Star Trek: Picard

Star Trek Picard started out all right for the first episode. By the 2nd episode, it started to become obvious that this was never going to be as good as the Star Trek shows and movies between 1966-2005.

Firstly, the writing was all over the place, and the story was, for the most part, superficial to non-existent. So many sub-plots were never followed up with or clarified, and questions were left unanswered. Writers magic was used in so many cases where a more dedicated person would have thought things out sensibly. For example, the 'imagination tool'. Also, the situation surrounding the federation's fall were not on par with what the Star Trek universe lore had set up already, and the only way it could have fallen that way was if people from today took over the future and ran it with today's knowledge. Some of the decisions they made were completely ridiculous, and made it seem like somehow the Star Trek universe lost most of its intelligence since Voyager returned from the Delta Quadrant. It was just a complete mess.

Secondly, the acting was unconvincing. They were just going through the movements of an unbelievable story. They obviously didn't believe it and are clearly rooted in today's world instead of Star Trek's. I didn't care for any of the characters, and found most of them to be unlikable. Even Picard was a shell of his once interesting self, not the strong leader he once was. The actor who played Data was the best of the bunch when he played Data, but was also unlikable when he played human roles.

Thirdly, excessive swearing was difficult to take serious after Star Trek set 40 years of good storytelling, showing a future that had evolved from excessive swearing, or didn't use it at all, and opted to be diplomatic and intellectuals instead. In Picard we had juvenile foul-mouthing in most every episode. In fact, it ruined the whole series and completely took me out of it right from episode 2 when it was first used.

Fourthly, the show-runners were laying heavily on the nostalgia card, betting on name dropping, and character pop-ups from former series. This alone was the first indication to me that they knew they didn't have a story. By the end of the season it turned out nostalgia was the only real card they had to play. It felt like they were patronizing fans and insulting their intelligence with this, and even that turned into a waste since it didn't help a trash-heap story at all.

Lastly, it was obvious they were doing their best to hold back political correctness as much as they could (probably from backlash in Discovery), but it still kept creeping in. They let it ruin much of the Star Trek lore, and now it's clear they're ready to come out with it in full force for season 2, which is poised to be another aimless season that they'll make up on the fly, or possibly plagiarize.

This isn't Star Trek.

Star Trek is about a future to strive for, and to aspire to be like - better than ourselves today. But every movie and show since the finale of the Enterprise show in 2005 has completely ignored this, and Picard is no different. We are presented with a darker future, one that is not inspiring, or even worth striving for. It's now the opposite, and makes me want to fight any future like that from arriving.

I gave it 10 episodes, and after the disappointment wore off and after gathering my thoughts over the last 2 months, I've decided I will not watch another episode of this. Even though Picard is not as bad as Discovery, it's the second worse Star Trek series created, and the second Star Trek series that doesn't interest me at all.

What i wanted was a thought-provoking and intellectually stimulating show, depicting a future worth striving for, wanting to visit. Possibly in stand-alone episodes so they could be watched in any order. I ended up getting an uninteresting soap-opera wannabe, set in a future i don't care about, that heavily mirrors current political correctness insanity, and that i don't want to see any more of.

0/10