https://trekmovie.com/2024/03/09/picard-season-2-was-rewritten-after-paramount-deemed-it-too-star-trek-says-ep/
Terry Matalas also clears up some of the confusion around the Jurati Borg.
Click baity headline. Here's the actual quote:
“There were Romulans—there was a whole thing. The idea was that Guinan’s bar was presented as a normal bar in Los Angeles, but if you knew the right thing to do, you could go into the back through the telephone phone booth and that was Rick’s Café and it was a stopping point for all these different species that were actually there on Earth with a ‘Do not interfere’ thing happening. So you had a lot more Star Trek happening in the backdrop of it. Ultimately, the powers that be at that time were like, ‘This is too much.’ But there were some really good ideas there that were pretty cool.”
Sounds like they wanted to throw in a bunch of random alien species cameos that would have done nothing but distract from the plot. Frankly, there's too much of that in Season 2 already. We don't need young Guinan, Gary Seven's team, a Soong, visitors from Vulcan, the Borg Queen, and Q all mucking about with Earth. Pick two to three of those and actually develop them.
Really sad that paramount thinks star trek can be "too sci fi". I hope they don't mess up any more of the new trek thinking like that.
A Star Trek show being called "too sci-fi" is stupid. A Star Trek show being called "too Star Trek" is beyond stupid.
The sci-fi is secondary. What we want, what we crave is character development and smart social commentary wrapped up in a sci-fi package.
TNG was great because it was mostly just commentary on society. DS9 was awesome because it was that with character development and with less rose tinted glasses.
VOY was mostly forgettable because it was just sci-fi plotlines with no real social commentary (other than Berman likes big boobs).
Now what we have is moody lighting, no plot, and what would have been an episode's worth of social commentary stretched out for an entire season with banal messages like "different people aren't necessarily bad".
Voyager is a favorite for a lot of people, so I'm afraid your concept of Star Trek is not a universal one. But I think no matter what your concept of Star Trek is, "too Star Trek" is not it.
To each their own. VOY had good actors with a few good moments. It was, however, packed with "bad guy of the week" episodes that didn't really have any plot other than "how will the crew escape the Borg this time?"
Which is why I say it's forgettable. So many VOY episodes blend together with similar plots and outcomes.
You've summed up a lot of my feelings about Voyager perfectly, I always feel like the black sheep for really not liking Voyager because so many people love it. Other than TOS and TAS (which, let's face it, don't really count) Voyager is my least favorite Trek. And I'm including all the new stuff in that too.
Weird how the times have changed with VOY. It was never hated, but I never saw love for it until long after new-Trek. The argument used to be whether VOY or ENT was the worst lol
I remember a lot of hate. Even Majel Barrett took a shot at it when they had The Rock cameo.
Voy plots are usually pretty mehhh but oh the standout characters and found family i am heeeere for it
You know what fans want? They want Picard to be senile and stupid and to watch Allison Pill eat car batteries!
They didn't say "too sci-fi" though. They said "too star trek" the very thing it is meant to bloody be!
Biggest fumbles in franchise history since checks watch star wars
It's sad to me that the dick jokes cartoon has been the closest modern trek to nail the feeling of older trek.
Paramount seems to think moody lighting, pointless drama, and special effects is all trekkies want.
You sound like the people that hated TNG when it came out. Things change with every new Star Trek. Lower Decks is way more than dick jokes, Strange New Worlds has been fantastic, and Discovery found it's slot in Season 3, and then improved on it in season 4, just like TNG. I'm excited to see what all three shows do with their next season
I've not watched SNW and perhaps dropped out of discovery too soon. S1, 2, and what I saw of 3 wasn't my favorite.
I mean, I gotta be honest, Picard somewhat ruined discovery for me. I get that they aren't the same show but they very much have a lot of the same feels going on.
Couldn't agree with you more on the Picard/DSC take. It's so much forced injected drama it feels artificial. The writing was ALL over the fucking place like every writer was tripping over themselves to make the most confusing show ever - the girl who was gonna suicide bomber herself, Picard's childhood, and Romulan clone overwatcher of great great great Grammy Picard????? None of it made sense.
SNW is very much old school Trek, I agree with other poster feels like what DSC should've been if they had competent show runners.
Lower Decks will sneak up on you. While it is fucking hilarious it randomly will sucker punch you with legit Trek stories and drama you didn't see coming.
I watch some of Discovery and hated it, frankly. I'm a diehard dark trek DS9er, but that ain't it.
SNW is visually opulent and fantastic, it really is what Discovery missed and I highly recommend it. Lower Decks had to grow on me and is now a favorite. Worth checking out imo!
Disco and Picard were both absolute trash. Strange New Worlds is properly Star Trek and really quite excellent.
Discovery was still discovery in 3 and 4, but it had a more solid grounding on what it was going to do given the major shift.
You could make and maintain a whole series on that shift and explore so many interesting things. The cadet spinoff will be interesting if done well.
Not a disc fan myself, but seriously get stuck into snw. Ymmv on lower decks, but snw is solid gold
Hold your tongue until you watch strange new worlds.
You are literally taking one experience and using it to pain all of new trek. At that point are you even a fan anymore?
Strange new worlds has been heralded as a true merge of old and new trek faithfully for years and here you are passing on it altogether based on a few seasons of disco and Picard which are specifically less like old trek. Get a grip or leave. You don’t need to like everything but don’t talk shit about things you’ve not watched
He's watched at least 50 hours of new-Trek, I think that's far more than what's reasonable to judge it. Chill out.
The other comment is a bit over the top, but SNW was basically custom crafted to appeal to people who didn't care for those two. It's brighter (like, literally), more optimistic, more episodic, more grounded in the lore, gives more of the cast room to breathe, and occasionally it's even intentionally silly. I guess if somebody is done then they're done, but complaints from people like them were clearly taken into account when writing and producing the show.
But feels like they can fairly say no modern trek has come close to old trek.
You yourself admit a few seasons of disco and Picard have framed your opinion of all new trek. If you don’t like it fine, but don’t talk shit about things you’ve not watched
a few seasons of disco and Picard have framed your opinion of all new trek
K. I mean, you are correct. I did let the recent trainwrecks from the studio stop me from watching another production from that studio. Are you saying that was wrong of me to do?
SNW is worth trying. It's got a couple of really solid episodes and a few of the characters are great, I'm a particular fan of Mbenga. It still hasn't grown the beard in my opinion, but it's much better than PIC or STD and seems like it could grow one.
The best of new-Trek is actually Star Trek: Resurgence though. It’s a Telltale style game set in the TNG era and gets it. The first act is spot on quality Trek, and the rest is still decent multi-episode finale stuff.
I'll give it a shot. I've been meaning to try it because it does generally come up as being good online. I've just not had the time as of late (and the problems with the other new trek turned me off of making time).
Do yourself a favor and watch SNW. It's the best Trek since DS9. It's a nice blend of different Trek iterations, and reception has been overwhelmingly positive.
I've been watching Trek since the early 90s and SNW ranks in my top 3 Star Trek series. I also have a friend who grew up with TOS in the 70s and never really liked the new Trek shows (for him, "new" means any Star Trek produced after 1969) and he absolutely loves SNW.
Give it a try, watch the first 4-5 episodes and see for yourself. It's really good.
I really did not like Strange New Worlds in the least. There are a few problems with it but the main one is that they are trying to mimic the original series which is frankly impossible to do. What ends up happening is it ends up feeling like a cheap rip off regardless of how much time or money is put into it. You can't just recreate legendary characters and expect an audience to see them in the same light as the original.
I also don't care for the special effects and filming techniques. It feels like they took the JJ Adams movies and removed the good parts. I personally found the JJ Adams movies to be pretty well done even though most people disagree.
It has dick jokes? And Trek? I only made it like ten minutes into the first episode; seemed like it was just one big toilet humour jokey-joke. Not the kind about a toilet, but the kind that belongs in one. (Which makes this comment itself toilet humour! Aha-haa!)
I'm using the term "dick jokes" more to describe the style of humor and less about a specific joke about penises (though, pretty sure there's at least one in there). That is to say, the humor, particularly in season 1, is often crude.
That said, they have relied a lot less on crude humor in later seasons and oddly enough are far more serious than you'd expect from the first season at this point.
Interesting. From what I keep hearing it kinda sounds like whatever "Trek" is, each series finds its way there eventually but it takes a few seasons of something (at least partially) else.
... So maybe I should peek into LD and DSC at seasons three 🤔 And PIC, I hear that one started out rough too. Dunno about SNY and whatever others may or may not exist <.< I actually kinda fled after glimpsing early LD and DSC 😅
DSC has never known what it wants to be, and every season feels like a soft reboot. I've liked all of them enough to watch, but I just don't love it.
PIC S1 was kind of okay, but fell short of what it could have been, and sort of failed by raising the stakes too high in what should have been partly comfort viewing. PIC S2 is the height of "We all hate this; tread water with a time travel story you can film in LA." It's worse than anything so far. PIC S3 is better but it's a lot of gratuitous fan service that feels fun but unearned. There are some good bones for expanding the property, but they need to let Sir Patrick ride off into the sunset and be very selective about which other legacy characters get their own projects.
LD grows beyond the initial elevator pitch by the end of S1, and with the level-set that it's always a bit on the lighter side, it really does come into its own with characters you root for. Very worthwhile if animation doesn't immediately take you out of your sense of immersion. SNW is the one that comes closest to hitting the ground running and feels kind of specifically like Paramount listened to the criticisms of the earlier shows without completely throwing out more modern sensibilities and storytelling.
Honorable mention to Prodigy, which is not trying to be anything other than a kids show, but it knows it's Star Trek, too.
Thanks for the descriptions :3 Maybe I'll get around to re-peeking at DSC, and having a look at some PIC and SNW and maybe even PRO! ... Some day. Eventually <.<; 🤷
Kinda morbidly curious about PIC S2, now. Now I've got this itch like "How bad could it really be?" 😅
I liked the original series, Enterprise and Voyager. Deep space nine gets a honorable mention.
The problem with the new stuff is that it feels like it is trying to be something its not. Everything is overdone which ruins the feel.
ENT & VOY above TNG & DS9 would have been a wild top three before 2009. Weird hit of nostalgia thinking about how much of an argument that would have stirred lol
This might be an unpopular opinion but I mostly liked season 1. It wasn't perfect by any means but I think it did a lot of things right. I never wanted a TNG reunion (I still very much enjoyed season 3) but a story about an elderly Picard who has moved on. He has new friends, new things to do. Because that's life. You don't spend your entire life doing the exact same thing with the exact same people. And a lof of older folks nowadays feel useless and left behind. Giving them a positive role model in TV would have been nice. But unfortunately the writers/producers decided to do one of those end-of-the-universe stories that spans the entire season. That's what dragged the season down for me.
Yup. It was really frustrating, too, because it's pretty clear that they wanted to do a season about trauma, regrets, and coming to terms with loss and life, but they stuck a random existential threat on top of it.
I personally loved season 2, Star Trek IV is my favorite of the movies and the whole thing was a love letter to it, but I know a lot of people didn't care for it. Looks like Paramount might've been responsible for that.
You are definitely in the minority there. It had its moments, but overall I didn't like it.
And I hated that it basically retconned Time's Arrow by having that be the first time Guinan met Picard.
Also-
::: spoiler spoiler Wesley showing up at the end was the worst deus ex machina in the history of Star Trek. :::
::: spoiler Spoiler That Deus Ex Machina also was totally unnecessary, it's like "Hey do you know Wil Wheaton? He played a character in Star Trek. Be amazed and hit by nostalgia, and now shut up!" :::
I'll do you one better: ::: spoiler spoiler It couldn't possibly be the worst deus ex machina in the history of Star Trek, because it has to affect the goddamn plot in any capacity to be a deus ex machina. I'm just not sure what the Latin for "some unmotivated bullshit that comes out of nowhere to tie up the already-irrelevant B-plot" is.
...Which makes it worse, I think, considering that season barely tied up the A-plot. :::