Star Trek Picard Is The Best Trek Ever. Period.
When Amazon announced that it would be creating a new Star Trek series, people were excited. Then, when they found out that Patrick Stewart would spearhead the revival of the franchise, they were ecstatic. Not only was this a chance to indulge in some Next-Gen nostalgia, but also see how various characters had developed over the years.
What happened to Commander William Ryker after he and Deanna Troi married?
What became of the Enterprise and her crew?
What happened to Starfleet after defeating the Borg?
What about all the minor characters from the previous series, like the Borg drone Hugh? It was all a mystery.
The series answers all those questions – and more.
But that’s not the appeal of Amazon’s efforts. Anybody can take a narrative and continue it – as we saw happening in the Star Wars debacle. It takes a genius, though, to take an old story that people love, fast forward in time, and then deliver something that makes sense for today’s audience.
But somehow, this is what Star Trek Picard manages to achieve. As you watch it, you find yourself enjoying it for what it is, not what it could be. There’s no sense that things were better in the Next Generation. They weren’t. If anything, the masterful acting and improved screenwriting reveal the flaws in the original. The cookie-cutter episode model and the spandex uniforms Patrick Stewart and Jeri Ryan discuss on SciFi View both seem hopelessly immature.
This current version is nothing of the sort. Episodes are not the usual set-pieces where you watch the narrative arc play out along its inevitable trajectory. Instead, they’re chunks in a broader narrative that stretches out in all directions across time and space. You feel as if the characters are in a vibrant, living, and breathing world, and you never quite know where things are going to go. Nor do you want to.
Things happen that are so shocking that it keeps you on the edge of your seat. It is not the sort of entertainment you watch if you want a cozy night in front of the TV. It is heart-pounding (and heart-breaking) action from start to finish.
Then there are the personalities. Fans on the original series sometimes look back nostalgically at the shallow characters that graced the decks of the Enterprise, but there’s no place for these tropes in 2020. People want personalities with intrigue, depth, and unpredictability. And here, again, is one of the great strengths of the new series: you simply don’t know how each member of Picard’s crew is going to play off against the other. They’re all so different – so diverse.
What’s more, they continually do things you don’t expect. There’s betrayal, sex, murder, and cunning in every episode with the screenwriters reveling in practically every human moral quandary. You’re treated to a buffet of emotions.
To be sure, the Next Generation had all these elements, but it never quite felt as real or as gritty as this. It was still just Star Trek. This is something different.