Okay, it’s been a week since Star Trek Picard wrapped up its first season, and while the finale both set the table for future adventures while also raising some poignant questions about both the Star Trek universe and the ethics of artificial life in general, there’s one thing I really, really need to get it off my chest.
And that’s how sad the show was.
Don’t get me wrong. I liked Picard. It wasn’t perfect (what is?) and I harbour no ill feelings towards people who dislike the show for legitimate reasons (you be you). The truth is it gave me something to look forward to every week (most of my current TV consumption is via binge watching) and I didn’t mind giving up an hour so of my time to enjoy it.
So this isn’t a critique of the show or the storytelling or how it treated Star Trek lore in general (that horse has been beaten to death ever since Star Trek Discovery hit the airwaves, driving Trek traditionalists and fans obsessed with canon up the wall). Rather, it’s a look at why Picard may have jerked a tear or two out of my cynical and jaded eyes.
Like millions other fans, I went a little crazy when the first trailer for Picard was unveiled. How could I not? Seeing modern versions of classic characters both intrigued me and hit my nostalgia button. Hard. Seeing Riker and Troi embracing their former captain, Data painting a new masterpiece and Seven of Nine serving up hell with a pair of phaser rifles convinced me (and plenty of others) that I was in store for a mouth watering Star Trek buffet that combined the best parts of previous shows with some fantastic new elements. They even convinced some members of the cranky canon guard (you know, the fans who have a Dyson-sphere sized hate on for Discovery) to announce that “Star Trek was back.” (Though most were back at their keyboards the next day, complaining ad nauseam.)
During the seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, I came to regard the show’s characters as a family instead of just a crew. When the show came to a close I felt everyone was genuinely closer, that they were a tighter knit family (word is the cast themselves were all still a pretty as well). It was an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect following shows failed to reproduce.
Even when that family was fractured following Star Trek Nemesis, I held out hope. Sure, Worf was now an absentee family after being transferred to Deep Space Nine years earlier (and you could tell the writers were running out of ways to bring him back for the movies) and yeah, Riker and Troi were headed to another ship to begin their married life. The real super-kick to the feels was when Data sacrificed himself to defeat the Big Bad and save . . . well, everyone. It was hardly a happy ending (and an unsatisfying farewell to the franchise), but there was some hope that things would work out for all the characters in the future, even if we didn’t see it.
Hell, they even teased the possibility of Data being resurrected through his newly discovered brother B4. There HAD to be a plan to use that in the future and let us steal one or two more glimpses at our favourite android.
Alas . . .
As Picard progressed, it became obvious that no one was really destined for a happy ending. In many cases their lives became overshadowed by their world’s shifting (and darkening) reality. From the beginning the show revealed that Picard, one of the Federation’s greatest heroes and a man who had saved intergalactic civilization a dozen times over, was reviled and despised by the very people he saved. Forced into retirement, he was humoured by his former superiors and openly mocked by just about everyone else in the galaxy. Even many of the Romulan refugees he sacrificed so much to help viewed him with contempt.
Faced with his failures, he retreated into seclusion, alone save for a small but loyal house staff and a pit bull named Number One.
It was hardly the fate we expected for one of Trek’s greatest characters, someone we spent years seeing as an infallible pillar of morality and confidence. And it was just the tip of the iceberg.
Seeing Icheb tortured mercilessly for his Borg implants was a little unsettling. Watching Seven kill him to put him out of his misery even more so. And while we’re on the topic of Seven of Nine, I always thought/hoped that when Voyager arrived home she would get a hero’s welcome with the rest of the crew (she was more than a little nervous about returning to Earth) before settling into some job advising Starfleet on the Borg. So seeing that she had become a hard drinking, sharp tongued emotionally downtrodden ranger was a mixed bag.
It was good seeing Hugh again. Not so much watching a Romulan assassin drive a knife into his jugular. Having John Maddox, the cyberneticist who spent his entire career trying to recreate Data, pop up was a nice little throwback. Seeing his lungs explode in a bio-microwave? Not so much.
Then there was Data’s final, inescapable fate. Suffice to say you can lay any hope of seeing him in the future to permanent rest.
But the real kicker was when we finally got to see Riker and Troi. It was amusing meeting their daughter (and seeing equal parts of both of them in her) and how retired life was treating them. But the entire episode had an ominous feel to it, like trick or treating at the last house on the street with all the lights off. And we soon learned that the Rikers had suffered a monumental loss of their own. One that can never be recovered from. One that would taint any long term happiness they and their family could ever hope for.
During the entire show we all kept kept wondering who would turn up next. When would other favourite characters from Trek’s long lost days of yore show up? When would we see Geordi? What about Dr. Crusher? How’s Worf doing these days? What ever happened to the rest of the crew of Voyager? But after seeing how things turned out for the aforementioned, I don’t want to see any more figures from Picard or Trek’s past.
For their sakes.
If Q returned he’d probably be suffering from some kind of omnipotent fourth stage terminal cancer inflicted on him by Pennywise The Clown on the planet Derry (and you thought he had it bad when he was mortal).
I’m not complaining. I understand why they did everything they did and that a good deal of it was necessary to plant storytelling seeds that could germinate and grow into something fascinating down the road.
It’s just more than a little sad seeing characters I adored for so much of my formative years denied the happy ending I always wanted for them. Or seeing them scattered to the four galactic winds (apparently none of the crew kept in even the slightest touch with each other over the years). So here’s hoping that when Picard bumps into some more golden oldies during season two (looking at you Guinan) they’ll be in a better place then when we last saw them.
Or that their dog is still alive at the very least.
Image treknews.net
