What in Season 1 implied that? Mars androids in Season 1 were not sentient, they were no more slaves than the Ship's computer is.
Admiral Clancy (had to google it) point blank says so. PICARD: The Federation does not get to decide if a species lives or dies. CLANCY: Yes, we do. We absolutely do.
Reviewers who have watched and hated seasons 1 and 2, and have now seen season 3 in its entirety, say the only thing you really need to know going in is that Riker and Troi had a son who died. If you end up liking season 3, it might be worth giving the season 2 opener and finale a try. The season 2 opener is much more tonally connected to season 3, as it was co-written by that season's showrunner. FWIW, I liked season 2 far far more than season 1.
You mean the admiral who was proven wrong at the end of season? Yeah, I think that policy will be changed. Though it needs to reviewed. It's more interesting from a political point of view because what is born out is that the Romulans could have saved more of their own people, but opted to not, and then blamed the Federation instead of recognizing their own hubris.
This is not new to Starfleet. Kirk wanted to let the Klingons die in TUC. And he had plenty of company.
Unless you have a lot of spare time, I would absolutely skip season 2. For me, it is absolutely the worst ever season of Star Trek. I didn't think anything could get worse than season 3 of Discovery, but Picard season 2 somehow manages to top it. Besides, this season of Picard is expected to be largely detached from the previous seasons, almost a clean slate so hopefully nothing of note will tie back to that season.
Thank you for all the input, folks. Definitely think I will be giving S3 a shot come the end of April, just have to try and avoid spoilers until then.
A guy that saw the season several months ago has said it is broken into three acts. Act 1 is episodes 1-4, Act 2 episodes 5-8, and Act 3 episodes 9-10. Maybe try after episode 4? Otherwise episode 5 is apparently full of potential spoilers you'd like to avoid if at all possible in advance.
I seem to recall at least 2 episodes where Picard wanted to leave an entire species to die. Maybe he just forgot those incidents.
There is big difference between your first statement about Starfleet right to correct all the wrongs in the universe, versus what the Admiral stated. And yes her statement is factual. The Federation has never been required to save or let die a species. It's always been their choice either to act (if it doesn't violate some other regulation) or not to act. That's literally one of the jobs of the leadership of the Federation. Simply put Picard is being an idealist in his argument. The Admiral is being a realist in her's. Trek has many examples where for many various reasons The Federation or by extension Starfleet chooses not to act, and other times they choose to act. But it the ruling council's choice, one way or another. And that doesn't even touch upon issues where the Prime Directive is involved. In Picard's view helping the Romulans was worth the chance of losing members worlds or weakening the security apparatus of the Federation for threats to take advance of. And the Admiral's reflected the response of the Federation Council. It's very much a larger example of how the Federation had to respond to the Dominion war. Betazed was conquered. Now the Federation could decide to focus their full might in recapturing Betazed and put at risk other systems, perhaps more fundamental ones, or they could allow the Dominion to hold onto Betazed and focus their forces elsewhere, Its a near perfect example showing how the Federation doesn't have the means to do everything it might wish. And as mentioned above the androids were not meant to have sentience. SO it's completely different from Data or even the doctor's quest for rights. As for season 2, you really don't miss much. They're a few nuggets, that might. tie into this season and its characters. Laris and Picard are in a relationship. And we learned why Picard would never open himself up fully for a relationship (Inner lights massive time frame might allow the same growth he experienced). And it might even help underscore one possible reason why Picard and Crusher didn't work out. Raffi has beat her drug issues, during the time leading up and during season 2. Of course being proven right and not treated like you're a loon might have provided some help in that. Raffi and Seven had started a relationship, but they both had their issues about opening up to the other. Seven found a lot of resentment and prejudice about being a Borg by the Starfleet crew she was on. That might, perhaps, have some small part of why Captain Shaw would prefer Seven to go by her birth name. It also could be his own issue, but it's certainly possible its partial influenced by trying to provide an over all more cohesive crew relations. But that's about it that I can thank of, based on what we have been shown to date.
Colloquial usage/flippant usage but the Prime Directive, as set out by the Fed, absolutely does decide who potentially lives or dies - got no warp, get no help That is an arbitrary decision on who lives and dies Also, as the widest ranging and strongest power in the quadrant they effectively do decide (who gets to join Vs who doesn't could be the difference) but also they are looked to as the rule of law and all of this combines to mean that they are in fact in charge of, crudely, who lives or dies. Picard had forgotten that the Federation has to make the tough calls and has multiple competing interests, plus their own rules, and so cannot save everyone ETA - that is not to say that I agree with the above (or necessarily disagree as I can argue both sides if I try hard enough) but that is my assessment of the universe they are within
Just watch the scenes with Q and Picard, which amounts to like 15 minutes of screentime, and you basically got the "good" part of the season.
Wow, really? I just assumed everyone likes (TNG) Q. That's fair though.. I would say the Picard/Q scenes are a coda to All Good Things, but I assume if All Good Things didn't do much for you then those scenes probably wouldn't either.
For what it's worth, my Q novels are still my bestselling Trek books ever, to which I give Q full credit. My impression is that he's very popular.
I'm also not a huge fan of the EMH, I guess I just don't like characters whose ego runs away with itself, lol. There is the odd episode where he's alright, but on the whole I just never really cared for the Q.