The Official Star Trek Thread

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I heard rumbling that the Robert Picardo was gonna make an appearance (appearances?) for season 2. That'd be fun.

I need to give season 1 a watch again. It's been a few months, but I remember finding it really dull & unexplanably 'off'

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I really hope they can get the pacing right this time, Season 1 lacked coherence and balance and could have certainly been better.

(Really hoping to see Q returning at some point)

It wasn’t incoherent.

It was something totally new after almost 20 years of nothing on TNG.

Everything made sense after the last (10th) episode was over, even the situation with Picard himself - which was not all too different with what happened to Spock in a movie once ...

Obviously, technology has changed and filming styles have, but it’s still more balanced and coherent than the „Discovery“ crap.

In at least half of the show you get the sense that it has something to do with TNG and Star Trek, while Discovery was just a perversion and rape of the Star Trek genre.

And yes, bringing back Q (maybe female ?) or Guinan would be cool.

Discovery > Picard

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I wish Picard had been 3 seasons of this season 3 story, instead of the first 2 seasons we got

I agree. But at the same time, considering how hands-on Patrick Stewart seemed to be from the start, I doubt the show would've gotten off the ground if the season 3 story was the original pitch.

Whether or not that's a net positive is up to you

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I actually thought yesterday was a fun watch. Lots of strong performances; Amanda Plummer, Gates McFadden, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton + Ryan/Russ. My only gripes were the lack of Riker & Shaw outside of the first minute. Not the best episode of the bunch, but better than anything I've seen from the first two seasons.

Unfortunately I expected a lot of kneejerk "Twas fun while it lasted" reactions once we got an episode that was merely a 7/10 rather than an 8 or 9. I guess that's the problem with continued momentum.


- I feel like the bulk of next week will focus heavily on Riker's (and Tuvok's?)  + the Titan crew either taking back the ship or going off to find another one (Perhaps the one ship we didn't see at the shipyard?). I'm also hoping we get to hear about what's up with Jack and finally get that ball rolling.

- Also, Janeway has been brought up in practically every episode this season. I'll be pretty disappointed if she doesn't show up in the final episode.

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- While I'm a little disappointed they're going back to the Borg well yet again, I guess it makes the most sense. I love how they managed to provide a cover for 30 years worth of plotholes that don't seem forced at all, specifically things likes Picard still hearing the Borg in First Contact. Things like that show how much of a labor of love this season is compared to the previous two.

- I'm gonna miss Shaw but I'm not surprised he was offed. Whenever Terfy Matalas brings up a potential Titan spinoff, he'd always namedrop Seven, Jack & The LeForges but never Shaw. Now I guess I know why. Tis a shame, cause I thought Shaw was on his way to being a great character until he understandably got put on the backburner as more of the TNG crew came on board.

- On paper, anything and everything in this episode could've fallen apart very quickly. The fact that they managed to pull it off as strong as they did is nothing short of remarkable. I've no doubt at all that they'll stick the landing next week. I just hope the last episode will be at least 90 minutes.

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I hope they the last episode 90 minutes at least

Matalas tweeted that it's gonna be 60 minutes.

I was also hoping for 90 minutes.

That's a big shame. I would've loved a feature-length reunion on the D. Wouldn't stun me if it was a Paramount+ call rather than Matalas

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I haven't seen Star Trek into Darkness, but I did watch the 2009 one recently and it's not as good as I remember. The lens flare, the Apple Store aesthetic, a poor villain in Eric Bana, more monotonous action scenes than I remember. I'm sure there's more, but it felt more like a regular ol' action blockbuster that happened to have Trek characters (And no disrespect to Zachary Quinto but I think Ethan Peck is a much better Spock than him). Those are just off the top of my head. Perhaps a good film for someone new, but I don't think it cracks my top 5 Trek films list.

The weird thing is that I remember disliking all of those when it came out but disregarded it cause "Trek is back baby!"

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I know they were pushing for a Section 31 show for a long time. I'm not the biggest fan but if they were so hell-bent on doing something, I'm glad it's just a movie. They still get Michelle Yeoh, they can make it a fun 2-hours instead of a slogging 10-hours and they can focus more of their energies on the series'

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Very few scifi & even Trek shows can compare to TNG, so I'm not gonna do that with this season. But I am gonna compare it with the movies since Terry Matalas has stated multiple times that this was the cinematic sendoff that the TNG crew didn't get with Nemesis.

So on that basis, I think this season was on par with First Contact and perhaps better in some ways (Though I'm admittedly not the biggest fan of that film). If I were new to TNG, I think this would be a worthy watch after All Good Things and First Contact. I'd rate the finale a 3 out of 4 with the possibility of moving it up to a 3.5.

Random finale thoughts:

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- They really fooled me in to thinking that one of the crew was gonna perish. Good job with the misdirection. I don't know how I feel about that deux ex machina right before the Cube exploded, but whatevs.

- Disappointed that Janeway didn't show up. Apparently they ran into budget issues by the time they shot the finale so it wouldn't surprise me if it was an issue of money or time. Always good to see Tuvok though.

- Really excited Q is back! Throughout this season, I felt it a shame that they had killed him off in season 2 but I'm glad he showed up to pretty much say "Season 2 officially doesn't matter".

- They must of had a lot of confidence about the unannounced-but-inevitable spinoff with the way they set up the Seven-led crew. If this season didn't get the reception it did, I think it would've came across like a foolish waste of time away from the TNG crew. That everything turned out the way it did is pretty remarkable. Reminded me of how much Discovery season 2 setting up Strange New Worlds seems to have paid off. Perhaps a little more of that confident risk-taking is what this franchise needed all along.

Now starts the countdown for the announcement of the inevitable spinoff. I'd be surprised if its not announced before summer. Until then, Strange New Worlds is on the horizon with Lower Decks right after. It's been a while since I've felt this optimistic for Trek.

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In other news, the new season of Strange New Worlds starts on June 15th. It was also recently renewed for a third season, though that might take awhile now.

I think one of the producers said they were already filming season 3. This was a few days before the official renewal announcement. Perhaps most of the scripts have already been finished or submitted?

I'm more curious what this means for that Starfleet Academy show they just announced. If the strike goes to the end of the year, I can see that one being a casualty of the strike. Perhaps it was a good thing they didn't announce that Picard spinoff already or it'd probably suffer a similar fate.

Lower Decks should be ok. It's already been renewed for a fifth season and I don't believe animated TV writers are a part of the WGA.

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Only the episode The Elysian Kingdom is a real clunker... a tedious, confusing, seemingly pointless mess so much reminiscent of the sister show Dscovery whose only redeeming quality is perhaps its emotional ending. But for a season that hits the mark almost all the time that is forgiven.

I like that episode. I enjoy when Trek embraces its silliness. I also love the "Spoke Amok" episode for similar reasons.

Though it wasn't until very recently that I noticed that it's pretty much SNW's version of the "Masks" episode from Next Gen.

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Really liked the crossover episode. I'd put it behind 'Charades' as my favorite episode of the season.

So far, the season is ok. Nothing horrible or anything, but not much has really stood out to me besides those two episodes.

It also doesn't help that I'm seeing the dual strikes + Paramounts struggles and getting the sense that the Trek franchise may be put to rest again for the forseeable future.