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 warboss wrote:
Non-spoiler Picard premiere review by (the actor who played) Jake Sisko and friends. Listening to it right now and just passed the 15 minute mark where they said 90's trek is dead and this is not a continuation of it as it's more akin to STD. They're largely ok with that. YMMV.

Im out then.

Just watched the first episode and enjoyed it. Will definitely be watching the rest.

Spoiler tags as necessary my fellow Dakkanauts

Just saw the first episode and absolutely loved it.

Yup. Absolute belter that!

Looking forward to more.

I agree with AduroT, plus -

Looking ahead to season 2...

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Hmmmmm....

So according to the show they’ve never been able to make another sentient synthetic since Data. Would imply the Mars ones weren’t some group acting on their own, but just kind of drones, and a sudden turn means they were likely hacked.

My next question is if there have never been sentient synthetics other than Data’s family, what about the Doctor hologram from Voyager? As I think about it, his existence does kind of invalidate a bunch of the Data plot lines.

The problem was replicating the nature of Data's existence (his brain), and not synthetic sentience itself. For instance, Moriarty existed, but had the full power of the Enterprise's computer to do so, and he was still limited in scope/function.

I think synthetic is being used very specifically, rather than a catch all for AI.

Yeah, it's getting an AI to run on something as small as a human brain that's the issue. The Doctor was an anomaly, and his mobile holo-emitter was cheating :-)

IIRC the Emergency Medical Hologram program was deemed to be a failure, and those left active were re-assigned to hazardous duties like mining.

beast_gts wrote:
Yeah, it's getting an AI to run on something as small as a human brain that's the issue. The Doctor was an anomaly, and his mobile holo-emitter was cheating :-)

IIRC the Emergency Medical Hologram program was deemed to be a failure, and those left active were re-assigned to hazardous duties like mining.

It was and they were, then unassigned when somehow the Doctor started an AI rights movement from the other side of the galaxy (and saw it to completion in the course of an episode).

Overall really loving this first episode. I think it plays brilliantly into Picards style and strengths as an actor.



Also I like the little touch that Number One is a pit. To me that's a little bit of that old startrek theme of pushing modern social boundaries a bit. Pits being a breed that, esp in the UK, have come under a lot of fire (I believe they might even be on the dangerous dogs banned list) because of the use of them in dog fighting. Creating a huge image problem for them as violent and nasty dogs when the reality is far more that its the owners not the dogs.
So I really do like that touch even if its a bit more canine than human focused (as many of the earlier Trek progressive pushes were - esp in the Original series when you had women on the command deck and multiple ethnic groups).



Overall this feels very Startrek

It's probably worth mentioning that the latest Short Trek ("Children of Mars") is for Picard rather than Discovery.

I give the first episode 7.5/10. It had some great moments, but it could still go either way from here. I want nostalgia moments, but I want more than that. I want action, but I also want depth. It has become almost an internet cliche to say that "The Inner Light" and "Family" were the best Next Generation episodes, but I still agree. But those episodes were only good because they contrast with the action episodes and reflect on them. There needs to be Action, followed by Reflection. Can't have one without the other.

I guess it was inevitable that this would have an ongoing storyline instead of an "adventure of the week" episodic structure, but I hope it works for the character.

I am optimistic, but still maintaining some caution for now.

The Ready Room (Picard aftershow hosted by Wil Wheaton) - Instagram


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 Fifty wrote:
I guess it was inevitable that this would have an ongoing storyline instead of an "adventure of the week" episodic structure, but I hope it works for the character.

It looks like that was one of the conditions of Sir Patrick Stewart reprising the role.

What I appreciated was Sir Patrick’s ability to freely switch between tired, deeply caring old man, and Picard’s thornier ‘nope’ attitude.

He’s lost nothing over the years, and I am enthused to see more.

I really liked the contrasts of locations, peacefulness vs. action, reality vs. dreams.

I think that this is going have me watching every Friday night for a bit. Who'd have thought that my Star Wars/Star Trek bias could flip so dramatically over the space of a couple of years... maybe I'm getting old...

Saw it last night. Overall, looked good. The fight scenes were painfully goofy, but thats also pretty Star Trek


Definitely not the same show or format as TNG in any way thus far, but that's not necessarily bad. I look forward to seeing more.

That was really good, looking forward to more

Quite enjoyed Trek meets Bladerunner - nice acting, looked good,s tory was not bad.

It is amazing how many of these grand galatic empires have their home planets blown up and have to rely on the Federation to sort it out.....

See where it goes - last scene and pull back was cool.

So, just to clarify, they're airing the episodes one at a time, instead of dropping them all at once for binge watching? Don't want to have to pay for a couple months of CBS if I don't have to.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
So, just to clarify, they're airing the episodes one at a time, instead of dropping them all at once for binge watching? Don't want to have to pay for a couple months of CBS if I don't have to.

that is indeed the case. I'm sure by now you can find the 1st episode up on... less then legal streaming sites

Watched the first episode over the weekend and quite enjoyed it.
Was pacey enough, good production values, setup the plot for some possible curveballs and had a few nice moments of nostalgia for TNG fans.

Will keep watching to see where it goes and evolves.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
What I appreciated was Sir Patrick’s ability to freely switch between tired, deeply caring old man, and Picard’s thornier ‘nope’ attitude.

He’s lost nothing over the years, and I am enthused to see more.

Indeed. Was honestly not expecting the Picard Speech in the first episode, but he went right at it.

Enjoyed the first episode. I think they found a legitimate reason why Picard would quit in protest and also something that seems realistic. Usually they are not good at having an issue where both sides seem to be acting in a realistic fashion.

However, is there still that much hard feelings about The Romulans from the General Federation populace? They did fight side by side with them in The Dominion War. The Romulans have always been a stand-in for The Soviet Union. I guess after WWII even though The Soviets were part of The Allies the Cold War ensued. However, I kind of thought all of Star Trek up to this point was already simulating a Cold War with Romulus. So we're getting a double dose of cold war? Anyway, metaphors aside you'd think relations between The Federation and Romulus would have thawed greatly since the War.

The Dominion War forced alliances rather than formed alliances. Furthermore it was mostly the Cardassian's who took the brunt of the pains in the end on their systems and worlds as well as those on their boarders.

The Romulans saw the threat, but in the end most of their worlds remained quite intact. So after the threat of the Dominion was gone they likely went back to their old selves. They didn't have a massive political change as a result of the war. If anything it might have cemented their distrust of the Federation as it was the Federation who opened communications with races that far off with an ability to operate within a whole segment of the Galaxy that basically had only one corridor to it. If they'd not secured the Wormhole with the self-replicating mines, the Dominion would have eventually won through having an almost untouchable base of operations to launch wave after wave of attacks from.

When you consider how distrusting and isolationist the Romulans are, that kind of threat likely worked right into their social views on the Federation really well.


Plus we can't forget the Nemesis film where they also tried to strike at the heart of the Federation with a doomsday weapon. Such an act might well have boiled over tensions from the Federation. Seeing a race who basically stand back as long as they can, resent the Federation, block and oppose it where they can etc... I'm sure the Romulans bred few friendships - especially at the upper political level.



However the Federation was willing to help, that is until the entire rescue fleet was obliterated in a single massive attack that wiped out a whole world. That's quite a massive feat considering they weren't at war with anyone at the time. A huge peacetime attack by agents with reasons unknown. However whilst it wasn't the Romulans who instigated the attack, I suspect that the bulk of support they had in key figureheads died on the planet. Leaving behind far fewer ready to take up the torch again. At the same time ships were likely needed to counteract the Synthetics and contain them. Ships that likely weren't going to be spared to save Romulans - meanwhile civilians were likely in a storm of confusion after the attack, and fear.



I think the scale of things makes it a believable situation that the Federation in the end wound up paralysed in a situation that was on a very short fuse. It might even be that upper members of the political system would have been willing to divert fresh resources to save the Romulans after the synethics were contained; however its clear that they basically ran out of time.

Yeah, I was very concerned from the previews that they really were just going to have the Federation be Cardboard Cutout villains that were suddenly jerks for the sake of the story. But the first episode gave them enough nuance in their response, including ultimately they didn't oppose Picard's investigations.

So I'm cautiously optimistic to see how it goes.