a TNG rewatch while introducing my wife to Star Trek, that McFadden was absolutely wasted in TNG, just completely under-used as a compelling dramatic actor, so it's lovely to see her get to shine.
I'd really like to know why Dr. Crusher's son speaks with an English accent if she, American Midwestern-accented native of Luna and Caldos that she is, raised him.
I have trouble accepting that attempting to commandeer a Federation starship was a better option than hiring an armed civilian ship, but perhaps they were paranoid about the need for firepower.
The bit where Captain Shaw accuses Picard and Riker of being, basically, cowboys, was amusing, since Picard had such a reputation as a stern, by-the-books guy. But there again, he started doing a lot of things against the books after meeting Captain Kirk in Generations, so it's not unrealistic to imagine he would develop a new reputation.
Picard continues this annoying habit of calling ships "refits" for no good reason. Like, okay, we've got some backstory handwave from the mission logs released on Instagram, but -- just, why? Why not just say it's a new ship? Or, why not just use the original Titan design? It only debuted in canon a few years ago, and it's never had the spotlight in live action.
Why did it copy so much Wrath of Khan paratext like the opening graphics and "In the 25th Century....?" The Wrath of Khan is an entirely different set of characters. It strikes me as creatively arbitrary.
I'm intrigued at why Beverly would have cut off contact with the rest of the Enterprise crew with no explanation. I like the idea that they didn't all have happy endings, and I like giving Beverly more agency than Next Generation tended to give her.
All those Okudagrams gave me nice nostalgic vibes. Kudos to the art department for getting the band back together behind the scenes.
I wonder why Captain Shaw requires Seven to use her birth name? Perhaps she just never had it legally changed and he's using that as his justification. This might be a half-decent metaphor for respecting people's chosen names in this era of trans erasure and attempted transgender genocide.
I initially rolled my eyes at Raffi as a junkie because it's so common to see black people depicted as drug abusers. Thankfully she's not, and I don't mind seeing her struggle as long as she does not succumb.
I liked that, for once, the big giant terrorist attack against a Federation target does not happen on Earth. Other planets matter too! I was a little confused about whether the Starfleet facility that was hit was supposed to be on M'Talas Prime as well? Is M'Talas Prime a Federation world?
"M'Talas Prime." I see what you did there, Terry.
The bit with Geordi's daughter was cute. Please don't let her mom be Leah Brahams.
The idea that it's been 250 years since the founding of Starfleet does... not make sense. If this is counting from the founding of the United Earth Starfleet in the 2130s or 2140s (as implied by Star Trek: Enterprise), then the episode would need to be set in the 2380s or 2390s for it to be the 250th anniversary. If this is counting from the founding of the Federation Starfleet, it would need to be set in 2411 to be 250 years after 2161. I mean, I guess it's possible that S3 is set 10 years after S2, but it seems implausible. Maybe they really mean it's been 250 years since the launch of the United Earth starship Enterprise NX-01?
Captain Shaw is delightfully assholish.
I liked that the opening scene is designed to mirror the opening scene of "Remembrance" -- a nice tip of the hat to Picard's first episode and the style of Michael Chabon (who I really wished had stayed on for S2 and S3 if Picard was going to continue after its wonderful first season).
ETA:
Also, S3 now continues Picard's habit of introducing really major changes to the astro-political scene that would realistically have huge implications for the Federation's relations with other powers and its status on the galactic stage... and completely avoids talking about it. What happened after the Zhat Vash's role in the Mars Attacks were uncovered? Did the Free Romulan State turn over General Nedar or protect her? What happened to the new Consensual Borg under Queen Jurati? Are they still standing guard at that dimensional rift and doing nothing else? Have they been given a planet and joined the Federation as full Members? Are they sharing tech with the Feds? How do the Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, etc. feel about this new Borg Federation Member? Did the Coppelius Androids join the Federation? What's Soji up to? Oy!
And so instead of Star Trek: Picard, we're getting Star Trek: The Next Generation Season Eight. Which... I'm not opposed to bringing the TNG cast aboard, but I would much have preferred to see them integrated with the PIC cast. How lovely it would have been to see Geordi get to know his niece Soji! To see Will and Raffi bond as the only two people alive we know of who have been Jean-Luc's first officers! To see Worf bond with Elnor! To see Deanna maybe help Raffi get her shit together. To see Beverly get to know Jurati. To see Cris and Will get drunk together! What a missed opportunity.
And sure enough, "The Next Generation" symbolically affirms that Picard is abandoning its own unique identity, ditching the Picard theme song from Jeff Russo and the Picard main title graphics, and instead adopting The Wrath of Khan-style opening graphics, end title graphics in the style of The Next Generation, and adopting a combination of the First Contact and The Next Generation/The Motion Picture theme songs. (So I guess now the TMP theme song is has the honor of being the theme song for three Star Trek productions.) These decisions just really disappoint me.
But. Having said that, at a certain point, you do have to allow the premise and judge a work based on how well it executes that premise.
On that level...
Well, it's fine. It was really lovely to see Sir Patrick and Jonathan Frakes together -- they have wonderful chemistry and that chemistry really carries the episode. And it was great to see Gates McFadden back. I've felt, since doing a TNG rewatch while introducing my wife to Star Trek, that McFadden was absolutely wasted in TNG, just completely under-used as a compelling dramatic actor, so it's lovely to see her get to shine.
I'd really like to know why Dr. Crusher's son speaks with an English accent if she, American Midwestern-accented native of Luna and Caldos that she is, raised him.
I have trouble accepting that attempting to commandeer a Federation starship was a better option than hiring an armed civilian ship, but perhaps they were paranoid about the need for firepower.
The bit where Captain Shaw accuses Picard and Riker of being, basically, cowboys, was amusing, since Picard had such a reputation as a stern, by-the-books guy. But there again, he started doing a lot of things against the books after meeting Captain Kirk in Generations, so it's not unrealistic to imagine he would develop a new reputation.
Picard continues this annoying habit of calling ships "refits" for no good reason. Like, okay, we've got some backstory handwave from the mission logs released on Instagram, but -- just, why? Why not just say it's a new ship? Or, why not just use the original Titan design? It only debuted in canon a few years ago, and it's never had the spotlight in live action.
Why did it copy so much Wrath of Khan paratext like the opening graphics and "In the 25th Century....?" The Wrath of Khan is an entirely different set of characters. It strikes me as creatively arbitrary.
I'm intrigued at why Beverly would have cut off contact with the rest of the Enterprise crew with no explanation. I like the idea that they didn't all have happy endings, and I like giving Beverly more agency than Next Generation tended to give her.
All those Okudagrams gave me nice nostalgic vibes. Kudos to the art department for getting the band back together behind the scenes.
I wonder why Captain Shaw requires Seven to use her birth name? Perhaps she just never had it legally changed and he's using that as his justification. This might be a half-decent metaphor for respecting people's chosen names in this era of trans erasure and attempted transgender genocide.
I initially rolled my eyes at Raffi as a junkie because it's so common to see black people depicted as drug abusers. Thankfully she's not, and I don't mind seeing her struggle as long as she does not succumb.
I liked that, for once, the big giant terrorist attack against a Federation target does not happen on Earth. Other planets matter too! I was a little confused about whether the Starfleet facility that was hit was supposed to be on M'Talas Prime as well? Is M'Talas Prime a Federation world?
"M'Talas Prime." I see what you did there, Terry.
The bit with Geordi's daughter was cute. Please don't let her mom be Leah Brahams.
The idea that it's been 250 years since the founding of Starfleet does... not make sense. If this is counting from the founding of the United Earth Starfleet in the 2130s or 2140s (as implied by Star Trek: Enterprise), then the episode would need to be set in the 2380s or 2390s for it to be the 250th anniversary. If this is counting from the founding of the Federation Starfleet, it would need to be set in 2411 to be 250 years after 2161. I mean, I guess it's possible that S3 is set 10 years after S2, but it seems implausible. Maybe they really mean it's been 250 years since the launch of the United Earth starship Enterprise NX-01?
Captain Shaw is delightfully assholish.
I liked that the opening scene is designed to mirror the opening scene of "Remembrance" -- a nice tip of the hat to Picard's first episode and the style of Michael Chabon (who I really wished had stayed on for S2 and S3 if Picard was going to continue after its wonderful first season).
ETA:
Also, S3 now continues Picard's habit of introducing really major changes to the astro-political scene that would realistically have huge implications for the Federation's relations with other powers and its status on the galactic stage... and completely avoids talking about it. What happened after the Zhat Vash's role in the Mars Attacks were uncovered? Did the Free Romulan State turn over General Nedar or protect her? What happened to the new Consensual Borg under Queen Jurati? Are they still standing guard at that dimensional rift and doing nothing else? Have they been given a planet and joined the Federation as full Members? Are they sharing tech with the Feds? How do the Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, etc. feel about this new Borg Federation Member? Did the Coppelius Androids join the Federation? What's Soji up to? Oy!
I think you are being too harsh. Bev was clearly acting in self-defense to protect herself and her son against hostile aliens boarding her ship. Doctors are allowed to use force in self-defense. The Hippocratic oath is about doing no harm to patients, I don't think it applies to self-defense.
And we've had plenty of times in every single Star Trek series since TOS where the characters had to shoot back in self-defense when being attacked by hostile aliens. That is perfectly in line with Star Trek. To say it is not Star Trek is silly. Star Trek is not pacifism.
Beverly was fighting to protect herself and her son from injury or death. I'd point-blank vaporize hostile, armed aliens, too, if I and my child were having our ship boarded.
Perhaps that's because she never imagined that she'd be assigned to a starship with a Captain that obviously holds a great deal of disdain towards her.
Last edited:
Yup. If thry could fix the lighting and kill off Raffi I'll be pretty happy.
Canada (or at least Crave, the streaming service) is missing the 'In the 25th Century...' text
the CBS Studio production text is there and where the text should be there is several seconds of black screen and music.
the CBS Studio production text is there and where the text should be there is several seconds of black screen and music.
We're not. If it was TNG Season 8 it would be an serialized season with everyone. It's still episodic. Terry described it as a series of movies. Not every TNG character is in every episode.
Terry's favourite movies are the TOS ones.
Kirk kicks a guy to his death. Apparently, now a days, Kirk should have died with him.
It would be interesting to hear the conversation between the Admiral that assigned Seven to the Titan and Captain Shaw.
It really seems like she would not have been his first or even second choice.
Makes one wonder if the Admiral in question had a bit of a problem with Captain Shaw's attitude and was putting him on the spot.
It really seems like she would not have been his first or even second choice.
Makes one wonder if the Admiral in question had a bit of a problem with Captain Shaw's attitude and was putting him on the spot.
A
Amaris
Guest
It's on that reason I'm giving him a chance. Trauma's a bitch.
Sisko was a complete dick to Picard in the first episode of DS9 so I'm definitely willing to believe that Shaw isn't a complete loss as a person.
This season is definitely not just one year after the last season. It's probably 2 or 3. Riker was rounding off. As for Chabon. I am so thankful they dropped him. The first season was so bad. His characters thankfully only lasted 2 seasons. Too bad we still have Raffi thought. I hope her character dies this season. She is the worst starfleet officer we've seen in the TNG era.
A
Amaris
Guest
Yep, it's a "WWBSD?" moment.
The sections of Season 1 attributed to Chabon were pretty good, I think, and he didn't have any credit on the stinkiest of episodes. I think the problems with the season came from others, or perhaps his inexperience as a showrunner, rather than poor writing choices from him personally.
