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Tank
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I pushed through the rest of Season 2. Overall I’m still with my thought above that the actors have been let down, but at the same time the stuff with the writing is a love/hate for me rather than just a ‘wtf this all sucks’ sorta criticism. The story is fine, I can dig it, it’s like a story for a novel really. The execution of the story in a Star Trek series setting was not successful for me. There are things I like with this story, with these characters, but I am certain to never revisit these seasons. Maybe that means something about the series, maybe that just means something about where I am. I dunno.

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3 hours ago, Spider-Man said:

I pushed through the rest of Season 2. Overall I’m still with my thought above that the actors have been let down, but at the same time the stuff with the writing is a love/hate for me rather than just a ‘wtf this all sucks’ sorta criticism. The story is fine, I can dig it, it’s like a story for a novel really. The execution of the story in a Star Trek series setting was not successful for me. There are things I like with this story, with these characters, but I am certain to never revisit these seasons. Maybe that means something about the series, maybe that just means something about where I am. I dunno.

Yes, this sums it up for me also. Story was fine to watch through for series 2, but I know I will never watch it again in the future.

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  • 4 weeks later...
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  • 1 month later...
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  • 4 months later...

Comes out tomorrow… have to say, all signs are pointing towards it being awesome. I’ve actually spoken with the showrunner a few times (not about the show) and he seems like a legit fan.

Zathras— the spaceship porn is going to be legit!

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11 hours ago, Tank said:

Comes out tomorrow… have to say, all signs are pointing towards it being awesome. I’ve actually spoken with the showrunner a few times (not about the show) and he seems like a legit fan.

Zathras— the spaceship porn is going to be legit!

I'm always down for some starship porn!  

Would that be Terry Matalas you spoke to?   I understand he has been working on Star Trek since DS9!  Way Cool. 

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Caught it last night.  I will keep it spoiler free, but  wayyy better than seasons 1 and 2.   This is what we should have got from the beginning. The Titan-A is awesome and really brings back that classic starship look.  

One last thing: Who's the daddy?  I think we know.   

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short version: all in all I did not like it

 

* Beverly shooting a guy who’s shooting back at her? Sure, okay, fine. But did I really just see Doctor Crusher disable a guy with a shot to his foot and then coldly reload her weapon in order to blast an injured and disoriented man into smithereens!?!? Come on, man! This is Doctor Crusher we’re talking about! That guy is very clearly a guy! Those guys were talking to each other in ǃKung or whatever. He is, no sorry, WAS a sentient being! I get what the show is trying to do but come on already! It’s like if they did an F Troop (‘65-’67) reunion — holy cow I had no idea the first season was in black’n’white — and had these characters scalping the Hekawai tribe and handing out smallpox infected blankets. I get what’s happening but even so it’s kind of a step too far!!!!1! I mean they have the conversation with Riker & Picard at the end of the episode to clean it up but come on!

 

* Got to give them credit for putting the episode title on screen. It’s not in the upper lefthand corner but beggars can’t be choosers!!!!!1!

 

* “Laris, these things from my past ... [cut!] ... they’re so dear to me. They’re mementos of dear friends ... [cut!] ... old and new ... [cut!] but they’re memories.” Wow, the rest of this scene is certainly garbage but it might’ve helped if they’d just let the garbage play out properly instead of editing and snipping it together into what they must have assumed would be SLIGHTLY MORE APPEALING garbage. Just have Patrick Stewart talk to us, plain and simple!

 

* The fact that he’s still not bringing the dog with him shows just incredibly bad instincts on the part of the show. Although, yeah, for practical purposes in terms of filming it makes a lot of sense to ditch the dog. But nevertheless and nonetheless, come on! They’ve established that Picard’s got a dog named Number One. He should’ve brought the dog with him in the first season, yeah, but it’s never too late to rectify that mistake and make the dog part of the show on a weekly basis.

 

* Are they rewriting ‘Best of Both Worlds’ here with the thing about adding a three? The Hellbird thing? Was that in the actual episode(s)? I don’t remember it at all. I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming my memory is failing me rather than them doing some Brad Meltzer / Geoff Johns / J. Michael Straczynski nonsense with rejiggering the established past in order to provide key plot points for new material.

 

* Naming the planet after himself but making sure to spell it differently so as not to have it be the planet ALREADY named after himself from back when he was working on ENT!? Okay, baller move. (Or, wait, is it a correction of that planet’s spelling!? Either way, good!)

 

* “Guess I can’t expect a junkie to know when to quit.” Okay, twenty minutes in and after metatextuallly laden line after metatextually laden line this is the first one with any real teeth behind it.

 

* “If I were you I’d lower my expectations.” Okay, that’s two for two!

 

* Have to give the show credit for doing a proper we-are-now-going-into-outer-space thing. This is the only thing they ganked from WoK which didn’t fill me with abject despair, sure, because this is just proper Star Trek. It’s just a thing Star Trek does well.

 

* The Captain Shaw stuff is another metatextual touch that’s ... great!

 

* “That went well.” I’m always a lot more fond of the truthful and understated “That could’ve gone better.” but ADR’ing that in is I suppose one of many necessary evils.

 

* We don’t see her ears so I suppose that’s Rafi’s half-Romulan granddaughter!?

 

* “This stolen weapon is an act of war. You are a warrior.” Okay, this is either a great misdirect to the audience or just them putting their cards on the table and letting you know it’s Worf, they know you know it’s Worf, let’s just enjoy being teased with the prospect of seeing Worf again.

 

* Picard gets told by one of his oldest friends to trust no one in Starfleet. The context in which he’s told this message involves a tipoff re: his time w/the Borg. And then he’s like, okay, time to spill the details to an ex-Borg in Starfleet. Why? (I get that it’s necessary and I get that there’d be no show if the main cast weren’t all singing from the same hymn book. But, still, why?) (Yeah, the previous scene with the Deep Space 4 thing established that Picard’s kind of dotty. But Riker’s still on the ball! Riker’s the one who knows about the Borg connection and lets Picard in on it during that dumb bar scene! What’s going on here!?)

 

* Okay, TNG has to stop 9/11s is a surprisingly strong and simple idea, yeah. It’s a little Mark Millar-y, true, but I think it has real promise.

 

* oh wow it’s so Wrath of Khan. Who cares!? Literally whooooo cares. Not me! Everybody comes out and tries to do Wrath of Khan, everybody says in the interviews they’re trying to do Wrath of Khan, but in my entire life you can count the amount of Trek stuff inspired by Wrath of Khan which was actually factually good on maybe one finger. It’s a single episode of VOY inspired by Wrath of Khan which is worth watching. That’s it. It’s called ‘Counterpoint’ and they take it to new places — it’s helped that there’s romantic tension between the Khan and Kirk figures because the Kirk of VOY is a lady and the Khan of the episode is character actor extraordinaire Mark Harelik — but that’s not something this show can do. Even if that’s what they’re aiming for (and unless I miss my guess that’s exactly where this is headed; Gates McFadden is going to be a Khan figure to Patrick Stewart’s Kirk, we’re getting Evil Dr. Crusher, congrats, we’re probably going to find out she spent Season 2 of TNG doing Evil Science For Evil) I have little to no faith that’s a bullseye they can hit. All this episode was doing and all it can conceivably promise for future episodes is just ersatz imitations of what the people who made the show and the people who watch the show remember of Wrath of Khan. None of these people are Nicholas Meyer, none of them have the distance from the material to reinvent what they’re given in the way that he did, all they can do is drop references. All they have available to them is pastiche. It’s not homage. It’s not even fromage. It’s frottage.

 

* Picard and Riker’s whole dynamic isn’t that they’re together! It’s rare that an episode groups the pair of them together! They’re not Kirk & Spock. Picard’s up on the Enterprise while Riker’s down on the planet or on the alien ship. Sometimes it’s vice versa and so Picard is on the alien ship or the planet while Riker is on the Enterprise! The entire episode here is an unsuccessful attempt at generating a nostalgia for a buddy comedy adventure relationship which never actually existed for the characters themselves. This is what it does in between all the other nostalgia it’s generating. The whole episode is like a prayer wheel spouting out nostalgia every which way! Why? I hate to make this point again but the principal creative forces involved with the creation of every season of this show were all in their late teenage years AT LEAST by the time TNG premiered — hold the fort, scratch that, Terry Matalas wasn’t even twelve when ‘Encounter At Farpoint’ aired so I’m wrong, this point is wrong in this particular instance, he’s just on the cusp for it to be okay for him to feel this way about the show. Have to give him the benefit of the doubt. Have to assume that it’s genuine feeling and not a cynical cash grab! My bad! That’s on me!

 

* I mean, the first season was like a Michael Jan Friedman book and the second season was like a Michael Jan Friedman book and now we’re in the third season and, hell yeah, the feeling that this is all just a page-by-page adaptation of some expanded universe material is still just as strong. Gets stronger the more you’re familiar with the books, of course, but it’s there even in the parts which don’t specifically mirror them.

 

* Every dumb dumb on the Internet is creaming their jeans over this episode — I imagine, I only know what you guys have posted here in this thread, haven’t looked at the reaction anywhere else but I can venture a good guess — and it’s just the same as all the previous ones! It’s just slower. If the people who made the first two seasons had the good sense to do the SFX scenes of the spaceships at a more relaxed pace and let the music play out a little longer you’d have loved them too! The episode has the same dumb mess for the Michelle Hurd character that she gets every time she’s shown up so far, the same dumb mess for Seven of Nine that she gets every time she’s shown up so far, same haphazard intermixture of what Starfleet is and what it stands for as the previous two seasons have offered, and in terms of what-happens-where it feels like a beat-by-beat repeat of the Season 2 opener in nearly every way. Did covid make everyone lower their standards?

 

* I don’t know. What is this show even about? Taken as a whole, I mean. What’s it about? It’s a show about ... what is it about? ... it’s a show about Picard killing people. Picard killing himself (multiple times!), Picard killing Data, Picard killing his mom, Picard killing Q, I’m probably forgetting a few significant people Jean-Luc Picard has killed over the course of the past two seasons. And, yeah, of course, if I asked the people who make the show they wouldn’t say that’s what it’s about about. They’d look at me with their dead eyes and say something stupid like, “It’s not about Picard killing people. It’s about trauma.” or whatever. But it’s about him killing people!

 

I’m not saying you can’t make a good TV show about Jean-Luc Picard killing people. Sure, most of the good Jean-Luc Picard stories don’t really have that going down. They’re more likely to be about him nobly explaining why it’s wrong to kill people! Occasionally there’s a good one where he’s killing people with phasers every which way, yeah, I’ll grant you that. I enjoy watching Jean-Luc Picard coolly and calmly firing that phaser into the chest of the recently assimilated crewman in Star Trek: First Contact (1996) as much as the next man — I, uh, I don’t count him cracking the spine of the Borg Queen in two as him killing anybody, think about it, she’s the Borg Queen, she can’t die like that, she says as much when Picard points out that her and all the Borg on that cube from ‘Best of Both Worlds’ were all destroyed + we see Borg Queen(s) after that too — but I’ll point out that was a story specifically about Jean-Luc Picard coming to grips with the fact that it’s wrong for him to kill himself, kill his crew, kill his friends, all because he’s in pain and it hurts less to kill and die than to grow and change.

 

What’s my point? I guess my point is that if you’re going to make a show about Jean-Luc Picard killing himself and killing his mom and killing Q and killing Data you might try to make it as good as, I don’t know, there’s no way they can make it as good as ST:FC (‘96) but try to make it at least as good as the TNG episodes where Picard kills people. Remember the two-parter where Picard pretends to get himself killed and goes undercover and plays space pirate in a gambit to recover some kind of artifact or do some sort of intelligence thing I forget the precise details Robin Curtis was in it not going to look at the wiki to check you’re on your own here. Do you remember that two-parter? The show should be at least as good as that two-parter. I think that two-parter is actually one of the few times on TNG where Riker and Picard are out there doing action action action together. It’s not too bad of a two-parter! It’s the one about the gambit! Don’t recall the title, sorry.

 

I mean. I’m all set. I’m locked in. Not going to quit. I’ll happily watch this show continue. That might be the wrong adverb. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say I am as capable as anyone of sticking my tweezers into the morass of this show and plucking out the little flecks of joy sprinkled and speckled throughout. Because, after all, maybe they ARE trying to make the show as good as that two-parter and they’re just failing again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. I’m rooting for them! I believe they’ll eventually trip their way into some kind of artistic and aesthetic success beyond the bare minimum anyone can reach with such accomplished collaborators at play to execute their respective visions — what am I saying? I’m saying there’s a lot of money for the SFX and the actors are good! can’t blame the actors! — okay, this sentence kind of got away from me. I have a confession to make : I kind of like watching Picard kill people. I’ll watch Picard kill Riker and Picard kill Troi and Picard kill Worf and Picard kill Geordi and Picard kill Doctor Crusher (legitimately putting all my chips down on Picard killing Doctor Crusher before the season is out; he might bring her back to life again by sacrificing his robot body so she can live or whatever but that death is happening) and Picard kill a bunch of halfbaked new characters besides. Dredge up anybody you want from the old show(s) and have Picard kill them too! Do an epic crossover with some of the other half-disappointing new Trek shows. Let’s have Picard ice those people! I’ll watch Picard kill his own son, sure. Let’s make it happen!

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I think you can watch season 3 without 1 and 2, if you know about the events of Nemesis (Spoiler...Data dying) and Star Trek 2009 (Spoiler...Romulus blowing up).  There will be a few people who show up that you might not know, but you can always ask here.  

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2 hours ago, Zathras said:

I think you can watch season 3 without 1 and 2, if you know about the events of Nemesis (Spoiler...Data dying) and Star Trek 2009 (Spoiler...Romulus blowing up).  There will be a few people who show up that you might not know, but you can always ask here.  

Cool--I know all of that.

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I watched the S3E1 and really liked it.  Who is the black lady whom  is alone and in distress on a ship? 

When it was over, Strange New Worlds started playing, and thought it was S3E2 and they were doing a flashback and then Spock appeared and I was all, "wait a minute".  SNW was okay but felt super generic.  Watching that episode made me remember this Onion article...

https://www.theonion.com/star-trek-introduces-alien-character-with-totally-diffe-1819564328

Granted, all the aliens in Star Wars are all generally humanoid, but Star Trek doesn't even try. 

 

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10 hours ago, Hobbes said:

I watched the S3E1 and really liked it.  Who is the black lady whom  is alone and in distress on a ship?

 

Raffi Musiker, she was part of Picard's rogue crew in seasons 1 & 2. She also served in Starfleet for a time under Admiral Picard during the Romulan Rescue assignment (mentioned in season 1). 

As for the first episode of the new season I really enjoyed it. This is what I wanted all along. I love the banter between Riker and Picard. I've seen a lot of people online dislike Captain Shaw but I think he's great and is going to turn out helping Picard.

It was so good to see Beverly again. I've always liked her character but the movies gave her nothing to do. This has her front and center driving the plot. I'm intrigued by how much she's changed. 20 some years of cutting herself off from her friends and this new son of hers is interesting. Regarding her killiing, Picard or Riker said she would have to have a reason. These people sound like they've been hunting her and her son for a long time. She also seems to be a doctor without borders and is out of Starfleet. A lot there to chew on.

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Rando thoughts—

I love that they co-op-ed Seven into the cast. I’d love to see a couple other DS9 or VOY faces.

Raffi is still awful.

Not sure how I’ll feel when they reveal the kid is Picard’s.

They called the Titan a refit, but it’s an entirely different class and as an -A reg. The line about Riker’s jazz made it more confusing.

Shaw can’t be long for the world. Season 3 tops.

”Hear that Jean Luc? Nobody likes the fat one.”

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I liked it, and agree with the kid being Picard's. They made that too obvious. We're definitely going to find out why Crusher is the way she is now since they mentioned killing someone in cold blood is not like her at all. I see Brent Spiner is in it at some point, what member of the Soong family will he be playing this time LOL.

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