posted
Not gonna lie, this was an awesome season premiere. Then again, I thought last season's premiere was pretty awesome, and... well...
We seem to have had a time jump of several years, but couldn't quite nail down exactly how long.
Picard's back at the chateau.
Not only is Laris back, but she's been promoted to main cast! AWESOME!
Zhaban's dead?! BOO!
Picard and Laris seem to have developed feelings for each other following Zhaban's death, but Picard is holding back.
Elnor's now a Starfleet cadet, which gives him something to do (hopefully).
Seven of Nine has been given La Sirena for use in her Fenris Ranger-ing. She fighting some goons who are trying to steal her supplies... and one of them taunts her by calling her ugly. Dude. DUDE. It's Seven. She's hot, Borg implants included.
Soji and Jurati are at some function with a bunch of Deltans. Those who were saying Jurati got off too easy with killing Maddox will be pleased to hear that she her trial had just ended (not guilty by reason of having the Admonition shoved her brain by Oh). It also seems that Jurati and Rios have broken up.
Speaking of Rios, he's back in Starfleet and is now captain of the new USS Stargazer. An anomaly has been detected, and with Jurati back on board, goes to investigate.
Musiker's also back in Starfleet, posted to the Excelsior (I'm assuming a new one) to keep an eye on Elnor.
The Stargazer arrives at the anomaly at the same time as La Sirena. Rios is horrified at how beat-up his old ship is. Jurati determines that a signal coming from the anomaly is a bunch of voices saying "Help us, Picard."
Picard goes to visit Guinan. Guinan reveals that El-Aurians can age if they want to, since obviously Whoopi Goldberg isn't actually ageless.
Picard is enlisted by Starfleet to go to the anomaly. The full message sent also includes a wish to join the Federation. When Picard responds to the message aboard the Stargazer, a ship exits the anomaly. A Borg ship. Some weird Borg ship we've never seen before.
A fleet of ships arrives to face the Borg. And this is where things get kinda weird. On the one hand, we don't have a copy-and-paste fleet of Inquirys. YAY! On the other hand... We've got got some ships from Star Trek Online. Don't get me wrong, I love STO, but I feel like this is kinda lazy having to bring in ship classes from a video game.
The Borg Queen beams aboard the Stargazer... and this is not like any Borg Queen we've seen before. Not even in the trailers. She's got some helmet and cape on. Why do I get the feeling that this Borg Queen is NOT the one we're expecting? She easily starts taking control of the Stargazer because its been built using technology reverse-engineered from the Artifact cube.
Okay, so I lost track of how many times Rios ordered his crew to stop firing... and yet they kept firing. What the heck?
Picard initiates the auto-destruct, and when the timer reaches zero, everything goes to white.
Picard awakens back in Chateau Picard, except things are off. Laris is gone, and there's an android tending things instead.
And then Q makes his appearance. MinutiaeMan gets his wish as Q momentarily appears de-aged. It's not a terrible effect, but could be better. Fortunately, it doesn't last long, as Q notices Picard has aged, snaps his fingers, and is now present-day John de Lancie. So good to see Q again, no matter how bad this season might turn out.
-------------------- "Kirito? I killed a thing and now it says I have XPs! Is that bad? Am I dying?"
-Asuna, Episode 2, Sword Art Online Abridged
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
I'm pretty sure everyone figured they'd do the de-aging thing at first. Guinan explaining her aging as something her species can choose to do felt like lazy writing.
I'm just glad they didn't use the Ctrl+P Fleet again.
New Stargazer looks pretty awesome, inside and out.
-------------------- I'm slightly annoyed at Hobbes' rather rude decision to be much more attractive than me though. That's just rude. - PsyLiam, Oct 27, 2005.
Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
Very promising. Especially because the whole “road not travelled” theme will apparently take some very personal angles for Picard himself.
Based on the aside mention, it sounds like the Borg really *were* seriously crippled by the events of Voyager’s “Endgame.” Interesting, and kinda satisfying to at least have some extra meaning to that story with Future-Janeway. (“Admiral Janeway” isn’t specific enough anymore.)
Musiker isn’t on a new Excelsior, I’m 99% sure that was the NCC-2000 itself! We saw the Excelsior-class Excelsior join the fleet, and there was also the readable display at the Academy which showed the ship name and registry. That suggests to me that it’s kept in reserve as a training ship.
And if that’s true, then Picard’s old Stargazer is also in service as a training ship, because that was pretty clearly seen on a display.
But WTF, Starfleet, sending a 110-year-old cadet ship to fight the Borg?! I don’t care if it’s part of a fleet, that’s still crazy.
(While I’m nitpicking, why are they assigning first-semester cadets to immediately ship out? I shouldn’t they get some classroom training first before they learn in the field?)
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
| IP: Logged
Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
The time jump was about 18 months. The crates said 2401 on them.
So, thoughts.
• PICARD, GET THAT ROMULUSSY. Seriously, I'd smash Laris.
• NICE HAT, KIDDIE PICARD. Also, Mom's too tall. No way she shrunk that much...unless she's got those Asian grandma powers.
• Picard having a shitty abusive childhood is not cool. In fact, the more I see, the more this is not Picard, it's just Patrick Stewart.
• New shield configurations. Saw it on that Akira. Also, all these ships are ugly as fuck, including Stargazer. I don't play STO, but everything I see there is an abomination. I hate how these shows just throw everything into a robocoupe & buzz it all up together. Also, they canonized the Luna design, so Titan was 80102 in 2379, but Stargazer is 82893 in 2401, so only 2700 ships in 22 years? After a war? NO.
• Four pips, so he's a full admiral. "Chancellor" of the Academy? Not commandant?
• "Ugly Borg face"....dude, you look like Bane bought off Wish.com. I like Emmet still speaking Spanish & Seven understanding it. I liked how the therapeutic part came off like the Doctor a bit.
• So much for phasers looking like tools. I hate gun phasers, Disco's & these. Also, "phaser bullets" are stupid as fuck. Bring back the beams.
• Admiral Sally Whitley is played by April Grace...who was Transporter Chief Hubbell on TNG. After she was cast, they should've changed the name to Hubbell to get that Sonya Gomez effect. Also, an AGT-style commbadge!
• Guinan honestly serves no point to this. That whole scene could be cut with no loss.
• Loved the line about being late in the transporter age.
• Why is Soji courting Deltans? Why can't Agnes bonk one? Does she not know? Why are they attached to Rios' ship? More to the point, why is suddenly everyone back in Starfleet & seemingly all hunky-dory now? And why is Elnor being Romulan such a big deal? After Worf & Nog & presumably others, who cares? Also, Spock being "one of the first Vulcan cadets" is an idea I've had for ages, that he & others were the first to join the Academy rather than have been around since Starfleet's creation.
• Doc Ock Borg Queen? Why is there a need for one? Borg are unnecessary here.
• Auto-destructs start at 10 seconds now? Anyone can activate it? Also, 000 destruct 0 returns!
• That painting looked like Gurney Halleck, which was cool. That android looked like Jack McBrayer, which was not.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
| IP: Logged
Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: Musiker isn’t on a new Excelsior, I’m 99% sure that was the NCC-2000 itself! We saw the Excelsior-class Excelsior join the fleet, and there was also the readable display at the Academy which showed the ship name and registry. That suggests to me that it’s kept in reserve as a training ship.
And if that’s true, then Picard’s old Stargazer is also in service as a training ship, because that was pretty clearly seen on a display.
But WTF, Starfleet, sending a 110-year-old cadet ship to fight the Borg?! I don’t care if it’s part of a fleet, that’s still crazy.
(While I’m nitpicking, why are they assigning first-semester cadets to immediately ship out? I shouldn’t they get some classroom training first before they learn in the field?)
You sure that wasn't another weird-ass STO ship, or that Obena thing from Lower Decks?
But yeah, sending cadets out all the time is FUCKING STUPID & totally unnecessary.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
| IP: Logged
posted
No, the bow, pylons and nacelles were all wrong for Obena-class. The nacelles were different for a standard Excelsior though. This was probably done so that Eaglemoss can sell another model.
Also, I don't think that the ships on display at the Academy were meant to be training ships. Other ships were Voyager, Enterprise-D, and Leondegrance.
I don't care much for the STO ships. They make sense for the game to give players more visual options, but from an in-universe point of view this concept doesn't work for me. I especially dislike the Ross-class (a weird mesh between Galaxy and Sovereign) and the Sutherland-class (which looks almost exactly like a Nebula).
quote: so Titan was 80102 in 2379, but Stargazer is 82893 in 2401, so only 2700 ships in 22 years? After a war? NO.
It doesn't make sense, because 82893 is an easter egg. 2893 was the old Stargazer's registry. Which leads me to the 3 gold-plated models in the ship's ready room: Radiant-class from the TOS era Constellation-class Sagan-class
Starfleet has issued yet another uniform design. Why do they have to change uniforms every f* season/movie. Blow your budget on something else, please.
Overall, this worked better than Season 1 for me. If I watch Star Trek, I want to see Starfleet not same rag-tag group on an old freighter. I'm not on board with Picard's abusive father storyline though.
-------------------- "Never give up. And never, under any circumstances, no matter what - never face the facts." - Ruth Gordon
Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged
posted
Non, rien de rien Non, je ne regrette rien Ni le bien, qu'on m'a fait Ni le mal, tout ça m'est bien égal
Imagine if your an 80 year old academy admiral and you wake up to this song with Leonardo de caprio and Joseph Gordon-levette trying to implant an idea of staying in your French chateau with the healthy ex-Tal shiar romulan woman with an Irish accent, who runs the house and the vineyard operations?
-------------------- Blaze da finest weed in da shire... I shake my trekbbs at flare.solareclipse.net
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
quote:Starfleet has issued yet another uniform design. Why do they have to change uniforms every f* season/movie. Blow your budget on something else, please.
... I don't know. I can see there being 3 types of uniforms. A "working uniform" like the original DS9 ones. A "duty uniform" like TNG. And of course a "dress uniform" for special occasions. I had 6 different uniforms once, all for different purposes. So Starfleet having multiple uniforms doesn't bother me, but I get what you're saying.
quote:Musiker isn’t on a new Excelsior, I’m 99% sure that was the NCC-2000 itself!
The fact that the original Excelsior is still in service is amazing. I mean, I guess if it's a matter of putting it spacedock to upgrade it's warp core, engines, weapons, and computers... I suppose it could remain in service for...well forever it seems. Which makes Starfleet wanting to decommission the Enterprise-A after only 7 years seem confusing. From what I remember the E-A was originally the Yorktown after getting the movie era refit but renamed Enterprise for Kirk.
quote:(While I’m nitpicking, why are they assigning first-semester cadets to immediately ship out? I shouldn’t they get some classroom training first before they learn in the field?)
Agreed. I get the idea of sending a 3rd or 4th year cadet for a 'semester at sea' to put their training to use. Like, "Ok, you're great on the holodeck where there's no real danger, but now we have to see how you perform when the shit is real and there are no safety protocols."
-------------------- I'm slightly annoyed at Hobbes' rather rude decision to be much more attractive than me though. That's just rude. - PsyLiam, Oct 27, 2005.
Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged
quote:Also, they canonized the Luna design, so Titan was 80102 in 2379, but Stargazer is 82893 in 2401, so only 2700 ships in 22 years? After a war? NO.
Registries were considered "semi-chronological" at best according to Okuda during his TNG days. 2700 ships in 22 years sounds amazing. You know how long it takes to build a ship? I don't doubt after the Dominion War loses there was a huge push to rebuild the fleet. But you're not going to waste resources building 2700 ships without the crew to operate them. "We built 4,000 ships, now hurry up and graduate so we have crews to actually use them.
-------------------- I'm slightly annoyed at Hobbes' rather rude decision to be much more attractive than me though. That's just rude. - PsyLiam, Oct 27, 2005.
Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged
Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
I mean, I've actually written a great deal about how & why you can build a starship is a very short amount of time, AND how to get them crewed, so...
Suffice it to say that you cannot apply present-day limitations to a replicator culture with trillions if not quadrillions of people. When I estimated a 46.8 million-person Starfleet for 2408 in my project, that was actually a fairly conservative number.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by Shik: Also, they canonized the Luna design, so Titan was 80102 in 2379, but Stargazer is 82893 in 2401, so only 2700 ships in 22 years? After a war? NO.
Assuming that registries are chronological and that there aren't a slew of registries with a letter suffix that we haven't seen, this isn't all that far fetched. It took the Federation 84 years to get to NCC-1701 and a further 38 years to get to NX-2000 after all. Admitedly the Federation was smaller then so you'd need fewer ships to patrol Federation space (and presumably fewer new officers graduating from the Academy to crew them), but 2700 ships in 22 years is still 123 new ships a year...which given what happened on Mars isn't all that unreasonable, as it would take time & resources to either rebuild or relocate the fleet yards from Utopia Planitia.
Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged
posted
Here in the UK we built not one but TWO aircraft carriers without any planes to go on them, so…
It’s all a bit too… I don’t know if there’s a word for it. Things have happened not because they make any logical sense, but because they’re cool character moments or further the plot or something.
It’s like making a 3rd or 4th year cadet Captain of the Enterprise in the Kelvinverse. That.
So, yes, there’s a new Stargazer. But it has the same registry but with an extra 8 on the front because… of course it does. Suddenly it’s this legendary ship that deserves memorialisation. Never mind that in between 2355 and 2401 (granted it was recovered in… 2363/4?) no one bothered to do that. I suppose the salvaged original could have been pressed back into service given the Dominion and the Borg and everything…
And Rios is its captain. Because of course he is. I’m not going to quibble about him being back in Starfleet because the circumstances under which he left are so stupid, it’s potentially the most retarded plot point in the entire canon. And Kim Pine is on board because of course she is. And Musiker is back in Starfleet because… etc. Again not quibbling too much because she also got a raw deal. And Elnor joined Starfleet because… well, because that’s what people DO.I was never interested in Jake Sisko but at least his arc suggested that not every character joins.
I don’t think it’s the original Excelsior. I’m sure there were indications of at least one subsequent ship with the name. And is there anything in this episode to suggest this Excelsior is actually the ship seen in the fleet that looks like one - or, to a certain degree of error, an Obena? It may be that Starfleet is introducing increasing (mission-specific?) hybridisation - apparently there were not two but four distinct variants of the Inquiry-class seen in s1.
So. This season is going to be “Tapestry” and “Second Chances” and ST:FC and TVH and “Future’s End” and… Q is going to basically show that the universe is a better place because Picard couldn’t develop or maintain a steady relationship? Are they Mary Sue-ing Picard to be the most important person ever?
the warp nacelle of that starship on the right side (I suppose that this is the ship we are talking about) does not look like the one of an Excelsior class starship to me.
Registered: Oct 2002
| IP: Logged
posted
No, it’s emphatically not. So if that is the current ship named Excelsior, then it’s either a Excelsior class refit or is some sort of Obena variant.
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic
