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Star Trek Picard season 3

whisky said:
It means she can keep an eye on him so he's not hitting on Gerodies daughter.
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Well so much for nepotism and being "fast tracked." Maybe Q can make him a science or comms officer. He sounds like he is Seven's pet or boytoy.
 
Finale was one of the better episodes of the season, I guess, which isn't really saying much but it didn't make me angry like the last few did.

Music was good, CGI was better than last week, they mentioned The Federation at last so I have to give them points for this. Everyone other than Patrick Stewart had moments where they felt like their TNG characters. The Seven/Tuvok scene was actually good.

The whole terror with the Borg is that there's nothing you can do to resist assimilation (the clue's in their catchphrase!) But according to this, if someone had hugged Jean-Luc during 'Best of Both Worlds' we could have avoided that whole Wolf-359 thing? It implies that everyone else who's ever been assimilated simply didn't fight hard enough and that's kind of insulting and offensive considering it's a rape metaphor! (I know the excuse will be that Jack and Jean-Luc had special Borg DNA that made them more easily able to choose or some shit.)

The Enterprise-D if all ships flying around like the Millennium Falcon (while crewed by FOUR PEOPLE) is fucking dumb but it's what the rubes like I guess.

Even though Dorn is good as Worf they really tried too hard to turn him into Drax with almost every line he said being some kind of one-liner. He was raised by humans, he'd know what a threesome is.

The Titan being the Enterprise-G is fucking dumb. Did the F even get destroyed last week? Having ex-lovers as a Captain and First Officer feels like a really bad move! Jack graduates the Academy in A YEAR and gets a special made-up position on the flagship and we're really supposed to believe this isn't nepotism lol?

The Titan was apparenlty the only ship that managed to fight back, meaning the over 25 crew on every other ship were completely wiped out, along with starbase exploding that must be at least a million people dead that's pretty dark!

The way they resolved the Changeling threat (which was 80% of the story of the season) by just showing two security guards kind of point their guns at a changeling who was going "drat!" was fucking hilarious.

Q might as well have just looked into the camera and said "fuck season two, am I right!"

I guess Jean-Luc doesn't care about Laris anymore? "I was alone in that vineyard for fifteen years waiting to die!" What a prick.

I wonder what Alice Krige thought when she got the script and half her lines were "HA HA HA HA HA!"

Everyone having to continue to play poker for like five minutes during the end credits felt a bit awkward.
 
There were moments that were fun, but like the entire season it was all a bit long IN THE TOOTH.

I am always happy to see Mr Tuvok, and right after they defeated the borg was sweet, I liked when Worf said swords are fun, and it was very nice to hear Majel Barrett's voice as the ship computer one last time.
 
Man, The Best of Both Worlds really fucked up Star Trek, didn't it?

I mean, not the episode itself obviously, it's amazing, but the shadow it's cast across basically the whole franchise, equal only to the shadow of The Wrath of Khan. It seems that for the past few decades Star Trek has been desperate to reclaim the feeling of that episode, and so insecure about not being taken as seriously as "The Best of Both Worlds, part I". But none of them really got why The Best of Both Worlds was what it was. Why it shocked the fans that watched it, and was actually something normal people talked about around the preverbal water cooler.

The Best of Both Worlds works because of the context of it's position in the show at the time. It works because for three seasons we had nice comfortable adventures on a bright and cozy starship. A starship that was a home as much as it was a science vessel or battlecruiser. It was a comfortable place where a found family always went away together at the end of the episode. But in The Best of Both Worlds that all gets violated. The Borg don't just attack the ship they invade it - they're on the bridge, on the carpets and they're RIGHT THERE kidnapping Picard. And by the end of the episode he stays kidnapped - maybe even gone forever. SHIT GOT REAL IN STAR TREK. That simply doesn't work as well as it does without that 3 seasons of comfortable set-up, it's like if season 3 of FRIENDS ended with someone walking into Central Perk and shooting Gunther in the face. Or worse because no one cared about Gunther. I don't know, Ross? Did people care about Ross?


TNG for it's credit never tried to ride on it's glory. It built on it a few times, like with "I, Borg", and when the Borg eventually did return it wasn't trying to retread that episode. Decent isn't bad, because it's a Best of Both Worlds knock off, it's bad for other reasons. It's not until Star Trek: First Contact that they go back to that well and they - shockingly - manage to pull it off. Not quite as successfully, but they do. And again it works for basically the same reasons that The Best of Both Worlds did. First Contact followed Generations, which in many ways feels like an extended episode of the show. Because of that First Contact gets to have shit get real again - with a new Enterprise and darker uniforms and it's all very adult and serious... mostly. It doesn't quite pack the same punch - mostly because as a film it has to have a nice satisfying ending - but it does work. And instead of just yelling at the audience asking them if they remember The Best of Both Worlds and trying to steal it's thunder, it at least builds on it's ideas by ending Picard's arc with the Borg and somewhat moving on from his trauma.

Voyager of course tries to get on the Best of Both Worlds wagon with Scorpion, but by then there was no point. The Borg were no longer the alien and invasive element they were in TNG, they had become the cozy, comfortable villain.

And then we get to Picard. Picard is desperate to feel like The Best of Both Worlds. It can't escape from it. It wants the glory that episode had but really doesn't want to do the work to find out how to do it properly. The first two seasons just waved the Borg around in a desperate attempt to get us to feel something, but had the same problem Voyager had - the Borg just aren't that threatening any more. But Season 3 almost feels more pathetic, as it's so obviously trying to cargo cult it's way into being Big Important and Notable Star Trek.

Picard's version of Starfleet and starships aren't safe and cozy places, they're Very Serious And Gritty places where there are spies and ilfiltrators everywhere! The Starships are all dark and moody now! Captains are assholes*! But then you don't get that same effect. It's not shocking or invasive when The Borg invade all of the woke youth in Starfleet because just like 5 minutes ago Starfleet was already being invaded by Changlings! It's not shocking when the villains invade the bridge because it doesn't look like your home, it looks like a place where action scenes happen. And Picard makes this worse by being so fucking insecure about being taken seriously that they try to "improve" things by making it more "adult". Oh, you liked The Best of Both Worlds??? Well guess what idiots, we've just made it BETTER because we've done basically the same stuff except now the crew say "FUCK". Oh did you want to watch First Contact? No need! Watch this version of it but with ~QUIPS~ and ~WINKS TO THE AUDIENCE~. We know you love it! And when it's not desperately trying to be The Best of Both Worlds it's desperately trying to be The Wrath of Khan. There's no reason why so much of this episode aped that film other than trying to conjure some feeling of being good by association.

It all comes across like a child wearing adult clothes to pretend to be older. It's just basic imitation with no understanding of what made the original work.

And that's not even counting the other bizarre elements of this season, like the weird fear of the youth, the whole show being about 4 hours too long, spending multiple multiple episodes teasing and building up one set of villains only to instantly forget about them and replace them with another, literally why the fuck Raffi is in this show, PICARD'S BORG CUM??????????????



And FUCK YOU Terry Matalas for taking one of the best ending scenes to a show ever (in my opinion), ripping it off and then PUTTING YOUR FUCKING NAME ON IT.







The Borg episode of Enterprise was actually pretty good because it stripped the Borg back to their basic elements, it's a shame no one took any lessons from it.






*until it's revealed at the end that he was nice the whole time
 
^Well said.

I just feel like a bit of nitpicking - admittedly about as challenging as stealing candy from a baby given the laughably massive plot holes and contrivances this thing requires to function.

The more you think about it, the dumber it gets. The Queen's plan almost worked. Almost.

A cube that size at 38% capacity ought to have had more than enough energy to generate - say - a forcefield? Perhaps one room-spanning forcefield to encompass her and Jack. Seems like a good idea given a) The time and effort that went into capturing Jack (before he just turned himself over, anyway) and b) The Borg are at extinction's doorstep, apparently. I say this as I now remember my jaw was agape as Picard just waltzed into the Queen's chamber and started unplugging him. And to top it off, she allowed him to interface with Jack. And she's just up there on her contraption gesticulating.

I mean, The Borg weren't *all* dead, as we saw with Riker and Worf. Would she not have had at least a few dozen in the vicinity set aside for security - especially in light of her inviting her arch-nemesis (sorry, Janeway) on board?

As for the cube's defenses - she lowered the shields after she had Jack (AFTER!) ... to invite Picard on board to witness her FINAL VENGEANCE.

Oh, but you have a rebuttal - the Enterprise could've still taken out the core. Yes, but that plan was predicated on the cube's shields being down. Had they not, then that option would've been off the table. Hell, they would've relied on a last-minute cavalry in the form of the Klingons, Romulans, Cardies - hell - The Dominion - to turn up and help punch through the cube's defenses.

Speaking of The Klingons, has Martok (remember him?) gone sour on the Khitomer accords or what? President Koeing's warning would have reached The Klingon Empire. Martok should've been "oh goodness, this is a mighty pickle." and got on the line to Odo and said "Mr. Odo, it's your old friend Chancellor Martok here. The Federation is about to be wiped out by The Borg thanks in no small part to your Changeling faction - mind sending a couple of thousand ships through the wormhole like, yesterday?" (note - creative license taken with Martok dialogue). And then hey, we might've had a decent space battle. I know, the budget was tight - (in fine Trek series finale tradition). Hey, they could've just replayed the DS9 battle clipshow (again). Fans would've lapped it up seeing The Defiant spraying phaser fire at Jem'Hadar again, or the Klingons getting kamikazed - and who wouldn't want to see those Miranda-class ships flanking the Defiant get owned for a third time?

The Universe is just so small now. Speaking of small, that's all of Starfleet? You're telling me you emptied all of Federation space of Starfleet and concentrated it in Sector 001 and that's it? There should be thousands ... TENS of thousands (but my Lord there is -- ) of bloody ships. There were a few hundred ships at most; the fleet that retook DS9 was twice the size, at half strength and cobbled together from a few of their primary fleets.

Super-picky nitpick: As for The Borg. In Endgame, the pathogen was a distraction; The Collective had already begun to adapt as the sphere pursued Voyager, IIRC. Sure, it was a *bad* day for The Borg - but an extinction level event? That was their primary Unicomplex, implying there would have been several secondary scattered throughout the DQ. And it was one of SIX transwarp hubs that were taken down. The Hubs were a means of near-instant transportation; Borg vessels still possessed standard transwarp coils. The Borg have been adapting for thousands of centuries - they'd have redundancies on top of redundancies. You bring them back just to show them in this pitiful state?

Also, did Our Heroes not have Jurati borg on speed dial? LOL, imagine if this were DS9 and Sisko had this whole mini-arc dealing with some benevolent Borg faction. The real Borg turn up and no-one - Dax, O'Brien, Bashir, Odo and so on .... no-one mentions getting in touch with their BORG allies. You know, even if they were unresponsive, you still tried.

And finally, the Millenium Falcon moment. Did it look cool? Yes. Was it utterly ridiculous seeing the D maneuver like a X-Wing? Yes. This topped the turbolift sequence in Disco. I don't have a clip, but I'll just put this here for comparison:

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Above: a quarter-century old bit of CGI that somehow looks better than present-day CGI.
 
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The days of The Borg being terrifying have been gone for years and are now reduced to being a joke from a 5th rate comedian (I'm being nice here), it's sad. It feels like somebody tried to kill Trek via St: Picard.
 
First Contact was my entry point into the franchise, so I didn't know any better. I discovered Q-Who & BOBW after the fact. By the time I was caught up in all things Trek, Scorpion came out and I loved it.

I still rate Scorpion - the idea of The Borg stumbling across a race that absolutely owns them was fun. But yeah, going back to the OG TNG episodes, I had a new appreciation for how terrifying they were in their introduction: relentless - beyond reason or negotiation. That we were nothing to them except consumable material, along with their imposing technological advantage, is what made them so unsettling. But every time they revisited the well, that menace diminished. And by Picard S3, we end on them cackling in full moustache-twirling revenge mode. Hell, they're overhauling their entire ethos - now evolution and annihilation is the road to perfection?

I didn't mind the idea of them returning if they had a cracking story that saw a return to form, but not this.
 
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