Spoilers Was Picard Season 3 an Allegory for anything?

My generation don't fuckup the environment

 

Except the "Millennials" we meet in PIC S3 aren't people who are any more flawed than the "Boomers" (aka the TNG cast). Jack is an anti-institutionalist who comes around on Starfleet, but that's not a character flaw, and Beverly was right there with him. Alandra, Sidney, and the rest of the Titan-A/Enterprise-G bridge crew are consistently shown to be heroic, competent, and brave. So the idea that there's an intentional allegory just doesn't work here. There's certainly subtext with the assimilated younger generation reading as akin to modern right-wing tropes about Millennials brainwashed by foreign social media, but that's not the same as intentional allegory and there's nothing in the rest of the season to support that allegory.

I continue in my assertion that PIC S3 is pro-queer, pro-feminist, and pro-woke, even if it is not sufficiently pro any of those things.

You just contradicted yourself. It's not universal if it's not unanimous.

It's fair to say that it's achieved a level of popularity that the earlier streaming stuff hasn't achieved, yes. It's also far to say that it has mostly maintained the things that most people who liked that earlier streaming stuff liked, while adding in things that most of the people who didn't like it have missed (aka, the TNG cast).

That's not the same thing as being better, though. PIC S1 was just a better show, sorry. It had greater psychological depth and recognized that it's unhealthy to dwell on the past in a way that S3 has forgotten.

Such as?

There is a huge difference between saying, "We recognize that different parts of the fanbase will like different things, so we'll make some things to intentionally appeal to one segment and some other things to intentionally appeal to a different segment" on one hand, and saying, "Let's make something that intentionally pisses off a meaningful segment of the fandom" on the other hand. If you say, "We recognize that some of our audience likes comedy, so we'll make a comedy," that doesn't mean you're trying to alienate the portion that prefers dramas.

Well, the original intent behind having diverse styles of ST shows in simultaneous production was to avoid audience and creator burnout while maintaining a steady subscriber base. If half your audience likes comedies and half likes dramas, and you're making shows to try to air every week, then it makes sense to spend half the year airing comedies and half the year airing dramas; each half of the audience can take a break to avoid fatigue with your shows.

It is true that post-bubble, the strategy of making year-round shows might end, in which case having fewer shows airing for fewer weeks of the year might mean making a show designed to have broader appeal -- since it airing fewer weeks will take care of the problem of audience fatigue.

This was also true of PIC S1! And DIS S1-4! And LD S1-3! And PROD! And SNW S1!

Every generation needs the guidance of the generations that came before it -- but guidance is not infallibility. And every generation must let go of its urge to control and dominate the generations that come after it.

To quote the greatest Star Wars film ever made, The Last Jedi: "We are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters."

 

The Greatest Generation --> Huge Respect
The Silent Generation --> Never had a problem with them.
Baby Boomers --> ... looks at slanty-eyed ...
Generation X --> How I identify.
Millennials --> ... looks at slanty-eyed ...
Zoomers --> Welcome to the party! Sorry about the world you're inheriting. I don't like it either.

 

Indeed.

 

Quite so. The Academy series will help the franchise expand and grow. Be a tree. Legacy won't be anything more of a self-referential checklist of the franchise's greatest hits. It would turn Star Trek into an ouroboros which would lead to stagnation.

 

Yeah, that's my fear as well. And I know it sounds like I am anti-legacy and that's the furthest thing from my mind. Honestly, TOS is my favorite Trek and if I thought that a 60s style TOS Phase 2 project could gain widespread audience attention I would back it. No, I'm not anti-Legacy, or anti-Berman era or whatever other labels Legacy proponents like to sling. No, I don't think that there is a huge divide between current Trek production and past ones.

What I am a proponent of is reducing barriers for casual audiences to join in on the Trek train. To me, starting up a Legacy series doesn't tell casual audience goers they are on the same footing as more seasoned fans; it tells casual audience members that they are behind and need to cram for the test in order to catch up. To me that's a huge barrier that ignores people who genuinely might like Trek if they didn't feel like they had to study first to enjoy it.

It's like the show JAG and NCIS. Now, for those more casual fans they might not realize that NCIS is a spin off of the show JAG, or that the main character on NCIS was more an antagonist towards the mains on JAG. But, NCIS never treated the audience like they needed to watch JAG in order to enjoy NCIS. It set up the stage, explored the premise and became successful in its own right. It assumed that both JAG fans and casual fans were on the same level.

That's all I want from Trek.

 

Honestly, I'm almost at the end of re-watching PIC Season 2... and it doesn't feel much like '90s Trek. Neither did Season 1. In fact, for those with short memories, the first two seasons were heavily criticized for not looking like or feeling like TNG/DS9/VOY.

PIC Season 3, I'll insist until I die, is closer to '80s Trek than '90s Trek. Nevertheless, it's the outlier with the full-on TNG Reunion. Legacy wouldn't be like that.

Even with PIC Season 3, we had people who'd go on and on, non-stop about the lighting, and wouldn't shut up about it. How much these people complained about the lighting became really annoying after a certain point. "Yes, yes, yes, we heard you the first 100,000 times!", is what I thought to myself. And we still have pearl-clutchers who can't handle hearing a word like "fuck" on Star Trek. In fact, Terry Matalas even said, exact quote, "This isn't 1992 Star Trek: The Next Generation."

 

Nostalgia is fine, provided it still brings something new to the table. That's why SNW works, yes, it's based heavily in nostalgia but it's still doing something new with the franchise, something we haven't really seen before. Now compare that to season 3 of Picard, which is just nostalgia and nothing else. Shove the nostalgia aside, and there's an incredibly flimsy storyline which doesn't stand up to any scrutiny. It doesn't even try to make sense because it knows the audience will be distracted by all the fanwank it's loaded with.

My concern is Legacy will be more shallow fanwank and less nostalgia-supported new content. Especially if they bring Matalas back it would be more Picard S3 Redux and less SNW-style innovation.

 

I don't agree that there's nothing else -- I think the idea of Jean-Luc Picard learning to become a father really is a great idea and the finale ("You are the part of me I never knew was missing") is wonderful. But I do agree that PIC S3 is too preoccupied with its own sense of nostalgia to the detriment of other themes.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: When you compare the swan song of the TOS cast to the swan song of the TNG cast, these two quotes really sum everything up:

From Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country:

AZETBUR: What's happened! What's the meaning of all of this?

KIRK: It's about the future, Madam Chancellor. Some people think the future means the end of history. Well, we haven't run out of history quite yet. Your father called the future "the undiscovered country." People can be very frightened of change.​

AZETBUR: You've restored my father's faith.

KIRK: And you've restored my son's.
​

From "The Last Generation" (Star Trek: Picard):

PICARD: If ever there was better evidence that the past mattered, it's right here.​

LA FORGE: How many times has she managed to save the world?​

RIKER: No doubt more than the years will allow three old men to remember.​

LA FORGE: You know, it's difficult to imagine what we all might have been without her.​

RIKER: Different, certainly. But certainly not better.
​

There's a level of nostalgia to both, but The Undiscovered Country puts its primary emphasis on the changes the characters want to enact, the new future that the characters are all struggling to build. Whereas "The Last Generation" wallows in the past and doesn't explain how the characters' struggles will build a future that's meaningfully different from the status quo. The Undiscovered Country is about the need to change, while "The Last Generation" spends so much time thinking about how change is bittersweet that it overwhelms even the parts of its own narrative that are about change (such as Picard embracing his role as a father).

 

With five Star Trek series on at the same time, I don't think every single one of them needs to be written as if it's someone's first. If there was only one Star Trek series at a time, I'd feel differently about it, but that's not the case here.

To any total noobs, I'd say: Don't start with a show like Picard, that's a sequel to a sequel (TNG) and its spin-offs (DS9 & VOY). If I see a series, and I decide to jump in on Part 7, and I'm lost, that's on me. Because I should start with Part 1! If you've never seen Star Trek before, don't watch this!

Do you know what was another show that wasn't written to be anyone's first Star Trek series, yet people here bludgeon us nonstop about how great it is? DS9. The hypocrisy is pretty staggering.

It's all academic anyway. If you're some total noob, you're not subscribing to Paramount+ to watch Star Trek. But, for the sake of argument, if I'm not a Trekkie, I have Paramount+, I'm someone who likes Patrick Stewart because of X-Men and I see a list which includes the two Star Trek series he stars in, I'd look at them and then go with the first one he was in! I'd watch TNG first instead of Picard. Why? Because I wouldn't be fucking stupid. I'd know that if I started with the second show he was in, there's stuff I probably wouldn't get and I'd feel like I was thrown in.

It's not even anything that has to do with any of us here. If you're posting on a place like this, then Picard is definitely not your first run around the Star Trek block.

 

I don't think the show was "anti" anything. It was a nostalgia fest, a good one mind you. The reason the Borg nano thingy mcguffin only affected under 25s is because that way it didn't affect our heroes (including Seven and Raffi) who we needed to save the day. As far as being Anti LGBT then I guess you can read into stuff anything you like, but it ends with an openly LGBT woman as captain of the Enterprise. We've come a long way since Turnabout Intruder.
Yes there were things influenced by current events, Shaw Deadnaming Seven (though he had a reason to hate the Borg, it wasn't just blind prejudice) and the rise of AI and particularly the potential of autonomous weapons systems, but they were minor parts of the show.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

 

Jack and the other borgified crew were under about 25, so equivalent of Zoomers. Youngest millennials are about 27 now, oldest ones in their 40s. I don't think there were any named people in season 3 in the 27-41 age range, but characters like Molly O'Brien and Naiomi Wildman would fit there (and Alexander Rozhenko if he were Human). Maybe Kirayoshi too.

 

Yeah, but Boomers still love to call young people who annoy them Millennials even if that's no longer accurate.

 

In some cases, it happens on the other end too. Six years ago, I said something about how William Shatner would need to get back into shape if he were to ever play Kirk again, to which someone said I was "obviously under 30." I said I was 38, then he said, "Your actual age doesn't matter! You're a Millennial!" It was then that I realized "Millennial!" is just used as a label. They don't care if it's accurate. In fact, I think they double-down on it because they know it annoys 1) those of us who actually aren't Millennials, and 2) actual Millennials who are no longer "the young generation", a.k.a. "those damn kids!"

 

Yeah. Millennials are starting to enter lower middle age but they'll still be eternally infantilized by Boomers.

 

I believe the phrase is "Don't confuse me with facts. My mind is already made up!"

 

My wife is a PhD and a reverend in the United Methodist Church. One of her bigger focuses is intergenerational ministries, basically the idea that learning across the generations can go both ways.

As a late GenXer, my boss is a millennial. I have no issue with that. She's worked hard and gotten where she is by doing what needed to be done. She's also recognized my potential and given me increased responsibilities and a team of my own. I have no issues with Boomers or Millennials or Zoomers as a whole. I think we can learn from each other across generations and that there's a big reward in that. We can look at things in different ways and are able to come up with new ideas together.

Whether intentional or not (and I don't think it was, but its inherent in the story told), the allegory with Picard season 3 is that only the older generation can do it better. You can tell where I stand on that.

 

The essence of Star Trek right there.

 

Has anyone pointed out it was Picard's old generation that directly created the problem they had to "guide" the new ones through?

 

Well, it was people from Picard's and Riker's generations who committed the war crimes that motivated Vadic and her crew to help the Borg. But it was the Borg Queen who was responsible for her choices, no one else.

But, yes, clearly the Space Millennials weren't responsible for events that happened in the 2370s.