Board 8 > Star Trek: Picard Discussion Topic (Spoilers as soon as episodes air)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Hello @Anagram and @Vengeful_KBM and @scarletspeed7 and possibly @Eddv and all the rest of you! The series premiere of Star Trek: Picard, our return to 24th-century Trek after over 17 years of zilch, is up on CBS All Access as of 3:01AM EST this morning. For those of you in the States, it's right there waiting for you! For those abroad, Crave TV/Prime Video will have it up tomorrow.

I haven't seen it yet (!!) but I'm hearing good things. Engage!

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I'm expecting this to be bad

I'm still gonna watch it

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iiicon posted...

I'm expecting this to be bad

I'm still gonna watch it

I look forward to your thoughts!

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Im expecting fanservice heavy nostalgic

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the really funny thing about Picard is that they let someone responsible for Into Darkness touch Star Trek again

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iiicon posted...

the really funny thing about Picard is that they let someone responsible for Into Darkness touch Star Trek again

Kurtzman's involved in everything, sure, but Pulitzer prize-winning author Michael Chabon is the showrunner

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I've read over half his books, you don't have to Pulitzer me!

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tag

watching when I get home

cant' wait, i hope it's a shitshow, no better trek than bad trek

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The big reveal is that he is Professor X and it's all the same universe

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ZenOfThunder posted...

i hope it's a shitshow, no better trek than bad trek

strongly disagree. Trek has levels of bad and its explored all of them post DS9. there's bad but benign (Voyager, first JJ Trek movie), bad but boring (Enterprise, Disco), and just absolute tire fire (Into Darkness). only the first one is interesting because it leads you down fun tangents, like marvelling at the structure of Voyager with its completely mundane and borderline incompetent crew thrust into a struggle of survival they shouldn't rise to meet, or marvelling at Chris Pine in ST who is hot.

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Sounds like it's super boring unless you are a major Star Trek person

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Christ I'll pass on the people in this topic, sorry Quinton.

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expectations are basically rock bottom but hoping to be surprised

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iiicon posted...

I've read over half his books, you don't have to Pulitzer me!

Haha, oh yeah, thats true

ZenOfThunder posted...

tag

watching when I get home

cant' wait, i hope it's a shitshow, no better trek than bad trek

Unfortunately for you, it wont be!

scarletspeed7 posted...

Christ I'll pass on the people in this topic, sorry Quinton.

no worries


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RPGlord95 posted...

Sounds like it's super boring unless you are a major Star Trek person

hmm Nick's idea of boring is my definition of 'the good shit' so there might be something here

FWIW I liked the Short Trek Chabon did (haven't watched any of the current batch yet tho)

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That was honestly pretty damn decent, indeed. Im already sold tbh.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCT80HJWQ2A

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watching it right now, it's alright

data looks like shit there is no way to make brent spiner look young again

there's also no way to make the 16 producers in the opening credits look good

but it was alright

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Star Trek first episode rankingz:

Picard > TOS > ENT > DS9 > TNG > VOY > DSC

Something like that at least. Been a long time since I saw Voyager's...

iiicon posted...

FWIW I liked the Short Trek Chabon did (haven't watched any of the current batch yet tho)

The current batch has been a bit disappointing, especially the super short episodes. I think the first two or three were good (the one with Archer and the one with Number One, particularly), but the one with Pike after that was boring and predictable. The animated ones were too short to have any impact, and same with the last one (which I liked, and wanted more of).
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Just watched it. It may be good. I didn't expect Daj to die like that. I'm interested to see more, at least. It was heavy on the fanservice, but that's life.

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Was getting attached to Daj. Fuck this twin. Bring back Daj.

Thoroughly enjoyed it for what it's trying to be. I just wish Patrick Stewart was 10 years younger.

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Just started watching and... when did they replace Data with Android 19?

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Anagram posted...

Just watched it. It may be good. I didn't expect Daj to die like that. I'm interested to see more, at least. It was heavy on the fanservice, but that's life.

I legit didnt feel like it was too heavy on the fanservice at all. Every single instance felt earned and/or resonant. Contrast this with Discovery which I do like, as you know, but at times it really seems to sneeze fanservice.

Obellisk posted...

Was getting attached to Daj. Fuck this twin. Bring back Daj.

Thoroughly enjoyed it for what it's trying to be. I just wish Patrick Stewart was 10 years younger.

lol, Im sure the twin will likely win us over with time.

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Mac Arrowny posted...

Star Trek first episode rankingz:

Picard > TOS > ENT > DS9 > TNG > VOY > DSC

Something like that at least. Been a long time since I saw Voyager's...

The current batch has been a bit disappointing, especially the super short episodes. I think the first two or three were good (the one with Archer and the one with Number One, particularly), but the one with Pike after that was boring and predictable. The animated ones were too short to have any impact, and same with the last one (which I liked, and wanted more of).

Yeah, Short Treks second season wasnt as good as its first. They upped the episode count and aimed to be more experimental; good things in a vacuum, but the experimental stuff all got super short even by Short Treks standards and never really left an impact with me as a result.

I think the Pike team trio is solid though again the third one is just strangely short four minutes or so of conflict followed by two minutes of bushy-tailed resolution. Weird. I hope they return to 13-18 minute runtimes next year. <_<

Oh, and pilot episode rankings:

ENT > VOY > DS9 > TOS > DIS > TNG. Im not including Picard (PIC) yet since I kind of want to watch the next episode first; it feels a lot like it will come across as part 2 of the series premiere whether its technically correct to label it as such or not. As it stands thus far, though, Id slot it in either before or after ENT.

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"You know what's dangerous? Androids. You know what we should do instead? Rebuild a Borg cube."

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ChichiriMuyo posted...

"You know what's dangerous? Androids. You know what we should do instead? Rebuild a Borg cube."

Romulans rebuilt it so it checks out

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Roommates are also sold.

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Stewart is very, very good in this.

I really hate the framing of this series. I don't think Star Trek is the best venue for American liberals to work through their personal feelings on current American politics, particularly because the introspection starts and ends at "what have we become?! I don't recognize us when I look in the mirror." There's no there there. It really undercut the big speech moment from Picard that set up the episode.

I thought the episode was poorly plotted too. It just hits the Important TV beats - two big moments, one a moralizing speech and the other a twist, scatter in some mystery box throughout and finish.

But Stewart is very, very good, so like Disco where I'll overlook the series shortcomings because I enjoy the cast, I'll keep watching.

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iiicon posted...

Stewart is very, very good in this.

I really hate the framing of this series. I don't think Star Trek is the best venue for American liberals to work through their personal feelings on current American politics, particularly because the introspection starts and ends at "what have we become?! I don't recognize us when I look in the mirror." There's no there there. It really undercut the big speech moment from Picard that set up the episode.

I thought the episode was poorly plotted too. It just hits the Important TV beats - two big moments, one a moralizing speech and the other a twist, scatter in some mystery box throughout and finish.

But Stewart is very, very good, so like Disco where I'll overlook the series shortcomings because I enjoy the cast, I'll keep watching.

Weird take IMO. Star Trek may not be the best venue for liberal politics but it's definitely up there. The best examples don't end by questioning what we've become; they seek avenues through which to suggest that we can become greater.

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SaveEstelle posted...

Weird take IMO. Star Trek may not be the best venue for liberal politics but it's definitely up there. The best examples don't end by questioning what we've become; they seek avenues through which to suggest that we can become greater.

I'm not talking about liberalism, I'm talking about the current American political climate.

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iiicon posted...

I'm not talking about liberalism, I'm talking about the current American political climate.

Eh, fair enough I suppose. I was thinking in broader lines, a la how the writers of prior series have always challenged the questionable norms of the day.

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Well okay there was some good Trek cheese here. Stewart really kinda singlehandedly made this work for me because a lot of this material would not have worked in lesser hands. Some super ridiculous contrivances plotwise but that's pretty standard trek stuff.

There was a lot that I hated. In terms of like tone - going out of their way to be like yeah lol this isn't going to have any of the same philosophical underpinnings as 24th century trek just deal with it. It feels very much like it's casting me into shoes of Picard and telling us both that time has passed us by which is a strange feeling.

The action scenes were really stupid and even at just two sequences it was way too much. Setting this up to be like Picard starring in an action-adventure movie this has a VERY nuTrek feel to it.

Android bigotry is a fun bonus but placing the Cylons into the Trekverse seems to be where theyre headed and I am not super interested in that.

In some ways I actually kind of wish it had gone in sort of an X Files direction. Found myself wishing the supporting cast from TNG were present which surprises me somewhat but when I look at the performances of the other supporting players so far I come back around to understanding where this feeling came from.

Overall I will watch episode 2 but really only because Stewart did such a great job of selling me on there maybe still being something worthwhile here. It's still not really at all what I want out of Star Trek but it might decent at what it's trying to be yet

Having recently watched a whole show where Alison Pill had a starring role I am very wary of her having a major role here. I felt like Briones was a character in a CW sci fi show like...The 100 or something. Which can be fine, just not when your scene partner is Patrick Stewart.

I don't think it feeling like nuTrek is necessarily a detriment - I certainly liked a couple of those movies - but two ninja attacks one of which results in an exploding woman that the show really just kind of goes by very quickly with literally NO ONE NOTICING EITHER THE EXPLODING GIRL OR NINJAS IN THIS CROWDED STREET is like to me the worst excesses of the movie treks cranked up past 11. Maybe they dial it down after feeling like the pilot needed that sort of excitement I don't know.

I guess I can understand thinking these are uniquely dismal political circumstances and wanting to reflect that in this show. Its an argument I've heard re: Superman a lot But I also think it's incredibly naive to say things are so much worse now than they were during the cold war and that a much less varnished just....optimism for the future would be the comfort food I crave in these wildly cynical times.

I don't need another Newsroom style show with the crusader for good going on his Quixotic quest to instill values in everyone because frankly that's the story of our current politics and its just fucking depressing. No need for such a cynical Star Trek but apparently only Seth MacFarlane is allowed to actually have an optimism for the future.

Definitely agree with icon re: the plotting - it was very sloppy but I also don't expect that out of Star Trek. The framing feels like a real achilles heel.

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One episode in and y'all sound properly miserable about it already

Seginustemple posted...

One episode in and y'all sound properly miserable about it already

Not me! It was pretty damn good.

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I liked it, I wish it were either way better or way worse so I could get more excited but I definitely am committed now

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