Star Trek Picard Roundtable

Hello and welcome to Future Imperfect. I'm your

host, Admiral Phillips, and joining me in this

endeavor into the great beyond of Star Trek is...

I think I'm Commander or Lieutenant Commander.

Lieutenant Commander died on this. You're Commander,

but you don't do anything, so you're Commander

Useless. So clearly I am fit for the rank and

responsibilities of Command. It's up to my underlings.

Here, go do shit in the turbo shafts. demote

you to ensign no does that make me like am i

even commissioned am i like a like a non -commissioned

officer at this point or something um i don't

know i'd have to look um to be honest i just

want to be barclay the whole time that's all

he's awesome um no actually in our sfi we have

um a total of eight members Oh, my God. I'm pretty

sure it's done everything. I was going to say,

I am a part of that. Yours expired. It does.

Oh, it did. I'm still a member, apparently, though.

I still get all the emails. Yeah, you're an inactive

roster member. Is that what that is? Yeah. Okay.

So you know how every Starfleet starship has

to have that super go -getter? I'm the guy down

in maintenance that one day you had to go down

there and they found me sleeping there. And they're

like, wait, you've been on the payroll for like

three years. And my job is to like, make sure

this one light doesn't flash. Cause if it flashes,

then I have to call commander data. It's like,

it's like, it's my entire job is that light stays

green and never changes. And I replaced the led

bulbs. That's it. in data's eyes i i knew a guy

who was an a electrician aboard a battleship

that was literally his only job was to change

light bulbs on the ship and he he made quite

a lot of money doing that i always thought it

was ridiculous like you went through basic training

to change light bulbs he's like yep and and in

the case of an emergency he also had to kill

people so Yeah, that's last resort. Otherwise,

he'll throw light bulbs at him. Broken light

bulbs. It's like, oh, they're LEDs. They don't

break. They just hit me and bounce off. But anyway,

yes. So we're here. Yes, we are here. We are

waiting. So anyways, we've had two Picard trailers

drop since the last time we've done a Future

Imperfect, as well as a Discovery trailer. And

we're going to pretty much focus on Picard this

episode. And I don't know if you guys have seen

both trailers or not. I'm assuming so, being

that that's what the topic is. Yeah, I've seen

both trailers. The teaser and then, you know,

that everybody saw, I think, in the world. And

then the most recent one, which was, was it earlier

this week or last week they dropped it? Yeah,

it was Saturday. Yeah, the one from New York

City Comic Con. Yes. And to be honest, it's quite

epic. Just seeing what they're bringing in. And

there's there's a ton of unanswered questions

just from the trailer alone, especially the second

one. But after the first trailer, I I had the

thought that, you know, multiple different directions

that the whole data thing could be because it

definitely looked like the B -9 type of of uniform

that he was wearing or could have been the the

film uniform. But it's leaning more towards like

these are Picard's hallucinations. yeah yeah

i saw seeing that it or at least at least one

scene will be a hallucination yes at least one

or dream sequence and i'm kind of wondering because

the way it sort of looks and the way it plays

out for those brief couple seconds is is this

similar to uh where he was getting flashbacks

or could sort of hear echoes of the borg like

is it is it that part of the brain activating

see i'm wondering that too and i'm wondering

if one data is basically his conscious consciousness

that's helping him to cope with things and figure

things out or you know especially in his like

old age or if somehow because there's they allude

to the fact that there's other androids being

built because there's f8 which if you you know

spell it out as fate and It's kind of funny because

he almost looks like commander data. It's without

hair except for the fact that he almost kind

of resembles that commander Maddox or Maddox

from Season two of measure of a man, okay who

tried to get data originally, and they found

it basically against the Federation's constitution

of sorts for data, which meant any other Android

was fair game. And so with data gone, they had

fair game to try and recreate the Zoom -type

robots. Well, and that episode is critical, too,

because when the Blu -ray came out, that's the

only episode of the entire franchise of all of

them that's ever had an extended cut. and it's

like a full 15 minutes longer, and that was the

intended version. Yeah, so if you haven't seen

it, they're on the Blu -rays, or you can probably

find them online. I don't know if it's streaming,

but there was a much longer cut that dealt more

with the character study on that, as well as

just the legal ramifications of it. And that

was the director's intended vision, but then

at the last minute, they cut it down to make

it fit a regular episode length. That's crazy.

Yeah, it was like my singular reason for buying

the Blu -rays. Go ahead, Mike. I was going to

say, I actually saw this episode in theaters

back when the Blu -rays were coming out every

so often. Paramount and whatever events company

would show certain extended episodes in theaters.

I remember seeing Encounter at Farpoint. I think

they showed Q Who, but I remember Measure of

a Man, and I think Inner Light were also shown

in theaters. It was all the two -parters they

did that with, plus Measure of a Man. Measure

of a Man also had an extended... It's the only

one I saw that had an extra 30 minutes to fill

that hour -and -a -half time slot, and that 30

minutes was the behind -the -scenes. So they

did the Ocuda documentary? Yeah, they put that

in there and then sort of explained why it was

cut. Even CBS was like, we don't want to cut

this. But because it's syndicated, there's no

network to get permission from to display the

full -length one. And when they sell it to syndication,

you sell it at that exact 47 minutes and 28 seconds

or whatever each episode used to be. So there

was no really way for them to show it. Then they

forgot about it. And when they put the DVDs out,

they literally... The DVDs were the TV masters.

And when they went back and did everything to

put it on Blu -ray, they actually found the canisters

where they had filmed it. One of the other interesting

things with Measure of a Man, and I was watching

an episode earlier as well, and it was called

The Quality of Life. I don't know if you're familiar

with that one, but it's the one where there's

like a research facility and they're using exocomps,

which are the little remote control droids, essentially,

that they send into the shafts to kind of repair

things. Um, at one point they start, um, data

starts discovering that they start having a mind

of their own. Oh yeah. And, and he's basically

Riker's like, we have to save Geordi and we have

to say Picard and, um, data locks out the transporter.

And he's like, um, no, cause they, they have

the right to choose, you know? And, and so they,

they have this, this thing back and forth and,

and, um, you know, he argues that. One life form

for another is not justified. And based on his

own experiences, he believes that the exocomps

are alive like himself and therefore have the

right to live. And so Data volunteers to beam

over to fix it. And Riker points out that it'll

ionize his positronic matrix, killing him. And

then Data states that since he has the power

to choose, he is within his rights to sacrifice

himself for his comrades. The exocomps don't

have such rights. which he earned those rights

with Picard in Measure of a Man. And so it's

kind of funny that he mentions this and then

it calls back to Nemesis where he actually does

that for Picard. Yeah, it's interesting how they

are clearly going back to the lore from different

episodes, even in this trailer, like sort of

the hints with that. It looks like Picard's entire...

Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but the train

of thought was the entire show is going to be

based around... They're showing that it's a lot

of action, but it seems to be based very much

so around a philosophical debate over something.

Oh yeah, definitely. And it's surrounding the

Borg, the Romulans, and clearly now the Androids

as well, where it's a philosophical thing of

do you have the right to... basically enslave

beings just because the Borg are being demechanized

and used as slave labor with the Romulans and

the Federation. Then there's the creation of

all these Soom -type androids. I guess that's...

I can see why Picard in the second trailer would

be as fired up as he is with the Admirals. They're

basically like... go home because he's like i'm

not going to stand for this and they're like

that's not your house anymore get out yeah well

the only other thing i could think of from that

one scene with data uh you were saying is his

conscience um i'm wondering is it a malevolent

force that is is tricking him into thinking it's

data which i could see that too I could definitely

see that too. What I thought was really strange

is they, they tapped back to the TNG uniforms

with, with Picard and data. And then data is

like, I get that he's aged, but they could have

used some kind of digital sorcery to make it

look halfway decent because his hair is like

the goofiest thing on his head. And like, I get

his face is like, they're, they're doing what

they can with it. You know, he's aged, so he's

gotten wider, but. He's also a grumposaurus and

not a very nice person in real life. Yeah, well,

but his hair was so far off, it just looked fake.

I don't know, it just looked better in Nemesis,

which is sad to say because everybody panned

that movie. I didn't have as big of a problem

with it, but again, it's just kind of strange.

I liked it at the time. It's one of the only

movies I went to where people... Ours was, I

think, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I was

watching that when I was in high school and I

had that movie on a flash drive and I showed

people in class. But I think the way that this

is shot, it's not shot the same way, like the

cinematography and everything. It's not shot

the same way as Discovery, at least from what

it shows in the trailer. It's not shot like TNG

directly, maybe in some flashback scenes. It's

more like the movies of TNG. Not so much Nemesis.

Nemesis had a lot of... More first contact. Yeah,

I was going to say exactly. Insurrection just

looked like a better budget TV episode. It was

a better budget TV episode. And Generations still

had the look of the previous original films.

Whereas Nemesis had a very... Not shaky cam.

It wasn't quite there yet. It was very grungy

and kind of just bland. And there was a lot more

movement. The cameras were always moving. Whereas

First Contact had a very cinematic look that

was different. It almost felt like... You were

there. Yeah. Not that it was shot at a faster

frame rate, but it was filmed more like a documentary.

You were closer to them. Even though it wasn't

like they were blowing up the screen. It was

still shot in widescreen and everything. but

it felt like you were on the bridge. You were

with them the whole time. And this has that same

sort of look where the shots are composed. So

if they go with that, I mean, they are picking

the best of the modern movies. Now, what do you...

I'm going to start with Mike so that he's not

sleeping. So what were some of the best points

or characters that you're happy that they're

bringing back and are evolving? I'm very happy

to see them touch... on hue again that's something

i thought they would just let go but the fandom

has always asked well whatever happened when

he went back to the borg they kind of talked

about it in descent one and two but then after

this because that was a that was a episode in

season six i think they kind of let that go and

it was never answered yeah the descent part two

yeah so then moving forward with that through

line I think is very cool. Plus, you do get to

see what happened to Seven of Nine. There's a

possibility they might have killed Chakotay or

maybe Icheb because you see Seven of Nine holding

somebody, obviously, in some kind of a distressed

state. And then she goes full -on Master Chief

with... dual wielding phaser rifles which is

kind of cool if a little ridiculous it's a little

ridiculous but i could definitely see her doing

it and having the precision of the borg implant

still exactly um another thing i did i did kind

of dig about this obviously having reicher and

troy back is kind of fun um seeing who these

new characters are going to be some kind of like

a romulan swordsman joins them that's kind of

cool um Yeah, I mean, mostly I'm curious to see

how the whole Hugh thing plays out because he's

wearing the same uniform that seems to be in

the prison slash android facility. So I'm curious

to see how that whole angle plays out. I'm wondering

if he infiltrated it because I don't see him

playing well with others when they're trying

to hold captive people. Just based on his previous,

you know, encounter and descent. because he was

turning into a leader and so I see him more of

like on Seven's side in this instance but it

was interesting to see him come back as well

and I'm curious about the new crew as well but

I don't know I know the one the doctor the cyberneticist

is the one that's been working on the androids

and working on you know before I'm assuming That

we're gonna get into some kind of a like I know

this season's gonna be heavy on the Romulans

in the Borg I'm thinking that they're they're

gonna have the Android bits in there just as

like Almost like planning an extra seed for season

two because I feel like season two they're gonna

bring data back. Oh Sorry, sorry brain brain

firing off on all cylinders right now What if

when he's having flashbacks are seeing? Data,

it's not data and it's lore I don't think so.

They're not going to pull that because, I mean,

he's not actually gone. And last we saw, wasn't

he in charge of other robots? No. No. Data permanently

deactivated him and they put him in a housing

chamber. Yeah. And he was in Starfleet for study.

Okay. Well, then that's something they could

pull out of their hat if they ever had to. Yeah,

that's true. So they would have two same type

of androids as well. Yeah, they could easily

do it where they think he's back together, but

it's not Data's neural pathways back. It's lore's.

Which would be kind of creepy. And with Riker

and Troy back, they're not as jarring because

you're saying how weird Data looks. they're not

as jarring because we saw them... They're the

only ones that we saw in uniform after Nemesis.

They were in that final episode of Enterprise.

Well, and they were in Voyager a lot. Yeah, exactly.

But even as they got older, they appeared a few

years, three or four years after Nemesis in Enterprise.

So, you know, they haven't... In the last 14

years, they haven't aged as much as you'd think.

Well, Riker looks particularly... Not as well

as he did. He looks like Grandpa now. Grandpa

Riker. You see him and it's like he's human so

he's going to age a certain way and eventually

she's going to feed him full of food so he can't

go chasing down other women. All I want to see

him do, and they're going to have to do it, that

he's going to have to do the thing where he steps

over the seat to sit down and I want to see him

try it and then can't get over it because he's

old. I think he'll still do it. But yeah, I love

the seat thing because it's hilarious. But no,

I one of the things I noticed with this series

that's kind of unique is it kind of and it's

not unique at the same time as they they have

enough time pass like they show the Enterprise

D like hologram inside Starfleet command and

he has to spell out his name and then they're

like, you know, welcome back. You know, good

to see you out again, you know, because he's

put himself in this exile from some failed. rescue

attempt that they're saying is the problem which

probably has to do with Romulus being imploded

but the funny thing is they basically have the

Star Trek Renegades plotline going with Picard

much like they did with Tuvok and Chekhov and

Renegades it's like Picard is almost holding

that flag there and then he has his own renegade

crew and they're just kind of you know going

and righting the wrongs that starfleet's gotten

too crooked to take care of it's almost feeling

like this was salvaged from those original ideas

for the captain wharf movies that were going

to be done on netflix or that was the idea well

i know that he's tried to pitch his own uh wharf

series and it's gotten canned like the idea because

it was wasn't one of the ideas that he was going

to be sort of going on like even not in the defiant

but something similar a small ship uh stealth

missions to uh go where the starfleet doesn't

you don't necessarily want to go and that and

there were a couple of them that he was going

to be in this you know on the the klingon side

of things too um which i'd read um so it's i

don't know it's kind of hard they they don't

they have made no intention of wanting to bring

Worf back or like Geordi or like some of the

others. I know that they're planning on getting

Robert Picardo as the holographic doctor for

season two. Yeah, they'll get Will Wheaton because

he's cheap and needs money. And he's got nothing

going on. Yeah, he has the geek cred and all

that. The last time he had anything Trek related,

he was in Nemesis in the wedding scene and then

that was it. But they had Guinan in there too.

I'd love to see Q come back just for the sake

of witty banter. That'll be hidden. They will

not let that leak until it airs. No, because

that would just be gold. But I think that the

holographic doctor, the fact that they're talking

about bringing him in for season two, is going

to make the artificial light form question come

into play with data and the androids and the

holograms and everything else that's not. And

if they're doing all that, then they should bring

Barkley back in. Yeah, because Barkley was...

He could be an advocate for holographic life.

Holograms. Yeah, because he was pretty hardcore

into the holograms and everything else, especially

in Voyager. But yeah, I don't know. I'm really

excited to see what they do with Picard. That's

literally the only reason I would even... think

about cbs all access to be honest i mean i i

enjoyed season two of discovery because of the

enterprise crew that crossed over like pike and

everything else because he was an awesome captain

pike but um i'm not really sure what they're

going to do with season three of discovery on

that that front and i think that it's whatever

they're doing here on picard is going to tie

directly into um the timeline of discovery season

three you think that they're going to try to

converge them all They'll probably try because

they want that cross promotion. They want to

bring in the old school Trekkies who are like,

rah, rah, TNG, Captain Picard. They knocked,

and sorry if you haven't seen this yet, Mike,

but I'm going to say it. Go ahead. They knocked

Discovery 930 years in the future. Yeah, I saw

that and I was like, okay. So what they've essentially

done is pushed it to the point that it's past

any other Trek series, even past the battle of

Procyon 5 that they mentioned in Enterprise with

Daniels and the time travel war. Yeah, because

that was like the year 3100 or something, right?

No, it was like the 28th century or something

like that. Or 29th century. He's from the 31st

century and so this kind of puts... Yeah. it

puts discovery in like the 32nd century, which

means that something drastic has happened in

that time span. Um, no, because when they showed

the trailer for discovery, there was only six

stars on the United Federation of planets, um,

logo that they had and it was severely changed

and they were like very surprised to see a Starfleet

vessel after that many years or, you know, the

relics of the uniform, uh, in general. By that

point, so I'm thinking that something's going

to happen somewhere in Picard because Picard

takes place 20 years after Nemesis. But one thing

to remember is that this new one, the timeline

is different in Discovery than what we're used

to. It's not really. They kind of tied it up

in the last episode of season two. Yeah, they

explained the whole reason of why discovering

anybody was never mentioned and they blacklisted

anything that had to do with it with threats

of treason and the death penalty per Spock. Yeah,

okay, okay. You're right. I was thinking how

do they... Some things were different, but I

guess it's just the tech. The tech looks a little

different. But yeah, they cleaned up some of

it with the holographic stuff and all that. Well,

they got rid of the holographic stuff and everything

else because Pike was a proponent to get rid

of it because then the whole thing with Section

31 and Control, they went back more basic because

they didn't want something like that happening

again. And then slowly started reintroducing

some of that technology that showed up from Section

31. And Discovery is by far the most advanced

ship in the fleet even. by the 24th century standards.

They basically have to... Yeah, I was going to

say, the only thing more powerful would have

been the Enterprise E with their quantum torpedoes,

right? That's it. Well, you'd almost... Even

Voyager, the transphasic torpedoes and the ablative

plating that they used against the entire Borg

fleet. As far as transportation goes, the discovery

is beyond anything we've ever seen. Yeah, you

would think Janeway would have been loving to

have that technology. The show would have been

a single episode. Well, we're back and that's

the end. Or they would spend the next 100 episodes

figuring out who the hell the caretaker is because

we're still asking what the hell that was. Yeah,

they'll never resolve that. No. The simplest

thing would have been they're one of the queue.

That would have been the easiest way to go about

it. They do talk about the caretaker once or

twice in Voyager after the first season, but

yeah, never really again. Maybe it got resolved

in a non -canon novel, but who the hell knows?

But yeah, so anyways, with Picard, I'm feeling

like they're going to show more or less the start

of the downfall of Starfleet and a variety. of

other things, which is going to totally throw

out Star Trek Online out the window. It was never

canon to begin with. Well, they kind of made

it to be canon. Yeah, but then they realized,

man, we're making a game. Man, we have to keep

updating events. This is a lot of work. It's

like how the Matrix Online was supposed to be

canon. No. You know what they did with the Discovery

content? There was never enough people playing

Star Trek Online. Well, there still are. I mean,

dude, there's like maybe 100 ,000 people regularly

playing. Oh, less than that. The server populations

are well under five. Okay, so then... If the

whales keep that game alive. I'm a frequent player.

No, we're not saying anything against it. It's

just for it to be canon, they would have to be

in the World of Warcraft 5 to 10 million players.

It would have to be doing Call of Duty numbers.

They would have to be pulling in like a billion

a year from that for them to even consider making

that canon because then they wouldn't have to

find a way to explain... things from that to

the regular viewer. Because 99 % of Trekkies

out there have never played the game. That's

kind of true. Kind of true? I like the game when

it came out. I'm not trying to be disparaging

to it. It's just the vast majority of the people...

The vast majority of old -school Trekkies are

old enough to have never played an MMO and probably

never will. No, true. And the ones that are younger

want to play one that has good graphics, and

that game does not have good graphics. I mean,

it's not terrible graphics either, but yeah,

I mean, I get your point. Its biggest failing

is that it started out as... an mmo the fact

that it the fact that it didn't get ported to

consoles till later heard it it never had the

numbers that needed to be a wild success because

trek despite the it's only recently that that

name has started to mean something again it was

a franchise in decline if it came out now as

a free -to -play game like a what is it, World

of Tanks or any of those games, like Warframe,

if it came out as a free -to -play and had all

the lore in there, you'd get your several million

people playing it. It was when it came out. I

played it day one. I was the fool that bought

a three - or four -month subscription at once

and got one month into it and went, there's nothing

here. and they took too long to get any content

going on it well yeah and see the thing is is

then they got sold to another company went free

to play and then they they do the micro transaction

thing now and um they do about every quarter

they have new like totally new missions or a

new episode like every year like in the fall

they'll have a brand new episode come out and

it's and sometimes in the summer too um but they

get a lot of the old cast to come back and so

they kind of keep fleshing out the timeline from

uh way back from like archer's era to you know

the 27th century and and whatnot so you you get

to take place in all of these different places

in star trek lore and kind of fill in some of

the gaps through it which is nice too so you

get some of the aspects the shows don't tell

you it's probably been done but if it hasn't

it would be really good for them or cbs to uh

make machinima out of it like make individual

videos even if they're like an hour long showing

off the episodes showing the storylines from

each one if you wanted to make a canon you throw

that up on like all their social media or you

make a you know an animated thing out of it to

show off the you know to fill gaps between things

because that could be interesting especially

you know if it's well told like the storylines

especially if didn't they get a lot of voice

actors for it too oh yeah they've got a lot of

the original um actors from from truck and heavily

involved They'll do something when Picard launches,

but I wouldn't expect to have much of an impact

on the game. I'm actually surprised you didn't

get something for the New York Comic Con stuff,

just because it's frankly not a high priority

because it doesn't bring eyeballs to the franchise.

It's frankly a dead game. They do when they have

the Star Trek Celebration thing. When they have

their Star Trek convention in Vegas or whatever,

that's when they do all their giveaway stuff.

Or during the February, their anniversaries,

they'll have a bunch of giveaways too. So those

are really the two times that they give things

out. They'll do something for Picard when it

premieres on January 22nd. They're still milking

Discovery. They've been doing that for a little

over a year. Before that, they had a lot of DS9

to correspond with the anniversary. They'll probably

produce a good half -hour special that can either

go on CBS All Access or on YouTube or something

that will sort of catch everybody. Because they're

going to want to capture new people that maybe

never even saw TNG. Because they're going after

all the old fans. but they're still always going

to want new people to show up. So they might

produce a half hour or one hour recap on Picard's

story throughout the series and movies. I don't

see them doing that. I see them saying, go back

and watch the entire seven seasons of TNG or

watch these 12 episodes of Data and Picard and

Hugh and then watch these ones of seven and then

watch the movies. The problem is, if they want

to capture anybody under the age of 25, they're

not going to do that. We're in an age now where

nobody does that anymore. Yeah, they'll just

look it up on Wikipedia. Alex has a point, though.

If they are smart, CBS, Paramount, whoever the

hell's in charge, they'll cut together a five

to ten minute YouTube clip show featuring all

official clips. They'll get it voiced by either

Patrick Stewart or John Delancey. or somebody

recounting the history so far. They're not going

to spend a half hour. That's too much money.

Yeah, you're right. Maybe eight to ten minutes.

Probably not even that because you're looking

at the average attention span. You'll get someone

for about five minutes, maybe seven at the outset.

Or maybe if they're smart, they'll do a recap

each week leading up to Picard. You're going

to see something prior to the Super Bowl for

sure. um you'll probably see something big drop

around christmas time if that's what i would

do if i was in charge of the marketing for this

but think small because this is on cbs all access

yes they've put money into it but they're putting

it behind a payroll a paywall except in canada

it goes terrestrial broadcast so okay i wouldn't

be surprised if uh ctv what do they call it ctv

sci -fi if they do a half hour special beforehand

Because they did that for Discovery. They did

a half hour, here's what you need to know. Well,

they'll probably have an after tracks for it,

for Picard. And then they'll have somebody divulge

a lot of the back history of it. Yeah, that wouldn't

surprise me. Because looking, I didn't realize,

unlike Discovery where Netflix was the international

distributor outside of the States and Canada,

it's Amazon this time. And within 24 hours of

showing it, they're going to have it on Amazon.

So funny enough, I'm willing to bet the best

quality copy you can get would be anywhere outside

of North America because the Amazon service has

HDR, 4K, Dolby Atmos surround, none of which

are on any of the other platforms here. Crave

is like CBS All Access. It's nothing. But it

is going to air terrestrially here an hour before

it does in the States. So the weird thing behind

that is you'd figure that they would want to

release it at the exact same time everywhere

because there's going to be a crap ton of people

internationally that just pirate the episode

immediately after it airs. Or even right before

it airs, like the rest of the world waiting 24

hours. What's the point? Amazon's not going to

get any views. Everybody's going to get copies

or find streaming services that have it. find

ways around geo -blocking and watch it either

on Crave in Canada or they're going to watch

the copy on CBS. Either way, I'm very excited

for the show and for the revival and bring back

of Picard and a lot of the old staples of the

24th century, even if they're brief. I think

there's a lot riding on this more than just the

Star Trek name. This will make or break CBS All

Access because Discovery is doing okay, in my

opinion. It did pretty well in its second season,

but people want Picard. Let's be frank here.

They want old Trek. They want to bring in all

the old Trekkies because they have a lot of money.

That's a lot of eyes to bring back to the franchise.

And younger people like Discovery. But frankly,

younger people can take or leave projects as

they come and go. Yeah, pretty much. Trekkies

are very loyal to their particular brand. They

will spend the money. They will go out of their

way to be brand loyal and be brand ambassadors

towards it. So if Picard fails, which it likely

won't. you're going to see something happen to

CBS All Access. The fact that they're already

talking about a second season is likely a very

good sign because Patrick Stewart has said the

showrunners convinced him to come back. He wasn't

going to do any more Trek, which means this is

likely not a cash grab. Patrick Stewart strikes

me as the kind of guy who has enough integrity

where he believes in the product from an artistic

vision and artistic interpretation as an actor.

So the odds are it won't be stupid. but there's

a possibility this could fail and a lot of truckers

need to be prepared. And yeah. And the other

thing too, is like, I've noticed since discovery

had season two with, with Pike and Spock and

number one and the enterprise, despite the small,

you know, small changes that they've done, you

know, just for the budget wise, people really

enjoyed ants and mounts. captain pike and are

clamoring for a captain pike show now with like

the enterprise crew of that era before kirk which

i to be honest i would probably get on board

with that just because he kind of has like the

best of all the different captains kind of rolled

in well and if they did it i they wouldn't do

it long term because they wouldn't want to take

away from Discovery. What they would do is they

would make it probably a six episode series,

and it would be what leads to him basically becoming

crippled and Kirk taking over. Well, they already

showed that. Yeah, they showed it in his flash

forwards, but it would be something where it

would lead directly into the pilot of the original

series. Yeah, I mean, I can see them doing that

as well. But right now they're kind of experimenting

with using them in the short tracks, which is

why they've all kind of been recurring throughout

that. And there's still talks that somehow they're

going to some of the cast from Discovery is going

to somehow end up back in the 23rd century. I

don't see how, but. I don't know. I'm not really

attached to Discovery all that much. The only

reason I cared about Season 2 is because of what

they brought with it. That was Pike and the Enterprise

crew. Beyond that, I honestly don't care. It's

just another off -world dystopian future sci

-fi flick. They're not even going to really use

the Discovery in it. I like season two. I really

do. From what I've seen, I've seen three quarters

of it. I don't like how it's the Michael Burnham

show. I don't either. But every show needs an

anchor point. But also, be quiet. All the social

justice warriors will come after you. She's the

MacGuffin, though. Here's the problem. She's

not a very good actress. I liked her on Walking

Dead. The problem is in this role, she's very

melodramatic. Stiff. Everybody else is fine.

She's not, but nobody wants to say anything because

they're afraid of getting backlash. She got better

in this season as it went on. But she had a more

dynamic captain. Yeah. I didn't always entirely

focus on her, but again, she's getting better

and better and more comfortable in the role,

but I actually don't see Discovery going past

the third season. I feel like they're setting

up Picard's show to be the way they can branch

off. Because now they can appease the executives

that were so gung -ho against doing anything

in the original timeline. Because clearly the

Discovery was not meant to be part of the same

universe originally. And then with the insane

backlash they got, they had to really change

that for season two. But what I can see is them

being like, okay, so we can tell this whole arc

because we know how pissed people are going to

get if we don't finish an arc because of how

pissed people got with Enterprise, how abruptly

they had to end that. These are fans you do not

screw over or they have long memories. Yes, they

do. So you want to get the story long because

it's hitting all the right notes critically in

the media for the diversity it has and the topics

and blah, blah, blah. but you can finish the

storyline probably in this season at the very

most of fourth. They're not going to get enough

episodes for syndication, but then again, they

don't need it because they have their own streaming

platform. But I could see them finishing this,

you know, the next season, having it be done

with doing the Picard and then doing different

focuses on different timelines. So it won't be

necessarily another TNG show, but you might get

a show like it's literally just like in the DS9,

you know, Set it in the, you know, another quadrant

even. Or you could do one on the Defiant. And

then you do something with, you know, Starfleet

Command and have it be about Janeway when she's

taken over to Starfleet Command. I don't think,

I think a lot of the show, it doesn't matter

about the fans. And I say this and I preface

this by this. The show is about money. The show's

not been about storytelling right now. Whether

it gets to season four, it'll probably happen

because they need something to anchor CBS All

Access. CBS All Access needs five shows, in my

opinion, to be a viable streaming platform alternative.

Picard, Discovery, and three more shows that

are likely in development right now. Well, because

Twilight Zone didn't cut it. It was not as well

received or watched as much as people thought

it was going to be. It's not bad. Because it

got no advertisement. But that's the problem.

For a syndicated show or for a show like that,

it needed more than 10 or 11 episodes. The Twilight

Zone seasons were always 20 to 26 episodes, and

they need enough that people can binge through

it. Yeah, that's why I'm saying Star Trek Discovery,

in my opinion. If it's successful, we'll get

five seasons. Then after that, it goes on a season

-by -season basis. As a show goes on, it gets

more expensive to produce. People will start

to get raises. People start to get paid more.

The writers... The overhead for the show increases.

Will you see new Star Trek? It'll depend on how

successful Picard is, how successful Discovery

is. Discovery's taking a lot of risk with the

franchise. I feel they're using this as a gauge.

How far... Can we push new fans and old fans?

Picard, they know they've got people interested.

That's why they got Patrick Stewart. That's why

they got Brent Spiner, Jonathan Frakes, et cetera,

et cetera, because I know that's going to bring

eyes into the franchise, establish eyes. Whether

it brings in new eyes, I don't know. That'll

vastly depend on how well the show does in its

first two or three episodes. Will it get people

hooked? Discovery had a pretty slow first season.

I didn't give a shit for the first five episodes.

After that, I kind of cared. I hated the first

season. Exactly. And the fact that Discovery

survived that is surprising because it took a

lot of risks. Here's a question. What other franchise,

because franchises is what brings in the viewers

now. It's not starting new things, really. You

start a new thing on a streaming platform that

very few people have or care about, they're not

going to bother. They're going to wait until

they have a DVD or Blu -ray they can get or buy

copies on iTunes. They're not going to necessarily

migrate to your streaming platform. thinking

about what other franchises that paramount itself

owns and you've got what mission impossible uh

i think they own the jason bourne series but

that doesn't premiere until january i don't think

so and that's that's not on that's not on there

is it that's not yet that's on like usa network

or something yeah it's on usa but i think they

have some kind of a stake in it i don't know

but but the thing is like as far as big franchises

that they own that have had really successful

TV series before. Mission Impossible would be

one. Set it in that universe. And you've got

an action show. It's got to be cheaper than making

one with lots of sci -fi stuff. Maybe if you

want to go, capture the older audience, because

Trekkies are older people for the most part.

Go into your library. Do they own the Munsters

or something? Go into the nostalgia trend of

the 60s and 70s. Pick up shows that you could

just modernize the hell out of. throw them up

there. They're cheaper to produce and you can

play on people's nostalgia heartstrings. So you

get like people, our parents age that would maybe

subscribe. And then you get us to go, well, there's

more content on here now. Now we've got 10 different

shows airing. The problem is they only ever have

one to two television shows per season. That's

airing. Like, so you got like what, two shows

a week you can watch at the most. And then the

back catalog, like even Netflix is smart. Like

they, well, Netflix drops everything at once,

but they're, following this traditional route

of dropping a single episode at a time. And the

only reason for that is actually Canada. So sorry

about that. Because if it wasn't for us, they

would just drop every episode at once. But because

we're showing it on terrestrial TV, they have

to do it week by week. Which sucks. Yeah, it

kind of sucks. Because I'd love to binge that

shit. But I almost feel like they should, you

know, if they want to get something, they should

get stuff that's not just from CBS. They should

contact... MGM, who currently has no partner

in streaming. Because MGM has Stargate. MGM has

a lot of other stuff that they used to produce

on television back in the day that they're sitting

on the rights for that they don't have enough

money to make things themselves. But they could

easily be licensing their properties out. You

want to go with a one -two punch? You give us

an episode of Picard and then an episode of some

new Stargate show back -to -back. And even if

it's like, you know, set it on Fridays or something

and make it like the old sci -fi Fridays used

to be where you had three hours of like space

-based shows. Give us programming blocks, not

this, it drops on Sundays at this time and then

our only other show of the week drops on Thursdays

at another time. Like, why would I switch to

your streaming platform to watch a singular thing

when I could, you know, be watching, you know,

a television channel for the entire evening?

That's why I'm saying this CBS All Access, they're

taking risks to establish anchor programming

right now, and they've got two potential winners

right now, but they don't have enough to, as

you say, hold a programming. You have an evening

of television, and a typical evening of television

starts at 8 p .m., ends at 11, so they need one

more show to create a night. Yeah, like very

quickly, I'll just tell you, they only have a

few shows. They're currently programming right

now. They have The Good Fight, which is, I think,

a spinoff of The Good Wife. It's a legal drama.

Star Trek Discovery and Strange Angel. They have

three dramas, and they all air in four -month

blocks throughout the year, so they don't air

at the same time. Then you have Picard coming.

Comedy, they have No Activity, which is a really

cheap cop sort of sitcom thing. And then Why

Women Kill, comedy drama. They literally have

currently airing... five scripted shows that

aren't anthologies, and then they have short

treks, which doesn't really count. They're only

10, 15 minutes. There's Tell Me a Story, which

is a psychological thriller, and The Twilight

Zone, which was renewed, but again, only had

10 episodes. So they've got less than 10 shows

they've produced, and that's over the span of

two and a half years. Yeah, and to be honest,

I don't like the fact that we're stuck behind

a paywall. That's ultimately my main issue. I

would much rather watch it on television. And

I don't, I'm not a subscriber, you know, of cable

package in the traditional sense. I have IPTV.

And so I got a bunch of different channels, but

like for the average, you know, older family,

they're going to have basic cable and CTV sci

-fi is, it's not on the basic cable package of

like 30 channels. It's on the one tier up. So

you're still got to pay like 50 bucks to get

that channel. if they were smart, because like

CTV in Canada really doesn't have a lot of original

programming or things that are good. They just

basically cycle in American shows. If they were

smart in Canada, they just show it on CTV because

they did it for the first episode, just like

CBS did the first episode of, and that's the

one thing too, Picard, the first episode should

be airing on CBS to promote it, just like they

did with Discovery the first time. And they're

not doing that this time, even though that would

garner them so many views. As far as upcoming

programs, they have Star Trek Lower Decks. That's

the comedy. The animated one. I have no interest

in those. That's not going to put butts in seats.

Interrogation. True crime drama. Nope. Don't

we get enough of those on Netflix? And they're

probably going to be better made. The Man Who

Fell to Earth. Science fiction. To be determined

when it's coming out. And they got the mini -series

of The Stand. And then they have in development

Life of Muhammad Ali. miniseries girls with guns

like these all sound like early 90s really bad

usa network tv shows the ones that i would buy

on dvd because i'm a complete masochist but like

uh the untitled uh philippa georgeau sci -fi

series okay we're like two years away from the

star trek series and she's in the She's 900 years

in the future now. So now they're going to figure

out how to get her back to the 23rd century because

they said that that's where Section 31 is going

to take place. And then one called You're Killing

Me. They're relying entirely on Star Trek, but

they're not producing anything worthwhile outside

of Picard. So you've got 15 shows and only half

of which have even aired and probably will air

for the next couple of years. So Mike, you're

right. They really do need to give us from September

to May, we need to have about five shows we want

to watch. All Star Trek. That's my television

background speaking. I could have been an executive.

He's an important person. So anyways. So yeah,

I guess it would be interesting to see what people

think about this and the whole problem of CBS

All Access and the fact that Picard's pretty

much their main anchor at this point. because

people could take or leave the rest of the series.

So let us know by sending an email to feedback

at thisweekengeek .net or feedback at alteredgeek

.com or hit us up on social media. So we have

been for this episode of Future Imperfect. Mike

the Birdman Donnell is known as your commander

who's always chowing down on a bowl of delicious

tribbles. Spicy habanero ranch. I thought you

were going to say gah. Nah, habanero ranch tribbles.

And Alex, who will not challenge Data to an arm

wrestling match. Yes, and I've been... Admiral

Phillips on this episode of Future Imperfect.

So until next time, live long and prosper.