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  1. #1
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    Default Star Trek: Picard

    The latest Star Trek series has finally arrived on Amazon Prime in the UK and other streaming platforms.

    Has anyone seen it yet, and what are their thoughts?

  2. #2
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    I've not seen it - yet. I must admit when it was announced, my heart sort of sank because I found the last series of Discovery such hard going and I'm assuming this is from the same stable.

    But, curse them! the trailers have all looked fantastic so I'm very tempted. The only thing weighing against it is that I just cannot get any Prime videos to play on our TV, so could only watch it on a tablet - which is not undoable (I'm gradually working through the 'free to Prime' X-Files that way) but is not my preferred way of watching TV. I'm old-fashioned enough to want to actually watch TV programmes on an actual TV!

    So, erm, I hope that's helped Mac!

  3. #3
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    I've seen it and enjoyed it an enormous amount, I struggled with season 2 of Discovery as well but really liked this, and can't wait to see what happens next, in some ways I'm glad it's being released weekly as if it wasn't I'd probably binge it all within a day or two.
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  4. #4
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    I watched it yesterday, and loved it. It feels like Next Generation, but updated in style ...multiple storylines being introduced all of which are interleaving together in one big storyline. The big difference being that back in the day, these would probably all have been individual stories of the week with little to connect them. Unlike Discovery, this is how Star trek should be done in the 21st century...an update which actually respects the original material.

    Looking forward to episode 2

  5. #5
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    All that makes me think I should give it a go - I didn't realise it was being released weekly, I assumed it was all dropping together.

    Is it necessary to have seen all TNG to really 'get' this do you think? I sort of fell out of watching it after the first BBC2 run (was that up to the cliffhanger ending to season 3 or 4 maybe?) and have only caught odd episodes since then. I've never seen the final episode at all in fact!!

  6. #6
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    No, I don't think so. All you need is knowledge of the characters...and the events of the final TNG movie, Nemesis (even though it's one of the weakest movies imo) plant the seeds of this series. It's almost 20 years after the events of Nemesis (in which Romulus is destroyed and Data is killed off) Spoiler tags in case you haven't seen/want to see the movie first. These two events are major factors in the background of the episode, but by means of Picard being the subject of an interview as part of the story plenty of background info is readily supplied on screen.

    That's probably my biggest gripe about it, that there's quite a bit of exposition/info dump which is totally understandable as a means to quickly get on with the story. A bit of a catch-22 situation there!

  7. #7
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    I have seen Nemesis (I think - that's the one with Troi & Riker's wedding, and something about a Picard clone of some sort...?) but it didn't make much of an impression, other than not being very good. I'd certainly forgotten Data being killed off. Sorry Data!!

    I think I'll try and give Picard a go then, based on all that. Certainly sounds like a safer bet than another series of Discovery... although curses, the trailer for S3 of that looks good too!!

  8. #8
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    Well I'm glad I took your advice, Mac and Alex, as I'm really enjoying it so far - I've done the first three episodes, so hopefully will fit in the fourth one sometime before Friday so that I'll be up to date. It's very enjoyable, if a little confusing in places (took me a while to understand what the situation with the Borg cube was, for example).

    In between very impressive action sequences, it's quite slow-moving (we're three episodes in and arguably Picard hasn't really done much yet) but I like that. I got a little irritated with the character of Raffi (Raafi?) continually calling Picard "JL" - not irritated by the abbreviation, simply by just how many times she said it!! I know people on TV always use names far more than we do in real life, but I wish somebody in the script department had gone to it with a red pencil because it was ridiculous.

    That teensy gripe aside, though, it's an entertaining series so far - not sure quite where it's going, but that's what makes it different to the usual 'story of the week' Treks I'm used to.

    Incidentally, some of the CGI shots of Mars being attacked reminded me of similar sorts of images from Babylon 5, which also got quite Mars-centric at times!

  9. #9
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    How enjoyable this show has been so far! It takes a modern production aesthetic, gives us a show that is a sequel to TNG, Voyager, Nemesis, and some of the Kelvinverse lore (i.e. the destruction of Romulus), as well as a show that is set predominantly outside of Starfleet. Beautifully shot, with a phenomenal guest cast, and it really is lovely to see the return of some much-loved characters (Picard, of course - but also Seven of Nine, Riker, Troy, and Brent Spiner in various roles). Touching storylines with Soong, the Romulans, and the Borg, this is clearly a love letter to Star Trek past, allowing we, the audience, to catch up with some of these characters now.

    The only thing that's been disappointing is the title sequence.

    I'm glad I've been saving my bottle of Chateau Picard for the finale!

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  10. #10
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    The only thing that's been disappointing is the title sequence.
    How curious - I really like it, in that it has a real 'late-70s movie' sort of feel to it.

    I also like the music - but had to agree with some wag on Twitter who commented that week 1, he thought it sounded like somebody just chucking some random chords down a staircase, by week 4 he was humming it all round the house!

    I've really enjoyed the series so far (not seen yesterday's (final?) episode yet), even without ever having been a real Trek devotee there was something especially lovely about the Riker & Troi episode where, improbable as it was, the plot more or less took a week off while they had a reunion. It was like the revamped Dallas of a few years back, when Gary Ewing or Ray Krebbs would pop up for five minutes.

  11. #11
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    And I thought it was curiously old-fashioned yet so right, the appearance of the colony of simulants in ep 9. Tanned, good-looking people, with quite a lot of (especially the females) flesh on show, all wearing bright-coloured clothes - exactly as they would have made it look in the original series in the 60s, and in TNG in the 80s!!

  12. #12
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    Well, since clearly not everyone is there yet, everything below is in spoiler tags...

    The one thing that really makes no sense to me whatsoever is why did they kill him off at the end, only to put him in the golem, which will then age in the same way that he would have, had he not had the brain abnormality? Actually, why make the brain abnormality fatal at all? It didn't really drive the plot forward - even if you make the argument that it left Picard with nothing to lose, he still put Agnes at risk in the final showdown with the Romulans, and besides, I think he would've still done what he did, just because of who he is. I just don't think that it added anything to the story, and just seemed a little pointless...

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