I think Picard as a character only really worked with his crew.
Maybe it’s nostalgia or just a habit. But the same would apply to Kirk or any other captain. They are interesting because they are part of a community, balancing out their respective character traits.
And Star Trek‘s greatest feature always was the idea of a crew working together to solve problems.
Not that one super hero who could do and know everything, like the captain of Discovery.
“hero who could do and know everything”… 
eh… like Bond? 
Here‘s the difference: Bond doesn’t need a crew, and Bond repeatedly fails because he often doesn’t know everything.
When I was a teenager it always looked to me that Moore Bond knew everything.
I realy loved the scene with M when he was asked something like:
“Do you know a man named Scaramanga” and Bond could repeat almost the whole file he read maybe years ago.
Or:
“Are you aware of our A.T.A.C. system, 007?”
“A.T.A.C., sir? Automatic Targetting Atack Communicator…etc…”
I always thought that was very cool and perhaps even cooler than the action scenes.
But I understand what you mean.
Moneypenny probably gave Bond all the intel before he could impress/annoy M.
Regarding that ‘Section 31’ tv film…
That organisation was used sparingly in Deep Space Nine - the show itself thematically close to the espionage theme in many Garak/Worf/Dukat episodes - and Enterprise; yet it always remained the foreign object in the Federation and Trek-verse.* Not quite the way we understand the Federation to work, but also not entirely unexpected, a wild card that could at times turn up. But usually, didn’t.
A show (or here a ‘tv film’) centred on this organisation might just work - if it avoided the obvious action shooter traps, the bulked up hunks in sf camo drag wielding phaser-pørn fetish props, beating up adversaries like MI cutting room floor dregs and tons of explosions. DS9 has shown there is a place for intrigue and suspense in Star Trek. It’s just highly doubtful this ‘Section 31’ vehicle is making use of it.
*For the same reason the Klingon Honor Guard game worked inside the Trek canon, while the Away Team game usually felt like it rather belonged into the Commandos/Desperados missions and just had the wrong skin on its gameplay.
Batman: The Caped Crusader has made The Penguin a woman named Oswalda Copplepot.
Discuss
Well well well…
Release the outrage machine.
And if a decision like this was made not for an artistic reason but because they want to release the outrage machine in order to drum up free publicity, THAT I am against.
How can anyone know? As soon as the idea was proposed, someone noted that it would cause controversy, thereby entwining outrage considerations with aesthetic ones from the onset.
“What if we made the Penguin a woman?”
“Opens many possibilities.”
“It will cause controversy.”
“Think of the potential.”
“Think of the backlash.”
“Think of the free publicity.”
Feel free to re-arrange the last five lines of dialogue in any order, or conceive of them as delivered a la Howard Hawks in HIS GIRL FRIDAY.
But in the end Penguin then is a woman…and so what?
It’s not as if that alone made a difference; even the dress is the same. There’s no actual creativity involved in just that.
“What if we made Penguin a woman - and she’s in love with Bruce Wayne?”
That would make a difference. Even if it just mirrors the Batman/Catwoman dynamic from another angle.
The change makes absolutely no difference whatsoever. It’s fine. If there’s a bigger outrage over this than there was with how violent Batman was in the Burton and Snyder films, which goes very much against a core aspect of the Batman character himself, then it’s a sad statement on fandom and society in general.
As I said before, I’m getting tired of The Penguin being used so much lately in Batman media. He’s the equivalent of General Zod in Superman media. Making the character a woman is okay with me. As great as Batman the Animated Series is, they never got The Penguin right. Not as much emotional depth as the other villains. Maybe this is the change the character needs for me. As long as Bruce Timm keeps his weird love story interest fetish away as much as JJ Abrams’ mystery box.
Maybe the next time there’s one of these changes to the status quo, perhaps the media could just let it go unreported and then see if there actually is an outrage when people see it for themselves. It’s just becoming tiring of there being a controversy around every single turn, whether it be in entertainment, pop culture at large, or any other aspect of society. It’s becoming…exhausting. 
So adopting the affected mannerisms of a penguin is fine, but the being a woman isn’t? Blimey. What a world.
This is the society/culture in which we live now. One major cohort cannot deal with change, wants a return to the past(s), and demands/craves stability above all else (even if the means to accomplish it lean toward/are authoritarian/totalitarian).
Another major cohort can deal with the messiness of change/impermanence, the fact that cultures/societies change and evolve over time, and that tomorrow may well not look like today.
Actually, it’s the society/culture in which we’ve been living in the past few thousand years. It’s always been like that, the only difference is the level of extent. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Go to the ancient Egyptians, you’ll find as many complaints about “today’s young ones” and that they’ll be the downfall of “the world as we know it” as in any other times.
Indeed. The fools in town have always been a factor one underestimated at one’s own peril. But today, the fools in town are connected with all the other fools, in all the other towns. And screaming at the top of their lungs to be heard.
One might be forgiven to think that’s not necessarily a huge problem, since the sum total of all the intellectually impaired doesn’t actually go up. Only in our social media influenced shadow society it’s exactly the dumbest, the loudest and the most extreme takes that shape the discourse. And the vilest, most depraved forces know to exploit just this mechanism.
@ Dustin: Post of the year, for the last years and unfortunately for the future, too.