Spoilers So, what do we think of Season 2 now that it's done?

[Alexander Corrino]

No, he literally SAID that the fans don’t realize how much storylines are influenced by the studio (as to who “the studio” is, he didn’t elaborate but then, naming names would not be wise for him right now, given the fact that he would clearly be happy to make more Trek). AND he said the studio’s directive was to make the Trek future our future and he also said the studio objected to the “Laris-goes-back-in-time with the others” idea (he quickly changed the subject on that one tho). Of course he can’t be too detailed - I’m surprised he’s saying anything at all, in fact. I thought he’d wait until season 3 had aired and the show had come to an end.

 

[FederationHistorian]

I keep thinking of something interesting that Matalas has started to mention in his interviews by now if you listen closely - and that’s the fact that apparently the studio had a rather huge influence on the actual plot of season 2. He even said so, he made a remark about how fans don’t realize just HOW much the studio interferes. From what I could deduce from his remarks the whole Eugenics Wars thing that retconned stuff was the studio saying that Trek’s future needs to be our future and Trek should not take place in a timeline different from ours because Trek needs to give us hope and that’s what the franchise is supposed to put emphasis on, regardless of what was said before. Apparently that’s the way the studio wanted it.

He also made an off-handed remark about how the original plan for season 2 was for Laris to also have a Confederation universe counterpart that, like the others, remembers that this isn’t how things are supposed to be and then goes back in time with them to fix it. But the studio apparently said no to that as well. (Matalas didn’t elaborate on why tho.) So the whole Not!Laris storyline might also have been a result of studio interference.

I guess what I’m saying is that with this show there seems to be a LOT of stuff going on behind the scenes that the fandom isn’t being told just yet (I’m sure we will get the whole story in time). Of course it’s almost a trademark by now that Trek shows are notoriously bumpy to make, but this one seems to be particularly bumpy…

The studio will always interfere with Star Trek; there was interference with VOY and ENT, and there is likely interference with all the Kurtzman era shows. The issues with S2 go beyond there being no Confederation version of Laris. Its editing and pacing of the story that influences how coherent it is.

A line where Seven acknowledges she’s also met Q and has also met his son gives nothing away about the story.

A line where Seven says she’ll tell Raffi about Tom Paris to explain why she knows how to drive gives nothing away.

A line where its mentioned that the Shenzhen Accords have kept the peace for nearly 30 years in the aftermath of the Eugenics Wars and Adam Soong’s experiments jeopardizes that gives nothing away.

A line by Guinan saying she doesn’t want to be confused with famous actress Whoopi Goldberg and that’s why she looks really young gives nothing away.

Writing a episode where Rios explains his breakup with Jurati between S1 & S2, and Raffi explaining to Seven her connection to Elnor, while Picard was in the clinic would have given nothing away.

An offhand comment stating Adam Soong owns an experimental hypersonic private jet to explain how he jumps between France and Los Angeles in minutes gives nothing away.

Agent Wells acknowledging he’s actually Ducane from the 29th century, that he’s part-Q, he is undercover to make sure 2024 isn’t altered because of the Temporal Wars, and telling Picard and Guinan to not worry about the Temporal Wars gives nothing away.

A line where Rios knows what's coming and that's why he needs to stay behind with Teresa and Ricardo gives nothing away. It would have actually led into SNW's premiere quite well.

S2 in general was expecting the audience to both shut off their brain and to fill in the gaps by themselves.

We’re like the officer on the Stargazer that questioned where Rios abruptly disappeared to – we’re to just shut up and accept the story, even though parts of it don’t make sense.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

S2 in general was expecting the audience to both shut off their brain and to fill in the gaps by themselves.

Surely that's a contradiction in terms? How can a person fill gaps with their brain shut off?

we're to just shut up and accept the story, even though parts of it don’t make sense.

Same as it ever was.

 

[Danja]

A line where Seven acknowledges she’s also met Q and has also met his son gives nothing away about the story.

Why would she have needed to do that?

A line where Seven says she’ll tell Raffi about Tom Paris to explain why she knows how to drive gives nothing away.

The best explanation is also the simplest ...

The Borg ... ADAPT. That's what they do.

She doesn't need lessons from Tom.

Raffi explaining to Seven her connection to Elnor, while Picard was in the clinic would have given nothing away.

If Raffi and Seven have known each other long enough to get close, then I figured she would've known about Elnor.

Agent Wells acknowledging he’s actually Ducane from the 29th century, that he’s part-Q, he is undercover to make sure 2024 isn’t altered because of the Temporal Wars, and telling Picard and Guinan to not worry about the Temporal Wars gives nothing away.

The man was fired for his conspiracy theories. Why did he have to be Ducane?

You would load S2 with a ton of unnecessary exposition.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It had enough unnecessary exposition as was!

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I doubt that 99% of the audience were ever attempting to fill the following gaps.

A line where Seven acknowledges she’s also met Q and has also met his son gives nothing away about the story.

It also adds nothing to the story, other than a drive-by line to make fanwankers happy.

A line where Seven says she’ll tell Raffi about Tom Paris to explain why she knows how to drive gives nothing away.

See above.

A line where its mentioned that the Shenzhen Accords have kept the peace for nearly 30 years in the aftermath of the Eugenics Wars and Adam Soong’s experiments jeopardizes that gives nothing away.

See above.

A line by Guinan saying she doesn’t want to be confused with famous actress Whoopi Goldberg and that’s why she looks really young gives nothing away.

See above.

Agent Wells acknowledging he’s actually Ducane from the 29th century, that he’s part-Q, he is undercover to make sure 2024 isn’t altered because of the Temporal Wars, and telling Picard and Guinan to not worry about the Temporal Wars gives nothing away.

WTF?

Picard Season 2 had many problems but a lack of callbacks or exposition were not the issue.

 

[Dukhat]

It had enough unnecessary exposition as was!

Not to mention that the character of Wells was completely pointless and unnecessary and only served to waste an entire episode of an already short ten-episode season.

 

[gvn2fly]

Other than "Death Wish" i don't think the Voyager "Q" episodes are very good and skip them in rewatch so I'm actually glad Seven didn't mention knowing Q LOL

 

[FederationHistorian]

Why would she have needed to do that?

It’s called continuity. And would be another area where Seven and Picard had a shared experience, in addition to sharing their experiences after being assimilated by the Borg.

Picard obviously didn’t meet Q’s son, but it would still be relevant since Elnor had developed a parent-child relationship with both Picard and Raffi. It probably would have added to the story. We are talking about penances in the second episode and this gets overlooked?

The best explanation is also the simplest ...

The Borg ... ADAPT. That's what they do.

She doesn't need lessons from Tom.

The Borg do adapt. That doesn’t mean Seven knew or understood how to do everything by default, hence being mentored by Janeway and the Doctor. This includes driving dated 21st century cars, and Tom Paris would be the best mentor for that.

If Raffi and Seven have known each other long enough to get close, then I figured she would've known about Elnor.

Ok, but the audience does not understand. They were just getting invested in Picard and Elnor relationship, and we were to just accept Raffi and Elnor out of the blue.

The man was fired for his conspiracy theories. Why did he have to be Ducane?

You would load S2 with a ton of unnecessary exposition.

S2’s plot involves a time travel story, set a few months prior to a DS9 two parter, and involving Seven of Nine who once worked for Ducane in an episode of VOY. And we’ve seen the 29th century be as obsessed with timeline continuity as the fandom itself. And you are asking why he needed to be Ducane?

How stupid of me and others for thinking that Ducane would be involved in a fuckey time travel story. Would use the ship class name of the Relativity – Wells class – as a cover name while in 2024. Would be part Q to explain why he and SWAT appeared out of nowhere after Guinan summoned the Q at her bar. And referencing the Temporal Wars to give PIC a soft connection to tentpole series DIS, after DIS had its own reference to PIC.

Is it unnecessary exposition if it tightens the story being told?

 

[FederationHistorian]

Surely that's a contradiction in terms? How can a person fill gaps with their brain shut off?

There's nothing contradictory about it about what I wrote. The writers expect the audience to shut off brains and accept the story written, but are also aware that the audience will be nitpicking over the story and will try to fill in the gaps, address continuity issues and so forth.

 

[Danja]

S2’s plot involves a time travel story, set a few months prior to a DS9 two parter, and involving Seven of Nine who once worked for Ducane in an episode of VOY. And we’ve seen the 29th century be as obsessed with timeline continuity as the fandom itself. And you are asking why he needed to be Ducane?

What do you mean "NEEDS to be Ducane"?

Picard and Ducane(?) have never interacted before until now. Why drag Voyager into it? A good portion of the audience will not have seen Voyager. They won't have a clue about Seven and Ducane's relationship.

Is it unnecessary exposition if it tightens the story being told?

That's a matter of opinion.

 

[fireproof78]

What do you mean "NEEDS to be Ducane"?

Picard and Ducane(?) have never interacted before until now. Why drag Voyager into it? A good portion of the audience will not have seen Voyager. They won't have a clue about Seven and Ducane's relationship.

Indeed there is no need for Ducane there. Sorry.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

What do you mean "NEEDS to be Ducane"?

Picard and Ducane(?) have never interacted before until now. Why drag Voyager into it? A good portion of the audience will not have seen Voyager. They won't have a clue about Seven and Ducane's relationship.



That's a matter of opinion.

I can’t imagine how dragging Ducane into things and then rambling on about being half-Q or whatever would improve anything at all.

It certainly does nothing to tighten the story. It just makes for more irritatingly necessary Memory-Alpha searches in order to understand.

The writers expect the audience to shut off brains

Citation needed.

 

[Brainsucker]

I doubt that 99% of the audience were ever attempting to fill the following gaps.

I agree, I'm also this 99% audience who never ever attempting to fill the following gaps. It's pointless. Star Trek is an entertainment. As long as it can entertain me, who care about the deepest detail in there.

 

[Dukhat]

S2’s plot involves a time travel story, set a few months prior to a DS9 two parter, and involving Seven of Nine who once worked for Ducane in an episode of VOY. And we’ve seen the 29th century be as obsessed with timeline continuity as the fandom itself. And you are asking why he needed to be Ducane?

Actually, what NEEDED to happen was for that actor to not be in the show at all, nor the silly FBI subplot he was a part of. Because his character was completely pointless and served no purpose other than to waste an entire episode of an already-short season.

 

[James Cole]

Actually, what NEEDED to happen was for that actor to not be in the show at all, nor the silly FBI subplot he was a part of. Because his character was completely pointless and served no purpose other than to waste an entire episode of an already-short season.

I'm thinking that's the remaining stub of a plotline whose branch got cut off. Terry Matalas likely cast him with something more involved in mind, and they still used him anyway in a more limited capacity.

This also brings to mind the alternate Laris part. If Laris / Tallinn wasn't the 2024 supervisor... does that mean the whole Gary 7 / Supervisors / Travelers connection was a last minute addition? Or would another actor have played the supervisor?

 

[FederationHistorian]

Actually, what NEEDED to happen was for that actor to not be in the show at all, nor the silly FBI subplot he was a part of. Because his character was completely pointless and served no purpose other than to waste an entire episode of an already-short season.

Once he made his appearance in PIC, and it had no connection with what was going on with Guinan and Picard – summon Q – the criticism was rightfully going to come.

If there wasn’t going to be a connection between the two, what was the point of the scene?

 

[Dukhat]

Once he made his appearance in PIC, and it had no connection with what was going on with Guinan and Picard – summon Q – the criticism was rightfully going to come.

If there wasn’t going to be a connection between the two, what was the point of the scene?

There was no point, other than that we were supposed to have some sort of sympathy towards the guy because his life got fucked up as a kid because he ran into Vulcans who failed to erase his memory completely.

Which had zero to do with the plot of the show. If that episode was skipped, it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference.

 

[ananta]

If I’m honest, the season was a mess. I truly don’t think they’d properly thought through the basic storyline before the cameras began rolling. It had enormous potential and it was a delight to see John de Lancie back and in such fine form. But it went nowhere...it just meandered for episode after episode. I got truly sick of the 21st century setting. Time travel had only been used sparingly on Trek in the past and I can see why. I tried to keep the faith in the hope it would have a halfway decent conclusion that would tie it all together, but, on the contrary, by the penultimate episode, it just fell apart.

I’m still confused as to what the heck the Q storyline was actually about and I don’t want to go back to rewatch any of it. It was unbelievably vague and nebulous; I think because the writers weren’t even clear about what they were doing themselves.

I used to complain about Voyager defanging the Borg, but it truly had nothing on this. While I initially liked the Borg Queen scenes with Jurati, the end result: a “kinder, gentler” Borg who are now working with the Federation was truly a shark jumping moment for Star Trek. I didn’t buy it for a second. It took everything that originally made the Borg such a fantastic enemy: an implacable “force of nature” that could never be reasoned with, and pissed all over it. At this point, I actually hope we never see the Borg in Star Trek again. They’re done.

So many other poorly conceived plot threads. It was never explained why Tallin looked identical (not just similar to, but IDENTICAL) to Laris. The whole season had an extreme case of Small Universe Syndrome, what a girl IDENTICAL to Soji centuries before Soji was created, not to mention another IDENTICAL Soong (all these Soongs have passed the point of parody now). Brent Spiner did have a few effective moments, but I’d have jettisoned the entire plot. It was self indulgent, contrived and wholly unnecessary. Past-Guinan didn’t add a whole lot to this either and it took a while for her to even feel remotely at all like Guinan. By the point Wil Wheaton popped up as Traveller Wesley I wasn’t surprised by anything anymore. It made no sense, came out of nowhere but was par for the course in this misconceived shambles of a season arc. The regular cast weren’t served particularly well, either. Jean-Luc’s arc felt inauthentic and shoehorned in, the Rios romance was incredibly dull and obvious, Seven and Raffi’s relationship seemed low-key toxic, and I’ll never get over the ridiculousness of that overblown car chase scene in which nobody was actually chasing them.

Just thinking about it all, I feel like I need an Alka Seltzer. They really messed up. At this point, I’m not even looking forward to the next season, but hopefully they can make it up to us.

 

[Damian]

I tried to keep the faith in the hope it would have a halfway decent conclusion that would tie it all together, but, on the contrary, by the penultimate episode, it just fell apart.

Me too. I was actually ready to quit on it about halfway through the season but I saw it through and it never got better. In some ways it just got worse.

I used to complain about Voyager defanging the Borg, but it truly had nothing on this. While I initially liked the Borg Queen scenes with Jurati, the end result: a “kinder, gentler” Borg who are now working with the Federation was truly a shark jumping moment for Star Trek.

Yeah, I agree. I was seriously like WTF. I'm guessing they wanted to add another dynamic to the Borg but that just didn't work for me at all. And I'm not exactly clear if this affects the entire Borg collective, or is it just the Borg the Jurati-Queen was in charge of (a la 'Descent').

The season just meandered around most of the time and I found much of it just plain bad. Like they were making it up as they went along instead of having a plot mapped out for the entire season going in.