Star Trek Picard Season 3: Finding your feet on your way out the door

Following 2 seasons of episodes that ranged from disappointing to downright confusing Star Trek: Picard has finally churned out a season that satisfies long-time fans. While seasons 1 and 2 might have satisfied casual fans, the ending of season 2 was downright baffling to everybody.

Thank God we have season three which spoke to fans that not only sat through 2 seasons of Picard, but 7 seasons of Next Gen, 7 seasons of Deep Space 9 and 7 seasons of Voyager.

THE EDGE

There are some leaps of logic, but hey! We’re talking about a show where your heroes fight cyborgs and goey people and what is Star Trek without a few plot holes that you could drive a starship through? But in this season they more or less just threw out the first 2 seasons.

The major strength of Picard season 3 is that it didn’t try so hard to find an audience that Trek didn’t already have. The modus operandi seemed to be, if we pick up some new fans, that’s great, but if we don’t we’re still playing to the cheap seats. When I say cheap seats, I mean those dedicated fans who come to every Billy Joel concert and sit in the back. Billy Joel does a great job of explaining it:

THE LOWDOWN

Picard would have been a blast to work on. Every one of those actors, even the new ones have a lot of experience. The main cast are well-seasoned professionals.

I’ve worked with a lot of Directors in my day. Most are pretty on the ball. Some are extraordinary. Some are downright awful, personally and professionally. Then there is Jonathan Frakes. He is by far the best director I have ever worked with. He is Number One. He comes prepared, he is efficient, he can work with the crew, he can work with the actors. He is having the most fun of anybody else on set. He’s such a good director, he coached himself to one of the best performances in Trek to date:

It was an honour and a pleasure to work with him.

Working on Picard Season 3 would have been a unique experience with a storeid cast on a legendary show. Just by showing up, you play a small part in a phenomenon that has been around for over 50 years, that people use as a calling card for their childhood. That doesn’t happen every day.

THE JIST

Picard isn’t your Dad’s TNG, but it does pay tribute to it. It checks a lot of boxes. If you’re not a Star Trek fan, you can comfortably skip it. But if you are at all interested in 90’s Trek, this is the show you’ve been waiting for.