Recap / Star Trek: Picard S3E01 "The Next Generation"

IN THE 25TH CENTURY...

We open on the SS Eleos XII, where Captain Beverly Crusher tries to get her crippled ship moving before someone, someone she's expecting, comes back. She shuts the only other occupant of the ship into some sort of cryopod (against his protests) before grabbing a phaser rifle and defending the ship against boarders — successfully, though she's wounded in the process. She then sends an encrypted message to one Admiral Jean-Luc Picard before her ship finally escapes her pursuers.

Back on Earth, it's the year 2401. Picard and Laris have settled in together and are preparing to retire to Chaltok IV, where Laris will consult on security and Picard will sip Saurian brandy on the beach. It's clear Picard is getting ready to move on with his life, amongst other things having a gorgeous painting of the Enterprise-D crated up and sent over to Commodore Geordi La Forge, who runs the Fleet Museum. However, he is interrupted when his combadge — the old one with the oval background, the one he wore for the seven years of Star Trek: The Next Generation — chirps. It's Beverly's encrypted message.

Admiral Picard. I'm encoding this transmission with coordinates. Listen to me very carefully: Hellbird. Repeat, Hellbird. And Jean-Luc? No Starfleet. Trust no one.

Laris — who Picard apparently showed the transmission to, despite Crusher's warnings — identifies that Beverly is injured and terrified, and needs help. Picard isn't sure why Crusher is reaching out now; shortly after the mission to Romulus (TNG: Star Trek: Nemesis), she unexpectedly cut ties with the Enterprise crew. So Picard reaches out — despite Crusher's warnings — to Captain William Riker, who has returned to Earth in preparation for "Frontier Day"^note the 250th anniversary of the launch of the NX-01 where both he and Picard will give speeches. Picard doesn't catch the "Hellbird" reference, and Riker explains that he wouldn't: it was a computer virus that infected the Enterprise while Locutus of Borg was around. It functioned by simply adding "3" to every integer it could find. By applying the same strategy to Beverly's coordinates, they identify her as being in the Ryton System, just outside Federation space. Picard declares that they can't hire a private ship to go do this errand (apparently forgetting how he did precisely that about two seasons ago when he first met Dahj Asha), so Riker comes up with a better idea: a Surprise Inspection Ruse aboard the USS Titan, NCC-80102-A, which Adm. Picard and Capt. Riker will re-route to the Ryton System. The captain, Liam Shaw, is a bit of a stick-in-the-mud, but the Titan's first officer, Seven of Nine, now going by her birth name of Cmdr. Annika Hansen, is more amenable. So is the helmsman, one Ensign Sidney La Forge, recently graduated from Starfleet Academy — a pilot, like her father was before he became Mr. Fixit.

On the planet M'Talas Prime, a hooded woman meets with an Orion. She claims to be a drug addict and that she's been drummed out of Starfleet and that her girlfriend left her. It's Raffi Musiker. She hopes that if she brings Starfleet intel — say, about a recently-stolen bit of Phlebotinum that creates quantum tunnels and can be used as a weapon — they'll take her back in. The Orion claims that she needs to look out for the Red Lady, and that this is all he knows. Walking away, Cmdr. Raffaela Musiker, Starfleet Intelligence, requests a debriefing.

Captain Shaw point-blank refuses to have his ship commandeered, pointing out that Riker doesn't outrank him and Picard is retired. He's much more of a Rules Lawyer than some other captains have been, and certainly enough of one that he isn't interested in turning his ship around and sending it the same distance the other way, no matter who tells him to do so. However, Seven has already heard the confrontation and is ready to stand by her friends. The Titan-A arrives at the Ryton System, and exactly four minutes later, the ensign guarding Shuttlebay 3 is called away on an "urgent request." Picard and Riker fly out into the nebula, while Seven is dressed down by Shaw.

Aboard La Sirena, Raffi tears herself away from holo-recordings of her granddaughter and begs Starfleet Intelligence for a debrief. She only gets text messages (read by the computer) in response. She is frustrated, nearly demoralized, after literally months of undercover work in regards the missing Quantum Tunnel Phlebotinum, but whoever is sending her the text messages reminds her to buck up and engage her warrior spirit. (This does the trick.) Raffi is unable to identify who the Red Lady might be until she starts thinking outside the box: it turns out to be a bold red statue, commemorating Capt. Rachel Garrett (TNG: "Yesterday's Enterprise"), which will be dedicated on Frontier Day. Raffi brings La Sirena back to Earth, hailing Starfleet at every opportunity. But it's too late: the Quantum Tunnel Phlebotinum re-enacts a scene from the video game Portal by dropping the entire building, Red Lady statue included, into a portal and out of another portal... which happens to be hundreds of feet in the air. It may be the 25th century, but buildings still don't survive that kind of shit. Raffi is too late.

Picard's shuttle docks with the Eleos, which has Crusher's lifesigns aboard. They find forensic evidence of Crusher's firefight with the two mooks, and find the woman herself in cryostasis, injured... or, at least, Picard does, because Riker has been taken prisoner. It's the other person, the one Crusher sealed in the cryopod, and the one who sealed her into it. He's played by Ed Speleers, who has joined Stewart, Ryan and Hurd in the opening credits. He claims to be Crusher's son. He also gripes that Picard and Riker led "them" here: mother-and-son Crusher have been on the run from them for a while now. To explain who he means, he simply turns on the viewscreen, and a giant crescent-shaped ship storms out of the nebula, headed for the Eleos.

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Tropes:

• Actually Pretty Funny: After Shaw intentionally assigns Junior Quarters to his VIP Guests, Picard is understandably left feeling humiliated and fuming at Shaw's pettiness. Riker by contrast is kinda amused, likening their living situation to his Academy days.
• Art Evolution: Earth Spacedock makes its grand return to Trek 32 years after its last appearance in The Undiscovered Country (and barring a cameo of it under early construction during Discovery). ILM's David Carson and Nilo Rodis's original exterior/interior design's kept intact, but it's also been modified with additional structures in the 110 years since the Enterprise-A's last voyage.
• As You Know:
  • The computer explains to Picard what a codec is. He annoyedly interrupts it.
  • Riker explains to Picard what Frontier Day is, despite Picard likewise giving a speech on that day.
• Action Prologue: Beverly fighting what appear to be pirates who board her ship, the Eleos.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: Beverly's encrypted communication routes directly to an Enterprise-D commbadge from the time Picard was assimilated by the Borg. This helps Picard figure out who might have sent it and how to decode it, and also serves as a clue for Riker to decode the coordinates sent with Beverly's message.
• Call-Back: Doubles as a Call-Forward to the Voyager-J in Star Trek: Discovery, but Raffi's view screen makes mention of a Voyager-B, with a Voyager-A having been confirmed to exist on Star Trek: Prodigy just a month prior to this episode.
• Canon Immigrant: Displays show off four new ships, all hailing from Star Trek Online. They are the Enterprise-F, an Odyssey-class; the Voyager-B, a Pathfinder-class; the Pioneer, a Pioneer-class; and an Elachi Qulash-class, the latter confirmed to be from the Elachi themselves in an Instagram post.
• Captain Crash: Geordi LaForge's daughter Sidney acquired the nickname Crash LaForge for crashing two different shuttlecraft during her time at Starfleet Academy.
• Central Theme: The passing of torches. Two of the crew — La Forge and Crusher — are shown to have added children to the Enterprise family (and Kestra Troi-Riker is mentioned offhand). Additionally, we see the Titan-A, and there are offhand references to Voyager-B and Enterprise-F. It is clear that the next generation of Starfleet is here.
• Combat Medic: Beverly's opening scene has her battling attackers who have boarded her ship, and killing them all. Picard and Riker, surveying the scene later, observe that this is something she would only do defensively.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Beverly has Picard's captain's log from "The Best of Both Worlds" playing in the opening scene.
  • Captain Shaw hardly bothers to hide his contempt for Picard for being an ex-Borg. Unlike Captain Sisko from DS9, he hasn't moved on from it.
  • The target for the attack is a newly-dedicated statue of the late Enterprise-C captain Rachel Garrett.
  • Sidney was mentioned as one of Geordi's children in the future timeframe seen in "All Good Things...".
  • When Picard and Riker are shuttling themselves to the Titan, one of the background ships is California-class.
• Court-martialed: This is part of why Picard's not sold on Riker's ruse. If they get caught, they'll both likely be facing a court martial. While Picard's retired, Riker's still an active duty officer. So, Picard's worried their ruse could instead end up costing Will everything he's worked for.
• Dented Iron: Downplayed, but before they board the Eleos, both Picard and Riker know they're too damm old and in no shape to be leading a boarding party or getting into hostile action. As Riker lampshades:
  Riker: Your hands are stiff, my knees are killing me. As long as we don't have to move or shoot, we should be fine.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Shaw forcing Seven to go by her former name “Annika Hansen” is obviously leaning on the concept of "deadnaming" and the allegory of transphobic prejudice.
• Dramatic Gun Cock: Beverly's phaser rifle works more like a phaser shotgun, needing to be cocked between shots. This helps punctuate the ensuing firefight with the boarders.
• Drink-Based Characterization: Discussed when Shaw figures on Riker being a bourbon drinker based on his love for jazz; it speaks to his "freewheeling, loosey-goosey, Kentucky mash kind of style". Shaw himself prefers Malbec, which goes with his preference for quiet classical music and a by-the-book, orderly command style.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?:
  • Riker is mildly offended when he sees that miniature models of the Enterprise-D are barely selling, with the seller telling him "The fat ones? Nobody wants those."
    Riker: (to Picard) You hear that, Jean-Luc? "No one wants the fat ones." (to bartender) That's "Galaxy-Class" to you, young lady.
  • Picard and Riker try reminding Shaw of their respective ranks, which Shaw dismisses quite tersely.
    Shaw: I have kept this train running for five years, 36 missions. You don't get where you're told to go by standing in front of it and then moving the track.
    Picard: Respectfully, Captain, I am an admiral.
    Shaw: Retired. Congrats on that.
    Riker: But I'm still a captain.
    Shaw: Without a chair. Titan's mine now. I'm really sorry, fellas. I love you, I do. I love reading about all your wildly exciting and equally irresponsible adventures, but I have orders that come down from actual officers whose pay grade are far above all of ours, so... request denied.
  • Picard is further annoyed that Shaw put them in a cabin for lower deckers instead of staterooms worthy of high-ranking officers. Riker, irreverent as ever, finds it a mildly amusing reminder of his academy days.
    Picard: This is utterly humiliating.
    Riker: Yes, it is. Reminds me of my cadet days, only I don't remember having to get up to pee this much.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Raffi searches in vain for something with the title "Red Lady", believing them to be either the buyer or seller for the weapon, until she realizes it actually refers to the target, a red statue in front of a recruitment center being dedicated on Frontier Day to the late Captain Rachel Garrett of the Enterprise-C.
• Evolving Credits:
  • As with all Star Trek shows that debuted or returned after the premiere of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Picard gets its own variation on the Star Trek bumper with the Titan-A making the Starfleet Delta and the apparent villain's ship lurking in the clouds.
  • Rather than a slight update to the season one and season two credits, which was a Design Student's Orgasm collage of relevant images, it's a more straightforward show title card and fanfare before zooming into a starscape backdrop with the episode title lasting only 20 seconds.
  • The end credits don't use a variation of the season 1 theme; instead, it's Jerry Goldsmith's score from Star Trek: First Contact. It is also close-ups of numerous LCARS computer displays, with every image providing some level of Foreshadowing to the events of the season (such as specific shield damage to the Titan-A).
• Fantastic Racism: Captain Shaw makes his disdain for ex-Borg abundantly clear.
• Feeling Their Age: As Riker observes neither him or Picard are as fighting fit as they once were.
  Riker: Your hands are stiff, my knees are killing me. As long as we don't have to move or shoot, we should be fine.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: The opening montage aboard the Eleos shows a toolbox (or something of similar size) belonging to one Lt. Cmdr. Jack Crusher, hinting at the owner of the vessel.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • The opening credits show that the contents of the Federation's museum include U.S.S. Voyager. The graphic also reveals that the Enterprise-A and Excelsior are also part of the collection, thus answering what happened to them after Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
  • As Raffi runs keyword searches to try and figure out what the Red Lady is, there's a brief shot of an open browser window showing the USS Voyager, NCC-74656-B, which is to be commissioned on Frontier Day. (Given Admiral Janeway's red hair, this is a logical outcome of a Wiki Walk.) There's also a second browser window showing the NCC-1701-F, which will be decommissioned the same day.
  • When Raffi's handler pulls up her Starfleet profile, among one of the items listed is a commendation for her actions in season one.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The identity of Raffi's handler is not established until the end of the next episode, but a number of observant fans were able to determine it solely by the contents of their text messages.
  • Picard tells Seven of Nine that she will be captain before she knows it.
    • Similarly, Seven mentions in passing that newer model Starfleet ships systems are now automated. This will become very important to the Season's overarching narrative.
  • Jack has a British accent while Beverly doesn't.
• Helpless Window Death: Raffi arrives at the Starfleet recruitment center just too late to warn them of the impending quantum tunneling attack and watches on her viewscreen as the attack devastates the recruitment center and the surrounding city.
• Hyperspeed Escape: The Eleos barely warps away from the first set of attackers.
• Impeded Communication: Raffi tries to warn of the impending attack on the recruitment center, but the only thing she gets back is static, suggesting comms were jammed moments before the attack.
• Imposter Forgot One Detail: Picard and Riker board the Titan-A under the pretext of a "surprise inspection trip" just before "Frontier Day". But Shaw immediately smells a rat when Picard offhandedly says that after a brief detour, they can stop at Deep Space Four, unaware that station has been shut down for a year. Seven tries to cover for him, but it's clear Shaw isn't inclined to humor them even if he believed their cover story.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Even if Shaw is kind of a dick, he is right that Picard and Riker are trying to deceive him and use his ship for something unauthorized by Starfleet. He's also technically right to be pissed at Seven for disobeying orders.
• Malevolent Masked Men: Beverly's ship is boarded by masked assailants who chitter as a form of communication and shoot on sight. Her son notes that the masks are always different whenever they show up.
• Mama Bear: Beverly coldly executes the second boarder after managing to knock them down, in order to keep her son safe.
• Mildly Military: Attacked head on by Captain Shaw, who sees through the games Picard and Riker are pulling. He goes so far as to call them relics of a less disciplined time, which is a fairly massive Character Exaggeration on the part of Shaw given they are two of the most decorated Starfleet officers of that era (Kirk and Archer were also considered wild cards, but they are also from literally centuries in the past). When Picard and Riker try pulling rank Shaw points out Picard is officially retired and Riker is not on active duty, and thus have no authority over Shaw on his ship. It's an especially unusual example of a younger officer berating living legends of not doing things by the book.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The episode opens with a title card that says "In the 25th century...", a homage to how Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan opened with "In the 23rd century..."
  • The departure of the Titan also homages TWOK with a famed admiral and former Enterprise captain coming aboard for an inspection to the sound of a boatswain's whistle, and much of the departure dialogue is similar to TWOK. It also homages Star Trek: The Motion Picture with the music similar to Jerry Goldsmith's score.
  • It's mentioned that this is the 250th Frontier Day. 250 years earlier was when the NX-01 left spacedock for its first mission. Writer Terry Matalas confirmed in an interview that this was a deliberate reference.
• Nobody Poops: Averted as Riker notes to Picard that he has to pee a lot more often at night than he did as a cadet.
• Noodle Incident: Riker mentions an incident on Rigel VI when they thought their comms had been compromised.
• Obsolete Mentor: Picard and Riker are treated like this by Captain Shaw who represents Starfleet's general attitude towards them in the current time period: They're both seen as tiresome old farts without any real influence anymore who should be politely shoved out of the way when they start to make some noise.
• Off-the-Shelf FX: The little Galaxy-class collectibles in Ten-Forward were made first by Eaglemoss Collections, and then Master Replicas after Eaglemoss went bankrupt. Acquisitive viewers could get their own copy of "the fat one" on Amazon or eBay right now.
• Off the Wagon: Name-dropped by Raffi as she is trying to talk an Orion into giving her intel, making him believe she's trying to buy her way back into Starfleet. It's not actually true, but she is tempted, a fact she brings up with her handler in a post-mission brief.
• Patrick Stewart Speech: Played with in that while Picard doesn't actually give one this episode, he has been booked to give a speech at the upcoming Frontier Day ceremony.
  Riker: Who wants to hear some old fart drone on about "going boldly" for the last 250 years?
  Picard: I'm giving a speech too.
  Riker: And that's going to be great.
• Permission to Speak Freely: When Seven gets exasperated with Riker and Picard and demands to know what's going on.
  Seven: Permission to speak freely, sir.
  Picard: Go ahead.
  Seven: You're gonna tell me what the hell you two are really doing here or I'm about to throw both of you out an airlock and never look back.
  Riker: Watch it, Commander! That how you speak to an admiral?
  Seven: That's how I speak to a friend.
• Properly Paranoid: Beverly not only sends an encoded message to Picard on a device only he has, she changes the coordinates in the message in such a way that only someone personally familiar with their time on the Enterprise would be able to figure out. She's right to worry, as even with all that preparation, Picard and Riker are still followed to her location.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: Of course Shaw is right not to allow a retired admiral who showed up unexpectedly and is outside his chain of command to redirect his ship to a random location for sketchily-justified reasons, as many episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation have demonstrated. It's only because the sketchy admiral is Picard (who has a damn good reason that he's not sharing) and Shaw is such a jerkass that this decision seems objectionable.
• Remember the New Holiday: Frontier Day is a Federation holiday on the same level as First Contact Day, and honoring the birth of Starfleet and the maiden voyage of Jonathan Archer's Enterprise NX-01 — yet it's never been mentioned before now. On a Meta level, this is because Archer's voyages and the importance of the NX-01 to the pre-Federation backstory wasn't conceived until long after the TOS and TNG eras.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: As the computer in his home is meant to work almost literally, Picard has to shut it up at times once he discovers that his old Enterprise-D badge is being activated.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Seven diverts the ship when Picard tells her the real reason he and Riker came, and then arranges for a security lapse so they can go and find Beverly's ship using a shuttlecraft.
• Shoot the Medic First: The mooks boarding the Eleos, knowingly or not, attempt to pull this on Beverly among the TNG cast. They were Underestimating Badassery, however, as they soon end up receiving a Mook Horror Show instead.
• Surprise Inspection Ruse: Picard and Riker bluff their way onto the Titan-A under the guise of an inspection, hoping to trick Shaw into diverting the ship to the Ryton system. He doesn't go for it, because he's a stickler for orders and has a personal disdain for Picard for being ex-Borg. Picard doesn't help matters by being unfamiliar with current affairs in Starfleet, namely that Deep Space Four was decommissioned last year.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: After showing up unexpectedly at a ship captained by a known by-the-book stickler, waltzing on board for an unscheduled Bavarian Fire Drill, and trying to wheedle him into ignoring his current assignment and ferrying them outside the Federation, while being obviously disingenuous about their real intentions, Admiral (ret'd) Picard and Captain Riker appear astounded when Shaw correctly points out that neither of them can order him to do anything and refuses their request to put his ship at their disposal.
• Thinking Up Portals: The quantum tunneling device is able to generate circular portals between two locations.
• Took a Level in Badass: Beverly in the interim since Nemesis, as demonstrated in the Action Prologue, which now shows her willing (and more than able) to wield a phaser rifle in defense of her son and shipmates. Granted, she was an active combatant in Insurrection as well against the Son'a attack on the Ba'ku, but here she takes her Mama Bear tendencies up to Janeway levels.
• Weaponized Teleportation: A portal is opened at ground level around the Starfleet recruitment center in District Seven, causing the entire structure to fall through now empty space and out the other end, which is above the city about a mile away.
• We Used to Be Friends: Beverly has been estranged from her Enterprise-D/E colleagues in the more than two decades since Nemesis. According to Riker, it was one-sided as she suddenly and inexplicably cut all of them out of her life — although in her and Picard's case, it was a failed attempt to deal with their Unresolved Sexual Tension.
• Wham Line: "I'm [Beverly's] son."
• Whatever Happened to the Mouse?:
  • As detailed under Freeze-Frame Bonus, the Athan Prime Fleet Museum graphic finally answers what's become of the U.S.S. Voyager in the twenty-plus years since it returned home from the Delta Quadrant: it's been retired and is now part of the Fleet Museum^note as opposed to the alternate future seen in "Endgame", where Voyager became a museum on the grounds of the Presidio in San Francisco. Similarly, the presence of the Enterprise-A and Excelsior on that graphic also finally answers what happened to both ships following Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
  • The existence of the Enterprise-F also begs the question of what happened to the Sovereign class E, who was confirmed to have survived her Prodigy cameo's near destruction, only to be taken out of service in 2386 to make room for the F.^note Later episodes keep her fate ambiguous, though the crew blames Worf for what happened to the E.
  • Likewise, there's the fate of the Voyager-A, given that the Voyager-B is up and running by this time, and the original Titan.^note According to the show's Instagram, the Luna class Titan was heavily damaged in 2398 and retired, with some of her components going to her successor.
• Wretched Hive: What is shown of M'Talas Prime suggests that it's a haven for drug dealers and users.

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