Star Trek: Picard – Season 2 Review

SPOILER ALERT

Anyone who has not seen season 2 of Star Trek: Picard is hereby advised that this post may contain a few unavoidable spoilers.

Well, that’s season two of the further adventures of Jean-Luc Picard all done and dusted, once again leaving me with nothing to do of a Friday evening.

All in all, this was a much better season than season 1, however it certainly was not without its faults.

Let’s start with the positives.

Unlike season 1, this season placed far more emphasis on the story it was trying to tell than fan service. There were fewer TNG cameos, and the ones that were present were generally pivotal to the story. As much we all love a cameo appearance (has there ever been a Star Trek show since TOS that didn’t have them?) they cannot be the only reason we tune in every week. The regular cast are the ones who have to carry the story, which I feel they much better achieved in season 2.

Agnes Jurati (Alice Pill) is a fine example of what I mean. This whiney little supporting character from season 1 easily stole the show in season 2, dialoguing as she did with the Borg Queen before finally being assimilated herself and resuming the classic struggle between the Borg and humanity internally.

Captain Rios also underwent significant improvements in this season, carrying the bulk of a romantic subplot between himself and a woman from the 21st century (seasoned Trekkies know that you’re not allowed to do a time travel episode without having one of the regular cast fall in love with someone from the past). The subplot itself was a trifle predictable, mirroring The Voyage Home a little too closely, but it worked well enough.

As for Picard himself (Sir Patrick Stewart), he has fallen in love with his housekeeper but can’t quite bring himself to get involved with her as he still blames himself for his mother’s suicide when he was a child. This causes Picard’s old omnipotent nemesis, Q (John de Lancie) to change history, turning Earth into a human-supremacist dystopia and forcing Picard to travel back in time to fix history, because he cares about Picard’s feelings and wants to give him a chance at self-redemption.

Yeah. I know. I see what they were trying to do but I’m but sure that quite worked for me.

Another thing that didn’t work was Seven and Raffi’s relationship. They were cross with each other from the first episode but too busy to really address it until they made up in the final episode because, after all, it was nearly the end of the season and they’d just saved the day and that’s what you do when it’s the end of the season. Kiss the girl and boom, the character arc is complete. I just felt it could have done with a bit more unpacking, you know?

Individually, I enjoyed every episode but the ending did leave me feeling a little unsatisfied. There were so many different strands to the overall plot that were very hastily tied together (and a few which weren’t) that I still have a lot of questions.

All in all, I’m not sure how many stars I want to give this. I really did enjoy it. In fact, it’s been the highlight of my televisual week since the first episode. It was exciting, funny and touchy-feely in all the right places, making it a show well worth watching and yet if I was to analyse it with a critical and dispassionate eye, I’d have to say the writing was pretty darn sloppy.

Watch it. I think you’ll like it. Just don’t think about it too hard.

My rating: 🖖🖖🖖