It’s finally here Star Trek fans. The long awaited premiere of Picard is upon us.
So can we have a quick chat?
When CBS first announced Picard, Trek fans far and wide celebrated the return of one of their favourite characters. Many, unimpressed with Star Trek Discovery for a variety of reasons (most of them firmly refusing to accept Discovery as “real Star Trek”) heralded Picard as Trek returning to its roots. Many more labelled Picard a sequel to Star Trek: The Next Generation, a show much of the fandom considers the pillar of the Trek franchise.
Those people are about to be disappointed. Hard.
We’ve tread this ground before, publishing an opinion piece shortly after Picard was revealed to a drooling fandom. But in the days leading up to Picard’s debut, the Internet has been flooded with early reviews and criticisms branding Picard a failure, too dark to be Star Trek (a label Discovery has failed to shake after its first two seasons), a corruption of Jean-Luc Picard’s character and “social justice warrior garbage.”
Don’t be surprised to see fan forums, message boards and social media full of belly aching, caterwauling and foot stomping tomorrow. There will also be plenty of voices defending Picard as well, and it should take all of three seconds for the conversations to dissolve into name calling, finger pointing and death threats.
But both Picard’s producers, CBS and Sir Patrick Stewart himself have warned fans from day one that bothJean-Luc and the Star Trek world at large were going to be very different from what they last saw. And very different from what they are probably hoping to return to.
Stewart even said he had no plans to wear Picard’s uniform again unless he was different from the Captain he spent over a decade portraying. It was the growth of the character, the new world he inhabits and the new challenges Picard faces that convinced Stewart to return.
And that’s the way it should be.
Expecting to see the Picard of yesteryear is, forgive the bluntness, stupid. Many fans have responded with disappointment over hints that the Picard they’ll see is tired and world weary. That he won’t be the infallible bastion of confidence and morality that they’re used to seeing. He may be filled with doubt and uncertainty, haunted by past mistakes and lost opportunity. He may even be broken down compared to the virtuous hero who commanded the Enterprise through seven seasons of television and four motion pictures. But at the same time, they’ve seen the reasons why the new Picard will likely strike them as a stranger.
During his time as captain of the Enterprise, Picard was in countless life and death situations, leading his crew and ship into dozens of conflicts and battles. And while they always came out on the other side alive and victorious, there were always losses. Plenty of crew under his command never made it out alive and his direct orders resulted in hundreds of deaths on the other side.
He was captured and assimilated by the Borg, an experience both the show and the movies teased left deep psychological scars. He was tortured mercilessly. He traveled back and forth in time more often than some people commute to work. He loved but always lost, choosing duty and his career over happiness and family. His brother and nephew died horrible deaths shortly after he reconciled with his estranged family. He met, battled and killed his doppleganger/clone, who offered a disturbingly dark glimpse into his own strained psyche. And he was forced to say goodbye to his friend and surrogate son Data, who sacrificed himself to save Picard and the Enterprise when both faced certain destruction.
And that’s just what we saw. It’s been close to eighteen years in real time since we’ve seen Jean-Luc Picard, let alone how much time may have passed in the Prime Star Trek universe. Imagine what happened to him during those near two decades? And it’s been implied that he was deeply affected by the destruction of the Romulan Empire, an event that created the alternate Kelvin universe where the most recent movies have taken took place.
All of that adds up. It doesn’t matter what kind of therapy or counselling is available in the 24th century, that’s a grand canyon sized case of PTSD waiting to happen. When your daydreams are filled with the faces of people who died as a direct result of your orders, when your nightmares are haunted by being disassembled and put back together by the Borg, when the only people you truly considered friends are either dead or scattered across the galaxy and your only real family reduced to ashes years ago, well most people would have crumbled under a fraction of that stress.
And as a result, the 24th century may no longer resemble the utopian future fans have so often taken comfort in. The Federation was heavily taxed by it’s war with the Dominion (a war both Starfleet and it’s Klingon allies came within a hair of losing). And the complete destruction of Romulus and the near extinction of the Romulan people (who were reluctant allies in the war against the invading Changelings and their armies) would have had enormous consequences on the Alpha quadrant’s political landscape. Sure, you might not have to worry about the Neutral Zone any longer, but who would fill that power vacuum? The real world’s geopolitical situation actually became more complicated after the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s, so magnify that situation a million fold coupled with the Federation’s likely and impossibly expensive attempts to help the Roman refugees and you can see why it may have abandoned some of its ideals to remain on top of the food chain.
It was also stated in Star Trek: Insurrection that as a result of the Federation’s taxing wars, they had lowered the bar when admitting new members. What other bars did they lower? What other standards did they disregarded? Picard may be disillusioned and tired, but so is the world he lives in.
Star Trek has always been political and reflected the real world around it. The original was full of references to and allegories about racial divides, incessant and pointless wars (particularly Vietnam), demonizing other cultures and so on. There were even cautions against class warfare and rampant capitalism. While not as overt (or frequent), The Next Generation also had its fair share of political and social commentary disguised as fiction. And Deep Space Nine was practically an entire sermon about the costs such a shining civilization of equality, justice and tolerance would exact. And the morally expensive choices necessary to protect it.
So don’t expect to see a shinier version of past Treks or their characters on Picard. Don’t expect to see unconditional happiness and peace. Expect to be challenged. Expect to be pushed. The vision may have changed, but the mission probably hasn’t. Star Trek’s world may not be as you pictured it, but the potential for it to be redeemed (or improved) will still be there. (And if Jean-Luc rediscovers himself during a journey or two to help remind the world what it once was, what it could once again be, isn’t that the point of all good storytelling?).
Don’t let your nostalgia get the better of you. To borrow and paraphrase a recent line from Star Wars: forget the past. Kill it if you have to. You can respect it. You can appreciate it. Acknowledge it when appropriate. Just don’t be a prisoner to it. Growth is necessary and responsible narrative change is a good thing.
This isn’t to say that you have to like Picard. Make it earn your approval and loyalty. Liking something automatically is no better than hating something before you’ve even seen it. It may turn out to be a bad show. But you do need to abandon your assumptions and your notions. Offer it a clean slate. If you’re not going to like it, make sure it’s because of its merits (or lack of) and storytelling failures and not because it refuses to mirror what you saw as a kid or your own personal fan fiction.
People often complain that long enduring franchises refuse to take chances. Maybe it’s time that fandoms embrace their favourite franchises when they do. Because the stale expectation that everything remain the same leads only to boredom and failure.
Image via techradar.com
