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Those rocks have been in hundreds of movies and Tv shows

From what I gather there's rules in the city whereby if you go X distance from the studio it still counts as "in studio" wages wise; but if you go beyond that distance then you suddenly have to pay travel wages which are more. Which means a lot of studios tend to use those rocks and that region because its within the boundaries so they don't have to pay more.

Plus chances are if that they are that heavily used they've likely good the right on-site facilities to make it easier. It might even just be good parking and site access and such.

Yes. Those rocks overhang the huge parking lot. Everywhere Kirk fought the Gorn was within a dozen feet of the parking lot.

This show is spectacularly boring. A real shame.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
This show is spectacularly boring. A real shame.

it's a character study, it's not a blam blam action series. it's intreasting if you find the type of show it is intreasting, if you're looking for sci-fi action then yeah yoiu'll hate it

BrianDavion wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
This show is spectacularly boring. A real shame.

it's a character study, it's not a blam blam action series. it's intreasting if you find the type of show it is intreasting, if you're looking for sci-fi action then yeah yoiu'll hate it

They have had a few cool fight scenes

 Mr Morden wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
This show is spectacularly boring. A real shame.

it's a character study, it's not a blam blam action series. it's intreasting if you find the type of show it is intreasting, if you're looking for sci-fi action then yeah yoiu'll hate it

They have had a few cool fight scenes

ohh agreed, and those are great but if you go into it expecting it to be non stop fight scenes you're going to not like it. (course if you go into it expecting non stop fight scenes you proably shouldn't waste time with star trek tbh. trek has never been a "action franchise" JJ Abrams trek aside)

 JohnnyHell wrote:
This show is spectacularly boring. A real shame.

Thanks, just the reinforcement I need to continue not bothering checking it out. I love TNG too much to bother with such cheap nostalgia chicanery as Picard surely is... now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to rewatch that new SW show. Mandalorian-armoured bounty hunters, small green space wizards, 'proper' stormtroopers and Apollo Creed.

 Riquende wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
This show is spectacularly boring. A real shame.

Thanks, just the reinforcement I need to continue not bothering checking it out. I love TNG too much to bother with such cheap nostalgia chicanery as Picard surely is... now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to rewatch that new SW show. Mandalorian-armoured bounty hunters, small green space wizards, 'proper' stormtroopers and Apollo Creed.

if you like TNG you'll be fine with the series. after all it's not like TNG was exciting action sequence after action sequence

BrianDavion wrote:

 Riquende wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
This show is spectacularly boring. A real shame.

Thanks, just the reinforcement I need to continue not bothering checking it out. I love TNG too much to bother with such cheap nostalgia chicanery as Picard surely is... now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to rewatch that new SW show. Mandalorian-armoured bounty hunters, small green space wizards, 'proper' stormtroopers and Apollo Creed.

if you like TNG you'll be fine with the series. after all it's not like TNG was exciting action sequence after action sequence

I've got zero interest in the show regardless; I was just making a cheap joke about both shows mining nostalgia and being fine (and oblivious) to the Mandalorian doing it but using it as a stick to beat Picard with.

For me, the franchise died decades ago.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
This show is spectacularly boring. A real shame.

It's starting to lean that way for me too. Don't mind things being slower and more about character than action, but I've been burned one too many times by shows which spend a long time setting up things that end up having no pay-off. Picard is showing signs of maybe going that way but I'm willing to keep watching as there's still some good stuff there, mainly whenever Patrick Stewart is on-screen.

What I'd like to see sooner rather than later is some meaningful link-up/crossover between the Picard and Romulan storylines. I'd also like to see the Romulan storyline actually go somewhere at some point. It's pretty cool (if unbelievably dumb in-universe) seeing them messing about with Borg tech but they need to start paying off that side of the story pretty quickly for me.

Slipspace wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
This show is spectacularly boring. A real shame.

It's starting to lean that way for me too. Don't mind things being slower and more about character than action, but I've been burned one too many times by shows which spend a long time setting up things that end up having no pay-off. Picard is showing signs of maybe going that way but I'm willing to keep watching as there's still some good stuff there, mainly whenever Patrick Stewart is on-screen.

What I'd like to see sooner rather than later is some meaningful link-up/crossover between the Picard and Romulan storylines. I'd also like to see the Romulan storyline actually go somewhere at some point. It's pretty cool (if unbelievably dumb in-universe) seeing them messing about with Borg tech but they need to start paying off that side of the story pretty quickly for me.

I can't belive they won't go anywhere with it, I mean I'm sure they understand that Chekov's gun isn't just a TOS Phaser pistol

BrianDavion wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
This show is spectacularly boring. A real shame.

It's starting to lean that way for me too. Don't mind things being slower and more about character than action, but I've been burned one too many times by shows which spend a long time setting up things that end up having no pay-off. Picard is showing signs of maybe going that way but I'm willing to keep watching as there's still some good stuff there, mainly whenever Patrick Stewart is on-screen.

What I'd like to see sooner rather than later is some meaningful link-up/crossover between the Picard and Romulan storylines. I'd also like to see the Romulan storyline actually go somewhere at some point. It's pretty cool (if unbelievably dumb in-universe) seeing them messing about with Borg tech but they need to start paying off that side of the story pretty quickly for me.

I can't belive they won't go anywhere with it, I mean I'm sure they understand that Chekov's gun isn't just a TOS Phaser pistol

I'm sure it'll go somewhere, it's just the speed with which they get there and the impact of whatever that something is that worries me. Been burned by this a fair amount while watching some other shows lately.

I signed up for a free trial of CBS through my Amazon account and binged the three episodes yesterday. I do think the show would benefit more from being able to watch all the episodes at once rather than having a full week in between them.

Otherwise, loving it so far.

Remember, the first three are scene setting.

Bringing us up to speed with what’s changed in the intervening 20 years, without revealing everything.

There’s Picard himself. How did the Captain of the Federation Flagship walk away?

The Federation. Hints it’d become differently idealistic in the wake of the Dominion War. I mean, that event isn’t explicitly a driving force, but in the background it’s still the source of a sea change in attitude.

There’s the fallout of Romulus going kablooey, and the wider impact.

There’s the apparent Synthetic ‘rebellion’ and a couple of hints at what happened and what might’ve caused it (F-8 clearly received some kind of order, whether at range or pre- programmed).

For three episodes, that quite a lot to pack in, with plenty more to come. And somehow, they’ve packed that into a fairly easy pace. Nothing too difficult to follow, nothing garbled. Sure some stuff takes a second watch, but I don’t consider that a bad thing at all (YMMV).

Yeah the 20 odd year gap is huge. Consider that many of the original crew have likely gone on to retire and/or get promoted several times. Or even leave or have time to get demoted etc... Several of them are likely captains with perhaps a decade or more running their own ships under their belt - that's as long if not longer than we saw the Enterprise on her original missions in the TV series.

There's so much that's changed so having a few episodes that establish important elements is key. Why isn't picard a respected admiral; why isn't he running around with his old crew; why is he living with Romulans. There's a lot of questions - try and squeeze that into one episode and it would feel rushed, forced and flat.



Like any story heavy series that isn't (currently) relying fully on a repeat weekly adventure pattern; seeing the whole thing in one go over in episodes; does pace things better. Episodes 2 and 3 blend together almost perfectly in that regard. However at the same time I think there's something nice in having it drawn out. I do love binge watching, but it has a different effect and I think it can also stifle growth of a series because all the hype and action and talk is over within the release two weeks or so. Meanwhile the Picard series will keep people talking and getting drawn in over the months that its out.


Of course sometimes a new series can get a big jump start having a big launch with everything on show. So its not like one method fits best.

Definitely sliding into the camp of thinking this is too slow and labored.
Ok its only 3 episodes in but virtually nothing has really happened for me.

Also is it me or some pretty big plot holes/wand waves starting



PS the whiskey drinking, smoking, hard ass captain guy is such a total for me.

Sounds like they’re going for the nBSG crowd rather than Star Trek fans to me.

 Ratius wrote:

Spoiler:

romulan hit team are able to find, infiltrate, disable picards chateau, yet scientist girl miraculously arrives at the same time to save the day?
raffys ship is able to hang in low earth orbit, undetected, seen, registered or hailed? then suddenly flies off wherever it wants
high ranking star fleet director of SECURITY is actually an infiltrator?

PS the whiskey drinking, smoking, hard ass captain guy is such a total for me.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Sounds like they’re going for the nBSG crowd rather than Star Trek fans to me.

Six of one, half dozen of the other.

We might as well face it, just as SciFi grew and matured between ToS and TNG, it’s grown and matured further since TNG, and BSG remains a major milestone. To ignore that with a new show risks it look quaint and cheesy.

For instance, I grew up on TNG, and as such, for my sins, I just cannot take TOS seriously. It’s too campy and silly for my tastes. Yes TNG had more than a few moments of camp and silly, and there’s nothing wrong with camp and silly.

But BSG showed me just how good SciFi can be with a decent mind behind it. I’ve even developed a respect and tolerance for its wonky final season (which remains fundamentally a victim of the writer’s strike).

Three episodes in, I feel like Picard is more or less striking that right balance between its origins and modernity. Importantly, it’s still recognisably Star Trek, and as I said before, Picard himself feels like a natural development of the character. Nothing reinvented, just additional layers based on as yet largely unexplored experience.

If this was a ‘one and done’ show, I may be a harsher critic. But we know Season 2 is coming, and Guinan is highly likely to feature. So they almost certainly won’t be telling all over the next seven episodes.

And now we’re headed out to Space, that’s when it’ll sink or swim I feel.

Guinan always felt like a character with a lot of potential let go to waste. There's always been that strange episode where she met Q and there was hint of rivalry between them. Her presence in the time travel episode and the Nexus movie (Generations) all often led us to think that she had more knowledge/power to herself than she ever let on in the series. I think about the only time we ever saw her show "power" was when there was a fight in Ten Forward and she pulls out a huge lasergun and fires it into the air to quiet people (I believe there was some effect causing increased tension within the crew causing the fight, but I'm really hazy on what happened in that episode).

But overall she felt like a character who established herself well and then was mostly put to one side.

Uhh gods not Guinan - really disliked her - hope she is never seen again on screen.

So you’re saying that ...she’s a ‘noid that you’ll avoid?

 Mr Morden wrote:
Uhh gods not Guinan - really disliked her - hope she is never seen again on screen.

Cameo at the very, very least I’d say, provided contract negotiations go well (and they may be already done, as one cannot rule this out as a rather adorable PR stunt).

Ah good old Guinan!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Sounds like they’re going for the nBSG crowd rather than Star Trek fans to me.

Six of one, half dozen of the other.

We might as well face it, just as SciFi grew and matured between ToS and TNG, it’s grown and matured further since TNG, and BSG remains a major milestone. To ignore that with a new show risks it look quaint and cheesy.

For instance, I grew up on TNG, and as such, for my sins, I just cannot take TOS seriously. It’s too campy and silly for my tastes. Yes TNG had more than a few moments of camp and silly, and there’s nothing wrong with camp and silly.

But BSG showed me just how good SciFi can be with a decent mind behind it. I’ve even developed a respect and tolerance for its wonky final season (which remains fundamentally a victim of the writer’s strike).

Three episodes in, I feel like Picard is more or less striking that right balance between its origins and modernity. Importantly, it’s still recognisably Star Trek, and as I said before, Picard himself feels like a natural development of the character. Nothing reinvented, just additional layers based on as yet largely unexplored experience.

If this was a ‘one and done’ show, I may be a harsher critic. But we know Season 2 is coming, and Guinan is highly likely to feature. So they almost certainly won’t be telling all over the next seven episodes.
Trek
And now we’re headed out to Space, that’s when it’ll sink or swim I feel.

I don't think we'll ever see eye-to-eye on this. I feel like TNG has aged far better than nBSG. NBSG had two good seasons that were riveting because we wanted to see what would happen next, know the answers to the mysteries. They do not stand on their own. Then it became clear the writers had no plan, not even character arcs, and the show ended so badly that the series became un-rewatchable. The same kind of darker and edgier writing with the same lazy lack of foreplanning has ruined many sci fi series since then--it has never yielded a timeless classic or even a rewatchable show in my opinion.

I also don't want Star Trek to sacrifice what made it unique just to pander to dubious trends. If someone wants good, dark sci fi, I understand the Expanse fills that niche. If one wants an optimistic look at a future where humanity has made great progress, like Star Trek--the Orville kind of works. When I think of Star Trek, I think of a utopian future where humanity has "made it" to quote Rich Evans. I don't want a "human" Starfleet. I can get "human" (which always means jerkass rather than humane or selfless for some reason) drama on almost any show. Let Star Trek be the shining ideal that made it such an icon in the first place.

Having grown up with the 1970's broadcast of kick-ass-and-take-names TOS on the BBC I have a hard time appreciating TNG. It just seemed so bland. Beige starship (and yes the Galaxy class is awful), most of the characters dull and uninteresting and all that waffling in the board room... it was all so.... admin!.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

I don't think we'll ever see eye-to-eye on this. I feel like TNG has aged far better than nBSG. NBSG had two good seasons that were riveting because we wanted to see what would happen next, know the answers to the mysteries. They do not stand on their own. Then it became clear the writers had no plan, not even character arcs, and the show ended so badly that the series became un-rewatchable. The same kind of darker and edgier writing with the same lazy lack of foreplanning has ruined many sci fi series since then--it has never yielded a timeless classic or even a rewatchable show in my opinion.

I think you're giving it too much credit. The relationships felt like they were the worst kind of high school melodrama (esp. Adama jr and Dualla), and the obsession with senseless murder-rape is more juvenile than dark and edgy.
The campy original stands up better as a lasting show... and how to hold a %&@# camera for a decent shot.

I also don't want Star Trek to sacrifice what made it unique just to pander to dubious trends. If someone wants good, dark sci fi, I understand the Expanse fills that niche. If one wants an optimistic look at a future where humanity has made great progress, like Star Trek--the Orville kind of works. When I think of Star Trek, I think of a utopian future where humanity has "made it" to quote Rich Evans. I don't want a "human" Starfleet. I can get "human" (which always means jerkass rather than humane or selfless for some reason) drama on almost any show. Let Star Trek be the shining ideal that made it such an icon in the first place.

Agreed on this though. We (as a culture/species) need icons and aspiration, not more tearing down. There's enough of that. I've seen some good dark shows, but not in a long while. It still needs some meaning behind it, not dark for dark's sake, or a paper-thin mindless critique of contemporary politics in a setting where they simply don't fit.

MarkNorfolk wrote:
Having grown up with the 1970's broadcast of kick-ass-and-take-names TOS on the BBC I have a hard time appreciating TNG. It just seemed so bland. Beige starship (and yes the Galaxy class is awful), most of the characters dull and uninteresting and all that waffling in the board room... it was all so.... admin!.

That's fine. Every show doesn't need to appeal to every person. I personally find legal shows, police procedurals and medical dramas lame. They bore me to tears. But shame on me if I ever wished on them Alex Kurtzman Kung fu space battles to liven them up.

Caught up to episdoe 4 - quite good, some interesting stuff, pacing is fine for me to be honest

Not sure why the mighty Romulan fleet could not just move its own people but ok....

In terms of is it proper Star Trek well....this is one of my fav episodes so to me its good.