I'm going to start this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase about a TV show that I have never seen one single episode despite the fact it debuted 42 years ago and has produced 857 episodes.
We're talking about Grey's Anatomy.
The medical drama starring Ellen Pompeo as Dr.Meredith Grey hit a very significant milestone last week when Ellen Pompeo left the show.
Given the show was named after Dr. Grey (the title being a variation of Gray's Anatomy, a reference book of human anatomy written by Henry Gray and first published in 1858), it stands to reason that last week was the last episode of Grey's Anatomy.
It was not. Not only is the show going to continue but it is likely that ABC will renew the show for another season.
Grey's Anatomy is not the first show to go on after the titular lead actor left. The cult BBC sci-fi show Blake's 7 continued after the actor who played Blake left the series after 2 seasons.
But it really seems like ABC should accept reality and bring Grey's Anatomy to an end. Like I said, I don't watch the show and for I know there is enough of an audience for the show to keep it going without it's star.
Anyway, it was a side thing about TV that I thought was kind of weird.
On to the main topic.
So Star Trek Picard had a LOT to answer for.
Look, my wife Andrea is fairly easily entertained. I'm not saying she doesn't have any discriminating taste but she is willing to cut certain movies or TV shows a bit more slack and give creative types some benefit of the doubt.
When season 2 of Star Trek Picard came to an end, her reaction was "Wait a minute, that's it? We went through all that for.... that?"
When you've made Andrea question the expenditure of her time to watch your TV show, you have well and truly fucked up.
And a lot of Star Treks fans (including me among them) thought the 2nd season of Star Trek Picard was indeed well and truly fucked up.
When it was announced that season 3 was going to be the last season of Star Trek Picard, it seemed like a mercy killing.
When it was also announced that Picard would be reuniting with his old Next Gen crew, well, at least the show might go out with giving the fans what they want.
When Patrick Stewart first agreed to return as Jean-Luc Picard, he made it clear he didn't want this to be a pure nostalgia trip. Which that made sense to me. '
One of the reasons I was excited to see Star Trek Picard in the first place was to actually see Star Trek move forward. For nearly 2 decades, Star Trek was subject to various prequels and reboots and was not moving forward. Star Trek Picard was an opportunity for the franchise to move forward.
We still wanted some appeals to our sense of nostalgia and season 1 served up just enough with the guest appearances of Will Riker, Deanna Troi and Data. But season 2 seemed totally cut off from any element of Picard's legacy. Yes, we had Q back but except for a couple of brief scenes between Patrick Stewart and John DeLancie, Q was both woefully underused AND misused as a character.
OK, enough rants about the past. What about now?
Season 3 of Star Trek Picard opens up with Beverly Crusher and a young man named Jack fighting off space pirates. Well, that's a good start.
Beverly gets a coded message through to Jean-Luc with a desperate plea for help. She explicitly tells him to trust no one and do NOT involve Starfleet.
What happens next does not bode well for Star Trek Picard avoiding some of the plotting mishaps of season 2. Jean Luc immediately meets up with Will Riker where they formulate a plan to rescue Beverly by using Will's old command, the USS Titan.
What part of "trust no one and do NOT involve Starfleet" did you not understand, Jean Luc?
Well, getting to the Titan does give us a chance to reconnect with Seven who is the ship's commanding officer. Except the ship's captain insists on addressing her by her human name, Annika Hansen. (Seven has issues with that nomenclature which was covered in an episode of Voyager which explained why the person freed from the Borg wanted to be called by her Borg designation.)
And speaking of the captain....
Captain Shaw is a total dick. He's rude and petulant and dismissive and I guess we're all supposed to hate him for not capitulating to Picard and Riker asking him to switch the Titan's destination.
Except...
He is not wrong. Every objection he has to doing what Picard and Riker want him to do makes perfect sense. And when Picard and Riker do get what they want thanks to insubordination from Seven, damned if Shaw isn't proven correct as the Titan finds itself in the crosshairs of a threat that way outclasses anything on the Titan.
Speaking of which....
Amanda Plummer is on hand as Vadic, a bounty hunter with an obsession of getting her hands on Jack who is revealed to be Beverly's son. Amanda Plummer is the daughter of Christoher Plummer who was the villain in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
So if Beverly is Jack's mother, who is his father? Well, young Jack has an English accent but drops some occasional French phrases into his speech. Go on, guess?
Meanwhile, there is a subplot with the only other Picard centric character to continue from the first two seasons, Raffi. Michelle Hurd does her best with what she's given but damned if her subplot rooting out a terrorist conspiracy against Starfleet is a bit of a snooze. In episode 2, we finally get to connect her with the Next Gen crew when Worf shows up.
About damn time!
Despite some shortcomings in plot and pacing (it's taken us 2 episodes to get where we should've been in 1), season 3 of Star Trek Picard is off to a markedly better start than we saw in season 2.
There's still a lot to do. Somehow Worf and Raffie have to be connected into whatever shit Picard, Riker and Beverly are now in and we still need to bring in Deanna and Geordi. (Although we've met his daughter who is the navigator on the Titan.)
And we know Brent Spiner is coming back eventually as Lore so we've got that coming.
And Daniel Davis as holographic Moriarity? Now I can't wait to see how and why that happens!
So Star Trek Picard, you have my attention. Please do not let me down.
Next week, we've got... well, at this writing, I have no idea.
Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.
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