TV Review: Picard Season 3

 

Love.

That is what sets this season of Picard apart from nearly anything else Star Trek has produced in the last 25 years.  

Don't get me wrong, there have been some good things in the last few decades.  I greatly enjoyed JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot.  But much of what has been produced lately has been sub-par.  In particular, the first two seasons of Picard were dreadful.  Star Trek seemed determined to give Jean-Luc Picard the Last Jedi treatment.  

You can imagine my total delight and surprise when Star Trek Picard Season 3 made one of the best seasons of TV I've seen in awhile.

And again, it all comes down to love.

Terry Matalas took over the reigns as showrunner.  And you can tell with every frame of film that he loves Star Trek.  He doesn't just love The Next Generation, but he loves all of Star Trek.  This is apparent from the very first shot of the season to the end credits.  And he understands that Star Trek is not simply about the operatic space adventure.  Star Trek is about the characters.  This is what has been missing from so much of recent Trek, including Picard.  In the last two seasons, Jean-Luc has behaved in ways unrecognizable to someone who is familiar with Next Generation.  But now it feels like we got him back.

I will endeavor to be as spoiler-free as possible, especially because I would encourage anyone who is a fan of The Next Generation to do yourself a favor and watch this season.

The story begins with Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) in her small starship being attacked by an alien vessel.  As things look bleak, she sends out a distress signal to Picard.  Jean-Luc begins this season packing away his memorabilia, putting away his old life.  But Beverly's message brings him back into action.  She is panicked and desperate and she tells him to trust no one, not even Starfleet.  Needing help, Admiral Picard turns to his old friend Captain William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes).  Both men feel like relics in their modern world, but they push on to help an old friend.  They are able to fake their way onto the USS Titan, under the guise of helping with the Starfleet anniversary celebration known as "Frontier Day."  Seven-of-Nine (Jerry Ryan) serves as first officer, but they are stymied by Captain Shaw (Todd Stashwick), a by-the-book officer with a chip on his shoulder who has no time for the antics and adventures of our old adventurers.  From here, Picard and Riker have to make their way to Beverly, where they discover that she travelling with a young man named Jack (Ed Speleers), who is the reason that they are being hunted.

I do not want to give anything else away, so I will leave the set up here.

Let me start first with the negatives.  

The biggest problem that the show has is that it is tied to the horrible continuity created by the previous two seasons.  While they have jettisoned most of the previous series regulars, Raffi (Michelle Hurd) remains and she is a drag on the show.  Hurd is a fine actress, but the character feels so out of place and out of step with everything else.  The series also continues the use of mature language, which also feels incredibly out of place in a Star Trek series.  I don't think Picard dropping f-bombs makes us take him more seriously.

VERY MILD SPOILER

The other biggest issue I had was that in order to set up the finale, one of the characters has to do something so monumentally stupid that I could not understand it.  Yes, the character endures a great deal of emotional stress.  But when the character acted on their feeling, all I kept asking myself was "So what the heck is your PLAN?"  The answer, of course, is that there was no plan.  It was something that had to be done so that the rest of the plot could happen.  And this is a shame, because the rest of the story is so good.

END SPOILER

And I mean that it is SO good.

There are tons of Easter eggs for Trek fans to find.  This could lead a person to accuse the show of fan service.  I'm not against fan service at all.  I think that people who produce a beloved TV show should do what they can to please the fans.  I only object when fan service is a replacement for good storytelling.  Matalas does both.  

He sets the plot up by drawing on threads from not only Next Generation, but also Deep Space Nine and Voyager, as well as the movies.  It is clear that Matalas made this movie with fans of the entire franchise in mind.  This gives the show the advantage of feeling familiar and new at the same time.

As showrunner, Matalas was able to weave in plot points in very creative ways.  He is able to drop important story elements without you even realizing that they will be important later.  It isn't until there is a reveal that you go, "Of course!"

Visually, the show looks fantastic.  You can tell that they used all the advancements in computer graphics to give us a spectacle.  But beyond that, the show is incredibly well-shot, knowing how to frame the characters, when to give us a sense of intimacy or grandeur.

But, of course, the best part of the show are the characters.  Matalas understands that for many of us, the characters we grew up with on Next Generation are not simply imaginary people on TV.  They are our friends.  If that sounds too over-the-top, then let's just say that we have emotional attachment to them in a way that is beyond reason.  We care about them and what happens to them.  We know when they behave in a way that is true and false.

Watching these classic characters bounce off of each other again is a pure joy.  Picard and Riker have a strong friendship, but it does not stop them from butting heads.  Each of them has had experiences that has broken them a bit inside.  But when they are on the same page, they appear unstoppable.  Stewart's and Frakes' chemistry has never been better.  In fact, the fact that they are older makes them appear more as equals, without ever losing that original dynamic completely.  

I can say the same thing about Stewart and McFadden.  There is a scene in an early episode where the two of them lock eyes and have a serious conversation without saying a word.  To be clear, there is no science-fiction-type telepathy going on.  Instead, you have two seasoned actors expressing their deep truths to each other non-verbally.  The impact of that one moment touched me deeply.

You may see a few more familiar faces, but I will not spoil that here.  However, one of my favorite parts of the show was Stashwick as Captain Shaw.  In the hands of lesser writers and lesser actors, this part could have been reduced to a simple antagonist, an obstacle for our heroes to overcome.  Instead, he reminded me of a much more broken version of Captain Jellico (Ronny Cox) from Chain of Command.  Shaw is a complete jerk, but he is not necessarily wrong when he confronts our heroes.  He is sarcastic and acerbic, but he is a competent professional who honestly is looking out for the people under his command.  Once he earned my respect, I enjoyed every scene he was in, even when he behaved awfully.  

While watching this season, I could not help but feel like this is what the Star Wars sequels should have been.  In Disney's efforts to establish a new generation of heroes, they brushed aside the ones we already knew and loved in a way that did not feel respectful.  That doesn't mean that the heroes can't have flaws.  In fact, Riker goes through a similar emotional journey as Han Solo in The Force Awakens (not that his son becomes evil).  But the difference is that with Han it feels like he became less of the man he was.  Whereas with Riker, for good or for ill, he becomes more of the person he is.  Another example is the difference between how Luke Skywalker and Picard are treated.  While there is clearly an attempt to introduce some new, younger characters, Picard is never tossed aside to make way for them.  He is always the hero at the center.

That doesn't mean he is a flawless hero.  In fact, one of the things I like about this reboot is that it doesn't fall into the "Jack Bauer Trap," where everything the hero says is right and everyone around is too stupid to see.  Sometimes Picard is wrong and the show lets him be wrong without humiliating him.  Instead, it shows how he picks himself up from defeat.

Thematically, the season shows the value of age and experience.  Despite the desire for everything that is new and flashy, sometimes the old-fashioned, time tested methods are the ones that work.  This always works in tension with need to grow and evolve and to not be too set in your ways.  The show strikes the perfect balance.

The finale had me on the edge of my seat.  Matalas clearly not only loves Star Trek, but he also loves Return of the Jedi.  The influences from that movie cannot be avoided, and that is a good thing.  

This really does feel like the Return of the Jedi for The Next Generation.  It is a powerful, emotional, final farewell to our friends with whom we have trekked around the stars.