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Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 3x02 - "Disengage"

Engage!


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Is it me or if Todd stashwick actually played the villain in the demeanor he plays Shaw it would have made a more compelling character/bad guy than Vadic?

Vadic is one dimensional as anything. Every villain in trek has a conflict of good/evil, she just looks like and sounds like a panto villain.


There hasn't been a compelling Villain in any of the nu trek shows/movies at all. Even Shinzon and Ruafo were light years ahead of what we have now

I'm not ready to write Vadic off yet, however, Stashwick as the big bad this season would've been nice to see. I don't know much about Plummer's resume, but I did love her father in Star Trek VI so I'm willing to see where they take the character. Upthread someone said she seems to be having fun, or rather Vadic is and that's not bad I guess. I'm just not getting much menace. I know it's early, and we haven't gotten Vadic's backstory, but I wish the character was Romulan. I don't know why Kurtzman Trek got rid of Romulus, but so far are dancing around creating a great Romulan villain for ST: Picard. The closest we've got was Oh and the Wonder Twins in Season 1. Though truthfully, I thought the Romulan warlord in the No Man's Land audio drama was better, and I think if they had fleshed him out more, Stashwick would've done very well playing that character. Heck, they could've made him the ancestor from the character he played on ENT.
 
Oh.... God. The scenery is not going to survive this woman's acting. On wonder everything is so dark!

And of course the TWK viewer activation chirp to start her bit.

This... Is... A... LOT to take.

Wait... "Jack Crusher" is an "inter-galactic" criminal? Unm... Star Trek? Meet me at Camera 3...
 
I know it's early, and we haven't gotten Vadic's backstory,
Pretty sure she was mentioning something about "ashes of the Federation" in the trailer, which are far more massively grandiose goals and hints to a far greater grievance than the simply overkill style mercenary she presented herself as in this episode. So I admit that surprised me a bit as I was expecting someone different from the trailers (which might still be revealed further down the line in future episodes)
 
Um, well, it was destroyed in a movie? Should they time travel to save it?

The issue isn't destroying Romulus (though ST: Picard didn't have to stick with that), but more so not really exploring the ramifications of what the destruction of Romulus portends for the entire quadrant. We've gotten snippets of it, but they've just been edging around the margins for the most part. I would like to see more exploration of that and how it affects the other powers. Yet, Season 1 felt content to go with the tired renegade robot Synth storyline, and then Season 2 went with a time travel/save the future story, and now Season 3 seems to be another attempt at a Wrath of Khan villain driven by vengeance story. To be fair, ST: Picard when it's all said and done will like thirty episodes total, whereas TNG twenty plus episodes a season and could've properly given more depth to such things. But they don't even do it much in the comics (can't speak on all the novels, because I've only read Last Best Hope and Dark Veil, and the worldbuilding there was constrained). I'm hoping that once Season 3 is done, we will get more worldbuilding (outside of this season) in a spin off series or in more ST: PIC books, comics, and audio dramas.

I would be fine too with them trying to go back in time to save Romulus as well. It might be similar to the second season, but that wouldn't bother me.
 
This 'nebula jamming our sensors' is also ripped out of Wrath of Khan. Furthermore, I don't recall sensor jamming nebulas even being mentioned in Shaw's denial in the season premiere.

Honestly if he said something like "The Ryton system's right next to a sensor jamming nebula, and if some of your old enemies show up trying to hunt you down (which they seem to do every other week going by you boys' reputations) we would be defenseless." That'd actually make more sense and make Shaw look better than those rather forced lines about ex-Borg.

There's another line about help being "days away" yet they literally took off from Earth spacedock. So Shaw spent days not knowing where his own ship was going and only found out when it was literally already at the Ryton system?
 
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This is not a complaint, it's really not, but what direction did they give Amanda Plummer and why was it "pretend you're Jared Leto as The Joker"? I mean, Star Trek has never done the Joker before, so it's definitely something new.
 
Am I the only one who liked Vadic?

She's brilliantly bonkers. Like a psychotic grandma. Not sure if she there to bake cookies for everyone or blow them to bits.
I'll wait to see more, plus hear her motivation or beef with the Federation or Jack in particular.

To this point, she's a mustache-twirler just like her dad ;)
 
The issue isn't destroying Romulus (though ST: Picard didn't have to stick with that), but more so not really exploring the ramifications of what the destruction of Romulus portends for the entire quadrant. We've gotten snippets of it, but they've just been edging around the margins for the most part. I would like to see more exploration of that and how it affects the other powers. Yet, Season 1 felt content to go with the tired renegade robot Synth storyline, and then Season 2 went with a time travel/save the future story, and now Season 3 seems to be another attempt at a Wrath of Khan villain driven by vengeance story. To be fair, ST: Picard when it's all said and done will like thirty episodes total, whereas TNG twenty plus episodes a season and could've properly given more depth to such things. But they don't even do it much in the comics (can't speak on all the novels, because I've only read Last Best Hope and Dark Veil, and the worldbuilding there was constrained). I'm hoping that once Season 3 is done, we will get more worldbuilding (outside of this season) in a spin off series or in more ST: PIC books, comics, and audio dramas.
The problem with the tie in fiction is they're liable to have it contradicted within a year of publication. So I can see why they'd want to wait for the dust to settle. It would be great to see Romulan geopolitics explored. Season 1 was strangely super expansive in its scope, but claustrophobic in its execution.

This is not a complaint, it's really not, but what direction did they give Amanda Plummer and why was it "pretend you're Jared Leto as The Joker"? I mean, Star Trek has never done the Joker before, so it's definitely something new.
Liam Shaw came across as fairly genre savvy in this episode, so that's a great potential for two characters to play off that trope.
 
The problem with the tie in fiction is they're liable to have it contradicted within a year of publication. .
My favorite is how the Picard Countdown comic for Season 1 stated that Zhaban and Laris met and fell in love while on a mission, then next year in Season 2 Laris said they were promised to each other at birth.
 
The issue isn't destroying Romulus (though ST: Picard didn't have to stick with that), but more so not really exploring the ramifications of what the destruction of Romulus portends for the entire quadrant.
Well, your initial post asked "Why did Kurtzman Trek get rid of Romulus?" so I am afraid I don't follow entirely.

However, yes, I do welcome exploring the fallout of the destruction of Romulus in the future, even if not in this show.
Am I the only one who liked Vadic?
Nope.
 
I also like Captain Vadic.
Her hamminess and forced name drops don't even make sense for her in-universe though. Starfleet would have no idea they had a security breach if she had kept her mouth shut about Shaw's psych profile, etc. Now they know, thanks to her.
 
The very first time we saw them, Sloan was all over Bashir about being a Dominion spy, so it's not like they're unaware of the concept of "counter-espionage."

That's only because Sloan was trying to recruit Bashir. That's the only time Section 31 really even cares about normal Federation citizens - those they want to recruit.
 
Loved the episode, but I do have a serious complaint regarding the color correction… the contrast and dark levels are off the chart, it makes no sense, especially with Matalas making genuine efforts to achieve the tone of Trek… sometimes it felt as if the color correction effects were mistakenly re-applied, doubling their levels… I really hope this is changed for a future blu ray release…

Yeah, something was wrong with the colors. The blacks were crushed and the saturation was too strong. Must have been a technical mistake on P+. Last episode was better (althought still dark).
 
OMFG, I realize that I run the risk of making myself sound unhinged any time I rant about how much I can't stand the huge, distracting "skip" button that Paramount+ insists on slapping over the intros of all their shows, but it feels especially absurd that someone felt the need to do so for Picard’s intro, which is only like five freaking seconds long now. Are people’s attention spans really that bad that they need to be given the option to skip a five second section, or is the person in charge of that button just trying to justify their continued employment? Well, that makes me grateful that Picard's producers are apparently leaving the sequence that seems like it would ordinarily be the opening credits at the end of the episodes this season.

The predicament that the Titan finds itself in reminded me of the episode "Prey," in which a member of Species 8472 is on board Voyager and the Hirogen threaten to blow up the ship if Janeway doesn't hand it over. Honestly, this may be an unpopular opinion, but given that Janeway obviously didn't have any plan for saving the lives of her crew, I've always felt like Seven made the right call in disobeying her and beaming the alien over to the Hirogen. The needs of the many and so forth. The situation felt less cut and dried in this episode, but even though I don't like Shaw and giving up Crusher would certainly have been a dick move, I can't 100% blame him for being tempted to do just that.

Prior to this episode, I don't think we've ever seen a Ferengi with stubble before. I'd assumed that they were incapable of growing hair anywhere above the neck, besides their ears... unless the most beard growth they can manage is a 5 o'clock shadow. At least Sneed looked way more like a proper Ferengi than the redesigned ones in Discovery.
 
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