So, its been two weeks since the “Picard Trailer” suck up on us all, and I have to say as someone who came into the Berman era, I am really excited.
Let me get the obvious statements out of the way. “Star Trek” is absolutely iconic, what the men and women in front of and behind the camera did in bringing the show to life cannot be understated or dismissed casually. It inspired creatives in the industry, and scientists and engineers and so on.
It’s therefore easy to understand why in the era of Modern Trek called back to the TOS era You had “the trinity” Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Spock representing rationality and Duty, McCoy representing empathy and passion, and Kirk having to find a way to balance these somewhere in the middle. A former colleague of mine who is a vicar, once told me how she used that example when describing marriage. Its understandable then, that Hollywood wanted to adapt that for the big screen in “Star Trek 2009”. Similarly, the Klingons are a great adversary in Discovery. In the new show they are to extremism what they were to eastern expansion in the sixties.
But as time progresses you do wonder if people accept Star Trek’s iconic status, not because they have experienced it firsthand, but because they have an army of people telling them that it is iconic. The Original Series has been referenced, parodied and paid homage to in everything from The Simpsons to Lost. From Rugrats to Breaking Bad. It’s possible to have broad strokes familiarity with the original series without watching a single episode.
But, the worry was that the makers of Trek were all fishing in the same end of the pond. There is more to Star Trek than the first three seasons of the original series and six movies. There were another 25 seasons of television and 4 movies. Perhaps commercially and in some senses crictically returns may have been diminishing over those seasons, you cant deny their place in the lore. The Borg, a truly scary villain, that thrives on robbing people of their individuality. But the aliens we meet aren’t purely enemies all the time. The Klingons would go on to become a complex culture, the Cardassians, a warning on the excesses of Empire, and the Ferengi, a race of misogynistic capitalist trolls that would go on to become quite well rounded in their won sort of way. There were some pretty spooky predictions too. Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but one state is convinced that another is hiding a threat to everyone else in the region. That conviction turns out ton be inaccurate. Nope, I’m not describing Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, rather, the Klingon assertion that Cardassia was being run by the founders.
The simple fact is that for many Trek Fans, TNG was their first. Thanks to the likes of Syndication and reruns another generation of Trek fans have grown up. This is reflected in the Orville, which resonates more with TNG than it does for TOS. Picard is the source of three of the internet’s most frequent memes. Even a guest character from one two parter has become the source of his own memes.
We are now where the original series fans were in the early 80s, seeing where their heroes are and how they have aged after nearly 20 years. And yes, it has been noticed. While TNG was always going to be our best hope for some sort of revivial for the 24th century, the fact that there is acknowledgement of Voyager too, well it was truly great for me.
There are so many exciting questions. Why DID Picard Retire? Why did he accept promotion to Admiral? What is his endgame by stepping into the fray with an apparent crew of Renegades.
What about Seven? Why is she so relaxed now? Is she fully over her time with the Borg? If I’ve done my maths right, she has now spent more of her life out of the collective then in it, has this changed more than the way she speaks? What is her relationship like with her Voyager comrades?
And then there’s Data. Are we seeing more than we realise? Is it Data? A hologram? B4? A crazy attempt to rebuild him by Bruce Maddox? If it is a case of the Data matrix overwriting B4, what are the ethical implications of this?
We know Riker and Troi will turn up too, but what about the other crews? What about the supporting cast. At least one of my friends asserts that #picardneedsbev, but what about her son that we saw going to explore other plains, or Q?
I love Discovery, but I cant understate how excited I am about Picard It feels like I am looking in on old friends This is what I have been waiting for. Star Trek is truly back.