Comment Stream

Re: DSC S5: Red Directive / Under the Twin Moons

I liked both episodes, though it’s really STINO (Star Trek in name only) at this point, and I’m fine with that. I agree with the comparisons to Star Wars, and I’d say this stacks up pretty well against most of the Star Wars Disney + series.

Re: Star Wars: Ahsoka

In the books back in the day, the witches of Dathomir were just untrained Force-users who thought what they did was magic.

Are they changing this to it being outright magic because…..that’s just latest in a long line of sucky ideas that ever sucked.

Re: Star Wars: Ahsoka

Even Hayden, whom I never blamed for the acting, is light years beyond these characters. As much as they want to shove the newbies down my throat, they just don’t take. And the box office and ratings or whatever vouch for that, or Disney wouldn’t be hemorrhaging money.

Re: Star Wars: Ahsoka

I agree with the comments about maps to places being a tedious and boring plot point. And the acting is so prequel trilogy boring. People standing, crossing their arms, bowing, or slowly walking away. Rosario Dawson looks the part but at what point did she go from rogue Jedi dropout to boring, emotionless Jedi who barely blinks?

Ray Stevenson shows some promise as a bad guy who still misses the Order because they’re all dead, but unfortunately we know there won’t be any more of him after this show.

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

@Silly, the writers get paid by the episode so if you are on a network show doing 26 episodes a year you can make a decent living, but if you are a streaming show doing 10-12 episodes a year that's a huge pay cut. You can try to do multiple shows per year but that can be tough to line up.

As you noted, streaming services churn out massive amounts of content, which really only works with a lot cost cutting, a fair amount of which hits the writers.

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

I’ve been reading about the writers strike and I wonder if the decline in the quality of the writing we are seeing has more to do with structural changes to how TV is made in the age of streaming as opposed to something specific to NuTrek. Apparently writers don’t make as much with these 10 episode seasons as they used to. From the article I was reading:

“the median weekly pay for TV writer-producers, adjusted for inflation, declined by 23 percent over the past decade...inconsistency among productions and cost-cutting moves have led to writers being treated as expendable resources. Streaming shows can range in season length but typically run for fewer episodes than network shows, leading to less pay for writers per series. Plus, such programming—usually released for binging—tends to make use of “mini rooms,” gathering a handful of writers to crank out scripts before filming begins instead of establishing a writers’ room that meets regularly, often preventing younger writers from developing the experience they need to grow. ”

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

I actually think the serialization worked better in this season compared to S1/S2 because the structure was almost 3 separate mini-arcs instead of 1 giant arc.

E1-E4 (minus the M'talas Prime scenes which ended up being pure filler) was about rescuing Jack and escaping the nebula. The issue is they introduced the "what is Jack" mystery box in E3 when it should have been introduced in E6 or E7. They also introduced the (really stupid) Vadic cutting off her hand in E4 which also should have been introduced later. Without these 2 cross contaminations, this would have been a self-contained story. It still holds up though, "No Win Scenario" is solid TNG style ending to the arc.

E5-E8 is about the changeling threat and the weakest of the three arcs. This arc would have been better with a deeper dive into DS9 canon, exploring the aftermath of the Dominion War, fleshing out the rogue changeling faction, and giving Vadic some depth as a character. I would have also liked some scenes showing exactly how the changelings were manipulating Starfleet to adopt Fleet Formation. Towards the end of the arc Vadic can contact the Queen to establish there is a second villain, but find a less cheesy way to do it.

E9-E10 is about the Borg. I would have expanded more on the aftermath of VOY's endgame (a flash back with some details would have been nice). It also would have been nice to have a scene showing Vadic and the Queen meeting that shows the how and why of the Borg / Changeling alliance. Why did the Borg have so much power over the changelings given the Queen's weakened state? Why would the changelings enter into a subservient relationship with the Borg? I really thought they were going to explain this by showing that the Borg Queen was the one who freed the changelings from Daystrom. There's been a lot of discussion over the decades on what would happen if the Borg met the changelings and I think it's a great plot idea, but the season didn't really do it justice.

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

Some thoughts on the season:

- This is the best season in NuTrek and I don’t think it’s close.

- Terri Matalas did a great job given the insane time constraints. I would love to see what he can do with a season of Trek with a normal production schedule.

- The scene where the crew members step onto the D in the final minutes of Vox was amazing and the best scene in the season by far.

- This was a great sendoff for the Enterprise D. I always hated how she was destroyed in Generations in the dumbest way imaginable. Dealing a death blow to the Borg and getting retired in a museum was great closure for the greatest ship in Star Trek.

- This was a great send off for the TNG crew and is really what Nemesis should have been. In many ways this was an extended TNG movie that righted the wrongs of previous TNG movies.

- The best movies have a compelling and believable villain and this was a big mis-step of the season. They did an OK job with the Borg Queen but I would have liked more of her backstory. Vadic’s backstory was not very well done. They also did a terrible job explaining how and why Vadic and the Borg Queen became allies which is a huge plot hole. I get that this season was focused on the TNG crew, but the villains should also stand out their own as characters and not just be foils for the heroes.

- I like the idea of the rouge changlings and the Borg Queen being the main villains of the season but there was a huge missed opportunity here. They could have added to the worldbuilding and Trek canon in a meaningful way by using these characters to expand in detail on the aftermath of the Dominion War and Voyager’s return to the alpha quadrant in an epic blending of TNG, DS9 and VOY plot points that makes people want to go back and re-watch DS9/VOY. They did this to some degree but I wanted more.

- Star Trek Legacy could be worth watching. Jeri Ryan is more than capable of leading a series. Sidney and Jack are good characters as well. Not a fan of Raffi as first officer though.

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

Looking back on this season and comparing it to other seasons of NuTrek there are three things that really stand out to me:

1) The casting / acting, and not just the legacy characters. Shaw, Sidney, Vadic, and Jack were cast very well and all the actors were very talented. I don't think there has been any season of NuTrek that has had this level of acting talent. The only mis-step here was keeping Raffi.

2) The VFX. I've mentioned this in a couple of posts already but the VFX was really top tier. VFX has inexplicably been bad in Discovery and Picard to date so it was really nice to see a turnaround.

3) The music. I might actually end up downloading the sound track.

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

@ Tricolaco "my take here is that you have a situation where a ship that in its heyday, when it was the flagship of the fleet, required a crew complement of 1,000 to run effectively; and it’s now being taken out of mothballs decades later with a tiny tiny tiny fraction of that crew complement to enter a shooting match with a Borg cube. So even if episodes 30 years ago had the D at close to leading edge technology running fully automated, it again strains credulity that they could pull it off now, when its tech has stopped in time (they clearly established that the reason they can operate the ship after the Borg takeover is that the tech was NOT updated). Maybe the Borg cube tech has also stopped in time?"

Not sure if the Borg cube tech stopped in time but it was severely degraded. They reference it only being 37% operational, when they beam in the cube Riker immediately notices the lack of drones, and the Queen had to consume many drones just to stay alive. What little function the cube had was presumably focused on coordinating the assault on Earth, so it's not crazy to think the old Enterprise D could engage the cube given its condition.

As far as how the Enterprise could run with a small crew, Geordi did drop a line on drones loading torpedos into the bay, so they had some help from machine labor. I don't think it's unreasonable that the ship could be operated by a small crew for a short duration. The full 1,000+ crew complement is for all the science and diplomatic missions the ship would be tasked with (I'm assuming the ship would have dozens of science missions going on at any given point in time).

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

@Tim - "Also, the Trek nitpicker, what happened to "Projections suggest that a Borg ship like this one could continue to function effectively even if seventy eight percent of it was inoperable." They should have had the cube only at 1 or 2% function, not 30% or whatever the number was."

I agree, it also seems odd given the Borg's ability to regenerate. I can only speculate that Janeway's virus delivered in VOY's Endgame destoryed the Borg's basic functions.

It would have been really cool if they started the episode with "previously on Star Trek", play the clips from Endgame, and then follow it with a 10 minute flashback scene showing the deterioration of the Borg over time and how they eventually linked up with the Changlings.

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

@SlackerInc - Soong built a synthetic body for Data that ages (like the one Picard got at the end of S1) and uploaded it with both Data and Lore, who ended up merging together into a new entity that is mostly Data but with a few elements of Lore.

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

I think they did a good job sticking the landing, and I really had my doubts at the end of episode 8. Admittedly, the bar in NuTrek is VERY low given how Discovery S1, S2, S3 and Picard S2 all crashed and burned in their season finales. Picard S1's finale was ok (not great) and Discovery S4 technically stuck the landing but I found it underwhelming.

This is the best season finale in NuTrek and it's not even close. But I really like Jammer's comparison to the movies, these last two episodes had the look and feel of a movie. To me, this is the send off Nemesis should have been. Is it deep and thought provoking? Not at all. But I enjoyed watching it and I'm really glad they made it.

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

Great review Jammer!

"Terry Matalas said they spent a ton of time building the Enterprise-D bridge and then only had two days to shoot on it. That's just insane. The production schedule for this season must have been incredibly tight. It seems almost tragic to go to that much work and then only get two days of use out of it. And then what? Were the sets struck shortly thereafter?"

I read several interviews with Matalas and he answers almost every question with some variant of "we wanted to do more but we ran out of time". It makes me wonder what he could have done without those crazy time constraints.

I read another article about building the Enterprise D set, it took a team of 50 people 3 months to create it! The article didn't go into detail but it said that multiple parties were interested in preserving the set after shooting.

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

Some other tidbits from a Terry interview:

- "These last two hours were really, really hard to make. You know, it's a giant movie, and it almost killed me,”

- "we wanted to make sure every character had their due. You didn’t want to come away from the finale thinking that one character didn't have a great singular moment or contributed to saving the day."

- The poker scene at the end was entirely improvised, he just let the camera roll for 45 minutes.

- His biggest regret of the season was there wasn't any time for romance (weird)

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

@Leif - “WHY WAS CHEKOV NOT ON SCREEN..does anyone know. If you pay Kkenig for his voice, surely he can appear on screen?? He doesn't have to wear any makeup or prosthetics like Alice Krige for the Borg Queen..and Why no JANEWAY”

I read some Terry M interviews and he said they wanted to film Chekhov but couldn’t because of time constraints. But they felt so strongly about it they did the audio and added it in post. He also said they really wanted Janeway to give Seven her promotion but didn’t say why it didn’t happen.

I feel bad for Terry, he had serious constraints and he wanted to do a lot more than they could. He only had 2 days to film all those scenes on the Enterprise D bridge set. Some scenes they could only do 2 takes.

A lot of people give him crap for all the fan service but he said that part of the show was really important to him. For example he said he was really stressed out about the scene where they all walk onto the bridge for the first time because he didn’t think the fans would forgive him if he screwed it up.

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

3 stars, a competent end to the season and a good send off for the TNG crew. Though, it felt more like a movie than a TV show. I'm also very disappointed that Janeway didn't cameo.

Some nitpicks:

- I wanted more on the backstory of the Borg, there was some interesting stuff there about them evolving, but it was half baked. I don’t understand their motivations based on what we were given.

- It seems like an odd coincidence that every ship in the fleet was taken over by crew 25 and under, except for spacedock which was fine?

- Seven just charged up to the bridge and beamed the 25 and under bridge crew to the transporter room, then left them completely unsupervised so they could escape, destroy the cloaking device, and charge back to the bridge again? Made no sense, they should have just incapacitated them and left it at that.

- The Titan could somehow engage the ENTIRE FLEET and survive more than a few seconds? How is this possible?

- How did the Borg cube get to Jupiter without being detected?

The good:

- Special effects are once again top notch. I didn’t have a problem with the Enterprise flying around in the cube.

- Worf had some great lines

- Deanna “why am I sensing enjoyment” and Data has a maniacal grin

- Picard’s pleads to Jack were well acted and touching

- The poker scene at the end was great! That's the only way to end it :)

Re: PIC S3: Vox

@ Narissa's Bath Water

Thanks, and good point on Shaw. I liked the "strict captain" persona better. I get they were trying to give him a character arc and some depth with the Wolf 359 trauma angle but I agree that side of him didn't work as well. Still, Todd Stashwick did a great job so it didn't bother me that much.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

I just re-watched the scene with the Enterprise F, it makes the comment in episode 1 about nobody wanting the "fat" Enterprise D models even more funny. The Enterprise F's deflector is massive, it makes the ship look pregnant! Looks very out of proportion to the thinner saucer section and nacelles.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

I just re-watched the first four episodes, but I skipped all the Raffi / M'talas Prime scenes since they had no re-watch value and ultimately didn't advance the plot (it’s crazy how you can skip over all these scenes and not lose a step). Some notes:

- There's a hint who the big bad is in the opening scene of E1 (the BOBW log entry that plays in the background).

- I forgot about the scene in the bar of E1 that nobody wants the "fat" models of the Enterprise D. lol

- There’s a lot of “we are old and useless” commentary in E1 that played into the main theme of the season more than I initially realized.

- All the Picard / Riker scenes are great (except for the infamous "you killed us all" scene at the end of Seventeen Seconds). I could watch a series centered on these two roaming around and having adventures.

- The foghorn noise whenever the Shrike appears gets more annoying each time I hear it.

- I think the biggest misstep of this season was the failure to flesh out Vadic and her backstory. When I initially watched her scenes, I thought her character had some depth beneath the surface that we would see later. Instead, she's a simple mustache twirling villain with no real motivation beyond her hatred for Starfleet. Her scenes, upon rewatch, were not very good.

- In contrast, Shaw’s scenes upon rewatch were significantly better, which annoys me more that they killed him off so suddenly.

- I really like all the ship VFX scenes. This is by far the best VFX in NuTrek and a welcome departure from the spinning ships and other nonsense they frequently did on Discovery.

- They introduced the Jack mystery box in the middle of the third episode which (as many commenters have said) was far too early. They should have waited until at least episode 5 or 6 to introduce it.

Overall, the first four episodes (minus the Raffi / M'talas Prime scenes) held up well upon re-watch, mostly due to the strength of the acting. No Win Scenario was a great ending to this mini-arc.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

Jammer has commentary on the rating scale somewhere on the site but I don't believe the ratings are meant to be compared across different series. So this episode's 3.5 star rating just means it's one of the better episodes in Star Trek Picard (which is true), not the entire franchise.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

I think history will look back on this episode as the greatest ever in all of NuTrek. Nothing in Discovery or Picard will ever top those last 4 minutes.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

@ Tim - "I'm not even sure what the point of linking all the starships together was. They find a plausible (might even say "excellent") story way for the Borg to backdoor assimilate large numbers of Starfleet personnel.

What was added by the "fleet formation" stuff? All it did was make Starfleet look like a bunch of brain dead morons ill equipped for 20th/21st Century cyber-threats, let alone 24th/25th Century ones. Really, how'd these guys beat the Dominion? Didn't any of them watch the pilot episode of BSG? ;)"

I completely agree. I think the show had some self awareness on your point as expressed through Picard and Riker's distain for the idea.

As far as I can tell its only purpose as a plot device was to get the crew into the Ent D since it wasn't "linked to the Starfleet mainframe". But even that explanation wasn't needed, they could have just said it was the nearest available serviceable ship. Everything about it is glossed over so fast and it needlessly clutters the plot. To your point, the Borg already had their backdoor and I actually think that plot device was rather clever.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

While I’ve enjoyed this season so far, the plotting could have been better. In retrospect I think they should have cut out Raffi, M'talas Prime, and the portal weapon. Just start with the changlings escaping Daystrom and looking for Jack. Then each episode could have had a “B” plot showing the backstory of the rouge changlings, what happened to them at Daystrom, how they escaped, and how they took over Starfleet. This would have been far more interesting and utilized the all cameos more effectively.

They could easily fill a 20 min sub-plot with the changlings pushing for linking all the starships together and Admiral Shelby leading the opposition. Maybe Starfleet got too complacent without a major adversary and didn’t realize the true nature of that threat?

They still could have kept the overall structure of the season but reveal the Borg at the end of an episode. Then the entire next episode can be a flashback showing what happened to the Borg after VOYs endgame and the details of entering into an alliance with the changlings.

My point is, I think the Borg / changling plot is more than enough to fill 10 episodes if done properly.

Looking back the plotting and pacing haven’t been right. A lot of stuff that happened early on didn’t go anywhere. And there are too many unanswered questions with only 1 episode to go. I’m holding out hope we get answers in the finale but given how many things have been glossed over so far I’m not optimistic.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

@Quincy - "This makes very little sense. The Borg are exactly the type of solids that the paranoid, egomaniacal Changelings obsessed about. 1) Why would such a species ever ally with the very thing they despise and 2) why would they enter into a subservient relationship with them since they consider all solids inferior?"

I'm really hoping we get more backstory on this in the finale but I think these issues are solved if the Borg Queen was the one who freed the changlings from Daystrom, because then they had no choice.

I like the idea of a Borg / Changling alliance and I think it can work if setup properly. But at this point, barring a flashback scene, we are only getting additional perspective from the Queen. It would have been nice to hear more from the changlings to better understand their motivations beyond "I just really hate Starfleet".