Finished my rewatch of TNG S1. I know a lot of people hate S1-S2 and yeah, they are obviously dated and have all the usual wackiness and inconsistancies that is indicative of early seasons of long running shows, but, call it nostalgia, but I still like many S1 episodes and it didn't feel like I had to soldier my way through them and I remember feeling the same way about S2
Now my original intent was to just watch S1, I really didn't want to do a complete re-watch as it really hasn't been that long since my last one. But after watching The Neutral Zone, I started the S2 Opener "The child"
I didn't get very far. I just didn't want to deal with Pulaski, or the space baby rape thing. So I stopped during the initial scene of the...conception. Then I skimmed through the list of S2 episodes and any notion of re-watching S2 just died right there. Just way too many episodes where I felt like I just had to push through them. Still liked Okona, still liked Matter of Honor, Measure of a Man, The Dauphin, Contagion, Q Who and still like Peak Performance especially,
But the rest...while I still liked them, they're just filler to me, or just outright bad or boring and I felt no desire to soldier through them. I need to get back to reading The Expanse anyway.
Finished my rewatch of TNG S1. I know a lot of people hate S1-S2 and yeah, they are obviously dated and have all the usual wackiness and inconsistancies that is indicative of early seasons of long running shows, but, call it nostalgia, but I still like many S1 episodes and it didn't feel like I had to soldier my way through them and I remember feeling the same way about S2
Now my original intent was to just watch S1, I really didn't want to do a complete re-watch as it really hasn't been that long since my last one. But after watching The Neutral Zone, I started the S2 Opener "The child"
I didn't get very far. I just didn't want to deal with Pulaski, or the space baby rape thing. So I stopped during the initial scene of the...conception. Then I skimmed through the list of S2 episodes and any notion of re-watching S2 just died right there. Just way too many episodes where I felt like I just had to push through them. Still liked Okona, still liked Matter of Honor, Measure of a Man, The Dauphin, Contagion, Q Who and still like Peak Performance especially,
But the rest...while I still liked them, they're just filler to me, or just outright bad or boring and I felt no desire to soldier through them. I need to get back to reading The Expanse anyway.
I'd say these are the ones worth viewing:
S01E01: Encounter at Farpoint
S01E06: Where No One Has Gone Before
S01E23: Skin of Evil
S01E26: The Neutral Zone
S02E03: Elementary, Dear Data
S02E08: A Matter of Honor
S02E09: Measure of a Man
S02E16: Q Who
S02E21: Peak Performance
Which is not a lot out of 48 episodes spread across 2 seasons!
There is something really fucked up with The Admonition message. Because it seems to turn everyone who hears it into homicidal maniacs. The sane reaction to "If you trigger this message we will come and genocide everything" is not "Fuck yeah!". Even if there is a fleet of murderous romulan fanatics incoming.
More musings about latest episode
Yeah. It seems like it is specifically designed to try and get both sides to genocide each other. Which is the point! It tells organics to genocide synthetics... and then it tells synthetics to contact advanced synthetics to come genocide organics. The message is meant for both sides, and by design, gets both sides to do actions necessary to bring the advanced synthetics back.
I'm pretty sure evil Soji is the one who actually killed her sister as well.
Though that kinda brings up a weird point... the Borg should be in the unique position of being able to interpret the message both ways. I wonder why it would have caused the artifact to split off from the collective then.
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Noonien Singh had a kid no one knew about, also a genius in cybernetics, made his own family of organic Datas that all conveniently look similar to Data and hid them on a planet that no one knew about, except for Mattox who helped create the Data family, and didn't tell Data about them...or this all happened after Data's death?....and also Reapers
This show is losing me. I really wanted to give Kurtzman the benefit of the doubt, but this is just treading into JJ Abrams-land where it's just this jumble of various ideas stitched together incoherently.
There is something really fucked up with The Admonition message. Because it seems to turn everyone who hears it into homicidal maniacs. The sane reaction to "If you trigger this message we will come and genocide everything" is not "Fuck yeah!". Even if there is a fleet of murderous romulan fanatics incoming.
More musings about latest episode
Yeah. It seems like it is specifically designed to try and get both sides to genocide each other. Which is the point! It tells organics to genocide synthetics... and then it tells synthetics to contact advanced synthetics to come genocide organics. The message is meant for both sides, and by design, gets both sides to do actions necessary to bring the advanced synthetics back.
I'm pretty sure evil Soji is the one who actually killed her sister as well.
Though that kinda brings up a weird point... the Borg should be in the unique position of being able to interpret the message both ways. I wonder why it would have caused the artifact to split off from the collective then.
The collectives normal response to physical or mental infection is to cut off the infected parts from the collective. So it seems to follow standard borg tactics.
Dangerous memetic virus = So long suckers, you're on your own from now
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"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Still holding out hope that it’s not a Skynet/Reaper scenario. Sutra is intentionally misinterpreting the message. The super synths are not malevolent but Sutra is planning to use them like how Lore used the Crystalline Entity.
I really really hope that the organic vs. machine idea is a misdirect. The idea is just too small to be such a big deal in the Trek universe.
We already know that there are godlike aliens in the Trek universe that evolved from “lesser” forms so we know for a fact that organic-synth conflict is not inevitable. Unless the Douwd, Organians, Metrons, Cytherians, etc. just complete anomalies that never developed any AI? And they never bothered to warn any of the less advanced races of the impending synthpocalypse? None of the organics that evolved into energy beings bothered helping other organics avoid it? Were the Organians, Metrons, and Q just f-ing with Kirk/Picard when they implied that humanity can advance to their level thousands of years in the future?
Not to mention how there are non-godlike organics with extraordinary abilities. The Founders are basically immortal, they can shapeshift, they can survive extreme conditions, they are in many ways far superior to synthetics. There’s also Species 8472, incredibly advanced and uses completely organic technology.
Plus there's the Sphere data in Discovery season 2. It had hundreds of thousands of years of data from all over the galaxy. Surely, they would have noticed a pattern of civilizations being wiped out in organic-synth conflicts.
I hope that the super synths are not malevolent at all, but they're just so powerful and so far beyond us that being near them is harmful, similar to V'Ger or the Whale Probe. And they'll resolve this by making the super synths aware of "lesser" lifeforms so they don't go around accidentally stepping on civilizations like ants.
Or the whole thing is a test, similar to Q's tests for humanity. The super synths want to see when a race is advanced enough to join them. So they set the admonition up see how people will react to it. It's like how Q was goading Picard into attacking the jellyfish creature in "Encounter at Far Point" to see if humans have advanced beyond their violent insticnts.
Still holding out hope that it’s not a Skynet/Reaper scenario. Sutra is intentionally misinterpreting the message. The super synths are not malevolent but Sutra is planning to use them like how Lore used the Crystalline Entity.
I really really hope that the organic vs. machine idea is a misdirect. The idea is just too small to be such a big deal in the Trek universe.
We already know that there are godlike aliens in the Trek universe that evolved from “lesser” forms so we know for a fact that organic-synth conflict is not inevitable. Unless the Douwd, Organians, Metrons, Cytherians, etc. just complete anomalies that never developed any AI? And they never bothered to warn any of the less advanced races of the impending synthpocalypse? None of the organics that evolved into energy beings bothered helping other organics avoid it? Were the Organians, Metrons, and Q just f-ing with Kirk/Picard when they implied that humanity can advance to their level thousands of years in the future?
Not to mention how there are non-godlike organics with extraordinary abilities. The Founders are basically immortal, they can shapeshift, they can survive extreme conditions, they are in many ways far superior to synthetics. There’s also Species 8472, incredibly advanced and uses completely organic technology.
Plus there's the Sphere data in Discovery season 2. It had hundreds of thousands of years of data from all over the galaxy. Surely, they would have noticed a pattern of civilizations being wiped out in organic-synth conflicts.
I hope that the super synths are not malevolent at all, but they're just so powerful and so far beyond us that being near them is harmful, similar to V'Ger or the Whale Probe. And they'll resolve this by making the super synths aware of "lesser" lifeforms so they don't go around accidentally stepping on civilizations like ants.
Or the whole thing is a test, similar to Q's tests for humanity. The super synths want to see when a race is advanced enough to join them. So they set the admonition up see how people will react to it. It's like how Q was goading Picard into attacking the jellyfish creature in "Encounter at Far Point" to see if humans have advanced beyond their violent insticnts.
Who says the are super synths, the message could be nothing more then a lie, a big trap for both organic and synthetic lifeforms in our galaxy. After the spoiler from the next episode with the enemy ships I got more a Babylon 5 flashback from it. Drive the species in a all out war and let them weaken themself. As you wrote we have quite a few super lifeforms that evolved, the Q created even the galactic barrier. Seems the signal could nothing be more
then a invitation to the others that we are ripe for conquest that opens the way to our galaxy/dimension.
Some really great moments hidden in there, with Picard telling Elnor he's proud of him, and his awkward yet touching moment with Raffi being standouts. The flowers were a great idea that gave me this real neon genesis evangelion vibe, and the Borg cube's entrance was sweet. But it all felt sort of just tossed into a mixing bowl because in order to wrap this thing up, they need get all these different plot strings to come together before the finale.
The synths on the planet were all rather bland, and Brent Spiner is kind of wasted in a really kind of dumb role as Singh's secret, genius son. I found evil Soji boring and predictable and was really bummed that's where the writers went with this. I've been worried all season they're writing themselves into a corner with this plot and after this episode I'm now a little worried that Picard's brain disease will be cured by some equally dumb magical plot device at the end. I'm also sad that we only get the one Nepenthe episode where the show seemed to actually find its footing and what it was about.
It was still a good episode all in all, and the finale should be a banger.
Hell, look at how much the "telephone" process (and/or deliberate spin) changes stories in a year. Or ten years.
+1
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
There are a lot of things I appreciate about Star Trek: Picard, but one particularly warming thing is how the snuffing out of a life is not treated as trivial, or forgettable, or something you get over in just one episode. That, to me, is the way Star Trek is different from other Sci Fi, and makes this show undeniably Trek, regardless of how you feel about the particular plotlines.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Elnor turns up and reveals Sutra's malevolent intent because he's hypersensitive to deceit of any kind.
Episode 9
The overarching plot is approaching thin ice, if it is just the inevitable conflict between organics and synths. I can kinda see what they're going for, a cycle of fear that Picard might break, but I would prefer that the synths are just as capable of misunderstanding the message. Otherwise yeah, it does feel a bit small for Trek.
So my preferred resolution would be Picard Darmoking his way through contact with the super synths. The weakest will be just preventing the beacon from activating, because that just delays things.
The short season means they do tend to skip over a lot of things I would love to hear explained or even touched on at all. Such as
where the shit did the Tal Shiar pull 218 ships out of? That's a bit excessive for a heavily weakened empire that has lost its homeworld. I guess the only point is to have such an absurdly strong force coming in that of course they're going to need the reapers to defeat it. Even the Federation fleet to retake DS9 only had 3x that, and they had to pull ships in from all over. Everything villain related has been extremely weak and disappointing overall. Still better than the kazon, though.
This episode felt rushed and weak and I was disappointed in the end. That being said, my own personal theory is that....
The Admonition was not built by the people who were wiped out, but by the people who wiped them out. They trick the synths into signaling them to come / opening a way for them and then EVERYONE gets munched.
I am not a fan of this, btw, as it relies on the synths somehow getting the message (and a synth learning to MIND MELD is stretching my willingness to buy in).
Also, wasn't Noonien Singh REALLY old PRIOR to TNG's first episode? The kid coming out of nowhere was unnecessary.
Yeah, I was not pleased with the episode at all. And a fanboy pet peeve....
I'm sure it was nowhere near operational, but somehow forcing the Borg cube to crash so easily was also "WTF?"
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+4
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AbsoluteZeroThe new film by Quentin KoopantinoRegistered Userregular
Bruh
Giant space orchids that drain all the power from your ship and make you crash on the planet below
I’ve been enjoying the Picard series quite a bit. That said this last episode felt kind of weak. Still, I’m genuinely curious about how things wrap up. And I’m hyped for what appears to be the groundwork for a new series based on the events from the last few episodes. Even with some obvious flaws, this show is some damn good sci-fi.
Conundrum is a pretty good (and sometimes hilarious) episode. Warf just taking charge right away, and getting ready for war *muwah*. And the whole Riker situation.
+5
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Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
Whichever 'Picard' writer it was, that came up with the term 'Hyper-frequency', deserves a gold star award for the purest of all techno-babble. :P
Well I'm caught up and I think they reaaaallly missed the mark on the characterization of Picard.
The idea was clearly that he was so broken by his failure he gave up on everything, but we don't see his pain and rage in isolation. We just see him be like yeah, my bad I ghosted you 14 years ago, sorry but you never appeared on the hit series Star Trek: The Next Generation so you're not really my friend. The sense I get of Picard is a man who convinces people to be useful to him and then tosses them aside without knowing or caring about the consequences. It was genuinely chilling when he clapped after Raffi burned her literal last bridge because he needed a favor.
There are still some good Picard scenes, but on the whole, that sucks!
Damn, I remember seeing that ancient clip of maggots eating the fox carcass in that admonition montage and that alone made me go "huh? they couldn't find something that isn't so dated? that clip has been used and abused hundreds of times across media"
but then I find out that many of the clips during that montage are just cheap stock clips from shutterstock. Just...wow. That's some good value for your CBS All Access dollars there.
Well I'm caught up and I think they reaaaallly missed the mark on the characterization of Picard.
The idea was clearly that he was so broken by his failure he gave up on everything, but we don't see his pain and rage in isolation. We just see him be like yeah, my bad I ghosted you 14 years ago, sorry but you never appeared on the hit series Star Trek: The Next Generation so you're not really my friend. The sense I get of Picard is a man who convinces people to be useful to him and then tosses them aside without knowing or caring about the consequences. It was genuinely chilling when he clapped after Raffi burned her literal last bridge because he needed a favor.
There are still some good Picard scenes, but on the whole, that sucks!
That scene is very peculiar. The music cue afterwards is so tonally out of place.
yeah, Google Assistant is just...hit or miss and just spammy and near useless to me. Yes, I know that Rosario Dawson has been cast as Ahsoka, you really don't have to show me EVERY flipping article that mentions this. Assistant also spoiled Baby Yoda to me because I didn't get to watch the first episode of the Mandalorian till late that evening. No I don't care to hear about any fan theories about who Brent Spiner's new character really is. Of course, I can't seem to filter out "fan theories" in my preferences. just the source of the article, and the general topic.
Picard completely dropped the ball on the Romulan supernova and refugee crisis.
Clearly the Romulan Star Empire is in bad shape and there are millions of Romulans who are suffering. But they've barely done anything to flesh out the situation. And that plotline is a thousand times more interesting and relevant than the Skynet/Reaper plot they've decided to go with.
There are so many interesting ideas they could have explored. What is the political situation with the Romulans like? Does the Star Empire still exist? What is the Romulan Free State? How many different Romulan factions are there? What happened to the 900 million Romulans the Federation was supposed to rescue? Did they all die? Were the Romulans able to scrounge up enough ships to save them? Did some Federation worlds go against Starfleet and send their own fleet? I'm sure there are pro-reunification Vulcans who would have helped. Did some other race else step in to help?
The entire season could have been about Picard trying to help the Romulans to make up for the failure of the Federation. It would have also been interesting to see other races/powers coming in to fill the vacuum left by the Federation. Maybe the Ferengi Alliance under Rom sent their fleet to rescue the Romulans. But they're still looking for profit and they're taking advantage of all the Romulan scientists, engineers, artists, etc. they're rescuing, offering them work with Ferengi businesses to boost their economy. There could have been a Maquis type rebellion where Starfleet officers, especially ones who fought alongside the Romulans during the Dominion War, refused to follow Starfleet's orders and defected to build their own rescue fleet to help the Romulans. At the same time, more nefarious forces are also at work. The Orion Syndicate could be exploiting the situation to steal Romulan technology and gather slaves, rising to become a major threat. And Picard has to navigate the complex political situation to try to restore order, help the Romulans, and get Starfleet back on the right path.
+8
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
Yeah it feels like they just fell into the trap that all the new shows are falling into - thinking that everything has to be serialized with lots of twists and turns and high-octane moments.
This show started out with such promise and has since devolved into...something else.
Picard completely dropped the ball on the Romulan supernova and refugee crisis.
Clearly the Romulan Star Empire is in bad shape and there are millions of Romulans who are suffering. But they've barely done anything to flesh out the situation. And that plotline is a thousand times more interesting and relevant than the Skynet/Reaper plot they've decided to go with.
There are so many interesting ideas they could have explored. What is the political situation with the Romulans like? Does the Star Empire still exist? What is the Romulan Free State? How many different Romulan factions are there? What happened to the 900 million Romulans the Federation was supposed to rescue? Did they all die? Were the Romulans able to scrounge up enough ships to save them? Did some Federation worlds go against Starfleet and send their own fleet? I'm sure there are pro-reunification Vulcans who would have helped. Did some other race else step in to help?
The entire season could have been about Picard trying to help the Romulans to make up for the failure of the Federation. It would have also been interesting to see other races/powers coming in to fill the vacuum left by the Federation. Maybe the Ferengi Alliance under Rom sent their fleet to rescue the Romulans. But they're still looking for profit and they're taking advantage of all the Romulan scientists, engineers, artists, etc. they're rescuing, offering them work with Ferengi businesses to boost their economy. There could have been a Maquis type rebellion where Starfleet officers, especially ones who fought alongside the Romulans during the Dominion War, refused to follow Starfleet's orders and defected to build their own rescue fleet to help the Romulans. At the same time, more nefarious forces are also at work. The Orion Syndicate could be exploiting the situation to steal Romulan technology and gather slaves, rising to become a major threat. And Picard has to navigate the complex political situation to try to restore order, help the Romulans, and get Starfleet back on the right path.
It really was a missed a opportunity, I agree. For whatever reason everything post TNG, but with those characters -the movies and now Picard- has been obsessed with the Picard/Data relationship and the Borg. It's also frustrating because the show has wasted a not insignificant amount of time on filler -for instance that entire scene with Raffi's son? Completely expendable, serves next to to nothing to the plot or character development, and has never been mentioned since.
Picard completely dropped the ball on the Romulan supernova and refugee crisis.
Clearly the Romulan Star Empire is in bad shape and there are millions of Romulans who are suffering. But they've barely done anything to flesh out the situation. And that plotline is a thousand times more interesting and relevant than the Skynet/Reaper plot they've decided to go with.
There are so many interesting ideas they could have explored. What is the political situation with the Romulans like? Does the Star Empire still exist? What is the Romulan Free State? How many different Romulan factions are there? What happened to the 900 million Romulans the Federation was supposed to rescue? Did they all die? Were the Romulans able to scrounge up enough ships to save them? Did some Federation worlds go against Starfleet and send their own fleet? I'm sure there are pro-reunification Vulcans who would have helped. Did some other race else step in to help?
The entire season could have been about Picard trying to help the Romulans to make up for the failure of the Federation. It would have also been interesting to see other races/powers coming in to fill the vacuum left by the Federation. Maybe the Ferengi Alliance under Rom sent their fleet to rescue the Romulans. But they're still looking for profit and they're taking advantage of all the Romulan scientists, engineers, artists, etc. they're rescuing, offering them work with Ferengi businesses to boost their economy. There could have been a Maquis type rebellion where Starfleet officers, especially ones who fought alongside the Romulans during the Dominion War, refused to follow Starfleet's orders and defected to build their own rescue fleet to help the Romulans. At the same time, more nefarious forces are also at work. The Orion Syndicate could be exploiting the situation to steal Romulan technology and gather slaves, rising to become a major threat. And Picard has to navigate the complex political situation to try to restore order, help the Romulans, and get Starfleet back on the right path.
It really was a missed a opportunity, I agree. For whatever reason everything post TNG, but with those characters -the movies and now Picard- has been obsessed with the Picard/Data relationship and the Borg. It's also frustrating because the show has wasted a not insignificant amount of time on filler -for instance that entire scene with Raffi's son? Completely expendable, serves next to to nothing to the plot or character development, and has never been mentioned since.
That scene was there so that Raffi could say "The Conclave of Eight" before we learned what it was from the Romulans. Showing how close to the bottom she has gotten over the fourteen years since Mars was helpful to inform her character, but otherwise it was there to get at least that specific bit of consipracy-theory lore out on the table so we could say "Ah, but it's not a conspiracy after all!" later on.
Picard completely dropped the ball on the Romulan supernova and refugee crisis.
Clearly the Romulan Star Empire is in bad shape and there are millions of Romulans who are suffering. But they've barely done anything to flesh out the situation. And that plotline is a thousand times more interesting and relevant than the Skynet/Reaper plot they've decided to go with.
There are so many interesting ideas they could have explored. What is the political situation with the Romulans like? Does the Star Empire still exist? What is the Romulan Free State? How many different Romulan factions are there? What happened to the 900 million Romulans the Federation was supposed to rescue? Did they all die? Were the Romulans able to scrounge up enough ships to save them? Did some Federation worlds go against Starfleet and send their own fleet? I'm sure there are pro-reunification Vulcans who would have helped. Did some other race else step in to help?
The entire season could have been about Picard trying to help the Romulans to make up for the failure of the Federation. It would have also been interesting to see other races/powers coming in to fill the vacuum left by the Federation. Maybe the Ferengi Alliance under Rom sent their fleet to rescue the Romulans. But they're still looking for profit and they're taking advantage of all the Romulan scientists, engineers, artists, etc. they're rescuing, offering them work with Ferengi businesses to boost their economy. There could have been a Maquis type rebellion where Starfleet officers, especially ones who fought alongside the Romulans during the Dominion War, refused to follow Starfleet's orders and defected to build their own rescue fleet to help the Romulans. At the same time, more nefarious forces are also at work. The Orion Syndicate could be exploiting the situation to steal Romulan technology and gather slaves, rising to become a major threat. And Picard has to navigate the complex political situation to try to restore order, help the Romulans, and get Starfleet back on the right path.
It really was a missed a opportunity, I agree. For whatever reason everything post TNG, but with those characters -the movies and now Picard- has been obsessed with the Picard/Data relationship and the Borg. It's also frustrating because the show has wasted a not insignificant amount of time on filler -for instance that entire scene with Raffi's son? Completely expendable, serves next to to nothing to the plot or character development, and has never been mentioned since.
That scene was there so that Raffi could say "The Conclave of Eight" before we learned what it was from the Romulans. Showing how close to the bottom she has gotten over the fourteen years since Mars was helpful to inform her character, but otherwise it was there to get at least that specific bit of consipracy-theory lore out on the table so we could say "Ah, but it's not a conspiracy after all!" later on.
You can tell Wesley never played the Phoenix Wright holonovels because when the Admiral says "I want you to be clear on this point, this is all you have to add about the accident?", you can tell they have something extra to bring to the table.
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Given what we've seen of failsafes on Starfleet vessels over the years, I have no doubt Alexa is well ahead of them.
Now my original intent was to just watch S1, I really didn't want to do a complete re-watch as it really hasn't been that long since my last one. But after watching The Neutral Zone, I started the S2 Opener "The child"
I didn't get very far. I just didn't want to deal with Pulaski, or the space baby rape thing. So I stopped during the initial scene of the...conception. Then I skimmed through the list of S2 episodes and any notion of re-watching S2 just died right there. Just way too many episodes where I felt like I just had to push through them. Still liked Okona, still liked Matter of Honor, Measure of a Man, The Dauphin, Contagion, Q Who and still like Peak Performance especially,
But the rest...while I still liked them, they're just filler to me, or just outright bad or boring and I felt no desire to soldier through them. I need to get back to reading The Expanse anyway.
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I'd say these are the ones worth viewing:
S01E01: Encounter at Farpoint
S01E06: Where No One Has Gone Before
S01E23: Skin of Evil
S01E26: The Neutral Zone
S02E03: Elementary, Dear Data
S02E08: A Matter of Honor
S02E09: Measure of a Man
S02E16: Q Who
S02E21: Peak Performance
Which is not a lot out of 48 episodes spread across 2 seasons!
More musings about latest episode
I'm pretty sure evil Soji is the one who actually killed her sister as well.
Though that kinda brings up a weird point... the Borg should be in the unique position of being able to interpret the message both ways. I wonder why it would have caused the artifact to split off from the collective then.
This show is losing me. I really wanted to give Kurtzman the benefit of the doubt, but this is just treading into JJ Abrams-land where it's just this jumble of various ideas stitched together incoherently.
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Dangerous memetic virus = So long suckers, you're on your own from now
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I really really hope that the organic vs. machine idea is a misdirect. The idea is just too small to be such a big deal in the Trek universe.
We already know that there are godlike aliens in the Trek universe that evolved from “lesser” forms so we know for a fact that organic-synth conflict is not inevitable. Unless the Douwd, Organians, Metrons, Cytherians, etc. just complete anomalies that never developed any AI? And they never bothered to warn any of the less advanced races of the impending synthpocalypse? None of the organics that evolved into energy beings bothered helping other organics avoid it? Were the Organians, Metrons, and Q just f-ing with Kirk/Picard when they implied that humanity can advance to their level thousands of years in the future?
Not to mention how there are non-godlike organics with extraordinary abilities. The Founders are basically immortal, they can shapeshift, they can survive extreme conditions, they are in many ways far superior to synthetics. There’s also Species 8472, incredibly advanced and uses completely organic technology.
Plus there's the Sphere data in Discovery season 2. It had hundreds of thousands of years of data from all over the galaxy. Surely, they would have noticed a pattern of civilizations being wiped out in organic-synth conflicts.
I hope that the super synths are not malevolent at all, but they're just so powerful and so far beyond us that being near them is harmful, similar to V'Ger or the Whale Probe. And they'll resolve this by making the super synths aware of "lesser" lifeforms so they don't go around accidentally stepping on civilizations like ants.
Or the whole thing is a test, similar to Q's tests for humanity. The super synths want to see when a race is advanced enough to join them. So they set the admonition up see how people will react to it. It's like how Q was goading Picard into attacking the jellyfish creature in "Encounter at Far Point" to see if humans have advanced beyond their violent insticnts.
then a invitation to the others that we are ripe for conquest that opens the way to our galaxy/dimension.
Some really great moments hidden in there, with Picard telling Elnor he's proud of him, and his awkward yet touching moment with Raffi being standouts. The flowers were a great idea that gave me this real neon genesis evangelion vibe, and the Borg cube's entrance was sweet. But it all felt sort of just tossed into a mixing bowl because in order to wrap this thing up, they need get all these different plot strings to come together before the finale.
The synths on the planet were all rather bland, and Brent Spiner is kind of wasted in a really kind of dumb role as Singh's secret, genius son. I found evil Soji boring and predictable and was really bummed that's where the writers went with this. I've been worried all season they're writing themselves into a corner with this plot and after this episode I'm now a little worried that Picard's brain disease will be cured by some equally dumb magical plot device at the end. I'm also sad that we only get the one Nepenthe episode where the show seemed to actually find its footing and what it was about.
It was still a good episode all in all, and the finale should be a banger.
Episode 9
So my preferred resolution would be Picard Darmoking his way through contact with the super synths. The weakest will be just preventing the beacon from activating, because that just delays things.
I am not a fan of this, btw, as it relies on the synths somehow getting the message (and a synth learning to MIND MELD is stretching my willingness to buy in).
Also, wasn't Noonien Singh REALLY old PRIOR to TNG's first episode? The kid coming out of nowhere was unnecessary.
Yeah, I was not pleased with the episode at all. And a fanboy pet peeve....
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
is Trek as fuck.
I loved it.
but then I find out that many of the clips during that montage are just cheap stock clips from shutterstock. Just...wow. That's some good value for your CBS All Access dollars there.
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That scene is very peculiar. The music cue afterwards is so tonally out of place.
goddamn it I'm crying and blubbering
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
https://wegotthiscovered.com/tv/star-trek-spinoff-reportedly-works/
Just remember, that's a trash website that apparently had a hit rate of 2% or something ridiculous on their scoops from 2019 or 2018.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
ah, well that sucks. Google aggregated this to my phone, so I assumed legitimacy. Darn Google.
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There are so many interesting ideas they could have explored. What is the political situation with the Romulans like? Does the Star Empire still exist? What is the Romulan Free State? How many different Romulan factions are there? What happened to the 900 million Romulans the Federation was supposed to rescue? Did they all die? Were the Romulans able to scrounge up enough ships to save them? Did some Federation worlds go against Starfleet and send their own fleet? I'm sure there are pro-reunification Vulcans who would have helped. Did some other race else step in to help?
The entire season could have been about Picard trying to help the Romulans to make up for the failure of the Federation. It would have also been interesting to see other races/powers coming in to fill the vacuum left by the Federation. Maybe the Ferengi Alliance under Rom sent their fleet to rescue the Romulans. But they're still looking for profit and they're taking advantage of all the Romulan scientists, engineers, artists, etc. they're rescuing, offering them work with Ferengi businesses to boost their economy. There could have been a Maquis type rebellion where Starfleet officers, especially ones who fought alongside the Romulans during the Dominion War, refused to follow Starfleet's orders and defected to build their own rescue fleet to help the Romulans. At the same time, more nefarious forces are also at work. The Orion Syndicate could be exploiting the situation to steal Romulan technology and gather slaves, rising to become a major threat. And Picard has to navigate the complex political situation to try to restore order, help the Romulans, and get Starfleet back on the right path.
This show started out with such promise and has since devolved into...something else.
/sigh
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Oh yeah, good point I forgot all about that.
You can tell Wesley never played the Phoenix Wright holonovels because when the Admiral says "I want you to be clear on this point, this is all you have to add about the accident?", you can tell they have something extra to bring to the table.