I started to hear positive rumblings about Picard season 3 towards the end of summer 2022. Many content creators I follow on YouTube and Twitter began gushing about how the showrunner of season 3 Terry Metalas reached out to them and offered an early screening. This was stunning because that included some of the loudest critics about how far modern Trek had fallen from the original vision. Usually, studios and showrunners mock and ignore YouTubers or content creators, but Terry Metalas offered an olive branch. And low and behold, it worked. Almost every single one of them loved season 3. I remained skeptical. Especially because I had already declared Star Trek dead and my cynical side brushed off their praise with “These creators were bought off.”
I was wrong. They…fixed Star Trek.
Picard Season 3 is a love letter to the fandom of Star Trek. It was made by people who not only understood Lore (see what I did there), but wanted to work within that existing lore to expand the story forward. There’s no better example of this than in the finale when Geordi, Riker, and Picard are standing on the bridge of Enterprise-D about to shut down the ship for good. Picard reminisces and says:
“If ever there was evidence that the past mattered it’s right here.”
And forgive me for mixing my franchises, but contrast this response with the theme of The Last Jedi spoken by Kylo Ren: “Let the past die, kill it if you have to.”
Picard and Metalas understood a few key points that many in the modern entertainment industry do not seem to get. First, show us that you understand and love the characters just as much as we do. Second, understand that we want new adventures and new problems for our characters to face. Third, many of us grew up watching these characters with loved ones who are not here anymore. Remember that these characters remind us of them and bring us back to those shared moments.
And I think for me that last point is perhaps the biggest one. Back in 2019, we lost my Papa. Growing up, whenever we would go visit him he would carve out time in our schedule to make popcorn and sit down and watch Trek together. After the episode we would nerd out over the episode, the lore, and the moral choices made by characters and whether we agree with them or not. Every episode of this last season of Picard felt like I was warped back in time, sitting next to my Papa again eating his freshly made popcorn. And as we move further away from his passing those moments become more and more special to me. That is the power of these stories, of these characters, and of this world.
Picard Season 3 fixed Star Trek because every detail, every moment of dialogue, and every character decision honored the legacy of 36 years of stories before it while expanding on it in new and exciting ways. It also introduced new characters that we grew to trust and respect because the characters we knew did. We weren’t told we had to, we learned to. And most importantly, I pulled down my Papa’s popcorn maker throughout the season to watch an episode. And while the popcorn never tastes as good as he made it, it was my way of watching it with him again. The rest of Star Trek from here on out may be terrible, but Picard gave me something special and for that, I am forever grateful.