The Red Lady

Story: The Next Generation

Written By: Terry Matalas
Series: Star Trek: Picard
Year: 2023

Part of the reason I returned to watching Trek after a long hiatus was that Picard's third and final season was a real reunion of the TNG crew. I had not really enjoyed the outcome of the show's first season, but I admit that seeing all the old gang together was enticing for me, and since there was a lot of fans saying it was good, I was intrigued.  That said...a lot of fans online would say that all the Trek I had issues with in the modern era were also great and they all pretended they cried at everything...so I was also weary.  

Picard's seconds season was pretty bad, so it was a rough journey to get here.  Now I am finally entering in to the final season, which starts with an episode fittingly titled "The Next Generation."  Is it the Trek I had hoped for when Picard began 4 years ago?  I dunno...not really so far, but had it begun here maybe I'd be happier with it.  Except for anything involving Raffi. Jesus get rid of Raffi, what a dumb character. 

Picard is sent a mysterious coded distress signal from Beverly Crusher, who 20 years ago ditched everyone and cut them all off.  Why? No one knows.  Her message is garbled, she is clearly injured, and she just says some weird coded stuff that makes little sense to Picard. She also tells him not to trust anyone, even Starfleet. The first thing Picard does is go to someone in starfleet, William Riker.  Riker is able to get them on board the new Titan for a fake surprise inspection, which the show calls a refit though it is an absolutely new ship, because these writers are dumb.  The captain of the Titan, Shaw, is not interested in following their little scheme to change course since Picard is a retired admiral and Riker is just some captain with no ship.  Also he claims to have had to change all of Riker's jazzy settings to the Titan which makes no sense because, as I said, this is a fully new ship.  These writers are dumb.  

Luckily for Picard and Riker, the first officer is Seven of Nine (who Shaw makes go by Annika Hanson because he is racist against Borgs as he clearly shows with his contempt for Picard with a snide comment), and she is down to help them, even if it means utterly disobeying orders.  While the captain sleeps, she takes the ship off course and gives Riker and Picard a shuttle. They find Crusher's ship and find her in some suspended animation and meet her new son, and then it is revealed some monster ship has been chasing them. 

Oh and in a b-story Raffi is undercover, struggling not to relapse as a drug addict while posing as one, to get information on some mysterious Red Lady and some stolen weapons.  She learns of some terrorist attack which she fails to prevent and a whole building implodes, because Star Trek is about endless violence!! Also her ship seems to be La Sirena, which makes no sense as that ship was taken over by the Borg Queen/Jurati at the end of the previous season.  Oh whatever, these writers are fucking dumb. 

I didn't love the start of this...but it is always nice to have character I like rather than ones I hate, even if I don't feel that this show or it's writers have any idea how to portray the characters I loved in the past.  Frakes is fun to have around. I hate that Shaw portrays Picard and Riker's past adventures as often dangerous and reckless...which is the absolute opposite of TNG.  But Trek has been portraying Kirk as a reckless cowboy for decades even though in TOS he was actually fairly responsible and intelligent, but the TOS movies did give him a more rebellious streak which has defined his character for a long time.  Now they seem to want to transplant those characteristics onto characters that weren't ever really like that. I guess possibly in the TNG films...but even then, that is 4 adventures, when there are hundreds of TNG episodes in which they are mature and competent and often didn't take unnecessary risks.  But this isn't Star Trek, but Action Trek, and I have to accept that I suppose. 

NEXT TIME: Jack Crusher