I think it is very likely that the Troi in the cell is a Changeling. I won't bet $100. But Vladic asking for information about anyone close to Picard is just as much an indication that a Changeling will impersonate them as it is an indication they they will capture them and impersonating is much easier and faster when you are on a time budget. If I were writing, I would draw it out for a very long time and then reveal that Will could see it almost immediately. But I guess they only have 4 episodes and it would be nice to have some real Troi along the way.
Star Trek: Picard
- Thread starter SHIELD Agent 47
- Start date
I actually haven't seen "These Are the Voyages" since it originally aired. It didn't offend me very much what they did, but I just haven't ever gone back. It would make a lot of sense not to have exteriors in the episode since it was from Riker's perspective in the holodeck and he wouldn't have seen any of that. But I feel like there was a space battle and they did show it.
Random observation but this is a weird name for a starship - it doesn't follow the regular naming conventions for ships of the line at the time which weren't named after states. The closest we have were cities: the Lexington and Yorktown. I know it's far-removed from canon at this point but the old Starfleet Technical Manual from the seventies puts the highest registration number as the USS Wenzen NCC-1842, so NCC-1975 is a loong way down the list to boot.
Regarding Voyager, note that Voyager's return would've been before Jack was born; regardless of timeline weirdness (this show can't possibly be in 2401 as claimed) Jack was canonically only conceived after Nemesis, which included this scene:
The Stargazer is there too (right side of the image), which has significance to the entire Picard/Crusher family.
There's also a Saber-class ship in one of the lower berths, which I will be assuming is the da Vinci until contradicted.
There's also a Saber-class ship in one of the lower berths, which I will be assuming is the da Vinci until contradicted.
Or some Constellation-class ship
True, though we saw the Stargazer being recovered on-screen in "The Battle."
Given the likely late construction (after 2270, probably), one would expect so see a "Phase II" type (as seen in production art for the scrapped 1970s series of the same name) rather than the Bonhomme Richard or Achernar subclass (the type seen after "The Cage", of which casual fandom would be the most familiar).
Back in the mid-2000's, there was a PS2 game called Star Trek: Encounters, in which the player took on various missions in the different Star Trek eras up to that point (From NX-01 to Ent-E). The final mission basically had you jump between the ships to fight off the various enemies of the Federation. Even then, it came across like the worst fan fiction (well, a lot of that game came across like the worst fan fiction), so to see that basic idea actually show up on Star Trek proper would not be overly satisfying...
Re: the look of the NX-01 in "These are the Voyages," here's a quote from Memory Alpha:
Leaving aside the Beta canon retcon of that episode (whereby many of its events didn't play out in reality the way Riker's holodrama depicted them), that leaves plenty of room for the NX-01 to have added a secondary hull by the time of those events.
The New Jersey is named as such because that's where Terry Matalis is from and was born in 1975
And please put this man in charge of ALL modern Trek going forward. Holy jive. Picard 3 is the best season of Star Trek by FAR of all the new stuff.
And please put this man in charge of ALL modern Trek going forward. Holy jive. Picard 3 is the best season of Star Trek by FAR of all the new stuff.
I feel like that sentiment takes away from Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, and Prodigy (the latter of which I haven't watched most of, but it seems to be well received). All three of those have done well enough and really don't need someone new at the helm.
Matalas has done a fine job of running this season, which is indeed leagues better than the previous seasons, but I mean, it isn't perfect (feels a tad fan-servicey, yet another galactic threat to be stopped, the plot dragging a bit more than it should, etc).
I would agree that the franchise has been doing better than it was when Discovery started out, though.
Matalas has done a fine job of running this season, which is indeed leagues better than the previous seasons, but I mean, it isn't perfect (feels a tad fan-servicey, yet another galactic threat to be stopped, the plot dragging a bit more than it should, etc).
I would agree that the franchise has been doing better than it was when Discovery started out, though.
Wonder what a Matalas-driven Discovery would have looked like? I think, as the flagship series, that’s what puts “live action Trek needs work”-type thoughts in people’s minds. That and the lackluster reaction to Picard’s first two seasons, which I liked if it matters.
Disco? Besides season 2, and that mostly driven by Anson Mount, has been largely forgettable for my household.
Disco? Besides season 2, and that mostly driven by Anson Mount, has been largely forgettable for my household.
Those 3 series are fine on their own. Prodigy is the best of the bunch. SNW is good but is rather shallow in the grand scheme of things. There isn't and won't ever be any real stakes to the overall scope, though Hemmer was definitely a shocker.
Lower Decks isn't bad either. It's come a long way from where it started but I still mostly regard it as in canon fan fiction. It's more like a show people in the Star Trek universe watch
The first two seasons of Picard were trash so the fact S3 has done such a 180 was an incredible feat. It's the first time since Nemesis that it truly feels like the official Star Trek universe has progressed in a meaningful way.
Discovery is a show that has the Star Trek name as part of the title. It started out flawed and continually got worse with each season.
I'm surprised that's even a take. The third season had a weak mystery box plot and resolution, and the fourth still wasn't what most people really want out of a Trek show, but the dire meanspirited imitation prestige drama of the first season and the incoherent reverse-engineered plot of the second are on a whole other level.
There's way too much leaning on fanservice for Picard S3 to be in my top anything as a season of Trek. And it's inherited a cluster of stupid from the first two seasons around Raffi, with way too many scenes on Planet Crime for me to begin to actually take it seriously as a piece of writing. (It's a pity, too, I was starting to like Raffi's character in spite of the rest of the show last season, but this season's got nothing good for her.) The best of S3 is beginning to feel like the ideal modern second attempt at Generations or something. By the end it might be the best TNG movie. (There are people with opinions about First Contact, but they're wrong - it's an entirely competent and coherent film that breaks some things but is fun to watch and does right by the characters in broad strokes. So I'm waiting to see if Picard S3 can do something special to rise to that level in spite of its flaws. And it can't get worse than Nemesis.) It's also only so indicative how well a series works when it's sending off a cast of characters aged beyond their roles with several very long seasons of material behind them. Shaw, Vadic, and Jack are all very good and they're new, but still, not really indicative, this season is something you can only do once.
I think describing Lower Decks as a comedy that people within the Star Trek universe would watch is a perfect description. It's very good at what it is, but comparing what it is to what other Trek shows are doesn't produce anything meaningful.
I should take Prodigy more seriously but I really can't. There's too much of the Star Wars cartoons in it and as much as I appreciate the less humanoid aliens and the like, it just feels very targeted at its age group in a way that makes it hard for me to watch. Once they revealed that the Protostar was named that because it has a ... compressed protostar inside it? ... I just couldn't.
SNW is the flagship show now, it's the least fundamentally flawed, and IMO it has largely the most likeable characters. Thanks to the anomaly-of-the-week format, it's also the most undeniably Trek Trek that's been made in the modern era, and it's the most optimistic and the best looking series to boot. If they can drop the xenomorph thing and focus on the lavender scare transhumanism, I think we're finally cooking with gas.
I just don't see it as fan service. The museum ships, sure. But the overall evolution of the characters existing and still having stories to be told? No way.
These are people that have grown and developed over time. They aren't the same people they were all those years ago.
That's something I can feel and relate to on a lot of levels just in how things are different here than 20 years.
This is probably the best version of Raffi yet and she has great chemistry with Worf. He sees a lot of how he used to be in her and it's great how he's mentoring her.
We have several breakout characters like Shaw and Sydney LaForge and even Jack. Those characters are all connected to the original cast but certainly in very organic ways.
Comparing it to the "Hey look at all these Easter eggs we found on the wiki" fanservice done by Lower Decks is a disservice to what we're getting on screen.
So far we've gotten a pretty good arc that is paced leaps and bounds above the other seasons.
I don't know why calling it fanservice irritates me but I guess it does. I just see it as respecting the fans and the source material, while still bring great new material to the table. It's adding to the universe rather than trying to strip mine it, which these days is a rarity.
\\//,
These are people that have grown and developed over time. They aren't the same people they were all those years ago.
That's something I can feel and relate to on a lot of levels just in how things are different here than 20 years.
This is probably the best version of Raffi yet and she has great chemistry with Worf. He sees a lot of how he used to be in her and it's great how he's mentoring her.
We have several breakout characters like Shaw and Sydney LaForge and even Jack. Those characters are all connected to the original cast but certainly in very organic ways.
Comparing it to the "Hey look at all these Easter eggs we found on the wiki" fanservice done by Lower Decks is a disservice to what we're getting on screen.
So far we've gotten a pretty good arc that is paced leaps and bounds above the other seasons.
I don't know why calling it fanservice irritates me but I guess it does. I just see it as respecting the fans and the source material, while still bring great new material to the table. It's adding to the universe rather than trying to strip mine it, which these days is a rarity.
\\//,
I feel like each TNG character was individually introduced by turning to the camera to reveal their face, cutting to a low angle, and grinning while they repeat their old catchphrase, possibly with a pause to let the live studio audience applaud. That didn't actually happen, though, it's only Worf who did that. And when a character is coming back to television for the first time in twenty odd years, it's almost the only way to handle things; there is a degree of special guest star treatment that's warranted. But it's inherently trading a lot on nostalgia, too. I don't think you can really separate those things. Making this show without that attitude, without accommodating the audience's desire to see where all their old favorites ended up and see how they're all going to get dragged along into this new adventure, would probably make for a show that felt uncanny and foreign and as if twenty years of change really had happened while we weren't looking, and Picard already tried that in the first season. S3 is what everyone wanted all along, after all.
But, you know, the mystery starts with Picard's TNG uniform box for a reason. And as uh, brilliantly delivered as the Moriarty fakeout was, it would be properly incoherent without the nostalgia decoder glasses. Again, it's the things that are funny in Lower Decks because of how on the nose they are that make this show feel so deceptively cozy to me. Discovery S3 gave us that one big "I am the Guardian of Forever", Picard tries to give us at least one per episode. Maybe Picard S1 really is what you get when you overcompensate to avoid that feeling, and there is no middle ground, I don't know. And Lower Decks is just the other model that's handy for comparison, I don't think this is a domain that comedy is exclusively equipped to navigate. But I do know that how Picard S3 negotiates nostalgia is inseparable from everything else that it's doing. It's all extremely subjective stuff, but there's a lot of it around.
As for Raffi ... it's less her character and more the fact that the universe will not let her catch a break. Her situation when she's reintroduced is that everyone she knows is gaslighting her into thinking she's a paranoid basket case again while she follows the threads of another equally real Federation-threatening conspiracy. She feigns being more or less drunk in a gutter before revealing that she's Starfleet Intelligence, and then we gradually find out that everything else she said about herself like her breakup, family problems, and desperate need to show Starfleet they should take her seriously are all true; she isn't really strung out on drugs, but the plot is going to require her to shoot up later on for no reason just to clear the bingo card. And this isn't anything new, as every season has singled her out to suffer special in some way, but she got some good time in S2 just being capable and cool and a mutual foil with Seven, and I miss it here.
The Worf mentorship thing is fine I guess? I would feel a lot better about it if they'd dropped it on us in her first appearance in media res. The whole conceit of Starfleet and Worf communicating to her through anonymous text messages and her having to use her own hand-me-down starship instead of getting a company car, just really pushing for us to understand how isolated she is in all of this, it was completely unnecessary. Extract all the nonsense with Starfleet seeming to construct a mission precisely to drive her insane and what you have left is pretty good. Worf's feel-good reveal to save the day and Raffi insisting she totally had that guy (she totally didn't) should have been in the first scene we had with her, a scene that they could have held off to the second or third episode if necessary. She could already be the slightly annoyed mentee quoting Worf's anger management techniques back to him like a sarcastic teenager from go. And then we'd get to skip all that exposition about how Worf got wiser in his old age, too. (Because, you know, I can't imagine if the show had left us to work out for ourselves that tea-sipping samurai Worf with anger management mantras had to do with offscreen character development, how would we ever figure that out without suspiciously pertinent exposition covering exactly the last twenty years we didn't know about.)
But, you know, the mystery starts with Picard's TNG uniform box for a reason. And as uh, brilliantly delivered as the Moriarty fakeout was, it would be properly incoherent without the nostalgia decoder glasses. Again, it's the things that are funny in Lower Decks because of how on the nose they are that make this show feel so deceptively cozy to me. Discovery S3 gave us that one big "I am the Guardian of Forever", Picard tries to give us at least one per episode. Maybe Picard S1 really is what you get when you overcompensate to avoid that feeling, and there is no middle ground, I don't know. And Lower Decks is just the other model that's handy for comparison, I don't think this is a domain that comedy is exclusively equipped to navigate. But I do know that how Picard S3 negotiates nostalgia is inseparable from everything else that it's doing. It's all extremely subjective stuff, but there's a lot of it around.
As for Raffi ... it's less her character and more the fact that the universe will not let her catch a break. Her situation when she's reintroduced is that everyone she knows is gaslighting her into thinking she's a paranoid basket case again while she follows the threads of another equally real Federation-threatening conspiracy. She feigns being more or less drunk in a gutter before revealing that she's Starfleet Intelligence, and then we gradually find out that everything else she said about herself like her breakup, family problems, and desperate need to show Starfleet they should take her seriously are all true; she isn't really strung out on drugs, but the plot is going to require her to shoot up later on for no reason just to clear the bingo card. And this isn't anything new, as every season has singled her out to suffer special in some way, but she got some good time in S2 just being capable and cool and a mutual foil with Seven, and I miss it here.
The Worf mentorship thing is fine I guess? I would feel a lot better about it if they'd dropped it on us in her first appearance in media res. The whole conceit of Starfleet and Worf communicating to her through anonymous text messages and her having to use her own hand-me-down starship instead of getting a company car, just really pushing for us to understand how isolated she is in all of this, it was completely unnecessary. Extract all the nonsense with Starfleet seeming to construct a mission precisely to drive her insane and what you have left is pretty good. Worf's feel-good reveal to save the day and Raffi insisting she totally had that guy (she totally didn't) should have been in the first scene we had with her, a scene that they could have held off to the second or third episode if necessary. She could already be the slightly annoyed mentee quoting Worf's anger management techniques back to him like a sarcastic teenager from go. And then we'd get to skip all that exposition about how Worf got wiser in his old age, too. (Because, you know, I can't imagine if the show had left us to work out for ourselves that tea-sipping samurai Worf with anger management mantras had to do with offscreen character development, how would we ever figure that out without suspiciously pertinent exposition covering exactly the last twenty years we didn't know about.)