Star Trek: Picard introduces “The Next Generation” in season 3 premiere

Admiral Jean-Luc Picard appears ready to pack it all in and sip Saurian Brandy as he writes his memoirs…but as he’s packing up his box of old electronics (don’t act like we don’t all have at least one), a comm badge from several generations ago (imagine the old iPhone 4 that you never got around to recycling) starts chirping. And so the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard starts as they often do: with a distress call and a phaser firefight.

Before her attack, Beverly Crusher has been biding her time, hiding on the edge of Federation space, listening to the soundtrack from Fallout 4, re-playing Picard’s old mission logs, growing orchids, and keeping someone locked in a room.

Picard first seeks out William Riker, in a bar, drowning his sorrows. “Who wants to hear some old fart drone on about going boldly for the past 250 years?” he asks. The pity party ends when Picard offers him a chance to bamboozle Starfleet into sending them on an unauthorized rescue mission. And So we arrive on the USS Titan, the shiny newest generation Constitution-class ship that’s meant to be shown off for Frontier Days. The Admiral and former captain are welcomed aboard with all due deference.

“It’s not really a plan, it’s a ruse”

The newest generation doesn’t appear to be ready for the old “cowboy diplomacy” that characterized the past Enterprise crews. This new captain, Shaw, is not interested in “blowing things up, or engaging in fire (expected or unexpected).” Even the LaForge on this ship is of the next generation: Sydney “Crash” LaForge. I’ll leave it up to you where Anika Hansen (7 of 9) falls in the generations, but she is being repeatedly dead-named by members of the elder generation.

Luckily, Jean-Luc has a friend or Seven who will help the rescue mission along. We arrive at the correct edge of space, much to the chagrin of Captain Shaw, and Picard and Riker make it down to the distressed ship. Here they find the next next generation.

Where the prior season of Picard was fairly linear — it was always clear where the story was heading — season 3 is lighting several fuses, and I’ll be waiting to see which ones explode. I haven’t even mentioned Raffi, who’s either a strung-out addict or an undercover Starfleet operative doing a convincing impression of a strung-out addict. But there is more going on than a simple rescue mission.

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