Destroying Picard

[Dazzle1]

Although Patrick Stewart was supporting this direction. There has been a lot of talk on the internet about an agenda by those idiots at CBS to destroy and humble one of the 5 most important Star Trek characters in the franchise.

https://www.startrek.com/news/the-humbl ... ral-picard

They did it with Kirk in the Abrams abomination movies
They did it with Spock in Discovery
Now Picard

What's next?

Making Sisko an Uncle Tom? Other than Shatner, Brooks has been the most outspoken against Woke fans
Saying McKoy was a hack medic and chapel really did all the life saving surgeries?

[Dogfish]

Are you high? The first season of Picard is amazing. Specifically it's amazing because Picard has an arc, he's not some sort of superhuman god warrior poet who is always inherently perfect in his reasoning. The show deals with the flaws of his character which is exactly what any story ought to do because a story about 'Person who is really great at something does the thing and there are no problems' would be shit.

Boggles my mind that self proclaimed fans would shit on Picard. It's proper Star Trek. It's got proper TNG writers, actors and directors. This is what Star Trek looks like now, and people who think they know better than the guy who plays Picard, are completely full of crap. I think some people need to accept the fact that they associate with Star Trek because of nostalgia, but they never even slightly understood it, and now they want to claim ownership of it and complain about it's direction, but really they just don't like Star Trek and if they thought about it more they would realise that they never did.

Jesus fucking Christ. I'm glad the people who hate Picard weren't around when DS9 came out. A black captain who is considered to be a god, his transgender best pal, the religious terrorist first officer, the doctor who is not only Arabic but genetically superior to basically everybody. People would have freaked the fuck out.

Same people who would have freaked out that there was a black woman and a Russian on the bridge of the Enterprise in the original series, let alone the black woman kissed the captain. There would have been riots by fans who would have called Roddenberry an SJW cuck and demanded that he not destroy the character of Kirk.

[Dazzle1]

Are you high? The first season of Picard is amazing. Specifically it's amazing because Picard has an arc, he's not some sort of superhuman god warrior poet who is always inherently perfect in his reasoning. The show deals with the flaws of his character which is exactly what any story ought to do because a story about 'Person who is really great at something does the thing and there are no problems' would be shit.

Boggles my mind that self proclaimed fans would shit on Picard. It's proper Star Trek. It's got proper TNG writers, actors and directors. This is what Star Trek looks like now, and people who think they know better than the guy who plays Picard, are completely full of crap. I think some people need to accept the fact that they associate with Star Trek because of nostalgia, but they never even slightly understood it, and now they want to claim ownership of it and complain about it's direction, but really they just don't like Star Trek and if they thought about it more they would realise that they never did.

Jesus fucking Christ. I'm glad the people who hate Picard weren't around when DS9 came out. A black captain who is considered to be a god, his transgender best pal, the religious terrorist first officer, the doctor who is not only Arabic but genetically superior to basically everybody. People would have freaked the fuck out.

Same people who would have freaked out that there was a black woman and a Russian on the bridge of the Enterprise in the original series, let alone the black woman kissed the captain. There would have been riots by fans who would have called Roddenberry an SJW cuck and demanded that he not destroy the character of Kirk.

Well in deference to HM, I will ignore your personal attack.

Picard had flaws besides the recovery from being turned into a Borg. But this is another bash the patriarchy piece of garbage like Discovery. Picard is an egomanic Picard does not show proper respect to a female admiral who obviously is better than he is

You obviously no nothing about Star Trek

As far as the Sisko character in perhaps 5 episodes did they even reference his skin color and Brooks himself has slammed fans who wanted to make an issue of it.
Same as Janeway's gender was almost never brought up

[Dogfish]

How can you even say that when there is literally an entire episode dealing explicitly with Sisko's race and racism and specifically how it relates to science fiction stories. Like they take time out of their main story of a vast galactic war brewing and spend an entire hour talking about racism in 1950s science fiction publishing and you're out here like 'Race didn't matter to Sisko'. Brooks directed that episode by the way. Sisko also takes time out of planning a holosuite heist to explain that a depiction of 1962 Las Vegas makes him uncomfortable because the simulation erases the racism. There's other stuff in there that is done to subvert racial expectations, for example he's literally the perfect dad which was done deliberately to invert common stereotypes about black fathers. People can, and have, written papers about Sisko and race.

So I guess what I'm saying is, there's a hell of a lot of ways in which race is incredibly important in DS9 with regards to Sisko. You might have not been looking for it, you might have assumed it wasn't there, but it definitely is, even just in the little things. For example did you never wonder why Jake is looking for a Willie Mays card for his dad, not Babe Ruth?


As for Picard, well he has always been an egomaniac (The Big Clue Is He Argues With Supreme Beings Without Any Hint Of Deference). Picard has always been emotionally stunted (The Big Clue Is His Best Friend Is A Robot). Picard has always had problems dealing with women (The Big Clue Is That He's A Heterosexual Man Of Intelligence, Charm And Means Yet He's Painfully Single). He was never and has never been a people person.

The show Picard took the flaws that TNG established Picard as having, and the flaws that were established time after time after time after time in the Federation, and it ran with them. And the reason it did that was because it's literally the same writers, directors and crew.

[Dazzle1]

How can you even say that when there is literally an entire episode dealing explicitly with Sisko's race and racism and specifically how it relates to science fiction stories. Like they take time out of their main story of a vast galactic war brewing and spend an entire hour talking about racism in 1950s science fiction publishing and you're out here like 'Race didn't matter to Sisko'. Brooks directed that episode by the way. Sisko also takes time out of planning a holosuite heist to explain that a depiction of 1962 Las Vegas makes him uncomfortable because the simulation erases the racism. There's other stuff in there that is done to subvert racial expectations, for example he's literally the perfect dad which was done deliberately to invert common stereotypes about black fathers. People can, and have, written papers about Sisko and race.

So I guess what I'm saying is, there's a hell of a lot of ways in which race is incredibly important in DS9 with regards to Sisko. You might have not been looking for it, you might have assumed it wasn't there, but it definitely is, even just in the little things. For example did you never wonder why Jake is looking for a Willie Mays card for his dad, not Babe Ruth?


As for Picard, well he has always been an egomaniac (The Big Clue Is He Argues With Supreme Beings Without Any Hint Of Deference). Picard has always been emotionally stunted (The Big Clue Is His Best Friend Is A Robot). Picard has always had problems dealing with women (The Big Clue Is That He's A Heterosexual Man Of Intelligence, Charm And Means Yet He's Painfully Single). He was never and has never been a people person.

The show Picard took the flaws that TNG established Picard as having, and the flaws that were established time after time after time after time in the Federation, and it ran with them. And the reason it did that was because it's literally the same writers, directors and crew.

I said there were very few:

The one with the characters go back to the 30s for the black writer creating Ds9 and than than the related test with the orb after Dax died

But it was not a major part of his character arc or the show

[ivandobsky]

Haha. Was expecting the link to be a criticism of the show, but it's a genuine official Star Trek site buzzword bingo article, that were it not for the url, i would judge to be a parody! I haven't watched the show, but trust in Mr Plinkett's review.

[Damselbinder]

Are you high? The first season of Picard is amazing. Specifically it's amazing because Picard has an arc, he's not some sort of superhuman god warrior poet who is always inherently perfect in his reasoning. The show deals with the flaws of his character which is exactly what any story ought to do because a story about 'Person who is really great at something does the thing and there are no problems' would be shit.

Boggles my mind that self proclaimed fans would shit on Picard. It's proper Star Trek. It's got proper TNG writers, actors and directors. This is what Star Trek looks like now, and people who think they know better than the guy who plays Picard, are completely full of crap. I think some people need to accept the fact that they associate with Star Trek because of nostalgia, but they never even slightly understood it, and now they want to claim ownership of it and complain about it's direction, but really they just don't like Star Trek and if they thought about it more they would realise that they never did.

Jesus fucking Christ. I'm glad the people who hate Picard weren't around when DS9 came out. A black captain who is considered to be a god, his transgender best pal, the religious terrorist first officer, the doctor who is not only Arabic but genetically superior to basically everybody. People would have freaked the fuck out.

Same people who would have freaked out that there was a black woman and a Russian on the bridge of the Enterprise in the original series, let alone the black woman kissed the captain. There would have been riots by fans who would have called Roddenberry an SJW cuck and demanded that he not destroy the character of Kirk.

I'm loath to take... certain sides in this debate, but Picard does not deal with the flaws in Picard's character. It invents a new character, calls him Picard, and then deals with the flaws in THAT character. I would also argue that Patrick Stewart - an actor - is by no means an authority on what makes good writing. In fact, even if some actors are, I'd say Stewart definitely isn't because, bless him, he's a fine actor but perhaps not the greatest genius in the world.

I don't care about the direction of Star Trek. I don't care if they choose to explore things the old Trek never did. I don't even really care if they betray Roddenberry's humanitarian vision (which, by the way, I am not necessarily saying Picard did). I care if it's good. I care if the characters are written as likeable and interesting. I care if the scripts are tight, well-paced, and engaging. I care if the plots make sense. I care if a moment's thought wouldn't reveal the entire storyline as absurd. I care if the message isn't confused and weak.

Here is the best example I can think of of the sort of thing I mean. When Picard goes to visit Rafi, she gives him shit about how he lives on a palatial estate, and she lives in a hovel. That, for anyone who knows anything about even the most basic basics of Star Trek, is nonsensical. There is no poverty on Earth anymore. There is no material scarcity anymore. That is a staggering failure on the part of the writers to understand the basics of the setting in which they're writing. And if dear Patrick were really such an authority on his own character, I tend to think he would have mentioned the mistake.

[Mr. X]

Here is the best example I can think of of the sort of thing I mean. When Picard goes to visit Rafi, she gives him shit about how he lives on a palatial estate, and she lives in a hovel. That, for anyone who knows anything about even the most basic basics of Star Trek, is nonsensical. There is no poverty on Earth anymore. There is no material scarcity anymore. That is a staggering failure on the part of the writers to understand the basics of the setting in which they're writing. And if dear Patrick were really such an authority on his own character, I tend to think he would have mentioned the mistake.

Yes Earth is supposed to be a progressive paradise of post scarcity and socialist management. No money, no evil corporations, centrally planned. Its funny how the people who want this kind of stuff can never present what that world would look like and they always attack everything. Nothing is good enough. This woman would not be living in poverty unless she chose it. She also would not be drug addicted... that pretty much would be cured.

Just shows if you do and give some people exactly what they want they will crap all over it. That is why listening to them is pointless. Picard had a opportunity to show us all what that grand progressive utopia was supposed to look like. Instead it shows a miserable world of class envy and loathsome people nobody cares about.

[Damselbinder]

Here is the best example I can think of of the sort of thing I mean. When Picard goes to visit Rafi, she gives him shit about how he lives on a palatial estate, and she lives in a hovel. That, for anyone who knows anything about even the most basic basics of Star Trek, is nonsensical. There is no poverty on Earth anymore. There is no material scarcity anymore. That is a staggering failure on the part of the writers to understand the basics of the setting in which they're writing. And if dear Patrick were really such an authority on his own character, I tend to think he would have mentioned the mistake.

Yes Earth is supposed to be a progressive paradise of post scarcity and socialist management. No money, no evil corporations, centrally planned. Its funny how the people who want this kind of stuff can never present what that world would look like and they always attack everything. Nothing is good enough. This woman would not be living in poverty unless she chose it. She also would not be drug addicted... that pretty much would be cured.

Just shows if you do and give some people exactly what they want they will crap all over it. That is why listening to them is pointless. Picard had a opportunity to show us all what that grand progressive utopia was supposed to look like. Instead it shows a miserable world of class envy and loathsome people nobody cares about.

I must say, I think the reasons for Picard's failure are not political. It was not brought down by political agendas. It was brought down by shocking technical incompetence and raw lack of ability from the writers. And I mean, it's not even as if you couldn't have done a story like that if you'd thought about it better. You could have had a character who wasn't from the Federation, for whom the conveniences of 25th Century Earth were unimaginable luxury. Hell, that was a bit of the point of the Maquis plot from DS9, wasn't it? That on the fringes of the Federation, things were not as luxurious as in the comfy confines of a Galaxy Class starship, that the peace of the core worlds of the UFP were being bought by the suffering of those on the edges.

I admit I'm now just grousing a bit more generally, but I cannot believe that at any point when Picard found out the truth behind the destruction of the Utopia Planitia shipyards he didn't throw a fit that the Romulans had been blaming the Federation (and him in particular) for something which had been done by their own intelligence services.

[Visitor]

What you have is a writer wanting to make a story point without regard to whether the way it is written fits into the series continuity. Then having a lazy show runner agree with the writer rather than figure out how to fix the story so it goes with continuity. This ruins so many shows where there is no or little attempt to make things internally consistent.

Star Trek: The Original Series was no better with having the Prime Directive being ignored on a regular basis by Kirk. There is no punishment for ignoring what is supposed to be the major directive of non-interference in cultures that aren't star faring capable.

[Dogfish]

There's no poverty on Earth but not everybody gets to live in a castle. In fact nobody gets to live in a castle unless they were born in one because, what are you going to do, buy it? With what? Picard addresses the problems of a post-scarcity society. What happens to ambition when you get everything given everything you need regardless of what you do. Of course some people are going to buck against everything being handed to them. People seem bemused that Rafi chooses to be poor, it makes sense to a character who sees herself as a failure, as undeserving.

We live in a different world, we're getting a different style of Star Trek as a result. Folks need to get used to that. DS9 dealt with the threats to utopia, Picard deals with utopia in decline. A lot of folks are apparently not willing or able to handle that in a Star Trek show, but it's a fictional universe. The Federation can stop existing at the stroke of a writer's pen (and it will, looking forward to Discovery season 3).

[Damselbinder]

I hate this excuse. "Ooh, this is what Star Trek is now! Get with it, boomers!"

If the writers of Picard were really challenging the nature of the world of Trek, they would have said so. Picard would have acted surprised with Rafi's choice of lifestyle, and then maybe she would have brought up some of the things you do. "That they just didn't think of it" is a better explanation of what we saw than that they were challenging the utopian society of the Federation. And if that is what they were trying to do, then their sheer technical incompetence completely prevented that from coming through.

"What happens to ambition when you get given everything you need?"

Starfleet. The whole premise of Star Trek, the whole idea behind why the Federation invests vast resources in starships whose mission is to travel the stars and explore the cosmos, is that this is what sentient species can do when they get their shit together. Very, very few characters in the franchise's history were members of Starfleet for any reason other than that they wanted to (Miles O'Brien is sometimes described as having been conscripted, of which I'm not sure of the canonicity; Tasha Yar joined because her homeworld was an horrific dump; Saru joined because he'd left his homeworld for good and didn't really have anywhere to go). That's what happens to ambition. You turn it outwards, and you explore the fuckin' universe.

And what if you don't want to join Starfleet? It's a military organisation in many ways, so perhaps that's against your conscience. Well okay, how about this generational project to create a new continent on Earth? How about going out into the sticks and founding a new colony? How about just living a quiet life on Earth dedicating yourself to academic study, and the love of a spouse and family, knowing that your children will never go hungry and that they have the whole universe to explore, supported by a genuinely benevolent, representative government that represents the collective will of dozens of enlightened species?

Time and time and time again we see just how different from us the people of Star Trek are. And why do we find this surprising? They are at an extreme cultural distance from us. It's been nearly 400 years by the time of Picard from where we are now. Think about how different we are to people in the 17th Century, even just thinking about people in our own nations, let alone the rest of the world. And they're in a world where they know about, and have lots of face to face contact with, alien life! Of course they still have problems; of course they sometimes overestimate themselves (First Contact had a shitty script, but the IDEA of Picard being more susceptible than revenge and violence than he thinks is not, in and of itself, a bad idea for a character arc); but they are not us.

But you know? I could ignore all that. I could forget everything that Trek has ever been. I could forget the hopeful vision that every series before Discovery (and even sometimes, I must say, Discovery itself in its own, very confused way) had tried to put forward. I could forgive a Trek about a "utopia in decline". I could forgive almost anything.

If it were good. There's plenty of pessimistic, realist/cynical sci-fi, or at least sci-fi which shows a Trek-ish world in pretty drab colours, so to speak. Starship Troopers. Asimov's Foundation novels. The Expanse. Farscape. Dune, even. But those are, a) much, much more intelligent than "Picard", and b) are all much, much more entertaining; better written; and have better, much more rational plots that don't radically insult my intelligence.

[Mr. X]

"Ooh, this is what Star Trek is now! Get with it, boomers!"

This pretty much sums up the current environment in general. "We now claim your stuff... its ours."

I have never understood the mentality that everything is universal property and that everyone has a say. If I throw a back yard BBQ I do not have to invite everyone. The people who have a say are the people who spend the money on the support of the series, buy the merchandise and otherwise keep the franchise going through fan participation.

When I see this "Its ours now, get lost" in a franchise I know the franchise is dead. How do you continue a franchise when the fans bail and the people who wanted this pay no money to support it.

Look at Star Wars toys. Where is the Last Jedi frenzy for toys? In fact where are the toys and collectibles. Its soured. Star Wars was a money printing machine. Star Trek could be as well.

I remember even back in the 2010s when I worked for Microsoft and we had our first year where xbox was profitable and the upper management had a voracious hatred of their customers. "We don't want to make games for angry young men". That's a direct attempt to subvert a market for ideological views, its not merely catering to a new market. It was about "these are the kind of customers we want" and not "lets cater to the customers we have who actually paid enough to turn a profit". To me its a sick form of thinking. Someone with a chip.

Is Picard written for the fans who actually spend money and contribute or is this written to be hostile and cater to people who never watch the show? Who are these people who everyone thinks is so important that they have to be catered to when these people spend no money or support or even watch the show? WHO is Picard written for? Who are they trying to impress.

[Damselbinder]

Forgive me Mr X but, in a capitalist society, can't the people who own the Star Trek IP make it for whomever they want?

[Mr. X]

Forgive me Mr X but, in a capitalist society, can't the people who own the Star Trek IP make it for whomever they want?

Yup and the people who pay for the merch and fan service can walk away. By all means the studio can make anything they want... but don't expect the vast majority of fans to buy it and sustain it.

[Femina]

Picard is awful. I'm sorry. If you like it, more power to you, but if you know even a little bit of Star Trek lore, than you can't help but be utterly offended by the staggering lapses in the world building. I'd be like if you watched all of The Lord of the Rings, accepted that the last of the elves had left middle earth... then once Tolkien died, somebody wrote a sequel to Lord of the Rings where all the elves were just chilling out on Middle Earth again and you weren't given any kind of explanation as to why this is until halfway through the story with a throwaway line like "Oh they sailed back cause the Undying lands died."

As just one of the very VERY first examples of this (as noted several times by Mr. Plinkett himself) Television doesn't exist anymore in the Star Trek universe... like it died off as a medium due to better advancements in technology and a species wide behavioral shifts. It's noted as LATE in the game is TNG where Data refers to television in the same way we might today think back on an old 1940's household radio and the importance it once had... but also as something so outdated as to be outside of the typical realm of thought or consideration... Picard OPENS with a worldwide Television broadcast that is structured no differently than the Fox News interviews of today.

Star Trek isn't about divisive and politically charged pessimistic storytelling. That's not to say it AVOIDED politics, just that If it approached a political subject it did so with an optimistic flair, always choosing to look at what COULD be and how it COULD BE better, not in gleefully rolling in misery and reminding us that what we actually LIVE IN is shit.

To be very frank, I'm not saying there's no room for the sort of story Picard wanted to tell, but I am saying that there was no reason that story had to be a STAR TREK story... and more than that, the story told SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN a Star Trek story.

Not everything has to stick to a franchise, but if you HAVE to write a franchise story, you can always shop around for a franchise with a setting and tone more in line with the kind of story you want to tell.

[Dazzle1]

Picard is awful. I'm sorry. If you like it, more power to you, but if you know even a little bit of Star Trek lore, than you can't help but be utterly offended by the staggering lapses in the world building. I'd be like if you watched all of The Lord of the Rings, accepted that the last of the elves had left middle earth... then once Tolkien died, somebody wrote a sequel to Lord of the Rings where all the elves were just chilling out on Middle Earth again and you weren't given any kind of explanation as to why this is until halfway through the story with a throwaway line like "Oh they sailed back cause the Undying lands died."

As just one of the very VERY first examples of this (as noted several times by Mr. Plinkett himself) Television doesn't exist anymore in the Star Trek universe... like it died off as a medium due to better advancements in technology and a species wide behavioral shifts. It's noted as LATE in the game is TNG where Data refers to television in the same way we might today think back on an old 1940's household radio and the importance it once had... but also as something so outdated as to be outside of the typical realm of thought or consideration... Picard OPENS with a worldwide Television broadcast that is structured no differently than the Fox News interviews of today.

Star Trek isn't about divisive and politically charged pessimistic storytelling. That's not to say it AVOIDED politics, just that If it approached a political subject it did so with an optimistic flair, always choosing to look at what COULD be and how it COULD BE better, not in gleefully rolling in misery and reminding us that what we actually LIVE IN is shit.

To be very frank, I'm not saying there's no room for the sort of story Picard wanted to tell, but I am saying that there was no reason that story had to be a STAR TREK story... and more than that, the story told SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN a Star Trek story.

Not everything has to stick to a franchise, but if you HAVE to write a franchise story, you can always shop around for a franchise with a setting and tone more in line with the kind of story you want to tell.

Very good point on how ST especially TOS dealt with social and political issues. They addressed it without the heavy handness

What I consider the real ST which is the five tv series ending with Enterprise stayed true to that formula or optimism

There seems to be a desire in this generation to remake franchises especially sci-fi in today's prefered images with almost contempt for the original.

We see this in DW where Chibnal disregarded the canon of the series and says the 50 year history of the show was a lie

ST where they ignore the time line and what could be done during Discovery and remake characters

Star Wars where they diminish characters from the original

[Damselbinder]

Picard is awful. I'm sorry. If you like it, more power to you, but if you know even a little bit of Star Trek lore, than you can't help but be utterly offended by the staggering lapses in the world building. I'd be like if you watched all of The Lord of the Rings, accepted that the last of the elves had left middle earth... then once Tolkien died, somebody wrote a sequel to Lord of the Rings where all the elves were just chilling out on Middle Earth again and you weren't given any kind of explanation as to why this is until halfway through the story with a throwaway line like "Oh they sailed back cause the Undying lands died."

As just one of the very VERY first examples of this (as noted several times by Mr. Plinkett himself) Television doesn't exist anymore in the Star Trek universe... like it died off as a medium due to better advancements in technology and a species wide behavioral shifts. It's noted as LATE in the game is TNG where Data refers to television in the same way we might today think back on an old 1940's household radio and the importance it once had... but also as something so outdated as to be outside of the typical realm of thought or consideration... Picard OPENS with a worldwide Television broadcast that is structured no differently than the Fox News interviews of today.

Star Trek isn't about divisive and politically charged pessimistic storytelling. That's not to say it AVOIDED politics, just that If it approached a political subject it did so with an optimistic flair, always choosing to look at what COULD be and how it COULD BE better, not in gleefully rolling in misery and reminding us that what we actually LIVE IN is shit.

To be very frank, I'm not saying there's no room for the sort of story Picard wanted to tell, but I am saying that there was no reason that story had to be a STAR TREK story... and more than that, the story told SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN a Star Trek story.

Not everything has to stick to a franchise, but if you HAVE to write a franchise story, you can always shop around for a franchise with a setting and tone more in line with the kind of story you want to tell.

Very good point on how ST especially TOS dealt with social and political issues. They addressed it without the heavy handness

What I consider the real ST which is the five tv series ending with Enterprise stayed true to that formula or optimism

There seems to be a desire in this generation to remake franchises especially sci-fi in today's prefered images with almost contempt for the original.

We see this in DW where Chibnal disregarded the canon of the series and says the 50 year history of the show was a lie

ST where they ignore the time line and what could be done during Discovery and remake characters

Star Wars where they diminish characters from the original

I promise I won't bring this wholly off topic, but just on the point of Dr Who, I actually think Chibnall had the OPPOSITE problem: he's a total continuity-whore. There's a minor sequence in an old Tom Baker serial ("The Mind of Morbius") where it implies that the Doctor had incarnations before William Hartnell, and Chibbo was trying to explain that extremely minor, forgotten point from a 35 year old television serial.

[Dazzle1]

Picard is awful. I'm sorry. If you like it, more power to you, but if you know even a little bit of Star Trek lore, than you can't help but be utterly offended by the staggering lapses in the world building. I'd be like if you watched all of The Lord of the Rings, accepted that the last of the elves had left middle earth... then once Tolkien died, somebody wrote a sequel to Lord of the Rings where all the elves were just chilling out on Middle Earth again and you weren't given any kind of explanation as to why this is until halfway through the story with a throwaway line like "Oh they sailed back cause the Undying lands died."

As just one of the very VERY first examples of this (as noted several times by Mr. Plinkett himself) Television doesn't exist anymore in the Star Trek universe... like it died off as a medium due to better advancements in technology and a species wide behavioral shifts. It's noted as LATE in the game is TNG where Data refers to television in the same way we might today think back on an old 1940's household radio and the importance it once had... but also as something so outdated as to be outside of the typical realm of thought or consideration... Picard OPENS with a worldwide Television broadcast that is structured no differently than the Fox News interviews of today.

Star Trek isn't about divisive and politically charged pessimistic storytelling. That's not to say it AVOIDED politics, just that If it approached a political subject it did so with an optimistic flair, always choosing to look at what COULD be and how it COULD BE better, not in gleefully rolling in misery and reminding us that what we actually LIVE IN is shit.

To be very frank, I'm not saying there's no room for the sort of story Picard wanted to tell, but I am saying that there was no reason that story had to be a STAR TREK story... and more than that, the story told SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN a Star Trek story.

Not everything has to stick to a franchise, but if you HAVE to write a franchise story, you can always shop around for a franchise with a setting and tone more in line with the kind of story you want to tell.

Very good point on how ST especially TOS dealt with social and political issues. They addressed it without the heavy handness

What I consider the real ST which is the five tv series ending with Enterprise stayed true to that formula or optimism

There seems to be a desire in this generation to remake franchises especially sci-fi in today's prefered images with almost contempt for the original.

We see this in DW where Chibnal disregarded the canon of the series and says the 50 year history of the show was a lie

ST where they ignore the time line and what could be done during Discovery and remake characters

Star Wars where they diminish characters from the original

I promise I won't bring this wholly off topic, but just on the point of Dr Who, I actually think Chibnall had the OPPOSITE problem: he's a total continuity-whore. There's a minor sequence in an old Tom Baker serial ("The Mind of Morbius") where it implies that the Doctor had incarnations before William Hartnell, and Chibbo was trying to explain that extremely minor, forgotten point from a 35 year old television serial.

I was more refering to how the season ended, where the Doctor is not a Gallfreyan and they stole regeneration and other powers from another race etc.

As far as Morbius, those earlier pictures were Morbius.

[Dogfish]

Forgive me Mr X but, in a capitalist society, can't the people who own the Star Trek IP make it for whomever they want?

Yup and the people who pay for the merch and fan service can walk away. By all means the studio can make anything they want... but don't expect the vast majority of fans to buy it and sustain it.

And yet, here we are, but on almost the full yearly Trek rotation and Star Wars movies and TV shows being pumped out like nobody's business. Almost like there's some sort of audience that exists to watch them.

[Dogfish]

Picard is awful. I'm sorry. If you like it, more power to you, but if you know even a little bit of Star Trek lore, than you can't help but be utterly offended by the staggering lapses in the world building. I'd be like if you watched all of The Lord of the Rings, accepted that the last of the elves had left middle earth... then once Tolkien died, somebody wrote a sequel to Lord of the Rings where all the elves were just chilling out on Middle Earth again and you weren't given any kind of explanation as to why this is until halfway through the story with a throwaway line like "Oh they sailed back cause the Undying lands died."

As just one of the very VERY first examples of this (as noted several times by Mr. Plinkett himself) Television doesn't exist anymore in the Star Trek universe... like it died off as a medium due to better advancements in technology and a species wide behavioral shifts. It's noted as LATE in the game is TNG where Data refers to television in the same way we might today think back on an old 1940's household radio and the importance it once had... but also as something so outdated as to be outside of the typical realm of thought or consideration... Picard OPENS with a worldwide Television broadcast that is structured no differently than the Fox News interviews of today.

Star Trek isn't about divisive and politically charged pessimistic storytelling. That's not to say it AVOIDED politics, just that If it approached a political subject it did so with an optimistic flair, always choosing to look at what COULD be and how it COULD BE better, not in gleefully rolling in misery and reminding us that what we actually LIVE IN is shit.

To be very frank, I'm not saying there's no room for the sort of story Picard wanted to tell, but I am saying that there was no reason that story had to be a STAR TREK story... and more than that, the story told SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN a Star Trek story.

Not everything has to stick to a franchise, but if you HAVE to write a franchise story, you can always shop around for a franchise with a setting and tone more in line with the kind of story you want to tell.

Lore is subject to change. TV was gone. TV comes back. It really is that simple. There's a lot time between TNG and Picard, literally anything could happen. Clinging to the lore as if it's a religious text is absurd, it's how you end up with a situation like Game of Thrones, where the author can't finish the story for himself because he can't remember exactly what everybody is supposed to be doing long enough to do any writing.

Lore is the enemy of story.

[Visitor]

Placing a new movie or TV series in a franchise is the easiest way to get it made regardless if it fits with the past. The executives that decide whether to make it have the data from the past on costs and how much they made, ratings broken down by target demographics, and what they assume will be a ready made audience. So to them the decision is easier than thinking about original material that can only rely on the reputation of the creators and writers. Sure original material may be better, but it is a harder sell to get it done.

Ratings is the true enemy of story. Waiting until an audience finds it rarely happens anymore.

Think of all the TV shows that are now considered hits, but started off slow like Cheers and Seinfeld. They both only survived because some executive wanted to give them a chance to find an audience. Other shows got cancelled quickly or shuffled around from time slot or network until they do well or die.

[Dazzle1]

Placing a new movie or TV series in a franchise is the easiest way to get it made regardless if it fits with the past. The executives that decide whether to make it have the data from the past on costs and how much they made, ratings broken down by target demographics, and what they assume will be a ready made audience. So to them the decision is easier than thinking about original material that can only rely on the reputation of the creators and writers. Sure original material may be better, but it is a harder sell to get it done.

Ratings is the true enemy of story. Waiting until an audience finds it rarely happens anymore.

Think of all the TV shows that are now considered hits, but started off slow like Cheers and Seinfeld. They both only survived because some executive wanted to give them a chance to find an audience. Other shows got cancelled quickly or shuffled around from time slot or network until they do well or die.

In the three franchises cases, they are not doing this on a strict business model
Kathleen Kennedy stated she did not care if she lost former fans. Forget the gross sales amount, how many repeat movie goers went to her movies as opposed to theorginal trilogy how about the mechandising

DW , the defenders have shown contempt for Classic fans

ST ignored a precedent that worked sucessfully. Main character well known performer and leader of ship or station with a strong supporting ensemble cast. Discovery no one knew who the woman playing Michael Burnham but almost everyone knew who michelle Yeoh is.

[Damselbinder]

"Lore is the enemy of story"? Oh come on. I can understand a position like "paying absurdly close attention to every microdetail of continuity is pedantic and pointless", but that's not the same thing, is it? Let me illustrate with an example.

So in Picard, at one point a Romulan character claims that Romulans do no research at all into robotics and artificial life. This contradicts a minor scene from an old TNG episode where a Romulan character claims there are researchers on Romulus who would love to get their hands on Commander Data. THAT is the kind of thing it's fine to ignore, if I'm honest. It was from one scene in one episode; it's hardly key to the worldbuilding, taking it away doesn't cause any blatantly huge continuity gaps, or damage what we already knew about the Romulans, etc. If that's what you meant, then I agree with you.

But there are bigger things. The biggest example I can think of is in the "Picard" episode where Picard and Soji visit Riker; and Riker insists that Picard has no experience parenting and is clearly a shit father figure. Ignoring the fact that, while Picard was always awkward around children, he acted as quite an effective father figure to about half his crew, he literally had a wife and family, and was clearly pretty good at it. In "the Inner Light" he lived a whole life - and it wasn't magically erased from his mind. He remembers it all. And this is something which TNG doesn't forget: we frequently have callbacks to this event. Hell, even Star Trek: Generations in its own confused way returns to this theme when we see from his vision in the Nexus that Picard would actually really like to have had children. That sort of thing is really, really important to Picard's character.

Now here comes a new story which wants to explore the character of Picard. Or rather, they have a specific story they want to tell with someone vaguely a bit like Picard, and they brush aside not only minor details but major aspects of his character. Surely the whole point of a sequel is that you are CONTINUING a story, or at least themes from a story. That's what interested most people, that they wanted to see how this beloved character was getting on after all this time. The people making it knew that. The moneyman were banking on it. Yet they also wanted to be able to tell any story they want, ignoring continuity if they felt they needed to. Well you can't have it both ways.

Now, for something like Discovery (takes place in same universe but features a totally new cast of characters in a different setting to one we've seen before because of time difference), one can indeed be much more forgiving, lore-wise. For example, the way the Klingons encounter the Federation frankly makes absolutely no sense given the meetings the Klingons had with humans in Enterprise. But, y'know, it's a new show, new characters, different time period - ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh, it's okay. It's like how the Klingons were different in TNG to TOS. We could vaguely imagine there might be some reason, that over time culture something something something. It's a bit annoying, but it doesn't insult my intelligence. Picard did.

(BTW, while I'm on Discovery, Dazzle I actually think Discovery's first season wasn't toooooooooo bad, and I thought having a lower-ranked character as the hero worked fine. It was other problems which piled up so high that Discovery was eventually pretty much completely absurd.)

[Dogfish]

See whether Picard is a good dad or not is debatable. He's no Sisko that's for sure. I think it's telling he connected with Data rather than, y'know, a person with emotions. He's a very stern, distant type of figure, pretty crappy dad material. Maybe his second life helped with that, but I think TNG kind of suffered from limited character development due to the format (the one-hour-reset in essence).

Also with Picard, he's super old, and I think there's a lot of leeway with the character to play into the problems age brings. It brings complacency, arrogance, emotional laziness. There is no fool like an old fool, and we're seeing Picard several decades past his physical and mental peak. I don't mind that he's a shadow of himself, at least until he gets properly motivated.

[Damselbinder]

See whether Picard is a good dad or not is debatable. He's no Sisko that's for sure. I think it's telling he connected with Data rather than, y'know, a person with emotions. He's a very stern, distant type of figure, pretty crappy dad material. Maybe his second life helped with that, but I think TNG kind of suffered from limited character development due to the format (the one-hour-reset in essence).

Also with Picard, he's super old, and I think there's a lot of leeway with the character to play into the problems age brings. It brings complacency, arrogance, emotional laziness. There is no fool like an old fool, and we're seeing Picard several decades past his physical and mental peak. I don't mind that he's a shadow of himself, at least until he gets properly motivated.

Connected with Data? Oh, sure he definitely did connect with Data, and the two share some memorable scenes together, but Data was not his closest friend. Not even close. Dr Crusher, Riker - even Troi was a closer friend to Picard than Data was. Also, you seem to have just taken what is the most important point I made (he was literally a father with a family, all of whom seemed to be pretty besotted with him) and just said "well, that doesn't count because the one-hour reset". Even though I also told you that it wasn't reset, and was referred to from time to time throughout the show. For instance, in the episode where he starts dating that lady from astrometrics his revealing that side of himself to her is played as clearly being deeply personal to him.

And I'm afraid the "he's old now" excuse doesn't cut it, because that is absolutely not the way they frame it. He doesn't even seem "complacent, arrogant and emotionally lazy." He just seems like a different person. He doesn't even talk like himself anymore. "Ass-deep in Romulans" indeed!

[Dogfish]

I think the rest of the crew are more peers than seeing him as a father figure though, which is what I was getting at. He might have been more of a father to Rafi as her captain but we don't see that, and we have to assume he messed that up. And I stand by the lack of character development in TNG, it's a very difficult show to track in those terms. The show lacks almost any larger structure.

[Damselbinder]

Yes, indeed it does. But that's not the point. The point is that its lack of structure adds exactly nothing to anything you're trying to establish. I think your point is supposed to be something like "TNG didn't have an overarcing story for its characters most of the time, therefore it's okay for the "Picard" writers to ignore anything that did happen to those characters - even the really, really important stuff that was referred to multiple times in TNG and that we were told repeatedly were very, very important events in the lives of these characters. Remember, lore is the enemy of story, so even if you're making a sequel to something where its main selling point is that it's a continuation of what's come before, you can still ignore things like the major events in your main character's life, their entire personality, and their actual friendships. So what if Picard's closest friend was Beverly Crusher and Data's closest friend was Geordi LaForge? That's inconvenient. We want Picard to have been closer to Data than anyone, even though he wasn't."

I hope I'm missing your point. Because what your point appears to be is completely illogical.

[Femina]

Lore is subject to change. TV was gone. TV comes back. It really is that simple. There's a lot time between TNG and Picard, literally anything could happen. Clinging to the lore as if it's a religious text is absurd, it's how you end up with a situation like Game of Thrones, where the author can't finish the story for himself because he can't remember exactly what everybody is supposed to be doing long enough to do any writing.

Lore is the enemy of story.

No, it's not. That's pretty close to the silliest assumption I've ever read on the nature of storytelling. Bad storytelling is the ONLY enemy of storytelling, and can be accomplished through many means which might otherwise be a BOON to storytelling. Breaking your lore is simply one method of bad storytelling... but it CAN be accomplished with cleverness and careful attention to detail and made a boon (This is 'subversion' done correctly)... but "Oh we have televisions again now!" isn't the kind of careful attention to detail that wins you points. Any bumbling fool can begin a sequel with the lines "And then there was TV again!" It takes storytelling to explain WHY there are TV's again... and Picard doesn't even do that. They just wanted to take a pot shot at Fox News in their episode (Low hanging fruit I know... but there are a million better shows and established universes that are better suited for that).

Creating a barrier with the express INTENTION of breaking it is another thing you can do while lore building. There are gob tons of stories with settings that tell us one thing with the EXPRESS intention of making a point by ignoring or breaking that thing. That's soft Lore, and works particularly well in standalone storytelling. You know *gasp* a thing that isn't a franchise. That's not the sort of lore we're dealing with in Star Trek though. Star Trek had HARD lore, the sort of lore intended to act as a stable platform from where the consumer might stand to witness the proceedings indefinately within their suspension of disbelief intact.

Once you do that you have to abide by it, or you SHATTER that suspension of disbelief. I know you could argue 'but Femina! That's impossible to do for 50 years!!!! Star Trek is ancient!!!!" To which I simply argue. Star Trek DID do that. For NEARLY 50 years Star Trek inspired human beings to become SCIENTISTS, to pioneer new avenues of technology, and to think with optimistic hope about what COULD BE... and then a bunch of kids who don't actually care about Star Trek decided the story they wanted to tell was actually more important than the lore... and suddenly Star Trek is 'polarizing'... and while many might argue that polarization is its own kind of worthwhile or something... I have a hard time imagining 'polarized' viewers being INSPIRED to go out and make the world better... I wouldn't stand here and say that EVERY episode of Trek ever made held to its lofty ambitions... or that none of its episodes are problematic (the OG trek in particular has a LOT of eyebrow raising moments) but Picard (even more so than its predecessor the Mass Effect Trilogy... I mean Discovery) is the first time the ENTIRE SEASON failed its core principles.

[Dazzle1]

I think the rest of the crew are more peers than seeing him as a father figure though, which is what I was getting at. He might have been more of a father to Rafi as her captain but we don't see that, and we have to assume he messed that up. And I stand by the lack of character development in TNG, it's a very difficult show to track in those terms. The show lacks almost any larger structure.

As far as the father or mother figure(for Janeway)

Only ones might be are
TNG Tasha Yar or Wesley
Voyager Harry Kim or Tom Paris