Picard Season Two showed up on Paramount+ this week with a chatty episode that took a while to get started. This ten episode series releases a new episode every Thursday. Because of the Pandemic, Season Two and Season Three were shot at the same time.
Fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation may or may not be happy to see Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan and John de Lancie as Q. But I’m thrilled with Annie Wersching as the Borg Queen! From what I’ve been able to discern from Episode One, Season Two will involve Time Travel and a lot more action. Are you a Star Trek fan? GRADE: Incomplete
Main Characters:
- Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard[8]
- Alison Pill as Agnes Jurati[8]
- Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine[9]
- Michelle Hurd as Raffi Musiker[8]
- Evan Evagora as Elnor[8]
- Orla Brady as Laris[9]
- Isa Briones as Soji Asha[8]
- Santiago Cabrera as Chris Rios[8]
- Brent Spiner as a member of the Soong family
- Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan[12]
- John de Lancie as Q[9]
- Annie Wersching as the Borg Queen[11]
Watched the original series as a kid and that is about it. At least the later series look like they have better production values.
Steve, the CGI technology has improved and so have the production values. Well worth a look.
I also watched the original and a couple of the early movies. Once these things get to the “milking the cash cow” stage I drop out.
Michael, PICARD features some intriguing writing and cast members. Diane and I have enjoyed SEASON ONE and we’re off to a good start with SEASON TWO. Free episodes on PARAMOUNT+ are available.
A fan of some of the Star Trek series, yes. We don’t have Paramount Plus. We did see the first series of PICARD. It was OK – as Marv Lachman would put it, good but not great. It took too long to really get going and wasn’t until the later episodes that I thought it really hit its stride. I did like the appearances of Data and Riker and (the former) Seven of Nine. Jackie likes Q as a character way more than I do, so I am not looking forward to that. It’s no NEXT GENERATION or DEEP SPACE NINE but we will watch it when we can.
Jeff, I’m ambivalent about the Q character. I wonder if he started QAnon…
I followed the franchise for some time but eventually lost touch. I have childhood memories of a few episodes of the original series when it first aired and became a big fan once the show went into syndication in the early seventies. I finally got on board with NEXT GENERATION with season three and loved DEEP SPACE NINE (in my opinion the best of the bunch). VOYAGER just seemed to plod along clumsily until it went into a death spiral with the introduction of the Sexy Borg and I bailed around season four while ENTERPRISE was embarrassingly unwatchable from the start. The less said about any of the movies, KHAN aside, the better.
Nothing about the current wave of Nu Trek appeals to me, from the monochromatic black on black on black color schemes to the Pottery Barn production design. My biggest beef is the fan fiction level of the writing that resurrects some of the worst storylines and characters from the series and movies while also being hell-bent on grinding all the old cliches and rehashed plot lines into the permafrost. On top of that, their few original ideas are just lame and their sense of dramatics (that they seem sooo smug about) is really ham-fisted. Most of the best of the NEXT GENERATION writers (Ron Moore, Hans Beimler, Rene’ Echevarria, Ira Steven Behr) are still around and it’s criminal they aren’t being used here because the more high profile talent on board now like Chabon and Goldsman seem clueless.
Sorry to sound so harsh and vI’m glad you’re enjoying the show, George, but this just feels like an enormous missed opportunity to me.
Byron, you’re right about Chabon and Goldsman being clueless. They claim to be enthusiastic fans of the series, but I have my doubts. I must admit I set the bar pretty low for PICARD. Yet, hope springs Eternal that something good will come from this project and a new STAR TREK audience might result.
I’d be happy to see Whoopie’s head on a pike.