Bandoman

No, I think at least one will die for emotional impact. I wouldn't be surprised if it's Picard. I don't think Patrick Stewart is going to be doing many more movies/series.

dhmac

The Bad:
- the Raffi scenes. All seemed like cut scenes from Seasons 1 and 2 (aka the 'unmitigated disaster' seasons of epicly bad writing). I wish her character had been kicked off the show like the rest of the new characters from Seasons 1 and 2. Hopefully, her scenes improve as the season goes on.
- the overly cryptic way Dr. Crusher contacted Jean-Luc. Sending an encrypted message to his old com badge that needed an decades-old password (if my life depended on me remembering my old Windows 95 password, I'd be dead). And then it required knowledge of an obscure Borg code that added 3's to the coordinates (luck Riker was there instead of off-world with Troi). It's a ridiculous series of coincidences that they were even able to both get and decode her message at all. It seemed less like a life or death situation than Crusher testing Picard to see if he could decode an extremely tough puzzle for fun.

The Good:
- Picard and Riker together. Great chemistry like they had on the old TNG series. Truly felt like Star Trek, through and through.
- The use of music from the old Star Trek movies and shows. That really, really felt like Star Trek.

And also good, I''m intrigued to see the rest of the season and not dreading where it's going, like previous seasons. I can't wait to see the rest of the old cast again, especially Worf.

movieguru

The one thing that bugs me is how when they talk about how far out in space they are. In the extended trailer, you can hear the Titan captain saying, "It's just us and the boogeyman at the edge of space. No cavalry in sight". They had just left Earth and were travelling in the opposite direction the entire day and Seven of Nine managed to get them there in no more than a few hours when the captain was taking a nap. If they needed help, they could, Starfleet would have been able to get a ship there in less time than it took Seven since she started out from a distance much farther away.

dhmac

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Definitely in the "Bad" category on how ridiculously fast they got to the edge of Federation space. It reminded me of the Discovery Season 2 plot where a bunch of lights appeared simultaneously in different parts of the galaxy, clearly written by scientifically clueless writers who have no idea about lightyears or how massively huge the galaxy is.

Josh-da-man

The ships in Star Trek travel as fast the plot needs them to. It will take Voyager seventy years to return to Federation space, but one hundred years earlier the Enterprise-A was able to travel roughly the same distance in the course of a single movie.

And, yeah, that plot point with the Red Angels in Discovery season two was pretty bad. There's all kinds of dodgy science stuff in Star Trek that we just have to overlook. Spock watching Vulcan explode in Star Trek '09, the Genesis device from Wrath of Khan, and a bunch of other stuff over the years. They can handwave a lot of stuff away with technobabble and fake technology like subspace communications, but when you have something happen like a star exploding, it's going to take decades for it be seen from other planets. Or the energy ribbon from Generations would have to have been traveling at thousands of times the speed of light.

dhmac

nuTrek though has the worst scientifically believeable stuff. Old Trek it took like a century to cross the galaxy at maximum warp and all the shows stayed consistent with that throughout. But in nuTrek it takes like a couple of hours tops to cover the same distance. I wish they would stop hiring nincompoops who don't know the difference between science and magic to write nuTrek.

dhmac

Red Letter Media had a review of Picard S3 episode 1



It's always great fun to watch Mike and Rich talk about Star Trek but it'll probably be 2 or 3 weeks before the next one.

bunkaroo

I didn’t think they were going to do this season. But since they are I’m in too just to enjoy them taking it apart.

movieguru

If this new character is Jean-Luc's son, the easiest way to make it fit would be for Beverly to have a son during the time she was absent during season 2. They say in the last season that while they had an attraction for one another, they never acted upon it. But there was the second episode of the first season "The Naked Now" where they were all under the influence of the virus where it could have happened. It would depend on how much time passed between that episode and the last episode of season one for no one to notice that Beverly was pregnant before she left the ship.

Deftones

Worf is a damn ninja. That was badass.

So they went there. Wonder how they explain it.

Josh-da-man

This series is going to end up having more decapitations than Game of Thrones.

I nailed the identity of Raffi's handler.

Also wondering how Jack is going to fit in. He'd probably have to have been born post-Nemesis unless they're going to retcon away that seventh season episode "Attached" where it was shown that JL and Bev never bumped the uglies, and if she did somehow have his son during her season two absence, he would have found out when their minds were connected.

DeFan

So they don't have instant DNA tests in the future?

alfredog1976

Such a great episode

I did not recognize Honey Bunny as Vadic

philo

There's some delicious continuity with Amanda Plummer relishing her villainy just as her dad did in Undiscovered Country with the Shakespeare quoting General Chang.
.
Even though I could see the reveal a mile away I still enjoyed that moment at the end. I also am curious as to when they hooked up.

I wonder if the a-hole Captain will redeem himself by the end or die in doing so.

It seems to be a trope to have the brash badboy son of an accomplished respected figure. Reminds me of Tom Paris.

Great to see Worf and hear the Klingon theme. And did I hear the "Blaster beam" from The Motion Picture used a few times already? Such a cool instrument.

Giantrobo

Ep 2

The Meh:
Not liking the Bev/Jean Luc Baby Daddy shit AT ALL. I'm hoping he's a clone or it's some other thing.
-I'm not seein' why folks love the Titan so much. It's nice, but nothing spectacular. Maybe someone can tell me what the appeal is other than it's made it's bones in the books.

The Fuck Yeah!:
-Worf
-Raffi
-Seven...NOT fuckin' "Anika"
-Also Worf...I've been saying ...I want a Seven, Raffi, and Worf spin off. I was getting a "vibe" about them and now I want it even more since Worf has been revealed to be Raffi's Handler.
-Amanda Plummer/New Villain

The Ok, I'll keep an Open Mind:
-Shaw is a prick, but I've been listening to lots of Trek Podcasts give their take on him and I'm now seeing where the actor is giving us a great portrayal of the "By the book" kinda leader. So I've softened on him a bit and will give him a chance.
-Season 3 of Picard in general since it's leaning heavily into Nostalgia and Easter Eggs to pacify the S1 and S2 Haters. I hope the story doesn't suffer for it.

Shannon Nutt

Did we NOT see that Jack Crusher was going to be Picard's son from the moment he was introduced? I mean in the first scene with Picard on Earth he said, "I don't want a legacy"...well, as soon as I saw Jack, I thought "Yeah, there's your legacy, Jean-Luc."

Josh-da-man

Shaw is sort of a odd character, in that he is not in the wrong, but they presented him as such a passive-aggressive dick in the previous episode, like the writers really wanted to make him unlikable and hammer it into the audience.

He's just presented in such an over-the-top way... "Anneke Hansen," starting his dinner early, being dismissive about Picard's bottle of wine, Riker's jazz, putting them up in bunk beds. I think it would have been enough to just be a strict, humorless by-the-book kind of Captain. I can't imagine how insufferable it would be serve under him.

Flip the script, and neither Picard nor Riker would have appreciated some retired Admiral coming aboard their ship and demanding they violate orders for some kind of mysterious personal mission. And that would seem to be enough to set up the conflict, without all of the petty little power game he played.

lisadoris

Yeah there was no doubt that this was Picard's kid. I can't wait to the writers to explain what the hell happened in Crusher's life that she would have not told Picard about this kid, cut herself off from her entire support system, and raised a second child as a single parent (Wesley talked about the effect that had on him and it became clear pretty quick that this dude has daddy issues too).

Mike86

I’m hearing good things but I’ve still restrained myself from watching. I just don’t trust this show to not take a dump at some point and piss me off yet again.

DJariya

I loved Vadic. About time we got an evil space villain and her evil laugh. I didn’t realize that was Christopher Plummer’s daughter. Nice that they kept it in the family from a past Star Trek cast member.

Worf coming in slicing and dicing was pretty badass.

It wasn’t too hard to figure out that Jack would be Picard’s son. Even Riker could see it.

again I like the score and music. The Klingon music was also a nice touch. It feels Star Trek.

Josh-da-man

Paramount has, again, posted the first episode to Youtube for those who might not have Paramount+. Should be up until Wednesday or Thursday.


Is it just me, or do the colors on the YT version look dull and washed out? Particularly in the "Star Trek" flourish that precedes the episode; the rainbow trailing the ship looks really off. The rest of the episode looks dull, too, but it's harder to tell because it looks like they had the guy from Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon doing post-production.

DJariya

No it’s not just you. Terry Matalas addressed it yesterday

bunkaroo

I guess I’ll be the lone dissenter here on Plummer’s villain - I find the character grating and annoying. Getting shades of Insurrection (another terrible villain played by a fantastic actor).

TGM

yeah, Plummer's villain is too comically over the top, only thing missing is for her to twist her handlebar mustache as she cackles. Plummer is a terrible actress, always has been, so she can't pull it off.

thankfully i don't really care, I just love seeing these characters back together again and the story thus far is compelling enough. Why they didn't give us 3 seasons of this crew is beyond me.

Mike86

Patrick Stewart basically set out to not make it a TNG reunion show. In some ways on paper that didn’t sound bad but there were a lot of bad ideas in the first two seasons.

The show has basically been his novelty project for the first two seasons and he got to do it under the guise of using the Picard character and Star Trek brand. I love his portrayal of Picard in TNG but I’ve lost a bit of respect for him as a creative force behind this show.

Someone must have gotten in his ear and convinced him that there’s a lot of fans who really don’t like what you’re doing and just want some TNG goodness. I haven’t seen it yet to gather my feelings but it at least sounds better than the previous two seasons.