Archive for the ‘spoiler’ 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.
A couple of days ago I watched “The Night Agent”, a show that ironically didn’t take place in complete darkness and is a lot brighter than some other shows. I found it especially easy to like, because pretty much all the characters were usually smart and likeable and they didn’t present a mystery in episode one and only dumped the resolution at the end. The show’s story was constantly evolving and made sense throughout. Everything shown was a necessary puzzle piece for the season long story arc. The length of every episode felt just right and I can’t point to anything one might have cut.
They also didn’t just outright kill everyone they met. They only killed one dangerous assassin, after it became impossible to arrest him alive – which The Night Agent attempted first. It was also always very clear who the protagonists were and why they were doing what they were doing. They all had their strengths and weaknesses and were used appropriately inside those roles. The villains had concrete reasons for their actions, they weren’t just trying to be evil and they weren’t being cartoonish either.
While there certainly are countless other shows and movies with FBI agents in them, “The Night Agent” didn’t have any noteworthy references to any of them. It didn’t need any and was able to stand on its own.
It was really pleasant and refreshing to watch something like that, compared to some other shows I experienced recently. Makes me also happy to hear, that this great first season paid off for them and they are already renewed for a season 2. I’m already looking forward to it.
PS: And yes, obviously I noticed that he’s called Peter Sutherland and Jack Bauer was played by Kiefer Sutherland (whose new show Rabbit Hole coincidentally started recently btw) and D.B. Woodside was on 24 and the show overall feels like a maybe smarter version of 24, but it’s all very subtle and the show isn’t about that at all. It comes of more like a sort of inside joke (and people who overlook it miss nothing), there is no “look here!”, “remember this???” and so on at all, let alone this being the point of the entire show.
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.
First of, what were they thinking naming it like that? No one, who merely hears “Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy”, will instantly realize, that this addresses the 2021 game from Eidos Montréal. This right there might be a reason it didn’t hit their “sales expectations”. Tons of people are only going to think “I’ve already seen this movie” and move on.
In any case, I absolutely love this game. There are so many different things great about it, I will definitely not even mention most of them out of sheer laziness to write it all down. This might be the game with the most voice acting ever. They never shut up. This right there might be annoying to me in most other circumstances, but miracle number one, it really isn’t here. The vast majority of what they do seems to be true to the characters and what more can you ask for? They also look so freaking amazing. I’m not even a Guardians fan, so I don’t know how they look in the comics, but what Eidos Montréal pulled off here is simply amazing.
Another thing I’m really super into here, is how this isn’t some needless open-world bullshit. They hand-crafted individual missions and worlds, that are all distinct and offer unique scenarios. It sometimes feels as if such games are of a dying breed. Which they really shouldn’t be, given how even good games like Horizon Zero Dawn are filled with needless trash, due to being dragged down by their open-world design.
What makes this game feel so good is how the player isn’t just put on a journey, but how successful this journey is portrayed. In the beginning the Guardians are fighting together more out of necessity and it’s actually noticeable throughout the game, how this gradually shifts more and more towards them becoming an actual team. The game expresses this on many levels. Of course there is also just the player becoming better and better at learning all the different abilities and using the right ones for the right occasions, but there’s also this mixture of choosing which new abilities to unlock first and some unlocking through story progress – then things shift between the characters through story and player choices. For the final fight Rocket even comes up with matching outfits for the group, because they think it will look cool. :D It just feels earned and fleshed out and all the various stages of them becoming a better team are noticeably all the way throughout the game. I don’t know of many examples which execute this so well. In so many other titles the story just declares the characters friends at some point and that’s that. It’s really not something I expected to find in something that could have been nothing but some dumb Marvel license game. This is in the vein of Batman Arkham, the best type of licensed (superhero) games.
They even wrote Groot in such a smart way, that at some points throughout the game you’ll actually get what he’s trying to express. This is so great and fun.
I’m a huge Mass Effect fan, another game that’s really focused on its characters as its main selling point and Guardians feels like an improvement on team dynamics in several regards. I get it, it’s probably easier here, because they are “just” 5 people, but I wish they would steal an idea or two from this game.
Maybe least surprising for a Guardians game, is that the soundtrack consists out of a ton of really strong 1980s hits, which are so numerous, that they really don’t repeat much. They even do something interesting with the music. During most fights the team can earn a sort of power up, they can huddle up like a sports team and if Peter Quill manages to give the right motivational speech, they’ll be more motivated and fight better, while Peter’s music blasts during the fight. It’s possible to fail here and then only Peter will be buffed.
But besides all the action and not, miracle number two definitely was for me, that there are some emotional beats that almost come over as profound. Another thing I’d never have expected. It’s also never easy to goof around and then get serious/sad all of a sudden. This game got this done.
One thing they never fixed for this game, is that it shows PlayStation prompts while playing with an XBOX controller. It makes the learning curve a little bit steeper and really confused me at first. I have the Steam version and selecting XBOX as controller did nothing for me. I got used to it eventually. Another thing that made me fear I was stuck somehow, happened when using the Nova Corps computer (that has all these audio and video files on it along the personal files), it just won’t display the button to leave, but it works fine if the player just presses Y. The game got several patches, so it’s weird they didn’t address such prominent problems, but whatever.
I’m really glad this game has a New Game+, because for once I might actually have some serious use for it. :)
PS: I made all the screenshots on my own aging PC, with most effects set to low. Clearly didn’t have an impact on my fun, but people are different.
PPS: I can’t believe I forgot to mention this, but you can actually fly the ship in this game. Which is awesome and obviously could be a game all on its own. Another thing Mass Effect really would have benefited from.
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
I wrote about this before, but The Orville 3×05 is an even better example for the stark contrast between original and most current Trek shows. 3×05 is like 75 minutes long and has a single issue to deal with. There is a very minor B plot, if one insists, but it really only serves as a reason for them to be there or show what the other characters are up to, that’s really it. The other 99% of this episode are entirely dedicated to this one single thing. And that’s just enough. No other random stuff is thrown in and no one and nothing explodes and the like.
The audience can just lean back and think about this stuff, that’s it. It’s like the difference between playing a turn based game like XCOM or a fast paced shooter. It’s so awesome to see that someone is still doing this. I think this is the only show of this specific type still around. This alone is more than enough reason for me, to watch every single episode of it. I’ll enjoy it as long as it lasts. Which is for only 5 more eps, unless they renew it after all (as far as I know this is still supposed to be the final Season).
I was wondering if Strange New Worlds would continue to embrace the silliness, or if it would be more serious again soon and boy did it come back serious with 1×09. The episode itself is essentially just Alien/Aliens all over again (right down to the little girl surviving), the Gorn (who have essentially Predator vision) are born almost exactly like the Xenomorphs, but it’s still just really well done. Last time I wondered why Hemmer was the only one except for M’Benga, who wasn’t changed by this entity, but now I think the only reason for that was to show him once more (in character) before his final episode.
It surprised me to see Hemmer die, he seemed like a relatively well established character despite really only playing a bigger role in maybe 3 episodes. So they obviously did a good job with that character. They had some fitting things to say about the character and all the expressed emotions felt way more earned than anything that was shown on Picard.
Maybe they will use this death to move forward on introducing more legacy characters like Scotty. Eventually they will have to get rid of all characters that don’t also happen to be on Kirk’s Enterprise. Another thing they wouldn’t have to do if this wasn’t a prequel show. This crew works so well, I’d really just like them to have their own adventures, that aren’t bogged down by such concerns, but they just had to limit themselves this way. But whatever, this was still another solid Star Trek adventure. So glad they returned to this episodic format, apparently such adventures wouldn’t be possible otherwise. Another strong suit of this show is, how the episodic format doesn’t delete character growth. They still learn their lessons, no one has amnesia and acts like nothing ever happened before. That’s really the best way to do this. I’m genuinely looking forward to the Season finale! Crazy!
For All Mankind 3×04 was absolutely flawless again. :P Just saying. What an awesome show! Tons of people are talking about this show and I just miss it, right? They must be! And it’s not just good, but consistently good. Every Season was top notch so far.
The Orville 3×04 further cements to me, that they (with S3) have gone full TNG essentially. There’s like 1 scene in the episode that’s meant as comedy, when Isaac wears a cowboy hat, but that’s really it. The rest is a straight up “serious” TNG ethical dilemma episode. This podcast with SM made it sound, as if that’s what they wanted all along, but the network sold it as comedy in the beginning. Whatever detour they might have taken, they clearly succeeded in the end.
The episode depicts a current (or even evergreen) problem and gives it the sci-fi treatment. Their hopes of better relations with another society are crushed, when their government is taken over by an amoral, unscrupulous leader, just before they could sign a new treaty of peaceful cooperation. This issue seems to be much more relevant right now than it might have been in the previous 2 or 3 decades and they prove why there is still a demand for this kind of show and storytelling.
They leave some story threads unresolved in the end, so I hope they can get back to it. But the beauty of it is, they don’t have to. They managed to say a lot in this episode regardless, so they sort of covered all bases. A good call, given that they might not have the time, with only ~10 eps in the Season.
btw: It’s also so crazy how many well-known TV actors are in this. These people are still around and somehow they got them to all appear on this show. :D There’s some guy in a blue mask and that just happens to be Bruce Boxleitner (other people like Ted Danson are much easier to spot). :D
Strange New Worlds 1×08 on the other hand, really stresses that they emulate TOS, which makes sense, given that’s the era the show takes place in. Thankfully they care much more about such details here than they did on Picard, a show in which they just threw everything in randomly from all timelines. I guess this is yet another difference between SNW and Orville, with one emulating TOS and the other TNG. It’s all back baby!
Anyway, this episode is like one of these TOS episodes in which they encounter a Greek god on some planet and everyone ends up in bizarre costumes (think togas or some such). They also did what seems like quite extensive modifications to their Enterprise set, with plants everywhere and whatnot. Didn’t look like CGI either. I wonder if a more serious episode is going to follow soon, or if they are going to keep their focus on the sillier aspects of TOS. They pretty much nail that in any case. They all get to play some crazy character and they all fully commit to that. Uhura is an evil queen all of a sudden and Pike is this cowardly traitor.
This episode seems to wrap the subplot of the doctor’s daughter, which felt really soon to me, but then again, this is 1×08 already. Maybe it was in part because they had to get rid of the child, before they had to explain why someone who’s in stasis is growing regardless, but who knows. Maybe that was always their plan.
In fact it doesn’t feel like the whole Season is already almost over. Which must mean that it’s not boring. When Rebecca Romijn jumps into the frame and plays the huntress in this episode (loved her casual remark how she’s actually good friends with Ortegas’ character), she still always seems to be in a good, upbeat mood. Which is such a pleasant departure from the dour, depressing and broken people on Picard. Dr. M’Benga and Hemmer are the only crew members who remain their usual selves.
Makes sense, because otherwise the doctor couldn’t have dealt with what’s happening with his daughter. What I didn’t understand, is how Hemmer also didn’t change and yet had his memory wiped in the end regardless. I feel like I either didn’t understand something in the episode, or they are laying some groundwork for something that’s going to happen with Hemmer later in the show.
For anyone who wants a more mature/serious drama in the realm of sci-fi, I can only keep recommending For All Mankind. All the story and character moments are spot on. I really don’t think there has ever been a show just like this. There are obviously several really good political shows or whatnot, but not in the context of such contemporary sci-fi. Even The Expanse doesn’t compare, because it takes place in the far future and its tech is already very advanced. Almost everything in FAM seems to at least resemble tech that is very comparable to things that exist today.
Their character work is also really solid, in 3×03 one of the engineers stops working at NASA and it’s genuinely sad when he says his goodbyes. They pay off something they have build up over 2 Seasons. It’s just such a little thing and that’s what makes this great. Out of these 3 shows, this is clearly the one I like the most. I’m always looking forward to the next episode and can’t wait to watch it. I have absolutely no idea where this is going, but I really want to know. If this wasn’t weekly, I’d binge this in 3-4 days.
I’d thought about adding The Boys as well, given that I watch this back to back with FAM, but out of all of these shows, it might literally be the most complex one and this would result in way too much text. :D It’s easily one of the best shows I have seen in my life and the way it incorporates contemporary issues and the smart ways in which it deals with them, it easily surpasses especially current Trek shows. Seriously, holy shit. They can’t even dream of coming anywhere close to this. The tiniest stuff on TB can have meaning and will lead to something. It all resolves somehow and it all changes the characters accordingly. The only negative thing I could ever conjure up about this show, is that I’m “afraid” that it might ever get bad somehow. Every single time the show comes back and is still brilliant I feel so relieved.
Damn The Orville 3×03 was really great! Classic Trek feels really alive and well right now. :P In some ways it’s even better than TNG, since current tech allows them to do so much more. On TNG they would have been allowed to do one, maybe two of the scenarios from this episode. Nothing more. Those budgets were tight. I was really invested in the mystery of this episode and was really engaged with it, I didn’t want to stop watching. They totally captured that feeling I always got, when they encountered such a mystery on some obscure planet. It was almost as if it stoked a spark, I thought was gone. :P
It reminded me a bit of the Hotel Royale episode, but they really tried something with the concept here. The many extras alone set this apart from classic shows. It’s really cool that they can pull something like this off now. It’s of course too early to tell with only 3 episodes, but so far it looks like this might be the strongest season of The Orville yet. It’s great they are going out on a high note, with this supposedly being the final season of the show.
Strange New Worlds was super okay again. They are sticking to their guns of splitting up the characters into several teams, with each having to confront their own woes. It’s working. This is the second episode in a row without the Aenar engineer being in it. It’s not a problem, just noticing when major characters are absent.
Pirates capture the Enterprise and gain control over the ship rather quickly. The only thing that was odd about it all, was that there didn’t seem to be much of a crew besides the major characters on the ship. Nurse Chapel for example is completely alone in the corridors on the ship in an instant. In any case, the pirates aren’t the only ones employing some finesse, the Captain and Number One don’t even try to fight the pirates and instead trick them into a mutiny – something they clearly have done before and are now quite good at.
I’d really like to know if this scene with Pike talking like a pirate was even in the script, or if the actor just did that and they kept it because it was funny. I honestly have no idea.
It’s interesting how the show usually has a positive vibe to it, given that it could easily be named Star Trek: Doom instead. Pike is doomed to land in the chair, Spock is doomed to loose T’Pring, almost everyone else is doomed to be replaced soon. Even Uhura is doomed to do the same dead end job forever – okay maybe she’s found her calling and just loves it? I wonder if they have considered that. But it probably doesn’t matter.
As okay as these shows are, I noticed that this itch I had for Star Trek, is now (mostly) being scratched by shows like The Boys or For All Mankind. They are of the same moral fiber as Trek once was and they are told really well (not just in general but also by todays standards). They have clear messages and it’s incredible, how well The Boys manages to deliver those. This show knows exactly what it is and what it wants to do. That’s as good as it gets.
Especially For All Mankind feels like a successor (or replacement?) to Star Trek. It takes place in a much more complex world with well defined characters. It especially serves as an example on how to do a season long arc right. The individual episodes manage to offer satisfying stories themselves (I can actually immerse myself into this), but on top of that each season has a sort of goal it works towards, which has worked out really well in all seasons so far. So this can work, if such a show is run by people who know what they are doing.
So I guess my big takeaway here is, go watch For All Mankind, because it’s awesome. :P
Severance also has a lot of ST DNA, doesn’t it? People waking up in a weird scenario, having to figure out what’s going on and maybe escape from it? That’s really a classic/typical ST theme. In any case, so many shows have inherited good qualities of what once was Trek, so it doesn’t even really matter all that much, if it were to go away entirely. Strange New Worlds is pretty okay so far, but even in that state it’s no match for a show of the caliber of The Boys or For All Mankind. I watch Strange New Worlds on Thursdays, but what I’m really looking forward to each week, is The Boys and For All Mankind on Fridays. That really says it all.
For All Mankind also doesn’t have an uncritical mob attacking everyone who dislikes an episode and doesn’t clap like an automaton for literally everything that has the brand name on it. I guess there are further perks for something not being a well-known brand, that’s been around for decades.
This week gave us another solid episode. A civilization, that is not part of the Federation and is, in some ways, more advanced, is about to carry out some important ritual. The crew has to figure out what’s what and who’s in the right here, if anyone. And in the end it doesn’t exactly work out the way they would have preferred. That’s really cool – from a storytelling perspective – can’t win every time.
Pike says and does some cool stuff again, it stuck in my mind, how he says Starfleet regulations compel him to help this ship, but also his conscience does. It’s also interesting when Pike wants to tell Starfleet about what happened on the planet, but they only shrug it off, because they are not in the Federation, so Starfleet has no jurisdiction there.
The episode is a little bit too vague for my taste on what this machine actually does and I didn’t understand what makes these kids the chosen ones, but I guess they wanted this to take a backseat and focus on the central issue instead. No big deal, but I would have liked a few more sentences here and there to make this more comprehensible.
Oh and when they can’t use the transporter in at the end, because of the dampening field (I think), couldn’t they still have taken a shuttle then? Or would that have taken too long? Unclear. I think only the transporter and communications were disrupted, the planet didn’t have outright shields around it.
Of course I also watched The Orville 3×02 and it’s still really interesting to watch these back to back. I think it’s not just the runtime (Orville is longer), that makes me think the main difference is really attention span. Current Trek is made for people without an attention span, or at least the producers think their audience doesn’t have one. And the pacing, the tone, really everything has to be subordinate to this premise. Orville doesn’t really do that, it doesn’t really succumb to that and that’s why there are these relaxed scenes with 2 people sitting around a table talking and whatnot. It’s really cool that someone preserved that. It bodes well, especially for a science-fiction show I think. It shouldn’t be indistinguishable from the average action or drama show.
At the same time The Orville is doing TNG with better effects and way more elaborate stunts. It’s just nice/pleasant to see that. Fun fact, one of the writers of this episode also worked on the TNG episode Genesis, in which Barclay morphs into a spider and the “aliens” in this episode look very similar to that.
In any case, I’m looking forward to finding out if The Orville keeps exploring this new expanse they discovered. But then again, why wouldn’t they, after introducing it in this episode. Oh and John Fleck is in this episode. In full mask of course, but the voice is unmistakable.
The Orville started again and it’s pretty good – actually it felt better than previous Seasons, maybe they just managed to refine their formula after 2 Seasons and are really coming into their own. I’ve read that this is supposedly the final Season, so that part’s sad, but all the more reason to enjoy it then. They got a worthy problem to deal with in their Season opener and it’s so great to experience this. I read Season 3 has fewer episodes, but the individual episodes are longer, which would result in the same runtime. If that’s true they clearly made the most out of it, this episode seemed to benefit from its length.
Story beats didn’t have to be rushed and some more important scenes could be allowed to breathe a little bit. Maybe that’s really why The Orville feels more like original Trek, because there isn’t this mandate that stuff has to explode every 5 seconds. The funny part about this is, that without all these forced emotional moments, the emotions in this felt much more earned and sincere. I understood what everyone was going through and it made sense. On top of all this, they had to introduce a new character (who is clearly motivated to put in some good work), which worked out really well. She was involved in the main story of the episode, in a way that felt completely natural.
It’s interesting how they almost completely dropped their comedic bits and the show didn’t suffer at all from it, the opposite. There is this fluid CGI character and even he is just a normal member of the crew now, not just the comic relief. Really glad this show is back and still running!
And oh yeah, it released the same day as Strange New Worlds 1×05 so I watched these 2 shows back to back (almost like I was once watching TNG and DS9 back to back). Giving each episode to 2 fresh new writers keeps being a winning formula, let’s hope nothing will break their streak. It’s another solid episode. I don’t think I have anything to bitch and moan about here. :P
This episode is more on the side of being an outright comedy episode (weird that The Orville, which started as more of a comedy, was serious today – equilibrium?) and as we all know, Star Trek didn’t historically have the best track record of jokes landing right. Here it mostly works, on account of the cast being this charming. They manage to sell the silly parts. But despite that, they still got some solid Star Trek themes in there. I really liked everything Pike had to say at the conference table, to the potentially new Federation members. See? Star Trek fans are not that complicated. That’s all that needs to be in there to please them. Pike is seriously great in this.
But so is Nurse Chapel. Seriously great casting. She can make every scene she’s in better. This cast doesn’t seem to have a weak link. I just hope they won’t start relying on that fact too much. Their stories should stand up without having to be saved by the charm of these actors. If they were to go down that road, I don’t think that would end well. In any case, I like that show now. After 4 good episodes, I really want to watch this now. Just remembered the Aenar character wasn’t in this episode. Makes sense though, the episode was “full” the way it was, better to leave a character out, than to stuff them in needlessly. With them focusing on different characters each episode, they can do everyone justice anyway (hopefully).
The aliens they encounter this time fly away in the end with what really looks like a Bajoran lightship. Don’t know if that was intentional. There have been so many ship types over the years, that this might be a coincidence. The aliens are definitely not Bajoran in any case.
So yeah, running into appropriately weird/interesting aliens, Vulcan mysticism, adventures on the ship, cool crew… All of this could have been on another ST show, it just has better effects. It’s also not stupid or insulting, which is so refreshing. :D
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