[AllenGould]

If you errata Admiral Picard android now..

Nah, because that's "Riker Illusion" Picard. I'd say even AGT Picard isn't an android, because Parallel Timeline cough cough mumble. Only if we did a ST:P version would you get "Maybe you're born with it, maybe you're a golem" Picard.

[Nerdopolis Prime]

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NEAR TOPLESS PRIME (vocalized with a roar)

[Johannes Mette]

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NEAR TOPLESS PRIME (vocalized with a roar)

[Andrew]

A brief take on Picard
https://medium.com/@andrew.banyai/the-s ... c81c411db9

[Boffo97]

Late to the party, but I finally broke down and got a free preview of CBS All Access so I could check the new Trek out, particularly Picard. My thoughts (some minor spoilers if anyone is even later than to me to this party):

1. Continuity porn! There are so many little tidbits all over the place for us long time obsessive fans. I chuckled at the notion that Picard actually kept the Captain Picard Day banner.

A personal favorite was that the Kzinti are now indisputably canon in the Trek Prime universe with Riker mentioning them. For those not in the know, the Kzinti are an alien race in writer Larry Niven's Known Space series. The Known Space story "The Soft Weapon" was adapted into the Star Trek TAS episode "The Slaver Weapon". Because I found the Kzinti interesting, I looked into Larry Niven and he's now my favorite scifi author*, so having them now official was neat for me.

*At least his old stuff. His new stuff, he seems far too enamored of his concept of "rishathra" and keeps going on about it to the detriment of the story. And I'm not explaining that one.

2. No mention of Lore or Lal? It seems weird to me that neither was mentioned. Lore, in particular, the last we heard of him, he was dismantled and in Federation custody. It would seem, even with his switch set to evil, he'd be at least as helpful to building more Soong type androids as a neuron from Data. And Lal you think would get a mention at least. Although you could make a case that the "Daughter" painting was based on Lal even if it didn't look exactly like her, and thus Soji and the other androids had a passing resemblance to her.

3. Picard seems a little too obsessed with Data. The man has lost other crew members in his Starfleet career after all. We don't see him this fixated on Tasha Yar or Jack Crusher.

4. Roddenberry would have hated it. Roddenberry's vision of the future was always that humanity and by extension the Federation would have move past all the bad attitudes and such of the past and was to some extent at least a utopia. This seems the most dystopic of any Trek show I've seen thus far.

5. Is it still xenophobia if the supposed xenophobes have a point? I have to admit that part of the reason I avoided the show for so long was that it was supposed to be reflective of Patrick Stewart's view of current politics. I half imagined the Federation president would end up being some orange alien always babbling about how "yuge" things were and who was mustache-twirlingly evil while Picard pointed at him and looked at the camera yelling "See?! SEE?!" at the audience.

Thankfully, it was nothing like that, and the only theme I saw that could fit modern politics (except for the general darkness and maybe the conspiracies) was xenophobia. But the only part of it against either synthetics or Romulans was that maybe the synthetic ban should have been temporary until an investigation figured out what happened rather than a permanent ban and forget the problem. An incident like that just screamed sabotage of some sort after all.

As for the Romulans, yes it was tragic to abandon the relocation effort. But it was understandable under the circumstances, especially considering that a few honorable anomalies aside, the Romulans as a whole have always been depicted as treacherous snakes who would stab you in the back for a ham sandwich.

6. I need a Q episode. Who's with me? I admit it'd be hard to fit him into the tone of the show without him being a Deus ex Machina of some sort, but the chemistry between Stewart and de Lancie needs at least one more showing.

Overall, little quibbles aside, I'd think the fact I marathoned the season in less than 3 days would show I really liked it. I think I'll watch Lower Decks next, and then try out Discovery, whose reception has been... mixed.

[Caretaker's Guest]

The Orville is currently the better Trek

[AllenGould]

I think I'll watch Lower Decks next, and then try out Discovery, whose reception has been... mixed.

I think I've said it elsewhere, but Discovery's problem is that it's not terribly Trek. It's perfectly good and enjoyable sci-fi that unfortunately got some Trek bolted onto it for name recognition.

Contrast with Orville, which doesn't have the Trek trappings but is obviously a love letter to TNG Trek.

[The Guardian]

I can't agree. Discovery's first season was an attempt to teach a new generation how to watch Trek. They started with a character doing something un-Starfleet and eventually coming around to having to represent the opposite of that ideal. It's rough, I grant you, to give the show it's 15 episodes to make its point. (And I think there could have been more threads connected.)

I compare that to Orville's season 1 and *shudder*. I mean, I think I see what they're going for, but they miss the pitch almost every single time.

Admittedly, I was less enthusiastic about Discovery's season 2 and I didn't watch Orville's season 2 (though I'm told it gets better), but Discovery is doing some good work. Picard was a bit of a bit of a let down to me. I like that

the solution at the end did not rely on two fleets duking it out

, but there was so much dropped potential. I don't know why it was paced as it was or why there were all the threads that were introduced. So much was bewildering. Yet, there were parts I loved, so I'll be back.

[AllenGould]

I can't agree. Discovery's first season was an attempt to teach a new generation how to watch Trek.

Y'know how you do that? Making good Trek, rather than pretty good Sci-Fi and calling it Star Trek. (You could *easily* file the serial numbers off S1 Disco and re-skin to Babylon 5 or Andromeda or Farscape. Well, maybe not enough leather for Farscape.)

But what might annoy me is that on the one hand they felt no need to follow Trek convention (ooh, we have magic spinning saucer sections!), but then felt the need to staple more Spock siblings so they can point and say "see, canon!". (I'd be more upset about Pike & Enterprise, except they did a pretty solid job of making the ship look like The Ship, and the actors did a great job and made me forget about being annoyed.)

[Boffo97]

Also, when all the Borg drones got sucked out (blown out, sir) into space, was I the only one thinking "They're fine. The rules say drones can survive in space."?

[JeBuS]

Also, when all the Borg drones got sucked out (blown out, sir) into space, was I the only one thinking "They're fine. The rules say drones can survive in space."?

The should be fine. The First Contact Interplexing Beacon drones would like to have a word with the writers.

[Armus]

You'd also think Life Support Belt technology would have seen wider development/ assimilation, making getting blown out into space less of an issue...

[Boffo97]

Now, I suppose that if one were looking for a way to explain it, you could say that these drones died because they weren't fully activated yet. Had they been, they would have survived as whatever tech allows that would have been active.

[The Guardian]

I can't agree. Discovery's first season was an attempt to teach a new generation how to watch Trek.

Y'know how you do that? Making good Trek, rather than pretty good Sci-Fi and calling it Star Trek. (You could *easily* file the serial numbers off S1 Disco and re-skin to Babylon 5 or Andromeda or Farscape. Well, maybe not enough leather for Farscape.)

I can see that. I meant more that after years of kids seeing shows, both sci-fi and not, glorifying an anti-hero that calls their own shots that seeing a crew that works together cohesively would seem underwhelming. They might be used to the soap opera narrative. From the couple that "can't be together" one episode and then "has to be together" the next episode only to ping pong back and forth all season to the group that doesn't seem to be able to stand being in the same room together and constantly undermining each other's decisions being the heroes, we needed to start there and demonstrate why that's bad. The Discovery crew earned their cohesiveness (kind of...I mean, again, I would have liked more of a reflection of the pilot at the end of the season; specifically, the crew, including Lorca, coming together against Mudd was great). Picard did a little bit better there. He had retreated into himself at the beginning and had to be willing to place it all on the line again by the end. I wish that Burnham had talked the crew into disobeying Starfleet's orders at the end instead of just convincing them. Thus, as her journey started with mutiny, so it should end, but justified, because while the Admirals lost their way as she had done, she found it.

That being said, I still liked it and I feel I understand what they meant.

On that note, can you think of a Trek story that I couldn't file the serial number off and make into another property? I don't know what kind of story is purely a Star Trek story, but my gut says there isn't one. Maybe I'm wrong there.

But what might annoy me is that on the one hand they felt no need to follow Trek convention (ooh, we have magic spinning saucer sections!), but then felt the need to staple more Spock siblings so they can point and say "see, canon!". (I'd be more upset about Pike & Enterprise, except they did a pretty solid job of making the ship look like The Ship, and the actors did a great job and made me forget about being annoyed.)

The spinning saucer does seem sort of useless, but I assumed it had something to do with the spore drive that the ship was designed around. I noticed earlier someone lamented the lack of Lore or Lal in Picard and I was surprised to see nary a reference to Sybok (even a hint when Michael and Spock were alone). Yes, I wondered if that connection to Star Trek canon (specifically, Michael) was entirely necessary, but I don't know. Seemed to be used well with Sarek and Amanda. And adding even more depth to Spock in season 2.