New Picard trailer just dropped

[Wereknight]

Not a big fan of Star Trek but, looking at past few ST big shots (well uh, movies, mostly), might to watch it when will be avaible here...
Oh and... Picard, you say?

[Blake00]

That video.. wow haha

Apparently CBS has posted the first episode of Picard on YouTube for a limited time. So, if you dont have All Access and want to check it out, you have til Feb 7 to watch it for free. Naturally it's region locked though urgh.

Episode 2 of Picard seen. Glad it explains some of the mysteries & fan complaints about the first episode.

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A few fans complained about the weird Starfleet HQ 'rooftop cleanup' job & leave Picard on his couch with no questions asked scene jump moment in ep 1 but now we see the Commodore reviewing the battle cleanup footage (questioning it's effectiveness) and discover this fascinating Starfleet conspiracy with secret Romulan sect plot. I remember people in the past getting so upset about the English writing in the Romulan Borg research post but there are a lots of humans there which explains that one.

We see that the Androids that destroyed Utopia planitia were 'hacked' presumably by this secret synthetic hating Romulan faction. And holy moly they actually acknowledged Picard's Irumodic syndrome that afflicted him around now in the alternate future seen in TNG finale All Good Things. I'm impressed with their attention to detail (regarding old Trek events), which makes me hope the writers haven't forgotten Lore & Lal after all.

The only real gaff I saw was Laris saying Romulans never had a cybernetic program which contradicts the awesome TNG S3 ep the defector where Admiral Jarok tells Data that he knows a number of Romulan cyberneticists that would love to get their hands on him. Although then again maybe its not a gaff as we saw Romulan experts pulling apart dead Borg. You cant really study Borgs without some good cyberneticists lol. Probably just more Romulan secrets lol.

[Blake00]

Episode 3 seen: (spoiler alert)

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Not thrilled about how they continue to make Picard look slow, weak & frail. You watch him on talk shows and he zips around just fine lol! But I love the fact that in ep 3 it appears writers are trying to address one of those funny never explained issues from old trek.

When I was young it always annoyed me how in TNG supposedly a Borg who got his individuality somehow broke a friggin cube and caused a rebellion on it of sorts when assimilating individuals is what the Borg do lol. Voyager & FC ended up adding a lot of info on how the borg worked, how they connect, and made it pretty obvious that assimilating ex borgs (eg 7 of 9, the borg kids, locutus etc) back into the fold wasn't going to break anything lol, in fact they wanted them. Yes Hugh was a Borg test tube baby and not a previous individual unlike those others I mention but it shouldn't really matter HOW they became an individual when you're grabbing someone and pumping nanites into their blood and connecting them to the hive lol.

However it looks like the new trek writers are carving a story where in reality, Hugh went back to the Borg they reassimilated him no probs but then a few hours later on the trip back to delta they found a nice little yummy Romulan intelligence vessel on the way to assimilate, they start 'processing them' and then 'something' goes wrong (Romulan virus? weapon? racial nanite rejection like the Denobulans?). Hugh presumably wakes up and pops out of his alcove again thinking its somehow caused by him (hence why he later tells Picard in Descent that it was his fault), all the other borgs who don't know how to be individuals start goin nuts and they kick off a nice little rebellion which then at some point Lore arrives on the scene and takes control of them and they escape on the light cruiser which we see in Descent (small borg ships inside big borg ships is nothing new). In fact this new obvious Romulan ex-borg fears of Dahj's sister (ie synthetics) could very well be relating to trauma from what Lore did to many of them when he took over things which once again gives me hope Lore will somehow come into this new story at some point. Probably a long shot though haha..

Am I way off.. we shall see haha.

[Clippy]

As a huge star trek fan going up this show makes me sad cause it's not star trek at all

[Enjay]

It took me a while to get into the pace of it. I'm used to Star Trek being 45 minutes of a big story with a parallel and much more personal story affecting one of the crew (probably Chief O'Brien ) that somehow mirrors the bigger plot. Both stories, of course, get conveniently wrapped up nice and neatly within about 45 minutes and there is a good moral lesson for us all in the end.

Picard telling one story over the entire season means a slower pace and although lots of things have happened (episode 1 alone had lots of things happening), the story is moving at a much slower pace. Now that I'm into it though, I really like the fact that they can take time to tease out some of the points. e.g. you don't need to understand everything about every new character within 5 minutes because they are likely to be around for 8 hours more of viewing time, so we get more time to see and explore relationships... sometimes.

I also like the fact that it's not set onboard a federation-run vessel of any kind. Although Picard is far from and ordinary person in the Star Trek universe, shifting things away from a bunch of federation stiffs wandering the universe preaching about their prime directive and their utopian, squeaky-clean, sterile future is a nice new perspective. Indeed, Picard doing so and talking about how his federation should be (or was) is in a nice stark and uncomfortable juxtaposition with how things are for many of the other individuals in the universe. To me, that gives a glimpse as to what ordinary life might be like for people not wearing the starfleet uniform and, as I always suspected, it's not as rosy as starfleet would have you believe. I also like that Picard is a bit "persona non grata" with the powers that be (and others too). I also like the fact that on some occasions, that has come as a surprise to him as much as anyone.

The only characters that really bug me are the Romulan brother and sister spies on the cube. I just find them a bit weakly written and very tropey in their sneaky bad-guys deceiving a central character but one maybe not quite as signed up to the cause kind of way. Their story is one part that I would like to see evolving a bit more quickly. We'll see how it pans out though.

Not entirely sure why Picard so unquestioningly accepted a scientist (Dr. Jurati) on to his crew for such a dangerous and secretive mission without knowing anything of any real substance about her though. I'd be surprised if she doesn't turn out to have some ulterior (and possibly harmful) motive. Her effortless inclusion on the crew seems illogical, as Spock might say.

It's by no means the best TV that I have watched, but I am enjoying it.

[Apprentice]

I have to say, I like what I've seen so far (watched all 4 released episodes). They have treated "Star Trek" and the lore that goes with it, with more respect then they have done with Discovery. Sure there are some weak points here and there but in overall, it remains (for me) enjoyable to watch.

Discovery could have better been called "The Michael Burnham Chronicles" and with the Star Trek elements removed, you probably had a better series . . .

[Clippy]

Like I was saying to someone else - Classic Star Trek gave me hope for mankind

New Star Trek leaves me with this doom and gloom feeling

Show's supposed to be uplifting guys - about discovery and exploration and how humanity evolved

Now it's F Bombs and drama and destiny and BS ffs

[Enjay]

I always found the squeaky-clean near-utopian future of Star Trek too sterile to give me any optimism. I think it would be awful to live like that and the self-righteousness of it gets right up my nose sometimes.

I actually feel more optimistic about the future presented in Picard. It shows that humanity is still around, it's functioning pretty well and has made progress from where we are right now, but it's still human, flawed, sometimes petty, sometimes selfish and it's more believable IMO.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a doom and gloom person. I don't want everything to be a miserable dystopian scenario and I generally like an upbeat ending where the good guys, if they have earned their victory, are allowed to win (and keep their victory too, no last minute "the bad guy is still around" twist, thank you very much) but an unrealistic plastic "perfect" future is almost as bad as the miserable option IMO.

[Blake00]

Yeah by this stage in Discovery I was pretty pissed off lol but with Picard I'm enjoying it.. few holes to pick here and there but I think it's pretty good.

Episode 4 seen (belated).. WE'RE OFF!:

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Well things have finally taken off! Enjoying the fact we're back in space.. loved the look of the Romulan refugee colony (particularly in the flashback sequences) with the giant 'world tree' background, although in the opening planet shot I wish we'd seen the Enterprise E approaching (considering they made some interesting modifications to the D I'd be interested to see what they do with the E). Backstory of the Romulan Samurai dude & his history with Picard was interesting, although Picard now walking around with a Elf looking dude that slices off heads feels a bit weird lol, but no doubt they'll be some big fun action bits with him down the track (which will aggravate oldschool trek purists to no end I'm sure haha).

Enjoyed the space battle, sure enough it was a classic 22nd century Romulan Bird of Prey (nice tip of hat to old Trek), retrofitted for lawless system warlord related activities lol. Interesting to see all these different hologram crew member variants captain Chris has. 7 of 9 has arrived! Will be very interesting to see how much they delve into her past and backstory post Voyager return. Also the holodeck stuff explains why she's in Patrick's 'home' in the trailers. I know people were complaining/making fun of the Picard sword scene in the original trailer, but it was fine, they even made him took kinda tough before he did the expected 'I'm not fighting you/playing your games' thing. Although his comment about having bad knees annoyed me, I don't care if you're 95yrs old, it's 24th century, people aren't gonna have 'bad knees' lol (we're already getting into 3D printing/replicating joints & cartilage now so it's only a matter of time), would rather they just continue to try and hide any difficulties RL Patrick might have, although I still maintain he seems to zip around just fine in real life on talk shows and stuff though lol.

Anyway we're already off to another planet in the teaser for the next ep so things are definitely moving along now lol! Although I'm a little worried about all that silly dress up stuff.. I swear to god if the next ep is like the Casino planet sequence in Ryan Johnson's cr*ptastic Star Wars film and black eye patch gangsta Picard is throwing dice with cheesy overly excited cgi aliens I'm gonna throw my Tv lol.

Oh and I'm probably off the mark with the Lore theory previously posted.. sounds like they're going for something bigger.. harbinger of doom stuff lol!

Guess I better hurry up and watch Ep 5 now instead of reading comments as that's just asking for spoilers haha.

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[Blake00]

Yeah.. episode 5.. wow.. If people here disliked it you don't have to worry about me arguing with you on this one guys. As this episode broke me too, or more precisely it broke my enjoyment of the show. I didn't enjoy that at all. I thought maybe if I sleep on it I'd feel better but nope, today I'm even grumpier about it haha. Up until now I've only had little nitpicks and have really enjoyed show and have defended it when people have complained about it "not feeling like star trek" but there was next to nothing Star Trek feeling about Ep 5. Those people who complained about past eps not being star trek are gonna looooooove this one lol. I don't wanna walk away from a Star Trek episode feeling frustrated and miserable. When they played the exciting trailer for the next ep and all the cool Borg stuff at the end I didn't even give s***. I was like.. whatever. They're gonna have to work hard in the next few eps to undo the damage that one just did. I can only hope that they had to go that dark and callous to setup the audience to be brought back to the light and happy ending lol. But I can't help but think that if it turned me off that badly then all those people out there who's really not been that into the new show and were barely holding on will probably be like "stuff this!" and be done with it after seeing that ep lol.

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For starters the acting felt a bit weird and wooden in this ep. Picard & 7 scenes felt weird, felt more like the actors were catching up more than the characters haha. 7 felt a little too different and Patrick didn't feel very 'Picardy'. His french gangster over acting rouse was funny but just didn't feel like something Picard would do, felt like I was watching one of Patrick's stage plays lol. For a French born character his french accent was pretty bad haha!

Can't remember what forum I was talking in but there was a guy who was all annoyed about how upset Raffi was about loosing her security clearance lol, well he's gonna love this ep and it pretty much says she turned into a alco & drug addict and messed up her family after that incident lol. Messed up drug addicts and alcoholics on earth, I'm sure Gene would love that lol. But hey I'm sure she'll have her recovering addict redemption story a happy ending with her dr son at some point and people will wonder if they're watching an episode of Chicago Med & not Star Trek lol.

But lets get to the real jewel of the episode.. I liked Voyager a lot but its not my favourite old trek show, probably more 3rd fav behind TNG & DS9. So considering how much this ep annoyed me I feel bad for all the super Voyager fans out there. You're NOT in for a good time here guys, I REALLY do feel bad for you guys and say sorry. Pretty much straight off the bat poor old (now grown up) Borg kid Icheb is utterly and brutally tortured/dissected and then murdered. Obviously the former was by the 'bad guys' but the later was by his Borg mum 7 of 9! Yes that's right, die hard voyager fans who love 7 of 9 and have been waiting for her return will literally get to see her shoot her own adopted son in the first 20 seconds of seeing her lol. He does the whole "im too far gone, put me out of my misery" thing everyone's seen a million times and she obliges. Get f****** mate! I get it, he's probably missing a few vital cybernetic organs but if he bleeds out or dies on route so be it, but at least try to throw him over your shoulder and carry your sons ass out of there. I mean I'm sure she didn't exactly have a nice state of the art medical bay next door ready to go or a big starship to beam up to but still it.. just.. felt.. wrong. Oh and apparently she just left him there too giving the black market guys EXACTLY what they wanted anyway as the crime lord chick brags later in the ep about dissecting him. Wtf?????

But don't worry Voyager fans there's more character assassination coming for your enjoyment haha. 7 of 9 is definitely not the one you know anymore lol.. now she's PTSD Aragorn ranger'ing around the galaxy shooting lots of people vigilante style.. in fact I think they even call her a vigilante in one scene lol. You know all those boring episodes of Voyager where we got endless Janeway and 7 of 9 scenes (funny now considering how much the actors disliked each other) handcrafting her into a civilized 24th century human being? Well say goodbye to that folks cause now she's a messed up Bourbon drinking badass assassin for hire! She's helping those in need who can't help themselves and is more than happy to kill a few hundred people in the process if they get in her way *cue dramatic 80s action music* lol!

So what now then.. I mean in her final scene she lies to Picard, beams back down and offs the crime lord chick and then starts mowing down the place and it cuts away. The end! So that's answers the question of will she be a regular.. nope.. she's gooone. Maybe she'll come back later? Maybe she's return in a future season? Maybe they'll even be a nice happy ending redemption story for her down the track too (although that doesn't bring poor Icheb back does it lol)? Or maybe not lol and that'll be the end of her story and every time Voyager fans re-watch the old show they'll be like "oh look there's Icheb, when voyager gets home he joins starfleet and gets brutally tortured and murdered for spare parts.. and oh look there's 7 of 9, she's the one that kills him and leaves him there to be dissected for said parts lol, and spends the rest of her life miserable and shooting up half the galaxy in revenge." It's likethe new Star Wars films.. I don't enjoy seeing my favourite childhood characters being brutally murdered in front of me. Because now when I re-watch the original stuff I just see their cheap deaths. Data's death in Nemesis had a similar effect on me so that's why I was so happy about this show as it gave me hope that they'd "do a star trek 3" and find a way to resurrect him. But now I find myself wondering how many other beloved characters are gonna get killed or messed up on the road to that happy ending, assuming thats even what happens, we may not even get that lol.

Anyway sorry.. back to the slaughter.. Bruce maddox.. they found him.. and he was all a messed up stressed alcoholic too of course.. cause everyone's messed up these days.. aaaaaaand then he was dead. All he bloody did was tell them her name and that shes at the cube and next thing we know he's getting offed by his own girlfriend (20 or so years younger than him I might add, yeeeaaahhh way to go on office romance bro! pulling those youngers chicks aint easy bro.. high 5!) giving us our innocent clumsy girl is actually working for bad guys shock moment at the end of the episode.. fake gasp.. yeah.. like I said before I was already completely disconnected by that stage and just didn't even care.

Urgh.. end of rant. Breath Daniel.. Just breath... lol

Like I said.. they're gonna need to work hard to undo the damage this episode did. I think I'd rather rewatch most of the episodes in discovery season 1 than ever watch that episode again lol.

Everywhere I go so far I've seem pretty horrified responses to ep5. I've seen a couple of dudes say they loved ep5 though, I was like WAAAT lol.

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I will pay the episode one compliment though.. their attention to detail on past Trek events once again is impressive. Eg they acknowledged Picard's Borg past which I was worried they wouldn't. They mentioned Quark in the bar sequence. And the biggest one would be during the horrible Icheb torture surgery scene where the lady callously says "where's your cortical node buddy?" as shes ripping stuff out of him. In season 7 of Voyager Icheb risked his life and gave his to 7 of 9 when her failed and they realised she couldn't survive without one while he might, which of course he did.

Meanwhile some self appointed comedian just thew this hand grenade into a Voyager facebook group. I'm sure you can image how well that went down with them lol. Too soon? Yeah just a bit lol.

Rest In Pieces Picture

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[Enjay]

I haven't seen the episode yet but pretty much everything you mentioned exemplifies why I am enjoying Picard.

I've always felt that the future shown in Trek was too perfect and too plastic; soulless. Showing people actually being fallible, failing, suffering and their experiences having real, personal consequences for them - and society - makes the Picard version of the Trek future much more believable. I always thought that Star Trek relied too much of an unrealistic shift in basic human nature over the next 200-ish years versus the tens of thousands up to this point.

I can see why die-hard Trek fans don't like it and I can even accept that the number of alcoholic/PTSD/suffering people is bordering on being a bit too much (is no one happy in the future?) but I like it.

And, honestly, the show is deliberately delving into the underbelly a bit. Picard isn't boldly going in a huge, shiny Enterprise with the might of the uniformal federation behind him, bolstered by the moral high-handedness of the federation code. He's effectively gone rogue and has assembled a rag-tag crew of people who are seeking out people who have, essentially, lost under the current regime. Whereas, at least on the face of it, society as a whole is still squeaky clean. The various places Picard visited on Earth were light, clean, airy and pleasant for the most part. For your average Earth citizen, the world probably isn't that different to what it was in earlier Star Treks. It's only if you fall foul of that system that the cracks start to appear - and I've always felt that would probably be the case; we just never really got to see it. So, for me, this gives some balance. It's like the previous iterations always showed the government propaganda, and now we're getting to see a bit more of the "warts and all" picture.

Also, I'll be perfectly honest, I found Icheb and those other Borg children annoying and cringey in an I'm almost embaressed to be watching this episode Wesley Crusher kind of way (worse in some ways) so I'm looking forward to seeing what you describe happening to him.

[dpJudas]

I can only echo what Blake00 said. This episode was the thing that ended my interest in this show. Before that I sort of liked the idea of painting the Star Trek universe in a different way, because I don't think you can make a 80-90's show in 2020 without it feeling extremely dated and out of time. Picard goes out in the universe again and sees the universe from a civilian's point of view - I liked that angle.

But now after this episode it is clear it's JJ Abrams horrible kind of show that just keeps throwing lame back-references and a story line that creates nothing interesting new of its own. Even the shock effect at the end is just a sad Game of Thrones wannabe gimmick. With that ending they wasted half the season on what? Chasing down a name that people only connect to anything at all because they watched an entirely different show decades earlier. A show should be able to stand on its own without having watched earlier shows first and this one clearly can not.

[Enjay]

A show should be able to stand on its own without having watched earlier shows first and this one clearly can not.

I disagree with that. I am watching the show with my daughter. She doesn't know any Star Trek characters or lore in any real depth. With the exception of Data and vaguely recognising 7 of 9, she hasn't been familiar with any of the characters who are call backs to previous Star Trek presentations. She didn't really even know who the Borg or the Romulans are. However, this has not hampered her ability to watch and understand the show and all of the important call-back characters have had enough back story explained to put them in good enough context for watching and understanding Picard.

As with Star Wars, I feel that many die hard fans are too wrapped up in their own sense of entitlement of what they see should be happening and if it doesn't match up with what they are being presented with, the show/film is the "worst ever" and "[insert director/show runner name here] ruined [or worse] my childhood".

Picard can and does work well as a stand-alone presentation and, despite the many references and Easter eggs in every episode, little or no prior knowledge is required to "get" Picard.

[dpJudas]

I'm not really a super Star Trek fan. I didn't like Star Trek Voyager at all, I didn't know who 7 of 9 was before seeing this show, and I think the Borg in itself is a pretty boring idea that only entertained me when I first encountered them in the first few ST:TNG episodes they appeared in.

If anything, I think your daughter actually has an advantage in the sense that she doesn't know what the Borg or the Romulans were. Because the way they are pictured in this version seem to be nothing remotely to what they were back then. And that in itself is fine - I can live with the Romulans being different than their ST:TNG stereotypes.

My complaint is mostly that if you're going to write a new story then use new names and ideas. Don't call the professor Maddox, don't show me Data (even tho he's silly fat in this version, haha), and for the love of God, don't make a ship computer doctor! If you must include old characters like that you have to reintroduce them in your new show in their new form. If you remove all the references to older shows the story of the last two episodes basically boil down to: "old retired admiral picks up old friend with weird gadgets in her face, the old friend lies to the retired admiral and kills a crime boss that you also know nothing about. Then girlfriend of old scientist kills the old scientist, again with nothing further than they were lovers once". That's not quality storytelling to me.

[Enjay]

Whereas I'm quite OK with the idea that the years have taken their toll on these various people and that they have become different due to the passing of time and the events that befell them along the way. None of us are like we were 20 or so years ago and very few of us will have experienced situations as traumatic as the ones that the various characters are meant to have been through.

As for Dr. Agnes Jurati and the nature of her relationship with Maddox, I've been suspecting something since the first moment that we met her.

I'd be surprised if she doesn't turn out to have some ulterior (and possibly harmful) motive.

and while I didn't specifically mention Maddox there, I always thought that there was some connection with him that would be part of whatever unfolded.