Picard Season 2 Mocks Its Own Star Trek Nostalgia Obsession
A central theme at the heart of Star Trek: Picard season 2, episode 8 makes for a pretty insightful commentary on the spinoff's nostalgia. The past 5 years have seen a rapid expansion of the Star Trek franchise. On one side stand new and progressive projects such as Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Prodigy; on the other, more nostalgic ventures like Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. The bold newness of the former allows the latter to be more indulgent in celebrating the past. Whether or not Star Trek: Picard's fondness for yesteryear is a drawback or a strength is a matter of personal taste… but there's no denying Jean-Luc gets wistful more often than a Journey tribute band.
In Star Trek: Picard season 2's «Mercy,» Jean-Luc and Guinan are enduring a tiresome FBI interrogation when Q suddenly emerges, fashionably late for his El-Aurian summoning. Rarely does Q need an excuse to verbally belittle mankind and, sure enough, he quips, "Humans… they're all trapped in the past." Jean-Luc and Guinan use this pearl of wisdom to understand why Agent Wells is so obsessed with proving aliens exist, realizing he encountered Vulcans as a child.
Related: Picard: It Doesn't Matter If Q's Jean-Luc Plan Works (He's Still Dying)
In the context of Star Trek: Picard, humans being «trapped in the past» references how childhood traumas define a person in adulthood, whether that be Picard's parental baggage, or Wells' close encounter with Vulcankind. Alas, Q's quote can't help but avoid taking on a more meta meaning. This is, after all, Star Trek: PICARD, starring a popular character from the 1990s, in a storyline that's shamelessly riffing on 1986's Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. «Trapped in the past» is kind of
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