After reviewing five thing I liked about Star Trek Picard, it’s time to get critical, critical. Yeah, let’s get critical. Let me hear your keyboard talk… ok, joke’s over.

…and the sky’s the limit.

This is a difficult one to write because I can’t just go “the entire premise and the execution and every creative choice.” Clearly I wasn’t in the writers’ room and this isn’t a show I would have written. A lot of people get caught up in this mode of thinking — that’s not the show I wanted! — especially with Star Trek because every single Trekkie has had their entire life to imagine the show they would make. For example, I would write “The Adventures of Captain Jack Pierce and the Quest for Bettering Humanity”; Kurtzman and Chabon wrote “The Adventures of JL Magoo and His One True Love, Data.” To each their own.

It’s not fair to say “this show isn’t what I wanted.” Instead, let’s single-out individual things that ruined the show as-written.

We live in the worst timeline.

1 — The entire premise and the execution and every creative choice.

What was the point of Star Trek Picard? I know what Kurtzman thought the point was: brutal bodyhorror and superkewl death sceenez. I know what the sfx team thought the point was: holograms. I know what the actors thought the point was: money. But the story, as-finished? What was the point? Was it about the Romulan refugee crisis? No. Was it about the Mars/11 false flag? No. Was it about the Zhat Vash hating Androids? Sorta. Was it about Seb-Cheneb, the Destroyer? No. Was it about the Irish Tal Shiar housekeepers? God, I wish. It certainly wasn’t about Picard himself…

No, Star Trek Picard had two-dozen-too-many plots, subplots, characters, backstories, and narrative tangents. All the nuTrek fanz love to talk about how 8–13 episode streaming shows are “modern storytelling.” That’s a dumb point of view, but even if it’s true, just because something is 10 episodes and behind a paywall doesn’t mean it’s good or executed well. The first 4 or 5 episodes should have been one two-hour episode. The final 4 episodes should have been spread over 10 episodes to actually deal with all the subplots they ignored. At the very least, the whole thing needed to be re-edited.

We get it, bruh, you vape.

2 — Raffi.

This has nothing to do with Michelle Hurd. The critiques of characters are never critiques of the actors. Toxic nuTrek gatekeeperz love to equate character criticism with personal attacks, which is a reflection on their own ignorance, but I digress. Back on topic: Raffi was the worst. From “JL” to the disgustingly offensive welfare queen stereotyping that would give Reagan’s casket a boner, Raffi dragged down the entire show.

I get it, you’re trying to show Picard has skeletons in his closet and demons in his past and Raffi is the personification of both. I really do get it. It’s just terrible. The way the character is introduced is wrong — there is no poverty on Earth. The way the character relates to Picard is frustratingly insufficiently explained. Picard resigned so she got fired from Starfleet? Ok, “fired” is colloquial, she meant “forced to resign” and/or “discharged.” Ok, fine. Still — why? Wouldn’t she, instead, be shipped off to the Starfleet equivalent of duty in Alaska? Y’know, and then Picard could track her down and she could risk her career again by helping him again and there’d be a narrative thru-line with actual consequences… lol sorry, I got caught up writing a story arc, which isn’t relevant here.

Oh and remember when they included an entire scene where Raffi visited her estranged son at a space hospital and they had an emotional moment that might have resonated with the audience if we didn’t feel the exact same way as the son? Raffi is crazy, she is a drug-addict, she is untrustworthy. I, for one, am shocked her son didn’t want her back in his life.

Anyway, Raffi sucks. But still totally salvageable! Competent writing and character development can turn this around, but right now? Sucks.

Why? Just… why?

3 — The ships.

Yep, I’m going there. The La Sirena? Atrociously ugly. The Mars/11 ships? Atrociously lazy and ugly. The Romulan ships? Ugly. The use of Discovery shuttles? Offensively lazy. The Curiosity Class? Meh. The copy-paste fleet? Disgustingly lazy. C’mon. I know you guys work with Star Trek Online, just use their ships. They understand Star Trek more than anyone working on CBS Trek right now, and it’s not even close.

The holo-controls on the La Sirena are straight out of The Expanse. Like, it’s not even pretending to be original. They even do the “hand-wave-information-onto-the-next-screen” thing. In a show that is shockingly lazy in its props and visuals, the ships really stand out.

This is Star Trek. You have to use stardates and captain’s logs and you have to have cool space ships. This isn’t rocket science, Chabon.

Your writers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.

4 — Elnor.

Here’s the thing, I like the idea of Old Man Picard having to come to terms with being a father figure to a kid he selfishly abandoned. But going to Comic-Con and kidnapping a Legolas cosplayer was a weird choice... Why does he use a sword? Why doesn’t he use a 24th Century sword? Maybe it glows and… oh wait, nevermind. What is with these people and wanting to turn Star Trek into Star Wars? Do these people order a Coke and then piss in it, trying to make it Pepsi? C’mon, man.

Anyway, Elnor sucked because he was a completely pointless character that had no influence on the story. Shit, Picard didn’t even know he was alive for like 4 episodes.

“I get it, death, very clever. But what if there was also a giant mechanical tentacle monster?” — Alex Kurtzman

5 — The entire resolution.

Why was the Synth planet a beautiful, clear-skied paradise, when Soji said it was a gas planet with red lightning or whatever? Since when does Soong have a biological kid? Why does Kamasutra’s makeup look so bad? Why does the La Sirena crew trust Narek? How do they know who Narek is? Why does the Borg cube remain intact when it crashes into the planet? Why isn’t everyone on board dead? Why does Oh stop her attack? Why do they have five planet destruction protocols? How does Riker get called into service and lead his fleet so quickly? Why was Data being kept “alive” in a USB drive? Why wasn’t Data’s half-brain put into the “golem”? Did Picard ever tell Data about his “daughters”? Did the idea that they were his “daughters” ever become relevant? What did they do to Picard’s body? Why did they include a scene where Rios and Seven bond over whiskey and then they cut to Raffi and Seven touching hands, as if they don’t understand writing character development? Why was the show called Picard when he was a background character through most of the series? Why was Data’s hairline wrong? Why was the synthbeast just mechanical tentacles? Why did Rios have a hollow soccer ball that could easily come apart? Why did the La Sirena have an Eddie van Halen paintjob? Why wasn’t it Admiral Fucking Hubris leading the fleet, like it should have been? Why was it necessary to brutally murder Icheb and Hugh if Seven’s character arc began as Space Lorenzo Lamas and ended as Space Lorenzo Lamas? Why did Jurati murder Maddox when nobody knew for like 2 episodes and it didn’t matter to anyone when they found out? Why did the Androids use Space Flowers for planetary defense? Why does the show call Androids “synths”? Is Mars still on fire? That would suck...

And for the coup de grace I turn it to Larry Young:

I just don’t understand how somebody thought it was a good idea that the singular character that embodies “the human adventure is just beginning” was never once the motive power in any scene he was in a show titled for him, and then ended up a robot. That’s about as opposite from a STAR TREK show as you can get.

The gatekeepers will still scream, like the infants they are: “Let people like what they like!” “Just don’t watch it!” “You’re a toxic hater!”

A friend asked me why I watch these shows. I thought about it — because he’s right, it may seem like I’m watching for hate’s sake. But the truth is…

I watch because I hope.

I hope because I dream.

I dream because I sleep.

I sleep because I drink.

I drink because I watch.

Live long and prosper.