Can't have a 'STD' thread ( 
) here without a Picard one. So what does everyone think of this one now that it has started?
My thoughts (SPOILER ALERT) :
Star Trek Picard Series
- Blake00
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There are 44 replies in this Thread. The last Post () by Cogwork Scholar.
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I have mixed feelings about it.
Sure it is good to have Picard back but just like with the Discovery series I have the feeling that the story is being told in an over complicated way.
It already started this way in episode one where Picard finds out more about that girl just to see her being killed a few moment later. The story then moves on to tell the audience that she has a twin sister and now the twin sister is the important part of the show. That is an unnecessarily complicated way of telling the story and it comes with the risk to lose the audience in the process. Another risk is that the complicated twists and turns require even more complicated explanation and that at some point stuff does no longer fit together.
The inconsistencies already start in the very first episode where we were told that the Federation now is isolationistic (which by default is hard to imagine considering the nature of the Federation) and just a bit later in the same episode you see a skyscraper with a Ferengi emblem on it. That contradicts the isolation of the Federation.
When such tiny mistakes are already done in episode 1 then I would not be surprised if the mistakes add up until the house of cards collapses.
I have not seen enough to say that I like it or dislike it. But I am a bit worried by the way the stuff I have seen so far was done.
Also worth to mention is that Star Trek Picard is very different from TNG. Picard is not stitting in his chair giving commands and talking his way out of complicated situations. This new series is more action focused and I am not sure if that really fits to this old man. Already in the very first episode I had the feeling that he is very close to an heart attack.
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Hmm yeah while yes in the past it made sense to play out the current real worlds problems on the alien races instead of the Federation, they have gone through a lot in the 24th century. Multiple borg invasions, a military coup, war with the Klingons, war with the dominion (that apparently resulted in millions dead, hundreds of ships destroyed), a Breen attack on earth & starfleet HQ itself, and could have lost earth entirely to a Scimitar thalaron weapon attack from the leaders a Romulan Remen military coup. After all that a isolationist Federation is actually quite plausible even if it's not Gene's original vision of a Utopian Federation that can endure endless trauma.
In fact I actually think they should have aired the first 2 episodes together as 2hr movie sort of thing as some of the events in ep 1 that looked like plot holes or lazy writing were actually plausible events explained properly in the second episode. I guess the writers wanted fans to share Picards confusion but in reality they problably alienated a lot of people who thanks to the limited info given were likely left frustrated and think "I'm not watching any more of this confusing cr*p" lol (I've seen comments like that across a few forums).
Speaking of episode 2... here's my thoughts on that...
so yeah I'm enjoying it (more than Disco) but I'm still a bit worried about something things haha.. need to see more.
Oh and if it interests anyone apparently CBS has posted the first episode of Picard on YouTube for a limited time. So, if you dont have All Access and want to check it out, you have til Feb 7 to watch it for free. Naturally it's region locked though urgh.
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As you have stated... there were many threats in the past... threats that killed millions... devastating wars even.
Multiple attacks on Earth.
But why should an Android attack be any different and lead to isolation where all the other events of the past did not change the Federation.
The federations best defense always was their growth, their peaceful expansion. That made the Federation strong enough to survive all the threats. And now they give up their biggest strength because of one attack? That does not make any sense.
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I dont get the hostile attitude towards the romulans.
They did only 2 relative minor attempts to invade the Federation. But they also supported the Federation with technology and in the end also large amounts of ships during the dominion war. Putting the 2 minor incidents aside the romulans were pretty peaceful towards the Federation for many decades.
Compare that to the Klingons which on and off were at war with the Federation. If Klingons are in need the Federation jumps to help.
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You mentioned something interesting I was thinking about earlier.
All Good Things
Especially in episode 2 the normal Starfleet personell did wear the All Good Things combadges or at least a very very similar design.
I am wondering if Star Trek Picard actually is in the prime timeline. It is very unlikely that timelines that split several decades ago and had a very different development since that, all of a sudden evolve to have similar designs.
episode 3 was... meh
but to be honest the only thing that really bothered me was the Vulcan/Romulan wearing ugly sunglasses.
Did the show runners think "we have to make her look like a special agent"?
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Episode 3 was boring as hell.
Episode 4 was better in that terms as story moved forward a bit.
However, there was a good bunch of stuff that bothered me a bit with E04.
Most noticeable is that after 4/10 episodes nothing fundamentally important happened.
I would say that the show suffers a roleplay game syndrome. The main character is introduced to a so important "main quest" which actually needs to be done as fast as possible (because lives are at risk). But instead of putting all efforts in getting the "main quest" done our hero explores the depths of "side quests". It is now time to find "NPC companions" and have a drink at the bar. The "main quest" can wait.
It would not surprise me if the crew now has some time for some stupid fetch quests or companion quests.
I also think that the clever Picard from TNG is no longer clever. Maybe its the age... or his illness.
The T'Liss Warbird was interesting to see. A mid 22nd century ship in the early 25th century. Even a refit or retrofit are hard to explain here. I mean this ship is at least 200-250 years old and the shows explanation was that the warlord got it from the Romulan military. That ship must have been in commission for 200 years at least... without replacement? I would have expected a ship like a T'Varo or one of the many different other light warbirds.
The showrunners are either too lazy to use newer assets or they intend to go all in with the nostalgia aspect.
Its probably the Nostalgia since in every Episode so far they have put as many references to the old shows as possible. There was very little new while now they actually have a chance to do something new and be creative (unlike with Discovery).
I also don't get it why Romulans in E04 are using a variety of human swords instead of using something that would fit more to them.
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Episode 5... more "forced" Nostalgia by stuff like mentioning Quark for no apparent reason (in the same way Datas cat was mentioned for no apparent reason in Episode 4). This show is about referring as often to previous shows as possible... no matter if it fits or not.
E05 had "companion quests" "side quests" and a little bit of the "main quest" eventhough it was very predictable that the Scott Pilgrim drummer was working for the bad guys since the "sunglasses lady" visited her.
Picard - for a french guy - has a terrible french accent (I dont know if it was any better in the english version) and for sure he has worse disguise than superman.
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Also symptomatic in this show is that everyone knows everyone. It appears like common knowledge in the show that every person in the galaxy knows people that previously were in a Star Trek show. (unless of course an eye-patch is worn)
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It's quite hard to not fall asleep watching this series.
Feels like a very thin plot was filmed extremely slow-paced to get 10+ episodes out of it. -
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lol I missed the Quark reference.. which one of these non-DS9 connected characters mentioned him?
The reptilian guy in the bar... which was introduced as being able to smell if people lie.
For some reason his smell did not work anymore when literally everyone around him were lying.
Btw. I think the bar itself was called Quarks. There was a short shot of the city and i think ive read it on a holo-sign.
That Borg which died... i really wondered why his eye looked organic with a few cables at the end. Borg eye implants never looked like ordinary eyes. Aside from this it did not look like there were any serious injuries. Give him a painkiller and tell him to move his ass.
7 of 9 got a total character swap. From being relative logical thinking and emotion free in Voyager to revenge seeking in ST:Picard.
Strange is that in the episode before they rescued Picards new ships and there is no explanation why. She gave a f*** about Picards mission until Picard mentioned that his mission is to save somebody. She all of a sudden was willing to listen to him almost like she is interested to join... but in the end she once more gave a f*** and left.
This is a very eratic story telling while other more important parts of the main story are totally predictable.
I dont think the show is doing something fundamentally wrong... but I also dont think Ive found stuff that feels right.
It just raises a "meh" feeling. (can "meh" considered a feeling?)
Last comment on this episode:
Holographic spam pop-ups on Picards new ship?
Really?
The 25th century... and no firewall? No ad-blocker? wtf?
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That's kind of cool if the bar was named after him lol. I remember people posting about lots of Trek easter eggs on holosigns in the big city shots in the first ep.
Everywhere I go I've seem pretty horrified responses to ep5. I've seen a couple of dudes say they loved ep5 though, I was like WAAAT lol.
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Episode 6 at least moved on the story. It was better than the previous ones.
But it again was full of nostalgia elements and strange story telling.
Patrick Stewards acting performance seems to suffer lately. He continuously begs a character to follow him for half a minute and it feels absolutely out of place. Just like he cant find the correct words.
He suffers post traumatic stress due to the Borg... and is multiple times referred as Locutus for no obvious reasons. Picard always claimed in the old shows that he is not influenced by his time with the Borg and for sure he never showed fear. But all of a sudden this is a thing now.
In the same way it is strange to see Picard and Hugh acting like they were good old friends. As far I can remember that never was the case before. They always kept a distance and never went emotional.
A good amount of the episode was about how to enter the restricted Borg cube and that the romulans never would allow that.
Strangely at the end of the episode the show writers completely ignored this concept when that romulan warrior guy which wants to protect Picard simply beams to the cube without even triggering any alarms... kills a few romulan guards... and then decides not to follow picard through a transporter gate. WTF? why did he stay on the cube? He could have gone through the gate and Hugh would have closed it behind all of them. But no... he stays... to... dunno why.
Probably the answer is just bad writing.
It would not surprise me if this was artificially written into the script in order to give the romulans a chance to capture that guy and in a later episode use him against Picard.
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Probably because he became older... And as far as i understood he didnt want to show his fear of the Borg, but internally he always feared them with bad feelings when they appear here and there in his life. And if he wouldnt fear the Borg then he wouldnt have run revenges against them.
I also havent yet understand the idea of the authors for this romulan boy. I think he will play an important role somewhen in the near future. Maybe he remains on the cube and will trigger some events... I dont think they will capture him for their needs.
At least the story now became a little bit more interesting and more old friends appeared
I wouldnt wonder if they somehow meet Data again -
Could be his age.
I just think there is a difference between fear of something existing and fear of something long gone. Picard knows that there are no more active borg on the cube. To me it looks more like a psychosis.
Episode 7 belonged to the better ones so far eventhough it had elements which makes me question the consistency of the show.
The flashback showed a mindmelt in which that Vulcan Admiral showed Dr. Jurati how Earth and other worlds are destroyed. Putting aside that the full context is missing in these images I wonder how that can even be. How can the Vulcan Admiral have memories of something that has not happened yet?
And nothing in that memory actually indicated that Androids are to blame. I don't get it how Jurati would even believe any of this.
Rykers and Troys daughter has blonde hair? Thats at least unexpected.
She talks about Data in a way as she knows him like a good friend eventhough they never met... knows literally every detail about him. It almost appears like she just watched TNG before.
They live in the "wilderness" but their wooden house force fields, scanners.... even cloaking scanners... wtf? Thats truely a minimalistic lifestyle.
The explanation for that was that Xindi from time to time attack. That must be the reason why you let your daughter hunt alone in the woods. During the time ST Picard plays the Xindi actiually should be part of the Federation. This is one of the moments when a show writer thought to have a clever explanation and then stopped researching the star trek lore.
Btw. isnt it ironic that the girl "googled" the "Androids" homeworld on her "mobile phone" under the table.
On the Borg Cube Hugh gets killed... ok... happens if you mess with the romulans. I just dont get it which he is spared on the first time. I mean... accidents can happen... especially when romulan spies are involved.
Elrond... yeah... i think Ill call him that way now.
Well he fights... then runs away... and for no obvious reasons finds one of these transparent tags that were in the episodes with 7 of 9. So She most likely is going to rescue everyone in one of the next episodes.
The events on picards new ships are weird as nobody seems to care about the strange behaviour of Jurati. Ok, it is mentioned once... but without consequences.
Oh and they are followed by that romulan ship. I think they tried to do only a small warp jump and hoped that this romulan ship would overshoot... yeah... well... that never before worked. And in a scifi show where engines leave clearly traceable signatures that in TNG were detectable even after days the chances to fool a follower are actually inexistent.
Oh... and why does the romulan ship have joystick controls?... which btw. do not even work. Narek did put so much effort in keeping that joystick in his hands all the time but when he moved it by accident when tapping the right consoles nothing happened. Placing that prop into the cockpit was stupid.
