The Picard Thread (with SPOILERS)

I read some spoilers for Picard on 4chan a couple of days ago. They seem to be from the premiere held a few days ago.

Not a lot on info, but they did explain who Dahj, the young woman in the trailers, is. If the spoilers are true, who/what she is is actually kind of disturbing.

There’s also an Irish woman playing a Romulan and she’s brilliant.

It’s Orla Brady.

Was going to blitz this but a better idea is to go with the opener to see how it works.

Yeah, just finished episode 1 and I really enjoyed it. It feels like they put a huge amount of thought into everything.  And so much happened in just one episode, it feels like other shows would have stretched this plot out over a year.

Very excited for what comes next.

Rocket wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It’s Orla Brady.

thats so cool. I watched her on Into the Badlands and she was great on every season.

I keep intending to go back to Into the Badlands. I watched the first couple episodes. Brady’s been good in a lot of shows. I liked her in Fringe.

I’ve just checked IMDb to see what else she’s in. Judging by the name of her character, I reckon her next performance will be her finest to date.

Some easter eggs and references I noticed:

• Blue Skies is the song Data sang at Riker and Troi’s wedding, and B4 sand under his breath at the end of Nemesis
• Dahj’s boyfriend is Xahean, the same species as Tilly’s friend Po from DISCO
• Zhaban has head ridges of the TNG design Romulans, while Laris looks more like a TOS-era one
• The FNN ident has pictures of Picard in the TNG TV uniform, he and Worf side-by-side during the Klingon Civil War in Redemption, in the dress uniform seen in Insurrection and Nemesis, and then in the uniform from First Contact onwards.  The chair looks to be one from a briefing room rather than Picard’s ready room.
• The FNN news team includes a Tellarite, one of the lesser-seen founding species of the Federation
• Pure speculation, but I get the feeling Data’s paintings are of Lal rather than of Dahj or a hypothetical daughter. According to Index, they were completed in 2369, which corresponds to TNG series 6 and DS9 series 1.
• Picard’s archive includes models of the Stargazer, Cousteau (the captain’s yacht from Insurrection), Enterprise E as well as the Captain Picard Day banner from The Pegasus, a Bat’leth and D’k tahg (presumably the one seen in Picard’s quarters during TNG). There’s what might be an othographic drawing or model of Enterprise D on one wall
• The Daystrom Institute is named for Richard Daystrom, designer of the M-5 Computer from TOS episode The Ultimate Computer.  First mentioned in the TNG episode The Measure of A Man, Doctor Bruce Maddox who tried to have Data dismantled worked there.  Maddox is dreferences in the TNG episodes The Offspring and Data’s Day, and again here.

As an aside, Index is played by Maya Esthet, last seen being the best thing about Nightflyers

See I’ve never watched any TNG, so I know of Picard and Data, but I have no idea who they are… anyhoo, this episode was like a billion times better than that Discovery crying-fest trainwreck, even despite not knowing what the significance of that gigantic cube thing was at the end… xD

But then again, I suppose that’s what happens when you get an actual good actor for a lead… anyways, looks quite good, so I’m in for the ride, I just hope it doesn’t devolve into the same idiocy than Discovery.

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Chris-S

I enjoyed it. I didn’t mind the interview info dump since it was still used to give us a character moment. I’m more interested in angry Picard than I am the synthetics plot but that probably would have been the case no matter what the plot was. The sister felt like a cop out, especially since she would have been mentioned earlier otherwise. I’m willing to give them time to develop her as a character though. I liked Them leaning into Picard’s age and him no longer being athletic. I’m definitely invested and curious to see where it goes.

Poor Picard, “I don’t want the game to end.”

Poor Number One he got left behind. :(

I watched episode one and quite enjoyed it, although I feel like some of the historical/backstory references were lost on me as someone who doesn’t know a huge amount about Star Trek.

The basic story seems solid and it’s well-made and obviously wants to engage with some quite contemporary ideas. I’ll definitely keep watching for now.

Dave wrote:

I watched episode one and quite enjoyed it, although I feel like some of the historical/backstory references were lost on me as someone who doesn’t know a huge amount about Star Trek.

The basic story seems solid and it’s well-made and obviously wants to engage with some quite contemporary ideas. I’ll definitely keep watching for now.

Ben wrote:

I wouldn’t class any of the backstory refs as essential, some of its to the Nemesis but the show tells you what you need to know.

Yeah, if you know roughly who Picard and Data are (and that Data’s dead), what the Federation is, and who the Romulans and Borg are you should be fine. Most of the backstory in the show is either new to the timeframe or just there to make nerds go “hey, I recognise that”

Anonymous wrote:

I’m not fine. What’s going to happen to the very good Number One?

And I’m sure Todd is anxious to know when Tom Hardy will turn up.

I’m pretty sure he’ll be taken care of by Picard’s Romulan friends.

Pretty sure Number One primarily understands English.  Picard had only been practising using French with him.

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Pretty sure Number One primarily understands English.  Picard had only been practising using French with him.

Does the universal translator work with dogs?

Also, how did Data die? I never saw Nemesis – presumably it happened there?

Ah ok, thanks. Presumably this series is the first time there’s been any suggestion of a daughter, or the painting or anything?

There was an TNG episode where he constructed a daughter (not the one that appeared in this STP episode though). She died.

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Chris-S

It’s tricky to enable accessibility in a long running series with lots of continuity like this. But it’s also essential to get it right to avoid the story being a rehash of previous well known tales or an impenetrable new one.

I wanted to say I thought this was slightly less accessible than Discovery.  That makes sense because it’s a “sequel” series of sorts and you couldn’t do it without references to TNG, but having not watched that series I didn’t feel 100% as if I was the intended audience.

I read some of the stuff you guys wrote in response to Dave and I think I differ slightly in that I felt that not knowing who or what the Romulans are, for me, felt like a big gap in maybe what was expected to be assumed knowledge.   I felt similarly about the those bits in the first Star Trek movie, and the assumed knowledge about the stuff with Khan in the second one completely made me switch off .  I know who Data and  the Borg are because I watched First Contact as a kid (which I just had to google because my mind tricked me into thinking it was called Star Trek: Resistance) but it definitely feels like there’s way more that I should know.

I think it’s a really well made series but for me the major compelling element is watching Patrick Stewart, who feels like he’s just playing Patrick Stewart.  I like Patrick Stewart so I’ll keep watching until it loses me.

I think Star Trek is the only major ‘geek’ franchise I’ve never been on solid ground with and it’s kind of a strange feeling.  This must be what all my friends feel like when I take them to watch Marvel movies.

So what exactly are the Romulans?  I gather from this thread that they are historically bad guys – are they like a spin-off of the Vulcans?  If so, why do they have their own home planet then?

The Romulans at Chateau Picard seemed very not-villainy.  Is there some kind of dark undercurrent there, like are we expecting that some of them will go rogue and abuse Picards better nature or something?

Ah so they split off in ancient history and went out and colonised some random planet?

So… just following on from that thought.  If they’ve colonised a planet before why can’t they do it again? Or are we to believe that theyre basically an “extinct” species now?  Why are the Romulans at the vineyard so friendly – is it because Picard is a hero to them?

I see.  This kind of goes to the guts of my feeling like ive got a knowledge gap here – the show feels like it’s inviting questions and I don’t know if there are answers to these already or if they’ll become central to the plot going forward.

Anyway, I thought it was fine.  Happy to see a lot of people here excited for this.  Tenatively, for now, I’ll ride in the side-car.

If I was to watch a handful of TNG episodes to get a grounding for the characters and story to help with the Picard series, what would anyone recommend?

I’ve never seen Best Of Both Worlds and have always heard that talked about as one of the best – worth a look? Anything else, maybe to cover the Picard/Data relationship? I’m open to recommendations.

As well as Measure of a Man, I’d recommend these Data-centric episodes

The Offspring (S3E16) – Data builds a child

Brothers (S4E3) – Data answers a call to return to his creator, only to find his immoral brother Lore has also come home.  (Lore is introduced in the S1 episode Datalore… but it’s TNG series 1 so approach at your own peril)

Data’s Day (S4E11) – Data records the events of a day on the Enterprise from his perspective, to send to Bruce Maddox)

Birthright part I (S6E16) – Data discovers the ability to dream in the B plot.

Descent Parts I (S6E26) and II (S7E1) – Data experiences emotions while fighting some rogue Borg, and this leads to larger problems.  Descent also features the return of Hugh from I, Borg who will appear in Picard.

Episodes that feature the Romulans and might be of interest

Balance of Terror (TOS S1E8) – the first encounter between the Romulans and Federation since their initial war has shocking implications for Spock

The Neutral Zone (TNG S1E26) – The Enterprise investigates the disappearance of outposts along the border of Romulan Territory while welcoming a trio of cryogenically frozen people to the 24th Century

Unification I and II (TNG S5E7 and 8) – Picard and Data travel to Romulus to track down Ambassador Spock, who has gone missing.

Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges (DS9 S7E16) – Bashir is caught in a web of espionage while on a diplomatic mission to Romulus (fun fact, this episode is the only appearance of an Intrepid-class starship outside of Voyager)

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Chris-S

rory wrote:

Not directly linked to the shows background but I think just as important to Picards character is the two part Chain of Command. It’s the famous 4/5 lights episode.

That is one of the few I actually have seen before. I enjoyed it.

I think the destruction of Romulus (from the ’09 Trek) opens up a lot of interesting possibilities in the Prime universe.

There is, suddenly, this large Romulan diaspora out there. Are they going to find a new homeworld? Rejoin with the Vulcans? And if they do what that, then what? Do the Romulans adapt to the Vulcan way of logic, or does their presence influence Vulcans away from logic? Do the old Vulcan military and Tal Shiar become mercenaries or pirates? Will there be an influx of Romulans wanting to join Starfleet?

Anonymous wrote:

I see. This kind of goes to the guts of my feeling like ive got a knowledge gap here – the show feels like it’s inviting questions and I don’t know if there are answers to these already or if they’ll become central to the plot going forward.

I might have some better answers for you in a couple of weeks as the Picard book is out mid-Feb.

The easier answer is to just go with it as its 20 years on, that kind of gap is going to have lots of mysteries attached to it.

paul f wrote:

The Measure of a Man (S2E9) is worth checking out. It’s one of the first really good episodes of the show, and is one of the ones directly referenced in Picard (it’s the only appearance of the now-missing scientist who created Dahj).

Just watched this and enjoyed it a lot. Time to work through some of these other recommendations!

Ben wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I see. This kind of goes to the guts of my feeling like ive got a knowledge gap here – the show feels like it’s inviting questions and I don’t know if there are answers to these already or if they’ll become central to the plot going forward.

I might have some better answers for you in a couple of weeks as the Picard book is out mid-Feb.

The easier answer is to just go with it as its 20 years on, that kind of gap is going to have lots of mysteries attached to it.

Thanks Ben. I’ll do that.

It definitely feels like Trek has become a much less niche product then it was when I was growing up.

So it turns out this TNG episode called “Best Of Both Worlds” is quite good.

It’s amazing that Best of Both Worlds turned out so well, given that Michael Piller was planning to leave the show at the end of series 3 (and Riker considering accepting promotion was him working through that) and wrote the cliffhanger expecting some other sucker was gonna have to fix it… only to stay with the show and fix it himself.

It’s covered in some of the many novels. Vulcans controlled their emotions, learned how to meditate and focus to an extraordinary degree and developed their psychic abilities.

Romulans said fuck that and went for physical combat and military technology.

So there can be Romulans who have psychic powers, but they’d probably be presented as less powerful and/or less controllable than Vulcan ones.

Dramatically speaking, Romulans are meant to be the ones who made the wrong choice, and so stories present them as lacking the benefits of Vulcan society and culture.

Dave wrote:

Dave wrote:

So it turns out this TNG episode called “Best Of Both Worlds” is quite good.

So it turns out this TNG episode called “Datalore” isn’t.

To be fair, you were warned about the quality of Season 1 episodes.

garjones wrote:

I get the complaints about the exposition at the start but in the end I don’t think exposition is always the default sin some do. Doing it via the interview and adding insight into Picard’s emotions and perspective as it happens is an effective way of doing it and I personally never felt I was being delivered an info dump like you do with a lot of voiceover stuff.

It wasn’t just the interview though. There was a huge lot of expositionary dialogue – pretty much every time two characters were talking, it was mostly exposition and explaining the plot to us. Picard talking to Daj, Picard talking to android scientist lady… it just wasn’t very good writing.

I liked other stuff about it, but they really need to get the dialogue fixed. Hope this’ll get better with ep 2 (only ep 1 out in Germany as of now).

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Chris-S

It was just all telling, no showing. Fucking basics of visual storytelling, and they failed all over the place.

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Chris-S

We need to have a meeting to discuss this

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Chris-S

Christian wrote:

It was just all telling, no showing. Fucking basics of visual storytelling, and they failed all over the place.

What about that whole scene where the mystery girl turns into a superhero and defeats her pursuers? That was a good bit of showing rather than telling. So was the reveal of the twin at the end, and the Borg cube.

I’m not saying it’s a perfect show, just that the criticism seems a bit unfair. There’s always bound to be a bit of getting-up-to-speed exposition in revival shows like this.

Anonymous wrote:

And yet I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on.

Which is fine for episode one.

garjones wrote:

Dave wrote:

Which is fine for episode one.

No it isn’t.

I’m in line with that grumpy fucker Christian here and they needed more exposition, I hope to see this addressed with a voiceover in subsequent episodes. Voiceover and Star Wars style scrolling story in the credits.

We’ll try to get Jonathan Hickman to create some info-graphics for you.

I mean the real standout flaw that no-one has brought up yet is that awful stunt double for the scene where Picard has to do some running.

Christian is really a lovely bloke but with its narratives of alternative realities it seems he resided in one of them where Star Trek was ever a ‘show don’t tell’ series.

The first episode is free on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/1PPm5l3o2zw

I remain enjoying episode 2.  Laris was great, I hope she sticks around.  The flashback to Utopia Planitia had some really cool moments – I loved how uncanny valley the Synths were.  And I’m intrigued about the Borg Cube/reclamaation site.  Like, there are a lot of Federation people there – a couple of Andorians were very prominent when Soji was talking to the new person.  Is this a collaboration between the two factions or do they just employ a lot of Federation citizens?

Also, nice to see Laurel Takashima did well for herself after being reassigned off Babylon 5.

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Chris-S

So I enjoyed ep2. Picards rational for not contacting the enterprise crew was nonsense though and just came off as the producers not wanting to use those actors.

The “__ days without an assimilation” sign made me laugh, and felt like something out of Red Dwarf.