Birth of the Federation

A few fans complained about the weird Starfleet HQ 'rooftop cleanup' job & leave Picard on his couch with no questions asked scene jump moment in ep 1 but now we see the Commodore reviewing the battle cleanup footage (questioning it's effectiveness) and discover this fascinating Starfleet conspiracy with secret Romulan sect plot. I remember people in the past getting so upset about the English writing in the Romulan Borg research post but there are a lots of humans there which explains that one.

We see that the Androids that destroyed Utopia planitia were 'hacked' presumably by this secret synthetic hating Romulan faction. And holy moly they actually acknowledged Picard's Irumodic syndrome that afflicted him around now in the alternate future seen in TNG finale All Good Things. I'm impressed with their attention to detail (regarding old Trek events), which makes me hope the writers haven't forgotten Lore & Lal after all.

The only real gaff I saw was Laris saying Romulans never had a cybernetic program which contradicts the awesome TNG S3 ep the defector where Admiral Jarok tells Data that he knows a number of Romulan cyberneticists that would love to get their hands on him. Although then again maybe its not a gaff as we saw Romulan experts pulling apart dead Borg. You cant really study Borgs without some good cyberneticists lol. Probably just more Romulan secrets lol.

Not thrilled about how they continue to make Picard look slow, weak & frail. You watch him on talk shows and he zips around just fine lol! But I love the fact that in ep 3 it appears writers are trying to address one of those funny never explained issues from old trek.

When I was young it always annoyed me how in TNG supposedly a Borg who got his individuality somehow broke a friggin cube and caused a rebellion on it of sorts when assimilating individuals is what the Borg do lol. Voyager & FC ended up adding a lot of info on how the borg worked, how they connect, and made it pretty obvious that assimilating ex borgs (eg 7 of 9, the borg kids, locutus etc) back into the fold wasn't going to break anything lol, in fact they wanted them. Yes Hugh was a Borg test tube baby and not a previous individual unlike those others I mention but it shouldn't really matter HOW they became an individual when you're grabbing someone and pumping nanites into their blood and connecting them to the hive lol.

However it looks like the new trek writers are carving a story where in reality, Hugh went back to the Borg they reassimilated him no probs but then a few hours later on the trip back to delta they found a nice little yummy Romulan intelligence vessel on the way to assimilate, they start 'processing them' and then 'something' goes wrong (Romulan virus? weapon? racial nanite rejection like the Denobulans?). Hugh presumably wakes up and pops out of his alcove again thinking its somehow caused by him (hence why he later tells Picard in Descent that it was his fault), all the other borgs who don't know how to be individuals start goin nuts and they kick off a nice little rebellion which then at some point Lore arrives on the scene and takes control of them and they escape on the light cruiser which we see in Descent (small borg ships inside big borg ships is nothing new). In fact this new obvious Romulan ex-borg fears of Dahj's sister (ie synthetics) could very well be relating to trauma from what Lore did to many of them when he took over things which once again gives me hope Lore will somehow come into this new story at some point. Probably a long shot though haha..

Am I way off.. we shall see haha.

Well things have finally taken off! Enjoying the fact we're back in space.. loved the look of the Romulan refugee colony (particularly in the flashback sequences) with the giant 'world tree' background, although in the opening planet shot I wish we'd seen the Enterprise E approaching (considering they made some interesting modifications to the D I'd be interested to see what they do with the E). Backstory of the Romulan Samurai dude & his history with Picard was interesting, although Picard now walking around with a Elf looking dude that slices off heads feels a bit weird lol, but no doubt they'll be some big fun action bits with him down the track (which will aggravate oldschool trek purists to no end I'm sure haha).

Enjoyed the space battle, sure enough it was a classic 22nd century Romulan Bird of Prey (nice tip of hat to old Trek), retrofitted for lawless system warlord related activities lol. Interesting to see all these different hologram crew member variants captain Chris has. 7 of 9 has arrived! Will be very interesting to see how much they delve into her past and backstory post Voyager return. Also the holodeck stuff explains why she's in Patrick's 'home' in the trailers. I know people were complaining/making fun of the Picard sword scene in the original trailer, but it was fine, they even made him took kinda tough before he did the expected 'I'm not fighting you/playing your games' thing. Although his comment about having bad knees annoyed me, I don't care if you're 95yrs old, it's 24th century, people aren't gonna have 'bad knees' lol (we're already getting into 3D printing/replicating joints & cartilage now so it's only a matter of time), would rather they just continue to try and hide any difficulties RL Patrick might have, although I still maintain he seems to zip around just fine in real life on talk shows and stuff though lol.

Anyway we're already off to another planet in the teaser for the next ep so things are definitely moving along now lol! Although I'm a little worried about all that silly dress up stuff.. I swear to god if the next ep is like the Casino planet sequence in Ryan Johnson's cr*ptastic Star Wars film and black eye patch gangsta Picard is throwing dice with cheesy overly excited cgi aliens I'm gonna throw my Tv lol.

Oh and I'm probably off the mark with the Lore theory previously posted.. sounds like they're going for something bigger.. harbinger of doom stuff lol!

For starters the acting felt a bit weird and wooden in this ep. Picard & 7 scenes felt weird, felt more like the actors were catching up more than the characters haha. 7 felt a little too different and Patrick didn't feel very 'Picardy'. His french gangster over acting rouse was funny but just didn't feel like something Picard would do, felt like I was watching one of Patrick's stage plays lol. For a French born character his french accent was pretty bad haha!

Can't remember what forum I was talking in but there was a guy who was all annoyed about how upset Raffi was about loosing her security clearance lol, well he's gonna love this ep and it pretty much says she turned into a alco & drug addict and messed up her family after that incident lol. Messed up drug addicts and alcoholics on earth, I'm sure Gene would love that lol. But hey I'm sure she'll have her recovering addict redemption story a happy ending with her dr son at some point and people will wonder if they're watching an episode of Chicago Med & not Star Trek lol.

But lets get to the real jewel of the episode.. I liked Voyager a lot but its not my favourite old trek show, probably more 3rd fav behind TNG & DS9. So considering how much this ep annoyed me I feel bad for all the super Voyager fans out there. You're NOT in for a good time here guys, I REALLY do feel bad for you guys and say sorry. Pretty much straight off the bat poor old (now grown up) Borg kid Icheb is utterly and brutally tortured/dissected and then murdered. Obviously the former was by the 'bad guys' but the later was by his Borg mum 7 of 9! Yes that's right, die hard voyager fans who love 7 of 9 and have been waiting for her return will literally get to see her shoot her own adopted son in the first 20 seconds of seeing her lol. He does the whole "im too far gone, put me out of my misery" thing everyone's seen a million times and she obliges. Get f****** mate! I get it, he's probably missing a few vital cybernetic organs but if he bleeds out or dies on route so be it, but at least try to throw him over your shoulder and carry your sons ass out of there. I mean I'm sure she didn't exactly have a nice state of the art medical bay next door ready to go or a big starship to beam up to but still it.. just.. felt.. wrong. Oh and apparently she just left him there too giving the black market guys EXACTLY what they wanted anyway as the crime lord chick brags later in the ep about dissecting him. Wtf?????

But don't worry Voyager fans there's more character assassination coming for your enjoyment haha. 7 of 9 is definitely not the one you know anymore lol.. now she's PTSD Aragorn ranger'ing around the galaxy shooting lots of people vigilante style.. in fact I think they even call her a vigilante in one scene lol. You know all those boring episodes of Voyager where we got endless Janeway and 7 of 9 scenes (funny now considering how much the actors disliked each other) handcrafting her into a civilized 24th century human being? Well say goodbye to that folks cause now she's a messed up Bourbon drinking badass assassin for hire! She's helping those in need who can't help themselves and is more than happy to kill a few hundred people in the process if they get in her way *cue dramatic 80s action music* lol!

So what now then.. I mean in her final scene she lies to Picard, beams back down and offs the crime lord chick and then starts mowing down the place and it cuts away. The end! So that's answers the question of will she be a regular.. nope.. she's gooone. Maybe she'll come back later? Maybe she's return in a future season? Maybe they'll even be a nice happy ending redemption story for her down the track too (although that doesn't bring poor Icheb back does it lol)? Or maybe not lol and that'll be the end of her story and every time Voyager fans re-watch the old show they'll be like "oh look there's Icheb, when voyager gets home he joins starfleet and gets brutally tortured and murdered for spare parts.. and oh look there's 7 of 9, she's the one that kills him and leaves him there to be dissected for said parts lol, and spends the rest of her life miserable and shooting up half the galaxy in revenge." It's like the new Star Wars films.. I don't enjoy seeing my favourite childhood characters being brutally murdered in front of me. Because now when I re-watch the original stuff I just see their cheap deaths. Data's death in Nemesis had a similar effect on me so that's why I was so happy about this show as it gave me hope that they'd "do a star trek 3" and find a way to resurrect him. But now I find myself wondering how many other beloved characters are gonna get killed or messed up on the road to that happy ending, assuming thats even what happens, we may not even get that lol.

Anyway sorry.. back to the slaughter.. Bruce maddox.. they found him.. and he was all a messed up stressed alcoholic too of course.. cause everyone's messed up these days.. aaaaaaand then he was dead. All he bloody did was tell them her name and that shes at the cube and next thing we know he's getting offed by his own girlfriend (20 or so years younger than him I might add, yeeeaaahhh way to go on office romance bro! pulling those youngers chicks aint easy bro.. high 5!) giving us our innocent clumsy girl is actually working for bad guys shock moment at the end of the episode.. fake gasp.. yeah.. like I said before I was already completely disconnected by that stage and just didn't even care.

I will pay the episode one compliment though.. their attention to detail on past Trek events once again is impressive. Eg they acknowledged Picard's Borg past which I was worried they wouldn't. They mentioned Quark in the bar sequence. And the biggest one would be during the horrible Icheb torture surgery scene where the lady callously says "where's your cortical node buddy?" as shes ripping stuff out of him. In season 7 of Voyager Icheb risked his life and gave his to 7 of 9 when her failed and they realised she couldn't survive without one while he might, which of course he did.

Meanwhile some self appointed comedian just thew this hand grenade into a Voyager facebook group. I'm sure you can image how well that went down with them lol. Too soon? Yeah just a bit lol.

They sort of did as Ep6 was really good. I love any story line that deals with Picard's trauma from the Borg, eg some my favourite powerful moments in classic Trek include Picard braking down in front of his brother at the chateau after Best of Both Worlds and Picard loosing it and smashing the ship glass case in First Contact. THE LINE MUST BE DRAWN HERE! So that moment when he saw his own face as locutus and his reaction was cool. Seeing him on the cube and the way the ex-Bs reacted to him was interesting too. I'm glad Soji got activated as I was getting a bit over the innocent girl on the cube with her cool badass lying boyfriend storyline. The queens chamber was cool and I liked the nod of the head to Voyagers Sikarians and the Borg using their teleporter tech after assimilation.

Ep7 was enjoyable due to us getting some nice fan service and seeing some beloved characters again, but some of those annoying things started to creep back in again. Troy & Riker lost a child due to a reason that just seems so silly.. a disease that is only cured by taking stuff from an android brain.. give me a break.. and once again WHY DOES EVERY SINGLE FRIGGIN PERSON IN THIS SHOW HAVE TO BE MESSED UP FROM TRAUMA??? why can't anyone at all be okay lol. I'm sick to death of it. People loved Star Trek because it painted a picture of this near perfect Utopian human future where greed, money, racism, poverty, addiction and all the other nasty stuff was either eliminated or barely there and therefore was usually projected onto the alien races, this giving people hope for the future and some nice escapism from all the news that tell us we're gonna destroy ourselves. However these writers seem to be intent on bringing the misery of their own lives into Star Trek making it not really escapism at all, now its just what we see on the news and todays flawed humans but with spaceships lol. Don't get me wrong, I love my dystopian dark future shows too but as for Star Trek unless its an alternate universe than I dont like them screwing up the prime timeline and characters we know and love. and don't even get me started on the smoking addiction BS.. I'll just leave this here:
[BBvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BesKS-bCDbo[/BBvideo]

Also clearly Kurtzman seems to have forgot Inner Light where Picard raised an entire family but oh now apparently now he knows nothing about teenagers so he gets schooled by Riker & Troi for it.. Urgh..
[BBvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vaj_ypAbN_Q[/BBvideo]

Oh and surprise surprise another old character has bought it.. but that's okay.. we've got these great new ones to replace them so who cares lol. The fact I just struggle to remember the names of the new characters really does show how great they are lol. RIP Hugh. Also wtf.. she's a evil lady pretty much killing everyone but she won't touch Hugh because he's a federation citizen. He helped Picard escape but she still has to hear him say that he's not on her side before she can kill him.. ugh come on..

Anyway on to episode 8 and its okay I guess.. but still some annoying stuff.. our Vulcan commodore is apparently half Romulan which I guess explain the sunglasses gaffe a few episodes back as vulcans don't need them, although clearly she has retained her Vulcan ability to mind meld as I've never seen a Romulan do that. The mind meld is what made Dr Death kill her lover and act all weird for ages.. but now she's fine and won't hurt anyone cause she and Soji talked about mucus lol. We see the source of the vision is from an alien artifact and we get further explanation on the main plot. Action Jackson 7 of 9 returns and kicks some more ass. She takes control of the cube which was kind of cool although apparently she doesn't have control of the airlocks and the Romulans do lol, plus apparently the Romulans can just stand there on a balcony and watch just fine (It'd like Pike watching the torpedo explode 2 meters away via a glass window all over again, or Spock watching Vulcan go into a black hole on a another planet with a thick cloudy sky lol). And somehow Borg are useless in a vacuum despite us seeing them operate in space just fine in First Contact although I guess it was more the venting that got them as Voyager vented a few Borg into space back in the day too. Anyway not much else to say about this ep as it was mostly plot moving and setup for final eps.

So I've just done Ep9.. yeah hmm.. I feel like I should have felt more and connected more with this episode but just didn't.. back in my first comments I predicted that there was someone else behind these androids and it wasn't just Bruce Maddox and I was right. I was just wrong about who it was lol. I predicted Lore, but it turns out there's another generation of Soong, another brother of sorts to Data. When Dr Soong Jr Jr Jr Jr Jr whatever (remember there was the one in the eugenics wars ep of Enterpise too haha) walked out the music didn't seem to change much, it was very fast, and he just took off into dialogue straight away.. the whole delivery felt wrong.. I should have been like WOOOOOWWW.. but instead I was like.. oh.. okay.. cool I guess.. as it was nice to see Brent back.

Then something really really stupid happened.. Soji's mum or whatever you wanna call her, an earlier android model and seemingly some sort of leader there has somehow taught herself to do Vulcan mind melds.. because you know she likes Vulcans n stuff. Yes I kid you not.. an android that just magically learned telepathy because she likes the aliens that can do them. Are you freakin kidding me???.. stupid f****** bloody writers.. omg!! I mean Data did a vulcan neck pinch in TNG but that was a nerve pinch that presumably just requires a lot of strength hence why no one else ever did it. But android learning an alien races telepathy as a hobby???.. arrggghhhhh

Anyway she melds and sees the vision.. now she's corrupted by it too.. possibly kills that chick and frees (all sexually lol) Nerek or whatever the hell his name is and is gonna 'ET call home' and bring an android alien invasion exterminate everyone thing to stop the massive Romulan warbird extermination fleet that is somehow just out there despite the fact that most of the romulan survivors seem to be refugees living in squalor camps and no one knew about the Zhat Vash. But hey maybe its the surviving romulan fleet being manipulated by the Zhat Vash. I don't know.. we see the commodore has apparently left her rather important Federation position and is now commanding an entire romulan fleet.. bit of a jump but yeah sure.. whatever..

Oh and how could I forget that they somehow grew giant flowers that can fly through space and drag down spaceships and borg cubes.. giant flowers bigger than cities and that fly into space.. grown by maddox in his lab.. while one of his android daughters was busy taking up Vulcan telepathy as a hobby..

It really is just like the new star wars films.. why do writers these days treat us with no respect and think that we're so stupid that we'll follow anything.. sometimes its so dark you think it's not suitable for children (eg Icheb eyeball rip) then other times like this where we're expected to take giant leaps of faith over plot holes, technical gaffes and bad writing like a child would..

Thanks to covid-19 the Melbourne Formula 1 race was cancelled and in the giant slots that were allocated to what would have been the tv race coverage they filled with old episodes of TNG, VOY and even some TOS.. so I thought why not and sat there watching them.. and my god.. the universe.. and the writing.. there's just so much more intelligence behind them..

We live in an age where people that grew up watching these scifi shows and films is now old enough to get into hollywood and create their own spin offs, remakes and sequels to these great old shows. All they had to do was bring back the same quality of writing and acting and we'd be living in a golden age. However instead of feeling like I'm watching actual sequels I just feel like I'm just watching fanboy films/eps that are filmed on hollywood sets with big budgets instead of Dad's shed with some toilet paper rolls, mops and bed sheets for props lol.

Anyway.. I seemed to be more relieved that there's one episode to go in Picard than I am excited to see what happens next with the story. Sort of just want it to be over so I can move on again. I didn't even feel that way about Disco (well maybe a bit in season 1 lol but not season 2). To feel that way about a Star Trek show really sucks.. especially as normally I'm the super tolerant scifi obsessed guy defending stuff like this to the haters.. yet here I am becoming one.. but a couple of threads keep my interest still to see this thing out and probably watch future seasons too lol.

Dr death is helping Dr Soong Jr Jr Jr Jr  Jr whatever with that Golum so maybe it will be Data. I just hope I.. feel something.. when he appears cause that's meant to be the pay off for all this surely lol.. Apparently this neuron thread thing stuff talked about back in ep2 means some of data's memories can be restored but some memories would not really be him would it. So it makes me think how on earth can these writers really bring him (the full Data we know and love) back and can they do it in a way that isn't stupid lol. Which then makes me think maybe they won't bring him back and this is as good as it gets lol.. but hey todays writers love recycling old stories and rearranging them (ST Into Darkness lol) so if Soji's evil mum can mind meld then why not just do a Star Trek 3 and mind meld Data backed up memories out of B4 and into a new body.. I might even tolerate that nonsense if it leads to datas return lol.. but plugging in a usb cable like Data did in Nemesis seems like a better way haha.. hell maybe that's what they're gonna do haha.. i dunno lol..

Will also be interesting to see how Picards brain disorder is dealt with too.

Oh and one of my mates is convinced that Picard is an android because you see him being 'put together' in the show's intro, so he's counting down to the 'big reveal' lol. We all laughed at him but hell with this show any crazy cr*p is possible haha. So I dunno about that theory but the convo between Dr death and Dr Soong Jr Jr Jr Jr Jr whatever about transferring human consciousness across into androids (like the actual Dr Soong already did with Data's mother, although the writers probably don't remember that lol) being close plants an interesting seed on this subject that I wonder what it will lead to (otherwise why did that scene happen?). Eg Picard is prob not an (failing) android now but maybe they'll stick him into one before his poor human brain gives out haha.

Either way.. weeks ago I was telling you guys that I liked the show but that I was still needing to see more to really decide. Well now I've seen like 90% of the show and I can say I don't love it, I don't hate it, it has bits I like, it has bits that annoy me, so I'm just somewhere in between all that sticking with it to see what happens with Data and & Picard.

Kinda glad its all over as in these last few weeks it felt like I was just waiting for them to find new ways to disappoint me lol. Now that it's done I don't have to worry about it lol.

So.. that last episode.. once again we've got some good things but mostly things that annoyed me lol..

I enjoyed the Picard noble sacrifice to save Soji (from her fears) scene.. tugged on the old heart strings a bit so well done there. Was also nice to see Picard flying a ship and being himself a bit more instead of the usual helpless old man in the back seat stuff. Liked the Picard maneuver (the ship one not the shirt one lol) reference too..

Sure enough my prediction of Picard becoming an android, or more accurately an organic synthetic came true. Felt a bit weird though as lets face it, it's kinda like cloning in that they made an electronic copy of his mind meaning the Picard we know and love has just actually died lol. Not really sure how to feel about that other than it sucks a bit.

People who may remember my earlier posts here will know that my hope was that this series was all about resurrecting Data and undoing the damage Nemesis did. I was almost willing to accept all the other BS that had happened if that was the target. So I really hoped the golum would be for him and not a quick Picard resurrection. So when Picard bought it I knew what was coming...

But then he woke up in the simulation and there was data saying exactly what I had posted in previous posts that I'd hoped would happen. They combined those residual Data memories Maddox had generated for his synths with B4's backup of Data's brain to make a pretty much complete resurrected Data (from the moment he did the transfer a day or so before his death in Nemesis). I was so excited! The moment I'd been waiting for! But of course this is a Michael Chabon show and he wants to make Star Trek and its fans as miserable as possible lol so naturally a matter of seconds later this amazing resurrection that so many of us had dreamed of happening for almost 20 damn years was shown to be nothing more than a tease because Data asks to die. Picard then mercy kills him just like 7 of 9 mercy killed Icheb. Michael watched his father suffer & die slowly on life support while writing these new shows which is a horrible thing to go through (I dread having to go through something like that with my mother) and unfortunately all this stuff is probably him creatively dealing with that pain but unfortunately he's dealing with it using the Star Trek universe and characters loved by millions people. I get it, they wanted to give a data 'beautiful death' instead of the cheap one he got in Nemesis hence why I've seen people out there touched and happy with it. But as someone who pretty much was dying (pun not intended lol) to watch this series believing it was all gonna be about Data's resurrection I feel cheated. To tease him being back like that only to take him away just makes me wanna hop over to Michael's twitter and throw some 4 letter words his way (I won't though cause I don't wanna be a d*ck lol). Judging by this article he wouldn't care anyway and for those excited that he's not the main guy behind season 2 well guess what, that article confirms he's written 2 eps and also brainstormed the other 8 for season 2.. so yeah expect more attempts to make us miserable (if we watch) in the future lol.

I wish they could have brought Data back.. yes I'm not stupid.. I know Brent doesn't exactly look like Data anymore hence the mountain of makeup and weird camera angles of him sitting or standing to hide his belly making it half impossible to have him around all the time. However they could have brought him back and then have him go back to starfleet or earth or go on his own ventures or something. You know just send him off into the galaxy with happy "All Good Things" like moment to finish his ark. Let us fans think of him living on forever going on adventures and continuing his question to evolve. Let that be the last thing we see of him.. not him dying AGAIN. The face growing old (doesn't make any sense unless they programmed the event) and a virtual duplicate Picard in the red uniform standing over him, even though Picard had been extracted already (another copy lol??) all painted to give a beautiful death triggering an emotional response that makes some forget the weirdness and lack of science and sense behind it lol. However there's nothing stopping them from resurrecting Data again so screw you Michael I'm going to choose to believe that Dr Soon Jr Jr Jr Jr being the sneaky guy he is backed up another copy of Data's mind, waited for Picard to leave then stuck Data in another golum and now he's out there living happily every after lol. Picard's "my gain is your loss line" implies Soong Jr Jr Jr Jr can't make another golum but get stuffed.. Maddox did the brains and Soong Jr Jr Jr Jr did the bodies, nothing stopping him from making more lol.

Anyway back to Picard's death and resurrection wtf was with them rush skipping over most of the casts reaction to him being back again. Once again Michael's story telling has us in pain watching everyone cry for like 10 damn minutes and then doesn't bother to cover everyone seeing him alive again except for Dr Death, Soong Jr Jr Jr Jr and Soji. Literally straight back on the ship like nothing happened lol.

Speaking of that final ship scene I've seen some people confusingly posting "are Raffi and 7 of 9 lovers?" well that 2nd article I linked I linked to above has Michael confirming it.. action jackson 7 of 9 had a thing with that crime lord chick she vaporized and she's got a thing with Raffi or whatever her name is (I just cannot remember these new cast member names haha), so expect more of the stuff we've seen from Discovery in Picard season 2 (poor Chakotay haha). I'll leave that for others to debate the merits of all that as it doesn't really bother me, other than to say I find their 'all or nothing' approach a bit weird as does this mean the other shows coming (ST Section 31, ST Pike, ST Lower Decks) will do the same?

Oh and speaking of 7 of 9.. how did the Romulan evil chick get back on the cube to fight 7 of 9??? she left the cube with the fleet several eps ago didn't she???

I saw some article a few days ago which I can't seem to find now sorry but it talked about plans for a crossover series that would involve casts members from all the different new trek shows.. pretty much the marvel avengers of new star trek lol. I really don't know how to feel about that lol. I mean if this had been 30 years ago and we had Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway and Archer and other cast members all in one big crossover event series that would have been epic (hell I think there's a popular Novel series out there that sort of did that isn't here?) but massive crossover series with new trek people.. I'm a bit meh.. but hey ya never know lol.

Anyway back to the Picard finale.. the whole fleet stand off didn't really excite me much at all (other than Picards noble sacrifice I mentioned earlier).. we saw those damn space flowers you saw me moaning about last time again haha, then they used that 'magical plot hole device' to generate duplicate Dr death faces and then the ships all with warp core illusions. Come on man this a advanced Romulan fleet, not those idiot half primitive Kazon in the Delta quadrant that fell for voyagers holograms but anyway.. this all lead to a rather amazing sequence where the evil commodore half Vulcan chick just kept preparing to fire and retargeting.. I think after the 5th or 6th time I actually yelled out (no BS I kid you not) at the TV "STOP PREPARING AND JUST FIRE THE F******** WEAPONS AT SOMETHING ALREADY!!!" hahahaha.

Then Riker shows up to give us some fan service. Kinda cool but once again just like with Soong Jr Jr Jr Jr 's reveal in the prev episode the delivery just.. felt.. wrong! Urgh. I mean I know he said he's on the active service list still but he's been retired for years and they just give him command of a huge fleet right off the bat, no admirals needed lol? They wouldn't even give Picard a crappy old science vessel but they'll give Riker a friggin fleet lol! I expected the admiral who swears a lot to be in charge of it to be honest. But hey's there's some fan service to be given here and I guess I should be happy Michael didn't try to kill him off too lol! I've seen people on the internet making fun of the obvious CGI background behind him too.. I can see why, as it doesn't look any better than the ones in the fan film Star Wreck, a movie made by a bunch of Finnish nerds in their bedrooms 20years ago lol (great film though haha). If we're wrong and that's a redressed discovery set or something then boy did they mess that up as it really looks fake lol.

And what the hell was going on with all the ships????? The entire romulan fleet was made out of 1 ship design plus a special capital command ship. These guys lost their homeworld and the vast majority of their population yet apparently they can afford to throw out all their old ships (except for that 22nd century Rom ship in ep 4 lol) and have a brand spanking new fleet lol. I mean this was the PERFECT opportunity to give more fan service and fill the fleet with old Valdors and D'deridex's.

Copy and paste a lot of that for Riker's fleet too. He warped in with 200 friggin ships that look the same.. what the hell!! When I think back to the giant federation fleets used in the Dominion war that were filled with old ships.. by then excelsiors would have been about 90 years old (at least the design anyway) and reliants and saratogas would have been over 110 years old. So why not stick some old galaxys, sovereigns and defiants in this fleet??

For a show that has a budget the old trek shows could only dream of I'm amazed that they literally built 2 giant fleets of the same ships using copy & paste.. Also was it just me or did the ships also look rather fake CGI looking.. they must have accidentally blown the budget out and run out of money.. that has to the be the reason for calling it in surely? The CGI DS9 fleets looked better than this for christ sake. This video pretty much confirms it lol.

Anyway then he just left... a dying Picard is like "oh yeah I can handle it from here Will".. and Wills like "sure bro.. I'll take all these ships we had to pull from vital missions and just turn around after being here for all 5 minutes" lol. If I was the Vulcan commodore chick I would have said "hey the federation is abandoning the planet again lets turn around and blow sh*t up before they come back again.. EVERYONE PREPARE TO FIRE SOME MORE!!!" lol.. Someone that obsessed aint gonna care about the treaty of Algeron. Also she's responsible for the deaths of everyone on Mars and most of the Romulan homeworld (by destroying the rescue fleet).. but nah its cool you can fly off lol.

Oh well.. I could pick at a bunch of other things but I'll stop complaining haha.. time to move on! I'll probably still cop the hater title from some people who loved it but like I said before normally I love all scifi and am super tolerant and am often the one taking on the haters lol but this show (much like the new main star wars films) just rubbed me the wrong way from ep5 onwards.. I guess its because these characters that I grew up with mean a lot to me and I don't like seeing them having to run the Michael Chabon gantlet of death and misery.

At this stage I now actually prefer Discovery over Picard. Probably because they're not screwing with my beloved childhood characters as much haha which means I can tolerate more plot and technology gaffes. I thought they handled Spock and Pike pretty well in s2 and it really made the show so much better having them and the Enterprise there. So I worry a bit about Disco s3 as they won't have those improvements anymore.. however I'm super excited about the ST Pike show. At least they listened to the fans on that one!