Star Trek: Picard

I can't understand why they didn't just get rid of neelix. I really can't.

He was the worst part of the show. And it's not like Harry Kim, Chad the Helmsman, or Chikote were good.

Jerri Ryan looks good in spandex, but the doctor was the only entertainment to be had in voyager. I guess the half-orc engineer was ok too, I liked her.

Harry Kim was so boring that they even made it part of his character lore pretty much.

Coming off of DS9, which probably had the strongest secondary characters of any Trek show (Quark, Garak, Odo...I mean fuck, even the villains like Dukat and Weyoun), Voyager was so bland from a cast perspective.

Tuvok: I mean, he's a Vulcan. Enough said.
Chikote: Zzzzz
Harry: Zzzz
Tom: "Time for 20th century references!"
Neelix: Welcome to Holiday Inn. We serve breakfast at 8am
B'lana: Me angry half-klingon with mommy issues
Janeway: I'm like Picard, but with less Shakespeare and somehow more dull
The Doctor: Literally the best character on the show
7 of 9: Literally the best pair of supporting characters on the show

The biggest issue was you never really felt that most of the characters really grew. Besides the season 1 Marquis shit that was quickly resolved, you never really felt like most of the characters had progressed very much beyond Doctor (who was becoming more and more of a real person) and 7 of 9 (who had the whole rediscovering her humanity arc). I mean, maybe B'lana in the sense she became a more accomplished engineer and her whole relationship development with Tom. But beyond that, you didn't really see the same progression like you saw with characters like Worf or Odo or Quark or Data or Geordi.

Arbitrary said:

The episode where Data is communicating with a little girl on a doomed planet Picard tells Data to cut the communication and is 100% prepared to just nope right the fuck out and let that whole world explode right up until the voice starts asking for help.

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This scenario has basically no similarities to Romulus being potentially destroyed, though, as others have noted the difference between how pre warp and warp capable civs are treated.

Merrith said:

Wouldn't make sense with all the episodes they were trying to help some civilization out from some disaster or another, or advancing a new tech.

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That post is a response to your post here which was part of the larger discussion at that moment.

Lanx said:

didn't they try to make him interesting by giving him an instrument like Riker, but gave him a gay flute?

like was trumpet off the table?

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Unfortunately his videos are all temporarily down but one of the reviewers I've been watching for years now is SFDebris at SF Debris - Science Fiction Reviews and More

He had an idea for Harry that was so good it hurt me to hear. We know that even though they keep Kim on the show that for the rest of the series he only is going to get a single digit amount of times to shine. He's got the episode Timeless (directed by LeVar Burton which helps) in which we see an older Kim in the future doing everything he can to fix a mistake he was responsible for that killed everyone on Voyager. That episode is a high mark for the show and while Voyager doesn't really meet the same ludicrously high peaks of the prior series Timeless is at least one you can throw in to the discussion. It gets extra points in my opinion for taking a character as meh as Harry Kim and using him to crank out one of the best episodes of the series. But for Kim that's really it.

So the idea is this - during the Year of Hell two-parter after the crew of Voyager has to abandon ship Harry is one of the few who stay behind along with Janeway, Seven, Tuvok and I think Torres. At the conclusion when they hit the reset button via time ship super weapon instead of resetting everything you have the temporal shielding malfunction and fail to come down properly in a section of the ship that Kim is in. Everything else everywhere is reset except him. You get to keep a year of character growth in which our bright eyed ensign went though incredible hardship. He also gains a new respect for his fellow crew having seen how everyone held firm despite impossible odds. Their sacrifices may have never happened but nonetheless he remembers them.

Now you can at least try and do something with the character.

Arbitrary said:

That post is a response to your post here which was part of the larger discussion at that moment.

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Sorry, I thought it was implied that the obvious differences of some random child from a pre warp civ that they weren't supposed to be contacting at all and a well known warp capable species such as the Romulans (much like the episodes where they're trying to fix atmosphere issues, deflect comets/astreoids, etc) is what drove Picard's actions towards these situations.

Arbitrary said:

Voyager went no fuck you we're ditching his capable cute girlfriend instead.

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Yeah about that cute part....

Metalhead said:

Yeah about that cute part....

View attachment 246491

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I've heard that part of the reason she got canned was the crazy was already setting in on the show and I'm open to that possibility. I'd still have ejected Nelix.

Merrith said:

Sorry, I thought it was implied that the obvious differences of some random child from a pre warp civ that they weren't supposed to be contacting at all and a well known warp capable species such as the Romulans (much like the episodes where they're trying to fix atmosphere issues, deflect comets/astreoids, etc) is what drove Picard's actions towards these situations.

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The only show that was ever really consistent about the Prime Directive was TOS, and that consistency was Kirk ignoring however he saw fit.

The directive provided guidance on what constituted prohibited "interference" with a society, covering such matters as:
...
Helping a society escape a natural disaster known to the society, even if inaction would result in a society's extinction, unless the society has warp technology and has formally requested aid. (TNG: "Pen Pals", "Homeward", "The Masterpiece Society"; Star Trek Into Darkness)

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Romulans asking for help = Federation is allowed to get involved. If they don't, then get F-ed.

Gavinmad said:

The only show that was ever really consistent about the Prime Directive was TOS, and that consistency was Kirk ignoring however he saw fit.

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And by default, ST: E. Only because the PD didn't exist at that point.

Think the most jarring thing for me with this series and discovery is the infusion of people acting like current day society in the future, know what I mean? It's like that TNG episode The Neutral Zone, when they find three people from earth who were in cryostasis, and the one guy is like a cowboy capitalist who felt was out of place, except it's like they found a bunch of other cryostasis people and woke them up in the new shows. It no longer presents a future where it seemed society had evolved a little at least.

Like that one scene on mars with the worker crew they're all joking around the android like everyday people of today, or the admiral shouting "shear fucking hubris" to Picard, felt a little out of place in star trek, like I suppose I can give it a bit of a pass in places like a mining colony I guess, but it feels out of place in military areas. The Orville can get away with this because it was intended to be more crude from the start, but trek already has a long history of not being presented in that way, and those things jump in from time to time and just slaps me out of the old trek reality.