Picard - general discussion [spoilers]

[mr friendly guy]

So

1. No longer a Romulan Star Empire but the Romulan free state. Might be harder for the Zhek Vash or whatever they are call to go about their business in this new government as they don't have the centuries of operatives in place, so they have to try the softly softly approach with the second synthetic, even though she is currently located on a Borg ship on their territory.

2. The Romulans have some tech which the UFP doesn't have, although the UFP would still be superior in AI even with the ban on synthetics, since the UFP still has photonic helpers.

3. Picard is showing possible signs of the disease he developed in "All Good things." Ok, my speculation is that Data's neural net cures him of this neurological disease.

4. Asian Vulcan. Ok, we had Tuvok, so whatever. I am assuming she is a Vulcan allied with some Romulans, rather than a Romulan per se.

Interesting, but I am hoping the pay off will be good.

[Lonestar]

I mean S31 once almost let Skynet happen, so it isn't as if they haven't conducted massive fuckups before.

I'll add that this is Starfleet Intelligence, it may not be S31 proper, that has been infiltrated.

[PREDATOR490]

This epsiode felt mostly empty to me.

From the exchange between the Brother and Sister - I get the impression they may have been either personally responsible for the Mars event or the organisation was. The way she said that a mistake would consume them both THIS time. Possibly she just means the recent fuck up.

As for the cover-up - This is insanely stupid and breaks any belief. Starfleet apparantly has security systems that were observing events. Somehow they show Picard getting his ass blown off but they edited everything else away ?
If they really are embedded in Starfleet then... why the fuck do they need to go murder-death squad ?

They could just bring the target in for questioning or beam her out. This show has literally created a brand new Romulan secret police and turned them into fools within the same episode.
Instead of doing something remotely subtle or covert, they have decided to act like thuggish idiots that have attracted attention to themselves. Somehow these are meant to be the boogymen for the Tal Shiar ?

Garak would have a field day with this bullshit.

Upside - The Borg cube is dormant and cut off. They are moaning about it waking up and reconnecting to the Collective. I take that as an indication the main Borg are still around in some capacity.
If they were to give Voyager credit and not overdo it. I could see the destruction of the Transwarp hub being the cause of the Collective being forced to pull back into their space because they cannot extend their Collective Hive Mind without the Hubs as relays.
That said, the mention of the magic wrist bands and 'Grey' Zone make me think this cube is going to wake up and lots of people are going to be getting assimilated.

[Solauren]

Possibility: They can't find Maddox, so they need someone else to do it. Someone Maddox will trust.
The assault on the first twin was deliberate to motivate Picard to start looking for Maddox himself.

That could be why the Commodore was so pissed off. Picard went to Starfleet instead of just calling in his friends and doing it himself.

[Vendetta]

If they really are embedded in Starfleet then... why the fuck do they need to go murder-death squad ?

They could just bring the target in for questioning or beam her out. This show has literally created a brand new Romulan secret police and turned them into fools within the same episode.
Instead of doing something remotely subtle or covert, they have decided to act like thuggish idiots that have attracted attention to themselves. Somehow these are meant to be the boogymen for the Tal Shiar ?

Did you miss the scene where Lt. Rizzo got told off by her superior for making exactly the screwup you are pointing out as if it is new information? The character who launched these ops is explicitly being pointed out in the show as being too aggressive and making a mistake, because that's how the plot gets to start.

[Imperial Overlord]

3. Picard is showing possible signs of the disease he developed in "All Good things." Ok, my speculation is that Data's neural net cures him of this neurological disease.

I don't think so. Thematically the show isn't about denial of mortality, its about the denial of irrelevance at the end of life. Picard may die, but he is defeated if he lets this all go and returns to the vinyard in a quiet retirement.

4. Asian Vulcan. Ok, we had Tuvok, so whatever. I am assuming she is a Vulcan allied with some Romulans, rather than a Romulan per se.

Interesting, but I am hoping the pay off will be good.

I'm thinking either a Romulan or the secret society is so old that it has roots on Vulcan.

[Patroklos]

So they know exactly where the target is and transport into her room to assassinate her. Is anyone else seeing the problem here?

[mr friendly guy]

So they know exactly where the target is and transport into her room to assassinate her. Is anyone else seeing the problem here?

Inferior Romulan scanning technology. Come on, after the show gives the Romulans all these tech advantages the UFP doesn't have, they got to balance this out. And before someone says, but they manage to beam out the operatives easily enough, the answer is pattern enhancers, a tried and true tech seen before in various Trek episodes/movies.

[PREDATOR490]

If they really are embedded in Starfleet then... why the fuck do they need to go murder-death squad ?

They could just bring the target in for questioning or beam her out. This show has literally created a brand new Romulan secret police and turned them into fools within the same episode.
Instead of doing something remotely subtle or covert, they have decided to act like thuggish idiots that have attracted attention to themselves. Somehow these are meant to be the boogymen for the Tal Shiar ?

Did you miss the scene where Lt. Rizzo got told off by her superior for making exactly the screwup you are pointing out as if it is new information? The character who launched these ops is explicitly being pointed out in the show as being too aggressive and making a mistake, because that's how the plot gets to start.

This organisation is supposed to be super-secret much like S31 was initially introduced as but on the very first introduction they are appallingly bad.
What happened here was more than a 'mistake' and it is an utter failure in narrative story telling.
The character was completely unbelievable. A super spy that is embedded in the Starfleet security would simply have no valid reason to pull this kind of stunt in the context shown.

The tech that was used for the 'forensic reconstruction' was completely eye-rollingly bad. That kind of space magic is what you expect from Doctor Who. The only way that entire scene makes sense is if that device is somehow opening a window in time. It is kinda amusing that this Tal Shiar operative just manages to bring this toy around that only the Romulans seem to have any faith in but the bad guys specifically make efforts to counter this magic... because they expect Tal Shiar Romulans to be using this specific magic to find them ?

This entire scene could have been cut down just to them playing on the computer and it would have been faster, less of a time waste and somewhat more reasonable. Although, the shock at the twin being 'off-world' seemed at bit excessive. In an age where space travel is common and they can apparantly communicate across the galaxy.

I am also getting a bit annoyed at the tone and the contemporay methods of speaking they are using.

I.E A Romulan that has an Irish accent and using Contemporary Earth Irish language 'Cheeky Feckers'.
Ultimately, people are speaking as if they were operating in modern day and they have no consistency even between races. They are hundreds of years in the future and we have seen multiple series worth of characters and races speaking completely differently but this series has decided to fuck all that over.

[Vendetta]

If they really are embedded in Starfleet then... why the fuck do they need to go murder-death squad ?

They could just bring the target in for questioning or beam her out. This show has literally created a brand new Romulan secret police and turned them into fools within the same episode.
Instead of doing something remotely subtle or covert, they have decided to act like thuggish idiots that have attracted attention to themselves. Somehow these are meant to be the boogymen for the Tal Shiar ?

Did you miss the scene where Lt. Rizzo got told off by her superior for making exactly the screwup you are pointing out as if it is new information? The character who launched these ops is explicitly being pointed out in the show as being too aggressive and making a mistake, because that's how the plot gets to start.

This organisation is supposed to be super-secret much like S31 was initially introduced as but on the very first introduction they are appallingly bad.
What happened here was more than a 'mistake' and it is an utter failure in narrative story telling.
The character was completely unbelievable. A super spy that is embedded in the Starfleet security would simply have no valid reason to pull this kind of stunt in the context shown.

An overconfident young operative in their first position of trust, in an organisation that has been massively disrupted first by the destruction of its core bases of operations in its home worlds and a massive surge in activity in its core area of operations in a competitor nation might though. Standards, understandably, have slipped and that is why they made a mistake and we have a plot instead of not having one.

Remember that just because the organisation is top secret doesn't mean that every individual agent is super competent, especially if it's an organisation that hasn't actually had a lot to do in hundreds of years because society is thoroughly structured to support its core goals and its reputation has been sufficient that it has barely had to actually act (because the Tal'Shiar was always so well resourced and ready to do the dirty work).

Ultimately, though, this remains a criticism of missing the point. "Wah the fictional person is not hypercompetent all the time" is never interesting criticism because if fictional people were hypercompetent all the time all fiction would be dull as shit.

[aerius]

An overconfident young operative in their first position of trust, in an organisation that has been massively disrupted first by the destruction of its core bases of operations in its home worlds and a massive surge in activity in its core area of operations in a competitor nation might though. Standards, understandably, have slipped and that is why they made a mistake and we have a plot instead of not having one.

Remember that just because the organisation is top secret doesn't mean that every individual agent is super competent, especially if it's an organisation that hasn't actually had a lot to do in hundreds of years because society is thoroughly structured to support its core goals and its reputation has been sufficient that it has barely had to actually act (because the Tal'Shiar was always so well resourced and ready to do the dirty work).

Ultimately, though, this remains a criticism of missing the point. "Wah the fictional person is not hypercompetent all the time" is never interesting criticism because if fictional people were hypercompetent all the time all fiction would be dull as shit.

Let's say it's the late 90s. 10-15 years ago near the end of the Soviet Union, a secret group within the KGB infiltrates a bunch of agents into the Pentagon. Back to the late 90s and it's now just Russia, the Soviet Union is dead.

So now they find this woman who they want to kidnap/eliminate, because reasons, so they send a hit team after her at her apartment. It fails. So instead of tracking her and waiting till she gets to a nice quiet location where they can whack her without drawing attention, they send another hit team after her at the Pentagon and have a shootout right on the roof of the building. Then they have their agents go into all the systems and erase all the camera footage of the shootout along with the bodies.

This is literally so bad that it belongs on a direct to TV Steven Seagal movie. It reeks of lazy ass writing. I mean, hello? You found her, could you not wait a few hours till she's somewhere a bit less obvious than their fucking HQ building before trying to whack her? Seriously.

Let's put it this way. I read a lot of trashy novels, as in everything John Ringo's ever written and Richard Marcinko's entire Rogue Warrior series. When those books have less plot holes and are more internally consistent & believable than Picard, that says something about how bad the Star Trek writing is.

[Vendetta]

An overconfident young operative in their first position of trust, in an organisation that has been massively disrupted first by the destruction of its core bases of operations in its home worlds and a massive surge in activity in its core area of operations in a competitor nation might though. Standards, understandably, have slipped and that is why they made a mistake and we have a plot instead of not having one.

Remember that just because the organisation is top secret doesn't mean that every individual agent is super competent, especially if it's an organisation that hasn't actually had a lot to do in hundreds of years because society is thoroughly structured to support its core goals and its reputation has been sufficient that it has barely had to actually act (because the Tal'Shiar was always so well resourced and ready to do the dirty work).

Ultimately, though, this remains a criticism of missing the point. "Wah the fictional person is not hypercompetent all the time" is never interesting criticism because if fictional people were hypercompetent all the time all fiction would be dull as shit.

Let's say it's the late 90s. 10-15 years ago near the end of the Soviet Union, a secret group within the KGB infiltrates a bunch of agents into the Pentagon. Back to the late 90s and it's now just Russia, the Soviet Union is dead.

So now they find this woman who they want to kidnap/eliminate, because reasons, so they send a hit team after her at her apartment. It fails. So instead of tracking her and waiting till she gets to a nice quiet location where they can whack her without drawing attention, they send another hit team after her at the Pentagon and have a shootout right on the roof of the building. Then they have their agents go into all the systems and erase all the camera footage of the shootout along with the bodies.

This is literally so bad that it belongs on a direct to TV Steven Seagal movie. It reeks of lazy ass writing. I mean, hello? You found her, could you not wait a few hours till she's somewhere a bit less obvious than their fucking HQ building before trying to whack her? Seriously.

Let's put it this way. I read a lot of trashy novels, as in everything John Ringo's ever written and Richard Marcinko's entire Rogue Warrior series. When those books have less plot holes and are more internally consistent & believable than Picard, that says something about how bad the Star Trek writing is.

Now remember that it's like that but Moscow and St. Petersburg spontaneously exploded in nuclear fire, and most of the institutional knowledge of the KGB was scattered and lost.

[aerius]

This review pretty much sums up how I feel. I get what they're trying to do with the show, but it's like they're writing to a retarded director's checklist. We need a 10 minute romance element, an explosion at 30 minutes in, conspiracy reveal at 2 minutes from the end, and oh yeah, introduce strong female characters #1 to #5. Everything feels contrived and there's no real plot or character development, everything seems to be explained by <magical plot element> or some shit they threw in there because reasons.

[Redleader34]

I love janeway I want a janeway series so fucking much she's so GOOD at being CNO

[muse]

I am also getting a bit annoyed at the tone and the contemporay methods of speaking they are using.

I.E A Romulan that has an Irish accent and using Contemporary Earth Irish language 'Cheeky Feckers'.
Ultimately, people are speaking as if they were operating in modern day and they have no consistency even between races. They are hundreds of years in the future and we have seen multiple series worth of characters and races speaking completely differently but this series has decided to fuck all that over.

A French captain with a British accent and an Irish Romulan are the least of the problems.
Chateau Picard is a Bourgogne, yet it comes in a Bordeaux bottle. What is this madness??

[mr friendly guy]

The video Aerius links to ask, why is ex Romulan spy working for Picard instead of star fleet intelligence. I don't know, why is Garak working in a tailor shop instead of Star Fleet intelligence? Maybe Star Fleet cramps their style. Can you imagine Star Fleet allowing Garak to do the things he did on DS9? I imagine Picard's housekeeper could come to that same conclusion as well.

[aerius]

That's the other thing that makes me roll my eyes. With Garak, it's subtly implied that he's more than "just a tailor" until well into the series where his background gets filled in and we find out who he really is. You have Odo and a couple others who are suspicious of him but he doesn't blatantly blow his cover until "The Die is Cast". Here, they pretty much put out a giant neon sign that says "I'm former high level Romulan intelligence" and have her running around fixing shit from the very start.

I mean, is this even a show about Picard? Because what I've seen so far is a burned out half-senile Picard who can't seem to get anything done without the help of convenient strong female characters #1-5. Picard having a late-life crisis? Enter android synthetic female character. Did she just die in a plot device and leave a bunch of questions for Picard? Let's fix that with conveniently placed AI/synthetic research chick. And of course Irish Romulan secret agent who jumps in whenever Picard runs into a wall. And apparently desert trailer park chick will be saving the day in the next episode. And 7 of 9 will be joining in on the fun too at some point.

It's almost like a mix of Inspector Clouseau and Charlie's Angels. It hurt my brain unless I treat it as a direct to TV Seagal movie.

[mr friendly guy]

I mean, is this even a show about Picard? Because what I've seen so far is a burned out half-senile Picard who can't seem to get anything done without the help of convenient strong female characters #1-5. Picard having a late-life crisis? Enter android synthetic female character. Did she just die in a plot device and leave a bunch of questions for Picard? Let's fix that with conveniently placed AI/synthetic research chick. And of course Irish Romulan secret agent who jumps in whenever Picard runs into a wall. And apparently desert trailer park chick will be saving the day in the next episode. And 7 of 9 will be joining in on the fun too at some point.

It's almost like a mix of Inspector Clouseau and Charlie's Angels. It hurt my brain unless I treat it as a direct to TV Seagal movie.

Isn't this only supposed to have 10 episodes? I get it that they have to set up all the new characters, but the show is called Picard, so we need to see Jean Luc do something.

[aerius]

Isn't this only supposed to have 10 episodes? I get it that they have to set up all the new characters, but the show is called Picard, so we need to see Jean Luc do something.

I did a bit of searching around and it says they've already been renewed for a 2nd 10 episode season, so they're guaranteed 20 episodes at this point. I get that the show is called Picard and why the studio had Patrick Stewart return in his iconic role (WE WANT RATINGS DAMN YOU!), but let's be honest here, you could swap in a random 80 year old for Sir Patrick and it wouldn't change the plot or require any re-writing. Unless something changes in the next episodes, it just looks like he's just in there for a)fan service and b)studio money grab.

[houser2112]

I get that the show is called Picard and why the studio had Patrick Stewart return in his iconic role (WE WANT RATINGS DAMN YOU!), but let's be honest here, you could swap in a random 80 year old for Sir Patrick and it wouldn't change the plot or require any re-writing.

Could you, though? How many 80-year-olds have a significant enough personal connection to Data such that his progeny would subconsciously seek them out to kick off the plot?

[aerius]

Could you, though? How many 80-year-olds have a significant enough personal connection to Data such that his progeny would subconsciously seek them out to kick off the plot?

Sure. Random old guy is a former AI research dude who worked with Data back in the day. They interview the guy on the anniversary of the Mars attack because of the synthetics tie-in, and Dahj happens to see it on TV. Dahj goes and finds the dude, plot proceeds as before. I mean, ok, a bit of script tweaking is needed but nothing substantial.

[mr friendly guy]

More slow pacing from the show. At least we find out that these particular synthetics are perceived by Romulans to be the destroyer. Why? Is it some prophecy? Either the Romulans of old had farsight or there is some time travel sheenanigans going on.

On another note, it looks like episode 4 might actually have some spacebattles.

[aerius]

Episode 3 was definitely an improvement, I only rolled my eyes once at the stupid. As in how does Dr. Agnes show up just in time and get her hands on a Romulan disruptor rifle to save the day? So we have a person who going by her reactions has never been in combat situation and she gets her hands on the rifle, identifies the correct target in a shootout, and puts a clean shot in him. Yeah. They should've just had Irish Romulan chick shoot the bad guy and then Dr. Agnes comes in once everything's clear, having her save the day was just dumb & unnecessary.

The Borg cube scenes were weird as fuck and still don't make sense, but whatever, I can let that go for now. They're Romulans & reclaimed Borg, who the hell knows how that works? Different culture, hard to judge.

[LadyTevar]

The Borg cube scenes were weird as fuck and still don't make sense, but whatever, I can let that go for now. They're Romulans & reclaimed Borg, who the hell knows how that works? Different culture, hard to judge.

Get rid of the Borgified people, giving yourself easier access to Borg Tech. Everything they remove from "the Nameless" is another puzzle piece to solve "how do we stop the rest of them".
Also plays to the "anti-Synth", as cyborgs are synthetic additions to humanoid species.

[Batman]

Nobody gave a damn about Geordi's VISOR or Picard's artificial heart