Star Trek: Picard season 3 made the mistake by not being sentimental

Star Trek: Picard is built around nostalgia but it subverted fans’ expectations to its own detriment.

We can argue until we’re blue in the face about whether fans like Star Trek: Picard or not. But many seem to think it’s a failure of a show. I’m in that camp. I feel it’s failed to live up to its lofty billing and the fact that fans were essentially robbed of The Next Generation sequel show everyone wanted is among the chief reasons why so many dislike it.

While the show was trying to be dark and edgy, catering to the Game of Thrones crowd, it failed to be Star Trek. This was a show that stars and production crew alike have wanted to continue past three seasons if they could. Picard star Patrick Stewart is even talking about doing a Picard movie, though that seems unlikely now.

The reason it failed, as compared to other shows like Strange New Worlds, is because it left behind everything that wasn’t Star Trek. It wasn’t hopeful, it was depressing, the characters were unlikeable, it was three, 10-hour long, minimovies. There were no exciting and fun adventures, just one-sided drivel that lacked nuance.

Instead of tackling issues with a sense of understanding and debate, it browbeats you into submission with its personal beliefs. It was incredibly un-Star Trek.

The third season was hoping to change that, by bringing in the one thing we wanted from the jump; a proper reunion of the Next Generation characters. Only that’s not going to happen. Instead, we’re going to get even more depressing storylines that no one really wants.

Star Trek: Picard is looking to finish as poorly as it started

We hoped that the third season, with a new showrunner, would do what Alex Kurtzman so rarely does, and give the fans what they want but sadly third-season showrunner Terry Matalas is following in the same failing footsteps of his show-running predecessors.

Stewart spoke to Den of Geek recently and revealed that there will be very little sentimentality in this season of Picard. His desire to make the Logan of Star Trek is clear, and it’s going to suffer for it.

"Q: The Next Generation crew is a family to so many people. But this isn’t really a family reunion, is it?A: You’ve got that absolutely right! [Laughs]. It is not. It is not a reunion sequel, and this is one thing that I wanted to make clear. I didn’t want the show to be just sentimental: “Oh, we all love one another, and here we are again, playing poker and raising our glasses and so forth.” I mean, I love every single one of my comrades from that show. I can’t get enough of them or see enough of them. But what the writers and producers have done with Picard is to create this different individual living in a different world than the one that we had been so familiar with in The Next Generation."

The only reason this show exists is that those fans that loved The Next Generation showed up for Picard. Fans wanted to see the crew bonded, working together for a common goal, and proving that as a group we can succeed. Instead, we’re going to get more needless infighting and dark topics, all because Stewart was bored.

To basically pull the rug out from under all those fans and not deliver on what fans wanted, a joyous reunion is a testament to how broken this era of Star Trek can be at times. They’re not all bad, by any means, but Picard as an entity is the perfect example of a show that tried to cater to everyone but Star Trek fans.

And it failed because of that.