Patrick Stewart will reprise his role as Jean-Luc Picard

[Doctor Cringelord]

It made sense with the borg, but I think he should have cooled off afterward, and they just shouldnt have made nemesis

In First Contact? Yeah. I assumed he still suffered from PTSD, and the new Borg attack was triggering his old demons to resurface, and that was affecting his decision making a bit in that film. I thought he was mostly acting to character in that one.

It just got a little too silly in Nemesis.

 

[Totenkindly]

I thought that was kinda the whole point of having Worf and Riker -- to sub in for Picard, who was more of a renaissance guy who thought his way through problems.

I know we have already complained about ST tropes in the past, but it's just a common one that they center a show around the bridge crew and then send them immediately into danger. That's not how hierarchical structures work, really. You're not sending your generals and high-leadership onto the front lines of a war or into unknown territory, but it's a convention of TV shows because that's who the audience wants to see do things and sitting on the bridge for 45 minutes every week gets boring. (They'd get involved in high-face encounters / diplomatic issues, sure.)

I know ST: Disc was trying to deal with this by focusing on Burnham, although a lot of the bridge crew would still get wrapped up in these missions.

Well it worked when DS9 or even Enterprise suggested Starfleet wasn't quite a shining beacon, because there were intelligent writers and there was still some grey area, viewers generally left to come to their own conclusion. "In The Pale Moonlight" did a good job of this. Trek always bordered a little on preachiness, but seems like new Trek is a little more preachy and wants viewers to accept one message as a foregone conclusion. It's condescending IMO.

I don't care how big a tool McFarlane is, this is one area where Orville gets it right. Can't wait for season 3.

I think it's a problem with all the reboots, series are getting recycled by people either using them for other purposes or to reflect things that weren't baked into the original.

I think I mentioned before I was really into STTNG when it was airing, but over the years it didn't age as well for me. There are still some really great episodes (Tapestry, Inner Light, the Worf arc w./ K'eylar -- I remember my jaw hit the floor when he goes after Duras or whoever, then tosses in his badge.... and I really liked Ensign Ro), but a lot of it is just kind of toothless and sterile to me nowadays. And it is like the appearance of diversity without really being that diverse.

Maybe at the time, that was the best Star Trek could be? I dunno.

McFarlane soured for me a lot over time, I found a lot of his Family Guy humor more meanspirited than either South Park or Simpsons (go figure) and don't like his live-action stuff; but yeah, I'd consider watching Orville and he must be doing something right.

 

[Population: 1]

Yeah. The movies did try to turn Picard into more of a man of action type of action hero. Went against type. I mean they had Riker and Worf, you think they'd get more of the action setpieces, but perhaps Stewart had it in his contract that he needed maximum screen time. Also still angry we never got a scene where Kirk meets Riker or Worf in Generations. I feel like Riker would be a big fan of Kirk and enjoy the opportunity to hang with the OG

Kirk, Riker, and Worf working together would have been great.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I thought that was kinda the whole point of having Worf and Riker -- to sub in for Picard, who was more of a renaissance guy who thought his way through problems.

I know we have already complained about ST tropes in the past, but it's just a common one that they center a show around the bridge crew and then send them immediately into danger. That's not how hierarchical structures work, really. You're not sending your generals and high-leadership onto the front lines of a war or into unknown territory, but it's a convention of TV shows because that's who the audience wants to see do things and sitting on the bridge for 45 minutes every week gets boring. (They'd get involved in high-face encounters / diplomatic issues, sure.)

Yeah, makes you wonder what that crew of several hundred people do all day. Even moreso when there's been a lot of episode of various series where much of the crew will be incapacitated or gone and one or two of the main characters are still able to control and pilot the ship. That suggests much of the ship's functions must be automated or controlled by computer AI, so even less need to have an ensign punching commands into a console.

In my head canon, the bridge officers are essentially the astronauts and they do most of the work such as controlling the ship, away missions and such, while the rest of the crew are there to do mundane maintenance and upkeep. It's the only logical reason I can think of, even if it still doesn't make sense to beam half your senior staff down to a potentially hostile planet or situation. TOS at least usually sent disposable redshirts with the main cast, but I've noticed that the later series often only showed senior officers beaming down. Like they didn't even bother trying to explain it anymore.

I did like the few episodes that looked at things from the lower officers' perspectives, like "Lower Decks" was told entirely from the perspective of a handful of ensigns.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

McFarlane soured for me a lot over time, I found a lot of his Family Guy humor more meanspirited than either South Park or Simpsons (go figure) and don't like his live-action stuff; but yeah, I'd consider watching Orville and he must be doing something right.

I don't know if you've seen more recent South Park, but I feel like they've actually become the "wokest" of those three series. They're still coming at issues from a sorta libertarian angle, but they generally seem more sensitive to current cultural issues than does Family Guy, like for instance their take on the "White" family which is obvious metaphor for people who complain about white genocide, or the most recent episode that featured manbearpig where they poked fun at climate change deniers. They've also been pretty unforgiving of Trumpism.

 

[The Cat]

I don't know if you've seen more recent South Park, but I feel like they've actually become the "wokest" of those three series. They're still coming at issues from a sorta libertarian angle, but they generally seem more sensitive to current cultural issues than does Family Guy, like for instance their take on the "White" family which is obvious metaphor for people who complain about white genocide, or the most recent episode that featured manbearpig where they poked fun at climate change deniers. They've also been pretty unforgiving of Trumpism.

And their take on this was pretty spot on:

 

[The Cat]

I thought that was kinda the whole point of having Worf and Riker -- to sub in for Picard, who was more of a renaissance guy who thought his way through problems.

I know we have already complained about ST tropes in the past, but it's just a common one that they center a show around the bridge crew and then send them immediately into danger. That's not how hierarchical structures work, really. You're not sending your generals and high-leadership onto the front lines of a war or into unknown territory, but it's a convention of TV shows because that's who the audience wants to see do things and sitting on the bridge for 45 minutes every week gets boring. (They'd get involved in high-face encounters / diplomatic issues, sure.)

I know ST: Disc was trying to deal with this by focusing on Burnham, although a lot of the bridge crew would still get wrapped up in these missions.



I think it's a problem with all the reboots, series are getting recycled by people either using them for other purposes or to reflect things that weren't baked into the original.

I think I mentioned before I was really into STTNG when it was airing, but over the years it didn't age as well for me. There are still some really great episodes (Tapestry, Inner Light, the Worf arc w./ K'eylar -- I remember my jaw hit the floor when he goes after Duras or whoever, then tosses in his badge.... and I really liked Ensign Ro), but a lot of it is just kind of toothless and sterile to me nowadays. And it is like the appearance of diversity without really being that diverse.

Maybe at the time, that was the best Star Trek could be? I dunno.

McFarlane soured for me a lot over time, I found a lot of his Family Guy humor more meanspirited than either South Park or Simpsons (go figure) and don't like his live-action stuff; but yeah, I'd consider watching Orville and he must be doing something right.

I was really leery about Orville, and there are some straight up heartbreaking episodes. But I gotta say. I still tune in because it does feel real. And Seth MacFarlane is a phenominal lead as a regular guy slightly out of his league with a certain cynical idealism the cast chemistry is good and its genuinely funny.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I was really leery about Orville, and there are some straight up heartbreaking episodes. But I gotta say. I still tune in because it does feel real. And Seth MacFarlane is a phenominal lead as a regular guy slightly out of his league with a certain cynical idealism the cast chemistry is good and its genuinely funny.

While hardly my favorite character (may be my least favorite), he oddly fits the role of captain pretty well. Especially when they get into the whole battle with the Kaylon, he was believable commanding the ship in combat, not something I'd have expected when I learned he'd be playing the lead himself. It's pretty obvious the dude loves Trek and getting to sit in the chair. I think the doctor and Isaac are my favorites, though Bortus is great too. His husband in that show is the same guy why played Tyreese on walking dead.

 

[The Cat]

While hardly my favorite character (may be my least favorite), he oddly fits the role of captain pretty well. Especially when they get into the whole battle with the Kaylon, he was believable commanding the ship in combat, not something I'd have expected when I learned he'd be playing the lead himself. It's pretty obvious the dude loves Trek and getting to sit in the chair. I think the doctor and Isaac are my favorites, though Bortus is great too. His husband in that show is the same guy why played Tyreese on walking dead.

Lt Gordon is my favorite. He's really relatable to me. I like the friendship he has with Lt Commander LaMarr

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I liked it.

I didn't really find it was full of unsubtle attempts at topicality at all, although I thought they were going in that direction at first. I think the "contemporary issues" being addressed are really things that are more long term rather than clumsy "ripped from the headlines"-type stuff.

To me it seems more like it's addressing post-911 America (with the incident on Mars)a bit, with the fearfulness and excessive concerns about security (i.e. the bans on synthetics.) I suppose you could read a comment on Trumpism with regards to the isolationism hinted at, but to me it doesn't match it perfectly because it's mixed with the terrorist attack stuff. It's not as ham-handed as it seemed like people were suggesting. It certainly doesn't seem like it's trying to be "woker" than any past Trek relative to the era it was made in.

 

[The Cat]

I liked it.

I didn't really find it was full of unsubtle attempts at topicality at all, although I thought they were going in that direction at first. I think the "contemporary issues" being addressed are really things that are more long term rather than clumsy "ripped from the headlines"-type stuff.

To me it seems more like it's addressing post-911 America (with the incident on Mars)a bit, with the fearfulness and excessive concerns about security (i.e. the bans on synthetics.) I suppose you could read a comment on Trumpism with regards to the isolationism hinted at, but to me it doesn't match it perfectly because it's mixed with the terrorist attack stuff. It's not as ham-handed as it seemed like people were suggesting. It certainly doesn't seem like it's trying to be "woker" than any past Trek relative to the era it was made in.

I would think using establshed characters from before it would be a lot harder to flay the aesthetics like Discovery and the Reboots did.

 

[tinker683]

I subbed to CBS and watched it yesterday with the wife on her lunch break (I was home yesterday dealing with a sinus bug).

Overall, I loved it.

1) I loved the segments between Picard and Data. You could tell Picard is haunted by Data's death at the end of Nemesis and the emotional weight of these scenes of palpable.
2) I like the direction of Starfleet turning away from it's values and it being something Picard was outraged enough by that he resigned. I like that Picard is more or less still the same character that he was before but the world has gotten darker around him so now he stands out like a lighthouse of the conscience of the world.
3) Romulan Reclamation base inside a derelic Borg cube!?!?! I look forward to the explanation about whats happening here.

Overall, I loved it. It was better than what I wanted.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Well I haven't seen it yet so I'm reserving judgment. But I did find this amusing:

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I heard one reviewer saying it was a lot of lens flare. Is this true? Please tell me it's not true. Just vaporize me now if so.

 

[Population: 1]

I heard one reviewer saying it was a lot of lens flare. Is this true? Please tell me it's not true. Just vaporize me now if so.

The cult of JJ is ubiquitous.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

The cult of JJ is ubiquitous.

fire me out of the torpedo launcher.

I'm not sure at what point these people decided flashy camera effects and tilted camera angles were necessary for telling engaging stories. Maybe at the point where they ran out of engaging stories to tell. It just strikes me as theatrics and glitter. I mean I'm all for cool special effects and good production design, but the edgy music video effects just seem unnecessary. I'm just an old out-of-touch man I guess.

 

[rav3n]

The first episode was okay but I'll await the next episodes to decide if I'll continue watching it. If the tone remains dark and sadly nostalgic, I'm out since there's no wonder. I'm sick to death of dystopian themes.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I heard one reviewer saying it was a lot of lens flare. Is this true? Please tell me it's not true. Just vaporize me now if so.

Just watch it and decide for yourself. I didn't notice any, but then, I don't scan for them.

 

[Population: 1]

theatrics and glitter

It is the way of JJ. Bad Robot awaits.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

At one point, Picard turns to the camera and says "I left Starfleet because of toxic masculinity", in response to an event where starfleet refused to install milkshake cannons on the enterprise.

There's also a new race of enemy aliens whose battle cry is "What about the men?"