Something to watch tonight: Monday 29 April

Star Trek: Picard (2020-2023)

For New Zealand sub­scribers, all three sea­sons of Picard have just dropped on TVNZ+ where they will feel right at home.

I wrote about the show for RNZ last year in a piece about fan ser­vice and why some shows do it well, some over-do it, and some don’t need to:

The three sea­sons of the Star Trek spinoff Picard were a real mixed bag ton­ally but linked by an easy-going nos­tal­gia for a sim­pler time in tele­vi­sion. I was nev­er a Next Generation watch­er – I am the wrong gen­er­a­tion for the Next Generation – but I enjoyed the films that fea­tured those char­ac­ters which means when they turn up in this series, I get that slight fris­son of recog­ni­tion which equates to pleas­ure in this context.

The reas­on why Picard works and Ahsoka doesn’t – and I know I’m set­ting myself up for some push­back here – is that Star Trek has always been character-first. We watch these shows because of the rela­tion­ships and (even for non-human char­ac­ters) the human drama.

Star Trek has nev­er pri­or­it­ised the franchise’s lore over a good story, while Star Wars remains obsessed by a wafer-thin reli­gion and each character’s con­trol over their magic powers. Star Trek will hap­pily throw a whole story arc under the bus – ret­con­ning they call it – if it means we all get to move on with our lives.

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In sea­son one of Picard, Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc has retired to his vine­yard but is called back to help the ‘daugh­ter’ of his old friend Data, who ‘died’ in the film Nemesis (2002). It’s good old fash­ioned thought­ful sci-fi with cameos from a few Next Generation cast members.

Season two is like those com­edy epis­odes of Star Trek where the crew travel back in time to present day Earth and get up to hijinks with the incred­u­lous loc­als. It’s fun but looks and plays like 80s epis­od­ic TV – William Shatner’s T.J. Hooker came to mind for some reason.

But sea­son three really leans in to the nos­tal­gia, bring­ing the entire crew from the Next Generation back togeth­er for a chal­lenge that is the usu­al yawn of ‘sav­ing the uni­verse’ but also quite mov­ing when you con­sider the impact on these age­ing characters.

But you don’t need to have watched every epis­ode of the Next gen­er­a­tion to enjoy it. The char­ac­ters are so well drawn, and so well inhab­ited by these vet­er­ans, that it’s easy to fol­low along. I enjoyed this a great deal and if I really thought this was them sign­ing off for one last time, I’d be con­tent with that.

The oth­er two shows fea­tured in that column are Ahsoka (from the Star Wars fran­chise on Disney+) and Marvel’s Moon Knight (also Disney+).

Where to watch Star Trek: Picard

Aotearoa: TVNZ+ (free with ads) or Prime Video

Australia, Ireland & UK: Paramount+ or Prime Video

Canada: Paramount+ or CTV

USA: Paramount+

Editor’s note

I do try and get to everything that is released the­at­ric­ally in Wellington but some­times I am thwarted. The Lie and The First Omen simply haven’t been giv­en enough ses­sions – and in the case of The Lie, only in Masterton and Waikanae. It blows my mind that a well-reviewed recent hor­ror in a prom­in­ent fran­chise like The Omen should be so hard to find.

Further listening

Last Friday’s chat with Emile Donovan on RNZ Nights was a lot of fun. As well as Anselm, The Fall Guy and Sherlock Jr. that have been men­tioned here, Emile had seen Civil War so we got into it over that, too.