Star Trek: Picard is back for its third and final season, which promises to reunite the entire main cast of The Next Generation. So without further ado, let’s dive into the season opener, the cheekily named “The Next Generation,” which sees Admiral Jean-Luc Picard and Captain Will Riker reunite after receiving a coded distress message from Dr. Beverly Crusher.
1. A Slowburn Reunion is Time Well Spent
Unsurprisingly, Gates McFadden (Crusher) is the only Next Generation cast member who’s been absent since Star Trek Nemesis to return here, with Jean-Luc spending most of the episode in Riker’s company. (Geordi La Forge is mentioned several times, with us learning he’s now working at Starfleet Museum, but we only meet his daughter, whom we’ll discuss later.) However, while Jonathan Frakes has appeared as Riker in season one and Lower Decks, his buddy act with Patrick Stewart is still a delight to revel in, oozing a natural chemistry that can only come from being lifelong friends in the real world. At one point, Picard asks the usually stoic Riker if he’s having fun: I think it’s safe to say he did, onscreen and offscreen.
2. She Was Always Ugly-Pretty
There’s an amusing contrast in the way the Enterprise-D is presented in Jean-Luc and Riker’s first scenes: in the former, Picard and Laris are gazing at a painting of what he admits was his most beloved command, while in the latter, Will is told by a bartender at Guinan’s that no one wants merchandise of the Galaxy-class ship. I can hazard a guess: with all due respect to her designer, Andrew Probert, many fans consider The Next Generation‘s flagship to be ugly, especially compared to Kirk’s Enterprise. You can even see this from the decision to make the USS Titan, our new hero ship, a Neo-Constitution-class, the same as Kirk’s command(s), because no one apparently wants a vessel with small and low forward-facing nacelles anymore.
3. Trouble in Paradise
Seven of Nine has been persuaded by Picard and Janeway to join Starfleet, and appointed first officer of the Titan: unfortunately, her commanding officer, Liam Shaw (Todd Stashwick), is an uptight jerk, who insists that she use her birthname Annika Hansen. Raffi, meanwhile, is working for Starfleet Intelligence, pursuing technology stolen from the Daystrom Institute that is ultimately used in a terrorist attack on San Francisco. It’s clear from Raffi’s cover as a homeless drug addict that she does feel slightly abandoned by her girlfriend as a result of their differing assignments: hopefully that’s not going to actually cause her to relapse into substance abuse though.
4. The Next Next Generation
Picard and Riker are delighted to learn Geordi’s daughter, Sidney La Forge (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut), is the Titan‘s helmsman, and embarrass her like the dopey old uncles they are by bringing up the two times she crashed a shuttle as a cadet – how adorably true to life. As well as her, it’s revealed Beverly had another son, Jack (Ed Speleers), who is her protector aboard their ship outside Federation space. Now, unlike his mother, Jack has a British accent, and as Jean-Luc admits to Laris, he and Beverly nearly became an item: could they be father and son? Unfortunately, we’re going to have to wait to find out. (Also, I am well aware of the irony that we could discern who our French protagonist’s son is via a British accent.)
5. An Abrupt Cliffhanger
It all ends on an abrupt note after we meet Jack, as the flagship of Beverly’s pursuers emerges and then… we cut to credits. I truly disliked that we didn’t get to see the face of their commander at least, it’s clearly one of those times Paramount+ should’ve premiered two episodes. Showing the terrorist attack in San Francisco before Picard and Riker found the Crushers also diluted the shock of that scene, it would’ve been much more effective as the ending, even if Raffi is the protagonist in those moments instead of Picard. C’est la vie, but if only Paramount+ used the Netflix model to release their Star Trek series, especially one as heavily serialized as this show.
Bonus Thoughts:
– The synthesized music during Laris’s farewell to Picard was really striking, given how orchestral Star Trek‘s music usually is: the eerie sound really laid bare her fear that he might not come back home this time round.
Continued below– Raffi is seen watching a video of her granddaughter, which implies she may’ve reconciled with her son after season one.
– This episode is dedicated to Annie Wersching, the actress who played the Borg Queen in the show’s second season; she died last month from cancer, aged only 45.
See you all until the finale in our Boomb Tube column friends. In the meantime, as always, live long and prosper.
