Spoilers Star Trek: Picard General Discussion Thread

[Tuskin38]

RMB did say somethings that were later confirmed by the 2 trailers we've gotten.

and if somehow a good live action season that respects continuity / tone / doesn't break the universe comes out

So every season of Star Trek ever

Spoiler

• It's Frontier Day, the 250th anniversary of... something (NX-01 launch? otherwise Earth Starfleet would be too late and Federation about a decade too early)... many ships in Sector 001 for the celebration

Spoiler

Yeah this is odd. I don't remember what Terry said about a time skip between 2 and 3. But Season 2 was 2401 which would be better for 250.

 

[StewMc]

Spoiler

Yeah this is odd. I don't remember what Terry said about a time skip between 2 and 3. But Season 2 was 2401 which would be better for 250.

Spoiler

He said about a year, I think. I’m wondering if the intention was for season 2 to actually be set in 2400, I’m sure Rios actually says that year specifically when he is locked up. 2401 comes from the Chateau Picard wine labels only doesn’t it?

If season 2 was 2400, season 3 could easily be 2401, and then “Frontier Day” could well be the anniversary of the NX-01 launch.

 

[Sehlat Vie]

As a newbie, I just want to say that PIC season 2 was an absolute mess.

Picard's family and his mother's struggle with mental illness were treated like fodder for a bad Gothic horror novel.

Really getting tired of Brent Spiner playing the entire Soong family line; it's a gag that's long exhausted now.

Borg Queen/Agnes, in the opening episode of S2, could've simply taken that damn cloak off of her head, and explained everything without firing anyone needing to fire a shot or for her to hack the entire damn fleet.

The time travel plot had almost no ticking clock.
Once they landed in 2024, the entire middle act seemed to grind to a halt; they vomited multiple subplots and tried to speak to so many topics (ICE, depression, mental illness, suicide, etc) that there was absolutely no narrative thrust whatsoever.

Renee Picard is a terrible representation of an astronaut.
I've had the privilege of meeting several, and there is no such thing as a 'reluctant astronaut.' That's a myth. They're a deeply competitive bunch, and they wouldn't risk being grounded for depression. If Renee had those kinds of self-doubts, she wouldn't be in the running. I appreciate that the show was attempting to speak to the seriousness of depression, but they chose the wrong character with which to do it.

Q's entire raison d'etre seemed to be that he just needed a good hug before he died; and if he was 'helping' them all along, then why was he actively sabotaging Renee Picard's flight? Never resolved.

A manned flight to Europa is taking place only 2 years from now...??

I love Sir Patrick Stewart; and Picard is the finest captain the ST franchise has ever had; however, PIC S2 is quite possibly the single worst season of Star Trek ever.

I don't know what the mood around here is regarding PIC S2, and perhaps I should've posted this in the unpopular views thread (?), but like I said...newbie.

 

[cal888]

I don't need a video on a free platform to tell me that. I can come to my own conclusion.

Fair enough. The main point of that video was trying to get people that have sworn off anything Star Trek with Alex Kurtzman's name attached to at least give S3E01 a chance, and that a viewer could tell within the first 30 minutes that things were different this time (hence the point by point of what might be seen in that episode if someone gave it said chance). Meanwhile on other YouTube channels you have elements arguing that no matter how good Picard season 3 is, supporting it is supporting Kurtzman and it should be actively boycotted.

I don't know what the mood around here is regarding PIC S2, and perhaps I should've posted this in the unpopular views thread (?), but like I said...newbie.

As a looooong time lurker and very occasional poster, welcome. Picard season 2 is deeply flawed, but I guess I'm more inclined than most to see it in a positives outweigh the negatives light.

 

[fireproof78]

Fair enough. The main point of that video was trying to get people that have sworn off anything Star Trek with Alex Kurtzman's name attached to at least give S3E01 a chance, and that a viewer could tell within the first 30 minutes that things were different this time (hence the point by point of what might be seen in that episode if someone gave it said chance). Meanwhile on other YouTube channels you have elements arguing that no matter how good Picard season 3 is, supporting it is supporting Kurtzman and it should be actively boycotted.

So, typical YT. Hard pass. Mostly because those who have "sworn off" Kurtzman will still watch it, or "hate watch" it to use a turn of phrase, and still be convinced it is terrible.

At the end of the day, I am strongly skeptical that anyone's mind will be changed by a YT video. If so, well, good for them I guess. As I said, watching it is the best way to know. First hand experience, not taking someone's word for it.

 

[Timofnine]

As a newbie, I just want to say that PIC season 2 was an absolute mess.

Picard's family and his mother's struggle with mental illness were treated like fodder for a bad Gothic horror novel.

Really getting tired of Brent Spiner playing the entire Soong family line; it's a gag that's long exhausted now.

Borg Queen/Agnes, in the opening episode of S2, could've simply taken that damn cloak off of her head, and explained everything without firing anyone needing to fire a shot or for her to hack the entire damn fleet.

The time travel plot had almost no ticking clock.
Once they landed in 2024, the entire middle act seemed to grind to a halt; they vomited multiple subplots and tried to speak to so many topics (ICE, depression, mental illness, suicide, etc) that there was absolutely no narrative thrust whatsoever.

Renee Picard is a terrible representation of an astronaut.
I've had the privilege of meeting several, and there is no such thing as a 'reluctant astronaut.' That's a myth. They're a deeply competitive bunch, and they wouldn't risk being grounded for depression. If Renee had those kinds of self-doubts, she wouldn't be in the running. I appreciate that the show was attempting to speak to the seriousness of depression, but they chose the wrong character with which to do it.

Q's entire raison d'etre seemed to be that he just needed a good hug before he died; and if he was 'helping' them all along, then why was he actively sabotaging Renee Picard's flight? Never resolved.

A manned flight to Europa is taking place only 2 years from now...??

I love Sir Patrick Stewart; and Picard is the finest captain the ST franchise has ever had; however, PIC S2 is quite possibly the single worst season of Star Trek ever.

I don't know what the mood around here is regarding PIC S2, and perhaps I should've posted this in the unpopular views thread (?), but like I said...newbie.

I don’t know if I am allowed to kind of agree with this… I love Star Trek too much to say bad things about it though, so I will just quote you and hope that I do not get in trouble for it because I do not think that you are a troll as you have some valid points.

I really enjoyed Picard season 2 but I agree with a lot of what you have to say about it.

I found the mental illness parts very hard to watch because I do not think that they were dealt with properly, especially the Picard’s mum bits which seemed a bit misplaced. I like to binge repeat watch older Star Trek episodes, in particular TNG and VOY, but some episodes of Picard season 2 I can never watch again. I do not know if this is good or bad thing from a production perspective as it could have been the intent of the people making the show to put this kind of ‘shock factor’ in to Picard’s life. I kind of wish I was a Star Wars fan at times because even though I have never seen any of it, I think that their fans are a lot more happier in general with what is being produced in regards to it synchronising and matching up a lot more to what has gone before.

Maybe I should go to the dark side and give Star Wars a go?

Does anybody know if there is a StarWarsBBS?

 

[Campe]

Yeah, some Star Wars fans are just as pedantic as some Star Trek fans when it comes to continuity.

 

[Tuskin38]

Does anybody know if there is a StarWarsBBS?

We have a subforum dedicated to Star Wars here.
TheForce.net forums I also browse, they're a big old forum.

A manned flight to Europa is taking place only 2 years from now...??

What's the issue here? It's not our 2024, it's the Star Trek universe's 2024.

Star Trek's 20th and 21st tech is more advanced then ours. They had working cryonics as early as 1994 according to TNG, and sleeper ships as early as 1996 according to TOS.

I don’t know if I am allowed to kind of agree with this…

Why wouldn't you be allowed?

 

[fireproof78]

I love Star Trek too much to say bad things about it though, so I will just quote you and hope that I do not get in trouble

By whom?

*insert "What an odd thing to say" meme here*

kind of wish I was a Star Wars fan at times because even though I have never seen any of it, I think that their fans are a lot more happier in general with what is being produced in regards to it synchronising and matching up a lot more to what has gone before.

Hahaha....oh, boy...I don't usually post "LOL" because I don't actually "laugh out loud" but this one got me good. I was just recently over on a SW forum and getting shade thrown my way for my opinions on Star Wars and liking some particular films.

Yeah, Star Wars fans are just as nitpicky, demanding, particular, and easily ruffled by discontinuities as Trek fans, and sometimes even more so.

Does anybody know if there is a StarWarsBBS?

If you want to try out Star Wars I would recommend watching the "Original Trilogy" first, episodes 4, 5, 6, then decide what you like and what to go on to next. They are fun space opera movies.

 

[eschaton]

Yeah, some Star Wars fans are just as pedantic as some Star Trek fans when it comes to continuity.

Star Wars fans are worse, because the books counted as canon at some points.

 

[Timofnine]

We have a subforum dedicated to Star Wars here.

I shall perhaps enter this space one day, but I will be sure to read the room before I do.

??? Why wouldn't you be allowed?

Sometimes when people express their dissatisfaction with Star Trek, others that love the show label them as trolls. Someone who loves the Picard show for example could have read the message I quoted and claimed that the person posting it was a troll because it was not exactly a shining endorsement of the show, especially coming from a newbie which might make it look like they only came here to start trouble. But I honestly think that this was the posters opinion and that they are not a troll, because I kind of agree with what they said. Sometimes, if someone does not like or agree with something that a majority of others do and they express their differing or counter opinion online it can make other people angry, this can be interpreted as ‘trolling’. But just because someone has differing opinions, or ideas that that might make you angry, it does not mean that the person with the alternate opinion is a troll, they might actually believe what they say which makes them something different.

 

[Sehlat Vie]

We have a subforum dedicated to Star Wars here.
What's the issue here? It's not our 2024, it's the Star Trek universe's 2024.

Star Trek's 20th and 21st tech is more advanced then ours. They had working cryonics as early as 1994 according to TNG, and sleeper ships as early as 1996 according to TOS.

Yes, but even within Star Trek's continuity, the first manned Mars missions didn't happen until the 2030s ("Ares One"). Europa is a lot further away than Mars, and the radiation shielding technology needed for a manned flight there is not even on the radar. Star Trek usually bends its continuity a bit to 'fit' our real world so that it remains relevant and aspirational. This just seemed like a wildly weird departure from all of that.

 

[cooleddie74]

Though to be fair the Shaun Geoffrey Christopher manned mission to Saturn mentioned in TOS Season 1 happened anywhere from 2009 to 2030 depending on the reference material or fan conjecture. So we had fusion-driven sublight engine technology be a major breakthrough for Earth space explorers in or around 2018 which made fission-powered, slow sleeper ships like the S.S. Botany Bay obsolete for travel within our own solar system, the Europa mission in 2024, Shaun Geoffrey Christopher visiting Saturn by 2030 and then work on establishing a permanent human presence on Mars happening by 2032.

And then in 2037 the Charybdis becomes the third manned attempt to explore beyond our own solar system, so it's pretty clear that once sublight became a reality in or around 2018 that we were already on the outskirts of our star system by the 2030s. Earth's space agencies were busy.

 

[Sehlat Vie]

I don’t know if I am allowed to kind of agree with this… I love Star Trek too much to say bad things about it though, so I will just quote you and hope that I do not get in trouble for it because I do not think that you are a troll as you have some valid points.

I really enjoyed Picard season 2 but I agree with a lot of what you have to say about it.

I found the mental illness parts very hard to watch because I do not think that they were dealt with properly, especially the Picard’s mum bits which seemed a bit misplaced. I like to binge repeat watch older Star Trek episodes, in particular TNG and VOY, but some episodes of Picard season 2 I can never watch again. I do not know if this is good or bad thing from a production perspective as it could have been the intent of the people making the show to put this kind of ‘shock factor’ in to Picard’s life. I kind of wish I was a Star Wars fan at times because even though I have never seen any of it, I think that their fans are a lot more happier in general with what is being produced in regards to it synchronising and matching up a lot more to what has gone before.

Maybe I should go to the dark side and give Star Wars a go?

Does anybody know if there is a StarWarsBBS?

Thanks for not assuming I'm a troll; I'm new here, and I don't want to come off that way.
Just legitimate criticisms.

And for context, I liked PIC S1 (save for a few nits here and there). In fact, I kind of wish they'd ended the series with his getting the android body and living for an indeterminate life span afterward. Would've been a perfect sendoff for the character.

I also very much agree that the subplots involving mental illness were very poorly handled, and were borderline offensive to me at times. They made Yvette look more like Blanche Dubois from "Streetcar Named Desire" than Picard's mother that he mysteriously mis-remembered' as an old woman. That was such clumsy ret-conning that they literally had to shoehorn in a line about Picard remembering her as an 'old woman' that she never lived to be. The whole season felt clumsy that way.

 

[Sehlat Vie]

Though to be fair the Shaun Geoffrey Christopher manned mission to Saturn mentioned in TOS Season 1 happened anywhere from 2009 to 2030 depending on the reference material or fan conjecture. So we had fusion-driven sublight engine technology be a major breakthrough for Earth space explorers in or around 2018 which made fission-powered, slow sleeper ships like the S.S. Botany Bay obsolete for travel within our own solar system, the Europa mission in 2024, Shaun Geoffrey Christopher visiting Saturn by 2030 and then work on establishing a permanent human presence on Mars happening by 2032.

And then in 2037 the Charybdis becomes the third manned attempt to explore beyond our own solar system, so it's pretty clear that once sublight became a reality in or around 2018 that we were already on the outskirts of our star system by the 2030s. Earth's space agencies were busy.

Good points all around, but those were written when the 21st century wasn't quite as easy to visualize as it is today; usually Star Trek moves the goal posts, as it did by changing the Eugenics Wars into a 21st century ordeal ("Strange New Worlds" S1.1), otherwise Janeway and Chakotay should've arrived to a devastated, post Eugenics Wars Earth of 1996 in that VGR two-parter, and yet Venice Beach still looked okay to me.

 

[fireproof78]

21st century was a TNG invention, and, as you note, Voyager has a completely contemporary LA to visit.

 

[cooleddie74]

The creators later postulated that Los Angeles and the U.S. in Trek's 1996 weren't directly affected by the Eugenics Wars so there'd be no ruined city devastated by a major conflict to visit. Works for me.

 

[fireproof78]

The creators later postulated that Los Angeles and the U.S. in Trek's 1996 weren't directly affected by the Eugenics Wars so there'd be no ruined city devastated by a major conflict to visit. Works for me.

It works if we ignore Spock's dialog about whole populations being bombed out of existence and records of the period being fragmentary. Unless the records being fragmentary are themselves inaccurate...conspiracy!

 

[Sehlat Vie]

It works if we ignore Spock's dialog about whole populations being bombed out of existence and records of the period being fragmentary. Unless the records being fragmentary are themselves inaccurate...conspiracy!

Or that "Strange New Worlds" clearly shows the Eugenics Wars & World War 3 happening later on in this century, not the 20th...

 

[fireproof78]

Or that "Strange New Worlds" clearly shows the Eugenics Wars & World War 3 happening later on in this century, not the 20th...

Records are fragmentary, Captain.