Great.

Anyway I can stand most of the badness but the thing I really dislike about Picard is that he just doesn’t seem like the same character. He’s some kindly warm old man, not the grouchy twat of old. I can give them some leeway with age changing him or whatever but it just doesn’t seem like the same bloke.

It's fine, it's not Star Trek but it's fine. The wildly different hopes for the show outlined in this thread alone should probably serve as an indication that they were never going to keep everyone happy in the execution, that there isn't some perfect "middle-ground" Star Trek formula they could have hit to keep all the long-hanging fans satisfied while still keeping the show at all relevant or interesting to 21st century audiences that aren't necessarily familiar with the entire canon, so hey might as well be pleased that they're doing something that isn't another fucking prequel series.

Brooks wrote:

Granted, the plot for every episode would be:

Guest star: Why are you doing it this way, winemaking has been a wholly finished technology for centuries, here just d/l this fucking sick La Tache circa 2XXX and

Picard: No I need the dirt and the graft and mutter mutter what is a man

Guest star: Okay then

But that reads like not worse than what they've actually made.

In my imagination, an obscure Picard relative has emerged to lay claim to the estate, taking over part of the vineyards, the trademark for Chateux La Barre and the castle that serves as the label's bottlery, while our Jean-Luc retains the traditional Chateux Picard. The two engage in a frenetically-paced shonen anime-style battle for wine supremacy, utilising every available aspect of 24th Century technology to terraform the land and manipulate the weather to influence the terroir of their respective wines, while also teaching the viewer some genuine facts about real-life winemaking along the way.

Yeah basically they should've handed the keys to Barney Farmer and never looked back.

All I've seen of this is a trailer on twitter that made Data's head look comically large so I haven't bothered. Not that I was going to, mind.

/exits thread for good.

davyK wrote:

Screw Picard. Give me a Dark Tower series and don't fuck it up please.

Hmmm.  I might have agreed with this once upon a time, but having returned to the series recently (on Song of Susannah right now), it’s my opinion that it would make for awful telly.  It’s no wonder studios have struggled to do anything with the IP.

On topic, I’ve only seen the first ep of Picard, which I quite enjoyed, so it makes me sad to hear people think it’s all fallen off a cliff since.

kneecap wrote:

The slowness, the pointlessness, the out of characterness. JL

We are being strung along and that makes me reach for the button.

The tone of the thing is all over the shop as well. It’s got the same problem as Discovery. If it’s for kids then why are people dropping f bombs and gouging eyeballs? If it’s for adults then why’s it so stupid?

Surely no one is Discovery Season 2 stupid.

Things I like about it:

Rios. He's fairly good, seems to have a bit of charm. Sometimes written fairly badly but we can't ask for miracles here.
The EMH, a crew of holographic Rios varients, I like it, it makes enough logical sense and it's fun.
The present day Star Fleet uniforms are fairly decent.
Daji/Soji, she's got some charm to her. Even if everything is revealed painfully slowly.
Narek is ok.
The incest drivem Sister Romulan. She's hot.
The Irish Romulan - I'm not entirely sure if I like it, but the actress is at least good. I assumed in episode 3 they would both join the crew. The show would be better if they did.
The look of the samurai Romulan. Unfortunately not his characterisation.



What I hate about it however is how it has ruined the fundamental concept of Star trek.

Writing Utopian Science Fiction is harder than Dystopian and this show has either undermined or changed or outright destroyed basic concepts of Star Trek.

Also the look is so generic I want to see modern Lcars displays and feeling, not fucking computers from Avatar, nothing is tangible.
Spending tons of money in CG establishing shots and yet the next generation with flimsy sets and matte paintings actually had the atmosphere this lacks.

I will say one thing for Picard. Its fucking better than Discovery.
Not seen a Federation ship yet" Curious about seeing one of those.

Re: it not being utopian enough, the showrunner wrote a thing about how, just like how DS9 was themed around being a serialised story set on a space station and Voyager was themed around being stranded far from Earth, Picard is meant to be themed around people on the fringes or outside of the Federation. But it's called Star Trek: Picard and was marketed as essentially a TNG continuation. You'd expect a show to set out its stall in the promotion and pilot, not a internet post.

It does make sense that it seems less utopian if they're going out of their way to show the world of Star Trek outside the Federation - the TOS movies were a bit like that at times. But it's also understandable that fans don't get or like it - they expect and wanted a utopian TNG continuation. Showing the utopian Federation buckling under pressure also muddied the water a bit.

The Measure of a Man is such a good episode of television.

If they wanted a show about the fringes of the Federation, having Mr Starfleet to contrast it would have been fine. It didnt need to turn the Federation into a bunch of twats to do that though. Just go beyond its reach.