adam soong – Trekking with Dennis

Which Narrative Clichés Would I Remove From Star Trek?

Spoiler Warning: Beware spoilers for the following Star Trek productions: The Wrath of Khan, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Into Darkness, Discovery, Picard, Prodigy, Strange New Worlds, and Section 31.

I hope you all had a lovely Halloween! October was a busy month for me, but I did manage to put out a few Halloween-y posts, so I hope you’ll scroll back and check out some of those; they were a lot of fun to write!

Onward to the subject of today’s piece, then.

I was scrolling Facebook when I noticed a Star Trek fan page had posted a screenshot of a Tumblr poll (because that’s all social media is these days: screenshots of the same handful of pages being endlessly recycled!) But the original post, first shared on Tumblr by user “quasi-normalcy,” was one that I thought could be very interesting to address. In short, it asked the question “which clichés do you most wish you could remove from Star Trek?” followed by eleven options that form the basis of a number of Star Trek episodes.

Screenshot of Tumblr showing a poll. — The original Tumblr poll upon which this piece is based…

Screenshot of Tumblr showing the results of a poll. — …and the eventual results.

The original Tumblr poll has now concluded, but I’ll drop a link to the post below in case you want to see it or check out the original poster’s page – this is not a unique idea and I am not claiming to have come up with it! But I am going to do something a little different than just clicking or tapping on a poll! I’m going to address all eleven of “quasi-normalcy’s” Star Trek narrative clichés, explain what I like or dislike about them, and perhaps add one or two of my own, too!

So thank you “quasi-normalcy” on Tumblr, and random Star Trek fan page on Facebook, for introducing me to this idea. I think it’ll be interesting to talk about some of the narrative frameworks that Star Trek has used, in some form, on multiple occasions – and maybe a little controversial, too! My usual caveat applies: everything we’re going to discuss is the subjective, not objective, opinion of just one Trekkie. If you hate everything I have to say about these episodes, think I’ve totally misunderstood something, or if we just disagree on what makes for a fun episode of Star Trek… that’s okay! Star Trek is a big tent, and there’s room for all kinds of opinions. I share mine with the Star Trek fan community in that spirit.

That being said, if you don’t want to read some potentially controversial Star Trek thoughts, this is your opportunity to beam out! I’ll address each potential cliché in the order they were listed in the original poll, then give my verdict on whether it should be “removed from Star Trek” going forward!

Cliché #1:
Transporter Malfunction Episodes

Still frame from Star Trek: Picard showing a transporter energising. — Transporting.

This feels like too broad of a category to want to see removed, in my opinion. A “transporter malfunction” can be handled in so many different ways, with so many different outcomes. We can bring Scotty forwards in time by eighty years in Relics, then cross over to a parallel universe in Mirror, Mirror – with completely different results. The transporter is a key part of Star Trek, and when it goes wrong, it can lead to all kinds of stories which vary in tone, structure, and genre. With that in mind, I really don’t see this one as a problem. It can feel like a cliché sometimes, sure… I will concede that point. But because transporter malfunctions vary so much in terms of outcome, I don’t see them as an issue and I’m happy to have more “the transporter done goofed” stories going forward.

That being said, there are some places where more common transporter problems could be shaken up – or the frequency of these instances lessened. For example, the way transporters work or don’t work floats around at the behest of the plot, and it’s a pretty common trope for the transporter to break or not be able to work just at the moment when it’s needed. Think about it: how many episodes would’ve been completely different if the transporter didn’t stop working just when a character needed to be rescued? Generally, these episodes work well enough. But I’m certainly open to the “broken transporter” or “the transporter won’t work because of technobabble” kinds of story beat being reduced in frequency.

My Verdict: Keep It!

Cliché #2:
Holodeck Episodes

Still frame from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds showing La'an, in costume, on the holodeck. — La’an on the holodeck.

As above, there are so many different ways to take holodeck stories, and the ones we’ve seen have varied so much, that I don’t really consider this to be a “cliché” as such – they’re just one more type of Star Trek episode. As with any sub-genre, there are some holodeck stories that I enjoy more than others, and some I’m happy not to see repeated. But as a concept? I think holodeck stories can open things up, give the cast a chance to step out of their usual roles, and it can be a lot of fun to see them interacting in more of a social setting.

That being said, *modern* Star Trek shows, which tend to have fewer seasons as well as fewer episodes per season, don’t need nearly as many opportunities to do something like this. I noted in one of my Strange New Worlds Season 3 episode reviews that, out of fewer than thirty episodes at that point in the show’s run, characters like Pike and Spock had appeared out-of-character on at least four or five occasions apiece. Not all of those were holodeck stories, but the basic point remains. However, I think there’s still a place for stories set on the holodeck on occasion, as they can be fun ways to explore new characters, new locales, and just different themes than would be possible in a more straightforward episode set aboard a starship or planet.

My Verdict: Keep It!

Cliché #3:
Time Travel (Especially to Present-Day Earth)

Still frame from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home showing HMS Bounty approaching the sun. — Kirk and the crew prepare to travel back in time.

Can I break this one into two pieces?

Pretty please?!

Cliché #3-A:
General Time Travel

Still frame from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine showing Kirk and Sisko meeting. — Two Captains!

Okay, thank you for allowing me to split this one up! Time travel within Star Trek’s timeline – backwards and forwards – can be a blast. Viewers rank The City on the Edge of Forever as *the* best of The Original Series, and I adore episodes like Trials and Tribble-Ations, All Good Things, and Shattered. Time travel has been a key plot point in episodes like Time Squared, Twilight, Tapestry, Eye of the Needle, and many more. All of these are fantastic, and show what the franchise can do with time travel within the confines of its universe.

Discovery shooting forwards in time at the end of Season 2 arguably improved that series, with many interesting episodes coming after the leap to the 32nd Century. Strange New Worlds’ fantastic first-season finale leaned on time travel in a unique way, too. Face the Strange was especially creative, probably one of the highlights of Discovery’s fifth season. So modern Star Trek has utilised time travel phenomenally well. I wouldn’t want to see these kinds of stories erased from Star Trek.

My Verdict: Keep It!

Cliché #3-B:
Time Travel to Modern-Day Earth.

Still frame from Star Trek: Picard showing Los Angeles from above. — Contemporary Los Angeles in *Picard*.

This is why we had to split time travel into two separate pieces! Time travel within Star Trek’s fictional timeline can be a blast – even to Earth. But time travel to the modern day? Those stories tend to feel out-of-date pretty quickly. Look at The Voyage Home and Future’s End – not to mention Picard’s entire second season. Sometimes, stories like this work well, and use a modern-day setting in creative ways. But too often they lose too much of what makes Star Trek… feel like Star Trek.

Star Trek is about the future. And sometimes, figuring out how that future came to be can be interesting. But in a lot of cases, time travel episodes that visit contemporary Earth don’t have enough to say – or what they try to say is pedestrian and bland, like “climate change is bad.” Again, if we assume modern Star Trek shows will continue to have ten-episode seasons and four or five seasons max, I think the less time spent on modern-day Earth the better. As I said once: I can barely re-watch Picard’s second season – a full one-third of that show – because of how unenjoyable it is, a significant part of which is due to its modern Earth setting. So… yeah. Let’s give modern Earth a break, eh?

My Verdict: Vaporise It With A Disruptor!

Cliché #4:
Section 31

Promo photo for Star Trek: Section 31 showing Georgiou and two other operatives. — Three Section 31 operatives.

I believe the original Tumblr poll was written before this year’s Section 31 movie, so the author couldn’t have known what the reaction to that would be. Given the apparent disappointment of Section 31 to Paramount (and new owner Skydance), I have to assume that any more Michelle Yeoh-led Section 31 sequels or spin-offs won’t be going ahead. So in that sense, we already have part of an answer to this point!

Section 31 was incredibly controversial when Deep Space Nine introduced it. I remember furious debates on Star Trek message boards around the turn of the millennium about “Gene’s vision” and how Section 31 shouldn’t exist in the Star Trek universe. I gotta admit that I found the original idea and the original presentation of Section 31 to be interesting – and it seemed logical, to me, that an organisation as massive as the Federation would run this kind of off-the-books organisation. However, Section 31 as it was depicted in Discovery and the Section 31 film strayed a long way from that, and arguably trod all over the toes of canon by showing the organisation as being so out in the open more than a century before DS9. It would’ve been possible, perhaps, to show how Section 31 disappeared and went underground in the intervening years, but that idea was never picked up. I still think there’s potential in the idea of a “black ops” Federation organisation, but it has to be handled a lot better.

My Verdict: Keep It!

Cliché #5:
All References to the Kobayashi Maru, Khan, and The Wrath of Khan.

Still frame from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan showing Khan and his crew. — Khan and the augments on the Reliant’s bridge.

I think saying *all* references to The Wrath of Khan might be a bridge too far, but I get where this is coming from. I noted in one of my Strange New Worlds Season 3 episode reviews that making La’an a direct descendant of Khan has been a complete waste, and that basically nothing would’ve changed for her character if she’d been given a different last name. So in that sense, that kind of direct reference to Khan himself – particularly as SNW is a prequel – is something I’d happily live without. I’m not caught up on the Khan audio drama yet, but my initial reaction to a Khan-focused series wasn’t especially positive, either, as I felt we’ve already seen everything we need to see of Khan.

However, I think some things from The Wrath of Khan – like the Kobayashi Maru – can and have been used well elsewhere. Prodigy’s first season episode Kobayashi is a case in point: a great episode that built on those foundations. So while I think references to Khan himself can definitely be scaled back, if not dropped entirely for a while, this entry’s “all or nothing” attitude gives me pause. The Wrath of Khan is a great film, and some of the elements it introduced have gone on to be widely celebrated parts of Star Trek. There are new ways to approach things like the Kobayashi Maru scenario and human augments, and I wouldn’t want to rob future Star Trek writers of those.

My Verdict: Keep It!

Cliché #6:
The Mirror Universe

Still frame from Star Trek: The Original Series showing Spock from the Mirror Universe. — Mirror Spock.

If the Mirror Universe had been a one-off, I’d probably say it was worth re-visiting. But even as far back as Deep Space Nine, the Mirror Universe was played out. This is a setting where violence, murder, and torture are the norm, and it’s so boring and one-dimensional that it tricks even the best Star Trek actors into putting out hammy, over-the-top, ridiculous performances that are, in some cases, genuinely so bad that they’re unwatchable for me. The Mirror Universe *can* be interesting to visit for a single episode, on rare occasions, but where it’s failed has been repeat visits, recurring or main Terran characters, and just its general over-use.

Discovery did not benefit from any of its Mirror Universe storylines, and I don’t think Georgiou’s Terran Empire origin did wonders for Section 31, either. I don’t really understand why modern Star Trek writers have developed an obsession with the Mirror Universe (or Mirror Universe-inspired settings, like Picard’s Confederation of Earth), but I think we’ve seen more than enough of this parallel universe. The *only* Mirror Universe story I’d have even potentially been interested in was one involving the rescue of the Prime Timeline version of Captain Lorca – but I suspect that ship has sailed. The Mirror Universe can sail into the sunset with it!

My Verdict: Vaporise It With A Disruptor!

Cliché #7:
Godlike Aliens/Supercomputers

Still frame from Star Trek: The Original Series showing the M-5 computer. — The M-5 Multitronic Unit.

Not only does this one feel way too broad, but I think Star Trek has demonstrated that there’s huge value in exploring how we might interact with an alien or entity possessing “god-like” powers. There’s also the current trajectory of artificial intelligence here in the real world, and how some people feel we’re only a few years away from superintelligent A.I. systems. Star Trek has been an early pioneer of showing the dangers of A.I., as well as potential benefits.

I suppose, though, too many of these stories could feel samey. As with any sub-genre, it needs to be handled well, not over-exposed, and kept to a reasonable level. But I definitely think the positives outweigh the negatives, and in the near future, there could be a ton of value in exploring supercomputers and “god-like” A.I. systems in particular.

My Verdict: Keep It!

Cliché #8:
New Soong Relatives

Still frame from Star Trek: Picard showing Adam Soong wielding a pistol. — One of the Soongs.

Noonien Soong, Arik Soong, Altan Soong, Adam Soong, and a couple of illusory Noonien Soongs. Then we have Lore, B-4, and the new Data android. Not to mention Kore Soong, and other Soong-type androids. Yeah… I think this is getting pretty silly now! I really didn’t like what Picard did with Data in Season 3: resurrecting him after he’d been so beautifully and fittingly laid to rest in Season 1 just felt wrong. And the inclusion of *two* new Soongs in Picard was definitely a bit too much. Brent Spiner is great, don’t get me wrong, and he can play villains and devious characters exceptionally well. But I think we’ve taken the family of Data’s creator as far as it can reasonably stretch – too far already, some might say!

With Legacy seemingly not going ahead, I don’t know what the future holds for the renewed Data. But with Altan Soong dead, that could be the last descendant of the Soong family – at least as of the dawn of the 25th Century. I don’t think we need to go back in time to see Adam Soong’s work on the augments, nor revisit Noonien Soong’s creation of Lore and Data. Some storylines just have a natural end point. Adding more Brent Spiners to the Soong family wouldn’t really add anything new to Star Trek at this point, either.

My Verdict: Vaporise It With A Disruptor!

Cliché #9:
Ferengi Episodes

Still frame from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine showing a crew of Ferengi. — The Magnificent Ferengi!

Though we spent a lot of time with the Ferengi in Deep Space Nine, the faction hasn’t been seen very much this side of the millennium. With that in mind, I’m definitely down for more Ferengi stories! I’d love to see, for instance, how the Ferengi are coping in the 32nd Century. Did they ever join the Federation? Are they still obsessed with latinum and profit? And in the Picard era, too, were a new series ever to be commissioned, it would be lovely to catch up with Grand Nagus Rom in live-action.

In DS9, Ferengi episodes often took on a comedic tone, and I think I’d happily entertain less of that; a more straight-laced and serious Ferengi story could be an interesting change of pace. Though we know a lot about the Ferengi thanks to Quark, Rom, and Nog in particular, there’s still a lot that can be done with the Ferengi, and there are certainly more stories to tell where Ferengi characters are in focus.

My Verdict: Keep It!

Cliché #10:
Borg Episodes

Still frame from Star Trek: The Next Generation showing a Borg drone being phasered. — Is it time to kill off the Borg?

This one… I’m torn, to be honest with you. Picard over-used the Borg, and that came after Voyager had already done a lot to lessen the Borg’s fear factor and imposing nature. There are also issues with the timeline thanks to Voyager and Enterprise, and I still think that the introduction of a Borg Queen in First Contact was a mistake! However, I still like the idea of a Star Trek series I’ve provisionally dubbed the “Borg Invasion” show, in which a war against the Borg is the main focus of the series.

This show would take on a much darker tone, with themes of horror and war being prevalent. If done well, with a clear three- or four-season plan from the get-go and a sufficiently high budget, I really believe it could work exceptionally well. However, I won’t deny that the Borg have been over-exposed, not only in modern Star Trek, but really going as far back as Voyager. And I wouldn’t blame any Trekkie who wants to give the faction a break, especially after Picard brought them back three seasons in a row.

My Verdict: Keep It!

Cliché #11:
Fun-With-DNA Episodes (i.e. Genesis, Threshold, etc)

Still frame from Star Trek: Voyager showing hyper-evolved human salamanders. — Hmm…

As I’ve said several times now, this feels like quite a broad concept that could go in many different directions. As such, I don’t think I’d be willing to say there should “never” be another episode in which the DNA of some of our heroes gets muddled up! That being said, episodes like Threshold, Extinction, Favorite Son, Unnatural Selection, and Four-and-a-Half Vulcans aren’t necessarily shining examples of the best of Star Trek. So this one, I suppose, can feel a bit hit-and-miss.

I still think I come down on the side of saying “do more with this idea,” though. Shuttle to Kenfori, with its “zombies,” and Discovery’s Tyler-Voq storyline, both did interesting things with DNA, and I think there’s potential to take the basic idea in different directions. So while it’s true that not every “fun with DNA” idea has stuck the landing, I’m up for trying it again if the script is right!

My Verdict: Keep It!

So that’s all from the poll… but there’s more!

Still frame from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine showing the titular space station. — DS9.

The original poll also contained one final option: Something Else!

So… I thought we could go through a handful of my own “Star Trek clichés” and talk about them before we wrap this up.

Cliché #12:
Redshirts

Cropped Star Trek: Redshirts comic book cover. — A redshirt!

I’m surprised the original poll didn’t include what is arguably one of Star Trek’s biggest clichés: the redshirt! These characters, named for the red uniform shirts they wore in The Original Series, were junior officers who usually made one appearance – only to be killed off pretty early in the story. After The Original Series, we saw fewer redshirts, but the trope has stuck around, even into Star Trek’s modern era.

Sometimes you need to kill off a character to communicate the dangers of a situation or the stakes to our heroes. Redshirts – these “disposable” one-off characters – arguably serve that purpose pretty well, and I wouldn’t want to see Star Trek limited by removing them. I also think that redshirts have become, in some ways, an inseparable part of Star Trek itself, and while we’ve seen fewer bona fide redshirts really since The Next Generation premiered, I wouldn’t want the franchise to lose them entirely.

My Verdict: Keep It!

Cliché #13:
The “Half-Arsed Mental Health Storyline”

Still frame from Star Trek: Discovery showing Culber and Stamets. — Dr Culber and Stamets.

Discovery was, in my opinion, absolutely atrocious in most of its attempted mental health storylines, but this problem has also plagued other Star Trek productions – notably Picard. And in the bygone days of episodic TV, characters would suffer a traumatic event that would have a massive impact on them… for all of a single episode, before the show moved on to new adventures a week later. There are some absolutely fantastic explorations of mental health on television… but Star Trek, even in the modern era, has slipped up way too often.

I’ve said this before multiple times here on the website, especially when discussing Discovery, but here we go: if there isn’t time to do justice to a complex mental health storyline, skip it. Don’t half-arse it, don’t give ten minutes to a complicated topic that needs way longer, and just… pick something else. Literally *anything* else. Star Trek has been bold in approaching some of these topics, and that’s great, but the execution has left a lot to be desired in too many cases. If Star Trek’s writers want to keep returning to mental health as a topic for storylines, then we need to see significantly better results.

My Verdict: Vaporise It With A Disruptor!

Cliché #14:
Klingon Episodes

Still frame from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds showing Pike and a Klingon captain. — Pike with a Klingon in *Strange New Worlds*.

When discussing the Ferengi above, I said that there are surely ways to tell new stories featuring them, especially after such a long absence. That’s gotta be true of the Klingons, too… right? The more I think about it, the less sure I am, to be honest. Thanks to Worf and B’Elanna, and Discovery’s focus on the Klingons in Seasons 1 and 2 with the war and characters like Tyler and L’Rell, we’ve seen *a lot* of the Klingons over the years. And when many Klingon characters can feel a bit flat and lacking in depth, maybe it actually is time to give the faction a rest.

Klingons are inseparable from Star Trek, that’s true. But after almost six decades of exploring the Klingons, their Empire, and many individual Klingon characters… do we need more? Recent attempts to reimagine the Klingons – both in the Kelvin films and Discovery – proved controversial or just outright unpopular with Trekkies, and recent productions seem to have “reset” the Klingons to their TNG-era visual style, at least. Given that changes seem to be off the table, do we really need more of the same from the Klingons, after they’ve featured in a big way in literally hundreds of stories already?

My Verdict: Vaporise It With A Disruptor!

Cliché #15:
“Glorified Redshirts” (i.e. minor characters who get one or two scenes’ worth of “development” before being killed off)

Promo photo for Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 showing Airiam holding a padd. — Airiam in *Discovery’*s second season.

In TOS, if Captain Kirk picked Spock, Scotty, and Ensign Timmy for an away mission, you’d know right away who wasn’t coming back! Recent Star Trek projects have tried, at least, to make some minor character deaths a bit more impactful… but the way this has been handled has, all too often, not worked. Giving a minor character a scene or two of attempted development, in order to foster more of an emotional connection with us as the audience, is not a bad idea in theory. But modern Star Trek writers haven’t been great at this, leaving these moments feeling as nakedly obvious as when the doomed Ensign Timmy stepped onto the transporter pad.

Airiam, in Discovery, and Gamble, in Strange New Worlds, stand out as examples of this trend. Gamble was handled at least somewhat better, but even so, as I noted in my review, his death seemed immediately obvious when he was given the “glorified redshirt” treatment shortly before being killed off on an away mission. Is this approach better than the original treatment of redshirts? You could make that argument. But I still think it needs to be handled more carefully – and in a show with shorter, better-planned seasons, why not sprinkle that development across multiple episodes instead of cramming it all in in a couple of sequences before the minor character is killed off? Same amount of screen time, but a significantly better result.

My Verdict: Vaporise It With A Disruptor!

Cliché #16:
Bringing Back Legacy Characters In Main Roles

Promo poster for Star Trek: Picard Season 3 showing the main cast. — The main characters of *Picard* Season 3.

Spock in Discovery’s second season. Voyager’s Doctor in Starfleet Academy. Worf in Deep Space Nine. And Picard’s entire new cast – sans one character – being dumped to make way for the return of the whole TNG crew in Season 3. Does Star Trek need to do this so often? Or can we give new shows, new crews, and new characters the space to stand on their own two feet? Look at Star Wars, which has failed, for almost half a century, to break away from the same handful of original characters and one single story. Is that what fans want? Is that kind of approach the one Star Trek should take?

I get it: nostalgia is a big deal, fans want to see more from some of their favourite characters, and – at least in some cases – there are new stories to be told, or epilogues to add to existing stories. I’d be thrilled, for instance, to see a DS9 sequel involving Captain Sisko’s return from the realm of the Prophets. But to me, this over-emphasis on legacy characters makes Star Trek feel… small. And if Star Trek had behaved this way in the ’80s and ’90s, we’d never have gotten to meet wonderful new characters who carried the franchise forward. There’s room to balance things out more, with new *and* legacy characters sharing the limelight. But, as we’ve started to see in Strange New Worlds, and as we definitely saw in Picard’s third season, legacy characters can easily overwhelm a project as writers and fans want to see more from them and less from the newbies. That risks leaving Star Trek with nowhere to go creatively in the future.

My Verdict: Vaporise It With A Disruptor!

So that’s it!

Still frame from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan showing the Enterprise firing phasers. — The Enterprise firing phasers.

This poll was really interesting to dissect, and not every point went the way I’d have necessarily expected if I’d just seen the poll, clicked on it, and moved on. Actually taking the time to think about these answers yielded some results that were – as Mr Spock might say – fascinating!

The results of the original poll make for interesting reading, too, after more than 2,000 people voted. The top clichés Trekkies want to get rid of are, in reverse order: the Mirror Universe with 8.2% of the vote, time travel (especially to modern-day Earth) with 11%, new Soong relatives at 22.2%, and finally, Section 31 with 24.7% – almost a quarter of those who responded to the poll.

I think I could’ve predicted some of those, but new Soong relatives being so thoroughly despised is one that caught me off-guard, I must admit!

Still frame from Star Trek: Section 31 showing the final shot of the movie. — Apparently, Section 31 is the cliché most Trekkies would like to see removed.

I hope my own additions of some Star Trek “clichés” fit the tone of the poll, too. I spent a little while thinking about some of the tropes and arguably overdone story concepts that Star Trek could do with fewer of! Though truth be told, very few of these are really all that problematic for me, as I think Star Trek – even after recycling some of these ideas time and again – can still churn out some great storylines.

So I hope this has been a bit of fun, and an interesting way to dissect this poll. My thanks to Tumblr user “quasi-normalcy” for the original idea – and if you want to see the poll and its results, as well as their Tumblr page, you can find it by clicking or tapping here. And thanks to the Star Trek fan page on Facebook for bringing it into my feed!

Behind-the-scenes photo from Star Trek: Picard S3 showing the centre console and tactical station of the Enterprise-D. — The view from Worf’s console.

Now that Halloween is out of the way (and I’m closer to getting back to normal at home), there’s more Star Trek content to come here on the website. I’d like to get caught up with the Khan audio drama before too long, there may be more previews for Starfleet Academy coming up now that we know the series will debut in January, and I still have a couple of episode re-watches that I want to write up involving actors I met at a recent Star Trek convention.

I hope you’ll join me in the days and weeks ahead for some of those pieces. Until then… Live Long and Prosper, friends!

Most of the Star Trek franchise – including films and television series discussed above – is available to stream on Paramount+ in countries and territories where the platform is available, and is also available on DVD and/or Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including all properties discussed above – is the copyright of Skydance/Paramount. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 theory – who is Captain Vadic?

Wed 09.11.22Thu 10.11.22Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-2 as well as for announcements and trailers for Season 3. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: The Next Generation, Voyager, First Contact, Insurrection, Nemesis and Discovery.

Today we’re going to talk about Captain Vadic, the villainous commander of the Shrike who appeared in the most recent trailer for Season 3. Based on the information that Paramount has released so far, Captain Vadic appears set to be the main adversary that Admiral Picard and the former crew of the Enterprise-D will face off against in the upcoming final season of the show, and I think we have enough evidence to put together a few theories about who she could potentially be.

One thing we can say for near-certain based on her appearance in the trailer is that Captain Vadic has become obsessed with Picard – and possibly with his former crewmates as well. Her desire to get revenge for some (real or perceived) wrong that was done to her seems to be her driving force, and as a result there are favourable comparisons to one of the Star Trek franchise’s most iconic villains – Khan. Vadic seems to channel much of the same energy as Khan did in The Wrath of Khan, with a passionate quest for vengeance that strays into near-madness.

The question of why Vadic is so obsessed with getting revenge is inherently tied to who she is. Although past iterations of Star Trek didn’t ultimately connect to the big story arcs in Seasons 1 or 2 of Picard, it has to be at least possible that Captain Vadic has a connection to some character or event that we’ve seen unfold on screen before. She could even be a character that we’ve already met.

So that’s what we’re going to take a look at today! Who could Captain Vadic be? And tied to that question is the nature of her revenge plot – why is she seeking vengeance? What could Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D have done to her in the past?

Theory #1:
An Ex-Borg

Ex-Borg in the Season 1 episode *Nepenthe*.

Captain Vadic appears to have scars on her face that superficially resemble those of the ex-Borg that we met in Season 1, so some kind of Borg origin feels like a possibility. We could learn that Vadic was among the survivors of the Artifact when it crash-landed on Coppelius at the end of Season 1, and that could be the beginning of her vendetta against Picard.

It’s possible that Vadic was assimilated by Locutus – Picard’s Borg designation when he was himself briefly part of the Borg Collective. If Vadic was assimilated at, for example, the Battle of Wolf-359, she may have spent years in the Collective before she was freed, and may hold Picard personally to blame for her traumatic experience.

Starfleet engages the Borg at the Battle of Wolf-359.

Seasons 1 and 2 both dealt with the Borg to an extent, albeit in different ways, so this could be somewhat of a continuation of that familiar theme. Although Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D faced off against many enemies and opponents during their adventures, few are as ferocious or intimidating as the Borg, so there’d be something significant if the final foe they have to deal with has some kind of Borg connection.

If Captain Vadic is an ex-Borg, that could also explain her interest in both Picard’s crew and the Federation as a whole; she may blame the Enterprise-D and Starfleet more broadly for what happened to her.

Theory #2:
An augment.

We talked a moment ago about the superficial similarities between Captain Vadic and iconic Star Trek villain Khan… but what if there’s more to it than that? The end of Season 2 seemed to imply that Picard’s adversary Adam Soong would either begin or re-start research into Khan-inspired human augments, connecting his story to that of Dr Arik Soong in Enterprise. Could Captain Vadic be a descendant of one of Dr Soong’s augments – or perhaps even an augment who had been kept alive in stasis?

If so, her vendetta may be inspired by Dr Soong – she may blame Picard for changing the timeline and preventing Dr Soong from being celebrated in the Confederation timeline that we saw in Season 2. Successive generations of augments may have carried that grudge, or alternatively Captain Vadic may have been “programmed” to awaken in the early 25th Century by Dr Soong to get his revenge.

The “Project Khan” folder seen at the end of Season 2.

This would connect the story of Season 3 to what happened last time in a major way, and I think that would be to the show’s overall benefit. Season 2 could even look better in retrospect if it ends up being one piece of a larger connected story, so giving Captain Vadic a connection to what happened in Season 2 would be a net positive.

There’s also a possibility that Captain Vadic is an augment, but one who isn’t connected to Adam Soong or Khan. There are a couple of episodes of The Next Generation in which Picard and the crew tussled with genetic engineering and human augmentation: Season 2’s Unnatural Selection and The Masterpiece Society from Season 5. Perhaps Captain Vadic is one of the augments from the Darwin Genetic Research Station or one of the Moab IV colonists whose society was disrupted by the arrival of the Enterprise-D.

Theory #3:
A Romulan (or Romulan ally)

A Romulan commander in the 23rd Century.

I know, I know: Captain Vadic doesn’t have the right ears to be a Romulan! But as noted above, she does have significant facial scars – could those hint at some kind of cosmetic surgery to alter her appearance? The design of her warship, the Shrike, definitely feels Romulan to me. It evokes both Nero’s Narada (from the 2009 Star Trek reboot film) and the Scimitar, Shinzon’s flagship in Nemesis. Could that design hint at some kind of Romulan origin for Vadic… or at least for her ship?

Picard has dealt with the Romulans on multiple occasions, and thwarted major Romulan schemes to invade Vulcan, to end the alliance between the Federation and the Klingons, and to use a thalaron radiation weapon to attack Earth, just to name three examples. Then there’s Picard’s failure to aid in the Romulan evacuation in the aftermath of the attack on Mars – perhaps Captain Vadic blames Picard for the deaths of people she cared about. And finally there’s Sela: the daughter of Tasha Yar who was raised by Romulans and eventually held a senior role in the Romulan military. Picard outmanoeuvred and defeated her on two separate occasions.

Sela, a Romulan-human hybrid and enemy of Picard.

I don’t think we’ve seen all of the members of Captain Vadic’s “rogues’ gallery” of Star Trek villains just yet, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Denise Crosby reprise her role as Sela in Season 3. So at this point I don’t think we can say “Vadic is Sela,” although that’s a possibility. But she may be an ally of Sela, perhaps a relative or another child of Tasha Yar.

The Romulans played a major role in Season 1 of Picard, and bringing them back in some form in Season 3 could tie things together nicely. We could learn more about the Zhat Vash and Tal Shiar, and particularly what happened to the Zhat Vash’s anti-synthetic crusade after it was exposed. Maybe Captain Vadic is a Zhat Vash zealot who is unwilling to accept her faction’s defeat at the hands of Picard and his crew.

Theory #4:
A descendant of Adam and/or Noonian Soong

We touched on a potential connection to the Soong family above, but rather than being an augment or genetic creation, could it be possible that Captain Vadic is a relative or descendant of the Soongs? This could explain how she managed to recruit Lore for her revenge quest, or how she was able to reassemble and reactive him after the events of The Next Generation two-part story Descent.

Clearly the relationship between Picard and the Soong family is complicated. On the one hand, Picard’s strong friendship with Data should mean that he and the Soongs would get along, but on the other hand his actions in Season 2 prevented Adam Soong from becoming one of the most important humans in history, and from establishing a dynasty that was still important in the early 25th Century. Surely some members of the family would want revenge for that – if they knew about it.

Dr Noonian Soong – the creator of Data and Lore.

Picard also tussled with Altan Inigo Soong in Season 1, disrupting his research into synths and potentially denying him a synthetic body of his own. Although Altan would eventually team up with Picard’s crew to stop Sutra and Soji’s plan to contact the unnamed faction of super-synths, it isn’t clear what happened after that to the Coppelius synths.

If things went wrong, maybe a relative or colleague of Altan Inigo Soong would want revenge. Perhaps Altan sought out and reactivated Lore in order to continue his research; the loss of Data’s neurons may have brought his work to an abrupt halt. Again, this could explain how and why Lore is back!

Theory #5:
A Son’a

Ru’afo, a Son’a commander in the late 24th Century.

There are a couple of reasons why the Son’a spring to mind as a possible origin for Captain Vadic. Firstly there are the facial scars that we’ve already discussed; the Son’a had to use technology to keep their skin stretched and to get rid of toxins in their bodies after losing access to the metaphasic radiation of their home planet. Although the Ba’ku believed their physiology would be restored if they returned home, it’s possible that there would be lingering physical effects of being away for so long.

Secondly, the most recent trailer showed off Captain Vadic’s ship, the Shrike, engaging in a battle against the USS Titan in a nebula that looked awfully similar to the Briar Patch – the location of the Ba’ku/Son’a home planet. After Picard was instrumental in defeating the Son’a, could some members of the faction hold a grudge against him personally?

Does this battle take place in the Briar Patch?

The Son’a had planned their revenge on their Ba’ku cousins for a long time – they had been living in exile for almost a century at the time of the events of Insurrection. Although the Ba’ku welcomed them back, it stands to reason that not every Son’a would have wanted to return home under those circumstances.

Ru’afo, the Son’a leader, was killed, and it’s possible that Captain Vadic may have been his partner or close friend. Even if she wasn’t a true believer in the Son’a cause, she may be seeking revenge for the loss of someone she cared about.

Theory #6:
A member of Picard’s crew

Captain Picard on the bridge of the Enterprise-D.

Could it be possible that Captain Vadic once served under Picard’s command? She could be an officer or crewman who served on the Stargazer, the Enterprise-D, the Enterprise-E, or during the Romulan rescue and the attack on Mars. Although Picard never deliberately endangered members of his crew – and would go above and beyond to help them on multiple occasions – during his time in command we saw a number of casualties.

Perhaps Captain Vadic was badly wounded during Soran’s attack on the Enterprise-D, or was left behind on Bersallis III during the firestorm that nearly claimed the life of Nella Daren. She could be a victim of the first Borg encounter when a slice was carved out of the Enterprise-D’s saucer section in system J-25, or an officer who was assimilated when the Borg took over the lower decks of the Enterprise-E. She could even be a familiar character, such as Ensign Sito, who was sent on a dangerous mission into Cardassian space by Picard.

The reality is that Picard has no shortage of “victims” – people who were killed or maimed while serving under his command going all the way back to his time on the Stargazer. Any one of them – or their close friends or family – could hold Picard personally responsible, even if he did everything he reasonably could have to prevent what happened to them.

I think this is an interesting idea. Starfleet is far from perfect, and we haven’t often seen the organisation or its leaders having to confront those left behind or caught up in conflicts, battles, or dangerous situations. Whoever Captain Vadic is, she clearly has a personal grievance against Picard, and if she had once served under his command, that could explain why.

Theory #7:
An ally of DaiMon Bok

One of the first villains that we ever saw Picard deal with was DaiMon Bok, a Ferengi captain who blamed Picard for the death of his son. Bok is similar to what we know of Captain Vadic insofar as his vendetta against Picard was deeply personal. After being defeated in the episode The Battle, Bok would tangle with Picard one final time toward the end of The Next Generation’s run in the episode Bloodlines – and while he suffered a mutiny from his crew, he was still alive as of the end of the episode.

Most importantly for this theory, Bok’s quest for revenge was left incomplete, his personal vendetta unfulfilled. Bok would almost certainly have carried this grudge for his entire life – and while we don’t know for sure that he would still be alive thirty years after we last saw him, there’s no reason to think he wouldn’t be. Perhaps Captain Vadic is an ally of Bok’s, and her quest for vengeance is connected to his.

Could DaiMon Bok be a member of Vadic’s rogues’ gallery?

Even if DaiMon Bok’s revenge mission isn’t the main factor driving Captain Vadic, I would consider it at least a possibility that Bok could be another of the hidden members of her rogues’ gallery. Few characters in Star Trek have such a strongly-felt personal animosity toward Picard, so if someone asked him to join a mission of this type, Bok would surely have jumped at the chance!

So whether Bok proves to be a big part of the story or not, it’s definitely possible that we’ll see him or hear of him in Season 3!

Theory #8:
A devotee of the super-synths from Season 1

Sutra became obsessed with contacting the super-synths.

The super-synths from Season 1 claimed to be “an alliance of synthetic life,” and they left behind at least one beacon to instruct other synths on how to contact them. Whether their offer to help the Milky Way’s synthetics was genuine or part of an elaborate trap was never explained, and the super-synths themselves were only glimpsed on screen very briefly.

But one thing we know is that their beacon – known to the Zhat Vash as the “admonition” – could drive organic minds to madness, and that madness could be so powerful that it could even damage an entire Borg cube if a Zhat Vash initiate was assimilated. Sutra’s behaviour after being exposed to the beacon’s message could also be argued to show that synthetic minds were not entirely immune from this, especially in synths with human qualities.

The device on Coppelius that the synths built to open a portal for the super-synths.

In short, whether she’s organic or synthetic, it’s possible that Captain Vadic has been exposed to the beacon on Aia – either before or after the events of Season 1. But rather than taking the Zhat Vash approach of fearing the coming of the super synths, maybe she had a different reaction: she wanted them to arrive. If she’s a synth, that could be because she wants to team up and attack organic civilisations – and that may explain why she’s teamed up with Lore and Moriarty, who are both artificial constructs. If she’s an organic, she may have simply been driven mad by the beacon’s vision and somehow come to worship the super-synths.

It was the intervention of Admiral Picard at the end of Season 1 that prevented the arrival of the super-synths at Coppelius, and if Starfleet took further action against the Zhat Vash in the aftermath of Season 1, such as shutting down the beacon on Aia, it may not be possible to construct another portal. Either way, as the person most responsible for stopping the super-synths, a devotee of theirs would surely hate Picard as a result.

Theory #9:
Someone entirely new

The super-synths and Zhat Vash were brand-new to Star Trek in Season 1.

In Season 1, both the Zhat Vash and super-synths were brand-new to Star Trek. Likewise in Season 2, a new story was told that didn’t rely on events or characters from past iterations of the franchise. So it has to be considered plausible – perhaps even more likely than not – that Captain Vadic is a brand-new character, and that the event in her past that kicked off her revenge obsession will also be new to us as the audience.

Modern Star Trek has, I feel, rather teased longstanding fans with implied or hinted connections that have ultimately failed to materialise. Discovery’s second season seemed to be setting up a possible Borg origin story – before that was ripped away in the season finale. Storylines in Seasons 3 and 4 also could have connected to events in Star Trek’s past, but decisions were taken to go in new directions again, despite seemingly teasing those potential ties. And as mentioned, both seasons of Picard have likewise not made major connections in terms of their main storylines.

Season 2 introduced us to a piece of Picard’s personal history that was brand-new.

Depending on your point of view, this can be a positive or negative thing! I would suggest, though, that after Season 2 spent a long time on an element of Picard’s personal history that was entirely new to us as the audience, it wouldn’t be a bad thing if Captain Vadic was connected to an event that longstanding Star Trek fans would be familiar with.

The “mystery box” style of storytelling can work very well, but it can also feel rather hollow if the story doesn’t pull out an excellent ending, and when a connection to past iterations of Star Trek has been teased – as it arguably has been with Vadic’s quest for revenge – it could feel underwhelming if we’re once again confronted with some brand-new story that bears no relation to anything from The Next Generation or other aspects of Picard’s past that we already know. So there’s a potential stumbling block here, I fear.

So that’s it!

Captain Vadic on the Titan’s viewscreen.

We’ve considered a few possibilities for who Captain Vadic could be and what her beef might be with Admiral Picard and his crew. As much as I like the idea of Vadic having a major connection to an event in The Next Generation or one of the films, if you forced me to place a bet right now, in November 2022, I’d have to put my money on her being someone brand-new, with her quest for vengeance stemming from an event that will also be entirely new to us as the audience. Two seasons of Picard in which Star Trek’s past didn’t matter (as well as similar things going on in Discovery) may have left me feeling a little jaded in that respect!

But regardless, it was fun to speculate. All of the suggestions I’ve made feel plausible at this juncture… based on what little we’ve seen of Captain Vadic in her sole appearance in one teaser trailer! It would certainly be fun, in a season that will bring back the main cast members of The Next Generation, if the villain they had to defeat was also someone from the past.

As mentioned, I don’t think we’ve yet seen all of Vadic’s friends and allies in what I’ve termed the “rogues’ gallery.” The most recent trailer showed us Professor Moriarty and Lore, but there seem to be at least four others with Captain Vadic on the bridge of her ship in one of the clips – and her ship will need more than just a handful of people on its crew! I think it’s possible that other villains from The Next Generation era, such as Sela or Bok, could make appearances in Season 3.

I’m looking forward to Season 3, even though I was generally unimpressed with much of Season 2. A return to space and a villain who feels rather Khan-esque promises to be a good combination, one that should lead to a fun and exciting story. When Season 3 premieres in February, I hope you’ll join me for episode reviews and perhaps some theory-crafting, and if we get any more trailers or significant announcements between now and then, I’ll take a look at those as well!

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 will stream on Paramount+ in the United States and on Amazon Prime Video around the world beginning on the 16th of February 2023. Seasons 1 and 2 are available to stream now and are also available on DVD and Blu-ray. The Star Trek franchise – including Picard and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of Paramount Global. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Star Trek: Picard review – Season 2, Episode 4: Watcher

Fri 25.03.22Sat 26.03.22Dennis

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-2. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: The Next Generation, Voyager, First Contact, and Discovery.

For me, Picard Season 2 had been coasting on the incredible high that the season premiere delivered. Now that we’ve hit the fourth episode of the season – almost halfway through – I felt the quality dip ever so slightly, dropping down from an incredibly strong start. That’s not to say I didn’t have an enjoyable time with Watcher it’s week, but rather that Picard Season 2 has begun to settle into its time travel story.

As I said a few months ago when looking at one of the pre-season trailers, stories involving time travel to the modern day have never been my favourites in Star Trek. In addition to the omnipresent problem of crafting a time travel narrative that makes sense and doesn’t rely on paradoxes or other contrivances, I really just feel that a big part of what makes Star Trek so appealing – its optimistic, high-tech future – is missing. Watcher gave us glimpses of that thanks to the scenes set aboard La Sirena, but the bulk of the story took Picard, Raffi, Seven, and Rios to contemporary Los Angeles. It told an interesting story – one that, as a mid-season episode, we’ll have to reserve judgement on aspects of until we know how storylines unfold – but one that was constrained by that setting, at least for me.

An establishing shot of modern-day Los Angeles.

For the first time this season I felt that Picard was in a rush. There were a couple of significant moments early in Watcher that seemed to be raced past in a flash, despite the fact that we’d realistically expect them to take longer. The first was Seven, Raffi, and a nurse from Teresa’s clinic being able to identify Rios from an incredibly vague description, and the second came a few moments later when Picard and Dr Jurati figured out that they only had three days to avert a change to the timeline.

In both cases, a longer episode (or a longer season) could’ve spent just a little more time to help these points unfold naturally. The idea that the nurse would’ve been able to figure out that Seven and Raffi were talking about Rios from the description of a “scruffy” man is ridiculous considering the clinic’s clientele. And when it came to Dr Jurati and Picard, the concept of subconsciously drawing on a particular number was interesting – but the rushed pacing meant it felt poorly-executed and underdeveloped. I certainly had a hard time buying that they’d been able to hit on the solution to that particular puzzle within literally a minute of exploring it. In the days of The Next Generation, when seasons were longer, that could’ve been almost an entire episode!

Seven of Nine and Raffi visited Terea’s clinic… briefly.

There’s another thing I’m struggling to follow on this side of the story, too: why is the Borg Queen suddenly being so evasive and unhelpful? She agreed to help Picard travel back to the 21st Century in order to repair the timeline – a timeline which saw the Borg wiped out in a way that I sincerely hope we find out more details about. She needs the timeline to be repaired as much as they do; their motivations are the same even if this is merely an alliance of convenience. Yet after crash-landing in the 21st Century – and, if Picard and Dr Jurati are correct, with merely three days to spare in order to prevent the divergence in time – the Borg Queen suddenly stopped being helpful and even tried to hide the Watcher’s location and the date of the divergence. Why?

At the moment it seems to be that the answer is “because plot,” and that’s just not very satisfying. If she had told Picard and Dr Jurati where, when, and how to meet the mysterious Watcher, half the plot of Watcher could’ve been skipped. It isn’t that the narrative in question was bad or unenjoyable, it’s just that it feels so very flimsy. A single question about one character’s behaviour or motivation is enough to send the whole house of cards tumbling down – and as someone who’s invested in the story of Picard and the world of Star Trek, I prefer to see stories with rock-solid foundations!

Leaving one person alone with the Borg Queen – especially Dr Jurati after her experience last week – seems like a very bad idea! I’m certain that this is setting up something that will be paid off later; their evolving relationship seems to stand as testament to that. In fact, the dynamic between Dr Jurati and the Borg Queen is rapidly becoming one of my favourite parts of the entire season – the way they tease one another, talk around and over each other, and betray each other’s trust is absolutely riveting to watch.

Alison Pill has brought a lot to the character of Dr Jurati, managing to successfully balance a character who has a definite comedic edge and light-heartedness with some incredibly deep and complex storylines. We saw in Season 1 how Dr Jurati was the brainwashed sleeper agent; an embedded spy who used her closeness to Picard to kill her friend and sometime lover Dr Maddox. That almost led her to suicide in one of Season 1’s most painfully raw sequences.

This time around, Dr Jurati is staring down one of the biggest villains in all of Star Trek: the Borg Queen. She’s allowing the Borg Queen to get inside her head – literally and figuratively – and while this week we saw that she still has the capacity to lie, hide things from the Borg Queen, and use her skills to her advantage, there’s a very real sense that the mask is slipping. With the two of them alone – potentially for days or longer – the Borg Queen could continue to push Dr Jurati and find an angle to successfully manipulate her.

Perhaps we’ll have to save this for my next theory post, but I wonder if there could be a catalyst for setting off this conflict. So far, in the time that’s passed since La Sirena arrived in the 21st Century, no one from that era has noticed the crash site… but could it be possible that someone is already on the way? We saw in one of the pre-season trailers a pair of characters who seemed to be in the early stages of assimilation; if someone noticed La Sirena’s crash landing, could police or military forces be en route? If so, perhaps Dr Jurati will have to team up with the Borg Queen to keep La Sirena out of their hands.

Who’s this chap that we glimpsed in a pre-season trailer?

Perhaps part of the reason why the scenes set aboard La Sirena felt so fun was because they were the only scenes in which Star Trek’s futuristic technology was centre-stage. As mentioned, time travel to the modern day may be a typical Star Trek story setup going all the way back to the first season of The Original Series… but these kinds of stories seldom end up as my favourites, personally speaking. Taken as a one-off episode or a two-part story, back in the days of longer seasons, I generally found the setup to be inoffensive enough, but as we’re settling into the 21st Century now, with everyone except Dr Jurati now firmly embedded on that side of the story, I’m getting the sense that the limitations of that setting are beginning to bite.

The “fish-out-of-water” side of sending 25th Century characters back in time was on full display as Seven of Nine and Raffi attempted to track down Rios, and that was certainly fun for a while. Their sequences in the stolen police car started off feeling exciting, particularly as Seven had to figure out how to drive a vehicle that she’s inherently unfamiliar with, but overall I felt that it probably ran a little too long. Once the basic concept had been shown off – that Seven of Nine is driving a stolen police car – there wasn’t really much more for that sequence to say; both metaphorically and literally, it didn’t go anywhere.

For a crew who were warned about “butterflies” and the need to be incredibly careful about preserving the past, they certainly seem to be making a scene in 2024! Beaming Seven and Raffi out of the police car in broad daylight when they could be seen by at least one police officer feels like an incredibly risky move. I guess this side of the story is also considering the impact of Raffi’s grief about Elnor and how that could be impairing her judgement; it felt like we came close to a more detailed look at that concept but didn’t quite get there this week. Maybe it’ll be something that builds up over a few episodes before being talked about more openly and coming to a resolution.

For the first time since Elnor’s death, I got a sense that it could be more permanent than I’d initially thought. Raffi’s single-minded insistence that restoring the timeline will save him, and her unwillingness to even contemplate the possibility that it won’t, feels like a storyline that could end with her having to confront the reality that Elnor is really gone. Star Trek loves using technobabble to save the day – and that could still happen, don’t get me wrong – but if we consider Elnor less as a character in his own right and as more of a motivating factor in Raffi’s arc this season, he could well be permanently dead.

Raffi is convinced that Elnor can be saved.

Speaking of characters who seem to have been written out of the show – at least in the immediate term – where is Soji? I’m genuinely surprised that we’ve now had three episodes (out of a ten-episode season, remember) where she hasn’t appeared, and that comes after a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it role in the season premiere that didn’t actually have a significant impact on the story. Are we going to see Soji at all this season, or will she perhaps cameo in the season finale to bookend things?

Considering Soji’s incredibly central role to the events of Season 1, it seems more than a little odd that Season 2 has gone in this direction. I felt that there was scope to see Soji in the Confederation timeline, and perhaps we will if we ever revisit that setting, but so far her absence has been noticeable. The fact that none of the other characters have so much as mentioned her by name hammers this home, too. Depending on how long the mission to 2024 lasts, there’s still time for Soji to have an impact on the story later on… but that prospect feels like it’s shrinking the longer the season remains in this time period.

We haven’t seen Soji since the season premiere.

But enough about who wasn’t included this week! There was a returning character that I would never have expected to see in a million years: the punk on the bus! This character made an incredibly unexpected yet welcome return from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and actor Kirk Thatcher reprised his role from that film. I honestly couldn’t stop smiling at seeing him again; this nod and wink to longstanding Trekkies was absolutely appreciated!

This is something that Picard has done really well even going back to Season 1. Bringing back characters and including little references and nods to the history of the franchise goes a long way to making the series feel connected to the rest of Star Trek. I would have never expected to see the punk on the bus from Star Trek IV make a return in Picard – and that’s what made it so special. I was grinning from ear to ear after this wonderful and unexpected scene, even more so because he seems to have learned a valuable lesson after his run-in with Kirk and Spock in 1986!

The best character surprise in all of modern Star Trek!

There are some things in Star Trek (and film and TV in a general sense) that I’ve never felt needed explaining. Why do characters look different in different iterations of the franchise, for example? The fact that certain characters have been recast – as Guinan was in Watcher or as the entire cast of The Original Series were for the Kelvin films – has honestly never been something that bothered me, and as a viewer I think a degree of leeway has to be offered when suspending our disbelief in these circumstances. It was possible to digitally de-age John de Lancie for his initial appearance as Q – and that moment was absolutely fantastic. But to digitally re-create a younger Whoopi Goldberg for Watcher would’ve either meant Guinan’s role in the story needed to be cut down, or it would’ve been phenomenally expensive to have a CGI character in all of these scenes.

In light of the way the Star Wars franchise has handled the return of some of its classic characters (too many, if you ask me) I can already anticipate that there will be some Trekkies who want to see Star Trek do the same; to use CGI and digital techniques more gratuitously in some of these circumstances. Personally, I don’t think it’s something that’s necessary – and as long as the newly-cast actor bears a passing resemblance to the original character, I’m more than happy to continue to suspend my disbelief! It’s worth remembering that Star Trek isn’t backed up by Disney-level money; some of the technologies that Star Wars can afford to use are very expensive, and I’d rather see the Star Trek franchise use its money more wisely rather than rely on digital gimmicks.

Speaking of things that are unnecessary: did we really need Watcher to explain why Picard has a British accent despite being from France? After 35 years and close to 200 appearances, are we not just happy to accept that that’s the way Picard talks? Again, it’s something that honestly never bothered me and I hadn’t even thought about – except in a very tongue-in-cheek way, perhaps.

In this case, it was partially an explanation for why Château Picard is abandoned in the 21st Century, and I appreciate that the writers didn’t just leave that unexplained. I just feel like there was an unnecessary attempt to tie in an aspect of Picard’s past with the way Sir Patrick Stewart speaks, and I’ve just never felt that it was a contradiction in the character of Admiral Picard in the first place, let alone one that needed to be given an in-universe explanation. Characters like Geordi La Forge or Hoshi Sato also don’t speak with the accents we might typically expect to hear in contemporary times from people born where they supposedly were, and again it’s never felt like a contradiction or something that begged an explanation.

Picard and Dr Jurati at the abandoned Château.

On Rios’ side of the story we got perhaps the smallest tease that we haven’t seen the last of Teresa. I inferred from her parting words to Rios that we might see her again. I didn’t really like the way that Rios told his life story to the prison guard; I didn’t see what the point was, other than presumably setting up some kind of contradiction or problem that might be referenced later on. It just felt unnecessary for him to tell the story of the Stargazer, Picard, and the 24th Century in this kind of strangely angry way. I get that Rios was feeling angry after seeing the injustices of 2024, but this doesn’t seem like a natural way for him to react.

I’d like to see something from Rios going forward to at least acknowledge the Stargazer; ever since being transplanted into the Confederation timeline he seems to have basically ignored or forgotten what happened. He’s the captain, and the crew under his command should be one of his top priorities, so to have not even so much as mentioned any of them for several episodes feels a little odd – and it’s beginning to erode Rios’ standing as a Starfleet captain. Even just a line or two of dialogue to say that he hopes restoring the timeline will mean they’ll be okay would do so much to alleviate this.

The way Rios must be feeling about the crew of the Stargazer could also set up a connection between him and Raffi. The two characters have hardly said two words to each other for several episodes, yet the weight of responsibility and the sense of grief and loss that both must be feeling could be a way for them to connect. It seems, though, that Seven of Nine and Raffi are dealing with that particular storyline.

The story about illegal immigration and police brutality that Rios is involved in is a timely one, though, and one absolutely worth telling. There was some incredibly evocative cinematography from director Lea Thompson on this side of the story, with shots of Rios framed through the wires of the cage detaining him that really hit hard. As a non-American I fear some of the nuances of this story are lost on me, but many of the themes it touches on can apply here in the UK as well, unfortunately.

It took me a moment to figure out why Guinan wasn’t familiar with Picard when he arrived at her bar. In-universe, Picard remembers the events of the episode Time’s Arrow, in which he met Guinan for the first time in the 19th Century. But because the timeline has been damaged, the 24th Century as we know it didn’t happen, which presumably means that the Confederation timeline version of Picard didn’t travel back to the 19th Century and never met Guinan. Time travel stories can be complicated, huh?

I enjoyed what Ito Aghayere brought to the role of Guinan. She played the character with a kind of world-weariness that I think a lot of us can relate to after a difficult few years. I didn’t expect that Picard Season 2 would spend much more time with Guinan after her short role in the season premiere – but I should’ve known from the fact that they made an entire new set for the bar that we weren’t only going to see it make a single appearance!

Having introduced Picard to the Watcher, setting up the next episode and presumably the next phase of the story, I’m not sure how much more time we’ll spend with Guinan. I hope this hasn’t been her sole appearance in this time period, though, as I feel there’s scope to spend more time with her and explore a little more of her past and her relationship with Picard. In Time’s Arrow we saw their first meeting from her point of view (although the shifting timeline has erased that, at least for now), but we’ve still never learned how they came to meet in the 24th Century, nor exactly why they struck up such a close bond. There’s scope to delve into that in more detail – if there’s time!

Because of the rushed ending to Season 1 and how that left a sour note, I’m conscious that the season is limited to just ten episodes – and while there have been interesting elements that I feel could be explored in more detail, overall I’d rather we got to the end of the story in a way that felt conclusive. If that means that some of these points of lesser importance don’t make it to screen, I’m okay with that.

One question I have about the Guinan story is this: if Time’s Arrow didn’t happen in this timeline, and Picard’s plan is to erase the Confederation timeline by preventing it from ever happening… will Guinan remember any of this? Or when the timeline is reset will she forget this meeting, and perhaps even this version of Earth? El-Aurians have a particular sensitivity to time, something Picard referred to in this episode as Af-Kelt, or time sickness, so maybe she’ll somehow be aware of two distinct encounters? I’m not sure… and it’s the kind of incredibly minor point that only Trekkies like us would get bogged down in!

As happened with Picard himself in Season 1, particularly at the beginning of the story, I can anticipate that some viewers will be put off by the disconnect between the previous presentation of Guinan as someone calm and ethereal with this new presentation of someone ready to give up on humanity. But just like with Picard, the point of this new presentation isn’t about where Guinan starts, but where she ends up. Even within the story of Watcher, Guinan already proved willing to listen to Picard, to help him when she learned who he was, and perhaps as a result we’ve begun to see that spark that we saw in Picard when Dahj helped set him on a new path last time. Even if Guinan makes no further appearances in the story, we’ve still seen in microcosm that narrative of someone who’d lost hope finding a glimmer of it.

Has Picard helped Guinan find a glimmer of hope?

I didn’t anticipate that the Watcher would be someone we knew. In fact I was a little taken aback by some of the online speculation in the days leading up to the episode’s broadcast about possibly Guinan being the Watcher, or maybe Soji, or perhaps someone from The Next Generation. People came up with some clever suggestions, but I felt sure that the Watcher would turn out to be a brand-new character. The fact that it was Laris caught me off-guard… and still leaves a lot of unanswered questions!

Some of these we’ll go into a little more detail on in my upcoming theory post, but in brief here’s what I’m wondering about: is this really Laris? By which I mean, is this character simply a younger version of the character that Picard will come to know as Laris in the late 24th Century? If not, is the Watcher simply assuming a form that Picard is familiar with – perhaps someone he loves? If it is Laris, that still doesn’t answer who she is and what she’s been doing with Picard all this time! Many of the suggestions I made last week – such as the Watcher being a member of the Q Continuum, a Prophet, or some kind of temporal agent – are all still in play based on where the episode ended.

It was lovely to get a genuine surprise to close out a mysterious episode. Even though I’d seen speculation in the days before Watcher premiered, no one (at least that I’d seen, at any rate) had even suggested Laris might be the titular Watcher. Her inclusion at the end of the episode – seemingly in human form, no less – came as quite a surprise! The entire episode built up to this moment in a very clever way, and it was more than enough to feel like it ended on a high note.

So that was Watcher. It was a fine episode, a solid mid-season offering that moved several key storylines along but didn’t resolve any of them. There’s really only one drawback to Picard Season 2 right now, and for me that’s its modern-day setting. I’m sure there were reasons for this choice of setting – one of which, dare I suggest, may have been to keep costs down – but as I’ve tried to explain, such stories aren’t as enjoyable for me when I’m sitting down to watch Star Trek. I find myself wondering how long Picard and the crew are going to spend in 2024, perhaps even hoping that they’ll move on by the end of the next episode so we can get back to the 25th Century.

All that being said, I had a good time this week and I’m curious to see how the story will unfold. I’m about ready to see Rios reunited with Raffi and Seven of Nine, and I’m definitely curious to see more from Guinan and learn who the Watcher is and what they know! That’s not to mention Q… what’s going on with his powers? Stay tuned, because in the days ahead I’ll update my theory list, and I have a few ideas!

Star Trek: Picard Season 2 is available to stream now on Paramount+ in the United States, Scandinavia, Latin America, and Australia, and on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and the rest of the world. The Star Trek franchise – including Picard and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of Paramount Global. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.