Star Trek: Picard: Season 3

My earlier Season 3 Reviews:

Star Trek: Picard "The Next Generation"

This is why this is my current favorite show. Pure pleasure. The entire thing is pure pleasure.

Picard and Riker's buddy-cop banter is phenomenal. They haven't lost a step.

Learning Beverly cut ties with the rest of the crew is surprising. But maybe it's her son (that is probably Jean-Luc's) that did it. I hope he's less annoying than Wesley at any rate.

Captain Shaw sucks. Not for the way he treated Picard and Riker. For the way he treats Seven of Nine. By refusing to call her by her preferred name. And suggesting her friendship with Picard simply boils down to them both being ex-Borg is nothing less than bigotry of the highest order. I admire the Kurtzman era of the franchise for showing the reality that sucky people will always be with us instead of the unbelievable fiction that we would magically outgrow them in a fashion about as believable as the average Underpants Gnome business model. I like that about the current stuff.

That was just great. I predict the haters of this show are going to have to twist themselves into some knots in acting like this was actually bad. It was awesome. *****.

Star Trek: Picard "Disengage"

I predict this episode is going to be polarizing. Some people will love it, some people will hate it. Last week was a real crowd-pleaser, so I suspect the fact that this episode's viewpoint and morality is so questionable is gonna piss people off, and make them wonder why we aren't allowed nice things. I get that. I do. But even if a lot of it didn't feel like Star Trek, I thought a lot of it was interesting solely BECAUSE it was Star Trek, and didn't feel like it. People complained about Voyager and Enterprise never showing us anything new. The episode had the bad guys throw a spaceship at the Titan. That's definitely never been done before. Talk crap about the episode if you must, but damn.

I think Sneed is also going to create controversy among fans as he is totally unlike any other Ferengi. The main thing I was concerned about hearing there was going to be a Ferengi, was thinking the show might do like Discoery and get the make-up entirely wrong. No, the part of Sneed that feels wrong is that he doesn't remotely speak like a Ferengi. Ferengi speak in very arch tones that run the gamut from confused to malevolent. Even Quark, the most human Ferengi spoke that way. Sneed speaks not just like a human, but a 21st Century human, which is gonna piss people off.

For me, instead of declaring that a huge mistake, my inclination is to wonder why that is. Seven Of Nine got rid of her Borg cadences in her speaking voice, and it's hinted that Sneed is really into vintage Earth. It makes me wonder if he adjusted the way he speaks to fit in better with the galaxy at large, the way Seven did. And the reason I'm wondering this is because it seems like he has (or had before he died) legit juice in the underworld. Most criminal Ferengi we've seen on both Next Generation and Deep Space Nine are considered jokes by other criminals and not taken seriously. Maybe Sneed is acting like a scary human from a scary period on our history because it scares people and makes them take him seriously. Instead of me instantly screaming at the show that they are doing wrong by the Ferengi, I'm wondering how Sneed's way of speaking came to be.

Vadek is a pretty cool villain in that she has an actual personality, which human criminals were never permitted during the Roddenberry / Berman era. I don't see why. Making her funny and interesting, and having her say crazy and alarming things isn't making me think less of 24th Century humans, or worse, romanticize her actions. I feel like Roddenberry and Berman kept things boring for no good reason at all, and only seeing stuff like this makes me realize how much we were missing then.

I love that Raffi's handler was Worf. Good twist.

Picard getting around to realizing the truth about Jack, and Beverly confirming he's his son was done extremely well. Personally I though Picard's interrogation of him was terrific writing.

I admit I don't like the fact that this season doesn't have a main title sequence at the beginning. The credits are saved for after the episode like a movie. I hope this doesn't become a habit with Star Trek shows because Star Trek is NOT a movie franchise, it's a television one. The main defenses of the show doing that this year is that first off, the theme songs in the first two seasons sucked. Season 2 was actually quite a bit better, but I could never get over or accept how unmemorable the first season's theme tune was. So it's not like Picard is missing out by playing the decent Generations / Next Generation Themes at the end. But the real selling point of doing it after the episode is that they aren't spoiling anybody's surprise first appearance, which is clever. Needless to say, this shouldn't be a problem for any other Trek series or season, so I want everyone else to continue doing theme songs and opening title sequences.

This episode is going to get crap for being outside of Star Trek. I think the ways and reasons it's outside Star Trek are personally fascinating if you ask me. My fandom response is usually less "This doesn't fit" and "I wonder how they made this fit". But maybe that's just me. ****.

Star Trek: Picard "Seventeen Seconds"

This is why this is my current favorite show on television and my second favorite Star Trek series after Deep Space Nine. It's just awesome.

I love when Worf tells Raffi everything she wants to hear about them working together from now on and being partners, she's struggling. She's not used to getting what she wants. When it comes to working with other people, specifically legends like Picard, her role is to be his thorn and to complain about every single thing. Worf taking her into confidence instead just blows her mind, and she's surprised into saying "Cool." This is the first situation we've seen Raffi placed in that she thinks is cool.

Changelings! Oh, big shout-out to Deep Space Nine and the Dominion War, and this suggests preventing the NEXT Dominion War is the ultimate goal of the season. Worf's contact is obviously Odo and because of Rene Auberjonois' death, he obviously couldn't appear, but hearing Worf refer to him as a friend was amazing.

Michael Dorn really, really, REALLY hated working on most of the Next Generation movies, because outside of First Contact, they had the habit of making Worf look silly for the sake of comedy. I'm betting Dorn jumped at the chance to play a version of Worf that is evolved, wise, and just purely awesome on every level. Worf tells Raffi he used to be like her. And he did. He was both Next Generation and Deep Space Nine's resident complainer. To have him turn out so emotionally healthy decades later has got to tickle Dorn pink. Worf was one of those characters that a LOT of people love, but like the Doctor on Voyager, Next Generation (and to a lesser extent DS9) misused him, usually in an effort to show what a bad father and husband he was. I loved Worf. But there were points I was annoyed by him. This version of him just instantly makes me forgive every last gripe I ever had about him. Worf on Star Trek Picard is not as awesome as Garak on Deep Space Nine. But after one and a half episodes, he's my second-favorite Star Trek character after Garak. I'm not joking.

Do you know the amazing thing? In the future parts of "All Good Things...", set only a few years before this show, it's shown that that timeline's Worf has sort of emotionally regressed outside of Starfleet after the loss of Deanna. Worf being granted this future instead is a gift.

I love Worf calling his dress Casual. Also beheadings are on Wednesday. Worf is cool now. Can you believe it?

I love Picard telling Riker to call him Number One, and I felt his shame when he let Riker down at the end. Riker's disgust with him broke my heart after seeing them grow closer all throughout the episode.

I love that Riker likes Jack a lot.

Seven of Nine had a great moment. After Jack punches out the guard watching her, she calmly says "Oh, you're insane." That kind of joke was frowned upon during the Roddenberry / Berman era. I think probably because the producers back then got it into their heads the show would feel more timeless decades later if the characters didn't speak as if they were from the given recognizable time period the show originally aired in. Sometimes a character would pump their fist and say "Yes!" but other than that, Old-School Trek had them speaking in a very arch, but reserved way. Seven's one-liner there is very much something a person in 2023 would say in those circumstances. And I think the Kurtzman era has more the right of that sort of thinking. I imagine in 30 years people will less notice the out-of-fashion way the characters speak as much as I noticed in 1996 how the Eugenics Wars never came to pass. I think worrying about music, and speech, and zippers was that era of Star Trek worrying about the wrong things that cause things to eventually be perceived as dated. I doubt audiences in 2063 will bat an eye as Seven's line and delivery here. Just like I can't remember which episode Bashir did the "Yes!" thing in anymore because it doesn't actually matter.

I love that Picard was furious at Beverly. I think he was right to be. But what I loved was his being angry and offended that she used a fear he told her in confidence about his father against him when making her decision to cut ties. And after seeing last season and how much Picard's childhood hurt him due to both his father and his mother, I think the viewer is much more over to his line of thinking than we would have been if we had seen all this occurring ourselves 25 years ago WITHOUT that context. I know it's Patrick Stewart's show, but I was honestly a bit surprised at how much on his side I was.

And that's why making him wrong on the bridge is such a huge dramatic moment that devastated me. I am totally Team Jean-Luc. But he still makes mistakes. Because he's human. Even though he's technically a synth. He's still human.

I knew they weren't going to kill Jack off in Episode 3, but that doesn't mean the show didn't play up the dramatic tension properly. At one point my mind stopped saying "There's no way they'll go through with this," and briefly shifted to "I wonder how the show would change if they DID go through with it." If the dramatic tension didn't work, I never would have thought the second thing.

My current favorite show on television. You know it's special because it's only the three seasons long. But I will cherish them as they happening (and afterwards as well). *****.

Star Trek: Picard "No Win Scenario"

A lot of people will be disappointed with that. It feels very much like a filler episode and like the arc is spinning its wheels. As a matter of fact, I noticed this about several episodes of the fourth season of Star Trek: Discovery, and it got so bad there I declared the entire series a lot cause after four years of giving it every benefit of the doubt. Should I be worried here?

Even if I were, there were two things about the episode I was starving to see in my Star Trek, and it gave them to me compliments of the chef. Both of these things were problems I had with both The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine in the back of my head, but as far as the DS9 goes, I didn't realize it messed up THIS badly until seeing this. The Star Trek: The Next Generation problem I was gratified to see addressed because The Next Generation didn't seem to be aware it was a problem at all. But when Picard proudly declares in the Ten Forward restaurant to a man he has no idea is his son that Starfleet is the only family he'll ever need, I believed that specific moment was penance for several of the speeches that the Roddenberry era had Picard make that I think are problematic at best (if I'm being totally generous). To Q in particular, Picard would make these grand, pompous speeches about the greatness of humanity and Starfleet, and if you boil down those "Humans have come so far and it's our curiosity that sustains us!" deals to their essence, it's a racist, human supremacist speech. Gene Roddenberry believed humanity was capable of perfection. Whether he was right or not (and he wasn't, by the way) the truth is even if he was, that doesn't change the fact that other non-humans characters exist in the franchise, and every Picard speech about how great humanity and Starfleet is is a bit of shot in the chops to every culture that doesn't think the way Starfleet does, or the way Picard thinks they should. This episode is not actually exploring that specific thing. What it IS doing is suggesting Picard had the habit back in the day of making grand pompous speeches that could be unknowingly hurtful to an outside observer. And damn, that is like the perfect example of why you should never put Jean-Luc Picard on a soapbox. I freaking love that.

The weakness to Deep Space Nine is how inferior its otherwise solid Pilot episode "Emissary" now feels next to this. And this is on Rick Berman and Michael Piller. But in the Pilot of DS9, they set Sisko and Picard apart by putting them in conflict because Picard as Locutus of Borg essentially killed Sisko's wife back at Wolf 359. And DS9 played it all wrong. Especially as far as a pilot for DS9 went. We sympathized with Picard and see how traumatized he was by the experience and believed Sisko is out of line. I think that Pilot would have been a LOT better, and Sisko put on the right foot with the viewer a LOT sooner if we had been led to believe Sisko's fury was somewhat justified, or at least understandable. Better yet, instead of seeing Picard shrug it off, it might have been cool to see him acknowledge Sisko's pain and tell him it's all right that he feels this way and he won't hold it against him. It's jarring that Sisko makes an ambiguous accusation against Picard by claiming they met in battle, without having the guts to looks him in the eyes and tell him exactly why he's pissed and what he believes Picard is responsible for.

Berman would whine to me, "Yeah, but then Picard would never grant Sisko the command of Deep Space Nine." Of course he could, and would. Because it's fiction and can be written however the writers choose to. In genre in particular, how drama occurs often has little to do with how the story plays out. If writers of fiction were always concerned with making every bit of drama believable and credible, half of fiction would have to be scrapped. Because writers can choose to write fictional nonsense to prop up good drama, Dazzler is allowed beat Galactus. Not because it's remotely credible. But because it's interesting, and deliberately designed to piss some people off. And sometimes, that's okay. If "Emissary" had properly explored Sisko's PTSD with Picard himself, so that both men came to an understanding I could respect them BOTH for, Picard deciding whether Sisko is right for the position or not doesn't really matter. He can make up a b.s. reason to give such an important assignment to clearly broken man just because he's a fictional character. Hell, they could have suggested Picard's hands were tied there because Sisko made an immediately favorable impression with the Bajorans by becoming their Emissary to the Prophets. Seeing Shaw's haunted eyes here, and hearing him tell his tragic story make me realize how clunky "Emissary" actually was about that. And it also suggests that maybe Picard shouldn't be given a free pass. I can accept it's not Picard's fault. But if Locutus' victims cannot? That should actually be all right, and Picard should tell them it's all right too.

Shaw's history at Wolf 359 gives added context for why he refuses to address Seven of Nine by her preferred name. Does it ever.

The Hirogen once made their way to the Alpha Quadrant and Picard had to deal with them. It sounds like he simply politically outmaneuvered the Alpha. Same trick he pulled on the Sheliak back in the day.

I love that the first question Jack asks Picard is about the hair. Because that's really the only question that matters.

So while much of fandom is going wring their hands and cry "Filler!" I admire the show for still being the Star Trek show I always wanted, but none of them were ever really allowed to be. Do I love Picard dropping an f-bomb? Not even a little bit. But Picard having to confront a Wolf 359 survivor as well as the fact that his pompous rhetoric hurt his only son IS the Star Trek I always wanted. ****.

Star Trek: Picard "Imposters"

I loved it.

That confrontation between Ro and Picard was 30 years in the making. They played up the conflict to the hilt and explored every inch of their grief. And her sacrifice was amazing. I had always assumed Ro died when the Dominion committed genocide against the Maquis. This is much more fitting ending to her.

Star Trek is notorious for giving characters crappy deaths. This is literally the second good one after Hemmer on Strange New Worlds.

Worf's trick was great. A Vulcan gangster. I think his logic is flawed, but it was cool getting a Star Trek role for Kirk Acevedo. It would be illogical for them to kill him but Worf is bleeding out and his impatience might take over. This is all great stuff.

Him saying him and the Ferengi Sneed were brothers was a very interesting facet. I wish Star Trek did more stuff like that and it's why I love this specific iteration.

Jack Crusher is almost certainly a Changeling. Probably a sleeper agent. I don't think he knows.

Wonderful episode. ****1/2.

Star Trek: Picard "Surrender"

I thought it was great.

The first half was pretty dark, but it got back in the Star Trek Next Generation groove by the end.

Good to have Data back for good. His new version will take some getting used to but I like him so far. Only when you see how easily they took back the ship from the Changelings do you realize what a huge gun he actually was to the Enterprise.

I loved the stuff between Troi and Riker. The idea that she took away his grief sounds like a violation and I see why he was mad. Her joke about how the Changeling version of Riker was good in bed was great and I love that it amused Riker.

I'm also amused Worf still seems to have feelings for her. Riker asking if this was still part of the torture was great. The bit where Worf realized sending the heads of his conquered enemies to his friends would be passive-aggressive was hilarious.

Spot! Poker! Tasha Yar! Some great Data callbacks here.

Frustrating cliffhanger but also the RIGHT cliffhanger.

I'm glad Vadek is dead. She was the worst.

I enjoyed that. ****1/2.