“Commander Riker's easy-going manner and sense of humour is fascinating to me,” Data says in the TNG episode “Data’s Day.” “I believe it to be one reason he is so popular among the crew.” That may well be true. We’ve seen Jonathan Frakes reprise his role as William Riker in Star Trek: Picard before, but it’s always nice to see him return to the franchise. These touches encourage the viewer to compare the season to that fan-favorite film, widely considered one of the best Trek movies.īut a series is more than just its intro and outro. Instead, after a brief teaser, each episode begins with a glimpse of the Star Trek: Picard title card, fading in from the darkness, with the beloved Star Trek fanfare playing gently in the background, and ends with a suite of music from First Contact. The episodes this season don’t begin with the opening we’ve come to expect for Picard, with a sweeping melody and sepia-toned graphics. Most Trek shows have a cinematic quality these days, and the team behind PIC is clearly leaning into that. But are they essentially the people we’ve grown to love over the past 45 years? Absolutely.įrom the start, this season feels like the fifth TNG movie, the follow-up to Nemesis (or rather, Star Trek: First Contact) that we never got, and that is clearly the creative team’s intention. Real people grow and change and, frankly, the TNG characters would be kind of boring if they didn’t do the same thing. ![]() They weren’t the same characters then as when we met them in “Encounter at Farpoint” 25 years before that. So, are Picard, Riker, Beverly, Worf, Geordi, and Deanna the same as when we last saw them 20 years ago, in Star Trek: Nemesis? Of course not. As with any new Trek property, the fans worry that the Powers That Be will ruin their favorite franchise by making the characters, ships, and situations “different” than in the past. The announcement that the TNG bridge crew would be returning touched off a firestorm of excitement and speculation mixed with trepidation. As such, it's not particularly interesting compared to some of those that have gone before: a basic locked room murder and a man going on a romantic date several days after being pronounced dead.FEBRUIn one week, the world will finally be able to watch the first episode of Star Trek: Picard season 3, entitled “The Next Generation.” That episode title holds a lot of promise, especially for old-school Trekkies like me, who grew up watching Star Trek: The Next Generation every week as it aired. The mystery doesn't get introduced until over a third of the way through the episode, and is constructed to fit into Sherlock's best man speech so that it doesn't derail the wedding shenanigans too badly. There's also a case to be solved, but as with 'The Empty Hearse' it feels jammed in almost begrudgingly, as though the writers knew it was a box that had to be ticked. It's all there - with the surprising exception of the actual wedding ceremony. ![]() And boy, if you like weddings then you're in for a treat, because no detail is left out: the drunken stag night the wedding photo session decisions over serviettes the bride and groom's waltz John asking Sherlock to be his best man each of their friends discussing how Sherlock will react to the best man question. But before Sherlock can get on with the business of mysteries and crime-solving, there's a wedding to attend! A wedding that takes up an entire episode. Even better, that episode's tantalizing conclusion set up the season's new arch-villain and hinted that things were about to start getting serious. Overall, however, that can be forgiven in an episode that was largely about Sherlock's return and the way that John deals with it. My chief criticism of the episode was that the actual case - one involving an impending terrorist attack - was somewhat weak and didn't account for much of the episode's running time. ![]() The long-awaited return of Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat's modern update kicked off earlier this week with a decent season premiere that featured some great character moments between John and Sherlock. Watching the middle chapter of the third season, 'The Sign of Three,' that sentiment is particularly relatable. Mere moments later he is hungry for yet more work, and stomps around the flat yelling, " I need a case!" In a particularly memorable scene from the Sherlock season two episode 'The Hounds of Baskerville', the detective storms into 221B Baker Street covered in blood and carrying a harpoon.
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