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You can get CBS via prime, but it's the same price. Same as via AppleTv.

 

As a frame of reference, Star Trek Discovery still isn't available ala cart on any streaming platform and it's first season is 2 years old. Any show made for a streaming platform is never going to be available outside that platform. The model is changing over. Broadcast and cable shows for now will reach the marketplace streamers like Hulu, Apple, or Amazon-- but special streaming content? It's likely to be behind a paywall for the long term.

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I loved the pilot. Two thirds of it was setup, but that's par for the course these days with serial series that are already ordered and have their arcs already planned out.

Stewart plays him a lot differently, but it's believable and makes total sense given the circumstances. Picard was already kind of souring on the Federation in his last days in the films, so it makes sense that a breaking point would have made him cut ties completely and retire to his farm in France.

Picard of TNG was never completely emotionless, he was always deeply caring in his own way of his crew and had a great deal of empathy for both them and the people he encountered on their adventures. But taking him out of military-like discipline for two decades in France has let his emotions come out a lot more. I think it makes total sense.

I do like that this new series is trying to hold a happy medium stylistically. It bothers me a lot that Discovery tries to ape Abrams by having the camera fly all over the place for no real reason, I like that this show keeps a modern aesthetic while still holding some visual continuity with TNG.

I think it's really too soon to judge that much out of this. He hasn't even gotten his ship and his whole new crew yet, so we haven't even seen all of the setup just yet.

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You can get CBS via prime, but it's the same price. Same as via AppleTv.

 

As a frame of reference, Star Trek Discovery still isn't available ala cart on any streaming platform and it's first season is 2 years old. Any show made for a streaming platform is never going to be available outside that platform. The model is changing over. Broadcast and cable shows for now will reach the marketplace streamers like Hulu, Apple, or Amazon-- but special streaming content? It's likely to be behind a paywall for the long term.

Probably doesn't help in the case of this show, but other option is to always get a VPN and just change the location. A lot of these shows distribute via different streaming services overseas - Discovery is on Netflix in Australia for example, and I THINK the UK?

 

Picard I think is just Amazon Prime though.

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One thing I'm confused on:

Is Dahj and her twin supposed to be some sort of offshoot or new version of Data's "daughter" Lal?

 

I got the impression that the "synthetics" that attacked Mars were kind of imperfect versions of Soong-type androids. If these new versions are more than a synthetic, she could have only been made somehow by Data because Dr. Soong has been dead for like thirty years.

 



If my guess is right, it's kind of clever that this connects back to some pretty classic TNG episodes, especially Measure of a Man.

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One thing I'm confused on:

 

 

Is Dahj and her twin supposed to be some sort of offshoot or new version of Data's "daughter" Lal?

 

I got the impression that the "synthetics" that attacked Mars were kind of imperfect versions of Soong-type androids. If these new versions are more than a synthetic, she could have only been made somehow by Data because Dr. Soong has been dead for like thirty years.

 

 

 

If my guess is right, it's kind of clever that this connects back to some pretty classic TNG episodes, especially Measure of a Man.

 

When Picard goes to Daystrom and meets Dr. Jurati she talks about her mentor Maddox, who was in charge of the synthetics program. Maddox was the dude that showed up to put Data on trial back in Measure of a Man. He was also the person Data was sending his logs to in "Data's Day."

 

Jurati says Data was the basis of all synthetic research being done by the Federation, which is also why they had taken in B4. The synthetics that attack Mars are implied to be ones made by the Federation based on Soong technology, but obviously they never perfected it.

 

Jurati also said that Maddox had a theory that synthetic cells could be cloned. So if Soong's tech is so human like, that there is actual a biological component to Data, at a cellular level, that cloning those cells could lead to break throughs in other ways. I think it's pretty clear that he went rogue after the Federation banned synthetics, and based on some sort of sample from Data, made Dahj and her sister.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I liked the last two episodes way more than the first one. Gonna chalk that up to seeing them while huffing and puffing away on the treadmill; that can kind of tend to improve the viewing experience for me, oddly enough.

 

Predictions :

 

- Alison Pill's character is obviously a Starfleet plant (possibly unknowing - she might just be dosed w/nanites or whatever) and is also, unless I miss my guess, a robot too

 

- I don't think this even counts as much of a prediction because they went extra out of their way to make it obvious within the text of the show itself but, duh-doy, the Skype call between Picard and Vape Lady was a deepfake just like Dead Robot Girl's call with 'Her Mom' and both are being orchestrated by whoever's pulling the strings (Lore? Sela? The New AI That Also Did Mars 9/11?) in order to ... get their hands on Picard's Locutus-powers?

 

- if it turns out that this show is all about giving us a Borg origin story and they end up turning out to be an offshoot of the Romulans or a third missing extreme of a Vulcan-Romulan-??? triad which is why the Osh-Kosh B'gosh ® are so afraid of robots and AIs then I'm going to need someone to roll Kirsten Beyer and Michael Chabon up in a nice warm blanket and rock them gently until they calm themselves right down and can learn how to approach this material in a rewarding fashion. I skimmed an article on a nerd news site about how Patrick Stewart wanted the show to be all about new things and not have any of the old concepts or actors in it and was gradually convinced (and/or coerced; he is, like, a hundred years old) to let it be what it is, old home week half the time and deep nerd dives for the other half, and if this is where they're going w/it then, y'know what, he was right and Alex Kurtzman (who seems to have 9/11 weighing heavily on his brain just as much as Robert Orci and Damon Lindelof) and Akiva Goldsman and Gene Roddenberry's Offspring and all the rest were wrong. The Borg don't need an origin story! I don't want to see the origin of the Borg! I can just watch the exact middle of Star Trek : First Contact (1996) for a Borg origin story, in the discussion between Brent Spiner and Alice Krige, perfectly placed right after Patrick Stewart explains the Federation to Alfre Woodard! That's the exact level of explanation required for the Borg, who they are and how they came to be in a few brief sentences, you don't need anything more for them!

 

- David Paymer in a returning/recurring role as Picard's consigliore for Season(s) 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 please

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I'm trying to stay relatively spoiler free (I know some of the broader strokes of the STP) because when all episodes of STP season 1 is up there, I will binge watch it all. However, some curiousity has set in, and I'd like to know something: has Lore even been mentioned at all in STP? One of the most annoying things about Nemesis to me, was they never even address Lore in Nemesis, despite finding B4. I don't need specifics or anything, just curious if he is mentioned at all. He was a recurring character in TNG the series, and featured way too much to be simply ignored.

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B4 is seen and mentioned, but Lore, Laal, Data's "mother" and even Soong himself have gone unmentioned.

As much as I loved the first episode, I feel like there has been a steady decline in quality. Lots of filler and wheel-spinning and sketchy acting. Sometimes it seems like P Stew is in stage mode and trying to hit the back wall of a theater when the camera is in his face. This week's episode had a fun ending with TOS era Romulan BOP and the return of 7. Next week looks cool, but I have felt let down.

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B4 is seen and mentioned, but Lore, Laal, Data's "mother" and even Soong himself have gone unmentioned.

 

 

Do you think this is sloppy writing or there is some legal aspect to that where they don't want to pay royalties or some such (EG Tom Paris was supposed to be Locarno from TNG, but royalties forced a name change)?

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B4 is seen and mentioned, but Lore, Laal, Data's "mother" and even Soong himself have gone unmentioned.

 

 

Do you think this is sloppy writing or there is some legal aspect to that where they don't want to pay royalties or some such (EG Tom Paris was supposed to be Locarno from TNG, but royalties forced a name change)?

 

I hadn't thought of that-- it's totally possible.

 

Star Trek was pretty much the only show/franchise to ever allow fan script submissions. It was also really common back in the 20+ episodes per season days for freelance writers to come in, and yes, they 100% get royalties on characters they created every time they are re-used.

 

They went to the well so many times though with Soong and Lore, I feel like they'd be owned outright.

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B4 is seen and mentioned, but Lore, Laal, Data's "mother" and even Soong himself have gone unmentioned.

 

 

Do you think this is sloppy writing or there is some legal aspect to that where they don't want to pay royalties or some such (EG Tom Paris was supposed to be Locarno from TNG, but royalties forced a name change)?

 

I hadn't thought of that-- it's totally possible.

 

Star Trek was pretty much the only show/franchise to ever allow fan script submissions. It was also really common back in the 20+ episodes per season days for freelance writers to come in, and yes, they 100% get royalties on characters they created every time they are re-used.

 

They went to the well so many times though with Soong and Lore, I feel like they'd be owned outright.

 

Especially with Data, Lore, and Soong all played by Brent Spiner, one would think they did own them outright. But it is possible there is some legal reason. GRRR! Lawyers!

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ME FOR THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS, OVER & OVER IN MY MIND: The popular appellation of 'Mary Sue' to any character appearing in any canonical mass-market source-authentic media is a category error on multiple levels and, honestly, arises more out of an inability to correctly separate audience & artefact than from any genuine attempt to understand fiction itself!

ROMULAN NINJA WARRIOR RAISED AS THE SOLE BOY IN A CONVENT WITH MAD LEET SKILLZ, FOLLOWER OF AN ANCIENT CODE, THE ONLY CHILD CAPTAIN PICARD HAS EVER LIKED AND WHO USED TO SNUGGLE UP W/HIM AND READ HIM BEDTIME STORIES TOO: Hey, wazzup! Jolan true! *opens palms*
ME: Hah hah great! Uh, weird that everyone associated w/creating you wasn't remotely the age you were around the time TNG first aired so I suppose TECHNICALLY you don't count as authorial insertion but, I mean, still ...
ROMULAN NINJA WARRIOR RAISED AS THE SOLE BOY IN A CONVENT WITH MAD LEET SKILLZ, FOLLOWER OF AN ANCIENT CODE, THE ONLY CHILD CAPTAIN PICARD HAS EVER LIKED AND WHO USED TO SNUGGLE UP W/HIM AND READ HIM BEDTIME STORIES TOO: *flicks sword around all cool and stuff*

 

Festschrift! Paradigmatic! Our boy Michael Chabon sure wrote this week's episode, yessir.

 

Look, if Seven of Nine is going to show up as the surprise stinger for the end of an episode there needs to be a scant little something setting that up during the episode! No, talking about Fenris Rangers twice doesn't count! Marketing (or the credit sequence) doesn't count! Naming the planet Vashti almost counts, for reasons somewhat too esoteric to get into! Literally all that was needed would be to change, like, maybe only a noun or two in that Former Senator's little speech (from Wahlburger-class or whatever he said to Intrepid-class) or a mention of Admiral Janeway during the flashback sequence or literally anything, anything at all, to give the tiniest set-up to that pay-off! This is kind of my same problem as the Borg Cube reveal for the pilot, yeah, and it's all probably due to these folks thinking they're making a ten-hour-long movie rather than episodes of television. (Or, like, a lack of forethought & money too : that's what probably explains the dumb scenes of Robot Girl & Romulan Spy sitting in a sparsely populated room having a drink together and then sliding down a hallway together laughing joyously rather than having those scenes be them in a proper nightclub dancing; and that's what probably explains the absence of communication or attempted communication between Our Ship and the Old Romulan Warbird during the space battle sequence, there was juuuust a scene before it w/Picard & Romulan Ninja Boy where he emphasized the need to not kill people and suddenly they're firing on that ship w/o at least trying to negotiate something first!? I mean, Worf'd be pleased but it kinda goes against everything Picard is as a person and what was literally just made clear to the audience.)

 

Longshot predictions on who the main bad guy(s) manipulating events is gonna turn out to be :

- Professor Moriarty

- I think I already said Lore and Sela, but, yeah, I think it could v. well be either of them

- the Ron Perlman villain from Nemesis (2002)

- someone from the Mirror Universe

- KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN

- some of the older pre-Soong androids from TOS

- the "we seeeeeeeek peeeeeeacefulllllllll co-existence" worm aliens from that great Season 1 episode of TNG

- Vash

- the Bynars

- Spock Two, the giant clone of Spock from the planet Phylos

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I think part of what I dislike about this show is just how goofy the structure feels (this week especially so because Robot Girl & Romulan Spy's B-plot was nearly completely absent; the characters didn't even appear) and the awful sense of mismatch generated because every other televised Picard story is basically over-and-done-with inside of 45 minutes but this one just keeps going and going and going. It's like what Chuck Jones thought of Space Jam (1996), Bugs Bunny shouldn't have needed any help and should have had the whole thing wrapped up inside of seven minutes. Why can't Picard just solve this problem in a single episode with plenty of time allotted for a secondary character to experience and solve a somewhat related but more personal problem of their own? Come on, Picard! You're better than this! Just aim your ship at a sun and go back in time to save the dead robot girl! Or, better yet, go further back in time and save the Romulan civilization itself! Or, y'know what, screw it, go back far enough in time to stop the many many wars the Federation has been in and keep Beverly from becoming a widow besides! I can conceive of no problems w/this approach on any level, either within the text itself or as effective storytelling! Do not correct me!

 

And yet this episode was still fairly neat, possibly even the best one of the series so far, a relatively straightforward action adventure story wherein the conflicts and pains of the past of our series' regulars are illuminated by the conflict and pain of the past of the episode's special guest star! Fun! I think that heightening and twisting and détourning the Seven / Janeway relationship so now she's locked into a cycle of sexy revenge w/this new crime boss figure (as opposed to her previous cycle of sexy give'and'take w/an alternately pleasing and alternately withholding mother figure) is a great endpoint for Seven of Nine's character! I was kind of worried the show would feel such a slavish devotion to continuity that it'd bother to address the Chakotay situation that the final episodes of Voyager's final season unnaturally slotted her into but it seems like it's only Nemesis (2002) and Star Trek (2009) which exerted an unnatural pull on the showrunners' collective psyche(s).



Ron Perlman would be great to come back as another character, possibly even another Reman, but I think the Viceroy was killed by Riker in Nemesis.

 

If memory serves there's a nigh-incomprehensible action sequence and Jonathan Frakes just ... kicks him down a Jefferies tube? I know they mentioned the character again a few years later on Star Trek : Enterprise (2001-2005) which of course took place chronologically earlier so is no proof either way yet considering how this show seems to love its relatively deep continuity pulls (Icheb! Tranya! Mot! Quark!) nothing can really be ruled out and so any recurring (or even stand-alone) element of the Star Trek mythos could arguably be playing a role in the ongoing plot. (Also, uh, I was kidding!?) ((But, no, yeah, if it turns out to be that guy then YEAH I CALLED IT ALL ALONG I WAS SERIOUS THE WHOLE TIME NO JOKE ONE HUNDRED PERCENT REAL.))

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