Summary
Starfleet’s greatest captain returns to engage audiences, but is this the sequel we were looking for?
When it rains Star Trek, it pours. After a 12 year absence from our small screens, the release of Star Trek: Discovery, Short Treks and now STAR TREK: PICARD in short succession takes us back to the glory days of the 1990s. Yet this isn’t Trek as we know it, and it’s a transition that hard to engage with at times.
Where all of the outings since Enterprise have been prequels or reboots in some fashion, PICARD is the first continuation of a universe we left behind at the end of 2002’s uneven feature film, Star Trek: Nemesis. Yet its this much-maligned film that the series creators – Akiva Goldsman, Michael Chabon, Kirsten Beyer and Alex Kurtzman – use as the launching point for this very different version of the future.
Warning: in order to really get into this season, there will be spoilers from here.
Picking up two decades after the death of Commander Data (Brent Spiner), we find retired Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Sir Patrick Stewart) on his French vineyard with two grateful Romulan house helpers (the criminally underused Jamie McShane and Orla Brady). Shortly after learning of the existence of Dahj (Isa Briones), a kind of offspring of Data based on the research of Dr. Bruce Maddox (last seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s “Measure of a Man), the android is assassinated by Romulan spies.
Yet all is not lost. Picard soon finds out that Dahj has a sister named Soji, even if she’s unaware of her androidy heritage. So, Picard’s off to find a ship and a crew to help work out the connections between her, his recurring dreams of Data, a radical sect of Romulans and the slaughter-filled attack on Mars years before, one that left a dark rift in the Federation.
Far from the constraints of syndicated television placed on Star Trek: TNG (which ran from 1987 to 1994), PICARD fully embraces long-form serialised storytelling. There’s so many questions from the outset: what lead to the synthetics attacking Mars? What occurred during the intervening years that has left the Federation so irreparably damaged? What’s with the giant Borg cube that Soji and the Romulan spy Narek (Harry Treadaway) are investigating?
Some of these questions are answered in the extended media, including prequel novel The Last Best Hope by Una McCormack and the Countdown comic book series from IDW. The strength of PICARD is that its willing to leave many of these questions unanswered for much of the series, which may prove alternatively frustrating and mysterious for viewers wanting another seven years of boldly going out and finding things.
That’s not to say that the series doesn’t tip its hat to TNG and other Trek lore more than once. The fact that the fan-favourite Borg loom so large in this series may be one of the biggest pieces of fan-service since The Rise of Skywalker. The most publicised of these is Star Trek: Voyager‘s Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), whose surprisingly large supporting role is a rewarding continuation of the character she last played in 2001. There’s also ex-Borg Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco), and a pleasingly settled appearance of Troi (Marina Sirtis) and Riker (Jonathan Frakes, who also directs a few episodes). Hell, there’s even a Captain Picard Day room littered with icons from the series.
Yet much like Discovery, PICARD takes a while finding its feet with the new supporting cast. Without a bridge crew dynamic, at least in the early episodes, audiences and writers alike have a to work a little harder to find a hook with this cast. While we ponder how the cashless 24th century could allow Picard’s former XO Rafaella “Raffi” Musiker (Michelle Hurd) to live in near poverty, this strong character manages to sneak in under our sensors and becomes one of the series’ most endearing.
Similarly, former Starfleet officer Cristóbal “Chris” Rios (Santiago Cabrera) gets to play multiple characters, not only as the pilot of La Sirena, the ship Picard hires, but also as various holographic versions of himself running the ship’s functions. Alison Pill brings some minor gravitas to Dr. Agnes Jurati, a former colleague of Bruce Maddox, although it will be good to see more done with this character archetype in future seasons. Less successful is Australia’s own Evan Evagora, a Romulan warrior that Picard helped as a child. The wooden performance would probably feel more at ease in The Lord of the Rings.
Of course, the flagship we’re all turning up for is Stewart, who doesn’t disappoint. From his opening scenes, in which he is interviewed by the media, he is every bit the commanding presence we remember. Older, yes, but never diminished. Whether he is serving as an action hero or taking a much needed nap (as he does in the finale), he is captivating in every scene. (For the record, I’m feeling vaguely betrayed over “Tea. Earl Grey. Decaf.”)
Which is unfortunately not true of every episode. Much of the season feels like it is building to something, kind of in the vein of HBO’s Westworld or Watchmen. In some episodes, such as the late season offering “Broken Pieces,” the show manages to find the right balance of tension and intrigue. Yet by the problematic finale (the two-part “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1”) – set on a planet of androids, with Soong’s biological son (also Spiner) and the threat of a ‘higher power’ that never eventuates – we are left wondering if there was any substance in the lead-up. That said, a space battle between the Romulans and a fleet led by Riker is a pretty damn cool way to bring the story to a climax.
It’s a tactic that works only once, and hopefully the place Season 1 leaves us – with Picard’s fake-out death, resurrection and a literal deus ex machina – is a clean slate. Indeed, I have to wonder if rebooting Picard in a Irumodic Syndrome-free body leaves the possibility of infinite Doctor Who style regenerations? Can any character now return in a new body? And who were the higher order synthetics that they were attempting to summon: the Borg, or someone else? I guess we’ll find out when the show returns for a second season.
2020 | US | SHOWRUNNERS: Akiva Goldsman, Michael Chabon, Kirsten Beyer and Alex Kurtzman | CAST: Patrick Stewart, Alison Pill, Isa Briones, Evan Evagora, Michelle Hurd, Santiago Cabrera, Harry Treadaway | DISTRIBUTOR: CBS All Access (US), Prime Video (AUS) | EPISODES: 10
