Here’s the long and short of what you need to know about this new Star Trek series: I put the title of this article at the top of the page, thought about the finale I just finished watching last night, and started crying again a little bit.
Is it a little bit fan service? Yes. Does the fan service sometimes get in the way of the actual show? Also yes. As a fan being served by this show, did I care?
Absolutely not.
The premise: Set at the end of the 24th century, 18 years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis, with Sir Patrick Stewart reprising his iconic role, Star Trek: Picard revolves around retired admiral Jean-Luc Picard; he is still deeply affected by the loss of Lieutenant Commander Data, portrayed by Brent Spiner, and the destruction of Romulus, and steps into the next chapter of his life.
This section of the review is spoiler free.
Discussion: I haven’t even started and I feel like I’ve already run out of ways to tell you how much I loved these 10 episodes of television. Perhaps my favorite part was being able to tell how much Sir Patrick Stewart enjoyed reprising his role as Admiral Jean-Luc Picard, because that was absolutely evident in every single scene.
One of the interesting and, honestly, brave decisions this show made in the beginning was allowing Picard to absolutely fail at so many things before he started getting them right. He was yelled at, denied, rebuffed, and (rightfully!) knocked down a peg or two in the first two or three episodes of the show. They make for a difficult but rewarding watch, and they’re necessary to get to the second half of the season where the whole show really shines.
First, the casting is excellent. Alison Pill as Agnes Jurati is absolutely amazing. She’s beautiful comic relief while having an interesting storyline of her own. Isa Briones as three different (I guess spoilery?) characters was absolutely brilliant. But the scene-stealer in almost every single scene he was in was definitely Santiago Cabrera, who played not only the captain of the ship Picard travels the galaxy in but also the ship’s five emergency holograms, who all have different functions on the ship as well as different personalities and accents.
By this point, I don’t believe it’s a spoiler to tell you that a couple of actors from Star Trek: The Next Generation make a couple of cameos, or that Seven of Nine from Star Trek: Voyager visits the series to absolutely wreck shop. This sort of plays into the fan service aspect of this show, but I really loved watching these actors that so enjoyed working together see each other again.
My favorite moment of the returning cast members is a spoiler that I’ll save, but my second favorite is absolutely getting to see Deanna Troi again in a moment that truly let her shine. It really isn’t a spoiler to say that no one on this motley crew of Picard’s truly trusts each other at first. These aren’t Starfleet officers, this isn’t a sanctioned trip, there’s nothing of the camaraderie of The Next Generation. But Deanna Troi spent every season and every movie that the Next Gen cast ever made being a warm, peaceful presence that you could, without a doubt, always trust. She stepped onto the screen and suddenly all of the mistrust and anger that had been present before just melted away for me. Only one of the new crew members got to meet her, but she was perfect.
Around the third or fourth episode I started asking myself if the Michael Chabon credited with the story and screenplay for these episodes was the same Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and friends, IT IS. So if you’re ever asking yourself why this season is so epic and also has a few pacing problems, that’s absolutely why.
This section of the review contains spoilers! A spoiler space has been provided to keep you safe, if you wish to remain unsullied!
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If I have one complaint about this series, it’s about the pacing of the problems at hand. Things pop off pretty quickly, then there’s some navel-gazing for a couple of episodes, and then a huge huge final episode that has all of these androids building a tower that they then dismantle right as these Mass Effect-esque advanced AI are coming through. What’s to keep them from coming anyway? Who knows?
These, by the way, are all thoughts I was having through the massive, massive tears I was crying as Picard sacrificed himself in a Star Wars style dog fight in a little ship he didn’t really know how to fly.
Also, while I did love Will Riker showing up with several hundred starships, I also just want to know, like, how? Like, from a logistics standpoint alone. At best, Picard sent the message the day before. Mustering that many starships to make that long of a journey just to stand there for a bit and then leave felt a little deus ex machina for me.
And finally, the resolution of Picard’s demise and his final scene with Data were absolutely heart-shattering. I cried so hard I had to turn up the TV so I could hear it over my gasping sobs. It’s fan service, but as a fan, I was absolutely well served.
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In conclusion: This is basically required watching for fans of The Next Generation. And CBS All Access is offering it for free through the end of April if you use the code GIFT, so there’s no excuse not to catch up!
Images from imdb.com
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