Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Season 3 on Paramount+, Where Your Fave ‘TNG’ Homies Join Jean-Luc On Another Wild Adventure

 

Can Star Trek: Picard become the Star Trek: Nemesis that never was? The third season of co-creator Alex Kurtzman and showrunner/writer Terry Matalas’s saga concerning the twilight years adventures of Starfleet legend Jean-Luc Picard reunites Patrick Stewart with his cast mates from The Next Generation era: Gates McFadden, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Marina Sirtis, Michael Dorn, and Brent Spiner. Can Picard’s reunion with the intrepid crew of the USS Enterprise-D prevent an intergalactic disaster? Better pour a Saurian brandy, because this one’s gonna be a wild ride.  

STAR TREK PICARD – SEASON 3: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: We’re informed that it’s now the 25th century in Star Trek lore just as a Federation starship emerges from a massive dustball nebula with an aggressive pursuer on its tail.  

The Gist: At that ship’s helm? Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), and there’s no time for Hippocratic oaths as she blasts away at the beings who’ve fought their way on board. Wounded and with systems failing, Crusher transmits a last-ditch lifeline. “Subspace frequency, Myriad codec: this message is for Admiral Jean-Luc Picard…” 

At the Picard family vineyard in France, Jean-Luc (Stewart) and Laris (Orla Brady), his Romulan companion – she’s also a Watcher known as Taillin, but we’ll put that aside for now – discuss the unlikely distress message from a woman and former lover who cut off all contact with Picard over 20 years ago, and which emanated from his old Enterprise-D communicator badge. Trust no one, Crusher said. Especially Starfleet. “These are the lives we chose,” Laris advises Picard. He must once again put aside his quiet life as a retiring admiral and endeavor to help a friend.

Picard won’t be alone for this mysterious and dangerous mission. He enlists Captain William Riker (Jonathan Frakes), and the longtime friends and colleagues quickly adopt their old rapport as they finagle a ride to the Ryton system on the USS Titan, captained by the patronizing Shaw (Todd Stashwick) and featuring a few welcome faces: First Mate Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) and Ensign Alandra La Forge, daughter of Geordi. (Mica Burton is LeVar Burton’s real-life daughter.)  

Whatever’s after Crusher also seems connected to a much larger brouhaha. Elsewhere in the galaxy, Raffaela Musiker (Michelle Hurd) gathers intel on weapons thefts and clues about an impending terrorist attack on Starfleet operations, violence she’s determined to prevent even as her struggle with substance abuse lingers. And as Picard and Riker close in on the distress signal, they’re in for another surprise: the guy who’s been caring for Crusher’s phaser wounds says he’s her son.  

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Picard, the eighth Star Trek series to take flight, is another thoroughly conceived component in a franchise that’s proved especially fertile of late. Consider the original series prequel Star Trek: Discovery and its spinoff, Strange New Worlds, other spinoffs to those spinoffs that are being developed to spin off (Will Michelle Yeoh reprise her role as Philippa Georgiou?), as well as Trek’s animation side, which includes the series Lower Decks and Prodigy.     

Our Take: Season 3 of Picard fits a lot into its brisk first installment, tellingly entitled “The Next Generation.” There are reintroductions galore, including Jonathan Frakes and Patrick Stewart bantering and barbing like it hasn’t been 20 years since they last shared an away shuttle, the welcome return of Gates McFadden in what feels like an amplified role for Beverly Crusher, and all manner of off screen setups, including the suggestion of friction between Riker and his wife, Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), a passing reference to Guinan – Whoopi Goldberg’s character already appeared in Picard season two – and the certainty that Geordi La Forge will soon be in the mix. Throw in a handful of visual easter eggs, and it really feels like nostalgia is the final frontier. 

But there’s action to be had here, too, and it’s defined immediately by the sight of Dr. Beverly Crusher engaging in a close-quarters phaser rifle battle. For as much time as Picard has taken to muse over the mind and memories of its main character – to hero his past is valid, given Jean-Luc’s rangy and layered onscreen journey – it seems to be setting up some serious showdowns with the advent of its third season, and supports that notion with the contemporary sci-fi look and feel of Musiker’s treacherous spy mission (dig those backlit vice kiosks on M’Talas Prime), a delightful foil to Picard and Riker’s assumptions in Captain Shaw of the USS Titan, and the introduction of not only Ed Speleers of Downton Abbey, Outlander, and You as another potential link to Picard’s past, but the potential for galactic warfare on a level we haven’t seen in the Star Trek franchise for quite some time. In all of the nostalgia’ing and plot seeding, it’s the heart of Crusher’s initial distress call that remains the most intriguing: Trust no one, especially Starfleet. Reunions are great. But all is not right in the 25th century.

Sex and Skin: Nothing here but a warm, heartening kiss between Picard and Laris. 

Parting Shot: “We’re being hunted; each time they have different faces.” Picard and Riker have improvised their way to the fringes of Federation airspace only to discover an old friend incapacitated, a new wrinkle from her personal life that they weren’t expecting, and startling revelations of a formidable adversary they never saw coming.

Sleeper Star: Michelle Hurd has always made Raffi Musiker a standout character in the Star Trek universe, and that doesn’t change with the third season of Picard. But Jeri Ryan is equally a force here. Ryan’s Seven of Nine continues to evolve, as both a love interest for Musiker and as an individual on her own journey of empowerment and self-discovery. 

Most Pilot-y Line: “I am not a man who needs a legacy,” Jean-Luc tells Laris as he dawdles thoughtfully among the mementos and keepsakes of his long, legacy-making career. “I want a new adventure.” Wish no more, Skipper. The deep space distress call is for you.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Cinematic, emotional, and actionably nostalgic, the third season of Star Trek: Picard feels like the truest representation of what returning Patrick Stewart and the TNG era was supposed to be for.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges