Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 3x09 - "Võx"

[BBC 2 6pm]

I still think it would have been far more powerful and on-brand for Star Trek to have Vadic learn the full scope of the plan, and realise that the Borg were going to torture and disfigure the humans the way she was, and then do a turnaround and help the humans against the threat. Realise that she had become the bad guy.

 

[guyute03]

Still processing it but wow. 9. Tears during the last few minutes.

 

[Scionz]

Still processing it but wow. 9. Tears during the last few minutes.

Same. Water flowed. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

 

[thribs]

red eyes.


If it's been >4 years, he's probably an officer on another ship now

It’s been 3 months

 

[thribs]

Same. Water flowed. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Same hear, but only because it’s raining.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

For myself, the Borg Queen is software and what we see, the female form, is the hardware holding that software. If one queen dies, the software is transmitted to a new form and, viola, a new queen.

I don't think the Borg Queen is even that.

The Borg Queen is like a local Main Server, giving Job/Operations to

 

[Tuskin38]

If you look closely, the -D’s saucer still has some damage from the crash. Burn marks and such.

the framing of the shot was weird. I thought she was in the top dome, but she exited from the mid section of the station.

 

[Sci]

Okay, so, this whole idea of "Changelings join forces with the Borg to assimilate all of Starfleet" is... a bit over-the-top. Like, it's the kind of premise bad fanfics are built around.

But, this was a very well-executed version of that over-the-top premise.

It was really wonderful to see Elizabeth Dennehy and Alice Krige return.

Shaw's death was excellently-executed. His final words were an appropriate redemption.

The re-creation of the Enterprise-D was great.

The credits say they used Majel Barrett again as the computer voice!

Final note: This whole thing were the text of the story is literally, "All the young people get brainwashed by evil foreigners and only the Boomers can save us" is... not the kind of idea I would want to see people adopt in real life.

 

[CPT Baldwin]

I see no difference between this Picard and Seasons 1 and 2 Picard

You need to get your head checked immediately.

 

[Tuskin38]

You need to get your head checked immediately.

And you need to lay off the personal remarks.

 

[BBC 2 6pm]

Final note: This whole thing were the text of the story is literally, "All the young people get brainwashed by evil foreigners and only the Boomers can save us" is... not the kind of idea I would want to see people adopt in real life.

Evil foreigners using newfangled network technology, no less!

 

[NCC-73515]

That was great too

Comparisons are fun

 

[Tuskin38]

Final note: This whole thing were the text of the story is literally, "All the young people get brainwashed by evil foreigners and only the Boomers can save us" is... not the kind of idea I would want to see people adopt in real life.

I don’t think that was the intent.

 

[Sci]

Evil foreigners using newfangled network technology, no less!

Yep! There's a definite reactionary subtext to this, though I don't think Matalas and co. consciously intended that.

 

[BBC 2 6pm]

If you wanted to do a scifi allegory to get people suspicious of tiktok, you could do a lot worse than this.

 

[Sci]

I don’t think that was the intent.

I don't either. But subtext can occur without conscious intent on the part of the writer. Witness the famous assertion of John Milton that "he was of the Devil's party and didn't know it."

 

[Tuskin38]

The Borg have always been something about too much technology

 

[Scionz]

I knew the Chabon > Matalas stuff but not how mixed up S2 was other than that it does not seem like the same show, regardless of the cast.
It is definitely 3>>2>>>>>>1. S3 of Picard also makes Disco seem worse to me. I mean I was happy Trek was on with it, and I watch every Season and prioritized it over early Picard when they both aired together.... But they had a crying kid cause the whole Galaxy to go into a dark age in Season 3 and then had the moronic idea to have their Chief Engineer act like a toddler when his hypothesis on what was happening in S4 was rendered incorrect when new evidence became available, i.e. they made the main science guy basically anti science.

SNW was much better than I expected it to be and really highlights how good the old format still is today. I would like to see them try another Matalas show, but I can't really see anything being as good as this using legacy characters. A continuation with Seven could work I suppose, but the 10 hour movie is so hard to get right and SNW is already doing the classic Trek style.

I have a pretty nuanced opinion of discovery. Much of the problems of that show boils down to the original circumstances of its creation. It was going to be an anthology show that would be a sequel to Undiscovered Country. Then it was shifted to be a pre-TOS show. Then it was decided to a full visual reboot / creative of Trek (which TNG more or less was in Season 1... think about what Trek was if just TOS, 4 movies and TAS are all that exists, then TNG comes along). And then they realized that wasn't working, and with a bunch of drama behind the scenes that led to massive creative turnover,started righting the ship in Season 2, and got it more and more right in 3 and 4 respectively. Discovery is a much better show now and really worth watching. I like it. But choices to characters and design and story made in Season 1 will be with it until its done. But would it have been any other way for the first Trek show since 2005? I think not. Discovery had less to go on than even TNG did (which had the work and sets of the 4 TOS movies behind it). It was the biggest Trek cold start ever. But it brought it back to us.

I think that if Discovery had started now, and Starfleet Academy was the 2017 series, Discovery would be roundly better appreciated and probably always set in the 32nd century. Even the look of USS Discovery doesn't makes no sense in the pre-TOS era, but makes every bit of sense in the future. Heck, my Season 1 thought was that it be a 2410s show. Klingon Empire recovers 40 years after the Dominion War, and it's back to basics as bloody conquerors as Martok failed. Little about Season 1 would have been different. Mostly the Sarek/Spock/Vulcan stuff. Everything - the uniforms, the spore drive, the advanced post-Nemesis look, would have made sense. Maybe even the new look Klingons if explained as genetic experimentation to be better warriors. Alas, it was not to be.

So I cut Discovery a lot of slack. It had a messy job but someone had to do it. There was no way it was gonna go smooth. And it made SNW season 1 far better because really, it was Season 2 for two of the three leads.Hopefully aspects of Discovery Season 5 do that for Starfleet Academy. If we're going to get 10 episode seasons / 5 season shows, the old Trek tradition of rough Seasons 1 and 2 will have to end.

 

[BBC 2 6pm]

The Borg have always been something about too much technology

Eh, I always thought of them as an allegory against Communism. But the "the young are particuarly vulnerable" thing is new.

 

[Scionz]

Final note: This whole thing were the text of the story is literally, "All the young people get brainwashed by evil foreigners and only the Boomers can save us" is... not the kind of idea I would want to see people adopt in real life.

THe entire thing is a contrivance to get the TNG crew together on the Enterprise D. I really wouldn't think that much about it. This is about the end of an era, not anything else.