Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 3x01 - "The Next Generation"

[Yistaan]

What I'm saying is that it's not the "ugliness" of the swearwords themselves that determines whether it's hate speech or not. People don't become hateful and aren't incited to violence because they hear others talk about marginalized groups using "fuck" and "shit." Swearing is not violent. Hate speech itself is.

ETA: And I'm not talking about slurs. That's a completely different and absolutely abhorrent practice that has no place in public speech. But luckily, the only time we heard the n-word for example, it was in a 20th century context in an episode about racism. Not in the everyday speech of Federation citizens.

I guess my viewpoint is that while vulgarities themselves may not be immoral, I find them to be a "slippery slope" so to speak. Yes, you can describe a car as a four letter word or whatever, but how long before someone slips up and starts using that to describe a person, or a group of people, etc. Whereas while avoiding vulgarities will of course not eliminate hate speech, it cuts off a slippery slope avenue in my opinion of using objectifying language towards a person or people.

And to be fair that may just be how I see things. For example, I don't drink alcohol. I respect that it's not illegal to drink it but all I see is something that has no real use and can easily be a gateway to other problems. I'm not equating using vulgarity with alcoholism but what I see is something that I don't see any use for, the rare positive uses of it are slim or nonexistent or can easily be replaced by less potentially harmful alternatives, and instead it just ends up a potentially needless slippery slope to worse things when that can be cut off much earlier. So I see your viewpoint now, mine is different, and I guess that's just how things are.

 

[fireproof78]

From my perspective, and other psychological professionals, vulgarity has it's uses as a "release valve" in dealing with intense emotions. Now, I currently swear a lot in the course of building my own house. I also swear when driving in the snow because, well, winter driving sucks. Nowhere have I wished violence upon, or insulted other people in my vulgarity. "Fuck it! Damn it! and Shit!" are about it.

Since starting in building a house I have discovered that it actually takes the edge of to just sigh and go "Fuck" when something goes wrong. I can move on from it and it's done.

The slippery slope argument only works for me if people are incapable of taking responsibility. By saying vulgarity leads to violence it basically assumes a moral imperfection that is uncorrectable if one uses certain words. Which, for my mind, strikes me as a stretch, and, if we supposedly can evolve as Star Trek fans would have us think, implies that we cannot engage in self-control with out ridding our words of vulgarity.

It's an interesting line, though it reminds me of bit of the Hayes code and how I felt about certain people in high school when they swore.

 

[SJGardner]

Also, as a member of a marginalized minority that is currently at the dead center of the most vitriolic and hateful moral panic and political/legislative crusade of today, this just reminds me of all the tone policing and calls for respectability politics from both within the LGBTQ community and from people calling themselves allies. We can't use uncouth language, we can't swear, we can't tell the losers on twitter calling for literal genocide against us or the billionaire financing legislation targeting us what to do with themselves because it will be identified with the the trans community and will be used to paint us all as violent and hate-filled people, and we need to be always presentable, always polite even to people wanting to kill us, always prim and proper, always censor ourselves to only show the most family-friendly and mainstream-acceptable facets of our existence because anything that could be used against us will be used against us, and could even alienate potential allies by itself by making them uncomfortable.

 

[Noname Given]

Which reaches its peak in "Who Watches the Watchers?" I know that the Mintakans were holding Federation citizens hostage but the sneering, condescending attitude of Picard to those people always makes me cringe a little.

Not to mention if the Mintakans really WERE 'Proto-Vulcans; at this stage of their society they should be fighting amongst themselves and killing each other.

(But hey TNG never got taken to task for a writer not knowing STAR TREK lore/history - it's the most 'consistent' version of Star Trek...)

 

[Timofnine]

Not to mention if the Mintakans really WERE 'Proto-Vulcans; at this stage of their society they should be fighting amongst themselves and killing each other.

(But hey TNG never got taken to task for a writer not knowing STAR TREK lore/history - it's the most 'consistent' version of Star Trek...)

Unless it is actually *you* that is mistaken. The Mintakans could have been the original progenitor Vulcans, making them proto Vulcans. The Mintakans who were fighting and killing each other may have left Mintaka and founded Vulcan, leaving the puritans behind who quite happily lived their simple lives for millennia. This cycle continued yet again with the Romulans.

 

[TRON JA307020]

As many criticisms as I've had of DSC since it first premiered the use of vulgarities in a couple of episodes is pretty close to if not at the bottom of my list. It's language. People still Grok Spock even though that word didn't exist before 1961 and these days most people don't use that word. But nobody is going to blow a gasket if you do.

I mean, the Tamarians literally use metaphor and mythological references to communicate with Picard and the Enterprise-D crew. And that episode about how beings communicate is lauded as one of the best in the entire franchise.

Well it just seemed they were using swear words because they could. Now its commonplace in star trek. In STTVH there's a whole scene where Kirk is explaining to Spock how humans used to communicate by swearing ever other word. It's obviously not commonplace any longer by the 23rd century. I always liked this about Star Trek. Yeah s occasional light swear word like Dammit or Hell amd Data saying "Oh Shit" but it was kept to a minimum. Now it's much more and every writer seems to be in love with the word "piss" or "piss off". It's just getting tiring and sounds like every other Sci fi show.

 

[cooleddie74]

But commonplace means every episode and more than once in each. DSC goes many episodes without swearing. I don't remember more than a "shit" any maybe another word in last week's PIC. If it were suddenly Jay and Silent Bob Go To Qo'noS maybe I could see it being a bit much but Trek's not a comedy nor even an edgy Gen X dramedy. It's a sci-fi franchise that even now doesn't have a character drop F bombs every five minutes. It's done in surprising moderation considering this is a streaming platform not governed by FCC obscenity regulations.

 

[fireproof78]

Yeah. It's only "commonplace " in the imagination. Certainly not from watching the show.

 

[EJD1984]

When we see Picard's old logs being played on the Eleos, is Beverly listening to them reliving the past or Jack getting to know dad.?

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

When we see Picard's old logs being played on the Eleos, is Beverly listening to them reliving the past or Jack getting to know dad.?

It was research by Beverly. The log entry is from the same mission that the code word for the Virus is from which Riker reveals shortly after.

 

[Tuskin38]

It was research by Beverly. The log entry is from the same mission that the code word for the Virus is from which Riker reveals shortly after.

While that was the one being on screen, there's multiple logs on the computer from various times.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

While that was the one being on screen, there's multiple logs on the computer from various times.

Sure, she was looking through several to find a code/chiffre that works for her purpose.

 

[STEPhon IT]

The episode had a very Wrath of Khan kind of vibe, I liked it, and like Captain Liam Shaw and his temperament and he's consistent throughout. This was something I was hoping for Seven where it wouldn't be easy for her to deal with a CO who may not see things the way she does. I like this conflict and I hope it progresses to something fruitful in the future of this final run. Picard and Riker was like old hat, chemistry was on point, something I look forward to as this serial goes on.

 

[Kzinti]

a pretty good start as usual but the start was never the problem with picard it was the rest also the CG looked a bit ''cartoonish'' in some scene

 

[thribs]

It was funny Picard saying maximum warp at the start. Weren’t they already at maximum warp?

 

[Phoenix219]

Overall, great start! I've been way too into every little pre-release tease there is, and a consequence of that is always that my first actual watch feels more focused on the letdowns, but that's just part of my journey with Trek.

I was shocked Shaw has been teased as a character we'll love. For sure it could happen, but if it does it'll be the most implausible swing in opinion since Damar. It wasn't the amount of contempt Shaw had for our heroes, it was how it was expressed, there was no subtlety to that writing. A career focused guy who's all about proper procedure can get his point across without needing to be as nakedly aggressive and disrespectful to superior officers as Shaw was here. He didn't feel even a little like a person, but he felt a lot like a carefully constructed plot obstacle.

I also didn't buy Seven in this situation. I simply don't believe the character we know submits to things like being forced to use a name she doesn't identify with and all that.

I may have missed something, but I read the scene differently, more like she was putting the Borg stuff behind her and reclaiming her humanity in SF. I haven't finished either of the earlier seasons, but that was my first impression.

It's funny, both are problems of working too hard to put our heroes on their heels. Obviously drama demands things be difficult, but this far into the narrative, we've seen them earn so much status. I wish they had found cleverer ways to work that in, rather than pushing to make them underdogs at every level.

As someone who thinks the features are generally Trek's weakest link, I was surprised at how much I loved the movie vibe. It felt so rich and lush, you just want to sink into this world. The score especially I thought was gorgeous. I would buy this score.

I was pleasantly surprised how well-written Laris was and how well it honored their season 2 story. It made me wish she was coming along for the whole season -- there's some Garak-like potential in this character that was barely touched.

As teased, it was awesome to see Beverly in this new light. Can't wait to see more from her.


That was odd, especially given how explicitly they've been discussed as season 3 regulars in the lead-up.


AGREED. It felt wrong and kind of disappointing to use that fanfare for a non-Enterprise ship.

Spoiler

Even though I just started this, I've heard some spoilers, and think its quite ironic that this all retcons it so Riker was the Captain of an Enterprise the entire time - he got what he always wanted and didn't even realize it.

One tiny bit of writing in this I absolutely could. not. stand. was the retconning of new events into BOBW.

First, it gives me TATV flashbacks, not good.

Second, it was so weird how Picard jumped to assimilation as soon as Riker referred to him as "incapacitated", like that was the only time he had been incapacitated! Why not when he was abducted again by the LoreBorg, or abducted by the "Allegiance" aliens, or tortured by the Cardassians, or shut down by Bok's mind control device, or the probe from Kataan, or possessed by the "Lonely Among Us" energy cloud, or incapacitated by the flu while in orbit of Angel One, or or or... just come up with a better line there, the existing one does not sync at all with what we've seen of their lives.

This is a post First Contact/ENT rewritten timeline, so the events could have unfolded slightly differently. We don't know what we have seen of their lives. Lots of time travel butterflies since then.

 

[Phoenix219]

Hadn't thought about S2, that fits better. If true though, that's a hell of a big secret she managed to keep quiet!

That actually explains her only-one-year-missing storyline better than anything else, but I doubt they will go in that direction. They already had the "attempted lovers" line shoehorned in, and i took the implication to be right before the split. This would be way more original.

 

[Phoenix219]

I love it when someone takes the time to come up with a reasonable In-Universe reason for something that many other folks will just waste their time bitchn' about.

Where did the idea that they couldn't warp near a planet/star even come from? You couldn't slingshot around the sun to time travel if that was the case.

 

[fireproof78]

Where did the idea that they couldn't warp near a planet/star even come from? You couldn't slingshot around the sun to time travel if that was the case.

"By Inferno's Light" Dax questions Kira's decisions to go to warp inside the solar system.

 

[gweeps]

I guess the first few minutes of this was the coda to Seasons 1 and 2.