Spoilers Star Trek: Picard General Discussion Thread

Just using them as examples there are many other Trek episodes that have absolutely nothing to do with Trekking through the stars. Be it time travel stories, to episodes onboard the ship that are utterly not connected to trekking through the stars (like The Drumhead), to episodes like Family.

Now using Voyage Home as an example, its one story and its the only story we are getting for nearly 2 years, and its primary setting is the past. At least now with serialized story telling, if we have. story that is primarily set at one place (in this case the past), we still have access to new Trek that offers the chance of material in a different setting. I would be more bothered if the shows overall concept was a time travel adventure that lasted for almost the entire run of the show.....

 

That is an astonishing way to misrepresent my argument.
We are talking about at least 7 episodes in a 10-episode Star Trek season that takes place in 2024 (+2 years is effectively present-day, The near-future setting adds to the dullness of the season).

We are not talking about a double episode or 2/3 of the screen time a two-hour movie.

In episodes one and two the most part of the plot takes place on earth. We have 10-15 minutes of screentime that takes place outside of the solar system and 15-20 minutes of screentime in space.

We are stuck on Earth, mostly in 2024, for the most part of the season.
Not on an alien planet, not a single episode, not a double episode, not x time out of a single movie, for an entire season of a STAR TREK show.

 

It's almost like people want different things from an entire season of TV than a single episode or movie...

This is not to say that I agree with Char Kais on...much of anything.

 

Yes, the majority of one 10 episode season is spent on Earth in 2024. So?

Regardless of how many episodes it is, many great Star Trek stories are told time traveling contemporaneous to the time the episode was produced. And yes, a season long story arc is how some of Trek is told these days.

While certainly not all of them have aired, we also have something like 45 other episodes of Star Trek airing in 2022 where we probably aren’t stuck in present day. There are stories here from the 23rd, 24th, 25th and 32nd centuries, telling tales from Earth to the Delta Quadrant to beyond our own galaxy.

But you choose to whine and moan not only seven episodes out of over fifty but everything else these shows do. You don’t like what these series are doing right now. I’m sorry. I really am. But some of us do. Maybe find something you do enjoy as opposed to trying to sap the joy out of this for everyone else.

 

The writers seem to have gotten out in front of the fact that the third season is back to spaceships and such at least in part to dissuade folks from commiserating that the second season is so grounded, but let’s avoid discussing that entirely, I guess.

 

Oh, there’ll be whining about that too I’m sure.

 

I think the effort that went into designing and building the Stargazer sets, was because they knew they would need them mostly for season 3

 

People do have a sense of what generally makes for good storytelling.

Many of us Star Trek fans are not apologists.

 

Wow. Okay.

I have no issues with people being critical of Star Trek. I have my own criticisms about much of Star Trek but choose to focus on the things I enjoy. I mean, let’s be fair, out of 836 episodes and 13 movies, we all have our own opinions about what’s good and what’s bad. Some might overlap, but at the end of the day, I am not suggesting someone can’t love a certain episode Star Trek and hate another. Or series. Or movie. Or whatever.

What I do find issue with is those who will go out of their way to find every iota of evidence that something is failing because THEY don’t like it. It gets old. A certain poster HAS GONE OUT OF HIS WAY here and elsewhere to constantly nitpick everything because it doesn’t conform to THEIR standards. I don’t understand hate watching. I don’t understand trying to tear something down other people enjoy just because you don’t. That’s my issue with this poster. I could give a fuck if he just said, “Yeah, didn’t like this. Don’t like the direction it’s going.” Hell, @BillJ hates just about everything from CBS Trek. Hell, I agree with him on some of his issues. And at the end of the day, he and I are cool.

And for fuck’s sake, it’s not “being an apologist” if you can find joy in something. Even if you don’t find it perfect.

 

Ugh, this is taking me back 10-15 years ago, with similarly lazy complaints by "old guard" fandom aimed at NuWho when it was still actually new, when it spent a lot of time around Cardiff pretending to be London.

 

Discovery is in its 5th season, Picard is in its 2nd, the same people who hate those shows are already tearing down the trailer for SNW. That's fine, but if you don't like 7 seasons of live action modern Trek then you don't like it and isn't it best to move on by now (not talking to you specifically since I don't know what you do and don't like, but I'm referring to the many voices who complain about all "Nu trek." ) It's ok to not like a show. It's ok to not like an iteration of a franchise. It's ok to not watch a show you don't like. It's weird to watch a show you hate for years and then constantly complain about and nitpick it...to the point of harassing and insulting its fans, producers, writers, and actors on social media, to the point of creating and posting screenshots of a show you supposedly hate so much, to the point of making up that people have gotten fired, or making up that the show is a failure. It's like an obsession with something they supposedly hate but can't get over. It's weird.

 

I agree it's a good thing to find balance in the things we let into our lives because they will not always favourably surprise us.

Yes, it is annoying when people sometimes nitpick seemingly for no other reason than to be contrary. Or they can't let go.

My apologist comparison is for those, hopefully in the minority, who ignore flaws and assume others must do the same. It's a fear-based attitude.

I feel criticism is another thing needing balance.

 

Yeah. It is creepy. I stopped watching The Walking Dead after Season 1 and no one hears me complain about how I lost interest. Who cares anyway?

For me, the problem with some of current day Trek is the nostalgia factor. But it's also a belief that if the showrunners could find a balance between episodic and serialized shows, like DS9, Enterprise, and to a lesser extent Voyager, did they'd be in a better place. But, hey, it's the way of TV these days, and I don't have to watch it if I really don't like it.

I try to make sure my critical thinking isn't unbalanced. Obviously there is stuff I dig about, say, Discovery, and if there wasn't I'm not foolish enough to keep wasting my time. There's oodles of stuff out there just waiting for my imagination to merge with.

 

^ TrekBBS is a minefield for anyone whose opinion is "in the middle" or is critical but isn't some Total Basher. It's always been this way. That's why I mostly stayed out of the ENT and Kelvin Forums. It's also why I don't post in the LD or SNW Forums.

Luckily for me, DSC and PIC are shows where I'm not "in the middle", so talking about them here on TrekBBS works for me. With these two shows, I've been able to work with the way this board works instead of against it.

 

Okay, maybe not cool.

 

We never did find out what happened to the Ent-D saucer section, did we?

 

I think my issue with the current approach is that the season-long single stories just don't seem to be WORTH it. 10-13 episode arcs, but when you boil down what happened, did it really have to be that long? Did they bother to tell an epic story, or just fluff it out with stuff to make it last 10 hours? Benefit of the episodic format is that you have to tell a complete story in the hour you have. The way they are using the serialized format, they've let things breath so much that it's all just hot air at the end. I'm not hating it, but can't say I love all of it, and certainly get to the end of some seasons with a feeling of "huh, that's it?" Which isn't what you want when you're paying for a subscription service to watch and devote the time to it. Plenty of heavily-serialized shows work magic, but Discovery and Picard haven't really been finding that same groove.

 

Hence my theory Star Trek isn't a franchise you can completely serialize.

 

Nor should you completely serialize it.