3 ways Star Trek: Picard could’ve made better use of Jean-Luc Picard’s android body

With Star Trek: Picard’s final season on the horizon, we’re looking back at one of the show’s biggest mistakes.

Star Trek: Picard will forever be the show that killed Jean-Luc Picard and then put his “conscious” into a robotic body. A robotic, synthetic, golem of a body. Sounds interesting, right? Well, it would be if the new body Picard got wasn’t going to die of natural causes sooner rather than later.

It kind of defeats the purpose of having a synthetic body, no?

This is Picard’s legacy as a show, the show that fumbled an interesting idea with terrible execution. It’s one thing to want to shake up the status quo, it’s another thing to make such a grandiose change and never do anything with it. To never, truly, give the moment any authenticity or agency.

This is why Picard failed. Yet, it didn’t have to. No, the idea was solid, it was just poorly executed. So we came up with three ways we’d like to have seen this angle go other than the way it did.

Three ways to make Jean-Luc Picard’s robotic body more impressive

Make him more powerful

Now, you’d need a body double or some CGI to pull this off, but what if Picard’s new body actually made him a far superior person than he ever was? Talk about flipping the script on age. We’re talking fighting, thinking, and even living better. This would’ve made him far more interesting in the last two seasons, and may have given the writers far more to work with. It even could’ve ended with his “death” in season three, only to show up in Discovery alive and well, having never aged.

Made him emotionless

Picard is defined by his emotions, mostly his anger. Despite his calm nature, Picard’s most notable moments came when he was angry. Yelling at Wesley, his rage over the Borg, or his usually standoffish approach to dealing with people he disagreed with. Yet, what if Picard no longer had emotions? None at all. This would have made, at least the second season, a lot more interesting as he would finally be able to understand the likes of Data so much better.

Make his connection to the Borg deeper

So what if Picard’s new body sends him into a deep depression? He spent 40+ years hating the Borg, but what if his new synthetic body made him feel no different then the Borg? They are completely different in so many ways, but they’re both artificial creations that defy the natural order. That could be a complicated aspect to resolve. Too bad, they didn’t do anything with that, and even worse, they neutered the Borg in season two. What a show.