This is a review of the first two episodes of Star Trek: Picard’s second — no, wait,
It’s a review of the first four episodes. My mistake — there’s
only enough story here for two episodes — that must be where I got confused.
This — for real now — is a review of the first four episodes of Star Trek: Picard’s second
season. I’m reviewing the first four episodes all at once because the season started while
Star Trek: Discovery’s fourth season was still ongoing, and I didn’t have time to write and shoot
episode reviews for both shows, even half-assed reviews like this one. So, this is a collective
review — hey, Borg jokes, love those, love those Borg — to catch up with what I missed.
Also, the first three episodes should have been one episode,
anyway, so it makes more sense to review them together. Hey!
One more important note: going forward, these episode reviews will not be spoiler-free. Of
course, a few of you complained that the Discovery episode reviews weren’t as spoiler-free as I said
they were already, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, while I won’t be doing a
synopsis of the plots of these shows, and I won’t be giving everything away,
there will be times when, in order to discuss something I have strong feelings about,
I will tread into spoiler territory. I’ll try not to give away any big,
shocking twists, but I will talk about stuff that happens in the episodes. So,
if you haven’t watched these episodes yet and you want to go in totally fresh, maybe wait and watch
my Picard episode reviews after you’ve watched the Picard episodes I’m reviewing. Cool? Cool.
So, right now, as of episode four, the thing about the show that I have the strongest feelings about
is the fact that . . . I really don’t have strong feelings about any of it.
I wouldn’t say it’s been bad, exactly — at least, not most of it — but I also wouldn’t say that
any of it has been especially good. It’s just kind of . . . there. And, I’m starting to feel
like I’m watching it out of habit more than interest. But, before I get into more detail
on that, let me talk about the things in these first four episodes that have worked for me.
In the first episode of the season, “The Star Gazer,” we catch up with our characters after
some time has passed following the end of the first season. I like there being a time
gap between seasons. It was something I really appreciated about the start of the fourth season
of Discovery, as well. It seems like a little thing, but it gives the writers a chance to move
some stuff around, to reset a few things, and it gives us in the audience the impression that life
does go on for these characters beyond what we see in the show. It makes it feel more real.
The characters from Picard season one have all gone their separate ways — Picard and Raffi are
back in Starfleet, Picard in charge of Starfleet Academy. Elnor is a Starfleet cadet. Captain Rios
is also back in Starfleet, and in command of the new U.S.S. Stargazer, which is cool.
The Federation has lifted the ban on synthetic life forms,
and Soji and Dr. Jurati are on a goodwill tour to remind everyone that robots are people, too.
Seven is now in charge of La Sirena and is back doing Fenris rangers shit.
And then, there’s a crisis that brings everybody back together, some wacky Star Trek stuff happens
that changes the timeline, with our heroes being the only ones who notice anything is different,
and they have to figure out what went wrong and how to put it right.
That’s a pretty good setup for the first episode.
Unfortunately, that’s actually the entire first episode.
The second episode, “Penance,” has Picard and the others finding their way back to each other
in this altered timeline. Picard has a little help from Q, who shows up at the tail end of
the first episode, and functions as kind of half-tour-guide, half-cryptic-doomsayer, and
just generally doesn’t quite seem like himself. They spend most of the episode fucking around
in this new reality, which is a totalitarian dystopia, like the mirror universe but not,
and then finally all the main characters except Soji, who is curiously absent, figure out,
with some help from the Borg Queen, who was being kept in cold storage, that they need to go back to
the 21st century and prevent whatever happened back then to change the timeline. They’re just
about to do that when they get caught by bad guys, and that’s the entire second episode.
The third episode, “Assimilation,” begins with what should have been the end of
the first episode — with the gang aboard La Sirena, time-warping back to the 21st century,
which is where the change in the timeline supposedly takes place. Pretty soon,
the characters get separated again, and they spend the rest of that episode, and the fourth episode,
“The Watcher,” fucking around some more, getting into trouble which they then have to get out of,
and accomplishing very little, especially given how much time it takes them to do it.
Oh, by the way, those were the only things that have really worked for me so far — the
time-gap between seasons, and also the new Stargazer looks cool. That’s it.
As Mike Birbiglia might say, “I know . . .”
I know some of you got sick of hearing me complain about the pacing in my last few Discovery reviews.
The pacing is an even bigger problem in these first four episodes of Picard,
but there’s another problem, too, so I’ll spend more time talking about that
and just say very briefly that the pacing of these first four episodes is for shit,
the first two episodes along with the first act of the third episode should have been
one episode, everything drags, we’re spending way too long on way too little.
This was also a problem with season one of Picard,
where the first three episodes should have been one episode. This season, the first,
what, two and a quarter episodes should have been one episode? So, progress? I guess?
Anyway, the other problem I have kicks in once our heroes reach the 21st century, and continues
for the rest of episode three and into episode four, and that problem is: everybody’s really
motivated to do something, but nobody knows what they’re supposed to do or has any idea
how they’re going to do it. They know they need to prevent something from happening soon, and
they know there’s a person in this century, called a Watcher, who can help them, somehow, and they
know whatever it is that happens, happens in Los Angeles. But other than that, they have nothing.
Something happens after they land the ship that leaves Raffi really super motivated to
go out there and do something, which is great, but there’s . . . not really anything for her to do?
So, we get Raffi, Seven and Rios beaming into L.A. with this half-baked plan to find the
tallest building and scan for technology using a tricorder, which, as motivations go, is threadbare
at best. Meanwhile, Picard and Jurati are on La Sirena with the Borg Queen, trying to find out
more of what she knows about their situation by doing an acting exercise — which I like in
concept, it’s a more interesting choice than just doing some special effects thing, or visualizing
it by showing us Jurati wandering down a hallway with lots of doors or something, but again suffers
because it’s not clear what Jurati is doing or why she’s doing it except in the most general sense.
And you might say, well, the reason the characters don’t have specific goals or
plans is because they’re fish out of water and they don’t understand the situation, so how could
they have concrete goals? Fair enough, but I don’t object to the lack of clear goals for their sakes
so much as for mine as an audience member. When characters have simple, easy to understand goals,
it allows the audience to form expectations — either consciously or unconsciously,
we make assumptions about what is going to happen next, based on what the characters want
or need to do. Then, the story can move forward by either meeting or subverting those expectations,
by introducing obstacles between the characters and their goals, by having the characters realize
the goal they thought they were pursuing isn’t the goal they should be pursuing,
there’s all sorts of things a writer can do once those expectations are in place.
We’re four episodes into a ten-episode season,
and those expectations are still not in place. At the end of episode four, Picard
finally meets the Watcher. We still don’t know who the Watcher actually is, or what
their purpose is. They’re just a person Picard had to find, who is important for some reason.
In fact, that describes pretty much every goal the characters have had so far in the story:
they need to find something that is important for some reason; they need to stop
something from happening sometime soon; there’s someone out there who can help them somehow.
Nothing concrete, which makes it very hard to get invested in any of this.
And you might say, but Steve, isn’t that the exact situation Captain Kirk and Spock
find themselves in when they arrive in 1930s New York City in “The City on the Edge of Forever”?
They know McCoy has done something to change history, but they don’t know exactly what,
or exactly when. They are kind of aimless at first.
True, but remember that very soon after they arrive, Spock tells Kirk that all
the information they need is locked inside his tricorder, if only he can repair it so they can
access the information — that’s a concrete goal. Then, by the end of the episode’s second act,
Spock has figured out that Edith Keeler is the key figure. Then, by the end of the third act,
they’ve learned that in order to set things right, Edith Keeler must die. Goals and expectations,
specific, concrete, not “something, somewhere, sometime, for some reason.”
Also, “The City on the Edge of Forever” is one episode.
One episode, with a plot that’s incredibly similar to what seems to be the plot for this
entire ten-episode season. I’m just saying.
That brings up another issue I’ve had with the show so far, which is how familiar
so much of this seems. True, there’s nothing new under the sun, and true, Star Trek does love to
repeat itself — some of the better episodes of Discovery’s just-completed fourth season featured
bits that harkened back to episodes of past Trek shows. But, when Discovery employed familiar
tropes or evoked classic episodes, it approached them from a different angle, told stories that
were reminiscent of those older episodes but also brought in enough new stuff to work on their own.
This season of Picard doesn’t feel like that. It feels like the writers said
“Let’s shmush ‘City on the Edge of Forever’ and Star Trek IV together, toss in a pinch of ‘Mirror,
Mirror,’ and call it a day.” It doesn’t feel like an homage, it doesn’t feel like a new spin on an
old story or a fresh take on some well-worn tropes — it feels like we’ve seen all of this
before. The timeline has been changed — again. The characters are trapped in a warped, totalitarian
version of the world they know — again. The heroes have to travel back in time to set
things right — again. They find themselves fish out of water in a contemporary setting — again.
And the writers seem to have had nothing new, or original, or creative to say about any of this.
There’s even a bit in episode four with Seven and Raffi on a bus that is a direct lift from Star
Trek IV. And that’s the only joke — hey, remember that thing that happened to Kirk and Spock on the
bus in Star Trek IV? Now the exact same thing is happening to Seven and Raffi! Eh? Ehh?
It’s a reference in place of a joke, it’s a lazy,
witless fan service gag that feels like it belongs on Lower Decks — and I know a lot
of you love Lower Decks, but coming from me, that is not a compliment. I’m honestly
surprised and disappointed that bit somehow made it into the show. If I’d seen it in a script,
I would have printed out just that page so I could set it on fire.
I’m sorry to come across so negative in this review. I want to like this show. I like the
cast, I like the characters, but so far this story is just not doing it for me.
We’re almost halfway through this season, and the characters have traveled who knows how many
light-years across space, and centuries back in time, and yet it feels like we haven’t gone
anywhere yet except a few places we’ve already been in other, better shows.
Hopefully better things are to come in the rest of the season.
That’s my review of episodes one through four of Star Trek: Picard. Let me know what you thought
in the comments. If you want to support my channel, go to patreon.com/steveshives
to become a patron or click the join button to become a member. Thanks for watching,
and I’ll see you next week for a review of episode five!