Four years ago today, I saw the first episode of this new tv show which would become my new obsession and utterly change my life.
To celebrate, I thought we could take some time this week to remember some of the things we enjoyed about this episode, or that stood out to us.
I'll get us started with one of the things I truly loved about Ep 1x01:
Dahj! Just... Dahj!
We only got her for one episode, and she was suffering for most of it, but I latched onto her character straight away and real hard.
I love that even with her very limited screen time, I still got the feeling she was a distinct character from Soji. Maybe a little looser, more flowing... (And yes, this perception is reinforced by the different hairstyles, which is another detail I adore!)
(Look at these two! You can tell who's who at a glance from the body language, even before you look at the hair!)
Her little student apartment in Boston with it's Tragic Abundance Of Vanilla deserves to have a whole bunch of fics set in it! And even though it's just a cover story, I love her excitement at getting into the Daystrom! Just imagine the thrill, angst, and chaos if she had gone there and ended up working with Agnes - and the two of them discovering the truth about her that way.
Also, I love that Dahj is immediately adopted by Picards entire household, from the Romulan housekeepers/bodyguards...
... to the Number One Goodest Boy.
(No wonder the mom AI told Soji that Dahj was thinking about getting a puppy. It may have been a lie in the moment but clearly fit Dahj's character well enough to be believable.)
And of course there's so, so much more to love about her. Dahj's journey of self-dscovery, however chaotic and short it ended up being, was a great jumping-off point for the series, and by the end of episode 1, I was hooked!
I still have so many fond feelings for Dahj and I really hope I'll find the time and brain space to write about her some time.
How about you? What are some things you remember fondly from this episode?
“And then the question was what kind of dog? Well, I am obsessed with pitbulls. What a dog, and how ill used they have been, appalling used. In England they're a banned breed. I adopted my first pit bull and we already were excited about the thought of taking her back to England, and we couldn't do it. They won't be let in the country. I even talked to the British Embassy in Washington about it and they said, ‘There's nothing we can do.` I'm now part of a campaign working in the UK to get this legislation changed because they are the most sensitive, the most loving, the most giving, the most affectionate creatures that you could ever possibly hope to meet"
It’s really great that now with Kurzman at the head of Star Trek, we have a producer who actively supports putting LGBTQ+ characters and more POC into Star Trek. There is also a really great change that the sexism with how the women were dressed during the Berman era seems to be gone. Yes I know about how horrible Berman was.
That's all, I just wanted to put some New Trek positivity out there.
With just over 30 days to go, the premiere of Star Trek: Picard season 2 (3rd March in the US, 4th March internationally) is fast approaching, and I for one cannot wait to get back into the world I fell in love with two years ago. Thirty days is quite some time, however, and even though new trailers and promo pics seem to be dropping daily, I felt like we could use something to tide us over until March.
After the long hiatus, I think this is the perfect time to revisit all the things we enjoyed about season 1. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has forgotten a lot of the details of those episodes, and who would love to see some of the wonderful characters, locations, and stories back on my dash. So, without further ado:
ProcrastinatorProject Proudly Presents:
30 Days of Picard Positivity
(Transcribed prompt list with explanations below the cut.)
As you can see, this calendar has two prompts for (almost) every day between now and the premiere of season 2. Each day will have one character prompt and one other prompt (Places, Groups, Technology, Production aspects, etc.). Pick one or both, and gush about them to your heart’s content.
Now, I know that we are all incredibly busy - this isn’t Early Pandemic Times after all - so I don’t intend this to be a call to Create All Of The Things. If a prompt inspires you, you could, for example, simply post a short quote or a screenshot that fits the theme. Maybe you have a gif lying around somewhere, or you remember this fanfic you read (or wrote) way back in the day and want to share a link. Perhaps there's some fitting art or meta you posted in the last two years that you think deserves a reblog.
The idea is to engage with this list in any way that gives you joy, however small or elaborate it may be.
And if you are a day (or a week) late or early with your posts, I don’t think anyone will mind. Between time-zone weirdness and tumblr shenanigans, things will get a little jumbled anyway. In the end, we will all have a little more Star Trek: Picard on our dashes, and that‘s what counts ;)
The official tag is #PicardPositivity (one word). I know two words would be more intuitive, but I’m putting this on twitter as well and the little blue bird doesn’t know how to deal with tags that aren’t a single word 😋
There’s no official account for this project, but I will pin this post on my blog for reference (and will probably link and reblog it periodically).
Caveat: Of course, there are always valid criticisms to be made of any piece of media, and there are many places all around the web where you can find fascinating discussions of all of these with regards to ST: PIC. However, here and now I simply want to celebrate this show, the rich world it created, and the caring, creative, incredible community it has given me, and without whom I wouldn’t have made it through the last two years.
Let us all have some fun together and enjoy 30 Days of Star Trek: Picard Positivity!
Prompt List
Day 1 (1st Feb) - Character: Soji Asha; Other Prompt: Music (in-universe or production side. e.g. Season 1 soundtrack, Blue Skies, Rios’s Records, Arroz Con Leche, etc.)
Day 2 - Character: Number One (Picard’s Dog); Group: Qowat Milat (Romulan Warrior Nuns)
Day 3 - Character: Deanna Troi; Other Prompt: Insignia (We all love a Starfleet Delta. Or Rios’s mermaid. Or the Chateau Picard’s coat of arms.)
Day 4 - Character: Commodore Oh; Location: Mars
Day 5 - Character: Raffi Musiker; Other Prompt: Friendships
Day 6 - Character: Emil (La Sirena’s Emergency Medical Hologram); Location: La Sirena (Captain Rios’s freighter)
Day 7 - Character: Narissa (Sister of Narek); Other Prompt: Borg Technology
Day 8 - Character: Hugh (Third of Five, Director of the Borg Reclamation Project); Location: Coppelius (Planet of the Androids)
Day 9 - Character: Mister Hospitality aka Steward (La Sirena’s Emergency Hospitality Hologram); Other Prompt: Concept Art (links welcome!)
Day 10 - Character: Kestra Troi-Riker (Daughter of Will and Deanna); Other Prompt: Food & Drink
Day 11 - Character: Admiral Kirsten Clancy (Starfleet’s Commander in Chief); Group: the xBs (Former Borgs; the most hated people in the Galaxy)
Day 12 - Character: Cris Rios; Other Prompt: Family (Biological, adopted, found, fandom, ...)
Day 13 - Character: Seven of Nine; Location: Vashti (Elnor’s homeworld)
Day 14 - Character: Emmet (La Sirena’s Emergency Tactical Hologram); Group (and Technology): Androids (From F8 on Mars to the inhabitants of Coppelius to Picard’s resurrection)
Day 15 - Character: Altan Inigo Soong (Creator of androids on Coppelius; brother of Data); Group: Starfleet
Day 16 - INTERMISSION (Halfway there. Let’s take a breath, post some random memes, and then get back to it!)
Day 17 - Character: Narek; Location: Earth (Starfleet Headquarters, Boston, The Daystrom Institute, etc.)
Day 18 - Character: Zhaban (Picard’s Romulan housekeeper, ex-Tal Shiar, absolute badass); Other Prompt: Props (Which objects have caught your imagination?)
Day 19 - Character: Elnor; Other Prompt: Relationships (Romantic, Queerplatonic, tragically broken, just beginning, ...)
Day 20 - Character: Bjayzl (Owner of the nightclub in Stardust City, Seven’s ex, trades in Borg Parts); Location: Nepenthe (Homeworld of the Troi-Rikers)
Day 21 - Character: Dahj (Soji’s twin sister); Other Prompt: Holo Tech (From flight controls to the holodeck to a whole set of Emergency Holograms)
Day 22 - Character: Laris (Picard’s Romulan housekeeper; ex-Tal Shiar; absolute badass); RELEASE OF OFIFICIAL AUDIO-DRAMA “NO MAN’S LAND”!
Day 23 - Character: Sutra (Leader of Coppelius’s androids, Soji look-alike); Location: Chateau Picard (La Barre, France)
Day 24 - Character: Will Riker; Group: Zhat Vash (Secret Sect of the Romulan Secret Police)
Day 25 - Character: Enoch (La Sirena’s Emergency Navigational Hologram); Other Prompts: Behind the Scenes (bring on the gifs and screenshots!)
Day 26 - Character: Dr Agnes P. Jurati; Other Prompt: Crew
Day 27 - Character: Bruce Maddox (Creator of Coppelius Androids, Agnes Jurati’s professor and ex); Location: The Artifact (formerly known as Borg Cube)
Day 28 - Character: Data (father of Soji and the other Soong-type androids); Other Prompt: Starships
Day 29 - Character: Ian (La Sirena’s Emergency Engineering Hologram); Location: Stardust City (Capital of Freecloud)
Day 30 - Character: Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (retired); Other Prompt: Season 2 (Almost there! Remember to tag your spoilers!)
You're many things, Agnes P. Jurati. Forgettable is not one of them.
There are some wonderful relationships among the crew, but theirs I love the most.
I love how careful they are, how sweet. It’s getting to a better place from their individual troubles, and if they find each other along the way, a hand to hold and a heart to fill, that’s nice, that’s the thing to just help them be.
While Elnor has important canon relationships — his mutual support for and with Seven of Nine brings me special happiness … and the hope that Elnor and Naomi Wildman can have a lovely comm call about their love for Seven — I readily admit to instantly shipping Hughnor:
They’re so sweet together and, as a Hugh Lives headcanonner, I wrote them a tiny story (rated G) to give them togetherness:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Also in terms of Picard relationships, I actually had a hard time seeing the canon Agnes Jurati and Cris Rios relationship … until I got some help from the lovely Picard fandom, leading me to write this ficlet (rated T) for those characters:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Finally, I’ve written a few fics for the Raffi Musiker and Seven of Nine relationship, but this one I co-authored with two friends was a fun crackfic (rated M) for how Raffi and Seven’s newfound love could affect various other relationships on La Sirena … and the motley crew’s ability to get some peace and quiet:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
