Star Trek: Picard Ends in Two Days…and Other Stuff
Folks, over the past few months, I’ve been flummoxed by something that’s happened here at my blog. Namely, my posts about the TV show Drop Dead Diva have had hundreds of page views, despite being several years old — and despite Drop Dead Diva going off the air in 2014.
Look. I’m glad folks are finding any of my writing. Truly, I am. But these are folks who, in general, come to read those two posts, and then take off again.
I hope that something else here at my blog interests my long-time readers. I do try to talk about a wide variety of things, from TV/film, to sports, to politics (though I’ve been doing less of that lately, as there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot to say except to double-down on previous stances), to current events (I’m so sickened by all of the shootings, and have no more words to say than that).
So, today I thought I’d talk about other TV shows that I’ve enjoyed besides Drop Dead Diva (which I loved, and still miss to this day). Ready?
I’m a huge Star Trek fan. Always have been. (It’s one reason why I found it too difficult to write about the pioneering Nichelle Nichols’ death. I also found it exceptionally difficult, in a different way, to write about Rene Auberjonois’s death.) A good friend recommended Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which is a prequel to the original Star Trek series starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, and the rest. It is excellent, and I can’t wait for season two to start this summer.
In fact, I loved that show so much, I went back to look at the second season of Star Trek: Discovery, which shows the previously unknown foster sister of Spock, Michael Burnham, as she rises in the ranks after a huge personal tragedy, because I wanted to know more about Anson Mount’s portrayal of Christopher Pike, plus see more of Ethan Peck’s version of Spock. I was pleasantly surprised with season two of Discovery, though I didn’t like season one all that much except for Michelle Yeoh’s performance as Mirror Universe Emperor Philippa Georgiou. (Goodness, she’s amazing. Best actress alive, anywhere. hands-down. There’s nothing she can’t do, and she somehow nails the essence of every character she plays within seconds. I am riveted by her.)
Paramount Plus has all sorts of stuff to watch, but so far I’ve been concentrating on the Star Trek shows. The original Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager…and the show that ends tomorrow, Star Trek: Picard. (You may be asking, “What about Star Trek: Prodigy and Star Trek: Lower Decks?” I like both, but I kind of think I’m not the target audience for the first, while wanting the second to move faster…don’t ask me why, because that show moves with a rapidity as it stands.)
I’m someone who adored season two of Picard. I thought it was amazing. The depth of Patrick Stewart’s acting was truly stellar. I loved Allison Pill as Agnes Jurati (and eventually the Jurati/Borg hybrid). I enjoyed all of the characters so much, and did I point out yet that Michelle Hurd’s Raffi and Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine were phenomenal? (Please, Paramount, give those two their own series!)
But season three is even better. Picard is now much frailer; he’s retired completely, and at the beginning of the show, he’s preparing to leave Earth and move to another planet with his love, Laris. However, the universe needs him again, and off he goes…(I hope we see Laris again, as I loved Orla Brady. I keep saying that, too, but all of these characters are so good, and the acting so stellar, it’s hard not to gush about them all.)
I’ve been waiting for a few weeks now for the end of Star Trek: Picard. I hope to see Allison Pill again (surely the Paramount execs won’t be so rude as to refuse us to see her one, last time?), as there’s a huge evil Borg plot going on (and as the Borg of season two, once Agnes Jurati got a hold of them, had become much kinder/gentler, it would seem that as the crew of the Enterprise-D needs allies, Allison Pill’s “Borgrati” would show up as part of the cavalry. Hey, everyone needs allies! Really, they do. No one can do it alone, either, no matter how phenomenal you may be — that has to be the message, if you need one, of Star Trek: Picard, at least with regards to seasons two and three.)
Anyway, that’s what I felt like writing today, hoping that someone out there who’s a new reader will actually, you know, stick around a bit and figure out I write other things, too. (If you are exceptionally diligent, new readers, you can go to the About Barb page and find links to my three novels. That’s the best way to support me, you know; read my books! End shameless plug.)
Barb Caffrey's Blog 
Also lifelong ST fan, and have seen all the series. My favorite so far has been Strange New Worlds, and Anson Mount as Capt. Pike is brilliant. We need a new word to describe actors like him and Michelle Yeoh. A cross between steller, brilliant, amazing, stupendous, and… you get the idea. 🙂 Another actor in that class (but not in ST) is Tom Hiddleston. His portrayal of Loki is the same way. And since we’re talking stellar, I want to add Lee Pace to this list. King Thranduil (the Hobbit), the Emperor (Foundation) — both incredible.
Kayelle Allen
April 19, 2023 at 9:11 am
I agree with you, Kayelle. 🙂
Glad you’ve enjoyed Strange New Worlds, too. I agree that Anson Mount is phenomenal.
And yes…Michelle Yeoh has to be the best living actress we have. (Let’s put it this way. You know I’m a BBW — big, beautiful woman — and Yeoh’s character in Everything Everywhere All at Once says to her healthy (but far from heavy) daughter that she’s getting “too fat.” This didn’t even annoy me; I knew it was Yeoh’s character’s way of expressing concern. (A bad way, mind you, but the best she had.)
Barb Caffrey
April 19, 2023 at 6:08 pm
Reblogged this on Have We Had Help? and commented:
Love Star Trek!
Jack Eason
April 20, 2023 at 1:05 am
Thanks, Jack! 🙂
Barb Caffrey
April 20, 2023 at 3:49 pm
to politics (though I’ve been doing less of that lately, as there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot to say except to double-down on previous stances)
Of course, if you’re not willing to listen to our positions and are not willing to accept that your positions might be wrong, then there no point in discussing politics.
But then you have said that you didn’t really “expect to change our minds” but were only interested in showing that there were “nice people” on your side.
Sadly, there are plenty of nice people in this world who believe nonsense but there’s no point in talking with them when they don’t want to see the truth about what they believe.
Oh, I will thank you for not bringing up the trans nonsense. I’ve seen too much hatred and bigotry from the pro-trans people.
Paul (Drak Bibliophile) Howard
April 20, 2023 at 5:16 pm
The main nonsense I was referring to, here, was and is guns. It sickens me that we’re having so many incidents of mass murder. Why? All because someone at the NRA figured out a way to shame and humiliate Rs who didn’t go along with their “more guns for everyone!” policy?
Remember Uvalde? Those poor people, mostly children, who died there? How the police messed up — partly because they were a small unit supposedly dedicated to keeping the school district free of violence and harm? (They weren’t big enough to handle this, and when they did try to handle anything, they did it badly.)
I am pro-LGBTQ rights. You know this. There are more choices now than there were when you and I grew up of what to become: more job choices; more life choices; more ways to represent yourself; more ways to respect yourself. If someone is not solidly a man or a woman in their mind, why should we force them to be? They need to figure themselves out, and know what they want to be, not just when they grow up, but for the entirety of their lives. Hormone blockers help kids know themselves better without a bunch of hormonal stuff getting in the way. The reason this is important is that people who feel they’re in the wrong bodies (wrong sex or gender) have something called “body dysmorphia.” This, thankfully, is something I did not have. Nor did you. But I’ve seen it, and I know it’s real.
I am for people, in general, figuring themselves out and finding a positive purpose for their lives. It doesn’t have to be something I agree with, so long as it works for them. (I knew one guy in HS who was an unofficial advocate for deer hunting, which is a huge deal in WI. I just said, “Good for him,” and went on.)
I can’t remember who suggested this to me, but there were epochs in history that are far less puritanical than our own. (I can almost hear the wail of outrage from some folks out there — not necessarily you, Paul, ’cause you’ve read a good amount of history.) There was a cross-dressing cardinal, I believe, who no one batted an eye at, centuries ago. There was the possibility of “Pope Joan” (no one’s ever been able to confirm or deny it, but just the thought of that happening now seems weird, doesn’t it?). There were people who were flamboyant in their dress even by the standards of their times; there were people who liked their own sex more than the other, romantically (and probably were intersex people as well). There were folks who just wanted to live and let live; there were folks who got angry at the presumption; there were folks who went into monasteries or nunneries to get rid of their “aberrant” issues, with the odd after-effect of being confronted, every day, with more people of the same sex than not.
You’ve read my blog for a long time, Paul. I appreciate you reading different opinions than the ones you favor, as I do the same thing. I know it’s not your cup of tea. I know what I believe isn’t what you believe at all. But if you’re communicating, and if I am communicating, perhaps common ground can be found somewhere.
We can’t help but try.
Barb Caffrey
April 23, 2023 at 9:54 am
You do realize that nearly all the mass shooters are Democrats (or even further left), correct? You would be hard-pressed to find even one NRA member among them.
Jasini
April 24, 2023 at 9:38 am
Um, I’m not sure. I’ve never thought of a shooter’s political leanings before, Betsy. But I do know that many Ds are members of the NRA. They don’t advertise it much, granted.
The NRA, BTW, over time, has done a lot of good regarding gun safety courses and such. They are not all villains by any means, and they still do more good than harm.
However, the last ten or fifteen years, for some reason, the leadership of the NRA felt it was appropriate to push the “good guy with a gun narrative,” which only works if someone is very well trained and if they also have the ability in a crisis to use that training. (Not everyone can. Police officers are trained for this, for example, and even they don’t always know until they’ve been faced with a crisis how they’re going to react.)
The mass shootings I’ve seen discussed include the one at the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek (just up the road; you may remember it, vaguely, from when you visited me years ago), the Uvalde massacre, the Connecticut school shooting (where Alex Jones has to pay up after calling it stuff like “a false flag” and “a made-up story”) in Newtown, the shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise (where the troubled individual definitely was a D, though the others were either Rs or just plain crazy people who didn’t vote)…
Anyway. There’s a lot of blame to go around with regards to these shootings, including one factor that I hope a policeman or two (Kamas? Are you out there?) will weigh in on eventually — and that is something that’s happened in Milwaukee and elsewhere, recently. Glock guns are misfiring. Something in the recent (within the last ten years) manufacture has caused a great deal of distress, to the point the Milwaukee Police Union has stepped up and said “no more” and insisted upon different guns that will not misfire (some of these misfires have happened when the gun’s still in the holster, injuring the policeman in question).
If you can’t trust your equipment as a police officer, doesn’t that make it less likely that you’ll be able to stop a school shooter or any other awful person of that ilk? (It adds another degree of difficulty to an already difficult and stressful job, to be sure.)
Before I end this comment, Betsy: Eric Talley is the name everyone should remember. He’s the brave officer who ran into a Colorado King Soopers supermarket, even knowing he didn’t have a bulletproof vest and was almost certainly going to die. And he did die…but he also saved a lot of lives by being willing to give his own.
My late uncle Carl was a policeman and a detective. I think he’d have praised Officer Talley for Talley’s instincts and willingness to protect innocent people.
I know I do.
Barb Caffrey
April 27, 2023 at 1:31 am
You of course remember just a few weeks ago at that school shooting in Nashville that the media was far more concerned about the local authorities misgendering and dead-naming the shooter than about the three dead children and three dead adults?
Jasini
April 24, 2023 at 9:41 am
Yes, I do remember that. I don’t understand why such things happen in the first place, Betsy — school shootings — and I agree that the media narrative was very off-kilter, to say the least.
Yeah, I’d prefer you call someone the name they want to be called. Whether it’s a nickname, or (like my father) putting the formerly middle name as the first name and the formerly first name as the middle name, or realizing the name you went by for years isn’t working for you (such as when someone who’s named William goes by Liam or Will or some other variant), I think it’s a good thing to call someone what they want to be called.
But does that trump the deaths there? Of course it doesn’t!
This was a very troubled soul that shot all those people (including little kids). That’s what needed to be discussed. Being trans may not be well understood — that’s the understatement of the millennium — but it’s incredibly rare that a woman, trans or otherwise, commits such a terrible crime.
Anyway, I agree with you on this one, Betsy. I think the narrative should be about those poor souls who lost their lives, just doing what they loved (the teachers) or wanting to learn (the students).
In case someone reads this comment and wonders, BTW, why I don’t name the shooter: well, I never name them.
Barb Caffrey
April 27, 2023 at 1:16 am