Star Trek: Picard

[Farealmer]

Some damage control, yes, but Season 4 understood what a prequel should be about and why a prequel should even be made in the first place. And even then, imo Season 4 hit a decent balance between fanwanking/nostalgia vs. actually using the source material to great effect, tying both together with good writing.

But Berman didn't understand that, and so TATV was all fanwanking without focusing on the writing, which makes it feel, above all else, exploitative and superficial. As if TATV learned all the wrong lessons from S4.

At that point wasn't it already cancelled? I thought cancellation was announced during filming of the mirror universe episodes.

[G. Boney]

Some damage control, yes, but Season 4 understood what a prequel should be about and why a prequel should even be made in the first place. And even then, imo Season 4 hit a decent balance between fanwanking/nostalgia vs. actually using the source material to great effect, tying both together with good writing.

But Berman didn't understand that, and so TATV was all fanwanking without focusing on the writing, which makes it feel, above all else, exploitative and superficial. As if TATV learned all the wrong lessons from S4.

What is TATV?

[nx01a]

What is TATV?

These Are The Voyages...
One of the worst trek episodes. Ever.

[Pinsir]

IMO Enterprise really only faltered when the series became explicitly fan service-y during the fourth season (Well, there is that episode during the Xindi arc that was explicitly anti-Muslim). The multi-episode story explaining why Klingons in the original series lacked forehead ridges is dumb.

Voyager is the darkest series by far, it just doesn't feel like it is because its so episodic. Its almost comical how often acts of genocide get brought up.

[Punisher007]

Enterprise failed whenever B&B were in charge. IE the earlier seasons and the series finale.

[nx01a]

IMO Enterprise really only faltered when the series became explicitly fan service-y during the fourth season (Well, there is that episode during the Xindi arc that was explicitly anti-Muslim). The multi-episode story explaining why Klingons in the original series lacked forehead ridges is dumb.
Voyager is the darkest series by far, it just doesn't feel like it is because its so episodic. Its almost comical how often acts of genocide get brought up.

If using existing elements of the universe they're in to tell new stories or explain possible plot holes is fan service, I'm all for more of it! ENT s1-2 felt like they were in a completely different quadrant, not at the heart of the future Federation with a dozen familiar species' homeworlds within 100 light years of Earth.

VOY never felt dark on a regular basis for me.

[Pinsir]

If using existing elements of the universe they're in to tell new stories or explain possible plot holes is fan service, I'm all for more of it! ENT s1-2 felt like they were in a completely different quadrant, not at the heart of the future Federation with a dozen familiar species' homeworlds within 100 light years of Earth.

The Klingon redesign isn't a plot hole though. We all know why Klingons look different from TOS to the first film and that was to make them them more alien. The story line doesn't even explain the plot hole as it not only implies every single Klingon encountered in TOS came from this small population, but it doesn't also rectify why they behave differently in TOS than in the other series. The idea is honestly worst than anything in Threshold.

I don't really consider what Enterprise did with the Andorians or Vulcans fan service, its just the show living up to its potential. I would have loved to have seen similar stories with the Tellarites, Betazoids and other familiar races too and I agree its a real failing that we didn't see this happen.

That being said, the final season of ENT can be pretty much divided between arcs that developed from the show (Alien Nazis, Vulcan stuff, Romulans, Terra Prime) and TOS pandering (Augments, Flat-headed klingons, In the Mirror, Darkly, and even an episode with Organians). I think the latter is definitely fan service and these stories did come at the cost of stealing time away from the main characters and wrapping up loose ends. The reason why a lot of people claim to dislike These are the Voyages is because it shifted its focus away from series characters, but that was already happening with these nods to TOS.

[Minerboh]

There’s been a suggestion online that spoilers:

the mysterious girl is the offspring of Locutus and the Borg Queen.

end of spoilers

Interesting if that’s true.

How's that even possible? Does the Borg Queen has a re productive system? From what i saw in First Contact, the only organic part left in her was her brain.

[Cyke]

At that point wasn't it already cancelled? I thought cancellation was announced during filming of the mirror universe episodes.

Yes, but that doesn't mean that the last episode had to be terrible. I'm sure Berman and Braga set out to write the best episode they could but they went about it in the worst way, where even the stars of the show weren't the focus of the episode.

By contrast, the Terra Prime two parter right before the finale was made with full knowledge of cancellation, but was the far superior story over TATV.

[nx01a]

The reason why a lot of people claim to dislike These are the Voyages is because it shifted its focus away from series characters, but that was already happening with these nods to TOS.

It's a prequel to TOS. There should be nods to it [as well as the entirety of Trek up to that point]. Not constant nods but nods nonetheless. There was a galaxy [well, 100 light years in any direction] of stuff to mine!

And encountering a society of very liberal telepaths for the first time would have been awesome. Pity we never got to Betazed.

[nx01a]

How's that even possible? Does the Borg Queen has a re productive system? From what i saw in First Contact, the only organic part left in her was her brain.

Much of her body was organic, hence why the coolant worked at the end. And the Borg can build DNA from scans/files just like the Federation can.

[Cyke]

It's a prequel to TOS. There should be nods to it [as well as the entirety of Trek up to that point]. Not constant nods but nods nonetheless. There was a galaxy [well, 100 light years in any direction] of stuff to mine!

To add onto this, even with the number of nods to TOS, a good chunk of season 4 was about how the NX-01 crew either played a hand in that lore or were responsible for it. For all the faults of the Star Wars prequels, they were at least about how the events of the OT came about, they were just paced and written unevenly.

By contrast, seasons 1 and 2 were more about window dressing than the actual importance of the lore ("they're not 'phasers!' They're 'phase cannons!' It's totes different!"), and many of those episodes could have easily happened in TNG/VOY with just different appearances of tech. A good prequel -- or rather, a good spinoff -- really should showcase episodes that cannot be done in its predecessors, and season 4 recognized that (for example, the in-universe politics in Enterprise meant that TNG couldn't do the Romulan episodes the same way).

[ChrisIII]

Regarding the Borg Queen, it's been suggested that perhaps her organic parts are cloned somehow, and that somehow her mind gets transmitted to a new "queen" on another cube every time she dies (or there's multiple Queens on maybe every ship?). Hence their being nearly identical Borg Queens on the Best of Both Worlds cube (Not seen in the actual episode, but Picard's flashbacks and dialogue state she was there off-screen) in First Contact and also in Voyager (Although Susanna Thompson also played the Borg Queen, I think she was clearly intended to be the same as the Krige version-identical design and most of her alien traits are the same).

[Pinsir]

It's a prequel to TOS. There should be nods to it [as well as the entirety of Trek up to that point]. Not constant nods but nods nonetheless. There was a galaxy [well, 100 light years in any direction] of stuff to mine!

And encountering a society of very liberal telepaths for the first time would have been awesome. Pity we never got to Betazed.

I'm fine with the occasional nod here and there, but there are four storylines in the final season that serve to for the most part as a multi-episode wink to the fans is overkill. There were so many loose threads in the show that could have been wrapped up, but they decided to do a Mirror, Mirror episode instead.

[nx01a]

And I, for one, loved In A Mirror, Darkly. The twisted camp, the redone Constitution, the Tholians... ^_^ I don't see nodding to canon and the fans as an inherently bad thing. If the episodes are good [which I think they were], then wonderful.
S4 even spent time doing what S1 should have: showing us what 22nd C Earth is like, and questioning exactly how 'evolved' humanity could be less than 100 years after a global nuclear war. Even the strangely acting Vulcan problem was solved.
The episodes I'd trade in for other topics are the transporter one and the Orion one. And I think we can all agree that the finale needs to be erased from existence.