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So don't reply to my posts then?

 Gert wrote:
So don't reply to my posts then?

You didn't have to reply to my post so maybe take your own advice? After the initial response I recognized that beating a long dead horse wouldn't do anyone any good, and I'm sure given enough time you'll realize it as well. I believe in you.

So, not long until Academy starts airing.

I caught one clip featuring Robert Picardo’s Doctor (not sure if it’s The Doctor or just Zimmerman’s image continuing to be used), in which he’s doing medical scans. And one of the Cadets exclaims she’s swallowed her com badge.

I am…..not exactly enthused by this. But I accept there’s context missing as to how that happened.

Surely it can’t be worse than Section 31?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Surely it can’t be worse than Section 31?

Oh noes! You've doomed us all.

I hope not. But we’ll have to wait and see.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I hope not. But we’ll have to wait and see.

I'm hoping for the return of the Irish Vulcan Alien.

Get.

In.

The.

Bin.

Then.

Get.

On.

Fire.

Then.

Get.

In.

The.

Sea.

Let me know when RedLetterMedia forces Rich Evans to watch this.

I only just watched Picard seasons 2 and 3. 2 was probably even worse than 1 was (if that's possible) but season 3 was a banger! It felt like a celebration of The Next Generation, getting all the cast back together for one last adventure. Next up on my big Star Trek run through is probably a rewatch of all of Strange New Worlds, then a rewatch of Lower Decks. Just for completion's sake, I might suffer through Section 31 also. I survived five seasons of Discovery and two bad seasons of Picard, after all.

I don’t say this to be funny or dramatic or snarky;

But I think you’re underestimating Just How Crap Section 31 Is.

Seriously. Zero redeeming features. Normally, I take pride in finding something positive to say about a movie or tv show. I consider it a healthy challenge that helps me understand and test my own likes and indeed prejudices.

But Section 31 offers absolutely nothing of merit. The cast are dreadful. Oh, Michelle Yeoh tries, but it’s like watching a Racehorse trying to run a steeplechase through a minefield, hobbled whilst being ridden by every subject of My 1,000lb life and wearing a blindfold, such are the obstacles of incompetence thrown in her way.

Example 1. Irritating “Oirish” accent entirely aside? The stupid micro alien thing in the Vulcan encounter suit? It’s meant to be a stealth thing. Yet acts entirely unlike any Vulcan or even Romulan,

Example 2. The big bad evil weapon that makes no sense but hey if we don’t have a big bad evil weapon of destroy galaxy from the evil mirror universe then we’d need to like….write a proper plot instead of just riffling through Dr Who’s Script Bins? There’s no sense in anyone, especially Georgiou, going after it. Why? BECAUSE ITS GENELOCKED TO HER. NOBODY ELSE CAN USE IT.

Example 3. As well as riffling through the Dr Who Script Bins? I think they went through the Suicide Squad Script Bins.

It’s awful. It’s beyond redemption. Of all the media that’s just sort of gone from streaming platforms (rip Willow you are wiv Princus Di and Jade n Hevun)? Section 31 needs to be gone the most.

It’s an insult to cinema. It’s an insult to Star Trek. It’s an insult to the audience. Frankly it’s an insult to all media everywhere. It’s beyond parody. Even the ropiest, most zero budget, self-insert self-fellating fan made Trek media is superior to this utter, utter drivel.

Finally. My standard rant because it is something I take seriously.

If you want someone to have a regional accent? Find an actor with that regional accent. Especially Scots or Irish. And if you can’t find the right actor for the role? Stop and consider whether that accent, especially for an Alien role, is actually serving any purpose. Or if indeed literally anyone’s normal accent will do. Given the stupid tiny Men In Black At Worst microscopic alien isn’t actually, Y’know….Irish. Having not lived in Ireland. Ever.

Now that's some nice rageposting you got there, Dok.

I won't defend Section 31 and everything you say is right (can't commend on the accent stuff).
However, Into Darkness still bothers me more. Section 31 is detached from Trek in a way that you can outright ignore it. It just doesn't exist.
The same isn't possible for Into Darkness, as the movie still tries to be Trek and miserably fails at it and had a lot of people watching it.
Section 31 was released on an obscure streaming service and noone but die hard fans will watch it. And if these fans have heard about the movie beforehend, even they won't watch it.

In that way it's similar to the extremely aweful Short trek with the tribbles. It's possibly the single worst trek "episode" out there, on the level of Threshold, Spock's brain and all of discovery. However, who really watches the Short treks?
Strange New Worlds' terrible Vulcan episode will have more impact on the franchize and again, that's bothering me more.

It’s not even a good sci-fi movie. It’s just dross vomited into the world, possibly by committee. I genuinely don’t care enough to research the making of, who wrote, who produced etc.

If it was someone’s first taste of Star Trek? I very much doubt they’d explore further. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m far from against attempts to expand a setting by exploring it through different genres.

Andor and Skellington Crew did that incredibly well for Star Wars. The MCU has (had, depending on opinion) a solid track record of making superhero themed genre movies whilst still feeling like a single, cohesive world.

This? This is the exact polar opposite. The Omega to their Alpha. The steaming pile of diarrhoea to the five course, Michelin Star banquet.

It’s not a good Star Trek film. It’s not a good crime thriller. It’s not a good heist movie. It’s not a good dirty dozen type movie. It’s terrible at being all of these things.

The characters aren’t meant to be good people, but instead of being antiheroes they’re just deeply unlikable. Were given no real reason to care about them or their mission.

Worse? It takes Section 31, a thing of mystery and intrigue developed in DS9, and makes it dull, boring, and somehow less than even generic.

Section 31 is meant to be The Federations dirty little secret. The complete illegitimates that will do horrific, dirty deeds to prevent what they see as even worse consequences. Their actions are previously portrayed as occupying some level of moral grey area.

For instance, their plan to wipe out the Changelings and with it any cohesion within the otherwise relentless, imperialist Dominion? Given projected loss of life on all sides, and the consequences of the Dominion overrunning the Alpha and Beta Quadrants? There’s at least some argument that that specific, deliberate genocide was the lesser evil. Please note I’m not gonna argue either way on that one. Just illustrating how intriguing and novel it initially felt.

Section 31 is meant to be the blade in the dark which enables Starfleets Moralising. Unseen by anyone except the hand that holds it. Arguably a black ops organisation more fear inducing than the Tal Shiar and Obsidian Order, because it’s NOT a tool of internal control.

This? Turned them into a joke. The old ragtag misfits and losers. One simply cannot see how the organisation, in what, a century or so? Develops from that bunch of idiots and incompetents to the one embodied by Sloan in DS9.

Hell. You wanna do a Section 31 movie? In the TOS and Movies Timeline? Centre it on the destruction of Praxis, the event that ultimately lead to the Khitomer Accords and the highly successful Federation/Klingon Alliance the result of deliberate, calculated sabotage. A pressure point exploited to either bring the Klingon Empire entirely to its knees, or to the Negotiating Table. I’d even be somewhat tolerant of them having a Time Ship (we know at least one has been stolen from the future so far) to help them find The Stitch In Time That Saves Nine. Though ideally I’d like to see their actions dictated through cold, hard logic and prediction etc. That would make them really chilling.

And for goodness sake? Leave the underlying moral conclusion to the audience to decide.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

However, Into Darkness still bothers me more.

I'm gonna have to stop you there because Star Trek (2009) is far, far worse.

Star Fleet works in fiction because it acts like a serious organization, at times TNG feels like a workplace drama more than sci-fi.

A movie where a cadet half an inch from being thrown out, is promoted to captain of the fleet's flagship in 2 hours.

It demolishes the whole foundation of naval tradition and organization that - space ships and teleports and moneyless society - makes Star Fleet feel like something that could exist.

I’m going to give the reboot movies something of a pass.

I’m not going to argue over their merits as films. But I do want to acknowledge it was a reboot, set in a variant universe and for a modern, mainstream audience.

Doesn’t at all mean “therefore all your criticisms are invalid”. Far from it. But whilst ropey at best Trek movies, they’re still largely cromulent Sci-Fi Blockbusters.

Section 31 fails on all counts.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

However, Into Darkness still bothers me more.

I'm gonna have to stop you there because Star Trek (2009) is far, far worse.

Star Fleet works in fiction because it acts like a serious organization, at times TNG feels like a workplace drama more than sci-fi.

A movie where a cadet half an inch from being thrown out, is promoted to captain of the fleet's flagship in 2 hours.

It demolishes the whole foundation of naval tradition and organization that - space ships and teleports and moneyless society - makes Star Fleet feel like something that could exist.

I have a bigger gripe about them blowing up Romulus and the whole Romulan empire in the main timeline and thereby killing off any interesting plots that could have evolved about Romulans after TNG/DS9.
That's also my main problem with the Picard series, only this time they killed the federation utopia with an even dumber reasoning...

But the 2009 movie at least was fun. I remember seeing it in the cinema thinking: okay that crew is quite nice, now do a Trek Story with some message with them and not just... stuff. But then we got into Darkness which failed to do anything but out of character fanservice (what if we let Spock scream Khan this time?!) and even had a right wing message about the "Deep state" the likes of J.D. Vance might be quite fond of...

Whilst I'm a big fan of the Picard series I do think that they should have had a series 0 between the end of Nemesis and the start of Picard season 1. There's SO many major events that happen in that timespan which basically happen "off camera" and we have to catch up with.

All before we even get to the lead character changing dramatically between the two. We go from a still Captain, still very in command Picard to a guy who left the Federation and has been in retirement for over a decade or so. That's a huge change of character.

Picard’s biggest failing was the first season not really delivering what anyone wanted, or needed.

Keeping a real world time gap between Nemesis and S1 was the right move for me. It provides time for unseen things to have occurred in. But they should’ve fleshed it out sooner, instead of farting around with Copy/Pasta Ships* and Space Defence Flowers.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I like that, during the Dominion War and Borg Incursions, something fundamentally changed within the Federation. It never lost its soul as such, but it definitely lost its innocence.

And so, Picard’s statesman type approach fell somewhat out of favour. Time and political pressures moved on, and he stopped being The Man Of The Hour, just as Kirk wasn’t the sort of Captain needed during Picard’s golden years as Captain of the Flagship.

But oh boy did they waste Phantom Menace levels of time and good will with an initial story which just didn’t deliver.

Now, the underlying story could’ve worked if they’d been less coy about What Happened In Between. Picard could’ve been on one last Hurrah, showing that his incredible diplomacy skills could still save the day.

But we didn’t get that. S2 and S3 were much improved. Especially S3 which absolutely gave us exactly what we wanted. One Last Hurrah For The Enterprise D And All Her Command Staff.

*This is a cardinal sin for me. I bloody love Star Trek ship designs. Every race has their own signature and style, which aren’t only internally consistent, but don’t really jar with the general approach seen in the Alpha Quadrant, unless that’s the point (ref Borg ship designs most notably).

So to give us two pretty vast fleets, all seemingly the same ship design? That’s a big disappointment.

Big fleets look cool. The cavalry arriving with a “oh yeah? You and who’s army” message is cool. But not when it’s all copy/pasta.

It’s a different sin to the ragtag “grab a still and spot your favourites” People’s Fleet seen in the final act of Rise of Skywalker. There, the sin isn’t a lack of variety. Or even too much variety. It’s that the ships turned up, then we don’t see them do bugger all. It’s like editing Pelennor Fields to show the Rohirrim arriving, then cut straight to “oh blimey big honking heffalumps”.

Still. Rather both of those than the drivel Discovery pumped out for fleet battles. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid and badly executed.

Season 3 was 100% the fanservice season everyone wanted from season 1 and it delivered in buckets.

And yes also loved that season 1 was looking at the darker underbelly of the Federation. I think that is a good thing; esp after the events of DS9; it just needed to SHOW a lot more of the interim period to bring people along with the story.

It's not Phantom Menace its SW 7; Having established characters and stories that have a big time jump but no filler to show how things changed. The result is a disconnection as characters you thought you knew end up entirely different because the audience wasn't brought along with the story of their changes.

I think there should be some mystery with a time gap. It leaves some narrative wiggle room for later seasons and other media to fill in and flesh out. And for Picard, not all of it was entirely unknown.

We know there was trouble in the Romulan Empire post Dominion War from two sources. First, Nemesis, second the Scimitar’s Time Shenanigans.

But the whole “Romulans have a secret police in their secret police entirely against artificial life” still feels forced. A reason for tension with the Androids which exists purely for the tension to exist.

And if memory serves? The whole Android rebellion thing is fully explained within the season.

What I think they should’ve lead with was just that. A sudden Android rebellion. Then we can spend the rest as a sort of detective story in which Picard gets to the bottom of it, and Starfleet begins to root out its rotten elements.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Anyways, Academy launches tomorrow, so for good or for ill, we’re staring down its barrel.

If it sucks? I’m gonna watch The Drumhead, and In The Pale Moonlight to remind myself Trek can be incredible.

I would watch them tonight, but I fear that might be spiking the barrel.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I think there should be some mystery with a time gap. It leaves some narrative wiggle room for later seasons and other media to fill in and flesh out. And for Picard, not all of it was entirely unknown.

We know there was trouble in the Romulan Empire post Dominion War from two sources. First, Nemesis, second the Scimitar’s Time Shenanigans.

But the whole “Romulans have a secret police in their secret police entirely against artificial life” still feels forced. A reason for tension with the Androids which exists purely for the tension to exist.

And if memory serves? The whole Android rebellion thing is fully explained within the season.

What I think they should’ve lead with was just that. A sudden Android rebellion. Then we can spend the rest as a sort of detective story in which Picard gets to the bottom of it, and Starfleet begins to root out its rotten elements.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Anyways, Academy launches tomorrow, so for good or for ill, we’re staring down its barrel.

If it sucks? I’m gonna watch The Drumhead, and In The Pale Moonlight to remind myself Trek can be incredible.

I would watch them tonight, but I fear that might be spiking the barrel.

I agree, but for me it'd be binge watching Strange New Worlds.

I just wish they’d stop being wimps with SNW and give it proper, 22 episode seasons. Because more than a few really classic Trek stories arose from filler episodes.

Only takes an unusual plot to resonate with the audience unexpectedly after all.

DS9 wise? I’d say most of the Ferengi centric episodes. Never really brought a huge amount to the wider plot. But man did they expand a Joke Species (they were crap in TNG) into one of the most truly fascinating Alpha Quadrant powers.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Picard’s biggest failing was the first season not really delivering what anyone wanted, or needed.

Keeping a real world time gap between Nemesis and S1 was the right move for me. It provides time for unseen things to have occurred in. But they should’ve fleshed it out sooner, instead of farting around with Copy/Pasta Ships* and Space Defence Flowers.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I like that, during the Dominion War and Borg Incursions, something fundamentally changed within the Federation. It never lost its soul as such, but it definitely lost its innocence.

And so, Picard’s statesman type approach fell somewhat out of favour. Time and political pressures moved on, and he stopped being The Man Of The Hour, just as Kirk wasn’t the sort of Captain needed during Picard’s golden years as Captain of the Flagship.

But oh boy did they waste Phantom Menace levels of time and good will with an initial story which just didn’t deliver.

Now, the underlying story could’ve worked if they’d been less coy about What Happened In Between. Picard could’ve been on one last Hurrah, showing that his incredible diplomacy skills could still save the day.

I suggest to watch the final episode of Prodigy which tries to find a connection between the older, nemesis style canon and Picard season 1. Prodigy season 2 is pretty much Voyager season 8, so it does some nice stuff in filling the gap. And I will admit I liked it more than anything that happened storywize in Picard, including season 3.
Yes, they had the whole crew. But many of them were just out of character. And the story went extremely slow for 8 episodes to only then destroy all of Starfleet in 2 episodes with yet another Borg arc that totally forgot its own Borg arc from the season before. To me it felt after they gave money to all the actors they forgot to hire a decent writer for season 3. It was far better than the incredibly weak season 2, but still not great.
Every season finale of Lower Decks evoked more Trek feeling for me than Picard 3 did. When the Titan saved the day in season 1 of Lower Decks I was like, 14 years old again when the Klingons broke through the Dominion lines. While in Picard season 3 I was like: Why is the D the Millenium Falcon now? Did they just kill ALL Starfleet Personal, so they're now in deeper trouble than after 3 years of war against the Dominion?

Last year I've started reading the post-Nemesis novels and I'll say they do a better job in telling what happens after First Contact and Nemesis with the federation than Picard does. Especially the TNG books are still quite melancholic because the crew split up and the federation saw some really bad stuff happening. But they still get their stuff together and do Trek stuff.

Right then. No protective gear donned. And here I go.

For those who understand such things? Our first Stardate is 853724.6


Automatically Appended Next Post:
About half way through the first episode. And I’ve got to say? It’s actually pretty good.

Feels more SNW than Disco in approach and tone. And I’m instantly impressed with Gina Yashere’s Cadet Master Lura Thok. She’s part Klingon, part Jem Hadar. So clearly a ball breaker, but with a real twinkle in her eye.

There’s a certain High School feel, which I’m very interested to see explored.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Good gravy! They’ve actually made the whole floaty nacelle thing kinda cool!

Overall, I do have a couple of niggles, but they’re pretty minor and don’t really detract from the show being enjoyable on the whole. I’ll save those for a later post once others have had a watch, as I don’t want to poison the well.

Image from Twitter -

Oh man. If only Star Trek had established that humanoid aliens on one planet often look exactly like humanoid aliens from a different planet.

It seems Star Trek has finally gone woke, by doing a callback to its own heavy-handed anti-racism episode from 1969.

Also, the Cheronians were warp capable. Their homeworld was destroyed by the racism, but that doesn't mean some of them didn't escape and go somewhere else to escape that before the final collapse of their society in the 50,000 years that the characters we meet in TOS were engaging in their cat and mouse chase across the galaxy.

The "woke" argument is as stupid as it always is.

The other argument that it completely undermines the entire point of the old story about how hate and ignorance lead to complete destruction so that there can be a reference to it now in the current product is less easily dismissed. "They only only kind of went extinct" doesn't have the same impact as actually going extinct. Of course finality is something large corporate franchises have trouble with so it really isn't that surprising either. They can always find a way to bring back Gwen Stacy.

Maybe Cheronite DNA was preserved in amber?

It’s also of minimal impact. They’re not a named, let alone main character.

Pretty sure they don’t even have any lines.