The most peculiar thing about “Picard” is how much it plays like a sequel to Star Trek: Nemesis. Not because Tom Hardy guests as Patrick Stewart’s unlikely Romulan clone or… wait, what else happened in that movie? Oh, yeah, Troi got mind raped… again. No Troi (Marina Sirtis) in this episode, thank goodness. Not thank goodness because Sirtis wouldn’t be a welcome guest star but more because… can they manage to have her guest star and not mind-rape her. It was basically her only subplot on the show. Anyway, Data (Brent Spiner) also died in Nemesis and “Picard” is all about Data. See, it turns out Data might have successfully made a daughter—Isa Briones—or something. Even though Spiner shows up in Stewart’s dream sequences, it’s not like a ghost Data, just a memory, so dream Data can’t exactly tell Stewart about the daughter.
But also the Romulan thing; “Picard” is set after the Romulan homeworld blew up in Star Trek (2009) and Eric Bana went to the past to kill Kirk’s dad and so we got the (now failed?) reboot series. “Picard”’s all about how Stewart tried to help the Romulans but then a bunch of androids blew up Mars and the Federation decided they were too busy with that to help the Romulans and let a bunch of them die. By bunch, we’re talking hundreds of millions or billions. In order not to feel the immeasurable guilt, the Federation apparently now demonizes Romulans, even though Stewart’s got Romulan… servants. I mean, they’re staff, but it’s staff like… servants. They cook for him. Jamie McShane and Orla Brady. They’re good. Okay Romulan makeup… but it does look a lot like Nemesis. Points for continuity?
The episode also refers to the Borg in a big way—the reference is the cliffhanger—and there’s trouble in store for an unsuspecting Briones, so good thing Stewart’s got his mojo back and is going to save her. See, he’s spent the last twenty years moping because the Federation decided to let the Romulans die. Stewart thought it was shitty. So he went back to Earth and ran his family vineyard (though the robots do all the work) and moped. Wrote history books but Federation civilians don’t care about history. They don’t even know what Dunkirk means (guess Christopher Nolan doesn’t survive 300 years).
The first episode’s poorly plotted in that streaming series way—no idea what the series is going to be like based on this episode, it doesn’t even introduce all the regular cast and (apparent) costar Alison Pill only shows up for the last few minutes. Pill’s good though. She’s got enough energy to play off Stewart.
As for Stewart… “Picard” is an okay part for him. No great heavy lifting so far because he’s done all this moping stuff before, in various times through both the TV series and the movies. It’s kind of cool to see “based upon ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ by Gene Roddenberry” in the opening titles though. Like, it’s something different. Even if the show’s not really anything different or new.
In fact, “Picard” is probably about ten years late. “Star Trek,” as a franchise, is all about extended delay sequelizing.
Okay, maybe not ten years… eight years. Nemesis was 2002. “Next Generation” was due for its revisit in 2012. Eight years late.
Will it be good? Eh. Maybe. It’ll at least be… engaging, if they can keep it going with all the references to catch.
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