As written before, I came into Star Trek: Picard season two with virgin eyes. Beyond some internet videos providing some critical snickers at the expense of season one, I knew little about that story going into this. Perhaps I knew just enough for the gist of who these new characters were... but not with enough exposure to them as to draw my own conclusions, either upon that or the overall quality of the show. Those were... good times. Better times... innocent times...
This barely meets any definition to qualify as Science Fiction... because I don't know what genre this bland, vacuous, 'feeling over substance', 'vague mystery over actual plot' dungheap currently debauching the Star Trek name fits into. Actual Star Trek, the idea of which I clung to like Linus' blanket while watching this incomprehensibly awful Picard show... that's clearly gone. Long dead, it seems. What's worse, this new whatever-the-shit" isn't just beating that dead horse, it is fucking the corpse while whispering "I still love you baby! Let's have all your old friends over for drinks next week!"
Never did I think this show could be so bad that even writing about it would be unpleasantly difficult. I feel like a trauma victim just trying to understand what happened. Growing up as a wee lad I simply loved Star Trek: The Next Generation, cherished it more than almost anything. Here in Toronto, CityTv (or maybe The New VR) through syndication would broadcast each episode in order weekdays at 11am, so I'd set our VCR to record it before going off to Jesse Ketchum school for Grade 7... diligently watching it once I got home. As an even younger child seeing Picard as Locutus scared me so much I couldn't even watch that episode for a long time. Meanwhile, the concept of this positive, fantastic future with heroes that won the day with their brains and morals surely helped dig the roots for my love of science fiction, and eventually my own desire to write such stories as a teen. Without Star Trek, perhaps I never feel inspired to write my own creative works. This has always meant quite a lot to me.
Gene Roddenberry had many flaws as a writer, producer, creator of worlds etc... but one thing he got right was wanting consistent continuity in the Trek universe. TNG (once it grew out of the original series' dated shadow thanks to Gene stepping back) still always respected and revered this source material, despite also very much becoming its own show. DS9 and Voyager likewise later maintained that faithfulness even within a growing canon and universe (and many time travel hiccups). This is because all these shows had writers and crew involved who (while often understandably disgruntled at times) at least knew and cared enough about what Star Trek was and thus how to bend it, but not break it.
Picard broke Star Trek for me. This show, with its facade of winks and familiarites, never gave two shitty farts about any of that stuff. Fine, I could've still respected this if it told a story worth telling, but even objectively... totally removed from anything Star Trek... this was a complete scatterbrained mess. Discard all the 'Trek' stuff that spits upon its own rich, established universe and its just a nonsensical, overdramatized, pointlessly obtuse cul-de-sac. Add all that Trek stuff in and....
....well. I've watched a few worse things. Plenty of 'B' movies that can barely qualify as films, filled with non actors, terrible effects, confusing or just non-existent stories. Star Trek: Picard however must be the most painful thing I've ever watched. Watch a horrible film like Hobgoblins: it's incredibly tedious, bad and uncomfortable... but then once it's over you say "that really sucked" and nothing else beyond ridicules exist in your thoughts onward. Picard season 2 for me was akin to watching somebody you grew up admiring, somebody even there for you when you were really down... suddenly become a sleazy con-artist accosting women on the street corner. It hurts, man. It's heavy... jabs the depth of the soul. And in the back of your mind... you wish you'd never seen such a thing.
Can't say I'm glad I watched Picard, but at least I now know the reality of it.
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What, you're still here? Fine. As this will be the very last time I ever write about this horrible fucking show (and possibly ever about Star Trek)... let me run down how an already terrible story went completely face first into sheer inane idiocy. Because, dear reader, I will not take your intelligence or your patronage for granted (unlike the loathsome creators of Picard).
After episode 7, we left off... where? When? Why? Oh right.... Picard and "Young Guinan" are captured by FBI or whatever and are being interrogated. In the last interesting scene the show will ever have, Q reveals to her that he is dying. A curious situation for an entity that has experienced so much, a nearly endless lifetime of infinite possibilities, to suddenly come to grips with a finite existence. Enjoy it. John de Lancie nails this subtle fear amidst Q's usual attitude of superiority. It's the closest to actual philosophy and existentialism this show ever approaches and naturally the scene is barely a minute long.
The rest of this.... facepalm wow. Borg Queen Agnes teams up with Ancestor Soong because... villains gotta villain I guess. Apparently Renee Picard's space mission finds something that makes Soong's genetics work invalid or something, so for the future dystopia to happen Renee must be stopped. Hey, remember Renee Picard? The astronaut ancestor of the title character? Remember her? No? Nor do I! She's been onscreen for five minutes! To consolidate this trite team-up nobody wanted, Borg Agnes (Borgnes?) assimilates some special agent FBI people so to hunt down Admiral Picard. Geezus... this feels like it insults my intelligence even when making fun of it.
So all of episode 8 and most of 9 consists of our "heroes" being pursued by Borgnes and her super drones through the Picard mansion and eventually that spaceship they sure like using to teleport people out of sticky situations with (except when they forget they can do that, which is always). Picard's mother hanged herself! That could've actually been powerful... if it hadn't been built up so sideways with vague spooky turns and false memories and whatever the fucking shit this show thinks qualifies as mystery. Hey also, didn't Picard's mother appear as an old woman in an early TNG episode? And doesn't Picard have an older brother? Sure they didn't get along very well (and Generations killed him off pointlessly) but you think something like that might've come up over a wine fueled argument after.... like seventy fucking years? So, so, so much of the problem of this show is how it doesn't give two shits about any established history these characters or this universe has. And it hurts all the more when you're paving over a beautiful park with some bland crummy parking lot people drive through and forget about instantly.
What else happens? Who cares! Oh wait... Elrond is back! Is that actually his name? Who cares! Romulan Ninja Guy is back, because apparently Agnes programmed him into the ship as an emergency combat hologram. When did she have time to do that? And why wouldn't the Borg Queen have learned that when they merged? Is he just a hologram forever now? Why did he need to grab a real sword? Why did those Borg agents shoot bullets at him? He's just a projection of light! Why do those Borg agents have laser sights on their guns when they're trying to stealthily hunt their targets through an enclosed space? Why wouldn't these super Borgs just go kill Renee Picard, which ends up being Soong's plan anyway, instead of spending all this time chasing people on another continent who 'maybe' can protect her? Why does my brain feel more stupider after watching this?
The cherry on top of this disaster, which finishes episode 9.... Human Agnes breaking free and convincing her Borg half "let's create a collective of Sevens!" referring to Seven of Nine of course. If you're referring to Voyager Seven of Nine... an inquisitive, ruthlessly efficient hybrid character striving to understand herself and unite the best of both her worlds (see what I did there)... yeah that's an admirable goal. Unfortunately, that Seven is nowhere near this show. Lets instead have a collective of trillions based on this jaded, cold blooded mercenary who until ten seconds ago was completely human in this alternate timeline.
Like... I'd say the people writing this are drunk but I'm drunk! Can you blame me? I'm still writing about a turd moment attempting to be "dramatic" that instead comes across as beyond pathetic. Yeah... it hit harder on Voyager when Seven of Nine discovered her parents' crashed ship... because that wasn't terrible lip service, it was a moment that actually FUCKING MEANT SOMETHING! Star Trek: Picard season 2 is nothing beyond the barest of mashed up ideas being pulled out of someone's lower region... then "Oooooo add some emotion and melancholy string music" and it's a touching scene! The scene that changes the universe! Can we have the real Borg just appear to blow these fools up? "Unworthy of assimilation". Sounds about right.
Unfortunately no, we have to get into the final episode: "Farewell". Farewell to my pain, that is.
Before we dive into that ditch of vipers... I was really curious about something. I've become a fan of Red Letter Media and their excellent video reviews, and towards Picard I've felt a kindred heartbreak with Mike Stoklasa and Rich Evans' as they likewise try to make sense of this clusterfuck. Yet, I also checked out a few Trek websites and found some positive thoughts on this season... written like they were paid for by the studio but this mess needs all the positive energy it can settle for, I suppose. For the record, you're not exactly adding to critical discourse when you merely explain the plot of an episode with buzz words instead of analyzing why you like or don't like something.
The comment section of these paid sites was much more insightful: much of it was supportive of the show (this was around episode 6, well before the 8-9 nosedive) but most of that positivity was about attachment to the characters. I mean fine, personally I find these characters insipid and tedious but whatever, even rice cakes are flavourful to some. Few commenters, if any, truly expressed an engagement with the overall story the season was trying to tell. Some found certain moments powerful, others were curious what would come next (hell even I was for a time) but beyond the communal joy of speculation I didn't see much enjoyment of these plot threads being vocalized.
Then I headed to IMDb and read those user comments. Hoo boy. There are films with a 3.7 rating that will still have defenders ("it wasn't supposed to be taken seriously, chill out!") but defenders of Star Trek: Picard are oases in a bitter, frustrated and confused desert. If you want to combine TNG with Picard, the "Hide and Seek" IMDb user rating of 5.4 would be the fourth rated episode of Next Generation. It's only ahead of the racist black planet one, the one where Dr. Crusher gets raped by a space ghost, and the fucking clip show! And that's not even the lowest rated Picard episode, either.
Lets finish this fucking thing already.
Of all the terrible things this show likes to proudly wallow in, the truly strangest one is referencing aspects of likewise awful episodes of previous series. Oh sure, the obvious butcherings of "City on the Edge of Forever" and "All Good Things" are as plain as day... but then you've got this "Assignment: Earth" shit with Laris being a supervisor like Gary Seven. Seriously??? The backdoor pilot Roddenberry only made because he was certain Star Trek was about to be cancelled after its second season? Or this stuff with Soong's daughter, where Wesley fucking Crusher shows up (or at least he "used" to go by that name) to recruit her as a fellow traveler of time and space... like the truly horrible "Journey's End" in TNG. Why??? These deep cuts aren't helping when you're slashing about blindly near an already infected wound. What are the people making this show thinking??? Who actually wanted this??? Ughhh I need something to feel better.
It's hard to talk about this final episode because... well I long ago stopped caring about anything thanks to this show... but also: what is there to talk about? All the tension is completely manufactured, the actual motivation of the characters (especially the villain) is still painfully vague, the plot has as many hiccups as this guy, and the end meaning of everything has to be explained to the audience at the end via Q and then Whoopi Goldberg Guinan. When the payoff to your contrived story arc only makes sense (and saying any of this "makes sense" is obscenely generous) because of last second exposition... there might be something wrong with your story there. I'd expect better from the producer of Batman and Robin, damnit!
There's a desperation to wrap everything together that's especially pungent here... thus the sudden and less than satisfying resolution to these plot threads. Rios remaining in the past with Doctor Lady? Fine, although it means farewell to the only new character I actually sorta liked. But "Wesley Crusher" suddenly appearing (with Wheaton awkwardly mugging for the camera) to lead Soong's daughter away on a journey through the cosmos? Again, where the holy fuck did that come from? What kind of a payoff is that? It's like if when Hagrid tells Harry Potter he's a wizard but then the rest of the novel is about Dudley Dursley's boring adventures at his school.
Q's final goodbye actually works, only because de Lancie understands the character far better than these idiot writers do (the awkward look on his face when Picard hugs him is exactly how I also feel, Q). Everything else? Blech. The Laris/watcher stuff never interested me at all... I mean, Jean-Luc Picard has never really had an interesting romance to begin with anyway. Vash was kinda fun, and there was that scientist lady he played the flute with in a fairly forgettable episode ("Lessons")... but beyond that? The lady from Insurrection? Barf.
But: "we have to get this emotionally closed character to realize the importance of finally opening up! Showing his feelings!" It's been done already! Can I petition that "All Good Things" was truly the end of the Picard (and Q) story? Because everything this drawn out and pointless season of Picard tries to do for its lead character was previously explored with far superior sense and craft nearly thirty years ago. The final scenes in that episode have genuine emotion, tension, because that was a story that earned such feelings from its audience. It was the final chapter of a long journey that knew how to build a simple theme through a complicated time travel story, and then peak your emotional engagement for those closing moments. This fucking show? It wants all of that, demands it even... but blindly skipped the crucial steps of building something simple or relatable amongst the pile of endless strings in their story. Complication alone does not make an intelligent story. Star Trek: Picard is like grabbing a bag filled with assorted bio-hazard trash and spray painting it a glossy colour: you've made it look like something sorta neat but then you start digging in and regret ever having hands.
Sadly, as much as I want to at long last lock this thing away in a chest and drop it in the ocean, I have to talk about the conclusion of the Agnes/Borgnes stuff. Mainly... how stupid, pointless, disappointing, confusing and terrible it is.
So... the masked Borg Queen from the first episode of the season (which turns out to be Borgnes) has actually appeared on the bridge of the Star Gazer to help avert a sudden space calamity that will destroy all life in the galaxy. That's not an exaggeration. Seriously. The ship's computer displays a graphic that says "Casualty rate 100 percent".
This whole situation is so brain-dead I don't even know where to begin. So many questions! None of them explained. Are there two Agneses now? The Borg one and the one in the original timeline? They show her on the bridge in the same scene the Borg Queen appears in the season opener, technically they are the same person. How does that work? Also, is this an alternate reality/changed future where what the Borg were before no longer happens? Or is Borgnes some obscure rogue faction of the collective? How did this version of the Borg become so technologically powerful without forced conquest or assimilation? How could a giant cataclysmic space phenomenon just appear completely out nowhere? Wouldn't the absurd amount of energy needed to completely destroy a galaxy be detectable? Why didn't Borg Agnes just explain this situation when she first appeared, instead of taking over all the Federation ships in an act so obviously going to be interpreted as hostile? How could a giant laser/energy beam destroy an entire galaxy? These people know that space is three dimensional, right? Wouldn't everything in the opposite direction of the death beam be fine? How can they calculate a casualty rate for an event they couldn't even detect five fucking minutes earlier? Why don't these "science fiction" writers know anything about science? Or basic fucking writing?
Anyway.... the sneeze of the cosmos somehow transforms into a trans-warp portal thingy because... shut up. Borgnes says her Borg will be the gatekeepers of this new portal into unknown space and blah blah blah who the hell cares, none of this will ever be relevant again... and if it is I could not give less of a fuck. Then you get the most cliche "friends cheersing in a bar after an adventure" scene (which they bring Whoopi Goldberg back for, and she seems about as into this bland shit as I). The final scene is another tepid and tedious goodbye between Picard and Laris/watcher lady and bless my biscuits it's finally over! What an ending! As in, the ending was by far my favourite part because now I never have to watch this awful, awful show ever again as long as I live.
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Peak Star Trek is about ideas... something that at least makes you think, for even a moment, about something conceptually deeper... told through compelling characters and exciting outer space concepts. Perhaps the greatest (among many) weakness of Picard is their hammering of their messages down like brute force upon a stubborn nail. It's the TV show that subtle allegory forgot... or perhaps more on brand: erased from the timeline without the slightest respect or care.
In terms of story-creating craft within a grand scale (with established characters no less)... this was one of the worst and dumbest fucking things I've ever seen. The Star Wars prequels, silly and irritating as they are, are still fun in certain moments. There was nothing fun about Star Trek: Picard season 2. It completely ignores science, reality (they launch a lot of rockets into space from Los Angeles don't you know), established continuity, how to make character drama at least somewhat interesting... while insulting modern society to a level that would make the "uber-enlightened" first season TNG crew tell these people to ease up a bit. And as hard as this show tries to have "a big important message about the ills of our world" because that's all Star Trek is according to them... none of this is remotely close to meaning anything about anything. How can it? When your season long story-arc is this extreme level of lazy and convoluted, while delivered like a barrel of hams and fists... even the most noble point never has a chance to connect with an audience.
Even if you don't completely despise Picard as I do... dare I say you even enjoyed this somehow... would you ever watch these episodes again? Somehow, I strongly doubt it... which must truly be the final nail in this coffin. By the low standards of an epic flop even, it fails to be interesting enough to revisit.
Rest in peace, Star Trek.
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