The TV series Picard continues the story of Jean-Luc Picard, former captain of the ever-famous Starship Enterprise, as depicted in the series Star Trek: Next Generation (STNG). The character name always triggers a long ago memory of a phone call from a new francophone colleague at work. This was in the wayback days before call display when one did not know who was calling. Anyway, he introduced himself, and to my very Anglo ears, I understood, "Jean-Luc Picard". What a coincidence, I thought, so I immediately said, "So you're the captain". He was confused as his name was actually Jean-Luc Diccaire and I can't recall if he had even ever heard of Picard and Star Trek. After a few minutes, it was sorted out and all was well, but I was required to call him captain from then on.
The series Picard features a nonagenarian Jean-Luc, who is a retired Star Fleet admiral, living on a futuristic vineyard in France. The character is of course portrayed by Patrick Stewart, who went on to more fame after STNG as the wheelchair-bound mentalist in the X-Men movies. Picard was basically forced to resign when the Star Trek administration denied his ultimatum to continue aiding the Romulan refugee process after the human colony on Mars is attacked and destroyed by a band of synthetics. This backstory is rather pedantically explained to the viewer in flashbacks - synthetics have been banned so there is not enough resources to continue helping the Romulans - although one suspects that some in Star Fleet never wanted to help the Romulans at all.
Picard learned this new while at a refugee camp, visiting an enclave of female Romulan ninjas (don't ask). They are caring for a young boy who Picard has promised to find a more appropriate home. This vow is never fulfilled - more on this later.
Back in the present future, the meat of the storyline commences. A young human (we think) scientist, Dahj, is enjoying a glass of wine with her boyfriend, celebrating her acceptance into a Star Trek cybernetics program. Suddenly, a team of soldiers pop (beam) in, kill the boyfriend and attempt to subdue the woman. "Be careful, don't activate her", one of the soldiers says. Oops, too late. She goes all super-duper fast and strong, and kills all the soldiers. Then mutters to herself, "What just happened?".
Seconds later (or so it appears in the magic of screen time), Dahj visits Picard's vineyard. She was driven there by some vague memory or idea that he could protect her. Picard does not recognise her but there is something... He calms Dajh down, promises to help and sends her to bed. Picard lives with two Romulan caretakers/bodyguards (who seem to be ex-spy or ex-military), who warn him not to do too much. I forgot to mention that, not only is he over 90 years of age, Picard also has a terminal neurological condition. Okay, one more flagrant foreshadow.
In the morning, Dahj has fled the vineyard, apparently not feeling safe. Picard visits an archive of his life (I wonder if everyone has one of these in the future) and discovers an old painting of Data's entitled 'Daughter'. It is a portrait of Dajh. And there she is, waiting, as Picards exits the building. More soldiers beam in and after a fight, set off a bomb that kills Dahj. Oops. But not to worry about that actress' paycheck, Dahj has a twin sister, Soji, who is still alive and central to the story. Picard has to do a sprint up some stairs in this scene. Impressive for a 90 year old! Back at the vineyard, the bodyguards figure out somehow that the soldiers were Romulan - their existence had been wiped from any recording of the event using Romulan tech.
So Picard starts his quest to find Soji. He assembles a cast of characters to help. First, an ex-colleague Raffi who had been helping with the Romulan exodus - she is now basically a junkie/alcoholic (a first for a Star Trek series, I do believe) and is nursing a major grudge against Picard for abandoning the Romulan effort. She helps anyway and recruits another ex-Star Fleet officer, Rios, who conveniently owns a starship (not sure how one acquires a starship...). He also has a narcissistic fetesh for holograms that look like him and is nursing his own pain over a previous captain (who had killed himself right in front of his impressionistic junior). Picard picks up a cybernetics scientist, Agnes, who worked with Bruce Maddox - the creator of Dahj and Soji.
Agnes also has a secret mission, which was implanted by the half Romulan-half Vulcan chief of StarFleet security, who also happens to be a double agent for the Zhat Vash. The Zhat Vash is a secret organization (all female apparently) embedded with the already secret Romulan spy police agency, the Tal Shiar. The Zhat Vash are dedicated to protecting the universe by destroying all synthetic life. This mission comes courtesy of a warning found on a planet with four perfectly synchronous moons. That this planet is obviously synthetic itself seems to have escaped the Romulans.
Picard's band of happy warriors start by trying to find Bruce Maddox, who has just been kidnapped by an evil ganglord. Along the way, they pick up Elnor (that Romulan boy who Picard failed to help long ago - told you!), who has nicely grown into an awesome Ninja warrior. Before the Picard gang can rescue Maddox, they are attacked by a Romulan war bird, but then are rescued in the nick of time by guess who - Seven of Nine (a recurring character from STNG). She is now an outlaw ranger, out trying to save ex-Borgs like her from evil ganglords who traffic in used Borg implants. Her appearance dovetails nicely with the fact that Soji is living/working on a defunct Borg cube.
The Brog cube, called the Artifact, was cut off from the collective when it assimilated one of the Zhat Vash operatives who was driven insane when receiving the ‘warning’ on that four-mooned planet. Soji is there ostensibly performing research, but her main activity is being seduced by the nefarious brother of another Zhat Vash spy. Finally, he obtains the name of her home planet, and tries to kill her with poison gas. Soji activates and escapes, only to run into Picard and Elnor, who had just arrived. Chased by Romulans, they hole up in the cube’s queen cell, when Seven of Nine (again) beams in to save the day. She powers up some convenient Borg assimilated-tech to beam Picard and Soji to a far off planet (where former STNG colleagues’s Will Ryker and Deanna Troi live with their precocious daughter). Seven of Nine then reconnects to the cube and enlists the remaining borg to wipe out the Romulans. Elnor cannot kill them all himself. The evil spy lady manages to jettison most of them into space (sorry) but SoN and the remaining borg are enough to commandeer the cube.
In the meantime, the seductive brother (Narek) is following the Rios starship as it travels to rendez-vous with Picard and Soji. Apparently, he is not bright enough to go directly to the home planet of the synthetics, even though it took Raffi three seconds to determine its location. Anyway, he is utilizing a tracker that the traitorous Star Fleet security director had Agnes ingest. Agnes eventually disables the tracker by swallowing some poison, but not soon enough. She is also feeling guilty about having murdered Bruce Maddox, (that secret mission i mentioned previously). Rios, Raffi and Agnes pick up Picard and Soji and the ragtag team proceeds to the home planet for the conclusion of this epic tale.
On approach to the planet, Narek attacks and scores a few hits, bouncing the crew around (Picard gets ko’d pretty good). It looks bad for a second until the Borg cube zooms into the battle. But then all three ships are captured by giant flower-like net thingies (the synthetics version of defense) and are brought gently to the plant surface (the Borg cube gets a rougher ride, being a touch larger). Once recovered, Picard breaks the news that he has a terminal brain condition that is seeming imminent (Foreshadow #2). Eventually, the team wanders into the synthetics village, which has a feel much like a hippie commune (though no toking going on as far as I could see). They meet some of the main synths, including Sutra (a predecessor of Soji’s, also portrayed by the same actress with heavy makeup), as well as Dr. Alton Soong (Brent Spiner without Data’s makeup).
Narek has also been captured and placed in pseudo jail. The synths appear unconcerned about the imminent arrival of the Romulans (we can make more flowery things), until they hear that there are 2000 warbirds on the way. Sutra conveniently has studied the art of the Vulcan mind meld, so she extracts the ‘warning’ for Agnes’ poor brain. It turns out the message was actually meant for synthetics to receive (no wonder it drove most of the Romulans insane). If the synths are in danger of eradication in their universe, the message is instructions on how to call for aid (just some big bad things will arrive to kill all the non-synths). Sutra immediately starts plotting to turn the synths against the humans. She releases Narek from confinement and helps him kill another synth. She succeeds and Soji starts building the cell tower to contact another universe, while Picard is placed into confinement.
Meanwhile, Rios and Raffi are attempting to fix his starship with a mysterious tool supplied by the synths, which succeeds in the repairs by just wishing them so! They also capture Narek, who fills them in on the synths’ nefarious plan. They decide to try to blow up the cell tower to avoid annihilation. As this attempt at sabotage plays out, Dr. Soong discovers Sutra’s betrayal and deactivates her. Picard is freed and tries to convince Soji that the genocide of all humanoids is not the way to go. The gang tries to heave the bomb at the cell tower, but Soji foils that and activates the beacon.
Picard and the gang decide to help back into space to hold off the Romulan herd single-handedly. The Romulan fleet is led by the dastardly Oh, the StarFleet traitor. Picard tries a multiverse variant of the ‘Picard’ maneuver, projecting thousands of copies of their own ship to confuse the poor enemy, The Borg cube was also repaired and joins the fray, giving SoN the platform to finish off that Vash Bhat spy. All this works for a little while, giving time for Ryker along with a StarFleet armada to show up and create a stalemate. The Romulans finally give up and zoom away.
Picard then suffers a brain incident and is dying. He has literally given his life to protect the synths. This convinces Soji to break the cell connection, just as the monsters (or whatever) are about to break through. Ending #1.
Back on the planet, they are all mourning Picard’s death, when lo and behold, there is a spare synth body hanging about. The dead man’s consciousness is, of course, implanted and voila: Picard 2.0 (although without any synth superpowers). While in dead mode, Picard visited Data, whose consciousness has been living in a simulation all this time. The two have a chance to say their goodbyes, and Data asks for the simulation to be terminated once and for all. Picard fulfills this promise when he awakes in synth mode. Ending #2.
In summary, there are not as many endings as LOTR Return of the King (good thing). Most of the special effects were good, but many of the plot elements were overly contrived. On the whole, a worthwhile addition to the Star Trek oeuvre.
