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 warboss wrote:
For those who have watched DISCO season 2 and Picard, is the former better/worse/about the same as the latter? I'll be starting in on DISCO now that I'm done with Picard and I suspect I might have to gird my loins given my opinions on STD s1 (bad) and Picard (approaching mediocre).

Surprisingly, I think Picard is worse then Discovery. Thing about Discovery is at least it's it's own thing. I don't think it's ruining anything (some could argue it's ruining Spock) but it's its own show I and so that crew is doing its own thing. At least it is a crew of uniformed starfleet personnel doing Starfleet stuff. Picard on the other hand I actually do think it is ruining Star Trek. Like this band of misfits feels so forced. You see, they're cool because two of the characters smoke and one does does drugs and is also an alcoholic! That screams Star Trek! Once again it asks the question: What if Star Trek was Star Wars? The band of random misfits coming together to save the day is a big Star Wars trope but even Star Wars does not have smoking in it. This one needed an extra edge so they put in some smoking and eye gouging. And as others have asked what is up with the sexual tension between the Brother and Sister Romulans? I really think that was just someone saying "Incest is popular now, Game of Thrones was popular because of that so we better put incest incest in". You can just tell this whole thing was a poorly written piece of crap.

Now a lot of people here are now saying well TNG sucked anyway so whateves. Well fine, everyone is entitled to their own opinion but a lot of people really did like TNG a lot and that was the audience they were relying on for this show. In that way ST Picard is ruining Star Trek, at least for the fans of that generation of Trek who the show is supposed to be attracting anyway.

I honestly hope that season 2 of this show is somehow unexpectedly cancelled.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
So if Picard hadn't got all uppity would any of this have happened?

Seems like the Romulans are right. The synthetics remain a threat because their memory of this alternate Cough Killer Cthulu Cylon Cough race still exists.

Should cracked the planet's crust with torpedoes once the signalling device was deactivated. Now Metal Cthulu knows someone is out there.

Last time they left a hyper evolved race behind they got the Borg...

Also seems like the Romulans are still a threat, if limited. Spies at the top of the Federation. Looks like a job for Sysko...

Is it me or the Federation royally sucks it ferrying out agents. Their admiral vetting process needs some work. Maybe they should contact the Tal Shiar for some best practices.

I had similar thoughts. The secret cabal of Romulans wasn't wrong was it? The Reapers are out there and the way the synthetics acted in the Finale showed they were pretty dumb and easily manipulated. Also, now apparently you can just completely replace anyone with a golem that looks exactly like them but they are an android so they should be programmable. Even the BattleStar Galatica didn't have to deal with that kind of problem!

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:

Surprisingly, I think Picard is worse then Discovery. Thing about Discovery is at least it's it's own thing. I don't think it's ruining anything (some could argue it's ruining Spock) but it's its own show I and so that crew is doing its own thing. At least it is a crew of uniformed starfleet personnel doing Starfleet stuff. Picard on the other hand I actually do think it is ruining Star Trek. Like this band of misfits feels so forced. You see, they're cool because two of the characters smoke and one does does drugs and is also an alcoholic! That screams Star Trek! Once again it asks the question: What if Star Trek was Star Wars? The band of random misfits coming together to save the day is a big Star Wars trope but even Star Wars does not have smoking in it. This one needed an extra edge so they put in some smoking and eye gouging. And as others have asked what is up with the sexual tension between the Brother and Sister Romulans? I really think that was just someone saying "Incest is popular now, Game of Thrones was popular because of that so we better put incest incest in". You can just tell this whole thing was a poorly written piece of crap.

Now a lot of people here are now saying well TNG sucked anyway so whateves. Well fine, everyone is entitled to their own opinion but a lot of people really did like TNG a lot and that was the audience they were relying on for this show. In that way ST Picard is ruining Star Trek, at least for the fans of that generation of Trek who the show is supposed to be attracting anyway.

I honestly hope that season 2 of this show is somehow unexpectedly cancelled.

A bit of a necro but, after a necessary break from Trek post weeklong streaming of Picard, I've started watching DISCO season 2 and am conflicted. I don't know if my expectations have changed or if season two of DISCO (at least up to the Talos IV episode that I'm currently on) is the better of the two so far. The free intro episode that they put up on youtube for a few days was so far tied with the Klingon episode IMO as the worst of the season. It's approaching decent with the exception of those two. What's holding it back IMO is the wooden performance of Michael Burnham (I'm really tired of the always so earnest breathless whisper delivery of every line regardless of whether it's a replicator lunch order to a final goodbye to a supposedly dying friend) but that's balanced by a suprisingly good performance by Pike's actor. I still have my issues with the latter in terms of him frequently being berated/disrepected by subordinates without reprecussion though but he's the high point of the show so far. I suppose the bordering on elder verbal abuse Picard got inured me to the plain jane disrepct that Pike encounters, lol. I'm very unhappy the a certain character's resurrection (about the only way you can make a poorly done death of a good character even worse is by negating the meaning of the sacrifice by a shoehorned resurrection) and the turning of the quirky but loveable Tilly into a seemingly a caricature of her season 1 self. The klingorcs are still horrible but at least their hair is back so that's a relative baby step improvement over season 1 despite the alopecia justification being utterly ridiculous. Also, if I were prone to sea sickness, the frequent askew meandering camera angles on character close ups are bothersome but I don't know if that's a showrunner thing or just a certain repeat director's favorite as I've noticed it alot but haven't been recording exactly where as it feels pervasive. Whereas Picard felt like it was made by a bunch of people who liked Firefly/Mass Effect/Star Wars/BSG but were forced to work instead on Star Trek, this at least feels this season so far like an attempt to at least make Star Trek (albeit a flawed one). I watched episode recaps as they were released so I know the whole AI/Control/Section 31 storyline up to and including the finale and I suspect that since I really disliked that in the reviews that my feelings will go downhill for the rest of the season as it is slowly creeping into the forefront.

The thing that I've found most surprising is how much better the show looks compared with Picard in terms of special effects and set design. Holy gak does Picard look like the red-headed bastard stepchild in terms of quality for both! I suppose they're spending the millions per episode on Picard on the hefty fees of Patrick Steward and the other dozen or so producers because comparatively they're definitely not visible in the visual quality.

Discovery was better the more it had Pike in it. It definitely gets dumber as the season goes on.

 AduroT wrote:
Discovery was better the more it had Pike in it. It definitely gets dumber as the season goes on.

That is true. Pike ended up being one of the most likable Captains of any Trek show even though for some reason he had to check with Burnham on everything he did...

Yeah, that is part of what I was referring to in addition to Cmdr. Sassy Saru mouthing off repeatedly to the captain. It still pales though in comparison to the disrespect repeated Savior of the Federation Admiral Picard got from everyone though. Then there is emo beatnik Spock being more volatile than a klingon, and seemingly everyone willing to violate every Starfleet standing order and their captain's direct orders at the drop of a hat with no reprecussion (no suprise there given the lack of consequence for Burnham doing the same to open the series). With the nacelles seemingly trimmed down (am I imagining that?) and much less fidgetspinning everywhere even the Discovery is less grating this time around. Again, I don't know if that's genuine on my part or just a response to the La Sirena in Picard being even less trekky. I've just got the finale (part 2) and whatever short treks I can fit in before my cutoff.

Yeah, my enjoyment has decreased now that the show has pivoted back to Burnham being the center of the show/galaxy instead of the ensemble shifting center of focus that Trek has traditionally been and that at least part of this season was as well. The quotient of stupid stuff has increased including copious amounts of gratuitous sassy girl power moments more at home in a YA book or CW show as well as nonsensical choices and unearned emotion.

Still, overall, it's an improvement for me at least compared with season 1 of both DISCO and Picard. Of course, I've still got the utter stupidity of the fleet battle with seemingly self replicating shuttle fighter swarms and the needless sacrifice to set up season 3 coming up so there is that... Backhanded praise is still about the best I can do other than saying that I potentially finally see hope in a consistently acceptable trek show if they ever greenlight the Pike era show with him, Spock, Culber, and Number 1 on the Enterprise.

Oh yeah, just discovered the Short Treks. Some of them are quite good. In fact the last one is sort of a prequal to Picard and was pretty cool. However, the best one involved the guy who plays Archer as a starfleet officer and some tribbles.

I didn’t even know the short treks were a thing until the full series brought in a character introduced in one. They did the Previously On thing with clips of her and I was like what? Did I miss an episode? And I had to dig around to figure out what they’d done.

Ya same. I’m sure that happened to most of the audience actually.

..what ?


https://twitter.com/GoodAaron/status/1256653774493372416

TNG had some weird ideas. As I've often said, if we applied the same standards we do to Picard and discovery to TNGs first season... we would not be kind

Wow, well STD did have a fungus based navigation system....

BrianDavion wrote:
TNG had some weird ideas. As I've often said, if we applied the same standards we do to Picard and discovery to TNGs first season... we would not be kind

Genuinely a good thing to keep in mind.

Most SciFi I love had a ropey start, taking a season or so to really find its feet.

BrianDavion wrote:
TNG had some weird ideas. As I've often said, if we applied the same standards we do to Picard and discovery to TNGs first season... we would not be kind

No one WAS kind to TNG’s first season. Please stop pretending beloved classics are just as bad as an unpopular show you like and that everyone else only likes them out of nostalgia, and also is wrong for enjoying them over your show.

First disingenuous people are all like “Star Wars and Empire really we’re just as dumb as this sequel, and that’s why you should like this sequel.” Then they brought the same logic to Star Trek. When will it end? Do we need to pretend that Robocop was just as tired as the remake?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Do we need to pretend that Robocop was just as tired as the remake?

I liked Robocop 2 but I'm a big fan of the Cain mech design. Plus, it was the second movie I ever saw in the theater (at 13 years old too!). I won't lie and say it was as good or obviously as unique as the original but it's a guilty pleasure of mine just like AVP (the first one... not the abomination that followed!) and the first Starship Troopers movie.

As for TNG, most fans agree the 1st season was the worst in the run but most still say it felt like Star Trek. I'm not sure the same can be said of STD and STP. I just hope that the hopefully upcoming Pike show will be the lucky third times the charm attempt.

edit: Corrected to second movie. My first was actually the TMNT live action one. And the third was ST VI: Undiscovered Country! It's not the best trek movie (ST II: WOK holds that position for me) but VI is my favorite for that sentimental reason.

I meant the Sam Jackson remake. I got no beef with Robocop 2. True Story: my elderly aunt took little me to see Robocop 2 in the theater because she thought Gremlins 2 sounded too violent.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I meant the Sam Jackson remake. I got no beef with Robocop 2. True Story: my elderly aunt took little me to see Robocop 2 in the theater because she thought Gremlins 2 sounded too violent.

Ah, my bad. I somehow switched remake to sequel. In my case, it was an older cousin who took me.

 warboss wrote:


As for TNG, most fans agree the 1st season was the worst in the run but most still say it felt like Star Trek. I'm not sure the same can be said of STD and STP. I just hope that the hopefully upcoming Pike show will be the lucky third times the charm attempt.

.

except they didn't back when TNG first aired you heard a LOT of "this isn't star trek" a lot of that mind you was pretty much just people complaining about any change, I agree TNG's first season felt a lot of ST:TOS.. which is no suprise considering they basicly where using recycled and rejected TOS scripts. I'm not touch STD for this argument simply because I've not watched eneugh of it. but Picard feels reasonably like star trek to me, but it feels like a logical progression of star trek. trek being dark and willing to admit the federation isn't perfect is not new.


Don't belive me?








ohh and here's a fun one, Capt. Sisko commits warcrimes (seriously there's no way everyone sucessfully evac'd that world)





ohh and here's a starfleet admiral attempting to launch a coup.

One way to think of it is that The Original Series, TNG and Voyager all happen at times when the Federation is broadly stable and safe. Sure there's the odd Borg Cube here and there; but by and large the Federation at its core is a happy safe place and peace is maintained. Klingons make a lot of noise but keep to their boarders; Romulans make flybys in the neutral zone but don't breach it openly; Cardassian's just keep policing their own people.

DS9 was the darker underbelly of when things go - wrong. When the balance of power gets upset and factions start to push at their boundaries. We also got to see life outside of the Federation - the effects of conquest and occupation by species and forces that weren't the Federation. Remembering that DS9 is very new ground for the Federation. It's on the frontier near to a generally hostile faction who don't uphold Federation values.



Though we also see factions like the Ferangi making steady shifts toward the Federation way of thinking. That sweet cloying root-beer of insidious temptation toward the Federations approach to life that steadily changes them. We see them adopting equal gender rights and even some socialist concepts toward things like universal health etc... (believe things ilke that are mentioned in passing in some of the changes brought forward, though mostly downplayed next to the gender issues).

Even at their worst, didn’t all the DS9 meme era act like competent professionals who mostly avoided pointless interpersonal drama? Sure, for many the lack of such drama makes TNG-era seem boring, but for me it made the era enjoyable so that even a bad episode felt like it had comfortable background noise.

From what I’ve seen in Picard, this basic competence and decency were lacking, making the people of the federation feel like the people of today(‘s dramas) rather than the better-than-modern people of a generally improved society. It would be like watching a legal drama set in the year 2000 and having all the characters relate to each other like slave-owning plantation owners and carpetbaggers.

No there were more than a few selfish people and tensions within the Federation even down to things like Section 32 (or whatever it was called). There were even those willing to ally with the Founders.

Don't forget until DS9 the Federation had never really been part of a major intergalactic war. They'd had battles and fights, but never the need for an actual warfleet. Plus in the distant past the Klingon Empire was a very powerful ally. By DS9 the Klingons are suffering identity crisis and suffering their own internal political struggles. They are not the grand army that they once were - formidable yes, but not the might that they once were at their height. They've softened.

Meanwhile forces like the Romulans and Cardassians were a threat, but were mostly content to sit behind their neutral system boundaries and to only pose and threaten where they could in subtle ways. They weren't wiling to go into all out war.

The Founders were willing to go into full on war and with their clone warriors and their primary worlds being beyond a single choke point (Wormhole) and with a single purpose and unity that the Federation lacked, they could ramp up their war machine very quickly (not to mention they already had it ready to start with).



Picard presents nothing new in the concept of the Federation abandoning its ideals at the top end. If anything it simply reinforces what we've seen in DS9, the Film between Nemesis and First Contact (I forget its name) and many other subtle events through the various series. Picard just differs in that its a very long portrayal of failure on the part of the Federation - its a major failing rather than a smaller one.

It doesn't reinforce but rather ratchets it up several levels. That's not just my opinion but also that of the showrunners and main star who made it a point in interviews to specifically point out that they DIDN'T want to return to the same type of setting/Federation we had previously seen. You're completely free to like the change but not to pretend that it hasn't been changed.

As Bob correctly stated, the selfish to borderline evil Federation citizens were the rare exception even if they were the outsized focus of episodes. It's just not exciting to focus an episode or story arc on Lt. Joe Blow simply being a model Federation citizen and doing his job competently. For every Sloan or Eddington there were 100+ named and unnamed Starfleet personnel and Federation citizens simply doing their job within the letter and spirit of the Federation's laws. That's like saying the entire Bajoran religious caste was evil and/or a puppet of the Pah Wraiths just because Winn was and that a future show where literally all but one of them are evil is consistent with DS9. Exceptions don't work that way.

 warboss wrote:
It doesn't reinforce but rather ratchets it up several levels. That's not just my opinion but also that of the showrunners and main star who made it a point in interviews to specifically point out that they DIDN'T want to return to the same type of setting/Federation we had previously seen. You're completely free to like the change but not to pretend that it hasn't been changed.

As Bob correctly stated, the selfish to borderline evil Federation citizens were the rare exception even if they were the outsized focus of episodes. It's just not exciting to focus an episode or story arc on Lt. Joe Blow simply being a model Federation citizen and doing his job competently. For every Sloan or Eddington there were 100+ named and unnamed Starfleet personnel and Federation citizens simply doing their job within the letter and spirit of the Federation's laws. That's like saying the entire Bajoran religious caste was evil and/or a puppet of the Pah Wraiths just because Winn was and that a future show where literally all but one of them are evil is consistent with DS9. Exceptions don't work that way.

Sure, and that's understood to be the case in Picard. The federation hasn't gone "completely evil" they've made a knee jerk decision in response to bad events in the past. Which is... pretty typical of the federation to be frank.
Banning an entire branch of, highly benifical, science because of a bad event in the past? That's completely in character with the federation. Genetic engineering is a pretty important field of study.

we're not seeing "the entire federation is evil"we're seeing one person in a position of power is evil. we're seeing an admiral who doesn't hero worship Picard

It’s not even a person who turned evil, it’s an evil* person who infiltrated and worked their way up the ranks.

As for the Admiral, Picard, having just given a tv interview where he condemned Starfleet, went to her with zero evidence of his claims and wanted to be reinstated and put in charge of a ship and crew and let go investigate his hunch. She turned him down, bluntly. When he contacted her later with actual compelling evidence, she promptly dispatched one of the largest fleets we’ve ever seen to back him up.

*By evil we mean an extremest fringe group working on their beliefs in secret to prevent the eradication of all life in the galaxy from a threat that turns out to be very real and would in fact wipe out all life in the galaxy, and who was never shown to be directly working against anything else the Federation was working on besides that, though admittedly with quite considerable collateral damage.

Also note that Picard hadn't been an admiral for 15 years or more at that point. It wasn't just the TV interview, it was the fact that he'd been out of the game for so long that he's not even remembered (a subtle hint he gets at the entrance when he has to introduce himself). Whilst he was never bombastic, he was casually used to being well known and respected. When he stepped down he was at the top of his game. One of the best Starfleet had to offer who had saved the Federation several times over and dealt with huge issues.

Riker, in contrast, was able to regain his position and lead the fleet; granted he was likely a bit more diplomatic and there was actual evidence of something going wrong at that stage. Yet he was still able to swing command of the most powerful warship of the Federation and its military fleet. It was basically another sign that Picard has moved back and that someone new fills his shoes now in the Federation - Riker.







Federation has always had lofty ideals that are never perfectly met. Heck even in the Kirk days the "Prime Directive" was broken almost every single week and that was one of the core mandates that Kirk was supposed to be upholding and spreading to new worlds that joined the Federation.

If Kirk/Picard/Janeway/Sisko and basically every other captain we see can break the Prime Directive - then power plays and other aspects that are not from purely "good" sources can certainly influence the Federation


Heck don't forget during TNG the max warp speed starships were allowed to use was reduced as a result of basically terrorist style scientific displays in order to prove that the highest speeds did come with some local side effects. Science that the federation had ignored. Again it wasn't being "evil" it was just being self serving/human.

The Picard series Federation isn't evil, its just not perfect.

But it also has widespread xenophobia, poverty and drug addiction resurging out of nowhere, after each and every captain of each series telling us those things have been completely eliminated...

Voss wrote:
But it also has widespread xenophobia, poverty and drug addiction resurging out of nowhere, after each and every captain of each series telling us those things have been completely eliminated...

Wide spread anti-romulan xenophobia is hardly new to the federation though. if you watch a few key TNG and DS9 episodes you can definatly see signs that this is pretty well.. normal.

Voss wrote:
But it also has widespread xenophobia, poverty and drug addiction resurging out of nowhere, after each and every captain of each series telling us those things have been completely eliminated...

But not in the Federation. We see one person on Earth who has fallen into drug use and that's basically it.

The rest are Romulan infiltration agents.


After that the worst xenophobia we see isn't in the Federation - its in worlds in/near too the old Neutral Zone between the Federation and Romulan Empire. Ergo space that was never part of the Federation and is only now under the sketchy protection of a small force that are outside of the Federation. It was never Federation space.

The rest also happens in areas that are outside of Federation Jurisdiction and/or outside of their space entirely. Don't forget in DS9 Quarks relative was into gun and weapon smuggling/trading (a fact that Quark often lamented on how much money there was in guns compared to bar-work). Heck he was willing to trade horrible weapons of mass destruction to both sides of a conflict to prolong it. These things happened; its just they were a backdrop/background to a single episode or two here and there; rather than the prime focus of a mini series.

And yes whilst the Federation is open to all its always had elements of racism and hostilities between groups.

With Raffi I always got the sense that there would always have been Federation means available to help her but... She didn't want it. All she wanted to do was wallow in her own self pity and misery.

I was honestly worried about a lot of the New-Battlestar-Galactica-isation of the Federation (I still am sad about the sacrifice of Stargate Atlantis on that same altar) but I think the show balanced it perfectly. Everything 'bad' either fell down to

1) Individuals personal choices and failings.
Or
(2) Commodore O was a baddy.

Just a point but "drugs are not a problem" doesn't have to mean there are no drug users. Just that the issue is so tiny that it doesn't really register as a problem at the general population level. There could still be thousands of abusers and users and problem people, but they are spread really really thin over the whole population. Thus making it an "invisible" issue to the population at large.

 Overread wrote:

Voss wrote:
But it also has widespread xenophobia, poverty and drug addiction resurging out of nowhere, after each and every captain of each series telling us those things have been completely eliminated...

But not in the Federation. We see one person on Earth who has fallen into drug use and that's basically it.

The rest are Romulan infiltration agents.


After that the worst xenophobia we see isn't in the Federation - its in worlds in/near too the old Neutral Zone between the Federation and Romulan Empire. Ergo space that was never part of the Federation and is only now under the sketchy protection of a small force that are outside of the Federation. It was never Federation space.

Well, no. Its in the opening when the workers on Mars are functionally 'race-baiting' the android. Nothing suggests that's even vaguely rare.
We get to see Romulans on Earth, but only as servants.
Or the Hate-News interview.

None of those are 'never Federation space.' Its part of the established situation for the series.