Patrick Stewart in new Star Trek show

[Morrus]

Sometimes I wish fandom would make up its mind about fan service. All this "give us exactly what we claim to want, but don't pander to us" is wearying.

Me, I'm just happy to be getting more Picard.

It’s more “give us what we want, not what they want” - the former is “good service” and the latter is “pandering”. And vice versa.

 

[Jester David]

By hiring good writers, really. That's the essence of good fiction, is it not?

Which is the crux. They didn't for Discovery. They hired the writers room of a period fiction teen dramady that didn't even pretend to research the 1550s.

Good writers are the difference between season 1 and 3 of both The Original Series and The Next Generation. For opposite reasons.
But they haven't hired a writer. They focused on the actor. They don't even have scripts.

The only question that needs answering right now is - do you trust the actor's judgement enough to remain interested and open-minded? That's all the commitment required of us at this stage.

I don't trust the judgment of actors because they can create bombs. Because they're neither the sole nor the primary creative voice. They look at projects from micro perspective of portraying the character and have minimal impact on the final project. There's no shortage of terrible, terrible movies and TV shows with fantastic casts and actors giving amazing performances.

I'm always going to need more than "they cast a great lead". Because every single time I have watched a show primarily because I liked the lead actor, I have been disappointed.

And so far the only thing we know is that Stewart is cast and it's still being produced by the guy that wrote Into Darkness and directed the latest Mummy movie. He's doubling down on Star Trek now because Universal's "Dark Universe" of united monster films seems to have collapsed.
I'm going to need more before I care.

You don't want your media to take risks, then? More of the same-old, same-old for you?

First... how is bring back Picard NOT "more of the same-old". It is literally solely relying on nostalgia and fondness for the actor/ character.
(edit: that it's Picard and not, say, Worf speaks to this. Fans asked for a Captain Worf show for years, and Worf was easily the fan favourite character with more room to grow, not already being a captain. Or even tapping Wil Wheaton for a Captain Crusher show. But they went with Picard. Not because he's the most popular. Not because he offers the best opportunity for stories or room to grow. But because the *actor* has the most name draw.)

Second, it's more than a binary no-risk vs risk. Risk always has to be a comparisons of what is gained versus what is lost. Measuring potential gains against potential losses.

What is being risked here?
The big thing is the ending of The Next Generation. While we didn't expect everything to be perfect and rainbows after the show, you don't want beloved characters to suffer and fail. Which was the inherent problem with Episode VII-IX: for there to be more story the heroes of the first movie were required to have failed. I don't think people will be very happy if they present a 25th Century of Star Trek with a divided Federation and a Picard who has spent the last two decade withdrawing after the loss of the Enterprise-E and many of his friends.
But it has to be something. Because a Picard that hasn't suffered hasn't grown. He needs to be in a place where he can grow and develop over the course of the show. If he's right where we left him then, and that's equally sad. And if he's already happy and content, that means he's either not going to grow over the series or he's going to end up less happy and worse off than he started. (Or he's going to have a lame Jerry Bruckheimer character arc where he gets all sad in the middle and has a huge crisis of faith before returning to right back where he was when he started.)

So it's a catch-22. They need to have the character in a different place and where they can tell a story, but anything they do means removing the happy ending already earned by the character. They need him different to reflect his growth and give Stewart something to sink his teeth into as a performer, but the character has to be familiar and recognisable or they've lost the benefit of using an established character.
They either have to go Han Solo, where you have the sad loser that is largely in the same place and doing the same thing, or the Luke Skywalker, who has changed and grown for a way that provides the best story but means they've suffered for years.

Yes, well, when they launched TNG, they were imaging the galaxy almost a century farther than we'd seen at the time. That was hard too. But they did it just fine.

TNG also had the original creator involved.

Meanwhile, with Discovery we have a team that seems allergic to trying to capture the feel of Starfleet and Star Trek, and whose first idea was to tell a war story. Who were quick to take the easy and lazy route of drama via interpersonal conflict.
I'm not sure I want that done to the decades following Voyager. It'd be a little too simple to just break things for quick drama.

 

[Jester David]

I'm going to leave my expectations wide open for this one, because I strongly suspect that it will be a show set in the Star Trek universe, but not a Star Trek show as we would imagine it.

The one thing I absolutely don't expect Picard to be doing at that point in his career is zipping around the galaxy in command of a Starfleet capital ship.

Canonically, he should be tending the family vineyard in France and battling Irumodic Syndrome while potentially being divorced from Captain Beverly Crusher.
While knowledge of the future might have changed the failed marriage and the vineyard, he should still have said degenerative neurological disorder.

Honestly... I'm not sure what I want him to be doing. People should be able to live well into their 100s in the 25th Century. So Picard should have two or three decades of life left. And the post-scarcity economy means everyone lives in a state of perpetual retirement anyway, so that's less of an issue. So he could be doing anything.

But, again, what makes the best story. Either for a one season series or a mini-series or a TV-movie.
What should Picard be doing?

 

[trappedslider]

Depending on which way they go they have a number of routes to chose from Off the top of my head :

1. Follow in the foot steps of the Novels (borg war 2 or 3 or however many,typhoon pact etc) (( I also think this has Romulus going ka-boom but not sure))
2. Follow STO which ties into Romulus going ka-boom
3. Ignore the established timelines and do something new
4. Show us what he was up in between the far end of All Good things and Nemesis
5. Full on Indiana Jones but in Space! he does do Archaeology as a hobby

 

[Umbran]

But they haven't hired a writer. They focused on the actor. They don't even have scripts.

And? So? Why does this matter at this point?

I'm always going to need more than "they cast a great lead".

You seem to have missed an important part of this that I just mentioned. When you say "I will need X," I must ask, "Need.. for what purpose?"

They are asking for nothing from you. There is no commitment to any action required at this time. How much do you need... to do nothing?

 

[Jester David]

You seem to have missed an important part of this that I just mentioned. When you say "I will need X," I must ask, "Need.. for what purpose?"

They are asking for nothing from you. There is no commitment to any action required at this time. How much do you need... to do nothing?

They are attempting to build hype. They are asking me to be excited. They need me to talk about the show positively and spread that excitement and thus spread their hype.

It is having the opposite effect. I am not excited. An instead I am worried about the franchise as it seems unable to do anything but look backwards and milk nostalgia.

 

[Imaculata]

4. Show us what he was up in between the far end of All Good things and Nemesis

I believe they have already confirmed that this will canonically take place after Nemesis.

 

[Eltab]

Perhaps Starfleet finds a reason to pull Commodore Picard out of retirement to solve some problem, based on his reputation alone. Sort of like the last appearance of Ambassador Sarek.

Picard must overcome the obstacle du jour and the "I ain't as good as I once was" factor. His character could show growth if he contacts the former Mrs. Picard and the (much more matured) Wesley during that process.

Opening scene, he is in his vineyard looking at a box of medicine (I really see him sipping a glass of his own vintage to wash down a pill) for Irumodic Syndrome; he's volunteered to be part of the live-test.

I'm curious and cautiously optimistic, even though I can see that post-Roddenberry Star Trek has lost the fundamental concept What if the better angels of men's natures were in the ascendant?

 

[Mallus]

One of writers being name-dropped in reference to the new Picard project is Michael Chabon, i.e. one of my favorite authors. He's won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction, among many other accolades. Heck, the film of Wonder Boys is terrific and I'll even go to bat for his script for John Carter.

I'm really excited about this. While he's more known as a mainstream literary fiction writer, anyone familiar with his work knows he's a lifelong genre fan.

edit: now if they could only wrangle a script or two out of David Mitchell...

 

[Jester David]

I believe they have already confirmed that this will canonically take place after Nemesis.

The poster's question is what version of the post-Nemesis timeline will they be using.

The Pocket Books EU or Star Trek Online EU? The vision of the future seen in All Good Things? Or ignore all three and do their own thing.

Perhaps Starfleet finds a reason to pull Commodore Picard out of retirement to solve some problem, based on his reputation alone. Sort of like the last appearance of Ambassador Sarek.

Picard must overcome the obstacle du jour and the "I ain't as good as I once was" factor. His character could show growth if he contacts the former Mrs. Picard and the (much more matured) Wesley during that process.

Opening scene, he is in his vineyard looking at a box of medicine (I really see him sipping a glass of his own vintage to wash down a pill) for Irumodic Syndrome; he's volunteered to be part of the live-test.

I'm curious and cautiously optimistic, even though I can see that post-Roddenberry Star Trek has lost the fundamental concept What if the better angels of men's natures were in the ascendant?

I can see thee obvious routes for stories.


One is old man Picard, slowly losing his mind from Irumodic Syndrome, is telling the story of his life. So between interludes set in the "present" are flashbacks to Picard's early life, such as when he takes command of the Stargazer after its captain is killed (while Picard is only a lt. commander) and then ends up commanding that ship for the next twenty-two years.
This works as you can have Stewart in every episode and narrating events, but you can have the action done by younger actors.
Heck, certain bits could just be Stewart in his room, telling the events like a one-man play interspersed with actual scenes. Key speeches could alternate between the actors, so you get the best of both worlds. (heh)
And you'd easy skirt around any an all problems with canon and continuity through the excuse of "unreliable narration".

The other is, as you say, the elderly Picard being pulled back for one more mission. Perhaps to serve as ambassador to Vulcan to do an important treaty negotiation. (Reunification with a segment of the Romulan Republic?) Or some other important diplomatic function that only he can do.
But, as you say, we saw that story already in Sarek. So it'd be retelling one of the great TNG stories and expanding.

The third is archaeologist Picard who has spent the last few decades unearthing relics of a dead civilisation being drawn into a mystery and conflict. The antagonists were just expecting a bunch of pacifistic scientists, not realising one was a heavily decorated Starfleet captain. A much more Indiana Jones story. This combines elements of Starship Mine with The Chase and the Gambit two-parter.
However, this really relies on Stewart being fit enough to sell the part. He looks great for his age... but he's still 78. Fit doesn't mean spry or full of endurance.

The first and third would be interesting for being set later in the the universe than we have readily seen, but likely not revealing too much of the state of the current galaxy. That allows the series to skirt around having to acknowledge "canon" just yet. The middle idea likely would have to touch more on the current status quo, unless the final mission involves some unseen part of the galaxy or no-name species.
The first is the most open to continuation. The latter two really work best for one-and-done stories. It's harder to have a second "last mission" or "unexpected adventure". But I kinda like the idea of Trek mini-series rather than mandated ongoing series. However, the reason Discovery isn't an anthology show like planned was because sets and costumes are expensive, and they wanted to make repeated use of them. So miniseries work best if you can set other series in the same era and recycle sets, props, and costumes.