Picard season 3 is becoming a finale for ’90s Trek, and might just save the show

polygon.com:

It’s hard to imagine anyone arguing against Star Trek: Picard as pitched. Patrick Stewart is inarguably the most famous actor to play a Star Trek lead, and his status as a cinematic pater familias to multiple generations is unwavering. Jean-Luc Picard is the patron saint of Star Trek, his flaws of the minor sort that only serve to make space heroes cooler space heroes: masculine isolation, trauma from that badass adventure, not liking kids. Absolutely, let’s make a show about that guy!

But after two seasons of Picard, the shine is decidedly off. Picard has followed a pattern of starting strong and fizzling explosively to nothing by story’s close so closely that it’s made an obvious final-season concept — Next Generation cast reunion! — feel like a last ditch attempt to be remembered fondly.

And yet… with this season’s third episode, “Seventeen Seconds,” Picard tips its hand about the series’ future. Picard season 3 isn’t just about remembering Admiral Jean-Luc Picard, it’s about remembering all of 1990s Trek, and it just might be the show’s saving grace.

[Ed. note: This piece contains spoilers for Picard season 3 episode 3, “Seventeen Seconds.”]

From its first season, Picard has played with elements of 1995’s Star Trek: Voyager, namely Jeri Ryan’s former Borg drone Seven of Nine; famously the only other known person to survive assimilation into the Borg collective. It was a connection Star Trek fans had speculated about for decades.

And with “Seventeen Seconds,” Picard brought back the Klingon officer Worf. Worf, after all, had a significant life as a character beyond The Next Generation, becoming more central to Star Trek canon in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine than he ever was on TNG: a major player in the Federation’s