Star Trek: Picard launches in three weeks.
Before permitting myself any kind of anticipation (whether positive or negative) for this new series, I first checked the production information related to it. I scanned for three names, the presence of which in the production credits would lead me to question whether I planned to watch it or not.
Those names? Brannon Braga, Rick Berman, JJ Abrams.
Abrams has ruined the possibility of an original series reboot with his terrible, derivative, repetitive and uncreative films. After the first movie seemed flawed but passable, those that followed have been nothing short of awful. That Abrams was then permitted to bring his unsophisticated sensibility to the Star Wars franchise tells us more than we want to know about the problems that currently exist in western entertainment circles.
Braga and Berman have wreaked havoc on the once-revered Star Trek television franchise, with very minor influence on TNG but increasing control over DS9, Voyager and finally Enterprise, dumbing Star Trek down more and more with each ensuing iteration. B&B's insistence on targeting the masturbatory male teen as Star Trek's principal audience (misogynist plots, female characters in skin-tight suits, buddy stories) has turned me off Star Trek so strongly that even a reasonably strong Discovery series hasn't brought me fully back on board.
Thankfully, I found none of those names among the production credits for STP. And so I will permit myself to look forward to the launch of the new series.
I went online and watched as many of the trailers for STP as I could find. I even watched a Star Trek fan website's analysis of those trailers to see what bigger fans than I am are seeing in these trailers.
My plan, at this point, is to use this blog space to write a review of each episode of STP as it comes out. My reviews will not be authoritative -- I have no time nor interest in doing enough research to compete with the depth of knowledge displayed by other ST fans online -- but will more represent my own personal take and response to the episodes as they come out.
From the trailers online I have gleaned the following information (that may or may not prove to be accurate):
- Picard has retired to a vineyard (in France?) as the series opens -- he lives with a dog he has named "Number One";
- Picard is something of a legend on earth;
- Riker has retired and apparently has one or more children;
- Troi is also around although the trailers don't show her and Riker together so they may not still be married;
- Seven of Nine (from Voyager) is now some kind of vigilante, protecting the powerless in an unjust society;
- The Romulans play a significant role in the new series, as apparently do the Vulcans;
- The initial plot revolves around a young woman (Picard's daughter?) who is under threat from someone of something; and
- Star Fleet appears to have drifted away from its laudable principles as espoused in TNG.
From what I can see, Picard is recruited to help save this young women and, in the process, is put back in a position of command over a team of people. The Vulcans, I believe, believe Picard lost track of who he is and what he is capable of -- they remind him and bring him back to himself.
This is new territory for ST as a whole -- instead of being based around a single ship and its crew, it is based around a single person and the team he assembles. A small change on the surface but...
Join me for the adventure.
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