I couldn't get past the second episode of Star Trek: Picard season one. But I heard the new season, season three, was actually pretty good so far so I skipped right to it. And it is pretty good. What a nice surprise.
It's not perfect. It has a few dumb things and just poorly considered lines of dialogue. Like when one character meets Worf and says, "Picard talks about you all the time!" No, no, Picard wouldn't talk about Worf all the time. Can you imagine? "Lieutenant, come to my ready room. You know, Worf used to visit my ready room. Would like some prune juice? You know who likes prune juice?"
"I'm guessing Worf?"
There are lots of those little auto-pilot lines that sound like the writer just wasn't considering--wait. Was this show written by an AI? . . . Well, it has the same credited writers as season two, which I hear was even worse than season one. The key difference is that Akiva Goldsman and Michael Chabon are absent from season three. I guess sometimes a show just needs fewer writers, not different writers.
Maybe they ought to have credited Nicholas Meyer and Jack B. Sowards, director and screenwriter, respectively, of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which the first four episodes of Picard season three gratuitously and unabashedly ape. The fourth episode is even called "No Win Scenario".
It's not the first time, or even the second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixteenth time a Star Trek series or movie has tried to do Star Trek II again. Even the last Next Generation movie, Star Trek: Nemesis, borrowed heavily from Star Trek II, featuring Tom Hardy as Picard's clone/son figure. Picard season three more closely follows the the Star Trek II model.
The famous Captain Picard/Kirk, now an admiral, feeling his age a little, goes on an inspection tour of a Starfleet vessel. It turns out his old flame, though, Beverly Crusher/Carol Marcus, who's involved with a scientific project outside Federation jurisdiction, is in trouble. Working alongside her is her son, Jack Crusher/David Marcus, whose true identity as Picard's/Kirk's son she's kept hidden since his conception. But there's a villain afoot unconnected with all this family drama and pursues our heroes into a nebula where the two ships play a blind game of cat and mouse. And the whole thing ends with the witnessing of a remarkable birth that symbolises a new youth for Picard/Kirk.
Despite all this obvious copying and pasting, the four episodes are genuinely good. The writers have finally taken the hint that fans want their old familiar characters back along with logical problem-solving plots. Riker, Crusher, and Worf are all back in the mix. I wonder, too, if the writers are trying to woo back more conservative viewers by relegating most of the female characters to support roles, which would be cynical and, I think, a misreading of what said fans actually want.
But anyway. Three new cast members really shine; Todd Stashwick as Captain Shaw, commanding the ship Riker and Picard end up commandeering, Ed Speelers as Jack Crusher, and Amanda Plummer as Vadic, a character not unlike the one Plummer's father played in Star Trek VI.
Once again, Patrick Stewart is back as Picard, but I find myself saddened by how feeble he is now. I miss his strong, stern delivery. There are a couple scenes where you can see a fire kindled inside him, particularly the scene where he confronts Beverly about keeping their son a secret from him. Suddenly, he's alive and animated again. In other scenes, though, Stewart really seems checked out. He even slurs his words together a lot. I wonder how much of it is his age and how much of it is just him being so damned tired of Star Trek at this point. It's too bad the showrunners have burned their bridges with William Shatner. Nine years older than Patrick Stewart, he nonetheless seems a lot livelier.
The mechanics of the space battles and the character relationships work well enough that I was truly invested in the finale of episode four. So I guess I'll stick with this thing for now.
Star Trek: Picard is available on Paramount+.
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A stranger's face replaced an empty mug.
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A vicious crew emerged to tear it down.
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