Star Trek: general discussion-Picard, Discovery, Lower Decks (and Orville)

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**LordofHats**

Ahtman wrote:
They did that in TNG as well. I remember one where they blew up a guys head that had been taken over by some weird parasites, after finding out that the creatures had infiltrated Starfleet, and afterwards it was noted that they had sent a signal out and that something was on its way. As far as I know they never followed up that.

Yeah. Only media I know that ever followed up on it was a STO plotline in Delta Rising.

**Compel**

I think that was an attempt by TNG to have an arc villain, only for them to get cold feet about it at the last minute and stick with standalone stories.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

If I’m right in thinking, they were meant to be something to do with The Borg?

That was before The Borg were finalised as cyborgs though.

Aha! I wasn’t a squillion miles off.

Memory Alpha wrote:he Star Trek Chronology (revised 1996, p. 290) noted: "Although Picard and company were successful in eradicating them, the parasites did send a mysterious radio signal, presumably to others of their kind. At the time the episode was written, this was apparently intended to lead to the introduction of the Borg in Star Trek: The Next Generation's second season. The Borg connection was dropped before "Q Who" (TNG) was written, and the truth about the parasites remains a mystery."

**BobtheInquisitor**

Have you guys seen the Redletter Media review of Discovery season 2? They destroyed it and blasted the upcoming Picard show as well. I'll try to link it when I'm on a better device.

**bbb**

BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Have you guys seen the Redletter Media review of Discovery season 2? They destroyed it and blasted the upcoming Picard show as well. I'll try to link it when I'm on a better device.

It was posted on the previous page.

**Tannhauser42**

LordofHats wrote:

Of course, this goes to one of my biggest grips with ST fandom. The need to explode the significance of things so monumentally unimportant they only warranted a bit part in a crisis of the week episode, never to be seen again. It's amazing how much of TOS that people consider to be absolutely sacred amounts to one offs.

Remember the tribble episode of DS9? A short, funny scene with a wink-and-a-nod to how TOS Klingons looked different from modern Klingons, and look how it snowballed.

**LordofHats**

Tannhauser42 wrote:
LordofHats wrote:

Of course, this goes to one of my biggest grips with ST fandom. The need to explode the significance of things so monumentally unimportant they only warranted a bit part in a crisis of the week episode, never to be seen again. It's amazing how much of TOS that people consider to be absolutely sacred amounts to one offs.

Remember the tribble episode of DS9? A short, funny scene with a wink-and-a-nod to how TOS Klingons looked different from modern Klingons, and look how it snowballed.

Yeah. It's the episode I both love and hate. I love it because it's brilliant as a tribute and as an episode of TV in its own right. I hate it because it opened a giant barrel of monkeys of stupid fan theories, and two of the worst ENT episodes, and ENT had a lot of bad episodes.

**AndrewGPaul**

I preferred SFDebris’ idea- they should have just put Michael Dorn in the same makeup, not said a word and just chalk it up to improvements in makeup technology.

**Yodhrin**

I actually think the Augment "origin story" thing was a solid idea.

Remember they're not just trying to explain why Klingons look different, but why they behave different - TOS Klingons and TOS Movie/TNG onwards Klingons don't actually have much in common beyond the name, a few shared design cues, and their mostly antagonistic stance towards the Federation.

When you "just ignore things" you end up with idiocy like STD Klingorcs apparently being able to grow full heads of hair within literally a few hours or days.

Care towards continuity doesn't make a story great, but the absence of it definitely makes it trash, IMO.

**LordofHats**

AndrewGPaul wrote:
I preferred SFDebris’ idea- they should have just put Michael Dorn in the same makeup, not said a word and just chalk it up to improvements in makeup technology.

That's actually pretty funny.

Remember they're not just trying to explain why Klingons look different, but why they behave different

Neither of those things needed explanations but I think you and I have been down this route already, so maybe there isn't a point in doing it again? We'll just end up grumbling at each other like targs XD

**AndrewGPaul**

The difference in the culture of the Klingons between TOS and TNG could have been explained politically; a fundamentalist political movement rising to prominence during the movie era and then taking over as a reaction to the administration of Chancellor Azetbur after the disaster in ST6. There’s two or theee generations between the movies and TNG, after all.

YMMV, but I would have found that more interesting than just another example of how nobody involved in Star Trek understands life sciences.

**LordofHats**

AndrewGPaul wrote:
The difference in the culture of the Klingons between TOS and TNG could have been explained politically; a fundamentalist political movement rising to prominence during the movie era and then taking over as a reaction to the administration of Chancellor Azetbur after the disaster in ST6. There’s two or theee generations between the movies and TNG, after all.

YMMV, but I would have found that more interesting than just another example of how nobody involved in Star Trek understands life sciences.

We could extend that to most fiction. Whether it be elves and orcs or Vulcans and Klingons there’s this tendency to dumb down culture and politics into stone written monoliths that go unchanged for thousands of years. Not all the time of course. DS9!toyed with how cultures change over time and so did ENT in at least one two parter, but generally written a write the alien culture around XHumans like old men wrote about the Orient.

**Yodhrin**

AndrewGPaul wrote:
The difference in the culture of the Klingons between TOS and TNG could have been explained politically; a fundamentalist political movement rising to prominence during the movie era and then taking over as a reaction to the administration of Chancellor Azetbur after the disaster in ST6. There’s two or theee generations between the movies and TNG, after all.

YMMV, but I would have found that more interesting than just another example of how nobody involved in Star Trek understands life sciences.

It could have, but that wouldn't have explained the aesthetic difference. By tying the two together using the old Augments background you explain everything at once, in-universe, in a single 3-part story without having to tweak any of the existing material.

Either option has now been entirely fethed anyway, thanks to STD.

**AndrewGPaul**

Yeah, but I'd have been happy to ignore the visual difference as the difference between 60s effects and 80s effects - like they did right up until Trials and Tribble-ations.

90s Trek (including TNG as it was mostly in the 90s) had a habit of featuring rather one-note aliens, or of simplifying the ones they introduced; Klingons and battle, Ferengi and moneymaking, the Borg and assimilation, Bajorans and lazy "eastern" spirituality and Cardassians and militarism.

The Ferengi are an odd one, in that they were always supposed to be a caricature of Western capitalism, but at least in TNG they weren't shy of a fight - then in DS9 they got an upgrade from the capering monkey-men of early TNG, but by DS9 those big scary warships vanished (a pity - the Ferengi could have made some cash by hiring them out in the Dominion War - or as Wormhole guards in the first couple of seasons).

**Yodhrin**

The changes in the Ferengi are explained by the shift away from anticapitalist sentiment in TNG to the more mainstream Western Goodguy Interventionist Liberals philosophy that was on show for DS9 - the "Del Boy as a sexist comedy-relief troll" version lets them shift the focus away from the inherent barbarism of capitalism towards more comfortable ground for aforementioned mainstream position.

As for the Klingons - eh, I'd always prefer to see something like that explained, if it can be done reasonably and in-universe. "Romulans have a wee ridge on their heads now" is something you can ignore due to special effects budgets, "these guys look, sound, and act like a completely different species" is just too much for a lot of people's suspension of disbelief to handle. And in this case, the changes were kind of unavoidable - if you want to talk about one-note races, TOS Klingons trump them all given they're pretty much nothing other than a huge flashing Totally Not The Ruskies Honest Guv sign.

That said, I don't think the one-note thing is actually an issue - save in cases like TOS Klingons when it was too much "of its time" to work once the Cold War was passed - because that was the whole point of the major alien races in Star Trek; they each either epitomise or otherwise highlight some aspect of our own society or history in a way the viewer can't ignore and without getting their dander up in the way they would if the subject was broached more directly, and then the Superior People of the future show us primitive post-industrial barbarians how to deal with it like civilised folks.

A lot of people don't care for that aspect of Trek, but I'd say it's so utterly core to the concept that disliking it means, functionally, you dislike Trek. I'll take it over "I like Science".

**LordofHats**

And for the Ferengi no one took the "greedy capitalists" seriously as a threat to the Federation. Especially not with how cheesy the acting was in the first few appearances completely undoing any established sense of menace by the main cast. I'd say DS9 effectively salvaged the entire fictional species from the scrap heap, taking them out of the hamfisted approach TNG initially took with them and representing them as a much stronger work of satire and humor.

**Togusa**

Mr Morden wrote:
Ahtman wrote:
LordofHats wrote:
Mr Morden wrote:
Wasn;t STD tied in using their directors own super special space ship designs - esp for the Klingons which is why they look so out of place?

The design of Discovery itself isn't original to STD. It's based on a early concept art for a a Federation ship when Roddenberry and crew were looking at making a sequel to TOS. You can see in the design's flattened and wide frame how they transitioned from the look of TOS to the look of TNG. The original concept art got scrapped but the producers of STD revived it for the series and that design became Discovery.

I'm guessing we are referring to the Star Trek Phase 2 stuff from the late 70's?

I'm fine with the Enterprise design from STD as it incorporates elements of both the original series ship and the refit from the first series of movies. Of course I am just looking at it from a design standpoint with little interest in the show and not as a gatekeeper of the purity of the religious movement. Futurama told us the holy wars are coming.

whats your view on the Kilingons?

I just think they would have been fine if they had been a whole other race - which would have made little or no difference to the story.

No issues with the various Enterprise and Dicsovery was ok as experimental ship

BIG Issue with Ent and Dis.

Dis technology doesn't make sense, even for an "experimental ship." It breaks cannon and serves as a gakky excuse to write a story that could have easily just been set in the 26th century.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

LordofHats wrote:
And for the Ferengi no one took the "greedy capitalists" seriously as a threat to the Federation. Especially not with how cheesy the acting was in the first few appearances completely undoing any established sense of menace by the main cast. I'd say DS9 effectively salvaged the entire fictional species from the scrap heap, taking them out of the hamfisted approach TNG initially took with them and representing them as a much stronger work of satire and humor.

I agree, though I remember many a joke about Quark wearing his "jew gold" around his neck when on Frenginar in some episodes. They went a bit too far in later episodes trying to force a societal change on the species all at once instead of setting up the seeds of change.

**hotsauceman1**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
If I’m right in thinking, they were meant to be something to do with The Borg?

That was before The Borg were finalised as cyborgs though.

Aha! I wasn’t a squillion miles off.

Memory Alpha wrote:he Star Trek Chronology (revised 1996, p. 290) noted: "Although Picard and company were successful in eradicating them, the parasites did send a mysterious radio signal, presumably to others of their kind. At the time the episode was written, this was apparently intended to lead to the introduction of the Borg in Star Trek: The Next Generation's second season. The Borg connection was dropped before "Q Who" (TNG) was written, and the truth about the parasites remains a mystery."

The Borg where meant to be a bug race, so it makes sense.

**reds8n**

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/07/18/star-trek-picard-ep-alex-kurtzman-showrunner-michael-chabon-spill-new-details/

Why wait, right? Heading into the massive Saturday morning Hall H Star Trek panel at San Diego Comic-Con, the upcoming CBS All Access series Star Trek: Picard is still a bit of a mytery. In advance of the panel, the show’s executive producer Alex Kurtzman and showrunner Michael Chabon sat down with Entertainment Weekly to share new insights into the series. While they carefully avoided any major spoilers, Kurtzman and Chabon revealed a lot about the tone and direction of Star Trek: Picard.

Prior to this week, we only had the Star Trek: Picard teaser trailer and a few images released by CBS All Access to work with. Jonathan Frakes did shar on twitter that he directed two episodes in the show’s first season. Late in the filming for the first season, Chabon was announced as showrunner. CBS carefully guarded all other details, including plot and guest stars.

Star Trek universe commander Kurtzman and Picard showrunner Chabon’s interview with EW provides the world’s first peek into the psychology of the series. Anyone who has been reading the press knows that the show focuses on post-retirement Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart). However, viewers didn’t know why this particular character and this particular time period are important. Chabon and Kurtzman paint a vivid picture: a show about a once powerful man now trying to right a past injustice, without the trappings of his former position.
Despite the fact that none of the teaser scenes or released images showed Picard in space, Kurtzman reassured fans that “Events began to unfold that conspire to take Picard back to the stars.” However, Picard will likely not be going back as a Starfleet officer. Following up, Kurtzman enigmatically replies “He will [go to space], but not in a way that anyone expects.” Expanding on that point, Kurtzman shares more detail:

“Because he’s no longer in Starfleet, he no longer carries the weight of that behind him. In some ways, it’s easier to be [a great man] when you’re a captain. But it’s an entirely different thing when you don’t have an army behind you. When you want to get something done and fight an injustice, how do you do that when you’re really only one man?”

Unlike Stewart’s run as Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Picard show will be serialized rather than episodic. Instead of the “mission-of-the-week” format of previous shows, Star Trek: Picard‘s first season will be one long arc – a format familiar to fans of Star Trek: Discovery.

According to the producers, die-hard fans of the Picard character have nothing to fear from the new show or the new format. Kurtzman somewhat reassuringly asserted:

“It was terribly important to us that he remains fundamentally Picard. You will not see a version that betrays the man we loved from Next Generation. We’re not doing that. But we wanted to put a character with that level of morality and leadership and who always does the right thing no matter how hard the circumstances … we wanted to put that to the test.”

While Picard is the same man, Chabon points out that he is not unchanged – adding: “He’s a lot older and we’re not shying away from that at all — we’re dealing with a man who’s in a very different place in his life.”

The incredible acting by Stewart, however, has only changed for the better – with Chabon praising…

“The quality of Patrick’s acting, if anything, has gotten even better over time and he was already a master. He has an ability to hold you riveted even when he’s just sitting and listening.”

Star Trek: Picard stars Stewart, Alison Pill, Michelle Hurd, Evan Evagora, Isa Briones, Santiago Cabrera, and Harry Treadaway, and an adorable canine companion – with the series expected to premier in late 2019.

Stay tuned to Bleeding Cool for even more news on Star Trek: Picard from the SDCC 2019 Star Trek universe panel on Saturday.

**LordofHats**

I like how they sat down to reveal new details about the show and didn't reveal anything about the show that we couldn't have already known/guessed

**BobtheInquisitor**

"Star Trek universe commander Kurtzman"? Oh no. Oh no no no no no.

Anyway, they tell us a whole lot of nothing about the series. It could be good depending on the writing, but they seem to have chosen some lazy Drama! cliches that don't inspire hope. And do we really want to see a good man and familiar friend "put to the test" to salve his guilty conscience when we watch TNG era Star Trek? Do we really need another feel-bad drama in a streaming market glutted with them?

So, now that my expectations are low the final product should be able to surpass them that much more easily, right?

**Togusa**

According to the producers, die-hard fans of the Picard character have nothing to fear from the new show or the new format. Kurtzman somewhat reassuringly asserted:

I feel like a battered wife when I read this. I've been hurt before by Kurtzman.

“Because he’s no longer in Starfleet, he no longer carries the weight of that behind him. In some ways, it’s easier to be [a great man] when you’re a captain. But it’s an entirely different thing when you don’t have an army behind you. When you want to get something done and fight an injustice, how do you do that when you’re really only one man?”

How is this remotely even star trek?

Calling it now, this is going to tank hard.

I WANT TO BELIEVE.

**warboss**

Chabon and Kurtzman paint a vivid picture: a show about a once powerful man now trying to right a past injustice, without the trappings of his former position.

Jean Luc Picard, intergalactic social justice warrior confirmed! Perhaps a toxic male Klingon microaggressed a Jem Hed'arr thereby restarting the Alpha Beta Gamma Quadrant war as a result.

The Betazoid in me senses dozens of youtube outrage videos coming in the near future based on double super secret insider information as a result.

**Compel**

Um... You do know what Star Trek is about, right?

Cause, um...

**Ahtman**

I just saw the episode last night where a guy broke the non-interference rule and created a Nazi state because he thought it would be ok this time. It was not. Thanks to Star Trek we learned Nazis are bad and that Zeons are ok.

Anyone else hope that John Delancey appears as Q in the new Picard series? Those two have great chemistry.

**Compel**

Have we learned that though?

And this is where we get too political and should change subjects.

**Ahtman**

We also have learned that Doomsday machines that eat planets and starships aren't a good idea either, so we have that going for us.

**warboss**

Don't forget that trying to tackle tar monsters is tactical mistake and having sex with ghosts of one of your ancestors isn't advisable either. I think we as a species going forward are set for all possibilities.

**Mr Morden**

and an adorable canine companion

Ughhh thats a joke right? Cos if not.....

But we wanted to put a character with that level of morality and leadership and who always does the right thing no matter how hard the circumstances … we wanted to put that to the test

Yeah that never happened on the show- except when it did ..... I am not a fan of Jean Luc to be honest but this sounds awful.

**Compel**

Translation: "Lets torture Jean-Luc and kill his dog."

Hopefully we can just remind him there are only 4 lights.