That Star Trek thread somebody was talking about

[Loki]

I’m tentatively on board with s3 but slow going as it remains one of the worst written series on tv at the moment.  It’s nice to see Riker et al but they’ve messed with their characters so much that it’s more enjoying the actors and ignoring they’re acting completely wrong.

[Jazzy G]

Binged the last 6 episodes of Picard last night. The episode with Ro was alright. A lot of character work and trying to explain how everybody ended up where they are in terms of their different characterisations.

Brent Spiner was having a whale of a time hamming it up. I liked the passing of the torch onto the next generation (pun semi intended) of characters. Hopefully if they do something to pick up from where this left off it'll be on that ship with that cast, but feel more like The Orville in terms of its style (obviously without the gags). 

There was a LOT of fan service in the last couple of episodes, and I loved it. Like others here I didn't enjoy the first series, thought the second was a big improvement, and was all on for the nostalgia tour that was series 3.

[johnnyboy]

Just watched Picard Season 3 in about a week.  I don't think I've ever seen such utterly blatant fan service.  Everything upon everything was a callback.  Sometimes we had callbacks within callbacks.  Even I probably missed some of the references because I was too busy noticing other references.  Almost unbelievably they also lifted the Death Star battle ending of Return of the Jedi.

Absolute perfection.  10/10.  No notes.

[simonworden]

43 minutes ago, johnnyboy said:

Just watched Picard Season 3 in about a week.  I don't think I've ever seen such utterly blatant fan service.  Everything upon everything was a callback.  Sometimes we had callbacks within callbacks.  Even I probably missed some of the references because I was too busy noticing other references.  Almost unbelievably they also lifted the Death Star battle ending of Return of the Jedi.

Absolute perfection.  10/10.  No notes.

Been looking for this thread, totally agree 10/10 for the ending. Even the Borg Queen comeback felt like a full star wars lift from the last one though. 

If I have some notes is very minor things like not getting a scene on the bird of prey, seeing a saucer separation or Janeway being in or mentioned in the scene with Tuvok and Seven especially when she is in Prodigy.

 But overall what a wonderful way to end the next gen era. I'm all for a new series aboard The G and it not being the shiny sexy new flagship makes things more interesting than if we just got the F. Also definately need to know more about what Word's been up to. 

[Jazzy G]

Found two interesting titles in Audible today, they have to be bought or acquired with credits, ut they were entertaining. They're called Spock Vs Q, and are live recordings of a stage show from 1999. In the first one Spock has been sent back to Earth in 1999 to try and avoid a calamity without breaching the Prime Directive, and Q turns up. The second one seems to follow up from a day or so after the first one, which makes me think it was either two shows on consecutive nights, or two halves of the same show. 

Leonard Nimiy & John DeLancie play off each other brilliantly and there are some great gags and one liners throughout. I would imagine there'll be other titles available. They were originally published through Simon & Schuster's Alien Voices line, which appears to be a joint venture by the actors involved. 

They're just shy of an hour each, but worth a listen. They both sound like they're having a great time. 

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Spock_Vs._Q

[Jazzy G]

My friend gave me her Paramount+ details and let me set up a profile for myself, so I've caught up with some Trek. 

Discovery season 4 was more Discovery. Bad stuff happens, Burnham manages to save the day, there might also be a B-plot. It had its moments. It was interesting to see how they shot Burnham's scenes to hide Sonequa Martin-Green's pregnancy as well. It was fine, but predictable. The other characters are there, and sometimes almost stumble into their own storyline, but it never seems like much more than "look, we're doing something that isn't about Burnham!" 

I watched the first episode of Strange New Worlds as well, and loved it. It already feels more like an ensemble show than Discovery, and Pike is bae. He's so good. I loved the Kirk swerve as well. It felt like proper Star Trek, and I love how everybody playing an "established" Trek character isn't just doing an impression of the original actor. I look forward to watching more. 

[69MeDon]

18 hours ago, jazzygeofferz said:

My friend gave me her Paramount+ details and let me set up a profile for myself, so I've caught up with some Trek. 

Discovery season 4 was more Discovery. Bad stuff happens, Burnham manages to save the day, there might also be a B-plot. It had its moments. It was interesting to see how they shot Burnham's scenes to hide Sonequa Martin-Green's pregnancy as well. It was fine, but predictable. The other characters are there, and sometimes almost stumble into their own storyline, but it never seems like much more than "look, we're doing something that isn't about Burnham!" 

I watched the first episode of Strange New Worlds as well, and loved it. It already feels more like an ensemble show than Discovery, and Pike is bae. He's so good. I loved the Kirk swerve as well. It felt like proper Star Trek, and I love how everybody playing an "established" Trek character isn't just doing an impression of the original actor. I look forward to watching more. 

Discovery is mostly garbage. Couldn't bring myself to finish the most recent (and last, I think) season.

SNW is, in my estimation, far and away the best Nu Trek. I'd say season two probably ranks up there with some of the best ever series of Trek on TV.

[Jazzy G]

3 minutes ago, 69MeDon said:

Discovery is mostly garbage. Couldn't bring myself to finish the most recent (and last, I think) season

I get a feeling there will be another season, but it'll be in a couple of years when SMG has had her baby and they're a little older. 

[johnnyboy]

Having just finished all of Strange New Worlds I am glad that it's absolutely competent throughout, with some really good bits.

Thoughts in the spoiler tags.

Spoiler

They don't boldly go all that much.  However, from the not totally fucking the established timeline perspective it at least means we aren't going to meet loads of alien races that are never mentioned again in series set after this chronologically.

Due to the not boldly going it does feel like there's a lot of bottle episodes in something that's only got 10 episodes a season.

Way too much bumping into TOS characters.  I think we only need Bones to complete the set.

The Lower Decks crossover and Subspace Rhapsody episodes were tremendous fun.

There's sometimes an overbearing budgetary constraints vibe that's even more prevalent than the one in aspects of the Disney+ Star Wars shows.

It does give me hope that watchable Star Trek series, that don't entirely rely on our fondness for Patrick Stewart, can still be made.

[johnnyboy]

I don't know how I missed it before but I've just watched "Woman in Motion" and if you haven't seen it and you're interested in science, science fiction, space, and/or Star Trek you should absolutely watch it.  It's on Paramount+ and Amazon Freevee.

It's about Nichelle Nichols recruiting astronauts for NASA - for real!

Watch the trailer, then get a pizza ordered and treat yourself to the whole thing.  It's fucking fabulous.  100% recommended.

 

[Merzbow]

Almost a year since the last post in the thread but I came across this just now, a remastered browser version of the classic FMV PC game Borg.

https://borgremastered.com/

It's very much just clicking things but it's fully acted with Q as a major part of the game and looks really good even if it is AI upscaled.

[BigJag]

I've just been made aware of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Its in its third season! How did that happen to slip my attention?

Theres also a DS9 documentary. What we left behind. Its on YouTube. The board won't let me add the link.

 

 

Edited July 17, 2025 by BigJag

[hallicks]

39 minutes ago, BigJag said:

I've just been made aware of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Its in its third season! How did that happen to slip my attention?

Theres also a DS9 documentary. What we left behind. Its on YouTube. The board won't let me add the link.

 

 

The DS9 doc is ace. We bought it through Amazon a while back. I think the Voyager one has had its premiere but I don’t think it’s on general release yet. Interested to see if Robert Beltran still hates it as much as he did when they were filming it. 

I’ve seen some of SNW. I like it, though it suffers from the Wheedonification of dialogue like all new trek does, which is enough to put me off trying harder to watch the whole lot. Do people’s attention spans really lapse that quickly if there’s not a shoehorned in wisecrack every 30 seconds? [/old man gripe]

[BigJag]

Agreed. Really enjoyed the doc. I would have liked a bit more digging into why Terry Farrell left the series. 

[Merzbow]

The lads are finally talking about best Trek, it's been many years coming and surprisingly Rich was never really a huge fan back in the day. You could tell they were both much more into TNG as they reference it in nearly every video in some way or another.