Picard season 3 might save Trek by being the ultimate 90s grand finale

It’s hard to imagine anyone arguing against Star Trek: PicardAs pitched. Patrick Stewart, the Star Trek star and most well-known actor has been a Star Trek captain since its inception. His status as an icon of cinematic pater familias is undeniable. Jean-Luc Picard is Star Trek’s patron saint. His flaws are minor and serve only to make them more cool: Male isolation, trauma from the badass adventure, and not liking kids. Absolutely, let’s make a show about that guy!

After two seasons, however, PicardShine is clearly off. Picard has followed a pattern of starting strong and fizzling explosively to nothing by story’s close so closely that it’s made an obvious final-season concept — Next Generation cast reunion! — feel like a last ditch attempt to be remembered fondly.

Und noch… with this season’s third episode, “Seventeen Seconds,” Picard tips its hand about the series’ future. Picard season 3 isn’t just about remembering Admiral Jean-Luc Picard, it’s about remembering all of 1990s Trek, and it just might be the show’s saving grace.

[Ed. note: This piece contains spoilers for Picard season 3 episode 3, “Seventeen Seconds.”]

Photo by Trae Patrickton/Paramount Plus

Its first season was a success. Picard has played with elements of 1995’s Star Trek Voyager, namely Jeri Ryan’s former Borg drone Seven of Nine; famously the only OthersKnown person who survived assimilation into Borg society. Star Trek fans have speculated for years about this connection.

And with “Seventeen Seconds,” PicardWorf, a Klingon officer, was brought back. Worf was a notable character in the beyond, and had lived a meaningful life. Next GenerationStar Trek has made it more central to its canon. Star Trek: Deep Space NineMore than he has ever been TNG: a major player in the Federation’s war against the forces of the Founders, and a step away from becoming undisputed ruler of the Klingon empire.

Worf, Raffi and their Starfleet intelligence agent Worfi interview a Starfleet prisoner for an explosion that occurred in Episode 3 PicardIn season 3, prisoner 3 becomes more anxious in his mind as well as his physiology. Raffi thinks that he’s in withdrawal due to drug addiction. Worf instead calmly questions him about his last encounter with the Great Link. He casually mentions Odo, the shapeshifting Constable from Federation station Deep Space 9, a moment later.

Reader, I admit I gasped. Picard’s big bads seem to be the same villains of 1993’s Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Shapeshifting founders or Changelings who all were intertwined in the Dominion War.

Only ’90s kids remember

Image by Paramount

This move will be a particular kind of catnip for fans of the at-the-time experimental and least beloved Trek series, which today — with its long-term character development and season-long story arcs — is regarded as an early harbinger of the era of prestige television. DS9 is still, unfortunately, groundbreaking in the way it centered a Black family (multiple Black families, if you count Worf’s whole deal) in sci-fi TV.

But by bringing the full trinity of ’90s Trek together in one show, PicardIt also highlights the radical shift in franchise ownership. While Next GenerationIt survived beyond its end through the theatrical films and the stories of characters. VoyagerAnd Deep Space 9.They were left untouched.

For two decades, the Star Trek franchise’s attempts to maintain cultural relevance have, paradoxically, been concerned with reviving the oldest of its parts — and not just in the Abrams/Kelvin film franchise, which in 2009 attempted to retell the greatest hits of a TV series from 1966. The settings of both 2001’s Star Trek: Enterprise and 2017’s Star Trek: Discovery(At least for the first time) The timeline took us back to an era in which Vulcans and Klingons were both exotic.

Today, however, it is only Star Trek: Strange New WorldsThe Original Series is a throwback to format and setting, but not the theme. DiscoveryIt swung forward to the bleeding edge, two seasons earlier. Lower DecksAnd ProdigyAre locked in solidly after-TNG/Voy/DS9 territory. With PicardThat era was not only being mentioned, it is fully embraced. continued.

No kings, no lords, no captains

Photo: Aaron Epstein/CBS

This expansion, from a love letter to Jean-Luc Picard to a love letter to all of ’90s Trek, highlights what made the show so promising and disappointing in its first two seasons. PicardAlthough he tried to be part of an ensemble, he was never completely committed. This was the Picard Show by definition, but it didn’t manage to cast a cast that was as engaging as The. Next Generation bridge.

Much is made of how the captains of Star Trek define their respective shows — but the ensemble equally makes or breaks the franchise. On the venn diagram of “Trek movies that are really just about the captain” and “Trek movies everybody kinda wants to forget,” you will find pretty significant overlap. You can read more Picard fronted Jean-Luc’s story over his cast members, the more it floundered. And from the way virtually all the show’s original characters were summarily jettisoned at the end of season 2 to make room for the classic crew of the Enterprise, it seems that the show realized a simple fact: We fell in love with Captain Jean-Luc Picard, patriarch of the Enterprise D’s officers, not Admiral Jean-Luc Picard in his aging isolation.

The captain is how Star Trek hooks you, it’s not how it gets you to stay. Jean-Luc will be the first one to tell you that a captain only is as good his crew. And with “Seventeen Seconds,” Picard may have finally figured out not just that the myth of Jean-Luc Picard was the captain with his crew, not surpassing them — but also that the ways that crew surpassed Next GenerationThey aren’t a distraction to his story, they’re a crucial part of it.