Streaming era missed opportunities

[Detached Nacelle]

For me, I don’t want past stories “fixed”. I want actual new stories with new thoughts driving them.

I think SNW is the perfect blend of both of these it "fixes" some holes and underdevelopments of TOS and doesn't set out to undo it* whilst standing entirely on its own as a wonderfully entertaining product in my opinion.

*Picard season 3 very much felt like an attempt to undo the previous seasons because Matalas was so attached to a fanfic he wrote 10 years prior.

 

[David cgc]

*Picard season 3 very much felt like an attempt to undo the previous seasons because Matalas was so attached to a fanfic he wrote 10 years prior.

PIC season 1 also had the feeling of a fix-it fic. "Time to show John Logan how you properly kill off Data in a story about a secret Romulan plot!"

 

[ichab]

PIC season 1 also had the feeling of a fix-it fic. "Time to show John Logan how you properly kill off Data in a story about a secret Romulan plot!"

Very good point.

Plus I don't get why S3 is maligned for fan wank when the first two seasons of Picard were just as guilty: Data, Riker, Troi, 7 of 9, Hugh, Ichab, Q, Wesley, Guinan, Maddox, Borg Queen, etc. You might as well dismiss the entire series if you hate callbacks or memory berries.

 

[Campe]

For me, the more creative solution would be to work within the fixing, not reset it to 1994. Again, if that’s what you want, that’s fine.

But yeah, Data’s death irked me. At the same time, they resurrected one character with Spock. Why couldn’t there be a different path? I liked what they did with Data in season one of Picard. Giving him the goodbye he didn’t have in Nemesis was very touching to me. Bringing him back didn’t work for me.

And yeah, destroying the Enterprise-D was cheap. But bringing it back, to me, while exciting in the moment, feels cheaper now.

It all was an excuse to get those seven back on a recreated set of the Enterprise-D bridge and around that poker table again. And again, if that’s what you want, great! I’m thrilled it worked for you. It just didn’t for me.

 

[Detached Nacelle]

PIC season 1 also had the feeling of a fix-it fic. "Time to show John Logan how you properly kill off Data in a story about a secret Romulan plot!"

I can see how one could interpret it that way but it always felt more like a coda to me since it did follow up on B4 and was about grieving Data and getting to say goodbye. Nemesis was the death, season 1 was the mourning.

I've never liked a Data resurrection story no matter who's wrote it even back long before PIC was ever a thing. Same with the Sisko return. Sometimes dead is better. Put that on my tomb stone.

 

[BillJ]

Very good point.

Plus I don't get why S3 is maligned for fan wank when the first two seasons of Picard were just as guilty: Data, Riker, Troi, 7 of 9, Hugh, Ichab, Q, Wesley, Guinan, Maddox, Borg Queen, etc. You might as well dismiss the entire series if you hate callbacks or memory berries.

Well…

 

[Firebird]

Very good point.

Plus I don't get why S3 is maligned for fan wank when the first two seasons of Picard were just as guilty: Data, Riker, Troi, 7 of 9, Hugh, Ichab, Q, Wesley, Guinan, Maddox, Borg Queen, etc. You might as well dismiss the entire series if you hate callbacks or memory berries.

It’s my least favorite of the series in the franchise because of weak scripts throughout. Season 3 just doubled down on all of its worst tendencies to try to mask a weak story.

 

[Enterprise1701]

Very good point.

Plus I don't get why S3 is maligned for fan wank when the first two seasons of Picard were just as guilty: Data, Riker, Troi, 7 of 9, Hugh, Ichab, Q, Wesley, Guinan, Maddox, Borg Queen, etc. You might as well dismiss the entire series if you hate callbacks or memory berries.

Jurati talking a Borg Queen into becoming peaceful is hands-down the worst asspull of writing in the Star Trek brand ever.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I recall it as being Jurati actually overpowering the Borg Queen as opposed to talking the Borg Queen down, but it's been awhile since I've watched it.

 

[Detached Nacelle]

They fight for control over the body with different chemical reactions altering the Queen's level of control. Jurati taps into the Queen's transtemporal awareness and shows her every timeline in which she is killed and the Collective are beaten down.

She doesn't exactly talk the Borg Queen down or overpower her entirely, they merge to become a new personality.

 

[fireproof78]

Very good point.

Plus I don't get why S3 is maligned for fan wank when the first two seasons of Picard were just as guilty: Data, Riker, Troi, 7 of 9, Hugh, Ichab, Q, Wesley, Guinan, Maddox, Borg Queen, etc. You might as well dismiss the entire series if you hate callbacks or memory berries.

I do.


The reason why I'm more harsh on season 3 is the heaps of praise for things the first two seasons did that were criticized. It smacks of a double standard to me.

I dislike the Borg in their use in all 3 seasons.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I didn't mind how the Borg were used in the first season because it was something different.

 

[Detached Nacelle]

After the two seasons though Picard's Borg trauma is pretty done, he learns to see them as victims in season 1 and learns to be able to see the Co-Operative-esque Borg as allies in season 2. That's trauma kind of healed at that point for him anyway. There's nothing new to say from Picard's perspectives.

 

[Jayson1]

Unless it's a show about a space tentacles monster.

That's it! Trek needs a show about it's version of Moby Dick! Only instead of a whale it's a space tentacles monster! Captain Abel Had watches his starfleet crew be destroyed by a space tentacles monster. He vows vengeance and takes a new pirate crew to kill the might space tentacle monster. We see the story from a crew person who joins up named Issy Maul who is friends with the ships chief engineer and really just needed a job and didn't know what he was getting himself into!

 

[BillJ]

For me, his Borg stuff was wrapped up well enough in First Contact. Everything after just feels like a lack of imagination.

From a follow-on perspective, the Destiny trilogy just did it better than anything CBS has put out.

 

[Warp Core Breach]

Jurati ate car batteries for power.

I'll just leave that there.

 

[CoveTom]

The holocaust will be remembered.
The Challenger accident will be remembered.
9/11 will be remembered.
New Coke will be remembered.

That doesn’t make any of those things good.

Look, as I’ve been saying, if you like it, fine. But I think a lot of us agree on the whole thing: the plot was weak, the memberries were strong, and there were a lot of fun moments. But we have different takes on if it sat well with us personally. At the end of the day, that should be what matters. I don’t care if Avatar made billions of dollars at the box office. To me it was a very pretty movie with little to no real depth to it. My opinion is what matters to me.

Hey, we finally found something to agree on, re: Avatar! Also, New Coke wasn't bad per se, just not as good as the classic. At least IMHO.

I think the reason that S3 hit so well with many, is because that is what many were wanting the Picard series to be. Nemesis left a really bad taste in people's mouths and it wasn't a good send off to the TNG crew. S3 fixed that. At least for me anyway.

I think this is the thing that is being overlooked in a lot of the discussions here. There have been lots of Trek series in the streaming era, and many have tried to chart their own new and different course. And that's good. Trek shouldn't always be carbon copies of itself. But for this show, this one particular show, what the audience wanted was a TNG reunion. For a generation, TNG was their Trek. It was my Trek. People wanted the equivalent of those 80's TV reunion movies like "Return to Mayberry," where you get the old gang back together for one more spin around the block. That, to me, is what Picard season 3 was, and I loved it. Would I want all Trek to be that? No, absolutely not. But in that moment with that one show, yes, absolutely.

 

[Detached Nacelle]

But for this show, this one particular show, what the audience wanted was a TNG reunion. For a generation, TNG was their Trek. It was my Trek.

The Enterprise-D is my Enterprise, that crew is my crew of the Enterprise in the same way as it for those who grew up on TOS.

But Picard was not TNG, I wanted Picard a new show about new characters peppered with the occasionally reference and guest star. Picard should not have turned into TNG in the same way ENT's finale should not have turned into TNG.

If they really wanted to do a TNG reunion it should have been it's own thing not robbed another show of its own conclusion and its own characters to give another crew a third ending.

 

[Ovation]

what the audience wanted was a TNG reunion

Some of the audience. I’ve watched all of TNG and its films multiple times (so it’s not like I don’t like it). However, the initial pitch for PIC was precisely that it was NOT TNG 2.0—and that’s what made it so appealing to me. The more it became like a TNG 2.0, the less interesting it became to me.

I get that some people simply wanted TNG 2.0 and were happy to finally get it, but that’s not what I was told to expect and the way the others were tossed aside for TNG 2.0 was unnecessarily abrupt.

If it had been pitched that way from the beginning, I’d likely have been less disappointed. But the way it played out left me less enthusiastic. Oh well. C’est la vie.

 

[ozzfloyd]

I really enjoyed the fanwank and memberberries of Pic S3; however, I've no real interest in rewatching. For me, it was fun but has zero staying power as it's so story weak.