I only got into TNG, and Star Trek in general, these past few years, so a long time after TNG finished, and it hooked me when I was just flicking through the channels one night. So, as someone who can say this without nostalgia, I don't think it's aged badly at all.
Television Star Trek
- Thread starter Raoul
- Start date
Worth watching TNG episode "Offspring" before watching the Picard debut.
Without reading every post and digging up spoilers. Where is this being shown officially?
Amazon Prime
I pay that for my son as he wanted to watch Justified. Can I log into it in Peru and use like netflix aka multiple device streaming?
Seen it, loved it, told my son about it.
Oh, and found out about it in here from a thread I created.
Surprised at how quietly this dropped, was browsing Amazon Prime last night and there it was.
I enjoyed it, set up a lot of scenarios for the future in the first episode, some great shots of a future Earth, Patrick Steward still has such a strong and engaging presence. Very promising.
Who they put around Picard will be the litmus test for this series, making them strong characters who don't feel like stand ins for the past, but vital people with stories of their own. The odd bit of fan service without over indulging.
I enjoyed it, set up a lot of scenarios for the future in the first episode, some great shots of a future Earth, Patrick Steward still has such a strong and engaging presence. Very promising.
Who they put around Picard will be the litmus test for this series, making them strong characters who don't feel like stand ins for the past, but vital people with stories of their own. The odd bit of fan service without over indulging.
Loved the first episode, wish I could binge watch the whole season. Please Amazon, make it so.
To completely follow everything in it you really need to watch the season 2 episode 'The Measue Of A Man', the 2002 film Nemesis and the 2009 J.J. Abrams film.
Well did it live up to the hype, OH Yes it did and then some more, I think it's the best first episode of ANYTHING I have watched before. This will not be a binge watch, this is going to be a watch every week and then binge watch again.
Guinan will apparently also be a part of Picard.
Had to watch episode 1 again to let it all completely sink in. Can't wait for #2 next Wednesday.
Good idea
Just watched the first episode, and it was really good. Was wondering.........
In the Star Trek TNG I remember there was an episode where data created a daughter, but I believe she had to be deactivated because she was burning out. Is this the daughter in the Picard series?
I doubt its the same person from the "Offspring" episode from TNG, but there are some parallels that will probably emerge in the coming episodes (without going into too many spoiler details).
Sh'e's up there with Wesley Crusher and Harry Kim as my least favourite Trek characters.
She isn't my favorite by any stretch but at least she's better than half the cast of Discovery.
I've actually not seen a single episode of that. I only watched a few of Enterprise as well.
I've been rewatching TNG and just finished this episode thinking the same thing. She looks very similar, so maybe her appearance was based on her?
I'm on the episode now where Picard goes on holiday and it's bloody brilliant.
I need to rewatch TNG. It was my favourite of the Star Trek series. I think what was interesting in that episode is that Data Created his Daughter from his own programming I believe, but what he didn't expect was that she experienced the emotion of Love. Data couldn't figure out how it could be possible.
No, as far as I can make out so far the 'daughter' from Picard were made by Bruce Maddox (from 'The Measure of a Man' in seaon 2) using Data's code that Data transfered to B 4 in the Nemesis film. Maddox created Dahj and Soji to look like the painting Data made and called daughter.
The daughter Data created was called lal and was defective, although Data downloaded her memories into himself at the end of that episode so they will exist in Soji, so maybe it will be something they explore in other episodes.
The daughter Data created was called lal and was defective, although Data downloaded her memories into himself at the end of that episode so they will exist in Soji, so maybe it will be something they explore in other episodes.
He wrote 3 episodes of Discovery (including the pilot and the last episode of season 1).
It's great that Amazon are bringing in talent from that show to improve their own series.
Its not an Amazon show. Its made by CBS. I believe its available on Prime in foreign countries.
As for Akiva, he has clearly learned from his mistakes in Discovery since the Picard pilot is light years better than anything else I've seen on Discovery.
He's been writing in Hollywood since 1994, and even won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind in 2001. He's not learning anything new these days.
I agree with you that this show is much better because of its similarities to Discover in tone.
The big difference is that the makers have provided a lot more nostalgia porn for the olds. They played a masterstroke by convincing Patrick Stewart to come back. It's amazing how one bit of casting can sweeten the pill in order to make modern sci-fi more palatable to those otherwise unwilling to move on.
isn't it weird that i like the expanse then? no nostalgia pills, i havent even read the books, and pretty modern.
maybe it's that discovery has shity writing "that's the power of maths", brainless action, and has no idea what differentiates trek from the countless other sci-fi shows.
Yes I know. He's the godson of a friend of mine.
I agree that things were much simpler this time around since they had Stewart to build things around, therefore all of the characters are much easier to digests to traditional trek audiences.
Last edited:
Do you have any idea what differentiates Star Trek from the countless other sci-fi shows? I'd like to hear what's so special and so important about the franchise, that it can't try something different.
It's much better than Discovery (so far) because it hasn't primarily consisted of badly written plot dead ends, the shouting of the word "Science" and lots of noisy smashy fighty stuff.
In short, so far, with it's well written early exploration of deep themes it is simply superior. Although it is just one episode.
I know you feel a burning need to validate your theory that the inflexible minds of Trek fans who were unimpressed by Discovery are simply unable to cope with the intelligent and innovative new direction of the show. I know you loved it. The slight flaw in your hypothesis, however, is that it is incorrect.
And don't get grumpy again.
None of that has happened yet. Which just goes to show how much rubbish you're talking in your senior years.
What's that? I can't hear you young man. Speak up why dontcha?
Yes, that's why I said 1 episode is too early. They are however clearly touching on adjustment to old age and retirement, the intolerance that can build in a tolerant society, the rights of others in a society, the nature of a moral protest that in the end removed power to influence, etc, etc
You know, the sort of things Star Trek tends to do.
Now where did I put that ear trumpet? And my colostomy bag for that matter.
7 of 9 will be appearing in an upcoming episode. You might get a bit of movement for the first time since the 90s.
The first episode of Discovery touched on just as many quandaries around war, culpability, redemption and the morality of disobeying orders for the greater good.
The problem was that they made the aliens look too much like aliens and not enough like humans.
Star Wars is space adventure. Space and different planets are a backdrop for an adventure story involving magical knights. Firefly is similar. Things like Battlestar Galactica or The Expanse are dystopian stories with space as an integral part of that future.
What makes (made?) Trek unique was that it was portrayed as the future of our species, showing a (violent, genocidal) path from today to the Federation, but this ultimate future wasn't a dark dystopian one. Space exploration is integral to Trek, like in the dystopian stories, but it was used to show a better version of humanity realising its place in the galaxy.
The drama in every space sci-fi I can think of comes from a galactic conflict with the protagonists on one side. In Trek you do have galatic adversaries (Klingons in TOS, Romulans and Cardassians in TNG), but it's a cold war and diret conflict only flares up in few episodes. And even in eps where they there are battles, there is something else going on - the first appearnce of Romulans in TOS is submarine warfare in space, but has a bit about racism towards Vulcans, the double header with the Cardassians in TNG was about the crew learning to adapt to a strict new captain, and Picard reaching his limits under torture, than about any battle. War or past wars are used to do a story about the main characters (Duet in DS9 is a classic, there are many more like it in DS9 and some in Voyager and TNG), but the main story isn't about the war itself.
The only extended war storyline was the Dominion war in DS9, but this was consciously done as a break from utopian Trek (the multiple Section 31 eps, In the Pale Moonlight, AR-558 all have characters explicitly dealing with Federation ideals breaking down during war).
For the rest of it, without the crutch of war to fall back on, individual eps had to be about diplomacy (usually someone trying to sabotage diplomacy), dealing with other races, how/whether humans have really changed, or character conflicts. It could be awful and cheesy, or it could be great and unique. Darmok and The Inner Light are beautiful eps I can't imagine on any other shows.
I saw S1 of Discovery and the writers didn't seem to have any idea what had come before it. It got the sounds right, some of the design, the names of the aliens, but the Federation stuff was irrelevant or just stray inexplicable lines or choices.
I haven't seen Picard, and my initial reaction was the exact opposite of what you'd think - I did NOT want Picard back on the screen. The last ep of TNG was absolutely brilliant and a great sendoff for both him and the show. I was also scared that there were no more stories in this genre- I like Orville, a blatant Trek ripoff, but almost every plot point can be traced back to an old Trek ep. But the reviews for Picard seem to be good, so I'll subscribe later.
No, the problem is that it was badly written and largely vacuous. The Klingon sideplot was not ruined by makeup but rather by its shitness.
The first episode of Discovery was like a Michael Bay movie and about as deep.
Meh to 7 of 9. Personally, I've always found billions of shiny spaceships shooting their pow pow lasers far more erotic especially at the culmination of an impenetrably stupid and ultimately entirely unnecessary plan. Leland is dead! feck it, let's time jump anyway.
The Klingons looking weird was only the tip of the iceberg. Low quality story coupled with horrendous casting and enough CGI to look like a PS4 game were probably a bit more problematic than their costume and makeup choices.
It was the terrible characters personally that made Discovery difficult to stomach, the only one with any interest was the tall alien fella and it took till mid season 2 to actually warm to him because he was a bit of dick for the episodes before that. The main character in the show was just a big scoop of meh. The story didnt help matters.
Thanks, I will definitely watch these before starting this then!
This works out for me as while I'm finding the time to watch these, hopefully a bunch of episodes will have already been released by the time I'm done which suits me as, like @pauldyson1uk & @Coxy said themselves, I hate having to wait for the next episode
I'm especially happy for her because I believe it was Star Trek that made her want to become an actress in the first place.
After the Discovery debacle, I really enjoyed the Picard episode. Having a good actor as the lead certainly helps. I think he figured out the Data connection a little bit too quickly but there is only so much time in ten episodes I guess. Visuals were stunning and I thought it was great to finally get a view of what cities on Earth look like in the 24th century.