Having finally gotten around to finishing this, I have to say that I thought it was excellent. Not perfect, but really very good overall.
I've talked about this in other places, but since the return of Star Trek to the small screen with Star Trek: Discovery I've come to realize just how much the franchise means to me, and how much it has shaped my views on life. I was born in 1983, the son of a fan of the original Star Trek, and Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered in 1987. My bedtime for most of the TNG was airing was 10pm, which happened to be when it was shown on syndication. An exception was made for Friday night, since Saturday wasn't a school day - I was allowed to stay up to 11 specifically to watch TNG. And I religiously watched new episodes of TNG, DS9, and at least the first four or five seasons of Voyager. I kind of wandered off to other things after DS9 went off the air, but later revisited the last seasons of Voyager and the entirety of Enterprise. It's an optimistic view of the future that I really need right now.
If TNG had a theme, it was about being open to new possibilities. It's true for all Trek, to one extent or another, but for TNG in particular bracketed as it was by "Encounter at Farpoint" and "All Good Things." A second theme (again, true for all Trek, but for TNG in particular) is that no one gets to dictate who does or doesn't count as a person. "The Measure of a Man" is a standout episode on that theme, as was "I, Borg." It's not a coincidence that the latter two episodes I mentioned - some of TNG's best - were directly followed up on in Picard.
Picard was all about who counts as people. If you can think, you are a person, and deserving of equal dignity. This is true for the Data-style synthetics and the former Borg both. And I give full credit to the writers for having the death (sort of, but we'll get to that) of Jean-Luc Picard have meaning. He didn't get a bridge dropped on him. He didn't die fighting a random villain-of-the-week. He made the choice to sacrifice himself to protect Data's spiritual progeny, and in so doing live up to the principles he'd always sworn by. It was a fitting end for Jean-Luc Picard.
That being said: I felt it was kind of wasted. I've never been a fan of "back from the dead" stuff, in anything, and I wish they hadn't gone there.
But speaking of wasted deaths, I'm so glad that Data got a send-off worthy of the character here. Star Trek: Nemesis was a complete shitstain of a movie. Data dying at the end was even more insulting than Star Trek: Generations dropping a bridge on Kirk. A strong case can be made for Data being the greatest of Trek characters, and indeed one of the greatest characters in television history (people can argue about that endlessly, and there's no right answer, but in both cases he's a respectable choice).
I'm very curious to see how this ties into Discovery. The whole reason they went into the future was to prevent some kind of an AI-triggered galaxy-wide apocalypse. Way too similar to what was going on in Picard for that to be a coincidence.
I make it a habit to avoid the online fandoms for Trek, because they're generally wretched hives of scum and villainy (yes, I know I'm mixing my franchises. That's ok). Or at least wretched hives of gatekeeping and No True Scotsman fallacies. I'm not interested in hearing all the reasons people rage against Picard, just as I'm not interested in hearing all the reasons people rage against Discovery. Feel free to hate them if you like: you do you. But I'm quite happy to love them.
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