Some thoughts about Star Trek: Picard, now we’re 3 episodes deep. Past iterations of Star Trek have taken as their baseline an assumption that humanity has evolved past its present troubles. We’re kinder, wiser, and more ideal as a whole. The Federation embodies that.
Trek therefore most often used aliens as the mirror of real-world issues. This served a dual purpose of allowing a narrative distance to couch the blows as we grapple with tough issues, while also holding up an ideal possible future for humanity.
That’s not to say every situation had an ideal resolution. But Trek always made you feel that humanity and its coalition was collectively striving for it, and if it wasn’t quite possible, it was only just out of reach.
Star Trek: Picard departs from this, showing humans to be as flawed as ever and revealing cracks in the Federation’s piety. Our heroes must buck the system and work outside it, stepping up because the system has failed to live up to its promise.
I think it’s clear the Federation is still a good organization with good people in it. But it also has flaws, because people are flawed. Humanity isn’t as evolved as it thought it was.
The message has changed. It’s not so much a story about how Someday in the Beautiful Future we will have everything all figured out. It’s a story about how good people need to do what’s right even when the system fails, even when it’s corrupted and works against them.
Kirk bucked the system many times. Picard wrestled with conflicting moral goods. DS9 explored war and a darker side to Starfleet. In Voyager we saw officers drop their values in crisis. But Picard is the first to drop Starfleet as its organizing premise altogether.
I’m not sure how I feel about this motley crew. I like Starfleet, genuinely. But it’s reasonable that this is the story being told now, in this moment. Trek reflects us; it always has. And for many right now, this doesn’t feel like a moment of hope, but of struggle.
Right now, this Star Trek reflects a need for renegade heroes, disillusioned with their government, standing up and fighting for what they believe in. Not fighting to overthrow Starfleet, but to do right despite its inaction, indifference, and infiltration.
And I think that focus on doing right and making a difference in spite of the system is still hopeful. It’s a different message from Trek’s previous iterations, but whether or not the shift was a conscious decision by the show runners, it’s a timely one.
