Updated Escape Article! About "Star Trek: Picard" and Fear in the Trump Age...
At The Escapist, I evaluate each new episode of Star Trek: Picard. These will be released every Thursday morning throughout the run of the program and will preview the upcoming third season. This is the fifth episode of the season.
In large measure because of its lack of story and central themes, Picard's third season is interesting. The program spends so much time on pointless flashbacks that it's hard to tell what the actual plot is, beyond the fact that it's just a collection of tired tropes hastily strung together. The immigration and xenophobic analogies that drove the previous two seasons have been completely stripped away, and the show suffers as a result. In its place, Picard resorts to a number of tired science fiction cliches that reflect the worst tendencies of the present day, including a paranoia that seems related to the worst of the American zeitgeist.
Updated Escape Article! The Show's General Capability in "Star Trek: Picard"
At The Escapist, I evaluate each new episode of Star Trek: Picard. These will be released every Thursday morning throughout the run of the program and will preview the upcoming third season. This week is the fourth episode of the season.
Because of its general competence, No Win Scenario is the finest third-season episode. No Win Scenario effectively exposes the limitations of this strategy by collecting a number of tropes in a manner that makes one think of superior movies and TV series. It's disappointing that the third season's high point is a reminder of what the series achieved better in the past.
New and improved egress article! The Season Three Conflict in "Star Trek: Picard" Was Totally Irrelevant.
New and improved egress article! Taking the third season of "Star Trek: Picard" as an example of tired tropes against shoddy narrative...
At The Escapist, I evaluate each new episode of Star Trek: Picard. These will be released every Thursday morning throughout the run of the program and will preview the upcoming third season. This week is the first episode.
The third season of Picard is a stunning piece of fan service nostalgia, a jumble of recognizable images and icons held together by little more than the audience's supposed familiarity with them. The show's apparent awareness of this is a major selling point. Picard is predicated on reassuring its viewers that it is okay to abandon the future in favor of a false past, and much of the show is dedicated to defending this sentiment.
Updated Escape Article! Using "Star Trek: Picard" Season 3 as an Example of "Fan Service Methadone"
At The Escapist, I evaluate each new episode of Star Trek: Picard. These will be released every Thursday morning throughout the run of the program and will preview the upcoming third season. First, however, let's take a step back and assess the season as a whole.
To make way for a sentimental revival of Star Trek: The Next Generation starring cast members thirty years away from that show, the conclusion of Picard's second season essentially wiped off the majority of the program's new cast members. The ultimate product is as bland and patronizing as could be expected, carrying over many of the same core problems from the previous two seasons but shedding any sense of individuality in favor of a superficial patina of nostalgia. It's cynical, it's empty, and it reflects the emptiness at the core of much of today's popular culture.
New and improved egress article! Analyzing the Story Components of "Star Trek: Picard"
This evening, I had an article published in The Escapist. Star Trek: Picard airs weekly on Paramount+, and we're reviewing each episode in this season. This week saw the publication of the season two finale, so we thought it would be a good time to take a look at the show.
On paper, Picard's second-season finale goes through the motions of completing the show's long-form storylines in a way that should, in theory, please viewers. But this merely shows how poorly Picard grasps the basics of narrative. The second season of Picard has a number of intriguing and ambitious concepts, but the program sometimes struggles to find natural and coherent methods to explore these ideas.
This evening, I had an article published in The Escapist. We're reviewing each episode of Star Trek: Picard that airs on Paramount+ each week. This week saw the publication of episode nine of the second season, providing a timely chance to evaluate the show.
In particular, Star Trek: First Contact has been a major inspiration for the second season of Picard. As a result, the Borg has reemerged as a serious danger. When it comes to maybe the most memorable adversaries of the previous thirty or forty years of the Star Trek franchise, the second season of Picard falls into many of the usual pitfalls of the bigger Star Trek series. Picard is aware of the Borg's cultural significance but is at a loss as to how to use them.
Latest Podcast! Episode 8 of Season 2 of Make It So is titled "Mercy."
At The Escapist, I'm reviewing episodes of Star Trek: Picard, so I jumped at the chance to talk about the season two episode Mercy on the Make It So: A Star Trek Universe Podcast with the fantastic Kurt North.
My emotions towards Picard are complex. Parts of it I really like, but others I have my doubts about. One of the best parts about joining the podcast to speak about the episode was discussing the season as a whole, with all of its plot threads and their satisfying conclusions. It seems timed well, considering that Mercy is an episode that improves upon its predecessors.
In any case, it was a great pleasure to be invited, and I wish you the best with the show. You
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