Talking Star Trek Picard

[leapinlew]

It seems that Star Trek will leave the door open to some supernatural stuff. The episode of Voyager, Sacred Grounds, did for sure.

[opt2not]

So I'm all caught up on Picard now. Disappointed, confused, and full of cringe is all the emotions I've experienced in my time watching these episodes.
Feels bad man.

I get the same feeling I got when I watched Discovery.  Which makes sense, it's the same ---smurfing--- writers. It's got the same shallow plot lines with little to no substance of explanation.

The characters don't feel right. Picard doesn't feel right - he doesn't hold that commanding reserved presence anymore. He seems more comical, than anything. Misdirected, and breaking a lot of personality traits of his TNG version.  And not from character growth over the years, but completely off his character like the writers never watched TNG.

7of9 is some sort of vigilante Han Solo type character now. There's also a Han Solo pilot. There is a Ninja Legolas with a sword...
They even added a Las Vegas style planet with neon and poorly CG'd holographic characters.  It's like this show is trying to follow JJ Abrams Star War's suit.

The show is about violence and gore, and hitting you over the head with current political subject matter. It's just dumb TV now. There is very little in social commentary other than surface level racism/xenophobia.

5 episodes in, heck, even by the 3rd episode I was ready to cut it loose.  So much that I went back and started re-binging TNG just to wash the bad CBS writer taste out of my mouth.   I'm on season 4 right now, and still lovin' it, even after all these years the content holds up.

[Howard_Casto]

Watch episode 6.  1-5 are questionable, but 6 is a frikkin Star Trek episode.  People are happy to see each other, they help each other out, ect.  It's a little action heavy, but so were some TNG episodes, so I don't mind it. 

Picard is off on purpose.  He has finally contracted the irumodic syndrome teased in the TNG finale... it's like space dementia.  First you lose control of your emotions, your personality changes and then you start having memory problems with your body eventually breaking down.   7 of 9 was a waste.... they couldn't figure out how to change her personality to match the script they wrote so they just Killed poor Icheb.  That little exchange with Picard towards the end was worth it though.  While returning characters are great I've yet to feel any kind of attachment towards the new cast and that's the main problem with the show... it's standing on the back of Star Trek history but it isn't adding anything meaningful.  Thankfully episode 6....  Maybe they can pull off a decent first season with the remaining 4 episodes. 

[leapinlew]

The characters don't feel right. Picard doesn't feel right - he doesn't hold that commanding reserved presence anymore. He seems more comical, than anything. Misdirected, and breaking a lot of personality traits of his TNG version.  And not from character growth over the years, but completely off his character like the writers never watched TNG.

7of9 is some sort of vigilante Han Solo type character now. There's also a Han Solo pilot. There is a Ninja Legolas with a sword...

lol, such an awesome summary....

I'm watching it week by week and I wish I did more of a binge. I'm losing interest. What I like is being outweighed by those things I don't like. I'm trying to stay positive, and I'm determined to watch till the very end.

I don't know about episode 6 Howard. There was some decent parts, but the point I need help with is how Picard is able to show up as a diplomat and have free rain over the artifact. I would've expected a large contingent of Romulan supervision.

One minor gripe - how is it in a universe with Universal Translators, they can have a whole conversation in their native tongue?

[Howard_Casto]

They explained it.  Most of the cube is under Romulan hands, but the segment of it known as the reclamation project is independent by treaty and under the jurisdiction of Hue.  At least to the outside world they have to put up that front.  Basically the Romulans are "reclaiming" borg tech, but the actual people that are reclaimed have some rights so they have a very crappy rehab center.  Since Picard was representing the federation, if the Romulans were to interfere it could cause a diplomatic incident. 

The Klingons have been speaking native Klingon in front of humans since Star Trek III, I think, so this can't be a new gripe. 

I don't know how any fan of Star Trek couldn't have liked that episode.  They were setting up the reunion with Hue to be another "Picard your an ---uvula--- and I hate you" moment like every other meeting, but there came a smile and a big old hug.  Hue was so proud to show off the work he was doing to Picard and in turn he was very proud of Hue's good deeds.  Mixed in with that you had Picard's PTSD over the borg again since this is the first time he's been on a borg cube since all the way back in the best of both worlds.  (Yes he's encountered borg since then, but it isn't the same thing.)  Oh and when Picard asks for help there wasn't some grim-dark brow beating about how Picard let him down, he was just like "Sure, whatever you need."  That's ---smurfing--- Star Trek.... people trusting each other, doing work to benefit humanity, cooperating for the greater good without question...   

[opt2not]

Watch episode 6.  1-5 are questionable, but 6 is a frikkin Star Trek episode.

Ok I’ll give 6 a shot.
Depending on how that episode is, I may or may not finish out this season. It’s been a struggle.

[BadMouth]

I like it, but I'm not a fan of the franchise. 

[leapinlew]

The Klingons have been speaking native Klingon in front of humans since Star Trek III, I think, so this can't be a new gripe. 

No way dude. You can't be this slippery! This seems like the kind of detail that would annoy you to no end. This is a bigger issue than the conversation about money.

My main gripe about it.... what does it add to the show besides sub-titles? Is this artistic license to speak French or Romulan actually adding anything? If not, it's just 1 more small thing added to the show with no real reason.

[Howard_Casto]

Again, like I said though, this has been around since almost the start.  They did it in the films, they did it on tng, ds9, voyager and enterprise.  It's just a Star Trek thing and you have to deal with it.  The more apt question would be how does the universal translator sync their mouths up when the language is translated.  There... I just ruined the universal translator for you.     Star Trek, like most sci-fi franchises has a lot of strange in universe rules.  If this was a new thing it probably would annoy me to no end, but since I've been dealing with it since the 80's I'm ok. 

A sentence or three every now and then is ok, which this series seems to be honoring... it just gives a bit of flavor to remind you that these are alien cultures.  It becomes a problem when they do like they did on season 1 of Discovery where every single damn time they had the turd Klingons on screen they threw up the sub titles.  Notice in season 2 they dropped that crap and went back to the Klingons speaking English most of the time.  My guess is you don't read a lot of sub titles with your shows... as an anime fan I don't even pay attention to them. 

[leapinlew]

On a unrelated note, the show had a very Firefly type atmosphere during the scene where the captain was playing soccer on the ship.