Here we go. Star Trek: Picard, Season 3. At this point Star Trek has become a really great relative you had growing up who was sweet, compassionate, funny, and loving, but at some point became bitter, resentful, and misanthropic. You carried forward the lessons they taught you as a kid, but now they seem to hate everything about you, and everything about who they were then. Alas, the end has come. And now they’re on their deathbed in hospice and you feel compelled to re-visit them one last time.
Goes without saying: Spoilers Ahead… for a series that was already pretty spoiled… like uncooked scrambled eggs, mixed with raw ground beef, left for days in the summer sun.
The show opens with “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire”, by The Ink Spots. It’s irony, get it? It’s a sweet sounding old timey tune, but the show is going to be about doomsday weapons and chaos. This would be clever, if it wasn’t so heavily associated with the Fallout series of games that have used the song for the exact same purpose. Real fucking original.
When I think back to the great Beverly Crusher episodes of TNG I recall wishing there was more action. Finally we get it, Doctor Crusher… action grandma.
Crusher’s ship is being invaded by monsters. Good thing their phasers just wound, hers fucking disintegrates them. Because, as a doctor, her first instinct is to murder anyone she can just as easily incapacitate. And later when she has one of them beat she EXECUTES him. The guy who wounded, rather than killed, her. Executed. I guess Starfleet Medical’s first order is “do as much harm as possible”.
What is Crusher doing way out in the middle of nowhere with her own personal Federation ship?
Now it’s Picard and his maid. It features my favorite kind of clunky dialogue, when people explain things they already know to one another.
“Isn’t it so exciting that we’re moving to Japan so I can be a professor at the University of Tokyo?”
“It sure is, and you sure do deserve it after you invented a new kind of toilet that licks people’s assholes and tests their stool quality.”
(Disclaimer: May not be actual dialogue from Star Trek: Picard)
Things are looking up. The writers remembered Picard’s flute from The Inner Light (S05E25).
Is Picard listening to a Space phonograph? And is that another Ink Spots song? I can’t be sure.
Wait, is that the Kurlan Naiskos on his desk? So, he didn’t just toss it away at the end of Generations. Or maybe he had a replica made… of the priceless artifact he smashed carelessly while trying to rescue the Walgreen’s prints of his digital family photos.
Crusher messages him on his old com badge that he hasn’t worn since TNG… despite serving with him wearing a different uniform and com badge AFTER that?
Crusher to Picard: Trust no one! Starfleet is evil… again!
They are literally out of ideas. An entire galaxy of interesting things to explore and it’s going to be another doomsday plot about Starfleet being infiltrated and evil.
Nobody has spoken to Crusher for over 20 years (since the final TNG movie? I guess?)
Wait, was that an Eaglemoss Enterprise D replica in the bar?
Riker: “Who wants to hear some boring old fart going on about ‘going bodly for 250 years’.” HAHAH! Stark Trek IS dumb, Riker! We agree on that!!! Fuck Star Trek. It’s so stupid.
Wait, why am I watching this?
Crusher’s message included a code that they used when… you guessed it, Picard was a Borg. Christ… more borg shit. The MOST IMPORTANT THING that ever happened, apparently.
Non-descript shithole planet full of drugs and underworld. Did they just copy/paste the same model of shuttle flying around the planet?
Rafi is talking to a drug dealer and asking him about top level secret inter-galactic shenanigans? Why the fuck would this guy know any of that? Find a more realistic underworld contact. How about she’s undercover smuggling Federation weapons to an arms dealer who has an in on some “big thing going down” that she learns about?
“The Red Woman!” Nu-Trek sure does love these bullshit code names for dumb things.
The Titan is a “refit neo-Constitution class”, but it looks like an Excelsior with the squat neck connecting to a much more oval secondary hull with recessed deflector array. It’s a fine looking design. Not trying to take anything away from it. Just saying it’s an odd choice to say it’s Constitution-like.
Also “neo-Constitution” how about just numbering them?
Constitution – old Enterprise
Constitution II – Refit Enterprise and Enterprise A
Constitution III – Unknown
Constitution IV – Unknown
Constitution V – The new Titan
Seven of Nine says the captain is catching up on some logs… does that mean he’s taking a shit?
The score for this show sounds like Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner had a baby who took up composing.
Geordi’s daughter is the pilot of the Titan and an ensign. LeVar Burton is like 65, shouldn’t his kid be 35+?
Riker says to Seven of Nine “You’re going to be a captain before you know it” Dude, she’s in her 50s (Jeri Ryan will be 55 this year). If she hasn’t made captain yet, when?
The captain of the Titan is a mansplaining asshole white dude, of course. This captain is supposed to be an asshole, but he’s 100% right about everything he’s saying. Except when he refers to people “ above their paygrade”. They don’t get paid. It’s a commie future.
Why is Rafi in special intelligence if she’s so fucking terrible at it? Who gave her that job?
Seven of Nine: “How am I supposed to inspire when I have to take shit from people like [asshole mansplaining captain].” Because Starfleet is full of misogynist asshole cunts… just like Gene wanted. Also, nobody cares about Seven of Nine. Move on.
Ensign: “We have an unauthorized shuttle launch.”
Captain: “Remotely disable the shuttle. Lock tractor beam. Bring it into the shuttle bay. Security team to Shuttle Bay One. Phasers set to stun.”
THE END!
I wish…
Rachel Garret statue dedication. The captain of the Enterprise C, who gave her life to forge unity between the Federation and Klingons is only just now getting a statue made of her? Poor lady died over 60 years ago. It’s about time.
Rafi heads to somewhere called District 7. Is that far from District 9 where the prawns are? Very cool landscape. Where is it supposed to be? Future Rio?
The doomsday weapon appears to be a giant portal gun attached to Unicron… or something?
“Beverly needs help and whoever is there with her.”
Picard (sinisterly): “Friend… or foe?” Doesn’t matter. That would never have mattered to Picard. He was compassionate.
Riker has been talking to Picard for 20+ years after he became an admiral. Why would he accidentally call him captain?
Why would Riker put his hands in “ashes from phaser fire”? Use a tricorder or something, Jesus.
No… Is this Picard and Crusher’s son… who Picard doesn’t know about, or maybe does know about, but hasn’t seen for 20+ years, and he has a British accent because… his father was British?
Big evil ship appears at the end. Because that’s the only crap Star Trek knows how to do anymore.
Armchair Screenwriter 