I somehow missed that in Inner Light, that ginormous space battle at the end, will have to see it again!
After season 1 of Discovery was released I said it had potential if they got rid of Burnham's shell shocked lover. Instead they brought him back and included a re-imagined psycho killer Spock and we are constantly reminded of they're childhood differences. I think the reason there was a positive fan reaction the Captain Pike is because his dialog was mostly short and straight to the point. The long extended goodbye's in this program really drag it down. I find Picard to be stunningly bad. It was advertised as an psychological analysis of an older Picard, and we got "Attack of the Synthetic Flower Children". It's funny in all the wrong ways. I have no idea how you salvage this program. And describing a certain faction as an "abomination" that needs to be exterminated is so unoriginal in science fiction that it's become painful.
Last episode was at least a bit better then the one before, but still a mess. The writing was very uneven over the season I think. I expected more And I'm not a fan of the synthetic "life" story. I can only invest so much in robots and A.I. I'm not a biggest fan of Discovery but I like it well enough and I enjoyed it much more than Picard. Didn't see that coming back in January I have to say. I'm pretty sure that the main reason that The Orville is in another league is because of the episodic storytelling. This whole season arc storytelling thing is hard to pull off. Picard clearly doesn't have the writers to do that.
I liked the ending, with a caveat or two. Spoiler Giving Data his peace was quite moving and satisfying. Those last two scenes with him were great and my favorite part of the season. And I liked Riker showing up at the end to help Picard. Classic TNG. Not sure how I feel about Picard's new body, but now it's clear why Patrick Stewart was made up to look older than he really is for the whole season; I thought he looked closer to his real age in the new suit. But what bothers me about it is that now they've essentially discovered human immortality, and they kind of just shrug that off by giving Picard a normal human lifespan. But I guess that follows Trek tradition in that it is a made-up scientific/technobabble deus ex machina that saves the day at the eleventh hour.
I haven't watched a single episode yet and I have just read that CBS has made the whole first season available for free during a 30-day trial. Is that offer valid worldwide or just for US viewers? I'm in Brazil and I would like to know how to proceed.
So what was the general consensus on Picard? I'll be honest, I bailed after Ep. o4 - but I might be tempted to return if there's enough critical support for the show to convince me that it's worth my while....
It's flawed, but has enough classic Star Trek familiarity that I enjoyed it overall and I just let the bad bits go, I'm hoping season two will be stronger, but I guess we'll have to wait and see on that.
Up until episode 7 I think it was going along very well. The last three were for me evidence of trying to cram too much into only 10 episodes: plot holes, action driven by plot rather than character, thin characters that could have been left out of the series with no impact (Zhaban I'm looking at you; maybe even Raffi), and just things that left you going, Hunh? For example, a character who commits murder but suffers zero consequences, and in fact may even be welcomed as an ongoing part of the crew if there is a second series. JohnK
You missed the the best part of the whole season which came about 16 minutes in to episode 5. I found out Mott the Barber landed on his feet.
Yes, the lack of consequences for committing murder, plus spying is a huge mistake and totally against the Star Trek/Star Fleet ethos, chatting to friends that's the one thing that came up with everyone, plus most of us don't like that character anyway, personally I'm wondering what happened to the XBs, were they just left on the planet in a broken cube or did I miss something, considering how much Picard risked to rescue a single stranded Borg in TNG it's even more puzzling.
There'll probably be some SPOILERS once I get past my initial ramblings.... I'll give you my view as someone with very little Star Trek bona fides. I'm 48 and I'd never seen a single minute of anything Trek related until about a year ago. At that point I got Netflix and figured since the original series is on there I'd start from the beginning and I watched all three seasons. I enjoyed it as much for the basic sets/props and cheesy effects as anything else. I was actually disappointed to find out that these episodes had effects that were redone at a later date; I would much rather have seen those shows as they aired initially. And then I watched the original six movies. I knew that Patrick Stewart played Jean Luc Picard but as a viewer I knew him from the X-Men movies. Which I probably only saw about four or five years ago (I'm a late bloomer, what can I say!). So Star Trek Picard. Patrick Stewart obviously carries a lot of screen presence. I've heard that this character is somewhat inconsistent with the series but I know nothing of that. I think it's interesting to see a quality actor like Stewart reprise a role at such a late stage of life. He does well and proves why Picard is such an iconic character. Unfortunately I don't think any other actor rises to the challenge and offers anything compelling. I have no idea if this is the writing or the casting or what. In the final scene when our new cast heads off into the future I couldn't have cared less about anyone but Picard. They've had ten episodes to make me care about these characters and their future dealings and they totally failed. I wouldn't be at all bothered if none of them returned and Picard was with an entirely new cast next season. The two I dislike the most are Raffi and (I couldn't even remember this characters name so I just had to look it up) Rios. Raffi is just annoying and was from the beginning with her "your fine chateau" nonsense when she was introduced. And it's not good writing where in scene 1 she refuses to help and then immediately turns around and helps. And I hate that she calls him "JL". Why do I hate that since I have no background with these people? I have no idea, I guess just because I don't like her. Rios? The actor is talented and I enjoy him when he's the hologram helper guy(s). But Rios, damn, tone down the phony attempts at Han Solo swagger. You don't got it! Every time he stuck that hilariously oversized cigar in his mouth I was laughing at him. And I'm surprised every line of dialogue out of his mouth wasn't "never tell me the odds!". I don't really like or dislike the samurai kid Elnor. But he was brought in in such an arbitrary manner that I just don't care about him. And he has no physicality that draws my attention to him. I generally like the Agnes character but are you just allowed to murder people now and still be on the team? That kind of writing is hard to overlook or forgive although in fairness it hasn't played out yet. The Dahj/Soji actress is fine but I was never really compelled by any of it. The Narek guy seemed like they grabbed somebody at random from a casting call for Spock lookalikes. Fine I guess but not compelling. His sister (I don't know her name) is fun just because she's seems right out of the Ricardo Montalban/Khan school of chewing up the scenery and having fun doing it. I'm sure it's helped that I find her sexy. And maybe there's an in series reason that Data has aged and that's fine but he looked really odd and silly. And for a ten episode arc there seemed to be a lot time wasting being done along the way, especially when there was a sort of ticking clock with finding and saving Soji. Only to cram a lot in at the end. It seemed like by the end it all added up to not much. That said I'm sure for fans of the show seeing Picard eating pizza with some of the old crew was fun. But to me it was just arbitrary fan service. And I hate stupid things like "we've had problems with bandits, Picard's here let's put the perimeter alarms on full". If you've had problems in the past why wouldn't you always have your alarms on full? Are you trying to keep your power bill down? And in the finale when Riker showed up it looked like it was filmed in his living room. And it was again shoehorned in. The ending? Again SPOILERS. The death of Picard should only be done once and it should be permanent. Which is a decision that should be made easier because the only actor to ever portray him is 79 years of age; it's not like a Han Solo situation where you might want to bring him back in 30 years. So if they wanted to have Picard die it should have been kept until the series finale, not a season finale. And the impact was ruined for me anyway because I knew this wasn't a single season show. I'm aware that they're going to kill him and resurrect him almost immediately. The audience for this show isn't children and it's not 1975 anymore when you could keep people in legitimate suspense because they were so sheltered from the business side of television. It also opens a massive can of worms when you know the science of resurrection is available to the characters. How can you have drama when nobody is really in danger?
QUOTE="SizzleVonSizzleton, post: 23582285, member: 40271"]There'll probably be some SPOILERS once I get past my initial ramblings.... I'll give you my view as someone with very little Star Trek bona fides. I'm 48 and I'd never seen a single minute of anything Trek related until about a year ago. At that point I got Netflix and figured since the original series is on there I'd start from the beginning and I watched all three seasons. I enjoyed it as much for the basic sets/props and cheesy effects as anything else. I was actually disappointed to find out that these episodes had effects that were redone at a later date; I would much rather have seen those shows as they aired initially. And then I watched the original six movies. I knew that Patrick Stewart played Jean Luc Picard but as a viewer I knew him from the X-Men movies. Which I probably only saw about four or five years ago (I'm a late bloomer, what can I say!). So Star Trek Picard. Patrick Stewart obviously carries a lot of screen presence. I've heard that this character is somewhat inconsistent with the series but I know nothing of that. I think it's interesting to see a quality actor like Stewart reprise a role at such a late stage of life. He does well and proves why Picard is such an iconic character. Unfortunately I don't think any other actor rises to the challenge and offers anything compelling. I have no idea if this is the writing or the casting or what. In the final scene when our new cast heads off into the future I couldn't have cared less about anyone but Picard. They've had ten episodes to make me care about these characters and their future dealings and they totally failed. I wouldn't be at all bothered if none of them returned and Picard was with an entirely new cast next season. The two I dislike the most are Raffi and (I couldn't even remember this characters name so I just had to look it up) Rios. Raffi is just annoying and was from the beginning with her "your fine chateau" nonsense when she was introduced. And it's not good writing where in scene 1 she refuses to help and then immediately turns around and helps. And I hate that she calls him "JL". Why do I hate that since I have no background with these people? I have no idea, I guess just because I don't like her. Rios? The actor is talented and I enjoy him when he's the hologram helper guy(s). But Rios, damn, tone down the phony attempts at Han Solo swagger. You don't got it! Every time he stuck that hilariously oversized cigar in his mouth I was laughing at him. And I'm surprised every line of dialogue out of his mouth wasn't "never tell me the odds!". I don't really like or dislike the samurai kid Elnor. But he was brought in in such an arbitrary manner that I just don't care about him. And he has no physicality that draws my attention to him. I generally like the Agnes character but are you just allowed to murder people now and still be on the team? That kind of writing is hard to overlook or forgive although in fairness it hasn't played out yet. The Dahj/Soji actress is fine but I was never really compelled by any of it. The Narek guy seemed like they grabbed somebody at random from a casting call for Spock lookalikes. Fine I guess but not compelling. His sister (I don't know her name) is fun just because she's seems right out of the Ricardo Montalban/Khan school of chewing up the scenery and having fun doing it. I'm sure it's helped that I find her sexy. And maybe there's an in series reason that Data has aged and that's fine but he looked really odd and silly. And for a ten episode arc there seemed to be a lot time wasting being done along the way, especially when there was a sort of ticking clock with finding and saving Soji. Only to cram a lot in at the end. It seemed like by the end it all added up to not much. That said I'm sure for fans of the show seeing Picard eating pizza with some of the old crew was fun. But to me it was just arbitrary fan service. And I hate stupid things like "we've had problems with bandits, Picard's here let's put the perimeter alarms on full". If you've had problems in the past why wouldn't you always have your alarms on full? Are you trying to keep your power bill down? And in the finale when Riker showed up it looked like it was filmed in his living room. And it was again shoehorned in. The ending? Again SPOILERS. The death of Picard should only be done once and it should be permanent. Which is a decision that should be made easier because the only actor to ever portray him is 79 years of age; it's not like a Han Solo situation where you might want to bring him back in 30 years. So if they wanted to have Picard die it should have been kept until the series finale, not a season finale. And the impact was ruined for me anyway because I knew this wasn't a single season show. I'm aware that they're going to kill him and resurrect him almost immediately. The audience for this show isn't children and it's not 1975 anymore when you could keep people in legitimate suspense because they were so sheltered from the business side of television. It also opens a massive can of worms when you know the science of resurrection is available to the characters. How can you have drama when nobody is really in danger?[/QUOTE] Well put details and mostly spot on but no mention of Jeri Ryan? The choice to use her the way they did I thought was a great addition and her performance was quite good. Look forward to her in the next season. And she is very easy on the eyes
I overall enjoyed it. I do think the last three episodes were overly crammed full. This could have easily been a 12 episode season. Not sure how I feel about that ending. I feel that if that was going to be done,the end of the series may have been more appropriate,because if they do it again then,it won't have as much impact. Still looking forward to seeing where it goes next. Hopefully Jeri Ryan is back too. She may be the second best part of the series aside from Stewart's Picard himself.
Where did they (both sides) get the resources and time to build all of those starships. Kind of like a book I am reading that has a million high tech starship fleet. Ridiculous.
I thought the ending was terrible. There was no suspense because Soji had to call off the super-andoids or there was no second season. I was rooting for the super-androids. It took the Romulans a week to show up and Riker did it in 10 minutes. The ending of Return of the Kings went faster than this. Boo Hoo Picard dies, oh not really. I liked the gathering of the group. I like Raffi ,Rios and 7 and the idea of a rag-tag gang. Send them on some smaller gigs, ala The Mandalorian.
That would probably only happen if they go back to episodic storytelling. And that won't happen with Picard.
I prefer The Orville . The only things I think I like about Picard where Picard himself and possibly the fight from episode 1.
Or, it seems, any modern TV show; is there any episodic storytelling program out there that's not either sitcoms, Law & Order or The Orville?
And maybe, just maybe. It can be as good as the Orville. I don't dislike serial storytelling, but it only works if the story and the script is good enough. So far, not even close.
Why do they feel the need to NOT GO FORWARD in the story? To whoever is running Star Trek do this "CONTINUE TO GO INTO THE FUTURE." I don't care about Pike really - or heck even Spock now. Just go forward. it worked for TNG, DSN and Voyager.
I'm sort of in the same boat, especially considering the fans that such nostalgia could potentially cater to don't bother appreciating it.
