Star Trek: Picard - Season 3 Review

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm finally crossing Star Trek: Picard off my list of things I need to get done. It's over, I've reviewed every episode and now I'm covering season 3 overall.

That makes this the third series I've covered in its entirety, after Babylon 5 and Star Trek: Discovery, though in this case it wasn't that much of a challenge considering it only has 30 episodes in total. That's less than half of Discovery's episode count, and that wasn't particularly long for a Star Trek series either.

Anyway, I'm reviewing season 3 in particular, though there will be SPOILERS here for the rest of the series.

Star Trek: Picard 3-10: The Last Generation (Quick Review)

Episode:

30

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Writer:

Terry Matalas

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Director:

Terry Matalas

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Air Date:

20-Apr-2023

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm reviewing The Last Generation, the dramatic conclusion of Star Trek: Picard's dramatic concluding season. This means I've completed another series! This, Star Trek: Discovery and Babylon 5 are the only three shows I've finished writing about in their entirety, so this is a rare event for me.

The episode was produced, written and directed by showrunner Terry Matalas, so it's more one person's vision than any other Trek episode since, I dunno, the first episode of Strange New Worlds (and that has a couple of other names besides Akiva Goldsman's on the 'story by' credit). The next closest episode after that I can think of is from way back in the 60s, as the Original Series' Elaan of Troyius was written and directed by John Meredyth Lucas. So that's pretty rare too.

There are going to be all kinds of SPOILERS below so I wouldn't go any further unless you've seen the episode yourself. Also Star Trek: Voyager. And Return of the Jedi.

Star Trek: Picard 3-09: Võx (Quick Review)

Episode:

29

|

Writer:

Sean Tretta & Kiley Rossetter

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Director:

Terry Matalas

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Air Date:

13-Apr-2023

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about Picard's penultimate episode, Võx, which has a weird title. At least, that's what the experts say. Personally I have no idea if it's right or not, I didn't even know that it was Latin, but the internet seems pretty sure that tilde shouldn't be over the o. It may have been meant to be Vōx, but plain simple Vox would've worked just fine. It means 'voice' by the way.

One thing you don't often see on Star Trek is the showrunner directing an episode themselves, but Terry Matalas was at the helm for this one. He'd directed a few episodes of Twelve Monkeys previously, including the finale, so I'm sure he knew what he was doing. It would've been hilarious if he didn't though, and Picard ended as a complete train wreck on a basic production level. I guess I'll find out!

I'm going to start discussing SPOILERS now, so avert your eyes if you'd rather not know anything about this episode or what led up to it.

Star Trek: Picard 3-04: No Win Scenario (Quick Review)

Episode:

24

|

Writer:

Terry Matalas & Sean Tretta

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Director:

Jonathan Frakes

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Air Date:

09-Mar-2023

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing about more Star Trek: Picard. It's season 3, episode 4: No Win Scenario.

In Star Trek, a no win scenario is a situation where there's no possible way to achieve any kind of good outcome. It's a mythical thing, like Rumpelstiltskin or the Greek god Apollo, except less likely to be encountered by a veteran crew with an ongoing series. Sure the heroes lose sometimes, but if they ever think a situation looks hopeless they're just not looking at it from the right perspective yet.

The episode was written by Terry Matalas and Sean Tretta, so the showrunner scripted this one personally. You'll see often a showrunner's name on the most crucial and impressive episodes in a season, the opening chapters, the epic finales, the format-breaking stories, the ones that reveal something about the characters... though on Deep Space Nine you'd also see it on all those Ferengi stories. Ira Behr did love them Ferengi.

I hope you're okay with SPOILERS because this is where they start.

Star Trek: Picard 3-01: The Next Generation (Quick Review)

Episode:

21

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Writer:

Terry Matalas

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Director:

Doug Aarniokoski

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Air Date:

16-Feb-2023

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm starting Star Trek: Picard season 3 with the episode The Next Generation.

There's nothing weird about Star Trek shows switching showrunners, but it's funny how every season of Picard is clearly a new creator's story. The first season was helmed by novelist Michael Chabon, the second was by Akiva Goldsman, and the third was by Terry Matalas. Okay, that's an oversimplification, as Goldsman also worked on season 1 and Matalas worked on season 2, and the episodes themselves were by a bunch of different writers, but this was definitely Matalas' turn to steer the ship.

I'm one of the people who enjoyed season 2 but I have to concede that it was a bit of a mess. In fact, a lot of Trek fans consider it to be a complete train wreck, an embarrassing disaster, perhaps the worst season of Star Trek ever made. The trouble is, it's hard to tell how much of that was due to Terry Matalas' presence and how much was due to his absence. There was some overlap with the production of the second and third seasons, and Matalas switched his attention to season 3 after just a few episodes. So it could be that season 2 collapsed without him or it could be that his decisions set the season on a course for catastrophe.

Anyway, at the time I'm writing this intro I already know how season 3 went, but my episode reviews were written back when they were coming out so they're all full of authentic ignorance. It just took me a year to publish them because, I dunno, it seemed more important to write about The Trouble with Tribbles and Doctor Who's 60th anniversary, and Picard got pushed to the back burner.

There will be SPOILERS in this review for the whole episode, and things like Star Trek: Discovery, but it won't give away anything that happens later as I didn't actually know what happens later.

Star Trek: Picard - Season 2 Review, Part 3

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the dramatic conclusion of Star Trek: Picard's second season! I've written about three stories this time:

• 2-08 - Mercy
• 2-09 - Hide and Seek
• 2-10 - Farewell

Plus I wrote a little bit about the season overall at the end. I'm using the past tense here because I put my thoughts down right after watching each episode, which was something like a year ago now. I admit, I could've been quicker getting this published. Still, I'm doing better with this than I did with my Babylon 5 reviews, which were about 24 years late.

There are going to be SPOILERS here for the whole season and earlier Treks as well, but nothing that was released past 5th May 2022. So Strange New Worlds season 1 will be entirely unspoiled. For now.

Star Trek: Picard - Season 2 Review, Part 2

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm finally getting back to Star Trek: Picard's second season! I realise that people are more interested in the third season right now, which is about halfway through at the time I'm writing this, but I need to catch up first. Though to be honest I actually wrote the episode reviews themselves ages ago right after they came out. I just didn't want to publish this until after I was done publishing my reviews of Discovery's fourth season, and that dragged on a little longer than expected. 

Sadly we've lost a member of the cast in the meantime, as Annie Wersching died earlier this year. I'll tell you right now that her performance as the Borg Queen was a highlight of the season for me. She seemed to be having the most fun.

This week I'm covering the middle four episodes of season two, which are:

• 2-04 - Watcher
  
• 2-05 - Fly Me to the Moon
  
• 2-06 - Two of One
  
• 2-07 - Monsters

There'll be SPOILERS for these episodes (and earlier Trek series), but I won't be spoiling a thing about what happens next. Even though I totally could. I know all kinds of stuff about season 3 now.

Star Trek: Picard - Season 2 Review, Part 1

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the second season of Star Trek: Picard! 

The series was under new management this season, with Strange New Worlds showrunner Akiva Goldsman and 12 Monkeys showrunner Terry Matalas taking over from Michael Chabon, who's been busy developing a different show based on his novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Though Goldsman and Matalas were busy too, with Goldsman helping create a new Trek series and Terry Matalas switching his focus to the third season halfway through, so things were a bit messy behind the scenes. That's normal for Star Trek to be fair, the shows often don't settle down until season three, but Star Trek: Picard's only getting three seasons so it'll be nice if whoever was left minding the store didn't screw this one up.

I'm going to be covering the first three episodes here:

• 2-01 - The Star Gazer
  
• 2-02 - Penance
  
• 2-03 - Assimilation

This means that there'll be SPOILERS for each of these stories and probably some earlier Trek stories as well. I wrote each review right after watching the episode for the first time however, so couldn't have spoiled anything that comes next if I wanted to. And I didn't want to.