Matricians: What are you watching?

[Speed Racer]

It's weird, because I do get what the people in the #####posting group are talking about with calling it Mass Effect: Picard. I think the series so far is an interesting epilogue to TNG, and we get to delve further into the aftermath of the Star Trek 2009 movie on the Prime universe side of things as well as possibly exploring the trauma Picard is still experiencing from having been Locutus some 30 years previous.

That being said, the ending for season 1 was spoiled for me a while back, and while I get it and it's probably part of the reason Sir Patrick Stewart even said yes to the series - it's a one-trick pony otherwise we're stuck with Star Trek: Doctor Who...which that I'm not a fan of.

[TheRedPriest]

I think the series so far is an interesting epilogue to TNG, and we get to delve further into the aftermath of the Star Trek 2009 movie on the Prime universe side of things as well as possibly exploring the trauma Picard is still experiencing from having been Locutus some 30 years previous.

I can not more vehemently, emphatically, and eternally disagree with you.

[Speed Racer]

Two episodes left for season 1 of Picard and I'm just like...BioWare/EA is really okay with them lifting this much from Mass Effect?

[Majikn]

What are they lifting, exactly?

As crappy as copyright law often seems to be, it does seem to have its limits. I could imagine there are some things you couldn't protect without basically destroying all future art.

[Speed Racer]

Quick summary: Picard knows something is being covered up/ignored by Starfleet regarding the banning on synthetics (like Data) after an incident on Mars. He gathers a motley crew on board a ship that resembles the engine section of the Normandy (and has the interior aesthetics). There, they find out that a secret group of Romulans protect a old prophecy from an alien species that went extinct millions of years ago, warning everyone that when synthetics get too be too powerful, they'll kill everyone. This secret group shares the vision with each other, very much like Indoctrination, and everyone who sees it pretty much tries to kill themselves out of madness or fear. They've also got a hidden plant inside Starfleet Security who has been guiding Federation policy for years (much like the Illusive Man) to ban synthetics. The prophecy when shown very much has the same vibes as the one Shepherd got from the Protheans. They manage to find the hidden planet where synthetics still thrive, only to find out that the synthetics get a different reading from the prophecy (much like how we saw the vision become clear in ME3 when Javik) - that there's an extremely powerful synthetic species hanging out beyond our galaxy that essentially comes in and wipes out all organic life when the synthetics have reached a high enough state AND are threatened by the organics.

I'm sure that there's others who have fleshed it out better on YouTube or Reddit, but that's a quick word vomit of it.

[Majikn]

I dunno. I guess they can't do anything unless they directly rip a character or alien design, or make a race that's too similar.

I feel like Star Trek laid a lot of ground for Mass Effect to even exist, anyway.
I was wondering if the Federation discovered ME fields and a bunch of ancient ME relays or something, giving them access to more of the galaxy. Or if Picard could suddenly use "biotics." I guess not.

[TheRedPriest]

but that's a quick word vomit of it.

That by itself is an accurate description of Picard.

[Speed Racer]

I dunno. I guess they can't do anything unless they directly rip a character or alien design, or make a race that's too similar.

I feel like Star Trek laid a lot of ground for Mass Effect to even exist, anyway.
I was wondering if the Federation discovered ME fields and a bunch of ancient ME relays or something, giving them access to more of the galaxy. Or if Picard could suddenly use "biotics." I guess not.

There's a part where they use some Borg tech to give them a faster path to the android homeworld, but that's meh.

The Federation vs. Romulan battle that we all expected was very anti-climatic and it was like someone just hit Ctrl+V a bunch with the ships on both sides. The ending for season 1 of Picard felt like it was borrowed from the beginning of ME2, but at the same time, one of the things I appreciate about Picard is that they make it clear that Jean-Luc is an old man and treat him as such - he's no longer the action hero of First Contact and Insurrection.

That being said, the second season has a really good chance at returning to TNG/DS9 philosophic roots, with Q returning and Picard now being an example of the Ship of Theseus and exploring what it means to be human. I hope the pacing is better next season.

[Mikero]

Y'all are talking Star Trek AND Mass Effect?
You have summoned me.

But I think we need to note something important in regards to Mass Effect; At it's core it doesn't just ape Star Trek. It does what any good science fiction writing does and pays homage to a HUGE wealth of stories both in and out of genre. I often see this simplification of Mass Effect, especially when it comes to this specific argument of ST: Picard taking it, but I feel that it's a disingenuous one. And we should also note the history of Star Trek itself, especially TNG and on onward, paying homage so other SF stories.

So anyway onto Picard:

I was wondering if the Federation discovered ME fields and a bunch of ancient ME relays or something, giving them access to more of the galaxy. Or if Picard could suddenly use "biotics." I guess not.

Actually it's not that far off. As Speed mentioned there is the Borg's transwarp technology or whatever, but I'll excuse that since they had it in Star Trek well before Mass Effect existed (although I don't remember if they actually used transwarp in the show or something "new").

The show actually copies the general thesis of the first 3 games--the rights of AI existence, but oafishly bumbles through it with the grace of your average "people of wal-mart" subject slipping in their own barf. Key things from the game are adapted into the show; The beacons that give Shepard visions are in the show, and the actual sequence of images in the visions are almost 1:1 with Mass Effect. The reason for the visions is exactly the same and the show goes as far as to copy




^{SPOILERS BEGIN}

the actual #####ing reapers and their purpose and their cycles AND their mechano-tentacles coming from "deep space" where they lay in wait for civilizations to get to a point where war with AI is inevitable so they can come wipe out organic life. Also doesn't look like bbcode spoiler boxes don't work in this anymore.

^SPOILERSEND




Moreover, Alex Kurtzman actually has a documented history of ripping off plots from video games. I don't necessarily disagree with adapting a story (hell, Shakespeare did that) but this is really blantant. Any parts of the plot that could have been interesting were taking directly from Mass Effect and slotted into the rest of what the writing team had to offer.

But more importantly accusations of theft, the story structure is just awful. The plot is lumbering and uninspired, the mirrors to contemporary politics (which I love in ST) lack nuance on a level I haven't seen in a while causing accusations of pandering, and the characters... Oh my the characters.
 
-Every new character is one dimensional, for example an eeeeeevil Romulan woman who delights only in her own baditude. I call this type of character "deliciously evil" because they seem to have ZERO character traits other than being bad, and getting off on being bad. It's like if the Adams Family weren't charming people and just high-school #####heads. You know, the ones you never talked to again.

-Every returning character is reduced into raw materials that betray not just any storyline they had, but EVERY storyline. It actually can feel contemptuous at times. For example, Seven of Nine had one of the most complex growth arcs in Star Trek to date. Now she's little more than a hot chick with guns. While most of her story involves hunting down people who experiment on XBs (ex-borgs), they waste the potential to have anything interesting done in that storyline. Where is Seven's intelligence? This was a character that struggled with moral conflicts while learning to adapt to her newfound humanity, but there isn't a shred of that person shown in the character anymore. Just a less interesting Beatrix Kiddo with a less interesting list.

This is typical of how every character is treated. It very clearly takes most of it's character inspiration from the TNG movies rather than the TNG show. This seems like a minute detail but the butterfly effect of it is massive because many of the characters, ESPECIALLY JEAN-LUC PICARD, act far differently in the films than they did in the shows... Which in turn culminates with the incongruous relationship between Data and Picard in Star Trek: Nemesis. Something that is a central theme and catalyst to Star Trek: Picard.

Then there is the just completely unlikeable state of the Federation, which have become xenophobic racist monsters.

Obviously I've been having this conversation for a while and this is all just my opinion, but honestly it would be insulting to sophomores the world over to say the writing is sophomoric. In my opinion it's something much more juvenile and done for the sake of the almighty dollar. I don't even mind juvenile content in the right place, I mean I like The Flash, but this isn't it. It simultaneously fails to be thought provoking like Star Trek was in the past, and fails to be entertaining. Literally Picard will say "we really need to find Soji, she may already be dead" and then ten seconds later go on a complete sidequest style detour out of their way (they SAY it's out of their way on this emergency rescue mission) so he can put on a terrible french accent in a pointless heist (indulging Patrick Steward I'm sure) or go to a planet where Picard had once made friends with a child (a defining part of his character in the past being that he doesn't like kids--I can accept that he may have grown from that but it's not well implemented, it's just an excuse to insert a USELESS ninja to the crew). There's many other tenants of the ST universe that are changed or completely ignored (starships being built in space, not on Mars) but those things just aren't nearly as important as the STORY. My take after working in television for so long is that you can't really justify bad story just because of some other factor, story is the essence of the entire endeavor.

it was like someone just hit Ctrl+V a bunch with the ships on both sides.

This is a small thing that is actually infuriating. They clearly didn't want to model a ton of ships so they cheaped out and then WROTE INTO THE SCRIPT a line of "this is our newest style of ship off the production line, ho" just to justify why you were seeing so many of the same ship in the same battle. Nearly every other time there is a space battle in a Star Trek show or movie you get to see tons of different Federation ships of varying sizes and types. To people that like Star Trek (aka the target demographic) that's always been something we like to see. It makes ST feel different from other shows.

I'll definitely check out season 2, I'm hoping for a HUGE change because I felt like season 1 was just indulging the ego's of the TNG cast members (whom we know never understood the show's appeal to fans) as well as a complete lack/disdain for story telling.

I promise I didn't get these opinions from there, but I do recommend watching the guys at Red Letter Media going through the episodes. I don't 100% agree with all their takes on it but for the most part they saw it the way I did and I think a lot of the time people get so distracted by lens flares they don't think about how the story makes no sense.

[Majikn]

I don't know that I would say that Mass Effect just apes Star Trek either. I haven't heard that before.

When I talk about laying ground it just feels like stuff like Star Wars and Star Trek mainstreamed a lot of SF ideas, making stuff like Mass Effect more palatable as a result.

Though now that I put it like that, I don't even know how much I agree with that either. Admittedly I don't know as much as there is to know about SF. I read and loved Dune, but that's probably as deep as I've gone, as least as far as spacefaring SF is concerned.

There's such an annoying amount of streaming services that I don't even see the point in going out of my way for a lot of these shows.

I'd probably have been annoyed about Seven of Nine's character, too, to be honest. She was one of the better characters in Voyager for sure.

"Warp 10" was in some early episode in TNG, but it's possible the implications of that episode was just completely ignored by the rest of the series, as far as I know.

[Mikero]

"Warp 10" was in some early episode in TNG, but it's possible the implications of that episode was just completely ignored by the rest of the series, as far as I know.

They did go beyond Warp 10 in one of Voyager's strangest episodes, hahah

[TheRedPriest]

It turns you into horny sex lizards, evidently.

[Speed Racer]

We watched We Bare Bears as we were above the influence last night, and it was great because none of the episode plots we recognized, so it was like watching the show with fresh eyes.

[TheRedPriest]

And it's still kind of trippy!

[Speed Racer]

We watched the pilot episode for Star Trek: Prodigy last Sunday and we'll be watching the latest episode tonight. We've decided to make it our "family show" where we pile on the couch together after I get off work on Sunday nights and watch the show together before the kids go to bed. We all dug the series, and my oldest son can't wait for the next episode.

That being said, a CGI kids show was probably the only way we'd get such a varied non-human cast for a Star Trek show, and this is the kind of show I wanted as a kid.

[Speed Racer]

With the latest episode of Star Trek: Prodigy, it's pretty obvious that Holographic Janeway knows more than she's letting on. Plus we found out how Voyager was able to have so many shuttles destroyed during the run of the show!

[TheRedPriest]

I eagerly await the day we get actual Star Trek again, and not whatever Secret Robot and Kurtzman is putting out with the name Star Trek on it.  Though with the massive failures it keeps dropping yet still gets more made makes me wonder if I'll live long enough to see that day.

[Speed Racer]

Watched the first episode of Star Trek: Discovery's fourth season today. Once you get past the lame opening that reminds the viewers who all of the characters are, it was okayish. Not a bad episode, but definitely not one of the better ones.

Also checked out the first episode of Netflix's Cowboy Bebop. It's a tough sell because, well, it's Cowboy Bebop. It constantly teetered a line of feeling like an expensive fan-film vs a good adaptation, and especially at the beginning it felt like the showrunners are aware of reasons why Sin City and Speed Racer are beloved for their stylized adaptations of the material, but they don't have the understanding of what made them work. Dialogue that worked in the anime doesn't always feel right in the live-action version, and them trying to copy the dialogue and feel of the series feels like I'm watching someone's cribbed homework. I'll watch the rest of the series; I've already seen a minute clip of Edward and Spike together and I'm not looking forward to those moments.

[Speed Racer]

Season 4 of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous came out and my oldest son has already binged it. I still have yet to watch season 3, so the stuff that he would random run into the kitchen to tell me doesn't make sense, but he's excited about the Spinosaurus and a saber-tooth tiger showing up.

[Speed Racer]

Star Trek: Discovery S4 ended strong; I'm still not really a fan of the crew, but the plots have been interesting. Picard S2 has been great so far.

I watched the first 15 minutes of the new Halo show. The action was cool, but the humans talking felt like a fan-movie with a budget.

[TheRedPriest]

I've been quite enjoying the new season of South Park so far.  Feels like it's getting back into the groove it lost over the last few years of season long arcs and no good stand alone eps.

[Speed Racer]

Picard S2 ended strong after the last few episodes meandered. Looking forward to the final season.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds had its first episode last week, and I'm excited with the new crew. Also excited for The Orville: New Horizons next month.

[TheRedPriest]

Orville looks phenomenal.  I'm legit excited for it.  SNW is just as much Drek as the rest of Kurtzman's garbage though.  But no one thought it would be any different.

[White Shadow]

So, I've been missing the discussion about Picard S1 for over a year now and there is really not much else I can contribute. I dislike more every time I think about it. Which would be easier to deal with if our Star Trek LARP group hadn't decided to chain itself to that canon, so now we're in the Hobus aftermath and kinda sorta actively playing through the "Federation going to #####"-arc.

[TheRedPriest]

Have you tried asking them to LARP Star Trek and not Kurtzman Trek?  Plan B: Get better friends.

[White Shadow]

They -are- trying to do Trek instead of Kurtzman, but I agree it would be a whole lot easier to discard Picard as some kind of parallel universe story. None of the canon characters they brought back felt right. (haven't checked out Season 2 yet, but from what I hear it's not much better.)

[TheRedPriest]

Generally speaking, most actual Trek fans detest Kurtzman's "Trek".  Besides being horrible Trek, it's just bad TV in general.  And you're right, none of the characters act, feel, or look right.  And that's the point.  Kurtzman and his "writers" don't understand Trek at all.  Plus you have the minefield of the rights issues (rumored 25% different mandate) and it's just an awful, awful mess.  I don't consider anything Kurtzman or Bad Robot has been involved in to be canon to any of the original series (TNG-Enterprise), and I'm not in the minority in that sentiment.

If you want good Trek, watch the Orville.  It's a love letter to what Trek was and represented, and it's building it's own identity as well.  Fantastic Sci-fi series.  I can't recommend it enough.

[Speed Racer]

Wrapped up the first season of Star Trek: Prodigy. Looking forward to where the new season goes, but also feels like the last episodes happened so Playmates would have an excuse to make more toys for a line which seemingly has yet to ship.

[TheRedPriest]

I remember when we had good shows for toys... and good toys.

[Majikn]

Stranger Things 4:
The main villain being one of the dumbest villains I've ever seen aside, Strange Things 4 was leagues better than 3 and there are moments that really elevated it beyond its own absurdity. I hated 3, but 4 actually changed my mind on whether the series could actually continue.

Mr. Mercedes:
I found it quite endearing for an attempt at a hardboiled detective story. For most, I would say it's at least watchable and therefore entertaining. If you already like Stephen King then it's an easier sell because for me, even never having read any of the books in that series, it feels like the most Stephen King-esque story that I've ever seen adapted to television.

The Haunting of Hill House:
I watched the first two episodes of this in 2018.
At first I felt that it was shallow and stopped watching. One of the biggest indictments on it is that I feel like it tries too hard in the beginning where nothing makes sense, which at first makes it feel less like good horror and more like just "here's a show where we just terrorize a bunch of characters for your entertainment." There are too many of the latter and making a show seem like the latter at first can be a risky move. I almost missed out.
Later on I tried the Haunting of Bly Manor and really liked it. I went back to watch The Haunting of Hill House in an empty dark room during my nights when I was on vacation last year. This show is fantastic and shocking and horrifying at the same time. When I got to the end of one of the mysteries of the show, it was worse than the worst thing I would have imagined. I felt like I was descending into hell. It was fantastic!
Maybe don't watch it wearing headphones at 4am.
Or... do?
I don't want to give away too much but the show has an emotional weight to it that I rarely see in horror, which sucks because it's difficult to actually be horrified when there's no connection with the characters on screen.

Tales From The Loop:
I love this and it's hard to recommend at the same time. This is the kind of sci-fi that I want to see more of—where there's a narrative purpose beyond things just looking shiny and weird. Each story has some weird sci-fi aspect to it, but all of it relates back to life. I thought it was beautiful. Try to just have an open mind while watching it I suppose.

The Last of Us:
Grabbed me more than I thought it would. I'm also not very attached to the actual game series so I have no opinions on however it may differ.
Ellie and Joel are a very entertaining duo.

[Speed Racer]

S3 of Picard was solid from start to finish and a perfect ending for the TNG crew.

[TheRedPriest]

SPOILER [spoiler]I VEHMENTLY DISAGREE[/spoiler]

[Speed Racer]

Did you actually watch S3? Asking out of surprise, not as some sort of gotcha question.

[TheRedPriest]

I've seen more of it than season 1 or 2.  And the thing that boils my ass the most is that there is some genuine Trek corn kernals  stuffed into the Kurtzman Trek #####.  Some clips, taken out of context almost look like TNG from the 90s.  The only issue is, it's all still wrapped in the same #####ing dark, dystopian, visually incompatible, 25% different, season 1 and 2 #####storm continuity dumpster fire all of the rest of Secret Hideout Trek is.

Phasers blow bloody gorey holes in people?  Bring back minor or major characters and murder them?  Hard swearing?  Utter nonsense plot and plot points?  The entire Transporter thing made NO sense.  Borg don't #####ing work that way.  They never did.  It felt in no way like TNG or Star Trek.

So yes, if THIS had been season 1, it would have just been bad.  If this had been the first thing Kurtzman did, it would have been a mostly negative mixed bag.  But it wasn't.  It's a lot better than season 1 and 2, but that's not even a bar it's so low.  The fact it has some stuff that would work as real Trek just makes everything else (and that real to ##### ratio is still 10/90 plus everything before it that's 100/100 #####) all the more egregious.  I can see why people are falling all over themselves to say this is finally Real Trek though.  Any little taste mixed into Kurtzman's ##### is enough for them.  And it's apparently given him a contract renewal.  So now there's no chance of someone getting the proper license to do real Trek.  I'm just done with it and done with the fanbase.  They get what they deserve.  #####.

[Speed Racer]

Overall the show Picard is the worst of the Star Trek shows out there, with two seasons of absolute crap and ripoffs/homages to Mass Effect and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home just to get to a final season that is a two-hour movie spread over ten episodes to undo the damage of Star Trek: Nemesis. Looking back, there's a lot of filler crap to set up future shows that may or may not happen. Like there's plenty of awesome ##### in S3, but there's also a lot of fat that could've been trimmed for a streamlined proper end for the TNG crew.

I still really enjoyed S3, but I don't think I'll ever rewatch Picard.

[Mikero]

Coming back over a month later just to agree with Rez entirely. I've watched all of every season and hours of analysis on it because I like that sort of thing.

IMO if season 3 of Picard was season 1, it wouldn't be considered "good". It would just be bad but not insane (like the actual season 1). Everything it did right still fails because of the earlier seasons' frameworks, which is impossible to undo. I hate the concept of removing the technological-horror aspect of The Borg, and I couldn't believe they went to the Borg well for a THIRD time. I detest bringing in Changelings without giving them any kind of interesting development, I've never been a big fan of them but the whole season I felt like they were only used to stroke DS9 fan boners, I would have preferred a deeper story examining human nature (like in this show I used to watch called Star Trek).

So much of the season depends on fixing the past ones that I think the showrunner could've done a better season if they didn't have fix Kurtzman's work. This ends up leaving with moments that are cliche, or just trying to emotionally manipulate our nostalgia (and it worked for a lot of people). But when you plainly look at the story in a vacuum it's pretty lackluster.

I feel like this season is getting so many passes just because it's better than the previous ones, which I understand but do not personally agree with.

[TheRedPriest]

See, the older you get the wiser you become!

[Speed Racer]

I thought the musical episode of SNW was a lot of fun; probably the most fun I've had with a non-LD episode since Captain Proton on Voyager.

[TheRedPriest]

I've started the new season of Futurama, and I have to say I'm loving it so far.  I think it's pretty solid, and I've had some pretty good laughs.  If it keeps this level of quality or better, this is going to be a real treat!

[Speed Racer]

Nice, looking forward to starting that soonish

[NovaMan XP]

I felt like the first two episodes of the new season were good but had some off moments, but the third episode was just classic Futurama for me.  I'm looking forward to the rest of the season.

[Majikn]

I never fully watched TNG but S3 of Picard made me question whether I really understand what the Borg actually are. I always had the impression that it was only the wrongness of their twisted morality that made them villains, and not any genuine malevolence. So now I feel confused.

I would say that the most manipulative part about the season is how it feels like it ends on all of its strongest notes. A lot of stories do, sure but what I mean is that the majority of the moments in the show that I actually liked, happened at the very end of it.

The first new episode of Futurama felt like I could have streamed them all in order without me even noticing it was a genuinely new episode, if not for the obvious cultural cues.

[TheRedPriest]

I never fully watched TNG but S3 of Picard made me question whether I really understand what the Borg actually are.

It's not you, the Borg were never like how they were presented in Picard.  It's just one of the long list of things they outright got wrong, or changed just because, or didn't bother to see what it was and just did whatever.  Like almost EVERYTHING in Kurtzman Trek and Secret Hideout has done Star Trek wise.

[Mikero]

Ending on it's best moments is a very see-through way to have the last word. A manipulative attempt to control people's feelings about the season at the last second and every show does it, but it felt especially egregious in Picard.

"Hey forget all that stuff you thought was stupid in episode 3, look at all your old chums from the 90's are on the bridge!"

[TheRedPriest]

There were legitimately nuggets that felt like real Trek in Picard season 3.  Maybe 2-3% of the total run time?  That was enough for people to throw themselves into the fire singing to God himself Trek was back and this was fantastic and finally "what we wanted".  It wasn't.  It just highlighted how god damn bad Picard season 3 and Picard generally was.  But the brain dead masses drooling all over their keyboards was enough to get Kurtzman back in with a renewal.  Whatever.  Let them have that #####.  I'll stick to the original stuff that actually was Trek.