So...you only watched season 1, right?
Spoilers STAR TREK: SECTION 31 - Grading & Discussion
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
Can we not? I’m sure in your mind this is just a harmless jest, but in the future, let’s leave politics-related stuff out of this. Thank you.
No. I watch pretty much all live trek. So I watched it all unfortunately. The thousand year jump was badly done.
It surprises me that joyless can be applied to season 2 onwards. I mean I cant but feel joy at every scene Tig Notaro is in for one.
Thanks for the honest response.
The thing that gets me is seeing folks label S3 as “it’s TNG S8”, which is absolutely bizarre. If that is ONLY because we go cast reunion and that the D appeared in two episodes, ok I guess? But S3 is very much in line with the first two seasons tonally, aesthetically, structurally. All the problems that plagued the first two seasons are still very present.
But just the fact that the show in its last two episodes bothered to feature a reunion of an old cast and the D, seemed to be enough for some to hand wave everything else that normally would have pissed them off.
I wasn’t really one of those fans that got upset over Icheb’s death because I never cared for him and frankly always resented his presence in VOY. However, I thought they did Shelby dirty in S3, but was surprised to not see much outrage over her treatment by those who screamed about the first two seasons. I guess the reunion was really enough!
My recollection is that season 3 won a lot of people over because it did a much better job of building to a resolution, which was especially welcome after season 2. The first two seasons came out of the gate really strong and promised a much better story than we eventually got, while season 3's arcs started weaker and led to satisfying payoffs. Also we got some Star Trek stuff on a familiar looking spaceship, which doesn't hurt.
Personally my reaction to Shelby's cameo was to think "Oh, of course that's what this show would do," roll my eyes, and move on. It'd been almost 30 episodes by that point, everyone knew what the series was like, so any outrage I had at the start would've long faded to resignation and disappointment.
Personally my reaction to Shelby's cameo was to think "Oh, of course that's what this show would do," roll my eyes, and move on. It'd been almost 30 episodes by that point, everyone knew what the series was like, so any outrage I had at the start would've long faded to resignation and disappointment.
Regarding Shelby in PICARD season 3...
I can't speak for anyone else, but personally, I see her getting killed be kind of poetic justice because she allowed the whole program of all Starfleet ships being linked... which is pretty much what the Borg do. She SHOULD have seen something like this coming. Maybe not the Borg part, but something bad. And because of that, a LOT of Starfleet officers were killed.
I can't speak for anyone else, but personally, I see her getting killed be kind of poetic justice because she allowed the whole program of all Starfleet ships being linked... which is pretty much what the Borg do. She SHOULD have seen something like this coming. Maybe not the Borg part, but something bad. And because of that, a LOT of Starfleet officers were killed.
Oh i had problems with season 3. Picard and Beverly ready to murder a changeling in cold blood really bothered me. Other issues as well.
Making a character we know and like do something bad enough off-screen to deserve being killed for poetic justice isn't much consolation, in my opinion. I know that if Janice Rand had turned out to be part of the conspiracy in Star Trek 6 I wouldn't have liked that either.
That might be why our opinions differ about Shelby... I didn't really like her.
It covers a multitude of sins.
Wait, we're supposed to like Shelby?
I disagree.
And the reason why is because I think Picard season 3 is different in that the serialized Borg-Changeling stuff is not what that season is really about. The reunion of the old cast IS the point of season 3. The Borg-Changeling conspiracy is only the means to the end of forcing the cast back together. It's about them realizing what they've lost and the worth of their relationship together. Season 3 is composed of multiple character arcs for each of the TNG characters that's incidental to the main serialized story. (e.g., Riker realizing he's been hiding from his trauma, Riker and Troi realizing how their son's death has affected them, bringing back Data in a different way, etc.)
To me, Picard season 3 is thematically similar to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and all of the complaints about the Borg matter just as much as the gaps left in the movie. That movie is not about cylindrical alien probes or humpback whales. That's only the macguffin that allows the story to explores Spock's reacclimation with his friends and humanity, as well as showing how the crew of the original Enterprise are more than friends. They're a family that stands together, both in saving the world, and defending each other.
At the end of that movie, we don't know who sent the probe. We don't know why the probe wanted to talk with humpback whales. Hell, we don't even know what George and Gracie said to the probe to get it to stop. And it doesn't matter. Because that's not what the movie is about. It's about building towards the crew on the bridge of the Enterprise-A and feeling like all is right in the universe because these people deserve to be there together.
The Borg-Changeling plot serves the same purpose as the probe in Voyage Home. It's the event that spurs these characters to come together for a singular purpose, through which we see different ways in which they've changed, and it builds to them standing on the bridge of their old home realizing their old roles and what each of them mean to each other.
And the main difference between Picard season 3 and Discovery is that you can point to multiple character arcs that occur in that season beyond just Picard. Pick a season of Discovery where a character beyond Michael has a satisfying character arc, where you feel like they've grown and went to a recognizably different place than where they started and changed. There's not that much to choose from.
For me it was more Ro Laren. She just shows up and is a member of Starfleet again and dies. Michelle Forbes gave a great performance but for something they give such weight to in the episode it just didn't feel like there enough time to really sit with it.
She would have actually been a good character for a Section 31 thing I think, I can totally see them getting up to shenanigans with former Maquis in the Dominion War era.
Totally agree. Each tng chatacter got their own arc. All very satisfying. STD always only focused mostly on michael and it got boring. Heck they even managed to squeeze Tuvok in the season and give us insight into what hes been up to and to help his old friend seven make the choice to stay with starfleet. Nicely done.
It's supposed to be a poetic end for her entire character arc starting in TNG. She was someone rushing to the top without care for who gets shoved aside, telling Riker that "he's in her way" and that Riker "plays it safe". Riker gave her a tough lecture in that turbolift scene that she's not supposed to take shortcuts (going around him for example in BOBW) and not let her ambition override the safety of others.
While there was hope that she took the lesson to heart, she obviously didn't and while she got to the top spot she lusted for so desperately (was a Fleet Admiral in Picard while Riker's still a captain) she continued to disregard others' concerns (La Forge mentioned he and others were protesting linking the fleet on Frontier Day) and ended up getting herself and a bunch of others killed.
Something completely minor, but they used the TNG style warp flash effect, which I don't think any of the new shows have used except for Lower Decks (maybe Picard S3? I don't recall)
the warp sequence when they're heading towards the ion storm also has white star streaks outside the view screen, not the warp tunnels other live action shows used
the warp sequence when they're heading towards the ion storm also has white star streaks outside the view screen, not the warp tunnels other live action shows used
Last edited:
Saru, Stamets, Culber and Detmer do.
And Season 3 still had a previously unknown relatives in Jack, a criminal, and a mystery box that needs to be understood at the end of the season to save the Federation.
For a movie getting such a lambasting, it's still delivering on many levels. There were some good people involved in this project. I don't think I've ever seen a TOS phaser in the Kurtzman era, for example, save Jack's hybrid weapon.
