Jack of Harts

I have finally seen Picard this weekend. The really short version is, that it is not like the classic Star Trek I and most fans grew up with. Some say this is a good thing. That Star Trek is growing up. I say that it started grown up. I prefer classic Trek, but this was not as bad as I expected. And as one of my friends said, the last two episodes are great classic Trek. Searching for new life, new civilizations, and going where no man has gone before. 🙂

The longer version is that the reason for the tonal change of this story is because of those who were focused on. All previous Star Trek shows focused on members of Star Fleet, those who volunteered to explore the galaxy and are the best of all of us. Picard focuses on the literal rejects of Star Fleet. Those who were kicked out, left, or were never good enough to join in the first place.

Picard spends eight hours tooling through the underbelly of Federation life, where we see body counts and a lack of respect for human life that even a Ferengi would be horrified of. I mean, if you kill them, they can’t buy your stuff, and there’s no profit in that. These eight hours of grunge lead up to two final hours of true classic Star Trek, that I wish we didn’t have to spend eight hours getting to.

In the days of classic Trek, the A story of Picard would have been a two-part episode, and with the right editing for flow and content, would probably be in the “best of Trek” episodic collections. It is a good story, the question and the idea that Trek follows and strives for.

Similarly, the B story would probably have been a two-part season finale/opener, or possibly even a feature film. Yes, that story is that powerful, held up by the rather good acting chops of a certain excellent actress, and with a proper final act would rival First Contact as the best of the Next Generation-era films. I’m not joking. It is a good story.

What I’m saying of course, is that they crammed four hours of storytelling into ten hours of show. And it shows in a number of places. Yes, some of the episodes would make for good single-part episodes with the right editing, but they are strictly unneeded for either main story. Yes, they would be nice to see, but they are primarily set piece episodes that put the story on hold to show off a nice or not-so-nice place. They would be good filler episodes, but the parts of them that support either main story could be cut down to minutes at most.

The final thing I will note is that we see just how jarring Kurtzman Trek is as opposed to the Trek we all grew up with. We see two fleets head off against each other in the final confrontation of Picard. In Trek as we know it, we would have seen dozens of starship classes. Nebulas, Galaxies, Sovereigns, Defiants, Excelsiors, and a dozen other Federation ships we’ve seen over the decades. We would see at least a half dozen different Romulan ships from their smallest scouts to their largest battle wagons. All ships we’ve seen doing battle on TNG, DS9, or VOY. Classic Trek would have mined the ship-class intellectual property that has been built into the series for decades and would have taken the opportunity to show off their ship porn to Star Trek fans of all ages.

Instead, Kurtzman Trek refuses to use ANY of those existing designs, and instead creates one Romulan battleship and one Federation battleship and sends hundreds of these duplicate starships to loom over each other and prepare for the big battle. Whether the reason is legal or choice, Kurtzman Trek NEVER uses the Star Trek ships we grew up with. And in the two cases I can think of where old designs ARE used, it is only after heavy editing to make them different enough that they are effectively different designs for what I presume are either copyright or licensing purposes.

In the end, Kurtzman Trek is NOT the Star Trek we grew up with, and it is most heavily notable in this TNG-era of story telling. And while Picard has promise and does have good story telling, that inability to link up with classic Trek in the most simple ways by showing other ships we know and love on the screen next to the new ones is a great disappointment.

I’m glad I watched Picard. I love the ending.

I just wish I hadn’t had to watch ten hours of Kurtzman Trek to get four hours of classic Trek story telling.