[David9694]

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”.

Topic

[IanMSpencer]

Discovery became particularly
Discovery became particularly useless with the chasing around after the Red Thing. Illogical plot. Add in really annoying conspiracy theory stuff (I have a real problem with the majority of plotting these days relying on betrayal by the powers that be because I firmly believe it has leaked over into the real world – see MAGA) and it was banal. The S4 reboot was probably a reflection of the total plotting dead end they’d driven themselves into – ST-SNW showed that you can plot with constraints.

[IanMSpencer]

I did the 30 day free
I did the 30 day free Paramount+ trial, ticked off the Star Trek and found there was barely anything else of note on it.

I’m hoping that there will be a Great Merger and we can get back to a couple of services – at the moment I am just rotating between services as we consume anything that we are interested in in a month and then leave the service to refresh. Have Prime because of delivery (and one account shared legitimately across the family) but that would have been binned.

Genuinely close to binning the licence fee based on our watching.

[hawkinspeter]

Andor is the best Star Wars

Andor is the best Star Wars series in my opinion as it’s a lot more grown up than the others. It’s got some excellent performances from the cast – I’m a fan of Fiona Shaw and Andy Serkis was superb.

The Mandalorian is good fun and I enjoyed it, but it’s probably aimed more for teens. Grogu was just too cute to be taken seriously.

[HoldingOn]

I stuck with Discovery until

I stuck with Discovery until they decided try and force the UK to pay for another streaming service to watch it.
I don’t miss it. I found it easier to watch if I didn’t think of it as Star Trek and thought of it as some generic sci-fi show.

I’ve found the Star Wars series more enjoyable. Andor & The Mandalorian have both been good. I am looking forward to Ahsoka, but I’ve liked her character since The Clone Wars series. Ahsoka and Thrawn together are a dream come true for me!

[Secret_squirrel]

The first few episodes were

The first few episodes were high budget TV movie territory but it soon settled down.   The magic drive was a better plot point than permanent fixture (and too much like Voyager). 
Aprt from that it were ok. Haven’t got any further than half way through Season 1 and am inclined to jump to the S4 Great Reset. 

[David9694]

Star Trek – Discovery : Read

Star Trek – Discovery : Read the charges, please

The story’s main protagonist is rather flat, not very believable as a first officer and generally she lacks interest; the supporting cast are better

Prolonged scenes among Klingons with no subtitles; the Klingons all now look like something out of the reptile house; the BBC’s vogons were done on a fraction of the budget and tech

I’m no expert on this, but the writers need to understand how a warship operates – e.g. detection, navigation, weapons – the battle scenes play as though Discovery is a two-seat fighter; gonna say it again, you need a system of watches – a boat is a 24 hour thing and it’s rare for the commander / captain to leave the boat in times of crisis

Too much chasing around in dark corridors 

Oh look, it’s the infinite improbability drive (with a giant dust-mite – its early victims looking like something out of The Thing)

Just a few minor concessions to TOS in terms of look and feel – phasers and triquarters; could you beam someone from location to location not via the transporter room in TOS? I don’t remember it if so. Where are the wall-mounted house ‘phones? 

The opening titles “now, we’ve just mocked this up from some of our early concept drawings” – “I love it – use it”

Not suprised the original captain didn’t last long – she seemed to lack initiative as a leader

[hawkinspeter]

kinderje wrote:

kinderje wrote:

I’ve been wondering about The Expanse – will have to check it out.

Reacher was okay, first few episodes were a bit slow but last three went at a cracking pace.

Think I’m going to try Three Pines on Amazon next – I’ve been told that is very good.

The Expanse is superb – hard sci-fi that has realistic space battles. The first few episodes suffer from poor sound mixing, but it gets better.

[kinderje]

I’ve been wondering about The

I’ve been wondering about The Expanse – will have to check it out.

Reacher was okay, first few episodes were a bit slow but last three went at a cracking pace.

Think I’m going to try Three Pines on Amazon next – I’ve been told that is very good.

[HoldingOn]

Firefly was cancelled for too
Firefly was cancelled far too early – they were only allowed 14 episodes and it’s horrendous they couldn’t do more. They were eventually able to get a movie (Serenity) to close out the story, but a few more seasons would have been much better.
The Expanse almost went the same way, but Netflix and then Amazon saved it. The Expanse is a great TV show too – but the books are even better.
Non-scifi book adaptation – Reacher on Amazon. The series is far superior to the movies. Alan Ritchson is perfectly cast.

[kinderje]

Shhhhh! I’ve never heard of

Shhhhh! I’ve never heard of Firefly either.

Justified and Picard are on Amazon Prime so if you have a Prime account to get your next day deliveries you will be able to access Prime videos.

[brooksby]

David9694 wrote:

Serious question – don’t laugh – how do I access this show, and others mentioned here?
What layer of Hell is reserved for people who’ve never heard of Firefly?

I’m now 100% out of love with what terrestrial TV currently has to offer. We subscribed to Britbox in the lockdown, but I haven’t so far taken the plunge on anything else. Whenever I browse Netflix in a holiday cottage, I don’t see any improvement over Freeview. 

Firefly is on Disney+ (although I already had it on Blu-ray!)  The line about special he’ll is from this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVgbX_YeK-s

Picard is on Amazon

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is on Paramount Plus

[David9694]

“I mean, these men died for

“I mean, these men died for us – frequently.” ( replying to HoldingOn)

context – I’m not really old enough to have appreciated the religious controversy around the release of Monty Python’s Life of Brian.  Not the Nine O’Clock News did a sketch turning it on it’s head, in which Python fans are outraged by the General Synod’s new picture “The Life of Christ.” 
For example, “the lead character, this Jesus Christ, is clearly a lampoon of the comic messiah himself,  Our Lord John Cleese – even the initials, JC, are exactly the same”
The interviewer asks Life of Christ’s director if he had anticipated all the controversy and he smugly opens with this banger  – “well, I certainly didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition” 

[David9694]

Serious question – don’t

Serious question – don’t laugh – how do I access this show, and others mentioned here?
What layer of Hell is reserved for people who’ve never heard of Firefly?

I’m now 100% out of love with what terrestrial TV currently has to offer. We subscribed to Britbox in the lockdown, but I haven’t so far taken the plunge on anything else. Whenever I browse Netflix in a holiday cottage, I don’t see any improvement over Freeview. 

[kinderje]

I watched them on Amazon

I watched them on Amazon Prime, and I think that they’re still there.

[brooksby]

hawkinspeter wrote:

brooksby wrote:

I have to finish rewatching The Prisoner on ITVX first 😉

Which episode order are you using though?

https://www.theatreofnoise.com/2009/02/prisoner-episode-order.html

[Author]

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