The marketing machine for the new season of "Star Trek: Picard" has been working overtime, with Patrick Stewart and the cast doing TV and press interviews, plus poster campaigns have been spotted at Los Angeles international airport and on the New York subway.
It's been almost two years (actually 706 days, just 24 days short of two years) since we last Jean-Luc Picard in action in the … er, somewhat disappointing Season 1 finale "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2." However, it is important to remember that while the first season ended on the ludicrous notion that Jean-Luc is a now a synthetic, it is also worth noting that the inaugural season of this "Star Trek" spin-off show contained some equally brilliant episodes with some extremely imaginative and original writing. (If you're wondering how to watch the new season, check out our streaming guide for Star Trek: Picard.)
Let's face facts, Santiago Cabrera, who plays Cristóbal Rios, pretty much stole every scene he was in. And the whole hologram thing was a stroke of genius. Moreover, we saw Seven take revenge in "Stardust City Rag" (S01, E05) and Soji face a Romulan Rubik's cube in "The Impossible Box" (S02, E06).
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But…you may remember the ending of the season finale where the consciousness of Jean-Luc Picard was transferred into the body of an artificial golem, the parietal lobe abnormality in his frail 94-year old body no longer a problem. So, technically he could leap those stairs we saw him nearly collapse after climbing in the very first episode in a single bound.
Every single element of him is potentially enhanced: super-speed, super-strength, super-intelligence…but no, the absurd solution to the ridiculous situation the writers put themselves in was… "I knew you wouldn't want to adjust to something new, not after 94 years in the same body," Soong says, conveniently explaining away that enormous issue.
Will this be mentioned in the new season? It is a little bit of an elephant in every room that Picard also happens to be in.
Related: Seven of Nine grapples with her humanity in 'Star Trek: Picard' Season 2, SFX reveals
When asked about this, executive producer — on not just "Picard" but also "Discovery" and "Strange New Worlds" — Akiva Goldsman told Space.com at a recent press event, "So it's interesting because, you know…we even in… the turning of him to synthetic … in … at the end of season one, we were pretty clear about saying he, you know there's nothing enhanced here, that fundamentally you are who you were, it’s just that you won’t die this particular genetic misfortune that you carry with you.
"And we really do play it that way, there are no super-secret neato cool things that happened to Picard, and at what Picard is capable of doing that are in anyway tied to his new body… we did it to sort of make a resurrection arc, but it wasn't really to create a, we’re not pressing forward with this idea of this sort of hybridization of Picard as synthetic."
In order to facilitate any catching up that might be required, here are the links to each and every episode review we ran of Season 1.
Episode # 1 – Remembrance
Episode # 2 – Maps and Legends
Episode # 3 – The End Is the Beginning
Episode # 4 – Absolute Candor
Episode # 5 – Stardust City Rag
Episode # 6 – The Impossible Box
Episode # 7 – Nepenthe
Episode # 8 – Broken Pieces
Episode # 9 – Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1
Episode # 10 – Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2
The first 11 episodes of Season 4 of "Star Trek: Discovery" are available to watch now on Paramount Plus in the US and CTV Sci-Fi or Crave TV in Canada. Countries outside of North America can watch on the Pluto TV Sci-Fi channel. Season 2 of "Star Trek: Picard" begins on March 3 and the premiere season of "Strange New Worlds" begins on May 5.
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