Not really a review of Picard Season 3 episodes 1 & 2

Luckily (or perhaps unluckily), Picard Season 3 is still available in Australia on a service I have rather than Paramount+. I’m watching it and two episodes in, it is fine so far but…well we’ve been here before and both previous seasons have ended up weaker as they progressed.

This final season appears to be leaning even more heavily on The Next Generation nostalgia. So far Crusher and Riker are back as regular characters and Worf has made an entrance. That’s all fine and I’ll enjoy that.

There’s still an element from season 1 of Picard being a kind of Star Trek espionage series. It’s interesting that this idea is clearly one that has appeal to it but also one that appears cursed to fail. Apparently, the Michelle Yeoh-led Section 31 series idea isn’t wholly dead yet https://tvline.com/2023/01/10/michelle-yeoh-star-trek-discovery-spinoff-status-section-31/

People point to the optimism and utopianism of Trek as a reason why the kind of moral ambiguity and gritty aesthetics of the spy/espionage drama is a poor match. Yet, the contrast can be effective. Think of Banks and the Culture novels where he used the utopianism of the vast space-faring Culture as way of engaging with the moral ambiguity of people at its edges or just beyond.

Anyway, I might wait until Picard is four episodes in this time to see if it is going anywhere interesting.

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