Disclaimer: This post contains spoilers for the finale of the CBS All Access series ‘Star Trek: Picard.’ If you haven’t seen the episode yet, you may wish to do so before reading the article. Don’t say you weren’t warned!
Even with all the goodwill that was afforded to ‘Star Trek: Picard’ when the series was first announced, getting from the first episode through to the finale has been a rocky road for the show in its debut season. That was probably inevitable. ‘Star Trek’ fans are a notoriously hard-to-please bunch, and they’re quick to try to shoot down anything that they don’t like, or anything that doesn’t fit the canon that exists in their head. It didn’t take long after the first episode aired for some disgruntled fans to take to the internet and deny that the new show was canon. For all the praise that critics sent the show’s way, some of the hardcore Trekkies were just as scathing.
A little criticism is probably inevitable in the modern age. Viewers have a louder voice than ever before thanks to social media, and journalists can live the easy life by taking a few of the dissenting voices and writing an article around them. Some of the criticisms that were leveled at ‘Picard’ were very similar to the criticisms that have been leveled at ‘Discovery’ in the past – with the main one being that it’s too ‘politically correct.’ In practice, this complaint usually boils down to the fact that some fans will never accept having LGBT performers, women, or people of color playing prominent roles on the show. Those are perspectives that can and should be ignored in 2020. Society has moved on.
Some of the other criticisms, though, did resonate. What made ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ so popular and treasured as a show is that it was always imbued with a sense of hope and optimism. The world of the future presented in that series was bold, progressive, and warm. Some of the aliens were less than pleasant, but the Federation (usually) showed human beings at their best – compassionate, fair, and egalitarian. The character of Picard was loved so much because he preferred speeches to phaser-fights. He led by example, and his wisdom was what always gave him the advantage over his opponents.
The world of the future we saw in ‘Star Trek: Picard’ frequently fell short of those ideals. The Federation had become insular, disinterested in helping others, and a little cowardly. Paranoia was rife. The universe was dark, dirty, and full of danger. Whatever magical glue held life together in the ‘Next Generation’ years seemed to have dissipated after the destruction of Romulus, and Picard seemed like a man out of time. He was still preaching his message of forgiveness and co-operation. Until the very final episode, it appeared that nobody was listening. Given that we’re living in dark times already, the bleak tone defeated the whole point of the show for some viewers and reviewers.
In truth, the utopian ethos of ‘Star Trek’ has always existed in the minds of its viewers more than it ever has in reality. While the portrayal of Picard’s character (and the Trek universe in general) was darker in this show than it was in the old TV series, it was consistent with the Picard we saw in the later TNG movies. Whatever it may or may not be in the minds of fans, the purpose of ‘Star Trek’ to CBS is to make money – something the franchise has always excelled at. That’s why movies were made in the first place. It’s why so many action figures exist. It’s also why there are so many ‘Star Trek’ video games, including some paypal casino that feature on online slots websites. While we’ve seen the main characters from TNG play poker a few times on the big screen, we’ve never seen any of them play online slots. The tie-in products exist because the owners of the intellectual property know that the brand is a money-making lure. Companies don’t make online slots for any other reason. This is also why CBS probably doesn’t mind the controversy their new production has attracted in the press – there’s no such thing as bad publicity, and the more attention the show gets, the more money they’ll make because of it.
Whether or not you thought the presentation of the show during its previous nine episodes was too dark, too cynical, too bleak, or about right, only the most world-weary soul would try to deny that it pulled everything back together in the final episode. This was ‘Picard’ – both the show and the character – at its finest. Picard’s sacrifice – taking on an entire Romulan fleet alone to protect a race of synthetic life forms who openly despise him – is entirely consistent with the man we’ve always known and loved. Riker’s last-minute dash to the rescue with a fleet of Federation ships as Starfleet finally regained its conscience was blatant fan service, but it was touching. The metaphysical and philosophical discussion of life and death between Picard and Data in the digital afterlife might have been pushing things a little far in terms of both plausibility and necessity, but it was worth it for the emotional punch that it carried. Suddenly, this was the ‘Star Trek’ of old again, and everything was OK.
We daren’t look in Twitter’s darkest corners to check, but we imagine the resolution to Picard’s apparent ‘death’ didn’t sit well with a lot of fans. There’s probably a discussion to be had over whether this new synthetic Picard – basically Picard’s brain in an android body that’s styled to look like Jean Luc Picard – is really a continuation of the same life at all. Picard’s human body is dead. That’s quite a major plot point and will have upset the purists. In practical terms, we suspect it’s been done to offer the writers a few places to go in terms of storytelling for next season – and that’s the most important thing. Whether you enjoyed ‘Picard’ or not, there’s going to be a second season, and on that basis alone, this debut season has to be considered a success.
