Well, we had an intriguing start but sadly Star Trek Picard falls apart and never gets it back together. I hope that it is discontinued, it’s not even Star Trek. I was more and more let down every episode. If they do go forward it’s pretty compromised but I guess it has some possibilities.

We know going in that Patrick Stewart’s skill is pretty high. This creates an expectation the script just never meets. It also makes it take a moment to realize that it’s all that bad once things really go sideways.

Over the course of the season its similar in tone and theme to Next Generation pilot  Encounter at Farpoint; but much longer and slower. It feels like it was one long pilot. I have to hope it’s the end because it’s sub par.

It seems like this is it for The Next Generation.  As a lifelong Star Trek fan I once again see a project and say; “We deserved better.”

The idea you would hate watch Star Trek is just unappealing. This Trek shows cynicism is forced. Its backward looking and sentimental.

Elder Abuse

One weird thing that I noticed about Star Trek Picard is that it’s almost completely unrelated to the Picard character. He’s along for the ride at best and even sort of in the way from time to time.

There are so many problems. The show’s title character not being that involved is just the tip of the iceberg.

He’s also not the guy we remember in any way. The character now has no charisma. Yelled at by all and sent to his room at one point in the first part of episode 10, he’s not in command of anything.

No one in this show really likes Picard, who is newly inconsistent. These two flaws extend to everything. Patrick Stewart seems to be more in a Professor X mode here. Where’s Hugh Jackman to inject more enthusiasm as Patrick plays a dying man?

Overall the new take on Picard is that he’s almost exactly C-3PO. Sort of scared, maybe mind-wiped. It’s like he’s never been in space.

There’s limited highlights to report after the 10 episodes.

The sexy new Romulan Villainess is gorgeous and wonderfully evil. Her  needlessly complicated story is that shes part of a secret organization within a secret organization who hate all androids. I’m sorry did I say androids? They are now called Synthetics. DO NOT SAY THE ‘A’ WORD !!

The lowest moment of this series is a Synthetic Suicide that makes no sense and doesn’t really look cool.

We also just get bogged down in some bad references to the current state of the world….only they’re from back in 2019. The needlessly complicated story is related to things like Brexit and the US political atmosphere. That turned out to be a bad, deadline creating choice. We didn’t get the show until the expiration date was almost up.

Its too date specific and events have overtaken it already. So much for “Ripped from the Headlines” Star Trek. That’s supposedly a Law & Order concept anyway!

Some other inconsistencies are just unforced errors. For instance, back to Picard himself.  He’s either well known or sort of obscure depending on the needs of that episodes story.  While he’s supposedly a huge media laughing stock at the moment the show takes place; he’s still easily able to blend in with a preposterous costume and a leftover accent from some other, likely better project.  And that’s in one of the less bad episodes.

When the best thing about your Star Trek show is that the actor from Voyager is good enough to somehow stitch together her newly inconsistent character you got problems. Red Alert! Just kidding, no one says things like Red Alert. Or Shields Up.  Or Energize. Or Make it So. They say “Fuck You!” and “Weapons Hot!”

That said the cast is mostly good in these mediocre stories. Like I said, it makes it hard to believe the shows actually as bad as it is when the script just can’t deliver any substance.

It seems to me that the script was just too long and too boring.

There’s so many rabbit holes. Like some jammed in stuff with Riker and Troi we never asked for or needed. The episode is terrible and features actual rabbits. Space rabbits show up for I guess the first time since the Original Series.

We started out in a bad place – by mentioning the dreaded and hated Kelvin Timeline. Everyone flinched, but it seemed to be handled well early on. It ultimately wasn’t.

What seemed like some attempted damage control was really just a harbinger that lots of mediocre and outright bad Star Trek was to follow.

I was Dis-Engaged and bored a bunch of times on this pointless journey.

It’s hard to take but like I said earlier- Picard himself essentially ends up being C-3PO in this dull but well acted appendix to the The Next Generation.  Anthony Daniels could have played this version of Picard though.  He’s that weak and his intellectual estimations are that useless.

The last episode just doesn’t connect. It actually drags. Its boring when Picard dies. And when he Un-Dies its boring too. His new resurrected body is best explained as a dumbed down Replicant in almost every way. So he’s an android or a synth and even more like C-3PO!

Brent Spiner is okay but he cant at any point pull off the ageless android. De-Ageing Tech may have been better, but this mess looks costly enough. His other character in the series isn’t developed. There’s not much to go on as to why he develops, almost pulls off and then drops his super-genocidal plan.

Theres no reason why everyone is okay with him and his planet of flake-y, sometimes murderous ‘synths.’  They just are. Picard and his friends as well as the Federation just write it off and forget about the (idiotic) plan to help synthetic super beings ‘kill all intelligent organic beings in the entire galaxy’. Pretty heavy.  Couldn’t they have just have tried to kill some the crew and had a believable conflict instead of something as complicated, long winded and super genocidal as the plan they had and the story we got? Something they could be more easily forgiven for? They’re a huge security threat to everyone, all factions should logically attack. This is obvious to everyone but the characters.

Killing everyone for no reason also feels a lot like Palpatines plan in Rise of Skywalker (because it is).

Anger, shame and deep embarrassment over a life wasted watching Star Trek all compete for the forefront of my emotions. It’s still fresh. They gave me a “Rise of Skywalker” Star Trek project. In a couple of ways.

Diminishing Returns

Things got progressively weirder and dumber and less consistent every episode.

We’ve never recovered from the series destroying visit to Troi and Riker. That episodes almost a bright line after which things are just completely thrown out of wack. Was there another episode they broke up and parceled out through the rest to cram that bad one in? Was it filmed later? Why do they use Cop show writers pilfering headlines instead of some sci-fi writers? Its all so baffling and seemed so avoidable, but they totally screw this show up.

No later mention is really made about the things we hear from the unhappy, paranoid but somehow upbeat and glib Riker family. The episode is just a bridge too far, I wanted to like it, I really did. The continued story of Riker and Troi is almost joyless. Thanks for nothing on that failed fan service.

The way it works out Riker could have just shown up cold in episode 10 anyway. We didn’t need to know his life has simply sucked since the events of Star Trek Nemesis. This is just done in an infodump and he’s strangely unaffected by it. In other words- we didn’t need to know. Were they treading water in this superfluous episode?

In his appearance in episode 10, heading a substantial armada (after we hear the Federation is broke and has few ships). Its a weird series of events.

It’s hard to understand why he touts his ‘acting captain’ status to the Romulans. Seems to make him seem weaker in a moment where he needs to be strong. We can deal later with why he isn’t ‘Re-Activated Admiral’. Or why they put him in the not so cool and very identical and generic looking armadas strongest ship if he’s such a fossil.

Things that seemed destined for a (hopefully abandoned) season two start spiraling to a convenient end. Like a death for our Sexy Female Romulan Agent thats so similar to Kylo Ren’s Penultimate Death its reeking of JJ Abrams inspired incompetence, she’s just tossed into a chasm by 7.

And just like that she’s gone. We don’t see her die, and death just becomes irrelevant soon enough. Feels like a season one Bad Guy sort of death, surely the Big Bad is in the Future? Or maybe that’s the end? I guess the Big Bad is ill explained half Vulcan Romulan Admiral Oh?

When we do see Oh here and there advancing her bizarre anti-android agenda, shes vague, in fact she’s explained more in the episode synopsis CBS provides more than the show. Did they simply have to lose her story? Why is she the only person in the future who had cheap plastic sunglasses? She makes no sense.

By episode 10 Oh has deserted her deep cover job as head of Starfleet Security. Thats it, her decades long treachery is just right out there. Apparently she’s at Endgame for this droid killing mission thats thousands of years in the making.

We see her now as the Romulan Fleet commander. Its been a long haul for this character to get to this point. So much subterfuge, Shes in the perfect job to destroy the Federation, she was seeding in Romulan double agents at will!

But hey, turns out she’s not really that dedicated to her life’s work after all! She’s really not too hard to talk down. The cowardly Romulans simply run.

Meanwhile the Synth Race of Data-like robots and Sochi back down from their Evil Plan and pitch in to help the previously hated humans more or less on a whim. This episode and it’s ending just doesn’t add up; but we already crammed in one useless episode we have to justify.

These writers just hope seeing Picard again will be enough. The script is more “populated by events” then complete in its feel.

I started to think “It’s probably already been too long a journey.” Any goodwill and fan forgiveness is lost after terrible episode 3, which is simply bad.

At no point do we simply go to a planet because human beings are driven to explore. That would be too relatable. And this show has be just so different for some reason. Damn you JJ Abrams! We can’t shake your curse!

New showrunner Alex Kurtzman is best known for bad non sci-fi Hawaii-Fiveoh’s current bad iteration. They might as well have given it to Soap Opera writers. Kurtzman’s people are really bad when it comes to seeding their scripts with endless rabbit holes and outright contradictions.

Star Trek Discovery has the same show-killing problem, we’re only going for ridiculously high stakes here. Both shows plots culminate in the respective crews saving ALL LIFE EVERYWHERE. Let that sink in.

HOW IT GET SO BAD? 

Throughout the too long season the mistakes and convenient plot devices start to pile up. By terrible episode 3 they’ve lapsed into very lazy writing.

The Final Frontiers ‘Tech’ is more or less the Force now; and I mean that in a Sequel Trilogy sort of way, so BAD BAD BAD! It now does whatever you need it to and is ill explained. Maybe calling it “Harry Potter Magic” is closer to how they use tech in this show.

‘The Tech’ is used to move the story along by letting Picard see previously unwitnessed things from DNA traces. Is that how DNA even works? The Irish Romulan seems confidant enough in it. DNA is still topical now, I guess. Sort of.

It feels like a stretch because it just is. The DNA scanner was an irrelevant, unneeded mistake. Just hot-wire the security log or something. It seems like it was just time to use a Magic Wand because they needed a “Star Trek Moment.”

Jeri Ryan is still pretty and wow, she is actually a good actress. Maybe I was too fascinated by her looks on so-so Voyager, where they spent a lot of time developing her character into something completely different from what we had here.

In this bad show shes got a full plate of bad lines and bullshit to spiel but she kind of pulls it off. Throw in some new Matrix-Like fighting skills that make sense and new personality traits that just don’t. Still, she delivers as best as anyone can with this.

So much for Searching for Positive Stuff. I’m not going to re-write or excuse plot holes for them. 7 of 9 makes no sense as presently constituted, but okay. lets move on.

The new ship sucks. Its non Federation and looks more or less like  Eddie Van Halen’s most well known guitar.

The new captain, or more like the new number one, seems to be a really good actor.  For Instance -The bad idea to have him have him play his entire crew isn’t developed that much,  but he’s game in about 6 roles. I’d see him in a play based on this prolonged audition. So we got that.

Maybe the only good thing was we didn’t get anything from Deep Space 9. So your opinion of that show stays intact for good or ill.

It took exactly 2 episodes to start to pity Captain C-3PO….I mean Picard.

Everything just comes together in time to still get wrapped up too quickly despite taking forever to get to the end.

Don’t bother with this bad Star Trek show. The Final Episode of The Next Generation was a better end. It’s sad. Hopes were high going in.

Looking back its been a long haul with these characters.

This franchise was pretty much ONLY good as Episodic TV. In theater’s it was hit or miss. The movies end poorly. This show is just more badness and reminders that we’ve seen most of it done better before.

It’s not all that episodic and the themes it hits over the season aren’t that Star Trek-ish. Its got so much more co-opted Philip K Dick ideas than Gene Roddenberry stuff. While there was some overlap its just not overly compatible as a way to expand this Franchise they’ve inherited but aren’t stewarding well.

The final episode just fails in all sorts of ways. Its self important. It cant really pay anything off.

Picard even dies like C-3P0. In other words -briefly and temporarily.

The only good move for the future of the Franchise seems really unlikely now. The idea was out there for a second. It was – ‘Reboot the Next Generation with a new cast in a Quentin Tarantino movie where he gets to kill off as many of the Kelvin cast members as he wants in a great and plot hole closing story.’

This was really bad and may be the end of all Star Trek.

Maybe Star Trek started to die slowly when The Next Generation TV show wrapped. The further we get from Gene Roddenberry’s vision the worse we seem to do. Maybe enough is enough.

If I were an enterprising sci-fi writer I might seize this moment to advance my new franchise. It might be time to turn the page on Star Trek if we just can’t do it well …or even consistently mediocre.

If you get CBS All Access try the 1970’s Star Trek cartoon instead maybe. I’m cancelling my subscription as soon as I get over my anger at myself for getting it