The second season of Star Trek: Picard is being planned out, and star Patrick Stewart is dropping some hints on where it might be headed.
Stewart now feels safer, and is ready for more risks with the Picard cast
As part of its FYC Emmy campaign, CBS sent Picard star Sir Patrick Stewart and showrunner Michael Chabon to LA Times’ The Envelope to talk about crafting the first season. They also talked a bit about season two.
Echoing recent comments from executive producer Akiva Goldsman about how they were applying lessons from season one into season two, Michael Chabon said, “The first season of Picard, especially the first half, was about learning how to make Picard.” For his part, Stewart focused on how the developing cast chemistry off the set is informing season two:
Stewart: There was no socializing [between the actors] for the first five months — we were shooting. When we came to the end of the [season], we had promotional activities to engage with and we were traveling together on airplanes and got to know one another so much better. This is going to be a new element in Season 2, that there is a lot of mutual respect everywhere. If you know you can take risks, and there is a network around you that if you crash land, they will catch you, it’s a wonderful feeling. That’s how I feel now. I feel safe.
The main cast is all expected to be back, with the exception of Harry Treadaway (Narek). Star Trek: Voyager’s Seven of Nine was a recurring character and appeared in the closing scene of the season one finale—and Jeri Ryan recently confirmed she will be back for season two, which is expected to start shooting in the fall. It has also been confirmed that Whoopi Goldberg will be reprising her TNG role as Guinan, and LeVar Burton indicated he’ll be bringing in Geordi LaForge as well.
Not much is known about where season two is headed. Akiva Goldsman has said the writers are using the extra time given to them during the pandemic lockdown to refine scripts and stories, which includes ensuring that early episodes tie in neatly with payoffs that come later in the serialized season. He also described the idea behind the season as “cool.” Chabon has previously stated that season two will address the repercussions of Picard’s consciousness being transferred into an android body. Patrick Stewart recently stated the new season will not be “not be covering the same ground,” adding “There are startling events predicted in season two.”
Patrick Stewart and co-star Isa Briones at NYCC 2019
Picard and the Borg
The arc of the first season of Picard was tied to Picard’s past and the guilt he carried regarding the death of Data in Star Trek: Nemesis as well as his involvement with the Romulans. While there may still be some other loose ends, the season provided a sense of closure in both of those cases. However, there is still a major issue that the former commander of the USS Enterprise-D is still grappling with in 2399.
In the LA Times interview, while talking about how Picard was influenced by the 2017 X-Men film Logan (in which Patrick Stewart played an older and infirm version of Professor X), Stewart pointed out how Chabon brought a significant piece of Jean-Luc’s history into Picard season one:
Michael, you also introduced emotional disturbances in Picard which had not been present before… like his experience as a partially assimilated [cybernetic organism] Borg. There was no real residue from it. But there has to have been. What has it been like for the past 25 years, having gone through that incredibly traumatic experience and never having had the chance to talk about it or reckon with it or purge it?
The Borg were also a significant part of the first season of Picard, with the liberated “xBs” from a captured cube that eventually crash-landed on the Synth homeworld. The fate of those former Borg was one of the loose threads left at the end of the season, along with the trauma Stewart pointed out he still carries from being assimilated and everything he did as Locutus. Finding closure for this and exploring the Borg more in season two would seem to flow naturally from season one—if not front and center, at least as one element.
The scars of his time as Locutus remain with Jean-Luc Picard
Keep up with all the Star Trek: Picard news, reviews and analysis at TrekMovie.com.
“Michael, you also introduced emotional disturbances in Picard which had not been present before… like his experience as a partially assimilated [cybernetic organism] Borg. There was no real residue from it. But there has to have been. What has it been like for the past 25 years, having gone through that incredibly traumatic experience and never having had the chance to talk about it or reckon with it or purge it?”
Picard dealt with it in Family. He confronted the Borg again with Hugh and realized that ‘purging’ the Borg was not what he stood for, he was ok with letting some Borg go again at the end of the Descent Part 2. The only real re-emergence with his emotional state regarding the Borg was in First Contact, and he had to come to terms with his new found obsession in what they did to him (Which conveniently leads to a purge of the Borg on the Enterprise including the Queen).
What’s going on here? There seems to be a grave disconnect with Picard’s past and what the show runners are actually writing. I get the feeling that the show runners don’t want to ‘correct’ Patrick Stewart with Picard’s history getting in the way of the story Patrick wants to tell. If Picard has never dealt with the trauma of being assimilated by the Borg in Picard, than he has never dealt with it. Just like how Picard never had the experience of raising children.
Or the show runners are only interested in Star Trek lore that is their own. Where the Dominion War could have factored into why Starfleet and the Federation would be different in a natural way (War changes things!), instead it’s focused solely on what Alex Kurtzman and his team have written that plays heavily into the overall plot. i.e. Romulus being blown up and this android hack job on Mars. I just don’t believe these two things would have a much larger impact than what happened during the Dominion War. Mars was just… Mars where the Dominion War ravaged Federation Space so ruthlessly that even Earth was attacked. EARTH! The one place Star Trek usually goes out of it’s way to save.
In conclusion, everyone is here to make this show work for Patrick Stewart, not Jean-Luc Picard or Star Trek.
I think “Family” absolutely did address it, and well — but I’m not sure it *dealt* with it, per se, in the comprehensive sense. Picard’s feelings about the Borg were once again pretty raw in “I, Borg,” then seemingly more neutral in “Descent,” then again pretty raw in “First Contact.” I think you could absolutely make the argument that this is a narrative well they’ve returned to one too many times, but it also stands to reason that Picard-the-character would struggle to fully get over the violation and the (self-perceived) complicity in the deaths of thousands of Starfleet officers at Wolf 359 and the near-destruction of Earth. And if he’s been sitting around bored on his vineyard for 15 years, that’s plenty of time to pick at old scabs (e.g. Data’s death) and let the old wounds bleed anew, especially if he’s also having a crisis over how he came to resign, and how he “failed” the Romulans. FWIW, I also recall reading stories that Stewart was initially very reluctant to do anything Borg related — so revisiting it again may have come more from the producers eager to bring in a familiar species.
I would like to see a bit more on-screen explanation of precisely what the Federation has become, and how, and I think the Dominion War would ideally be addressed as a contributing factor. I do think that Mars isn’t *just* Mars in the future — it had at least tens of thousands of inhabitants, I think, and major Starfleet facilities (e.g. Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards).
Consider Picard had Stockholm syndrome – he ends up preferring the order that the Borg represent and in some ways was still connected to the Borg. Evidence includes first contact where he appears to talk to the Borg (knows exactly where to shoot all the sudden), brings the Queen Data, obsesses over perfect Data, has Starfleet engineering unnecessary Data type synths even at the cost of them as slaves, then obsesses about developing perfect AI even after they destroy his fleet, kill his friends kid. He alienates his friends in hiding, ditches Crusher. The show is more fun and makes more sense when you watch it like Homeland, the guy knows he has Stockholm syndrome and went into hiding to save the universe from himself. When free what does he do – develops AI that is equal in imagination to organically, completing EXACTLY what the Borg would want. Assimilation has been made obsolete, they can now just engineer more perfect superior life.
And now he gets to be AI just like Data, no annoying illogical human kids anymore forever!
The whole concept of needing organic “human” qualities for imagination as in TMP is out the window.
Picard was obsessed with killing the Borg in First Contact. The Synths were necessary to create the fleet to save Romulus. He was against the ban due to the injustice of it. And Thad died because of the ban, not because of the Synths. The Synths could have saved him if they had been legal.
FC: How did Picard know exactly where to hit the Borg cube in the battle? Did he know before the battle and just let all those Starfleet officers die because he wanted to be the hero? Or was he talking with the Borg and still connected.
ST: PICARD Why did the synths need emotions? If they have emotions why did Picard use them as slaves? Also the synths blew up Mars and killed Riker’s son condemned billions of Romulans to death yet Picard STILL wants more, more funding into AI.
The real winner of Picard, the Borg. They get the technology they want – engineered life. No need to assimilate to improve and add technology, they finally get engineered technology that makes them superior to organic life. Coincidence?
He could hear the Borg’s thoughts in his head at that moment (we as the audience hear them too). I suspect he remembered at that time as well, that the Borg were able to give false readings.
Yeah no way the Borg unimind would know that and then use it to their advantage…… (eye roll).
Way better having Picard randomly illogically program robots to have emotions as synths that he can play slave driver on Mars, then when said robots blow up the fleet he is a jerk blaming Starfleet for not doubling down on synths and ditches his friends, and then have so little emotional intelligence that he obsesses about Data’s death only to bring back Data that he can commit suicide??
Unfortunately I think Picard was dead on arrival, even more so than Discovery.
This will do a lot to help destroy what was the wonderful legacy of Picard in the franchise.
Agreed. STPicard is not quite a vanity project, yet it suffers terminally from the “ideas” and input of Patrick Stewart, it would seem. It is so odd.
ER
Agree…though I find more issue with the fact that the creators behind Picard also ignore his past with episodes like “The Inner Light” where he lives at least 40+ years of another man’s life. He least experiences life as a husband and raising children in that life, not to mention whatever trauma he had from 48-72 hrs being a Borg would have been reconciled with in some capacity by then.
I would think Picard, a man of reason, would have more emotional trauma of losing 40+ years of an entire existence and relationships than be haunted so extensively by his experiences with the Borg.
ACB – he experienced more guilt in those 48-72 hrs being a Borg than the 40+ “years” of “The Inner Light”. That can be irreparably damaging.
So The Creators of Picard are ignoring that, yeah… unlike the rest of TNG where Picard mentioned his exopiriences of inner light frequently…. not
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is not simply resolved. Because of Star Trek: Picard’s serialized nature, it can really explore the emotional impact in ways that writers were prohibited from doing on TNG due to its episodic format. I agree with Patrick Stewart that it was not really dealt with. Yes, it was touched upon in different ways in “Family,” “I, Borg,” “Descent,” and STVIII: FC, but it was not truly “resolved.” In fact, I find it hard to believe that it is something that can be resolved. Trauma as serious as that is something you never fully heal from, and ST: Picard has struck that note clearly on several occasions. His panic attack on the cube and his conversation with Seven about neither really fully finding their humanity again are good examples.
I would also note that his PTSD may have been amplified by Irumodic Syndrome. It will be interesting to see whether they explore the fact that he has once again been assimilated into an artificial lifeform without his express consent. How does this differ? Will it help him in some way address his PTSD and heal? It would be interesting if entering this synth body actually enabled him to fully rediscover his humanity. That would be an interesting extension of Data arc in some ways to. Transferring Picard into a synth body is actually a pretty clever piece of storytelling when you consider the backdrop of his Borg trauma and what the show might be trying to say about the equality of all life even “artificial” lifeforms. Very TNG “Measure of a Man” type stuff. I hope they double-down on the ex-Bs and tie together Picard’s transformation and trauma.
PTSD is a life long struggle for many…no offense meant, but it’s apparent that you have no clue here what you are talking about in regards to this.
Captain Picard has PTSD. Even though the issues were touched on in episodes like Family, and the movie First Contact, PTSD just doesn’t go away like magic. Picard also seemed to mostly deal with things on his own, being a private man, and was hesitant to discuss the Borg in too much detail even with the ship’s councillor. So I can easily see where they are coming from on this point. In the past, the Captain was able to somewhat distract himself from the issues caused by the Borg from being immersed in his work as an officer, but once he retired with more time on his hands, I could see how the pain of being assimilated by the Borg could come back to haunt him.
I would think that the artificial body he now has would not sit well with Picard’s psyche. Considering how similar that sort of thing is to being assimilated by the Borg. He still has his own thoughts but that means he would be aware of all the other similarities. He would have to either come to terms with his Borg past or just go crazy. Period. It would seem that he would need to have regular sessions with Troi to help him get past this if he cannot do it on his own. So there is a perfect built in excuse to bring her back in S2. And it would be legit.
I do like the idea of them taking risks. Even if they fail in the attempt I like that they think outside the box, as it were. One could argue that killing Picard and bringing him back as a machine is taking a risk. And I guess it is. I still think that a terrible idea but give them props for taking the risk. The problem with that sort of risk is it has permanent repercussions. So it better work. In this case, I don’t think it did. But we shall see where they go with it. If they do what would logically come from it, then sure, I guess. But something tells me that will not be the case.
It’s got to have an impact on him but from what we’ve seen so far it’s not remotely like being assimilated by the Borg. There was none of the physical/mental violence, it wasn’t a violation, it didn’t suppress his free will and he isn’t now sharing a consciousness with millions of other slaves.
It was done without his consent. The only difference was he was conscious when the Borg were assimilating him. Here he was “dead”. There are some pretty big similarities here. I would certainly call what they did to him a “violation”.
Well what are these “pretty big similarities“? I don’t really see it as a violation, no more than performing emergency surgery or carrying out CPR on a patient. I understand what you’re saying about not having his consent and of course there are real world parallels in which certain groups of people may object to certain forms of treatments. However, everything we’ve seen of Jean Luc Picard suggests that he is a man without any strong religious beliefs who values artificial life. Of course if he did object then he could just tell them to switch him off again. That is after all what Data asked for and his wishes were honoured without objection.
The similarities are obvious. They replaced his organic components with machines. Inorganic. Synthetic. The only difference is that while the Borg were more Cyborg Picard is not 100% machine. But the similarities are there. This is not about replacing his heart so he could continue his natural life. This was bringing someone back from the DEAD. Artificially. For someone who knew his life was over and probably would only accept revival if there were some sort of cure. Not to be reborn in some new machine, minus all the machine advantages at at that. What he got was not a cure but like going into cryogenic freeze to get woken up when a cure was found. He sure didn’t think that concept was OK back in that one episode of the show that showcased it. Why would he be OK with it now? Because now it’s HIM and not someone else? It has nothing to do with religious beliefs. Just telling them to switch it off would be akin to suicide. It’s one thing to accept your demise when you see it coming and are at peace with it happening. As he seemed to be. It’s quite another to have a 2nd chance and then tell someone, “no, I want to die”. He didn’t WANT to die. But he accepted his mortality and that it was now his time. For them to do what they did was a complete violation of him personally as well as his beliefs. The only way around it would have been if they discussed the option with him FIRST. If he was good with it, then go ahead and do it. But if Picard still maintains the morals and beliefs he displayed over 15 years of shows and movies, he would tell them NOT to do it.
Don’t get me wrong ML31 I accept that it was handled clumsily. For a show that felt overly stretched out for the first 9 episodes the last episode didn’t half feel rushed. Yeah without a doubt there should have been some discussion about the morality of it but for all we know there was. We don’t know of course we can only conclusively say what we saw onscreen. Either way the ethics of whether or not they should have done it is a red herring, classic ignoratio elenchi because whilst it’s a perfectly relevant dilemma in terms of the procedure we’re discussing I never brought it up and it has zero bearing on the actual question I asked. Good move though because it did deflect me from my point and falsely strengthened yours temporarily by linking it to something with more merit.
The question I did ask was how is it similar to assimilation and I don’t think you’ve answered that. Sure you’ve pointed out he now has a completely artificial body and that the Borg replaced some of his organic parts with artificial components but those are extremely flimsy similarities. It’s like saying apple pie and cider are very similar because they’re both made from apples but if your child was asking for the former you certainly wouldn’t give them the latter if you’d run out of pie.
The experience of getting assimilated has been depicted as traumatic, the victims entire personality is suppressed, drowned out by the unanimous voices of the collective and they no longer have free will. Whereas Picard’s experience when his consciousness was being migrated to his new body gave him closure on the incidents that had haunted him by allowing him to finally let Data go and effectively cleanse himself of what was left of the Borg. The episode clearly closed with Picard seemingly renewed, eager for adventure with a new lease on life.
Like I say I think they did handle the whole thing in an overly simplistic way. They’ve said that they will address some of the implications next season but I got the impression that was a reaction to fans raising these questions. The way they’d described it in the episode Picard had been transferred into a body that would look and feel identical. It seemed they’d only done this to give a literal form to the characters journey to rebirth. It will be interesting to see what direction they do take him but I can’t help but feel Picard has now resolved his Borg issues.
Honestly I think the organic Picard always wanted to be AI post Locutus, he just did not want to admit it to himself. He never was a “people” person, disliked kids, etc.
I think would be awesome if in Season Two golumn Picard, knowing the truth of Picard’s obsession on AI technology development and improving on Data was partly driven by the Borg then actually ends up trying to save the Federation by stopping the plan in its tracks while feeling guilty over having been (was that him?) an unknowing double agent.
Meanwhile the Borg want him, he is the key to making assimilation and their need to accept organics, obsolete.
You’ve got quite the imagination Cmd. Bremmon! I’m not entirely sure how you arrive at these conclusions but I guess we’re all entitled to interpret the show in whatever way we want.
Thanks! I don’t know how you can watch First Contact and see how Picard destroys the Borg Cube and NOT see him as compromised honestly (but have no issues with other opinions). I suppose Picard could have known from Locutus where the weak point is and wanted to keep that info to himself even at the cost of all the lost Starships and crews to be the hero?? Isn’t it better to see him as compromised than a jerk?
How else do you explain Picard alienating all his friends? Wasn’t Beverly Crusher his true love? Did he go try to make amends for Rikers lost kid, no, he needed Data. He dreamed Data. He needed Data.
Ironically isn’t that exactly what the Borg want? A Data equal to humanity in imagination that they can finally ditch the need for frail organics. Next gen Borg, just engineer them. Live forever, breath in space, invent dimensional portals – ST:Picard says the Borg can get exactly what they want (ignoring V’ger having needed organics and Decker for imaginative sparks of inspiration).
Take my opinion with a grain of salt though. I am a Wagon Train to the Stars Classic Trek fan trying to stay connected some how in an age where the new Lost in Space and Mandolorian to me come off as more “final frontier” then TNG Trek [ which makes the inner kid who ran around all 1986-1988? with his Franz Joseph Technical Manual and Mr Scotts Guide to the Enterprise very sad : ( ]
You’re definitely entitled to your opinion, but this sounds like total nonsense, I’m just being honest. Especially since no writers, producers or Stewart himself has ever remotely hinted at any of these things. Picard isn’t obsessed with AI life, he simply believes all life should be treated equally. Most starfleet officers believe that and why the synths were given their rights back at the end (but how they did it was forced and half thought out).
And for the record I don’t want you to feel I’m attacking you. I know sometimes I come off as what I’m doing. It’s really just the gatekeeping stuff that REALLY bothers me, but you’re not doing that here obviously. But in this argument, you’re the only one I have seen made this argument–anywhere. I doubt anyone working on the show thinks this way either. But maybe season 2 will surprise me. ;)
Well I know you want Trek to be just TNG fans, but quite frankly it is such a small audience now your going to have to learn to live with people that wants some quality sci-fi/action/adventure and rational stories. But whatever, you stick to Picard, I’ll hope for the best with Discovery and Strange New Worlds.
I know the writers didn’t want to make Picard a slave driver on Mars, had no clue why he could blow up the Borg in FC, had Picard throw his friends to the curb.. that they don’t get their own writing is why they need to drop it and move on.
It’s like the dissonance in Into Darkness, no matter your politics making Khan be a poor dude just trying to get his family back from evil Starfleet was always going to suck.
”TNG had a small audience” Where do you come with this stuff?
LMAO it had the highest audience of any Trek show.
Yes. I watched it desperately hoping for the show to get good which in my opinion it never did (apart from the time Picard destroyed half of the Starfleet and Riker tried to nav deflector him). At the end of the day I gave up and realized those were wasted hours. You look at the decline in viewership with Voyager you can see I wasn’t the only one that gave up.
As time goes on we continue to see that the cultural impact of classic Trek lives on while TNG fades into oblivion. People know “Beam Me Up Scotty” and the Vulcan salute from the 60s, what are they remembering from TNG (I suppose the Picard facepalm meme?). The resistance is futile all from the time Picard again tried to destroy half the Starfleet?
The Borg being an evil collective unimind where the greater good tramples individual rights for the “greater good”, ironically the exact opposite of the TNG theme, is the best concept to come out of it.
Picard season two should double down on the Borg as the evil unimind that planned everything out. Have them return to claim what they want so bad, AI with imagination to replace organics, with android Picard knowing saving the future means keeping it from them.
I’d argue that TNG was the last hurrah of a 12 channel TV where if you liked Star Trek IV and wanted something similar that was the only game in town.
Cmd.Bremmon: You’re confusing the Borg with Cylons. The Borg do not aspire to the “greater good” – they do not consider themselves good or evil. Those are human constructs to them. They desire perfection, as 7 of 9 so clearly stated in Voyager (I don’t recall the episode name, but it was the one where she created a technological singularity of some sort). Nor do they want “AI with imagination” – they are the antithesis of imagination, a hive mind that exists only to “add your uniqueness and technology to their own.” They are part organic, and always will be. Even when the Queen had Data in her clutches, what did she do? Gave him organic skin so he could have sensation like humans do. She herself had an organic brain, not a positronic one.
As for TNG being a last hurrah, if that’s the case, why was it followed by DS9, VOY and ENT? What occurred in the early 2000s was Trek fatigue (especially in the case of ENT, which also made the mistake of going back in the timeline – ALWAYS a bad idea, it seems), not the death of the “12 channel TV”.
I think you miss out that the Borg see perfection as the “greater good”.
I completely disagree with your interpretation of the Borg. The hivemind isn’t a hivemind just because they don’t consider anything, it’s because they think that you achieve the greater good through collective action. What is not a better collective than a bee type hivemind where everyone is one and one is everyone?
(I agree this is the antithesis of the theme of TNG in which the Ferengi were supposed to be the ultimate bad guy – how lame was that?).
To the Borg assimilation isn’t bad, it’s a necessary evil in allowing everyone to be perfect with them.
Why are the Borg so good as the bad guy, it’s because their ends justify their means. The Borg think they are doing the Universe a favor (and controversially, are they??). Isaac Azimov’s Foundation series actually ends with the protagonists deciding that the Borg unimind is the way to go!!!
I also don’t think the Borg assimilate others just because, that they purposely add organics for diversity because they, like V’ger, know that that is where they get their “imagination”, that if they want to improve they need organic assimilation. This used to be a theme in Trek, see TMP where Kirk hammers it home noting V’Ger (a being with all the information of our universe) still needs a human quality in order to evolve.
I do agree the Borg want perfection for all but in doing so they will want to eliminate organics if necessary. Organics are messy. Like Picard they should try to dispense with the kids, the ultimate in imperfection and illogic. I believe it makes sense that they would want to eliminate the need for organics with all those imperfections, and go full engineered perfection which Picard with engineered AI life on par with organic life in imagination and emotion (conveniently?) sets up.
None of this makes a lick of sense and as usual its just factually completely wrong.
And I’m not the one stuck in the 80s man, you are. ;) I love Star Trek, ALL of it. And probably why I enjoy it more than you overall instead of whining that it’s not the way I want it. And the irony is I’m more excited about Discovery next season than you are and will probably love Strange New Worlds more than you once you start complaining about more spore drives or that you’re upset they are doing too much time traveling or it will be another season that went without a Connie fighting a D-7 that you been bringing up for a decade now. I can’t remotely begin to care about silly stuff like that.
I feel for you not seeing why the Borg are good bad guys (the one real redemption of TNG). Sigh.
Your the TNG fan, I’m kind of sad you aren’t loving tearing apart the motivation of the Borg to me.
You just think they assimilate for the hell of it? That they see as organics as on the path to perfection. Ok… have uh, fun, or as I see it, not-so-fun, with that.
PS. Sometimes I am using you as a contrast to convince even TNG fans, this is a prime example.
I love the Borg, its your theories of them that are just ridiculous. You don’t need to ‘feel’ for me lol. You thrown out this idea HOW many times now? And exactly who has agreed with you? Get the hint the already. You can believe what you want, I never hear this anywhere else for a good reason.
I feel for everyone on team “Voyager is awesome scifi/TV”, can’t help it. Apologies on that, can’t deny the empathy.
Uh what? Dude you just make no sense a lot of times. What does that have to do with what I actually said other than nothing?
It was addressed on screen as to how Picard stopped the Borg Cube – he still had Borg parts integrated in his body and could still hear the collective when in close proximity. Also there’s zero evidence that the Borg are trying to eliminate organics from the collective. This essentially goes against their mission statement of adding the “biological and technological distinctiveness” of other races to their own in order to improve the whole. The collective wasn’t even seen in Star Trek Picard, I’m sure they’ll be back at some stage but at this point in the narrative nobody even knows if they still exist anymore after the events of Endgame so you can’t really say they’re the real winners here. Given that the Borg are cyborgs you would have to assume that the AI federation we saw in Picard would view them as just as much an enemy of AI as pure organic’s.
“It was addressed on screen as to how Picard stopped the Borg Cube – he still had Borg parts integrated in his body and could still hear the collective when in close proximity.”
AGREED. HE WAS STILL PART OF THE BORG COLLECTIVE.
Also on the Borg, it is clear that they feel they need organic matter for “biological and technological distinctiveness” (i.e. imagination). This is consistent with TMP where Kirk says:
What it needs in order to evolve… is a human quality. Our capacity to leap beyond logic.”
BUT WAIT, what does PICARD do?
AI = life in all ways. They are life with full imaginations on par with organics but can be engineered better (breathe in space, be holograms, live forever).
They need for organics is no more for the Borg. You can now just engineer yourself better again and again with no fear of revolt because you will always be superior through engineering.
The man who made that possible just happens to be the guy the Borg had still integrated into the collective???
That’s a pretty huge coincidence no???
You’re not really convincing me Cmd. Bremmon. It’s always great fun to speculate on Trek, I’m as guilty of that as anybody on this board so I’m not trying to discourage that. I just don’t buy into your arguments in this particular case. You’ve raised a few points so I’ll try and address them below:
1. Picard is not part of the Borg Collective, he could hear them but they exerted no control over him. First Contact and STP have made it pretty clear that he was deeply affected by his assimilation but it wasn’t Stockholm syndrome as you say. He wasn’t identifying with his captors, he was hellbent on revenge hence the Moby Dick parallels. Picard wasn’t a pawn in First Contact, The Borg Queen wasn’t playing the long game – it was a comprehensive defeat for the collective on that day.
2. V’Ger wasn’t reprogrammed by the Borg nor did it create them. Those are just fan theories unless somebody attached to a Star Trek production makes them canon. As such we can’t ascribe V’Ger’s motivations to the Borg and assume they’re the same. The Borg do not try to capture imagination they actively suppress it.
3. It wasn’t Picard’s mission to build a superior race. He was just tracking down his old friend and fighting for the rights of sentient lifeforms to exist.
I was going to respond to Comm Bremmon but you and others did it for me. ;)
Again, people are certainly entitled to their opinion here but when you’re literally the only one making it over and over and over again and no one agrees with you or can even follow it ANYWHERE then that probably should tell you something.
And I just find this strange argument TNG has ‘faded into oblivion’ when we are talking about a show titled Star Trek Picard lol. Not Star Trek Kirk, Janeway, Sisko or Sulu. Picard is a direct spin off of TNG since Picard the character only existed on that show, I have no idea what he is trying to say??? The show is LITERALLY bringing in all the story lines and characters from that show. Are we missing something? Why are you spending millions on a show about a character and story lines from 30 years ago if no one remembers or cares about the show you claim all of this is literally based on? Why was there so much fanfare for it then?
As I said in the other thread that he obviously completely ignored TNG is still one of the most popular Star Trek on TODAY and we are only watching Picard because CBS clearly knows that and want to get as many TNG fans into watching this show while bringing in MORE TNG characters for season 2.
But yes, no one cares about TNG anymore, that’s why we are all here talking about the TNG universe literally right now. I don’t get most of his arguments, but clearly I’m not alone.
“Picard is not part of the Borg Collective, he could hear them but they exerted no control over him.”
Yes, the Borg could communicate with him. Any chance the Borg were smart enough to use this to their advantage? Remember Picard wasn’t obsessing about the billions of Romulans, Rikers kid that died on his watch. It was Data (who was so satisfied with his death in Nemesis that he committed suicide in Picard) that Picard obsessed over.
“V’Ger wasn’t reprogrammed by the Borg nor did it create them.”
Doesn’t matter. V’ger was portrayed to be far more advanced than the Borg and Federation put together and even then could not replace organic human qualities. Pre ST: Picard like V;ger needed Decker, the Borg need to assimilate if they want to evolve. Yet V’ger was wrong, despite having all the knowledge of the Universe you CAN apparently engineer AI life to be on par and as perfect as organic life ergo, the Borg no longer need organic components. They are now free to engineer themselves to be perfect. Picard says you can have life that can be everyone at once AND have human imagination/innovation/etc. If you want perfection why wouldn’t you now engineer yourself to live forever, breathe in space, be a hologram, etc. It now makes way more sense for the Borg to drop assimilation and create a race of holographic lifeforms you cannot defeat and accept everything the unimind says. As I mentioned earlier, you now don’t need illogical kids.
“3. It wasn’t Picard’s mission to build a superior race. ”
Picard did build a superior race, you say coincidence, I say by design.
What are the chances that the man who was assimilated by the Borg, listens to the Borg, build a slave race of synths for his Romulan fleet, had synths blow up said fleet but instead is mad at Starfleet for not doubling down on synth tech, ditched his friends to obsess about Data ends up doing so and NOT by design?!?!?!?
I’m curious Cmd. Bremmon are these theories that you think might be confirmed in the next season or 2 of Picard or are you taking at as fact that these notions have already been confirmed?
Picard didn’t build the construction synths (who didn’t have emotions and were obviously far less advanced than Data), Picard didn’t blow up Mars, Picard didn’t run off and make the planet of humanlike synths (that would be Maddox and Soong).
Data definitely had imagination as well. He devised many unique solutions to problems and painted and made compositions etc etc etc.
Lore even had emotions. So I’m a bit confused as to why you think Picard (the show) has made this into a reality for the first time.
Data was a prototype for Soong to give himself an android body, and The Schizoid Man (S2) actually has one of Soong’s colleagues doing just that to take control of Data’s body and make use of his strength and imperviousness, just as you’re saying. Juliana Soong was also revealed to have been given an android body following her death from a brain scan, and she didn’t even know it.
So all of that was already established by the time the Borg had captured Data, and in fact Data is called primitive by the Borg in their first appearance in S2!
The links to V’Ger are interesting, and I understand that you’ve said you were very young and grew up watching TOS and TMP, so I understand that you want to link the stuff in Picard and other Trek to V’Ger. We simply can’t just assume their statement of V’Ger’s limitations as applying to all artificial life everywhere. V’Ger didn’t create art, or ask what it meant to exist. It just sucked up information and wanted to send it back to NASA. It’s still got a 70s computer at its core.
So given everything you’ve said about the new synths has been true of Soong-type androids in general since TNG first existed, and the writers have never ever said “well I guess Data beats V’Ger”, it’s probably never going to come up. After Soong-type androids first appeared, they never compared them to the various other androids which appeared in TOS either, and the ones in I, Mudd even had their consciousnesses linked together!
Your theory is interesting, though I personally think it falls down at ascribing all of the major events directly to Picard himself when by all accounts the synthetic labour units happened completely on their own and were in use throughout the entire Federation, as a result of an entire department in the Daystrom Institute that Picard seemingly didn’t even know existed until the very first episode.
I just find it bizarre that you’re acting like it’s just so obvious and everyone else must be blind not to see it. Like, it’s an interesting theory, but it’s basically just below “this is all a dream/hallucination” in terms of some of the stretches and leaps of logic. You’re getting very hung up on a small handful of lines and events from just a few movies and refusing to consider any of them from a production standpoint, to just say, they’re in the same universe but they’re obviously not intended to be related.
It’s an interesting theory, yes, but to have retroactively watched you rephrase it like ten times, insisting it’s sooooo obvious because the Borg are so smart they can predict everything, is really weird. Unintentional links and implications pop-up all the time in fiction, and you’re drawing from material that came out over 40 years apart. There is no long plan between the large production schisms that occurred over the years, and even if a writer wanted to (Chabon tried to get lots more TOS references into Picard) they probably wouldn’t make an entire plot hinge on just a few moments from a few films and episodes and tying them all together.
Picard The Show was based on far more prior events than I had expected and even then they had to carefully explain the key points for fresh audiences, and not go too deep into ultra-specificities mattering. Eg you don’t need to know that Data jumped out an airlock, beamed Picard away, and blew up Shinzon’s ship. They just say Data saved Picard. You didn’t need to know Icheb had parents who genetically engineered him to sabotage the Borg, just that he was like a son to Seven.
So even if a writer did want to do what you were saying, they’d probably be told to tone it down or simplify. The story would just be “The Borg try to assimilate the synth planet after detecting their old cube”, and they probably wouldn’t need to bring V’Ger or First Contact into it at all. They wouldn’t have to rectify that the Borg was disinterested in Data at first if they didn’t want to go there, they’d just have the Borg be interested now.
Let’s break down how what you are saying isn’t matching what I am saying that I can explain my position:
“Picard didn’t build the construction synths (who didn’t have emotions and were obviously far less advanced than Data),”
Do you deny that absolute command and responsibility for the Romulan evacuation fleet was on Picard? Did Picard not care that that synths were being sadistically programmed to be semi-emotional with parallels to slavery? Or was he a lazy Admiral that did not take an active enough interest in his command? Does the responsibility of those under his command no longer rest with the commander in the 24th century?
“Picard didn’t blow up Mars”
No the synths built under Picard’s command did. And what was Picard’s response, was it “why did the synths blow up my fleet?”. Was it “Why did these synths sentence billions to death including his former officers child?
Again no. It was “My beloved Data, how DARE Starfleet question synth development. I quit over not continuing to pursue AI development and condemn the whole Starfleet!!!” Does that seem rational to you outside of some knowing or unknowing agenda?
“Picard didn’t run off and make the planet of humanlike synths (that would be Maddox and Soong). ”
No, but he obsessed about it. He quit Starfleet because he wanted them to build it so bad. He wanted it more than Data on in being resurrected quickly committed suicide. This from the one guy who should understand the need to be critical with respect to AI development having been assimilated and part of an AI uni-mind and then being made to destroy half the Starfleet at Wolf 359.
Absolutely Tiger and it’s not just Picard as you could say he same for The Orville. Seth McaFarlane’s name might have been enough to get it greenlit, maybe even a renewal but 3 seasons? There’s got to be people watching and clearly a lot of them are TNG fans.
Exactly! But this why as much as I love these boards, they are really annoying to read as well. NOT because people don’t like other shows, that is completely fine, but then they have to constantly try and knock them by suggesting because THEY don’t like them, then practically no one else either. You see it for basically every show. No one watched Enterprise, no one cares about Discovery now, only old fans watch Voyager and on and on and on. You can still not like these shows without painting a narrative they were (or are) hated by most fans.
But then to say no one cares about TNG is utterly absurd since A. Picard is only a show today because of the huge level of popularity that TNG still has and B. You can look at any review metric online, TNG is ALWAYS the top show. Even if you actually do find a poll out there where its NOT the top show, you’re never going to find one where its at the bottom either. So where is he getting this idea other than he hates the show personally, so decided every one now hates it too? This is why his posts are annoying, they are not based on any actual evidence. But if you just keep repeating it enough on the internet then I guess it’s true? That’s how Trump seems to believe in things too.
If you really believe that, fine, but based on what exactly?? It takes ten seconds to provide a link to back up your argument on some level.
AFAIK, TNG it still one of the most popular and recognized Star Trek shows around. Pretty much most fans who loved it when it was running seems to still love it today, at least based on what I read. It’s also a lot of people’s ‘gateway’ show when they are getting into the franchise for the first time. At least when you go to places like Reddit, easily the biggest Star Trek site on the internet, there is no doubt how hugely popular TNG is there and most of those people are in their 20s, 30s and 40s.
But Comd Bremmon can believe what he wants, but clearly he doesn’t believe in actual facts sadly and why its hard to take him seriously.
I just followed my own advice and just googled most popular Star Trek show and this link was one of the first posted:
https://www.startrek.com/article/poll-fans-most-watched-star-trek-series-is
Surprise, surprise TNG was polled as the most watched show on Star Trek.com, the official Star Trek site.
I also quoted him this straw poll in another thread and it was just taken 3 weeks ago:
https://strawpoll.com/r6p2xfd8/r
So what is this guy talking about?? Is he just talking about the city he lives in? With his own family members or friends, I don’t get it? Based on every metric out there, TNG is no less loved today than it was twenty years ago.
And if Picard does it job well (based on that last poll it stills need lots of work to get people fully onboard ;)), it will only get new fans who are watching that to try it out like the Kelvin films did with TOS.
Thanks for the links Tiger2.
I have to say that Voyager has definitely moved up my ranking.
I really wish some of the folks here with strong views would try giving some of the other series a rewatch. I’m convinced that, however unintentionally,the older series appeal to different age groups. But if someone is so hostile that they can’t even acknowledge that TNG or Voyager could be very popular with others, they’re never going to be able to give any series a fresh rewatch.
Or even a first watch. My campaign to get everyone to get past lousy 1970s Saturday morning animation and give TAS a serious try continues. After all, it’s the first series to have a person of colour or a woman commanding the Enterprise (Uhura in 2 episodes).
I’m not that surprised Voyager is actually that high because it seems to get a lot of watches with the Borg episodes and characters like Seven, the Doctor, etc are very popular in the fanbase even if you still don’t love Voyager itself. That’s why it was a no-brainer to bring Seven back.
I know you seen this link before but it REALLY hits home:
https://nerdist.com/article/star-trek-netflix-most-rewatched/
People just love the freaking Borg! ;D
I am shocked Endgame is number one though because it just isn’t very good IMO. I would think it would be All Good Things people would rewatch over and over again (I’ve seen it 15 times lol) but yeah it just proves we’re all different.
But as you said, if people don’t like the show or ANY show, that’s fine. But their opinions on it is NOT a consensus and it’s sad when they can’t just like what they like without putting down others who have the nerve to like a different Star Trek show from them. This is just sad nerd stuff to the rest of the world.
Aren’t we ALL Star Trek fans???
That’s probably why not a lot of newbies or young fans come here, when you judge everyone or constantly negative against most of the shows.
As far as TAS, I have never watched it. I know, I know! Yeah I should give it a chance and the last few months people have been encouraging me to give it a chance, it just looks SO bad! But if you like it, then maybe I will enjoy some of it as well.
And yes, Orville seems to be a pretty popular show as well. I’m not in love with it but I watch it and plan to watch season 3 now that I have Hulu. But yes, it’s the same lazy and tired narrative, if you don’t like that show then of course it means no one watches or cares about it and yet it’s still here too.
But then these same people like gets in a huffy when you say the same for the show THEY like. It’s pretty weird.
I wish people took their own biases out of these arguments and just based it on actual evidence and then it would be easier to take their points more seriously.
Lol that’s the internet for you dude, you’ll get all personality types! I mean I know that you already know that of course but I guess with so much fear, hate and uncertainty in the world at just now we’re all a bit on edge and let the little trivial things get to us a little bit more than we normally would. I’ll still take us all debating the finer points of Trek like they’re the most important things in the world over the things we’re seeing when we turn on the TV at the moment.
It doesn’t surprise me that TNG still tops the polls. Like you say, it was a gateway for many of us getting into Trek. I mean I used to watch TOS reruns as a small child with my dad but I was too young to get it. I never really got into Trek properly until Next Gen came out in my early teens and even though I personally rank DS9 as my my favourite TNG is still my go to Trek if I’m just looking for a random episode.
I’ve actually only seen season 1 of the Orville. At times I don’t think they always get the balance right between the slapstick and the serious sci-fi concepts but generally I do like it and will probably just wait for the 3rd season to release before catching up,
You get all personality types, isn’t that fun and diverse? I mean, “Voyager = good TV” types. I don’t get it, but I acknowledge it. To each their own. What’s wrong with that?
I just think some of us are “Voyager… that was horrid, can we please get some new final frontier Wagon Train to the Stars Horatio Hornblower in Space Trek?”
Absolutely Cmd. Bremmon. Diversity is a great thing and It would be a boring planet if we all thought exactly the same. I just mean that we all interact with the world in our own unique ways, have our own personalities and quirks but when we communicate online we only see a snapshot of that and not the real person behind the keyboard. That’s all I meant, that I try to remember there’s a person on the other side of that keyboard, we might have different views on TNG or Picard or whatever but as Star Trek fans we probably still have more things in common than not.
I was just curious because some of your views seem pretty rigid. I mean I gather from the discussion you’re not a huge TNG fan and that’s fine, we all have different tastes. However, you have some pretty fixed narrative views regarding the character of Picard (re the Borg, AI’s etc) and that’s where I was asking for some clarification as I couldn’t tell if you’re proposing a theory that you believe might be played out and explored onscreen in future seasons of STP? Is it that you already believe that previous Trek has already confirmed these conclusions and others have just not interpreted them correctly? Or is this just your personal way of reconciling the inconsistencies of character/narrative that can arise from having so many people play in the same sandbox to tell their stories over the years? I ask because these opinions differ from the majority of posters on here so by sharing a little context it might help others better understand your position. Again I’m not knocking your views Cmd, it’s clear you’ve put a lot of thought into them and as I said in another post you obviously have a great imagination. I’m just not of the opinion that your ideas match the intent of the writers.
Think of it this way.. I actually *liked* Picard!!!!! Isn’t that a win, you got someone who couldn’t stand TNG and disliked Voyager back into caring about new Trek. It’s just I liked it because:
a) It sets up the Borg for a return to being ultimate bad guys, back in control, scary evil villain’s who ended up manipulating the whole Federation. Was that not the best part of TNG, The Best of Both Worlds (with the subsequent episodes taking away their scariness??).
b) The utopia is really a dystopia. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Conflict exists. The TNG cards actually come crashing down in Picard.
c) Sets up Picard as a tragedy. Starfleet Captain used and abused and he didn’t even know it. Can his golem find redemption?
My worry of course is that all this was done inadvertently (the raised on TNG writers tend not to think things through – Picard has unlimited life, can engineer himself to perfection, will he share the technology? What is the social impact on society? Are organics obsolete??? Or will Picard just end up a jerk again that keeps it for himself (after having forced Data to commit suicide) and Season 2 will just drop everything that made the show watchable. Worried they double down on the Riker serving Pizza, having a 1000 generic starships boring, etc.
I’m totally fine with you not liking TNG Cmd. Bremmon, I don’t think anybody really has a problem with that. I gather it’s when you’ve dismissed the relevance/popularity of TNG that it’s led to some disagreement. I’m not involved with that though I’ve only really been discussing your theories. Like I say they’re well thought out I just disagree with some of the assumptions you’ve based them on. Obviously my opinions are based on assumptions too so it stands to reason that it might turn out that I’m wrong and you’re correct. I’ll address some of your points with my own interpretation:
a) I’d love to see the Borg back as the big bad but in Patrick Stewart’s interviews he’s stated implicitly that he’s not interested in revisiting those sort of stories. He’s been there and got the t-shirt so to speak. I’ve got no doubt we’ll see the real Borg come back but it will probably be in another series. I’m happy to be proven wrong on that though.
b) I’m on the opposite side with this one – I like the utopia in Star Trek. It might not be realistic but it’s aspirational and given the state of the world at the moment I think they’ll want to promote that optimistic outlook. This doesn’t have to rule out conflict, there are still plenty of outside threats and Picard so far has mostly operated outside of the Federation. These 2 factors allowed for plenty of conflict in DS9 without violating the traditional portrayal of the Federation.
c) I would say it’s building towards a triumph rather than a tragedy. The tragedy in Picard was the downward spiral his life took after the Romulan supernova with his organic death birthing the metaphorical phoenix from the ashes in my opinion.
I generally believe that If they wanted to tell a story about Picard discovering that he was being controlled and manipulated by the Borg that it would have made more sense to do this when he still had borg parts installed but that ship has well and truly sailed now. If you think about it logically Star Trek Picard came about because of the popularity of the character and TNG. It goes without saying that they hope to bring in new fans with the hype and media buzz that bringing back such an iconic character creates but ultimately they knew that there was an existing market for it. What they definitely didn’t do is launch this series just to try and bring around long Trek fans for whom TNG didn’t actually resonate. That would be crazy! So like I say Cmd Bremmon I’m not criticising your ideas per se, nor am I having any difficulty following them. I just think that the likelihood that they’ve brought back an iconic character just to completely subvert TNG by telling fans that the heroic Captain that they all loved had actually been secretly betraying the Federation for 5 seasons of television and 4 feature films. That would go down like a lead balloon, it would literally be a massive eff you to the fans.
Everything you just said Corinthian7 bares out in my life too. I grew up watching TOS in the late 70s (I feel sooooo old) but none of my friends ever watched that show because it just felt too dated for them. It was TNG that got a few of them into the show because it was new. In fact my best friend from high school became a HUGE Star Trek fan because he started to watch TNG with me a few times and a year later he was a bigger fan than I was lol. And he started watching TOS (we actually saw TUC together, his first experience watching a Trek movie in a theater) and then we watched DS9, VOY, etc together when those shows started too. That was probably my favorite time being a Star Trek fan in so many ways!
But like many, it was TNG that made him a fan first and probably to this day what he is still the biggest fan of. He never liked Enterprise and mostly tolerated Voyager, but did like DS9 but TNG was definitely the show we would watch over and over again out of all of them.
And as said you go online and you still see most people gravitating to TNG first although we have newer shows out now. And of course many people try TOS first or DS9, VOY, etc but it does seem like TNG is the one many people try first because it seems to be the most popular (and at least more modern looking than TOS).
I’ll say this one last time, if ANY Star Trek show is not your thing then its not your thing. But trying to spread negativity about it everywhere and trying to relentless convince others it should be wiped out of existence is just sad and weird to me. Especially a show that has probably created MILLIONS of new Star Trek fans who wouldn’t be one today without it. And then even worse when you are constantly making statements about it that are unfounded or false but treat like its a fact. It’s not. And if you think it is, then OK, prove it?
But overall you’re right, the things we argue here doesn’t really matter considering the issues in the real world right now. I come from a black family in L.A., no one is talking about the pros or cons of Picard right now lol. Unfortunately the discussions are a lot more real and urgent these days. Star Trek is still an escape from the real world and why I love being here, to discuss it, good or bad.
It’s just sad we treat these shows or movies like some nerdy pissing contest instead of just embracing the fact we all love the same franchise and recognize all the shows and films do mean something to every fan even if we personally differ on what we enjoy out of it. (Yes, even The Final Frontier…there, I said it ;))
That should be respected and sadly it isn’t a lot of times.
Ah see, there you go. You like TOS better than I.
Star Trek V The Final Frontier to me was a wasted opportunity that is painful to watch in my humble opinion. As painful as watching the 1701 go down but none of the entertainment value. I thought the movie era was all Harve Bennett but V proves Nick Meyer was essential. It’s almost like V was his revenge on Paramount for not doing Academy.
That movie era was special… look to Peter David’s DC comics at the time to see what could have been but wasn’t..
Yeah that’s very similar for me to. My initial exposure to TOS in the late 70’s happened at an age when I was far too young to appreciate on anything more than a superficial level but I guess I had fond memories of it because it encouraged me to try the movies in the 80’s and then a school friend had lent me a bootleg copy of TNG and the rest is history. I’d agree it was definitely my favourite time as a fan, particularly in the early to mid 90’s when you had DS9 coming out and overlapping with the end of TNG and the start of the Next Gen movies and Voyager. It was such an exciting time to be a fan and it coincided with when I went to University. I don’t know if was that the franchise appealed my views on how society should be or if Trek helped shape my views. Either way the idea of a society where everybody is treated equally always resonated with me and regardless of how realistic it may or may not be it’s the type of world I wish we all aspired to. I think that one of the reasons DS9 appealed to me so much was the whole thing with the Federation having to adapt to life out on the frontier away from what they knew. It paralleled a stage in my life where I was moving away from home to a big city to start university as a shy, wet behind the ears 18 year old kid who had no clue how to look after himself. Fortunately for me the corridor I was assigned to in Halls of Residence was populated by a diverse bunch that mostly liked Star Trek and I was one of the only one’s with a VHS player and a suitcase full of Trek video tapes! I used to enjoy many a night watching Trek whilst getting drunk and philosophising about time and space and the state of the world.
Yeah that used to get to me too. I never used to get how some fans seem to treat the individual shows like they’re sports teams. Supporting the one they like most to hilt and treating the others like their most hated rival. I think in psychological terms you’d call it an ingroup-outgroup bias. To a certain extent we can all do this, I might meet somebody in the real world and they’ll mention they like Star Trek and straight away that might positively reinforce my view of them because it links us. Some people of course can take this to extremes. Whether it’s their favourite football team or in this case Star Trek show they’ll obsess over all the little details and hold likeminded fans in high esteem whilst maintaining derogatory views of the other group even though in reality there’s very little difference between both sets of fans. You see it all the the time on here with people posting things like “it tells me everything I need to know about somebody if they think X passes as a good show“. For the most part I don’t let it bother me but I’ll admit that sometimes I’ll bite lol.
Yeah I remember you saying that you lived in LA. I hope that you and your family are staying safe and that when we come out the other side of all this we can all look forward to a brighter future.
Tiger… The Orville got moved over to Hulu. The modern equivalent of moving a show to Friday night. I do not see that move as evidence the show is overly popular. It has its audience, sure. But if were really doing well it would still be on FOX.
That’s what I meant ML31, that the audience it does have are very loyal and seems to truly love it. But yeah, it has clearly dropped a lot in the ratings too. I’m only saying in terms of how most people feel about it seem to be very passionate and loyal about it, like the way people who originally watched TOS back in the day. And there is way less divisiveness over that show like there is with Discovery and its viewers which seems to be something people either really love or really hate.
For the record, I like the Orville but don’t love it either. I thought season one was OK, not great but not bad. I thought season two, like Discovery, was a big improvement but still not amazing. For me, its a weird issue because in many ways I do think Orville feel more like classic Trek than Discovery does but I would still pick Discovery to watch because its still officially Star Trek. And Orville feels a bit more bland to me overall. But many on the internet feel that show is what Star Trek should be today and not what we got in DIS and PIC. I’m sure many here disagree with that though.
But overall it doesn’t really matter, all these shows can exist at the same time as there is a big enough audience to watch them. Pick and enjoy what you like. I find it JUST as bizarre people seem to have it out for that show and want it cancelled. Who the $%#& cares??? If you don’t like the show, here’s a solution, just don’t watch it or click on the links that discuss it instead of wishing for its endless demise. Problem solved.
Discovery isn’t in any danger of getting cancelled because Orville exists or vice versa so what difference does it make? I don’t get people who constantly want to take other shows away other people clearly enjoy and get something out of it because THEY don’t like it?? It’s another silly nerd pissing contest by people with WAY too much time on their hands.
What I am wondering is why we are not hearing anything from the new showrunner of this season Terry Matalas? I mean Akiva Goldsman seems to like being in the spotlight and we know Michael Chabon is leaving to do his own show, why isn’t anyone talking with Matalas?
I’ve been wondering the same alphantrion.
Perhaps, the intention was to have Kurtzman join Matalas in speaking about the show at some of the industry and fan panels, but these events have been cancelled.
He isn’t leaving the show. He is still on the writing staff. He is simply not showrunning it.
My impression is that Chabon isn’t really leaving — just stepping back from being showrunner. (I’m also under the impression that he was more the first-among-equals for season 1 — he wasn’t named showrunner until well into production, IIRC.) And if Chabon’s new shows are delayed by COVID-19, he probably has more time to spend on Picard. And, he was famous before Picard — it’s not like Matalas writes for the New Yorker. Could also just be that Matalas personally prefers to hang back a bit more.
As noted in the article this is one of the latest round of interviews related to the CBS Emmy campaign. They want to get Chabon, Goldsman, etc. nominated. Matalas was not involved. He will surely be part of the mix when CBS starts promoting S2, which may not start until 2021, but maybe NYCC 2020.
Perhaps it’s because the new show runner isn’t running things as much as Akiva is? That’s a terrible thought….
I thought Akiva was gonna be the showrunner for Strange New Worlds.
I had only heard that he was among the many producers. Not the actual showrunner. In fact, I am thinking none of these shows has anyone who is actually on top with final say to things. All of them feel like they have been written and plotted out by committee. Which I think is part of the problem with Secret Hideout Trek.
PS… IF Akiva is indeed the top dog at SNW… The I hope the other elements of the show are so good they can overcome that handicap.
We’re seeing some indications of who will be the preproduction leads for SNW in Toronto. The set designer has worked on The Expanse and American Gods.
Picking up on Tiger2’s comments on earlier threads, I’m just not so very excited. I want to be, but every time I see a new article or interview, I’m sighing inside and a bit loathe to read/listen.
The continuity and coherence of storylines seems to be more important to me than to the current leads.
I’m sincerely struggling with this. I was ok in the end with season 1, but the sum is less than the best of its parts.
Basically, it’s hard to get excited about how something will turn out next season, or build anticipation and suspense when profound revelations are forgotten along the way (e.g. X-borg as victims) or never witnessed relationships are made profound (Data as Picard’s ‘best friend’).
Once again, the stakes of serialization are high, and the new Trek offerings are still struggling to meet the necessary to make serialization work.
I hope Goldsman is right and the Covid interruption will allow Picard season 2 to be written before production starts. It’s my real hope for serialization that meets the minimum plotting requirements of a good novel (let alone a Chekov play).
I’m in the same boat, after the poor start to Disco and the failure to fix the problems and then a poor start to Picard I really see nothing improving much at all. It also is essentially a good sign that STNW will DOA due to the same people being involved and in the same rebooted universe.
I can’t go that far ewrt.
I’m cautiously excited about Strange New Worlds, and there has definitely been a lot that I did like in both Discovery and Picard so far. More, I utterly reject the characterization ‘rebooted universe.’
I am frustrated though that the franchise hasn’t been able to commit to making the drama and tension of serialization really work. It’s a problem that hasn’t been going away.
From where we sit as fans, it’s virtually impossible to know where the barriers are for Secret Hideout to commit to having the season’s writing locked down in draft before starting production. What we can see though is that it’s not working for these series good, and that it can’t be solved in the editing room or with vfx extravaganzas in a two-part season finale.
I think we now have, between two seasons of Discovery and one of Picard, enough of a sample size to reach some conclusions. It seems to me that there is now enough evidence that:
1) The current team (Kurtzman, Goldsman, etc.) is able to churn out Star Trek that makes money.
2) The current team (Kurtzman, Goldsman, etc.) is not able to create Star Trek that is inspiring, and true to the visionary themes of Star Trek that endure over time.
You need to revise No. 1. Their Star Trek is not making money. They have lost financiers as the series progressed. Netflix has wiped their hands of funding Discovery after S1 and Amazon has pretty much done the same with Picard. There are no merchandise tie ins ( where the big money is with Trek) due to all third parties not agreeing with the deviation away from previous Trek content (TOS, TNG, etc.). Discovery and Picard did not bridge the gap enough with fans and original Trek and the Kelvin trilogy merchandise underperformed horribly.
There is actually a good chance Strange New Worlds doesn’t happen (Like Trek IV with Pine and Hemsworth or Tarantino’s Trek )if they can’t get the money to back it from outside the studio….and no body thinks they will produce a Trek with a strong audience following
ACB you are making unsupportable inferences.
There is utterly no signal or information in any of Netflix’s decisions about new Trek series. Netflix typically makes a 3 season buy with exclusive rights : that is, once Netflix cancels a show it can’t be produced for another streamer.
This Netflix exclusivity clause has been the absolute end of several good series. CBS past CEO Moonves seemed happy with Netflix’s paying up front, but the exclusivity clause would make no long term sense for Trek given its profits are in its status as a long run franchise.
While I agree that merchandise has been a large source of revenue for other franchises, Trek has never had the same mainstream merchandise success. (Don’t cite Playmates, they were relatively small market and didn’t make it beyond the US.) So, you are criticizing something that no other Trek senior EPs have ever done well. CBS has at least hired branding specialists for Trek, and is working on the problem.
It has already been reported in numerous media outlets about Netflix and CBS’s relationship. Netflix paid more than 100 percent of the cost of STD in Season 1 in order to obtain the rights to distribute the series internationally, but only there do they have exclusivity. CBS obviously maintains it’s exclusivity on CBS ALL ACCESS. With STD costing nearly $8 million an episode and with no creative control of the series or it’s budget Netflix opted to do this with an option for re-evaluation of it’s deal with CBS based on performance and consumer response. STD underperformed on both counts and Netflix pulled back on it’s investment in Season 2 and is pushing back even harder on Season 3.
Amazon did close to the same deal for Picard, but with the lesson of STD Season 1, did not agree to finance the entire production. That has left CBS with seeking financial backing from other sources. But many of those are not willing to sign on to that because of the performance of Trek as a brand since the Kelvin films and producing a series that costs $8 millionan episode isn’t lucrative for CBS to pursue with the lackluster response to All Access.
On further note, Trek merchandise still pulls in $750 million a year in revenue from merchandising alone…with nearly 85-90% of that associated with merchandising on TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT. Statues, model kits, boxers, clothing, toys, Christmas ornaments, dog beds (you name it!) but everything still merchadised with those original series is still churning out money for CBS and Paramount. That is why JJ and Bad Robot signed a deal for a large chunk of merchandising rights for anything based on their Kelvin films….and why CBS refused to stop production on merchadise associated with the 5 original series when Bad Robot requested it.
That of course didn’t stop Bad Robot from profiting from it’s own licensing profuts from Kelvin merchandising….only problem was no one bought it and further more it lost money for them. Future investors saw this and that is why Picard had such a hard time in finding money to cover production costs and why STD and Picard barely have any merchandising tie ins to this day and why there is no mention of who is covering production costs for STSNW…because faith in the brand has faltered.
ACB, where on earth did you get that $750 million per year revenue figure for Trek tie-in merchandise?
I just can’t see it, even if one rolls in live-entertainment (cons and cruises), DVD sales or tie-in books.
Can you share the source please?
Looking back, I wish they had ditched the standard serialized ten-episode season and gone with three two-hour TV movies. Separating the Borg, Romulan, and android storylines would’ve given each a chance to breathe, I think, instead of feeling so awkwardly glued together.
This is a good approach AllenWrench. I think the serialized ten-episodes is convenient for the producers. Not sure anymore what is best. DS9 did a great job, the pace, the addition of other stories, characters, and from time to time having something totally different. These new shows are having us for months waiting for something epic and at the end is just the end of a one hour episode. They just admitted in this interview, they still are trying to figure it out, what to do and how to do the show.
I agree as well AllenWrench, that probably would’ve been a better idea. In fact I’m rewatching a lot of Enterprise season 4 now and what was so great about that season was they were basically doing just that! While they weren’t all completely connected, you saw a thread happening with several of the stories they covered. It started with the three part Augment story line, then you got the three part Vulcan/Syrannite story and then the two part part Klingon augment story line which connected to the first augment story. And then you got the Tellerite/Andorian three parter which connected to the earlier Vulcan story with the big reveal the Romulans were secretly trying to manipulate events with the various powers.
THAT’S how you do it! Each one got their own separate stories they could deal with directly but was over layed by a previous story. It wasn’t ‘serialized’ the way DS9 or even season 3 of Enterprise was but done in a unique way where they can take each story line on its own and not feel compelled to throw every other plot line happening in that season. All the arcs got satisfying endings but they all left the door open for more if there was another season.
And by the time you got to the final two parter of the season Terra Prime and Demons those told their own story BUT it incorporated a lot of the issues we saw that season but it didn’t hit you over the head with it. That’s what was smart about it, like so much of that season you can watch those two episodes as their own separate story but everything in it was telegraphed by the events happening all season that built up everything. It just wasn’t so serialized where you had to pack every little plot line to know what the hell was going on by the time you got there.
I really wish someone would pick up a phone and call someone from ENT or DS9 on how to do these stories better. People behind ENT and DS9 knew what they were doing even if you weren’t in love with the stories or shows themselves. With PIC and DIS every season just feel like a mess by the end and an unsatisfied mess at that.
You make some great points.
Part of that was the idea when Coto took over was that he was planning on leading the show into the Romulan war. So they started planting little seeds into season 4. I suspect it would have gotten stronger by season 5 and the entire 6th season may very well have been about that conflict.
Sigh. Such a missed opportunity….
Agreed, such a missed opportunity!
In fact I can’t believe *I’m* saying this out of all people but if I had to choose between an Enterprise season 5 or a Picard season 2, I would probably take the Enterprise season 5. Just hearing all the amazing things they had planned to do with it and of course showing us the Romulan war would be crazy! I would still love to see that. But oh well.
But to make this clear I would only take a season 5 of Enterprise if Manny Coto was running it. Sadly I don’t trust these new writers to do half a good of a job on that show that he would do.
Hurray we agree! Just keep in mind that ENT would have made more sense without recon if Season 5 was Season 1 off the bat.
Yes we do agree on this lol. If Enterprise started what they did in season 4 it probably would’ve been a huge hit out of the gate!
And I just rewatched the Vulcan three parter as I mentioned and I feel VERY embarrassed but I just realized the character T’Pau was the same one in Amok Time. Yes, I know, very sad on my part lol. I don’t know how I missed that in all this time but really love that connection and its so cool to see that character expanded beyond the bit part we originally saw her in that episode.
Again if they did things like that in first season it would’ve made huge difference in terms of perception at least.
So far of all the people who have made Trek who “claimed” to be fans Coto is the only one who I feel like said it and was 100% honest about it. From my perspective it showed in season 4. And it wasn’t just from having someone comb through past episodes and say “hey fans, look at what we just did? See?! This shows we are fans too!” The vibe I got from him was it was genuine. And he cared.
That actually might have worked better overall.
There have been some 36 or so episodes of Secret Hideout Trek. To be fair they have gotten marginally better. But overall there are still glaring problems that have not been addressed. This sort of thing seems to scream producing problems. They are the ones who hire the staff and approve of everything.
I’m super excited too TG47. Season 2 will blow your mind
Easy son, lets not get ahead of ourselves.
As you already pointed out TG47 many of us really want to be excited for next season but its really hard to get that excited for it knowing not only how badly season 1 ended IMO but because as you also said it just sounds like they are moving on from so many things they set up.
The thing about last season is they really set up some interesting story lines. That’s why so many of us were so excited after the first episode, it felt like they were setting up a really juicy mystery and a grand adventure. But then it took soooo long for it to start going anywhere and the second it did, it just ended with a ‘that’s it’???
Every week I still come up with something new I felt they completely missed the mark on. The latest one is thinking about Commodore Oh. It’s not just the fact she got away but there should’ve been a more cathartic moment and they could’ve had that scene where the Romulans were about to attack the synth planet in a much more satisfying way and wrapped up one of the loose ends a little better.
I was thinking about this a few days ago, but since we know it was Oh and the Zhat Vash who had Mars attacked (since only a few of them actually knew and planned it), it would’ve been GREAT that Picard had revealed to her fleet in that moment who were about to attack the synths and starfleet she helped manipulate the entire situation and duped them into it. After they realized it was Oh that actually caused the Mars attack the next thought would’ve naturally been she was the one to be blamed that crippled the evacuation plan to help the rest of them; due to her crazy obsession of trying to stop the synths.
That would’ve been a better ending and she would’ve had to pay the price with the Romulans and Picard would’ve came out the hero on both sides then. And then on top of that the Romulans would now feel like they were ultimately at fought for wiping out an entire planet of people who were only trying to help them. Two sides who were about to start another conflict with each other would be stopped once the truth came out and both sides try to start over.
Instead we got a rushed ending with the Romulans deciding to retreat after a threat from Riker and Oh just leaves with no real consequences or acknowledgement of what she did. Again MAYBE she will be back next season and if so, OK. But as said it sounds like they are just moving on and if so, its VERY disappointing that’s how the whole thing was was left off.
Sorry for the rant lol, but its things like this that really proves just how lackluster the first season ended. Again great ideas, just badly plotted and even worse in how so much of it was resolved. It’s amazing both season 2 of Discovery and Picard started off with a bang but then ended with a whimper, but for different reasons. They just don’t seem to know how to make a strong serialized story yet. Hopefully season 2 will go better but I can’t blame people for being doubtful either after three lackluster seasons so far.
As Locutus, Picard was half machine and half man, but as an android he is all machine. How is the latter less traumatic than the former? Because of the process involved in the transformation? Sure. But still, there should be a sense of discomfort and longing as he acclimates to his new skin and has to learn to let go of old habits and issues borne out of his previous organic form.
No more Narek? THANK YOU.
They really didn’t know what to do with him. He had the romance/spy thing going on with Soji, helped to stop the synths ftom destroying everyone, and then just dissapeared and we have no real conclusion to him at all. Also, he gave us the famous line ” who knew that romulans could be so hot?” So cringey
He’s not my favorite character, but I hope he comes back for an episode or two just so we know what happens to him.
I’m still campaigning for a Short Trek that resolves Narek’s story.
Since there is at least a scene that was cut from the finale that could be used as a starting point, there’s an opportunity to see Narek’s self-reflection.
Better yet, put Narek with Troi as a counselor-interrogator. She’s likely one of a very few Starfleet officers (retired) that would be given access to the complete file. More, she’s had her own under cover experience with the Tal Shiar.
I don’t miss him at all but his story is incomplete. It should be resolved soon. What happened to Narek….
Well Chabon answered it in a post but he said Narek was arrested by Starfleet, we just didn’t see it. But yeah, more proof how badly the ball was dropped if you can’t add one additional minute in an episode to wrap up a character we spent ten episodes being developed and then completely forgotten about at the end. Especially since they clearly knew he was not coming back so then you should make it VERY clear what happened to the guy. I imagine they will throw out a line saying he was thrown in jail or something next season though if he’s really done.
But I just don’t get what they were thinking with so many of these decisions?
Tiger2, I really sense the shape of something big in terms of a constraint that is keeping the work from making sense.
I sincerely don’t know what it is, and I don’t sense that it’s a Kurtzman or Secret Hideout problem. Too much of what we’ve seen and hear from Kurtzman has the mark of a keen mind and sharp strategist.
In fact, I fret that when we keep raising this coherence problem, and others pile on and trash Kurtzman.
I do wonder whether it’s CBSAA constraint, due to too much hanging on Trek being as a lead franchise for the platform. We know now how much incoherence in Voyager was due to suits at Paramount/UPN pushing timelines and meddling in the show. If that’s what is going on, the senior executives at CBS need to push back and let the creative process breathe.
I think you are connecting two separate entities…Kurtzman is a smart guy but his history of writing, producing and showrunning is very much in line with what you got with Picard and Discovery.
I think the problem is that there is just too many cooks in the kitchen. I mean we see this even in the opening credits, there is like 20 executive producer credits. I just don’t think there is a single, united vision in the shows. Every producer wants to put his/her ideas into the show and Kurtzman seems to accept this as to not hurt any feelings. I think the producers just need to come together and plot a single, main story-line that everyone agrees with and need to go from there. I mean create a good main story first and then the rest will fall into place.
The opening titles are based on the Writer’s Guild contract as well as the contracts with the other guilds. This provides no information about “too many cooks” alphantrion.
For a serialized show, Guild rules mean that pretty much everyone in the writers room gets a ‘producer credit’ of some rank.
There is also a supervising director who is supposed to keep the directing style consistent, and runs things at the studio. Add to that the showrunner(s), two representatives for the Roddenberry estate and two senior executives from Secret Hideout, and we have a long list.
There very well could be something to that. Even Chabon mentioned how his ideas would get “overruled”. There does seem to be some sort of committee in that writer’s room. Paring things down may yield better results.
TG, while that may be there are other productions that don’t have nearly that kind of credit list. So STP is still unique in that.
Yeah, but to be honest I think people make a big deal about him being overruled. I think that’s actually pretty common on most shows because while Chabon ran the show he doesn’t own it either.
Like everyone, he still has a boss too, in this case Kurtzman who oversees all of it and CBS that owns it. When you’re spending SO MUCH money on these shows and films, rarely is one person going to have complete control unless you’re Steven Spielberg or something.
Ira Steven Behr said many times he had to fight hard to get a lot of things on DS9. It sounds like most he won on most but still not everything. He talks about it himself all the time he wanted a different ending to DS9, but he was told no. Trekmovie just ran an article that stated Brannon Braga wanted to do an entire season of Year of Hell on Voyager when he was the show runner but Berman overruled him on that as well.
We know for early TNG Roddenberry basically ran the show although he was never actually officially the show runner. But NOTHING got approved on it unless he wanted it.
Being a show runner doesn’t mean you have complete authority of the show, it only means you are the one who is responsible to provide the direction for it and oversee both the creative and production process, but it doesn’t mean your ideas can’t be shot down. Everyone ultimately has a boss. And since this was Chabon’s first time running a show I imagine there were plenty of things he had to get approval of first. We just don’t know to what extent of it compared to past Star Trek show runners.
True but in cases like Braga wanting to do a year of hell and getting shot down… He was shot down by the show runner. Berman was still the one in charge. It is possible he was shot down because he knew that UPN would have never gone for it, sure. But in the end he was most in charge. That is still something I think Secret Hideout needs. I still think they need to streamline their production. Yes, you and different perspectives but after year hear all the thoughts someone needs to step in and say “this is the story map”. It feels like that gets lost somewhere in SH Trek.
Forced to disagree. I completely get the sense this is entirely a Kurtzman/Secret Hideout problem. The same issues are coming up in every production of theirs. From what I can tell SH has been given nearly free reign to make Trek for CBS. I do not get the sense that CBS is interfering with anything.
If you got evidence that CBS was completely hands off (which I think is the case) what would be your take on the problems with SH Trek?
If it’s a Secret Hideout problem, I would attribute the lack of commitment to authentically plotted serialization to one of 2 things:
1) a working approach of “shoot everything to keep peace in the writers room – or with Patrick – and then sort it in post”;
2) committing to starting production too early in the creative process – but this would be likely due to either due to scheduling targets or cash management issues.
Kurtzman has said in a Deadline podcast that he will allow something to be shot if someone is really committed to the idea, and then have the discussion later once people see what it looks like. He also has said that he has the final editing authority over all the series, which makes everyone else somewhat democratically equal but severely constrains the showrunners and supervising directors from making a serial coherent.
For example, Kurtzman mentioned a scene that Patrick wanted in the first episode wherein Picard had to intervene against prejudice of his human vineyard workers against Laris and Jhabon. It was shot, and then Patrick agreed that it didn’t fit.
This management approach may have been necessary after a toxic work environment in the Discovery writers room, and to keep Patrick Stewart’s engagement as an EP, but it doesn’t seem to have served the product.
I still think that they could resolve more without shooting so much and leaving loose threads hanging, if they got all the season’s scripts drafted before hand. I suspect part of the reason for the various writers and EPs arguing to hold on to various plot threads and elements is that they haven’t all landed on where the season is supposed to end up. Getting it all written in advance would allow the creative conflict to be resolved in preproduction rather by Kurtzman’s gentle fiat in post.
I do note that if this is the issue things bode better for an episodic format for Strange New Worlds.
Interesting. Thanks.
I get that often scenes get dropped for pacing or because they weren’t important to the story, but this was a character who was pretty prominent throughout the arc. Wrapping him up should have been deemed important. If the scene caused pacing issues then reshoot it or edit it in such a way that is not the case. This is a streaming show. They didn’t have clock issues to deal with. If it meant adding a few more minutes then so the hell what? This sort of thing just piles on to the problems of Secret Hideout Trek.
ML31 my strong feeling is that the last two episodes were edited with an eye to having them stand alone for consideration for Emmys and that making sense of the season as a whole was a secondary consideration.
I’ve mentioned on an earlier thread that my spouse and I watched them in late May. With a long hiatus from seeing episodes 6, 7 & 8, the two part season finale is just fine. In fact, it has a fun, classic Trek vibe. The two-part finale just doesn’t work when one is anticipating that all the “Chekov’s guns” set up earlier in the season will actually be shot.
Whether it was a commitment to Patrick, Avika or CBS to make a huge push for Emmys this season, it seems pretty transparent the two-part finale standing on its own in a “For your consideration” disc was a red-line.
Chabon has discussed how a decision was taken to resolve many/most of the plot threads in episode 8 to leave the finale to focus on what Goldsman calls “The Object.”. So, it sounds as though he had his showrunner’s eye on finding a compromise that resolved the subplots while enabling the finale to be siloed. It wasn’t enough.
Bottom line: the actual serialized product was tactically sacrificed for a higher level franchise and CBSAA brand strategy of getting some Emmy nods, and credibility from having established actors and writers on Picard.
Not a good trade-off in my view, but I do have to wonder about who set up that priority that became a constraint on the quality of the show.
I agree with this, in fact for all intents and purposes the two-part finale would have worked much better as a single 2 hour episode and perhaps this way they would have had to cut out less stuff.
IF that is so then that just drags Secret Hideout even further under in my view. You shouldn’t be making this stuff with the goal of getting Emmy’s in mind. If you get one, great. But those things are often political and out of your control. What you SHOULD do is make the best show you possibly can. If you are happy with it, then that is great. You cannot worry about how others feel about it. You made the best Trek show you could and you were fine with it. Everything else is not in your control.
And I might add that even on it’s own I don’t see that final episode as being all that good. They made a major mistake in how they presented it. What appeared in the final product was NOT what they claimed it was meant to represent. While I think what we got worked to some extent it must be considered a fail in that it was not what they wanted it to be.
I can’t disagree with that analysis ML31.
One just doesn’t know where that Emmy pressure is coming from though. It doesn’t seem like a fit with Kurtzman’s temperament. So is it CBS/CBSAA? Or is it Patrick or Avika?
I’m sorry but the series Picard was unbearable, painful to watch. A huge delusion. Very bad writing. I barely managed to force myself to finish the first season (wasn’t worth it, I shouldn’t have). Needless to say I won’t be wasting more time on second a season.
Picard does have its flaws but job well down. Taking risks is a good thing. Nothing wrong with that.
Picard was an unmitigated disaster, plain and simple.
I thought Picard was excellent — but what do I know? I’ve only been a Star Trek fan since 1966.
That’s your opinion. There’s lots of folks who enjoy it and think it’s great. No need to minimize their interaction with it.
Agreed Michael. True a lot of us was disappointed but not everyone. There were people who truly did enjoy it. I just don’t know if they make up the majority or not.
And I think a big part of the disappointment also had to do with the huge hype going in that was the other problem. And why I think SNW may face the same issue if it doesn’t equal huge expectations out of the gate.
Tiger2, I think it’s important to stress that for many of us disappointed doesn’t mean we think it’s awful or hopeless.
It can be hard to be nuanced on a board, but I find the thoughtful and nuanced discussions the most interesting and most likely to challenge my perspectives.
I come here to say my piece, but don’t want to become part of a piling on of negativity.
I’ll rewatch Picard and have already done so. I’ll recommend family members give it a try even while cautioning that it’s as uneven as any first season of Trek, and with the serialization this is more problematic.
In fact the disappointment comes from keenly feeling the unfulfilled potential that showed up pretty much throughout the season. It wasn’t just the hype, but that the trailers and the premiere episode seemed so crafted and rich.
From the opening 3 episodes, there was so much that was fantastic (Laris and Jhabon) but it was often immediately contrasted by that which was cringy (Romulan sibs interactions).
The more I think about it, saying that the season never lived up to the promise of its best parts, is probably the fairest assessment I can give.
Also note that I *liked* Picard (!!) Yes, me, the ultimate disliker of TNG. I just liked it for different reasons (sets up the Borg to be the ultimate bad guy again, sets up Picard as a tragedy, the utopia as a distopia, etc).
My guess is that reactions to Picard is still pretty mixed. Although I think more are OK with Picard that were OK with Discovery… Just my impressions. Nothing scientific.
I think your right ML31.
Parrot Analytics’s stats show that it’s still doing reasonably well even though the season ended two months ago. The fall off isn’t as severe as the vocally disappointed might suggest. That indicates that it’s getting rewatched in its principal markets and that new CBSAA subscribers are watching it.
More importantly for ViacomCBS, it boosted Discovery while it was running and attracted new viewers in Latin America that hadn’t watched Discovery. Surprisingly it’s continuing to increase demand globally (e.g. in India).
Patrick Stewart is ready to take “more risks”? Now isn’t that “delicious” (Kadin)! ;)
I for one hope season 2 will explore the curious disconnect between Patrick Stewart’s real life (in)actions and the words he put into Picard’s mouth on the show, including his political behind the scenes promotions: retreating to home in fear for months with borders closing down and lockdown orders while promoting “openness! optimism!” on the show. Isn’t “fear an incompetent teacher”? Isn’t holing up at home and cancelling work a “failure of imagination”? Isn’t a golem ready to provide deus-ex-machina solutions when things should not work out quite as neatly?
So, I guess things look decidedly different and less pie-in-the-sky when your own skin is in the game (unlike Brexit), and the real world is not quite as simple and black-and-white (or is that “black-vs-white” now? ;) as his ilk makes it out to be! After all, it’s easy to be a saint in paradise?
The guy’s 80. It really isn’t safe for him to go out until we’re through this pandemic.
Literally it’s not safe for anyone to go out until we survive this pandemic.
Honestly Strange New Worlds is the only Star Trek show I’m looking forward to. That really got me excited about Star Trek again. Lower Decks worries me but it’s refreshing.
Picard has lost its magic but I want to see season 2 be a success. Patrick Stewart is a talented actor and he should take risks on the show. Push himself to do better.
Brexit and Trump… Let’s not go there! You guys already know my political views. European Union supporter and other stuff. George Floyd and coronavirus. The world is not rainbows and unicorns.
The Borg are one of the most interesting elements of the season. Picard experienced his trauma from being assimilated and as Locutus the Borg. He goes on the Borg cube and it was his worst nightmare.
The xBs are also fascinating. The Borg are not this monolithic entity. They are an organism made up of beings manipulated by a hive mind. The Borg queen.
I never cared about Narek but his story should end in a reasonable manner. He doesn’t deserve any redemption.
The Borg. Tell me why the Borg cube joined the synth planet, only to crush and do nothing? And spend the last episode in repairs. Why? That’s bad writing. One of many examples. It was very badly written.
Exactly. The Borg storyline ended up not serving any purpose. I really just feel like it was there because they wanted to show us updated Borg makeup. Wasn’t there an article about them wanting to the Borg on Discovery? Well, here was their chance to shoehorn them in. Even though their presence wasn’t needed in any way shape or form.
The show needed some sort of story editor to streamline things. That person would have seen the mapped out season and told them to lose the Borg as it was incongruous with the main story line and would produce story threads that would never get resolved.
Show is much more watchable when you consider that the Borg are the real masterminds. They were actually guiding Picard into obtaining golumn technology that they can make organics / assimilation obsolete. In some sick twisted way they might have actually had Picard subconsciously thinking that he would be saving others from assimilation by giving the Borg what they want.
Yeah the Borg story line went NOWHERE! It’s so bizarre. I don’t understand how you set this story line up to such a degree that they are in 8 episodes of the show but then have no real reason for them to actually be there? It’s so frustrating to see all the build up they were given with the Romulans and yet no one can figure out why the Romulans were even there? So many of us were waiting for a big shoe to drop because we all know the Romulans MUST be up to something with them.
Here is an idea from a non-writer, if you are going to make your entire story line about the fear of A.I., then why not have the Romulans secretly using Borg technology to combat against it in some way? Give them a reason to be there and connect to your bigger story instead of just this arbitrary side plot that goes nowhere.
I personally think that it should end up that the Borg, returning to being super masterminds/ultimate bad guys, actually guided the whole arc. They kept some comms with Picard and used him as a sleeper agent to unknowingly use the Federation to develop AI intelligence that can replace the need for organics.
This is why Picard kept dreaming about Data, those dreams were the indirect manipulation. This is why Data commits suicide. Picard dropped his friends because he has Stockholm syndrome. He uses emotional synths and ignored the ethical implications on Mars because he was being manipulated.
Have android Picard recognize this, feel extreme guilt, and try to rectify the situation.
BOOM the Borg are again a masterful evil power to be reckoned with and the 24th century is made exciting. The Picard story becomes one of redemption.
So, Picard’s a synthetic now. Are they going to even address that in Season 2? That has profound science-fiction implications that would be fascinating to explore. But, will they?
Nah. It was a last minute idea bad writing. The writing made an elephant in a glass shop out of Star Trek.
I agree. Picard now can be engineered to life forever, breathe in space, be a hologram, etc. Is he going to share this monumental technology? How will it reform the Federation? Are we all going to be allowed to be perfect like Picard and Data? Are they going to address that? Will all members of the Federation get equal access like Picard? Will the Klingons? Romulans? Will we share?
Turns out TMP was wrong. V’ger did not need a human quality, it could have engineered itself to be human. HUGE RAMIFICATIONS.
Or is there an underlying darker side that Data wanted to commit suicide? Are organics going to end up the alien trash of the galaxy, obsolete and seen as technological luddites? Is the Federation setting itself up to be a factory for the Borg? Is this the fall of the Federation setting up Discovery?
OR WILL THIS ALL BE IGNORED BECAUSE THE WRITERS AND PTB DON’T THINK ANYTHING THROUGH NOR DEMONSTRATE ANY CRITICAL THOUGHT TO THE POINT THIS SHOW WILL BE TOTALLY IGNORED BY DISCOVERY? DID THEY STOP AT $$$ BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL PAY TO WATCH RIKER EATING PIZZA?
I think we all know the answer to this one.
How can they make Star Trek Picard riskier than in Season 1 considering they made a show which wasn’t Star Trek and whose titular character wasn’t Jean-Luc Picard???
[insert sound of applause here]
I’d like to see this show take the risk of actually being like a Star Trek series, instead of being like the pathetic mess that first season was. That’s a risk I can get behind. Otherwise, you’re welcome to keep it.
Amen!
He’s an android now isn’t he? If he’s still troubled by being a Borg then just whip his emotion chip out and save the world from another series of this drivel.
Exactly. Just program those issues out of his mechanical brain. Problem solved. It seems like they did it already when they erased his aversion to being a machine…
Too true!
He’s an android now isn’t he? If he’s still troubled by being a Borg then just whip his emotion chip out and save the world from another series of this drivel.
I can think of some real risks they can take.
Oh, no that kind. I see.
So they sold us the Picard ressurection into an android golem and now they want to revisit the nightmare from his previous body ? … What kind of drugs do they take in the writer room. I’m usually easily seduced by new series and films. But since Discovery this is just NOT possible … :(
Picard was so crazy good. I just wrapped the first season again… the acting is top notch. As was the writing and fx. But in particular I loved how by the end I adored the new characters and can’t wait for more. They did such a good job mixing so many elements together connecting the Romulans, data’s story, nemesis and saving Picard from a sad wasted end to his life. He’s flawed and knows it and that’s what makes him so special. I know most trek fans loved it so It’s nice to see.
And disocvery 3 can’t come soon enough. Season 2 was amazing. And now a spinoff…
I hope Frakes directs a bunch more. I want at least 3 for season 2. He’s gonna be a busy man between all three shows.
It’s time to bring back Lore and put him on trial. After the passing of Data and the business with Maddox’s and Altan’s synthetics, Lore has been denied a chance to make his defense–and justice has been denied his victims.