LizstarTrek - Picard Season 3 episodes 1 - 5

Every Sunday my Twitch subs and I watch Star Trek in my Discord. Here are my reviews and thoughts on each of the episodes as I see it. If you’re curious about a nerd’s views on Star Trek episodes, please read on, I go quite in depth with some of these episodes! I’ve watched some Star Trek before but not all of it!

Okay, y’all remember Picard season 1 and 2? What’s that? You DON’T, cause they were BAD? Well don’t worry, the people who made this season didn’t remember them either, so they just don’t fucking matter! Moving RIGHT ALONG!

Two of One - PIC 7/10

We start up with some Ink Spots, a good banger as always, and then suddenly BOOM, GATES MCFADDEN! She says someone “found them”, and she looks A) SO FUCKING GOOD and B) has a fucking gun. That’s what I’d want from a modern Crusher, for sure.

She is injured in the fight, more are on the way, and she sends a distress message to Picard specifically.

Well Picard is doing what he does best. Sitting in a chair and talking to the Romulan he will never mack on even though he should have two seasons ago. He’s talking about how he’s ready to just sit back, write his memoirs, and doesn’t need some kind of legacy, he’s feeling pretty chill these days.

For some reason he spends a scene talking to the computer like it’s chatgpt and getting frustrated at how it’s a shitty hunk of junk that can’t actually understand what he’s asking it or what he wants. How did this shit get worse in the past 30 years? Damn, we get rid of Majel Barret and now we have This. Anyways, he finds the message from Crusher and she says “Hellbird. No starfleet. Sending these coordinates. Trust no one.”

Picard’s Romulan girlfriend sends him off. He’s like “oh this’ll be done in a few days I’m sure”. Aight buddy. HOLY SHIT, THEY KISSED. I bet this is the last time we see her, what do you wanna bet? Apparently Crusher just disappeared and wouldn’t talk to anyone for the past decade or two, so they have no idea what’s going on with her.

He forgoes the “trust no one” statement and goes to Riker but I mean, if we can’t trust Riker who CAN we trust? What about Picard’s new crew of Seven and- nope, forget them. Riker. I mean, that’s what I woulda done, frankly. Riker takes the code words Bev sent them and determines the actual place they need to go, and off they go… as someone watches and tails them.

Okay actually apparently some of his new crew IS here. Raffi is… back on her drug habits and is struggling. She’s back out of Starfleet. Who the hell knows. Why do they keep doing this to this poor fucking woman??? Okay no, she’s just gathering info for Starfleet intelligence. Well that’s good, at least. AND she doesn’t actually take the narcotics she bought! Good, let’s not just throw her fucking character development out AGAIN. Anyways she’s hunting for some secret weapon that was stolen by a “red lady”.

Anyways, Riker and Picard come up with some hairbrained plan to con the captain of the new Titan to sneak them outside of Starfleet space to these coordinates. Seven of Nine is the 1st officer, somehow??? How long after season 2 is- oh right, THAT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER. Also the captain refuses to call her Seven, so she’s Annika Hanson for now. Also the pilot of the ship they’re on is Geordi’s daughter, Sidney La Forge. Also known as “Crash” La Forge because as a cadet she crashed a shuttle, twice. Poor girl.

They meet the captain, Captain Shaw. He is a no nonsense guy who expects that they will find the ship very boring, because he runs it so well, and this routine inspection will be no problem at all. Ohhh this ship is gonna crash land, isn’t it. Anyways Shaw is an unlikable shithead.

Seven and Raffi are both struggling really hard. Raffi with relapses and the anxiety of fucking up and people dying, and Seven cause she has to deal with Shaw being a fuckhead. Neither feels this is where they should be, but people keep pushing them to do this and be here, so lol. Anyways Seven helps them get to the Ryton system and steal a shuttle, possibly at risk to her own career. Which of course, considering how vindictive and shitty Shaw is, he will 100% kill her career because she decided to help people out trying to do something to help someone when he didn’t want them do cause HE’S in charge. That kinda captain. Look, obviously Starfleet isn’t perfect, and sure we should show Starfleet people being awful sometimes, but I’m a LITTLE tired of it.

Anyways Raffi catches wind of what’s gonna happen, and tries to warn Starfleet HQ of a terrorist attack, whiiiich goes through and kills a LOT of people.

Anyways enough about that. Picard and Riker find Bev’s ship and go on board, and meet HER SON, who is for some reason British. And obviously he’s Picard’s son, right? Cause that ain’t no Wesley. And then a big evil arbiter ship from Star Craft shows up and toots at them for some reason, like all evil Star Trek ships do.

Two of One - PIC 4/10

Jack Crusher recounts the recent nonsense he and his mother have been through, hounded by a bunch of different people. First ranger, then Klingons. Their only plan now is to get Bev onto their shuttle and get her back to the Titan for medical help. Unfortunately, Shaw hasn’t become a better person in the past 10 minutes, so he still has no plans to actually help them in any way.

117 people died in the terrorist attack, and Raffi is VERY unhappy. Her handler is some shitty AI who is harassing her and ignoring her obvious distress. It tells her to stop, but she’s going to investigate who did this and make sure those people get some kind of closure, because Starfleet SEEMS to be doing nothing. This entire episode is Starfleet command just… ignoring people in need and doing nothing!

Okay I will say, terrorist attacks are a very common theme in modern Trek which has gotten VERY exhausting. Alongside the “The people in command are bad and will not help you”. Like I don’t DISAGREE with that but Star Trek can and should be better than our modern world.

Seven strokes Shaw’s ego and is like “You COULD be the guy who saved two heroes, OR the guy who let them die”. That’s all it takes.

The enemy ship contacts them. Their captain is Vadic, who is played by the daughter of the guy who played the bad guy in Star Trek 6, which should tell you what they were going for when they made this character. Anyways Vadic has no interest in ANYTHING other than getting Jack Crusher, and fully offers for them to go about their merry way if they deliver him in an hour, otherwise she’ll blow them the fuck up, and to show she means business, she just chucks Bev’s ship at them.

Seven is dismissed for insubordination, Shaw is still a dickhead, and Picard has 30 minutes to figure out what this guy’s deal is, and why this bounty hunter loaded to the nines with weapons wants him dead. He seems to be a petty criminal, one who claims he’s a doctor “doing good in a world that hates those who do good”.

Meanwhile Raffi is trying to get info in a seedy underbelly when she digs a bit too deep and a gang lord orders her dead. Instead of her being killed, the ganglord is suddenly fucking decapitated by WORF SHOWING UP OUT OF NOWHERE. Surprise Worf.

They’re going to give over Jack, but Jack basically lets himself out and tries to teleport over instead, thinking they won’t and that it might get his mother killed. But once Picard sees Beverly, standing there almost crying, he’s like “Alright fuck that I’m using my admiral powers to take over. We’re going to fight them.” This, of course, will NOT go well because they’re in an exploration vessel facing off against A Nuke With Guns, but hey, I’m sure it’ll be fine. Vadic seems to relish the hunt anyway.

Seventeen Seconds - PIC 5/10

I do not choose which images are the main images for an episode, but this one is lousy. It’s just Picard standing there looking old. Let the man rest.

They outrun Vadic, but for how long?

We get a flashback to CGI’d Riker and Picard looking a little younger. It not… as bad as it could be, but I hate it on principle. Just lather shit on em. Anyways, it’s Riker telling the story of his son’s birth, how it took him 17 seconds to get to sickbay, and the entire 17 seconds all those feelings he had. This is an episode about being a father, are you surprised?

Yes, so obviously, Picard is Jack’s father. Beverly tries to defend her reasons for just dipping and not telling him by being like “you were always going to be in danger and it’d hurt him too” and Picard is like “He’s my son too, I had a right to the choice!” it feels like… the opposite of the Zootopia abortion meme.

Also for some fucking reason the cameras in this season are shakey as hell. It’s like every single shot is being shot by John, The Camera Man With Parkinsons, and no one had the heart to take the fucking camera from him.

Anyways, Vadic finds them, the captain is injured and IMMEDIATELY gives control of the ship over to Riker. Coward. Picard is his #1. That’s cute.

We find out that Worf was actually Raffi’s handler and is working with Starfleet Intelligence. He showed up to save Raffi because she DID tell him she was gonna do it and he knew she’s just get herself killed, which she almost did, so that’s fair. The two of them team up to try and figure out wtf is going on. Raffi is not used to someone believing in her, obviously.

The Titan tries to run, and Vadic fires a portal device which traps them in a loop. It’s the same kind of attack that the terrorist attack was. Riker and Picard are at extreme odds here. Picard’s like “FIGHT HER, KILL KILL” and Riker’s only goal is to make sure people don’t fucking die and they can get out of this. We did not need this :)

Some Ensign basically tries to kill Jack. He’s got a weird melty face. As Jack is lying there dying of some kind of gas leak, he sees something saying “COME TO ME” represented by Seven as weird tendrils form out of the walls. Cool! The Zerg are here!

Worf has gotten a lot more chill with his old age, which is kinda neat. It’d be cool if he wasn’t the same shitty character he was in DS9. We STILL see a torture scene there, which is lovely. Anyways, the guy is ACTUALLY a… dun dun dun… CHANGELING! Worf explains that he knew the Changelings were in charge, as a friend of his in the link told him about this. Basically, some Changelings broke away to form a terrorist sect to continue the Dominion war. But Starfleet can’t acknowledge they’re existence, or it’d reignite the Dominion war. I dunno… why? Just because a rogue faction from a country attacks another, doesn’t mean we’d go to war, that’d be like us going to war with Afghanistan after- ohhhhh noooo.

Riker FINALLY listens to Picard, who’s been like “KILL KILL KILL” this whole time, aaaand the Titan immediately loses the fight. Whoops.

So far I like some parts of this but it’s held back by bad pacing and some dumb moments. This could have been a movie. Maybe even a two part movie. This could have been an email.

No Win Scenario - PIC 7.5/10

We get a scene of real life Patrick Stewart trying to eat his bar food in peace when some fucking nerds walk up to him and try and ask him a bunch of questions. For real though, it’s cadets asking him how he escapes a Hirogen. wtf I wanna see that??? He turns it into a life lesson cause he’s Jean Luc Fucking Picard and that’s all he knows how to do, and his lesson is “there’s no such thing as a no win scenario”

Anyways so here’s an episode called No Win Scenario in which they are in a no win scenario. They’re falling into a gravity well, with no way to escape, and they have roughly an hour or two before they all fucking die. Riker tells Picard to go get to know his son and prepare to die. He’s just… given up.

Seven has not gotten that memo. She explains there’s a changeling sabetour on the ship to Riker, who’s like “keep it quiet. Morale is already shit. I’m not saying do NOTHING. But maybe… keep it quiet. You’re not reinstated, that’ll make it easier for you to work under the radar”. So she goes to the original captain.

I’m sorry, they don’t have enough power to divert to the propulsion systems and get out of this mess, but they DO have enough power to run the fucking holodeck so Picard can strike out at hanging out with his son???

We see Vadic chop her own hand off, and then it turns into a floating meat face that speaks with the voice of the fucking Zerg Overmind. It tells her to persue. She says no, that’d end with her dying too. It says pursue or it’ll kill her. She goes “alright, I guess I’ll persue then”. Then she swivels in her chair and giggles. I like her.

We jump between Picard being awkward with his son as Seven fights a gross meat Changeling.

We get TRAGIC SHAW BACKSTORY. He was a survivor of Wolf 359. He was arbitrarily chosen to survive by a lieutenant who pointed randomly at who gets to be in the 10 seater life pod. He lays into Picard, and while Jack AND us want to deck him in the face, Picard just leaves instead.

Beverley solves the problem. Hell yeah. She figures out how they can get of the nebula by using the energy contractions it has or whatever, AND convinces Riker to let them try to do this dangerous maneuver. Shaw comes out of his grumpy stupor to help them do some engineering stuff alongside Seven.

La Forge comes down to help out, DESPITE Seven saying “do not send anyone” in a secret transmission, AND her calling her Commander Annika. La Forge calls her Commander Seven. Seven starts BLASTING, killing the changeling. “She calls me Seven out of respect.” And Shaw, who has never respected her and is a shit head, is like “Oh I see.”

They ride the shockwave, blasting out of the Nebula. It’s actually kinda cool. They fly out of the nebula…. and right into Vadic. So they use the ASTEROID they were towing and fucking CHUCK IT AT HER.

“Will, did you just throw an asteroid??” “You’re god damn right I did.”

Turns out the Nebula was a Space Amoeba nursery or something. Space Babbies. Spabbies.

This was all cool. And Trekky. We just coulda done without the weird animosity that was brewing for the past three episodes.

At the end Picard also realizes that he HAD met Jack before, once. In that bar at the start, where Jack had been with the cadets and asking “well sir, have you ever done anything… outside of Starfleet? Had a real family?” and Picard went “Pff, Starfleet is the only family I’ve ever needed,” as the cadets APPLAUD this man tearing his son’s heart out of its chest.

These four episodes easily coulda been two, but like, this WAS a good episode.

Imposter - PIC 7/10

The Titan is on its way back home, when suddenly Jack walks on the bridge and just fucking kills everyone. Then Silent Hill F goop happens. Nope, it’s all in his mind, as his eyes are glowing red.

Starfleet is on its way, and Picard intends to bear the brunt of it. But all that is a little dulled in the matter of the fact that somehow a Changeling got on board. They have internal imaging scanners that can detect goopy people, it’s been standard issue since the Dominion War.

This is all occasionally interspersed with Worf and Raffi doing spy stuff and kinda failing at it. It’s kind of wild how extremely disconnected from all this they are.

Starfleet sends a security officer onboard, as Seven hides Jack somewhere. The officer is… RO LAREN! Remember her? :D Man, we did LOT leave on good terms, did we? Picard STILL has a massive stick up his ass even though it was 100% his fucking fault and he failed so hard. Thankfully, Riker calls him out on his bullshit. “YOU’RE the one who sent her into that knowing she’d have sympathies.”

Crusher studies the Changeling corpse. It’s not returned to goop, it bleeds even though it has no DNA. La Forge sees her own corpse and throws up. Fair.

Ro Laren starts questioning Picard and he IMMEDIATELY puts her on blast about every single tiny thing. “YOU’RE NOT EVEN WEARING YOUR BAJORAN EARRING, DID YOU TURN YOUR BACK ON ANOTHER INSITUTION?” God forbid a woman do fucking ANYTHING. Picard, check yourself, for gods sake.

Jack has more visions of himself killing people. You’d think he’d TELL someone that but no. He sees MORE and MORE visions and they’re getting very uncomfortably real.

Picard gets a message from Crusher that Changelings can now pass the blood test, trust no one, anyone can be a Changeling. So now he’s CONVINCED Ro is one cause he fucking hates her.

Ro has him take her to the corpse, but as they walk to it. As they do, Ro pulls a gun on him and drags him into the holodeck. It turns into a gun on gun standoff. THey just fucking YELL at each other, and it ends iwth “you broke my heart” “and you broke mine”. After all the emotions that flew out, they know that neither are changelings. They hate each other, but they trust each other in this moment. And Starfleet is compromised… as it always is for some fucking reason.

Raffi and Worf are captured by gangsters and have to fight to the death for their amusement. Worf is killed, which is kind of unceremoneous for one of the most important Trek characters. Ha, no, it was a ploy. He can meditate to stop his heart rate. He’s also bleeding out which is making him impatient for the interrogation. That’s the Worf I know.

We also learn that Ro Laren has been TRYING to do things behind the scenes to stop this conspiracy, but can’t trust anyone. She only has two agents in the field she REALLY trusts, and those are obviously Raffi and Worf. She leaves Picard, giving him her earring.

Obviously, her guards are also changelings, and they end up killing her, putting a bomb on her shuttle. She has no time to stop it, sending one last message to Picard, before sending her shuttle into the enemy’s nacelle so they have more time to escape.

Yet another major character death. Poor Ro, mistreated in canon to the very end. And now they’re all being framed for Ro’s death. I mean, at least this is a better death than Hugh. She has a heroic way going out, is “redeemed” (it’s not even really a redemption because she didn’t really NEED to be, it’s more that it fully cuts down Picard in that one episode), and is at least kinda cool.

The Changeling guards find Jack, and try to beam him out, but he just… fucking kills them all. All as he’s seeing more Silent Hill F tendrils and a weird door. What the fuck is even going on with this plot point?

Picard now realizes he didn’t even know what Ro meant to him. Yeah dude, you clearly did not. And that earring is secretly containing all of her corkboard information. This also connects them to Worf.

FINALLY Jake tells his mom “there’s something very wrong with me”. It only took her going “How did you know those FOUR PEOPLE you killed were changelings”.