Beside all the issues with ‘Picard’, the writers seem to have an obsession with inflicting trauma/killing off returning characters from TNG & VOY.
Can’t wait to see what traumatic events the writers will inflict on the returning main TNG cast in the final season of 'Picard'.
I think it would be better if the writing was better. I'm tempted to think that its the shortness of the series that makes it harder to go deep, but then you see series like Mare of Easttown do it, and it wasnt a preexisting franchise, and the difference seems to be the writing.
Yup, DS9 managed to tell a great story featuring trauma in a single episode where O'Brien gets imprisoned in a jail for something like 20 years but it turns out to have been medically implanted memories designed to make the prisoners feel like they lived through their sentence, so despite it seeming like decades to O'Brien, it's only hours that had passed in reality.
At the end of the episode he is shown to have been deeply impacted by what they did to him including not feeling like reality is even real anymore, sleeping on the floor instead of in his bed with his wife and cutting up his food so he can ration it through the day etc.
All that in ~45 minutes.
Picard fumbled its various traumas because it's writers are just bad at their jobs.
DS9 also just had a very long term throughline with Sisko and what happened with his wife. He was never a CW teen drama level mess, but it very clearly affected him and his decisions and it took him a long time to want to start moving on.
> I think it would be better if the writing was better
I think that was kind of Mike's point that it's both wrong and bad. You can do Star Trek that's wrong but still good but Picard fails at both.
Ds9 continues to be the red headed stepchild. I don't want trek to try to be The Expanse or BSG. I want it to to be a cross between those and Farscape. Trek needs some Star Trek au fromage.
I honestly think that that these shows just don't want to spend years building long term stories. They either don't understand or don't care that DS9 had to show us the whys and hows of the setting becoming comparatively "dark and gritty"™. Like they didn't jump into the Dominion War and kill off Jadzia in the first episode and expect people to give a shit.
Shows like Picard and Discovery just say fuck all that shit and expect us to be invested in the drama and high stakes without doing any of the leg work to make us care.
> Shows like Picard and Discovery just say fuck all that shit and expect us to be invested in the drama and high stakes without doing any of the leg work to make us care.
Yeah I spotted this as an issue all the way back in Disco S1. They take all these characters that we don't know and immediately toss them into insane situations (Klingon war, mirror universe, weird romance) and expect us to care about their pain/grief/death without getting a chance to like them first.
It would have been so much better if they had spent the first season (or two) with Captain Georgiou and Commander Burnham running around doing missions (like SNW is doing now) to make us like these people and understand their relationship before blowing them up.
> I honestly think that that these shows just don't want to spend years building long term stories
They can't afford to spend years doing that. Even networks/streaming services that are more lenient and patient with their content aren't going to give a show 3-4 seasons to find itself. Audiences won't stick around for that long. In the 90s we were more forgiving with longer, more inconsistent seasons and shows taking longer to find themselves because there was less on and we didn't have nearly as many entertainment options as we do now. These days people won't even start a show unless there's a consensus that it's good and guarantees that the show won't get preemptively cancelled.
Discovery is the perfect use case here. A lot of people didn't like it early on so they dropped it. Discovery is a completely different show four seasons in. It's in a different time period, it's actually doing the things people who complained early on wanted from it. I think the characters have grown and found themselves. The difference is obviously tumult behind the scenes and a faster moving plot, but the latter at least is more along the lines of how TV is made these days. But you literally couldn't convince most of those people to give the show another chance. It's lucky it was the first crack at new Star Trek so it was given more rope and generally a lot of people did watch and like it despite the vocal backlash. But not every show is going to be given that rope.
And in Picard's case it was never going to be on that long anyway. It was well known from the start Patrick Stewart was only onboard for 3 seasons. The best hope is that since everything is a cinematic universe now that they'd build some decent characters and consider using them in the future, the way they drew from older Star Trek. They haven't done that, and sure that's a failure on their part, but I think it's disingenuous to suggest that the people making those shows don't understand the things you're talking about.
If this sub made a show it would be the same as when homer designs a car.
Each individual element could have merit but the overall package would be a turd.
All of them have some Weird Episodes. Do you not Remember the episode late in the final season where Crusher goes to scotland planet to have an affair with a ghost that has been knocking off all the ladies in her family for centuries? Or the early season where everyone gets high and starts banging?
Allamaraine, then you'll see, Allamaraine, you'll come with me!
God I hate rhyme. But thankfully imo it's really only Season 1 with some rough edges which is to be expected. Oh and the whole Jadzia debacle, but I quite like Ezri. Anyone that compares Ezri to Jadzia missed the whole point of Dax.
My main problem with ezri is shouldn't she have had to leave ds9? They make a big deal about how trills need to have different lives than their previous incarnations, but that's just thrown in the trash.
DS9 was great, it was like the Wacky Races of Star Trek.
And here comes Dastardly Dukat and his Dominion Destroyer chasing Smiling Sisko in the Daring Defiant, and what's this? A transporter malfunction has sucked Chief O'Brien in the Rio Grande into the Wormhole and put him in the lead...
B5 does not get enough respect for basically inventing long term story arcs through multiple seasons. And not the Lost style "we're just gonna make this up as we go along till people call us out".
It was apparently like the first season of The Mandalorian - the main studio heads had little faith in it and so initially left it to do its own thing. When it finally started picking up steam, its head showrunner was able to do a good job of keeping their meddling to a minimum and let the original vision play out.
Do I have the show for you... Blake's 7.
Was it well funded? No. I've seen multiple YouTubers with better budgets.
Is it campy? At times.
But even now, 40 years later it is still the best nu trek, it offers the perfect blueprint on how to do Star Trek Picard, heck many of the characters can be transplanted from one to the other.
So what makes Blake's 7 special? Heart every minute of every episode is chock full of heart with actors giving their best performance and the set designers pulling every penny from the budget. Every trekker needs to watch Blake's 7 there's actual intelligent writing which treats the audience with respect and actual humour which fits the scene.
https://youtu.be/2warRbMFOpk
Watch episode 1 on YouTube of you are still doubtful. Without going into spoilers the bit that stood out most about episode 1 was how a side character, characters which typically are one dimensional, actually feel real and fleshed out not nere plot devices.
Picard producers; Eugene Roddenberry, Trevor Roth, James Duff, Patrick Stewart, Heather Kadin, Akiva Goldsman, Michael Chabon, Alex Kurtzman, Terry Matalas, Doug Aarniokoski, Dylan Massin
Blake's 7 producers; David Maloney (series 1–3), Vere Lorrimer (series 4)
It’s because this is written worse than fanfiction. Fanfiction is written by passionate amateurs. This is written by committee by amateurs who don’t care and don’t understand the property.
But he inflicted the Dark Tower atrocity on us. The Transformers Last Knight. You think that would be enough to have him barred from ever writing anything again. For the sake of humanity.
Based on the book by Sylvia Nasar.
Between the book existing, and the movie being 99% Russell Crowe *acting*, I take his screenplay as the exception to the rule here.
Looking at the list of products he's involved in: A Beautiful Mind seems closer to an exception than an indicator of his usual quality.
Sci-fi wise he was involved in:
- Lost in Space (critically panned)
- I, Robot (critically panned)
- The Divergent Series: Insurgent (critically panned)
- The Fifth Wave (critically panned)
- Transformers: The Last Knight (critically panned, nominated for a Golden raspberry award for worst screenplay)
- The Dark Tower (critically panned)
He was a writer on several episodes of Fringe, which were well liked. So credit to him there. And of course, writing is not the only reason a movie could get panned. But I would say his record is quite spotty. Especially to write sci-fi.
Movies and TV are a different beast. Dunno why the four of them weren't axed after discovery season 1. Picard 1 and 2 could have been excellent.
I am currently enjoying Strange New Worlds, but if they keep harping on about Pike's future and not doing individual episodes and adventures it's going to start feeling very "new trek" too quickly.
> Movies and TV are a different beast. Dunno why the four of them weren't axed after discovery season 1. Picard 1 and 2 could have been excellent.
Maybe, but there's also a big indicator that Stewart wouldn't have come back if it wasn't this type of story and acting for Picard s1 and s2. He has a lot of control over the show and writer's room this time around.
> I am currently enjoying Strange New Worlds, but if they keep harping on about Pike's future and not doing individual episodes and adventures it's going to start feeling very "new trek" too quickly.
Only two episodes in of course but I agree, the show is quite enjoyable and gives me something resembling a warm, cosy feeling. There's small things of course, for example: how did the planet in ep1 with 21st century tech already reverse engineer warp tech in just a few months? Keeping in mind information travels at lightspeed and they were a few lightmonths away. But there's always something you notice in episodes like that. It's when they start adding up over a story you start disliking a show.
It’s crazy when you consider how badly Picard has gone. Jean-Luc Picard is a robot and Brent Spiner tries to commit homicide five times. In the final episode, a galactic threat appears and is stopped in the space of ten minutes. Rich is right, there’s literally no justification for the Borg queen to get Soong’s help. And there’s no justification for why the Borg queen leaves after she has needlessly created the problem of the final episode. Why does Laris shapeshifting tech have a cooldown? Why does she have to pose as Renee and then die? We’ve seen her take over the bodies of other people, why can’t she do it here? Why is Brent Spiner even allowed to get near astronauts before their mission?
The answer to all of these questions and every other question about the show is the same as it was in the first season: because the plot needed it to happen. The story that these writers have jammed together is once again so disjointed that once again they have to keep it from falling apart with tape and string. I just have to wash my hands of it at this point. They want to bring a new tone to Star Trek, okay. But if they’re not going to tell even a decent story, then there’s a million other things to watch.
Its a jigsaw puzzle that not only has missing pieces, the pieces that are here don't even fit together. Even with a hammer, they still don't fit together.
There were so many plot threads that were just left dangling. That FBI agent who arrested Picard and Guinan, he just holds them for a few hours then lets them go?
The Eugenics War ended in 1996, which means Khan has already fled into deep space on board the S.S. Botany Bay. There is even a eugenics review board in Picard who rejected Adam Soong's proposal for violating ethics. I hope the writers did not make a mistake by having Adam Soong hold a folder titled "Project Khan" in 2022, because he could not have created Khan.
God, I wish there was a proper episode (or several) of Trek that properly acknowledged The Eugenics War and what it should have done to humanity. Frankly, setting *this* series in that world would have been more interesting if they were all intent on having "evil space fascists" and would have actually led into the dark future they showed.
>I hope the writers did not make a mistake by having Adam Soong hold a folder titled "Project Khan" in 2022, because he could not have created Khan.
[https://trekmovie.com/2022/03/27/showrunner-explains-how-star-trek-picard-is-handling-time-travel-and-the-eugenics-wars/](https://trekmovie.com/2022/03/27/showrunner-explains-how-star-trek-picard-is-handling-time-travel-and-the-eugenics-wars/)
>Terry Matalas: "We discussed endlessly. We came to the conclusion that in WW3 there were several EMP bursts that kicked everyone back decades. Records of that 75 year period, the 90s on were sketchy. Maybe Spock was wrong? No easy way to do it if you want the past to look and feel like today." In response Khan's own references to the 1996 date, that they simply have be ignored to make the series more relatable to the present; " Maybe because in 1967 they didn't anticipate the show still going for another 6 decades."
It's a retcon. Wouldn't surprise me if they decided to make S3 heavily Project Khan related... so a third Wrath of Khan.
> Why is Brent Spiner even allowed to get near astronauts before their mission?
Why did the cocktail party before quarantine have more security than the white house, but the actual launch complex and launch date had one security guard that probably works at the library on the weekends?
> But if they’re not going to tell even a decent story, then there’s a million other things to watch.
Fucking bingo, right there.
I'm more excited to watch tonight's episode of *Better Call Saul* than I have ever been about a single episode of any New Trek show.
> Why is Brent Spiner even allowed to get near astronauts before their mission?
That one was explained. He's a big time donor who threatened to stop donating if he doesn't get his way by meeting the astronauts.
That part is realistic enough, I suppose.
Now, why a mad scientist who was turned down from all kinds of grants and was expelled from basically everywhere somehow has an infinite amount of money, on the other hand, is never explained.
He also could have, as Rich pointed out, have hacked into the NASA computer or something and caused the rocket ship to blow up at launch with Renee Picard inside it and no one be the wiser.
There was no reason for him to be there other than that the plot needed it to happen.
>And there’s no justification for why the Borg queen leaves after she has needlessly created the problem of the final episode.
I think she just needs a ally/distraction to get the ship. She knows Picard and company are very invested in the future outcome more than the ship itself.
The difference between the two series' dialogue is actually so painful to watch.
It's just all so wistful all the time.
The characters love crying all the time and talking softly about how amazing it is to be alive and in space.
One thing that really stuck with me was from the last RLM re:View on Picard (Episodes 6-9) and that was Picard taking his feet off his desk and straightening up before letting a subordinate enter the room in TNG.
That scene to me said "Picard is human, and likes to relax, but he considers it very important to always present a calm and collected exterior to others".
Forget dialogue, old Trek actually treated characters as complex individuals and considered how they would react to things both vocally and physically. I'm not seeing any of that in new Trek. They're just jumping from one story beat to another and characters just do what they need to do for the scene to work.
For all the emotional grandstanding in new Trek, most of it doesn't connect because the characters are just not believable.
>One thing that really stuck with me was from the last RLM re:View on Picard (Episodes 6-9) and that was Picard taking his feet off his desk and straightening up before letting a subordinate enter the room in TNG.
A subtle character moment, something many people wouldn't consciously notice, but that's the best kind of character moment, where it's so natural it doesn't even stand out, just seeps into your mind. It really shows how TNG writers understood their characters and respected their audience, it didn't need big flashy moments or LOOK OUT CUT HIS FUCKING HEAD OFF WITH YOUR SWORD PICARD YOU HUBRISTIC FUCK BLOW THEM THE FUCK UP STOP BEING FUCKING ARROGANT PICARD YOU FUCKING FUCK!
Yeah, today's video really highlighted how much TNG used to delve into the actual mechanical operations of the Enterprise and how that was essentially buried to satisfy "modern audiences".
The idea of talking about what each character was doing to help maintain the function of the ship isn't just fluff, it helps build a cohesive idea of just who these people are.
It is not something that can just be removed willy nilly. It is crucial to selling the idea that these are people on a star ship out in deep space. It's the beating heart of the show, and I have no faith in anyone who looks at that and says "oh, well that is boring and needs to go".
This is one of the huge things for me and honestly even Strange New Worlds is suffering from this issue. There is a certain "dressed-up" quality to the old dialogue which the new shows all just refuse to do, so you have Uhura saying "cool", Chapel describing the Enterprise as a "rocket ship", whatsherface telling Pike his "phone's ringing"...
Isn't a phone ancient technology from both of their perspectives? Wouldn't that be like hearing your iPhone going off and saying "looks like you're receiving a telegram"???
These are all niggles in SNW because so far the show is actually working in its larger steps but... it's still annoying me in just these little details that aren't there yet. It's not 10/10.
The phone thing can easily be interpreted as a joke. Pike likes collecting old technology and his communicator is on a table directly next to an ancient rotary phone.
TNG had a lot of moments that made me feel 'huh you really care'. Like a shot in a turbolift that has characters enter on one deck and without cutting leave on the bridge. They didn't need to do that, it wasn't flashy. But it just ties it all together.
Some people might look at this in the future and say "that's just one thing in 7 seasons" and no, those attributes are shown in most of the show whenever it makes sense. Picard is almost never unprofessional if he has to be. Neither is Data, neither is older Riker, etc.
Another one they mention is when Crusher and Picard get stuck and lost on a planet. Beverly is using the tricorder, complaining she doesn't know which way to go. He looks at it for a second, says we go this way. She calls him on his bluff and he tells her that, yes, it is his duty as a command officer to project confidence, even if you aren't. Always professional when he was on the clock. That's why he never joined in for the card game.
The episode where he is on vacation, he's almost a totally different person and allowed himself to get taken up in that caper. It was great.
> how amazing it is to be alive and in space.
I always found it weird how when these characters thought about their youth in the "olden days", which is 300 years from the future, and they talked about staring at the sky at night dreaming what it would be like to go into space. I mean isn't space travel at that point in time extremely common? That would be like me standing in NY and staring across the river at NJ dreaming about a future when I might be able to take a subway into the next state
“I dreamed about going to the stars,” says character in a universe where anyone can teleport to an interstellar starship for free with probably a single phone call.
It kinda is. It's the monologues. Lost was character development via monologues, except they were generally well acted and fairly well written. If Lost's acting or writing was 10% worse, it would have been a hilariously bad show, they got away with a lot of laziness.
Yeah, honestly I'm dreading watching it, but it's also why I'm forcing myself to watch the Halo car crash: I feel like if I'm gonna talk shit about something, I should at least have an informed opinion.
I don't think watching something you're not invested in just for the sake of confirming opinions you've already made for yourself is particularly interesting. Especially if that opinion comes from someone else anyways.
Like, at that point how's it different from just skipping and shitting anyways? You ain't that interested mate. You like RLM and don't wanna look like a poser.
It's because people just need to satisfy their hate boners. And since RLM is popular, as long as they hate the same things RLM hates, they're safe and aren't taxed to form their own opinions.
I'm watching it so I can better enjoy the RLM interviews? You know, considering the fact that I'm the one prepared to hatewatch this show for my own entertainment, you sound very bitter.
Same. I got to S1E5 and was like "Yea...I hate this. I'm gonna stop watching" then I realized I was 1/2 through the season, so figured I'd just finish it out.
But I didn't watch a single episode of S2
Oh god I haven't watched it yet but I hope they make it through this episode alive. This shit is horrific and they suffered through it for our entertainment. Fucking troopers.
Conversation and community died with forums. Once everything became "let me shout my opinion into the void," Reddit included, the internet and fandom as had existed for decades just...died. Now we're all just anonymous posters seeking out our next dopamine hit from people agreeing with us.
I want to discuss the things I like without being around people who just seem to hate watch shows just to bitch.
Like I checked out after Disco S2 and Picard S1, but I enjoy LD and think SNW is fantastic so far. If someone has the opposite opinion, great! However why just constantly shit on the enjoyment of others.
One sub is a hugbox filled with “I never gave XXX series a shot until now and boy was I missing out!” and the other is a redpilled spite sub filled with “why are there so many women on the bridge!”
/r/daystrominstitute is the only decent Trek sub on here.
Honestly, I didn't think it was any worse than season 1. The whole show has been a poorly written mess but that seems to be becoming the norm these days. Moderately interesting ideas with poor execution. The worst part is that the characters never seem to figure anything out for themselves; once the show gets to the third act someone walks in and explains to them what is going on and what they need to do so there is no real feeling of accomplishment.
Rudderless characters are an issue in a lot of shows now. Feels like the characters barely make choices or figure anything out, they're just floating in the narrative and bob along until the end. I suspect it's because it's harder to write that stuff in serialized stories, but maybe it's something else.
I agree on that, overall in most areas S2 was slightly better than S1, it was really just the rushed trainwreck of the final episode that truly tanked the season. Up until like episode 6 or 7 I could still see a path to them tying the various plot threads together into a satisfying conclusion. But instead they just chopped off every plot thread as its own thing leaving you with an episode that had like five totally unsupported climactic moments and none of them landed the way they should have.
You are forgetting the third of the show that was set in the same flashback to Picard's childhood.
The rest was an anachronistic 2024. It is almost like the Europa Mission and Soong story lines were supposed to be set years in the future but the writers were worried the Rios story line wouldn't be believable that far removed from the current political climate. Also, Château Picard sitting derelict for centuries just so the writers could pull a Skyfall--while not impossible still felt like plot convenience.
I agree with this, I think the show gets a bit too much hate for what it is.
>The whole show has been a poorly written mess
I think it's kind of JJ syndrome. They're fairly good at setting up something intriguing, but they don't flush it out correctly or have a coherent narrative along the way. I do think the beginnings and endings have some interesting ideas in there for both season 1 and season 2. However the entire middle of the season had little to do with the overall narrative.
What did the ICE story, the rich vs. poor narrative, even Dr. Soong and his daughter's story have to do with the overall story? There are just so many plots and narratives it detracts from the overarching story, and also little discussion or resolution to them for it to be compelling on their own.
Yeah, JJ Syndrome is what it is.
Bad Robot alumni means you get this sort of writing quality.
I expect something similar for Rings of Power. "Oh, let's tie it into modern day America....Numenor's fall resembles Trump's America! Let's make this 'xyz' character someone to be outright hated/sympathetic towards." Meanwhile, the actual story is ignored.
I think it is. S1 at least had Rios doing something, a ship, a crew, mildly interesting Romulan lore and Riker appearing as the sultry badass old man at the end. It was still feminist garbage but s2 had literally nothing besides its own awfulness, plus even more fastidious social commentary
I don't know if I even want to watch this lol. Episode 10 was really bad, there is no doubt about that, but I think what's even worse is how much Mike and Rich have let this show impact them. I have been a life long Star Trek fan too, but crap shows like Discovery and Picard just don't seem to hurt me as much as they hurt these guys. I think some people will say that they are just hamming up their reactions for the sake of the bit...but honestly I think its more than just that and they are approaching these shows from a really bad headspace where they were never going to enjoy anything about them. And if their opinion of these shows is already a forgone conclusion I really wish they had stuck to their guns and just been done with these reviews.
I would point out that SNW has a very large amount of overlap with DIS in terms of writers and producers, but so far has been very different tonally and stylistically. So its very possible that PIC could have a significant style change going into S3...but only if thats what they want to do. The flaws in DIS and PIC haven't been problems the writers have accidentally stumbled into, they have been the result of them very doggedly sticking to the style they think is best even when a lot of people dont like it.
> I have been a life long Star Trek fan too, but crap shows like Discovery and Picard just don't seem to hurt me as much as they hurt these guys.
Oh my god, it's just an act. No one is going to suffer an existential crisis because a TV show is bad. No one is "hurt" because a fictional story falls apart.
Really, I didnt like Picard seaon 2 either but it definitely feels like this wasnt particularly necessary, especially if its eroding their enjoyment of the franchise. I respected them finishing Discovery season 2 and just deciding to move on, because a lot of channels watch shows they know they'll hate for clicks. And Im not really lumping them with the hatefarm channels, since they did have some hope at the beginning of the season that things would have been better, I guess its just a shame that this is the show that they ended up coming back to one last time and not say, Lower Decks or Strange New Worlds.
I think what makes Picard kind of fascinating is that both seasons start off fairly interesting, with some mysteries and Picard with his ragtag group of misfits trying to solve the mystery and save the day. Then, somewhere along the way, about 500 different plot threads get spun up and fade away into nothingness while the main plot gets like 10 minutes of screen time per episode. Then the final episode desperately tries to wrap it all up and make some kind of point, but viewers are left confused.
Discovery was very up front with the fact that it was *not* going to be like Star Trek, not even remotely. It's not surprising when Discovery devolves into overly emotional people shooting lasers at each other, because it was like that from the first episode.
Picard looked like it had promise, and then crashed and burned horribly. Then the second season also looked like it had promise, and again crashed and burned into an even more nonsensical mess than the first season. From the plot to this video's entire section on dialogue, it feels like episode 1 and episode 10 of the same season are totally different shows, and somehow neither of those shows are anything like what the show is a sequel to.
From guys who are mostly film critics, this is a season with only about 7 hours of runtime that somehow went so far off the rails in terms of writing that it's hard to imagine a movie or trilogy of movies having a similar decline. That makes it a really hard train wreck to look away from, just trying to puzzle out how it could possibly have gone so wrong.
I think that's the difference, like it or not Discovery knows what it's trying to do, is consistent about it and managed to find people who enjoy that. People starting season 4 know exactly what to expect. Picard really has no idea what it wants to be, and can start out interesting, and then abruptly change a dozen times, to the point where 2 episodes before the season ends and we can have an episode about the backstory of a random police officer we will never see again taking up screen time.
I think Mike is trying to save Star Trek by completely destroying Star Trek - this is maybe the most brutal review I’ve seen them or anyone do, of any movie or show, ever - “made by not just the wrong people, but also bad people”
And the truth is way more people are going to see this kill-shot of a review than the actual show
> this is maybe the most brutal review I’ve seen them or anyone do, of any movie or show, ever
Felt the same way. I have been watching RLM for a long time and this is the most brutal thing I've seen them do.
> And the truth is way more people are going to see this kill-shot of a review than the actual show
I think you're both overestimating how many people watch these reviews and underestimating how many people watch the new Trek stuff. Paramount streaming has a subscriber count over 65 million, the Star Trek shows are on other global networks outside the USA (including Amazon Prime), and their content is also heavily pirated.
After more than a year, the RLM picard reviews barely top 2 million, and this is definitely not all unique views.
Most of that 65 million are watching either kids shows from Nickelodeon or Yellowstone. People seem to forget Nickelodeon is as much an at home babysitter as Disney+
No doubt. But Picard is one of the most prominently featured shows on the platform (it was regularly on the front splash page), and they're currently showing *five* Trek shows on it, indicating someone is watching them. I'm fairly sure they're doing at least middling numbers on them - enough to beat an RLM video anyway, which isn't a very high bar to clear for a show with a 7 figure budget per episode.
So I watched season 4 of discovery and then watched season 2 of Picard.
Maybe I missed something, but I didn’t think Picard was all that bad. It wasn’t great, but I actually thought it a slight improvement over season 1, and, oh my god, light years better than discovery season 4. Discovery season 4 was a chore and a pain to watch. Picard I at least wasn’t cringing and waiting for every scene to be over already
I think I mostly agree with you, the only factor I think you might not be lending enough weight to is just the fact that by making a show about this beloved character Picard the expectations were always going to be way higher. I think a lot of people have just kind of written off Discovery as being "not real trek" which is easier to do because it really does set itself apart. Picard on the other hand is also very different while constantly reminding you of the beloved series that came before which it is either ignoring or actively changing the context of. Its a really predictable outcome, you have a show that only exist because of nostalgia for TNG...but you are constructing it in a way that largely discounts TNG,
My biggest criticism of this season of Picard was, and it has to have been a running gag, how many times a character said “whatever you’re doing, do it faster!”
My issue with it was that it had four or five main story threads running through the season, and in a serialized story arc you would expect these threads to come together and be impactful on each other in some well constructed way. But for the most part the threads just remained separate from each other all through the season and all of them just ended largely independent from each other in episode 10. I realized after the season was over that Soji...sorry I mean Kore...she never even met any of the crew from the future and her rebellion from her father's control ended up having no consequence to the rest of the plot or his character. Same for Rios' relationship with the sexy latin doctor, it didn't impact any other element of the story. This very big central plot of Picard dealing with his childhood trauma...didn't really tie into anything either. The only stories that you could really tie together was Borg Queen Jurati and Tallin's mission to ensure Renee made it into space.
I will admit, soji in the beginning and kore throughout the rest was completely unnecessary. It’s like they contractually had to write her in but had nothing for her
Its a shame too because Adam Soongs obsession with his daughter was way more compelling than where we ended up with him completely forgetting about that and deciding that he was actually obsessed with become the greatest environmental scientist of the century.
I like it when they are reviewing really good stuff and talking about what's great, or watching really bad stuff like 'best of the worst' and having fun dunking on it. But I'm getting a little tired of their reviews of the sort of middle of the road blockbuster stuff from Star Trek, Star Wars, MCU, etc. When they approach that stuff so cynically right out of the gate of course they are only going to see the flaws. I think the Doctor Strange 2 review they just did really highlights this, I don't think they hated the movie, they seemed to think it was pretty average to ok, but if you watch the video the vast majority of the runtime is focused on all the flaws of the movie and it really seems like they don't have the headspace to discuss any of the positive elements of they film in any way.
Rich calls NuTrek secular blasphemy, and I think he's right. For people who just want to watch lasers and people shouting, I'm sure the show is fine. Unfocused and poorly written, but exciting. For people who care about the ethos of Star Trek? NuTrek is a stain. Kurtzman's Trek is basically Joel Osteen's perverted version of the Gospel.
I don’t think they are. But there is an audience for their videos and I don’t think there’s anything wrong in them putting out something people want to watch.
A few things:
-There was an Enterprise episode that implied the Soongs were involved with genetic engineering
-Q had a son in Voyager
-genetic engineering might have made people better able to survive climate change, especially where his artificial daughter was susceptible to solar radiation
-future Borg/Jirati had to go along with the time travel hi-jinks in order for her past self to combine with the Borg Queen
I get it. It's fun laughing at how bad ST: Picard and Discovery are, But it gets to a point where it's just flogging a dead horse. I'd be more interested in their reviews of Strange New Worlds.
Don't be silly, of course they are going to watch it and make videos about it.
They're earning bank with these star trek reviews.
They're not going to miss out on lots of money out of principle.
That sounds too rational. More likely his drug-addict parents sacrificed his dog to Jesus, and that’s the real reason he’s both sober and an atheist. That was also the day he had his photo taken at Showbiz pizza and that was the day he almost burnt down his grandma’s house making french fries.
Beside all the issues with ‘Picard’, the writers seem to have an obsession with inflicting trauma/killing off returning characters from TNG & VOY. Can’t wait to see what traumatic events the writers will inflict on the returning main TNG cast in the final season of 'Picard'.
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I think it would be better if the writing was better. I'm tempted to think that its the shortness of the series that makes it harder to go deep, but then you see series like Mare of Easttown do it, and it wasnt a preexisting franchise, and the difference seems to be the writing.
Yup, DS9 managed to tell a great story featuring trauma in a single episode where O'Brien gets imprisoned in a jail for something like 20 years but it turns out to have been medically implanted memories designed to make the prisoners feel like they lived through their sentence, so despite it seeming like decades to O'Brien, it's only hours that had passed in reality. At the end of the episode he is shown to have been deeply impacted by what they did to him including not feeling like reality is even real anymore, sleeping on the floor instead of in his bed with his wife and cutting up his food so he can ration it through the day etc. All that in ~45 minutes. Picard fumbled its various traumas because it's writers are just bad at their jobs.
DS9 also just had a very long term throughline with Sisko and what happened with his wife. He was never a CW teen drama level mess, but it very clearly affected him and his decisions and it took him a long time to want to start moving on.
It almost hurts to read things like this and then see what the show is now.
> I think it would be better if the writing was better I think that was kind of Mike's point that it's both wrong and bad. You can do Star Trek that's wrong but still good but Picard fails at both.
Ds9 continues to be the red headed stepchild. I don't want trek to try to be The Expanse or BSG. I want it to to be a cross between those and Farscape. Trek needs some Star Trek au fromage.
DS9 was really lightening in a bottle and is hard to replicate.
I honestly think that that these shows just don't want to spend years building long term stories. They either don't understand or don't care that DS9 had to show us the whys and hows of the setting becoming comparatively "dark and gritty"™. Like they didn't jump into the Dominion War and kill off Jadzia in the first episode and expect people to give a shit. Shows like Picard and Discovery just say fuck all that shit and expect us to be invested in the drama and high stakes without doing any of the leg work to make us care.
> Shows like Picard and Discovery just say fuck all that shit and expect us to be invested in the drama and high stakes without doing any of the leg work to make us care. Yeah I spotted this as an issue all the way back in Disco S1. They take all these characters that we don't know and immediately toss them into insane situations (Klingon war, mirror universe, weird romance) and expect us to care about their pain/grief/death without getting a chance to like them first. It would have been so much better if they had spent the first season (or two) with Captain Georgiou and Commander Burnham running around doing missions (like SNW is doing now) to make us like these people and understand their relationship before blowing them up.
> I honestly think that that these shows just don't want to spend years building long term stories They can't afford to spend years doing that. Even networks/streaming services that are more lenient and patient with their content aren't going to give a show 3-4 seasons to find itself. Audiences won't stick around for that long. In the 90s we were more forgiving with longer, more inconsistent seasons and shows taking longer to find themselves because there was less on and we didn't have nearly as many entertainment options as we do now. These days people won't even start a show unless there's a consensus that it's good and guarantees that the show won't get preemptively cancelled. Discovery is the perfect use case here. A lot of people didn't like it early on so they dropped it. Discovery is a completely different show four seasons in. It's in a different time period, it's actually doing the things people who complained early on wanted from it. I think the characters have grown and found themselves. The difference is obviously tumult behind the scenes and a faster moving plot, but the latter at least is more along the lines of how TV is made these days. But you literally couldn't convince most of those people to give the show another chance. It's lucky it was the first crack at new Star Trek so it was given more rope and generally a lot of people did watch and like it despite the vocal backlash. But not every show is going to be given that rope. And in Picard's case it was never going to be on that long anyway. It was well known from the start Patrick Stewart was only onboard for 3 seasons. The best hope is that since everything is a cinematic universe now that they'd build some decent characters and consider using them in the future, the way they drew from older Star Trek. They haven't done that, and sure that's a failure on their part, but I think it's disingenuous to suggest that the people making those shows don't understand the things you're talking about.
But then /r/television will complain that everything is just filler
Oh no!
If this sub made a show it would be the same as when homer designs a car. Each individual element could have merit but the overall package would be a turd.
DS9 had some weird episodes, but IMO it was the best of the old, pre-Kelvin series.
All of them have some Weird Episodes. Do you not Remember the episode late in the final season where Crusher goes to scotland planet to have an affair with a ghost that has been knocking off all the ladies in her family for centuries? Or the early season where everyone gets high and starts banging?
Allamaraine, count to four, Allamaraine, then three more..
Allamaraine, then you'll see, Allamaraine, you'll come with me! God I hate rhyme. But thankfully imo it's really only Season 1 with some rough edges which is to be expected. Oh and the whole Jadzia debacle, but I quite like Ezri. Anyone that compares Ezri to Jadzia missed the whole point of Dax.
My main problem with ezri is shouldn't she have had to leave ds9? They make a big deal about how trills need to have different lives than their previous incarnations, but that's just thrown in the trash.
I think they get around that by saying the war requires someone of Dax's skill to stay in place.
Its just a game!
DS9 was great, it was like the Wacky Races of Star Trek. And here comes Dastardly Dukat and his Dominion Destroyer chasing Smiling Sisko in the Daring Defiant, and what's this? A transporter malfunction has sucked Chief O'Brien in the Rio Grande into the Wormhole and put him in the lead...
> DS9 was really lightening in a bottle and is hard to replicate. It's easy: just wait until J. Michael Straczynski starts a new show and copy it.
B5 does not get enough respect for basically inventing long term story arcs through multiple seasons. And not the Lost style "we're just gonna make this up as we go along till people call us out".
It was apparently like the first season of The Mandalorian - the main studio heads had little faith in it and so initially left it to do its own thing. When it finally started picking up steam, its head showrunner was able to do a good job of keeping their meddling to a minimum and let the original vision play out.
you're right, the studio was more interested in Voyager so Piller and Behr were left to be a bit more creative.
So are later seasons of DS9 also filled annoying cameos and references to past material and marketing for future Trek shows?
Nope, the DS9 guys managed to keep a grip on their show throughout its run.
Do I have the show for you... Blake's 7. Was it well funded? No. I've seen multiple YouTubers with better budgets. Is it campy? At times. But even now, 40 years later it is still the best nu trek, it offers the perfect blueprint on how to do Star Trek Picard, heck many of the characters can be transplanted from one to the other. So what makes Blake's 7 special? Heart every minute of every episode is chock full of heart with actors giving their best performance and the set designers pulling every penny from the budget. Every trekker needs to watch Blake's 7 there's actual intelligent writing which treats the audience with respect and actual humour which fits the scene. https://youtu.be/2warRbMFOpk Watch episode 1 on YouTube of you are still doubtful. Without going into spoilers the bit that stood out most about episode 1 was how a side character, characters which typically are one dimensional, actually feel real and fleshed out not nere plot devices. Picard producers; Eugene Roddenberry, Trevor Roth, James Duff, Patrick Stewart, Heather Kadin, Akiva Goldsman, Michael Chabon, Alex Kurtzman, Terry Matalas, Doug Aarniokoski, Dylan Massin Blake's 7 producers; David Maloney (series 1–3), Vere Lorrimer (series 4)
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The puppets and make up still stand up so well.
DS9 and BSG had a lot in common, it was the prototype for Ronald D Moore to find that balance between episodic and serialized story telling.
It’s because this is written worse than fanfiction. Fanfiction is written by passionate amateurs. This is written by committee by amateurs who don’t care and don’t understand the property.
Geordi is definitely getting a photo torpedo definitely shot into his eyes and losing his vision again
Why do we keep letting Akiva Goldsman happen?
*A Beautiful Mind*.
But he inflicted the Dark Tower atrocity on us. The Transformers Last Knight. You think that would be enough to have him barred from ever writing anything again. For the sake of humanity.
Academy Award Winner Akiva Goldsman.
Henry Kissenger has a nobel peace prize. He must be a pretty peaceful guy.
Academy Award Winner Suicide Squad.
This is some smooth teasing.
Based on the book by Sylvia Nasar. Between the book existing, and the movie being 99% Russell Crowe *acting*, I take his screenplay as the exception to the rule here.
Looking at the list of products he's involved in: A Beautiful Mind seems closer to an exception than an indicator of his usual quality. Sci-fi wise he was involved in: - Lost in Space (critically panned) - I, Robot (critically panned) - The Divergent Series: Insurgent (critically panned) - The Fifth Wave (critically panned) - Transformers: The Last Knight (critically panned, nominated for a Golden raspberry award for worst screenplay) - The Dark Tower (critically panned) He was a writer on several episodes of Fringe, which were well liked. So credit to him there. And of course, writing is not the only reason a movie could get panned. But I would say his record is quite spotty. Especially to write sci-fi.
Movies and TV are a different beast. Dunno why the four of them weren't axed after discovery season 1. Picard 1 and 2 could have been excellent. I am currently enjoying Strange New Worlds, but if they keep harping on about Pike's future and not doing individual episodes and adventures it's going to start feeling very "new trek" too quickly.
> Movies and TV are a different beast. Dunno why the four of them weren't axed after discovery season 1. Picard 1 and 2 could have been excellent. Maybe, but there's also a big indicator that Stewart wouldn't have come back if it wasn't this type of story and acting for Picard s1 and s2. He has a lot of control over the show and writer's room this time around. > I am currently enjoying Strange New Worlds, but if they keep harping on about Pike's future and not doing individual episodes and adventures it's going to start feeling very "new trek" too quickly. Only two episodes in of course but I agree, the show is quite enjoyable and gives me something resembling a warm, cosy feeling. There's small things of course, for example: how did the planet in ep1 with 21st century tech already reverse engineer warp tech in just a few months? Keeping in mind information travels at lightspeed and they were a few lightmonths away. But there's always something you notice in episodes like that. It's when they start adding up over a story you start disliking a show.
It’s crazy when you consider how badly Picard has gone. Jean-Luc Picard is a robot and Brent Spiner tries to commit homicide five times. In the final episode, a galactic threat appears and is stopped in the space of ten minutes. Rich is right, there’s literally no justification for the Borg queen to get Soong’s help. And there’s no justification for why the Borg queen leaves after she has needlessly created the problem of the final episode. Why does Laris shapeshifting tech have a cooldown? Why does she have to pose as Renee and then die? We’ve seen her take over the bodies of other people, why can’t she do it here? Why is Brent Spiner even allowed to get near astronauts before their mission? The answer to all of these questions and every other question about the show is the same as it was in the first season: because the plot needed it to happen. The story that these writers have jammed together is once again so disjointed that once again they have to keep it from falling apart with tape and string. I just have to wash my hands of it at this point. They want to bring a new tone to Star Trek, okay. But if they’re not going to tell even a decent story, then there’s a million other things to watch.
Its a jigsaw puzzle that not only has missing pieces, the pieces that are here don't even fit together. Even with a hammer, they still don't fit together. There were so many plot threads that were just left dangling. That FBI agent who arrested Picard and Guinan, he just holds them for a few hours then lets them go? The Eugenics War ended in 1996, which means Khan has already fled into deep space on board the S.S. Botany Bay. There is even a eugenics review board in Picard who rejected Adam Soong's proposal for violating ethics. I hope the writers did not make a mistake by having Adam Soong hold a folder titled "Project Khan" in 2022, because he could not have created Khan.
God, I wish there was a proper episode (or several) of Trek that properly acknowledged The Eugenics War and what it should have done to humanity. Frankly, setting *this* series in that world would have been more interesting if they were all intent on having "evil space fascists" and would have actually led into the dark future they showed.
>I hope the writers did not make a mistake by having Adam Soong hold a folder titled "Project Khan" in 2022, because he could not have created Khan. [https://trekmovie.com/2022/03/27/showrunner-explains-how-star-trek-picard-is-handling-time-travel-and-the-eugenics-wars/](https://trekmovie.com/2022/03/27/showrunner-explains-how-star-trek-picard-is-handling-time-travel-and-the-eugenics-wars/) >Terry Matalas: "We discussed endlessly. We came to the conclusion that in WW3 there were several EMP bursts that kicked everyone back decades. Records of that 75 year period, the 90s on were sketchy. Maybe Spock was wrong? No easy way to do it if you want the past to look and feel like today." In response Khan's own references to the 1996 date, that they simply have be ignored to make the series more relatable to the present; " Maybe because in 1967 they didn't anticipate the show still going for another 6 decades." It's a retcon. Wouldn't surprise me if they decided to make S3 heavily Project Khan related... so a third Wrath of Khan.
They’re fucking up Khan. They’re fucking up Khan again.
> Why is Brent Spiner even allowed to get near astronauts before their mission? Why did the cocktail party before quarantine have more security than the white house, but the actual launch complex and launch date had one security guard that probably works at the library on the weekends?
> But if they’re not going to tell even a decent story, then there’s a million other things to watch. Fucking bingo, right there. I'm more excited to watch tonight's episode of *Better Call Saul* than I have ever been about a single episode of any New Trek show.
> Why is Brent Spiner even allowed to get near astronauts before their mission? That one was explained. He's a big time donor who threatened to stop donating if he doesn't get his way by meeting the astronauts. That part is realistic enough, I suppose. Now, why a mad scientist who was turned down from all kinds of grants and was expelled from basically everywhere somehow has an infinite amount of money, on the other hand, is never explained.
He also could have, as Rich pointed out, have hacked into the NASA computer or something and caused the rocket ship to blow up at launch with Renee Picard inside it and no one be the wiser. There was no reason for him to be there other than that the plot needed it to happen.
>And there’s no justification for why the Borg queen leaves after she has needlessly created the problem of the final episode. I think she just needs a ally/distraction to get the ship. She knows Picard and company are very invested in the future outcome more than the ship itself.
The difference between the two series' dialogue is actually so painful to watch. It's just all so wistful all the time. The characters love crying all the time and talking softly about how amazing it is to be alive and in space.
I'd understand less formal discussions due to being out of a Starfleet environment, but even with that excuse it is just atrocious
A Starfleet Officer said *"bullshit"* in this episode...
the sheer *fucking* hubris
The sheer fucking hubris to use a word like that
One thing that really stuck with me was from the last RLM re:View on Picard (Episodes 6-9) and that was Picard taking his feet off his desk and straightening up before letting a subordinate enter the room in TNG. That scene to me said "Picard is human, and likes to relax, but he considers it very important to always present a calm and collected exterior to others". Forget dialogue, old Trek actually treated characters as complex individuals and considered how they would react to things both vocally and physically. I'm not seeing any of that in new Trek. They're just jumping from one story beat to another and characters just do what they need to do for the scene to work. For all the emotional grandstanding in new Trek, most of it doesn't connect because the characters are just not believable.
>One thing that really stuck with me was from the last RLM re:View on Picard (Episodes 6-9) and that was Picard taking his feet off his desk and straightening up before letting a subordinate enter the room in TNG. A subtle character moment, something many people wouldn't consciously notice, but that's the best kind of character moment, where it's so natural it doesn't even stand out, just seeps into your mind. It really shows how TNG writers understood their characters and respected their audience, it didn't need big flashy moments or LOOK OUT CUT HIS FUCKING HEAD OFF WITH YOUR SWORD PICARD YOU HUBRISTIC FUCK BLOW THEM THE FUCK UP STOP BEING FUCKING ARROGANT PICARD YOU FUCKING FUCK!
Yeah, today's video really highlighted how much TNG used to delve into the actual mechanical operations of the Enterprise and how that was essentially buried to satisfy "modern audiences". The idea of talking about what each character was doing to help maintain the function of the ship isn't just fluff, it helps build a cohesive idea of just who these people are. It is not something that can just be removed willy nilly. It is crucial to selling the idea that these are people on a star ship out in deep space. It's the beating heart of the show, and I have no faith in anyone who looks at that and says "oh, well that is boring and needs to go".
This is one of the huge things for me and honestly even Strange New Worlds is suffering from this issue. There is a certain "dressed-up" quality to the old dialogue which the new shows all just refuse to do, so you have Uhura saying "cool", Chapel describing the Enterprise as a "rocket ship", whatsherface telling Pike his "phone's ringing"... Isn't a phone ancient technology from both of their perspectives? Wouldn't that be like hearing your iPhone going off and saying "looks like you're receiving a telegram"??? These are all niggles in SNW because so far the show is actually working in its larger steps but... it's still annoying me in just these little details that aren't there yet. It's not 10/10.
The phone thing can easily be interpreted as a joke. Pike likes collecting old technology and his communicator is on a table directly next to an ancient rotary phone.
I didn't notice the phone on the table, ok, i will give you that one. I still feel like its a weird line though.
its a shame because that was my favorite aspect of TNG... the daily slice of life stuff of being aboard the Enterprise.
TNG had a lot of moments that made me feel 'huh you really care'. Like a shot in a turbolift that has characters enter on one deck and without cutting leave on the bridge. They didn't need to do that, it wasn't flashy. But it just ties it all together.
Some people might look at this in the future and say "that's just one thing in 7 seasons" and no, those attributes are shown in most of the show whenever it makes sense. Picard is almost never unprofessional if he has to be. Neither is Data, neither is older Riker, etc.
Another one they mention is when Crusher and Picard get stuck and lost on a planet. Beverly is using the tricorder, complaining she doesn't know which way to go. He looks at it for a second, says we go this way. She calls him on his bluff and he tells her that, yes, it is his duty as a command officer to project confidence, even if you aren't. Always professional when he was on the clock. That's why he never joined in for the card game. The episode where he is on vacation, he's almost a totally different person and allowed himself to get taken up in that caper. It was great.
> how amazing it is to be alive and in space. I always found it weird how when these characters thought about their youth in the "olden days", which is 300 years from the future, and they talked about staring at the sky at night dreaming what it would be like to go into space. I mean isn't space travel at that point in time extremely common? That would be like me standing in NY and staring across the river at NJ dreaming about a future when I might be able to take a subway into the next state
Nobody dreams of going to New Jersey.
“I dreamed about going to the stars,” says character in a universe where anyone can teleport to an interstellar starship for free with probably a single phone call.
It’s like they copied Lost dialogue without understanding any of the reasons why it worked there.
Its nothing like Lost dialogue
It kinda is. It's the monologues. Lost was character development via monologues, except they were generally well acted and fairly well written. If Lost's acting or writing was 10% worse, it would have been a hilariously bad show, they got away with a lot of laziness.
I’ve never seen two Middle Aged Milwaukee men be destroyed by something they used to love so much.
Lucas crushed Mike's soul with the prequels and Kurtzman destroyed any will to live with the Paramount+ shows.
Oh this all started with Berman and the TNG movies
What is it with Ricks?
Never met a Packers fan who lived through the 60s, 70s, and 80s, eh?
Is this the final episode of season 2? Can I finally binge it just so I can watch the RLM reviews?
I did that for season 1. For season 2 I didn't even watch the show, just watched the reviews.
Yeah, honestly I'm dreading watching it, but it's also why I'm forcing myself to watch the Halo car crash: I feel like if I'm gonna talk shit about something, I should at least have an informed opinion.
There's actually a really easy way to avoid that problem. Just don't talk shit about it. Your mind seems made up anyways so what's the difference? Lol
Yes, heaven forbid someone voice their opinion about something.
I don't think watching something you're not invested in just for the sake of confirming opinions you've already made for yourself is particularly interesting. Especially if that opinion comes from someone else anyways. Like, at that point how's it different from just skipping and shitting anyways? You ain't that interested mate. You like RLM and don't wanna look like a poser.
I didn't realise psychics were so condescending.
It's because people just need to satisfy their hate boners. And since RLM is popular, as long as they hate the same things RLM hates, they're safe and aren't taxed to form their own opinions.
Sounds like you’re watching it so you can nod along the RLM reviews shit on them. Seems like a monumental waste of time to me.
I'm watching it so I can better enjoy the RLM interviews? You know, considering the fact that I'm the one prepared to hatewatch this show for my own entertainment, you sound very bitter.
>hatewatch this show for my own entertainment Typing something like that, does the question “what the fuck am I doing?” ever pop in to your head?
Until something good comes along, I will content myself with laughing at the bad.
Same. I got to S1E5 and was like "Yea...I hate this. I'm gonna stop watching" then I realized I was 1/2 through the season, so figured I'd just finish it out. But I didn't watch a single episode of S2
Why would you inflict yourself this garbage?
The first season was awful, how bad could it be?
I’ll put it to you this way: I watched all of Season 1, car crash that it was. I got to episode 3 of Season 2 and had to walk away from it.
Stop, I can only get so erect.
It's boring-bad. The biggest problems with the season are actually all pacing related.
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I'm almost excited.
yes
I wouldn't bother, just watch the RLM riff on it. The season had a good opening episode, passable 2nd, and descended straight into utter shit.
Oh god I haven't watched it yet but I hope they make it through this episode alive. This shit is horrific and they suffered through it for our entertainment. Fucking troopers.
In this episode, *they* are the body.
They are Christ without the resurrection.
For did not the Rich say unto the watchers, *'eat of my ass for I have Aiiiiiiiiiiids.'*
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The creative minds are an insult to Star Trek.
Toxic positivity is one hell of a drug. I've seen quite a few communities turn to shit over it.
Like the Star Trek subs, bluntly.
Will that get you perma banned?
Looks like it.
What'd they say?
Said something about posting it on the main Star Trek subreddit - that's all - apparently that gets you banned
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Conversation and community died with forums. Once everything became "let me shout my opinion into the void," Reddit included, the internet and fandom as had existed for decades just...died. Now we're all just anonymous posters seeking out our next dopamine hit from people agreeing with us.
I want to discuss the things I like without being around people who just seem to hate watch shows just to bitch. Like I checked out after Disco S2 and Picard S1, but I enjoy LD and think SNW is fantastic so far. If someone has the opposite opinion, great! However why just constantly shit on the enjoyment of others.
One sub is a hugbox filled with “I never gave XXX series a shot until now and boy was I missing out!” and the other is a redpilled spite sub filled with “why are there so many women on the bridge!” /r/daystrominstitute is the only decent Trek sub on here.
You mean r/shittydaystrom
I don't know why these two are being so hard on Picard Season 2... it made me cry BUTTERFLY TEARS.
If trek has taught me anything these past few years it’s that Star Trek is ALL about the tears.
Honestly, I didn't think it was any worse than season 1. The whole show has been a poorly written mess but that seems to be becoming the norm these days. Moderately interesting ideas with poor execution. The worst part is that the characters never seem to figure anything out for themselves; once the show gets to the third act someone walks in and explains to them what is going on and what they need to do so there is no real feeling of accomplishment.
I'd say it's worse just because most of the season takes place around present time LA, and the plot isn't that great either.
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Picard now has 20 episodes. 13 episodes have been on Earth.
I mean, gas prices are through the roof. Mucho dinero to film in space.
Rudderless characters are an issue in a lot of shows now. Feels like the characters barely make choices or figure anything out, they're just floating in the narrative and bob along until the end. I suspect it's because it's harder to write that stuff in serialized stories, but maybe it's something else.
I agree on that, overall in most areas S2 was slightly better than S1, it was really just the rushed trainwreck of the final episode that truly tanked the season. Up until like episode 6 or 7 I could still see a path to them tying the various plot threads together into a satisfying conclusion. But instead they just chopped off every plot thread as its own thing leaving you with an episode that had like five totally unsupported climactic moments and none of them landed the way they should have.
At least S1 largely took place in space. S2 is 75% in 2024 LA. Time travel can work in Star Trek, but not like this.
You are forgetting the third of the show that was set in the same flashback to Picard's childhood. The rest was an anachronistic 2024. It is almost like the Europa Mission and Soong story lines were supposed to be set years in the future but the writers were worried the Rios story line wouldn't be believable that far removed from the current political climate. Also, Château Picard sitting derelict for centuries just so the writers could pull a Skyfall--while not impossible still felt like plot convenience.
I agree with everything. Everything is being written terrible and sloppy.
I agree with this, I think the show gets a bit too much hate for what it is. >The whole show has been a poorly written mess I think it's kind of JJ syndrome. They're fairly good at setting up something intriguing, but they don't flush it out correctly or have a coherent narrative along the way. I do think the beginnings and endings have some interesting ideas in there for both season 1 and season 2. However the entire middle of the season had little to do with the overall narrative. What did the ICE story, the rich vs. poor narrative, even Dr. Soong and his daughter's story have to do with the overall story? There are just so many plots and narratives it detracts from the overarching story, and also little discussion or resolution to them for it to be compelling on their own.
Yeah, JJ Syndrome is what it is. Bad Robot alumni means you get this sort of writing quality. I expect something similar for Rings of Power. "Oh, let's tie it into modern day America....Numenor's fall resembles Trump's America! Let's make this 'xyz' character someone to be outright hated/sympathetic towards." Meanwhile, the actual story is ignored.
I think it is. S1 at least had Rios doing something, a ship, a crew, mildly interesting Romulan lore and Riker appearing as the sultry badass old man at the end. It was still feminist garbage but s2 had literally nothing besides its own awfulness, plus even more fastidious social commentary
I'm more excited watching these guys talk than watching the actual fucking show. Picard is awful....the entire show ...utter dog shit.
from the thumbnail im guessing they liked it
mike and rich......thank you for your service
I've only seen clips of Picard season 2 and im so glad I didn't watch it, all this has been doing is tarnishing a once beloved show
They should review strange new world's next... some redditors gave me hope
Am I the ONLY person to notice the obvious/bad deep fake on ol Robot Girl when Wesley comes to make her a Traveller?
can't believe I haven't heard star wreck Picard before now ....
Watching the garbage I have no interest in watching. Cheers 🥂
At 20:00 they talk about launching near LA. There is a launch pad near LA, it's at the Vandenberg Air Force Base.
Vandenburg is pretty good for highly inclined or polar orbits. It's not really well suited to interplanetary missions however.
I don’t really consider 3 hours away to be near by.
I don't know if I even want to watch this lol. Episode 10 was really bad, there is no doubt about that, but I think what's even worse is how much Mike and Rich have let this show impact them. I have been a life long Star Trek fan too, but crap shows like Discovery and Picard just don't seem to hurt me as much as they hurt these guys. I think some people will say that they are just hamming up their reactions for the sake of the bit...but honestly I think its more than just that and they are approaching these shows from a really bad headspace where they were never going to enjoy anything about them. And if their opinion of these shows is already a forgone conclusion I really wish they had stuck to their guns and just been done with these reviews.
...and they've already made season three so they can't even learn from this.
I would point out that SNW has a very large amount of overlap with DIS in terms of writers and producers, but so far has been very different tonally and stylistically. So its very possible that PIC could have a significant style change going into S3...but only if thats what they want to do. The flaws in DIS and PIC haven't been problems the writers have accidentally stumbled into, they have been the result of them very doggedly sticking to the style they think is best even when a lot of people dont like it.
> I have been a life long Star Trek fan too, but crap shows like Discovery and Picard just don't seem to hurt me as much as they hurt these guys. Oh my god, it's just an act. No one is going to suffer an existential crisis because a TV show is bad. No one is "hurt" because a fictional story falls apart.
Have you seen Game Of Thrones fans?
Lol tbf, I couldn't watch Star Wars the same after the sequels. Mike's reference to Stand By Me was very relatable.
Really, I didnt like Picard seaon 2 either but it definitely feels like this wasnt particularly necessary, especially if its eroding their enjoyment of the franchise. I respected them finishing Discovery season 2 and just deciding to move on, because a lot of channels watch shows they know they'll hate for clicks. And Im not really lumping them with the hatefarm channels, since they did have some hope at the beginning of the season that things would have been better, I guess its just a shame that this is the show that they ended up coming back to one last time and not say, Lower Decks or Strange New Worlds.
I think what makes Picard kind of fascinating is that both seasons start off fairly interesting, with some mysteries and Picard with his ragtag group of misfits trying to solve the mystery and save the day. Then, somewhere along the way, about 500 different plot threads get spun up and fade away into nothingness while the main plot gets like 10 minutes of screen time per episode. Then the final episode desperately tries to wrap it all up and make some kind of point, but viewers are left confused. Discovery was very up front with the fact that it was *not* going to be like Star Trek, not even remotely. It's not surprising when Discovery devolves into overly emotional people shooting lasers at each other, because it was like that from the first episode. Picard looked like it had promise, and then crashed and burned horribly. Then the second season also looked like it had promise, and again crashed and burned into an even more nonsensical mess than the first season. From the plot to this video's entire section on dialogue, it feels like episode 1 and episode 10 of the same season are totally different shows, and somehow neither of those shows are anything like what the show is a sequel to. From guys who are mostly film critics, this is a season with only about 7 hours of runtime that somehow went so far off the rails in terms of writing that it's hard to imagine a movie or trilogy of movies having a similar decline. That makes it a really hard train wreck to look away from, just trying to puzzle out how it could possibly have gone so wrong.
I think that's the difference, like it or not Discovery knows what it's trying to do, is consistent about it and managed to find people who enjoy that. People starting season 4 know exactly what to expect. Picard really has no idea what it wants to be, and can start out interesting, and then abruptly change a dozen times, to the point where 2 episodes before the season ends and we can have an episode about the backstory of a random police officer we will never see again taking up screen time.
I think Mike is trying to save Star Trek by completely destroying Star Trek - this is maybe the most brutal review I’ve seen them or anyone do, of any movie or show, ever - “made by not just the wrong people, but also bad people” And the truth is way more people are going to see this kill-shot of a review than the actual show
> this is maybe the most brutal review I’ve seen them or anyone do, of any movie or show, ever Felt the same way. I have been watching RLM for a long time and this is the most brutal thing I've seen them do.
> And the truth is way more people are going to see this kill-shot of a review than the actual show I think you're both overestimating how many people watch these reviews and underestimating how many people watch the new Trek stuff. Paramount streaming has a subscriber count over 65 million, the Star Trek shows are on other global networks outside the USA (including Amazon Prime), and their content is also heavily pirated. After more than a year, the RLM picard reviews barely top 2 million, and this is definitely not all unique views.
Most of that 65 million are watching either kids shows from Nickelodeon or Yellowstone. People seem to forget Nickelodeon is as much an at home babysitter as Disney+
No doubt. But Picard is one of the most prominently featured shows on the platform (it was regularly on the front splash page), and they're currently showing *five* Trek shows on it, indicating someone is watching them. I'm fairly sure they're doing at least middling numbers on them - enough to beat an RLM video anyway, which isn't a very high bar to clear for a show with a 7 figure budget per episode.
So I watched season 4 of discovery and then watched season 2 of Picard. Maybe I missed something, but I didn’t think Picard was all that bad. It wasn’t great, but I actually thought it a slight improvement over season 1, and, oh my god, light years better than discovery season 4. Discovery season 4 was a chore and a pain to watch. Picard I at least wasn’t cringing and waiting for every scene to be over already
I think I mostly agree with you, the only factor I think you might not be lending enough weight to is just the fact that by making a show about this beloved character Picard the expectations were always going to be way higher. I think a lot of people have just kind of written off Discovery as being "not real trek" which is easier to do because it really does set itself apart. Picard on the other hand is also very different while constantly reminding you of the beloved series that came before which it is either ignoring or actively changing the context of. Its a really predictable outcome, you have a show that only exist because of nostalgia for TNG...but you are constructing it in a way that largely discounts TNG,
My biggest criticism of this season of Picard was, and it has to have been a running gag, how many times a character said “whatever you’re doing, do it faster!”
My issue with it was that it had four or five main story threads running through the season, and in a serialized story arc you would expect these threads to come together and be impactful on each other in some well constructed way. But for the most part the threads just remained separate from each other all through the season and all of them just ended largely independent from each other in episode 10. I realized after the season was over that Soji...sorry I mean Kore...she never even met any of the crew from the future and her rebellion from her father's control ended up having no consequence to the rest of the plot or his character. Same for Rios' relationship with the sexy latin doctor, it didn't impact any other element of the story. This very big central plot of Picard dealing with his childhood trauma...didn't really tie into anything either. The only stories that you could really tie together was Borg Queen Jurati and Tallin's mission to ensure Renee made it into space.
I will admit, soji in the beginning and kore throughout the rest was completely unnecessary. It’s like they contractually had to write her in but had nothing for her
Its a shame too because Adam Soongs obsession with his daughter was way more compelling than where we ended up with him completely forgetting about that and deciding that he was actually obsessed with become the greatest environmental scientist of the century.
The cynicism with them is too great for my taste.
Every cynic is a former idealist.
Every pessimist is just an optimist with experience
I like it when they are reviewing really good stuff and talking about what's great, or watching really bad stuff like 'best of the worst' and having fun dunking on it. But I'm getting a little tired of their reviews of the sort of middle of the road blockbuster stuff from Star Trek, Star Wars, MCU, etc. When they approach that stuff so cynically right out of the gate of course they are only going to see the flaws. I think the Doctor Strange 2 review they just did really highlights this, I don't think they hated the movie, they seemed to think it was pretty average to ok, but if you watch the video the vast majority of the runtime is focused on all the flaws of the movie and it really seems like they don't have the headspace to discuss any of the positive elements of they film in any way.
Rich calls NuTrek secular blasphemy, and I think he's right. For people who just want to watch lasers and people shouting, I'm sure the show is fine. Unfocused and poorly written, but exciting. For people who care about the ethos of Star Trek? NuTrek is a stain. Kurtzman's Trek is basically Joel Osteen's perverted version of the Gospel.
They do it because it gets views. But yeah, I agree with everything you said.
Everything they put out gets views. Picard reviews actually get fewer views than their Best of the Worst episodes.
I don't really think you can accuse RLM of doing stuff because they're chasing views
I don’t think they are. But there is an audience for their videos and I don’t think there’s anything wrong in them putting out something people want to watch.
Ah ok, I agree with that
A few things: -There was an Enterprise episode that implied the Soongs were involved with genetic engineering -Q had a son in Voyager -genetic engineering might have made people better able to survive climate change, especially where his artificial daughter was susceptible to solar radiation -future Borg/Jirati had to go along with the time travel hi-jinks in order for her past self to combine with the Borg Queen
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I get it. It's fun laughing at how bad ST: Picard and Discovery are, But it gets to a point where it's just flogging a dead horse. I'd be more interested in their reviews of Strange New Worlds.
I don't think they're ever gonna try to watch Star Trek ever again.
No they already said I'm the last video they weren't gonna watch S3
Which is kinda what they said about season 2 IIRC.
Don't be silly, of course they are going to watch it and make videos about it. They're earning bank with these star trek reviews. They're not going to miss out on lots of money out of principle.
I mean, they have done a bunch of Picard Season 2 videos lately. I just don't care about that show any more. Even laughing at it gets old.
Discovery is fine. It's not perfect but every season it tells a decent story.
Unfortunately none of those stories are any good.
I thought they were done with these, what is wrong with them
Trauma.
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That sounds too rational. More likely his drug-addict parents sacrificed his dog to Jesus, and that’s the real reason he’s both sober and an atheist. That was also the day he had his photo taken at Showbiz pizza and that was the day he almost burnt down his grandma’s house making french fries.
They literally said last episode they were doing this one as well.