Star Trek!

[KageRyu]

[Whill]

"Balance of Terror" is one of my faves too. The Romulan ship doesn't seem that different to me.
https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/star-treks-new-romulan.html
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[KageRyu]

The still frames do look more similar than I had thought. It looked like the top was more bubbled/rounded, which I guess was do to the angles it was shown at. I do dislike the darker coloration still.
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"There's a set way to gain new Force Points and it represents a very nice system, where you're rewarded for heroism, not for being a poor conductor to electricity." ~Jachra

[DougRed4]

I too greatly enjoyed SNW.

Agree on the casting of Kirk and the Romulan Commander.

The only part of S1 that exasperated me was M'Benga allowing his child to go off with this alien stranger he had just met! Yes, I get that his daughter was dying, but people vet their babysitters more than this Federation officer did with a completely alien entity that he knew next to nothing about.

Anson Mount as Pike is one of the more likeable ST captains, and I really like how they're exploring the stories of the other cast as well (I still couldn't tell you the names of many of Discovery's 'lesser' characters).
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[Whill]

I just realized I never posted about Picard season 3 (which ended over three weeks ago). Overall a good season on par with the first two. I liked the general premise of the main villains and their plot, new twists on a couple Trek villain species. It's really built on what came before in the franchise. I do have mixed feelings about this season's relationship to the first two seasons of Picard. I don't begrudge most of the Picard characters being written out to make room for returning TNG characters, but it feels like they went a bit too far and ignored a lot of the Picard s1-2 continuity the sake of this season's "TNG reunion" story. Where was Queen Agnes and her "good Borg" during all of this season's story?

I also have questions about Starfleet's chain of command. Captain Shaw seemed to have authority over Picard (a retired admiral) and could deny Picard's requests, but later suddenly Picard could pull rank and did. Then later when Shaw transferred command to Riker, Riker seemed to outrank Picard until Picard could pull rank and did, and Riker dramatically blamed Picard for the resulting predicament they were in when Riker was in command and went along with it – I thought it was unlike Riker to shift blame and not accept responsibility for what happened under his command.

Although Data was the second officer on the Enterprise D and E, Geordi being left with command when Picard left the ship made sense to me because Geordi was an active commodore in Starfleet and thus a higher rank than everyone else (except Picard's rank at retirement), as I understand it. I still feel the outside design of the Enterprise-D is ugly, but I thought it was a nice touch to bring back the ship (salvaged and restored saucer section with a salvaged engineering section from another Galaxy-class). They impressively rebuilt a practical bridge set to the specs of the original (like Enterprise had rebuilt the original Constitution-class bridge for its Mirror Universe episodes).

Unless I missed it, I was confused that there was no dialogue about Enterprise-D's automation modification like when Kirk and Scotty stole the Enterprise in TSfS. The ship originally had a crew of hundreds so how could a partial bridge crew control the ship? Was it already established in the franchise that only a minimal bridge crew was ever needed to control the ship by design? If so, that really stains credulity for me because what were all the engineering and operations crew doing if they weren't actually ever needed? It was quite fitting that Geordi took the helm station, but it was preposterous when he left the station and the seat was empty – No one was flying the ship until Troi later felt Riker's presence, said she knew where he was, and left her seat to take over the helm. The ship was in a weird place and she should have immediately went to that station and started piloting the ship as soon as Geordi got out of it (she has assumed the helm before in emergencies).

I have mixed feelings about the new "Data". The original Data died in Nemesis. Then Picard season 1 revealed that Data's memories were backed up in an actively running program (apparently transferred to B4 by Data before he died and later recovered by Altan Soong and placed in a computer). Since the Data-2 program did not remember Data's death, he felt the final step to the program achieving humanity was living for a short time with the knowledge of his own mortality, so Picard said goodbye and honored Data-2's request: the Data-2 program was terminated, or so we thought at the time. Then Picard season 3 revealed Atlan Soong had yet another copy of Data's memories which he had combined into a new android body along with a copy of the memories of Lore and B4 (and I think Atlan Soong too, using the same process Picard's memories were transferred to his artificial body at the end of PIC s1). So now we have Data-3, but he mystifyingly seemed to remember the death of both previous Datas. The first copy (Data-2) explicitly couldn't remember the death of the original. Data-3 remembering the death of Data-2 would only make sense if the Data-2 program was saved (including his "death") which means it was only a simulated death for the program which was never actually deleted, in complete defiance of Data-2's wishes (just only making him think he was dead). Data-2 served the purpose of giving Picard a chance to say goodbye, something he never got to do with the original Data, and gave Data's original death more meaning for Picard. Data-2 was only a program Picard interacted with briefly, so it didn't seem unfitting in the continuity. As cool as it was to see a resolution to the existence of the extraneous androids (Lore and B4), and to see a more human-actualized Data, I still can't help but feel that Data-3 comes across like a cheat. I might not feel this way if Data-2 never existed. Data is one of several things that makes it seem like they didn't really plan out the three seasons of Picard in advance. Picard feels a lot like the SW DT, like they just made each single season one at a time with no forethought of what they would do next.

What else? The Titan was a coolly designed ship. Christopher Plummer's daughter was a good villain. I like the Sidney LaForge character (and it was neat that Geordi's other daughter was played by his real life daughter). It was a nice touch that they used clips of Majel Barrett's voicing the Enterprise computer. I admit I geeked out a bit over Walter Koenig performing the voice of Anton Chekov, president of the Federation and son of Pavel Chekov (fittingly named in honor of the deceased actor who played the reboot Chekov in the last three Trek films). I was pissed when a stinger revealed Q was not dead.

Overall, Picard season 3 was a much better ending for TNG than Nemesis was, but Picard should have been made a long time ago when TNG actors were younger. As great of an actor as Patrick Stewart is, he is too decrepit for the role. (But Gates McFadden plastic surgery was bad.) I think that only Riker, Geordi, and Worf aged well. I really loved Worf with his new sensibilities, a perfect evolution for the character. I never felt there needed to be a follow up to DS9 or Voyager because I didn't care for those that much, but it was cool that Picard included the best of those shows (Worf and Seven, who looked great and was great throughout Picard). Supposedly there is a huge fan demand for a Captain Seven spinoff, and if they made it I'd watch it, but I really don't think it is necessary. We're into the 25th century now and they should just leave the '24th century Trek' and it's legacy alone now. I'm a bigger fan of the mid-23rd century Trek currently showing in Strange New Worlds.
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[DougRed4]

I nodded along and agreed with just about everything you wrote. With the minor exception that - though it totally was a cheat - I was happy to see the new/old Data. They leaned hard into the nostalgia feels, and I was okay with that.

Too bad they didn't road map things a bit more from the start. Otherwise, I really enjoyed s3 of Picard.
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[Whill]

I am caught up on live-action Trek, again. I finished the Star Trek: Discovery series a couple weeks ago and forgot to mention it. Season 5 was interesting premise, collecting ancient alien tech for clues in race for an ancient alien power. It was a cool tie-in to the progenitor episode of TNG inspired by Indiana Jones.

One thing that was noticeable is related to our discussion of the drama being effected by the existence of the disintegration setting on phasers, tech that has existed for about 900 years by the time this season takes place. There were many "firefights" where the bad characters would not have any motivation to not use the insta-disintegrate setting, but they don't. If you are shooting at someone behind cover, then simply disintegrate the cover to get to them. It seems that they are simply retconning that setting away without explaining it.

I thought it was funny that they revealed a character was really a character from Enterprise who was tied to a very unpopular metaplot on that series. I thought the epilogue was too long and drawn-out.

Overall the 5th season was about the same as the 3rd and 4th, maybe slightly better. But I still feel that the show was best before they jumped to the 32nd century. I don't think I will ever rewatch any DS9, Voyager, Picard, or the 32nd century Discovery.

I'm going to rewatch the two 23rd century seasons of Discovery, and then move on to rewatching Strange New Worlds.
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