Spoilers Is Picard season 2 a failure?

[MrPicard]

Jean-Luc literally asks Q if all this is because he’s of some kind of galactic importance and Q basically says “nah bro why can’t it simply be about you as a person for a change, I did all this for you because I want for you to be able to be happy, and I just sacrificed my last few bits of omnipotent power before I die to make you face what kept you from being happy in a relationship”.

But yeah sure, no love to see here at all. (This is “ah we just can’t comprehend things, we need to look for other explanations, stop reducing it to love one guy has for another guy” line of argument is exactly why I keep saying they should have added the kiss or at least the confession.)

 

[Lord Garth]

You're reducing what had been an interesting and complex relationship between a man and an entity far beyond our scope to comprehend to a banal romantic one that frankly never existed.

Q had a fascination with Humanity to be sure, with Picard set as the focal point of his interest. I always felt Q held some affection for Picard, but never the romantic sort.

That's bullshit. Re-watch Picard and Q in bed together in "Tapestry". Then tell me with a straight face that Q has no sort of even slight romantic interest in Picard. Or did you conveniently forget about that? Yes, I think you did.

Furthermore, "Q-pid", when Q noticed how much Vash managed to make Picard uncomfortable and realized that if Vash could get to Picard in such a manner then he thinks he should've maybe have originally presented himself to Picard as a woman. You probably forgot about that exchange too.

 

[Tosk]

Just because Q loves Picard, doesn't mean it's the kind of relationship where Picard would kiss Q. All in all, it's only because Q is dying that Picard even hugs him. JL is pretty forgiving about all the lives lost simply in the supposed pursuit of him forgiving himself.

 

[MrPicard]

Nobody is suggesting that Jean-Luc should kiss Q back passionately (this is precisely what I mean - such intricacies would not matter at all if Q was a woman, nobody would care about who kisses who and who kisses back, nothing would have to be defended - it's this double standard the writers of PIC had a wonderful opportunity to send a message against but chickened out from for whatever reason).

It's all about Q kissing Jean-Luc. Briefly. Not for ten minutes. Just briefly. I mean he's standing RIGHT THERE, holding Jean-Luc's face in his hands and gazing lovingly into his eyes. I can only say this again - if this had been a woman they would have had her kiss Jean-Luc without even a second thought. And let's not forget that Jean-Luc is sitting there on a chair. Nobody is holding him down or forcing him into anything. He could EASILY shrug out of Q's grasp and get up and say "what are you DOING, Q, no". But no, he sits there and gazes back into Q's eyes. That does NOT suggest that he's uncomfortable with what's happening in ANY way. TNG Jean-Luc might have shrugged him off on the basis of "stop being an omnipotent drama queen", but this isn't TNG Jean-Luc anymore. He's comfortable enough in Q's presence that he literally HUGS him a few minutes later AND helps him to make sure that he, Jean-Luc, is the last thing Q sees before he dies (Q literally fixes his gaze on him and him only before he snaps his fingers for the last time because Jean-Luc is all he wants to see in that moment... but yeah no love there whatsoever /s). If that doesn't tell at least SOMETHING about this entire relationship I don't know what would. Of course Jean-Luc is not madly in love with Q, nobody is suggesting that. But he IS able to accept and deal with Q's feelings - it's what the whole season was about, Jean-Luc learning to accept and deal with feelings, both his own and those someone else might have for him. It's pretty clear.

And yet apparently not clear enough, which is why I keep saying they should have put in the clear message they were sending in interviews and all (and this DOES matter, watching a show without acknowledging what the writers and producers who make the show wanted to express makes very little sense, "I don't care what the writers and producers wanted to say on the show they wrote and produced" is an extremely weird take) - Q loves Jean-Luc. It needed to be SAID. Otherwise people will just find a zillion reasons for why "those scenes are just bros being bros". And that's exactly what happened and keeps happening. Because, for some reason, love between two men needs to be explicitly stated and examined and put on a "is this love we just don't know" level, but love between a man and a woman is accepted at face value, all a female Q would have had to do was to look at Jean-Luc in the same way male!Q looks at him and people would have "shipped it like FedEx" or at least been like "oooooh there's sooooomething going ooooon theeeere". But as soon as it's two guys the whole pairing needs to jump through a zillion hoops and people need to be told DIRECTLY, and RIGHT THERE, in the scene, that Q loves Jean-Luc. And that's why I'm so disappointed that the PIC writers chickened out. They had the right idea, they were on the right track, and then... they just didn't follow through when it would have mattered the most.

And no I'm not saying this as a casual P/Q shipper, I'm saying this as a gay guy who is really tired of the whole double standard m/m stuff experiences and as a guy who thinks there was an excellent opportunity to send a message and the PIC writers just sank the boat right before it reached the harbor and now people are speculating if there ever even was a boat instead of realizing that the sinking of the boat is the real tragedy.

 

[Tosk]

Nobody is suggesting that Jean-Luc should kiss Q back passionately

You're right, nobody is.

And let's not forget that Jean-Luc is sitting there on a chair. Nobody is holding him down or forcing him into anything. He could EASILY shrug out of Q's grasp and get up and say "what are you DOING, Q, no"

Which (in my opinion) would go completely against the moment the show is trying to have. It wouldn't be a touching moment if Q kissed him and then Picard went all "Q, what the hell are you doing?!" about it. JL isn't about to accept a kiss from Q, and to show him either being kissed against his will or getting angry about it just destroys the fact that JL is allowing Q this moment despite everything he has ever done. And it's not about whether or not JL would kiss a man. It's about whether or not JL would kiss, accept a kiss, or allow a kiss from Q. In my opinion, he wouldn't. But I'm not writing him or acting him.

 

[Danja]

4) The NASA stuff. I wish there had been more focus on all this stuff, like a Star Trek version of For All Mankind. It felt like in the end Picard actually barely spent any time with his ancestor at all.

Had they gotten any closer, they risked altering the timeline needlessly.

It's important to practice good temporal hygiene.

1) Casting people from Season 1 in different roles.* I found it at best jarring and at worst... I'm not interested in seeing Brent Spiner play a C-List Bond villain. I know it's COVID stuff, but I wish they could have put some names into those roles. Charles Dance as the geneticist, or Kirby Howell-Baptiste as the time agent (just off the top of my head)...

It's almost become a running joke (Spiner plays ANOTHER Soong!)

Just because Q loves Picard, doesn't mean it's the kind of relationship where Picard would kiss Q.

Q knows better than to make a move on him

Picard would've slapped him.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

No matter what Picard's feelings may be out Q, surely "Kiss An Omnipotent Super-being" is a great thing for him to be able to say he'd done? It's a bucket-lister alright.

It's a fantastic basis for a pick-up line. "I've been kissed by a God".

 

[Mogh]

I admired the restraint in First Contact where Picard *didn't* get it on with Lily.

Sometimes, less is more.

The same is true here. The alternative sounds a bit slash fan fiction to me.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Got genuine affection from Q and Picard, but it was the kind of genuine affection one has for their cat. Q wanted his Jean-Luc Picat to be okay after he died.

 

[Brainsucker]

I'm curious on how we decide if a show is considered as a failure. Is it a failure just because it is not our cup of coffee of what?

But now I'm asking the very same as the OP, is season 2 a failure as a show, in term of viewer number?

 

[Tosk]

I'm curious on how we decide if a show is considered as a failure.

Any way you want it, that's the way you need it. Any way you want it.

 

[FederationHistorian]

I'm curious on how we decide if a show is considered as a failure. Is it a failure just because it is not our cup of coffee of what?

However you want – entertainment value, creative direction, viewership numbers, etc

At this point for me, PIC is trending in the Heroes direction, where only the first season was the only truly good season. And season two, while having some good elements to it, wasn’t as good although its production was affected by external circumstances that they had to work around.

But now I'm asking the very same as the OP, is season 2 a failure as a show, in term of viewer number?

Well, S3 hasn’t aired yet. And that will be an important marker in terms of viewership. Viewership will either increase or decrease after S2.

 

[Lord Garth]

I wasn't looking for a Picard/Q Ship but if they were going to go as far as they did in "Farewell", might as well go all the way. You don't stop at 96%.

Especially nowadays. It's not 19-whatever anymore, it's 2022. Go for it. No more excuses. Conservatives wouldn't like it, but they already don't like New Trek anyway, so no need to worry about how they'll react. "It went from woke to woker! SJWs!"

 

[MrPicard]

I wasn't looking for a Picard/Q Ship but if they were going to go as far as they did in "Farewell", might as well go all the way. You don't stop at 96%.

Especially nowadays. It's not 19-whatever anymore, it's 2022. Go for it. No more excuses. Conservatives wouldn't like it, but they already don't like New Trek anyway, so no need to worry about how they'll react. "It went from woke to woker! SJWs!"

Exactly my point. They drum up hype for like half a year or so before the season airs (which is fine as a general concept, they have to gather interest, of course they would use Q for it, but the way they acted they made it sound like some kind of mega big thing for the P/Q relationship) about "Q loving Picard" and then all they deliver is "you matter to me" (I will admit that it's a great and tender scene and well done, credit where credit is due, and Q holding Jean-Luc's face in his hands is more than TNG ever dared and I love it, but at the same time this also makes it only worse that they didn't follow through). AT LEAST make Q SAY it. If you don't have him kiss Jean-Luc, at least let Q say that he loves him. Where was the harm in THAT? The reactions in this topic prove my point exactly as to why Q being a LOT more direct was something that had to be done to bring the message across completely.

The fact that even a brief, one second kiss is apparently inconveicable or something (or did everyone imagine a ten second kiss with tongues? That's NOT what I'm talking about) really suggests that we have a long way to go regarding the acceptance of this kind of thing. Nobody is making "a move" on Jean-Luc. It's just a brief, short, one second kiss that would have concluded a long relationship between two characters where a certain tension had always been there. I know I keep repeating myself but if Q was a woman and had been a woman on TNG as well, people would have DEMANDED for a kiss to conclude things and would not be like "oh noooo, Q didn't have THAAAAAT kind of interest in Picaaaard".

And by the way, the TNG writers also said they wrote their Picard/Q scenes with the idea in mind that Q loves him. PIC took this concept and elaborated and concluded this. It's nothing PIC invented or made up "to be woke" or anything. It has always been right there, but TNG Jean-Luc was admittedly ill-equipped to really notice and TNG Q was too much of a drama queen and really went about it in a rather obnoxious way sometimes. And now in PIC they had this chance to finally talk this out and act accordingly, and all we got was "you matter to me". It's frustrating, and not just from a shipper point of view - the whole history behind the pairing has to be taken into account here as well, along with TNG's history of denying ANYTHING officially m/m, etc. These facts ALL make PIC's conclusion to the P/Q relationship even more lackluster.

As for the ship thing... it says a whole lot that the first reaction of one of the original big name fan P/Q fic writers (I believe she's been writing ever since the TNG days) was "I'll fix this". A lot of shippers weren't happy, and I can't blame them. It's not just what PIC didn't do, it's the hype they drummed up in advance. If they had kept quiet and just aired the scene people would still have been frustrated but at least they wouldn't have felt exploited all over again. TNG did this all the time - teasing and taunting with P/Q moments and then you had them shy away from just spelling things out and/or you had people like Rick Berman saying homophobic things. It's some kind of trauma, and PIC played right into it all over again, only this time in a more modernized way. But not a better way by any means. Queerbating is terrible, and it always WILL be terrible, no matter how it's being done or how "good" the intentions behind it might be.

 

[Mage]

That's bullshit. Re-watch Picard and Q in bed together in "Tapestry". Then tell me with a straight face that Q has no sort of even slight romantic interest in Picard. Or did you conveniently forget about that? Yes, I think you did.

Furthermore, "Q-pid", when Q noticed how much Vash managed to make Picard uncomfortable and realized that if Vash could get to Picard in such a manner then he thinks he should've maybe have originally presented himself to Picard as a woman. You probably forgot about that exchange too.

Or, you know, knowing Q.... He did and said those things to make Picard highly uncomfortable which was hilarious to Q.
You want and need to see a romantic relationship there. That doesn't mean it exists.

 

[Lord Garth]

Or, you know, knowing Q.... He did and said those things to make Picard highly uncomfortable which was hilarious to Q.
You want and need to see a romantic relationship there. That doesn't mean it exists.

Strictly speaking there was no romantic relationship, as that would require both people to be interested, but Q had a romantic interest. It was one-directional during TNG. He fixated on Picard a lot. He fixated on Janway for a little bit too. But Janeway's a woman, so I guess that makes it easier to accept and easier to have shown, especially back in the mid-'90s.

For anything in Star Trek made during the Roddenberry or Berman years, you have to look for clues because nothing related to homosexuality would've been made explicit, unless it was either in A Very Special Episode (such as TNG's "The Outcast" and DS9's "Rejoined") or in The Evil Mirror Universe.

 

[Mage]

Strictly speaking there was no romantic relationship, as that would require both people to be interested, but Q had a romantic interest. It was one-directional during TNG. He fixated on Picard a lot. He fixated on Janway for a little bit too. But Janeway's a woman, so I guess that makes it okay. Everything @MrPicard said is right.

There was no romance from Q's side at all. And Im not saying that because you think I might be against a man having feelings for another. Frankly, you suggesting that is insulting to me. I support the LGBTQ+ community fully.
But when people start looking for par'mach in all the wrong places, I find it equally upsetting. His fixation had to with many reasons, none of them romantic. Platonic love, perhaps. Demonstrated in the final appereance of Q and Picard together in season 2. A deeply mutual fascination. Saying that it MUST be romantic takes away from the fact that men struggle a lot towards showing deep love and affection on a purely platonic level towards each other in day to day life. We are only allowed to love family or romantic partners. Say 'I love you' to a close friend and society immediately says 'it must be a romantic love'.
But this entire concept of romantic feelings from Q towards because is something you WANT to see. NEED to see. Because it is something you desire.

Now..... Could it be that John De Lancie decided to add a slight romantic interest in his portrayel of Q to make to performance more layered and interesting? Sure. It wouldn't be the first time an performer adds a layer on his/her internal process in creating a scene to give it something extra.
Does this mean that the character of Q feels romantic love towards Picard? No.

 

[MrPicard]

I think we need to differentiate between seeing the “ship” and what was intended. Shipping usually involves thinking both of them are interested a relationship of some kind and/or it involves thinking they’re in a relationship or intending to be. Shipping literally means relation-shipping, unless we’re specifically talking about friend-shipping (that one isn’t as common but it exists, it goes all the way back to people using “K&S” instead of “K/S” to indicate that they meant Kirk and Spock’s FRIENDship).

Taking off the shipper glasses re: PIC season 2 STILL leaves the “intended” part - the fact that those who establish Trek canon have literally said that Q loves Jean-Luc. It was a fact for them when they wrote the scenes. Why disregard it and find a zillion ways to deny it? They intended this. Both on TNG and on PIC. And, love was supposed to be what saves everyone at the end of season 2. Among other things, this includes Q’s love for Jean-Luc. Whichever kind of love it is. THAT is where I will admit that the interpretation starts. But the love itself? THAT one is there.

This does not mean there’s a romantic relationship going on or that someone is “making moves” or whatever. It simply means that Q loves Jean-Luc. And that I think the show should have made those feelings much clearer than it did. That’s all. It doesn’t mean I expected for Jean-Luc to pull Q closer and return a passionate kiss (as interesting as this might have been, I realize that this isn’t what was gonna happen, but then, that’s what writing fic is for, they’ll have to leave SOME things to us fic writers, it’s what we’re here for).

The show literally had Jean-Luc telling Raffi that he loves her. It’s okay there because friends. And it was okay with Data because there was a mentor/student thing going on. But as soon as someone could try to interpret love as romantic (just because you could interpret it as such doesn’t mean it’s there but it also doesn’t mean it’s not there, that’s why there’s interpretation) and it’s two guys who are involved in it, they shy away from saying it and lose themselves in clumsy lines like “you matter to me”. THAT is what’s so annoying and so double-standard-ish. Just let Q say he loves him. The interpretation of HOW he loves Jean-Luc comes later.

 

[Mage]

I think we need to differentiate between seeing the “ship” and what was intended. Shipping usually involves thinking both of them are interested a relationship of some kind and/or it involves thinking they’re in a relationship or intending to be. Shipping literally means relation-shipping, unless we’re specifically talking about friend-shipping (that one isn’t as common but it exists, it goes all the way back to people using “K&S” instead of “K/S” to indicate that they meant Kirk and Spock’s FRIENDship).

Taking off the shipper glasses re: PIC season 2 STILL leaves the “intended” part - the fact that those who establish Trek canon have literally said that Q loves Jean-Luc. It was a fact for them when they wrote the scenes. Why disregard it and find a zillion ways to deny it? They intended this. Both on TNG and on PIC. And, love was supposed to be what saves everyone at the end of season 2. Among other things, this includes Q’s love for Jean-Luc. Whichever kind of love it is. THAT is where I will admit that the interpretation starts. But the love itself? THAT one is there.

This does not mean there’s a romantic relationship going on or that someone is “making moves” or whatever. It simply means that Q loves Jean-Luc. And that I think the show should have made those feelings much clearer than it did. That’s all. It doesn’t mean I expected for Jean-Luc to pull Q closer and return a passionate kiss (as interesting as this might have been, I realize that this isn’t what was gonna happen, but then, that’s what writing fic is for, they’ll have to leave SOME things to us fic writers, it’s what we’re here for).

The show literally had Jean-Luc telling Raffi that he loves her. It’s okay there because friends. And it was okay with Data because there was a mentor/student thing going on. But as soon as someone could try to interpret love as romantic (just because you could interpret it as such doesn’t mean it’s there but it also doesn’t mean it’s not there, that’s why there’s interpretation) and it’s two guys who are involved in it, they shy away from saying it and lose themselves in clumsy lines like “you matter to me”. THAT is what’s so annoying and so double-standard-ish. Just let Q say he loves him. The interpretation of HOW he loves Jean-Luc comes later.

THIS is fully agree with.

 

[Lord Garth]

The way I generally look at PIC is I see what they do, then I look back to TNG and see where they extrapolated what from what. Like I said upthread, I wasn't looking for a Picard/Q Ship, but "Farewell" stopped just short of taking things all the way. So I go back looking at TNG and I see "Qpid" and "Tapestry" and the like and think, "Okay, I can see how they get from A to B to C." I also treat '80s/'90s TV like something where, "They could only go so far back then, so I'm more likely to view what's done Today as how far they could've or would've gone back then, if they'd been allowed to and hadn't been writing for a family audience."

PIC was made in a different time, through a different type of platform, and is intended for a different type of audience that's now older, so I expect there to be some reinterpretation and extrapolation from TNG. It's similar to when TOS made the transition from being a '60s TV Series to an '80s Film Series. The characters ended up with flaws in the films that wouldn't have been allowed in the series, they were willing to go to extremes that wouldn't have happened in the series. Similarly PIC can touch upon things that either wouldn't have been touched upon or could've only been hinted at in TNG.

When I like a series, I like to trace back how it works. Not throw up my hands in disgust and say, "This doesn't work!" If I like a show, it's fun to piece together how it all connects. Figuring out how it all works is part of the fun of being a fan. I think too many people have forgotten what that's like.