Star Trek: Picard (TV Program)

Home is where the ship is. In this week’s episode of “Picard,” the crew goes home.Season 3, Episode 9: ‘Vox’If you’re going to lean into nostalgia, might as well go the whole way. If you’re going to bring back the old cast, bring back the old ship and the old villains, too.Resistance to fan service is futile. Recall that in this season’s premiere, Jean-Luc wanted to give Geordi a gift of a painting of the Enterprise D.“She wasn’t the first,” he said. “But she was certainly my favorite.”Little did he know that Geordi was preparing a gift himself the whole time: the real Enterprise D, somehow excavated from Verdian III, where the ship unceremoniously crash landed in “Generations.” It’s the ship that many of us fell in love with, just as much as we did with the characters that served on the ship. The “Picard” showrunner, Terry Matalas, has used this season of “Picard” to right many of the previous wrongs of the “Next Generation” franchise. Giving the Enterprise D a proper send-off seems as appropriate as giving the crew one.Seeing the crew take its familiar stations on the bridge felt like putting on your favorite sweater that you can never throw out. It just fits, no matter what. Seeing the renovated ship in high definition? Even better.It’s not too much nostalgia at the expense of story either. It turns out only an old Starfleet ship can be dusted off to save the day, not one of these newfangled, high-tech ones Starfleet is at the mercy of now.Once again, the Enterprise crew is all that stands between — surprise — the Borg and the Earth’s annihilation. The face that Vadic was referring to the whole time was Jean-Luc’s old nemesis: The Borg Queen. Just as the “Trek” universe keeps finding ways to bring Data back to life, it does the same with the Borg. I must confess some disappointment in seeing this become the Big Reveal that the season was building up to. Ever since “First Contact,” the Borg have been the well “Trek” writers keep going back to, including in “Voyager” and both seasons of “Picard.”It shouldn’t have been much of a surprise: Vadic hinted at this on the bridge with Seven in last week’s episode.The Borg Queen was already a major part of the story line last season with Picard’s friend Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill). You might remember, and it’s likely you don’t, since the season was so convoluted, that Jurati became the leader of a new, benevolent Borg. This goes totally unmentioned by Jean-Luc here. This felt odd, especially when Beverly said, “No one has seen or heard from the Borg in over a decade.” Well, it has assuredly not been a decade since Season 2. And what about the Borg cube in the first season that was being repurposed as a Romulan reclamation site? And the season ended with an unexplained transwarp conduit that Queen Jurati suggests is a threat! Worth a mention from Jean-Luc, methinks.It’s possible there is some timeline shift or something I’m missing, and I am eager to see the comments correcting me. (Annie Wersching, who played the queen in Season 2, died earlier this year.)Now, it’s a New and Improved Borg. When Jean-Luc was Locutus, they implanted an assimilation gene inside Jean-Luc that would be passed on to his offspring. The changelings helped the Borg place the altered DNA into the transporter systems to assimilate anybody who uses them, which explains why changelings wanted to use shuttles before. But it affects only the youngest members of the crew, not anyone over, say, the age of the main cast of “Picard.” Got it? Me either. The Borg essentially have taken over Starfleet without anyone noticing: a coup without a shot fired. Until the shots are fired. And now, Earth can be saved only by the Olds.Poor Jean-Luc: First he finds out that he has unwittingly been an absentee father and now he may have accidentally turned his son into a homicidal robot. As Jean-Luc remarks to Beverly: “He inherited the best of you. And the worst of me.”(Also: Poor Jack, who now doesn’t have a solid answer to his question, “How much of me is me?”)Jack is, in many ways, not your ideal candidate to lead the Borg collective. He has long been an independent, rogue actor who doesn’t want to play by the rules, while the very notion of individuality is anathema to the Borg. Jean-Luc’s use of Starfleet protocols to try to keep him confined to quarters was always doomed to fail, especially after he told Jack that the solution was to institutionalize him on Vulcan. Not exactly a great parental approach from Jean- Luc! In his defense, he is not exactly experienced.Jack snarls: “What about the protocols of a father? Or were you never issued those?”A fair point, and one that stands out even more when one considers how many times Jean-Luc broke protocol in this season alone. Remember when he stole a ship and put members of the Titan in mortal danger?Jean-Luc has not had his fastball this season, but luckily, his former teammates have. Geordi dusting off the Enterprise D was a shrewd maneuver. Beverly and Data are able to quickly figure out what happened to Jack and the plot to overrun Starfleet. Troi discovers the Borg connection to begin with. Riker and Worf are in prime quip form and absorbing punches when necessary.Now, they’ll have to find a way to keep Jack from becoming chief executive officer of the New Borg, which they have experience with from Data’s experience on “First Contact.”All in all, a fun penultimate episode.Odds and endsIn the opening scene with Troi and Jack, Jack references a planet Beverly used to take him to as a boy: Raritan IV. The planet is named after Matalas’s hometown, Raritan, N.J., and is also featured in the second season of “Picard.” Soji and Jurati visited deltans there in last season’s premiere.Beverly mentions her other son, Wesley, again. That guy just doesn’t seem to be checking his phone as the universe threatens to implode again!Some fun ship names in the fleet: Reliant (the commandeered ship in “Wrath of Khan”); Okuda (a reference to Michael Okuda, the longtime “Trek” graphic designer; and Sutherland (a ship that Data briefly took over as captain in “Next Generation”).Cool cameo from the now Admiral Shelby (Elizabeth Dennehy). We met her in the classic “Next Generation” episode “The Best of Both Worlds” as the ambitious commander angling to take Jean-Luc’s chair. She makes a rare reference to “Enterprise” and the NX-01. Jean-Luc points out the irony of Shelby’s schilling for a synchronous Starfleet system that is similar to the Borg, given her own history of fighting them. We don’t get to see her for very long before she is killed. At least she died doing what she loved: being in charge.A bit unclear on why the Borg need Jack to begin with. They’re already assimilating the fleet! (This is similar to “First Contact,” in which the Borg Queen didn’t really need Data. Or going back further, did the Borg need Locutus?)How did Starfleet set up fireworks to go off in space?A (presumed) goodbye to Captain Shaw. He handed command of the Titan to Seven as he dies, which felt like an unearned moment given what their dynamic had been all season. Seven’s competence has been, shall we say, not exactly high, and in a similar moment earlier in the season, he gave command to Riker, not Seven. Seven hasn’t done much since then to justify earning Shaw’s trust. Even so, after all time spent being a huge jerk to the elder Starfleet officers, Shaw still dies saving them — a contribution which is barely mentioned by Jean-Luc and the rest of the crew. He also refers to Seven by her preferred name, instead of Hansen. Overall, his character seemed like a wasted opportunity.I’m curious about the Enterprise E, which gets a glancing mention. It appears the ship was destroyed, somehow, and Worf had a lot to do with it. More

Jean-Luc breaks Data in case of emergency. Vadic makes a move.Season 3, Episode 8: ‘Surrender’Much of this season of “Picard” revolves around familial relationships, particularly parenting. There’s how we choose to do it (Beverly). The consequences of avoiding it entirely (Jean-Luc). The weight of keeping our children safe (Geordi). How we grieve (Riker and Troi.)It takes being captured on a brutal enemy’s ship for Riker and Troi to finally have an impactful conversation about their marriage and the loss of Thad, their child. Riker wanted to bathe in his grief as his lone remaining connection to Thad. Troi wanted to protect Riker from that pain using her Betazoid abilities, which has the unintended effect of pushing a wedge between them. Riker wanted to cocoon himself, which was unacceptable to Troi.In their prison cell, they are honest with each other, as married couples should be. It turns out their grief is a prison unto itself. They disagree on how to grieve, but it shows the strength of the foundation of their relationship that they can finally talk like this. (Another indication: We learn that a changeling came to Riker and Troi’s home pretending to be Riker, which Troi snuffed out right away.)“You can’t skip to the end of healing,” Troi says.And then she embraces him, as a loving spouse would, rather than as the ship’s counselor we’ve come to know for decades. Troi also informs Riker that she doesn’t like their move to the intergalactic suburbs. Fair enough. Been there.This was just about the only scene that worked for me the entire episode in a season that has otherwise been great. When Worf shows up to rescue Riker and Troi, he gives a campy, borderline romantic speech about how he is now sensitive to Troi, which Riker notes is “inappropriate.” He’s right! It was weird!When things seem bleakest for the Titan, Jack has a deus ex machina at the ready: He is a living Professor X with Cerebro capabilities. He can control others’ movements, read their minds and see through them — although we don’t know why. It’s a handy tool when your ship has been overtaken. (Parenting looms over small moments of the season, too, as when Jack quips to Vadic that Beverly taught him “better manners than that.”)But it’s hard to separate this from the fact that none of this would have happened if it hadn’t been for another disastrous planned hatched by Jean-Luc in last week’s episode, which caused the crew to lose control of the Titan to begin with. Captured on the bridge, Shaw lectures Seven about the consequences of our actions. Jean-Luc placed the ship and its crew — once again — in great danger with a foolhardy plan to bait Vadic in last week’s episode. Now we see the consequences: T’Veen (Stephanie Czajkowski) is executed, a crew member that 100 percent died in a needless way.Speaking of Shaw: The writing of his character this season has been all over the place. It undermines his character, despite a strong performance from Todd Stashwick. When Vadic moves to execute one of his crew members, Seven tries to intervene and sacrifice herself. Shaw, the captain, holds her back, telling her there’s nothing she can do. This seemed out of character compared with the Shaw we saw earlier in the season — the rule-following captain who prioritizes the safety of his crew.Shaw strikes me as the type of person who would have offered to sacrifice himself, rather than interrupting Seven’s attempt to do so. Just moments before, Shaw upbraids Seven for not blowing up the turbolift with him inside to keep Vadic from taking over the ship. When T’Veen is executed, Shaw barely reacts. Given his emotiveness throughout the season, that stuck out like a sore thumb.Even so, this episode seemingly brings an end to Vadic, who is sucked out into space, and the Shrike, which is blown up by the newly emboldened Titan crew. As Vadic, Amanda Plummer played an excellent villain, but she deserved a better death — assuming it is a death — than to be so easily outsmarted by Jack. (Not to mention: What was Jack’s plan exactly? What if Vadic hadn’t moved the rest of the crew to another room?)Vadic also leaves with a secret: What’s the deal with Jack? Why is he Professor X? What’s up with the red door?I don’t have a great theory. But Troi says that there’s a “darkness” around Jack and a voice inside him that is “ancient and weak.” “Ancient” is an interesting hint. The Pah-wraiths perhaps? They would have had good reason to link up with changelings after what happened in “Deep Space Nine.”Odds and EndsI lied. One other part of the episode worked for me: seeing the original cast back together in one room for the first time all season. While the episode seemed rushed, this was the moment we’d all been waiting for as we head into the final episodes of the season.Data co-opts Lore’s brotherly resentment and uses it against his evil twin. Historically, Data has often had difficulty reading the room. But in this case, he diagnoses Lore’s jealousy and uses it to mold a whole new version of himself. It’s arguably the most human Data has ever been. Data seems to revel in Lore’s misery when he says, “We are me.” It’s possible that our favorite android has developed the ability to experience schadenfreude. (Also, some fun fan service when Data offers up his memories to Lore, such a Tasha Yar sighting.)Some of the behavior of this new contraction-using Data seemed silly to me, particularly when he “greets” the Titan and calls himself a “friendly positronic pissed-off security system.” If New Data is a combination of Data, Lore, B-4 and Lal, where would that language even come from? It seemed forced, just to get a laugh from the audience. But Data also seems to have a new purpose now: Instead of trying to find out what it means to be human, he’ll now contend with how to handle aging. (Data’s old friends should probably be more suspicious about Data than they seem. Lore has repeatedly shown up in their lives, and he seemed within seconds of taking over the android body entirely. How do they know that Data isn’t actually Lore taking advantage of their need to have their old friend back?)A commenter last week asked a question for which I don’t have an answer: A big part of the plot seems to concern what the changelings will do with the corpse of Jean-Luc, given that he is slated to speak at Frontier Day. But why would Jean-Luc still speak at a big Starfleet celebration when he is a fugitive?The Titan blows up the Shrike. I’m sure there’s no strategic advantage to examining a superior changeling ship’s technology when many of them have taken over Starfleet, but we digress.Vadic orders members of her crew to go find Jack. She has control over a good portion of the Titan. No one thinks to look for a doctor in sickbay? According to Beverly, Vadic didn’t have control of bridge consoles, so how did she have control of the ship? Why wouldn’t she spend her time trying to take command of the most essential section of the Titan? More

It turns out Starfleet is not the force for good that “The Next Generation” had us believe.Season 3, Episode 7: ‘Surrender’For much of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” Starfleet was presented as the most virtuous force in the universe — a body with the aim to do good. No conquest. No fighting. Just good old fashioned exploration. Any time a photon torpedo was fired, it was because the Enterprise was forced to fire by hostile forces. If there were corrupt admirals here and there, they were just bad apples. If the Federation tried to move Native Americans away from their home without their permission to satisfy a silly treaty, it was with noble intentions: to avoid war.After “Next Generation,” Gene Roddenberry’s utopian vision of mankind’s future began to give way to darker versions. “Star Trek: Insurrection” gave us a Starfleet-sponsored plan to steal a planet away from an Indigenous species. In “Deep Space Nine,” we saw Starfleet personnel repeatedly operating in a moral gray area, especially when it came to the Dominion War. In one of the best episodes of “Deep Space Nine,” Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), the show’s hero, helped orchestrate the murder of a Romulan Senator in order to lure the Romulans into the war. Later in the series, we learned that Starfleet tried to orchestrate a genocide of the changelings through a virus — a story line that returned with gusto this week in “Picard.”“When you’re constantly subjected to these self righteous, self-proclaimed heroes, spewing their morality as if vomit were somehow virtuous, then sometimes, dear, a little bend, a little arch, a little antagonizing flair is required,” Lore snarls in front of Geordi in this week’s episode. It seems the “Picard” writers really wanted to take our favorite characters down a peg this season. (Note Shaw’s repeated mention of how often the Enterprise crew got themselves into trouble.)Geordi responds, “Lore has a perverted sense of what it means to be human.”Does he? Or does he have a perfect grasp of what it means to be human based on what we learn in this episode from Vadic?Vadic, after being “captured” on the Titan, tells Beverly and Jean-Luc that the Federation reneged on its promise to give the changelings the cure for the virus at the end of the Dominion War, and in fact, someone had to steal it. I’m a bit unclear as to how this is possible: This would seem to be in direct contrast with what we saw onscreen when Odo cures the Founders himself as a condition of the Founders’ surrender to end the war. Unless the Founders themselves chose to withhold the cure from certain changelings.But nevertheless, Vadic also reveals that she and nine other changelings were experimented on by Starfleet as prisoners of war, as part of Project Proteus. It’s a startling revelation: Starfleet tried to convert changelings into, as Vadic calls them, “perfect, undetectable spies, able to drop into any species and spread chaos,” and instead created the biggest threat to the Federation since … well, since the last one.It’s a far cry from the noble Starfleet that Jean-Luc loved and eschewed a family for. Even the enlightened Beverly isn’t as righteous as she used to be. She introduces the idea of a biological weapon to root out the changelings, which she acknowledges would be tantamount to genocide. The New Jean-Luc indulges the proposal and, later, floats the idea of executing Vadic, once he realizes that they won’t get anything of use from her once she is captured.“Are you and I so fundamentally changed that we’re willing to compromise everything?” Jean-Luc asks Beverly.“Yes,” Beverly says. “I think I’m losing my compass.”In “Next Generation,” this exchange would have led to a moralizing speech from Jean-Luc about how they cannot play judge, jury and executioner. And everyone would have gone home happy, and there would have been virtuous solution. But Jean-Luc and his friends are older now. Harder. They’ve seen some stuff. And deep down, they know Lore was right about what he said.Jean-Luc and Beverly move to execute Vadic and, of course, it doesn’t work. The force field goes down. Vadic escapes and takes over the Titan. Worst of both worlds!Odds and endsWhile finding out Vadic’s motivations in becoming a baddie was certainly a worthwhile addition to the season’s story line, Jean-Luc’s plan, like many of his actions this season, made no sense. His grand idea was to lure the changelings from the Shrike, a superior ship, onto the Titan? When he, of all people, should know is Lore is also onboard and really wants to get revenge on him? Why would Shaw leave a powerful villain alone in a room with just force fields and two older humans not known for their hand-to-hand combat? That’s what security teams are for!Fun cameo from Tim Russ as Tuvok. One takeaway from the conversation, despite its not really being with Tuvok, is that Seven still considers Tuvok a friend — another indication of how fondly she thought of her time on Voyager.It turns out that the generational inheritance Jean-Luc passed onto Jack is actually the abilities of Professor X, now that Jack can read minds and control other people just by thinking really hard.The Shrike needs an upgrade in its scanners. The ship can read that the Titan’s warp core is offline and that the ship is running on emergency power only, but it cannot tell if there is any life on board.Geordi’s speech to Data about mourning him was a nice moment for LeVar Burton. He got to say the goodbye to his favorite android that he didn’t get to say in Data’s previous two deaths. More

Geordi La Forge gets to right some wrongs, but first he has to make up with his daughter in an episode that doubles as a Callback Museum.Season 3, Episode 6: ‘The Bounty’Geordi La Forge, through much of “Next Generation,” on some level needed rehabilitation. He was brilliantly portrayed by LeVar Burton, but he was also sometimes treated like a stereotype: a nerdy engineer who couldn’t get the girl and wasn’t given much else to do. In fact, his main love interest was Dr. Leah Brahms (Susan Gibney), whom he initially met as a hologram.So the non-holographic Brahms was quite creeped out after she found out about her digital counterpart’s tryst with this engineer she didn’t know. This was always a weird story line, which even Burton acknowledged in my recent interview with the cast.“Geordi was a stalker,” Burton said, laughing. “You know, he stalked that woman. And that’s not OK.”“He created a holodeck version of that woman,” He added. “And that’s wrong! It’s just wrong. And the opportunity to right that wrong was central to my enthusiasm to come back and do this again.”In this week’s episode, we finally get to see what Geordi is up to. He is now Commodore La Forge, running the fleet museum and a father to two daughters, Sidney (the pilot of the Titan) and Alandra. There’s a complexity for Geordi that didn’t previously exist, torn between his duty as a friend and as a parent.“Leave it to you, Jean-Luc, to turn fatherhood into an intergalactic incident,” Geordi tells Jean-Luc. This is an apt line, especially when you remember that the reason Beverly never told Jean-Luc about Jack was because Jean-Luc attracts trouble.When Jean-Luc mentions that their precarious situation is “life or death,” Geordi tartly replies: “It’s always life or death, Jean-Luc. When has it not been? Which was fine back in the day when I chose to put my life under your command. But you’ve just knowingly put my daughter in grave danger.”Geordi’s arc is like that of many people who become parents. When they are younger and childless, they feel free to be reckless. But as a parent, when you’re responsible for someone who didn’t ask to be born, the calculations change. Geordi has done his part to save the galaxy. Now, he just wants to keep his kids and himself safe.“I can’t help you and protect them,” Geordi tells Jean-Luc. This is a stinging rejoinder to Jean-Luc’s call for help. And so another close friend of Jean-Luc’s has told him that he poses a risk to their children.The implication from Sidney in her confrontation with her father is that Geordi was hard on her because she chose to be a pilot instead of an engineer — as if that decision had been a specific rejection of him. But Geordi’s own past comes back to haunt him: Sidney considers the Titan crew to be her family, just as Geordi did with the Enterprise’s. That’s the example Geordi set. It’s hard to take that back now. Later in the episode, Geordi says he is disappointed in himself for not having jumped at the chance to help his friends the way the younger Geordi would have.It’s clear that the creative team behind “Picard” put a lot of thought into how to put these characters properly into new spaces, rather than simply rely on the versions we have come to know and love.That even applies to Data, or whatever version of him the team rescues in this episode. Altan Soong, who appeared in earlier seasons of “Picard,” is shown to have died, but not before he created an android that combines Lal, B-4, Lore and Data.Of course, it probably wasn’t realistic to do a proper “Next Generation” reunion without having Brent Spiner resurrect Data. But the way “Picard” does it is quite novel, without discounting his two previous deaths. It gives us the most human version of Data yet, one that has aged and battles multiple personalities. This android has Lore inside him, as well as the childlike Lal and B-4. In a way, that’s all of us. We all struggle with our inner Lore — the ambitious, mischievous and morally dubious inclinations. We also have needs from when we were children that never go away — say, approval and love.And we have our inner Data — clinical versions of ourselves that try to weigh life’s decisions dispassionately. How we balance all of that is what makes us human — and that’s what this new, modern version of Data appears to have to battle with.And I must salute Spiner here — he plays all of these different versions of the android within seconds of one another. It’s a tremendous — and difficult — performance that Spiner nails.Odds and EndsJust a ton of fan service in this episode, particularly at Daystrom Station, which itself is named after Richard Daystrom, a legendary scientist from the original series. Daystrom appears to be a toy store for Section 31 while doubling as a museum for callbacks. Riker, Worf and Raffi walk by the Genesis Device, Tribbles and a skeleton of James Kirk (intrigued at the possibilities here). The holographic crow that shows up is a likely reference to Data’s dreams in the “Next Generation” episode “Birthright,” where Data experiences dreams of his creator. Bringing Professor Moriarty back as part of the artificial intelligence to guard the station was a brilliant touch. And I loved the detail of giving Riker perfect pitch to discern Moriarty’s purpose.Then, of course, there were the actual Fleet Museum ships: The Defiant. The Enterprise-A. Voyager. The Klingon Bird of Prey from “Star Trek: The Voyage Home.”There is a nice moment where Jack acknowledges to Seven the need for connection, after suggesting to Jean-Luc in Episode 4 that he didn’t need anyone. Jack lets his guard down momentarily.The reunion scenes involving Worf, Geordi, Beverly, Jean-Luc and Riker are wonderful. Decades of onscreen chemistry shine through here, even though the characters are in different places than they were the last time they were together. Parental concerns are a theme of this season, and it’s notable that Worf immediately makes the mission about protecting both Starfleet and Jack, his old captain’s son, while Geordi initially declines to take part so he can protect his own children. (Of course, he eventually comes around.)Worf references a “Deep Space Nine” story line, in which Starfleet nearly wiped out the changelings by engineering a virus to infect them during the Dominion War. Although Starfleet eventually came up with a cure — thanks Dr. Bashir! — it radicalized some changelings along the way. More

In this week’s “Picard,” Jean-Luc encounters a familiar face. And he must contain his anger.Season 3, Episode 5: ‘Imposters’I am rarely truly surprised when it comes to television, but my jaw literally dropped when Ro Laren, played by Michelle Forbes, appeared as one of the Federation officers sent to upbraid Jean-Luc and Riker for their antics.A genuinely stunning callback. The last time we saw Ro, she had become a traitor to the Federation by joining the Maquis in their fight against the Cardassians. This was a betrayal so cutting that it left Captain Picard speechless in one of Patrick Stewart’s stronger acting moments. That wasn’t supposed to be the last we saw of Ro, one of the more storied occasional characters in Trek lore. “Deep Space Nine” wanted Forbes to resurrect Ro as part of the cast, but she turned it down.What made Ro a brilliant character is that she was one of the rare figures in “Next Generation” who didn’t automatically buy the righteousness of Starfleet hook, line and sinker.She notes to Jean-Luc during their tense reunion: “Blind faith in any institution does not make one honorable.” Ro questioned the status quo and valued her personal identity — as was signified by her insisting on wearing her Bajoran earring, which Jean-Luc astutely notes is missing when we see her again. This makes her the perfect person to tell the captain she once turned on that Starfleet is compromised at the highest level. Ro, on some level, has always believed that Starfleet is corrupt — just not as blatantly as it is now.It falls somewhere between appropriate and ironic that Ro wants to question her former commanding officers about committing treason. Jean-Luc, understandably, is still enraged that Ro betrayed him all those years ago, though it’s a bit rich at the moment, given why he is in trouble.“Empathy is one thing; betraying a commanding officer is another,” Jean-Luc rages, though we should remember that Jean-Luc just stole a shuttle from the Titan and put the entire crew in danger. But let’s move past that.In the “Picard” version of Ro, she is a commander now, not an ensign. I was mostly fine with the story of how she got there. She was court-martialed, did some time and was recruited to Starfleet Intelligence, which included an “arduous rehabilitation program.” One small quibble: At no point during this process did Starfleet let Jean-Luc know that Ro had turned herself in.Jean-Luc is able to vent his frustrations to Ro directly, though he does it at gunpoint in the holodeck. Historically, Jean-Luc’s family has always been his crew, not his actual family. So to be betrayed by someone he took under his wing is the deepest shiv someone could stick in him, especially on a Starfleet mission. But he has always fundamentally misread Ro: Jean-Luc wanted Ro to be Starfleet’s finest — as she notes — whereas Ro just wanted to be Ro.But even so, Picard’s crew is still family. So when Ro asks Jean-Luc if he trusts her, he immediately says yes. Changelings are everywhere within Starfleet, Ro tells Jean-Luc; and as it turns out, they are right next to her, planting a bomb on her shuttle and thus bringing a closure to Ro’s character that she never properly received on “Next Generation.” That Ro was the behind-the-scenes handler of Worf and Raffi was a nice touch. The three of them have much in common as outsiders who never quite fit the Starfleet mold. Using Ro’s earring as a data chip that could reunite Worf with Riker and Jean-Luc was innovative — and it tells us something else about Ro: She knew she was going to die when she handed the earring to Jean-Luc.This was the best episode in what is turning out to be a strong season for “Picard.” Odds and EndsGenuinely loved the shots showing the Titan being repaired in space. Good example of how much the visuals of Trek have advanced over the decades.Even after all this, Jean-Luc still insists on trying to get his Jack to join Starfleet. “Perhaps you might consider choosing a more honest vocation,” Jean-Luc says. The elder Picard, at his core, is a company man through and through, and even in trying to guide Jack, all roads lead back to Starfleet, despite its being obviously not a good fit. And as we find out later in the episode, the honesty of that vocation is up for debate at the moment.The ship that Starfleet uses to bring its investigators is the U.S.S. Intrepid, a descendant of a ship that appeared on the original series.Ro tells Jean-Luc that she has transferred most of the Titan crew to the Intrepid. Why would they need to be reassigned? If Ro didn’t trust anybody on her own ship or in the rest of Starfleet, wouldn’t she be putting those crew members in danger? This is borne out when Ro crashes her shuttle into the Intrepid to give the Titan time to run, but that also presumably hurt the Titan crew members that were beamed to the Intrepid.I was also surprised that Jean-Luc and Riker encouraged Shaw to take the Titan and run so quickly with Titan crew members on board the Intrepid. Let’s assume the corrupted Starfleet ship wants to frame the Titan for Ro’s death. And lets assume that everyone knows the changelings aren’t afraid to murder.  It stands to reason that Picard, Riker and Shaw would want to take their crew with them.I’m enjoying the show’s willingness to offer fresh takes on members of certain species, like Krinn, a villainous Vulcan, or Sneed, the gangster Vulcan. But this story line is turning out to be unintentionally hilarious. How exactly did Worf and Raffi come up with their plan to capture Krinn? Worf: “OK, Raffi. You set up with your rifle up top while a hologram version of you stands next to me on the ground. Then they’ll discover that. Then Krinn will make us fight each other. Then you stab me, but not too hard. Then when they think I’m dying, I’ll surprise them.” Raffi: “That seems complicated. What if they shoot us on sight?” Worf: “Trust me.” A mea culpa: Last week, I wrote that Picard, while having his haddock, “blithely discusses the accident” that killed Jack Crusher Sr. Multiple readers noted that Picard was talking about a different incident, not the one that killed his old friend. My apologies, a changeling took over my body.   More

In this week’s “Picard,” the crew of the Titan is powerless in more ways than one.Season 3, Episode 4: ‘No Win Scenario’All the world’s a stage, and all the cadets are merely players.Jean-Luc Picard, on some level, has been playing a part. That much is clear in this week’s “Picard.” When he sits down with his haddock and regales the eager cadets with stories of his biggest professional successes, he is putting up a front. The purposeful blocking makes this clear: The lunch table is the stage. The cadets are the audience. And in a brilliant bit of acting by Patrick Stewart, you can see that he’s hamming it up for the cadets. Underneath it, there’s a loneliness.It’s an interesting window into Jean-Luc: He likes the attention, but especially because he doesn’t get it from other places. It’s not ego. It’s insecurity.In that same bit of theatrics, Jean-Luc blithely discusses the accident that killed Beverly’s husband, Jack Crusher’s namesake, and smiles as he describes himself as being “a little bit reckless” in those days.So later in the episode, when the cadets part to reveal a younger Jack at the bar asking Jean-Luc about a life outside of Starfleet and “a real family,” it’s a visual “Let’s cut through the garbage” moment. Jean-Luc’s answer: “Young man, Starfleet has been the only family I have ever needed,” followed by applause from Starfleet cadets. But that’s not as revealing as the visual: They are applauding him, but Jean-Luc is eating alone.One can understand why Jack didn’t feel the need to have Jean-Luc be a part of his life. Jack is established to be a teenager when he shows up to this bar. He learns that Picard never cared about having a family and views the death of the man Jack is named after as an amusing story to be used to charm cadets. It surely rings hollow to Jack on the holodeck in the present day story line when Jean-Luc remarks to Jack, “I think we all need connection, don’t we?”In some ways, Jean-Luc and Jack are very alike: They are both putting up a front about not needing other people and mostly focusing on work; Jean-Luc on his career in Starfleet and Jack on his medical supply runs.Meanwhile, Riker and the rest of the crew’s situation on the Titan is quite bleak. The ship is sinking in a gravity well and losing power rapidly. The officers on the bridge inform Riker that the situation is nearly hopeless. So hopeless that Riker tells Jean-Luc to get his affairs in order and that everyone is essentially about to die. Jonathan Frakes puts in a wonderful performance describing the death of Riker and Troi’s son, and how it created a gulf between grieving parents — one who thrives on sensing emotion, and the other trying his hardest to be numb to the pain.“This is the end, my friend,” Riker tells Picard. “And if I were you, I’d take the next few hours to get to know your son.”I would put Frakes’s work in this episode among the best of any he has done as Riker, including the movies and “Next Generation.”But when Jean-Luc takes his son to the holodeck for some father-son bonding, it’s an extraordinarily distracting plot point. One of the first scenes of the show features officers talking about the hopelessness of the situation because the power is draining from essential systems. Yet, Jean-Luc and Jack go to a perfectly functioning holodeck to have a drink? Jean-Luc waves this away by saying the holodeck relies “on a small, independent power cell for this very reason so that in times of distress it can be a kind of sanctuary.”In other words: plot armor. No one thought to tap into the holodeck for extra power when they are so desperate?(The Picards can handle their whisky. In the “Next Generation” episode “Relics,” Picard throws back a glass of whisky with Scotty as if it is absolutely nothing.)As Jean-Luc and Jack bond, they are interrupted by several crew members who arrive to commiserate. Uh, hey Titan crew? Your ship is falling. Maybe the bridge crew could use a hand with repairs? Or you know, anything? Why are you in a bar?This goes double for Shaw. Seven recruits him to help find the changeling, which is, on its face, a great idea. But why is Shaw in his quarters rather than on the bridge of the ship he is supposed to be commanding? If he’s well enough to perform a complex maneuver to save the ship, why isn’t he well enough to, you know, be captain?And that’s before does he go to the holodeck himself to hang out! In the previous three episodes, Shaw has been painted as putting the concerns of his crew above all. So the notion that as the ship is rapidly losing power, he would just go chill at the bar to yell at Jean-Luc while his bridge crew and Riker try to figure out a way out feels ridiculous.But let’s leave that aside — because I don’t want my head to explode — and examine the big reveal here: the reason for Shaw’s antipathy toward Jean-Luc and Riker. Shaw angrily (and unprofessionally) yells to the whole bar that he was at Wolf 359, and saw many of his fellow crew members die as a result of Locutus, a.k.a. Captain Picard. (Benjamin Sisko was angry at Picard for similar reasons in the pilot of “Deep Space Nine.”) Jean-Luc is accustomed to adoring crowds in bars. He’s not used to being confronted about all the deaths that he — or a version of himself — caused.Todd Stashwick does a nice job conveying Shaw’s righteous anger at Jean-Luc, but it is a bit odd that he selected Seven to be his first officer. Unless she was thrust upon him, he chose a former Borg to be his most trusted commander. (Then again, people are complicated. Maybe he wanted to see past that, and that’s why he insists she go by Annika.)Odds and EndsA cadet asks Jean-Luc about an encounter with the Hirogen. The Hirogen were a predatory species that Voyager encountered in the Delta Quadrant, and I am certainly curious how Jean-Luc’s Enterprise would have encountered them.Riker offers to keep Seven in an “unofficial capacity” to root out the changeling, rather than reinstating her command. You can see how much more comfortable Seven is with an off the books arrangement rather than playing by the rules.Jack mentions offhand to Jean-Luc in the holodeck that he’s been to M’Talas Four, a “vile place.” Raffi has been doing intelligence work at M’Talas Prime this season, and one wonders if these two things are connected. (I’m not entirely clear what M’Talas Four is.)I am also wondering if Vadic’s boss — obscured by, uh, changeling goo — is someone we will find familiar in the future. It demands that Vadic go on a suicide mission, while also making clear the Shrike does not matter in the grand plan.Beverly’s solution of moving “with the wave,” and seeing the old “Next Generation” pals work together to get out of the sticky situation had the feel of the old show. Beverly had the best line: “Look where we are. Here, all of us in this moment. So let’s do what we spent our entire lives learning to be great at.”Does anyone want to command the Titan? Shaw hands it off needlessly to Riker for no discernible reason in a previous episode. In this one, Riker hands it to Jean-Luc for no reason. More

Jean-Luc Picard has not traditionally been much of a family man, but that may be changing.Season 3, Episode 2: ‘Disengage’Um, wait, what? WHAT?!A lot happened in this episode, but I’m mostly focused on the ending.Jean-Luc Picard and Beverly Crusher had a kid together?And that son, Jack, is named after Beverly’s first husband? The one who died and was a close friend of Jean-Luc’s?Let’s break this down, because it is an interesting revelation on several levels. Before “Picard,” Jean-Luc had long kept his career at the forefront of his existence, at the expense of family and love. The closest he came to embracing a family came in the classic episode “The Inner Light,” where Picard is struck by an energy beam and somehow lives the life of someone completely different. It showed Jean-Luc what his life could have been. Romance has historically been rare for him, though there have been some brief flings, including Anij from “Star Trek: Insurrection,” but never officially with Beverly.Also, Jean-Luc has generally hated children. In “Encounter At Farpoint,” the “Next Generation” pilot, he lectures Beverly that children aren’t allowed on the bridge — which is amusing now given that in the future, she will be the mother of one of his children. (Let’s not forget one of the worst written lines in “Trek” history: Picard yelling, “Shut up, Wesley!” to Wesley Crusher.)There was the time Jean-Luc was turned into a child, in the hilarious “Rascals” episode. And he also seems to be a father figure to his nephew René, who dies in “Star Trek: Generations.”Picard was married to the Enterprise. He never seemed to want more than that.But people grow and change. Look at Beverly, who has spent several years traversing the galaxy as a rogue doctor with her son. In some ways, she was the most levelheaded member of the Enterprise crew. She was rarely impulsive and always thoughtful, which made her an ideal match for Jean-Luc. So it must have taken something serious for her to evolve to this.In “Picard,” Jean-Luc appears to be more interested in being a father and family generally. He has a romance with Laris and is essentially a father figure to Dahj, her twin Soji and Elnor.But Jack being Jean-Luc’s son raises many questions. Did Jean-Luc know this whole time about Jack? Or did he find out when he and Beverly exchanged looks on the bridge of the Titan? (This is something likely to be addressed in upcoming episodes, but given the tendencies in the previous seasons of “Picard,” we shouldn’t assume anything.) If Jean-Luc didn’t know, why in the world did Beverly keep the knowledge of a child from his own father and one of her closest confidantes? (In the episode “Attached,” Beverly learns about Jean-Luc’s feelings for her, and that he never acted on them out of respect for her late husband. It’s possible that Beverly kept the knowledge of Jack Jr. from Jean-Luc because of that respect.)Does Jack know? I would guess no based on their conversation while in the brig. (But Jack is professional liar, so again, the assumption thing.) When Jean-Luc asks, “Who is your father?” Jack replies, “I never had one.” I thought I saw a hint of knowing remorse in Patrick Stewart’s face in response, and one could easily interpret Jack’s response as a dig at Jean-Luc for being an absentee father.And what about Wesley?There’s also the matter of Jean-Luc and Beverly actually having been together. That’s never been confirmed until this season of “Picard,” although the creative team more or less revealed this publicly in the summer.Odds and endsCaptain Vadic (Amanda Plummer) makes a solid debut as this season’s villain — she has a sinister cadence, a predatory ship and an apparent unusual familiarity with the old Enterprise crew, as well as Shaw.Maybe this is a reflection on Todd Stashwick’s charming performance, but despite the show’s best efforts to make Shaw seem like a jerk, he really is an admirable captain. Shaw agrees to save Riker and Picard from Vadic’s Shrike at great personal risk to the Titan, even though the pair had duped the ship’s crew and taken them outside of Federation space. Shaw also declines to throw Riker and Picard in the brig, though he would be in the right to do so. (Not to mention the shuttle that Riker and Picard stole, leading to its destruction.) Shaw also continues to let Seven of Nine serve aboard the ship, despite her betrayal of him. And repeatedly, he expresses — very rightfully — his concern for the lives of his crew members.Raffi, apparently now a member of Starfleet Intelligence, has been trying to figure out who attacked a lower-tier Starfleet building. She chooses her profession over her son Gabe — again. But what happened to her relationship with Seven?And it turns out Raffi’s handler is Worf, who promptly beheads the Ferengi Tony Soprano. Quite an entrance, though I fear this may be an example of “Picard” writers opting for short term payoff and forgetting who these characters actually are. Worf moderated the Klingon penchant for violence, particularly as he rose in command in “Deep Space Nine.” So much so that he was actually named ambassador to the Klingon home world at the conclusion of the series. (Then again, Worf did murder the Klingon chancellor Gowron, so maybe he is whatever the plot needs him to be.) I am certainly curious how one of the most famous Klingons in the galaxy — renowned in both Starfleet and among Klingons — ends up working in intelligence.The episode ends with a classic “Trek” trope: An outgunned Starfleet ship sneaking into a nebula to hide. More

The new season of “Picard” reunites the admiral with his old crewmates, something fans have been hoping for since the series began.Season 3, Episode 1: ‘The Next Generation’[Takes deep breaths]I’m being told it is against the Times stylebook for me to yell out a scream of anticipation for this season of “Picard,” which is essentially a catch up with the “Next Generation” cast.So I guess I’ll just write instead.This is easily the most anticipated offering of the new era of “Trek” since, well, the first season of “Picard,” which many fans were hoping would be exactly what the third season is billing itself to be — a reunion of the old show.But before we get to all that, some housekeeping.The last time we saw the crew of the Enterprise all together was in “Star Trek: Nemesis” in 2002, one of the more critically reviled offerings of the “Star Trek” franchise, in part because it needlessly killed off the beloved Data. (It wasn’t disliked only by audiences: Several of the main cast members weren’t fans either, as they told me in our group interview earlier this month.) When “Picard” arrived 18 years later, we learned that our favorite captain had become a retired admiral withering away at his vineyard. Riker and Troi were also mostly retired after serving on the U.S.S. Titan, and Data was killed off again, but this time next to a classy fireplace.The first two seasons of “Picard” have followed a similar trajectory. They’ve started off strong and tailed off as the season went on, leaning heavily into nostalgia as the basis for ambitious plot lines. That would be fine, except the writers have often opted for short-term payoffs rather than long-term storytelling.That nostalgia has sometimes led to some odd choices — such as Picard not being human anymore after becoming an android in Season 1. The show has also sometimes seemed to forget who the characters are, as with last season’s use of Young Guinan.So my excitement about another offering of the “Next Generation” cast is mixed with trepidation.As expected, the season premiere is promising. It’s the 25th century (the onscreen text here is an homage to “Wrath of Khan”). The opening scene includes a large dose of fan service, such as audio of a captain’s log from way back when Picard encountered the Borg for the first time and a plaque referencing Cor Caroli V, a planet where a third season “Next Generation” episode takes place.But the scene doesn’t feature our old friend Jean-Luc but rather our other old friend, Dr. Beverly Crusher. She appears to be on the run from some shady looking aliens. Beverly has developed skills with a phaser, which is contrary to what we saw in her younger days, as Riker points out later. She’s vaporizing enemies now! (Who says you can’t pick up new hobbies as you get older?) And she sends a message to her old captain and sort of crush, Jean-Luc, to say that she needs him — but she does so through his old comm badge using a secret code.Gates McFadden in “Star Trek: Picard.”Trae Patton/Paramount+The fact that “Picard” gives Beverly something to do other than stand around and scan things was a big reason Gates McFadden came back to reprise the role, and it’s a welcome sight.Meanwhile, Jean-Luc finally, after all these decades, seems content in retirement. He is in love with Laris. He might write a book. He’s ready to move to Chaltok IV, a Romulan planet, where he’ll sip Saurian brandy and wind down his life. He’s earned it. But again, he’s an android now, so he can’t die. Not really. Can he even taste brandy? See where the long-term plot issues are? (Fun reference here: Picard holding the flute from the classic “Next Generation” episode “Inner Light.”)But Beverly needs saving. She sends Jean-Luc a coded message telling him to trust nobody. For some reason, Jean-Luc tells Laris, Beverly hasn’t spoken to member of the Enterprise crew for 20 years. (This would mean that shortly after the events of “Nemesis,” Crusher cut off her closest friends. Excited to find out why!) Props to Laris — a Romulan intelligence operative — for being totally chill with one of Jean-Luc’s exes reaching out for a secret rendezvous. True love.Riker and Picard meet up at Guinan’s bar during Frontier Day celebrations, where Picard tells Riker about the secret message.“I wouldn’t have asked to meet you like this if it hadn’t been very important,” Jean-Luc tells his old first officer. (At a crowded bar? Where people could easily eavesdrop? Of course, moments later, we see someone doing exactly that.)Jonathan Frakes and Patrick Stewart have instant chemistry, borne of decades of working together. But Riker suggests to Picard that he is on the outs with his wife, Troi — another member of the old crew. (This raises a question: Troi and Crusher were close friends on the Enterprise, why wouldn’t Jean-Luc want to tell her too? Why just Riker?)Riker instantly agrees on a scheme to hit the road to the Ryton system, like Jake and Elroy. That’s what bros do, after all. They hatch a scheme to commander the sleek looking U.S.S. Titan, Riker’s old command. Another nice traditional “Trek” moment: glamour shots of the exterior. (I hate to be that guy, but Beverly’s message specifically said not to involve Starfleet. So why would Riker and Picard center their plan on using a Starfleet ship? Surely, they can find another deep space charter. OK, I admit it: I don’t hate being that guy.)The Titan is commanded by Captain Shaw, played by the charming Todd Stashwick. He is a magnetic presence, but Shaw’s previous post appears have been on the U.S.S. Jerkface, because he is, without explanation, rude and dismissive of two legendary Starfleet officers. He doesn’t even greet them when they arrive, instead sending Seven of Nine — er, Commander Annika Hansen. Shaw also isn’t on the bridge to greet visitors for what is apparently an inspection or giving orders when the ship leaves spacedock. (Picard gives the order to Seven to take out the ship. Why isn’t Shaw doing that?) Almost every single sentence uttered by Shaw is dripping with condescending rudeness.“Captain Shaw prefers I use Hansen,” Seven tells Jean-Luc. Since when does a Starfleet captain in the 25th century get to decide what your name is? (We’re going to use Seven for now, since that’s what she’s known as mostly throughout the “Trek” universe.)It’s a strange dynamic and here’s the problem: Shaw is painted as the unlikable villain of the episode. Seven even says that Shaw’s behavior is making her reconsider joining Starfleet. But Shaw’s stance is absolutely correct. When Riker says he wants to unexpectedly divert the ship to the Ryton system, Shaw says, “That’s at the edge of Federation space at the opposite direction of our intended course — twice the time.”He’s been given no heads up on this mission. Jean-Luc may be an admiral, but he is retired. Riker doesn’t even outrank Shaw. Why would he follow this clearly suspicious order that comes out of nowhere with no real explanation other than “bragging rights?” Picard makes it all the more weird when he says they’ll end up at Deep Space 4, which, as Shaw notes, has been shut down. (Picard should know better. In the “Next Generation” episode “The Pegasus,” Picard defies an admiral who tries to take command of the Enterprise.) As far as Seven goes, seen through another lens, Shaw trusting her to take the ship out of spacedock without him needing to be there is an example of him having faith in her.Seven quickly breaks Shaw’s faith by sending the ship to the Ryton section anyway. This area of space is outside the Federation’s jurisdiction and far away from Earth, so it must have taken a long time to get there, even at maximum warp. Is Shaw such a detached captain that he doesn’t notice when his ship goes in the opposite direction? Especially given his fondness for rules and regulations? Despite Shaw’s personality flaws, all his actions showed me in this episode is that he’s a competent Starfleet captain who can see through blatant lies.The episode ends with intrigue on Beverly’s ship when Riker and Picard meet — dun, dun, dun — her son. (There is an explicit reference that Picard and Crusher actually were lovers, when Picard says that he made her a mixtape.)All in all, a fun episode. Seeing Riker and Jean-Luc interact like the old friends that they are went down easy like a glass of Chateau Picard. My excitement — and my trepidation — remains high. More