Further thoughts on the third season of Star Trek: Picard

Having finished watching the third season of Star Trek: Picard, I find I'm less enthusiastic about it than I would have thought.

For me, the best season of the series remains the first one, even if for half the final, two-part episode I experienced the kind of reservations that plagued my interest in the second and third.  I'm just not overly convinced that a completely serialized season works.  Babylon 5, for a lot of Star Trek fans in the '90s looking for something to energize them, suggested it was the inevitable future, but even it wasn't completely serialized.  Individual episodes could still tell their own stories.  I found Battlestar Galactica so hopelessly grim within just the first few episodes, I not only swore off any further suggestions that this was how Voyager should have played out, I was all the happier it didn't.  Deep Space Nine, when it attempted complete serialization at the beginning of the sixth season and end of the seventh, was further proof, for me, that story gets lost in the shuffle, not elevated.  You have to know what keeps the story interesting, not just keep the story going.

In the second season, I kept wanting more from the few elements that interested me (Q, Guinan), and less from the ones that didn't (Jurati as the Borg Queen's puppet, Rios in ICEland), it was difficult to know what to make of the results.  Later, I better appreciated the season, including how Guinan was used.

This last season will need similar effort.  I understand all the story beats and why they played out the way they did, but eventually it became so inevitable, and the familiar crew used so much it distracted from the pleasure of seeing them again.  Picard needed more grounding.  He needed more time with Beverly Crusher, who while being taken more seriously than ever before still found herself relegated to the background, no resolution, again, between herself and Picard, who instead spent most of his time with Jack Crusher (it would have been interesting as a subplot to somehow tie in the first Jack Crusher to all of this).  Data, instead of having a triumphant return, limped into the ensemble, and never felt any more important to Picard than he did in Next Generation, a direct contrast to their increased bond in the movies, which was so important it was the driving subplot of the first season.

This isn't to say I didn't enjoy the season.  As someone who's remained connected to these characters throughout the years (I remain one of the few fans of Nemesis), it wasn't such a long time since I saw the crew together, so for now, it's difficult to appreciate seeing them again.  I never had a problem like this with the original cast, since by the time I was born, the original series was long over and the movies were still in the midst of playing out, and by the time I was really able to appreciate any of it, both the series and the films were long concluded.  Seeing the crew age through the movies was just a matter of fact, as was following along with their sporadic later appearances, right down to Spock in Star Trek and Into Darkness.  (And, I guess, Walter Koenig voicing Anton Chekov.)  Even seeing the Enterprise-D again feels diminished by spending so much time aboard.

Most of this is quibbles.  In a lot of ways, this season is making amends for how the movies ended, and that the first two seasons avoided most of the cast.  If nothing else, Worf had a great part (the exception that proved the rule), and showed Riker in command mode, and of course Captain Shaw (who was also short-changed, eventually, but whose arc in general was one of the season's true highlights).  Finishing out, finally, the Borg saga, and even rounding out the Dominion War arc, finally including the Next Generation crew in it, that was well worth the time and energy put into everything.  If the season had included a few more wrinkles into the plot, rather than spend much of the back half coasting to the finale, believing the mystery behind Jack was enough, it would have been easier to appreciate.  But it was still well worth it.

Early thoughts on Picard third season

Like viewers in general, I'm loving the third season of Picard.  While the first and second seasons certainly had their hooks and narrative plotlines worth exploring (the first being a dramatic conclusion to Data's original arc, the second being the same for Q), clearly a very different creative direction was taken this time.

In short, this season has been functioning as an extended movie.  Not even a Next Generation movie, but in the style of the first six films.  Yes, as some perennially grumpy fans have pointed out, daring to once again evoke Wrath of Khan (Picard's son!), but in the storytelling, even the music in the end credits (although speaking of the music, it's of course worth noting that the main credits borrow First Contact's theme, which has been my favorite Star Trek theme since, well, First Contact).  While Next Generation in its day sort of surpassed the original show's popular appeal, it never really reached the same levels of cultural impact, and for fans of the original show, it never really escaped its reputation of being something different.  I have a blogging acquaintance who's positively obsessed with finding parallels between them, and will insist Picard is basically Kirk, but I don't see in what universe that was ever remotely true, except in Picard's youth (and further contrasted by the fact that the aged Kirk was never remotely similar to the Picard we first meet).

I hope addressing the presence of Picard's son in the season isn't considered a spoiler.  If so, so be it.  They share a brief moment where they talk about the hair, of course.  If anyone cares to remember, although of course the young Picard in "Tapestry" sports a full head of hair, the picture of Tom Hardy as the young Picard in Nemesis finds him bald, although I always figured it was for production convenience (and to otherwise suggest Picard, for that photo, shaved his hair off).  Even at that point I couldn't have cared less how little Hardy really looked like Patrick Stewart.  He was a great actor giving a great performance!  But hardly likely to show up in the franchise again, right?  Even in a season of wish fulfillments!  (Could we still hope for Colm Meaney?  Please?)

I found aspects of the second season to be disagreeable to the digestion.  I loved the first season wholeheartedly.  I'm finding I'm really enjoying this one, too.

Star Trek and the Changing Face of Eugenics

First airing February 16, 1967, the original series episode "Space Seed" introduced the genetic superman Khan Noonien Singh, who would appear twice more in the franchise (1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and 2013's Star Trek Into Darkness).  Khan was described as a product of the Eugenics Wars, a still-nebulous concept in canon material that was supposed to take place somewhere in the 1990s.  In 1967, the term "eugenics" was broadly understood to have Nazi connotations, although it was a concept widely shared in the United States as well.  Eugenics was the idea that a "perfect" human could be engineered through selective breeding.  In Nazi hands it led to a genocidal purge of undesired ethnicities for a "pure" nation.  

Khan was presented as a monster incapable of reconciling his existence with those he found inferior, which was basically everyone else except the goons sent into the same exile as himself.  When Kirk finds his ship coasting in space and revives him, Khan attempts a coup of the Enterprise and is subsequently sent into a second exile, and an attempt at revenge.  

The extent of Khan's genetic engineering was physical as well as mental, so that he represented the idea of perfecting both by bypassing chance, willful education and fitness efforts.  In doing so, he developed a level of arrogance he couldn't see past, what Kirk eventually called two-dimensional thinking.  By taking his abilities for granted, Khan never considered that there was a chance anyone without his advantages could be his equal, much less superior.

In Star Trek lore, his existence and evident threat led the Federation to ban genetic engineering.  The franchise didn't seriously revisit the idea until the Deep Space Nine episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" in 1997, a full thirty years after "Space Seed."  In it we learn that Doctor Bashir, a member of the regular cast since the first episode of the series, has been genetically engineered the whole time.  To look at him (a complete inverse of Khan physically, a beanstalk of a man), you would certainly have never guessed, and since this was a fifth season episode, nothing the writers had planned until plotting that episode.  Bashir had always had a healthy ego from his introduction on, a recent graduate of Starfleet medical school who boasted of his high academic achievements and selection of the assignment to a station at the edge of Federation space meant as a challenge he didn't think he'd find elsewhere.  The episode explains how his parents chose to modify his genes after finding themselves with a sickly child of no apparent prospects.

Now, no one will ever argue Julian Bashir to be the second coming of Khan.  Starfleet ends up making a special exception for him (he would otherwise have lost his career), instead punishing his father for making the decision in the first place.  For the rest of the series, the only real effect of the revelation is two episodes where he spends time with other products of recent genetic engineering, misfits whose outcomes weren't nearly as fortunate as his own.

The next time the franchise revisits the concept is the trilogy of Enterprise episodes from 2004, "Borderland," "Cold Station 12," and "The Augments," in which we learn the ancestor of Data's creator, Arik Soong, was inspired by the original Khan project in his work, and in fact nurtured the genetic material left over from it and even raised some of the results to adulthood.  (In later episodes, the series finally answers the question of how Klingons in the original series had such smooth foreheads; the Empire attempted to reverse engineer this work, and it...backfired.)  When Soong is repeatedly stymied, he eventually decides to pursues robotics instead.

Which brings us to the modern era of Star Trek programming and the reason I'm writing this.  Genetic engineering has played a prominent role in three series from this period, Picard, Strange New Worlds, and Prodigy.  We'll start with Picard, as it most resembles the franchise's historic stance on eugenics.

The second season of Picard features another member of the Soong lineage, Adam Soong, whose efforts in this field of science are meant to create a daughter for himself.  By this time the Eugenics Wars are long over, Khan has been put into cryostasis and shot into space, WWIII has yet to occur, and of course the Soongs have begun their long journey toward the creation of Data, one of the main cast members of The Next Generation, an android with an innovative positronic net powering him.  Adam Soong, although a renowned member of the scientific community, keeps his greatest work to himself, and has failed a number of times at creating a daughter of unlimited viability, genetic flaws continually cropping up and leading to premature death or debilitating conditions.  When we catch up with him, his daughter Kore has no idea she was created in a lab, although she certainly knows she can't stray far from home, since her skin can't withstand UV rays.  Eventually she runs away from home, and the Soongs continually evolve their pursuits.  Adam and Arik Soong are clearly presented as villains, although Kore, like Bashir before her, is an unwitting victim and sympathetic protagonist.  

The same can be said for Strange New Worlds and Prodigy's contributions.  Strange New Worlds gives us Number One, Una Chin-Riley, who has been hiding her Illyrian heritage since Illyrians maintain a regular practice of genetic engineering.  Prodigy's lead character is Dal, and in the 2022 episode "Masquerade" we learn that he's entirely the product of genetic engineering.

At the end of its first season, Strange New Worlds positions Chin-Riley in the same kind of peril Bashir faced when finally exposed, just as Prodigy finds Starfleet forced to reconcile Dal's existence with its ban.  Chin-Riley's case is in the past, before Khan is even revived, while Dal's is after Bashir's.  It seems recent creators are increasingly interested in challenging the moral qualms of the whole concept.  So is this a problem?

I think so.  It's one thing to argue, as Bashir does, that he had no say in what happened to him.  After all, although he knowingly lied throughout his Starfleet career, he didn't think he was otherwise responsible for conditions that ended up violating the ban.  Dal's case is different.  Although a character in a show geared toward kids and constantly presented as someone who just wants to fit in (and therefore it would be tough to come to any other conclusion), it becomes problematic that he's yet another unwitting victim we're asked to accept.  As I write this, the second season of Strange New Worlds has yet to premiere, so there's no way to know if and how Chin-Riley's case is handled, but it seems equally unlikely that she will end up unabsolved, whether by Starfleet or her crew.

I'm not making an argument against modern Star Trek, or these characters.  What I'm saying, here, is that it's a curious development in a franchise that has long been a champion of reason, spending the entire original series questioning basically everything, even the most precious indulgences of the counterculture that has long since been assumed to most closely align with its utopian ideals.  The franchise has also become a beacon of acceptance, in increasingly overt ways, and yet...this might be a step too far.  What some would call inevitable scientific progress still represents a Doctor Bashir who asks his parents, finally, why he wasn't good enough for them as he originally was.  No subsequent depiction of genetic engineering in the franchise has voiced such a thought, nor the cautionary tale (which is the foundation of the franchise) of Khan and the generation of augments that followed him.

This is a dangerous road to travel.  My hope is that someone at the controls realizes this at some point.  We don't need a Khan to point this out.  We certainly don't need another Hitler.  Star Trek is always at its best when it depicts humanity's efforts to better itself.  Through more conventional means.  Moral means.

Star Trek: Picard 2x1 "The Star Gazer" Review

rating: ****

the story: Picard finds himself drafted into a most unexpected scenario, and then, of course, things spiral out of control...

review: The focus of this review will be the window into the background of Jean-Luc Picard that "The Star Gazer" uses for its title, the relationship with his mother that we're allowed to see for the first time.  This is an essential contribution to the character's lore.

Storytelling in the franchise originally focused only on the moment.  Any information about biographical details surfaced in dialogue.  There were never flashbacks.  The first exception to this occurred in Deep Space Nine's pilot, "Emissary," in which the Prophets grant Sisko, and the viewer, a vision allowing him to revisit how he met his wife Jennifer, and of course the first moments of the episode, in which we see how she died, during the Battle of Wolf 359.  Later, in Voyager, Tuvok's past is glimpsed in "Gravity," and "Flashback" provides a visit into his early Starfleet career.  The precedent to all this was The Animated Series' "Yesteryear," in which Spock visits himself when he was a child.  It wasn't until Star Trek, though, that the storytelling was allowed to be a truly organic element, where the narrative was able to jump from one time period to another, from the moment of Kirk's birth to Spock's formative years as he struggles to reconcile his Vulcan and human halves.

In "The Star Gazer" we see our first-ever look back at Picard in a similar manner.  Through the rivalry with his brother, explored in "Family" from Next Generation, we knew something of his origins, and we had even seen both his mother and his father in various visions.  In this episode, however, we see Picard as a child, interacting with his mother.  Interestingly, this sequence even evokes the Picard we hear about in Nemesis, whose conversations with Shinzon explore how he became interested in space.  The rest of the episode, as has the series itself, is steeped in more of his career than the mere fact that he was once in command of a starship that was lost in battle with a mysterious foe (that turned out to be the Ferengi!).

So yes, this is not Next Generation Part 2, but very much its own story, very much centered on Picard, for anyone still confused about this.  And this is the episode some of us have been really clamoring for, a visit with Guinan!  It happens to delve into the nature of Picard's romantic aloofness, as he happens to be falling in love with the nice Romulan lady who assists him at the vineyard and still trying desperately to deny such a thing could be happening...

The cast of the first season returns and they're all off on new adventures of one variety or another...until the final moments of the episode, in which the Borg are once again rearing their technological and biological distinctiveness and...Q!  Even more than Guinan, true aficionados have been craving for another clash between Picard and Q ever since 1994.  So it is very much cause for celebration.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A relatively new tradition of allowing a character's full history to be seen and entered into canon is embraced.
• series - Picard, for all intents and purposes, fulfills several long-held desires by welcoming both Guinan and Q into the fold.
• character - Picard, as never before, blossoms as a fully-dimensional character free from the typical constraints of franchise storytelling.
• essential - Perhaps more so than Kirk and Spock's arcs in Star Trek, seeing this come about at the end of a long life is if anything even more rewarding.  This is historic in all the right ways. 

notable guest-stars:

Whoopi Goldberg (Guinan)

John De Lancie (Q)

Star Trek Arcs XVIII: Romulan Elegy

The conclusion of this series on story arcs in the Star Trek franchise revolves around a thread weaving through three separate projects and interweaving two separate arcs. Unthinkable. But it happened.

Star Trek Nemesis gets little to no respect from fans, but it’s always been a personal favorite. Its plot revolves a clone of Picard created by the Romulans, who end up bitterly regretting it when he seizes power in his bid for revenge. In the process, Data sacrifices himself to stop him, and everyone thought they knew exactly what would happen next, and they were so sure they were bitterly disappointed and it seemed like nothing at all would happen.

The next Star Trek movie premiered seven years later and was somehow a reboot and a continuation. Its complicated timeline sets it after the events of Nemesis, so that we see an aging Spock involved in the response to the destruction of Romulus. Canonically we have no other information at that point involving familiar characters.

In Picard, we see what happened in the aftermath. In fact, Picard himself torpedoed his Starfleet career in bitter disgust at how the Federation effectively turned its back on the Romulan refugee crisis. Then of course he winds up being drafted right back into the action.

At the same time, he’s unraveling a mystery that leads him into a most unexpected reunion with Data, culminating in a “dream sequence” in which his android friend gets the chance to say an extended farewell, giving his final thoughts on the journey he took toward becoming more human. 

It’s bittersweet and heartbreaking, and really quite beautiful. It’s by far the most unlikely arc of the franchise, and probably impossible to occur in any other context.

Captain Picard Day 2021!

 I haven’t been very good at acknowledging Captain Picard Day (which is basically Star Trek Day) in the past…like at all (unlike First Contact Day!), but I marked it my calendar an’ everything this year, and social media reminded me, and so here I am!

Ironically, we first learned about this in a Riker episode (“The Pegasus”), but in case you’re not familiar, here’s the gist:

The Enterprise of course is a ship with families aboard. The children are encouraged to create artwork to help celebrate Picard as captain of the ship.

(Which is all the more ironic, as Picard frequently professed his dislike of children.)

Anyway, this is as good an excuse to celebrate Picard in the real world as any. At its height Next Generation was able push Picard as a cultural icon. There was an actual business book called Make It So that encouraged taking leadership lessons from him. 

Star Trek fans still find it hard to let Picard compete with Kirk as best captain, but Patrick Stewart has been beyond reproach as favorite actor in the franchise. He never really parlayed that into a significant movie career, but he had plenty of TV projects for years keeping him busy, a lot of them drawing from classic literature and/or Shakespeare.

And of course he has since gone on to star in the to date only Star Trek series to serve as a direct spinoff and namesake for a single character.

Star Trek Arcs VI: Picard versus the Borg

Arguably the biggest Star Trek arc ever was conceived in the least likely season of Star Trek ever (just like the last one). I’m talking, of course, about the Borg.

In the first season finale of The Next Generation, “The Neutral Zone,” the Romulans are reacting to the emerging threat of the Borg. That’s the whole point! 

But we don’t actually meet the Borg until the second season, in a Q episode, of all things, “Q Who?,” the unlikeliest thing ever, perhaps. In a lot of ways, that was an episode that redefined Q, took him seriously for the first time, and arguably too seriously! Every subsequent appearance (except maybe “Death Wish” in Voyager) veers far from the darkness of Q literally showing Picard how little he really understands about the dangers of space.

But it at least shows Picard as the one who needs to understand the threat of the Borg, because that becomes the big story.

At the end of the third season, “The Best of Both Worlds” makes franchise history as Picard finds himself assimilated into the Borg Collective, ending the episode on one of the most important (serialized) cliffhangers in television history. The fourth season premiere concludes the story, and of course Picard is rescued. But the fallout lingers for decades.

The first follow-up is the next episode of that season, “Family,” during which Picard deals with the emotional impact of his assimilation. He later encounters the Collective again in “I, Borg,” in which he’s forced to admit that even something seemingly as simple as how he should feel about this is actually quite complicated.

Then of course First Contact, in which he’s run through the ringer again. It remains my personal favorite Picard memory, especially the ready room scene where he admits how obsessed he remains, uncontrollably so.

The arc technically concludes in “The Impossible Box,” from Picard, in which he steps foot aboard a Borg cube again for the first time since his assimilation. 

Enterprise features a tie-in with all this in the episode “Regeneration,” in which we learn the time-traveling Borg from First Contact are in fact responsible for sending the signal that eventually brings the Collective on a collision course with humanity.

Finally, in the pilot of Deep Space Nine, “Emissary,” we meet Sisko, who lost his wife in the big battle from “The Best of Both Worlds, Part 2,” and he still blames Picard, regardless of his assimilated state at the time. It’s the rare moment in franchise lore we see a significant separate story set during a more famous one.

Star Trek Arcs V: Data/Lore

This arc is the first one to play out deliberately within a single Star Trek series (and beyond).

It’s all the more incredible, since the first season of The Next Generation is seldom considered to be the origin point of a lot of good things, other than the second act of the franchise itself. 

In “Datalore,” we get the secret origin of Data himself, as well as the fact that he has an “evil twin,” Lore, created just before him by Noonien Soong. Lore, it seems, was too mischievous, too unpredictable, so Data himself was conceived as a more innocent being.

This had the unintended effect of causing Lore, once discovered, to double up on his mischief, and for Data ever to yearn for more. In “Brothers,” the dying Soong intends to bequeath Data with a component that would help him achieve that goal, an emotion chip, but like Jacob and Esau, Lore tricks Soong into giving the chip to him instead.

In the two-part “Descent,” Lore uses the chip to manipulate Data, who’s unable to process emotions and so becomes easily controlled, for a time, but by the end he’s permanently deactivated Lore. For an android who has had to fight for his own right to exist, and that of his “daughter,” even, this is a surprisingly little-considered decision.

In Generations he finally installs the emotion chip into his positronic net, and again he exhibits great difficulty reconciling his new abilities. Eventually he figures them out, and in later movies even has the ability to switch them off or have the chip easily removed.

In Nemesis we meet a third Soong android of the same appearance, B-4, a prototype that predates Lore, less sophisticated than either previously encountered. Data again chooses to deactivate a troublesome sibling, although since he himself dies at the end of the movie, B-4 is subsequently reactivated, left to wrestle with the downloaded experiences of his brother.

In Picard we meet Dahj and Soji, who are so sophisticated they aren’t even aware they’re androids, much less directly associated with Data. The dilemma Lore forces Data into in “Descent” plays out a little differently between these sisters, who find themselves as the unlikely heart of a dark controversy. 

Picard 1x10 “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2”

rating: ****

the story: Conflict resolution; saying goodbye to Data.

review: Yeah, that was about right. The general plot of the series was a juxtaposition between duty on a large scale and a small one. The large scale was confronting bigotry in opposing forces, and helping both sides realize there was more than one possible response. The small scale was finding peace with the death of Data.

For much of the season, the small scale goal was in the background, as Picard assembled his response to a crisis that in effect happened in large part because he was no longer in a position to prevent it, and that was largely because he no longer had Data at his side. “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2” is a much bigger success than its preceding component largely because it doesn’t allow itself to become lost in the details. In any proper ending, the details ought to be clear enough, and in this case they are because the goal was already explained in the beginning.

Except Data doesn’t return. He stays dead. He has a chance to explain why he actually prefers to remain dead, and it’s the perfect completion of the journey he began in his first appearance, finally understanding that the idea of being human is basically embracing the limits he was always determined to push.

Anyway, there’s also Riker’s pitch-perfect cameo (which sums up his command dynamic with Picard), characters who didn’t make sense last episode making sense (including yet another Problematic Soong Android being summarily deactivated; I’d really like if just one of them had a chance to be anything but binary).

Basically the best possible ending to the season, and everything it needed to be to celebrate Picard and his legacy. Until they figure out how to include, y’know, Guinan. Q. And, uh, the rest of the Next Generation gang...

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Final resolution for Nemesis. Maybe fans can decide to embrace it?
• series - A great ending to the season.
• character - The final statement on Data.
• essential - The final statement on Picard’s moral, heroic character.

notable guest-stars:

Brent Spiner (Data, Soong)

Jonathan Frakes (Riker)

Jeri Ryan (Seven)

Picard 1x9 “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1”

rating: **

the story: Picard’s team reaches their destination.

review: Sometimes the problem with serialized storytelling is that it boxes the story into elements that need to happen but become difficult to tell interestingly. That was always the biggest problem with Deep Space Nine, especially in the six- and ten-episode arcs that were laden with plot elements that squashed all opportunity to explore their potential. They ended up hammering points without elegance. What Enterprise accomplished so brilliantly in its third season was the ability to break its ideas down to concrete points, particularly as the importance of Degra blossomed. Even after he was necessarily taken off the table, there were enough moving parts still in play that even the inevitable was interesting.

With this penultimate episode of a season-long arc, we reach a point that ought to have been can’t-miss, and...it nearly does. The problem is in the introduction of two characters. One is a good addition handled poorly, and the other is a bad addition also...handled poorly. The first is another Brent Spiner Soong performance, but the character is almost completely marginalized, his significance taken for granted, perhaps. The other is another android played by Isa Briones (who also portrays Soji, the twin from the first episode, the one glimpsed last episode, and probably dozens of other iterations), who turns out to be the latest treacherous turncoat. The reveal is somewhat akin to the Founders in Deep Space Nine (in fact, the whole conflict is very similar), which is why I tended to have a problem with the Female Founder in that series; she had no nuance at all, in a series where shades of gray were everywhere.

There was a good way to handle all of this material, but I don’t think this was it. But let’s get to the point summary to clarify:

criteria analysis:

• franchise - I think you have to be invested for any of this to work. I think general viewers would be even more inclined to dismiss the creative approach to this episode than I am.
• series - I mean, it’s interesting and relevant, obviously. 
• character - The introduction of the new Soong was the only good thing about the episode.
• essential - The results are too perfunctory. After all the creative thought put into it, I would almost greatly prefer to Picard movie default ending of him needing to stop some giant machine from blowing up. Or having to blow the machine up. 

notable guest-stars

Brent Spiner (Soong)

Jeri Ryan (Seven)

Picard 1x8 "Broken Pieces"

rating: ***

the story: Rios grapples with his past as it catches up with him, and we learn...a lot.

review: If I weren't feeling particularly generous because I generally love the results of the series to date, I'd call this latest episode...a glorified infodump.  Basically it's...everyone...explaining...everything.  The exception is Rios (even though he's thoroughly wrapped up in it, too).  Between his holograms (best part of the episode) and how learning about his past informs his, and the show's, present, he finally grabs the spotlight, without any of the flashback material that might in hindsight seem something like a crutch elsewhere in the series.

Speaking of flashbacks, we see the evil Romulan conspiracy take shape, the continuingly fairly vague nature of the AI apocalypse, past and present, although now of course it looks all the more like fear-mongering (as I write this, I'm grappling with the effects of COVID-19 in American and personal activities, so I seem to have pretty relevant recent experience).  Someone on the internet, which is capable of reducing even the most complex concepts into the least helpful summaries possible (which, again, because I'm feeling cynical at the moment, seems to be the extent of human discourse, at least at the moment), pointed out that Picard and the second season of Discovery both have AI apocalypse plots.  The difference of course is in the storytelling, and in that you really have to go out of your way to worry about similarities.  Picard weaves a tale drawing on rich Star Trek tradition, where Discovery invented its out of sheer cloth (and maybe a Pocket Books novel). 

Anyway, Jurati comes clean, and even finds some peace and solace with what's happened, Seven (or, Annika) is back, and feeling somewhat ambiguous about bringing back a hive mind to kick Romulan ass, Soji is starting to understand the scope of what lies behind her (and ahead), Raffi is plunging well into the mess at last, Picard is playing a truly supporting role in his own show for the first time, and...

Rios!  The holograms have been around since he first appeared, but this is our first chance to truly enjoy them, and their relationship to Rios himself.  It's Raffi's best showing, too, by the way, trying to get information, any information out of them, through which she demonstrates her newfound commitment.  And we learn the circumstances of how Rios left Starfleet behind (really makes you wonder what Voyager would look like in the CBS All Access era), and how they directly tie into current events.  That part is extremely artful.  That's why I hesitate to dismiss "Broken Pieces" as infodump, because (and it's Michael Chabon writing solo, so maybe this is not surprising) the Rios elements are artful, in ways the episode, and the series, and maybe Star Trek itself, really need them to be.

It's the kind of episode that pushes along the narrative exceptionally well, the necessary connective stuff that doesn't look like it's as amazing as other, flashier episodes, but, for fans of Picard, is absolutely essential.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - I think the "infodump" nature would most affect viewers who aren't as invested in Picard as in Star Trek as a whole.
• series - And yet, this is crucial material that builds up everything that has come before, and will follow.
• character - Finally, the Rios spotlight!
• essential - The Rios spotlight probably no one could have expected, but becomes a definitive lynchpin of the season.

notable guest-stars:
Jeri Ryan (Seven)

Picard 1x7 "Nepenthe"

rating: ****

the story: Picard visits with old friends (you've probably heard of them).

review: It's official, then.  Riker became Little John.  (Give you a moment to remember.)  That's the wonderful memory and thought I had, anyway, watching "Nepenthe," among other happy reflections.  This was another solid episode.  At this point, I'm easily calling Picard the most rewarding series experience of the whole franchise, not just because I enjoy seeing Picard again, but because the season has been so consistently good, an excellent mix of everything, from ideas to characters new and old, and building on the rich legacy preceding it.

Let's talk about the ideas a little.  Finally we learn what convinced Jurati to kill her own friend and lover, Bruce Maddox, a vision of the future, and not just a vision, but that frequent vision of today, some dreaded apocalypse.  If we don't do this, this will happen.  And there's no convenient real world allegory here, no side to pick, in case you were worried.  It's just the times we live in, which is much as it was in the '60s, when Star Trek originally suggested it didn't have to be that way. 

But we begin to have an idea of why the Romulans, or anyone else, fear artificial life so much, and that's the key here, in this episode, that prejudice so often infused with some awful kernel but more often created by hysterical imagination, especially when the victim is so easy to dismiss as "other," as of course is always the case. 

No doubt we'll learn more.

In the meantime we have Picard and Soji visiting Riker and Troi and their daughter!  And, learning about what's happened in the meantime, who they lost, and how their lives have developed along the way.  Troi's there, but Riker receives more emphasis, and before anyone cries injustice, let me just suggest that Riker makes for better entertainment, and this might actually be his best-ever appearance in the franchise (across Next Generation, Voyager, Enterprise, and even his transporter duplicate in Deep Space Nine, and the movies, and now this, helping him, and Jonathan Frakes, set a new record, surpassing the likes of Nimoy/Spock and Dorn/Worf for most franchise appearances, that is unlikely to be broken).  And I'm not sure his height difference with Picard ever came across this sharply, either, at least for me.

For everything in the mix, it's another strong showing for Soji, who perhaps again most benefits from what might otherwise have seemed an obvious Picard spotlight, as she begins to accept who and what she is as she interacts with Picard's friends.

(Is it too early to suggest that the daughter gets her own series?)

Plus, unfortunately, the death of another familiar face, this time Hugh, as the Romulans officially switch into villainous gear.  Who else was seeing Narek, meanwhile, as a Star Trek Boba Fett?

(The title "Nepenthe," meanwhile, comes from The Odyssey, referencing a drug that cures a troubled mind.  Love the deep Greek mythology cut for that one, as with another recent Star Trek classic, Discovery's "An Obol for Charon.")

criteria analysis:

• franchise - I mean, gosh, it's great to see Riker and Troi again!
• series - But there's still plenty of room to celebrate what's happening in Picard, all you fans still paranoid about "These Are the Voyages..."
• character - Soji grapples with recent revelations, among other highlights.
• essential - Hardly a missed opportunity!

notable guest-stars:
Jonathan Frakes (Riker)
Marina Sirtis (Troi)
Jonathan Del Arco (Hugh)

Picard 1x6 "The Impossible Box"

rating: ****

the story: Picard reaches the Artifact (Borg cube).

review: Such is the emerging interest in Picard itself (which for many fans is contrasting with their perceptions of Discovery, which isn't the case for me, as I like them both, and they're doing two entirely separate things) that fans are starting to hype up the relevance of its events.  With "The Impossible Box" I've seen a rash of articles explaining its relevance to Star Trek: First Contact, how it explains and reconciles Picard's mood from what we've typically seen from him.  But we knew this already, from "Family" and of course, "I, Borg," both of which tackle his emotional response to the events of "The Best of Both Worlds," and from other episodes as well ("The Drumhead," for instance).

But the idea that his time as Locutus continues to bother Picard, that it has in fact becoming a lingering bigotry for him, is perhaps something new.  "I, Borg" touched on it (this is the episode where we originally meet Hugh, of course), but Picard seemed to use it as a definitive turning point.  Instead, as First Contact and "Impossible Box" make clear, it was an experience he had much more difficulty forgetting, much less getting over.

The funny thing is, "Impossible Box" features this aspect of the story much less directly than Seven's role in "Stardust City Rag," which was allowed to create a whole deviation from the flow of the series, so that we didn't even visit the Artifact that episode.  "Impossible Box," meanwhile, is the point the season has been building toward since the first episode, in which Picard finally meets the other sister, Soji (the naming scheme of the sisters can't help but call to mind another Picard movie, Insurrection, at least for me, which might even have been intentional; in a sense Data found a "kid brother" in it), who herself is in the midst of both finding out the truth about her Romulan lover, and her own origins.

In that sense, "Impossible Box" is much more of a Soji episode than it is another Picard spotlight, which is the second episode in a row for that to happen, and only second in six episodes.  Picard's reaction to the Artifact becomes icing on the cake.  In a sense, it's wonderful parallel storytelling, which is something that can sometimes feel like a lost art in the new franchise paradigm (though Discovery attempted, perhaps too much, exactly that in its second season, in successive character arcs throughout the season).

One last note: In his second Picard appearance, Hugh a last gets to soak in his legacy, which was sort of robbed of him the first time.  Viewers were left to either recognize him or not.  Here the context is at the surface.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - I wonder if fans ever really ever tire of revisiting the Borg.
• series - A crucial turning point of the season.
• character - Soji manages to upstage a key moment for Picard.
• essential - All that, plus learning more about that elusive Borg Queen, which amounts to another of Star Trek's spectacular gateways.

notable guest-stars:
Jonathan Del Arco (Hugh)

Picard 1x5 "Stardust City Rag"

rating: ****

the story: Seven's revenge is a dish best served cold.

review: This is the sort of episode that will be easy to view on its own terms as well as part of the overall narrative, and as such is a de facto highlight in a serialized story.  And it is: Seven's spotlight.

In a lot of ways, Seven finally got around to joining the Voyager family.  Voyager was a series about a crew in part made up of Federation renegades who despised the results of a policy decision.  It didn't end up feeling like that because those renegades soon enough signed up with their Starfleet counterparts and for all intents and purposes looked indistinguishable within a handful of episodes (though it really took a few seasons for all the rough edges to work away).  Seven came along well after that point, and her journey was an entirely personal one.

In a lot of ways, then, Seven and Voyager serve as a template for Picard itself.  Picard views his quest as a personal one, but he's really being drafted back into a much bigger cause, and is forced to work alongside whoever's available rather than his old Starfleet colleagues (except, of course, Raffi, who might be eating some humble pie, after being forced to confront a past she was just lambasting Picard for resembling).  Seven herself has finally become a renegade, choosing a side.  It seems circumstances are always defining our choices, and what they look like.  Star Trek will always, or should always, choose to follow those who prefer principle over form, what's right rather than what Starfleet says, and has since we first met Kirk (and, technically, Pike before him).

Seven's journey is dramatized by...the death of Icheb.  Icheb was Voyager's Wesley Crusher, a boy genius who happened to be a former Borg drone.  He ended up with a far more anonymous career (and fan legacy) than Wes, but he meant a great deal to Seven, even during Voyager (he appeared throughout the show's last two seasons).  And someone butchers him for parts. 

Understandably, Seven takes this personally.  It's the same as what motivated Picard to action, really, only, at this point, Picard has less immediate results available to him. 

The episode also shows us Bruce Maddox (like Icheb, played by a new actor) for the first time (and, uh, last time), thanks to Jurati (here I am, using character names for the first time!), finally exhibiting some agency of her own (even if it seems awful!).  Rios has another great showing.  No Soji (that's the other twin in the Borg cube).  Elnor (that's the Romulan samurai dude we met last episode) is kind of the Justice League Flash in the episode. 

It's the first episode of the series to cede the spotlight to someone other than Picard, and so that's remarkable in itself, and Seven of course is a worthy substitute, and the acknowledgement of their shared Borg past is nice, and of course it does link up with what Soji's working on, which Maddox is able to point toward before Jurati offs him.  The whole episode feels like one of those classic pivotal arc moments from Deep Space Nine or Enterprise. 

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A huge shout-out to Voyager!
• series - While remaining completely relevant to Picard itself.
• character - Focus shifts to Seven, brilliantly.
• essential - The spotlight is also shared by Maddox, finally, but I bet he wishes it hadn't.  This is a crucial turning point.

notable guest-stars:
Jeri Ryan (Seven)

Picard 1x4 "Absolute Candor"

rating: ****

the story: Picard's latest recruit is from a Romulan colony he was forced to abandon.

review: The Romulans have existed in franchise lore since the original series, and have been a treasured aspect of it since that first appearance, "Balance of Terror."  But their role has been about as aloof as they've tended to be themselves, famously featured in Next Generation, but never to the level of the Klingons.  But their presence has been steadily expanding since Star Trek Nemesis, which showcased them as the principal antagonists in one of the films for the first time, and then again with Star Trek (2009). 

"Absolute Candor," however, is the new Romulan peak.  In exactly the way Next Generation finally allowed Klingons to be more than mere warriors, to flesh out a whole culture, Picard has now allowed Romulans to be something other than mere prototype, more than just "devious Vulcans."

Some fans might chafe at the notions emerging in the episode, that because we'd never seen it before, it seems too contrived now.  But Picard himself, having pierced the veil of Romulan society, thanks in part, no doubt, to his experiences in Nemesis, found himself in a perfect position to learn far more than the Federation itself ever knew ("Balance of Terror" itself was the first time anyone had seen a Romulan, much less knew the Vulcan connection).

And he immersed himself in a community.  Arguably, what always stood at the heart of Picard's reluctance around children was the fear that he himself would never have them.  That's addressed in "Candor" as well, and itself is a valuable aspect of the episode.  And yet, it's that community that always defined Picard, whether his Enterprise days or even earlier, as he bonded with the Crushers, and what he so tellingly lost, as everyone keeps reminding him, when he left Starfleet.  He put himself in isolation, not merely from Kirk's notions of "making a difference," but from any real semblance of family, which he probably thought he had sacrificed permanently to pursue his youthful dreams.

And so as we learn more about Romulans, we see Picard himself once again more clearly.  And it's probably the best window into the man we've yet gotten, at least in this series.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Romulan society blossoms!
• series - We meet another member of Picard's new crew!
• character - The deepest look into Picard's recent past we've yet gotten.
• essential - Will serve as a defining look into the Romulans.

notable guest-stars:
Jeri Ryan (Seven)

Picard 1x3 "The End Is the Beginning"

rating: ***

the story: Picard sets out to recruit an old colleague to his cause.

review: Notice I say "old colleague," not [insert name of Next Generation character here], which is similar to what the second episode did in recalling Picard's Stargazer days, although in this instance it's filling in some of the space between Star Trek Nemesis/Star Trek (2009) and Picard, in which of course Picard kept doing things even though we weren't watching, and met and did things with people we had never seen before.  I love that he got to have a vibrant life like that, sort of unlike how the original crew, in six movies...never really did.  Like, any of them.  (It's true, by the seventh movie, Generations, Sulu is reported as having made the time, and of course he did have his own ship in Undiscovered Country, and as George Takei loves bringing up, would've had one as early as Wrath of Khan, where of course Chekov is serving aboard another ship.  But this is already a large digression.)

And at some point, I might even start dropping the names of this supporting cast, but as it stands, these characters are still developing, and Picard is, well, Picard, and he's literally the guy in the name of the series this time, so for the time being, I'm going to continue talking mostly about him.

So we actually see the aftermath of his decision to leave Starfleet, fourteen years earlier (which, again, as with Discovery, is the first time in Star Trek lore that the production format has been comfortable to just show flashback moments without some convoluted method to get there, and that's one of the most refreshing elements of the modern franchise), and [New Character] is kind of miffed that not only does Picard get a chance to just walk away, but his retirement is also far more comfortable.  It's an interesting wrinkle of a future Star Trek always described as humanity no longer struggling with issues of equality.  The complaint might not even be much more than Picard having something, anything, to fall back on (in his case, the family vineyard), but it might also, as it seems on the surface, to suggest that equality doesn't always feel so equal, even if you're not an artificial life-form (which is sort of the crux of the series).

We meet another new character, too (a pilot that sort of feels like the Rogue One pilot, only more interesting, since he's got his own EMH literally designed after him), and the team is officially coming together.  We even see Hugh, I think, for the first time, helping the android duplicate as she investigates one of the Romulans reclaimed from the Borg (in the process revealing a prophecy twist that I sort of had to chew on a little).  Hugh, the drone we met way back in "I, Borg," now looking not particularly drone-like at all (unlike when we last saw him, in "Descent Part II"), so that you might not even realize who he is without his name being mentioned, being treated not as a big deal (yet) but just a supporting character feeding some connective tissue in the plot.  That's pretty interesting.

It's also interesting that the pilot dude has a personal EMH (whom he treats much as the Doctor was in early episodes of Voyager, as something that can be switched off at his convenience), which as I've noted is part of the intricate tapestry of prior artificial life bigotry in Star Trek lore, and either unique to people like this guy who are not particularly Starfleet mainstream or an exception to the new crackdown (or old, depending on whether Voyager meant to imply that the whole EMH series was scrapped, or just the original models).  Anyway this EMH is another of the many British accents cropping up in the series, which I find interesting, whether as a nod to Patrick Stewart or for some other production reason (such accents being traditionally more rare in the franchise).

There was a review I had read of the series before it launched that suggested Picard was ultimately too talkative, and far too coy about getting Picard's crew together.  If it was based on these first three episodes, I think plenty of valuable attention was given to the points of view for parties so far introduced.  It's better for Picard to be surrounded, if not by Next Generation characters, then by individuals who get to think about matters for themselves.  Too often, Star Trek (and other such platforms) assume the good guys are just going to agree and send them off on their merry way.  (To paraphrase Worf, not everyone is going to be merry.)

So this is another winner.  Next time: fencing!

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Some more valuable insights into what's familiar, and what's new.
• series - Several key characters are either seen for the first time or outright introduced.
• character - For a series named after a single character, this box sort of needs to be checked permanently, and fortunately, Picard keeps doing exactly that.
• essential - The slow pace of the second and third episodes means the storytelling is most rewarding to those actively watching.  You can't just drop in and be wowed.

notable guest-stars:
Jonathan Del Arco (Hugh)

Picard 1x2 "Maps and Legends"

rating: ***

the story: Picard begins to learn more about what happened, and moves toward his response.

review: This second episode settles Star Trek: Picard into a regular rhythm, a talky rhythm, which for me isn't a bad thing at all, something I've really wanted to see from the franchise for ages, just letting a story unfold without introducing formulaic elements to satisfy imagined requirements.  Characters have long conversations.  Some will consider the results "infodump," such as learning about an even more secret Romulan operation than the Tal Shiar, but again, I've never had a problem with that kind of storytelling.  If it's news to a character, as it is to Picard himself, it's worth talking about, period.  And that's kind of the whole episode.

Shockingly or not, Picard has one of those conversations with a belligerent Starfleet admiral who ends up rejecting his offer to rejoin the fleet so he can figure out what's happening.  This has been a Star Trek trope forever, with one of the first famous examples being Star Trek: The Motion Picture (although Kirk had a much more favorable outcome, in a scene viewers don't even get to witness).  Starfleet admirals are famously about the exact opposite of the main characters in a Star Trek series; they're darn close to antagonists most of the time.  And this one's no different.  It's just shocking that Picard (as Kirk experienced in a different movie, The Search for Spock) has to go rogue again (which, as I noted for the first episode, he did in Insurrection as well) rather than be welcomed back with open arms by a grateful Starfleet (as fans would expect for a beloved character).

We learn other things as well, such as the real role that hunky Vulcan will be playing (as to whether or not he actually fulfills it is perhaps another Ash Tyler experience, as depicted in Star Trek: Discovery).  We meet another of the main characters at the end of the episode.

But really, I think my favorite moment of the episode is Picard reuniting with...an old Stargazer colleague.  As obvious partisans to his Enterprise days, fans would expect Picard to have affection mostly for Next Generation characters, but even that series long acknowledged that Picard's career began well before then.  Aside from the occasional glimpse, we never really got to see too much of the Stargazer, and the life Picard led aboard it (aside from the Crushers, obviously), much less the people who used to define his life.  And this is twenty years after even Picard's Enterprise days.  For him, everything's in the past (and most depressingly, even his good friend Data).  So to spend some time with a Stargazer colleague is just one of the many ways the series allows Picard to inhabit a world far removed from shipboard activities, which as an admitted fan of Deep Space Nine, I always liked to see in the franchise (although even that series could've used time away from its station).

I like the leisurely approach.  I like that the series is letting itself breathe.  I like that there's ample time to talk, to reflect.  And yes, to anticipate.  There's plenty of time for other faces, bigger developments.  It's truly wonderful to be experience Star Trek in such a fresh way with such a dear friend.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Learning new things about the Romulans!
• series - Continues to let itself ease into the story, and its cast.
• character - An important moment for Picard as he realizes Starfleet won't help him.
• essential - If you yearn for more dramatic developments, you will probably find this one harder to appreciate.

Picard 1x1 "Remembrance"

rating: ****

the story: Jean-Luc Picard comes out of doleful retirement, realizing he's needed again.

review: I bet this comes as no surprise to anyone who has read my Star Trek reviews before, but I absolutely loved the first episode of Star Trek: Picard.

Right from the start, as many "easter egg" features have already covered, "Remembrance" caught me in the jellies (it's a term I'm stealing from Detective Pikachu).  I love Star Trek Nemesis.  I'm pretty much the only fan that does.  I got immediately that nice cyclical note they were playing, Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies" beginning Picard's adventures again, just as it ended them.  And the nod to "All Good Things...," and the nods to First Contact, and...

I've been a fan of Star Trek: Discovery, I really have, but I haven't felt as energized but creators responding to the rich legacy of the franchise since Star Trek Beyond, which was filled with resonant material, a movie that maybe doesn't on its own feel big but takes on greater weight the more you realize how much thought was out into it.  For fans like me (I don't know how many fans that actually is, but at least in the initial response to Picard, I'm starting to feel a little less lonely again), that's good stuff.

It doesn't have to speak to the past so much to be good, to approach greatness.  "Remembrance" does plenty that's all its own, too, but then there's even that link to the JJ Abrams Star Trek, the loss of Romulus, which until now, was only linked to Picard in comic books, and the additional, Next Generation centric link to "synthetics," which until now was represented mostly by Data and later Voyager's holographic Doctor.

Speaking of the Doctor, he's our last real link to the struggle "Remembrance" builds itself around, the Federation's complete inability to wrap itself around artificial life.  We thought we saw that resolved way back in "The Measure of a Man," but then when Data tried to give himself a daughter, Starfleet butted its head in again, and then the Doctor found out, when he attempted to publish a holonovel (Photons Be Free!, "Author, Author"), that he didn't have any real rights, and neither did the many copies of his basic program still in the Alpha Quadrant, long banished from starships, now reduced to menial labor...

And we had Admiral Dougherty in Star Trek: Insurrection, with his distinct lack of fondness for Data, referring to him just as easily as "the android" as by name, which he would never have done to Picard himself ("the human"), had roles somehow been reversed. 

So a tragedy is compounded by tragedy, and Picard no longer feels as if he belongs in Starfleet.  Anyone wondering if this is really out of character need only remember, again, Insurrection, in which he sets out to help a colony Starfleet has deemed as squatting on rather than inhabiting a planet of valuable resources.

Et tu, bigots?  In Gene Roddenberry's perfect future?  Well, just wait a minute!  Well before Star Trek: Enterprise, Spock was the victim of racism.  It's important to remember that the future Roddenberry envisioned was humanity's, which had finally resolved terrestrial affairs.  But the cycle began all over again...

So we have "synthetics" with no one to champion them.  Picard has retreated as much out of guilt over the death of Data in Nemesis as failure and frustration with what Starfleet has become.  Then he meets a girl...

This is a most extraordinary girl!  Bruce Maddox, who was so fascinated by Data, who overcame so much himself in years past, worked at the Daystrom Institute long enough to achieve a miracle, creating the next generation android, Data's daughter!  Daughters!  And they never knew!  So the episode plays out this discovery, and suddenly, Picard realizes everything he thought he'd lost, was just waiting to be found.

Including, it seems, a Borg cube now being inhabited by Romulans...

It's hugely intriguing, exactly what a premiere ought to be, and Patrick Stewart (recreating his melancholy from Logan) is once again an outstanding lead actor in Star Trek, as if there was ever any doubt, and the emerging cast around him offering new voices, waiting to be explored.  Let's see what's out there!

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Rings throughout Next Generation TV and movie lore (and maybe we'll see that guy, too!).
• series - And yet it is clearly its own entity, allowing Picard to once and for all take center stage.
• character - Well, it nails Picard pretty well, doesn't it?
• essential - It's exactly the story that needed to be told, in the most interesting way possible, if there was ever going to be a follow-up to Picard's adventures.

notable guest-stars:
Brent Spiner (Data)

Short Treks 2x6 "Children of Mars"

rating: ****

the story: The daughters of separate Starfleet engineers at the Utopia Planetia shipyards are rivals until forced to discover common ground under the worst circumstances.

review: I think Short Treks is becoming the most reliable source of great franchise material we've ever seen.  "Children of Mars" continues its emerging tradition of bucking traditional Star Trek storytelling forms, and in the process gives us another transcendent experience, and could actually be the best of them yet.

A mostly wordless experience (much like "Ephraim and Dot"), we follow the arc of two girls who engage in fairly typical school behavior.  The whole thing becomes an object lesson not only in how these things happen, but reaches far beyond the franchise to speak at truly universal levels.  Again, Short Treks achieves something that can be viewed by someone who has never seen and never imagined liking Star Trek, and can easily be appreciated for its remarkable accomplishments.

The Star Trek ideal has always been at the heart of its appeal among fans, its idealistic vision of a future where humanity has reached, at last, a state of peace with itself.  But even in Kirk's day Spock still felt the sting of racism.  The integration of aliens into the culture was something Enterprise explored, with particularly compelling results in its final season.  By the time we see the image of Picard, and realize this is part of the Star Trek: Picard landscape, we realize that humanity still has a way to go.  This isn't Star Trek rejecting its own message, but continually affirming it. 

We won't know the particular relevance of "Children" to Picard until Picard itself  But that hardly stands in the way.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Speaks directly to the heart of Star Trek's message.
• series - Begins to emphasize that Short Treks itself has become a viable representative of the franchise.
• character - In this instance, Starfleet itself.
• essential - A breathtaking artistic achievement.