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Picard Season 3 - I really miss Gene Roddenberry

I started to watch the first episode of this and stopped after Dr Crushers firefight. What blithering idiot came up with her weapon?! TOS phasers were powerful dangerous IMPROVED weapons compared to current technology. The pistol-grip version could kill armies, heat boulders redhot, vaporize stuff, etc. etc. This thing is the size of a super-soaker, fires 3 shots, has a range of approximately 30ft, then lights up like a Christmas tree and tells everyone nearby 1) you’re out of ammo and 2) where you are! WTF? Why not break into a haiku warning you to duck while reloading, or maybe chastising you for buying the stupid thing in the first place (Good Omens reference). Roddenberry’s Andromeda force lance could stop incoming artillery, EFC’s skrill could punch holes in a bank vault - this thing is a toy. I know that 90’s follow-on Trek has appearances by over-sized “phaser rifles” periodically, but those shows were mostly crap. Nerdrotic/Cullen/The Drinker all praised Picard Season 3 as a return to classic Trek goodness and the first thing I see is an incredible stupid production decision that is a literal slap in the face to the Science part of Science Fiction. Warp drives, transporters & androids paired with a weapon that would have been laughed off a 17th century battlefield! Star Trek can color me as a non-watcher forevermore.

Rant over – go on about your business.
 
I thought Picard season 3 was brilliant. Up there with B5 in terms of quality storytelling, characterisation, acting and yes, a lot of fan service thrown in. Anyway, Trek has never been consistent with its technology from show to show. For what it's worth, Beverly probably got that weapon on the black market, it's not a federation weapon as Beverly is not in Starfleet any more at that point. If you don't mind me saying, your complaint reminds me of the story JMS used to tell about some Star Trek fans not liking B5 because of the hand links, since "everyone knew in the future people used use com badges" – this is all made-up stuff, and it can work however the writer wants it to work. Or it's like when I initially refused to watch the new Battlestar Galactica because they'd changed the characters from the old show from the seventies that I loved. If I'd stuck to my guns on that I'd have missed a brilliant show.

Seriously, season 3 of Picard is absolutely worth watching and not worrying about things like phasers.
 
You must continue season 3. It is everything we wanted from Picard seasons 1 and 2, and more.

Good storyline, good effects, good characters and plenty of fan-service. And except for perhaps one or two instances the fan service does not feel forced or unwarranted either!
 
It's amazing to me how much Picard Season 3 did to completely UNDO or ignore a lot of the stuff in Seasons 1 and 2. It was sort of like the new showrunner was saying "Yea...those ideas were crap, we know it. Here's what you really wanted" and gave everyone a TNG reunion instead of an actual "Picard" story.


Picard was supposed to be a sort of anthology about Picard, and in a way, Seasons 1 and 2 sort of did that...with some stories heavily dealing with Picard as a character....they were just done in a pretty poor way and were very disjointed, and they made some leaps off prior themes fans didn't like anyway.


Season 3 sort of got rid of all that, undid a lot of the prior mistakes fans hated (including some done in Generations) and said "OK...this one season is going to fix a Lions share of fans gripes since TNG started doing movies".


I definitely realized I rather enjoyed the TNG reunion other than those forced Picard stories that I just didn't care about.
 
It's amazing to me how much Picard Season 3 did to completely UNDO or ignore a lot of the stuff in Seasons 1 and 2.

I felt season 3 was more about fixing some of the mistakes from the Next Generation movies to be honest. I don't think there was much from seasons 1 and 2 that season 3 undid. Picard having a synth body, Data's death, Raffi and Seven's relationship, Raffi's drug addition and family problems, Q, Picard's work with the Romulans, all were mentioned to some degree. There some threads that weren't followed up on (Jurati-Borg, Elnor, Soji) but maybe if they make the Legacy series they'll devote time to them there?

And as much as it was a Next Gen cast reunion, I think it was still firmly a Picard story.
 

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