Release Date 23Jan2020
STAR TREK: PICARD… OR! Star Trek: Tea time and 'splosions --AKA-- Somebody fucking take this franchise away from Alex Kurtzman or take Star Trek to see the rabbits!
(Forgive the length, even edited. This was originally going to be recorded, but... technical difficulties. Next one will be episode #1 of: THE PISSED TAKE.)
I wanted this to be good… really did. But it was apparent from the very first episode that this series was going to be shit samosa of notable proportions.
First, some background… Picard takes place 20 years after Star Trek Nemesis, one of the two feature films this show takes it's chief themes from. In it, Picard and crew go on a mission to Romulus to deal with a plot point some ass-hole thought was a good idea and Data gets blowed up.
The other point to add is JJ Abrams cinematic colonoscopy in Star Trek form… STAR TREK 2009. In it a Star, somewhere in space, blows up creating a supernova that threatens the galaxy. The Romulans home world get blowed up, with a johnny come lately SPOCK arriving too late to use an artificial black hole to save the galaxy. Something, something- time travel... something, something, Fuck science advisors.
Anyway… this takes place 20 years after that insipidity. There was a rescue mission launched by a now *Admiral* Picard to evacuate displaced Romulans, but a surprise attack on Mars by Rogue synths (androids) has them pull back from saving the Romulans to deal with this threat, becoming isolationist ass-holes and proving that the knuckle-draggers writing this show could give fuck all about what Star Trek is over the ponderous, twisty grim-dark BS they serve up here.
Where was I… yeah, so Picard throws a fit and quits Starfleet to go sulk at his French vineyard for 14 fucking years. You know, the Vineyard that partially burned down and his brother and nephew burned alive in.
It was tough getting through the ten episodes they have in this season. So I'll get into positive and negative impressions- FIRST THE GOOD. This will be short.
THE GOOD:
For the most part, the acting was well done- the scenes with Picard were played with Patrick Stewart's reliable warmth and maturity- a shame he insisted on this grim-dark, Bizarro world bullshit as a condition of his returning to the franchise. Michelle Hurd and Santiago Cabrera stand out for being the other two characters with any sort of emotional depth.
THE BAD:
There seems to be, from all involved- especially Stewart, a disdain, not only for the hopeful future Star Trek represented, but for its Canon. I'm not talking about Klingons and foreheads, I'm talking about the characterization of established characters, events and histories. Changed to suit a story so contrived and needlessly convoluted, you stop caring before the first 2 episodes are done.
What else… the pacing in this show is a whole bunch of WTF. Long scenes of Picard and his tea and then- PEW!, PEW!, PEW!… then more fucking tea. Characters whose relation to each other makes no sense - Picard and Data were never as close as they make them to be here. Character motivations that follow no logical progression of the character and only seem to serve as a cheap way to glue this show together. Twists and revelations that go nowhere or go somewhere… just somewhere fucking stupid, awkward swearing- I GET IT, dark and dreary Trek- fucking-fucking-fuck-fuck...shit!!! Finally, fucking holograms… fuck holograms. Its like the bullet-time of the 10s… or Morphing.
THE WORST:
The worst is that this could have been good. I'm all for trying something different, but hard left turns just for the sake of hard left turns does not a good difference make. Its like the difference between reg BBQ and the first time you had, say blueberry BBQ. A Good kind of different right? Now,
you go to take a dump and you pinch a black tarry loaf. That's a bad type of different and probably internal bleeding. This show talks a lot and says nothing, ending in a finale that is as boneheaded, contrived, and pointless as it is depressing.
THE REST:
What we have here kids is more or less the same problem we have with the OTHER big sci-fi franchise. The people who run them currently, for all the talk otherwise, simply don't understand what makes them engaging, endearing, and ultimately unique. It doesn't matter if beloved characters
return, if there is no plausible reason for their actions as dictated by established characterization and the world they live in, no degree of twisty-turny plotting is going to justify the story's existence… and this SHOULDN'T EXIST. This was a horrible idea and it needs no 2nd season. The finale hammers home that last coffin nail.
SEE IT! - If you are a completist, a masochist, and possibly incurably deranged.
DON'T! - If you're tired of the Michael Baying of Star Trek, are watching The Expanse- A show that does what this fuck-sock tries to do- and succeeds... AND you love Star Trek… and your brain.
-MR. PISSED
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