Picard S2

The same thing has been said about every showrunner the franchise has seen until the next one takes over and then suddenly it's the new standard. Fans have a short memory for being so smart.


Uh-huh. Sure.

In the 90s, some people may have complained about the direction of the franchise under those showrunners, but STAR TREK achieved the peak of its popularity during that era. More importantly, ENTERPRISE aside, the Berman era was always trying to move the franchise forward, rather than constantly looking to—and deconstructing—the past. I may not have agreed with everything they put out, but I respected them for trying new things without using the past as crutch.

Modern TREK does not sell. People don’t watch it in appreciable numbers. It does not trend on social media. There is no merchandise to speak of in brick-and-mortar stores. It has had no cultural impact, and no single episode has been hailed as a classic. There’s just a small army of hardcore fans, casual viewers, sycophants on Twitter, and access media shills and their garbage-tier articles constantly trying to prop it all up with lies and misdirection. The franchise has been ground down to dust and strip-mined into a failed niche product on a failed streaming service, aimed at political ideologues and people who enjoy Easter Eggs, shaky-cam, pew-pew, and explosions.

It’s a similar situation with Disney’s STAR WARS. People complained about the prequels, but they still watched the movies and bought the merchandise. The franchise was still extremely healthy, and bred a new generation of fans. Flash-forward to the dismal Disney era, and you see the box office dropping radically, and people legitimately swearing off the franchise for good. Including me. And so it is with post-2009 STAR TREK. It’s a whole new ballgame, and everyone’s playing for keeps.

The greed, malice, and stupidity which have overtaken STAR TREK is a palpable thing. People are free to like what they like, but I frankly find myself amazed that people who continue to watch and support what it has become can also claim to love the previous iterations of the franchise, considering what a night-and-day contrast we’ve been presented with. It seems more and more that the remaining fanbase consists of brand-name addicts, political ideologues, and non-discerning people who just want “content” for its own sake.


Call it “smug”, call it “gatekeeping”, call it “toxic fandom”, if you will.

I call it “accepting reality”. Appraising the situation and looking at the facts. It’s a dead franchise. Everything it once stood for has been crushed or subverted, and the vast majority of people no longer care. There is a clear and predictable pattern in terms of what has happened regarding the corporatization and politicization of our favorite franchises. It’s no longer about storytelling, art, or exploring the human condition. Corporate locusts latch on, bleed these franchises dry, them move on to the next beloved property. Abrams and his Bad Reboot cronies have been at the center of much of it.

In this brave, new era, STAR TREK has generated more new shows within five years than the entire franchise had in its first 35 years. Throwing as much crap at the wall as possible in the short-term to see if anything sticks. Hacks and opportunists exploiting the franchise as a stepping stone to bigger and better projects.

And, as a result, it’s all falling apart: Nerd culture, fandom, iconic franchises, theatrical distribution, the Hollywood studio system, the era of celebrities, everything.

It is no longer HONEST, in any way, shape or form. And those fans who respect honesty, integrity and intelligence are rightfully fleeing from these sinking ships.


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Uh-huh. Sure.
Glad you agree.

It’s a similar situation with Disney’s STAR WARS.
And yet the Mandalorian is one of their biggest properties.

politicization of our favorite franchises
When was Star Trek not political?

It is no longer HONEST, in any way, shape or form. And those fans who respect honesty, integrity and intelligence are rightfully fleeing from these sinking ships.
Yes, smug, gatekeeping.
 
My theory is that in episode 10, Q reveals that he did this whole thing for Picard’s sake, because after all they’ve been through, he still considers Picard, “The closest thing he has to a friend in all the universe!”

He orchestrated this whole thing so that Picard could expel the last of his demons, quit being afraid to actually live for himself and give himself permission to love the Romulan woman (Laris I think it is?) and to spend his golden years living for himself and the woman he loves.

And since he’s Q, he’ll turn his highly advanced android body (Which several scientists tried for decades to reproduce Data and failed, but now 20 some years later, they’re everywhere, but I digress) into a flesh and blood Human once again.

OR

I expect that 1. He’ll create a brand new body for Picard, and then use golem Picard’s body to transfer Data into and repurpose it to look like a now aged Data, or, 2. He’ll just make the golem body real and then create a new android replica for the Data - data download.

I can’t image that Brent won’t be playing Data in season 3 with all of the rest of the cast coming back.

Which is also why I believe that Rios will stay behind. Agnes may become the actual new Borg queen, etc. We won’t need 17 main cast members for season 3.
I was thinking something similar about Q, at least the concept that he considers Picard a friend. The ST:TNG season 6 episode "Tapestry" offers a reminder of Q allowing Picard to see what would happen if he changed his own past by acting with the wisdom of age as his younger self. He has been shown to have a connection to the crew of the Enterprise, particularly Picard. Even when it seems like he's playing with them, putting Picard and the crew through difficult situations, everything works out, and he doesn't interfere to change the outcome, despite his godlike power.

As far as the Android body stuff, I think it would be strange to do an about-face on the Picardoid story after only one season, but ST: Discovery did a lot of damage control to the poorly conceived changes they made to the Star Trek universe, so anything is possible. Sure seems like there should be changes to the original timeline when this all shakes out - maybe that's the real reason for mentioning the butterfly effect but taking no care to prevent it from happening. Maybe they're setting up a butterfly effect change to the original timeline. That, and/or Q changing things.
 
I was thinking something similar about Q, at least the concept that he considers Picard a friend. The ST:TNG season 6 episode "Tapestry" offers a reminder of Q allowing Picard to see what would happen if he changed his own past by acting with the wisdom of age as his younger self. He has been shown to have a connection to the crew of the Enterprise, particularly Picard. Even when it seems like he's playing with them, putting Picard and the crew through difficult situations, everything works out, and he doesn't interfere to change the outcome, despite his godlike power.

As far as the Android body stuff, I think it would be strange to do an about-face on the Picardoid story after only one season, but ST: Discovery did a lot of damage control to the poorly conceived changes they made to the Star Trek universe, so anything is possible. Sure seems like there should be changes to the original timeline when this all shakes out - maybe that's the real reason for mentioning the butterfly effect but taking no care to prevent it from happening. Maybe they're setting up a butterfly effect change to the original timeline. That, and/or Q changing things.
It has been said Q is fond of Picard as one would be fond of a pet.....
 
My theory is that in episode 10, Q reveals that he did this whole thing for Picard’s sake, because after all they’ve been through, he still considers Picard, “The closest thing he has to a friend in all the universe!”

He orchestrated this whole thing so that Picard could expel the last of his demons, quit being afraid to actually live for himself and give himself permission to love the Romulan woman (Laris I think it is?) and to spend his golden years living for himself and the woman he loves.

And since he’s Q, he’ll turn his highly advanced android body (Which several scientists tried for decades to reproduce Data and failed, but now 20 some years later, they’re everywhere, but I digress) into a flesh and blood Human once again.

OR

I expect that 1. He’ll create a brand new body for Picard, and then use golem Picard’s body to transfer Data into and repurpose it to look like a now aged Data, or, 2. He’ll just make the golem body real and then create a new android replica for the Data - data download.

I can’t image that Brent won’t be playing Data in season 3 with all of the rest of the cast coming back.

Which is also why I believe that Rios will stay behind. Agnes may become the actual new Borg queen, etc. We won’t need 17 main cast members for season 3.
Damn
I'll take that any day...
 
The more I think about it, the more irritated I am that Q is still able to function as an agent provocateur with ZERO resources. He literally only has the clothes on his back, yet somehow he has not only changed outfits, but has created a 10 minute lasting cure for datas fake daughter, has infiltrated the ranks of psychotherapy and is now sitting across the couch from a nasa astronaut about to leave the planet, and is positioning himself to set events in motion to further destroy the timeline that he sent picard back through time to prevent from ever happening??????

I could maybe wrap my head around the therapist part. He's a smooth talker, and a fast one too. But like, wouldn't nasa have, oh i don't know, checked his credentials? Did nasa not have a staff psychiatrist that was already working with picard, or I dunno, a file folder filled with other vetted and qualified doctors to take the original doctors place if necessary?

Where did Q get that cure dose from? You're telling me Fake Data has been working on that cure for literally decades, but Q manages to find or develop it on his own, WITH NO RESOURCES, in the span of a couple days?? I guess if he's omnipitant still, he would have the knowledge of what the mollecule would look like, but how did he synthesize it? how did he fund the production of it? How did he find a lab to produce it in under a day? and with what money?

And really, why is he doing ANY of this? If the whole point of the season is for Q to once again give picard a challenge, and perhaps the highest stakes one of their entire relationship, why is he actively involved in thwarting him? Why not just let it play out? Why rube goldburg a ton of events into action? Typically in these scenarios, Q just shows up every now and again to poke fun at picard and maybe screw with him TO HIS FACE, but this just seems excessive.

Oh wait, that's right: bad writing is the answer.
 
The more I think about it, the more irritated I am that Q is still able to function as an agent provocateur with ZERO resources. He literally only has the clothes on his back, yet somehow he has not only changed outfits, but has created a 10 minute lasting cure for datas fake daughter, has infiltrated the ranks of psychotherapy and is now sitting across the couch from a nasa astronaut about to leave the planet, and is positioning himself to set events in motion to further destroy the timeline that he sent picard back through time to prevent from ever happening??????

I could maybe wrap my head around the therapist part. He's a smooth talker, and a fast one too. But like, wouldn't nasa have, oh i don't know, checked his credentials? Did nasa not have a staff psychiatrist that was already working with picard, or I dunno, a file folder filled with other vetted and qualified doctors to take the original doctors place if necessary?

Where did Q get that cure dose from? You're telling me Fake Data has been working on that cure for literally decades, but Q manages to find or develop it on his own, WITH NO RESOURCES, in the span of a couple days?? I guess if he's omnipitant still, he would have the knowledge of what the mollecule would look like, but how did he synthesize it? how did he fund the production of it? How did he find a lab to produce it in under a day? and with what money?

And really, why is he doing ANY of this? If the whole point of the season is for Q to once again give picard a challenge, and perhaps the highest stakes one of their entire relationship, why is he actively involved in thwarting him? Why not just let it play out? Why rube goldburg a ton of events into action? Typically in these scenarios, Q just shows up every now and again to poke fun at picard and maybe screw with him TO HIS FACE, but this just seems excessive.

Oh wait, that's right: bad writing is the answer.
I'm wondering if Q's powers aren't completely gone, just not working as usual. Maybe they're sporatic rather than completely gone, and/or severely curtailed. That might explain why he can manage some things but not big, sweeping changes.

Even if his powers aren't working at all, like you said, he still has his mind - he's been shown to be practically omniscient in the past. In the episode of TNG where he loses his powers having been cast out of the Q continuum springs to mind (S3 E13, "Deja Q"). When trying to show his worth to the Enterprise crew, he demonstrates knowledge of how to fix the problem of a planet's moon falling out of orbit, matter of factly stating they just need to "change the gravitational constant of the universe." True, he didn't have to resources to do that, but he knew what would fix the problem, which led to Jordi figuring out a solution.

I could see Q using his presumably still vast knowledge to procure money, and whatever resources he needs to continue his plan. Also, he's from the future - or existed in the future, I'm not exactly sure if members of the Q continuum experience the passage of time like humans. At any rate, he could probably use his knowledge and deviousness to make a quick fortune - he could probably steal some money without being caught, use it as seed money at a casino or something. Or he probably has the ability to be a hacker. I'll be he could execute a quick scheme to get rich - look at the hacker that recently stole $600 million in cryptocurrency. That'd probably be no problem for Q. And we don't know exactly how long Q has been in this time, he may have traveled back years before the events taking place with Picard's team.
 
I'm wondering if Q's powers aren't completely gone, just not working as usual. Maybe they're sporatic rather than completely gone, and/or severely curtailed. That might explain why he can manage some things but not big, sweeping changes.
We've only seen them not work when the subject was Rene, probably due to some protection the watcher bestowed.
 
I'm wondering if Q's powers aren't completely gone, just not working as usual. Maybe they're sporatic rather than completely gone, and/or severely curtailed. That might explain why he can manage some things but not big, sweeping changes.

Even if his powers aren't working at all, like you said, he still has his mind - he's been shown to be practically omniscient in the past. In the episode of TNG where he loses his powers having been cast out of the Q continuum springs to mind (S3 E13, "Deja Q"). When trying to show his worth to the Enterprise crew, he demonstrates knowledge of how to fix the problem of a planet's moon falling out of orbit, matter of factly stating they just need to "change the gravitational constant of the universe." True, he didn't have to resources to do that, but he knew what would fix the problem, which led to Jordi figuring out a solution.

I could see Q using his presumably still vast knowledge to procure money, and whatever resources he needs to continue his plan. Also, he's from the future - or existed in the future, I'm not exactly sure if members of the Q continuum experience the passage of time like humans. At any rate, he could probably use his knowledge and deviousness to make a quick fortune - he could probably steal some money without being caught, use it as seed money at a casino or something. Or he probably has the ability to be a hacker. I'll be he could execute a quick scheme to get rich - look at the hacker that recently stole $600 million in cryptocurrency. That'd probably be no problem for Q. And we don't know exactly how long Q has been in this time, he may have traveled back years before the events taking place with Picard's team.
Perhaps Q had help in procuring the needed funds for his mysterious plotting and manipulating of the timeline…

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Sci fi can be so hard to understand and people are used to Tic Tok videos now, so let’s just have a couple of lines of dialogue and lots of pew pew!
 
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