Full spoilers follow for Star Trek: Picard Season 2, Episode 1, “The Star Gazer,” which is now streaming on Paramount+.
It’s been almost two years since we last saw Jean-Luc Picard, thanks of course to pandemic-necessitated production delays. But if this debut episode of Star Trek: Picard’s second season is any indication, in that time, the writers and producers behind the iconic Patrick Stewart character’s return have figured out a few things. Whereas Picard Season 1 was an erratic and ultimately disappointing affair, Season 2 of old Jean-Luc’s adventures appears to be righting many of the missteps of its past.
Right out of the (star) gate, this season’s showrunners, Akiva Goldsman and Terry Matalas, handwave away several of S1’s more distracting and crippling conceits. Picard’s ragtag crew of non-Starfleeters? Three of them – Michelle Hurd’s Raffi, Santiago Cabrera’s Rios, and Evan Evagora’s Elnor – are in, or back in, Starfleet now, while Alison Pill’s Agnes and Isa Briones' Soji are working with Starfleet. Picard’s new android body that saved him from death in Season 1’s finale? It barely gets alluded to, but don’t worry -- that is apparently not gonna be a thing this season either. Even opening the episode on a Starfleet ship feels different from this show’s previous mandate.
And then there’s Picard himself, who seems to be doing double duty on the vineyard these days and as Chancellor of Starfleet Academy. Yes, they even got Stewart to put on a uniform again for a couple of scenes. Most interesting, however, is the apparent budding romance between him and Orla Brady’s Laris, the Romulan expat who runs his home and whose husband has apparently bought the farm (vineyard?) between seasons in order to facilitate this new pairing.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Things kick off with a literal bang as we follow a group of Starfleeters into a firefight on the bridge of what we’ll later learn is the new and improved USS Stargazer. Before you know it, Picard activates the auto-destruct and the ship goes blammo. It’s an exciting way to jump-start the new season, even if it feels cribbed from the Next Gen classic “Cause and Effect” as we then join Jean-Luc 48 hours earlier, alive and well on the vineyard. That Irma Thomas’ cover of “Time Is on My Side” is playing -- on vinyl no less -- certainly gives that familiar scenario a different taste, to be sure, and one that is clearly telegraphing where this season is heading.
As Picard and Laris kick back that evening with a bottle to “celebrate” the day’s harvest -- “the end of the season,” Picard says -- the show practically admits that any misgivings we might’ve had about Season 1 were right. “That’s certainly one way of looking at it,” Laris coolly replies to Picard’s celebration comment. But subtext aside, “The Star Gazer” is about the choices Picard made in his life that led him to the classic solitary existence of a Starfleet captain, and Laris is pushing him to realize that it’s not too late for him to leave that lonely path behind. It’s not going to be easy for him.
The flashback that reveals to us the real reason why Picard sought the stars is perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the episode, and maybe it will be the most controversial for diehard Trekkies who are averse to retconning. But here it is all the same: Picard’s parents’ marriage was not perfect, and was perhaps even marred by violence of some kind, and Mama Picard taught little Jean-Luc to look towards the stars as an escape from the pain of those domestic disturbances. This new tidbit of information goes a long way towards explaining the cold, distanced Picard we first met in the early days of the Next Generation, the man who hadn’t gone home to see his brother in years. Why would he want to go back to that place, and those memories?
Jean-Luc can’t even bring himself to tell his old friend Guinan about that part of his personal history. Whoopi Goldberg picks up right where she left off as the wise bartender from the Enterprise, still working Ten Forward (only now that’s literally the address of her saloon in Los Angeles: 10 Forward Ave.). Seeing Stewart and Goldberg together again is great, and it’s telling that when Jean-Luc is feeling heartsick (even if it’s an android heart) he goes back to Guinan to drink some hooch and get some advice.
But the Borg are calling for Picard -- literally, as it turns out. And so most of the Picard Squad from last season are reunited at the site where a mysterious Borg ship has appeared. Its crew seemingly want to be friends, even while attacking Captain Rios’ Stargazer. As a strange, cloaked Borg emissary -- not quite a Queen, not quite a Borg -- beams onboard, we find ourselves right where we began the episode, with Picard being forced to order the self-destruct.
Only this time, he awakens back home, or rather in a distinctly different, apparently dystopian version of his home. (There’s no Orla here; that’s for sure.) And wouldn’t you know it? John de Lancie’s Q is waiting there for his old sparring partner. The question is, is it as friend or foe… or both?
Questions and Notes from the Q Continuum:
- We’ve got a new opening credits scene this season, and it still doesn’t do much for me.
- For those who are counting, it is now the year of our Great Bird 2401 (based on the date on the Chateau Picard crates). A.k.a., it’s the dawn of the 25th century.
- Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) has taken command of La Sirena these days, once again using brawn over brain here. I hope Season 2 remembers that she's also capable of Spock-levels of technobabble.
- Those bald aliens Soji is charming on Raritan IV are Deltans, who have barely been seen in Star Trek since Lt. Ilia showed up in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The status of this particular group’s oath of celibacy is up for debate however, based on the dude who was hitting on Agnes.
- Lots of other Easter eggs here: A ship named the Hikaru Sulu; a new USS Grissom; the Kobayashi Maru test (this makes the… fourth mention of it on a Trek show in the past year); the Excelsior; the aforementioned Stargazer; Spock. I might’ve also spotted the Enterprise-E and a Galaxy Class ship…
- Place your bets: What’s the over/under on the Borg “Queen” in this episode turning out to be Picard’s mother somehow?
from IGN Reviews https://ift.tt/HCaJ5ZT
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