Spoilers Picard News & Reviews from Outside Sources

[fireproof78]

There isn't a shred of evidence they're 'doubling down on it'. Just look at Picard.

What am I looking at? The purpose of current Trek was as much diversity in product as possible. Picard is one version, Discovery another, and potentially continuing on in Starfleet Academy, as well as Strange New Worlds, a spin off from Discovery.

I don't see the lack of success others do. I see adjustment based upon the market.

 

[Sci]

I'm sorry, but you completely negate your own argument when you quote someone who claims that diverse casting undermined good writing. You're not a bigot for disliking Star Trek: Discovery -- but if you run around saying or quoting people who say that Star Trek: Discovery was bad because the producers cared more about diversity than writing, then yeah, my hackles are raised. Star Trek: Discovery's diverse casting has nothing to do with whatever flaws it had, and you need to go a long way to prove to me that you're not a bigot when you start blaming diversity for whatever perceived flaws you see.

Oh bullshit. Their virtue signaling absolutely undermined the writing.

Okay, prove it. In what way did having queer characters or brown characters undermine the writing?

Trek at its best told a story but let the audience decide what to take from it. Classics like Let That Be Your Last Battlefield or The Outcast or Ethics or A Taste of Armageddon, just to name a few.

I'm sorry, but this is hilariously full of shit. "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" absolutely does not "let the audience decide what to take from it." It is hysterically un-subtle in its message. It practically hits the audience over the had with its message with how un-subtle it is. It might as well have grabbed a bat and hit the audience over the head shouting, "Racism! *whap* Is! *whap* Bad! *whap* And! *whap* Malcom X! *whap* Is! *whap* Just! *whap* As! *whap* Bad! *whap* As! *whap* Bull Connor! *whap*"

Similarly, "The Outcast" is absolutely not subtle in its declaration that society shouldn't oppress or marginalize people because of their sexual identity; "Ethics" was incredibly clear in its message against irresponsible medical testing without informed consent; and "A Taste of Armageddon" is literally all about the aliens were utterly wrong from start to finish and needed Kirk to come in and end their war for them.

None of these episodes just "tells a story and lets the audience decide what to take from it!" Those episodes all could have been the product of the Wheel of Morality from Animaniacs!

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What STD did was mistake good storytelling for checking off enough boxes while being ham-fisted with shoving an ideology down the audience's throat.

What ideology is that, hmmm?

 

[Tuskin38]

with shoving an ideology down the audience's throat.

Star Trek has been doing that since 1966.

There isn't a shred of evidence they're 'doubling down on it'.

The SFA show is the 32nd Century based off the description.

 

[fireproof78]

rek at its best told a story but let the audience decide what to take from it. Classics like Let That Be Your Last Battlefield or The Outcast or Ethics or A Taste of Armageddon, just to name a few.

Bullshit. "Let that Be Your Last Battlefield" was a hammer over the head of the audience about racism. "Ethics" made it clear that Beverly disagreed with Toby's approach and that it was wrong. "A Taste of Armageddon" hammers away that war is not a sanitized thing. That Kirk is willing to kill a population over it. Never mind the overt Vietnam analogy in "A Private Little War."

Star Trek can do subtle but its foundations are not subtle.

 

[Mudd]

Bullshit. "Let that Be Your Last Battlefield" was a hammer over the head of the audience about racism.

It was also entirely wrongheaded, and an embarrassment. "There are bad people on both sides."

 

[James Cole]

What he actually said was, "To the extent that I was aware of the kind of toxic fandom, the anti-SJW, you know, sad little corner of fandom — you just disregard that. Sometimes you’re motivated to have things simply because it’s possibly going to piss off or provoke people who seem to have missed the memo about just what exactly 'Star Trek' is and always has been all about."

He is, in other words, explicitly talking about bigoted people who don't like seeing people from marginalized communities depicted in ways that are equal to white guys. He's not talking about intentionally wanting to construct the whole story to make large segments of legitimate fandom angry.

What's hard is over the last few years we've had definitional collapse. "Social justice warrior" is a pejorative for progressive activists, who make up roughly 6-8% of the population (per Pew or More in Common) in the franchise's home market. Roughly 92-94% of the population could potentially then be "anti-SJW". So where would I fall as a moderate liberal? [To expand on this further requires TNZ, and that place is not for me...]

And the same section of the interview includes killing off Icheb and Hugh, both of which don't have strictly ideo-political valence.

No.

Normal box office trends suggested TROS could have made around $3 billion. Instead it got just $1 billion. Solo lost money...

Only insofar as both are loving but skeptical deconstructions of their respective franchises.

I'd hate to see a hateful deconstruction then... and why does everything need to be deconstructed? DS9 at least did it in a much better, organic way. I think the interplay between Rick Berman and Ira Steven Behr helped there as well. Season 1 really needed guardrails while it had to break many things because the plot demanded it. Seven. Riker and Troi...

And Picard himself. I could see why he accidently bluffed his way into resigning. But his arc from 2385 to 2399 makes no sense. He just retreats to his vineyard? He doesn't even speak publicly about why he resigned, or use his social cachet to lobby the public to change policy or stand for office himself? At the very least go out and do some archaeology...

I think PIC S3 would feel like as much of a rupture if it had come first, because the things that make it feel like a rupture are its embrace of modern television storytelling conventions.

And I think it's weird to conceptualize PIC S1 as a "rupture" from the Berman era, because of course it's going to be very different. It's a sequel series to a show whose last episode aired over a quarter-century earlier. American television in general is very different today than it was just fifteen years ago, let along the almost thirty years that have now passed since "All Good Things..." aired. You wouldn't expect a 2020 episode of Euphoria to resemble a 1994 episode of Party of Five just because they're both dramas about teenagers; you wouldn't expect a 2020 episode of Succession to resemble a 1990 episode of Dallas just because they're both dramas about a rich family in control of a powerful corporation; you wouldn't expect a 2020 episode of Game of Thrones to resemble a 1996 episode of Xena: Warrior Princess just because they're both fantasy dramas. So why would you expect a 2020 episode of Star Trek: Picard to resemble a 1994 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation -- especially when you were told by the marketing that it would not resemble TNG?

Being upset that Star Trek: Picard is a "rupture" from the conventions of a television program that hadn't aired in almost a quarter-century before is just refusing to accept the premise of the material.

Minus the swearing and the close-in beheading shots (which could easily be edited out in post, so they aren't structurally inherent to the season's plot) PICARD season 3 really is an evolution from late season DS9 and ENT seasons 3 and 4. So yes it is a bit different from TNG, but not that different from DS9 and ENT (granted I'm sure there are anti-DS9 TNG fans that wouldn't like this season...).

And others who refused to do so, and others who did so but then stopped when they were given a job.

But season 3 is really good, aligns with prior continuity... so maybe they'd have liked it even if not personally involved.

Yes you did. You claimed he was "was put on a bus to nowhere after season 1." That's a euphemism for involuntary termination of employment.

&

As far as I am aware, we have no information either way about whether or not Paramount tried to convince Chabon to stay on a showrunner for PIC S2. Literally all we know is that Chabon decided to leave because he wanted to adapt his novel.

More like in the TV Tropes sense, as in to development hell. And in the past, I've linked to articles where Terry Matalas talked about Michael Chabon's two scripts for season 2, and interpreting the writing credits for 202 over who re-wrote whom, so the guy was around at the beginning of season 2. Why Terry Matalas was pulled off MACGYVER midseason is its own interesting data point however...

No, it doesn't, because that would have stolen the emotional focus away from the story that was actually being told, which was the story of Jean-Luc and Soji learning to accept one-another as ersatz grandfather and granddaughter. You might as well claim that the movie Titanic needed to include a scene featuring the captain of the S.S. Californian choosing to ignore the Titanic's emergency calls; to do so would have stolen focus away from the actual story being told.

But Riker and Troi are legacy characters. If the producers were going to make a mess of things outside their lane, it's on them to be careful with such things. And this one isn't in the deleted scenes, unlike with TITANIC...

It's not "grounded in the universe," it's just grounded in Starfleet. One of the things I love about PIC S1 is that we get an extended look at the Alpha Quadrant outside of the point of view of Starfleet institutionalists and outside of the wealth and privilege of the Federation.

Season 1's Romulans don't really fit with 24th century Romulans from TNG/DS9/VGR. Instead you have the CW bad Brits villain team of Narek and Narissa, and the LOTR stuff with Elnor. The Borg cube artefact doesn't go anywhere, despite being an amazing opportunity for worldbuilding in an of itself...

And the general vibe and visual aesthetic is just off, whereas at least the 25th century parts of season 2 feel right...

Honestly, there's no particular reason so far for why S3 features Captain Liam Shaw and Commander Seven of Nine of the USS Titan-A instead of Captain Cris Rios and Commander Raffi Musker of the USS Stargazer. (Raffi and Seven's roles working in the field to investigate the M'Talas Prime bombing could be reversed with almost no noticeable impact.) Certain of these creative decisions feel fundamentally arbitrary, since they could easily have written S2 to set up S3 better.

I mean, I guess if they had to cut arcs left and right, they could have made Rios the captain at the beginning of season 3 and just killed him off during the first attack. Santiago Cabrera had opening credits regular billing. Todd Stashwick is a "Guest Star", despite being in every episode so far. So it's likely partly a money thing. But Shaw has a newly introduced history with Picard and the Borg which has overarching plot relevance. There's just no conflict with Rios.

The Seven in Starfleet works well on a ship where she has to confront all the regulations a la on VGR. In the field, she'd be much closer to her usage in seasons 1 and 2. Raffi on M'Talas makes sense with her intelligence background. Plus she plays off Worf well. Finally, her character is much better in season 3 than season 1.

 

[LongHauler]

And these last few posts represent the best explanation yet for why STD never generated enough of an audience.

"Let that Be Your Last Battlefield" was a hammer over the head of the audience about racism.

No, it wasn't. It was allegory for how unfettered animosity over superficial differences would eventually destroy a society. And watching the kind of people that like STD and pontificate about their virtue signaling, its obvious the writers were correct.

"Ethics" made it clear that Beverly disagreed with Toby's approach and that it was wrong.

And yet it showed that Toby was ultimately correct. And you've completely missed the B plot of Worf wanting to be euthanized. Which has become a rather prescient discussion given the renewed debates over the ethics of assisted suicide this century.

"A Taste of Armageddon" hammers away that war is not a sanitized thing.

I don't even know where to begin with how badly that misses the point.

Never mind the overt Vietnam analogy in "A Private Little War."

And yet you miss the subtle but well put words "Serpents for the Garden of Eden." A message any war protesting flower child would approve of if they weren't too stoned to appreciate the irony.

Star Trek can do subtle but its foundations are not subtle.

They most certainly were. In fact, they were subtle by necessity.

 

[TerryTrek]

I'll just offer a contrasting example without naming names. I've been watching the live YouTube streams of a pundit who has already seen all ten episodes. I don't normally follow them, and they sometimes slip up on Star Trek lore and offer unintentional spoilers for the season. They've been very open about liking season 3, even when many of their viewers in the live chat call them a sell out or responsible for Kurtzman getting SFA. That pundit even said they'd probably make more YT money from making hater videos than praising the season.

I'll name names. I love RedLetterMedia. I've found their reviews more entertaining than most of Nu Trek itself.

Especially Picard S2. 2 Million+ views per review, so they have quite the audience.

Them enjoying S3 has been very satisfying to see. Same with the others who have voiced their praise for this season.

And honestly.. try and watch this without laughing out loud: LINK

It's good to see the YT Reviewers recommending this season, because ultimately they have a stronger voice than any of us on here, a massive audience and will likely influence others to check Pic S3 out.

 

[Quantum21]

What ideology is that, hmmm?

Sanity, acceptance, compassion. All those things the frightened, cowering people of that type hate with a passion.

 

[fireproof78]

No, it wasn't. It was allegory for how unfettered animosity over superficial differences would eventually destroy a society. And watching the kind of people that like STD and pontificate about their virtue signaling, its obvious the writers were correct.

What is racism based on? Superficial differences.

How often do Trek fans miss this blows my mind.

And yet it showed that Toby was ultimately correct. And you've completely missed the B plot of Worf wanting to be euthanized. Which has become a rather prescient discussion given the renewed debates over the ethics of assisted suicide this century.

Oh, I didn't miss it. I ignored it because it was a trope of a warrior society wanting to kill oneself when no longer useful, as well as the debate over however far cultural practices can be allowed.

I don't even know where to begin with how badly that misses the point.

Really?

KIRK: Cross your fingers. Kirk out. Death, destruction, disease, horror. That's what war is all about, Anan. That's what makes it a thing to be avoided. You've made it neat and painless. So neat and painless, you've had no reason to stop it. And you've had it for five hundred years. Since it seems to be the only way I can save my crew and my ship, I'm going to end it for you, one way or another.
(And then later)
ANAN: You realise what you have done?
KIRK: Yes, I do. I've given you back the horrors of war. The Vendikans now assume that you've broken your agreement and that you're preparing to wage real war with real weapons. They'll want do the same. Only the next attack they launch will do a lot more than count up numbers in a computer. They'll destroy cities, devastate your planet. You of course will want to retaliate. If I were you, I'd start making bombs. Yes, Councilman, you have a real war on your hands. You can either wage it with real weapons, or you might consider an alternative. Put an end to it. Make peace.
ANAN: There can be no peace. Don't you see? We've admitted it to ourselves. We're a killer species. It's instinctive. It's the same with you. Your General Order Twenty Four.
KIRK: All right. It's instinctive. But the instinct can be fought. We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes. Knowing that we won't kill today. Contact Vendikar. I think you'll find that they're just as terrified, appalled, horrified as you are, that they'll do anything to avoid the alternative I've given you. Peace or utter destruction. It's up to you.

And yet you miss the subtle but well put words "Serpents for the Garden of Eden." A message any war protesting flower child would approve of if they weren't too stoned to appreciate the irony.

Again, no I didn't. But the allegory was plain to see, for anyone who has eyes and ears to hear it. Same with MASH. We can't prentend is was subtle just because we're removed from the real world politics of it.

They most certainly were. In fact, they were subtle by necessity.

Some where. Others were not. That's the point. People rant and rave about modern politics when the whole point of Trek was to be able to create thinly veiled allegories and avatars for current world problems. That people find issue with any representation in current Trek outputs indicates that we haven't learned enough from TOS and that more direct messaging is key. Otherwise we just ignore it and we start fighting over superficial differences.

And honestly.. try and watch this without laughing out loud: LINK

Why am I laughing out mocking someone's appearance?

 

[Quantum21]

Oh bullshit. Their virtue signaling absolutely undermined the writing. Trek at its best told a story but let the audience decide what to take from it. Classics like Let That Be Your Last Battlefield or The Outcast or Ethics or A Taste of Armageddon, just to name a few. What STD did was mistake good storytelling for checking off enough boxes while being ham-fisted with shoving an ideology down the audience's throat.

Exactly where did the Star Trek ideals hurt you? Please tell us? They haven't changed, they've broadened a little, but that's part of social change, the single greatest tenant of this franchise.

I'm sorry you missed the boat and don't get it. You seem really angry and confused. Therapy and some stress meds, good as new.

 

[Phily B]

I think Discovery is pretty bad and likely won't watch the new show because of that, but I don't actively hope it gets cancelled.

 

[Sci]

What's hard is over the last few years we've had definitional collapse. "Social justice warrior" is a pejorative for progressive activists, who make up roughly 6-8% of the population (per Pew or More in Common) in the franchise's home market. Roughly 92-94% of the population could potentially then be "anti-SJW".

That is clearly not what Chabon is saying. Don't put words in his mouth.

And the same section of the interview includes killing off Icheb and Hugh, both of which don't have strictly ideo-political valence.

Now you're moving goalposts. The only time Chabon mentions wanting to piss anyone off, it's in reference to clear bigots, and it's a short aside. Then he moves on, and he talks about a new topic, which is people who objected to killing Icheb and Hugh. He explains why he felt that there was artistic merit to killing off Icheb and Hugh, and therefore disagrees with those upset by that decision. At no point does he indicate that he wanted to piss people off by killing them.

Normal box office trends suggested TROS could have made around $3 billion. Instead it got just $1 billion. Solo lost money...

Yes, Solo probably lost money when you factor in marketing; this is because "a Han Solo movie starring someone who isn't named Harrison Ford" is a terrible idea for a big budget motion picture. And The Rise of Skywalker underperformed -- and it underperformed because it was a mediocre movie. But also -- it underperformed against expectations, but it made back its budget and was still a huge hit. $1 billion is not a failure! It's just not as big of a success as they wanted.

Neither of these films were done in by The Last Jedi. They were done in by themselves.

I'd hate to see a hateful deconstruction then...

It was entitled Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.

and why does everything need to be deconstructed?

Because television has gotten too complex if you're not writing for children. The modern audience demands a level of thematic complexity that requires a deconstruction of the Jean-Luc Picard character. Because, frankly, Picard in TNG was often more of a wish-fulfillment archetype than a fully-fleshed out, three-dimensional character.

And because just reprising Picard without doing some level of deconstruction of him and the ideas of Star Trek that are so closely associated with him is just not the story Chabon and Stewart wanted to tell. They both wanted to tell a story about a person who believed in certain values and then watched as his society betrayed those values, because they were both responding to the rise of the far-right in the Anglosphere (Trump in the U.S., Brexit in the U.K.). And to them, part of that was taking that character apart a little bit and getting him to realize that sometimes he hadn't lived up to this beliefs, either ("Absolute Candor" being the main exemplar of that).

DS9 at least did it in a much better, organic way.

DS9's deconstruction is actually very similar to PIC S1's.

And Picard himself. I could see why he accidently bluffed his way into resigning. But his arc from 2385 to 2399 makes no sense. He just retreats to his vineyard?

Yeah, I believe it. This is a guy who has had immense prestige and influence most of his life, and suddenly he lost. Add to that the immense psychological burden of realizing the consequences of this thing he could not control? I could see him just giving up. It happens to people.

And also -- Jean-Luc does have a history of just giving up when he's overwhelmed. He stood up Jenice for their date in Paris in 2342 because he was afraid of getting in a relationship with her -- mind you, he'd been a captain for almost ten years at that point. And he just gave up and left Starfleet between his court-martial for losing the Stargazer and the commissioning of the Enterprise-D.

He doesn't even speak publicly about why he resigned, or use his social cachet to lobby the public to change policy or stand for office himself?

I think it's pretty clear he'd already done everything you just listed short of standing for office himself. It's not like this was just some obscure decision made in the library basement of a small town by village council members. This was a major foreign policy decision that would necessarily have had large numbers of people and organizations fighting on both sides.

At the very least go out and do some archaeology...

"Remembrance" established that he wrote a number of books, including on historical and archaeological topics, during his "wilderness years." It's entirely possible he did some archaeology. But it wouldn't have been relevant to the story being told, so there wouldn't be any reason to include it.

Minus the swearing and the close-in beheading shots (which could easily be edited out in post, so they aren't structurally inherent to the season's plot) PICARD season 3 really is an evolution from late season DS9 and ENT seasons 3 and 4.

Not really. PIC S3 is still structured using the prestige TV-style serialized character drama format. It doesn't use either the semi-episodic format that ENT S3 and DS9 S6 and S7 mostly used (for DS9, only the "Station Occupation" and "Final Chapter" arcs used a structure similar to the modern serialized character drama), and it's certainly not using the "three-episode mini-arc" structure ENT S4 used.

But season 3 is really good, aligns with prior continuity...

So was PIC S1. And PIC S2 wasn't amazing but it was fun with moments of excellence.

so maybe they'd have liked it even if not personally involved.

I dunno man. All I know is, Doug Drexler changed his tune on hating modern Trek once he got a job, and he's spoken publicly about having initially been hired to work on DIS S1 but then let go when DIS moved production to Toronto. To me, that suggests his opposition is more about sour grapes and his own desire to work on the show than it is about the quality of the show itself. I mean, fuck, Drexler worked on the utter dreck that was ENT Season Two and never dissed it publicly.

I didn't say he was fired.

Yes you did. You claimed he was "was put on a bus to nowhere after season 1." That's a euphemism for involuntary termination of employment.

&

As far as I am aware, we have no information either way about whether or not Paramount tried to convince Chabon to stay on a showrunner for PIC S2. Literally all we know is that Chabon decided to leave because he wanted to adapt his novel.

More like in the TV Tropes sense, as in to development hell.

Perhaps you have lost track of the flow of the conversation, but let's review and be clear: You falsely claimed that Chabon was "put on a bus to nowhere after season 1." I and others corrected you by pointing out that it was Chabon's decision to depart as PIC's showrunner because he wanted to develop The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay for another network. To which you falsely claimed that you didn't claim he was fired, to which I responded by pointing out that "X was put on a bus to nowhere" is a euphemism for involuntary termination of employment. To which you are now responding, "More like in the TV Tropes sense, as in to development hell."

It is entirely possible that Kavalier and Clay is stuck in development Hell. I wouldn't know. What I do know is, Chabon is the one who made the decision to depart as PIC's showrunner after production on S1 wrapped in 2019. He was not "put on a bus." He chose to board that bus of his own accord.

And in the past, I've linked to articles where Terry Matalas talked about Michael Chabon's two scripts for season 2, and interpreting the writing credits for 202 over who re-wrote whom, so the guy was around at the beginning of season 2.

None of which means Chabon was forced out or whatever, because writers get re-written and episodes reconceptualized all the time without it meaning anyone's being pushed out. Furthermore, you're not acknowledging the simple fact that all of season two had to be re-conceptualized and the early episodes re-written because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But Riker and Troi are legacy characters.

That does not matter. Going into extensive detail about everything they went through with Thad would only have distracted from the real story of "Nepenthe," which was Jean-Luc and Soji learning to trust and accept each other as ersatz family.

If the producers were going to make a mess of things outside their lane,

The fact that they didn't go into excruciating detail of their struggle to save Thad does not mean they "made a mess of things."

And this one isn't in the deleted scenes, unlike with TITANIC...

I actually didn't know that was a deleted scene from the film -- I was drawing upon my own knowledge of the disaster and hypothesizing a scene that should not have been in the film. I am amused it was filmed, but the fact it was cut confirms my point: going into that kind of detail would have detracted from the story actually being told.

Season 1's Romulans don't really fit with 24th century Romulans from TNG/DS9/VGR.

Sure they do. Narek and Narissa are absolutely in the TNG/DS9 tradition of duplicitous Romulan spy agents. And one of the things that makes PIC S1 brilliant is that expands upon our understanding of Romulan society by showing us parts of their culture that we never got to see before. Our understanding of Romulan culture pre-PIC was extremely restricted, limited only to the Romulan ruling class and military leadership.

the LOTR stuff with Elnor.

There is no "LOTR stuff with Elnor." He's a follower of a religious sect that is in opposition to the Romulan ruling class, and he uses a sword. That's not "LOTR stuff."

The Borg cube artefact doesn't go anywhere, despite being an amazing opportunity for worldbuilding in an of itself...

There is worldbuilding with the Borg Artifact. We learn through the Artifact subplot that there is no more Neutral Zone; that the Romulan Free State is the dominant Romulan government post-Star Empire collapse; that the Romulan Free State still has major tensions with the Federation but is much more cooperative than the Star Empire used to be, up to and including allowing a Federation citizen to run the Borg Reclamation Project and allowing Federation scientists to help them reverse-engineer Borg technology; that XBs are subjected to widespread discrimination and oppression throughout the Alpha Quadrant; that there is a movement of people trying to help XBs; that the Romulan Free State has a stronger system of nominal due process than the Star Empire did, because Tal Shiar agents no longer have the legal authority to unilaterally commandeer vessels or to engage in summary executions; and that the Free State is still struggling to actually implement those changes because the Tal Shiar is still able to get away with stuff de facto if not de jure. That's quite a bit of worldbuilding!

I do agree that "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part II" doesn't quite stick the landing with the Artifact crashing on Coppellius, Seven killing Narissa, and then the Artifact and the XBs playing no further role. I think it would have been better if the Artifact had played a vital role in the final confrontation with the Tal Shiar fleet.

And the general vibe and visual aesthetic is just off,

No, it's not "off." It's exactly appropriate for the story they're trying to tell. You just don't like it.

whereas at least the 25th century parts of season 2 feel right...

Those 25th Century parts of S2 were set in Starfleet institutions and conveyed the points of view of Starfleet institutionalists. That's what you're reacting to. You don't want to see the galaxy outside of the perspective of Starfleet.

I mean, I guess if they had to cut arcs left and right, they could have made Rios the captain at the beginning of season 3 and just killed him off during the first attack.

Or they could have structured S2 so as to produce a conflict between him and Jean-Luc during S3 that would allow him to serve in the role of "antagonistic Starfleet captain whose ship Picard commandeers" without killing him off.

Santiago Cabrera had opening credits regular billing. Todd Stashwick is a "Guest Star", despite being in every episode so far. So it's likely partly a money thing.

Yeah, Matalas has said money was the restricting factor in bringing back PIC S1-2 characters. To which my response is, save money by writing off Jurati, keep Rios as captain of the Stargazer but make him a guest star instead of principal character, ditch Ed Speleers for a cheaper actor who wasn't in the cast of one of the biggest shows of the 2010s and who also actually looks like he's in his 20s (and possibly make Jack's actor a guest star rather than principal cast member if doing so helps you afford Cabrera), keep Data dead and only bring back Spiner for one or two episodes at the end, and also maybe save some money by, for instance, always using your TNG Special Guest Stars in more than one scene in the episodes in which they feature and cutting them out of episodes they don't need to be in (e.g., Frakes's two-second cameo as the Tuvok-Changeling).

The Seven in Starfleet works well on a ship where she has to confront all the regulations a la on VGR.

I'm not convinced that Seven joining Starfleet actually represents the best way to progress that character. Honestly it would make about as much sense for Seven and Raffi to swap positions -- keep Seven as a Fenris Ranger aboard La Sirena, have Raffi as executive officer aboard the Stargazer under Rios, and have Seven be the one who investigates the bombing on M'talas Prime and gets recruited by Worf.

Raffi on M'Talas makes sense with her intelligence background. Plus she plays off Worf well. Finally, her character is much better in season 3 than season 1.

I think it would make just as much sense for Seven to be off doing her thing as a Fenris Ranger (since M'Talas Prime isn't part of the Federation). And I personally think Raffi has been infantilized in her scenes with Worf. Her being upset with Jean-Luc for not telling her what he's doing would make more sense than Seven, since she has a much longer relationship with Jean-Luc than Seven did.

 

[Sci]

No, it wasn't. It was allegory for how unfettered animosity over superficial differences would eventually destroy a society.

An extremely obvious, un-subtle allegory.

And yet it showed that Toby was ultimately correct. And you've completely missed the B plot of Worf wanting to be euthanized.

"Ethics" as a narrative is structured to rather strongly guide the audience towards thinking that Worf was wrong to want to be euthanized. Again, this episode is not subtle.

I don't even know where to begin with how badly that misses the point.

"A Taste of Armageddon" literally has Kirk lecturing the aliens about how they allowed the war to drag on because they weren't facing the real costs of war.

And yet you miss the subtle but well put words "Serpents for the Garden of Eden."

This is not subtle, sorry.

A message any war protesting flower child would approve of if they weren't too stoned to appreciate the irony.

1) These are the words of someone who fundamentally does not understand anti-imperialism as a political ideology.

2) Once again, "A Private Little War" is obvious, ham-fisted pro-Vietnam War propaganda.

They most certainly were. In fact, they were subtle by necessity.

If this is your idea of subtlety, your brain would explode if you saw something like The Fabelmans or Call Me By Your Name.

 

[SJGardner]

In the minds of Star Trek fans, as long as you don't directly represent the issue itself but rather represent it with a fictional stand-in that still makes it glaringly obvious what you're alluding to, it's "subtle".

The Outcast is subtle because Soren isn't sent to literal conversion therapy for being gay or trans but simply because she has a gender identity in a species that doesn't. See, it's not exactly how it is in real life, it's obviously all coated in multi-layered allegory and deep symbolism, therefore it's subtle, and because it's subtle, it obviously can't be shoving a message down our throats even though its entire message is that 1.) denial of one's stated identity bad 2.) conversion therapy bad.

 

[gvn2fly]

And Picard himself. I could see why he accidently bluffed his way into resigning. But his arc from 2385 to 2399 makes no sense. He just retreats to his vineyard? He doesn't even speak publicly about why he resigned, or use his social cachet to lobby the public to change policy or stand for office himself? At the very least go out and do some archaeology...

He did mention in season 1 of speaking at conferences so it's not like he had no life and never left the vineyard. He may have pursued other interests in the 15 or years or so since he resigned...when we catch up with Picard in season 1 he is very ill with the syndrome and already literally days away from dying from it.

Starfleet is also all he had ever known since he became a young adult so it's not surprising he wouldn't find something else in his later years that felt the same for him.

 

[gvn2fly]

Minus the swearing and the close-in beheading shots (which could easily be edited out in post, so they aren't structurally inherent to the season's plot) PICARD season 3 really is an evolution from late season DS9 and ENT seasons 3 and 4. So yes it is a bit different from TNG, but not that different from DS9 and ENT (granted I'm sure there are anti-DS9 TNG fans that wouldn't like this season...).

To me season 3 is more similar to Discovery and other seasons of Picard than to older Trek shows. The only difference is it looks different due to the production design (taking place on a Starfleet vessel), the presence of familiar looking uniforms and ships, and the TNG crew. Threat to the federation (done multiple times on Discovery that people got tired of it - but suddenly there are no complaints when that is used in PIC S3), season long mystery we don't find an answer to until the very end, pacing issues, one dimensional villain. But it "looks" familiar because of the cast and set design so all is aright.

 

[gweeps]

It was also entirely wrongheaded, and an embarrassment. "There are bad people on both sides."

Love the episode. It's clever.

In your face is what racism often is, especialty when you realize its presence.

And there are terrible people everywhere.

 

[urbandk]

You all are missing the point.

"Let that be your last battlefield" was a brilliant, prescient portrayal of Internet bbs fan culture.

 

[gweeps]

I'm tired of people conflating discussion with arguing.