Star Trek: Picard (CBS All-Access)

[sketchley]

4 hours ago, azrael said:

I'll just watch it myself and see if I like it or not.

2nded.

I find ST:Disco more enjoyable than what a lot of the negative comments describe it as.  As an SF show, it's middling decent (except for how they handle subtitles!).  As a Star Trek show...?  Once I gave it the Kawamori-san treatment*, it became much easier to digest.

That said, Disco had a rocky start, and it wasn't until the 3rd or 4th episode that it found itself.

 

 

* essentially: what we're seeing is an in-universe dramatization of historical events.  So, something 'like' the events in Disco happened in the ST universe, just not exactly how they're shown in the show.

Edited January 20, 2020 by sketchley

[azrael]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yeah, that's one reason that video piracy is on the rise again... now that every content creator is trying to launch their own dedicated streaming service, the streaming market's so fragmented that the cost to the consumer is growing exponentially.

So many of these junk streaming services like CBS All Access, Disney+, and HBO Now are propped up by a single big-budget show that emphatically isn't worth the monthly subscription cost, but they're counting on devoted fans to prop up what would otherwise be an unsustainable business model.

All these streaming services are going to backfire when the people maintaining subscriptions find it no longer financially feasible. We're back to the old buying-CDs-for-one-song problem with these streaming services.

[Chas]

I posted this over on the Starship Modeler thread about this series.

Unfortunately I don't like anything Kurtzman has done . . . well, o.k. i have been known to watch the odd re-run of Hercules the Legendary Journeys on a Sunday afternoon, but I'm really not interested in seeing anymore of what this man's idea of Star Trek is. His style and my tastes just don't line up, and I don't think any amount of coaching, or suggestions from Mr. Stewart can change that. It's gonna be a pass for me.

If I owned a bunch of Fords over a period of time and hated all of them, then they come out with a new model and I'm in the market, it's not likely that I'd consider it as my next vehicle - regardless of the features and promises. I don't see how this is much different. I'm simply not interested in buying what they are selling.

It truly is a shame that two of my favourite franchises have been taken over by 'creators' that, in my opinion, only create schlock at their best, and usually pump out utter crap. Oh well time to move on to other things I suppose.

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, sketchley said:

As a Star Trek show...?  Once I gave it the Kawamori-san treatment*, it became much easier to digest.

[...]

* essentially: what we're seeing is an in-universe dramatization of historical events.  So, something 'like' the events in Disco happened in the ST universe, just not exactly how they're shown in the show.

To be honest, I'm not sure that's actually better... it might actually be worse.

I mean, if we assume that Star Trek: Discovery was a work of in-universe fiction then we're left with the awkward question of when this was written and for whom.  Never mind all of the blatant historical inaccuracies like technology that wouldn't be available for another hundred years or the Klingons launching an invasion that history says never happened, what about the story as a whole frankly oozing racism and xenophobia towards the Klingon Empire?  Discovery not only gets most of the Klingon religion and culture wrong, it basically depicts the entire Klingon species as half-bestial cannibalistic thugs who cheerfully betray oaths at the drop of a hat.  Then there's all the rampant misandry, the blatant disrespect towards one two of Starfleet's greatest heroes and one of the greatest Federation diplomats who ever lived, and Starfleet turning a blind eye to - or even rewarding - massive breaches of ethics like the indefinite detention and torture of a newly encountered lifeform to power an experimental stardrive or an attempted genocide on the Klingon homeworld.  

When would there have been an audience for this kind of thing, in-universe?  Star Trek: Discovery would basically be an ultranationalist, xenophobic, sexist work of fiction.  This is like a Federation version of the Turner Diaries.  It only narrowly averts that course at the very end of the first season when Burnham has a change of heart about attempting to blow Qo'nos the f*ck up.

Starfleet didn't tolerate racism, even towards the citizens of hostile powers, way back in 2266 during the height of the Klingon Cold War and the renewal of tensions with the Romulan Star Empire.  Kirk himself snapped one young Lieutenant back for voicing racist sentiments about the Romulans way back then, and even Kirk's own sentiments about the Klingons in 2293 (Star Trek VI: the Undiscovered Country) were explicitly handled as values dissonance and grounds for repeated "what the hell, hero?" moments, with the only people who shared those views being the film's antagonists.  It certainly wouldn't fly later on in the 24th century of Picard, Sisko, and Janeway.  

 

 

I'm sure Star Trek: Picard, which is from the same pack of cack-handed twits, will be freighted with all kinds of unfortunate implications... though they seem to have left fly with a few right off the bat like the indefinite detention and inhumane medical experiments on captured Borg, and so on, and Starfleet having essentially left the Romulans to die in the events which kicked off the Kelvin timeline.

[sketchley]

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

To be honest, I'm not sure that's actually better... it might actually be worse.

I mean, if we assume that Star Trek: Discovery was a work of in-universe fiction then we're left with the awkward question of when this was written and for whom.  (...)

That's beside my point.  Who cares who it's made for, what matters is to find an explanation that works for you to get it to fit into your headcanon, and to avoid the mental anguish of trying to get a square peg (all the changes and revisions) to fit in a round hole (established canon).

Obviously my trick doesn't work for you, but it may work for other people.

[tekering]

2 hours ago, sketchley said:

Obviously my trick doesn't work for you, but it may work for other people.

My trick, from the very beginning, was to treat Discovery as part of the Kelvin timeline.  It's impossible to accept as a TOS prequel, but it fits right in with the pacing, the visual aesthetic, the characterization of Spock, and the revisionist take on the Federation presented in J.J.'s Trek films.

[Mazinger]

New promo vid:

I will say it feels a bit disconcerting to see so many Romulans surrounding Jean-Luc. Can't shake the feeling they've all got daggers or gom jabbars hidden up their sleeves.

[Seto Kaiba]

7 hours ago, sketchley said:

That's beside my point.  Who cares who it's made for, [...]

Eh... what I was trying to illustrate there is that really, any way you shake it, the biggest problem with trying to fit Discovery into Star Trek isn't anything to do with continuity. 

The biggest problem - and the reason Discovery can never be Star Trek - is that it's so fundamentally at odds with the ethics, morals, and values underpinning Gene Roddenberry's vision of a brighter future that every previous Star Trek work is built on that all we can do is marvel at how horrible it is. 

Instead of rebuking racism, sexism, and xenophobia, it practically puts them on pedistals and tries to make virtues of them.  Even if we look at it as in-universe fiction, that's still grounds for a HUGE "What the f*ck?!".

 

7 hours ago, sketchley said:

and to avoid the mental anguish of trying to get a square peg (all the changes and revisions) to fit in a round hole (established canon).

The problem is, the more you think about it, the more it becomes evident it's a "square peg, no hole" problem.

[Seto Kaiba]

7 minutes ago, Mazinger said:

I will say it feels a bit disconcerting to see so many Romulans surrounding Jean-Luc. Can't shake the feeling they've all got daggers or gom jabbars hidden up their sleeves.

I dunno, considering how many "worthy foe" and "not so different" moments Picard had with various Romulan leaders over the years he seems like the kind of person they might actually respect... except for that whole "quit Starfleet to become ambassador to Vulcan" thing.

[ErikElvis]

When I saw an article saying this is “woke” I lost all interest. It’s a shame. 

[peter]

I suddenly realized I only come into this thread for the same reasons I visit the Robotech and Remix Titan Comics thread......sad, lol!

[Chronocidal]

10 hours ago, sketchley said:

That's beside my point.  Who cares who it's made for, what matters is to find an explanation that works for you to get it to fit into your headcanon, and to avoid the mental anguish of trying to get a square peg (all the changes and revisions) to fit in a round hole (established canon).

Obviously my trick doesn't work for you, but it may work for other people.

 

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Eh... what I was trying to illustrate there is that really, any way you shake it, the biggest problem with trying to fit Discovery into Star Trek isn't anything to do with continuity. 

The biggest problem - and the reason Discovery can never be Star Trek - is that it's so fundamentally at odds with the ethics, morals, and values underpinning Gene Roddenberry's vision of a brighter future that every previous Star Trek work is built on that all we can do is marvel at how horrible it is. 

Instead of rebuking racism, sexism, and xenophobia, it practically puts them on pedistals and tries to make virtues of them.  Even if we look at it as in-universe fiction, that's still grounds for a HUGE "What the f*ck?!".

The problem is, the more you think about it, the more it becomes evident it's a "square peg, no hole" problem.

The other problem with this situation is that it's getting close to a form of Stockholm syndrome.  How many mental gymnastics do we have to perform, and how much of the story do we have to internally re-write before the show reaches a point that it fits into the universe it's intended to be a continuation of?  Headcanons are fun, and good for filling in the blanks of an otherwise coherent universe.  They should not be what the entire story depends on to function.

How desperate for content does someone need to be to ignore all of the glaring inconsistencies in tone and theme, and just agree to pick up the burden of storytelling that the show's writers were incapable of lifting? 

[sketchley]

7 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

 

The other problem with this situation is that it's getting close to a form of Stockholm syndrome.  How many mental gymnastics do we have to perform, and how much of the story do we have to internally re-write before the show reaches a point that it fits into the universe it's intended to be a continuation of?  Headcanons are fun, and good for filling in the blanks of an otherwise coherent universe.  They should not be what the entire story depends on to function.

How desperate for content does someone need to be to ignore all of the glaring inconsistencies in tone and theme, and just agree to pick up the burden of storytelling that the show's writers were incapable of lifting? 

Again, missing my point.  My point is to avoid all that.  Ignore what you want, and cherry pick what you like with the understanding that "something sort of like that happened".

All-in-all, Disco is rather forgettable.  So it's not really worth the effort to make it "fit" with everything else.

 

All that said, I see a lot of "I don't like it, so you must also not like it" going on in these parts.  Live and let live...

Edited January 22, 2020 by sketchley

[myk]

17 hours ago, peter said:

I suddenly realized I only come into this thread for the same reasons I visit the Robotech and Remix Titan Comics thread......sad, lol!

Train wrecks are certainly entertaining.  I like doing a similar thing on gun and car message boards.  The online carnage provides HOURS of entertainment...

[Focslain]

12 hours ago, sketchley said:

All that said, I see a lot of "I don't like it, so you must also not like it" going on in these parts.  Live and let live...

Feels like the old "Once bitten, twice afraid" since Discovery was such a departure from the prior treks and the previews of Picard looking like more of the same and it's raising flags.

Picard has a few things I'm interested in so if given the chance I'll watch it. 

Will it keep my attention is something different and honestly not hard. However Discovery did manage that in its pilot, sooo.

Honestly 99% of this is based on speculation, trailers and other publicity. Best to wait for the series to actually drop (01/23/20) before making a final opinion.

[Mommar]

13 hours ago, sketchley said:

All that said, I see a lot of "I don't like it, so you must also not like it" going on in these parts.  Live and let live...

There is kind of a point to that, though.  If garbage Trek is the popular one then we’ll keep getting garbage Trek.  Though that hasn’t stopped them yet...  Even still, a lot of us want the old stuff back so anybody giving viewership to this isn’t helping.

[Chronocidal]

14 hours ago, sketchley said:

Again, missing my point.  My point is to avoid all that.  Ignore what you want, and cherry pick what you like with the understanding that "something sort of like that happened".

All-in-all, Disco is rather forgettable.  So it's not really worth the effort to make it "fit" with everything else.

 

All that said, I see a lot of "I don't like it, so you must also not like it" going on in these parts.  Live and let live...

Fair, I've done a decent amount of that myself with Trek in general for a while now... actually most franchises I enjoy have gone through the picker over the past few years.

I suppose my point is more that I'm sick of trying to cherry-pick, when all we seem to get is a continuous stream of grapefruits.  I want there to be something worth cherry picking again, and I don't care how insistent the production teams are that grapefruits are better than cherries, because there is no way I'm going to attempt to bake myself a grapefruit pie.

37 minutes ago, Mommar said:

There is kind of a point to that, though.  If garbage Trek is the popular one then we’ll keep getting garbage Trek.  Though that hasn’t stopped them yet...  Even still, a lot of us want the old stuff back so anybody giving viewership to this isn’t helping.

 This is really where we're at, and it hearkens back to a rather scathing critique of the gaming industry I read not too long ago.. and the target wasn't the industry at all, it was consumers.  The bottom line was, if you want people to stop making terrible content, you have to stop rewarding them by purchasing it. 

As long as money is flowing, they're going to stay the course.  If people keep rewarding "adequate", that's the new bar they're going to shoot for, and they'll have no incentive to strive for anything better than that.

Edited January 22, 2020 by Chronocidal

[Seto Kaiba]

14 hours ago, sketchley said:

My point is to avoid all that.  Ignore what you want, and cherry pick what you like with the understanding that "something sort of like that happened".

Eh... I think the point you'll find a lot of us making is that if that's the only way for someone familiar with the franchise to enjoy the show, something is very badly wrong with the creative process.  We'd like to go cherrypicking at cherry farms, not open landfills... you see?

 

14 hours ago, sketchley said:

All that said, I see a lot of "I don't like it, so you must also not like it" going on in these parts.  Live and let live...

To be brutally frank, when it comes to new Star Trek it's more along the lines of "this show is so unapologetically awful and loathed so uniformly among the majority of fans that the assumption is that anyone seriously defending it is probably taking the piss".

 

 

2 hours ago, Focslain said:

Feels like the old "Once bitten, twice afraid" since Discovery was such a departure from the prior treks and the previews of Picard looking like more of the same and it's raising flags.

Yeah, that's about the shape of it.

Star Trek: Picard is, on the face of it, a larger-scale version of the same bait-and-switch ploy that CBS tried and failed at in Star Trek: Discovery's second season with Christopher Pike, Spock, and the Enterprise.  We all know how that showed promise for an episode or two, then immediately deteriorated into an even worse mess than the first season had been.  When Star Trek: Picard was initially announced, we were immediately suspicious that this was another very poorly thought-out concept intended to bait fans back into the franchise not through quality storytelling or a return to the idealistic future that made Star Trek a cross-generational icon of sci-fi, but through a lazy attempt to manipulate us through our nostalgia for real Star Trek to get us to watch another poorly-conceived, bleak, dystopian attempt to turn Star Trek into a generic space war series.  Every press piece and leak from the production has just further confirmed what we already suspected it'd be... with Patrick Stewart himself stepping up to administer the coup de grace by confirming that that was EXACTLY what it was going to be.

 

 

51 minutes ago, Mommar said:

There is kind of a point to that, though.  If garbage Trek is the popular one then we’ll keep getting garbage Trek.  Though that hasn’t stopped them yet...  Even still, a lot of us want the old stuff back so anybody giving viewership to this isn’t helping.

At this point, CBS is so heavily invested in garbage Trek that we won't be free of it for a long time.  They know it isn't popular, since they've seen Netflix take a hard pass on Star Trek: Picard and slash Star Trek: Discovery's budget due to the show underperforming worldwide, and they've seen their licensees complain about Star Trek: Discovery not selling worth a damn and also took a pass on the Star Trek: Picard license. 

CBS is never going to admit fault and try to course-correct though, because it foolishly allowed Star Trek: Discovery's showrunners to spend like mad on development with little oversight and allowed them to go even wilder with the money Netflix put up to do the production work.  They've indirectedly indicated they're over a hundred million dollars upside-down on Discovery alone due to that overspending, and the only hope they have of ever recovering that investment is for the series to take off like mad, run for at least seven seasons, and make megabucks in merchandising the way TNG, DS9, and VOY did.  Star Trek: Picard is their attempt to trick fans back on board in the hopes that they'll warm up to Star Trek: Discovery too in the process, so the merchandise will finally sell and they can start cleaning up that red ink.

I suspect they'll continue doubling down on it until someone on the board yanks their leash and calls a halt to it or Star Trek goes bust again.

My suspicion is they're going to be unsatisfied with Star Trek: Picard very quickly too, when it becomes obvious that this new and depressing Jean-Luc Picard isn't appealing to fans and that the other returning characters were glorified cameos.

 

14 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

because there is no way I'm going to attempt to bake myself a grapefruit pie.

... this sounds more like something only a replicator malfunction could produce.

 

[azrael]

2 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

The bottom line was, if you want people to stop making terrible content, you have to stop rewarding them by purchasing it. 

As long as money is flowing, they're going to stay the course.  If people keep rewarding "adequate", that's the new bar they're going to shoot for, and they'll have no incentive to strive for anything better than that.

And b*tching ranting for several paragraphs about it on a forum isn't going to help.

[Mazinger]

2 minutes ago, azrael said:

And b*tching ranting for several paragraphs about it on a forum isn't going to help.

WHAAAAAAAT?!?!?! That can't be true!

/s

[lechuck]

10 minutes ago, azrael said:

And b*tching ranting for several paragraphs about it on a forum isn't going to help.

OMG, your are a quantum singularity of normality within this parallel universe of negativity.

There is hope for this thread.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, azrael said:

And b*tching ranting for several paragraphs about it on a forum isn't going to help.

Eh... when you see it, it's sometimes nice to know you're not going insane when the bought-and-paid-for entertainment media are busy gaslighting you on the studio's behalf or telling you you HAVE to like it or you're a racist, sexist, baby-eating nazi velociraptor thinly disguised as a human being.

 

Unrelated: The latest round of leaks from the premiere are a pretty mixed, but mostly negative bag.  I hope a lot of it isn't true, like the Rise of the Machines backstory.

[azrael]

18 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Eh... when you see it, it's sometimes nice to know you're not going insane when the bought-and-paid-for entertainment media...

Who said anything about paying for it?

[Chronocidal]

Paid for by the studios and owners, not the consumers... unless you count indirect forms of consumer backing, like the ad revenue generated by people clicking whatever headline happens to pop up in their face.

It's probably at least a little ridiculous to consider, but a part of me wonders if we've reached a point where even negative press can wind up turning a profit, just from the associated advertising revenue.

 

Edited January 22, 2020 by Chronocidal

[Seto Kaiba]

28 minutes ago, azrael said:

Who said anything about paying for it?

That's not what I meant?

What I was referring to was the fact that many of the "independent" entertainment news media outlets that provide the majority of the positive press for shows like Discovery are owned by the networks responsible for those shows.  It's not news, it's an advertising puff piece thinly disguised as news.  Like how ComicBook.com and the other sites that were dispensing all that fawning, gushing praise for Star Trek: Discovery and trying to paint criticism of the show as motivated by racism, sexism, etc. are - not coincidentally - owned by CBS.

Essentially, what I said was that it's nice to know other people dislike the show when the network's news sockpuppet is busy trying to gaslight you into believing everyone thinks that its show is flawless.

[mechaninac]

The old, pre-woke, business model was to "give the consumer what they want and they'll beat a path to your door."  The customer was always right.

The new, post modern, woke paradigm is to vandalize beloved properties into loathsome mockeries of what they were, and to belittle, castigate, and vilify (insert preferred epithet here) the fan base, that made the franchises prosperous in the first place, when they reject the garbage they are told they should brainlessly accept and consume, because if they deign to voice their displeasure it's not because the crap they've been served stinks... no, no, no, it's because the "neanderthals" are too uncouth to appreciate the distinctive new bouquet.

Edited January 23, 2020 by mechaninac

[derex3592]

#truth right there. 

[azrael]

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

What I was referring to was the fact that many of the "independent" entertainment news media outlets that provide the majority of the positive press for shows like Discovery are owned by the networks responsible for those shows.  It's not news, it's an advertising puff piece thinly disguised as news.  Like how ComicBook.com and the other sites that were dispensing all that fawning, gushing praise for Star Trek: Discovery and trying to paint criticism of the show as motivated by racism, sexism, etc. are - not coincidentally - owned by CBS.

Essentially, what I said was that it's nice to know other people dislike the show when the network's news sockpuppet is busy trying to gaslight you into believing everyone thinks that its show is flawless.

Well then, watch it yourself instead of listening to critics, corporate shills, or naysayers who are screaming "The PRODUCTION IS IS TROUBLE! RED ALERT! RED ALERT!". At least you'll have watched it then hated it.

[Chronocidal]

39 minutes ago, azrael said:

Well then, watch it yourself instead of listening to critics, corporate shills, or naysayers who are screaming "The PRODUCTION IS IS TROUBLE! RED ALERT! RED ALERT!". At least you'll have watched it then hated it.

This would be easier to swallow if you didn't have to pay for it before you could judge it for yourself.  I know there are ways around this, but the licensing/funding mess surrounding CBS All Access is one of the biggest factors driving me away from supporting it, completely independent of whether the content is good or bad.

Whether it winds up good or bad, I don't see a reason to sign up for an entirely new streaming service just for one show, when odds are it will actually be cheaper to buy the entire season on dvd after it's done airing.

[azrael]

47 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

This would be easier to swallow if you didn't have to pay for it before you could judge it for yourself.  ...

Whether it winds up good or bad, I don't see a reason to sign up for an entirely new streaming service just for one show, when odds are it will actually be cheaper to buy the entire season on dvd after it's done airing.

Again, we're back to the one-song-on-the-CD-album problem. You have to buy a subscription for just 1 show.  But I'll just get a subscription and binge watch the show, then cancel. How many times is someone actually going to do that? What if there are 5 shows this year that you want to watch and it draws you in to follow again next year? What if it's another 5 shows next year on top of the next season of the original 5 shows? That's now 10 shows. I'm still waiting for ANY streaming service to put up a price to stream just ONE show. Just ONE show.

[sh9000]

 

[Dynaman]

13 hours ago, mechaninac said:

The old, pre-woke, business model was to "give the consumer what they want and they'll beat a path to your door."  The customer was always right.

 

But they DIDN'T beat a path to the door.  ST Enterprise tanked badly.

[myk]

I'll say this, Patrick Stewart can still hold a commanding presence on-screen.  Definitely worth the watch.   So far...

[Seto Kaiba]

13 hours ago, azrael said:

Well then, watch it yourself instead of listening to critics, corporate shills, or naysayers who are screaming "The PRODUCTION IS IS TROUBLE! RED ALERT! RED ALERT!". At least you'll have watched it then hated it.

We did watch this tripe.  You were whining about not liking it when we discuss what a dumpster fire it is.

The problem here is that the only way to convince CBS to course-correct is to vote with our wallets, and if we watch it on their proprietary dumpster fire then they already have our money and have no incentive to change.  The most effective way to avoid rewarding them for producing garbage is to identify if a show is going to be bad in advance and then not reward their idiocy with subscription revenue.  That means either wading through the bullshit from the CBS Ministry of Truth or tuning into the "naysayers", who these days seem to mostly just be surprisingly well-informed and frustrated fans rather than the raving loonies CBS would like to paint them as.  Failing that, it's just word of mouth... and you were already complaining about that.

(Guys like Doomcock and Nerdrotic as voices of comparative reason is a new and uncomfortable novelty...)

 

17 hours ago, mechaninac said:

The old, pre-woke, business model was to "give the consumer what they want and they'll beat a path to your door."  The customer was always right.

4 hours ago, Dynaman said:

But they DIDN'T beat a path to the door.  ST Enterprise tanked badly.

Well, yeah... because the consumers were pretty clear they didn't want it before it was even made.

Star Trek fans were quite vocal about a prequel series being a bad idea when UPN first floated its plans for Enterprise, and even members of the cast expressed disquiet with how the efforts to make the setting edgier would alienate devoted Trekkies.

It tanked because it was a show nobody asked for, and the fans hated it because of all the liberties it took as a prequel.  Star Trek: Discovery's in the same boat, though it may end up being Too Big To Fail thanks to CBS massively overspending on it in their desire to make it the next Game of Thrones.

 

Edited January 23, 2020 by Seto Kaiba

[UN Spacy]

Damn that was a solid series premiere.

its just great to see TNG Picard back.