Star Trek: Picard

[Kalidor]

I like to think of it as Qs can't "die" through any natural means. Sure they can be stripped of powers and all that but there was a whole story about how a Q dying nearly broke the Continuum. (Death Wish -Voyager)

In Picard S2 he didn't have any foresight to dying. He didn't even know his powers were going to get glitchy. But obviously he had enough powers to send them all home after time was restored.

There's really no scenario in which Q not staying dead is a bad thing. We know what his race is capable of and we know what he's capable of. They can manipulate time and exist at any point or all points in time in our dimension or any other.

If I was pitching stories I'd start by saying that he wasn't dying at all but it was just a side effect of his temporal universe hopping and after he sent the crew back to their point in time and the other timeline was truly erased he just snapped back to normal.

A second option might be that he wanted to see what it felt like to die so he put that scenario into motion as Picard's life was nearing its end. He temporarily removed his own powers and memories and then after he "died" he popped back into existence with the full knowledge and feelings of what happened.

Another option, while more vague, could be that when he says "You think so linear" or whatever, what he's really saying is that just because in their perception of the timeline they currently exist in a version of him died, there were events that lead to a change in his own timeline's scope in which that never actually happened, but he still remembers that it COULD have happened just as the Borg queen (Somehow) can see different changes to various timelines.

If they can do it with Data they can most certainly do it with a near god like entity. Like I said, there's literally no explanation as to why he's not dead that isn't acceptable. Even the one I like the least where he's running around for infinitybillion years between snapping his fingers a the end of season 2 and some weird point where he returns to that moment and dies.

 

[Lobjob]

What I hated most about the Q story is they played it up like Q didn't love Jean-Luc and we were dragged along this convoluted mess only for Q to, surprise, reveal he actually does love Jean-Luc and this was all a game. You know, the act Q is famous for since he revealed himself to Picard.

Q dying can be a good story and meaningful. Last season wasn't it so I'm glad they noped it out of existence, for now.

 

[Axaday]

I think it only mattered in S2 when he died. Like, for it to matter again would be for a future story to reveal that Q doesn't know his own future or fears for his own death by another cause, at which point they'd have to iron out a continuity snag. The Q that experienced dying is kinda ... dead, and unlikely to see further development on the issue. I do think that S2 could have left someone with the impression that Q "simply died for no reason" as Kalidor put it, as if that was the next point in Q's story after we saw him last, and emphasizing the idea that he might have another thousand, million, or billion years of life ahead of him for all we know as of All Good Things or Voyager (and now) elevates the concept a bit in S2 of a very old Q coming back to see Picard before he goes.

Picard's body was making apple juice from lemons. I'm still amazed at that. It technically doesn't matter even in this season that Picard is a synth, because it was a plot device designed to be irrelevant from the moment it happened in S1. But turning Picard's "irumodic syndrome" into an audience clue and a big point in the relationship between Jack and Picard, and then using Picard's old body as another audience clue as things heated up, and finally revealing why Picard could hear the Borg in First Contact but not now? Pure unfiltered continuity porn poured into the mold of pro-strats mystery writing.

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[Axaday]

I struggle a lot with the notion that screwing up the Saturn mission and then sending Picard and his friends back to struggle to fix the timeline and even late in the game giving Dr. Soong help against them to make it harder was the perfect way to get Picard to look around in his chateau and deal with his childhood trauma. Picard was, I think, planning to look around his chateau later in the day that Q snatched him from.

 

[Kalidor]

What I hated most about the Q story is they played it up like Q didn't love Jean-Luc and we were dragged along this convoluted mess only for Q to, surprise, reveal he actually does love Jean-Luc and this was all a game. You know, the act Q is famous for since he revealed himself to Picard.

Q dying can be a good story and meaningful. Last season wasn't it so I'm glad they noped it out of existence, for now.

I think this alone is a good enough reason to pretend like anything that happened or didn't happen in Season 2 is a wash and we can just pretend like none of it matters or exists.

 

[TheSupernova]

I think this alone is a good enough reason to pretend like anything that happened or didn't happen in Season 2 is a wash and we can just pretend like none of it matters or exists.

That's what I did once I hit episode 6 of that second season. I'm glad that there isn't any reason for me to go back and finish it!

 

[Copper Bezel]

Aw, but you don't get to see the dramatic chase in which three quadcopters from Radio Shack are knocked out of the air by one quadcopter from Radio Shack before they can destroy a NASA rocket on the launchpad with their no weapons. And you're missing out on so many other lovely features, including:

• Multiple actors distractingly recast as essentially unrelated people with identical mannerisms
• Consistently unclear stakes
• Last minute asspull reveals
• Antagonists (plural) shifting their entire attitudes on a dime when the audience is informed of their non-villainous motivations
• Extremely depressing implications of how this story interacts with prior established later canon events
• Resolving the season arc with a hug without earning it
• A complete misunderstanding of how working together toward a common goal relates to system-wide challenges in society
• Wesley
• Name-dropping Khan harder than Cumberbatch did, in a way that only makes sense if you assume the universe revolves around elements that are significant to fans
• A wizard ******* did it

Picard S2 is possibly the most garbage season of Trek in the entire franchise, and I'd rather rewatch Insurrection.

 

[Kalidor]

That's a very comprehensive list and still manages not to scratch the surface

 

[Kalidor]

 

[The Predaking]

Aw, but you don't get to see the dramatic chase in which three quadcopters from Radio Shack are knocked out of the air by one quadcopter from Radio Shack before they can destroy a NASA rocket on the launchpad with their no weapons. And you're missing out on so many other lovely features, including:

• Multiple actors distractingly recast as essentially unrelated people with identical mannerisms
• Consistently unclear stakes
• Last minute asspull reveals
• Antagonists (plural) shifting their entire attitudes on a dime when the audience is informed of their non-villainous motivations
• Extremely depressing implications of how this story interacts with prior established later canon events
• Resolving the season arc with a hug without earning it
• A complete misunderstanding of how working together toward a common goal relates to system-wide challenges in society
• Wesley
• Name-dropping Khan harder than Cumberbatch did, in a way that only makes sense if you assume the universe revolves around elements that are significant to fans
• A wizard ******* did it

Picard S2 is possibly the most garbage season of Trek in the entire franchise, and I'd rather rewatch Insurrection.

Hey, but you get to see Picard get ran over by Brent Spiner in a Tesla!


Joking aside, I liked the whole James Calis guest starring and the twist behind it. Q's speech to Picard at the end was great too. Wesley actually got a good send off from season two in my opinion. However, the season was bad, but it did have some good moments.

 

[Axaday]

It was interesting what they did with tying Wesley and the Travelers and Laris' Grandma and ...Gary Seven? together. But it winds up raising questions for me that I cannot count on them to answer.

And I feel like if Wesley can also time travel, which we didn't know before, then there is no reason he doesn't have time to visit his mom now and then. But then I guess he showed up to the Nemesis wedding. We don't really know that he DOESN'T visit his mom sometimes.

He would have been a big help later on in Nemesis. And in Season 3.

 

[Kalidor]

Wil Weaton gave an unofficial explanation for that. He said travelers aren't really "allowed" to go interact with their former life or something. I mean it makes a little sense. The Nemesis thing is probably something we should just forget about it.

 

[Copper Bezel]

This season of Picard definitely felt that way. Crusher talked about him as if he was dead on two different occasions. That's a pretty explicit sign that at least according to this series, he hasn't been visiting.

 

[The Predaking]

Which he really should be doing. You don't evolve into some super powerful being and not call mom every once in a while.

 

[PrimalxConvoy]

Which he really should be doing. You don't evolve into some super powerful being and not call mom every once in a while.

Even Q spend time with their family.

 

[G.B.Blackrock]

Wil Weaton gave an unofficial explanation for that. He said travelers aren't really "allowed" to go interact with their former life or something. I mean it makes a little sense. The Nemesis thing is probably something we should just forget about it.

If we really HAD to reconcile it, I'm sure we could say something like, "he got one opportunity to go back and see folks, explaining that he would never be able to do so again (and why). He chose the timing of Riker's and Troi's wedding to do so." This would also be consistent with Dr. Crusher's feeling that she'd lost him, as stated in S3.

 

[G.B.Blackrock]

Which he really should be doing. You don't evolve into some super powerful being and not call mom every once in a while.

Seems to me that's exactly why you don't. The temptation to do something... unwise... with all that cosmic power is just too great, especially when it involves those you love.

 

[TM2-Megatron]

I think it was pretty explicitly 2ish. You and I still might be thinking a little too linearly.

Even thinking of an entity like Q as having past or future selves might be thinking a little too linearly. Even the Bajoran wormhole aliens, (arguably) not as evolved as the Continuum, exist in the past, present and future simultaneously.

 

[Kalidor]

Riker should have just accepted the powers

 

[Axaday]

Two notes from random things seen on Facebook:

I just saw a picture of the Rikers with their daughter and it occurred to me for the first time: Vadic went to their planet, pretended to be Will, kidnapped Troi to use as leverage....and left their daughter alone. Maybe they have neighbors. It didn't seem like it. Maybe she's old enough to take care of herself for a while. A few years older than when we saw her, I guess. Was she off playing in the woods? Seems like she'd help with the leverage thing.

I also just saw a clickbait article by someone who wishes Seven had gotten the Enterprise-F. My first thought was that it is fine if the Enterprise isn't the flagship and just one out doing its work. Especially if it is exploring. And Seven has only been in Starfleet a few years, maybe only a first officer for that week and just got promoted to Captain. She has very little command experience in Starfleet and would be a huge surprise as commander of Enterprise-F. But then the SECOND thought dropped. We didn't ever really see it addressed, but Seven might be right now one of the oldest officers that isn't an Admiral and may have more command experience than the captains of MOST ships in the fleet now.