Star Trek Picard Season 3
Score: 9/10
Watched on: Amazon Prime UK.
Tagline: "One Nerd boldy tries to fix years of Star Trek Franchise mismanagement"
Thoughts:
So I've read some of the takes here about it being bad.
I've read the piece the Escapist Darren Mooney put out
Star Trek: Picard season 3 indulged in the most incestuous forms of fan service to tell an insular story of old people who preempt a future.
www.escapistmagazine.com
And
I DISAGREE
Full disclosure I only watched Season 1 of Picard and skipped Season 2 mostly watching Red Letter Media do overviews of the episodes because Season 1 was kind of bad in many ways. Season 1 had some redeeming moments. At the time I theorised in the writers room were multiple writers one of whom wasn't allowed much power but was an absolute Star Trek nerd and most of their input was in adding less mainstream bits of Star Trek lore into the mix like references to alien races whose total screen time amounted to less than 30 seconds in an Alex Kurtzman film and beyond that only ever appearing in extended universe material and the old kids cartoon Star Trek stuff. Or actual well thought out additions to lore like the fact Romulan warning signs are green, why? because Romulan's have green blood so while human society evolved with red warning signs due to red being something that makes people pay attention due to psychology and stuff related to human blood colour it makes sense the Romulans would evolve with green being their go to warning colour.
Picard Season 3 feels like the nerd in the room was given a shot after a fairly abysmal Picard Season 2 reaction and the nerd in the room heard everyone's criticism right down to Riker's pizza looking a bit burned in season 1 and people mocking Riker's log cabin.
Just for entertainment's sake lets go through some of what I spotted as attempts to correct the course of Star Trek or address criticisms: (spoiler warnings)
The CGI Data in Season 1 was uncanny valley and crap - (yes they used CGI to try and make Brent Spiner look younger and do his look for Data in season 1) = OK Season 3 other than contacts it's Brent Spiner and they've figured out a way to write it in.
But Picard and Data weren't super best friends he was more friends with Geordi - Brings back Geordi
I've already mentioned the pizza and log cabin stuff.
Jesus who thought it was a good idea to imply a possible romantic relationship between Raffi and Seven of Nine? - Yeh they broke up they weren't good together and both are embarrassed it ever happened.
Isn't the Romulan lady Picardhas feelings for way younger than him and it's a bit weird cause isn't she his housekeeper - You get one scene and the show wrote her out and doesn't bring her back up.
Too much bullshit action sequence ship fights etc - An entire episode long ship battle that really is "Big ships in space" where it's not about blasting but tactics and strategy with barely any weapons fired.
JJ Abrams Lens flares being used way too much - I spotted maybe 2 lens flares in the entire thing maybe 3 done very tastefully without the white glare bit of it ending up on screen.
Raffi is all kinds of awful and unlikable - We took all the messed up Raffi and turned it into a base for character development turning her into basically martial arts trained Reginald Barclay
"We don't like the Enterprise E" - Enterprise D is back baby.
The Federation is meant to be a really good altruistic future society how did it get so screwed up? - Here's a plot that could explain why it's all so messed up.
Admiral Shelby was just vile in Season 1 - Watch her get her comeuppance in Season 3 as she gets blasted
One thing Darren and people in this thread are right about, the show looks back to the past a lot this season but what people are seemingly mistaking for "Memberberries" or Nostalgic fan pleasing is actually shockingly in keeping with the theme of this season which is generational legacy and trauma. This is a season that invokes the Dominion wars and the idea maybe Star Fleet committed War Crimes,
including what impact that would have on a society. It looks at the idea of the good and bad of what we pass on to the next generation.
One great example is captain Shaw and his sort of arc on the show with his traumatic past as
a survivor of Wolf 359 colouring his actions.
This season was looking to the past, to put it to rest properly, not to rebel and to use a Star Wars line "Kill the past" to try and make it seems like something that needs replacing for being bad. No the replacement is part of the progression of time itself it's not replacing it, it's carrying on the legacy of the past still.
It's kind of notable the season finale is literally the collective borg taking control of the younger crew mates to turn them against the older ones which you can interpret quite easily as a shot at the kind of disrespect for legacy characters being seen from many writers these days feeling their new characters must take over from, beat and replace the older ones.
Side Note: The final episode of Season 3 also felt like almost reaching out a hand as a gesture of peace to the Star Wars Fandom by having the Enterprise do a basically a Death Star Trench run.
Also the series is called Picard, looking to the past is a bit in the name plus probably doesn't help they killed off / wrote out most of the new characters in season 2 already so the writers lost the majority of the new established characters so quickly had to establish some new ones and fill out the rest with people who Star Trek fans hopefully would know.
The only reason I gave this season a 9 not a 10 is it's literally so much about dealing with the baggage of previous season and also the franchise as a while and taking on that much repair work at once I felt did drag the show down slightly.