The inclusion of some familiar faces from Star Trek: The Next Generation was a highlight from the first season of Star Trek: Picard. But it turns out that like the star himself, it took some convincing, as well as some logistics, to get a couple of the TNG stars back.
Spiner didn’t want to play Data, but had another idea
Brent Spiner appeared in a number of episodes of Picard, including the opening scene, reprising his role of Data the android. Over the years since his last appearance as the character in Star Trek: Nemesis, the actor has said he wasn’t interested in returning to the role and didn’t think it would work out. During Saturday’s GalaxyCon virtual Q&A with Spiner and his TNG co-star Marina Sirtis, the actor recalled how he tried to negotiate a different role when he was first told by Patrick Stewart about the interest in his return:
I had no intention of being in the show, obviously. Patrick had said that the season will have to do with Data. So, I was trying to come up with stuff. I wanted to be on the show, but I didn’t want to play Data. I pitched an idea to Patrick about playing a different character. He took it back to the powers that be and they got back to him and said, “Well that is really interesting, but we don’t think we are going to go that way.” And I was like, “Okay, no big deal.”
In almost a parallel process as Sir Patrick himself, it took the effort of the creative team behind the show to convince Spiner to come on board. The actor told the virtual panel audience:
My manager got a phone call saying the guys who are putting the show together would like to meet. I said, “Fine,” and went down and had a meeting. They were hugely impressive guys to meet. Alex [Kurtzman] and Akiva [Goldsman] and Michael Chabon, these are incredible writers. It is an incredible pedigree. Michael Chabon has won a Pulitzer.
Sir Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard and Brent Spiner as Data in Star Trek: Picard season one finale
As for getting into character, Spiner said it came easily:
It took longer for me to get made up than it did to get into character…It was really like riding a bike. I know that is a cliché, but it really was. It just came back [snaps fingers] instantly.
Of course in the end, not only did Spiner play Data on the show, but he also was able to play another role, one not requiring hours of makeup: Alton Inigo Soong.
Brent Spiner as Alton Soong
Sirtis didn’t have the time and didn’t want to get back into uniform
Marina Sirtis appeared midway through the first season of Star Trek: Picard, reprising her TNG character of Deanna Troi. The episode “Nepenthe” found Troi retired from Starfleet, and living with her husband (Jonathan Frakes’ William Riker, also retired) and their daughter Kestra (LuLu Wilson). During Saturday’s GalaxyCon panel, Sirtis revealed she had to say no when first offered a part in Picard:
When I did hear about it, I actually had to turn it down because I was doing a play in London. The dates clashed. But, the wonderful people over there at Picard basically fixed it so that we shot out of sequence. I shot my stuff with Jonathan [Frakes] in the middle of a different episode. Everything is streaming now, so they can do that kind of stuff. It’s not like when we were shooting on actual film and shot a month in advance before the show was on the air, it was a very different time. So, it worked out and I am very happy it worked out.
As for reprising the role, Sirtis also said it came back easily, with just one concern:
It was like putting on a pair of comfy slippers, wasn’t it?… I was a little worried about the accent, but then since it had changed so much over the seven years of TNG, they didn’t think it mattered.
The actress was also very happy with the response she got for her work in Picard:
Oh my god! It was like I cured cancer, everybody loved it so much! [laughs] I have never got so many lovely compliments as I did on Picard. It’s lovely. So, was I a hack before and got good? [laughs] Because I am not sure why.
Like Spiner, the Marina had praise for the Picard writers (and the budget):
Why was it so special? It was on the page! When the writing is good. I am not saying anything bad about my TNG, but we were working under the pressure of getting the show out every seven working. Every seven working days we did a show. We were getting rewrites upon rewrites. We were getting rewrites after we shot the scene sometimes. The pressure on the writers on an episodic show that is doing twenty-six episodes a season is very different to ten episodes that you can spend time on. And you have got a lot of money. [The budgets] were ten times what we had. I say it with pride: our cast made a silk purse out of many a cow’s ear on TNG.
Sir Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard, Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi, LuLu Wilson as Kestra in “Nepenthe”
The actress did reveal there was an issue that might have kept her from returning for Picard:
The blessing was that I didn’t have to wear a spacesuit. I don’t know that I would have done it if I had to wear a spacesuit, I have to be honest. Let’s just put it this way. I wouldn’t look as good in my spacesuit as I did back then, because I am about 15 pounds heavier than I was back that. [laughs] So, that was great that I didn’t have to pour myself into a spacesuit…
There was a bit of irony in that comment, as earlier in the Q&A, Sirtis pointed to when Troi started wearing a standard Starfleet uniform in the sixth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation [starting with “Chain of Command, Part I”] as a “big shift” in terms of her character, adding “If you have cleavage in Hollywood, you can’t have a brain. So, when I lost all of that, my brain matter came flooding back.” While happy she transitioned to a standard uniform, Sirtis laughingly lamented on how she didn’t get a customized costume for her, saying “they gave me one of the extra’s [uniforms].”
Marina Sirtis in “Chain of Command, Part I”
More TNG stars headed to Picard
In addition to Sirtis, Spiner, and Frakes, the first season of Picard also featured Jonathan Del Arco reprising his TNG guest role as Hugh of Borg. Star Trek: Voyager’s Jeri Ryan also appeared in a number of episodes as Seven of Nine, and earlier this week the actress said she will be back for season two, which could start shooting in the fall.
Patrick Stewart has recently said he hopes that more of his TNG co-stars will appear in Picard. It has already been confirmed that Whoopi Goldberg will be reprising her TNG role of Guinan in the second season of Picard. And last month LeVar Burton confirmed he had spoken to Picard producers about reprising his TNG role of Geordi La Forge. Burton also said he expects all the stars of TNG to eventually make their way to Picard.
More GalaxyCon TNG to come
GalaxyCon split their original planned virtual Star Trek: The Next Generation event into two, with Jonathan Frakes (William T. Riker) moving to Saturday, June 13th. He will be joined by co-stars Gates McFadden (Dr. Beverly Crusher) and Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar). The livestream Q&A starts at 2 pm ET, followed by one-on-one chats. Tickets for the live stream are $5.00, but you can get a ticket for free using the promo code LIVEFREE. You can also purchase autographs, one-0n-one video chats, and personalized video recordings each of the TNG stars. To purchase tickets to the Q&A and more go to growtix.com.
Marina Sirtis and Brent Spiner at the first of two GalaxyCon TNG virtual panels
Keep up with all the Star Trek: Picard news, reviews, and analysis at TrekMovie.com.
Their rationale makes so much sense. I’m happy they are both on the show. So excited about season 2.
The spacesuit sounds uncomfortable. Maybe I shouldn’t go to space. Earth is where I belong.
I want to go to space!
Well, by spacesuits, I suspect she’s referring to the catsuits that seemed to be standard uni’s for (some of) the female characters.
I never tried a spacesuit before so I’m new to that experience. My dream is to go to Mars. Earth is a shit hole of a planet.
Sign up for NASA and yep.
Good luck qualifying for Nasa with that vocabulary. Try this on for size, life is what you make it. Earth is paradise, if you want it to be.
If you think that language is bad you should hear some of the things the military test pilots that became the first astronauts used to say
Well… In 400 years it will be quite common among the Admiralty.
Yes! And make mars a shithole.
She never wore “catsuits”. Only seven of nine did.
In season one, she did.
She’s frequently called the standard TNG uniform (which she wore in the final seasons) a spacesuit.
Weirdly enough, in a way the best Troi for me is still season 1 Troi. There was a bit of an ASMR vibe in her voice. ;) It seems they miked her closer or did something with her audio in post, but it was also her performance, I believe. Sure, her character was way better in later seasons, but I always thought there had been a bit of magic to her in season 1.
There ist a lot of weird, odd and strange vibes in season 1.
I started to love the first 2 seasons as something very different but super compelling.
These seasons feel way more dark in its tone and the odd ways of portrayings like troys surely help creating that unique vibe.
The first two seasons are my favorite of TNG (always the odd one out, ain’t I :D) They were the purest TNG in tone and before TNG centered more on space politics and character soap opera (not to forget lost family members). People forget that the last seasons of TNG are probably closer to DS9 than to these first two seasons, which encapsulated that sense of wonder and danger of space like only TOS did before, and no other series did since then. Here’s hoping for Strange New Worlds!
Seasons one and two also had most of the very worst episodes of the series.
I agree. I rated all of the episodes for all 7 sevens and most of my favorites were in the later years. It seemed like they hadn’t established the tone of the characters and the scripts until season 3.
The thing is, it really shouldn’t have taken them 50+ episodes to get it down. There’s just no excuse for that. And those first two seasons were just plain awful. I think it got ratings only because fans were interested in new Trek no matter how terrible it was.
The first two seasons of TNG had a lot of mind fuck stories I really loved. Great scripts and out of the box thinking.
Later seasons were a bit watered down.
And I loved those uniforms more than anything later shown – the cast didn’t because they had to stay in shape :-)
A lot of that also has to do with the music, I think. Seasons 1 and 2 (or when did it change?) had a real soundtrack, whereas later seasons had those (I forgot the term) small bits of music that were constantly reused. Which is fine, but the real music in the earlier seasons gave it a much different feel.
I heard they wanted in but someone else didn’t want them in. Also we need a Titan series not this other garbage we are getting thanks.
…in your opinion. You don’t speak for everyone.
You heard? LOL – give me a break
Sorry dude, but I am not buying that you are the “Woodward and Bernstein of Star Trek.”
Warning for rumor-mongering and gatekeeping.
Thread closed
Well I’m glad they both ended up being in it! They both said they wanted to be, for Sirtis it was just a scheduling issue but glad they could work it out. Spiner has made it clear for a long time now he was done playing Data but I guess it was kind of a Nimoy thing and they convinced him to do as long as they killed him off….again. ;)
But we all know Frakes arm didn’t need to be twisted lol. That guy probably showed up at Kurtzman house with his TNG uniform on begging if he can play Riker again on the show he’ll direct the next five episodes at a discount.
But excited to see where season 2 will head. We already know a few TNG characters will come back but I still hope they squeeze in a few Voyager and DS9 spots as well. But there will probably be plenty of time for that in future seasons too.
I wish they would have done some kind of de-aging CGI for Data in Picard. Obviously Spiner has aged / gained weight, but Data shouldn’t. Just didn’t look right to me.
They have done VFX work on Data to make him look more like he did in Nemesis. Obviously it wasn’t fully successful but it’s not that they didn’t try.
They clearly had FX work done to him in the first episode. I think they just didn’t have the money to do it again in the finale.
Yeah I agree with that as well. I liked seeing Data at the end but he clearly didn’t look like his old self. My only guess is they didn’t have the money to CGI Data like the first episode. But Spiner was amazing in it at least!
even then the CG was just wrinkle removal, he still had chubby cheeks. it wasn’t like The Irishman where they built new CG faces from the ground up based on archive material. which would’ve looked a lot better but obviously would’ve probably cost more than the entire show’s budget. but it would’ve allowed him to not wear any makeup as well, which he says he had to do for this.
Someone on YouTube improved the work on data.
https://youtu.be/0UdUt-bmaAo
Exactly that, as an android he can’t age, and shouldn’t. I think data is a good character, he is a nicer being than Spiner.
In other words, the initial financial offer to each wasn’t that great, so CBS had to “sharpen their pencil” with increased $.
Strange New Worlds is the true essence of Star Trek. CBS is starting to realize that.
I agree, but if it’s the same group of writers that we’ve been getting we can forget about it being any good.
While I’m glad SNW is going back to what Star Trek is about I was hoping the next Star Trek series that boldly goes would be set in the Picard era.
That’s a willful misrepresentation. Sirtis clearly stated that there was a scheduling conflict. The producers of Picard changed the schedule to accommodate her.
Sure, I didn’t mean to imply that the schedule issue had to be worked out — but for the other reasons for her and Spinner, I would bet my house that they and their agents brought up those reasons with the initial financial offer, and then the offer got raised before they signed.
The only concern Sirtis mentioned (besides scheduling) was that she didn’t want to wear the uniform again. She didn’t wear the uniform. So again, yours is a baseless accusation.
LOL — relax, it’s my conjecture, Counselor, based in reading a lot about how the Hollywood negotiation process over the years.
Any considering that Sirtis lied last year when asked if she would be in Picard (and I get why she needed to do that – no problem, Marina), I really take what she and other actors say about anything related to negotiations with a grain of salt.
You are naive if you think that actors don’t posture or pretend disinterest as a negotiation ploy…and I would do that in their position myself — I get it.
Methusalah, you have NO basis on which to make such a libelous statement.
You do realize Sirtis lied about not being involved in Picard last year, right?
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
This is the way Hollywood works. It’s nothing negative on Sirtis — she and her agent have to play the game, and I would bet her agent and here used those reasons she gave in the article to get the price upped. Same with Spinner. They are not getting many gigs these says, so of course they need to maximize their Trek gigs when they get them.
She says “spacesuit” when she means uniform.
Cast called them that going WAY back. I remember reading an interview with Elizabeth Dennehy from BOBW where she described the uniforms/costumes that way, and being surprised, but figuring it was a guest star. Then later it seemed everybody referenced the regular wear in that same fashion.
If anyone’s got the right to call them “spacesuits” it’s the people who wore them.
But they are not space suits, they are uniforms. A space suit encloses the body completely, so it is protected from the environment of space.
yeah Mulgrew called it a spacesuit too in various interviews. it always sounds a bit odd to me but I guess that’s what the costuming and other production on set called it.
Man, I wonder if they saw a different show than I did.
Picard is by far the least Trek of the Trek shows, with a derivative story, stolen from Mass Effect and a horrible crew and unrecognizable Star Fleet.
The only good points were the cameos by Trek alumni, but that’s definitely not enough to save this wreck of a show.
That’s a bit rude of you to say. Picard wasn’t too bad. I agree that’s not your average Trek show but whatever. It did have a Mass Effect vibe going on.
Starfleet is not the knights in shining armour of Star Trek. Even the Federation itself has blemishes it wants to hide from outsiders. Yeah the cameos were a special treat for sure.
I don’t agree with your vitriol.
A voice of reason. Personally,I like the show.I like that unlike TNG, it doesn’t present Picard as infallible. No one is.All heroes have flaws.I’m convinced that the incessant whining by some fans about Picard and Discovery is because they just refuse to take off the rose colored glasses. It isn’t 1966 or 1987, the world has changed and Trek with it.If you look at all the most popular and critically lauded shows from the last 15 years, the protagonist was never some perfect person that always made perfect choices,but someone that struggled. I love that Picard shows Jean Luc struggling with his decisions and wrestling with his conscience. Likewise,the characters on Discivery. I hope Trek never goes back to the days of “perfect” captains and officers that never had a moment of emotional struggle or regret. That isn’t human.
Interesting point and I have a feeling that this is the same reason why they can’t really make the Superman character work in the modern context. As a flawless hero he became a bit too perfect so they had to turn Superman darker to “accommodate” the modern tastes. The same thing is happening with Star Trek and as I love the Christopher Reeve Superman films for their optimism, the same feeling I had for the original series and TNG are now sadly gone. This is the reason I don’t enjoy the modern incarnations. While the point your are trying to make is correct in the sense that this is how modern entertainment works, I believe we need to keep the optimistic and “unrealistic” elements as you put it alive so we can have characters to look up to.
It would have been better had Picard’s convictions proved to be wrong. I didn’t see him struggling with those. Only with closure regarding Data. That is hardly “infallible”.
Many of the complaints against SH Trek is not that it is not TOS or TNG. It is because it is just badly done.
Yes, things change. Personally I endorse changing things up. But aid changes don’t matter if they are badly done. But I’ll repeat what was said before. You can’t have progress without change. But not all change is progress.
Rude? Virtriol? Are you kidding??
It’s not rude at all. It’s his opinion and he has the right to state it. You disagree. So do I. But it’s not rude just because you don’t agree with it, and the only vitriol was in your reply to him.
It’s not a bit rude, it’s an understatement. Picard was ten looooooong hours for a story that could and should have been told in two hours.
Agreed but be careful with that opinion… It seems they are deleting comments about not liking the show.
Only opinions that praise this illogical badly written lore ignoring show. God… It was just so bad. I wanted to like it, my wife and I watched every episode and were bored to death 98% of the time.
While she was bored I was getting angry at the bad science, ignoring of established lore, characters that made no sense and sooooo much more.
I have said many negative things on this site about every show at some point, especially about Picard and Discovery…has never had one single thing erased, ever. It’s not what you say its HOW you say it and how so many people get into trouble here.
True… One thread here was closed. Be careful on how you say it around these parts.
Yeah the people who get warnings or outright banned here rarely has anything to do with their opinion and more to do with how they talk or deride others who don’t share their opinion. Or if they just come across as a jerk or a bully.
Plenty of people have gotten banned who both loved and hated these shows. In fact most people I can think of personally who were banned were actually Discovery fans, so that says it all. People who think TM only wants ‘positive’ views heard on this message board clearly hasn’t been on it long enough.
He had a point but I digress. Picard was alright. It was descent. Not a home run by any means.
This is the illuminaty oppinionBot.
Your comment has been deleted.
From now on only you can see it. To avoid further conflict with our superiority, please adjust your opinion to mode epsilontetra23.
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….
Seriously…. Every Post has Tons of negative comments towards all kinds of trek….
and you still come up with this bullshit about how it Seems that they are deleting negative Response and that Only positive opinion is allowed.
Bullshit… Or you Do this on purpose and straight out lie for some Kind of Agenda.
Anyways… Bull shit
Agree with Tiger2. It’s how respectful a post is, whether positive or negative, that dictates whether something is deleted. Respectful critiques of any of the shows from TOS to Picard seem to be just fine. When it starts to drift into personal attacks or questionable or dare I say hateful posts, that is when TM seems to draw the line. Even I have had some of my posts deleted because I occasionally “lose it” when posting something and that is fine and more than acceptable. Overall I think they do a great job moderating the site so that it remains a useful place for fans to share their ideas and critiques about the franchise we obviously all love.
I havent watched the new series but Im a fan of TNG from the 90’s.
Sure one is free to express their likes and dislikes without being so hateful about it…I would think. Why would someone get that angry about a TV show that’s not even reality or continue to watch something that they claim is killing he and his wife (“bored to death”)…Really??? Just shut it down and find something else to view or do with their time…something that brings them joy.
Agreed. 30 years of Starfleet risking their lives for the safety of the galaxy, and suddenly one random invasion sends them running to hide, tails tucked squarely enough they allowed an entire civilization to be nearly destroyed. Guess humanity stays the same from 2001 to the 25th century.
Yep! Same with Star Wars: YEARS of sacrifice and rebellion, only to overthrow the yoke of the Empire… and your war heroes are forced to fight with another group of rebels overthrowing… something else…? That never was explained…
The war didn’t end with the death of the Palpatine. The remnant of the Empire, all those Moffs all those star destroyers were still there. And, of course, the cursed Sith were still around. Not that hard to take the step, its a small one, could they have explained it better (or at all) certainly.
The sith as a concept was still around. But the according to SW lore the sigt only work in twos. Master and apprentice. Both were destroyed. Of course, that doesn’t preclude the coming of another…
Runs against what you would like to think but I think you have it right, Mankind has not really evolved at all.
Finally someone who knows Star Trek and what Gene Roddenberry.’s vision Star Trek was all about. It wasn’t about grotesque swearing and all this garbage Kurtzman is throwing at us. He is a terrible influence on Star Trek.
Oh boohoo, somebody cussed? Get real, that’s what Real People ™ do. Yeesh.
No its about using the correct language for the scene. “Let’s get the hell out of here.” From City at the Edge of Forever. ST original Season 1 episode 28? Consider the year it was uttered in. At the same time the writer of that episode spent his whole life tossing a hissy fit about how they destroyed his story the way they told it. I love Harlan’s writing but seriously dude, you were writing for tv.
Yes, facts. Picard is a depressing series with aging stars, cheap production values {despite the huge budget!) and acting more wooden than an android. And I’m tired of saying let’s see how it goes next time around.
Oh God that show was horrible and not in the spirit of trek. Roddenberry is rolling in his grave between this and discovery but especially this.
The show was incredibly boring, poorly written with classic bad robot alum science.
They clearly didn’t understand the characters or the show. They ignored tons of established lore and the story and show were full of ridiculous illogical moments, characters and dialog.
Oh and they just took the story from the video game mass effect and crammed it in in the dumbest possible way.
It was shameful and insulting.
Again with the Mass Effect thing, stop. Don’t need to here anymore negativity coming from the likes of you.
I see the thought police have arrived.
The “likes” of you? What exactly defines the “likes” of him?
And some of the stuff you’ve written about politics and vicious ad hominems I’ve read you and others post here… How dare you.
Where are you, moderators?
I never played Mass Effect.
YUP, honestly
“When the writing is good. I am not saying anything bad about my TNG, but we were working under the pressure of getting the show out every seven working. Every seven working days we did a show. We were getting rewrites upon rewrites. We were getting rewrites after we shot the scene sometimes. The pressure on the writers on an episodic show that is doing twenty-six episodes a season is very different to ten episodes that you can spend time on.”
ML31. This is exactly what I was trying to explain on the previous post. Its not the same as before. Its very tough to be a writer. You have a great script and everyone above you change your final draft. Sometimes revisions after revisions. Must be crazy for these people. Long hours at night rewriting for the next day.
Not really sure what you are getting at. Writing in short season series’ can still be crap even when they have nearly all the time in the world to hammer it out. Sometimes, getting rewrites on top of rewrites might be what makes the script better? It just isn’t universal or a guarantee either way.
You are totally right. Rewrites not necessarily improve the episodes. Just talking about their struggles. What thye go through. They have their boss and a lot of people above them making changes, adding things, not necessarily for the fans or the show itself.
i loved picard so much… and more so round 2… she was great and she answered her own question of why everyone reacted so well to her… the writing… i found it funny brent at the beginning of the season kind of signed off of twitter like he was expecting some nast feedback… glad it all worked out. i know you cant make trek fans all happy but many of us loved it
Must admit I enjoyed Picard. Yea saw the Mass Effect bit through it right at the end with the gigantic robot coming through. But it’s star trek meant to be strange plus Star Trek is meant about story telling & less action. Maybe just me.
I’m happy that they had a great time while shooting. Nontheless, I’m not going to watch Season 2. Season 1 was just disappointedly awful, with some few good and nostalgic moments here and there. They used our beloved TNG characters for nostalgic and marketing meanings, only to promote a show without no real substance or relevance to push STAR TREK forward. A great pity.
I certainly won’t watch it until it’s all been released and I can fast-forward through most of it. Picard simply didn’t have enough meat on its bones for a 10-episode series.
That was one of the biggest problems for me too, it simply wasn’t enough going on through most of the season. So weird because with Discovery it was too much going on lol. They made it clear Picard would be more character orientated but you still need a compelling story to keep people engaged.
Maybe we’ll look back at the initial positive fan reaction to Picard the same way 20 years ago we heard Star Wars fans gush over Phantom Menace 😂
The writers on Picard are giving everyone their story, instead of the story the real fans actually want. Kill off Picard, Data, Ejeb, Hugh. And not to mention the needless swearing… Wtf? I just can’t commit to watching another season of this train wreck writing. Kurtzman should find a day job.
I may not appreciate your description of the show being a train wreck but I do understand where your coming from regarding the deaths of Hugh and Icheb. Chabon as talented a writer as he is, did admittedly underestimate the way fans connect with what he thought were minor characters. But this is not limited to Picard’s writers. I for one still do not like the way Generations killed off Picard’s brother’s family on Earth, even if it was an important or essential part of the plot and character development of Picard, just like Icheb’s death was for Seven.
Honestly, I hadn’t thought of Hugh in ages before Picard. The bit that flabbergasts me is that, with really a very small amount of material, the writers did a wonderful turn in bringing Hugh back as a compelling, wonderful character with tons of potential… and killed him off with nary a thought. And yet they were singing the praises of Sadist Barbie, who was a complete cardboard cutout of a villain. (No patch on the actress; there’s only so much you can do with the material you’re given.)
I think that’s my main complaint of Picard. There was lots going on there that I liked, even some bits I loved, but in the end, I felt there was a lot of potential being sacrificed to nostalgia (or God knows what in the case of Narissa and the finale episodes).
Agree entirely with your point about Hugh. I love what they did with him, only for him to be killed rather senselessly. I get that not every character we know and love needs a heroic death, but it should matter to the story. Hugh’s really didn’t.
“Needless swearing… wtf” If only your irony was intentional!
Look, TOS was a brilliant idea that nearly failed because it was so bland. People aren’t perfect, not even heroes. They make mistakes, they (horror of horrors!) even cuss once in a while. And that makes the characters even more interesting and relatable.
Promise I’m not trying to troll, but I had a laugh when you complain about killing a character whose name you don’t even know (Icheb, not “Ejeb”), and then complain about swearing followed by a “WTF”.
When I think of “Picard”, first thing popping up in my mind is people murdering people and getting away with that. The few who don’t get away with that were murdered by people who got away with that. :/
Darn good point!
oh man nailed it. First thing I think of when I think “Picard” is that it’s the Star Trek series where they ripped someone’s eyeball out followed by a mercy killing. The next thing I think of is bad acting.
What about Worf?
Worf could come back but not now.
Worf was the only interesting character on TNG. As such, I’d rather he not ever show up in Secret Hideout Trek until they are able to churn out a better product.
You keep mentioning secret hideout, what is that?
Secret Hideout is Alex Kurtzman’s production company. If you watch till the end of the credits you may have seen their logo.
Secret Hideout is Kurtzman’s production company. They have the deal with CBS to produce Trek shows for them currently.
Worf is my favorite character. I’d love for him to be brought into Picard. DS9 really leaned into Worf’s character, and rightly touched on his despair and feeling like a person without a true home. I think that could fit right into Picard, and a natural extension of his character.
It might. If it were handled by more talented writers than Secret Hideout seems to hire. And there’s the rub.
I won’t defend all the creative choices of the show. But I thought that Chabon crushed it. I may be bias, here. I’ve been reading his novels for years, and he is one of my favorite novelists. I see a lot of his literary influence in Picard, which I appreciated.
That said, this show is far too dense for ten episodes, especially given how short several of them are. It needed a little more time to breath into the world they set up.
Picard felt like it was written by committee. The two short Treks that worked best were penned by Chabon. Maybe it would have been better with fewer cooks. I don’t know. But SH has some serious talent issues when it comes to writing and producing. Which is why I have serious fears for Strange New Worlds. Still hoping I am wrong.
Overall I enjoyed S1 of Picard. Of course a few things bothered me, some quite a bit, but very happy to see both Sirtis and Spiner chose to jump on board. Still laugh at Sirtis feigning almost anger at not being asked to take part in the new show when being interviewed last year about the new show. Her acting ability, as demonstrated by Nepenthe, and in real life has continued to expand and grow since the early days of TNG and IMO it was a real pleasure to see her bring back Troi in S1 of Picard.
I’m feeling the same way about Picard S1 DeanH. Thanks for saying it.
And to the cynics on the thread, Sirtis’ priority on her commitment to a one woman show, that was basically written with her in mind, shows her commitment to continuing to grow in her craft. She’d been promoting the project on social media for nearly a yet. The logistics were obviously challenging : as it was she flew out almost right after closing night of the play in London.
What kind of credibility would she have had if she ditched her commitment for a single episode of Trek?
Sorry, but I don’t feel any loss here, because CBS is now controlling this franchise and using hacks like Alex Kurtzman and Akiva Goldman totally sucks! I will fondly remember “STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION” in its original body, and Stewart hit rock bottom after “LOGAN”, so I don’t feel any loss over “PICARD”, and Kurtzman is a blatant plagiarist who has made a career out of using other people’s works with his dull ass remakes, and without Rick Berman at the helm, the material is not the same! now, if they got John de Lancie back as “Q”, that would be interesting, but at this point, with hacks and plagiarists running (and ruining) this franchise, I’ll pass and stick with the original TV shows that did their “tour of duty” in the 1990s! Brent Spiner and Marina Sirtis have better things to do, so it’s no love loss if they bail on this CBS show.
Logan was excellent bro, granted Act 3 was weak but up till then it’s one of the better x-men movies for sure. I was surprised by all the pathos on display, not something you find in everyday comic movies.
Marina used to be my favorite, then i saw her political views. Sorry, wont support the ‘elite’.
Just a respectful suggestion. I have some friends who I love and respect, but also have completely different political views that I do. Nobody is correct all of the time and I know that I can learn from their opinions, just as much as they can learn from mine. Opposing political views is such as important part of what makes democracy work, when we start to forget that – that is when the system starts to let us down. IMO when the political party I don’t support doesn’t have strong and thoughtful leadership – that is bad for all of us.
DeanH our country is divided so much it’s really sad. America is literally ripping itself apart.
American democracy is rigged, don’t care about politics anymore to be honest with you.
Just patiently waiting for the election in November.
its rigged but you are waiting to vote in November? lol? wut?
True enough. I personally do not care to hear actor’s spout politics and actively go out of my way to avoid hearing their opinions no matter what they are. But when I do hear them I just don’t let them stop me from enjoying their work as actors. I’m perfectly able to differentiate the two. I don’t care what actors think when it comes to anything beyond their professional craft. Often it is not well thought out anyway.
Your political views is none of my business. That’s your opinion and okay. I got other things to worry about.
I want thoughtful leadership in this country but we are not getting that. Vote in the upcoming election. Democracy is hanging by a thread.
Protests are going on all over the country because police officers kill people. Just another respectful suggestion.
If both parties have good, thoughtful and respectful leaders, then that keeps things strong and accountable. If the leadership is lacking for any of the world’s democracies, then that is when things break down and the electorate is stuck with, how should I say this – less than ideal choices. As we see over history, that is no good for anyone. Anyway for all of my American friends, please stay safe and healthy and let’s hope that positive changes can be made that will help make America a safe and fair place for all of its citizens. LLAP everyone.
So you think only the „elite“ doesn‘t love Trump or the Brexit? That what I think you call „elite“ is what Star Trek stands for. Gene Roddenberrys vision was a peaceful one without wars, where every human being is equal, has the same rights. It doesn’t matter where you come from, what you look like, if you believe in any god or not. In Genes world is no money, no greed. The earth is united, not divided. There is no „my country first“.
you used to be my favorite commenter till I read your post 🙄
People driving cars, buying oil, Smartphones and computers, using the Internet, and maybeee( just a wild guess Here) supporting narcicistic billionaire politicians in White painted cabins and golden towers enjoying golden showers are claiming to Not Support the elite.
Funny
Also if you actually Dont Support the elite than go outside and fight racicsm, poverty and inequality. Because an elite would actually benefit from those three factors, right?
I can see why. Bringing Data back for him to commit suicide?
Troy to eat some pizza while living out on the ranch?
I feel for these actors, had they put this crew in the movie era (and made Troy a Science/Comms/Translator/First Contact specialist) where they had something to do they really could have shined.
“Bringing Data back for him to commit suicide”
Actually if you look at it in a cynical way, most legacy characters brought back were assassinated by the writers in SOME way, because that’s the cool and edgy thing to do now. I suppose our Pulitzer God would call it “deconstructed” ;)
Maddox got murdered.
Icheb got tortured to death (in glorious technicolor!)
Troi and Riker lost their son due to the corruption of the Federation.
Seven turned into vigilant who murders people for revenge.
Data killed off for good.
Even Picard. Picard resigned “by accident” and lost the last 15 years of his (biological) life to sulking in the vineyards.
What a glorious fate for all of them, exactly what we needed in these dire times!
;)
The thing is this seems to be an unfortunate trend in entertainment these days. The new bunch of writers and producers think themselves so entitled that they just seem to want to completely destroy what came before to create a “new and better” version of that product. Look at what they did with the legacy characters on Star Wars, or Ed Furlongs version of John Connor in the last Terminator film. Star Trek is unfortunately no different. The only people who seem to appreciate legacy characters these days are the guys on CW who put them to good use on their superhero shows.
They dont just feel entitled they literaly are.
In the other Handys, Fans are not.
A simple truth if you like it or not. Your love for a TV Show doesnt entitling you for anythingbut when you wign a contact to create a Show… You actually have to Do this.
So you have to kill off or maim legacy characters, just because you are entitled to the TV show? Seems a bit egotistical if you ask me.
But was Hugh or Icheb a “legacy” character?
Why? When you are a creative your job is to be creative Not to Do what some people want.
it would be the antithesis of being creative.
Thats Not egoistical, its your Job.
And you dont have to like it, thats your freedom.
Or is it egoistical of you to dislike a writers Hard work?
True they found a way to kill everyone. It was a slaughterhouse of a series, to say nothing about how badly it butchered the franchise itself
And I even forgot to mention Hugh, who was ALSO killed off, for no urgent narrative reason whatsoever (giving Seven a motivation for another revenge kill? One character assassination serves the other I guess ;) It’s impossible not to notice a pattern here.
I had no issue with knocking off Hugh. I had forgotten he even existed. The problem I had was the entire Borg thing really had no place in this story at all. Hugh wasn’t even needed there. Now if the story WAS the Borg reclamation project, I might see a need to involve him. But he was really nothing more than a side show for fans. “Hey… It’s Hugh from those two episodes!”
Yeah the borg felt off.
Hugh was basicly just there to open doors.
“The pressure on the writers on an episodic show that is doing twenty-six episodes a season is very different to ten episodes that you can spend time on.”
And yet, the RESULT these writers delivered back then, the QUALITY in output, is light years ahead of anything from the Kurtzman shows, so far. Sadly! Could it be that all these limitations they were working with, especially regarding budget and shiny SFX, actually supercharged the writing? In comparison, ten times more money and ten times more time to work on each episode (not to forget ten times as many executive producers…) isn’t doing them any good now.
Precisely. Having all the time you need does not guarantee the final product will be good. Sure, there were a lot of dog TNG episodes. But there were a number of good ones. How many good episodes has SH Trek made in 3 seasons? I would say 1. 1 out of some 36 or so. Tell me again how streaming produces better stuff than networks with 20+ episodes in the past?
I agree that picard isnt the Best written Show ever but the count of executive Producers says nothing about quality too.
And comon… At least they try. They actually create content.
When i Look at Harry Bücherl(nerdbotic or what his channel is called) or what is name is. This guy is just sitting in Front of a camera and rambles about TV-Shows He dislikes.
At least kurtzman and goldman and chabonman and all These people doing something for the money.
I thought Picard really disappointed on a lot of fronts. Patrick Stewart was far from his best and seemed to overact/force a lot of the dialogue/scenes. The interesting bit of the story line didn’t involve any of the classic characters. The new ship with it’s new crew seemed out of sorts and I just felt the writers were trying too hard to humanise them. I’ll more likely skip the second season than watch it tbh.
Yup, Sir Pat is better on Twitter than on the screen at this point, still love him to death though
So, so wish the creative team hadn’t been successful in recruiting Patrick Stewart…
And Sirtis’ “accent” for Troi: it’s so odd and barely an accent, yet when she doesn’t do it and just speaks like herself, it’s so noticeable.
It’s the oddest “accent” in Trek, for sure. It’s just odd.
Haha since she is playing an alien, I guess the accent can be whatever she decides it should be and it definitely should be odd for sure.
Good point, the accent doesn’t really matter.
Honestly I didn’t know she had an accent.
I have the full live stream recorded on my YouTube channel, danwat1234.
I’m an original TNG fan who has not seen any of this rehash. I won’t pay to watch a few CBS shows on the Internet. Star Trek sold out its fans.
It was a decision by CBS since they needed something to prop up their weak streaming service (which I doubt hardly anyone here would even care about if Star Trek wasn’t on it). And look you can certainly not like it, but this attitude is turning into a losing battle frankly. The reality is the TV medium in general is just shifting. All the biggest genre franchises out there are turning more and more into streaming because everyone realizes thats where the future lies and competition is happening. From Lord of the Rings to Star Wars to DC all have futures on streaming.
And lets be more honest, its no way we would be getting 5+ shows if this was running on CBS. We may have gotten Discovery and Picard for the first few years but I doubt anything beyond that and I highly doubt they would spend as much as they do.
Like you said, streaming is the future.
Dont you dare to debate with Steve…. He is an original tng fan.
We saw the first episode of Star Trek and were disappointed when it got cancelled but then, it came back followed by STTNG and that’s the kind of world we would love to live in. A world where you can eat anything you want including, but not limited to, bacon! and it’s healthy for you. You can drink “alcohol” as much as you want and vacation in a holodeck. The transporter though..hmmm. I have a Lt. Barkly feeling about that, not really fond of having myself scattered into a gazillion pieces only to re-assembled at another spot but, then again, with my bad back, they can pull a Lt. Worf on me and put in a whole new spine! Grow new kidney’s with a pill!
All fantasy and unthinkable things but nicely done. In regards to both actors playing their roles in Picard, excellent job! Well done! For us, it was like having never left the series, we just took a long vacation.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$MONEY$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Come on tis be the only reason.
Sure and other TV Shows are made because its Art and they dont care about money.
You propably go to work for free because you like humanity so much. Suuuuure
They should have turned it down.
Picard isn’t just the worst “trek” show ever made.
It’s one of the worst television productions of this century.
Mumble Mumble… Worst trek ever…. Mumble Mumble…. Nothing to say…. Mumble Mumble… All is shit…. Mumble Mumble… Real Fans…. Mumble Mumble…. Mi Mi mi
Marina sirtis is an under-rated part of ST:TNG. Her character never had the purview to do something really aggressive or courageous. Personally I would rather see Geordie or Worth instead of Riker on this reboot.
There was nothing underrated about Troi. I won’t go so far as to say she was completely worthless. There were rare times when her insight helped. But for the most part, she did nothing but provide verbally what as already painfully obvious. There was no need for her to be on the bridge. She should have been on Crusher’s medical staff. And been a day player. Only appearing when such skills were needed story wise.
Agree to disagree. I love Troi and was glad she was in every episode. I mean what did Uhura do outside saying a few lines every episode. I still liked seeing her as much as possible.
OK. You liked the character. That’s fair. But unlike Troi even though she (and the others on the bridge who weren’t Kirk or Spock) didn’t have much to do from episode to episode Uhura actually performed a needed bridge job and it made sense she was there. The ship’s shrink really had no place on the bridge.
Ähm… Cousleing is indeed needed on a spaceship!
Also… Her Romulan Episode!
Maybe. But it’s NOT needed on the bridge. And even if her Romulan episode was good that only supports my position that she should not have been a regular. Only someone who shows up as needed. She shouldn’t even be on the Sr. staff. She should be one of Crusher’s staff.
No. Like many of fans of star trek, I find the dystopian future a real kick in the guts to watch. What on earth have they done to Picard and the vision of Starfleet? Discovery too.
If picard is a dystopian future to you, what is blade runner?
We had an Episode in TNG were one Planet created drugs for another Planet and than refused to deliver. In one scene we literaly Heard an entire Planet suffer from a cold Turkey.
But Sure, banning synth and saying fuck is… Dytopian.
Lol
Thank you all for your dedication to the craft and franchise!! It’s truly appreciated….