Star Trek: Picard Turned Into a Disney Children Show & Ikea Chairs

This is my 4th and final article covering the new Star Trek: Picard series on CBS All Access. I don’t envy the writers or the producers for taking on a new Trek with a key legacy character. This new show was bound to create an avalanche of opinions from new and diehard fans alike and unfortunately they are mostly negative. I actually enjoyed earlier episodes and shared my thoughts in my previous articles found here.

Now that the first season is over and almost all the plot mysteries have been revealed, I walk away feeling totally under whelmed, especially by the season finale.

Trek is not owned by Disney (yet), but it might as well be a Disney franchise now with their Aladdin’s magic lamp solution to all problems and android bodies that wouldn’t impress a 3-year-old, let alone the seemingly 6-year-old demographics that the finale is targeting. How did this series flip from grittier, more realistic themes in the first 8 episodes to a Disney show in the 2-part finale?

George Lucas has mentioned that he created and targeted the Star Wars universe for 12-year-olds. Which makes sense, since it uses time-honored children story themes of a princess in distress and a band of colorful characters coming to her rescue against a Jafar-like key villain. Star Wars always belonged to the Disney universe because it’s a children story. However, Disney managed to lower the target audience even further, down to 6 years of age, with their latest releases of this franchise.

Trek is Now a Children Story

Trek is now a Disney show too. Every problem is now magically fixed with a wish and a prayer and rubbing of the (strangely Middle-Eastern looking) magical lamp. You just died? No problem. We simply copy and paste your mental output into an artificial body that looks exactly like you, is as old as you, is as weak as you, is as slow as you, still needs to eat, drink and sleep and is going to die in just a little while anyway. Wow! When did Star Trek get so stupid? My bad, I am not the target audience, since my 6th birthday passed a long time ago.

Too Many Inconsistencies & Ikea Chairs

There is no continuity of core story lines here. You can get away with a lot of fluff in other sci-fi shows, but Star Trek has always held a very special, premium, well throughout, science-based themes. In this show one android can beat 15 trained assassins, but the other ones can’t even defend themselves against 1 person? A simple ocular puncture leads to the termination of these androids? Data used to take on bullets. Dahj (Soji’s sister) jumped 40 feet in the air and was faster than phasers. Why are they using Ikea office chairs 400 years in the future… I can go on with so many other inconsistencies, but why bother. Trek has turned into just another silly TV show.

The worst part of this whole Season 1 was the final scene (the send off) of an overcrowded small transport vessel with a bunch of suddenly happy and peppy characters. How did this 100% emotionally tormented crew, which symbolized the reality of our collective struggles for growth and survival on this planet, become so dazed? Ah, Aladdin’s magic lamp of course. That’s one impressive little device; it not only fixes space ships with a wish and a rub but also injects happy pills into humans and androids alike.

Jonathan Frakes: Mr. Star Trek

Just to wrap this final article on a positive note, Jonathan Frakes is now Mr. Star Trek. It was great to finally see a human with some cojones on this show. Even though his speech was almost a copy of Clint Eastwood’s memorable quote in Dirt Harry (1971).

Dirty Harry: “Being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and would blow your head clean off, you’ve gotta ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?”

Captain Riker: “Right now I’m on the bridge of the toughest, fastest and most powerful ship Starfleet has ever put into service. Nothing would make me happier than you giving me an excuse to kick your treacherous Tal Shiar ass. Instead I’m going to ask you one time. Stand down!”

Be safe everyone. We’re in for a long haul on the current pandemic. Stay courageous!

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