Star Trek: Picard

"If Beyond and Discovery killed the franchise, then Picard resurrected its decaying corpse, bent it over a table and had its way with it using the teddy bear from my Doctor Who analogy..."

— Critical Drinker (2020)

Star Trek: Picard
Seriously CBS, didn't you learn anything from Star Trek: Discovery?!
Genre: Science fiction Adventure Drama Running Time: 40–60 minutes Country: United States Release Date: January 24, 2020 – April 20, 2023 Network(s): CBS All Access (currently Paramount+) Created by: Alex Kurtzman Akiva Goldsman Michael Chabon Kirsten Beyer Distributed by: CBS Media Ventures Starring: Patrick Stewart Alison Pill Isa Briones Michelle Hurd Santiago Cabrera Evan Evagora Seasons: 2 Episodes: 20

Star Trek: Picard is a 2020 TV show by the CBS corporation, and published via streaming services. It is the first Star Trek show to be set in the era of Star Trek: The Next Generation since the end of Star Trek: Voyager in 2001.

Why it is not the "Picard" we all knew and loved?

1. As with Star Trek: Discovery, it completely abandons the optimistic, utopian tone of most of the 1987-2005 run of Star Trek shows in favor of being yet another grimdark sci-fi show, despite audience tastes moving away from this type of show in the late 2010s (as demonstrated by the success of The Orville, and Star Trek: Voyager having shed its formerly poor reputation thanks to its light-hearted tone).
   • It's even more of a slap in the face considering that this is billed as a follow-up to Star Trek: The Next Generation, the show which really cemented Gene Roddenberry's vision of a utopian future. Instead of following its forerunner's tone, it does everything it can to spit on it; even Discovery wasn't as bad in this regard, since the TOS-era Federation wasn't as utopian as its TNG-era counterpart.
2. It turns out that the Federation has turned into a dystopian society thanks to a terrorist attack on Mars, and decided to just let the Romulans be mostly wiped out by the destruction of their homeworld. To say the least, this is completely against everything the Star Trek franchise has ever stood for.
   • Apparently they were trying to fix Nero's motives from Star Trek (2009) not making much sense. Unfortunately, this means that instead of the Federation doing everything they could to help the Romulans and Nero wanting to wipe them out because he's just been driven insane by the loss of his family and homeworld, we're now left with a far worse explanation that ends up making Nero more sympathetic than the protagonists of the movie.
   • This also means that the Dominion War storyline on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has been effectively rendered pointless, since it means that instead of fighting a war to preserve their way of life and everything they stand for, the Federation fought off being taken over by a dystopian, tyrannical power... and then turned into a dystopian, tyrannical power all by themselves.
3. Yet again like Discovery, there's gratuitous swearing in an effort to seem "edgy", once again solely for the fact it's on a streaming service and not on television.
   • Heck, The first episode alone contains more swearing words than all the TNG (The Next Generation) episodes and movies put together.
4. As per usual for a modern Star Trek show, it's packed to the brim with left-wing propaganda. The creators have tried to claim that this was a commentary on post-9/11 America, despite this type of commentary having already been done in Star Trek: Enterprise, when it was far more timely and relevant.
5. Picard here has been Flanderized into a senile anti-male privilege caricature. For example, when he saw Dahj being murdered in the hands of the Zhat Vash, he decided that was done running out the clock and waiting to die.
6. The show has a habit of bringing back characters from prior shows (including Bruce Maddox, Icheb, Hugh, and even Data) just to subject them to horrible deaths.
7. Seven of Nine is brought back, but barely acts anything like the same character she was from Voyager, going from a controlled and logical former Borg drone to a generic action chick. As a kicker, it's hinted that she's now attracted to other women, despite her only having shown attraction to men on Voyager, and the finale of that show having her start a relationship with Chakotay (which admittedly wasn't very well-received due to its lack of foreshadowing, and Chakotay/Janeway being a more popular coupling among fans, but that's no excuse for just ignoring it).
8. The new characters, aside from Rios, are bland at best, and annoying and unlikeable at worst.
9. The main storyline of the season turns out to be ripped off from the first Mass Effect game, as it involves a cryptic message from the past about an all-powerful machine race (not the Borg or the machines that created V'Ger, despite them being obvious choices for this sort of threat), with a race of sentient machines created by a humanoid race wanting to bring them into our galaxy.
   • It's also ripped off from, of all things, the movie adaptation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which likewise has an ageing hero persuaded to come out of retirement shortly before the turn of the century, sacrificing his life to defeat a villain who threatens war, and seemingly handing over to a group of younger heroes, only to be brought back from the dead at the very end.
10. Poor special effects by modern standards. Whereas Discovery at least has effects that are sometimes of movie quality, this show's effects are barely any better than what you'd see in most contemporary video games.
11. The "USS Enterprise NCC-1701-E" is never seen in the show, nor is it mentioned. Implying that it may have been decommissioned. Despite only being 27 years old during the events of the show.
12. While the Discovery-Era ships fit much better in 2399, if we were to accept that Discovery is still Canon, then it wouldn't make sense why the Federation would be using 100 year old ships. Instead of the ships we saw in Deep Space Nine, Voyager, First Contact, Insurrection and Nemesis.
13. The first season has a completely absurd ending, with Picard sacrificing his life to save a planet of androids, then dying from a brain disorder mentioned in TNG's finale, only to then be brought back to life as an android who can age and otherwise look and act like a human. This admittedly had previously been done on TNG (Data's creator, Dr. Soong, transferred the mind of his dying wife into a similar android), but it's not at all clear why they did this instead of just having them find a cure for Picard's brain condition.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Generally strong acting from the lead cast, especially Patrick Stewart and Santiago Cabrera.
2. Rios is the one new character to actually be both entertaining and likeable.
3. They at least retcon the implication from the finale of Voyager that the Borg had been wiped out completely.
4. "Nepenthe" is a decently good episode, showing Riker and Troi having settled happily into retirement together.
5. While it's a little bit puzzling why they brought back Data's consciousness for the last ten minutes of the season finale just to kill him off yet again, his final death is at least an improvement on his notoriously bad death scene from Star Trek: Nemesis.

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