Season 1 as a Whole

we need a new series where the romulans are the good guys and the usual mad starfleet admirals are fair game to their disruptors

 

Disruptor-fight at the OH-K coral.

 

I didn't like the ending really and I have a lot of criticisms for the show but overall, as a whole, I think CBS, Kurtzman, Chabon, all the writers, art design team, Stewart, the rest of the cast, and everyone involved, made something that had heart, evoked some passionate reactions from both sides of the "divide," and managed to bring people back to Star Trek.

I haven't really followed Star Trek since TNG ended. ENT didn't get me back, neither did DISC. The JJ Abrams reboot? Sure looked colorful but there wasn't anything that got made me want to go to the theater for it. But this brought me back.

The teaser trailer for PIC was really good. The intro is very elegant. The casting...some of the characters took some getting used to and Agnes...ugh, so annoying and cringey. But Alison Pil, Evagora, Briones, all of them were excellent casting choices, and brought their A-game to their roles.

I think the entire series ran into several cliche traps, but other times you I really appreciated the writing, even if I didn't agree with the direction of it. Take for example Riker and Troi's family. The whole thing about Thad creating his own language and made-up world because he was born on a starship and wanted to be from a homeworld...that was some excellent writing in my opinion, done beautifully. I'll have to check out Kavalier & Clay.
Marina Sirtis really got to shine here, so much more than in the TNG films, and she got to show off more range than she did in the TV series.
The action for the most part was so-so, but they got it perfect in the escape-from-the-Borg-cube episode. Acting, set design, music...like a all the ingredients coming together for the perfect recipe.
And me personally, I would have ignored NEM. And yet, they refused to ignore what's considered a lesser-ST film and tied it well into this series, complete with "Blue Skies" theme.
The little nod to TOS with the synths being painted with gold flaked skin? What you did, I see it.

*raises a glass*
Congrats on bringing me back to Star Trek! Thanks for the fun ride!

Oh yeah, for anyone who hasn't seen this. (and that smile at :45)

 

Here's my review.

http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2020/04/star-trek-picard-season-one-review.html

Summary: Overall, I think this worked better than either of the Discovery season but I'm not a hater on either of those. I think the show is STILL a bit overproduced with too many special effects and pew pew like the Abrams movies and, well, Discovery but the show struck a better balance with characterization vs. plot. I don't think it commented nearly as much on immigration and fear of the Other as it thought it did but I overall liked it. Really, the biggest surprise for me is the fact I was as much in love with Ryan's update as Captain Picard's and would have happily followed a series with her as well. The feeling was a bit "off" though as a ragtag band of misfits on a small starship felt more Firefly or even Star Wars than Trek.

Freecloud was like, "Wait, why are we on Canto Bight?"

 

What the heck would you call Baran's crew, Okanna, Cyrano Jones, or DS9? Ragtag crews are a part of Trek too.

To make it more awesome.

 

Deep Space Nine is still Starfleet, though the closest.

 

My point stands. We have seen frontier style, ragtag, establishments and crews. The bar that Picard meets Ro on, Baran's crew, even Nimbus 3.

Not a new concept.

 

There's a small thread that recently popped up about this. The Return to Tomorrow idea was also brought up there. Others say that it was probably a flub. If it was an actual mistake, I can imagine the naysayers having a field day with this one.

True, I found the plot around the A.I planet and mythology very convoluted, to the point where I could barely figure it out. I think it was overdone, almost in the same way some think Voyager over exposed the Borg.

Just the things with Soji and Dahj, the Mars Synths, the Federation seeming to change, and the regular characters would have been good enough and entertaining enough.

Especially the Mars Synths. They were really creepy.

Well, since at the end in the finale, we saw them all together flying off in the same ship.....does this mean next season they're now going to travel the galaxy solving groovy space mysteries???

 

Season 2 Jurati gets mindmelded again and does another murder on the crew. It can happen once per season

 

I disagree because while they've been supporting characters, they've never been the focus. It's like having a Klingon centric show.

Like Spider-Man 3, "I had a reason to kill someone you knew and loved!"

"Oh, then I forgive you. Go and be free with no consequences for your murder!"

 

That doesn't make less Star Trek, to my mind. Personally I would welcome a Klingon centric show.

For my money, Star Trek is a very flexible storytelling platform and can accommodate many different story types within it.

 

Briefly: I gave it a 1/10. I tried to like it but can't. It's been deleted from my PVR and recording schedule and I won't be watching next season.

 

May I ask what you didn't like?

 

You may ask, but since I'm not willing to get into a flamewar over this (it's what usually happens every time I say I didn't like one of the post-Voyager movies or TV shows), just assume I didn't like any of it but kept watching in hopes it would improve.

In my opinion it didn't, so that's why I'm out.

 

After watching the entire season in one sitting yesterday, I have to say that it plays better as one long movie. Not to say that it was worse week by week, but watching in one long stream there's little time to second guess characters' decisions. Much like real life.

I enjoyed it and will probably go back to rewatch Nemesis ...

After I finish watching Insurrection again.

 

i really loved star trek: picard, but i keep thinking that it bums me out how mopey the show was. every character hits their low point in season one and that just doesn't have the same dramatic weight if you refuse to show them enjoy some highs occasionally too. did we really need every single one of these characters pushed to the edge? wasn't picard's existential crisis enough to carry the season?

it's a lot like discovery's dour first season... the producers realized that it was too emo and dialed it back for season two and yet they didn't apply those lessons to picard. baffling.

 

I think it's more a case of that's the starting point they were locked into. The last things we know of that happened in the 24th Century were that Data died and Romulus was destroyed. Add to that Picard's getting up there in age, so they wanted to pick up on that plot point from "All Good Things" that Picard had a brain condition. And they wanted to make a show that spoke to Today and, frankly, things aren't so good Today. When you put that all together, there's no way that's not all a recipe for "emo".

 

right there was no way the show wasn't going to have a strain of melancholy to it. i mean the series opens with picard admitting he was just waiting to die. powerful stuff and totally realistic and appropriate after what we saw in nemesis. but the supporting characters mostly just dragged the show down in a way they didn't need to. agnes could've been a ray of light, but she went and murdered bruce. raffi could've been a steady rock for picard, but she was also briefly a hopeless alcoholic. rios could've been the mysterious rogue, but the show had to go and tell us way more about his psyche than it needed to. and of course all of these people are broken by the same thing, which just makes them tools for advancing the plot, not real characters.

all that said, i love picard, i do love the characters, it's just despite all the shit they were put through, not because of it, like a natural character arc would allow.

 

I don't think its emo. I think it is just exploring those difficult emotions and how each person manages it.

I personally love the characters in spite of the shit they go through-which pretty much describes much of my work in RL.