Comment Stream

Re: PIC S3: Vox

@ Bok R'Mor, great list! I would add the music, which has been outstanding this season.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

Another thing I would have liked is some more on is the decision to link all the starships together. I’m assuming the Changlings were responsible, but how did they push this through, did they use fear or did they appeal to the arrogance of the Starfleet brass? And did people not speak up when they should have, or did people just not understand the full implications? Also, what are the specific benefits of it, it’s never said. It was a missed opportunity for storytelling that’s relevant today with all the things happening with AI.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

@Tim, I agree with your points. One of my biggest gripes with NuTrek is we haven’t heard much on the state of the Alpha Quadrant post TNG/DS9. Jammer mentioned it in one of his earlier reviews, they always focus on the micro instead of the macro, and it’s a missed opportunity to advance the world building.

The changling arc is a perfect example, they could have used that to flesh out the aftermath of the Dominion War, give some commentary on the state of the Dominion/Federation, etc. I get they might not want to do that because of the new viewers, but they could have at least spent more time fleshing out Vadic and her rouge faction. I thought it was interesting, and we only got a 10 minute backstory that covered the bare minimum. Hell, they could have done an entire episode on a flashback of her time on Daystrom. Instead we got all that stuff on the criminal underworld and Vulcan gangsters that ended up being pointless.

I think we will get some more on the Borg backstory via discussion between the Queen and Jack, hopefully they use that to fill in the blanks since Voyagers Endgame.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

@Tim “My feeling is the opposite. There's nothing inherently wrong with the CGI ship when it's stationary. It looks a little too crisp but that's to be expected, 4K vs. 1080, CGI vs. physical model. My issue is with the movements.”

That’s interesting and honestly something I would never notice. I never really thought the ship scenes in TNG were that good but Way of the Warrior is one of my favorite space battles that holds up well even today.

@Tim “Orville came close to that magic. I would argue in many ways it exceeded it. My favorite example, Kelly's explanation of an abundance economy and how human ambition got re-channeled into reputation. It distilled in one scene everything Star Trek tried and failed to make relatable with "We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity."

Orville is an honest attempt at a show centered on the spirit of classic Trek. I like the show too, but I’ve never thought of it as any more than a cute knock-off. Orville might follow in the footsteps of TNG/DS9 but for me it still doesn’t come close to them in terms of overall quality.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

I think part of the issue is people are always comparing all subsequent Trek series to TNG/DS9. I'm not saying that's unreasonable to do or that the critisism is invalid, but it's self defeating because nothing is going to come close to the magic of those series. It's just never going to happen, those two series will forever be in a class of their own.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

I do hope there's some dialouge between Jack and the Queen in the finale where we get some more detail on the back story of the Borg. I'm assuming it was the Queen who freed the changlings at Daystorm. Maybe the Queen herself was being held at Daystorm in a weird throwback to S2? Then she freed the changlings and the changlings freed her?

Re: PIC S3: Vox

I wasn't a huge fan of the Enterprise D CGI when they first showed the ship in the hanger with its lights off, but it looked great flying out of the hanger with the lights on. I'm assuming the lights hide some of the flaws in the CGI, I'll have to re-watch it and look closer.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

I'm curious how people would rate this season so far relative to other Trek series in terms of overall quality. For me, this season is better than S1/S2 of Picard, every season of Discovery, every season of ENT, and the early seasons of VOY. It doesn't come close to TNG / DS9, but nothing really does.

I'd put this season on par with the later seasons of VOY. Admitedly low on substance but still very fun to watch.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

Great review Jammer! I completely agree. Was this episode full of shameless and manipulative fan service? Yes it was. Do I care? No, I don't.

I wonder if it's even possible for Star Trek Picard to work as anything other than a nostalgic throwback to TNG's glory days. You don't pull a 90 year old character out of retirement because you want something new and different.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

While I loved the Ent D scenes, anyone else notice that Data (as operations officer) set the course for Earth when it should have been Geordi (the helmsman)? Conversely, Geordi was the one who said he would find extra power for the shields when it should have been Data.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

“- But, above all -- and I'm not kidding -- most unforgivably: they not only killed Shaw, but did so in the laziest, boring way possible.”

I do wonder if they would have kept him if they’d known how highly rated the character was, but the point was he ran from the Borg at Wolf 359 and never got over it. He wasn’t leaving anyone behind this time.

Shaw's death was the only thing I didn't like about this episode. It was rushed and not necessary to advance the plot. Also, why couldn't it have been Raffi instead.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

One thing I appreciate about this season is they make a solid effort explaining why things are happening. For example, if this were Discovery, the Enterprise D would have just been there and nobody would have questioned it. But here, there was dialogue explaining why it was there, how it got rebuilt, and they even threw in a line about drones to explain how it can fly with no other crew. Past seasons have set the bar low, but there's a much higher level of effort and attention to detail this time around.

And the explaination of Jack was also pretty decent and ties into legacy Trek. For example, in First Contact, Picard could still hear the collective despite not being in the Borg anymore. At the time I thought it was just his imagination but now that's been retconned into this. Neat.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

Wow, that episode was pure fan service. Also, that was awesome.

The Jack reveal was better than I expected. At the end of the last episode I wasn't confident they would be able to explain everything coherently but they actually did. I don't think the reveal was worth waiting most of the season but it was still pretty clever.

Re: PIC S3: Surrender

Predictions:

- Next episode will end with floating head capturing Jack

- The Titan bridge crew will be replaced by the TNG cast in their traditional positions + Sydney as pilot. Shaw will work with Geordi in engineering. Seven and Raffi will be the away team that rescues Jack.

- Janeway will cameo in the finale, rescuing the Seven/Raffi away team.

Re: PIC S3: Surrender

@Tim, I completely agree on the mystery box stuff. They really should come up with the story idea first, and then figure out how many episodes they need to tell it. S4 of Enterprise did that, with a series of 1-3 episode mini-arcs. I thought it worked really well. But sadly Kurtzman seems to have mandated season long mystery boxes for everything except SNW.

I'm fine with them retconning S1/S2 at this point, given the circumstances. I've enjoyed Riker so far this season, but they could have done a better job with his backstory. I'm also a little unclear on Deanna's powers, I thought she could only sense emotion in others. I guess she can now manipulate people's emotions (Will) and enter people's minds (Jack)? Weird.

Still, for all its flaws I've been way more engaged this season than any other season of NuTrek. I've enjoyed watching every episode (as opposed to feeling obligated to watch because I'm too invested) which is a first. I'll admit I'm nervous heading into the last 2 episodes that they won't stick the landing, as most of the time they don't.

Re: PIC S3: Surrender

I really wonder how some of these seasons played out in the writer's room. I actually thought the overarching premise of Picard S2 was pretty good (Picard has emotional trauma that prevents him from being close to anyone, and Q wants to help him with it before he dies). Basically "Tapestry" on steroids. The problem is you can't fill 10 episodes with that alone, so the writers had to throw in a bunch of other random crap and mix it all together, resulting in the season being a massive dumpster fire. In retrospect, Jammer was very generous with his ratings that season because a lot of those episodes deserved a half a star or less.

Either way, I've been enjoying S3 of Picard so far. These last two episodes haven't been as good because a lot of the NuTrek themes I don't like are gaining strength, but if the season finishes strong all will be forgiven.

Re: PIC S3: Surrender

The problem with S3 of Discovery is that Michelle Paradise took over as showrunner that season. Her previous experience was on a teen vampire soap opera where the "plot" only serves to connect the emotional (crying) scenes which are the highlight of the show. You can also play fast and loose with the details in a fantasy setting with magic. I read an interview with her where she implied the sci fi genre simply meant having cool special effects.

I do think she learned from her mistakes and became more familiar with Trek and the sci-fi genre which does show in S4, which was a decent attempt at a sci-fi story with themes from classic Trek. It fell flat at times but some of it was pretty cool (e.g., how they communicated with 10-C, Zora's sentience).

The problem isn't so much that they insist on mystery box storytelling, but that they insist on dragging it out through the entire season every single time. So it builds and builds and inevitably crashes under its own weight because very few concepts can deliver that kind of payoff (S1 of Westworld is the only one that comes to mind). I don't understand why every season has to have the this exact same structure, it basically sets the writers up to fail.

Re: PIC S3: Surrender

Oh God. Discovery S3 was literally a soap opera. So many tears. Also, Discovery’s turbo shafts are the size of about 50 football stadiums.

Re: PIC S3: Surrender

This talk of Pah wraiths makes me wonder, could Sisko and Janeway both be cameoing in the finale? That would be wild.

Re: PIC S3: Surrender

I don't really care that they haven't revealed what Jack is, because I don't care what Jack is. It's not that interesting and I'm numb to the mystery box storytelling after Discovery habitually abused it. I just want to see the old TNG crew work together to solve some problems, hopefully tackle some philosophical issues, and have some good character moments in a way that ties up old loose ends and gives them the sendoff they deserve.

Re: PIC S3: Surrender

@Narissa's Bath Water, thanks!

One more random thought, these last few episodes have been centered on action, which I don't have a huge issue with, but it isn't the greatest fit with this cast. This season has been its strongest when they lean into the themes that made TNG great. So I'm hopeful that the last two episodes will pivot back to this.

Re: PIC S3: Surrender

A couple of episodes ago I was unsure how I felt about bringing back Data, after watching this episode I'm now totally fine with it. Brett Spiner is so fun to watch, he does an amazing job with every scene he's in. It's so worth it. And they addressed his prior death via dialogue with Picard in a way that was acceptable to me.

I do think that new Data's personality needs to be different from old Data for this to continue to work, we saw this a little when he was taking back the ship (Data with a sassy attitude)? I hope they lean into this more in the last two episodes.

Re: PIC S3: Surrender

Similar to last week's episode, this one is meh. Some good character moments w Riker Troi and Data/Lore. Seeing all the crew around the conference table at the end was awesome and gives me hope this season will finish strong.

So there's a port that can open and suck the bridge crew out into space? Seems like a design flaw.

Re: PIC S3: Dominion

I think this episode will ultimately be judged based on how the rest of the season unfolds. Is this a forgivable bump in the road on the way to a strong finish, or the beginning of this season falling off a cliff?

I’m nervous it may be the latter as I’m skeptical that some of the outrageous plot elements (Jacks telepathy, Picard's body, head villain, etc) can be resolved in a coherent manner. Also, NuTrek has a terrible track record of sticking the landing on their serialized story arcs.

Re: PIC S3: Dominion

@JS, “Sadly, Terry Matalas said in a tweet on Feb 2nd "before anyone can get their hopes up, Janeway is exclusively on Prodigy. But there are other voyagers out there in Alpha Quadrant". He could be lying of course, but I doubt it, he simply wouldn't have said anything about it.”

I think he’s lying. It doesn’t make sense, Janeway’s involvement in Prodigy should make a cameo easier, not harder. And the continual references to her in the show would make it a huge letdown if she didn’t make an appearance.