Star Trek: Picard & Discovery

Now who's being political? I'm not commenting on the validity of any claims or positions, just making observations. There are people who identify as transsexual who have stated that they identify with the Trill. The first episode to feature the Trill was in TNG where Dr. Crusher falls in love with a Trill man. He dies in an accident and his symbiont is transferred to a Trill woman who wants to continue the relationship with Crusher but Crusher has lost the attraction.

But I think you proved my point about not being able to get into a story that offends one's fundamental beliefs :)

Trek is so full of political allegory that you can't discuss the plot without touching on hot-button issues, but that doesn't mean you need to take sides on those issues. Beyond the original war-is-bad all-men-are-equal philosophical origins of the series, there are specific episodes that could potentially be very divisive.

There's an episode of DS9 where they have to go back in time and restore the timeline to ensure that the United States passes a universal jobs guarantee, which is a pivotal step in in the development of the utopia that exists by the time of Kirk.

There's an episode of Voyager that has a brutal critique of for-profit medical care and a ringing endorsement of universal healthcare.

Back to the original question - does having a political agenda in story-writing or casting make for bad TV? Clearly, the answer is not necessarily. You can have good or bad writing or acting either way.

Or you could look at it from another angle. Star Trek: Enterprise has a cast full of straight, white men. It was one of the weakest Trek series because Scott Bakula didn't have the acting chops of the other captains, and his character lacked dimension, at least initially. The chief engineer and armory officer were even less interesting. Clearly, no political choices or "diversity casting" doomed the series there.
 
ahalpert said:
But I think you proved my point about not being able to get into a story that offends one's fundamental beliefs :)
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Perhaps but of those gender terms, I didn't know them from the show. I learned of them from what you said and had to look some of them up. So it's not so much a case of fundamental beliefs having been offended by the show. I like you too much Abe and appreciate that you speak openly. That said, I think that biology is what takes offense. The ramification for assigning or choosing gender sex is the antithisis of the coin flip that is defined biologically by the Y chromosome. The ramification is the problem of fairness. A transgender woman has a biological advantage from a male skeletal type in sports. A transgender woman that applies for and is rewarded with a job that has been reserved for women, for equality, avoidance of discrimination is a problem of fairness. It's not bigotry but is often framed that way. The show could normalize that in its story line, or not. I can't say but the mere knowledge that it could be a theme sends the message it's about preaching moments, and that's not enjoyable for me.
 
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The first episode to feature the Trill was in TNG where Dr. Crusher falls in love with a Trill man. He dies in an accident and his symbiont is transferred to a Trill woman who wants to continue the relationship with Crusher but Crusher has lost the attraction.
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That is an excellent story. She had a "crush" on the trill man but the trill woman's reciprocal love is unrequited.
 
One of my favorite episodes. All you need to know about the original. Just brilliant. Remember, color tv was still new. The colors, the use of shadows and light on that show unlike any other. RIP Nichelle.
 
NorBro said:
Is that the one with Lord Vader?
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No, it's the one with Ricardo Montalban piloting a spacecraft that has rich corinthian leather. Later in the second act, he greets travelers on his own planet and makes all their fantasies come true.
 
if critically thinking & considering, that likely applies to everyone and everything at almost all times in a life cycle
 
Anyone else catch the latest episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, "A Mathematically Perfect Redemption" ? I thought it was legitimately funny and not just a glorified Easter egg hunt like their usual episodes. Gave me some belly laughs

Also, saw this for the first time recently. Captain picard singing for gene roddenberry's birthday
 
Late to this but yeah, season 2 of Picard was a let down. Still watched the whole thing, but I did not have anywhere as much fun. I "accidentally" gave up on Discovery too, again, found myself reaching for my phone while watching episodes too often because I was not engaged. Maybe my fault and not theirs?
 
aram said:
Late to this but yeah, season 2 of Picard was a let down. Still watched the whole thing, but I did not have anywhere as much fun. I "accidentally" gave up on Discovery too, again, found myself reaching for my phone while watching episodes too often because I was not engaged. Maybe my fault and not theirs?
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Yeah I'm not a huge Discovery fan. It's become a bit of a soap opera. There are good scenes and I think the plots are decent (except season 2). I actually just rewatched Discovery Season 1 and it confirmed what I remembered: the first handful of episodes were really, really good. Like, the best Trek since First Contact. Everything you could dream of from a golden age of TV Trek series. And then they changed showrunners and it lost its edge and started becoming what it is now.

Season 2 of Picard was kind of torture. Maybe in part because of Patrick Stewart's influence?

Alex Kurtzman is no stranger to making accommodations for a legacy Star Trek star, having made Patrick Stewart an executive producer on Star Trek: Picard and given him input on its development.
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https://trekmovie.com/2022/10/28/ka...kurtzman-for-a-return-as-live-action-janeway/

You would expect old Picard to be a bit more cantankerous. But he's so, so sweet. (More like Stewart himself.) And the plots are too messy, too forcefully exciting. The best Trek is usually simpler and more character-driven.

that's why I had a mixed reaction to this quote from Mulgrew about returning to play Janeway live-action. I love Voyager and i thought Janeway was a fantastic character. I'm not sure it makes sense to bring her back as an older actress because there are inevitably limitations around shooting with them because you're more concerned with trying to make them look good than trying to get a good shot.

I said this to Kurtzman. The writing is going to have to be absolutely exquisite and as tight—I mean so tight. I want that language to just burst! And I want the story to be so tenuous and taut. I said, “No languishing.” I don’t want peaks and valleys. I want a Janeway that everybody can say, “That’s what she’s become. I’m with her! This is great!” Right? And I think some sort of extraordinary adventure. Even greater than Voyager. Even greater than the Delta Quadrant.
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I liked what she said about keeping the writing tight and got worried by what she said about making the plot grandiose. I thought the finale to voyager tried to be grandiose and underserved the characters. I don't have a burning desire to watch it again since I already know what happens. The most rewatchable episodes and movies are more character-driven and less about finding out what happens next.
 
Is anybody else watching season 3 of Picard? I'll be watching it for sure, if only to incentivize the network to make more Trek. So far it's way better than season 2, but season 2 was some of the worst television I've ever seen.

Thought I'd share some lines from this review that made me laugh:

Star Trek: Picard has been the TNG continuation you'd get if you wished for a TNG sequel on a monkey's paw. The first two seasons made only intermittent use of any non-Picard characters, and the new characters were either annoying or bland or both. The show's creative staff uses "convoluted twists" as a stand-in for clear and interesting storytelling. It's a show strictly for die-hard Trek completists, and it's easily the worst of the five Trek shows in active production as of this writing...

From what we've seen so far, Picard season 3 is the best season of Picard. That says more about the low bar set by the first two seasons than it does about anything else, but if you are in a "I would stop watching this, except it's the last season and also they're doing the TNG reunion thing finally, so I might as well stick it out" place, there's probably enough here to keep you interested.

Here's what's good: The show takes place primarily on starships that are in space, as characters trek among the stars. All the old TNG cast members seem to be having a blast (whatever it was that Jonathan Frakes had back in the '80s and '90s, he only has more of it now; I would watch the hell out of Star Trek: Riker, especially if Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine was his first officer). Pretty much everything looks great, including the new "Neo-Constitution class" USS Titan. And yes, I regret to inform you that a lot of the fan-service nostalgia bait did work on me, including the musical nods to James Horner's Wrath of Khan score. Captain Shaw and a couple of other new characters actually work surprisingly well...

The show's biggest problem, its (pi)cardinal sin, is its Picardocentrism: groups of impressionable Academy students gather 'round a restaurant booth to hear Picard speak (after he gently, unconvincingly insists that he doesn't want the attention). Picard is being chased by the bad guys and the putative good guys. Picard is always right, all the time, about everything, even when it briefly appears that he may have been wrong. Picard somehow manages to serve as both protagonist and MacGuffin. The show desperately needs more scenes where any two non-Picard characters have a conversation that isn't about Picard.
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https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...n-into-star-trek-picards-uneven-final-season/
 
I like what I've seen of Brave New Worlds the most of the new series. Discovery was really uninteresting to me. I watched and liked the first episode of Picard and have been wanting to get to more of it (wife co-watch pact); but there is way too much television to keep up with. What I am enjoying the most is watching the old Next Generation. I am a casual Star Trek fan & picking out a random episode of that (a series I only occasionally watched growing up) in particular has been really fun.
 
hojomo said:
I like what I've seen of Brave New Worlds the most of the new series. Discovery was really uninteresting to me. I watched and liked the first episode of Picard and have been wanting to get to more of it (wife co-watch pact); but there is way too much television to keep up with. What I am enjoying the most is watching the old Next Generation. I am a casual Star Trek fan & picking out a random episode of that (a series I only occasionally watched growing up) in particular has been really fun.
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I recommend watching Picard Season 3. I think it's very enjoyable. I thought season 1 was alright and season 2 was awful. But luckily, each season is independent of the others, so there's no need to watch the first 2 seasons to enjoy season 3
 
The finale of Picard Season 3 drops on 4/20 on Paramount+. There's still time to get in on the ground floor if you haven't been watching along! Season 3 is excellent and the Trek community is over the moon about it. For mid-March, it landed 9th on Nielsen's top 10 streaming chart for original programming: https://trekmovie.com/2023/04/14/pi...eries-to-break-into-streaming-top-10-ranking/

It's probably going to land higher on the next chart. Each episode has led to a boost in the rotten tomatoes audience score, which is currently at 90%:

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Season 1, which I thought was just okayish, scored a 52%:

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And Season 2, which I thought was abysmal, scored a 29%:

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Luckily, each season is narratively independent and you can watch the new season without watching the first 2.
 
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