Star Trek Picard Season 1: A Rant
Star Trek Picard Season 1: A Rant
Some of my main complaints/peeves: (in no particular order)
1. Content
Now I'm not a prude. But honestly: I really don’t need all the blood gore and F-bombs in my Star Trek. And don't get me wrong, some light swearing is ok and Trek has done that in the past (conservatively, tactfully, tastefully) but seriously: the head admiral C-in-C of Starfleet telling retired Admiral Jean-Luc Picard to "shut the f___ up" is unprofessional, unnecessary and unrealistic. And that's not the only time she says it. In the first episode she calls Picard’s plan "sheer f___ing hubris". And she's not the only character to do it either. Dr. Jurati the earth's foremost expert on artificial intelligence (the nerdy scientist girl) drops the F word several times. Rios also dropped at least one F-bomb but in the context of the scene that was a legitimate frustrated utterance. I can let that one pass (although it was still not strictly necessary). Also the excessive blood gore is off putting. Specifically, the beginning scene of episode 5 "Stardust City Rag", a flashback scene in which Icheb, the borg boy rescued by Voyager, now a Starfleet lieutenant is captured and murdered for his borg parts. Saying that it happened after the fact would have been bad enough (especially given the fact the character was brought back only to be killed off, and killed off in one of the worst was possible - see more about this grievance below) we didn’t need to see that. In my opinion we really don’t need a TV-MA Violence Blood Coarse Language descriptor on Star Trek. And we know why the powers that be went down this path: they know that since the show is on the streaming service instead of cable they are not constrained by tv censorship and standards, and so they can get away with a lot more. Star Trek Discovery is guilty of this as well. And the sad part is: Star Trek is supposed to be a show about a future in which humanity has made and is making progress for the better. Let me then quote the federation president from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country:"Let us redefine progress to mean that just because we can do a thing, it does not necessarily follow we must do that thing."And the thing is, if they want to make darker, grittier, edgier Star Trek, they can do it without being vulgar. In fact it has been done before: Deep Space Nine. I rest my case.
2. Lore
For a show that was so adamant during the advertising phase that it would NOT be a sequel to TNG, it sure calls back to TNG a LOT. Tying in whole plot points (Data, androids, Dr. Soong, the Borg, Picard’s back story with the Romulans, what happened to Riker and Troi after Nemesis, what happened to B4) as well as bringing back characters like Maddox (from one specific season 2 episode), Hugh the borg (from I, Borg and Descent), the list goes on. And a little wink and nod here and there, a casual tie or two to existing continuity is nice, but this show is extremely heavy at times on the fan service. Especially the synth storyline and frequent references back to Data and his death in Nemesis. To me it sure feels like a sequel to events of TNG and the movies. Which brings me to:3. Characters
Lets' deep dive this. As mentioned above: they brought back Icheb from Voyager just to kill him off. They brought back Bruce Maddox as part of the plot, only to kill him off the following episode. And for all the hype going back to the first trailer they brought back Hugh the Borg (at least this time played by the same actor from Next Gen Jonathon Del Arco), only to kill him off 2 episodes later. The show also spends a whole episode on the planet Nepenthe where Riker and Troi settled with their daughter after retiring from Starfleet. Now as a TNG fan I don’t deny that the reunion scene was touching, but did we really need an entire episode? A few scenes, even part of an episode would have been fine, but spending the entire episode on the planet with Will and Deanna was a bit much. Honestly that entire episode to me at least felt like nothing but fan service.Also, on the subject of bringing back characters: bringing back 7 of 9 was fine but making her a ruthless vigilante who runs around fighting, shooting people, killing for revenge and drinking heavily is a real stretch. Too much of a stretch. To me (as someone who's seen Voyager and is therefore very familiar with the character) it felt very much out of character.
On top of this you have a cast full of regular characters (all the new characters) who are almost to a person unlikable. Raffi is a space pot smoking, broken down drunk with a serious love/hate relationship with Picard (who she calls "JL" -cringe-), Rios has enough personal baggage to fill a cargo hold, Jurati is annoying, curses a lot and whines about travelling in space (this show is set in 2399 in the Star Trek universe), and don’t even get me started on the Romulans. Even Jean-Luc Picard, the title character and one of the most venerated characters in the entire franchise is reduced to a supporting role in his own show. Jean-Luc Picard, who is one of the most famous officers in Starfleet history is consistently treated like garbage by every one of the main characters. A lot of this I think can be chalked up to lazy writing. And that leads to my next point.
4. Writing
I won't say the writing is absolutely horrible (that dubious accolade goes to Star Trek: Discovery) but it definitely has issues. It is no secret that I am not a huge fan of heavily serialized Trek. Some longer form storytelling is fine, ongoing story arcs and threads that get picked up from time during a series, but I personally prefer Trek not serialized. I know that the producers have said in interviews that their goal was to tell some more large-scale story serialized trek, and if they feel like they have to do that that's fine, but can we also have episodic trek as well?? I mean, there are two Star Trek series running right now, why do both of them have to be serialized?? Episodic and serialized trek have both been done together before: late DS9 was heavily serialized, while Voyager was episodic. It can be done. The writing issues with Picard go beyond just that it’s serialized. Discovery season 2 did this as well, but with Picard it's to the point that it might as well be a single 10-part episode. The reason for this goes back to the executive producer in charge of the franchise Alex Kurtzman wanting to write Star Trek with "cinematic level storytelling” with intricate story arcs and make Star Trek edgy and dark and tell adult stories. ...Except that it's Star Trek it's not Game of Thrones. His history with Trek alone speaks volumes about not only what's wrong with Picard but with all new Star Trek. He was an executive producer on Star Trek 2009 and Into Darkness with J.J. Abrams, basically turning Star Trek from thought provoking stories about a utopian future to which we should aspire into mindless summer blockbuster action flicks, and he was appointed as Executive Producer on Star Trek Discovery after Bryan Fuller stepped down. Discovery which blatantly disregards established lore and visual canon to the point that it comes across as a mediocre generic scifi action show with Star Trek deltas all over it. From there he became the head of the Star Trek franchise. You also have the head writer and showrunner for Star Trek Picard Michael Chabon. Chabon's writing style is almost the exact opposite of Star Trek. If anything he’s known mostly for horror/fantasy novels and a variety of edgy scifi genre writings. On top of that he actively makes writing decisions in the interest of his agenda for the show that only serve to alienate the core star Trek fan base. J.J. Abrams said after the release of Star Trek 2009 that one of the aims of new trek was to draw in new younger fans to the franchise. And that's fine, I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is a showrunner/head writer who actively both through his writing and in interviews goes out of his way to insult the core viewership. This is the man who said in an interview with Variety that:Interviewer: So were there things about “Picard” that you knew you wanted to do that you could sense would test some boundaries for fans?
Chabon: Sure. To the extent that I was aware of the kind of toxic fandom, the anti-SJW, you know, sad little corner of fandom - you just disregard that. Sometimes you’re motivated to have things simply because it’s possibly going to piss off or provoke people who seem to have missed the memo about just what exactly “Star Trek” is and always has been all about.Really?? A franchise with a fan base as loyal and as vocal as Star Treks and you are just going to go out of your way to alienate and piss off that fan base? Keep in mind this is the fan base that in the summer of 1968 launched a letter writing campaign that saved the original series for a third season. This is the fan base that in the late 1970s flooded NASA with letters to the point the white house was forced to change the name of the first space shuttle vehicle to Enterprise. This is the fan base that complained so heavily after it was leaked before the film’s release that Spock would be killed off in Star Trek II that the character was brought back to life in Star Trek III (which led to Star Trek IV, TNG, etc.)
It's sad that this show, which initially had such promise, is in the hands of these two, people who are so utterly tone-deaf to what Star Trek really is.
Another complaint I have about the writing is certain things that just don't make sense. For example: having the main plot of the season call back to elements from ST Nemesis and ST 2009, two of the least well received trek movies...umm...ok??? Killing Picard off at the end just to bring him back a few mins later in a new synth body...WTF??? An Android/Synth performing a Vulcan mind meld on Jurati because "she has remarkably taught herself the famous mind meld" ... this makes no f*#$ing sense whatsoever. The two main Romulan protagonists being brother and sister in an implied incestuous relationship…uhhh…no. Just no.
In conclusion (before this gets any longer) I guess we can give the powers that be credit for one thing: Kurtzman said he wanted to “defy your expectations” With Star Trek Picard. Well if your expectations were that Star Trek Picard might be good, I’d say he succeeded.
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