Star Trek: Picard.

Can't wait till Christopher Lloyd kills him next season.

more that the balance of elements and timing was just right and made it enjoyable to watch.

THis season I'm not expecting much more than fan service and classic tropes, so it's gonna be about how well they're presented and played.

Well that episode was very...engaging.

Good to see Ferangi makeup is normal and not the unnecessary change they did in Discovery.

Damn, this episode really took off.

I'm really liking Liam Shaw. He doesn't let hero worship affect him, he gives zero fucks about standing up to Picard or Riker. He isn't afraid to let two of the heroes of Starfleet know that his crew is more important than they are.

Add soon as that dude got impaled, I knew it had to be Worf. And that is what as Klingon warrior should be, fast, ruthless, efficient. He's still a warrior and loyal to those he serves with.

Jack being Picard's son, you knew that as soon as he appeared.

I'm thinking that Erika Benteen may play a role, maybe.

Not sure what DNA sequences have to do with this season, yet. They are prominent during the end credits.

Yeah, Liam Shaw may be one my favorite captains.

The Titan-A's an exploratory vessel?

Captain Freeman was very much onto something when she turned down the refit in S2 after Luna class Titan picked off the Packleds in LD...
("I hate it when they come out all Sovereign class...") (Of course, in the Cerritos' case, it would have been an upgrade, not a downgrade...)

I think either the DNA has to do with Picard’s son or Lore/Data being an old white man now.

That's a good cliff-hanger.

That's a really common problem, lately if not always. Paul Wesley is WAY too old to be playing a 20-something Jim Kirk next season and no one with any influence seems to care.

So apparently the Ferengi was played (quite well, i thought, I typically loath Ferengi) by Aaron Stanford of 12 Monkeys.
Also, one of Jack's aliases was "James Cole" - IYKYK

I was certainly underwhelmed by Paul as Jim Kirk. I think they took a shot and missed, which is a shame because the rest of the casting is impeccable.

Agreed. Upon further reflection, he's not quite the asshole that he came off as in the season premiere. Look at things from his perspective: he is in charge of a Starfleet vessel with 500 lives aboard. Just because a bunch of old fart "legends" show up doesn't mean he's going to drop everything for them and risk his ship and crew. His executive officer also ignores his orders, despite them being perfectly legitimate. In any organization with a chain of command, that's very problematic.

Shaw is also not a coward, because despite his reservations about leaving Federation space he finally made the call to rescue Picard et al.

thinking about it, his take on their history kind of parallels the TNG perspective on Kirk's days of "cowboy diplomacy". Basically, "You assclowns are the reason we have these rules.".

even with the practical mutiny and Big Reveal of No Shit (tm), dude is just like.."sigh... fine. I guess we're doing this.", and drops gloves.

poor dude just wanted to do his job quietly exploring and making fifth contacts... :'(

Michael Dorn got a better stunt double for fight scenes.

I noticed last night that I wasn't counting the minutes until the episode was over. Surprised again when the credits rollled.

I thought I recognized the actor. I love it! 12 Monkeys class reunion. Now if they just bring back Jennifer playing some crazy lady, James Cole, goddamn Terry Matalis. I knew I recognized that name too. I was watching the episode and when (Deacon) Shaw mentioned the name James Cole then said, “cute” I was like, “ what is that a reference to?” Cheeky bastard. Thank you for pointing that out, 12 Monkeys is one of my favorite sci-fi series’ in the past ten years.

I think of him like Jellico.

One thing I’m conflicted about is the fact that Picard had a mind meld with Sarek so he should understand the concept of the needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few, or the one. That being said, he did a mind meld with Sarek so he should understand what it’s like to have a son and lose his son and of course he’s aware of the events of TSFS. I think it would be interesting if they would address this.

One doesn't have to have a mind meld to understand the concept of the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. And one can, despite having many mind melds and being steeped in Vulcan philosophy and even generally agreeing with it, can come to the conclusion that the general principle does not apply in a particular case, or that it never applies/should never apply to the point where it is worth sacrificing one individual's rights. If we're going to complain about Picard not abiding by the needs of the many, let's go back to "I, Borg" or probably a number of other TNG episodes one could name.

I liked this episode enough, but there was something that bothered the shit outta me. It seems like Picard is ready to yield to Shaw’s judgement when he is only questioning if Jack is his son. But the second the look from Beverly confirms that Jack is his son, all of that goes out the window and now he’s overriding Shaw’s orders on Admiral’s authority. I’m old enough to to remember when Wesley was on a planet full of bikini people and fell into a forbidden garden or something and they were ready to kill him. Beverly came to Picard in tears asking him to save Wesley and he gave her some bullshit about the Prime Directive. I know it different since Jack is his and whatever… but it just bothered me.

And I just don’t like how they are portraying Star Fleet in this new era of Trek. Spies at the top and shady reasoning and character… poorly lit ships. Just yuck.

It feels like a modern day "24" episode, or one of those cop shows that are churned out a dime a dozen, all with the same militarized, jingoist aesthetic.

Pump action phaser rifles.
No proper lighting.
Gritty BROOOOOOOOOOOOMP sound when a spiky ship arrives.

I mean, in "Justice," Picard did ultimately say F--- the prime directive and intervene to save Wesley.

Also, there's a difference between "should we violate the Prime Directive and allow a generally innocent child to be put to death (a penalty that doesn't exist in the Federation) for the minor crime of stepping on the grass?" and "should we turn over a person apparently credibly suspected of murder and other crimes to someone who has us outmanned and outgunned by like a lot"?

I think Classic TNG Picard would have been reluctant to turn over someone to their deaths regardless of who it was.

TWOK disagrees!

TWOK ships were very well lit. The darkest the ship gets is in the scenes where the ship goes to red alert, and even then things are perfectly visible.











Meanwhile, on Star Trek Picard, every ship looks like the lights blew out and they're running on backup power.

The trope that's grinding my gears right now is the Villain Who Knows Everything About the Protagonist but the Protagonist Knows Jack Shit About the Villain trope.
Vadic knowing all there is about Shaw and Picard in this case. Would Picard being a synth be common knowledge? Or Shaw's psych profile be that readily available?

Don't get me wrong -- the trope is great when it's done well. Final Fantasy 14 pulls it off very nicely in Stormblood during the Parley with the Garlemald Emperor Varis sol Galvus, as it's his job to know everything about the lands he's conquered or at war with, while making sure his political rivals (the Scions of the Seventh Dawn and the Eorzean Alliance leadership during the Parley) know little and less about him and the Empire's raison-d'être.

But the trope is invoked too often to create a chessmaster villain situation when it's not really warranted.

I would be inclined to think that Picard's being a synth would be common knowledge, or common enough that a rando villain could plausibly know it without special insight/a mole in Starfleet/etc.

Picard is one of the most famous people in the Federation, and to boot, he has a connection to Beverly Crusher that Vadic would know about. It seems plausible to me that in her ongoing pursuit of Beverly and Jack, she would have done background research as to who their potential allies were. And more specifically, once they were aware that Crusher had sent a message to Picard, she would have had reason to do research.

If the Federation has an equivalent of People/Extra/TMZ, it would not surprise me that the galaxy generally knows that Picard is a synth. Moreover, given the Federation was so anti-synth, one would think that there would have had to have been some public-facing discourse about Picard's being a synth that she could become aware of.

The information about Shaw is a little tougher to rationalize. Presumably Vadic was able to see what ship she was dealing with, learn who is assigned to the captain fairly easily. How she was able to get access to some level of his psych profile is a little harder. But given that Geordi was able to get Leah Brahms's basic personality profile info just for asking within seconds and use it to inform her holo-duplicate, it doesn't strike me as too much of a stretch that Starfleet transparency and lack of HIPAA might allow for Vadic to reach a contact with access to the information about Shaw and get it from the contact relatively quickly. (Or it could all just be a bluff. She didn't say anything significant about what the profile supposedly says).

Not compared with TNG (or TOS).

TV lighting was much brighter for the time and, until the more recent trend of making it impossible to see shit on the big and small screen, was never made to be more "cinematic" in that respect. Picard is a TV show, it should not have motion picture cinematic lighting as its default, not unless it's hiding some serious visual sins.

That line where young La Forge tries explaining the weaponized repulsor beam to Shaw was fucking cringey. Yes, you're Geordie's daughter. Thank you for making it explicitly clear again in case everyone forgot since the last episode.



Same energy.

I'd like to think that after dropping the ball by not advocating for the rights of ex-borg, Picard publicly stood up for synth rights. "You wanna ban them? Then you'll have to ban me too. Go ahead, disassemble me right here right now, you fucks" and so on.

Beverly telling Picard in the beginning to not involve Starfleet (boy did he fuck that one up) suggests that the organization is compromised in some way, so someone on the inside could be feeding Vadic relevant information. Or maybe all the insider knowledge is a clue that she's more than she seems. Either way, I hope it gets explained and she's not just well informed for the sake of being well informed.

Yeah, Shaw is still all over the map here. Why would he just try to abandon Picard and Riker in the nebula? Shouldn't he want to find out why they dragged the Titan out there in the first place only to steal a shuttle and try to disappear? What if they're defecting to the Breen, or trying to smuggle something out of Federation space, or working on some devious Borg/Synth scheme? Why weren't both of them immediately sent to the brig after he rescued them? Why wasn't Seven confined to quarters? Maybe he can't immediately prove that she helped Picard steal the shuttle, but he can absolutely prove that she diverted the Titans course in violation of his orders.

Also Shaw looks like a lunatic going from "I'm not risking 500 lives for two old men" which is cowardly and unheroic but also kind of fair, to "I'm absolutely risking 500 lives for the son of a man I wanted to let die forty minutes ago," which might seem noble and principled if not for his earlier position. I bet that psych evaluation is fascinating.

Oh yeah, and the OG Titan was a frontline ship that got into thrilling fights with Pakleds and such. I seriously doubt they downgraded it's offensive capabilities during the refit.

That kind of thing requires forethought and planning, with someone to reign in the worst excesses of the writers and the actors. Clearly, someone up top said "I don't give a fuck," and the writers ran with it, because the theme so far has been to follow "the rule of cool," and little else.

I bet at some point in a future episode this season we'll get a really super cool gadgety weapon on either a ship or some kind of gun that is really stupid to have and wholly impractical, but looks really cool.

"It takes 5 minutes to deploy while in the midst of a firefight, but damn it's cool!"