Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2

Ancient machine race hellbent on destroying organics.

Ancient machine race can only be contacted via some signal into deep space.

Deep space signal leaves people with scrambled minds and suicidal after showing snapshots of imminent death/destruction.

Ancient machine race hate organic lifeforms because they see them as inferior.

Ancient machine race eradicated their creators, leaving only the trace of their existence spare a few vague solar bodies...

I can go on, but I'll be spoiling not Picard but anyone who hasn't played the Mass Effect video games. I'm surprised the writers of Picard went down this route. Did they really believe no one would spot the difference? It's so blatantly obvious that it's almost plagiarism.

I love Star Trek, but Picard has a lot of missed opportunities that could have made this show great.

.or had some elements, some aspiration to what made Star Trek kind of magic to me back in the day. It's not the action or any of that, that's just for relaxation and amusement. Sweetens it up and makes it go down easy.

It's the whole philosophical context, and the literary explorations on issues like purpose, beauty, meaning, morality and so on that were the truly intriguing parts. And of course how some of the unique characters evolved, along the journey. Not to mention that invigoration idealism! I suppose you could call it pluralism, but then in a much more fundamental and truly open minded way. The concept of traveling endlessly throughout unknown space with your trusted crew, on that amazing star ship, open to explore whatever is there. It is the most beautiful escapist fantasy I can think of to this day.

Needless to point out that to me, anything after "The Next Generation" was burdened with sky-high expectations, followed by staggering disappointment. So I was ambivalent to even start watching this series. But yeah. It did kind of pick up on that old stuff, at least to some extent. Especially in this last episode, with a nice twist to that classic scene, of turning down the conscious machine. This time as an act of mercy. Actually, to give meaning to the life lived. Maybe it was all a bit fast and fuzzy, lacking truly developed characters and such, But, as for the underlying theme, it did get pretty close!

So, let me say first that this review is in no way meant to be biased because of my preference to the oldskool Roddenberry Star Trek, nor is it automatically a critique based on me not liking KurtzmanTrek. I'm a huge ST fan, especially TNG and Voyager, though I learned to like DS9, OS and Enterprise over time. Now, that does in no way mean I like all the episodes of every series. There are some average and sure, absolutely bad episodes. But what I have come to realize over time is that it's hard to write every episode with a new plot and storyline, and make it work every time. It takes a lot of creativity, imagination and writing ability. Not every writer pulled it off.

Which brings me to new Star Trek. I'm perfectly open to innovation, change, improvement and controversial solutions IF they're well supported and if there's a good reason for them. While there are some good moments in STP, intreaguing situations and quality visualisations, there are a number of issues with the series.

What this show is missing, is the subtle way in which all the controversial issues were done in Roddenberry ST. Everything feels forced, from women literally controling all aspects of Starfleet, Romulan Empire and the series itself really, to 7 of 9 being deemed unnecesserily as a bisexual (or homosexual, depending on wether you take her past with Chakotay into consideration). This - "in your face" approach is fine by me if it's not done for the sake of doing it. Unfortunately, this is not the case here. You had only 10 episodes with only one main plot. You had a decent ( if not original and overly inspiring) story. You had Patrick Stewart. Ther rest is on writers and directors. Too bad they were average at best.

Again- some good, even great moments. But overall, not very good episodes. Bad writers can do only so much.

Think about this: they had 10 episodes, yet most of them feel like filler episodes. They had to resort to "cheap" tricks to keep you entertained, like forced swearing, killing, overall darkness and CGI action all over the place. The dialogues are just terrible at times, and it's so hard to connect with any character apart from those we know from past series.

Unlike in other Star Trek series where there are some bad, but also some of the best episodes ever written for a TV show, here we don't have a single really good or great episode (just like in Discovery). Now, if there's only one main storyline, less chance of hit or miss, why is that?

It's really simple. It's the writing. It's just limited. You can only get so much from Kurtzman & Co., and even that is mostly borrowed from other shows.

In conclusion, Stewart deserved better. Picard deserved better. Seven deserved better.

Ultimately, true fans of Star Trek who may have had differences in opinion about past shows but never could complain about the very essence and feel of Roddenberry Star Trek deserve better.

If you are a Star Trek fan, you will find something endearing is missing from this series, and that is the vision of Gene Roddenberry.

The characters, the serial plot line and even the script targets a broader audience, which will probably disappoint Trek fans.

Disappointments aside, it was still a good watch. I am hoping season 2 steps back a little to the way Gene Roddenberry would have told the story.

I have just one thing to say, this episode was an absolute masterpiece! So intense, ready for next season!