Well it finally finishes. And as much as I enjoyed it, I do have some minor gripes for that last episode. Let me stress… minor. Here’s your Picard Review The Last Generation.

So we have our crew take the 35 year old Enterprise-D as our last chance for saving the universe from the Borg. The Borg are over in Jupiter and they aren’t in good shape. This was a nice nod to the last episode of Voyager where Janeway introduced some sort of virus to incapacitate the borg.

The queen is basically staying alive by eating the organics of the drones left. I’ve always hated the idea of a queen in general BUT…. if you see the borg as collectivism then typical regimes that embrace that ideology, then you can certainly see how those inevitably have their leaders getting rich by starving their people. A nice bit of symbolism.

But let’s not get too deep as the episode is trying to make this a fun ride. Picard, Riker, and Worf go to the ship to figure out where the signal is happening and find Jack. Picard lets himself get assimilated to reach Jack. As a father/son moment, it’s great. Really brings the entire story to a satisfying conclusion, with shades of a reversal of Luke finally saving Vader. This time it’s the father who saves the son.

Speaking of Return of the Jedi, Data takes the Enterprise into the borg cube to blow up the center core and they all come out in a blaze of fire completing the rechristening of the Enterprise-D to the Millenium Falcon. Hey, you got some Star Wars in my Star Trek!

This was a big action movie climax and I was fine with it. I’ve long come to peace with the fact that Star Trek as I knew it from TOS to Enterprise where there were so many small morality and problem solving episodes is long gone. Once TNG went to the cinema, it became about spectacle. Don’t be fooled that it was just JJ’s atrocities that pushed Star Trek down that road.

But as a big action movie, this show does a far better job of it because it remembers the characters, their motivations, and pulls together a thematic story that works very well. Picard Season 3 succeeds phenomenally in this regard.

The rest of the episode takes on Return Of The King levels of endings but again, I’m fine with it. All is wrapped up and the ending scene over the credits was just perfect. But the main storyline is wrapped up in the first 40 minutes. It feels like it all came together just a little too easy. There are great moments watching the Enterprise blow the crap out of the Borg cube, but it’s also something it had trouble doing with a full crew, brand new ship, back in the days of the series. I guess the cube wasn’t at its best but still.

Spectacle. Big crowd pleasing spectacle. Get in that mindset. Also Seven, Rafi, and other older crewmembers manage to take back control of the Titan but it all comes across as needing to give them something to do.

Again, don’t misunderstand me. The show’s heart is in the right place. It’s trying to give people what they want and definitely never disrespects the characters. So my nitpicks are just that. Nitpicks. Things I’d like to see differently, not necessarily things that are really terrible or make me angry.

Overall, I can’t quite rate it like that last episode but it’s still damn good. Enjoy it kids, this whole season is an aberration. If you’ve seen the latest trailer of Strange New Worlds which looks like some sort of “Sisterhood of the Traveling Space Pants” combined with “Men R Stupid Yas Queen” you know it’s not going to continue this trajectory.

Terry Matalas gave us something actually special. He managed to right a few wrongs from the movies and certainly fix up the first two seasons of Picard. Or at least wipe the taste from our mouths. Trek will probably never be able to achieve the heights of its glory days again and you know what? Fine. I’m extremely happy with what we got and I can watch it anytime I wish.

I’ll add season 3 as a nice coda to those days and probably ignore the rest. Oh who am I kidding. I’ll watch just to illustrate why NuTrek is bad and why Old Trek was so good. Call me a masochist.

But for now? Thank you, Terry.

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