For my money, Picard S3E3 is a top 5 Trek episode since the TNG/DS9 era. Just… holy shit.
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I both love and am completely disgusted by the modern CGI take on Founders in their liquid form. Kira fucked one of those! Gross.
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I didn’t watch S2, how much am I missing if I try to jump back in?
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Absolutely nothing.
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I’m watching two now and it’s horrible. Glad to hear you confirm this—glad for what it suggests about 3.
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Picard S2 is easily the worst season that any of the new Trek shows have had, and may be a bottom 10 season for the entire franchise.
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That’s so sad, because Patrick Stewart has a dwindling number of performances left in him.
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It is a phenomenal episode. Really starting to enjoy Captain Shaw. But…
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The bickering between Picard and Rider was telegraphing their ensuing rift from a mile away, and felt totally out of character for both of them. Also, Riker as a coward is just wrong. When Riker tells Picard “you’ve killed us all”, that was the least Riker thing I have ever seen.
Conversely, the “WTAF” scene between Picard and Crusher (Beverly) was amazing.
In other Trek news, Discovery S5 will be the last season for the show and it won’t come out until 2024. I was not a fan of seasons 3-4 so personally I think the show has just about run its course. However, I hope this is simply a creative decision and not the result of the budget cuts at CBS/Paramount. If it’s the latter, I worry for other current and future Trek shows.
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It needed to be put out of its misery either way.
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I think you’re safe. It’s not like anybody is ever going to greenlight a new idea.
My take on this:
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Riker is a big question mark because we still don’t know what is going on between him and Deanna/Kestra. I suspect his behavior is related, and that we’ll find out at some point.
As for their bickering being out of character, so is… well, the entire way they got themselves into this. TNG Picard is just about the most principled, by-the-book Starfleet officer you could conjure up, so for him to sort-of-but-not-really come out of retirement to effectively steal a starship and its crew for a personal mission is a pretty wild idea. But over 20 years have passed since TNG, Picard is not TNG Picard anymore, and Riker is not TNG Riker anymore. I’m fine with giving the show room to let the characters change.
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Very true. Happy to let this play out, especially as Jack Crusher is becoming less of a knob.
Quite literally. Between the Borg and S1, he’s Ship of Theseus Picard.
I left out a joke about Picard being the most principled, by-the-book Starfleet officer you could design in a lab.
I had to force my way through it but happily did so since I absolutely have to watch every episode of everything Trek. S3 is a welcome return to form.
I actually fell asleep in the first episode of S3 Mandalorian. Went back and watched the rest a couple of days later. It was ok. But, we’ve seen this before. I am expecting it to pick up as the storyline evolves for the season.
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My only concern with Mando is that they might fall into the Marvel trap of making everything too interconnected. Boba Fett was essentially required viewing for S3 and I’ll be shocked if there’s not significant overlap between S3 and Ahsoka.
If they continue the treasure hunt storyline, you can guarantee that he’s going to connect with everyone in that era.
It’s a massive $$ maker, designing integrated storylines like that. Yet, if not done well, can lead to dead ends and poor constructs. I’ve only seen a couple of Marvel movies in the last decade but I’ve heard that is their current issue. The movies I watched were nearly unwatchable because I had no context from the many storylines that fed into the iteration I was watching so it just seemed to be a jumbled mess of fighting, highly contextualized comedy that was unfunny without context and just basic cinematic fluff.
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Marvel is badly missing the Avengers dynamic.