My Opinions on Star Trek: Picard - A Turbulent Journey through the Franchise

Star Trek: Picard has been a source of both admiration and disappointment for many longtime fans. This modern addition to the Star Trek universe, while attempting to honor the legacy of its predecessors, often falls short in storytelling and character development. Here are my candid thoughts on the premiere seasons of this series.

Season 1: A Promising Start with Undiscovered Potential

The first season of Star Trek: Picard had some promising ideas but ultimately failed to deliver a cohesive and satisfying narrative. Although the storyline introduced intriguing concepts, the execution fell flat, leaving much to be desired. The villains were underwhelming, and the conclusion of the season felt disjointed and poorly executed, making it not enjoyable for me and, I suspect, for a considerable number of fans.

Season 2: Overstretched and Mediocre

Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard felt like an amalgamation of recurring elements from previous Star Trek series, stretched far beyond their natural runtime. It was a double episode of The Next Generation or a mediocre Star Trek movie broken into multiple episodes. The extended runtime diluted the story's impact, making it feel more like a filler rather than a compelling narrative.

Season 3: An Overindulgence in Fanservice

Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard was an overindulgence in fanservice and nostalgia, often at the expense of a coherent and engaging storyline. While it provided cherished moments with legacy characters, the weak story ruined what could have been a more satisfying watch. Patriotic nostalgia and emotional cues did not compensate for the lackluster plotlines and character development.

The Woes of Following Unlikeable Trends

What truly irks me about Star Trek: Picard is the franchise's shift towards woke politics and a pervasive sense of hopelessness in the scripts. Brent Spiner, in particular, seemed to take a backseat in the series, a fact that many fans found emotionally jarring. The series has abandoned much of the Gene Roddenberry and Rick Berman eras, instead embracing themes of political correctness and dystopian despair, leaving the characters unrecognizable and the stories fundamentally different from what we once loved.

Moreover, the decision to turn Jean-Luc Picard into a synthetic being (synth) was a farce. Picard's transformation into a synthetic being with no additional abilities was completely devoid of purpose. In the first season, Data’s dream symbolized a transition, yet nothing in the subsequent seasons advanced this concept. The series failed to capitalize on this potential storyline and left fans wanting more.

Conclusion and Reflection

While Star Trek: Picard did allow fans to revisit beloved characters and provided visually stunning moments, the overall experience was underwhelming. It was better than an earlier spin-off series, Star Trek: Discovery, but still on the same level of mediocre to bad storytelling as Strange New Worlds. Patrick Stewart's warning at a convention about the series not being the legacy fans are accustomed to rings true, considering the transformation of the franchise and the departure from successful storytelling.

It's disheartening to see a franchise you once cherished take this turn. However, the third season, particularly episodes 9 and 10, provided a much-needed respite. These episodes bring a sense of joy and familiarity back to the series, making me more inclined to revisit the entire third season.