Reviews

As with Strange New Worlds and Picard (and Fast & Furious for that matter), the state is always not to be trusted. Just hack illegally into their library, because why follow procedure anyway?

It just goes on and on.

Need to follow some thugs? Just steal some hover bikes instead of tracking them from orbit or going after them via shuttle!

Why scan a dealer's hideout that looks suspect before entering - just barge in!

All the hallmarks of bad Trek are still there: snappy one-liners, colloquialisms, chase-scenes, bad guys, mystery boxes, meaningless references to legacy shows (See? There's MORN sitting at the bar! This is Star Trek, you know!) bad acting, no respect for the organisation you work in, magic devices, shoot-out's and over-the-top action - you name it. And that flame thrower on the bridge is still embarrassing...

The CGI sometimes is a bit wonky - the scenes on Tattoine look a bit on the cheap side.

I just wanted to see how they start off their last season. Yeah, right, they've listened to the fans and made it more like Star Trek... I won't continue to watch this season. Farewell Disco.

This should have been Ridley Scott's Lawrence of Arabia or Gandhi. But it wasn't.

This film plays like a wikipedia stub article, showing stages of Napoleon's life and battles without giving much context.

I have enjoyed many performances of Joaquin Phoenix over the years but this one was so one-note and bland it took the enjoyment out of the film.

Portraying Bonaparte as some slow-minded unlikeable brooding brute with erratic emotions didn't do the historic figure any favours. This was a person who inspired the masses and was a military genius. But the script didn't want to show him in any favourable light at all.

Vanessa Kirby as Josephine did a good job but this relationship between her and Napoleon seldom felt happy or real-instead it was like a toxic thing where both are pushing each others buttons all the time. But never does the script the work of hinting why these people are what they are.

Ridley Scott seems not to care to explain why all these events happen. Napoleon goes to Russia - ok why? Napoleon is in Egypt - why? Why anything? Why not show exactly what the stakes are in these battles or how many soldiers are taking part... I don't understand how the director doesn't care about taking the audience along for the ride. Why should we watch this? Because action? Because of this lifeless one-note portrayal of one of Europe's most influential historical figures? Because toxic relationship drama?

The movie needed secondary characters desperately to accompany Bonaparte and comment on his actions, maybe even be the link from the audience to the man? His best friend just disappears from the movie, as does his brother.

Or make Bonaparte more complex, even. Maybe let him have different facets to his personality?

I can't see myself watching the 4 hour version of this film when it comes out. Some battle scenes looked great but the slower scenes were sometimes quite average.

The fact that a film like this is still relatively highly regarded ("so romantic", "always a great watch", "cute", "warmth and happiness") doesn't exactly speak for the film culture.

Here, a shop owner has her mother's inherited bookshop taken away by a large chain of stores. The employees lose their jobs and their know-how is swallowed as too old-timey and their lives are destroyed by our romantic hero and his mega corporation.

But director and screenwriter, Nora Ephron, doesn't stop there. Our hero also has to stalk, emotionally exploit and lie to the woman whose livelihood he obliterated. Bravo!

People who like to eat this up also wolf down whatever low brow garbage Hollywood churns out.

The moral of the story is that lying, stalking and traumatising your potential partner is a great basis for a lasting relationship.

See "Sleepless in Seattle" by the same writer to find more of the same.

After the second season I have to note that this show is getting worse. Most of the actors are good but this whiplash storytelling by jumping from the serious to the plain goofy is a very jarring experience. It takes away the punch from the ambitious attempts.

Pike has devolved into the ship's cook without any authority or leadership qualities. Spock's only thing seems to be his love life wich is getting quite boring to watch. Una seems not to do anything and Uhura has to do something, I don't know and Ortegas "flies the ship".

This show is called "Strange New Worlds" but it's clear now that this is not a show that is interested in exploring new species and worlds but is revolving around emotions all the time.

I was giving season one a pass because it tried to find its footing but season 2 now affirms that the show will go on like this.

It seems like the producers think the Starfleet shown in legacy Star Trek is just too boring - reasonably well-adjusted future people come together to solve a space problem according to their military-like structure and strong moral compass. In this show it seems like those are immature people who feel everything for the first time. And that's a shame. I came to Star Trek because it was smarter that me and the dialogue was well-written and it was a future worth living for. Granted, Starfleet is not as badly written as in Star Trek: Picard but far from the Trek I love.

It seems like this flavour of Star Trek is populated only by contemporary people with super abilities. Nobody has to work to achieve anything. You have the ability or you don't have it.

Someone said that SNW is like a weekend in Vegas and I can't get that quote out of my head.

I'm just going to lay it out right in front: "Sometimes a monster is just a monster" is not a sentiment that goes down well with an audience that appreciates Star Trek for it's principles. It's even worse if a starship captain says it.

These are not advanced humans, they gladly want to kill the Gorn - all of them. Long gone are the days when there was a debate if killing a sentient being is justified.

Furthermore, how does the Gorn civilisation work? How did they achieve warp technology? How did they make it into space? Were there Gorn lizard scientists with labcoats and safety goggles?

How can cold-blooded reptilians breed their young in warm-blooded human hosts?

The concept of the Gorn doesn't seem to be sufficiently though out.

That Chapel is apparently the only one surviving on a starship is really stretching it.

This was a very uneven end to an uneven season. The comedy/relationship/musical episodes don't fit the tone of the more serious attempts. Overall, Pike was more of a chef than a captain this season.

They lifted this cliffhanger (by own admission) from the much superior "The Best of Both Worlds" but at the end, Riker gives the command to fire on his former captain. He is acting - Pike just stands there unsure what to do. Which is a perfect summary of Pike's leadership qualities.

This episode might be cool for people who never saw Star Trek before or alien invasion movies but overall, this was a disappointment. There were some neat shots but this show is a lot of fluff and soapy as hell.

Erica quote of the week while a debris field is cleary visible on screen: "What's this stuff here?" And then (of course) ending with Pike complimenting her: "That's brilliant! You were born for this Erica!"

The concept of the episode was very Trek but the execution of it was lacking to say the least.

Chain of command or general respect is missing in this show. Everyone expresses their opinions about orders (like Pelia or Ortegas) and at the end nobody is asking for a scientific explanation of anything.

These people are not in the business of exploration - they only talk about it.

At the end, this Star Trek incarnation is only a relationship drama with heavy overtones of faith and emotions. It has more in common with the Fast & Furious franchise than Star Trek. Chain of command or regulations are sooo boring, am I right? But with this lack of structure they shoot themselves in the foot. This is not how a spaceship in the 23rd century would operate.

The ensign (Uhura) even gives the command to fire on the newly built refinery!

Pike is also a very weak captain this season. Sure, he can cook but he doesn't even ask Spock, you know the SCIENCE officer, about his assessment of the situation. He is absent, weak and a far cry from his introduction in Star Trek: Discovery. Last episode, a gang of his subordinates just stole a shuttlecraft but there weren't any repercussions or even discussion about it. In this episode, just moments after he learns about two deaths among his crew, he jokes around!

Sesaon 1 casulalty Hemmer is celebrated as someone who Uhura 'loved'? Didn't they have like three scenes together in season 1? I am confused.

When the supposed saboteur is loose on the ship, suddenly nobody is around anymore. The communications officer and patient has to run around with a phaser through empty corridors.

It's all very ham-fistedly done. Uhura suddenly talks about her nightmares and they share intimate (not romantic) moments. But it's not believable.

Why did Kirk beam over from the (not shown because of budget?) Farragut? Don't they have enough characters in the main cast? Maybe they should develop those and not like Hemmer whose death didn't really made an impact on me in season 1.

At the end, Sam Kirk wants to write a paper about the deuterium aliens.. i'd really like to see what's in there, as he didn't do any research or even investigation in the matter. Which is par for the course for SNW.

Afterwards there's a lovely low key party on the Enterprise I guess everyone deserved it - the useless security team, the lazy scientists and the medical staff who got owned by a communications officer. Kudos!

The real charade is that this show is called 'Strange New Worlds' but is solely interested in interpersonal relationship drama and dealing with emotions.

It is a show with women doing the work and giving the commands while men keep apologising and are made fun of.

Spock - recently having been stripped of half of his biological heritage - goes back to normal duty and for some reason has to attend his engagement dinner with the cranky soon-to-be in-laws. Here's a thought: cancel the effing dinner on grounds of a medical condition!

Since he has fallen back on his human heritage, Spock can't control his emotions anymore.

This is strange.

For all we know about vulcans, they have stronger emotions than humans so they've decided to suppress them. Even Spock tells us this. So keeping the less erratic human emotions in check should be easy for him. I didn't get at all what the problem was for Spock.

There are wacky things happening and Spock even has to endure 4 women doing exaggerated impressions of him. Dear god.

This episode didn't engage me much. There's the typical unprofessional behaviour by the crew, subordinates like Ortegas just blurt out their opinions about an order by a superior officer, or the crew just flat out circumvents the captain.

Ignoring procedure, the gang of women (Chapel, Uhura, Ortegas) decide to just take a shuttle and don't ask the captain? Were there no alarms going off? Nobody reported this? Very weird.

We have a first contact situation here but the episode is not really interested in that - as is the whole show. It's just about Chapel being forced to admit romantic feelings for Spock. That's all. First contact is always exciting, although I don't know why a moon in the vulcan system is not fully investigated by now. But this is a show for which 'finding a medical cure' involves a lot of beakers and flasks filled with colourful liquids. I was just waiting for the bunsen burner to show up...

The language is so simple, it's like the simple english wiki. Chapel could have said: 'he was a vulcan-human hybrid and you have made him pure human'. Instead there is a lot of stuttering and using very basic language for minutes!

At the end, Chapel during the research was way ahead of (the increasingly obsolete) doctor M'Benga and showed as much class as someone waiting all evening but can't get into a dance club saying 'I didn't want to get into this dump anyway' to the bouncer.

An episode that has a hard time balancing wacky humor, somber moments and portraying the inner workings of the ship in a believable way.

It's funny that with all the additional screen time that Ortegas got, the episode didn't do anything for this character. She flies the ship. Wow. We already knew that.

I can appreciate for trying to create a classic Star Trek episode. But the solution to the problem (Una lying and covering up her genetic modifications) does not work.

Asylum is granted when people are persecuted right now, not 20 years ago. She is a free person in the Federation and can go wherever she pleases - why does she even need asylum? Can you apply for asylum anywhere? Like in a bank or a grocery shop. Hey you must let me work here because I chose this place for my asylum!

And also what does the outcome change about Starfleet rules that no genetically engineered people are permitted to work there. So, yes, maybe she is granted asylum on the Enterprise but is she allowed to be a first officer? The episode doesn't address that at all.

The whole point about prejudice is moot. This is about regulations and not that prejudice is wrong. So the Vulcan was right. Sorry. You can turn up the violin in the background but it doesn't change things.

At least the end speech of the judge was well written.

The other thing which irked me was that the episode talked down to me. Repeating the same shots again of Una's testimony from 5 minutes ago must be how they view their audience: imbeciles who only watch on their second screen.

Star Trek appealed to many young people in the past (many of them are now astronauts, doctors and schientists) without talking down to them. It's a shame that Paramount and Secret Hideout don't get that.

They've said they're taking 'big swings' this season, yes but if a rookie writer and a producer of Supergirl are doing the swinging, then you might not hit anything.

Nice try.

And, sorry, since when does the civilian guest on board say 'energise' before beaming out? Isn't this reserved for members of Starfleet, maybe the highest ranking in the room?

Season 1 is a failed show from 18 producers that wants to be a character-driven drama about an old sick man coming out of retirement, but also wants to be a mystery secret agents prophecy cyborg action show where the universe is at stake. It distorts the values of the Federation and it's packed full of issues that don't get explored in detail - you know, like Star Trek does.

(cybernetic life vs. Human life, android rights, Brexit, secret organizations, quasi-religious cults, external threat to end all life in the galaxy, feminism, coming-of-age, spies in love, incestual relationship between brother and sister, substance abuse because of trauma/PTSD, rich vs. Poor, isolation because of setbacks, immigration, refugee crisis, Picard as an old man, what it means to be an ex-Borg, moving on from depression, identity/Jason Bourne, chosen one story, racism, being a parent/losing a child and so on)

It's supposed to make you care about synths but doesn't take the time to set it up properly. The main synth almost kills all organic life in the galaxy by summoning robot tentacles from a hole in space.

A muddled mess with a romulan lady's despair destroying a Borg cube, incompetent people, murderers getting away scot-free, gouging out eyes, drug abuse, classism, f-bombs, bloody swordplay and the season has a lot of consistency and pacing issues. It's just a mess from the beginning (Picard has no friends and is a hermit who gets bullied by Fox News) to end (Picard sacrifices himself for murderous synths but not really because there's a convenient synth body we can get him).

It's a 4/10 at most and the makers of this mess should be ashamed.

Season 2 was - to my surprise - an even bigger mess than the previous one. How you can mess up Star Trek so royally is beyond my comprehension.

It's a low budget season, filmed in LA with tons of side plots that go nowhere and eat up screentime, unnecessary car chases, unsophisticated psychology, lame twists, actors play other roles for no good reason, time travel rules that change from episode to episode, no good Q scenes (maybe 1), heavy-handed social commentary, witchcraft, 2-minute therapy sessions, making characters geniuses who astound with impossible leaps of logic or making them absolute imbeciles whenever needed and a climax that is so unprofessionally filmed it boggles the mind.

21 producers plus the writers made a 10-episode season with material for maybe 4 episodes. Congratulations, people, for producing the worst season of Star Trek and TV that I had the misfortune to watch.

3/10 at the most!

Season 3 is a different beast. The new showrunner Terry Matalas wants us to have a nice nostalgia ride with the old crew. And if that's all you want, then you'll get it.

For me, there was just too much nostalgia put in there. It's like Star Trek is a museum and not a living thing.

The overarching story is kind of weak, though. Three quarters of the season consists of a mystery plot that is completely irrelevant in the last two episodes.

Vadic just gets spaced and apart from two sentences in the Borg Queen info dump, nobody seems to care anymore about Section 31, how long this conspiracy has gone on for or exactly how this alliance between the Borg and the changelings even worked. What was the benefit for the changelings if the Borg "not just (want) to assimilate, but annihilate"? Why did I have to endure Vadic and her shenanigans for 8 episodes?

But these things get drowned out by explosions and a ridiculous scene where Picard can free his son that he knows for a week because he hugs him. It gets really pathetic when they show flashbacks of these few days when they drank at the holodeck or had an argument. Ah! The good times!

And this is the antithesis of TNG. Yes you can reproduce the bridge or render the old Enterprise-D but when love makes Borg nanoprobes go away, we are indeed not in the Star Trek universe anymore.

Or what about that stupid secret Section 31 station/horror warehouse full with doomsday weapons and crazy creatures where the only security measure is a defunct AI with personality disorder that conjures up a Sherlock Holmes villain who shoots at you with bullets from a revolver. And the only way to stop this is to whistle a tune that only one person in the universe might know. This is the level of writing that we got.

That backdoor pilot at the end just didn't work for me, though. Why rename the ship to Enterprise? Why have a former murderous alcoholic vigilante that Starfleet rejected "because Borg" as the captain? Why have Raffi, the worst Starfleet officer I have ever seen as a First Offficer? And then being so uncreative that a former Borg on a ship called Enterprise is being tested by Q (who apparently survived his teary-eyed death in S2). Is that it? No more new ideas?

Listen, I applaud Matalas for trying to do a Star Trek show at least but there are too many stupid things in here.

Worf and Raffi disappear for an episode with only the flimsiest excuse, only to make a "surprise" appearance later and stab at changelings that somehow suddenly also fight with swords and somehow can be hurt by them. It really boggles the mind!

It is the season that started with Beverly Crusher shooting a phaser pump gun that runs out of ammo after 6 shots! This is almost as bad as in season 1 romulan agents putting a bag over the head of a synth that can 'activate'.

I'm not here to give ratings to good intentions but to review the season. And this last one was lacking. Trading novelty for nostalgia is not a good idea for a Star Trek tv series.

5/10

Sadly, this was probably the last time these characters come together. I would like to say it was worth it and they've made some instant classic episodes, but alas!

This show was poorly thought out: Picard died but then lived like it didn't matter, Q died but came back, Data died but came back, Ro Laren and Shelby died but got a reprieve via social media by showrunner Matalas and Jurati became a cuddly Borg Queen but a season later we're back with the old queen, no Jurati in sight. 24th/25th century morals, values and even technology have deteriorated without any reason, like phasers working like shotguns with limited ammo you have to reload every shot or poverty being back in our utopia or a 24th century doctor (Crusher) failing to use a contraceptive.

For the future: plan your seasons not as movies, don't just ride on nostalgia, don't let actors pitch their own family problems, only use characters if you really have to something for them to do!

Star Trek is not just a bunch of tropes and things.

Spock gets constantly mocked, patronised, laughed at by his merry band of sassy women who act so unprofessionally that it hurts. How is a starship supposed to operate if girl power trumps procedure? This is the most bizarre misfire of feminist writing in recent memory.

Imagine at NASA, a communications officer giving a technician the "na-ah, I've got work to do, bro!" when asking to access her work tools for mandatory updates which the chief engineer and even the captain already approved, I assume.

Is this supposed to let the pendulum swing the other way? To cut directly from female insubordination to a drinking game scene where La'an is removing her hood in a badass way for absolutely no reason to then shut up the klingon manfolk?

If you want to see an overlong mediocre action sequence where a doctor and a 132 pound nurse on superhuman drugs (which are available of course) are beating up lots of bloodthirsty Klingons, then be my guest.

The rest is an okay episode, not great though. You want to see Spock cry because he has the love bug, then go ahead with this one.

I'm just glad, Akiva Goldsman got to tell how Spock got his lute and why. Thanks so much!

I don't understand people who give this 10/10 - it's not even by SNW standards the best episode!

I don't want to echo a lot of other reviews. A great episode that felt fresh.

Except the action scenes felt too static and somehow all the shooting felt fake because everybody forgot to feign recoil. It looks so odd when the actors are just holding their guns and don't seem to be aware of when they are shooting.

I don't know why in this episode this caught my eye all the time. The director did several good episodes before this one so it's a mystery to me why the action felt so clunky. There is a shot where Reese is just walking very wooden holding a gun to one side an then to the other while shooting is going on. It's line there is a disconnect between the actors and the make-believe that there are enemies behind the camera.

Other than that a great episode.

While I applaud the effort to at least watch some legacy Star Trek, the writers (under Terry "Twitter" Matalas) present a season that consists of two seperate Kirk-era movies with the TNG cast. If that is the same mistake that Berman & Braga made when writing the finale of ENTERPRISE is open for discussion.

The characters at least feel right most of the times and I didn't cringe like in seasons 1 and especially season 2.

The season is full of references to old Star Trek. I mean really full.

Many people call them easter eggs - but those you have to look for. Here they are presented center frame accompanied by a musical sting. Like Worf listening to the same opera while training that Picard did in First Contact. There is no connection between those scenes and Worf would listen to Klingon Opera anyway.

There are, at time so many references that they got on my nerves.

Three quarters of this season consists of a mystery plot that is completely irrelevant in the last two episodes. I felt cheated. Vadic just gets spaced and apart from two sentences in the Borg Queen info dump, nobody seems to care anymore about Section 31, how long this conspiracy has gone on for or exactly how this alliance between the Borg and the changelings even worked. What was the benefit for the changelings if the Borg "not just (want) to assimilate, but annihilate"? Why did I have to endure Vadic and her shenanigans for 8 episodes?

But these things get drowned out by explosions and a ridiculous scene where Picard can free his son that he knows for a week because he hugs him. It gets really pathetic when they show flashbacks of these few days when they drank at the holodeck or had an argument. Ah! The good times!

And this is the antithesis of TNG. Yes you can reproduce the bridge or render the old Enterprise-D but when love makes Borg nanoprobes go away, we are indeed not in the Star Trek universe anymore.

The reasons I loved TNG were not because things exploded or it felt like the Kirk movies - I loved them because of the moral and ethical discussions, the rational view from different sides on certain problems and the determination by the best people who kick ass at their jobs.

Terry Matalas knows Star Trek - which makes him a better showrunner than the last two. But he and his writing staff forgot over all those memberberries to write a consistent plot.

Like that stupid secret Section 31 station/horror warehouse full with doomsday weapons and crazy creatures where the only security measure is a defunct AI with personality disorder that conjures up a Sherlock Holmes villain who shoots at you with bullets from a revolver. And the only way to stop this is to whistle a tune that only one person in the universe might know. This is the level of writing that we got.

This is just insane.

Worf and Raffi disappear for an episode with only the flimsiest excuse, only to make a "surprise" appearance later and stab at changelings that somehow suddenly also fight with swords and somehow can be hurt by them. It really boggles the mind!

It is the season that started with Beverly Crusher shooting a phaser pump gun that runs out of ammo after 6 shots!

There are so many half baked ideas in this season, I can't put them all down, like the vulcan Mafioso or Starfleet turning into Russia holding military parades. An old Klingon cloaking device gets stolen off-screen(!) and seamlessly integrated into ships systems without the chief engineer complaining. The compromised fleet is shooting at a starbase for half an hour but why not fly around it and attack Earth from a different angle? Jack looks exactly like Picard did when he was Locutus. Why? Don't know. Maybe they think we are idiots.

I just can't understand these knee-jerk 10/10 ratings. Does nobody think about stuff anymore? Yes they recreated the Enterprise bridge and let the actors play poker AGAIN but what about the story of the season? Or this episode?

Does anyone thinks about all the young people who turned murderers when they were borgified? OBE YEAR LATER and everything is fine? There is even a monologue by Riker to tell the audience not to think about it! Even the changelings were not that bad-after all they didn't kill all their targets!

Pulling the overused Borg out of the hat at the 11th hour was really a lame idea. It's very uncreative because we have seen enough of the Borg. What? Should we be excited because NOW THEY ARE REALLY DANGEROUS? Come on.

Yes this season was way better than the clunky film student season 1 and leagues better that the abysmal stupid low budget-y season 2, but a 10/10? No way.

I just can't believe that all these ratings are by real people. But if they are real, I hope they got paid enough.

That's it? The big reveal of what's going on with Jack is that he inherited some biological changes from when Picard was transformed into Locutus and now he is a transmitter or whatever? And the Changelings somehow worked WITH the Borg to overthrow the Federation??? After a couple of episodes stalling for time, now the big info dumps are put on to the viewer. All persons under 25 are infected with this transceiver biotech via the transporter?

Sounds a bit like fan fiction to me. Let's hope we'll get to see HOW these different foes came to work with each other. And why was Vadic's hand an changeling? How did that work?

Why did the Borg work together with a mad changeling that was tortured by Section 31 with medieval methods (needles and saws and gas-powered cigarette lighters) to finally assimilate the Federation?

Why did they steal Picard's body 5 days ago? Seems like infecting everyone via transporter should have taken a lot longer than that!

It's all moving very fast, Callback Admiral Shelby is on screen and next seen with two burning phaser holes in her chest. As if the Changeling plot is not under-explained enough, now the Borg have to be behind everything. The result is making all this secret Ro Laren changeling Shrike conspiracy trust nobody plot unimportant.

Yes, the last minutes when the old crew is on the bridge of the Enterprise-D are very nice. The set design is on point and finally the lighting is not like in a bar somewhere. They have worked on every detail.

Sadly, the same can't be said about the plot though. The Titan has been overrun by borgified 18-25-year-olds but nobody stops the crew from taking a shuttle and going to the Fleet Museum?

The lack of transporter beams this season is lamentable. As is the lack of personnel aboard the brightly-lit Fleet Museum. Nobody seems to care about intruders stealing a whole starship. Logic dictates that the museum is overrun by Borg as well, right?

And what about the old crew. They seem hellbent on leaving with the Enterprise-D as soon as they're on board. But nobody has formulated a plan what to do. Just get a move on, the episode is almost over!

What was the plan by just warping to Earth? They're fugitives! Picard just calls the admiral and hopes that she will stop everything and believes Picard?

I don't know. I don't give brownie points for nostalgia anymore. All this buildup for a quick mishmash of stuff that can never be explained sufficiently in the remaining episode.

My prediction is that the Borg cube is a giant transmitter and when that inevitably explodes, all the assimilated people go back to normal (as seen in Star Wars/Game of Thrones/..)

I just have to say that I find the Borg overused. In season 1 we had the Borg cube, Hugh and Picard getting flashbacks. In season 2 there was the Borg Queen as a supporting character and borgified mercenary soldiers. And now AGAIN. Isn't there anything else to bring to the table?

I'm just tired. Does anyone even care anymore why Vadic wanted to catch Jack all these episodes? Seems like the outcome would have been the same!

What about shuttles? Aren't they also connected to every starship? How can they escape with one? Why didn't Geordi say a couple of episodes that he has a secret off the grid starship lying around? Maybe we could have been spared another trip to the museum?

Giving this a 10/10 just because they've rendered the Enterprise-D and rebuilt the bridge for two episodes? Is that all that Star Trek is? A collection of tropes and things?

The quality of the scripts have been all over the place in the last two weeks.

Shaw is now a coward, not trying to step in front of the proverbial phaser to save his crew. No. He actively stops Seven to intervene in the slaughter of the crew. After all, what can they do? It's really shameful what they have done with this character. And Jean-Luc is not faring any better. He, too, is not behaving like a former captain.

Nobody on board seems to have any phasers while the're being hunted down and in the most infuriating scene, Raffi and Worf fight with swords against changelings. Just think about it for a minute. Everyone used phaser rifles up to this point. But just to have another stupid Elnor scene, inexplicably, they've all switched to swords for no reason.

To add insult to injury, the deconstruction of Picard as a character continues. Now he executes bad guys instead of trapping them with force fields and get information out of them.

I don't know what went wrong in the writers room but dragging this stupid Jack storyline out until episode 9 is really stretching it thin. It makes no sense that this went on for 5 episodes.

I think this was a really bad episode and I almost don't care about the red door anymore. Red doors, strange whispers and visions of tentacles are really the hallmarks of bad trek like the red angel or the romulan visions of doom.

And for what? Riker says it best at the end: "we've got almost no answers" Yes, maybe you shouldn't have killed the bad guys when you had all the power you idiots.

This episode was written by one of the writers of season 2... enough said.

I am really worried now.

This episode's "written by" credit goes to Jane Maggs - the writer of three of the worst (and also worst rated) episodes of Picard thus far.

Overall, at least there are things to talk about but the stupid creeps into this season slowly while they drag this season out. Jack's abilities, for instance. Why wouldn't he tell anyone? That makes no sense. His mother with whom he is on good terms with is a doctor!

For these producers and writers, science in the 24th century is people in lab coats sticking needles in things, beakers, gas-powered cigarette lighters, tasers and bone saws. Jesus, this is imagery for people with the IQ of a parsnip! BAD WOMAN DOING BAD THINGS! At least she didn't have a swastika ob the wall.

With little setup, Jack is now romantically interested in the LaForge girl. Why? Because he has to say "nooo" when the bad guys try to kill her, of course. Why don't you set this up better so it doesn't come off as a cheap writing trick?

Beverly and Jean-Luc decide to execute a prisoner. A no-go in TNG. Let's hope this get's explored further or I'll lose all hope for these characters.

Lore's appearances at least made sense compared to the nostalgia machine last episode (dear god) and gave some nice dramatic scenes between Spiner and Burton. Oddly enough, they kept cutting away from that scene for some reason.

There were nice scenes in there and there was no Raffi, so far so good.

Listen, sure this season is alright in many regards - but all these 10/10 ratings? Really? Especially this episode left a lot to be desired. Brought to you by Christopher Monfette, who got the "written by" credit for the season 2 finale.

I'll start with the biggest offender: meaningless fan service. Showing the Defiant or some monster tribble really detracts from the episode. These are not easter eggs - because they are not hidden but center frame accompanied by a musical sting. Don't they have enough story for 10 episodes so they have to produce filler? Please stop with that or weave it into the episode in meaningful ways. Or is Star Trek just a collection of things we know now? Should we clap like idiots for every reference or fanfare?

The whole Daystrom story is preposterous, the only security (for the Federations most dangerous tech??) is a defunct AI with personality disorder and the security measure consists of a raven flying around and a holographic Sherlock Holmes villain shooting bullets from an ancient revolver?????

And to deactivate you have to whistle an old tune that nobody knows except Riker and Data?

One has to wonder if Section 31 personnel are walking around whistling alle the time.

It's so dark on that station, the viewer might be confused, because from the outside, at Daystrom station every window is lit. Every. Single. One.

This universe seems very small, also. Everybody knows everybody and everywhere is deserted: Daystrom station, the fleet museum and distances don't matter. Vadic jumps in what I estimate to be a day or so to Nepenthe, kidnaps Deana Troi and back.

Why would a changeling morph into a chain-smoking, leather coat wearing villain with a bad oily hairstyle, symmetrical face scars and bad teeth? If you bring all the nostalgia in, why not the fact that Changelings HATE solids. Why would they smoke and impersonate a cartoon villain 24/7 on their own ship?

Is all Starfleet corrupted? I mean there isn't a resistance somewhere? Are there ships without changelings on board?

But one of the biggest head scratchers is Berverly. The doctor never scanned her son for genetic illnesses???? Given his fathers medical history, one would assume that this is standard procedure in the late 24th century.

Very strange and clunky.

Stealing the Cloaking Device really went too easily. I mean they steal it off-camera without alarms going off and no chief engineer of the Titan (is there such a person even?) that asks what the hell is going on?

It seems like a TOS-era movie with the TNG cast. It meshes just so-so inn my opinion. Is it the same problem as with the ENTERPRISE finale?

And please get on with Jack's visions! Stop dragging this out. It's not believable that he doesn't tell anyone - not even his mother??

Other than that, it's still way better than the train wreck that was season 2.

It's still ok, not great. There are many strange things here, like Shaw saying they're outgunned before the bad girl let them have a close look at her arsenal. Or Riker proposing they are in a stalemate with the enemy because they've managed to stop 3 enemy soldiers on a defunct starship without weapons.

The moment was great when Picard finally gives orders but the writers immediately follow with something stupid. Shaw and his crew just follow this previously mentioned "retired admiral" - why does he wield authority all of a sudden?

And why Picard? He was a man who wasn't swayed by sentimentality. Now he is only able to take the reigns if he has an emotional reason? That seems like quite a departure from the Captain we all know and love.

A cigar-smoking over-the-top villain is not the thing that I want from my Star Trek but I hope there's more to this character.

And why didn't Shaw just beamed them over and jumped to Warp again? Why linger? Why?

Why are the transporters not detecting devices that can disrupt force fields or even weapons for that matter?

Why is Worf doing an Elnor and decapitates the suspect for a potential interrogation?

It seems there are shortcuts being taken to get this story along. At least the characters feel right for the most part.

While this feels much closer to a recognisable Star Trek product, the jury is still out on whether all this setup makes any kind of sense. There are - at least - characters in there you give a damn about and they feel closer to the original.

But the hallmarks of Bad Trek are still there. Beverly using a shotgun type of weapon which seems very anachronistic, Seven rebelling against her captain just because he's a jerk (maybe ask for reassignment?), the Titan is missing a transporter beam when a shuttle leaves without authorisation, Starfleet using an ex drug addict with personal problems as an agent.

Some of the puzzle-solving of Raffi's seems contrived and based on coincidences, rather that deductive skills and Beverly is using violence instead of some clever medical way of combating the intruders was a missed opportunity.

It's still dark everywhere in the future like in the previous seasons. I wonder why the bridge of a starship has the same level of lighting as a corner bar - people might trip over stairs... The Captain of a new ship not being on the bridge during her first flight out of the starbase made little sense and Riker's plan was a little goofy. I mean one text message to Starfleet would habe been enough for Captain Shaw to see through this plan.

All in all it's surely a step up. The bridge crew seems competent and not using some cool lingo while full of themselves. The banter between Picard and Riker seems like the real thing, so there's that.

Let's see if all this mystery is worth it. If this tanks like the last seasons I might be done with Star Trek and all those youtubers who got to see the season in advance to create more buzz.

It's interesting that most people who praise the show keep mentioning how epic the show looks, how fantastic the costumes are or how nice the sets come across. Almost nobody praises the characters, the intricate dynamics between them or dialoge that feels intelligent.

And there's a reason for it.

At least we get a respite from the uniteresting Hobbit storyline. This alone warrants a higher rating.

But other things drag the episode down again. For instance the hamfisted attempt at allegory by having some 100 background actors being afraif of losing their jobs beause one ONE elf landing on their shores by accident. The first thing I think is not "wow that's clever" but "why are the Numenorians written so stupidly?"

Ar-Pharazon proclaims: 'My friends, trust in me, for by the calluses on my hands, I swear that Elven hands will never take Numenor's helm'.

And nobody remembers that Elros Tar-Minyatur who was their first king actually WAS an elf?

And how does he have calluses? He is a politician!

Wow, that's really some Star Trek Picard level of writing.

So far, so stupid. I don't know anymore if this is all just fan-baiting to generate buzz or just incompetence. I guess neither is commendable.

Galadriel gets pissed off when she doesn't get what she wants, yet she is a 5000 yeart old elf born in the Undying Lands in one of the most noble houses. What will she learn in half a lifespan of a hobbit what she didn't learn in 5000 years?

Yes, she HAS A TEMPEST in her but lets herself be imprisoned by 2 guards and later deals with 4 guards easily to get out. One just has to marvel about the writing staff.

And why is Galadriel so small? And how does Miriel expect Galadriel coming through the window of the tower she just climbed up?

Adar is an okay character so far. By giving him long hair, he immediately looks more like an elf and not like a human after a visit to a salon (Elrond/Celebrimbor/Arondir).

And also the parts with Durin and Elrond were okay. His (for some reason) african dwarf wife seems out of place in a medieval underground society, but when she is not anti mansplaining, I can tolerate her.

The timeline is totally messed up by this point. Three days have gone by in Numenor but in Eregion, there's a third of a large tower being build in the same time. It looks more like this has taken a couple of months. Arondir is maybe a couple of days in captivity but whole villages of the Southlands are evacuated already. It doesn't fit.

Isildurs motivation doesn't make sense here. He hears voices from the west of the island calling to him and that's why he deliberately fails to join the army. Now he wants to join to sail away to Middle Earth? What about those angelic voices? Hello writers, do you compare notes?

The idea of the rising sun saving the good guys from the orcs was good but why didn't at least some of the orcs kept pursuing? Just last episode there were orc archers cleary seen guarding the trench in broad daylight. And suddenly, no more arrows fly. Very weird direction.

Overall a better episode but so many stupid things. The writing is not on point and not on par with other high-calibre shows. If this didn't have the budget and the brand name, nobody would care. It's too slow and a bit boring. The dialoge and the caracters are meh and some are just cringeworthy.

Minor things:

• why don't the villagers go back during the day to get their food?

• Elrond was never a dwarf friend
• Celebrimbor still very off and comes off more like a grandmother with a secret. WHERE IS HIS POWER?? Where is the intensity?

• at least Elrond seems more elven in his reactions than the much older Galadriel
• passwords are children songs?

This is the show that evokes no genuine feelings and the writing is so transparent your eyes keep rolling. It's the kind of show that insults your intelligence by saying: don't ask questions, just consume.

Why does Miriel wear a blindfold when her eyes were not that damaged before?

Why suddenly in the last episode have Pharazon mention immortality when this theme should have been woven in from the get go? It's like the writers remembered, oh shoot we forgot the immortality thing!

Why did they make a big deal out of building a furnace as hot as dragon fire when the ended up in that room with this tiny furnace?

Why doesn't Galadriel tell the king about Halbrand being Sauron?

Why doesn't the second greatest smith in Arda know about alloys?

Why did Sauron let Galadriel live?

Why is it a good test of identity to ask Elrond something not commonly known? (Sauron was in her mind a minute ago and presumably heard what her brother said, so he could also know about how she met Elrond)

Why didn't anyone care about Halbrand missing (and not coming back according to Galadriel)?

Why is everything now connected to Galadriel? (Three rings was her idea??)

Why are the Harfoots so important of they never did anything great in this Age according to lore? (because LOTR?)

Why does Mystery-Gandalf says to follow your nose when he just said he needs to go east?

Why did they melt all of Galadriels dagger because they needed silver and gold? But surely the blade is made from steel, right? Silver and gold are not strong enough for blades...

Why did the Elves made their rings first? Shouldn't they made them after the other rings because they saw the need to protect their realms from Sauron?

What was Halbrand-Saurons plan? He just hoped Galadriel would jump from the ship so he made it that he'd float on a raft in the middle of the ocean with other people?

And why did he pretend to be the king of the Southlands? So that he could join the war, get injured so that Galadriel takes him to Eregion to heal so he could influence Celebrimbor? What a convoluted mess of a plan!

And how arrogant to rewrite Galadriels story in a way that her lines later about her being a dark queen was all about her romantic interest in Halbrand/Sauron?

This show is so uneven in the tonal shifts between a Disney death scene of Sadoc who doesn't feel pain or goes pale because of blood loss and cauterising an wound in closeup with blood gushing out of it.

It's so stupid that elves that look like Mr Spock want to look for ancient documents in "catacombs". But catacombs are burial sites, not a library!

I don't care about these Hobbits. If they did anything of note in the Second Age, Tolkien would have written about it.

Why do the writers need to be everywhere first? Nori made Gandalf who he is... it was Galadriel's fault that Sauron knows how to craft with mithril/Mordor was created Nori was the one who saved Gandalf from evil Maia witches?

Galadriel says her line about a queen because Sauron wanted to have her???

Celebrimbor has no power.. like an eunuch apothecary.

And forging of the rings didn't seem magical somehow. Upon finishing the rings, Celebrimbor smiles like he is petting a kitten. What a weird casting choice. We didn't even see the dwarves constructing the forge tower!

There's so much wrong with this show it's very hard to put it all down: all elves dying until spring is completely wrong, Sauron turned evil because Galadriel didn't want to be his queen? Jesus!

Plus the whole season we had to endure this completely unnecessary Gandalf origin story just so they could have Hobbits in this show. And Gandalf. Because people know them.

The writers change everything about this story but then have Gil-Galad randomly walk his spear "Aeglos" around. What? You want a pat on the back for that? Nevermind that it made zero sense that he just walks around with it in his ceremonial garb.

It's an empty show made by inexperienced people that have the audacity to change Tolkiens lore to make it more boring and derivative and pretend they care about the books.

What are we expecting at this point from season two? That they copy more cool Peter Jackson scenes and inject themselves in the lore?

Just in the episode "Udun", we have at least 10 shots directly lifted from the movie trilogy: 1-hero shouts "to the keep"; 2-reveal of the riders camera pan; 3-riders sideways; 4-talking to horse; 5-breaking of the dam; 6-recognition of the king; 7-"noro lim" horse chase; 8-battering ram; 9-sword hilt can't be destroyed; 10-"this shadow is but a passing thing" speech. And almost all of those are inferior to their movie counterparts, either because of emotional weight, scale or execution.

No thanks.

The Peter Jackson movies had mass appeal without treating the audience like imbeciles. The plot made sense and it had a realism to it. This feels like Disneyland in comparison.

Before I begin this review, I want to give a friendly wave to the people who give 10/10 stars for these episodes and barely review anything else: I hope you get paid enough for this!

As we are now 5 episodes in, barely any significant advances have been made in any of the storylines.

It's interesting that the producers made everyone plain humans (the Elves, the Numenorians) in an attempt to make them more relatable, yet I don't care about any of them. It makes everything very bland.

There is also a problem of scale to this show. We are being told, Galadriel is the commander of the northern armies, but all we got to see is 5 people who abandon her (and are gone to Valinor). Whole villages in the southlands are being abandoned but at the watchtower are only 50-100 people maybe. Numenor, the height of human civilization, has no army and only 5 ships to spare. Proclamations in the capital are heard by 200 people.

Where is the scale? It all feels so small! It clashes with the huge CGI aerial shots.

Even the costumes habe serious flaws. Under the armor you can see printed stretch undershirts that fold in places. What a joke.

Galadriel/Numenor:

The biggest flaw in this show (apart from the egregious lore inaccuracies and thinly veiled social justice placating to garner social media brownie points) is still Galadriel. This 5000 years old very noble elf , educated by the powerful Maia Melian. But in the show she is still his one-note Mary Sue character with vengeance on her mind, arrogant and entitled, not knowing how to behave in court in front of the descendants of Elronds brother. She lets herself be imprisoned by 2 guard and then overwhelms 4 guards when they try to put her on a boat. She wants Miriel to commit her forces to Galadriels task but gives no evidence of her case. The same with Halbrand. Apparently it's just enough that Galadriel says he is royalty without confirming anything.

The problem is that the writers think they're doing female empowerment a service by showcasing this character. When she rides a horse in slow motion or fights inexperienced beta males or steps on a boat - the music swells like something awesome is happening - but nothing is, really. It makes you cringe. I don't care about THIS Galadriel because the writers haven't give me a reason to. There is no depth to her character.

And why does Galadriel have to train 5 peple for 5 minutes? All this scene does is placate Galadriel AGAIN and let her show off the males. Oh look, a strong badass woman! Wooooow! Because the numenorian soldiers-to-be don't really learn anything other than Galadriel is better than them.

Is this really how they want us to see them getting ready for war? Where is the training arena? Do numenorian soldiers have to practise swordfighting in alleys between fish salesmen?

What's wrong with the mighty Numenor?

They are the descendants of people who fought orcs and were rewarded with a long lifespan and an island of their own! This knowledge is not passed on? Where are their army and their drill instructors? Elendil - a "petty lord" - is the only guy who gives the recruits some tips?

Why does Miriel have to ask for volunteers instead of just giving an order to her army?

This is all so badly constructed!

Hobbits:

As with the last weeks, the Hobbit (yes they are Hobbits) story is still an empty void. The show is spinning its wheels for some inevitable cliffhanger that wants you to gape at. This week, we are getting a lovely rendition of a song by our female Frodo. A song worthy of a Disney movie for children.

The tribe of Hobbits show their horrible lack of ethics again by attributing food shortage to the tall man that Nori keeps around. I don't like them.

And I have to say, the CGI wolves look worse that the dog/pigs in the show "ANDOR".

Durin/Elrond storyline:

As far as character scenes go, the most fun that I can find I find here. But the good feeling doesn't last long when I see them portraying Gil-Galad (the high king) as a moron.

He knew about the tree (elvendom) rotting AND Galadriel suspected Sauron is back but didn't put 2 and 2 together??? Instead he sent her away because she might actually find Sauron?

And what about that crap with the Silmaril being struck by lightning and going into the mountain to create Mithril? That's not how this world works - it's totally made up. And why mentioning a Silmaril anyway? Only fans know that and they are rolling their eyes when you change everything.

Are you going to tell me that Gil-Galad knew for how many years that THE IMMORTALITY OF ELVES WOULD FADE if the don't get their hands on Mithril? And he didn't do anything? And how is Mithril then being distributed? As a suppository? As a lamp? A skin cream? Needless to say this is also not in Tolkien's stories. It's just an ore. Valuable, sure but even the Numenorians had it.

Southlands:

Why is Bronwyn (the only one who keeps herself clean with nice clothes) the leader of the villages now? Where are the actual leaders?

Then they copycat themselves. Last episode, there was a scene in Numenor were volunteers put their arms up. The same thing here. Why? Don't know. I guess writing is pretty hard. And how will they fight? They have no weapons or food! They are cornered with their backs to the wall. Wouldn't it be better to flee somewhere else?

It's all so unconvincing.

Misandry:

No immersion thanks to mundane elves, modern hairstyles and thinly veiled current political issues. There's misandry galore here and girls (who got Middle Earth covered) are just hampered by incompetent or evil man folk.

They try to be Game of Thrones by having scheming characters lleft and right but it just doesn't fit the world. Gil-Galad is unlikeable! Imagine that!

And lest we forget - why are cows producing black thick stuff instead of milk because some orcs let slaves dig a trench they call a tunnel?

I don't know what this show is supposed to be: it's neither gritty nor witty enough to be in the same league as Game of Thrones. It's also too boring for mouth breathers and children.

Favorite clumsy line:

"When i talk his ears close up."

For all it's lush landscapes and effect shots, the first episode was kind of unengaging.

The elves lost their ethereal nature and become humans with pointy ears and super powers. There are some very modern looking hair styles here: Elrond looks like coming right out of a salon and Arondir sports a buzz cut with skin fade.

Elrond is a political speech writer who writes for the High King Gil-Galad. You feel the Tolkien yet?

The societies are so diverse this show may also happening on Times Square, which takes me out of Middle Earth to be quite frank. Please be more diverse but stick with the world the author built.

Based on all the promo stuff they released I was ready to hate this series but now I can just say: meh.

Walking on well-trodden paths, the Hobbit parts of the story felt unnecessary and copied from The Lord of the Rings. You have your Sam and your Frodo and people advise them not to stray too far.

The swooning between Arondir and Bronwyn already gets on my nerves and Galadriel is a one-note unlikable vengeance-driven warrior super hero, let down by stupid men. We get told she is a commander but lacks any leadership qualities. Odd.

So far we we get three story threads with headstrong independent females. And in regards to that I am already apprehensive about the upcoming Numenor story.

Galadriel getting sent to Valinor ist just preposterous. She went into exile to Middle Earth to rule lands of her own and support Sindarin Elves in the wars to come. A far more interesting tale.

And the dialogue is quite boring and strange at times. The difference between a rock and a ship is that the rock thinks about the darkness below and that's why it doesn't float? What? Then Finrod (not mentioned by name) says to young Galadriel that he won't always be around! The thing is, as an immortal Elf living in Aman before all the bad things happened - it's very strange for him to predict his death.

The Flight of the Noldor (not mentioned by name) is also very briefly mentioned and lacked all the depth it deserved.

The we get to see a map of Middle Earth. But at that time the map looked completely different! There were many more lands left of the map in the region called Beleriand and it got destroyed when the gods fought a brutal war against Morgoth. But who cares about that, right?

The brief cgi vistas are beautiful though and looked fantastic. The ceremonial armor of the elves looked very unpractical (they can't turn their heads) and the wooden armor of the Sindar elves looked like they don't belong. I'm not a fan of grandpa Celebrimbor but more on that in the next reviews if I don't just stop watching.

Kind of a let-down. Beautiful emptiness with deep-sounding dialogues.

For all it's lush landscapes and effect shots, the first episode was kind of unengaging. The elves lost their ethereal nature and become humans with pointy ears and super powers. There are some very modern looking hair styles here: Elrond looks like coming right out of a salon and Arondir sports a buzz cut with skin fade.

Elrond is a political speech writer who writes for the High King Gil-Galad. You feel the Tolkien yet?

The societies are so diverse this show may also happening on Times Square, which takes me out of Middle Earth to be quite frank. Please be more diverse but stick with the world the author built.

Based on all the promo stuff they released I was ready to hate this series but now I can just say: meh. Walking on well-trodden paths, the Hobbit parts of the story feel unnecessary and copied from The Lord of the Rings. You have your Sam and your Frodo and people advise them not to stray too far. The swooning between Arondir and Bronwyn already gets on my nerves and Galadriel is an unlikable warrior super hero, abandoned by stupid men.

So far we we get three story threads with headstrong independent females. And in regards to that I am already apprehensive about the upcoming Numenor story.

Kind of a let-down. Beautiful emptiness with deep-sounding dialogues.

While key moments (lightsaber duels) will surely please low-brow consumers of Star Wars products, the discerning viewer will be a little underwhelmed, I guess. But I will say that there is a nice character moment at the end of these 6 episodes when Anakin absolves Obi-Wan from his guilt. The thing is the former "great friendship" between them never translated to the screen.

Also, this should've been a movie.

And that is just the beginning of it. For starters, this show feels a bit like a con. Obi-Wan is not really the protagonist. He is the hook to watch a show about Reva and little Leia. Apart from some scenes here and there that is what it actually is.

Overall, this feels cheaper than the first season of "The Madalorian". The Augmented Reality scenes are very visible most of the times and set lighting didn't really integrate the live-action elements well (siege of the mountain fortress).

Also the lack of alien creatures astounded me. Most people where humans and if there were aliens, they looked awful (dinosaur bounty hunter with huge head and human torso, skinned rodent truck driver) and if they spoke they spoke in English. Does Disney think, their viewers are so lazy they don't want to read subtitles?

Director Deborah Chow did a mediocre job in my opinion and wasn't the right person for the job. Choreography during fights wasn't very cinematic (Indira Varma vs. Stormtroopers) and overall the shots looked more like a good fan film than an official product. That ist very strange.

I also have to ask for whom this is made. Dialogues and vibe of scenes switch from "fun kids show" to "dead people, force choking and burn victims".

I also need to touch on the lazy writing/scene planning. To get from A to B without logic really irks me:

• talking loudly into mic while sitting next to enemy soldier when infiltrating

• killing officer 5m away from other soldiers but nobody seems to notice

• character gets frustrated when trying to deactivate an energy barrier instead of just walking around it

• OMG that stupid energy barrier

• Vader letting flames disappear/can't make flames disappear

• resistance guy doesn't want to help because his wife died/wants to help because his wife died

• guy wonders (oof! That acting) where second pilot from second missing ship is like it's a mystery

• TIE fighters showoff/no fighters pursue little ship

• holding grenade up in the air so enemy soldiers can flee into safety just to have that grenade closup shot

• Reva killing innocent people/wants to kill Vader because he killed innocent people

• Reva lets Leia be kidnapped because she wants Obi-Wan/interrogates Leia where the rebels are/puts a tracker into her robot because she knows Leia will escape?

• former by lightsaber impaled Inquisitor doesn't finish off lightsaber-injured Reva ... because she can't ever recover? Hello!! Why? Because season 2?

• apparently, severing your spine with a lightsaber doesn't kill you

Disney+ starts to smell like a buffet - they try to have a lot of Star Wars there - sadly, the salmon is undercooked, the egg salad is dry and you start to realise you should have gone to a restaurant.

They are creatively bankrupt, forever rehashing old legacy characters because just one in 50 new characters gets any kind of love (Discount Kylo Ren aka Reva is so annoying - actress and character). Already, they are copying the Mandalorian formula with the cute side kick.

And honestly, I don't know why this story needed to be told anyway. It makes Obi-Wan responsible for many, many deaths in the years to come by not killing Vader AGAIN. Both Luke and Leia needed to be where they started off and nobody that is alive later could die. Isn't that a waste of time? Or is this show just a launching pad for the Reva character?

And so it's another trip to the well: Luke, Leia, Anakin, Obi-Wan, Palpatine, Rebels, Han Solo, Chewie, bla bla bla.