Star Trek: Picard

Long-winded pseudo-intellectual drivel.

I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve watched 9 of 10 episodes. If you too have made it this far through the season, then your investment in this soap opera, just like the stock market plunge of 2020, is worth much less than when you started. It’s time to place your stop-loss order and end the pain–skip episode 10 of 10.

If you haven’t yet latched onto Picard, then skip to something much more entertaining and intellectual–the Taylor Swift/Kim Kardashian war of words comes to mind.

Spoiler Alert: As you’d expect, this critique reveals the film.

Plot

Jean-Luc Picard, through 45 minutes of speechifying, lets us know over and over again that he’s old and regrets doing nothing with his life after leaving Starfleet a few decades earlier to focus on his French winery.

In hindsight, this should have come as no surprise to anyone who read the Wikipedia entry for Picard.

Two words: Akiva Goldsman

This is the “writer” whose “filmography” includes some of the dumbest movies made in the last 20 years. He’s also the person who has been nominated 3 times for the prestigious Golden Raspberry Award.

Here’s the Story

I’ve revealed 95% of the plot above.
Starfleet is corrupt.
Data magically had twin daughters.
The Romulans want to kill all synthetic life because they think they will destroy all other life forms (refer to the movie Terminator).
The synthetic life forms might have a god looking over them waiting for their call.
One of Data’s family members might want to call on their god to wipe out all other life forms.
There’s travel to several new random planets during which we’re somewhat introduced to random new characters.
Past cast members of The Next Generation and Voyager periodically show up for no apparent reason.
7 of 9 is now a killer.
There’s a Borg cube.

That’s it.

This TV show has the visual production values of a movie, but the story is just a bunch of random Lost in Space-meets-the-Terminator nonsense.

Oh, and Picard feels like he’s old…

Directing

There’s not much.

It turns out that not only is Akiva Goldsman a poor writer, he’s also a poor director. The revolving director team is equally poor including the 90210 director. Even Jonathan Frakes isn’t able to salvage this mess.

Sparkly Stuff

This TV show looks like a film, in a somewhat Transfomers type-of-way.

Ending

Who cares.

Here’s the best scene in the series.

Recommended Changes

- Jettison everyone involved with Picard except for Santiago Cabrera, Jery Ryan, and Isa Briones.
- Beg Christopher Nolan or the writing/directing team of Carly Wray and Uta Briesewitz to take over.
- Leave these people alone to make whatever they want from the ashes of Picard.

Real Cole Johnston Score

1 Star out of 5 because Santiago Cabrera and Jeri Ryan can act, Patrick Stewart used to be able to act, and Isa Briones has potential.

Photo by Stefan Cosma