TREK: Picard Episodes 1-3

[dewline]

I think I'm good with seeing these three as a single chapter. But it does seem to be taking its time moving along.

Comments

[agoodwinsmith]

I had a free sample for the first two episodes, and while I enjoyed them, it wasn't enough to entice me to find the money to buy the channel. I will probably regret it, but there you go.

Part of my reason is that Patrick Stewart is beginning to be an old frail man. Since the series is named for him, I think him being unavailable for filming could be a problem. The franchise has burnt a lot of bridges to make him childless and heirless (ho ho), so magicking another "Picard" would be a stretch. Not that we haven't all swallowed oh-dear-heaven retcons, but I don't think I want one for this.

The other part of the reason is that both this and the previous Enterprise sacrificed characters that I would have liked to see more of very early in the series. For Enterprise it was especially annoying because it seemed to be in favour of showcasing a character that I just found tiring. In Picard, getting the same actress as a new character isn't a satisfying alternative - although it is marginally better than never seeing Index again.

I'm also not interested in a Ming The Merciless villian (meaning easily identified and just wrong wrong wrong oh so wrong).

IMDB lists two seasons, but I think so far that is only wishful thinking. There are 10 episodes filmed, so that's an easy package for another station/streaming service to buy and show. Or be reshown repeatedly by the originating service. What I mean is that this is not like an episode of Laugh-In, where if you missed it, you will never be offered an opportunity to see it again. Trek definitely doesn't work like that. ;)

[dewline]

Seeing that part of what Stewart wants for this series is inspired with how he and Hugh Jackman wrapped up their work for the Fox-made X-Men movies in Logan...I don't think that replacing Stewart is going to be the issue that some believe it ought to be. What they're aiming for here may indeed be "the last ride of Jean-Luc Picard" with the series ending with Picard's death and maybe some of the near-term consequences for whoever outlives him. Two seasons, minimum, have been guaranteed to us, whether we watch via CBS-AA in the States, CTV-SciFi in Canada, or Amazon almost everywhere else. We might see no more than three to five seasons, perhaps.