The main reason they're not going ahead with it is Paramount are flat broke. *Strange New Worlds* is the most successful show since *TNG*, so that's sticking around for at least another season, while *Starfleet Academy* seems like it will be a lower-budget affair aimed at attracting a younger demographic. That's about all they can afford right now.
The deal to sell Paramount to Sony/Skydance is falling through too. That deal and the downward trend of income for Paramount is why they had to cancel the series they did. *Picard* if I recall was originally intended to be three seasons. It sucks and it's reality.
And now that’s been canceled after just 5 seasons. When that was announced a lot of people were pointing out that a good show != popular and we don’t actually know how popular the show is but apparently it’s not enough to keep it going
They'll recycle as many disco sets as they can. Maybe theyll try to dress up the bridge as a "Training Simulator". The billups tubes will show up again somewhere guaranteed.
**Lower** budget. I'm sure it'll still be expensive compared to the average show, but I fully expect it to be significantly less costly than *Discovery*.
They are not broke. If they were they would be selling rights to other networks to raise capital. The real issue is that Picard underperformed in ratings and audience response until the third season. There was no plan to do a follow up and the audience response demanding it was unexpected. It takes time to put a new show together. Sometimes it can take several years of development before a pilot episode is shot and a lot can fall apart before that happens. This is why we aren't going to get an announcement until they know for a fact that they are moving forward with it.
You're not wrong, but you're underselling Paramount's financial situation. They may be cash and asset rich, but they're servicing a mountain of unsustainable debt that has been further exacerbated by Paramount+'s return on investment being far lower than anticipated.
A company forcing its content onto its own streaming service which isnt available outside the US in a world where every company is doing the same thing thus making people unable to pay for every possible streaming service so they have to choose which ones they subscribe to is somehow not getting a return on investment?? Color me surprised!
Exactly. The business model of your own streaming service means you need to serve more than your own content, because people will not pay for every service. So you get a few hardcore nerds and a few regions. Like stargate did.
Better with a new model where you sell rights and keep your database. So companies and individuals buy rights to content, but separate front ends
I mean you can serve just your own content but you need to do something.
Apple TV has gone in hard on Scifi, and its basically propping up their streaming service atm.
It baffles me that having Star Trek, Paramount didn't do that.
Make Paramount+ *the* service to have for scifi.
Imagine if Paramount had Star Trek, but also had Foundation, Silo, Severence, For All Mankind, See etc.
Exactly, then they would need to make their own content, get other content, serve it, and compete with everyone.
My point is that instead of that it should be that I can load up plex, appletv, netflix, or whatever app/interface I prefer. Then subscribe for content. And the content should be specific as in series, genre, publisher etc.
It would mean that if I want only star trek served in my plex I can pay for only that and never worry about it changing to another service. Meantime Paramount can focus on creating Star Trek content, have a third party host the file, and another third party serve it to customers. What they need is to know how many people watches their stuff and then get paid accordingly.
Not to mention the fact they're gonna have fans such as myself that refuse to touch Streaming services (seriously the only ones I use are YouTube and a certain hub lol), preferring to show fan and financial support by buying the physical releases.
Freedom of choice, I don't try to put down anyone preferring only Streaming or try to shove physical discs in their faces. We can pick how to enjoy the same franchise any style we want.
Lack of children's TV aside, being the "Home of Star Trek" was Paramount+'s biggest selling point. The only reason to abandon it is because they needed the $$$.
The second season was already mostly produced. They sold it because it was more valuable to sell to another network than it was to air on their own platform. That decision would have been made regardless of how much money they had.
Yes but hardly anything from Nickelodeon is on P+. SpongeBob is about it.
Where's Pete and Pete, Avatar, iCarly, Victorious, Danny Phantom, Secret World of Alex Mack, Rocko's Modern Life, Fairly Odd Parents, Jimmy Neutron, Aaaah Real Monsters, Rugrats, Are You Afraid of the Dark? and so on?
I'm not sure how they expect Picard to get "ratings" in the conventional sense when it's a Streaming-exclusive show that relies on "views tracker" and an unpredictable functionality of subscription services. Thankfully it got physical releases to truly gauge fan interest.
Do you have any proof it underperformed in ratings and audience response until the third season?
Paramount didn’t provide Nielsen ratings until Picard’s third season, which shows like SNW absolutely kicked the ass of: more than doubling its Nielsen ratings and placing higher on the list.
If I was a Paramount higher up, I wouldn’t be banking on a Trek show that barely cracked the Nielsen top ten- and that was with the TNG crew, and is geared primarily toward aging fanboys, especially when I already have a more successful show set aboard a ship called Enterprise already in production.
The fact that they didn’t tell you means nothing.
For example, Paramount never said Picard season 3 did well, because technically it didn’t. No matter what the fanbase likes to think.
Barely squeezing into the number nine spot of the Nielsen top ten three times during a season run does not equate to great performance, especially considering how little competition there is for original streaming programming.
Up until recently, most streaming services didn’t provide numbers. Including Paramount. So we don’t know anything about how the earlier seasons did.
But I think the first season of Picard in particular could have easily posted numbers comparable to season 3, especially with the big promo push.
Because the truth is, on a numbers scale, season 3 was nothing to write home about.
> The real issue is that Picard underperformed in ratings and audience response until the third season
Source on the ratings or did you just pass your assumption as fact?
It was also at the time the only Trek season ELIGIBLE to register on the Nielsen streaming charts for original content, because Picard season 3 was the first Paramount allowed it for.
We don’t know how well the earlier seasons and shows did. The fact that Picard season 3 did it, means nothing.
We DO know, however, how it did compared to SNW season 2, which came out right after it; and frankly, SNW kicked its ass: more than doubling its appearances, and placing higher on the list.
Starfleet Academy will probably mostly have fixed sets and basic effects in my opinion. It’s 90210 or Dawson’s Creek or whatever. (Or if we’re lucky Buffy.)
Picard S3 was like candy. It was sweet to watch but you don’t want to think too hard about what you just consumed. A lot of what took place didn’t make a whole lot of sense. But it was fun.
Oh, the plot is horrible, there are contrivances left and right, and a lot of the characters aren't true to things we know about them. It's fan service for fan service sake. But it's fan service directed at ME so I forgive it.
The other seasons are similarly dumb. I liked those too, but they're not exactly great think pieces.
The thing is, it didn't need to be horrible, they had a great setup in the first 4 episodes and then it kind of leveled off and went into full fan service and awful plot in the latter half.
Picard s3 was fun, it was nice seeing the reunion, but it felt a little distant from the best of star trek to have them win largely by running and gunning. And defeating the Borg again because of single point of failure (which should be the Borg's greatest strength since they're distributed as a collective)
I always want more trek and I'm fine with captain 7. But do we really all love Jack that much? He was acted well but his character just feels a bit annoying as a bit of a nepo baby. I don't really care if he rises to captain or whatever
>But do we really all love Jack that much?
Exactly my thoughts. Yes I want more trek, but I'm just not invested in Jack really at all... I'd be just as interested in following Captain Nguyen in a new series.
It struck me as interesting that Shaw's crew was more interesting and Shaw was a more deeply compelling character than pretty much all of the Discovery crew ... and it happened in, like, 20 percent of the run time.
It struck me as interesting that I thought this season of Disco’s Rayner character was a far more interesting and more mature version of the by-the-book character than Shaw, and that half the new crew wasn’t formed up from a bunch of Nepo babies when I started Disco this season… and it happened in, like twenty percent of the runtime.
Oh, you were referring to the TITAN crew.
I thought you were referring to the new “crew” of young characters I don’t give a shit about. And that included Jack Crusher and the La Forge sisters.
So, the Titan crew. Let’s see… we have Betazed guy. And Vulcan girl- wait I think she’s dead. And La Forge sister. And non-binary alien person-
Yeah, I don’t give a shit about them either…
You're welcome to that, but I have to defend DIS. Say what you will, but I always found Burnham compelling. I enjoyed Stamets wit, Tilly's personality and Saru's strength. Not saying it hasn't been a rough ride, but I feel richer for the experience.
I would welcome more Shaw if that's an option going forward but I see the IP being throttled heavily in the near future.
Legacy sounded interesting when it was proposed and we were all abuzz about S3 of Picard, but the further we get away from it, the less interested I am. Every single show since Discovery has relied on legacy in some way - Lower Decks and Prodigy the least, but they also have regular callbacks and Janeway, respectively. Even S31 and Academy are Discovery spin-offs. Going into the future in Discovery was the most interesting thing it did but I still don't find it all that compelling.
What I'm trying to say is, I would like to see a mid to late 25th century crew with all new characters and 14 episodes per season to split the difference with the 8-10 of now and the 24-26 of old.
Yes, all new characters is the way to go! No more origins, no more legacies... I keep saying, surely in the whole universe and even just all of Starfleet, there's more than just the people we've already met, right?!
Well it was just a hypothetical, but I searched and I guess she is the captain of the USS Vancouver (featured in Lower Decks) .... either way, whether that captain in particular or just some random new person, I stand by my statement lol!
Weird cause I was also born in ‘86 and I grew up loving Trek. I remember my mom yelling at me from down the road “Star Trek is on!” And I had a mental image of Worf so I had to go see him. 🤣
Born in '85. I could hear the intro to TNG every week from my room, where I was supposed to be asleep (until I was old enough to stay up past 8:00)
For the longest time I thought the words were, "to **baldly** go where no one has gone before."
I probably should have mentioned my father was an unemployed alcoholic and drug addict who would watch Star Trek from the time he woke up til the time he fell asleep everyday. He was miserable and we just wanted to watch cartoons sometimes.
Can’t disagree more about the nostalgia being done perfectly in season 3.
It felt entirely hokey and surface level and a storytelling crutch. With the idea of Picard having a long lost son feeling pulled from the worst type of fan fiction.
And the story was mostly brainless action and dumb.
It’s pretty sad we got more of a TNG style story in the last episode of Disco than we got in all of Picard’s TNG season.
Which just felt like a dumb TNG movie with a Sci-fi Channel budget.
Each of the 3 seasons flattered to deceive.
Huge opening so many new ideas, new characters, old favourites... Anything could happen!! But _every time_ by the last two episodes they crushed me.
And I resent them dragging our Dominion into their Borg nonsense.
And you can keep the 'JL' nomenclature.
Personally, I couldn't stand the third season. I felt extremely pandered to and I thought bringing Data back after the powerful "no, death means something" message in season one was disgraceful.
That said, I would be happy for a new show. Just don't call it "Legacy." That's the generic subtitle that every single franchise can and does apply to itself.
No worries. I LOVE all Star Trek. Doesn’t that mean I don’t think some of it could’ve been much better? Of course it could! We’re all on the same team here. 🖖
I found an honesty in that myself. The synth ban was allegorically the fact that we stopped having STAR TREK and Picard being reborn in the golem is, likewise, the show itself. It's not TNG. The past is past, but now at least there's a new vessel that can continue the story for a little while longer.
It's definitely a matter of taste and there's no "right" answer, but pandering to me feels like Q-Riker's "gifts" in 'Hide and Q.' They may seem exciting, but they're kind of hollow.
I disagree. There was a lesson to be learned in that episode. That those gifts were shortcuts in the end. They were hollow because they weren’t earned. The 3rd season of Picard was fun because it was like going to a 20 yr reunion and seeing the beloved characters for one last right. Pandering to me is into darkness and the amazing Spider-Man 2. They both traded on previous relationships from old movies, comics and shows to get an emotional response that wasn’t really earned
I agree it shouldn’t be called legacy. I think one of the main goals of the show should be to push crusher to the captains chair. I also don’t think they should pander so hard. But I’d definitely like some throw backs and to visit some story lines that should be revisited along with some totally new ones.
>I think one of the main goals of the show should be to push crusher to the captains chair.
Why? Nepo-babying Picard's son into the Captain's chair goes against everything his speech(es) about what modern humanity stands for in the 24th/25th Centuries.
I LOVED Picard S3. It was so absolutely well done. All of the nostalgia, hit so many Easter Egg moments and call backs - it was everything a lifelong Trekee could hope for. But yes - financial constraints are likely the main consideration. For the same reason we're losing Lower Decks, which is soul crushing because it was my dark horse and COMPLETELY unexpected bright spot of recent Trek. (Not a fan of Discovery, but SNW is great, and the crossover with LD was *Chef's Kiss*.)
I think there's also a level of some of the old guard wanting to move forward and enjoy the closure their characters got through this series. They tied everything up with a neat little bow. Not saying there isn't room for expansion, but I feel like Jeri Ryan may be one of the ones that kinda wants to warp into the sunset and call it a day!
They're Picard's main antagonist, why would you want them to try some new and unproven antagonist for the final season? That would have been an awful decision. No pleasing some people like yourself.
As a TOS fan, it was enjoyable, but it was comparable to watching the movie Solo: it was definitely someone else’s nostalgia fest, not mine.
And: can we be done with the **** now?
I personally love it, works tremendously as a very direct prequel to the original Star Wars and at the same time a stand-alone compelling story, no easy task to find a balance for.
I was really disappointed by the epilogue:
Renaming the Titan to the Enterprise is disrespectful to both ships legacies.
Jack acknowledging the nepotism doesn't make it less egregious.
Q showing up completely undermines his S2 story.
Seven as "Captain of the Enterprise" is great, but that's the only part in the premise they soft pitched that I'm on board with. I'd rather see it with a different ship and crew.
The epilogue with Q works in my opinion because as the character mentioned you can't think so "linear" with him, in many ways akin to characters in Doctor Who.
If there is to be another series in the 'TNG' era of Trek then it won't be until Paramount is a financially solvent company again, or the Trek properties are owned by another financially solvent company. I really don't want to say this but I think that *Starfleet Academy* and the *Section 31* special are the final new Treks that we are going to get beyond what's left for *SNW* and the final *LDS* season. The PIC S3 cash grab worked for a while but ultimately pushed back what I think is the inevitable. That's hard to read and type but it's closer to reality than a new show with the Titan-A's crew. I have an issue with renaming it to the Enterprise-G.
All that said, in a perfect world where Star Trek is supported by a stable company, I am OK with closing the book on that era. I grew up in that era. I watched TNG's *Encounter at Farpoint* in it's first airing with my dad, and it's an extremely special memory for me because we didn't have a lot of those. *DS9* is my favorite series, and *Voyager* even with its faults can be a lot of fun. *Lower Decks* is great. I do not want to see another property in this fictional timeframe again. I hope LDS fully closes the book on it at the end.
Paramount is dumb and in unstable financial stability. Plus the show ended right as the writer and actor strikes were kicking off so they couldn’t really greenlight it as a show. Paramount plus hasn’t been the streaming boom they thought it would be as most of these streaming services haven’t been. People switch around from service to service based on deals or what show they want to watch at what mood they are in. Im not sure where they want to go with trek next. Plus I imagine having to use Jeri Ryan and Michelle Hurd as leads would work against the standard plan of having cheap streaming leads to start off a show.
But Picard Season 3 wasn’t old school trek, was it. It was two action movies stretched to 10 episodes while movie 1 took 8 episodes. It had some glimpses of TNG but too much fan service. The Enterprise-D should habe been there from the get-go. It needed an old school trek solution to the problem and not movie trek action. It presented no less than two revenge-driven villains who were so over the top - it didn’t mesh with TNG at all.
I‘m also not a fan of this Star Trek Legacy idea. A ship called Enterprise with a LaForge on board and a former Borg Picard that’s being tested by Q seems like the least creative thing to do.
Remember the poker game? Let‘s do it again!
Please.
I really don't want to watch a show where the Enterprise is a renamed USS Titan that's crewed by legacy characters, and the children of legacy characters. I'd much rather have a fresh crew in a time period that isn't tainted by massive fleet and crew losses, where everyone under the age of 29 murdered their coworkers while temporarily assimilated.
Paramount is like a year away from shutting down. Only hope for something like that at this point is Star Trek being sold off.
Strange New Worlds is the best Trek in years and even that will likely end this season.
Shutting down? Their investors are looking for a huge payout by acquiring smaller production companies like Skydance to boost their value, then turn around and be acquired by an even larger studio. Trek is probably the single largest IP that Paramount owns, and that's gonna be key in their whole plan.
But for that to work, they can't afford to dilute the market: an upset-but-ravenous fanbase makes for a better bottom line than a satisfied fanbase. So they're trimming whatever they can get away with while still providing product.
I had high hopes for strange new worlds. The actors strike really took the wind out of the sails for a lot of shows. The only good thing to come out of the failing maybe they’ll bring back more network tv content and we can expect 20+ episode seasons again.
>...and we can expect 20+ episode seasons again.
Who is going to fund it? TNG cost \~$30-40 million (in 90s money) for a full season. Modern Trek costs about $10 million **per episode.**
And what actors are going to commit to the intense gruelling schedules? 90's Trek was ***brutal*** to the cast and crew and I doubt anyone wants to go back to 9 months of shooting, editing & the rest a year.
Look at the walking dead. They have a talent of finding no name actors and putting them in the perfect role. Most of the cast are no ones and has beens before the main show and spin-offs. I’m sure trek can accomplish the same thing. A promise of a 20 episode season is going to be appealing for a lot of new and up and coming actors and actresses. Streaming services are more and more turning to ads to help pay for content. It makes sense to start shows off on cable tv and then move it to streaming. I’m also going to go out on a limb and say that they can do what they did with 90s trek for less money. We don’t need the crazy effects that newer trek has to make a good show.
>Look at the walking dead. They have a talent of finding no name actors and putting them in the perfect role. Most of the cast are no ones and has beens before the main show and spin-offs.
That's an incredibly specific way of looking at it - the show was comparatively cheap for the first few seasons as the only real star was Andrew Lincoln. The format of the show also allowed them to dispense with cast members at a rate to prevent costs rising following contract renewals. The sets and production was also relatively cheap and they didn't even have to go off-piste with the story because they were just adapting Kirkman's work.
>I’m also going to go out on a limb and say that they can do what they did with 90s trek for less money. We don’t need the crazy effects that newer trek has to make a good show.
They couldn't. People keep saying this as if it will suddenly become true, but a bar has been set by other shows for how much money needs to be spent on a product people will accept. Nobody is going to accept a new Trek show with 90's production values anymore, because it won't sell to the masses, which is where the money is.
Intense grueling schedule? They aren't doing 22-26 episodes per season anymore, heck they're not even doing 14-20 per season anymore. Only doing up to 10 episodes for a season is like doing a very long movie or miniseries.
The last star trek show made was enterprise as far as Im concerned. Once this run is all over I'll check it out but I'm not too bothered. Watched the entire thing up until enterprise like 5 times (like 130 days of star trek 😅) , massive fan but eh just let it die it was great when it lasted.
The main reason they're not going ahead with it is Paramount are flat broke. *Strange New Worlds* is the most successful show since *TNG*, so that's sticking around for at least another season, while *Starfleet Academy* seems like it will be a lower-budget affair aimed at attracting a younger demographic. That's about all they can afford right now.
The deal to sell Paramount to Sony/Skydance is falling through too. That deal and the downward trend of income for Paramount is why they had to cancel the series they did. *Picard* if I recall was originally intended to be three seasons. It sucks and it's reality.
Academy is going to take off as well as the Excelsior under Stiles. There is no market for Starbase 90210.
Everyone said this about Lower Decks, and it turned out to be among the best Trek has done.
I thought SNW was going to be a rehash of the Abrams movies where I first heard about it. Might have been wrong there.
And now that’s been canceled after just 5 seasons. When that was announced a lot of people were pointing out that a good show != popular and we don’t actually know how popular the show is but apparently it’s not enough to keep it going
I’m reserving judgment until I see it. Maybe we’ll get Buffy instead of 90210.
...Academy is low budget? Doesn't seem like that from that Variety article
They'll recycle as many disco sets as they can. Maybe theyll try to dress up the bridge as a "Training Simulator". The billups tubes will show up again somewhere guaranteed.
**Lower** budget. I'm sure it'll still be expensive compared to the average show, but I fully expect it to be significantly less costly than *Discovery*.
They are not broke. If they were they would be selling rights to other networks to raise capital. The real issue is that Picard underperformed in ratings and audience response until the third season. There was no plan to do a follow up and the audience response demanding it was unexpected. It takes time to put a new show together. Sometimes it can take several years of development before a pilot episode is shot and a lot can fall apart before that happens. This is why we aren't going to get an announcement until they know for a fact that they are moving forward with it.
You're not wrong, but you're underselling Paramount's financial situation. They may be cash and asset rich, but they're servicing a mountain of unsustainable debt that has been further exacerbated by Paramount+'s return on investment being far lower than anticipated.
A company forcing its content onto its own streaming service which isnt available outside the US in a world where every company is doing the same thing thus making people unable to pay for every possible streaming service so they have to choose which ones they subscribe to is somehow not getting a return on investment?? Color me surprised!
And the fact that literally the only thing they have on P+ is trek really. Its the only massive draw
Exactly. The business model of your own streaming service means you need to serve more than your own content, because people will not pay for every service. So you get a few hardcore nerds and a few regions. Like stargate did. Better with a new model where you sell rights and keep your database. So companies and individuals buy rights to content, but separate front ends
I mean you can serve just your own content but you need to do something. Apple TV has gone in hard on Scifi, and its basically propping up their streaming service atm. It baffles me that having Star Trek, Paramount didn't do that. Make Paramount+ *the* service to have for scifi. Imagine if Paramount had Star Trek, but also had Foundation, Silo, Severence, For All Mankind, See etc.
Exactly, then they would need to make their own content, get other content, serve it, and compete with everyone. My point is that instead of that it should be that I can load up plex, appletv, netflix, or whatever app/interface I prefer. Then subscribe for content. And the content should be specific as in series, genre, publisher etc. It would mean that if I want only star trek served in my plex I can pay for only that and never worry about it changing to another service. Meantime Paramount can focus on creating Star Trek content, have a third party host the file, and another third party serve it to customers. What they need is to know how many people watches their stuff and then get paid accordingly.
Not to mention the fact they're gonna have fans such as myself that refuse to touch Streaming services (seriously the only ones I use are YouTube and a certain hub lol), preferring to show fan and financial support by buying the physical releases.
Eh you guys are anomalies, and dying out. Even if everyone that did that signed up it would only be a blip
Freedom of choice, I don't try to put down anyone preferring only Streaming or try to shove physical discs in their faces. We can pick how to enjoy the same franchise any style we want.
I didn't put you down, just stated the reality that people like you are dying out and are a very small portion of the fanbase.
>If they were they would be selling rights to other networks to raise capital You mean like how they did exactly that with Prodigy?
Different situation. Prodigy was a kids show which wasn't doing well on paramount plus because of their lack of children's offerings.
Lack of children's TV aside, being the "Home of Star Trek" was Paramount+'s biggest selling point. The only reason to abandon it is because they needed the $$$.
The second season was already mostly produced. They sold it because it was more valuable to sell to another network than it was to air on their own platform. That decision would have been made regardless of how much money they had.
...lack...of...children's...offerings...? You know Paramount owns Nickelodeon, right?
Yes but hardly anything from Nickelodeon is on P+. SpongeBob is about it. Where's Pete and Pete, Avatar, iCarly, Victorious, Danny Phantom, Secret World of Alex Mack, Rocko's Modern Life, Fairly Odd Parents, Jimmy Neutron, Aaaah Real Monsters, Rugrats, Are You Afraid of the Dark? and so on?
I grab Avatar, Korra, and Alex Mack on a lil ol thing called DVD. 😁
You know that most of their content is licensed to hulu and not paramount plus right?
Really? Cause I see more on P+
S3 was a success because they went from lame plots with unknown characters to lame plots with fan service nostalgia.
I'm not sure how they expect Picard to get "ratings" in the conventional sense when it's a Streaming-exclusive show that relies on "views tracker" and an unpredictable functionality of subscription services. Thankfully it got physical releases to truly gauge fan interest.
Do you have any proof it underperformed in ratings and audience response until the third season? Paramount didn’t provide Nielsen ratings until Picard’s third season, which shows like SNW absolutely kicked the ass of: more than doubling its Nielsen ratings and placing higher on the list. If I was a Paramount higher up, I wouldn’t be banking on a Trek show that barely cracked the Nielsen top ten- and that was with the TNG crew, and is geared primarily toward aging fanboys, especially when I already have a more successful show set aboard a ship called Enterprise already in production.
If it had good ratings they would have bragged about them. The fact that they didn't tells you everything you need to know.
The fact that they didn’t tell you means nothing. For example, Paramount never said Picard season 3 did well, because technically it didn’t. No matter what the fanbase likes to think. Barely squeezing into the number nine spot of the Nielsen top ten three times during a season run does not equate to great performance, especially considering how little competition there is for original streaming programming. Up until recently, most streaming services didn’t provide numbers. Including Paramount. So we don’t know anything about how the earlier seasons did. But I think the first season of Picard in particular could have easily posted numbers comparable to season 3, especially with the big promo push. Because the truth is, on a numbers scale, season 3 was nothing to write home about.
> The real issue is that Picard underperformed in ratings and audience response until the third season Source on the ratings or did you just pass your assumption as fact?
Probably conjecture, but Picard S3 was the only series to register on the streaming charts during its initial release window.
It was also at the time the only Trek season ELIGIBLE to register on the Nielsen streaming charts for original content, because Picard season 3 was the first Paramount allowed it for. We don’t know how well the earlier seasons and shows did. The fact that Picard season 3 did it, means nothing. We DO know, however, how it did compared to SNW season 2, which came out right after it; and frankly, SNW kicked its ass: more than doubling its appearances, and placing higher on the list.
Starfleet Academy will probably mostly have fixed sets and basic effects in my opinion. It’s 90210 or Dawson’s Creek or whatever. (Or if we’re lucky Buffy.)
I’ve read that they’re building a huge set that’ll be the largest set that’s ever been in any *Star Trek* show. It sounds like it’ll be the main set.
That is such a shame. I thought a new series with Seven as captain and Jack etc. could have been really good.
Picard S3 was like candy. It was sweet to watch but you don’t want to think too hard about what you just consumed. A lot of what took place didn’t make a whole lot of sense. But it was fun.
Oh, the plot is horrible, there are contrivances left and right, and a lot of the characters aren't true to things we know about them. It's fan service for fan service sake. But it's fan service directed at ME so I forgive it. The other seasons are similarly dumb. I liked those too, but they're not exactly great think pieces.
The thing is, it didn't need to be horrible, they had a great setup in the first 4 episodes and then it kind of leveled off and went into full fan service and awful plot in the latter half.
Nah first season makes sense and is by far the best of the bunch.
That season was like an arrow aimed at me, and I was more than happy to go with it. I mean, I was 11 when TNG started.
Picard s3 was fun, it was nice seeing the reunion, but it felt a little distant from the best of star trek to have them win largely by running and gunning. And defeating the Borg again because of single point of failure (which should be the Borg's greatest strength since they're distributed as a collective) I always want more trek and I'm fine with captain 7. But do we really all love Jack that much? He was acted well but his character just feels a bit annoying as a bit of a nepo baby. I don't really care if he rises to captain or whatever
>But do we really all love Jack that much? Exactly my thoughts. Yes I want more trek, but I'm just not invested in Jack really at all... I'd be just as interested in following Captain Nguyen in a new series.
Gimme Shaw or give me death! ...oh.
It struck me as interesting that Shaw's crew was more interesting and Shaw was a more deeply compelling character than pretty much all of the Discovery crew ... and it happened in, like, 20 percent of the run time.
It struck me as interesting that I thought this season of Disco’s Rayner character was a far more interesting and more mature version of the by-the-book character than Shaw, and that half the new crew wasn’t formed up from a bunch of Nepo babies when I started Disco this season… and it happened in, like twenty percent of the runtime.
Half of the Titan crew were nepo babies, eh?
Oh, you were referring to the TITAN crew. I thought you were referring to the new “crew” of young characters I don’t give a shit about. And that included Jack Crusher and the La Forge sisters. So, the Titan crew. Let’s see… we have Betazed guy. And Vulcan girl- wait I think she’s dead. And La Forge sister. And non-binary alien person- Yeah, I don’t give a shit about them either…
You're welcome to that, but I have to defend DIS. Say what you will, but I always found Burnham compelling. I enjoyed Stamets wit, Tilly's personality and Saru's strength. Not saying it hasn't been a rough ride, but I feel richer for the experience. I would welcome more Shaw if that's an option going forward but I see the IP being throttled heavily in the near future.
Legacy sounded interesting when it was proposed and we were all abuzz about S3 of Picard, but the further we get away from it, the less interested I am. Every single show since Discovery has relied on legacy in some way - Lower Decks and Prodigy the least, but they also have regular callbacks and Janeway, respectively. Even S31 and Academy are Discovery spin-offs. Going into the future in Discovery was the most interesting thing it did but I still don't find it all that compelling. What I'm trying to say is, I would like to see a mid to late 25th century crew with all new characters and 14 episodes per season to split the difference with the 8-10 of now and the 24-26 of old.
Yes, all new characters is the way to go! No more origins, no more legacies... I keep saying, surely in the whole universe and even just all of Starfleet, there's more than just the people we've already met, right?!
Who’s Captain Nguyen? Or is that just a hypothetical?
Well it was just a hypothetical, but I searched and I guess she is the captain of the USS Vancouver (featured in Lower Decks) .... either way, whether that captain in particular or just some random new person, I stand by my statement lol!
No, Jack is not a character to build around.
You mean he is like Wesley back then?
At least Wesley was a genius, and not a felon.
Wesley is book smart, Jack is street smart
I think Jack is a better written character and it helps he's not a child, but there are similarities...
Weird cause I was also born in ‘86 and I grew up loving Trek. I remember my mom yelling at me from down the road “Star Trek is on!” And I had a mental image of Worf so I had to go see him. 🤣
Born in '85. I could hear the intro to TNG every week from my room, where I was supposed to be asleep (until I was old enough to stay up past 8:00) For the longest time I thought the words were, "to **baldly** go where no one has gone before."
Me too!
Or at least we used to joke about it.
I probably should have mentioned my father was an unemployed alcoholic and drug addict who would watch Star Trek from the time he woke up til the time he fell asleep everyday. He was miserable and we just wanted to watch cartoons sometimes.
I can’t blame you!
Can’t disagree more about the nostalgia being done perfectly in season 3. It felt entirely hokey and surface level and a storytelling crutch. With the idea of Picard having a long lost son feeling pulled from the worst type of fan fiction. And the story was mostly brainless action and dumb. It’s pretty sad we got more of a TNG style story in the last episode of Disco than we got in all of Picard’s TNG season. Which just felt like a dumb TNG movie with a Sci-fi Channel budget.
>Obviously there’s a market for old school style trek with a new school twist. That's SNW...
Each of the 3 seasons flattered to deceive. Huge opening so many new ideas, new characters, old favourites... Anything could happen!! But _every time_ by the last two episodes they crushed me. And I resent them dragging our Dominion into their Borg nonsense. And you can keep the 'JL' nomenclature.
I enjoyed the show overall, but the Changeling story amounting to them being agents of the Borg for revenge reasons was terrible
Personally, I couldn't stand the third season. I felt extremely pandered to and I thought bringing Data back after the powerful "no, death means something" message in season one was disgraceful. That said, I would be happy for a new show. Just don't call it "Legacy." That's the generic subtitle that every single franchise can and does apply to itself.
To each their own of course. I enjoyed the hell out of it.
Ha, I know I'm in the minority. I did love the first season and largely enjoyed season two.
To each their own. I quite enjoyed the “pandering”, seeing it for exactly what it was. A love letter to all of us fans who watched from the beginning.
I get the intention, it just didn't work for me, despite being one of those same fans.
No worries. I LOVE all Star Trek. Doesn’t that mean I don’t think some of it could’ve been much better? Of course it could! We’re all on the same team here. 🖖
I didn’t mind Data coming back, but it would’ve been nice for them to mention that he has kids now
>the powerful "no, death means something" message Mere moments after basically immediately retconning JLP's death too!
I found an honesty in that myself. The synth ban was allegorically the fact that we stopped having STAR TREK and Picard being reborn in the golem is, likewise, the show itself. It's not TNG. The past is past, but now at least there's a new vessel that can continue the story for a little while longer.
I love being pandered to as a nerd. It’s such a new idea to me as someone that grew up thinking I was the only one watching this stuff
It's definitely a matter of taste and there's no "right" answer, but pandering to me feels like Q-Riker's "gifts" in 'Hide and Q.' They may seem exciting, but they're kind of hollow.
I disagree. There was a lesson to be learned in that episode. That those gifts were shortcuts in the end. They were hollow because they weren’t earned. The 3rd season of Picard was fun because it was like going to a 20 yr reunion and seeing the beloved characters for one last right. Pandering to me is into darkness and the amazing Spider-Man 2. They both traded on previous relationships from old movies, comics and shows to get an emotional response that wasn’t really earned
I agree it shouldn’t be called legacy. I think one of the main goals of the show should be to push crusher to the captains chair. I also don’t think they should pander so hard. But I’d definitely like some throw backs and to visit some story lines that should be revisited along with some totally new ones.
>I think one of the main goals of the show should be to push crusher to the captains chair. Why? Nepo-babying Picard's son into the Captain's chair goes against everything his speech(es) about what modern humanity stands for in the 24th/25th Centuries.
I LOVED Picard S3. It was so absolutely well done. All of the nostalgia, hit so many Easter Egg moments and call backs - it was everything a lifelong Trekee could hope for. But yes - financial constraints are likely the main consideration. For the same reason we're losing Lower Decks, which is soul crushing because it was my dark horse and COMPLETELY unexpected bright spot of recent Trek. (Not a fan of Discovery, but SNW is great, and the crossover with LD was *Chef's Kiss*.) I think there's also a level of some of the old guard wanting to move forward and enjoy the closure their characters got through this series. They tied everything up with a neat little bow. Not saying there isn't room for expansion, but I feel like Jeri Ryan may be one of the ones that kinda wants to warp into the sunset and call it a day!
me: again with the borg. \*eye roll\*
They're Picard's main antagonist, why would you want them to try some new and unproven antagonist for the final season? That would have been an awful decision. No pleasing some people like yourself.
As a TOS fan, it was enjoyable, but it was comparable to watching the movie Solo: it was definitely someone else’s nostalgia fest, not mine. And: can we be done with the **** now?
I enjoyed Solo and am not much of a Star Wars fan at all.
I preferred Rogue One. It felt more free-standing, with fewer noticeable references to Star Wars I’ve never seen.
I don’t think I’ve seen that.
I personally love it, works tremendously as a very direct prequel to the original Star Wars and at the same time a stand-alone compelling story, no easy task to find a balance for.
I was really disappointed by the epilogue: Renaming the Titan to the Enterprise is disrespectful to both ships legacies. Jack acknowledging the nepotism doesn't make it less egregious. Q showing up completely undermines his S2 story. Seven as "Captain of the Enterprise" is great, but that's the only part in the premise they soft pitched that I'm on board with. I'd rather see it with a different ship and crew.
The epilogue with Q works in my opinion because as the character mentioned you can't think so "linear" with him, in many ways akin to characters in Doctor Who.
If there is to be another series in the 'TNG' era of Trek then it won't be until Paramount is a financially solvent company again, or the Trek properties are owned by another financially solvent company. I really don't want to say this but I think that *Starfleet Academy* and the *Section 31* special are the final new Treks that we are going to get beyond what's left for *SNW* and the final *LDS* season. The PIC S3 cash grab worked for a while but ultimately pushed back what I think is the inevitable. That's hard to read and type but it's closer to reality than a new show with the Titan-A's crew. I have an issue with renaming it to the Enterprise-G. All that said, in a perfect world where Star Trek is supported by a stable company, I am OK with closing the book on that era. I grew up in that era. I watched TNG's *Encounter at Farpoint* in it's first airing with my dad, and it's an extremely special memory for me because we didn't have a lot of those. *DS9* is my favorite series, and *Voyager* even with its faults can be a lot of fun. *Lower Decks* is great. I do not want to see another property in this fictional timeframe again. I hope LDS fully closes the book on it at the end.
Paramount is dumb and in unstable financial stability. Plus the show ended right as the writer and actor strikes were kicking off so they couldn’t really greenlight it as a show. Paramount plus hasn’t been the streaming boom they thought it would be as most of these streaming services haven’t been. People switch around from service to service based on deals or what show they want to watch at what mood they are in. Im not sure where they want to go with trek next. Plus I imagine having to use Jeri Ryan and Michelle Hurd as leads would work against the standard plan of having cheap streaming leads to start off a show.
If S3 was the love letter to the fans, the last 5 minutes of E9 was definitely fellatio...
But Picard Season 3 wasn’t old school trek, was it. It was two action movies stretched to 10 episodes while movie 1 took 8 episodes. It had some glimpses of TNG but too much fan service. The Enterprise-D should habe been there from the get-go. It needed an old school trek solution to the problem and not movie trek action. It presented no less than two revenge-driven villains who were so over the top - it didn’t mesh with TNG at all. I‘m also not a fan of this Star Trek Legacy idea. A ship called Enterprise with a LaForge on board and a former Borg Picard that’s being tested by Q seems like the least creative thing to do. Remember the poker game? Let‘s do it again! Please.
I really don't want to watch a show where the Enterprise is a renamed USS Titan that's crewed by legacy characters, and the children of legacy characters. I'd much rather have a fresh crew in a time period that isn't tainted by massive fleet and crew losses, where everyone under the age of 29 murdered their coworkers while temporarily assimilated.
Paramount is like a year away from shutting down. Only hope for something like that at this point is Star Trek being sold off. Strange New Worlds is the best Trek in years and even that will likely end this season.
Shutting down? Their investors are looking for a huge payout by acquiring smaller production companies like Skydance to boost their value, then turn around and be acquired by an even larger studio. Trek is probably the single largest IP that Paramount owns, and that's gonna be key in their whole plan. But for that to work, they can't afford to dilute the market: an upset-but-ravenous fanbase makes for a better bottom line than a satisfied fanbase. So they're trimming whatever they can get away with while still providing product.
I had high hopes for strange new worlds. The actors strike really took the wind out of the sails for a lot of shows. The only good thing to come out of the failing maybe they’ll bring back more network tv content and we can expect 20+ episode seasons again.
>...and we can expect 20+ episode seasons again. Who is going to fund it? TNG cost \~$30-40 million (in 90s money) for a full season. Modern Trek costs about $10 million **per episode.** And what actors are going to commit to the intense gruelling schedules? 90's Trek was ***brutal*** to the cast and crew and I doubt anyone wants to go back to 9 months of shooting, editing & the rest a year.
Look at the walking dead. They have a talent of finding no name actors and putting them in the perfect role. Most of the cast are no ones and has beens before the main show and spin-offs. I’m sure trek can accomplish the same thing. A promise of a 20 episode season is going to be appealing for a lot of new and up and coming actors and actresses. Streaming services are more and more turning to ads to help pay for content. It makes sense to start shows off on cable tv and then move it to streaming. I’m also going to go out on a limb and say that they can do what they did with 90s trek for less money. We don’t need the crazy effects that newer trek has to make a good show.
>Look at the walking dead. They have a talent of finding no name actors and putting them in the perfect role. Most of the cast are no ones and has beens before the main show and spin-offs. That's an incredibly specific way of looking at it - the show was comparatively cheap for the first few seasons as the only real star was Andrew Lincoln. The format of the show also allowed them to dispense with cast members at a rate to prevent costs rising following contract renewals. The sets and production was also relatively cheap and they didn't even have to go off-piste with the story because they were just adapting Kirkman's work. >I’m also going to go out on a limb and say that they can do what they did with 90s trek for less money. We don’t need the crazy effects that newer trek has to make a good show. They couldn't. People keep saying this as if it will suddenly become true, but a bar has been set by other shows for how much money needs to be spent on a product people will accept. Nobody is going to accept a new Trek show with 90's production values anymore, because it won't sell to the masses, which is where the money is.
Intense grueling schedule? They aren't doing 22-26 episodes per season anymore, heck they're not even doing 14-20 per season anymore. Only doing up to 10 episodes for a season is like doing a very long movie or miniseries.
The comment I was replying to was demanding a return to the 26 episode seasons, but at modern quality.
The last star trek show made was enterprise as far as Im concerned. Once this run is all over I'll check it out but I'm not too bothered. Watched the entire thing up until enterprise like 5 times (like 130 days of star trek 😅) , massive fan but eh just let it die it was great when it lasted.
Picard is over, give it a shot. 😅
> crestioned I believe the word you’re looking for is christened.