Star Trek: Picard - Season One (2020)

Star Trek: Picard - Season One (2020)

10 episodes, approx 44-55 minutes each.

Firstly, the important date stuff: it's set in the year 2399, which is twenty years after the tragic loss in ST: Nemesis (2002). We're told that Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) has been retired from Starfleet for fourteen of those years. No longer trotting through the stars on impressive starships, he resides now at Chateau Picard, overseeing the family business. [1]

Visually, it's modern sci-fi, which means it's darkly lit, has glary lens flare (real and CGI), and periodically weighs every happy moment down with a semi-dystopian undertone. As someone who loves the bright, futuristic, optimistic look of The Next Generation era of Star Trek, it's an affront to my eyes on almost every level. Even so, I watched all 10 episodes, because there was room in my life for more Picard adventuring.

There are some pleasing nods to TNG's past that don't feel like pandering or fanservice, functioning instead as a reminder of the role that the retired admiral played in the lives of others; e.g., in the first episode, we see him play poker with a member of the Enterprise D crew, which references a scene in the final episode of Season 7 (1993-94); elsewhere there's a comment made that seemed inspired by a scene in Generations (1994), wherein Picard discuss his view of time's passing and its affect on the individual.

Beyond that there are moments that absolutely do feel like servile placements, propping up the serial storytelling, but I won't mention the worst offenders because they're all major parts of the story and, I think, will be pretty damn obvious to anyone who cares to look for them.

This is where I'd typically go on to mention the supporting cast and try to explain their role without giving too much away, but I don't have the heart to try. The crew of the ship that Picard ends up on are mostly unmemorable and the environment — the ship itself — is ugly and glary, with zero personality. The brightest ember in the mostly dead ashes is a returning character from Voyager, of all places, although she isn't used to her full potential either. She's like a keyring on a set of keys that serves no real purpose other than to help the whole feel less empty.

Star Trek: Discovery was shit, period, but Picard (the series) is depressing because it has Picard (the man), arguably Starfleet's best captain, and it squanders him on serialised crap that's as bloated as it is dull. His journey toward insipidness makes him a pathetic victim of bland writing.

It pains me to say it, but Season 01 of Picard is agonizingly bad. It's 'modern' Trek through and through, with a few well-loved trinkets jangling around inside its bled-dry hollow heart. It should've felt like an organic progression of the TNG era, but instead feels like a bastard child of JJ Abrams' woeful legacy, which is a downward plunge that continues to sully a once beloved franchise. The current Trek showrunners seem content to pander to a 'streaming audience' attention span, instead of striving to explore thought-provoking situations in a sci-fi setting.

[1] Longtime fans will maybe wonder why I didn't also give the year in the traditional Star Trek stardate. It's because there isn't one. The franchise's current overlords expunged them. I agree they were confusing and didn't really help with setting, but they were a part of Trek, a part of the culture, and a part of humanity's (fictional) history. Are we to now assume that no one in the Star Trek world uses them? Have Starfleet history books been rewritten to reflect that? As exclusive as they are, they ought to have been respected and mentioned at least once. The Starfleet Academy scenes offered an opportunity to do so; even if only on a console, not spoken.