Star Trek: Picard

[Anthony W]

Justice for Tuvix!

No. The highlight of the episode is when Janeway got rid of him lol. Janeway would not hesitate to get rid of stuff she didn't like. WHAT HAPPENS IN THE DELTA QUADRANT STAYS IN THE DELTA QUADRANT

[nx01a]

Tuvix was an abomination and deserved to be separated!

[G. Boney]

It would've been cool to have the original Maddox actor reprise the role. Oh well.

[Cyke]

It would've been cool to have the original Maddox actor reprise the role. Oh well.

Yeah, i was disappointed, too, but upon looking up the actor Brian Brophy, he's the theater director for Caltech and a Fulbright Scholar. I would guess he's either too busy or doesn't need the money from a one off episode (likely that a day of pay at Caltech is more than the show was going to pay), or both. Especially after the trouble they went to get back Hugh.

----

Now, Icheb was recast for sure. Turns out that the actor Manu Intiriami defended Kevin Spacey and called out Anthony Rapp at the beginning of Discovery for telling the world about Spacey's abuse. Now, this was back in 2017 and maybe things would've smoothed ove within 2 years, but he double and triple downed on his comments and burned a lot of Trek bridges along the way. Then news emerged that he also sexually harassed Jeri Ryan during Voyager and acted gross to Trekkies at conventions. I imagine Ryan herself likely told the producers about their past.

I can't really think of a time when castmembers between two shows ever fought publically, and over something so gross. Even Shatner vs. Takei doesn't prevent them from showing up at cons together (though that leads me to believe that it's an act).

[Nate Grey]

So Jurati is working with Oh. I'm guessing Oh showed her something (either half true or a believable lie) that was good enough for Jurati to act as a double agent. I can't wait to see how this is swept under the rug next week cause I'm sure her treachery won't come out till the finale. I hope they surprise me and I'm wrong and she's out the nearest airlock next week, but I doubt it.

[kingaliencracker]

So bearing in mind that I'm enjoying Picard and enjoy Discovery, I think I've figured what's wrong with New Trek versus Old Trek, in part by re-watching TOS, TNG, DS9, and VOY...

What made Old Star Trek so great was simple plots with political/social subtext and amazing characters. New Star Trek is ridiculously and needlessly convoluted with their plots. While fully admitting I'm older and my mind may not process information like it used to, I literally have to re-watch certain scenes of both new shows over and over just to grasp what was said and what's going on, which ultimately distracts from the characters.

[Cyke]

So bearing in mind that I'm enjoying Picard and enjoy Discovery, I think I've figured what's wrong with New Trek versus Old Trek, in part by re-watching TOS, TNG, DS9, and VOY...

What made Old Star Trek so great was simple plots with political/social subtext and amazing characters. New Star Trek is ridiculously and needlessly convoluted with their plots. While fully admitting I'm older and my mind may not process information like it used to, I literally have to re-watch certain scenes of both new shows over and over just to grasp what was said and what's going on, which ultimately distracts from the characters.

I'd argue that Discovery would be a better format for more episodic adventures. The first half of season 2 was in this direction and the season arc was in the background (the same way Doctor Who does it), but the more the arc took center stage as the season progressed, the more things blurred together.

Picard seems like it should be a serial show, though. I don't know what's for season 2, but it's hard to picture someone of Picard's age having regular adventures, whereas this story is supposed to be the thing that's so severe and urgent that it would bring him out of retirement for one more mystery.

With that said, I did like seeing Planned Parenthood: The Next Generation in this latest episode.

[nx01a]

And that Vulcans and Terrans still need assistance in procreating.

[Nate Grey]

And that Vulcans and Terrans still need assistance in procreating.

I thought Raffi's son's wife was Romulan? Kinda hard to tell anymore with this show.

[Robotech Master]

Her haircut and more casual use of emotion seemed more Romulan to me as well.

[kingaliencracker]

I'd argue that Discovery would be a better format for more episodic adventures. The first half of season 2 was in this direction and the season arc was in the background (the same way Doctor Who does it), but the more the arc took center stage as the season progressed, the more things blurred together.

Picard seems like it should be a serial show, though. I don't know what's for season 2, but it's hard to picture someone of Picard's age having regular adventures, whereas this story is supposed to be the thing that's so severe and urgent that it would bring him out of retirement for one more mystery.

With that said, I did like seeing Planned Parenthood: The Next Generation in this latest episode.

Discovery is worse with its convoluted plot than Picard. It's not even close. While Picard has been guilty of it, I can at least forgive it right now because there's a central mystery surrounding the plot that's developing and at least I know some of the players involved from previous Trek. With Discovery, it feels like every episode they're just throwing as many plot points against the wall as possible and seeing what sticks. The 900-year or whatever time jump they're about to do is just a prime example of this and I think is going to add further confusion to an already confusing show.

[Cyke]

Discovery is worse with its convoluted plot than Picard. It's not even close. While Picard has been guilty of it, I can at least forgive it right now because there's a central mystery surrounding the plot that's developing and at least I know some of the players involved from previous Trek. With Discovery, it feels like every episode they're just throwing as many plot points against the wall as possible and seeing what sticks. The 900-year or whatever time jump they're about to do is just a prime example of this and I think is going to add further confusion to an already confusing show.

Agreed. I like Discovery overall but the first season really threw me off when it turned out that the spore network infection would destroy the omniverse (not universe, not multiverse, but all universes). This, after no build up whatsoever towards that kind of scale. For the second season, the mystery started out well enough -- an interstellar mystery almost mythical in nature, and with a giant living spherical computer as part of it -- but then leading to Section 31 eventually conquering the galaxy and it went back to the same idea that higher stakes can just be given lip service without earning it through natural progression.

On the contrary, DS9 took *years* to build up the threat of the Dominion, and a lot of that was from taking its time in building up all the side characters, no matter what team they played for.

Discovery jumping 900 years into the future could address this, *if* the show believes there's no going back to the 22nd century. If there's no going back then there's nothing to aim for from the start, giving them a clean slate. From then on, they can do more episodic adventures, or at least having a plot thread in the background of them adjusting to this new galaxy (like how Enterprise S3 was about hunting down the Xindi, but really half the episodes were still pretty episodic. What does a cowboy planet have to do with the Xindi? What does it matter anyway?).

But yeah, Discovery has to learn that bigger isn't always better, that it doesn't need to have a complex conspiracy in every season.

[G. Boney]

I thought Raffi's son's wife was Romulan? Kinda hard to tell anymore with this show.

Her haircut and more casual use of emotion seemed more Romulan to me as well.

Plus she had forehead ridges.

[nx01a]

*Rewatches*
Definitely Northern Romulan.

[Cyke]

*Rewatches*
Definitely Northern Romulan.

On a side note, I've been watching older Trek again, and here's a tally:

The Final Frontier and The Undiscovered Country: Southern Romulans

TNG S1-S2: Northern Romulans

With this latest retcon, it's neat to see that both types of Romulans were on screen concurrently (1989-1991), even if not side by side.

---
(Also in rewatching TNG, there are more than a few shots of Starfleet and Klingons impaled or getting exploding debris embedded right in their faces. While not as bloody as Picard, in some ways it's even gorier and deadlier. A scene in the Klingon Civil War even opens up with a Klingon with a long metal shard through the left eye, skull, and head, right I the foreground of the shot, the closest Klingon to the screen. He is most definitely dead, but also most definitely with more severe wounds than Icheb.)