I hate saying gatekeeper stuff, but there is no other way to describe it, Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard feels like it is finally written and produced by Star Trek fans, for Star Trek fans. Directed by your captain today, we’re once again treated to directing that puts normal directors to shame. Writing only his second episode of Star Trek, following on from “Disengage,” Sean Tretta is joined by showrunner Terry Matalas. This is also the final episode Matthew Okumura acts as story editor of any kind, with Okumura’s role as executive story editor being vacated.

Sinking like my hopes when watching Discovery, the USS Titan is heading deeper into the gravity well of a black hole after Jean-Luc Picard doomed us all. Captain Bill Riker is given status reports on all systems and possible solutions, every single one of them looks worse. The crew only has four hours of life support and no way of escaping this interminable space cloud and the Shrike, nor can it escape the rolling energy surges. What else is there to do but take your son you just met to a bar and get berated by a drunk Captain?

As JL gets Jack into the holodeck version of Ten-Forward, the two talk, get to know each other a bit, and even explain why Jack is named after Bev’s widow. Meanwhile, after telling Picard the reason he’s here is to stop his imzadi from feeling his pain (or lack thereof) at the loss of their son Thad, Bill tries leaving her a message he can’t even put into words. If last time was emotional, this one is certainly trying to up it. On the lighter side, a Changeling killed someone and is sabotaging the ship in their place, so ya know, it isn’t all doom and gloom.

Last week I ended (more or less) on “Otherwise, a brilliant episode of Star Trek, maybe the best episode of Picard thus far.” If “Seventeen Seconds” was a good to great episode of Star Trek: Picard, “No Win Scenario” is among the all-time greats, I think. Remember, it wasn’t but a few episodes ago I was swearing down the writing for being bland, standard CBS, mid-season NCIS. The disparity between seasons is almost to the Doctor Who episode-to-episode levels, and better still we’ve seen progress through what seems like the season arch.

Entirely focused on the USS Titan this time, with occasional looks over to the Shrike, there’s no samurai master and strung-out spy. Instead, the B story is Annika on the search for the vinyl of the Be-Sharps classic, “Changeling on-board.” For the benefit of my editor and maybe those that need a bit more convincing: The Changelings are amorphous shapeshifting lifeforms that are part of what is known as the Great Link, a literal pool of these liquid beings somewhere in the Gamma Quadrant. Why is any of that significant? I’d say about 90% of DS9 was in the Gamma Quadrant and that’s the series where we got the Dominion War.

Now we’ve got more Changelings being terrorists to Starfleet on a revenge mission and we’ve got a Changeling connecting to the Great Link(?). If Vadic’s crew were revealed to be the Jem’Hadar, I’d be walking around like an Elephant – spoiler they aren’t. This isn’t the only DS9 reference we’re getting. I’ve spoken a lot about Shaw and how much I am loving that man. Not because he’s good, but simply because he’s such a character and (for lack of a better term) one we’ve not really seen in another series or season.

Picard and Jack are in the holodecks version of the Ten-Forward we’re seeing a lot more of than the one we’re used to. In fact, throughout the episode we’re getting flashbacks (something season 1 did terribly) to a time JL was having lunch or dinner in the bar, but being the great Jean-Luc Picard, some ensigns were bothering him. Being the great admiral who helmed the Enterprise, he can’t shut up and tell the kids to “sling your hook,” as it were. Regaling them in a “Aren’t I just magnificent?” session.

Sitting in the bar in their last few hours left alive, the two have a catch-up session. You know, as you do with your new son; drinking alcohol and telling him that his namesake was a much better man than the great admiral. Just so my editor doesn’t feel confused, this does loop back around to Shaw. As the two drink and play catch up, others want to join them in the bar, including the relieved but embittered captain and his dodgy-leg. A captain who was “just some dipshit from Chicago” when Wolf 359 happened.

I know Todd Stashwick was in a good few episodes of 12 Monkeys, but where have he and Terry Matalas been all this time? That scene alone is worth every award that the season was nominated for, and I don’t want to just say that because I’m a fan. That scene with Shaw explaining he was just an ensign from engineering, he was there at Wolf 359, he was on the USS Constance, and he was one of ten to survive in a battle where “eleven thousand… dead,” that’s a must-see. A heart-wrenching monologue punctuated by “A Borg so deadly, they gave him a name.”

Of course, this isn’t the first Captain that Picard has run into. He is a Captain who resents Locutus of Borg, a Captain who hates the now admiral for killing people they loved. Maybe I am looking at the scene as a fan, but by god, that’s a beautiful scene. Not only that, it explains what I’ve been doing all of this time, calling Commander Seven “Annika.” Something Shaw forces on her due to his hatred of the Borg and what they’ve done to him.

We’ll get to the meeting room here in a second and Bill’s attempts to tell Deanna via the black box recording he regrets how he felt, but that felt almost like a conclusion. The whole episode feels like we’re wrapping up act one of the season, which if I’m honest was one of the problems with seasons 1 and 2. Season 1 killed off Picard by the end and I didn’t care, season 2 killed off Q and I honestly didn’t care, but here? Commander Seven saying that line about Ensign La Forge calling her by her preferred name, with “out of respect” being directed at Shaw, I felt that.

I felt that because you don’t need saucepans for clogs to see what that’s a metaphor for. I feel like those berries in South Park: ‘member when we used metaphors, characters, and plot lines to tell the stories of marginalized people? Shaw is horrible and he’s taking that hatred and distrust of Borg and former Borg out on Seven in the only way men in power know, expect respect but never give it until challenged. It is a great moment, and to once again bang the drum, we didn’t get many of those in seasons 1 and 2.

The same with this whole “Nebula” thing, which is a Star Trek or particular TNG trope, but it works. On regular cycles there are these waves of energy flowing through the ship, giving the Titan enough power to be lit properly. If anything, that’s my gripe! If you can light the ship like someone put on the big light in the living room for a few minutes, then you can do it for the whole episode. I’m sick of this prestige TV thing of shows and films being shot like they are filmed in Verëvkina Cave.

Lighting issues and my hatred of cinematographers (I assume it is them) who hate light aside, these energy bursts are coming regularly. So regularly that a Doctor can count down to when they will happen. The ship is swimming around in the amniotic fluid of space jellyfish that are being born – The most The Next Generation thing to happen as an act 1 conclusion. It is simple, it is great, I really can’t complain.

I promised I’d talk about Bill’s inability to tell Troi in a black box message how he felt, which is probably the hardest thing I’ve found to write about this week. Between the philosophy discussions (where have you been for two seasons?) and the genuine emotion of it, it is using my heart and guts like a speed bag. It is a man we’ve known and loved for several seasons, some movies, and several guest appearances, who is simply broken and the writing backs it up. “It was only six feet, but it was so dark. It was like infinite emptiness,” it’s simple but no less effective.

The score swells at near-perfect moments, the writing is on-point, the acting is helped further by the writing and direction, and the big moments feel massive. Tell me the last time I spoke this highly about the fourth episode of some Star Trek, I’ll wait. I keep using the comparison because I’m not going to compare this to a random episode of Bluey, for the love of all that’s holy, but this thus far this season has put the crew to an actual test. Emotionally, physically, and as we’re seeing here, putting their relationships to the test.

The flashback keeps happening throughout, something that is played off almost like an old man remembering the glory of sitting in a bar turns him into a real villain. The ensigns part like the Red Sea, only to show Jack Crusher before JL knew who the young guy with an English accent was. Jack Crusher asks his dad “Did you have a life outside of that? What about a real family?” A question the old man cruelly replies with, “Starfleet has been the only family I have ever needed.”

I get it, I honestly get it, but knowing what we know and seeing the current Admiral realize as he looks at his son who was asking that very question, that’s cruel and heartbreaking. To once again turn to seasons 1 and 2, I didn’t care about the young actors playing the MacGuffin and I didn’t care about their emotions at any point, but Matalas has made me care for Jack’s. As an actor, Ed Speleers is fine, but I wouldn’t say I’m fawning or falling in love with him even half as much as I am for, say, Todd Stashwick.

Ultimately, I couldn’t heap enough praise on “No Win Scenario” if I tried. It is a beautifully emotional, heart-filled, heart-wrenching, true Star Trek adventure full of people that I love, and set pieces that I adore not just as a fan (ok, maybe just a bit) but from a proper writing standpoint too. As I said earlier, the episode is near flawless except for the dim and uninteresting lighting most of the time. In a sea of episodes that never quite felt right, this one hit every spot and is difficult to pick apart.

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Star Trek: Picard "No Win Scenario"

10

Score

10.0/10

Pros

• Such a heart-wrenchingly emotional episode.
• That scene with Shaw in the holosuite Ten-Forward.
• Finally, an episode that made me care for the MacGuffin.
• That's it, Bill. Throw a rock at her, she'll be happy about that.

Cons

• Why can't we have some proper lighting all the time?