There might not be a more contentious piece of Star Trek than Star Trek: Picard. Or maybe it’s just Picard. It’s unclear and likely undeterminable, but we’ll push on nevertheless. In our 100th episode, we take a look at what our favourite nonagenarian has been up to.
Synopsis of Star Trek: Picard Season 1:
Jean-Luc Picard, retired from Starfleet and a marginalized recluse, embarks on a final mission to find and save the life of the daughter of his dearest friend.
These podcasters endeavoured to look at Picard as a whole, and not episode by episode. Ultimately, the show is a long movie broken into chapters; a distinct departure from the legacy Star Trek, which was deliberately episodic with only peripheral long arcs and references between storylines.
It’s understandable why the writers of Picard chose to structure the show in this way. The modern television audience is accustomed to serialized presentations, the exceptions being sitcoms and network procedurals, which arguably are slowly adopting the serial style.
The popular aesthetic has also evolved to a more edgy and gritty one. A reversion from this modernity to that of traditional Trek likely wouldn’t garner enough of an audience to warrant a $100 million television venture.
The most prevalent observation to these podcasters was how unrecognizable original characters were in this iteration, especially Picard. It’s understandable that humans evolve and wouldn’t present thirty years down a timeline as being woken from character stasis.
But the stoic, commanding, and confident J.L. Picard from the 80s and 90s was nowhere to be seen. The older Picard was apprehensive, passive, and a bit doddering. Much to be said on this topic, which we do.
Much of our discussion is predicated on this general observation: Picard seems to be more of a science fiction/action show with Star Trek decals. This isn’t a novel opinion by any means, but we attempt to break down why this is.
There are moments of genuine science fiction exploration in proper Star Trek fashion, but they’re almost always abandoned prematurely to accommodate an action setpiece or a mawkishly sentimental character scene. We also get into this with gusto.
Listen To This Episode:
Listen to this episode:
You Can Find Jonathan and Paul At The Following Links:
Picard airs on Paramount+ in the United States, and on CTV Sci-Fi Channel and Crave in Canada. Outside of North America, the series is available on Amazon Prime Video
