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tori_reviewsStar Trek Picard – 3x01: The Next Generation
Well, I didn’t hate it. To be honest, I kind of thought I would and putting in the effort to write the series introduction would end up going to waste. And maybe hating it would have given me more to say than I am likely to find for something I have no strong opinions about.
Because I also didn’t love it. I’m going to review a couple episodes of this, but then I may decide it’s better to not review it and just settle in to watch this as a long movie instead of breaking down each episode. Especially since after a few episodes I will likely run out of generic things to say and will need to be actually invested in something to have anything to talk about.
Generic thought 1: I miss lightbulbs. I’ve spent a fair bit of the last couple years reviewing vampire shows, but they at least have scenes in the daylight.
Generic thought 2: this world is kind of a mess. I suspect it’s partly because the first couple seasons were even more of a mess (as I understand) and they couldn’t completely escape the way that treated the ST world. But whether or not the blame lies with the writer of this episode, I think it speaks to modern writers defaulting to what they know rather than engage with the fictional world’s rules.
I’m actually going to run this problem through a filter of how I reacted to s6 of Agents of SHIELD. So many of the problems I had with that season came from how the stories that (supposedly) involved non-humans were presented. Everyone spoke English in a world that didn’t seem to have any sort of universal translator. It was impossible to tell if there was a reason that things were written in English sometimes, or if the props were just made that way, because no one ever seemed to notice that things from other worlds and dimensions were written in English. Playing cards didn’t even look that much different than what you might find in the real world. And to add to the confusion, in the show we were shown a character creating a virtual reality where everything was based on things he already knew about so he didn’t have to be all that creative when making it. So I spent a good portion of that season thinking that could well be what was happening to the characters, put in a virtual reality designed by a not very creative designer who just based everything on the world as we know it with a few tweaks.
I’m not saying that’s exactly what we have happening on this show. They at least have the budget to make things look a little more developed than AoS did. And because the ST world has been developed before, these writers at least didn’t have to be creative enough to start from square one. I’d say that if AoS had the modern world with a thin coat of sci-fi-ish painted on it; this has the Star Trek world with a fairly thick layer of modern day grease run over it.
Probably the thing that grates at the edges of my acceptance of this as the ST world is any time people make a reference that sound monetary. I could accept that some of it is language artifacts that show up in universe even though they don’t use money (except on outer worlds or in criminal work), I really could go with that. I’m fairly sure we’ve heard characters in ST use words like paygrade even when the shows were very clear about that not being literal anymore. But, because the show now has this non-utopian presentation, when those type of bits show up it’s harder to let slide that I would like it to be.
Plus there’s the bit about them going to warp 9.9. This struck me from two directions at the same time. Mixed feelings about the fact that TNG was what established a bit more of a warp speed limit in an environmentalism allegory episode. And also that no one is risking turning into newts. Once more, I can believe that in 20-30 years ship designs have improved to where there isn’t the need for speed limit and have gotten around the risk of turning into a newt; but the writers haven’t completely earned my trust that they have built that into their conception of this world.
(It’s like my sidelong glance at HotD when Viserys talked about doing something by the end of spring. It’s not that the line can’t work in-universe, but the writers haven’t built up enough trust in me to think they’re using it the proper way it works in-universe.)
As I’ve said before, I haven’t been watching any of the current era of ST shows, so this is my first exposure to it by watching it. And as unsure as I am if this season is going to work for me, I’m definitely not feeling the pull to watch any of the other seasons or shows. And not just because from what I’ve heard those other shows sound like they would be even harder for me to invest in.
But anyway, in my following this show from a distance until now, I’m not sure what to make of Picard and his Romulan side-piece. I’m fairly sure this is a hold over from the prior seasons that this season’s writers were stuck with accounting for. But it seems really out of place when clearly this is setting up for a Picard/Crusher piece instead. So I feel like they should have more definitively dealt with the dangling Romulan lady plot point before heading into the territory we’re headed to.
It's been an age and a half since I watched any of the ST movies, and even I can tell that this show is going for major echoes in this plot. Like I said, it feels a lot like we’re going for a long reunion movie; and maybe that’s a good thing, but it’s not doing this any favors when considering episodes of a show. So we’ll see how my opinion evolves.
Well, I didn’t hate it. To be honest, I kind of thought I would and putting in the effort to write the series introduction would end up going to waste. And maybe hating it would have given me more to say than I am likely to find for something I have no strong opinions about.
Because I also didn’t love it. I’m going to review a couple episodes of this, but then I may decide it’s better to not review it and just settle in to watch this as a long movie instead of breaking down each episode. Especially since after a few episodes I will likely run out of generic things to say and will need to be actually invested in something to have anything to talk about.
Generic thought 1: I miss lightbulbs. I’ve spent a fair bit of the last couple years reviewing vampire shows, but they at least have scenes in the daylight.
Generic thought 2: this world is kind of a mess. I suspect it’s partly because the first couple seasons were even more of a mess (as I understand) and they couldn’t completely escape the way that treated the ST world. But whether or not the blame lies with the writer of this episode, I think it speaks to modern writers defaulting to what they know rather than engage with the fictional world’s rules.
I’m actually going to run this problem through a filter of how I reacted to s6 of Agents of SHIELD. So many of the problems I had with that season came from how the stories that (supposedly) involved non-humans were presented. Everyone spoke English in a world that didn’t seem to have any sort of universal translator. It was impossible to tell if there was a reason that things were written in English sometimes, or if the props were just made that way, because no one ever seemed to notice that things from other worlds and dimensions were written in English. Playing cards didn’t even look that much different than what you might find in the real world. And to add to the confusion, in the show we were shown a character creating a virtual reality where everything was based on things he already knew about so he didn’t have to be all that creative when making it. So I spent a good portion of that season thinking that could well be what was happening to the characters, put in a virtual reality designed by a not very creative designer who just based everything on the world as we know it with a few tweaks.
I’m not saying that’s exactly what we have happening on this show. They at least have the budget to make things look a little more developed than AoS did. And because the ST world has been developed before, these writers at least didn’t have to be creative enough to start from square one. I’d say that if AoS had the modern world with a thin coat of sci-fi-ish painted on it; this has the Star Trek world with a fairly thick layer of modern day grease run over it.
Probably the thing that grates at the edges of my acceptance of this as the ST world is any time people make a reference that sound monetary. I could accept that some of it is language artifacts that show up in universe even though they don’t use money (except on outer worlds or in criminal work), I really could go with that. I’m fairly sure we’ve heard characters in ST use words like paygrade even when the shows were very clear about that not being literal anymore. But, because the show now has this non-utopian presentation, when those type of bits show up it’s harder to let slide that I would like it to be.
Plus there’s the bit about them going to warp 9.9. This struck me from two directions at the same time. Mixed feelings about the fact that TNG was what established a bit more of a warp speed limit in an environmentalism allegory episode. And also that no one is risking turning into newts. Once more, I can believe that in 20-30 years ship designs have improved to where there isn’t the need for speed limit and have gotten around the risk of turning into a newt; but the writers haven’t completely earned my trust that they have built that into their conception of this world.
(It’s like my sidelong glance at HotD when Viserys talked about doing something by the end of spring. It’s not that the line can’t work in-universe, but the writers haven’t built up enough trust in me to think they’re using it the proper way it works in-universe.)
As I’ve said before, I haven’t been watching any of the current era of ST shows, so this is my first exposure to it by watching it. And as unsure as I am if this season is going to work for me, I’m definitely not feeling the pull to watch any of the other seasons or shows. And not just because from what I’ve heard those other shows sound like they would be even harder for me to invest in.
But anyway, in my following this show from a distance until now, I’m not sure what to make of Picard and his Romulan side-piece. I’m fairly sure this is a hold over from the prior seasons that this season’s writers were stuck with accounting for. But it seems really out of place when clearly this is setting up for a Picard/Crusher piece instead. So I feel like they should have more definitively dealt with the dangling Romulan lady plot point before heading into the territory we’re headed to.
It's been an age and a half since I watched any of the ST movies, and even I can tell that this show is going for major echoes in this plot. Like I said, it feels a lot like we’re going for a long reunion movie; and maybe that’s a good thing, but it’s not doing this any favors when considering episodes of a show. So we’ll see how my opinion evolves.
