Star Trek - Brave New Worlds

I remember a few months ago lots of positive discussions on here about this series and - I think Picard. We’ve finished seasons 1 and 2 of Picard and have watched 4 episodes of Brave New Worlds.  A bit mixed so far, but we've paid our £17.99 so will plough on. . 

We enjoyed Picard, even if the S2 titles were getting a bit Bond movie (Craig era, not silhouetted girls swinging on his PPK.)  I never did figure out who the people at the slightly CGI’d chateau Picard were - servants, or what?  Oh look, the chateau has been abandoned for decades, but there’s still somehow a working pistol and unopened bottle of wine to be had.

I guess those on the BNW production wanting to keep more of the look and feel of TOS lost the argument early on; at least a red jersey doesn’t quite mean getting zapped within 5 minutes of beaming down. The unspoken problem of the running any ship being a 24 hour concern hasn’t been solved yet either.  

Generally, I like what they’ve done with most of the characters, sassy Cadet Uhura, a more active Nurse Chappell; I miss McCoy - no 1 and the doctor both seem wooden and under-powered.  Where does No1 actually sit on the bridge? She had the Chekhov position IIRC in The Menagerie/ pilot show. 

Good twist with Pike seeing his own death - my wife asks does that make him invulnerable ‘til then?  Otherwise, he’s a Kirk/Picard blend.  You need to get completely away from the TOS/TNG template, as they have with the engineer character. 

Children of the Comet (episode 2 - Uhura episode) got my goat in a few ways. Keeping someone (the doctor’s daughter) in effectively an undead state via a transporter - to bring out whenever you feel like it is staggeringly unethical, not least for anyone in medicine and also made for a lousy reveal.

What I took from the episode was something about how we mostly act on our fears - oh no, the comet is going to destroy the planet - oh no, it isn’t.  I just hope the slightly Star Wars/ Avatar looking people on the surface weren’t drowned.

A strange alien artefact that - oh gosh - responds to music; and there’s super-intelligent Spock on scene, basically saying “sorry, I got nothing”.  Perhaps I have to face up to the fact that the writers may be too young  (and I am too old) to know how unoriginal that idea was, but I’m glad Uhura gets more to do than “hailing frequencies open, Captain”.