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So, just watched episode one.

First thing to note - at least as concerns the plot, the rumour post I made a day or so ago is 100% accurate.

Second thing - to me, at least, this doesn't feel even slightly like a TNG sequel. The people who made this were completely not interested in doing that. Which makes me wonder why they made this at all?

Third thing that jumped out... Patrick Stewart looks and sounds really old now. I've made jokes about how he basically never ages, but that no longer applies. His years are catching up with him and right quick.

So there's some silliness going on. Like, this woman is a biological android, a flesh and blood person with a positronic brain. But she can still do all the Data stuff, with super-strength, super speed, etc. Why?

They're made in pairs, we're told. Again, why?

Romulans spitting acid? I know he bit some false tooth or implant or whatever, but seriously? Silly.

I really didn't buy that she's part Data because she was made based on a single neurone from his brain. Which means I really didn't buy her as Data's "daughter", or that Picard would think of her that way. And since that's the driving engine of his character, it's kind of a big problem.

But by far my biggest gripe is the dystopian Federation/Starfleet. They've gutted the thing that made Star Trek most worth watching. Stewart says he wanted this show to reflect "Trump and Brexit", aka current day bad politics. Does he not understand that Trek was supposed to reflect those things by showing a world that's better for their absence? Showing a nasty selfish Federation just misses the point of the franchise and makes it like all the other dystopias out there. It's just so sad to see that happen to TNG, the most optimistic version of Trek there is.

But I didn't hate it. I'll keep watching, for now.

ETA : As I've thought about this over the last hour or so, I come to realise. Watching this just made me feel sad. Not angry, not hate, just... sad.

Second thing - to me, at least, this doesn't feel even slightly like a TNG sequel. The people who made this were completely not interested in doing that. Which makes me wonder why they made this at all?

From everything I've read going into it, the production team (including Patrick) was very clear that this was not going to be TNG 2.9 -- indeed that was never the idea.

I don't exactly see a dystopian Starfleet/federation quite yet. I see a Starfleet that made mis-steps out of fear that Picard vehemently disagreed with (something that when it occured against the Admiral of the Week in episodes we cheered, but now it's unacceptable?)

Institutions do change, and we already saw elements of isolationism, etc in TNG era trek. I don't see anything wrong with featuring an organization that generally tries to do the Right Thing but occasionally stumbles along the way.

I have more but I'll make a proper post when I'm not on mobile.

i agree with you (except the acid spit...d'oh...)

not very good...far from the worst of trek (yeah...i'm speaking of you, Sub Rosa)

it could have been far worse....and it could still be!

From what I've heard, episode 4 is going to be.... well, love it or utterly despise it.

Hello peoples!

So what could I say about Picard episode 1?

Well we have always been told Picard was born in 2305... so he was 74 years old in Nemesis! It make him 94 years old in Picard, when the actor is 79.... Star Trek being Star Trek, peoples lives longer as McCoy showed us in the first episode of TNG, but we still have an almost centenary man as main character of the show. That's sadly logical the character look old and diminished, exactly like in All Good Things, and even if no one told us about Irumodic Syndrom, he still have a couple(?) of charming Romulan refugees at 24/7 caretakers.

For the Sequel feeling... well TNG had it's sequel in DS9 and 4 movies... and things started to look a lot darker in DS9 and Insurection.... Picard is not a sequel to TNG the TV show but to the TNG era of Star Trek in which Federation was thretened by the Borg, the Dominion and a Remian uprising in Romulan Empire who resulted on 4 militaries attack on Earth and a Founder infiltration of Earth. Add to that the Children of Mars Short Trek showing us the 5th and most successful attack against our good old Solar System and it's not surprising affraid peoples voted to politicans who turned the UFP into isolationism and racism against Androids... Just like USA did after the second most succesful attack on World Trade Center.... Fear is the path to the Dark Side, as Master Yoda always told us and Life showed us it was true...

Enterprise already used 9.11 as inspiration but showed us how USA should react to 9.11.... We obviously all know it wasn't effective so I think, maybe I'll be proven wrong, that Picard want to show us how a nation can rise again into lightness after that fall to the Dark Side.

On the Romulan assassin with a suicide pill.... well suicide pill can do a lot of damage, that's what they are made for, the question is more about "How can he spit?" if muscles and tongue are already melting...

For Dahj... I clearly believed she was seen by writers as built like a Terminator before Picard had that talk at Daystrom Insittude... It would explain how she can bleed or fake most sensors (a capability Data's mom already had).... if she is flesh and blood well... i can see how knowledge can activate and help her having good reflex, maybe the positronic brain is overclocked.... but it doesn't explain the super jump.... Even if she was built like a Vulcan she would not be so strong...
Having two Dahj is just a plot device... I clearly would not have killed her so soon... but hey, I am fond of "I am your father" kind of surprises so having two Dahj discovering they exist at the wrong moment like during a fight on the Borg Cube would have been nice for me ^^

Anyway... it was just the pilot.... so maybe a good explanation await us with Maddox and lot of good ol' technobabble...

Just watched episode 2. Not a lot happened, really. So we have...

Picard's housekeepers are some sort of former Romulan agents of... something or other. They may have said, but if so I missed it.

We meet Picard's Doctor, who was on the Stargazer with him. Picard is still showing his brain thingie and might be developing "any one of a number" of mental conditions, which "all end the same way".

It turns out that the super-secret Tal Shiar is just a front for a super-DUPER-secret organisation. Not sure what the point of that is, why not just make it the Tal Shiar? What's the benefit of a new one? But anyway, this is so.

The aim of this organisation is to avoid any form of synthetic life. Picard's housekeeper notes that Romulan society has never had anything like that - "We don't have androids or AIs, we don't study cybernetics..." she said.

Doesn't really square with "I know a host of Romulan cyberneticists that would love to be this close to you." Said by Jarok to Data in The Defector.

This secret organisation has penetrated Starfleet, so there are spies in the HQ.

Picard asks an Admiral for a ship to track down the other robolady, she's rather nasty about it and doesn't believe any of it. The thing that jumped out at me about that scene was that it would have been a perfect role for Admiral Nechayev. And Natalia Nogulich is still very active in the acting world, so why not?

So Picard is looking for a ship to go do it by himself. Which is about it for the episode.

The pacing of the show seems kind of slow to me. Rumour has it that they don't even get off Earth until after episode 3, which... the story is about finding this girl, finding Maddox, and taking them on, I guess? So why are we spending literally hours leading up to even getting started on that?

Still no Riker and Troi or Seven.

So my overall impressions of the series so far... it's not really like TNG at all. It doesn't feel like TNG, it doesn't feel like a spiritual successor to TNG. TNG was hope and optimism and exploration in space. This is a spy thriller. Now to be clear, I'm not saying it's bad because it's a spy thriller, it's just not TNG-esque. You could replace Picard with a new character here and it really wouldn't make any difference at all to the show. Other than the Data aspect, which feels kind of weak anyway because, on the one hand, I don't but any of this thing about the twins being Data's daughter. Yes, I know the explanation, but it just doesn't work for me.

And also... This show persists in acting like Picard and Data were super close friends. But... they weren't. I mean, Picard obviously had great admiration for Data, but they were never particularly close as friends - Picard kept his distance from all of the crew, after all.

I think it was the RLM review where they point out that in The Most Toys, where Data is apparently killed, Picard was sad about it but he was ready to write it off as another dead crewman and get on with the mission. It was Geordi that obsessed over it, because Geordi was always the one that was especially close to Data. So I do find it a bit weird that the idea is being pushed that Picard saw Data practically as his son.

But most of all, the Federation that almost split because they were trying to save lives? The Starfleet that gave up on that? These things just don't work for me. It's pure BS, and it's basically the core of the show. So yeah... not happy with it overall.

What would have worked better:

a) "Star Trek: La Forge"... as in Geordi La Forge. He's a Captain,and his ship iss the USS Challenger, NCC 71099 Galaxy Class. (As per Voy's 'Timeless' alt future!)...
LeVar Burton really isn't all that busy!

b) Have Deep Space Nine feature in the start.

c) Stay Away From Earth.

d) Picard's Dream isn't a dream. It's a pre-credit sequence set pre-Supernova that sets up: firstly, that Starfleet were overhauling a large fleet of ships from mothballs from multiple eras to literally act just as refugee ships, and secondly, there's some "hyper-light suspace event" or other treknobabble where a Supernova was, ''Held Back'' so that Spock could get the Red Matter... but the time-running-out isn't because of Dithering from the Vulcans / etc, but because someone sabotaged the method of making that red matter (aka the Vulcans WERE going ahead with the plan to save romulans but they didn't want word to get out about sabotage so 'Vulcans holding back' became the only excuse, and as we know, Vulcans Cannot Lie^TM-pending.)

Drop a line to cover your asses if you re-use CG assets like say, a **n EARLY 23rd century shuttle** about 'Not seen one of these since I was in High School!"

Due to the rights split, Picard has to actually pay licensing fees for using stuff from TNG. That brief shot of the E-D at the start? They had to pay Paramount to do that. And from what I've heard, there was a scene on the ship's bridge and they cut it out to save having to pay to use it. So not likely they were ever going to use a GCS in multiple scenes.

Graham Kennedy wrote:Due to the rights split, Picard has to actually pay licensing fees for using stuff from TNG. That brief shot of the E-D at the start? They had to pay Paramount to do that. And from what I've heard, there was a scene on the ship's bridge and they cut it out to save having to pay to use it. So not likely they were ever going to use a GCS in multiple scenes.

*sigh* yet more evidence of why they started saying 'prime timeline' with 'prime' not actually meaning TNG/DS9/VOY etc.

AlexMcpherson79 wrote:

Graham Kennedy wrote:Due to the rights split, Picard has to actually pay licensing fees for using stuff from TNG. That brief shot of the E-D at the start? They had to pay Paramount to do that. And from what I've heard, there was a scene on the ship's bridge and they cut it out to save having to pay to use it. So not likely they were ever going to use a GCS in multiple scenes.

*sigh* yet more evidence of why they started saying 'prime timeline' with 'prime' not actually meaning TNG/DS9/VOY etc.

Yep. They talk about it as such, but "Prime" is the "25% different" CBS version of the actual timeline.

Discovery Shuttle, Discovery Constitution Class. I dread to think what the 25% different is on the Galaxy.

Their version of the starfleet uniform already looks horrendous. Like, really? I got the grey-shoulders of Post-TNG DS9 era, thematically it spoke of a more militant starfleet - that it came in a literal YEAR before the dominion war...

going back to the colorific theming without likewise the outlook... well like picard says "Its no longer starfleet".

If they paid for the licensing then they don't need to make it different. That's why it puzzled me a bit that they clearly redesigned the E-D anyway, even if only a little.