Today, I’m sharing something different: my take on Star Trek Picard, what I liked and what I didn’t like. Because I'm a trekkie, of course and Jean Luc has always been my favourite captain.
There will be spoilers, so, to quote Captain Rios, ‘Piss off’ if you don’t want to read them 😉
Before binge-watching this series on Amazon, I didn’t read any article about it, because … I never do. I detest spoilers. Besides, I honestly care little about what others think. I usually have my own opinion and it's often not mainstream. Yet, I did read some comments on social media. They weren’t enthusiastic, to say the least. Add to it that the last time I enjoyed a story of the ST franchise was in 2005, and I was utterly disappointed by ST Nemesis in 2002, but more on this later on. What happened to the franchise after 2005 is not even worth mentioning, so I wasn’t expecting anything good from Star Trek Picard. But I did know Sir Patrick Stewart would be terrific as usual. Of course, I wasn’t disappointed on that front.
So, the first good impression was the cast, as in the main character. Since I’ve always loved Data, I love each and everyone apparition Brent Spiner had in the show and not only as Data. Connected to this, is the main reason I detest Sar Trek Nemesis, aside from the obvious—it wasn’t a good movie after the party. THEY KILLED DATA. Why did they have to kill Data at the end of the movie? Sure, at the time I hoped that B4 would take his place in the following movies. Except that there were no following movies. Needless to say, I wept and I was so angry. Data, my Data was gone for good. Anyway, fast forward, I’m watching Star Trek Picard and Data is back, even if it’s only in Jean Luc’ s dreams. The real Data is dead, of course, and since the synthetics have been banned from the Federation after an accident on Mars, B4 was disassembled and deactivated permanently. He wouldn’t have been like Data anyway, so no loss there. Picard is a retired admiral who lives in his inherited chateau in France. Assisting him, there are two Romulans and the first question I asked myself was what? Two Romulans? What are they doing on earth? I must admit the first thought I had was ‘the production screwed up badly. As usual in the last years’. But I was wrong. After all, many years have passed since Picard was on Romulus dealing with Shinzon, and the writers have to take that into account. And they did. It's clear they asked themselves where would Picard be after twenty years or so? Of course, they had to speculate, and this is the result. Years before, Romulus faced a natural catastrophe. Picard suggested an evacuation plan to save them all. During said evacuation, something happened on Mars: the synths killed thousands of people. End of story. The Council stops the evacuation, the synths are banned, Picard resigns, and the Romulans are left on their own devices because no one liked them, right? Not the Federation we remember but things change and I didn’t expect to see again a utopian dream on screen. People criticised DS9 for this same reason. The utopia is less so even within the Federation. Does ‘In The Pale Moonlight’ ring a bell? So, that's the background. But the story doesn’t start from there. The story is nothing exceptional. There’s a pretty girl in trouble who asks for Picard’s help, and when she’s murdered by Tal Shiar undercover agents in front of Picard’s eyes he finds out she was synth and that she had a twin. Find the girl and save her, and save the galaxy from nasty Romulans while you’re at it. That’s the main plot. Nothing special, but the good is in the details, same as the bad is in the lack of said details.
What I loved the most about this series were all the details about the past and how it’s interconnected with the present. Data’s presence lingers all over the place, in a deep, sad way, like something lost but not completely. ’A Fistful of Data’ lives inside the girl, and of course, inside all those who remember him—namely Picard in the series, and me on the couch watching the series—and trying not to cry. Something about the good old days of the Federation lives on in Seven of Nine, Riker, and Troi. And something about the good old days lives on in the Romulans, too. But what are these details I enjoyed and the lack thereof that pissed me off? Well, as I said, the continuity with the past is there, something completely missing in Star Trek Discovery—don't get me even started on that. The production clearly watched the old series and the movies and started from there. It’s like trying to figure out what you would be doing twenty years from now. You know where you have been and you know where you are, more or less. This continuity gives the series the traction I missed for fifteen years when watching Star Trek productions. I believe Captain Rios and Raffi are decent characters with more or less solid backgrounds, same as Soji. All the holograms on Rios’ ship add a funny tone to the whole series, and I greatly appreciated that.
A now the bad news. What disappointed me deeply was Dr Jurati’s timeline. She’s a scientist, apparently a rather innocent civilian, like anyone of us. She meets Picard and we discover her enthusiasm for everything synth. Then, she meets Commodore Oh—is that even a name?—who basically forces a mind meld on her. From Star Trek Enterprise, we know that’s like rape, so there you have it. Oh—JFC—rapes Jurati, but the scientist doesn’t look troubled at all. She’s slightly shocked when she murders a Tal Shiar agent at Picard’s chateau but nothing more than that. When does she break down? When she murders in cold blood her lover and mentor. To cut a long story short, Picard discovers the truth. She should be arrested, right? Well, more is happening so that gets delayed, of course. But what happens in the end? Absolutely nothing. All the heroes are back on Rios’ ship happy to having saved the galaxy. Jurati’s is a happy girl because she helped save the Synths and Picard’s life, but there's no trace of the psychological trauma caused by a mental rape and the remorse for killing two people, one of which in cold blood—her lover nonetheless. C’mon, guys, this is basic human psychology and very bad writing. And you know what’s another signal for bad writing? The absence of a terrific villain. I love a story when I fall for the villain. Think about Voldemort, Sauron, the Borg, the Cardassians, the Romulans of old, and even the first Klingons. There’s no such thing here. And speaking about the Klingons, what happened to them? I’m not a fan, never been, never will, but they are just not in the picture. It’s like an entire piece of the past is missing. Odd doesn’t even begin to describe it. Yet, it could be justified because the production wants to use them in season two. Still, they’re never ever mentioned. That left me puzzled, to say the least. I was also puzzled by the elvish look of the Romulan baddie, Narissa. Even some decoration looked elvish. This is science fiction, not fantasy, get a grip! Elnor seems out of place and time in each scene he was. What is a Samurai doing in Star Trek?
All in all, I enjoyed watching this first season, more than I did with Star Trek Discovery. The cast is acceptable, and as I said before, Stewart is terrific while impersonating this old Picard. Not the young captain we all remember, but an old shadow of it, which is what happens in life. We all get old. If we don’t, it means we die young. Unfortunately, this series suffers from lack of imagination with what matters, the main plot. Without a decent baddie, the main plot suffers. Forgive me but I didn’t buy the old myth about the destroyer. It feels like everything happened for no reason, which is a main plothole in every story.
To conclude, the series left me with a bitter-sweet taste in my mouth. I wept again. They killed my Data another time. Will they stop now that he's gone for good?
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