Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-3.
It’s been a while since we talked about much Star Trek news here on the website. I explained back in the autumn that I’ve been feeling burned out on the franchise – to such an extent that I haven’t even finished Strange New Worlds Season 2, nor even started Lower Decks Season 4. There are a variety of reasons why, and I won’t go over the whole thing again. You can click or tap here to read my thoughts on franchise fatigue and burnout if you’re interested!
Suffice to say that Picard’s third season was the last full Star Trek project that I watched, and while it undoubtedly had some highlights and some very strong emotional storytelling, it was far from a perfect production. Although the story of Picard’s third season came to an explosive end, an epilogue seemed to hint at there being more to come for Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D. I was cognizant of the very deliberate way in which the final scenes of The Last Generation (the Season 3 finale) replicated almost shot-for-shot the ending of All Good Things, the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1994. But here’s the thing about that: at the time All Good Things was filmed, Star Trek: Generations was already underway. Production on the film would begin almost immediately after The Next Generation ended… so doesn’t that feel like someone was dropping a hint? Or perhaps making a pitch?
The end of All Good Things…
…and an identical shot from the end of The Last Generation.
Sir Patrick Stewart, who has played the role of Captain Picard since 1987, recently teased that a script for a film featuring the iconic character is in the works. In an interview with Josh Horowitz on YouTube (which I’ve linked to at the bottom of this article and encourage you to watch for yourself) Stewart said that he hoped to receive the script within days.
Although this is far from an official announcement, I wanted to consider what a new Picard film could look like… and whether it’s a good idea!
Sir Patrick Stewart recently teased this idea on a podcast.
The first thing to say is actually something I talked about a lot during all three seasons of Picard. I first came to Star Trek in the early 1990s by way of The Next Generation. Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D were my “first contact” with the franchise, and that series is what made me a Star Trek fan. So I will always have a strong bond with the show and an emotional attachment to Picard, Riker, Dr Crusher, and the rest of the crew.
I think it’s important to state that up-front because there’s no way I can be unbiased about this. More Next Generation is always going to be something I’m interested in, and another adventure with Captain Picard will never fail to be appealing. As I said more than once when Picard was on the air: this project almost feels like it’s being tailor-made for me!
The Next Generation was “my” Star Trek show!
But I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t have concerns. Across its three seasons, Picard told a muddled, often contradictory story that rarely reached the heights I was hoping for. It was a different kind of show from The Next Generation – which is fine, in theory – but I didn’t always feel that the series even knew what type of story it wanted to tell, let alone executed it well. There are orphaned storylines that went nowhere before being dumped, main characters who just disappeared, and more. It was far from the perfect series.
Season 1 came to a disappointing end, with the series literally running out of time. Season 2 is basically unwatchable for me in its entirety due to how poor its mental health story was, and because of how long it spent aimlessly wandering in a modern-day setting. Season 3 was an improvement in some ways, but its central villain was stupidly wasted and its final act rug-pull brought back the most boring and predictable of factions.
Star Trek: Picard was a mixed bag with some serious narrative weaknesses.
So the overall quality of Picard, and the way in which the character was handled in the series as a whole, has to be a concern for any future project. It may be better to say that, despite some issues, Picard managed to pull out a decent enough ending to its third and final season and kind of… leave it. Don’t risk undoing that ending for the sake of another tacked-on project.
I could quite happily say that Picard’s story is complete, and after the launch of the Enterprise-G he either returned to Starfleet Academy or went into a well-earned retirement, living out the rest of his life with one of his wives at his Château in France. Although there was a tease at the very end of The Last Generation, that scene focused more on Jack Crusher, and seemed to represent a handing of the baton from one generation of characters – and one crew of the Enterprise – to another.
You didn’t skip the credits… right?
And that’s another really great point. Ever since the 1980s, Star Trek has boldly struck out in new and different directions. New characters have been introduced with new starships and settings to explore, and the idea of returning to classic characters in such depth is a fairly new idea. While nostalgia can be a great selling-point, I don’t believe that Star Trek should rely on it to such an extent. There’s a case to be made for the next Star Trek film or series stepping away from legacy characters, at least partially, to focus on telling new stories and expanding the franchise.
If Star Trek had kept telling stories with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy for close to forty years… would that have made it better? Look at the problems facing Star Wars, a franchise that has failed to break away from its original stories and characters. That’s come to feel like an almost fatal flaw in the Star Wars franchise as it doubles down on prequels, mid-quels, and spin-offs from spin-offs. There’s a real danger that too many Star Trek projects focusing on the same handful of characters could stagnate the franchise and leave it with nowhere to go narratively.
Would Star Trek be better today if it had spent decades with the same handful of original characters?
One of the things I was most excited to see, going all the way back to the announcement of Star Trek: Picard, was how the franchise could potentially pass the torch to new characters. Unfortunately several of the new characters created for the show were dropped or written out, but Season 3 ended with at least one – Jack Crusher – still in play and still potentially able to accomplish that goal. And with a fan-led campaign to make Star Trek: Legacy happen as a sequel to Picard, there’s still a glimmer of hope, perhaps, that it could happen.
Where would a Picard movie fit in with Legacy? If it came down to a straight-up choice between one or the other, which would fans prefer? And which would be better for the franchise overall? I feel that Legacy, as envisioned by the fan campaign at least, has the upper hand here.
The Enterprise-G.
A Picard movie would surely be the end of the line for the character. I mean, it would have to be… right? And it could be a successful project both critically and commercially, bringing in either cash at the box office or new subscribers to Paramount+. But it would also be an ending, not so much a launchpad for new stories – which is what I’d argue Star Trek needs right now. Picard set the stage for more Star Trek in the early 25th Century, and if handled well, I really do feel that there’s the potential for the franchise to take advantage of that. It hasn’t happened yet, though… and the window of opportunity may be closing.
As a concept, TV movies and one-off stories are a great idea for Star Trek. If this new script couldn’t sustain a ten-episode season of TV, making a one-off film is a great idea. In fact, it’s something that the Star Trek franchise should try to do more of in future. Section 31 doesn’t need to be the only one! As I said when I made the case for more of the Short Treks mini-episodes, there are dozens of ideas for individual characters and story threads that couldn’t be a full film, series, or even episode that can work in that format. I don’t think anyone would really be opposed to that idea – and it extends to TV movies and films, too.
I’m in favour of Star Trek doing more one-off stories, short stories, and TV movies.
But any time we have that particular conversation, we pretty quickly run into the elephant in the room: Paramount Global’s finances! The corporation isn’t in a good position, and Star Trek’s future budgets are very much in question. We’ve already seen Discovery cancelled and Prodigy sold to Netflix, and there’s been little by way of news about Starfleet Academy since it was announced almost a year ago. Paramount doesn’t have the money to throw at every project that gets pitched, so it comes down to a question of priorities. If any Star Trek projects will get the go-ahead in future, which ones should be at the top of that list? Is a Picard movie even in the top ten?
It wasn’t clear to me from Sir Patrick Stewart’s interview how far along this project might be – nor who was responsible for it. It could be an official project with Paramount’s backing that’s about to enter pre-production… or it could be something a lot more speculative. There’s no guarantee that it would get made even if it were something paid for by Paramount, as we saw in 2022 with the whole “Kelvin sequel” debacle. So maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves by thinking too long and hard about a project that may never get out of the starting gate!
A Kelvin timeline sequel has failed to enter full production multiple times in the last few years.
Although this isn’t always a comfortable topic, there are also legitimate concerns/questions over Sir Patrick Stewart’s age and thus his ability to take on a challenging new script. One of the weaknesses of Picard, particularly in its second and third seasons, was that its narrative was not well-suited to an older person. Stories threw the character into situations like discovering he had a son, and some of the storylines would’ve been a better fit for a forty-year-old… not someone who’s past eighty.
One of the disappointing things for me about Picard was the wasted potential to tell a story that was well-suited to an older person. Instead of Picard discovering that he had a son and trying to relate to someone who was (allegedly) in his early twenties, a story could’ve been told that was better-suited to an older character in his twilight years. Would a new Picard film go down that road? If so, maybe it would be worth seeing. But if it’s another script that tries to make the character out to be younger than he clearly is… there’ll be that disconnect once again.
Jean-Luc Picard.
If decisions about Star Trek’s future were in my hands, here’s what I’d say. I would absolutely consider any script that featured Captain Picard – or anyone else from The Next Generation. There’s definitely scope to do more with those characters somehow. But at the same time, I’d be careful to balance a one-off project like this with Star Trek’s future prospects. And if it came down to the wire, with tight budgets only allowing for one or two to go ahead… I’m not convinced at this stage that a Picard movie is the one I’d choose to give the green light to. That’s not a definite “no,” because a strong script could absolutely win me over. But it’s not a firm “yes,” either.
I daresay that the details of this script will be kept under wraps for a while. If it doesn’t proceed, we may never know what it could’ve entailed and how good or bad it might’ve been! But if we get any more news – or an official announcement – I’ll be sure to take another look.
Sir Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes during the production of Star Trek: Picard Season 3.
So I hope this has been interesting… and not a horribly incoherent ramble!
I was surprised to hear Sir Patrick Stewart talking so openly about a potential new Star Trek project – not least because Picard Season 3 had been billed as the character’s swansong. Despite its issues, I generally feel that the conclusion of Picard’s final season left the characters in a better place than Nemesis had done in 2002, and in a way I’m content to leave them there, enjoying a break after their last adventure.
But a part of me will always want to see more Captain Picard – and with this script potentially offering the last chance for the character to come back, maybe I’d feel a sense of regret if it didn’t go ahead. If we’d never come to know about it and it didn’t happen, well… no harm done, right? But knowing it’s out there and being worked on in some capacity, and that Sir Patrick Stewart himself seems to be on board with it at least in theory… I can’t lie: a big part of me would love to see it come to fruition.
You can find Sir Patrick Stewart’s interview with Josh Horowitz, in which he discusses a potential Picard movie, on YouTube. Click or tap here to watch the video. The relevant section begins around the 33-minute mark.
Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+. The Star Trek franchise, including Picard and all other properties discussed 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.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for all three seasons of Star Trek: Picard – including the series finale and post-credits scene.
For a series that only ran to thirty episodes across three seasons, Star Trek: Picard spent a lot of time overwriting itself! Across all three seasons of the show there were these weirdly contradictory moments where new storylines would appear from nowhere, completely changing what came before. One or two of these instances might pass by relatively unnoticed, or could feel like little more than nitpicks. But for a relatively short series to have so many… it speaks to something bigger, I feel.
I hope in future we’ll get a Chaos on the Bridge-type of documentary or exploration of what went on behind-the-scenes on Star Trek: Picard, because to say that production was “difficult” feels like an understatement. There were clearly major problems on the production side of the series, and I don’t just mean its pandemic-enforced delays. The evidence for this is the contradictory nature of the series itself, and how at the very least there was clearly no overall plan for how the story should be structured. Consistency is an important element of any good story – and Picard absolutely fails on that measure.
Seasons 2-3 showrunner Terry Matalas with Sir Patrick Stewart and the rest of the cast of The Next Generation.
I have a longer piece in the pipeline about Picard’s abandoned and unfinished storylines, but today I thought it could be interesting to take a short look at ten storylines that ended up being overwritten by some pretty sloppy, messy writing that failed to build on the foundations that had been laid in earlier episodes and seasons.
As always, a few caveats. If you loved all of these stories and felt they were perfectly-executed, or if you hated the original setup and feel that it was right and fitting to overwrite or ignore it, that’s okay! We all have different opinions about what makes for a good Star Trek story, and I’m not trying to claim that I’m somehow objectively right and that’s the end of the affair. In several cases, I’d actually agree that the overwrite or retcon was better than what had been previously established. This is all just the opinion of one old Trekkie, and as I always say, there ought to be room in the Star Trek fan community for polite discussion and disagreement! Although I have my issues with Picard, particularly when it comes to the show’s second season, by and large I’m a fan not a hater.
So with all of that out of the way, let’s take a look at some of Picard’s weirdly contradictory storylines.
Contradictory story #1: Seven of Nine is a captain! Oh wait, no she isn’t…
Seven in the captain’s chair at the end of Season 2.
At the end of Season 2, Seven of Nine was breveted into Starfleet by Picard as Captain of the Stargazer. This story point was already a bit… odd. Firstly, it raises the question of why, if offering a brevet position to someone outside of Starfleet is so simple, Admiral Janeway didn’t do that for Seven years ago. It also seemed unnecessary, as with Picard on the bridge, the Stargazer already had a senior officer present who could give orders.
But this already flimsy setup ended up being overwritten by the very next episode – when Seven was bumped down to the rank of commander and found herself serving as first officer of the Titan. There are a lot of contradictions in Picard, but this one feels even more peculiar because it’s something that literally changes from one episode to the next – episodes that, in spite of being one season apart, were produced and filmed at the same time.
Contradictory story #2: Data’s dead. Deader than dead. Lol jk, he’s alive again!
Data awaits his final shutdown.
One of the few redeeming features of the two-part Season 1 finale was the laying to rest of Data, and giving him the emotional send-off that Nemesis didn’t have time to do justice to. It went a long way to making up for other deficiencies in the rushed and muddled end to Season 1, and the sequences with Picard and Data in the “digital afterlife” were powerful and deeply emotional.
But despite Data being as dead as it’s possible to be in Star Trek, with both his physical body and the surviving part of his consciousness having been destroyed and shut down respectively, Season 3 resurrected Data. We’ll have to go into this storyline in more detail in the future, because there’s a lot more to say. But for me, Data’s resurrection never really found a narrative justification, and it felt like the showrunner and writers wanted desperately to reunite the cast of The Next Generation – at any cost.
Contradictory story #3: Welcome aboard the Stargazer! Wait, I mean the Titan…
The USS Titan.
In Season 2, the ship that Picard and co. didn’t spend enough time aboard was the USS Stargazer. In Season 3, they jumped over to the Titan – even though the sets were all the same (with a few minor tweaks here and there). I don’t really understand why this happened. What was the point of setting Season 3 aboard a nominally different starship? The exact same setup could have brought Riker and Picard to the Stargazer as it did to the Titan.
If the two ships had significant aesthetic differences, maybe it would be okay. And compared with some of the other points on this list, I admit it’s relatively minor. But it still feels odd to introduce the new Stargazer, build CGI models for it, and only use it in one-and-a-bit episodes.
Contradictory story #4: Q’s dying… oh wait, no he isn’t.
Q at the end of Season 3.
I know what you’re thinking: Q already explained his “return” by telling Jack Crusher not to think about time in a linear fashion. While that’s a perfectly rational in-universe explanation for Q’s return at the end of Season 3, it doesn’t get around the fact that Q, whose death was such a vital part of the entire plot of Season 2, is a profoundly odd choice of character to use for that one epilogue scene.
Picard’s writers pinned the convoluted and disappointing story of Season 2 on Q, and Q’s entire motivation was his imminent death. To undo that – even if there’s a technical explanation for it – only a few episodes later feels wrong. It undermines the already-weak story of Season 2 and makes me wonder what the point of it all was.
Contradictory story #5: The Borg are back! The Borg are back! The Borg are back!
A Borg Cube.
However you look at it, and whatever nitpicky excuses there may be about who are and aren’t the “real” Borg, there’s no getting away from the fact that across its three seasons, Picard re-introduced the Borg three times. All three of the stories rely, either in whole or in part, on the Borg, and while Picard himself has a connection with the Borg after the events of The Best of Both Worlds and First Contact… there’s a whole galaxy out there filled with alien races that the show’s writers and producers could have used.
While Season 3’s Dominion/changeling rug-pull is probably the worst example of this, it really speaks to a broader problem with the show’s production. Picard’s writers, especially in Season 3, were unwilling to abide by what the show had already set up. The Borg are great fun, don’t get me wrong, but by the time we got to yet another Borg story in Season 3, I was feeling burned out.
Contradictory story #6: The mysterious anomaly has set up a fascinating story! Let’s never mention it again.
Led by the Borg, a Federation fleet stops the anomaly.
The story of Season 2 was bookended by a mysterious anomaly that the Jurati-led Borg faction believed could be an attack against the Alpha Quadrant. Once the anomaly had been stopped, the Jurati-Queen promised to take her Borg faction and stand watch over the anomaly as a “guardian at the gates.” Her Borg faction were even granted provisional membership in the Federation as they did so.
This story felt like it had huge potential. Who could have been powerful enough to create a weapon on that scale? How would Picard and his friends be able to defeat them? What would it be like to see a Federation-Borg alliance? But alas, this storyline was dumped, orphaned, and never mentioned again. Was no explanation ever written? Why end Season 2 on this cliffhanger if it was never going to be resolved?
Contradictory story #7: Soji’s a massively important character… let’s dump her.
Promo photo of Isa Briones as Soji.
Soji played a huge role in Season 1, serving as both the reason for Picard’s mission and later as someone who needed to be talked down from making a mistake. We spent a lot of time with her in the show’s first season, watching as she was manipulated by Narek, as she learned the truth of her own origin and who her people were, and as she came to work with and respect Picard.
It was disappointing that Soji was essentially forgotten after the end of Season 1, with a barebones cameo appearance and nothing more. Isa Briones got to play a minor role in Season 2 as the daughter of antagonist Adam Soong, but this storyline was samey and boring. As a new, young character – and a synthetic life-form – Soji had huge potential. It’s such a shame that a role couldn’t be written for her after Season 1.
Contradictory story #8: Picard has a new relationship with Laris! No wait, Laris has fucked off and now he has a kid with Dr Crusher.
Laris and Picard at the end of Season 2.
The entire story of Season 2 – its raison d’être, at least according to Q – was that Picard was alone, prevented by his childhood trauma from being able to find love. At the end of the season, after ten episodes of shenanigans in the 21st Century, Picard finally returned to his vineyard – and to Laris. The two seemed ready to embark upon a new relationship together.
But nope! Laris made a small cameo appearance at the beginning of Season 3, and was never mentioned again. Picard’s story in Season 3 focused on his past relationship with Dr Crusher, a relationship that led to him having a son he’d never met. The season’s epilogue even showed Picard and Dr Crusher jointly escorting their son to his first Starfleet assignment – with Laris nowhere to be found. As I said above: Season 2 was already a weak, flimsy story. Undermining its ending like this was a poor decision.
Although I wasn’t thrilled to see Elnor killed off in the first half of Season 2, as time went on, it seemed to be working. Raffi’s story of coming to terms with loss and grief was one of Season 2’s stronger elements, and while I would’ve still said I was disappointed in Elnor’s wasted potential, at least his loss had mattered. Until it was all undone with seconds to spare.
If Elnor had a major role to play in Season 3 – and there was absolutely space for him – then I could at least have understood this reversal. But after Elnor was resurrected, he got one very brief scene in which he looked confused on a viewscreen, and another in which his dislike of a beverage made him the butt of a joke. After that, Elnor disappeared from Picard never to be seen or mentioned again. What was the point? Why undo a powerful story for the sake of an overdone sight gag?
Contradictory story #10: Riker and Troi are happy and settled on Nepenthe. Just kidding, they hate it there.
Picard approaches Riker’s outdoor kitchen.
Nepenthe might be my favourite episode of Season 1. It slowed things down, stepped away from some of the drama, and reintroduced us to Riker and Troi – now happily married and living peacefully outside of Starfleet. In spite of the loss of their son, Riker and Troi seemed settled on Nepenthe with their daughter in a home that was important to their son and their family. It was a surprise, to say the least, when Season 3 tried to undo all of that.
In the episode Surrender, Riker and Troi were reunited as captives aboard Vadic’s ship. And while imprisoned, they both spoke about how they hated the “creaky old cabin” that had been their home. The end of the season implied that one or both of them may be back in Starfleet, and all the emotional storytelling present in Nepenthe was taken away.
So that’s it!
Dr Jurati on stage in Season 2.
Although there were some interesting stories – and some complete ones – overall, it’s not unfair to call Star Trek: Picard a contradictory series, one that either intentionally or unintentionally overwrote or ignored key characters and storylines. We’ll talk about some of these in more detail on another occasion, but for now I think we’ve covered the basics.
Picard was clearly a troubled production, one that jumped from one writing and production team to another, and that’s part of why the series as a whole feels so contradictory. I think I could overlook one or two of these things – and I might even support the decision to drop a character or change a storyline that wasn’t working or that failed to resonate with audiences. But for a series that ran to a mere thirty episodes across three seasons… we shouldn’t be able to pull out ten large contradictions like this.
Stay tuned, because I have a lot more to say about Picard even though the series has concluded! A longer retrospective is in the pipeline, and I’ll also be taking a look at abandoned and unfinished storylines, too.
Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in the United States and other countries and territories where the service is available, and on Amazon Prime Video in the UK and around the world. The Star Trek franchise – including Picard and all other properties discussed 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.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-3. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: The Wrath of Khan, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Discovery.
After last week’s admittedly tense and exciting offering took the main storyline of Season 3 to a pretty bland and unoriginal place, I was hopeful that Surrender could steady the ship ahead of the final pair of episodes. What we got this week was, instead, a bit of a misfire.
Parts of Surrender seemed to get stuck in the mud; bogged down, trying to stretch out a story that was too thin instead of moving it along at a more reasonable pace. Yet by the time the credits rolled, I felt that a massive part of the season’s ongoing story had been rushed to an unceremonious – and actually quite disappointing – ending.
The Titan in this week’s episode.
After teases, brief demonstrations of power, and an acting performance that, to be blunt, was too over-the-top for my taste, Vadic has been killed off. And she died having accomplished… well, remarkably little. The scheme in which she was involved is still playing out, but narratively speaking, Vadic didn’t actually do much of anything except get in Picard’s way and slow down the story.
I’ve said several times as the season has ambled along that we needed to see more of Vadic: to get to know her, where she’s come from, where she hopes to go, and what her plans are for Jack. The reveal of her backstory in Dominion seemed to finally – albeit belatedly – get the ball rolling on that front, but Vadic died this week without telling us anything more. We know that she was a victim of a Section 31 experiment, and that she deliberately took on the appearance of her torturer. But this week, she just… died. And that appears to be all there is to see.
Surrender killed off Vadic prematurely.
Picard is now left with no main villain, no secondary villain, no villain’s starship… but still a conspiracy to defeat. The only possible outcome at this point is a deus ex machina: some kind of Vadic fake-out, Floaty McFloatface’s unexpected re-emergence, or another adversary who will feel like a bolt from the blue. This is the Season 1 problem from a different angle: the final two episodes are going to have to dump a whole lot of exposition, at least one new character, and possibly even an entire new faction all at the last moment in order to have the most basic building blocks of a narrative to work with.
It was always unclear when Vadic and her nameless, faceless goons seized control of the Titan how they would extricate themselves from the situation in one piece – and how Picard and the crew would likewise save themselves. But even as Vadic was blown out into space I was thinking to myself, “okay, she’s a changeling so maybe she can survive the cold.” Then, as Vadic’s body shattered into pieces I was still thinking “well okay, she’s in pieces, but she’s a changeling… maybe she can reconstitute herself… or Floaty McFloatface can do something to pull them out of this situation.” I even wondered if Floaty McFloatface might’ve been left aboard the practically-deserted Shrike. It was only when the Shrike was destroyed that the realisation finally hit me: this is it. They’ve really taken the story down this route.
Crunch.
Showrunner Terry Matalas has desperately latched onto the legacy of The Wrath of Khan with Picard’s third season. But can you imagine what The Wrath of Khan would’ve been like if Khan had been killed half an hour before the end of the film – and Kirk and the crew had to rush off to defeat… who, exactly? An unnamed augment ally of Khan’s that we’ve never met? Another villain from The Original Series who hadn’t been mentioned in any way prior to that point? Such a horrible anticlimax would have probably ruined the film.
There’s room for an epilogue in a good story – as we see in The Wrath of Khan itself with Spock’s death and funeral. But there’s a reason why the defeat of the biggest villain in any story should come at the climax of the plot. This is one of the absolute basic, most fundamental rules of storytelling. And I can’t shake the feeling that, whatever may come next, Picard has got it wrong.
The moment of Vadic’s demise.
I said last week that the reveal of Vadic’s history had begun to put her characterisation into some kind of context. But with her death this week, none of that matters. Vadic still feels like a bland, one-dimensional villain stereotype; Khan without any of the interesting bits. A villain needs more than just a vaguely sympathetic backstory – they need a motive, and many of the best ones also have a connection to the hero. Picard and Vadic barely said more than a few words to each other all season long, and her interest in him seems more “business” than anything personal.
The CGI work used for Vadic’s ejection into space and ultimate shattering end wasn’t spectacular, either, so I can’t even say that this storyline was strangely conceived but at least pretty to look at. As Vadic was blown out into space things seemed to be working, but as soon as the “camera” cut to her icy body, visual quality took a dive. It wasn’t the worst CGI moment I’ve seen in modern Star Trek, but it’s noteworthy that this was supposed to be one of the big climactic moments of the season – and it could’ve looked better.
Welcome to the Uncanny Valley…
Other visual effects work in Surrender was on point, though, and it was really just this moment that didn’t look as good as it should have. Regrettably, this was the most important one to get right – and more should have been done in post-production to shore up what was supposed to be the climactic death of the season’s biggest villain.
This could’ve looked better.
Will we get to find out what Vadic actually wanted? What did she hope to “use” Jack and Picard’s corpse to achieve? These are pertinent questions, and in any other television series I’d say that there are still two episodes remaining, and that we should “trust the process.” After all, the writers and producers wouldn’t just dump entire characters and storylines with no explanation. Right?
But this is Star Trek: Picard – a series with a two-season legacy of doing precisely that. What happened to Narek? What happened to the Zhat Vash, to their beacon on Aia, to the super-synths, to the synths on Coppelius? What was the deal with the devastating anomaly that erupted, and where did Dr Jurati, Soji, and Elnor disappear to? This show has consistently dumped characters and storylines that were half-baked as it rushed off to do other things; Picard feels like the television equivalent of ADHD.
I suspect we’ve seen and heard the last of Vadic.
So I have very little confidence, now that Vadic, Floaty McFloatface, all the goons, and even the Shrike itself are gone that they’ll get so much as a cursory mention next time. Whatever Vadic’s plans may have been for Jack, it seems that they died with her. Although the changelings’ attack on Starfleet and Frontier Day will continue that aspect of the storyline, Vadic and her attempt to capture Jack not only kicked off the entire season, but it’s a plotline that has been running for eight episodes now. For that storyline to end so abruptly, without getting any kind of narrative payoff, is a profoundly strange decision.
Villains die all the time without getting what they want. But we don’t even know what Vadic wanted, what she hoped to use Jack to achieve… and unless I’m being even stupider than usual, I don’t see how it’s something we’re supposed to be able to infer from the scattered pieces of an incomplete puzzle that she leaves behind. Sure, Jack’s powers could be useful to a villain or a changeling, and I can see how Vadic might perceive them that way. But there’s one heck of a leap from “this skill could be useful” to the obsessive chase that Vadic performed – at Floaty McFloatface’s behest, no less. We don’t even know what Floaty McFloatface was, what their objectives may have been, and how all of this was supposed to come together to aid in the conspiracy – a conspiracy that feels already comprehensive and successful enough without whatever additional boost it could have gained from Jack.
Vadic on the bridge earlier in the episode.
All of this leaves Vadic as the one thing she should have never been allowed to become: boring. She’s a bland, uninspired, unoriginal, and just plain boring villain that tried to compensate for it all with a hammy, over-the-top performance. This over-acting could have been justified – had Vadic been more interesting and done… well, anything at all of consequence. But she died as she lived.
For all the flair, for all the ham, and for all the chewing of the scenery, Vadic ultimately did very little. Her two encounters with Picard and the Titan both ended in defeat, and the one possible redeeming quality that she could have had – competence – is also gone, shattered into frozen shards just like her corpse.
Not for the first time in Picard, I find myself saying this: what a waste.
This eight-episode arc has come to an unspectacular end.
It’s hard to see how the next two episodes won’t end up feeling like a complete bolt from the blue; a deus ex machina ending. If Picard was a more episodic series, or one based around multi-episode arcs, perhaps that would be okay. But Season 3 aimed to tell a single story split into ten parts. We’ve defeated the villain at part eight – without explaining who she was, what she hoped to achieve, or really anything about her beyond a tortured past. Where else can the story go from here?
I will caveat everything I’ve just said with two points. Firstly, it can be hard to judge one part of an ongoing story until everything comes into focus. It’s possible, however unlikely it may feel in the moment, that we’ll look back on Surrender much more kindly when the season ends; that something in the upcoming episodes will completely reframe all of this.
Secondly, although my expectations and hopes have been shot to pieces by two seasons of Picard that were difficult at best, I still want to hold out hope for a positive outcome. I don’t make these criticisms out of spite or malice.
The destruction of the Shrike.
Even the better parts of Surrender ask us to overlook things or set logic aside in order for storylines to unfold, and so it was with Riker and Troi. Finally, eight episodes into the promised TNG reunion, Deanna Troi got more than a cameo appearance and had the opportunity to make an impact on the story. That’s fantastic – and while it came too late in the game for my preference, I’m happy that we finally got to see her and spend time with her this week.
I would contend, though, that it’s quite the contrivance for Vadic and the changelings to have put Troi and Riker in the same cell. Their prison wasn’t exactly wanting for empty cells, and having two imprisoned characters sharing their innermost feelings… it’s just a bit of a trope. We’ve seen this before with different characters in more stories than I care to count, and it just didn’t feel especially original.
Riker and Troi shared a cell.
That being said, my only real criticism of this side of the story is that I could have happily spent longer with Riker and Troi. In earlier episodes, the death of Riker’s son had been a big part of his more cautious approach to the captaincy of the Titan, and caused a big fight with Picard. The scenes in which he and Troi talked it out seemed to pass by quite quickly – indicative, perhaps, of Surrender rushing around trying to tie up loose ends ahead of a major change in focus in the next two episodes.
Riker and Troi also seemed to drop into the story a point that could have been explosive – Troi “entered” Riker’s mind to remove some aspect of his emotional pain. Did Troi, who is empathic but not telepathic, learn this skill from Sybok? We’ve never seen her do anything like this before, yet it was raced past as almost a throwaway line in Surrender. You’d have thought Riker might’ve been a bit more angry about such a manipulation – but again, the story didn’t spend very long at all dealing with this idea.
Riker and Troi had a difficult conversation.
I wonder if this notion of Troi “taking” something out of someone’s mind may have been set up in Surrender so that it can come into play in the next couple of episodes. We’ll save the speculation for my theory update, but it could be that Troi may use this ability again to help Jack – or even Picard.
In terms of both emotion and entertainment value, the scenes between Troi and Riker were among the best that Surrender had to offer, and although parts of their conversation felt curtailed by an episode that spent most of its time and focus elsewhere, what we did get to see was good enough to make Deanna Troi’s return to Picard a successful and enjoyable one.
Riker and Troi appear to have reconciled.
Worf’s rescue mission also added a lot to this story – though to nitpick still further, there are a few points that weren’t clear. When did Worf install the stolen cloaking device aboard a shuttlecraft? Why are Worf and Raffi no longer using La Sirena – and have we now seen the last of that ship? After tripping the alarms, how did the away team escape? And when did they find time to lower the Shrike’s shields and deactivate its weapons systems?
Again, this part of the story felt cut down – and when other parts of both Dominion and Surrender seemed to be deliberately slowing things down and padding out a relatively thin story… I could have happily traded some of the scenes with Picard, Jack, and Geordi for a bit more of Worf, Raffi, Riker, and Troi aboard the Shrike.
When was the cloak installed aboard this shuttle?
Worf’s reunion with Troi was cute, though – and I think I detected a nod and a wink at the failed romantic plotline that the two engaged in near the end of The Next Generation’s run. Riker’s reaction to it was Surrender’s moment of comedy gold, and Jonathan Frakes’ comedic timing is as on point as ever!
Since we’re talking about Worf, there is something that’s been bugging me since he returned to Star Trek, and the reunion with Troi kind of shot it back into focus. All season long, Worf hasn’t mentioned his marriage and widowhood. In Deep Space Nine, Worf’s relationship with Jadzia Dax, and his response to her death, was a huge part of his character arc – and to be honest, it went a long way to making Worf into a more relatable character. Worf hasn’t so much as mentioned Jadzia… and even though time has passed and Worf has taken on a more calm and ethereal personality, it wouldn’t have gone amiss if he’d said something about her. As Worf was reunited with Troi, and seemed to be flattering her, harkening back to those episodes in The Next Generation’s seventh season… I felt this absence all the more.
Riker and Troi embrace Worf.
Raffi hasn’t had much to do over the past few episodes really, and that unfortunate theme continued this week. Whatever work she was doing aboard the Shrike when Worf, Troi, and Riker reunited with her seemed to be little more than set dressing; a backdrop for the others to have their conversation in front of. Raffi’s first meeting with Deanna was neat, as both women acknowledged one another and continued to work, but that was all.
Aboard the Titan, Raffi got a well-choreographed sequence of explosive action, and I won’t deny that it looked fantastic – a great performance by Michelle Hurd to pull off some fast moves. But aside from the questionable idea of stabbing changelings to death, when they’re entirely comprised of a nondescript liquid, I just feel like we’ve skipped about a dozen steps. Raffi has clearly been working and training with Worf to hone her skills – but almost all of this has evidently happened off-screen. It’s not bad per se, but it’s another indicator in my view of the fact that Picard still hasn’t found enough time to spend with all of its characters.
Raffi aboard the Titan.
I’ve had a lot to say about Data since his resurrection a couple of weeks ago, and I won’t repeat it all this time. You can go back to earlier reviews to see more details about why I think it’s hard to justify. But I will say that I’m glad that Picard didn’t completely ignore Data’s earlier death in Surrender, and was able to give a passing acknowledgement to the events of the Season 1 finale and Picard’s experience with Data in the digital afterlife. This moment – which was only a couple of lines, really – could certainly have been expanded, but given that the writers have ignored so many other story beats from both Picard’s earlier seasons and from other iterations of Star Trek, I want to give credit where it’s due and say that I appreciate the effort here.
As someone who’s never been much of a fan of Lore, I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder going into Season 3. And in Surrender, we got to see Data and Lore clash for what appears to be the final time. For me, this sequence was an unnecessary stumbling block; a sequence of pure padding that added nothing to either the episode or the season itself. Given the issues with Vadic that we talked about above – and the fact that, to be blunt, we could easily have spent more time with at least half a dozen other characters – this easily-resolved Data-versus-Lore idea is something I wouldn’t have opted to include at all.
I wouldn’t have bothered with Lore.
Similar to Vadic, Lore was relatively easy to defeat and accomplished very little from a narrative point of view. And as with Data, Lore is a character who I didn’t feel needed a resurrection and minor epilogue. His defeat in The Next Generation two-part episode Descent could have been left alone, and for my money, we’d already seen enough of Lore. Bringing him back could have served more of a purpose – he could have been connected, in some way, to the conspiracy, as he’d been present at Daystrom Station during the rogue changelings’ raid, just as one example.
If the decision had been taken to resurrect Data – a decision that I’ve already outlined my fundamental disagreement with – then perhaps in such a busy story, Lore should have been left behind. This aspect of Surrender brought a few sweet moments as Data looked back over some of his treasured memories… but a nostalgia overload on its own is not a justification for such a convoluted story.
This sub-plot felt like padding.
I will hold up my hands and confess that Data’s memories, all of which were represented by props and objects from The Next Generation, was one of Surrender’s most emotional moments. Although this storyline wouldn’t have been one I’d have chosen, Brent Spiner played it exceptionally well, and the sequence hit many of the right emotional notes. As someone who first came to Star Trek in the early 1990s by way of The Next Generation, this walk down memory lane – figuratively speaking – was incredibly sweet for me.
Seeing Spot, Data’s cat from The Next Generation, was perhaps the highlight of this sequence. As a cat owner myself, I always appreciate seeing cats in stories like this, and Data’s line about Spot teaching him how to love was beautiful – and it brought a tear to my eye.
Best moment in the episode.
Perhaps the reason why I found the Data-Lore clash so unsatisfying was that it never really felt that Data was in danger. Even as Geordi and Picard watched the “map” of the golem’s brain being taken over by Lore, Data’s importance to the story meant that defeat here never felt like a realistic prospect. As Data surrendered his memories to Lore, it seemed obvious what he was doing – by taking on Data’s memories, Lore became Data. And so it proved.
As a result, this sequence – and particularly the parts with Picard and the others staring blankly at computer screens – didn’t feel tense and exciting, it felt frustrating. It was padding, and it got in the way of what could have been a more interesting story with Vadic and Jack on the bridge. In spite of the emotional highlights that Data’s reminiscences provided, this entire sub-plot feels like one that could have been skipped.
Picard, Geordi, and the others spent a long time in Surrender just staring at this screen.
Criticisms like this next one can feel like nitpicking, and I suspect that, had the main thrust of the narrative been stronger, we wouldn’t be talking about it. With that caveat in mind, however, two major changes were made this week, and they seem to have come unnaturally at the whim of the plot. The ease with which changelings could be killed is the first one – Vadic and her henchman last week took multiple phaser blasts and shrugged them off, but this week, Raffi and Worf were literally killing changelings left, right, and centre. A single stab wound seemed to take down most of them – and a single phaser blast was enough to vaporise them.
Then there’s the number of people involved; both the changelings and the crew of the Titan seemed to grow in numbers from nowhere. Last week, Jack and Sidney ran through deserted hallways, but in Surrender, there seemed to be dozens of Starfleet personnel still aboard – despite Ro moving most of the ship’s complement to the Intrepid a couple of weeks ago. Vadic’s crew’s numbers also seemed to fluctuate – and apparently she took all but one of them with her to the Titan.
The effort and energy required to kill a changeling seem to shift depending on the desires and whims of the writing team.
These points, in a stronger story, might’ve passed unnoticed – or ended up as nothing more than bullet points right at the end of a review in a kind of “huh, that’s a bit silly if you think about it” way. But because they seem to contribute to a bit of a muddled storyline – one that ended in unexceptional fashion – the sense of disappointment in some of these things is inflated.
Any story has to have a degree of flexibility – and I get that. But one of the foundations of suspension of disbelief, at least for me, is that a story must be basically internally consistent. The number of Vadic’s goons and Titan redshirts, and the damage a phaser hit does to a changeling were all far too inconsistent, serving the whims of the writers in a way that ended up feeling unsatisfying.
Does stabbing a changeling to death make sense? A big part of me says “no.”
The way Vadic spoke to and about Jack in earlier episodes didn’t get any kind of payoff this week, even as the two of them came face to face for the first – and last – time. That was a disappointment, and for all the hot air that was blown on the bridge during their standoff, I don’t feel that their chat moved this plotline in any significant way. We’d already seen Jack’s hallucinatory experiences, and while Vadic hinted at the fact that she knew what he was seeing and, most significantly, what it could mean, she died before she could explain herself.
The fake-out with the grenade was clever, and the prop used for the explosive that Jack was holding was a neat one. We got to see other characters use these explosives in earlier episodes, but even if we hadn’t, I think it was pretty clear what Jack was meant to be holding. This aspect of Picard’s plan actually worked – and it’s the only moment since Vadic and her goons boarded the Titan that actually feels like it was planned. That it relied entirely on Geordi’s work with Data is… well, troublesome! But if we set that aside, I liked that Jack went to the bridge with a clear plan.
Jack with the fake grenade.
Because part of Jack’s plan required him to literally stall and delay Vadic while the Data-Lore clash was going on, some of these scenes on the bridge dragged. Vadic danced around her knowledge of Jack without actually revealing anything significant, and all of that contributed to the sense that Surrender wasn’t an especially well-paced episode. What was intended to be tension ended up feeling more like frustration.
I’m in two minds about the way in which Vadic was killed. On the one hand, it feels like a clever plan – overriding the emergency hatch and blowing her out into space. On the other… the way it was executed came across as unintentionally humourous rather than exciting and action-packed. Seven of Nine – who has had remarkably little to say and do all season long – got the Air Force One hero quip, but that kind of fell flat for me. Again, a bit of an unoriginal idea, and one that has been parodied to death. Because Seven hadn’t said more than two words to Vadic the whole time, it also felt unearned.
Get off my plane… uh, I mean bridge.
Seven finally got her clash with Captain Shaw, and while it probably wasn’t the right moment for an emotional blow-up about deadnaming, it was something that had been a long time coming. Had this conversation come at a better time – when they weren’t in immediate danger, perhaps – more could have been made of it. But as it is, it was fine.
After Vadic had been defeated and Shaw returned to the bridge, he seemed to behave as if he had a newfound respect for Seven. We didn’t get to see much of that, because this sequence was relatively short, but it’s something we might get a second glance at before the end of the season. I’m not sure. If what we got in Surrender is all we’ll see, then I’d give this storyline a grade C: a basic pass. Earlier episodes set up a clash between these characters, built upon it, and Surrender brought it to a head. It wasn’t strictly necessary, especially given the relative unimportance of the two characters involved. But it wasn’t handled badly.
There was a resolution (of sorts) to the Seven-Shaw conflict.
Not for the first time this season, I find myself without much to say about Picard himself – which is odd when you consider the name of the series we’re watching! Picard contributed his ideas to the plan, and at least part of that seems to have worked. However, in Surrender, Picard himself was relegated to standing around, waiting for other characters who were more directly involved in key storylines to actually move the plot forward. Again, this was something that could feel frustrating.
In both previous seasons of the show, Jean-Luc Picard was at the heart of the adventure… for better and for worse. But this time, it feels like he’s being swept along by a narrative current that’s entirely outside of his control. Vadic’s conspiracy got things started, Dr Crusher told him the secret of Jack’s existence, Ro explained how Starfleet was compromised, Worf and Raffi did the legwork, Riker’s away team went to Daystrom Station… and the past couple of weeks, it fell to Jack, Sidney, Geordi, Data, and Seven to take most of the actions involved in advancing the story. Picard spent most of his time standing around, staring at screens.
Picard didn’t have much to do this week.
After Worf, Riker, Troi, and Raffi returned to the Titan, we finally got that “the gang’s all here” reunion, as Picard and the crew sat around the conference table. It was a sweet sequence, and some of the characters exchanged pleasantries and talked about how they’d missed one another. It was also a moment that the series has been trying very hard to build up to. In context, I guess I have to say that it worked as well as it could’ve. And again, there’s no denying that it successfully plucked some of the nostalgic chords that it was aiming for.
I never felt that Picard should try to be “The Next Generation Season 8.” In fact, when the series was first announced, I was looking forward to seeing new characters, new stories, and Star Trek moving its internal timeline forwards for the first time in almost two decades. This reunion is, for me, a bittersweet one. It’s great to see everyone back, and I have to admit that the series has managed to find narrative justifications for everyone’s inclusion – even if some of them are more than a little convoluted! But at the same time, the promised “passing of the torch” never happened, and the new characters that had been created in earlier seasons have all been left behind. Even at the conference table, Seven, Raffi, Shaw, Jack, and the La Forge sisters were absent.
The gang’s all here.
With two episodes left, I fear that Picard has been shot in the foot. The lack of a named villain heading into the final chapter of the story risks making whatever comes next feel like the dreaded deus ex machina, and after all of the problems and flaws in both Seasons 1 and 2… it’s disappointing in the extreme to think that we’re about to walk an all too familiar path. Season 3 has had its highlights, don’t get me wrong, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will end on a high, too. But Vadic’s death this week feels like a major stumble.
Surrender was also an episode with pacing difficulties. It got bogged down in too many places, spending too much time on ultimately unimportant minutiae. It stretched too little story too thinly across the runtime of an entire episode when some scenes could have been shaved down – or cut entirely – to allow for more explanation of Vadic, her connection to Jack, and her ultimate ambition. She died without explaining any of that – and her death leaves her feeling bland, uninteresting, and almost like a parody of better Star Trek villains.
Vadic died before she could reveal her connection to Jack.
Because of the way both of Picard’s earlier seasons landed, I can’t shake the feeling that this episode marks a turn for the worse, and that lessons that should have been learned have not been heeded. I desperately want to be able to tell you that I’m excited to see what comes next and that I’m confident that a solid, creditable, and narratively coherent ending has been written – and that next week will be a roaring return to form. But I can’t in all honesty say that.
In spite of the way Vadic had landed for me, I was hopeful that last week’s exploration of her personal history had set the stage for some of that crucial understanding that had been missing from her character. Because of her death this week, and the apparent wrapping up of her storyline and that of her crew on the Shrike, I don’t believe we’ll get that now. The next chapter of this story will be the unravelling of Vadic’s conspiracy – and the defeat of the remaining changelings. I hope that will be satisfying enough to plug what feels like a gaping narrative hole… but to be blunt, I doubt it.
Troi at the end of the episode.
As we head into the final two episodes of the season – and the series – I’m fighting hard against feelings of disappointment and dejection. The return of The Next Generation characters had already thrown a question-mark over this season for me, especially because of the unfinished stories left behind in Seasons 1 and 2. Vadic’s death feels like the continuation of a particularly disappointing theme, and I’m struggling to see where the story could possibly go from here.
I have desperately wanted to enjoy Picard, and to support the Star Trek franchise as it returns to the characters and stories of my favourite era. So far, despite some strong episodes, wonderful performances, and interesting concepts, the series as a whole has failed to deliver. Can the final two episodes of Season 3 rectify that… or at least ensure that it goes out on a high? I’m crossing my fingers. But I’m sceptical.
Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in the United States and other countries and territories where the service is available, and on Amazon Prime Video in the UK and around the world. The Star Trek franchise – including Picard and all other properties discussed 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.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-3. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: The Wrath of Khan, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager.
Dominion was undeniably a fun, fast-paced, exciting episode; a thrill ride that kicked Picard’s third season into a higher gear as the plot builds to its climax. It was also an episode that shone a light in some very dark places, and did what Star Trek has always done so well: used its science-fiction setting to think about some of the issues facing us out here in the real world.
Having sat with Dominion for a couple of days, though… it isn’t actually an episode that I particularly enjoyed. It had some explosive moments of action, some engrossing moral quandaries, a sequence between two of my favourite characters from The Next Generation that was tense and emotional, and was backed up all the way by some great writing and some truly outstanding acting performances. But I didn’t actually like much of what the episode brought to the table from a narrative standpoint.
The USS Titan in a scrapyard.
As we discussed last week, the decision to resurrect Data is not one that I would have made. There are some deceased Star Trek characters who, for one reason or another, didn’t get a proper send-off – and I argued just last year that the main characters from Seasons 1 and 2 of Picard are themselves in that category. But Data, more so than practically any other Star Trek character, had been laid to rest. His resurrection not only undid all of that, but it takes away one of the few successful moments from the finale of Season 1 – one of the very few threads keeping the ending of that season together.
And this week, I’m sorry to say that despite incredible performances from both Brent Spiner and LeVar Burton as they wrangled with Data’s apparent return… this storyline hasn’t yet justified itself. I can buy technobabble explanations in Star Trek for all manner of things – that comes with the territory in sci-fi. But you have to admit that few characters in the franchise had been killed as definitively – and as often, in different ways – as Data, so any rebirth or resurrection has a significant obstacle to overcome. I wouldn’t have even attempted it – the technobabble excuse feels like something straight out of fan-fiction – but now that it’s happened, there has to be some kind of narrative or storytelling justification for it. And there isn’t.
The resurrection of Data (and Lore) continues to be a drag on the story.
The resurrection of Data has also brought back Lore – and Lore’s intervention this week led to a storytelling trope that I’ve never enjoyed: the “heroes’ base is captured and they’re all taken prisoner” cliché. Discovery did this a couple of seasons ago, we’ve seen it in Deep Space Nine, too, and on countless other occasions in sci-fi and beyond. To me, these storylines always feel so incredibly forced, as if a particularly uncreative writer couldn’t find a better way of adding tension to a story. And that’s how Vadic’s capture of the Titan feels to me.
If the premise underlying this takeover was stronger, perhaps some of that frustration would’ve melted away. But it came about as a combination of a poorly-defined plan from Picard and Dr Crusher – a plan that was executed terribly, too – and Lore’s shenanigans. What was already a disappointingly overused trope ended up feeling even less appealing as a result.
Vadic in the captain’s chair of the USS Titan.
I’ve never been much of a Lore fan. The “evil twin” angle was an interesting one in some ways… but even after a mere four appearances in The Next Generation, spread out over several years… Lore had already worn out his welcome, at least for me. He’s as one-dimensional as they come, feeling akin to a Mirror Universe character in some respects, and I’ve just never found him to be of much interest. Stories in which he would attempt to take Data’s place or convince his brother to betray his friends just never stood out to me as being among The Next Generation’s best.
And I think I should be up-front about that – I have a bias against this character that’s been running for some thirty years or more! When it was teased that Lore would play a role this season, this feeling being dragged back up is precisely what I feared would happen – and so it proved in Dominion. As we’ve said in earlier episodes about Vadic: a villain needs some kind of motivation. Lore is “evil for the sake of it,” and I find that deeply unsatisfying. It was unsatisfying in The Next Generation and it was unsatisfying in Dominion, too.
I’ve never been the biggest fan of stories that included Lore.
The saving grace on this side of the story should’ve been Geordi – and the wonderfully emotional performance that LeVar Burton put in as Geordi tried to reach out to his long-dead friend. Burton deserves an award for his scenes this week, as they were absolutely riveting to watch. In fact, in just two episodes, Geordi has quickly become one of the best characters in Picard, and LeVar Burton has been hitting all of the right notes consistently. But it’s a scene that just… didn’t need to happen, at least not this way.
We’ve basically had this conversation and this scene before: it came between Data and Picard at the end of Season 1. Geordi’s reunion with Data, and his attempt to reach out to him and break through Lore’s control, feels like a rehashing of those conversations between Picard and Data. In spite of what has to be one of the single best acting performances in all of modern Star Trek, these scenes just don’t add much to the story. Geordi could have expressed his sorrow at Data’s death to Picard, or to Altan Soong if the character hadn’t been unceremoniously killed off. Bringing back Data still isn’t sitting right with me.
This was a masterful performance from LeVar Burton.
I’ve talked before about the “snowball” in media criticism: a few big or fundamental criticisms of a story get things rolling, and before you know it, the “snowball” is picking up speed, finding more and more elements of a narrative to pick on and single out for criticism. And because of how the Data-Lore resurrection has landed for me, I find myself pulling at threads on this side of the story that would have probably passed unnoticed otherwise.
For example: how was Lore able to break out and effectively seize control of the ship? The answer seems to be “because plot,” and that’s just never a very satisfying explanation – especially given the high stakes. It’s hard to see how Vadic would have been able to take control of the ship had Lore not intervened, so the main thrust of Dominion’s narrative now appears to unfold thanks to a succession of unlikely, unpredictable coincidences one after another.
Lore’s escape wasn’t well-explained.
Alright, enough about my gripes about Data’s resurrection and my dislike of Lore! There’s no denying that LeVar Burton’s performance this week was outstanding, and when watching his big emotional scene with Data in particular, it was easy to put all of those concerns and criticisms out of my mind. Burton has made this older, more mature version of Geordi a real tour de force, and he’s brought far more to the table than I could have expected. If there are to be any future Star Trek projects set in this time period, they’d damn well better find a way to include Geordi – because I’m not ready to say goodbye!
It made sense for Geordi to be the one working with the Data-Lore golem, given his experiences with Data in The Next Generation, and I felt the setup for this story was handled about as well as it could’ve been. Geordi’s line that this golem is significantly more complicated than Data was also a helpful bit of exposition! Given that we’ve heard these new generation synths referred to as “flesh-and-blood” creations, maybe Dr Crusher, not Geordi, should have been examining the golem? Food for thought, at least!
Geordi was working on the Data-Lore golem.
I have to admit that I was sceptical about Mica Burton – LeVar Burton’s real-life daughter – playing Geordi’s on-screen daughter Alandra. I’d been vaguely familiar with Mica Burton’s work as a presenter from Star Trek Day a couple of years ago, and her stint on a YouTube gaming channel a couple of years before that. But I felt that she was untested as an actor, having only had a couple of bit-parts before now. This felt to me like “stunt casting;” bringing an actor into the series not on merit, but due to a combination of her parentage and a desire to make headlines. A “nepo baby,” to use some contemporary slang.
And… well, I’m not wrong about that. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see that Mica Burton has put in two solid, perfectly creditable performances in the episodes in which she’s appeared so far. The character of Alandra La Forge, while not exactly front-and-centre, adds something to this story, and has given Geordi both an assistant and a dependent, all while managing to feel like a rounded character in her own right. We’ve started to see some great things from Sidney La Forge over the last couple of episodes – and I hope that there will be time before the season ends to give Alandra a moment in the spotlight, too.
Geordi and Alandra La Forge.
Before we get into other big stories, let’s talk briefly about another surprising character: Tuvok! Or should that be “the changeling formerly known as Tuvok,” because after what had been a great sequence between Tuvok and Seven of Nine, this character reunion was ripped apart. It was dramatic and exciting – but perhaps not how I’d have chosen to bring back an actor for what may turn out to be their final Star Trek appearance.
As a moment of pure shock value, I think the revelation that Tuvok was a changeling worked incredibly well. And I’m holding out hope that the real Tuvok might make an appearance before the end of the season – I mean, the changelings have to be keeping all of these prisoners alive somewhere, right? Maybe we should save the speculation on that for my next theory update!
The changeling formerly known as Tuvok.
It was a bold move to bring back a character in this way, perhaps even more so than killing off the likes of Hugh and Icheb in Season 1. Tuvok was a main character for all seven seasons of Voyager, and aside from a tiny voiceless cameo in Lower Decks last year, this is the first time we’ve seen him since. Bringing back Tim Russ to play a changeling imposter feels like a very brave call – one that could’ve backfired. I think Dominion managed to make it work, though – and it was a real twist to bring back Tuvok and seem to set him up as an ally, only to rip it away mere moments later in the same sequence.
I’d love to see more from Tuvok, though – and get a genuine reunion with Seven of Nine. In a story with Worf, there’s also scope to put these two characters together. Worf and Tuvok were both security chiefs and tactical officers – but they were very different characters who had conflicting approaches to the role! Even now that Worf has entered his transcendental meditation phase, it could still be a lot of fun to put him together with Tuvok for a scene or two. A Trekkie can dream, eh?
The scene between Seven and Tuvok was bold… and a lot of fun.
Speaking of Worf, he was absent this week – along with Raffi, Riker, and Troi. There are now only three episodes left for Deanna Troi to make any kind of impact on the story, having had only a couple of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameos so far, so I really hope that she’ll have something major to say and do soon.
Despite being billed as a reunion for the characters, there hasn’t yet been a single scene or sequence in which Picard and his old crew are back together – with different characters or pairs of characters largely in their own narrative boxes, not really interacting with one another. Before the season is over, I hope that there will be something for everyone to do – but perhaps more importantly, their effort to stop Vadic and the rogue changelings should feel like a collaborative effort. In Season 2, splitting up the main characters for much of the story led to a number of issues – and I sincerely hope that won’t be the case this time around. But it’s noteworthy, at this stage, that the promised reunion still hasn’t materialised, and that several main characters haven’t gotten as much to do as I’d hoped.
Is Riker, as the changeling claimed, already dead?
As Jack’s superpowers continue to manifest, it’s now more than obvious that there’s more going on with him than we’ve learned so far. This week, we saw him “take over” Sidney La Forge, using his newfound combat skills to defeat a nameless goon who appears to serve as Vadic’s second-in-command.
This sequence, by the way, was exceptionally well choreographed. It must have been one heck of a challenge for actors Ed Speleers and Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut (or their stunt doubles) to perform these difficult acrobatic moves in total synchronisation, but the way it came across on screen was just fantastic. Few sequences in modern Star Trek have managed to feel truly new – but this was something that the franchise hasn’t ever done before, at least not as far as I can remember! It was fantastic to watch, and while it may not have been the most intense action sequence ever brought to screen, it was incredibly clever – and it marks the beginning of a new phase in the stories of both of these characters.
This sequence was exceptional.
The exciting and beautifully choreographed fight was almost enough to make me forget the horrible contrivances that led to it. Almost! I stand by what I said before: Lore’s involvement in this story, messing with forcefields and transporters at precisely the right moment, was one heck of a contrivance. While we got an exciting sequence with Jack and Sidney as a result, that alone isn’t enough to justify it – and too many forced coincidences like this make for a particularly weak narrative foundation.
As the fight simmered down, one moment really stuck with me. As Sidney looked at Jack, she had a mixture of fear and shock in her eyes; that moment, as Sidney realised that she’d just been – for want of a better term – “possessed” by Jack, was exceptionally well done. Once again, Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut excelled.
Dominion was a great episode for Sidney La Forge’s characterisation.
There was potential in the “let’s lure the baddie into a trap” idea that was posited by Dominion, but it quickly fell apart. The writing on this side of the story failed to set up a narratively coherent plan, and when we’re dealing with experienced officers like Picard, Seven, Dr Crusher, and even Captain Shaw, the fact that their plan was so flimsy, and fell apart so easily, doesn’t make for a satisfying presentation. There were other ways to have Vadic commandeer the Titan – if that was the episode’s required outcome – without going through this long and convoluted rigamarole.
Splitting up their forces, having poorly-armed ensigns with little combat experience literally running around the deserted hallways of the ship, and allowing the much more powerful Shrike to transport a group of changelings aboard the Titan are all indicators of a poorly-formulated – and poorly-written – plan, one that was clearly written in order to arrive at a particular outcome. Some of the specifics of this plan feel incredibly flimsy, too: where did the Titan’s crew acquire the wreck of a Vulcan ship, and how were they able to convince Vadic of its authenticity?
This plan was neither well-conceived nor well-executed.
All of this, however, led to two interesting revelations about Vadic. The smaller revelation concerns the character I’ve dubbed Floaty McFloatface (Star Trek: if you don’t want fans to give silly names to your characters and factions, name them yourself). It now seems as if Floaty McFloatface may not be a changeling – or at least, not the same kind of changeling as Vadic herself. We won’t get too deep into speculation here – and I’ve been wrong about Vadic and Floaty McFloatface before – but suffice to say that there’s a complexity to their relationship that was spoken to, albeit rather briefly, this week.
I’ve been saying for weeks that we need to spend more time with Vadic, and to come to understand what’s been driving her all this time. It still seems as if Vadic’s desire to capture Jack Crusher stems from orders from Floaty McFloatface – and not, as Picard and Dr Crusher repeatedly assumed, in order to steal his DNA to make a copy of Picard. But we found out a lot more in Dominion about where Vadic came from – and it was in equal parts incredibly dark and absolutely riveting.
Vadic and Floaty McFloatface have a difficult relationship.
By coincidence, I’ve recently been re-watching Ken Burns’ documentary The Vietnam War, and with all the talk this week of torture and rogue military operations, I felt echoes of that conflict – as well as more recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I think we can absolutely see Vadic’s story in Dominion as a cinematic response to American foreign policy over the past few decades, and a reflection of how the country is coming to terms – or failing to come to terms, in some cases – with its own recent history.
One of the lessons of Vietnam that was sadly not learned by the time of Afghanistan was an oft-repeated line that America was “creating its own enemies.” Every house burned down, every village raided, every bomb dropped… all of these things created more Viet Cong or Taliban fighters, and this is the lens through which I see Vadic’s story. By torturing and experimenting upon Vadic and the other changelings – implied to be the crew of the Shrike – Starfleet has inadvertently created another enemy for itself.
Starfleet (or Section 31, at least) is responsible for making Vadic into the villain she became.
However, there are a couple of queries I have about this revelation. They aren’t yet “problems,” let alone “plot holes,” but parts of this backstory for Vadic seem to come dangerously close to contradicting what we know of the rogue changelings and their scheme from earlier episodes. Worf, for example, specifically told us that this group of changelings had departed the Great Link following a schism, implying that these rogue changelings may be those who rejected Odo’s path of peace.
Secondly, the number of changelings involved in this conspiracy feels massively inflated based on what Vadic told us. She said that she was one of ten changelings being experimented upon, yet there are clearly far more than that. We’ve already seen at least seven killed – and that doesn’t account for Vadic and her crew. While she did say that she could pass along the abilities that she had developed to other changelings, it still doesn’t seem to add up. Ro seemed to think that all of Starfleet was compromised, and that there could be changeling infiltrators aboard multiple ships. If the original group consisted of just ten members, where have all the others come from?
Vadic and her crew.
I’ve always felt that there was a conscious effort on the part of the writers and producers of Deep Space Nine to present the Dominion War as a conflict akin to the Second World War – something we see quite prominently in the show’s finale at the signing of the Treaty of Bajor. But there were definitely Vietnam War influences during Deep Space Nine’s run, too. Episodes like Change of Heart, which prominently featured a “jungle” setting, spring to mind – as does The Siege of AR-558, which was directed by Vietnam veteran Winrich Kolbe.
But there was an even darker tone to the story Vadic told us this week, something that echoed less the Afghanistan War and more the human experiments performed in concentration camps. We’ve always known that Section 31 was willing to go to extreme lengths on behalf of the Federation – even violating Federation law. But when we saw the virus they created in Deep Space Nine, we only saw its effects. This time, we saw the process – the torture that Vadic and her fellow changelings endured.
Vadic’s torturer.
Since its emergence in Deep Space Nine more than twenty years ago, Section 31 hasn’t sat right with a lot of Trekkies – and I get that. This organisation is about as far from Gene Roddenberry’s vision of a more idealistic and enlightened humanity as it’s possible to get. But the idea that Section 31 represented has always been a fascinating one for me: that there’s someone in the background, working behind the scenes, to preserve the enlightened future that humanity has struggled to build. Section 31 sees itself as defending the Federation – even if it has to violate every single Federation principle and law in the process.
In this case, the question is perhaps a bit less interesting. It feels a lot easier to say that Vadic’s torture was wrong – because it was ultimately unnecessary. It was designed, at least according to Vadic, to allow the creation of a weapon – changelings who could bypass all the typical tests and who would report to Section 31 and Starfleet. The virus, in contrast, has always posed much more of an interesting moral question: when faced with conquest and possible extinction, should that kind of biological weapon be off the table?
The experiments that Section 31 performed were intended to create a weaponised changeling.
It’s easy to condemn Vadic’s torturer – and by extension, to feel a pang of sympathy for what Vadic herself has been through. There’s no denying that Vadic is a far more complex and interesting character coming out of Dominion than she was before the episode began – and that’s a good thing. We don’t need to agree with a villain or sympathise with them to understand them – but in order to really get invested in their story, we need something to give them motivation and to explain who they are. Vadic had been lacking this all season long – but we finally got the details this week, and it puts her characterisation into context.
The one disappointing thing, though, is that Vadic lacks any meaningful connection to Picard – and to anyone else on the crew, for that matter. Her torturer was a nameless Section 31 operative, she wasn’t even involved in the Dominion War as far as we can tell, and she certainly didn’t know Picard or any of the others prior to this conspiracy getting underway. They’ve definitely formed an adversarial relationship – but it comes quite late in the story. Contrast this with the likes of Khan or Gul Dukat: characters who had burning, passionate hatred for their Starfleet adversaries.
We know a lot more about Vadic now.
In a series called Star Trek: Picard, that could be the missing piece. In both Seasons 1 and 2, for better or worse, Picard was at the centre of the story. The Zhat Vash conspiracy disrupted Picard’s armada, and he was the one to unravel it years later. Picard’s relationship with Q led to the whole Confederation/time travel plot. And while Vadic’s determination to kidnap/capture Picard’s son gives her some kind of connection to him… I’m still not feeling the personal side of it.
I will say, though, that we’ve seen moves in that direction not just this week, but over the past several episodes. As Picard has gotten deeper into the conspiracy, his determination to do anything to stop it has grown. And there are personal stakes for him: the death of Ro, the capture of Riker, and the threat to the son he didn’t know that he had. All of those things are positive, and while we still don’t have all of the details, we have more than enough to understand Picard’s decision-making process – and his ability to cross a line that we might never have expected him to cross.
Dominion presented Picard with a moral dilemma.
Star Trek has a fantastic collection of morality tales going all the way back to The Original Series. But for me – and I daresay for many fans of my generation, too – fewer hit harder than Deep Space Nine’s Season 6 classic In The Pale Moonlight. That episode, told through flashbacks and a frame narrative, sees Captain Sisko wrangling with breaking all of the rules in order to manipulate an outcome that he and the Federation needed. It was life-or-death, and Sisko took it upon himself to place the Federation’s survival ahead of his conscience – and ahead of following the law.
Dominion sees Picard and Dr Crusher confront the same basic moral quandary. There are laws against the killing of prisoners – yet killing Vadic (and unbeknownst to them, Floaty McFloatface too) would have thrown a spanner in the works of the conspiracy ahead of its targetted date of Frontier Day. We see them agonise over the decision, especially in light of Vadic’s backstory… but they ultimately decide to go for it.
Picard and Dr Crusher ultimately decide to break the law – and their own moral code.
Dominion tries to present this as a choice with a time-limit – it will only be a matter of time before Vadic escapes or before someone breaks her out, so they have to decide relatively quickly. The episode also worked hard to show how conflicted Picard in particular felt about violating one of the foundational laws of war. And in the moments we got with Picard and Dr Crusher, this question of morality versus practicality worked well, and I could feel through the screen how painful it was for Picard to even have to consider a course of action like this.
However, this side of the story was split up at points by Jack and Sidney running around the hallways of the Titan, and by Geordi and Alandra working on Lore and the ship’s systems. I’m not sure that Dominion dedicated enough time to what was meant to be the key dilemma for the show’s title character – because after Vadic had explained where she came from and we’d gotten all of the other scenes and sequences with other characters… the ultimate decision seemed to be reached by Picard and Dr Crusher pretty quickly. It felt, in that moment, as if they’d already decided what they were going to do before we saw them confirm it.
This moment was arrived at rather quickly.
And I’d also like to point out another unenjoyable trope that came out of this side of the story. We saw in Seventeen Seconds a few weeks ago how easily Worf was able to kill a changeling in their liquid state. Seven and Jack were also able to relatively easily kill changelings in their humanoid states, too. But this week – as soon as it became convenient for the story – both Vadic and her second-in-command were able to survive multiple phaser blasts under what appeared to be similar circumstances.
There was a pathway to allow both characters to survive without doing this, and it’s really just a worn-out cliché at this point. There was some fantastic acting and choreography on both sides of the story here – but it all led to such a bland and oft-repeated outcome.
The old “you thought he was dead” cliché…
And I guess that last line kind of encapsulates my thoughts on Dominion as a whole, really. Patrick Stewart, Gates McFadden, and LeVar Burton all absolutely excelled… with the material that they had in the confines of a fairly uninspired story. This was a tense, exciting episode that moved along the plot on the Titan – while ignoring the stories of Worf, Raffi, Riker, and Troi – but that just didn’t take the season’s main narrative to a particularly exciting or original place.
There was scope to make more of Dominion, and there’s a risk, I fear, that its “captured starship” outcome will be easily undone next week, rendering much of the episode a bit… well, pointless. I’m glad we got to learn more about Vadic, and to put her conspiracy and quest into some kind of personal context for her. That was desperately needed as the season passes its three-quarter point. And there were some wonderful performances along the way, both in terms of acting and in terms of a well-choreographed sequence that felt like something new to Star Trek. But overall, I’m not thrilled with where the story went this week.
The Shrike and the Titan.
With three episodes left, there’s still plenty of time for Season 3 to recover, to deepen its mysteries, and to throw in some more twists and turns. And despite my criticisms, I don’t hate Dominion. It told the story it wanted to tell about as well as it possibly could. It can be hard to judge mid-season episodes fairly when the final destination is still unclear – and it’s to Dominion’s credit, in some respects, that the story’s endgame is still obscured through a thick narrative fog.
So I’m trying to stay positive! I’m loving the fact that we’re getting a look at some familiar faces from Star Trek’s past, that Section 31 is in play, and that it feels like Picard is finally taking a look at the broader state of the galaxy in this 25th Century time period. Dominion also put a morality question at its heart, harkening back to some of my favourite complex episodes from Star Trek’s past. There’s potential to build on what was delivered here – and maybe to take the story to a more enjoyable place next time!
A few scattered final thoughts:
Repeated mentions of Admiral Janeway – could she appear in the season finale?
Vadic didn’t confirm what she wanted with Picard’s corpse… but a look in her eye seemed to suggest he was wrong in his assumption.
I’m sure that Geordi’s partner won’t appear now… but I hope it isn’t supposed to be Leah Brahms!
Jack is wielding a 23rd Century phaser pistol – which is pretty cool!
Tuvok has been promoted – good for him!
Captain Shaw is, to my immense surprise, still alive.
A reference to the Chin’Toka system – the site of two major battles in Deep Space Nine – did not pass unnoticed!
Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in the United States and other countries and territories where the service is available, and on Amazon Prime Video in the UK and around the world. The Star Trek franchise – including Picard and all other properties discussed 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.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1 and 2, as well as the teaser trailer and casting announcements for Season 3. Further spoilers are present for Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-4, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and other iterations of the Star Trek franchise.
Even as we continue to wind down from Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard, my thoughts have already turned to Season 3! Although the new season is still in production and is probably a year away, I wanted to get one of my big pre-season theories written down ahead of time. This one ties together events in all three seasons of the show – and I think that could make it a satisfying story if it were to unfold.
There are some legitimate concerns about Picard Season 3, at least from where I’m sitting. The fact that most of the new cast members have been unceremoniously dumped in order to make way for the returning characters from The Next Generation really stings, and I’m truly disappointed that we won’t get to spend more time with the likes of Elnor and Soji next time around. I wanted to acknowledge that before we proceed with the theory, because both the cutting of characters and the fact that several of them have disappeared without a proper goodbye is poor form from Picard’s producers and creative team.
Most of the Picard cast are not returning for Season 3.
So let’s talk about this theory, then! In short, what I’ve come up with connects events in both Seasons 1 and 2 with what has been teased about Season 3, potentially meaning that Picard will turn out to be one long connected story after all. We’re taking the mysterious anomaly encountered at the end of Season 2 as a starting point and asking “who could have created something like that?” The Borg Queen-Dr Jurati hybrid believed it was artificial in nature and had the potential to wipe out all life in an entire sector of space. That seems like the first phase of an invasion or attack – so who can we think of in Star Trek who could create a weapon on that scale?
We could absolutely pick on factions like the Dominion, Enterprise’s Sphere-Builders, or Species 8472. All of those – and many more – were potential suspects when it came to another mysterious anomaly in Discovery’s fourth season, too, and for good reason! But when we consider the elements that have already been introduced in Star Trek: Picard in particular, one faction more than any other appears to stand out: the super-synths from Season 1.
The super-synths as glimpsed in Season 1.
To briefly recap if it’s been a while since you watched Et in Arcadia Ego: the super-synths claimed to be “an alliance of synthetic life,” and it was implied that they resided far beyond the Milky Way galaxy. I nicknamed them the “Mass Effect Reapers” for their similarities to that video game faction! The super-synths literally moved stars to point to a beacon that they’d left behind on the planet of Aia, and in a vision that seemed jumbled and terrifying to organic minds they promised to come to the aid of any synths who requested their help.
The super-synths believed that all organics would eventually attack and destroy their synthetic creations; that war between synthetic and organic life was inevitable. The plans they left behind could open a portal to their home in dark space, allowing the super-synths to show up anywhere in the galaxy at a moment’s notice. It was left ambiguous as to whether their offer to help synths in their fight against organics was actually genuine or whether it was some kind of elaborate trap.
The super-synths’ portal over Coppelius.
Although Admiral Picard was able to convince Soji to close the portal she had opened before the super-synths could arrive at the planet of Coppelius, the portal was open for a significant amount of time. In that time the super-synths would’ve seen a civilisation of synthetics on Coppelius asking for their help, and two massive fleets of starships engaged in a stand-off over the planet. Whatever their intentions may have been, Soji and Sutra’s actions have ensured that the super-synths are now aware of the Milky Way, the Federation, the Romulans, and the Coppelius synths.
The super-synths then disappeared from the plot and weren’t mentioned again. It isn’t clear what happened to them, what their goals may have been, nor how they would have reacted to the portal being closed at the last moment. What we do know is that the super-synths possess powerful technology – technology that seems to allow them to hop from one part of the universe to another in an instant.
The super-synths left a beacon on the planet of Aia.
This brings us to the anomaly encountered by the Borg and the Federation at the end of Season 2. The strange anomaly was described by Seven of Nine as being akin to a “transwarp conduit.” The Borg Queen-Dr Jurati hybrid was unsure of who created it, but considered them to be “a threat” requiring close observation. The anomaly was also described as being one piece of a larger puzzle – something that could tie in with a theory like this one!
Given what we know of the super-synths based on their appearance in Season 1, creating something on this scale seems well within their capabilities. They left behind instructions on how to create a portal to their domain, and what is a transwarp conduit if not a portal between two points in spacetime? Then there’s the scale of the attack: the initial outpouring of energy was enough to destroy an entire sector of space, something that hardly seems impossible for a faction that can literally move entire stars.
A joint Federation-Borg fleet defends against the anomaly at the end of Season 2.
So I think we have enough evidence based on what we saw on screen in the Season 2 finale to make the case that the anomaly may have been created by the same faction of super-synths that very nearly arrived at Coppelius in Season 1. But what of Season 3?
Not much has been officially teased so far about Picard’s upcoming third season – but we have a little to go on. Besides the announcement of returning cast members, we heard a few new lines of dialogue and caught a glimpse of both Admiral Picard and Captain Riker in a teaser trailer released to mark First Contact Day last month, and nothing there contradicts anything I’ve suggested above.
In fact, we could try to build a case for the Season 3 teaser hinting at this theory!
Captain Riker in the Season 3 teaser.
Firstly, the clips we saw of Admiral Picard and Captain Riker showed them readying themselves for combat, wielding some kind of phaser pistol (possibly the kind seen briefly in Seasons 1 and 2). At least part of the season, then, is going to involve a fight of some kind against a hitherto-unseen enemy! That’s hardly conclusive, of course, but it doesn’t contradict the idea that the main enemy is the super-synths.
Secondly, we have a handful of lines heard in voiceover. Geordi talked about “rushing into danger” during his time aboard the Enterprise. Worf speaks, saying that “sacrifice is required.” Dr Crusher spoke directly to Picard, telling him that “the galaxy comes calling.” In typical understated style, Riker talked about a “good old-fashioned road trip,” before Troi rounded things out by letting Picard know that he “will not be alone.” Again, nothing conclusive there – but also nothing contradictory. All the characters seem to be talking about gearing up for a big mission or battle.
Admiral Picard with a phaser pistol in the Season 3 teaser.
But the most interesting line in the trailer – and one that could perhaps be pointing to some kind of connection to synthetic life – came from Brent Spiner’s currently-unknown character. Spiner’s inflection sounded very emotive, definitely not like Data or B4. My first thought was that he could be portraying Lore (Data’s “evil twin” from The Next Generation), but he could also be portraying Dr Altan Inigo Soong – the son of Data’s creator who was a major character at the end of Season 1.
The line that stood out to me was this: “Evolution is not an act of preservation; it’s addition.” That line is ambiguous, naturally, but if we assume that Spiner’s character has something to do with synthetic life and synthetic research, he could very well be talking about the creation of new synths or the search for new synthetic life. He could also be talking about some kind of fusion between organic and synthetic life – perhaps Borg assimilation.
Will Brent Spiner’s Dr Altan Inigo Soong be a villain next season?
We don’t know what goals or objectives the super-synths might have, but if they view organic life as a threat it’s possible that they plan some kind of assimilation-like process to forcibly convert organics to become partially synthetic. That could be what Dr Soong is referring to – and he could be the super-synths’ advocate if they arrive in force and broadcast their intentions. Akin to someone who has been “indoctrinated” by the Reapers in the Mass Effect series, Dr Soong may be doing the super-synths’ bidding. That could set up Brent Spiner’s character to be one of the season’s main villains (again).
Am I clutching at straws? Well, that’s possible. But because of how deliberately coy the writers and producers of Picard have been about several key aspects of the storylines of both Seasons 1 and 2, I think this idea is a solid possibility. We don’t know what the super-synths wanted, but we do know they’re technologically very powerful and more than capable of creating portals and anomalies. We don’t know where the mysterious anomaly in Season 2 came from, nor why the Dr Jurati-Borg Queen hybrid considered it and its creators to be a threat. There’s enough ambiguity in those two points alone to reasonably connect them.
The Borg Queen-Dr Jurati hybrid.
Ever since Season 1 came to a rather unspectacular conclusion, I’ve been hoping that Star Trek will do something more with this faction of super-synths. I suggested that they could be involved with the main storylines in both Seasons 3 and 4 of Discovery, as they seemed to be a faction with the technological power to do something like the Burn or to create something like the DMA. Those theories didn’t pan out, of course, but it’s possible that things will come full-circle and we’ll see them again before Picard comes to an end.
What we’d get, if this theory were to pan out, would be a transformation in the way Star Trek: Picard has operated. Rather than being three essentially standalone seasons with three distinct, separate stories, everything would be connected. What happened on Mars that sent Picard into a decade-long depression would be connected to the final fight against the super-synths; they’d be responsible for all of it. It would bring together the stories of Seasons 1, 2, and 3 in a neat way. The first two seasons could still be enjoyed as standalone affairs; nothing in Season 3 would overwrite any of that. But for fans who want to see a broader connection, this theory would deliver it!
The anomaly in Season 2.
Setting this theory aside for a moment, one of the concerns I have about Season 3 is that the events of Seasons 1 and 2 will be ignored. The fact that most main cast members aren’t returning has really ramped up the sense that Picard Season 3 may try to ignore everything that’s just happened – or relegate it to a couple of short scenes at the beginning of episode 1 – and rush ahead to become The Next Generation Season 8.
In particular, the mysterious anomaly that was shown off at the end of the season could be ignored as part of this push to get to a new story. I truly believe that would be a mistake; not only was the anomaly massively important to the plot of Season 2, but it was also very deliberately unexplained. Who could create something like that? Why would someone do that? Was it meant to be an attack against the Federation? How did the Borg know it was coming? There are many questions like this that Season 2 chose not to answer; if Season 3 ignores them as well then it’ll be very disappointing.
Will the dangling story threads of the anomaly and the Borg be concluded in Season 3?
Regular readers may recall from my Picard Season 2 reviews and commentary that I wasn’t wild about many of the storytelling decisions made last time. This new season is an opportunity to build on what came before; to make some of the first two seasons’ underwhelming events matter in a way that they currently don’t. If the Season 2 anomaly, for example, was just a naked plot device to give the Borg Queen-Dr Jurati hybrid something to do then it’ll remain a disappointing element of an already underwhelming season. But if it turns out that Season 3 revisits it in a big way and builds on what we saw last time, it has the potential to transform this aspect of Season 2 and make it matter.
So I think that’s all there is to say this time. To briefly recap my theory: the super-synths from Season 1 were responsible for creating the mysterious anomaly that almost destroyed an entire sector of space at the end of Season 2. They will use this anomaly – and perhaps others like it – to travel to the Milky Way galaxy, where they will become one of the main villains of Season 3.
The beacon used to summon the super-synths.
I quite like this idea of bringing the story of Star Trek: Picard full circle, as well as bringing together the seemingly disconnected events of Seasons 1 and 2 in a natural, understandable way. Nothing we’ve seen on screen would prevent the Season 1 super-synths from also creating the dangerous anomaly in Season 2 – so if Season 3 ignores both of those things to go in a different direction… well, this might just have to become my own personal head-canon!
It’s always worth saying that no fan theory, no matter how fun or plausible it may seem, is worth getting too worked up over. This is an idea that I came up with to bind together events in Star Trek: Picard that may ultimately be unrelated. This theory may go nowhere – and that’s okay! I like it when Star Trek can surprise me and take me to different and unexpected places, so I always like to caveat my theories by saying that I have no “insider information,” I’m not trying to claim that anything we’ve talked about today will ever be seen on screen, and I hope you’ll join me in welcoming the story of Season 3 – whatever direction it ultimately goes.
Having touched on this theory briefly the other day I wanted to give it a full write-up here on the website. I hope you’ll stay tuned for more Star Trek content in the weeks and months ahead – including a look at any major news or trailers for Picard Season 3. Until next time!
Star Trek: Picard Season 3 will stream on Paramount+ in the United States and on Amazon Prime Video around the world some time next year. 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.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-2 and casting information for Season 3. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: Discovery, Enterprise, Voyager, First Contact, and The Next Generation.
After a plodding and occasionally frustrating season, Star Trek: Picard wrapped up this week. Going into the season finale we still had more than twenty theories on the table – though some were definitely beginning to feel unlikely! This week we’re going to conclude my Season 2 theory list and take a look at how some of those remaining theories landed.
Across the season as a whole, I had some theory successes – as well as more than a few misses! But as I always say, all of this is just for fun – so the theories that ended up being completely wrong are totally fine by me! It was enjoyable to spend the extra time thinking about where the story of Picard Season 2 could be headed, and even when I was wide of the mark it was still a great excuse to dive deeply into the Star Trek galaxy.
So without any further ado, let’s start wrapping up the theory list. We’ll begin with the theories that were confirmed, then take a look at the ones that were debunked. There are also a couple of theories that may survive going into Season 3, so stay tuned in the days and weeks ahead for a preliminary Season 3 theory list!
Confirmed theory #1: A character from The Next Generation made an appearance.
Wesley Crusher!
Wesley Crusher’s return was one of the high points of the season finale for me! After a thirty-year absence from the role, Wil Wheaton stepped back into the shoes of Wesley Crusher and showed us a glimpse of his life as a Traveler. The fact that this was kept secret and not spoiled ahead of time made it one of the biggest surprise moments in the finale – and while I had been speculating that at least one character from The Next Generation would appear all season long, I would’ve never guessed that it would be Wesley!
With the rest of The Next Generation crew reuniting next season, it’s incredibly sweet that we got this moment with Wesley before Picard wrapped up. It would’ve been amazing to see him reunite with Picard himself, of course, but just seeing Wesley back in action, knowing that he’s living an amazing life and that he still exists in the Star Trek timeline was absolutely fantastic.
Wesley’s appearance also tied together the Travelers from The Next Generation with the Watchers and Supervisors from The Original Series – and connected in a big way with Tallinn’s role this season. It was an incredibly creative way to bring these storylines together and to connect with over fifty years’ worth of Star Trek’s history. All in all, one of the season finale’s best moments.
Confirmed theory #2: Seven of Nine was given a Starfleet commission.
Captain Seven!
Maybe it would be fairer to call this one “semi-confirmed,” as Seven’s commission from Admiral Picard in Farewell seemed very much like a brevet; a less-than-official or impermanent role that came about as a result of the unique circumstances of working with the Borg. But regardless, I had speculated that Seven would join Starfleet before the end of the season, and technically that happened!
It was a fun moment to see Seven assume command of the USS Stargazer, but moreover I was impressed with the way her season-long arc took her from a place where she hated the Borg (and the Borg side of herself) and was advocating for shooting first and asking questions later all the way to placing her trust in the Borg Queen-Dr Jurati hybrid. Seven’s growth got her to a place where her trust and her actions allowed her to play a definitive role in saving the entire quadrant from the mysterious anomaly.
Confirmed theory #3: The Borg’s request for help from the Federation turned out to be genuine.
This is the disaster that the Borg wanted to prevent.
It was implied in The Star Gazer at the beginning of the season that the Borg’s message may have been a ruse; a deception that was intended to be the pretext for a new Borg invasion of the Federation. However, just because some of our characters believed that to be true didn’t mean it was true, and I wondered whether the story might end up saying that the Borg were genuinely asking for the Federation’s help.
That turned out to be correct – in a roundabout way, of course. The Borg weren’t fleeing from some unknown assailant, as I had speculated, nor were they crippled following the events of Voyager’s finale. Their intention was to help – to join with the Federation and use their technology to prevent the attack on the Alpha Quadrant by whoever sent the mysterious anomaly.
Confirmed theory #4: The masked, hooded Borg was not the “real” Borg Queen.
The Borg Queen, unmasked.
I daresay this one had been increasingly obvious for at least half of the season, and especially after the way Hide and Seek had ended a week earlier, it seemed all but certain that the Borg Queen on the bridge of the Stargazer would turn out to be the Dr Jurati hybrid as opposed to the original Borg Queen. This turned out to be true – although why Farewell attempted to treat this as a big, shocking revelation is something I’m not sure of!
Ever since we first saw the masked Borg Queen at the beginning of the season I felt sure we’d find out who was behind the mask. Along with Dr Jurati, earlier in the season I’d suggested Admiral Janeway, Soji, and Renée Picard as possible candidates.
Confirmed theory #5: Elnor was restored to life in the 25th Century.
Cadet Elnor aboard the USS Excelsior.
I’m afraid that I don’t like the way that Elnor’s story was handled as the season wrapped up. On the one hand, I’m pleased that a character like Elnor – who has a lot of potential as someone young and from a unique background – hasn’t been permanently killed off. However, his survival undermines Raffi’s season-long arc of coming to terms with guilt and grief, as well as renders one of the best and most emotional moments in Hide and Seek entirely impotent.
Regardless of all that, I had been speculating that Elnor would be saved ever since he was killed, and as I said last time, I wasn’t prepared to drop the theory with only one week remaining in the season. I’m glad I didn’t – because it turns out I was right and this is another one I can place in the “win” column for Season 2!
Confirmed theory #6: Rios chose to remain in the 21st Century with Teresa and Ricardo.
Rios chose to stay behind.
This was another disappointing storyline, unfortunately. As I’d been saying all season long, the way Rios regressed as a character from his presentation as a Starfleet captain at the beginning of the season was ridiculously poor, and his choice to stay in the 21st Century really just capped off what has been a truly disappointing season for him.
Rios spent most of his time in Season 2 disconnected from all of the other main characters, spending his time only with Ricardo and Teresa, so even his goodbye with the other characters didn’t hit as hard as it could’ve. As I said last time, I never really felt that Rios and Picard were anything more than acquaintances; work friends, not real friends. Also, I guess Rios must’ve not been paying attention in history classes at Starfleet Academy, because World War III is about to break out, followed by the post-atomic horror. He’s about to live through the worst fifty years in all of human history in the Star Trek timeline. So… good job, idiot.
Confirmed theory #7: Q shielded Picard and the crew from the changes to the timeline.
Oh, Q.
The season finale finally saw us get an explanation from Q as to what he’d done and why. As part of a plan to help Picard overcome trauma and grief from his childhood and his mother’s death, Q set a very elaborate plan into motion, changing the past and ensuring that Picard and the crew of La Sirena were the only ones unaffected.
As we saw in the finale, Q’s powers could be used to send people’s consciousnesses through time or even across the divide between different realities, meaning that must’ve been what he did in the first place to set up this puzzle. It had seemed all but certain that this was the case, but until we heard from Q himself and gave him the chance to explain what had happened I wasn’t ready to call it confirmed.
So those theories were confirmed.
We have one theory that I’m calling “semi-confirmed,” but we won’t be sure about its status until we start to learn more about Season 3.
Semi-confirmed theory: The season will end on a cliffhanger.
The mysterious anomaly.
What’s going on with the anomaly? We didn’t get any kind of explanation for what it was, where it came from, or who might be responsible for attempting to destroy the entire Alpha Quadrant… so I think that this is setting up at least part of next season’s story. If that’s correct, then this theory that I’d been running all season long will, in a roundabout way, turn out to be correct!
However, if the anomaly isn’t revisited next time, we’ll have to call this one debunked. At the moment it feels like we’ll have to come back to the anomaly in some way, just based on its mysterious and unexplained nature, but then again the Season 1 super-synths (and other Season 1 plot threads) didn’t come back into play in any way during Season 2… so I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Regardless, I’m calling it “semi-confirmed” for now.
So that theory was semi-confirmed.
Now we’ll go through the theories that were debunked by Farewell and definitely won’t be returning for Season 3!
Debunked theory #1: Some or all of the main characters from The Next Generation will rescue Picard from 2024.
The main cast of The Next Generation in Season 5.
I had wondered if, with Picard stranded in the 21st Century, some or all of the main characters from The Next Generation would show up to rescue him. Given that Q’s powers seemed to be in decline, and with few other options for getting back to the 25th Century, it seemed like a plausible idea, one that could’ve potentially set the stage for Season 3. It would’ve also tied in thematically with what we saw at the end of Season 1, where Acting Captain Riker arrived at the last minute to save the day.
However, it didn’t happen. Q was able to use the last of his energy to get Picard home, and the only character from The Next Generation to appear was the aforementioned Wesley Crusher.
Debunked theory #2: The “two Renées” comment refers to Picard’s nephew.
René Picard – not to be confused with Renée Picard.
Though it would’ve been somewhat of a bolt from the blue, I was wondering if the Borg Queen’s cryptic comment in Hide and Seek about there being “two Renées” might’ve been referring to Picard’s nephew. In the prime timeline, René Picard was the son of Jean-Luc’s brother Robert. The two were killed in a fire at the vineyard during the events of Star Trek: Generations, and I wondered if the Borg Queen may have been referring to that moment as it was another significant one for Picard and his family.
As it turned out, “two Renées” were required to complete the mission. With Dr Adam Soong on the prowl, Tallinn disguised herself as Renée and allowed Dr Soong to kill her in order for the real Renée to board the Europa Mission spacecraft, setting up her significant discovery and the role she would ultimately play in creating the brighter future that we’ve come to know in Star Trek.
Debunked theory #3: An alternate reality is about to be created.
“An alternate reality?”
With the Dr Jurati-Borg Queen hybrid departing Earth in the 21st Century, and a cryptic message about “two Renées” to consider, I wondered if the end of the season might’ve seen some kind of permanent divergence in the timeline. One timeline may have been the familiar one, but the other could’ve been completely different either because of a very different Borg Collective or even because of the actions of Dr Adam Soong.
That didn’t happen, however, and it seems as though the prime timeline has been restored without the Confederation timeline – or indeed any other alternate reality – coming into existence. That keeps things nice and simple, at least!
Debunked theory #4: The loose ends from Season 1 will be tied up.
What happened to Narek?
I’m disappointed that Picard Season 2 did basically nothing at all to wrap up any of the loose ends from Season 1 – and there were quite a few. A rushed finale last time around left significant chunks of story still on the table, and there were some pretty sizeable unanswered questions remaining. Even just a few lines of dialogue would’ve been something, but we didn’t get that.
It’s possible that Season 3 may bring back a faction like the super-synths, in which case we may learn more about them or see other connections to events from Season 1, so I’m not entirely giving up on this one. But explanations for what happened to Narek, what became of the surviving ex-Borg, the fate of the beacon on Aia, and so on could’ve been addressed this time. It’s a shame that there wasn’t time to do so.
Debunked theory #5: Picard and the crew will “borrow” Renée’s Europa Mission spacecraft to get home.
The Europa Mission launch.
With La Sirena having been surrendered to the Borg Queen, the question of how Picard and the surviving crew might make it home came up. I wondered if part of the reason for making Renée an astronaut with access to a spacecraft might be so that Picard and the others could use it to return to their own time period. Comments earlier in the season about how records of the Europa Mission had been lost could’ve also fed into this theory.
As above, it was ultimately Q who saved the day, sending Picard and the crew home using what remained of his power. I wasn’t especially fond of the Renée and Europa Mission storylines, so this could’ve been a way to make them feel more directly relevant to the plot.
Debunked theory #6: Q is not responsible for changing the timeline.
Q’s final snap.
This is a theory that I put together before the season had even aired a single episode! In short, I felt that making Q the direct antagonist of the season would go against his established characterisation, and that there didn’t seem to be a plausible reason why Q might want to punish Picard in such extreme fashion. It also seemed odd that pre-season marketing had essentially revealed one of the season’s biggest narrative points months in advance, so I wondered if there might be more going on than we had been led to believe.
Whatever we might think of Q’s reasoning, it turned out that he was responsible for changing the timeline after all – something that had been seeming increasingly likely as the season wore on. The resolution to this story was undeniably rushed, and I would question the idea of putting so many lives at risk – as well as getting people killed and transforming the destinies of others – but ultimately this is how Q decided to help Picard learn to let go of his trauma and grief and choose to become the person he has been. In a sense, there were echoes of Tapestry – a Season 6 episode of The Next Generation – in the way this came about, making it feel in line with other Q stories at least to a degree.
In retrospect, clinging on to this theory for as long as I did may have been a mistake, and it could have arguably been debunked at an earlier stage.
Debunked theory #7: Other candidates for changing the timeline.
The super-synths.
Earlier in the season I’d proposed a few other candidates who might’ve been responsible for changing the timeline if, in fact, Q had been innocent! Though there are many factions in Star Trek that could potentially possess time travel technology and might wish to mess with the Federation, based on what we knew about Picard I proposed three candidates: the Zhat Vash, the secretive Romulan sect who were the main antagonists in Season 1, the super-synths from the Season 1 finale, and the Borg. By the time we got to Farewell this week, only the Borg seemed even slightly plausible.
But with the revelation that Q was responsible for changing the timeline and setting everything up, none of that came to pass! It could’ve made for an interesting story in some respects, with Q being less an outright antagonist and more of a helpful force, guiding Picard to the conclusion of the mystery. But that would have been an entirely different story!
Debunked theory #8: The Borg are fighting a war – and they’re losing.
The Borg ship in Farewell.
The Borg’s cry for help at the beginning of the season led to a lot of speculation! Why might the Borg be asking for help, and why from Picard specifically? One possibility seemed to be that the Borg may be on the losing side of a war. We’d seen this story play out in the Voyager episode Scorpion – in which Seven of Nine was first introduced – when the Borg bit off more than they could chew by trying to assimilate Species 8472! It seemed at least possible that something similar could have happened this time around.
As above, we learned that the Borg’s motive was significantly more altruistic. Led by the Dr Jurati hybrid, this version of the Collective aimed to prevent an anomaly from causing a destructive event that would’ve wiped out the Alpha Quadrant.
Debunked theory #9: Kore Soong will team up with Picard and the crew of La Sirena.
Kore Soong.
Although the arrival of Wesley Crusher (one of the finale’s best moments) salvaged an ending for Kore, her storyline this season was one of the absolute worst and most meaningless. Kore was repetitive, and her story felt like a cheap recycling of the Soji and Dahj stories from Season 1. She mainly existed to prop up the otherwise entirely one-dimensional Dr Adam Soong, and while at first it seemed like her existence and mysterious health condition could’ve led to a nuanced and interesting antagonist, that went out the window pretty quickly.
One way to have potentially made something of Kore would’ve been to have her work with Picard and the others to stop her father. It didn’t happen, and that meant that there was literally no on-screen interaction between Isa Briones and the rest of the cast, which was a real shame.
Debunked theory #10: The Q Continuum has been attacked.
Picard and Q.
While not technically “debunked” outright, Q’s apparent death means that revisiting the Q Continuum is incredibly unlikely in the near future. And as we learned in Discovery Season 4, there’s been no Federation-Q Continuum contact for hundreds of years as of the 32nd Century, so again it seems highly unlikely that spending any more time with other members of the Q Continuum is on the cards.
Earlier in the season it seemed plausible that the explanation for Q’s declining powers could be that the entire Q Continuum had come under attack. If something that Picard had done – or hadn’t done – was responsible, that could have explained both Q’s desire to change the timeline and the angrier, more aggressive presentation of the character.
It didn’t happen, though, and although Q himself seems to be gone, as far as we know the rest of the Continuum is okay!
Debunked theory #11: Q is angry with Picard for “giving up.”
Grumpy Q.
This is again connected to the angrier presentation of Q that we saw in episodes like Penance. I wondered if Q’s motivation for putting Picard through a punishment might be because he was angry with the way Picard gave up and recused himself from galactic affairs in the decade leading up to Season 1. Because we know Q considered Picard as a friend and a favourite, seeing him depressed might’ve been something that angered Q.
Q saw potential in Picard in The Next Generation – including the potential for humanity to one day achieve a similar level of understanding as the Q themselves, so seeing Picard’s fall from grace could have been part of why Q was so upset.
Ultimately it didn’t turn out that way – and I think I’m glad that it didn’t. Though there are definitely issues with the story as it was written, this presentation of Q would have been much more antagonistic and vengeful.
Debunked theory #12: The Borg are aware that Picard is now a synth – and his synthetic status is part of the reason why they waited until now to make contact.
Robo-Picard.
In short, I wondered if the reason for the Borg’s re-emergence at the beginning of the season might’ve been connected in some way to Picard becoming a synth at the end of Season 1. Because we know that the Borg seek “perfection” through the merging of organic and synthetic life, Picard’s new synthetic body might’ve been something that they desired to assimilate.
As above, the story of Season 2 was a standalone affair that didn’t connect to Season 1 in a major way. Aside from one mention by Q in the episode Penance and one by Rios in Assimilation, Picard’s synthetic status wasn’t brought up and had no bearing on the plot.
Debunked theory #13: The Borg ship from The Star Gazer crossed over from the Confederation timeline.
The Borg vessel identified as “Legion.”
Because we didn’t know why the Borg were asking for help, I wondered if their vessel might’ve somehow found a way to punch through from the Confederation timeline to the prime timeline. This might’ve been able to happen if an alternate reality had been created, one in which the Confederation became dominant.
We now know the Borg vessel’s true origin: it was the flagship (or possibly the only ship) of the Borg faction led by the Borg Queen-Dr Jurati hybrid, placing it firmly in the prime timeline.
Debunked theory #14: Rios will bring Teresa and Ricardo to the 25th Century.
Teresa and Rios aboard La Sirena.
An inversion of what actually happened with Rios and Teresa, this story would’ve mimicked that of Kirk and Dr Gillian Taylor in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Dr Taylor accompanied Kirk and the others to the 23rd Century at the conclusion of their mission, and I wondered whether Rios might offer Teresa and Ricardo the same opportunity.
As noted above, Rios ultimately chose to stay in the 21st Century. Though we don’t know whether Q even had the power to send two extra people, it seems possible at least. But for whatever reason, Rios chose to remain behind.
Debunked theory #15: Teresa and Ricardo are Rios’ ancestors.
That could’ve been awkward…
One way to potentially resolve the Rios-Teresa romance could’ve been to make Teresa and Ricardo his distant ancestors! This would’ve also tied in thematically with a season in which Picard met one of his own ancestors, and it could’ve provided some entertainment value, similar to comparable storylines in the likes of Back to the Future.
Debunked theory #16: Rios will be killed and Picard will assume command of the new USS Stargazer.
Rios in the captain’s chair of the USS Stargazer.
As Rios’ storyline progressed and his relationship with Teresa deepened, I wondered if he might’ve ended up dead as a way to write him out of the show. Picard hasn’t pulled any punches when it comes to killing off characters, and with a need to free up space in the cast ahead of Season 3, Rios definitely seemed in danger after a story that cut him adrift from the rest of the crew.
Rios would ultimately end up staying in the 21st Century, and the captaincy of the Stargazer has fallen, in the short-term at least, to Seven of Nine. Whether she’ll still be in the chair when Season 3 arrives is anyone’s guess, though!
So those theories were debunked.
We have two theories that Farewell seems to have neither confirmed nor debunked, and those remain possibilities going into Season 3. It depends on what we see in terms of pre-release trailers and the like, but these two might just sneak back in next time. Watch this space!
Returning theory #1: The Borg Collective was badly damaged in the Voyager episode Endgame and has been unable to recover.
Admiral Janeway and the Borg Queen.
It seemed to be suggested by Dr Jurati in the season premiere that the Borg have been in a weakened state, and I wondered if that might be because of the actions of a time-travelling Admiral Janeway in Voyager’s finale. Janeway introduced a virus into the Borg Queen that severely damaged her, her base of operations, and dozens of Borg vessels on the way to helping Voyager make it back to Earth. Those events have never been addressed on screen, and with the return of the Borg it seemed possible that we might be about to learn more.
It didn’t happen in Season 2, but with the Borg back – at least, one faction of Borg – maybe we’ll discover the extent of the damage to the Collective in Season 3. I’ve long assumed that the Borg were adaptable and clever enough to eventually recover from the damage inflicted upon them, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see!
Returning theory #2: There will be a Borg civil war between a faction inspired by the Borg Queen-Dr Jurati hybrid and the rest of the Collective.
The Dr Jurati-Borg Queen hybrid.
We don’t know exactly how the Dr Jurati-led Borg and the rest of the Collective have interacted in the four centuries since she left Earth. At one point it seemed to be implied that this faction would replace the Borg Collective, but doing so would effectively wipe out the entire prime timeline. So I have to assume that the Dr Jurati-led Borg are distinct and separate from the main Collective – but would the rest of the Borg be okay with that?
I had speculated that we might learn that the Jurati-Borg were fleeing from a civil war, one in which the regular Borg had somehow gained the upper hand. That could have accounted for their request for help from the Federation. However, that didn’t happen in Farewell… but I don’t think we can rule out the idea of these factions being at odds just yet.
So those theories may return in time for Season 3!
The USS Excelsior.
That concludes this season’s theory list. In addition to the pair of stragglers directly above, Farewell did actually inspire a couple of other Season 3 theory ideas, so perhaps in the days or weeks ahead I’ll put together a very preliminary Season 3 theory list. Watch this space for that!
Picard Season 2 wasn’t the best that modern Star Trek has had to offer. Its modern-day setting hampered it to a great degree, and while there were occasional flashes of brilliance, overall the story felt quite disjointed, with individuals or pairs of characters seemingly embroiled in their own distinct narratives for the most part, with only occasional link-ups between different storylines.
The USS Stargazer.
That being said, it was fun to speculate and theorise about the season while it was rumbling along. I had some interesting ideas along the way – some of which would’ve made for a radically different story! At the end of the day, this is all just for fun; a chance to spend more time in the Star Trek galaxy. And I had fun coming up with these theories and writing them down while the season was ongoing.
Season 3 already has some issues – and if you want to see me talk about some of my criticisms of the casting in particular, click or tap here for that. However, the return of The Next Generation characters is a tantalising idea, and I’m hopeful that Picard Season 3 – supposedly the show’s swansong – will be exciting, dramatic, and fun.
Over the weeks and months ahead, stay tuned. There’s plenty more Star Trek content to come here on the website, and when we get trailers or news about Season 3 I’ll do my best to take a look at it and give my thoughts. Until next time!
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.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-2 and casting/character announcements for Season 3. Spoilers are also present for Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1 and Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-2.
Star Trek: Picard’s second season wrapped up a couple of days ago, and even as the dust settles on the show’s latest outing we’re already beginning to see Season 3 take shape. Filming on Picard Season 3 has been underway for months; Seasons 2 and 3 entered production back-to-back, so we have a good chance of seeing it in the early part of 2023 as things currently stand.
Today I wanted to take a peek behind the curtain and talk about some production-side announcements that are related to Season 3 – in particular, which characters might not be included in the new season. This is serious spoiler territory for Season 3, so if you don’t want to know who may or may not be reprising their roles (and you ignored the giant warning at the top of the article), this is your last chance to avoid Season 3 spoilers!
The USS Stargazer in Farewell.
The only way I can describe what I’ve learned about Season 3 is that the Picard cast has been massacred. At time of writing, we have confirmations (or as-good-as confirmations) that Orla Brady, Isa Briones, Santiago Cabrera, Evan Evagora, and Alison Pill won’t be returning for Season 3. That means Laris, Soji/Kore/Sutra, Rios, Elnor, and Dr Jurati/the Borg Queen won’t be included in any meaningful way in the new season.
These departures make way for the returning main cast members from The Next Generation (minus Wil Wheaton and Denise Crosby), who will be reprising their roles as Riker, Troi, Worf, Dr Crusher, La Forge, and a currently-unknown character in the case of Data actor Brent Spiner. As nice as it will be to welcome them back to Star Trek, I can’t help but feel that this decision is the wrong one – or at the very least that the Picard cast departures have been handled particularly poorly.
The cast of The Next Generation in Season 2.
In Farewell, the Season 2 finale, Captain Rios and Dr Jurati got goodbyes… of a sort. Rios’ goodbye felt permanent as he chose to remain in the 21st Century after falling for Teresa; the Borg Queen-Dr Jurati hybrid had less of a “goodbye” and more of a “see you later,” but I guess in the context of her season-long arc we can at least call it an ending. But Elnor, Laris, and Soji didn’t even get the most basic of goodbyes.
Soji was Season 1’s second main character along with Picard himself. She was both the driving force behind the plot of the first six episodes and a major character in her own right, and her story of learning the truth of her synthetic origin and coming to terms with that was something that Star Trek had never really tackled before. More significantly, Soji led Picard to her people’s homeworld: Coppelius.
Soji in Season 1.
The discovery of the Coppelius synths led to the unravelling of the Zhat Vash plot, as well as uncovered the role of Commodore Oh as a spy within Starfleet. It provided Starfleet with an explanation for the attack on Mars a decade earlier and for the cover-up aboard the USS Ibn Majid. It transformed Starfleet from a semi-antagonist with an inward-looking, almost xenophobic edge back into a faction worthy of support. It’s a landmark moment in the history of this post-Nemesis era.
Soji was instrumental in all of that, as well as in contacting and then not contacting the unnamed faction of super-synths. We spent a lot of time with her across Season 1, and I’d point to some of her scenes with Kestra in Nepenthe and her role in The Impossible Box as being two of the big highlights. Unfortunately, Soji was completely sidelined in Season 2, not taking part in the mission back in time or the stand-off with the Borg in any way… but there was still scope to bring her back.
Soji was sidelined for all of Season 2.
Elnor’s absence – if indeed it is confirmed; at this point it’s only been mentioned by actor Evan Evagora on social media – feels utterly inexcusable to me. After Elnor had been killed in the Season 2 episode Assimilation, his death served as a major motivating factor for Raffi’s character arc, and coming to terms with her guilt and remorse were key components of her storyline. This culminated in a beautiful sequence in the episode Hide and Seek in which Raffi was able to speak to a holographic recreation of Elnor and come to terms with what had happened – accepting his death and letting go of at least some of the guilt that had been plaguing her.
This story was already muddled – and I would argue that its beautifully emotional conclusion was severely undermined – by the decision to resurrect Elnor in the Season 2 finale just one episode later. As much as I wanted to see Elnor’s story continue – as I feel he’s a character with huge potential – his death and Raffi’s acceptance of it seemed to be permanent, and undermining what had been one of Hide and Seek’s best moments wasn’t something that the season needed in its final minutes.
Holo-Elnor in Season 2.
But now to learn that Elnor isn’t coming back after all… I just don’t get it. For the sake of two minutes of screen time in the season finale and a look of relief on Raffi’s face, why not just leave Elnor dead if he has no role in Season 3? That would’ve at least given Raffi’s main narrative arc in Season 2 some significance. Most of the impact of what Raffi went through had been blunted by Elnor’s survival, and while we could certainly argue that she learned something from the experience, it smacks of the whole “it was all just a dream” story trope that resets everything back to the way it was.
Given that there seems to be no role for Elnor in Season 3, he may as well have stayed dead. At least his death would’ve mattered, spurring on Raffi to learn a lesson and grow as a person – growth that could stick around and continue to provide inspiration to her in whatever story comes next. Having him survive only to be shuffled off-screen anyway, presumably assigned to a different starship, just feels completely hollow and meaningless.
It seems as though there’s no place for Cadet Elnor in Season 3.
Although Laris hadn’t been a major character, her romantic interest in Picard was one of the main factors involved in kicking off the plot. As it turned out, Q wanted Picard to process grief and trauma that he’d carried since childhood – something that seems to have prevented him from forming longlasting relationships. In that sense, Laris was an incredibly important character for the series – and the closing moments of the Season 2 finale implied that she and Picard will indeed be striking up a new romantic relationship.
But if we aren’t going to see that relationship unfold on screen, if it’s just going to be relegated to that one scene at the end of Season 2, it again raises some pretty big questions. It’s beginning to feel that the decision to bring back The Next Generation characters in Season 3 has already undermined some significant story beats from Season 2, cutting them off at the knees and preventing the next – and final – chapter of the story from developing them further and taking them to their natural conclusions.
Picard with Laris at the beginning of Season 2.
When Star Trek: Picard was first announced, I didn’t want it to be The Next Generation Season 8. That’s a neat idea – but it wasn’t what this series was. I wanted to see some of these new characters grow on me and be given the opportunity to become fan-favourites for the next generation (pun intended) of Star Trek fans.
If the Star Trek franchise is to survive in the long-term, it can’t simply copy what Star Wars is doing and rely on cheap overloads of nostalgia. It has to continue to grow and develop, and new characters have to be given equal standing alongside legacy characters. In thirty-five years’ time, it’s my genuine hope that fans will be just as excited for Star Trek: Elnor as we have been for Star Trek: Picard… but in order for that to happen, we need to be spending more time with these characters. Having them cut entirely from the final season of the show – several of them without any kind of goodbye or send-off – doesn’t just sting because we won’t get to enjoy more adventures with them or see what comes next, but it could seriously damage Star Trek’s long-term prospects.
The Star Trek: Picard main cast. Only two are confirmed to be part of Season 3.
When The Next Generation characters have come back, what’s next? We’ve already had Voyager characters come back in Picard and in Prodigy, so that only leaves Deep Space Nine of the 24th Century shows. If future projects recycle characters from Deep Space Nine and Enterprise, there’ll be nobody left! Star Trek has to expand – to build on the legacy of the shows and characters that came before. What it mustn’t do is keep trying to bring back those characters and relive those past successes.
The Next Generation and the other shows of that era are in the past – and while there’s definitely potential to revisit characters like Jean-Luc Picard, it’s worth remembering that Star Trek is more than just a handful of familiar faces. Since at least 1987, when The Original Series passed the torch to The Next Generation in the first place, that’s a lesson that the Star Trek franchise has done well to take to heart. The Star Trek galaxy is vast, populated with billions or perhaps trillions of individuals across thousands of planets, and it’s ripe for exploration! Narrowing the franchise’s focus to a handful of characters from older shows is not what Star Trek is about – and it never has been.
Captain Rios at the beginning of Season 2.
Until now, I’ve felt that modern Star Trek has struck a pretty good balance between the old and the new. Discovery introduced us to brand-new characters, but tied its main protagonist to Spock and Sarek, before reintroducing Captain Pike. Picard focused on Picard himself, of course, but instead of sending him off on an adventure with his old crew, it brought some genuinely interesting new characters on board. Unfortunately, we’re now learning that several of them won’t stick around… and I find that to be quite disappointing.
I suppose the good news is that these characters still exist, and if Picard serves as a jumping-off point for potential new spin-off series, miniseries, or films set in the early 25th Century, it may be possible to revisit some of them. But I’m not going to hold my breath for that, at least not in the short-term. There are other Star Trek projects in the works, but with characters like Elnor having received precious little development across two seasons of Picard, it’s my suspicion that he’ll simply drop off the face of the galaxy never to be revisited.
Dr Jurati got a significant arc in Season 2… but won’t return for Season 3.
That’s all there is to say for now, I guess. Decisions have already been made and the new season – which will supposedly be Picard’s last – is already well underway in terms of production, so it’s clearly far too late to change any of that now. Star Trek’s past is, of course, filled with one-off characters; guest stars who appeared in an episode or two before disappearing forever. And there have been main cast members who were shuffled off their respective shows in unceremonious ways. None of it is new – but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing.
I was genuinely looking forward to spending more time with the likes of Elnor, Soji, Laris, and potentially the Borg Queen-Dr Jurati hybrid. Had you asked me shortly after the Season 2 premiere I’d have said that a Captain Rios spin-off has real potential, too. The return of The Next Generation crew isn’t bad… but I wish that their returns didn’t have to come at the expense of some wonderful characters that we’ve only just begun to get to know.
I remain hopeful for a fun season and an exciting adventure with these returning characters… but I confess that I’m quite disappointed to learn that so many Picard cast members had to be culled to make it happen.
Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-2 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in the United States and on Amazon Prime Video in the UK and around the world. Season 3 is currently in production and may be targeting a 2023 broadcast. The Star Trek franchise – including Picard, The Next Generation, 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.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-2 and casting announcements for Season 3. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: The Next Generation, First Contact, and Voyager.
So here we are! Although it seems like only yesterday that we were settling in for The Star Gazer after a two-year wait for Picard Season 2, it’s time to bid “farewell” to Admiral Picard and the (remaining) crew of La Sirena. At least the wait for Season 3 – which has already begun filming – shouldn’t be quite as long!
Season 2 took a meandering and frustrating route to reach this end point, and while Farewell had some real emotional highlights and moments of excitement, I can’t shake the feeling that the lessons of Season 1 weren’t heeded. Just as happened last time around, there were a lot of underdeveloped moments, stories that needed longer in the spotlight, and narrative threads that missed the mark not because they were bad, but because the season wasted time getting here. While I can happily say that I enjoyed Farewell, it wasn’t as good as it might’ve been.
Admiral Picard on the bridge of the USS Stargazer.
Most of the story complaints that I have really aren’t Farewell’s fault on its own. They’re actually the consequence of a slow, muddled season that dedicated too much time in earlier episodes to what ultimately ended up as extraneous fluff. The episode Watcher, for example, spent a huge amount of time tracking down Rios and Tallinn – and those sequences could have been massively shortened to move the story along at a more reasonable pace. That would’ve allowed last week’s episode, Hide and Seek, to have fully wrapped up the Europa Mission and Renée stories – stories that Farewell had to blitz through to get Picard and the crew to meet Q and get back to the 25th Century.
Farewell felt like a busy episode from the first moment, and considering how much story was left to cram in, I think that’s to be expected. I will give credit where it’s due and say that the director and editors did a good job; the best they could with the material they had, I suspect. Although several storylines were undeniably rushed as the season raced toward its end, the cinematography and production values remained high.
The USS Excelsior.
Perhaps you might think this is unfair criticism, but it feels to me as though Picard Season 2 blew most of its budget – in terms of both set-building and CGI – on The Star Gazer and the second half of Farewell. That’s where we got back to the new sets that had been built for the USS Stargazer and that’s where we saw a return of the outstanding animation work seen in the season premiere. The Federation fleet that faced down the Borg – and later the strange anomaly – looked absolutely fantastic, and seeing a big, beautiful Federation fleet in action will be something that I never tire of.
I’m sure that we’ll be seeing the new USS Stargazer back in action in Season 3 (and maybe even a spin-off series one day), so that’s definitely something to look forward to. I talked about this in my review of the premiere, but the design of the Stargazer inside and out felt like the perfect natural evolution of the aesthetic and design philosophy of The Next Generation era shows and films. Seeing more of that ship would be a request of mine – and it’s my hope that Picard will serve as a springboard for more adventures in the early 25th Century.
The Borg vessel and the Federation fleet stop the anomaly.
So let’s start with the shortest and least-interesting of the storylines in Farewell. Kore Soong was a non-entity this season. Her presence served only to provide Dr Adam Soong with some degree of motivation – motivation which at first had me thinking he might be a complex and nuanced character, but that quickly fell away. She didn’t do much of consequence, she was flat and uninteresting, and aside from being a supporting character to prop up the very one-dimensional Adam Soong, her presence seems to have been Picard’s producers throwing a bone to Isa Briones, whose main character of Soji hasn’t been present all season long (and didn’t even show up in the little epilogue when the characters got together in Guinan’s bar).
Kore choosing to hack into and delete her dad’s files was something and nothing. It makes sense – I guess – but it doesn’t feel like it accomplished anything for the story other than finding something for Kore to do after walking out on her home and her life. She doesn’t seem to feel conflicted in any way about that decision, even though she appears to have spent her entire life living with her father in that carefully-shielded house.
Kore’s story also came to an end.
However, I was more than happy to forget all about Kore’s wasted storylines because of the totally unexpected arrival of Wesley Crusher. Tying the Travelers into the same organisation that Tallinn and Gary Seven worked for was a masterstroke; I was totally blindsided by something that I genuinely did not anticipate. Having seen more than 800 Star Trek stories over the span of more than thirty years, the fact that the franchise can still pull off genuinely shocking moments like that – moments that also tie into over fifty-six years’ worth of lore – is amazing. Moments like that are why I love Star Trek, and they can go a long way to redeeming even the most mediocre of stories and flattest of characters.
I had been feeling frustrated that, six episodes on from her introduction, Tallinn appeared to have died without her storyline going into any detail at all about the mysterious organisation she worked for. Going all the way back to Season 2 of The Original Series, there had been questions about this faction and what their objectives might be; I felt disappointed that we weren’t going to get any further explanation. But to my delight, the totally unexpected arrival of Wesley Crusher provided at least a partial answer – and tied together The Original Series, his own role in The Next Generation, and the events of this season in absolutely wonderful fashion.
Wesley Crusher made an unexpected but thoroughly welcome return to Star Trek.
As a moment of pure fan-service, I can totally understand why Farewell didn’t spend more time with Welsey and Kore – as much as I’d have loved it. It would’ve been wonderful to see Wesley reunite with Picard, but in an episode that was very busy I can understand why it didn’t happen. And I don’t interpret this moment as setting up a major new spin-off following Wesley, Kore, and other Travelers and Supervisors – again, as fun as that might be for fans! It was simply a cute cameo; a way to both include a classic character from The Next Generation while also providing closure of a sort to Kore’s story.
There are many questions that I have about what might happen next for Wesley and Kore – as well as why he chose to reach out to her. I assume that the Supervisors and Travelers pick individuals who are both brilliant and somewhat out-of-place – Kore won’t be missed if she vanishes from Earth in 2024 in the way that someone else might, for example. But I guess we should save the speculation for a future theory article!
Wesley and Kore.
Captain Rios’ story has been a disappointment all season long, and the explanation why is simple: we caught a glimpse of him in the season premiere living his best life, but the series stripped that away from him and regressed him back to his Season 1 presentation. If Rios had been not the captain of the USS Stargazer but even just its first officer, at least some of that would’ve abated. But because we’d seen him as a Starfleet captain, the way he seemed to forget about his ship and those under his command had been really grating on me since Penance. The conclusion to his story this time, which saw him written out of the series, just capped off that disappointment.
If it hadn’t been for seeing him in command of the USS Stargazer, I think I could’ve let slide much of what Rios went through – although I would still have some questions. The culmination of his arc this time feels less like a natural decision for either him or Teresa to make and more like one driven by a writers’ room desperate to get rid of main cast members in anticipation of the return of The Next Generation characters in Season 3. Along with Dr Jurati, Rios drew the short straw.
Rios’ story was disappointing this season.
I said in my review of The Star Gazer that I’d be happy to see a spin-off following Captain Rios’ adventures, and had he stuck to the new characterisation that we saw back then, I would’ve absolutely been down for that. Unfortunately Rios’ departure now means that can’t happen – but after seeing the way he regressed as a character this season, I was already less keen on spending more time with him and less confident that he could carry a new series.
As with other narrative threads in Farewell, Rios’ departure was rushed. The episode dedicated less than two minutes of its runtime to Rios saying his goodbyes, and whatever decisions or discussions he’d had with Teresa appear to have happened entirely off-screen. Did Rios, for example, offer to take Teresa and Ricardo to the 25th Century? Did he consider the consequences of staying – both for the timeline and for himself? I mean… World War III is literally right around the corner (in Star Trek, not in the real world… I hope), and the first three-quarters of the 21st Century is arguably one of the worst and most difficult parts of Earth’s entire history in the Star Trek timeline. I know that Rios stayed “because he was in love,” but even so… couldn’t he have thought of something else? Maybe he skipped history class.
Rios chose to stay with Teresa and Ricardo.
As the culmination of a season-long arc, one that took Rios away from much of the rest of the action and that marks his final end as a Star Trek character, the send-off Rios got was poor. So much more could have been made of this moment – but at the same time, with Rios having been so disconnected from almost everyone else all season long, it’s perversely fitting that his goodbye was brief and to the point. Despite what he said in an earlier episode about viewing Picard as a “father figure,” and the words they shared as he prepared to remain behind, I never felt that Rios and Picard were especially close. They were acquaintances; business colleagues. Work friends but not real friends.
One of the things that I wanted from Picard, going all the way back to the show’s initial announcement, was to meet some new characters and spend time with them. Obviously in a series with a clear protagonist there’s going to be a limit on the number of characters that can be included and how much detail their story arcs can receive, but there was so much potential in someone like Rios. It was never mentioned in a big way, but Rios is only one of a handful of Hispanic characters to have appeared in a big way in Star Trek, and the first major Hispanic character to be given the rank of captain and to command a starship. There was so much scope to do more with Captain Rios, and I guess I’m just disappointed that a character with potential – perhaps even spin-off potential – was sidelined, regressed, and kind of wasted in this mad rush to bring back The Next Generation characters in Season 3.
So long, Captain Rios…
Another character who fell victim to this need to trim the main cast was Dr Jurati, but in her case at least she seems to have had more of a substantial arc this season. Although I would be remiss not to point out that in both seasons of the show Dr Jurati ended up causing massive, catastrophic problems for Picard! She didn’t do so on purpose, of course, but it’s interesting to see that the writers chose to follow up her murder of Bruce Maddox by transforming her into the new Borg Queen!
It was obvious, of course, by the time Picard and the crew returned to the bridge of the USS Stargazer that Dr Jurati would be the face behind the mask, and so it proved. I was a little surprised that Farewell seemed to treat this as some kind of big revelation; I can’t imagine that even the most casual and uninterested of viewers wouldn’t have been able to put two and two together long before Picard set up Dr Jurati’s unmasking.
The Borg Queen unmasked.
As above, Dr Jurati was a character with potential. She was also someone who felt closer to Picard in terms of friendship than Captain Rios, and there was certainly scope to see her continue in her un-assimilated role in future stories. Unlike with Rios, though, there’s definitely a substantial season-long arc for Dr Jurati that worked well enough. She felt lonely and isolated, never being able to hold down a relationship or partnership, and through a strange marriage with the Borg Queen ended up with hundreds, thousands, or perhaps even millions of friends. She also got the chance to become partially synthetic – which I have to assume she would approve of based on what we saw of her last time.
Since we’re dealing with the Borg, the reason for their appearance at the beginning of the season was paid off. The sudden appearance of an unexplained anomaly that threatened the quadrant meant that the Borg wished to team up with the Federation to save lives, and generally I liked this angle and I think there’s potential in it. My initial thought was that it could be connected to the Season 1 super-synths, but again that’ll be something to discuss in a future theory article.
What is this strange anomaly? And crucially… will we revisit it next time?
My concern on this side of the story stems from the fact that we know that Alison Pill, who plays Dr Jurati and the new Borg Queen, doesn’t seem to be returning for Season 3. If the Borg chose to remain at the anomaly as a “guardian at the gate,” as Borg-Jurati put it, that seems to imply we won’t have anything to do with her next time around – and thus we may not be revisiting this anomaly. I certainly hope that won’t be the case, because if we don’t get back here it will seriously jeopardise this season’s entire story by making it feel meaningless. Thirty seconds of screen time for a weird anomaly that one character believed could be damaging doesn’t really justify an entire season wandering in the past, nor the loss of two (or three) major characters.
The question of what the Borg wanted loomed large over the entire season, even while Picard and the crew scrambled to save the future from their base in 2024. Now that we have an answer to that question – they wanted help to stop the anomaly from harming the Alpha Quadrant – we need to go deeper. There needs to be some greater story arc that can tie into the closing moments of Season 2, even if it isn’t the main storyline of Season 3.
The Borg vessel and the strange anomaly.
One thing that Farewell didn’t have time to explain was the relationship between the Jurati-led Borg and the Borg Collective that we’ve seen elsewhere in Star Trek. Is the Jurati-Borg faction separate from the Borg or did they somehow replace the rest of the Collective? Are there now two distinct Borg Collectives? It seems like there must be – because everyone involved seems to believe that the prime timeline has been restored, and that couldn’t have happened if the Jurati-Queen took over the entire Borg Collective. Events like the Battle of Wolf 359 and the attempted assimilation of Earth in First Contact wouldn’t have happened – or would have been changed entirely – if the Jurati-Queen was leading the whole Collective. But this is something that should’ve been given more of an explanation – and it’s indicative of the fact that Farewell was overstuffed with story threads.
The season also ended without detailing in any way how the Confederation were able to defeat the Borg using 25th Century technology. While this may not have been important for wrapping up the stories that were in play, it was a pretty big point earlier in the season. There was the potential for something that the Confederation had developed to come into play, even at this late stage, and although I’d pretty much given up on learning anything more about the Confederation several weeks ago, the way the season ended now leaves the entire Confederation timeline feeling like one massive contrivance.
The Borg Queen-Dr Jurati hybrid.
The Confederation timeline existed as a spur for other storylines, and if we had never seen it and only heard about it in passing, maybe that would be fine. But for those of us invested in the Star Trek universe, creating an entirely new setting, populating it with characters, and telling us that those characters did something as monumental as defeating the Borg, only to leave all of the hows and wherefores unexplained is disappointing. With no return to the Confederation timeline on the agenda – and the question of whether it still exists in any form in serious doubt – it feels like it served the story but in an unrealistic way.
Presumably Adam Soong had to survive because with Kore taking off with Wesley and the Travelers, there needs to be some way for his family line to continue in order to reach Data’s creator and the other Soongs we’ve met. Villains don’t need to be killed off in order for their defeats to feel satisfying, and seeing Adam Soong realise that he’d been beaten was a well-done sequence overall. I also appreciated the Khan reference – and the date-stamp.
Is this merely an Easter egg… or could it be a tease of something yet to come?
Star Trek’s internal timeline can feel inconsistent if you go all the way back to The Original Series and watch episodes that reference events in the late 20th or early 21st Centuries. I’ve always assumed that Star Trek and the real world diverged sometime around the 1960s, and the reference to “Project Khan” being in 1996 ties in with what we know from Space Seed and The Wrath of Khan about legendary villain Khan’s origins. I’m glad that Star Trek isn’t trying to overwrite any of this – and it makes me wonder if there may yet be a reprieve for the proposed Ceti Alpha V miniseries! At the very least, Adam Soong looking up “Project Khan” seems to imply that he’ll be returning to his work on genetic engineering – tying in with the appearance of another Dr Soong in Enterprise.
As a character who we’ve only just started getting to know and who has great potential, I’m glad that Elnor survived the season and I look forward to his continued participation in Picard – and hopefully in future Star Trek productions as well. However… his survival renders one of the best and most emotional moments from last week completely impotent, and I’m left wondering why Hide and Seek even bothered to include it.
Elnor’s survival makes one of last week’s biggest emotional moments entirely irrelevant.
One of the things driving Raffi all season has been Elnor’s death – and after speaking with a holographic recreation last week in one of the season’s best and most powerful emotional sequences, she seemed ready to come to terms with it and let go of the guilt she’d been feeling. That was one of the highlights of last week’s episode, and a significant moment that seemed to signal that the shocking decision to kill off Elnor in Assimilation would indeed be permanent.
However, that moment now feels like wasted time, even more so considering that several of the storylines present in Farewell could’ve used a few extra minutes. Had holo-Elnor’s role been cut from Hide and Seek, replaced with literally anyone else to fill the “combat hologram” role, the wasted moment with Raffi and the now-gratuitous sequences that seemed to be bidding goodbye to the character could’ve been reallocated to other, more pressing stories. Seeing how Raffi dealt with Elnor’s death earlier in the season isn’t undermined by his survival – but the scene in which she came to terms with it absolutely is. As deeply emotional as that moment was, it now feels like a total waste.
Raffi was relieved to see Elnor again.
Perhaps this is my dislike of the 21st Century storylines showing, but I never really felt all that invested in Renée and the Europa Mission. For the supposedly-most important event in the show that our characters had to protect, the Europa Mission and Renée herself had been absent for several episodes as the season’s story continued its slow plod to this rushed conclusion. I wasn’t mad that the rocket launch was raced past to allow Farewell to get to other storylines… but it wasn’t exactly a spectacular ending for what has been the driving force in the story of the season since the third episode.
There were some moments of tension as Adam Soong’s drones appeared to be in danger of blowing up Seven, Rios, and Raffi, and again when he’d managed to successfully infiltrate the Europa Mission launch. I stand by what I said a couple of weeks ago, by the way: that Adam Soong having been kicked out of the scientific community should be a pretty serious barrier to his involvement in something like the Europa Mission… but his status and finances are something that, once again, Picard Season 2 didn’t find time to go into any detail on.
How Adam Soong was able to buy his way into Europa Mission HQ wasn’t really explained.
This part of Farewell secured Renée’s mission – one which seems to have been beneficial for Earth itself and set humanity on a path that would eventually lead to first contact and the creation of the Federation. It was also an opportunity to kill off Tallinn – her death being the “price” for Renée’s survival rounds out her arc in a reasonable way.
I didn’t understand why Q believes that Tallinn always dies at this stage in “every” timeline; it seems to me that the only threat to Renée came about because of Q’s interference, and thus had Q not intervened there’d be no reason for Adam Soong or the Borg Queen to go after her or try to prevent the Europa Mission at all. So I guess I don’t get that line – it was included, perhaps, to make Tallinn’s sacrifice feel more justifiable, but it raises as many questions as it answers (if not more!)
Why does Tallinn die in “every” timeline?
This sets up a discussion about the nature of Q’s intervention. Although establishing a Jurati-Borg seems to have prevented some kind of cataclysm in the 25th Century, that isn’t why Q did it – at least, not based on what he told Picard in Farewell. This was all about Picard learning to come to terms with his past and his loss and because Q considered him a friend and a favourite.
But there are some pretty notable problems with this setup – and with Picard’s ultimate reaction to it. People died as a result of Q’s actions, and whether directly or indirectly he’s responsible for that. Q was able to wave away Tallinn’s death and resurrect Elnor – so from the point of view of main characters I guess he gets somewhat of a pass. But what about the dozen or more assimilated semi-Borg who died last week? They were human beings; people whose lives were cut short as a direct result of Q’s intervention. Picard was clearly willing to forgive Q for this extended Tapestry redux – but even if we assume that there are no timeline consequences from the loss of those individuals… they’re still people who died and who won’t be resurrected as a result of what Q did. The morality of it bugs me.
Q’s actions cost lives – and Picard seems okay with it.
So we’ve come to the purpose of the entire story: Q wanted to teach Picard to overcome the traumatic moment in his own past. He wanted Picard to learn to embrace the person that he is; to choose to become that person. That’s a familiar theme that we’ve seen from Q in the past, most notably in the episode Tapestry. In that story, Q gave Picard the opportunity to change mistakes in his past – but he did so in order to demonstrate to him that the mistakes are what made him the person he is. It’s not exactly the same story, because in this instance Picard had to embrace a dark and traumatic event that was beyond his control, and recognise that he can’t always save everybody. But it’s close – and I like that. It means that at least thematically, Q stayed true to his characterisation.
In terms of the wider lore of Star Trek, including the role of the Q Continuum in potential future productions, I wish we’d learned why Q was dying. Although Q wasn’t a main character for most of the season, his impending death spurred him on and served as the main motivation for why he was intervening in Picard’s life at this moment – and for that to end without being explained, and without Picard so much as offering to help, feels a bit hollow.
Q’s final snap.
However, on the flip side there’s something very relatable – and dare I say very human – about not knowing what’s happening and finding no explanation for it. Speaking as someone with health conditions, I can relate to what Q has been going through. Knowing that things will only get worse, losing abilities that you’d once taken for granted, and being acutely aware that – as Picard once put it – “there are fewer days ahead than there are behind,” these are all very understandable feelings, and the idea that Q took inspiration from his own failing health to use his remaining time to help someone who he has always considered to be a friend… there’s something sweet about that.
From an in-universe point of view, Q has always been a wildcard. The schemes and puzzles that he concocts can seem incredibly random, but they usually have a point. Riker was given the powers of the Q as a test, Picard was given just enough information to solve the Farpoint mystery, Q helped Picard move through three different time periods to solve the anti-time eruption, and so on. In this case, the point Q wanted to make was served by the actions that he took… but in a very disconnected way. While we eventually got to Q’s point – that Picard needed to let go of his trauma, embrace who he is, and learn to love – it took a very long time through a very jumbled sequence of events. And unlike in stories such as Tapestry, Q’s actions this time had a significant impact on other people.
Q did it all for Picard.
Whatever we may think of the new Jurati-Borg Queen hybrid, would that have been a destiny that Dr Jurati would have chosen for herself? Was it where she needed to end up, or could she have led a perfectly happy life as a 25th Century human? Q stripped that choice from her, and Picard seems content to roll with it. While Renée did ultimately make it onto her spacecraft, Q screwed with her mental health in a major way, sabotaging her therapy and doing what he could to undermine her. Q’s actions directly led to Tallinn’s death, as well as the deaths of a dozen or more humans that had been partially-assimilated. Q also stranded Rios in the 21st Century – and again, while Rios was happy enough to make that choice, he could have also lived a happy life in the 25th Century had Q not interfered.
In short, other Q stories across Star Trek haven’t been so destructive. If there was a bigger purpose – such as the Jurati-Borg stopping some galactic catastrophe – and that was Q’s main objective, perhaps we could overlook it. The scale would be tipped in such a way that, to quote Spock, “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” But Q did it all for Picard’s sake – so the needs of the many were, in Q’s view, outweighed by the needs of the one.
Picard with Q.
Maybe that makes sense to Q, but is Picard okay with it? He seems to be fine with learning that Q did all of this, made all of these changes for his sake and his alone – and I’m not sure I buy it. Maybe Q is right – maybe Tallinn always dies in every conceivable timeline. But does Dr Jurati always become a Borg? Does Rios always quit Starfleet to live through World War III? Do all of those paramilitary people die in 2024? Q might be fine with changing people’s lives, but I’m struggling to accept that Picard would be, especially if he knows that Q was doing it all for his sake.
It also raises another question: was there really no other way for Picard to process his trauma? Did it truly require establishing the Confederation timeline, killing all those people, and spending all that time stranded in the 21st Century? Couldn’t Q have just… got Picard into therapy? Or given him those dreams of his mother in the 25th Century?
Picard prepares to embrace Q.
These points may seem nitpicky, but this is the foundation of the story. Everything Picard and the others have been through over the past ten episodes hinges on this explanation. Q set all of this up because Picard couldn’t let go of a trauma he’s been carrying since childhood, and Q felt that trauma was holding him back and preventing him from learning to love and being happy. And because of that, Q decided that the best way to get through to Picard and get him to work through his mental health issues was by changing centuries’ worth of history and forcing Picard to travel back in time.
In a way, it’s a very “Q” thing. But at the same time, where past Q stories have felt at least vaguely connected to the goals he had, this one requires more than a few leaps to get from point A to point B. Maybe you can suspend your disbelief, get lost in this presentation of Q, and happily accept this explanation. For me… I’m struggling a little.
Q’s plot feels quite convoluted this time around.
However, that isn’t to detract from a wonderfully emotional sequence between Q and Picard. Recognising what Q had done and understanding why he did it, Picard found himself willing to embrace the friendship that Q had been offering him for decades. Picard was able to set aside the animosity he had for Q – allowing Q to spend what appear to be his final moments with a friend. As Picard said, he won’t die alone.
Does that make the whole story worthwhile? It was definitely a beautiful sequence, and after clashes, conflicts, and an ongoing “trial,” it was nice to see Picard and Q reconcile as Q reached the end of his life. Themes of love, of letting go, and of acceptance were weaved through these moments, and while we didn’t get an explanation for everything – including why Q is dying and what may have become of other members of his species – it was satisfying enough as we bid what seems to be a final farewell to a character who was first introduced in the very first episode of The Next Generation.
Picard meets with Q for the final time.
Q giving what remained of his life force or energy to send Picard home was likewise a sweet moment; a final act of kindness that, while it arguably doesn’t redeem Q for everything he’s done, went some way to making his final moments positive, and showed that he has perhaps learned a thing or two from Picard along the way. I did enjoy Q’s line that Picard was his “favourite,” along with the implication that, of all the many beings that Q must’ve met over his many years of life, Picard was someone special to him – special enough to spend his final moments with.
I wonder if in a future Star Trek story – perhaps even in Season 3 – we’ll learn what became of Q and why he was dying. As I said above, for the purposes of this story the exact reason (which would likely have been technobabble) doesn’t matter in a narrative sense, but as Trekkies, I think we have a curiosity about the world of Star Trek and a desire to know these things! I would certainly be interested to know why, after seeming to have been alive for billions of years, Q suddenly found himself dying.
An emotional farewell.
That only leaves us with Seven of Nine to talk about – and her field commission as a Starfleet captain that she seemed to receive during the Borg mission. Seven has been one of my favourite characters in both seasons of Picard; the growth and development that she’s received has completely changed my opinion of someone who was once my least-favourite character from Voyager. After seeing how she’d become much more human, how she’d come to terms with the loss of Icheb (something I’m surprised wasn’t mentioned to Raffi as part of the Elnor story, I must say), this season she got to reconcile her history with both the Borg and Starfleet.
Consider where Seven was at the beginning of the season. Like Michael Burnham in Discovery’s premiere episode, Seven wanted to shoot first the moment the Borg emerged. The idea of listening to anything they might have to say was unfathomable to her. Yet by the season finale, after what she went through with Dr Jurati, she was willing not only to listen, but to follow the Borg’s lead. She put her trust in the Borg, overcoming decades’ worth of hostility that she’d been holding onto.
Seven of Nine in the captain’s chair.
Could we see more from Seven in future? The idea of her and Raffi having their own adventures – either within Starfleet or outside of it – is an enticing one, but I guess we’ll have to see what Season 3 has in store for them first. With potentially three departures from the main cast, there’s room for Seven of Nine to stay on board, particularly if the story of Season 3 continues to involve the Borg. At the same time, though, unlike the new characters who won’t be returning, Seven’s arc across both seasons of the show leaves her in a pretty good place. If this is going to be her swansong, she ends the series in a strong position.
Having had a run-in with Q in the Voyager Season 7 episode Q2, it was a shame that Farewell didn’t see Seven and Q say so much as a single word to each other, and again this is the consequence of a season finale that was left with a lot of work to do to wrap everything up. It wasn’t essential, but it would’ve been nice to at least acknowledge that they’d met each other before racing ahead with the rest of the plot.
Seven of Nine and Raffi.
So that was Farewell. It was the best episode since the season premiere, but that’s damning with faint praise. We’ll have to take a broader look at Season 2 as a whole in the days or weeks ahead, because I have to say that, despite an outstanding premiere and a solid final half-episode, this meandering stroll through the 21st Century was far from my favourite season of Star Trek.
Taken on its own merits, though, Farewell tied together as many of the narrative threads as it could. There weren’t huge gaping holes left behind, but a number of story beats weren’t as well-developed as they could’ve been, and the slow, plodding pace of much of the rest of the season meant that we arrived at this point with the season finale having to do a lot of heavy lifting to get across the finish line. Farwell did what it could in the confines of its runtime, but realistically, much of the damage had already been done and there was a limit on how much a single episode could do to redeem an underwhelming season.
The USS Stargazer.
There were some genuinely heartwarming moments along the way. Wesley Crusher’s surprise appearance (which thankfully wasn’t spoiled in advance) may actually be the highlight for me, and I enjoyed seeing Seven of Nine step up to work with the Borg after returning to the 25th Century as well. Picard and Q’s reconciliation feels incredibly sweet – but it isn’t a storyline free from questions. As the season’s main driving force, it ended in a way that left some points feeling unexplained or underdeveloped, and despite the emotional highs, that taints things a little for me.
Where Picard Season 1 was generally a fun ride that was spoiled by an underwhelming ending, Season 2 has been an underwhelming and occasionally frustrating story that somehow managed to pull out a passable ending. Farewell didn’t hit the same high notes as The Star Gazer had ten weeks ago, but by the time Picard and the crew were back home, it came close. If the second half of the episode had been given more time and was stretched out over forty-five minutes instead of twenty-five, perhaps we’d be able to consider it a bit more favourably.
So that’s it for now. I won’t be publishing any reviews or theories for Strange New Worlds over the next few weeks, because unfortunately the series is “officially” unavailable here in the UK. But stay tuned for more Star Trek content here on the website, including the conclusion of my Picard Season 2 theories, some initial thoughts about Season 3, and eventually a proper retrospective-review of Season 2 as a whole. Until next time!
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.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-2 and casting information for Season 3. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: Discovery, Enterprise, Voyager, First Contact, and The Next Generation.
After taking a rather meandering route to get there, Hide and Seek wrapped up one of Picard Season 2’s main storylines – that of Dr Jurati and the Borg Queen in the 21st Century. I’m still fully expecting an epilogue or coda to that story, though, so perhaps it wasn’t quite as conclusive as it appeared to be.
With that in mind, the season finale has a lot of heavy lifting to do if we’re to see all of the main narrative elements from Season 2 brought to a satisfactory conclusion. Even to conclude a simple majority of the remaining storylines and arcs feels like a pretty big ask, and while I’m sure we’ll be in for a feature-length extended episode to round out the season, I’m at least a little anxious as I look ahead. The possibility exists, though, that Season 3 will pick up any loose ends left behind – so there’s hope in that regard.
Pew! Pew!
This week the theory list has been trimmed quite significantly! In addition to one theory that’s been confirmed (or at least “close enough” to count as confirmed), we have one that’s been outright debunked. Then there are six theories that I’m choosing to retire! While not entirely “debunked” by anything that we saw on screen in Hide and Seek, with just one episode remaining the season’s story has clearly gone in a different direction making those theories feel impossible at this juncture.
So let’s get started, shall we? As always, we’ll take a look at the theories leaving the list first of all.
Debunked theory: Q and Picard will team up to stop the Borg Queen.
Q with Picard in Penance.
I have to confess that I rather liked this idea! Though I always caveat all of my theories by warning “don’t get too attached,” I was quite taken by the idea that something Q had started as a test or trial ended up going so far off the rails that he’d have no choice but to work with Picard in order to resolve it. In this case, I wondered whether the Borg Queen being on the loose on Earth in the 21st Century might’ve been so far outside of Q’s plans that, somehow, he and Picard would end up working together.
This theory felt like it could’ve brought together the main story threads: the Borg Queen assimilating Dr Jurati, Picard and the crew needing allies to defend La Sirena, and Q’s declining powers meaning that he couldn’t just snap his fingers and undo it all. There was scope, perhaps, for a more weak and vulnerable presentation of Q; for Picard and Q to need one another’s help equally. There was also the potential to show off Q’s knowledge of the Borg – and maybe even tie in some kind of Borg attack on the Q Continuum into the story to explain what’s happened to Q.
La Sirena’s crash site.
As it turned out, Q was entirely absent from Hide and Seek. Though his influence looms large over the season’s story, we haven’t actually spent that much time with him so far. His biggest role to date came in Penance – and that’s also the last time he had a run-in with Picard. We’ve seen Q deal with Dr Soong and Guinan in subsequent episodes, but I can’t be the only one longing to get Q and Picard back together – even if it isn’t for a team-up!
Of all the theories I’ve concocted about Season 2, this is probably the one I liked best. It seemed to be a genuinely good fit based on what we knew about the story at the end of Mercy, and had the season’s endgame been planned out differently, I think it could’ve worked really well. There’s still time for Q and Picard to reunite, and spend time together in a less-adversarial way… and it’s even possible, I suppose, that we could see Q return in Season 3. I’ve always felt that there’d be something poetic about Q bookending Picard’s story – he appeared in Encounter at Farpoint, so maybe he’ll appear in whichever episode marks Picard’s final end as a Star Trek character.
So that theory was debunked.
Next, we have six theories that I’m choosing to retire from the list. They now seem impossible based on where Hide and Seek ended.
Retired theory #1: The USS Stargazer will make an appearance.
Picard on the bridge of the USS Stargazer in The Next Generation Season 1 episode The Battle.
For a long time – too long, perhaps – I’d been hanging onto the idea that the mission to the 21st Century wouldn’t be all that Season 2 had to offer, and with time travel on the agenda I wondered if we might visit other eras or other moments from Picard’s past. When a brand-new USS Stargazer debuted at the start of the season, that felt like it could’ve been a hint; why bring it up otherwise, right? It also seemed possible, as Picard wrangled with past traumas, that something from his time in command of the Stargazer might’ve come up. As I mentioned in my review of Hide and Seek, the death of Jack Crusher (husband to Beverly and father to Wesley) was one significant event that was mentioned in The Next Generation but never expanded upon. I always inferred that Picard felt responsible for Jack’s death; there was scope, perhaps, to learn why.
With one episode remaining, this now seems impossible – at least in Season 2. If we get back to a ship named Stargazer before the credits roll, it’ll surely be the new vessel that Captain Rios commanded in the season premiere!
Retired theory #2: Seven of Nine will choose to remain in 2024.
Seven of Nine has been re-Borgified.
When Seven of Nine found herself in the Confederation timeline, she caught a glimpse of a life she’d never known and saw what it might’ve been like had she never been assimilated by the Borg. After arriving in 2024, it was clear that she was thoroughly enjoying the sense of freedom that not having any Borg implants gave her. I had speculated that, when faced with the prospect of returning to the prime timeline and her old body, Seven might choose not to.
That concept was shot down by Hide and Seek, as Seven was saved by the Borg Queen in a way that restored her implants. The technobabble side of how this worked and why she ended up looking exactly the same as before is something that the episode could’ve dedicated an extra couple of minutes to, but overall this side of the story worked well enough. Although the metaphor was perhaps buried a little deep, the idea of learning to accept oneself and one’s appearance is a good one. It’s also a story well-suited to the franchise, and one that was told in a very “Star Trek” way.
Retired theory #3: Picard and the crew will have to trigger World War III to save the future.
World War III saw the use of nuclear weapons.
This is one of the longest-running theories on the list! I came up with it months ago, when the concept of time travel to the 21st Century was first teased in one of the pre-season trailers. Even as the Europa Mission and other elements came into play I clung onto it – perhaps for a little too long, in retrospect. There’s been no mention of World War III all season, aside from a couple of very oblique references to the “years leading up to first contact,” so it had felt ever more like a long-shot.
With the Borg Queen having warped away to parts unknown, and World War III not being in any way part of Q’s plan, it now seems certain that triggering the conflict won’t be part of how Picard and the crew restore the timeline.
I stand by what I said when I first posited this theory, though: it would have been one heck of a moral dilemma.
Retired theory #4: Picard and/or the Federation will use information from the Confederation timeline to defeat the Borg.
The Magistrate – a senior Confederation official.
It seems increasingly likely that we’ll never learn how the Confederation was able to beat the Borg, nor what technological tricks or weapons they may have developed during their conquest of the Collective. I feel a pang of disappointment about that; it was perhaps the one thing from the Confederation timeline that I could’ve happily spent an episode exploring.
Now that the Borg Queen has taken La Sirena – complete with all of its Confederation technology and databanks – there’s no way for Picard and the crew to use anything that the Confederation developed to fight the Borg. And if, as Dr Jurati hopes, the Borg will be convinced to take a different path, there may not be a need to go to war with them in the first place. For those reasons I’m retiring this theory – but with the caveat that if the Borg somehow return as major antagonists in Season 3, I may reprise it!
Retired theory #5: Dr Adam Soong will create the Borg.
Dr Adam Soong.
I thought an interesting twist on the Borg side of the story could’ve come either from Q or the Borg Queen working with Dr Adam Soong to create the Borg. Although Dr Soong seems to have assisted the Borg Queen by giving her access to resources and a squad of soldiers, the story ultimately went in a very different direction.
Knowing that one of Data’s ancestors had a role in creating the Borg – one of the biggest threats that the Federation has ever faced – could’ve been a story worth exploring, and had it been handled well there was the potential to inform not only Borg stories, but also the characterisations of Data, Soji, and the whole Soong family.
Retired theory #6: The Federation created the Borg.
The first Borg drone ever seen in Star Trek.
As above, there’d be a delicious irony to learning that the Federation – and perhaps even Picard, inadvertently – had created their own worst nightmare in the Borg Collective. I even wondered if the story taking this route might’ve explained why Discovery Season 2 abruptly abandoned a story with the Control AI that could likewise have been a Borg origin story. However, it didn’t come to pass on this occasion.
The early history of the Borg could absolutely be worth exploring, and despite the fact that the Borg definitely began to feel stale and overused by the latter part of Voyager’s run, the faction still has more to contribute to Star Trek in the future – I’m certain of that. In addition to a story that could explore the Borg’s origins (regardless of whether or not there’s a Federation connection), I’ve also proposed a “Borg Invasion” concept for a Star Trek series, and I think something like that could work exceptionally well as a sci-fi-action-horror hybrid.
On this occasion, though, despite input from Dr Jurati to this incarnation of the Borg Queen, and despite this story taking place in the past, we didn’t get that elusive Borg origin story!
So those theories have been retired.
There was one confirmation this week – or at least a theory that I got “close enough” with that I’m going to call it confirmed. I can do that – it’s my list!
Confirmed theory: The Borg Queen departed aboard La Sirena, leaving Picard and the crew in the past.
The Borg Queen-Dr Jurati hybrid.
So the Borg Queen didn’t ultimately steal La Sirena as I’d proposed in my initial formulation of this theory! But I did correctly predict that the Borg Queen would successfully gain possession of the ship, and that she’d leave Picard and the rest of the crew stranded in 2024. We saw that play out in Hide and Seek thanks to the deal struck between Dr Jurati, the Borg Queen, Raffi, and Seven of Nine.
As I said in my review, I would’ve liked this sequence to have been expanded. I could’ve happily enjoyed an entire episode just on the negotiation, discussing and debating with the Borg Queen how changing her entire philosophy and guiding principles could be the solution she’s been missing. I would’ve also loved to see Picard himself included on this side of the story.
The Borg Queen took La Sirena and left Earth.
Despite those shortcomings, though, what we did get to see was outstanding, and everyone involved deserves a lot of credit for the way they handled this sequence. The concepts here are genuinely interesting, and the idea of a Borg Collective – or a Borg faction – that implements this new guiding principle could be worth exploring. If Picard picks up this story, I hope we get to see it for longer than just a single episode!
The way the Borg Queen departed raises a lot of questions, though. Setting aside the obvious ones like “will she actually keep her word,” we come to more immediate concerns for Picard and the crew. How will they make it home? Can they even make it home? Will someone need to rescue them? Read on, because I have a few ideas on that front…
So that theory was confirmed!
Now we’ll jump into the main theory list, beginning as always with theories that are either new or saw significant movement in Hide and Seek this week. Several of these theories are, I freely admit, looking less and less likely to pan out. But others feel quite plausible as we head into the season finale, and when the story is so unpredictable… who knows what could happen?
Theory #1: There will be a Borg civil war between a faction inspired by the Borg Queen-Dr Jurati hybrid and the rest of the Collective.
Could the Borg be fighting amongst themselves?
How do we connect the events that have just unfolded back to what we saw at the beginning of the season? In The Star Gazer, the Borg sent a message asking for Picard and the Federation to help them. If their message was genuine it suggests that the Borg who sent the message are in danger or under threat. One possibility is that the Borg are fighting a losing war against an external power – and that’s something we’ll consider momentarily. But another possibility, in light of what transpired this week, is that there’s a Borg civil war.
Dr Jurati (and the others) appear to have convinced the Borg Queen to entirely change her philosophy and guiding principles, and this could lead to the creation of a radically different Borg Collective. If the Jurati-Queen hybrid contacts the Borg Collective and tries to get them to join her, there’s a distinct possibility that some or all of them won’t. It might be possible to create a new Borg Collective, but even in the 21st or 22nd Centuries the existing Collective would be difficult to sway. Furthermore, the Borg Collective that already exists may see the Jurati-Queen hybrid as a threat, or may simply want to conquer and assimilate the faction. There are several routes to the same end point: a war between different factions of Borg.
The anomaly encountered in The Star Gazer was said to have some kind of “temporal” signature – so this could be a conflict that took place in the 21st or 22nd Century, almost directly after the Jurati-Queen left Earth.
Theory #2: Some or all of the main characters from The Next Generation will rescue Picard from 2024.
Acting Captain Riker to the rescue?
How will Picard and the crew make it home? That’s one of the biggest questions I have as we go into the season finale! One way to get Picard and the others home safely would be for someone from The Next Generation – or possibly everyone – to show up at the last minute to rescue Picard. Perhaps Picard was able to leave a message or clue hidden somewhere for them to find, so they’d know where and when to pick him up.
With Season 3 bringing back The Next Generation characters, I’m half-expecting to see some or all of them included toward the end of the Season 2 finale to set up the next chapter of the story. This could be a fun and exciting way to do it. It would also be quite a symmetrical ending to the season, as Acting Captain Riker (and his copy-paste fleet) saved the day in the Season 1 finale, too!
Theory #3: The “two Renées” comment refers to Picard’s nephew.
Could the Borg Queen be talking about this chap?
The character above is René Picard – not to be confused with Renée Picard! René was Picard’s nephew, the son of his brother Robert. In Generations, Picard learned that his brother and nephew had died in a fire at the vineyard, leaving him the sole surviving member of his family. Family became more important to Picard thereafter, and it seems like it was Robert and René’s deaths that led Picard to choose his family home for his self-imposed exile after the events of Children of Mars.
My theory is that the cryptic comment that the Jurati-Queen made about there being “two Renées” in Picard’s life actually refers not to Renée the astronaut somehow being cloned or copied or sent to an alternate reality, but simply to the existence of young René, Picard’s nephew, and the influence he had on his life.
Theory #4: Rios will choose to stay with Teresa and Ricardo in 2024.
Rios with Teresa in Hide and Seek.
As Teresa and Rios have progressed their romance, I think that now opens up the very real possibility that Rios might choose to remain behind in 2024 when Picard’s mission is complete. Some people are willing to make big sacrifices for the people that they love, and if Rios truly loves Teresa, maybe he’d be willing to abandon the 25th Century to stay with her – helping to build that future from his position in the past.
In Hide and Seek, Rios seemed to be seconds away from saying “I love you” to Teresa, and for her part she was pushing him to stay with her. I haven’t been enjoying Rios’ story this season for the most part, and the “love story” angle is a bit of a cliché, unfortunately. But in light of the decision to bring back the main cast of The Next Generation in Season 3, we’ve already seen Picard make efforts to slim down its cast and shuffle off main characters like Elnor and Dr Jurati. Rios could be next – and if he survives the season finale, he may choose not to head back to the 25th Century.
Theory #5: An alternate reality is about to be created.
“An alternate reality?”
With the Borg Collective potentially being pacified and a cryptic message about “two Renées,” I wonder if we might be on the cusp of a permanent divergence in the timeline. One path may lead to the Confederation timeline, the other to the prime timeline – and both may be able to coexist in much the same way as the prime timeline coexists with the Kelvin timeline.
As far as we know based on what Q told Picard in Penance, the Confederation timeline replaced the prime timeline. That seems to have come about by the sabotage or failure of the Europa Mission combined with Dr Soong’s inventions that saved the Earth from an ecological collapse – but is it possible that things aren’t what they seem? Could Q have lied, for example, about the Confederation timeline? Or could something that Picard and the crew are about to do end up creating another alternate reality?
If so, I hope it’ll be possible to revisit the Confederation timeline in future. Though it was very similar in many respects to the Mirror Universe, there were some differences. Having only spent a single episode in that setting, and with tantalising details like the Confederation’s defeat of the Borg remaining unexplained, there’s scope to go back and learn more about this very different timeline.
Theory #6: The loose ends from Season 1 will be tied up.
Initiates of the Zhat Vash on the planet Aia.
With only one episode left in which to conclude all of Season 2’s storylines, it feels less and less likely that we’ll get closure on all of the points that Season 1’s rushed finale left on the table. However, there’s still a glimmer of hope that we might get some inclusions, even if just by way of a line or two of dialogue.
Here are the main unresolved points as I see them:
What will become of the synths on Coppelius, and will they have to be relocated for safety?
Did Starfleet attempt to visit Aia and shut down the beacon at the centre of the Zhat Vash’s prophecy? Leaving it out in the open seems dangerous.
Will Starfleet contact the super-synths and attempt to make peace or convince them that they pose no threat?
Why did Bruce Maddox go to Freecloud?
The Artifact’s crash site on Coppelius.
With the Zhat Vash plot exposed, what will become of their crusade against synthetic life?
Did Federation-Romulan relations suffer as a result of the Zhat Vash’s attack on Mars and attempted attack on Coppelius?
What happened to Narek after he was captured by the Coppelius synths?
Who controls the Artifact and what will happen to the surviving ex-Borg?
Theory #7: Elnor will be restored to life when the crew make it back to the 25th Century.
Holo-Elnor in Hide and Seek.
After Raffi got a cathartic goodbye with holo-Elnor in Hide and Seek, I’m no longer convinced that this theory will pan out. If Elnor is alive again in the 25th Century, it would actually rob that emotional moment of much of its power. As above, with The Next Generation’s main characters returning in Season 3, it may turn out that Elnor was just another casualty of the need to make room for them.
However, as I said in my review of Hide and Seek, a big part of me hopes to see Elnor saved. Elnor’s story feels incomplete, and he’s a character that we never really had the chance to get to know all that well. Even in Season 1, his impact on the story was limited compared with other characters, and having just been given a new arc as a Starfleet cadet at the beginning of this season, there’s so much potential for him to develop into a wonderful Star Trek character. If the franchise is to survive in the longer-term it’ll need characters like Elnor to stick around.
Theory #8: The season will end on a cliffhanger.
I first propsed this theory before Season 2 had even premiered based in large part on the fact that Seasons 2 and 3 entered production back-to-back. However, as the season has worn on with many different story threads still in play, it’s seemed even more plausible to think that we won’t see everything neatly tied up by the time the credits roll. That feeling has been amplified by the events of Hide and Seek.
While Hide and Seek concluded the Dr Jurati-Borg Queen story – at least the parts set in the 21st Century – there’s still a heck of a lot left on the table. Even assuming that the season finale will be a feature-length outing, we still have to get through all of the stuff with Q, including finding out why he set Picard this puzzle and what may or may not be killing him, Teresa and Rios’ romance, Picard and Laris’ unresolved romance, the Europa Mission, stopping Dr Soong, explaining the whole “two Renées” thing, tying in recent events to Picard’s past and trauma, and connecting everything to the season premiere.
That might be too much to ask from a single episode – so some or all of it may be left open for Season 3 to pick up next year.
Theory #9: The masked, hooded figure from The Star Gazer is not the real Borg Queen.
The Borg Queen from the season premiere.
We can’t call this one “confirmed” just yet, but the assumption I’m sure a lot of folks have after the events of Mercy and Hide and Seek is that the masked, hooded Borg from the season premiere is, in fact, the Borg Queen-Dr Jurati hybrid. Even if the season ends on a cliffhanger, I would expect that this point will be clarified; it could even be the final scene of the season!
I had previously proposed other “Borg Queen” candidates, but unless there’s going to be some colossal twist in the story’s final act I think we can probably rule them out. Earlier in the season I suggested Admiral Janeway (from the Voyager finale), Renée Picard, and Soji as possibilities for this role – along with Dr Jurati.
So we’ll have to see what comes next. If Picard finds himself back on the bridge of the Stargazer, will the Borg Queen remove her mask?
Theory #10: Picard and the crew will “borrow” Renée’s Europa Mission spacecraft to get home.
Renée Picard.
Now that La Sirena is gone, Picard finds himself stranded – along with Seven, Raffi, and Rios – in 2024. It’s possible that Tallinn or Q could help them get home, but one way that they could do it independently would be to gain control of Renée Picard’s spacecraft. This could tie in with the “two Renées” comment that we’ve already discussed – perhaps with one version of Renée making it home and another being transported to the 25th Century.
Alternatively, this could tie into Picard’s comment earlier in the season that the details of Renée’s mission are lost to history. After making an important discovery, it seems that no one really knows what happened to Renée – so her disappearance from the 21st Century may not impact the history of the prime timeline at all.
If Picard and the crew could find a way to use Renée’s spacecraft to slingshot around the sun, just like they did with La Sirena earlier in the season, it could carry them home.
Theory #11: The Borg’s request for help from the Federation is genuine.
The USS Stargazer’s communications officer first received the garbled transmission.
If the Borg Queen-Dr Jurati hybrid stuck to her commitment and was successful at establishing a new Borg Collective, one with a fundamentally different guiding principle, then maybe that version of the Queen and Collective were genuinely asking for help. Whatever their problem may be, turning to Picard would make sense if the Borg Queen-Dr Jurati hybrid was in control.
This could also explain things like the Borg Queen stunning the Stargazer’s crew rather than killing them; preventing them from interfering but doing so in a non-lethal way. It could also explain what she was trying to accomplish by hacking into the Stargazer’s systems.
The Borg Queen’s mechanical tentacles hacked into the USS Stargazer.
The Borg Queen also seemed to accept what was about to happen in her final moments, playing Non, je ne regrette rien and speaking with familiarity to Picard, telling him to “look up.” If the Borg Queen’s plan was to reach Picard at just the right moment – perhaps to set off this whole time travel saga in the first place – that could explain why.
It does raise the very alarming question of what could possibly have the Borg running scared, though! As mentioned above it could be another Borg faction – the original Collective versus the upstarts. But it could also be someone else… maybe the Season 1 super-synths?
Theory #12: Q is not responsible for changing the timeline.
Q’s powers are failing.
Although Q was absent from Hide and Seek, we’ve seen enough from him earlier in the season to know that his powers are far more limited than we’ve ever seen before. That could mean that Q simply lacks the ability to make such a complete change to the timeline – even though he seems to have been scrambling around trying to do so.
This would certainly be a twist on the way we expect the remainder of the story to unfold! But with no explanation from Q so far as to why he might’ve wanted to change the entire timeline – save for an ambiguous comment to Guinan about “the escape” from traps being what matters – there’s definitely still scope to say that someone else intervened, and that Q was less involved that we’ve been led to believe all season long.
I have a longer article that goes into more detail about this theory that I wrote before the season premiere, and you can find it by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #13: Q shielded Picard and the crew of La Sirena from changes to the timeline.
Q in Mercy.
Regardless of who changed the timeline and why, it seems clear that Q is responsible for ensuring that Picard and the crew of La Sirena were the only ones unaffected by the change. If his goal was to change the timeline to punish Picard that makes sense – but it also leaves open the possibility that Picard will be able to figure out what happened and prevent it. That could be Q’s goal.
I’m not quite ready to call this one “confirmed,” though. I think we need to spend more time with Q to understand what he’s done, what he hopes to achieve by it, and why.
Theory #14: Who is responsible for damaging the timeline, then?
The Borg Queen-Dr Jurati hybrid.
Though I had proposed a number of suspects earlier in the season who could’ve potentially been responsible for setting up this whole time travel saga, at this stage it feels like there’s only one remaining realistic candidate: the Dr Jurati-Borg Queen hybrid. This would set up a kind of temporal paradox, but it could be one that has an escape hatch.
If the timeline splits and an alternate reality is created, perhaps the Borg Queen from that reality could be responsible for the attack on the USS Stargazer and for setting into motion the events of the season. The only thing she’d have to rely on Q to do would be to ensure that Picard, Dr Jurati, and the others would be aware that things had changed.
Theory #15: The Borg are fighting a war – and they’re losing.
Could the Borg be fighting a war against the super-synths?
As posited above, the creation of a Borg Queen-Dr Jurati hybrid, and the plans she had for establishing a new kind of Borg, could’ve led to a conflict with the rest of the Collective. That would be one potential explanation for why the Borg vessel in The Star Gazer was supposedly seeking help. Alternatively, however, the Borg could be fighting a war against someone else.
One way to connect the two seasons of the series would be for the Borg to be fighting against one of the antagonists from Season 1. The Zhat Vash could, perhaps, have taken the Romulans’ anti-synthetic crusade and targetted the Borg. Or the Borg could be facing off against the super-synths from the Season 1 finale. There are other options within Star Trek’s broader canon, of course, but it starts getting pretty speculative at that point!
Theory #16: Seven of Nine will join Starfleet.
Seven of Nine wearing a Starfleet uniform in the Voyager Season 7 episode Human Error.
Hide and Seek gave us some additional information about what happened to Seven of Nine in between Voyager and Picard. Apparently she applied to join Starfleet, but even with the backing of Captain Janeway, her application was denied. Seven believes that her Borg background is why the Federation rejected her, and that could explain some of her remarks in The Star Gazer about feeling uncomfortable and unwanted aboard a Starfleet vessel.
However, Hide and Seek also saw Raffi telling Seven that she would make an excellent Starfleet captain – so could that kind of role be in her future? If Seven survives the season (which it seems like she will after her brush with death this week), then maybe she’ll be permitted to join Starfleet at the second time of asking. She could even be assigned to serve under Admiral Picard’s command – potentially setting her up for a role next season. Or she could be given a ship of her own, perhaps with Raffi as a member of her crew. That could tee up an exciting spin-off series!
Theory #17: The Borg Collective was badly damaged in the Voyager episode Endgame and has been unable to recover.
Admiral Janeway and the Borg Queen.
This theory is certainly looking less and less likely. Aside from a single ambiguous reference to the Borg potentially being in a weakened state all the way back at the start of the season, there hasn’t been any mention of or reference to the events of Endgame all season long. Although Endgame was an important episode, the fact that it hasn’t been brought up could mean that it would feel like a bit of a bolt from the blue if a major revelation connected to this episode were to appear in the season finale. All that being said, this theory has been there in the background all season long and I’m not ready to drop it with just one episode remaining. There’s still time for a connection – even if the connection is smaller than I initially imagined it could be!
Endgame, the final episode of Voyager, depicted a time-travelling Admiral Janeway introducing a neurolytic pathogen – a type of virus – into the Borg Queen, seriously damaging her, her base of operations, and several Borg vessels in the vicinity. Because the Borg hadn’t been seen since – until The Star Gazer, that is – we never got to learn just how deadly Admiral Janeway’s actions were.
Admiral Janeway and Reg Barclay with a holographic Borg drone in Endgame.
I’ve always assumed that the Borg Collective is vast enough, powerful enough, clever enough, and most importantly adaptable enough that Admiral Janeway’s actions weren’t going to strike a fatal blow. Whatever damage she had done seemed like something the Borg could eventually fix – and their existence 25 years later during the events of The Star Gazer seems to prove that. The Borg’s technology and weapons are still streets ahead of anything Starfleet has at its disposal… but even so, it’s still possible that the Borg are on their last legs facing defeat.
If that’s the case, maybe we’ll discover that it was Admiral Janeway who’s responsible – that her actions in Endgame are either wholly or partly to blame for the Borg’s weakened state. Dr Jurati seemed to know that the Borg Collective isn’t as strong as it once was, so that could be another clue pointing to this theory.
So those theories are new or saw movement this week.
There are still several other big theories in play that Hide and Seek didn’t debunk, confirm, or advance in any significant way. To keep the theory list intact and all in one place, we can take a look at those now.
Theory #18: Kore Soong will team up with Picard and the crew of La Sirena.
Kore Soong.
I haven’t been thrilled with the depiction of Kore Soong so far. Her story feels like a bland repeat of Soji and Dahj’s from Season 1, and she appears to exist in Season 2 more for the purpose of informing us about Dr Adam Soong than to do anything meaningful in her own right. I’m hopeful that that will change, however!
Mercy saw Kore Soong take the antidote or cure for her genetic condition, granting her freedom from her father. She left Dr Soong’s house and struck out on her own for what seems to be the first time – and I wonder if she’ll either seek out Picard or if they’ll run into one another. Kore may know something about Dr Soong that could be useful to the crew of La Sirena… so watch this space. Her story may not be done yet.
Theory #19: The Q Continuum has been attacked.
Captain Janeway, Tuvok, Quinn, and Q in the Q Continuum.
Following Guinan’s chat with Q in Mercy, this theory feels a little less plausible. However, as we still don’t know what’s going on with Q, I’m keeping it on the table for now. Earlier in the season I felt increasingly sure that whatever had caused Q to lose his powers was something that wasn’t just affecting him personally, and there’s definitely been evidence to that end across the season so far – and beyond.
In Mercy, Guinan reminded us that members of the Q Continuum can kill one another, and that seemed like a very deliberate line to include. Was it just there to avoid nitpicking Trekkies saying “but what about the Q civil war in Voyager?!” or is there a hint there about something else? I don’t believe that the El-Aurians would be to blame if the Q Continuum has been attacked, but with the Borg in the story, they could certainly be a suspect.
Guinan and Q in Mercy.
In earlier episodes we had talk of a “cold war” between the Q and El-Aurians, a conflict that you’d imagine would be fantastically one-sided unless the El-Aurians know of some kind of weakness that the Q have. Then we had Guinan’s failed attempt to summon a Q – not the Q, but any Q. Q suggested that he basically had to walk from wherever he was to the FBI office because Guinan summoned him – but why didn’t another Q respond to the summons? Picard also suggested, after awakening from his coma, that Q may be weaker and more vulnerable than he had previously considered. And going back to Discovery Season 4, the episode The Examples told us that the Federation hadn’t seen any members of the Q Continuum in over 600 years as of the 32nd Century.
All of the pieces of evidence above could suggest that something is happening to the Q Continuum as a whole rather than just to Q himself. If the El-Aurians discovered a weakness, and then were assimilated by the Borg, perhaps the Borg came into possession of a way to harm the Q – attacking them and wiping them out.
In any case, if something that Picard did or didn’t do is connected to those events, that could explain why Q is so angry and why he felt the need to punish Picard. It could even explain Q’s desire to radically alter the timeline.
Theory #20: Q is angry with Picard for “giving up.”
Grumpy Q.
Over the course of The Next Generation, Q took a particular interest in Picard. More so than anyone else, Q seemed to see potential in Picard as a representative of the human race, someone who potentially showed him what humanity could be… with a little prompting and guidance. Q seemed fascinated by that idea, so seeing Picard’s fall from grace may have shocked him and left him feeling disappointed and bitter.
Picard spent more than a decade away from galactic affairs, retiring to his vineyard and seemingly just waiting around to die. Someone like Q might take that personally; he might feel that Picard was not living up to the potential he had. Perhaps Picard’s absence had some kind of unknown consequence, something that harmed Q or the Q Continuum. In any case, Q’s animosity to Picard seems to be personal – could disappointment at Picard’s attitude in the years prior to Season 1 be the cause?
Theory #21: At least one character from The Next Generation will make an appearance.
Picard with Dr Crusher in The Next Generation.
In a way, this theory was knocked off-course by the announcement a few weeks ago that Season 3 will be featuring the main characters from The Next Generation in a big way. I had wondered if Season 2 might’ve returned to Nepenthe to see Riker and Troi, for example, but for weeks that has felt very unlikely!
However, there are still ways that one or even all of these characters could be included. Above I suggested that they could rescue Picard from 2024, and that’s one possibility. It’s also possible that the final act of the season finale will begin the process of setting up the story of Season 3, in which case the final moments of the episode could see some or all of these characters return. Although time is running out, I’m keeping this one on the list as we head into the finale!
Theory #22: The Borg are aware that Picard is now a synth – and his synthetic status is part of the reason why they waited until now to make contact.
Picard awakened in a new synthetic body in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2.
The timing of the new Borg incursion is interesting, especially considering that they asked for Picard by name. Are they aware of his newfound synthetic status? And if so, could Picard’s transition to a new synthetic body be the reason why the Borg chose to launch their attack?
The Borg seek “perfection” through a synthesis of organic and synthetic components, and while Picard’s new synthetic body is a far cry from the Borg drones we’ve seen, the idea of an organic mind in a synthetic body isn’t a million miles away from that same basic idea. Although Picard’s body was said to be comparable in practically every way to his original one, synthetics can have enhanced abilities that allow them to easily overpower humans – and, as we’ve seen with Data on more than one occasion, they can outmatch individual Borg drones as well.
A Borg drone losing a fight against Data.
Perhaps the Borg want to re-assimilate Picard now that he’s synthetic. If the Collective is still reeling from the damage inflicted upon it by Admiral Janeway or if they’re on the losing side of a war, perhaps they hope to use fully-synthetic bodies like Picard’s to replace damaged or destroyed drones, or as cannon fodder on the front lines. There are many reasons why the Borg might be interested in synthetic technology, and that could explain their re-emergence.
Even if the Borg don’t plan to assimilate Picard or the Coppelius synths, the timing of their appearance is certainly interesting and there could be a connection.
Theory #23: The Borg ship from The Star Gazer crossed over from the Confederation timeline.
The Borg vessel identified as “Legion.”
As far as we know at this stage, the Confederation timeline replaced the prime timeline thanks to the past being changed. But timelines and parallel universes often go hand-in-hand in Star Trek, and after we learned about the Borg’s defeat in the Confederation timeline, I wonder if their ship from the season premiere might have found a way to punch through or cross over into the prime timeline.
If the Borg were facing defeat, as their message seemed to suggest, perhaps that could explain why. Also, the anomaly that the ship emerged from was not a typical transwarp conduit; we’d seen transwarp corridors as recently as Season 1. Finally, the Borg Queen of the Confederation timeline was aware of Picard and the history of the prime timeline. If the masked Borg Queen turns out to be the Dr Jurati hybrid, she would have known about the prime timeline and may have considered it her best chance for survival.
Theory #24: Rios will bring Teresa and Ricardo to the 25th Century.
Teresa and Rios at the clinic.
This is an inversion of the theory above about Rios potentially remaining in 2024. Rios has clearly abandoned the idea of making as little impact on the timeline as possible! Just like Kirk did for Dr Gillian Taylor in The Voyage Home, perhaps Rios will seek to bring Teresa and Ricardo forwards in time. Teresa may have her clinic to attend to – although its status is in doubt after it was raided by ICE earlier in the season – but she may want to leave the world of the 21st Century behind to head into a more optimistic future.
If Teresa and Rios continue to pursue a romantic relationship, and Rios begins to offer himself as a father figure to Ricardo, maybe the stage will be set for Teresa heading to the 25th Century. It wouldn’t be the weirdest or wildest possibility, especially not now that Teresa and Ricardo are both aware of Rios’ true identity and the existence of La Sirena.
Theory #25: Teresa and Ricardo are Rios’ ancestors.
Teresa with Rios in Mercy.
This could be a heartbreaking end to Rios and Teresa’s burgeoning romance! In true Back to the Future style, perhaps Rios will learn that Teresa and Ricardo are his distant ancestors, bringing their relationship to a screeching half and preventing either of them from taking things further.
We’ve seen Star Trek deal with time travel on many occasions, including fixed moments in time and people too important to be changed or killed. And in a story in which Picard has already met a distant ancestor of his own – Renée – there could be a kind of poetic symmetry if Rios were to discover a connection to Teresa and Ricardo. If this pans out, I hope Rios and Teresa discover the truth before they… y’know!
Theory #26: Rios will be killed and Picard will assume command of the new USS Stargazer.
Rios in the captain’s chair of the USS Stargazer.
One thing I can’t figure out at the moment is what sort of role the new cast will have in Season 3. If you somehow missed the cack-handed announcement, it’s been revealed that the main cast of The Next Generation (sans Wil Wheaton and Denise Crosby) will be reuniting in Season 3, and that they will have major roles to play. If that’s the case it seems all but certain that the main cast of Picard will be sidelined. We’ve already seen that happen this season with Elnor killed, Dr Jurati assimilated, and Soji missing in action, so that really only leaves Raffi, Seven, and Rios.
If the teases and hints about Season 3 that we’ve heard so far prove to be true, it seems as though Picard and the crew will need a ship… so could that ship be the new USS Stargazer?
New sets were built from scratch for the Stargazer, including a conference room, bridge, turbolift, and corridors, yet those sets were only used in a single episode at the start of the season. Even if the crew make it back to the 25th Century next time, that’s still a massive investment for relatively little screen time! So my theory is that the new sets will be used more extensively in Season 3 when Admiral Picard assumes command of the USS Stargazer. Why would there be a vacancy in the captain’s chair? Because Captain Rios is going to be one of the characters shuffled out of the way to make room for the returning crew of The Next Generation.
So that’s it!
Dr Jurati and the Borg Queen.
As we head into the season finale, a lot of questions remain unanswered. I won’t be upset if none of these theories pan out – but I could find myself saying that the season ended in disappointing fashion if questions about Q, Renée, the Europa Mission, and the Borg aren’t resolved satisfactorily. The only exception to that might be if the season ends on a cliffhanger, clearly establishing that Picard’s next outing will continue these storylines.
So it really is all to play for in the final episode of the season. The more I think about the events leading up to this point, the more convinced I am that some of the extraneous fluff should have been cut from several mid-season episodes. That would’ve allowed us to spend more time on things like the negotiation with the Borg Queen-Dr Jurati hybrid, as well as potentially more time with Q and Picard to explain what Q did, why he did it, and how whatever’s happened to him is related to Picard. It’s possible that the season finale and/or Season 3 will do justice to all of the narrative threads that remain in play – but I’m certainly a little nervous as the season runs out of track.
Los Angeles at night, circa 2024.
Despite that, I’m trying to stay optimistic! The season finale will likely be a feature-length outing, and there are some potentially exciting and explosive storylines that remain in play. Stopping Dr Soong is one of the big ones, and that could certainly be a source of drama and conflict, but there’s more. Seeing Q and Picard back together and getting a proper explanation for what’s been going on with him would be one of my big requests – and I think we’ll get that, even if it means that other story points will have to wait.
I always like to end these theory lists by saying that I do this just for fun. I enjoy writing, I enjoy Star Trek, and spending more time in this world is an escape and an enjoyable distraction. But for some folks, fan theories can be frustrating or unenjoyable, especially if they get very attached to a plausible-sounding theory that ultimately doesn’t pan out. I have no “insider information” and I’m not trying to claim that anything suggested above can, will, or must be part of Picard Season 2. I fully expect many of these theories to be debunked and for the season to go in wildly unpredictable directions!
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.
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, First Contact, and Voyager.
This review deals with the sensitive topics of mental health and suicide and may be uncomfortable for some readers.
If I’ve done my counting right, then I believe Hide and Seek is Jean-Luc Picard’s 200th Star Trek appearance. It gets a little fuzzy when we look at two-part episodes that are occasionally considered as feature-length outings, but if we go in broadcast order then I’m pretty sure that the character of Jean-Luc Picard has now appeared in 200 Star Trek productions (including four films). So that’s pretty neat!
Hide and Seek was an exciting episode that focused on the Borg side of the story in a big way. But it was also an episode that fell into the trap of some pretty clichéd storytelling, something that definitely detracted from some of the impact that the story had. There were some emotional highlights – including some wonderful performances from Alison Pill, Michelle Hurd, and Jeri Ryan – but overall, I’m left feeling that the season has taken a slow and meandering route to reach this point, and that more time could’ve been spent on some of these interesting storylines and powerful moments had some of the extraneous fluff been cut out from earlier episodes.
It was a dark and stormy night…
For the first time this season, I wasn’t wild about some of the cinematography in Hide and Seek. Parts of the episode were coloured with a dark blue hue – something not uncommon on television to indicate darkness – but I found that it gave those sequences a washed-out look. Though we aren’t anywhere close to the failures of something like The Long Night in Game of Thrones’ eighth season, the colour palette did not flatter the scenes set at Château Picard, and the episode suffered for this creative choice.
Hide and Seek doubled-down on exploring the trauma that Picard faced in his youth, and it was revealed that the memory he’s been repressing was his mother’s suicide and discovering her body. As in Monsters a couple of weeks ago, though, I’m struggling to see how this story connects with what’s happening in the rest of the season, and why the series has decided that this hitherto unknown chapter of Picard’s life warranted so much time dedicated to it.
Hide and Seek delved once again into Picard’s youth.
In a general sense, I’m not averse to the idea of taking an established character and fleshing them out, giving more detail to their background and history. And as stated earlier in the season, I can’t recall anything from Picard’s past Star Trek appearances that would’ve explicitly ruled out something like this happening to him in his youth. However, when dealing with a character who’s made as many appearances as Picard, these kinds of stories have to serve some greater purpose – and right now, this story of Picard’s youth and his mother’s death doesn’t appear to do that.
As I asked in my review of Monsters: what aspect of Picard’s character, personality, temperament, or personal philosophy does this revelation explain? How do we as the audience feel that we understand Picard any better in light of this season spending a significant chunk of its runtime on this story? We know more about Picard’s past in a factual sense – but the facts that have been brought to light don’t inform his characterisation in any way, neither here in Picard nor in The Next Generation. There’s no “aha!” moment where the way Picard has behaved, or his stance on life, suddenly seems to click.
It doesn’t feel like this moment informs Picard’s character in any significant way.
If the story itself had been handled differently, perhaps in a season with fewer other things going on, I think I could forgive it. But during two out of the season’s ten episodes now, a significant amount of time has been taken away from other, more interesting and engaging stories to flesh out an aspect of Picard’s backstory that feels unnecessary.
A character like Picard, who has made so many Star Trek appearances, has unexplored moments in his past that a story like this could’ve told. We could’ve learned, for example, that a similar trauma stems from his time in command of the USS Stargazer – the death of Jack Crusher springs to mind as an unexplained event that would be both traumatic and ripe for a deep dive. But this story shone a light on a part of Picard’s past that none of us could’ve anticipated – and when there are events in his past that feel like they could’ve been more interesting, I guess I’m left wondering what might’ve been.
Other events in Picard’s past could’ve taken us on a similar journey.
Picard’s story also had a very “20th Century” feel to it, and as I’ve said on more than one occasion, that doesn’t feel very Star Trek-y. We know from The Next Generation that Picard had an upbringing on a vineyard and that his family weren’t in favour of him joining Starfleet, so in that sense none of it is contradictory. But from the point of view of someone sitting down to watch Star Trek and not some other contemporary drama series, it’s a tad disappointing when the series spends so much time either in the modern-day or in a setting that feels also very much like the modern-day.
And again we come to the mental health side of the story. I was deeply disappointed with what we saw in Monsters, and while nothing in Hide and Seek sank to that level, Yvette’s mental health condition was again underdeveloped and fell into the trap of stereotyping. Continuing our theme of feeling like a story from contemporary times, not three centuries in the future, we saw no attempt made to use the technology of the early 24th Century to help Yvette. Did her husband do anything to help her? Locking away someone with mental health issues “for their own safety” is the kind of thing that the Victorians did – and although Picard seemed to get to a place in Monsters where he could understand the burden his father carried and forgive him, the way Maurice treated Yvette raises some seriously disturbing questions.
Maurice Picard.
As someone who is disabled and who has diagnosed mental health conditions, one of the things that I’ve always found inspirational about Star Trek’s future is this idea that many of the ailments people today have to live with will one day be curable. Medical technology that’s akin to magic has been present in the Star Trek franchise since the beginning, and while mental health hasn’t often been depicted in a particularly sympathetic way (look at episodes like Whom Gods Destroy or Statistical Probabilities, for example) I’ve always liked the concept Star Trek proposes: that one day, cures for many health issues – including mental health conditions – will be discovered.
Hide and Seek chose to ignore that, and if it had done so for a better reason, I might be able to overlook it, or at least reduce my negative feelings toward it. But because the story of Yvette’s suicide and its impact on Picard feels so disconnected from everything else going on this season, it just hammers home for me that many of the narrative decisions on this side of the story were, at best, odd. At worst I’d call the whole thing pretty poor.
Yvette Picard’s suicide.
One final note on this aspect of Hide and Seek: for the first time, I felt Star Trek: Picard fall into a storytelling trap that has tripped up sister show Discovery on multiple occasions. Picard and Tallinn were on an incredibly dangerous, time-sensitive mission, with half-assimilated Borg shooting at them, yet Picard allowed himself to become distracted by this event in his past. Being thrown into the room where something bad once happened is, of course, a trigger for post-traumatic stress, and I get that. But even with that understanding and that caveat, I found myself wanting to shout at the episode in frustration that there isn’t time for this right now!
This is something that Discovery does far too often – characters bringing their own personal issues to the fore in a way that clearly interferes with the missions at hand. Picard had never had this issue – not even in Monsters when Picard’s trauma was one of the main storylines – but because of the circumstances of the Borg attack on La Sirena this time, it really did feel that Picard didn’t have the time for such indulgent reminiscing. It’s only through sheer luck that he and Tallinn survived.
Picard allowed himself to become distracted in the middle of a very dangerous situation.
Despite being a relatively long episode at almost fifty minutes, there were a few points, especially as Hide and Seek drew to a close, where I felt some important scenes may have been left on the cutting-room floor. For example, how did Rios know exactly where to transport to save Picard and Tallinn? And how did Picard know that Seven and Raffi had let La Sirena escape when he reunited with them? These questions could’ve been answered, and while they may not feel hugely substantial in terms of the way things turned out, the fact that we didn’t see everything as it unfolded left the final part of the episode feeling rather cut-down and perhaps a little contrived.
I’m glad that Dr Jurati was able to not only wrestle some control back from the Borg Queen, but also talk her down from the most extreme version of her plan. This was Hide and Seek’s emotional high point, and Alison Pill put in an outstanding performance. It was nice to welcome back Annie Wersching as the Borg Queen, too.
Dr Jurati and the Borg Queen.
However, I’m left feeling that this sequence was shorter than it could’ve been, and more importantly that key characters were missing. This is the emotional crux of Dr Jurati’s story this season, and the end of the 21st Century side of the Borg’s story, at least. In a series called Star Trek: Picard, shouldn’t Picard himself have been present? He only showed up after this had happened, seemingly already aware of what had transpired even though we never saw him find out on screen.
After what Picard went through with the Borg from The Next Generation through to First Contact and Season 1 of Picard, there was scope for his inclusion here to wrap up his inner conflict with the Borg; to take the argument he expressed in The Star Gazer about wanting to hear out what the Borg had to say and going one step further. Picard could, in this moment, have come to forgive the Borg Queen and arrive at a place where he’d be willing to give her the opportunity to chart a new path and do things differently.
This sequence was undeniably well done. But it feels like Picard should’ve been involved.
In order for that to have happened, though, this episode – and realistically, much of the season leading up to it – would have needed to be structured very differently. This could even have become the “lesson” that Q had been pushing Picard to learn; that forgiving one’s greatest adversaries and giving them a chance to change is worth doing. Is that something Q might want to teach Picard? I don’t know, but it could’ve worked.
Instead it fell to Raffi, Seven of Nine, and Dr Jurati to strike a deal with the Borg Queen – and while this sequence was emotional and well-constructed, as it ended and the deal was honoured, I felt that, if I were in their shoes, I wouldn’t be convinced that the Borg Queen would stick to her commitments. She basically promised, over the span of a few short minutes, that she’d entirely change her philosophy and worldview, and would build a Borg Collective based on an entirely different guiding principle. Because we’ve seen the Borg on a number of previous occasions, I think this moment needed more to be convincing.
Can we feel certain that the Borg Queen will stick to the agreement she made?
Think back to episodes in Voyager such as Scorpion and Dark Frontier. We saw the Borg’s duplicity and deceitfulness on full display in those stories, and we saw how Captain Janeway and others were absolutely correct not to trust the Borg to uphold their end of whatever deal had been struck. Although Dr Jurati felt that she had extracted a solid commitment from the Borg Queen, and I could quite see Raffi being willing to go along with it in exchange for saving Seven’s life, looking in from the outside I have a lot of reservations that Hide and Seek simply didn’t do enough to placate.
The Borg Queen got what she wanted – and everything we know about her from all of her past appearances tells us that she’s the kind of single-minded, domineering character who would say and do whatever was necessary to get the right outcome. Dr Jurati was standing in her way; appearing to concede to her proposal and saving the life of one single individual would be a negligible price to pay – from the Queen’s perspective – if it meant gaining control of La Sirena and the possibility of reuniting with the Borg Collective in the Delta Quadrant.
The Borg Queen ended up getting what she wanted – control of La Sirena.
In short, this concept was an interesting one. The idea of Dr Jurati and the Borg Queen “merging,” rather than Dr Jurati losing her entire personality, is a clever twist on the way the story could’ve gone, and one that had been set up well in Mercy last week. The broader idea of a Dr Jurati-Borg Queen hybrid potentially taking the Borg Collective in a different and perhaps less aggressive direction is likewise a fascinating concept. But neither of these ideas, great as they are, feel complete. It’s true that there’s one more episode of the season remaining – but as the Borg Queen has now warped away in what felt like a pretty conclusive departure, and with a lot of other storylines still in play, it doesn’t seem as though Picard will be able to revisit these ideas right now.
There was potential in the idea of Dr Jurati pacifying the Borg Queen and lending her unique perspective to the Collective. There was potential in the idea of the Borg Queen listening to such a proposal and giving it some degree of consideration. And there was potential in the idea of a negotiated peace (of a sort) at the end of an episode that had these moments of battling and violence. But I don’t feel that Hide and Seek – and Season 2 as a whole – left enough time to really do justice to any of them, at least not as things currently stand.
A powerful moment as Dr Jurati and the Borg Queen discussed the fate of the Borg Collective… but it needed more.
Negotiations with the Borg Queen could’ve been an entire episode in itself – and I’d certainly be up for a story with that kind of diplomatic focus. We’ve seen Star Trek – and Jean-Luc Picard himself – do those kinds of stories exceptionally well, and it could’ve been an interesting coda to the Borg story that has been running this season. Maybe the season finale will bring more of that, but taken on its own, Hide and Seek had some clever concepts and lofty ambitions – but ultimately failed to fully deliver on them.
That isn’t to detract from some wonderfully evocative performances, though. Alison Pill deserves so much credit for the way she inhabited two very different roles in Hide and Seek, and in particular the way she managed to capture the mannerisms, style, and essence of Annie Wersching’s Borg Queen. That kind of acting challenge – playing a different character in someone else’s body – is a Star Trek trope going all the way back to The Original Series, and some actors are better at it than others! Alison Pill really managed to be convincing as the partially-assimilated Borg Queen, and the moment where she donned the iconic outfit was a special effects home run to boot.
The new Borg Queen looks down at her old body.
As mentioned, the idea of a Borg Queen-Jurati hybrid (Borgati? Jurorg?) is an interesting one, and everyone involved did their best to sell it. To me, the fact that this “negotiation” sequence was too short doesn’t negate those wonderful performances. However, the scene immediately afterward, in which Seven of Nine and Raffi agree to honour their deal felt just a little odd. One of Star Trek’s biggest ever villains just kind of… stood around on the bridge of La Sirena, and the way the ship was then turned over to her felt not only rushed, but also rather anticlimactic.
Dr Soong, who had seemed so interesting when we first met him in Fly Me To The Moon, had already lost all pretence of nuance or complexity prior to the events of Hide and Seek. Although the suitably over-the-top performance from Brent Spiner was absolutely delicious to watch – as his villainous performances always have been – I don’t really understand Dr Soong’s inclusion on this side of the story.
Dr Adam Soong.
Q wanted to shut down the Europa Mission to create the Confederation timeline, but to the Borg Queen that outcome isn’t a good one – it’s what she allied herself with Picard and came to the 21st Century to prevent. Despite the fairly weak protestation that the Borg are now “aware” of the danger the Confederation may pose, I don’t buy that she’d remain allied to Dr Soong – especially not after gaining access to several dozen goons that she partially assimilated.
I guess in that sense the Borg Queen acted out-of-character, not by allying herself to Dr Soong but by maintaining her end of the deal even after he’d served his purpose. Perhaps we could argue that it ties in with the merging of Dr Jurati and the Borg Queen; that the Queen’s personality was already showing signs of being altered. But why should the Borg Queen care about Dr Soong? And if Dr Jurati’s influence is present to excuse that contrivance… shouldn’t she be even more inclined to break their deal and stop him?
Dr Soong ultimately escaped to fight another day.
Despite a performance from Brent Spiner that I will unashamedly admit to having thoroughly enjoyed, I don’t find Dr Soong a particularly interesting villain, and when the story has to contort itself into knots to pull out contrived ways to keep him relevant and engaged, it just falls flat for me. Dr Soong may have been an interesting ally for Q, but the way in which he was included this week, and the way in which the Borg Queen stuck to her agreement with him, stretches credulity to breaking-point for me.
Jeri Ryan had some wonderfully emotional and insightful moments as Seven of Nine this week. We got to learn more of Seven’s post-Voyager history, including that she attempted to join Starfleet, but had her application denied. Seven ascribes this to her Borg past, but it raises the interesting question of why Starfleet permitted Icheb to join (as we saw in Season 1), but not her.
We got some interesting information about Seven of Nine’s life during the years in between Voyager and Picard.
Seven’s story this season has now come full-circle, and she’s regained her Borg implants and appearance thanks to the deal Raffi and Dr Jurati struck with the Borg Queen. It’s sad for Seven, who had been enjoying her newfound appearance, to be forced back to the way she had previously been. However, after what she’s been through over the past few episodes, perhaps Seven has reached a place where she can accept herself, despite what she sees as imperfections. There’s a metaphor there, perhaps, albeit one that’s buried quite deeply in the story.
I felt that there was the potential for this new presentation of Seven of Nine to have carried forward, and although it’s perhaps early days to be thinking about spin-offs and future Star Trek projects, one centred around Raffi and Seven of Nine would certainly find supporters! But if Seven of Nine isn’t going to be a huge part of the series in future – and spoiler alert for Season 3 if you missed the announcement, but with the main cast of The Next Generation set to reprise their roles next time around, there may not be as much of a place for her – then her story this season has a cyclical feel to it; she returns to where she began, albeit having been changed somewhat by the experience.
Has Seven’s story come full-circle?
Raffi got two very powerful emotional moments this week, and Michelle Hurd gave her best performance of the season to bring them to screen wonderfully. Dealing with the fatally-wounded Seven of Nine was the latter of the two, and I really felt the pain that she went through in that moment. But the more powerful moment had come a few minutes earlier as Raffi came face-to-face with the “ghost” of Elnor.
It wasn’t exactly made clear how the holographic version of Elnor worked, nor how it came to have the memories of his last moments, and that was something that could’ve been technobabbled a bit better. Again, we’re feeling the constraints of an episode – and a season – that has to make cuts and creative choices in order to fit into a limited timeslot. However, setting that minor gripe aside, the conversation between the two of them was one of the episode’s emotional highlights.
Raffi was able to get closure for Elnor’s death.
Both Michelle Hurd and Evan Evagora excelled as holo-Elnor provided Raffi with the closure and forgiveness that she needed, and the moment was sad but beautiful. Elnor’s death has been one of the things driving Raffi this season, and it felt for a time as if it was something that could be reversed. Raffi now seems ready to accept Elnor’s passing, however, and I think that’s a signal to us as the audience that Elnor’s death is indeed going to be permanent.
On this point – if indeed it comes to pass – I’m not so sure that Picard got it right. Spoiler alert again for Season 3, but as a point of practicality given the return of the main characters from The Next Generation, I can understand why the show is doing everything it can to shuffle its current crop of main characters out of the way. But as I said when that decision was announced, that in itself is something I have mixed feelings about, and Elnor in particular is a character that I feel we never really got the chance to know very well. Aside from his spotlight episode in Season 1 – Absolute Candor – Elnor’s impact on the story of both seasons has been, at best, limited. The decision to enrol him in Starfleet Academy and to give him a new parental figure in Raffi worked well, especially in light of the beautiful scene where Raffi comforted him at the end of Season 1. But there’s so much potential in a young character like Elnor – the first Romulan in Starfleet. If the Star Trek franchise is to survive long-term, characters like him need to stick around.
Is this the end of the road for Elnor?
Despite my great dislike of Rios’ story this season, and the way in which he has regressed as a character from the season premiere, his role in Hide and Seek was largely inoffensive. For the first time I felt that Picard genuinely cared about Rios – he told Tallinn to turn off the transporter to prevent Rios from returning to the battle after he was injured. If I was being cruel I might say that moment felt unearned given the lack of interaction between Rios and Picard for practically the entire season, but we know Picard as a character well enough to know that he does truly care about those under his command.
The Rios-Teresa romance progressed, getting him to a place where he was one transporter beam (or transporter puff) away from saying “I love you” to her. I had wondered, prior to Hide and Seek, if Rios was being groomed for an heroic death. That still could happen in the season finale, but the developing romance with Teresa, combined with Seven’s return to her Borg status, now has me wondering if Rios will choose to stay in 2024 if and when the moment comes to go home. Teresa seemed to be pushing him in that direction this week.
Rios told Teresa he had to go and save the future.
Having talked about everyone present in Hide and Seek, we now turn to one significant absence: Q. Q has been the season’s driving force, seemingly setting up the Confederation timeline and thus also the trip to the 21st Century. But as the story reaches what should be its endgame, Q was once again absent. There’s now just one episode left not only to put a stop to the next phase of Q’s plan, but also to explain what drove him to do all of this in the first place.
As mentioned, it might’ve been possible for Q to be included here – to say that one of his plans or part of his plan was to see how Picard would react to the merging of the Borg Queen with one of his friends. Though a story about mercy, forgiveness, and a willingness to move beyond animosity wouldn’t be as grand in scale as something like learning to perceive time in a non-linear way – as happened in All Good Things at the end of The Next Generation – in another way it’s kind of in line with what Q tried to show Picard in the episode Tapestry. In that story, Q showed Picard an alternate life that he might’ve led, and guided Picard through events in his past that led him to become the person he is. In this story, Q might’ve been showing Picard, in a similar way, that he can grow and learn to let go of the anger, hate, and fear he has toward the Borg and the Borg Queen.
All of this might’ve been part of Q’s grand plan.
But that doesn’t seem to be what this story is trying to say. With Q entirely absent from Hide and Seek, there isn’t much time left to wrap up his story and provide a satisfactory explanation not only for Q’s behaviour, but in a broader sense for the entire story of the season. Why Q did whatever he did, and what his goals and objectives are, are still concealed by the plot – and if they aren’t given a proper moment in the spotlight next week the entire season could fall apart.
As much as I enjoyed a tense story about a battle against modern-day semi-Borg, and as great as those emotional moments were with Raffi, Elnor, Seven, and Dr Jurati, Hide and Seek feels like it has a gaping hole due to the absence of Q. With Q’s henchman Dr Soong still at large and also needing to be stopped, and the Europa Mission still to save, the season finale has been left with a lot of work to do and a lot of story to wrap up – and that’s before we even consider getting Picard, Seven, Rios, and Raffi back to the 25th Century.
The eerie green glow of Borg transporter beams.
Hide and Seek raises a lot of questions – not least of which has to be what will become of the Borg if the new Borg Queen-Dr Jurati hybrid makes good on her promise to effectively restructure the entire Collective and implement a wholly new guiding philosophy. If such a change to the Borg were to happen in the 21st or 22nd Centuries, that could be transformative for the entire prime timeline. Guinan’s people may never have been attacked, Picard may never have been assimilated, the events of The Best of Both Worlds and First Contact may be erased, Captain Janeway’s run-ins with the Borg may have been averted or turned out completely differently, Seven of Nine may never have been assimilated… heck, even Captain Sisko would be affected, with his wife never dying at the Battle of Wolf 359. If Picard and the crew set out to preserve the timeline, then changing more the three centuries’ worth of Borg history means that they very definitely failed!
Setting those implications to one side for now, I think we’ll have to return to Hide and Seek when the season is over and reassess how some of these story points are ultimately borne out. There’s potential for some of them to become better in light of a successful finale – and likewise there’s the potential for some of them to seem disappointing if the season doesn’t wrap up in a neat way.
La Sirena takes flight.
So that was Hide and Seek. A complicated episode, all things considered, with some significant weaknesses and flaws, but one that managed to be exciting and action-packed with a focus on the Borg that I did appreciate.
The Star Trek franchise continues to try some very different ideas, but not all of them stick the landing. The mental health side of storytelling, not just in Hide and Seek, nor even just in Picard Season 2, but in a much broader sense across the franchise, remains an area of concern and disappointment. Star Trek can do mental health stories well, but the producers have to allow enough time to really do justice to big and complex topics. For me at least, Hide and Seek didn’t succeed at that.
I’m anxiously awaiting the season finale. Having seemingly concluded one of its big storylines – at least the part set in the 21st Century – Picard has left itself with two villains to defeat, a mission to save, a cryptic message about “two Renées” to explain, a return to the 25th Century to facilitate, potentially two love stories to bring closure to, and finding a way to connect the events of the past eight episodes to what we saw in the season premiere. There’s a lot of work to do… and I really hope that the season finale will be up to the task.
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.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-2 and casting information for Season 3. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: Discovery, Enterprise, Voyager, First Contact, and The Next Generation.
Mercy was an interesting episode, one that finally spent a bit more time advancing what I personally consider to be the more exciting part of the season’s story. Some of my big theories are rapidly running out of road, and this week three have been debunked outright. We got a couple of confirmations as well, so this week the theory list will shrink!
With only two episodes of the season remaining, there isn’t a lot of time for everything to be neatly wrapped up so that the story can move on in time for Season 3. I know I’m not the only one wondering about a possible cliffhanger ending!
So let’s take a look at the theories that were confirmed and debunked in Mercy, before moving on to the main theory list.
Debunked theory #1: Agent Wells is a Starfleet officer or temporal agent.
Picard being interrogated by Agent Wells.
I wondered if we might learn that Agent Wells, the FBI Agent who apprehended Guinan and Picard, wasn’t who he seemed to be. We’ve seen Starfleet operating as a kind of temporal police in previous iterations of the franchise, and there was also the faction from Enterprise that employed Crewman Daniels.
This theory was given additional energy by the fact that the actor portraying Agent Wells, Jay Karnes, had appeared in the Voyager Season 4 episode Relativity, where he played a 29th Century Starfleet officer.
However, it turned out that that was just a coincidence! Agent Wells was a 21st Century native, albeit one who’d had an encounter with Vulcans in his youth.
Debunked theory #2: Romulans are spying on Earth… and could be time-travelling Zhat Vash.
Young Agent Wells encounters the Vulcans.
When we caught a glimpse of young Agent Wells interacting with Vulcans in one of the pre-season trailers, I wondered if they might actually be Romulans, and possibly members of the secretive Zhat Vash organisation. If the Zhat Vash had a major role to play in the story – which it now seems like they don’t – perhaps that could’ve lined up.
However, with Season 2 seemingly leaving behind practically all of the main story threads from Season 1, that wasn’t the case.
Debunked theory #3: The mission back in time won’t last all season.
Los Angeles, 2024.
This one has been as much a wish as a theory, because time travel episodes that visit the modern-day have never been my favourites in Star Trek. I wondered whether we might see Picard and the crew find a way back to the 25th Century sooner, but with only two episodes remaining it’s now not plausible. Even if the next episode sees them make it home, they’ll still have spent the majority of Season 2 in 2024.
So those theories were debunked!
There’s one two-part theory that I’m choosing to retire at this stage, too. Although it hasn’t been firmly “debunked,” the events of Mercy now seem to have taken the story in a different direction.
Retired theory #1: The Confederation is run by augmented humans.
Dr Soong’s legacy.
The question of why the Confederation seemed to celebrate Dr Adam Soong centuries after his death was an open one… until Mercy. The Borg Queen told Dr Soong that his invention – seemingly a scaled-up version of the drones that protected Kore from sunlight – would save the Earth from ecological collapse in that timeline. That explains his legacy and why he’s so famous in the Confederation.
This seems to rule out another possibility for his fame: that he created human augments. There were two parts to this theory, really. The first came from Dr Soong himself; that his work was focused on genetics. The second came from his family legacy – Dr Arik Soong, presumably a descendant of his, had worked on creating human augments in the 22nd Century.
Although the Borg Queen is hardly what you’d call a “reliable source,” I don’t believe that there’s room now, at this late stage, for there to be the kind of augment connection that I’d been theorising about.
Retired theory #2: There will be a connection between the augments and Strange New Worlds.
La’an Noonien-Singh.
Inextricably tied to the theory above was a possible Strange New Worlds connection. In short, the character of La’an Noonien-Singh seems to be related to iconic villain – and famous augmented human – Khan Noonien Singh. If Picard Season 2 has no connection to genetic engineering and the creation of augments, though, this theory won’t pan out.
So those theories have been retired.
We have a couple of confirmations this week, so we’ll take a look at those next.
Confirmed theory #1: Vulcans are on Earth… as hinted at by Discovery Season 4.
A Vulcan expedition to Earth.
In the Discovery Season 4 episode The Galactic Barrier, a seemingly-innocuous line from the enigmatic Dr Kovich stood out to me. He noted that the Vulcans had been present on Earth for “decades” prior to official first contact taking place in 2063. That line kick-started this theory… though to be fair, the pre-season trailers had already revealed a character who could only really be a Vulcan or Romulan!
As noted above, we finally got to see this flashback sequence for ourselves. Young Agent Wells encountered a Vulcan expedition to Earth sometime in the 1960s or 1970s (based on Wells’ age in Mercy) and that’s that. Though Picard and Discovery really ought to do more to connect with one another, I do like that this line that we heard in an episode a couple of months ago seems to tie in to the events we saw unfold on screen this week.
Confirmed theory #2: Q is dying.
Q in Mercy.
After wondering for weeks what might be going on with Q, he seemed to finally confirm to Guinan that he’s approaching the end of his life. There’s still scope, in my view, for this to be expanded upon – or even changed entirely – but for now it’s safe to say that Q certainly believes that he’s dying.
The language used in Mercy to communicate this was excellent, and gave us an interesting glimpse into how members of Q’s species view time and the universe. Q spoke of a “temporal horizon,” and how it had grown dark and unknowable. Combined with his failing powers, the stage seems to be set for Q’s life coming to an end.
So those theories were confirmed!
Now we’re going to jump into the main theory list, beginning with those theories that are either new or that saw movement in Mercy.
Theory #1: The Borg’s request for help from the Federation is genuine.
Dr Jurati decoded the Borg message.
If Dr Jurati is going to be fully assimilated and potentially incorporated into a new incarnation of the Borg Queen, could her stewardship of the Borg Collective mean that their desire for help from Picard and the Federation – that we saw in The Star Gazer at the beginning of the season – is actually for real? It’s possible, of course, that the Borg’s message was a plain and simple trap, but there are elements from the Borg Queen’s appearance on the Stargazer’s bridge that we still can’t explain.
Setting aside her identity for a moment, regardless of whether there’s Dr Jurati or someone else underneath the mask, the Borg Queen’s actions were not what we’d expect. Why did she stun the Stargazer’s crew instead of killing them – and why did the episode draw attention to that fact and make sure it registered with us as the audience? What were her goals on “assimilating” the ship? She claimed she needed “power” – but to what end?
What did the Borg Queen want?
The Borg Queen also seemed to accept what was about to happen in her final moments, playing Non, je ne regrette rien and speaking with familiarity to Picard, telling him to “look up.” What was that all about?
In short, I’m positing that the Borg’s plea for help was genuine – but that raises a very interesting and alarming question in and of itself. What could be so deadly and so terrifying that it has the Borg Queen running in fear? And what does all of this have to do with Q and Picard?
Theory #2: Kore Soong will team up with Picard and the crew of La Sirena.
Kore Soong.
I haven’t been thrilled with the depiction of Kore Soong so far. Her story feels like a bland repeat of Soji and Dahj’s from Season 1, and she appears to exist in Season 2 more for the purpose of informing us about Dr Adam Soong than to do anything meaningful in her own right. I’m hopeful that that will change, however!
Mercy saw Kore Soong take the antidote or cure for her genetic condition, granting her freedom from her father. She left Dr Soong’s house and struck out on her own for what seems to be the first time – and I wonder if she’ll either seek out Picard or if they’ll run into one another. Kore may know something about Dr Soong that could be useful to the crew of La Sirena… so watch this space. Her story may not be done yet.
Theory #3: The Q Continuum has been attacked.
Captain Janeway, Tuvok, Quinn, and Q in the Q Continuum.
Following Guinan’s chat with Q in Mercy, this theory feels a little less plausible. However, as we still don’t know what’s going on with Q, I’m keeping it on the table for now. Last week I was increasingly sure that whatever had caused Q to lose his powers was something that wasn’t just affecting him personally, but the entire Q Continuum, and there’s definitely been evidence to that end across the season so far – and beyond.
In Mercy, Guinan reminded us that members of the Q Continuum can kill one another, and that seemed like a very deliberate line to include. Was it just there to avoid nitpicking Trekkies saying “but what about the Q civil war in Voyager?!” or is there a hint there about something else? I don’t believe that the El-Aurians would be to blame if the Q Continuum has been attacked, but with the Borg in the story, they could certainly be a suspect.
Guinan and Q.
In earlier episodes we had talk of a “cold war” between the Q and El-Aurians, a conflict that you’d imagine would be fantastically one-sided unless the El-Aurians know of some kind of weakness that the Q have. Then we had Guinan’s failed attempt to summon a Q – not the Q, but any Q. Q suggested that he basically had to walk from wherever he was to the FBI office because Guinan summoned him – but why didn’t another Q respond to the summons? Picard also suggested, after awakening from his coma, that Q may be weaker and more vulnerable than he had previously considered. And going back to Discovery Season 4, the episode The Examples told us that the Federation hadn’t seen any members of the Q Continuum in over 600 years as of the 32nd Century.
All of the pieces of evidence above could suggest that something is happening to the Q Continuum as a whole rather than just to Q himself. If the El-Aurians discovered a weakness, and then were assimilated by the Borg, perhaps the Borg came into possession of a way to harm the Q – attacking them and wiping them out.
In any case, if something that Picard did or didn’t do is connected to those events, that could explain why Q is so angry and why he felt the need to punish Picard. It could even explain Q’s desire to radically alter the timeline.
Theory #4: Q and Picard will have to work together to stop the rogue Borg Queen.
Yummy batteries.
Whatever Q’s plan was for changing the timeline in the 21st Century, unleashing a rogue Borg Queen upon humanity or setting one loose in the Alpha Quadrant was categorically not on the agenda! I think that’s a fairly safe assumption, and while Q has messed around with humanity and the Borg before – such as in the episode Q Who – it’s never been his goal to see humanity assimilated.
With his full powers at his disposal, presumably it would be relatively easy for Q to stop the Borg Queen who’s now in possession of Dr Jurati’s body, but without them, Q may need to work with Picard to ensure that the Borg Queen is stopped. Although the Borg Queen seems to weirdly have the same goal as Q – to stop the Europa Mission – their objectives beyond that don’t align in the slightest.
Could Q team up with Picard?
If the Borg Queen were to interfere in Q’s plans, or if Q were to learn of the threat to Picard, perhaps he will voluntarily involve himself, make a truce with Picard, and work with him to stop the Borg Queen. Alternatively, Picard could realise that his options are limited and try to reach out to Q to ask for help, setting aside his pride and his anger at his old adversary.
Q’s knowledge, even without his powers, could be invaluable to Picard and the crew of La Sirena. He clearly knows a lot more about the Borg than anyone else, and he may know how best to counteract the Borg Queen’s coming attack. If the Borg have attacked the Q Continuum, as theorised above, maybe Q will even have a personal reason to get involved.
Theory #5: The Borg Queen/Dr Jurati will steal La Sirena, stranding Picard in the past.
La Sirena’s crash site in France.
I was tempted to slap this one on my “confirmed” list, because I successfully predicted that stealing La Sirena would be the Borg Queen’s plan going all the way back to Watcher earlier in the season! However, she hasn’t actually enacted her plan yet, so let’s hang fire for now. At least I can say I got the idea right even if the Borg Queen’s plan is defeated!
However, the Borg Queen has a formidable army on her side thanks to Dr Soong’s (highly convenient) military connections. Despite being banned from the scientific establishment, Dr Soong apparently continues to have a lot of sway over the right people, and as a result he’s been able to hire a private military company – one that the Borg Queen promptly began to assimilate.
New Borg drones.
Whether she plans to head to the Delta Quadrant to link up with the Borg Collective in this era or whether she plans to head to the 25th Century, stealing La Sirena is the Queen’s best move. Picard and the crew will struggle to defend the ship, especially considering that the Borg Queen had a lot of time while alone to install rogue code in the computer that both Seven of Nine and Rios have struggled to purge. With only Rios, Teresa, and Ricardo there right now, the ship is also largely undefended.
Even if Picard and the others make it in time, they’ll still be outnumbered and outgunned. The Borg Queen and her forces could easily take possession of the ship and fly away, stranding Picard (and anyone else who survives the confrontation) in the 21st Century.
Theory #6: Picard and the crew of La Sirena will “borrow” Renée’s Europa Mission spacecraft to get back to the 25th Century.
Renée in training for the Europa Mission.
If La Sirena is stolen by the Borg Queen – or otherwise damaged and rendered unusable – Picard and the rest of the crew will need to find another way to get back to the 25th Century. Could they hitch a ride on Renée’s Europa Mission spacecraft?
Earlier in the season, Picard seemed to imply that no one really knows what happened to Renée and the Europa Mission ship after she discovered signs of life in the outer solar system, so does that mean it would be possible for her ship to simply disappear without corrupting the timeline? Perhaps the reason why history has no record of what happened to Renée after the Europa Mission isn’t because of World War III and the loss of that information, but because she and the ship simply disappeared while in space.
There’s nothing that we know of to suggest that the slingshot manoeuvre can’t be performed by a ship like Renée’s, and the fact that she’s an astronaut at all with her own spacecraft could open up a vital doorway for Picard and the crew if they suddenly find themselves in need of a new way home.
Theory #7: The masked, hooded figure from The Star Gazer is not the real Borg Queen.
The Borg Queen?
The Borg Queen – the hooded figure who materialised on the bridge of the Stargazer – was absolutely terrifying, evoking feelings for me that the Star Trek franchise hasn’t hit in decades. The way this character was presented, with her shrouded face, flowing robes, monochromatic aesthetic, and blend of humanoid and decidedly non-humanoid mechanical features was simultaneously riveting and frightening!
This character was presented as the Borg Queen in the episode, and the Borg have no reason that we know of to lie about that. But at the same time, she was very different not only from how we’ve seen the Borg Queen in past iterations of Star Trek, but also from the Borg Queen that Picard and the crew met in the Confederation timeline. Could this character actually be someone else – perhaps someone that the Borg have assimilated?
Since Two of One, the story seems to be setting up Dr Jurati for this role. The Borg Queen has almost completely taken over her body as of the end of Mercy… but some part of her still remains. Could there be another possible candidate?
“Borg Queen” Candidate #1: Dr Jurati.
Dr Jurati and the hallucinatory Borg Queen.
The Borg Queen has well and truly sunk her tentacles into Dr Jurati, taking over her body and creating new nanoprobes. If the Borg Queen’s plan to steal La Sirena succeeds, that could easily set the stage for the events of The Star Gazer to unfold. With no obvious way to un-assimilate her, Dr Jurati has to be the number one Borg Queen candidate right now.
“Borg Queen” Candidate #2: Renée Picard.
Renée at the gala.
Renée could be the Borg Queen if she’s assimilated. Perhaps she will be attacked and assimilated during the course of the Europa Mission, or maybe the Queen will try to get to her to gain possession over the Europa Mission’s spacecraft. If La Sirena is damaged and unusable, the Europa Mission vehicle could be the best option for the Queen to get into space in this time period. Renée being the masked, hooded Borg could explain why the Borg were asking for Picard by name, and why Non, je ne regrette rien played shortly before the Stargazer’s self-destruction.
“Borg Queen” Candidate #3: The time-travelling Admiral Janeway from Endgame.
Admiral Janeway and the Borg Queen.
Admiral Janeway was assimilated by the Borg Queen as part of her plan to introduce a neurolytic pathogen into the Collective, and appeared to have been killed when the Borg Queen’s complex exploded. But is there a way she could have survived?
Her assimilation could have been a turning point for the Borg. She did untold damage to the Collective, but also potentially gifted them knowledge and information about future events and technologies that were decades ahead of their time. Just like the Borg once chose Captain Picard to become Locutus – their “spokesperson” or representative – perhaps they might have chosen Admiral Janeway to fill a similar role during this latest incursion. Admiral Janeway could even have been incorporated as part of the Borg Queen.
“Borg Queen” Candidate #4: Soji.
Soji in The Star Gazer.
The Borg seek “perfection” through the synthesis of organic and synthetic parts; if Coppelius synths like Soji have something that the Borg want, perhaps we’ll learn that they assimilated her to get it. The anomaly from which the Borg vessel emerged was not a standard transwarp corridor, and was specifically noted to emit some kind of temporal radiation. Thus the Borg vessel could be from a future date after Soji has already been assimilated. We could even learn that the super-synths from the Season 1 finale are actually the Borg; that could be how they first became aware of Soji and the Coppelius synths.
Theory #8: Q is not responsible for changing the timeline.
Q’s powers no longer work…
With Q’s powers seemingly all but gone, the question of what happened to the timeline has to be considered. I’ve been running some form of this theory all season long, and with no explanation from Q as to why he wanted to change the timeline being forthcoming, it’s still on the table right now.
Yes, it’s possible that parts of Q’s conversation with Guinan in Mercy could count against this theory, particularly the parts where Q talked about the “escape” from the traps he set being what he’s interested in. But I really do believe that there’s more going on here than meets the eye. Add into the mix Q’s inability to use his powers, and I think the stage could be set for a big surprise before the season wraps up.
I have a longer article that goes into more detail about this theory that I wrote before the season premiere, and you can find it by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #9: Q shielded Picard and the crew of La Sirena from changes to the timeline.
A very young-looking Q!
Regardless of who changed the timeline and why, it seems clear that Q is responsible for ensuring that Picard and the crew of La Sirena were the only ones unaffected by the change. If his goal was to change the timeline to punish Picard that makes sense – but it also leaves open the possibility that Picard will be able to figure out what happened and prevent it. That could be Q’s goal.
I’m not quite ready to call this one “confirmed,” though. I think we need to spend more time with Q to understand what he’s done, what he hopes to achieve by it, and why.
Theory #10: Who is responsible for damaging the timeline, then?
Dr Adam Soong in Mercy.
For much of the season I’ve been proposing a few different candidates who could be responsible for changing the timeline. However, as we’re getting closer to the end of the story I’m actually going to strike most of them from that list.
The Zhat Vash and the Romulans both seemed plausible earlier in the season, partly because we still don’t know what happened after Season 1 to either the Zhat Vash or with relations between the Romulan government and the Federation, but also partly because there was still that unexplained Romulan or Vulcan figure from the trailers. With no Romulan involvement anywhere else in the season, and no mention of the Zhat Vash at all since Season 1, I’m striking those from the list. The Season 1 super-synths are also gone from the list because they likewise haven’t been mentioned all season long.
That only leaves us with the Borg, and with the Borg Queen manipulating Dr Soong into helping her, he could set in motion a chain of events that leads to the failure of the Europa Mission and the creation of the Confederation timeline. That is, unless someone can stop them in time…
Theory #11: Picard and the crew will have to actively trigger World War III to save the future.
World War III soldiers as glimpsed in Discovery Season 2.
This one is now on its last legs! Since well before Season 2 aired, I’d been proposing that one of the points of divergence in the timeline – and thus the event that Picard needs to preserve – could be World War III. In Star Trek’s timeline, World War III began in the late 2020s and ran through to the mid-2050s, with first contact with the Vulcans taking place a few years after it ended. It’s an incredibly important event in the history of humanity, and without it Star Trek’s entire future is in doubt.
It’s still possible that Dr Adam Soong’s story could connect with the outbreak of war, and Picard may have to commit to the war starting by ensuring that Dr Soong – or one of his inventions – is in the right place at the right time. However, with the story having focused on the Europa Mission, Renée Picard, and now this Borg Queen confrontation, there isn’t much time left for a World War III connection.
Theory #12: Picard and/or the Federation will use information from the Confederation timeline to defeat the Borg.
A battle over the planet Vulcan in the Confederation timeline.
If Picard and the crew manage to make a stand aboard La Sirena, information contained within the Confederation starship’s computers could help them defeat the Borg. Somehow the Confederation was able to beat the Borg in their timeline, and if Picard and the others could understand how that happened, perhaps they will be able to form an effective defence against the Borg Queen’s attack.
Alternatively, I originally pitched this theory as a way to explain how the Federation could potentially stop the Borg incursion that began during the events of the season premiere. If Picard and the crew manage to survive and make it back to the 25th Century, they may bring with them crucial tactical information from the Confederation timeline that will help the Federation stop the Borg.
The very first Borg drone seen in Star Trek.
This would be a great way to include what has been one of the season’s most interesting and least-explained narrative elements: how the Confederation, which supposedly had technology comparable to the 25th Century Federation, was able to do something as massive as defeating the entire Borg Collective.
There are a couple of ways that Picard and the crew could potentially use information about the Borg that may be stored in La Sirena’s computer banks, so let’s wait and see if anything comes of it!
Theory #13: Dr Adam Soong will create the Borg.
Dr Adam Soong.
Although Dr Soong’s research seems to be mainly on the genetic side of things, such as the creation of Kore and possible human cloning, his alliance with the Borg Queen could lead to him becoming instrumental in creating the Borg Collective. The Borg already exist as of the 21st Century, but as we seem to be seeing the Borg Queen creating a new Collective on Earth, there are open-ended possibilities for how this story could go.
With time travel on the agenda, it’s possible to imagine a situation in which Dr Soong and the Borg Queen are thrown backwards in time, perhaps emerging millennia in the past. Dr Soong could thus become one of the progenitors of the Borg Collective.
Theory #14: The Federation is responsible for creating the Borg.
A rather incredulous-looking Borg seen in The Next Generation.
This is a total wildcard, but I’m just throwing it out there!
The Borg Queen – and the Borg in general – appear to have a fascination with humanity and with Picard. Could it be that the explanation for that is that the Federation and/or humanity are somehow responsible for their creation? As mentioned above, with time travel on the cards, anything seems possible.
Nanites used by the Control AI.
As above, this could be the end result of the alliance between Dr Soong and the Borg Queen. The Borg could therefore be a human creation, the offspring of one of Data’s ancestors. Could that link be the key to defeating them? Maybe that preserved knowledge and the veneration of Dr Soong is how the Confederation was able to defeat the Borg in their timeline!
Discovery Season 2 ran a story with the Control AI that could have also been a Borg origin story. Was it known as early as 2018-19 that Picard wanted to tell a story like this, and if so, could that explain why the Control storyline ended the way it did? I have a write-up of Discovery’s abandoned Borg origin story that you can find by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #15: The season will end on a cliffhanger.
The announcement a few weeks ago that the cast of The Next Generation will be back in Season 3 seems to suggest that a new story will unfold next time. But there’s still the possibility of a connection between Seasons 2 and 3, or that the final act of Season 2 will set up the story of Season 3.
I originally proposed this theory because Seasons 2 and 3 went into production back-to-back, but now there’s an additional reason to consider this possibility. In short, many of the narrative threads introduced in Season 2 feel a long way from being concluded, and with just two episodes left there may not be time to wrap up everything. A cliffhanger ending may be on the cards after all!
So those theories are new or saw movement this week.
Now, as always, I’ll run through the other theories that are still potentially in play. I find that it helps to keep the entire theory list intact and in one place!
Theory #16: Rios will bring Teresa and Ricardo to the 25th Century.
Teresa and Rios at the clinic.
Rios has clearly abandoned the idea of making as little impact on the timeline as possible! Just like Kirk did for Dr Gillian Taylor in The Voyage Home, perhaps Rios will seek to bring Teresa and Ricardo forwards in time. Teresa may have her clinic to attend to – although its status is in doubt after it was raided by ICE earlier in the season – but she may want to leave the world of the 21st Century behind to head into a more optimistic future.
If Teresa and Rios continue to pursue a romantic relationship, and Rios begins to offer himself as a father figure to Ricardo, maybe the stage will be set for Teresa heading to the 25th Century. It wouldn’t be the weirdest or wildest possibility, especially not now that Teresa and Ricardo are both aware of Rios’ true identity and the existence of La Sirena.
Theory #17: Teresa and Ricardo are Rios’ ancestors.
Teresa with Rios in Mercy.
This could be a heartbreaking end to Rios and Teresa’s burgeoning romance! In true Back to the Future style, perhaps Rios will learn that Teresa and Ricardo are his distant ancestors, bringing their relationship to a screeching half and preventing either of them from taking things further.
We’ve seen Star Trek deal with time travel on many occasions, including fixed moments in time and people too important to be changed or killed. And in a story in which Picard has already met a distant ancestor of his own – Renée – there could be a kind of poetic symmetry if Rios were to discover a connection to Teresa and Ricardo. If this pans out, I hope Rios and Teresa discover the truth before they… y’know!
Theory #18: Rios will be killed and Picard will assume command of the new USS Stargazer.
Rios in the captain’s chair of the USS Stargazer.
One thing I can’t figure out at the moment is what sort of role the new cast will have in Season 3. If you somehow missed the cack-handed announcement, it’s been revealed that the main cast of The Next Generation (sans Wil Wheaton and Denise Crosby) will be reuniting in Season 3, and that they will have major roles to play. If that’s the case it seems all but certain that the main cast of Picard will be sidelined. We’ve already seen that happen this season with Elnor killed and Soji missing in action, so that really only leaves Dr Jurati, Raffi, and Rios.
If the teases and hints about Season 3 that we’ve heard so far prove to be true, it seems as though Picard and the crew will need a ship… so could that ship be the new USS Stargazer?
New sets were built from scratch for the Stargazer, including a conference room, bridge, turbolift, and corridors, yet so far those sets were only used in a single episode. Even if Season 2 sees the crew make it back to the 25th Century in the next episode, that’s still a massive investment for relatively little screen time! So my theory is that the new sets will be used more extensively in Season 3 when Picard assumes command of the USS Stargazer. Why would there be a vacancy in the captain’s chair? Because Captain Rios is going to be one of the characters shuffled out of the way to make room for the returning crew of The Next Generation.
Theory #19: The Borg ship from The Star Gazer crossed over from the Confederation timeline.
The Borg vessel identified as “Legion.”
As far as we know at this stage, the Confederation timeline replaced the prime timeline thanks to the past being changed. But timelines and parallel universes often go hand-in-hand in Star Trek, and after we learned about the Borg’s defeat in the Confederation timeline, I wonder if their ship from the season premiere might have found a way to punch through or cross over into the prime timeline.
If the Borg were facing defeat, as their message seemed to suggest, perhaps that could explain why. Also, the anomaly that the ship emerged from was not a typical transwarp conduit; we’d seen transwarp corridors as recently as Season 1. Finally, the Borg Queen of the Confederation timeline was aware of Picard and the history of the prime timeline – perhaps the Confederation timeline Borg knew of the prime timeline and this was a last-ditch effort to survive.
Theory #20: The Borg are fighting a war – and they’re losing.
The Borg vessel using its transporter-weapon on the USS Stargazer.
Possibly connected to the theory above, one explanation for the Borg’s message and appearance in The Star Gazer is that in the prime timeline the Collective has found itself on the losing side of a war. Penance told us that the Confederation had been able to defeat the Borg using technology that Dr Jurati believed was roughly equivalent to the Federation’s in the prime timeline – so clearly it’s possible to fight and beat the Borg.
Could mentions of Gul Dukat or Martok in Penance be hints at something to come later in the story? Both characters were major players during Deep Space Nine’s Dominion War arc; maybe the Cardassians and/or the Dominion have been aggressively attacking the Borg in the late 24th Century. The other big culprit is the Confederation – assuming that it’s possible for the two timelines to mix!
Theory #21: The Borg are aware that Picard is now a synth – and his synthetic status is part of the reason why they waited until now to make contact.
Picard awakened in a new synthetic body in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2.
As mentioned above with Soji, the timing of the new Borg incursion is interesting, especially considering that they asked for Picard by name. Are they aware of his newfound synthetic status? And if so, could Picard’s transition to a new synthetic body be the reason why the Borg chose to launch their attack?
The Borg seek “perfection” through a synthesis of organic and synthetic components, and while Picard’s new synthetic body is a far cry from the Borg drones we’ve seen, the idea of an organic mind in a synthetic body isn’t a million miles away from that same basic idea. Although Picard’s body was said to be comparable in practically every way to his original one, synthetics can have enhanced abilities that allow them to easily overpower humans – and, as we’ve seen with Data on more than one occasion, they can outmatch individual Borg drones as well.
A Borg drone losing a fight against Data.
Perhaps the Borg want to re-assimilate Picard now that he’s synthetic. If the Collective is still reeling from the damage inflicted upon it by Admiral Janeway or if they’re on the losing side of a war, perhaps they hope to use fully-synthetic bodies like Picard’s to replace damaged or destroyed drones, or as cannon fodder on the front lines. There are many reasons why the Borg might be interested in synthetic technology, and that could explain their re-emergence.
Even if the Borg don’t plan to assimilate Picard or the Coppelius synths, the timing of their appearance is certainly interesting and there could be a connection.
Theory #22: Q is angry with Picard for “giving up.”
Grumpy Q.
Over the course of The Next Generation, Q took a particular interest in Picard. More so than anyone else, Q seemed to see potential in Picard as a representative of the human race, someone who potentially showed him what humanity could be… with a little prompting and guidance. Q seemed fascinated by that idea, so seeing Picard’s fall from grace may have shocked him and left him feeling disappointed and bitter.
Picard spent more than a decade away from galactic affairs, retiring to his vineyard and seemingly just waiting around to die. Someone like Q might take that personally; he might feel that Picard was not living up to the potential he had. Perhaps Picard’s absence had some kind of unknown consequence, something that harmed Q or the Q Continuum. In any case, Q’s animosity to Picard seems to be personal – could disappointment at Picard’s attitude in the years prior to Season 1 be the cause?
Theory #23: The USS Stargazer will make an appearance.
The original USS Stargazer.
Okay, technically the USS Stargazer has already appeared, but not in the way I expected! Captain Rios is (or was) in command of a new USS Stargazer, and not only that but he had a model of the original vessel in his conference room! So that’s it. Theory confirmed, everybody can move on to the next one!
Just kidding. The inclusion of a brand-new USS Stargazer brings the ship and its legacy back to the fore. Picard himself commented in The Star Gazer that the original vessel was his first command, and as far back as Season 1 we had a reference to his time in command through the character of Dr Benayoun. All of these things could be leading to some bigger role for the original USS Stargazer – and with a story that seems to include time travel and a strong focus on Picard’s own personal history, a flashback or even a visit to the ship could be on the agenda!
Theory #24: The Borg Collective was badly damaged in the Voyager episode Endgame and has been unable to recover.
The USS Stargazer’s communications officer first encountered the Borg’s message.
In The Star Gazer, it seemed as if the Borg Collective was reaching out, asking the Federation – and Picard specifically – for help. If so, the question is why? Was it just a shallow ploy to launch another attack on Starfleet? Or is there at least a degree of truth to the Borg’s request?
Endgame, the final episode of Voyager, depicted a time-travelling Admiral Janeway introducing a neurolytic pathogen – a type of virus – into the Borg Queen, seriously damaging her, her base of operations, and several Borg vessels in the vicinity. Because the Borg hadn’t been seen since – until The Star Gazer, that is – we never got to learn just how deadly Admiral Janeway’s actions were.
Admiral Janeway in Endgame.
I’ve always assumed that the Borg Collective is vast enough, powerful enough, clever enough, and most importantly adaptable enough that Admiral Janeway’s actions weren’t going to strike a fatal blow. Whatever damage she had done seemed like something the Borg could eventually fix – and their existence 25 years later during the events of The Star Gazer seems to prove that. The Borg’s technology and weapons are still streets ahead of anything Starfleet has at its disposal… but even so, it’s still possible that the Borg are on their last legs facing defeat.
If that’s the case, maybe we’ll discover that it was Admiral Janeway who’s responsible – that her actions in Endgame are either wholly or partly to blame for the Borg’s weakened state. Dr Jurati seemed to know that the Borg Collective isn’t as strong as it once was, so that could be another clue pointing to this theory.
Theory #25: Elnor will be restored to life when the crew returns to the 25th Century.
Raffi and Elnor aboard La Sirena in a flashback.
The decision to kill off Elnor so early in the season certainly succeeded as a shocking story point… but I’m not so sure he’ll stay dead. Is Raffi’s belief that restoring the timeline will save his life something that the series has carefully set up so it can be paid off later? Or was it simply part of her reaction to his death; the bargaining stage of the grieving process? I’m not sure!
Elnor is a character who had potential – the first Romulan to be a main character on a Star Trek series (or the second, after Narek) and the first Romulan to enlist in Starfleet. If the Star Trek franchise were to stick around, I could happily follow his adventures as a Starfleet officer over the course of several years, giving him an arc somewhat comparable to someone like Tilly in Discovery, growing into his new role.
But Elnor is also a character who was underused in Season 1, and the decision to make him a Starfleet cadet at the beginning of Season 2 was only the beginning of a new arc for him. His death didn’t hit as hard as it could’ve because we don’t know Elnor very well – and I wonder if that could be a reason to bring him back later in the season.
Theory #26: Seven of Nine will choose to remain in 2024.
Seven of Nine in Los Angeles.
For the first time in her life, Seven of Nine is feeling a sense of freedom. Not only is she free from her Borg implants, changing the way she looks, but she’s also unencumbered by her Borg past. No one she meets in 2024 will be aware of the Borg, and she’s clearly enjoying the way that makes her feel.
In The Star Gazer, Seven spoke to Picard about feeling judged by the ship’s crew – and in a broader sense, by practically everyone in the 25th Century. Her Borg past is a hurdle for her; she feels the weight of unspoken criticisms and judgements made against her. Her Borg implants are the biggest physical manifestation of this, but the fact that most people she meets in the 25th Century know who she is and where she came from is a burden – one she no longer feels in 2024.
With that in mind, could Seven choose to remain behind when Picard and the crew of La Sirena are ready to leave? Even if she’s ultimately talked out of it (or even forced out of it), I wonder if she’ll try to stay in the past.
Theory #27: At least one character from The Next Generation will make an appearance.
The main cast of The Next Generation Season 2.
As above, this theory has been knocked by the Season 3 announcement. It seems less likely now that we’ll see major roles for any of the characters announced for Season 3. However, the final act of Season 2 could bring back some or all of these characters if it’s going to set up the next phase of the story, and cameos and smaller appearances still feel possible.
Theory #28: The loose ends from Season 1 will be tied up.
The Zhat Vash on Aia.
The Star Gazer already crossed off two things from the list of Season 1 leftovers! Dr Jurati’s legal status was clarified, as was her relationship with Captain Rios. There are still a number of points that I’d like to see addressed before the season ends, though, as Season 1 unfortunately left quite a lot of story on the table thanks to a rushed and underwhelming finale.
Here are the main ones:
What will become of the synths on Coppelius, and will they have to be relocated for safety?
Did Starfleet attempt to visit Aia and shut down the beacon at the centre of the Zhat Vash’s prophecy? Leaving it out in the open seems dangerous.
Will Starfleet contact the super-synths and attempt to make peace or convince them that they pose no threat?
The super-synths in the Season 1 finale.
Why did Bruce Maddox go to Freecloud?
With the Zhat Vash plot exposed, what will become of their crusade against synthetic life?
Did Federation-Romulan relations suffer as a result of the Zhat Vash’s attack on Mars and attempted attack on Coppelius?
What happened to Narek after he was captured by the Coppelius synths?
Who controls the Artifact and what will happen to the surviving ex-Borg?
So that’s it!
La Sirena’s transporter in action!
As we head into the final two episodes of the season we’ve cleared a few theories off the list – one way or another – but there are still a lot that remain in play! After two or three episodes in which Picard Season 2 got bogged down in an unexciting time travel story, Mercy seems to have begun to refocus the story on a much more interesting and exciting conflict. I have high hopes for next week’s outing, which may be titled Hide and Seek.
I always like to end these theory lists by saying that I do this just for fun. I enjoy writing, I enjoy Star Trek, and spending more time in this world is an escape and an enjoyable distraction. But for some folks, fan theories can be frustrating or unenjoyable, especially if they get very attached to a plausible-sounding theory that ultimately doesn’t pan out. I have no “insider information” and I’m not trying to claim that anything suggested above can, will, or must be part of Picard Season 2. I fully expect many of these theories to be debunked and for the season to go in wildly unpredictable directions!
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.
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, First Contact, and Voyager.
Picard Season 2 certainly has enjoyed its episode-ending mini-cliffhangers! I think we’ve had one in every episode now, and last week’s outing, Monsters, ended with Picard and Guinan being apprehended by the FBI. This led to an episode that felt like the season’s second detour in a row, one which dedicated a lot of its runtime to a new character, his background, and a run-in with Vulcans decades in the past.
Agent Wells may yet have a larger role to play, but with only two episodes remaining in the season, it feels like there’s a heck of a lot of story to get through. Mercy made some progress to that end, but it also got bogged down in places, and I feel like the writers aren’t always aware of the time constraints that a ten-episode season has placed on them. The last thing I want, as the season reaches what should be its climax, is for there to be a repeat of the Season 1 situation. At least in that regard we can say that most of the characters and storylines are now in play… but some feel a long way from being wrapped up.
Picard in Mercy.
I didn’t dislike Mercy, though, all things considered. Unlike in Monsters, where the time spent with a comatose Picard felt padded at best, there was purpose to (most) of the story threads weaved in this week’s outing. And if you’ve been keeping up with my reviews this season, you’ll know that I’ve been saying for several episodes now that I wanted Picard to refocus its energies around the Borg Queen story: well, wish granted! Mercy spent much more time on what I consider to be the season’s more interesting story – and one that feels closer to Star Trek’s high-tech 25th Century.
One question I have that feels unexplained right now is how Dr Adam Soong finds himself with such resources at his disposal. As the episode drew to a close he spoke on the phone with someone identified as a “general,” and was able to hire a private military company to assist in the Borg Queen’s mission to capture La Sirena (something I’d been predicting she’d do for a couple of weeks!) But where has Dr Soong found the ability to do something like that?
Where did Dr Soong get the resources and connections to hire a private military company?
When we met Dr Soong in Fly Me To The Moon, he had been expelled from the scientific community, his licenses had been revoked, and he seemed to have lost everything. He still has a fancy house, so clearly he’s someone of financial means, but that shouldn’t allow him to just call up a general and buy mercenaries, no questions asked. I should’ve posed this question a couple of weeks ago when we encountered Dr Soong at the astronauts’ gala – how had he managed to buy his way onto the board of the Europa Mission when he’d been kicked out of the scientific community for his illegal and unethical research?
I doubt it’s a question that Picard has an answer for, and it’s a contrivance that we’ll probably just have to overlook. Still, given the way Dr Soong appeared during his encounter with the board and the consequences he suffered as a result of his work, it feels odd – and more than a little convenient for the sake of the story – that he’s someone with the resources and connections to be of use to both Q and the Borg Queen.
Dr Adam Soong.
One neat inclusion on this side of the story seems to explain why the people from the Confederation timeline that we saw in Penance venerate and celebrate Dr Soong so long after his death. The planetary shield that was keeping Confederation Earth on “life-support” seems to be one of Dr Soong’s most significant inventions – and we saw a smaller-scale version of this technology a couple of episodes ago. Drones that Dr Soong controlled put up a kind of shield to protect Kore from the sun – and it seems like he upscaled that technology to protect Earth from an “ecological collapse.”
The Borg Queen was able to very effectively manipulate Dr Soong, using his desire to have a legacy to leverage him to work for her. She must have something planned, though, because remember in the Confederation timeline the Borg had been wiped out. Establishing that timeline is categorically not in the Borg Queen’s interest – and indeed preventing it from happening is why she agreed to assist Picard in the first place. So Dr Soong is clearly in a lot of danger!
The Borg Queen continues to assimilate Dr Jurati.
Sticking with the Soongs, I’m really hoping that Kore has some unknown role yet to play, because right now she feels like fluff; an extraneous character who’s just here to give Isa Briones something to do in Soji’s absence. Kore may exist solely to inform aspects of Dr Soong’s character, but spending time with a fairly one-dimensional character like that doesn’t add a great deal to the story of the season overall. Her story this week continued to be incredibly repetitive, paralleling Soji and Dahj’s stories in Season 1. Kore pressed her father about her artificial origins – a genetic experiment, in this case, as opposed to being a synth – in a way that was very reminiscent of Soji learning her own backstory in the Season 1 episode The Impossible Box.
Even if characters like Kore and Agent Wells have roles to play in the next couple of episodes, I’d still argue that we probably spent too much time focusing on them this week. These are brand-new characters (albeit that one is played by a main cast member) and we just don’t have the same investment in their stories as we do in those of Picard, Raffi, Seven, Rios, and Dr Jurati. There was scope, perhaps, to cut down some of these sequences and spend more time with the main characters.
Kore Soong.
Having dedicated a lot of words to the presentation of Rios in my previous couple of reviews, I’ll try to avoid being too repetitive here. Suffice to say that Rios’ regression shows no sign of letting up, and the romantic sub-plot he’s now in with Teresa actually amplifies the sad decline in his characterisation compared with where he was at the beginning of the season. As with Kore being created to give Isa Briones something to do, I feel like the writers have invented these moments for Rios out of nowhere, dragging him backwards in terms of what could’ve been a satisfying character arc while simultaneously leaving him pretty disconnected from the rest of the story.
Think about this: when was the last time Rios said two words to Picard? Aside from a very brief conversation with Raffi when the gang infiltrated the astronauts’ gala, when was the last time he spoke to her, either? Or to anyone other than Teresa, come to that? Rios got one significant moment this week, as he identified a problem with La Sirena’s transporter that has a bearing on the stories involving Raffi, Seven, and the Borg Queen. But that moment wasn’t necessarily a “Rios” moment; it could’ve been anyone who discovered the Borg code in the system.
Rios working on La Sirena’s transporter.
As speculated in my last theory post, I wonder if Rios is being set up for an heroic death sometime before the end of the season. Skip this paragraph if you’re concerned about Season 3 spoilers, but after Paramount announced that the main cast of The Next Generation would be coming on board for Picard Season 3 in a big way, it’s not at all clear what that means for the current crop of characters. With Elnor already gone and Soji sidelined, killing off Rios and perhaps the Borg Queen in Dr Jurati’s body would only leave Seven of Nine and Raffi heading into Season 3, and that feels like it could be a more manageable number of characters for another ten-episode outing.
In short, Rios may be drawing the short straw here. His story of being detained and deported was a timely one that shone a light on America’s problem with immigration and the way migrants are handled, and as a Hispanic man, Rios clearly fit the bill for that story from the writers’ point of view. But when that story ended, Rios felt listless. Cut loose by the series and serving a pretty minor role in terms of the main story, his side-story with Teresa could be an attempt to give emotional weight to Rios’ potential death. By showing us his love for Teresa – and thus presumably her reaction to his death – Picard may be trying to score some added emotional points when the moment finally comes.
Rios with Teresa aboard La Sirena.
We learned some really interesting details about the Borg in an understated way thanks to Seven of Nine and Dr Jurati. Mercy may go on to be an important episode that future Borg stories can call back to, and as a Trekkie I’m always fascinated by the minutia of how things like Borg assimilation actually work! In the case of a normal Borg drone, they’re able to assimilate someone by forcing nanoprobes into their body. The nanoprobes bring with them the metals and materials needed to self-replicate, and it sounds as if this process has been honed by the Borg over a long period of time. The process relies on high-quality materials that the Borg must produce or refine somehow.
Without any nanoprobes of her own, or with a very limited number, the Borg Queen inhabiting Dr Jurati’s body must acquire the raw materials to construct more – and this is where the idea of taking lithium from batteries came into play in one of the series’ most disturbing sequences to date! The striking visual presentation of Dr Jurati with the wrecked cars drew on things like zombie fiction in a really tense and horrifying way.
This was an incredibly shocking way to see Dr Jurati, and it felt like it was inspired by zombie films.
I love everything about this side of the story. The concept that the Borg Queen needs to acquire resources, the way in which she’s going about it, the fact that the 21st Century doesn’t really provide her with what she needs… all of this works so incredibly well. In addition to exploring more about Borg technology and Borg assimilation, which would be fascinating in its own right, the story that’s unfolding is engrossing and exciting.
After several episodes in which this side of the story felt like an afterthought, giving it a proper moment in the spotlight felt cathartic. This is the kind of storytelling I’ve been wanting ever since Season 2 took us on this mission back in time, and while it’s come pretty late in the game and in an episode that had those other less interesting elements, I’m glad we finally got to see more from the Borg Queen.
Newly-created Borg nanoprobes.
Seven of Nine was at her best on this side of the story, showing off an emotional and vulnerable reaction to being face-to-face, once again, with the Borg. Her confrontation with the partially-assimilated Dr Jurati clearly brought back bad memories, and led to a minor conflict with Raffi – understandably so, perhaps, but I’m glad it was resolved and didn’t descend into a major relationship drama!
One of the best things that Picard has done has been to give Seven of Nine some much-needed character development, and seeing her reacting like this – in a very human, emotional way – is further evidence of that wonderful arc. I said when Seven was reintroduced in Season 1 that she’d become one of my least-favourite Voyager characters toward the end of that show’s run, and the reason for that was how boring and repetitive she was (combined, perhaps, with the fact that she was overused by the show’s writers). Seven would learn some lesson in “how to be human” one week, then forget it all by the next episode, leaving her feeling static and undeveloped. Picard has completely reworked her character in a way that feels natural; that she’s made genuine and lasting progress since the events of Voyager, now twenty-five years in her past.
Seven of Nine in Mercy.
This progression of Seven’s arc has been shown in a new light by bringing her back into conflict with the Borg. The decision to remove her Borg implants for Season 2 – including, as she noted this week, internal implants that aren’t seen – has added to this new, more human presentation. Coming face-to-face with the Borg again is already proving to be traumatic for her, bringing up awful memories that she can’t escape.
We saw this in Season 1 with Picard himself, particularly in the episode The Impossible Box when he boarded the Artifact. But rather than feeling like a redux of that story, Seven’s feels unique. The way she reacts, as someone who had been assimilated at a much younger age and who remained a member of the Borg Collective for much longer, is completely different to the very visceral reaction that Picard had. Jeri Ryan and Michelle Hurd played off one another perfectly during these sequences, processing Seven’s trauma while also trying to stay focused on the task at hand.
Raffi and Seven of Nine tracked Dr Jurati to a car park.
Speaking of trauma, Seven isn’t the only one dealing with it. Raffi is also coming to terms with Elnor’s death, and while she had been hoping that restoring the timeline might save his life, I think we got another significant hint here that that isn’t going to happen. In a flashback sequence we saw how Raffi had persuaded Elnor to remain at Starfleet Academy instead of returning to Vashti, “manipulating” him, to use her and Seven’s words. This is making her feel even more responsible for Elnor’s death.
Coming to terms with trauma can require someone to confront unpleasant truths about themselves, and while I wouldn’t say what Raffi did with Elnor was excessive or horribly manipulative, she recoginises that the way she reacted to him – and the way she treats others in her life, including Seven – can come across that way. Her desire to get the right outcome for herself can be overriding, and she knows just what to say to people to get them to do what she wants. I’m not sure what the series plans to do with this revelation, but if Raffi sticks around going into Season 3, perhaps it’ll be something she consciously tries to work on.
Raffi with Elnor in the flashback.
We got confirmation of a theory that emerged as far back as Penance: there’s something wrong with Q. Q believes that he’s dying, as evidenced by his declining powers, and although he seemed somewhat accepting of it at first, he’s clearly rattled and unsure of what’s happening to him. We have no indication right now of what might’ve caused Q’s declining health – nor how far Picard may be involved. After several episodes in which this has been teased, going all the way back to the second episode of the season, I really hope we get a proper and thorough explanation for why Q is dying (or for whatever else might be happening to him) before the story concludes.
One line from Q was particularly interesting: he told Guinan that: “the trap is immaterial; it’s the escape that counts.” To me, that feels like it embodies Q’s entire philosophy, at least insofar as his dealings with Picard are concerned. He sets puzzles not for their own sake, but to see how Picard will react and respond. He judges those reactions, as we saw throughout The Next Generation, but he also possesses a curiosity – he genuinely doesn’t know what Picard will do, and he wants to see it for himself. In that sense, Q is almost, in his own very twisted way, studying Picard and humanity.
Guinan and Q talked in the FBI office.
There were other interesting snippets from Q’s conversation with Guinan. The idea of a “temporal horizon” being part of how members of the Q Continuum perceive the universe is a neat concept, helping to visualise for us as the audience something that’s fundamentally difficult to grasp. Q experiences time in some kind of linear fashion, even though he’s able to travel to different eras at will. His own personal past is still in the past, and he has a future – except that his future is now something he cannot see or perceive. It’s a complex thing to wrap one’s head around, and I’m not entirely sure I’ve fully understood it nor successfully communicated my interpretation of it! But suffice to say that I think we have a better understanding of the Q Continuum after Mercy.
One word that Q used almost passed by unnoticed: “redeem.” Does Q believe that what he’s doing right now is some kind of redemption for himself? If so, is the “penance” he told Picard about earlier in the season part of some kind of punishment he’s inflicting not upon Picard, but upon himself? How would showing Picard a warped, broken timeline redeem Q? And, come to that, what is he seeking redemption from? There are a lot of unanswered questions!
What could Q be seeking redemption from?
As Q showed Guinan the extent of his failing powers, it raised a question that I’d been contemplating since before the season aired (and that has been part of my theory list). Is Q truly responsible for breaking the timeline in the first place? Picard assumed so when Q first reappeared, but as he seems to be losing his powers, it seems plausible to suggest that making such a dramatic change is no longer something that Q is capable of.
In addition to all of that, we have the question of cause-and-effect. When Q emerged at the end of The Star Gazer, the damage to the timeline had already been done. Yet recent episodes have shown us Q running around in the 21st Century seemingly trying to enact the change to the timeline that Picard hopes to prevent. In The Star Gazer and Penance, Q seemed to be in full possession of his powers, even changing his appearance. But if those events happened after what we’re seeing now, from Q’s perspective, does that mean he got better? Or did he somehow break the timeline, travel back in time to continue to observe Picard, and then start to lose his powers? My head hurts!
Are we seeing Q before or after the events of The Star Gazer?
Picard and Guinan’s interrogation by Agent Wells was interesting, but as stated above I think it ran a little too long and took us on a bit of a detour. If Agent Wells comes back and has a significant moment later in the season, maybe that will be excusable; just one part of an evolving and developing story. But if this is to be his sole appearance, it’s certainly an odd choice for the season to have dedicated so much time to his character and backstory. The entire “apprehended by the FBI” story thread could’ve been cut out, with Picard and possibly Guinan joining the hunt for Dr Jurati instead. We’ll have to wait and see what comes next before passing judgement.
One storyline that the FBI interrogation successfully wrapped up was Rios’ missing combadge. This had fallen by the wayside in recent episodes, and after the point of divergence in the timeline was revealed to be the Europa Mission, its potential importance slipped away. It came back this week in an interesting way, but ultimately this was little more than a bluff and a tease – not only from Agent Wells to Picard, but from the show’s writers to us as the audience! The combadge could’ve ended up as a “butterfly,” with its unknown impact rippling along the timeline. As it is, Agent Wells gave it back to Picard and it can once again disappear from the plot.
Agent Wells interrogating Picard.
The Vulcan sub-plot was interesting, and certainly served to give motivation to Agent Wells as he pursued Picard, Guinan, and all things alien. It also led to a moment with Picard that one again highlighted his calm, diplomatic style, and that’s something I’ll never tire of seeing! However, if there was supposed to be a connection with the Enterprise episode Carbon Creek, which saw Vulcans on Earth in the 1950s, it wasn’t particularly well-established by the short flashback sequence that we got.
More could’ve been done to show what the Vulcans were doing on Earth, or even to establish that young Agent Wells was in the town of Carbon Creek, for instance. That would’ve been a fun easter egg to long-time fans. As it is, the connection is more implicit than explicit – which is fine, I guess! But in a story about time travel that hasn’t had many opportunities to connect to the wider franchise (aside from a few references to The Voyage Home and Past Tense) this kind of feels like a missed opportunity to make a solid connection.
A pair of Vulcans on Earth sometime in the 1960s-1970s.
Storylines in which the hero is apprehended by the authorities while on a time-sensitive mission can be irritating for me. I can find myself feeling frustrated and wanting to shout at the show or film to “just get on with it!” But to Mercy’s credit, that didn’t really happen this time around. The episode was entertaining, and even though the FBI interrogation sequences weren’t the highlight, they were well-paced and inoffensive enough. My hope now is that there’ll be some bigger point to all of it – something to tie together Picard, the Borg Queen, Q, and the rest of the characters and storylines currently in play.
So that was Mercy. We got some significant development of key storylines, but those developments have come pretty late in the season – and there’s still a lot of work to do if we’re to see everything neatly wrapped up in just two weeks’ time. I’m hopeful that Picard has an ace up its sleeve – possibly even a season-ending cliffhanger – that will make the detours and side-stories feel worthwhile rather than like fluff.
What I will say in praise of Mercy – and of the show’s writing as a whole – is that the end of the season feels far from formulaic. I can’t tell what’s going to happen next, nor what the ultimate destination of this story is. Several characters feel in imminent danger – Q, Rios, Dr Jurati, Dr Soong, and even Seven of Nine and Raffi. But what will come next for any of them is still up in the air. The only thing we know for certain right now is that the Borg Queen plans to make a move on La Sirena. Rios is aware of that, but with Picard and the others stuck half a world away, will they be able to get there in time? I have no idea… and after more than thirty years as a fan, I love that Star Trek can still take me on a rollercoaster ride that goes in wildly unpredictable directions!
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.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-2 and casting information for Season 3. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: Discovery, Voyager, First Contact, and The Next Generation.
Monsters was not my favourite episode of Star Trek: Picard. It wasn’t irredeemably awful, but it didn’t seem to bring a lot to the table in terms of advancing the main (and most interesting) narrative threads of the season, and its attempt at depicting Yvette Picard’s unnamed mental health condition was poor. Despite that, though, we have a few changes on the theory list this week!
In addition to one confirmed theory and one debunking, we have several theories that saw significant movement – either because of events that unfolded on screen or, in a couple of cases, because of things that we didn’t see!
As always, we’ll start off with the theories that are making their exit from the list this week.
Debunked theory: My various Watcher candidates.
Picard and Tallinn.
I had speculated about the Watcher’s identity before Picard met her at the end of the episode Watcher. After Picard met Tallinn and it was revealed that she worked for the same mysterious faction as Gary Seven had in The Original Series episode Assignment: Earth, several of those possibilities seemed to remain in play.
However, Monsters revealed to us that Tallinn is a Romulan, and unless we get any further information about the organisation she works for, I think that’s as far as her identity goes. She may be an ancestor of Laris, but she isn’t Laris herself – and she clearly isn’t a Q, a Prophet, or anything like that!
Confirmed theory: Teresa learned the truth about Rios.
Teresa after arriving aboard La Sirena.
We can debate Rios’ decision to tell Teresa (and her son Ricardo) the truth about who he is and where/when he’s from. But I successfully predicted that Teresa would find out the truth one way or another – and this week she did!
I enjoyed Rios’ “I just work in outer space” line in Monsters; a riff on the lines spoken by Dr Gillian Taylor and Captain Kirk in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. That film ended with Kirk bringing Dr Taylor with him to the 23rd Century… so is it possible that there’s more to come from Rios and Teresa? Read on to find out!
So those theories were debunked and confirmed.
Now let’s jump into the main theory list, beginning with those theories that are either new or that saw movement in Monsters this week.
Theory #1: The Q Continuum has been attacked.
Guinan and Picard attempted to summon a Q.
There are several pieces of evidence that Monsters gave us that can arguably be used in support of this theory. Firstly, Guinan mentioned a “cold war” between her people – the El-Aurians – and the Q Continuum. Given that the El-Aurians appear to be a humanoid race who were conquered by the Borg, the fact that they were able to pose any kind of threat whatsoever to the Q could suggest that the Continuum is not entirely impenetrable.
Secondly, the fact that Guinan’s attempt to summon a Q failed. One interpretation of what Guinan said about the magic bottle/ritual could be that it would’ve summoned Q himself – but a more likely use for that item, at least in my view, is that it would make the entire Q Continuum aware that an El-Aurian wants to speak to them, and they would send a representative. Rather than just Q himself being affected, the fact that no one from the Continuum was able to be summoned could mean that they’re all losing their powers – or that many of them are already dead.
The Q Continuum as it appeared in Star Trek: Voyager.
We also have the conversation between Picard and Tallinn after the former awoke from his coma. Picard suggested that Q had put him in a coma deliberately, hoping to use the traumatic memories he re-lived as some aspect of the “trial.” But Picard turned that concept on its head and suggested that maybe there’s something in his past or his mind that could indicate a weakness or vulnerability in Q – something that Picard had never considered before.
There’s also a line from Discovery’s fourth season that could be relevant: Admiral Vance noted that the Federation hadn’t encountered the Q Continuum in 600 years as of the 32nd Century… could that be because the Q have either gone extinct or recused themselves from galactic affairs as a result of the events currently unfolding in Picard Season 2?
Although from our perspective Q and the Q Continuum appear godlike, it no longer seems impossible that someone – perhaps the Borg – could’ve discovered an exploitable weakness. If so, maybe the entire Q Continuum has come under attack, and if something Picard did or didn’t do is connected to those events, that could explain why Q is so angry and why he felt the need to punish Picard. It could even explain Q’s desire to radically alter the timeline.
Theory #2: The FBI Agent who apprehended Guinan and Picard is a temporal agent or Starfleet officer.
Agent Wells, FBI.
Monsters continued a season-long trend of individual cliffhanger endings when Picard and Guinan were arrested by the FBI. Agent Wells, the man who led the operation to bring them in, had uncovered evidence of Picard using a transporter to beam into Los Angeles, and understandably wants to figure out who Picard is and what’s going on!
But the actor who plays Agent Wells – Jay Karnes – is not a newcomer to Star Trek. In the Voyager episode Relativity, he played Lieutenant Ducane, a 29th Century Starfleet officer aboard the Federation timeship Relativity. Is it possible that Agent Wells and Lieutenant Ducane are the same person, and that Ducane is on a mission of his own to the 21st Century?
If so, perhaps this could line up with Discovery’s temporal war arc, or even connect to Enterprise’s temporal cold war. We’ve seen Starfleet acting as a kind of temporal police before, as well as the organisation that employed Daniels also attempting to police the timeline. Perhaps one of these organisations is aware of Picard’s temporal transgression and they dispatched Agent Wells to figure out what’s happening.
Theory #3: Rios will bring Teresa and Ricardo to the 25th Century.
Teresa and Rios at the clinic.
Rios has clearly abandoned the idea of making as little impact on the timeline as possible! Just like Kirk did for Dr Gillian Taylor in The Voyage Home, perhaps Rios will seek to bring Teresa and Ricardo forwards in time. Teresa may have her clinic to attend to – although its status is in doubt after it was raided by ICE earlier in the season – but she may want to leave the world of the 21st Century behind to head into a more optimistic future.
If Teresa and Rios continue to pursue a romantic relationship, and Rios begins to offer himself as a father figure to Ricardo, maybe the stage will be set for Teresa heading to the 25th Century. It wouldn’t be the weirdest or wildest possibility, especially not now that Teresa and Ricardo are both aware of Rios’ true identity and the existence of La Sirena.
Theory #4: Teresa and Ricardo are Rios’ ancestors.
Teresa with Rios in Monsters.
This could be a heartbreaking end to Rios and Teresa’s burgeoning romance! In true Back to the Future style, perhaps Rios will learn that Teresa and Ricardo are his distant ancestors, bringing their relationship to a screeching half and preventing either of them from taking things further.
We’ve seen Star Trek deal with time travel on many occasions, including fixed moments in time and people too important to be changed or killed. And in a story in which Picard has already met a distant ancestor of his own – Renée – there could be a kind of poetic symmetry if Rios were to discover a connection to Teresa and Ricardo. If this pans out, I hope Rios and Teresa discover the truth before they… y’know!
Theory #5: Rios will be killed and Picard will assume command of the new USS Stargazer.
Rios in the captain’s chair of the USS Stargazer.
One thing I can’t figure out at the moment is what sort of role the new cast will have in Season 3. If you somehow missed the cack-handed announcement, it’s been revealed that the main cast of The Next Generation (sans Wil Wheaton and Denise Crosby) will be reuniting in Season 3, and that they will have major roles to play. If that’s the case it seems all but certain that the main cast of Picard will be sidelined. We’ve already seen that happen this season with Elnor killed and Soji missing in action, so that really only leaves Dr Jurati, Raffi, and Rios.
If the teases and hints about Season 3 that we’ve heard so far prove to be true, it seems as though Picard and the crew will need a ship… so could that ship be the new USS Stargazer?
New sets were built from scratch for the Stargazer, including a conference room, bridge, turbolift, and corridors, yet so far those sets were only used in a single episode. Even if Season 2 sees the crew make it back to the 25th Century relatively soon, that’s still a massive investment for relatively little screen time! So my theory is that the new sets will be used more extensively in Season 3 when Picard assumes command of the USS Stargazer. Why would there be a vacancy in the captain’s chair? Because Captain Rios is going to be one of the characters shuffled out of the way to make room for the returning crew of The Next Generation.
Theory #6: Q is dying.
Q’s powers seem to be failing.
This theory could tie in with the one above about the entire Q Continuum having been attacked – or it could be something that only affects Q himself. Regardless, one possible interpretation for Q’s apparent loss of powers and his comment to Dr Soong about running out of time could be that he’s dying.
Picard had noted as far back as Penance that there’s something different or off about Q, and the generally darker, angrier, and more aggressive presentation of the character could all be indicators that Q is reaching the end of his life.
Q while posing as Renée’s therapist.
This could explain the apparent loss of Q’s powers – or the decreasing control he has over them. If he wanted to prevent Renée Picard’s mission, for example, Q should simply be able to snap his fingers and turn her spaceship into a block of cheese, or make it so that Renée was never born, or change her desire to become an astronaut into a lifelong passion to become a pro YouTuber. Instead, he’s resorted to trying to talk her out of it and trading favours with Dr Soong. Why? Could it be that Q’s declining power is indicative of his declining health?
If one of the defining characteristics of the Q as a race is immortality, what might have caused Q to be approaching death? Is it a punishment inflicted on him by his own people, or the result of some other outside force? Is it natural or artificial in nature? And what does it have to do with Picard?
Theory #7: Q and Picard will have to work together to stop the rogue Borg Queen.
The Borg Queen is in control of Dr Jurati’s body.
I said in my review of Monsters that I felt the episode kind of had the wrong focus. The fact that the Borg Queen is slowly assimilating Dr Jurati’s body, and is now on the loose in 21st Century Los Angeles, feels like a much more exciting story – and one that’s incredibly urgent for Picard and the rest of the crew to deal with!
The Borg Queen could begin assimilating humans in this time period, and that would wreak havoc with the timeline. Whatever Q’s objective was by preventing Renée’s mission and establishing the Confederation timeline, the total assimilation of humanity in the 2020s wasn’t part of his plan – and that could lead to a big twist in the season’s storyline with three episodes remaining.
Q and Picard together in Penance.
Instead of Q being the “big bad” of the season for Picard and the crew to defeat, a weakened, less powerful Q might have to team up with Picard to stop the Borg Queen. This could happen either because the Borg Queen interfered with part of Q’s plan, or Picard could be the one to reach out and ask Q for help.
Without his powers, or with his powers in a weakened and/or unreliable state, Q wouldn’t just be able to snap his fingers and unassimilate Dr Jurati! But his knowledge of the Borg and how they operate could be invaluable to Picard and the crew of La Sirena if the mission parameters change!
Theory #8: The masked, hooded figure from The Star Gazer is not the real Borg Queen.
The Borg Queen?
The Borg Queen – the hooded figure who materialised on the bridge of the Stargazer – was absolutely terrifying, evoking feelings for me that the Star Trek franchise hasn’t hit in decades. The way this character was presented, with her shrouded face, flowing robes, monochromatic aesthetic, and blend of humanoid and decidedly non-humanoid mechanical features was simultaneously riveting and frightening!
This character was presented as the Borg Queen in the episode, and the Borg have no reason that we know of to lie about that. But at the same time, she was very different not only from how we’ve seen the Borg Queen in past iterations of Star Trek, but also from the Borg Queen that Picard and the crew met in the Confederation timeline. Could this character actually be someone else – perhaps someone that the Borg have assimilated?
The events of Two of One and Monsters in particular could be argued to be setting up Dr Jurati for this role – but there are other candidates that we could consider.
“Borg Queen” Candidate #1: Dr Jurati.
Dr Jurati and the hallucinatory Borg Queen.
Dr Jurati’s assimilation has progressed over the past few episodes, and the Borg Queen has really sunk her claws (and tentacles) into her. This new “endorphin rush” angle is an interesting one, and Seven of Nine believes that it could be key to the creation of a new Borg Queen. Putting two and two together would seem to make Dr Jurati the obvious Borg Queen candidate.
“Borg Queen” Candidate #2: Renée Picard.
Renée at the gala.
Renée could be the Borg Queen if she’s assimilated. Perhaps she will be attacked and assimilated during the course of the Europa Mission, or maybe the Queen will try to get to her to gain possession over the Europa Mission’s spacecraft. If La Sirena is damaged and unusable, the Europa Mission vehicle could be the best option for the Queen to get into space in this time period. Renée being the masked, hooded Borg could explain why the Borg were asking for Picard by name, and why Non, je ne regrette rien played shortly before the Stargazer’s self-destruction.
“Borg Queen” Candidate #3: The time-travelling Admiral Janeway from Endgame.
Admiral Janeway and the Borg Queen.
Admiral Janeway was assimilated by the Borg Queen as part of her plan to introduce a neurolytic pathogen into the Collective, and appeared to have been killed when the Borg Queen’s complex exploded. But is there a way she could have survived?
Her assimilation could have been a turning point for the Borg. She did untold damage to the Collective, but also potentially gifted them knowledge and information about future events and technologies that were decades ahead of their time. Just like the Borg once chose Captain Picard to become Locutus – their “spokesperson” or representative – perhaps they might have chosen Admiral Janeway to fill a similar role during this latest incursion. Admiral Janeway could even have been incorporated as part of the Borg Queen.
“Borg Queen” Candidate #4: Soji.
Soji in Season 1.
The Borg seek “perfection” through the synthesis of organic and synthetic parts; if Coppelius synths like Soji have something that the Borg want, perhaps we’ll learn that they assimilated her to get it. The anomaly from which the Borg vessel emerged was not a standard transwarp corridor, and was specifically noted to emit some kind of temporal radiation. Thus the Borg vessel could be from a future date after Soji has already been assimilated. We could even learn that the super-synths from the Season 1 finale are actually the Borg; that could be how they first became aware of Soji and the Coppelius synths.
Theory #9: The Borg Queen/Dr Jurati will steal La Sirena, stranding Picard in the past.
La Sirena on approach to the sun in Assimilation.
The Borg Queen’s next move isn’t clear, although the events of Monsters seem to suggest that she needs to continue to trigger endorphins in Dr Jurati’s body in order to speed up or complete the assimilation process. She may not be fully ready for an armed confrontation with Picard and the crew just yet, so she may need to bide her time and prepare.
But once she is prepared, what next? She certainly could stick around in the 21st Century, assimilating modern-day humans and establishing a new Borg outpost. But she has no way to contact or connect with the Borg Collective in this time period, as they’re thousands of light-years away in the Delta Quadrant. If restoring the Collective is part of the Queen’s plan, then surely she’ll want to get back in touch with the rest of the Borg as soon as possible.
The Borg Queen as she appeared in Assimilation.
One way she could do this would be to steal La Sirena. Borg code has already been planted in the ship’s computer, and it’s possible that the Queen managed to hide even more malicious code that Seven of Nine hasn’t been able to find and purge. Part of the reason for doing that could be in preparation for commandeering the ship!
Whether the Queen plans to head off-world to the Delta Quadrant to link up with the 21st Century Borg Collective or whether she plans to return to the 25th Century, armed with new knowledge about humanity, stealing La Sirena is her best bet – and with most of the crew no longer aboard, it could be relatively easy for her to do so.
Theory #10: Picard and the crew of La Sirena will “borrow” Renée’s Europa Mission spacecraft to get back to the 25th Century.
Renée in training aboard a Europa Mission simulator.
If La Sirena is stolen by the Borg Queen – or otherwise damaged and rendered unusable – Picard and the rest of the crew will need to find another way to get back to the 25th Century. Could they hitch a ride on Renée’s Europa Mission spacecraft?
Earlier in the season, Picard seemed to imply that no one really knows what happened to Renée and the Europa Mission ship after she discovered signs of life in the outer solar system, so does that mean it would be possible for her ship to simply disappear without corrupting the timeline? Perhaps the reason why history has no record of what happened to Renée after the Europa Mission isn’t because of World War III and the loss of that information, but because she and the ship simply disappeared while in space.
There’s nothing that we know of to suggest that the slingshot manoeuvre can’t be performed by a ship like Renée’s, and the fact that she’s an astronaut at all with her own spacecraft could open up a vital doorway for Picard and the crew if they suddenly find themselves in need of a new way home.
So those theories are new or saw movement this week.
Up next, I’ll recap all of the other theories that are still in play. Some of these may seem less and less likely as the season’s storylines evolve, but for now I’m not striking any off the list.
Theory #11: Q is not responsible for changing the timeline.
Q at Château Picard.
Q is clearly trying to affect some kind of change to the timeline by interfering with Renée Picard’s mission. But his declining powers could suggest that he isn’t as directly involved with the change and the creation of the Confederation timeline as he implied. Q may no longer be capable of doing something on this scale – and even if he was, we still have no idea what his motivation for doing so would be.
The Confederation timeline and the 21st Century don’t seem like typical Q puzzles. He described sending Picard to the Confederation timeline as a “penance,” but what exactly he’s punishing Picard for and why is still not clear. In short, we still don’t know why Q would want to do something like this, and as of Fly Me To The Moon, it’s no longer clear that Q has the ability to do so either.
I have a longer article that goes into more detail about this theory that I wrote before the season premiere, and you can find it by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #12: Q shielded Picard and the crew of La Sirena from changes to the timeline.
A very young-looking Q!
Regardless of who changed the timeline and why, it seems more and more clear that Q is responsible for ensuring that Picard and the crew of La Sirena were the only ones unaffected by the change. If his goal was to change the timeline to punish Picard that makes sense – but it also leaves open the possibility that Picard will be able to figure out what happened and prevent it. That could be Q’s goal.
I’m not quite ready to call this one “confirmed,” though. I think we need to spend more time with Q to understand what he’s done, what he hopes to do next, and why.
Theory #13: Who is responsible for damaging the timeline, then?
Did the super-synts do it?
If Q isn’t the one who changed the timeline, the obvious question that raises is “who did it?”
In theory, it could be any one of a number of different Star Trek factions. We’ve seen the Klingons having access to time travel in the early 25th Century, for example, in the Voyager episode Endgame, and various time travel stories and stories depicting powerful alien races could all theoretically yield suspects. But considering what we know about Star Trek: Picard specifically, in my view the main suspects are as follows:
The Borg. The Borg could be one of the season’s main antagonists after their emergence in The Star Gazer, and we’ve seen in past iterations of Star Trek that they can travel through time.
The Zhat Vash. While the Zhat Vash may not have been shown to possess time travel tech, they were the primary antagonist last season, and arguably were not defeated in the Season 1 finale.
How about the Zhat Vash?
The super-synths. The super-synths from the Season 1 finale are a wildcard; we don’t know much about them except that they seem to be technologically powerful. Travelling back in time might be on their agenda – but erasing the prime timeline could result in the erasure of the Coppelius synths.
The Romulan government or the Tal Shiar. With or without the support of the Zhat Vash, the Romulan government could have taken action against the Federation in response to the events of Season 1.
There are undoubtedly other Star Trek factions who could be implicated, and if we had a free choice we could suggest the likes of the Dominion or the Sphere-Builders. But I think those are far less likely when considering the elements Picard has brought on board.
Theory #14: Kore Soong will team up with Picard and the crew of La Sirena.
Kore Soong.
I wasn’t wild about Kore’s storyline in Two of One. It felt repetitive and derivative of the story we saw Isa Briones bring to screen so well as both Dahj and Soji in Season 1, as Kore learned that parts of her life may be a lie and that her “father” – Dr Adam Soong – is a mad scientist who seems to have somehow created her through artificial means.
However, this story could set the stage for Kore to team up with Admiral Picard. If she feels betrayed and realises the extreme lengths that Dr Soong has been going to by teaming up with Q and trying to sabotage the Europa Mission, Kore may start to work against him and his interests. If she somehow became aware of Picard’s presence, she could join up with the crew for the remainder of the mission.
Theory #15: The Confederation is run by augmented humans.
A recording that Kore found of Dr Soong in which he discussed his genetic experimentations.
After an enjoyable and complex presentation when he first appeared, Dr Adam Soong feels like he’s close to slipping into being a “mad scientist” archetype, someone who’s been messing around with forbidden science for years. I feel that’s not a great way for the story or the character to go, but his genetic experiments could be crucial to explaining how the Confederation was so different to the Federation of the prime timeline.
As we saw with augments like Khan, genetic engineering can lead to despotism and a sense of superiority. We saw that first-hand in the leadership of the Confederation, with its xenophobic anti-alien ideology. However, it wasn’t clear how the Confederation managed to conquer so much of the galaxy, defeating races like the Klingons, Cardassians, and even the Borg. Augmentation could be the answer and could explain how humanity in the Confederation timeline was so powerful.
This could be another part of the divergence in time: Q helps Dr Soong perfect augmentation, and augmented humans go on to conquer the galaxy. This would also explain why Dr Soong appears to be a revered figure in the Confederation – being celebrated presumably centuries after his death.
Theory #15-B: There will be a connection between the augments and Strange New Worlds.
La’an Noonien-Singh, a new character in Strange New Worlds.
One of the few things we know about Strange New Worlds at this early stage is that there will be a character named La’an Noonien-Singh. This new character seems to be related in some way to the iconic villain Khan, and if Khan or Khan-inspired augments play some kind of a role in the Confederation’s power structure, perhaps that will set up a connection between Picard Season 2 and Strange New Worlds.
As things stand right now, Strange New Worlds Season 1 will premiere on the same day as the finale of Picard Season 2, at least in the United States. Could a crossover be on the cards?
Theory #16: Dr Adam Soong will create the Borg.
Dr Adam Soong.
Dr Soong’s research seems to be primarily on the genetic side of things, and that could tee up a storyline about human augmentation – as we’ve already discussed. However, now that Q has become involved, we have to question what his motives are and what he might be pushing Dr Soong to do. Could Q give Dr Soong nanotechnology, perhaps, in an attempt to save or prolong his life?
If so, maybe Dr Soong’s experiments will somehow lead to the creation of the Borg Collective.
Theory #17: The Federation is responsible for creating the Borg.
A rather incredulous-looking Borg seen in The Next Generation.
This is a total wildcard, but I’m just throwing it out there!
The Borg Queen – and the Borg in general – appear to have a fascination with humanity and with Picard. Could it be that the explanation for that is that the Federation and/or humanity are somehow responsible for their creation? With time travel on the agenda, it’s not impossible to imagine a scenario in which the progenitor of the Borg – perhaps even the Queen herself – is able to travel back in time, founding the Collective.
Nanites used by the Control AI.
As suggested above, this could be what Q is manipulating Dr Soong into doing in the 21st Century. The Borg could therefore be a human creation, the offspring of one of Data’s ancestors. Could that link be the key to defeating them? Maybe that preserved knowledge and the veneration of Dr Soong is how the Confederation was able to defeat the Borg in their timeline!
Discovery Season 2 ran a story with the Control AI that could have also been a Borg origin story. Was it known as early as 2018-19 that Picard wanted to tell a story like this, and if so, could that explain why the Control storyline ended the way it did? I have a write-up of Discovery’s abandoned Borg origin story that you can find by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #18: The mission back in time won’t last all season.
Los Angeles, 2024.
We’re beginning to run out of time for Picard and the crew to figure out what happened and repair the damage to the timeline, but it’s still possible it’ll happen! Perhaps this one is as much a wish as a theory – time travel stories that visit the modern-day have never been my favourites in Star Trek – but I wonder if there could be something truly unexpected coming up.
As suggested above, it’s possible that the next phase of the season’s story will see Picard and the crew wrangling with the Borg Queen – and if she escapes back to the 25th Century, they’ll have to follow her. There are other ways that the mission back in time could end, though… and with the glimpse of the 25th Century that we saw at the beginning of the season being so tantalising, I hope it happens soon!
Theory #19: The Borg ship from The Star Gazer crossed over from the Confederation timeline.
The Borg vessel identified as “Legion.”
As far as we know at this stage, the Confederation timeline replaced the prime timeline thanks to someone or something changing the past. But timelines and parallel universes often go hand-in-hand in Star Trek, and after we learned about the Borg’s defeat in the Confederation timeline, I wonder if their ship from the season premiere might have found a way to punch through or cross over into the prime timeline.
If the Borg were facing defeat, as their message seemed to suggest, perhaps that could explain why. Also, the anomaly that the ship emerged from was not a typical transwarp conduit; we’d seen transwarp corridors as recently as Season 1. Finally, the Borg Queen of the Confederation timeline was aware of Picard and the history of the prime timeline – perhaps the Confederation timeline Borg knew of the prime timeline and this was a last-ditch effort to survive.
Theory #20: The Borg are fighting a war – and they’re losing.
The Borg vessel using its transporter-weapon on the USS Stargazer.
Possibly connected to the theory above, one explanation for the Borg’s message and appearance in The Star Gazer is that in the prime timeline the Collective has found itself on the losing side of a war. Penance told us that the Confederation had been able to defeat the Borg using technology that Dr Jurati believed was roughly equivalent to the Federation’s in the prime timeline – so clearly it’s possible to fight and beat the Borg.
Could mentions of Gul Dukat or Martok in Penance be hints at something to come later in the story? Both characters were major players during Deep Space Nine’s Dominion War arc; maybe the Cardassians and/or the Dominion have been aggressively attacking the Borg in the late 24th Century. The other big culprit is the Confederation – assuming that it’s possible for the two timelines to mix!
Theory #21: The Borg are aware that Picard is now a synth – and his synthetic status is part of the reason why they waited until now to make contact.
Picard awakened in a new synthetic body in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2.
As mentioned above with Soji, the timing of the new Borg incursion is interesting, especially considering that they asked for Picard by name. Are they aware of his newfound synthetic status? And if so, could Picard’s transition to a new synthetic body be the reason why the Borg chose to launch their attack?
The Borg seek “perfection” through a synthesis of organic and synthetic components, and while Picard’s new synthetic body is a far cry from the Borg drones we’ve seen, the idea of an organic mind in a synthetic body isn’t a million miles away from that same basic idea. Although Picard’s body was said to be comparable in practically every way to his original one, synthetics can have enhanced abilities that allow them to easily overpower humans – and, as we’ve seen with Data on more than one occasion, they can outmatch individual Borg drones as well.
A Borg drone losing a fight against Data.
Perhaps the Borg want to re-assimilate Picard now that he’s synthetic. If the Collective is still reeling from the damage inflicted upon it by Admiral Janeway or if they’re on the losing side of a war, perhaps they hope to use fully-synthetic bodies like Picard’s to replace damaged or destroyed drones, or as cannon fodder on the front lines. There are many reasons why the Borg might be interested in synthetic technology, and that could explain their re-emergence.
Even if the Borg don’t plan to assimilate Picard or the Coppelius synths, the timing of their appearance is certainly interesting and there could be a connection.
Theory #22: Q is angry with Picard for “giving up.”
Grumpy Q.
Over the course of The Next Generation, Q took a particular interest in Picard. More so than anyone else, Q seemed to see potential in Picard as a representative of the human race, someone who potentially showed him what humanity could be… with a little prompting and guidance. Q seemed fascinated by that idea, so seeing Picard’s fall from grace may have shocked him and left him feeling disappointed and bitter.
Picard spent more than a decade away from galactic affairs, retiring to his vineyard and seemingly just waiting around to die. Someone like Q might take that personally; he might feel that Picard was not living up to the potential he had. Perhaps Picard’s absence had some kind of unknown consequence, something that harmed Q or the Q Continuum. In any case, Q’s animosity to Picard seems to be personal – could disappointment at Picard’s attitude in the years prior to Season 1 be the cause?
Theory #23: Picard and the crew will have to actively trigger World War III to save the future.
World War III soldiers as glimpsed in Discovery Season 2.
Although the Bell Riots are the main event of 2024 that we know about in Star Trek’s internal timeline, the 21st Century was arguably dominated by another event: World War III. The war may have kicked off as early as 2026 (as suggested in The Original Series) and concluded by the mid-2050s as seen in First Contact. The “post-atomic horror” that followed was the backdrop for Q’s trial in Encounter at Farpoint.
World War III is integral to Star Trek because without it, it’s hard to see how warp drive would’ve developed and how humanity would’ve made peaceful first contact with the Vulcans. Just like the end of the Second World War brought about major technological and societal changes that ultimately made the world a better place, Star Trek’s World War III is integral to the events that led to the founding of the Federation. If it were prevented, the timeline would change dramatically.
We now know that Renée Picard’s mission seems to be the divergence in time. But her mission could be connected, somehow, to the outbreak of hostilities. By sending her on her way and preserving the timeline, Picard and his crew may be committing to the outbreak of war. You can find a full write-up of this theory by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #24: Romulans are spying on Earth in the 21st Century… and could be time-travelling Zhat Vash.
A young boy encounters a Romulan or Vulcan.
In the third pre-season trailer, a young boy wearing what seemed to be 21st Century clothing was seen encountering a Romulan or Vulcan. If the Zhat Vash are involved in the story somehow, perhaps this individual is a Zhat Vash operative. This could confirm that the Zhat Vash were able to travel through time, or send a message back in time to their 21st Century counterparts. The Romulans had achieved interstellar flight centuries earlier, so travelling to Earth to spy or place operatives seems plausible for them.
Theory #25: The Vulcans are on Earth in the early 21st Century… as stated in Discovery Season 4.
A meeting of senior Federation and allied officials in Discovery Season 4.
Another theory about the unnamed Romulan or Vulcan is tied into the Discovery Season 4 episode The Galactic Barrier. This could easily be a complete overreaction to a throwaway line, but at the beginning of the episode, the enigmatic Federation leader Dr Kovich stated that Vulcans were on Earth for decades prior to official first contact taking place.
This one line could be a reference to Carbon Creek, an episode of Enterprise that saw Vulcans crash-land on Earth in the 1950s. But the timing seems odd given the scene mentioned above from the Picard Season 2 pre-season trailers! If the character seen above is a Vulcan, perhaps there will be a connection of some kind between Discovery and Picard.
Theory #26: The USS Stargazer will make an appearance.
The original USS Stargazer.
Okay, technically the USS Stargazer has already appeared, but not in the way I expected! Captain Rios is (or was) in command of a new USS Stargazer, and not only that but he had a model of the original vessel in his conference room! So that’s it. Theory confirmed, everybody can move on to the next one!
Just kidding. The inclusion of a brand-new USS Stargazer brings the ship and its legacy back to the fore. Picard himself commented in The Star Gazer that the original vessel was his first command, and as far back as Season 1 we had a reference to his time in command through the character of Dr Benayoun. All of these things could be leading to some bigger role for the original USS Stargazer – and with a story that seems to include time travel and a strong focus on Picard’s own personal history, a flashback or even a visit to the ship could be on the agenda!
Theory #27: The Borg Collective was badly damaged in the Voyager episode Endgame and has been unable to recover.
Dr Jurati decoded the Borg message in The Star Gazer.
In The Star Gazer, it seemed as if the Borg Collective was reaching out, asking the Federation – and Picard specifically – for help. If so, the question is why? Was it just a shallow ploy to launch another attack on Starfleet? Or is there at least a degree of truth to the Borg’s request?
Endgame, the final episode of Voyager, depicted a time-travelling Admiral Janeway introducing a neurolytic pathogen – a type of virus – into the Borg Queen, seriously damaging her, her base of operations, and several Borg vessels in the vicinity. Because the Borg hadn’t been seen since – until The Star Gazer, that is – we never got to learn just how deadly Admiral Janeway’s actions were.
Admiral Janeway in Endgame.
I’ve always assumed that the Borg Collective is vast enough, powerful enough, clever enough, and most importantly adaptable enough that Admiral Janeway’s actions weren’t going to strike a fatal blow. Whatever damage she had done seemed like something the Borg could eventually fix – and their existence 25 years later during the events of The Star Gazer seems to prove that. The Borg’s technology and weapons are still streets ahead of anything Starfleet has at its disposal… but even so, it’s still possible that the Borg are on their last legs facing defeat.
If that’s the case, maybe we’ll discover that it was Admiral Janeway who’s responsible – that her actions in Endgame are either wholly or partly to blame for the Borg’s weakened state. Dr Jurati seemed to know that the Borg Collective isn’t as strong as it once was, so that could be another clue pointing to this theory.
Theory #28: Elnor will be restored to life when the crew returns to the 25th Century.
A hallucinatory Elnor.
The decision to kill off Elnor so early in the season certainly succeeded as a shocking story point… but I’m not so sure he’ll stay dead. Is Raffi’s belief that restoring the timeline will save his life something that the series has carefully set up so it can be paid off later? Or was it simply part of her reaction to his death; the bargaining stage of the grieving process? I’m not sure!
Elnor is a character who had potential – the first Romulan to be a main character on a Star Trek series (or the second, after Narek) and the first Romulan to enlist in Starfleet. If the Star Trek franchise were to stick around, I could happily follow his adventures as a Starfleet officer over the course of several years, giving him an arc somewhat comparable to someone like Tilly in Discovery, growing into his new role.
But Elnor is also a character who was underused in Season 1, and the decision to make him a Starfleet cadet at the beginning of Season 2 was only the beginning of a new arc for him. His death didn’t hit as hard as it could’ve because we don’t know Elnor very well – and I wonder if that could be a reason to bring him back later in the season.
Theory #29: Seven of Nine will choose to remain in 2024.
Seven of Nine in Los Angeles.
For the first time in her life, Seven of Nine is feeling a sense of freedom. Not only is she free from her Borg implants, changing the way she looks, but she’s also unencumbered by her Borg past. No one she meets in 2024 will be aware of the Borg, and she’s clearly enjoying the way that makes her feel.
In The Star Gazer, Seven spoke to Picard about feeling judged by the ship’s crew – and in a broader sense, by practically everyone in the 25th Century. Her Borg past is a hurdle for her; she feels the weight of unspoken criticisms and judgements made against her. Her Borg implants are the biggest physical manifestation of this, but the fact that most people she meets in the 25th Century know who she is and where she came from is a burden – one she no longer feels in 2024.
With that in mind, could Seven choose to remain behind when Picard and the crew of La Sirena are ready to leave? Even if she’s ultimately talked out of it (or even forced out of it), I wonder if she’ll try to stay in the past.
Theory #30: The season will end on a cliffhanger.
Because Seasons 2 and 3 went into production back-to-back, that made me wonder if they might form one continuous story – or if the final act of Season 2 might set up the story for Season 3. That still seems plausible to me, but the ill-timed announcement about the return of the main cast of The Next Generation in Season 3 may make it less likely.
However, it’s still possible that the two seasons will form one continuous story, or that the final act of Season 2 will lay the groundwork for the story of Season 3. There could also be a minor cliffhanger that is connected to just one character, or that is unrelated to the main story.
Theory #31: At least one character from The Next Generation will make an appearance.
The main cast of The Next Generation Season 2.
As above, this theory has been knocked by the Season 3 announcement. It seems less likely now that we’ll see major roles for any of the characters announced for Season 3. However, the final act of Season 2 could bring back some or all of these characters if it’s going to set up the next phase of the story, and cameos and smaller appearances still feel possible.
Theory #32: The Federation will use information from the Confederation timeline to defeat the Borg.
A battle over the planet Vulcan in the Confederation timeline.
Depending on how the end of the season shapes up, this may be a theory we’ll need to come back to next year! But for now, suffice to say that the Confederation’s defeat of the Borg in their timeline is one of the most intriguing unexplained events in the entire series. How did the Confederation – an organisation with technology comparable to the 25th Century Federation – manage to defeat the Borg Collective?
If a Borg invasion is coming – as we seemed to see in The Star Gazer at the beginning of the season – the Federation will need every advantage at their disposal to fight back. Technology, tactics, and information from the Confederation’s own battle against the Borg could prove invaluable, and if Picard and the crew manage to take La Sirena back to their own time, maybe they’ll bring with them just what they need.
Theory #33: The loose ends from Season 1 will be tied up.
Whatever happened to Narek?
The Star Gazer already crossed off two things from the list of Season 1 leftovers! Dr Jurati’s legal status was clarified, as was her relationship with Captain Rios. There are still a number of points that I’d like to see addressed before the season ends, though, as Season 1 unfortunately left quite a lot of story on the table thanks to a rushed and underwhelming finale.
Here are the main ones:
What will become of the synths on Coppelius, and will they have to be relocated for safety?
Did Starfleet attempt to visit Aia and shut down the beacon at the centre of the Zhat Vash’s prophecy? Leaving it out in the open seems dangerous.
Will Starfleet contact the super-synths and attempt to make peace or convince them that they pose no threat?
Dr Bruce Maddox in Season 1.
Why did Bruce Maddox go to Freecloud?
With the Zhat Vash plot exposed, what will become of their crusade against synthetic life?
Did Federation-Romulan relations suffer as a result of the Zhat Vash’s attack on Mars and attempted attack on Coppelius?
What happened to Narek after he was captured by the Coppelius synths?
Who controls the Artifact and what will happen to the surviving ex-Borg?
So that’s it!
Picard and Guinan in Monsters.
With three episodes remaining, the theory list has grown again! Right now, the story feels like it could go in several different directions, and I’m curious to see whether Q or the Borg Queen will turn out to be the “big bad” of the next phase of the story. The season feels like it took a while to reach this point, and with so much story to potentially resolve and only three episodes left to do it, I’m at least a little concerned that the mistakes of Season 1 will be repeated. Let’s hope not, though!
I always like to end these theory lists by saying that I do this just for fun. I enjoy writing, I enjoy Star Trek, and spending more time in this world is an escape and an enjoyable distraction. But for some folks, fan theories can be frustrating or unenjoyable, especially if they get very attached to a plausible-sounding theory that ultimately doesn’t pan out. I have no “insider information” and I’m not trying to claim that anything suggested above can, will, or must be part of Picard Season 2. I fully expect many of these theories to be debunked and for the season to go in wildly unpredictable directions!
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.
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.
I found Monsters to be a frustrating experience – with the odd moment of sheer brilliance. While the story edged along in incremental steps, overall this side-mission inside Picard’s mind seemed to drag just a little too long. That being said, when the amateur Freudian psychoanalysis let up, we got some interesting moments with Seven of Nine and Raffi as they hunted for Dr Jurati, and from Picard and Guinan as the episode drew to a close.
Despite having mixed feelings about the season overall – particularly its time travel story – some of the promotional images released for Monsters looked intriguing, so after a couple of weeks where I’d been uninterested to the point of near-apathy in Picard, this time around I managed to work up some excitement and interest for the latest outing. To summarise, I guess I’d say that Monsters didn’t deliver what I’d hoped for, and the show’s 21st Century setting continues to be a drag, but there were some genuinely insightful and interesting moments, especially as the episode neared its end.
The final few minutes of the episode were the best.
As last week’s episode drew to a close, I felt that there was potential in a story that explored some of Picard’s psyche, and that seemed to be borne out by a couple of the promotional images released before the episode aired. These pictures showed Picard sitting aboard a 24th Century vessel, meeting with a new character who was wearing what looked like a new Starfleet uniform variant. Based on those pictures and that setup, I was hopeful that a season which has been content to stay in the modern-day for the most part might actually show us a little more of Star Trek’s future – the part that I find a thousand times more interesting, exciting, and inspiring.
Unfortunately we didn’t really get any of that – at least, not in the way I had hoped. We returned to the château of Picard’s childhood, and spent a lot of time running around in the dungeons while monsters from low-budget horror films chased after Picard, his mother, and later Tallinn. I think the problem with this story is more fundamental than just its B-movie horror aesthetic, though. If a decision is made to psychoanalyse a character in this fashion, diving deeply into their subconscious mind and buried memories, by the time we reach the end we should feel like we learned something – anything, really – that could inform and educate us about why the character behaves a certain way or has a particular personality trait. We came to the end of this coma-dream with Picard awakening… and I don’t feel like I understand him any better than I did before watching this entire drawn-out storyline.
Tallinn was attacked by one of the B-movie monsters.
We’ve spent a lot of time with Picard over the past thirty-five years, and in that time we’ve seen him go through many significant and traumatic events. There are more things from his past that we’ve only heard about in passing; lines of dialogue in The Next Generation that informed a story or gave us a tidbit of information about the man and his personal history. This episode, and the framework it used, could have explored any of those. Just off the top of my head, we could’ve seen Picard wrangle with the death of Jack Crusher – husband of Beverly Crusher – during his time in command of the Stargazer. We could’ve seen him dealing with the trauma of Tasha Yar’s death, or the loss of his family in a fire at the château that we heard about in Generations.
Instead, Monsters chose to introduce a wholly new backstory element to Picard’s character, giving him a moment in his youth in which he was traumatised by being trapped in the passageways below his family’s château, as well as his mother’s mental health condition. I can deal with the fact that this seems to clash with depictions of Picard’s mother in The Next Generation; the two shows are very different, and while there’s definitely a major difference in tone, there’s nothing that stands out to me as being wholly contradictory. But what I find difficult to get on board with is the fact that this entire sequence feels meaningless to the story overall – we didn’t learn anything significant about Picard, nor did we unlock anything that might be key to understanding the story of the season.
A faded memory from Picard’s youth.
I don’t recall it ever being mentioned prior to Monsters that Picard had a fear of confined spaces. I can recall many occasions in the past where we’d seen him in the Jeffries’ tubes, for example, and that never seemed to bother him. If it had been mentioned even an episode or two ago we could’ve at least said that Season 2 was trying to set it up, but even that didn’t happen, so I find it being brought up here particularly odd. Not only that, but this supposed claustrophobia didn’t even feature in a big way in the story at all – there was no moment where Picard was in a confined space either in reality, in his mind, nor in his memories. The dungeon was certainly a frightening place, but young Picard seemed to be trapped in a pretty large room.
Obviously trauma and the development of phobias is a more complicated thing than that, and I get that. But even so, this attempt to depict Picard’s supposed trauma feels weak. More importantly, though, it doesn’t seem to have accomplished much of anything, certainly not enough to justify producing an entire episode dedicated to it.
Picard and Tallinn inside his subconscious mind.
Star Trek: Picard promised to show us the beloved character in his later years, going on new adventures with a new crew but still fundamentally the same man we remembered from his debut thirty-five years ago. There was scope in a story about memory and digging into someone’s trauma and psyche to draw on something from Star Trek’s past – either something that was underdeveloped during The Next Generation era or something merely referenced – to flesh out some unknown or unseen part of Picard’s character. This episode took that open goal and missed it by a country mile by telling a disconnected and just plain odd story that feels functionally and narratively irrelevant. A ten-episode series can’t afford to waste time – something Picard learned to its cost in Season 1 – so Monsters feels not only like a disappointment, but an episode that could potentially be a weight around the neck of the entire season.
When I deconstructed the failings of Et in Arcadia Ego (the two-part Season 1 finale) a few weeks ago, I concluded by saying that I hoped the lessons of that rushed pair of episodes had been learned. Whole storylines ran out of road, characters disappeared, new factions came and went in the blink of an eye, and narrative threads that could’ve been weaved together had there been more time ended the season just dangling, unresolved. With three episodes remaining in Season 2 to resolve this new story, I feel a sense of anxiety. The past three episodes essentially revolved around the astronauts’ party and its aftermath, without much input from Q or significant progression of the season’s main story arcs. There isn’t a lot of time to get back on track – especially if we get any more short episodes like the half-hour Two of One last week.
We’ve spent a significant chunk of the season’s runtime dealing with Picard’s comatose mind.
To return to the dungeon and the monsters, when this storyline kicked off with young Picard and his mother, it seemed like it had potential. As someone with mental heath issues myself, I briefly felt some of what I’ve experienced being reflected in the depiction of Yvette Picard. There was scope to expand upon this – and perhaps a future episode will tell us more about her nameless condition. Unfortunately, though, what we got in Monsters may have began in a relatable way – so much so that, for a brief moment, it felt uncomfortably close to my own personal experience – but it quickly descended into pantomime and farce.
Mental health conditions are not easy to depict in fiction. It takes time, it needs a nuanced portrayal, and it requires a creative team who all understand the condition in question and what the purpose of its depiction is. Yvette’s condition wasn’t shown for its own sake, and wasn’t even trying to be a sensitive or sympathetic depiction of whatever unnamed condition she suffered from. It existed purely to attempt to inform us as the audience about the trauma Picard himself feels from those events, and that already relegates it to a kind of secondary status that perhaps was always going to prevent a nuanced or at least decent attempt to portray it.
Yvette Picard’s mental health condition was basically a backdrop for other parts of the story.
The Star Trek franchise hasn’t always dealt with mental health particularly well. I noted as recently as Season 1 of Picard how the franchise can lean into unhelpful one-dimensional stereotypes, and Yvette feels barely a step ahead of that. The decision to include hallucinatory elements was potentially an interesting one – but to then turn around and make those hallucinations B-movie horror monsters rendered any impact it could’ve had utterly meaningless.
I’ve tried to be an advocate for better depictions of mental health in fiction, but more than once I’ve found myself exasperatedly saying that if a story can’t get it right – or at least make an effort to do better with the way mental health is depicted – then maybe it’s preferable to leave it alone. If there isn’t time in a series like Picard – which understandably has its focuses elsewhere – to show Yvette’s mental health condition in more detail and more sympathetically, then maybe this angle shouldn’t be included. With a few rewrites, the story could get to the same place while skipping over a pretty uninspired and occasionally problematic one-dimensional depiction of an unnamed but somewhat stereotypical “mental illness.” Otherwise it feels like the series is paying lip service to an important subject; touching on it in the most basic and meaningless of ways.
The nature of Yvette’s condition wasn’t revealed or explained.
So what was this story trying to say? That Picard’s desire to explore strange, new worlds is connected to trauma related to his mother? That seems incredibly clichéd and basic, even by the generally poor standards of mental health stories that we’ve just been talking about. I want to believe that this story has more to give; some twist or turn that will pull out a passable ending to a narrative thread that will otherwise be disappointing in the extreme. I’ve jumped the gun before with these kinds of things and been too quick to criticise, so I guess we need to wait and see what comes next. On its own merits, though, this part of Monsters – the part that took up the majority of the episode’s runtime – was poor.
There was a glimpse of something better (or at least something different) at the close of the episode. Picard visited Guinan’s bar to try to “summon” Q (or another member of the Q Continuum, this wasn’t 100% clear). I liked that we got callbacks to past iterations of Star Trek; Guinan’s “claw” pose that we saw in Q Who made a comeback, for example. And this part of the story filled in a blank from all the way back in The Next Generation’s second season, potentially explaining the animosity between Guinan and Q, or at least the El-Aurians and the Q Continuum.
We learned a little about the relationship between the El-Aurians and the Q Continuum this week.
This is the kind of thing I’d hoped Picard Season 2 would do more of. Season 1 had a fairly narrow focus on the Romulans and synths, and while we got a deeper dive into one aspect of Romulan culture in particular, there was a lot more that the last season could’ve done to connect its narrative threads to Star Trek’s broader canon. Because of how it quickly stepped out of the prime timeline and then shot back in time, Season 2 hasn’t really had much of an opportunity to do this, and when elements from Star Trek’s past have been introduced they haven’t really been explored or fleshed out in a substantial way; take Tallinn and the mysterious organisation she works for as a case in point. So I greatly appreciated the Guinan-Q connection here.
Picard and Guinan being apprehended may yet have a deeper significance to the story – if the “FBI Agent” isn’t who he claims to be, for example. Stay tuned for my theory post for more on that! But if it really is the FBI and 21st Century Earth authorities, I’m actually kind of glad that the story went down this road! Picard and the crew, despite their best intentions, have made a lot of noise since arriving in the 21st Century – so it makes perfect sense that, in the highly-surveilled world of 2024, the authorities would be attempting to track them.
Agent Wells, FBI.
We got several cute moments this week with Seven of Nine and Raffi. Their relationship, which had been teased at the end of Season 1, hadn’t developed as much as I’d hoped or expected this season, and with Seven being sidelined for the entirety of last week’s outing, I’m glad that the show’s writers haven’t entirely forgotten about this angle. We caught snippets of their conversation aboard La Sirena that suggested that their relationship is built on solid foundations, even if they don’t always have time to acknowledge it to each other, and I think in a busy episode with a lot of storylines on the go, I can accept such moments of exposition.
What I would say, though, is that we’re really feeling the impact of modern Star Trek’s shorter seasons, and I noticed that in particular with Seven and Raffi this week. After they returned to La Sirena, tracking down Dr Jurati, figuring out how the Borg code got into the ship’s computers, and coming up with a plan to counteract it and figure out what happened could’ve been an entire episode in itself during The Next Generation and Voyager eras. As it is, we got a couple of lines of dialogue and a cut-down sequence. That isn’t bad, but it’s definitely something that could’ve been expanded upon.
Raffi and Seven of Nine discovered that Dr Jurati has been assimilated.
Rios now officially irks me. His regression from the Starfleet captain we were reintroduced to in The Star Gazer to the Han Solo-inspired rogue that we met at the beginning of Season 1 had been bugging me all season long, but now it feels like there isn’t time to do anything about it. If we hadn’t seen Rios in such a different – and arguably better – state in The Star Gazer, I guess I’d just roll with his storyline. But because we’d got a glimpse of Rios at his best and seen what he can be, this Season 1 presentation feels wrong. The fact that he doesn’t seem to care at all about the ship and crew he left behind (on the brink of self-destruction and death, no less) is the icing on a particularly unpleasant cake.
One of Rios’ lines this week also felt unearned. He referred to Picard as a “father figure” that he had been seeking, but I just don’t feel that from Rios in any way. I can’t actually remember a significant moment that the two characters have shared in either season of the show, aside perhaps from Picard’s remark all the way back in Season 1 that Rios kept his ship to Starfleet standards. They’ve just been on different narrative trajectories, and while they seem quite happy to work together, I’ve never felt that Rios saw Picard that way.
Rios told Teresa how he feels about Picard.
“Show don’t tell” is the advice that creative writing teachers often give their students; show the audience how a character feels, what they’re thinking, etc. through their actions and behaviour, don’t just try to dump clumsy lines of expository dialogue and assume that’s good enough. And that’s basically the Rios situation. I’d seen nothing from him to make me feel he saw Picard as a father figure, so this line of dialogue didn’t land in the way it should’ve.
One of Rios’ lines this week was pitch-perfect, though, and continues a season-long trend of making references to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. When Teresa was figuring out the truth about who Rios is, we got a riff on the lines spoken by Dr Gillian Taylor and Captain Kirk in that film when Rios told her that he’s from Chile, but works in outer space. It was an incredibly neat reference, and I genuinely wasn’t expecting to see The Voyage Home called back to in so many different and unexpected ways this season.
Rios probably got the episode’s best line while speaking to Teresa.
Was Rios right to tell Teresa the truth? And then, having done so, was taking her and Ricardo to La Sirena a good idea? Part of me feels that Rios will bring Teresa and Ricardo to the 25th Century with him – as Kirk did with Gillian Taylor – so stay tuned for my theory update for my thoughts on that! Regardless of whether it was a smart idea, the moment where Teresa materialised on La Sirena’s transporter pad was pitch-perfect, and Sol Rodriguez captured that moment wonderfully.
Dr Jurati was only glimpsed this week, but the Borg Queen’s influence is clearly growing. The “endorphin rush” concept is an interesting one, with the Borg Queen needing to trigger endorphins in order to speed up or help the assimilation process. I certainly hope we learn more about how this works, as well as what exactly the Borg Queen is doing. Is this, as Seven seemed to think, the “birth” of a new Borg Queen? If so, that presumably tees up Dr Jurati (or rather, her assimilated body) for being the masked Borg Queen seen in The Star Gazer at the beginning of the season! There’s also the possibility on this side of the story to learn more about the Borg and how Borg Queens work in a general sense.
Will Dr Jurati become the new Borg Queen?
I would’ve liked Monsters to spend more time on this side of the story. With the bulk of the story dealing with the coma-dream that Picard was experiencing, it feels as if the episode had its focus in the wrong place. Whatever’s happening with Q is clearly still important – but the potential for a Borg Queen to be loose in the 21st Century and growing in power should bring everything to a screeching halt. Picard and the crew need to tackle this problem, and they need to do so urgently! But as far as we know based on what we saw on screen this week, Seven of Nine and Raffi haven’t even told Rios or Picard what they’ve learned about Dr Jurati.
As I suggested in my last theory post, there’s all sorts of ways that this story could go. A Q-Picard truce or even a temporary alliance is one possibility, with a weakened Q working with Picard to prevent the assimilation of Earth. But it feels like the season is running out of road to tell all of the stories that have been set up. We didn’t get any advancement this week of Kore or Dr Soong’s stories, for example, and Q himself – despite being mentioned – was also absent. If we’re to see this Borg Queen story play out in anywhere close to as much depth as it deserves, a change in focus is urgently needed.
Picard in Monsters.
So I guess that was Monsters. It was an episode that dragged in places, one that feels like an unnecessary sojourn in a short season that really doesn’t have time for such indulgences. Yes, it’s possible that the story of Picard’s youthful trauma will come back later in the season in a way connected with Q. But even assuming that will be the case, Monsters feels like a gratuitous and self-indulgent look at this part of Picard’s backstory and psyche that simply ran too long.
I’m reminded in a way of Nepenthe and, to a lesser extent, Absolute Candor from Season 1. These two episodes advanced the main story of Season 1 in increments, but given the way the story ran out of road by the time we got to Et in Arcadia Ego, they feel somewhat like wasted time in retrospect. Monsters feels like it could end up the same way – but unlike the two Season 1 outings mentioned, it wasn’t a strong or particularly enjoyable episode in its own right. If we look back on the season later and feel that more time was needed to allow things like the Borg Queen story, Q’s story, or Kore and Dr Soong’s stories to play out, Monsters will feel like the standout example of what should’ve been cut.
There were interesting ideas here, and if the same framework or story concept had been used in a different way, I think we could’ve been looking at the episode in more of a positive light. But the barebones and clichéd depiction of Yvette’s mental health condition, the uninspired “haunted castle” and B-movie monsters, and the more interesting storylines being sidelined makes it one of the season’s most disappointing outings so far.
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.
17.04.22 Additional thought:
It only occurred to me as I was re-reading this review, but one thing to say about Monsters – and the season overall by extension – is that the season’s main characters, as well as important secondary characters all feel disconnected from one another. They don’t seem to be communicating at all, with Rios taking Teresa and Ricardo to La Sirena seemingly without consulting Picard or anyone else, and Raffi and Seven of Nine chasing Dr Jurati also without a word to Picard or Rios. This is in addition to Q doing his own thing away from everyone else, and Kore and Dr Soong off on their own, too. There are occasional bridges between these groups of characters; meetings or pairings in which they get together. But for the most part, everyone feels like they’re in their own little narrative box, taking part in their own story that’s disconnected from everything else. This is a very odd way to structure a season of television in a show like Star Trek: Picard.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-2. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: Discovery, Voyager, First Contact, and The Next Generation.
In my review of Two of One, I said that the episode had some highlights, such as Picard’s speech to Renée and the continuing interplay between the Borg Queen and Dr Jurati, but that it wasn’t the best episode of the series overall. Season 2’s time travel to the modern-day chapter is really beginning to drag, and a story that was set up so perfectly by The Star Gazer at the beginning of the season has become bland and even, in parts, downright unenjoyable.
That being said, Two of One raised some interesting points from a theory-crafting point of view! We have one theory that has been outright debunked, one more that I’m choosing to retire, a couple of new additions, and movement on some of our other theories.
As always, we’ll start with the debunked and retired theories before we jump into the main list.
Debunked theory: Dr Jurati hasn’t been assimilated.
Dr Jurati’s assimilation in Fly Me To The Moon.
I posited this one last time as a kind of twist on the expected direction of the story. Rather than being assimilated by the Borg Queen at the end of Fly Me To The Moon, I suggested that the extremely traumatic events that Dr Jurati has been through could be causing her to hallucinate or otherwise believe that the Borg Queen – whom she had just killed – was still alive and part of her.
What we saw this week seems to debunk that, as the Borg Queen demonstrated abilities that Dr Jurati simply doesn’t possess: extreme feats of strength, sending out an electronic-disrupting pulse, and so on. The end of the episode also saw the Borg Queen assume control of Dr Jurati’s body, potentially taking the story in a very different direction.
Retired theory: The Watcher will be aware of Sisko and the USS Defiant in this time period.
The USS Defiant in orbit of 21st Century Earth in Past Tense.
After we got several overt references to Sanctuary Districts, UHC cards, and the like after the crew arrived in the 21st Century, I wondered if we might get more of an explicit reference to the events of Past Tense – the two-part Deep Space Nine episode that saw Sisko and his crew also visit California in 2024. I didn’t expect to see Sisko or anyone make an appearance in person, of course, but there could’ve been a connection between the Watcher and Sisko.
As it is, the Watcher – a.k.a. Tallinn – hasn’t mentioned anything from Past Tense. Now that we know more about her mission and her focus on Renée, it seems as though we won’t get that kind of reference or connection. Hence I’m striking this one off the list!
So those theories are officially off the list!
Now let’s take a look at the theories currently in play, beginning with those that are new or that saw significant movement in Two of One.
Theory #1: Kore Soong will team up with Picard and the crew of La Sirena.
Kore Soong.
I wasn’t wild about Kore’s storyline in Two of One. It felt repetitive and derivative of the story we saw Isa Briones bring to screen so well as both Dahj and Soji in Season 1, as Kore learned that parts of her life may be a lie and that her “father” – Dr Adam Soong – is a mad scientist who seems to have somehow created her through artificial means.
However, this story could set the stage for Kore to team up with Admiral Picard. If she feels betrayed and realises the extreme lengths that Dr Soong has been going to by teaming up with Q and trying to sabotage the Europa mission, Kore may start to work against him and his interests. If she somehow became aware of Picard’s presence, she could join up with the crew for the remainder of the mission.
Theory #2: Q and Picard will have to work together to stop the Borg Queen.
The Borg Queen is now on the loose!
At the end of the episode, it was revealed that the Borg Queen has been able to take control of Dr Jurati’s body. That means she’s now on the loose in 21st Century Los Angeles, and if she’s able to regenerate some or all of her abilities, there’s basically nothing to stand in her way. She could begin assimilating 21st Century humans in droves, not only radically altering the timeline but potentially wreaking havoc.
Whatever Q has been trying to do in the 21st Century and with the Confederation timeline, it wasn’t this. His plan wasn’t to unleash a rogue Borg Queen upon 21st Century Earth – the consequences that would have for humanity and the wider galaxy are unknowable. If both Q and Picard realise what has happened to Dr Jurati, they may need to make a truce.
Q’s powers seem to be failing him, leaving him in a weaker and more vulnerable state than usual. He may need to enlist Picard’s help to stop the Borg Queen – or Picard could be the one to reach out.
Theory #3: The masked, hooded figure from The Star Gazer is not the real Borg Queen.
The Borg Queen?
The Borg Queen – the hooded figure who materialised on the bridge of the Stargazer – was absolutely terrifying, evoking feelings for me that the Star Trek franchise hasn’t hit in decades. The way this character was presented, with her shrouded face, flowing robes, monochromatic aesthetic, and blend of humanoid and decidedly non-humanoid mechanical features was simultaneously riveting and frightening!
This character was presented as the Borg Queen in the episode, and the Borg have no reason that we know of to lie about that. But at the same time, she was very different not only from how we’ve seen the Borg Queen in past iterations of Star Trek, but also from the Borg Queen that Picard and the crew met in the Confederation timeline. Could this character actually be someone else – perhaps someone that the Borg have assimilated?
The events of Two of One could be argued to be setting up Dr Jurati for this role – but there are other candidates that we could consider.
“Borg Queen” Candidate #1: Dr Jurati.
Dr Jurati and the hallucinatory Borg Queen.
With Dr Jurati having seemingly been assimilated, she would appear to be the top candidate for being the masked Borg Queen! The anomaly from which the Borg vessel emerged was said to be giving off temporal radiation, which could explain how an assimilated Dr Jurati is a Borg Queen while a younger Dr Jurati is present on the bridge of the Stargazer in the same moment.
“Borg Queen” Candidate #2: Renée Picard.
Renée at the gala.
Renée could be the Borg Queen if she’s assimilated. Perhaps she will be attacked and assimilated during the course of the Europa mission, or maybe the Queen will try to get to her to gain possession over the Europa mission’s spacecraft. If La Sirena is damaged and unusable, the Europa mission vehicle could be the best option for the Queen to get into space in this time period. Renée being the masked, hooded Borg could explain why the Borg were asking for Picard by name, and why Non, je ne regrette rien played shortly before the Stargazer’s self-destruction.
“Borg Queen” Candidate #3: The time-travelling Admiral Janeway from Endgame.
Admiral Janeway and the Borg Queen.
Admiral Janeway was assimilated by the Borg Queen as part of her plan to introduce a neurolytic pathogen into the Collective, and appeared to have been killed when the Borg Queen’s complex exploded. But is there a way she could have survived?
Her assimilation could have been a turning point for the Borg. She did untold damage to the Collective, but also potentially gifted them knowledge and information about future events and technologies that were decades ahead of their time. Just like the Borg once chose Captain Picard to become Locutus – their “spokesperson” or representative – perhaps they might have chosen Admiral Janeway to fill a similar role during this latest incursion. Admiral Janeway could even have been incorporated as part of the Borg Queen.
“Borg Queen” Candidate #4: Soji.
Soji in Season 1.
The Borg seek “perfection” through the synthesis of organic and synthetic parts; if Coppelius synths like Soji have something that the Borg want, perhaps we’ll learn that they assimilated her to get it. The anomaly from which the Borg vessel emerged was not a standard transwarp corridor, and was specifically noted to emit some kind of temporal radiation. Thus the Borg vessel could be from a future date after Soji has already been assimilated. We could even learn that the super-synths from the Season 1 finale are actually the Borg; that could be how they first became aware of Soji and the Coppelius synths.
Theory #4: Teresa will discover the truth about Rios (and the crew of La Sirena).
Teresa with Rios in Two of One.
I’m glad that we got to spend a little more time with Teresa in Two of One. I’m not sure a romantic entanglement between her and Rios is something the season needs to have, but as a character I feel that she brings a lot to the story. As a 21st Century native, she could be a valuable ally to the crew as their mission enters its next phase.
Rios came closer to letting Teresa know the truth in Two of One than he had so far. As she tended to Picard at her clinic, his synthetic form caused a defibrillator to short-circuit, so she clearly knows that there’s something going on. There’s also the issue of Rios’ missing combadge – it was last seen at Teresa’s clinic and could be in her possession, or perhaps the possession of her son.
In order for Teresa to help Picard, or in order for her to be of assistance to Rios and the crew as they remain in the 21st Century, she may end up learning the truth about Rios – including where (and when) he is originally from.
Theory #5: The Confederation is run by augmented humans.
A recording that Kore found of Dr Soong in which he discussed his genetic experimentations.
After an enjoyable presentation a week ago, Dr Adam Soong feels like he’s close to slipping into being a “mad scientist” archetype, someone who’s been messing around with forbidden science for years. I feel that’s not a great way for the story or the character to go, but his genetic experiments could be crucial to explaining how the Confederation was so different to the Federation of the prime timeline.
As we saw with augments like Khan, genetic engineering can lead to despotism and a sense of superiority. We saw that first-hand in the leadership of the Confederation, with its xenophobic anti-alien ideology. However, it wasn’t clear how the Confederation managed to conquer so much of the galaxy, defeating races like the Klingons, Cardassians, and even the Borg. Augmentation could be the answer and could explain how humanity in the Confederation timeline was so powerful.
This could be another part of the divergence in time: Q helps Dr Soong perfect augmentation, and augmented humans go on to conquer the galaxy. This would also explain why Dr Soong appears to be a revered figure in the Confederation – being celebrated presumably centuries after his death.
Theory #5-B: There will be a connection between the augments and Strange New Worlds.
La’an Noonien-Singh, a new character in Strange New Worlds.
One of the few things we know about Strange New Worlds at this early stage is that there will be a character named La’an Noonien-Singh. This new character seems to be related in some way to the iconic villain Khan, and if Khan or Khan-inspired augments play some kind of a role in the Confederation’s power structure, perhaps that will set up a connection between Picard Season 2 and Strange New Worlds.
As things stand right now, Strange New Worlds Season 1 will premiere on the same day as the finale of Picard Season 2, at least in the United States. Could a crossover be on the cards?
Theory #6: The Borg Queen/Dr Jurati will steal La Sirena, stranding Picard in the past.
La Sirena on approach to the sun in Assimilation.
What is the Borg Queen’s next move? She’s successfully gained control of Dr Jurati’s body, but can she remain in control? If she can, what would be her best option for returning to her own time and restoring the Borg Collective? All of these questions are open right now!
One option that I think the Borg Queen has is to steal La Sirena. She alone possesses the ability to guide the ship through a slingshot manoeuvre back to the 25th Century, and that would seem to be the easiest and quickest way home for her. The ship is currently empty, as Picard and the rest of the crew are still in Los Angeles at the clinic, so if the Borg Queen were to act fast she could be back aboard the ship and on her way before anyone realised what she’d done.
This would leave Picard and the rest of the crew trapped in the 21st Century… how would they get home?
Theory #7: Who is Tallinn, a.k.a. the Watcher?
Picard with Tallinn shortly before the mission to the gala.
Tallinn works for the same mysterious organisation that Gary Seven did in The Original Series episode Assignment: Earth. But that doesn’t fully explain who she is or what the exact nature of her mission is. It will be disappointing if we get to the end of the story without learning more about her identity and the faction she works for. It feels like we may be getting closer, but Two of One didn’t really make a lot of progress in that regard.
I have several possible Watcher identities still in play, and we’ll look at each of them in turn.
Watcher Candidate #1: A younger version of Laris.
Laris at the beginning of Season 2.
Perhaps the obvious answer really is the right one: the Watcher is simply Laris as she appeared in the 21st Century. That doesn’t solve every question, nor does it rule out all of the other entries on this list. In fact, it arguably raises just as many questions as it answers! But there was one moment in Two of One that could’ve been a hint that Tallinn and Laris are one and the same: Tallinn appeared to speak in the Romulan language at one point, and subtitles even identified what she was saying as being “Romulan.” Could that be an indication that Tallinn and Laris are the same person?
Watcher Candidate #2: A member of the Q Continuum.
There’s more than one Q!
Given Q’s role in the story, one possibility has to be that the Watcher is a member of the Q Continuum. Perhaps they’re aware of the important role that Picard will play in the future and are watching over his family, or perhaps their objective is to meet Picard himself, knowing that he would journey to this moment in the past. If there’s some kind of internal conflict between different Q factions – as we saw in the Voyager episode The Q and the Grey – perhaps the Watcher is another Q who is trying to stop the Q we know from doing too much harm.
There are many different ways for this theory to pan out!
Watcher Candidate #3: A Temporal Agent from the Temporal Wars.
Crewman Daniels was a Temporal Agent.
Is it possible that the Watcher is a Temporal Agent, someone whose intention is to prevent anyone meddling with the timeline? If so, this story could connect with the ban on time travel that was established in Discovery Season 3 but not elaborated on. It still wouldn’t explain why the Watcher looks like Laris – but again, perhaps she has taken a particular interest in Picard or the Picard family for some reason?
Watcher Candidate #4: A Borg (or Borg ally).
A Borg Cube over Earth in The Next Generation.
Considering who it was that told Picard about the Watcher’s existence, some kind of Borg connection cannot be ruled out! Despite having spent a lot of time with the Borg over the past thirty years, there’s still a lot we don’t know about them – for example, do they send scouts to planets they hope to assimilate to watch over them? That could be the Watcher’s purpose, and considering we already know that the Borg are capable of time travel, it seems possible that the Watcher is one of theirs!
So those theories are new or saw movement this week.
Up next I’ll recap all of the other theories that I currently have in play. I find that it helps to keep everything in one place! The rest of these theories saw little or no movement in Two of One, but remain plausible as we head into the remainder of the season.
Theory #8: The Federation will use information from the Confederation timeline to defeat the Borg.
A battle over the planet Vulcan in the Confederation timeline.
Depending on how the end of the season shapes up, this may be a theory we’ll need to come back to next year! But for now, suffice to say that the Confederation’s defeat of the Borg in their timeline is one of the most intriguing unexplained events in the entire series. How did the Confederation – an organisation with technology comparable to the 25th Century Federation – manage to defeat the Borg Collective?
If a Borg invasion is coming – as we seemed to see in The Star Gazer at the beginning of the season – the Federation will need every advantage at their disposal to fight back. Technology, tactics, and information from the Confederation’s own battle against the Borg could prove invaluable, and if Picard and the crew manage to take La Sirena back to their own time, maybe they’ll bring with them just what they need.
Theory #9: Dr Adam Soong will create the Borg.
Dr Adam Soong.
Dr Soong’s research seems to be primarily on the genetic side of things, and that could tee up a storyline about human augmentation – as we’ve already discussed. However, now that Q has become involved, we have to question what his motives are and what he might be pushing Dr Soong to do. Could Q give Dr Soong nanotechnology, perhaps, in an attempt to save or prolong his life?
If so, maybe Dr Soong’s experiments will somehow lead to the creation of the Borg Collective.
Theory #10: Q is dying.
Q in Fly Me To The Moon.
What did Q mean when he said that he didn’t have a lot of time left? One interpretation is that he’s coming to the end of his life. Picard noticed that there was something wrong with Q as far back as Penance, and Q’s attitude in general seems to have shifted to something darker and more overtly antagonistic than we remember. One possible explanation for this is that Q is dying.
This could also explain the apparent loss of Q’s powers – or the decreasing control he has over them. If he wanted to prevent Renée Picard’s mission, for example, Q should simply be able to snap his fingers and turn her spaceship into a block of cheese, or make it so that Renée was never born, or change her desire to become an astronaut into a lifelong passion to become a pro YouTuber. Instead, he’s resorted to trying to talk her out of it. Why? Could it be that Q’s declining power is indicative of his declining health?
If one of the defining characteristics of the Q as a race is immortality, what might have caused Q to be approaching death? Is it a punishment inflicted on him by his own people, or the result of some other outside force? Is it natural or artificial in nature? And what does it have to do with Picard?
Theory #11: The season will end on a cliffhanger.
Because Seasons 2 and 3 went into production back-to-back, that made me wonder if they might form one continuous story – or if the final act of Season 2 might set up the story for Season 3. That still seems plausible to me, but the ill-timed announcement about the return of the main cast of The Next Generation in Season 3 may make it less likely.
However, it’s still possible that the two seasons will form one continuous story, or that the final act of Season 2 will lay the groundwork for the story of Season 3. There could also be a minor cliffhanger that is connected to just one character, or that is unrelated to the main story.
Theory #12: At least one character from The Next Generation will make an appearance.
Most of the main cast of The Next Generation in Season 1.
As above, this theory has been knocked by the Season 3 announcement. It seems less likely now that we’ll see major roles for any of the characters announced for Season 3. However, the final act of Season 2 could bring back some or all of these characters if it’s going to set up the next phase of the story, and cameos and smaller appearances still feel possible.
Theory #13: Q is not responsible for changing the timeline.
Q looking very young!
Q is clearly trying to affect some kind of change to the timeline by interfering with Renée Picard’s mission. But his declining powers could suggest that he isn’t as directly involved with the change and the creation of the Confederation timeline as he implied. Q may no longer be capable of doing something on this scale – and even if he was, we still have no idea what his motivation for doing so would be.
The Confederation timeline and the 21st Century don’t seem like typical Q puzzles. He described sending Picard to the Confederation timeline as a “penance,” but what exactly he’s punishing Picard for and why is still not clear. In short, we still don’t know why Q would want to do something like this, and as of Fly Me To The Moon, it’s no longer clear that Q has the ability to do so either.
I have a longer article that goes into more detail about this theory that I wrote before the season premiere, and you can find it by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #14: Q shielded Picard and the crew of La Sirena from changes to the timeline.
Q and Picard in Penance.
Regardless of who changed the timeline and why, it seems more and more clear that Q is responsible for ensuring that Picard and the crew of La Sirena were the only ones unaffected by the change. If his goal was to change the timeline to punish Picard that makes sense – but it also leaves open the possibility that Picard will be able to figure out what happened and prevent it. That could be Q’s goal.
I’m not quite ready to call this one “confirmed,” though. I think we need to spend more time with Q to understand what he’s done, what he hopes to do next, and why.
Theory #15: Who is responsible for damaging the timeline, then?
Did the Borg do it?
If Q isn’t the one who changed the timeline, the obvious question that raises is “who did it?”
In theory, it could be any one of a number of different Star Trek factions. We’ve seen the Klingons having access to time travel in the early 25th Century, for example, in the Voyager episode Endgame, and various time travel stories and stories depicting powerful alien races could all theoretically yield suspects. But considering what we know about Star Trek: Picard specifically, in my view the main suspects are as follows:
The Borg. The Borg could be one of the season’s main antagonists after their emergence in The Star Gazer, and we’ve seen in past iterations of Star Trek that they can travel through time.
The Zhat Vash. While the Zhat Vash may not have been shown to possess time travel tech, they were the primary antagonist last season, and arguably were not defeated in the Season 1 finale.
How about the Zhat Vash?
The super-synths. The super-synths from the Season 1 finale are a wildcard; we don’t know much about them except that they seem to be technologically powerful. Travelling back in time might be on their agenda – but erasing the prime timeline could result in the erasure of the Coppelius synths.
The Romulan government or the Tal Shiar. With or without the support of the Zhat Vash, the Romulan government could have taken action against the Federation in response to the events of Season 1.
There are undoubtedly other Star Trek factions who could be implicated, and if we had a free choice we could suggest the likes of the Dominion or the Sphere-Builders. But I think those are far less likely when considering the elements Picard has brought on board.
Theory #16: The Federation is responsible for creating the Borg.
A rather incredulous-looking Borg seen in The Next Generation.
This is a total wildcard, but I’m just throwing it out there!
The Borg Queen – and the Borg in general – appear to have a fascination with humanity and with Picard. Could it be that the explanation for that is that the Federation and/or humanity are somehow responsible for their creation? With time travel on the agenda, it’s not impossible to imagine a scenario in which the progenitor of the Borg – perhaps even the Queen herself – is able to travel back in time, founding the Collective.
Nanites used by the Control AI.
As suggested above, this could be what Q is manipulating Dr Soong into doing in the 21st Century. The Borg could therefore be a human creation, the offspring of one of Data’s ancestors. Could that link be the key to defeating them? Maybe that preserved knowledge and the veneration of Dr Soong is how the Confederation was able to defeat the Borg in their timeline!
Discovery Season 2 ran a story with the Control AI that could have also been a Borg origin story. Was it known as early as 2018-19 that Picard wanted to tell a story like this, and if so, could that explain why the Control storyline ended the way it did? I have a write-up of Discovery’s abandoned Borg origin story that you can find by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #17: The loose ends from Season 1 will be tied up.
A Zhat Vash/Romulan armada at warp in Season 1.
The Star Gazer already crossed off two things from the list of Season 1 leftovers! Dr Jurati’s legal status was clarified, as was her relationship with Captain Rios. There are still a number of points that I’d like to see addressed before the season ends, though, as Season 1 unfortunately left quite a lot of story on the table thanks to a rushed and underwhelming finale.
Here are the main ones:
What will become of the synths on Coppelius, and will they have to be relocated for safety?
Did Starfleet attempt to visit Aia and shut down the beacon at the centre of the Zhat Vash’s prophecy? Leaving it out in the open seems dangerous.
Will Starfleet contact the super-synths and attempt to make peace or convince them that they pose no threat?
Dr Bruce Maddox in Season 1.
Why did Bruce Maddox go to Freecloud?
With the Zhat Vash plot exposed, what will become of their crusade against synthetic life?
Did Federation-Romulan relations suffer as a result of the Zhat Vash’s attack on Mars and attempted attack on Coppelius?
What happened to Narek after he was captured by the Coppelius synths?
Who controls the Artifact and what will happen to the surviving ex-Borg?
Theory #18: Seven of Nine will choose to remain in 2024.
Seven of Nine in Los Angeles.
For the first time in her life, Seven of Nine is feeling a sense of freedom. Not only is she free from her Borg implants, changing the way she looks, but she’s also unencumbered by her Borg past. No one she meets in 2024 will be aware of the Borg, and she’s clearly enjoying the way that makes her feel.
In The Star Gazer, Seven spoke to Picard about feeling judged by the ship’s crew – and in a broader sense, by practically everyone in the 25th Century. Her Borg past is a hurdle for her; she feels the weight of unspoken criticisms and judgements made against her. Her Borg implants are the biggest physical manifestation of this, but the fact that most people she meets in the 25th Century know who she is and where she came from is a burden – one she no longer feels in 2024.
With that in mind, could Seven choose to remain behind when Picard and the crew of La Sirena are ready to leave? Even if she’s ultimately talked out of it (or even forced out of it), I wonder if she’ll try to stay in the past.
Theory #19: Elnor will be restored to life when the crew returns to the 25th Century.
A hallucinatory Elnor.
The decision to kill off Elnor so early in the season certainly succeeded as a shocking story point… but I’m not so sure he’ll stay dead. Is Raffi’s belief that restoring the timeline will save his life something that the series has carefully set up so it can be paid off later? Or was it simply part of her reaction to his death; the bargaining stage of the grieving process? I’m not sure!
Elnor is a character who had potential – the first Romulan to be a main character on a Star Trek series (or the second, after Narek) and the first Romulan to enlist in Starfleet. If the Star Trek franchise were to stick around, I could happily follow his adventures as a Starfleet officer over the course of several years, giving him an arc somewhat comparable to someone like Tilly in Discovery, growing into his new role.
But Elnor is also a character who was underused in Season 1, and the decision to make him a Starfleet cadet at the beginning of Season 2 was only the beginning of a new arc for him. His death didn’t hit as hard as it could’ve because we don’t know Elnor very well – and I wonder if that could be a reason to bring him back later in the season.
Theory #20: The Borg Collective was badly damaged in the Voyager episode Endgame and has been unable to recover.
Dr Jurati decoded the Borg message in The Star Gazer.
In The Star Gazer, it seemed as if the Borg Collective was reaching out, asking the Federation – and Picard specifically – for help. If so, the question is why? Was it just a shallow ploy to launch another attack on Starfleet? Or is there at least a degree of truth to the Borg’s request?
Endgame, the final episode of Voyager, depicted a time-travelling Admiral Janeway introducing a neurolytic pathogen – a type of virus – into the Borg Queen, seriously damaging her, her base of operations, and several Borg vessels in the vicinity. Because the Borg hadn’t been seen since – until The Star Gazer, that is – we never got to learn just how deadly Admiral Janeway’s actions were.
Admiral Janeway in Endgame.
I’ve always assumed that the Borg Collective is vast enough, powerful enough, clever enough, and most importantly adaptable enough that Admiral Janeway’s actions weren’t going to strike a fatal blow. Whatever damage she had done seemed like something the Borg could eventually fix – and their existence 25 years later during the events of The Star Gazer seems to prove that. The Borg’s technology and weapons are still streets ahead of anything Starfleet has at its disposal… but even so, it’s still possible that the Borg are on their last legs facing defeat.
If that’s the case, maybe we’ll discover that it was Admiral Janeway who’s responsible – that her actions in Endgame are either wholly or partly to blame for the Borg’s weakened state. Dr Jurati seemed to know that the Borg Collective isn’t as strong as it once was, so that could be another clue pointing to this theory.
Theory #21: The USS Stargazer will make an appearance.
The original USS Stargazer.
Okay, technically the USS Stargazer has already appeared, but not in the way I expected! Captain Rios is (or was) in command of a new USS Stargazer, and not only that but he had a model of the original vessel in his conference room! So that’s it. Theory confirmed, everybody can move on to the next one!
Just kidding. The inclusion of a brand-new USS Stargazer brings the ship and its legacy back to the fore. Picard himself commented in The Star Gazer that the original vessel was his first command, and as far back as Season 1 we had a reference to his time in command through the character of Dr Benayoun. All of these things could be leading to some bigger role for the original USS Stargazer – and with a story that seems to include time travel and a strong focus on Picard’s own personal history, a flashback or even a visit to the ship could be on the agenda!
Theory #22: Romulans are spying on Earth in the 21st Century… and could be time-travelling Zhat Vash.
A young boy encounters a Romulan or Vulcan.
In the third pre-season trailer, a young boy wearing what seemed to be 21st Century clothing was seen encountering a Romulan or Vulcan. If the Zhat Vash are involved in the story somehow, perhaps this individual is a Zhat Vash operative. This could confirm that the Zhat Vash were able to travel through time, or send a message back in time to their 21st Century counterparts. The Romulans had achieved interstellar flight centuries earlier, so travelling to Earth to spy or place operatives seems plausible for them.
Theory #23: The Vulcans are on Earth in the early 21st Century… as stated in Discovery Season 4.
A meeting of senior Federation and allied officials in Discovery Season 4.
Another theory about the unnamed Romulan or Vulcan is tied into the Discovery Season 4 episode The Galactic Barrier. This could easily be a complete overreaction to a throwaway line, but at the beginning of the episode, the enigmatic Federation leader Dr Kovich stated that Vulcans were on Earth for decades prior to official first contact taking place.
This one line could be a reference to Carbon Creek, an episode of Enterprise that saw Vulcans crash-land on Earth in the 1950s. But the timing seems odd given the scene mentioned above from the Picard Season 2 pre-season trailers! If the character seen above is a Vulcan, perhaps there will be a connection of some kind between Discovery and Picard.
Theory #24: Picard and the crew will have to actively trigger World War III to save the future.
World War III soldiers as glimpsed in Discovery Season 2.
Although the Bell Riots are the main event of 2024 that we know about in Star Trek’s internal timeline, the 21st Century was arguably dominated by another event: World War III. The war may have kicked off as early as 2026 (as suggested in The Original Series) and concluded by the mid-2050s as seen in First Contact. The “post-atomic horror” that followed was the backdrop for Q’s trial in Encounter at Farpoint.
World War III is integral to Star Trek because without it, it’s hard to see how warp drive would’ve developed and how humanity would’ve made peaceful first contact with the Vulcans. Just like the end of the Second World War brought about major technological and societal changes that ultimately made the world a better place, Star Trek’s World War III is integral to the events that led to the founding of the Federation. If it were prevented, the timeline would change dramatically.
We now know that Renée Picard’s mission seems to be the divergence in time. But her mission could be connected, somehow, to the outbreak of hostilities. By sending her on her way and preserving the timeline, Picard and his crew may be committing to the outbreak of war. You can find a full write-up of this theory by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #25: The Q Continuum has been attacked.
The Q Continuum, as seen in Voyager.
What’s wrong with Q? That was a question Picard asked that went unanswered in Penance, but there’s clearly something different about Q this time. Though at times he has the same impish charm that we remember from his earlier appearances in the franchise, at other moments he seemed incredibly angry – even hitting Picard at one point.
Perhaps there’s something going on in the Q Continuum – the Continuum could have come under attack, for example, and Q could be one of the few survivors. If something that Picard did or didn’t do is partly to blame, that could explain Q’s antagonistic behaviour.
Though the Q Continuum and the Q species seem god-like from our perspective, it’s not impossible to think that someone found a weakness to exploit. Could it be the Borg, perhaps? Q’s anger could stem from the fact that Picard didn’t do enough to stop them.
Theory #26: Q is angry with Picard for “giving up.”
Grumpy Q.
Over the course of The Next Generation, Q took a particular interest in Picard. More so than anyone else, Q seemed to see potential in Picard as a representative of the human race, someone who potentially showed him what humanity could be… with a little prompting and guidance. Q seemed fascinated by that idea, so seeing Picard’s fall from grace may have shocked him and left him feeling disappointed and bitter.
Picard spent more than a decade away from galactic affairs, retiring to his vineyard and seemingly just waiting around to die. Someone like Q might take that personally; he might feel that Picard was not living up to the potential he had. Perhaps Picard’s absence had some kind of unknown consequence, something that harmed Q or the Q Continuum. In any case, Q’s animosity to Picard seems to be personal – could disappointment at Picard’s attitude in the years prior to Season 1 be the cause?
Theory #27: The Borg are aware that Picard is now a synth – and his synthetic status is part of the reason why they waited until now to make contact.
Picard awakened in a new synthetic body in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2.
As mentioned above with Soji, the timing of the new Borg incursion is interesting, especially considering that they asked for Picard by name. Are they aware of his newfound synthetic status? And if so, could Picard’s transition to a new synthetic body be the reason why the Borg chose to launch their attack?
The Borg seek “perfection” through a synthesis of organic and synthetic components, and while Picard’s new synthetic body is a far cry from the Borg drones we’ve seen, the idea of an organic mind in a synthetic body isn’t a million miles away from that same basic idea. Although Picard’s body was said to be comparable in practically every way to his original one, synthetics can have enhanced abilities that allow them to easily overpower humans – and, as we’ve seen with Data on more than one occasion, they can outmatch individual Borg drones as well.
A Borg drone losing a fight against Data.
Perhaps the Borg want to re-assimilate Picard now that he’s synthetic. If the Collective is still reeling from the damage inflicted upon it by Admiral Janeway or if they’re on the losing side of a war, perhaps they hope to use fully-synthetic bodies like Picard’s to replace damaged or destroyed drones, or as cannon fodder on the front lines. There are many reasons why the Borg might be interested in synthetic technology, and that could explain their re-emergence.
Even if the Borg don’t plan to assimilate Picard or the Coppelius synths, the timing of their appearance is certainly interesting and there could be a connection.
Theory #28: The Borg ship from The Star Gazer crossed over from the Confederation timeline.
The Borg vessel identified as “Legion.”
As far as we know at this stage, the Confederation timeline replaced the prime timeline thanks to someone or something changing the past. But timelines and parallel universes often go hand-in-hand in Star Trek, and after we learned about the Borg’s defeat in the Confederation timeline, I wonder if their ship from the season premiere might have found a way to punch through or cross over into the prime timeline.
If the Borg were facing defeat, as their message seemed to suggest, perhaps that could explain why. Also, the anomaly that the ship emerged from was not a typical transwarp conduit; we’d seen transwarp corridors as recently as Season 1. Finally, the Borg Queen of the Confederation timeline was aware of Picard and the history of the prime timeline – perhaps the Confederation timeline Borg knew of the prime timeline and this was a last-ditch effort to survive.
Theory #29: The Borg are fighting a war – and they’re losing.
The Borg vessel using its transporter-weapon on the USS Stargazer.
Possibly connected to the theory above, one explanation for the Borg’s message and appearance in The Star Gazer is that in the prime timeline the Collective has found itself on the losing side of a war. Penance told us that the Confederation had been able to defeat the Borg using technology that Dr Jurati believed was roughly equivalent to the Federation’s in the prime timeline – so clearly it’s possible to fight and beat the Borg.
Could mentions of Gul Dukat or Martok in Penance be hints at something to come later in the story? Both characters were major players during Deep Space Nine’s Dominion War arc; maybe the Cardassians and/or the Dominion have been aggressively attacking the Borg in the late 24th Century. The other big culprit is the Confederation – assuming that it’s possible for the two timelines to mix!
Theory #30: The mission back in time won’t last all season.
Los Angeles, 2024.
There are still four episodes remaining for Picard and the crew to figure out what happened and repair the damage to the timeline. Perhaps this is as much a wish as a theory – time travel stories that visit the modern-day have never been my favourites in Star Trek – but I wonder if there could be something truly unexpected coming after Picard and the crew accomplish their goal.
With Q involved in the story, he could send Picard and the crew to another alternate timeline or parallel universe, for example. Or after the timeline is repaired, we could see Picard and the crew engage in a battle against the Borg – we still don’t know what was going on with the new Borg Queen and the Legion ship from The Star Gazer. In short, there are many different ways that the season could go after a jaunt to the past.
The season already kept a lid on some pretty big surprises – could there be more to come?
So that’s it!
Raffi and Rios in Two of One.
As we approach the seventh episode of the season – which will premiere in the United States in just a few hours’ time – there’s still a lot on the table! Despite my criticisms of the time travel aspect of the story, I’m hopeful that the season will continue to go in unexpected directions, and will bring more of those wonderful moments of characterisation to the table. We didn’t see much from Q or Seven of Nine this week – maybe Monsters will give one or both of them more to do!
I always like to end these theory lists by saying that I do this just for fun. I enjoy writing, I enjoy Star Trek, and spending more time in this world is an escape and an enjoyable distraction. But for some folks, fan theories can be frustrating or unenjoyable, especially if they get very attached to a plausible-sounding theory that ultimately doesn’t pan out. I have no “insider information” and I’m not trying to claim that anything suggested above can, will, or must be part of Picard Season 2. I fully expect many of these theories to be debunked and for the season to go in wildly unpredictable directions!
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.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-2.
For the second week in a row I found it difficult to get excited about Star Trek: Picard. My weekly appointment with Star Trek has been something I’ve looked forward to going back to Lower Decks’ second season last year, and with only a few breaks in between batches of episodes we’ve had a ton of Trek to enjoy over the last few months. But the truth is that Picard’s time travel to the present-day storyline isn’t one I feel all that excited about, and without that excitement I’ve found that I’m watching the series more out of a sense of obligation than enjoyment.
Without wanting to over-sensationalise things, I kind of feel “catfished” by Picard Season 2. The Star Gazer was so utterly fantastic that I’ve gone back and watched it at least a dozen times at this point. But the season it kicked off has got bogged down in a time travel story that I’m struggling to remain invested in. There have been some wonderful moments of characterisation – as indeed we saw this week with Two of One – but overall… the season is on course to be a disappointment, probably ranking lower on my list than Season 1.
Dr Jurati showed off an unexpected talent this week.
When the first major trailer showed off the time travel aspect of the story I was concerned that this is how I’d feel, but I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. Star Trek can do time travel exceptionally well, even with a modern-day focus, and I hoped to be pleasantly surprised by a story involving Q, the Borg Queen, Guinan, and so on. And across the season so far there are plenty of mysterious elements, unanswered questions, and more that I find mildly interesting… but I can’t muster much more than that.
I suspect that when I look back at the season as a whole I’ll say it works far better as a binge-watch than it does as a weekly series, and that’s a position I would’ve never expected to be in. Generally speaking, I prefer it when a new TV series releases its episodes weekly like this. I like having time in between each episode to digest what’s happened and get ready for the next outing. But with Picard Season 2, even if the Admiral and his crew make it back to the 25th Century next week, there’ll still be this rather drawn-out chunk of the story in the middle of the season that’s really starting to drag. If it takes them until the season finale to make it home, that feeling will be even stronger.
An establishing shot of modern-day Los Angeles by night.
So once again it took me a few days to even feel up to watching the latest Picard episode. Whereas I’m usually feeling so excited to have new Star Trek that I can’t wait to dive in… for the second week in a row I just found myself feeling apathetic.
The whole “let’s go undercover at a fancy party” setup that had been established last week is also a premise that I’ve never been wild about. And while Two of One pulled it off reasonably well, I feel that it still hampered the plot to a significant degree. There were moments of contrived drama that were so extreme they felt almost toe-curlingly cringeworthy, with Picard and the crew facing off against Adam Soong and a team of party security guards.
Adam Soong and 21st Century party security guards were this week’s antagonists.
The runtime of Two of One was shorter than expected at less than forty minutes (closer to thirty-five excluding credits, opening titles, and a recap of previous events), and this also got in the way of the story. I wouldn’t have wanted to spend more time with Picard and the crew dodging 21st Century party security staff as if they were in some kind of Hitman video game, but there’s no escaping the fact that several of the episode’s major plot points were raced through in pretty quick fashion. At one point, Adam Soong seemed to have rumbled Picard to the event’s security team, but mere moments later this angle was dropped. It was one of several elements that could have been made more of – even if it wasn’t my favourite part of the story, seeing it cut short was odd.
The highlight by far was Picard’s conversation with his ancestor Renée. This moment really captured the feel of “classic” Picard; his uplifting words to her could’ve come from any one of dozens of episodes of The Next Generation, and reminded me why I love this character so much and why I had been so excited in 2018 when it was announced that he was coming back. Picard doesn’t have to be an action hero to be a wonderful and inspiring captain – he uses his words and diplomatic skills to move people. Credit must go to the writers of this episode – Cindy Appel and Jane Maggs – who beautifully and perfectly managed to recapture the magic of Jean-Luc Picard in that moment. The writers demonstrated not only an understanding of Picard’s character, but a real love and respect for him too.
Picard’s conversation with Renée was one of the high points of the episode.
I’ve long been an advocate for better representation of mental health in entertainment, and again Picard’s conversation with Renée serves as an excellent example of that. Though the meeting between the two of them was brief, what Picard had to say was incredibly impactful, and there are several lines from their conversation that have the potential to be remembered as iconic lines from this beloved character.
Picard also seemed to be drawing on his own experiences in Season 1 as he spoke to Renée, which is something I appreciated. There were some viewers who felt that Picard was “too depressed” at the beginning of Season 1, and that they didn’t like that presentation of the character. But as I argued at the time, where Picard began the story was not as important as what happened to him and the journey he undertook. He found his own “light;” his own glimmer of hope back then through his meeting with Dahj, and that set him on a path to recovery. He was trying to offer that same kind of hope to Renée, and there’s a powerful message there. Even when things seem dark and depressing, there is hope. That’s not only a message that people suffering from clinically-diagnosed depression need to hear – everyone needs to hear those words sometimes. That makes the entire sequence something that I think many viewers would be able to relate to. All in all, a powerful moment.
Renée listened to what Picard had to say.
We’ll return to the party in a moment, but there was another major revelation in Two of One that’s worth talking about. One of the episode’s biggest reveals is that Kore – the “daughter” of Dr Adam Soong – is, in fact, some kind of clone or genetic experiment rather than his natural offspring. As always, I’ll caveat what I’m about to say by saying that my thoughts could shift depending on how this storyline unfolds, but for now I confess that this leaves me distinctly unimpressed. There are two main reasons why.
Firstly, one of the most interesting things about Dr Soong in his appearance last week was this idea of desperation. Dr Soong wasn’t necessarily a bad person, but he was someone willing to go to extreme lengths to save someone he loved and cared for – his own daughter. This left him open to unethical behaviour and to manipulation from Q, but at the core there was an understandable, sympathetic, and even somewhat relatable character. Anyone who’s ever loved someone or lost a close friend or family member could feel some kind of empathy with Dr Soong. Maybe what he did crossed a line, but he wasn’t a villain in the usual sense of the word. He found himself in opposition to Picard and Picard’s mission through a mere accident of circumstances, and there was value in a morally complex character like that.
I feel like Adam Soong has lost a significant part of his characterisation.
The revelation that his scheming goes far deeper than we realised, and that his unethical behaviour is nothing new, risks seriously detracting from the character. Gone is any sense of sympathy or empathy, and an entire dimension that Dr Soong had vanished in an instant. He feels smaller this week, less of a well-rounded human being and more of a flat, uninteresting “mad scientist” character trope. Robbed of his sympathetic motivation to save his daughter, we now see him as someone who seems to engage in unethical and forbidden science for the sake of it. That’s something I find rather disappointing at this juncture, as Dr Soong becomes less interesting as he turns into a fairly standard Star Trek character archetype.
The second reason why this particular story beat fell flat for me was the involvement of Kore. I noted last week that it was odd to have so many new characters played by returning actors, and Kore was one of the characters I pointed out, as she’s played by Soji actor Isa Briones. A huge part of Soji’s story in Season 1 was discovering her own synthetic nature, coming to terms with the fact that much of her life had been an elaborately-constructed lie, and finding her own place in the aftermath of that. Kore’s discovery in Two of One would already feel repetitive given the Soong connection and Soji’s story last season, but this repetitiveness was absolutely hammered home with all the subtlety of a brick to the face because of the fact that Isa Briones is playing this role.
Kore’s story feels derivative of Soji’s in Season 1.
There could well be some kind of connection between Soji and Kore that’s yet to be revealed, in which case there may be more to say. But as things sit right now, it feels like this casting choice was a mistake. In a story that already brought back familiar faces in unfamiliar roles, having Isa Briones’ new character going through a remarkably similar storyline to Soji’s last season doesn’t feel like some kind of poetic symmetry… it feels like a recycled story beat. Not even a riff on the same concept, it comes across as a cheap copycat of what came before, bringing remarkably little to the table that we could even call superficially new or different.
This may set the stage for Kore to somehow come to the aid of Renée or to Picard and the crew of La Sirena, so stay tuned for my theory post for more on that! There’s also the distinct possibility of further developments on this side of the story that could re-energise it and improve things. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed as the season continues to unfold.
Hopefully this story will go somewhere!
The interplay between the Borg Queen and Dr Jurati had been one of my favourite parts of the last few episodes; there’s been something absolutely delicious about the way they talked around one another aboard La Sirena. Following the revelation at the end of last week’s episode that the Borg Queen had done something to Dr Jurati using her assimilation tubules in her dying moments, I was curious to see how this dynamic would evolve.
Fortunately I think it remains one of the season’s stronger storylines, and with Dr Jurati potentially losing control of herself to the Borg Queen, that could set up a whole new direction for the story to go. If a Borg Queen, semi-restored and potentially regenerating her abilities, is now loose in the 21st Century, that could even lead to a cessation of hostilities between Q and Picard; they may need to set their differences aside to prevent the Queen from assimilating more and more humans! Again, stay tuned for my theory post for an expanded look at this idea.
Dr Jurati and the Borg Queen on stage.
Alison Pill played this dual role well, communicating successfully the difference between the moments when Dr Jurati was in control and when the Borg Queen was in control. This can be an acting challenge that isn’t easy to pull off, especially when it has to be somewhat subtle, but a combination of a great performance and some clever direction by Jonathan Frakes meant it stuck the landing.
Seeing Dr Jurati struggle with remaining in control and battling against a “voice in her head” that no one else could see or understand was perhaps the episode’s second mental health allegory – albeit an unintended one, perhaps. It was one I found very relatable, and there were definitely aspects of the conversations Dr Jurati had with the Borg Queen inside her own body that hit close to home as someone with a mental health condition. Both Alison Pill and Annie Wersching deserve a lot of credit for the way they brought this to screen, and it was a powerful part of the episode.
Dr Jurati’s story was a powerful one this week.
We got a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment with Raffi this week, as she continues to struggle with the grief she feels in the wake of Elnor’s death. More could’ve been made of this, and while Michelle Hurd did well with the very short scene she had at communicating how Raffi is struggling – and struggling alone – in an episode that already felt cut-down, I felt that more time could be dedicated to this storyline. Right now, it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere; treading water in the background while other stories take centre-stage.
There was a moment between Rios and Raffi that could’ve been expanded upon to further this story. Literally just an extra minute or two of dialogue between them could’ve begun to set the stage for Raffi to reach out and ask for help, or take the story in a different direction. As it is, it felt more like a repetition of the same hallucination she had last week rather than any real progress being made with this storyline. Again, though, there’s value in almost any depiction of mental health on screen, and seeing Raffi experiencing these post-bereavement hallucinations has merit. I just wish the past couple of episodes had made more of it.
Raffi with Rios at the gala.
I spoke last week about how Rios has been a disappointment in recent episodes, not because I didn’t enjoy the immigration storyline, but because of how he seems to have forgotten about his crew and his ship. The fact that he’s gone five episodes without so much as thinking about the USS Stargazer and its crew continues to feel regressive, and overall Rios has taken massive backwards steps since the season premiere. This remains a source of disappointment, and again it’s something that Two of One did nothing to address.
In that same conversation with Raffi, there was the potential for Rios to share his own sense of loss or his worries about the crew of the Stargazer. As things stand, if the timeline is restored in exactly the way it was then the Stargazer will be lost with all hands when the ship self-destructs. Instead we got a tonally weird Rios, self-indulgently revelling in the excesses of 21st Century high society – cigars, rich canapés, even old-fashioned matches. Not only does this continue this unfortunate regression, with Rios no longer feeling like a Starfleet captain, but it also presents an incredibly odd contrast to how Rios was presented just a couple of episodes ago when he found himself detained by the authorities and facing deportation.
Rios seems a little too happy in the 21st Century.
There were some interesting moments in Two of One, and some callbacks to past iterations of the franchise that were little treats for returning fans. Picard and Renée discussing OV-165 – one of the futuristic spacecraft seen in the opening title sequence of Enterprise – was neat, for example. I’m also intrigued by Picard’s new synthetic body shorting out a defibrillator; the exact nature of synths like Picard and Soji has never really been explored – they seem to be human enough to pass basic scans and such, but yet are also inhuman enough to cause damage to equipment like this. As with things like the Confederation’s defeat of the Borg, it would be interesting to learn more about the exact nature of Picard’s synthetic status.
Speaking of Picard on the operating table, I do have a couple of gripes with the way the episode ended. After Picard pushed Renée out of the way of the car, Two of One promptly dropped her side of the story. Considering that Renée was in a very fragile emotional state, being almost run down by a car – and seeing a man who had been so kind to her badly injured – has the potential to have a massive impact on her, yet this is something the episode didn’t even pretend to try and explore. This feels very odd in context, and anyone who’s ever suffered from the anxiety and depression that seems to be afflicting Renée can tell you that even seemingly minor events or bumps in the road can be enough to completely throw you off-course. In short, although Picard’s speech helped Renée and lifted her mood for a time, seeing him badly injured – in an act of self-sacrifice to save her, no less – seems like it would have had an affect on her, and could have even undermined the entire mission.
Picard was run down by a car.
The second point is much more of a nitpick, but I’ve never liked the way that car-versus-pedestrian accidents like this are depicted in fiction. The injuries one can typically expect from being hit by a car are things like broken bones, blunt-force trauma to the legs, arms, ribs, etc. Being knocked out or concussed can be part of that, but these kinds of collisions are often depicted in a very contrived way, and that’s how this one felt. It felt rather like a scene from a soap opera, both in terms of the way it was scripted and the way it was filmed and edited.
However, I often find myself saying that contrived and awkward moments can set up much better things to come, so I’ll put a pin in it for now and wait to see what the next episode brings! An exploration of Picard’s subconscious could be interesting in and of itself, and I daresay there will be plot-relevant points there to help further some of the season’s story arcs too!
Outside of the gala venue.
So that’s it for this week, I guess. A short episode that could’ve been more than it was, hampered by a setting I’m not really invested in, a couple of major story beats that feel repetitive or derivative, and bringing more than one cliché to the table is basically how I’d summarise Two of One. There were some great moments contained within that framework, though – Picard’s speech to Renée probably being the highlight.
I’m still very keen to get back to the 25th Century to see what the heck’s going on with that new Borg ship. For me, the past few episodes have dragged, and I think the time travel aspect of the story could have been cut down by making a handful of different choices. That’s just my personal taste, though, and I get that a lot of folks are totally fine with these kinds of stories. There are still some wonderful moments of characterisation and some clever allegories in Picard Season 2.
Perhaps if the next couple of episodes get things back on track, I’ll look on Two of One more favourably in hindsight.
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.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-2. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: Discovery, Voyager, First Contact, and The Next Generation.
Fly Me To The Moon was a solid mid-season episode that moved key storylines along – not always in predictable ways! There has been a fair amount of movement on the theory list, though. In addition to developments in the episode itself, a poorly-timed announcement about Picard’s third season – which most likely won’t be broadcast for at least a year – has given us new points to consider as well.
I know I’m a little late with this week’s theories. If you’re in the United States, the next episode is probably already available to stream! Here in the UK we’re 24-ish hours behind, so I haven’t yet seen episode 6. There’s no “cheating” on these theory lists!
This week we have two confirmations, three debunkings, and two more theories that I’m choosing to retire. As always, we’ll start with those before we dive into the main list!
Confirmed theory #1: The Borg Queen attacked someone from the 21st Century.
The Borg Queen using her tentacle appendages on a French police officer.
Though we still haven’t seen the figure from a pre-season trailer who I said looked like they might be in the early stages of assimilation, I’m calling this one confirmed after the Borg Queen attacked a French police officer! I still think that one of the pre-season trailers showed us at least one other person undergoing Borg assimilation – so watch this space, I guess!
Confirmed theory #2: Dr Jurati has been assimilated.
Dr Jurati has been assimilated by the Borg Queen.
Currently, Dr Jurati is displaying no outward signs of assimilation. She may not have even realised that the Queen, in her dying moments, managed to assimilate her; it wasn’t clear from what we saw on screen whether Dr Jurati was aware of the assimilation tubules penetrating her skin.
However, the Borg Queen – or at least some part of her – now exists within Dr Jurati. That’s the very essence of Borg assimilation, and while the Queen may be keeping at least part of Dr Jurati’s mind intact for now, the direction of travel seems locked in! Unless Picard and the crew realise what’s happened and are able to reverse the process, Dr Jurati will ultimately end up as one of the Borg.
Debunked theory #1: Dr Jurati will unleash the Borg Queen.
Dr Jurati did not willingly unleash the Borg Queen, and even tried to prevent that from happening.
I had speculated prior to the season premiere that Dr Jurati’s love of all things synthetic might lead to her having a great deal of sympathy for the Borg Queen, particularly if the Queen were a captive. Surprisingly, however, that didn’t really pan out – Dr Jurati was quite content to leave the Borg Queen locked up, to lie to her, steal from her, and ultimately even kill her.
I think if Dr Jurati had willingly gone along with the Borg Queen, or had been far more easily manipulated thanks to her innate synthetic sympathies, the story would’ve been less enjoyable. A big part of the fun over the past three weeks in particular has been watching the evolving dynamic between Dr Jurati and the Queen as it unfolded.
Debunked theory #2: Picard and the crew will have to prevent Donald Trump’s re-election.
The White House.
This was always a semi-serious “theory,” but I thought it was funny! In short, I wondered if the divergence in time – i.e. the event that ruins Star Trek’s optimistic future – could be the election of Donald Trump. The season is set in 2024 – the year of the next U.S. presidential election, an election in which Mr Trump is rumoured to be a candidate. And one part of the Confederation timeline played into this too: the fact that in that timeline, climate change was never fixed in the way it was in the prime timeline.
All in all, this one was a bit of fun! But it was debunked by the divergence in time seeming to centre on Renée Picard.
Debunked theory #3: Rios’ missing combadge is the divergence in time.
Rios’ Confederation timeline combadge.
At this point in the season, it isn’t clear what’s happened to Rios’ combadge. When he was arrested we lost track of it, and it was last seen on a table at Teresa’s clinic. I speculated that the combadge falling into the wrong hands could be the beginnings of the divergence in time – but I also pointed out that this would effectively create a time-loop paradox.
I’m glad that the story didn’t go down this road, all things considered. There’s still scope for Rios to retrieve his badge from Teresa, and I hope that the story manages to tie up this loose end! Leaving the combadge behind in the 21st Century, even if it isn’t the point of divergence, would still be a mistake! Luckily it should be relatively easy to track down the combadge’s location!
Retired theory #1: Soji exists in the Confederation timeline.
Sutra in Season 1.
I’ve been saying for a couple of weeks that this theory was on its last legs, and the introduction of Kore Soong, played by Soji actor Isa Briones, has now prompted me to remove it from the list. In short, I had speculated that Soji may exist in the Confederation timeline – and may even be aboard La Sirena. However, I theorised that, in line with other Confederation timeline synths, she may look very different to how she did in Season 1!
It doesn’t seem like the story of the season will return to the Confederation timeline, at least not based on where we are right now. And that means that it seems unlikely that we’ll learn anything more about Soji – she may have never even been constructed in the Confederation timeline. If the story of the season takes us back there, however, I may bring this theory back!
Retired theory #2: By restoring the timeline, Picard – and everyone aboard the Stargazer – will die.
The USS Stargazer explodes.
As things stand, if Picard and the crew of La Sirena were able to successfully restore the timeline and undo everything that has happened, they’d be returned to the bridge of the USS Stargazer (and the USS Excelsior for Raffi and Elnor) with a couple of seconds to go before the ship self-destructs in the midst of a Borg attack. Surely that would mean they’d all be killed?
It seems logical to me, and if the story we’re currently watching were a two-season arc, the finale could well have ended this way. However, the recent announcement and teaser for Season 3 clearly showed Picard alive and back home, presumably in the aftermath of Season 2’s story. That seems to suggest to me that the main storylines in play right now – the mission back in time, the Borg, and the Confederation timeline – will be wrapped up in time for Season 3. There could still be a season-ending cliffhanger, but I think the main stories look set to be concluded. That would seem to rule out this theory – though I may bring it back in future depending on how the next few episodes unfold!
So those theories are off the list!
Now let’s look at the main theory list, beginning with theories that are new or which saw movement in Fly Me To The Moon.
Theory #1: Who is the Watcher?
Tallinn and Picard.
We learned this week that the Watcher’s name is Tallinn, and that she works for the same mysterious organisation as Gary Seven from The Original Series episode Assignment: Earth. But that doesn’t fully explain who the Watcher is!
I can’t help but wonder if we’re on the verge of learning more about Tallinn, her mission, and the identity of the organisation she works for. Doing so could even provide interesting context to Assignment: Earth. Several of my original Watcher candidates – such as the Vulcans and Romulans – are now off the list, but others remain in play. We’ll briefly consider them in turn.
Watcher Candidate #1: A younger version of Laris.
The Watcher at the end of this week’s episode.
Perhaps the obvious answer really is the right one: the Watcher is simply Laris as she appeared in the 21st Century. That doesn’t solve every question, nor does it rule out all of the other entries on this list. In fact, it arguably raises just as many questions as it answers! How could Laris live so long, was she able to travel through time, and what is her connection to Picard – and those are just three off the top of my head.
Regardless, one possibility is that the Watcher is simply Laris.
Watcher Candidate #2: A member of the Q Continuum.
There’s more than one Q!
Given Q’s role in the story, one possibility has to be that the Watcher is a member of the Q Continuum. Perhaps they’re aware of the important role that Picard will play in the future and are watching over his family, or perhaps their objective is to meet Picard himself, knowing that he would journey to this moment in the past. If there’s some kind of internal conflict between different Q factions – as we saw in the Voyager episode The Q and the Grey – perhaps the Watcher is another Q who is trying to stop the Q we know from doing too much harm.
There are many different ways for this theory to pan out!
Watcher Candidate #3: A Prophet.
The Bajoran Wormhole – home of the Prophets.
The Prophets – noncorporeal aliens who live inside the Bajoran Wormhole – exist outside of linear time. They’ve demonstrated an ability to travel through time, emerging centuries in the past. Given that Sisko also visited the year 2024, could a Prophet have followed him to keep an eye on him? Maybe the Watcher isn’t watching Earth or the timeline, but is instead keeping tabs on Sisko – the Emissary.
Watcher Candidate #4: A Temporal Agent from the Temporal Wars.
Crewman Daniels was a Temporal Agent.
Is it possible that the Watcher is a Temporal Agent, someone whose intention is to prevent anyone meddling with the timeline? If so, this story could connect with the ban on time travel that was established in Discovery Season 3 but not elaborated on. It still wouldn’t explain why the Watcher looks like Laris – but again, perhaps she has taken a particular interest in Picard or the Picard family for some reason?
Watcher Candidate #5: A Borg.
The Borg Queen.
Considering who it was that told Picard about the Watcher’s existence, some kind of Borg connection cannot be ruled out! Despite having spent a lot of time with the Borg over the past thirty years, there’s still a lot we don’t know about them – for example, do they send scouts to planets they hope to assimilate to watch over them? That could be the Watcher’s purpose, and considering we already know that the Borg are capable of time travel, it seems possible that the Watcher is one of theirs!
Theory #2: The Federation will use information from the Confederation timeline to defeat the Borg.
A battle over the planet Vulcan in the Confederation timeline.
Depending on how the season shapes up, this may be a theory we come back to next year! But for now, suffice to say that the Confederation’s defeat of the Borg in their timeline is one of the most intriguing unexplained events in the entire series. How did the Confederation – an organisation with technology comparable to the 25th Century Federation – manage to defeat the Borg Collective?
If a Borg invasion is coming – as we seemed to see in The Star Gazer at the beginning of the season – the Federation will need every advantage at their disposal to fight back. Technology, tactics, and information from the Confederation’s own battle against the Borg could prove invaluable, and if Picard and the crew manage to take La Sirena back to their own time, maybe they’ll bring with them just what they need.
Theory #3: Dr Adam Soong will create the Borg.
Dr Adam Soong.
Dr Soong’s research seems to be primarily on the genetic side of things, and that could tee up a storyline about human augmentation that we’ll look at in a moment. However, now that Q has become involved, we have to question what his motives are and what he might be pushing Dr Soong to do. Could Q give Dr Soong nanotechnology, perhaps, in an attempt to save or prolong his life?
If so, maybe Dr Soong’s experiments will somehow lead to the creation of the Borg Collective.
Theory #4: Q is dying.
Q in Fly Me To The Moon.
What did Q mean when he said that he didn’t have a lot of time left? One interpretation is that he’s coming to the end of his life. Picard noticed that there was something wrong with Q as far back as Penance, and Q’s attitude in general seems to have shifted to something darker and more overtly antagonistic than we remember. One possible explanation for this is that Q is dying.
This could also explain the apparent loss of Q’s powers – or the decreasing control he has over them. If he wanted to prevent Renée Picard’s mission, for example, Q should simply be able to snap his fingers and turn her spaceship into a block of cheese, or make it so that Renée was never born, or change her desire to become an astronaut into a lifelong passion to become a pro YouTuber. Instead, he’s resorted to trying to talk her out of it. Why? Could it be that Q’s declining power is indicative of his declining health?
If one of the defining characteristics of the Q as a race is immortality, what might have caused Q to be approaching death? Is it a punishment inflicted on him by his own people, or the result of some other outside force? Is it natural or artificial in nature? And what does it have to do with Picard?
Theory #5: The masked, hooded figure from The Star Gazer is not the real Borg Queen.
The Borg Queen?
The Borg Queen – the hooded figure who materialised on the bridge of the Stargazer – was absolutely terrifying, evoking feelings for me that the Star Trek franchise hasn’t hit in decades. The way this character was presented, with her shrouded face, flowing robes, monochromatic aesthetic, and blend of humanoid and decidedly non-humanoid mechanical features was simultaneously riveting and frightening!
This character was presented as the Borg Queen in the episode, and the Borg have no reason that we know of to lie about that. But at the same time, she was very different not only from how we’ve seen the Borg Queen in past iterations of Star Trek, but also from the Borg Queen that Picard and the crew met in the Confederation timeline. Could this character actually be someone else – perhaps someone that the Borg have assimilated?
“Borg Queen” Candidate #1: Dr Jurati.
Dr Jurati.
With Dr Jurati having seemingly been assimilated, she would appear to be the top candidate for being the masked Borg Queen! The anomaly from which the Borg vessel emerged was said to be giving off temporal radiation, which could explain how an assimilated Dr Jurati is a Borg Queen while a younger Dr Jurati is present on the bridge of the Stargazer in the same moment.
“Borg Queen” Candidate #2: The time-travelling Admiral Janeway from Endgame.
Admiral Janeway.
Admiral Janeway was assimilated by the Borg Queen as part of her plan to introduce a neurolytic pathogen into the Collective, and appeared to have been killed when the Borg Queen’s complex exploded. But is there a way she could have survived?
Her assimilation could have been a turning point for the Borg. She did untold damage to the Collective, but also potentially gifted them knowledge and information about future events and technologies that were decades ahead of their time. Just like the Borg once chose Captain Picard to become Locutus – their “spokesperson” or representative – perhaps they might have chosen Admiral Janeway to fill a similar role during this latest incursion. Admiral Janeway could even have been incorporated as part of the Borg Queen.
“Borg Queen” Candidate #3: Soji.
Soji in The Star Gazer.
The Borg seek “perfection” through the synthesis of organic and synthetic parts; if Coppelius synths like Soji have something that the Borg want, perhaps we’ll learn that they assimilated her to get it. The anomaly from which the Borg vessel emerged was not a standard transwarp corridor, and was specifically noted to emit some kind of temporal radiation. Thus the Borg vessel could be from a future date after Soji has already been assimilated. We could even learn that the super-synths from the Season 1 finale are actually the Borg; that could be how they first became aware of Soji and the Coppelius synths.
“Borg Queen” Candidate #4: Renée Picard.
Renée in her therapy session.
Renée could be the Borg Queen if she’s assimilated. Perhaps that’s part of Q’s plan, or perhaps Renée will be captured by Dr Jurat/the Borg Queen at the gala (or afterwards). Renée being the masked, hooded Borg could explain why the Borg were asking for Picard by name, and why Non, je ne regrette rien played shortly before the Stargazer’s self-destruction.
Theory #6: Dr Jurati hasn’t been assimilated.
Dr Jurati with the Borg Queen.
Maybe this is a silly idea, but something struck me about the way the Borg Queen’s death was handled in Fly Me To The Moon. Dr Jurati was clearly very traumatised by what had transpired, and this comes atop her prior trauma from the death of Dr Maddox and her brainwashing in Season 1. Could she be experiencing some kind of psychotic episode, merely hallucinating the presence of the Borg Queen?
Hallucinations can seem incredibly real, and while as the audience we might assume that Dr Jurati is seeing and feeling the Borg Queen’s presence because the Borg Queen did something to her, we also have to keep in mind that the Borg Queen seemed incapable of assimilating anyone; her nanites, according to the Confederation, had been destroyed or rendered unusable. So one possibility could be that Dr Jurati is experiencing a lot of trauma, leading her to believe she’s been assimilated and that she can see and hear the Borg Queen.
Theory #7: The season will end on a cliffhanger.
Because Seasons 2 and 3 went into production back-to-back, that made me wonder if they might form one continuous story – or if the final act of Season 2 might set up the story for Season 3. That still seems plausible to me, but the announcement a couple of days ago about the return of the main cast of The Next Generation in Season 3, and the accompanying clip, may make it less likely.
However, it’s still possible that the two seasons will form one continuous story, or that the final act of Season 2 will lay the groundwork for the story of Season 3. There could also be a minor cliffhanger that is connected to just one character, or that is unrelated to the main story.
Theory #8: At least one character from The Next Generation will make an appearance.
The main cast of The Next Generation.
As above, this theory has been knocked by the Season 3 announcement. It seems less likely now that we’ll see major roles for any of the characters announced for Season 3. However, the final act of Season 2 could bring back some or all of these characters if it’s going to set up the next phase of the story, and cameos and smaller appearances still feel possible.
Theory #9: Q is not responsible for changing the timeline.
Q looking very young!
Q is clearly trying to affect some kind of change to the timeline by interfering with Renée Picard’s mission. But his declining powers could suggest that he isn’t as directly involved with the change and the creation of the Confederation timeline as he implied. Q may no longer be capable of doing something on this scale – and even if he was, we still have no idea what his motivation for doing so would be.
The Confederation timeline and the 21st Century don’t seem like typical Q puzzles. He described sending Picard to the Confederation timeline as a “penance,” but what exactly he’s punishing Picard for and why is still not clear. In short, we still don’t know why Q would want to do something like this, and as of Fly Me To The Moon, it’s no longer clear that Q has the ability to do so either.
I have a longer article that goes into more detail about this theory that I wrote before the season premiere, and you can find it by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #10: Q shielded Picard and the crew of La Sirena from changes to the timeline.
Q and Picard in Penance.
Regardless of who changed the timeline and why, it seems more and more clear that Q is responsible for ensuring that Picard and the crew of La Sirena were the only ones unaffected by the change. If his goal was to change the timeline to punish Picard that makes sense – but it also leaves open the possibility that Picard will be able to figure out what happened and prevent it. That could be Q’s goal.
I’m not quite ready to call this one “confirmed,” though. I think we need to spend more time with Q to understand what he’s done, what he hopes to do next, and why.
Theory #11: Who is responsible for damaging the timeline, then?
Did the Borg do it?
If Q isn’t the one who changed the timeline, the obvious question that raises is “who did it?”
In theory, it could be any one of a number of different Star Trek factions. We’ve seen the Klingons having access to time travel in the early 25th Century, for example, in the Voyager episode Endgame, and various time travel stories and stories depicting powerful alien races could all theoretically yield suspects. But considering what we know about Star Trek: Picard specifically, in my view the main suspects are as follows:
The Borg. The Borg could be one of the season’s main antagonists after their emergence in The Star Gazer, and we’ve seen in past iterations of Star Trek that they can travel through time.
The Zhat Vash. While the Zhat Vash may not have been shown to possess time travel tech, they were the primary antagonist last season, and arguably were not defeated in the Season 1 finale.
How about the Zhat Vash?
The super-synths. The super-synths from the Season 1 finale are a wildcard; we don’t know much about them except that they seem to be technologically powerful. Travelling back in time might be on their agenda – but erasing the prime timeline could result in the erasure of the Coppelius synths.
The Romulan government or the Tal Shiar. With or without the support of the Zhat Vash, the Romulan government could have taken action against the Federation in response to the events of Season 1.
There are undoubtedly other Star Trek factions who could be implicated, and if we had a free choice we could suggest the likes of the Dominion or the Sphere-Builders. But I think those are far less likely when considering the elements Picard has brought on board.
Theory #12: The Borg Queen/Dr Jurati will steal La Sirena, stranding Picard in the past.
The crash site of La Sirena in France.
If the Borg Queen has infected Dr Jurati’s mind, she may be able to control her – either through manipulation or through good old-fashioned Borg assimilation! If so, the Queen’s next move could be to steal La Sirena.
The Borg Queen’s alliance with Picard was one of convenience and the realisation that shared interests exist. The divergence in time led to the Confederation destroying the Borg Collective, and the Queen needs to prevent that from happening for her own sake. But once she’s accomplished that goal, all bets are off. There’s no reason for the Queen to stick with Picard and help him get back to the 25th Century; stealing the ship and returning without him could be her next move.
Theory #13: The Confederation is run by augmented humans.
A monument to Adam Soong in the Confederation timeline.
I enjoyed the presentation of Dr Adam Soong. Rather than an out-and-out villain, he comes across as someone willing to go to extreme lengths to save the life of someone he loves. He’s clearly willing to cross moral and ethical lines in the process – and it’s at least possible that something he does could lead to the creation of augmented humans: Khan-like “supermen” who will conquer the world.
The divergence in time caused by Renée Picard’s mission could play into this as well – Renée was said to have found evidence of life during the course of her mission to the outer solar system. Perhaps Dr Soong will use that to develop augmentation, or his alliance with Q will lead to the creation of augments. Maybe that’s the next part of Q’s plan.
If so, human augmentation could be widespread by the time of the Confederation. That could even explain how the Confederation was able to defeat the Borg!
Theory #14: There will be a connection between the augments and Strange New Worlds.
One of the few things we know about Strange New Worlds at this early stage is that there will be a character named La’an Noonien-Singh. This new character seems to be related in some way to the iconic villain Khan, and if Khan or Khan-inspired augments play some kind of a role in the Confederation’s power structure, perhaps that will set up a connection – or even a crossover – between Picard Season 2 and Strange New Worlds.
Theory #15: The Federation is responsible for creating the Borg.
A rather incredulous-looking Borg seen in The Next Generation.
This is a total wildcard, but I’m just throwing it out there!
The Borg Queen – and the Borg in general – appear to have a fascination with humanity and with Picard. Could it be that the explanation for that is that the Federation and/or humanity are somehow responsible for their creation? With time travel on the agenda, it’s not impossible to imagine a scenario in which the progenitor of the Borg – perhaps even the Queen herself – is able to travel back in time, founding the Collective.
Nanites used by the Control AI.
As suggested above, this could be what Q is manipulating Dr Soong into doing in the 21st Century. The Borg could therefore be a human creation, the offspring of one of Data’s ancestors. Could that link be the key to defeating them? Maybe that preserved knowledge and the veneration of Dr Soong is how the Confederation was able to defeat the Borg in their timeline!
Discovery Season 2 ran a story with the Control AI that could have also been a Borg origin story. Was it known as early as 2018-19 that Picard wanted to tell a story like this, and if so, could that explain why the Control storyline ended the way it did? I have a write-up of Discovery’s abandoned Borg origin story that you can find by clicking or tapping here.
So those theories are new or moved this week.
Up next, as always, I’ll recap the remaining theories that I have in play. These didn’t see any significant movement this week, but remain on the table for later in the season – or possibly even for Season 3!
Theory #16: The loose ends from Season 1 will be tied up.
Will we learn more about the super-synths?
The Star Gazer already crossed off two things from the list of Season 1 leftovers! Dr Jurati’s legal status was clarified, as was her relationship with Captain Rios. There are still a number of points that I’d like to see addressed before the season ends, though, as Season 1 unfortunately left quite a lot of story on the table thanks to a rushed and underwhelming finale.
Here are the main ones:
What will become of the synths on Coppelius, and will they have to be relocated for safety?
Did Starfleet attempt to visit Aia and shut down the beacon at the centre of the Zhat Vash’s prophecy? Leaving it out in the open seems dangerous.
Will Starfleet contact the super-synths and attempt to make peace or convince them that they pose no threat?
A crowd of synths on Coppelius.
Why did Bruce Maddox go to Freecloud?
With the Zhat Vash plot exposed, what will become of their crusade against synthetic life?
Did Federation-Romulan relations suffer as a result of the Zhat Vash’s attack on Mars and attempted attack on Coppelius?
What happened to Narek after he was captured by the Coppelius synths?
Who controls the Artifact and what will happen to the surviving ex-Borg?
Theory #17: Teresa will find out the truth about Rios.
Rios and Teresa in Watcher.
We didn’t spend a lot of time with Teresa in Watcher, but it’s possible she’ll come back later in the story. With Rios’ combadge still missing, at the very least I’d expect him to tie up that loose end – even if the lost combadge has no real bearing on the rest of the story. Teresa’s clinic is where it was last seen, and she may know where it is or may be willing to help.
During the course of such a storyline, it seems at least possible that Teresa will learn that Rios is from the future. This would see her stand alongside characters like Voyager’s Rain Robinson and Dr Gillian Taylor from Star Trek IV, and it could be a fun twist for the character. As a native of 21st Century Los Angeles, Teresa could be a valuable asset to the team as they try to stop the timeline from being shattered.
Theory #18: The Watcher will be aware of Sisko and the USS Defiant in this time period.
Captain Sisko in Past Tense.
I’m not expecting to see Sisko or anyone else from Past Tense appear in person! But maybe when Picard and the crew inevitably meet the Watcher, they will make reference to or acknowledge that the USS Defiant has also passed this way. It would be a fun little connection to Past Tense, and just because we’ve seen references to things like UHC cards and Sanctuary Districts, that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for another line or two of dialogue to tie Picard to Deep Space Nine!
Theory #19: Seven of Nine will choose to remain in 2024.
Seven of Nine in Los Angeles.
For the first time in her life, Seven of Nine is feeling a sense of freedom. Not only is she free from her Borg implants, changing the way she looks, but she’s also unencumbered by her Borg past. No one she meets in 2024 will be aware of the Borg, and she’s clearly enjoying the way that makes her feel.
In The Star Gazer, Seven spoke to Picard about feeling judged by the ship’s crew – and in a broader sense, by practically everyone in the 25th Century. Her Borg past is a hurdle for her; she feels the weight of unspoken criticisms and judgements made against her. Her Borg implants are the biggest physical manifestation of this, but the fact that most people she meets in the 25th Century know who she is and where she came from is a burden – one she no longer feels in 2024.
With that in mind, could Seven choose to remain behind when Picard and the crew of La Sirena are ready to leave? Even if she’s ultimately talked out of it (or even forced out of it), I wonder if she’ll try to stay in the past.
Theory #20: Elnor will be restored to life when the crew returns to the 25th Century.
Raffi believes that restoring the timeline could save Elnor.
The decision to kill off Elnor so early in the season certainly succeeded as a shocking story point… but I’m not so sure he’ll stay dead. Is Raffi’s belief that restoring the timeline will save his life something that the series has carefully set up so it can be paid off later? Or was it simply part of her reaction to his death; the bargaining stage of the grieving process? I’m not sure!
Elnor is a character who had potential – the first Romulan to be a main character on a Star Trek series (or the second, after Narek) and the first Romulan to enlist in Starfleet. If the Star Trek franchise were to stick around, I could happily follow his adventures as a Starfleet officer over the course of several years, giving him an arc somewhat comparable to someone like Tilly in Discovery, growing into his new role.
But Elnor is also a character who was underused in Season 1, and the decision to make him a Starfleet cadet at the beginning of Season 2 was only the beginning of a new arc for him. His death didn’t hit as hard as it could’ve because we don’t know Elnor very well – and I wonder if that could be a reason to bring him back later in the season.
Theory #21: The Borg Collective was badly damaged in the Voyager episode Endgame and has been unable to recover.
Dr Jurati decoded the Borg message in The Star Gazer.
In The Star Gazer, it seemed as if the Borg Collective was reaching out, asking the Federation – and Picard specifically – for help. If so, the question is why? Was it just a shallow ploy to launch another attack on Starfleet? Or is there at least a degree of truth to the Borg’s request?
Endgame, the final episode of Voyager, depicted a time-travelling Admiral Janeway introducing a neurolytic pathogen – a type of virus – into the Borg Queen, seriously damaging her, her base of operations, and several Borg vessels in the vicinity. Because the Borg hadn’t been seen since – until The Star Gazer, that is – we never got to learn just how deadly Admiral Janeway’s actions were.
Admiral Janeway in Endgame.
I’ve always assumed that the Borg Collective is vast enough, powerful enough, clever enough, and most importantly adaptable enough that Admiral Janeway’s actions weren’t going to strike a fatal blow. Whatever damage she had done seemed like something the Borg could eventually fix – and their existence 25 years later during the events of The Star Gazer seems to prove that. The Borg’s technology and weapons are still streets ahead of anything Starfleet has at its disposal… but even so, it’s still possible that the Borg are on their last legs facing defeat.
If that’s the case, maybe we’ll discover that it was Admiral Janeway who’s responsible – that her actions in Endgame are either wholly or partly to blame for the Borg’s weakened state. Dr Jurati seemed to know that the Borg Collective isn’t as strong as it once was, so that could be another clue pointing to this theory.
Theory #22: The USS Stargazer will make an appearance.
The original USS Stargazer.
Okay, technically the USS Stargazer has already appeared, but not in the way I expected! Captain Rios is (or was) in command of a new USS Stargazer, and not only that but he had a model of the original vessel in his conference room! So that’s it. Theory confirmed, everybody can move on to the next one!
Just kidding. The inclusion of a brand-new USS Stargazer brings the ship and its legacy back to the fore. Picard himself commented in The Star Gazer that the original vessel was his first command, and as far back as Season 1 we had a reference to his time in command through the character of Dr Benayoun. All of these things could be leading to some bigger role for the original USS Stargazer – and with a story that seems to include time travel and a strong focus on Picard’s own personal history, a flashback or even a visit to the ship could be on the agenda!
Theory #23: Romulans are spying on Earth in the 21st Century… and could be time-travelling Zhat Vash.
A young boy encounters a Romulan or Vulcan.
In the third trailer, a young boy wearing what seemed to be 21st Century clothing was seen encountering a Romulan or Vulcan. If the Zhat Vash are involved in the new season’s story somehow, perhaps this individual is a Zhat Vash operative. This could confirm that the Zhat Vash were able to travel through time, or send a message back in time to their 21st Century counterparts. The Romulans had achieved interstellar flight centuries earlier, so travelling to Earth to spy or place operatives seems plausible for them.
Of all the scenes we’ve glimpsed so far from Season 2, the one with the young boy and the Romulan or Vulcan is the one that I’m least sure about! It doesn’t seem to fit naturally into a story about the Borg, Q, and time travel… but this is one theory that could make sense, and would connect to the theory above about Q not being to blame.
Theory #24: The Vulcans are on Earth in the early 21st Century… as stated in Discovery Season 4.
A meeting of senior Federation and allied officials in Discovery Season 4.
Another theory about the unnamed Romulan or Vulcan is tied into the Discovery Season 4 episode The Galactic Barrier. This could easily be a complete overreaction to a throwaway line, but at the beginning of the episode, the enigmatic Federation leader Dr Kovich stated that Vulcans were on Earth for decades prior to official first contact taking place.
This one line could be a reference to Carbon Creek, an episode of Enterprise that saw Vulcans crash-land on Earth in the 1950s. But the timing seems odd given the scene glimpsed in the Picard Season 2 trailers! If the character seen above is a Vulcan, perhaps there will be a connection of some kind between Discovery and Picard.
Theory #25: Picard and the crew will have to actively trigger World War III to save the future.
World War III soldiers as glimpsed in Discovery Season 2.
Although the Bell Riots are the main event of 2024 that we know about in Star Trek’s internal timeline, the 21st Century was arguably dominated by another event: World War III. The war may have kicked off as early as 2026 (as suggested in The Original Series) and concluded by the mid-2050s as seen in First Contact. The “post-atomic horror” that followed was the backdrop for Q’s trial in Encounter at Farpoint.
World War III is integral to Star Trek because without it, it’s hard to see how warp drive would’ve developed and how humanity would’ve made peaceful first contact with the Vulcans. Just like the end of the Second World War brought about major technological and societal changes that ultimately made the world a better place, Star Trek’s World War III is integral to the events that led to the founding of the Federation. If it were prevented, the timeline would change dramatically.
We now know that Renée Picard’s mission seems to be the divergence in time. But her mission could be connected, somehow, to the outbreak of hostilities. By sending her on her way and preserving the timeline, Picard and his crew may be committing to the outbreak of war. You can find a full write-up of this theory by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #26: The Q Continuum has been attacked.
The Q Continuum, as seen in Voyager.
What’s wrong with Q? That was a question Picard asked that went unanswered in Penance, but there’s clearly something different about Q this time. Though at times he has the same impish charm that we remember from his earlier appearances in the franchise, at other moments he seemed incredibly angry – even hitting Picard at one point.
Perhaps there’s something going on in the Q Continuum – the Continuum could have come under attack, for example, and Q could be one of the few survivors. If something that Picard did or didn’t do is partly to blame, that could explain Q’s antagonistic behaviour.
Though the Q Continuum and the Q species seem god-like from our perspective, it’s not impossible to think that someone found a weakness to exploit. Could it be the Borg, perhaps? Q’s anger could stem from the fact that Picard didn’t do enough to stop them.
Theory #27: Q is angry with Picard for “giving up.”
Grumpy Q.
Over the course of The Next Generation, Q took a particular interest in Picard. More so than anyone else, Q seemed to see potential in Picard as a representative of the human race, someone who potentially showed him what humanity could be… with a little prompting and guidance. Q seemed fascinated by that idea, so seeing Picard’s fall from grace may have shocked him and left him feeling disappointed and bitter.
Picard spent more than a decade away from galactic affairs, retiring to his vineyard and seemingly just waiting around to die. Someone like Q might take that personally; he might feel that Picard was not living up to the potential he had. Perhaps Picard’s absence had some kind of unknown consequence, something that harmed Q or the Q Continuum. In any case, Q’s animosity to Picard seems to be personal – could disappointment at Picard’s attitude in the years prior to Season 1 be the cause?
Theory #28: The Borg are aware that Picard is now a synth – and his synthetic status is part of the reason why they waited until now to make contact.
Picard awakened in a new synthetic body in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2.
As mentioned above with Soji, the timing of the new Borg incursion is interesting, especially considering that they asked for Picard by name. Are they aware of his newfound synthetic status? And if so, could Picard’s transition to a new synthetic body be the reason why the Borg chose to launch their attack?
The Borg seek “perfection” through a synthesis of organic and synthetic components, and while Picard’s new synthetic body is a far cry from the Borg drones we’ve seen, the idea of an organic mind in a synthetic body isn’t a million miles away from that same basic idea. Although Picard’s body was said to be comparable in practically every way to his original one, synthetics can have enhanced abilities that allow them to easily overpower humans – and, as we’ve seen with Data on more than one occasion, they can outmatch individual Borg drones as well.
A Borg drone losing a fight against Data.
Perhaps the Borg want to re-assimilate Picard now that he’s synthetic. If the Collective is still reeling from the damage inflicted upon it by Admiral Janeway or if they’re on the losing side of a war, perhaps they hope to use fully-synthetic bodies like Picard’s to replace damaged or destroyed drones, or as cannon fodder on the front lines. There are many reasons why the Borg might be interested in synthetic technology, and that could explain their re-emergence.
Even if the Borg don’t plan to assimilate Picard or the Coppelius synths, the timing of their appearance is certainly interesting and there could be a connection.
Theory #29: The Borg ship from The Star Gazer crossed over from the Confederation timeline.
The Borg vessel identified as “Legion.”
As far as we know at this stage, the Confederation timeline replaced the prime timeline thanks to someone or something changing the past. But timelines and parallel universes often go hand-in-hand in Star Trek, and after we learned about the Borg’s defeat in the Confederation timeline, I wonder if their ship from the season premiere might have found a way to punch through or cross over into the prime timeline.
If the Borg were facing defeat, as their message seemed to suggest, perhaps that could explain why. Also, the anomaly that the ship emerged from was not a typical transwarp conduit; we’d seen transwarp corridors as recently as Season 1. Finally, the Borg Queen of the Confederation timeline was aware of Picard and the history of the prime timeline – perhaps the Confederation timeline Borg knew of the prime timeline and this was a last-ditch effort to survive.
Theory #30: The Borg are fighting a war – and they’re losing.
The Borg vessel using its transporter-weapon on the USS Stargazer.
Possibly connected to the theory above, one explanation for the Borg’s message and appearance in The Star Gazer is that in the prime timeline the Collective has found itself on the losing side of a war. Penance told us that the Confederation had been able to defeat the Borg using technology that Dr Jurati believed was roughly equivalent to the Federation’s in the prime timeline – so clearly it’s possible to fight and beat the Borg.
Could mentions of Gul Dukat or Martok in Penance be hints at something to come later in the story? Both characters were major players during Deep Space Nine’s Dominion War arc; maybe the Cardassians and/or the Dominion have been aggressively attacking the Borg in the late 24th Century. The other big culprit is the Confederation – assuming that it’s possible for the two timelines to mix!
Theory #31: The mission back in time won’t last all season.
Los Angeles, 2024.
There’s still a lot of the season remaining for Picard and the crew to figure out what happened and repair the damage to the timeline. Perhaps this is as much a wish as a theory – time travel stories that visit the modern day have never been my favourites in Star Trek – but I wonder if there could be something truly unexpected coming afterwards.
With Q involved in the story, he could send Picard and the crew to another alternate timeline or parallel universe, for example. Or after the timeline is repaired, we could see Picard and the crew engage in a battle against the Borg – we still don’t know what was going on with the new Borg Queen and the Legion ship from The Star Gazer. In short, there are many different ways that the season could go after a jaunt to the past.
I’d also point out that, aside from a few clips from the 21st Century, the first two episodes of the season seem to have included most of the clips from pre-season trailers and teasers, which could mean that the latter part of the season is hiding something big!
So that’s it!
Picard in the recently released Season 3 teaser.
Those are all of the theories I currently have in play as we head into Two of One – which I’ll be watching in just a few hours’ time! The season continues to find ways to surprise me, even though I have to confess that I’m about ready for Picard and the crew to leave the 21st Century behind and get back to the future. Star Trek, at least for me, is never at its best with these modern day time travel stories.
I always like to end these theory lists by saying that I do this just for fun. I enjoy writing, I enjoy Star Trek, and spending more time in this world is an escape and an enjoyable distraction. But for some folks, fan theories can be frustrating or unenjoyable, especially if they get very attached to a plausible-sounding theory that ultimately doesn’t pan out. I have no “insider information” and I’m not trying to claim that anything suggested above can, will, or must be part of Picard Season 2. I fully expect many of these theories to be debunked and for the season to go in wildly unpredictable directions!
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.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for unreleased Star Trek episodes, including casting information for Strange New Worlds Season 2 and Picard Season 3. Spoilers are also present for Picard Seasons 1-2.
Today has been First Contact Day – the 5th of April is the date in 2063 when the Vulcans will arrive on Earth, as depicted in the film First Contact. First Contact Day has become somewhat of an “event” in the Star Trek fan community, with an entire digital broadcast being dedicated to it last year. This year there was nothing quite so big on the schedule, but there were still teases and hints from Paramount Global that the corporation would do something to mark the occasion.
I’ve given up on hearing anything about an international broadcast for Strange New Worlds, so that never seemed like a realistic prospect – though it’s probably the biggest request from non-American Trekkies at the moment. But I admit that I was curious about the prospect of some kind of announcement. There are other Star Trek projects being worked on behind-the-scenes, after all… could we be set for an announcement of something like the Starfleet Academy series, perhaps?
No, as it turned out.
No news about a Starfleet Academy series today.
Instead, what we got was the second announcement in a row from Paramount Global’s marketing department that just feels exceptionally poorly-timed. A couple of weeks ago, Paramount Global had clumsily dropped the news that Strange New Worlds Season 2 would feature the character of James T. Kirk in an unspecified capacity; an unnecessary overreaction to a single leaked photograph from the show’s ongoing production.
That announcement sent fans into overdrive, and Star Trek’s social media channels were overwhelmed with toxicity for a few days, as the threadbare announcement left many things unclear about Strange New Worlds – a series which hasn’t even aired a single episode yet. Announcing Kirk’s return to Star Trek was premature to say the least, and the way in which Paramount Global handled it left much to be desired.
A promotional photo of James T. Kirk in Strange New Worlds Season 2.
The corporation had a solid couple of weeks to learn lessons from the fiasco surrounding Kirk’s role in Strange New Worlds… but, as evidenced by another announcement put out today, their inept marketing team has learned absolutely nothing. To commemorate First Contact Day, Paramount Global released a teaser for Star Trek: Picard Season 3, announcing the reunion of most of the main cast members of The Next Generation.
The teaser trailer was smooth and well-composed. Unlike the first tease for Season 2 (which was shown off at last year’s First Contact Day digital event) it showed off a couple of clips of what at least appears to be actual footage from the new season. And the announcement that closed it out was clearly designed to get a lot of fans excited. But here’s the thing: we’re only halfway through Picard Season 2 right now, so the new teaser for Season 3 not only feels wholly unnecessary at this moment, but it opens up a lot of questions about the series that Paramount Global isn’t interested in addressing.
Picard holding a familiar combadge in the teaser.
I confess that I’m intrigued by the prospect of a reunion. The Next Generation was my own “first contact” with the Star Trek franchise and my way into becoming a Trekkie in the early 1990s. I’ve been a fan for more than three decades off the back of that series, and I always felt that there was scope for Picard to show us at least a glimpse of what other members of the crew of the Enterprise-D were up to. We’ve had some of that already across Seasons 1 and 2.
But I was also keen that Picard shouldn’t try to be “The Next Generation Season 8.” There are new characters, new storylines, and other new elements in play, and for the series to do justice to all of that – and to do right by the new characters – it had to keep its focus there and avoid the gratuitous overuse of classic characters. Season 1 generally struck the right balance in that regard; Season 2 has already sidelined two major new characters and, thus far at least, has underdeveloped and regressed a third.
The main cast of Star Trek: Picard.
The Season 3 announcement made no mention of the current Star Trek: Picard cast. While we now know that Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Brent Spiner, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, and Marina Sirtis are joining the crew, we don’t know what that means for Evan Evagora, Alison Pill, Michelle Hurd, Santiago Cabrera, Isa Briones, or even Jeri Ryan. Part of the fun of Picard has been seeing the Admiral working with a new crew, and I feel like we don’t know some of the new characters as well as we ought to at what is now the halfway point of the series’ three-season run.
Those new characters should be given the chance to become the next generation of fan-favourites. In thirty-five years’ time, it’s my firm hope that a new group of Trekkies will be talking as excitedly about the return of Elnor and Dr Jurati as we are about Worf and Dr Crusher. In a series that already has a limited number of episodes remaining, it’s hard to see how there will be enough time to deal with some pretty heavy stories and make sure each of the new characters gets enough screen time, especially if the entire crew of the Enterprise-D is reuniting.
What will become of characters like Elnor in Season 3?
There’s also the issue of spoilers. Now I know that it always seemed like a reasonable assumption that Picard would survive and that, somehow, he and the crew would make it back to the prime timeline! But we’re literally halfway through Season 2’s story right now, and there are a lot of different directions it could go and different ways that it could pan out. To drop a massive Season 3 announcement at this time was categorically the wrong thing to do, and it risks blunting the dramatic edge of the rest of Season 2.
We now know that Picard will make it back to the 25th Century, for example, which wasn’t necessarily a given in a franchise that loves season-ending cliffhangers. We also know that Picard will successfully restore the prime timeline as of the beginning of Season 3, which again was not guaranteed as of where we are in terms of the story of Season 2. And finally, it now seems that we can safely assume that Season 3 will be the beginning of a new story, not the continuation of an ongoing one.
Jonathan Frakes as Captain Riker in the Season 3 teaser.
All of these things colour how we’ll watch the second half of Season 2 over the next five weeks. And I can’t help but feel that a significant chunk of the show’s tension and drama has been stolen by this ill-timed announcement. There will undoubtedly be twists and turns along the way as Picard and the crew of La Sirena rumble with Q and Dr Adam Soong, but one way or another everything will work out – Picard will make it home, the crew of the Enterprise-D will reunite for one last mission, and then… who knows.
If this announcement had come at the end of Season 2, I’d still have some of the same concerns about the current Picard cast (well, unless they’re all killed off, stranded in the past, or otherwise clearly written out of the series) but at least it would feel like the right time to make it. The halfway point of Season 2 was not the right time for this announcement, just like the timing of the James T. Kirk announcement wasn’t right prior to Season 1 of Strange New Worlds.
The Next Generation main cast will be returning.
It seems to me that Paramount Global knew that they didn’t have anything major to announce at First Contact Day this time around. Discovery Season 5 hasn’t entered production yet, Strange New Worlds has already released teasers and trailers over the past few weeks, and while there was perhaps scope to do something with Lower Decks Season 3 or the second half of Prodigy, it was evidently decided by someone higher up that a major announcement was necessary. I don’t see any reason why that should be the case; First Contact Day this year could’ve been dedicated to the upcoming Strange New Worlds and the second half of Picard Season 2, but there we are.
Maybe I’m still sour off the back of the Strange New Worlds situation, but I’m not as excited by this announcement as I feel I should be. The timing of it just seems incredibly wrong, hot on the heels of another self-inflicted wound with the Kirk debacle. And it opens some uncomfortable questions about the fates of the current main cast members of Picard.
All things considered, I wish that Paramount Global could’ve at least waited until the end of Picard Season 2 before making this announcement. Doing so now doesn’t seem right, for the reasons outlined above. While I’m intrigued by what has been teased, right now I can muster curious interest, tinged with more than a little concern, rather than the outright excitement that this announcement was trying to generate.
Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-2 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in the United States and on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and around the world. The Star Trek franchise – including Picard, Strange New Worlds, 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.
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.
Fly Me To The Moon was an interesting episode, one which introduced several new characters and story elements. I didn’t see most of its various twists coming until they landed – and being genuinely surprised by a story is always something I appreciate. Jonathan Frakes returned to Picard to direct for the first time since Season 1, and I noted more than a few similarities to Stardust City Rag – one of two episodes that he directed last time around.
However, Fly Me To The Moon wasn’t an outstanding episode for me personally. It piled a couple of frustrating story tropes on top of one another, compounding a modern-day setting that’s already beginning to stretch my patience with a stealthy infiltration mission that felt rather like something lifted from a video game. These stories weren’t badly-executed by any means, but the foundations upon which they were built just aren’t my favourites, and from a personal point of view I felt that the episode suffered as a result of that.
Dr Jurati undercover.
There had been quite a lot of buildup to the story of Rios being arrested and deported from the United States; a timely examination of a real-world phenomenon that’s happening right now. But three episodes of buildup fizzled out rather quickly in Fly Me To The Moon, with Rios’ rescue and the liberation of a handful of migrants being treated as a relatively minor part of the story. We got a satisfactory conclusion to Rios’ capture after his run-in with Teresa, but it wasn’t a particularly long or engaging one.
It’s always worth saying that we’re nowhere near the end of the season yet, and there’s still time to return to Teresa’s clinic and take another look at this aspect of the story. With Rios’ combadge still missing, I think they’ll have to take action to retrieve it somehow. So I’m trying to avoid passing judgement too quickly. What I’ll say for now is that if we don’t pick up this story thread later, it gets a grade C: a basic pass. If we take another look at the way migrants are being handled – and specifically, what’s so dangerous about a Sanctuary District on the border – then maybe that grade can be bumped up a notch or two.
Rios with Pedro, a fellow deportee.
Sticking with Rios, I’ve had an unsettling feeling about him that’s been building for several episodes. I touched on this last time, but I wanted to dedicate a little more time to it here. In short, Rios has regressed as a character in a pretty significant way. He hasn’t regressed since last season, but since his role in the Season 2 premiere: The Star Gazer.
That episode saw Rios after he returned to Starfleet and accepted a brand-new command. He had a crew to be responsible for, a galaxy to explore, and he seemed to have taken to heart the lessons he learned on his adventure with Admiral Picard in Season 1 – particularly Picard’s act of sacrifice and the words he spoke during the climactic standoff over Coppelius. It was genuinely wonderful to see Rios in that role – and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Trekkies asking for a Captain Rios spin-off show in future!
It feels like Captain Rios has regressed somewhat since The Star Gazer.
But after Rios found himself in the Confederation timeline, he seemed to forget all about that. He mentioned his command last week, but only in this weirdly aggressive rant to a prison guard. He doesn’t seem to care – or even remember – his crew, the officers under his command and for whom he is responsible. Instead he seems back in his “Star Trek does Han Solo” mode; the renegade with a heart of gold. That characterisation suited Rios in Season 1 – knowing that there was a good soul inside someone who had a hard time showing it and a hard time processing grief and loss was key to his character back then. But we’ve seen so much change for Rios in just that one episode at the start of the season that the way he’s been acting for the last few episodes feels like a major regression.
And it’s a complicated situation to resolve right now. Clearly the writers are pushing Raffi down the “grief and loss” road this time around, with Seven of Nine in a supporting role. In addition, if Rios were to suddenly start showing an emotional response to the loss of the crew of the Stargazer, not only would it seem a bit late in the game, but it would also feel like a retread of what he went through in Season 1. I feel like Rios has been written into a somewhat of a corner, and I’m not sure I see an easy way out for him as things currently sit. I’m sure he’d be glad to get his ship and crew back, if such a thing is even possible, but he hasn’t done anything to show that to us as the audience. I’m just not feeling much coming from Rios right now.
I’d like to see more from Rios to convince me he’s a Starfleet captain.
If I may make a bold suggestion, it seems to me that Rios has been included in the story in large part because, as a Hispanic man, it really hammers home the point the writers have been trying to make about immigration in the United States. But because Rios had already seen such an amazing turnaround by the time of The Star Gazer, at this point in the season I’m left wondering if maybe we might’ve had a more enjoyable time overall if Elnor had been the one to survive and it was Rios sitting in La Sirena’s morgue.
That’s not because I dislike Rios. I think he can be a fun character, and there’s something about his roguish charm that makes him feel different in Star Trek; a character archetype we don’t often see. But having undergone that development and become a captain, dragging him backwards feels wrong. If there needed to be cuts to the cast of Season 2 for whatever reason, bringing Elnor along could’ve been more interesting. We’d have got a lot more of the “fish-out-of-water” comedy with Elnor, for example, and there’d have been scope to develop his character a lot more. With a little creative writing, the story of loss for Raffi could still have been included.
Raffi briefly thought that she saw Elnor among the migrants.
But enough about the story we aren’t watching!
One thing that felt quite odd in Fly Me To The Moon was the inclusion of three actors playing brand-new characters and not the characters we’re familiar with. Brent Spiner’s role as a new member of the Soong family had been teased in pre-season marketing material and was expected, and of course we’d seen the Watcher (in Laris’ form) last week. Isa Briones also returned this week – but not as Soji.
When a new character played by a familiar actor is introduced, I think most fans just shrug it off and continue with the story. Star Trek has done this so many times going all the way back to weird “body swap” stories in The Original Series, so it’s not like it’s a problem or anything like that. But it was very strange to have three brand-new characters in a single episode all played by familiar faces. One or possibly even two might’ve gotten a pass, but to have three felt gratuitous and ultimately detracted from the way Fly Me To The Moon landed.
Isa Briones was one of three regulars to be playing a different character in Fly Me To The Moon.
I’m glad that Picard’s writers haven’t just forgotten about Soji, considering how she was such a major part of the story of Season 1. And it was nice to welcome back Isa Briones for a much larger role than she had in the premiere. But all things considered, this new character of Kore felt odd in an episode that was already dealing with the return of Brent Spiner as another Dr Soong and Orla Brady as the Watcher/Laris.
That being said, there was something interesting about Kore’s character, and the life-limiting genetic condition that she was suffering from managed to walk a fine line between feeling realistic enough to elicit sympathy but at the same time feeling very “Star Trek.” Particularly after Q’s medicine wore off and she suffered a flare-up, I felt that this unnamed condition had a very sci-fi feel, and I appreciated that.
Kore’s illness had a definite sci-fi feel.
I can relate to Kore. As someone whose poor health means I spend more and more time at home, I can empathise with the way she feels about being trapped and isolated, and like she’s missing out on everything from everyday things like swimming to special events like parties and gatherings. It’s an interesting angle for the series, and I hope we get to spend a little more time with Kore. Seeing what her life is like in isolation is interesting to me – and more than a little timely after the couple of years we’ve all just been through!
People with severe allergies might also find the presentation of Kore and her health condition to be relatable. I’m not in that category, but I’ve known people with allergies so severe that what others might consider to be everyday events – such as eating out at a restaurant – become impossible, and I felt at least some influence there in the way Kore came across on screen.
I found the presentation of Kore to be very relatable.
Although I generally enjoyed this story point, it does feel as though the writers of Picard took Kore’s health condition to somewhat of an extreme, and the real reason for that is to give motivation to the new character of Dr Soong. Brent Spiner did well to put across such a conflicted character in just a single episode – I really felt that Dr Soong was buckling under the weight of an impossibly difficult situation. The only caveat there is that maybe the situation with Kore was overreaching – trying to be an eleven out of ten when a nine would’ve been perfectly sufficient for the sake of the story!
How many Dr Soongs has Brent Spiner played now? I’ve honestly lost count! I think at this point we’ve seen practically all of Data’s ancestors on screen in one way or another! But that’s okay, and tying the events of Season 2 to a familiar face is something that I think many fans will appreciate. While I don’t think there can really be very many blanks left to be filled in for the Soong family at this point, possibilities exist to connect Adam Soong’s story to that of Dr Arik Soong – a character who appeared in Enterprise.
Dr Adam Soong.
Brent Spiner was unexpectedly one of the standouts in Fly Me To The Moon. Coming hot on the heels of his portrayal of Altan Inigo Soong in Season 1, I felt that the hairstyling (including a beard) and makeup used in Season 2 went a long way to making him look at least superficially different, and the performance really succeeded at capturing the notion that Dr Adam Soong is a good person who’s being forced to do increasingly questionable things out of desperation.
If Adam Soong is hailed in the Confederation timeline as some kind of hero, we’re still yet to find out why that is. And it’s possible that whatever he’s trying to do will ultimately lead to something serious, possibly even evil. I noted in Kore’s reaction as her medication wore off a kind of dark greyish tinge to her veins; could we be looking at nanotechnology, perhaps? If so, could Dr Soong have some kind of involvement with the Borg? With Q around, anything is possible – so stay tuned for my updated theories!
A monument to Adam Soong in the Confederation timeline.
Speaking of the Borg, the situation with the Borg Queen aboard La Sirena took a turn that I genuinely wasn’t expecting. The interplay between Dr Jurati and the Borg Queen had been one of the most fascinating parts of the season’s story, and it came to a head in Fly Me To The Moon. If I were to make one criticism I’d say that maybe this was a little premature; I could’ve happily watched Dr Jurati and the Borg Queen continue to talk around each other and build up this antipathy and fascination for a lot longer!
It was an incredibly well-done story, though. After being pushed, prodded, and manipulated by the Borg Queen for the past three episodes, Dr Jurati finally took a stand. When faced with a choice between preserving the timeline and saving her way home, Dr Jurati chose to kill the Borg Queen. Doing so saved the life of a hapless 21st Century police officer (who felt, sorry to say, like a bit of a stereotype), but came at the expense of the Borg Queen’s physical form, at least.
The death of the Borg Queen.
The final moments of the episode showed us one final twist in this tale – the Borg Queen inserted some kind of assimilation tubules into Dr Jurati in her dying moments. Having seemingly recovered her ability to assimilate – at least partially – Dr Jurati is now haunted by an apparition of the Borg Queen that only she can see. We’ll have to save this for my next theory post, but I wonder if there’s a possibility that this is some kind of psychological symptom rather than the actual Borg Queen!
There was some stellar cinematography during the scenes set aboard La Sirena. Though not quite on par with the dramatic arrival of the Borg and the masked Queen in the season premiere, I still got a real creepy, horror movie vibe from Jonathan Frakes’ directing and camera work. The dimly-lit sets, parts of which were tinged with the green light we so often associate with the Borg, amplified this sensation. The entire story, from the Borg Queen’s fake phonecall all the way through to Dr Jurati hunting her with a shotgun was pitch-perfect in that regard.
Dr Jurati versus the Borg Queen!
There was a definite influence from sci-fi-horror films like Alien, The Thing, and others on this side of the story. A darkened La Sirena felt incredibly claustrophobic, particularly in the scenes featuring the hapless police officer. Captain Rios’ ship made a wonderful stand-in for Alien’s Nostromo, something I particularly felt as Dr Jurati came aboard wielding a shotgun!
Unfortunately it felt as if this sequence existed in a separate story. With the exception of a few seconds after Rios, Raffi, and Seven materialised aboard La Sirena, which led to the revelation that the Borg Queen was dead, the characters essentially ignored this huge moment for Dr Jurati as they raced ahead to planning their heist on the astronauts’ gala. Maybe we can argue that this is another way in which Picard and co. are overlooking Dr Jurati or failing to care for her as much as they ought to, but in the context of the episode itself it ended up feeling as if something was missing from the story.
Dr Jurati being assimilated.
Fly Me To The Moon was the shortest episode of the season by far, clocking in at barely forty minutes when you exclude the credits and title sequences, so there was definitely scope to expand on what happened to Dr Jurati in some way. Picard literally did not even acknowledge what had happened to her, and again this can be argued to be part of what the Borg Queen was saying to her about her loneliness, but honestly I don’t feel it landed that way.
Just a couple of episodes ago, in Assimilation, we saw how Picard does genuinely care for Dr Jurati. He was the one who okayed her mission to link up with the Borg Queen, but he also showed real concern at the dangers, and there were incredibly sweet and tender moments between the two of them as Dr Jurati subconsciously shared her feelings for Picard, and later as Picard covered her with a blanket and then positioned himself defensively in between Dr Jurati and the Borg Queen. So in short, I don’t buy that Picard arrived back at La Sirena, saw what had happened, but chose to disregard it entirely. Maybe a scene was scripted and not filmed for some reason, or maybe something was left on the cutting room floor – but one way or another, this felt like a significant omission.
Picard and Tallinn after ariving aboard La Sirena.
Before we get to the gala we have to consider Q’s condition. We’ll get deeper into speculative territory in my theory update, but it definitely seems as though Q may be approaching the end of his life – somehow. It had long been the assumption that members of the Q Continuum are immortal (or so long-lived as to be effectively immortal) and I’d point to the Voyager episode Death Wish in particular as an example of this, as well as The Next Generation first season episode Hide and Q.
So that has changed – or a change has somehow been inflicted upon Q. How or why that is we don’t know – but I suspect it has to be connected in some way to Picard, otherwise why would Q choose to spend what could be akin to his final moments by inflicting one last puzzle upon him? Perhaps something has happened to destabilise the Q Continuum, such as an attack or invasion, and that could be to blame. One way or another, though, it seems like Picard is setting up a story in which Q may not survive.
What could be happening to Q?
John de Lancie and Brent Spiner played off one another expertly, and I got a hint – just a glimpse, at this stage – that Q may be more desperate than he’s letting on. This would connect to the slap a couple of episodes back (no, not the one at the Oscars!) as evidence that Q is losing control, no longer able to fully contain his emotions. He put on a brave face for the sake of manipulating Dr Soong, but I got the sense that if Dr Soong had resisted in any way, Q wouldn’t have known what to do. Without his powers – or with his powers being less reliable – he’s more vulnerable and exposed than we’ve seen him since he was temporarily stripped of them in The Next Generation Season 3 episode Deja Q.
Before we move on from Q, one final “easter egg!” In movies and on TV, most phone numbers use the prefix 555, which is set aside for use in the industry. Q’s “business card” didn’t… so out of curiosity (and not really expecting anything) I called the number. Try it if you can!
We learned a little more about the Watcher this week, including their name. It was interesting to tie the Watcher to the events of The Original Series episode Assignment: Earth, and that’s something I really wasn’t expecting. As an interesting aside, Assignment: Earth was created as a backdoor pilot for a prospective spin-off series that would’ve focused on Gary Seven!
The Watcher – a.k.a. Tallinn.
Though we learned part of the Watcher’s story, there’s still a lot that Fly Me To The Moon didn’t explain that will surely come out later in the season. The most obvious question is how the Watcher relates to Laris, and why the two characters look identical. Is it possible that this Tallinn is actually Laris? If so, what would that mean for Laris and Picard, and why would Tallinn be assigned to watch over Picard in the future? I sense a time-loop paradox coming!
There’s also the question of the organisation that Tallinn and Gary Seven worked for, and what their goals and ambitions are. Assignment: Earth seemed to suggest that these technologically powerful aliens were benevolent – but they seem to be aware of time travel, divergences in time, and other such things. How they could connect to the events of the season is unclear right now, but quite interesting!
Gary Seven in Assignment: Earth.
It’s been a while since I last watched Assignment: Earth, and I confess it’s not a particular favourite of mine. It’s not like I hate it or anything, but I wouldn’t usually pick it out to watch – as evidenced by the fact that it’s been several years since I last saw it! But I think it’ll be worth going back and taking another look, not so much to give context to Fly Me To The Moon, but in case it’s referenced again in a future episode this season.
Orla Brady got to show off a different set of skills as Tallinn compared to her role as Laris, and she did a fine job of convincing me that Tallinn was powerful and had a lot of knowledge of things that both Picard and the audience do not. It’s difficult to fully judge this character without seeing where things go from here; now that the initial shock of her appearance has worn off, we need to be patient while the next phase of the Picard-Tallinn-Laris story unravels.
Picard and Tallinn watch Renée’s therapy session.
Up next, we come to the gala itself. This is also incomplete, as we’re waiting to see what will happen next week, but for now here are my initial thoughts. I don’t like this setup, this kind of “sneaking into a high society party in disguise” trope. It’s been done before in different ways, some more successful than others, but generally speaking it’s a story setup that can fall victim to feeling contrived and forced, and there were definitely unpleasant notes of that for me.
The buildup to the party aboard La Sirena and at the Château was another sequence that could’ve been expanded upon; it felt as though Picard and the crew put together a plan very quickly before rushing into executing it. I could’ve spent another couple of minutes watching them talk about the plan for the gala and how it was supposed to work.
The episode seemed to rush headfirst into this moment.
Finally, the idea that the crew can’t all just beam in made sense and was well thought-out, but this was then immediately undermined by the idea that one of them could sneak in and “hack the mainframe” so that the others could join later. If Tallinn had the ability to add one person to the guest list and create an entire fake ID for them, why couldn’t that be repeated? It’s a nitpick for sure, but these things sometimes bug me in stories like this!
That said, once the action shifted over to the gala itself it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. Alison Pill did well to convey Dr Jurati’s lack of confidence and how she feels conflicted and perhaps even traumatised by recent events, and this led to a truly unexpected twist to round off the story.
Dr Jurati at the end of the episode.
It seems certain that Picard and the crew will make it to the gala within the first few minutes of the next episode, continuing a strange trend this season of these mini-cliffhangers that don’t get substantial payoffs. The end of Penance, for example, led into a short, underwhelming sequence of the crew of La Sirena easily overpowering the Magistrate and Confederation forces, and just this week we got a fairly short and nondescript ending to the aforementioned Rios storyline. The cliffhanger at the end of The Star Gazer worked well to tease the Confederation timeline – but some of these other ones haven’t blown me away. Maybe next week’s episode will, though!
So that was Fly Me To The Moon. Renée Picard and her mission are intriguing, but we didn’t find out a great deal about her on this occasion. Renée herself was a relatively minor part of an episode that had a lot of pots on the stove, so it won’t be until subsequent episodes that we learn what role she may (or may not) ultimately play in this divergence in time.
Renée at the gala.
For me, no episode so far has come close to recreating the incredible highs offered by The Star Gazer as the season kicked off. Fly Me To The Moon had some interesting elements in the mix, and I’m certainly curious to learn more about the conflicted and anxious Renée Picard, but they came in a framework that didn’t always excite or enthrall me. As I said last week, the limitations of a modern-day setting are definitely beginning to bite, and as interested as I am to see more from Q, to learn more about Dr Soong, and to see the Europa Mission, I’m also quite keen for Picard and the crew to find out exactly what’s happened so they can start thinking about getting back to their own time period!
You’ve probably noticed that I’m a few days late with this week’s review. The truth is that I didn’t even get around to watching Fly Me To The Moon for several days; I’ve been on a bit of a downer in general, made a lot worse (at least insofar as my enjoyment of Star Trek is concerned) by the international broadcast mess engulfing Strange New Worlds. So it took a lot of effort – more than usual – to push through that to get this review done. Sorry for the delay, and I hope things will begin to get back to normal in the days ahead!
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.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-2. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: Discovery, Voyager, First Contact, and The Next Generation.
I had another enjoyable outing with Admiral Picard and the crew of La Sirena this week. Though I feel that the limitations of a 21st Century setting are beginning to bite on one side of the story, there was plenty to enjoy in Watcher – and the episode has gifted us a few new theory ideas to boot!
This week we have two theories that I’m calling “semi-confirmed.” In those cases I got the broad outlines right, but I was quite a long way off in terms of the way they panned out. And we also have one theory that I’m choosing to retire.
Semi-confirmed theory #1: Guinan will be aware of changes to the timeline.
Shifts in time can make some people rather unwell!
I had no idea that we’d be meeting a younger version of Guinan during Picard Season 2. After Picard sat down with Guinan in the season premiere and then she didn’t return, I began to wonder if we’d seen all we were going to see from her – but it seems that her younger self has a role to play!
I had initially speculated that Guinan would be aware of the timeline shifting, as she had demonstrated this ability during the events of The Next Generation Season 3 episode Yesterday’s Enterprise. I wondered if we might meet Guinan in the Confederation timeline, and even whether she might be the instigator of Picard’s journey back to the 21st Century.
As it turned out, Guinan was aware of a change to the timeline, but only after meeting with Picard in the 21st Century. I can’t take full credit for predicting this, but there was enough of a conversation about El-Aurians and the way they understand time for me to feel that it wasn’t a million miles away from my original theory! Hence I’m calling this one “semi-confirmed!”
Semi-confirmed theory #2: Laris will join Picard’s mission back in time.
Laris?
I had predicted – or should that be “hoped” – that we’d see Laris again before the end of the season, and speculated that she could be revived somehow in the Confederation timeline, perhaps thanks to Q’s abilities. I was not expecting Laris – or at least someone using her appearance – to turn out to be the titular Watcher, though!
Perhaps it might be more accurate at this point to suggest that Picard has joined whatever mission Laris is on, rather than the other way around! Guinan seemed to suggest that the name Jean-Luc Picard was familiar to her, and that could mean that Laris knows who Picard is. She may even have been placed in the 21st Century in anticipation of this very meeting.
I guess we’ll have to see what’s going on when we get to the next episode, but for now I’m happy to call this one “semi-confirmed” as well.
Retired theory: There will be a crossover with Star Trek: Discovery.
The USS Discovery at warp in Season 4.
This theory came about thanks to the just plain stupid decision from Paramount Global to have Discovery Season 4 and Picard Season 2 overlap one another by three weeks. I wondered if that might mean some kind of crossover event could be on the agenda – and with time travel being a big part of Picard, it seemed at least plausible.
However, it now seems that the reason for the nonsensical scheduling is nothing more than the random illogical spasms from Paramount Global, a corporation that seems to have no clue how to run a major franchise or a streaming platform. Given that Strange New Worlds now seems certain to be denied to international fans because Paramount+ still isn’t available, the scheduling decision seems infinitely worse in retrospect.
Delaying Picard Season 2 by three or four weeks and Strange New Worlds by an extra couple of weeks on top of that would’ve provided the corporation with more time to get Paramount+ ready for the next phase of its international rollout – and might’ve meant that more Star Trek fans could enjoy Strange New Worlds. But alas, Paramount Global seems to be run by utterly incompetent morons.
So those theories were semi-confirmed and retired.
Next let’s jump into the main theory list, beginning with those theories that are brand-new or saw movement in this week’s episode.
Theory #1: The Borg Queen will assimilate people from the 21st Century.
Who could this be?
As I wrote in my review of Watcher, I’m loving the dynamic between Dr Jurati and the Borg Queen at the moment! We saw in one of the pre-season trailers a couple of people who seemed to be in the early stages of Borg assimilation, and I wonder if those people could be 21st Century humans who stumble upon La Sirena’s crash site. Dr Jurati may even unleash the Borg Queen on them in order to protect the ship and avoid too much damage to the timeline.
This could be tied in with another theory we’ll look at in a moment – that Dr Jurati herself may be on the verge of assimilation following her encounter with the Borg Queen. If Dr Jurati is compromised, the Borg Queen may be able to command her – or even use her to perform the assimilations herself!
Theory #2: Who is the Watcher?
The Watcher and Picard teleporting.
This is an easy one: the Watcher is Laris, right? Well, not necessarily! The Watcher has certainly assumed Laris’ form, but that may be an illusion or something done for Picard’s benefit. We don’t know for certain right now that Laris and the Watcher are 100% the same character – but we will almost certainly learn more in the next episode!
Watcher Candidate #1: A younger version of Laris.
The Watcher at the end of this week’s episode.
Perhaps the obvious answer really is the right one: the Watcher is simply Laris as she appeared in the 21st Century. That doesn’t solve every question, nor does it rule out all of the other entries on this list. In fact, it arguably raises just as many questions as it answers! How could Laris live so long, was she able to travel through time, and what is her connection to Picard – and those are just three off the top of my head.
Regardless, one possibility is that the Watcher is simply Laris.
Watcher Candidate #2: A member of the Q Continuum.
There’s more than one Q!
Given Q’s role in the story, one possibility has to be that the Watcher is a member of the Q Continuum. Perhaps they’re aware of the important role that Picard will play in the future and are watching over his family, or perhaps their objective is to meet Picard himself, knowing that he would journey to this moment in the past. If there’s some kind of internal conflict between different Q factions – as we saw in the Voyager episode The Q and the Grey – perhaps the Watcher is another Q who is trying to stop the Q we know from doing too much harm.
There are many different ways for this theory to pan out!
Watcher Candidate #3: A Prophet.
The Bajoran Wormhole – home of the Prophets.
The Prophets – noncorporeal aliens who live inside the Bajoran Wormhole – exist outside of linear time. They’ve demonstrated an ability to travel through time, emerging centuries in the past. Given that Sisko also visited the year 2024, could a Prophet have followed him to keep an eye on him? Maybe the Watcher isn’t watching Earth or the timeline, but is instead keeping tabs on Sisko – the Emissary.
Watcher Candidate #4: A Temporal Agent from the Temporal Wars.
Crewman Daniels was a Temporal Agent.
Is it possible that the Watcher is a Temporal Agent, someone whose intention is to prevent anyone meddling with the timeline? If so, this story could connect with the ban on time travel that was established in Discovery Season 3 but not elaborated on. It still wouldn’t explain why the Watcher looks like Laris – but again, perhaps she has taken a particular interest in Picard or the Picard family for some reason?
Watcher Candidate #5: A Borg.
The Borg Queen.
Considering who it was that told Picard about the Watcher’s existence, some kind of Borg connection cannot be ruled out! Despite having spent a lot of time with the Borg over the past thirty years, there’s still a lot we don’t know about them – for example, do they send scouts to planets they hope to assimilate to watch over them? That could be the Watcher’s purpose, and considering we already know that the Borg are capable of time travel, it seems possible that the Watcher is one of theirs!
Watcher Candidate #6: A Romulan or Vulcan.
A Romulan or Vulcan seen in a pre-season trailer.
I can’t figure out whether the character shown above is a Romulan – perhaps a Zhat Vash – or a Vulcan. However, if either faction is present on Earth in the 21st Century, perhaps one of their number could be the Watcher. Given that Laris knew about the Zhat Vash from her time as a Tal Shiar operative, could we perhaps learn that a mission to Earth’s past was one of her assignments?
Theory #3: Rios’ lost combadge is the divergence in time.
Rios’ 25th Century Confederation combadge.
Despite visiting the clinic in Watcher, Seven of Nine and Raffi didn’t seem to locate Rios’ combadge, and after speaking briefly with one of the nurses they left empty-handed – and without taking further tricorder scans to locate it. As things stand right now, Rios’ combadge is lost in the 21st Century – and could pollute the timeline if it were to fall into the wrong hands.
This theory, were it to bear out, would set up a kind of temporal paradox. Rios would only have travelled to the past from the Confederation timeline because he’d already been present in the past and lost his combadge – there’s no clear beginning or end point to such a story, and personally I find time-loop paradoxes to be somewhat irksome in science fiction.
Theory #4: Dr Jurati will be assimilated.
Dr Jurati in Watcher.
I really enjoy the dynamic between Dr Jurati and the Borg Queen that has developed so far this season; it’s been one of the most unexpectedly interesting and riveting parts of the story for me. The Borg Queen is both impressed with Dr Jurati and annoyed with her for the way she’s been ignored, and as the two continue to talk over and around each other that unusual relationship has grown.
Dr Jurati plugged herself into the Borg Queen in Assimilation, and any kind of connection like that seems to carry a lot of risk. Furthermore, Dr Jurati is now alone with the Borg Queen following Picard’s departure, leaving her in a vulnerable position. If she were to unshackle the Borg Queen, even with the best of intentions, she could wind up assimilated.
The Borg Queen is plotting – this is an alliance of convenience for her at the very most, and she will seize any opportunity to come out ahead.
Theory #5: Dr Jurati will unleash the Borg Queen.
The Borg Queen.
If Dr Jurati doesn’t wind up assimilated, she could still take action to unshackle the Borg Queen – intentionally or unintentionally. If, for example, someone were to discover the crash site of La Sirena, Dr Jurati may need to enlist the Borg Queen’s help to stop them – potentially leading to people being killed or assimilated.
Once the Borg Queen is on the loose, there’s no guarantee that she’ll willingly go back to her captive status, and she might try to escape. She’s impressed with Dr Jurati – but after the events of Watcher, I’m positive that she doesn’t trust her at all. If the chips are down and Dr Jurati is in trouble, only the Borg Queen is there to help – and unleashing her could lead to even worse problems!
Theory #6: The Borg Queen (possibly assisted by Dr Jurati) will steal La Sirena, stranding Picard in the past.
La Sirena.
From the Borg Queen’s point of view, she isn’t in a good position. Allying herself with Picard and the crew of La Sirena was the only way to save the Collective – undoing the events of the Confederation timeline. But if Picard is successful, she’s still a prisoner, and presumably would be turned over to the Federation upon Picard’s return to be studied. That’s only a small improvement over Confederation captivity!
It stands to reason that the Borg Queen would take any opportunity to escape, and right now, La Sirena is her best bet. She’s already partly integrated with the ship’s systems, and if she’s able to make repairs she might be able to use the ship to escape, heading back to the 25th Century. Doing so would almost certainly mean stranding Picard and everyone else in the past – though if Dr Jurati is on board, willingly or unwillingly, she might be swept along for the ride!
Theory #7: The masked, hooded figure from The Star Gazer is not the real Borg Queen.
The Borg Queen?
The Borg Queen – the hooded figure who materialised on the bridge of the Stargazer – was absolutely terrifying, evoking feelings for me that the Star Trek franchise hasn’t hit in decades. The way this character was presented, with her shrouded face, flowing robes, monochromatic aesthetic, and blend of humanoid and decidedly non-humanoid mechanical features was simultaneously riveting and frightening!
This character was presented as the Borg Queen in the episode, and the Borg have no reason that we know of to lie about that. But at the same time, she was very different not only from how we’ve seen the Borg Queen in past iterations of Star Trek, but also from the Borg Queen that Picard and the crew met in the Confederation timeline. Could this character actually be someone else – perhaps someone that the Borg have assimilated?
“Borg Queen” Candidate #1: Dr Jurati.
Dr Jurati.
As suggested above, Dr Jurati could be about to be assimilated by the Borg Queen. It’s also possible that the Borg Queen will be able to escape her confinement – possibly using Dr Jurati’s body. If any of these theories pan out, they could set the stage for Dr Jurati being the “Borg Queen” figure seen in The Star Gazer.
“Borg Queen” Candidate #2: The time-travelling Admiral Janeway from Endgame.
Admiral Janeway.
Admiral Janeway was assimilated by the Borg Queen as part of her plan to introduce a neurolytic pathogen into the Collective, and appeared to have been killed when the Borg Queen’s complex exploded. But is there a way she could have survived?
Her assimilation could have been a turning point for the Borg. She did untold damage to the Collective, but also potentially gifted them knowledge and information about future events and technologies that were decades ahead of their time. Just like the Borg once chose Captain Picard to become Locutus – their “spokesperson” or representative – perhaps they might have chosen Admiral Janeway to fill a similar role during this latest incursion. Admiral Janeway could even have been incorporated as part of the Borg Queen.
“Borg Queen” Candidate #3: Soji.
Soji in The Star Gazer.
The Borg seek “perfection” through the synthesis of organic and synthetic parts; if Coppelius synths like Soji have something that the Borg want, perhaps we’ll learn that they assimilated her to get it. The anomaly from which the Borg vessel emerged was not a standard transwarp corridor, and was specifically noted to emit some kind of temporal radiation. Thus the Borg vessel could be from a future date after Soji has already been assimilated. We could even learn that the super-synths from the Season 1 finale are actually the Borg; that could be how they first became aware of Soji and the Coppelius synths.
“Borg Queen” Candidate #4: It’s just the Borg Queen!
Is the Borg Queen the Borg Queen?
Instead of some complicated time-loop involving different versions of Dr Jurati, or an unexpected callback to Voyager, maybe the solution to this “puzzle” is staring us right in the face: we’ve already met the Borg Queen. The version of the character introduced in Penance may be behind the mask, and all of this speculation may seem silly when we reach the end of the story!
Theory #8: Teresa will find out the truth about Rios.
Rios and Teresa in Watcher.
We didn’t spend a lot of time with Teresa in Watcher, but it’s possible she’ll come back later in the story. With Rios’ combadge still missing, at the very least I’d expect him to tie up that loose end – even if the lost combadge has no real bearing on the rest of the story. Teresa’s clinic is where it was last seen, and she may know where it is or may be willing to help.
During the course of such a storyline, it seems at least possible that Teresa will learn that Rios is from the future. This would see her stand alongside characters like Voyager’s Rain Robinson and Dr Gillian Taylor from Star Trek IV, and it could be a fun twist for the character. As a native of 21st Century Los Angeles, Teresa could be a valuable asset to the team as they try to stop the timeline from being shattered.
Theory #9: Q is approaching the end of his life.
Q trying to “snap.”
Did Q’s powers fail him at the end of Watcher? If so, could that be another indication that Q is perhaps coming to the end of his life? There’s clearly something different about Q; Picard told us as much in Penance. But why Q has become so seemingly angry, and why he’s choosing to direct that anger toward Picard, remains a mystery.
The assumption has always been that Q is timeless and immortal – but that may not be the case. Whether through natural or unnatural means, perhaps the reason for Q’s belligerence – and his inability to use his powers at key moments – is that he’s dying.
So those theories are new or saw movement this week.
Now, as always, I’ll recap all of the other theories that I currently have in play. None of these saw any significant development this week, but they remain possibilities, at least in my opinion!
Theory #10: The Watcher will be aware of Sisko and the USS Defiant in this time period.
Captain Sisko in Past Tense.
I’m not expecting to see Sisko or anyone else from Past Tense appear in person! But maybe when Picard and the crew inevitably meet the Watcher, they will make reference to or acknowledge that the USS Defiant has also passed this way. It would be a fun little connection to Past Tense, and just because we’ve seen references to things like UHC cards and Sanctuary Districts, that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for another line or two of dialogue to tie Picard to Deep Space Nine!
Theory #11: Seven of Nine will choose to remain in 2024.
Seven of Nine in Los Angeles.
For the first time in her life, Seven of Nine is feeling a sense of freedom. Not only is she free from her Borg implants, changing the way she looks, but she’s also unencumbered by her Borg past. No one she meets in 2024 will be aware of the Borg, and she’s clearly enjoying the way that makes her feel.
In The Star Gazer, Seven spoke to Picard about feeling judged by the ship’s crew – and in a broader sense, by practically everyone in the 25th Century. Her Borg past is a hurdle for her; she feels the weight of unspoken criticisms and judgements made against her. Her Borg implants are the biggest physical manifestation of this, but the fact that most people she meets in the 25th Century know who she is and where she came from is a burden – one she no longer feels in 2024.
With that in mind, could Seven choose to remain behind when Picard and the crew of La Sirena are ready to leave? Even if she’s ultimately talked out of it (or even forced out of it), I wonder if she’ll try to stay in the past.
Theory #12: Elnor will be restored to life when the crew returns to the 25th Century.
Raffi believes that restoring the timeline could save Elnor.
The decision to kill off Elnor so early in the season certainly succeeded as a shocking story point… but I’m not so sure he’ll stay dead. Is Raffi’s belief that restoring the timeline will save his life something that the series has carefully set up so it can be paid off later? Or was it simply part of her reaction to his death; the bargaining stage of the grieving process? I’m not sure!
Elnor is a character who had potential – the first Romulan to be a main character on a Star Trek series (or the second, after Narek) and the first Romulan to enlist in Starfleet. If the Star Trek franchise were to stick around, I could happily follow his adventures as a Starfleet officer over the course of several years, giving him an arc somewhat comparable to someone like Tilly in Discovery, growing into his new role.
But Elnor is also a character who was underused in Season 1, and the decision to make him a Starfleet cadet at the beginning of Season 2 was only the beginning of a new arc for him. His death didn’t hit as hard as it could’ve because we don’t know Elnor very well – and I wonder if that could be a reason to bring him back later in the season.
Theory #13: Soji exists in the Confederation timeline – but she’ll look very different.
Could Confederation timeline Soji resemble Sutra?
This is the other theory that’s officially on its last legs! If we don’t get back to the Confederation timeline, we’ll have to remove this from the list. However, I think it’s possible that, if Soji existed in the Confederation timeline, she wouldn’t look the same as she does in the prime timeline. That’s based on how synths like Harvey appeared, as well as the generally different aesthetic present in that setting.
Unless someone stashed a deactivated or disassembled Soji aboard La Sirena, though, it seems like we’re not going to find out any time soon. Soji has been absent for two episodes now, and I’m really not sure what’s going on there. The season premiere set her up in a role that took her far away from Picard and the rest of the crew; it’s possible that she may not reappear until they return to the 25th Century, and even then, she may not have a huge role to play.
Theory #14: The loose ends from Season 1 will be tied up.
Will we learn more about the super-synths?
The Star Gazer already crossed off two things from the list of Season 1 leftovers! Dr Jurati’s legal status was clarified, as was her relationship with Captain Rios. There are still a number of points that I’d like to see addressed before the season ends, though, as Season 1 unfortunately left quite a lot of story on the table thanks to a rushed and underwhelming finale.
Here are the main ones:
What will become of the synths on Coppelius, and will they have to be relocated for safety?
Did Starfleet attempt to visit Aia and shut down the beacon at the centre of the Zhat Vash’s prophecy? Leaving it out in the open seems dangerous.
Will Starfleet contact the super-synths and attempt to make peace or convince them that they pose no threat?
A crowd of synths on Coppelius.
Why did Bruce Maddox go to Freecloud?
With the Zhat Vash plot exposed, what will become of their crusade against synthetic life?
Did Federation-Romulan relations suffer as a result of the Zhat Vash’s attack on Mars and attempted attack on Coppelius?
What happened to Narek after he was captured by the Coppelius synths?
Who controls the Artifact and what will happen to the surviving ex-Borg?
Theory #15: The Borg Collective was badly damaged in the Voyager episode Endgame and has been unable to recover.
Dr Jurati decoded the Borg message in The Star Gazer.
In The Star Gazer, it seemed as if the Borg Collective was reaching out, asking the Federation – and Picard specifically – for help. If so, the question is why? Was it just a shallow ploy to launch another attack on Starfleet? Or is there at least a degree of truth to the Borg’s request?
Endgame, the final episode of Voyager, depicted a time-travelling Admiral Janeway introducing a neurolytic pathogen – a type of virus – into the Borg Queen, seriously damaging her, her base of operations, and several Borg vessels in the vicinity. Because the Borg hadn’t been seen since – until The Star Gazer, that is – we never got to learn just how deadly Admiral Janeway’s actions were.
Admiral Janeway in Endgame.
I’ve always assumed that the Borg Collective is vast enough, powerful enough, clever enough, and most importantly adaptable enough that Admiral Janeway’s actions weren’t going to strike a fatal blow. Whatever damage she had done seemed like something the Borg could eventually fix – and their existence 25 years later during the events of The Star Gazer seems to prove that. The Borg’s technology and weapons are still streets ahead of anything Starfleet has at its disposal… but even so, it’s still possible that the Borg are on their last legs facing defeat.
If that’s the case, maybe we’ll discover that it was Admiral Janeway who’s responsible – that her actions in Endgame are either wholly or partly to blame for the Borg’s weakened state. Dr Jurati seemed to know that the Borg Collective isn’t as strong as it once was, so that could be another clue pointing to this theory.
Theory #16: The season will end on a cliffhanger.
Because Seasons 2 and 3 went into production back-to-back, that made me wonder if they might form one continuous story – or if the final act of Season 2 might set up the story for Season 3. Star Trek has a long history of season-ending cliffhangers, such as The Best of Both Worlds in The Next Generation, Equinox in Voyager, and Such Sweet Sorrow in Discovery, to give just three examples.
Something in The Star Gazer could be relevant, though. If the story we’re going to see is all about restoring the correct timeline and undoing whatever damage has been done, then assuming Picard and co. succeed in their objective… won’t that place them back on the bridge of the Stargazer just as it’s about to self-destruct? If that’s the case, maybe it won’t happen this season and will instead be the finale of Season 3, with Season 2 ending on a cliffhanger at the story’s halfway mark.
Theory #17: By restoring the timeline, Picard – and everyone aboard the Stargazer – will die.
The USS Stargazer self-destructs.
As far as we know based on what’s been teased and shown off in various clips and trailers, a big part of the storyline this season will be undoing whatever damage was done in the 21st Century and restoring the true timeline. But if that happens, and the timeline is fully restored, that means that Picard, Captain Rios, Dr Jurati, and Seven of Nine will be on board the USS Stargazer when it self-destructs. Raffi and Elnor will be aboard the USS Excelsior in the same moment – and their ship could be destroyed as well.
If this story turns into a two-season arc, perhaps the final episode of Season 3 – which is going to be the end of the series entirely – will see Picard and the crew restore the timeline, only to spend their final seconds aboard the Stargazer before it’s destroyed. This would be a bittersweet ending – to say the least!
Theory #18: The USS Stargazer will make an appearance.
The original USS Stargazer.
Okay, technically the USS Stargazer has already appeared, but not in the way I expected! Captain Rios is (or was) in command of a new USS Stargazer, and not only that but he had a model of the original vessel in his conference room! So that’s it. Theory confirmed, everybody can move on to the next one!
Just kidding. The inclusion of a brand-new USS Stargazer brings the ship and its legacy back to the fore. Picard himself commented in The Star Gazer that the original vessel was his first command, and as far back as Season 1 we had a reference to his time in command through the character of Dr Benayoun. All of these things could be leading to some bigger role for the original USS Stargazer – and with a story that seems to include time travel and a strong focus on Picard’s own personal history, a flashback or even a visit to the ship could be on the agenda!
Theory #19: The Federation is responsible for creating the Borg.
A rather incredulous-looking Borg seen in The Next Generation.
This is a total wildcard, but I’m just throwing it out there!
The Borg Queen – and the Borg in general – appear to have a fascination with humanity and with Picard. Could it be that the explanation for that is that the Federation and/or humanity are somehow responsible for their creation? With time travel on the agenda, it’s not impossible to imagine a scenario in which the progenitor of the Borg – perhaps even the Queen herself – is able to travel back in time, founding the Collective.
Nanites used by the Control AI.
The idea that the Federation is responsible for creating its own worst nightmare could be an interesting one if executed well, as could the cyclical nature of such a story. It would have to be handled in just the right way to avoid treading on the toes of previous Borg stories, but it feels like a lot of the pieces exist for this theory to seem plausible. The return of the Borg, the inclusion of Q, and even the talk of Picard and humanity needing to pay a “penance” could all be connected.
Discovery Season 2 ran a story with the Control AI that could have also been a Borg origin story. Was it known as early as 2018-19 that Picard wanted to tell a story like this, and if so, could that explain why the Control storyline ended the way it did? I have a write-up of Discovery’s abandoned Borg origin story that you can find by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #20: At least one character from The Next Generation will make an appearance.
The cast of The Next Generation in Season 1.
With the return of Guinan and Q, as well as Voyager’s Seven of Nine, there are already a lot of returning characters in Picard Season 2! But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for a well-placed cameo or two, or even an episode like Season 1’s Nepenthe that steps away from the main story to revisit classic characters. We could even have a bit of fun with some alternate timeline versions of them!
There are so many characters from Star Trek’s past that I would love to spend more time with; listing them all here would be impossible! But if Picard is to end with Season 3, as some outlets have been reporting, it would be fantastic if the crew of The Next Generation could reunite one last time.
I have a list of possible character crossovers that I wrote back in 2020, before we got to see any teasers or trailers, and you can find it by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #21: Romulans are spying on Earth in the 21st Century… and could be time-travelling Zhat Vash.
A young boy encounters a Romulan or Vulcan.
In the third trailer, a young boy wearing what seemed to be 21st Century clothing was seen encountering a Romulan or Vulcan. If the Zhat Vash are involved in the new season’s story somehow, perhaps this individual is a Zhat Vash operative. This could confirm that the Zhat Vash were able to travel through time, or send a message back in time to their 21st Century counterparts. The Romulans had achieved interstellar flight centuries earlier, so travelling to Earth to spy or place operatives seems plausible for them.
Of all the scenes we’ve glimpsed so far from Season 2, the one with the young boy and the Romulan or Vulcan is the one that I’m least sure about! It doesn’t seem to fit naturally into a story about the Borg, Q, and time travel… but this is one theory that could make sense, and would connect to the theory above about Q not being to blame.
Theory #22: The Vulcans are on Earth in the early 21st Century… as stated in Discovery Season 4.
A meeting of senior Federation and allied officials in Discovery Season 4.
Another theory about the unnamed Romulan or Vulcan is tied into the Discovery Season 4 episode The Galactic Barrier. This could easily be a complete overreaction to a throwaway line, but at the beginning of the episode, the enigmatic Federation leader Dr Kovich stated that Vulcans were on Earth for decades prior to official first contact taking place.
This one line could be a reference to Carbon Creek, an episode of Enterprise that saw Vulcans crash-land on Earth in the 1950s. But the timing seems odd given the scene glimpsed in the Picard Season 2 trailers! If the character seen above is a Vulcan, perhaps there will be a connection of some kind between Discovery and Picard.
Theory #23: Picard and the crew will have to actively trigger World War III to save the future.
World War III soldiers as glimpsed in Discovery Season 2.
Although the Bell Riots are the main event of 2024 that we know about in Star Trek’s internal timeline, the 21st Century was arguably dominated by another event: World War III. The war may have kicked off as early as 2026 (as suggested in The Original Series) and concluded by the mid-2050s as seen in First Contact. The “post-atomic horror” that followed was the backdrop for Q’s trial in Encounter at Farpoint.
World War III is integral to Star Trek because without it, it’s hard to see how warp drive would’ve developed and how humanity would’ve made peaceful first contact with the Vulcans. Just like the end of the Second World War brought about major technological and societal changes that ultimately made the world a better place, Star Trek’s World War III is integral to the events that led to the founding of the Federation. If it were prevented, the timeline would change dramatically.
So my theory is that the point of divergence is the outbreak of World War III – meaning that it will fall to Picard to trigger one of the worst wars in human history in order to save the future. Talk about a moral dilemma! You can find a full write-up of this theory by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #24: The Confederation is run by augmented humans.
Who is Adam Soong, and could he be responsible for creating genetically engineered humans?
Another theory that may not go anywhere now we’ve left the Confederation timeline, but I wonder if we’ll learn more as Brent Spiner’s new character is introduced. In short, the Soong family had a long association with genetic engineering – so I wonder if one of the points of divergence leading to the creation of the Confederation timeline could be the introduction of genetically augmented humans. “Super-men” like Khan were given enhanced strength and intelligence – but also enhanced ambitions. Khan set out to conquer the planet… could the Confederation timeline be one in which someone like him succeeded?
I’d have expected to see some evidence for this theory in Penance if it were true, but because we’re yet to meet the Watcher, Brent Spiner’s new character, or really learn anything about the divergence in time, I think it remains a possibility.
Theory #25: There will be a connection between the augments and Strange New Worlds.
One of the few things we know about Strange New Worlds at this early stage is that there will be a character named La’an Noonien-Singh. This new character seems to be related in some way to the iconic villain Khan, and if Khan or Khan-inspired augments play some kind of a role in the Confederation’s power structure, perhaps that will set up a connection – or even a crossover – between Picard Season 2 and Strange New Worlds.
Theory #26: Q is not responsible for changing the timeline.
Q hit Picard!
This theory is definitely feeling less and less likely… but as of Assimilation, the role Q has actually played in what happened is still not certain. The events of the past couple of episodes can certainly be interpreted as Q being the one who deliberately and willingly changed the timeline, and that’s certainly the assumption that Picard has made. However, Q himself didn’t admit responsibility, and while he certainly knows a lot about the Confederation timeline, there may be more going on than we’re currently assuming.
Given the more angry, aggressive presentation of Q that we saw in Penance, what would his goal or objective be if he changed the timeline? It doesn’t seem as though he’s setting up a puzzle for Picard to solve, and if he wanted to punish him for some perceived slight or wrongdoing, would this be how he’d do it? I can think of a million-and-one creative ways that a being with Q’s powers could punish or torture someone, and changing the timeline in a way that could be fixed, while also ensuring Picard could find his friends, doesn’t seem like the best option from Q’s point of view.
Q at the vineyard in Penance.
Someone like Q doesn’t make for a good villain from a storytelling perspective, either. Q’s powers would essentially mean that he could undo any victory that Picard could hope to win – he could fling them forwards in time if they approached the 2020s, for example, ensuring they would never be able to undo whatever changes had been made. Or Q could snap his fingers and leave the crew isolated on a desert island with no way to escape. In short, Picard was able to solve Q’s previous puzzles because Q allowed him to – or wanted him to. If Q really wants to change the timeline to punish Picard, there’s less than nothing Picard could do to stop him.
I have a longer article that goes into more detail about this theory that I wrote before the season premiere, and you can find it by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #27: Q shielded Picard and the crew from changes to the timeline.
Q in General Picard’s study.
One way in which Q could be involved would be to have protected Picard – and his new crew – from changes to the timeline. There are many reasons why he might do this, and it could apply regardless of whether Q changed the timeline himself or not. If the entire timeline has been changed going back centuries, there has to be a reason why Picard and the crew of La Sirena are seemingly the only ones unaffected – and one explanation for that could be “Q’s magic.”
This would be in line with how we’ve known Q to operate. Episodes like Tapestry and All Good Things saw him use his powers to place Picard in an alternate life while retaining his original memories, and to move between three different time periods. Such a power is something we know Q can use, and it would explain two key things: how Picard and the crew of La Sirena remained unaffected, and how Q is involved in the story.
Theory #28: Who is responsible for damaging the timeline, then?
Did the Borg do it?
If Q isn’t the one who changed the timeline, the obvious question that raises is “who did it?”
In theory, it could be any one of a number of different Star Trek factions. We’ve seen the Klingons having access to time travel in the early 25th Century, for example, in the Voyager episode Endgame, and various time travel stories and stories depicting powerful alien races could all theoretically yield suspects. But considering what we know about Star Trek: Picard specifically, in my view the main suspects are as follows:
The Borg. The Borg could be one of the season’s main antagonists after their emergence in The Star Gazer, and we’ve seen in past iterations of Star Trek that they can travel through time.
The Zhat Vash. While the Zhat Vash may not have been shown to possess time travel tech, they were the primary antagonist last season, and arguably were not defeated in the Season 1 finale.
How about the Zhat Vash?
The super-synths. The super-synths from the Season 1 finale are a wildcard; we don’t know much about them except that they seem to be technologically powerful. Travelling back in time might be on their agenda – but erasing the prime timeline could result in the erasure of the Coppelius synths.
The Romulan government or the Tal Shiar. With or without the support of the Zhat Vash, the Romulan government could have taken action against the Federation in response to the events of Season 1.
There are undoubtedly other Star Trek factions who could be implicated, and if we had a free choice we could suggest the likes of the Dominion or the Sphere-Builders. But I think those are far less likely when considering the elements Picard has brought on board.
Theory #29: The Q Continuum has been attacked.
The Q Continuum, as seen in Voyager.
What’s wrong with Q? That was a question Picard asked that went unanswered in Penance, but there’s clearly something different about Q this time. Though at times he has the same impish charm that we remember from his earlier appearances in the franchise, at other moments he seemed incredibly angry – even hitting Picard at one point.
Perhaps there’s something going on in the Q Continuum – the Continuum could have come under attack, for example, and Q could be one of the few survivors. If something that Picard did or didn’t do is partly to blame, that could explain Q’s antagonistic behaviour.
Though the Q Continuum and the Q species seem god-like from our perspective, it’s not impossible to think that someone found a weakness to exploit. Could it be the Borg, perhaps? Q’s anger could stem from the fact that Picard didn’t do enough to stop them.
Theory #30: Q is angry with Picard for “giving up.”
Grumpy Q.
Over the course of The Next Generation, Q took a particular interest in Picard. More so than anyone else, Q seemed to see potential in Picard as a representative of the human race, someone who potentially showed him what humanity could be… with a little prompting and guidance. Q seemed fascinated by that idea, so seeing Picard’s fall from grace may have shocked him and left him feeling disappointed and bitter.
Picard spent more than a decade away from galactic affairs, retiring to his vineyard and seemingly just waiting around to die. Someone like Q might take that personally; he might feel that Picard was not living up to the potential he had. Perhaps Picard’s absence had some kind of unknown consequence, something that harmed Q or the Q Continuum. In any case, Q’s animosity to Picard seems to be personal – could disappointment at Picard’s attitude in the years prior to Season 1 be the cause?
Theory #31: The Borg are aware that Picard is now a synth – and his synthetic status is part of the reason why they waited until now to make contact.
Picard awakened in a new synthetic body in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2.
As mentioned above with Soji, the timing of the new Borg incursion is interesting, especially considering that they asked for Picard by name. Are they aware of his newfound synthetic status? And if so, could Picard’s transition to a new synthetic body be the reason why the Borg chose to launch their attack?
The Borg seek “perfection” through a synthesis of organic and synthetic components, and while Picard’s new synthetic body is a far cry from the Borg drones we’ve seen, the idea of an organic mind in a synthetic body isn’t a million miles away from that same basic idea. Although Picard’s body was said to be comparable in practically every way to his original one, synthetics can have enhanced abilities that allow them to easily overpower humans – and, as we’ve seen with Data on more than one occasion, they can outmatch individual Borg drones as well.
A Borg drone losing a fight against Data.
Perhaps the Borg want to re-assimilate Picard now that he’s synthetic. If the Collective is still reeling from the damage inflicted upon it by Admiral Janeway or if they’re on the losing side of a war, perhaps they hope to use fully-synthetic bodies like Picard’s to replace damaged or destroyed drones, or as cannon fodder on the front lines. There are many reasons why the Borg might be interested in synthetic technology, and that could explain their re-emergence.
Even if the Borg don’t plan to assimilate Picard or the Coppelius synths, the timing of their appearance is certainly interesting and there could be a connection.
Theory #32: The Borg ship from The Star Gazer crossed over from the Confederation timeline.
The Borg vessel identified as “Legion.”
As far as we know at this stage, the Confederation timeline replaced the prime timeline thanks to someone or something changing the past. But timelines and parallel universes often go hand-in-hand in Star Trek, and after we learned about the Borg’s defeat in the Confederation timeline, I wonder if their ship from the season premiere might have found a way to punch through or cross over into the prime timeline.
If the Borg were facing defeat, as their message seemed to suggest, perhaps that could explain why. Also, the anomaly that the ship emerged from was not a typical transwarp conduit; we’d seen transwarp corridors as recently as Season 1. Finally, the Borg Queen of the Confederation timeline was aware of Picard and the history of the prime timeline – perhaps the Confederation timeline Borg knew of the prime timeline and this was a last-ditch effort to survive.
Theory #33: The Borg are fighting a war – and they’re losing.
The Borg vessel using its transporter-weapon on the USS Stargazer.
Possibly connected to the theory above, one explanation for the Borg’s message and appearance in The Star Gazer is that in the prime timeline the Collective has found itself on the losing side of a war. Penance told us that the Confederation had been able to defeat the Borg using technology that Dr Jurati believed was roughly equivalent to the Federation’s in the prime timeline – so clearly it’s possible to fight and beat the Borg.
Could mentions of Gul Dukat or Martok in Penance be hints at something to come later in the story? Both characters were major players during Deep Space Nine’s Dominion War arc; maybe the Cardassians and/or the Dominion have been aggressively attacking the Borg in the late 24th Century. The other big culprit is the Confederation – assuming that it’s possible for the two timelines to mix!
Theory #34: The mission back in time won’t last all season.
Los Angeles, 2024.
There’s still a lot of the season remaining for Picard and the crew to figure out what happened and repair the damage to the timeline. Perhaps this is as much a wish as a theory – time travel stories that visit the modern day have never been my favourites in Star Trek – but I wonder if there could be something truly unexpected coming afterwards.
With Q involved in the story, he could send Picard and the crew to another alternate timeline or parallel universe, for example. Or after the timeline is repaired, we could see Picard and the crew engage in a battle against the Borg – we still don’t know what was going on with the new Borg Queen and the Legion ship from The Star Gazer. In short, there are many different ways that the season could go after a jaunt to the past.
I’d also point out that, aside from a few clips from the 21st Century, the first two episodes of the season seem to have included most of the clips from pre-season trailers and teasers, which could mean that the latter part of the season is hiding something big!
Theory #35: Picard and the crew will have to prevent Donald Trump’s re-election.
The White House.
So if you’re new here, you’re probably thinking that I’ve officially lost my marbles. I totally have, by the way, but that’s incidental. When I write up my theories, I like to include some real left-field ones if I think of them. It’s fun, and while this theory would certainly be something completely different, Picard as a whole has been a different kind of Star Trek show. So why not court controversy and bring a real-life political figure into the story?
Q explained to Picard that one of the differences in the Confederation timeline is that Earth failed at preventing climate change, instead finding ways to paper over the cracks. Donald Trump’s energy policies were very pro-fossil fuels during his tenure, and he’s a known climate change “sceptic.” Secondly we have the date that Picard and the crew have travelled to: 2024. That’s the date of the next United States presidential election – an election in which Donald Trump is rumoured to be a candidate.
So could it be that the point of divergence that started the Confederation timeline and ruined the entire Star Trek galaxy is… Donald Trump’s election as president?
So that’s it!
The punk on the bus.
Those are the theories that I currently have in play as the season edges closer to the halfway point. I’m enjoying what Picard Season 2 has to offer, but in truth I’m also quite ready for the story to move on from the 21st Century. There seems to be a lot going on in the 25th Century with the Borg, and I’m also quite interested to catch up with Soji, to learn more about the Confederation timeline, and see if there’ll be time to find out what became of Narek and the Coppelius synths! There’s a lot I’d like to see from Picard… but I’m content to go along for the ride.
I always like to end these theory lists by saying that I do this just for fun. I enjoy writing, I enjoy Star Trek, and spending more time in this world is an escape and an enjoyable distraction. But for some folks, fan theories can be frustrating or unenjoyable, especially if they get very attached to a plausible-sounding theory that ultimately doesn’t pan out. I have no “insider information” and I’m not trying to claim that anything suggested above can, will, or must be part of Picard Season 2. I fully expect many of these theories to be debunked and for the season to go in wildly unpredictable directions!
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.
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!
The Borg Queen in Watcher.
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.
Dr Jurati in Watcher.
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.
Grand Theft Auto: Star Trek edition.
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.
Guinan’s new look.
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.
Rios on a bus.
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.
A caged Captain Rios.
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!
Ito Aghayere as Guinan in Watcher.
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.
Picard and Guinan.
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.
The titular Watcher!
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.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-2. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: Discovery, Voyager, First Contact, and The Next Generation.
I had a good time with Assimilation this week, an episode that took Picard and the crew of La Sirena to their third new setting of the season so far. There were some interesting new elements added to the story, and at this relatively early stage it feels very open; I’m not sure where we’re going to end up!
In terms of the theory list we have one confirmation and no debunkings – but there are several theories that feel increasingly unlikely as time goes by! We’ll look at the confirmed theory first before we jump into the main list.
Confirmed theory: There will be a reference to Gabriel Bell or Sanctuary Districts.
A sign showing the regulations for a Sanctuary District in Los Angeles, 2024.
When it was revealed that Picard and the crew of La Sirena were going to end up in the year 2024, I speculated that there might be some kind of connection to the Deep Space Nine episode Past Tense, which was also set in the same year. In Assimilation we got references to Sanctuary Districts and UHC cards, both of which were introduced in Past Tense.
In some ways, the dystopian presentation of Earth in Past Tense feels uncomfortably close to reality. The growth of homelessness – particularly in California, where Season 2 of Picard is set – has created encampments of homeless people that don’t look too far removed from Past Tense’s Sanctuary Districts, and it doesn’t seem implausible to think that a political leader might emerge who has policies of “rounding up” homeless people and pushing them away, out of sight. Picard had to acknowledge this somehow, given the setting, and we may get more references – or even a larger connection – in the episodes ahead.
So that theory was confirmed.
Now let’s jump into the main list, beginning with theories that are brand-new or that saw movement in Assimilation.
Theory #1: Who is the Watcher?
Is this character the Watcher?
I have a few different ideas about who the mysterious “Watcher” could be. Given their connection to the Borg Queen, I think Picard and the crew need to tread very carefully indeed when it comes to this character; they could prove to be dangerous or even a villain.
Watcher Candidate #1: A member of the Q Continuum.
Two Qs.
There are multiple members of the Q Continuum, and not all of them are as belligerent as the Q we’ve come to know and love! Given that this Watcher appears to be someone aware of changes to the timeline, perhaps we’ll learn that they’re a member of the Q Continuum, possibly even someone who is trying to prevent Q from doing… whatever it is that Q may or may not be doing.
Watcher Candidate #2: A Prophet.
The Bajoran Wormhole – home of the Prophets.
The Prophets – noncorporeal aliens who live inside the Bajoran Wormhole – exist outside of linear time. They’ve demonstrated an ability to travel through time, emerging centuries in the past. Given that Sisko also visited the year 2024, could a Prophet have followed him to keep an eye on him? Maybe the Watcher isn’t watching Earth or the timeline, but is instead keeping tabs on Sisko – the Emissary.
Watcher Candidate #3: A Temporal Agent from the Temporal Wars.
Crewman Daniels was a Temporal Agent.
This could potentially set up a tie-in with Discovery or even Enterprise. One of the most likely candidates, perhaps, would be a Temporal Agent from the time of the Temporal Wars. These individuals worked to protect the timeline and prevent anyone from using time travel to make unauthorised or damaging changes.
Watcher Candidate #4: A Borg.
The Borg Queen.
Considering who it was that told Picard about the Watcher’s existence, some kind of Borg connection cannot be ruled out! Despite having spent a lot of time with the Borg over the past thirty years, there’s still a lot we don’t know about them – for example, do they send scouts to planets they hope to assimilate to watch over them? That could be the Watcher’s purpose, and considering we already know that the Borg are capable of time travel, it seems possible that the Watcher is one of theirs!
Watcher Candidate #5: A Romulan or Vulcan.
A Romulan or Vulcan seen in a pre-season trailer.
I can’t figure out whether the character shown above is a Romulan – perhaps a Zhat Vash – or a Vulcan. However, if either faction is present on Earth in the 21st Century, perhaps one of their number could be the Watcher.
Theory #2: The Watcher will be aware of Sisko and the USS Defiant in this time period.
Dr Bashir and Captain Sisko in Past Tense.
I’m not expecting to see Sisko or anyone else from Past Tense appear in person! But maybe when Picard and the crew inevitably meet the Watcher, they will make reference to or acknowledge that the USS Defiant has also passed this way. It would be a fun little connection to Past Tense, and just because we’ve seen references to things like UHC cards and Sanctuary Districts, that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for another line or two of dialogue to tie Picard to Deep Space Nine!
Theory #3: Seven of Nine will choose to remain in 2024.
Seven of Nine in Los Angeles.
For the first time in her life, Seven of Nine is feeling a sense of freedom. Not only is she free from her Borg implants, changing the way she looks, but she’s also unencumbered by her Borg past. No one she meets in 2024 will be aware of the Borg, and she’s clearly enjoying the way that makes her feel.
In The Star Gazer, Seven spoke to Picard about feeling judged by the ship’s crew – and in a broader sense, by practically everyone in the 25th Century. Her Borg past is a hurdle for her; she feels the weight of unspoken criticisms and judgements made against her. Her Borg implants are the biggest physical manifestation of this, but the fact that most people she meets in the 25th Century know who she is and where she came from is a burden – one she no longer feels in 2024.
With that in mind, could Seven choose to remain behind when Picard and the crew of La Sirena are ready to leave? Even if she’s ultimately talked out of it (or even forced out of it), I wonder if she’ll try to stay in the past.
Theory #4: Rios’ lost combadge is the divergence in time.
Rios’ 25th Century Confederation combadge.
This theory, were it to bear out, would set up a kind of temporal paradox. Rios would only have travelled to the past from the Confederation timeline because he’d already been present in the past and lost his combadge – there’s no clear beginning or end point to such a story, and personally I find time-loop paradoxes to be somewhat irksome in science fiction.
But regardless, the possibility exists right now! Rios’ combadge is abandoned at Teresa’s clinic, and what will happen to it next is unclear. If it were to be seized by the authorities, Rios might get lucky and the combadge could be ignored. But if he’s unlucky and people start poking around and figuring out how it works… that could set the stage for a divergence in the timeline.
Theory #5: Elnor will be saved when the crew returns to the 25th Century.
Elnor is dead… for now.
The decision to kill off Elnor so early in the season certainly succeeded as a shocking story point… but I’m not so sure he’ll stay dead. Is Raffi’s belief that restoring the timeline will save his life something that the series has carefully set up so it can be paid off later? Or was it simply part of her reaction to his death; the bargaining stage of the grieving process? I’m not sure!
Elnor is a character who had potential – the first Romulan to be a main character on a Star Trek series (or the second, after Narek) and the first Romulan to enlist in Starfleet. If the Star Trek franchise were to stick around, I could happily follow his adventures as a Starfleet officer over the course of several years, giving him an arc somewhat comparable to someone like Tilly in Discovery, growing into his new role.
But Elnor is also a character who was underused in Season 1, and the decision to make him a Starfleet cadet at the beginning of Season 2 was only the beginning of a new arc for him. His death didn’t hit as hard as it could’ve because we don’t know Elnor very well – and I wonder if that could be a reason to bring him back later in the season.
Theory #6: Dr Jurati will unleash the Borg Queen.
The Borg Queen.
I had theorised before the season began that Dr Jurati would somehow unleash the Borg Queen, based on clips we saw of her in a couple of the pre-season trailers. This week we saw one of the clips of the Borg Queen on the loose, and rather than attack anyone she simply strapped herself in to La Sirena, so a connection in that scene can be ruled out! But there’s more to the relationship between Dr Jurati and the Borg Queen, and we saw a lot of movement in that direction this week.
As we learned in Season 1, Dr Jurati isn’t just a cyberneticist by profession – synthetic life is her passion. For her, the Borg are less frightening than fascinating, and she’d love to learn more about them. That gives her a natural sympathy to synthetic life, and that sympathy could extend to the Borg Queen. If a situation developed where the two of them were alone aboard La Sirena, I could see the Borg Queen talking Dr Jurati into aiding her.
In addition, this week we saw Dr Jurati plug herself into the Borg Queen. This meeting of the minds was not a one-way street, and the Borg Queen has learned a lot from Dr Jurati – including, perhaps, something that she could use to manipulate or even blackmail her into aiding her escape.
Theory #7: Dr Jurati will be assimilated.
Dr Jurati confronted the Borg Queen.
Plugging oneself into not only a Borg but the literal Borg Queen, embodiment and/or leader of the Collective… that seems like an all-around bad idea. Yes, there were mitigating circumstances – the need to acquire the location of the Watcher – but even so, this dangerous assignment feels like it has huge potential to backfire.
As established, the connection allowed the Borg Queen access to Dr Jurati’s body while they were connected, and if even one single Borg nanoprobe survived inside the Queen and was able to enter her body, it seems plausible to think that Dr Jurati could soon find herself in the early stages of assimilation.
Theory #8: Teresa will find out the truth about Rios.
Teresa in Assimilation.
Teresa – the doctor at the clinic who treated Rios – is a fun new character for the series. In the vein of characters from past time travel stories, like Dr Gillian Taylor from Star Trek IV or Rain Robinson from Future’s End, I wonder if she’ll learn the true nature of Rios’ time-travelling origins.
This could be an interesting angle, and it would potentially set up Teresa for being a bigger force in the story, at least in the parts in the 21st Century. As a native of Los Angeles in this era, she could provide a lot of help and support to Picard and the crew as they seek out the Watcher and try to prevent the timeline from being damaged – but she seems like the sort of person who’d want to know the truth before getting involved.
Theory #9: The masked, hooded figure from The Star Gazer is not the real Borg Queen.
The Borg Queen?
The Borg Queen – the hooded figure who materialised on the bridge of the Stargazer – was absolutely terrifying, evoking feelings for me that the Star Trek franchise hasn’t hit in decades. The way this character was presented, with her shrouded face, flowing robes, monochromatic aesthetic, and blend of humanoid and decidedly non-humanoid mechanical features was simultaneously riveting and frightening!
This character was presented as the Borg Queen in the episode, and the Borg have no reason that we know of to lie about that. But at the same time, she was very different not only from how we’ve seen the Borg Queen in past iterations of Star Trek, but also from the Borg Queen that Picard and the crew met in the Confederation timeline. Could this character actually be someone else – perhaps someone that the Borg have assimilated?
“Borg Queen” Candidate #1: Dr Jurati.
Dr Jurati.
As suggested above, it’s possible that Dr Jurati’s connection to the Borg Queen in Assimilation has set the stage for her possible assimilation into the Borg Collective. If so, perhaps the Borg Queen will take over her body as her own is incomplete. This could set the stage for Dr Jurati becoming the Borg Queen who beams aboard the Stargazer.
“Borg Queen” Candidate #2: The time-travelling Admiral Janeway from Endgame.
Admiral Janeway.
Admiral Janeway was assimilated by the Borg Queen as part of her plan to introduce a neurolytic pathogen into the Collective, and appeared to have been killed when the Borg Queen’s complex exploded. But is there a way she could have survived?
Her assimilation could have been a turning point for the Borg. She did untold damage to the Collective, but also potentially gifted them knowledge and information about future events and technologies that were decades ahead of their time. Just like the Borg once chose Captain Picard to become Locutus – their “spokesperson” or representative – perhaps they might have chosen Admiral Janeway to fill a similar role during this latest incursion. Admiral Janeway could even have been incorporated as part of the Borg Queen.
“Borg Queen” Candidate #3: Soji.
Soji in The Star Gazer.
The Borg seek “perfection” through the synthesis of organic and synthetic parts; if Coppelius synths like Soji have something that the Borg want, perhaps we’ll learn that they assimilated her to get it. The anomaly from which the Borg vessel emerged was not a standard transwarp corridor, and was specifically noted to emit some kind of temporal radiation. Thus the Borg vessel could be from a future date after Soji has already been assimilated. We could even learn that the super-synths from the Season 1 finale are actually the Borg; that could be how they first became aware of Soji and the Coppelius synths.
Theory #10: Guinan will be aware of changes to the timeline.
Guinan and Picard.
This theory is on its last legs, and if we don’t get back to the Confederation timeline next week I think I’ll set it aside. But for now, with some kind of return to the Confederation timeline still an outside possibility, I had theorised that Guinan has a unique ability to sense when the timeline has been changed or damaged. We saw this in The Next Generation Season 3 episode Yesterday’s Enterprise, and I had wondered if we might see it again here.
It’s possible that Guinan’s role in the season was always going to be fairly small; she may just have appeared in the premiere, or maybe she’ll return to bookend the season if Picard and the crew make it home. But in a story that has this kind of focus, I really did wonder if what we saw in Yesterday’s Enterprise might’ve come back into play.
Theory #11: Soji will appear in the Confederation timeline – but she’ll look very different.
Could Confederation timeline Soji resemble Sutra?
This is the other theory that’s officially on its last legs! If we don’t get back to the Confederation timeline, we’ll have to remove this from the list. However, I think it’s possible that, if Soji existed in the Confederation timeline, she wouldn’t look the same as she does in the prime timeline. That’s based on how synths like Harvey appeared, as well as the generally different aesthetic present in that setting.
Unless someone stashed a deactivated or disassembled Soji aboard La Sirena, though, it seems like we’re not going to find out any time soon. Soji has been absent for two episodes now, and I’m really not sure what’s going on there. The season premiere set her up in a role that took her far away from Picard and the rest of the crew; it’s possible that she may not reappear until they return to the 25th Century, and even then, she may not have a huge role to play.
Theory #12: Laris will join the mission back in time.
Laris.
Picard and the crew arrived in 2024 without Laris, who was dead in the Confederation timeline. I think it’s possible that Picard could ask Q to bring her back, though, so I’m not totally convinced that we’ve seen the last of Laris just yet.
As above, though, this theory is on thin ice.
So those theories are new or saw movement this week.
Next, I’ll recap all of the other theories that I currently have in play. I find it helps to keep the theory list intact and all in one place, even if this week we didn’t see a lot of movement for many of the extant theories!
Theory #13: The loose ends from Season 1 will be tied up.
Will we learn Narek’s fate?
The Star Gazer already crossed off two things from the list of Season 1 leftovers! Dr Jurati’s legal status was clarified, as was her relationship with Captain Rios. There are still a number of points that I’d like to see addressed before the season ends, though, as Season 1 unfortunately left quite a lot of story on the table thanks to a rushed and underwhelming finale.
Here are the main ones:
What will become of the synths on Coppelius, and will they have to be relocated for safety?
Did Starfleet attempt to visit Aia and shut down the beacon at the centre of the Zhat Vash’s prophecy? Leaving it out in the open seems dangerous.
Will Starfleet contact the super-synths and attempt to make peace or convince them that they pose no threat?
The Artifact’s resting place on Coppelius.
Why did Bruce Maddox go to Freecloud?
With the Zhat Vash plot exposed, what will become of their crusade against synthetic life?
Did Federation-Romulan relations suffer as a result of the Zhat Vash’s attack on Mars and attempted attack on Coppelius?
What happened to Narek after he was captured by the Coppelius synths?
Who controls the Artifact and what will happen to the surviving ex-Borg?
Theory #14: The Borg Collective was badly damaged in the Voyager episode Endgame and has been unable to recover.
Dr Jurati decoded the Borg message.
In The Star Gazer, it seemed as if the Borg Collective was reaching out, asking the Federation – and Picard specifically – for help. If so, the question is why? Was it just a shallow ploy to launch another attack on Starfleet? Or is there at least a degree of truth to the Borg’s request?
Endgame, the final episode of Voyager, depicted a time-travelling Admiral Janeway introducing a neurolytic pathogen – a type of virus – into the Borg Queen, seriously damaging her, her base of operations, and several Borg vessels in the vicinity. Because the Borg hadn’t been seen since – until The Star Gazer, that is – we never got to learn just how deadly Admiral Janeway’s actions were.
Admiral Janeway in Endgame.
I’ve always assumed that the Borg Collective is vast enough, powerful enough, clever enough, and most importantly adaptable enough that Admiral Janeway’s actions weren’t going to strike a fatal blow. Whatever damage she had done seemed like something the Borg could eventually fix – and their existence 25 years later during the events of The Star Gazer seems to prove that. The Borg’s technology and weapons are still streets ahead of anything Starfleet has at its disposal… but even so, it’s still possible that the Borg are on their last legs facing defeat.
If that’s the case, maybe we’ll discover that it was Admiral Janeway who’s responsible – that her actions in Endgame are either wholly or partly to blame for the Borg’s weakened state. Dr Jurati seemed to know that the Borg Collective isn’t as strong as it once was, so that could be another clue pointing to this theory.
Theory #15: The season will end on a cliffhanger.
Because Seasons 2 and 3 went into production back-to-back, that made me wonder if they might form one continuous story – or if the final act of Season 2 might set up the story for Season 3. Star Trek has a long history of season-ending cliffhangers, such as The Best of Both Worlds in The Next Generation, Equinox in Voyager, and Such Sweet Sorrow in Discovery, to give just three examples.
Something in The Star Gazer could be relevant, though. If the story we’re going to see is all about restoring the correct timeline and undoing whatever damage has been done, then assuming Picard and co. succeed in their objective… won’t that place them back on the bridge of the Stargazer just as it’s about to self-destruct? If that’s the case, maybe it won’t happen this season and will instead be the finale of Season 3, with Season 2 ending on a cliffhanger at the story’s halfway mark.
Theory #16: By restoring the timeline, Picard – and everyone aboard the Stargazer – will die.
The USS Stargazer self-destructs.
As far as we know based on what’s been teased and shown off in various clips and trailers, a big part of the storyline this season will be undoing whatever damage was done in the 21st Century and restoring the true timeline. But if that happens, and the timeline is fully restored, that means that Picard, Captain Rios, Dr Jurati, and Seven of Nine will be on board the USS Stargazer when it self-destructs. Raffi and Elnor will be aboard the USS Excelsior in the same moment – and their ship could be destroyed as well.
If this story turns into a two-season arc, perhaps the final episode of Season 3 – which is going to be the end of the series entirely – will see Picard and the crew restore the timeline, only to spend their final seconds aboard the Stargazer before it’s destroyed. This would be a bittersweet ending – to say the least!
Theory #17: The USS Stargazer will make an appearance.
The original USS Stargazer.
Okay, technically the USS Stargazer has already appeared, but not in the way I expected! Captain Rios is (or was) in command of a new USS Stargazer, and not only that but he had a model of the original vessel in his conference room! So that’s it. Theory confirmed, everybody can move on to the next one!
Just kidding. The inclusion of a brand-new USS Stargazer brings the ship and its legacy back to the fore. Picard himself commented in The Star Gazer that the original vessel was his first command, and as far back as Season 1 we had a reference to his time in command through the character of Dr Benayoun. All of these things could be leading to some bigger role for the original USS Stargazer – and with a story that seems to include time travel and a strong focus on Picard’s own personal history, a flashback or even a visit to the ship could be on the agenda!
Theory #18: The Federation is responsible for creating the Borg.
A rather incredulous-looking Borg seen in The Next Generation.
This is a total wildcard, but I’m just throwing it out there!
The Borg Queen – and the Borg in general – appear to have a fascination with humanity and with Picard. Could it be that the explanation for that is that the Federation and/or humanity are somehow responsible for their creation? With time travel on the agenda, it’s not impossible to imagine a scenario in which the progenitor of the Borg – perhaps even the Queen herself – is able to travel back in time, founding the Collective.
Nanites used by the Control AI.
The idea that the Federation is responsible for creating its own worst nightmare could be an interesting one if executed well, as could the cyclical nature of such a story. It would have to be handled in just the right way to avoid treading on the toes of previous Borg stories, but it feels like a lot of the pieces exist for this theory to seem plausible. The return of the Borg, the inclusion of Q, and even the talk of Picard and humanity needing to pay a “penance” could all be connected.
Discovery Season 2 ran a story with the Control AI that could have also been a Borg origin story. Was it known as early as 2018-19 that Picard wanted to tell a story like this, and if so, could that explain why the Control storyline ended the way it did? I have a write-up of Discovery’s abandoned Borg origin story that you can find by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #19: At least one character from The Next Generation will make an appearance.
The cast of The Next Generation in Season 1.
With the return of Guinan and Q, as well as Voyager’s Seven of Nine, there are already a lot of returning characters in Picard Season 2! But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for a well-placed cameo or two, or even an episode like Season 1’s Nepenthe that steps away from the main story to revisit classic characters. We could even have a bit of fun with some alternate timeline versions of them!
There are so many characters from Star Trek’s past that I would love to spend more time with; listing them all here would be impossible! But if Picard is to end with Season 3, as some outlets have been reporting, it would be fantastic if the crew of The Next Generation could reunite one last time.
I have a list of possible character crossovers that I wrote back in 2020, before we got to see any teasers or trailers, and you can find it by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #20: Romulans are spying on Earth in the 21st Century… and could be time-travelling Zhat Vash.
A young boy encounters a Romulan or Vulcan.
In the third trailer, a young boy wearing what seemed to be 21st Century clothing was seen encountering a Romulan or Vulcan. If the Zhat Vash are involved in the new season’s story somehow, perhaps this individual is a Zhat Vash operative. This could confirm that the Zhat Vash were able to travel through time, or send a message back in time to their 21st Century counterparts. The Romulans had achieved interstellar flight centuries earlier, so travelling to Earth to spy or place operatives seems plausible for them.
Of all the scenes we’ve glimpsed so far from Season 2, the one with the young boy and the Romulan or Vulcan is the one that I’m least sure about! It doesn’t seem to fit naturally into a story about the Borg, Q, and time travel… but this is one theory that could make sense, and would connect to the theory above about Q not being to blame.
Theory #21: The Vulcans are on Earth in the early 21st Century… as stated in Discovery Season 4.
A meeting of senior Federation and allied officials in Discovery Season 4.
Another theory about the unnamed Romulan or Vulcan is tied into the Discovery Season 4 episode The Galactic Barrier. This could easily be a complete overreaction to a throwaway line, but at the beginning of the episode, the enigmatic Federation leader Dr Kovich stated that Vulcans were on Earth for decades prior to official first contact taking place.
This one line could be a reference to Carbon Creek, an episode of Enterprise that saw Vulcans crash-land on Earth in the 1950s. But the timing seems odd given the scene glimpsed in the Picard Season 2 trailers! If the character seen above is a Vulcan, perhaps there will be a connection of some kind between Discovery and Picard.
Theory #22: Picard and the crew will have to actively trigger World War III to save the future.
World War III soldiers as glimpsed in Discovery Season 2.
Although the Bell Riots are the main event of 2024 that we know about in Star Trek’s internal timeline, the 21st Century was arguably dominated by another event: World War III. The war may have kicked off as early as 2026 (as suggested in The Original Series) and concluded by the mid-2050s as seen in First Contact. The “post-atomic horror” that followed was the backdrop for Q’s trial in Encounter at Farpoint.
World War III is integral to Star Trek because without it, it’s hard to see how warp drive would’ve developed and how humanity would’ve made peaceful first contact with the Vulcans. Just like the end of the Second World War brought about major technological and societal changes that ultimately made the world a better place, Star Trek’s World War III is integral to the events that led to the founding of the Federation. If it were prevented, the timeline would change dramatically.
So my theory is that the point of divergence is the outbreak of World War III – meaning that it will fall to Picard to trigger one of the worst wars in human history in order to save the future. Talk about a moral dilemma! You can find a full write-up of this theory by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #23: There will be some kind of crossover with Star Trek: Discovery.
My original formulation of this theory looked at the very strange scheduling of Discovery Season 4 and Picard Season 2 – the shows overlapped by three weeks. This didn’t make any sense – and still doesn’t – but it now seems that the reason for it was the usual inexplicable nonsense from Paramount Global.
Regardless, it would still be neat to get some kind of crossover or tie-in with Discovery this season. There are already smaller thematic connections, such as the theme of grief, which was a big part of Discovery Season 4 and has now become part of Picard Season 2. But I’m thinking bigger – some kind of character crossover, an explicit use of a piece of technology first introduced in Discovery, or some kind of explanation or development of a plot point from that show.
Modern Star Trek hasn’t been great at tying together the shows that are currently in production, and Picard Season 1 essentially ignored Discovery altogether. Season 2 could make that right.
Theory #24: The Confederation is run by augmented humans.
Who is Adam Soong, and could he be responsible for creating genetically engineered humans?
Another theory that may not go anywhere now we’ve left the Confederation timeline, but I wonder if we’ll learn more as Brent Spiner’s new character is introduced. In short, the Soong family had a long association with genetic engineering – so I wonder if one of the points of divergence leading to the creation of the Confederation timeline could be the introduction of genetically augmented humans. “Super-men” like Khan were given enhanced strength and intelligence – but also enhanced ambitions. Khan set out to conquer the planet… could the Confederation timeline be one in which someone like him succeeded?
I’d have expected to see some evidence for this theory in Penance if it were true, but because we’re yet to meet the Watcher, Brent Spiner’s new character, or really learn anything about the divergence in time, I think it remains a possibility.
Theory #25: There will be a connection between the augments and Strange New Worlds.
One of the few things we know about Strange New Worlds at this early stage is that there will be a character named La’an Noonien-Singh. This new character seems to be related in some way to the iconic villain Khan, and if Khan or Khan-inspired augments play some kind of a role in the Confederation’s power structure, perhaps that will set up a connection – or even a crossover – between Picard Season 2 and Strange New Worlds.
Theory #26: Q is not responsible for changing the timeline.
Q hit Picard!
This theory is definitely feeling less and less likely… but as of Assimilation, the role Q has actually played in what happened is still not certain. The events of the past couple of episodes can certainly be interpreted as Q being the one who deliberately and willingly changed the timeline, and that’s certainly the assumption that Picard has made. However, Q himself didn’t admit responsibility, and while he certainly knows a lot about the Confederation timeline, there may be more going on than we’re currently assuming.
Given the more angry, aggressive presentation of Q that we saw in Penance, what would his goal or objective be if he changed the timeline? It doesn’t seem as though he’s setting up a puzzle for Picard to solve, and if he wanted to punish him for some perceived slight or wrongdoing, would this be how he’d do it? I can think of a million-and-one creative ways that a being with Q’s powers could punish or torture someone, and changing the timeline in a way that could be fixed, while also ensuring Picard could find his friends, doesn’t seem like the best option from Q’s point of view.
Q at the vineyard in Penance.
Someone like Q doesn’t make for a good villain from a storytelling perspective, either. Q’s powers would essentially mean that he could undo any victory that Picard could hope to win – he could fling them forwards in time if they approached the 2020s, for example, ensuring they would never be able to undo whatever changes had been made. Or Q could snap his fingers and leave the crew isolated on a desert island with no way to escape. In short, Picard was able to solve Q’s previous puzzles because Q allowed him to – or wanted him to. If Q really wants to change the timeline to punish Picard, there’s less than nothing Picard could do to stop him.
I have a longer article that goes into more detail about this theory that I wrote before the season premiere, and you can find it by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #27: Q shielded Picard and the crew from changes to the timeline.
Q in General Picard’s study.
One way in which Q could be involved would be to have protected Picard – and his new crew – from changes to the timeline. There are many reasons why he might do this, and it could apply regardless of whether Q changed the timeline himself or not. If the entire timeline has been changed going back centuries, there has to be a reason why Picard and the crew of La Sirena are seemingly the only ones unaffected – and one explanation for that could be “Q’s magic.”
This would be in line with how we’ve known Q to operate. Episodes like Tapestry and All Good Things saw him use his powers to place Picard in an alternate life while retaining his original memories, and to move between three different time periods. Such a power is something we know Q can use, and it would explain two key things: how Picard and the crew of La Sirena remained unaffected, and how Q is involved in the story.
Theory #28: Who is responsible for damaging the timeline, then?
Did the Borg do it?
If Q isn’t the one who changed the timeline, the obvious question that raises is “who did it?”
In theory, it could be any one of a number of different Star Trek factions. We’ve seen the Klingons having access to time travel in the early 25th Century, for example, in the Voyager episode Endgame, and various time travel stories and stories depicting powerful alien races could all theoretically yield suspects. But considering what we know about Star Trek: Picard specifically, in my view the main suspects are as follows:
The Borg. The Borg could be one of the season’s main antagonists after their emergence in The Star Gazer, and we’ve seen in past iterations of Star Trek that they can travel through time.
The Zhat Vash. While the Zhat Vash may not have been shown to possess time travel tech, they were the primary antagonist last season, and arguably were not defeated in the Season 1 finale.
How about the Zhat Vash?
The super-synths. The super-synths from the Season 1 finale are a wildcard; we don’t know much about them except that they seem to be technologically powerful. Travelling back in time might be on their agenda – but erasing the prime timeline could result in the erasure of the Coppelius synths.
The Romulan government or the Tal Shiar. With or without the support of the Zhat Vash, the Romulan government could have taken action against the Federation in response to the events of Season 1.
There are undoubtedly other Star Trek factions who could be implicated, and if we had a free choice we could suggest the likes of the Dominion or the Sphere-Builders. But I think those are far less likely when considering the elements Picard has brought on board.
Theory #29: The Q Continuum has been attacked.
The Q Continuum, as seen in Voyager.
What’s wrong with Q? That was a question Picard asked that went unanswered in Penance, but there’s clearly something different about Q this time. Though at times he has the same impish charm that we remember from his earlier appearances in the franchise, at other moments he seemed incredibly angry – even hitting Picard at one point.
Perhaps there’s something going on in the Q Continuum – the Continuum could have come under attack, for example, and Q could be one of the few survivors. If something that Picard did or didn’t do is partly to blame, that could explain Q’s antagonistic behaviour.
Though the Q Continuum and the Q species seem god-like from our perspective, it’s not impossible to think that someone found a weakness to exploit. Could it be the Borg, perhaps? Q’s anger could stem from the fact that Picard didn’t do enough to stop them.
Theory #30: Q is approaching the end of his life.
Q and Picard.
A simpler explanation could be that Q, like Picard, is coming to the end of his life. From Picard’s perspective it’s been 20+ years since he last saw Q, but Q could have lived thousands or even millions of years before choosing to re-visit his “old friend.” Maybe the Q are not entirely timeless and immortal, and perhaps Q is aware that he’s coming to the end of his life. Or if there’s something wrong with the Q Continuum, Q could be dying as a result.
This would potentially open up the Q-Picard relationship, giving the two a chance to discuss what it means to come to the end of one’s life. Picard could even help Q as he faces this new and unsettling turn of events.
Theory #31: Q is angry with Picard for “giving up.”
Grumpy Q.
Over the course of The Next Generation, Q took a particular interest in Picard. More so than anyone else, Q seemed to see potential in Picard as a representative of the human race, someone who potentially showed him what humanity could be… with a little prompting and guidance. Q seemed fascinated by that idea, so seeing Picard’s fall from grace may have shocked him and left him feeling disappointed and bitter.
Picard spent more than a decade away from galactic affairs, retiring to his vineyard and seemingly just waiting around to die. Someone like Q might take that personally; he might feel that Picard was not living up to the potential he had. Perhaps Picard’s absence had some kind of unknown consequence, something that harmed Q or the Q Continuum. In any case, Q’s animosity to Picard seems to be personal – could disappointment at Picard’s attitude in the years prior to Season 1 be the cause?
Theory #32: The Borg are aware that Picard is now a synth – and his synthetic status is part of the reason why they waited until now to make contact.
Picard awakened in a new synthetic body in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2.
As mentioned above with Soji, the timing of the new Borg incursion is interesting, especially considering that they asked for Picard by name. Are they aware of his newfound synthetic status? And if so, could Picard’s transition to a new synthetic body be the reason why the Borg chose to launch their attack?
The Borg seek “perfection” through a synthesis of organic and synthetic components, and while Picard’s new synthetic body is a far cry from the Borg drones we’ve seen, the idea of an organic mind in a synthetic body isn’t a million miles away from that same basic idea. Although Picard’s body was said to be comparable in practically every way to his original one, synthetics can have enhanced abilities that allow them to easily overpower humans – and, as we’ve seen with Data on more than one occasion, they can outmatch individual Borg drones as well.
A Borg drone losing a fight against Data.
Perhaps the Borg want to re-assimilate Picard now that he’s synthetic. If the Collective is still reeling from the damage inflicted upon it by Admiral Janeway or if they’re on the losing side of a war, perhaps they hope to use fully-synthetic bodies like Picard’s to replace damaged or destroyed drones, or as cannon fodder on the front lines. There are many reasons why the Borg might be interested in synthetic technology, and that could explain their re-emergence.
Even if the Borg don’t plan to assimilate Picard or the Coppelius synths, the timing of their appearance is certainly interesting and there could be a connection.
Theory #33: The Borg ship from The Star Gazer crossed over from the Confederation timeline.
The Borg vessel identified as “Legion.”
As far as we know at this stage, the Confederation timeline replaced the prime timeline thanks to someone or something changing the past. But timelines and parallel universes often go hand-in-hand in Star Trek, and after we learned about the Borg’s defeat in the Confederation timeline, I wonder if their ship from the season premiere might have found a way to punch through or cross over into the prime timeline.
If the Borg were facing defeat, as their message seemed to suggest, perhaps that could explain why. Also, the anomaly that the ship emerged from was not a typical transwarp conduit; we’d seen transwarp corridors as recently as Season 1. Finally, the Borg Queen of the Confederation timeline was aware of Picard and the history of the prime timeline – perhaps the Confederation timeline Borg knew of the prime timeline and this was a last-ditch effort to survive.
Theory #34: The Borg are fighting a war – and they’re losing.
The Borg vessel using its transporter-weapon on the USS Stargazer.
Possibly connected to the theory above, one explanation for the Borg’s message and appearance in The Star Gazer is that in the prime timeline the Collective has found itself on the losing side of a war. Penance told us that the Confederation had been able to defeat the Borg using technology that Dr Jurati believed was roughly equivalent to the Federation’s in the prime timeline – so clearly it’s possible to fight and beat the Borg.
Could mentions of Gul Dukat or Martok in Penance be hints at something to come later in the story? Both characters were major players during Deep Space Nine’s Dominion War arc; maybe the Cardassians and/or the Dominion have been aggressively attacking the Borg in the late 24th Century. The other big culprit is the Confederation – assuming that it’s possible for the two timelines to mix!
Theory #35: The mission back in time won’t last all season.
Los Angeles, 2024.
There’s still a lot of the season remaining for Picard and the crew to figure out what happened and repair the damage to the timeline. Perhaps this is as much a wish as a theory – time travel stories that visit the modern day have never been my favourites in Star Trek – but I wonder if there could be something truly unexpected coming afterwards.
With Q involved in the story, he could send Picard and the crew to another alternate timeline or parallel universe, for example. Or after the timeline is repaired, we could see Picard and the crew engage in a battle against the Borg – we still don’t know what was going on with the new Borg Queen and the Legion ship from The Star Gazer. In short, there are many different ways that the season could go after a jaunt to the past.
I’d also point out that, aside from a few clips from the 21st Century, the first two episodes of the season seem to have included most of the clips from pre-season trailers and teasers, which could mean that the latter part of the season is hiding something big!
Theory #36: Picard and the crew will have to prevent Donald Trump’s re-election.
The White House.
So if you’re new here, you’re probably thinking that I’ve officially lost my marbles. I totally have, by the way, but that’s incidental. When I write up my theories, I like to include some real left-field ones if I think of them. It’s fun, and while this theory would certainly be something completely different, Picard as a whole has been a different kind of Star Trek show. So why not court controversy and bring a real-life political figure into the story?
Q explained to Picard that one of the differences in the Confederation timeline is that Earth failed at preventing climate change, instead finding ways to paper over the cracks. Donald Trump’s energy policies were very pro-fossil fuels during his tenure, and he’s a known climate change “sceptic.” Secondly we have the date that Picard and the crew have travelled to: 2024. That’s the date of the next United States presidential election – an election in which Donald Trump is rumoured to be a candidate.
So could it be that the point of divergence that started the Confederation timeline and ruined the entire Star Trek galaxy is… Donald Trump’s election as president?
So that’s it!
Dr Jurati’s tricorder.
That’s the theory list as we head into episode 4. There are a lot of interesting things going on, and a lot of different ways they could play out! I’m hoping that the exciting start to the season will continue, and that the episodes that lie ahead will debunk a lot of my theories – making room on the list for plenty of new ones!
I always like to end these theory lists by saying that I do this just for fun. I enjoy writing, I enjoy Star Trek, and spending more time in this world is an escape and an enjoyable distraction. But for some folks, fan theories can be frustrating or unenjoyable, especially if they get very attached to a plausible-sounding theory that ultimately doesn’t pan out. I have no “insider information” and I’m not trying to claim that anything suggested above can, will, or must be part of Picard Season 2. I fully expect many of these theories to be debunked and for the season to go in wildly unpredictable directions!
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.
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.
Assimilation was an episode with a very eerie title! It seemed certain that something big was going to happen – and Assimilation delivered. It was an explosive episode, but one that’s difficult to judge conclusively until we’ve seen more. Will all of the story threads that it teased lead somewhere significant? If so, we have a solid episode in Assimilation that’s set up this next phase of the season.
For the third episode in a row, Picard has introduced us to a different and interesting setting. In The Star Gazer we got reacquainted with Starfleet after spending the entire first season operating outside of it. That was ripped away at the end, and last week Penance introduced us to the Confederation timeline – a fascist dystopia that somehow managed to replace the Federation. Now, in Assimilation, we meet the strange new world of 2024. Three of the main characters had to adapt, while Picard and Dr Jurati remained behind.
Los Angeles, 2024.
In context, it gives the opening trio of episodes kind of an odd feel; a churn of different settings and scenarios, each familiar enough to feel very much like Star Trek, yet different enough to make me curious to see more. In contrast to Season 1, which built up its story slowly over the course of several episodes, Season 2 has jumped to three different and distinct places in the span of just three episodes – and we’ll have to see if this faster pace keeps up for the duration of the season, or whether things will settle now that the crew have arrived in 2024.
The cliffhanger ending to last week’s episode felt like a lot of fun at the time; a tease to keep us on the edge of our seats for a week! But the relatively fast resolution to the Magistrate and his goons having beamed aboard La Sirena left me wanting more from that premise – Picard and the crew had defeated (and vaporised) them within basically three minutes of the episode starting. It just feels like more could’ve been made of this – or, alternatively, it could have been skipped as it didn’t really add much to this week’s story.
The Magistrate meets his end thanks to Raffi.
One big thing that we got from the moment at the end of last week, though, was the injury to Elnor. I have to confess that I didn’t see his death coming, despite the bad way he was in this time last week. Unlike Discovery, Picard hasn’t been afraid of killing off its characters! Season 1 left quite a body count behind, including Dahj, Icheb, Hugh, Dr Maddox, and Rizzo – but for some reason I really didn’t anticipate Elnor’s death. For that reason, perhaps, it hit me quite hard and definitely left me shocked.
Raffi is convinced that restoring the timeline will restore Elnor to life – although it should be noted that she has no proof of that. Cutting down a character in their prime, while they have unfinished business and a lot to live for, is a relatively new phenomenon on prime-time television, lifted from the likes of The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones which had pioneered the concept that I call the “disposable cast.” Some characters in those shows – and others – gave me similar feelings to Elnor: that they were gone too soon, that I would have liked to see them continue to grow and develop. I won’t drop spoilers for the aforementioned shows if you haven’t seen them, but if you have you’ll know the kinds of characters I’m thinking about.
R.I.P. Elnor.
Elnor is slightly different, though, to the likes of some of the main characters from other contemporary shows whose deaths his is trying to emulate. Elnor is young and he clearly had a lot of life in front of him, so some of that sadness lingers now that the initial shock has worn off. But Elnor is, to be blunt, less well-developed as a character at this point in Picard’s run. He joined the crew at basically the halfway point of Season 1, and really only had one episode in which he played a major role last season. He was there for the mission, and he had a wonderfully emotional scene in the season finale that set up the nature of his relationship with Raffi, but his death hits more like Tasha Yar’s in The Next Generation than one of the main characters from a show like Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead. It was a shock, certainly, but despite the devastated reaction from Raffi, I wouldn’t say that Elnor leaves a gaping void in Picard that the show will struggle to fill.
Michelle Hurd put in an outstanding and complex performance this week, showing us a real and raw presentation of abject grief. For all I said about Elnor’s relative irrelevance to the show as a whole, he mattered a great deal to Raffi. His loss hits her like Icheb’s hit Seven in Season 1 – and I wonder if that will be a source of bonding between the two of them later in the season. Both lost surrogate son figures; of all the people that Raffi could turn to for understanding, support, and help, Seven is by far best-placed to offer that.
Michelle Hurd put in a riveting, emotional performance as Raffi this week.
It’s interesting to see Picard showing us this kind of presentation of grief, because that’s something that has been present in Discovery throughout its fourth season, which came to a close in very emotional style this week. Stay tuned for that review, by the way! Discovery took a look at themes of trauma and grief, and while it didn’t always pull it off perfectly or dedicate enough time to some of its characters, it was a significant part of the story of that series. Bringing grief into Picard gives the show a kind of thematic tie to Discovery that I wasn’t expecting, and it will be interesting to see if we get a different take on a similar concept here. Comparing how the two shows approach the subject will be interesting to see in the episodes that lie ahead.
I can’t tell at this stage if Raffi’s belief that Elnor can be resurrected is something that the series will pay off later in the season. Is she right about that? If so, the time-loop storyline will have a very Star Trek and sci-fi vibe to it. If not, will Raffi have to confront her grief and loss again when she returns to the 25th Century? I really can’t tell if this is an elaborate fake-out or if Picard has permanently killed off poor Elnor.
Elnor was introduced in Season 1.
We got a fairly common Star Trek trope to set up the next part of the story: the transporter malfunction! Seven and Raffi were able to successfully transport from wherever La Sirena crashed to Los Angeles, but Rios materialised two storeys up and had a hard (and very gory) landing on the pavement! This led, in turn, to another fairly common Star Trek time travel story: interacting with someone native to this era.
I wonder if Rios being separated from his combadge will be significant to the story. Could we learn, perhaps, that Rios’ badge is the point of divergence; if it fell into the wrong hands, could someone in 2024 use it to manipulate events to their advantage? That would result in the story being a kind of temporal paradox: Rios travelled back in time because Rios lost his combadge in the past – there’s no clear beginning or end point to such a loop. Paradoxes can be hard to get right – and they irk me, usually – so I kind of hope this isn’t the way that the story is going to go.
Rios’ lost combadge.
Still, Rios has a lot of work to do if he’s going to recover his badge! This side of the story felt quite politically charged, focusing on the issues of accessible, affordable healthcare and immigration, both of which are political hot potatoes in the United States. As a non-American, perhaps some of the nuances of that debate are lost on me, but I think the presentation of the clinic and later the police officers worked well; it succeeded at communicating the idea that this version of 2024 is rather dystopian, while simultaneously feeling uncomfortably close to reality. I’ve never seen a real-world immigration raid on a clinic, but I’ve seen enough news reports about police brutality in the United States to find this presentation believable.
The choice of 2024 may have some greater story significance that will be revealed as the season progresses, but in one significant way I think it’s already paying off. 2024 isn’t right now – it’s still two years away. Thus Picard is close enough to the present day that everyday objects look familiar, but it’s also just far enough into the future to say something like: there’s still time to avoid taking things to this extreme. In the case of the immigration raid and the overly-aggressive police, Picard is saying that yes, these things happen today, but we still have time to prevent this kind of thing from happening to a clinic in 2024. It’s simultaneously gritty realism but with that slight Star Trek edge of “things don’t have to turn out this way” that the franchise has always espoused.
The police raid on Teresa’s clinic.
As this side of the story continues, I think we’re going to see the immigration angle looked at in a bit more detail. Technically, Rios is “undocumented,” to use the contemporary term; he doesn’t have a 2024 US passport or work visa, so it seems like he’ll be in a bit of trouble with the authorities. What consequences that might have for the timeline are not clear, but it’s an interesting side-story that I hope Picard will have enough time to do justice to. A big topic like illegal immigration isn’t something that can be looked at for a few minutes in an episode or two; it needs proper development to avoid feeling tokenistic.
I enjoyed the new character of Teresa – the doctor at the clinic Rios visited. It can be difficult to set up a brand-new character if there’s limited screen time, but I felt that Teresa was believable; not overly virtuous as to feel like a one-dimensional paragon trope, and with enough complexity to feel like an authentic inhabitant of this version of Los Angeles. Sol Rodriguez did a great job bringing the character to life, and I hope we see more from Teresa next week.
Teresa with Rios’ combadge.
We also got our first connection to the Deep Space Nine episode Past Tense on this side of the story! The two-parter, which I put on my list of episodes that I thought could make good background viewing for Picard Season 2, also visited the year 2024. In that story, which is more than 25 years old now, Captain Sisko and the crew of the USS Defiant found themselves in California in the same year as Picard and the crew of La Sirena! There were two mentions of Sanctuary Districts that I caught in Assimilation – one on a sign behind Raffi shortly after she arrived in Los Angeles, and another at the clinic with Rios. There was also a mention of “UHC cards” as Rios and Teresa were being arrested.
These oblique references to Past Tense could be all there is; little easter eggs to get Trekkies like us excited! There could be more to come, though, with the inclusion of a character called “the Watcher” who’s seemingly aware of time travel. We don’t know who this character is yet, though I think we’ve glimpsed them in one of the trailers, but it stands to reason that if they’re aware of time travel they might also know about Sisko’s temporal whoopsie! But that’s a theory for next time.
A sign that mentions Sanctuary Districts.
I loved the design of the tricorder that was used in this episode. Dr Jurati, while she was scanning the Borg Queen, used a tricorder that looked like a darker, updated version of the ones seen in The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, and while it was subtle and not shown off on screen for a huge amount of time, it looked great! The design work this season has really leaned into The Next Generation era aesthetic in a much stronger way than Season 1 did, probably in part in response to some of the criticisms that the first season received.
This is a bit of a tangent, but I think that – based on the first three episodes, at least – if Picard had started with a story like this one, using more of those familiar design elements, the show would have been better-received. There’d still be critics – some anti-Trek social media groups literally make money by hating on Star Trek these days – but for viewers who tuned into the first few episodes and decided that Picard Season 1 “didn’t feel like Star Trek,” I really believe that a lot of that could have been avoided. Season 2 is doing a much better job of balancing the classic look and feel of The Next Generation era with a more modern style of television storytelling, at least in some ways, than Season 1 did.
The Confederation timeline tricorder.
On the Borg Queen side of the story, I’m not sure we saw quite enough in the first part of the episode to really set up the idea that Picard had to make a choice between saving the Queen and saving Elnor. It seemed to be something that the story raced past, and as a whole I’d say that Picard’s response to what happened with Elnor was perhaps a little cold. We’ve seen in dozens of stories in The Next Generation that Picard is pragmatic; he can look beyond the emotions present in a difficult moment and focus on what needs to be done. But here, especially given the way his non-response to the loss of someone close to him contrasts so strongly with how Raffi was feeling, perhaps we should’ve seen something from Picard to indicate how he was feeling.
One thing that might be controversial in Assimilation is the way that Dr Jurati was able to connect herself to the Borg Queen. This isn’t something we’ve seen before, and while the Queen was unconscious during the connection, it feels like an incredibly dangerous thing to do. Plugging oneself into the Borg Queen in any way seems like it opens up the door for her to connect to you – potentially assimilating Dr Jurati.
Dr Jurati plugged herself into the Borg Queen.
If even one single Borg nanoprobe were to make its way down that cable, it could potentially replicate itself inside her body and assimilate her later on – and for all we know, that could be where the story is going to go in the weeks ahead! I didn’t dislike this idea, though. I felt it worked well as a story beat and gave Dr Jurati a dangerous mission of her own while the others went off to Los Angeles.
The interplay between Dr Jurati and the Borg Queen in this episode carried on a theme from last time and is one of the most interesting dynamics in the series at the moment. I hope we get to see more of their sparring, and as a cyberneticist Dr Jurati has a very strong interest in all things Borg. That’s also something that the series could draw on to make this connection between them – now a physical connection – even more deep and interesting.
What will happen next in this evolving relationship?
I had gone into Assimilation expecting the dynamic between Picard and the Borg Queen to be one of the most interesting, but aside from a few lines that they had, the focus on this side of the story was more on Dr Jurati. If we think back to Season 1, Picard had to confront his past with the Borg in a very traumatic way. We saw that in the episode The Impossible Box first and foremost, where he suffered flashbacks and a kind of breakdown after beaming aboard the Artifact, but also in Et in Arcadia Ego, where he confronted xBs after the Artifact had crash-landed. Being called “Locutus” was incredibly disturbing for him then, but he seems to have largely gotten over that as of Assimilation.
Perhaps we’re in a “new season, new story” situation; the series already showed us Picard dealing with his Borg past, so this time around we’re going to look at different characters and get a different angle on things. That’s fine, and I find the relationship between Dr Jurati and the Borg Queen truly an engaging and fascinating one. But it does feel a little odd, especially having recently re-watched Season 1, to see Picard rather unbothered by being face-to-face with the Borg Queen.
The episode didn’t spend a huge amount of time with Picard himself.
The Borg Queen is the embodiment of Picard’s worst nightmares; a reminder of the worst days of his life. She is, depending on how we consider her existence in different physical bodies, literally the person who inflicted the worst torture that he’d ever known. Being face-to-face with her feels like it should have more of an impact on Picard, and while I like the Dr Jurati angle and basically everything else in the story at this point, I can’t shake the feeling that there’s a hole here.
We’ll have to look at this in more detail in my next theory post, but I wonder if the Borg Queen might be up to something in the 21st Century. Dr Jurati told us that she was trying to communicate while unconscious; could she be trying to contact other Borg, either across the galaxy in this time period or in the 25th Century somehow? Could the Borg have been responsible for the change to the timeline in the first place?
The Borg Queen in Assimilation.
I’m not sure yet where Picard is going with the “Seven of Nine likes the way she looks” angle. That might be an oversimplification, but I like that the series isn’t just using her changed no-implant look as a visual hook for the trailers and pre-season marketing material. After a lifetime of being treated differently for her residual implants, as she commented to Picard when they reunited in The Star Gazer, Seven seems to be enjoying a sense of newfound freedom.
The little girl who saw her materialise treated her like a superhero, whereas Seven has perhaps feared being seen as a supervillain, and that moment kind of encapsulated the way she’s enjoying the “normal” reactions from people. Perhaps this could be argued to be a comment from the series about the way Voyager treated Jeri Ryan – putting her in tight “catsuits” to try to capitalise on her physical appearance. It’s subtle, but perhaps this is Star Trek’s way of recognising a mistake from the past.
This little girl made a big impression on Seven of Nine.
Assimilation was a fast-paced episode with some emotional punches and plenty of strong, enjoyable moments. Picard Season 2 is off to a great start! But after three big changes of scene across the first three episodes, we need to start settling in and allowing the story to unfold. In a way I hope we haven’t seen the last of the Confederation timeline, as the setting is ripe for exploration, but we probably saw enough last week that, combined with Elnor’s death, has given Picard and the crew motivation to fix the damage to the timeline.
I’m wondering where Soji is – she’s been absent now for two whole episodes. I’m also wondering just how long Picard and the crew will actually spend in 2024: it doesn’t seem like they could be there for the rest of the season, especially with the unresolved Borg threat in the prime timeline. There are some fun relationship dynamics developing between Dr Jurati and the Borg Queen, between Raffi and Seven, between Rios and Teresa, and the anger Raffi feels toward Picard.
At this relatively early stage we’ve already been treated to three strong episodes that have kick-started the season. I hope Picard Season 2 can keep up this high quality!
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.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Seasons 1-2. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: Discovery, Voyager, First Contact, and The Next Generation.
I had fun with Penance. It didn’t have the same charm that The Star Gazer had a week earlier – which had brought back so many different design elements from The Next Generation era that I was in heaven! – but it was a very interesting episode nevertheless. I admired the ties to Deep Space Nine in particular, as that’s a part of the franchise that we don’t see referenced very often, and I also enjoyed exploring the Confederation timeline – a riff on the Mirror Universe that managed to avoid many of the storytelling traps that such a setting has presented in the past.
In terms of the theory list, this week we have three solid debunkings, one more that feels almost certainly debunked, and one confirmation. There are several other theories that are barely hanging on, but with the story at such an early stage – and many things unexplained or only having the barest bones of an explanation – I’m choosing to keep those on the list at least for now.
As always, we’ll start with the debunkings before we jump into the main theory list.
Debunked theory #1: The captive Borg Queen is the same one from First Contact.
The remains of the Borg Queen.
Jumping over to the Confederation timeline meant that this theory was looking less likely, and so it proved. There are still open questions about the nature of the Borg Queen – such as whether every Borg Queen is essentially the same individual – but in terms of this theory, I consider it to be debunked.
I had originally posited that the Federation may have saved and even reactivated the remains of the Borg Queen that Picard and Data defeated at the climax of First Contact, and that individual could be the same one that Picard and the crew of La Sirena met. But we can now strike it off the list!
Debunked theory #2: In the Confederation timeline, Picard is not a synth.
A recording of the Confederation timeline version of Picard.
It wasn’t clear, as of the end of The Star Gazer, whether Picard would keep his synth body when he hopped over to the Confederation timeline. It seemed reasonable to assume that he might not – the circumstances in which he became a synth were unique, and if Dr Culber was correct in Discovery Season 4, the mind-transfer process was difficult to recreate. Thus I speculated that Picard might be human – and could even be suffering from Irumodic Syndrome.
If Picard lost his synth body, not much would change necessarily – but it could have added an extra dimension to the mission. If Picard knew that he didn’t have long left to live, fixing the timeline could have taken on a very personal angle; a timer that was running out for Picard. As it turned out, Q explained that Picard did in fact acquire a synthetic body in the Confederation timeline thanks to a battle against Gul Dukat.
Debunked theory #3: The Confederation is an isolationist power.
Earth in the Confederation timeline.
When we saw what looked like a shield grid protecting Earth in the pre-season trailers, I wondered if we’d see an isolationist Earth rather than an all-conquering empire. This would be very similar to how Earth has appeared in Discovery’s 32nd Century, and there could have been interesting allegories about certain nativist and isolationist political movements in the real world.
As it turned out, the Confederation has set out to conquer the galaxy – and seems to be doing a pretty good job of it! They’ve managed to beat the Borg – somehow – and subjugate races like the Cardassians and Klingons despite possessing technology comparable to the Federation of the prime timeline. The Confederation is still xenophobic and human-centric, but it isn’t the isolationist Earth that I had speculated about.
Almost certainly debunked theory: Elnor will be assimilated.
Raffi and Elnor in a pre-season trailer.
When we saw in the pre-season trailers an injured Elnor and a very upset Raffi bathed in the eerie green light that we so often associate with the Borg, I put two and two together and speculated that we could see Elnor attacked by the Borg Queen. It seemed plausible to suggest that he was in the early stages of assimilation – but the closing seconds of Penance have changed my mind!
Elnor was shot by one of the Magistrate’s goons when they beamed aboard La Sirena, and I think what we’re about to see is that the clip from the trailers was taken from the next episode with Elnor being treated for that phaser or disruptor injury. I certainly hope he’ll be okay!
So those theories have been debunked (probably)!
We also have one confirmed theory, so let’s briefly look at that before we get into the main list.
Confirmed theory: The Borg Queen will be necessary for time travel.
The Borg Queen in Penance.
Before the season got going I speculated that the Borg Queen could be used as a kind of time machine, and we got confirmation of that in Penance. Dr Jurati believes that the Borg Queen will be able to make the necessary calculations to send La Sirena back to the 21st Century, something that the ship and crew would be unable to do without her, apparently.
I had initially speculated that the Borg Queen may possess some unique technology that allowed her to travel through time, something that could have accounted for her appearance in First Contact, but it seems that the real reason is somewhat simpler! Still, we can count this theory as officially confirmed – our first confirmation of the season!
So that theory was confirmed.
Now let’s get into the main theory list, beginning with theories that are new or saw significant movement in Penance.
Theory #1: Laris will join the mission back in time.
Picard and Laris at the start of the season.
This theory is officially on very thin ice! Laris is dead in the Confederation timeline, killed by General Picard’s forces some years previously. Every other main character (except Soji, who we’ll come to in a moment) awoke in the Confederation timeline in the bodies of their counterparts; if Laris has no Confederation timeline counterpart, presumably she is dead or else can’t exist in this timeline.
It’s certainly possible that Laris will become a driving force for Picard, spurring him on to find a way to restore the timeline. If he reconsiders his position on love, he could want to return to her, or his adventure could give him a new appreciation for her. But Orla Brady, who plays Laris, had been promoted to a main cast member at the beginning of the season, and I’m pretty sure we saw at least one clip of her in one of the pre-season trailers that we didn’t see in The Star Gazer. How could she come back? Well, isn’t it obvious? Q’s magic! Q could bring her back, allowing her to join the mission.
Theory #2: Picard and the crew will have to prevent Donald Trump’s re-election.
The White House.
So if you’re new here, you’re probably thinking that I’ve officially lost my marbles. I totally have, by the way, but that’s incidental. When I write up my theories, I like to include some real left-field ones if I think of them. It’s fun, and while this theory would certainly be something completely different, Picard as a whole has been a different kind of Star Trek show. So why not court controversy and bring a real-life political figure into the story?
Q explained to Picard that one of the differences in the Confederation timeline is that Earth failed at preventing climate change, instead finding ways to paper over the cracks. Donald Trump’s energy policies were very pro-fossil fuels during his tenure, and he’s a known climate change “sceptic.” Secondly we have the date that Picard and the crew will travel to: 2024. That’s the date of the next United States presidential election – an election in which Donald Trump is rumoured to be a candidate.
So could it be that the point of divergence that started the Confederation timeline and ruined the entire Star Trek galaxy is… Donald Trump’s election as president?
Theory #3: Soji will appear in the Confederation timeline – but she’ll look very different.
Could this be how Soji appears in the Confederation timeline?
Where’s Soji? She wasn’t aboard the Stargazer or Excelsior when they confronted the Borg, and she wasn’t seen at all in Penance. But if synth-building techniques are good enough to create a golem for Picard, then the same process could have been used to create the Confederation timeline version of Soji, right?
Synths look a lot more basic in the Confederation timeline, with Harvey appearing to be much closer to the prime timeline’s F8 than even someone like Data, so it’s possible that if Soji does exist, she looks quite different. She could even look similar to Sutra – her “evil twin” from the Season 1 finale. If that’s the case, though, I hope the makeup is done better this time! I don’t think I could take a whole season of the awful gold makeup from Season 1…
Theory #4: The mission back in time won’t last all season.
Los Angeles, 2024.
If Picard and the crew make it back to 2024 in the next episode, that still leaves a lot of the season remaining for them to repair the damage to the timeline. Perhaps this is as much a wish as a theory – time travel stories that visit the modern day have never been my favourites in Star Trek – but I wonder if there could be something truly unexpected coming afterwards.
With Q involved in the story, he could send Picard and the crew to another alternate timeline or parallel universe, for example. Or after the timeline is repaired, we could see Picard and the crew engage in a battle against the Borg – we still don’t know what was going on with the new Borg Queen and the Legion ship from The Star Gazer. In short, there are many different ways that the season could go after a jaunt to the past.
I’d also point out that, aside from a few clips from the 21st Century, the first two episodes of the season seem to have included most of the clips from pre-season trailers and teasers, which could mean that the latter part of the season is hiding something big!
Theory #5: The Q Continuum has been attacked.
The Q Continuum, as seen in Voyager.
What’s wrong with Q? That was a question Picard asked that went unanswered in Penance, but there’s clearly something different about Q this time. Though at times he has the same impish charm that we remember from his earlier appearances in the franchise, at other moments he seemed incredibly angry – even hitting Picard at one point.
Perhaps there’s something going on in the Q Continuum – the Continuum could have come under attack, for example, and Q could be one of the few survivors. If something that Picard did or didn’t do is partly to blame, that could explain Q’s antagonistic behaviour.
Though the Q Continuum and the Q species seem god-like from our perspective, it’s not impossible to think that someone found a weakness to exploit. Could it be the Borg, perhaps? Q’s anger could stem from the fact that Picard didn’t do enough to stop them.
Theory #6: Q is approaching the end of his life.
Q and Picard.
A simpler explanation could be that Q, like Picard, is coming to the end of his life. From Picard’s perspective it’s been 20+ years since he last saw Q, but Q could have lived thousands or even millions of years before choosing to re-visit his “old friend.” Maybe the Q are not entirely timeless and immortal, and perhaps Q is aware that he’s coming to the end of his life. Or if there’s something wrong with the Q Continuum, Q could be dying as a result.
This would potentially open up the Q-Picard relationship, giving the two a chance to discuss what it means to come to the end of one’s life. Picard could even help Q as he faces this new and unsettling turn of events.
Theory #7: Q is angry with Picard for “giving up.”
Grumpy Q.
Over the course of The Next Generation, Q took a particular interest in Picard. More so than anyone else, Q seemed to see potential in Picard as a representative of the human race, someone who potentially showed him what humanity could be… with a little prompting and guidance. Q seemed fascinated by that idea, so seeing Picard’s fall from grace may have shocked him and left him feeling disappointed and bitter.
Picard spent more than a decade away from galactic affairs, retiring to his vineyard and seemingly just waiting around to die. Someone like Q might take that personally; he might feel that Picard was not living up to the potential he had. Perhaps Picard’s absence had some kind of unknown consequence, something that harmed Q or the Q Continuum. In any case, Q’s animosity to Picard seems to be personal – could disappointment at Picard’s attitude in the years prior to Season 1 be the cause?
Theory #8: The Borg ship from The Star Gazer crossed over from the Confederation timeline.
The Borg vessel identified as “Legion.”
As far as we know at this stage, the Confederation timeline replaced the prime timeline thanks to someone or something changing the past. But timelines and parallel universes often go hand-in-hand in Star Trek, and after we learned about the Borg’s defeat in the Confederation timeline, I wonder if their ship from the season premiere might have found a way to punch through or cross over into the prime timeline.
If the Borg were facing defeat, as their message seemed to suggest, perhaps that could explain why. Also, the anomaly that the ship emerged from was not a typical transwarp conduit; we’d seen transwarp corridors as recently as Season 1. Finally, the Borg Queen of the Confederation timeline was aware of Picard and the history of the prime timeline – perhaps the Confederation timeline Borg knew of the prime timeline and this was a last-ditch effort to survive.
Theory #9: The Borg are fighting a war – and they’re losing.
The Borg vessel using its transporter-weapon on the USS Stargazer.
Possibly connected to the theory above, one explanation for the Borg’s message and appearance in The Star Gazer is that in the prime timeline the Collective has found itself on the losing side of a war. Penance told us that the Confederation had been able to defeat the Borg using technology that Dr Jurati believed was roughly equivalent to the Federation’s in the prime timeline – so clearly it’s possible to fight and beat the Borg.
Could mentions of Gul Dukat or Martok in Penance be hints at something to come later in the story? Both characters were major players during Deep Space Nine’s Dominion War arc; maybe the Cardassians and/or the Dominion have been aggressively attacking the Borg in the late 24th Century. The other big culprit is the Confederation – assuming that it’s possible for the two timelines to mix!
Theory #10: The masked, hooded figure from The Star Gazer is not the real Borg Queen.
The Borg Queen?
The Borg Queen – the hooded figure who materialised on the bridge of the Stargazer – was absolutely terrifying, evoking feelings for me that the Star Trek franchise hasn’t hit in decades. The way this character was presented, with her shrouded face, flowing robes, monochromatic aesthetic, and blend of humanoid and decidedly non-humanoid mechanical features was simultaneously riveting and frightening!
This character was presented as the Borg Queen in the episode, and the Borg have no reason that we know of to lie about that. But at the same time, she was very different not only from how we’ve seen the Borg Queen in past iterations of Star Trek, but she also looked very different to clips we’ve seen in trailers and teasers for Season 2. Could it be that this character will be revealed to be somebody else?
Theory #11: The masked, hooded Borg is Admiral Janeway.
A Borgified Janeway as seen in Voyager.
This theory could apply whether the Borg on the Stargazer is the Queen or not! Admiral Janeway was assimilated by the Borg Queen as part of her plan to introduce a neurolytic pathogen into the Collective, and appeared to have been killed when the Borg Queen’s complex exploded. But is there a way she could have survived?
Her assimilation could have been a turning point for the Borg. She did untold damage to the Collective, but also potentially gifted them knowledge and information about future events and technologies that were decades ahead of their time. Just like the Borg once chose Captain Picard to become Locutus – their “spokesperson” or representative – perhaps they might have chosen Admiral Janeway to fill a similar role during this latest incursion. Admiral Janeway could even have been incorporated as part of the Borg Queen.
Theory #12: The masked, hooded Borg is Soji.
Soji in The Star Gazer.
Soji represents a different kind of synthetic life, and may be of interest to the Borg as a result. If the Borg are aware of what transpired in Season 1 on Coppelius, one possible reason for their re-emergence could be to target the synths. The Borg seek “perfection” through the synthesis of organic and synthetic parts; if Coppelius synths like Soji have something that the Borg want, perhaps we’ll learn that they assimilated her to get it.
The anomaly from which the Borg vessel emerged was not a standard transwarp corridor, and was specifically noted to emit some kind of temporal radiation. Thus the Borg vessel could be from a future date after Soji has already been assimilated. We could even learn that the super-synths from the Season 1 finale are actually the Borg; that could be how they first became aware of Soji and the Coppelius synths.
Theory #13: The Borg are aware that Picard is now a synth – and his synthetic status is part of the reason why they waited until now to make contact.
Picard awakened in a new synthetic body in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2.
Continuing in the same vein, the timing of the new Borg incursion is interesting, especially considering that they asked for Picard by name. Are they aware of his newfound synthetic status? And if so, could Picard’s transition to a new synthetic body be the reason why the Borg chose to launch their attack?
The Borg seek “perfection” through a synthesis of organic and synthetic components, and while Picard’s new synthetic body is a far cry from the Borg drones we’ve seen, the idea of an organic mind in a synthetic body isn’t a million miles away from that same basic idea. Although Picard’s body was said to be comparable in practically every way to his original one, synthetics can have enhanced abilities that allow them to easily overpower humans – and, as we’ve seen with Data on more than one occasion, they can outmatch individual Borg drones as well.
A Borg drone losing a fight against Data.
Perhaps the Borg want to re-assimilate Picard now that he’s synthetic. If the Collective is still reeling from the damage inflicted upon it by Admiral Janeway or if they’re on the losing side of a war, perhaps they hope to use fully-synthetic bodies like Picard’s to replace damaged or destroyed drones, or as cannon fodder on the front lines. There are many reasons why the Borg might be interested in synthetic technology, and that could explain their re-emergence.
Even if the Borg don’t plan to assimilate Picard or the Coppelius synths, the timing of their appearance is certainly interesting and there could be a connection.
Theory #14: Q is not responsible for changing the timeline.
Q hit Picard!
This theory is definitely feeling less and less likely… but as of Penance, the role Q has actually played in what happened is still not certain. The events of the past couple of episodes can certainly be interpreted as Q being the one who deliberately and willingly changed the timeline, and that’s certainly the assumption that Picard has made. However, Q himself didn’t admit responsibility, and while he certainly knows a lot about the Confederation timeline, there may be more going on than we’re currently assuming.
Given the more angry, aggressive presentation of Q that we saw in Penance, what would his goal or objective be if he changed the timeline? It doesn’t seem as though he’s setting up a puzzle for Picard to solve, and if he wanted to punish him for some perceived slight or wrongdoing, would this be how he’d do it? I can think of a million-and-one creative ways that a being with Q’s powers could punish or torture someone, and changing the timeline in a way that could be fixed, while also ensuring Picard could find his friends, doesn’t seem like the best option from Q’s point of view.
Q at the vineyard in Penance.
Someone like Q doesn’t make for a good villain from a storytelling perspective, either. Q’s powers would essentially mean that he could undo any victory that Picard could hope to win – he could fling them forwards in time if they approached the 2020s, for example, ensuring they would never be able to undo whatever changes had been made. Or Q could snap his fingers and leave the crew isolated on a desert island with no way to escape. In short, Picard was able to solve Q’s previous puzzles because Q allowed him to – or wanted him to. If Q really wants to change the timeline to punish Picard, there’s less than nothing Picard could do to stop him.
I have a longer article that goes into more detail about this theory that I wrote before the season premiere, and you can find it by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #15: Q shielded Picard and the crew from changes to the timeline.
Q in General Picard’s study.
One way in which Q could be involved would be to have protected Picard – and his new crew – from changes to the timeline. There are many reasons why he might do this, and it could apply regardless of whether Q changed the timeline himself or not. If the entire timeline has been changed going back centuries, there has to be a reason why Picard and the crew of La Sirena are seemingly the only ones unaffected – and one explanation for that could be “Q’s magic.”
This would be in line with how we’ve known Q to operate. Episodes like Tapestry and All Good Things saw him use his powers to place Picard in an alternate life while retaining his original memories, and to move between three different time periods. Such a power is something we know Q can use, and it would explain two key things: how Picard and the crew of La Sirena remained unaffected, and how Q is involved in the story.
Theory #16: Who is responsible for damaging the timeline, then?
Did the super-synths do it?
If Q isn’t the one who changed the timeline, the obvious question that raises is “who did it?”
In theory, it could be any one of a number of different Star Trek factions. We’ve seen the Klingons having access to time travel in the early 25th Century, for example, in the Voyager episode Endgame, and various time travel stories and stories depicting powerful alien races could all theoretically yield suspects. But considering what we know about Star Trek: Picard specifically, in my view the main suspects are as follows:
The Borg. The Borg could be one of the season’s main antagonists after their emergence in The Star Gazer, and we’ve seen in past iterations of Star Trek that they can travel through time.
The Zhat Vash. While the Zhat Vash may not have been shown to possess time travel tech, they were the primary antagonist last season, and arguably were not defeated in the Season 1 finale.
How about the Zhat Vash?
The super-synths. The super-synths from the Season 1 finale are a wildcard; we don’t know much about them except that they seem to be technologically powerful. Travelling back in time might be on their agenda – but erasing the prime timeline could result in the erasure of the Coppelius synths.
The Romulan government or the Tal Shiar. With or without the support of the Zhat Vash, the Romulan government could have taken action against the Federation in response to the events of Season 1.
There are undoubtedly other Star Trek factions who could be implicated, and if we had a free choice we could suggest the likes of the Dominion or the Sphere-Builders. But I think those are far less likely when considering the elements Picard has brought on board.
Theory #17: Guinan will be aware of the shifting timelines.
Picard and Guinan in The Star Gazer.
In The Next Generation Season 3 episode Yesterday’s Enterprise, Guinan demonstrated a unique awareness of changes to the timeline. The Borg Queen seemed to have a similar ability in Penance, and I wonder if the Confederation timeline version of Guinan is aware that something is wrong. If so, perhaps she will seek out Picard before he travels back in time.
This was one of my pre-season theories, as it seemed to fit with what we know of Guinan. However, it’s possible that Guinan’s role in the season won’t be particularly big, and what we saw of her conversation with Picard in The Star Gazer could be all there is! If we don’t see her before Picard travels back in time, we can probably strike this theory from the list – but as of the end of Penance, it remains in play.
Theory #18: The Confederation is run by augmented humans.
Who is Adam Soong, and could he be responsible for creating genetically engineered humans?
We didn’t get confirmation of this in Penance, so perhaps this theory should be struck from the list. But it’s possible, at least in my view, that the Confederation timeline represents one in which human genetic engineering was never outlawed. Khan-like “supermen” may have come to dominate the human race, and we could learn that humans of this timeline – like General Picard – were genetically engineered.
The inclusion of a new character played by Brent Spiner – who may or may not be named Adam Soong – could be connected to this, as we know that the Soong family was involved in human augmentation in the prime timeline. Khan is perhaps Star Trek’s best-known augment, and he intended to govern in the kind of militaristic, dictatorial style that the Confederation has adopted.
If this theory were true I think I’d have expected to see more direct evidence of it in Penance… but with Picard and the crew still in the Confederation timeline, perhaps there’s still time to learn that augments are involved in its governance. That could even be the point of divergence that created this alternate timeline.
So those theories are new or saw movement this week.
Next, as always, I like to recap all of the other theories that are still in play. These theories didn’t move at all in Penance, but remain possibilities for later in the season.
Theory #19: There will be a connection between the augments and Strange New Worlds.
One of the few things we know about Strange New Worlds at this early stage is that there will be a character named La’an Noonien-Singh. This new character seems to be related in some way to the iconic villain Khan, and if Khan or Khan-inspired augments play some kind of a role in the Confederation’s power structure, perhaps that will set up a connection – or even a crossover – between Picard Season 2 and Strange New Worlds.
Theory #20: Dr Jurati will unleash the Borg Queen.
The Borg Queen and Dr Jurati.
Sticking with the Borg Queen, we’ve seen several teases and clips that seem to show her on the loose. If this version of the Borg Queen was originally a captive – as the trailers have seemed to suggest – the question of how she was able to break free raises its head. It’s of course possible that she’s smart enough and powerful enough to break out of her confinement on her own, but she might also be able to convince someone to help her.
Dr Jurati is the cyberneticist that we met in Season 1, and she has a real love for all things synthetic. She seems to know a lot about the Borg, including the status of the Collective, and as we saw in Season 1 her fascination and sympathy for synthetic life is a very powerful motivating factor for her – so much so that she was able to break out of her Zhat Vash brainwashing and didn’t harm Soji. Given all of that, perhaps the Borg Queen is going to be able to convince Dr Jurati to let her guard down or even loosen her restraints.
Theory #21: There will be a reference to Gabriel Bell or Sanctuary Districts.
Gabriel Bell.
According to the trailers, Picard Season 2 will be paying a visit to the year 2024… but it isn’t the first Star Trek production to visit that specific year! If Picard Season 2 wanted to visit “the modern day,” why not pick 2022 – or 2021 or 2023? 2024 feels like it could hold some kind of significance, and though there have been a couple of other references to events in the 2020s, the Deep Space Nine third season two-part episode Past Tense has already taken us to 2024.
The biggest event that we know of took place in California – the Bell Riots. I don’t necessarily expect to see the Bell Riots depicted all over again, but we could get some kind of reference to Gabriel Bell – the man who led the riots. There could also be mentions of “Sanctuary Districts,” which were areas built to house homeless people that became overcrowded prisons. Given that Picard Season 2 is going to visit the California area, some kind of reference seems plausible.
Considering the current problem with homelessness in some American cities – including in California – it could be an interesting point of social commentary to revisit some of the themes tackled by Past Tense. That episode’s depiction of the 2020s feels a little too close for comfort to the state of the real world, in some respects!
Theory #22: There will be some kind of crossover with Star Trek: Discovery.
One thing that I find a little odd right now is the scheduling of Picard and Discovery. For three weeks, the two shows will be broadcast on the same day, which doesn’t make a lot of sense when you consider that 1) they’re shows with relatively short seasons, and 2) Paramount+ is a streaming platform. Does that mean there’s a glimmer of hope for some kind of larger-scale crossover than either show has attempted so far?
I suspect I’ll be proven wrong on this one, and that it’s simply due to the inexplicable nonsense that we’ve come to expect from Paramount+ and parent company Paramount Global. Someone has evidently decided that “Thursday is Star Trek day,” and that’s inflexible no matter what. That still doesn’t explain why Picard Season 2 couldn’t be delayed by a measly three weeks, though – especially with the constipated international rollout of Paramount+ potentially meaning that Strange New Worlds will premiere in the USA weeks or months before Paramount+ arrives in Europe. But we’re off topic!
In short, one possible explanation for the odd scheduling could be because the two shows are planning some kind of crossover event; if so, I’d love to see it! And with time travel on the agenda, anything is possible, right? At the very least, I hope that Picard Season 2 will put in more of an effort to connect with Discovery than happened in Season 1.
Theory #23: Picard and the crew will have to actively trigger World War III to save the future.
World War III soldiers as glimpsed in Discovery Season 2.
Although the Bell Riots are the main event of 2024 that we know about in Star Trek’s internal timeline, the 21st Century was arguably dominated by another event: World War III. The war may have kicked off as early as 2026 (as suggested in The Original Series) and concluded by the mid-2050s as seen in First Contact. The “post-atomic horror” that followed was the backdrop for Q’s trial in Encounter at Farpoint.
World War III is integral to Star Trek because without it, it’s hard to see how warp drive would’ve developed and how humanity would’ve made peaceful first contact with the Vulcans. Just like the end of the Second World War brought about major technological and societal changes that ultimately made the world a better place, Star Trek’s World War III is integral to the events that led to the founding of the Federation. If it were prevented, the timeline would change dramatically.
So my theory is that the point of divergence is the outbreak of World War III – meaning that it will fall to Picard to trigger one of the worst wars in human history in order to save the future. Talk about a moral dilemma! You can find a full write-up of this theory by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #24: Romulans are spying on Earth in the 21st Century… and could be time-travelling Zhat Vash.
A young boy encounters a Romulan or Vulcan.
In the third trailer, a young boy wearing what seemed to be 21st Century clothing was seen encountering a Romulan or Vulcan. If the Zhat Vash are involved in the new season’s story somehow, perhaps this individual is a Zhat Vash operative. This could confirm that the Zhat Vash were able to travel through time, or send a message back in time to their 21st Century counterparts. The Romulans had achieved interstellar flight centuries earlier, so travelling to Earth to spy or place operatives seems plausible for them.
Of all the scenes we’ve glimpsed so far from Season 2, the one with the young boy and the Romulan or Vulcan is the one that I’m least sure about! It doesn’t seem to fit naturally into a story about the Borg, Q, and time travel… but this is one theory that could make sense, and would connect to the theory above about Q not being to blame.
Theory #25: The Vulcans are on Earth in the early 21st Century… as stated in Discovery Season 4.
A meeting of senior Federation and allied officials in Discovery Season 4.
Another theory about the unnamed Romulan or Vulcan is tied into the Discovery Season 4 episode The Galactic Barrier. This could easily be a complete overreaction to a throwaway line, but at the beginning of the episode, the enigmatic Federation leader Dr Kovich stated that Vulcans were on Earth for decades prior to official first contact taking place.
This one line could be a reference to Carbon Creek, an episode of Enterprise that saw Vulcans crash-land on Earth in the 1950s. But the timing seems odd given the scene glimpsed in the Picard Season 2 trailers! If the character seen above is a Vulcan, perhaps there will be a connection of some kind between Discovery and Picard.
Theory #26: At least one character from The Next Generation will make an appearance.
The cast of The Next Generation in Season 1.
With the return of Guinan and Q, as well as Voyager’s Seven of Nine, there are already a lot of returning characters in Picard Season 2! But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for a well-placed cameo or two, or even an episode like Season 1’s Nepenthe that steps away from the main story to revisit classic characters. We could even have a bit of fun with some alternate timeline versions of them!
There are so many characters from Star Trek’s past that I would love to spend more time with; listing them all here would be impossible! But if Picard is to end with Season 3, as some outlets have been reporting, it would be fantastic if the crew of The Next Generation could reunite one last time.
I have a list of possible character crossovers that I wrote back in 2020, before we got to see any teasers or trailers, and you can find it by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #27: The Federation is responsible for creating the Borg.
A rather incredulous-looking Borg seen in The Next Generation.
This is a total wildcard, but I’m just throwing it out there!
The Borg Queen – and the Borg in general – appear to have a fascination with humanity and with Picard. Could it be that the explanation for that is that the Federation and/or humanity are somehow responsible for their creation? With time travel on the agenda, it’s not impossible to imagine a scenario in which the progenitor of the Borg – perhaps even the Queen herself – is able to travel back in time, founding the Collective.
Nanites used by the Control AI.
The idea that the Federation is responsible for creating its own worst nightmare could be an interesting one if executed well, as could the cyclical nature of such a story. It would have to be handled in just the right way to avoid treading on the toes of previous Borg stories, but it feels like a lot of the pieces exist for this theory to seem plausible. The return of the Borg, the inclusion of Q, and even the talk of Picard and humanity needing to pay a “penance” could all be connected.
Discovery Season 2 ran a story with the Control AI that could have also been a Borg origin story. Was it known as early as 2018-19 that Picard wanted to tell a story like this, and if so, could that explain why the Control storyline ended the way it did? I have a write-up of Discovery’s abandoned Borg origin story that you can find by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #28: The USS Stargazer will make an appearance.
The original USS Stargazer.
Okay, technically the USS Stargazer has already appeared, but not in the way I expected! Captain Rios is (or was) in command of a new USS Stargazer, and not only that but he had a model of the original vessel in his conference room! So that’s it. Theory confirmed, everybody can move on to the next one!
Just kidding. The inclusion of a brand-new USS Stargazer brings the ship and its legacy back to the fore. Picard himself commented in The Star Gazer that the original vessel was his first command, and as far back as Season 1 we had a reference to his time in command through the character of Dr Benayoun. All of these things could be leading to some bigger role for the original USS Stargazer – and with a story that seems to include time travel and a strong focus on Picard’s own personal history, a flashback or even a visit to the ship could be on the agenda!
Theory #29: By restoring the timeline, Picard – and everyone aboard the Stargazer – will die.
The USS Stargazer self-destructs.
As far as we know based on what’s been teased and shown off in various clips and trailers, a big part of the storyline this season will be undoing whatever damage was done in the 21st Century and restoring the true timeline. But if that happens, and the timeline is fully restored, that means that Picard, Captain Rios, Dr Jurati, and Seven of Nine will be on board the USS Stargazer when it self-destructs. Raffi and Elnor will be aboard the USS Excelsior in the same moment – and their ship could be destroyed as well.
If this story turns into a two-season arc, perhaps the final episode of Season 3 – which is rumoured to be the end of the show entirely – will see Picard and the crew restore the timeline, only to spend their final seconds aboard the Stargazer before it’s destroyed. This would be a bittersweet ending – to say the least!
Theory #30: The season will end on a cliffhanger.
Because Seasons 2 and 3 went into production back-to-back, that made me wonder if they might form one continuous story – or if the final act of Season 2 might set up the story for Season 3. Star Trek has a long history of season-ending cliffhangers, such as The Best of Both Worlds in The Next Generation, Equinox in Voyager, and Such Sweet Sorrow in Discovery, to give just three examples.
Something in The Star Gazer could be relevant, though. If the story we’re going to see is all about restoring the correct timeline and undoing whatever damage has been done, then assuming Picard and co. succeed in their objective… won’t that place them back on the bridge of the Stargazer just as it’s about to self-destruct? If that’s the case, maybe it won’t happen this season and will instead be the finale of Season 3, with Season 2 ending on a cliffhanger at the story’s halfway mark.
Theory #31: The Borg Collective was badly damaged in the Voyager episode Endgame and has been unable to recover.
Dr Jurati decoded the Borg message.
In The Star Gazer, it seemed as if the Borg Collective was reaching out, asking the Federation – and Picard specifically – for help. If so, the question is why? Was it just a shallow ploy to launch another attack on Starfleet? Or is there at least a degree of truth to the Borg’s request?
Endgame, the final episode of Voyager, depicted a time-travelling Admiral Janeway introducing a neurolytic pathogen – a type of virus – into the Borg Queen, seriously damaging her, her base of operations, and several Borg vessels in the vicinity. Because the Borg hadn’t been seen since – until The Star Gazer, that is – we never got to learn just how deadly Admiral Janeway’s actions were.
Admiral Janeway in Endgame.
I’ve always assumed that the Borg Collective is vast enough, powerful enough, clever enough, and most importantly adaptable enough that Admiral Janeway’s actions weren’t going to strike a fatal blow. Whatever damage she had done seemed like something the Borg could eventually fix – and their existence 25 years later during the events of The Star Gazer seems to prove that. The Borg’s technology and weapons are still streets ahead of anything Starfleet has at its disposal… but even so, it’s still possible that the Borg are on their last legs facing defeat.
If that’s the case, maybe we’ll discover that it was Admiral Janeway who’s responsible – that her actions in Endgame are either wholly or partly to blame for the Borg’s weakened state. Dr Jurati seemed to know that the Borg Collective isn’t as strong as it once was, so that could be another clue pointing to this theory.
Theory #32: The loose ends from Season 1 will be tied up.
Will we learn Narek’s fate?
The Star Gazer already crossed off two things from the list of Season 1 leftovers! Dr Jurati’s legal status was clarified, as was her relationship with Captain Rios. There are still a number of points that I’d like to see addressed before the season ends, though, as Season 1 unfortunately left quite a lot of story on the table thanks to a rushed and underwhelming finale.
Here are the main ones:
What will become of the synths on Coppelius, and will they have to be relocated for safety?
Did Starfleet attempt to visit Aia and shut down the beacon at the centre of the Zhat Vash’s prophecy? Leaving it out in the open seems dangerous.
Will Starfleet contact the super-synths and attempt to make peace or convince them that they pose no threat?
The Artifact’s resting place on Coppelius.
Why did Bruce Maddox go to Freecloud?
With the Zhat Vash plot exposed, what will become of their crusade against synthetic life?
Did Federation-Romulan relations suffer as a result of the Zhat Vash’s attack on Mars and attempted attack on Coppelius?
What happened to Narek after he was captured by the Coppelius synths?
Who controls the Artifact and what will happen to the surviving ex-Borg?
So that’s it!
Harvey the synth.
We have a lot of theories in play at this early stage, but there’s plenty of time for more to develop over the next few episodes. It seems as though Picard and the crew of La Sirena will soon begin their mission to the year 2024, and we could soon learn more about what exactly happened in that year that set humanity and Earth on a very different, very dark path.
I always like to end these theory lists by saying that I do this just for fun. I enjoy writing, I enjoy Star Trek, and spending more time in this world is an escape and an enjoyable distraction. But for some folks, fan theories can be frustrating or unenjoyable, especially if they get very attached to a plausible-sounding theory that ultimately doesn’t pan out. I have no “insider information” and I’m not trying to claim that anything suggested above can, will, or must be part of Picard Season 2. I fully expect many of these theories to be debunked and for the season to go in wildly unpredictable directions!
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.
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, First Contact, Nemesis, and Voyager.
After such an incredibly strong start to Season 2 last week, there was almost nowhere left for Penance to go in terms of action and excitement! But the season continues in strong form with another excellent episode, one with a very different tone to its immediate predecessor.
After the explosive end to last week’s episode, Picard and the crew of the Stargazer found themselves transported – as if by magic – to a strange, twisted reality, one in which the human-centric Confederation reigns. But the surprising thing they learned (which had essentially been explained already in the trailers and teasers) is that this isn’t some alternate reality or parallel universe, but rather the prime universe after something or someone had changed the past.
Seven, Elnor, Raffi, and Picard reunited in the Confederation timeline.
The Confederation definitely strayed into Mirror Universe territory with its militaristic aesthetic, demagoguery, and clear love of violence, but I actually found it more interesting to watch as a viewer than practically any story set in the Mirror Universe. There’s one key reason for that, I think: practically all of the characters we spent time with in Penance were from the original timeline, meaning that the actors were playing their familiar, more complex and nuanced roles.
One of my primary complaints about the Mirror Universe in practically all of its appearances, from The Original Series right through to Discovery, is that it feels like hammy, over-the-top pantomime. It’s a setting that’s written in such a way that it tricks even great actors like Sonequa Martin-Green into putting in incredibly poor, one-dimensional performances as their Mirror Universe counterparts, and I think if we’d had to spend a lot of time with Confederation Picard or Confederation Rios, we could’ve been in a similar position in Penance.
Sticking with our established characters – and not their alternate counterparts – was good for Penance.
Luckily that didn’t happen, so what we got is a genuinely interesting setting – it’s the Mirror Universe but also not the Mirror Universe at the same time. Q even used the familiar expression “through a mirror, darkly” (a riff on a similarly-titled Enterprise episode!) to describe the Confederation timeline, and similar themes of presenting our characters with a dark, twisted version of reality are present here, just as they are in the Mirror Universe.
In this case, though, it’s arguable that Picard and the crew might feel worse about how things have turned out. In the Mirror Universe, we’re dealing with similar-looking but very different people; dark counterparts to our familiar characters. But the Confederation timeline aims to say that Picard – our familiar Picard – would have behaved this way if he’d been born and raised here. Picard is confronted not with a doppelgänger, but with an alternate version of himself.
A recording of the Confederation timeline version of Picard.
This isn’t the first time we’ve been here with Picard, if you think about it! In Nemesis, Picard had to deal with a clone of himself, and at one point in the film he came to the realisation that, if he had led the life that Shinzon had, he’d have turned out exactly the same way. Here, in the Confederation timeline, Picard must deal with the fact that this version of himself has been such an all-conquering general, subjugating alien races and bringing a xenophobic, human-centric ideology to the galaxy.
Speaking of “all-conquering,” something I’d be very interested to learn more about is the Confederation’s conquest of the Borg. Dr Jurati specifically stated in Penance that the Confederation’s technology is comparable to the Federation’s in the prime timeline, and we saw just last week how completely overpowering the Borg were when facing the Federation. So how did General Picard beat the Borg? And having destroyed literally the entire Borg Collective, why does the Confederation seem to be having such a problem keeping the planet Vulcan under control?
Rios watches the Battle of Vulcan from La Sirena.
It’s possible that this will be explored in more detail in the episodes ahead, and there could be a connection here between the Borg of the Confederation timeline and the Borg in the prime timeline that we saw in The Star Gazer, perhaps. I’d certainly be interested to see a conversation between the captive Borg Queen and Picard on this subject; if she is the sole survivor of her entire people, she would certainly have a thing or two to say to him!
It’s also possible, of course, that the Confederation’s conquest of the Borg won’t be referenced again – and personally, I think that would be a bit of a disappointment. Maybe Picard’s trip back in time – which seems to be coming in the next episode, despite the cliffhanger ending this week – will wipe out the Confederation timeline, and what we saw of it in Penance will be all we ever see. But as I’ve said before, as Trekkies who feel a connection to the Star Trek galaxy, we always want to dig deeper and learn more about this wonderful setting. To brush aside something as potentially huge as the Borg being defeated would be a shame.
Picard comes face to face with the Borg Queen.
Like The Star Gazer before it, Penance revelled in the lore and history of Star Trek. We got our first major references to Deep Space Nine since live-action Star Trek returned to the small screen thanks to mentions of Gul Dukat (also known in this timeline as “Skull Dukat!”) and General Martok; two of General Picard’s defeated adversaries. There was also a reference to one General Sisko, which was awesome! As a big fan of Deep Space Nine, it’s wonderful to see modern Star Trek make reference to it.
I doubt that we’ll see anyone from Deep Space Nine on screen this season, but the callbacks were definitely appreciated. Aside from Sarek, though, the conquests Q showed to Picard weren’t really characters or villains that I’d have associated very strongly with Picard himself. There was scope to reference someone like Dathon, the Tamarian captain from the episode Darmok, who has a stronger association with Picard than the likes of Gul Dukat or General Martok – characters we never saw him meet on screen. That’s not to be critical, though – I adored the Deep Space Nine references and for something relatively minor that most viewers won’t have thought twice about, it was a great way to include a couple of references to this part of Star Trek!
Confederation Picard was quite the collector of skulls, apparently!
Was it a little bit of a contrivance that the characters were all able to find each other so soon after their arrival in this new timeline? And if we get really nitpicky about it, shouldn’t they have considered the possibility that someone else might’ve found themselves transported there too? Captain Rios didn’t seem to even consider looking for any of his officers or crew from the Stargazer, for example. It didn’t cross my mind during my first time watching Penance, but as I was going through it for a second time it gave me a moment’s pause.
That being said, I liked very much that the characters were all split up after their arrival in the Confederation timeline. Although we can call it somewhat of a contrivance that they were able to contact one another and get back together within a single episode, the fact that they all found themselves in different places, occupying very different roles, was something that Penance pulled off very well considering that it all had to be done in the runtime of a single episode.
Elnor, shortly after his arrival in the Confederation timeline.
Around the 23-minute mark, when Elnor has been cornered by Confederation security forces, there was a very odd visual moment where one brief shot looked very different – and of significantly lower quality – to the others. It hardly ruined the episode, but it was noticeable even on a first viewing that this one shot of Elnor didn’t look right. It seemed as if it was using a green screen and the shot had been spliced into the episode at the last minute.
Other than that, though, the visuals, CGI, and other special effects in Penance were outstanding. The battle Rios found himself engaged in over Vulcan was one of the most fast-paced that the Star Trek franchise has ever shown, and it had almost a Star Wars starfighter feel, as other ships of La Sirena’s class fought against Vulcan ships that drew on designs from Enterprise for their visual inspiration.
La Sirena and other Confederation ships battling Vulcans.
So let’s talk about Q: what could be going on with him? Picard seemed to think that there was something wrong; the implication being that Q, like Picard, is coming to the end of his life, perhaps? I’m not sure if this is the route the story will go, though, and I have a couple of theories that I’ll expand on in my next theory post. It was definitely a change to see a more aggressive, less jovial characterisation of Q, though. For all the puzzles and tricks Q has laid for Picard in the past, he never treated any of them in the same way as he did here. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that Q was angry.
Could the root of this anger be a sense of disappointment that Q feels in Picard? When Season 1 kicked off, Picard had been in self-imposed isolation on his vineyard for more than a decade, having chosen to resign from Starfleet and cease participating in Federation and galactic affairs. As someone Q had taken a very strong personal interest in, could Q have taken that decision personally? Could he have felt that Picard was failing to live up to the potential that Q initially believed him to have? If so, perhaps that might explain Q’s attitude in Penance.
Why is Q so grumpy?
When I put together a list of episodes that I felt could be good background viewing for Picard Season 2, I deliberately included stories like Q Who, Tapestry, and All Good Things. These episodes I feel encapsulate the Q-Picard relationship; the adversarial but not villainous nature of Q, the way Q sees himself as a guide, the way Q has even tried, in his own twisted way, to help Picard. All of these things feel quite far removed from the way Q appeared in Penance, but as we almost certainly haven’t seen the last of him this season, I’m sure we’ll learn more about Q’s role and motivations.
We don’t even know for certain at this stage that it was Q who damaged the timeline. At most, I think we can say with reasonable certainty that Q used his powers to ensure that Picard and the rest of the crew were aware of the change that transpired, but the question of his guilt – or the extent of his complicity in these strange events – is still open.
Q and Picard at Château Picard.
Just like Sir Patrick Stewart makes it feel as if The Next Generation never ended, John de Lancie stepped back into the role of Q seamlessly. Yes, there’s a noticeable change in the way Q was characterised in Penance, but the performance was outstanding and hit all of the right notes for bringing back the Q that we remember. I’m thrilled to have Q back, and right now I’m genuinely curious to see where this new timeline and history-changing event go!
Dr Jurati provided some darkly comedic moments in Penance, and was strangely relatable. We’ve seen her anxious babbling before in Season 1; in a similar vein to characters like Discovery’s Tilly she has a tendency to overshare or not know when to stop talking! Those moments with Seven and the Magistrate were funny, but where I found Dr Jurati at her most relatable were her moments of vulnerability. The Borg Queen rounded on her, sensing how she feels like an outsider no matter what timeline she’s in – and I think that’s something a lot of people can relate to.
Dr Jurati provided both comic and relatable moments this week.
Feeling like an outsider, feeling like your “friends” aren’t really your friends, and so-called imposter syndrome are all things that any of us can feel at different points in our lives, but speaking as someone who is neurodivergent, I think it hits home in a different way. It seems like Penance is setting up a story about manipulation using Dr Jurati’s natural insecurities as a base, and we could see a very interesting allegory play out in future episodes, taking this complex dynamic between Dr Jurati and the Borg Queen to different thematic places.
Notable by her absence was Soji. If this Confederation timeline only has basic F8-type synths (as we saw with Harvey at Picard’s vineyard, for example) then it’s not inconceivable to think that Soji may not exist at all. However, if Q’s statement to Picard about him being given a synthetic body in this timeline is correct – and we have no reason to think he’s lying about that, necessarily – then obviously the synth-creating process had reached the same level, and thus Soji may exist!
Harvey the synth.
With Picard and the crew being prevented from going back in time in the closing seconds of Penance, I wonder if next week we’ll see Soji make an appearance. Otherwise she seems set to miss the entire adventure – and that would be a shame. Soji was a huge part of Season 1, but noticeably didn’t appear in a big way in any of the pre-season trailers and teasers. I wonder if that’s because she’s going to take on a different appearance, or whether there’s something even bigger going on with her that we don’t know at this stage. Time will tell!
Where The Star Gazer had deliberately embraced many different 24th Century Star Trek design elements, Penance was striking out in its own direction, trying something new. There was a definite “Mirror Universe” feel to some of it, but even then the Confederation felt distinct. The scenes with Raffi and Elnor definitely honed in on a very specific kind of dystopia – the police state – that we haven’t really explored in the Mirror Universe before, and it felt shocking and frightening as a result. The way that the sequence with Elnor immediately preceding his arrest was filmed was incredibly claustrophobic, and did an excellent job at communicating just how different this new timeline is.
Elnor and Raffi.
Penance leaned into the “fish out of water” angle with most of its characters, too. Seven’s husband – the Magistrate – seemed to catch on very quickly that something wasn’t right, and kept her and everyone else under suspicion the entire time. Having him watching over her shoulder, and getting too close for comfort to Dr Jurati, Picard, and everyone else was successful at keeping the tension high, and Jon Jon Briones – father of Isa Briones, who plays Soji – put in a riveting performance as a villain. He was perfect for the role, and when he materialised on La Sirena at the end of the episode, it felt like the culmination of a wonderful performance that managed to be menacing and disconcerting but without ever falling into the Mirror Universe trap of hammy over-acting.
As a cat lover, Spot-73 was incredibly cute! Actor and comedian Patton Oswalt brought a lot of life to the cute animated critter, and although we didn’t get a lot of time with Spot-73, those moments were cute, funny, and also set up the apparent loneliness and isolation felt by this timeline’s version of Dr Jurati – something that, as noted, the Borg Queen was able to hone in on.
Tell me I’m not the only one who wants a Spot-73!
Does Laris’ apparent death in this timeline mean she won’t accompany Picard back in time? I had thought we might see more from her this season! It was clearly a moment that affected Picard greatly, and really hammered home just how different – and evil – this timeline’s version of the character is. Laris’ death also gives Picard an added motivation; he now has someone to save, and someone to get back to if he can save the future. Establishing their closeness last week was paid off in a very different and unexpected way here.
Overall, I had a great time with Penance. I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to compare it directly with The Star Gazer; the two episodes are doing entirely different things, and both achieve the feelings and objectives that they were clearly aiming for. Purely subjectively, because of things like the design of the USS Stargazer and the excitement of the Borg’s return, I would probably say I had more fun last week – but Penance was an interesting exploration of a very different timeline, and also managed to include a lot of Star Trek references!
The Magistrate at the end of Penance.
I have so many questions – and the story feels very unpredictable right now. Two episodes in and we’ve seen most of the scenes from the trailers already, with the exception of some of the 21st Century clips. The pre-season marketing did a great job of teasing just enough about the story to get fans interested and excited, but without spoiling big reveals like the Federation fleet, the USS Stargazer, and other key story elements.
There’s a lot to look forward to as Picard Season 2 finds its feet! Will Elnor survive his injury? What will the Magistrate do next? I can hardly wait to find out!
Sorry for the delay in getting to this review! With two episodes of Star Trek premiering within hours of each other (on Fridays in the UK, remember) writing two big reviews is a lot. This weekend I was also building my new computer, something that cut into my writing time quite a bit too. But it’s here now – and stay tuned for my weekly theory updates, too!
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.
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, Deep Space Nine, First Contact, Voyager, and Discovery.
Wow. What an amazing season-opener The Star Gazer was! Usually I watch each new Star Trek episode once, then once more while working on my review, and then I set it aside for the time being – there are other things to watch, after all! But I’ve seen The Star Gazer five times already; I can’t stop myself going back and watching it over and over again!
Last week I kicked off the Picard Season 2 theory list, bringing together all of my main pre-season theories. I had expected The Star Gazer to debunk some of them right off the bat, but to my surprise I don’t think any of them were. There are certainly some theories that now seem very unlikely, and one that may be debunked in the next episode when we spend more time with Q, but for now, all of them remain in play.
There were a few new theories that The Star Gazer kicked off, too, so they will be added to the list this time.
Theory #1: The Borg Collective was badly damaged in the Voyager episode Endgame and has been unable to recover.
Dr Jurati decoded the Borg message.
In The Star Gazer, it seemed as if the Borg Collective was reaching out, asking the Federation – and Picard specifically – for help. If so, the question is why? Was it just a shallow ploy to launch another attack on Starfleet? Or is there at least a degree of truth to the Borg’s request?
Endgame, the final episode of Voyager, depicted a time-travelling Admiral Janeway introducing a neurolytic pathogen – a type of virus – into the Borg Queen, seriously damaging her, her base of operations, and several Borg vessels in the vicinity. Because the Borg hadn’t been seen since – until The Star Gazer, that is – we never got to learn just how deadly Admiral Janeway’s actions were.
Admiral Janeway in Endgame.
I’ve always assumed that the Borg Collective is vast enough, powerful enough, clever enough, and most importantly adaptable enough that Admiral Janeway’s actions weren’t going to strike a fatal blow. Whatever damage she had done seemed like something the Borg could eventually fix – and their existence 25 years later during the events of The Star Gazer seems to prove that. The Borg’s technology and weapons are still streets ahead of anything Starfleet has at its disposal… but even so, it’s still possible that the Borg are on their last legs facing defeat.
If that’s the case, maybe we’ll discover that it was Admiral Janeway who’s responsible – that her actions in Endgame are either wholly or partly to blame for the Borg’s weakened state. Dr Jurati seemed to know that the Borg Collective isn’t as strong as it once was, so that could be another clue pointing to this theory.
Theory #2: The Borg are fighting a war – and losing.
The Borg vessel identified as “Legion.”
This theory could go hand-in-hand with the one above, but it could also stand on its own. In short, an alternative explanation for why the Borg are in a weakened state at this moment in time is that they’re fighting a war – perhaps against a race like the super-synths from Season 1 – and are being badly beaten. Their request for help could be genuine if they’re facing an existential threat, and the super-synths from Season 1 are one of the very few factions in all of Star Trek that could be more powerful than the Borg.
We’ve seen a similar narrative play out in Voyager with the Borg-Species 8472 war. That conflict served as Seven of Nine’s introduction, and it could be interesting if a similar story were in play here, given Seven’s involvement in the story. If the Borg are being attacked, that would also raise a number of questions for Starfleet: who is attacking the Borg? Why are they doing it? And could they be coming for the Federation next?
Theory #3: The Borg are aware that Picard is now a synth – and his synthetic status is part of the reason why they waited until now to make contact.
Picard awakened in a new synthetic body in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2.
The timing of the new Borg incursion is interesting, especially considering that they asked for Picard by name. Are they aware of his newfound synthetic status? And if so, could Picard’s transition to a new synthetic body be the reason why the Borg chose to launch their attack?
The Borg seek “perfection” through a synthesis of organic and synthetic components, and while Picard’s new synthetic body is a far cry from the Borg drones we’ve seen, the idea of an organic mind in a synthetic body isn’t a million miles away from that same basic idea. Although Picard’s body was said to be comparable in practically every way to his original one, synthetics can have enhanced abilities that allow them to easily overpower humans – and, as we’ve seen with Data on more than one occasion, they can outmatch individual Borg drones as well.
A Borg drone losing a fight against Data.
Perhaps the Borg want to re-assimilate Picard now that he’s synthetic. If the Collective is still reeling from the damage inflicted upon it by Admiral Janeway or if they’re on the losing side of a war, perhaps they hope to use fully-synthetic bodies like Picard’s to replace damaged or destroyed drones, or as cannon fodder on the front lines. There are many reasons why the Borg might be interested in synthetic technology, and that could explain their re-emergence.
Even if the Borg don’t plan to assimilate Picard or the Coppelius synths, the timing of their appearance is certainly interesting and there could be a connection.
Theory #4: The masked, hooded figure from The Star Gazer is not the real Borg Queen.
The Borg Queen?
The Borg Queen – the hooded figure who materialised on the bridge of the Stargazer – was absolutely terrifying, evoking feelings for me that the Star Trek franchise hasn’t hit in decades. The way this character was presented, with her shrouded face, flowing robes, monochromatic aesthetic, and blend of humanoid and decidedly non-humanoid mechanical features was simultaneously riveting and frightening!
This character was presented as the Borg Queen in the episode, and the Borg have no reason that we know of to lie about that. But at the same time, she was very different not only from how we’ve seen the Borg Queen in past iterations of Star Trek, but she also looked very different to clips we’ve seen in trailers and teasers for Season 2. Could it be that this character will be revealed to be somebody else?
Theory #5: The masked, hooded Borg is Admiral Janeway.
A Borgified Janeway as seen in Voyager.
This theory could apply whether the Borg on the Stargazer is the Queen or not! Admiral Janeway was assimilated by the Borg Queen as part of her plan to introduce a neurolytic pathogen into the Collective, and appeared to have been killed when the Borg Queen’s complex exploded. But is there a way she could have survived?
Her assimilation could have been a turning point for the Borg. She did untold damage to the Collective, but also potentially gifted them knowledge and information about future events and technologies that were decades ahead of their time. Just like the Borg once chose Captain Picard to become Locutus – their “spokesperson” or representative – perhaps they might have chosen Admiral Janeway to fill a similar role during this latest incursion. Admiral Janeway could even have been incorporated as part of the Borg Queen.
Theory #6: The season will end on a cliffhanger.
Because Seasons 2 and 3 went into production back-to-back, that made me wonder if they might form one continuous story – or if the final act of Season 2 might set up the story for Season 3. Star Trek has a long history of season-ending cliffhangers, such as The Best of Both Worlds in The Next Generation, Equinox in Voyager, and Such Sweet Sorrow in Discovery, to give just three examples.
Something in The Star Gazer could be relevant, though. If the story we’re going to see is all about restoring the correct timeline and undoing whatever damage has been done, then assuming Picard and co. succeed in their objective… won’t that place them back on the bridge of the Stargazer just as it’s about to self-destruct? If that’s the case, maybe it won’t happen this season and will instead be the finale of Season 3, with Season 2 ending on a cliffhanger at the story’s halfway mark.
Theory #7: By restoring the timeline, Picard – and everyone aboard the Stargazer – will die.
The USS Stargazer self-destructs.
As far as we know based on what’s been teased and shown off in various clips and trailers, a big part of the storyline this season will be undoing whatever damage was done in the 21st Century and restoring the true timeline. But if that happens, and the timeline is fully restored, that means that Picard, Captain Rios, Dr Jurati, and Seven of Nine will be on board the USS Stargazer when it self-destructs. Raffi and Elnor will be aboard the USS Excelsior in the same moment – and their ship could be destroyed as well.
If this story turns into a two-season arc, perhaps the final episode of Season 3 – which is rumoured to be the end of the show entirely – will see Picard and the crew restore the timeline, only to spend their final seconds aboard the Stargazer before it’s destroyed. This would be a bittersweet ending – to say the least!
Theory #8: In the changed timeline, Picard is no longer a synth.
Picard in the new timeline.
The circumstances leading to Picard becoming a synth seem like they’re unique to the prime timeline. The mission to Coppelius, the development of synths in secret by a small group of cyberneticists, and the way in which Picard befriended synths from Data to Soji all contributed to his “rebirth” in a new synthetic body at the end of Season 1. It’s not impossible for something similar to have happened in the alternate timeline in which he now finds himself… but I’m not sure how likely it is, either.
This could be an interesting inclusion – Picard was dying due to an unnamed brain condition, and if he isn’t a synth in the new timeline, he may not have very long left before he succumbs. This could add a timer to his new mission – if he can’t figure out a way to restore the proper timeline, it could cost him his life, and if he dies, it may never be possible to “save the future.”
Theory #9: The USS Stargazer will make an appearance.
The original USS Stargazer.
Okay, technically the USS Stargazer has already appeared, but not in the way I expected! Captain Rios is (or was) in command of a new USS Stargazer, and not only that but he had a model of the original vessel in his conference room! So that’s it. Theory confirmed, everybody can move on to the next one!
Just kidding. The inclusion of a brand-new USS Stargazer brings the ship and its legacy back to the fore. Picard himself commented in The Star Gazer that the original vessel was his first command, and as far back as Season 1 we had a reference to his time in command through the character of Dr Benayoun. All of these things could be leading to some bigger role for the original USS Stargazer – and with a story that seems to include time travel and a strong focus on Picard’s own personal history, a flashback or even a visit to the ship could be on the agenda!
Theory #10: Q is not responsible for changing or damaging the timeline.
Q.
Right now, this theory feels like it’s on thin ice! But I don’t believe it’s been debunked just yet, so we’ll keep it on the list for now. As the USS Stargazer self-destructed, Picard awoke back at his vineyard – but in a different timeline, one that seemingly has seen a “totalitarian state” rise on Earth. Q appeared almost immediately, and given his abilities, changing the timeline is something he’s more than capable of doing.
But I’m not convinced – at least, not yet. What would Q’s endgame be if he did change the timeline? Q has often been challenging and even adversarial, but as I’ve argued in the past, the role of an out-and-out villain doesn’t suit him nor describe his past appearances in Star Trek. I feel that there must be more to the story – after all, we can’t have had the entire premise explained before the first episode even aired, can we?
Picard and Q have a complex relationship.
Q has previously seen himself as a friend, guide, and ally to Picard – even though the feeling is clearly not mutual! But even if Q wanted to hurt Picard or get back at him, would he do it in this manner? Would he completely change and even erase centuries’ worth of history for the sake of one person? There are a million ways that Q could mess with Picard without changing literally the entire timeline.
There are also other factions who might want to change the timeline for their own purposes. Last season’s antagonists, the Zhat Vash, are just one possible candidate. In short, I think there could be more to Q’s role than we’ve been led to believe, and that he may not be responsible for whatever change or damage has been done.
I have a longer article that goes into more detail about this theory that I wrote before the season premiere, and you can find it by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #11: Q shielded Picard and the crew from changes to the timeline.
Q with Picard in one of the pre-season trailers.
One way in which Q could be involved would be to have protected Picard – and his new crew – from changes to the timeline. There are many reasons why he might do this, and it could apply regardless of whether Q changed the timeline himself or not. If the entire timeline has been changed going back centuries, there has to be a reason why Picard and the crew of La Sirena are seemingly the only ones unaffected – and one explanation for that could be “Q’s magic.”
This would be in line with how we’ve known Q to operate. Episodes like Tapestry and All Good Things saw him use his powers to place Picard in an alternate life while retaining his original memories, and to move between three different time periods. Such a power is something we know Q can use, and it would explain two key things: how Picard and the crew of La Sirena remained unaffected, and how Q is involved in the story.
Theory #12: Who is responsible for damaging the timeline, then?
Did the Borg do it?
If Q isn’t the one who changed the timeline, the obvious question that raises is “who did it?”
In theory, it could be any one of a number of different Star Trek factions. We’ve seen the Klingons having access to time travel in the early 25th Century, for example, in the Voyager episode Endgame, and various time travel stories and stories depicting powerful alien races could all theoretically yield suspects. But considering what we know about Star Trek: Picard specifically, in my view the main suspects are as follows:
The Borg. The Borg could be one of the season’s main antagonists after their emergence in The Star Gazer, and we’ve seen in past iterations of Star Trek that they can travel through time.
The Zhat Vash. While the Zhat Vash may not have been shown to possess time travel tech, they were the primary antagonist last season, and arguably were not defeated in the Season 1 finale.
How about the Zhat Vash?
The super-synths. The super-synths from the Season 1 finale are a wildcard; we don’t know much about them except that they seem to be technologically powerful. Travelling back in time might be on their agenda – but erasing the prime timeline could result in the erasure of the Coppelius synths.
The Romulan government or the Tal Shiar. With or without the support of the Zhat Vash, the Romulan government could have taken action against the Federation in response to the events of Season 1.
There are undoubtedly other Star Trek factions who could be implicated, and if we had a free choice we could suggest the likes of the Dominion or the Sphere-Builders. But I think those are far less likely when considering the elements Picard has brought on board.
Theory #13: The loose ends from Season 1 will be tied up.
Will we learn Narek’s fate?
The Star Gazer already crossed off two things from the list of Season 1 leftovers! Dr Jurati’s legal status was clarified, as was her relationship with Captain Rios. There are still a number of points that I’d like to see addressed before the season ends, though, as Season 1 unfortunately left quite a lot of story on the table thanks to a rushed and underwhelming finale.
Here are the main ones:
What will become of the synths on Coppelius, and will they have to be relocated for safety?
Did Starfleet attempt to visit Aia and shut down the beacon at the centre of the Zhat Vash’s prophecy? Leaving it out in the open seems dangerous.
Will Starfleet contact the super-synths and attempt to make peace or convince them that they pose no threat?
The Artifact’s resting place on Coppelius.
Why did Bruce Maddox go to Freecloud?
With the Zhat Vash plot exposed, what will become of their crusade against synthetic life?
Did Federation-Romulan relations suffer as a result of the Zhat Vash’s attack on Mars and attempted attack on Coppelius?
What happened to Narek after he was captured by the Coppelius synths?
Who controls the Artifact and what will happen to the surviving ex-Borg?
Theory #14: Laris will join Picard’s mission back in time.
Laris in The Star Gazer.
I feel a bit sorry for Zhaban, who died off-screen in between Seasons 1 and 2. But with Picard and Laris growing closer and having a complicated relationship, I don’t think she’ll just be left behind as she was last time. Orla Brady, who plays the character, is now credited as one of the main cast, so I think we’ll see a lot more from her this season.
Trailers and teasers seem to show that Picard and the crew of La Sirena from Season 1 are unaffected by the changes to the timeline. Perhaps Laris will be similarly unaffected and will be able to reunite with Picard – or maybe Picard will have to ask Q to snap his fingers and bring her back to him. With a mission back in time on the agenda – and possible Zhat Vash or Romulan involvement – Laris could be an important ally to bring along.
Theory #15: The Federation is responsible for creating the Borg.
The Borg vessel using a transporter-weapon on the USS Stargazer.
This is a total wildcard, but I’m just throwing it out there!
The Borg Queen – and the Borg in general – appear to have a fascination with humanity and with Picard. Could it be that the explanation for that is that the Federation and/or humanity are somehow responsible for their creation? With time travel on the agenda, it’s not impossible to imagine a scenario in which the progenitor of the Borg – perhaps even the Queen herself – is able to travel back in time, founding the Collective.
Nanites used by the Control AI.
The idea that the Federation is responsible for creating its own worst nightmare could be an interesting one if executed well, as could the cyclical nature of such a story. It would have to be handled in just the right way to avoid treading on the toes of previous Borg stories, but it feels like a lot of the pieces exist for this theory to seem plausible. The return of the Borg, the inclusion of Q, and even the talk of Picard and humanity needing to pay a “penance” could all be connected.
Discovery Season 2 ran a story with the Control AI that could have also been a Borg origin story. Was it known as early as 2018-19 that Picard wanted to tell a story like this, and if so, could that explain why the Control storyline ended the way it did? I have a write-up of Discovery’s abandoned Borg origin story that you can find by clicking or tapping here.
So those theories are new or saw movement this week.
To keep the theory list easier to manage and update, I’ll recap all of the other theories that are still in play. These theories saw little or no movement in The Star Gazer, but remain possible.
Theory #16: At least one character from The Next Generation will make an appearance.
The cast of The Next Generation in Season 1.
With the return of Guinan and Q, as well as Voyager’s Seven of Nine, there are already a lot of returning characters in Picard Season 2! But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for a well-placed cameo or two, or even an episode like Season 1’s Nepenthe that steps away from the main story to revisit classic characters. We could even have a bit of fun with some alternate timeline versions of them!
There are so many characters from Star Trek’s past that I would love to spend more time with; listing them all here would be impossible! But if Picard is to end with Season 3, as some outlets have been reporting, it would be fantastic if the crew of The Next Generation could reunite one last time.
I have a list of possible character crossovers that I wrote back in 2020, before we got to see any teasers or trailers, and you can find it by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #17: Guinan will be aware of the shifting timelines.
Picard and Guinan in The Star Gazer.
The pre-season trailer and clips of Guinan all seemed to be taken from the sequence in The Star Gazer in which she and Picard shared a drink and discussed his love life. That could be Guinan’s sole appearance, but it’s also possible that she could have a role to play later on in the story.
The Next Generation Season 3 episode Yesterday’s Enterprise showed us that Guinan has an ability to perceive changes to the timeline. She can’t always put her finger on exactly what’s changed, but she is more likely than anyone else to be aware that something has changed. Given the similarities between the Yesterday’s Enterprise situation and what seems to be going on this season, perhaps Guinan will be aware of what’s happened and will be able to advise Picard.
Theory #18: Romulans are spying on Earth in the 21st Century… and could be time-travelling Zhat Vash.
A young boy encounters a Romulan or Vulcan.
In the third trailer, a young boy wearing what seemed to be 21st Century clothing was seen encountering a Romulan or Vulcan. If the Zhat Vash are involved in the new season’s story somehow, perhaps this individual is a Zhat Vash operative. This could confirm that the Zhat Vash were able to travel through time, or send a message back in time to their 21st Century counterparts. The Romulans had achieved interstellar flight centuries earlier, so travelling to Earth to spy or place operatives seems plausible for them.
Of all the scenes we’ve glimpsed so far from Season 2, the one with the young boy and the Romulan or Vulcan is the one that I’m least sure about! It doesn’t seem to fit naturally into a story about the Borg, Q, and time travel… but this is one theory that could make sense, and would connect to the theory above about Q not being to blame.
Theory #19: The Vulcans are on Earth in the early 21st Century… as stated in Discovery Season 4.
A meeting of senior Federation and allied officials in Discovery Season 4.
Another theory about the unnamed Romulan or Vulcan is tied into the Discovery Season 4 episode The Galactic Barrier. This could easily be a complete overreaction to a throwaway line, but at the beginning of the episode, the enigmatic Federation leader Dr Kovich stated that Vulcans were on Earth for decades prior to official first contact taking place.
This one line could be a reference to Carbon Creek, an episode of Enterprise that saw Vulcans crash-land on Earth in the 1950s. But the timing seems odd given the scene glimpsed in the Picard Season 2 trailers! If the character seen above is a Vulcan, perhaps there will be a connection of some kind between Discovery and Picard.
Theory #20: Picard and the crew will have to actively trigger World War III to save the future.
World War III soldiers as glimpsed in Discovery Season 2.
Although the Bell Riots are the main event of 2024 that we know about in Star Trek’s internal timeline, the 21st Century was arguably dominated by another event: World War III. The war may have kicked off as early as 2026 (as suggested in The Original Series) and concluded by the mid-2050s as seen in First Contact. The “post-atomic horror” that followed was the backdrop for Q’s trial in Encounter at Farpoint.
World War III is integral to Star Trek because without it, it’s hard to see how warp drive would’ve developed and how humanity would’ve made peaceful first contact with the Vulcans. Just like the end of the Second World War brought about major technological and societal changes that ultimately made the world a better place, Star Trek’s World War III is integral to the events that led to the founding of the Federation. If it were prevented, the timeline would change dramatically.
So my theory is that the point of divergence is the outbreak of World War III – meaning that it will fall to Picard to trigger one of the worst wars in human history in order to save the future. Talk about a moral dilemma! You can find a full write-up of this theory by clicking or tapping here.
Theory #21: The “totalitarian state” will be run by Khan and the augments.
Picard in the alternate timeline.
The alternate timeline that is established in Picard Season 2 will see the Federation replaced by a “totalitarian state.” This faction appears to be superficially similar to the Terran Empire from the Mirror Universe (though I hope not too similar, as I’m not the biggest Mirror Universe fan!) At the very least, this faction is not as genteel as the Federation and may be governed in an autocratic, dictatorial style.
Based on his appearances in The Original Series and The Wrath of Khan, we know that this is how Khan governed – or intended to govern – when he held power. It’s possible, then, that the totalitarian state that we’ve glimpsed in the trailers and teasers is led or inspired by Khan, and may be a society in which augmented humans hold power.
This could be supported by the introduction of a new member of the Soong family – played by Brent Spiner. The Soongs were known to have researched and studied human augmentation prior to the 22nd Century. Augmentation could also explain how Picard’s unnamed brain condition hasn’t killed him yet if he isn’t a synth in this timeline.
Theory #22: There will be a connection between the augments and Strange New Worlds.
One of the few things we know about Strange New Worlds at this early stage is that there will be a character named La’an Noonien-Singh. This new character seems to be related in some way to the iconic villain Khan, and if Khan or Khan-inspired augments play some kind of a role in the “totalitarian state,” perhaps that will set up a connection – or even a crossover – between Picard Season 2 and Strange New Worlds.
Theory #23: The “totalitarian state” is an isolationist power.
A portrait of the alternate timeline version of Picard.
Rather than being one part of a Federation, or the conquering force behind an Empire, it seems possible based on what we’ve seen so far that the “totalitarian state” is only comprised of humans on Earth. This could mirror Discovery’s isolationist Earth in the 32nd Century, and it would be interesting to look at the state of the galaxy if humanity remained isolationist and refused contact with other races. There could also be an allegory about some of our current political movements.
It will be very interesting to learn more about this faction. Who exactly it is, how it rose to power, and what role the alternate timeline version of Picard played in its power structure are all open questions at this stage, and I’m very curious to see how it will all unfold!
Theory #24: There will be some kind of crossover with Star Trek: Discovery.
The USS Discovery in the Season 4 episode Anomaly.
One thing that I find a little odd right now is the scheduling of Picard and Discovery. For three weeks, the two shows will be broadcast on the same day, which doesn’t make a lot of sense when you consider that 1) they’re shows with relatively short seasons, and 2) Paramount+ is a streaming platform. Does that mean there’s a glimmer of hope for some kind of larger-scale crossover than either show has attempted so far?
I suspect I’ll be proven wrong on this one, and that it’s simply due to the inexplicable nonsense that we’ve come to expect from Paramount+ and parent company Paramount Global. Someone has evidently decided that “Thursday is Star Trek day,” and that’s inflexible no matter what. That still doesn’t explain why Picard Season 2 couldn’t be delayed by a measly three weeks, though – especially with the constipated international rollout of Paramount+ potentially meaning that Strange New Worlds will premiere in the USA weeks or months before Paramount+ arrives in Europe. But we’re off topic!
In short, one possible explanation for the odd scheduling could be because the two shows are planning some kind of crossover event; if so, I’d love to see it! And with time travel on the agenda, anything is possible, right? At the very least, I hope that Picard Season 2 will put in more of an effort to connect with Discovery than happened in Season 1.
Theory #25: There will be a reference to Gabriel Bell or Sanctuary Districts.
Gabriel Bell.
According to the trailers, Picard Season 2 will be paying a visit to the year 2024… but it isn’t the first Star Trek production to visit that specific year! If Picard Season 2 wanted to visit “the modern day,” why not pick 2022 – or 2021 or 2023? 2024 feels like it could hold some kind of significance, and though there have been a couple of other references to events in the 2020s, the Deep Space Nine third season two-part episode Past Tense has already taken us to 2024.
The biggest event that we know of took place in California – the Bell Riots. I don’t necessarily expect to see the Bell Riots depicted all over again, but we could get some kind of reference to Gabriel Bell – the man who led the riots. There could also be mentions of “Sanctuary Districts,” which were areas built to house homeless people that became overcrowded prisons. Given that Picard Season 2 is going to visit the California area, some kind of reference seems plausible.
Considering the current problem with homelessness in some American cities – including in California – it could be an interesting point of social commentary to revisit some of the themes tackled by Past Tense. That episode’s depiction of the 2020s feels a little too close for comfort to the state of the real world, in some respects!
Theory #26: The Borg Queen will be necessary for time travel.
The Borg Queen in one of the Season 2 trailers.
The Borg Queen who appeared on the Stargazer’s bridge may not be the same version of the character that Picard and the crew were seen tangling with in pre-season trailers. One theory I have about the Borg Queen is that she’s a time machine: she was physically present during the events of First Contact, and Borg cubes seem to have a special room with advanced technology specifically for the Queen.
My theory is that the Borg Queen has a unique ability to travel through time, and that this is why Picard and the crew of La Sirena will capture and/or use her. In some clips from pre-season trailers, we seem to see the Borg Queen aboard La Sirena, as well as La Sirena potentially using the “slingshot method” of time travel.
Theory #27: Dr Jurati will unleash the Borg Queen.
The Borg Queen and Dr Jurati.
Sticking with the Borg Queen, we’ve seen several teases and clips that seem to show her on the loose. If this version of the Borg Queen was originally a captive – as the trailers have seemed to suggest – the question of how she was able to break free raises its head. It’s of course possible that she’s smart enough and powerful enough to break out of her confinement on her own, but she might also be able to convince someone to help her.
Dr Jurati is the cyberneticist that we met in Season 1, and she has a real love for all things synthetic. She seems to know a lot about the Borg, including the status of the Collective, and as we saw in Season 1 her fascination and sympathy for synthetic life is a very powerful motivating factor for her – so much so that she was able to break out of her Zhat Vash brainwashing and didn’t harm Soji. Given all of that, perhaps the Borg Queen is going to be able to convince Dr Jurati to let her guard down or even loosen her restraints.
Theory #28: The captive Borg Queen is the same one from First Contact.
The Borg Queen in First Contact.
With the jump to a new timeline, it’s quite possible that First Contact didn’t play out as we remember it! But if there was a Borg incursion led by the Borg Queen, it’s possible that she was captured or her remains were reactivated after her death.
At the end of First Contact, the Queen’s organic components were destroyed by plasma coolant in the Enterprise-E’s main engineering, but her synthetic parts – including her skull and part of her spine – remained intact. Picard appeared to break them at the end of the film, signifying the “death” of the Borg Queen.
However, the Borg Queen returned on several occasions, most notably in Voyager, seeming to confirm that there are multiple Borg Queens, or that the Queen is able to move her consciousness into a new body at will. It’s possible, then, that the captive Borg Queen in Picard Season 2 was found elsewhere, such as aboard the Artifact. But it’s also possible that the Queen from First Contact was not totally dead, and has been revived or reactivated in the years following the events of the film.
Theory #29: Elnor will be assimilated.
Raffi and Elnor.
This theory stems entirely from a clip glimpsed in two of the recent trailers! In the image above, Elnor can be seen clearly injured with Raffi by his side. What’s interesting to note, though, is the eerie green light – green is a colour that has a strong association with the Borg. Could it be that Elnor has been attacked by the Borg Queen and is in the early stages of being assimilated?
That was definitely how I interpreted the clip on first viewing! I can’t tell if it’s taking place in La Sirena’s sickbay or somewhere else, though. Regardless… I hope that poor Elnor survives whatever’s happening to him! There are ways of surviving or reversing Borg assimilation, so there’s hope for Elnor even if the worst comes to pass.
So that’s it!
The Borg Queen.
Season 2 got off to an incredible and explosive start, and I have high hopes for an excellent and thoroughly enjoyable sci-fi story over the next nine weeks. The Star Gazer set up plenty of mysterious elements, some of which I have absolutely no idea about right now. Will Picard and Laris get together? Is the Borg Queen somehow Picard’s mum? I doubt it on the latter point (or it would be on the theory list) but you never know!
I always like to end these theory lists by saying that I do this just for fun. I enjoy writing, I enjoy Star Trek, and spending more time in this world is an escape and an enjoyable distraction. But for some folks, fan theories can be frustrating or unenjoyable, especially if they get very attached to a plausible-sounding theory that ultimately doesn’t pan out. I have no “insider information” and I’m not trying to claim that anything suggested above can, will, or must be part of Picard Season 2. I fully expect many of these theories to be debunked and for the season to go in wildly unpredictable directions!
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.
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, First Contact, and Voyager.
It’s been a long road… getting from there to here. Picard Season 1 wrapped up two years ago this month, but thanks to the pandemic it’s taken until now for the show’s second season to be ready. I said over and over again in late 2019 and early 2020 that Picard was the series I’d been waiting for for eighteen years! As a Trekkie who first fell in love with the franchise thanks to The Next Generation, returning to that era and spending more time with Jean-Luc Picard (and other familiar faces) will always be something that gets me excited!
The Star Gazer was beyond fantastic, and by the time the credits rolled I was sitting there with a big stupid grin plastered across my face. Though there were a couple of slightly clunky lines of expository dialogue, the episode was an incredible ride from start to finish, and I’m so pleased that the season’s pre-release marketing managed to keep such a big secret. I went into The Star Gazer completely unprepared for what I was about to experience – and what I found was one of the best episodes of live-action Star Trek that I’ve seen in a long time.
Picard and Laris relaxing at Château Picard.
Picard Season 1 had received some criticism for stepping away from the familiar 24th Century aesthetic that had defined the fifteen-year span that we call The Next Generation era, and the producers and designers have clearly taken all of that on board when crafting Season 2. The brand-new USS Stargazer recaptured that look, moving it along in subtle, incremental ways rather than throwing it out or trying to radically overhaul it. And both the CGI and practical designs used to bring that 24th Century look to life were absolutely perfect. Whether it was the design of the captain’s chair with its trademark cushion gap, the sleek lines of the helm and operations consoles at the front of the bridge, or the return to physical LCARS-based screens instead of an overreliance on holographic interfaces, this ship absolutely oozed “Star Trek” from every pore.
The fleet that assembled to face down the anomaly was also absolutely perfect. The Starfleet armada seen in the Season 1 finale was a copy-and-paste job, a large fleet but one comprised of only a single starship design. Again, the creators and producers took on board feedback provided by fans all around the world and changed things up, bringing to screen a smaller but far more visually impressive assortment of ships. The new design of the USS Stargazer is going to become iconic, I have no doubt, but there were also callbacks to past iterations of the franchise! I spied a Sovereign-class ship, a variant of the Excelsior-class, and at least one other that may have appeared either in Deep Space Nine’s Dominion War or possibly First Contact – alongside several new starships that I didn’t recognise. These ships all looked beautiful, with outstanding animation work used to bring them to life.
The beautiful and diverse Starfleet armada.
I don’t play Star Trek Online, so I don’t have the same connection that some fans of that game will have to some of the ships that appeared in the new fleet, but I’m so glad that the creatives reached out to the Star Trek Online team – the game even received a credit at the end of The Star Gazer. I’ve seen on social media that Star Trek Online has done a great job at designing ships – they’re one of the big in-game collectables – so it makes a ton of sense to work together on a project like this. The inclusion of Star Trek Online ships will mean a lot to fans of the game, and I’m so happy to see different parts of the Star Trek franchise linking up in this manner.
The biggest narrative beat that pre-release marketing had managed to conceal was the extent of the Borg’s return. Though the Borg vessel that subtitles identified as “Legion” was seen in the opening titles before it appeared on screen, the way in which the story unfolded was truly spectacular. Firstly, the emergence of a green-tinged anomaly set the scene. Green is a colour we’ve associated with the Borg since their early appearances, so this was the first hint that there could be Borg involvement. I also got just a hint – a feeling, maybe – that the anomaly had a vague resemblance to the beacon/portal that the super-synths used last season. Something about the edges of the anomaly, which were green here, looked at least slightly similar to the red portal seen in Et in Arcadia Ego, though that could just be a standard visual/CGI effect.
The USS Stargazer with the anomaly.
Next came the message being transmitted through the anomaly. It fell to Dr Jurati to clean up the message, which was in fact dozens of identical messages being broadcast all at once, but when she managed to isolate part of it, the voice that came through sounded eerily Borg-like. The distorted, mechanical voice had an inhuman quality, and reminded me of when we’ve heard the Borg send hails in past iterations of the franchise. No one acknowledged that in the moment, but it definitely felt like our second hint!
After Picard responded to the message, a large ship emerged. I’m glad it wasn’t a typical Borg cube; the design of this “Legion” vessel was phenomenal. The mechanical arms and insect-like design made it feel immediately threatening, like some kind of nightmarish monster, and its metallic grey exterior bathed in green light meant that we knew it was Borg long before Seven of Nine confirmed it.
The Borg vessel identified in subtitles as “Legion.”
I absolutely adore the design of this “Legion” ship. There were echoes of the Borg Queen’s complex that we saw in episodes like Dark Frontier and Endgame in the latter part of Voyager’s run, and although the design itself was new, it immediately felt “Borg” to me, and I would think that most longstanding Trekkies would have similar reactions. As with many Borg vessels, “Legion” is huge, towering over the entire Federation fleet that had been sent to meet it, employing a sense of scale that we seldom see in Star Trek outside of the Borg.
While we’re talking about designs, let’s also celebrate the brand-new USS Stargazer! The new ship borrowed from the original Constellation-class design which debuted in The Battle, a Season 1 episode of The Next Generation, but evolved it and took it forward. The familiar saucer-plus-four-nacelles design is still present, but the ship incorporates a number of aesthetic elements seen on vessels like the Prometheus- and Sovereign-classes. Not only that, but it shoots forward beyond those to feel like a brand-new design that’s even more highly advanced than those ships, both of which are now 25 years behind the times!
A front view of the new USS Stargazer.
It’s wonderful that the creative team was able to build new sets for the Stargazer instead of relying on redresses of Discovery’s. On re-watching Et in Arcadia Ego, for example, the bridge of the USS Zheng He is noticeable as Discovery’s bridge – the captain’s chair in particular. So to see a brand-new set making full use of 24th Century design elements was absolutely fantastic. As mentioned, I loved the return to LCARS screens in place of holographic interfaces, and the Stargazer’s bridge felt like what I’d expect and want to see from the bridge of a Starfleet ship of this new era.
There were new uniforms to accompany the new ships and other aesthetic changes, but they were similar enough to last season’s design that I didn’t feel the change was too obtrusive. I had placed the Picard Season 1 designs on my list of my favourite Starfleet uniforms, and this new variant keeps most of the aesthetic elements that I found most appealing about them.
Raffi sporting the gold variant of the new uniforms.
When I first saw the new uniforms shown off in a couple of promotional images, I wondered if they might’ve been a dress variant; they seemed to employ a style that didn’t seem out-of-place when compared to The Next Generation’s dress uniforms, and the fact that the couple of promo images that I saw seemed to feature officers at Starfleet Command could’ve meant that they weren’t the usual uniforms! But it seems that this design has been widely adopted by Starfleet as their main uniform as of the year 2400 (or is it 2401?)
Strange as it may sound, I actually get a bit of a Lower Decks vibe from the uniform jackets. I doubt that was intentional, and the idea of a uniform jacket over an undershirt is something we’ve seen going all the way back to The Wrath of Khan’s “monster maroon” uniforms! The mostly-black affair with coloured shoulders to denote division is neat, and it’s perhaps Star Trek’s most commonly-seen uniform design, having been seen in several seasons of Deep Space Nine, all of Voyager, and the film Generations. The Season 1 uniforms updated that basic concept, and the Season 2 uniforms feel like another iterative step from the same starting position.
The blue science variant as worn by the USS Stargazer’s communications officer.
Of course, having dedicated all of this time to talking about the Borg, the Stargazer, and new Starfleet uniforms, we’re not actually going to be spending a lot of time with them – at least as things stand! So let’s take a look at the episode’s story – because I think it’s one of the strongest season-openers in the Star Trek franchise.
Last season, I wrote that Remembrance was almost certainly the strongest premiere episode of any Star Trek show. It probably even eclipsed Emissary – the premiere of Deep Space Nine – which had been the previous high-water mark. Remembrance was a slow-burn episode with some fast-paced moments. It kicked off the story, but it didn’t introduce every character or every narrative thread, and it played its cards close to its chest. The Star Gazer, in contrast, started with a bang! The sequence at the beginning of the episode was explosive and action-packed, and really gave us a taste of what was to come.
The opening shot of the episode.
The action then jumped back by 48 hours, and it was here that we slowed down and got more of those Remembrance vibes. Picard and Laris at the vineyard, a trip to Starfleet Academy, Picard’s dreams or reminiscences about his mother… all of those slower-paced moments felt great, and stood in stark contrast to the thrilling conflict with the Borg that bookended the episode.
I don’t want to compare The Star Gazer and Remembrance and try to say which was better. I don’t think there’s an answer to a question like that – as with other “which was better” questions in Star Trek, the answer to me is that they’re both fantastic in their own ways and both represent different kinds of stories. There’s a time when I want the slower pace of a story like Remembrance, just like there are times when I want other slower episodes or films. Then there are times where I want action and excitement like The Star Gazer delivered, and I don’t think it’s fair to say “this one was better than that one.” Both season openers do what they do exceptionally well, and trying to choose between them is always going to be something subjective. Not only that, but the answer will depend on what I’m in the mood for at a given moment!
Sparks flying and a phaser blast during the action-packed episode.
In terms of The Star Gazer itself, the episode naturally put Picard at its centre, but all of the other main cast members got something to do. The only character who felt somewhat off to one side was Soji, who seemed to be taking part in some kind of diplomatic mission. I couldn’t tell if her Federation emblem combadge – which, by the way, is an awesome concept – means that she’s working for the Federation directly, or whether her mission to the planet Raritan IV was on behalf of the synths from Coppelius.
The callback to the Deltans – a race not seen since The Motion Picture over forty years ago – was a neat one, and it was nice to see them make a return. Like the reference to the Kzinti last season, Picard is drawing on some of the lesser-known parts of Star Trek’s canon. It’s possible that Soji is looking for a permanent home for the synths; she mentioned that “we” – i.e. she and someone else or a group – had been touring the galaxy since the ban ended, and with the unclear status of the Zhat Vash and Romulan attitudes to synths, it’s at least possible, in my opinion, that the synths might’ve had to leave Coppelius in order to keep themselves safe.
Soji and the Deltans.
After their adventures with Admiral Picard, and the discovery of what really happened during the attack on Mars and aboard the USS Ibn Majid, both Raffi and Rios have rejoined Starfleet. Raffi’s last name – Musiker – was heard aloud for what I believe is the first time, which was pretty neat, and I like the way that Starfleet appears to have accepted them both. Both characters had fallen quite far as a result of what happened to them, but being proven right in Raffi’s case and discovering the truth for Rios seems to have settled them both, and set them on a pathway to rejoining the organisation.
In that sense, both characters have had comparable arcs across the series so far – with significant events taking place in the year or so of time that passed off-screen! In both cases, though, seeing them doing well, feeling stable, and having jobs with responsibility that they could take pride in was incredibly sweet; we saw both at such a low ebb, at points, that it feels fantastic to see how the events of Season 1 ultimately led to something positive for both of them.
Captain Rios and Commander Musiker spoke very briefly.
Dr Jurati’s role is a little less clear; she was wearing a similar Federation emblem to Soji and was clearly working with her as part of her synth-adjacent mission, but in what capacity I’m not sure. She doesn’t seem to have continued to work with Dr Soong building new synths, and the question of whether it’s even possible to continue to build synths without Data’s neurons wasn’t addressed – and may not be any time soon.
Dr Jurati probably got the least successful lines of dialogue in The Star Gazer – her scene at the bar with the unnamed Deltan was very heavy on exposition. Such lines are necessary sometimes, though, and we did get a fair amount of information about Dr Jurati and Rios having broken up and how she’s not in legal jeopardy for killing Dr Maddox, both of which were open questions as the new season began. Given the time-jump (and just how long it’s been in between seasons for casual viewers who may not remember everything that happened) I guess some exposition was inevitable, and it was a short enough conversation to be inoffensive.
Dr Jurati at the bar.
When Dr Jurati and Rios were together on the bridge of the Stargazer, I didn’t really feel the whole “never speak to me again” vibe that she and Soji had just been discussing. Santiago Cabrera and Alison Pill have great chemistry together, but in their moments together on the bridge leading up to the Borg or “Legion” message being received I didn’t really buy that they’ve just been through what sounded like an acrimonious split. Of course it’s possible for couples who have broken up to work together and maintain a level of civility and professionalism – but this seemed to be more than just that; they felt rather like friends. Perhaps it’s teeing up something that will be featured later in the season!
Is it a nitpick to ask why Captain Rios asked Dr Jurati to decode the message instead of giving the Stargazer’s literal communications officer time to do her job? I guess it probably is! And I liked the way the scene unfolded, with Dr Jurati clambering across the bridge in a very non-Starfleet way – still feeling the effects of the drinks she’d been having at the diplomatic reception! The way she cleared up the message and was able to pull out an intelligible voice was pure Star Trek, and reminded me of similar scenes with characters like Uhura and Worf in past iterations of the franchise. The only difference was we got to see a fairly detailed look at what she was doing this time, thanks to a holographic display.
Dr Jurati decoding the message from “Legion.”
Elnor joining Starfleet reminds me of the Nog storyline in Deep Space Nine, and I think it has potential. It certainly wasn’t a direction that I was expecting for his character, but it definitely beats returning to Vashti with the nuns – both as a story beat and, I’m sure, from Elnor’s point of view too! Being the first of his race to enlist could pose unique challenges – particularly in light of the difficult relationship between the Federation and the Romulan Empire/Romulan Free State following the attacks on Mars and Coppelius – and it will be interesting to see if we learn much more about his decision to apply to the Academy, what role he sees for himself in Starfleet, and how his studies at the Academy are progressing in the episodes that lie ahead. Nog found Academy life difficult, at first, as a Ferengi; there’s scope for an interesting story about a clash of cultures, perhaps.
Nog’s journey from petty thief to Starfleet officer was one of the best character arcs in Deep Space Nine – and in all of Star Trek, certainly up to that point in the franchise’s history. Elnor doesn’t start from quite such a lowly place, but it still feels like development for his character. Elnor was occasionally comedic in Season 1 – thanks in no small part to his rather sheltered and unique upbringing – but going to Starfleet Academy and learning new skills could set him up for having more to do in Season 2.
Cadet Elnor.
The only character who arguably regressed at the start of Season 2 was Seven of Nine. She hadn’t fallen back to her Voyager characterisation (thank goodness), but she was definitely back in her role as a Fenris Ranger; a vigilante operating outside of Starfleet’s jurisdiction and with much of the same passion – and anger – that we saw in Season 1. After the mission to Coppelius, I might’ve expected her to be working with the ex-Borg; there were still a number of survivors after the Artifact landed on the planet, and without Hugh or Soji they don’t really have an advocate. Seven of Nine seemed to be moving toward that role at times in Season 1, particularly in episodes like Broken Pieces and Et in Arcadia Ego – but if she did spend time with the xBs, that part of her life seems to be over.
With the Borg returning in what seems to be a pretty major way, there’s scope for the story to return to the Artifact and the xBs. The question of what happened to them is an interesting one that I’d be happy to see explored, and we now also have the idea of Starfleet using Borg technology in their new ships. That particular plot point has already proven to be very important, and I wonder whether we’ll go into more detail about that at some point this season.
Seven of Nine watching the Borg ship emerge.
When I first saw First Contact at the cinema in 1996, the Borg Queen was certainly a villain that I found intimidating. But whether it was in First Contact or her appearances in Voyager, I never had quite the same visceral, fearful reaction as I did to her appearance in The Star Gazer. The cloaked, hooded figure, dressed all in black, was absolutely terrifying, and the designers deserve so much credit for bringing a completely new style to this character. After more than thirty years as a Trekkie, I love that the Star Trek franchise can still evoke such reactions from me – even when returning to themes and characters we’ve seen before. There was something of the Grim Reaper in this robed design, and I think it combined with the mechanical elements to create a truly scary presentation.
The Borg work so well as villains because of how oversized, overpowered, and unstoppable they seem – and The Star Gazer punched us in the face with all of those things. The scale of the “Legion” ship, as previously mentioned, and its design were big parts of that, but the way the Borg Queen herself appeared – how her transporter beam could cut through the shields with ease, depositing her on the bridge, and then how she used her mechanical tentacles to seize control of the ship – all of these things ramped up the fear factor, and for the first time really since Enterprise’s second season episode Regeneration I felt that our heroes were in real danger from the Borg.
The Borg Queen.
Mechanical tentacles are new for the Borg Queen, but they make perfect sense. The Borg are organic-machine hybrids, so giving them abilities and tools that humanoids wouldn’t have is perfectly logical – when you think about it, it’s surprising we haven’t seen something like it before! The look of the Queen’s appendages reminded me of oversized assimilation tubes – the kind we’d often see shooting out of Borg drones’ hands or wrists to assimilate unlucky crew members. And that makes sense given what the Queen was doing – she was basically trying to assimilate the ship.
In the days ahead I’ll have to write up some theories about what’s going on with the Borg. It was implied that the Collective has been weakened – perhaps as a result of the actions of Admiral Janeway in the Voyager series finale, but that wasn’t made explicitly clear. It seems as if the Federation has been able to observe or spy on the Borg since the events of Endgame, at least enough to know that they’re in a weakened state, but whether there’s been any further Borg-Federation contact wasn’t clear either. Have we seen the first hints that the Borg might be on their last legs, though? That’s an interesting thought to consider…
The Borg vessel’s transporter beam attack on the USS Stargazer.
There was definitely something amiss with the Borg, and not just their claim to wish to speak with Picard or to join the Federation – a ludicrous idea, surely? I got the sense that this was some kind of desperation play on the Borg’s part, not only because of what their message said, but because of the way the Borg Queen was said to be stunning, rather than killing, the crew of the Stargazer. Whatever she was trying to do, she wanted to stop the security team interfering – but either lacked the will or the strength to kill them. Were they being stunned to be assimilated later? Or were they being stunned, not killed, as some kind of gesture of goodwill?
Even if we are dealing with a vastly weakened Borg Collective, they still possess technology that can outdo anything the Federation has. And we got a payoff, of a sort, to one of the big storylines from last season – the use of Borg “parts” and Borg technology. Apparently it was a bad idea to incorporate Borg tech into Federation ships… who knew?
Seven of Nine explained how the USS Stargazer has Borg-based technology.
There’s actually a very interesting real-world parallel here, and it’s one that harkens back to the original presentation of the Borg. As I wrote in my essay The Borg: Space Zombies a while ago, the Borg draw on many of the same ideas that inspired zombie fiction. The frightening idea at the core of an enemy like the Borg is our innate fear of losing ourselves and suffering a fate worse than death. Metaphorically, the Borg can be argued to represent an extreme form of brainwashing, something that here in the west we always accused the communists in the east of doing to their citizens. The Borg, created in the late 1980s at a time when Cold War jingoism had made a comeback, can be read as an American view of Soviet communists – brainwashed to all think alike, having no volition, no independence, and no freedom.
Here in The Star Gazer, we get to see how the Federation used Borg technology in their ships, and how that led to a “backdoor” for the Borg Queen to exploit. In recent years we’ve heard accusations levelled at companies like Huawei that they’re doing something similar. Popular social media app TikTok was even criticised for this, and there’s been a fear for the last few years of granting Chinese companies “too much” access to communications and technology here in the west. In the UK, for example, Huawei was recently denied the opportunity to construct the nation’s 5G mobile network, and another Chinese company was set to be replaced as an investor in a large nuclear power plant, with similar concerns being cited.
Moments like this draw on past and present socio-cultural phobias and anxieties.
This is Star Trek at its best – using a sci-fi lens to touch on (or at least glance at) real-world issues. The idea of foreign companies or agencies potentially having “backdoor” access to important infrastructure is a very contentious one, as governments try to balance the need for investment with their concerns about hacking and cyber-warfare. In this most recent depiction of the Borg, we got to see a very “Star Trek” take on this concept. The Borg can certainly be seen as a manifestation of western fears about communism, so to include them in this kind of story about hacking, cyber-warfare, and technological “backdoors” based on their technology is one I take an interest in!
The music in The Star Gazer is worthy of a mention! It included a number of familiar musical motifs and melodies from past iterations of the franchise. I heard parts of the familiar theme from The Next Generation as well as figures and stings from The Original Series and First Contact. The episode also made great use of classical music to open Soji’s reception, a funky jazz number to set the scene at Guinan’s bar, and a haunting rendition of the classic French ballad Non, je ne regrette rien in the moments before the Stargazer’s self-destruct sequence was activated.
Picard, moments before the destruction of the USS Stargazer.
Speaking of the self-destruct, was it odd that Captain Rios didn’t order the crew to abandon ship? With a ten-second countdown, maybe most of them wouldn’t have had time – and those on the bridge would have stayed regardless – but perhaps some of those down on the lower decks, if they were lucky enough to be near an escape pod, might’ve been able to escape if they’d heard the order. It’s a very minor point in some respects in the context of the story, but it struck me as odd that the order wasn’t given.
I did like, though, that Picard’s authorisation code was exactly the same as Kirk’s in The Search for Spock. That callback was a really neat one, and one that seems to confirm that all admirals – even newly-reinstated ones – have the authority to set a ship to self-destruct. As the flag officer, the destruction order fell to Picard, even though the Stargazer was under Rios’ command, which is another point of note.
The Borg Queen with her new tentacles.
The discussion in the conference room was a genuinely interesting one, showing different perspectives on the Borg. If we assume that the Borg are in a weakened state because of what happened in Endgame, this meeting could be years in the making. The question I have is one of timing – are the Borg making this move now, singling out Picard by name, because they know he’s now a synth? Perhaps that’s something to save for my next theory post!
Seven of Nine was arguing for attacking the Borg ship outright, whereas Picard and Dr Jurati were seemingly willing to hear what they had to say. For Picard, who had been aggressively anti-Borg during the events of First Contact, and who was still processing his Borg trauma in Season 1, this feels like a pretty big step. Perhaps he’s pushing his feelings down, trying to remain objective and level-headed, willing to give the benefit of the doubt, even for a second, to an old and very personal enemy. I’m not sure. I think it worked well, though, and this felt like the Picard we remember – he wouldn’t sanction exterminating an enemy while they asked for help. He couldn’t support the Federation’s decision to withdraw and stop helping the Romulans, and he wouldn’t consider firing first on the Borg here for the same fundamental reason.
Seven of Nine, Dr Jurati, Captain Rios, and Admiral Picard in the Stargazer’s conference room.
Picard’s other role the story was an interesting one. The setup for The Star Gazer used Picard’s lack of romantic entanglements during The Next Generation as its basis, asking the question: “why?” Why has Picard remained unattached throughout his life? Even going as far back as his time as an ensign, as shown in the episode Tapestry, Picard’s story mostly avoided sex and relationships – though he did strike up relationships with an officer under his command, Nella Daren, in the episode Lessons, with Anij in Insurrection, and of course came close with Dr Crusher.
It seems as though an exploration of Picard himself is going to be part of the story, figuring out why it is that he’s remained single and unattached throughout most of his life. We’ve seen Picard as someone dedicated to his work, but it seems as though The Star Gazer is suggesting there’s more to it than that. It would be very interesting if the answer was that Picard is asexual – perhaps even aromantic or on the aromantic spectrum – but I somehow doubt that’s the direction the story is going! It seems as though his unwillingness to commit to a relationship might be anchored to an event in his past, possibly something to do with his mother.
Picard’s mother, Yvette, seen in a dream.
It was this idea – of embracing a new relationship and learning to love – that Guinan called Picard’s “one final frontier yet to come.” At least part of Picard’s story is going to be tackling whatever this past trauma is and overcoming it. Laris seems to be waiting in the wings for him if he can get to that point, which is certainly an interesting development in and of itself! I’d assumed that Guinan must have been referring to time travel when we heard that line in one of the recent trailers, so it was interesting that The Star Gazer took things in a very different direction.
Guinan also said that this was one of the few things that she and Picard had never discussed. It was great to see her back in this kind of unofficial counsellor role; the shoulder to cry on for Picard as he considered the situation between himself and Laris. We’ve seen Guinan willing to listen and offer advice to many characters – from Wesley Crusher to Data – on subjects like romance, so she felt like a natural fit for this side of the story.
Picard talked with Guinan.
The one thing I’m trying to put out of my mind, speaking as someone who’s asexual, is the idea that Picard is going down a somewhat familiar path. By saying that everyone must want a romantic and presumably sexual relationship, and that if they don’t they must offer some reason or justification – such as past trauma – to explain themselves, some stories in this mould can feel a tad uncomfortable sometimes. It depends how it plays out, and of course I never say that any character must be openly made to be asexual or aromantic! But it’s a trope that some stories can fall into.
As I was struggling with my own asexuality, television shows like The Next Generation and others in the Star Trek franchise held such an appeal for me specifically because the characters didn’t seem to spend all day every day trying to hook up or have sex. The idea that a character like Picard could be “like me” was an appealing one then, and even though he had relationships and near misses over the course of the show’s run, there was a distinction between him and Captain Kirk in that respect, or with other characters like Riker who were much more forward in their romantic liaisons. I’m absolutely interested to see what happened in Picard’s past that might’ve dissuaded him from pursuing a relationship, though, and I think such a story could go far deeper than a potential relationship with somebody like Laris.
Picard with Laris.
As we saw in Season 1, Picard has a tendency to disappear from peoples’ lives. Whether it was Raffi, Elnor, the Romulans on Vashti, Hugh, or even Riker and Troi to an extent, Picard left them to their own devices when he encountered a problem he couldn’t solve; when his diplomatic skills failed him. We also saw as far back as The Next Generation that Picard kept most of his crew at arms’ length, trusting them but not being as close or friendly with them as Captain Kirk had been or as we’d see Captain Janeway be.
These things could be explained by a deeper dive into Picard’s past and his psyche. It could be connected to something in childhood – something to do with his mother. Or it could be something that’s tied to other events in his past, such as his time aboard the original USS Stargazer. We know that Dr Crusher isn’t going to appear in Season 2, so that seems to rule out the most significant event from the Stargazer that we know of – the death of Beverly’s husband Jack Crusher – but it’s certainly very interesting that the new season has brought back the name Stargazer. Is that a coincidence, or will there be some connection to the original ship?
Will Laris be a love interest for Picard going forward?
There’s a lot to unpack, and my amateur hour Freudian analysis won’t do the trick! We’ll have to wait and see how this side of the story plays out – or whether it will be sidelined as Picard has to deal with Q’s shenanigans!
Speaking of Q, his inclusion in The Star Gazer was small, coming right at the end, but it was one of my favourite moments in the entire story. The dynamic between Q and Picard has real nuance and depth that takes it far beyond a simple “good-guy-versus-bad-guy” conflict. Q, despite his attitude and provocations, often seems to act out of curiosity – and even, as I’ve theorised, to be helpful. In his own way, Q sees himself as Picard’s friend and ally – and while we’ve seen hints that that might change, I certainly hope that there’s more to Q than just being a straight villain during Season 2.
When Q was first teased sometime last year, I wrote a piece here on the website saying that his appearance can change at will. In that piece I argued that, although the Star Wars franchise and others were doing fun things with digital de-ageing, I didn’t see a need for it in Star Trek, and that an older Q was fine with me. But when I saw the de-aged face of Q standing behind Picard I almost lost my mind. It looked fantastic, and although Q soon aged himself up to catch up with Picard, those few seconds of digital de-ageing made such a tremendous impact on the episode.
The de-ageing of Q is one of my favourite moments in the whole episode!
As this kind of technology continues to become more accessible, the potential for using CGI characters or de-aged characters becomes practically limitless, as we’ve seen over in the Star Wars franchise with shows like The Book of Boba Fett. Q was absolutely the perfect character to use this technique with, because he can change his appearance in any way he chooses. It fits with his impish sense of humour, too, that he’d want to look older to match with Picard – so to see him appear as we last saw him and then voluntarily age himself up was the perfect way to use this complicated visual effect. I absolutely loved it – it was one of the moments that won the biggest smile from me in The Star Gazer!
There were plenty of smaller references and callbacks to past iterations of Star Trek. The Star Gazer crammed an awful lot into its fifty minutes – and I wonder if that’s because the jump to a different timeline and the mission back in time will mean that fewer such overt references will be possible in the episodes that lie ahead. The display at Starfleet Academy included a number of different familiar ships – and Raffi and Elnor were assigned to the USS Excelsior, which may be a new, refitted, or updated version of the ship first seen in The Search for Spock and later commanded by Captain Sulu.
Picard and Raffi by the starship displays – the USS Excelsior can be seen behind Picard.
The speech that Picard gave at the Academy felt like it was one he could’ve delivered at any time in The Next Generation, and really confirmed that he was back to his old self after a decade away from Starfleet and galactic affairs. I loved seeing his story in Season 1 – a story that shows us how heroes can fall, how depression can strike anyone, and how there is hope to find better days ahead. That story was a powerful one, and one absolutely worth telling. But this speech felt like it was drawing a line under that particular chapter of Picard’s life.
After his “rebirth” in a new synthetic body, Picard seems to have fully regained his passion for Starfleet, and while the whole Laris situation has definitely thrown him – as we saw through his conversation with Guinan – it was wonderful to see him getting back to his old self, enjoying his time with Starfleet again. Taking up a role as Chancellor of Starfleet Academy feels like the perfect next move for Picard in terms of his career, and again I felt this was handled perfectly within the story. Raffi said it was an excuse for Picard to get stuck into his work and ignore working on himself – but we all need things to do, sometimes, to distract ourselves! That doesn’t have to be the wholly negative thing it was presented as.
Back in uniform!
The Borg Queen’s intervention has completely changed things, though. Was it, as Seven of Nine suggested, simply an act of deception on the Borg’s part, using their technology to attempt to assimilate Federation ships in order to get back on their feet? Or is there something more going on? My gut says the latter – that we wouldn’t have heard from people like Dr Jurati, nor seen Picard willing to consider what the Borg had to say, if ultimately the story was going to be one of Borg deception and another attack on the Federation. But those questions are open right now, and the story could go in all manner of different directions from this point.
Though there can be mitigating circumstances, I’m never wild about a character being killed off-screen, which was unfortunately the fate that befell Zhaban. I don’t recall it being stated outright in Season 1 that he and Laris were married; I certainly didn’t get that impression. But if they were, it makes sense that he’d need to be shuffled out of the way to free up Laris and set up this romantic sub-plot and/or this dive into Picard’s past and personality. I would have liked to get a better goodbye with Zhaban, though, as he was an interesting character in his appearances last time.
Laris walking away from Picard.
I think we need to wrap things up – or I’ll never get anything else written! I adored The Star Gazer. It was the return to the world of Star Trek: Picard that I so desperately wanted, washing away the underwhelming end to Season 1 and setting the stage for what I hope will be a new and exciting story. It was dripping with nostalgia – but not so overloaded with it that it drowned out the plot. There’s a balancing act between doing something new and relying on what came before – and The Star Gazer nailed it.
There were so many fun callbacks and references to Star Trek’s past – not only from The Next Generation, but practically the entire franchise! I’m sure I’ve missed many of them, even after re-watching the episode a couple of times.
Picard in a new timeline…
In terms of the look, sound, and feel of The Next Generation-era of Star Trek, I cannot fault The Star Gazer. The diversity of ships, the inclusion of ships from Star Trek Online, the design of the Stargazer’s bridge, the familiar musical motifs, the LCARS screens and panels, even the angled walls to the ship’s hallways – all of it felt absolutely pure Star Trek, and I adored every second I spent with Picard and the crew.
The Star Gazer also set up a story of inner conflict for Picard – one that interests me and has me curious to learn more. What happened to him in the past; what shaped his life to bring him to this point? And is it about to be changed or meddled with somehow – either by Q or someone else? Why did he seem to hear his mother’s voice speaking to him through the Borg Queen moments before the Stargazer blew up? Was it because the Borg had assimilated his mind in the past and were trying to manipulate him… or is there some other connection that will be revealed?
I cannot wait for the next episode – titled Penance. After such a strong start, I hope it can reach the high bar that The Star Gazer has set. If the rest of the season is this good then we’re in for one of the best sci-fi adventures I’ve ever seen.
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.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Season 1, in particular the two-part episode Et in Arcadia Ego.
With Star Trek: Picard Season 2 approaching, I wanted to take a moment to step back to the Season 1 finale. Et in Arcadia Ego was the two-part ending to the show’s first season, and after the preceding eight episodes had masterfully and slowly built up an engaging story, it unfortunately ended in a way that was, at best, underwhelming. On this occasion I want to look back at Et in Arcadia Ego and ask “what went wrong?”
I think we can summarise the finale’s issues in a single word: rushed. The two parts of Et in Arcadia Ego were overstuffed with plot, partly as a result of the deliberately slow pace of the rest of the season, but also in part because of the decision to introduce new characters, a new faction, and whole new storylines at the last minute. As a result, Et in Arcadia Ego had to rush through far too much narrative in far too little time, leaving significant chunks of it on the table by the time the credits rolled on Part 2.
The final scene of Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2.
In my view, most of the damage was done in Part 1 and the first half of Part 2. By the time we got into Picard’s speech over Coppelius and his stint with Data in the digital afterlife, Et in Arcadia Ego picked up, and the issues with pacing and the editing of certain scenes abated. Those latter emotional sequences went a long way to salvaging the finale, and Picard’s time with Data – giving the character the proper send-off that he hadn’t got in Nemesis – meant that the story found a second purpose, one which I think many Trekkies appreciated.
There was also some fantastic acting in the second part of Part 2, with Evan Evagora, Michelle Hurd, Santiago Cabrera, and Jeri Ryan all putting in exceptional, deeply emotional performances as their characters dealt with the apparent death of Admiral Picard in different ways. The way Elnor broke down crying at the loss of his surrogate father figure is one of the most emotional moments in the entire season, and both Evagora and Hurd excelled in that moment.
A heartbreaking moment.
But as the credits rolled on Part 2, after Picard had laid Data to rest and been reborn in a new synthetic body of his own, I was left feeling that, despite the emotional high points as the finale drew to a close, the nicest thing I’d be able to say about Et in Arcadia Ego is that it was a mixed bag; an underwhelming end to what had been an otherwise excellent first season. At worst, I might even call the entire finale disappointing because of its underdeveloped characters and storylines that seemed to go nowhere.
The basic premise of Et in Arcadia Ego was interesting on the surface. After discovering that there are more synths than just Soji, we as the audience had been led to assume that they’re a peaceful civilisation who are being unfairly targetted by fanatical Romulan zealots. But instead we learn that the Zhat Vash were, in a sense, right. The beacon they discovered on Aia did warn of a powerful civilisation of super-synths who would murder organics, and not only that, but Soji’s evil twin Sutra planned to contact them. The synths turned from damsels in distress needing to be saved into a civilisation acting out of self-preservation, but nevertheless needing to be stopped from inflicting mass murder – or possibly even mass genocide – on the galaxy.
Soji’s “evil twin,” Sutra.
It fell to Picard to try to dissuade the synths, to show them that not every organic is hostile to them, and that if they would trust him – and trust the Federation to do the right thing – they would be safe. After a season in which the Federation was not painted in the best possible light this was a cathartic moment, and I understand what Et in Arcadia Ego was trying to do here.
Particularly in Part 2, Et in Arcadia Ego successfully hit some of those story beats, and the emotional high points surrounding Picard’s death, Data’s second death, and the desperate last stand over Coppelius felt great. In fact, I’d argue that the second half of Part 2 came close to rivalling the rest of the season in terms of the emotional side of its storytelling, and if we were looking at that part of the finale in isolation – or if the rest of the two-part story had been up to that level – we wouldn’t be having this conversation today!
Data in the digital afterlife.
On the technical side of things, before we get into story complaints, Et in Arcadia Ego was a very rushed, poorly paced episode. As a result of trying to cram several episodes’ worth of story into not enough runtime, there were some utterly ridiculous editing choices. At one point, Commodore Oh was stood on the bridge of her Romulan vessel, and appeared to speak a line to absolutely no one.
This line was very generic, too, and the entire scene – if we can be so generous as to call a clip that lasted a few seconds a “scene” – just came across as laughable, not intimidating or concerning. There were also a couple of places where two scenes were very poorly spliced together – at the beginning of Part 2, for example, a speech Picard made to Soji was heard only in voiceover, with Dr Jurati on screen silently watching the synths building their beacon.
Commodore Oh’s generic “evil villain” moment.
The gold makeup used for the Coppelius synths – Sutra in particular, as she was featured most prominently – was just awful. It looked like something out of The Original Series, and I don’t mean that in any way as a compliment. If I’d seen characters on The Original Series so poorly made-up I’d have written it off as a limitation of the medium at the time, and tried to get on with the story. Characters like Bele and Lokai from Let That Be Your Last Battlefield look similarly ridiculous by today’s standards, but with all of the improvements made over the last fifty years… I can’t excuse how poor practically all of the synths looked.
The problem of a lack of diversity in outdoor filming locations plagued Picard Season 1, but it came to a head in Et in Arcadia Ego because it was the finale. In short, the ten-episode season attempted to depict locations on Earth, including France and Japan, as well as the planets of Vashti, Nepenthe, Aia, and Coppelius using outdoor filming locations within a few miles of Los Angeles. And this was painfully obvious as the season wore on, leading Picard Season 1 to feel smaller and less visually interesting as a result. If Coppelius needed an expansive outdoor filming shoot, then other worlds could – and should – have been created on indoor sound stages if long-distance location shoots were out of the question.
Look, it’s California… oops, I mean Coppelius!
Both parts of Et in Arcadia Ego ruined the surprise appearance of a returning actor from The Next Generation. Brent Spiner’s role in Part 1 was telegraphed in the opening credits before his character had appeared on screen, but most egregiously the mistake was repeated in Part 2, where the return of Jonathan Frakes’ Acting Captain Riker was spoiled in the opening credits. The scene where Riker arrived at the head of a massive Starfleet armada to defend Coppelius was treated on screen like a huge surprise, but the fact that he was coming had been telegraphed in advance by the opening credits.
How difficult would it have been to credit special guest stars at the end instead of at the beginning? This also happened with Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine in the episode Absolute Candor earlier in the season – a character who appeared right at the end of the episode, in that case, and whose arrival was also treated as a surprise. For fans who don’t follow all of the ins and outs of Star Trek, the fact that any of these characters were coming back was supposed to be a total surprise, and both halves of Et in Arcadia Ego treated their returning guest stars in this way. But their unnecessary inclusions in the opening titles detracted from it. Riker’s arrival in particular felt far less impactful than it should’ve been; by the time the story reached the point of Picard standing alone against the Romulan armada, it was obvious that Riker was coming to save the day.
This shouldn’t have happened in the opening titles.
Speaking of the two fleets, the fact that both the Romulan and Starfleet armadas were comprised of a single starship design each seriously detracted from the way they looked. The copy-and-paste fleets were big, which was visually impressive at first glance, but the longer they remained on screen the more obvious it was that the CGI animators had literally copied and pasted each ship dozens of times.
Fleets seen in past iterations of Star Trek were almost always comprised of a variety of different starship types, and there was the potential to use this moment as fun fan-service, perhaps bringing back Romulan warbirds and scout ships from The Next Generation era, as well as Federation starship types like the Defiant-class, Sovereign-class, and Galaxy-class. Heck, Picard Season 1 had already made a brand-new CGI Galaxy-class model for the premiere, so it couldn’t have been too much extra work to include it here.
The Romulan and Federation fleets were copy-and-paste jobs and looked the worse for it.
As a final point on the technical side of things, I’m sorry to say that, despite a great performance as Soji across the rest of the season (and as Dahj in the premiere), Isa Briones was not convincing as Sutra, the central synth villain. Her performance was incredibly hammy, and while the character was written sufficiently well that her basic motivation – to protect the Coppelius synths from an outside attack – should have been understandable and even potentially sympathetic, the “I’m evil for no reason and I love it” performance was so bad that it detracted from the character.
Although Sutra being so easily shut down in Part 2 meant that the character as a whole felt like a waste, and was not the angle I would’ve wanted the show to take, in a way I was glad that we were spared too much more of what has to be the entire season’s single worst acting performance.
Sutra with Admiral Picard.
In terms of story, let’s talk about the big picture first of all before we get into smaller narrative complaints. The super-synths that Sutra and Soji planned to contact were so barebones as a faction that they don’t even have a proper name. Their “admonition” – i.e. the vision that the Zhat Vash encountered from their beacon – was superficially intimidating, and the mechanical tentacles that we saw approaching the beacon at the climax of the story likewise looked frightening… but without knowing more about this faction, it was difficult to remain invested in this story.
We didn’t know what the super-synths would’ve done had they arrived. Would they have sought to exterminate all organic life everywhere, or just in the vicinity of Coppelius? Having exterminated, would they have taken the super-synths to live with them in “dark space?” Was their offer to help even genuine or was it an elaborate trap to conquer the Coppelius synths and steal their technology? We have so many open questions, and because it seems that Star Trek won’t be returning to the super-synths any time soon, they’ll be left open and this aspect of the story will remain less than it could have been.
Some mechanical noodles were all we got to see of the super-synths.
In monster movies – which Et in Arcadia Ego’s super-synths were, to an extent, trying to emulate – we don’t always know everything about the monster. We might not know where Godzilla came from or why the Xenomorph in Alien is going on the rampage, but we at least have some perspective or frame of reference to understand why they should frighten or unnerve us – we’ve seen for ourselves how destructive and deadly the monster can be. The super-synths were barely glimpsed, and while their beacon was interpreted by the Zhat Vash as being dangerous, what we as the audience saw of it on screen was ambiguous at best. Because of that, the super-synths are more mysterious than frightening, and with no frame of reference to go on to showcase their level of technology, weapons, or danger, they’re less interesting and less frightening than they should’ve been.
During my first watch of Et in Arcadia Ego, I referred to the super-synths as the “Mass Effect Reapers” because of their similarities to a faction from the Mass Effect video game series. On re-watching the episodes, those similarities are really hammered home, even to the point where the vision contained in the Zhat Vash’s beacon and the beacon encountered by Commander Shepard in the first Mass Effect game contain striking visual similarities. I can’t believe that this is entirely a coincidence, and while I don’t want to accuse anyone of “ripping off” anyone else… it’s at the very least noteworthy that this aspect of the storyline of Et in Arcadia Ego – and thus of Picard Season 1 as a whole – is not original.
We could play a game called “Mass Effect or Star Trek: Picard?” with some of these sequences.
In the episode The Impossible Box, Narek walked Soji through a complicated series of steps to help her understand a dream she’d been having. His motive was to find out the location of her homeworld – Ghoulion IV or Coppelius. At the end of Soji’s dream, she looked up to the sky and saw two red moons and a lightning storm, leading Narek and Rizzo to conclude that they had enough information to locate Soji’s homeworld.
We subsequently learned that the Romulans had a fairly narrow search area and only needed to look within a few different star systems, so it seems reasonable that only a couple of pieces of information might be enough to go on if there aren’t that many possibilities. But when we finally reached Coppelius a couple of episodes later, the red moons were present – but where were the thunderstorms? This had been an absolutely essential part of the plot of The Impossible Box, yet the weather on Coppelius was sunlit and beautiful – some might say almost California-like. There were literally only two bits of information conveyed in The Impossible Box that Narek and Rizzo used to pinpoint Soji’s home planet… and one of them was completely disregarded in Et in Arcadia Ego.
This moment told us two things about Soji’s homeworld. Et in Arcadia Ego ignored one of them.
Speaking of being completely disregarded… what happened to poor Narek? I know Narek wasn’t everybody’s favourite character in Season 1, but I felt he was interesting as a character who didn’t fall into the obvious trap of being a clichéd “spy with a heart of gold” who falls in love with his target. Narek remained loyal to the Zhat Vash cause, even though his relationship with Rizzo was complicated and despite his feelings for Soji.
For Narek to simply be abandoned by the story of Et in Arcadia Ego is disrespectful – not only to actor Harry Treadaway, who had put in a great performance – but to us as the audience. We’d been following Narek’s story since the second episode of the season, and as he approached what should’ve been his moment of triumph, and then his moment of defeat, he just vanished from the story altogether.
This was the last we saw of Narek.
At the very least it would’ve been worth following Narek’s story to some kind of conclusion. I’d have liked to see how he reacted to Soji shutting down the beacon – would seeing that have finally broken his Zhat Vash brainwashing? Would he have tried to apologise to her and the rest of the synths? Or would he have stayed true to his mission even while being taken into custody by Starfleet or the synths?
We don’t know the answer to any of these questions, and while there is supposedly a scripted but unfilmed scene in which Narek was handed over to the Federation, that hardly seems like rock-solid “canon,” does it? Picard Season 1 didn’t actually feature that many characters in a big way, so for one of the principals to simply be dropped with no explanation midway through the finale is indicative of the fact that this two-parter had far too much narrative to cram into its runtime. It was poor, and whatever viewers might’ve thought of Narek and the earlier scenes and sequences in which he starred, getting some closure on one of the season’s most important characters was necessary.
Narek had been a major character throughout the season.
In an overstuffed story with some very serious themes, there were some very odd choices. Dr Jurati and Picard making jokes while launching La Sirena into orbit felt out-of-place, but thankfully that didn’t last very long. What did last a long time, though, in the context of the story, was the very odd campfire scene with Narek, Raffi, and Rios.
This scene was a complete waste of time. As the audience, we already knew what the Zhat Vash prophecy and philosophy was by this point, so re-telling it in a “ghost stories by the campfire” cliché was unnecessary fluff in an episode that simply didn’t have so much as a second to spare. Secondly, this scene messes with the timing of the entire episode. Narek seemed to be in a mad rush to attack the synths’ compound and stop their beacon, and if we’re to believe that Raffi and Rios had been persuaded too – which appears to have happened in a very short scene aboard La Sirena that really needed to be extended – then the characters themselves shouldn’t be wasting time camping out. It’s also the only scene in the entire episode to take place after dark, which was obviously done to make the campfire more visually dramatic… but the rest of the story seems to have taken place over the course of less than one day, so when did this night occur and why didn’t anyone else on Coppelius experience it? In short, it wasn’t just an unnecessary scene, but one that breaks the continuity of the whole story.
The campfire.
After the campfire scene we came to the poorly-scripted bomb plot. Using grenades donated by Narek and a football that Rios had aboard La Sirena, the trio planned to smuggle a bomb into the synths’ compound and blow up the beacon. I didn’t understand why the synths’ compound was suddenly being guarded as the group approached – except, of course, to ramp up the drama. From the synths’ point of view Raffi and Rios were no threat; they’d been on friendly terms when they parted, so why hassle them?
Dr Soong joined in after they arrived at Coppelius Station, but even he couldn’t salvage what was an illogical and stupid “plan.” Dr Soong had two aces up his sleeve: the video evidence that proved Sutra, not Narek, was responsible for murdering Saga, and his “magic wand” weapon that could apparently disable synths at the push of a button. He used the latter once, on Sutra, and then disappeared entirely from the plot until after Picard’s “rebirth.”
Dr Soong was able to “shut down” Sutra… but then made no further contributions to the plan to attack the beacon.
After the remaining trio made a stupid full-frontal attack against the much larger group of synths, it fell to Rios to try to throw the bomb-ball into position… but, naturally, Soji was able to clear it with seconds to spare.
This entire operation was so stupid, and was clearly written to ensure that the heroes’ plan would fail, meaning it would be up to Soji and Picard to save the day. And I won’t dismiss Picard’s speech and the emotional impact of Soji’s decision to stand down – both of those aspects felt great. But they were, unfortunately, sabotaged by this awfully-scripted bomb plot which made no sense, and the immediate disappearance of everyone involved in its aftermath.
Soji was able to easily stop the bomb plot.
Here are just a few of the questions this sequence raised: why didn’t Dr Soong show the footage of Sutra to the other synths? Why didn’t Dr Soong use his “magic wand” on Soji? Why didn’t Rios and Raffi try to talk to Soji and explain the dangers of the super-synths? There was so much wrong in this one sequence, and it was contrived in such a way as to skip over any and all of these points to get to the standoff between Soji and Picard, and Picard’s convincing speech. Unfortunately the route to that otherwise powerful moment felt so unnatural that it detracted from it.
After the bomb plot and the speech, things took a turn for the better, and much of the remainder of Et in Arcadia Ego hit those emotional high points, and as the rushed, almost panicked pacing and editing gave way to a slower-paced story of laying Data to rest and restoring Picard to life, things did improve.
Picard’s “death” marked a turning point in the story.
Unfortunately, though, Et in Arcadia Ego ended with many questions left on the table. Having arrived just in time to save the day, is the Federation now committed to leaving an entire fleet in the Ghoulion system to defend Coppelius? If not, it seems like there’s nothing to prevent the Romulans from returning next week and obliterating the synths from orbit. Or perhaps the synths will need to be evacuated and taken to a new, safer location. If so, we saw no indication that Starfleet plans to help with that.
There was also no attempt made to explain Bruce Maddox’s visit to Freecloud, which had been a huge story point in the first half of the season. Maddox’s lab on Coppelius clearly hadn’t been “raided by the Tal Shiar,” and if we’re to understand he set up a second lab somewhere else for some unknown reason, why didn’t he return to Coppelius if it was destroyed; why go to Freecloud instead? This opens up a pretty big plot hole in the entire season, as Maddox now has no reason to go to Bjayzl – a dangerous woman to whom he owed money – other than “because plot.” Maddox was there simply to allow the rest of the story to unfold, and that just isn’t satisfying at all.
Why did Dr Maddox go to Freecloud?
And this is just one way in which Et in Arcadia Ego damages the entire first season of the show. With so much rushing around in the final two episodes, with brand-new characters, new civilisations, new factions, new antagonists, and whole new storylines being dumped into the show with two episodes remaining, it makes going back and reflecting on the rest of the season somewhat difficult. Was the deliberately slow pace of episodes like Maps and Legends too much? Should the side-stories on Vashti and Nepenthe have been cut down… or skipped altogether?
Nepenthe was, for me, one of the most enjoyable episodes of Star Trek that I’ve seen in a very long time, and spending time with Picard, Riker, and Troi after so long felt absolutely magical. We caught a glimpse of their retirement, the family life that they deserved to have after their rollercoaster relationship and the tragedy of the loss of their first child. And it was wonderful. But in retrospect, all of that time with Kestra and Soji bonding and Picard catching up with his old friends, cooking pizza in an outdoor oven and hanging out in a cabin in the woods just feels wasted. There was too much plot left for Picard Season 1 to get through, so either stories like Nepenthe needed to be cut down or, realistically, the season needed to be extended. One of the advantages of streaming over traditional broadcast television is that things like schedules don’t mean much – it’s far easier to add an extra episode or a few minutes here and there if necessary. Discovery did exactly that in its first season… why couldn’t Picard?
Picard and Riker’s reunion in Nepenthe.
That’s the real tragedy of Et in Arcadia Ego: the way it makes eight genuinely wonderful episodes feel worse in retrospect. We aren’t quite at the level of something like Game of Thrones, where a truly awful ending has made going back to re-watch earlier seasons feel downright unpleasant, but we’re in the same ballpark.
The sad thing is that the synths’ storyline wasn’t bad. Dr Soong wasn’t a bad character, and if he’d had more time on screen I think we could have got more of a nuanced portrayal that showed us a man doing his best to work around the synth ban and keep his people safe. We could’ve learned why he wanted to build a golem for himself – was he dying? Was he trying to become immortal? What drove him to pick up his father’s work? All questions that Et in Arcadia Ego left on the table.
Coppelius Station – home of the synths.
Likewise with Sutra. Despite the crappy makeup and the poor, hammy performance, there was the kernel of an interesting character at Sutra’s core. Her presence turned the synths from a group in need of rescue into a potential danger, and that concept – had it been executed better over a longer span of episodes – could have been interesting.
The super-synths, despite their similarities to the Reapers from Mass Effect and their blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearances on screen, had been the driving force for the entire season’s plot, and learning more about who they were and what drove them, whether their offer to help was genuine, and whether they had any connection to other Star Trek factions were all points that could’ve been explored. The super-synths, while hardly an original faction in a broader sci-fi environment, were something new to Star Trek, and as Trekkies I think we have a great curiosity about the Star Trek galaxy and the races present within it. Finding out more about the super-synths would have been fun.
I’d like to know more about the super-synths.
There was also the standoff over Coppelius itself. We’ve already covered how the copy-and-paste ships didn’t look great, but as a story beat this entire sequence was rushed. After Picard and Dr Jurati made their “last stand,” Acting Captain Riker showed up at the last second, positioning his fleet in between the Romulans and Coppelius. And then he opened hailing frequencies to talk to Commodore Oh.
Within moments, the zealous Zhat Vash commander had been convinced to withdraw rather than fight it out… and I think that fails as a convincing narrative beat. The Zhat Vash had been portrayed for the entire season as having an almost-religious zeal; a crusade against synthetic life born out of fear of total annihilation. And in mere seconds, Commodore Oh appeared to abandon that crusade. When faced with opposition, she chose not to fight but to withdraw.
Riker’s appearance – and the entire standoff – was too short.
The two fleets looked surprisingly well-matched, and I would have thought that Commodore Oh would have had a chance, at least, of going toe-to-toe with Acting Captain Riker. It wasn’t like the Federation armada had the Romulans horribly outnumbered. And all it would have taken, from her point of view, was for one ship to break through the blockade and fire on Coppelius Station – a single quantum torpedo would probably have done the job.
Commodore Oh and the Zhat Vash simply don’t seem like the types who would come this close to achieving their life’s ambitions – and remember that Oh had been embedded in Starfleet for literally decades – only to be scared away by a few Starfleet ships or convinced to change their lifelong aims by one speech and the beacon being shut down. At the very least, this was yet another sequence which needed much more time to unfold. Heck, I could have happily spent an entire episode on the standoff, with negotiations taking place between Federation and Zhat Vash representatives. The Zhat Vash needed to be talked into withdrawing; I don’t believe that seeing Picard’s speech and Riker’s fleet was anywhere near enough motivation for Oh to take her entire fleet and withdraw, and if it was, we needed to spend a lot longer getting to that point, seeing her agonise over the decision, perhaps facing down mutinous members of her own organisation, and so on.
Commodore Oh’s decision to withdraw was horribly rushed.
So we come back to the crux of why Et in Arcadia Ego didn’t succeed as a finale: it contained plenty of interesting characters and storylines, but didn’t have enough time to pay off most of them in anywhere close to a meaningful way. And as a result, it doesn’t feel like most of Picard Season 1’s storylines came to an end at all. Some, like Narek’s, were just completely abandoned; unceremoniously dumped with no explanation given. Others, like Dr Soong’s, were completely undeveloped, leaving him along with Sutra and several other characters feeling like one-dimensional plot devices instead of real people.
The disappointing thing, at the end of the day, isn’t that the ideas and storylines here were bad, it’s that none of them were allowed to play out in sufficient depth. With the possible exception of laying Data to rest, every single storyline that Et in Arcadia Ego brought into play or introduced for the first time were underdeveloped, cut short, and/or not sufficiently detailed. Some individual scenes and elements were less successful in their own right – like the performance of Sutra or the campfire sequence – but taken as a whole, what I wanted from Et in Arcadia Ego was more – more time for these characters, ideas, and narrative elements to play out. It feels like practically nothing in Et in Arcadia Ego saw justice done, and when I had been invested in the story, the characters, and this return to the 24th Century after such a long wait, that was disappointing.
Dr Soong.
As we approach Season 2 of Picard, which kicks off in just one week from today, I hope that the show’s writers and producers have taken on board the feedback that they surely received about Et in Arcadia Ego. The show’s second season can’t afford to repeat the mistakes made by the ending of its first, and if Picard is to end with Season 3, as some news outlets have been reporting, then it’s going to be even more important for the creative team to consider the problems of Et in Arcadia Ego and make sure that the series as a whole won’t end in such disappointing fashion.
There were successes along the way – great moments of characterisation with Admiral Picard, the “heroic last stand” story that always gets me no matter how it’s told, and of course saying a proper goodbye to Data after eighteen years. The emotional moments present in the latter half of Part 2 went some way to making up for earlier disappointments.
I can’t call Et in Arcadia Ego a failure. It brought together storylines that, even two years later, I find fascinating. The disappointment stems from the fact that those stories weren’t able to play out properly due to unnecessary time constraints, a rushed pace, and, in retrospect, eight preceding episodes that spent too long reaching this point. With Season 2 now upon us, I’m hoping for much better things from Star Trek: Picard!
Star Trek: Picard Season 1 is available to stream now on Paramount+ in the United States and on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and around 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.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Season 1 and the trailers and teasers for Season 2. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: The Original Series Season 1, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine Season 3, Voyager Seasons 2, 3, and 7, and First Contact.
It seems an age ago that we were eagerly anticipating Season 1 of Star Trek: Picard. In those sunlit, rosy days before the pandemic hit, this website was brand-new, and I spent a lot of time in December 2019 and January 2020 looking ahead and wondering what we’d see when the Star Trek franchise finally returned to the 24th Century – after an eighteen-year wait!
With Season 2 of Picard now only days away, I thought it could be fun to revisit a concept from the early days of the website: a list of episodes that I think could make for interesting background viewing, potentially informing story points and characterisations in the new season of Picard. In the run-up to Season 1 I focused on episodes of The Next Generation that strongly featured Captain Picard himself, as well as a few stories about the Romulans, and a few more stories which could’ve potentially led to big changes in the two decades following the events of Endgame and Nemesis.
We’ll soon be on another adventure with Jean-Luc Picard!
This time, we have a little bit more information to go on! Season 2 will tell a story that involves (to a greater or lesser degree) the following elements: the Borg Queen, Guinan, Q, time travel, and, of course, Admiral Picard himself. On this occasion, then, I thought it could be fun to pull out twelve stories from Star Trek’s past that might just be useful background viewing for Season 2 of Picard. It goes without saying that Season 1 is mandatory viewing, so I’m not putting any of those episodes on this list! You should really watch, or re-watch, all ten before the season kicks off!
My usual caveats apply, as they always do! Firstly, everything listed below is entirely subjective. If I miss out an episode that you think is incredibly important, or you hate all of my picks, that’s okay! We all have different opinions about Star Trek, and there’s no need to fight about it. Secondly, I don’t claim to have any “insider information.” I’m basing my theories and guesses about Season 2 on publicly released material, such as trailers and interviews. And finally, the episodes are not ranked; they’re merely listed below in the order in which they were originally broadcast.
With all of that out of the way, let’s jump into the list!
Number 1: Tomorrow is Yesterday The Original Series Season 1 (1967)
I’m pretty sure this violates the Temporal Prime Directive…
Though The City on the Edge of Forever is perhaps the best-known of The Original Series’ time travel stories, Tomorrow is Yesterday preceded it by several months. It was the first episode of the Star Trek franchise where time travel played a major role in the story, and it was also the first in which the crew paid a visit to the modern day. Tomorrow is Yesterday established what went on to become a mainstay in terms of the franchise’s time travel story tropes: being sent back in time by accident!
Aside from being a fun episode in its own right and well worth a watch, Tomorrow is Yesterday is also the episode which introduced the Star Trek franchise to something that appears to be making a return in Picard Season 2: the slingshot method of travelling through time, referred to in this episode as the “light-speed breakaway factor.”
The USS Enterprise using the “light-speed breakaway factor” to travel through time.
Almost every Star Trek series has included the occasional time travel story, and we can look to episodes like Tomorrow is Yesterday for creating that premise. Visiting the modern world would go on to be significant later in The Original Series, in Star Trek IV, and on several other significant occasions in the franchise. For me, some of these stories can feel rather dated, but I think Tomorrow is Yesterday largely avoids that trap!
As we get ready for Picard Season 2 and the franchise’s latest foray into time travel, stepping back to see where it all began during the first season of The Original Series is no bad thing. Tomorrow is Yesterday has a fairly straightforward premise that should be easy enough to follow even for fans who aren’t as familiar with The Original Series, and is well worth a watch on its own merits.
Number 2: Encounter at Farpoint The Next Generation Season 1 (1987)
Judge Q.
In the first teaser trailer for Picard Season 2, we heard Q’s voice proclaiming that “the trial never ends.” Encounter at Farpoint is the episode in which Captain Picard first encountered Q, and the episode in which the referenced “trial” began. Q accused humanity (and by extension, the Federation) of being a “dangerous, savage, child-race” who are unfit to travel the stars. Picard and his crew defended themselves against the accusation.
The task Q set for Picard was to unravel the mystery of Farpoint Station, which he and the crew of the Enterprise-D were en route to. However, figuring out the puzzle wasn’t the end of the trial, and even after bringing the Farpoint saga to a successful conclusion, Q departed in ambiguous fashion, hinting that he would return. He did, of course, on a number of occasions!
Worf, Picard, and La Forge on the bridge of the Enterprise-D.
Encounter at Farpoint was the premiere of The Next Generation and established the characters of Picard and Q (as well as many other familiar faces). As we approach Picard Season 2, it’s worth going back to see where it all began. This was the first big puzzle that Q tasked Picard with solving, and seeing how Q operates and what the point of it all is, from his perspective, is well worth taking into consideration.
This is also the beginning of “the trial.” We don’t know to what extent the idea of Picard – and humanity – being on trial will feature in Picard Season 2, but if Q has returned to set up a new mystery there could be a connection – and there could be consequences if Picard and the crew of La Sirena can’t figure it out. Q has toyed with Picard on a number of occasions; Encounter at Farpoint was the first.
Number 3: Q Who The Next Generation Season 2 (1989)
Q threw Picard and the Enterprise-D into danger.
Q Who is the episode that introduced us to the Borg – and it’s a pretty scary one by Star Trek’s standards! Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D have never faced a villain like this, and the Borg represent an existential threat. Q made good on his promise to show Picard that there are dangers in the galaxy that he couldn’t even imagine… and eighteen members of the Enterprise-D’s crew paid the ultimate price.
In a way, Q Who shows Q at his most aggressive, devious, and villainous. By throwing the Enterprise-D into the path of the Borg, he proved his point to Picard about the Federation’s unpreparedness in the most painful way possible. But I don’t believe that’s all there is to the story.
The first Borg seen in Star Trek.
I have a theory about Q Who that you can find by clicking or tapping here. To briefly summarise: Star Trek has made a mess of the history of Borg-Federation contact, and it seems likely that the Borg were already aware of humanity and Earth long before the events of this episode. They may have already been preparing for an attack or assimilation attempt, and Q hoped to prevent that by giving the Federation advance warning.
My theory goes into much more detail! But suffice to say the complicated history of contact between humanity and the Borg makes it seem plausible, at least to me, and shows off an aspect to Q’s character that I think could come into play in Picard Season 2. Q Who also establishes the existence of history between Q and Guinan – something that may come up in Picard Season 2 given that both characters are returning.
Number 4: Yesterday’s Enterprise The Next Generation Season 3 (1990)
The Enterprise-C.
Though it’s a fantastic episode in its own right, Yesterday’s Enterprise is on this list for one reason: Guinan. When a rift in the space-time continuum sends the Enterprise-C forward through time, decades’ worth of history are changed, leaving the Federation in a very bleak timeline in which it’s fighting a losing war against the Klingons.
Aboard the warship Enterprise-D, Captain Picard and the rest of the crew are completely oblivious to the change; this version of the characters have only ever known the war timeline. But Guinan alone realises that something has gone wrong, and argues with Captain Picard about how to set things right.
Guinan presents her case to Captain Picard.
Despite a recent controversy, Whoopi Goldberg will be reprising the role of Guinan in Picard Season 2, bringing the character back for the first time since Generations in 1994. Given that we know Season 2 also features a radically changed timeline, not dissimilar to the one seen in Yesterday’s Enterprise, perhaps Guinan will be aware of the change.
Guinan could be the one to talk to Picard about the possible point of divergence, as we know she’d visited Earth in the 19th Century. She may also be one of the only people other than the crew of La Sirena to be aware that something has changed. Guinan also has a history with Q, as we saw in the episode Q Who – so that could also come into play!
Number 5: Time’s Arrow Parts I-II The Next Generation Seasons 5-6 (1992)
R.I.P. Data…
Guinan also plays a key role in the two-part episode Time’s Arrow. Thanks to time travel, this is the episode where she and Captain Picard actually have their first meeting, and although the nature of their relationship is still shrouded in mystery, we get a little bit more information about how they came to meet in the first place.
Guinan’s fascination with Earth appears to date back to at least the 19th Century, as she visited undercover during that time period. We know from the most recent Picard Season 2 trailer that Guinan appears to be running a bar on Earth at the dawn of the 25th Century, giving her an association with Earth and humanity that stretches back over five hundred years.
Guinan and Picard in the 19th Century.
Time’s Arrow is an interesting story that mostly focuses on Data, who was of course a huge part of the story of Picard Season 1. It seems as though Brent Spiner will be playing a new role in Season 2 – perhaps another ancestor of the Soong family – so getting a bit of extra data on Data could be worthwhile, too!
One thing I’m personally curious about in Picard Season 2 is if we’ll get any further backstory on the Picard-Guinan relationship. Although Time’s Arrow depicts their first meeting from Guinan’s perspective, we’ve still never learned how they came to meet in the 24th Century from Picard’s point of view. All we know is that it likely happened prior to his assuming command of the Enterprise-D. I don’t know if Picard Season 2 will expand on that in any way… but it would be interesting!
Number 6: Tapestry The Next Generation Season 6 (1993)
Q and Picard.
Tapestry is a really interesting episode that deals with the dynamic between Q and Picard, and specifically looks at the nuances present in their relationship. Picard has always viewed Q as an adversary, but I’ve argued in the past that Q doesn’t see himself that way. He views Picard as a friend, and himself as a guide or even an ally – and the way Tapestry unfolds kind of shows why that is.
When Picard is injured on an away mission, he finds himself close to death. At that moment, he encounters Q – who claims he’s already dead. Q gives Picard a chance to avert his death by changing a key event in his past – getting stabbed shortly after graduating from Starfleet Academy – but doing so sets Picard’s life and career on a completely different path.
Lieutenant Picard in an alternate 24th Century.
The important thing here is how Q views the whole affair. We can entertain debates on whether or not Q actually sent Picard back in time or whether it was all an elaborate illusion, but that’s entirely beside the point. Q genuinely believed that he was helping – that by showing Picard an alternate life, he gave him an appreciation for the life he had actually led, even if that meant it was about to end.
I firmly believe that there’s more going on with Q in Season 2 than meets the eye. It’s possible that he didn’t change the timeline at all, and is merely responsible for shielding Picard and the crew of La Sirena from it. It’s also possible that he did change it as part of an elaborate puzzle, one which he hopes and expects that Picard will be able to solve. Speaking of which…
Number 7: All Good Things… The Next Generation Season 7 (1994)
Q and Picard in the distant past.
All Good Things is the best example of this aspect of the dynamic between Picard and Q, and could – in theory – be a template for the events of Picard Season 2. In All Good Things, the Q Continuum sets a puzzle for Picard – an eruption of “anti-time.” Thanks to the time-travelling interventions of Q, Picard is able to hop between three different periods of his own past to solve the mystery.
The solution to the anti-time eruption required Picard to challenge his own way of thinking, specifically his linear perception of cause-and-effect. Being able to recognise that events in the future had a causal link to events in the past greatly impressed Q, who seemed to suggest that it was the first step on a path that could one day see humanity evolve into beings comparable to the Q themselves.
Q in his judge’s robes.
All Good Things was also Picard’s last dalliance with Q prior to the events of Picard Season 2. As far as we know at this stage, Q hasn’t been to see Picard in the approximately twenty-five years since the events of All Good Things – but that could change as we get into the new season. It’s possible, at least in my opinion, that Q might’ve been interested to see Picard at his lowest ebb, possibly showing up to see if he could provoke him into action. But we’ll save a detailed explanation of that for my next theory post!
It’s possible that the trailers and teasers for Season 2 have already revealed the nature of Q’s involvement in the story: that he is directly responsible for changing the timeline, he did so on purpose, and he will be the main villain of the season. But I would argue that the “villain” monicker does not fit with Q’s past characterisation, and thus I suspect that there’s much more going on than meets the eye. All Good Things is both a piece of evidence in favour of that argument, as well as a potential blueprint for how a time travel puzzle set by Q could unfold.
Number 8: Past Tense, Parts I-II Deep Space Nine Season 3 (1995)
Dr Bashir and Commander Sisko.
We know, thanks to a voiceover in the most recent trailer, that at least some of the events of Picard Season 2 take place in the year 2024. But Picard Season 2 isn’t the first Star Trek production to visit that specific year! In Deep Space Nine’s third season, Commander Sisko and the crew of the USS Defiant found themselves accidentally sent back in time to the exact same year.
Past Tense is an interesting story, as it will mark the first time that any episode of Star Trek set in “the future” at the time it was broadcast will be reached, and I’m sure I won’t be alone in doing a full write-up of its story when we hit the end of August 2024! We could talk for hours about how its depressing presentation of the 2020s seemed a long way from reality once upon a time, but with the growth of homelessness and other economic issues, today’s society feels far too close for comfort to the world of the Bell Riots.
The USS Defiant in orbit over Earth.
I’m not sure how much of Deep Space Nine’s presentation of a fictionalised 2024 will make it into Picard Season 2. It’s possible that the new series will entirely ignore this two-part episode… but I think we should keep an eye open for references or callbacks to some of the characters, events, or even things like brands and products.
Regardless, this will be the first time that two very different Star Trek productions have travelled back in time to the same year, and it might be interesting and informative to take a look at Past Tense to see how Deep Space Nine told us that the year would unfold. It seems as though Picard Season 2 will be set, in part, in California – which is also where Past Tense was set, so that’s another point of connection. I’m not expecting a huge crossover with this one single Deep Space Nine story, but there could easily be references made to it.
Number 9: Death Wish Voyager Season 2 (1996)
Two Qs?!
Captain Picard wasn’t the only Starfleet officer to tangle with Q. After making a sole appearance in Deep Space Nine, Q hopped over to the Delta Quadrant, where he had several run-ins with Captain Janeway during Voyager’s journey home. Q presented a bit of a puzzle for Voyager; his abilities mean that he could have sent the ship and crew back to Earth with a snap of his fingers. But if we can look beyond that narrative hurdle, Q’s appearances in Voyager added a lot to his characterisation.
In Death Wish, we got our best look to date at the Q Continuum itself. Depicted in a manner that humans could comprehend, the Continuum resembled a rather dilapidated roadside house in the middle of the desert. For the first time, we got to see more members of the Q Continuum as well, and got a glimpse of how Q himself is a bit of a radical by the standards of his people.
Captain Janeway and Tuvok visit the Q Continuum.
The idea that the Q Continuum is not an entirely stable, homogeneous place is an interesting one, and was explored in more detail in the episode The Q and the Grey. But Death Wish also presented a very complex moral question – in the longstanding tradition of Star Trek! This episode can be a difficult watch for some folks because of its discussion of suicide, and it’s absolutely fine to skip it if that subject hits too close to home. If the debate around suicide and end-of-life care is something you’re interested in, though, this is a uniquely “Star Trek” attempt to tackle it.
Q emerges from this story as a reformer – or even a radical – by the standards of his people. We also know, thanks to a line in All Good Things, that he was responsible for assisting Picard when the Continuum set the anti-time puzzle. It’s stories like this that make me think that there’s a goodness in Q; that he isn’t just a trickster or a pure villain.
Number 10: Future’s End, Parts I-II Voyager Season 3 (1996)
Chakotay, Janeway, Tuvok, and Paris on Earth.
The two-part time travel story Future’s End sees Captain Janeway and the crew of the USS Voyager sent back in time to Earth, circa 1996. It’s another story set in the California area, and I think it’s an interesting episode – albeit one that I feel has become very dated by Star Trek standards!
If Picard Season 2 sticks with things like the Borg and the slingshot method, it seems that the kind of time travel depicted in Future’s End won’t be a factor. But there are still interesting points to consider, such as the Temporal Prime Directive and how Starfleet in the future would come to police the timeline, watching out for changes.
It’s Los Angeles – where Picard and the crew of La Sirena appear to be headed!
There aren’t a great many Star Trek episodes that visit the modern day, and as I’ve already explained I feel that a modern setting can make such stories feel very out-of-date very quickly. Future’s End definitely falls into this trap; its depiction of Southern California has a very ’90s flavour. But it’s a bit of fun, and dare I say almost a guilty pleasure!
I’m including Future’s End here for its modern day time travel story and its focus on California, both of which are elements that we know will be part of Picard Season 2. As with Past Tense, I don’t expect to see a huge tie-in between the new season and the events of this episode, but there may be smaller callbacks and references to some of the characters and events it depicted.
Number 11: Star Trek: First Contact Film (1996)
The Borg Queen.
First Contact introduced us to the Borg Queen for the first time, and went into a lot more detail about Picard’s assimilation experience. The Borg Queen was presented as the embodiment of the Borg rather than their leader, and she became a fearsome adversary for Picard and Data over the course of the story.
Season 1 of Picard saw the retired Admiral face his lingering Borg assimilation trauma when he beamed aboard the Artifact in the episode The Impossible Box, but Season 2 will see him come face to face with a Borg Queen for the first time in twenty-five years. For someone who’s clearly suffering from some form of post-traumatic stress, we don’t know what effect that could have.
Data and Picard lead the battle against the Borg.
Picard was violently anti-Borg in First Contact, and we saw hints of that in Picard Season 1 as well. His conversation with Dr Jurati and Elnor in The Impossible Box, as well as the way he responded to some of the xB’s in later episodes, was in line with his attitude to the Borg in First Contact – and I wonder how encountering a Borg Queen will make him feel!
Many Trekkies hold up First Contact as one of the absolute best Star Trek films, and it’s hard to disagree. As an action-packed work of sci-fi with some truly scary elements thanks to the way the Borg are depicted, it’s an exciting ride from start to finish. It also goes into a little more detail about World War III – an event in the history of the Star Trek timeline that could play a role in Picard Season 2. Check out my full World War III theory by clicking or tapping here!
Number 12: Endgame Voyager Season 7 (2001)
Some of Voyager’s crew in an alternate 25th Century future.
Almost five years after First Contact depicted the Borg’s biggest attack on Earth to date, Endgame brought back the Borg Queen in a significant way. The interventions of a time-travelling Admiral Janeway from the future saw the USS Voyager make it home to Earth, and in the process dealt a significant blow to the Borg Collective.
Even though it’s been more than twenty years since Endgame, we don’t actually know what became of the Borg in the aftermath of Admiral Janeway’s attack. I’ve always assumed that the Borg Collective was large enough, clever enough, and adaptable enough to survive the neurolytic pathogen that she introduced into the Borg Queen… but because the Star Trek franchise has yet to return to the Borg post-Endgame, we can’t be certain of that.
Admiral Janeway and the Borg Queen.
Even Season 1 of Picard, which depicted the disabled Borg Cube known as the Artifact, didn’t settle the issue. So it’s an open question at this juncture whether the Collective survived, whether it was significantly damaged by Admiral Janeway’s pathogen, or whether it was able to easily shake off the attack. It seems as though no major Borg activity occurred in Federation space in the twenty-plus years after Endgame, though.
Endgame makes this list because of the Borg Queen’s role in Picard Season 2, and I think it could be very useful background viewing, possibly even setting up a story about the Queen herself or the state of the Borg Collective at the dawn of the 25th Century. On a vaguely related note, I took a deeper look at Admiral Janway’s actions in Endgame, and you can find that article by clicking or tapping here.
So that’s it!
Admiral Picard is coming back in just a few days’ time!
Those are twelve episodes (alright, eleven episodes and a film) that I think might make for useful or interesting viewing prior to Picard Season 2! I think we’ve hit most of the key subjects – at least, those that we’re aware of at this early stage – and got a good mix of stories focusing on Captain Picard, Q, Guinan, time travel, and the Borg Queen.
At the end of the day, though, Star Trek’s past didn’t prove all that important to unravelling the events of Picard Season 1 – nor to recent storylines in Discovery, either. So it’s quite likely, in my view, that Picard Season 2 will bring plenty of brand-new characters and story elements into play. That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth going back to these stories and others, but my suspicion at this stage is that the new story won’t rely excessively on what came before.
When Picard Season 2 arrives at the end of next week, I hope you’ll stay tuned for individual episode reviews, theories, and more. Despite the somewhat underwhelming end to Season 1, Picard Season 2 has been one of my most-anticipated shows for almost two years, and I can’t wait to jump in and have another adventure with Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of La Sirena.
Star Trek: Picard Season 2 will premiere on Paramount+ in the United States on the 3rd of March 2022, and on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and elsewhere 24 hours later. 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.
This article deals with the subjects of the Holocaust and racism and may be uncomfortable for some readers.
It goes without saying that the Holocaust is an incredibly sensitive and delicate subject. Even titling this article Whoopi’s “whoopsie” might be enough to seem flippant or even offensive to some folks – but I just couldn’t resist the pun. If you haven’t heard about this controversy, I’ll briefly recap what happened before we get into some analysis and a consideration of what – if anything – it could mean for Star Trek: Picard Season 2.
Whoopi Goldberg, who plays the role of Guinan in the Star Trek franchise, is the co-host of The View, an American daytime television talk show. She’s known in that context for being bold and outspoken, particularly on issues of race in the United States. On a recent episode of The View, Goldberg made controversial remarks about the Holocaust, claiming that the event “isn’t about race” because it concerned “two white groups of people.” I encourage you to view the full exchange in context (you can find it on YouTube) but suffice to say that controversy soon ensued – and the condemnation of Goldberg’s comments even reached mainstream news outlets on this side of the Atlantic.
Whoopi Goldberg on a recent episode of The View.
Goldberg has offered her apology for the remarks she made, and it’s worth pointing that out before we go any further. She apologised for “the hurt [she] caused” and reiterated her support for Jewish people and Jewish communities around the world. It’s not for me to decide whether her apology is up to code, and again I encourage you to read it in full. I felt it important to point out that she has issued an apology before proceeding any further.
The Holocaust is such a unique event in the history of our world that it almost beggars belief that a 66-year-old woman, who otherwise seems to be well-informed and whose job it is to discuss current events, could be so profoundly ignorant or misinformed about what it is. Holocaust education, at least here in the UK, has been a big part of the history curriculum in schools for at least fifty years – if not longer – and there are many institutions around the world dedicated to preserving the memory of Holocaust victims and promoting education about the Holocaust. Less than a week ago, on the 27th of January, we marked Holocaust Memorial Day, a worldwide event held on the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
A photograph of the iconic entrance to Auschwitz concentration camp.
On a school trip to Germany almost thirty years ago I visited Sachsenhausen concentration camp and saw firsthand the kind of facilities that the Nazis used to keep political prisoners, Romani, Jews, and everyone else that they deemed “sub-human” or “undesirable.” Seeing the camp is something that has stuck with me for decades, and the sombre lessons that my class had about the Holocaust and the extermination of Jews are likewise seared in my memory.
British-made documentary series The World At War has one of the best educational pieces about the Holocaust that I’ve ever seen in its episode Genocide, and if you can find a copy I can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s a harrowing watch, but for anyone who wants to learn more about this defining moment in history, and the events that led to it, The World At War presents the history of the Holocaust about as well as possible, and includes interviews with survivors.
Title card for The World At War episode Genocide; recommended viewing for anyone wishing to learn more about the Holocaust.
Outside of conversations and discussions about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust itself, it’s almost never a good idea to bring up the Holocaust. Politicians, commentators, directors, and even journalists have all found themselves in trouble for saying something stupid or ill-informed, or for using the Holocaust as an unfair comparison to something else happening in the world. And when making unprepared, unscripted remarks – as Whoopi Goldberg appears to have been – misspeaking is all the easier.
I can’t defend what Whoopi Goldberg said. It was so ignorant and stupid that she deserves all of the backlash she receives. It’s also indicative, at least to me as a non-American, of America’s continuing obsession with black-and-white race issues that completely ignore every other marginalised group. Almost sixty years after Martin Luther King dreamed of a country where everyone would be judged by the “content of their character,” America seems more race-obsessed than ever – and that obsession with black-versus-white racism comes at the cost of marginalising or completely ignoring practically every other group.
Whoopi Goldberg with Stephen Colbert.
Part of Whoopi Goldberg’s defence of her original remarks, made during an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, drew on her own understanding of race and racism as an African-American, and appear to me to reinforce the idea that too many Americans have a strange, warped misunderstanding of what race even is – as well as who can and can’t be racist and how racism itself works. To me, that’s indicative of a fundamental failure of the American education system and of the way racial issues in America are discussed and debated.
So that’s my read on what happened. Given the outrage that Whoopi Goldberg’s comments understandably generated, I wanted to step back and consider what impact, if any, the controversy now engulfing her may have on Star Trek: Picard Season 2, which is scheduled to premiere in just over four weeks from today. Goldberg is set to reprise her role of Guinan, bringing the character back to our screens for the first time since 1994’s Star Trek: Generations, and she was recently featured in a big way in the latest trailer.
Admiral Picard with Guinan in the Picard Season 2 trailer.
At time of writing, no one involved with Star Trek: Picard Season 2 has made a public statement on the Whoopi Goldberg controversy, but I don’t see how that can be sustainable, especially when the cast and crew get on the publicity circuit and start giving interviews in the run-up to the season premiere. Whoopi Goldberg, having just made her first big appearance in the new season’s marketing, may have been slated to make appearances or give interviews about the show – but I’m not sure whether that will happen at all now, or whether her role may be scaled back.
Sometimes they say that “there’s no such thing as bad publicity,” but take it from someone who used to work in marketing: this is about as bad as it gets in terms of publicity! The last thing anyone involved in Star Trek: Picard needs is for Whoopi Goldberg’s comments to overshadow the show’s return, so in my opinion the producers and actors need to get together and put out a statement relatively quickly, and certainly before they get out on the publicity circuit. That way they’ll be able to refer to their statement when the inevitable questions are asked.
A publicity event in the run-up to Picard Season 1 in 2020.
I’ve heard from several people who say that they’re either not going to watch Picard Season 2, or that they’re far less enthusiastic about supporting the upcoming season in light of Whoopi Goldberg’s comments. There’s a danger for ViacomCBS that this will snowball if they don’t handle it well, perhaps leading to an unofficial boycott or significantly fewer viewers tuning in, so the corporation and its marketing team really need to get out in front of this as quickly as possible.
There’s a theory from the world of literary criticism that I think is worth discussing: “death of the author.” Originally proposed in 1967 by French critic Roland Barthes, death of the author basically argues that we should consider a work of literature on its own merits, separating the writing from the writer. Death of the author has since been applied to other forms of media, including television and film, and in this context we’re looking at whether it might be possible to separate the performance from the actor – to enjoy Guinan without celebrating Whoopi Goldberg.
Guinan and Admiral Picard embracing in the Picard Season 2 trailer.
The two sides to this never-ending discussion are as follows: either it’s possible and desirable to separate the art from the artist, considering the merits of a piece without any consideration for who the author or artist was, or it isn’t possible or desirable to do so, and that the context of who the creator was matters in a fundamental way to the work in question. With actors this is, perhaps, more readily apparent because we can see and hear them; it’s far more difficult to put an actor out of our mind while watching and listening to them in real-time.
My take on death of the author varies somewhat. If an artist, author, or performer is long-dead, it’s much easier in my view to analyse their work, and even enjoy their work, without paying too much attention to who they were. The performance has outlived the performer, so to speak. But when dealing with living people, I find this far more difficult to do. I understand Barthes’ arguments about objectivity and judging a work on its own merits, but when people hold outspoken or particularly harmful points of view, I find it much more difficult to set that aside for the sake of art or entertainment.
Signature of Roland Barthes, who first espoused the theory known as “death of the author.” Image Credit: Wandrg, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
J.K. Rowling is perhaps the best example of this, in my opinion. Her blatantly transphobic statements and support for “gender critical” groups and causes has made it significantly harder for me to enjoy the Harry Potter series for which she’s best-known. I find it difficult to separate Harry Potter, either in book or film form, from J.K. Rowling in light of her offensive statements and the positions that she’s known to hold.
So when I hear Trekkies say that they can no longer support Star Trek: Picard in light of Whoopi Goldberg’s comments, I fully understand. I can empathise with that position because it’s very similar to how I see the Harry Potter series, and I wouldn’t want to tell anyone that they should feel differently. It can be difficult to set aside the artist and just focus on the art, especially when dealing with an actor who we have to see and listen to.
Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.
I would say, though, that Whoopi Goldberg is nowhere near as important to Star Trek: Picard as someone like J.K. Rowling is to Harry Potter. She may only appear in one or two episodes, and as recently as last month it wasn’t even certain that she’d be appearing at all; her appearance in the trailer confirmed it. Had remarks like these been made by someone like Sir Patrick Stewart or one of the show’s senior producers, Star Trek: Picard would be in a lot more trouble. In my view, it’s probable that the show will be able to weather this storm, even if it loses some viewers in the process.
Whoopi Goldberg has offered an apology, and in the coming days I would expect to hear something from the Picard Season 2 cast and crew, disavowing her comments and perhaps dropping her from the publicity circuit or reducing her importance to the show’s marketing campaign. That will most likely allow Picard Season 2 to get through the next few weeks in the run-up to the show’s broadcast.
Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan in the Picard Season 2 trailer.
In a way, this couldn’t have come at a worse time. With the new season premiering in just over four weeks from now, this is the moment for the marketing campaign to truly gear up and start promoting the show’s return. It’s been two years since Picard Season 1 went off the air, so for casual viewers and for fans who aren’t keeping up-to-date with the ins and outs of Star Trek, simply getting the message out about Picard’s return has to be top priority. There’s no doubt in my mind that this controversy will be a distraction, one that the show absolutely does not need.
But I don’t believe it will be a fatal distraction, at least not as things stand. Whoopi Goldberg isn’t likely to be cut or edited out of Picard Season 2, and even seems likely to retain her job on The View, despite her remarks. There’s enough time over the next month for the marketing team to move past this controversy, which, like so many others, will have a relatively short shelf-life on social media before fading away.
I’m disappointed with Whoopi Goldberg. Her character of Guinan is so calm, ethereal, and wise that it can be jarring, as a Trekkie, to see Whoopi Goldberg talking up a storm on The View at the best of times, and this controversy is an even more extreme example. However, I note that she has at least made an attempt to apologise – and seems to be sincere. And on the positive side, her initial ignorance of the Holocaust may have shone a light on a far broader lack of understanding and proper education about the event in the United States, potentially exposing more people to the reality of what happened, thereby preventing this kind of blinkered, ignorant point of view from being espoused in future. Better education and a better understanding of the Holocaust are badly needed, it seems, and Whoopi Goldberg may have inadvertently aided that cause.
Star Trek: Picard Season 2 will premiere on the 3rd of March 2022 on Paramount+ in the United States, and on the 4th of March on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and around the world. The Star Trek franchise – including Picard and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Season 1 and all of the trailers and teasers for Season 2. Minor spoilers are also present for Star Trek: Discovery Season 3, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Generations, and Star Trek Into Darkness.
Hot on the heels of a slew of announcements and updates about current and upcoming Star Trek shows a few days ago, a new trailer for Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard debuted on social media! The show’s release date has been pushed back slightly from February to early March, something that seemed inevitable when it was hastily announced that Discovery Season 4 was taking a six-week hiatus. Even with the delay, Picard Season 2 is now less than six weeks away, though, so it’s time for ViacomCBS to start the marketing push and, for us as Trekkies, it’s time to start getting hyped for the return of Admiral Picard and the crew of La Sirena!
If you’re a regular reader, you might remember that I was less than impressed with the last trailer for Picard Season 2 when it was shown off at the Star Trek Day live broadcast back in September. The upcoming season of Picard seems to be combining two of my least-favourite Star Trek story tropes: time travel to the modern day and a setting that’s at least superficially reminiscent of the Mirror Universe. Those elements were still front-and-centre in the new trailer, but I felt that this time they were presented in a more mysterious and exciting way.
Less than six weeks to go!
Sir Patrick Stewart had invited Whoopi Goldberg to reprise her role of Guinan during an appearance on The View a couple of years ago, but we’d seen and heard nothing of Guinan since. I wasn’t alone in speculating that perhaps the story of Season 2 may have gone in a different direction, or that Guinan might’ve been included in Season 3 instead of in Season 2. That was an incorrect assumption, though! Guinan made an appearance in the new trailer, working in her familiar role as a bartender – this time at a bar called “10” on Forward Avenue.
Picard entering Guinan’s bar.
It was truly wonderful to welcome back Whoopi Goldberg to the role of Guinan. We haven’t seen her since Star Trek: Generations was in cinemas in 1994, and I’m hopeful that she’ll make a significant impact on the story this season. “Significant” doesn’t mean she has to appear in a lot of episodes or scenes, but rather that the scenes she does have with Admiral Picard will be meaningful. She was a dominant presence in the trailer, but the shots we saw of her all seemed to be taken from one sequence.
Guinan is back!
So let’s briefly step back and consider what we learned in the past couple of trailers. Something – possibly Q, but possibly not Q – has changed or damaged the timeline, leading to the rise of a “totalitarian state” which has replaced the Federation. Picard and the crew of La Sirena seem to be the only ones aware of the change – but I reckon this is where Guinan will come in. If you remember The Next Generation Season 3 episode Yesterday’s Enterprise, Guinan was the only member of the crew of the Enterprise-D who realised that the timeline had been changed. As an El-Aurian, her perceptiveness of such things was heightened compared to humans, so she may be one of the few people that Picard can turn to for help (other than Q and the crew of La Sirena) after the timelines shift.
Guinan and Picard embrace.
I could be wrong about that, of course! There was just something about Guinan’s presence on Earth and the way Picard seemed to be seeking her out that makes me think we’re looking at something happening after the event that damaged the timeline. Guinan also repeated the words spoken by Picard in the first Season 2 teaser, referring to a “final frontier” that could mean time travel. Picard referred to time as “the true final frontier” in that teaser, and I wonder if he says that line after meeting with Guinan.
Picard seems to be seeking out Guinan for advice.
Speaking of time travel, it very much looks like La Sirena will be using the “slingshot method” to travel through time, as several shots in the trailer seemed to show the ship travelling very close to a star. Though this is a known method of time travel within the Star Trek universe, it’s one we haven’t seen used since Star Trek IV – all of the shows set in the 24th Century seemed to ignore this method, and time travel technology seemed to have not been developed until later on. This has always been a bit of a discrepancy within Star Trek’s internal canon, because The Original Series showed time travel several times, and depicted it as being something relatively easy to do with 23rd Century technology, yet by the 24th Century something seemed to have changed, making time travel far more difficult.
Did La Sirena travel back in time by slingshotting around the sun?
This could also have potential consequences for Discovery – a ban on time travel was introduced sometime prior to the 32nd Century following an event called the Temporal Wars. I don’t expect Picard Season 2 to tie into this in any major way, but it will certainly be interesting to see how the process of traveling through time is depicted in the show, considering the potential ramifications it could have elsewhere in the franchise. As I’ve already suggested, the Borg Queen may be connected to time travel technology as well, and may somehow facilitate La Sirena’s trip back in time.
This moment also seems to depict La Sirena’s slingshot manoeuvre.
I caught a very brief glimpse of a couple of guards or soldiers – possibly from the alternate timeline 25th Century – who seemed to be in the early stages of Borg assimilation. There could be more of a Borg aspect to the story of the season than has been teased thus far, and we could see, for example, the Borg Queen escape her confinement and go on an assimilation spree. If she isn’t the one responsible for assimilating the individuals shown, it raises the question of who is! Could other Borg be part of the story of the season? Is the trip back in time an attempt to prevent a Borg attack on the Federation at the dawn of the 25th Century? It’s also possible that the individuals shown are inhabitants of 21st Century Earth, and that they were assimilated in that time period. Or, of course, I’m wrong about the whole assimilation thing and these are just soldiers/guards!
Who’s this, and why does it look like he’s in the early stages of being assimilated?
Sticking with the Borg, we also got a slightly extended look at Elnor bathed in an eerie green light – something we associate with the Borg. I speculated last time that this scene could be taking place after Elnor has been attacked by the Borg Queen, and may be in the very early stages of assimilation. We didn’t see the consequences of his injury, but he appears to be in a great deal of pain.
We got a slightly extended look at Raffi and Elnor.
The Borg Queen appears to be on the loose at least once, in a shot of her with Dr Jurati. The two of them were crawling on the ground, and Dr Jurati appeared to be wielding some kind of blunt object to defend herself. This looked like it was taking place aboard La Sirena, as the ship’s engine could be seen in the background.
The Borg Queen and Dr Jurati.
Dr Jurati’s love of all things synthetic may come into play with the Borg Queen – something I theorised about last time. Could she be tricked, manipulated, or just talked into setting the Borg Queen free – or even helping her? After Dr Jurati’s brainwashing in Season 1 led her to commit murder, it would be quite the follow-up if in Season 2 she unleashed the Borg Queen on La Sirena’s crew! But this could account for the Borg Queen escaping, the potentially-assimilated humans on Earth, and even Elnor’s injury.
A close-up of the Borg Queen with La Sirena’s engine in the background.
Season 2 has certainly teased us with a Borg connection! I had some half-formed Borg theories that I planned to write up, but when we learned more about time travel in one of the earlier trailers I put them on the back burner because the main thrust of the story seemed to be going in a different direction. While it doesn’t seem like the entire season will be all about the Borg, their influence – and that of the Borg Queen in particular – may be significant. Using Dr Jurati’s connection and love for synthetics to tee up this story could be interesting – but it will certainly need to be handled delicately! Dr Jurati is already a character we as the audience may mistrust based on what happened in Season 1; having her be the driving force behind unleashing the Borg, even accidentally, could take her to a familiar thematic place, one that could prove to be very difficult to write her out of in future stories.
Is Dr Jurati going to form a connection with the captive Borg Queen?
Brent Spiner made an appearance in the trailer – and seemed to receive a strange glowing blue vial of something from Q. I’m going to posit that this character is not Altan Inigo Soong, the son of Data’s creator who we met in Season 1. Instead, I believe that this could be a brand-new character, perhaps another Soong ancestor who’s native to the 21st Century. We also glimpsed this character very briefly while Picard’s voiceover was talking about “moments upon which history turns” at the beginning of the trailer, and in that scene he might’ve had a facial scar.
Brent Spiner is back – but who is this character?
If it’s true that this character is a 21st Century native, it seems that he may be involved – somehow – in the event that changes the timeline. Past iterations of Star Trek, most notably Enterprise, told us a little more about the history of human augmentation and the Soong family’s involvement with it. If Picard is going to stick closely to past canon, perhaps this member of the Soong family is working on augments, and Q has provided him with something to assist in that work – perhaps even something derived from Borg technology.
A mysterious blue vial…
This could explain the “totalitarian state” that seems to have replaced the Federation by the 25th Century. If a dictatorship of human augments – like Khan – rose to power instead of United Earth, perhaps that government later evolved into the Mirror Universe-inspired fascistic replacement for the Federation that we saw in more detail in the previous trailer. We know from past iterations of Star Trek – including Star Trek Into Darkness a mere decade ago – that Khan would have established this kind of dictatorship had he remained in the 20th Century; perhaps this is the “single change” that the Borg Queen says is “vastly more dangerous than you realise!”
A second look at Brent Spiner’s character. Is he sporting a facial scar, or is that just a trick of the light?
At one point we caught a glimpse of a human boy, seemingly wearing modern clothing, encountering a Vulcan or Romulan. As far as we know, there shouldn’t be Vulcans on Earth in 2024 – so this could also, somehow, be connected to the changed timeline. Season 1 used mind-melds to spread brainwashing and visions of the Zhat Vash prophecy, most notably to Dr Jurati and Sutra, so there could be a connection there – somehow. This sequence, showing the boy walking alone through a wooded area in the dark, gave me Flight of the Navigator vibes for a moment!
The human boy walking through the woods…
…and the mysterious Vulcan or Romulan that he encounters.
A new character who seems to have glowing white or silver eyes was seen very briefly with Admiral Picard. As far as I can tell, this character is brand-new and doesn’t belong to any known Star Trek race or faction. This scene seemed to be taking place in the 21st Century (based on what’s in the background), but that doesn’t exactly provide us with much of a clue! I would say that Picard seemed not to be bothered by his presence; had he simply not noticed him, or is this a newfound friend?
Who’s this chap?
There was a shot of what looked like the interior of a 24th Century Starfleet ship suffering major damage. This could be one of the ships that La Sirena was seen engaging, but it could also be something from the past – perhaps even the USS Stargazer, as a model of that ship was shown off in the very first Season 2 teaser. Silly as it may sound, it was really neat to see the familiar Starfleet design of a hallway or room with angled walls. This design, which debuted with The Motion Picture, became synonymous with Starfleet ships throughout The Next Generation era, and it’s one of those little touches within Star Trek that makes the franchise feel like “home!”
A Starfleet vessel suffering major damage.
I could be wrong with this, but a shot of what I think might be a Starfleet officer being blown up at a console might’ve been filmed on one of the Discovery sets; it just looks like that from the set decoration on the left. The console looks 24th Century in its design, and in the background we could very briefly see an Okudagram that looked like it could represent a Miranda-class or possibly a Nebula-class vessel.
An officer at an exploding console…
…and the Okudagram behind them. Is that a Miranda-class or Nebula-class ship?
Something important was again reiterated in voiceover: whatever is happening to the timeline is connected in some way to a significant event in Picard’s own past. “A moment on which history turns” is how the trailer described this event – and my inclination at this stage is to say that it’s probably something brand-new to Star Trek rather than something we’ve seen or heard about before.
How does Picard fit into all of this?
There are moments in Picard’s past that we could look at as major historical events: assuming command of the USS Stargazer, defeating the Ferengi, encountering Q, his assimilation by the Borg, solving the anti-time puzzle, defeating the Borg in First Contact, defeating Shinzon, and preventing the super-synths’ arrival last season. But none of these moments, if changed, could lead to anything like what we see in the trailer. That’s why I think we must be dealing with something new.
What is the moment in Picard’s past that haunts him, and how will it play into a story about Q, time travel, and the Borg?
Sticking with this, Picard’s voiceover also said that this moment was something that “haunted” him for all of his life. It could be an event we’re familiar with from The Next Generation – like his assimilation – but it’s an odd choice of words if that’s the case. Maybe I’m overreaching, but I think the way that this was phrased implies that it’s something from deep in his past, perhaps his childhood but certainly long before he assumed command of the Enterprise-D.
Will an event from Picard’s life prior to The Next Generation prove to be connected to the season’s story?
It can be tricky, when dealing with a long-established character, to add brand-new backstory, particularly if it’s some hugely significant revelation about their past. If Picard Season 2 is going to go down this route, it’s definitely something that will have to be handled with care so it doesn’t come across as being too convenient or contrived for the sake of the new story.
Picard outside Guinan’s bar.
It was certainly neat to see several Federation (or “totalitarian state,” perhaps) starships in the trailer – but why were they firing at La Sirena? I couldn’t be absolutely sure, but one of the three ships in pursuit looked like a Nova-class ship, a design most famous for its inclusion in the Voyager two-parter Equinox. Described as a short-range science vessel in that story, this Nova-class (if indeed that’s what it is) seems to be more of a warship – or has at least been significantly upgraded!
What I believe to be a Nova-class ship seen from behind…
…and from the front, firing on La Sirena.
La Sirena has also been changed – perhaps by the shift in the timeline. Gone is the red “hot rod” livery that we saw in Season 1, replaced with a silver-grey metallic colour similar to other starships. We saw La Sirena engaged in at least one dogfight and pulling off some very acrobatic moves!
La Sirena seems to have gotten a new paint job!
There was a briefly-seen green light that illuminated La Sirena’s engine – I wonder if this could indicate that the ship has been fitted out with Borg technology, perhaps to facilitate the journey back in time. Green is, as mentioned, a colour strongly associated with the Borg, and green light in particular is a hallmark of Borg vessels and Borg technology.
La Sirena’s engine lit up in green.
After the timeline shifts, Picard seemed to find a painting of a different starship in his study, replacing the familiar Enterprise-D painting that we’d seen in his ready-room in The Next Generation – and in the first teaser for Season 2. This ship could be an alternate-timeline Enterprise, but it’s clearly a different design to the Galaxy-class, with a cut-out in its saucer section, different nacelles, and seemingly a lot more phaser banks!
Picard’s new painting.
It looked like this ship was engaged in a major battle, and this could be related to the interior shots of a ship under fire mentioned earlier. I think that the painting depicts the ship destroying one or more Borg vessels based on the size and colour of the debris seen around it, so perhaps this is the new timeline’s version of an event like the Battle of Wolf 359 or the Battle of Sector 001.
Is this a depiction of a Borg vessel?
We caught a glimpse of what seems to be 25th Century Earth in the trailer, protected by a shield grid that was not unlike the one seen in Discovery’s 32nd Century. Moments of symmetry between Picard and its sister show were rare in Season 1, and while I don’t think this really counts in a big way, it was still interesting to see the same basic idea being used in both shows – albeit in different contexts.
Earth with a shield grid in the Picard trailer…
…and the planet protected by another shield grid in Discovery Season 3.
We didn’t see much from Soji in the new trailer at all, and the clips we got of Raffi, Rios, and Elnor didn’t really seem to tell us much about the direction of any of these characters in the upcoming season. A few of the shots we got with each of them seemed to be extended or different angles of things we’d already seen in prior trailers: Seven of Nine at the wheel of a police car and waking up without her implants, Raffi and Elnor dealing with Elnor’s injury and again escaping through a marketplace while being fired upon, Dr Jurati interacting with the Borg Queen, and so on.
Rios and Seven (with Raffi in the background).
Keeping a tight lid on some of the season’s characters and mysteries is no bad thing, of course! This trailer was really here to showcase Guinan’s return, and thus it focused more on Guinan and Picard, with teases of the Borg Queen, Q, and Brent Spiner’s character. These clips perhaps came at the expense of seeing more from the new characters; Picard Season 2 will have to get that balance right and not give too much weight to returning characters from The Next Generation when it premieres in a few weeks’ time. As I said in 2020 in the run-up to Season 1: I’m not here for The Next Generation Season 8, and I want to give all of the new characters lots to do and a chance for each of them to become fan-favourites that we’re all excited to see return to the franchise thirty years down the line!
Rios on the bridge of La Sirena.
So we caught a glimpse of some of the upcoming season’s interesting moments – but we’re still a long way from figuring out what’s going on! Season 1 kept us guessing all the way to the finale, and I expect that Season 2 will follow a similar pattern, not showing us all of the story elements right away.
I have a few half-baked theories about the role Q might play in the upcoming season, the Borg Queen, and perhaps about Picard’s possible connection to all of this, so stay tuned. Between now and the season premiere some of them may get the full write-up treatment! For now, I think we’ve spent more than enough time talking about a trailer that was less than two minutes long! I enjoyed this trailer a lot more than the last one, and while I’m still not wild about a story where visiting the modern world is an important element, there’s nevertheless a lot to look forward to.
Q.
Right now I’m curious to see what roles the crew of La Sirena will have to play in all of this. Whatever changed the timeline left them untouched – and we don’t know why that may be. Are they the only ones who are aware of what happened? I have a lot of questions – but very few answers right now!
After the debacle around Discovery’s fourth season, it was good to see that (at this stage, anyway) an international broadcast on Amazon Prime Video is confirmed for Picard Season 2. Amazon’s social media channels have picked up the new trailer internationally, which is a good sign – but I’ll be at least a little worried until the premiere has officially arrived on Prime Video.
So I think that’s all I have to say about this one. It was an exciting, action-packed trailer that showed us just enough of the new season to jump-start the hype train. I hope that Picard Season 2 will deliver an engaging story when it debuts in a few weeks’ time.
Star Trek: Picard Season 2 will premiere on the 3rd of March 2022 on Paramount+ in the United States, and on the 4th of March on Amazon Prime Video in the rest of the world. The Star Trek franchise – including Picard and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Season 1.
After a short pandemic-enforced break, Star Trek: Picard Season 3 resumed filming a few days ago. Production on the show’s third season has been underway for a while, and was officially announced back in September during the franchise’s Star Trek Day digital event. The interesting thing about Picard Season 3 being so far along in its production is, of course, that Season 2 has yet to be broadcast. This got me thinking about some of the benefits and potential pitfalls of filming back-to-back in this fashion, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today.
There are some great examples of productions that were filmed back-to-back. The Lord of the Rings trilogy of films has to be one of the best examples of this: all three films were shot together in New Zealand, though post-production work and editing continued after the first and second films had premiered. The Lord of the Rings is held in very high esteem even twenty years after it premiered, and is rightly credited with bringing the high fantasy genre to mainstream audiences, paving the way for titles like Game of Thrones.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy was hugely successful in the high fantasy genre.
Being shot back-to-back worked well for The Lord of the Rings then, clearly! The Return of the King – the third and final part of the trilogy – swept the board at the Academy Awards in 2004, picking up a record-equalling eleven Oscars.
In the case of The Lord of the Rings, the practicalities of production meant that shooting all three films together made sense. New Line Cinema had greenlit the entire trilogy and was expecting it to be a success, and the difficulties of setting up production in New Zealand – as well as having the actors travel there – all came together to make filming the entire project at once a practical and sensible approach to production. From the earliest days of pre-production, New Line Cinema intended to do things this way.
Whether in cinema or on television, there are advantages to filming back-to-back. There’s far less of a chance that characters will look noticeably different from one part of the story to the next, for example, as everything from costuming to makeup and even haircuts or simply ageing will not be factors that impact production. Keeping the same behind-the-camera crew will also allow for a consistent production that keeps the same cinematographic style. It makes it easier to go back and re-work parts of the story, if necessary – for example, if a writer or director felt the need to add a scene foreshadowing the ending, or even to change the entire end of the story to better fit what had come before.
There are advantages to back-to-back production.
But there can be drawbacks to this approach, pitfalls that can be very difficult to avoid even with good preparation and the best of intentions. And there’s one reason in particular why Star Trek: Picard kicked off this discussion for me.
Star Trek: Picard started with an episode that’s probably the best series premiere in the history of the franchise, surpassing even Deep Space Nine’s Emissary – the previous high-water mark. Over the course of the next few episodes, its story unfolded slowly and seemed to be building up to an exciting climax. Unfortunately, though, the season stumbled as it approached the finish line, with the first half of its two-part finale in particular being a real disappointment. The way the season eventually ended left several storylines unresolved and at least one gaping plot hole. To be blunt, the finale was weak – and it’s important that the writers and producers receive that feedback and take it on board.
I’m not the only person to have criticised the way that Star Trek: Picard Season 1 ended; the two parts of the season finale are the worst-rated episodes of the show according to review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
The Season 1 finale of Star Trek: Picard was by far the weakest part of the story.
So what’s the point of bringing this up? Well, it’s simple: filming back-to-back, as is now happening with Seasons 2 and 3 of Picard, means that the show’s writers and producers will have far less of a margin for error; they’re much more constrained and less able to make changes based on critiques and audience reactions.
Set aside any thoughts you might have about “artistic integrity” or the “vision” of a production’s writers, producers, and directors. In the real world, with very few exceptions films and television shows are adapted – and in some cases changed entirely – based on the way audiences respond to them. This is why practically every film and television series is shown to test audiences before they premiere. Doing so can give production companies the chance to make last-minute adjustments, make cuts, or even rework entire sequences.
ViacomCBS will not have ignored the reviews and discussion surrounding Picard Season 1 and its finale. Those criticisms will have been absorbed by the corporation, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they mandated changes to the story of Season 2 as a result, even if such changes may be relatively minor. Just to pick on one example, the story of main character Narek, which was dropped without a resolution part-way through the finale, might be something that the team in charge of the show insist that Season 2 clarifies.
Narek’s story was just one of several major elements that the season finale failed to pay off.
But if there are issues with Season 2 – whether they’re to do with story, art style, visual effects, etc. – it will be much harder, and much more expensive, to make any changes to Season 3. In all likelihood, Season 3 will wrap up its main phase of production before Season 2 even premieres, and while post-production work and pick-up shoots offer some opportunities to make changes, those opportunities are limited. If a film or series has been ready to go for a year or more, going back to film extra scenes can be tricky; it can be very easy to tell which scenes and shots were filmed and added in later, even in productions with high budgets.
In short, because Picard Season 1 had some very particular and noteworthy issues with its finale, I’m at least a little concerned about the direction of the series heading into Seasons 2 and 3, and the fact that the seasons are being shot back-to-back heightens that. Had Season 1 ended with a stronger finale, perhaps I’d be less concerned. But unfortunately it didn’t – and that leaves the show in a strange place for me. I’m genuinely excited to spend more time with Admiral Picard and the crew of La Sirena, but I’m at least a little anxious about the way the show’s production is being handled.
Where will the admiral and his crew go next?
In a way, this is something we may have to get used to as the pandemic rumbles on. Had it not been for covid and its associated lockdowns in California, it would’ve been possible for production on Picard Season 2 to get underway far sooner, potentially meaning that there’d have been no need to film the second and third seasons back-to-back. But the pandemic continues to be a disruptive force across the world, so productions may have to get used to working when they can and taking breaks when they must – at least in the short-to-medium term.
In some cases it won’t matter. In others, filming back-to-back can provide significant advantages. But there are potential drawbacks to this way of approaching a major production, not least the difficulty in going back and making changes based on audience and critical feedback. It’s the latter point that concerns me when it comes to Star Trek: Picard, and that’s due to the weak ending to an otherwise excellent first season. Perhaps in the days ahead we should go back to the two parts of Et in Arcadia Ego and re-examine what went wrong – as well as looking at what the season finale got right. If I forget, remind me! For now, you can check out the reviews of both episodes on my dedicated Star Trek: Picard page.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy is the copyright of New Line Cinema and/or Warner Bros. The Star Trek franchise – including Star Trek: Picard – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
The fallout from the atrocious and unfair Star Trek: Discovery decision rumbles on. The ViacomCBS share price continues to tumble in the wake of their truly awful decision to piss off most of the fans of their biggest franchise, the rollout of Paramount+ continues at a snail’s pace with no specific launch dates even entering the conversation, and unfortunately we’re now seeing some divisions in the fandom itself, with North American Trekkies pitted against those of us in the rest of the world as arguments break out over the series. What a stinking mess.
At time of writing, both Star Trek: Prodigy and Star Trek: Discovery are “Paramount+ exclusives” all across the world – meaning the shows are locked behind a paywall that fans can’t actually pay for because the incompetently-managed streaming service hasn’t launched in the vast majority of countries and territories. I feel even worse for Trekkies in Australia, Latin America, and Scandinavia in some ways, though, because although Paramount+ has already arrived there, Discovery Season 4 still hasn’t been made available. If you needed any more evidence that ViacomCBS is one of the worst-run corporations in the entire entertainment industry, look no further than that arbitrary nonsense.
The logo of the mediocre streaming service at the heart of all these problems.
But Prodigy and Discovery aren’t the only Star Trek shows in production at the moment. In 2022 Trekkies have been promised Star Trek: Picard Season 2, Strange New Worlds Season 1, and Lower Decks Season 3 at a minimum. In the wake of the truly selfish and awful Discovery decision, however, I can’t help but feel very nervous about each of those shows. Will Trekkies around the world be able to enjoy any new Star Trek in the months ahead? Or will we see repeat after repeat of the Discovery mess?
Strange New Worlds seems all but certain to be denied any kind of international streaming deal. If you’re hoping to see the series hit Netflix or Amazon Prime Video, you might as well forget it – it’ll be a Paramount+ exclusive for sure. What that means in effect is that anywhere in the world without Paramount+ will miss out on Strange New Worlds. That feels like such a sure thing right now that I’d put money on it.
Don’t bet on seeing Captain Pike on your screens next year. At least not through the usual channels…
Currently, Picard Season 2 is scheduled for a February premiere. If the season runs for ten episodes, as Season 1 did in 2020, it’ll conclude sometime in late April or early May, meaning that Strange New Worlds could debut anytime around then – and certainly well before the middle of the year. At present, the UK and parts of Europe are promised Paramount+ in “early 2022” – which could be before the Strange New Worlds premiere, but it could also be long after the show has kicked off in the United States. And unfortunately, many countries and territories in Asia, Africa, and the rest of the world have no planned launch for Paramount+ at all, which means it could be 2023 or later before the service launches there. If it survives that long.
I simply don’t believe the promises ViacomCBS has made of an “early 2022” launch. Paramount+ has been so poorly managed and so incompetently handled by the corporation that a delay to these plans feels inevitable, so I’m not betting on the service launching here before the end of 2022. But even if, by some miracle, ViacomCBS actually manages to launch Paramount+ on time in Europe, that could still mean Strange New Worlds and Picard Season 2 won’t be broadcast simultaneously with North America.
Picard could well be pulled from Amazon Prime Video before Season 2.
As mentioned, Paramount+ has already arrived in Australia, Latin America, and Scandinavia – and it isn’t exactly brand-new, they’ve had it since March. But despite that, Discovery Season 4 isn’t being shown there at the same time as it’s being shown in North America… so even being very generous to ViacomCBS and assuming that the incompetent morons manage to get Paramount+ to the UK and Europe in “early 2022,” that still doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll be able to watch any of the new shows on the damn thing.
As I discussed the other day, ViacomCBS paid Netflix a large sum of money to ensure that Discovery Season 4 wouldn’t be available around the world. If they had done nothing, the show would’ve come to Netflix under existing contracts and licenses – but the corporation chose to intervene, hoping to boost sign-ups to Paramount+ (though the backlash may have actually cost the platform subscribers thanks to a fan-led boycott campaign). What’s to stop ViacomCBS from doing the same thing with Amazon Prime Video, the current home of Lower Decks and Picard?
Will Amazon Prime Video lose its Star Trek shows, just like Netflix?
One of the stupidest and most offensive things about the Discovery decision is that Paramount+ is unavailable across most of the world. If ViacomCBS had pulled Discovery from Netflix because Paramount+ had already launched and they wanted to keep their own shows on their own platform, it would still be frustrating, and the timing would still be awful, but at least there’d be a vague logic to it. But because Paramount+ isn’t even available, the decision has locked the show behind a paywall that no one is able to pay for. Which, as I’ve argued on more than one occasion, means you have the absolute moral justification to pirate the series.
But this kind of decision could well be repeated. I doubt very much that Paramount+ will be available here in the UK by February, in time for Season 2 of Picard. And on current form, there’s nothing to stop ViacomCBS from doing to Amazon Prime Video what they’ve just done to Netflix – pulling the series from broadcast with days to spare. I don’t think it’s safe to assume we’ll be watching Picard Season 2 on Amazon Prime Video… let alone Lower Decks Season 3, which likely won’t be broadcast until later in the year.
Lower Decks Season 3 could also be going exclusively to Paramount+.
Rather than the Discovery mess being a one-time thing, I think as international fans we need to get used to the idea that, at least for the next year or so, watching Star Trek along with our North American friends may not be possible – or at least may not be possible via conventional methods. Picard Season 2 and Strange New Worlds Season 1 feel the most vulnerable, but realistically we’ll soon see the entire franchise disappear behind Paramount+’s paywall – regardless of whether Paramount+ is actually available.
I’d like to be proven wrong, of course, but I fear that this is the direction of travel for Star Trek as we move into 2022. This will not be a move free of long-term consequences for ViacomCBS. The corporation’s share price continues its fall, many Trekkies have pledged never to subscribe to Paramount+, and one of the biggest single pushes toward piracy since the advent of streaming will lead many fans and viewers to realise just how easy it is to pirate the latest episodes – making it even harder for Paramount+ to tempt them back in future.
A decision intended to push fans toward Paramount+ has actually led to piracy – and threats to boycott the platform.
As self-defeating as these plans may be, don’t expect to see ViacomCBS move away from them. And if you’re especially unlucky, living in a region of the world that ViacomCBS has apparently forgotten even exists, it may be the case that Paramount+ never arrives – or if it does it won’t be till 2023, 2024, or beyond. Star Trek has always told stories of people coming together – of a United Earth free from borders and division. But the ViacomCBS board haven’t even watched their own shows, or if they did the message went far over their shrivelled little profiteering heads.
I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but as I see it, the Discovery decision is just the first of many. Strange New Worlds, which has never had an international broadcaster announced, will certainly be a Paramount+ exclusive. Picard Season 2 and Lower Decks Season 3 could very easily follow the Discovery model and be pulled from Amazon Prime Video. And the rest of the Star Trek franchise? Currently the older shows are on Netflix, but the films aren’t. However, I wouldn’t bet on being able to watch any Star Trek series next year unless you have the DVD or are prepared to sign up for Paramount+.
The Star Trek franchise is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the trailers and teasers for Star Trek: Picard Season 2. Spoilers are also present for the following Star Trek productions: The Next Generation, First Contact, Voyager, and Enterprise.
Today we’re going to take a look at Q, the immortal trickster who has tangled with Captains Picard, Sisko, and Janeway – and who will soon be returning to the Star Trek franchise! Q is an unusual character in many ways. He seems to have practically unlimited knowledge of the galaxy, and may have been alive for billions of years. Yet he has an impish, almost childish sense of humour that sees him tease and mess with Starfleet – and many other people too.
I wouldn’t call Q a “villain” in any of his appearances to date. In fact, I would argue very strongly that Q sees himself as a friend, an ally, and a guide to Captains Picard and Janeway in particular, having offered his services more than once. He’s certainly selfish – forcing Starfleet officers to undergo tests and trials of his own devising – but there’s usually more to his games than meets the eye.
Q in his judge’s robe.
On several occasions – going all the way back to his first appearance – Q has presented Starfleet with puzzles to solve. These puzzles can be dangerous, and more than once Q has gotten people killed. But even so, I wouldn’t characterise him as a typical “villain” for Captain Picard or Captain Janeway to “defeat.”
The puzzles Q has presented – especially to Captain Picard – have actually proven to be deeply satisfying, and arguably helped Picard and Starfleet grow. Recognising that life can take very different forms – as Q helped Picard to see in Encounter at Farpoint – is one such puzzle he presented. He also taught Picard how to view time in a non-linear fashion – understanding that events in the future could have a causal link to events in the past in All Good Things.
All Good Things saw Q present Picard with another puzzle to solve.
Even the teasers and trailers for the upcoming second season of Star Trek: Picard may not be all they seem. Picard says he blames Q for disrupting or changing the timeline, but I think we’ll have to see that story play out before we can assign all the blame to Q. Even if Q is responsible, the question of motivation comes up. Is it really just a game; a trick to mess with Picard? Or is there something bigger going on?
That’s one of my big Picard Season 2 theories! But I’ll save the full write-up for another day. Today we’re not looking ahead to future Star Trek, we’re going to look back at past iterations of the franchise and try to answer a deceptively simple question: did Q save the Federation?
Q will soon be returning to Star Trek…
Star Trek has made a mess of the early history of Borg-Federation contact. The Raven, from Voyager’s fourth season, told us that the Borg assimilated humans and a Federation vessel in the 2350s. Regeneration, from Enterprise Season 2, showed the Borg battling against Captain Archer and his crew – and sending a message to the Delta Quadrant that would be received in the 24th Century. So the question of how the Borg first became aware of the Federation is an open one. Did they receive a message from across the galaxy? Did they first discover humanity when they assimilated Seven of Nine and her family?
Either of these explanations could account for the Borg’s interest in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants in the mid-late 24th Century. Season 1 of The Next Generation first teased the Borg’s appearance with the episode The Neutral Zone, in which both Federation and Romulan colonies had gone missing – “carried off” the surface of their planets, as Romulan commander Tebok put it. The Borg’s responsibility for these attacks would be confirmed in The Best Of Both Worlds – though the connection is easily missed, in my opinion, as it doesn’t take up much screen time.
The Borg were responsible for the destruction of several Federation colonies in the 2360s.
Regardless, one thing is certain: the Borg knew of the Federation’s existence well before the Federation knew of theirs. They had even begun to send scouting vessels relatively close to Federation space; system J-25, where the Enterprise-D first encountered a Borg Cube, was a mere two-and-a-half years away from Federation space at high warp, placing the Borg tens of thousands of light-years away from their Delta Quadrant home.
Were the Borg actively scouting for the Federation, or was it just a coincidence that one of their vessels was operating so far away from their own space? We may never know the answer to that, but someone almost certainly does: Q.
Q was responsible for this encounter.
In brief, here’s my theory: the Borg and the Federation were already on a collision course, but the Federation didn’t know it. Whether it was because of the First Contact–Regeneration time travel loop, the assimilation of the USS Raven, the attacks along the Neutral Zone, or simply the Borg’s continued exploration of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, they had humanity and the Federation firmly in their sights long before Starfleet was aware that there was a problem.
Recognising this, and seeing potential in humanity thanks to his earlier run-ins with Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D, Q chose to intervene. He knew that if the Federation became aware of the threat the Borg posed, their ingenuity would lead to better defences and they’d be able to protect themselves, so he chose to deliberately introduce them to the Borg for that reason.
A Borg Cube hovering ominously over Earth. The Borg came very close to assimilating humanity’s homeworld.
The events of The Next Generation Season 2 episode Q Who can be reinterpreted through this new lens. Rather than Q trying to frighten Picard for the sake of it or to prove his own superiority, he was – in his own twisted way – helping Picard and the Federation. The events of Q Who led the Federation to begin serious preparations for a Borg incursion, and without that tactical readiness it seems likely that the Borg would have been able to cruise to victory during the events of The Best of Both Worlds.
This fits with how Q operates. In stories like Encounter at Farpoint, Tapestry, and All Good Things, as well as Voyager’s The Q and the Grey, Q never explains everything he knows. Instead he obfuscates, talks around the issue, and forces Starfleet figure out what’s going on for themselves. Sometimes he pushes Picard or Janeway in a certain direction to get things moving, or even devises a puzzle or test of his own, like he did in Hide and Q. But what he never does is simply communicate – he doesn’t just sit down with Picard and tell him about Farpoint Station or the anti-time problem. He pushes Picard to figure those things out for himself.
Q appeared in Season 1 of Lower Decks.
And so it is with the Borg – according to this theory. Rather than contacting Picard and explaining what he knows about the Borg and their intention of targetting Earth, he sends the Enterprise-D to a location where he knows a Borg vessel will be and allows the crew to discover the threat for themselves. He does so knowing that the consequences will be Starfleet ramping up their defences in preparation of a Borg attack.
In All Good Things, Q told Picard that the Q Continuum saw potential in humanity – the potential to one day understand more about the universe than they ever thought possible. From Q’s point of view, perhaps he believed that seeing the Federation attacked and humanity assimilated would be a net loss to the galaxy because that potential would never be realised.
Q has his reasons for “testing” Picard and humanity – even if he chooses not to explain himself.
Q’s motivation for putting Picard and humanity “on trial” seems to be connected to this. In Encounter at Farpoint he accused humanity of being “a dangerous, savage, child race.” Yet even by the end of the episode, Q appeared to be impressed rather than disappointed that Picard and the crew could solve his puzzle. Rather than believing humanity to be dangerous and savage, as he asserted, Q almost certainly sees humanity as something more than that – and thus would feel humanity’s assimilation by the Borg would be a loss. His desire to avoid that fate could have motivated him in Q Who.
All of this could tie into Picard Season 2. Q may feel that Picard and the Federation are ungrateful for his “assistance” over the years, and he could cite the events of Q Who as one example of how his intervention saved the Federation from assimilation. While the latter part is up for debate, I definitely believe that Q feels underappreciated by Picard in particular, and sees his interactions with the former captain of the Enterprise-D as helpful rather than antagonistic.
Q looks annoyed with Picard in the trailer for Star Trek: Picard Season 2.
So let’s recap! The Borg became aware of the existence of the Federation by the mid-24th Century. The Federation had technology and resources that the Borg considered valuable, and they began targetting outlying Federation colonies, including those near to the Romulan Neutral Zone. All the while, the Federation remained ignorant of the Borg’s existence – considering them to be little more than rumour.
Foreseeing disaster and either the total assimilation of humanity or the devastation of the Federation such that humanity could not achieve its full potential, either the Q Continuum or Q independently decided to intervene. Instead of simply contacting the Federation to share his knowledge, Q transported the Enterprise-D to the star system J-25, where they encountered the Borg. This encounter led to the Federation developing anti-Borg strategies and defences that would ultimately save them from assimilation.
Unusually, Q has never taken credit for this. However, it’s at least possible that he considered Picard and the Federation as a whole to be ungrateful for his help, and this could tie in somehow to the events of Picard Season 2 where Q will be making a return to the Star Trek franchise.
Did Q save the Federation from assimilation?
What I like about this theory is that everything feels like it fits together. This theory connects the message sent in Regeneration and the early assimilation of Seven of Nine’s family to the events of The Neutral Zone, giving the Borg a reason to be operating so far outside of their territory. It also fits in perfectly with the way Q behaves – never sharing everything he knows and presenting dangerous and often deadly puzzles to Picard and Starfleet.
Whether it’s true or not is open to interpretation! I would say that Q Who wasn’t written with any of this in mind, and a straight watch of the episode strongly suggests that Q’s motivation is simply to frighten Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D after his offer to join the crew was rejected. Q felt that Picard was arrogant in assuming that Starfleet could handle any threat the galaxy contained, and wanted to prove him wrong. While that explanation works in the context of the episode, it doesn’t preclude anything included in this theory from also being true; Q could still have been annoyed at Picard’s assertion that the Federation was prepared for anything while also intending to provide them with advance warning of the Borg.
So that’s it for this one! As with all fan theories, anything we see on screen in a future episode or film could render the whole thing invalid. But for now, I think it’s at least plausible that the events of Q Who represent Q trying – in his own unique and twisted way – to help Picard and the Federation. Q has always seen himself as a friend of Picard’s, and based on what we know of both Q and the history of Borg-Federation contact, it seems to me that everything arguably fits together!
The Star Trek franchise – including all episodes and other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Season 1 and all of the trailers and teasers for Season 2. Spoilers are also present for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: First Contact.
As the dust settled on Star Trek Day, the Picard Season 2 trailer stuck in my mind. As exciting as it was to see the crew back in action, and to get a real tease of some of the upcoming season’s story elements, I was left with an unfamiliar and somewhat upsetting feeling. It took me 24 hours to really think it through, but I’m finally able to put it into words: I’m less excited for Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard than I had been before the Star Trek Day trailer.
This isn’t something I expected nor wanted from Star Trek Day. Picard Season 2 had been right at the top of my list when it came to the shows I’m most excited about – as I’ve said on more than one occasion. But the trailer showed off what are really two of my least-favourite Star Trek story tropes, and in its aftermath I’m finding it hard to remain as excited for the season as I was. None of this is to disparage the hard work all of the actors, directors, producers, and behind-the-scenes crew have put into the upcoming season of the show. I’m capable of separating my thoughts about individual story threads from the folks tasked with bringing them to the screen!
Seven of Nine in the new trailer.
More than once I’ve talked about how time travel – and in particular, time travel to the modern day – as well as Mirror Universe stories are among my least favourites in Star Trek. With a big disclaimer that what we saw in the trailer doesn’t seem to be the actual Mirror Universe, it borrowed from that setting both thematically and in terms of aesthetic, and combined with a time travel plot that will see Picard and the crew of La Sirena head to the modern day… suffice to say I was underwhelmed.
Star Trek is a franchise about the future, but more than that, it feels like it’s at least a semi-realistic future; that humanity could one day achieve many of the social and technological advancements that we see in the various shows and films. Stepping out of that to do a story set in the modern world has never sat right with me primarily for that reason, but I’d also add that any return to contemporary times naturally dates a story very quickly. Episodes like Enterprise’s Carpenter Street, the two-part Voyager episode Future’s End, and even Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home are stories which feel significantly more out-of-date than others made around the same time simply because they took Star Trek to what was, at the time, the modern day.
Visiting modern-day Los Angeles is on the cards in Season 2.
When it comes to the Mirror Universe – which, again, I’m not saying the “totalitarian state” shown in the trailer actually will be – the setting has long lent itself to over-the-top pantomime. Even recent Discovery episodes set in the Mirror Universe – like Season 3’s two-part story Terra Firma – fell victim to this, as actors seem almost encouraged or emboldened to over-act every scene and play up all of the villain tropes they remember from middle school drama classes.
Characters in the Mirror Universe have no nuance. The entire setting seems to be populated largely by violent sociopaths, with the occasional submissive alien thrown in for contrast. Though I believe that what we saw in the trailer isn’t the Mirror Universe, the “totalitarian state” borrows a great deal in terms of its aesthetic from that setting, and my fear is that Star Trek: Picard is going to fall into the familiar Mirror Universe trap of pantomime-level over-acting.
Picard will have to blend in as a senior figure in the “totalitarian state.”
In a nutshell, then, those are my concerns based on the latest Season 2 trailer. The season feels as though it may lurch from the excess of a Mirror Universe-inspired setting to the drab reality of the modern world – and unfortunately I’m finding it hard to get excited about either side of the story as things stand. I want to give Picard Season 2 a chance, and when it premieres in February I certainly will, but at the moment I can’t escape the sinking feeling of losing at least some of the excitement that I had for the project.
Though we were treated to a glimpse of the Borg Queen in the trailer, an alternate timeline (Mirror Universe or not) and a jaunt to the past don’t seem like settings where we’ll get to explore much of the 25th Century. I had hoped that the show might spend a little more time with Starfleet in Season 2, or perhaps take a look at one or more of the factions we remember from past iterations of Star Trek. Picard made many first contacts with alien races on The Next Generation, and has deep connections with the Klingons, for example, as well as the likes of the Bajorans.
Picard examines a portrait of his alternate timeline counterpart.
There was even the hope that an as-yet unannounced character might reprise their role in Season 2. Though Gates McFadden had ruled out Dr Crusher’s return a few weeks ago, there were characters like Riker, Troi, Wesley Crusher, Worf, or someone else who could yet make a welcome return to the franchise. That’s still possible, but the presence of an alternate timeline and a story involving time travel cuts into the potential screen time that any returning character could have.
Past iterations of Star Trek, which were primarily episodic, could do Mirror Universe or time travel stories relatively inoffensively from my point of view. The odd episode here or there that used one of those settings was gone within a week or two, even if I really didn’t enjoy it, so I wasn’t as upset to see such a story as one small part of a season with twenty-plus episodes to enjoy. But Picard isn’t an episodic series, and not only that it’s a shorter one (Season 1 clocked in at a mere ten episodes) so a time travel-meets-Mirror Universe story could run for practically the whole season. As the foundation for an entire season-long story arc… as I said above it’s just one that I personally don’t find particularly appealing.
Elnor, Raffi, and Picard in the “totalitarian state.”
I recognise that, so far, all of this must seem like whining. “Star Trek: Picard isn’t doing exactly what I want!” screams the petulant crybaby! But as an independent critic, I always say that I reserve the right to express my honest feelings on any of the shows, games, and films that I talk about; despite being an avid Trekkie and a fan of modern and classic Star Trek I’m not going to blindly sing the franchise’s praises when there are points of criticism or things that I don’t like. None of this means that Picard Season 2 is somehow invalid in my mind; despite my initial impressions from the trailer I will give it a chance to impress me. But I also want to share my honest thoughts, and right now I feel that the trailer seems to show a season-long story that rolls two of my least-favourite Star Trek tropes into one.
Having got all of that out of the way, let’s look at some of the points from the trailer that are more positive – or at the very least potentially interesting!
First up, the Borg Queen herself. I had half-written a bunch of Borg theories for Picard Season 2 following the announcement that the Borg Queen would be returning – almost all of which now feel extremely unlikely! The Borg Queen that we saw in the trailer appears to be a captive – my first thought was that it could be the reactivated remains of the Queen killed by Picard in First Contact. Episodes of Voyager and also Season 1 of Picard suggested that there may be more than one Borg Queen, or that she is capable of changing bodies with ease, so it could be a different Borg Queen altogether. Regardless, she seems to be a captive – how Picard came to capture her or know about her captive status is a story I’d quite like to follow!
Is the Borg Queen being held captive?
If the Borg Queen shown on screen is from after the timeline has been changed, perhaps we’ll see Picard and the crew of La Sirena lead a mission to capture her in order to facilitate their passage back in time. It seemed as though the Borg Queen is going to be used by Picard as a kind of time machine – though exactly how this would work isn’t clear. Perhaps the Borg Queen possesses unique knowledge of time travel, as we know she was personally present during the mission to Earth in First Contact. Maybe her presence is required for the Borg to travel through time?
As mentioned, the “totalitarian state” seems to me like it isn’t the Mirror Universe’s Terran Empire, but rather a fascistic state that emerged – somehow – in place of the United Federation of Planets in the Prime Timeline. Picard ascribes its rise by the 25th Century as being caused by something Q did to change the past, so in my opinion we’re looking at an alternate version of the Prime Timeline and not the Mirror Universe. This is backed up by something Q said in the previous trailer – that Picard and his crew had come to “the very end of the road not taken.”
Q and Picard face off in the new trailer.
So that brings us to Q’s role in the season. During First Contact Day back in April, Sir Patrick Stewart hinted that Q may not be the cause of the event that shattered the timeline – but this seems to be contradicted by what we saw and heard in this new trailer. Q made reference to “the trial” – he put Picard and all of humanity on trial in Encounter at Farpoint and has periodically returned to provoke and tease him ever since. Though episodes like Q Who saw Q deliberately interfering and putting Picard and the Enterprise-D in danger, I would very much argue that other episodes like All Good Things saw Q assume a less antagonistic role. He didn’t cause the anti-time eruption, but he did give Picard just enough clues and a little bit of a push toward finding a solution.
Q is a trickster – and not someone to be trusted. But I’ve often got the impression that, in his own twisted way, he sees himself as a friend, ally, and mentor to Picard. He didn’t introduce Picard to the Borg in Q Who with a view to getting him killed or assimilated; he wanted to demonstrate that Picard and the Federation were unprepared for the dangers lying in wait out in the galaxy. He was pleasantly surprised to see Picard solve the Farpoint mystery in Encounter at Farpoint and the anti-time puzzle in All Good Things. In short, though Q’s methods may be extreme, and while he does have an impish sense of humour, he’s never been an out-and-out villain. For him to go back in time and break the timeline so severely is, perhaps, somewhat out of character.
Q and Picard in All Good Things.
So my inclination at this stage is still to say that there’s more to Q’s role than meets the eye. Picard may blame him for the changes to the timeline initially, but part of the mystery of the season’s storyline may be figuring out that Q isn’t to blame – someone or something else is. I’d argue this better fits with Q’s characterisation – but it wouldn’t be completely strange to see him as the season’s antagonist as well. So I guess we’ll find out!
Notable by her absence was Guinan. Guinan has knowledge of and history with both the Borg and Q, so bringing her back could have made a lot of sense for the story of the season. Guinan could have taken on an advisory role, as we see her do in episodes like Q Who, Time’s Arrow and in Star Trek: Generations. It’s possible she will still appear and that her role will be revealed at a later date. It’s also possible that she will make an appearance in Season 3 – which we now know is officially confirmed and in production – or that her role was ultimately cut and she won’t be coming back.
Picard and Guinan in The Next Generation Season 2 episode The Measure of a Man.
We didn’t get a good sense of what any of the crew of La Sirena are up to in the trailer, really. All we can say is that there don’t appear to have been any legal consequences for Dr Jurati for murdering Bruce Maddox in Season 1 – perhaps the fact that she had been essentially brainwashed has meant that she won’t face prosecution for that act. We did see Jurati and the Borg Queen seemingly sharing a “moment” – could Dr Jurati’s love for all things synthetic give her a reason to feel sympathy for the captive Borg?
We saw very little of Soji, though she was present, and likewise not much from Elnor – though at one point he seemed to be in a medical facility possibly injured or sick. The green light of this scene could imply that the Borg are involved – perhaps the Borg Queen breaks out of her confinement, or perhaps Elnor was injured by the Borg somehow.
What has happened to Elnor?
The trailer seems to suggest an expanded role for Laris – one of Picard’s Romulan friends who stayed behind to look after the vineyard in Season 1. She spoke in voiceover at the beginning of the trailer and later appeared alongside Picard and Rios in what could be the past. It’s at least possible, then, that Laris will join Picard’s mission back in time.
At first I thought that an explosion and the collapse of a skyscraper was taking place in the future, but looking at that moment more carefully I think it’s actually something taking place in the 21st Century. Could that explosion mark the moment that everything changed? It could be that Picard and the crew have to prevent that from happening – or ensure that it does happen, which could lead to a dark, morally difficult storyline.
What is this explosion, and how does it connect to the story of the season?
Seven of Nine appeared – without her trademark Borg implants – along with Raffi. There wasn’t much of a hint at their relationship, but this is something that seems like it will be explored across the season, and I’m really quite excited to see how that comes across. They seemed to be having a disagreement when it came to driving a modern-day car, but that was played more as a comic moment than as a kind of dramatic fight between the pair.
And I think that’s all I have to say – at least for now. My head is already swimming with proto-theories, some of which may get the full write-up treatment in the weeks ahead. Despite feeling underwhelmed by the season’s premise, I’m still hopeful that Picard Season 2 will deliver enjoyment, entertainment, and drama. The underlying mystery of what happened to the timeline, what 21st Century event changed things for the worse, and what role Q played in all of that is interesting, and I’m curious to learn exactly what happened and why.
If I ultimately find Season 2 to be less enjoyable on the whole because of some of the things we’ve talked about today, at least I can look forward to Season 3! If Picard follows a similar path to Discovery then Season 3 will set aside much of what happened in Season 2 and tell a new self-contained story, so even in the worst case scenario there’s still much to be hopeful for when it comes to Star Trek: Picard.
Star Trek: Picard Season 2 will be broadcast on Paramount+ in the United States and on Amazon Prime Video in the UK and around the world beginning in February 2022. Season 1 is available to stream now. The Star Trek franchise – including Picard and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the Star Trek franchise, including the following upcoming series: Strange New Worlds Season 1, Picard Season 2, Lower Decks Season 2, Discovery Season 4, and Prodigy Season 1.
Yesterday was Star Trek Day! And in case you missed it, ViacomCBS held a live event that was streamed online and via Paramount+ showcasing and celebrating all things Star Trek! We’ll break down the big news in a moment, but first I wanted to give you my thoughts on the event as a whole.
This was the first big in-person event that many of the folks involved had been able to attend since 2019, and there was talk of the pandemic and its enforced disruption on the various shows that have been in production over the last couple of years. There was also a lot of positivity from presenters and interviewees not only about Star Trek – which was to be expected, naturally – but also about being back together and simply being able to hold a major event of this nature. The positivity of hosts Wil Wheaton and Mica Burton was infectious, and the event was much better for the role the duo played in hosting the panels and introducing guests.
Mica Burton and Wil Wheaton were great hosts.
That isn’t to say that Star Trek Day was entirely without problems, though. To be blunt, the event dragged on a bit too long (it ran to over three hours) and several of the panels and interviews were the worse for being conducted live instead of the pre-recorded, edited, and curated segments and panels we’ve had to get used to in the coronavirus era. Several of the guests seemed unprepared for what should’ve been obvious questions, and there were too many awkward silences and pauses while people gathered their thoughts and responded to the hosts. Such is the nature of live broadcasting – and it sounds rather misanthropic to criticise it!
During what I assume was an intermission on the main stage we were treated(!) to a separate pair of presenters on the red carpet reading out twitter messages and posts from the audience. This was perhaps the segment that dragged the most; one of the presenters even admitted to not being a regular Star Trek viewer (she hadn’t seen Discovery at all) so unfortunately this part of the show was less interesting as the pair were a little less knowledgeable about the franchise. If it had been made clear that this section of the broadcast was going to last as long as it did I might’ve taken a break as well!
This segment in the middle of the broadcast dragged on a bit.
Overall, though, despite running a bit too long and the ending feeling a little rushed (something we’ll talk about later), Star Trek Day was a success. It didn’t only look forward to upcoming projects like Strange New Worlds and Picard Season 2, but it looked back at every past Star Trek series, inviting members of the casts of those shows to talk about what made them – and the franchise – so great.
As a true celebration of all things Star Trek, the broadcast has to be considered a success. And although a pre-recorded event could’ve been edited and streamlined to cut to the more interesting parts and to give interviewees a chance to gather their thoughts, it was nice to see many of the folks we know and love from Star Trek back together and able to spend time in person with one another. Hosts Wil Wheaton and Mica Burton did a great job at making us as the audience feel included, as if we were there at Star Trek Day right along with them. For those few hours – even through awkward moments and segments that seemed to run a little too long – it felt like being a member of the Star Trek family. As someone with few friends, I appreciated that immensely. For those few hours last night – and yes, even though Star Trek Day didn’t start until 1:30am UK time I did stay up to watch it – I felt like I, too, was an honorary member of the Star Trek family, and that’s a feeling I would never have been able to get anywhere else.
Star Trek Day was a successful celebration of all things Trek!
Now then! Let’s talk about the various panels, trailers, and interviews. Over the coming days I’ll be taking a closer look at some of the announcements and trailers in more detail (as well as perhaps crafting a few of my patented and often-wrong theories), but for now I want to try to include an overview of everything that was included in Star Trek Day.
We’ll come to the biggest announcements and trailers at the end, but first I wanted to talk for a moment about the music. Star Trek Day had a live orchestra on its main stage, and we were treated to live renditions of Star Trek theme music past and present – as well as a medley that kicked off the event. I was listening to Star Trek Day on my headphones, and the music sounded beautiful. Composer Jeff Ruso (who composed the theme music to Discovery and Picard) picked up the conductor’s baton, and the medley he arranged was really an outstanding celebration of all things Star Trek.
Star Trek Day both began and ended with music, as Isa Briones (Star Trek: Picard’s Soji) sang her rendition of Irving Berlin’s 1926 song Blue Skies to close out the broadcast.
Isa Briones’ rendition of Blue Skies brought proceedings to a fitting end.
There were five “legacy moments” spread throughout Star Trek Day, and these celebrations of past Star Trek series were genuinely moving. Actors George Takei, LeVar Burton, Cirroc Lofton, Garrett Wang, and Anthony Montgomery spoke about their respective series with enthusiasm and emotion. Cirroc Lofton paid tribute to his on-screen dad Avery Brooks, talking about how Deep Space Nine showed a single dad balancing his work and family commitments. He also spoke about Deep Space Nine’s legacy as the first Star Trek show to step away from a starship and take a different look at the Star Trek galaxy.
The themes of diversity and inclusion were omnipresent in these legacy moments, and all five actors spoke about how Star Trek and Gene Roddenberry have promoted diversity since the very beginning. George Takei spoke about Gene Roddenberry’s vision for Star Trek, how sci-fi had previously been something often seen as just for kids, and how putting a very diverse cast of characters together was groundbreaking in the 1960s. It’s always amazing to hear George Takei speak, and even fifty-five years later he still has a grace and eloquence when speaking on these topics. As someone who has himself been at the forefront of campaigning for diversity and equality, he does so with a gravitas that few can match.
George Takei’s speech was outstanding.
Garrett Wang spoke about how Voyager could be a “refuge” for fans; a place to go where everyone could feel included and like they were part of the family. The way the show combined two crews was, I would argue, one of its weaker elements, but Wang looked at it through a different lens, and I can see the point about how Voyager put those folks in a difficult situation and brought them together to work in common cause. He also spoke in very flattering terms about Captain Janeway and Kate Mulgrew – who is returning to Star Trek very soon.
Anthony Montgomery was incredibly positive about Enterprise, and how the series embodied the pioneering spirit of exploration. I loved his line about how Enterprise, although it was a prequel recorded later than many other shows, laid the groundwork and filled in much of Star Trek’s previously unvisited stories and unexplained lore. Above all, he said, Enterprise was a “fun” show – and it’s hard to disagree! The orchestra concluded this speech with Archer’s Theme – the music heard over the end credits for Enterprise – which is a beautiful piece of music. If I were to remaster Enterprise I’d drop Faith of the Heart (which is a nice enough song, don’t get me wrong) and replace it on the opening titles with Archer’s Theme. The orchestra played it perfectly.
Anthony Montgomery spoke with passion and good humour about Enterprise.
LeVar Burton talked about The Next Generation, and how Star Trek was reinvigorated for a new era. The Next Generation was the first spin-off, and it came at a time when spin-offs didn’t really exist in the sci-fi or drama spaces, so it was an unknown and a risk. Burton also spoke about The Next Generation’s sense of family, and how Star Trek can be a unifying force in the world.
Far from being mere padding, the five legacy moments saw stars of Star Trek’s past pay tribute to the franchise and the shows they were part of. There were consistent themes running through all five speeches, particularly the theme of inclusion. Star Trek has always been a franchise that strives to include people who are “different” – people like myself. For many fans, that’s one of the things that makes Star Trek so great. To see some of the biggest stars acknowledge and celebrate that aspect of Star Trek was wonderful, emotional, and rather cathartic.
Cirroc Lofton paid tribute to Deep Space Nine and his on-screen dad Avery Brooks.
Each of the five actors spoke with love, positivity, and enthusiasm for the franchise that made them household names. Anthony Montgomery’s incredibly positive attitude in particular shone through – he was beaming the whole time and seemed genuinely thrilled to have been invited to speak and to celebrate Enterprise.
If Star Trek Day aimed to celebrate all things Star Trek, then the legacy moments went a long way to making that ambition a reality on the night. The speeches were pitch-perfect, as were the orchestral renditions of all five Star Trek themes, and I had an unexpectedly good time with these moments. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the programme listed on the website; I didn’t really have any expectations of what the legacy moments would include. They surprised me by being one of the most enjoyable, down-to-earth parts of a hugely entertaining evening.
Garrett Wang represented Voyager in the show’s legacy moment segment.
Let’s talk about news and announcements. That’s what you’re here for, right?! That was certainly what I was most interested in and excited for when I sat down to watch the Star Trek Day broadcast – though, as mentioned, I was taken aback by some of the other elements present that I wouldn’t have expected!
First, a non-announcement! Wil Wheaton interviewed the head of production on Star Trek, Alex Kurtzman, early on in the evening. Kurtzman didn’t have anything to say about the Section 31 series, nor about the upcoming Star Trek film due for release in 2023. However, he mentioned something that I found really interesting: a Starfleet Academy series or project. This isn’t anything close to an official announcement, of course, and he and Wil Wheaton talked about it in abstract terms. But a Starfleet Academy series has been something Star Trek has considered in the past; Gene Roddenberry was quite keen on a Starfleet Academy spin-off prior to developing The Next Generation. Watch this space, because it’s at least possible that a project centred around Starfleet Academy will get off the ground under Kurtzman’s leadership.
Alex Kurtzman seemed to tease that a Starfleet Academy project may be coming sometime soon!
There were no brand-new shows or films formally announced at Star Trek Day. While I wasn’t necessarily expecting such an announcement, and Kurtzman’s earlier statement that no new show will be worked on until the current crop have run their course would seem to exclude it, there are multiple pitches and projects that have been rumoured or talked about over the last few years. The Section 31 series was absent again, as mentioned, and that’s more bad news for a series that feels like it isn’t going to happen. There were also no mentions of the likes of Ceti Alpha V, Captain Proton, or Captain Worf – just some of the heavily-speculated or rumoured pitches believed to be floating around over at ViacomCBS.
We did get release dates or release windows for several upcoming seasons, though! After Lower Decks Season 2 draws to a close in mid-October there’ll be a couple of weeks with no Star Trek, but then Prodigy will be available (in the United States at least) from the 28th of October. Shortly thereafter, Discovery Season 4 will kick off – it will premiere on the 18th of November in the United States and on the 19th internationally. Finally, Picard Season 2 is scheduled to arrive on our screens in February next year – presumably shortly after the season finale of Discovery.
Prodigy is coming soon… if you live in the USA, anyway.
All of this is great news! There was no release date for Strange New Worlds, but I think we can assume it will follow within a few weeks at most of Picard Season 2, which would put it perhaps in May or June 2022 at the very latest. But there will be a whole lot of Star Trek on our screens this autumn and winter, well into the first half of next year. Wil Wheaton said it best: with so many new Star Trek projects in production, we’re living through a new golden age of Star Trek right now!
I was a little surprised when the Discovery panel ended without revealing a new trailer or teaser for Season 4. Michelle Paradise, Wilson Cruz, Blu del Barrio, and Ian Alexander talked about how the show is fostering a sense of family in the 32nd Century – and that we will see Gray get a “corporeal” body in Season 4 somehow, which is great! But I have to say I’d been expecting a new trailer; the show is only a couple of months away after all. Perhaps we’ll get that nearer to the time. There wasn’t any mention of Season 5 either, but it’s possible that announcement will come as the marketing campaign for Season 4 ramps up.
Wilson Cruz speaking during the Discovery panel.
Wilson Cruz seems like such a positive person in every interview I’ve ever seen him participate in, and he brought a lot of positive energy to the stage in Star Trek Day as well. There was talk of the Stamets-Culber relationship being revisited in Season 4, which is great – Stamets and Culber really form the emotional core of the show. He also spoke about how Dr Culber is embracing new roles in Season 4 – the role of counsellor to others aboard the ship as well as a parental role for Adira and Gray.
Gray’s storyline has the potential to be one of the most powerful in Discovery as the show moves into its fourth season. Being trans or gender-nonconforming can make one feel invisible – something I can speak to myself – and this is literally shown on screen by Gray’s invisibility. The powerful story of discovering how to be seen, and to do so with the help, encouragement, and support of one’s closest friends and family has the potential to be an exceptionally powerful story, one which I can already feel resonating with me. Blu del Barrio and Ian Alexander spoke very positively about their on- and off-screen relationships, and they seem like they work exceptionally well together as a duo. I can’t wait to see what Season 4 will bring for them both.
Blu del Barrio and Ian Alexander play Adira and Gray respectively. I’m greatly looking forward to their stories in Season 4.
I’ve already got a Prodigy theory! The show’s co-creators talked about how Prodigy Season 1 begins with the kids on a never-before-seen planet described as being “far removed and mysterious.” It sounds like we aren’t seeing a planet that the USS Voyager visited in the Delta Quadrant – something backed up by scenes seemingly set on that world in the trailer – and the USS Protostar appears to have crashed “inside” the planet. Did it crash during the final leg of Voyager’s journey home through the Borg transwarp network? Or perhaps during one of Voyager’s other flights – the space catapult from The Voyager Conspiracy or Kes’ telepathic launch in The Gift, for example. More to come on this, so stay tuned!
So we got a release date for Prodigy in the United States, but as I’ve said on a couple of occasions now it seems as though Prodigy isn’t going to be broadcast anywhere that doesn’t already have Paramount+. Considering that the series is a collaborative project between Star Trek and Nickelodeon (itself a ViacomCBS subsidiary), it should surely have been possible to secure an international broadcast on the Nickelodeon channel – a satellite/cable channel here in the UK and in many other countries. It’s a disappointment that, once again, ViacomCBS does not care about its international fans. It’s not as egregious a failing as it was with Lower Decks, because as a kids’ show Prodigy’s primary audience won’t really notice the delay. But for Trekkies around the world, to see Prodigy teased then find out we have no way to watch it is disappointing, and there’s no way around that.
The USS Protostar in flight.
Despite that, the Prodigy panel was interesting. Dee Bradley Baker, who voices Murf – the cute blob-alien – seems like he’s a real Trekkie and spoke about the franchise with passion. It was so much fun to see him perform Murf’s voice live, as well! Brett Gray, who will take on the role of young leader Dal, seemed overjoyed to have joined a franchise – and a family – with such a legacy, and I liked the way he spoke about how the young crew of the USS Protostar will grow as the season progresses.
The show’s co-creators – brothers Dan and Kevin Hageman – spoke about how Prodigy won’t be a series that talks down to children, but rather aims to be a series with plenty to offer for adults as well. The best kids’ shows manage this – and the Hagemans have received critical acclaim and awards for their work on Trollhunters and Ninjago, so there’s a lot of room for optimism. They both seemed to have a good grasp of the legacy and role Star Trek plays and has played for young people, and I think the show is in safe hands.
Dee Bradley Baker gave us a tease of Murf’s voice!
The Prodigy trailer was action-packed and exciting! We got a glimpse of the villainous character played by John Noble – and heard his distinctive voice – as well as got a much closer look at the USS Protostar than we had before. Perhaps the most exciting moment, though, was seeing the Janeway hologram for the first time! Janeway’s role in the show seems like it will be that of a mentor; the kids will make their own calls and decisions, but Janeway will be on hand to offer advice – at least that’s my take at this stage.
There were some funny moments in the trailer, too, which will surely produce a lot of giggles from Prodigy’s young audience. “Just hit all the buttons” until the phasers fire was a great laugh line, and the ship losing artificial gravity was likewise hilarious. There was also a crash-landing that reminded me very much of a scene in the Voyager episode Timeless. I’m really looking forward to Prodigy and to spending time with the young crew of the USS Protostar.
The crew of Prodigy on the bridge of the USS Protostar.
The Lower Decks panel was perhaps the funniest of the night. It was also the one where the interviewees felt the most comfortable and did their best at participating and answering questions; there were none of the awkward silences or long pauses that made me cringe during other panels. Noël Wells, Eugene Cordero, and creator Mike McMahan initially took to the stage before being joined in truly spectacular fashion by Ransom voice actor Jerry O’Connell. The cast members clearly get on very well together, and this came across as the four talked with host Mica Burton about the first four episodes of the season as well as what’s to come in the remaining six episodes.
Wells and Cordero talked about how they see their characters of Tendi and Rutherford becoming friends and bonding over “nerd” things – geeking out together over things like new tricorders, engineering, or how best to do their work was a hallmark for both in Season 1. I’m not so sure how I feel about Mike McMahan saying that the rest of the season plans to go “even bigger” with some of its stories. Lower Decks can be overly ambitious, at times, with the number of characters and story threads it tries to cram into a twenty- or twenty-five-minute episode, and this can be to the detriment of some or all of the stories it wants to tell.
Mike McMahan, Noël Wells, Eugene Cordero, and Jerry O’Connell participated in the Lower Decks panel.
However, McMahan spoke about the episode Crisis Point from Season 1 as a kind of baseline for how big and bold the show wants to go in the second half of Season 2. That episode was one of the best, not just for its wacky over-the-top action, but for its quieter character moments. If the rest of Season 2 keeps in mind the successful elements from episodes like Crisis Point, then I think we’re in for a good time!
The mid-season trailer was interesting! Here are just some of the things I spotted: the Pakleds are returning, Rutherford seems to get a “Wrath of Khan-inspired” moment in a radiation chamber, Tendi was transformed into a monster that seemed reminiscent of those in Genesis from Season 7 of The Next Generation, Boimler and Mariner are involved in a shuttle crash, Mariner rejoins Captain Freeman on the bridge, there was a scene in which Boimler easily defeated some Borg that I assume must be a dream or holodeck programme, a Crystalline Entity was seen, the creepy bartender with the New England accent was back, and Boimler and Mariner shared a joke about the utility of phaser rifles. I’m sure there was more – but those were the key things I spotted! The rest of Season 2 will hopefully continue to hit the highs of the past few weeks – and there’s another episode coming out very soon here in the UK that I can’t wait to watch!
Rutherford’s “Wrath of Khan moment” from the mid-season trailer.
It was very sweet for Star Trek Day to take time to discuss Gene Roddenberry’s legacy, coming in the centenary year of his birth. His son Rod, and former Star Trek stars LeVar Burton, George Takei, and Gates McFadden joined Wil Wheaton to talk about Gene Roddenberry, and this was one of the most touching moments in the entire event. There were some laughs as George Takei told us about his first meeting with Gene Roddenberry and how he came to land the role of Sulu – including how both he and Gene mispronounced each others’ names! Gates McFadden seemed to have been talked into joining the cast of The Next Generation by Roddenberry, having initially wanted to return to the stage and join a play. Rod Roddenberry’s reminiscence of the design process for the Enterprise-D was hilarious – apparently his mother thought the ship looked like “a pregnant duck!”
LeVar Burton, who had been a Star Trek fan prior to joining The Next Generation, spoke about how he was overwhelmed at first when meeting “the Great Bird of the Galaxy,” and how a small role on a made-for-television film introduced him to producer Bob Justman, who later arranged for him to meet with Gene Roddenberry during pre-production on The Next Generation. All of these anecdotes went a long way to humanising Gene Roddenberry the man – we can often get lost in the legacy and philosophy he left behind, and how Star Trek and the world he created has influenced and impacted us, but this was a rare opportunity to hear small, personal stories about the man himself. I greatly appreciated that.
LeVar Burton spoke about working with Gene Roddenberry before giving a speech about The Next Generation.
George Takei got one of the biggest applause lines of the evening when he spoke about the importance of Star Trek’s fans, in particular Bjo Trimble, on popularising The Original Series and getting a nationwide fan community started. Decades before the internet came along to make fandoms and fan communities a part of many peoples’ lives, Star Trek was already developing its very own devoted fan community thanks to people like Bjo Trimble, and for George Takei to take time to acknowledge the role fans have played in Star Trek’s ongoing success was wonderful to hear.
As I’ve said before, The Motion Picture was the culmination of this fan-led journey for Star Trek, but the film also laid the groundwork for much of what we’d come to know as Star Trek in the eighties and nineties. Many sets and design elements were in continuous use in some form from The Motion Picture’s premiere in 1979 right the way through to the cancellation of Enterprise in 2005, and much of the aesthetic and feel of Star Trek is owed to what The Motion Picture pioneered. George Takei acknowledged that, and that was a pretty cool moment. The Motion Picture is one of my favourite Star Trek films, and a 4K remaster was briefly shown off as well – the 4K blu-ray set of the first four Star Trek films is out now, so Star Trek Day took a moment to plug it!
There was a brief glimpse of the remastered version of The Motion Picture from this new box set.
The panel that seemed to get the most online attention was, I felt, one of the worst and most cringeworthy to watch! The Strange New Worlds panel was followed up by a pre-recorded video that introduced new members of its main cast, who joined Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, and Rebecca Romijn. Among the newly-revealed characters were an Aenar (an Andorian race introduced in Enterprise) a possible descendant or relation of iconic villain Khan, and three characters from The Original Series who are returning to Star Trek: Dr M’Benga, who appeared in a couple of episodes, Nurse Chapel, and the one who got the most attention: Cadet Nyota Uhura!
Uhura blew up online after the announcement, and it’s fair to say that I was not expecting this! There was scope, I felt, for Strange New Worlds to bring back classic characters, but the choices they made seem to be pitch-perfect. I’m especially excited to see more from Dr M’Benga – he was a minor character who feels ripe for a deeper look. The same could also be said of Captain Pike and Number One!
Uhura’s return pretty much broke the internet!
As I predicted a few months ago, the uniforms for Strange New Worlds have been slightly redesigned from their Discovery style. I was never wild about the asymmetrical collars; they worked okay on Discovery’s all-blue uniforms but looked perhaps a little clumsy on the recoloured uniforms worn by Pike and the Enterprise crew. So to see the teaser show off a redesigned style that keeps the bold primary colours but ditches the Discovery style was pretty great! As with any new uniform I think we need time to see them in action and get used to them, but there’s already a lot to like. In addition to the V-neck style worn by Pike and Spock, we saw a white medical variant worn by Nurse Chapel, another medical variant with a broad crew collar worn by Dr M’Benga, and a zipper style worn by Number One. Starfleet uniforms – like any aesthetic or design element – are of course subject to personal taste, but from what we’ve seen so far I like the Strange New Worlds uniforms.
The Strange New Worlds live panel was not the best, though. Anson Mount, who is usually so full of life and happy to talk about all things Trek, sat in silence for large parts of it, deferring to the rest of the panel to answer questions. He may have been trying to avoid jumping in too fast or dominating proceedings, but it led to several very awkward silences that weren’t fun to watch. I got the sense that perhaps he wasn’t feeling well.
Anson Mount was not on his best form for the Strange New Worlds panel, unfortunately.
The producers – Akiva Goldsman, who has previously worked on Picard, and Henry Alonso Myers – gave us a few tidbits of information about the series. I was very pleased to hear so much positive talk about returning Star Trek to a more episodic format. Goldsman, who had been instrumental in crafting Picard’s serialised story during Season 1, seems quite happy to return to episodic television. There are a lot of advantages in a show like Strange New Worlds – i.e. one about exploration – to using a more episodic format. Episodic television can still see wonderful character growth – I’d point to Ensign Mariner in Lower Decks as a recent Star Trek example – so it was great to see how positively the cast and crew talked about that aspect of Strange New Worlds.
The producers and cast seemed very keen to embrace the legacy of The Original Series in more ways than one. Without looking to overwrite anything, they want to bring their own take on classic characters, and I think that’s great. Spock benefitted greatly from the expanded look we got at him in Discovery’s second season, and there’s no reason to think characters like Nurse Chapel or Cadet Uhura won’t likewise get significant character development that plays into the characters we know and love from their roles in The Original Series.
Jess Bush will be taking on the role of Nurse Christine Chapel in Strange New Worlds.
In terms of aesthetic, Strange New Worlds is trying to walk a line between embracing the 1960s style of The Original Series and also updating the show to a more modern look. There was talk about the design of sets, in particular Captain Pike’s quarters, and how the designers had been keen to return to the 1960s for inspiration. Likewise hair and nail styles were mentioned by Rebecca Romijn for Number One – a ’60s-inspired, “retro” look seems to be on the cards for the character, but not to such an extent that it becomes distracting. Walking that line is a challenge – but one I’m glad to see the show tackling!
We didn’t get a full trailer for Strange New Worlds, and the character introductions were cut in such a way as to minimise what we could see of the USS Enterprise. However, we did get a decent look at the transporter room set, which looks really cool, and when we met Dr M’Benga we got a glimpse of what I assume to be sickbay – and it looks like the colour scheme from The Original Series is still present in some form. We also got to see the logo and typeface for Strange New Worlds.
The Strange New Worlds logo.
So an underwhelming panel in some respects led to one of the biggest reveals of the night! Uhura, Chapel, and Dr M’Benga make welcome returns to Star Trek, that’s for sure. And there’s a particular genius to choosing these three characters in particular: they’re all ripe for more development and exploration. Uhura was a mainstay on The Original Series, but compared with the likes of Kirk and Spock there’s still plenty of room to explore her characterisation, background, and learn more about who she is in a way that will inform the original character and portrayal. Likewise for Nurse Chapel and Dr M’Benga – in many ways these two characters are near-blank slates for the new writers and producers to mould into their own creations.
I’m more excited today for Strange New Worlds than I was 24 hours ago, and that’s really saying something! I loved how Mount and the producers spoke about how his portrayal of Pike and Pike’s leadership style led them to redesign parts of his quarters so he could accommodate more of his crew around the table. Cooking was a big part of Captain Sisko’s character in Deep Space Nine, and I picked up at least a hint of that in some of the things said about Pike.
Dr M’Benga, despite being a returning character, offers a lot of scope for further development by a new team of writers.
The panel also discussed how the USS Enterprise is a “star of the show” in many respects, and how episodic storytelling will allow the series to return to Star Trek’s roots in terms of producing entertaining stories with morals. As I’ve said before, Star Trek has always used its sci-fi lens to shine a light on real-world issues, and to learn that Strange New Worlds is embracing that is fantastic news.
Spock’s characterisation was mentioned by Ethan Peck and the producers, and there was talk of how we’d see different facets of his personality. The Cage was mentioned as showing us “smiley Spock,” and I liked how the producers have a keen knowledge of how Spock and other Vulcans perceive and experience emotions – Spock is an emotional person, even if he suppresses those emotions much of the time. An exploration of that aspect of his character – informed by his experiences in Discovery Season 2, perhaps – will be truly interesting to see play out.
Captain Pike and the crew of Strange New Worlds will be on our screens in 2022.
Finally we come to Star Trek: Picard. This was the final event of the evening, and unfortunately the way it was teed up felt incredibly rushed. Jeri Ryan – who will reprise her role as Seven of Nine in Season 2 – raced onto the stage to introduce the new trailer, and it just seemed very obvious that the people running the event were acutely aware of time constraints and wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. There was no Picard panel, no appearance from Sir Patrick Stewart (even by video-link or in a pre-recorded message), and though the trailer was very interesting the way Picard Season 2 was handled felt rushed right at the end of Star Trek Day – ironic, perhaps, considering the rushed way Season 1 also ended!
We’ll get to the trailer in a moment, but it was great to see that Picard Season 3 has been officially confirmed. We knew this was coming – Season 3 is already in production, and filming has already begun. But to get an official confirmation was good, and it drew a huge cheer from the audience. There’s clearly a big appetite for more Picard!
Picard is coming back for a third season!
Onward, then, to the trailer. This is one that I’ll have to return to for a more detailed breakdown in the days ahead, but for now here are my summarised thoughts.
A return to the 21st Century is not what I would have chosen. Time travel isn’t my favourite Star Trek storyline, and in particular time travel stories which return to the modern day can feel awfully dated very quickly. Look, for example, at Voyager’s two-parter Future’s End, or Star Trek IV as examples of that. Star Trek feels like the future – one of the reasons I love it so much – and when it comes back to the modern day I think it risks losing something significant. It’s possible that only a small part of the story will be set in the modern day, but even so I wasn’t exactly wild about this story element, unfortunately.
We knew from the earlier trailer that there has been some kind of change or damage to the timeline. It now seems as though Q may be more directly involved, as Picard blamed him for breaking the timeline. Whatever the change was, it seems to be centred in our own 21st Century (though it could be anywhere from 2020-2040, I guess) and resulted not in the creation of the Federation but a “totalitarian state” by the 24th Century. I don’t believe that this is the Mirror Universe that we’re familiar with, but rather a change to the Prime Timeline itself – perhaps caused by Q, but earlier comments seemed to suggest that Q wasn’t to blame, so watch this space.
A visit to the 21st Century would not have been my choice… but I will give it a chance!
In voiceover we heard Laris questioning Picard’s motivation for wanting to join Starfleet or leave Earth, something we’d seen him talk about in episodes like Family and again in Generations. She seemed to question whether he’s “running” from something in his past – could it be some darker impulse or perhaps a family secret that’s connected in some way to the creation of the totalitarian state? Could it be, as I suggested recenly, tied into World War III?
One of the things I was most curious about was the role of the Borg Queen, whose return had been signalled a few days ago via a casting announcement. It seems as though Picard has access to the incarcerated remains of a Borg Queen – somehow – and that she may be vital to allowing the crew of La Sirena to travel through time. Rather than the Borg themselves playing a role in the story, then, this may be a battle involving Picard and Seven – victims of assimilation – and a captured, damaged Borg Queen.
What role will the Borg Queen play? She appears to be a captive of some kind.
There’s a lot more to break down from the Picard trailer, and in the days ahead I’ll put together my thoughts in more detail – as well as perhaps fleshing out a theory or two. For now, I think what I want to say is that I have mixed feelings. The big drawback I can see is the modern-day setting for part of the show. I hope I’m proven wrong, but to me Star Trek has never been at its best with these kinds of stories, and I’m concerned that it’ll stray from being a Star Trek show into something… else.
On the other hand, there are many positives. The return of Laris, who seems to have an expanded role compared to where she was in Season 1. Q’s mysterious time-bending role, too. Is he the villain of the piece, or is his latest “trial” something that he believes will help Picard and humanity? What role will he play – ally, adversary, or something in between? The “totalitarian state” definitely channelled some elements of the Mirror Universe, but also seems to have put its own spin on this concept, taking it to different thematic places. I’d be curious to see what role the Picard of this timeline has in the government of the totalitarian state.
Something has broken the timeline – leaving Picard and his crew trapped in a “totalitarian” nightmare.
So that’s all I have to say for now. In the days ahead I’ll take a closer look at the Picard trailer, as well as talk about other things we learned at Star Trek Day.
Although it was a late night and a long broadcast, I had a good time with Star Trek Day overall. There were some moments that didn’t work well, some unprepared interviewees and some segments that dragged on too long, but on the whole it was a fun and incredibly positive celebration of Star Trek. I came to the broadcast hoping to see more from upcoming shows, but I was blown away just as much by the celebration of Star Trek’s past as I was by the look ahead.
The hosts, presenters, and most of the speakers and guests showed off their passion and love for Star Trek in a very positive way. There was a lot of talk about returning the franchise to its roots, celebrating the legacy of Gene Roddenberry and his original vision for Star Trek and what made it so appealing to people of all ages across multiple generations. As we look ahead to Star Trek’s future in 2021, 2022, and beyond, taking these moments to look back at what got Star Trek to where it is today was fantastic, and well worth taking the time to see. Above all, Star Trek Day shone with passion and positivity, and that’s just what the franchise needed as it marked its fifty-fifth birthday. Here’s to the next fifty-five years of Star Trek!
Star Trek Day was broadcast online and on Paramount+ on the 8th of September 2021 (9th of September 2021 in the UK). At time of writing the event can be re-watched on the official Star Trek website; panels and trailers are supposed to be available via Star Trek and Paramount+ official YouTube channels. Clips may also be available via official social media pages and channels. The Star Trek franchise – including all properties and series mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for upcoming Star Trek productions, including: Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Prodigy, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Just a short one today! Star Trek Day is coming up in a couple of days’ time, and we’re promised news and discussion of all things Trek straight from the horse’s mouth! Why is September the 8th designated as “Star Trek Day?” Good question, and here’s the answer: it was on that day in 1966 that The Man Trap premiered, kicking off Star Trek: The Original Series Season 1 and laying the groundwork for a franchise that’s still going strong today.
As an aside, last year I wrote a piece looking at the villainous creature at the heart of The Man Trap’s story, and you can find that article by clicking or tapping here. Worth a read at this time of year – if I do say so myself!
The Man Trap is where the franchise began – almost fifty-five years ago.
As much as Star Trek Day is an opportunity to look back at the franchise’s fifty-five years of history, this digital event hosted by Wil Wheaton and Mica Burton is also an excuse to look ahead to some of the Star Trek projects that are coming up over the next few months and years. There will undoubtedly be some news – and keep your fingers crossed because it’s even possible that we could get a big, unexpected announcement!
I’ve got a few ideas for what might be coming our way when Star Trek Day kicks off. Please keep in mind, as always, that I don’t have any “sources” nor any “insider information.” This is just a little educated guesswork – and a reminder, in case you’d forgotten, that Star Trek Day is imminent! All of the panels will be available to watch online on the official Star Trek website, so be sure to check in on the 8th to see what they have to say. Or just come back here a day or so later because I daresay I’ll summarise what I consider to be the most important points!
Let’s jump into the list!
Number 1: Official confirmation of Star Trek: Picard Season 3.
A third season is already being worked on!
This one is a bit of a cheat, as we’ve already heard from a number of reliable sources that Season 3 was in development alongside Season 2, and the two seasons are being filmed back-to-back. In fact, it seems as though some Season 3 scenes may have already been filmed – but that’s not confirmed at this stage.
What’s also unconfirmed, at least from ViacomCBS and Star Trek officially, is the existence of Season 3 at all. Though in the past we’ve seen the company wait until a season is almost being broadcast to confirm that the next one is in development, on this occasion it would make sense to announce Picard Season 3 way ahead of time. It’s already an open secret, so why not? It seems like a great way to drum up even more excitement!
Number 2: A trailer for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Anson Mount recently appeared as Captain Pike in a series of trailers for Paramount+.
Since Strange New Worlds introduced us to five members of its main cast in mid-March, there really hasn’t been a lot of news about the series. We heard last month that production was drawing down on Season 1, only to later learn that some scenes outside of Toronto (where the show is based) were still being worked on. If it’s true that the season is finished, though, the time could be right for a trailer!
Along with Picard Season 2, Strange New Worlds has to be the series that I’m most curious about. Not only will it be fantastic to welcome back Anson Mount as Captain Pike, but the semi-episodic format that has been suggested feels like it could really be the best of both worlds – a return to Star Trek’s past without entirely stepping away from the modern feel of recent productions.
There is a Strange New Worlds panel that will be taking place during Star Trek Day, and a trailer would be a great way to wrap it up!
Number 3: A premiere date for Star Trek: Discovery Season 4.
The USS Discovery is ready to warp away to her next adventure!
At time of writing, all we know about Discovery’s impending fourth season is that it’s due before the end of the year. Maybe that’ll change and we’ll see the show fall back to early 2022, or maybe Discovery is still on track for a broadcast kicking off in mid-October after Lower Decks Season 2 has concluded. (That was what happened last year.)
Either way, I think Star Trek Day would be a great opportunity for ViacomCBS to drop the date of the new season’s premiere with a lot of attention on the franchise.
Number 4: A teaser trailer for Star Trek: Picard Season 2 featuring the Borg.
The Borg Queen is returning to Star Trek!
Soon we’re going to talk and theorise about the Borg in Picard Season 2. If you missed this, there’s been a casting announcement for the upcoming second season that caught me off-guard: the Borg Queen is returning! Not only that, but she may appear in as many as six of the season’s ten episodes, indicating that the Borg may play a significant role in the story.
It’s been more than eighteen years since the last Star Trek story featuring the Borg: Enterprise’s second-season episode Regeneration. After such a long time it’ll be fantastic to bring the faction back into play in a big way – assuming that’s even the plan! For all we know the Borg Queen may play an altogether different role in flashbacks or in an alternate timeline!
Regardless, following this casting announcement I’d think ViacomCBS would want to tease something about the Borg – without giving away too many potential spoilers.
Number 5: A second trailer for Star Trek: Discovery Season 4.
Captain Burnham in the first Discovery Season 4 teaser.
We got our first look at Season 4 of Discovery back in April, where a trailer showed Captain Burnham and the crew facing down a “gravitational anomaly” – whatever that could be! With the season coming up before the end of the year – all being well, that is – it would be a good time for a second trailer to get fans excited.
It can be hard to get the balance right when it comes to producing a trailer for a brand-new season, especially when a series has a mystery at its core like Discovery does. Show too little and it’ll be hard for fans and prospective viewers to get excited, but show too much and you risk spoiling major plotlines. Cutting the perfect trailer under such circumstances is a real skill!
Number 6: A release date for Star Trek: Prodigy.
Prodigy is coming soon… but how soon?
I’ve all but given up on Prodigy getting an international broadcast when it premieres this autumn – at least outside of countries and territories where Paramount+ already exists. Though the series has been co-developed alongside Nickelodeon, it seems as though ViacomCBS is intent on keeping the show exclusively on its streaming service, so it seems unlikely to arrive here in the UK until Paramount+ does some time next year.
For everyone who’s lucky enough to live somewhere with Paramount+ already, though, keep an eye out for a release date for Prodigy. Earlier in the year the series was officially announced for “Fall 2021” – and the beginning of September basically marks the start of autumn, as I recently noted! So we could see Prodigy literally any time from now until the end of November, and I think the Prodigy panel at Star Trek Day would be a great place to announce the specific date.
Number 7: A big, surprising announcement!
I’m always up for a surprise!
What could it be? Is the untitled Section 31 series finally on the verge of entering production? Has ViacomCBS backed down after years of being pestered by Michael Dorn and decided to greenlight a Captain Worf series after all? What about the live-action series that Alex Kurtzman had previously said was in development – could we finally learn more about that?
Though I don’t think we should get too excited about this one, there’s always the possibility for a surprise announcement of some kind. One thing we know for certain is that more Star Trek is in development – so it’s not impossible to think we could see something announced this week.
So that’s it!
All of the panels for 2021’s Star Trek Day!
Star Trek Day will be upon us before you know it, so stay tuned here on the website for coverage and analysis of any major announcements, as well as for a review/roundup of the event itself. I’m looking forward to Star Trek Day very much; it’ll be a great excuse to geek out for hours on end!
I hope this list of predictions has got you suitably excited for the main event!
Star Trek Day panels will be available to watch on Paramount+ and on the official Star Trek website on the 8th of September 2021. The Star Trek franchise – including all properties and titles mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Season 1 and the trailers for Season 2. Spoilers are also present for the following: Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Discovery Season 2.
Star Trek’s internal timeline gets a little inconsistent when it comes to the late 20th and early 21st Centuries. If we take a “canon purist” approach, we have to say that the Star Trek timeline diverged from our own around the 1960s, with events like Khan ruling a large portion of the world taking place in the ’80s or early ’90s, before the Eugenics Wars saw him defeated. Obviously that doesn’t line up with stories like Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the Voyager two-part episode Future’s End, or even Enterprise’s Carpenter Street, all of which depicted the modern world unchanged by those events.
The Third World War is a part of Star Trek’s internal timeline that was first introduced in The Next Generation’s premiere episode, Encounter at Farpoint. Episodes of The Original Series had talked about the Eugenics Wars and other conflicts on Earth, but Gene Roddenberry had been keen to avoid mention of World War III during the show’s run in the 1960s. Some episodes, such as Season 2’s The Doomsday Machine, actively went out of their way to say that such a conflict had never happened on Earth – an apparent contradiction to what would come later.
Spock and Kirk at the end of The Doomsday Machine, during their discussion of nuclear weapons.
It was the film First Contact that elaborated on some of the ideas first posited in Encounter at Farpoint and thus gave us a better look at Earth in this era. Though we knew that nuclear attacks were part of the conflict, it was First Contact that first showed that some of these attacks had impacted North America, and that the conflict was fought between the United States and her allies on one side and the so-called “Eastern Coalition” on the other. Some of these moments would be shown or explored further in Enterprise’s fourth season, and most recently World War III has appeared in Discovery’s second season.
Although the Third World War has been an integral part of Star Trek’s fictional history for more than thirty years, that’s about the extent of what we know. There was a major conflict which occurred in the first half of the 21st Century, it killed hundreds of millions, there was a limited exchange of nuclear weapons (i.e. the planet wasn’t completely destroyed), and it took Earth a generation to recover – with more than a little help from the Vulcans. But this article isn’t just a history of the conflict within Star Trek’s timeline – because something in the promotional material for Star Trek: Picard Season 2 could suggest a return to this era.
The trial which Q presided over in Encounter at Farpoint was said to take place during the “post-atomic horror” after World War III.
When I took a look at the second Star Trek: Picard Season 2 trailer a couple of weeks ago I also looked at a newly-released poster which appears to show a modern-day city – probably Los Angeles in the United States. If the poster is supposed to represent Los Angeles circa 2021, well the timeline starts to line up for a possible World War III story.
In the real world, it’s impossible to overstate the importance of technological advancements made in wartime. The First World War saw the invention of tanks and the further development of aircraft. The Second World War gave us computers, rockets, and splitting the atom. Even recent conflicts like the Iraq and Afghanistan wars saw incredible developments in medical technology. Taking inspiration from the real world, Star Trek’s World War III is similarly an incredibly important event. The Third World War led directly to the development of warp drive in the 2060s, and thus to first contact with the Vulcans and to humanity becoming an interstellar species. The Federation would not exist without it – at least, not in a form we would recognise.
Zefram Cochrane’s ship would never have broken the warp barrier were it not for the Third World War.
And that’s at the heart of this theory. In order for everything we know of in Star Trek’s internal history to have come to pass, World War III needed to happen. It was a devastating conflict that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of millions of people, but what emerged from the wreckage was United Earth and ultimately the Federation.
In the first teaser trailer, we heard Picard say in voiceover that “time can turn even our most impulsive, ill-considered actions into history.” He also spoke in a regretful way about “what could have been” and tells us that time does not offer “second chances.” In the second trailer, Q told Picard that he had come to “the very end of the road not taken.” We also saw what appeared to be significant changes to the timeline for Picard, Raffi, Rios, and Seven of Nine, as well as possible changes for Soji as well.
Seven of Nine… without her trademark Borg implant!
It seemed from the first teaser as though Picard was talking about events in his own past – that teaser also featured prominently a model of the USS Stargazer, from which I derived a few other theories! Picard is someone who we know cares about history a great deal and has studied it in depth, but nothing from the first teaser gave me the impression that he was talking about anything outside of his own personal experience. Whatever he was lamenting or regretting seemed to be within his own past – not an event from centuries earlier to which he had no significant emotional connection.
Although Picard did spend several days in the 21st Century, shortly after the end of World War III, he doesn’t exactly have a strong tie to the war or even to that time period, certainly not enough to have any motivation to change or undo events in that era. Picard is as far removed from the events of World War III in the 24th Century as we are from the events of the early 1700s – and I can’t imagine anyone nowadays would feel strongly about the Jacobite Rising or the War of the Spanish Succession. Those events – and many others – are just too far in the past to be something we care about, even if the impact is still felt today in some respects.
It’s hard to imagine that Picard would have voluntarily changed the past.
So I’m not suggesting that Picard would deliberately seek to prevent World War III – even if he found himself able to do so, somehow. But the second trailer showed off some pretty significant changes to the timeline, and combined with a poster that appears to be teasing a contemporary setting, the possibility of a World War III storyline has come up.
It seems like the story of Picard Season 2 will deal with some kind of alternate timeline – that’s what I infer from Q’s “road not taken” line, as well as the changes to characters like Seven of Nine and Rios. Picard was also heard in voiceover promising his new crew that they can “save the future,” which seems to add to this idea of something going wrong in the past causing things to change.
Q spoke of the “road not taken” in the teaser trailer.
When we deal with alternate history and alternate timelines, practically every story hinges on a so-called “point of divergence.” This is the moment at which the real timeline and the alternate one separated. In alternate history novels, popular points of divergence include the American Civil War, with a Confederate victory being a common one, as well as World War II, with an Axis victory being similarly used. In Star Trek, a point of divergence between the Prime Timeline – the one which runs from Enterprise to Picard and beyond – could be World War III. What would the timeline look like if it didn’t happen, or happened in a different way?
It could be that the poster is teeing this up. In the background, behind the skyscrapers in the centre of the city, is a glow. That glow could be a sunrise or sunset – it looks like the right colour. But it could also be something far more sinister – the afterglow of a nuclear bomb, perhaps? Maybe that’s a stretch! But it would definitely tie into this World War III theme.
The Season 2 teaser poster.
There are still two big questions, even if we assume that this theory is true and that the point of divergence has something to do with World War III. Firstly, what happened to cause the divergence in the first place? In Star Trek, these things don’t just happen naturally! Every change in the timeline that we know of had a cause – the intervention of some nefarious time-traveller. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, why are Picard and the crew of La Sirena seemingly immune to these changes in the timeline? Q’s intervention is a possible explanation for the second point, perhaps, presenting Picard with another time-mystery to solve. But I’m not convinced that’s how the story will go.
All of this leads to an interesting moral conundrum for Picard. If we’re right and, somehow, World War III was prevented and that’s the reason for changes to the timeline, it could fall to Picard and the crew of La Sirena to trigger the worst war in history in order to restore the timeline. How’s that for a horrible decision?! Imagine being told that you had the power to prevent the First World War, and all of the misery and death that resulted from it, but that doing so would make the world worse. Instead, you have to actively choose to cause this horrible conflict in order to preserve the timeline and “save” the future. That could be Picard’s choice in Season 2 if this theory is correct.
A World War III-era soldier as seen in Discovery Season 2.
Aside from the poster with its seemingly-modern city and some dialogue about time and changing the past, there’s no real evidence for this theory yet! Much of what we saw in the second trailer – which is the only time we’ve seen Picard and the others – may very well suggest that any changes to the timeline take place closer to the 24th Century than the 21st. But it’s interesting to consider the possibilities, especially in light of the Season 2 poster.
To summarise, then, here’s the theory in a couple of sentences: for an as-yet unknown reason, the timeline was changed to prevent World War III. This had major consequences for humanity and the Federation, and the only way to restore the timeline and save the future is to ensure World War III happens – and this is what Picard and the crew of La Sirena will have to do.
Something has changed the timeline – and it seems like Picard and the crew of La Sirena are immune.
It would be quite a dark story if Season 2 goes down this road – or anywhere close to it. But it would be very interesting to see the crew wrangling with these big moral questions and issues. It could lead to quite a lot of drama! Q’s inclusion in the season would make sense, not as the cause of changes to the timeline, but as the figure who steps in to guide Picard in his understanding of those changes. It would also explain the poster, which came completely out of left-field!
Having had two teasers already, with the latest dropping only a couple of weeks ago, it may be some time before we hear anything more out of Star Trek: Picard Season 2. So all we have to go on right now is the poster and the first couple of teaser trailers! It’s not a lot, and there are certainly many different ways to interpret things. In this theory I’ve focused on how the poster could be depicting the 21st Century, but that may not be the case. Changes to the timeline could have caused the 24th Century to become less technological, and the poster could instead depict Los Angeles in the year 2399!
I’m very much looking forward to Picard Season 2, and I’m still hopeful that we’ll eventually see spin-offs and other Star Trek projects set in the same era. If and when we get any more news or another poster or trailer, check back as I’m sure I’ll have more to say!
Star Trek: Picard Season 2 will be broadcast on Paramount+ in the United States (and on Amazon Prime Video in the UK and elsewhere) in 2022. The Star Trek franchise – including Picard and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the Star Trek: Picard Season 2 trailer, as well as for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager.
Following Q’s appearance in the second Star Trek: Picard Season 2 trailer, I’ve seen some discussion online about Q’s age and appearance. I don’t think this is necessarily a huge topic worth dedicating a lot of time to, but it’s also one that’s potentially interesting, and it gives us an excuse to talk about Picard Season 2, the Q Continuum, and jump into a bit of Star Trek lore, so I thought I’d chime in.
Star Trek: Picard Season 2 is being produced in 2021. John de Lancie first appeared as Q right at the beginning of Season 1 of The Next Generation in the episode Encounter at Farpoint, which was filmed in mid-1987. Over the span of 34 years… he’s got older. Mystery solved!
Q’s new look has attracted attention!
Obviously there’s more to say than that. From an in-universe point of view, Q “shouldn’t” age – or to put it more accurately, Q doesn’t need to age. The Q as a species are noncorporeal and immortal, meaning that Q doesn’t age in any manner that humans can comprehend. The Q do, however, experience the flow of time, as we learned in the Voyager Season 2 episode Death Wish. That story centred around a member of the Q Continuum who was bored of living having effectively experienced everything in existence. But we’re off-topic.
Though the Q Continuum have a different understanding of time, they do experience the passage of time and thus can, in some way, age, or at least accumulate new memories and gain more knowledge. Part of the reason Q liked to tangle with humans like Picard and Janeway was because he wanted something to do, and presumably hadn’t been able to have those experiences already. Thus the Q don’t exist outside of time or in a non-linear way like the Bajoran Prophets.
The Bajoran Prophets were said to experience time in a non-linear fashion.
All of this isn’t really relevant, though. What matters for this discussion is that Q can assume any form he chooses. He could presumably turn himself into Picard’s doppelganger, a big fat housecat, or a cloud of hot pink gas – he isn’t limited to a single form. He appears “older” in Picard Season 2 because he has chosen to appear older, either to mock Picard, empathise with him, or perhaps even to experience what it’s like to be an older humanoid if that’s an experience he hasn’t yet had.
So case closed, right? From an in-universe point of view, yes. There’s no plot hole nor problem with Q’s story simply because of John de Lancie’s appearance, and anyone trying to make that claim needs a refresher course in how the Q Continuum works! But that isn’t necessarily the end of the affair. There is one point to consider from the production side, and I find it to be an interesting one as it’s something we’re going to see more of in future as technology continues to improve. I’m talking about digital de-ageing and CGI.
John de Lancie first appeared as Q in 1987’s Encounter at Farpoint.
The 2019 Netflix film The Irishman won praise (and numerous awards) for the way it made use of digital de-ageing techniques on Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, and Robert De Niro, transforming them into younger versions of their characters. The use of this technology is not limited to cinema, as it was recently used in Season 2 of The Mandalorian – and no, I won’t spoil it and tell you why if you haven’t seen it yet! This technology, along with other photorealistic CGI technologies that are continually being improved, has the potential to really transform film and television productions, and it’s already possible to see a brand-new film featuring the likeness of a long-dead actor brought back with CGI – like happened with Peter Cushing’s character of Grand Moff Tarkin in the film Rogue One. It’s only a matter of time before the leading role in a new film is a CGI recreation of someone who’s passed away.
It isn’t beyond the realm of technical possibility to de-age John de Lancie for Picard Season 2. It would be an expensive investment, certainly, and one which ViacomCBS may not want to make or may not have the budget for, but technically it would have been possible. And I think this is why we’re seeing this conversation. Fans look to shows like The Mandalorian, which while not a direct competitor certainly exists in a similar space to Picard, and wonder why Star Wars gets to use fancy new technologies while Star Trek doesn’t!
Digital de-ageing was used to great effect in 2019’s The Irishman.
Star Trek has, in the past, pioneered some interesting technologies and filmmaking techniques. The Deep Space Nine Season 5 episode Trials and Tribble-ations brought to television the complicated technique of inserting actors into existing footage – something which had been seen in Forrest Gump only a couple of years earlier. I even noted in my look at Discovery’s Season 1 premiere the way the CGI artists seemed to have incorporated elements from the film Interstellar – which premiered a couple of years earlier – in their portrayal of the binary star system. So Star Trek has a track record at taking cutting-edge filmmaking techniques and bringing them to the franchise.
Perhaps digital de-ageing is still too new and thus too expensive to incorporate into the Star Trek franchise right now, and that’s absolutely fair enough. I don’t want Picard Season 2 to blow its whole special effects budget on a few scenes with Q, not if doing so comes at the expense of other set-pieces later in the story. The Irishman had a budget of over $150 million. Rogue One had a budget of around $200 million – and the CGI Grand Moff Tarkin still wasn’t quite perfect! The Mandalorian was reportedly working with a budget of around $15 million per episode, or $120 million for the second season’s eight episodes. In short, digital de-ageing is expensive and can inflate the budget of any production.
Q and Picard in Q Who from Season 2 of The Next Generation.
While The Irishman won a lot of praise, and so did The Mandalorian Season 2, in both cases critical opinion wasn’t unanimous on the de-ageing technology, with some arguing that it was a waste of money. Under those circumstances, I can understand why ViacomCBS wouldn’t want to go down the route of blowing literally millions of dollars on this technique for a secondary character. The return on investment simply may not be present.
How many people aren’t going to watch Picard Season 2 because of the way Q looks? I reckon close to zero. And how many additional viewers would the season pick up if it used the de-ageing technology and that became a talking point? That’s also got to be close to zero! People who are excited for Picard Season 2 are going to watch regardless, and those who don’t want to watch, or who dislike modern Star Trek, were always going to stay away. In that sense, these kinds of technologies are expensive luxuries for any production.
Q with Picard in the Season 2 trailer.
Some of the people who’ve been discussing this online are firmly in the anti-Trek camp, and they were never going to watch Picard Season 2 anyway. It’s sad, but some anti-Trek folks will pick up on any small detail and use it to justify their continuous criticism of the franchise. And that’s up to them, I guess. For my two cents, though, I don’t think there was much to be gained by spending a ton of money on de-ageing Q. It would’ve been interesting to see, and it could’ve become a minor talking point for the second season of the show. But other than that, there was a lot of expense for not much reward, and while it may work in other productions with higher budgets, I’d rather ViacomCBS spent their money cautiously so that we can continue to enjoy more Star Trek, rather than less Star Trek laced with expensive trappings.
There’s no in-universe reason why Q shouldn’t appear differently more than twenty years after he was last seen. He can change his appearance at will, and whether it was to make a joke of Picard having gotten older or to, in Q’s twisted way, express empathy with his old friend, the way he looks even makes sense. It could even be a minor story point in the episode in which he first appears. I don’t have a problem with it at all, and I suspect that some of those claiming it’s a “big deal” would have found other things to criticise and other reasons to dislike Picard Season 2 and modern Star Trek. As far as I’m concerned it’s case closed!
Star Trek: Picard Season 2 will be broadcast on Paramount+ in the United States and on Amazon Prime Video internationally in 2022. Season 1 is available to stream now. The Star Trek franchise – including Picard and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Season 1, and both of the trailers for Season 2.
As I logged on to social media yesterday evening, I was surprised to see a new trailer for the upcoming second season of Star Trek: Picard! Season 2 entered production back in February following months of pandemic-enforced delays, and when it came to Star Trek’s big digital event for First Contact Day in April, there wasn’t much to show from the series except for a stylised teaser and a voiceover. Despite that, however, I managed to pull out a handful of theories!
I wasn’t expecting to see anything much from Picard Season 2 for a while. With production rumbling on for the next few months, I had perhaps thought we might get to see something later in the year when either Lower Decks Season 2 or Discovery Season 4 are being broadcast, so it was a nice surprise to get a trailer this early! Season 2 is still probably ten to twelve months away from being broadcast, but this was a nice little tease to get fans in the mood.
In addition to the trailer a new poster was also revealed, and both are interesting and worth talking about. We’ll start with the poster, then move on to the trailer.
The brand-new Season 2 poster. Picture Credit: Star Trek/ViacomCBS
Using a similar basic concept to the first teaser poster for Season 1, the new poster uses the environment to form a Starfleet delta emblem. In this case, as you can see above, several roads or highways cross over to form the familiar logo. The city depicted in the poster appears to be Los Angeles – based on the straight concrete-sided river, the mountains in the background, and the downtown skyscrapers surrounded by a sprawl of shorter buildings. I could be wrong, but I’m going to say it’s Los Angeles.
The obvious thing to say is that there are cars on the roads. Though we have seen wheeled vehicles in Star Trek’s 24th Century – Picard drove a dune buggy in Nemesis, for example – Earth in the 24th Century has never been depicted in this manner. The cars look modern, the city looks modern, and I think everything we can see in the poster connects to themes from both the earlier teaser and the new trailer: time travel and changing the past.
The first teaser a couple of months ago told us that time travel was on the agenda.
The first teaser trailer, the one from First Contact Day, had Picard telling us in a voiceover that “the true final frontier is time.” That trailer had a lot of different imagery connected to Picard’s past, including the USS Stargazer, but one thing I couldn’t quite figure out was the book Paradise Lost. I speculated that the series might be connected in some way to a literal reading of the title – something Picard did or didn’t do in the past caused the future to be worse. That theme seems to be present in the new trailer.
We’re reintroduced to Q in the new trailer, and he uses a very interesting phrase – arguably the most prominent in the whole thing: “welcome to the end of the road not taken.” Combined with what Picard said in the first teaser about wishing to have done things differently in the past, I think we can start to see the building blocks of the Season 2 narrative.
Q has returned!
Q’s arrival seems to happen after whatever event damages the timeline. In the trailer, Picard was already in a different outfit with a different Starfleet badge, and it seems as though Laris is missing – could she be a casualty of shifting timelines? Regardless, it was only at this point that Q appeared, seemingly for the first time, and this ties into comments from both Sir Patrick Stewart and John de Lancie that Q will play a role in the storyline of the season but isn’t the cause of these events.
So this isn’t going to be an All Good Things redux, where Q sets Picard a puzzle. If anything, I interpreted Q’s arrival as a friend or even an ally showing up to help – perhaps we’ll see more of a Q-Picard alliance develop over the course of the season. Q certainly seemed happy to see Picard again – though the feeling was clearly not mutual. So maybe, at the very least, that’s how Q sees himself: a friend, a helper, and an ally.
Does Q see himself as Picard’s ally? If so, perhaps they will work together.
We saw Seven of Nine toward the end of the trailer, and she was featured more prominently than any of the main cast from Season 1. In Seven’s scene, I think we get even more evidence of this shifting or changed timeline, as Seven seems to wake up in an unfamiliar place – without her Borg implant. It’s possible, of course, that her implants had been removed, but as we saw with poor Icheb in Season 1, that’s a painful and often fatal process.
So the logical conclusion for Seven missing her implants is because she was never assimilated by the Borg in this timeline. But why? And what else has been changed? When we talk about alternate history – which is a fascinating genre in itself – almost every story hinges on a so-called “point of divergence.” This is the moment at which the fictional or alternate timeline separated from our own. Star Trek contains examples of this: the Kelvin timeline being the most prominent example, with a point of divergence on the day of Captain Kirk’s birth.
Where’s Seven’s implant?
If all we saw was Seven missing her implants, we could say that the point of divergence might be in the 2350s – either she didn’t travel to the Delta Quadrant aboard the USS Raven with her family, or that whole voyage never happened. But there’s so much imagery in the trailer and poster that seems to hint at something more than that.
The 21st Century vehicles on the poster could suggest that Picard and the crew will visit our time period during the course of the series – which may or may not be a good thing, but that’s a whole other article! But their presence could also suggest that whatever event or series of events changed the timeline began in the modern day, with ripples flitting along the timeline, changing all manner of things in their wake.
Picard at the vineyard in the opening shot of the trailer.
Picard and Raffi were seen in uniform in the trailer, albeit very briefly. Picard appeared to be giving a speech or making a statement to Starfleet Command, and I wonder in what context he was making that address. I initially thought Picard was wearing his Season 1 flashback uniform in that scene – the one we saw prominently at the start of the episode The End Is The Beginning. But on closer inspection, both he and Raffi are in different uniforms – not the flashback ones, nor the 2399 ones that Riker and Commodore Oh wore. Also, Picard was wearing a 2399-style combadge, not the First Contact–Voyager one that he wore with his Admiral’s uniform in Season 1. So the plot thickens!
It’s possible that this scene is taking place at modern Starfleet, and that there has simply been a tweak to the uniforms since the events of Season 1. Starfleet does love arbitrary uniform changes, after all, and what we saw Picard and others wearing wasn’t so radically different that it couldn’t have been a dress variant, for example. But given everything else going on with Q, Seven of Nine, and potential changes or damage to the timeline, I can’t help but think that this is connected to that.
Picard in a new uniform variant. He seemed to be giving a speech at Starfleet Command.
Perhaps what we’re seeing is an alternate timeline in which Picard and Raffi didn’t resign from Starfleet, and thus in which the Coppelius synths were not saved? That would tie in with Season 1. But at the same time, I’m not sure that’s the route the show is going to follow. There are questions about the Starfleet delta – the silver badges we see Picard and Rios wear are oversized and have a cross or sword shaped indent, which reminds me more than a little of the Mirror Universe. I don’t think we’re going to see a Mirror Universe story, but the symbolism is interesting. What does it mean?
In voiceover, we hear Picard speaking – presumably to the crew of La Sirena – telling them that “we can save the future” and promising to get them home safely. Whatever is going on, the crew of La Sirena are seemingly immune to changes in the timeline – we see Rios react with shock upon discovering his new badge, and Seven similarly stunned by her missing implant. Picard’s voiceover could imply that La Sirena and the crew are themselves stuck in the past – otherwise why use the word “future?”
Captain Rios on the bridge of La Sirena. What’s with his new badge? And why is there a Starfleet emblem on the chair?
To me, the big question is this: is Picard the one responsible for disrupting the timeline? If Q isn’t to blame, and Picard and La Sirena appear to be unaffected and right in the middle of this mysterious event, could we learn that Picard is to blame? The first teaser trailer saw him express almost regret at being unable to change the past – desperately wishing that he’d done something differently. Perhaps he found a way to do it, and thus he triggered the changes to the timeline that we see in the new trailer.
That would be an interesting way for the story to go, and it would play on themes we saw early in Season 1 of Picard being a flawed hero; someone who’s only human and who has limits. The return of Q is interesting – perhaps Q will facilitate Picard’s changes to the timeline, but I suspect he’s going to be helpful in fixing things. The use of the phrase “the road not taken” suggests that this is a timeline that could have come to pass had Picard taken different actions at some point in his past. Combined with the previous teaser, I wonder again if this is referring to his time in command of the USS Stargazer?
Are the changes to the timeline connected, somehow, to Picard’s time aboard the USS Stargazer?
Though we didn’t see the rest of the cast prominently in the trailer, some of what we glimpsed was interesting. Soji appeared to be all dressed up in a fancy outfit, and the expression on her face reminded me of Sutra. Perhaps she’s putting on an act or trying to deceive someone – something akin to the “heist” in Season 1’s Stardust City Rag, for example. But it could also indicate a darker direction for Soji’s character – or even the return of Sutra.
Raffi and Elnor were glimpsed briefly, seemingly running away from someone or something. The neon lights in the background of their scene could suggest they’re on the planet Freecloud, but I wouldn’t bank on that. I have no idea what Dr Jurati was doing as we only saw a close-up of her face, but something about her outfit suggested to me that she could be in prison. She did murder Dr Maddox in Season 1, after all! We also got a glimpse of Laris, who appeared to be staring in surprise or alarm at something behind the camera. Given that Picard was looking for her unsuccessfully at the beginning of the trailer, I wonder if she’s been killed off, or perhaps even removed from the timeline.
What is Laris looking at here? I wonder if it’s connected to her being missing, or the changes in the timeline.
The scene at Starfleet Command, where Picard appeared to be giving a speech, featured the flags of several known factions: the Klingons, Vulcans, Bajorans, and Ferengi were the ones I recognised, along with flags representing the Federation, Starfleet Command, and Starfleet Academy. I don’t think we can infer too much from that – the flags may mean these factions are Federation members or allies, but it could simply mean that they’re present at this event, which could be a diplomatic meeting akin to something we’d see at the G7 or United Nations.
I’m unsure about the other voice heard only in voiceover, the feminine voice saying that “time has been broken.” It sounded a little like Commodore Oh, but I don’t think she would be working with Picard in any timeline! The voice sounds familiar, though… but I can’t place it, nor figure out if it’s someone connected with a past iteration of Star Trek or not. It’s likely that this is a new character, in my opinion.
A mysterious-looking Soji.
The absence of Guinan was noteworthy, as we know she will be making an appearance at some point in Season 2. In The Next Generation episode Yesterday’s Enterprise, Guinan showed a unique awareness of changes to the timeline, and considering Season 2 seems to be all about that kind of thing, bringing her back makes a lot of sense. She also has a history with Q that could be explored in more detail given his return.
And with that, I think we’ve come to the end of my analysis and guesswork! It was great fun to see a glimpse of Season 2, which now has a good three months’ worth of filming and production work under its belt. Despite events out here in the real world, production seems to be moving along well, and I have no doubt at the moment that Picard Season 2 will hit its scheduled release next year. I would guesstimate that it will premiere sometime after Discovery’s fourth season and before Strange New Worlds’ first season, so I think within ten to twelve months we’ll be sitting down to watch the first episode of Season 2.
Why are Elnor and Raffi running?
It was wonderful to see John de Lancie back as Q, and to see him tangle with Picard once again. A trailer can only do so much with a runtime of around one minute, but there seemed to be a heavy emphasis on classic characters: Picard obviously, but also Q and Seven of Nine. This came at the expense of the new characters we met in Season 1 who we only got to see very briefly. Hopefully future marketing material can show off those characters a little more.
The mysteries of Season 2 deepen. What’s the connection to the present day? If the city from the poster is Los Angeles, what connection does that have to Picard and Starfleet? As far as I know he’s never been to the city, and no major Starfleet or Federation organisation is based there. The only Star Trek story to have spent any time in Los Angeles was the Voyager two-parter Future’s End, which was before Seven of Nine came aboard the ship. In that episode, the city of Los Angeles was said to have been destroyed by an earthquake in the mid-21st Century.
If time itself has been “broken,” who is responsible? Is it a natural phenomenon? And why are the crew of La Sirena immune? Did Q or Guinan have something to do with the changes to the timeline? And what did Q mean by “the road not taken?” I have a lot of questions… but can only guess as to the answers right now!
Star Trek: Picard Season 2 will be broadcast on Paramount+ in the United States and on Amazon Prime Video internationally in 2022. Season 1 is available to stream now. The Star Trek franchise – including Picard and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3 and the teaser for Season 4, Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 1 and the teaser for Season 2, and Star Trek: Picard Season 1. Minor spoilers are also present for other iterations of the franchise.
This is going to be a controversial list! Practically every Trekkie I know has their own take on which Starfleet uniforms are the best – and why! Even if we can agree on some of our favourite episodes and films, the aesthetic of Star Trek has always been a world unto itself. Some of the best uniform designs may not feature in the best stories, and likewise some of the best individual episodes and films may not have their casts in the best uniforms, so the two aren’t necessarily connected – though a truly bad costume can, in some cases, detract from an otherwise-decent story.
There have been a wide variety of uniforms used across Star Trek’s 55-year history. Most designs incorporate at least some elements of the original – the costumes designed for The Original Series by William Ware Theiss in the mid-1960s. Gene Roddenberry’s brief for the uniforms was that they were to be “simple, utilitarian, and naval” in style, reflecting his vision of the future and of Starfleet. The very first uniforms, seen in The Cage, Charlie X, and a couple of other early Season 1 episodes, arguably best fit the “naval” aspect of the brief, with toned-down colours and a slightly thicker rolled collar. It was only partway through Season 1 that the typical uniform in its three bright primary colours was rolled out.
Captain Pike in The Cage, sporting the first ever Starfleet uniform.
Colour is a hugely important factor when discussing Starfleet uniforms. Since The Next Generation went off the air, most Star Trek projects have tried to move away from big bold blocks of colour, opting for smaller coloured patches or other ways to express differences in division and rank. Partly this is an attempt to make the uniforms look “modern,” but also I think there’s a feeling among at least some folks that the brightly-coloured shirts and tops of The Original Series in particular, but also The Next Generation, look rather childish or even camp, detracting from the serious messages present in many Star Trek stories.
That said, even the attempts to design sleeker, “cooler” Star Trek uniforms have almost universally resulted in garments that aren’t exactly serious by today’s standards! Recent attempts like the Discovery uniforms are still very sci-fi; hardly the kind of thing you’d see someone wear out on the street – unless they were on their way to a Star Trek convention. I guess what I’m trying to say is that trying to design a “cool Star Trek uniform” may simply be an impossible task!
The cast of Discovery Season 1 in their all-blue uniforms.
So I’m all in favour of embracing the campiness – at least to a degree. Once you get lost in Star Trek, things like uniform colours don’t take you out of it, or at least they don’t for me. I’m not really a fan of attempts to make uniforms that look too much like things that we already have in the real world. There obviously has to be a line between something plausible and something completely outlandish, but in sci-fi that line can be further away than some folks seem to think!
Several generations of Starfleet uniform have become truly iconic; instantly recognisable emblems of the franchise that hardly anyone with even a passing knowledge of popular culture could fail to identify. This has been helped by internet memes, with Captain Picard, Commander Riker, Captain Kirk, Captain Janeway, and even Voyager’s Doctor all re-entering popular culture years after their respective series went off the air.
Captain Picard’s facepalm is a popular meme – and reminds people about The Next Generation and the uniforms the crew wore.
We also need to give some of the new variants time. A uniform – or any aesthetic element of a series or film – doesn’t become an icon overnight, so the 32nd Century uniforms we saw in the Discovery Season 4 teaser, the uniforms in Picard Season 1, and whatever the Strange New Worlds crew end up wearing need time to grow on us! Some Trekkies have already taken to some of the new styles, which is great, but for a lot of folks it takes time to even get used to a whole new look – let alone learn to love it!
As I always say, this whole list is entirely subjective! If you hate all of these uniforms and love others, that’s 100% okay. As with practically every aspect of Star Trek, it’s a big galaxy and there’s room for fans with different tastes and preferences. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s take a look at five of my favourite Starfleet uniforms!
Number 1:The Motion Picture – Admiral’s variant
Kirk wearing his admiral’s uniform – perhaps the only decent one in the whole film!
I can understand why fans were unimpressed with The Motion Picture uniforms on the whole. They represent an attempt – the first real attempt – for Star Trek to try something new and step away from the bold primary colours of The Original Series, but ended up being understated at best, bland and forgettable at worst. The dull colours, t-shirt design, and lack of any distinctive features all meant that these uniforms only ever saw one outing.
But there was an exception! Kirk’s uniform as an Admiral, which he wore for the first part of the film prior to taking command of the Enterprise, is undoubtedly one of my favourites. It’s understated, for sure, but I love the smooth lines between its grey and white sections, the high angled collar, and how the gold Starfleet insignia stands out without being too flashy or over-the-top.
A lot of the criticism of The Motion Picture’s uniforms is absolutely fair. But there’s something about Kirk’s variant that I absolutely adore. I’d suggest that it’s the most “uniform-looking” costume in the whole film, and with its shoulder epaulets and wrist braiding, it’s a unique blend of The Original Series and future, more military-inspired uniforms – some of which we’ll look at further down the list.
Number 2:The Next Generation – Season 3-7 variant
The cast of The Next Generation in Season 4.
I’m not calling today’s list my “all-time” top uniforms, but if I were putting Starfleet uniforms in a ranked list these uniforms would have to be near the top. Excluding variants like the acting ensign uniform Wesley Crusher wore, Troi’s “casual” outfits, and Picard’s jacket, the standard uniforms that were introduced beginning in Season 3 of The Next Generation hit all the right notes for me.
These uniforms have a high collar, which gives them a more “serious” feel than the previous crew-neck style. They retain the large blocks of colour across most of the top, yet the colours are ever so slightly toned down when compared to the bright colours of The Original Series, which I’d argue makes them appear a bit more serious and less camp. With the collars and pants being black, the coloured blocks on the top are striking and draw the most attention, and it’s easy to tell at a bare glance which officer represents which division.
It was a surprise when The Next Generation swapped the red and gold colours over – The Original Series had used gold for command and red for security/engineering. But there’s no denying it works well, and Picard and his crew honestly look fantastic in these uniforms.
Number 3:First Contact and Deep Space Nine Seasons 5-7
Data, Worf, Geordi, Riker, and Picard in Nemesis.
Though reportedly “uncomfortable” for some of the actors, I really like these uniforms. Until Star Trek: Picard premiered last January, they were also the most up-to-date uniforms in Star Trek’s internal timeline – at least if you exclude far future variants! These uniforms shrank the division colours down, retaining only a coloured undershirt poking up through the collar, with the rest being black and grey.
To me, this design says “new Star Trek” – even though the uniforms haven’t been new for almost 25 years! When the franchise was off the air, and even after it returned with prequels, these uniforms still represented the furthest forward Star Trek’s timeline had got, and I guess it’s for that reason I have more of an affinity to them. They’re modern-looking, swapping out big blocks of colour for greys and blacks that are more toned-down, and I guess the intention was to give them a more military style.
First Contact and Insurrection are two of my favourite films, and the latter seasons of Deep Space Nine – where these uniforms were also worn – saw the Dominion War story arc play out, which happens to be my favourite part of that series. I have very positive associations, then, between these uniforms and the narratives they were present in!
Number 4:The Wrath of Khan uniforms – a.k.a. the “monster maroon”
Kirk and Spock showing the “monster maroon” jacket in its open and closed positions in a publicity photo for The Undiscovered Country.
Speaking as we were of uniforms with a very military style, the uniforms which debuted in The Wrath of Khan were a total change from those present in The Motion Picture three years earlier. They incorporated elements of military dress uniforms, with a wide double-breasted jacket, high collar, epaulets, rank insignia, and a belt around the jacket.
In Star Trek’s internal timeline, these are the longest-serving uniforms (that we know of!) having been in service for around 75 years. I don’t personally think that they work well without the high collared undershirt, so my preference is for the Wrath of Khan variant, not those seen in The Next Generation. But the fact that they were in service for a long time is neat – and a way for The Next Generation to connect itself visually to the films of The Original Series era!
If The Original Series uniforms were campy and bright, these military-inspired ones were the complete opposite. Designed to be serious and focused while still retaining some colour, I think they look amazing. Having so many different elements could’ve made for a complicated look, but the simple use of one predominant colour helps settle things down.
Number 5:Star Trek: Picard – 2399 variant
Acting Captain Riker showing off the command variant of the 2399 uniforms.
Star Trek: Picard showed off two new uniform styles – one for flashback scenes and one for Starfleet in 2399. I would have preferred the flashback uniforms were replaced with the First Contact uniforms as they didn’t look great and were ultimately unnecessary, but the 2399 uniforms – which we saw Commodore Oh, Rizzo, and later Acting Captain Riker wear – were fantastic.
What I like most about these uniforms is that, after almost twenty years, colour was back in a big way! Enterprise had blue boiler suits, Discovery mostly showed off an all-blue look, and while neither of those uniforms are bad, I was keen to see something visually different – something more “Star Trek.” Picard delivered.
These uniforms are, in some respects, similar to the Voyager and early Deep Space Nine uniforms in that they’re mostly black with a coloured shoulder area and collar. But the lack of a prominent undershirt and the Starfleet delta detailing on the coloured sections makes them look far superior to those older uniforms! I hope we’ll get to see more characters wearing these uniforms going forward.
So that’s it! Five of my personal favourite Starfleet uniforms.
Boimler and Riker on the bridge of the USS Titan wearing First Contact-era uniforms.
Aesthetic, colour, and costume style are very much subject to personal taste, and I know there can be a range of opinions on all of these things. Despite that, with the exception of Kirk’s uniform from The Motion Picture, I think a lot of Trekkies would put at least one or two of these uniforms on their own lists of favourites!
There really aren’t many Starfleet uniforms that I passionately dislike. Most serve a purpose, and it’s usually at least understandable what the intention behind the design was. Enterprise’s boiler suits, for example, were clearly inspired by modern-day naval, submarine, and astronaut uniforms, and were designed to be a bridge between more typical Starfleet uniforms and 21st Century attire.
I didn’t put the Kelvin uniforms on the list this time. But they are pretty neat!
Voyager and Enterprise kept consistent uniforms during their entire runs, but every other Starfleet crew has had at least one change of uniform. Changing things up keeps the aesthetic of Star Trek interesting, and while I can understand why some folks lament changes of this nature, without radical departures from “normal” uniforms we wouldn’t have got to see some of the best and most visually interesting ones. I like that the Star Trek franchise is bold enough to continue to shake things up.
The teaser trailer for Discovery’s impending fourth season showed off another new uniform – a more colourful variant of the 32nd Century uniform that we saw worn by Admiral Vance and others. Though we really only had a few seconds of footage, I liked what I saw and I think these new ones have the potential to join a future list of this nature!
Regardless of what your favourites might be, and whether or not any of them made this list, I hope it was a bit of fun. I’ll never miss a chance to talk about Star Trek!
The Star Trek franchise – including all titles on the list above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. All Star Trek shows and films mentioned above may be streamed on Paramount+ in the United States, and on Netflix or Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom. Availability may vary by region. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Season 1, Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3, as well as the teaser trailers for Star Trek: Picard Season 2 and Star Trek: Discovery Season 4. Further spoilers may be present for other iterations of the Star Trek franchise.
During Season 1 of Star Trek: Picard last year, I kept holding out hope that the show would make a serious attempt to connect or cross over – somehow – with Discovery, its sister show. Aside from a couple of throwaway lines, however, that didn’t happen. We have since seen Discovery pick up a major faction that had been present in Picard, though, so clearly there’s some intention over at ViacomCBS to link up the two shows. Hopefully this will continue into their next seasons – and that’s what today’s theory is all about!
Discovery Season 4 will premiere months before Picard Season 2, and while I’m hopeful it will be able to include some kind of cameo or crossover like Season 3 did, where I’m going to focus much of my attention this time is on Picard Season 2, so we’ll be shooting past Discovery Season 4 for the most part. In short, there was a line in the Picard Season 2 teaser which stood out to me, and it could be interpreted as setting up some kind of crossover. At the beginning of the short teaser, we hear Picard say in voiceover that “the true final frontier is time.”
Picard Season 2 seems to have a time travel focus.
Beginning with Season 3, Discovery shot forward into the future, with Seasons 3 and 4 taking place almost 800 years after the events of Picard Season 1. That should preclude any major character crossovers… but not if time travel is somehow involved. By the 32nd Century, Admiral Vance and Starfleet believe time travel has been completely outlawed and that no way to travel through time exists. But at the dawn of the 25th Century, the Federation (and other factions) are just beginning to dip their toes in this untapped “final frontier.”
Picard himself has travelled through time on several occasions, both to the future and to the past. And while much of what we saw in the Season 2 teaser suggests that Picard and/or his new crew will travel backwards in time, if time travel is involved, all bets are off. The future and the past blend together in many time travel stories, and it’s possible – at least in my opinion – that Picard and his new crew could find themselves in Discovery’s 32nd Century at some point during their adventures.
Could Picard Season 2 visit the 32nd Century?
Another point we could argue is in favour of this theory is the re-emergence of Q. Because of Q’s nature as a trickster, and an incredibly powerful being, practically anything is possible. In the Voyager Season 2 episode Death Wish, for example, a member of the Q Continuum was able to send the USS Voyager back in time to the moment of the big bang – 13 billion years in the past. The 32nd Century is nothing compared to that!
I’ve spoken before on a number of occasions about the need for Star Trek as a whole to get some threads of consistency going between the shows currently in production. There is a link between Strange New Worlds and Discovery, of course, but Picard and Discovery are almost entirely disconnected right now. Bringing the two crews together – even just for a one-off special episode – would be absolutely fantastic and a great way to celebrate all things Star Trek.
Maybe Admiral Picard will meet Captain Burnham!
If Picard Season 2 is going to focus on travelling backwards through time instead of forwards, perhaps looking to preserve the future by righting wrongs in the past, that still doesn’t necessarily preclude the appearance of Discovery and her crew. Before Burnham, Saru, and the rest of the crew headed into the 32nd Century they were, of course, present in the 23rd, and although we’d be seeing these characters as they were in the past – and thus the storyline could become complicated – it would be possible, at least in theory, for Picard and his new crew to meet up with someone from Discovery if they visited the 23rd Century.
Given the complicated nature of the Control AI storyline in Season 2, anyone from Discovery having been aware of meeting someone from the Picard era could open up a plot hole, so it would have to be handled carefully. Perhaps Picard or someone from La Sirena is able to blend in and disguise themselves as a member of Starfleet in the 23rd Century, for example, allowing them to interact with the likes of Saru or Michael Burnham without the latter being aware of their true origins. That kind of crossover would be a lot of fun, and I think everyone involved would enjoy it!
Visiting the 23rd Century could allow Picard and the crew of La Sirena to meet up with Michael Burnham, Saru, and the crew of Discovery before they headed to the future.
One image that was prevalent in the Picard Season 2 teaser was the USS Stargazer – Picard’s first command. He first sat in the captain’s chair in the 2330s – about 75 years after the events of Discovery Seasons 1-2. That’s quite a long time, but considering the extended lifespans we know are present in Star Trek, it’s not so long that characters from Discovery couldn’t still be alive. Spock, obviously, is still alive in this era. And Dr McCoy was present at the launch of the Enterprise-D, despite being 137 years old. This opens up the possibility to see “aged up” versions of characters from the 23rd Century that we met in Discovery, such as Ash Tyler, L’Rell, or Saru’s sister Siranna.
Even just a short cameo from someone like that would be an amazing way to tie the shows together. Ash Tyler could have risen through the ranks to become a senior officer in Starfleet Intelligence by this era, and he could be someone Picard speaks with upon assuming command of the Stargazer, just as one idea off the top of my head. The introduction of Q and time travel into Picard Season 2 has opened up the possibility of such crossovers in a way that I hadn’t previously considered possible.
Ash Tyler could conceivably still be alive in the early 24th Century.
There is one other possibility, and it’s an inversion of a theory I had in the months before Discovery Season 3 premiered. Back then I theorised that something would go wrong with Burnham and Discovery’s jump into the future, leading them to arrive not in the 32nd Century but at the dawn of the 25th, leading to a crossover with Picard. That didn’t happen, of course, but right now there exists the possibility of this happening in reverse – for Picard and La Sirena to find themselves in the 32nd Century.
Maybe I’m in the minority, and both casual fans and Trekkies love to see the various Star Trek shows and films split up along the timeline – and in parallel universes! But I really do believe that consistency and stability are the hallmarks of a successful franchise, and if Star Trek wants to build on recent successes, picking a single time period to focus on for a majority of its shows and films makes a lot of sense. It makes following the franchise as a whole easier, and it makes it simpler for casual viewers to hop from one series to another without needing to read whole encyclopaedia articles about Star Trek lore to understand who’s where and what’s what. Perhaps bringing Picard into the 32nd Century could be a way to cut down on the franchise’s ongoing time periods.
If La Sirena travels through time, a crossover could be on the cards!
This would be bittersweet, in my opinion. While it would be great for Star Trek to replicate its ’90s heyday by picking an era and sticking with it, taking Picard out of the 25th Century would make future character returns significantly more difficult. It was great fun to see the likes of Data, Riker, Troi, and Seven of Nine again, and I think one thing a lot of Trekkies are hoping for is that Season 2 of Picard will reintroduce more characters from The Next Generation era. Shooting the show forward by more than eight centuries would make that much more difficult.
We’d also miss out on finding out more about the state of the galaxy as the 25th Century dawns. We spent some time with the Romulans in Season 1, but we know next to nothing of the Klingon Empire, the Cardassians, the Bajorans, and so many others. In my opinion, if Star Trek is going to pick one era to be the main focus for upcoming projects, I’d rather it was the 25th Century than the 32nd. Jumping forward in time by a generation instead of centuries is what the Star Wars sequel trilogy tried to do, allowing for the return of classic characters alongside new ones. That’s one reason why I wondered if Discovery was going to end up in this time period too!
In 2019 I wondered if Saru and the crew of Discovery might end up in the 25th Century!
At the end of the day, time travel in Star Trek allows for many different possibilities. Even if Picard just visits the 23rd or 32nd Centuries briefly, during a single episode, the potential for using this technobabble as an excuse for a major crossover exists. If Season 2 is going to have a major focus on time travel, it would almost be a wasted opportunity if the show didn’t include some kind of crossover with Discovery!
The inclusion of Q almost certainly means that some wacky shenanigans are afoot in Picard Season 2. Whether he’s responsible for Picard travelling through time or not, he certainly has the potential to be a disruptive influence, and I could absolutely see Q sending La Sirena spiralling into the path of the USS Discovery – either the refitted 32nd Century version or the older 23rd Century variant! Heck, this could even be how the Short Treks episode Calypso gets resolved… though maybe that’s too much to hope for!
So that’s my theory. A rather disjointed and vague theory, I grant you, but a theory nevertheless. Somehow, the time travel storyline in Picard Season 2 will lead to a crossover with Discovery. Regardless of whether it happens or not, I’m really looking forward to Picard Season 2. It’s been over a year since Season 1 wrapped up, and despite the ending of the first season not quite hitting the highs of its premiere episode, I cannot wait to find out what will come next for Picard and the crew of La Sirena.
Star Trek: Picard Season 1 is available to stream now on Paramount+ in the United States and on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3 are available to stream now on Paramount+ in the United States and on Netflix in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Star Trek: Picard Season 2 is currently targeting a 2022 broadcast, and Discovery Season 4 is scheduled to premiere before the end of 2021. The Star Trek franchise – including Picard, Discovery, and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard, including the entirety of Season 1 and, most significantly, casting information for Season 2. There are also spoilers for Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Over the course of Star Trek: Picard Season 1, we learned a little about some of Picard’s former crewmates from his time aboard the Enterprise-D. We saw Riker and Troi appear in person in the episode Nepenthe, as well as a version of Data. In the episode Maps and Legends, new character Zhaban – an ally of Picard’s – mentioned La Forge and Worf by name, seemingly confirming that both are still alive… at least as of the early part of Season 1! The only main characters from The Next Generation whose fates were not confirmed, and who were not even mentioned, were Dr Beverly Crusher and her son Wesley.
I don’t necessarily expect to see Wesley Crusher return, though I would suggest that actor Wil Wheaton’s continued involvement with Star Trek means it’s a possibility, at least on the production side. But given the close relationship between Picard and Beverly Crusher, I wasn’t alone in wondering what her absence from Season 1 might mean.
Wesley and Beverly Crusher in Star Trek: Nemesis – their last appearance in canon to date.
The teaser for Picard Season 2, which debuted at last month’s First Contact Day digital event, included a lingering shot over a model of the USS Stargazer – the ship Picard commanded prior to the events of The Next Generation. This, combined with Picard discussing the possibility of time travel in voiceover, seems to hint that the ship may play a role in Season 2. This is significant for the Picard-Crusher conversation, because while Picard was in command of the Stargazer, Dr Crusher’s husband Jack was killed. This event was mentioned a couple of times in The Next Generation, and it was arguably hinted at that Picard felt responsible for Jack’s death.
It may even have been the death of Jack Crusher that stopped Dr Crusher and Picard taking their relationship any further, at least in events we saw on screen. So a return to the USS Stargazer could potentially have brought back memories for Picard of Beverly Crusher, and there was scope for us to learn more about what happened to her after we last saw her in Star Trek: Nemesis.
Picard with Dr Crusher in Remember Me from Season 4 of The Next Generation.
However, recent comments by Gates McFadden – the actress who played Dr Crusher in The Next Generation and four films – seem to rule that out, at least in Season 2. Though no character return should be seen as guaranteed, after Riker and Troi came back in Season 1, and with Season 2 seeming to at least acknowledge areas of Picard’s past that may be connected to his relationship with Dr Crusher, it wasn’t an unreasonable guess to think she might appear, and thus I’m a little surprised to hear Gates McFadden ruling it out with the season still in relatively early production.
Though we should be careful about assigning motivations, McFadden is about to launch her own podcast, and it was in that capacity that she spoke to website TrekMovie. Generating attention drives clicks and brings in listeners, and while I don’t doubt that McFadden was being honest about her non-appearance in Picard Season 2, we also have to consider in context what she’s saying and what she’s trying to do by talking about it so openly.
Gates McFadden is plugging her new podcast!
Ever since Star Trek: Picard was announced, practically every former Star Trek actor under the sun has expressed interest in reprising their role, and some have outright lobbied ViacomCBS and the creative team in charge of the franchise to make it happen. In short, by discussing her non-appearance in Season 2, McFadden may be hoping to generate buzz around a future return to the role in Season 3, or in another potential Star Trek project. And again, as with the launch of the podcast, we have to take into account why she chose this moment to talk about it.
In a way this is a pretty big spoiler, because now we know that Dr Crusher won’t be appearing in Season 2 – at least, not in any form we’d recognise. Given the season’s apparent time travel aspect and possible return to the USS Stargazer, I’m at least a little surprised by that. But perhaps there’s still scope to learn more about Dr Crusher and what became of her after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis, even if she doesn’t appear in person.
Dr Crusher in Nemesis.
During The Next Generation’s second season, Gates McFadden’s absence was explained away by saying that Dr Crusher was working at Starfleet Medical on Earth. It seems plausible that she might’ve returned to that role following the disbanding of the Enterprise-E’s crew. If she continued to work with Picard in the years before the attack on Mars, there’s the possibility that their relationship took a romantic turn. It’s a shame we won’t get to see for ourselves in Season 2, though.
There is, of course, the possibility that Dr Crusher will be mentioned, as La Forge and Worf were in Season 1. If that’s the case, her presence wouldn’t be necessary in order for us to know at least whether she’s still alive in this era – I’m assuming she is until I hear anything to the contrary! And it’s also possible that, if the series is going to indulge in some serious time travel, that the role of a younger Dr Crusher will be recast for the new season. The supporting roles of Bruce Maddox and Icheb were recast in Season 1, and we’ve seen Discovery win a great deal of praise for the recasting of Captain Pike and Spock in Season 2, so the possibility of the role being recast certainly exists. I would think, though, that unless Gates McFadden has somehow talked herself out of returning to the role, if Picard Season 2 wanted Dr Crusher circa 2399-2400, the producers would approach her to reprise the role.
Dr Crusher in the future timeline seen in All Good Things…
So it was a bit of a surprise, as I keep saying! However, with John de Lancie returning as Q and Whoopi Goldberg coming back as Guinan, perhaps the producers decided that the show risked being overwhelmed with too many classic characters, or that there wasn’t enough time to do justice to Dr Crusher’s return. As with Riker and Troi last season, Dr Crusher would really need at least one entire episode in which she and her relationship with Picard could be a major story element. In a ten-episode season that has a lot of other storylines running, perhaps the producers decided that was too much.
And if that’s the case, I have to say I’m pleased – because it means the writers and producers have learned a lesson from Season 1. I’ve mentioned on a few occasions that I felt Season 1 of Picard did not conclude in particularly strong fashion. Too many storylines were abruptly dropped or not given any meaningful conclusion, and while Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2 in particular was a very emotional episode with some fantastic moments, the finale as a whole left a lot on the table.
Picard with his new crew at the end of Season 1.
Dr Crusher could be essential to the story of a future season of Picard. Or, like Riker and Troi last season, she could simply be incidental. If the latter is true, the season as a whole needs to be structured in such a way that taking an episode off to visit her doesn’t have implications for the remainder of the story. And if it happens to be the case that the story of Season 2 is too full to fit Dr Crusher in, then that’s okay. I’d rather wait and see her return in a truly meaningful way than either have a rushed cameo or feel that the episode in which she featured was detrimental to the main story of the season overall – which, sorry to say because it’s an outstanding episode in its own right, is kind of how I feel about Season 1’s Nepenthe.
As always, I encourage you to check out Gates McFadden’s full comments (which can be seen on TrekMovie and appear in their podcast) for context, and to see for yourself exactly what she had to say. This is just my take on the situation! Given that Dr Crusher was very close to the top of my list of characters I considered plausible for Picard Season 2, and considering how amazing it would be to spend some more time with the dancing doctor, it’s a bit of a surprise – and perhaps even a little disappointing – that she isn’t returning.
Regardless, I hope that Dr Crusher can return to Star Trek in future, when a suitable role can be found for her. Hopefully there will be more seasons of Picard to come, and perhaps even more shows and/or films set in this era. Any such project could bring Dr Crusher back, and she would be very welcome!
Star Trek: Picard Season 1 is available to stream now on Paramount+ in the United States, and on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Season 2 is currently filming and is targeting a 2022 broadcast. Gates McFadden was speaking exclusively to the website TrekMovie and the full interview may be found there. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Season 1, the teaser for Season 2, and for the following: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager.
Star Trek’s First Contact Day event a few days ago provided a lot of information and teases for upcoming projects in the franchise! Yesterday I took a look at one element from the Discovery Season 4 teaser, and today it’s Picard’s turn to go under the microscope! I wrote up my thoughts on the entire First Contact Day event, by the way, and if you missed that article you can find it by clicking or tapping here.
Both Discovery Season 4 and Lower Decks Season 2 are well into production – in fact, we now know that Lower Decks will be broadcast beginning on the 12th of August! Both shows were able to compile teaser trailers that incorporated a number of different scenes, probably from multiple episodes, and thus we had quite a lot to pick through for each! Picard Season 2, however, only entered production at the end of February, so naturally there wasn’t much to show.
There was a lot more to see from Discovery’s upcoming fourth season!
Instead what we saw was a stylised teaser, which I assume was deliberately filmed for First Contact Day. It seemed to include a shot of Château Picard – the Picard family vineyard – that was part of Season 1; a recycled shot to set up the rest of the teaser. The rest of the teaser comprised a shot of Picard’s study/office at the vineyard, with the camera lingering over a handful of items in the empty room.
The item most confusing to me at the moment is the book Paradise Lost! It’s an epic poem that I once had to read at school, written in the 1600s. And it’s all about Satan and God. Given what Picard is heard to say in voiceover about travelling through time and not knowing what might have been had different actions been taken, perhaps the meaning of Paradise Lost is less to do with the content of the poem than a literal reading of the title – something Picard did or didn’t do in the past changed the present, making things worse. That could be his “paradise lost.” This is frustrating!
How does Paradise Lost connect to the story of Season 2?
But Paradise Lost is not what we’re talking about today. In the teaser, Picard spoke of time as “the true final frontier,” and combined with the teaser focusing both on clocks and a backwards-running hourglass, time travel seems to be on the agenda! That’s before we get to Q, who is returning to tangle with Picard once more. Q is quite capable of time travel, as we’ve seen numerous times. Sir Patrick Stewart seemed to at least hint that Q isn’t responsible for whatever happens to Picard, but he’s clearly involved to some degree.
In addition to all of the time-related imagery, one thing from the trailer really leapt out at me: a model of the USS Stargazer. It’s the Stargazer that we’re going to talk about today, as the teaser seemed to at least hint at the possibility of revisiting this chapter of Picard’s life – something I predicted Season 2 might do a few weeks ago!
The USS Stargazer model as seen in the Season 2 teaser.
So let’s consider a few possibilities for how the USS Stargazer could be included in Season 2 of Picard. We’ve already heard the ship mentioned in Season 1; Dr Benayoun referenced Picard’s time aboard the ship in the episode Maps and Legends. Perhaps that was a hint at things to come in Season 2, and perhaps Dr Benayoun himself will make a return. We’ll have to wait and see what happens when the season airs next year!
My usual caveat applies: I have no “insider information.” I’m not claiming any of the things on this list will definitely happen in Season 2. This is just speculation and guesswork; a bit of fun and a chance to spend a bit more time talking and theorising about Star Trek. That’s all! So with that out of the way, let’s take a look at my six USS Stargazer theories.
Number 1: Picard’s “death” and a redux of The Next Generation Season 6 episode Tapestry.
Picard was given the option to make changes in his life in the episode Tapestry.
When I think of Q, Picard, and time travel, one of the first episodes that comes to mind is Tapestry. Given that Picard has faced death in Season 1, perhaps the stage is set for some kind of redux of this episode, or at least a story which uses a similar premise. In Tapestry, Picard was given a chance by Q to go back to his past and make changes in his life, choosing to use the wisdom of age to be more cautious and less impulsive. At first it seemed to save his life, but the changes made his life far worse and unliveable.
What wasn’t clear in Tapestry is whether Q and Picard were truly travelling through time or whether it was an elaborate illusion. I choose to think it was the former; Q had the power to do all of those things, after all! So maybe he will give Picard a chance to do so again.
Q in Tapestry.
At this stage we don’t know why Picard wants or needs to travel through time. It may be connected to the Zhat Vash, Coppelius, the super-synths from the season finale, or something else that happened last season. It may be connected to something from The Next Generation. Or it may simply be a new storyline written for the show as happened in Season 1. But if he did want to go back in time to change the past, perhaps he would enlist the help of Q, setting up a story similar to Tapestry.
If Picard were to go back in time to his Stargazer days, there are a lot of things he could potentially do differently, and thus a lot of different ways that the story could go. You’d think that, after what happened in Tapestry, Picard would have learned his lesson about changing the past. But if Q showed him a very different, far better future, perhaps he could be convinced to make such a change.
This might connect to the “paradise lost” concept that I touched on at the beginning. Perhaps Q is able to convince Picard that his best option, or the only option, to get a particular outcome in the future is to change the past?
Number 2: The Cardassian Border Wars.
Picard has had run-ins with the Cardassians before.
Though only mentioned briefly in The Next Generation, Picard was in command of the USS Stargazer during the Cardassian Border Wars. Not to be confused with Deep Space Nine’s Dominion War, this conflict took place in the mid-24th Century, prior to the events of The Next Generation. Picard made reference to one encounter in which a Cardassian ship fired on the Stargazer while the shields were down, causing him to have to flee!
One of the interesting things about choosing the Stargazer for part of Season 2’s setting as opposed to the Enterprise-D is that we know relatively little of Picard’s exploits while in command of the ship. Picard was in command of the Stargazer for around twenty years (from the 2330s to the 2350s) yet we only got brief hints at what he did in all that time. That makes it a relatively blank slate as far as the writers and producers of Season 2 are concerned.
A Cardassian Galor-class ship attacks the Enterprise-D in the episode The Wounded.
We do know, however, that Picard and the Stargazer saw action during the Cardassian Border Wars, and perhaps this could be a way for Star Trek to revisit the faction we got to know so well in Deep Space Nine. As one of the few known events during Picard’s time in command of that vessel, it’s at least possible that we’ll see it mentioned!
The Next Generation Season 4 episode The Wounded saw Picard work with the Cardassians, so it doesn’t seem as though he harbours any lingering feelings toward them; certainly not like the trauma he carries after his experiences with the Borg. So I don’t think that revisiting the Cardassian Border Wars would lead to the kind of powerful moment that we saw when Picard visited the Artifact in Season 1. But there could be something from those days that Picard has to confront, or perhaps he’s been hiding or repressing his feelings about the Cardassians since then?
The advantage to bringing the Cardassian Border Wars into play, at least from my point of view, would be that it would allow the series to revisit some of the events seen in Deep Space Nine and Voyager. Picard may not have much connection to those events, but other characters do. Seven of Nine, for example, served with and was once in a relationship with Chakotay, and his Maquis friends were killed by the Cardassians. Perhaps some kind of story related to Cardassia and the Cardassian Border Wars is on the cards.
Number 3: Assuming command in the 2330s.
Picard served in Starfleet for decades.
One of the things that Picard inadvertently changed during the events of Tapestry was that he never assumed command of the USS Stargazer. All we know of this event is that, following the death of the ship’s captain, Picard boldly assumed command. Doing so was a risk, one that the less cautious young Picard was willing and able to take. Following this event, he was appointed as the ship’s permanent commander and (presumably) promoted to the rank of captain.
The death of a ship’s captain is a significant moment, one that we haven’t seen often within Star Trek. Presumably the Stargazer’s captain was killed violently or during some kind of disaster or emergency; if he’d simply died of natural causes Picard’s tale of assuming command would be far less grand! So whatever happened, I think it’s fair to say it came at a difficult moment for the ship and crew.
Picard hallucinates the Stargazer crew in the episode The Battle.
This event may turn out to have some connection to Q or to something from Season 1 of the show. We could learn, for example, that the Zhat Vash or the super-synths were responsible for the attack on the Stargazer, and thus for Picard’s ascent to the captain’s chair. It may then be the Zhat Vash who want to go back in time to undo something, changing events so that Picard wouldn’t be in a position to help Soji and the Coppelius synths.
Maybe that’s a stretch and a reach, but the idea of undoing a mistake and trying to alter the future seems to be a theme of the season, according to the teaser. Picard himself was heard in voiceover saying that time never offers second chances – so perhaps the person or faction hoping to change the past is not Picard and his new crew, but some other nefarious faction. Picard and the crew of La Sirena may even be travelling back in time to preserve the timeline, not change it.
When it comes to factions we know of within Picard that could be interested in changing the past, the Zhat Vash have to be right up at the top. They’re fanatics, and after their recent defeat both at Coppelius and with the repeal of the ban on synthetic life they may try to travel back in time to exact their revenge. Going back to prevent Picard ever becoming a captain, changing his career and stopping him interfering in their plans, may be what they have in mind. One of the neat things about revisiting this era would potentially be a return of the red Starfleet uniforms!
Number 4: The Battle of Maxia.
The “Picard Manoeuvre” – Picard’s tactic at the Battle of Maxia.
At the opposite end of Picard’s time in command was the Battle of Maxia. At this battle, in which Picard faced a Ferengi ship, he devised the “Picard Manoeuvre” – a tactic that allowed his ship to appear to be in two places at once, and which was later taught at Starfleet Academy. In the aftermath of this battle, however, the Stargazer was lost. Presumed to have been destroyed, the ship was actually salvaged by the Ferengi.
The “Picard Manoeuvre” was referenced in Season 1, during the episode Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2. As with the earlier reference to the USS Stargazer, perhaps this was setting up something that will become important in Season 2, or at least reminding us of its existence! These little crumbs could form a trail for us to follow, perhaps informing us of planned events in Season 2. Or I could be reading too much into individual lines, as I always seem to be!
Picard on the bridge of the Stargazer.
The Battle, the ninth episode of The Next Generation, explored the Battle of Maxia in more detail. It’s probably the one event involving the USS Stargazer that has been most closely examined on screen. That could mean it’s a good place for Season 2 to go, as it’s something we’re at least a little familiar with. Or it could mean that, as Picard has already confronted his actions at the battle and their consequences, there isn’t much left to explore.
In any case, it remains a possibility. Returning to the Battle of Maxia could see the return of the Ferengi in some capacity, though their involvement was not known at the time. As above, it could be a chance either for Picard to correct a mistake, or for someone nefarious to attempt to change the past – his past – by changing the outcome of the battle.
Number 5: The death of Jack Crusher.
Jack Crusher died while serving on the Stargazer.
Jack Crusher – husband to Beverly and father to Wesley – died while serving under Picard’s command aboard the USS Stargazer. It was at least implied that Picard bears a degree of responsibility for his death, or at least feels responsible for what happened. Perhaps that’s simply because of how he is as a commanding officer – but could there be more to it than that?
Of the main cast of The Next Generation, only Dr Crusher’s fate was left unconfirmed in Season 1. We saw Riker and Troi of course, and Data we know has died. Zhaban also confirmed that Geordi La Forge and Worf are still alive, so that only leaves Dr Crusher. In at least one future timeline, she and Picard had married – we saw no evidence for or against this idea in Season 1, so perhaps it could be explored in Season 2.
Jack Crusher in hologram form.
In the teaser, Picard spoke about how we often wish we’d acted differently during a crisis, and perhaps one thing he wishes he had been able to change was whatever led to Jack Crusher’s death. We could also learn that the Zhat Vash, super-synths, or some other faction or entity from Season 1 is involved in the events that led to him being killed, forming a kind of circular story going back to Picard’s past.
If Dr Crusher were to be involved in Season 2, she would undoubtedly have something to say about the possibility of revisiting the moment of Jack’s death! Maybe she would try to talk Picard out of it, saying that changing an event more than fifty years in the past would have huge ramifications for them both. Or maybe she’d be in favour of going back in time to prevent it from happening if his death set in motion a series of events that led to horrible consequences at the dawn of the 25th Century.
It’s also possible that Jack Crusher’s death may simply be the backdrop for the story – an event connected to something else in the series, but not something Picard hopes to undo.
Number 6: Anti-time and All Good Things…
Q and Picard in All Good Things…
In the finale of The Next Generation, Q set Picard a puzzle to solve that required him to think outside the box. In short, events in the future were – somehow – having a causal effect on events in the past. Figuring that out, and learning for the first time that time is not necessarily linear and moving only in one direction was what Picard learned.
As above with Tapestry, when I think of Q and time travel, I also think of All Good Things. The teaser made reference to “the trial,” and I believe even used a line spoken by Q in All Good Things as it drew to a close. Q told Picard in that episode that his and humanity’s trial in the eyes of the Q was ongoing, so perhaps the return of Q will mean revisiting some of these concepts.
Q in his “judge” guise in All Good Things…
Something that will be potentially interesting to explore are Q’s views on mortality. In the Voyager Season 2 episode Death Wish, Q helped a fellow member of the Q Continuum to die, but has never had to confront mortality himself. In many ways, Q seemed to regard Picard as something akin to a friend, and watching him age and confront death might be something that would interest and bemuse him.
In the panel that immediately followed the teaser, Sir Patrick Stewart appeared to refer to Q appearing in only a single episode, so perhaps his influence over the season won’t be as significant as we’re assuming. It was also implied that Q is not the cause of whatever the main event of the season is. However, if Picard needed to travel back in time for some reason – such as to prevent something catastrophic from happening in the present – he may voluntarily call upon Q. After all, how many other methods of time travel is Picard aware of?
All we can say for sure at this stage is that Q is involved somehow. But given the teaser’s focus on time travel, maybe his involvement will be in sending Picard and his new crew back in time, perhaps to the time he served aboard the Stargazer.
So that’s it. Six theories about Picard Season 2 and the USS Stargazer!
At this stage, with the second season perhaps as much as a year away from being broadcast, we have very little to go on. As mentioned, the teaser didn’t include a single character or completed scene or sequence, so I’m reading an awful lot into a few lines of voiceover and the imagery presented! We don’t even know for sure that the USS Stargazer will be included in any form, let alone visited through time travel!
The USS Stargazer being towed by the Enterprise-D.
Despite that, however, it’s great fun to speculate and theorise about what might be happening. The series is currently in production, with filming ongoing at time of writing, and while we’re unlikely to see another teaser or trailer any time soon, I’ll be keeping an eye out for any tiny tidbits of news that may come our way!
Discovery has shot forward into the 32nd Century; the far future. As such, it’s less easy for that show to bring back characters, themes, and storylines from Star Trek’s past – though that didn’t stop me making a few guesses about what may be going on in Season 4! But Picard is only set twenty years on from the events of the 24th Century Star Trek shows, and as such we could potentially see the inclusion of all manner of characters and other story elements – as indeed we saw happen in Season 1.
Regardless, I’m excited to see where Picard Season 2 takes the story next. The return of Q promises to be great fun, and while the season is a way off yet, I think it’s okay to make a few tentative guesses about what may be going on!
Star Trek: Picard Season 1 is available to stream now on Paramount+ in the United States and other regions where the platform is available. It may be streamed on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and other countries and territories. Star Trek: Picard Season 2 is scheduled to premiere on Paramount+ and/or Amazon Prime Video next year. The Star Trek franchise – including Picard and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Season 1, Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 1, Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3, and most importantly, there are spoilers (including images) from the teaser trailers for Picard Season 2, Lower Decks Season 2, and Discovery Season 4. There are also spoilers for Prodigy.
Yesterday was “First Contact Day” – the 5th of April is the day in 2063 when humans made first contact with the Vulcans, as depicted in Star Trek: First Contact. We’ve seen the event celebrated within Star Trek on a few occasions, and apparently one dish often served is salmon! But we’re off-topic already.
The creative team in charge of Star Trek set up First Contact Day as a digital event, somewhat akin to last year’s Comic-Con @Home presentations, and other similar events that they’ve done periodically. It was marketed on social media, particularly on Facebook and Twitter. But it wasn’t 100% clear how fans were supposed to access the virtual panels – whether they were just going to be available on the website, on social media directly, or even via Paramount+. Even navigating to the right part of the Star Trek website took clicking through several links.
It wasn’t exactly clear how to get to this web page.
That confusion was entirely self-inflicted and clarifying it would have been easy to do. It was almost as if the social media/website teams were making watching the panels “live” – they were actually pre-recorded – as difficult as possible. Thankfully all five of the panels were later made available on YouTube (vital for me, so I could go back and take screenshots!) But while we’re complaining about Star Trek/Paramount+/ViacomCBS’ social media, if you want to watch the full panels on YouTube I advise you to do so fast – in the past, some Star Trek videos, including one of the trailers for the first season of Picard and last year’s Comic-Con panel I mentioned earlier, were taken down by YouTube’s copyright protection algorithm. Hopefully that won’t happen this time, but it’s worth keeping in mind the possibility.
One of the pre-event social media posts was really tantalising and very well put-together. A “teaser” clip of a viewscreen which briefly flashed up two numbers – that looked like map coordinates – got a number of Trekkies talking and speculating, successfully building up a degree of hype for the First Contact Day event. In 2021, this kind of audience engagement via social media is vital for any franchise, and I’m glad to see Star Trek at least making an attempt!
What looked like the bridge of the USS Discovery…
…and the mysterious numbers!
So let’s start with the big news!
We got teaser trailers for Lower Decks Season 2, Picard Season 2, and Discovery Season 4! In addition, we got to see the design for Captain Janeway in Prodigy. Each of the panels gave us a few clues and tidbits of information about these upcoming Star Trek projects, which was fantastic.
The mysterious numbers mentioned above did in fact turn out to be coordinates – for a convention centre in Chicago! Star Trek: Mission Chicago is going to take place in April 2022, and will be the first in-person convention since the coronavirus pandemic hit. Perhaps it’s because I was never going to be in attendance, but I’m not sure the convention was the strongest way to end the First Contact Day event. It was saved for the last moment by co-hosts Wil Wheaton and Mica Burton, and it just felt a tad anticlimactic after an event that had seen so much other exciting news.
For me at least, this wasn’t the strongest way to end the entire broadcast.
With so much going on, and so many amazing reveals, it’s hard to know what to talk about first! Let’s start with Prodigy, since the newly-revealed image of Captain Janeway is probably going to be seen as First Contact Day’s most iconic takeaway. While there was no trailer or teaser for the series, which I admit I had been half-hoping for, we did get a bit more information.
The series is set several years after Voyager, at roughly the same time as Lower Decks, in the 2380s. And the reason why none of the aliens we saw in the first teaser image a few weeks ago look familiar is because the show is set in the Delta Quadrant. The aliens are (presumably) all Delta Quadrant natives who are, according to the show’s creators, totally unaware of Starfleet or the Federation.
The new Captain Janeway design for Prodigy.
The version of Captain Janeway that they encounter is a “training hologram” that has been left behind on some kind of training vessel, presumably by the USS Voyager as it passed through the Delta Quadrant. This is the abandoned Starfleet vessel that had been mentioned in the show’s original description.
The design of Janeway is just fantastic. Modern Star Trek has not been shy about changing up classic designs, but Janeway retains her Voyager-era uniform and combadge, and the design manages to blend the way she looked in the show with a CGI-cartoon aesthetic just perfectly. Looking at her, you know immediately who she is! I honestly cannot fault the design, and I can’t wait to see her in action along with the new crew.
The rest of the Prodigy crew.
The premise of Prodigy has now fully taken shape. The setting has been laid out and the crew assembled. Now all we’re missing is the ship itself! Could that be the Delta Flyer?
The creators of Prodigy talked about how the new series will be great fun for kids, stimulating their imaginations and creativity. Both words, “imagination” and “creativity,” came up several times during the panel, and it sounds as though they’re really pushing hard for Prodigy to be something more than just background noise or brainless entertainment. The best kids’ shows do this, and as a result have a lot to offer kids and adults. There was a mention that Prodigy is for “all ages,” which is great!
Finally, Prodigy promised a number of surprises and connections to Star Trek’s broader canon, both of which I like the sound of! There was a hint that one of the characters we saw in the teaser image has a connection to The Original Series; my first guess was the rock-like alien perhaps being a Horta, as that was something I guessed at when I first saw the image. But we’ll have to wait and see on that!
Could this character be related to the iconic Horta?
So that was Prodigy. Since we’re looking at animation, let’s move on to Lower Decks next.
Creator Mike McMahan was involved in a panel that looked at Star Trek’s sense of humour. Considering how many “critics” attacked Lower Decks before it was broadcast for being an un-serious take on Star Trek, I think it was worthwhile to remind people that humour has been a huge part of the franchise going all the way back to The Original Series. McMahan in particular noted the interactions between Kirk, Spock, and Dr McCoy as being a great example of this.
The panel concluded with the aforementioned Lower Decks Season 2 teaser, and in a scant few seconds there was a lot going on! Here are just a few of the things I noticed: Rutherford’s implant is back, meaning his design remains unchanged despite the events of the Season 1 finale. Boimler, as promised, remains aboard the USS Titan, though his posting doesn’t seem to be going well!
Lieutenant Boimler doesn’t seem to be having “the time of his life” on board the USS Titan!
Jonathan Frakes will return as Riker, which we had assumed but hadn’t been confirmed. At one point, Mariner wore what looked like the anbo-jyutsu armour from Season 2 of The Next Generation – something Riker wore once in that show. A Miranda-class ship was briefly shown. And finally, there was a sequence in which Mariner appeared to be fighting several Cardassians!
There’s a lot to digest in just those few seconds, and taken out-of-context it’s hard to be sure of what’s going on! What we didn’t see was Boimler interacting with the other three main characters, and perhaps that’s to keep his fate a secret. Or perhaps it’s indicative of the fact that he will remain aboard the USS Titan for several episodes!
Ensigns Tendi, Rutherford, and Mariner in the Lower Decks Season 2 teaser.
Lower Decks Season 2 looks to be coming together nicely, and there was a lot shown off in the teaser that seems to be from quite a few different episodes. We now know that Lower Decks Season 2 will premiere on the 12th of August, which is pretty much one year after Season 1’s debut! So that’s fantastic news, and it means we’ll get at least some Star Trek this year!
Discovery’s fourth season is also scheduled for 2021, though no date was confirmed. After an interesting panel which focused on Nichelle Nichols and a documentary that has been made about her and her work and influence over women at NASA called Women In Motion, Sonequa Martin-Green introduced the first Season 4 teaser trailer.
The Women In Motion panel.
Before we look at the teaser in depth, I enjoyed the Women In Motion panel. One point that came up is the value of representation, which was something Michelle Hurd (Star Trek: Picard’s Raffi) discussed at length. Representation matters in entertainment, and I’ve had an essay in the pipeline on that very subject for a while. One of these days I’ll get it finished!
On to the teaser trailer. The first thing to note is that Discovery’s uniforms have been changed. The grey design appears to have been retired in favour of a more colourful look – the basic layout of the uniforms appears to be very similar, but the colours have changed. This is something I predicted a few weeks ago, and I look forward to seeing more of the new uniforms at some point soon; it’s difficult to assess them fairly from a few short scenes in a teaser!
Owosekun and Burnham sporting the redesigned, more colourful uniforms in the Season 4 teaser.
After the Burn in Season 3, it seems as though Discovery is returning to another “natural disaster” concept in Season 4. An “anomaly” described as being five light-years in diameter seems to be threatening both the Federation and other worlds, perhaps meaning there will need to be some working together to figure out a solution.
After Seasons 1 and 2 both ended up being about fighting and had major villains to defeat, it was a nice break for Discovery to largely have to deal with a scientific problem in Season 3, so I think the same concept could work well again. I just hope that it doesn’t end up feeling either repetitive, as though copying the Burn, or anticlimactic, coming after the galaxy-wide catastrophe and simply not being as impactful.
Damage to the USS Discovery in the Season 4 teaser.
When I heard talk of a gravitational anomaly that was several light-years wide, my first thought was the Nexus, as seen in the film Generations. That “energy ribbon” was known to be able to damage starships and even planets, and though we didn’t see any evidence of the Nexus, perhaps it could be the cause of this strange anomaly?
It looks as though the USS Discovery takes a beating in Season 4, and may even end up destroyed or irretrievably damaged! At one point, Burnham was the sole figure on the bridge and had to wear a helmet, presumably because of the extent of the damage suffered by the ship. Though the uniforms have been redesigned, I didn’t see any significant changes to the internal design of the USS Discovery itself, which is something I think would be nice to see now they’re established in the 32nd Century.
Burnham in some kind of armour or space suit in the Season 4 teaser.
It was great to see Cleveland Booker back, and it seems as though David Ajala will be back as a regular cast member for the show. Book was such a fun character in Season 3 that I’m thrilled he’s back. He wasn’t in a Starfleet uniform, so it seems as though he’s keeping his status as an outsider. That worked well in Season 3, so why change what works?
Lieutenant Detmer appears to have upgraded her cybernetic implant! We saw at least one glimpse of a scene in which the USS Discovery appeared to lose artificial gravity, which is something rarely seen in Star Trek. We saw the return of the President of Ni’Var, who appeared in Season 3, as well as the debut of a new character who seems to be a Federation official.
At one point, the ship appears to lose its artificial gravity!
Saru was shown briefly, and looks to be in some kind of diplomatic or ambassadorial role based on the few seconds he was on screen. We also saw one other Kelpien, a couple of unknown aliens, and Burnham once again talking about togetherness and unity as ways to tackle the threat they all face – presumably this anomaly. And most importantly: Grudge is back!
So all I can think to say is “wow!” Discovery Season 4 looks action-packed to say the least! We didn’t see either Admiral Vance or Kovich; the latter we know is returning but I certainly hope Admiral Vance will be back as well. Oded Fehr’s performance in Season 3 was fantastic, and it’s wonderful to have a Star Trek admiral who does what’s right and isn’t an adversary; it makes a nice change!
The USS Discovery was also briefly glimpsed in the Season 4 teaser.
Based on what we saw, Discovery Season 4 looks fantastic, and getting confirmation that it’s aiming for a 2021 release is great news as well. Though no date was given, at this stage I would assume (alright, guess) that we’ll see something of a repeat of last year, with Lower Decks running from August to October, and Discovery Season 4 picking up sometime in mid-October; certainly before Halloween. It would then run through the autumn and winter before concluding sometime in the New Year. That was 2020’s pattern, and with Lower Decks scheduled for August, I think we can reasonably guesstimate that the same thing will happen this year as well.
That brings us to Picard, which was one of the first things we saw! The Picard Season 2 teaser was totally unlike the Lower Decks and Discovery teasers, being comprised of no filmed scenes and featuring no characters – which makes sense, given how early in production the season is! Despite that, however, in the short teaser we actually got a lot of information – or possible information – about what might be going on!
A model of the USS Stargazer in the Season 2 teaser.
Firstly, time travel appears to be involved. Specifically, travelling backwards in time. This was represented by an hourglass running in reverse. We also saw the teaser linger very prominently over a model of the USS Stargazer – Picard’s first command. There was also a glimpse of Paradise Lost, an epic poem about falling from grace and the rejection of God. I’m sure that’s a tease at something… but what? Then we got the biggest bombshell of the entire teaser: Q is returning!
John De Lancie, who plays Q (and who recently appeared in Lower Decks) joined Wil Wheaton and Sir Patrick Stewart to confirm Q’s return, and it was great to see him back! The combination of time travel plus Q seems to make for an interesting setup to the new season!
John De Lancie will reprise his role as Q in Picard Season 2!
The USS Stargazer was under Picard’s command for more than twenty years, seemingly from the 2330s to the 2350s. Having spent so much of his life aboard the ship, revisiting it makes a lot of sense for the show! It’s also an almost-blank slate, as aside from a few references and lines here and there across The Next Generation, the Stargazer’s exploits are largely unknown. We do know that the ship was involved in the Cardassian Border Wars, and that Jack Crusher served aboard the ship before being killed. In voiceover, Picard talked about time being the real “final frontier,” and about the desire to do things differently.
A couple more hints about the storyline and Q’s involvement came in the panel which followed. Sir Patrick Stewart made a couple of references to Q appearing in an “episode” using the singular, so perhaps Q will be back for just one appearance! It doesn’t sound as though Q caused whatever time-related event is happening, which is also a point of note.
The very creative way Q’s involvement was announced!
Q’s arrival was said to come at a “shattering moment” – perhaps the moment that time shattered? Or perhaps a moment in which Picard feels traumatised, as Sir Patrick Stewart and others made reference to Picard being “traumatised” both by his past and whatever is going on in the new season.
There seemed to be a hint that Picard may visit more than one time period, as well as Jonathan Frakes’ inclusion suggesting that Riker may make a reappearance in Season 2 as well. My first thought, putting all of these elements together, is some kind of follow-up to the events of All Good Things, the finale of The Next Generation. In that story, Q allowed Picard to move between three time periods in order to solve a puzzle – events in the future were having a causal effect on events in the past! Perhaps some kind of similar “anti-time” story is on the cards?
An hourglass running backwards was one of the key visuals in the teaser.
Q appeared in the first episode in which we met Picard – Encounter at Farpoint right at the beginning of The Next Generation’s run. As I said once, it would be poetic if he were also to appear in the episode – or at least the season – which marks Picard’s end as a Star Trek character as well. Though a third or even fourth season of Picard was said to be there for the taking if Sir Patrick Stewart wanted to do it, I wonder if Q’s inclusion in Season 2 may mean that it will be the last season of the show – and may even see Picard killed off.
That’s pure speculation on my part, though!
With production having only been going on since late February, I’m not surprised that Picard didn’t have more to show at this stage. It seems certain we won’t see Season 2 before next year, and that’s actually okay! As excited as I am to continue the journey, we’ll have plenty of Star Trek to get stuck into later this year.
What relationship will Paradise Lost have to the plot?
So that wraps up my thoughts on the three teasers (plus one image) that we got during yesterday’s First Contact Day event. Before we go, though, I want to talk briefly about the other panels.
This year is the 25th anniversary of Star Trek: First Contact (gosh I feel old now, as I remember seeing it at the cinema!) There was a panel hosted by Wil Wheaton that featured Sir Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, and Alice Krige – the actress who played the Borg Queen in that film. It was a very sweet panel, as all the participants had fond memories of working on the film.
Krige in particular spoke very highly of working with the cast of The Next Generation, and being welcomed aboard by a team that had been working together for almost a decade at that point. There were some lighthearted moments too, as Frakes was quizzed over his “Two Takes Frakes” nickname! It was a lot of fun, and it’s nice to see that, even after so many years, the cast still enjoy one another’s company.
The Star Trek: First Contact 25th Anniversary panel.
The only panel I haven’t touched on yet was that hosted by Mica Burton in which several designers and artists participated. It reminded me of a book I own called Aliens and Artifacts which similarly looks at makeup, uniform design, prosthetics, and so on, and how all of those things are created by artists behind the scenes.
It’s always interesting to learn a little more about how these things work, and it was neat to hear from some of the folks who have been involved with designing new aliens, new uniforms, and other aesthetic elements that go on to be iconic and emblematic of Star Trek.
The artists’ panel was interesting.
So that’s it! First Contact Day was interesting, and we got to learn a lot about upcoming Star Trek projects! The return of Q in Picard Season 2, as well as a time travel story, sounds interesting. Discovery Season 4 looks to be playing up the strengths of Season 3. And Lower Decks looks like another wacky good time! It was great to see Captain Janeway’s design in Prodigy, as well as learn a little more about that series. Though I hoped to find out when it will debut or even see a trailer, I’m content to wait and let the creators get it ready first!
I had fun with First Contact Day, and I encourage you to check out all of the panels in full if you haven’t already. At the very least, watch the teasers for yourself! You can find all of the First Contact Day panels by clicking or tapping here to go to the Paramount+ YouTube channel.
The Star Trek franchise, including all properties mentioned above, is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are minor spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery Season 3.
In addition to the first teaser image for Star Trek: Prodigy, a recent update from ViacomCBS (that was primarily directed at their investors) has given us a couple of interesting bits of news regarding both current and future Star Trek projects. Today I thought it would be worthwhile to take a look at what was said and try to figure out what may or may not be coming our way in 2021 and the first half of 2022.
The most significant piece of news was that ViacomCBS plans to have something from the Star Trek franchise on Paramount+ every quarter. Since it’s already almost March I think we can rule out anything in Q1 this year! But that still potentially leaves us with three Star Trek projects before the end of 2021.
The teaser image for Prodigy, in case you missed it!
I said just after New Year that I believed we’d see both Prodigy Season 1 and Lower Decks Season 2 this year, and those will almost certainly be two of the three. With Discovery Season 4 having been in production since November, I have to assume that will be the third series planned for this year – perhaps targeting a Q4 broadcast like Season 3 received in 2020. That’s ambitious in my opinion – post-production work on Discovery Season 3 took over nine months to complete – but if ViacomCBS and Paramount+ can manage it, it will be a fantastic achievement! And it will mean one extra Star Trek show in 2021 that I wasn’t expecting!
If that’s the plan, that would then open up Q1 and Q2 of 2022, and it seems certain that we’d get Picard Season 2 (which has just started filming) and Strange New Worlds Season 1 in the first half of next year – probably in that order. So this current quarter could be the longest we’ll have to go without any new Star Trek for quite some time!
Picard and his new crew are coming back soon.
What will happen after that is in question, and this is where the other interesting bit of news comes in: ViacomCBS has no plans to produce any other Star Trek shows until those currently in production have concluded.
This seems to mean that the Section 31 series, which originally had a premiere date suggested for this year, is going to be delayed yet further, and I interpret comments by some of its writers and producers to mean that the series going ahead at all is less certain now than ever. Strange New Worlds completely stole the Section 31 show’s thunder, both before and after it was announced, and as I said a while ago, I never really got the impression that there was much excitement for Section 31. Many Discovery fans were clamouring for a Pike series almost from the first episode of the show’s second season, but Georgiou and Section 31, while not badly received, were very much the lesser part of that story overall.
Anson Mount recently cropped up in his Starfleet uniform in the ad campaign for Paramount+.
Georgiou’s recent departure from Discovery has set the stage for Section 31 – but it also left things very open as to where (and when) she will end up. Perhaps behind the scenes what’s going on is some major retooling of the Section 31 show’s premise; it had been suggested by Alex Kurtzman and others fairly recently that the scripts were still being worked on, and this feels like another indication of changes to the upcoming series.
So this unfortunately raises the question of the Section 31 show’s ultimate fate. Is this the first step to it being cancelled… or “un-announced?” It feels like it could be, sadly. Despite not being as interested in Section 31 when it was announced, I’ve recently come around to the idea of this kind of spy thriller. If done well I think it could be something really fun and different within Star Trek, and with it having been announced I kind of want to see it come into being. Even if it only runs for a single season, or gets cut down to a miniseries or television movie I still think it could be worthwhile.
Michelle Yeoh is set to return as Mirror Georgiou in the Section 31 series some time soon.
The longer-term futures of other Star Trek projects are less clear. No future seasons of any in-production shows were announced – though it seems likely, according to the rumour mill, that we’ll see Discovery Season 5, and Picard Season 3 was said to be there for the taking if Sir Patrick Stewart wanted it. Beyond the halfway point of 2022, though, Star Trek’s future gets a little harder to predict. We could see Lower Decks Season 3, Prodigy Season 2, or perhaps a new set of Short Treks mini-episodes.
What is clear, though, is that Section 31, the potential Ceti Alpha V miniseries that I covered a few weeks ago, and the still-unannounced live-action series that is in pre-production won’t be coming imminently.
ViacomCBS has “plans” for expanding Star Trek beyond the projects that we know about, though, and there was talk of ideas and concepts being worked on behind the scenes. Paramount+ is being established with a view to a widespread international rollout, which will begin next month with the USA, Canada, and Australia, before heading to Scandinavia and Latin America later in the year. Hopefully it’ll come to the UK soon!
Paramount+ launches next week.
Other recently-announced projects for Paramount+ include a Halo television series, a prequel to Western drama Yellowstone, a reboot of Nickelodeon cartoon Rugrats, and more. CBS All Access has grown its subscriber base since it was launched, passing the 8 million mark last year. The relaunch of the service as Paramount+, with its promised live sport and varied mix of films and television shows will surely bring in a lot of viewers – keeping Star Trek on the air for a long time to come.
These announcements were interesting, and I feel reasonably confident now that we’ll see three Star Trek shows this year instead of the two I had been expecting, so that’s fantastic! And I cannot wait for both Season 2 of Picard and the debut of Strange New Worlds next year. It’s a wonderful time to be a Star Trek fan right now – we have literally never had so many different projects all on the go at once. Someone pinch me… I must be dreaming!
The Star Trek franchise – including all properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Season 1 and Star Trek: Discovery Season 3.
Just a short one today. It seems as though the long-delayed second season of Star Trek: Picard has officially entered production, with filming commencing in California. Raffi actress Michelle Hurd posted on social media that she was “back to work.”
Details of the season are otherwise hard to come by; ViacomCBS is keeping a tight lid on production. Partly that will be due to coronavirus-related concerns, but also to avoid leaks or spoilers. Sir Patrick Stewart has been back in California for a while, and from what he’s said has been raring to go! Stewart recently appeared during the ad campaign for Paramount+ – the new name for the rebranded CBS All Access, and the future home of Star Trek: Picard.
Aside from Stewart and Hurd, the Season 2 cast will comprise Isa Briones as Dahj, Santiago Cabrera as Chris Rios, Evan Evagora as Elnor, Alison Pill as Dr Jurati, and Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine in a “special guest star” capacity. The only main character from Season 1 who isn’t returning (as far as we know, anyway) is Harry Treadaway’s Narek. I’m still hopeful, however, that Season 2 will somehow make note of Narek’s fate, as the Season 1 finale left things unclear.
Will we at least learn what happened to Narek?
The timeframe for Season 2’s production and release is still up in the air. If we use Season 1 as a baseline for comparison, we can expect filming to last approximately four months (Season 1 filmed from late April to the end of August 2019). However, it goes without saying that coronavirus-related safety protocols could delay things. Four months of filming would put the end of production somewhere in late June or early July, and again if we use Season 1 as a baseline, where post-production work took approximately four-and-a-half months, we could potentially see Season 2 being wrapped up and ready to go before Christmas.
However, Discovery’s third season took closer to nine months in post-production due to coronavirus and the teams all having to work from home, so I’d be surprised to see Picard Season 2 before next year. There’s also Discovery Season 4 to consider – it began filming back in November, so will likely conclude first. I’m not sure how much crossover there is of post-production staff between the two shows, but it stands to reason that if work on Discovery Season 4 is already underway, Picard Season 2 may have to wait longer.
Production on Discovery Season 4 has been underway for weeks.
So let’s assume, for now, that sometime in the first half of 2022 seems like a reasonable guesstimate for when we could see the season air! If we get any significant news regarding character crossovers, plot details, or a trailer, be sure to check back as I’ll almost certainly have something to say.
Speaking of character crossovers, have you heard the news that Thadiun Okona (from The Next Generation Season 2 episode The Outrageous Okona) may be appearing in Star Trek: Prodigy?! What an odd choice. But actor William O. Campbell confirmed on a recent podcast that he’s already been in the recording studio, so I guess we’ll see what he brings to the series when it arrives later this year! I had suggested Okona as a possible character for Picard Season 2 months ago, but I would never have guessed he’d crop up in Prodigy!
So that’s all I have to say, really. Picard Season 2 felt in danger for a while there, so I’m very glad indeed to hear that filming is underway. A few weeks ago I wrote up some preliminary predictions for what Season 2 may contain, so be sure not to miss that article if you’re interested in my pre-season musings!
Star Trek: Picard Season 1 is available to stream now on CBS All Access (soon to be rebranded as Paramount+) in the United States, and on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The Star Trek franchise – including Picard and all other properties mentioned above – remains the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Season 1, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and for other iterations of the franchise.
Season 1 of Star Trek: Picard expanded our knowledge and understanding of the Star Trek galaxy in the 24th Century. As the lore of Star Trek grows (pun intended!) one thing I find fun is seeing how any new information we get can be made to fit with past iterations of the franchise, and in the case of Picard, I think I’ve hit on a theory that is plausible based on some new facts that we learned last year.
I previously touched on this theory as part of my essay on Commodore Oh a few months ago, but I thought it warranted being expanded and given its own article – so that when it’s finally confirmed on screen I can say “I told you so!” Or not. In short, this theory connects Data’s brother Lore to the Zhat Vash, the faction introduced in Star Trek: Picard.
Lore in Datalore.
Before we go any further and get into the weeds, let’s recap. Lore was introduced in The Next Generation Season 1 episode Datalore, and would return in Brothers in Season 4, as well as the Season 6 finale Descent, and Descent, Part II which opened Season 7. He was, in effect, Data’s “evil twin,” and would go on to cause havoc for Data and the crew of the Enterprise-D. We would also learn that Lore was responsible for luring a spacefaring lifeform called the Crystalline Entity to his homeworld, killing most of the citizens of the colony.
Next we have the Zhat Vash, who were introduced in Star Trek: Picard. An ancient, secretive Romulan sect, the Zhat Vash were on an anti-synthetic crusade. They believed that the development of artificial life would lead to all life in the galaxy being exterminated, and sought to wipe out synthetics wherever they found them. As part of their plan to prevent the Federation developing synths, a Romulan agent named Oh infiltrated Starfleet shortly after the discovery of Data in 2338.
Commodore Oh infiltrated Starfleet.
This theory begins with something that The Next Generation never really explained: Lore being evil. Apparently this is a flaw in at least some Soong-type androids, as we’d also see Sutra exhibiting many similar traits to Lore in the two-part finale of Picard Season 1. But is there more to it than a simple mistake, as Dr Soong believed?
Though the Zhat Vash despise synthetic life, as part of their crusade to exterminate synths from the galaxy they seem to have learned a great deal about them – including how to reprogram them. In Picard Season 1, we learned that rogue synths had attacked Mars, destroying Admiral Picard’s fleet. It was the intervention of the Zhat Vash, hacking into the synths and reprogramming them, that caused this attack. If the Zhat Vash possessed the ability to do this in the 2380s, it’s at least possible that they were able to do something similar to Lore in the 2330s.
The Zhat Vash were able to reprogram Federation synths, leading to the attack on Mars.
Lore was activated months (or possibly years) before Data, and lived with his creator on the Omicron Theta colony. Dr Soong’s reputation seems to have been known within the Federation, and his work doesn’t appear to have been classified or somehow kept secret. The Zhat Vash seem to have been able to infiltrate the Federation with relative ease, having two spies inside Starfleet that we know of, and even if a Zhat Vash operative in this era were not an especially high-ranking officer, given the openness of Dr Soong’s work and the dedication the Zhat Vash have to their cause, I think we can reasonably suggest that they would have come to know what he was doing, and thus of the existence of Lore.
As I suggested in my last crossover theory, it stands to reason that the Zhat Vash will have been deeply alarmed about the Federation and their synthetic research. In the mid-23rd Century, two Federation AIs went rogue: Control (as seen in Discovery Season 2) and the M-5 multitronic unit (as seen in The Original Series second season episode The Ultimate Computer). Although it seems to be androids that were the main focus of Zhat Vash attention, as Laris made clear, the Romulans fear all kinds of AI – so these events would certainly have upset them enough to keep an eye on Starfleet and the Federation.
A fleet of ships under Control’s command went rogue and attacked the USS Enterprise and the USS Discovery.
That makes it even more likely, in my opinion, that the Zhat Vash would have found out about Dr Soong and Lore on Omicron Theta. If they were following Dr Soong’s work on positronic brains, they may have been working on ways to shut down his research or reprogram Lore. As mentioned, none of this appears to have been classified, and while Dr Soong kept his work private, it may have been possible for the Zhat Vash to infiltrate Omicron Theta and gain access to his research.
Their main goal was to prevent the rise of synthetic life. A single android was bad enough, but what they feared most was a civilisation of them. But Dr Soong didn’t have a civilisation – he had one single operational android. From the Zhat Vash’s perspective in the 2330s, if they could force Lore to be shut down – and ideally kill Dr Soong at the same time – the Federation would be unable to replicate the work and would thus be unable to build more.
Lore in Descent, Part II.
At some point following his activation, Lore began to exhibit “emotional instability” to the point that he upset and worried the colonists on Omicron Theta. This doesn’t appear to have happened from the moment of his activation, though, which lends credence to the idea that he was reprogrammed – perhaps rather crudely in an attempt to force Dr Soong to take him offline.
However, before Dr Soong could take action to shut him down, Lore contacted the Crystalline Entity, which arrived and wiped out the Omicron Theta colony. If Lore had been reprogrammed, was this something he chose to do of his own volition? It seems a very specific action to take if he wanted to kill the colonists – he was more than capable of physically overpowering and outwitting them if he wanted to kill them.
The Crystalline Entity “feeding,” as seen in Silicon Avatar.
The destruction of Omicron Theta can be seen as a classic Romulan move. By using the Crystalline Entity, not only was Lore assumed destroyed, but so were Dr Soong, his assistants, and all of his research, setting back synthetic research in the Federation by decades. Of course we know that Dr Soong and Lore both escaped – but that clearly wasn’t part of the Zhat Vash’s plan! Perhaps they underestimated Lore.
Most importantly, though, having the Crystalline Entity wipe out Omicron Theta absolved the Romulans of any direct involvement, as well as potentially destroyed any evidence that they had ever been there. It reminds me in many ways of the false flag operation that they ran on Mars; the synths were reprogrammed and forced to go rogue, an event which so thoroughly shocked the Federation that the Zhat Vash were able to persuade them to shut down all synthetic research.
Laris first told Admiral Picard – and us as the audience – about the existence of the Zhat Vash.
With Lore being the only extant android, a “clean” attack on the colony, wiping out the entire site and all of its inhabitants, would work very well from the Zhat Vash’s perspective. Openly attacking Omicron Theta would surely have started a conflict with the Federation, and if that could be avoided through this kind of cloak-and-dagger operation, well that seems exactly like something they would seek to do.
So that’s the extent of the theory, and any Zhat Vash involvement afterwards appears to have ignored Lore. Perhaps they figured that the existence of Data showed that the Federation would not stop until they were forced to, or at least that it was no longer possible to stop Federation AI research by killing one android. This would explain why they didn’t take any aggressive action against Data during The Next Generation era, and could also explain why Dr Soong went into hiding after the Omicron Theta attack – he may have been hiding from the Zhat Vash.
Data in Star Trek: Generations. The Zhat Vash appear to have been either unable or unwilling to attack him.
This theory fits with Lore’s appearances in The Next Generation and doesn’t step on the toes of anything as far as I can see. It provides backstory to why Lore acted the way he did, and explains his motivations for doing so in a different way. It also elevates Lore from simply being an “evil twin” trope into more of a tragic character – we will never know what Lore could have been were he not interfered with.
Crucially, this theory fits with what we learned of the Zhat Vash in Picard Season 1, both in terms of their goals and their methods. It seems at least possible that the Zhat Vash are responsible for the attack on Omicron Theta and for reprogramming Lore, turning him into the malevolent adversary that Data and the crew of the Enterprise-D had to deal with.
Commodore Oh.
This could have even been the first mission of a young Zhat Vash operative named Oh. Maybe she was the one sent to Omicron Theta to deal with Dr Soong, and this entire situation is her doing.
So that’s it. That’s my theory! I doubt it will ever be confirmed, but you never know! It seems plausible to me, at least. I hope this was a bit of fun and an excuse to jump back into the Star Trek galaxy. As always, please remember not to take this theory, or any other fan theory, too seriously. Theory-crafting is supposed to be enjoyable, and the last thing we need right now is something else to argue about!
Star Trek: Picard Season 1 is available to stream now on CBS All Access (soon to be rebranded as Paramount+) in the United States, and on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The Star Trek franchise – including Picard and The Next Generation – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Season 1. There are also minor spoilers for Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Discovery.
Time certainly flies, doesn’t it? It was one year ago today that Star Trek: Picard Season 1 debuted in the United States (and a day later in the rest of the world). It’s not unfair to say that I was incredibly excited about this series, which would take the Star Trek timeline forward in a significant way for the first time in eighteen years. Though I tried hard to keep my hype and expectations in check, there was no getting around how much I was looking forward to Star Trek: Picard.
As we hit the first anniversary, I thought it could be a good moment to look back on my remembrances (ha! get it?) of the show as well as what the first season achieved, what it did well, and where it came up short.
The opening title card.
If you were a regular reader a year ago, you’ll recall from my reviews that the season started very strongly. In fact, I named Remembrance (the season premiere) the best Star Trek episode of 2020 – a year which, for all its problems, saw 33 episodes across three shows. I rank Remembrance very highly among modern Star Trek episodes, and I’d even compare it favourably to Deep Space Nine’s Emissary, perhaps placing them joint-first as the best Star Trek premieres.
The finale, on the other hand, let the season down somewhat. Carefully-established mysteries that the show had slowly build up over the preceding eight episodes felt rushed through in a two-part conclusion that dumped new characters, a new location, a new faction, and whole new storylines into play right at the very end. The season also ended with a plot hole unexplained – why Dr Maddox travelled to Freecloud – and the disappearance of main character Narek, whose storyline was dropped halfway through the second part of the finale.
So despite enjoying Picard overall, as I look back a year later at Season 1, I’m afraid I have to say that it was a mixed bag.
Jean-Luc Picard.
From the moment Star Trek: Picard was announced it shot to the top of my list of shows I was excited for. I may have talked about this in the run-up to the season, but I remember feeling distinctly underwhelmed when Enterprise was announced in 1999. I wasn’t particularly interested in a Star Trek prequel, and while the show had heart and told some exciting stories, there was a sense really since Voyager ended and Nemesis had been in cinemas that Star Trek wasn’t moving forward.
Enterprise, the Kelvin reboot films, Discovery, and even Short Treks all told stories in the 22nd or 23rd Centuries, and though those stories were enjoyable and fun, there was a lot left behind in the 24th Century that was never explored. What would become of the characters we knew, of the Federation, of Starfleet, and all the other factions, races, and planets? The 24th Century had been Star Trek’s biggest era – with 517 episodes of television and four films starring three crews and a huge supporting cast of secondary and recurring characters.
Moving the timeline forward beyond Nemesis was something I really wanted to see from Star Trek.
The 24th Century was also “my” Star Trek era. The Next Generation was the first Star Trek series I watched, and it was literally my way into being a Trekkie. I have a great fondness for the shows of that era, and I consider it to be not only the time when Star Trek was at its most successful in terms of viewership (and finances) but also the closest the franchise has to a “Golden Age.” So to see that era abandoned for prequels and mid-quels wasn’t exactly disappointing, but it wasn’t something I was wild about.
So for eighteen years (Nemesis was released in 2002) Star Trek hadn’t moved forward in terms of the timeline. And even when Discovery launched and established itself with Short Treks and a spin-off, there was still no plan to revisit the 24th Century. Picard came along like a breath of fresh air, and I was incredibly excited, hyped up, and interested in what the series would bring. That was my mindset going into the premiere and each of the subsequent nine episodes.
The opening shot of the season.
Picard was not Season 8 of The Next Generation – and I didn’t want it to be. I was very keen that the new cast be given an opportunity to establish themselves within the franchise and become fan favourites for a new generation of Trekkies. What I hoped for was that, in thirty years’ time, people would be clamouring for a Dr Jurati series or Star Trek: Elnor with the same vigour I have for Picard. And I think, in that sense, we’ve begun to see at least the beginnings of that.
A lot of television shows don’t really settle in until Season 2, which is where the overused term “growing the beard” comes from. I’ve used that expression myself a few times, but in the aftermath of Discovery’s recent outing it seems to be the only phrase that critics are using to describe the show and it’s honestly put me off! But we’re off topic. There was perhaps a degree of leniency on my part going into Season 1 of Picard; a willingness to let some minor issues slide in order to see the show continue to build and grow. And as underwhelming as the Season 1 finale was, I’m hopeful that Season 2 can build on the foundation that has been laid.
The crew of La Sirena at the end of Season 1.
Though there was the mystery of Dr Maddox’s location, the Romulans’ scheme, and later the beacon to contact the super-synths, what Season 1 really was, when you boil it down, was a team-up story. Picard, over the course of ten episodes, put together a new crew and gave them a reason to work together. Establishing each member of the crew, giving them a side-quest of their own, and binding them together to follow Picard was the primary accomplishment of the season.
I’ve used the analogy of the Mass Effect video game series once in relation to Star Trek: Picard already – when it comes to the basic existence of the super-synths and their beacon. But there is a second point of comparison that is interesting to me, and may be to you if you’ve played those games. In Mass Effect 2, much of the game is comprised of Commander Shepard recruiting a crew. Each member of the crew needs to be brought on board, then later a side-mission is given in which players can earn their loyalty. Picard Season 1 played out similarly.
Elnor in Season 1. Recruiting him for the mission took up one episode.
Raffi wanted to go to Freecloud to reunite with her son. Dr Jurati had a secret plot to kill Dr Maddox. Elnor had to resolve his lingering emotional issues with Picard. Rios had to put together the pieces of what happened aboard the USS Ibn Majid. Seven of Nine wanted revenge for Icheb. Each of the main characters – at least those on the mission to save Soji – had to be recruited and then have their side-quest resolved before the story could reach its conclusion. This isn’t just a story from Mass Effect 2, it’s something many team-up stories do.
As I mentioned when considering some preliminary ideas for Season 2, finding a way to keep this crew together will be something that the next chapter of this story needs to address. Because they came together to do a single task – rescue Soji – and then continued to help the synths on Coppelius and prevent the arrival of the super-synths, they’re done. Their mission is complete, and Season 2 will have to find a believable reason for keeping them together. But that is a challenge for next time!
The super-synths were called off at the last moment.
Each character we met was interesting, and none felt unoriginal or bland in the way some secondary characters can in a story which primarily focuses on one person. We’ll deal with Picard himself in a moment, but for now: Elnor was a lonely member of an all-female sect, and also had abandonment issues after Picard’s disappearance. Rios pretended to be the roguish “Han Solo” type, but had serious post-traumatic stress following his former captain’s murder-suicide while aboard the USS Ibn Majid. Raffi was a flawed genius whose drug problem had dominated her life and cost her her most important relationships. Dr Jurati had been brainwashed into murdering someone she loved. Narek was the spy with a heart of gold – but instead of being a cliché he turned that trope on its head by sticking to his mission to the end. Dahj and Soji were different from one another – androids unaware of their synthetic nature. One was drawn to Picard, the other deeply suspicious of him.
Then we had the reintroduction of several legacy characters. Dr Maddox, who we met in The Next Generation, had continued his research after his meeting with Data, and eventually was able to develop his own line of androids. Seven of Nine had helped Icheb become a Starfleet officer, but lost him when she was betrayed by Bjayzl. Riker and Troi, who had married in Nemesis, had a family – but their son had died. Hugh was perhaps the most successful of all the legacy characters, the ex-Borg who had taken full advantage of his own liberation to assist hundreds or possibly thousands of other ex-Borg on the Artifact.
Hugh the Borg returned.
There was tragedy and drama aplenty in each of the characters we met, but none of it felt forced or contrived in the way some drama shows can. This wasn’t a soap opera, it was hard-hitting. Picard Season 1 may not have followed the traditional episodic Star Trek formula, but it had a distinctly Star Trek tone – it used its sci-fi setting to examine real world issues. It did so in a tense, dramatic, and exciting way, and expanded on themes from The Next Generation and elsewhere in the franchise, looking at basic rights such as the right to life.
The attack on Mars can be analogous to many different recent and historical events, but the reaction to it is certainly reminiscent of the western world’s post-9/11 outlook. The aftermath of a tragedy allowed a nefarious faction to push through a prohibition on certain groups of people. Islam was not “banned” after 9/11, but as recently as 2016 Donald Trump talked of a “ban on people from Muslim countries” – these restrictions were in place for much of his term as President.
The attack on Mars was a significant event in the years before Season 1 of Picard is set.
The theme of the season was in realising that we mustn’t judge whole groups of people by the actions of a few. This could apply just as much to the supporters and voters of Donald Trump in 2021 as it did to Muslims and others. The fanatics who attacked the United States Capitol a couple of weeks ago are no more representative of the 70+ million Trump voters as ISIS or al-Qaeda are of Islam. That is the message of this synthetic ban storyline: not to be so quick to judgement, and not to allow those with a pre-existing agenda to force the issue.
The Zhat Vash quietly infiltrated Starfleet, and slowly began poisoning the minds of Starfleet officers and Federation civilians. We have the literal expression of this metaphor via the mind-meld – this represents how those with an agenda are using propaganda and “fake news” to unduly influence the discourse. These themes are buried in the narrative, but they are there – and open to interpretation. This is how I see some of these storylines having real-world comparisons, but it may not be how you or someone else sees it. Fiction is always subjective, and that’s okay. If you disagree, that’s great!
Commodore Oh.
As I’ve said before, a story doesn’t just have merit because it can be seen through a real-world lens. In some cases, pushing too far in that direction can lead to a narrative being less enjoyable. So Picard balanced out some of these contemporary metaphors with a truly engaging and mysterious Star Trek story.
We saw these events from Picard’s point of view, and he’s such a great character for telling this story because he didn’t know exactly what happened and why, just as much as we as the audience didn’t know. So when the synths attacked Mars, his life, his career, and his whole world fell apart. We meet him at the beginning of the season premiere as someone who’s fallen into a major depression. Dahj would be the catalyst for bringing him out of that – but it wasn’t until the mysteries and conspiracies had been unravelled and brought to light that he could truly move on.
Picard in the Season 1 premiere.
We went on that journey with Picard. We began together, not knowing what had happened on Mars, not understanding why, and then along comes Dahj. She was equally mysterious: who was she, why was she seeking out Picard, who were the assassins that were trying to hurt her? And as we learned more about both of these elements of the story, this chapter of Picard’s life – and the lives of those around him – came into focus.
My criticisms of the season finale generally don’t stem from the fact that any of the narrative decisions were bad, but rather that I wanted to see more. We rushed through Sutra’s story, Dr Soong’s story, and the end of Narek’s story. We don’t know anything about the super-synths, and precious little about the civilisation on Coppelius. There was scope to know more if the season had been structured differently and perhaps extended by an episode or two, and that’s really where I felt things came unstuck.
Coppelius Station was the setting for the two-part finale.
From an aesthetic point of view, Picard blended The Next Generation-era elements with a style firmly centred in modern-day sci-fi. The design of La Sirena reflects this – it was clearly not a Starfleet ship. Inside and out, La Sirena has touches of Star Trek, but stands apart and very much does its own thing. Beginning with the redesign of the USS Enterprise in Star Trek: The Motion Picture and carrying all the way through to Discovery, we’ve seen starship interiors with certain visual elements – angled corridors and hallways, grey or blue pastel carpeting, panels with distinctive lines, the warp core as a glowing column, and so forth. La Sirena has some hints at some of these, but is much closer to ships seen in The Expanse, for example, and other modern sci-fi properties in other ways.
Within the Star Trek fandom, starship designs and uniforms are both subjective things with a range of opinions on which are best. And before anyone rushes to judgement to say La Sirena looks bad or they dislike the mermaid-combadges, I’d say that we need to give the show time for its aesthetic to grow on us. There have only been ten episodes of Picard compared with 176 of The Next Generation, and those episodes are only a year old. Obviously nothing in Picard will feel as “iconic” yet – but as time goes by and we spend more time in this era that may happen.
La Sirena.
I adored the design of La Sirena. It felt like a runabout mixed with a hot-rod, and I think that shows to some extent the personality of Captain Rios. This is his ship, and he’s put his personal stamp on it – as we saw in a very funny (and incredibly well-acted and well-filmed) sequence with five different Rios-holograms. After the blue boiler suits of Enterprise were followed up with another all-blue look in Discovery I was also glad to see more colour back in the two new Starfleet uniform designs which debuted in Picard. The one in the “current” time (that we saw people like Riker and Commodore Oh wearing) was my favourite of the two when compared to the design seen in flashbacks, but both were neat.
The only aesthetic problem I felt Season 1 had was its outdoor filming locations and their lack of variety. We visited locations on Earth which were supposedly in France, Japan, and North America, as well as half a dozen planets, and each looked exactly like southern California. Because Picard had ten episodes and almost all of them had some outdoor filming this was amplified far more than it had been in the likes of The Next Generation, which would see fewer outdoor shoots with more episodes in between them. But as the season progressed, the fact that each planet Picard visited was a barely-disguised location within a few miles of Los Angeles detracted from the look.
The surface of California… I mean Aia.
Some locations, like the planet of Aia, were beautifully created in CGI, but then ruined when scenes on the surface not only didn’t match the CGI creation of the planet (the colour and tone are way different). What made no sense to me about the Aia scenes in particular is with so little time spent there, why not use a sound stage? Rig up a planet that looks genuinely different instead of using an outdoor filming location. We only saw two or three scenes set on Aia, all around the beacon, and I honestly just thought it was a wasted opportunity. Vashti, Nepenthe, and Coppelius all felt very samey because of the decision to shoot outdoors in the same area, and that’s just a shame to me. I would love to see some more variety in Season 2 – either by travelling to shoot on location further afield, or by using indoor sound stages that can be made to look different each time.
So we come to the man himself: Jean-Luc Picard. I mentioned earlier that he was depressed, and the way this part of his story was conveyed was heartbreaking and wonderful. I recently wrote an article looking at the characterisation of Luke Skywalker in the 2017 film The Last Jedi, because he was also depressed in that story. It was one that some Star Wars fans hated, but it resonated with me. Picard’s story in Season 1 resonated with me too, for many of the same or similar reasons as I explained in that essay.
Jean-Luc Picard.
Depression and mental health are not easy subjects to convey in fiction, and Picard itself had a scene in the episode The End Is The Beginning which unfortunately painted a pretty stereotypical picture of mental health. But Picard’s story was much better, and very well done overall. It showed that anyone – no matter how heroic they have been in the past – can fall victim to depression. Picard lost his fleet, he lost his role in Starfleet, and instead of saying “no, the right thing to do is to help so I’m going to fight on,” he collapsed. He hit a problem that he couldn’t solve, suffered a humiliating defeat, and gave up. He spent years in quiet retirement – which was more like a self-imposed exile – because of how he felt.
That is powerful in itself, as it shows how anyone – even heroes that we want to put on a pedestal – can fall victim to depression. The same was true of Luke Skywalker. But what came next is equally important – Dahj gave Picard a reason to believe in something again. Not only was there a mystery to figure out, which can be tantalising in itself, but Picard was the only one capable and willing to help Soji – so he stepped up. Where he had fallen into the lowest point of his life, he found a reason to believe and that set him on the path to recovery. I find that a powerful and inspiring story.
Dahj inspired Picard and gave him a cause to believe in.
There were two cathartic moments for me in Season 1 that I didn’t know I needed to see. The first was with Seven of Nine. During the latter part of Voyager’s run, Seven was my least-favourite character. She was annoying, arrogant, and worst of all, after learning some “lesson in how to be human” from Captain Janeway or the Doctor, she’d seemingly reset and forget it ever happened by the next episode, requiring her to “learn” the same lesson in being human many times over. She was repetitive and boring. But in Picard she had finally moved past her Borg years and embraced her humanity and emotions – even though she lost Icheb, seeing her get so genuinely angry and react in such a human way was something wonderful to see – and was performed beautifully by Jeri Ryan.
The second cathartic moment came from Data. His death in Nemesis wasn’t something I was happy about, but within the story of that film I remember feeling at the time that it worked. However, looking back I can see how, for example, seeing Picard and the rest of the crew laughing and moving on at the end of the film was perhaps not the right way to end the story. Data didn’t get to say goodbye to anyone – his sacrifice happened in a brief moment, and after saving Picard he was just gone.
Data’s consciousness remained in the digital afterlife until Picard shut it down.
Picard carried that regret with him in a far more significant way than the closing moments of Nemesis hinted at. Riker and Troi did too, and we got to see both of them express that. Picard poured his heart out to Data when he was in the digital afterlife, and the scene between the two of them was something incredible. It was something I as a fan needed to see, to put Data to rest properly after all these years.
In a sense, Picard and Data’s story is an inversion of the story Kirk and Spock went through in The Search For Spock and The Voyage Home. After Spock’s death, Kirk would stop at nothing to find a way to bring his friend back to life – even stealing the Enterprise. While Picard set out on his journey to save Data’s “daughter” from harm, what he ended up doing was bringing a final end to Data’s life. There was no way to save Data, nor to transfer whatever remained of him into a new body. The only thing Picard could to for his friend was finally allow him his mortality, and permit him to die. As Kirk might’ve said, that sounds like a “no-win scenario.” But as Kirk never really had to learn – at least until the moment of his own death – those scenarios exist every day. It might sound cool to say “I don’t believe in no-win scenarios” and push to save everyone all the time, but that isn’t possible. It’s a fantasy – and Picard confronted the genuine reality of death in a way Kirk never had to.
Picard shut down the remaining part of Data permanently.
Data had desperately yearned to be more human. From his first appearance in Encounter at Farpoint when he struggled with whistling through to the introduction of his emotion chip in Generations and beyond, all Data wanted was to feel less like an android and more like a human. Mortality is one of humanity’s defining characteristics – especially when compared to machines and synthetic life. By shutting down Data’s remaining neurons and consciousness, Picard gave him perhaps the greatest gift he could give – and Data achieved his goal of getting as close to humanity as possible.
As I look back on Season 1 of Picard, I can see that it had some flaws and some issues. But none of them were catastrophic, and even though there was one episode that I described at the time as a “misfire and a dud,” the season as a whole was great. It started off with what is perhaps the best premiere of any Star Trek series, and though the ending was imperfect we got some amazing story-driven dramatic Star Trek.
Dr Jurati beams the crew of La Sirena aboard.
Perhaps Season 1’s legacy will be defined by what comes next. Not only by future seasons of Picard, but by other shows and films set in or around this time period, expanding the Star Trek franchise and pushing it to new places. The Next Generation served as a launchpad for two other series and four films, and perhaps Picard has similarly laid a foundation upon which more Star Trek will be built. That’s my hope, at any rate.
Even if that doesn’t happen, though, Season 1 was an entertaining ride – with a few bumps in the road as mentioned. We got to learn a lot more about some of Star Trek’s factions – the Romulans in particular, but also the Borg – and meet some genuinely interesting new characters. Despite some leftover story threads from Season 1, Season 2 is potentially wide open to tell some new and interesting stories when it’s finally ready to be broadcast. I can’t wait for that!
Star Trek: Picard Season 1 is available to stream now on CBS All Access in the United States, and on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The Star Trek franchise – including Picard and all other properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Season 1, Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-3, Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 1, and for other iterations of the franchise.
A couple of days ago I wrote up some preliminary predictions for Star Trek: Discovery Season 4, and now it’s the turn of Star Trek: Picard Season 2 to get the same treatment. Season 1 left several big mysteries behind, and while some may be addressed it seems as though Season 2 will see Picard and the crew move on to new adventures.
A significant portion of Season 1 was occupied by recruiting the crew, but after they came together basically to do one job – find Soji – and accomplished that objective, the big thing that Season 2 needs to do is find a truly convincing reason for keeping the crew together. Rios seemingly worked as a commercial pilot, and the others have lives of their own too. Now that Soji is safe and the super-synths have been called off, what exactly is preventing everyone from drifting back to their old lives?
The super-synths in the Season 1 finale.
Right now, I see that as perhaps the biggest challenge and point of interest. What will bind this disparate crew together after their mission is complete? Unlike a Starfleet crew they don’t have a new mission or new orders, and they aren’t just going to fly around aimlessly in La Sirena looking for adventure. So finding a convincing reason for keeping them together – or reuniting them if they’ve already separated as of the beginning of the season – will be key.
As I said last time, it’s very early in the process to be considering what may or may not be included in the upcoming season. At time of writing filming hasn’t even commenced; Picard is filmed in California, and while production is in theory able to resume it’s a slow process. There have been suggestions that February may be the goal for filming to begin – but it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve been given a timeframe that didn’t pan out, so watch this space. I’m not claiming any “insider information,” nor saying that anything on my list is certain to happen. This is guesswork at best – educated guesswork in some places, perhaps, but nothing more.
With those big caveats out of the way, let’s jump into the list.
Number 1: A Galaxy-class ship.
The Enterprise-D as seen in Season 1.
Season 1 showed us a beautiful CGI rendition of the Galaxy-class Enterprise-D. But this ship was only seen in Picard’s dream and didn’t make a real appearance – despite the Federation fleet in the season finale presenting a good opportunity to do so. One lesson I hope the team behind Picard has learned is that the two fleets we saw during the standoff over Coppelius looked less impressive for being comprised of only a single starship design each – and bringing more ships into the show would be something great to see.
Obviously Picard himself has connections with several different classes of ship: the Sovereign-class from his time aboard the Enterprise-E, the Constellation-class from the Stargazer, and we even saw him on a Deep Space Nine Danube-class runabout once. But no ship design is more greatly associated with Picard than the Galaxy-class, and while the Enterprise-D is gone, there were others, including those which served in the Dominion War.
Galaxy-class ships seen in Deep Space Nine’s Dominion War arc.
In an alternate timeline seen in the Voyager fourth season episode Timeless, Galaxy-class ships were still in use in the 2390s, which is close to the time in which Picard is set. An updated Galaxy-class Enterprise-D was also seen in The Next Generation’s finale All Good Things in sequences set in the 2390s.
In addition, Excelsior-class ships from the late 23rd Century were shown to be in use for decades, and the Galaxy-class ship seems like such a versatile vessel that it would make sense to see them still in use. La Sirena will clearly continue to be the home for Picard and his new crew, and I’m not suggesting they be given their own Galaxy-class ship somehow! But it would be wonderful to see Picard’s reaction to a real-life Galaxy-class ship, triggering memories of his time aboard the Enterprise-D.
Number 2: Confirmation of Narek’s fate.
This was the last we saw of Narek.
The two-part Season 1 finale had some issues. From my point of view, the biggest problem was that the final two episodes had far too much story to cram into a relatively short span of time; new characters, new antagonists, new storylines, and a whole new civilisation were all introduced right at the end of the season.
One of the consequences of this was the abandonment of some previously-important storylines. Narek, who was a major character across the rest of the first season, was symbolic of this, as his character was simply dumped without any explanation or resolution midway through the finale.
Soji with Narek aboard the Artifact.
I know that Narek wasn’t everyone’s favourite character in Season 1, but I found him genuinely interesting. He looked certain to play out a relatively common trope in thriller stories: the spy with a heart of gold who abandons his mission after falling in love with his target… but to my surprise – and great enjoyment – he didn’t go down that route and remained loyal to the Zhat Vash crusade.
There are several possibilities for what happened to Narek after his attempt to destroy Soji and Sutra’s beacon. He could have been recovered by the Romulans, he could have been handed over to the Federation, he could have remained a prisoner of the synths on Coppelius, or he could even have renounced his wicked ways and joined Picard’s crew. The latter may seem less likely, but as we didn’t see or hear anything about Narek after the beacon attack it would be great if Season 2 could give us the rest of the story – even if it’s just by way of a line or two of dialogue.
Number 3: Riker and Troi.
Riker and Troi have recently appeared in Star Trek: Lower Decks.
Though I believe Riker actor Jonathan Frakes will be returning to Picard in the director’s chair, we don’t yet know whether Riker and/or Troi will return in Season 2. However, I would argue that their post-The Next Generation storylines have more to give, and I would love to see them both back.
One thing I was very keen on in the run-up to Season 1 is for the show to avoid being The Next Generation Season 8, and by only including a few classic characters in a few episodes, I would say the show accomplished that goal. But there is still a lot of interest from fans about the fates of many characters we knew and loved in past iterations of Star Trek, and the already-established Troi-Riker family could be a stepping stone for telling some of those stories too.
The reunion between Picard and Riker was one of the highlights of Season 1.
It would also be interesting to see whether the events of Season 1 have brought either Riker, Troi, or both back to Starfleet on a permanent basis. Riker described himself as “acting captain” in the Season 1 finale, so perhaps he will return to his family home on Nepenthe. But maybe not!
If Season 2 is to feature Starfleet more significantly than Season 1 did, we will need at least one Starfleet character to be portrayed on screen. Someone Picard knew and can work with would be a good bet, as he could call on them to help out, cashing in favours. However, I did also like the way Raffi used her Starfleet contacts in Season 1, as well as the introduction of Admiral Clancy.
Number 4: Revisiting an event from Picard’s past – such as the Stargazer or the Borg.
Captain Picard first met the Borg while commanding the Enterprise-D.
Season 1 saw Picard confront his past with the Borg as he boarded the Artifact. But there’s scope to further explore his history with the Borg, especially if the faction were to come back in a major way. Nothing we saw in Season 1 suggested that the Borg threat has gone away, and the super-synths we met in the finale could possibly have a connection to Star Trek’s iconic cybernetic villains.
The inclusion of Seven of Nine and the ex-Borg could also contribute to a Borg story. Perhaps the ex-Borg would work together with Picard to use knowledge or technology from the Artifact to defeat another Borg threat. The Borg would also be a reason for Picard’s new crew staying together instead of going their separate ways.
The USS Stargazer.
Alternatively we could revisit an event from Picard’s past that The Next Generation hinted at but didn’t explore in detail. We know Picard commanded the USS Stargazer and that Jack Crusher – husband to Beverly and father to Wesley – was killed. But the specifics of that event have never been shown on screen.
The inclusion of Dr Benayoun in Season 1 connected to Picard’s time aboard the Stargazer, and a storyline looking back at this time could bring back this character. It would also be a way for Dr Crusher and even Wesley to be included – perhaps something that happened around the time of Jack Crusher’s death is going to be relevant to a new event or storyline.
Number 5: Development of Seven of Nine and Raffi’s relationship.
Seven of Nine and Raffi at the end of Season 1.
The Season 1 finale showed Raffi and Seven of Nine had become close, and the possibility for the two to enter a relationship would be something really interesting for Season 2 to look at in more detail. We know that Seven of Nine and Chakotay had a relationship toward the end of Voyager, and that Raffi has a son from a previous relationship. But this could be a great opportunity for some more LGBT+ representation – in this case, perhaps, bisexuality.
Both characters saw significant development in Season 1 – Raffi by finding her son and Seven of Nine by avenging Icheb. Seeing Seven of Nine finally break out of the repetitive, emotionally stifled character she was in Voyager was genuinely cathartic, and giving her even more opportunities to show off her humanity and emotional side would be fantastic.
Seven of Nine and Raffi with the crew of La Sirena.
Both characters have experienced the loss of either a child or child figure, and that could strengthen their bond. They’re different people, and having gone through very different life experiences have responded differently to loss – Seven by becoming obsessed with revenge, and Raffi by falling into addiction.
They could help each other overcome these issues. Seven of Nine could help Raffi through recovery from her drug and alcohol addictions, and Raffi in turn could help Seven move on from the loss of Icheb and the murder of Bjayzl. There’s a lot of scope for very interesting and emotional stories in this pair of characters.
Number 6: Foreshadowing of the Romulan-Vulcan reunification seen in Discovery Season 3.
Romulans, Vulcans, and Romulo-Vulcans seen in the 32nd Century.
Discovery’s third season confirmed that Vulcans and Romulans had managed to set their differences aside – for the most part – and come back together. Though Discovery said this happened “centuries” after Spock’s first visit to Romulus, perhaps we could see some movement in that direction in Picard.
The attack on Mars and its aftermath has arguably left Federation-Romulan relations – and by extension, relations between the Vulcans and Romulans – at an all-time low. However, the unmasking of the Zhat Vash and their role in the attack may have led ordinary Romulans to look upon the Federation less harshly, and if there have been reforms to Romulan society – as was hinted at by the use of the name “Romulan Free State” instead of “Romulan Star Empire” – maybe the beginnings of reunification have already been seen.
The emblem of the Romulan Star Empire in the 24th Century.
Picard had a heavy focus on the Romulans in Season 1, and at least one Romulan character – Elnor – will return in Season 2. Thus the show is the perfect vehicle to show the path forward, bridging the gap between the secretive Romulan Empire of The Next Generation’s era and the reunified Ni’Var of Discovery’s 32nd Century.
The return of a character such as Tuvok could also be a part of this; seeing Elnor working closely with a Vulcan could set up his character for a future role in the reunification process, for example. With Seven of Nine already confirmed to be coming back, bringing one of her Voyager colleagues on board would be great to see.
Number 7: Spend more time with Starfleet.
Acting Captain Riker.
Season 1 made good on its promise of taking Picard away from Starfleet. While two members of the new crew are ex-Starfleet officers – as well as Picard himself – they operate outside of the organisation. I wouldn’t want to see that change; Picard has done what no other Star Trek show ever really did by focusing entirely on a non-Starfleet crew and that’s been fantastic. But there is scope to see more of Starfleet at the beginning of the 25th Century.
After Season 1 saw Picard and his crew largely working against Starfleet, from him being denied access to a Starfleet ship to Raffi and Rios breaking all the rules to gain access to the Artifact, it would be great to see some cooperation. The Season 1 finale gave us a taste of that with Riker and his armada, but there are more ways Picard and La Sirena could work with Starfleet while still remaining separate.
Riker’s Federation fleet stares down a Romulan armada in the Season 1 finale.
Alternatively – or perhaps additionally – we could see more of the story of Season 2 unfold from Starfleet’s point of view. Admiral Clancy was our major Starfleet character in Season 1 and she could certainly return. But this could also be how another legacy character is introduced, and Picard could work alongside them for some reason.
Having at least one major character being a Starfleet officer, and depicting events within Starfleet, would be something I think I’d like to see Season 2 do, provided it could balance that with keeping La Sirena on the outside. Starfleet and the Federation have always been a huge part of Star Trek, and while it was great to see that they’re still the “good guys,” spending more time with them next season would be fantastic.
Number 8: Consequences for Dr Jurati.
Dr Jurati killed Bruce Maddox in Season 1.
Though she did so under the influence of a mind-meld, Dr Jurati still murdered Dr Maddox in Season 1. Star Trek has done some great courtroom drama stories over the years, and I think it would be really interesting to see Dr Jurati arrested and even stand trial. Would the mind-meld be a suitable defence in the eyes of the law? We’ve never seen such a case in Star Trek.
This is another storyline that the finale rushed and ultimately failed to do justice to. At the beginning of Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1 Dr Jurati is still expecting to turn herself in and be arrested for murder, as Picard insisted she would be. However, by the end of Part 2 she seems free to remain aboard La Sirena and has even formed a relationship with Rios.
Dr Jurati after realising what she did.
The question of Dr Jurati’s culpability is potentially interesting. Despite still being under the influence of the mind-meld she refused to try to harm Soji, pushing through Commodore Oh’s brainwashing. If she could stop herself from harming Soji, how did she harm Dr Maddox – someone with whom she was intimate?
Even if the legal side of things is only briefly addressed, such as a line of dialogue telling us that the charges were dropped, Dr Jurati may suffer psychological effects from what she did. She murdered someone she was very close to, and threatened to sabotage Picard’s mission. Even if he and the others have forgiven her, will she be able to so easily forgive herself? She has already attempted suicide once, and this is an angle the show could look at in more detail as well.
Number 9: The return of Dr Soong.
Dr Altan Inigo Soong.
Even if Season 2 takes Picard away from Coppelius for the most part, it would be great to catch up with Dr Soong – a character who felt underdeveloped in the Season 1 finale. We never learned why Dr Soong wanted to transfer his mind to a synthetic body, nor what the consequences are for him of giving that body to Picard.
I picked up a hint or two in Season 1 that Dr Soong may be sick or dying, so perhaps donating the synthetic body he planned to use to Picard has condemned him to death. Alternatively, however, he may simply be able to build a new one now that he understands the mind-transfer process.
Dr Soong in the Season 1 finale.
A story on Coppelius could also show us what impact the loss of Data’s neurons may have on Dr Soong. Without them, is he able to build new synths, or build another golem for himself? The finale left these questions unanswered, and while I don’t expect Season 2 to spend all of its time tying up loose ends, it would be nice to see some of these points addressed.
Dr Soong is of course played by Data actor Brent Spiner, and welcoming him back to Star Trek was wonderful in Season 1. It would be great if a role could be found for him in Season 2, even if it was only for a single episode.
Number 10: Guinan.
Guinan with Picard in Star Trek: Generations.
This is a total cheat since we already have confirmation that Guinan is coming back, but I wanted to include it anyway. Sir Patrick Stewart invited Guinan actress Whoopi Goldberg to join the show for its second season months ago, so it seems like Guinan will have a significant role in the season. Whether she’ll be a recurring character or make an appearance in a single episode isn’t known at this stage, but she will certainly be back.
Picard and Guinan’s relationship was touched on in The Next Generation, but never fully explained. There’s certainly scope to learn more about how they came together, why their relationship goes “beyond friendship, beyond family,” as well as what the impact of Picard’s reclusion had on Guinan. What has Guinan been doing since we last saw her? We simply don’t know – so it will be interesting to find out!
Number 11: Foreshadowing the dilithium shortage seen in Discovery Season 3.
The dilithium planet from Discovery Season 3.
This is the second “foreshadowing Discovery” entry on this list, and I don’t expect (or want) Picard Season 2 to spend all of its runtime doing that. However, this is another way that we could potentially see a connection to the events of Picard’s sister show.
For some unknown reason, by the 28th or 29th Centuries dilithium supplies in the galaxy were beginning to run low. This is what prompted Starfleet to begin seeking out new sources of the important fuel, ultimately culminating in the Burn, as well as the people of Ni’Var withdrawing from the Federation believing their alternative propulsion experiments caused the Burn.
A dilithium crystal aboard the Enterprise-D.
Though the dilithium shortage depicted in Discovery’s recent season is centuries away, the beginnings of it could be seen in Picard… somehow. Perhaps dilithium supplies were already beginning to run low but the Federation was keeping it quiet, or perhaps they discovered a major cache of dilithium similar to the Verubin Nebula’s planet some time in this era which kept them going for centuries.
Even a single line of dialogue noting that a starship is on a mission to seek out new sources of dilithium would be a subtle nod to fans of Discovery, and a minor way in which the two shows could be connected.
Number 12: A broader look at the galaxy as the 25th Century dawns.
A Klingon general in Lower Decks.
Despite bringing back a few legacy characters – not all of whom survived – and spending a lot of time with the Romulans, Season 1 didn’t paint a very broad picture of the state of the galaxy. We know that the Federation is doing well, despite the attack on Mars and the effects of the Dominion War years earlier. But what of other factions? And is all well in Starfleet?
There are so many races and factions that Season 2 could look at that I don’t know where to begin. But rather than a repetition of Season 1, with its relatively narrow focus on one faction and a handful of events, it would be great if Season 2 could expand the map and look at a few different places and peoples – even if that means doing so in less detail.
What happened to the Dominion after the Dominion War?
Right now, Picard is the only Star Trek production set in this post-Nemesis era. I wouldn’t be surprised if more shows, miniseries, and films were announced, but for the foreseeable future we only have Picard to show us the galaxy and what’s been going on in the years since Nemesis. Obviously the attack on Mars was a significant event, but there must be other things that happened in that twenty-year span.
As I mentioned in my last piece, a personal favourite story arc of mine is Deep Space Nine’s Dominion War, so I would be fascinated to learn anything about Bajor, Cardassia, DS9, the Gamma Quadrant, or the Dominion. But given Picard’s lack of connection to those events (except for a link to Bajor via Ro Laren) perhaps that isn’t on the agenda this time. Still, anything we could get to look at the bigger picture of the galaxy would be wonderful.
Number 13: Looking at current events.
Will Star Trek: Picard Season 2 discuss current events?
One thing Picard Season 1 did very well was show how Picard’s mental health was suffering as a result of his rejection by Starfleet. I think a lot of people who’ve been through almost a year of lockdowns and isolation could watch the Season 1 premiere, Remembrance, and empathise much more with the isolated, lonely Admiral Picard than they could when it was first broadcast.
Star Trek has never shied away from using its sci-fi setting to tackle real-world issues, and the biggest right now is of course the pandemic and its associated effects. Season 2 may have had a complete draft written before the pandemic hit – production was meant to take place last year, after all – but there has been plenty of time to change things up and include contemporary themes. Not every series has to use the pandemic as inspiration, and in many ways people come to sci-fi and fantasy to escape the real world – something that’s arguably even more necessary right now – so maybe this won’t happen.
Number 14: The return of Laris and Zhaban.
Laris and Zhaban in Season 1.
Laris and Zhaban – Picard’s Romulan assistants – served a fairly typical adventure story role in Season 1. They were the safe reminders of home that Picard had to leave behind when setting off on his quest; a role filled by the residents of Hobbiton in The Lord of the Rings, for example.
But they were also more than that. The decision to make them Romulans did serve a purpose – without them, Picard would never have learned of the Zhat Vash, for example. But given Picard’s complicated history with the Romulans after abandoning his efforts to help them evacuate their homeworld, the question of why these two ex-Tal Shiar operatives were so steadfastly loyal to him raised its head.
Picard with Laris, shortly before he left Earth.
Maybe this is simply a minor plot contrivance, but I don’t want to just overlook it and say it’s fine. What did Picard do to win their trust and loyalty so strongly that they’d follow him to isolation on Earth? And why did they choose not to follow him into space when he set out to help Soji? It wasn’t to attend to the grape harvest, surely.
Some further development of these two characters would be welcome, and while I know they did feature in a novel, most folks don’t read those and it arguably isn’t canon – Star Trek, unlike Star Wars, has always drawn a line between what happens on screen and what happens in apocryphal works. So their backstory in relation to Picard is still, in my opinion at least, an open question that Season 2 could address.
Number 15: The Artifact will come under Federation control.
The Artifact’s resting place on the surface of Coppelius.
Though parts of it have been picked over by the Romulans for decades, the opportunity to study a largely-intact Borg vessel does not present itself every day. Unless the Borg have somehow been defeated off-screen between the events of Nemesis and Picard – which I very much doubt given their popularity among fans – the Federation will surely want to avail itself of this opportunity.
The Artifact crash-landed on Coppelius at the end of Season 1, but with the planet designated a Federation protectorate they now have access to the wreck. Who knows what Federation scientists could learn about the Borg if not constrained by the Romulans. The Artifact may not play a big role in Season 2, but I would argue it is incredibly important to the Federation. That may even be the cynical reason why they chose to send a fleet to defend Coppelius.
Number 16: The appearance of Section 31.
A black Section 31 combadge as seen in Discovery Season 2.
If you followed my reviews and theories during Season 1, you may remember that I thought of numerous ways that Section 31 could’ve been included. This stemmed from the production side of Star Trek: Section 31 had recently been a major part of Discovery, and there’s an upcoming Section 31 series in development. For those reasons, Section 31 seemed like a way that all three Star Trek projects could’ve had a familiar theme.
It didn’t happen in Season 1, of course, and with Discovery completely ignoring Section 31 in its third season perhaps you could argue that it’s less important this time around. But I don’t necessarily agree. The Section 31 series is still coming, with pre-production having already begun and Michelle Yeoh’s departure from Discovery setting the stage.
Georgiou’s departure has teed up the Section 31 show.
In addition, Discovery introduced us to the enigmatic Kovich in Season 3, played by famed director David Cronenberg. If you followed my Discovery theories, you’ll know I’ve posited the idea that he is an operative of Section 31 – or maybe even its leader in the 32nd Century.
As a result, Section 31 remains one way that many of the ongoing Star Trek projects can find common ground, despite being split up along the timeline. It would remind fans of each series that they’re watching one part of a greater whole, and connecting the Star Trek franchise together will hopefully help fans of one show jump over to others that are currently in production. I know of many people who have either watched Discovery or Picard – but not both. Finding more ways to connect the shows and bring the franchise together will be important to Star Trek’s future – and vital to its ongoing success.
Number 17: Fallout from Picard’s newfound synthetic status.
The android F8 during the attack on Mars.
There had been a widespread ban on synthetic life for over a decade as a result of the attack on Mars. Though we learned in Season 1’s closing moments that the ban has been rescinded, the attack, its aftermath, and the ban may have lingering effects on non-synthetics. Will Picard face discrimination and hate as a result of his synthetic nature?
Perhaps, given the reaction in some areas of the fandom to Picard becoming a synth and the whole death-and-rebirth narrative, Season 2 will seek to downplay Picard’s status. But it would be interesting to explore the ramifications. We’ve talked about Riker, Troi, and Guinan possibly being major characters in the story – how will they react to Picard being synthetic? Can Troi read synthetic minds? Would Guinan feel he’s no longer the same person given her sensitivity to such things?
Picard reawakens in a synthetic body.
There are real-world analogies that anti-synthetic discrimination could be used to show. Star Trek has, on many occasions in the past, looked at the complex issues of race relations in the United States, and in the wake of the events of 2020 and ongoing efforts to ensure racial justice and equality, this could be something the synthetic storyline highlights.
There are also interesting legal and ethical questions that the show could address. Most significantly: is Picard the same person as he was, or is he legally and morally a distinct person now that he has a synthetic body? Will Starfleet, for example, consider him to be the same retired Admiral, or will he no longer have those privileges?
Number 18: Making peace with the super-synths.
Soji contacted the super-synths in Season 1.
Although she stood down and turned off the synths’ beacon on Coppelius, Soji did nevertheless contact the super-synths (the villains I nicknamed the “Mass Effect Reapers” for their similarity to that video game faction). There may yet be consequences for having done so, because the super-synths might not simply return to dark space to wait for another faction to contact them – they may already be en route to the Milky Way galaxy.
Even if the super-synths themselves don’t initiate a conflict, from Starfleet’s point of view it makes sense to reach out and tell them what happened. By explaining Starfleet’s position – that they value synthetic life and will not seek to harm the Coppelius synths – perhaps a conflict could be avoided. Making the attempt seems like something Starfleet would do, at least.
The super-synths almost arrived at Coppelius before Soji broke off contact and shut the portal.
There’s a lot of potential to make the super-synths more than a plot device and one-dimensional incomprehensible villain. They could, as previously suggested, connect to the Borg. They could also be expanded upon as we learn more about them, their name, their motivations, and so on. We know precious little about the super-synths right now, and it would be great to learn more. Was their offer to help the synths genuine – or was it a trap?
Soji, as the instigator of contact with the super-synths, could be just the person to help pacify them if they turn out to be on the warpath. That could be why she needs Picard and the crew of La Sirena: to seek out the super-synths and prevent a war.
Number 19: Shutting down the beacon on Aia.
The beacon on Aia.
Now that the Zhat Vash have been exposed, we don’t really know what will become of their anti-synthetic crusade. The decision to have Commodore Oh withdraw so quickly in the Season 1 finale is not one I particularly liked; the Zhat Vash were presented as zealots who would stop at nothing to achieve their goal of wiping out synthetic life, and despite Soji closing the portal, from Oh’s point of view she could just open another one.
However, criticisms aside, it makes sense that Starfleet – or at least Picard – would want to find the octonary star system and shut down the beacon on Aia. Not only would this prevent the Zhat Vash from continuing to use it, but it would also avoid the possibility of other synths accidentally finding it and using it to contact the super-synths.
The planet Aia.
This should be a priority for Starfleet, at least in my opinion! Though we may not see it for ourselves, this could be something communicated in a line or two of dialogue, just noting that the beacon has been shut down.
Alternatively it could be a major storyline, with Picard and La Sirena setting out to find Aia and continue their fight against the Zhat Vash. I’m not sure if this would be the right way to go – it feels like an epilogue to Season 1 rather than the main event for Season 2. But it could make for an interesting episode!
Number 20: The return of Dr Crusher (or another major character from The Next Generation era).
Dr Crusher in The Next Generation Season 1.
Dr Crusher was the only major character from The Next Generation who wasn’t confirmed to be alive in Season 1. We saw Troi and Riker, of course, and thanks to Zhaban we heard about Worf and La Forge too. But despite how close Picard and Dr Crusher were – they had even married in an alternate timeline – no mention was made of her.
The question of what became of their relationship is an open one. In the aftermath of Picard’s resignation and retirement, did Dr Crusher visit him? Were they married, or romantically involved? If so, could the wedding of Troi and Riker (that we saw in Nemesis) have been the prompt for them to revisit their relationship?
Captain Picard and Dr Crusher in The Next Generation.
Picard was clearly single in Season 1, so if he and Dr Crusher had been romantically involved it’s clearly something that has already ended. But his new lease on life – thanks to a new body and overcoming his depression – could mean he wants to renew things or at least contact her.
Alternatively we could learn that Dr Crusher has died, or that she and Picard never got together. They could even have had a major falling-out and may not have spoken in over a decade. Such a storyline could see them coming back together, moving on from whatever caused the fight.
So that’s it. I didn’t plan to write this at first, but writing up some preliminary guesses for Discovery Season 4 was so much fun that I wanted to do the same thing for Picard Season 2 as well!
Picard Season 2 will – fingers crossed – begin filming some time soon. I wouldn’t bet on seeing it on our screens in 2021, though, just because of how much time post-production will take. So it may be a while before we see Picard, Raffi, Elnor, Rios, Dr Jurati, and Seven of Nine! But that doesn’t mean speculating and guessing about what may be coming is any less enjoyable.
These are not even theories – I want to call them guesses rather than anything else. So please, please don’t get carried away thinking that any of these are destined to happen. We all need to remember to take such theories and predictions with a pinch of salt at the best of times, and guesswork this far out when we know less than nothing about the upcoming season is almost silly! So as fun as this was to put together, let’s all try not to get too excited about anything listed above.
Star Trek: Picard Season 1 is available to stream now on CBS All Access in the United States, and on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The Star Trek franchise – including Picard and all other titles mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the entirety of Star Trek: Picard Season 1. There are further spoilers for Star Trek: Discovery (including the Season 3 trailers) and for other iterations of the Star Trek franchise.
It’s been a little over six months since Season 1 of Star Trek: Picard came to an end. The series set up a number of mysteries, and while many of them were completely resolved by the first season finale, some weren’t. Some of these may be addressed in future – in fact, that’s something I’d really like to see – but assuming the series follows a similar pattern to Star Trek: Discovery, Picard and his new crew will likely warp away to a different adventure next time. That may mean that we never learn the truth behind these mysterious unresolved story threads.
Many television series nowadays set up mysteries or unanswered questions early on that become important later, and I don’t mean to come across as impatiently banging on the table demanding we get answers to everything now! Part of the fun of watching a series like Star Trek: Picard – at least for me – is the theorising and speculating, trying to figure out the puzzles that the producers and writers have created.
Jean-Luc Picard will return in Season 2!
One small caveat: it’s possible that some of these points have been addressed in non-canon sources (like comic books) but I’m not counting that. Star Trek, unlike Star Wars, has always drawn a clear line between official canon and unofficial sources. Occasionally we will see points from unofficial material make its way into Star Trek, but unless we see these points resolved on screen, the potential exists for the writers of Season 2 – or indeed of any future Star Trek production – to overwrite anything published in a novel, comic, video game, etc.
With that out of the way, let’s dive into the list!
Number 1: Who are Laris and Zhaban, and what is the nature of their relationship with Picard?
Laris and Zhaban.
The first few episodes of Season 1 introduced us to Laris and Zhaban – Picard’s assistants at his vineyard in France. Laris and Zhaban are Romulans, and not just any Romulans but former Tal Shiar operatives. I assumed, before we learned what happened to Picard’s planned rescue armada, that he had won their loyalty by saving them (or their families) from the Romulan supernova. But now we know that Picard only evacuated a minuscule number of Romulans, most of whom wound up on the planet Vashti. Those refugees detest Picard for abandoning them – even though the decision was taken by the Federation rather than him personally.
So the question remains: why are Laris and Zhaban so loyal to Picard that they’d give up everything to become housemaids and winemakers on Earth? Even if he saved their lives during the evacuation, very shortly afterwards he gave up on helping their people and their cause. Not only do they seem 100% fine with that, but they appear to have made no effort to help either, despite being operatives of the Tal Shiar.
A related point would be why didn’t Laris and Zhaban accompany Picard when he left the vineyard to go back into space? Picard seems to convince them to stay behind by telling them he needs them to attend to the grape harvest – but if you stop to think about it, this doesn’t make much sense. If they’re staying with him out of sheer stubborn loyalty – for some as-yet-unidentified reason – why would they allow him to head off on a dangerous mission unaccompanied?
Laris with Picard.
And finally, now that Picard seems to have a ship and loyal crew, what will happen to Laris and Zhaban back on Earth? Are they just going to remain behind as custodians of the vineyard while Picard is away? That’s certainly a possibility, but it still raises the question of why he has such steadfast loyalty from them.
Laris and Zhaban filled a story role in Season 1, not only by introducing Picard (and us as the audience) to the idea of the Zhat Vash’s existence, but also by being representations of Picard’s home and safe harbour that he has to leave behind as he goes on his adventure. They serve the same role as some of the Hobbiton Hobbits in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings novels in that regard. As a story point and character archetype that’s fine, but in the Star Trek galaxy, given everything we learned about Picard and the Romulans, some explanation would be nice!
Number 2: What happened to Soji’s Trill friend after Maps and Legends?
Dr Kunamadéstifee with Soji.
Maps and Legends (the second episode of Season 1) introduced us to a Trill character: Dr Kunamadéstifee. The two sequences in which she featured appeared to have a lot of horror film-style foreshadowing, leading to a theory I held onto for almost the whole of the season that she was going to meet an unpleasant fate. However, after Maps and Legends the character was abruptly dropped with no explanation.
From a production point of view, it would have been beneficial to keep this character around. Soji had precious little interaction with anyone aside from Narek for much of the season, and a character like Dr Kunamadéstifee could have been a friend she could speak to, if only occasionally. Star Trek has always had guest stars who make a single appearance then don’t return, and from that point of view this isn’t odd or out of the ordinary. But it would still be nice to learn what became of Dr Kunamadéstifee – one way or the other!
Number 3: Why was Dr Bruce Maddox on Freecloud?
This is a huge point, because right now it represents a gaping hole in the story of the first season. I’ve talked about this before, but just to recap: the storyline of the first half of the season was about locating Bruce Maddox, who had been missing since the ban on synthetic life. Maddox was eventually tracked to Freecloud, and the only reason he’d travelled to the dangerous planet was because his lab had “been destroyed by the Tal Shiar.”
Obviously he can’t have been referring to his lab on Coppelius – Picard was literally sat in that room at one point, and it didn’t look destroyed to me! But even assuming Maddox had built a second lab away from Coppelius, why did he not simply return there if the new facility had been attacked? Why did he go to Freecloud instead? Dr Soong and the other synths would have welcomed him with open arms, yet he chose to go to a dangerous place and visit a woman he owed a lot of money to.
Freecloud was a very dangerous place for Maddox to visit.
Bjayzl may not have killed him or successfully sold him to the Tal Shiar, but she contributed to his death by weakening him significantly. Travelling to Freecloud – and to Bjayzl’s club in particular – appears to be an act of desperation or of last resort, yet Maddox clearly had other options.
Right now, the only reason Maddox was on Freecloud is to enable other aspects of the storyline to make sense, and to get Picard and other characters into position. Without Maddox, Picard would have had to find a different way to track down Soji, so he’s important to the plot. Unfortunately, the lack of explanation to this point leaves a pretty wide plot hole, and because finding Maddox was the main focus of the first half of the season, it’s one I can’t overlook. It needs a satisfactory expanation.
Number 4: What will happen to the ex-Borg and the Artifact?
The Artifact’s final resting place on Coppelius.
At the climax of the Artifact’s storyline, Seven of Nine and Elnor attempted to lead a rebellion of ex-Borg against the Romulans. However, Rizzo and the Zhat Vash were prepared and ended up killing a lot of xBs. Not all of them were killed, though, and while we don’t know how many survived, there clearly were survivors after the Artifact arrived at Coppelius. A Borg cube can easily have tens of thousands of drones aboard, and while it was suggested that Rizzo killed the majority of them, we don’t really know how many could have survived. It could easily be hundreds – or possibly more.
Seven of Nine appeared to take on a leadership role for the xBs, filling a void left by Hugh’s death. Many xBs seemed confused or traumatised by their experiences – and they will need someone to help them get through that. At the end of the Season 1 finale, though, both Seven of Nine and Elnor had rejoined Picard aboard La Sirena, and the ship then warped away to an unknown destination. Without Seven of Nine, what will happen to the ex-Borg?
Seven of Nine went to a lot of trouble to help the xBs… then appears to have ditched them.
The Artifact itself is likely to come under Starfleet control, at least in my opinion. Its wreckage on Coppelius is largely intact, and presumably the Federation will want to study as much Borg technology as it can get its hands on. It’s possible that something has happened in the galaxy in the two decades that we didn’t see that may have resolved or ended the Borg threat, but that was never mentioned on screen so I assume Starfleet would be very keen to get its hands on a mostly-intact Borg cube – even if it had been picked at by Romulans and may be several years out-of-date!
The ex-Borg are another matter, though. There appeared to be a wide range of races, including many non-Federation species. Some may wish to return home, but in the case of species like the Hirogen, that may not be possible. The Federation may offer them all refugee status and help them reacclimate to life outside the Borg Collective, but it still seems very strange to me that Seven of Nine has just seemingly abandoned the survivors. It’s possible that the final scenes of Season 1 took place many months later, in which case this may have been handled off-screen. Still, it would be nice to get a proper resolution, even if it’s just a couple of lines of dialogue.
Number 5: What will Starfleet do about Aia?
The Zhat Vash by the beacon on Aia.
Somewhere beyond Romulan space – and out of reach of Starfleet – lies Aia, a planet at the centre of eight stars. The stars were deliberately moved and aligned to strongly indicate Aia’s location, and at some point in the past – perhaps centuries ago – the Romulans stumbled upon it. On Aia there’s a beacon left behind by a powerful synthetic race (I nicknamed them the “Mass Effect Reapers”) and it tells synthetics to contact them. The Romulans would interpret this information as something apocalyptic, and the Zhat Vash came to believe that any synthetic life would ultimately lead to the extinction of all sentient organic life in the galaxy.
The beacon was more complicated than that, and instead contained an instruction for synths, telling them to contact the “Mass Effect Reapers” if they need help or are being persecuted by organics. Given the immense power that the “Mass Effect Reapers” appear to possess, surely Starfleet can’t risk leaving the beacon on Aia for anyone to find.
The planet Aia.
The beacon already caused massive problems – the attack on Mars and the Romulan attempt to attack Coppelius being just two examples, and there may be countless others. Leaving it alone will not only perpetuate the Zhat Vash’s conspiracy theory, but will also be dangerous. What if someone else encounters the beacon and contacts the “Mass Effect Reapers”?
I have a theory that – somehow – the Romulans have “cloaked” the octonary star system and Aia, otherwise surely with 24th Century scanning technology and telescopes the Federation would have noticed it. So it may not be as easy as just travelling there and shutting it down. Attempting to do so could even lead to war with the Romulans. However, I think it’s a risk the Federation will have to take; leaving the beacon alone is simply not an option.
Number 6: Who are the super-synths that I nicknamed the “Mass Effect Reapers”?
Who are these guys?
The “Mass Effect Reapers” – nicknamed for their similarities to a faction from a video game series – are a total unknown quantity. There are many possibilities for who they are and what their motivations are, but we only caught the barest of glimpses of them in the Season 1 finale, and in the aftermath of Picard’s “death,” no one mentioned them. Surely, however, they’re an existential threat to Starfleet – and indeed the whole galaxy – on a scale comparable to the Borg. Heck, they could actually be the Borg.
I have a theory that the “Mass Effect Reapers” may be the cause of the Burn – a galactic catastrophe seen in the trailers for Star Trek: Discovery Season 3. If that’s the case, perhaps Discovery will explain this faction’s backstory in more detail. If they reside in an area of space far beyond the Milky Way galaxy it could have taken them centuries to travel here, meaning the timelines match up for Discovery’s far-future setting.
Soji used a beacon to contact the “Mass Effect Reapers.”
Theories aside, we know next to nothing about this faction. They were powerful enough to move stars and to create a sustainable eight-star octonary system. They also appear to have altruistic motivations when it comes to synthetic life, offering to help synths in their struggle against organic oppressors. But is that genuine? Or when they arrive would they simply harvest or assimilate whoever they found? We simply don’t know, but it feels like something that could easily be a trap.
Soji was talked into closing the beacon – but whoever the “Mass Effect Reapers” are, they’re now aware of the existence of the Federation, the Romulans, and the Coppelius synths. If I were Starfleet, I’d immediately work on a plan to contact them and try to open a dialogue. Explaining what happened, and that the Coppelius synths are safe, may be the only way to avert a conflict.
Number 7: Why was Dr Soong planning to transfer his mind to a synthetic body?
Dr Altan Inigo Soong.
When Picard and the crew of La Sirena arrived on Coppelius they met Dr Soong – the son of Data’s creator. Dr Soong was working on a synthetic body for himself, but had been unable to perfect the mind-transfer that he would have needed to accomplish that goal. He ended up donating the body – nicknamed the “golem” – to Picard, but what consequences (if any) will there be for that?
Sadly we didn’t get to spend a lot of time with Dr Soong, but I felt it was at least hinted at in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1 that he needed a synthetic body. Perhaps he, like Picard, is dying? The finale had a lot of story to get through and rather skipped over that point, so we don’t really know why Dr Soong wanted to become a synth. Was it a desire for immortality? Was it because of illness? Was it because all of his friends were synths and he felt left out? We simply don’t know.
With Brent Spiner set to reprise the role in Season 2, I’d say we have a decent chance of finding out.
Number 8: What became of Narek?
We have no idea what happened to Narek after this moment.
Narek’s story came to an abrupt end partway through Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2. After convincing Raffi and Rios to go along with his plan to attack the synths’ beacon, Narek was wrestled to the ground by a group of synths during the botched attack. After that he was never seen or referenced again.
Apparently there’s a deleted or unfilmed scene from the episode which was to depict Narek being taken into custody by the Federation. While it isn’t canon, it remains the most likely outcome. However, there are other possibilities. Narek could have been retrieved by the Romulans during their mission to Coppelius, being transported aboard a Romulan ship during the standoff. He could have been held by the synths, who have cause to hate him for unleashing the Zhat Vash upon them. He could have recanted his Zhat Vash ideology and left aboard La Sirena with Picard – though I consider this one unlikely.
There are many reasons why Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2 was a mixed episode and a somewhat stumbling finale. The lack of any resolution to the story of a major character is just one of them. Though unconfirmed at this stage, I doubt Narek will return as a major character in Season 2, so unless we get some dialogue or a cameo confirming his fate, the deleted/unfilmed scene may be all we have to go on.
Number 9: Are the synths safe on Coppelius?
The Federation and Romulan fleets over Coppelius.
The timely arrival of Riker’s Starfleet armada is the only reason Coppelius wasn’t obliterated from orbit by a massive Romulan attack fleet. Soji may have listened to Picard and shut down the beacon, but Commodore Oh and the Zhat Vash are fanatics and zealots, and the idea that they would have simply stood down having witnessed that and having heard Picard’s speech doesn’t make a lot of sense.
With that in mind, what’s to stop them returning at any point in the future to finish the job and destroy this colony of synths? Unless Starfleet plans to permanently base an entire fleet in the system, and perhaps build a Starbase there too, it seems like the synths can never be safe if they remain on Coppelius. Evacuating them to a new home would seem to be the safest option.
Number 10: Who knows that Picard is now a synth?
Picard in his new body.
Obviously Dr Soong, Dr Jurati, and Soji know that Picard is now a synth. The rest of La Sirena’s crew must know too, as will Seven of Nine. At the very end of Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2 Picard basically admitted it out loud in front of all of them. But does anyone else know? What about Riker and Troi? They played big roles in Season 1, but Riker left Coppelius before Picard’s “death” so he may not be aware of what transpired.
There are potential ramifications for Picard’s death-and-rebirth. From Starfleet’s perspective, is he the same Jean-Luc Picard as before? To his friends he may seem the same, but to those prejudiced against synths after a long prohibition on synthetic life, will they treat him the same? Picard may reunite with other people from his past in Season 2 – someone like Dr Crusher or Guinan. I wonder how they will react if they learn what happened.
So that’s it. Ten unresolved mysteries from Star Trek: Picard Season 1. Some of these I fully expect future seasons to tackle, but others feel in danger of being abandoned as Picard and the crew move on to new adventures.
Overall, Season 1 of Star Trek: Picard did a good job of resolving the mysteries and storylines that it set up. But there are some that fell by the wayside and didn’t get a proper conclusion. If the plan is to continue these stories and make more of them in future seasons then I’m all for it, because that sounds fantastic. But if we aren’t going to see these storylines and characters return, doing something to bring proper closure is something I really hope the producers and writers try to do.
Star Trek: Picard is available to stream now on CBS All Access in the United States and on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and other countries and territories. The Star Trek franchise – including Star Trek: Picard – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Discovery, and the trailer for Discovery’s upcoming third season.
Ever since we first caught a glimpse of Star Trek: Discovery’s third season setting, I’ve been wondering what’s going on. According to everything we know at this stage, Burnham and the ship will successfully complete a 930-year time jump into the far future. That future looks pretty bleak, and perhaps could even be described as post-apocalyptic. If it’s true that Discovery plans to tell a story set in an era where the Federation is defeated or in decline, figuring out how that happened – and reversing it – is surely going to be the overarching story.
For now we’re going to have to set aside reservations about how a post-apocalyptic or otherwise bleak setting will work with Star Trek from a storytelling point of view. Instead, let’s look at things from an in-universe perspective and try to figure out what may be going on. I have already covered this theory back in March when I was wrapping up my Star Trek: Picard theories, so if you’re a regular reader it may be familiar to you.
In short, here’s how the theory goes: the race of super-synths from Star Trek: Picard are the cause of Discovery’s post-apocalyptic setting. Let’s break it down, look at why it could be a possibility, and explore it in more detail.
This shot of a planet being destroyed by powerful synthetic life-forms was used in both Discovery Season 2 and Picard Season 1.
So although I said this would be an in-universe explanation of the theory, there is one production-side reason we need to look at too. One thing that modern Star Trek shows lack is a relationship to each other. Discovery did a pretty good job of tying itself to The Original Series, and both Picard and Lower Decks have connected themselves to The Next Generation, but there’s essentially nothing beyond a couple of throwaway lines linking Picard to Discovery right now. That would have been unthinkable during the 1990s, where The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager all shared characters, settings, locations, factions, and themes.
Modern Star Trek is hampered by its shows being split up along the timeline, and this makes it harder for new fans to transition smoothly from one series to another. There are no threads of consistency running between the different series, and while they are semi-independent productions they are all being produced by one overall team of people under the Star Trek Universe umbrella.
If we were to learn at some point in Discovery’s third season that the events depicted in Picard were directly related to the Federation’s decline or defeat, suddenly there would be a reason for Discovery fans who missed Picard to go back and watch it, and for Picard fans who haven’t seen Discovery to jump over and watch that show too. There would be the strong feeling that both shows genuinely take place in the same universe and the same timeline, which right now is lacking. This would help the Star Trek brand stay cohesive, and be a frame of reference for casual viewers, all while allowing both shows to provide each other a boost.
The Federation official from the Discovery Season 3 trailer.
So that’s on the production side of things. But I promised you an in-universe look! First let’s very briefly recap, in case you forgot the events of the final few episodes of Picard. While investigating Soji’s origins, Picard and the crew of La Sirena came to realise that there are a race of synthetic life-forms – created by Bruce Maddox – living on a planet called Coppelius. The Romulan faction known as the Zhat Vash were searching for the synths too, because they believe that the synths will trigger an apocalyptic event. This apocalypse was revealed to them by a beacon left behind by an ancient race on a world they called Aia, and when we got a clearer look at the message the beacon contained, it was less a warning to organics than a message to the synths themselves, offering aid. A faction of super-synths that I nicknamed the “Mass Effect Reapers” exist somewhere beyond the galaxy, and they have promised aid to any synthetic race that calls on them. Sutra and Soji planned to contact them, and to open a portal that would have allowed the “Mass Effect Reapers” to travel to the Milky Way galaxy. They successfully built the beacon, but at the last second Picard convinced Soji to shut it down, closing the portal and preventing the arrival of the “Mass Effect Reapers”.
Did I miss anything? I hope not! I nicknamed this faction the “Mass Effect Reapers” because they have noteworthy similarities to another race of super-synths in the Mass Effect series of video games.
I think that the most important thing to note is that in the finale, Soji and Sutra were successful in opening the portal. Thus, the “Mass Effect Reapers” are aware of the existence of a race of synths in the Milky Way galaxy, and also of the existence of the Federation. While Picard was able to convince Soji to stand down and close the portal, questions remain.
Soji working on the beacon in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2.
Now that the “Mass Effect Reapers” know of the existence of the Romulans, Federation, and synths, will they be content to go back to sitting still, waiting for another race of synths to contact them? Or did Sutra and Soji set into motion a chain of events that can no longer be stopped? Closing the portal may have prevented the imminent arrival of the “Mass Effect Reapers”, but it’s totally unclear what they will choose to do next.
The “Mass Effect Reapers” were presented as hyper-intelligent, arguably far beyond the Federation and Romulans in terms of technology, and thus their motivations and actions can be difficult to predict. This may be an oversimplification, but at the moment Soji closed the portal and shut down the beacon, she didn’t seem to communicate to the “Mass Effect Reapers” why she was doing so. From their point of view, a portal was opened – through which they could see a race of synths threatened by an imposing fleet of starships – then before they could take action the portal was closed. If I were the “Mass Effect Reapers”, I’d want to know why. And if I were paranoid, I might be thinking that the synths who tried to contact me were under attack and that the beacon had been forcibly shut down.
If the “Mass Effect Reapers” followed this line of thinking, and their motivation is still to provide help to any synthetic race that asks for it, the logical next step would be for them to set off to the Milky Way as fast as they can. Depending on how far away they are – and the show never really explained that – it could take years, decades, or even centuries for them to travel, even if their technology is more advanced than anything we’ve ever seen in Star Trek. That’s assuming they set off immediately – there may have been a debate or discussion about what to do that could have lasted years or longer.
This is basically all we saw of the “Mass Effect Reapers” in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2.
In any case, it’s not inconceivable that this extra-galactic threat could take centuries to arrive. I like to assume that Picard and/or Starfleet will travel to Aia and disable or destroy the beacon to prevent not only the Romulans from using it, but from other synths finding it in future. Even shutting down the beacon on Aia may be too late, though, because of the events of Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2.
The “Mass Effect Reapers” are perhaps the only faction other than the Borg who could be capable of waging a successful war against the Federation. Even if all of the powers of the Alpha and Beta quadrants were to band together, it still might not be enough against the superior technology of these super-synths, and we could certainly expect any such conflict to be long and catastrophically costly. Even if the Federation survived it would be seriously weakened. Furthermore, a large-scale attack on the Federation would result in far-flung colonies being cut off, and any news or information might be hard to come by.
This is where the trailer for Discovery’s third season comes in. We see a setting best described as bleak, as Burnham and the crew arrive in a part of the galaxy that seems far away from Earth. The Federation seems to be in decline, Starfleet is described as a “ghost”, and we’re left wondering what happened to cause all of this. We’ve seen the Federation in the far future before, both in Voyager and Enterprise, and certainly 100-200 years before Discovery’s far future setting, the Federation and Starfleet seemed to be doing pretty well, even furthering their mission of exploration to include time as well as space. Reconciling that image of the future with Discovery’s setting is something Season 3 will need to do.
The crew of the USS Relativity in the 29th Century – around 300 years before Discovery’s third season is supposedly set.
As a faction we know essentially nothing about – not even their name – the “Mass Effect Reapers” are ripe for exploring in more detail. Discovery could do so in such a way that doesn’t interfere with anything Picard set up, providing not only the next part of the story, but also some background. We could learn about their leadership, motivations, and level of technology in much more detail. And it would still be a practically blank slate for Discovery’s team to use to set up the third season’s bleak and dark setting.
The question of the “Mass Effect Reapers” motivation comes into play again. There are two broad possibilities for their actions in Picard – either they were genuine in their offer to help synthetic races, or the beacon on Aia was part of an elaborate trap. Neither option bodes well for the Federation, assuming that the “Mass Effect Reapers” are now aware of their existence. If it was a trap, and the “Mass Effect Reapers” were waiting to be contacted by synths simply because that would mean advanced civilisations are present, they may now have a new target. If it wasn’t a trap and their desire to help was genuine, they may be motivated by concern for the Coppelius synths or even anger at the Federation and Romulans for intruding before communication could be established. While it’s hard to say what this faction could be planning or thinking based on such a small amount of information, these possibilities seem reasonable, and if they decided they wanted to attack or investigate, the events of Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2 could have set that in motion.
Because Picard Season 1 wrapped up in the immediate aftermath of the standoff over Coppelius and the closing of the beacon, we don’t know what happened next. However, I consider two things to be somewhere between possible and likely: the synths on Coppelius would be relocated (in order to keep them safe from the Romulans), and Starfleet would make some attempt to contact the “Mass Effect Reapers” to explain what happened.
The Romulan and Federation fleets engage in a standoff over Coppelius in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2.
Relocating the synths feels like a necessity. Commodore Oh may not have wanted to risk war with the Federation when staring down a massive armada, but there’s no indication that she changed her mind on the necessity of exterminating synthetic life. From her perspective, Soji and Sutra building the beacon was a culmination of her worst fears, and although Soji may have been convinced to stand down, again from Oh’s point of view what’s to stop her changing her mind? Or one of the other synths building a new beacon? Leaving the synths on Coppelius would be very dangerous for them, unless Starfleet plans to permanently base a fleet in the system, so the easiest option for everyone would be to relocate them to a safer place.
However, in the context of our theory, this could be problematic. Suppose it takes the “Mass Effect Reapers” a long time to arrive in the Milky Way galaxy, and they don’t manage to travel to Coppelius for several centuries. What do they find when they arrive? No synths, but several massive interstellar civilisations and empires of organic beings. Put the two things together and it’s not unreasonable to assume that the organics wiped out the synths – especially if the last thing the “Mass Effect Reapers” saw before the portal closed was two massive fleets approaching the planet. They may take the missing synths as proof of an attack and go on the rampage.
Even if Starfleet were able to contact the “Mass Effect Reapers”, there’s no guarantee a successful dialogue could be opened. Setting aside other theories like the “Mass Effect Reapers” actually being the Borg, a race of super-synths that considers themselves light-years ahead of organic beings in every respect may look at humans the way humans look at ants or bacteria, and consider any attempt at communication unworthy of their time. That’s assuming Starfleet could find a way to make contact without opening another portal – it may simply not be possible, though I expect the Federation would want to try.
The “Mass Effect Reapers” make their way to the portal in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2.
Taken together, all of these different factors make at least a plausible argument for Discovery taking this story beat and expanding it for the basis of its third season. It could certainly be done in such a way that wasn’t confusing and didn’t make Picard essential viewing to understand what was happening – just like Discovery did with Pike, Vina, and the Talosians in Season 2. The Cage certainly provided extra details and informed what was going on, but viewers didn’t miss anything important for not having seen it. I’m sure the same could be done here, especially if the attack by or war against the “Mass Effect Reapers” was already over. It would exist simply as backstory; an encouragement to hop over and watch Picard without making doing so a necessity.
While this theory remains a possibility, at least in my opinion, it’s hardly a certainty and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn Discovery is going in a wholly different direction. Many of my theories during Picard Season 1 didn’t pan out, and this may simply be another that falls by the wayside! Nevertheless, it’s fun to craft theories and speculate, and at the end of the day that’s all this is: a bit of fun, and a chance to spend more time thinking about Star Trek. So please take everything I’ve said today with a healthy pinch of salt.
Star Trek: Picard Season 1 is available to stream now on CBS All Access in the United States, and on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and other countries. Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 will air beginning on the 15th of October on CBS All Access in the United States and Netflix in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The Star Trek franchise – including all series and films discussed above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard Season 1 as well as for other iterations of the Star Trek franchise.
I really hope Star Trek: Picard Season 2 goes ahead. With all of the delays and cancellations flying around in this unpredictable environment, and with California – where the show is filmed – being one of the worst-hit locales, I’ll be at least slightly concerned about the show’s future until I know for sure that filming has wrapped!
Regardless of events in the real world, I wanted to take a look at some characters from past iterations of Star Trek that it could be fun to see make a return in Season 2 of Picard. I wrote a similar list of characters that I think would make fun additions to Strange New Worlds, and this one is going to be in a similar vein.
Jean-Luc Picard.
The usual caveat that I always give applies here: I have no “insider information”. Nor am I suggesting in any way that any of these characters will appear. I’m simply saying that I think it could make for a fun and interesting story if they did.
Season 1 surprised me by bringing back several characters that I would have never expected – Seven of Nine, Icheb (briefly), Hugh the Borg, and of course Bruce Maddox, who was the driving force behind the plot of the first half of the season in particular. With that in mind, here are a few picks for characters it could be fun to see return.
Number 1: Dr Beverly Crusher
Dr Crusher with her son Wesley in Star Trek: Nemesis.
Of The Next Generation’s main cast, only Beverly and Wesley Crusher weren’t confirmed to be alive in Picard Season 1. Data has died, of course, and we saw the return of Riker and Troi. La Forge and Worf were both mentioned by name, and I take that as confirmation that they’re alive. But no mention was made of the Crushers, and given Picard’s closeness with Beverly in particular, that strikes me as odd.
Is Dr Crusher dead? We have no evidence for that really – and no, lack of evidence that she’s alive is not evidence that she’s dead! There weren’t really any points at which the conversations Picard had could have turned to discuss Dr Crusher, so it may simply be the case that he was busy and so didn’t talk to or about her during his mission to find Soji.
In at least one future timeline – that seen in The Next Generation’s finale, All Good Things – Picard and Dr Crusher had married. Again there was no evidence of this in Season 1 of the show, and I took several remarks by and about Picard to mean that he had been alone in his retirement in France. But there’s nothing to say that he couldn’t have had a relationship with Dr Crusher in the years between Nemesis and his resignation from Starfleet.
Picard and Crusher had come close to romance at several points but never crossed that line. Partly this was Picard feeling responsible for the death of her first husband, who died under his command years previously. But perhaps something could have inspired them to take their relationship beyond friendship – such as two close friends of theirs rediscovering their own romance. In Nemesis, Riker and Troi were married, and indeed remain so as of Picard Season 1. Could that event have been the catalyst for Picard and Crusher to realise it was now or never for them?
Number 2: Narek
Narek’s storyline may not have been everyone’s favourite in Season 1, but I liked that it was unpredictable and that he didn’t follow the trope of being the “spy with a heart of gold” who falls in love with his target. Sadly, Narek was simply abandoned about halfway through Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2. We don’t know what became of him after he worked with Rios, Raffi, and Dr Soong to try to stop Soji building the beacon.
The last we saw of Narek he was being wrestled to the ground by Soji’s synth allies – in what was a pretty weak scene. But we’ll set aside criticisms of the finale for now. What happened to him next is a mystery.
There are several possibilities, though. He may have been taken into captivity by the synths as he was a Romulan spy and had been instrumental in leading the Zhat Vash to Coppelius. He could have been recovered by the Romulans during their brief visit to the system, probably by beaming him aboard one of their ships. He could have been taken into custody by the Federation to be interrogated about the Zhat Vash. It’s even possible – though unlikely – that he left Coppelius aboard La Sirena with Picard.
Regardless, Narek’s story feels incomplete. I want to see more of him and learn what impact Soji’s decision to stand down had on him. Did he still believe synths needed to be destroyed when he saw firsthand that Soji could be reasoned with, and that the prophecy he believed in was not going to come true? We simply don’t know, as the finale robbed his character of any conclusion. There’s more for Narek to say and do – and though I don’t expect to see him back, I hope we at least learn what became of him.
Number 3: The Lower Decks ensigns.
No, not those ones. The four survivors from The Next Generation Season 7 episode Lower Decks. There was Lavelle, who was promoted to lieutenant at the end of the episode, Nurse Ogawa, Taurik, and Ben the waiter. Of the four, perhaps the one I’d be most interested to see is Lavelle, whose story of receiving a promotion in the aftermath of the death of his friend could certainly be given an epilogue. I picture him having ascended through the ranks to be a commander or captain by this point in the timeline.
Nurse Ogawa would be nice to bring back too, given her role as a secondary character across a number of episodes from Seasons 4-7 of The Next Generation – as well as two films. In an episode which focused on Dr Crusher’s reunion with Picard, perhaps she could make an appearance too. She could also be a senior medical officer in her own right, perhaps being someone Picard or one of La Sirena’s crew seeks help from.
This ties into a theory I have that the Dax symbiont could make an appearance in Star Trek: Discovery, which we know from the trailer is going to have Trill characters. I keep talking about the need for modern Star Trek to get some threads of consistency going between the various shows – which are split up across multiple time periods right now. One way this could happen is for Dax to appear in both Discovery and Picard.
What became of Dax after the end of Deep Space Nine is totally unknown. There were novels in which she became a captain, but of all the Star Trek novels, those struck me as some of the worst examples of fan-fiction! I think it’s much more likely she continued her role as a counsellor and scientist rather than made an attempt to move into command, though twenty-five years on from when we last saw her she could really be doing almost anything. She and Dr Bashir may still be together – or their relationship at the end of Deep Space Nine may have been little more than a fling.
Because Ezri only got one season before Deep Space Nine ended, she’s a character we didn’t get to know as well as we otherwise might’ve, and even the last time we saw her she was still adjusting to her new life as a joined Trill. Just like with Seven of Nine in Season 1 of Picard, it would be great to see her years later having made that transition and adjustment and being a more settled character.
Picard may even have need of a counsellor – having your consciousness transplanted into a new body is going to be a shock for anyone, and as someone who seemed to have made his peace with dying, he’s now been thrust into a new phase of life. Maybe Ezri, whose own life was majorly disrupted by the Dax symbiont, could offer her services?
Number 5: Sela
When I looked at the Romulans in the run-up to Season 1, I wrote that I didn’t think we’d see Sela back, and I wasn’t particularly bothered because she wasn’t someone Picard knew very well. That was in the context of Sela being some kind of high-ranking Romulan, and after two major defeats in her two engagements with Picard, I highly doubt she’s in any kind of leadership position.
Whether the Romulans will feature as prominently in Season 2 is unclear, but perhaps there could be an opportunity to see Sela again in a different way. She could be a minor officer, having been demoted after her failures and may even hold a grudge against Picard. She could have been involved with the Zhat Vash. Or she could have been exiled by the Romulans, perhaps as a result of her failures in The Next Generation.
Sela is not the most interesting Star Trek villain, and she’s not the most exciting adversary Picard ever faced. But now that the series has survived its first season and is standing on its own, Sela could make a return in a way that would be interesting. Her relationship with Picard as the daughter of Tasha Yar was touched on in The Next Generation, but arguably never resolved. Perhaps there’s a chance to resolve it now, one way or another.
Number 6: Ro Laren and Thomas Riker
Although these two characters never interacted on screen, they share a similar – and ambiguous – fate. Both Ro Laren and Thomas Riker defected to the Maquis in the years before the Cardassian-Dominion alliance and the Dominion War, and what became of them after that is unclear.
Thomas Riker (a transporter-created clone of William Riker) was taken into captivity by the Cardassians not long before war broke out, and as far as we know, remained in captivity from that point onward. However, it seems logical to assume that – if he survived the war – he would have been rescued by the Federation. With William Riker having made an appearance in the first season, the potential conflict between the two characters could be an interesting reason to bring back Thomas as well.
Ro Laren’s fate is a little less clear. The Maquis were wiped out by the Cardassians and their Dominion allies when they were on the verge of declaring independence, and many Maquis were killed. However, it stands to reason that some were captured alive, so it’s possible Ro was among them.
The reason why I feel they could show up together is if Season 2 were to take a look at Cardassia, Bajor, and the aftermath of the war, they may be able to play a role in that story. I doubt they could both still be in Cardassian captivity twenty-five years later, but they may be working together in the former Maquis territories. With Picard taking a look at the Federation and Starfleet from the outside, and showing both organisations as being flawed, a potential Maquis story could take advantage of that.
Number 7: Q
Q could be an interesting character to bookend Picard’s story. He appeared in Encounter at Farpoint, when we first met the Enterprise-D’s captain, and there would be something poetic about Q appearing in whatever season or episode will mark Picard’s end as a Star Trek character. While I hope there will be a third and perhaps fourth season of Picard, if it is to end with Season 2 I’d definitely bring Q back.
When Picard “died” in the Season 1 finale, I half-expected him to encounter Q in the afterlife. This would have been wrong for many reasons, of course – not least because it would have been very confusing to large parts of the audience! Nevertheless, if that were to have been Picard’s end it could have been very fitting.
Q in “the afterlife” in the episode Tapestry.
I wonder if we’ll learn that Q visited Picard during his self-imposed isolation in France. That seems like something he might have done – to try to prompt some kind of reaction from his adversary. Q has no concept of ageing or even of death really, so the notion of Picard getting old and becoming depressed would be things he might have wanted to examine.
Q seemed to consider Picard a friend, if it’s possible for him to have friends, and he certainly went out of his way to help him on several occasions. I’m sure Q would be upset at the thought of Picard dying, and even if he were to have no impact on the story, could still be one of the characters seen at a funeral service or wake for Picard if the show is to end with the character’s death.
Number 8: Nella Daren
This is a sad one, as original actress Wendy Hughes passed away in 2014, but her character could be recast as Dr Maddox and Icheb were in Season 1. Lieutenant Commander Daren was an officer who briefly served aboard the Enterprise-D as a scientist. But more interestingly, she was one of the few characters linked romantically to Picard during The Next Generation’s run.
Could she have resumed her relationship with Picard at a later date, when they weren’t serving together? As with Dr Crusher above, it’s at least possible. The episode which featured Daren was Lessons, from the sixth season of The Next Generation, and it was a solid episode that appears to have been well-received. There’s no reason why we couldn’t learn what happened to her after she was transferred off the Enterprise-D.
Giving Picard a romantic interest may not seem to be a natural fit for the series. But romance (or past romance) can be a great source of drama in storytelling, and as he readjusts to life outside his vineyard Picard may be interested in rekindling relationships that fell by the wayside.
Number 9: Thadiun Okona
Okona was only seen in one episode of The Next Generation’s second season – but so was Bruce Maddox, so we shouldn’t count that against him! Why would this roguish character be a good fit, though? Well, Picard is currently operating outside of Starfleet, and unless that changes, finding allies who know their way around the rules could be useful and important.
I see at least a little of Okona in the character of Chris Rios, perhaps because they’re both independent captains of small ships. I wonder how they’d react to one another? A story which required Picard and the crew of La Sirena to think creatively could suit a character like the “outrageous” Okona.
William O. Campbell, who played Okona, was recently the lead in a series called Helix on the SyFy channel, so he is still active as an actor. Perhaps he could be tempted to reprise the role.
Number 10: Dr Leah Brahms
Dr Brahms appeared twice in The Next Generation, albeit once only as a hologram. She was a colleague and love interest for Geordi La Forge, and it was implied in at least one future timeline that they had married. Any story featuring him could thus include Brahms as well.
Dr Brahms was also said to work at the Daystrom Institute – which would potentially make her a colleague of Dr Jurati, assuming she was still there after more than twenty years. Perhaps they know each other, and that could be another point of connection. Dr Brahms was an expert in warp drive, and if La Sirena needed to undergo repairs or upgrades, she could prove useful in such a story.
So that’s it. Ten characters who could – but most likely won’t – appear in Star Trek: Picard Season 2. I managed to avoid putting Benjamin Sisko on a list of character reappearances for once! Whoever would have guessed that, eh?
Jokes aside, I think we will see several characters from past iterations of Star Trek crop up in Star Trek: Picard Season 2, whenever it may eventually be broadcast. Season 1 brought back several unexpected characters, and I hope we’ll get more of that next time as well.
Some of these characters may not be a good fit for whatever story the showrunners and writers have in mind for Season 2, so we’ll have to wait a little longer to learn what became of them after we last saw them. That’s okay, because what matters most is that whichever characters come back are the right ones for the story.
It remains my hope that Star Trek: Picard will serve as a launchpad for more Star Trek adventures at the dawn of the 25th Century, and while there has been no confirmation of that just yet, there is at least one other Star Trek project in development that we have no details on. Could it be another show in the same era? Possibly!
The Star Trek franchise – including Star Trek: Picard and all shows and films mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the entirety of Star Trek: Picard Season 1, including its ending. There may also be spoilers for other iterations of the Star Trek franchise.
Star Trek: Picard’s first season wrapped up at the end of March – and it feels like forever ago, what with everything that’s happened in the world since! While the season was running, in addition to reviewing each of the episodes in turn I also concocted a number of different theories for what was going on in the show. Star Trek: Picard very carefully set up a number of mysteries, and even heading into the second half of the finale, it wasn’t clear exactly how they would be resolved.
I’d argue that the first season’s two-part finale wasn’t the show at its best, and it felt as though a season which started incredibly strongly ended up stumbling a little as it crossed the finish line. There were a number of reasons for this – which I covered at the time – but it boils down to some of the show’s mysteries not being fully explained, and some storylines being dropped or left unresolved. That and the truly awful gold makeup used for the synths on Coppelius!
Yikes.
If you’d like to read all of my theories from Star Trek: Picard Season 1, you can find them on my dedicated Star Trek: Picard page. Click or tap here to be taken there!
This time, what I’d like to do is take a look back at some of the theories I postulated while the season was running. I’ll explain why I thought they seemed viable – and why they ended up being total misses! In a way, part of the fun of theory-crafting and speculating is knowing that you won’t always get it right… and boy oh boy did I have some seriously wrong theories!
Number 1: Dahj and Soji aren’t synthetics, they’re genetically-engineered humans.
Soji in the episode Nepenthe.
This is a theory I first came up with right at the beginning of the series, almost from the very moment Picard begins to suspect that Dahj is synthetic. It seemed like it could’ve been a clever idea for a double-bluff – establishing Dahj and Soji as synths, only to rip that away and challenge both Picard’s and the audience’s expectations. However, it didn’t pan out that way, and looking back, this theory was kind of ridiculous!
Genetic enhancements, similar to those made on characters like Dr Bashir and Khan, could have given Dahj the incredible speed and strength that she possessed in Remembrance, so from that point of view it wasn’t wholly unthinkable. But looking back, while Star Trek: Picard did aim to be a show that kept us guessing and didn’t telegraph every aspect of its storyline, this kind of subversion of expectations would have been a step too far. We didn’t know anything about Dahj or Soji at the beginning of the series, and to take the one established fact about them and make it a lie or a misunderstanding would have been a storytelling mistake.
Dahj during her fight against Zhat Vash operatives in Remembrance.
There was also plenty of evidence that Dahj and Soji were synthetic: Picard’s meeting with Dr Jurati, Narek’s interest in Soji, and the strong connection Picard felt to Dahj (and later to Soji) because of his friendship with Data. All of that would have made no sense in the story if we’d ended up dealing with genetically-enhanced humans!
I brought this theory back after episode 3, The End is the Beginning, based on a line spoken by one of the Romulans who attempted to assassinate Picard: “she’s not what you think she is!” This of course referred to Soji, and it struck me that, as Picard and his comrades believed Soji to be a synth, perhaps the Romulan knew that she was not. However, as the story progressed it became abundantly clear that Soji and Dahj were the synthetics that the story established them to be, and that I was barking up the wrong tree with this one!
Number 2: Section 31 will make an appearance in the show.
A black Section 31 combadge from Star Trek: Discovery.
This theory was crafted not so much because of anything that directly happened in the plot of the show, but rather for production reasons. In short, the Star Trek timeline is seriously fractured, with shows being produced simultaneously occupying very different timeframes. When Discovery’s third season kicks off in a few weeks time, there will be four shows occupying four time periods. This complicates the franchise, and what that means is that some threads of continuity would be very helpful, especially for casual viewers.
Section 31 featured heavily in Discovery’s second season, and in addition, a spin-off based on the organisation is currently being worked on. It seemed logical that Star Trek: Picard might want to find some way of incorporating Section 31 if for no other reason than having one of those threads of continuity running through the franchise, tying things loosely together and being a frame of reference for casual viewers.
My first thought for a potential Section 31 appearance was that they could’ve been responsible for the attack on Mars and the destruction of Picard’s armada. I theorised they might have taken such aggressive action to prevent the Federation giving aid to the Romulans. This was extended to include Section 31 hacking the Mars synths as part of this plan.
F8’s eyes during a flashback sequence that depicted the hack.
I next had two potential Section 31 operatives pegged – Chris Rios and Seven of Nine. Rios because he worked aboard a Starfleet ship that was “erased” from the records, and Seven of Nine because it wasn’t clear who she worked for or why she was following Picard.
Finally, as these other theories fell by the wayside, I speculated that Section 31 may have arrived to take control of the Artifact after it was abandoned by the Romulans and later crashed on Coppelius. While I suppose you could argue that might yet happen, it didn’t happen in Season 1, and thus any real benefit of the organisation crossing over from a behind-the-scenes perspective was lost.
I maintain that this theory makes a lot of sense from a production perspective, and my final idea in particular – Section 31 taking control of the Artifact to study it – could have been accomplished without making any changes whatsoever to the season’s storyline. However, it didn’t happen!
Number 3: Soji’s Trill friend will end up getting assimilated or killed.
Soji with Dr Kunamadéstifee in Maps and Legends.
Episode 2, Maps and Legends, introduced a Trill doctor working aboard the Artifact along with Soji. She ultimately only appeared in one sequence, but that sequence seemed to contain a lot of horror film-style foreshadowing, and for weeks I was insistent that we’d see this character meet an unpleasant end! Aboard a Borg cube – even a disabled one – the most likely way that would manifest would’ve been her assimiliation.
After Soji helped Dr Kunamadéstifee with her uniform, the two stood together while they listened to a speech from one of the Artifact’s Romulan guards. He stated that the area they were about to enter was incredibly dangerous, and a nearby sign seemed to reinforce the possibility of assimilation by counting the days since it had last happened. This seemed as thought it could tie in with Soji working on de-assimilating Borg drones; was she about to see her friend end up on her operating table?
Dr Kunamadéstifee again.
It turned out, of course, that I was reading too much into one side character and one short sequence, because not only didn’t Dr Kunamadéstifee end up assimilated, she was never seen again after Maps and Legends, which was a shame because she seemed like a potentially interesting character. Soji spent much of her time from episodes 2-6 with Narek, and giving her someone else to interact with was a good idea. My theory was that their friendship may have built up a little more, leading to shock and sadness for Soji upon learning of Dr Kunamadéstifee’s fate.
I suppose in theory we could say that it’s unlikely that she survived the various disasters which befell the Artifact, from Narissa executing huge numbers of ex-Borg to the ship crashing on Coppelius, but nothing was ever seen on screen to even hint at her fate.
Number 4: Commodore Oh is a synthetic.
Commodore Oh in the episode Broken Pieces.
As with Soji and Dahj being human, this was kind of an “out there” theory! But the whole point of theory crafting is to make wild guesses sometimes, and there were a couple of reasons why I considered this a possibility. First of all, it would have been thoroughly unexpected and shocking. Many recent films, games, and television series have tried to pull off genuinely unexpected twists, and had this been true, it would have been one heck of a shock!
Secondly, the premise of Star Trek: Picard’s first season had been the cloak-and-dagger factions vying to thwart or create synthetic life. The Zhat Vash and the Tal Shiar were on one side, Maddox and his team on the other. There were rogue traders, Romulans, ex-Borg, and all sorts of shadowy figures involved – any one of whom could have not been what they seemed. The show crafted mysteries for us to examine. As we learned more about the Zhat Vash and their mission, I began to wonder if they could have been infiltrated by someone who wanted to stop them harming synths. This later evolved into wondering if they’d been infiltrated by someone who wanted to bring about the very disaster they sought to prevent.
Commodore Oh on the bridge of her ship.
Dahj and Soji were both unaware of their true synthetic natures, which built on past iterations of Star Trek that showed synths can be programmed to not realise they’re synths. Commodore Oh could have genuinely believed in the Zhat Vash cause – but been programmed to “activate” at the opportune moment. We later learned that the Zhat Vash feared the arrival of a faction of super-synths that I dubbed the “Mass Effect Reapers” (because they were very similar to that video game faction) and I incorporated that into this theory, suggesting that Commodore Oh may be working for the “Mass Effect Reapers” to try and bring about their arrival.
Of course it was a complete bust! Commodore Oh was a Zhat Vash operative to the core, and as far as we know, wholly organic in nature! I still think she’s a fascinating character, and I wrote an article a few months back looking at her place in the Star Trek timeline. You can find it by clicking or tapping here.
Number 5: Picard telling everyone that their enemies are the Tal Shiar – and not the Zhat Vash – will have consequences.
A Zhat Vash operative.
One thing that Star Trek: Picard didn’t do particularly well, in my opinion, was staying consistent in how it referred to its antagonists. In Remembrance, the faction who attacked Picard and Dahj weren’t named, but in Maps and Legends we learned of the existence of the Zhat Vash – an ancient, shadowy organisation which operated within, yet were distinct from, the Tal Shiar.
Yet for several episodes, Picard and others kept referring to their adversaries as the Tal Shiar. In-universe, there’s a certain kind of logic to this. Picard may not have believed fully in the Zhat Vash’s existence, having only heard about them from one source, or he may have felt trying to explain the difference would have been too time consuming and/or made him seem too conspiratorial. However, with practically everything else in the show being done deliberately to achieve certain story payoffs, I wondered whether Picard’s decision not to be up front with his crew might have had repercussions.
Colonel Lovok (or rather, a changeling impersonating him) was a Tal Shiar operative seen in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Elnor was the one character who I felt seemed most likely to be affected by the revelation that it was the Zhat Vash, not the Tal Shiar, that he was up against. As a member of the Qowat Milat, Elnor was opposed to the Tal Shiar. But the Qowat Milat’s relationship with the Zhat Vash was unclear; even if they were enemies, the Qowat Milat may have had particular techniques for dealing with them. And at the very least, Elnor and his faction seemed likely to know of their existence.
However, Elnor learned in Nepenthe that he was facing off against the Zhat Vash, not the Tal Shiar, and the revelation seemed to have no impact on him whatsoever. The rest of La Sirena’s crew were equally nonplussed, and there were no consequences at all for the confused terminology – at least, not from an in-universe point of view. I think that, unfortunately, the decision to complicate the terminology around the show’s antagonists may have made it harder to follow for casual viewers. When dealing with made-up names like “Tal Shiar” and “Zhat Vash”, remaining consistent is important for the audience to be able to follow what’s going on.
Number 6: There’s a Starfleet-Zhat Vash conspiracy.
Admiral Clancy, the commander-in-chief of Starfleet.
In Maps and Legends, we were introduced to Commodore Oh for the first time. It was a great shock to see a high-ranking Starfleet officer involved in Dahj’s murder, and at the time it wasn’t at all clear whether Commodore Oh was a Romulan infiltrator or a Vulcan co-conspirator. If she was a Starfleet officer working with the Zhat Vash, it stood to reason that others in Starfleet were as well – perhaps even senior admirals.
Furthermore, when we learned how Commodore Oh recruited Dr Jurati into the conspiracy – all it took was a brief mind-meld – it seemed plausible that she may have used the same technique on others. Commodore Oh had been embedded in Starfleet for more than sixty years, and in that time there’s no telling how many people she may have interacted with.
Lieutenant Rizzo arrives to meet Commodore Oh.
However, it turned out not to be the case. Admiral Clancy, the head of Starfleet Command, wasn’t compromised, nor were any of the other Starfleet officers and leaders seen or referenced in Season 1. As far as we know – and this could change if future Star Trek projects decide to look at this aspect more deeply – only Commodore Oh and Rizzo were involved within Starfleet, and they were both Zhat Vash operatives.
This is one theory that I’m definitely pleased didn’t pan out. Making Starfleet itself the “bad guys”, even if there were a reason for it, wouldn’t have felt great in a Star Trek series, and would have been a far darker path for the show to have taken. Seeing Riker show up in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2 at the head of a Starfleet armada was a beautiful moment (though sadly one that had been telegraphed ahead of time) in large part because it proved that Starfleet and the Federation were still on the right side. The plot to kill the synths and attack Mars was purely a Zhat Vash creation.
Number 7: The Control AI, from Star Trek: Discovery Season 2, is involved.
A re-used image from Star Trek: Discovery.
Although I initially considered it to be a bit out of left field, the episode Nepenthe really kicked this theory into high gear! My first thought had been that perhaps the reason why the Zhat Vash were so frightened of synthetic life was because they had some involvement with Control, the rogue artificial intelligence from Star Trek: Discovery’s second season. I was convinced – wrongly – that the producers behind the overall Star Trek franchise would have wanted to build a major connection between Discovery and Picard for some of the reasons already discussed, and bringing Control in seemed like a viable option for accomplishing this.
In the episode Nepenthe, we finally got to see how Dr Jurati came to be recruited into the conspiracy – she was shown a vision by Commodore Oh, one that seemed to warn of something apocalyptic. Contained within this vision were a couple of visuals that were made for Star Trek: Discovery – more specifically, they were used to show a vision Michael Burnham and Spock had of the Control AI.
The Control AI commandeered Captain Leland’s body in Star Trek: Discovery.
At the time, I noted that there could be production-side reasons to re-use visual effects, as it was less time-consuming and cheaper than making wholly new CGI. However, for a couple of weeks I really did think that we were going to find some connection between Control and the Zhat Vash; perhaps the Romulans and Federation had been competing in some kind of mid-23rd Century AI arms race, or perhaps while Control was on the loose it had attacked Romulan ships or planets.
In a thematic sense, Star Trek: Picard’s first season and Discovery’s second season share some significant points. Both consider the potential for rogue or out-of-control artificial life, and both look at the consequences of continuing to develop AI – something that we arguably should be concerned about today! But there was no deeper crossover beyond basic themes, and the shows remain almost entirely separate from one another. The re-used visuals are what completely threw me for this one!
Number 8: The synths on Coppelius are already dead.
A crowd of clearly not dead synths in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2.
Star Trek: Picard’s first season had, unfortunately, one rather large plot hole. The driving force for much of the first half of the season was locating and rescuing Bruce Maddox, the Federation cyberneticist who built Soji, Dahj, and many of the other synths. Maddox was on a planet called Freecloud, a place he travelled to when he seemed to have nowhere else to turn. He ended up returning to the dangerous Bjayzl, someone he owed a lot of money to, and was captured. The reason he put himself in such grave danger was because his lab had been destroyed by the Tal Shiar, or so he claimed.
But in the two-part finale, Picard and the crew travelled to Coppelius and saw for themselves that Maddox’s lab hadn’t been destroyed, and the Tal Shiar or the Zhat Vash had never been there. This feels like a pretty major issue, because the question of why Maddox was on Freecloud now has no satisfactory answer. The reason seems to be “because plot”, and that’s never a good thing.
Bruce Maddox only went to Bjayzl because his lab had been destroyed.
However, before the finale I was still trying to square that particular circle. One of the possibilities I came up with was that Maddox was right – his lab had already been destroyed, which could mean that the synths he’d built were already dead. It would have made Narek’s mission kind of a waste of time, as his colleagues had already killed off the synths, not to mention being a rather bleak way to end the season, but it would have fit together with what had already been established.
I don’t think I’d have enjoyed this storyline, which would have left Soji as perhaps the sole survivor of her race. It would have been very dark, and would have felt like a victory for the show’s antagonists. But at the time, I was scrambling around looking for ways to make the story of the first half of the season – culminating in Maddox’s statement to Bjayzl about his lab being destroyed – fit with the second half of the season and the revelation of the existence of more synths.
Number 9: The captain of the USS Ibn Majid is a character from a past Star Trek show.
Harry Kim could’ve been a starship captain in this time period.
This was a pretty simple theory by my standards. When we learned that Rios had served aboard a ship called the USS Ibn Majid, which was destroyed and covered up, I began to wonder who might’ve been in command of the vessel. Rios was clearly very attached to his former captain, and I wasn’t sure if we might’ve seen – in flashback form – this character make an appearance.
From Rios’ initial comments about the character – that they were dead, male, and “heroic” – I put together a shortlist based on possible characters from past Star Trek shows who could conceivably have been starship captains in that era. I ruled out those who seemed to have no desire to sit in the captain’s chair, like Dr Bashir or Tom Paris, and obviously ruled out those who wouldn’t be eligible like Chief O’Brien. Finally, Zhaban had mentioned that La Forge and Worf were still alive, so they were out too. That left a handful of characters, including Chakotay and Harry Kim, both from Voyager. I also suggested Edward Jellico from The Next Generation two-parter Chain of Command, Solok from the Deep Space Nine episode Take Me Out to the Holosuite, and Captain Bateson from The Next Generation Season 5 episode Cause and Effect.
Solok, the Vulcan captain of the USS T’Kumbra.
There were other possibilities – most of which were minor characters who made only one or two appearances in Star Trek – and there were many male officers who could, in theory, have made the cut. I liked this idea simply for the sake of continuity, as having the Ibn Majid’s captain be someone we already knew seemed like an interesting concept.
With Bruce Maddox, Hugh, and Icheb all killed off in Star Trek: Picard’s first season, it was clear that the producers has no qualms about getting rid of legacy characters! That fact also contributed to making this theory plausible. Past iterations of Star Trek has been reluctant to kill off main characters, but Star Trek: Picard did so several times. However, none of this came to pass, and instead a new character – Captain Alonso Vandermeer – was created for the show, and was only seen briefly in a photograph.
Number 10: Narek will go rogue.
Narek in Broken Pieces after trying to kill Soji.
Narek was a unique character, not only in Star Trek: Picard but in the whole franchise. Never before had an out-and-out villain been a main character, with their name in the opening titles. Narek was also an interesting and nuanced character in a season where – most of the time – the villains could feel flat and one-dimensional. I’m still disappointed that his storyline was unceremoniously dumped midway through the season finale; we didn’t even learn what became of him after Picard’s “death”.
But that’s somewhat beside the point. From as early as the third episode, I began speculating that somehow, Narek would be convinced to abandon his mission and join with Soji and Picard. His clear feelings for Soji seemed to offer a route for him to make this happen, but even if the show didn’t go for the “spy falls in love with his target” trope, there were other ways it could’ve happened. Narek seemed like a reasonable man; if it were demonstrated to him that the synths were not a threat, it seemed at least plausible that he might’ve switched sides.
Narek’s final appearance.
However, as of the last time we saw him – before he just dropped of the face of the series with no conclusion to his story – he was still 100% committed to the Zhat Vash cause. In fact, he never wavered. His attempt to kill Soji may have caused him great distress, but that didn’t stop him going ahead with his mission; he didn’t even hesitate.
I actually like that Narek was unpredictable, and as a whole I like that the show set up what looked to be a familiar trope – the spy with a heart of gold who switches sides for the girl he loves – only to say that actually, Narek was still committed to his cause and his mission. However, it’s a shame that this never really got a proper payoff, as Narek disappeared. His character arc feels incomplete, and as I’m fairly confident he won’t be returning for the show’s second season, we may never learn what happened to him after the events on Coppelius.
So that’s it!
A handful of my theories for Star Trek: Picard Season 1 that never came to pass! I did manage to successfully predict a handful of (more obvious) plot points across the first season, so my theories didn’t all fail as hard as those listed above. The important thing, though, was that I had fun doing this. Thinking about the series and writing up the theories was really enjoyable at the time, and it’s something I hope to do with Discovery later in the year – at least, provided it has suitable theory-crafting material to work with!
Jean-Luc Picard will return for Season 2!
The important thing when considering fan theories is to remember that they’re just guesses and speculation. The showrunners, writers, and producers are the ones who craft the story, and they’re the ones who get the final say on how it’s going to pan out. Getting overly attached to any one theory – no matter how much we like it or how plausible it seems – really just means we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment. I could point to many projects in recent years which have suffered as a result of this, but all I really want to say is that, for those of you who followed my theories during Star Trek: Picard Season 1, I hope that I didn’t cause you any disappointment or frustration when I was wrong. At the end of the day, this is supposed to be fun and an excuse to spend more time in the Star Trek galaxy. Let’s all try to take fan theories with an extra-large pinch of salt!
Star Trek: Lower Decks is currently airing its first season – the second of three Star Trek projects in 2020. For all the problems that this year has thrown at us, having three different Star Trek shows to enjoy has been a blessing. If you missed it, I’ve reviewed the first episode of Lower Decks and I’ll soon be taking a look at episode 2, which will be available to watch (at least for viewers in the US and Canada) later today. And as mentioned I’ll be looking at Discovery when that airs in October. There’s no word on when exactly we can expect to see Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard. It has an optimistic release date of 2021, but given that California is still largely locked down and filming has yet to begin, I wouldn’t be surprised if that slips back. Regardless, whenever we get it I’ll be taking a look at the episodes and probably crafting a bunch more theories!
Star Trek: Picard Season 1 is available to stream now on CBS All Access in the United States, and on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The Star Trek franchise – including Star Trek: Picard – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Spoiler Warning: There will be spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard’s entire first season, as well as for Star Trek: Discovery Season 2, the trailers for Season 3, and other iterations of the Star Trek franchise.
The two parts of Et in Arcadia Ego brought the story of Star Trek: Picard’s first season to a close this week. There are still some significant story points left on the table, however, and overall I feel that the season didn’t end as strongly as it began. You can read my full thoughts in my review by clicking or tapping here.
Theorising about Star Trek: Picard has been a lot of fun, and in a future post, I’ll be looking back at some of my debunked theories from earlier in the season in a kind of “what if” theory roundup. I hope you’ll stay tuned for that when it drops at some point in the next few weeks. Otherwise, unless we have definitive news regarding Star Trek: Picard Season 2, this may be my last post about the show for a while. I had been semi-expecting to see a release date for Star Trek: Discovery Season 3, as I felt it would have been to the benefit of ViacomCBS to take advantage of Star Trek: Picard’s success and the hype surrounding it to plug its sister show. As of the writing of this article, however, the only thing they’ve said is that it’s “coming soon”.
As usual for my theory posts, I’ll begin by looking at the confirmed and debunked theories from Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2, before moving on to look at one surviving theory.
We’ll start with confirmed theories this time, as there aren’t many!
Confirmed theory #1: The synths succeeded in triggering the arrival of the “Mass Effect Reapers”.
The “Mass Effect Reapers” almost showed up.
While this didn’t go down quite like I’d expected, technically the synths did still contact the “Mass Effect Reapers” – the synthetic race who left behind the relic on Aia and who the Zhat Vash believe will trigger armageddon. Unfortunately, we didn’t really get to learn much at all about this race – not even their name, which is why I’m stuck calling them the “Mass Effect Reapers”.
After Sutra was deactivated, Soji continued to work on the synths’ beacon and was able to open a portal to wherever the “Mass Effect Reapers” reside. However, after a rousing speech from Picard, and seeing him lay down his life for her people, she closed the portal before they could come through. While the Zhat Vash are convinced that their arrival would have meant the end of organic life in the galaxy, what would have actually happened isn’t clear – and may never be explained again.
I get the sense that the writers and creators of Star Trek see these quasi-antagonists as a one-time-use thing, and while I did have a theory as to how they could tie into the franchise in a bigger way, it seems dead at this juncture. What seems more likely is that the “Mass Effect Reapers” are the equivalent of a monster-of-the-week, and like many alien races seen in just one single Star Trek story, won’t be heard from again despite the potential for repercussions.
Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2 left many unanswered questions about this faction – including the basics like who they are, how old they are, and what their precise motivations are. Other big questions include: will they be back? Will Sutra – whose status is unknown as of the end of the season – want to call for them again if she wakes up? Can they be reasoned with, and is Starfleet planning to try to contact them again? Were the Zhat Vash right in their interpretation, or did they get it wrong? In short, there’s a lot we still don’t know about this potentially interesting faction!
Confirmed theory #2: Riker did return to duty.
Acting Captain William T. Riker!
Just a short one when compared to some of my more in-depth theories, but when Riker had said in Nepenthe that he hadn’t fully retired and was still on “active reserve” in Starfleet, that seemed to be a major hint that we’d see him back in uniform sooner or later. While I did say I was 50-50 on whether it would be this season or next, Riker came back at the head of a massive Starfleet armada in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2.
Unfortunately, his appearance in the episode was spoilt by his name being shown in the opening titles, and I’d already worked out that we were likely to see a Starfleet fleet with Riker at its head well before the episode reached that climax. While that did spoilt things to a degree, it was nevertheless great to see him back in uniform. And as a secondary point, rumbling away in the background this season had been tensions with Starfleet and the Federation. We speculated for weeks that there may have been a much broader conspiracy within Starfleet to collaborate with the Zhat Vash, so when Starfleet did to the right thing at the end, and were proven to still be the “good guys”, that was a great moment, and Riker was there in the middle of it.
His appearance did feel a little rushed, because almost as soon as he’d arrived he was already warping out of the system accompanying the Romulan fleet. It would have been nice if we’d got more time with him – but that’s true of many characters and storylines across the two-part finale.
So those theories were confirmed. Next, let’s go through the list of debunked theories, and I think we’re going to have to do this in two parts. There are a few theories that were completely debunked by the end of the season, and obviously we’ll look at those. But there are some theories that are in this weird kind of grey area – unconfirmed, but unlikely. If Star Trek: Picard moves on with Season 2 and tells a new story, it seems certain that we won’t revisit the locations, factions, and characters of Season 1 in any depth. And to me, that seems the most likely scenario. Star Trek: Discovery told two different stories across its two seasons, with a third story coming in Season 3. While there was some crossover from Season 1 to Season 2, the overarching narrative of Season 1 ended and a new story began in Season 2, and I expect Star Trek: Picard to go down the same path. It’s for that reason that I think we can consider almost all of these theories as dead – not so much because they were debunked on screen, but because the story has moved on and won’t be revisiting these points next year.
Debunked theory #1: The Artifact (or the Borg Sphere it seemed to contain) will launch into space.
The circular area on the Artifact could’ve contained a Borg Sphere.
It’s not actually clear, as of the end of the season, what’s going on with the Artifact and the surviving ex-Borg. Elnor stayed aboard the Artifact with Hugh and later with Seven of Nine to aid them, considering their cause worthy of his allegiance. However, the final scene of the season was La Sirena jumping to warp, and both Elnor and Seven of Nine – who, don’t forget, had been the xBs’ de facto leader – were present on the small ship.
I had theorised that the Artifact, which seemed to have a circular portal on one of its sides that could have contained a Borg Sphere, would have been repaired by the xBs and re-launched into orbit over Coppelius to aid in the fight against the Romulans. However, this didn’t happen, and while we did see that the Artifact’s weapons systems were at least partly operational, it didn’t seem as though anyone on the ground used them against the Romulan fleet either.
I hope we’ll learn more in Season 2 about what happened to the xBs and the Artifact – now that it’s on a planet under Federation jurisdiction, perhaps Starfleet will be able to repair it or scavenge its components. I’m not sure how canonical this is, but I think I remember reading in an old reference book or one of the Star Trek encyclopaedias that a Borg Cube was something like 10km long on every side, so it’s a massive vessel for someone to have to deal with. Perhaps the synths could salvage it?
Debunked theory #2: Picard and La Sirena will travel to Aia – the planet where the beacon is located.
The relic on Aia.
Aia was a world we glimpsed only for a short time in a flashback sequence. Presumably hidden somewhere in or beyond Romulan space, and thus not accessible to Starfleet by normal means, the beacon left here by the “Mass Effect Reapers” is what triggered the whole plot of the season.
As of the end of the season, however, the beacon remains active. It’s clearly dangerous – not only to the Romulans, but to everyone. If another synthetic being were to encounter it and figure out how to contact the “Mass Effect Reapers”, they could do so easily. I had speculated that, in the aftermath of whatever happened in the finale, Picard and co. would travel to Aia to deactivate the beacon, preventing it from doing any more harm.
Debunked theory #3: Narek is going to go rogue.
Narek aboard the Artifact.
Narek was abandoned by the story of Star Trek: Picard midway through the finale, during the crew’s stupid and badly-written attempt to destroy the synths’ beacon. What became of him after that is unknown. Possibilities include that he was recovered by the Romulans and left aboard their fleet, that he remained in captivity with the synths, that he was able to sneak away in the confusion surrounding Picard’s “death”, or even that he did leave the Zhat Vash and joined La Sirena’s crew off screen.
However, one thing that he didn’t do in the story was go rogue. Almost since we first met Narek and saw his relationship with Soji unfold, I’d been speculating that the time would come where Narek would find a reason to abandon the Zhat Vash. Perhaps it could’ve been out of love for or loyalty to Soji, or it simply could’ve been that the revelation of the synths not posing a threat meant he had no reason to oppose them. Either way, the switching-sides never came, and as of the last time we saw him, Narek was still fully subscribed to the Zhat Vash ideology.
Narek may not have been everyone’s favourite character, and I think a part of that comes from the fact that he didn’t really have anyone to interact with besides Soji and Rizzo for almost the entire season. But as a main character, and as someone we spent a significant amount of time with, I would have liked to see his story reach an actual conclusion, regardless of what form that may have taken. I don’t expect Narek to return for Season 2 at this stage, but as far as I’m aware no casting announcements have yet been made – so watch this space.
Debunked theory #4: Picard’s conversation with Admiral Clancy may have tipped off the Romulans.
Admiral Clancy.
At the time Picard and Admiral Clancy spoke in the episode Broken Pieces, he and the crew were still unaware of the extent of Commodore Oh’s role in the conspiracy. It wasn’t until Rios and Raffi had pieced together that she gave the order to kill two synths while Rios was serving in Starfleet several years previously that they could reasonably come to the conclusion that she was behind the attack on Mars and was a Romulan spy. So based on that, I wondered if Picard’s conversation with Admiral Clancy may have had consequences for the Starfleet squadron at Deep Space 12 – they could have been ambushed, attacked, hacked into, or had their security information compromised by the well-placed Commodore Oh. However, it seems that Oh had already left by that point to head up the Romulan fleet and nothing bad happened as a result of Picard and Clancy speaking.
Debunked theory #5: Section 31 will be involved.
A Section 31 badge from Star Trek: Discovery.
Over the course of the season, I had several ideas for how Section 31 – the secretive branch of Starfleet Intelligence responsible for off-the-books operations – could be involved with the story. Each of those possibilities came and went as the season rolled on, and my final guess for Section 31’s involvement – that they would show up to take ownership of the Artifact – was no different.
The reason I’d been so sure of Section 31 showing up this season was that they’ve recently been so important within Star Trek. Both in Star Trek: Discovery’s second season last year and then with a new spin-off show in production, I felt sure that the creators would want to tie the faction in somehow. It would have made sense from a production point of view, making Section 31 a consistent thread between Discovery,Picard, and the new show.
Debunked theory #6: The crew will travel forward in time to link up with Star Trek: Discovery.
At the end of Discovery’s second season, the ship travelled forward in time.
This was one of two theories I had regarding Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard crossing over or linking up. There was no story evidence for it, only that from a production point of view, keeping all the extant Star Trek shows in one time period makes a certain kind of sense. While we could still see the USS Discovery ending up in 2399, that didn’t happen in the season finale either and it seems like both shows will continue on their own separate paths – at least for now.
One of the things I was somewhat surprised at in Star Trek: Picard’s first season is how few references to Discovery there were. Aside from literally a couple of throwaway lines I can’t think of any – and certainly nothing significant. Given both series are in production side-by-side, carrying the flag for the Star Trek franchise, I would have expected some kind of recognition of that.
So those theories were debunked outright, and now we can take a look at a few theories that I’m calling “dead”. These theories, as previously mentioned, weren’t explicitly debunked on screen, but instead were abandoned. As the story of Star Trek: Picard will move on in Season 2, I doubt very much that there’s any chance for any of these to be revisited.
Dead theory #1: Sutra is descended from Lore, not Data.
Lore was Data’s evil twin.
While we saw Data in the digital afterlife in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2, Lore wasn’t even mentioned. And given that he hadn’t been for the entirety of the season, any storyline involving him at the last minute would have been somewhat out of left-field, especially for new fans and those who haven’t seen The Next Generation in a long time.
Nevertheless, I had speculated that Sutra might be a descendent of Lore and not Data, simply based on her evil nature and the fact that she slipped very easily into that role. Data would not have behaved the way Sutra did, and if the synths were all cloned from his neurons, that doesn’t seem to make sense – on the surface, at least. We still don’t really know how the synth-building process works.
Sutra was my least-favourite character in the season, and though I’m pleased in a way that I didn’t have to sit through too much of her in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2, it’s not clear at all where she came from or what will happen to her next. Will she remain deactivated forever? If she does wake up, will she still be interested in contacting the “Mass Effect Reapers”? And if so, what’s to stop her from building a new beacon and doing so? I doubt any of these points will be addressed any time soon, and given that Sutra is unlikely to return imminently, I don’t think we will learn anything about her potential origin either.
Dead theory #2: The “Mass Effect Reapers” are the Borg.
A Borg Cube in The Next Generation.
Though the synths did succeed in building their beacon and opening a portal to the realm where this synthetic race are based, we didn’t learn anything at all about them this season. That raises a number of issues in itself – are they still a threat? Will Starfleet try to contact them and make peace? Are they planning to come to the Milky Way now they know we exist? Etc. But because this faction are so ambiguous and technologically-advanced, one theory I had postulated was that they could simply be the Borg.
It makes a certain kind of sense. The Borg are Star Trek’s most advanced species in technological terms, and are conceivably capable of moving stars. They also like to assimilate races that are technologically powerful – even ignoring races like the Kazon that they feel would detract from the “perfection” they aim to create. While we’ve only ever seen them as a kind of rolling assimilation machine, they may have left traps at locations in the galaxy, telling synths to contact them. Under the guise of helping the synths, the Borg would then show up at a location where they know a technologically-advanced race exists, and would assimilate both the synths and those who made them.
The brief glimpse we saw of the “Mass Effect Reapers” in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2 did not, in my opinion at least, conclusively rule out a Borg connection. However, with the story moving on, we may not meet this faction again.
Dead theory #3: Commodore Oh is a synth.
Commodore Oh.
When we saw Sutra perform a mind-meld in Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1, this somewhat outlandish theory that I’d been kicking around for a couple of weeks suddenly went up a gear. If synths could mind-meld, it removed a potential hurdle from this theory – the fact that we’d seen Commodore Oh mind-meld with Dr Jurati – and provided what could be seen as some kind of hint or foreshadowing.
We’d also seen with Soji and Dahj that synths can be programmed to be unaware of their true nature, and can appear to be fully biological. So I speculated that it was possible for Commodore Oh to not even be aware that she’s a synth, and be barrelling toward unleashing armageddon through actions she believed were designed to prevent it. It would have been a neat story in some ways, but would have required a lot of on-screen explanation.
Dead theory #4: Borg technology was used in the creation of the Coppelius synths.
Ex-Borg on the Artifact.
Star Trek: Picard established that there is a large galactic market for Borg components. I theorised that Dr Maddox, Dr Soong, and their team used some or all of this Borg technology in their work on synthetics. It could have explained the huge jump from androids like F8 to androids like Sutra. F8 was active at the time of the attack on Mars, 14 years before the main plot of the series, and Sutra was active a mere five years later, when Rios met her sister Jana. Yet there’s a huge gulf between what the two synths were capable of. F8 was incredibly basic, much more so than Data had been in his earliest appearances. And Sutra was, from what we saw of her, very similar to a human. The fact that they made this leap in around five years – and that they made it having lost colleagues like Dr Jurati and without access to the Federation’s resources after the ban – seemed to stretch credulity. While we know for sure that the synth-building process relied on Data’s neurons, it’s at least possible that other technology was involved.
Dead theory #5: The faceless “father” figure from Soji’s dream isn’t Bruce Maddox, and may be Dr Soong or even a synth.
The faceless figure.
It seems as though this figure, glimpsed in Soji’s dream, won’t be revisited and was simply included for shock value. And a shocking sight it was when we saw him in The Impossible Box. It does make a certain kind of sense for Dr Soong or Dr Maddox to try to conceal their identity and prevent anyone from using Soji to track them down, so I guess that’s the answer – at least for now.
Dead theory #6: Soji and Dahj’s necklaces were created deliberately to communicate with or signal to someone.
Soji wearing her necklace.
I disliked the necklaces as a prop from their introduction in Remembrance. If they’d just been a part of Soji and Dahj’s costumes I’d have ignored them, but because the necklaces were supposedly a symbol for how Maddox created them, and were supposed to be kind of unusual or even flashy by 24th Century standards, I felt they were visually weak and uninteresting.
The necklaces also posed somewhat of an interesting question: if creating synths is illegal, why would Maddox give both Soji and Dahj a very obvious symbol of their synthetic nature to wear? Surely there are only downsides to doing so, like attracting unwanted attention. I even theorised that the necklaces could be what led the Zhat Vash to first notice Soji and Dahj. One answer to this question would be that there is someone out in the galaxy that Maddox was either trying to signal or communicate with, and the necklaces were a sign that person would recognise.
Dead theory #7: Something Maddox did or didn’t do led to the synths on Mars being hacked.
F8’s eyes during the hack.
When Maddox passed away without discussing the attack on Mars, this theory did start to look less and less likely. But with confirmation that the synths were indeed hacked by the Zhat Vash and did not act of their own volition, it hadn’t gone away entirely. Maddox was a senior figure in the Federation’s synthetic research at that time, meaning the hack took place on his watch. It was at least possible, especially considering that he fled and continued his work, that he was at least partly responsible. Perhaps something in the way he built or programmed the synths made them easier to hack, or perhaps there was a flaw he ignored. Regardless, with Maddox dead, the ban overturned, and the synth storyline seemingly over, I doubt we’ll ever know.
Dead theory #8: Picard’s illness is Irumodic Syndrome.
Picard “died”.
When Dr Benayoun brought Picard the news of his illness in Maps and Legends, its name was never mentioned. There were hints at it being Irumodic Syndrome for returning fans, but no confirmation. Given that Picard has since died and been resurrected, I doubt it will be discussed in Season 2, but you never know.
So those theories are dead and I doubt we’ll see any debunking, confirmation, or indeed any movement on them at all in Season 2.
I do have one remaining theory, and it pertains to Star Trek: Discovery’s upcoming third season. So let’s take a look at that before we wrap things up.
Discovery Season 3 theory: The “Mass Effect Reapers” are the cause of Star Trek: Discovery’s post-apocalyptic setting.
Michael Burnham in the trailer for Discovery’s third season.
We saw in the trailers for Discovery’s third season that the Federation seems to be in decline. It may even have fragmented altogether by this time. We also saw a level of technology that is arguably not as advanced as it could or should be in this time period. Star Trek has occasionally set episodes in the far future. In the 29th and 30th Centuries, we know that the Federation would operate time-ships and would routinely explore time as well as space, and would teach basic temporal mechanics in school. Episodes of both Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise showed us glimpses of this future, but it doesn’t gel with what came out of the Season 3 trailer for Discovery.
If there has been some kind of apocalyptic event, could we have seen the beginnings of that in Star Trek: Picard? The question of the “Mass Effect Reapers” is still very much an open one, as I noted above. They may not have arrived at Coppelius thanks to Picard and Soji’s efforts, but they weren’t defeated, they still exist somewhere out in space, and now, crucially, they’re aware of the existence of the Federation and the Romulans. It’s at least somewhat plausible that they would decide to show up anyway – after all, they don’t necessarily know why the portal was closed. If their intention to help synths was genuine and not an elaborate trap, they may arrive out of concern for the Coppelius synths. And if their intention was to attack and conquer advanced races, they may now have a new target.
Somehow, Star Trek: Discovery will have to explain its setting and how things came to be so bleak – if indeed they are bleak. I do have an article where I discuss why a post-apocalyptic setting may not be right for Star Trek: you can find it by clicking or tapping here. But the “Mass Effect Reapers” remain in play as one possible explanation, at least in my opinion.
So that’s it. That was the only theory that survived the season, and it doesn’t even pertain to Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard!
I hope you’ve enjoyed my theories as the season went on, and that you didn’t get too upset if your favourites didn’t pan out. The whole point of this, for me anyway, was to spend a bit more time in the Star Trek universe, and to get lost in the world it created. While it has been great fun to speculate and theorise, it was always going to be the case that most theories didn’t come to pass – and that’s the case for any fan theory, no matter how plausible or well-constructed. We saw from The Last Jedi over in the Star Wars franchise how fans can become too attached to certain ideas, and how that can ruin the enjoyment of a film. I’m pleased to say that none of my theories in any way spoilt my enjoyment of Star Trek: Picard. If they had, these posts would have ceased!
I’m really excited to see what Season 2 brings, and to spend more time with Picard, Raffi, Rios, Dr Jurati, Elnor, Soji, and perhaps even Seven of Nine if she sticks around. While current events have disrupted production, I’d still hope to get some news and perhaps even a trailer by the end of the year, and the second season should release some time in 2021, though probably later in the year than this season did.
Until next time!
Star Trek: Picard Season 1 is available to stream now on CBS All Access in the United States, and on Amazon Prime Video in the United Kingdom and other countries and territories. The Star Trek franchise – including Star Trek: Picard – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Trekking with Dennis 