Star Trek: Picard

[The Predaking]

I enjoyed the trip through Picard's mind. Baltar being his dad, and his mother having mental issues was a great reveal. I also loved the horror elements that they managed to fit into this episode.

Am I the only one not buying into 7 and what's her name's relationship? Like to me they have about as much chemistry as a third grade science book. Now Rios and the Doctor, that I buy.

 

[MrBlud]

Not just you but the only intimacy they’ve ever shown onscreen was holding hands for five seconds so there’s not exactly much to build on there.

Much like Raffi’s drug use and avoidance of therapy I’m mystified why Picard’s Mom was so against it. I know *here* in our fucked up reality therapy is both expensive and stigmatized but both of those things would presumably not be a factor at that point so why the reluctance?

It’s also super weird for all the Picard “family” drama they’re going through; you’d have no idea Picard grew up with an elder Brother if you didn’t know beforehand since he’s nowhere near to be found despite the family falling apart.

 

[The Predaking]

Also, Jean Luc is supposed to be breaking his father's rules, at least according to Robert

 

[Kalidor]

Well Raffi and Seven were pretty fun with the "buddy cop" dynamic. But now everything has to be sexualized and people can't just be friends if they're the same gender anymore.

 

[Glitch]

Destiel, Richonne, big no no's.
People who ship Bashir and O'brien or G'kar and Londo will get punched.

 

[Lobjob]

The show was doing a good job of keeping me invested and excited, until they introduced another Soong. Even if this plot factors heavily in to the season's resolution, I don't know why it had to.

 

[MrBlud]

Spiner likes being involved but doesn’t like

Playing Data as an old man? (despite Soong aging tech definitely existing)
Sitting in a makeup chair for hours? (valid)
Stepping on Data’s stupid, shitty sacrifice in Nemesis?
Stepping on Data’s even stupider, shittier suicide in Season 1 of Picard?

 

[Cradok]

The books eventually gave resurrected Data and gave him a body even more sophisticated than Julianna Tainer's - anyone remember her? - fully able to pass as human including aging, but also capable of changing its appearance and biometrics at will including to different species. It also gave Data something of a metaphysical issue, he didn't think of himself as the 'original' Data, but as a copy of Data's engrams in a new shell.

All of which is so much more interesting than what Picard gave us.

 

[Axaday]

That IS interesting. Brent Spiner could just play that Data in plainclothes.

 

[Lobjob]

I mean, giving Data an old body more human than he's ever had and a daughter sure seems like his dream come true + no huge make up for Mr. Spiner.

*shrugs*

 

[Kup]

The books eventually gave resurrected Data and gave him a body even more sophisticated than Julianna Tainer's - anyone remember her? - fully able to pass as human including aging, but also capable of changing its appearance and biometrics at will including to different species. It also gave Data something of a metaphysical issue, he didn't think of himself as the 'original' Data, but as a copy of Data's engrams in a new shell.

All of which is so much more interesting than what Picard gave us.

FWIW, is Picard S1 Data even Data? He was missing the memory of his death, which means this “copy” effectively doesn’t the last half of Nemesis (perhaps a blessing?) since that’s when the B4 upload took place.

He was made from one of Data’s neurons (how?) and the uploaded memories as well. I guess though Spock is still Spock even if he wouldn’t remember working on the reactor. Which…now that I think about it, the Spock that died was essentially soulless if the Katra was already in McCoy?

 

[G.B.Blackrock]

While I can certainly agree with the broad sentiment that the books' take on post-Nemesis events went deeper in many ways than what we've seen in Picard, the books have had SO much more time to flesh those ideas out (seriously, any ONE of those books would take most of... if not all of... a season to tell on television), so it's hard for me to fault Picard for that particular failing.

 

[Axaday]

I don't know if Back to the Future started it, but I feel like casting Michael J Fox as both of his kids and also his great-great grandfather was kind of tongue in cheek. I think they knew it was silly. When Enterprise cast Spiner as Soongh's ancestor it was fun to see him again, but it bothered. They shouldn't have done it.

It isn't silly now. Casting Spiner as Soongh's son and also ANOTHER ancestor is RIDICULOUS. It is RIDICULOUS.

----

Also...It has been bothering me since last season. I know the concept has been nailed down in a lot of serious fiction that someone would tired of immortality. The idea seems very, very mature. But for them to put Picard in a robot body without asking him and deciding that what he would want would be to be old and aging and normally mortal and then to also write the scene that being immortal would be one of the first things Picard would worry about...is presumptuous. If I ever get put in a robot body and you can't ask me, do the immortal one. You can always adjust that. (Maybe this one can be adjusted anyway?) If I tire of immortality, I will let you know. All of the PARTICULARLY if I am 90 years old when it happens. Humans live to unrealistic ages in Star Trek, but they lose strength just like us. If all you have is an aging body, set me back to 25 at least.

 

[TheSupernova]

Like, I know if I had the choice, I'd love to have age-locked myself somewhere between 18 and 30. Sure, let me still be able die from injury or disease, or whatever, that's fine, but I can at least enjoy my life at my peak. That's definitely a far cry from immortality. At this point, Picard can randomly just up and die because some algorithm rolled the right number at a given moment (or, at least, that was my interpretation of his setup). How is that a desirable outcome?
(And let's not get started on the other benefits that were available to him that were just passed up)

As for the current season, I've only read a summary of 2x07, but can't be bothered to watch it. I'm thinking 2x08 will be the same way and I'll just pick up on it again once things start happening for 09 and 10. Too much wheel spinning going on over the past few episodes...

 

[MrBlud]

It was a painfully stupid ending made even dumber by all of this having to be exposition dumped because…it was painfully stupid.

 

[Lobjob]

I don't know why this show insisted on squeezing all of these different plots in to one season, again. We started with a simple "change the past to fix the future time travel shenanigans with a sick Q" only to devolve in to

Spoiler: Spoiler

Soong/Borg queen alliances. I half expected the random FBI guy to create Section 31.

I just don't know what I am supposed to be rooting for here. I am falling for Rios though. He can't have a crew and show of his own soon enough.

 

[Shadhausen]

Yeah, it feels like they had too many ideas and nobody to tell them no.

 

[Glitch]

I expected the FBI guy to be Ducane from the 29th century trapped in the alternate 21st like Braxton was, and grilling Picard before becoming an ally.

I think the Borg Queen from episode one will turn out to be Renee or Kore, made from Picard DNA, then they'll pile on BS about her desire for Picard and Data being innate to the Queens all along.

In total this season feels like they've just researched The Voyager Home and First Contact and playing it safe using assets from both over a lousy plot.

 

[Cradok]

I'd love to make positive comments about this show that isn't just Stanning Alison Pill every week, but the show's got to give me something to work with.

It can't even do a dramatic reveal properly, we're shown the Vulcans twice before the bit where Picard works it out; we can work out the kid is Wells, and from that we know that he had a benign encounter with some Vulcans. It would have worked so much better if we just see the Vulcans in the initial flashbacks as shadowy aggressors, framed from behind advancing menacingly on a young boy, and have Picard re-contextualise that for us when he realises they're Vulcans.

While I can certainly agree with the broad sentiment that the books' take on post-Nemesis events went deeper in many ways than what we've seen in Picard, the books have had SO much more time to flesh those ideas out (seriously, any ONE of those books would take most of... if not all of... a season to tell on television), so it's hard for me to fault Picard for that particular failing.

Oh, of course. I mean, I basically glossed over three books worth of stuff with Soong and Flint and the Breen and The Travellers and a planet-sized machine threatening the galaxy when I said 'eventually resurrected'. And to be honest, I'd probably have been disappointed if the new TV shows had cribbed so directly from the books. But the point is that there's always ways around things like aging actors. Like, for example, a line of dialogue that suggests a species only ages when it wants to (not that I'm defending that line, it's awful, why not just say 'oh, even El-Aurians reach middle age at some point'.)

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

I just don't know what I am supposed to be rooting for here. I am falling for Rios though. He can't have a crew and show of his own soon enough.

That's the part that makes me feel a little bad about Season 3 of Old Man Picard -- the fact that it's going to be An Extended TNG Cast Reunion/Farewell Tour leaves us the inference that The Most Interesting Male Human in Starfleet (as I dub Rios) is going to become a guest star on his own show. Granted that neither Berman nor Braga are going to be involved with this, but you think they would have left behind notes after "These Are the Voyages" along the lines of "It may feel like a good idea, but don't. Just. Don't."

(I mean, when you piss off Scott Bakula of all actors, and Pocket Books breaks their one rule to say that a key onscreen death didn't actually happen, you know you've screwed up big.)