Star Trek: Picard. Paramount+ and Prime Video. Series Finale out now.

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You knew from the first episode that this was going to happen but it was still amazing to see. They even got Majel Barrett back . In terms of the Borg/Dominion plot, calling it a woke mind virus is a massive stretch. The TNG crew haven't exactly been dangling racist dolls in front of LaForge's daughter and reminiscing about oval badges. They still embody all the Federation ideals we want in real life. Basically I noticed the parallel with the current culture wars but the characters aren't obnoxious boomers so it's not even a thing for me.

The change to the ident was a great touch showing that Starfleet was Borg. I hope that for each new show they have the show's ship on there. I haven't really been too impressed with the Star Trek ident in general but if they do that change it'll be quite nice. It's better than the dogshit Star Wars one at any rate.

The way they retook the Titan bridge was cool, but I think the technology "working on line of sight" was a bit weak. They could've simply said that the technology was incompatible with cloaks (which would make sense). And seeing a space dock go down in a blaze of glory was awesome.

You'd probably say the bits on the Enterprise and Borg Cube were unsurprising and probably a bit formulaic, but as I said that's all I wanted. I never thought I'd see a Federation ship do a Death Star run

The Titan really grew on me as the season went on so I'm glad it's now the G. For those saying Raffi can't be a No1 - I'd imagine with her relationship with Seven she'd be demoted to tactical within the first season (episode?!) of an Enterprise G show. And a moment for Captain Shaw

Remembrance

In the super advanced future, "knock her out" involves putting a bag over somebody's head?

I was confused at the start of this as to whether the supernova was something I was supposed to remember from TNG. Then I wondered if it fitted with the JJ Abrams movie, a quick Google confirmed it did. So we are not in the Kelvin universe, but are hearing about the thing that caused Nero to go back and create a different timeline. Phew, I'm exhausted! At least it now makes sense why by S3 of Discovery the Romulans are living with the Vulcans, they had nowhere else to go.

Plus I had to remember the end of a Short Treks episode, luckily it wasn't very long ago I watched it.

Trek has a reputation of showing an idealistic future, where humans are no longer selfish and petty racists, but have become enlightened space explorers. I don't think that reputation is well earned. The Kirk era showed humans were still banana splits. TNG was swarming with banana splits. DS9 really showed the dark side of the Federation etc etc. And now in Picard we have an interviewer (I thought TNG established TV was a short lived fad? ) who seems to think Picard should have just let all the Romulans die. Wow, so enlightened and so different from 21st century humans...

I love the dog's name. Should have just called it Riker though.

I'm assuming the woman is a synth? Is this going to be a Blade Runner style thing? She doesn't realise she's a synth and "blade runners" are coming to get her?

Ha, not long after I typed the above, it was confirmed, I thought they'd drag that out over a few episodes.

I thought that was a really good opening for the series. Just the right amount of nostalgia, showing Picard as a vulnerable old man and an intriguing mystery. Plus a Borg cube!. Plenty of nonsensical technobabble as well, so we can tell that this is a Trek show....

Cheeky Devlin has been hinting this series is gooseberry fool though, so I guess it must go rapidly downhill.

Maps and Legends

I didn't even notice in the first episode that those two were Romulan. Interesting that there are Irish Romulans.

I guess that's the second ever F bomb in Trek? Much much better placed than Tilly's "I said strawberry float because we need prove this is an adult show!".

Another enjoyable episode. So far it seems ti be setting up mysteries and then immediately revealing them ( the Romulan spies), while leaving the central mystery bubbling away in the background.

It's a shame Picard doesn't want to get the band back together. I'm pretty sure we'll meet them all at some point, and some of those old TNG actors could do with the work.

The End is The Beginning

Ooo we finally get an "engage"

Another good one, although the slow build up to actual space adventures was starting to wear thin.

I am not sure what to make of the Starfleet/Romulan/Borg situation or where the synths fit in. As they said in the episode, why would the Romulans strawberry float with Earth just as Romulus is about to be wiped out? And why do the ex-Borg know the synth sister? I hope this isn't leading to some bollocks about the sisters being a hybrid of Data and the Borg.

I'm not sure what to make of the new captain and his EMH. Both seem to have the possibility of either being very annoying or becoming some of the best things in the show.

Absolute Candor

Nice callback at the start to Picard hating kids.

These are the ninja nuns from Discovery, right? I hope Burnham's mum doesn't show up.

Nice to see Picard getting told off. The leader of the nuns was much better at it than the kid though. I hope his acting improves as this goes on.

A lot of this felt like a fantasy story. An old man has a quest and recruits a young warrior to aid him by binding him to his service. To be fair the dialogue pretty much said that, so it's a bit unfair to mock.

The ending was a surprise I seen to remember hearing Seven was in this, but didn't think she'd appear like that. She seems to know Picard as well, I'm looking forward to (hopefully!) finding out more about what happened to the Voyager crew after they got home!

A bit of a dip from the previous episodes. Still decent enough though and I really liked the ending.

Stardust City Rag

What the strawberry float is this opening scene? Have I put Dexter on by mistake? Wait. Is that Icheb?

Looks like Seven can drink now, back on Voyager she'd be pissed on a tiny amount.

Erghh, pop up adverts are still a problem in the future.

Nice to see Quark is doing well, although I guess he might have just sold his name and then lost all the money.

That final scene was a good twist, I didn't see her killing anybody! I wonder what she has seen to make her willing to kill somebody she clearly loved?

This was a bizarre episode. It felt absolutely nothing at all like Star Trek. Discovery skirted the line between Trek/not Trek, but (even when it was at its shittest) usually stayed on the Trek side. This just felt so out of place. It's like it wanted to be a violent adult TV show. But didn't quite have the balls to actually make it adult, just a gross scene and then a piss poor "pose as criminals" load of crap.

The worst of Picard so far.

The Impossible Box

Hugh I didn't recognise him before.

A complete turnaround from the previous one. This was decent from beginning to end, other than the dreadful acting from Picard's ninja friend.

Picard said something like it's the first time he's been on a Borg cube since he was turned into a Borg? Did he not ever go on another one, in First Contact for instance?

The Romulan guy is more interesting than I though he was going to be. He seemed to actually care about the synth, even if he also thinks she is just an object. His sister is pretty dreadful though, she's way too one note.

Nepenthe

Riker looks older than Picard. And of course he has a pizza oven in the garden.

The main baddie is probably a decent actress, but the character is just too cartoonish to work. She might as well just stand there cackling and twirling a moustache. If she had a moustache. And the good guy ninja is terrible. I hope they kill him off soon.

The killing of Hugh was really poorly done. He wasn't in TNG much, but still, he deserved a better story and end then he got.

The show seems to jump around time periods too much. There's way too many "14 years ago" "3 weeks ago" scenes. And when they show beloved characters from the older shows, you instantly know it's just going to be a brief appearance for an episode or two. It's probably impossible to get all of them back together for an entire series, but they must know we all want more than just an extended cameo.

Those are minor moans though, this was wonderful. A great balance of nostalgia and the present. And they even managed to get a really good kid actor instead of the annoying/wooden (or annoyingly wooden) ones we usually get in Trek.

At this stage I can only assume Season 2 is terrible, because (other than that one episode) Picard has been pretty good so far. I'm not understanding why people don't seem to like it.

Broken Pieces

Did the Romulans ever react particularly badly to Data in TNG? It seems a big plot hole that they, or at least this sect, didn't go after him.

Another very enjoyable episode. While there was action, it felt like a talky one. Lots of answers, while not giving everything away.

I didn't believe Seven would suddenly become a Borg queen, but you could see how tempted she was. That was some good acting.

I thought they forgave the weird science lady a bit too easily. While the murder was not really her fault, she certainly isn't somebody that I'd let loose amongst the ship until I was 100% sure. And a quick chat with the synth isn't enough!

If they can keep this up for the final 2 parter, then this will be a successful season of TV!

Et in Arcadia Ego: Part 1

Those male Soong genes are STRONG. They've looked exactly the same for generations, all the way back to Captain Archer. And they've all gone into the mad scientist career path.

As a part 1, this felt like mostly set up for the actual finale. It was lacklustre though. I was disappointed that they went down the "synthetics need to destroy organics" route. I know we kind of had that with Lore, but it does the memory of Data a big disservice to just do the overused "AI rises up" tripe (my phone autocorrected trope, but tripe works well ) that is in so much sci-fi.

Having said that, I fully expect this to flip it around in the final episode. Soji will realise it's wrong and will persuade enough of the others. The Federation (probably not the Romulans :lol) will then see that synths are not all bad.

Et in Arcadia Ego: Part 2

My prediction was pretty spot on. It's not quite how I imagined it going down, but was close enough.

I've refrained from saying it all the way through, but the main Romulan guy just didn't seem anything like a Romulan. He just played the character as human. It's not that he's a bad actor, but he wasn't at all believable as a Romulan. His sister was much better in that regard, although she died way too easy

The robotic tentacles coming out of the portal was strawberry floating stupid. What a terrible decision.

Great to see Riker in uniform again. Daft that he managed to rejoin Starfleet, take command of a ship and travel there in that amount it time though!

I don't know if Season 2 was announced before the end of Season 1, but it really would have destroyed any tension over whether Picard lived or died. I was just waiting to see how they saved him.

But I didn't expect it to be what it was. While the whole "one positronic neuron of Data has all his memories" thing is bollocks, the emotion of Picard saying goodbye to his friend was very very well done. It's just a shame it was preceded by a disappointing and cliche ridden "synths v organics battle to the death...no wait they like each other now!" story.

So Picard is a synth now, he just looks identical and has the exact same mind....ok

It's a flaw with a lot of TV series, but there was way too much teleporting (without a transporter ) around without explaining how characters got there. I can let it go, but it is lazy storytelling.

Overall it was a decent season, Stardust was a crap episode and the majority of the finale was poorly done. But most of the series was an enjoyable watch. And it's amazing just how much it was based on Nemesis. I didn't hate that movie, but would never have guessed any Trek would even mention it again, let alone reference it so heavily.

The Star Gazer

Ergh why have they kept the ninja kid in this, he's strawberry floating dreadful. Hopefully he gets killed off soon.

Guinan and Q

The trouble when people say something is terrible is that you end up watching with an anticipation that it's all going to turn to gooseberry fool at any moment. So I'm wondering when this series falls apart, because I liked the first season and thought this was a decent episode. Not perfect and I could nitpick a lot of it, but very decent.

Having said that if it turns out that the Borg really do want peace and friendship, then this whole series can strawberry float off.

I'm assuming that the Borg who came onboard is going to be somebody we know, why else cover up the face?

I just hope that they keep Q as batshit as he ever was and they don't strawberry float the character up.

Penance

Patrick Stewart is obviously a great actor, but he was wonderful at acting somebody acting evil. But as evil as his alternate version must be, I have to be honest I fully support him killing Ducat....

I was glad that this was an alternate timeline rather than the strawberry floating mirror universe again. I guess alternate timeline and a mirror universe are kind of the same thing, I'm just glad it wasn't that stupid empire. And I loved all the references to other characters, even Sisko got a shoutout! And they even tried to make the whale movie make sense.

I know the Borg time travelled in First Contact, but this begs the question of why they didn't do it more often. Go back 10,000 years and wipe humanity out then.

I've no idea what Q is playing at or what's wrong with him (more wrong than usual ), but I'm looking forward to finding out.

It's hard to write this one up without using so many inline spoiler boxes.

I am still firmly in the "this isn't bad" camp. Far better than most of Discovery.

Assimilation

Yay the killed off the Aussie ninja. Although I bet he'll be back when they fix the timeline.

"Be careful everyone, everything has consequences!!" and they immediately transport into the middle of LA.

Hmmm this Borg queen is off. I've not seen one talk like that before, but I'm unsure if that's going to be a plot point or just the writers trying to give the queen "cool" snappy dialogue. I'm assuming that more is going to happen with weird science lady (I am terrible with names), either she's been part assimilated or she'll get a taste for going into the queen's mind and end up fully assimilated.

Not bad, a slight drop in quality from the previous episode, but still enjoyable.

Watcher

It's fine to have a young Guinan and I'm sure she's a great actress. But she looks strawberry float all like Whoopi And I'm confused as to how she looked like Whoopi Goldberg in the 19th century, but looks like this in the 21st century.

There are plot holes aplenty here, as with most Trek time travel. I like the politics side, it's not as hard hitting as Trek has sometimes made it, which shows just how far it used to go. ICE rounding up and tasering people seems mild compared to the gooseberry fool Sisko dealt with.

The Borg queen is still very bizarre when she speaks, but I think I was wrong about there possibly being a reason for it, the writers just seen to want a bitchy Borg. But I think I'll be right that Agnes (the queen said the name enough for me to remember) will get herself assimilated. It'll be a mistake on the Borg's side, dealing with every thought Agnes has will annoy the gooseberry fool out of the queen.

I've no idea what is going on with Q. He's losing his powers? Are they being taken by the collective (again) or is he sick? Can an immortal godlike being even get sick?

Another dip in quality but still not in the awful category.

Fly Me To The Moon

Those Soong men really do have powerful genes. Generations of them are going to look and sound identical for at least the next 400 years!

It'll be interesting why the Soong in the 24th century decided to make a synth that looked exactly like the daughter of the Soong in 2024.

I do like how this references old Trek. Gary Seven! I mean, I had to look it up, but I remembered it once I did. Although the references to older stuff also highlight the stuff they are forgetting/ignoring (Guinan for instance! ).

Overall, I thought this was a step up from the last couple. And I was right about Agnes!

Two of One

The strawberry float was that musical section about?

It's not that this was terrible as such. It just felt like 10 minutes of content stretched out over 40 minutes. Which can work if it's decent character development, but here I don't think we learned anything more about any of the characters.

The Borg queen behaviour can be easier to accept now she's just a voice in Agnes head. They should have kept the queen as a standard Borg queen and then switched to the new version when she became part of Agnes.

I've no idea what's going on with Soong. And I'm not sure I care, it just seems like a repeat of every other story involving the various Soong scientists over the last 30 odd years of Trek. Spiner is great, they should be giving him some decent stuff to work with.

Overall it was a weak episode that would have probably worked well if condensed down to a quarter of an episode.

Monsters

Baltar? And playing a character that somebody else is imagining?

This could have been fantastic. Get Patrick Stewart and James Callis, sit them in a room and get them to talk for half an hour. Instead, they had all the other bullshit surrounding it. Which was dreadful.

It's absurd that in the 24th century, the cure for a woman's mental illness would be "lock her in a room". We understand that's wrong today. The enlightened (I'm not convinced they actually are ) Federation would surely have better treatment.

Worst episode in Picard (both seasons) so far by a very long way. Magic booze

Mercy

I don't know if I liked or hated the shite version of Fox Mulder that we got here. He was so pitiable from the start.

A much (MUCH!) better episode than the previous one. As usual, plot holes galore and it doesn't really make any sense, but was enjoyable to watch.

I still have no real idea what Q's game is here. Is he actually dying, or is that part of his game?

The Borg queen is also mysterious, she wants to get a head start on the future? Ok, but she also knows what the future is if the fascist future happens, and it doesn't involve a Borg victory... isn't the Federation future better for the Borg in the long run? It's the only one where they have a chance of winning in the end. I guess she plans to create a third timeline where the Borg win, but I'm betting she'll be wrong. If I was her though, I'd strawberry float off to the Delta Quadrant and hide away from all of these annoying humans.

2 to go!

Hide and Seek

Ha, I like that my thoughts on the Borg queen's plans were answered in the first few minutes of this episode. Edit: and later on my other thought (mostly made as a joke) was also correct.

strawberry floating Elnor, strawberry float off!

Erghh, Agnes speech to the queen is awful and what's worse is the queen went for it. That pisses all over the very idea of the Borg. There's just no strawberry floating way they would ever decide to just stop assimilating and just ask people if they want to be friends.

And saving Seven was daft. Not that I don't think Borg tech could save her from those injuries, but that it involved the exact same Borg tech she had before reappearing on her hands and face. [inlinespoiler]

I can see why people think this destroys Trek lore. What happened to Picard's mum was never even hinted at before. The Borg stuff is bollocks and ruins them.

But I don't hate this show. As entertainment it's not as bad as people have made out. It could have been so much better, but there's definitely worse Trek (looking at you Discovery!).

Still, plenty of time to drive this into the ground in the final episode!

Farewell

Hmmmm. I didn't hate it. But the whole season was basically pointless. Why [inlinespoiler] didn't Agnes just reveal herself in episode 1? Why did Q bother with all the "let's strawberry float up the timeline" stuff, there are surely better ways to get Picard to confront his childhood trauma. And after everything, hugging and forgiving Q like he was a kindly old friend was daft.

But nothing compared to the stupidness of a few ships putting up shields to stop something that could destroy a huge section of the galaxy. Really? That's the best they could do?

Easter egg wise, I liked the Khan one. But strawberry floating Wesley? WESLEY?

And bastard strawberry floating Elnor is back. Grr!

It wasn't as good as season 1. And is poor compared to some other Trek. But I did enjoy it. Over the 2 seasons, there are only 2 episodes I actually hated.

It's 18 December 2022 now, I think the final season starts in a few months, hopefully they give this show a cracking final season and raise the quality. As a character Picard deserves it.

The Next Generation

It's 18 February today and I'm back to Picard.

Is that Beverly Crusher? strawberry floating hell she looks completely different. Ok, less pausing, more watching.

I thought this was a decent enough opening. Nothing to blow anybody away, but building up to getting the gang back together - assuming that's what they are doing.

No idea what that ship was at the end. If we are supposed to know what race it is, then I've no idea.

And confirmation that LaForge actually managed to get laid. Assuming his daughter isn't adopted of course.

Disengage

Despite the hammy and over the top bad guy, this was a good episode. The Picard and Riker chemistry still works very well, Crusher's face is still taking time for me to get used to and we got Worf at the end!

Low points are Raffi, I didn't mind her in previous seasons, but she seems to have nothing to do here. The character is investigating stuff, but everyone else already seems aware of it.

Crusher Jr isn't impressing me, it's way ti cliche to have the smuggler with a heart of gold who'll end up doing the right thing. And I really hope he isn't Picard's son

I forget his name (Shaw?) but the pissy captain is great. And he's right, strawberry float the old people that keep getting themselves in trouble and then expecting rescuing.

Seventeen Seconds

I thought that was great! Both sides of the story were great, the Picard/Riker/Crusher stuff and the Raffi/Worf side.

Worf's speech followed by "would you like some chamomile tea?"

Interesting that the Dominion, or a splinter group, are back. Which makes me wonder if someone we know is a Changeling. Riker was acting a little weird in this episode and we've not actually seen or heard from Troi....

If it keeps up this quality, then it's a shame it's the last season.

No Win Scenario

Cracking episode. Brilliant (as always) acting from Patrick Stewart and an exciting plot, what's not to like?

It does amuse me just how much Trek loves space babies, how many times have we seen that?! And I swear one of the baby space jellyfish looked just like baby Yoda as it floated by the camera.

I'm still not a big fan of Jack, but he's growing on me a little.

Do the changelings carry a special bucket around with them, or do they just manage to find one on the ships they infiltrate?

It's probably not going to happen, but I wonder if we'll see DS9 or a character from that show? We have the changlings and the Shaw/Picard conversation reminded me of Sisko's meeting with Picard. Are they hinting at some appearances?

The major downside was the lack of Worf.

Imposters

The Picard side of the episode was really good. It's looking like a massive conspiracy inside Starfleet, which hopefully doesn't end with daft alien worm things again.

Nice to see a returning character, although it would have been nice if Ro Laren had gotten a few episodes.

I'm assuming Jack has been altered somehow so that he can "sense" changelings. I predict it's going to be a terrible explanation in the end.

The Rafi side was much less successful. Not awful, but the fakeout Worf death was gooseberry fool. At no point did I believe Worf would die like that.

The Bounty

The heist was fun, although Riker getting captured is obviously going to lead to a changeling taking his place at some point.

Data Although we've seen so many gooseberry fool versions of Data/Soong in the Picard series, that I'm expecting him to be gooseberry fool. I hope not.

Nice to see Geordi (Jordi?) back, he should have kept the visor though, he looked much cooler with that on.

Dominion

This continues to be good, but the main bad guy is way too over the top with her acting. But I kind of like it, there's not nearly enough hammy acting nowadays

The Data/Lore thing is a little annoying. Either bring back Data or not, all this strawberry floating about isn't as fun as they seem to think.

I've no idea what Jack is. It's too obvious for him to be another type of changeling. Some other experiment that was carried out at Daestrom (sp?).

Minor gripes aside, S3 is still on the right track to be a very good season.

Surrender

We are far enough into this season now that I think I can say that the quality isn't going to dip. That will now inevitably turn out to bite me on the arse when the finale ends up being dreadful.

It was great to see all the TNG crew back together around a table. They just needed some playing cards.

I wasn't sure about the Jack character at the start of the season, but I'm glad I was wrong. He's intriguing and I really want to know what's behind the door.

I am glad that the Data/Lore thing has been resolved, but wish they had wrapped that up a couple of episodes ago.

Vox

Only 10 minutes in, but I'm pretty sure I hate this organic Borg explanation. And the "nobody has seen the Borg in 10 years" thing? Have the previous 2 seasons of this been forgotten?

Ok overall it was a decent episode. I do not like the Borg/organic Borg/automated ship formation bollocks but it's hardly the worst ever Trek plot line.

It's left itself a LOT to do in the final episode though. I'm expecting a big reset button, there's just too many people dead (almost everyone over 25!) to not reset things somehow.

The Last Generation

There was a lot to like here but also a lot to roll eyes at. There was never any sense that any named characters were going to be in real danger. And the cackling insane Borg Queen was way too cliche a bad guy.

The big reset button was annoying as well. They should have been braver and actually had some real consequences.

But it was always entertaining. And Worf wanting to join a threesome was genuinely funny.

Overall a good season and it certainly had the nostalgia feels (even if my nostalgia only goes back a couple of years). That last episode should have been a lot better though.