Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

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Picard could have been OK if this first season was condensed down to a 2 hour premiere and all the nonsensical bits were jettisoned. Why did it take 10 episodes to accomplish that? I'm glad they held back from ending with a giant battle but it was obviously because they ran out of budget.
 
Why are you only including Old Trek in that? (Unless you don't count anything else after the end of Voyager, and/or Enterprise as canon, and if so... right on.)

There are 29 STD episodes, 10 "STD Short Treks", and 10 STP episodes, not to mention 3 J.J. Abrams movies of varying quality. I'll admit I haven't seen the vast majority of those, but most of what I've seen of them are pretty shitty to me.

I mean, it would be too easy if I included NuTrek.

Although to be fair, most of NuTrek isn't so much offensively stupid as just regular old-fashioned stupid and boring. Truely offensive crap like Tuvix... I dunno, what have we had?

Well, all of Picard, more or less. And... Ok, all of Discovery too. My mistake.
 
I agree, they didn't need 10 episodes for a story that was written on a Post-It.
I've heard that Nitpicking Nerd/Major Grin wanted to do a cut of the first season. It could be fun.
I'm almost tempted to take a stab at it while I'm in self-quarantine. Granted, it wouldn't be a great episode, but could be on par with a TNG or VOY episode of mediocre quality.
Although to be fair, most of NuTrek isn't so much offensively stupid as just regular old-fashioned stupid and boring. Truely offensive crap like Tuvix... I dunno, what have we had?
Tuvix was memorable and presented a weird and novel moral quandary. NuTrek doesn't do that, it's like watching Shades of Grey on continuous loop.
 
wasn't there also already a conflict or some kind of race war going on and even with the cure they'd just fuck over the other species? don't remember it being that black and white, but it's been ages since I've last seen it and might have forgotten or repressed some parts...
That's why I included a link to the review so you could refresh your memory. ;) But no, in that episode there isn't any conflict between the two races.
 
Tuvix was memorable and presented a weird and novel moral quandary. NuTrek doesn't do that, it's like watching Shades of Grey on continuous loop.

Yeah, I suppose that's kind of a distinction. With a few exceptions (Turnabout Intruder, for example, or Move Along Home), OldTrek's really offensively bad episodes were offensively bad because they fucked up the dismount, not the premise. Same with Dear Doctor or Up the Long Ladder.

The whole franchise seems dark and disturbing for that matter now, since the JJ Abrams movies were out. Even ENT is optimistic.

If nothing else, ENT is optimistic almost by default, because you know whatever struggles they're facing, it's going to turn out well. Whereas Picard just kinda spits on all of that.
 
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So I finished the last episode of Picard.

Reallly mixed on this show. It had some legitimately great moments, but a couple of real stinkers as well.

That stuff in the end with Data was some amazing stuff and IMO the needed closure that the characters never got in Nemesis.

However, I really hate the golem shit. That was out of place and cliche as all hell. If they really wanted this to be a 2-3 season show, then the illness should have progressed throughout the entire show run and Picard should have died at the end of it.

Also, the line about Vulcans possibly NOT being native to the planet Vulcan is potentially huge and a big change in lore. Not a full retcon though because we did have that TOS episode where Spock mentioned legends about proto vulcans. (And we even see a society of them in that TNG episode.)
 
That stuff in the end with Data was some amazing stuff and IMO the needed closure that the characters never got in Nemesis.

While I agree it's better than what we got in Nemesis, I thought it was poorly thought out and out of character. Data has always been ambivalent about death - he acknowledged he would die at some point, probably, and even admitted that it would be a humanizing experience if he were to die at some point rather than live forever (Time's Arrow, for example), but he never actually sought it out. His decision here seems both out of character and... Frankly just poorly thought out by the writers, given that Soong could have made him a new body at any time apparently.

And the shift from Data-Geordie to Data-Picard as the pairing just... I don't like it. Yes, Picard always had good, positive interactions with Data. They were friends. Yes, Picard saved Data's live more than once, represented him in his legal case with starfleet, etc. Yes, they were very good friends. But Geordie was the one that Data had an emotional breakdown over in Generations. Not Picard. If Data loved anyone, it was Geordie, not Picard. Data was the one who planned Geordie's funeral when everyone thought he was dead. As much as any two people in TNG, those two were besties.

I'm guessing either they just never bothered to see if LeVar Burton wanted in on the script, or else he refused. But it was shitty.
 
While I agree it's better than what we got in Nemesis, I thought it was poorly thought out and out of character. Data has always been ambivalent about death - he acknowledged he would die at some point, probably, and even admitted that it would be a humanizing experience if he were to die at some point rather than live forever (Time's Arrow, for example), but he never actually sought it out. His decision here seems both out of character and... Frankly just poorly thought out by the writers, given that Soong could have made him a new body at any time apparently.

I don't know, the idea that Data would accept that he died and that his consciousness needed to pass was a way of humanizing himself. It was the ultimate expression of him seeking humanity. He did say in Time's Arrow that he found the idea of being mortal somewhat comforting.

But I do agree Geordi should have been involved.
 
That stuff in the end with Data was some amazing stuff and IMO the needed closure that the characters never got in Nemesis.
It was the wrong character for that story. Since TNG, Data wanted to become human. He achieved it in Nemesis when he chose to sacrifice himself to save Picard and the crew of the Enterprise.
 
Apparently the finale was part of the reshoots. Admiral Sheer Fucking Hubris was originally the one in charge of the armada, not Riker.
 
Finally finished Picard today. My thoughts seem to echo a lot of what's already been said here. One thing that seemed so out of place was Romulan Legolas suddenly bursting into tears and breaking down so completely that he was basically a little kid sobbing 'cause he lost his dog or something. I don't understand a lot of what's going through the writers heads but good god a little forethought and watching through the previous series would've helped with a lot of the shit they messed up. Anyways here's the only other thing I can think of to say about Star Trek as a series:

 
Whereas Picard just kinda spits on all of that.
"For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you had never considered. That is the exploration that awaits you. Not mapping stars and studying nebulae, but charting the unknowable possibilities of existence." - Star Trek in 1994

26 years later we got Star Trek Picard.
 
"For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you had never considered. That is the exploration that awaits you. Not mapping stars and studying nebulae, but charting the unknowable possibilities of existence." - Star Trek in 1994

26 years later we got Star Trek Picard.
No joke, that is legit one of my top moments of Star Trek. Like... if you ask me to pick what Trek is all about and why I enjoy it. Right here.

And it makes you wonder. What if? What if in Picard he was dragged on this adventure, and in the end it was revealed that Q was dragging him out of the doldrums and reminding the old man that every day is another day to explore, to fight the trial?

Gee we might have actually gotten a great series!

(Actually watching it rustles my jimmies. An android mind melding??? They are LITERALLY ripping off mass effect? I mean not even in like "an interpretation" kind of way, I mean in a way that bioware could sue their asses.)
 
Picard was roughly as terrible as expected, nice to see that they're really trying to build a franchise on eyeball gorn fetishists, gotta really tap into that big underserved market, that's what Star Trek is all about. That and just straight up lifting characters and concepts from other popular media franchises that shit the bed woefully in their respective home straights. Romulan Lannister twins, Mass Effect 3 plot, Emo Legolas, Ellen of Ripley briefly Borg Queening it up and so on.

For comfy quarantine viewing and to wash away the horrible aftertaste of NuTrek, S1E13 of TNG "Angel One" - the one with Riker's manwhore outfit and hilarious chest hair - has a Coronachan B-plot. It's good shit for these current times.
 
That's why I included a link to the review so you could refresh your memory. ;) But no, in that episode there isn't any conflict between the two races.

well, I remember not hating it. ;)

the things is, even if they give them the cure - then what? sunshine and rainbows, everybody living happily ever after?
I always found it an interesting dilemma, because whatever you do would have consequences, nothing happens in a vacuum, including what precedence it would set from that point on. sure, the first impulse would be cure them no matter what, because that's the humane thing to do, but after all that's the impulse. no one thinks about what's gonna happen or wants to. would the federation have to help everyone now? to what extend? would that include military? and what if they say afterwards they not gonna help anyone anymore (because they simply can't), how would that work out? if when there's a conflict between the species in the future, it means casualties that would never happen if nature would've run it's course. who knows if it goes to a point where they nuke their whole planet alongside it. "what if" might be fucking annoying but in that scenario it needs consideration.

point is no one knows what's gonna happen, so going with the most likely outcome you can anticipate is the rational choice - even if that choice sucks complete balls. it's basically the trolley problem star trek constantly uses (including tuvix, which I also don't hate). even the crappy tng first season had an episode about unintended consequences for doing the "wrong" thing for the "right" reasons (s1e16, the one with the benjamin button admiral).

them being aware of it doesn't make it easier, and they probably could've gotten away with the cure if no one knows their involvement. but then my interpretation of the prime directive was always kinda a "ask for forgiveness later" thing. so you saved a civilization, did they see you? no? well, nothing to be done about it, move along... and if they saw you - enjoy your penal colony, you fucked up. reason we never saw the latter is because it's a tv series and they can't just demote picard or ship him off to some prison planet, so of course it always works out for a happy end. least that's one explanation for the one-sided display of it.
 
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