Tag Fake Trek

Star Trek Picard: A Belated Review

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This is really late, and nothing I say here will be terribly original, but I have to be honest.

I hate this show.

Not just because it’s low-quality, but because it actively, purposefully takes a massive dump on Trek and its fans. STD was bad in just about every way besides sfx (and even those often looked bad, but that was art direction, not poor quality), but Picard was worse. The writing is bad, the effects were not great, the directing was often poor, and the story itself is garbage.

It’s too bad, too. The show didn’t exactly start strong, but it wasn’t terrible either. But taking a full 30% of the show on the basic set-up (without leaving Earth) was a bad move, even if that stuff was some of the best stuff in the show (a low bar, to be sure). And that wasn’t even the end of the set-up, either. No, four of ten episodes happened before the adventure proper starts.

And then things go downhill, fast. The entire fifth episode was a joke which feels more at home in a SyFy original than Star Trek (moreso than the rest of the show). That would have been bearable, if they didn’t literally destroy the legacy of Trek out at the end of the episode. And things got even worse after that. With only one sort-of quality episode after the third (unsurprisingly, the one where we get good guest-stars, and the one without the vast majority of the Picard-original characters), the show just goes from one mess to the next.

It doesn’t help that this show feels cheap. Despite being supposedly one of the most expensive shows in the history of television (there are rumors that a bunch of funding was diverted to STD S3, which I can believe), things seem so simple and basic. The space shots are sparse. The sets, especially the main ship set, are cheap. The props are even more out of place than the sets, especially as the show goes on (they literally use a standard, unmodified park table as the “meeting table”). The lack of ship designs in a Star Trek show is atrocious – in any large fleet scene, there are three separate ship designs, even the one time there are two opposing fleets!

Also note the standard, unmodified folding park chairs in the background.

As far as the overall story goes, it’s pretty trash. The initial mystery is fine, if starting with an incredibly dumb premise. Having the two stories, one of the Picard gang, and the other on the Borg ship, was fine in concept, but the execution didn’t work, because the characters in the Borg plot were not the sort that people want to watch: you have an alien ship, in alien territory, with lots of ethical implications as to what they’re doing, and yet that is all just background to soap opera drama.

Actually, that’s a good illustration of the entire show: all this possibly-cool stuff going on, and it’s all merely non-context to poorly-written melodrama. This didn’t need to be Trek: it could have been any modern sci-fi drama if you changed the names. Hell, change it to fantasy, just replacing the spaceships with waterships, and Borg with zombies (that would actually fit the state of the reclaimed Borg better…). Literally the only stuff that requires some knowledge of past Trek is the Borg stuff, and the characters of Locutus, Riker, Data, and Troi. (Maddox and Picard may as well be completely different people.) And as far as the character knowledge goes, the only Trek you’d need to watch was the movie Nemesis – it’s clear that’s the only Trek any of the main writers watched in full (they skimmed First Contact too, for the Borg stuff). All the rest of the Trek references could have been gleaned from wiki articles.

All of that is sad. I had some small hopes for the series at first, but they were all dashed to pieces. It’s dreck, and insulting to fans like me on top of that. STD could at least be slightly excused by being a prequel, but this is a direct sequel to Nemesis, and should have at least been somewhat respectful of that. It was marketed to TNG fans, and yet there’s nothing there for them.

Continuing

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Today’s Blaugust prompt is from JamiesVlogUK:

What piece of content would you most like to have a sequel or reboot?

There are two easy answers for me. The first, as you might have guessed from the top picture, is Deus Ex. That needs another sequel. Or rather, Mankind Divided needs to be finished. Squenix thought they could jump onto the “episodic” game bandwagon, and deliver, at most, 2/3 of a story, with some added multiplayer game modes to keep the players satisfied. This didn’t work. No matter how good that piece of a story game it is, it’s not complete, and this time the players didn’t bite. Which led to Squenix basically cancelling the series. Which sucks, because Mankind Divided was the first Deus Ex sequel to even come close to the first game.

The second is going to be a little different: Star Trek. Star Trek needs to be rebooted. But, you might say, it’s been rebooted once, maybe twice in the last decade or so. True, but it’s all sucked, and sucked hard. Only the first reboot film, in 2009, at least managed to be fun while sucking, which means watching it wasn’t a chore. Maybe Lower Decks can bring back the feeling of real Trek. (I hear the latest episode might actually be decent; the clips I’ve seen are funnier themselves than the last two episodes put together, at least.) But I want a return to form: sci-fi shows set on a military space thingy where the future is hopeful, but weird and dangerous stuff happens. Also having good writing and characters would be good too. We don’t have any of that now.

This is a great image.

Alex Kurtzman Says Something Correct, For Once

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I was reading an article about how Star Trek Picard is no good, very bad, and awful (which is true), and something towards the beginning really stuck out. It quotes Alex Kurtzman, destroyer of franchises, currently showrunning (into the ground) the Star Trek franchise. And, to my great shock, the words quoted actually were true! Just about had a heart attack, I did. So, what did he say? For those of you who didn’t click through and read the article:

If you really want Star Trek to reach people, then you’ve got to start young.

This is 110% true. Star Trek is a dying franchise. Almost literally: the bulk of the fanbase – or at least those willing to spend money – are 50+. There’s a reason the conventions are so expensive. There’s a reason there’s Star Trek: The Cruise. It’s all old folks. I figure I’m at the lower end – and I’m in my 30’s! To avoid the inevitable end of the fanbase, it needs to be replenished. You do have to start young.

Most of those old guys still going to conventions? They started young. Many with syndicated reruns of OG Trek, or with the old movies. People of my generation probably started with TNG. I’ve been watching since I was a baby: my parents were both into it, and were watching TNG as it started. My dad even had (almost) the complete collection of the TOS VHS collection, back when that was really expensive (buying physical copies of Trek shows has always been quite expensive for some reason). I still have some of those Micro Machines ship toys.

HOWEVER, that’s not what Kurtzman is actually doing. When he talks about young, he’s not talking about kids. He’s talking about folks in their 20’s. Adults. You can’t build a strong fanbase out of adults, not for something like Trek. It almost requires starting from very young. That was the thing with old Trek: it was for the whole family. Kids could watch and enjoy. So could their parents, older siblings, and everyone. Modern Trek is for people in their 20’s and older. It’s the exact opposite of family friendly. You can’t get small kids watching and enjoying this. (And really, most adults wouldn’t enjoy it either.)

That’s a big problem with Trek right now: it’s looking for a new fanbase, when what it needs to do is grow its fanbase. Current Trek is not for kids, and it’s not for old fans. The creators actively spit in the faces of old fans, yet don’t create a quality product that will actually get them that new fanbase they’re desperately hoping to get.

And even then, they’re chasing the wrong demo. Trek, like many franchises, lives on its merchandise sales. Have you seen any real STD or Picard merch? Or heck, even the stuff from the most recent movies? No, not really. Certainly not in stores, not even the specialty stuff. I remember being in university, going to Wal Mart, and seeing Trek stuff. No longer. Any merch still being sold is of the older Treks. Companies now won’t even license stuff, since it won’t sell. The old guys with money don’t want it, and the new audience – such as it is – isn’t the sort to buy that kind of stuff. Kids of course don’t want it, since they don’t even know the franchise exists.

So, Kurtzman said the right words, but he didn’t mean them in the right way. Indeed, his idea, as usual, was completely wrong and backward.