Star Trek: Picard - Amazon Prime [** POSSIBLE SPOILERS **]

That would track with my totally-without-evidence theory season 2 was more obligation than season 3; perhaps by way of a compromise regards budget for a start. It was notable how well season 3 looked (lighting notwithstanding) compared with season 2s shítty generic modern locations. Maybe Matalas got his TNG season 3 in exchange for a cheap bit of tat the year before.

For one reason or another I didn't get a chance to keep watching this until now, but finally finished up episode 6 and uh, cards on table this is good stuff. As I've said I kept myself abreast so know what's coming by seasons end... but I've really enjoyed this journey so far. My posts in this thread talked a lot of shít about this show but credit where it's due, they finally got it right.

Overcranked in places, and definitely has the energy of a Blockbuster than traditional meeting-room TNG but the spirit is all there, the characters true to themselves (even if more glib than they ever were). And credit to Patrick Stewart: this has been a sometimes phenomenal performance of subtly and wounded reflection. Lots of his best work simply moments of pain on his face as some truth or reality is imparted. I've even grown to like Jack. Hard to make someone that cocky and brattish while still charismatic in the Han Solo mode.

You'd hope that with Season 3 of this, Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds enjoyed by "all", the right people are eventually given the reigns of Trek - with Kurtzman, Goldsman etc. quietly shuffled off to an annex in the office nobody visits.

Isn't that true of a lot of shows though? Even in this era of 10, 13 episode seasons it's rare enough you have a season without at least 2 or 3 meandering, pointless or filler episodes, against the broader story or plot. I think 6 or 8 episodes is the sweet-spot in terms of having a season where there's the least risk of fat.

The prolonged success of Walking Dead, such that it is spawning about a bazillion spin offs, baffles me. I really don't know what people see in those shows. Nothing happens, the characters barely exist as creatures with depth.

I tried giving Stargate a go; many many times but ye gods it tested my patience for the amount of filler, or endless traipsing around the same Canadians woods.

Thing that bored me with SG1 was that it had a very self-constraining premise: in that there were no aliens or alien worlds except a constant stream of humans in cheap costumes, living in Vancouver's environs. I know there were those Grey Aliens but weren't they supposed to be hyper-evolved humans from the future or some-such? I just never bought into yet another episode where SG1 meet another primitive tribe. It just all felt very ... cheap.

Trek has had plenty of filler too, but usually buttressed by a more exotic universe, distinct aliens and expansive horizons and - perhaps more critically at the end of the day - more money to actually put those worlds on screen with a degree of credibility. Many worlds ended up looking like California sure, but the effort was there.