Star Trek: Picard (CBS All-Access)

[sh9000]

https://www.change.org/p/let-terry-matalas-picard-season-3-showrunner-make-more-star-trek-shows-terrytrek

Make it so.

[borgified]

[borgified]

Pushed back by technical glitches, the podcast was on at 2 pm PST

 

[sh9000]

Got my Steelbook.

[Spark-O-Matic]

Sorry to see this show end but at the same time it could have been so much better. So much lost potential. The Borg Queen and collective were just so awkward more like bad knock offs of themselves. the Borg were my favorite heros of the show and they ruined them.

I would like to see a fresh start set 1000 yrs in the future for ST going forward, also would like to see a fan focused version and only production teams who are fans themselves involved.  No politics or virtue signaling

In the future they could do a soft reboot were Picard series never was in the timeline, after Janeway infected the Borg queen, the queen in her dying moments sent a distress call to a parallel universe collective ruled by a Borg king who is immune to the disease and now who invaded this universe, reactivating the queen and resurrecting the billions of dead borg. The menace returns. 

I think Picard was just too late it should have been done in the early 2000's when they would have given the show the same kinda positive vibes that STNG had. 

I still miss Enterprise it had so much potential too and was getting better but it's mismanagement was a sign of things to come and I knew once Picard was greenlighted it would suffer a worst date as nothing in the background has ever gotten better.

[tekering]

2 hours ago, Spark-O-Matic said:

I would like to see a fresh start set 1000 yrs in the future

Have you not been following Discovery?

[Spark-O-Matic]

2 hours ago, tekering said:

Have you not been following Discovery?

When companies do bad things to it's own customers for self righteous reasons I am obligated not to spend money, time or effort to support them in any way. Star Trek is like almost all entertainment in this day and age is disgenuine and untrustworthy.  Not enough space here to type it all out and it goes to far in to many directions outside the scope of this forum.

No I don't watch Discovery because by doing so it supports those who have too much power and the money given becomes lube for the machine cogs of oberbloted elitest corporate behemoth's who despise everything good and everyone who helped make them a success.

I like Patrick Stewart and always a big fan even more so in the X-Men franchise. that was the few things that could keep my eyes on the screen as an exception, watching mostly to see how they destroyed my beloved Borg and ruined them. These developers they cannot create anything, they can only pervert and distort what is there. 

[sh9000]

Final season's memorable moments.

[Seto Kaiba]

9 hours ago, Spark-O-Matic said:

Sorry to see this show end but at the same time it could have been so much better. So much lost potential. The Borg Queen and collective were just so awkward more like bad knock offs of themselves. the Borg were my favorite heros of the show and they ruined them.

Well, that's what happens when you launch a second series as a "saving throw" built around the Star Power of a single returning cast member because your original series flopped.

Not Viacom/CBS/Paramount's finest hour.  Especially considering the finale of season three is basically nicked from The Rise of Skywalker... which was not exactly a great moment for writing either.

"Somehow, Palpatine returned"
"Somehow, the Borg Queen returned and assimilated everybody"

It's the same picture.

 

9 hours ago, Spark-O-Matic said:

I would like to see a fresh start set 1000 yrs in the future for ST going forward, also would like to see a fan focused version and only production teams who are fans themselves involved. 

No you would not.  That is pretty much exactly what Star Trek: Discovery is starting from its third season to the end of its fifth and final season.

That was their solution for the second time they retooled Discovery due to its poor viewership and worse reception among fans.  They moved the whole affair almost 1,000 years into the future (from the mid-23rd century to the end of the 32nd century).  It is even dumber than Discovery already was.

 

9 hours ago, Spark-O-Matic said:

No politics or virtue signaling

Bruh, Star Trek has ALWAYS been political.  ALWAYS.  From the very start.  And it was NOT subtle about it.

Saying you want Star Trek with "no politics" is saying you want Macross without VFs and music or Gundam without Newtypes and Mobile Suits.

 

9 hours ago, Spark-O-Matic said:

In the future they could do a soft reboot were Picard series never was in the timeline, after Janeway infected the Borg queen, the queen in her dying moments sent a distress call to a parallel universe collective ruled by a Borg king who is immune to the disease and now who invaded this universe, reactivating the queen and resurrecting the billions of dead borg. The menace returns.

... that actually sounds worse.  Like, "an original Star Trek novel by William Shatner" worse.  Nearly as bad as that one time Shatner wrote a self-fic about how the Borg and Romulans brought his ass back from the dead post-Generations and he solo'd the entire TNG cast before defeating the Borg forever and dying a second time.  

I'mma take a hard pass, esp. since the Borg have already suffered so much villain decay that they were practically a joke by the end of Voyager.  This was just an undignified end to an enemy that had already begun to feel like less of a real threat than the Pakleds.

(Which makes it all the weirder that the Borg Queen's got it in for Picard when Janeway's the one who wrecked her sh*t.)

In the future, they might retroactively write Discovery's 3rd-5th seasons out of the timeline as a parallel world but I think we're stuck with Picard.  If only because it seems to mark the end of a brief dark period in the Federation's history that presages a more hopeful and positive era now that the Borg are officially done-for, the Federation's post-Dominion War isolationism is breaking down, and they've finally given civil rights to artificial life forms.

 

9 hours ago, Spark-O-Matic said:

I still miss Enterprise it had so much potential too and was getting better but it's mismanagement was a sign of things to come and I knew once Picard was greenlighted it would suffer a worst date as nothing in the background has ever gotten better.

Enterprise was doomed from the start and its showrunners knew it... its biggest opponent wasn't the network, it was that audiences were suffering fatigue from more than a solid decade of Trek on the air and losing interest.  The franchise needed a break, but the network wasn't having it.

Picard was also doomed from the get-go because it was built on the faulty premise that Patrick Stewart's star power would be enough to win back the fans even if all they did was start a second series using the same formula as the failing Discovery series and swap their OC out for a beloved established character.  They didn't realize that forced Picard to be so wildly out of character most of the time that he hardly seemed like the same person.

[Thom]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Well, that's what happens when you launch a second series as a "saving throw" built around the Star Power of a single returning cast member because your original series flopped.

Not Viacom/CBS/Paramount's finest hour.  Especially considering the finale of season three is basically nicked from The Rise of Skywalker... which was not exactly a great moment for writing either.

"Somehow, Palpatine returned"
"Somehow, the Borg Queen returned and assimilated everybody"

It's the same picture.

 

No you would not.  That is pretty much exactly what Star Trek: Discovery is starting from its third season to the end of its fifth and final season.

That was their solution for the second time they retooled Discovery due to its poor viewership and worse reception among fans.  They moved the whole affair almost 1,000 years into the future (from the mid-23rd century to the end of the 32nd century).  It is even dumber than Discovery already was.

 

Bruh, Star Trek has ALWAYS been political.  ALWAYS.  From the very start.  And it was NOT subtle about it.

Saying you want Star Trek with "no politics" is saying you want Macross without VFs and music or Gundam without Newtypes and Mobile Suits.

 

... that actually sounds worse.  Like, "an original Star Trek novel by William Shatner" worse.  Nearly as bad as that one time Shatner wrote a self-fic about how the Borg and Romulans brought his ass back from the dead post-Generations and he solo'd the entire TNG cast before defeating the Borg forever and dying a second time.  

I'mma take a hard pass, esp. since the Borg have already suffered so much villain decay that they were practically a joke by the end of Voyager.  This was just an undignified end to an enemy that had already begun to feel like less of a real threat than the Pakleds.

(Which makes it all the weirder that the Borg Queen's got it in for Picard when Janeway's the one who wrecked her sh*t.)

In the future, they might retroactively write Discovery's 3rd-5th seasons out of the timeline as a parallel world but I think we're stuck with Picard.  If only because it seems to mark the end of a brief dark period in the Federation's history that presages a more hopeful and positive era now that the Borg are officially done-for, the Federation's post-Dominion War isolationism is breaking down, and they've finally given civil rights to artificial life forms.

 

Enterprise was doomed from the start and its showrunners knew it... its biggest opponent wasn't the network, it was that audiences were suffering fatigue from more than a solid decade of Trek on the air and losing interest.  The franchise needed a break, but the network wasn't having it.

Picard was also doomed from the get-go because it was built on the faulty premise that Patrick Stewart's star power would be enough to win back the fans even if all they did was start a second series using the same formula as the failing Discovery series and swap their OC out for a beloved established character.  They didn't realize that forced Picard to be so wildly out of character most of the time that he hardly seemed like the same person.

A good show for Picard would have been to combine him with the purposed Academy series, put him in a mentor/professor role on a training ship and then let the 'fun' happen. But for what we got, season 3 was the most ST and I would rather just ignore the first two seasons. 

 

For Disco, season 2 was the only good one, and a lot of that had to do with Mount's Pike. I liked the story line of the AI and them having to go into the future to save the present, but then season 3 just did not follow through on the promise of it, The Emerald Chain was just stupid and the reason for the Burn was just effin stupid. If I watch season 4 it's going to be because I am bored.

 

As for the Borg, I don't think of them as exclusive to any one show, nor for any of the adversaries for that matter. That's like saying only Kirk can face-off against the Klingons as he was the first to tangle with them. As for them coming off as neutered, I don't think it's that their threat was lessened, but only that we are familiar with them now. There can be only one Best of Both Worlds.

 

 

Edited September 7, 2023 by Thom

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Thom said:

A good show for Picard would have been to combine him with the purposed Academy series, put him in a mentor/professor role on a training ship and then let the 'fun' happen. But for what we got, season 3 was the most ST and I would rather just ignore the first two seasons. 

Bringing back Jean-Luc Picard would have made a lot more sense either as some kind of political thriller with Ambassador Picard and his staff getting up to some kind of high stakes shenanigans, or Starfleet Academy Commandant Picard overseeing a training ship.

Of course, any of that would depend on the creative staff being able to write compelling original characters... and as Discovery and Picard both attest, they just couldn't.

S3 of Picard was less awful, but it's still a pretty weak exercise driven mainly by fanservice and a cast reunion IMO.  Better by far than the previous two, but a terribly low bar to clear even on a bad day.

 

 

1 hour ago, Thom said:

For Disco, season 2 was the only good one, and a lot of that had to do with Mount's Pike. I liked the story line of the AI and them having to go into the future to save the present, but then season 3 just did not follow through on the promise of it, The Emerald Chain was just stupid and the reason for the Burn was just effin stupid. If I watch season 4 it's going to be because I am bored.

Pretty much, yeah... 

I've watched a bit of S4 and it's less dreadful than S3 but not by much.  Inscruitable aliens is definitely way better than Green Space Karen as an antagonist... but the main issue is still that the cast are just unlikeable and Burnham has too much Main Character Syndrome.

 

1 hour ago, Thom said:

As for the Borg, I don't think of them as exclusive to any one show, nor for any of the adversaries for that matter. That's like saying only Kirk can face-off against the Klingons as he was the first to tangle with them. As for them coming off as neutered, I don't think it's that their threat was lessened, but only that we are familiar with them now. There can be only one Best of Both Worlds.

In absolute terms I'd agree with you, but to many fans there's a certain sense of propriety involving which character a particular antagonist is most involved with.  We've gone over that in previous posts, so I won't rehash it.

The thing you have to remember about why the Borg are really more a Voyager villain than a TNG one is that as iconic as "Q Who" and "Best of Both Worlds" were, those were what set the Borg up as Too Awesome to Use in the minds of TNG's writers.  They couldn't become a recurring nemesis because there was no way for the Enterprise's crew to plausibly win.  That's why they only show up five times in 176 episodes and 4 movies with only three of those being actual confrontations.  Compare that to Voyager, where 26 of the show's 172 episodes have appearances by the Borg (essentially one entire season) and across which the Borg are repeatedly humbled and outwitted by a much less elite and much less heavily armed Starfleet ship than the Enterprise-D or Enterprise-E.  It's what took them from their status as The Dreaded in TNG to just another recurring Trek villain in Voyager, and the epilogue of Voyager is what put them at death's door in time for Picard.  The Borg set some kind of all-time record for most profound Villain Decay, going from bodying whole fleets of Starfleet ships without breaking a sweat to having Janeway repeatedly outwit and defeat them with a tiny science ship and then in a one-two punch to being SO RONERY and just wanting friends before being revealed to be down to a single ship populated mainly by the corpses of cannibalized drones that gets destroyed by a bunch of elderly retirees in their restored classic car.

No other antagonist in Star Trek - and few others in fiction - have gone through such profound villain decay.  The Borg were THE DREADED in TNG, but by the time Voyager finished with them they were bordering on a lethal joke enemy, and when Picard rolled in they were on the brink of dying out on their own before Jean-Luc rolled up to take them off of life support.

[Thom]

44 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

In absolute terms I'd agree with you, but to many fans there's a certain sense of propriety involving which character a particular antagonist is most involved with.  We've gone over that in previous posts, so I won't rehash it.

The thing you have to remember about why the Borg are really more a Voyager villain than a TNG one is that as iconic as "Q Who" and "Best of Both Worlds" were, those were what set the Borg up as Too Awesome to Use in the minds of TNG's writers.  They couldn't become a recurring nemesis because there was no way for the Enterprise's crew to plausibly win.  That's why they only show up five times in 176 episodes and 4 movies with only three of those being actual confrontations.  Compare that to Voyager, where 26 of the show's 172 episodes have appearances by the Borg (essentially one entire season) and across which the Borg are repeatedly humbled and outwitted by a much less elite and much less heavily armed Starfleet ship than the Enterprise-D or Enterprise-E.  It's what took them from their status as The Dreaded in TNG to just another recurring Trek villain in Voyager, and the epilogue of Voyager is what put them at death's door in time for Picard.  The Borg set some kind of all-time record for most profound Villain Decay, going from bodying whole fleets of Starfleet ships without breaking a sweat to having Janeway repeatedly outwit and defeat them with a tiny science ship and then in a one-two punch to being SO RONERY and just wanting friends before being revealed to be down to a single ship populated mainly by the corpses of cannibalized drones that gets destroyed by a bunch of elderly retirees in their restored classic car.

No other antagonist in Star Trek - and few others in fiction - have gone through such profound villain decay.  The Borg were THE DREADED in TNG, but by the time Voyager finished with them they were bordering on a lethal joke enemy, and when Picard rolled in they were on the brink of dying out on their own before Jean-Luc rolled up to take them off of life support.

Agreed, the Borg got Worfed.

Since they could not be allowed to win they had to be 'lessened,' but we have to consider that 'in universe,' before Q forced the introduction, the Federation had no knowledge of the Borg including what they're weaknesses were. But after Wolf 359, they are on a steep learning curve and you start to get to know your enemy, and so does the audience. They lose the mystique and unknown dread. And as we have seen throughout Star Trek in its many incarnations, the Federation is nothing if not fiendish at quickly finding weaknesses and advancing tech to overcome what was before an insurmountable foe. 

Like the Aliens compared to Alien, the mystery has to be stripped away a bit, otherwise the good guys win not because they were smart and inventive, but because they had plot armor.

But back to the original point, personally, I've never had a problem with a bit of alien-threat poaching among the shows. They are all in the same universe after all and to have villainous races being specific to each show comes off as unrealistic. To me, anyway.

[Spark-O-Matic]

To save Star Trek you must destroy it!

 

The only thing to fix the franchise is time. lots of it letting many years go by while the big monopolies in media & tech dismantled so the constant push to keep shoving it down peoples throats is greatly reduced as the drive for more and more profits are given a back seat.

As for WS he seems to be very healthy for his age compared to others,  likely out living them. He is his own self made man that's very respectable.

Regarding the Borg much of what people are missing is the lore & facts the shows failed to show the expanded ST Universe. the Borg were not just a villain but existed in countless parallels universes and realities with most being aware of each other and many of these were ruled by queens and several Borg kings so by them always bringing them up in television were the budgets were tight and always neglecting to not never show there true power while as others pointed putting them into decay.

If you wanted to really save ST you have to kill it! ....and by that I mean the same old tired plot of jumping into a space ship and boldly going were no man has gone before. the problem is man (humans) to save ST you have to reboot it as not ST.  people need to see the expanded universe with countless races. they can spin off a half dozen shows over a decade based on Alien worlds located in the ST universe with varied tie in's. example would be a show based sometime in Klingon history on its homeworld or colonies with whole new unexplored people, histories and plots. you could even do one about the who and how the Borg became to be on some distant world maybe at war with another race and over 5 to 7 seasons creating a true background for the Borg. all this would be done in completely different filming format closer to game of thrones with dramatic characters and vast immersive visuals on worlds unknown. you can add hundreds or thousands of potential races of present, past and future in the known star trek universe.  they can always add little easter eggs here/there and hints about how the shows will eventually tie into the ST universe and federation but never like past shows would the the directors hands be tied or storyteller silenced as these would be foundation shows .  the big studios could still make money while giving the main franchise a much needed rest at least a decade  while really exploring the races in the ST universe so many have wanted to see.  so much could be done without the federation in the ST Universe.

As for Picard Show what should have been done was Sisco!  he was the better one as DS9 was way more centered around him. Avery Brooks has always been a great actor and the cast of DS9 more interesting Imo. Hollywood's always ignoring Brooks reminds me of what they really think of him, not what they virtue signal. Sisco also was in the Battle of Wolf 359 were is wife Jennifer was Killed so he would have had all the requirement's to go after the Borg.  I think a show based on a young Sisco would be great or a spinoff years in the future based on his son Jake and co stared by Wesley crusher . 

The trouble with ST is the inability to truly explore it outside the federation and beyond certain actors and shows to explore it outside a narrow perspective built up over decades and let these new shows based in the universe but not always connected be the foundation for rebuilding the franchise.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Thom said:

Agreed, the Borg got Worfed.

Oh my, the Borg got it way worse than our boy Worf ever did.

It's a hell of a downgrade to go from being the franchise's second-biggest threat to the Federation behind Q to being an enemy that could conceivably have been defeated by the Pakleds in a stand-up fight.  

 

1 hour ago, Thom said:

Since they could not be allowed to win they had to be 'lessened,' but we have to consider that 'in universe,' before Q forced the introduction, the Federation had no knowledge of the Borg including what they're weaknesses were. But after Wolf 359, they are on a steep learning curve and you start to get to know your enemy, and so does the audience. They lose the mystique and unknown dread. And as we have seen throughout Star Trek in its many incarnations, the Federation is nothing if not fiendish at quickly finding weaknesses and advancing tech to overcome what was before an insurmountable foe. 

That's why TNG's writers conceded that the Borg were simply Too Awesome to Use.  

When they were introduced, their technology was so far beyond what the Federation's best that a single Borg cube destroyed a fleet of 40 Starfleet ships at Wolf 359 without even breaking a sweat.  That really hadn't changed by the time of First Contact either.  A single Borg cube once again flew right through Starfleet's best defenses without issue and was right on Earth's doorstep before Starfleet brought it down using a weakness detected through Picard's link to the Collective.  In order to be a recurring antagonist on Voyager, they had to be MASSIVELY downgraded and it got worse the more they showed up.  They didn't just lose the mystique they had prior to First Contact, they were straight-up jobbing and by the end one rinky-dink Starfleet science ship that left BEFORE the events of First Contact had killed the entire Borg collective.

Q should've been warning his kid not to provoke Janeway instead of not to provoke the Borg.  The Borg got between Janeway and coffee, and Janeway removed the obstacle.

 

1 hour ago, Thom said:

But back to the original point, personally, I've never had a problem with a bit of alien-threat poaching among the shows. They are all in the same universe after all and to have villainous races being specific to each show comes off as unrealistic. To me, anyway.

I don't disagree... just, y'know, there's that very human tendency to link the protagonists to the most iconic of their antagonists as "their" villain even if the same enemy is fought by multiple crews/characters.  The Borg Queen might've been introduced in First Contact, but Janeway's the Starfleet captain the Borg Queen absolutely hated and even feared.  Jean-Luc was less a mortal foe than an old flame who dumped her.

So, to me anyway, it really doesn't feel like season three's antagonists were an appropriate plot.  The Changelings were always a DS9 thing, the Borg Queen was Janeway's archenemy not Picard's.  Really, it's more an issue with TNG having not produced a signature antagonist for Picard due to it bouncing back and forth between several weak ideas.

[sh9000]

https://gizmodo.com/star-trek-picard-season-3-deleted-scene-worf-riker-1850804585

Worf deleted scene.

[Thom]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

... The Borg got between Janeway and coffee, and Janeway removed the obstacle...

That is so awesomely put, I love it!🤣

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

...

So, to me anyway, it really doesn't feel like season three's antagonists were an appropriate plot.  The Changelings were always a DS9 thing, the Borg Queen was Janeway's archenemy not Picard's.  Really, it's more an issue with TNG having not produced a signature antagonist for Picard due to it bouncing back and forth between several weak ideas.

We could view Picard as an all-around Trouble-Shooter, not content with one adversary, but taking everyone's!

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, Thom said:

We could view Picard as an all-around Trouble-Shooter, not content with one adversary, but taking everyone's!

I prefer to take the view that, in his prime, Picard was such a consummate diplomat that he just never made any mortal enemies. 

To me, this moment right here is peak Jean-Luc Picard.

 

 

He never had any big bad who could come back in Picard and just try to ruin his life since 90% of his encounters with hostile aliens ended like that. So instead, most of his issues in the Picard series are self-inflicted.

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, Spark-O-Matic said:

Regarding the Borg much of what people are missing is the lore & facts the shows failed to show the expanded ST Universe.

One thing that Star Trek fans have that I consider an advantage over the Star Wars fans is we've always understood that our expanded universe is pretty awful and that most of us are pretty grateful that it's all non-canon and always has been.

License novels, comics, video games, and so on never get great writing and honestly the stuff that does get put down in those has no business being in the TV shows because it's mostly awful fan service garbage. The Borg are a great example of that because a couple of different explanations for their history have been tabled over the years, and all of them are incredibly stupid. Without exception.

 

4 hours ago, Spark-O-Matic said:

If you wanted to really save ST you have to kill it! ....and by that I mean the same old tired plot of jumping into a space ship and boldly going were no man has gone before. the problem is man (humans) to save ST you have to reboot it as not ST.  people need to see the expanded universe with countless races. they can spin off a half dozen shows over a decade based on Alien worlds located in the ST universe with varied tie in's.

Strange New Worlds would tend to disprove your argument by virtue of its very existence.

The problem is what you're proposing here is, of course, that spin-offs focusing on all of the different alien races wouldn't really appeal to anyone except die hard fans. To have a successful series on streaming you need broad appeal. And, to be frank, you need a cast that the audience finds relatable and interesting. That's why the main characters of Star Trek are inevitably human. It's much easier for the audience to relate to them if they are either humans or human-like aliens with allegorical relationships to human culture.

The only thing that was standing between the franchise and renewed success when the first new TV shows were being planned was their obsession with making everyone into a miserable bastard. Everyone on Discovery is miserable. Everyone on Picard is miserable. Everyone in the galaxy is miserable. They made things so dark and so bleak and so very unlike what audiences expect from Star Trek that nobody wanted to watch it. It says an awful lot that as soon as they put the optimism back in, all of the sudden people were tuning in in droves and lauding Strange New Worlds as a wonderful installment in the franchise. 

If the writers working on Picard had kept TNG's trademark optimism instead of bowing to Discovery's obsession with bleak and dark, the series would probably have been much better received... and likely would have joined SNW as one of the higher ranked shows instead of being the second worst by audience rating.

 

4 hours ago, Spark-O-Matic said:

As for Picard Show what should have been done was Sisco!  he was the better one as DS9 was way more centered around him. Avery Brooks has always been a great actor and the cast of DS9 more interesting Imo.

That would have been harder to work with, since at the end of DS9 he had ascended to a higher plane of existence and gone to live with the prophets. They're pretty powerful, and it would take an awful lot of tension out of the series if the protagonist could simply stop time or teleport anywhere at will or step outside of linear time whenever something inconvenient happens.

 

 

 

[JB0]

5 hours ago, Spark-O-Matic said:

As for Picard Show what should have been done was Sisco!  he was the better one as DS9 was way more centered around him. Avery Brooks has always been a great actor and the cast of DS9 more interesting Imo. Hollywood's always ignoring Brooks reminds me of what they really think of him, not what they virtue signal.

As I understand things, they've wanted to bring Sisko back, but Avery Brooks doesn't actually want to come back.

[pengbuzz]

8 hours ago, Spark-O-Matic said:

To save Star Trek you must destroy it!

The only thing to fix the franchise is time. lots of it letting many years go by while the big monopolies in media & tech dismantled so the constant push to keep shoving it down peoples throats is greatly reduced as the drive for more and more profits are given a back seat.

If you wanted to really save ST you have to kill it! ....and by that I mean the same old tired plot of jumping into a space ship and boldly going were no man has gone before. the problem is man (humans) to save ST you have to reboot it as not ST.  people need to see the expanded universe with countless races. they can spin off a half dozen shows over a decade based on Alien worlds located in the ST universe with varied tie in's. example would be a show based sometime in Klingon history on its homeworld or colonies with whole new unexplored people, histories and plots. you could even do one about the who and how the Borg became to be on some distant world maybe at war with another race and over 5 to 7 seasons creating a true background for the Borg. all this would be done in completely different filming format closer to game of thrones with dramatic characters and vast immersive visuals on worlds unknown. you can add hundreds or thousands of potential races of present, past and future in the known star trek universe.  they can always add little easter eggs here/there and hints about how the shows will eventually tie into the ST universe and federation but never like past shows would the the directors hands be tied or storyteller silenced as these would be foundation shows .  the big studios could still make money while giving the main franchise a much needed rest at least a decade  while really exploring the races in the ST universe so many have wanted to see.  so much could be done without the federation in the ST Universe.

If you remove what makes it Star Trek, then it isn't Star Trek. You're missing the whole point here.

Even if you give it "lots of years", once you bring it back without what made it great, it's still just a dead corpse. As Seto stated earlier: it's the optimism, the belief in the human spirit to become greater than what it began as and to look for the best and the unknown in the universe that attracts fans to it. If you start focusing on "aliens", then it simply becomes alien and unrecognizable. You start putting fans into places where they cannot see the human adventure, the human spirit, and they're going to be heading for the door just like they did during DIS and PIC S1&2.

 

8 hours ago, Spark-O-Matic said:

As for WS he seems to be very healthy for his age compared to others,  likely out living them. He is his own self made man that's very respectable.

Regarding the Borg much of what people are missing is the lore & facts the shows failed to show the expanded ST Universe. the Borg were not just a villain but existed in countless parallels universes and realities with most being aware of each other and many of these were ruled by queens and several Borg kings so by them always bringing them up in television were the budgets were tight and always neglecting to not never show there true power while as others pointed putting them into decay.

 

As for Picard Show what should have been done was Sisco!  he was the better one as DS9 was way more centered around him. Avery Brooks has always been a great actor and the cast of DS9 more interesting Imo. Hollywood's always ignoring Brooks reminds me of what they really think of him, not what they virtue signal. Sisco also was in the Battle of Wolf 359 were is wife Jennifer was Killed so he would have had all the requirement's to go after the Borg.  I think a show based on a young Sisco would be great or a spinoff years in the future based on his son Jake and co stared by Wesley crusher . 

The trouble with ST is the inability to truly explore it outside the federation and beyond certain actors and shows to explore it outside a narrow perspective built up over decades and let these new shows based in the universe but not always connected be the foundation for rebuilding the franchise.

If you include the "lore and facts" for the Borg.  you finish killing the Borg. The Borg worked because they were an unknown versus our human/ humanlike crew. Their power was how unhuman they were: the  Federation's best weaponry and tactics only worked once, maybe twice. And the fact that they were cybernetically altered into half-humanoid /half machine beings in of itself was pretty unnerving. They didn't need "kings and queens", which once introduced, gave them a human quality and began to reduce their horror. Once you give them a relatable past and relatable traits, they are not a threat, and villain decay has already reduced them to a largely pathetic joke.

Sisko: he ran his story arc, and he's done now. He's with the Prophets, and is not coming back. That ship sailed some time ago.

Wesley: Let's just pretend you never brought him up.

No, the real trouble with Star Trek is that everyone wants to do their take on it by yanking out what made it work and thinking "I can just 'borrow the frame' and put my own engine in, and it'll be like Star Trek but with MY personal spin on it!!!"

And it doesn't work that way.

Star Trek works best when things are seen through our eyes (the eyes of the Federation, the stand-in for the audience), and issues that are common, universal and apply to everyone are examined by these various races in their own contexts. The "alienism" here works because it removes the familiar from the social issue or situation we are familiar with, and presents the situation in a way where the alien value allows the core(s)of the issue to be seen clearly.

In other words: those cultures provide a "litmus" if you will, letting us see the scenarios with fresh eyes and from perspectives we would normally not have considered.

And the best episodes were not the ones that gave "pat answers" to a problem, but left them to be dealt with (rarely "solved") by those involved. "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" was a good example in my opinion, because through an almost silly extremely hyperbolic example, racism was examined via Belle and Loki. The final resolution of that episode was both of them in a foot chase on their home world of Charon, now blasted to rubble and devoid of all life.

Even if Belle caught Loki, what would he do with him? everyone that mattered, including their judges, were NOW DEAD.

And that's the point.

By removing the issue of race as we know it here in our day and age, and instead examining it in an alien context, we begin to see the issues with it.,  We also see where for Charon, it ultimately led to annihilation and a pointless extinction of their peoples. And the optimism here is: we don't have to follow that example. We can BE BETTER THAN THAT.

Once you take out the ability to look towards a better future, see things through human eyes in non-human cultures, and the spirit of human exploration and courage...

...all you have is a bunch of nasty people without any human grace, who would just as soon kill one another as look at each other.

[sh9000]

Happy Star Trek Day.

[Seto Kaiba]

9 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

You start putting fans into places where they cannot see the human adventure, the human spirit, and they're going to be heading for the door just like they did during DIS and PIC S1&2.

... and if you just go through the motions and do the bare minimum to make the story feel Star Trek-like as in Picard's third and final season, you might score some brownie points with the die-hard fans through fanservice but it won't make it an engaging or interesting series for the casual viewers who make up the majority of the audience.

 

9 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

If you include the "lore and facts" for the Borg.  you finish killing the Borg. The Borg worked because they were an unknown versus our human/ humanlike crew. Their power was how unhuman they were: the  Federation's best weaponry and tactics only worked once, maybe twice. And the fact that they were cybernetically altered into half-humanoid /half machine beings in of itself was pretty unnerving. They didn't need "kings and queens", which once introduced, gave them a human quality and began to reduce their horror. Once you give them a relatable past and relatable traits, they are not a threat, and villain decay has already reduced them to a largely pathetic joke.

... and this is why ever single origin story given for the Borg in Star Trek's 100% non-canonical "Expanded Universe" has been absolute garbage.

First Contact already ruined the Borg by turning them from an inscruitable alien race who evolved into a symbiotic relationship with their technology and a completely alien set of priorities and benevolent (in their view) intentions into boring cyber-zombies led by an incredibly hammy and openly malevolent B-movie villain called the Borg Queen.  The whole idea was incredibly stupid and they knew it, since it required them to repeatedly deny that the leader they'd created for the Borg was the leader of the Borg.  It just got worse each time the Borg appeared, hitting its nadir in Picard's second and third seasons where the Borg Queen - who is definitely a personification of the collective and not at an individual being with its own agency according to the writers - is basically the last, lonely, pathetic survivor of the Borg collective.

The last thing we need is another sh*tty origin story like Star Trek: Destiny to come in and reveal that humanity is responsible for creating the Borg.

Yes, you read that right... in the relaunch novelverse the Borg were created as a result of something humans did.  Specifically, the crew of the NX-02 Columbia.

 

9 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

No, the real trouble with Star Trek is that everyone wants to do their take on it by yanking out what made it work and thinking "I can just 'borrow the frame' and put my own engine in, and it'll be like Star Trek but with MY personal spin on it!!!"

And it doesn't work that way.

Ref. Star Trek (2009), Star Trek: Into Darkness, Star Trek: Beyond, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard...

All attempts to make Star Trek into something un-Star Trek-like... and all, notably, massive failures for the studio and the franchise.  

 

9 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Once you take out the ability to look towards a better future, see things through human eyes in non-human cultures, and the spirit of human exploration and courage...

...all you have is a bunch of nasty people without any human grace, who would just as soon kill one another as look at each other.

Best known in this franchise as "the crew of the USS Discovery".

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

... and if you just go through the motions and do the bare minimum to make the story feel Star Trek-like as in Picard's third and final season, you might score some brownie points with the die-hard fans through fanservice but it won't make it an engaging or interesting series for the casual viewers who make up the majority of the audience.

Right; that does no good either. It's lazy at best and downright criminal at worst, substituting style  for substance.

It's like twinkies: it may taste like a genuine snack dessert, but there's really nothing there.

 

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

... and this is why ever single origin story given for the Borg in Star Trek's 100% non-canonical "Expanded Universe" has been absolute garbage.

First Contact already ruined the Borg by turning them from an inscruitable alien race who evolved into a symbiotic relationship with their technology and a completely alien set of priorities and benevolent (in their view) intentions into boring cyber-zombies led by an incredibly hammy and openly malevolent B-movie villain called the Borg Queen.  The whole idea was incredibly stupid and they knew it, since it required them to repeatedly deny that the leader they'd created for the Borg was the leader of the Borg.  It just got worse each time the Borg appeared, hitting its nadir in Picard's second and third seasons where the Borg Queen - who is definitely a personification of the collective and not at an individual being with its own agency according to the writers - is basically the last, lonely, pathetic survivor of the Borg collective.

The last thing we need is another sh*tty origin story like Star Trek: Destiny to come in and reveal that humanity is responsible for creating the Borg.

Yes, you read that right... in the relaunch novelverse the Borg were created as a result of something humans did.  Specifically, the crew of the NX-02 Columbia.

The origin of the Borg best exemplify the phrase "Some mysteries were never meant to be solved".

 

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Ref. Star Trek (2009), Star Trek: Into Darkness, Star Trek: Beyond, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard...

All attempts to make Star Trek into something un-Star Trek-like... and all, notably, massive failures for the studio and the franchise.  

Like replacing the engine of a Ferrari F-40 with one from a smart car and then wondering why it runs like $#!t.

 

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Best known in this franchise as "the crew of the USS Discovery".

Yup; voted in 3189 as "Crew Most Likely To Strangle One Another."

[sh9000]

Posted by STO art director, Thomas Marrone.  I just found a new desktop wallpaper.

[CoryHolmes]

On 9/7/2023 at 9:06 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

I prefer to take the view that, in his prime, Picard was such a consummate diplomat that he just never made any mortal enemies. 

To me, this moment right here is peak Jean-Luc Picard.

 

 

He never had any big bad who could come back in Picard and just try to ruin his life since 90% of his encounters with hostile aliens ended like that. So instead, most of his issues in the Picard series are self-inflicted.

Nay nay!  THIS is peak Picard, at his awesomest.

He's diplomatic.  He's working towards peace.  He's trying to bridge the gulf between two species so recently enemies.

 

But he's nobody's fool, and he's NOT to be trifled with.  The very definition of silk hiding steel.

[pengbuzz]

8 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

Nay nay!  THIS is peak Picard, at his awesomest.

He's diplomatic.  He's working towards peace.  He's trying to bridge the gulf between two species so recently enemies.

 

But he's nobody's fool, and he's NOT to be trifled with.  The very definition of silk hiding steel.

When Picard drops a line like that an then turns his back on you, you know you done screwed up.

[Dobber]

11 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

Nay nay!  THIS is peak Picard, at his awesomest.

He's diplomatic.  He's working towards peace.  He's trying to bridge the gulf between two species so recently enemies.

 

But he's nobody's fool, and he's NOT to be trifled with.  The very definition of silk hiding steel.

YES! That is peak Picard. Chef’s kiss

Chris

[Thom]

That really was a great scene. but then I thought, 'We'll be watching...' and he immediately turns away! Now, yes, I know the symbolism and the dismissal implicit in that moment, but I still chuckled a little at the unintended visual.

[derex3592]

Yes, both of those are great. Two of my all time favorites though have to be in the 2nd Q episode where Q is quoting Shakespeare to him in the ready room and Picard comes back with his "Oh I know Shakespeare" speech.  Also, in "Tapestry" when he gives the speech to Q about dying the man he was rather than live out the life he just saw, before Q sends him back for the 2nd time to set his past right. Third would be in "The Drumhead" when he gives his final speech to the lady on a witch hunt. 

 

On another note, wife and I finally got around to Picard, we're through Season 1 and 2 and about half way through Season 3. Full report coming when we finish...Although what I have to say has probably been said about a million times by now. 

 

[pengbuzz]

6 hours ago, Thom said:

That really was a great scene. but then I thought, 'We'll be watching...' and he immediately turns away! Now, yes, I know the symbolism and the dismissal implicit in that moment, but I still chuckled a little at the unintended visual.

I think that was the intended effect: that even if he thinks the Federations "back is turned", they'll still see everything he does.

It's pretty disconcerting when your enemy doesn't even have to be looking at you to know what you're up to!

[lechuck]

22 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

Nay nay!  THIS is peak Picard, at his awesomest.

He's diplomatic.  He's working towards peace.  He's trying to bridge the gulf between two species so recently enemies.

 

But he's nobody's fool, and he's NOT to be trifled with.  The very definition of silk hiding steel.

The greatest victory is that which requires no battle or in trend speak – total ownage! After all these years, this is to me is still a great TNG/Picard moment.

 

[Sandman]

On 9/7/2023 at 5:53 AM, Spark-O-Matic said:

When companies do bad things to it's own customers for self righteous reasons I am obligated not to spend money, time or effort to support them in any way. Star Trek is like almost all entertainment in this day and age is disgenuine and untrustworthy.  Not enough space here to type it all out and it goes to far in to many directions outside the scope of this forum.

No I don't watch Discovery because by doing so it supports those who have too much power and the money given becomes lube for the machine cogs of oberbloted elitest corporate behemoth's who despise everything good and everyone who helped make them a success.

I like Patrick Stewart and always a big fan even more so in the X-Men franchise. that was the few things that could keep my eyes on the screen as an exception, watching mostly to see how they destroyed my beloved Borg and ruined them. These developers they cannot create anything, they can only pervert and distort what is there. 

I agree completely.

On 9/7/2023 at 9:12 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

Bruh, Star Trek has ALWAYS been political.  ALWAYS.  From the very start.  And it was NOT subtle about it.

Saying you want Star Trek with "no politics" is like saying you want Macross without VFs and music or Gundam without Newtypes and Mobile Suits.

 

Yeah I agree that Star Trek has always pushed progressive values and very political, which in itself is not a bad thing. It's the way they present in the modern shows that makes these shows insufferable. They are so biased, partisan and authoritative to the point of being offensive to a good chuck of their audience. At least in the older shows the arguments  are more balanced and reasoned (bar a couple of exceptions). There's also a stupidity to it.  In Discovery when Stamats got lectured about pronouns in the 30th century is ridiculous. 

[Sandman]

10 hours ago, lechuck said:

The greatest victory is that which requires no battle or in trend speak – total ownage! After all these years, this is to me is still a great TNG/Picard moment.

 

Always felt Tomalak was a missed opportunity for TNG. He could've been the Dukat of TNG before there was a Dukat.

[Seto Kaiba]

8 hours ago, Sandman said:

Always felt Tomalak was a missed opportunity for TNG. He could've been the Dukat of TNG before there was a Dukat.

Yeah, he had potential.

It's a bit of a shame that, after the Ferengi flopped, the TNG writer's room never really settled on a second candidate to take over the role the Klingons has previously occupied as the Federation's primary antagonist.  They toyed with the Romulans and they toyed with the Cardassians - both debuts featuring future Gul Dukat actor Marc Alaimo - before they ultimately kinda gave up.  Jean-Luc Picard not really having a signature villain besides Q definitely worked against Picard in the writer's room since the Romulan connection that drove season one was entirely offscreen and then they just did the Borg twice.

 

 

8 hours ago, Sandman said:

Yeah I agree that Star Trek has always pushed progressive values and very political, which in itself is not a bad thing. It's the way they present in the modern shows that makes these shows insufferable. They are so biased, partisan and authoritative to the point of being offensive to a good chuck of their audience.

TBH, while I've seen this particular complaint a number of times I honestly can't say that I see it myself.

Both Discovery and Picard are very badly written and definitely suffer a fair amount of "protagonist-centric morality" as a result being Main Character-driven shows instead of Star Trek's usual ensemble-driven format, but apart from a few brief and terribly hamfisted moments I don't recall them getting overtly political.  They're preachy as hell, but that's just what happens when you have a writer's room that doesn't really "get" Star Trek trying to make DSC and PIC sound a bit more like classic Trek by having the main charater deliver a filibuster-length speech.  

Jean-Luc may be memetically famous for them in-universe and out, but they lose a certain je ne sais quoi with the show making his positions hypocritical, clueless, or just plain wrong half the time.

 

8 hours ago, Sandman said:

At least in the older shows the arguments  are more balanced and reasoned (bar a couple of exceptions). There's also a stupidity to it.  In Discovery when Stamats got lectured about pronouns in the 30th century is ridiculous. 

In all fairness, that's a topic that certain Trek characters have struggled with in TNG, DS9, and ENT.  Some of those are at least as cringeworthy in terms of execution, despite the showrunners having the best of intentions.  Comes up a fair bit in the relaunch novelverse too... albeit mainly because of species that are androgynous, hermaphroditic, undergo some kind of metamorphosis that causes them to change biological sex at a certain point in their life cycle, or have more than two biological sexes like Species 8472 (5+) or the novelverse version of the Andorians (4).

The Trill in general seem to exist to invoke this, considering how often people stumbled over Jadzia's pronouns WRT her symbiont's switch from a legendary dirty old man to a relatively more reserved young lady.  (They at least seem to be good sports about it, though.)

Edited September 11, 2023 by Seto Kaiba

[borgified]

Let's see if this works.

Edit: 30 mins later

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by borgified