This entry was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, this television series wouldn’t exist. To learn more, visit the WGA strike hub and the SAG-AFTRA strike site.
“This message is for Admiral Jean-Luc Picard.”
She’s back! We’re back! I’m back! After promising to be a bit less dour about the Star Trek: Picard experiment now that the awful second season is behind us, I’m ready to take season three as it is intended: a big, goofy kiss of fan service to my entire generation of Star Trek fandom. Is it great? No, not really, but it’s better than what came before. Are the sinister undercurrents that betray a worrying moral cowardice, endemic in modern popular culture, still here? You betcha — where else would they go? Picard is basically an infographic for how poisonous nostalgia can become, when weaponized by late capitalism.
But: Is Jean-Luc Picard here to take back the spotlight of Star Trek from all of the also-rans that came with the Kurtzmanverse? He sure as hell is, and damn, that’s fun.
I said “my entire generation of Star Trek fandom,” and this point, particularly, is instructive. Between the excellent Lower Decks and Picard, I came lately to the realization that the Trekkies who grew up on the Rick Berman era of Star Trek production — effectively 1987 through 2005, though I’d given up by the time Enterprise rolled around — were no longer in the shadow of the Original Series fandom. I think it’s fair to say that at this point, we’re the main deal, the largest demographic in Trek culture. That feels huge to me: I was never particularly insecure about The Next Generation‘s place in the Star Trek universe, but, it’s also occasionally useful to recall how divided (and in some cases, outright hostile) the reactions to the emergence of TNG and its sister series were. Even at its most welcoming, there was always a bit of give-and-take on the new era’s seat at the table, vs. the Original Series and its six feature films. (The Next Gen features, for example, absolutely bombed their ability to measure up against the Kirk crew’s films.) Gene Roddenberry, Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor and Brannon Braga nonetheless did a formidable job of building a true second coming of Star Trek in those fifteen or so years when the 24th-Century adventures played out on TV, and we’re seeing the fruits of that job now. Lower Decks isn’t a Star Trek comedy; it’s a Next Gen-era Star Trek comedy. Prodigy isn’t just a Star Trek kids’ show; it’s a Voyager spinoff. And the “good old days” of Star Trek that everyone references when weighing the third coming of Star Trek (the Kurtzmanverse) tend to be references to the second coming.
That being said: if there is one overwhelming reference point for this season of Picard, it isn’t a Next Gen-era story at all: it’s that old, reliable, wildly over-exploited wellspring of “this is what great Star Trek looks like,” Nicholas Meyer’s 1982 feature film, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. This episode opens with an “in the 25th century” title card in TWOK letterhead, and closes with the revelation of our dear captain’s long-lost son. For season three, Terry Matalas and his team are going to attempt to succeed where Star Trek: Nemesis failed, and give The Next Generation its Star Trek II moment.
So: Admiral Jean-Luc Picard, retired, is having a cuppa in front of his oil painting of the Enterprise-D, with his former housekeeper / new lover, Laris. The wonderful Orla Brady now makes her final appearance on Picard, surviving all the other new characters created for this series (save one). Picard and Laris proceed to puzzle out some of the thematic inconsistency that crippled season two: Picard is ready to move offworld with Laris and is demonstrating how “in the present” he is; but Laris is also aware that at his age, a man’s past perhaps more informs the shape and arc of his life than any thoughts of the future. This tension never resolves on Star Trek: Picard — are we doing something new here, or just reheating something old? — but, from the title of this episode (“The Next Generation”) on down, this season is going to grapple with it, endlessly and directly.
Picard’s commbadge goes off as he’s preparing to write those memoirs of his. (Always threatened, never delivered, those memoirs.) Not his current commbadge, mind; his Enterprise-D commbadge. Literally surrounded by props from The Next Generation as he packs up his study, Picard pulls out the dusty old thing. It doesn’t look quite right — the gold is off — and the only reason I can say that is that I owned one of those things, like so many of us who went to Star Trek conventions back in the ’90s. (Do they still have those?) This was the second time in the episode’s first nine minutes that my heart fully swelled, all of my teen self’s love of Star Trek: The Next Generation coming flooding back in a rush. (The first, we’ll get to in a moment.)
But first: you know I’m a music guy. Ron Jones‘ scores for Next Gen featured heavily in my recaps for the original Blogging the Next Generation; I haven’t had much to say about the Picard score because, under Jeff Russo’s baton, it wasn’t anything to write home about. That changes here: Russo is off the project in season three, and Stephen Barton and Frederik Wiedmann have taken over. With a nervous piccolo fretting above strings as Picard pulls out the commbadge, they are fully in Jerry Goldsmith mode (Total Recall springs to mind; Goldsmith’s First Contact theme will score the end credits). With their theme for the U.S.S. Titan, which will debut shortly, the composers magnificently recreate the swooning naval hymns of James Horner (Star Treks II and III, in this case). On our way there, we get direct quotations from Cliff Edelman’s superb (and underappreciated) score for Star Trek VI, the original crew’s last hurrah. The music is telling us exactly what Picard is attempting this year, and it’s a major, almost overwhelming, emotional change to the timbre of the series. The show looks better — Picard writing letters by lamplight in his wood-panelled study feels painterly in a way these series never do — and now, it sounds better too.
And also: it is performed better, actingwise. The first thing in the episode that made my heart go kablooey was, of course, seeing Dr. Crusher again; she was my favourite character when I was a boy. When these largely-retired actors come back to the game, there is always the worry that they won’t really remember how to “do the thing” anymore (as Brent Spiner’s lunatic turn in season two, and — sadly — Stewart’s work throughout this series, demonstrates). No fear here, though. I haven’t seen Gates McFadden onscreen since 2002, but from moment one, that’s Beverly Goddamned Crusher back in action on this show. She joins Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes and John DeLancie on the shortlist of Next Gen alums who “definitely still remember how to ‘do the thing.’”
Here comes the bomb drop: Beverly disappeared twenty years ago and cut the entire Enterprise family out of her life. It’s a big move, so big that it almost mutes the second bomb drop, which is that after decades of will-they/won’t-they, Jean-Luc and Beverly did, to some extent. These reveals nonetheless feel more organic than the overcomplicated backstory created for Picard‘s first season, which began (you’ll recall) by filling us in on the Romulan evacuation failure, the Mars attack and conspiracy theories thereof, the synth ban, and Picard’s falling out with Starfleet, all in the first couple of episodes. Beverly ghosting everyone is a surprise, but given our inherent trust in the character, it’s not beyond our ability to assume she had her reasons. Cranky old Will Riker tries to puzzle it out with Jean-Luc a few scenes later, after processing the fact that the Enterprise-D souvenirs aren’t selling at Guinan’s bar (“nobody wants the fat ones”). But Will’s game for an adventure — something’s gone wrong at home — and so is Jean-Luc, who’s even brought his Nonno hat. And off they go.
Meanwhile, Michelle Hurd has, improbably, become the sole survivor of Picard‘s attempt to create a new crew. The rest of the La Sirena gang is gone; Raffi even owns La Sirena now, with Rios stuck in the 21st century forever. Nothing against Hurd — she’s a delight, and a compelling leader in the current SAG-AFTRA labour action — but Raffi’s inconsistent, back-and-forth writing hasn’t exactly compelled her to me as a key character in this whole story. Now she’s working undercover on M’Talas Prime (lol) for an unseen handler, and works out that a Rachel Garrett statue (!!) is about to be blown up, but she’s not fast enough to do anything about it.
Picard and Riker commandeer the Titan, now under command of Captain Liam Shaw (a season-stealing Todd Stashwick) and our old buddy Seven of Nine, field-commissioned to Starfleet by Picard himself last season. Even better, Geordi’s daughter, Sidney “Crash” LaForge (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut), is at the conn — and I love a ship with a LaForge at the helm. (Yeah, Geordi got a lot more to do when he went from the red uniform to yellow in TNG‘s second season… but I miss the red.) The Titan will be our hero ship this season (she’ll even be the Enterprise-G by the end of it), and we get hero shots aplenty here, once again more in the Star Trek II measure than the exorbitant (and perpetually fabulous) Star Trek: The Motion Picture effects sequences. I’ll never love post-Next Gen production design for starship interiors as much as I loved the look of the Enterprise-D, but don’t worry, this season’s got a solve for that, too.
I said I like Stashwick, and I do (not least because he’s my best shot at near-identical Star Trek cosplay since I was in my late twenties and growing out my Riker beard). He’s ludicrously over the top here, underlining his character traits by speaking of preferring rules and meter to Riker’s predilection for jazz; and curb-stomping Seven over her allegience to “other ex-Borg” persons, like Picard. As usual, Picard‘s working harder than it ought to in setting up obstacles for our characters, and then overcooking the results. Riker and Picard’s efforts at conning Shaw into taking the Titan to Beverly’s coordinates are ludicrous, and Shaw’s in the right when he refuses; amping up his nastiness accomplishes nothing besides further decaying the series’ overall sense of what humanity looks like in the 25th century. It’s enough to (yet again) remind me that NuTrek’s near-fetishistic hatred of the Roddenberry Box is ultimately self-defeating: maybe conflict between Starfleet officers just… isn’t what Star Trek is good at.
But Starfleet officers being good at being Starfleet officers isn’t what current live-action Trek is interested in (Lower Decks is, by a good way, the only series that seems to think working in Starfleet would be fun), and it’s not going to be any more interested in it here than it was on Discovery. Seven, who’s miserable in her current role because Starfleet doesn’t let her express herself, calls Picard on his bullshit and joins the conspiracy, redirecting the Titan to Beverly’s coordinates under Shaw’s nose, and giving Picard and Riker a shuttle to go off on their rescue mission. Rules! Shrug!
Picard is now three-for-three on premiere episodes that I really like. “The Next Generation” is one of the strongest episodes of this season, but more importantly, it actually does something I didn’t think was technically or creatively possible. When the return of the Next Gen crew for season three was announced, I would go about reminding all and sundry that seasons two and three of this show were shot back-to-back, before season two even came out… which, to me anyway, suggested that they would largely be of a piece in terms of production quality. Somehow, that doesn’t seem to be the case: season three genuinely feels richer, more powerful, and more focused than the ten episodes they had just finished making when they rolled camera on this. I have no idea how that happened, but, wow.
Blogging the Next Generation: Picard runs Thursdays on tederick.com as I work my way through every episode of Star Trek: Picard. The original BTNG did the same for Star Trek: The Next Generation. While you’re here, why not sign this petition, asking CBS to release Picard’s final season on 4K UHD disc, which it deserves. Fuck streaming!