Picard season 3 finale review: Good for casual fans, bad for Star Trek

I should start by noting that I am probably, by most fans’ reckoning, a Star Trek Casual. Growing up, there were many Star Trek shows. a lot of Star Trek on TV — three shows at once! — and absorbed a lot of the stuff by both osmosis and by having family members that were super into the various adventures chronicled in Next Generation, Deep Space NineThen, Voyager. I enjoyed watching the shows but was mainly just along for a ride. That’s how I’d describe my level of investment in Star Trek: Along for the ride, and happy to be here.

In this regard, the final and third season of Star Trek: PicardThe show was an overwhelming success. Re-tooling a floundering show to be an all-out Next GenerationReunions are often viewed as a Hail Mary to end the year on a high note (and perhaps an apology). Star Trek: NemesisThe film was able to accomplish this while maintaining its earnestness throughout. It turned the situation around by not simply bringing back cast members of Next Generation, but by doing so in what turned out to be an ode to all of ’90s Trek.

Personaly, I enjoyed my time. I’ve built my Trek knowledge around the major touchpoints, which are those things everyone loves about Trek. Next GenerationIn particular. Q, The Borg, “make it so,” all that stuff. PicardIt’s like he is just playing for me. It’s also, unfortunately, very much ending things in a narrative cul-de-sac: not just sending off its characters, but much of what they represented.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for the end of Picard.]

Picard has ultimately made a mistake big franchises often make when their stewards’ primary interest is playing the hits: It makes its world smaller by making everything tie back to its legacy heroes. Its endgame literally makes nostalgia both the weapon that threatens to destroy the galaxy and the only thing that can save it: The Borg have, through Picard’s son Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers), found a way to splice themselves into the genome of every Starfleet member that’s used a teleporter. Who are the few who will be immune? Older folks. Namely, Next Generation cast.

Trae patton / Paramount Plus

The funniest and most broadest way to describe something PicardTraded Next Generation’s legacy as a thought-provoking show that was foundational to a whole era of science fiction for spectacle and sentiment, the former spectacularly empty-headed, and the latter just genuine enough to endear those who aren’t sticklers for narrative cohesion. Picard is all over the place, waving around the most iconic foes of ’90s Star Trek in the Changelings and The Borg, while completely eschewing what made them interesting ideological foils to Jean-Luc Picard and the Federation he represents.

The following are some of the ways to get in touch with us. PicardIts initial antagonists are the Changeling Vadic, Amanda Plummer and the crew on her ship ShrikeThe series shows that the Changelings and the Changelings’ cohorts are not the same. Deep Space Nine Picard did not know about the cruel experiments conducted by scientists of the Federation. It’s a huge moral crisis, especially for a character that’s positioned as the moral center of Starfleet, and it’s all rather quickly elided to dispose of Vadic in favor of the real threat: a resurgent Borg, this time almost entirely represented by the Borg Queen, as few drones exist anymore.

Not only is this far less complex than the Changeling dilemma, it’s also — to briefly stake a claim in a meaningless war that’s been waged since Star Trek: First Contact was released — even more antithetical to the Borg’s whole raison d’etre than they’ve ever been. It’s primarily because of the fact Picard doesn’t dwell on any of it. It’s a pretty thoughtless show when it comes to thoughts that don’t revolve around the Next GenerationThe cast is able to save the world from a certain catastrophe by being nice and friendly with each other.

In “The Last Generation,” PicardSets up a crew to carry on the legacy Next Generation onward — a curious notion, given that Star Trek: DiscoveryIt is ostensibly for this purpose. Strange New Worlds is here to provide a modern spin on Roddenberry’s first Star TrekThen, Prodigy The following are some examples of how to get started: Lower DecksReflections of Star Trek’s message for younger audiences.

If the speculative “Star Trek: Legacy” — which may only exist in Picard’s coda — were to be realized, it’s hard to feel particularly inspired about where it might go. The end result is PicardThe movie took us for a wild ride but also proved that Jean-Luc Picard, his crew, and the entire era of Trek was dominated by them. The songs were played loudly and I could sing and smile along. Just wondering if anybody remembers why we are here.

Picard Paramount Plus now offers streaming of the movie.