It was six years ago that the announcement was made that Sir Patrick Stewart would be returning to the role that made him a household name – Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise – in a new series bearing the character’s name. There was excitement en masse that the new regime of Star Trek would be returning to the world they remembered.
My reaction to the news was cautious optimism.
On the one hand, part of me was excited. On the other hand, this is from the same regime that gave us Star Trek: Discovery, a show that I was not all that enamored with and – if I’m being honest – a show that I could never really get into no matter how hard I tried. And having that regime try their hand at the continuation of Jean-Luc Picard’s story – a story that would take place years after Star Trek Nemesis and would deal with the aftermath of the destruction of Romulus (as depicted in Star Trek ’09, which mean that event is canonical to this universe… much to the chagrin of those who’d rather not acknowledged those films’ existence).
Also, this show was coming after the end of Sir Patrick’s last television show, Blunt Talk. My immediate assumption would be that Picard was essentially the Star Trek equivalent of Blunt Talk and thus for a time, I had referred to the show as Blunt Talk: The Next Generation. All the jokes you could make about an elderly Picard losing his marbles and possibly other things are things that I could have envisioned coming to life, regardless of whether Seth MacFarlane was on the crew or not… I’m sure he sent them notes along the way while he was busy with his own Star Trek tribute show, The Orville… a show that I have not seen a lick of to this day, but heard some good things about… but I digress.
So we finally get the first season of Picard on air… to say that it was divisive among folks would be… accurate. Some people enjoyed the new take on things while others frowned on the series’ less-than-idyllic depiction of the future… a future, mind you, that had been shaped by the destruction of Romulus as well as the sudden android uprising on Mars that resulted in the destruction of the Utopia Planetia shipyards. It’s no secret that after suffering a horrendous event, things become a bit more morose and it’s pretty clear that the days of shrugging off such a thing and returning to the tried-and-true status quo is a thing of the past. It’s also no secret that when you reach your elder years and your glory years are long forgotten, you’re just a crusty old relic who’s left to ponder your remaining days. After a while, you’re wishing for the simple days when you mattered.
There was a line in one of the early episodes where one of Picard’s Romulan associates asked if he had a good sleep. When he answers in the negative, he’s asked if it’s bad dreams. And he replies, “The dreams are lovely. It’s the waking up that I’m beginning to resent.” It’s a line that did speak to me and often one that sums up my disposition on things, especially in recent years. That’s also a line you wouldn’t get from Berman-era Trek… so to say that I was always completely down on Picard is a bit of a fib since I was initially intrigued by where they were going.
Not everything hit, of course. I wasn’t too thrilled with the return of bit characters such as Hugh (the ex-Borg who looked decidedly less Borg from last we saw him), Bruce Maddox (the Starfleet commander who wanted to study Data “for research” from the acclaimed episode “Measure Of A Man” but now played by a completely different actor), and even little Icheb (another ex-Borg taken in by Voyager, now played by a completely different) into the fold, only for them to be killed off. Some of the newer characters introduced were pretty lousy and lame – not so much the main cast – well, except for that Jurati person, which I blame more on bad writing than the actress who played her as best as she could with what she was given – but the bit players like the admiral who likes to say fuck or the Romulan general posing as a Starfleet commodore. Does it speak volumes when the season’s best episode involves Picard and the android that is apparently a spawn of Data whose name I don’t recall hides out in Riker and Troi’s cabin in the woods? Does it speak even more volumes that everything after that episode is where things start to fall off a cliff?
Planet of androids, let’s summon some tentacle monster that could destroy the universe or something, some more cheap wire-fu fight scenes here and there because that’s the only way we do fight scenes these days. Another Soong character played by Brent Spiner… who, at the very least, doesn’t have to wear make-up this time around… except for when he’s playing Data… again… and, well… yeah.
So the first season of Picard started off decently enough and fell off a cliff, but things were much happier. The synth ban was lifted, Picard is in a better disposition (and in a new robot body), and the Federation is slowly going back to being a beacon of light… or something. We’ve got something for the second season to build upon and hell, we’re even bringing back John De Lancie’s Q to trade barbs with Picard. Surely, we can look forward to some quality storytelling from here on out.
And then the first episode hit… Picard’s in Starfleet, we’ve got a new ship, there’s a new Borg threat… again. And then the timeline changes. Next episode up, we find out more about this new timeline where humans are a bunch of dicks and now we gotta go back in time to fix things. And that’s when you realize that this is mostly going to take place in contemporary times… which means lots of social commentary on bad things. Unfortunately, social commentary on bad things in the 2020s usually means social commentary on things that don’t align with the showrunner’s political viewpoints. Social commentary isn’t a foreign concept in Star Trek, but the best Star Trek generally did it with a bit of class and in a way that it didn’t talk down to or shame the audience. Sure, there were episodes that were extremely preachy (and were called out for it), but even those episodes had something that made them tolerable.
(People are going to bring up Code Of Honor, which is a truly atrocious episode with its racist casting… but it did give us the memeworthy line of “Then you shall have no treaty, no vaccine, and no Lieutenant Yar!” And you kids like them memes.)
Setting aside the “hammering it in” messaging and preaching, the show itself isn’t all that interesting. They try to push relationships that simply don’t work – they want to push this Seven/Raffi thing as a thing, but there’s simply no chemistry and I don’t buy a lick of it. The amazing coincidence of another Soong character played by Brent Spiner to serve as our 21st-century antagonist had me facepalming more times than a Picard facepalm meme montage. The whole backstory with Picard and his mother that’s supposed to make him more of a tragic figure… speaking as someone who constantly deals with some mental health issues both personally and within my own family, I felt this whole thing was hokey and unnecessary. It didn’t make me sympathetic for Picard; it made me mourn the time lost watching this tripe unfold.
And of course, more Borg madness! More Borg zaniness! The paper-thin plot being stretched out for ten episodes when it easily could have been resolved in four and we could have done something else with the remaining six. On the bright side, I suppose I should be thankful that they didn’t make an atrocious musical episode. (There’s a musical number in the series, but that’s about as far as it goes and it’s tasteful enough… rarely.) And even the final season between Picard and Q where the latter faces his own mortality, as touching of a scene as that was, feels unearned and out of place in all this mess… and also, as it turns out, quite useless since Q would eventually pop up in the series’ final episode in a post-credit cameo appearance. When Deadpool claims that Marvel will have Hugh Jackman play Wolverine until he’s 90, I’m inclined to believe him as much as I’m inclined to believe that if Star Trek needs a Q character, it’ll always be played by John De Lancie, who will probably play the role even when he’s a head in a jar.
The second season of Picard is probably my least liked season of Star Trek. At one point, I would have called it my most hated Star Trek… but that crown has since been taken by the (not) very short (enough) series of Very Shit Trek cartoon shorts that were a thing about a year or two ago.
So when the third season comes along, it was basically the one thing that people wanted out of this show from the moment it was announced; the big ol’ TNG reunion show that people would be hoping was a thing. Giving all our old favorites one last moment to shine and send them out on a high note… something I felt was done just fine with All Good Things… but then the movies came along and that book was left hanging. Regardless, what we got to close out the run was the closest thing to an eighth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation as we were going to get under the pretense of it being the third season of Star Trek: Picard.
Of the previous cast, only Michelle Herd and Jeri Ryan returned and only so we can fill that particular pre-requisite on the diversity checklist… even though, again, there was never a point where I felt that couple had any semblance of chemistry. If anything, I enjoyed the delightful interactions between Worf and Raffi as kindred spirits of sorts moreso than Raffi and Seven, two ex-lovers with about as much love and charisma as the Clintons or McMahons. Maybe they should have taken some lessons from the Discovery crew, who did a gay relationship just fine and actually made it somewhat endearing… something that doesn’t come along all that often when it comes to Discovery.
What I got the most out of Season 3 was the one line from Worf, in which he refers to Chateau Picard as a rather tart “sour mead.” Something that I’m sure rattled Picard a bit, but something that stuck with me quite a bit. Sour Mead ended up being the thing that I’d associate most with Picard’s third season. Yes, it’s got some nice, crowd-pleasing moments… and yes, even my cynical eyes shed a bit of a tear with that Enterprise-D reveal at the end of the penultimate episode… and then those same eyes rolled around when that ship started flying around and shooting things like we were watching a shoot-em-up for the Playstation 2 or something. And yes, I can safely say that out of the three seasons, Season 3 is the best one… but only because the first season was only good for half a season and the second season was an absolute dumpster fire. In other words, the bar was never that high.
Star Trek: Picard only lasted three seasons and unlike the other series that ended (Discovery) or will be ending (Lower Decks), this is a show that had a end date in mind. There was no intention to going more than needed; they did their set number of seasons and called it a show. But Picard is a show that had issues with its identity. Each season did its own thing. It’s just unfortunate that the only really good season of the show was its last, which cheated by disguising it as a TNG reunion special. Whether that was the intended endgame or not… I’ll let others entertain that idea if they want, but as for me… eh.
As for the possible rumors of a potential Picard movie follow-up… I sincerely hope it doesn’t happen. It’s not needed. It’s not necessary. But most of all, if this is going to be the perfect end to your story, then let it be that. Close the book, set back in the bookshelf, and move on to something else.
dtm666 