How did it fail? He's been thrown in to a multitude of stressors. Even the most stable system can be overwhelmed by too many things at once.
Am I the Only One Who Desperately Craves a Captain Shaw Series?
- Thread starter aeverett
- Start date
I have been wanting this for awhile. Add Picard and Beverly's son to the cast and Worf and you got 4 characters to build a really cool series around. Plus a couple of new characters and your bridge crew types like Geordi's daughter.
He's had like two outbursts. One in private, and the other on the eve of thinking everyone was going to die while on heavy medication. The second he learned Jack Crusher was Picard's son, he switched gears and deferred to Picard's authority. Same when Picard and Riker executed their plan to escape the nebula. Professionalism, especially in the face of trauma and extreme stress, is not an absolute. But hey, Shaw's at least trying.
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It might help to escape her father's shadow if she wasn't constantly reminding everyone at every available opportunity who her father is.
I'd love to see Todd Stashwick do a podcast, in character as Shaw, reacting to various TNG episodes.
"What the hell is Picard even DOING here?"
Seriously I'd pay good many to subscribe to this. TST3K vibes. However, why stop at TNG? Discovery, TOS, DS9, and Voyager would also work with this idea. Start with TNG as he comes from Picard, but then expand out.
That doesn't matter, apparently. Shaw's undiagnosed / well hidden / untreated / whatever PTSD / trauma can flare up at any moment - even 30-plus years later - and Picard, despite being in no way, shape or form responsible for Locutus' actions, just has to stand there and cop it.
The fact Shaw apparently requested Seven - another ex-Borg - as his first officer makes the whole thing even more ridiculous. But anyway. Shaw's PTSD / trauma apparently overrides everything else. The mileage of others varies a great deal in this matter.
I feel like Shaw's animosity towards Picard for what happened at Wolf 359 is way overblown by people. Again, it happened twice. Once in a private dinner, and again on the verge of thinking everyone was gonna die. Both times Shaw was either drinking or on pain meds, so if anything, he needs to steer clear of drugs. His biggest hangup with Picard is his reckless endangerment of Shaw's ship and crew. Picard wouldn't have stood for it in his prime, neither Kirk or Sisko if someone came onboard with a secret agenda of their own that nearly destroyed their ships.
Yeah, Shaw is uptight and doesn't want to take risks. People like that exist in life, and dare I say needed, even when exploring space. Between the Borg and Dominion War, Shaw's content to run standard missions, a reprieve from the hell he, and many in Starfleet, have gone through.
If Shaw did get his own show, or became a Lorca-like secondary lead, then I'd expect him being tested with more adventurous missions, and dealing with his PTSD through Seven of Nine would be a major part of it. Character evolution, it's fun.
Yeah, Shaw is uptight and doesn't want to take risks. People like that exist in life, and dare I say needed, even when exploring space. Between the Borg and Dominion War, Shaw's content to run standard missions, a reprieve from the hell he, and many in Starfleet, have gone through.
If Shaw did get his own show, or became a Lorca-like secondary lead, then I'd expect him being tested with more adventurous missions, and dealing with his PTSD through Seven of Nine would be a major part of it. Character evolution, it's fun.
I would like some sort of follow-up to Picard Season 3, but I'm more for a Seven of Nine Series. Shaw's just someone who'd come with the package. But that's really splitting hairs. So, for all intents and purposes, technically I'm all for a Captain Shaw Series. 
Replying to @Sketcher: Hence my saying the mileage of others varies a great deal. For me, holding Picard responsible for Locutus' actions - especially decades after the event - is absolutely absurd, and the fact Shaw's attained a captaincy despite clearly being in dire need of (quite a lot of) counselling is even more ridiculous. For others, it can be justified. Each to their own but I can't say I'd want to watch a series where he's the captain of a starship - Seven or no Seven.
Except the main bad guy tells us about it and that it's in his file - so it's not hidden at least. If it's untreated 35 years later then Starfleet is a more shoddy organisation that we thought.
I'd watch him as a lead - but an ensemble cast would be great. And it would be nice to have seven be his first officer - kirk and spock vibes. It would be great if they could do an episodic series combined with some kind of federation political shadow plot.
Exactly this. Unless the 24/25th centuries are curing or eliminating psychiatric symptoms (unlikely given Barclay's treatment) then triggers, especially under stressful circumstances can bring out trauma response, even post treatment.
Counseling is not a cure.
It's a pretty faithful scenario in terms of PTSD. Time doesn't exist for traumatic memories - they feel like they are happening right now when you are triggered. Shaw saw Picard and began to relive events.
But the point made about his file is that he's known to be triggered by it *anyway* regardless of the presence of Picard so you still end up in the same point - where Starfleet puts in charge people it thinks are incapable of fullfil their duties and had failed to help in any way.
I also don't like it as a general principle as it effectively reconceptualizes the future as the present in terms of mental health treatment and does not fit what we saw in the original TNG.
Just because his trauma is known to starfleet (I'm not sure why it wouldn't be...he acquired ptsd as a result of serving in starfleet) doesn't mean that they think he is incapable of fulfilling his duties. They obviously think he is capable or he wouldn't be in charge. Just because he got triggered in a ridiculously compound stressful situation doesn't mean he's not capable of fulfilling his duties.
How?
He literally was pushed in completely unpredictable situations when he was assigned a very basic milk run assignment for his ship.
Well put.
(To the OP)
You definitely aren't the only one craving a Shaw show, but I'm not one of them given my feelings about Shaw's mental unfitness for command. A show with Seven going forward would be okay, especially if we kept Laforgery and the Bajoran dude. I was never a Voyager fan, however, and Seven was never a character I latched onto, either.
But I'm not one to hope something doesn't happen just because I don't want it. Like Disco, if a show comes along that itsn't my thing, I can totally skip it without the hate-fest.
You definitely aren't the only one craving a Shaw show, but I'm not one of them given my feelings about Shaw's mental unfitness for command. A show with Seven going forward would be okay, especially if we kept Laforgery and the Bajoran dude. I was never a Voyager fan, however, and Seven was never a character I latched onto, either.
But I'm not one to hope something doesn't happen just because I don't want it. Like Disco, if a show comes along that itsn't my thing, I can totally skip it without the hate-fest.
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