When Star Trek: Picard launches for its final season, so too will the USS Titan-A.
Star Trek: Picard has tried to make their show work for the last two seasons without a true Starfleet ship. The lack of such a recurring and iconic identity has hurt the show. While some people like the experimental direction that Nu Trek often takes, fans and Paramount executives are finding out that Star Trek fans want Star Trek shows.
Not off-brand Star Trek shows, marketed as Trek shows. Not having a federation ship as part of a series is a huge mistake. While a show like Deep Space Nine technically got away without one, DS9, or Terok Nor as it was called by the Cardassians, became the “ship” of the series. The emphasis on the ship isn’t so much that it has to be a ship, as it is the set.
The set of the series that the show takes place on. That’s why Picard has routinely failed, as it has never relied on a ship as its setting. That may change with the third season, as the USS Titan-A will be the ship of record.
Will the USS Titan-A become a legendary ship within the Star Trek canon?
While the show is doing a good job of hyping up the new Titan-A ship, even giving main cast member Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine a prominent posting on the ship as a commander, I fear that the show will once again fail to focus on the ship’s crew and the life of those that live on it.
As much as Trek is about morality and science fiction, it’s also about the life of the times. It’s a slice-of-life series as much as it is anything else. These are adventures that none of us can even fathom, being out in space for years at a time, in a soaring city amongst the stars.
Picard has never embraced that aspect of Star Trek, more often choosing to focus on season-long story arcs that often ignore classic Star Trek tropes in favor of more grandiose and cynical storytelling.
So I don’t expect the USS Titan-A to become as synonymous with the series as the Enterprise or Voyager has become.