[Luis Dias]

I'm somewhat envious of your positive wholesome-ish way of being fine with these shows, but regardless, I'm also weary of writers killing off and ruining past characters for drama sake and cool badass shots, "remember this character you loved to watch learn and grow and become whole? Here she is, absolutely a wreck, a total sci fi noir cliché of a person now, totally lost, a space John Wick if you will."

There is some plot that depends on the stupidity of everyone involved, some twists were obvious ever since they were set up, and that also rubs me the wrong way.

I'll defer judgement when this is finished.

[The E]

I'm somewhat envious of your positive wholesome-ish way of being fine with these shows, but regardless, I'm also weary of writers killing off and ruining past characters for drama sake and cool badass shots, "remember this character you loved to watch learn and grow and become whole? Here she is, absolutely a wreck, a total sci fi noir cliché of a person now, totally lost, a space John Wick if you will."

There is some plot that depends on the stupidity of everyone involved, some twists were obvious ever since they were set up, and that also rubs me the wrong way.

I'll defer judgement when this is finished.

One of the things I realized after binging on TVTropes for a couple years was that, basically, cliches aren't bad. Me being literate enough and aware enough of genre convention to recognize when a series is playing a trope straight isn't a fault in the show - it's just a thing that happens.

I am also somewhat weary of statements like "they ruined that character". Yes, in the context of Voyager (i.e. an ongoing, multi-year, 26-episode-per-season show famous for its liberal use of the reset button), a character turn like the one they gave Seven here would be disastrous - But that's not what ST: Picard is. It's a different paradigm for how shows are written; you can do things in a 10-episode miniseries that may not be getting renewed that you can't in a show that's designed to run for half a year at a time, every year, and basically indefinitely on repeats.
Taking Picard and Discovery as what they are, and judging them by how good they are at that and not by how hard they fail at being what I wanted them to be is only fair.
(As an aside: The Star Trek show that I want, a show that leans hard on exploring Starfleet as a quasi-military organization torn between its mission statements of being the exploratory arm of the Federation but also its defensive and offensive arms, a show that explores the Federation as a polity through the lens of being on a single starship that is often out of reach of higher authority similar to the classic naval novels of Patrick O'Brian, will never be made. It's too specific, too up its own arse when it comes to building on established lore.)

What I would really like the current Trek writers to realize is that they can rely on their audience some more. They do not need to brute-force exposition about the universe or the character backstories, we have wikis for that now.

[Luis Dias]

There's too much lenience on fanservice, and a tad of MCU / Star Wars guidelines, I do wonder if this is the first Star Trek show that kicked other shows' soundtracks to signal the arrival on set of a character (VOY's music when 7 of 9 appears). Picard is a tad too "Patrick Stewart-ish" and less "Picard-ish", especially when he feels he has the liberty for it. These are not complaints, merely observations.

(As an aside: The Star Trek show that I want, a show that leans hard on exploring Starfleet as a quasi-military organization torn between its mission statements of being the exploratory arm of the Federation but also its defensive and offensive arms, a show that explores the Federation as a polity through the lens of being on a single starship that is often out of reach of higher authority similar to the classic naval novels of Patrick O'Brian, will never be made. It's too specific, too up its own arse when it comes to building on established lore.)

Wait, I'm definitely confused here. I don't know O'Brian, so that has to be the cause of my confusion, but aren't you basically describing TNG here? Not that I dislike your idea of taking that thematic contradiction between "explorers" and "army" more seriously, I would actually want a show that would seriously question the relationship between the (deluded) mythology of "Exploration! Curiosity! Boldly!" etc. and the actual painful reality it hides of "Colonization! Exploitation! Empire!", but that's the Portuguese in me speaking. Around 95% of portuguese people still believe all that "Discoveries" bull**** where we went "boldly where no man had gone before!" and fail to see where the buck ended up going in that endeavour. We still talk positively about our "golden days", handwaving away all the blood and slavery we partaked in.

Such a show would be too self-destructive, and the wrath of the conservative fandom would eclipse the "Last Jedi" nonsense we got.

[The E]

Wait, I'm definitely confused here. I don't know O'Brian, so that has to be the cause of my confusion, but aren't you basically describing TNG here?

Not quite. TNG happened in an era where long-form storytelling on TV happened subtly; it was still very much a "monster of the week" show at its core, and what I want is definitely more heavily serialized with stronger season-spanning arcs and less static characterization. I want the characters to change as they interact with the universe; this is something that, on TNG, really couldn't happen.
If you want a good look at O'Brian, watch Master and Commander (which, IMHO at least, is the best Star Trek film ever made); it illustrates all the core concepts I laid out very well.

Not that I dislike your idea of taking that thematic contradiction between "explorers" and "army" more seriously, I would actually want a show that would seriously question the relationship between the (deluded) mythology of "Exploration! Curiosity! Boldly!" etc. and the actual painful reality it hides of "Colonization! Exploitation! Empire!", but that's the Portuguese in me speaking. Around 95% of portuguese people still believe all that "Discoveries" bull**** where we went "boldly where no man had gone before!" and fail to see where the buck ended up going in that endeavour. We still talk positively about our "golden days", handwaving away all the blood and slavery we partaked in.

Yep, some post-colonial examination of "to boldly go" is a good thing to do.

[Luis Dias]

Ah ok, well I loved Master and Commander when it came out (I think I saw it at the theaters), but I barely remember it. Although as far as "Star Trek-y" it is, it's more in line with TWOK than anything else, isn't it?

[The E]

Ah ok, well I loved Master and Commander when it came out (I think I saw it at the theaters), but I barely remember it. Although as far as "Star Trek-y" it is, it's more in line with TWOK than anything else, isn't it?

Yes, in that TWOK is probably the one film that is closest to treating the Enterprise as a ship in a naval setting. What makes M&C very close to my ideal Star Trek (as laid out above) is that it very explicitly sets up a conflict between Aubrey and Maturin over Aubrey's focus on the mission and Maturin's desire to explore nature. There's the dreaded interpersonal drama that people seem to dislike in modern Trek, yes, but it stems from a fundamental question of priorities here, of ideals vs reality, and that's a topic baked into the core of Star Trek as a setting that I feel has still room left to explore (it's also more interesting to me than TWOK's extended Moby Dick analogy).

[Luis Dias]

I see what you mean, but I do wonder if Trek needs more of that. I feel every ST show has had that kind of tension between mission and "discovery", I'm sure Peterson fans would call it a clash between the motherly side and the fatherly, etc., sigh, IOW, I'm already bored by the idea of it. (It would still be better than what we are being having lately though)

But to be fair to TWOK it's not just a Moby Dick thing, it's A Tale of Two Cities vs Moby Dick.

[Blake00]

Probably noticed I haven't posted here since I blew up a bit over Ep5 haha (although I see you guys have kept things going on without me thankfully haha). I have kept watching the show though but was less invested in it to continue posting my episode round ups. I said after ep 5 that they'd really need some good eps to undo the damage that did, so...

Here's my thoughts on eps 6-9..

Spoiler:

They sort of did as Ep6 was really good. I love any story line that deals with Picard's trauma from the Borg, eg some my favourite powerful moments in classic Trek include Picard braking down in front of his brother at the chateau after Best of Both Worlds and Picard loosing it and smashing the ship glass case in First Contact. THE LINE MUST BE DRAWN HERE! So that moment when he saw his own face as locutus and his reaction was cool. Seeing him on the cube and the way the ex-Bs reacted to him was interesting too. I'm glad Soji got activated as I was getting a bit over the innocent girl on the cube with her cool badass lying boyfriend storyline. The queens chamber was cool and I liked the nod of the head to Voyagers Sikarians and the Borg using their teleporter tech after assimilation.

Ep7 was enjoyable due to us getting some nice fan service and seeing some beloved characters again, but some of those annoying things started to creep back in again. Troy & Riker lost a child due to a reason that just seems so silly.. a disease that is only cured by taking stuff from an android brain.. give me a break.. and once again WHY DOES EVERY SINGLE FRIGGIN PERSON IN THIS SHOW HAVE TO BE MESSED UP FROM TRAUMA??? why can't anyone at all be okay lol. I'm sick to death of it. People loved Star Trek because it painted a picture of this near perfect Utopian human future where greed, money, racism, poverty, addiction and all the other nasty stuff was either eliminated or barely there and therefore was usually projected onto the alien races, this giving people hope for the future and some nice escapism from all the news that tell us we're gonna destroy ourselves. However these writers seem to be intent on bringing the misery of their own lives into Star Trek making it not really escapism at all, now its just what we see on the news and todays flawed humans but with spaceships lol. Don't get me wrong, I love my dystopian dark future shows too but as for Star Trek unless its an alternate universe than I dont like them screwing up the prime timeline and characters we know and love. and don't even get me started on the smoking addiction BS.. I'll just leave this here:

Also clearly Kurtzman seems to have forgot Inner Light where Picard raised an entire family but oh now apparently now he knows nothing about teenagers so he gets schooled by Riker & Troi for it.. Urgh..

Oh and surprise surprise another old character has bought it.. but that's okay.. we've got these great new ones to replace them so who cares lol. The fact I just struggle to remember the names of the new characters really does show how great they are lol. RIP Hugh. Also wtf.. she's a evil lady pretty much killing everyone but she won't touch Hugh because he's a federation citizen. He helped Picard escape but she still has to hear him say that he's not on her side before she can kill him.. ugh come on..

Anyway on to episode 8 and its okay I guess.. but still some annoying stuff.. our Vulcan commodore is apparently half Romulan which I guess explain the sunglasses gaffe a few episodes back as vulcans don't need them, although clearly she has retained her Vulcan ability to mind meld as I've never seen a Romulan do that. The mind meld is what made Dr Death kill her lover and act all weird for ages.. but now she's fine and won't hurt anyone cause she and Soji talked about mucus lol. We see the source of the vision is from an alien artifact and we get further explanation on the main plot. Action Jackson 7 of 9 returns and kicks some more ass. She takes control of the cube which was kind of cool although apparently she doesn't have control of the airlocks and the Romulans do lol, plus apparently the Romulans can just stand there on a balcony and watch just fine (It'd like Pike watching the torpedo explode 2 meters away via a glass window all over again, or Spock watching Vulcan go into a black hole on a another planet with a thick cloudy sky lol). And somehow Borg are useless in a vacuum despite us seeing them operate in space just fine in First Contact although I guess it was more the venting that got them as Voyager vented a few Borg into space back in the day too. Anyway not much else to say about this ep as it was mostly plot moving and setup for final eps.

So I've just done Ep9.. yeah hmm.. I feel like I should have felt more and connected more with this episode but just didn't.. back in my first comments I predicted that there was someone else behind these androids and it wasn't just Bruce Maddox and I was right. I was just wrong about who it was lol. I predicted Lore, but it turns out there's another generation of Soong, another brother of sorts to Data. When Dr Soong Jr Jr Jr Jr Jr whatever (remember there was the one in the eugenics wars ep of Enterpise too haha) walked out the music didn't seem to change much, it was very fast, and he just took off into dialogue straight away.. the whole delivery felt wrong.. I should have been like WOOOOOWWW.. but instead I was like.. oh.. okay.. cool I guess.. as it was nice to see Brent back.

Then something really really stupid happened.. Soji's mum or whatever you wanna call her, an earlier android model and seemingly some sort of leader there has somehow taught herself to do Vulcan mind melds.. because you know she likes Vulcans n stuff. Yes I kid you not.. an android that just magically learned telepathy because she likes the aliens that can do them. Are you freakin kidding me???.. stupid f****** bloody writers.. omg!! I mean Data did a vulcan neck pinch in TNG but that was a nerve pinch that presumably just requires a lot of strength hence why no one else ever did it. But android learning an alien races telepathy as a hobby???.. arrggghhhhh

Anyway she melds and sees the vision.. now she's corrupted by it too.. possibly kills that chick and frees (all sexually lol) Nerek or whatever the hell his name is and is gonna 'ET call home' and bring an android alien invasion exterminate everyone thing to stop the massive Romulan warbird extermination fleet that is somehow just out there despite the fact that most of the romulan survivors seem to be refugees living in squalor camps and no one knew about the Zhat Vash. But hey maybe its the surviving romulan fleet being manipulated by the Zhat Vash. I don't know.. we see the commodore has apparently left her rather important Federation position and is now commanding an entire romulan fleet.. bit of a jump but yeah sure.. whatever..

Oh and how could I forget that they somehow grew giant flowers that can fly through space and drag down spaceships and borg cubes.. giant flowers bigger than cities and that fly into space.. grown by maddox in his lab.. while one of his android daughters was busy taking up Vulcan telepathy as a hobby..

It really is just like the new star wars films.. why do writers these days treat us with no respect and think that we're so stupid that we'll follow anything.. sometimes its so dark you think it's not suitable for children (eg Icheb eyeball rip) then other times like this where we're expected to take giant leaps of faith over plot holes like a child would..

Thanks to covid-19 the Melbourne Formula 1 race was cancelled and in the giant slots that were allocated to what would have been the tv race coverage they filled with old episodes of TNG, VOY and even some TOS.. so I thought why not and sat there watching them.. and my god.. the universe.. and the writing.. there's just so much more intelligence behind them..

We live in an age where people that grew up watching these scifi shows and films is now old enough to get into hollywood and create their own spin offs, remakes and sequels to these great old shows. All they had to do was bring back the same quality of writing and acting and we'd be living in a golden age. However instead of feeling like I'm watching actual sequels I just feel like I'm just watching fanboy films/eps that are filmed on hollywood sets with big budgets instead of Dad's shed with some toilet paper rolls, mops and bed sheets for props lol.

Anyway.. I seemed to be more relieved that there's one episode to go in Picard than I am excited to see what happens next with the story. Sort of just want it to be over so I can move on again. I didn't even feel that way about Disco (well maybe a bit in season 1 lol but not season 2). To feel that way about a Star Trek show really sucks.. especially as normally I'm the super tolerant scifi obsessed guy defending stuff like this to the haters.. yet here I am becoming one.. but a couple of threads keep my interest still to see this thing out and probably watch future seasons too lol.

Dr death is helping Dr Soong Jr Jr Jr Jr  Jr whatever with that Golum so maybe it will be Data. I just hope I.. feel something.. when he appears cause that's meant to be the pay off for all this surely lol.. Apparently this neuron thread thing stuff talked about back in ep2 means some of data's memories can be restored but some memories would not really be him would it. So it makes me think how on earth can these writers really bring him (the full Data we know and love) back and can they do it in a way that isn't stupid lol. Which then makes me think maybe they won't bring him back and this is as good as it gets lol.. but hey todays writers love recycling old stories and rearranging them (ST Into Darkness lol) so if Soji's evil mum can mind meld then why not just do a Star Trek 3 and mind meld Data backed up memories out of B4 and into a new body.. I might even tolerate that nonsense if it leads to datas return lol.. but plugging in a usb cable like Data did in Nemesis seems like a better way haha.. hell maybe that's what they're gonna do haha.. i dunno lol..

Will also be interesting to see how Picards brain disorder is dealt with too.

Oh and one of my mates is convinced that Picard is an android because you see him being 'put together' in the show's intro, so he's counting down to the 'big reveal' lol. We all laughed at him but hell with this show any crazy cr*p is possible haha. So I dunno about that theory but the convo between Dr death and Dr Soong Jr Jr Jr Jr Jr whatever about transferring human consciousness across into androids (like the actual Dr Soong already did with Data's mother, although the writers probably don't remember that lol) being close plants an interesting seed on this subject that I wonder what it will lead to (otherwise why did that scene happen?). Eg Picard is prob not an (failing) android now but maybe they'll stick him into one before his poor human brain gives out haha.

Either way.. weeks ago I was telling you guys that I liked the show but that I was still needing to see more to really decide. Well now I've seen like 90% of the show and I can say I don't love it, I don't hate it, it has bits I like, it has bits that annoy me, so I'm just somewhere in between all that sticking with it to see what happens with Data and & Picard.

[BlueFlames]

The series doesn't take the best course to get there, but it arrives at a good place in the season finale.

I like that the last several episodes are about the agency of the synths and that the direction of the season climax is, in the end, placed in their hands.

Also, to step back to the previous episode:  Jean Luc Picard remains the most English frenchman in both history and fiction.  That's always been the case, but his "I'm dying; I know it; now shut up about it," non-speech was just there to cement it.

[Colonol Dekker]

It's an awful show.  I've been watching from the start and aside from the production quality the whole thing is very very wooden.  It's not Patrick Stewart fault.

Just silly things like the borg dying after being blown into space yet surviving in vacuum in every other series or film they appear in. 

Obligatory space sword elf.

Krios is very one dimensional too.  The doc is just awful too, and don't get me started on the glaringly obvious robo nemesis personified in the anti-sascha.

[BlueFlames]

I have my problems with the series.  Chiefly, Raphi's 9/11 Mars Attack trutherism and its eventual vindication felt like downright irresponsible writing and made some of the episodes in the middle of the series a very tough watch.

But in the end, the broader themes came together nicely.  It's a series about agency:  About a privileged majority giving a downtrodden minority room to exercise their own agency.  Or, if you prefer, about a parent recognizing the growth of their children, and trusting them to make their own decisions.  It's good stuff, and it was executed well--made sufficiently explicit for the audience to see it, without flogging you over the head like some of the "preachy" episodes of past Star Trek series.

And I liked the cast too.  The characters--new and old--had their arcs woven together well (again, with the exception of Raphi's conspiracy theory).  Seeing the cast assembled on the bridge had me itching to see the next season and what the next adventure for this crew might be.

When I see complaints about Elond's sword or (especially) continuity errors, it just feels like missing the forest for the trees.  If that kind of trivial **** can ruin your enjoyment of a series, that might be a you-problem.

Just silly things like the borg dying after being blown into space yet surviving in vacuum in every other series or film they appear in. 

Did you hate First Contact because Worf got beamed off the Defiant through the Enterprise's shields?  Not being able to beam through a ship's shields is an oft-repeated rule of the Star Trek universe.  Did that continuity error just set you in a foul mood for the rest of the film--every time Worf was on-screen and not dead on the bridge of the Defiant?

Sometimes there's continuity problems in Star Trek.  Hell, they're almost obligatory.  Let it go.

[General Battuta]

I have my problems with the series.  Chiefly, Raphi's 9/11 Mars Attack trutherism and its eventual vindication felt like downright irresponsible writing and made some of the episodes in the middle of the series a very tough watch.

You probably knew this already but Alex Kurtzman (the showrunner's) long-time writing partner Orci is a vocal truther. Thus Star Trek Into Darkness and, maybe, this?

[BlueFlames]

Ick.

Hopefully they tone that **** down for season two.

[Grizzly]

https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2013/09/11/how-star-trek-into-darkness-is-a-crypto-truther-conspiracy-movie

[Colonol Dekker]

I have my problems with the series.  Chiefly, Raphi's 9/11 Mars Attack trutherism and its eventual vindication felt like downright irresponsible writing and made some of the episodes in the middle of the series a very tough watch.

But in the end, the broader themes came together nicely.  It's a series about agency:  About a privileged majority giving a downtrodden minority room to exercise their own agency.  Or, if you prefer, about a parent recognizing the growth of their children, and trusting them to make their own decisions.  It's good stuff, and it was executed well--made sufficiently explicit for the audience to see it, without flogging you over the head like some of the "preachy" episodes of past Star Trek series.

And I liked the cast too.  The characters--new and old--had their arcs woven together well (again, with the exception of Raphi's conspiracy theory).  Seeing the cast assembled on the bridge had me itching to see the next season and what the next adventure for this crew might be.

When I see complaints about Elond's sword or (especially) continuity errors, it just feels like missing the forest for the trees.  If that kind of trivial **** can ruin your enjoyment of a series, that might be a you-problem.

Just silly things like the borg dying after being blown into space yet surviving in vacuum in every other series or film they appear in. 

Did you hate First Contact because Worf got beamed off the Defiant through the Enterprise's shields?  Not being able to beam through a ship's shields is an oft-repeated rule of the Star Trek universe.  Did that continuity error just set you in a foul mood for the rest of the film--every time Worf was on-screen and not dead on the bridge of the Defiant?

Sometimes there's continuity problems in Star Trek.  Hell, they're almost obligatory.  Let it go.

I'm allowed to not like what I don't like 😜

[Det. Bullock]

I have my problems with the series.  Chiefly, Raphi's 9/11 Mars Attack trutherism and its eventual vindication felt like downright irresponsible writing and made some of the episodes in the middle of the series a very tough watch.

You probably knew this already but Alex Kurtzman (the showrunner's) long-time writing partner Orci is a vocal truther. Thus Star Trek Into Darkness and, maybe, this?

I remember when Lindsay Ellis in one of her videos marked him as "hack and 9/11 truther". Thank goodness I always take care to drink far away from the keyboard.
And yes, this 9/11 thing is getting on my nerves too, they took the most coward approach to almost every single theme in Discovery and then they put in truther bull****?

[Blake00]

Final Episode 10 rant..

Spoiler:

Kinda glad its all over as in these last few weeks it felt like I was just waiting for them to find new ways to disappoint me lol. Now that it's done I don't have to worry about it lol.

So.. that last episode.. once again we've got some good things but mostly things that annoyed me lol..

I enjoyed the Picard noble sacrifice to save Soji (from her fears) scene.. tugged on the old heart strings a bit so well done there. Was also nice to see Picard flying a ship and being himself a bit more instead of the usual helpless old man in the back seat stuff. Liked the Picard maneuver (the ship one not the shirt one lol) reference too..

Sure enough my prediction of Picard becoming an android, or more accurately an organic synthetic came true. Felt a bit weird though as lets face it, it's kinda like cloning in that they made an electronic copy of his mind meaning the Picard we know and love has just actually died lol. Not really sure how to feel about that other than it sucks a bit.

People who may remember my earlier posts here will know that my hope was that this series was all about resurrecting Data and undoing the damage Nemesis did. I was almost willing to accept all the other BS that had happened if that was the target. So I really hoped the golum would be for him and not a quick Picard resurrection. So when Picard bought it I knew what was coming...

But then he woke up in the simulation and there was data saying exactly what I had posted in previous posts that I'd hoped would happen. They combined those residual Data memories Maddox had generated for his synths with B4's backup of Data's brain to make a pretty much complete resurrected Data (from the moment he did the transfer a day or so before his death in Nemesis). I was so excited! The moment I'd been waiting for! But of course this is a Michael Chabon show and he wants to make Star Trek and its fans as miserable as possible lol so naturally a matter of seconds later this amazing resurrection that so many of us had dreamed of happening for almost 20 damn years was shown to be nothing more than a tease because Data asks to die. Picard then mercy kills him just like 7 of 9 mercy killed Icheb. Michael watched his father suffer & die slowly on life support while writing these new shows which is a horrible thing to go through (I dread having to go through something like that with my mother) and unfortunately all this stuff is probably him creatively dealing with that pain but unfortunately he's dealing with it using the Star Trek universe and characters loved by millions people. I get it, they wanted to give a data 'beautiful death' instead of the cheap one he got in Nemesis hence why I've seen people out there touched and happy with it. But as someone who pretty much was dying (pun not intended lol) to watch this series believing it was all gonna be about Data's resurrection I feel cheated. To tease him being back like that only to take him away just makes me wanna hop over to Michael's twitter and throw some 4 letter words his way (I won't though cause I don't wanna be a d*ck lol). Judging by this article he wouldn't care anyway[/url] and for those excited that he's not the main guy behind season 2 well guess what, that article confirms he's written 2 eps and also brainstormed the other 8 for season 2.. so yeah expect more attempts to make us miserable (if we watch) in the future lol.

I wish they could have brought Data back.. yes I'm not stupid.. I know Brent doesn't exactly look like Data anymore hence the mountain of makeup and weird camera angles of him sitting or standing to hide his belly making it half impossible to have him around all the time. However they could have brought him back and then have him go back to starfleet or earth or go on his own ventures or something. You know just send him off into the galaxy with happy "All Good Things" like moment to finish his ark. Let us fans think of him living on forever going on adventures and continuing his question to evolve. Let that be the last thing we see of him.. not him dying AGAIN. The face growing old (doesn't make any sense unless they programmed the event) and a virtual duplicate Picard in the red uniform standing over him, even though Picard had been extracted already (another copy lol??) all painted to give a beautiful death triggering an emotional response that makes some forget the weirdness and lack of science and sense behind it lol. However there's nothing stopping them from resurrecting Data again so screw you Michael I'm going to choose to believe that Dr Soon Jr Jr Jr Jr being the sneaky guy he is backed up another copy of Data's mind, waited for Picard to leave then stuck Data in another golum and now he's out there living happily every after lol. Picard's "my gain is your loss line" implies Soong Jr Jr Jr Jr can't make another golum but get stuffed.. Maddox did the brains and Soong Jr Jr Jr Jr did the bodies, nothing stopping him from making more lol.

Anyway back to Picard's death and resurrection wtf was with them rush skipping over most of the casts reaction to him being back again. Once again Michael's story telling has us in pain watching everyone cry for like 10 damn minutes and then doesn't bother to cover everyone seeing him alive again except for Dr Death, Soong Jr Jr Jr Jr and Soji. Literally straight back on the ship like nothing happened lol.

Speaking of that final ship scene I've seen some people confusingly posting "are Raffi and 7 of 9 lovers?" well that 2nd article I linked I linked to above has Michael confirming it.. action jackson 7 of 9 had a thing with that crime lord chick she vaporized and she's got a thing with Raffi or whatever her name is (I just cannot remember these new cast member names haha), so expect more of the stuff we've seen from Discovery in Picard season 2 (poor Chakotay haha). I'll leave that for others to debate the merits of all that as it doesn't really bother me, other than to say I find their 'all or nothing' approach a bit weird as does this mean the other shows coming (ST Section 31, ST Pike, ST Lower Decks) will do the same?

Oh and speaking of 7 of 9.. how did the Romulan evil chick get back on the cube to fight 7 of 9??? she left the cube with the fleet several eps ago didn't she???

I saw some article a few days ago which I can't seem to find now sorry but it talked about plans for a crossover series that would involve casts members from all the different new trek shows.. pretty much the marvel avengers of new star trek lol. I really don't know how to feel about that lol. I mean if this had been 30 years ago and we had Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway and Archer and other cast members all in one big crossover event series that would have been epic (hell I think there's a popular Novel series out there that sort of did that isn't here?) but massive crossover series with new trek people.. I'm a bit meh.. but hey ya never know lol.

Anyway back to the Picard finale.. the whole fleet stand off didn't really excite me much at all (other than Picards noble sacrifice I mentioned earlier).. we saw those damn space flowers you saw me moaning about last time again haha, then they used that 'magical plot hole device' to generate duplicate Dr death faces and then the ships all with warp core illusions. Come on man this a advanced Romulan fleet, not those idiot half primitive Kazon in the Delta quadrant that fell for voyagers holograms but anyway.. this all lead to a rather amazing sequence where the evil commodore half Vulcan chick just kept preparing to fire and retargeting.. I think after the 5th or 6th time I actually yelled out (no BS I kid you not) at the TV "STOP PREPARING AND JUST FIRE THE F******** WEAPONS AT SOMETHING ALREADY!!!" hahahaha.

Then Riker shows up to give us some fan service. Kinda cool but once again just like with Soong Jr Jr Jr Jr 's reveal in the prev episode the delivery just.. felt.. wrong! Urgh. I mean I know he said he's on the active service list still but he's been retired for years and they just give him command of a huge fleet right off the bat, no admirals needed lol? They wouldn't even give Picard a crappy old science vessel but they'll give Riker a friggin fleet lol! I expected the admiral who swears a lot to be in charge of it to be honest. But hey's there's some fan service to be given here and I guess I should be happy Michael didn't try to kill him off too lol! I've seen people on the internet making fun of the obvious CGI background behind him too.. I can see why, as it doesn't look any better than the ones in the fan film Star Wreck, a movie made by a bunch of Finnish nerds in their bedrooms 20years ago lol (great film though haha). If we're wrong and that's a redressed discovery set or something then boy did they mess that up as it really looks fake lol.

And what the hell was going on with all the ships????? The entire romulan fleet was made out of 1 ship design plus a special capital command ship. These guys lost their homeworld and the vast majority of their population yet apparently they can afford to throw out all their old ships (except for that 22nd century Rom ship in ep 4 lol) and have a brand spanking new fleet lol. I mean this was the PERFECT opportunity to give more fan service and fill the fleet with old Valdors and D'deridex's.

Copy and paste a lot of that for Riker's fleet too. He warped in with 200 friggin ships that look the same.. what the hell!! When I think back to the giant federation fleets used in the Dominion war that were filled with old ships.. by then excelsiors would have been about 90 years old (at least the design anyway) and reliants and saratogas would have been over 110 years old. So why not stick some old galaxys, sovereigns and defiants in this fleet??

For a show that has a budget the old trek shows could only dream of I'm amazed that they literally built 2 giant fleets of the same ships using copy & paste.. Also was it just me or did the ships also look rather fake CGI looking.. they must have accidentally blown the budget out and run out of money.. that has to the be the reason for calling it in surely? The CGI DS9 fleets looked better than this for christ sake. This video pretty much confirms it lol.

Anyway then he just left... a dying Picard is like "oh yeah I can handle it from here Will".. and Wills like "sure bro.. I'll take all these ships we had to pull from vital missions and just turn around after being here for all 5 minutes" lol. If I was the Vulcan commodore chick I would have said "hey the federation is abandoning the planet again lets turn around and blow sh*t up before they come back again.. EVERYONE PREPARE TO FIRE SOME MORE!!!" lol.. Someone that obsessed aint gonna care about the treaty of Algeron. Also she's responsible for the deaths of everyone on Mars and most of the Romulan homeworld (by destroying the rescue fleet).. but nah its cool you can fly off lol.

Oh well.. I could pick at a bunch of other things but I'll stop complaining haha.. time to move on! I'll probably still cop the hater title from some people who loved it but like I said before normally I love all scifi and am super tolerant and am often the one taking on the haters lol but this show (much like the new main star wars films) just rubbed me the wrong way from ep5 onwards.. I guess its because these characters that I grew up with mean a lot to me and I don't like seeing them having to run the Michael Chabon gantlet of death and misery.

At this stage I now actually prefer Discovery over Picard. Probably because they're not screwing with my beloved childhood characters as much haha which means I can tolerate more plot and technology gaffes. I thought they handled Spock and Pike pretty well in s2 and it really made the show so much better having them and the Enterprise there. So I worry a bit about Disco s3 as they won't have those improvements anymore.. however I'm super excited about the ST Pike show. At least they listened to the fans on that one!

[Colonol Dekker]

Could see any hidden twists a mile off, and (spoilers be damned) they managed to clone data's personality and save it on a server?
Did not like any of it,  Riker had no place in charge of any force that was rallied and deployed "in the nick of time" did not like one sausage of the entire Butcher shop ...... Except 7s confirmed lesbianism... Justified all teenage thoughts.

[rubixcube]

Unmitigated disaster...

[Blake00]

Unmitigated disaster...

very good haha!

I thought Discovery season 1 was okay but there were many things that annoyed me. Season 2 was a huge improvement for me however that was mainly due to the additional cast members playing Pike, Spock and Number One on the enterprise, there was still some silly stuff (lazy writing plot hole things as usual) that annoyed me though. Season 3 loses those great additions so I fear it'll disappoint me again lol. My love of the Disco season 2 Enterprise content of course also leaves me super excited for Star Trek Strange New Worlds (aka the Star Trek Pike show fans demanded heh) as they've said it will be a more traditional episodic Star Trek adventure show on the Enterprise! So hopefully they can't screw that up too much... although there's some rumour (possibly BS) out there that it's also going to have a young bisexual Kirk running about in the show so read into that what you will lol!!

Back to good old Picard.. I've decided I'm not going to call it that anymore now. To me this show shall now be known as 'Patrick Stewart Goes To Space' (PSGTS for short) as there really isn't much Star Trek or Picard in it lol!!! I've been waiting for the 'Critical Drinker' to review PSGTS as I've become an fan of his after seeing his Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker reviews on those cluster****s. Sure enough in the video below you can see he hates it and he talks about Picard himself being rather useless just like I talked about in my episode reviews earlier in this thread. Yes I know hating on stuff is kind of his gimmick haha but he makes good points that match a lot of my previously posted thoughts.

This is Patrick Stewart Goes To Space!

And this is Star Trek Picard baby!!

.