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nonbinaryhatboxghost · 1 year

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Thoughts on the State of Trek

I would be less upset about Discovery ending if they had known going into season 5 that it would be their last. But that was not the case. The additional filming to give it an actual finale is good and I have no doubt that it will be as good a finale as they can do under the circumstances.

But recently I’ve been more observant of Trek fans online and there is a thing happening where I’ve seen far more immediate praise of Strange New Worlds and the current/final season of Picard than any other new Trek show has gotten.

Strange New Worlds is a good show! It is also specifically emulating the original series and has a straight white male captain as the lead. (yes, Pike rocks, that is not the point here)

The current/final season of Picard (which I do think is good!) has radically altered the tone of the show into a revival/sendoff for The Next Generation, as well as emulating and referencing Star Trek media of the ‘80s and ‘90s. And again, straight white male lead.

Both shows, particularly this season of Picard, have been pretty immediately praised by certain types of Trek viewers. Specifically longtime straight white male fans.

I’ve also noticed less diversity behind the camera of Strange New Worlds and Picard compared to Discovery. At least if one watches all the behind-the-scenes stuff for those shows (which I’ve been doing a lot lately). There’s not zero diversity, but Picard especially has been putting more emphasis on bringing back legacy crew members who are majorly, you guessed it, straight white males.

Contrasting that with how Discovery was met with skepticism from the get-go and is openly dismissed by certain older fans (one I talked to at work said something like “I guess I don’t get it because I’m not a millennial.”) makes me a bit angry because a lot of these same longtime fans watched and stuck through the first two seasons of The Next Generation. Those two seasons are some of the roughest television I’ve ever seen, and the handful of good episodes hidden throughout do not make up for it. But fans at the time stuck through those seasons anyway.

Why didn’t Discovery get the same treatment from those vocal longtime folks?

Why did The Next Generation, which is a very different type of show compared to the original series, ultimately become a beloved show? I’d like to believe it’s because people accepted the show for what it was once it found its footing.

But when I see comments like “Picard season 3 is the best Trek in 25 years”, I get mad. You gave Picard, a show that has two seasons with a mixed reception at best, a continued benefit of the doubt because of nostalgia for an older show, and because this season is essentially a Next Generation reunion. But you dismissed Discovery because it wasn’t “your” Star Trek show.

Literally part of the purpose of Star Trek is infinite diversity in infinite combinations. Discovery not only gave us an incredible lead character played by a Black woman, it gave us representation across the entire cast of both people of color and queer folks. As a nonbinary person, Adira’s quiet coming out scene had a profound impact on me, and later served as a helpful reference point for coming out as NB to my dad, who watches and enjoys Discovery.

Discovery spends an entire season depicting a debate between multiple characters/factions about how to handle a situation that threatens all Federation members. It does so with empathy for all points of view, and ultimately resolves this threat not with an action sequence, but a conversation. That season of Discovery (season 4) is Star Trek as fuck, and some of the best Trek ever.

Hell, Star Trek Beyond is so good that it manages to take the flashy action J.J. Abrams approach to Star Trek (which I have mixed feelings about because Trek ’09 is fun and despite his storytelling problems, Abrams is by all accounts a genuinely nice person so I won’t be shit-talking him here) and make it more properly Trek by introducing a villain who believes conflict is necessary for human evolution, which is the antithesis to Roddenberry’s whole vision for Trek of being a future where we work to resolve and avoid conflict rather than seek it.

Strange New Worlds and Picard (seasons 1 and, so far, 3) are both good and also contain great Trek. But they are also fundamentally more appealing to the nostalgia of middle-aged straight white male fans. And they are the shows that are getting more visible attention and praise.

Lower Decks is awesome and has a fantastic Black female lead in Tawny Newsome. But it meant something to have Sonequa Martin-Green and Newsome be the leads of two Star Trek shows airing at the same time.

And it means something for the live-action show with a Black woman as the lead to be cancelled while the animated show with a Black woman as the lead but a straight white male as the head writer is allowed to continue.

I don’t want Star Trek to become like Star Wars and turn into an endless cycle of fan service. Star Trek has had a huge impact on our planet over the 55+ years of its existence. Don’t make the mistake of turning it into another franchise that exists as a way for whiny white dudes to center themselves over the global majority.

(PS, Paramount, how the hell have you dragged your heels over Michelle Yeoh’s spinoff for this long? She has an Oscar now, what the hell is your excuse?)

#star trek #rant #star trek: discovery #star trek discovery #star trek: picard #star trek picard #star trek: strange new worlds #star trek strange new worlds #star trek: lower decks #star trek lower decks #star trek: the next generation #star trek the next generation #yeah I'm mad about a lot of stuff going on in the world but this is the only thing I felt knowledgeable enough to comment on

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chaos-good-life · 1 month

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Look, I get that as a Star Trek fan, I should be happy. Oooh, look at all the new Trek that's coming!

But there are lines in this story that make me obscenely, indescribably, unrationally outraged.

“We take it very seriously,” says David Stapf, president of CBS Studios. “‘Star Trek’ is one of the most valued, treasured and to-be-nurtured franchises in all of media.”

WELL YOU HAVE A FUNNY WAY OF SHOWING IT!

Paramount's stewardship of Trek post-Roddenberry has always annoyed me but this quote shows how tone-deaf these people are. Through their actions they show that when they mean valued, they mean profitable and what they can get out of it. When they mean treasured, they mean it's to be mined for gold and leveraged for our own ends, not the good of the franchises. And nurtured? How? With money? Yes, I'd say they're pouring more into Star Trek then ever before, but also why does everyone working on Trek feel they need to make clear the franchise is good value for money? Case in point from the story: "That tension isn’t exclusive to the film studio. I lost count of the number of times someone made a point to note, with real pride, how one or the other of the “Star Trek” TV productions is saving money, whether it be “Section 31” repurposing sets from “Discovery” or “Strange New Worlds” redressing the same set to be everything from crew quarters to a sparring gym. No one will get specific about budgets, but Kurtzman says that “Section 31” costs “so much less than you’d ever make a ‘Star Trek’ movie for.”"

Are they nurturing the fan base? How exactly? The article goes into great detail about how well Trek is doing on Paramount+ but fails to mention that Paramount+ itself is not doing well. Why are you hiding Trek away on a platform few people use? Because like Voyager on UPN in the 90s, Trek is THE DRAW. But you can't draw new fans on a platform no one is watching. How many people discovered the old Trek shows because they were/are on platforms people can access easily? You own a legacy TV network? Why isn't at least ONE of the Trek shows predominantly on CBS? Then you can use it as a taste at least to get people to sign up and see the others? Then there's the haphazard way they handle merchandising and licensing for the new products. You have amazing new series. How are you getting them into the hands of young people? Even Prodigy didn't air on Nickelodeon right away. As a result, you have this greying of the franchise issue.

"I ask “The Next Generation” star Jonathan Frakes, who’s acted in or directed more versions of “Star Trek” than any other person alive, how often he meets fans for whom the new “Star Trek” shows are their first. “Of the fans who come to talk to me, I would say very, very few,” he says. “‘Star Trek’ fans, as we know, are very, very, very loyal — and not very young.”" Paramount needs to change tact. Take a page from Disney/Lucasfilm. Sure, they are certainly trying to turn Star Wars into the proverbial dead horse to be beaten, but the Star Wars generational legacy is secure.

They need to stop speaking in platitudes. You say Trek is valued? Then SHOW IT.

Let Trek fly in the mainstream.

Give it a wider net to catch new fans.

Actually show faith in it, rather than using it as an IP for making money. Be more accessible.

Oh and fix your damn licensing on Deep Space Nine and GET ME MORE MERCH TO BUY!

#star trek #Trekkies #Devoted fan #I hate because I care #paramount sucks #Show Trek the love it deserves #Paramount #star trek deep space nine

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weclassybouquetfun · 5 months

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Tomorrow kicks of São Paulo, Brazil's CCXP (Comic Con Experience).

First up is the MAD MAX: FURY ROAD prequel FURIOSA with Anya Taylor-Joy as the titular character. Joining Taylor-Joy on panel will be writer/director George Miller and her costar Chris Hemsworth.

December 1st will be a look at Netflix's REBEL MOON directed by Zack Snyder. The panel will focus on the first installment PART ONE: A CHILD OF FIRE. Joining Snyder and producing partner/wife Deborah will be his stars Sofia Boutella, Djimon Hounsou, and the two GAME OF THORNES Daario Naharises Ed Skrein, Michiel Huisman.

Paramount+ will take stage December 2nd for a panel featuring their upcoming/returning slate including a look at HALO series two; series five of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, THE THUNDERMANS RETURN and DRAG RACE: BRAZIL.

Jumping all the way to December 3rd will be a special look at DUNE: PART TWO with Denis Villeneuve, Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Florence Pugh and Austin Butler joining.

The same day will have Adam Wingard sharing first looks at his Monsterverse film GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE.

The film features the return of Brian Tyree Henry, Rebecca Hall and new to the franchise Dan Stevens (who starred in Wingard's superb film THE GUEST).

Also in the day will be a look at AQUAMAN: THE LOST KINGDOM with Arthur Curry himself, Jason Momoa joining director James Wan and his costars Patrick Wilson and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II.

Apple+ will be hosting a MONARCH: LEGACY OF MONSTERS immersive fan experience and a panel with cast Kurt and Wyatt Russell, Anna Sawai, Kiersey Clemons and Ren Watabe on December 3rd.

Panels which are scheduled but no concrete details revealed are ones for Prime Video's PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS, FALLOUT, and Max's TRUE DETECTIVE: NIGHT COUNTRY, HOUSE OF THE DRAGON and CIDADE DE DEUS: A SERIE.

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startrekexplained · 2 months

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The Spore Drive wasn't the first "magical" tech in Star Trek

As much as I dislike Discovery, there is one criticism that does make me laugh, well sorta. It's the criticism of the Spore Drive concept and how it is essentially a fantasy magic concept and not a science fiction concept. I happen to agree with this criticism, but the reason I find it so amusing is most of the people who say this (for example, Robert Meyer Burnett) have no problem with the Genesis Device from the early films. This is despite the fact it's basically Q levels technology that operates on magical principles and can even raise the dead! You know, just like the Spore Drive? Add in the fact the third film even has supernatural mumbo jumbo involving souls and it's clear magical nonsense is nothing new to Star Trek. There's also all the fantasy religious elements in DS9, which happens to be RMB's favorite Star Trek. I'm not saying you can't criticize when the franchise has magical fantasy nonsense elements, I do, but I do it consistently and not selectively like a lot of fans seem to do.

#star trek #star trek: discovery #star trek fandom

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isagrimorie · 3 months

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I’m going to do a full rewatch of Star Trek Discovery until the premiere of its final season on April.

I downloaded the whole series and I just checked the first few minutes of Discovery and was hit with a wave of nostalgia and what could have been.

The rich colors, the contrast of blacks, with no blue filter marring it that unfortunately began to pervade Discovery when it moved its filming to mostly the AR wall*. Captain Philippa Georgiu and a great sense of character from the first few minutes— which I assume is a Bryan Fuller special.

(*Speaking of the AR Wall why is a green screen CG landscape better produced and realized than the AR Wall? What is with the blue filters on Disco s3 and s4? Even on Strange New Worlds, the landscapes looked weird.)

However, I am still not a fan of the Discovery!Klingon look. Why is their skin so moist???

Also, I am still not a fan of purely Klingon dialogues. Great that there’s subtitles but augh. I am not one of those fans who want to learn to speak Klingon.

Pushing for a huge change in Klingons with terrible prosthetics was also off-putting.

Ending on a good note before things go to hell— I just really love Captain Georgiu from second 1. She’s the epitome of Starfleet and I wish we could have several more episodes with her and this crew.

I also get why there were some tensions with Fuller because they were just going to use the Shenzhou’s bridge only once and creating a bridge is costly.

The show/s were eventually able to amortize the bones/structure of the Shenzhou turning it into different settings. But I imagine the ballooning costs didn’t help Fuller’s cause, especially when it didn’t make the publicized premiere date.

We don’t really know what his full vision for the show is because he left season 1 before it was completed. And until, I think late into season 3, Discovery has had a troubled behind the scenes production with the writers and showrunners.

#star trek discovery #discovery s1

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definitely-not-david-banner · 1 year

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Tonight is the premiere! I hope y’all enjoy our DISCO/TOS crossover fan film!

youtube

#star trek #star trek discovery #Star Trek fan film #fan film #cosplay #Star Trek cosplay #Star Trek discovery cosplay #Sylvia Tilly #michael burnham #Youtube

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amourduloup · 4 months

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Hi sorry this is random but I just saw your post about how AOS sucks (so true <3) and I was so delighted to learn you're into Star Trek! For some reason I'd never have expected that! :D Which series have you seen / do you like? Sorry I just had to ask cause I'm a huge DS9 fan and there's some delightful messed up / codependent family relationships in that show which always makes me think of this blog :P

That's so interesting to hear! I actually never watched anything besides the original series + films, AOS and Discovery. I've actually been thinking about this, and how I should watch the other shows instead of rewatching the original yet again. But the TOS is such a comfort show for me, and Spock is one of my favorite characters ever (by the way, I have a dog named after him).

It's weird, because I've into TOS since I was a kid, I really don't know how I've gone this long without watching the other shows. Would you recommend DS9 as my next Star Trek?

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hiccupmistress · 8 months

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I've often been quite a fan of Star Trek's fandom wiki, "Memory Alpha". At first glance, its a very well-kept wiki, where people are quick to add new information, and the occasional attempt to spam the wiki with false or inflammatory information is quickly struck down.

However, when you take a closer look, its a rather nasty and pompous place.

For starters, character pages used to list a character's gender in the main info box at the top of pages. However, when Star Trek: Discovery introduced the franchise's first properly non-binary character, Adira, a few wiki contributors threw a temper-tantrum and now character pages do not list gender in the info box, and instead its mentioned in the main body of text if its considered "necessary".

Then there's the problem of the Wiki's framing device. Yes, a wiki, a site for which the main purpose is to be a resource of information decided it needed a framing device. The idea is that "MA is written from a POV from the distant future." Why is this a problem? Well, recently, a contributor opened a discussion article, (for those who don't know, this is a special page for the benefit of contributors to discuss potential changes to the way the wiki is run), talking about the way pictures on character pages are organised.

Currently, Memory Alpha will include two images on the top info-box of prominent recurring characters. The latest-chronological image at the top, and the earliest-chronological image at the bottom. The user on this discussion page posited that since the current "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" is a prequel show that is taking time to flesh out characters who had very little screen time in the original series, that certain characters, such as George-Samuel Kirk or Robert April should have images swapped around so that the "primary" or most prominent depiction of the character is at the top. They used the examples specifically because, GS Kirk's only appearance in the originals was as a dead body, and Robert April's only appearance was a single episode of the Animated Series, and he's a different ethnicity, they claimed that "Adrien Holmes is meant to be the definitive portrayal of April".

This was met with nothing but backlash, the first quote I put in this post about "MA is written from a POV from the distant future" was used to justify why the later chronological appearances are listed at the top. But frankly, that doesn't hold water with Sam Kirk, because why would a future archive of historical information use a picture of someone's rotting corpse to depict who they were? And more importantly, this is where the whole thing of Memory Alpha having a framing device becomes a problem. Its all very quaint that the wiki has its lore, but at the end of the day, Memory Alpha isn't the SCP Foundation, its not archiving its own special set of original worldbuilding or anything, its a wiki for a bunch of TV shows and movies! Its primary purpose is to be a resource so fans can find out information. As the OP of the Discussion Page pointed out, anyone coming in to Star Trek through SNW who comes to look at Sam's MA page will see a dead body, kind of a spoiler if they're not already familiar with TOS.

Now yes, wiki pages will always have spoilers on them, that's kind of the point, but given his TOS appearance is just Shatner in a fake moustache, playing a corpse, there's really no need to classify that as the "most recent" iteration of the character.

Then of course, there's the Robert April thing. Of course someone chimed in to whine that changing April's ethnicity is "motivated by a dislike of character's original race. For fans who respect continuity, Adrien Holmes will never be the definitive Robert April. I've got nothing against him but I wish he played a new character." which is eye rolling. Someone did point out that live-action shouldn't trump animation. I can agree with that. There are certain circles who would tout that live action film or TV is inherently better than any other media, be it animation, comics, books, games etc, which it really shouldn't be held as, all forms of artistic expression should be held with the same respect, but, its nothing but red flags to whine that SNW hates white people because they cast a black actor as a formerly white character who only appeared in one episode animated on a budget of debt. And considering most of SNW's cast is white or white-passing, its hardly "a dislike of the original race". And guess how many people called out this user for whining about Adrien Holmes? None at all!!! Over the years, I've seen more Star Trek fans boasting that they never bothered watching TAS than I've seen say anything nice about TAS, so pretending to care that Commodore April is now a person of colour comes across incredibly disingenuous. (Not to mention the writer of the original Animated Series episode in which April has appeared has gone on record praising the casting of Holmes as live-action April, so really what does it matter if some 1970s micro-budget animation cells are contradicted)

Even with that aside, people were still arguing that the one-off animated appearance of April should still be at the top of his wiki page because "We're a future historical archive"

The point and TL;DR is a fan wiki should be a resource for real life fans in the real world first and foremost and have any framing devices second. Memory Alpha and the majority of its contributors don't seem to understand this. Maintaining some stupid illusion of being an in-universe archive seems to be more important to a lot of those people. And, between stuff like the gender tag mentioned at the top of the post, and the attitudes towards things like ethnic diversity, I don't really feel comfortable continuing to even use the wiki, much less contribute to it, as I have done on occasion. The admin at that wiki could really do to crack down on the gender-critical and racist-dogwhilstle-y users and have a serious think about whether they want to be running an actual wiki or an ARG disguised as a wiki, because the framing device BS is unnecessary as it is quaint.

#startrek #star trek #star trek strange new worlds #star trek snw #fandom #fandom wiki #fan wiki #wikis #wiki #wikia #for real though why i am i wasting my time contributing to a wiki thats so up itself #you dont need a framing device to be a resource of information #do better memory alpha

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biblioflyer · 1 year

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The writer's strike and franchise fatigue: two heads of the same coin?

Context: I'm shamelessly reposting a comment on a popular webforum where someone posed the question "What's next for Star Wars?" that prompted a lot of discussion about the whats and whys of what's working, what isn't, and of course everyone's favorite hobby: performing yet another autopsy on the Sequel Trilogy. I declined to go there in favor of speculating on the production side.

Ultimately I think the future of Star Wars requires Disney to do what a lot of franchise owners have been resistant to doing for various reasons: allow their creative teams a wide latitude to fully develop their ideas without unnecessarily harsh deadlines tied to quarterly earnings reports. Now that isn't to say that projects can fail on their own merits.

I don't know for a fact that Book of Boba Fett was timid, awkward, and boring because the showrunners couldn't make a cut that worked with the time and resources allotted, but we were mostly all impressed with Rodrigues' work on Mando so we were cautiously optimistic that a Cool Gangster Drama with Boba Fett could be a thing. So what the hell happened? Solve that mystery and I think you ensure that Star Wars has a future.

Looking at another popular "Star" franchise, we see a lot of similar problems with uneven writing and what seems to be differing opinions both inside and outside the franchise as to what exactly it means for something to carry that name. What sort of stories can you tell? How do you tell them? Can you have a point of view character or does it always have to be ensemble? Can you deconstruct the setting only to reconstruct and reaffirm it in the finale without losing the fans?

What explains "bad" writing? Coercion by the studio? Writer inexperience? Showrunner inexperience? A failure to find the right balance between modernizing the storytelling of a franchise without it becoming illegible as part of that franchise or to cling so hard to fan service that it is afraid to experiment and becomes a less interesting and murkier Xerox of itself?

Something that I found fascinating in the discourse around the writer's strike is that the format of streaming TV with its short seasons has turned everyone involved in these productions into gig workers. Unless you're one of a half dozen showrunners who have helmed widely acclaimed franchises, modern tv has become severely siloed on the production side: writers have limited opportunities to learn directing, editing, and show running. They also have limited opportunities to see how their work translates to the screen when it lands in the hands of directors, actors, set decorators, and FX artists.

If you add up all of the live action Star Trek shows produced to date, you end up with 8 seasons of streaming that equal roughly 4 seasons of broadcast era TV. Which means that under the old paradigm, a traditional TV show would only now just be airing its second "good" season. Which, shockingly enough, maps very neatly to attitudes about Strange New Worlds and Picard Season 3, and to a lesser extent Discovery season 4.*

*To the extent it will ever be allowed to make a second impression, which is another seeming "problem" of the streaming era that needs addressing since any "failed" first season is very likely to result in a sub-franchise that is going to get cauterized and forgotten about given the era of a permissive financial environment for funding additional seasons and permitting a production to recover and learn from their mistakes is pretty much dead and gone.

Were I Disney, given these realities, I would probably fund 2 or 3 "stables" of Star Wars writers and production teams. One for light hearted action comedy, one for "serious drama," and a third for something more esoteric. Maybe a fourth for big budget tentpole films. Keep them employed and give them opportunities to develop their tradecraft.

Don't be so quick to slash and burn a dud, use failure as permission to experiment. If nobody cares about Book of Boba Fett anyway, why not take some risks and see if some writers who are claiming they can turn in a second season that can "fix" the first season by turning the stories that go nowhere or are halfhearted into the first chapters in more meaningful stories? People already tend to avoid series that have only one season anyway and become ever more likely to do so the more time passes without more seasons so you're just throwing away your investment by not trying to salvage it.

This is incidentally why I'm not antagonistic towards the prospect of trying to rehabilitate the Sequel Trilogy. The Prequels are poorly made but were rich in potential. That potential was not left on the table, it was exploited until we can no longer separate the Prequels as they originally stood from all of the tie in media that added depth and nuance to the setting and storybeats.

So were I Disney and I have all of these props and set pieces in storage doing me absolutely no good, then of course it will eventually be time to try to make the Sequel Trilogy good. Maybe do some Director's Cuts and then build out the universe to make it feel less claustrophobic and less overtly a bigger, louder, dumber rehash of the Original Trilogy.

#star trek #star wars #the mandalorian #book of boba fett #star wars sequel trilogy #star wars prequels #star trek discovery #star trek picard #writer's strike #disney

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flutishly · 1 year

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Why I’m not remotely excited about Picard Season 3

All of the SPOILERS for Star Trek: Picard seasons 1 and 2. Also ranting. This is very, very long.

I genuinely didn’t realize that Star Trek: Picard was returning so soon. I knew that seasons 2 and 3 were filmed back-to-back, but I somehow still didn’t process that this meant that Picard would leap ahead of the Star Trek queue and be the next show after the absolutely delightful Prodigy ended its first season. (On that note: If you haven’t seen Prodigy, go do that now. In fact, you can probably do that instead of watching Picard season 3, which I obviously haven’t seen because it’s not out yet but for which, as you can probably guess from the title, I am not excited.)

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: The new era of Star Trek has had its ups and downs, but fans rarely agree on what those ups and downs really are. I for instance genuinely love Discovery and think that even with specific flaws in its first two seasons and some sloppy pacing in its most recent fourth, it’s a fascinating show populated with characters that I adore. The vast majority of Star Trek shows come with their own flaws and criticisms, as one would expect of any TV show.

But unlike most other shows (including other new Star Treks), Picard is one that roots itself in a firmly established, beloved character while promising a new story. Legacy characters crop up in lots of different ways in recent shows, but none truly center a fully-fleshed character the way that Picard does. (SNW comes closest with Spock; I will touch on this again momentarily...) Picard also readily reaches into the backlog of TNG characters and arcs in order to further its world.

The problem is that it does so while having promised viewers something new. This, it turns out, is decidedly not true.

The show began promisingly enough. Picard season 1 made an active effort to be an independent show, focusing on a retired Jean-Luc Picard finding a new purpose to his life while surrounding himself with new mentees and colleagues. The season arc questions the humanity of synthetic- or synthetic-hybrid lifeforms. Despite a sloppy ending, the season has a decently coherent thematic structure, integrating elements from both legacy stories and new ones. Soji’s arc is quintessential Star Trek, as she questions her humanity and purpose. Picard’s arc sees him forced to grapple with his longstanding trauma from his encounters with the Borg, alongside reflections of his life, friendships, and role as a mentor/father-figure. Raffi’s arc sees her reclaiming aspects of herself and forgiving others; so do both Rios and Jurati (albeit in very different ways). In between, there are smaller threads of deeply human questions about purpose, doing good, and recovering from trauma. The season doesn’t work so well as a whole because of poor writing decisions in its wrappings (and the sense that it tried to do too much all at once), but it’s still a decently compelling bit of television that tries to give Picard a new perspective, alongside new challenges.

Picard season 2 takes almost everything that season 1 did and throws it out.

The season opening is not bad. It’s a fast-paced, almost whiplash-y set of action sequences that promise to set the plot moving. After watching the first episode, I was asked by someone who had not yet seen it to describe it in three words. I opted for four: “TNG movie meets Picard”. There were some emotional/melodramatic bits, but most of the time was spent on keeping the plotting snappy and the action moving forward. It promised certain themes and character beats. Except none of that came to pass. “The Star Gazer” was a reset episode, taking the characters from season 1 and placing them in new and different places (sometimes in accordance to where they’d been at the end of season 1 and sometimes not). “Penance” reset everything again, as did “Assimilation”. For the entire first third of the season, Picard seemed not to know what its point was.

Yet once it settled into a new normal, the show seemed determined to define these parameters. Soji was obviously gone from the first episode (even if actress Isa Briones was given a small minor side-role) and Evan Evagora’s Elnor disappeared almost as quickly (with even more minor reappearances in the form of baffling, narratively unjustified flashbacks or hallucinations). Rios was isolated from the main team and given his own plot (that can only be described as “extremely obvious” in terms of how it played out and concluded; this is not a compliment), thus also getting sidelined. Raffi and Seven of Nine spent the entire season circling around each other in trying to define their relationship, but the show played it coy for so long that it was genuinely bizarre to watch Rios kissing his new love interest within moments of meeting her, but Raffi and Seven getting dragged out for the whole season (despite... actually having been a couple? and one promised by the season 1 ending??). It made little sense.

There are two arcs throughout the season that work, though to differing degrees. The first is Seven of Nine’s. I’m a devoted Trekkie, but I’ll admit that Voyager is the gap that I’m still filling though I’m decently familiar with Seven’s arc and character. Yet even without having all of the background, from a writing perspective, Seven of Nine’s story is the most immediately coherent. She starts the season in point A and gets to point B pretty directly and understandably. It feels like a more mature version of the classic “what does it mean to be human?” question, taking threads that arose in season 1 and expanding on them. Seven of Nine struggles to see herself as fully human and bears the weight of her Borg past in physical and emotional manifestations. What I liked about her arc is that she never really fully comes to terms with any of it, even admitting as much out loud. Instead, she also learns to accept that despite how she views these as inherently bad pieces of herself, others see them as a whole that is worthy of love and respect. This gives her some space for herself, in a way. It could have been better-written in terms of the specific relationship aspects, but on the whole it works pretty well.

The second meaningful arc is Jurati’s, which mostly survives on the basis of Alison Pill’s excellent acting. I’m not convinced of the writing for this aspect; Jurati starts season 2 at a far lower point than she ended in season 1 and there is an inconsistency in how her character is presented. Her penchant for poor decision-making remains, however, and is the driving force behind her bizarre plot. That said, the core of her arc is not so unlike Seven of Nine’s - it’s one of finding oneself. We have already seen that Jurati is fairly weak-willed, but here it becomes part of a very disturbing bit of internalized play in defining her self-loathing and recreating herself. I didn’t like it, but Pill does an extraordinary job of selling Jurati’s motivations, discrepancies, and horrors. I’m not sure another actor could have pulled it off (given that the writing is still pretty sloppy), but Pill does and so it deserves commendation.

The rest of the season is, quite simply, not good.

There are decent ideas or lines throughout. Picard’s rousing inspiring speech to Renee is a lovely reminder of what Star Trek strives to be; the very premise of Renee’s mission being the linchpin on which humanity’s pluralistic approach to space travel and its environmental future turns is also fairly nice. There’s an important political message buried in Rios’s side story with immigration, as well as Guinan’s dissatisfaction with our contemporary Earth. These little sprinkles only serve to remind us how poorly they fit together.

More than that, there are pieces that could work but don’t, like Picard’s tragic backstory. It’s... fine? I guess it’s fine. It could have contextualized Picard’s emotional reticence and family issues. Instead, it was used with all the subtlety of a serial killer’s axe, in order to further a truly inexplicable romantic subplot that gave Picard absolutely no new depth nor made any sense given the characterizations of season 1. From a technical standpoint, it was also disappointing in its idealized/romanticized framing of mental health struggles. It could have been good; it wasn’t. The recurring theme of season 2.

Same with Q and Guinan in general. Q’s initial involvement is reminiscent of his TNG-era shenanigans. He’s sly and mysterious and his interests are muddled at best, other than the fact that we see their disastrous consequences. Except then... it turns out to be... a sign of love? A misplaced “last hurrah”? I’m all for acknowledging the depth and complexity of the love that Q holds for Picard, but like... seriously? That was the best the writers could come up with? How does it track with any of what we see throughout the rest of the season? All to get Picard to reframe his relationship with love, and with a total disregard for the real people who died to get there?

Guinan’s plot is similarly weird. The idea of recasting a “young” Guinan was cute and I’m fine with it, but... what purpose did she actually serve the narrative? I’m sitting here and thinking about the season and I simply cannot recall what she contributed. Summoning Q, sort of? Existing? Did it have to be Guinan? Was she there just because we know the name?

But the show is called Picard, so let’s focus on the man himself for a moment. What was season 2 about, if we look at Jean-Luc Picard?

On its surface, Picard’s arc was about making space for love. The lifestyle change suggested at the end of season 2 - in which he would no longer resign himself to moping alone around the vineyard and would instead set forth on new adventures with his new crew - was gone at the beginning of season 2. Other than seeing several of the crew newly in Starfleet (Rios, Raffi, and Elnor), there is little indication of how Picard’s synthetic body impacts his life or has affected his perspective. In fact, it seems to come up only haphazardly when he’s physically injured. (Which is itself a bizarre plot point, but sure! Sure.)

In one of the two major threads going for him in season 2, Picard has to come to terms with his parents’ toxic relationship and its complexities. As I mentioned above, this might have been thoughtfully handled, but it mostly wasn’t. The tonal dissonance between the portrayal of mental illness and the murkiness of the abuse/perceived abuse meant that I struggled to take away anything of meaning from the tragedy. It felt like it was constantly just trying to shock and tease the viewer, particularly in how it flipped the script of abuse. Why? What for? Picard might be well-served by a more detailed exploration of his childhood, but was this it?

The other thread is the one that had me rolling my eyes. Somehow, the season’s message of “Picard learns to love!” gets translated into “learns to have a romantic love!”, as though this is the end-all. Picard is certainly a character who has shied away from romantic relationships before and that could have been worth exploring in part, but why does it have to do at the expense of understanding Picard’s general discomfort with acknowledging love? There are so many ways this could - and frankly should - have played out, that didn’t involve a romance with a character that is... well, maybe technically of a similar age as Jean-Luc, but not really the same stage of life? (...synthetic life?) It was weird and uncomfortable and just... pointless. It didn’t make Picard’s character have greater depth, on the contrary - it promoted the extremely silly idea that there is one superior type of loving relationship. Why?

This isn’t a review of season 2, though. No, I didn’t like season 2. I wanted to, at first, but I found myself growing more and more baffled and exhausted as it progressed. Pockets of amusement or entertainment or appreciation (see again Picard’s speech to Renee, which I really did quite like!) appeared for brief moments throughout the episodes and then disappeared again. But the main problem? The main thing that angered me about season 2?

It seemed determined to forget that season 1 had happened, and it did so very obviously at the expense of its own characters. And THAT is why I’m not excited for season 3, or as I call it “the producers went: hey, wait, let’s bring back TNG oh my gosh!!!!”.

Once again: Star Trek has been a leader in the world of reboots and nostalgic callbacks. TNG is a reboot, after all. It opened with a hand-off from an extremely aged-up Dr. McCoy, as a way to tie things together to the Original Series. It found an excuse to include Scotty, Sarek, and Spock in plot-specific ways. Later, it gave Kirk space in its first movie. DS9 and Voyager both played on fan nostalgia in their respective series with the inclusion of legacy characters - Q, Worf, Barclay, Riker, etc. - and indeed even Enterprise tried desperately and disastrously to find ways to milk nostalgia, even as a prequel reboot itself.

As I mentioned at the top, modern Trek has continued this trend. Disco‘s worst earliest instincts were rooted in its attempts to mine nostalgia; while the inclusion of Pike and Spock in season 2 ended up being pretty beneficial for the franchise as a whole (yay SNW! itself an obvious exercise in nostalgia; I’ll expand in a moment), it wobbled in season 1 with Sarek. Lower Decks has consistently been at its most tiring when trying too hard to play to nostalgia rather than telling its own stories (except for the occasional wonderful gag, but the jokes are usually just... too much). Prodigy also felt a little tiring when it tried too hard to be nostalgic for the sake of older fans, rather than just telling its own story, but it did this only sporadically.

And then there’s Picard. Whereas SNW takes legacy characters who have either never gotten their due or are at an earlier stage than what we’ve previously known of them, Picard is the only real sequel to a legacy show, fully centering on a legacy character. In season 1, the show promised that while Picard himself was returning, the show was not a TNG sequel. Indeed, Picard’s biggest season 1 legacy costar isn’t even from TNG, a rather inspired decision on the part of the producers/writers. And with the exception of some cameos and Brent Spiner’s enduring mission to act out as many related characters as he can (a once-mildly amusing trait, now gone sour), the show made a point of introducing new characters: Dahj and Soji, whose stories kick off and define the season. Raffi, Elnor, Rios, Jurati... even the antagonists! Even the legacy characters are fresh! Seven of Nine and Hugh are both in vastly different places than where they’d been in the past. And yes, I’m including Riker and Troi - in their delightful interlude of an episode - who are there to demonstrate just how much things have changed since TNG. This is a new show, a different show, populated by characters who are guiding and interact with Picard in different ways.

So why is season 3 just TNG season 8? Without having watched the trailers, it’s hard for me to say whether or not I’m misreading what the plot actually is, but all of the promotion has been about the TNG crew and their involvement. Soji and Elnor - both wildly sidelined by season 2 - have been fully abandoned; will there be any plot justification for this? Rios and Jurati at least were given send-offs in season 2, but they too were cast aside. I can’t really figure out what’s supposed to have happened to Laris (though while Orla Brady still appeared throughout season 2, the character of Laris... didn’t). This leaves only two of the “new” characters for Picard season 3 - Raffi and Seven of Nine (who is, of course, actually a legacy character). And of course even season 2 seemed more interested in legacy characters, with the returns of both Guinan and Q, and even Brent Spiner’s umpteenth Soong.

Nostalgia can be great. I appreciate a good dose of nostalgia as much as the next person. I cheered at the appearance of Deep Space 9 on Lower Decks. The TOS-nostalgic Prodigy episode “All the World’s a Stage” was excellent. SNW is a great show. But nostalgia cannot be in place of something new. Say what you will about Disco, but it did something new in its first season, even as it tried to link its story to legacy characters (and indeed, failed most strikingly in that effort). Picard seems to have initially understood that lesson and then thrown it aside. Season 3 abandons any pretense of telling some kind of new story about Picard’s post-Enterprise life. It bends over backwards to include the old gang (including Spiner, who I dearly love, but seriously... why?) and to fully center them.

And... much as I love TNG, I find that I am incapable of getting excited about this. I look at how season 2 flailed in its attempt to tell an interesting story, how it fully wasted its potential (2024!!! the Bell Riots! they could have done so much!), how it dismissively discarded its new characters, how it backtracked on any meaningful story about Jean-Luc Picard that might have been told... and I ask myself what season 3 could possibly bring, especially knowing that the seasons were produced back-to-back. Will it rise above season 2′s mediocrity? Will it manage to actually say anything new and meaningful about these characters? About this world, which is the real point of Star Trek?

My sense is no. It’s hard to get excited over that.

#star trek #star trek: picard #tv shows #season analyses #star trek: the next generation #commentary #review #criticism

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