"Star Trek: Picard" Scores at Saturn Awards!

[Headless_Hysteria]

Not especially ...

We have Lower Decks, Prodigy and in the future, Starfleet Academy, for that.

 

[Macintosh]

Was the Enterprise in TMP a memberberry? Was Spock showing up? Was Bones beaming in? Or hey did it start with Klingon battleberries?
Or I guess Khan himself was a berry, and Sarek showing up in SFS, Amanda in TVH, etc.
In my POV, the only case where the term applies is when it's there without a purpose. I could see Shelby as a berry, because it was just a brief appearance with no further meaning. Even the Queen at the end could be seen as such a berry, because her only function was to scream Noooo like it's the other franchise
But all the 'old returning' elements that are so criticized by the anti-berries, including much more developed Beverly, Worf, Geordi, back to full form Riker, the majestic D, a completely new version of Data that integrates all Soong droids, and the intriguing return of Ro, were much more than just berries. The fleet museum ships popping up for 5 seconds could be berries (except the Bounty, which had an essential story purpose). 'Member the Defiant? Here it is! But who cares about 5 second berries? If you don't like them, ignore those 5 seconds, just like the Kirk skeletoberry can easily be ignored if you don't care. Even what seemed to be the berriest berry in the trailer, Moriarty, had a purpose in the story and wasn't just a random old thing popping up just for the sake of popping up.

Perfectly put, thank you.

 

[cal888]

It might just be that people expect different things from different shows based on their expectations with those specific characters and actors. If I go into Picard season 3, where they've promoted it as a TNG reunion, I'm not expecting "New Coke." In fact, I would argue the appeal for many about season 3 is specifically because it feels as close as Paramount+ has gotten to Berman-era "Classic Coke."

I'm not sure where you're based, but in the US several years ago Coca Cola replaced cane sugar with high fructose corn syrup. But, thanks to NAFTA, we have easy imports of Mexican Coca Cola... still made with cane sugar. If anything, I would argue too much of NuTrek is high fructose corn syrup Coke with change for the sake of change that makes the product worse, while PS3 is Mexican Coca Cola... not frozen in the past, but an evolution that keeps a core ingredient intact that is otherwise lacking elsewhere.

Let's step back a season and look at "The Star Gazer". It too was well received by some NuTrek critics... while having just two legacy characters (plus cameos from two more). Sure, it has some annoying Akiva Goldsman-isms in it, but by and large tolerable, and most importantly feels like the TNG/DS9/VGR era 20 years later. Shame that season fell off the greatest cliff in Star Trek history.

Whereas PICARD season 1 from the ground level up just does not mesh well with TNG/DS9/VGR.

And obviously the first two seasons of DISCOVERY and SNW fit hand in glove with "The Cage" and TOS. Hand in glove. Like you'd think they were made in the 1960's! Recasting Saavik and the TOS to TMP time jump were more noticeable, amiright?

Beverly living a life on the edge of space. Picard meeting a son he didn't know. Riker having to confront how losing his son changed him, and affected both his outlook on life and relationship with Troi. Worf, similar to how Spock learned to have balance, finding a version of Klingon honor that is able to have empathy for others, especially with Rashi. Geordi is now a family man that has to be pushed back into action. And we get a version of Data that is similar to his old-self, but not quite.

I mean, season 3 is practically a season long "Shades of Grey" clip show, amiright?

If only we could be so lucky.

Debate and discussion is fine. But when labels start getting thrown around, "You're in a cult!" "You're starting to sound like you worship Lord Terry!" that's what makes me not want to participate in a discussion anymore. It makes me worry that if I want to talk about something I like, I'll have those accusations thrown at me. It makes me feel really uncomfortable about posting here any longer. It makes it not enjoyable and it makes it feel like this is not an environment where I can continue to discuss Star Trek I like.

I mean, I'm sure an equally dismissive label could be applied to the SNW fans... and yes, this is very much done to discourage debate and "center" SNW.

So, with here, I really wish things would just come back to down to Earth a little. We should all just be able to leave each other alone and accept that we all have different opinions.

I think the environment here is driving people away because they don't want to deal with it. Or don't feel comfortable posting here because of it.

You can't help Twitter, YouTube comments sections, or the wider internet, but... this BBS could make some key policy changes to discourage personal attacks, bullying, and ganging up on individual posters. There is too much of a loud minority here that enjoy being assholes on the internet.

If you look at a lot of the reviews for season 3, they specifically talk about it feeling like a continuation of TNG in tone, and for the people that liked it I would argue that's part of why they liked it. It was the continuation of the stories of familiar characters in a form of Star Trek that looked and felt familiar. For those people that didn't like seasons 1 or 2, or have had issues with the other Paramount+ series, this is as close in tone and fidelity that any of the Paramount+ series have come to feeling like those 90s era Trek series.

Exactly

I should amend my post and take a step back and ask a question: What is a TNG feel? What does that mean to each member who find more value in that, specifically @cal888 @Lord Garth and @Citiprime?

This is something I'd be willing to take up this year, but it would take a few hours to tackle it properly, so I'll pass for now.

TNG had its howlers (Rascals, Up the Long Ladder, Code of Honor).

It wasn't perfect by any means.

Then there was Troi being turned into a cake:

TNG had over 170 episodes. Sure there were a few outright bad ones, and far too many mediocre ones, but its success rate is far far higher than PICARD's.

And a little Lynchian dreamscape surrealism was a season 7 highlight.

And I'm sure they don't think of their equally 'cultist' anti-cult as a cult

It's an attempt to manufacture an echo chamber...

Since people are lobbing bombs at the writing of season 3, let me just say the Khan episode of SNW is one of the dumbest episodes of recent Star Trek I've seen, with an awful motivation for altering Trek's timeline. For an episode so concerned with making sure the Eugenics Wars remains believable, it has the story not making any damn sense as far as believability in a modern setting. How do characters check in to a hotel without an id and credit card? Chess money. How do characters jump back and forth across an international border without a passport? Chess money and a cab.

I didn't make it to the end of season 1 of SNW, let alone see any season 2 eps, but my understanding was they wanted Star Trek to "still be our future"... yet in the first episode alone already retconned and established new stuff about the next 10-20 years (second US Civil War etc) that could (and hopefully will!!) be quickly outdated. So, what, every 20 years we need to keep rebooting Star Trek so it will still be our future, thus stuck in some infinite present that never really moves forward, nor has a clear distinct past to build upon?

The fleet museum ships popping up for 5 seconds could be berries (except the Bounty, which had an essential story purpose). 'Member the Defiant? Here it is! But who cares about 5 second berries? If you don't like them, ignore those 5 seconds, just like the Kirk skeletoberry can easily be ignored if you don't care. Even what seemed to be the berriest berry in the trailer, Moriarty, had a purpose in the story and wasn't just a random old thing popping up just for the sake of popping up.

The fleet museum scene provided a character moment for Seven to see Voyager, plus it foreshadows the E-D reveal later on. And, it is pretty fucking fun too. So clutch your peals about giving the audience a few smile moments.

Which... I'm sorry, but for me, the past matters, but PIC S3 feels like it wallows in the past. Like it's so preoccupied with the idea of trying to recapture old glory days that it's not really living in its present anymore.

Haha, well, one thing I really liked about PS3 is it felt it could have been released in 2013. It has that quasi-timeless quality that I liked about Star Trek. Whereas PS2 already feels dated, and it was specifically set in 2024!

Another thing is PS3 is very much reacting to PS1, and that season's reception.

I wonder, for those are at least "normie" (like me) general audience level Star Wars fans or more involved in that franchise...

Are there any people here who are fans of TLJ, but not PS1, or vice versa?

Likewise, are there fans of both TLJ and PS3?

TLJ, yes or no, might be an interesting razer in this...

Neither one feels the need to depict society as collapsing because young people are taken over by evil-doers and we need old folks to save the day from those foreign-controlled youngins', like some weird Baby Boomer fantasy. And neither film feels like it's necessary to tell the audience, "The past mattered, goddamnit!"

Sometimes a plot device for when you have limited time and resources to easily explain why one group of characters is effected by something and another isn't is just a plot device.

The past is the foundation for the present and helps inform the future. I don't get the appeal some have for an infinite present.

 

[fireproof78]

. So, what, every 20 years we need to keep rebooting Star Trek so it will still be our future, thus stuck in some infinite present that never really moves forward, nor has a clear distinct past to build upon?

Possibly, because Star Trek continues that perception of being "our" humanity in the future. It constantly references our past and connects to past events.

I'd love Trek to distinguish itself as a separate period. But, it hasn't.

So clutch your peals about giving the audience a few smile moments.

I will, thank you. They are not as smile moments for everyone, and detract to me. I'm glad they make you smile but it isn't pearl clutching to not be engaged and state one's opinion.

 

[Lord Garth]

Haha, well, one thing I really liked about PS3 is it felt it could have been released in 2013. It has that quasi-timeless quality that I liked about Star Trek.

Though I'm glad it came out in 2023 instead of 2013.

Only because I wouldn't have wanted Jack Crusher as a pre-teen...

 

[HellRod]

There is too much of a loud minority here that enjoy being assholes on the internet.

The irony...

 

[cal888]

Though I'm glad it came out in 2023 instead of 2013.

Only because I wouldn't have wanted Jack Crusher as a pre-teen...

Ahh... but Ed Speleers would have been 23 while filming and not 33, so playing the right age if they still set it in 2401.

 

[Nyotarules]

BillJ is my benchmark. He tooted that horn non-stop five years ago. I got pretty fed up with him back then. But even he likes PIC S3.

So you guys are passed BillJ level, when you weren't before. So that tells me something else is going on.

So let's get right down to the heart of it, and cut everything in-between out: you just didn't want TNG back. Simple as that.

Absolute Candor.

I don't want TNG back. In the 80's some TOS fans strong sense of nostalgia made them anti TNG and longing for the old crew to continue, if the Trek PTB had listened to them there would be no TNG at all.
Trek is better when it brings something new to the table, even if its not popular as its predecessors e.g DS9, DISC at least go for it.
But as for the OP, I'm glad any version of Trek won an award, good for them!

 

[Sci]

Haha, well, one thing I really liked about PS3 is it felt it could have been released in 2013. It has that quasi-timeless quality

No, it really doesn't. It feels like a show trying to synthesize the conventions of 2020s television with the conventions of 1990s television.

Are there any people here who are fans of TLJ, but not PS1, or vice versa?

Likewise, are there fans of both TLJ and PS3?

I adored both The Last Jedi and Picard Season One. PIC S3 feels very much like PIC's equivalent to The Rise of Skywalker.

Sometimes a plot device for when you have limited time and resources to easily explain why one group of characters is effected by something and another isn't is just a plot device.

If so much of the rest of the season hadn't spent its time wallowing in the past, I would agree. As it stands, I don't think it's conscious, but I do think having the TNG cast save the day from brainwashed young people reflects the nostalgia-centric mindset.

The past is the foundation for the present and helps inform the future. I don't get the appeal some have for an infinite present.

.... because "an infinite present" is, just, how time works? That's literally the nature of linear time. It's psychologically unhealthy to be so fixated on the past that you're not living in the present anymore.

It's like that scene in "Emissary," where Sisko is explaining linear time to the Wormhole Aliens, and they get confused because Sisko's subconscious keeps returning them to the moment of his wife's death. "It is not linear."

 

[Tuskin38]

PIC S3 feels very much like PIC's equivalent to The Rise of Skywalker.

Ehhh it's not that shitty.

 

[HellRod]

Ehhh it's not that shitty.

But it's not entirely wrong.....

Rise of Skywalker was clearly some kinda counter/reaction to the..... mixed opinions of The Last Jedi and to a lesser extent, The Force Awakens. Much like Picard season 3 was a reaction the previous seasons, mostly season 1, due to season 2 being filmed back to back with 3.

What did they do? DOUBLE DOWN on the nostalgia!

-A cackling villian from the past with a deep connection to the hero....

Palpatine/Borg Queen

-Characters brought back we that we haven't seen in decades....

Lando and Wedge/Ro and Shelby.

-Old, beloved ships seen back in action....

Luke's X-Wing, plus every other ship I think we've ever seen in Star Wars/The Starfleet Museum and the Enterprise-D.

-A mystery about the family lineage of one of the main characters, who has been accused of being a Marry Sue"....

Rey/Jack

-A final confronting with the villian in a dark, scary location that had been kept hidden from the heoes, that only one of our heroes could find....

Rey/Jack.

-A secret plan put in action that could bring about the end of all our heroes.....

The Final Order Fleet/Borg Assimilation of Starfleet.

I mean.... it all makes sense. Picard season 3 is The Rise of Skywalker of Star Trek.

 

[fireproof78]

because "an infinite present" is, just, how time works? That's literally the nature of linear time. It's psychologically unhealthy to be so fixated on the past that you're not living in the present anymore.

It's like that scene in "Emissary," where Sisko is explaining linear time to the Wormhole Aliens, and they get confused because Sisko's subconscious keeps returning them to the moment of his wife's death. "It is not linear."

It's funny you mention that scene because my feelings around a lot of Trek feels like the Prophets; "Why must Trek exist here?' Why does it have to feel a certain way, do certain things, etc. to be Trek?

Again, before people yell at me for being "anti-nostalgia " it's not that. It's the message that the only time these characters have significance, or meaning, is to go back to their old spots, old ship, old house.

If Legacy is to happen and it actually goes forward then I would be all in. New characters, new ship, etc. similar to TNG and new ideas, new worlds.

"But you like Pike! Hypocrite!" I have liked Pike since before I was aware of Jean Luc Picard. Pike has been a mainstay of my imagination for longer than TNG existed. So, I have warm feelings about Pike. I'm sure others about TNG cast. But, that doesn't make SNW a 10.

So it goes with Picard. It's an average show but I cannot give it above an 8, and I am baffled by the awards and praise for a season I thought was similar to Season 1, except more cameos.

Just doesn't make sense to me...

 

[Citiprime]

It feels like a show trying to synthesize the conventions of 2020s television with the conventions of 1990s television.

I agree to a certain extent, but Enterprise was already doing season-long story arcs back in the aughts and by 2013 shows like Breaking Bad, Mad Men were doing the shortened 10-ish episode season long arcs. Where I think it features elements of NuTrek is that while I think season 3 course corrects in some ways, it doesn't dismiss as much of the elements of the first season as people might think. Arguably, it remains thematically consistent while trying to recapture the feel of TNG because....

If so much of the rest of the season hadn't spent its time wallowing in the past, I would agree. As it stands, I don't think it's conscious, but I do think having the TNG cast save the day from brainwashed young people reflects the nostalgia-centric mindset.

...I don't think it's a generational distinction, per se. I think when Picard says "the past matters" it is not only meant to connect with TNG, but also to the theme of the first season where Picard feels like a man without a country.

In that very first season, we're told Starfleet is not the same Starfleet. The Federation seems to have withdrawn from the idea of being involved in galactic affairs after the Romulan supernova, and turned inward on itself abandoning the notion of humanitarian outreach. Picard, the crew, and the Enterprise-D are symbols of what Starfleet used to be. I would argue that if there's an allegory or message for what happens at the end of the season it's that when you stray from the values of your past, when you allow bad information to infest your society, you end up with a bunch of people turned into drones attacking your capital on behalf of a narcistic entity.

In the news interview Picard does in season 1, episode 1, the theme of the past mattering is underlined.

PICARD: Because it was no longer Starfleet.

REPORTER: I'm sorry?

PICARD: BECAUSE IT WAS NO LONGER STARFLEET! We withdrew. The galaxy was mourning, burying its dead, and Starfleet had slunk from its duties. The decision to call off the rescue and to abandon those people we had sworn to save was not just dishonorable. It was downright criminal! And I was not prepared to stand by and be a spectator. And you, my dear, you have no idea what Dunkirk is, right? You're a stranger to history. You're a stranger to war. You just wave your hand and it all goes away. Well, it's not so easy for those who died. And it was not so easy for those who were left behind. We're done here.
​

I adored both The Last Jedi and Picard Season One. PIC S3 feels very much like PIC's equivalent to The Rise of Skywalker.

If anything, I would say what Matalas did with season 3 is similar to what JJ Abrams did with The Force Awakens. It was meant to re-center the material with the elements from the original trilogy after people had complained and complained about the prequels. And you had the same division as Picard season 3 inspires. Some people who loved getting back to the basic story elements of the original trilogy with the mix of legacy characters and new, and those who thought it was a total ripoff/nostalgia overload that copied A New Hope.

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

So it goes with Picard. It's an average show but I cannot give it above an 8, and I am baffled by the awards and praise for a season I thought was similar to Season 1, except more cameos.

Just doesn't make sense to me...

Season 3 was a long TNG final movie. Season 1 was not. Huge difference.

 

[Danja]

Season 3 was a long TNG final movie.

For now ...

 

[fireproof78]

For now ...

The best send off until Legacy ruined it...

 

[fireproof78]

Season 3 was a long TNG final movie. Season 1 was not. Huge difference.

Didn't feel like a huge difference...

 

[Lord Garth]

I don't want TNG back. In the 80's some TOS fans strong sense of nostalgia made them anti TNG and longing for the old crew to continue, if the Trek PTB had listened to them there would be no TNG at all.
Trek is better when it brings something new to the table, even if its not popular as its predecessors e.g DS9, DISC at least go for it.
But as for the OP, I'm glad any version of Trek won an award, good for them!

Obviously I'm a fan of DSC, so I agree with having something totally new. BUT if you're going to have multiple series, I think there was room for Picard. And I think there was room for Picard Season 3, since I thought the TNG Movies had a crap ending. I'll never not watch the TNG Movies now without going to PIC Season 3 afterwards. If PIC had been the ONLY game in town, I might've had a different opinion, but it wasn't.

But, yeah, to tie it back to the original topic, I'm glad Picard won the Saturns. And it was also great that James Cameron of all people gave a congratulations.

EDITED TO ADD: I can be a fan of DSC and a fan of PIC at the same time. Just like back in the early-'90s, I could watch TNG every day, look forward to new episodes every week, and still think "Why does Star Trek VI have to be the last one with the original crew?" I had all these thoughts at the same time. It wasn't and isn't a one-or-the other deal. To me, PIC Season 3 was the best of both worlds (yes, I just went there! ) It was like watching TNG and a TOS Movie at the same time. And still somehow felt like PIC, which I was already a fan of to begin with.

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

Didn't feel like a huge difference...

People can eat a filet minion and a salisbury and also say they don't see a huge difference. There is one. But doesn't mean everyone will notice.

 

[fireproof78]

People can eat a filet minion and a salisbury and also say they don't see a huge difference. There is one. But doesn't mean everyone will notice.

So, I'm just blind?

That's very interesting.

But, yeah, to tie it back to the original topic, I'm glad Picard won the Saturns.

Agreed.

Where do we send flowers?