I hope this is his swan song. Patrick Stewart is amazing, and I love Captain Picard, but he’s not Harrison Ford. The franchise will be fine without him. We don’t need to play out Too Short a Season in real life
Three seasons of PIC were already a mistake. The only good thing coming from it is the possibility of a Riker cooking/baking show (which I would totally watch).
In rewatching the original series and TNG thereafter, the consistent factor, regardless of the early special effects, was the scripts. The dialogue was always great. In ST: Picard, the dialogue is trash.
Everything about ST Picard is trash. Dialogue, script, Character behavior, 50 years of fransche history ignored, it was all written and executed by people who don’t like star Trek, cast excluded though I just don’t understand why any of the vast was on board with this turd. We’re they so desperate for money?
it’s even worse than that they write characters that are not in the world of star trek but written like they are fans of the star trek. that might work for a comedy like lower decks but it stunts growth of the franchise.
since we can’t make new stories or ask new questions. They are just stuck in a circle of reference and the bare minimum of a story / scavenger hunt to get to those references. Terry Matalas has said this himself.
But hey at least we have unedited versions of the originals unlike star wars and I hope all the actors got big paydays in their golden years.
2 seasons were a mistake and by far the worst trek seasons from any show, the third season while being massive fan service was just what I seemingly wanted as I loved every second and was a great ending to the TNG crew
I just watch the third season and pretend all of the random references to the early seasons happened in a more logical way.
I knew somebody who was running a “what could have been” Star Trek TTRPG campaign based around episodes of Voyager that could have been executed better, I think I would love to run a campaign that had plot elements from Picard’s first two seasons as a personal headcanon.
I think the difference between Stewart and Ford is that Stewart seems more to be doing it because he enjoys this character. Ford seems to be doing it in spite of his feelings.
As long as Stewart is still having fun, I’m happy with him continuing as long as he wants.
T’Lyn was such a wild woman this week. Admiring Nya’al’s appearance, telling Tendi that what matters is being a loyal friend, saying she was alarmed by D’Erika’s combat abilities and then tossing that report out of the ship with a flimsy justification. Even Mariner said so. OUT OF CONTROL I TELL YOU!
Longer seasons would allow them to throw in a few SciFi oriented episodes that don’t necessarily advance character arcs. Where would SNW be if TOS didn’t have the “Arena” (Gorn) episode that was based on a completely unrelated SciFi short story?
Mirror, Mirror was a SciFi episode that not only gave us the foundation for Discovery, but cemented the evil-twin-goatee trope into pupular culture.
Space Seed (Botany Bay/Khan) was also a one-off SciFi episode. Where would the entire franchise be without it?
I really hope SNW makes room for exploring the sort of SciFi ideas that Star Trek was originally based on.
Part of the reason why TNG was good beyond the first couple seasons was because of the open script submission policy that’s no longer in existence. According to ex-Trek producer Ronald D. Moore, they were reading something like 3000 scripts a year. It allowed them to be choosy (though there were still some stinkers). Now that the characters are established, if the seasons were longer, it might be cool to see the open script submissions come back (though, as I’m typing this, maybe implementing this during or shortly after a writers strike would be a poor choice, even though there were limits to how many scripts one could submit before going through “official” channels). Anyway, one could argue that a huge amount of ideas need to be generated for a show as great as TNG to exist, more than a small group of writers could produce. If outside script admissions were allowed, I’m sure we’d see some great sci-fi episodes from writers who weren’t even thinking “Star Trek” as they wrote them.
I’m not against filler, and my post may have come off as being that way. Not every story has to advance character or advance some storyline. I’m just against bad filler.
Just a fun note: Ron Moore got his start through that open submissions policy when submitted a script for what became “The Bonding.” He had no writing credits before that.
Several of the Relaunch novelverse TrekLit authors tried out with spec scripts before being picked up to write tie-in fiction.
David Mack, a film school grad, got script credits for 2 DS9 episodes, Starship Down and Only a Paper Moon before being contracted for some Starfleet Core of Engineers stories.
Kirsten Beyer, a theatre grad, never got into one of the shows with a spec script, but was picked up to write Voyager books, then came full circle to be in the writers rooms on all the new live-action shows.
Wow thanks, that really explains well why the modern shows respect (at least some of) “beta canon” more than what I would expect. A natural consequence when some of the authors sit in the writer’s room :)
David Mack was more recently a consultant for the development and first seasons of both Lower Decks and Prodigy as well. I believe we can thank him for bringing Peter David’s Brikar aliens (from the YA Starfleet Academy and the New Frontier books) into onscreen canon with the character of Rok Tahk in Prodigy.
SNW has been pretty good with the standalone episodes though, no? Maybe leaning a little more on the comedy and hijinks than the sci-fi this season but they don’t seem too afraid of treating an episode as a mini movie in its own right.
I wouldn’t mind a few more episodes anyway, but 20 does feel like too much. And honestly I’m not unhappy with 10 either, particularly considering the quality of them and that it’s not the only Trek in town. 10 episodes of this show, but there’s like three or four other shows too. We’re not at a loss for Trek.
Maybe if they did not pull it from the service I am paying for in order to try and make me pay for yet another service this would not be a problem. But, no, corporate greed dictates that I must pay for 100 different streaming platforms to watch the one show on each one.
To the room full of millionaires out there who think I’ll spend $14.99/month indefinitely on their shitty platform to watch a better than average Star Trek show:
Same here, I was there day one watching legally when it was on Amazon, then they pulled the rug out from under me at the last moment, so now it gets torrented. Sorry Mike, blame your managers mate.
This episode is one of the best episodes in the modern era of Trek, it’s lighthearted it’s funny it celebrates Trek and it’s done so tastefully that I genuinely have nothing bad to say about it. It reminds me of Trials and Tribble-ations.
Plus that line at the end where they tell Una ad astra per aspera and that’s why boimler joined Starfleet is just the right kind of emotions.
Honestly, they smashed it in this episode and ofc the 2d animated intro was chefs kiss.
This episode is one of the best episodes in the modern era of Trek, it’s lighthearted it’s funny it celebrates Trek and it’s done so tastefully that I genuinely have nothing bad to say about it. It reminds me of Trials and Tribble-ations.
Alex Kurtzman must have hated this episode, it is the exact opposite of what he wanted to do with Trek. Also why fans love it, because Alex was always wrong about what Trek is about and why it matters to the fans.
Kurtzman wanted a serious dark tone that excluded humor, excluded science, and promoted how progressive the future would be. He selected a largely female-diverse cast and wrote that all white males would be stupid or evil in the script. Then he proceeded to change the look and style of Trek away from the established canon to whatever garbage he came up with. Maybe if the writing was better it could have worked but that writing was bad, very very bad. This was the age of discovery in Trek where Star Fleet was full of brave heroes. He wrote his characters to be weak, angry, or overly emotional. The cast of Strange New Worlds feels like Star Fleet, they can have emotions but they are written to understand the dangers they are in are part of why they are doing what they do. Exploration is dangerous, you need to have a backbone to survive it.
I disagree. Trek has always been progressive, and that’s what the whole series is about: infinite diversity in infinite combinations. TOS had Chekov, a Russian on the bridge in an American show during the Cold War era. It had Uhura, a Black woman on the bridge at the age of segregation and institutional racism. It had Sulu, a Japanese man when Japanese American families were wrongly incarcerated only years ago in WWII. The founders of the Federation were from four different species and set aside differences to build a better union. It’s the bastion of progressivism, and a rebuke to conservatism and isolationism.
Let’s move on to the Berman era. The Federation is now what people like Tasha Yar look up to, after spending her childhood escaping rape gangs. What does the Federation stand for? Equality. We have Doctor and Data trying to be recognized as equals to sentient beings. We have Tasha Yar, a woman engineer, Kathryn Janeway, a woman captain, Kira Nerys, a woman Bajoran leader on DS9. Berman and his colleagues never seriously considered a man playing the captain of the Voyager. They also made women characters complex and gave us Seven of Nine and Kai Winn, who both have their own motivations and personal history that shape their characters. And who can forget the Sisko as the first Black captain leading a series and his realistic relationship with Jake?
Kurtzman is also the executive producer on SNW, so I’m not sure what you’re on about. Kurtzman carried on the Roddenberry vision of filling leading Trek roles with a diverse cast, SNW, LOW, PRO, and DIS included.
all white males would be stupid or evil in the script
I have no idea where you got that from. Is Stamets evil? Is Sarek evil? Is SNW Pike evil? Is Chief Kyle evil? Well, yes, very evil. The only evil white male character I can think of is mirror Lorca.
This was the age of discovery in Trek where Star Fleet was full of brave heroes. He wrote his characters to be weak, angry, or overly emotional.
I feel like you’re idolizing “heroes” as demigods in real life, much like how Christopher Columbus was celebrated, when in reality he committed genocide and enslaved generations of Native Americans. Heroes in Earth’s age of discovery were also humans. They had emotions, they had feelings, they cried, they had PTSD, they were angry, and some of them were weak. Some of them had egos that cost their lives (see Robert Scott’s expedition to the South Pole.)
I feel like the cast isn’t the issue and that it’s more about what you do with the cast that’s been a bit underwhelming at times. And he’s right about the lack of goofyness in modern trek and I’m glad it’s back in force with this season!
I seem to remember the first instance of “fuck” in star trek being a humorous scene about science.
promoted how progressive the future would be.
Like every other star trek?
I’m not a huge Disco fan. I think it doesn’t stand up and is way too focused on how everyone feels, but complaining about “oh no! SJWs!” Is just a roundabout way of saying you are racist/sexist. I think there are some good ideas in Disco but moving away from the episodic formula hurt the show. SNW does much of the same stuff as Disco, but is plot driven not character driven, which is fundamental difference between Disco and other Trek. Picard went the same way as Disco and suffered for it.
I hope that the success of SNW and LD help them realize what parts of the formula work and what doesn’t.
Nah, Futurama is pessimistic. A thousand years passed and nothing got better. Humans just found new ways to screw each other over and more aliens to hate. Lower Decks is based and hopepilled.
I watched that one last night and had the same thought - she's been the face of nonacceptance towards Data and although Bruce Maddox is far more extreme in his views it seemed like a waste of her character building.
That said, they'd already shoehorned in a Guinan scene so I don't know where they'd find the time.
Picard's scene with Guinan was not in the original script. Melinda M. Snodgrass was told that they needed a "Ten-Forward" scene to accommodate Whoopi Goldberg coming in that week.
I took it as true, although I had a quick go at finding where this claim came from and am drawing a blank
I think obvious that she would have sided with Maddox and disagreed with the ruling. I don't think her capable of overcoming her prejudices against artificial life forms.
I think that's something that gets forgotten. Season 2 gets skipped through a lot during rewatches I know. All anyone remembers is her being racist to data.
She starts out mean to Data but she comes around by the end of the season. She is also a former lover of Kyle Riker, which could have made for a much more interesting dynamic for and with Riker if it had continued.
Because Earth never faced an extinction-level Cyborg War, pretty much. I’m of the opinion that the primary reason for the Federation’s ban on genetic engineering is Earth’s enduring trauma from the Eugenics War.
Eugenics is a major part of that trauma, being part of the war. But banning all forms of genetic engineering across the entire multi-species alliance for centuries because it can go too far is a vast overreaction. Imagine if the nuclear reactors had been completely banned because of WWII, or if viral research was banned because of COVID, or if prosthetic limbs were banned because of Wolf 359.
You’re saying that banning eugenics is an overreaction to the eugenics war? Because there’s no evidence that genetic modification was banned in general.
I think they are saying that there is a difference between genetic manipulation and eugenics. While the latter is the former, the reverse is not necessarily also the case. Our concept of eugenics explicitly tries to perfect mankind, through genetic modification and selective breeding. This is the actually creepy part of doing it. People deciding for other people if their genome is worthy enough to be allowed to reproduce. Utterly incompatible with our understanding of individual rights.
It is also uncomfortably close to nazi ideology, with aryan / pureblood German genes being desirable, and other ethnic origins not so much, leading to sterilizations in the „best“ of cases, ethnic cleansing in the others.
That being said, there are those doomsday instructions in the American desert, for our successor civilizations on big slabs of rock, written in pictograms. And one of those rules explicitly tells them to perform eugenics, to ensure mankind never reaches our current population numbers again, so they may never have to fight over a shortage of resources. And to ensure those humans will live in harmony with our world.
I feel like you’re actively choosing not to read what I said, because literally the entire point of that post that I’m not saying that.
I’m saying banning all forms of genetic engineering is an overreaction to the Eugenics War. Not all genetic engineering is eugenics. Like any medical technology, when used wisely, it can be invaluable in helping people and improving their lives. The Earth was so traumatized by the results of eugenics that centuries later, they still mandate the entire Federation throw out the baby with the bathwater.
DNA resequencing for any reason other than repairing serious birth defects is illegal. Any genetically enhanced human being is barred from serving in Starfleet or practising medicine.
And in regards to the ban:
Two hundred years ago we tried to improve the species through DNA resequencing, and what did we get for our trouble? The Eugenics Wars. For every Julian Bashir that can be created, there’s a Khan Singh waiting in the wings. A superhuman whose ambition and thirst for power have been enhanced along with his intellect. The law against genetic engineering provides a firewall against such men
@michaelgemar@Taleya@startrek I'd guess that being several generations separated from her augmented ancestor introduced enough non augmented genes they make any remaining advantage in her genome not really distinguishable from random genetic advantages any person could have.
well by La’an’s birth there’s been no “interference” with her genetics. I know in Ad Astra she mentions carrying the augmentations, but we’re talking what, 200 years of distance. So spitball it as 8 generations. It would be fairly negligible at that point, so I don’t think it’s a rational fear on her part. It’s also highly likely that in the aftermath of the war Earth made damned sure the augments weren’t interbreeding, so you get standard human genomes just swamping it out.
Willing to bet that her genes got a thorough going over when she applied as well, and nothing flagged.
No. It fits Captain Angel’s perspective as an edgy pirate pining after their lover, but Starfleet is full of hopeful, enthusiastic scientists who are in space because they want to be. They love exploration for exploration’s sake, and are on a ship full of people who likely have similar interests.
Angel’s perspective is warped by their passion; I mean, they’re literally in the middle of hijacking a Starfleet ship to get their lover back. They think their dependency on love is universal, when in reality most people are more emotionally stable than them. Although it probably helps when you’re in Starfleet and have an incredibly supportive working environment and not, you know, a pirate crew.
Starfleet is driven by love and passion, just not in the toxic way that Angel is. Its a passion for exploration and discovery, and a love for your comrades and fellow lifeforms. Angel is right, she just goes about it in entirely the wrong way.
True enough; it’s a very different framing, but there’s still love there, still passion.
I think a big difference is that Starfleet folks tend to be more intrinsically driven. Space isn’t something that needs to be “made bearable” (unless you’re McCoy I guess)—space is cool in its own right, tons of things to see and people to meet. But on top of that, the Federation has such a high tech level and quality of life that living on a starship is pretty luxurious.
SNW continues to break new ground really well. This was a really refreshing episode and very well done. I for one loooved this episode.
Alright, I get that musicals are not everyone’s cup of tea, but as a person who watched multiple dozens of Broadway musicals, I must say that the songs were really on par with actual musicals. The cast can really sing well – I expected many great things from Cecile Rose Gooding and wow she did not disappoint. I was very pleasantly impressed by Christina Chong, Rebecca Romijin, Ethan Peck’s performances as well.
I think the director made sure to highlight those actors that can sing well and put those that can’t sing into secondary positions. Clearly Grammy-Award winning/Tony Award-nominated Gooding was at the center of the story, and they cut off Anson Mount’s song, because well, he isn’t the greatest singer. They even fully acknowledged that Babs Olusanmokun can’t sing in universe as well. :) The ensemble pieces in the teaser and the finale were superb though and was a lot more entertaining than the solo pieces (which I get is probably much easier to rehearse/record and produce).
I loved that the episode intertwined music as a piece of the story, pushed the character arc forward between Spock/Chapel and La’an/Kirk. I am not so much of a sucker for La’an/Kirk but the alternative universe scenes were really a nice touch. The only cringey part was the Klingon K-pop/rap, but I suppose it was intentionally cringey/funny.
Whether you like this musical episode or not, you gotta admit that SNW really boldly goes where no one has gone before.
That has to be right! Worf would absolutely listen to the emo version, and he’s probably just calling K-Pop “opera” to impress Picard and the other 90s-Trek captains.
I think they are real cuz they included Chapel’s song and the amount of autotune they added probably wouldn’t have happened if they hired a professional singer. Still liked the song, it was just very noticeable.
They also didn’t have a great deal of time to record. They did their studio work over weekends.
For those who weren’t musical theatre performers (Gooding, Chong, Romjin) earlier in their careers, getting a clean run through or even portion of a song would be a difficult challenge. Just the stress of getting it done in a single day or two of sessions would be likely to put them out of tune.
Anybody who went to acting school has some background in music and dance. Obviously not their best talent or else they’d be a singer instead of an actor. I often consider that most people on television can sing and absolutely knows how to dance, they just don’t.
Sweeny Todd is a good example of this. You know almost the entire cast from something else and had no idea they were capable of doing music all this time. But, a classically trained actor has definitely been in a musical before, we just never knew about it. Alan Rickman wasn’t exactly a vocalist, but he could keep up with one.
If someone would have asked me a year ago if I thought Spock/Chapel and La’an/Kirk were gonna be my favorite ships in the Star Trek universe I woulda laughed at them.
Yeah, they used the songs well to pack huge amounts of character work into one episode for most of the cast. Clever move in a ten episode a year TV landscape.
No, they liked it, but only at the barest surface level. They were too media illiterate to pick up on the deeper themes. It doesn't require media literacy to like cool-looking starships going pew pew at each other or Kirk chatting up a hot alien chick.
Especially since Spock was often described by Bones as being a walking computer, and Data was described as an Android. It would be less of a logical leap than having Geordi be the new Spock.
yes, in this case the pertinent piece of information is not that he is hero of all 80’s childrens’ childhoods, book advocate and reading rainbow star LeVar Burton. what matters for the point i am trying to make is that i am presuming the pov of the editor of that article: oh, hes the black guy who is gonna be the new spock. (his character name is not “the new spock”)
its ok to do that. I don’t think LeVar Burton is going to not get the point.
It also feels like they intentionally picked that photo for contrast value: smiling so broadly when that is something “the original Spock” never did. They were going for the outrage factor, truth be damned.
Was that part of the marketing at the time, or just some bizarre leap from the author? I’m having a hard time finding any good comparisons between La Forge and Spock. In season 1 Geordi wasn’t even in engineering, let alone the science officer. He was a helmsman, so in that sense more comparable to Sulu or Chekhov, and he certainly doesn’t have anything like the relationship with the captain that Spock did.
Is it just because he was a recognizable name at the time? It’s just a weird jump to make.
Loved it. I was most surprised that the whole cast all had such beautiful singing voices.
La’an’s song touched me the most because I’m someone who also doesn’t really dare to do the things I’d like to do.
A bit sad that we didn’t get a Klingon opera but the alternative was … well, interesting too. 😄 Also, I kinda hope that Spock solving diplomatic crises with the Klingons by drinking excessive amounts of blood wine will become a running gag.
Addendum: after watching it again I realized that (for the first time?) several male background extras were wearing the dress-type uniform variant that only the women used to wear.
Are we getting the unisex skant back? Hell yeah! I love this show.
They can both be seen in the corridors. The first one (in a red uniform) walks by Ortegas when the ship is hit by the energy field at the beginning. The other one (in a blue uniform) walks by Number One and Kirk during their song.
There may be more but those are the two that I spotted.
Yep, there they are. It’s less noticable because everyone wears pants/leggings under them, unlike in TOS/TNG, where a skirt/skant meant bare legs. The effect is almost more like a long tunic or jacket.
Maybe Pike keeps the ship’s environmental settings a little colder than the others, so nobody wants to free the knees.
Maybe Pike keeps the ship’s environmental settings a little colder than the others, so nobody wants to free the knees
I dunno about nobody considering the recuring background andorians (give me slim blue men in skimpy minidresses you cowards!/s) clearly 23rd century fabric just breathes really well.
La’an’s song was the most emotional and heartfelt, but it went on way too long.
Uhura had the best song and the best performance, I thought. Celia Rose Gooding is a goddamned treasure, and it’s a treat to see them finally really putting that character to good use on a consistent basis.
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