These are the voyages of the Starship Titan-A. Written by Terry Matalas, season 3 of Picard is helmed by the new showrunner to close out the chapter of Picard (the show) and Picard (the bald bloke). Directed by Doug Aarniokoski, Aarniokoski returns from last season’s openers and season 1’s “Nepenthe.” Christopher B Derrick is also promoted to story editor alongside Kiley 279 namesake, Kiley Rossetter. I honestly feel a sigh of relief to be covering this season instead of the mess that we have had to suffer for the last 20 episodes.

On the dark side of the Alpha Quadrant, a random ship is listening to the Fallout music and Picard’s briefings with LCARS makes their return once again. It is a normal thing to happen, just like when Bev is out here executing masked figures on a small cargo ship with more brutality and training than the spec ops guys from “Hide and Seek.” Dealing with them with more precision than a trained killer, Bev ends up locking up a bloke with an English accent and sending a coded message to JL to help her. Aside from TNG’s doc executing with prejudice, it’s very demure, very Star Trek, very TNG already.

In the shadow of the Enterprise D painting in his study, Picard is talking with his new lover about his ex and possibly saving her. Saving her, under her request, without Starfleet’s help. Eventually meeting with Bill while we get great shots of old Eagle Moss ships (they are pretty ships, expensive though) the two hatch a plan to put themselves in danger as they always do. While Raffi is strung out, role-playing as a Cyberpunk 2077 character trying to uncover a mystery in a scene from Blade Runner.

There is no way around it, I’ve said it time and time again, and I’ve made it clear in my opening. This third season of Picard is a lot more exciting, not because this opening is better than the other two. Picard (the show) has a problem with seasons one and two having good to great openings which fall off almost immediately. Mostly to service nostalgia over storytelling as soon as the set-up is done, it makes retroactively going back to seasons 1 and 2 openers taste bitter. Retroactively returning to “The Next Generation” there is already a quality jump in the writing and more importantly, the performances.

I said it last week, but I’ll make it clear again before I move on. That painting shouldn’t have been of the D, Picard’s true love is the Stargazer. If there is one bit of “Ok, please understand the character” that’s it, that is the ship Picard loves because it was his first. He had the painting sure, and it was in his ready room when it went down in the last film, but there is no way he went back to pick it up. The painting was there but so was the model of the NCC-7100, which is preserved in the quantum archives back in “Remembrance.”

So “The Next Generation” itself then? The best first episode which feels like it understood the characters a lot more, understood the character voice, played off of several different special skills, and introduced us to one of my favorite people to have encountered Admiral Jean-Luc Picard. That said, I feel I need to point something out straight away. Raffi is still here, Annika is still here, and Laris is here for a few minutes. The rest of them? In the bin with most of the ideas of seasons 1 and 2 almost entirely.

I don’t want to keep repeating myself, but it feels like a totally different show. Not just because Terry Matalas has come in as the showrunner, but the cast feels more comfortable at least. Seasons 1 and 2 (I’ll try and move on) felt like a show that was being made for nostalgia and because an aging actor agreed to do one last hurrah, an actor who initially had a lot of heart for it but didn’t feel the script. “The Next Generation” already makes Patrick sound and feel more like the captain we once knew, albeit looking like a pickled testicle.

Season 1 I said it, and I’ll say it again, I love you Patrick but you had no business in some of those action-focused scenes in the last 2 seasons. There is action here, especially towards the end, but it is dealt with in a very Jean-Luc Picard way. So “The Next Generation” opens with Beverly Crusher being Lara Croft in space, indiscriminately killing with malice and ends with being hurt in the fight in the process. Meanwhile, after calling her ex up on space WhatsApp, she is placed into a medical stasis tube by a bloke with an English accent. So you know what that means, he’s French.

The cliffhanger, if you can even call it that, is both Jack Crusher saying he’s a Crusher and the ruddy big ship in the nebula that looks cool as hell. Did I say cool? I mean to say evil as hell! I don’t want this to sound like “Oh, you’re excited because you know where this is going.” Sure, I do, but I’m more excited because the writing has given me a reason to care, even for the short-lived mystery.

It is difficult to say that Jack Crusher is another mystery box when he’s about as sign-posted as the directions to the guillotine in late 18th century France. Nor is the “mystery” of who Raffi’s handler is after she’s called a certain thing. Hell, if you’re paying attention the ship might not even be a mystery but a massive tease that is gently fondling you in all the right places. None of it, aside from Jack but there are reasons for that, are the “hey, remember this non-consequential thing no one ever cared about? We’re doing that!”

Everything teased, everything thrown at us in the opening is bits of the story connected to the central story of Jean-Luc Picard, and expands the universe. Not in the Chris Chibnall “let’s add to the Wiki” sense, but the fun adventure sense that is (again) central to the character. It has been so long since I’ve been excited about Picard, and the last time I probably was, it was from a teaser featuring John de Lancie.

I know I’m about to dumb it down, but I don’t want to discredit Matalas and the team. This is a really simple concept that should have been done from the start: Someone from Picard’s past is in distress, he calls up one of his nearest and dearest friends, they take a ship from a Captain Jellico-type played by Todd Stashwick, and he goes apoplectic. The old man sees there is more to this than he thought, Jellico is going to be dragged into this, oh and they are only days away from Frontier Day where old fuddy-duddies are supposed to be making speeches and ships are to be paraded.

On paper, it isn’t a hard concept to get down. Though the series tried hard to make new fans care about an older character. Now it is a series that does appease the fans, and not just through throwing references at the ceiling like wet paper towels in the upstairs boy’s toilets in year 7. I didn’t do it, I just saw the mess afterward. The point is, and I feel I’ve repeated my points a lot, season 3 of Picard is bringing quality over quantity in terms of references, and there are a good few references.

Overall, “The Next Generation” understands The Next Generation and the Enterprise-D’s crew a lot more than the previous captains of production. Even as the season opener, there is a breath of fresh air (which is odd for space) that makes even Picard season 3’s hints of mystery and drama much more appetizing than prior seasons. If all I’m ding-ing you for is that Picard’s first love wasn’t the Enterprise D over the Stargazer, then yeah, you’ve hit it out of the park. Though I could do with a touch less Blade Runner and a bit more DS9 in the dystopian underworld tones.

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Star Trek: Picard "The Next Generation"

9

Score

9.0/10

Pros

• Ship Porn!
• Sensible writing.
• You know most of the season already if you are paying attention.
• Shaw eating before anyone else got there.

Cons

• The Stargazer was his love, not the D.