Warden of the North
Ned Stark's head
The lead actor is 80, lol. I definitely was not expecting it to be a fast paced action show
Patrick Stewart to reprise role as Star Trek's Jean-Luc Picard
- Thread starter Puck
- Start date
The lead actor is 80, lol. I definitely was not expecting it to be a fast paced action show
Roo Returns
Skjeikspeare No More
Besides Stewart the best acting in the show has been done by Orla Brady, Michelle Hurd, and Jamie McShane.
Episode 3 was excellent. Felt very cinematic.
My only issue besides the episodes being about 5-7 minutes too short is I wish we could see some big Federation ships. Everything is too Discovey-ish so far.
It's basically the 25th century and yes there will be some compact ships, but at least show us some Excelsior, Steamroller, Akira, or even a glimpse of the Sovereign or Odyssey. I'll settle for a Miranda too.
Episode 3 was excellent. Felt very cinematic.
My only issue besides the episodes being about 5-7 minutes too short is I wish we could see some big Federation ships. Everything is too Discovey-ish so far.
It's basically the 25th century and yes there will be some compact ships, but at least show us some Excelsior, Steamroller, Akira, or even a glimpse of the Sovereign or Odyssey. I'll settle for a Miranda too.
I'm hooked so far. I thought Stewart's most impressive piece of acting was getting down on one knee to pick up a broken piece of plate and then getting back up again without leaning on something. Yes, that's the sort of thing I notice these days. 
Anyone who couldn't put aside their complaints and live in the moment when Picard said "Engage" isn't alive.
ProstheticConscience
Check dein Limit
I'm enjoying it. Surprised myself there. I think it's a lot better than that other new Trek show that I saw one episode of and never watched again.
Blender
Registered User
- Dec 2, 2009
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Well it's nice to see Patrick Stewart in the role again, but shallow nostalgia is something I have absolutely no respect or time for. Modern Star Trek is absolutely plagued by the overuse and misuse of nostalgia, and it's frankly insulting that these writers think they can distract Star Trek fans away from their terrible writing by just dropping references to far better series.
Blender
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- Dec 2, 2009
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Nah, Star Trek: Picard hasn't been that bad for cheap nostalgia like some other recent series/films have been (at least not yet). His dog being named Number One was clearly played for laughs, and saying "engage" was played like the people he was with wanted to hear it since they have some hero worship going on, so it fits fine in the setting.
The show has problems, but they haven't overly relied on nostalgia yet.
Mimsy
Registered User
- Mar 21, 2015
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I've been experiencing technical glitches in the forum for months. When I posted my last reply, yours wasn't visible to me, even though you'd commented a half hour earlier.
Re: nostalgia -- I'm having trouble articulating whatever it is about the show that triggers feels. It's not necessarily Picard saying "engage" or hints of the TNG theme. It's maybe something more abstract. Picard just being an older man and sitting in his vineyard -- certain quiet moments remind me of what I loved about TNG. It's bittersweet, like Picard's dream sequence with Data. You watch knowing that that era of Trek is over and can't be recaptured (and I don't say this as a criticism of the current show). Brain cramps today. I can't write for shit.
I agree. I actually cringed when the camera slowly zoomed in on him, he said "Engage" and the TNG fanfare started playing. It was just a bit overdone, IMO. I would've found it tolerable and even cool to have him say "Engage," but with the producers underplaying it, not overplaying it.
I particularly dislike how the producers of Discovery and this show play the past series theme music when they want to pluck fan heart strings. It's a cheap appeal to nostalgia, IMO. DS9 and Voyager didn't do this. They didn't play the TOS or TNG music when they wanted to stir up emotion. They played their own excellent fanfares. These two newest series have no fanfares, though, so they resort to aping the classic ones.
Let's face it, the moment you reprise the role of Picard you're stuck with a degree of nostalgia. But after three episodes, nothing about the setting, story, co-stars or tone has used nostalgia as a cheap hook. It all feels very fresh and, IMO, really good. Even the seminal event that pushed Picard out of Star Fleet occurred after the series and movies.
I might be wrong, but it sounds like your quarrel is with the recent films and Discovery rather than this series.
Oh man, I absolutely loved that "Engage" moment. What elevated it beyond a gimmick was that Picard was fully aware he was saying that phrase for the first time in many years. There he was in charge of a ship again, having the same poignant moment we were. It was totally appropriate to reference the music from that time of his life.
Nostalgia alone is the Brady Bunch Reunion. The nostalgia in Picard feels like I've just renewed an old and close friendship.
Blender
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Yes, that is pretty much what my next post said. Picard hasn't been a big offender for nostalgia yet, and I hope it doesn't start leaning on it heavily.
Mimsy
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- Mar 21, 2015
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Not sure I agree with the bolded. The 90s Trek series ran almost concurrently, so nostalgia among the three never entered the equation.
Regarding 90s Trek and TOS:
TNG's main title theme was taken from the TOS movie. The first notes of the TNG theme are from the TOS theme. I know you know this already. I'm highlighting to show that newer Trek has a history of leaning on its predecessors.
TNG used music from TOS to stir emotion (recall Scotty's episode, where he enters a holodeck recreation of the TOS bridge, accompanied by original series theme music).
McCoy appeared in the first TNG episode, entirely as fan service. His appearance also uses a TOS musical cue, as heard immediately at the beginning of the following clip, where Riker enters the bridge for the first time:
There should be shared musical motifs connecting ST: Picard and TNG. I'd be offended if there weren't. Luke Skywalker has a theme. Bespin has a theme. You revisit these themes when you reintroduce familiar characters and places. It's part of the storytelling device to build narrative (I know you know this, too, I'm just saying....).
The main title theme for Picard is unique, and has been used intermittently throughout the three episodes, most notably in the last. It's not a fanfare akin to TNG's opening credit, but it's a piece I notice every time it's used because I like it and how it ties certain moments together.
I'm not saying you can't go cheap with nostalgia, but Picard hasn't gone overboard yet.
TNG overlapped with the original movies and the three 90s series were all from a similar era and made by the same people. Borrowing from one another isn't really nostalgia, as you suggested. Even having McCoy and Scotty as guest stars on TNG wasn't really for nostalgia because both characters were on the big screen around the same time. It was more like, say, a shared ecosystem.
There's a big difference, IMO, when we're talking about two new series made 25 years later by entirely different people who don't understand what made the earlier series so good and are making very different shows, but with callbacks. Now, if these shows were more like The Orville and nailed the tone and feeling of Star Trek without relying on such elements, that might be different and callbacks might seem earned. These writers, though, as far as I'm concerned, have shown that they misunderstand Trek and lean on the familiar to evoke the nostalgia that the rest of their writing doesn't.
The Nemesis
Semper Tyrannus
Dumb picky thing, but in Ep 3 I didn't like hat Michelle Hurd's character said "pro-tip". The f-bomb in the earlier episode felt incongruous enough, but this was blatant 21st century slang in a show that has never trafficked in colloquialisms to that extent.
I also wasn't a fan of her little ecig/vape pen thing either, but that was less jarring than the slang.
and the show is better than Discovery, for sure. Of course being better than Discovery isn't a high bar to clear, so this show would've had to stoop pretty low to threaten that threshold.
I also wasn't a fan of her little ecig/vape pen thing either, but that was less jarring than the slang.
and the show is better than Discovery, for sure. Of course being better than Discovery isn't a high bar to clear, so this show would've had to stoop pretty low to threaten that threshold.
tr83
Nope, still embarassed
While I'm not a fan of cursing in Star Trek, at least the F bomb was appropriate. How else can a pissed off admiral communicate her displeasure of Picard throwing her organization under the bus? Kinda like Data when he said "Oh shit" in Generations after installation of his emotion chip. I probably would have said the same thing if my ship was going to crash.
Pro-tip was cringeworthy. The vaping and cigar didn't bother me. The shapeshifter in Star Trek 6 smoked. Dorn smoked a cigar in an episode in DS9.
I got really annoyed in a couple of parts. Picard's naivety in regards to trusting the scientist when she just happens to show up with a phaser rifle after the last commando entered the chateau with no suspicion as to where she got her weapon. Picard when he said that he didn't have suspicions about the Tal Shiar. I was like WTF??? Do you remember that they tried to overthrow the Klingon government?
I don't know why Picard didn't show up with one of the bodies and ask the same Star Fleet admiral why there are Romulan commandos operating on Earth trying to assassinate him. Then beam up to the ship right from there.
The internet is in an uproar about it being so dialogue heavy. Am I the only one that likes the dialogue? TNG was very diaologue heavy. Do people my age have zero patience?
I just hope this doesn't turn into another existential threat that has to beat out the previous existential threat and nobody else can fix it other than the main cast
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That's one example of what I was referring to earlier when I said that I don't think that the writing is good. If it's just a coincidence that she happens to show up while an attack is happening, what an extraordinary coincidence it is. If it's not a coincidence, then Picard looks really naive, as you said, for not questioning her timing at all or the fact that she had one of their weapons (presumably from one of the dead assassins, but how'd she pick it up and still get beaten to the door by the conveniently late and blind final assassin?).
TNG had a lot of dialogue, but it was good dialogue. The Measure of a Man is a great example of an episode that was almost all dialogue, but was just written so well. This show's dialogue isn't nearly as good. It's uninteresting, uses a tech jargon to sound scientific and, as mentioned, occasionally uses contemporary slang and jargon. Stewart can make mediocre dialogue still sound decent, but some of the other actors on the show can't.
Tawnos
A guy with a bass
I thought Jurati picked up the disrupter rifle from the one that was taken out in the doorway. Also, Picard doesn’t believe the Federation is involved with the Tal Shiar... not necessarily that they aren’t operating on earth, but that they’re not operating on Earth in cooperation with the Federation.
But once it’s made clear, he realizes he can’t trust the CNC of the Federation either. That’s why he doesn’t go back to her.
That's pretty much the way I feel too. The main difference between Picard and Discovery is one is much more "human" while the other is way more techno babble and with little character development. Season 2 was a little better but it still needs work. The Orville knew where the appeal was and they based their show on TNG for that reason.
Rabid Ranger
2 is better than one
New episode dropped today. Picard's still recruiting the Justice League it appears. Another F Bomb and a decapitation for good measure! Not sure what to make of this show.
