Spoilers Picard Prequel "Children of Mars"

[Greg Cox]

***cough*** Farscape ***cough*** .

To be fair, FARSCAPE ran for four seasons of twenty-plus episodes each. It's not as though it was cancelled after one season like any number of other shows on any number of other networks. Heck, that's more eps than TOS ever got.

And every networks cancels shows, and no show runs forever, so I'm not sure why Syfy should be singled out for cancelling shows after three or four seasons. How long did FIREFLY last on Fox again?

Mind you, I would have loved more FARSCAPE. As it happens, I just attended the 20 Anniversary FARSCAPE Celebration, where I had the privilege of hosting a cast reunion onstage. (Minus Virginia Hey, who had to cancel out at the last minute.)

 

[Mach5]

I won't argue the Expanse is a very good show. But as for Amazon picking it up, that's due to it being the favorite show of Amazon's owner, a guy worth $150 billion, not because the board figured it would be a money maker for them.

And yet it is.
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-expanse-season-4-is-a-hit-after-amazon-saved-2019-12

 

[eschaton]

I doubt the production company had anything to do with the cancellation, otherwise it wouldn't be continuing the make the show for Amazon.

My point is Syfy didn't really have budgetary control over the series. If it did, they could have said something like "we'll renew because it's one of our top shows, but we're going to cut your VFX budget by 50%." Or said they would cut the cast's salary increases or something. Instead the independent production company was a middleman who could call the shots. For all we know Syfy did come back with some additional strictures and they were told to pound sand because the producers had a decent idea that Amazon would pick them up.

 

[Alan Roi]

To be fair, FARSCAPE ran for four seasons of twenty-plus episodes each. It's not as though it was cancelled after one season like any number of other shows on any number of other networks. Heck, that's more eps than TOS ever got.

And every networks cancels shows, and no show runs forever, so I'm not sure why Syfy should be singled out for cancelling shows after three or four seasons. How long did FIREFLY last on Fox again?

Mind you, I would have loved more FARSCAPE. As it happens, I just attended the 20 Anniversary FARSCAPE Celebration, where I had the privilege of hosting a cast reunion onstage. (Minus Virginia Hey, who had to cancel out at the last minute.)

Firefly ran on a regularly scheduled first season and barely cracked the top 100 on the Neilsons. Farscape after Season 1 suffered from random scheduling where you'd get a few eps, wait a random period of months before another few eps and so on until it lost its audience. And then its two leads were placed on Scifi's flagship series, Stargate shortly after Farscape was put in the ground. So yeah, while Firefly and most other series fail to gain traction, Farscape was directed into failure by its network and then components were used to prop up another of the network's shows. You don't see that very often.

 

[Noname Given]

Everything I didn't like about the 24th Century before seems to have been corrected with Picard.

We'll see. Personally I hope we're done with the whole utopian humanity bit, and we return to the better but not perfect humanity shown in the TOS 23rd century era.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I watched it a third time just to see what I might have been missing with the clothes. Honestly, I think they struck a good balance between contemporary enough not to stick out in general, but not so contemporary as to stick out in the setting.

But I was never one who was bothered by the choice to use completely cotemporary looking clothes in nuBSG, either.

 

[Alan Roi]

We'll see. Personally I hope we're done with the whole utopian humanity bit, and we return to the better but not perfect humanity shown in the TOS 23rd century era.

That, however, doesn't quite solve the other main issue that the franchise started to run up against towards the end which was: we can science our way out of almost anything and if somehow that doesn't work, then we can use time travel to fix everything!

 

[Alan Roi]

I watched it a third time just to see what I might have been missing with the clothes. Honestly, I think they struck a good balance between contemporary enough not to stick out in general, but not so contemporary as to stick out in the setting.

But I was never one who was bothered by the choice to use completely cotemporary looking clothes in nuBSG, either.

I was. One of the charms nuBSG scrubbed itself from the orginal was any sense of culture. To me nuBSG mostly came across as a contemporary military show made for Mormons that just happened to be set in space.

 

[Greg Cox]

We'll see. Personally I hope we're done with the whole utopian humanity bit, and we return to the better but not perfect humanity shown in the TOS 23rd century era.

Amen. As I keep harping, "optimistic" is not the same as "utopian."

 

[Jayson1]

To me civilian clothes have been improving ever since the later years of the Berman years so to me this isn't really issue. I haven't paid attention enough though to notice one thing that used to be a rule with clothing. No pockets. Has anyone noticed clothes with pockets on this new stuff? I know the idea was since people didn't have money you wouldn't need a place to carry money around.


Jason

 

[KennyB]

To me civilian clothes have been improving ever since the later years of the Berman years so to me this isn't really issue. I haven't paid attention enough though to notice one thing that used to be a rule with clothing. No pockets. Has anyone noticed clothes with pockets on this new stuff? I know the idea was since people didn't have money you wouldn't need a place to carry money around.


Jason

I'm out if Riker isn't wearing this when Picard arrives...........

 

[Jayson1]

One issue we do have to worry about though is I have a feeling this show is going to make Wesley Crusher's "I'm with Starfleet. We don't lie" line look really bad in retrospect.


Jason

 

[Campe]

One issue we do have to worry about though is I have a feeling this show is going to make Wesley Crusher's "I'm with Starfleet. We don't lie" line look really bad in retrospect.

First, I don’t think it needs retrospect to look bad.

Second, even if it did: Why? Wesley was an idealistic teenager. The idea that he knew all the ins and outs of Starfleet is a little suspect. He was an Acting Ensign and hadn’t been on the job that long at that point.

 

[Jayson1]

First, I don’t think it needs retrospect to look bad.

Second, even if it did: Why? Wesley was an idealistic teenager. The idea that he knew all the ins and outs of Starfleet is a little suspect. He was an Acting Ensign and hadn’t been on the job that long at that point.

This is all true but I was just kind of making a joke.

Jason

 

[Lord Garth]

That, however, doesn't quite solve the other main issue that the franchise started to run up against towards the end which was: we can science our way out of almost anything and if somehow that doesn't work, then we can use time travel to fix everything!

This is a fair point. If this show takes itself seriously at all as drama, which it seems as if it wants to, it won't make anything easy and everything will be earned. At least that's my hope.

OTOH, TNG also took itself seriously and technobabbled its way out of everything, especially in the sixth and seventh seasons.

So it could go either way. But "Calypso" and "Children of Mars" are good signs that Michael Chabon, Kristen Beyer, and the rest of the writing staff will steer the ship the right way.

 

[Campe]

@Jayson1 - Ah, tone. So hard to read on the inter webs.

 

[Alan Roi]

One issue we do have to worry about though is I have a feeling this show is going to make Wesley Crusher's "I'm with Starfleet. We don't lie" line look really bad in retrospect.

Jason

That line looked really bad by the time Wesley quit the Academy, really.

 

[DEWLine]

As for the change of culture at Starfleet Command and Federation HQ...we can chalk that up to the cumulative effect of multiple events across the decades. Start with Q's introducing the Borg and the Federation to each other...

 

[JD]

This is a fair point. If this show takes itself seriously at all as drama, which it seems as if it wants to, it won't make anything easy and everything will be earned. At least that's my hope.

OTOH, TNG also took itself seriously and technobabbled its way out of everything, especially in the sixth and seventh seasons.

So it could go either way. But "Calypso" and "Children of Mars" are good signs that Michael Chabon, Kristen Beyer, and the rest of the writing staff will steer the ship the right way.

It's been a while since I read them, but I don't think Kirsten Beyer's Voyager books were that heavy on the technobable.

 

[JesterFace]

I'm out if Riker isn't wearing this when Picard arrives...........

View attachment 13032

Why wouldn't he?

 

[DaveyNY]

I don't know how "realistic" the look of Star Trek: Picard is, and I don't care since I'll be dead in 2399. When I look at these photos of the cast in character, the look works good enough for me. I'm happy with this. It looks a Hell of a lot better than the TNG Civvies.

But don't take my word for it. See for yourself.

Kinda looks like the two pics of Dahj & Dr. Jurati might be in the lower deck of the La Sirena.