Amph "Engage!" - Star Trek: Picard Discussion Thread [Paramount+/CraveTV]

Spoiler

Finally watched the whole thing. I liked aspects of the episode. I enjoyed the Bladerunner vibe and the silly heist. Patrick Stewart is a campy delight. I enjoyed seeing Jeri Ryan. Wonderful acting. I had chills during her last exchange with Picard. I felt her arc and could not wait for her to kill the Troi lookalike.

Big but though - I don’t like torture porn in Star Trek. I didn’t like it with Ash in Discovery and most definitely don’t like it with Icheb while he’s being fridged. I’m also tired of every single character having an angsty, tragic background. At this point it just feels lazy in a way that literally the point of ST is to avoid.

The one bit of hope I got at the end was Seven’s speech about how she didn’t want to quash Picard’s hope. Maybe this story is going somewhere. Maybe in the end, he’ll prove he was right by having hope. Or maybe, he will learn he was right the first time and everything sucks and it’s pointless to try. Kill everybody. Like in The Expanse. Except, in The Expanse, there’s only one Amos.

 

I saw that Jeri Ryan was added as a castmember to a different show this year (Season long arc on McGyver as his aunt, okay...) which may quash her showing up in Season 2, but I hope her eventual (probably) return in S1 is substantial.

Spoiler

Also of note, in a review someone pointed out that Seven's life now seems tailor made for a spin off and they did say they have other Trek shows in development that haven't been announced. I even think they said two shows. 1 - Pike's Enterprise 2 - Seven Being A Space Pirate?

I would love to see how Janeway would react to what Seven is doing now but apparently there's tension between Mulgrew and Ryan which never really showed at all in the series.

 

It's possibly given MacGuyver's probably still shooting or wrapping up shooting soon (given it's airing a shortened season right now) and we don't know when production for Season 2 of Picard will start.

 

Had read something that Jeri and Kate Mulgrow had a reconcilliation and are on better terms now. Would love to see a scene with Seven and Janeway, in which we learn about the status quo of the Voyager crew and how she thinks about Seven's decissions.

 

I'll be honest - I don't see it. Maybe I'm blind but the lady looks nothing like Marina.

Spoiler

Neither did I. I don't hate him or anything (actually I always quite enjoyed him), but I geniunly did'nt know peaple apparently liked him so much. In my experience the best thing that can be said about him "hey, he's not Wesley."

 

The last episode was cynical bull****. The pointlessly gruesome killing off of a minor character portended the rest of the episode. Picard is a naive old man baby according to the show, Seven is homicidal Han Solo, the Federation not only abandoned Romulans on Romulus to their fates but abandoned swaths of worlds, everyone but Picard is a casual murderer. This show wants to be anything other than Star Trek. And it's becoming increasingly more clear that this is the same chosen one/bad future prevention/secret agents lazy nonsense that the Kurtzman era Trek has done with every story.

 

Governments change - not nation can retian its ideal state forever, especially those that weathered the crises that the Federation suffered in the decades preceeding Picard - given the Borg threat and the devesation of the Dominon War it's no wonder that a more isolationist and less trusting/generous generation would come of age and overtake the Federation's leadership; especially when it comes to the Romulans, a perrenial enemy of the Federation who only a few short years before the supernova attempted to luanch and unprovoked, genocidal attack on the Federation's capital.

Twenty-seven years ago peaple said the same thing about DS9

Well, considering Data wanted more, it could'nt be that bad

Now that I look at them side-to-side, I do see the resemblance (though I'd say it would be Marina circa the early 2000s, rather then during TNG)

Marina was much prettier though

 

That wasn't the Romulans. That was Shinzon, who launched a coup and murdered the entire Romulan government... you know what? Nemesis was stupid and very similar to the sort of thing we're seeing now so I'm not gonna bother.

I don't like everything DS9 did (I despise the "In the Cards" episode, the pah-wraiths were a dumb concept) but I see a fundamental difference between how DS9 challenged Federation ideals and how the Picard show discards them. A lot of the time Deep Space Nine was about the Federation running up against civilizations and cultures that were not like them. The Bajorans, for example, were highly religious and worshiped beings the Federation saw as merely an alien species they didn't fully understand. The Maquis arose from the Federation needing to make peace with the Cardassians and giving up some worlds in exchange for that peace. The Dominion was an existential threat and the Federation had to make some hard choices, some of which were the wrong ones.

The Federation of Discovery and Picard does not have ideals to be challenged. They're in every sense a 2020 powerful Earth nation-state with future tech: they don't care about their common citizens, don't care about peaceful exploration and discovery and understanding, don't care about helping anyone in need. Just Picard himself seems to care about any of what the Federation is supposed to stand for.

 

I’m Data there, still waiting with anticipation to watch next week’s episode.

 

Coup or no, Shinzon was the head-of-goverment of the Romulan Empire - I doubt the avarage person in the Federation, let alone the avarage Starfleet officer who was'nt present at the Bassen Rift, is going to care to differentiate between Shinzon's actions and the rest of the Romulans, especially since the militery fully supported his goals to go to war with the Federation, only having second thoughts when he decided to escalate things to genocide.

How is ceading a bunch of inhabited worlds to an opressive police state not discarding your values? And would'nt not making the decision not to aide the Romulans in order to save your own nation from falling apart be fall under that same catagory of "a hard choice that is probobly the wrong one?"

Star Trek has always been a mirror for our own times, so this is'nt really suprising.

Where is this stated?

Based on what? We have no reason to think that the Federation still does'nt engage in scientific missions, and as for understanding Season 2 of Discovery* had that as a major plot point, with it involving the Federation and the Klingons working alongside each other agianst a common threat.

*Disco is also set in the same timeframe as TOS, which had a much more militant, agressive and suspicious Federation then was presented during the TNG era.

• The Federation is founded at the end of ENT and expands over the next century with no real threats, becoming complacent and arrogant, their hubris then leads them to stumble uprepared into a war with the Klingons that they nearly lose. After said ware they adopt a more militarly-focused and wary outlook as they become locked in a cold war with the Klingon Empire, then after said cold war ends and the Klingons slowly become their allies they gradually fall back into their old ways until the Borg and the Dominion snap them back to reality - the current generation of Fed citizens would have grown up in the shadow of said conflicts, and would feel their effects far more then Picards.

They were fully prepared to help the Romulans until political issues forced them to chose between helping the Romulans and facing the disintergration of the Federation itself.

We've only gotten a very narrow view of the Federation and Starfleet, and all of it from the fairly bitter POVs of Picard and Raffi.

 

There is a bit of a resemblance.

 

When it comes to Star Trek’s idealized utopian future, no it absolutely has not. Roddenberry took themes and storylines out of the headlines, but his vision was absolutely of an evolved society on the whole.

 

Roddenberry died in 1991 and his control over Star Trek had mostly ceased years before that.Trek is not beholden to his intent, and indeed it stopped being so decades ago and well before Picard came out.

Not to mention their future is still far, far more idealized, utopian and evolved then ours could ever hope or dream of being - the Federation is still the Federation as of Picard, just becuse it (from Picard's embittered perspective, mind you) no longer lives up to its full potential does'nt mean it's suddently stopped being an advanced and enlightened utopian society.

Plot twist. Bjayzl was actually...

Spoiler

Mirror Troi

...all along.

Dun dun dunnnnn!

 

This is a lot of explaining around the simple fact that your point was wrong. No ST has not “always” been a mirror to our own time. The literal point of it was to be hopeful for a time better than our own time.

 

It is a better time then our own.

 

Well this one is more of an agree to disagree point than the first. Totally subjective. The tone of this show has imo gone too grimdark for that to me. Up until this last episode I would have agreed, or at least i was on the fence and felt it could go either way depending on creator intent, which I couldn’t decipher yet. Now, no. I think they’re going for a dystopia, even if it’s conspiracy dystopian without poverty, where the horrors are just beneath the surface.

 

It's subjective that the 24th Century society that has eliminated poverty, widespread racisim and economical woes, and where the nations and peaples of Earth are united under one banner and no longer fall victim to the scourge of fratricidal war and religious and ideological fanatism, is better then our own?

We've barely seen anything of the Federation though - the Romulan colony definatly did'nt seem to be in Federation Space and I don't recall us being given any reason to think Freecloud is. And what little we've see shows a Federation that's about 95 percent the same as its always been, just with a leadership that's more cynical and has adopted a more inroverted forign policy, which makes perfect sense given the events of the past few decades.

It's certinaly the farthest thing from "grimdark," and their is a very wide gulf between utopia and dystopia were you can fit any degree of nuance into.

"Conspiracies" and "horrors just beneath the surface" are nothing new for the Federation (let alone for the Romulans) - such things literally existed since it was founded.

 

Even this sounds like the ends justify the means logic, which I consider to be dystopian and anti-ST. I definitely don’t think a show that reminds me more of Hostel than TNG is the opposite of grimdark.

There is definitely grey between utopia and dystopia, and still I genuinely think this show is portraying a dystopia. I don’t agree with you that evil conspiracies existed since the Federation’s founding, which I thought we just established in our conversation. This Federation is not the federation of TOS or TNG or even DS9, even taking into account the rogue Federation bad guys.

 

A dystopia is - adjective; relating to or denoting an imagined state or society where there is great suffering or injustice.

Or - noun; an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.

From everything we've been shown these discriptions does not apply to the the Federation as of Picard - we have no reason to think their society is filled with suffering or injustice (let alone "great" suffering or injustice) and no reason to think their society is no longer a free and fair democracy, let alone totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.

Section 31 existed since before the Federation was founded and has been with it since its birth, and as of the 22nd/23rd Centuries it was a fully legal and acknowledged element of Starfleet. Section 31 is a conspiracy, ergo conspiries have been with the Federation since its birth. And that's discounting all the varius conspiracies that have cropped up in the Federation/Starfleet over the years or non-Federation groups like the Tal Shiar or the Obisdian Order and their shadowy plots.

Conspiracies are not a new thing in Trek - hell, three of their thirteen movies have been based around such things.

All the shows have had their own take on the UFP - the Federation of DS9 was not the Federation of TNG, nor was the Federation of TNG the Federation of TOS.

Hell, given how little we've actually seen of the Federation so far we have no reason to think that it's changes since the end of the TNG era have even really been that drastic to begin with.

 

The thing is, the show may present a more cynical and isolationist and cold version of Starfleet but it also explicitly acknowledges that it's wrong. Picard literally screams "It wasn't Starfleet anymore!" And I really don't see the show presenting Picard as some naive rube as some people seem to be reading it, I think he's in the right as Jean-Luc very often is. As for the why Starfleet turned that way, as mentioned before, basically all of that Dominion and Borg chaos (plus Romulans plus Cardassians plus a somewhat brief resurgence of the Klingon war) for decades to top it off with synths blowing up freakin' Mars, I totally buy it that it was curtail some of that idealism. Also, y'know, conspiracy. And Starfleet higher ups being cynical murderous jerks isn't a new thing, take away the various shifty Admirals and alien possessions throughout the series, the apex of Starfleet conspiracy is probably in Undiscovered Country where Admiral Cartwright worked with the freakin' Klingons to ensure "No peace in our time."



Picard is the good guy, steadfast and true. He realizes this is wrong. I'm fine with that. It works for the character.

(Y'know, was wondering what of the literally hundreds of choices of movies to watch tonight, but I may just watch Undiscovered Country again hahhaha. To be fair, I've mostly seen it on DVD and it's in HD on streaming. Thematically, I think it totally works for Picard.

Damn, is the one on streaming the one where it's revealed that Cornell West is the Klingon shooter, I know there was a difference between the directors cut and theatrical release)

 

I had'nt thought of that prior - Mars was a major Federation world, and coupled with the fact that at least two other Fed planets (Betazed and Benzar*) were conquered in recent memory that lose would only be made more crippling; think of 911 but if it involved nuclear weapons devesating the whole of Virgina, and then imagine if just a decade before that a forign power had conquered and occupied California and Hawaii.

*assuming Benzar was returned to the Federation by the Romulans after they "liberated" it I could easily imagine them being one of the member states demanding the UFP cut the Romulans loose, given that the Romulans don't seem like they'd be kind saviors.

Haha, Cornell West. It's certainly no worse then assuming his name is just Colonel or he's a Kentucky colonel

Though personally I still like to imagine he's a marine (along with Klink and the members of Kirk's strike time from TFF, who are reffered to as "Federation soldiers" and wear dark blue division colors never seen anywhere else during that era)

 

If they’re going the route of a near-dystopia that’s fine by me - as long as it’s a temporary one. Nothing wrong (in the story) with society losing its way for 5, 10 or 20 years. That’s realistic & represents the natural ebb & flow of all societies over different eras. This particular story can be about Picard rooting out the corruptive elements & getting the Federation back on track. That makes for good drama & an interesting narrative.

 

I think there is great injustice in this universe. The great injustice doesn’t have to impact everybody. I’ve read a lot of dystopian fiction. Sometimes dystopias have pretty images on the surface, but when you look underneath the surface, you have a prosperous black market for borg parts and the Federation is participating in assassination squads and abandoning whole helpless civilizations to die.

You must understand, of course, that when the logic is “the ends justify the means,” that’s a dystopian story.

Section 31 was created during DS9. It was used very very sparingly in DS9 and Enterpise, depicting an organization so remote and buried, 99.9% of Starfleet didn’t know it existed. I reject Discovery rewriting them into a giant part of Starfleet that has ships and special coms badges. That betrays ST. Kirk and Picard were idealists to the core. It betrays their characters and Roddenberry’s vision to make them willing participants in an organization that supports Section 31. You might say, it makes their world dystopian.

Sure they can all have their own takes. This is different. You’re the one that keeps wanting to argue it’s all the same. It’s not to me, and I don’t like this version. Not everyone likes Game of Thrones style violence and incest. I don’t actually mind incest as a principle in my fiction, but I do mind the body horror. I do mind transforming a popular franchise into the opposite of what it was meant to be and what it was. Why? Make a new show then if you want to tell a different story. It’s so cynical to put “Star Trek” in the title and mislead us. If the show had been called “Star Voyage: Pikart,” I’d judge it totally as it’s own thing. All the Dune/Bladerunner influenced stuff would be fun and interesting in its own way, as opposed in a way that’s like “well, I like ST, but okay, I also like Bladerunner and Dune, so I guess this is cool too.”

 

I disagree, but if there is such injustice nothing we've been shown so is any worse then some other things the Federation has done before.

The black market is operating on Freecloud, which might not even be a Federation planet. Even it is, crime has always been a part of Star Trek since the begining (hell, the third episode of the first season of original series involved Human trafficking), and black market trafficking in body parts does not make a society dystopian.

If it betrays Star Trek DS9 and ENT already did that - as it was the former show that told us they were part of the original Starfleet charter and the latter that showed such a claim was not a lie on Sloane's part.

By Picard's time S-31 is no longer a part of Starfleet and has long since gone undergound, and during Kirk's time they were either already underground or existed in a reformed, more transparent state per the final episode of Disco Season 2. Neither Picard nor Kirk were willing participents in S-31s actions, and even Pike, the beau ideal epitome of the ideal Starfleet officer, who did know they existed, did'nt know exactly what they did until the truth came out (and when he did he was firmly opposed to them) so can't really be said to "willingly participate" in what they did.

What about the Federation is so different in this time period? We've seen so little of it that there is really no reason to think it's fallen that far, let alone become dystopian.

Nobody misled anybody - they made it very clear well before the show aired that things would be darker and more cynical.