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If Star Trek: Picard's third season really is the last hurrah for The Next Generation crew – that remains unconfirmed – it'll be the latest instalment in sci-fi's longest goodbye. It feels like we've been waving farewell to Jean-Luc, Riker, and co for nearly 30 years, from the sublime send-off of 'All Good Things' (one of the greatest series finales of all time) to the infamously disappointing Star Trek: Nemesis – though the latter's "a generation's final journey begins" tagline was rendered spectacularly obsolete when Jean-Luc rematerialised in his own show nearly 18 years later.
But when Admiral Jean-Luc Picard announces in the season 3 premiere that, "I am not a man who needs a legacy. I want a new adventure," he might as well be reading a note scrawled on a whiteboard in the writers' room. This third outing is arguably as nostalgic as anything in Star Trek's 57-year history, yet boldly going into the unknown is clearly its prime directive. And for a spin-off show that's been preoccupied with tying up TNG's loose ends since day one – Data, the Borg, Q, and Wesley Crusher among them – that's a big deal.
There's no shortage of moments engineered to keep fans happy, of course, from a score loaded with Jerry Goldsmith's The Next Generation and First Contact themes, to end titles that function as a love letter to TNG's iconic LCARS computer interfaces. There's also a La Forge at the helm (Sidney, not Geordi), and references to familiar starships and fallen Starfleet captains. Crucially, however, the writers are smart enough to realise that joining old friends on a leisurely warp down memory lane would never be enough to power an entire season. Instead, we're happy to report that season 3 amounts to so much more than Jean-Luc bringing the gang back together for a throwaway romp.
A question of legacy
The classic TNG bridge crew are reassembled by stealth, each given a legitimate reason to rejoin (sometimes reluctantly) their former boss's orbit. Plenty of water has passed under the bridge since they called the USS Enterprise-D home, and each one is weighed down with the sort of emotional baggage that would once have been swept under the beige carpets of '90s Trek. Indeed, much as Luke Skywalker's destiny in Star Wars: The Last Jedi was light years away from what many fans predicted for a beloved character, the show bravely acknowledges that life doesn't always pan out as you'd hoped.
Picard also fully embraces its enticing mix of familiar faces and 20 years of largely unexplored backstory. The old power dynamic between Picard and Riker has subsequently shifted, leading to robust differences of opinion that would have been completely taboo in the no-conflict environment of the Enterprise-D – one of the best things about the modern fleet of Trek shows is that Starfleet officers are permitted to talk and behave like real people, rather than paragons of a utopian future. Meanwhile, when Dr Beverly Crusher (estranged from Jean-Luc for more than two decades) sends her former captain the coded message that sets the whole plot in motion, their shared 'will they/won't they?' romantic history means he was always likely to come running – even if it means breaking a few rules to make it so.
For all that the show embraces its TNG veterans as box office, however, it doesn't neglect less established members of the cast such as Picard's Raffi Musiker or the USS Titan's prickly new captain (played by Todd Stashwick). It's instantly apparent that Crusher's sidekick (played by Ed Speleers) is much more than some random hot-headed young medic, while Amanda Plummer (whose father, Christopher, memorably let slip the dogs of war as General Kang in The Undiscovered Country) is lots of fun as cigar-chomping, scenery-chewing Big Bad Vadic.
And the stakes are so much higher than the question of whether Picard and Crusher ever got together back in the day, as the doctor's X-Filesy "trust no one" warning proves to be to be right on the money. Picard and allies from various incarnations of Trek gradually piece together a conspiracy of potentially Federation-toppling proportions, a threat that could have genuine significance to the franchise.
That said, whether or not you have prior knowledge of Treks-past is mostly irrelevant. In common with The Wrath Of Khan and First Contact, Picard season 3 is one of those rare outings that has a chance (albeit a flimsy one) of appealing to non-fans. Indeed, where Trekkers will love an epic nebula-set space battle that wears its Wrath Of Khan influences proudly on its sleeve, everyone else can revel in the opportunity to watch starships carrying out manoeuvres the like of which Federation has never seen before. Khan's famously two-dimensional thinking wouldn't stand a chance.
The six episodes we've seen so far effectively condense the entire Trek mission statement – including a quick detour to seek out new lifeforms – into a gripping saga that keeps its action, plot reveals and nostalgia in perfect balance. Admittedly, previous seasons of Star Trek: Picard have lost their way around the halfway point, so a crash landing isn't out of the question. But on early form the Next Generation's (as far as we know) final voyage is on course to be up there with their very best – it could even become the greatest season of Star Trek ever.
Star Trek: Picard season 3 debuts on Paramount Plus in the US on Thursday February 16, and comes to Prime Video on February 17 in the UK.
