Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I don't remember VOYAGER. Was Seven acting human and being casual and pleasant by the end?

**

My read on Spiner: he loves Data. He loves playing him. However, over the course of seven seasons, he aged. It's not noticeable if you're watching the show week to week because Spiner fills out gradually. The lines in his face deepen over the course of a year. The human memory always takes the present day face and puts it on top of your memories unless the changes are sudden like David Boreanaz suddenly thirty pounds heavier on ANGEL (because he was having knee problems and couldn't exercise) or Jerry O'Connell suddenly having a sun-tan and very short hair. This bothered Spiner because even though he was a healthy man, he viewed Data as a childlike figure. He didn't like how he was playing a very innocent, naive character when physically, he was clearly a middle-aged adult. He felt he couldn't sell the character anymore.

Onscreen, Data looks like a man in makeup with very subtle but narrative body language to indicate his artificiality and it's really the performance that makes him seem like an android instead of an actor with an altered skin tone and contact lenses. The performance can always be maintained, but the character benefits from a youthful appearance that Spiner couldn't offer anymore. He felt he couldn't do his job properly and that was why he didn't want to be onscreen as Data anymore.

It looks like PICARD has solved the problem. I have guesses: one is that Data is a CG creation and Spiner is providing the voice in post. My second and more plausible guess is that Spiner is on-set in some form of the makeup with tracking dots all over his face. Then in post, his body is slimmed. His skin is buffed to remove any signs of aging. My third guess is that Spiner's on set so that Stewart can perform with him, and then he's performing the scene again in a special effects bay with a tracking suit and dots to map his expressions and movements to a CG model. My fourth guess is that a body double is playing Data on set with his face and voice replaced afterwards with Spiner's face recorded separately, edited to remove his age and weight and grafted onto the double. My fifth guess is that it's some combination of all of the above depending on the scene.

Data doesn't look realistic, but given that Data is an artificial being, it works for Data to look synthetic.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

ireactions wrote:

I don't remember VOYAGER. Was Seven acting human and being casual and pleasant by the end?

I found that alarming as well.  She definitely wasn't that casual.  But depending on when Picard is set, it's plausible that she's had a chance to let loose.  She ends up dating Chakotay by the end so she's definitely embracing a life outside of her role on the ship, but my guess is that once she gets off Voyager and outside of a duty-based environment, she'd loosen up a bit.  Being on Voyager probably felt a bit like being on a Borg cube at times so it would've been hard to fully embrace her humanity (like learning a language in a classroom).  Being on Earth (or wherever she ends up) would be more like learning a language while living in a country that speaks that language.  Her gains would be bigger.

That being said, again, I found it to be alarming.  She definitely hadn't spoken like that on Voyager.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Well, Jeri Ryan is a great actress. I think? I’m hoping this isn’t another Danielle Panabaker situation where I’ve vastly overestimated someone based on a fond memory that’s wrong. Although I have no fond memories of Seven, but the actress seemed good.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

ireactions wrote:

I’m hoping this isn’t another Danielle Panabaker situation

lol, what?

Earth Prime | The Definitive Source for Sliders™

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Danielle Panabaker is an actress I grew up with and I really liked her on THE FLASH. However, Slider_Quinn21 mentioned a movie she'd been in, TIME LAPSE, where she wasn't very good. I watched it and realized that Danielle Panabaker:

(a) has been performing with the same empty-headed, blank stare since I was in grade school
(b) performs the majority of her scenes in SKY HIGH, READ IT AND WEEP and THE FLASH with a scene partner
(c) lacks the ability to carry or lead a scene on her own

She was playing a traumatized woman on THE FLASH, so her vacant gaze worked there, but basically, Slider_Quinn21 ruined Panabaker for me and now, every time I say I think an actress is good when I don't personally know them or haven't recently reviewed their work, I get nervous.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Seven was a terrible character, poorly written, but Jeri was dating a producer so you know how that goes.  I have to say, the one line in the trailer she had was actually GOOD.  I would love a non-Borgish Seven, who you would assume after 20 years almost would have figured out how to act more human. 

Spiner is old and fatter!  He's made jokes about playing Data at his age making no sense, as Androids don't age or gain weight.  Yet there he is.  I have to assume he's in a flashback only. 

Picard looks both intriguing and potentially wretched at the same time.  I mean, ehhhhh, it really sounds like something out of the MCU. 

Meanwhile Discovery has been pushed 1000 years into the future, so there's that.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Grizzlor wrote:

Seven was a terrible character, poorly written, but Jeri was dating a producer so you know how that goes.  I have to say, the one line in the trailer she had was actually GOOD.  I would love a non-Borgish Seven, who you would assume after 20 years almost would have figured out how to act more human.

Ugh, here I go again.

I don't think Seven was a terrible character or poorly written.  I also think that Jeri, while she might've been hired for, ahem, other reasons, is a very solid actress.  I've seen her in a number of things and don't think this is a Danielle Panabaker situation.

The problem with Seven wasn't so much that she was poorly written.  It was that the show, itself, wasn't very well written, and essentially every season that she was on was *very* Seven-heavy.

I think she's actually a pretty great character, following the great Trek tradition of trying to understand what it is to be human.  That archetype (previously used with Data and Spock) was probably supposed to be used on the Doctor (another character I really like), but obviously, they decided to go another way with that.  Seven is an interesting character because instead of searching for her humanity, she often runs from it.  I think she feels that her Borg side protects her, and she's afraid of her frail, human side.

If Seven was poorly written, it was because she ended up being the main character on a show that's supposed to be an ensemble.  She was Michael Burnham before Michael Burnham, and she was overexposed by writers that, for the most part, didn't know what they were doing.  But I think she's one of the best ideas for a character in Trek history.  And even considering the Voyager writing staff, I think she's one of the most interesting characters in Trek.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Grizzlor wrote:

playing Data at his age making no sense, as Androids don't age or gain weight.  Yet there he is.  I have to assume he's in a flashback only.

None of that is necessarily true. Spiner might have aged, but Data in the trailer looks young (through the magic of CGI). I think it's pretty clear that Data is going to be a computer generated character. The only uncertainty is the degree to which Data will be CGI.

Is Spiner only doing the voice and some motion capture? Is Spiner performing on-set and receiving digital makeup and body modification to make him look young and slim? Is a different actor playing Data on set with Spiner performing the same scenes in a VFX bay for his face and voice to be added on top?

The thing about Data is that the character as we know him was not really based in technical trickery or special effects. You could tell it was a man in makeup; you could see the lines in Spiner's face, the bags under his eyes. It was the body language and demeanor that made Data seem artificial.

Spiner had a peculiar movement system that subtly implied mechanical calculation. He had a crisp, abrupt, machinelike approach to human mannerisms and behaviours from eye contact to speech. His voice was an extremely pleasant exercise in perfect neutrality, neither happy nor sad but certainly curious and innocent. Data was one of the first depictions of artificial intelligence where the intelligence was an accommodating, endearing personality. Every child wanted their own Data to play with them, to explore the world with them, to protect them. There is something bizarre and sweet about how Picard, who is Data's boss, spent a lot of time having boyish and innocent adventures with Data, going fishing and playing detectives.

A lot of what made Data so special was unique to Spiner; at times, body doubles were hired for episodes where Spiner played multiple roles. These body doubles often walked stiffly or moved with harsh intensity, completely missing Spiner's subtle indicators. Jonathan Frakes once remarked, "You don't realize how subtle and brilliant Brent Spiner's performance is until you see someone else doing it -- badly."

I wouldn't want Data to be the product of CG artists. He should start with Spiner and the CG team should go from there.

It's at this point that I am forced to confess something that I feel may be a betrayal. I miss Quinn Mallory. I need Quinn Mallory. But I could probably carry on if Data came back.

I think the simplest explanation for Data's return if they're not bringing him back to life: he's a holodeck program. And if the show is about Picard dealing with old age, it's very important that Data look young.

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:
Grizzlor wrote:

Seven was a terrible character, poorly written, but Jeri was dating a producer so you know how that goes.  I have to say, the one line in the trailer she had was actually GOOD.  I would love a non-Borgish Seven, who you would assume after 20 years almost would have figured out how to act more human.

Ugh, here I go again.

I don't think Seven was a terrible character or poorly written.  I also think that Jeri, while she might've been hired for, ahem, other reasons, is a very solid actress.  I've seen her in a number of things and don't think this is a Danielle Panabaker situation.

The problem with Seven wasn't so much that she was poorly written.  It was that the show, itself, wasn't very well written, and essentially every season that she was on was *very* Seven-heavy.

I think she's actually a pretty great character, following the great Trek tradition of trying to understand what it is to be human.  That archetype (previously used with Data and Spock) was probably supposed to be used on the Doctor (another character I really like), but obviously, they decided to go another way with that.  Seven is an interesting character because instead of searching for her humanity, she often runs from it.  I think she feels that her Borg side protects her, and she's afraid of her frail, human side.

If Seven was poorly written, it was because she ended up being the main character on a show that's supposed to be an ensemble.  She was Michael Burnham before Michael Burnham, and she was overexposed by writers that, for the most part, didn't know what they were doing.  But I think she's one of the best ideas for a character in Trek history.  And even considering the Voyager writing staff, I think she's one of the most interesting characters in Trek.

I am prepared to accept this opinion on Seven as it comes from the primary, premier (and only) fan of VOYAGER. I'm assuming. I have literally never heard anyone else speak fondly of the show. Let's trust him.

While I have a lot of issues with Brannon Braga, he seems like a decent guy these days. I feel safe to assume that Braga and Ryan dated each other and kept their love and professional lives separate. Ryan was hired before she and Braga dated. Seven was going to be a major character even if Braga were a eunuch, so dating Braga had no impact whatsoever on Seven's role. If Braga were predatory towards her or abused his position, I think it would have come out when Ryan also detailed Kate Mulgrew being harassing and abusive.

I've heard horrible things about Braga being unprofessional during script meetings and interviews. I've also heard Braga immediately confess all of these things and apologize to the people involved, admitting that he was arrogant and also didn't understand that his job and his attitude could hurt people's feelings. His work on VOYAGER and ENTERPRISE has been trashed by fans and Braga has appeared in the comments to apologize to them as well. Braga and Paramount TV mutually agreed to demote him for Season 4 of ENTERPRISE, but when the Season 4 team needed a script urgently rewritten to be filmable, Braga accepted the job graciously, happy to be basically be an intern on the show he used to run.

His stewardship of STAR TREK was poor, but he seems to have come into his own with THE ORVILLE as a staff writer where instead of the organizational and administrative work that clearly sapped his creativity, he's part of the team. He wishes he hadn't been a Jerry O'Connell level jerk and that he'd done a better job and he's taken a another massive demotion and will try to do better now. I can identify with that.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Voyager is the stepchild of the Trek franchise, and I've never really understood why.  I think the main reason is that it came on the heels (and during) Deep Space Nine.  While I'll defend Voyager, I don't think Voyager is in the same class as DS9.  But DS9 was doing things that very few TV shows at the time were willing to do.  It set the gold standard for Sci-Fi for a long time (probably even now), and it accomplished things that no Trek show did before or since.

I don't think it's fair to compare Voyager and DS9.  I also don't really think it's fair to compare DS9 to TNG, Enterprise, or TOS.  Fans saw what Trek could be in DS9, and when Voyager (and Enterprise) went back to the "story of the week" well with no sense of long-term story or continuity, people didn't like it.  But I think Voyager is of a similar-enough quality as TNG or TOS.  I think all three series have high points surrounded by a sea of episodes that are just okay.

The big difference between TNG and Voyager is that the highs are much higher when it comes to TNG.  Maybe the lows aren't quite as low as Voyager.  Voyager never had a moment like the end of part one of "Best of Both Worlds." TNG never had an episode quite as bad as something like "Threshold"

I think characters also come into it.  If you were to rank the characters, you'd get through most of TNG's core cast before you ever got to someone like Harry Kim or Chakotay.  Wesley Crusher might be the only character as poorly written as Voyager's worst, and even he has a complete arc for the series.  Riker is more compelling than anything Chakotay ever did.  LaForge is more interesting than Torres.  Geordi and Data are more fun than Tom and Harry.

I think the Doctor is more fun than Dr. Crusher, but Data is more interesting than the Doctor ever was.  Even having a trueblood Vulcan on the show wasn't all that interesting.

It sucks because I think the characters had potential.  There was no reason to make any of the characters on Voyager Maquis because the show never seemed to have any intention of playing that part out.  If they'd stuck with that, Chakotay could've been an interesting character.  Paris could've been interesting if they'd made him Nick Locarno or played up his criminal background.  Torres as a half-human, half-Klingon has a ton of interesting things they could work with.  Even Harry Kim as an ensign on his first-ever crew assignment had potential.

There were ideas there.  And every once in a while, they'd play up those ideas.  And I think Voyager came up with a handful of really great episodes.  Timeless, Year of Hell, Living Witness, and Scorpion can hold their own.

When it was bad, it was bad.  But I think the same happened with TNG.  The only difference is that, when an episode of TNG was bad, at least you got Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner.  When Voyager was bad, you just got Garrett Wang.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I like Voyager more now than I did when it was 1st run.  It is better if you haven't seen previous Star Treks.  The problem is similar to Sliders in that strong 1st season, then the show just gets lost in yr 2,  the diffrence of course Star Trek Voyager had higher stakes being a Paramount show needed to launch the network. The Borg for what it is worth defined the show, 7 of 9 was a definite improvement and very much needed with the blandest crew in Star Treks history.

As said, a show that should be majorly crew driven with the lost in space element, had the blandest crew, they had a Vulcan, but he did little on most episodes, they had Nelex but he was mostly annoying like having Screach from saved by the bell as part of the crew, same with Chakotay, a great idea, the Indian spirits and Marquis Captain should of been cool idea but they could never make it work.

ILL give Voyager credit in that it being self contained does help it repeat better than ds9

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

sliders5125 wrote:

ILL give Voyager credit in that it being self contained does help it repeat better than ds9

This is very true.  There's a channel that plays all five Trek series on certain nights (every night?) that I flip passed sometimes.  And I'll be honest, I'm more likely to stop when it's a Voyager or TNG episode than a DS9 one.  While the quality of the DS9 episode is almost certainly going to be higher, their storylines are much more complex.  And if I'm literally watching a random episode, I have to remember a handful of things to really enjoy what's going on?  Who's controlling the station?  Is this where Dukat is pretending to be Bajoran?  What's happening with the Dominion? 

With Voyager or TNG, it's just watching an hour of sci-fi fun.  And if I'm literally just looking for something to watch, I don't want to have to bring up Memory Alpha to remember exactly what's going on on DS9 smile

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I am reasonably sure that STAR TREK was referred to as the McDonalds of science fiction long before VOYAGER, but with VOYAGER, it became true. My issue with VOYAGER is that despite numerous fine episodes, on the whole, it's executing the TREK formula without much spirit or innovation or personality from its creators.

VOYAGER tells its stories functionally, but for a story to be good, it has to have something to say. A point about human nature or the futility of war or fears of machine automation or obsession or military conflict. The original series and TNG often said incredibly stupid things about these subjects, but they said something.

VOYAGER is largely following the fast food recipe and I think that TREK as mass-produced fast food hamburger rubs the audience the wrong way. TOS was vivid pop-art. TNG had Shakespearean level actors with humour and humanity. DS9 was dark and politically challenging. VOYAGER is a McDonalds hamburger and not even a Big Mac. It's the junior cheeseburger from the kids menu and ENTERPRISE for three seasons was like a half-microwaved White Castle.

I'm not knocking the role that fast food burgers have in our lives; sometimes, you need a junior cheeseburger or a White Castle. But I don't think you need 45 of them, one per minute, every week, for ten years. And I think it's offensive when creativity is reduced to executing a formula and nothing else.

Whatever DISCOVERY's faults, it has a perspective, it has values, it has meaning. The first season is about questioning Starfleet's ideals during a time of war. The second is about reconciling with the inevitable whether those inevitabilities are a doomsday prophecy or making DISCOVERY sync up with TOS. There's plenty to criticize, but I couldn't and wouldn't try to sum up DISCOVERY by looking at the McDonalds menu.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

ireactions wrote:

...and ENTERPRISE for three seasons was like a half-microwaved White Castle.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/pix.iemoji.com/images/emoji/apple/ios-12/256/face-with-tears-of-joy.png

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I like enterprise season 1 and 2, yes boring television but most episodes can be watched with the kids, Xindi season was mainly awful, season 4 was an improvement, but 3 to 4 part episodes are apain to watch.

The thing Enterprise has going for it, was from day 1 likeable cast, crew was more believable in job they had.

Bacula made an horribly written character likeable most of the time.

The episodes mostly are not just rehashes, of old trek whereas Voyager was just take old tng episodes and revamp them.

Also, Entsrprise did a good job of leaving you wanting more, where as Voyager you were thankful the ride was over.


Their is intresting how much a trek you can watch with your kids is more important to me, I fell in love with Trek at an early age with original Trek, yet I cant let my young kids watch Discovery.


Very much a miscalculation in my mind, same with The Orville no reason to not just keep it PG and get bigger audience, older folks don't care, and not everyone wants the dark show Discovery has become.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Why is Jerry on the PICARD panel in Hall H?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zdJN3XjJ_4I

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

ireactions wrote:

Why is Jerry on the PICARD panel in Hall H?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zdJN3XjJ_4I

They combined all Trek into one panel this year.  Jerry is a voice actor on the Lower Decks animated comedy coming to the CBS app - he’ll be voicing Commander Ransom

https://io9.gizmodo.com/there-was-almos … 1836392106

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

sliders5125 wrote:

I like enterprise season 1 and 2, yes boring television but most episodes can be watched with the kids, Xindi season was mainly awful, season 4 was an improvement, but 3 to 4 part episodes are apain to watch.

Please don't watch shows you find boring. You deserve better.

I recall Temporal Flux and I enjoying the ENTERPRISE pilot and then neither of us being able to keep watching the show. It wasn't holding our interest. Can't speak to whether or not TF ever came back to ENTERPRISE.

When I heard that Season 3 had improved halfway through with the coming of Manny Coto, I got caught up by reading Wikipedia entries and watching only the episodes that didn't seem like another rote runthrough of the TREK fast food formula. Season 3 in the second half is a quantum leap forward for the series. Season 4 is also really good except for the finale which Braga describes as being so awful that the usually mild-mannered Scott Bakula lost it on Braga.

Braga, in interviews, described how he had wanted ENTERPRISE to spend half a season on Earth building the ship and for the ship to be primitive, but Paramount wanted a TNG situation ASAP. Chris Black, however, remarked that Black had been on enough shows to see that it's up to a showrunner to FIGHT for the series they want (and he's plainly speaking of Bill Dial and Keith Damron). In Black's opinion, Braga didn't really fight for his show and viewed himself as middle management.

TemporalFlux wrote:
ireactions wrote:

Why is Jerry on the PICARD panel in Hall H?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zdJN3XjJ_4I

They combined all Trek into one panel this year.  Jerry is a voice actor on the Lower Decks animated comedy coming to the CBS app - he’ll be voicing Commander Ransom

https://io9.gizmodo.com/there-was-almos … 1836392106

Response #1: That's cool!

Response #2: Jerry O'Connell is screwing with me. He knew that Picard and Data's return could allow me to finally let go of the Professor and Quinn, so naturally, he makes sure that the face of Quinn Mallory is the FIRST THING I see when I open up the Hall H video.

Response #3: That's cool and Jerry O'Connell doesn't know I exist and we should keep it that way.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I am interested in how both Voyager and Enterprise seemed to go out of their way to not take advantage of their distinguishing characteristics.  Voyager too-rarely focused on the fact that the ship was trying to get home - the fact that they're stranded in the Delta Quadrant comes up in dialogue but there's never really a sense that it's any more of a problem than the Enterprise was ever in on their weekly missions.  Enterprise, despite being set on a series a couple hundred years before Voyager, did a lot of the same things from the episodes I saw.

As many people have said many times before, committing to Voyager being stranded could've made Voyager a really unique and fascinating show.  All of the characteristics were there to be great - especially the idea at the beginning that Voyager was a technologically superior ship in the Delta Quadrant.  No one else had torpedoes or replicators.  So could Voyager withstand a long journey where they're the most powerful ship in the quadrant but unable to make major repairs or really replenish their weaponry?  It'd make great drama for Janeway to know that she could win any battle with a torpedo or two but knowing that she might need them more later.  Or to be in a situation where they probably need to stop and make repairs but knowing that they can't afford to stop.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

I am interested in how both Voyager and Enterprise seemed to go out of their way to not take advantage of their distinguishing characteristics.  Voyager too-rarely focused on the fact that the ship was trying to get home - the fact that they're stranded in the Delta Quadrant comes up in dialogue but there's never really a sense that it's any more of a problem than the Enterprise was ever in on their weekly missions.  Enterprise, despite being set on a series a couple hundred years before Voyager, did a lot of the same things from the episodes I saw.

All of this is from the two-volume oral history of STAR TREK, called THE FIFTY YEAR MISSION. Braga's pretty frank and some of this is my criticism of his own remarks about himself.

Braga was an intern when he got his first writing job on STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION. It was his first professional sale, his first staff position. He became a producer and a showrunner, but the problem, from my perspective: he never learned how to write ANYTHING other than the idiosyncratically structured scripts that would fall within Gene Roddenberry's bizarre content restrictions (no drama, no conflict), restrictions that were largely maintained even after Roddenberry died.

Also, Braga's writing skills: he wrote brilliant high concept episodes of mental confusion and temporal dissonance. What he did not write were character arcs, ruminations on society and human nature, reflections on the world around him. There's a place for that in STAR TREK, but STAR TREK also has to offer thought provoking social commentary and satirical introspection. Braga's stories, when they're not about his high concepts, are about STAR TREK and that in itself isn't really meaningful.

Braga only knew STAR TREK and when he moved to VOYAGER, he ran the show so as to keep telling the extremely limited palette of stories he knew how to tell -- shipbound adventures contained within an episode. As he took over more responsibility for all scripts, his limitations in shepherding other writers became clear: too many ENTERPRISE episodes feature pointless escape-capture chase scenes to stretch out the length.

Braga's organizational skills were also suspect. Writers have described how he would tell them to throw forward their ideas, he'd disappear into privacy, and then come out with assignments. When the first drafts came in, he would personally rewrite all of them into what he viewed as an appropriate template for TREK and fell within Roddenberry's restrictions. Not only were Braga's skills unable to rewrite scripts into effective pieces of drama, the process was exhausting for him and he was not producing his best work in these circumstances. He didn't know how else to work. No one had ever taught him.

One writer, Michael Piller, had a very similar approach to screenwriting. However, Piller thrived on rewriting people's scripts, he had an open submission policy for ideas on his show THE DEAD ZONE and would then personally redraft every episode's screenplay with his themes and character arcs of choice. When Piller got sick and couldn't rewrite anymore, THE DEAD ZONE's third, fourth and fifth seasons featured what were seemed to be first draft scripts unrefined by any showrunner.

Braga was no Piller. At the end of the day, Braga's rewrites were to move scenes to standing sets, to pad out length with repetitive action and dialogue or to remove anything that might offend the deceased Roddenberry's sensibilities. He never learned how to do anything else. Why didn't he leave? I think it's hard for someone to come from nowhere and nothing to running STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION and STAR TREK VOYAGER and think you'll ever find another job as good as that. I guess he stayed for the money and because he fell in love with Jeri Ryan.

Braga was also a little spineless. He plotted out a grand origin story for ENTERPRISE, half a season of building the first Earth starship ever -- and folded the second Paramount pushed for the ship to leave spacedock in the Pilot. Now, it seems to me that setting THIRTEEN EPISODES on Earth trying to build a starship is something you need to fight for or your show is just empty product filling a timeslot. And if Paramount fired him for his refusal, SO WHAT? What show wouldn't be happy to hire Brannon Braga? (As a staff writer. Let's not go nuts.)

Around the time INSURRECTION came out, Leonard Nimoy was asked why the response was so tepid, if STAR TREK was dated and tired and irrelevant and should be laid to rest. Nimoy shrugged. My response would be: it was RICK BERMAN AND BRANNON BRAGA'S STAR TREK that was dated and tired and irrelevant. For too long, the franchise was entirely too synonymous with two men who were excellent for the syndicated market of THE NEXT GENERATION. Berman let Ira Steven Behr do his thing on DS9, but when Berman was personally involved in a show and had Braga working with him, their results were tired and staid. Braga didn't know how to run a show. Braga's excellence on THE ORVILLE, I think, speaks for itself. He's a brilliant writer. A great talent. His apologies for his past behaviour and his writing are also revealing. He has a great heart and he was a very crappy and troubled and insecure man who has become a better one.

Showrunning is not for everyone and it was not for Brannon Braga. Or David Peckinpah. Or Bill Dial.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Some more info on the Lower Decks cartoon Jerry will be in.  The crew’s mission is something we haven’t really seen before - they initiate second contact.  After the Enterprise or another ship has found something new and extended the hand of the Federation, the crew in this series comes in to make good on the promise and start building an actual relationship with the new culture.

https://trekmovie.com/2019/08/06/stlv19 … and-canon/

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EBfkepSXoAAKswy?format=jpg&name=small

If anybody was a watcher of DS9, you MUST get Ira Steven Behr's What We Left Behind documentary.  It's amazing!

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

That's pretty awesome! Thanks for backing that, Grizzlor.

Meanwhile, some of us are still watching CHAOS ON THE BRIDGE on streaming and mean to get around to watching THE CAPTAINS someday.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

ireactions wrote:

That's pretty awesome! Thanks for backing that, Grizzlor.

Meanwhile, some of us are still watching CHAOS ON THE BRIDGE on streaming and mean to get around to watching THE CAPTAINS someday.

Don't remember if I saw Chaos but Captains was pretty good, Shatner is a good interviewer.  All of the actors retold their early career moments quite well, especially Kate.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

This came across my Google recommendations.  Been a long time since I watched through DS9, but seeing this through today’s eyes was interesting.  Even the language is close - Sanctuary City vs Sanctuary District.

https://www.themarysue.com/star-trek-de … redictive/

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

TF's thoughts take me back to something TF once said (how circular!). TF remarked that people when conceiving alt histories for SLIDERS can get overly fixated on looking at the past to find an alternate present. Instead, alt histories and parallel Earths work best, TF said, by looking at the future, looking at where the world might be going and having the parallel Earth reflect some imagining of what is to come. TF pointed out that the hotline to report suspicious activity in "Summer of Love" is now a reality, that a shock jock becoming President in "Young and the Relentless" isn't far from reality, that abandoning a city to a natural disaster in "El Sid" is an extreme representation of certain parts of the States and that good science fiction is facing what might becoming next.

I do hope STAR TREK will continue to offer us comfort in troubled times, not necessarily through familiarity of format and formula, but in assuring us that we have infinite capacity for good within us and that it is possible that our best will prevail. I know Captain Picard and Data coming back can't promise us that things will work out just as Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo's returns alone would not save us. But they can tell us that it's possible for our world to be better. That we can still do it. That would be enough.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I have a shocking confession to make: I never finished watching ENTERPRISE.

The third season was a mess for the first half, opening with a nonsensical attack on Earth from the Xindi who were testing their planet annihilating weapon (and were so polite as to give Earth fair warning a year before they planned to destroy it totally!?!?). But as the season progressed, Season 3 dived away from NEXT GENERATION style single-episode stories and fully into an ongoing arc. As ENTERPRISE examined Starfleet ideals versus the horrors of an impending war, ENTERPRISE seemed to finally find a voice in showing STAR TREK's ideals being built before our eyes instead of existing as a settled state of affairs. New showrunner Manny Coto was a godsend.

Season 4 was also great, offering eight STAR TREK movies with its multi-episode stories. The first dealt with the Temporal Cold War and the shadow of the Nazis that the original series had always faced. The second addressed genetic engineering and attempted to give all the characters personalities as opposed to defining them by their jobs. We saw Trip, Mayweather and Phlox going to a bar on Earth! We saw the bridge crew playing basketball together! Season 4 was far too late to fully define them in an episode or two, but ENTERPRISE made them FEEL like people at last.

Also wonderful was Archer's definition: his blandness across three seasons finally solidified into clarity. Kirk was a man of action. Picard was a diplomat. Sisko was a cultural anthropologist. Archer is defined in Season 4 as a pilot, a man who is perpetually thrown into the deep end and will find SOMETHING to do whether it's trying to stop the genetically engineered soldiers from releasing a virus or trying to save as many Vulcans as he can. His fundamental decency and Scott Bakula's earnest screen presence finally made Archer come alive, and there's a beautiful sense of what Captain Archer stands for when he convinces the Tellarites and the Andorians to make find common ground and make peace.

Then we came to the two-part finale for the year where ENTERPRISE confronts anti-alien sentiment and... I didn't finish it. I liked Season 4 so much that I didn't want it to end. So I never watched the "Terra Prime" finale and only read the script for "These Are The Voyages."

**

I have another shocking confession: I never finished reading the ENTERPRISE relaunch novels. I read the first one, LAST FULL MEASURE, which is set during Season 3 during the Xindi hunt. It has a framing sequence where an old man meets a child named James Kirk. The ending returns to the framing sequence and reveals the old man to be Trip Tucker, alive decades after his onscreen death in the series finale. The second novel, THE GOOD THAT MEN DO, has a framing sequence where Jake and Nog are reviewing the historical files of the holodeck simulation in "These Are The Voyages" and realize that the entire story is a cover up to obscure Trip going undercover to investigate a mysterious conspiracy that turned out to be the start of the Romulans waging war on Earth and Vulcan.

... I never got around to reading THE ROMULAN WAR duology which, I assume, depicts Archer, Trip and T'Pol playing Battleship and Risk. I also never got around to reading the five-book series RISE OF THE FEDERATION, which I assume is a five volume cookbook series where Trip reveals his family's baking secrets and how to do Tucker style souffles and bread.

Anyway. Bought the lot just now. I guess I'll finally finish "Demons" and "Terra Prime" and get to reading.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Enterprise was never very good.  I always felt like they made serious mistakes with it, particularly in casting.  TNG and DS9 was led by amazingly strong, polished, and versatile actors.  VOY had some who were terrific, but some who were simply not good enough.  ENT had basically nobody.  The guy who played Phlox was solid, but the rest were basically terrible.  Bakula of course I am a huge fan of, but he wasn't right for the part.  They had the typical Trek series directors and decent writers including Chris Black and Mike Sussman, but the story direction came from Braga, Berman, and worst of all, the buffoons at UPN.

The series quickly became awful, but during season 3 (which stunk too) I began to read these reports on the web about this guy Manny Coto.  He was a Trek diehard who they hired, and I began to check out season 3 a bit more.  I was hopeful, especially when reading interviews with Manny for Season 4.  He pledged to change things up, to go with smaller arcs, many of which would revisit unanswered TOS Trekkie questions.  He also hired Trek novelists Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens, who I was big fan of.  The result I thought, was fabulous.  The show came to life, and though not nearly as dark, hit a lot of the angles we eventually saw in Discovery.  Some people hated this approach, calling it lazy and recycling, but for me it worked.

Sadly, they moved it to Friday nights, and the ratings didn't drop that much, but damn UPN canceled the show.  A huge fan movement resulted, with millions in donations to save the show.  Didn't happen.  Manny gave up the ideas he had for the fifth season, and it would really have been cool.  He was going to hit on more TOS episode back stories, even the Kzinti from The Animated Series.  To me it was a great loss for Trek fans.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Funny how stuff in science fiction usually ends up happening in real life at some point.  Doesn’t this sound like the start of Sanctuary Districts?

http://www.citizensagain.com/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_Te … pace_Nine)

And when did we see the concept in use on Star Trek?  2024

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

ireactions wrote:

I have a shocking confession to make: I never finished watching ENTERPRISE.

The third season was a mess for the first half, opening with a nonsensical attack on Earth from the Xindi who were testing their planet annihilating weapon (and were so polite as to give Earth fair warning a year before they planned to destroy it totally!?!?). But as the season progressed, Season 3 dived away from NEXT GENERATION style single-episode stories and fully into an ongoing arc. As ENTERPRISE examined Starfleet ideals versus the horrors of an impending war, ENTERPRISE seemed to finally find a voice in showing STAR TREK's ideals being built before our eyes instead of existing as a settled state of affairs. New showrunner Manny Coto was a godsend.

Season 4 was also great, offering eight STAR TREK movies with its multi-episode stories. The first dealt with the Temporal Cold War and the shadow of the Nazis that the original series had always faced. The second addressed genetic engineering and attempted to give all the characters personalities as opposed to defining them by their jobs. We saw Trip, Mayweather and Phlox going to a bar on Earth! We saw the bridge crew playing basketball together! Season 4 was far too late to fully define them in an episode or two, but ENTERPRISE made them FEEL like people at last.

Also wonderful was Archer's definition: his blandness across three seasons finally solidified into clarity. Kirk was a man of action. Picard was a diplomat. Sisko was a cultural anthropologist. Archer is defined in Season 4 as a pilot, a man who is perpetually thrown into the deep end and will find SOMETHING to do whether it's trying to stop the genetically engineered soldiers from releasing a virus or trying to save as many Vulcans as he can. His fundamental decency and Scott Bakula's earnest screen presence finally made Archer come alive, and there's a beautiful sense of what Captain Archer stands for when he convinces the Tellarites and the Andorians to make find common ground and make peace.

Then we came to the two-part finale for the year where ENTERPRISE confronts anti-alien sentiment and... I didn't finish it. I liked Season 4 so much that I didn't want it to end. So I never watched the "Terra Prime" finale and only read the script for "These Are The Voyages."

**

I have another shocking confession: I never finished reading the ENTERPRISE relaunch novels. I read the first one, LAST FULL MEASURE, which is set during Season 3 during the Xindi hunt. It has a framing sequence where an old man meets a child named James Kirk. The ending returns to the framing sequence and reveals the old man to be Trip Tucker, alive decades after his onscreen death in the series finale. The second novel, THE GOOD THAT MEN DO, has a framing sequence where Jake and Nog are reviewing the historical files of the holodeck simulation in "These Are The Voyages" and realize that the entire story is a cover up to obscure Trip going undercover to investigate a mysterious conspiracy that turned out to be the start of the Romulans waging war on Earth and Vulcan.

... I never got around to reading THE ROMULAN WAR duology which, I assume, depicts Archer, Trip and T'Pol playing Battleship and Risk. I also never got around to reading the five-book series RISE OF THE FEDERATION, which I assume is a five volume cookbook series where Trip reveals his family's baking secrets and how to do Tucker style souffles and bread.

Anyway. Bought the lot just now. I guess I'll finally finish "Demons" and "Terra Prime" and get to reading.

Also the holodeck is suppose to be an intriguing game/movie adventure world for the protagonist, so you do have to wonder what aspects of the story were changed so the player (Ricker) could have a fun adventure.

Was a weird way to end the show and the franchise period, the fact that PatMount couldn't convince upn to make a 2 hour movie ending so the show could end on episode # 100 was also showing how far the Dynasty has fallen.  Overall it was a budget episode to end the series, If they wouldn't of killed the most liked member of the crew probably wouldn't of been as bad.


I like Enterprise despite its flaws, probably the show I like the most mainly because my young kids like it the Dr. Phlox, the intro song and the dog help.  It has stayed in constant syndication ever since it was canceled so that's good to.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Star Trek: Picard premieres today/tonight on CBS All Access.  We get to move beyond the TOS era for the first time in almost 20 years!  I'm about as excited about this as I've been about a random TV show in a while.  Hope it lives up to the hype!

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Eeeeeeeeeeeek! It's like getting Professor Arturo back.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I enjoyed the opener quite a bit.  It's a little hard to see Picard moving around so poorly, but I think they did a good job.  I've always sorta been fascinated by civilian life in the Federation so that has been pretty cool.  I don't think we saw a single active member of Starfleet in the whole episode?  Maybe in the longshot in San Francisco, but I don't think anywhere else.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Haven't watched PICARD yet. I've been really busy and distracted and I don't want to welcome Dad home without getting my head in order and cleaning up the house, if that makes any sense. I always imagined Quinn urgently tidying up his basement before the Professor descended into the lab.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I too just finished watching the PICARD season premiere. I was relieved to see Patrick Stewart winded by a heart-pounding walk up a flight of stairs -- because I was appalled by GENERATIONS, FIRST CONTACT, INSURRECTION and NEMESIS turning Picard into an action hero wrestling villains on bridges, firing tommy guns through Borg (although it was meant to be appalling), shooting down drones and leaping about catwalks and racing dune buggies. That's not what Picard is for.

In PICARD, Picard is afraid. He is frail. He is weak. But infirm or not, he took an oath as a Starfleet officer to stand for those who couldn't, to defend those who came to him for aid, if not with force, then with knowledge and strategy and care. And he's an old man; he's lived his life, so he's willing to put his body in the line of fire if it means saving someone else.

Dajh's supsersoldier combat while Picard hides behind a bench -- it suggests that fighting may be superficially flashy, but it isn't special or unique. We wouldn't bring Professor Arturo back to have him wrestle Jeffrey Dean Morgan or blow up a radioactive worm, after all; we'd bring him back for his big ideas and John Rhys-Davies' bombastic scenery chewing and his problem solving. Any fool can wrestle and shoot. We need a peacemaker.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I got to the end of the latest PICARD when _____________ shows up to the rescue and my heart soared and I was pleased because I knew that Slider_Quinn21 (and only Slider_Quinn21) would be happy to see ___ again. I am somewhat indifferent to ___ and I have also literally never seen anyone other than Slider_Quinn21 express fondness for this character and I know he will be glad to reunite with this old friend.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I *am* excited to see ____!

I've enjoyed the show.  I'm not sure if it's good or if I'm just genuinely excited to see post-Nemesis Trek.  I identify with this era so much more (and not just because of my irrational love of Voyager...for the record, I still know that DS9 is the superior show), and it's nice to see what familiar faces are up to.  It's also nice to see a side of Starfleet that we've never really seen very long or in depth - a civilian one.  Certainly there would be "retired" members of Starfleet who would still want to do something space-adjacent.  So Rios is an interesting character in that sense.

A couple things that have bothered me:

1. I know Starfleet has always been pretty corrupt.  TNG had about 100 episodes where the eventual main villain ended up being a corrupt admiral.  DS9 showed the many atrocities of both Starfleet and humans (via Section 31).  So to say that the Federation and Starfleet have always been the good guys is a bit off.  But the way Starfleet is shown does sorta throw it's arms in the face of what I think Roddenberry originally envisioned.  I'm sure the show will try and rationalize this by the end, but I found myself wondering if Picard was the only person who quit in protest.  I know we'll find out what happened to Riker and Troi.  I'm guessing Seven of Nine has been a civilian for a while, but we'll find out this week.

But what about the people we probably won't see. Would Admiral Janeway have agreed with the decision?  Bashir?  O'Brien?  Barclay?  The Doctor?  Who would've quit with Picard?  Especially people who followed Picard everywhere else.  The show makes it seem like Picard and maybe Raffi were the only ones....and that would be disappointing because I think Picard is almost certainly in the right no matter how you look at it.

2. This one is way more minor, but why does Picard let Raffi call him JL?  One...that's not a nickname we've seen from anyone else.  And two...Picard has been very hesitant to have anyone call him by his first name.  I know it's happened with the occasional love interest (I think Ruby from First Contact does), but for the most part, it's shown to be something that Picard hates, especially on duty.  And Raffi calls him JL, even when he was in uniform as an admiral.  I get that she sees him as some sort of father figure and the show wants to show that they had more of a personal relationship, but I can't imagine Picard was ever truly okay with that.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

The thing is that Gene Roddenberry's original vision of Starfleet / the United Earth Space Probe Agency / the Space Service in THE ORIGINAL SERIES is not what Roddenberry later claimed was his original vision as presented in THE NEXT GENERATION. In THE ORIGINAL SERIES, Starfleet was the US Navy and while Starfleet and the Federation professed values of peace and equality, Kirk frequently found himself at odds with Starfleet. In "Errand of Mercy," Starfleet is notably imperialistic in trying to seize territory to gain advantage over the Klingons while professing that their technology will raise huts and villages into hyperadvanced cities. In "Metamorphosis," Starfleet is demanding that the Enterprise be a part of a show of military force, something which Kirk does not prioritize.

It's only with THE NEXT GENERATION that Starfleet became the bland, broadly pleasant relief organization Roddenberry claimed that it had always been, so having Picard being frustrated with a Starfleet that seems more concerned with sustaining itself than practicing its ideals is pretty in tune with Roddenberry's initial vision which he later disavowed.

I don't know how the other TNG and DS9 and VOY characters reacted to Starfleet abandoning the Romulan relief effort, but it has to be noted that if Starfleet would not commit ships, labour and resources to the evacuation and rebuilding effort, then the 20 - 30 person cast of those shows would not have been able to mount a rescue -- at least not as PICARD presents it. This is another area where, due to Roddenberry, I'm not entirely sure I understand the situation. PICARD claims that because Starfleet would not back the rescue effort, the Romulans were abandoned. This doesn't make sense because Roddenberry established that the Federation was beyond money; that people worked to better themselves; that anything anyone needed could be replicated anyway, so people worked because they wanted to, not to survive.

Following that logic -- what exactly was to stop Picard from assembling a legion of volunteers and replicating whatever he needed to save the Romulans? The argument, I suppose, could be that mass scale replicators to build ships need a certain level of power that is beyond any small group of individuals' allotment for replication, and that an effort of that scale needed the approval of synthetic labourers who were now banned.

That said, Rios tells Agnes that as a pilot, he is "very expensive," Picard can't get a ship without help, he harvests grapes for wine -- PICARD doesn't seem to be maintaining the idea that the Federation is above and beyond money and unless I missed it, they haven't even referred to it.

**

Picard letting people call him JL strikes me as two factors. The first is that Picard has relaxed. From Seasons 1 - 7, he was gradually softening until by the series finale, he joined the weekly poker game and was cracking wise with Data by NEMESIS. The other factor is that Patrick Stewart has relaxed. Originally, Stewart for Seasons 1 - 2 had a reputation for being strict and irritable with his cast members for conversing and chattering between takes, bellowing at them, "WE ARE NOT HERE TO HAVE FUN!"

Michael Dorn addressed this with care and maturity by using Worf's workstation as the perfect perch above the captain's chair to crack eggs over Stewart's head.

Eventually, Stewart realized that his forceful insistence on relentless seriousness had less to do with being an actor and more to do with his unaddressed grief and trauma over being a child and watching his father repeatedly kick the shit out of his mother day after day, year after year. Stewart grew up with a constantly simmering hatred towards his father matched with a paralyzing fear of the man that prevented him from defending his mother as she was on the receiving end of another fist to the face and a boot to the stomach. The most he could do was use himself as a human shield.

As a result, Stewart grew into someone who believed he always had to be locked down and controlled to restrain his rage against his father or others and out of fear that he could follow his father in becoming a physical abuser. His firm, militaristic behaviour was a mask on top of isolation and grief and helplessness.

Over time, as Stewart addressed this, he stopped being so controlling over himself and his show and this is very obvious in his performance. He became quicker to laugh; he was no longer burying a horrific childhood and could begin to relax, and it's like the things that used to upset and enrage him like actors chatting between takes or breaking character or experimenting with blocking and cue lines became trivial and welcome. He became laid back to the point where Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis would address him as "Old Baldy" and he enjoyed that because it indicated how comfortable it was to be around him now.

Also, I recently ran into a schoolteacher I remember being very much a disciplinarian. He informed me that he was now letting students call him various insulting nicknames because "I am really old and I have no fucks left to give."

Which is probably why Picard went from someone who required being addressed as "Captain" or "Sir" is now happy to be greeted with a casual, "What up, JL?"

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Okay, I buy both things now.  Well done!  I also didn't know any of the behind the scenes stuff, and I'm willing to accept that Picard (through Stewart) has relaxed.

About money.  That was my original third point that I forgot.  Because it isn't just about Rios.

I actually watched a whole YouTube video about the issues with money in Trek.  There are apparently at least two books written by economist Trek fans, and they seemed to come to a conclusion that the Federation certainly uses money, even if the people in the Federation don't. 

What struck me as odd more than Rios wanting to be paid or Picard's winemaking operation was Raffi's situation.  Raffi attacks Picard for living in a mansion while being embarrassed that she's living in a hovel.  She's implying that her life fell apart and she ended up in the desert because no one else would take her.  In more modern terms....that was the only place she could afford.

But that doesn't make sense in a Trek world.  She should be able to live wherever there is space.  There's no money so there should be no reason for anyone to live in a hovel.  It would be more about simply finding some place to live and live there.  If there was nowhere to live, you'd think there'd be a system in place to build more housing.

But she's right.  She lives in a hovel.  Dahj lives in an apartment.  Picard lives in a mansion.  In a money-less society, what led those people to live where they do?  Dahj, you might assume, is living in an apartment because of convenience of location or simply being the right size for a woman her age.  And it's temporary since she's about to move to Japan.

But Dahj clearly wants to live in a mansion.  Picard spent most of his life on a starship, and his mansion would've either been sitting empty for decades (after his whole family died) or was lived in by workers at the vineyard.

My only guess is that, at some point, "ownership" became grandfathered.  Picard's family owned a vineyard so that's their vineyard.  If all the Picards died, the vineyard could be willed to someone or would become property of the Federation.  But as long as the Picards want it, they own it.  Same with a store or the Sisko family restaurant.

If you don't own anything, your options are whatever is available.  I would assume there would be some sort of lottery or waiting list if you wanted to live in a place that was high demand, and if you wanted to live somewhere low demand, you'd get it rather easily and quickly.  It'd be a lot like now except money would be out of the equation.  If your family and two other families wanted the same house, you'd have to "win" it in some other way - by chance or by asking first.

For Raffi, my guess is that she was blacklisted by Starfleet somehow and was unable to get any of the good housing.  Her housing is still free, but it's the only place that was available to her in the system.

BUT....

Another option is that....what if the Federation started using money again?  What if the theme of Picard is that money crept back into Federation society and has corrupted it somehow?  I mean it's almost certainly not that....but what if?

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Well, THE NEXT GENERATION, DEEP SPACE NINE, VOYAGER and GENERATIONS, FIRST CONTACT, INSURRECTION and NEMESIS took place in a Federation that did not use money (however that works). PICARD is set 20 years after NEMESIS and money has become part of common parlance again, so I think we have to accept that in two decades, things have changed. Money is part of the Federation again.

THE ORIGINAL SERIES had Kirk referring to the Federation spending "a lot of money on our training" in "Errand of Mercy" and informing a crewman in "Doomsday Machine" that "You just earned your pay for the week." In "The Trouble With Tribbles," Uhura buys a tribble from merchant Cyrano Jones. DISCOVERY has Harry Mudd being very money-fixated.

THE VOYAGE HOME has Kirk referring to the 20th century "still using money," but in context, it suggests he means "money" as in "cash," with the Federation using some sort of digital credit system with no physical currency. However, THE NEXT GENERATION in "The Neutral Zone" went so far as to claim that money no longer existed in the Federation -- at Roddenberry's behest. The writers Roddenberry employed did not understand what this meant, but with the stories set aboard a starship and with replicators, money was narratively inconsequential to their scripts, so it rarely came up.

In FIRST CONTACT, Picard says, "Money doesn't exist in the 24th century. The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force of our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity." Ronald D. Moore wrote that and admitted he had no idea how that could work. But it was one of Roddenberry's rules. So he followed it. Later he wrote another script on DEEP SPACE NINE which pokes fun when Jake can't bid on a non-Federation auction and tries to borrow money from Nog.

Nog says, "Use your own money." Jake protests that he doesn't have any and Nog replies, "It's not my fault that your species decided to abandon currency-based economics in favor of some philosophy of self-enhancement." Jake repeats Picard's FIRST CONTACT dialogue about working for self-betterment and Nog says, "What does that mean exactly?" Jake cannot explain. Jake is also proud to be a professional writer only for Nog to note that Jake isn't paid for his book.

Ronald D. Moore wrote:

It is a strange platitude that we used on the show, the need for money was gone and everything was about bettering yourself. It was no longer about any kind of material gain or personal gain, everyone was just trying to be a better person.

So none of us could understand what that mean or how that society functioned. It all seemed very vague. None of the writers took it seriously.

We all kind of laughed about it and joked about it. We all had to pay homage to it because that was something that was built into the structure of the show. At every opportunity we tried to sneak in ways. How do you play poker if you don’t have currency?

Except... Moore is wrong to entirely dismiss Roddenberry's vision of a society that has grown beyond money by TNG because TNG introduced the replicator. If you can create anything from those little slots -- clothes, food, medicine, building materials -- then money would naturally become a lot less significant. The social safety net could ensure a universal replicator ration. Roddenberry clearly didn't think through his moneyless society aside from declaring it to be so, but I can imagine money becoming irrelevant in the 24th century if the replicator could even replicate its own fuel supply.

I think Roddenberry would have done best to say that while money exists, it's become trivial; anything anyone needs can be replicated and everyone has a basic replicator allowance. While people receive additional replicator credit for work, the payment is beneath notice; Federation citizens can barter with currency but rarely see any reason to do so. Money could have become regarded with disinterest culturally even if present economically. Everyone is now employed in the not-for-profit industry.

But this is clearly over anyway by PICARD. People are using money. Raffi lacks money. Rios charges money. Picard makes wine to earn money. Something has changed between NEMESIS and PICARD.

Perhaps the replicator economy was dependent upon the perpetually rising scale of replication to keep pace with population growth -- and then the synthetics destroying the shipyards and being banned from use has made it impossible for the Federation to be as free as they once were with replicator power.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Is it confirmed that Picard is selling the wine?  I might've missed that.

Because the vineyard existed the whole time.  I assumed he was making wine and then "donating" (?) it to stores and people that want it?  Just like I assume Joseph Sisko's food is free.  He'd get the ingredients for free.  Farmers grow crops because 1) they like it and 2) people need them.  Or they're replicated.  Sisko makes food because he likes doing and people need to eat.  Picard makes wine because his family has done it, the people that make it like it, and people need it.

It doesn't really make any sense, but I'm also trying to understand a world that "didn't use money" suddenly starting to use it again.  It seems just as alien to me.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Jerry and his wife sold wine for a while (to local restaurants).  I am not sure if they are still doing it.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I don't believe Picard specified that he sold his wine, but he's putting a lot of effort into a large crop. Regardless, PICARD is declaring that capitalism is part of the STAR TREK universe and not acknowledging that it hasn't been since 1988. The more I think about it, the more uncomfortable I am with PICARD ignoring TNG, DS9 and VOY's declaration that money does not exist in the Federation.

Even though the writers mocked the concept, it's been an established part of the STAR TREK universe for 22 years and upheld by every writer up to NEMESIS. And the truth is, despite the writers saying it didn't make sense, the replicator technology offered a path of world-building to make this concept work.

I think PICARD should have gently retconned the no-money concept while still maintaining it. Every Federation citizen gets a basic replicator and housing allowance. When you can make anything from nothing, the social safety net ensures you always have at minimum a dorm room, health care, clothing and food. Education is free (thanks to holographic transmission). If you want more possessions, more storage space, more privacy, a kitchen, you can work to earn it. Restauranteurs, booksellers, filmmakers and lawyers ply their trade out of interest in their field and do receive additional replicator allowance that they can use to buy homes and furniture and clothing and whatever. However, no one is interested in working for the money any more; the money is incidental to their lives.

Seth MacFarlane once joked that THE NEXT GENERATION boasted the most professional people ever seen on television. No one was ever bored, tired, bad-tempered, anxious, nervous or uninterested in their job except for Reginald Barclay and when that came to Picard's attention, it was so unusual and peculiar that Picard had an entire senior staff meeting about how to assist and support an underperforming employee.

THE NEXT GENERATION has been regularly mocked for how blandly pleasant and therefore uninteresting the characters were and while that's a fair point, one also has to note: the replicator can make ANYTHING and the ship has an AI that operates and cleans and can presumably run almost every function automatically. Of course no one is ever drained or weary; no one has to do chores. No one has to cook or clean or do laundry.

This means that Geordi goes to the engine room because he loves engines, Dr. Crusher goes to sickbay because she's fascinated by medicine, Worf goes to the bridge's security post because he loves weapons, and so forth. There's a scene in "Hollow Pursuits" where Barclay is late for his shift and Riker towers over him, glaring at the terrified crewman and tells him, "I don't know what you got away with at your last posting, but this is the Enterprise. We set a different standard here."

Why is Barclay so scared? So what if he gets fired? He's not going to default on his loans or lose his house. Who cares about any of that in a replicator-equipped society? No, Barclay is scared because he would lose the little place and purpose he has in life.

I recognize that this can be difficult to write and that the writers in TNG, DS9 and VOY never took it seriously and PICARD, wanting to have Picard lack the unlimited resources of the Enterprise and Starfleet, has used money to hold him back. But they could have softened the discrepancy a bit by indicating that the Federation was culturally disinterested in money, that payment has become incidental, that the true acquisition is purpose and achievement -- but that there is an underlying currency of replicator credit that the average person is not interested in. It's not that money doesn't exist; it's that it's become beneath notice.

PICARD could say that Picard couldn't mount a Romulan rescue without Starfleet commiting the resources to synthesizing and replicating the equipment and fuel and then remark, "Even an admiral's replicator stipend won't produce what we need." Rios could say that he's "very expensive; well above standard replicator credit rates" because conventional civilian private charter and passage wouldn't have the security and safety clearances to go on Picard's mission. Raffi could be enraged that her basic replicator allowance entitles her to a dorm, a self-serve sickbay and access to a replicator canteen but no other luxuries. And then we could have Dr. Agnes Jurati confused. "I don't understand why you're so fixated on this 'money' concept; I haven't checked to see if I've been paid in years. I have a room above my lab and there's a replicator in the canteen."

Why couldn't Jake bid on the auction on DS9? Let's retcon that to say that replicator credits weren't accepted. Why wasn't Jake paid for his book? Let's say people receiving a Starfleet replicator stipend (which Jake was as Sisko's dependent) generally waive additional payment for their labour and what difference would it make if Jake's replicator credit could, from book sales, produce 10,000 daily root beers instead of the 100 his basic stipend covers? Instead of ignoring the past, let's add a bit of supplemental information. Why did Picard say "money doesn't exist in the 24th century"? Let's adjust that to say, "Money is no longer a cultural force in the 24th century when a replicator can create whatever we need."

But PICARD has simply blown off the no money concept (although the replicators are still present).

Towards the end of his life, Michael Piller said that he had somewhat ruthlessly enforced the "Roddenberry box" of restrictions that barred personal conflict and money from STAR TREK scripts and that writers were quite understandably fed up with Piller's insistence that writers write around these restrictions instead of throwing them away. Piller said that he completely understood when the writers working for him declared that if Piller didn't leave VOYAGER, they would leave VOYAGER. All I can say is -- PICARD is not the first series to feel that the no money element was too difficult to write, but Roddenberry introduced the no-money concept AND the replicators, so he did cover his bases there.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 5 OF PICARD

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I'm sure no one is surprised, but I was sad to see Icheb die on Picard.  When I realized they were going with the xBs angle (ex-Borg) and bringing back both Seven and Hugh, I was hoping they'd find a way to bring back Icheb.  I liked both his limited storyline and how it impacted Seven.  I thought it was one of the few times that they did something character-based and it really worked.  And I know there was some issue with the actor and Anthony Rapp, but I was sad to see that not only was he killed, he was brutally killed.

And I get that Picard is more "adult" than Voyager, but it was just bizarre to have a character on Voyager (a show that was light on both death and violence) go out in such a brutal and gory way.  It's hard to connect the Seven/Icheb relationship we saw on Voyager ending the way it did on Picard.  It was disturbing, both because I wanted more from the Icheb storyline and because I have an emotional connection to both those characters.  Maybe people felt the same about Maddox, but the Icheb stuff stuck with me.

************

As a side note to that, I'm having trouble understanding the world that Picard is showing us.  Are we simply avoiding places where the Federation is, or is it something else?  All these talks of Fenris Rangers and the collapse of the Neutral Zone and possibly the reintroduction of money and the "criminal" acts of the Federation and Starfleet are making me confused on where the universe is.  It reminds me of how I felt watching the Star Wars sequel trilogy.  I just don't understand the overarching political situation in the Alpha Quadrant, and it's confusing me. 

I had a friend describe the Federation as having fallen apart.  And not just morally...literally.  Has that been explained?  Earth seemed fine.  I'm sure Starfleet is reeling from the destruction of Mars, but has there been any indication that anyone has taken advantage of that? All signs point to the Romulan Star Empire being tattered...at least more than the Federation or Starfleet.  I don't think Cardassia would be in position to step in.  We've heard nothing of them or the Klingons or anyone else who might've tried to reclaim Federation space following what happened on Mars.

From what I've seen on the show, the Federation is fine, and Starfleet is licking its wounds from Mars but still operating the same way they were twenty years before.  I'd love for the show to somehow interact with a Starfleet vessel doing normal Starfleet work so we'd have a general idea, but it seems like everyone that Picard has met is either an outlaw, a vigilante, or retired.

Is there a supplementary novel to this I can read, ireactions? smile

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Icheb was recast. It's not the VOYAGER actor playing the character. And thank God for that. Manu Intiryami tweeted that Anthony Rapp should get a grip for viewing Kevin Spacey's assault on him as assault.

**

To get to Freecloud, the ship entered the Beta Quadrant (Romulan and Klingon space), so I assume that Freecloud is in the Beta Quadrant and that it doesn't reflect on the Alpha Quadrant at all.

**

Is there a novel or a comic book? Who cares?! The STAR TREK: COUNTDOWN comics that tied into the 2009 movie and showed how the NEXT GENERATION cast tried to stop the Romulan supernova featured Data alive and restored; that's being ignored. DISCOVERY: DESPERATE HOURS had Burnham meet Spock which is completely ignored by their TV meeting in DISCOVERY's Season 2. Also, DESPERATE HOURS has Spock visit the Shenzhou and remark that it looks a bit primitive compared to his much more advanced Enterprise ship which he describes as looking exactly like the 60s sets; DISCOVERY also ignored this by modernizing the Enterprise sets but using some of the same colours. What does it matter if there's a novel or a comic book for PICARD? It'll just be ignored before the season is even over. Who cares what's in the PICARD comics and novels?

The PICARD COUNTDOWN comic is about how Picard befriended Zhaban and Laris and how they moved into his chateau. The first issue is about Zhaban and Laris moving in the furniture. The second issue is Picard arguing with them about where to position the stove and refrigerator. The third issue is Picard painting a room blue but changing his mind and deciding he wants it to be brown instead and then there's a heart-pounding race to the store to pick up more paint before it closes for the night.

(You don't know that it's not.)

There's also a novel that I haven't read yet, THE LAST BEST HOPE, which I assume is set during Season 6 of DEEP SPACE NINE where Picard and the Enterprise-E crew dock with Babylon 5 to attend Worf's wedding only to realize they got the wrong space station and the title is based on Babylon 5's mission statement as the "last, best hope for peace."

(You don't know that it's not!)

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

But to your understanding, is the Alpha Quadrant still the way that it was when we last left it?  And the Federation, while probably pretty racist now, is still on star maps (at least) the same as it was?  Or do you think the entire Alpha Quadrant is in disarray after Romulus?

I honestly can't tell.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I assume that the Alpha Quadrant and that the Federation itself remains a near-paradise as described in DEEP SPACE NINE -- except that, due to the loss of synthetic labour ensuring a universal basic standard of living, people have to work for money again whereas in TNG and DS9 and VOY, nobody got paid. Perhaps replication power is now at a higher cost without the synths. The Beta Quadrant and the regions formerly controlled by the Romulan Star Empire, however, have fallen into what we've seen.

The STAR TREK: PICARD - COUNTDOWN comic and the STAR TREK: PICARD - THE LAST BEST HOPE novel aren't terribly enlightening. COUNTDOWN is about Admiral Picard rescuing a Romulan farming planet where the Romulans are intent on abandoning their slave labour and when Picard insists on reworking the entire rescue effort to free and save the slaves as well, the Romulans hijack the rescue ship. In the course of regaining control and saving everyone, Picard meets Zhaban and Laris who help him regain his ship and he sends them to his chateau on Earth to be safe from Romulan reprisal. It's a charming, engaging little story but not particularly enlightening.

THE LAST BEST HOPE -- honestly, I can barely remember enough about this to summarize it because it was so boring. Picard and La Forge are working at different ends of the Romulan evacuation effort. Picard talks a lot with reluctant Romulan politicians; La Forge talks with various people about building ships. Months of events are summarized in a few paragraphs, as are the flashbacks in the actual episodes. Then, as we're focused on Picard, he's informed that the synths have attacked Mars. La Forge hears about it while he's on a shuttle to Earth. Then the Federation declares that they are abandoning the Romulans and we get to see the scene where Picard delivered his resignation. Then the book ends.

It's pointless. Everything in THE LAST BEST HOPE was established with far greater effect through Picard's bitter recollections and his shame at the impoverished Romulan colony and the brief, effective flashbacks. THE LAST BEST HOPE expands on all that but is simply repeating in a more overstretched fashion what was told well enough before.

And it certainly doesn't answer any of Slider_Quinn21's questions.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Still enjoying Picard, but did Jeri Ryan's "Seven" prosthetic bother anyone?  I know that was several weeks ago, but it looked more like a Cosplay piece than the genuine article.  It doesn't even look like the right color, even in brightly-lit scenes.  I don't know why I'm bringing this up now, but it's something I've thought of a lot since we first saw the trailer.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

... I guess -- it's never really looked real to me on VOYAGER, so it continues to not look real to me in PICARD. I've always thought it looked bright and plastic.

I liked how Soji knocked the wind out of Picard with a light shove because it was another reminder that Picard will not be firing machine guns through squadrons of Borg or fighting Tom Hardy with his fists any time soon. And thank God for that.

I thought that Riker's pizza looked a bit unappetizing. I liked how Riker and Troi's daughter is named after Troi's deceased sister. And I liked Riker recognizing Soji's head-tilt.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

For a brief instant in the Riker episode, I thought that Riker was going to be senile.  He abruptly screams at his daughter before realizing that Picard is there.  I was glad that he wasn't - I have a fondness for bother Riker and Jonathan Frakes, and I thought he was great in this one.

I don't know - the Seven prosthetic looks darker and less defined.  It just looks weird to me.  But I'm willing to throw it in the bin since it's a silly point smile

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

I don't know - the Seven prosthetic looks darker and less defined.  It just looks weird to me.  But I'm willing to throw it in the bin since it's a silly point smile

I don't know if it's silly.

Whenever we care about a character, we will engage with what for us is the iconography of the role whether it's the performance, the appearance or some combination of both. It's interesting that pretty much everything that defines Seven of Nine as an icon of STAR TREK (for better or worse) has been dropped. The catsuit is gone. The tied back hair is gone. The lack of contractions is gone. The robotic monotone is gone. The repressed emotion is gone.

But because Jeri Ryan is still maintaining the character's severity and calculated distance, she (I hope) still feels like Seven to you, but her appearance and performance are so different that you're likely looking to the Borg facial piece as a point of recognition. And if it isn't meeting your expectations, it will throw you off.

The way you feel about the headpiece is the way I feel about Quinn Mallory's hair and clothes. To me, Quinn's long hair reflects how he only gets it cut three times a year and trims it himself each month to keep from being blinded by length. The clothes, to me, are his father's; he wears them to assume Michael Mallory's role in his home and world. The brown coat of Season 2 conveys a certain physical hardiness against the elements. The result is that Quinn is extremely recognizable from any distance or angle or lighting, much like Batman with his cowl or Superman with the cape and S-curl.

When Quinn's hair is trimmed short and styled with gel and highlights, I don't believe it. Quinn would never be at the hairdresser that often. When Quinn wears a leather jacket, I don't accept it; Quinn would want a coat, not a jacket. Something with more pockets. And something more nondescript. Jerry O'Connell wanted his hair short and gelled and highlighted and he wanted a leather jacket because the contrasted hair and reflective jacket draw attention. More specifically, a jacket is cut higher and doesn't obscure the backside; that's why Jerry wants to wear it.

But Quinn Mallory is a slider. Perpetually a stranger in a strange land that may or may not be hostile. Quinn doesn't want attention; he wants his grooming and wardrobe to help him blend, to not stand out to bystanders although it does to the audience. I can't accept the Season 3 look because Quinn is a slider and Jerry in Season 3 doesn't look like a slider. He looks like a Hollywood actor.

Anyway. If Seven's headpiece looks wrong to you, then it's wrong. You ought to know. You're the only fan of Seven of Nine in existence. I have literally never heard anyone speak fondly of the character. Just as I am literally the only person in the world who has given Quinn's hair and flannel this much thought.

We shouldn't dismiss such concerns; we should seek to understand them because when we grasp why these things matter to us, we understand ourselves. And when we understand ourselves, we go from having psychotherapy sessions twice a week to once every 90 days.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I thought Jeri Ryan did a good job with an "evolved" Seven of Nine.  It bothered me at first because, in the trailer at least, it didn't seem like she was playing Seven.  It was Jeri Ryan or another character she's played. 

But in the episode, I saw evolution.  It's been 20 years, and she's learned to fit in better.  She was essentially a child on Voyager, and now she's an adult.  But I also read a different theory on that which I absolutely loved - the idea that Seven is playing a part.  She's taken her obsessive training, and she's created a character that she can play.  That character is laid back.  It's emotive.  It's badass.  It uses contractions. 

In the end of the episode, she lets her guard down.  She asks Picard if he ever regained his humanity.  He says yes.  All of it?  He says no.  That was Seven of Nine in her true self, and I think she sorta uses the Seven cadence in that scene.

I don't entirely buy that because I think she would've been "herself" with Icheb.  And maybe she was...I don't think there was enough there to know for sure.

I actually liked what we saw.  It definitely wasn't the Seven we saw on Voyager, but neither was Hugh from Next Generation.  I think both were logical extensions on what would've happened.  Part of me is a little sad that Seven didn't stay with Starfleet, and I'm sure somewhere out there Janeway feels the same way.  But I think this route makes more sense for her.  I think it's much more realistic that she'd quit Starfleet or be kicked out.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I haven't given Seven nearly as much thought as you have. When I say that there are no other fans of Seven, I mean to say that even people who like Seven of Nine don't really like the character; they like Jeri Ryan's body and the costume that the body was in.

The character and the performance, however, are clearly the critical elements for you, so I'm prepared to say that you are actually a a fan of the character as well as the actress. I think that Jeri Ryan clearly put a lot of effort into retaining Seven's goal-oriented, purposeful, calculated demeanor and to me, that is the part of Seven that is actually characterization, moreso than the outfit or the robotic bearing. Seven is machinelike in forcefully driving towards her goals, whatever they may be; people are either impediments or resources to complete her mission, and because that was still present in the new performance, it was still Seven except those characteristics were now expressed with sarcasm, the need for a drink, a more conversational tone and more expressiveness than before.

One area where this was mishandled for me recently in another property -- X-23, a teen female clone of Wolverine, has always been written as an aloof, troubled young girl with terrifying fighting skills -- basically Summer Glau as River Song to the point where most fans in 2004 wanted Glau to play X-23. However, in 2012, the very conversational, comedy-oriented Brian Michael Bendis took over the X-Men titles -- and when he wrote X-23, he wrote her as being conversational and cracking jokes, nothing like the troubled, taciturn, traumatized figure she was before.

While Bendis' stories had some rationalizations -- X-23 was teamed up with the teen X-Men from the 60s who'd never met Wolverine and had no preconceived notions of her or her progenitor, X-23 had been suffering from partial amnesia -- it seemed like a totally different character. Which really showed how a dialogue heavy, jokey writer like Bendis was not suited to writing a deadly serious, often silent character.

After Bendis left, X-23 became the star of ALL-NEW WOLVERINE in 2015 while Wolverine was temporarily dead, and writer Tom Taylor did something interesting with the character -- he kept her jokes and contractions, but there was a more deadpan, less emotional tone to them. She expressed emotions and could be happy or sad or silly -- but in much more minimal, spare dialogue. Taylor kept Bendis giving X-23 a wider palette. But he added back a balance of X-23's directness and a little more restraint  so that she sounded more like the original character even if she were vastly more human than before. Taylor found a happy medium, not undoing Bendis, but making sure that the jokes and expressions were in X-23's voice.

It's very much the way Seven was written in her episode of PICARD.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

What did we think of the end of Picard?

I thought the storyline was very muddled, but I liked the characters quite a bit.  I think they took some chances, but I think they made a really entertaining series.  My biggest gripe was the fact that I felt so thrilled when we saw the brief look at Riker on the bridge of his ship.  I was so desperate for *any* view into Starfleet, and it was pretty great to get what we got.  I'd watch the hell out of a Captain Riker show set in this time period.  I don't know if Riker would want that, but we had so much build up to Riker becoming a captain that it'd be a shame if he never really accomplished much in that role.

I wish the series had ended with Picard going back into Starfleet.  Now that Oh is gone and the ban on synthetics is over, it would've been nice for Picard and Starfleet to make up.  And, again, I'd love to get some stories in the "modern" Starfleet.  I know Picard's crew wouldn't be very interested in getting back into Starfleet, but maybe he could use them as some sort of "hired gun" situation doing missions for the Federation or something.  And we'd occasionally get looks into other Starfleet ships - check in on what Bashir and Worf and LaForge and Tom Paris are up to.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I liked PICARD. A lot. The only issue I really had with it -- the artificial synthetic apocalyptic beast from far away who would bring doom to all organics -- I didn't feel the show set up what it was, where it came from, why it was coming, what it was doing, why it left its phone number telepathically or what that was about at all. It was simply a means to an end in terms of creating a ticking clock. Aside from that, I felt in transitioned the NEXT GENERATION universe into one more a mirror of our own reality.

I thought Data's dream sequences and his final scene at the end of PICARD was poignant and beautiful even if Brent Spiner's voice reflected all the years that the CGI was wiping out of his face and girth and hairline. I'm fascinated by the question of whether Picard is still Picard or merely an approximation, a backup copy of the actual human being. I'm intrigued by where his journey will take him next. Patrick Stewart is signed for one more season of PICARD.

I'm not as Starfleet-focused as you are, but that's a valid take, I respect it. I'm happy with PICARD being about Picard's life after he left the Navy. And I think that Bashir is a computer sales clerk in San Francisco, Worf is a bombastic combat professor whom nobody likes and La Forge is somewhere in a residential area basement working on anti-gravity but on the verge of discovering something else instead. Meanwhile, Tom Paris is likely a labrat in an interdimensional experiment after he lost the use of his legs in a car theft gone wrong.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I was thinking about Star Trek: Picard this morning, and I don't know if I understand something.

So what happened with Romulus again?

I'm assuming that, while the destruction of Romulus from 2009 is canon, the Countdown comic isn't.  In that, Data is captain of the Enterprise (right, ireactions?).  So all we really know is that Picard was there, the robot insurrection happened, and Picard was called back.  But the events of Picard don't really have anything to do with that, right?  The androids rebelled on their own?  The Romulans didn't have anything to do with that? 

Because I understand Picard's point, of course.  The Federation and Starfleet should've saved as many people as they could.  But at the same time, I don't understand how much the destruction of Mars would've impacted Starfleet.  Was this like Pearl Harbor?  Did Starfleet pull their ships back because they couldn't risk losing anything else?  How long after the Dominion War was Romulus?  How secure was the Federation at that point and how "healthy" was Starfleet?

I guess I'm trying to understand how "evil" the decision Starfleet made.  Did they make a selfish one (sorry, Romulans, you gotta deal with this on your own, we got our own problems now) or a difficult pragmatic one (I'm sorry this is happening, we did our best, but we can't risk anything else or we'll be in the same boat)?

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

COUNTDOWN 2009 did indeed feature a restored Data as Captain of the Enterprise. The TNG novels, which don't tie into COUNTDOWN, also featured a restored Data.

The android insurrection on Mars was revealed to be caused by the Zhat Vash, a faction of Romulans who loathe artificial life and expect that its rise would bring about an AI apocalypse.

I don't know how intentional this was, but given how the Federation is suddenly using money in PICARD when it was a post-scarcity, post-currency society in TNG, DS9 and VOY, I think we have to take it to mean that the destruction of Mars impacted the Federation's ability to produce and maintain replicators. But PICARD takes the view that the Federation didn't do its best under difficult circumstances; that it just gave up and cut the Romulans loose on the grounds that the Romulans had (a) sided with the Dominion 24 years ago and (b) tried to blow up Earth 20 years ago. That the Federation didn't even do what it could; it just decided to do nothing.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

Hmmm, I guess I forgot that the insurrection was caused by the Romulans.  Did they reprogram the androids?  And they sorta shot themselves in the foot if it cut the rescue effort short.

Plus, no one else seemed to help with the evacuation.  No Klingons or Ferengi or Cardassians or anyone else came to their aid.  I guess this is when the Romulans found out they had no friends smile

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

It's almost like... the writing was kind of sloppy!

Earth Prime | The Definitive Source for Sliders™

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

I really don't see anything sloppy about the writing. Across TOS, TNG, DS9 and NEMESIS, the Romulans had shown a propensity for treacherous backstabbing at every opportunity. It's perfectly reasonable that after the Romulans attacked the Klingon Empire and razed Cardassia in the Dominion War and tried to blow up Earth in NEMESIS, few people outside the Romulan Star Empire were inclined to offer a helping hand that had traditionally been cut off every time anyone tried to do anything for the Romulans. The Zhat Vash were deranged extremists more interested in their pet values of hating all artificial intelligence than aid for their suffering people and reprogrammed the Mars robots to attack.

Picard's outrage at Starfleet abandoning the Romulans is because Starfleet pledged to help anyone in trouble no matter who they were or what they'd done before. And his fury is reasonable, but I think PICARD also establishes that the Federation can't be blamed for deciding that they would prefer not to assist a brutal dictatorship that always took any effort of charity as an opportunity to attack. Picard welcomed Romulan refugees to live in his home; the Federation wouldn't match his effort.

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!)

https://bleedingcool.com/tv/star-trek-n … ew-series/

Jerry O’Connell’s career is in dire straits with SLIDERS not getting a reboot any time soon. However, his wife has a new job on a new STAR TREK show!

(I was kidding about Jerry’s career. He is doing fine.)