Archive for the ‘science fiction’ Category
They just never learn their lesson, do they? They killed Picard to bring back Picard, they killed Data to bring back Data, they killed Q to bring back Q. This nonsensical wheel just never stops spinning. This is almost as bad as babbling about “Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV” and thinking this means you are supersmart somehow.
But let’s begin. I was kind of scared and sort of had to force myself to watch this, because I didn’t want it to suck.
btw: Why did the Borg need to steal Picard’s body to steal a DNA sample they themselves added to Picard? Shouldn’t they, as the origin/creator of that DNA, have had the DNA all along? Is anyone understanding what I’m talking about? Do you now what I mean? Am I making myself clear here? The Borg can clone people and whatnot, they just could have made a thousand Jack Crusher’s with the desired gene sequences.
A day before watching this episode, I saw this gif on Twitter, that shows the Enterprise flying through the Death Star trench and blow it up. You don’t need to make a fake gif for that anymore.
Where was I? Ah yeah. So did it suck? Well, it wasn’t as bad as I feared, but it wasn’t as good as I hoped either. So maybe this still counts as the best possible outcome? I know I sound like a broken record by pointing out that this is still Shakespeare compared to the first 2 Seasons and I hate repeating this, but that’s just where we are at.
I guess my biggest problem with this is, that it’s pretty much a redo. It leaves them in the same spot they already were in at the end of All Good Things. It’s just less original this time. I heard them say this mantra, that they wanted this to be the Star Trek VI sendoff for the TNG crew, this crew never got due to Nemesis being bad. After seeing this, I can only say they failed at least at that goal. Star Trek VI wasn’t a redo of a previous plot that had already happened and left the crew in a largely identical scene, we already saw them in. Star Trek VI was a new original adventure, that cleverly included some political beats from reality. STP Season 3 is nothing like that. And it’s not like that would have been impossible, there is just no creative force behind this, that would have been capable of achieving this.
While I definitely didn’t want Agnes to show up again, it’s still funny how they couldn’t even mention her. They clearly know themselves that none of this stuff was very good and acting as if it never happened was the best they could do to handle things. Geez.
How dumb was it of the Borg Queen, to call something assimilation (or even a better version of assimilation), that only worked while a signal was being sent. That’s such a huge step back from the original version of assimilation. Even while she had the whole fleet under her control, she didn’t even order some of those ships to protect the vital signal source. She left herself completely undefended and vulnerable. A truly all around terrible plan with terrible execution.
At least they resisted the temptation to kill anyone, I wasn’t so sure they would get this done, because they are definitely capable of doing the dumbest thing possible here, namely killing a TNG character in a show, that’s all about spending some more time with these characters, possibly for the last time. It would have been the last thing anyone would have wanted to see.
Seeing them all together in the end really felt good, it’s really insane how likeable all these people are, they really come across as one of the best friend groups ever. REALLY! While the camera might have lingered a little bit too long over the table at the end, the good mood, these characters portrayed, felt genuine and this made me happy in response. Most fans just wanted to see these people in a good place after all. So this show at least succeeded at that, which makes it much easier to remember this in a positive light.
Hopefully for the last time (sorry), I wanna drag out my conviction, that this seriously didn’t need to be 10 hours just to get to that. I think largely the same could have been achieved in 2-3 hours. 8 episodes/hours about Vadic amounted to little more than her just being a minor villain/pawn after all. They couldn’t even be bothered to elaborate on the floating head thing.
What’s left? The end is supposed to set up the much talked about Star Trek Legacy show and… good luck with that. Although, while I dislike Raffi (who would be on that show apparently – you maniacs), Seven does insanely well with everything she was given in this episode. I’m sure she would do more than just be a harsh Mistress who sends Jack Crusher to sit in a corner on his naughty stool. I’m just not sure if it would be worth suffering through Raffi for this. Oh and Jack Crusher seems to be alright as well. I’m sure he could do much more, if given the chance.
Before I go I should probably still mention that the D was the only ship in the fleet that had its lights on – which I very much appreciated. I guess all the other ships needed their juice to power all that Borg-like tech they added. That’s also why the D won, because they were the only ones who could see what they were doing (complete silence, someone coughs). What did you expect? Name it Star Trek Into Darkness and then not address this? No Sir!
So I guess my life is complete now. Since old Star Trek shows were the only thing I was ever an expert in and this is the final episode tied to any of that, there is nothing left for me to do except wait for death, like Picard did on his vineyard in the beginning of this show. :P I can’t even have a podcast about this, since everyone else has already done that. :D
PS: The thing that felt the most spot on for me in this entire episode, was when Dr. Crusher fires all the weapons during the Death Star trench run (okay that part was more like Death Star II reactor run). I always thought, ever since I saw the episode Conspiracy 30+ years ago, that her arc in that episode should have been escalated throughout the show. I’m of course talking about this scene, in which Rear Admiral Quinn just throws Worf (who everyone expects to be the tough guy) through the room, making him collapse immediately and then Dr. Crusher steps in with her lab coat on and immediately pulls a phaser on Quinn and shoots him until he’s down. In my head canon she was only wearing this lab coat outside of sickbay, so she could better hide all the weapons she was carrying. In my version of Star Trek 9 it wouldn’t have been Worf who pulled that purple space-bazooka, but Dr. Crusher and Worf just would have been confused over where she even got all these huge guns, them not even being Starfleet standard issue. I’m sure the writers didn’t think about anything along those lines when they added this to the show, but this is definitely the closest I will ever get to my fun and awesome ideas in one of the official shows. “A lot has happened in 20 years” she said when firing all the weapons and “fuck yeah” I thought.
PPS: President Walter Koenig didn’t give a second speech, I missed that. Don’t get me wrong, I DEFINITELY didn’t want the Star Wars ceremonial walk through the huge hall with all the extras (the trench run was enough), where only Worf doesn’t get a medal for some opaque reason, but a simple “good job guys – mission’s done” from Starfleet command wouldn’t have hurt.
Guys, I gotta be honest here: if I would have commandeered that shuttle, it might have flown past the D, but it would have stopped at the Defiant, BECAUSE THAT SHIP WAS BUILT TO FIGHT THE BORG, BITCHES. :D And I’m not getting tired to mention, that the Defiant at least has quantum torpedoes. And a cloak. Also, how funny would that have been?!? But yeah, ever since the painting of the D was shown in the first episode and such an emphasis was put on it, it was only a matter of time until it showed up. It simply had to.
One thing that stabbed me in the heart brutally, was Geordi, AS AN ENGINEER, saying that the D is still analog. You really don’t have to have a degree in Informatik/computer science/electrical engineering, to know what digital is. If there’s one thing those computers in the 24. century weren’t, then it’s analog. An engineer saying this, is like a sailor, who has never heard of a thing called water. Those writers, good lord. People alive today should know this stuff by heart. This might really be tied to the toxic mandates from the Kurtzman bros, who constantly say that sci-fi is not about the future, I don’t know. These people never would have come up with stuff like the holodeck and all the characters and stories that resulted from being creative and there would have been no elements such as Moriarty to copy/paste in the first place. It’s lame that no cool new sci-fi tech was invented in a sci-fi show for so long. The holodeck was almost 40 years ago.
That’s also why the Borg are always the answer and behind everything in every Season somehow. Because doing anything else would require creativity that no one who works there is interested in. There were like 4 major Borg episodes out of 178 episodes on TNG and 1 out of the 4 movies had them and now they reduced Picard to being exclusively about the Borg and that’s just it.
Also, I’m with Worf. The E is awesome. I also didn’t understand their cryptic remarks, why they couldn’t use the E. The last time I saw that ship in Nemesis, it was completely being rebuilt, so presumably it should be completely fine then. Or was that the problem, because it is already compatible to the new Borg system? I really didn’t get it and because of the way it was handled, they might not know either. They do that every so often on Kurtzman shows, where they quickly do away with stuff, they have never thought about and are therefore unable to explain themselves. This attitude bums me out.
They could scan human DNA in its entirety in the TNG days, so they definitely would have caught such changes. There are even episodes about the transporter storing everything about a person, so you’d always know precisely whether there was ANY difference or not. Remember the Dr. Pulaski episode in Season 2, with everyone getting old? They returned everyone to their younger selves, by using the transporter data, that was stored about everyone BEFORE they got sick.
Shapeshifters helping Borg? I don’t know man. So that head in Vadic’s hand was the Borg Queen then? Will Agnes’ “better Borg” return? I mean I don’t really wanna see her again, but dedicating all 3 Seasons of STP to the Borg means it would also suck if they acted as if it never happened. It’s their own damn fault. :P It would be really funny if Agnes showed up, leading even worse Borg. :D
That moment when they step on the bridge of the D was really emotional. I mean I don’t have the faintest clue what butterfly tears are, but I was about to cry something like that. :P
It’s funny that overall this is still the least nonsensical STP Season by far. I mean I don’t think Picard still hearing the Borg in First Contact needed any further explanation/elaboration, but at least it’s based upon stuff that happened in Star Trek. It was also clearly shown that the shapeshifters replaced transporter chiefs, so this checks out too. Kind of. I mean it’s still hard to believe that shapeshifters killed and replaced all transporter chiefs on all ships without anyone noticing all the dead bodies, that were clumsily stashed somewhere, but… at least it’s something that was kind of built up over the season. It didn’t come out of nowhere and it did fit together.
Seven becoming Captain simply because the former Captain got killed didn’t sit right with me honestly, but apparently many fans wanted her to become Captain, so… I’m sure they could have given her her own command without having to kill someone to make room, like this is some Klingon ship, but that’s Kurtzman bros for you. Kirk, Sisko, Picard, Janeway and the like never had to kill anybody to get a command. LAME!!! BORING!!! :P
When leaving the Titan, they spoke of needing a plan, but in the end they just get onboard the D and fly away. So I guess they’ll still develop that plan? In the final episode?
Anyway, did I already talk how moving the final scene was? Despite everything? Damn.
And no, this doesn’t excuse the terrible quality of prior Seasons, so don’t give me that argument, that we should be thankful for all the bad episodes, because otherwise we couldn’t have enjoyed this so much now. I can see that point, but this reasoning is still wrong.
Okay, I’m ready for the final ep and I’m hoping incessantly they can keep their momentum. It would make me really happy.
PS: I didn’t think it was dumb/unnecessary to point out that it was weird that Shelby of all people implemented/was in favor of Borg-like tech. Would the audience have gotten that without that remark? Probably, but them saying something that made complete sense and showed them being on top of things was way more important to me. That’s something this show lacked too desperately too many times.
Out of all the Season 3 episodes so far, I liked this one the most, because finally things seem to be moving along. Everything up until right now, felt like a holding action. They never should have struggled with Vadic for this long. This should have happened in 3×04, not in 3×08. For the first time, all of the TNG crew met each other face to face. Again, this isn’t something that should have happened at the end of the season. All of them should have teamed up much much earlier. Their interactions are the best part of this show after all.
It really makes me double down on my opinion from last time, that they could have cut whole episodes. Introducing a secret about Jack Crusher at the beginning of the Season, then adding nothing substantial to it for the whole Season and then, presumably, just doing a reveal at the end of the Season, isn’t good writing.
I also dislike those lines, that Jack’s whatever syndrome is something he inherited from Picard. Picard possessing whatever kind of “super-genes” that can give people superpowers, would seriously damage this character for me. Even after they already damaged him with all this android nonsense. Picard was never more and was never supposed to be more than some guy who is good at his job, because Starfleet trained him well and he worked hard and he managed to make good use of some opportunities that presented themselves to him.
Why do so many writers think, that these “chosen one” storylines are smart or desirable. Especially in this context. More often than not it just cheapens everything. Sadly the writing team behind Season 3 really seems to broadly subscribe to this crap. One of my favorite episodes, not just from TNG, but seriously from all Star Trek, is “The Drumhead“. It’s about Picard defending some random crew member, Simon Tarses. Picard doesn’t defend Tarses because he’s someone special, or because he owes him a favor or anything like that. No. He didn’t need to be someone special. The only reason, Picard defends this guy, the only reason Picard NEEDS to defend this guy, is that it’s the right thing to do. That’s it. That makes it so much more powerful, than Picard only doing that, because he’s his son or something.
That’s sadly no longer the ideology this show follows. This already rubbed me the wrong way back in 3×02, when Picard only decides to defend Jack Crusher, after Dr. Crusher shows up on the bridge and let’s him know that Jack is his son. To TNG Picard this would have made no difference whatsoever. He just wouldn’t have turned over someone to criminals. Period. “Star Trek: Picard” Picard would have let Simon Tarses go to jail or commit suicide in his desperation or whatever, because he wasn’t a relative. Stuff like that really bothers me. When I watched Star Trek shows as a kid, this is why I would have loved to join Starfleet – this is what made it palpable to me, why people would be proud to wear this uniform. This doesn’t make me feel this way at all. It also weirds me out, how someone could grow up watching Star Trek and now sees things this way. Especially in this context of Star Trek. It’s like they didn’t get it at all. They might have seen it, but they didn’t understand it. I just don’t get what’s supposed to be cooler or more desirable about this “Dark Trek” version of this universe. They clearly must think this is better, or else they wouldn’t have changed it. They obviously have complete creative freedom here and could have gone in any direction they wanted.
But yeah, otherwise this is the best ep of this entire series to me, so far. Brent Spiner is really great in it. This whole cast just still fits well together. Again, they should have leaned into this relatively early in the Season and not delay this for so long. Especially since this Season was supposed to be about the cast getting back together, I would have expected this to be more front and center.
Now I’m worried about the resolution to all the Jack Crusher red door stuff. I just don’t see how this is going to be something good. Especially with this also being tied to inheriting superpowers from Picard… Delaying any sort of reveal about this until the very end of the Season, also doesn’t exactly fill me with much confidence. If it doesn’t suck after all, this will be the first Season of STP I’ll actually rewatch.
After last episode ending with a relatively beautiful Star Trek moment, this week we are back with “the whole Federation” being evil/compromised again. Like it has been too many times already. It brings back painful memories of Season 1, in which the Romulans had infiltrated Starfleet. It’s really funny somehow. So many people working over at Starfleet HQ seem to be in the employ of anyone except Starfleet. :D Who knows at this point, how many secret plots were foiled, because members of one secret group coincidentally killed members of another secret group, while thinking they were just replacing regular Starfleet folks. :D
An organization, that was actually “working” like that, probably wouldn’t last long. It’s almost as bad as it’s with the Klingons, where everyone can become Captain, if they just kill the Captain. More often than not, that clearly wouldn’t lead to the best person/strategist being in command.
That moment with them sitting around the table was great. Because that’s what they actually used to do on TNG all the time.
“Daystrom visitors identify or LETHAL protocols will engage.” WTF?!? Lethal??? Why are the inventors of the stun setting using lethal options only these days? I feel like they at least should have explained such a significant paradigm shift. Everyone just acts like this is completely normal. Do their phasers even still have stun settings? Every time they shoot it kills or even vaporizes.
The Starfleets torture Riker. As it turns out the villain does the punching, but since “real” Starfleets are watching it without batting an eye, this makes no difference – they clearly aren’t bothered by this. So when Vadic shoots them, I felt nothing. In a way this is even worse, that they weren’t some of Vadic’s henchmen.
Ships being “beacons” now makes little sense. Those ships have to be able to be undetectable during secret missions and whatnot. If one couldn’t shut this stuff down, all opponents would use it too, not just Starfleet. Also, why wouldn’t someone like Shaw, who’s the Captain and an engineer, know all about this? It makes him look really dumb. All of these writing problems are self-inflicted wounds, which could have been dodged easily.
Best part of this Season is, that Picard feels a lot more like Picard again. Maybe PS really needed the rest of the cast to remember who Picard was. I have this feeling a lot less, that I’m just watching PS, not Picard. Dr. Crusher is probably my favorite out of the bunch. She always is the one who does the smart things, like doing an autopsy on the shapeshifters to learn some helpful information. It’s like no one else even thought about this.
But let’s not forget that 90% of what’s good here, is the music. :P You can glue pretty much anything between the music from the Nicholas Meyer era of Trek and the First Contact theme and it will still feel 10 times better than it actually is. :P
Overall I’m really trying to like this, but some obstacles keep coming, many story beats only serve as excuses to show old stuff. Of course Geordi is the head of a starship museum (so you can see ships from previous Trek), of course the next clue is in a storage facility (that will have items from previous Trek) and once they find the clue it’s literally something from previous Trek. It’s like this show has a studio mandate that they have to show references every 5-10 seconds or something.
How weird is it though, that all these ships that seem to be perfectly alright, are “archived” in such a museum, when some others just get a refit. It’s especially weird in the case of a ship like the Defiant. It’s more modern than the Titan in at least some ways. While the Titan is still equipped with photon torpedoes, the Defiant already had quantum torpedoes (much, much more firepower) and yet it’s the Defiant which landed in a museum?!? The Defiant even had a cloak, although I can see how one might spin this, by saying they had to give that one back or something.
Outside of this it’s kind of alright. There were some scenes which weren’t boring to watch and almost exciting. With the previous STP seasons some ~60 min episodes could feel like they were 6 hours long.
In 3×07 they have a shapeshifter trying to impersonate Tuvok and all I could think the entire time was: why bother? When just talking about a viewscreen, they could just display a hologram of anyone anyway. Everyone could do that all the time, shapeshifter or not.
Odo looked the way he looked, because he copied the face of the scientist, who was experimenting on him, as best he could. So why does Vadic look the way she looks? *ding* *ding* *ding* Correct. Because Vadic copied the face of the scientist, who was experimenting on her. All shapeshifters have to have the exact identical backstory. There can’t be a difference in their origin stories or anything. They must have that copy/paste thing every 10 seconds or so. How hard would it have been, to do something original here?!? Seriously. Does it ruin the whole show? Maybe not. Does this mean it’s as bad as the previous seasons? No. Is this lazy as fuck and could have been avoided easily? YEEEEESSSSS.
Another thing I can’t stop thinking about, is how we are 7/10 eps through the entire season and not much happened. They are just on the Titan with Jack Crusher and are struggling with Vadic. That has been the whole show so far. Of course there are more details and they keep meeting members of the old TNG crew, but as far as broad strokes are concerned, that’s seriously it. What’s up with Jack Crusher, has been the mystery from the beginning and nothing substantial has been learned. They really didn’t manage to have many layers to this, where more and more is slowly uncovered throughout the season. They are ultimately doing that thing again, where they introduce a mystery at the beginning and then just dump the resolution at the end. That’s not very satisfying and makes me think that they could have cut whole episodes – hopefully leaving the entertaining bits and thus giving those much more focus.
I’m also disliking how they are killing and bringing back Data. That’s not cool. Good stories should have the same characters die only once max. There are only very few exceptions, where a deviation from that worked really well. Especially when they want it to be this epic dramatic/emotional scene each time. That’s bad writing.
Somewhere in all of this, is a really alright, entertaining 2 hour movie.
PS: If I was in Starfleet and someone would give me the order to attack/shoot/whatever the likes of Picard/Kirk & Co., the only people I might shoot would be the ones who gave that order. It would be obvious to me that clearly they would be the villains. This should be an unwritten law in Starfleet, if someone orders you to attack Picard, take THEM down!
Why are all STP flashbacks taking place in bars with them imbibing (too much) booze? Maybe all these violin sessions and poetry readings on TNG could be awkward as hell at times, but at least they had some variety. But then again, it fits perfectly in their bleak narrative of this future – all people have left is doing drugs & booze.
In this episode they have to save as much energy as possible, as they are about to crash into a “gravity well” and almost everything besides life support is disabled. So what does Picard do? He loads up a holodeck program. Because this definitely doesn’t eat up any energy. And it’s a holodeck program of a bar no less (of course it’s not the TNG version of 10 forward), when they could be sitting and drinking anywhere on the ship without using up energy for this. Sometimes such writing gives me a slight ChatGPT vibe.
Normally everyone on this show is shooting around as if it’s a shooting gallery, but when Seven of Nine is attacked by the shapeshifting saboteur, she is (for the first time) holding her fire, so the saboteur can escape safely after murdering a crew member. The one time it would have been understandable to fire all over the place…
Furthermore, during this crisis, no one really works on resolving/addressing it in any way for the longest time. Picard is just in the holo-bar drinking and talking about unimportant fluff. Did they ever do that on TNG? During a crisis they would just sit around and drink and wait for death without taking any action?
We also learn that Shaw hates Picard so much because of Wolf 359, something that happened like 30+ years ago. That’s a long time to hold a grudge against someone who was just a victim himself. Even 40 years ago it was standard for Starfleet to have therapists on board like Deanna Troi on the Enterprise D or Ezri Dax on DS9. So why are there all these untreated people like Shaw, who never received any of the help they clearly needed? They are literally sitting in a holodeck while he goes off. He could just consult a holographic therapist and tell no one. People like that have so many options in that time period, they wouldn’t even have to wait until an appointment with a flesh & blood therapist becomes available. They really have no sense of how such a post-scarcity society would actually be like. Or they do not have that sense anymore, weirdly enough they understood this better in the past. This is regression, not progress.
Later on, Dr. Crusher, the medical doctor, figures out how to utilize the space anomaly to supply the ship with energy. Not a science officer or anyone like that. No one else was looking into this. Everyone else was cool with just waiting for death. What a crew the Titan has. Dr. Crusher didn’t just have to come up with the idea, she also has to convince Riker. Riker, who was always the man of action is now the obstacle. He doesn’t even present an alternative plan or anything – at least not at first. It takes a while for him to finally come around and start doing his job – he really seemed to care more about leaving a goodbye message to Deanna than actually returning to her alive. That’s so bizarre.
Once they finally start doing something about their situation, the episode starts getting much better. If the whole show would have been like this, this actually would have been alright. A tighter cut could have worked wonders here. Maybe this didn’t need to be 10 eps a season and 6-8 would have been even better.
Another big plus for this ep was, that the audience didn’t have to suffer through more Raffi scenes. Oh and this one flashback scene with Picard being unintentionally cruel to his son in that bar earned its emotions. That much felt put together well. This might be a first for this show.
At some point the Shrike decides to go after the Titan into the nebula, but they drop their portal gun before they do. Why? The only reason seems to be that the Shrike won’t be able to keep using it against the Titan in the future.
In any case, the episode ends well and I actually wanna see what’s going to happen now. Yay!
PS: True to its title, the show remains super dark, in one scene nothing is visible except Picard’s face and the rest is pitch black. The effects do look good in general though.
This episode might have been the least bad so far, although there are, of course, still some problems with it, besides the stuff that is wrong with STP in general.
I don’t dig that family drama BS this show leans into, because that’s not something TNG (nor Star Trek overall) was ever about, but at least they gave Dr. Crusher some dialog this time. Her lines also make more sense than what STP usually delivers. She’s not talking about the stars and how they touch her soul and the spirits of the universe while lighting a candle or something equally idiotic, what she says is more along the lines of something an actual person might actually say. I mean there is still that weird element to it, that this is supposed to have happened 20 years ago, when this dude is more like 35, but whatever.
When Dr. Crusher starts helping people, the ship’s medical doctor doesn’t want her to, because “she doesn’t have time to explain what changed in the last 20 years”, although Dr. Crusher spent her time on a ship that seemed to have the same tech level the Titan has. Why would this doctor even assume, that Crusher isn’t up to date? She doesn’t even know her. Maybe this much is just a nitpick, but this stuff keeps adding up, you know.
What bothered me the most in this episode, was clearly the “fight” between Riker and Picard on the bridge. I’m not even talking about them doing this out in the open in front of the entire bridge crew – which by itself was a big no-no in the TNG era – no, it was that Picard kind of convinces Riker to follow his idea and when it doesn’t work out, Riker blames Picard and says it’s his fault etc… On TNG however, the Captain was always the one responsible. Even if someone else tried to convince the Captain of something, the buck always stopped there. He didn’t have to do what Picard wanted him to do. But he did, what made it his own choice, no matter where the initial idea might have come from. That’s the burden of command. It’s really tough to watch these legends go against everything they stood for for their entire lives.
It’s also dumb how they keep sending people of the bridge all the time. First Seven, then Riker and Picard, then… They probably think this comes off as dramatic, but they overused it so much already it’s just stupid and annoying. And this is only episode 3.
So what else happened? They brought the shapeshifters from DS9 back. They are really running out of things to reuse from earlier Trek. I wonder if this means someone from DS9 is going to show up as well. They wanted to have Sisko back in Season 2, but that didn’t work out because behind the scenes chaos, so maybe they’ll try to stuff him in here? I sincerely hope not, I don’t want that touched. They should do nothing with DS9 except maybe remaster all the episodes.
I also didn’t like how the enemy uses their portal gun several times and the Titan falls for it each time. Why are none of these people still smart? I get it that they have to show this once, but after that? The Titan just keeps flying straight at the portals, they don’t even try to do anything.
Whatever became of quantum torpedoes? The Titan only has photon torpedoes. That’s not a problem or anything, I’m just wondering about it. I wouldn’t expect a newer ship to have older weapons. I guess the reason is probably, that this is mostly a rip off of Wrath of Khan, an era in which they only had photon torpedoes and quantum torpedoes were an invention of the TNG era… something this show definitely isn’t about. :P
Poor Worf, being teamed up with Raffi. At this point my mind just zones out when she’s on screen. Laris actually was an intelligence officer and way more interesting and competent, therefore they picked Raffi to do all the spy stuff. Somewhere Spock is lifting an eyebrow to this and says “illogical”. :P
In any case, if the show keeps going like this, it’ll be way more watchable than any of the previous seasons/episodes. So I’m rooting hard for that to be the case. Hoping against hope or however that goes.
“Medicine isn’t free.” – Star Trek: Picard
Ah yes, who doesn’t remember all the times Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway or Archer delivered something e.g. to a planet and then charged everyone an arm and a leg. :D
Anyways, Dr. Crusher hasn’t spoken to Picard for so long, she doesn’t even know he died a few seasons back. Weird, I don’t remember that their relationship was so bad, that they weren’t even talking to each other. Maybe the show will still explain that? btw: When people die and robots replace them, it raises some interesting questions. It’s good that they have ships that can take people to other planets, because the housing market must be tight when you can just have a potentially immortal robot inherit everything forever. What an interesting conundrum. Maybe that’s why Raffi had to live in a trailer back in Season 1! :P
Also, how is it possible that every other jerk has more powerful ships than the Federation? Where do they get those? They must be so rich in order to afford them. When the Federation with hundreds of planets in it can’t. I suddenly remember Star Trek: Picard Season 1, during which Riker shows up with an entire fleet of “the most powerful ship Starfleet has ever built” and this time they ship out with a “neo constitution class” vessel that’s apparently a weak exploratory vessel. Why would you go from this to that and what became of these super-powerful ships?
When the Titan is being threatened by a criminal and they claim Starfleet has no jurisdiction there, no one thinks about pointing out that neither does a criminal. Why don’t they just let Picard do Picard things.
In the end Picard almost does something Picard would do, but then it’s reduced to being about that guy being maybe his son – so in order for Starfleet to do the right thing and uphold their values (kind of), you better be related to someone important. TNG Picard would have died for whomever, for whatever rando, it wouldn’t have mattered. He only cared about doing the right thing, not who was the recipient. Oh and I don’t remember Dr. Cusher having another kid ~35 years ago, which would have been during the show, right? Wonder if they’ll retcon this happening during the one season she wasn’t on the ship.
I also gotta say, they just have a hard-on on this show for beheadings. When Worf showed up, I thought for a moment it might be Elnor (honest, I don’t even remember what became of him), because he was beheading people left and right and that was Elnor’s signature move (and it even kind of would have made sense since between seasons/offscreen Raffi and Elnor apparently became close), but then that’s how they chose to (re-)introduce Worf. There would have been a thousand better, more Trek-like ways to do it. Just like the rest he looks really good and doesn’t need such silly stunts.
Oh yeah, I wish people would stop writing all villains as bizarre weirdos and that’s why the audience should be afraid of them. I guess it’s alright if Ferengi act this way, but everyone else?
When Dr. Crusher shows up on the bridge in the end, she doesn’t say a single word…
The fenris rangers, Seven belonged to at some point, are shown to be corrupt as well in this ep. How wonderful. The only thing you can trust in this world, is that every place will have grimdark lighting.
In one scene, I swear, Picard installs tech to prevent them from being beamed out of the ship against their will. Later they want to be beamed out and it doesn’t work – obviously because of the tech Picard just installed to prevent this and it takes them some time to realize this. How did this take them any time to figure this out? The audience is way ahead of the characters. This shouldn’t be happening. Why would you write a scene in such a way, that it makes your main characters look stupid? I just don’t get it.
But overall nothing much happens the entire ep. The first one ends with the big bad ship showing up and this whole second ep takes place right in this situation from start to finish.
PS: Saw the weirdest thing, the set with the lights on! They do have them! Incredible!
We’ve all been afraid for a while, but the moment has finally come: Star Trek: Picard Season 3 is here. But it’s not all bad – there is light at the end of this tunnel, they said numerous times it would be the final season, so… Yay! I was always a believer in “Better a horrible end than endless horror.”. So why talk about it? Especially since there already are really good reviews of it available?
The answer obviously is, that clearly no one else is nearly as qualified, since I made 100% Picard PERFECT SCORE on a random quiz I stumbled upon a couple of days back. :P
Impressive, right? :P
But enough of this and let’s finally get into it. The best new character STP added, was clearly Laris. She’s really likeable and the actress is really good too. The worst new character BY FAR, that STP added, is Raffi. So which character does this show get rid of right away and which character does the show keep for more involvement? CORRECT: They immediately do away with Laris (doesn’t look like she will play a major role in this) and shove in Raffi. FUCK YOU VIEWER.
The show is hardly using any new/own/original music this season, instead they decided to completely rely on music from the Nicholas Meyer era or First Contact. This didn’t work for me, since this is only supposed to bring unearned emotions into this. It’s fake. These older/more original Trek outings created these positive emotions and connected them with this music. So if people feel something now, hearing this, they only do because of these other Trek outings and not because of STP itself. This show doesn’t dare to create something on its own, that people will love without needing the good will of all that other stuff. I mean a lot of stuff is trying to manipulate the audience, of course, but it’s so transparent here what they are trying to do and it’s not working and I don’t appreciate the attempt either. Wouldn’t it be supercool, if people who had never even heard of TNG, could watch this and love these characters and this story? Just like it happened for so many people back when TNG was on?
So was this episode really that bad? No, not really, except for some minor problems maybe. But why be negative about it then? Because I’ve seen the first 2 STP seasons. They always start with an okay episode that could go in any direction and then the most horrible/disappointing/frustrating things ever happen. Sure, the Batman & Robin bro is supposedly no longer running the show completely, but the other dude who does it now, co-wrote season 2, so… I would really like to stay positive about it, but it makes me feel stupid, because that’s only possible by completely ignoring the first 2 seasons of this. My brain just doesn’t work this way, I can’t act as if this never existed. My memory just isn’t as bad as this show needs it to be. The best thing I can say about this, is that I hope incessantly to be completely wrong and that they actually managed to give this crew the proper sendoff this time they were denied back when Nemesis came out. Fingers crossed!
For what it’s worth, I liked Riker in this, he actually appeared to be like the character from the show TNG again. Jonathan Frakes definitely is trying and doesn’t just want to phone it in, this much alone makes it better. Dr. Crusher looked really good too, which is why it’s extra weird that they tried to hide her in the dark. She looked awesome, what’s wrong with you people? But she was in it so briefly (she’s in a Star Wars fight against Star Wars aliens in the beginning), that it’s impossible to say how that’s going to go (character-wise).
It’s really off-putting what some parts of some fandoms have become, with them being nothing but “Have you seen this? Do you remember this? Member this??? I member this!!! I recognize this from the TV!!!”. What’s even the point of all this. There is hardly a screen in this show that doesn’t just show objects from previous things, completely out of context and with no purpose to any of it whatsoever. It’s like some weird form of porn that makes me feel uncomfortable. It’s such a weird form of fandom, wanting absolutely nothing else out of a show than just this. None of this works for me or does anything for me. Maybe there was some mild interest in me, wanting to know what became of the Enterprise E, but of course that’s not a question this show has answered (so far).
I don’t even understand how we ended up here. There is so much good TV right now. I just finished watching “Fleishman Is in Trouble” and that show was awesome. I was really engaged all throughout. I never considered a future in which I would get my Star Trek fix from shows like The Boys or For All Mankind, but not from Star Trek.
Whatever the case may be, I’ll just have to do this 9 more times! Yay! :D I’ll be back for 3×02. Probably. I think.
PS: I can’t believe I almost forgot to mention the Fallout music they are playing in the beginning. WTF. Hard flashbacks from the wasteland. And yes I do know Fallout also only used this existing music. But that’s how those songs are known to people like me.
PPS: The phonograph, Picard is using to listen to his records, looks like something he stole from Tron, with its neon lights and all… Modifications like that make stuff never look more futuristic but always more silly.
Finally finished watching the seasons for The Orville and For All Mankind (like a month ago). The third season was incredible, it even managed to end really strong. The final 2 eps make a really strong case for the Star Trek philosophy, a stronger one than I have seen in… forever. I was never a fan of SM, never really seen Family Guy or anything, but that last episode he wrote even paid off the sandwich. It’s insane how many notes this ep hits. At the same time it feels as if they prepared for the eventuality, that this is also the series finale. They managed to bring back characters (I admit I only instantly recognized one of them because she was also on Netflix’ The Punisher) that had left the show and that was really great and unexpected. I honestly don’t think they could have done anything better.
It would be such a shame if this show wouldn’t get another season, but I, of course, have no idea how their numbers look. I mean the news did say The Orville was among the most in demand originals on Hulu, but knowing whether this is enough for a season 4 is beyond me. But even if it isn’t, going out on a near perfect season with a (then) finale this good, is something countless shows can only dream of.
That is one problem For All Mankind doesn’t have. They are already busy shooting their season 4. It’s great not having to hope for one. This show clearly has places left to go and I just can’t wait to see what they are going to do – I have absolutely no idea. So far they did exceptionally well. I can totally see myself rewatching the first 3 seasons in the long hiatus between those seasons. The further they venture into the future, the less predictable everything becomes. I really hope they manage to reach “the present”. It would be so interesting to find out, how it would look from their perspective. It might be one of the most exciting sci-fi things to experience in forever. :P
Wow, since last entry I watched Orville 3×06, 3×07 and 3×08. It’s not just the best season of that show (that much became obvious early), it’s better by a whole lot. I’m actually looking forward to each episode now and enjoy watching them – it’s not just something (anymore) that I watch when I have nothing better to do. It started as a TNG copy or maybe even a cheap TNG copy, but since then it has improved in almost every single way. I’d even say that by now it might more TNG than TNG was, because they took the TNG formula and improved upon it, without throwing anything, that was good about it, away. They found a way to refine it. Both CGI and stories/writing were improved. That’s what’s so rare about it.
That’s also what makes this show the polar opposite of what the Kurtzman bros are doing, because those dudes took the Star Trek formula and threw everything I liked about it away, because they truly don’t care about any of this source material.
The Orville however, really found their format here. I’m also sure that the length of the episodes is really beneficial to what they are doing. With ~75 min per ep, it’s no problem to let everything breathe a little bit. It doesn’t even feel long, let alone too long. It’s so compatible with this TNG style storytelling, because the original could feel a little bit abrupt sometimes, with just 45 minutes for everything. They usually had to accomplish a lot/too much in that time.
3×06 is a really solid time travel dilemma, that I’ve never seen explored in this specific way and it has a fitting conclusion as well. I like the Ensign who joined the crew this season, this actress completely vanishes in the role. She has some beef with one of the other crew members and it shows in everything she has to do with Isaac. Feels completely real. In general I like the scope of these episodes. They clearly have the budget to go to several locations and there are actually some extras everywhere. It’s no longer just the cast and the guest stars of this weeks’ episode.
3×07 also feels really smart in several ways at once. It looks at an issue from at least 3 different angles (so it’s not just this typical A story and B story design) and it even manages to do that, by building upon events of previous episodes, paying off the journey so far. That’s just really really good. It feels so rewarding to watch that. I generally like how they manage to do single episode stories, while not forgetting anything that happened previously, but they seem to be reaching new heights here. It’s all really well thought out and it can’t be easy to do that. What I’m really into here, is that thinking about it doesn’t have it fall apart, but only reveals how hard it must have been to do this and how much effort must have been put into this. It’s so refreshing to experience this, after seeing shows that had writers completely forget what happened last episode, in a supposedly fully serialized season.
They have so many nuggets of great dialog in there. The unscrupulous head of the company, that build/sold the robots that would eventually kill their creators, goes on about how he only has to look to who the people elected, to tell how dumb they are and brushes all the perfectly valid concerns of his subordinate aside. It’s the perfect thing for that type of character to say in this situation and it happens in the right tone and the right context. These flashbacks perfectly complement what the rest of the episode is doing.
3×08 might be my favorite out of these 3 (although I liked/enjoyed all of them a lot) because it’s (amongst other things) about how scummy groups of people act in negotiations and at some point Gordon just goes off on them with another great speech on how they get everything they wanted and yet they still act as if they were the victims. It’s so spot on, even (or especially) when the Captain asks him to stop – dropping a truth bomb on them won’t defuse this situation after all. But because this is (positive) sci-fi, the Union (The Orville’s equivalent to Star Trek’s Federation) does the right thing and cuts ties with them, despite this means having to pay a steep political and economical price. It felt great to see that. It leaves them in an interesting place for future stories and I’m really interested in finding out what they are going to do with that – if they are able to do anything with it, with only 2 episodes left.
I’ve seen a tweet this week that The Orville will be moved from Hulu to Disney+, but I have no idea if this will have any impact on the future of this show. Maybe they are just generally trying to merge Hulu with Disney+ and get rid of it altogether. I don’t want to get my hopes up, that they’ll do a Season 4 of this after all. And this doesn’t even cover that The Orville Season 3 really isn’t a format Disney+ is championing. It’s such a unique show by now, with its almost movie length episodes and whatnot, that has almost nothing in common with the typical D+ content. It’s like I’m not looking forward to the D+ Daredevil, because everything that was great about this show on Netflix, is also something D+ just doesn’t do and it would be a first, if they changed it now.
So, after this short intro, STSNW 1×10. The Season finale. I’d like to say upfront that I still thought the episode was alright. It’s just that I immediately noticed that stink on this episode. A stink, that wasn’t there in the last 8 eps. And what do you know. The Batman & Robin bro co-wrote it. The second one of these eps is suddenly about fate/faith etc. you know what’s up. It’s also the first STSNW episode, that’s an outright copy of an old ST episode. This is also a dead giveaway of Kurtzman gang involvement. They can’t do anything beyond “adapting” previous content. So they never do anything different. It’s Balance of Terror again, but this time with Pike instead of Kirk as the Captain. That means they even got to copy/paste lines of dialog this time. Not just everything else. It’s just so sad to see this cast and these effects in the hands of these hacks. The best thing that could ever happen to this show, is if it would be handed off completely to any one of these random writers of the last 8 episodes. Unless the involvement of these unoriginal, unimaginative and lazy dudebros stays as low as it has been in Season 1, I’ll just stop watching this, like I stopped watching STD. There are more than enough alternatives and I guess my curiosity, what they would do with this, has been sated.
I also kept watching For All Mankind (it’s sort of the sci-fi show I always wanted) and The Boys and those shows are just marvelous. Can only recommend them to anyone. The Boys especially completely superseded what they now call Star Trek in putting some solid messages and intelligent examination of certain issues in such a show format and in difference to current ST, The Boys is actually smart and well written and doesn’t just have douchy writers that just feel smart, but really only put out the dumbest crap. I’m astonished at this point, that they managed to put out 3 Seasons of this show, that have been consistently of such a high quality. Usually such shows just turn bad at some point and I couldn’t be happier that this isn’t the case here. The only bad thing about The Boys I can think of, is that it takes so long between Seasons. And they still use a weekly release cycle. :P
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