by Nick Ferro, Contributing Writer
Star Trek is a compilation of shows that have, over the decades, gone through many iterations. The show has evolved from its initial outing in the ‘60s to now. Throughout that time many people have grown to love this franchise for many different reasons. Some are drawn to the sci-fi elements, while others to the mystery-of-the-week style. For me it was always a combination of the two. However, when it came to Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) I was particularly drawn to the characters. Throughout the history of Trek there have been a ton of different characters covering the gamut of ages, races, genders, species, and even android. But I think the cast of characters on TNG was the best ensemble of characters when it came to the chemistry. TNG had more crossover between the different characters and didn’t always pair the same two together for a story. Sure, Data and Geordi were together a lot, as were Riker and Troi. But they each were able to share many scenes or even whole episodes with each other in a way that I feel that the other Trek shows didn’t do as well. The combination of a character having an episode with the captain was always an episode worth watching because TNG had Patrick Stewart’s Captain Jean Luc Picard. I think it should be pretty obvious by now, TNG is my Trek; it’s the one I grew up with and watched on repeat. So, it should be equally as obvious that my favorite captain is Captain Picard. He had such gravitas and a presence that commanded respect from those under his command. He was the type of leader that is tough, but fair. He had great speeches that made you want to fist pump, and he always came to the defense of his crew, but was willing to knock them down a peg if they were being unreasonable [Cough Worf Cough]. He is the standard which all Starfleet officers before and after are set against.
This brings us to Star Trek: Picard, one of the new shows on Paramount+ that takes place 20 years after the events of the last Next Generation movie, Star Trek: Nemesis. When season one was released, I was incredibly excited to be going back to this universe of characters with a focus on my favorite captain. There was a ton of trepidation, though, due to my lackluster feelings of Star Trek: Discovery, which was only on the verge of finding its footing, at the time. While I was aware that the show would only focus on Picard himself, living on his family’s vineyard, and would take him on a new adventure involving the Borg and somehow his deceased former second officer Data, I didn’t know what to expect otherwise. I went into season one with an open mind, but was unfortunately disappointed with the overall execution. I felt that the story started out with a decent mystery, and it did a nice job introducing all the new characters while reintroducing us to a few more, but the show as a whole lacked focus. The bones of a good show were there, but it ultimately ended up being unable to deliver on a story that was satisfying. There were also about a hundred little nitpicks that bugged me to no end and constantly took me out of the story as it progressed. It didn’t take place on Starfleet ship; there weren’t any indications as to what Starfleet even looked like in space; the ships of the fleet at the end were all copy/paste of the same ship, and not the wide variety of clever starship designs for which Trek is known; the space battles were more Star Wars than Star Trek in feel and look; there were also story arcs and plot movements that made little sense to the grand scheme of things, while trying and failing to invoke an emotional response from the audience. There was one scene in the finale where Data (Brent Spiner) and Picard share a moment that is an effective emotional punch that left me satisfied with their conclusion. Unfortunately, waiting 10 episodes to get there felt hardly worth the effort, which ultimately resulted in Picard season one being my least favorite of all the Star Trek shows to date. I am not of course a cynical monster — there was enough there for me to still anticipate the second season. After all, Discovery season two was a huge improvement over season one, so I had hope. That, and with the showrunners stating that Picard would be a three-season story and they knew exactly where they wanted to take the character, I felt good about leaving the growing pains of a lackluster first season behind.
Cut to March 2022 and the release of episode one of season two of Star Trek: Picard. It opens on a starship amidst a battle of some kind with crazy camera angles and stunt work and it… was… AWESOME! Starfleet officers running down a corridor with the Red Alert klaxons ringing, announcements being made ship-wide for security to the bridge, while others announcing the need to secure the warp core. It made my little Trekkie heart swell with joy! This opening alone was exactly what the previous season was missing for me. It earned a ton of good will right off the bat; the uniforms looked excellent, the set design was impeccable, and the camera work emphasized the tension of the scene. I suppose that when it pulled the, “you may be wondering how we got here,” trope and cut to 48 hours earlier that should have been a sign of things to come, but in the moment, I wasn’t about to take one overly used trope as a bad omen. That being said, I tucked in and prepared myself for a 10-week journey that was already a huge improvement over the previous season.
The basic, spoiler-free, premise of this season is the Borg show up and request Picard by name. However, these Borg are different and seem to want to play nice with Starfleet, which is not their M.O. This of course leads to the Queen coming onto Picard’s ship and chaos ensuing, resulting in the self-destruct being set. But before the ship explodes, we see a flash of white light, and suddenly Picard is in his home in France with his old “frenemy” Q (John de Lancie). Q explains they are now in a timeline where the past has changed, Starfleet never existed, and Earth is dying. Picard and his crew from the previous season (who all happened to be there when the Borg showed up), with the help of the Borg Queen herself, need to travel back to the year 2024 to stop Q from altering the timeline and restore the future to its proper course.
The reason to invest in this show is the performances. Everyone is doing a fantastic job throughout the entirety of the season. The standouts for me are Spiner, Allison Pill, de Lancie, and newcomer Ito Aghayere. They all bring a little extra to their characters that improve on their performances from previous seasons and appearances. Every time a scene with them ends, you just can’t wait to see the next one. The show itself has its ups and downs though; the first three episodes work incredibly well, are well paced, set up a ton of questions and mysteries, and promise plenty of good old fashioned Star Trek time travel shenanigans. Star Trek likes to dabble in time travel from time to time, most notably Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home or “Whales.” There are so many call backs to Star Trek IV throughout the show it bordered on eye-rolling, but even as my eyes rolled all the way out of my head, I was either quoting the line with the characters or smiling with nostalgic excitement (I am a sucker at times). But regarding time travel in Trek, sometimes they do it effectively, and sometimes they get it so wrong Terminator Genysis would blush. Picard manages to be somewhere in between; it isn’t the worst Trek has to offer, but it does feel overly complicated to the point where it feels intentionally confusing so you will just not try to think about it. Of course, the writers never met me and the more complicated you make time travel the more I’m going to try and figure it out. And my conclusion… [shakes head vigorously]
But I digress. After episode four, it becomes clear that the show is starting to lose its focus, very much like season one, and unfortunately, it never recovers. There are so many interesting ideas and story moments introduced here, but none get enough time to breathe. The best story arc by far is that of Dr. Agnes Jurati (Pill) and the Borg Queen (Annie Wersching). Their interactions are full of great dialogue and tension, while simultaneously having an undertone of sadness. Jurati is brilliant, but is ultimately alone and having feelings of not belonging. The Borg Queen’s goal is to assimilate and bring others into the collective, but when you boil that down, she is essentially lonely and not having any connection to the hive mind of the collective makes her crave exactly what Agnes craves, with a slightly more deadly aspect. Their similarities allow for two seemingly opposite characters to bond in a way that is incredibly fun to watch. From the minute these characters started interacting, it became my favorite part of the show, and would be one of two reasons to revisit it in the future.
The other positive of the show, and by far the one that makes it worth watching, is the interactions between Picard and Q. They have always had a fun dynamic: the stern and serious captain and the omnipotent jester. De Lancie didn’t miss a beat from his 20-year hiatus as the character. I’ve always had a soft spot for Q; his episodes are some of my favorites, and I was very excited that he was coming back. He did not disappoint; he added a new flair of manic insanity to the character that we have never seen before, and it all played out beautifully. His final scene with Picard in the finale had me in tears through a combination of nostalgia and genuine emotion for the subject matter of the scene.
This final scene of course leads me to my biggest gripe of the season, which also was my biggest gripe of season one. I feel like they did not need 10 episodes to get us to this moment. The whole season started out strong, but then got stuck in a holding pattern from episodes four through eight. Some of the story arcs progress in each episode at the expense of the other arcs just waiting for their chance to catch up in the following weeks. In episode seven, we take a trip inside Picard’s mind to discover the trauma that he is trying to suppress, but they cut the story short end the episode with a character literally saying, “you know there’s more to the story.” The problem is, they don’t revisit it again until two episodes later and most of what they show is a rehash of what we learned in episode seven. It could have been wrapped up in one episode, but they wanted it to seem like an important part of the whole show, so it was cut in two and delivered separately. Wasting time like this for little to no reason other than to extend the run time of the show seems very silly to me. It feels like the writers came up with a really solid four-hour miniseries and the studio said, “we need you to make it 10 hours.” Unlike season one, they did manage to remove those tiny nit-pickable items that made the first season unbearable to watch. Season two felt like there was a stronger attention to detail, which is an improvement but, in the end, story and plot have to take precedence and they just didn’t.
Overall, I will recommend season two of Star Trek: Picard, but I do so with a caveat: be wary that you will be going into a show that doesn’t quite know what it wants to do between episodes four and nine. There is fun to be had for sure, and I have a feeling that binge watching might serve this story better. The more time you take between episodes, the more likely you are to find fault. But if you love these characters and more importantly, if you love Star Trek, I think in the end, even if you don’t like what season two has to offer as a whole, you will be able to find something that makes you smile. After all, the trial never ends, so why should our continued love of Star Trek?
Score: 5/10
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