Saying Goodbye to Picard: A Spectacular Farewell to an Iconic Star Trek Character

When Amazon announced that the third season of Picard was going to be the last of the series and that it was going to bring back the cast of The new generationWe already feared the worst for a long time. Not because it was a bad idea, but because they would surely kill some of us. Lately there seems to be some kind of unwritten law that states that For the end of a series, a main character has to die. And, given the age of the entire cast of The Next Generation, any one of them had enough ballots to do it. As if we were in Game of Thrones.

It seems like yesterday but we had more than twenty years without seeing these characters together aboard a ship to defend the galaxy. With the television renaissance of the franchise hand in hand with digital platforms, a octogenarian picard was able to return to space twilighter trekie series. But only him, although we had some cameos from old acquaintances. For this third season, it has been intended that the crew of The New Generation could say goodbye with dignity, in a great final adventure. And boy did he do it.

All this latest installment has meant a break with what we had seen in the previous two. Homages to The Next Generation and its spinoffs had been present in the series from the beginning, but somehow it felt like something was missing. From the hand of the producer Terry Sharpthe series has ended up giving us what we were really looking for: a continuation of The new generation with all its consequences and a script full of moments fan service. To the nostalgia factor of seeing old acquaintances, are added from the decorations to the soundtrack in the purest style Jerry Goldsmith. But it also helps that he is not left alone in homesickness and achieves an engaging plot, an enemy that seems unbeatable and gives the protagonists a hard time. Not only is it intended to catch the most veterans, but it also seeks to attract new audiences.

The new generation issued its last episode on May 23, 1994, when the series was at the height of its popularity. He was a spectacular double final chapter, in which the crew of the Enterprise faced the same threat at three different times in the time stream: in the past (the time of the first episode), the present (the time of the series), and the future. (allowing us to explore what the future holds for the Enterprise gang). The three crews ended up finding a way to collaborate and unite efforts to face the threat with a little help from Picard that was jumping randomly and without any control from one era to another. Once the crisis was over, the series closed with an endearing moment when Picard joined for the first time after 178 episodes to one of those poker games the one his crew used to relax with between missions.

In this way, the series made the leap from television to cinema, just as the members of the original series of the 60’s. Picard and his crew picked up the baton to take over on the big screen from the cast of the classic series that launched the franchise. It was time for Kirk and his boys to retire at the end of 1991 after the premiere of that unknown country. Age was noticeable for everyone and it was time to give their characters a dignified farewell for having made us dream for years of places where Humanity had not been able to reach. A new generation picked up the Enterprise torch, while the television legacy was carried on with two other series: Deep Space 9 and Voyager.

The adventures of Picard’s crew on the big screen made for four movies. The theatrical release of the film star trek nemesis, the tenth in the saga, marked the farewell to Jean Luc Picard’s crew aboard the starship Enterprise, but not for the expected reasons. He commercial hit of the film marked the beginning of a phase of decline for the saga from which it took years to recover. The plots that remained open in Nemesis could not be continued and many fans lamented that The Next Generation had been deprived of a dignified ending. until it came J. J. Abrams and Star Trek was reborn.

In this third season of Picard we can see how time has passed for all the former protagonists of The New Generation. To Data (Brent Spiner) nor did the makeup hide his true age and he could not pass for an android, the handsome Ryker (Jonathan Frakes) is already a little fond and is going through a marital crisis with Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), while Worf (Michael Dorn) remains in shape but combs gray hair and Laforge (LeVar Burton) has gotten rid of the viewer and now has offspring. She will play Dr. Bervely Crusher (Gates McFadden) the trigger that brings them all together again by asking for their help, after spending years missing and revealing that she has had a secret son by Picard. We had to wait seven episodes to see them together again, but when they did, the magic was back. And hey, he doesn’t get goosebumps when they return to that Enterprise of a lifetime with which they sailed the galaxy in the eighties. Few of them are ready for action scenes and they are the ones who now need the generational change, a fact that helps us see them more vulnerable and in real physical danger in the face of the threat they face. Luckily they have other younger actors in the cast. His farewell comes precisely when it has been released in SkyShowtime Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, a series starring many of the characters from the original series. Picard’s crew retires, while Kirk’s, well in this case Pike, returns to space in a more rejuvenated version with new cast.

As I was saying, for this third season of Picard, I was fearing a great carnage, so I sat down to watch the last episode shouting “today is a good day to die”, as Worf would say. These episodes have made us fans suffer a lot, placing our favorite characters in desperate situations and knowing that not all of them could make it to the last episode alive. They seemed doomed to have embarked on a suicide mission. The villain has been interpreted by Amanda Plummer, actor’s daughter Cristopher Plummer what in “that unknown country” he played a Klingon general who also gave the classic crew of the Enterprise a hard time. Like father, like son, because his daughter has put them through a very bad time where it seemed that everything was against them. To avoid spoilers Although those who know the plot of both films could deduce what I am talking about, we will say that in the end the epic has triumphed. It seemed that with these episodes we were facing a version of khan’s wrathbut at the end this has been more like that unknown country.

This third season of Picard has had the success of uniting two of the great breeds of villains in the saga throughout the nineties: the borg and the dominion. In this festival of cameos, I have missed some of the characters from Deep Space 9, who after all were the ones who defeated the changelings. Boy, we wouldn’t have enjoyed it if Miles O’Brien showed up here (Colm Meaney). Or see a meeting between Picard, Sisco (Avery Brooks) y Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), the captains of the three series of the nineties, as if we were in Spiderman No Way Home. I even came to consider the crazy theory that behind everything was Sela Yar (Denise Crosby), that recurring Romulan villain in The Next Generation who came from a time paradox with a alternate reality. In any case, it should not be ruled out that someone can recover these ideas in the future, since the series has left us on a silver platter the possibility of continuing with new plots. Those who don’t want spoilers can skip to the next paragraph. At the end of the last episode, there is a new Enterprise soaring through space, with a new generation as its crew. And at the helm sits Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), that exborg who joined Star Trek Voyager at the end of the third season and who managed to become the true protagonist of the series with a few episodes. Here she was already one of the main stars, but Picard was very much Picard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW_P3SRrExw

The other series of the franchise that we will say goodbye to will be Star Trek Discovery, which will end in its fifth season, which is scheduled to premiere sometime in 2024. This series began as prequel and, after reinventing itself season after season, it has ended with the cast displaced in time, revealing what will happen to the Federation a thousand years after what we are seeing in the saga. In the coming months we will have the fourth season of the animated series, Star Trek Lower Deks, the one that had paid the most tributes to The New Generation until this third installment of Picard. The second season of Strange New Worlds will arrive this summer, which draws on the spirit of the classic series and recovers the magic of the self-conclusive episodes. While some titles finish, others arrive and it is announced long overdue projects for years as it is a youth series set at the Fleet Academy; and another (they say it will be a movie) starring Michele Yeoh (Oscar winner for Everything at once everywhere) who resumes his character from Discovery to lead the dark Section 31, that department from which many of the conspiracies in the saga depart. there is also Star Trek Prodigy, another animated series aimed at a more children’s audience, which has its second season pending. But I would not rule out that this new series starring Seven of Nine at the head of the Enterprise that this final season of Picard has left us with was announced at any time.

It’s time to say goodbye to Picard, but during this time, it’s something we’ve seen a few times already. Since the actor is already in his 80s, every time he puts on his uniform, there’s a good chance that he’s serious this time. But it would not be ruled out that sooner or later someone would come up with the idea of ​​re-proposing another reunion. Not even Stewart has objected to the idea and has already dropped that he would be tempted. As the title of that film said in which a Sean Connery with a toupee he was again James Bond, Never say never.