I’m currently rewatching it, and at first I admit I hated the season and didn’t understand all the praise it got, but on this second viewing, I am actually warming up a bit to it. It still is deeply flawed, with a lot of things that don’t make sense or could have been done better, but I kinda like it regardless. What do you think?
I thought it got off to a promising start, but ultimately it wasn’t for me.
By the end of it, it seemed to me like nothing more than a series of clumsy excuses to get the band back together, without much regard for the actual story allegedly being told. I was never really excited by the prospect of the big TNG reunion, so I wasn’t a fan.
Overall I liked it, but I agree, it didn’t really stick the landing and unraveled a bit as it went on.
I think the part(s) I’ve liked the most and will take away as a fan long term:
- Data and Lore merging. As contrived as the whole thing was to get Data back in the show, I think the idea of what happened here made a lot of sense. That Data’s final victory over Lore was growing organically and then effectively learning from Lore just as he’d learnt from everyone else.
- Geordi putting the Enterprise-D back together as a side project was always a cool idea, and seeing it again, though a nostalgic fest, was wonderful
- Odo and Worf staying in contact after DS9
- Seven being an annoying, obstinate but ultimately awesome starfleet officer come captain
- The Picard family breakthrough with the revelation that his son had secretly confronted him about family and been told that starfleet is the only family he never needed … that was a good Picard character moment that works well in the whole continuity.
- Setting the stage, at least tonally, for what the next “Next Generation” can look like as a Star Trek show. So far, all the new star trek we’ve got since Voyager has either been a prequel or reboot, except for Picard, where even S3 was so heavy on nostalgia that it doesn’t really count as “new”. Discovery went into the future, which was cool. But it’d be nice to see how things progress and continue to do Trek in a way that is modern and new, where, for example, the Shaw/Seven dynamic just felt like a fresh take on Trek.
I think it really captured the “human element” of Star Trek. The conversations and the way people interacted with each other was on-point. I feel like the writers were able to bring back the TNG characters in a way that felt appropriate both to who they were and who they might have become in the following decades.
However, there really wasn’t much to chew on in the sci-fi department, to the point I really wouldn’t say it was even science fiction but a people-driven drama that happened to be set in space. I can understand why some people would’ve been thrown off by that.
You nailed it
I imagine this is closer to what fans were looking forward to when the Picard show was first announced. I still massively cringe to the memory of Han Data flying the Millennium Enterprise through the Borg structure, but otherwise I like it.
Flying into the Borg cube to blow up its core was so fan fictiony I actually laughed when I first saw it.
Haha yes. I was accepting of it because it felt like Data’s retrospective in-universe fan fiction, especially in the new Data-Lore form. Like he started to wonder how far he could push the Enterprise D, and given that they had nothing to lose, he was basically like “fuck it, let’s see what happens”.
And honestly, from a “technical” stand point, it made a lot of sense that only Data could do that, which I wish they’d made a tad more clear with a line or two about what the actual challenge of that would have been. Obviously he’d have to be making all sorts of calculations ahead of time, reading in output from the console faster than any human could and hitting the controls similarly fast. Maybe a line about the margin of error for swinging the ship’s momentum around being stupidly slight but Data’s precision being up to the challenge and that he’d actually been modelling the problem of maximising the ship’s agility for years without telling anyone … cuz he’s Data and can literally do that.
@maegul @startrekexplained At first it looked strange (but awesome) because the Enterprise is so massive. But then if you think about it, why shouldn’t it be super nimble, especially with an android flying it. It’s certainly got enough power to spare and my understanding is that even impulse engines generate a subspace field and we know this lower the mass of what they envelop so…basically Data could’ve tuned the ship to be light and quick to whatever degree he wanted.
I don’t doubt it’s a very cool scene, it’s just that it’s reminiscent of fan fiction I read as a kid back in the day so it amused me.
I also like that Data is alive again, because I didn’t like either of his deaths personally. He’s my favorite character in the franchise and was my favorite character of all time as a kid so it’s just a nice touch IMO.
Yea some found it inconsistent that he wanted to die in S1 and was happy to live in S3. First, his dying in S1, while wonderful in its own way, wasn’t the tightest or most obvious character point. I head-canon-ed it as being specific to that particular recreation of data and his experience as a prototyped recreation stuck in a machine.
But also, being stuck with Lore is a completely different experience and the way it played out made a lot of sense in the broader arc of Data’s journey. You can imagine Noonian Soong loving that his two children ended up this way.
I guess the problem I had with his death in season 1 is he didn’t really live that long to want to die. That and in TNG they had him confused as to why anyone would commit suicide, stuff like that.
Yea, exactly, if anything, it was the S1 death that was contrived to provide a reason as to why Spiner wasn’t just going to return as Data.
Didn’t they hand wave it to say that he’d been alive inside the simulation for years?
I forget, but I wouldnt be surprised
I laughed here as well; but I just cracked up when the Enterprise posed over Riker, Worf, and Picard and Jack!
In theory the Enterprise should have always been able to handle like that given it’s tech, they just didn’t have the budget to do in in the day.
Overall, I enjoyed it. Seeing all of TNG’s main cast back together was great. And, that the characters weren’t static, they had changed over the years. Yet they weren’t complete reworkings of how they were in TNG, as in being unrecognizable. Except for Data, because of his situation. I like this latest iteration of Data. Seeing some non-TNG Star Trek characters was wonderful. I like that we got to see some Raffi 2.0. Clean of her addictions and back in full fighting trim. Still with her determination to keep working on mysteries that threaten the Federation
The story had some highs and some plot holes, but was a fun ride. But, I don’t think it was perfect.
I would not have minded if PIC season 3 had fewer episodes if that meant that the pacing would have been tighter. Multiple episodes of, " … and, they’re still in the nebula," got old for me.
Not unleashing the full talent of Amanda Plummer as Vadic until late in the season was a waste. Until episode 7 (IIRC), Vadic struck me as quirky. Nothing more. However, Ms. Plummer’s performance as Vadic from episode 7 on blew me away.
Fleet Formation protocol is such a bad idea, I can’t imagine how it was approved.
Vadic knows a lot about Starfleet personnel, so it’s likely that she knew about Kestra. Vadic’s people captured Troi, but how or why did they not also capture Kestra? While I’m glad that Kestra was never in Vadic’s clutches, and it’s a minor point, I still keep wondering what happened.
Shaw’s end. I am still very, very salty about that.
The seemingly dogged determination to not have any sign of the Agnes Borg Queen or Elnor. I know the Agnes Borg Queen is busy (PIC season 2), but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping for a Borg Queen vs. Borg Queen mega-throw down. I think Elnor would have fit in the season 3 narration, and absolutely deserved a seat on the bridge of the re-named Titan more so than Jack.
Jack. First, I think Ed Speleers’ performance was done well. I applaud how he showed the hurt from Picard choosing Starfleet over having a family, how childhood pains don’t always heal over time. However, that couldn’t make up for the show’s overwhelming attempt to force Jack as Picard: The Next Generation. Right down to renaming the Titan and Q’s appearance. There was too much, “why don’t you people just talk to each other,” forced drama between Jack and pretty much everyone else. And, Jack getting fast-tracked through Starfleet, and a position on the bridge, irked me. Nothing in PIC season 3 convinced me that he deserved that. And, Picard pushing for his offspring to get a free pass through Starfleet seems out of character.
Again, I like PIC season 3. I’ll be getting the physical media of it. I recommend others view it.
Jack getting into Starfleet and assigned to a ship so fast can be easily explained with Starfleet being low on people after the events of the show. Also, he’s still an ensign, so he didn’t get jumped through the ranks. His bridge position is also something that Seven gave him as a special assignment rather than a standard bridge position specifically because of his background. He’s essentially a formalized version of Mariner’s role on the Ceritos.
110% with you on Shaw’s fate. Next to Pike, he’s the best thing about this entire relaunch of the brand and well… yeah, not a fan of any of that I guess I’ll keep it as
Definitely the best season compared to the first two. It hit all the right nostalgia notes. I had a problem with the villains being the Changelings + Borg and with the Titan being renamed and the Enterprise F getting like 1 minute of screentime. It for sure has its issues but I still enjoyed it.
I loved it. Wasn’t perfect, but the characters acted like believable older versions of the ones I fell in love with back in the 80’s, unlike Nemesis or the first two seasons of Picard. The action was great. It was an emotionally satisfying send-off to that era of Trek. It, SNW, Lower Decks and Prodigy (RIP) really rekindled my love of Star Trek.
I think S3 gets the passes it gets on the nostalgia and crew alone.
The plot is goddamn nonsensical shit. But oh, is it grand to see everyone back together
Characters wander in and out of the story with little logic, the Dominion plot line just kind of trails off, and all of Starfleet vs Starbase 1 was kind of silly.
But Shaw is an amazing character, Vadic is fun to watch, the TNG crew got a far better send off than Nemesis, and the acting is fantastic. The fanservice of seeing the Ro, Shelby, Moriarty, and the E-D again was also fantastic as someone who grew up watching TNG with my dad.
The season has problems, but I love it anyway.
Oh a good character- or even actor coughmichaesheencough can absolutely elevate. And like you said, damn, that proper sendoff Nemesis denied us.
The main issue i have is it’s got the common problem witha lot of Kurtzmann treks (and into darkness) - cherry picking the high notes from the franchise, then misusing them.
Reusing trek threads can be amazing - what voyager did with Borg lore, hell, what WoK did with space seed! but there needs to be actual solid progression and daaamn did it fail. The fallout of the dominion war is something i would love to see handled properly, especially the implications of the fall from ideals under duress DS9 ran with. But Picard didn’t deliver. And as awesomely horrific as that Giger queen was, it was all sizzle very little steak.
It was…okay. I liked what they did with Seven getting the hang of Starfleet. But the main plot was just the usual Big Villain Apocalypse Drama. Oh boy, another end of the Federation threat! And it’s the same one we had the last two seasons! I wish they would’ve got away from everything being on fire all the time and done a lower-key story with more room for the characters to be themselves.
It’s a TV reunion special. I think it accomplished everything it set out to do - reunite the cast, bring back an old bad guy for another thrashing, and show that the TNG crew’s lives and adventures have continuing impact on the Star Trek world. Also heaping some disses on the first two PIC seasons. And the new characters seem cool.
I wish it had set out to tell an original story instead.
The Borg would have had a bigger impact if they didn’t already feature in the first two seasons.
They would have had a bigger impact if the previous season hadn’t turned them into friends who were then completely forgotten about.
One scene saying something like ‘Oh, the Borg are here. I wonder why Agnes didn’t contact us first’ would have made it a bit more believable, rather than ‘We made friends with the Borg but now we’re scared when they’re mentioned’.
Yeah its weird they didnt ask for help from the Jurati borg
It’s a lot better than season 1 or 2. But its still no where near where even season 1 of tng was.
I just want an optimistic view of humanity’s future where they do moral plays on the problems of today. And so far in all 3 seasons of picard they’ve failed that.
@keeb420 @startrekexplained There were things I loved and didn’t love about all 3 seasons, but S3 was, to me, a particularly egregious nostalgia-fest. I was bored most of the time, especially with the villains, and the recycled plot of “ships controlled by AI are a bad idea,” which, thanks, we’ve known since TOS. It felt all in service of getting the Next Gen gang back together, playing poker, which could’ve been accomplished in 1 episode.
@keeb420 @startrekexplained And oh yeah, the whole “Picard’s son” storyline? Kudos to the actor, but it was a dull plotline, and it just didn’t seem in character at all for Beverly to hide that from Picard, no matter how they tried to explain it.
I mean…they could have had Wesley in there! Yeah, there are “reasons” why he’s not supposed to show up, but those reasons are way flimsier than what they came up with for keeping the other guy secret.
I actually kinda like TNG season 1, as cringey as it gets.
Yeah PIC was just action and melodrama.
You don’t think that enemies of the state using technology to subtly influence members os our western society to turn them against the system is an analogy to how bot farms in China/Russia work in real life?
@startrekexplained @keeb420 I forced my way through PIC S1 last year but abandoned it when I discovered SNW. I cannot with chaotic plot arcs threaded everywhere and shoehorned cliffhangers that turn out to be insignificant. TNG/SNW tell a complete story per-episode with some wider arcs holding seasons together. That works and is the only trek I can enjoy. The PIC/DISC format invites lazy writing and breaks suspension of disbelief, which is needed to appreciate trek.
Wouldn’t you say the second season was a take on bringing real world problems into Star Trek context? The dystopia reality is an authoritarian regime founded on racism, and the planet is dying from ignored climate change, only barely being held together by essentially giant force fields in the sky.
If anything I found it a bit too on the nose for Trek, though that impression might be colored by this being the first real life issue of my time that is a topic in Trek. When old Trek shows aired the first time I was just a little kid and missed most of those; so I can’t relate as much.
In the future–far enough that Geordi calls the Enterprise D “older” and “analogue”!–Starfleet will unveil a new technological marvel that was never thought possible until 2401: remote control ships. 🤔
But we already had remote-controlled, crewless ships.
This entire series was messed up. Every season disjointed from the other and all of them having various major flaws. But sure, S3 was “OK” although I feel pretty much over that enemy… I’m not sure how they still don’t suspect it’s starting to feel stale. Also, fan service was over the top with unbelievable scenarios conveniently bringing everyone instantly together.
It’s the piece of corn in the turd.
I enjoyed seeing so many beloved characters again, and it had several very good moments, but seasons 1 and 2 did Jean-Luc dirty and S3 didn’t make up for that.
I thought it was fine. Some nice moments, some good nostalgia, but that’s about it.
I think it was great. Felt like I was watching a new season of TNG. In a season with so many legacy characters, I was not expecting that Vadic and Shaw would end up being some of my favorite characters. Great send off for the TNG crew. :)
