Star Trek: Picard Review: ‘Farewell’ Doesn’t Earn Goodbye

That, in the most beautiful way possible, is an absolute mess.

It was an almost complete opposite mess to the rest of the season. Where Star Trek: Picard has, up to this point, been sluggish and slow, awkwardly paced amid a thin overarching plot and fairy tales that exist seemingly only to make ten episodes out of it. a series structure that can’t sustain that in many other ways, ‘Farewell’ is pure momentum without a breath. After eight episodes gradually progressing to this point, ‘Farewell’ wraps up the 2024 plot in less than twenty minutes – before the episode is halfway through – and then spends the rest of its time on a series of quick settings for the next year.

More than anything else, really, it’s reminiscent of Chris Chibnall’s recent work on Doctor Who: Flux – a pandemic of necessity, ostensibly a swathe of wildly spliced ​​TV series that envelops the world. a structure that messes everything up at once. For Chibnall, it was a shot in the arm after two seasons of relatively low energy, and the lack of moment-to-moment uniformity was a worthwhile trade-off for something imperfect but performing. admirable ambition despite the difficult circumstances of the production process. Picard can’t really claim the same – it would be one thing if it spun multiple discs at once for the rest of the series, but after eight set episodes, the final trick isn’t a one-time impression.

However, such structural flaws are always perfectly forgiven if the series gets right about more important things: if personality writing is standard, if the series is emotionally charged, then everything else is a mess it doesn’t matter. ‘Farewell’, more than any other episode to date, is putting that premise and center: as its name suggests, it’s about endings and even goodbyes, with four characters will leave the show in this episode.

I think the only thing that had a clear effect was Q’s death. It’s John de Lancie’s best performance in the series (to be honest, better than Stewart’s) and it works in part because it gives a new idea to the character – there’s a real sense of camaraderie between Q and Picard in those moments, and it almost ties the whole season together. To be fair, part of that is because it plays on a much longer-term relationship – there’s thirty years of history here, compared to the five scenes Stewart and Santiago Cabrera probably shared in the series. this – but there’s also the feeling that it’s something of the episode that just cares about it more than the other, almost parting, farewells.

It’s an ongoing issue with Star Trek: Picard that, in fact, means it’s lost interest in itself. Having said that, I seem to be the only one who liked Season 1 more than them and actually thought it was markedly better than Season 2 – maybe complaints that Season 2 has struggled to build and grow from its predecessor will forever fall on deaf ears. Still, it’s hard not to feel like Season 2 saw Picard transform himself into a hypothetical version of Season 1 executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Akiva Goldsman who distanced themselves from the initial marketing phase. first – now the nostalgic, old-fashioned show they claim they never intended to do.

More than that, it seems the show is no longer interested in current season too – more concerned with brainstorming for next year, the whole thing feels so rushed and rushed just to wrap up this series and get into the big reunion of Next Generation . There are plenty of plot themes to come up with (though, knowing now that Alison Pill won’t be returning for season 3, it seems highly unlikely any of them will be related to the threatening event the big galaxy is introduced and ends in a few minutes here) but few of them speak to any basic questions about the character… which gives reason to be at least a little bit skeptical of the original. nature of the impending reunion.

If Star Trek: Picard is about one thing, it’s the prelude to openness and communication: with others and with yourself. There’s a kernel of an idea out there that works well and it’s presented in a fun way in some cases – but it’s not a topic you can really make land of if you don’t put the Your characters are front and center, if you don’t emphasize and prioritize and if you don’t understand what it really means to be open to them. No wonder the series ended up being a mess.

● I’m not sure that dying in a teamfight at the age of eighty is really a happy ending for Rios. It really is a nasty plot; is shown very early, not through the necessary moments of the character but the winks and nudges at the viewer. It never really felt like it grew out of Rios as an individual and in fact the starting point was just “let’s remake The Voyage Home”.

● If fans weren’t too enthusiastic about the idea of ​​Seven and Raffi being together, thus linking their new character to a legacy character that fans love, I really don’t think you’d see it. Raffi is brought back this year.

● Picard and Laris are currently together. Orla Brady is a great actress, she had a nice chemistry with Stewart in those early episodes, so why not (well, because Crusher is coming back, that’s why not) … but for that relationship to convince you definitely need to let them spend more time together playing the characters sensibly. Will it be hard enough to bring Laris into the past? No, it won’t.

● Really, and I can’t believe I’m going to say this, I feel like Star Trek: Picard has a very boring Wesley Crusher role. Evolving into a strange time-traveling entity is fun, being a Time Cop isn’t.

● It really bothers me that ‘Farewell’ doesn’t find any moment at the beginning of the episode for Picard to meaningfully react to Agnes’ transformation into Borg. That is, I think, every problem with the program in a microcosm.