Star Trek: Picard – All 3 Seasons Ranked Worst To Best

Summary

• Star Trek: Picard initially faced mixed reactions from audiences, much like Star Trek: Discovery did upon its debut.
• The show found its footing in its final season, delivering a brilliant and emotionally resonant farewell to Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the USS Enterprise-D.
• Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard had potential but lost its way, with a plot that became convoluted and suffered from inherent flaws that could have been fixed for a tighter season.

Star Trek: Picard told the post-Star Trek: The Next Generation story of Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) in three seasons that fluctuate creatively and in audience reaction. After Star Trek: Discovery was met with a decidedly polarizing reception, Paramount must have breathed a sigh of relief when Patrick Stewart agreed to reprise his role of Jean-Luc Picard from the still extremely popular Star Trek: The Next Generation. No one was particularly happy with Star Trek Nemesis, the final film featuring the TNG cast, so a Picard series seemed like a prime opportunity to set things right.

And yet Star Trek: Picard was nearly as divisive as Star Trek: Discovery when it debuted. Now retired to his family vineyard, Admiral Jean-Luc Picard found himself isolated and depressed. Picard’s old crew from the USS Enterprise-D were (mostly) nowhere to be found, replaced by a decidedly more neurotic, ragtag freighter crew. Picard didn’t set out to be a straight Star Trek: The Next Generation reunion, but the ways in which Star Trek: Picard differed from TNG could sometimes be jarring. And yet the show found its footing by the end, leaning on the strengths of Jean-Luc Picard and his world to deliver one final, brilliant story. Here’s how Star Trek: Picard‘s 3 seasons stack up.

3 Star Trek: Picard Season 2 (2022)

Showrunners: Akiva Goldsman and Terry Matalas

Star Trek: Picard season 2 had so much potential. It begins with two great episodes, with its season premiere, “The Star Gazer,” serving as one of the stronger hours of Star Trek television in years. It even brought back Picard’s old nemesis, the omnipotent trickster Q (John de Lancie), still as menacing and compelling as he was in Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s first episode, “Encounter At Farpoint.” But once Picard and friends travel back to the 21st century to reset the timeline, Star Trek: Picard season 2’s plot loses its way.

Some of this was unavoidable. Star Trek: Picard season 2 was shot at the height of the pandemic; building and filming on new indoor sets at the time was tricky, which is why so much of the season features Picard aimlessly walking around modern-day Los Angeles. Even keeping the grim reality of the world at that time in mind, Picard season 2 had inherent flaws that could have been fixed to create a tighter season. Q’s overall plot to ultimately help Picard face his childhood traumas by changing the timeline into a fascist alternate reality defies logic and a straightforward explanation.

Further, the subplot about Jean-Luc’s suicidal mother, Yvette Picard (Madeline Wise), never quite lands with the impact it should; it feels ported in from another show entirely. The more Star Trek: Picard examined Jean-Luc’s psyche, the less it seemed to understand the character. That said, the season isn’t a total loss, as Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill) gets a surprisingly dark, fascinating story to play out with an alternate reality Borg Queen (Annie Wersching). It just feels like Star Trek:Picard season 2 ran out of story to tell before it got to the finish line.

2 Star Trek: Picard Season 1 (2020)

Showrunner: Michael Chabon

Getting the negative out of the way first, almost nothing that happens on the Borg cube known as the Artifact in Star Trek: Picard season 1’s first half-dozen episodes matters. While killing off Dahj Asha (Isa Briones) in Picard‘s series premiere was a bold, shocking move, it essentially served to hit the reset button on the story for Soji Asha (Isa Briones), Dahj’s synthetic twin aboard the Artifact, for the majority of Picard season 1. Briones does what she can with the material, but a convoluted Romulan mythology about fearing synthetics and an underwhelming reveal of an extra-galactic villain create a dud ending after a season-long build-up.

Star Trek: Picard season 1’s issues with death and violence are fairly well-documented, particularly the torture scene in “Stardust City Rag.” Beloved Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager characters like Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco) and Icheb (Casey King) meet violent ends that sometimes feel exploitative. Much like Star Trek: Discovery before it, Picard simply misjudged the level of violence and cynicism most viewers were looking for in a Star Trek series.

And yet Patrick Stewart had never been better than he was in Star Trek: Picard season 1. Stewart embodies the wounded, grieving Picard heartbreakingly, as a man who clearly knows he’s made mistakes in his life but doesn’t know if he has the power to fix them so late in his life. There are other things to like about Star Trek: Picard season 1, like Santiago Cabrera’s delightful scoundrel Captain Cristobal Rios, but the main event here is one of the greatest actors of his generation proving he still has his fastball.

1 Star Trek: Picard Season 3 (2023)

Showrunner: Terry Matalas

Once he was named showrunner of Star Trek: Picard season 3, Terry Matalas was determined to give the beloved characters of Star Trek: The Next Generation the proper sendoff they never got on the big screen. Matalas pulled that off and then some. The entire Star Trek: The Next Generation cast returned for the final season of Picard, reuniting to take on a sprawling conspiracy that threatens Starfleet at the highest levels.

Patrick Stewart is still in fine form, giving some of his rawest performances as he deals with the revelation of his newfound son Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers), whose mother, Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), emerges as smarter and tougher than TNG allowed her to be. The real treat of the season, however, is the entire returning TNG cast. Jonathan Frakes has simply never been better as an older, funnier, more world-weary Captain Will Riker, while the newly pacifist Captain Worf (Michael Dorn) seemingly got nothing but classic one-liners to deliver all season. LeVar Burton and Brent Spiner have slightly more limited roles, but they deliver tear-jerking performances during the show’s final stretch as Commodore Geordi La Forge and the resurrected, more human-like Data.

Star Trek: Picard season 3 managed to do a few things that seemed impossible not that long ago. It gave the crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation a ten-hour movie to say a proper, satisfying, and emotionally resonant farewell. Picard season 3 wielded nostalgia not with cynicism or contempt, but with love and compassion. It also united the Star Trek fan community in a way that arguably no other Star Trek project has since the franchise’s modern television era began in 2017. Star Trek: Picard season 3 is a triumph on virtually every level, a more than fitting way to say goodbye to Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the USS Enterprise-D.

Star Trek: Picard
is available to stream on Paramount+.