Children of Mars

This has been my favorite short so far! Having watched Picard, I knew what was coming, but it was still very emotional. I loved the use of heroes! I also liked seeing a kids perspective with parents in Star fleet. We don't see that very often.

They had me at Peter Gabriel's version of Bowie's "Heroes." I loved the style of this vignette: minimal dialogue, telling the story mostly through visuals and emotional reactions between characters. Sure, the fight between the girls was a little ridiculous, but it got the point across. An interesting teaser at the end leaves the viewer wondering where the story is going next ...

Finally,the prequels are over,for now,the story is good,although i expected to see some more known alien species.Another thing which seems to be a real cliche these days is to use a young female as a central character,i mean,did you ever count how many episodes from Short Treks or Discovery have a young female as a central character ..?!?...almost all of them ,i know the writers are many of them young females or woke (or should i say weak or suave..? )male writers ,but as a guy who wanted all his life to become a writer i am very disappointed by this lack of originality.The music is great,the alien races are ,using some obscene gestures ,i know because i use them when i'm thinking to a sexy girl,but this is Star Trek so this is not something too extraordinary,but i think this should be skipped in the future,because just like that scene from TNG movies with Picard wearing a wig to an first contact meeting or attending to a wedding completely naked,or hearing Hoshi imitating a chicken when she is speaking in an alien language,these things are always weird and they don't improve the quality of the series at all,excepting the (TNG ) Klingons and the Ferengi's rituals offcourse.

This was a lofty reach, and it mostly achieved what it was looking to do. You see a slice of these young girls' lives, their different experiences that are also very much alike, and the trail of pain and anger and the destruction it can bring to other people.

I wish more episodes of Picard were near this good. It's not possible to understate how disappointed with the show I have been to this point, and how it does not feel like Star Trek, but merely another science fiction universe with no connections to the TV Shows of the 1960s to the 2000s. And even this episode feels separated from that universe of shows that I love so much. But this at least made an effort at not talking down to its audience, not making things so lowest common denominator IQ.

The story by itself is nothing special. Some sad song do not make for a good story. Not only does this short dismisses all the established lore about how humanity has evolved beyond petty emotions but the story does not add anything new. This felt like a proof of concept but it doesn't work, it relies on undeserved shock value with some filler teenage drama. For such a short running time, it wasted time on menial character traits that do not serve the story. Given the outcome, literally anything would have worked and something more interesting would have been better. This doesn't feel like Star Trek at all.