Star Trek: Picard - Season 3, Everyone loves the D

[Alex W.]

5 hours ago, Eighthours said:

Although silly, the holodeck power thing is canon - it was referred to in Voyager.

Is this the first time they gave an actual reason for it? Although not one that explains why they couldn’t just hotwire the dang thing.

[JohnC]

Probably the first time they gave a reason. I think the Voyager reference just had them trying to tie the holodeck reactor into the general ship's power and they blew half the relays because it just isn't compatible. Which does seem like an odd design decision itself.

[Alex W.]

I do think “holograms absolutely need zepto rays” makes slightly more sense than “we made it a square battery instead of a circle so people would have a place to hang when they’re dying because they can’t use the holodeck power”.

 

As for the Shaw scene… well, the first half was actually a very good revisiting of the thing they did with Sisko and explained why he was generally so hostile to Picard compared to his crew. But the back half took it to a level of wild fury that didn’t read right for the character given the rest of his scenes.

[Festoon]

2 hours ago, Alex W. said:

I do think “holograms absolutely need zepto rays” makes slightly more sense than “we made it a square battery instead of a circle so people would have a place to hang when they’re dying because they can’t use the holodeck power”.

 

As for the Shaw scene… well, the first half was actually a very good revisiting of the thing they did with Sisko and explained why he was generally so hostile to Picard compared to his crew. But the back half took it to a level of wild fury that didn’t read right for the character given the rest of his scenes.

 

The same lack of logic is present with the Riker conflict. It comes from nowhere and disappears as quickly. Poor writing.

[Eighthours]

2 hours ago, Alex W. said:

Is this the first time they gave an actual reason for it? Although not one that explains why they couldn’t just hotwire the dang thing.

I initially thought they were going to jerry-rig the holodeck power into main power in order to restore their engines.

 

The only issue I had with the ep, and it was a small one, is that the pickup from the cliffhanger wasn’t ‘we’re dead’. It was obvious from the start that there were things they might be able to do, so Riker had been a bit dramatic beforehand! (Also, TV budget considerations mean they keep having to find excuses to go to the Ten Forward set!)

[davidcotton]

2 hours ago, JohnC said:

Probably the first time they gave a reason. I think the Voyager reference just had them trying to tie the holodeck reactor into the general ship's power and they blew half the relays because it just isn't compatible. Which does seem like an odd design decision itself.

Happened on the Apollo program in real life. Air filters for both vehicles were designed by separate companies. 

[Thor]

[Festoon]

Michael Dorn looks incredibly fresh and trim for a 70-year old.

[Thor]

3 hours ago, Festoon said:

Michael Dorn looks incredibly fresh and trim for a 70-year old.

Is it me, or was he also... 

Spoiler

... the voice of the changeling/hologram thing that instructed Vadic to go back into the nebula? 

 

[JohnC]

That was some guy named Garth Kemp, who is apparently a weather presenter and voiceover artist for ads, trailers, TV promos and the like.

[Benny]

4 hours ago, Festoon said:

Michael Dorn looks incredibly fresh and trim for a 70-year old.

 

Michael Dorn might be the one thing that genuinely gets me to watch this. After re-watching DS9 recently I decided Worf is now absolutely my favourite Trek character. After they graduated him from angry bridge officer and comic relief to tragic hero and warrior poet he ended up having a lot more to him and Dorn made the character work no matter how little he was given in the scripts.

[LaveDisco]

Episode 5 , Wait actually episode 4. I read well.

 

Spoiler

I can forgive the holodeck, buckets and plot contrivances, that's fine. 7 watching the changeling slowly escape for what felt like hours, when she one shots it later was a classic moment of editing against your needed plot. Just make it fly out of there quickly. Make it reasonable. But still TNG would feature bad editing like that. Whatever.

 

But again, it The Republican Trek continues. Of course, it's Rikers lack of faith in an afterlife that's the problem. (at least he found hope in new life, rather than god). Of course, the crew just gives up. The paradigm of virtue is still unbelievable. In TNG that despondency wouldn't be there. 

 

Just wasted opportunity.

Also, these first 4 episodes, with a Starfleet that believe in it's ideals would have made a great single episode (or two parter at a push) in old trek. Picard gets a message from Beverly, call's Riker, hop on a ship, aren't believed/changlings add distrust, find Crusher, cornered, hide in beast, struggling, but stand firm in their ideals, united, technobabble, escape. Done.  Second episode could have been Worf and Ravi - Spys for hire. 

 

[Bacon Horsemeat]

"If we divert all available power left, we might have 4 hours on life support before we all die"

Picard: "Hey Jack, come with me to use the very power intensive holodeck"

Fans: Erm...

Picard "yeah we saw you coming. Small independent power cell blah blah, that absolutely could and should not be utilised for something more important"

 

 

[Sprite Machine]

I thought that was somewhat better, honestly. Keeping everything within the confines of the ship, watching the crew work together, discovering a strange lifeform/phenomenon, and absolute minimal moustache-twirling villains and batshit plot twists to ruin things (yet). Dr. Crusher felt just like Dr. Crusher.

 

BUT! It's still got melodrama/conflict that feels forced. Captain Shaw, a man so traumatised by his encounter with the Borg, who still holds a grudge against Picard, would surely not have a goddamned EX-DRONE as a first officer. Someone in HR or personnel deployment fucked up there, didn't they?

 

Too many modern colloquialisms in dialogue. And I don't buy that Seven would have so readily heard of Cannabis, nor known it by its slangy American nickname. Picard swearing. Riker saying "boldly get out of here" or whatever it was. It stunk of overly self aware parody, like "you're all astronauts on some kind of star trek". Eurgh, get that shit out of here.

 

All Changelings having the same random bucket as Odo is stupid. Every time they reference something cool they fuck it up with dumbness, it's so frustrating. Same with the holodeck "arch" instead of "exit". If you're gonna do nerdy shit, don't get it wrong!!

 

That said, I really love the look of the Changeling goo. Thirty years of VFX progress have gone to good use there.

 

I also like the design and look of the Titan, it's got a solid 'model' feel to it, even though it's CGI.

 

So it's not all bad.

[monkeydog]

8 hours ago, Sprite Machine said:

That said, I really love the look of the Changeling goo. Thirty years of VFX progress have gone to good use there.

 

I didn't like it.  Nothing to do with the vfx quality.  They made it fleshy and gross, which is fine as monster of the week shapeshifter concept, but I'd rather they updated what was there already. 

[Garwoofoo]

I will grudgingly admit that was pretty good this week. It's probably as good as we are going to get with these characters, in this show, with this team of writers. So while some bits didn't land, and the gratuitous swearing is still ridiculously jarring, overall it mostly felt right. Riker, Crusher and Seven were all present and correct. Patrick Stewart remains a weak link, but there was the occasional moment which reminded us of the Picard of old. The new characters are decent (I like Shaw a lot, Jack Crusher is growing on me and the deck crew are perfectly fine). No Raffi (hurrah). And best of all, it felt like proper Trek - a bunch of characters on a spaceship using their ingenuity to resolve a self-contained problem, with no galaxy-ending threat in sight. It reminded me of the excellent Gorn episode from Strange New Worlds, which is high praise.

 

Next week I'm sure we'll be back to Raffi and galaxy-wide conspiracies and it'll all go a bit shit again, but I've actually enjoyed the last couple of weeks of Picard and that's something I never expected to say.

 

 

[Alex W.]

2 hours ago, monkeydog said:

 

I didn't like it.  Nothing to do with the vfx quality.  They made it fleshy and gross, which is fine as monster of the week shapeshifter concept, but I'd rather they updated what was there already. 

Yeah, it’s a good effect in its own right but it would be a really inappropriate design for basically half of the stuff Odo did. They were shooting for awe and wonder and mystery in the original version and this is very strongly a gross horror thing.

 

The great link must look absolutely horrendous.

[Vulgar Monkey]

It reminded me of something I'd have coughed up a couple weeks ago when I had the lurgy.

In fact, I'm genuinely curious as to whether they will address it, like perhaps these dissident blobfolk are unwell (either cause or effect of them splitting off).

 

Anyway, that aside it's still the best of the TNG gang we've seen since, uh, XCOM2.

[Alex W.]

Their pots are modelled after Odo’s Cardassian bucket, how dissident could they be?

[Kevvy Metal]

RE: Stewart playin JLP. Yes, it was as far back as S1 where I myself noticed that this really is far removed from the character of JLP. It's far more Stewart playing himself, but I can't help but think this was a little...deliberate? It's as much a send off for Stewart as it is the character as PS really is really, really fucking old. So it feels like that was the choice taken, to blur the lines. 

It's so apparently in S3 that PS has taken a back seat to allow the old TNG cast (and new ones) do the heavy lifting. There's quite the Joe Biden energy about him. 

That might be distastful as he is elderly, but that's kinda the point I'm making... that maybe he doesn't deserve such a hard ride. 

[Alex W.]

I don’t think they quite recovered from this moment and everyone going “yeah, she’s got a point”.

 

[davidcotton]

48 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

Their pots are modelled after Odo’s Cardassian bucket, how dissident could they be?

Maybe there was a job lot. 

[Alex W.]

Deleted DS9 episode where Quark tries to make bank selling knock off buckets to the Founders while the station is occupied.

[Garwoofoo]

On 11/03/2023 at 00:42, Waggo said:

Shaw is by far the best thing about this season, and I would happily watch a spin off with him captaining the Titan.

Star Trek: Titan, featuring Captain Shaw flying around the galaxy being an absolute arsehole to everyone, would be immense. 
 

Failing that, he’d fit quite well in Lower Decks I think. Not sure how the timeframes fit though given that Riker is captain of the Titan in that show. 

[BossSaru]

On 11/03/2023 at 20:03, JohnC said:

Probably the first time they gave a reason. I think the Voyager reference just had them trying to tie the holodeck reactor into the general ship's power and they blew half the relays because it just isn't compatible. Which does seem like an odd design decision itself.

 

They should have simply said "Yeah, it is so that we can create a fully equipped hospital, brig, or command centre in an emergency without worrying that the power will suddenly cut out". On a starship space is limited, so being able to have a space that could be instantly repurposed from a leisure suite to something needed in a battle (equipped with staff) would be genuinely useful.

[Alex W.]

They should probably just use the holodeck batteries everywhere to be honest.

[IcEBuRN]

On 12/03/2023 at 14:01, LaveDisco said:

Episode 5 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I can forgive the holodeck, buckets and plot contrivances, that's fine. 7 watching the changeling slowly escape for what felt like hours, when she one shots it later was a classic moment of editing against your needed plot. Just make it fly out of there quickly. Make it reasonable. But still TNG would feature bad editing like that. Whatever.

 

But again, it The Republican Trek continues. Of course, it's Rikers lack of faith in an afterlife that's the problem. (at least he found hope in new life, rather than god). Of course, the crew just gives up. The paradigm of virtue is still unbelievable. In TNG that despondency wouldn't be there. 

 

Just wasted opportunity.

Also, these first 4 episodes, with a Starfleet that believe in it's ideals would have made a great single episode (or two parter at a push) in old trek. Picard gets a message from Beverly, call's Riker, hop on a ship, aren't believed/changlings add distrust, find Crusher, cornered, hide in beast, struggling, but stand firm in their ideals, united, technobabble, escape. Done.  Second episode could have been Worf and Ravi - Spys for hire. 

 

How are you getting them episodes so early?

[LaveDisco]

I mean the latest on Amazon prime. Is it only the forth?

 

[IcEBuRN]

47 minutes ago, LaveDisco said:

I mean the latest on Amazon prime. Is it only the forth?

 

It tells you the number of the episodes...

[Hexx]

Shaw/Seven do possibly feel like a spin off being set up. 
 

We know more about their bridge crew that discovery 😂