“A safe galaxy is a human galaxy. A galaxy without rights for the foreigner, for the extraterrestrial, therefore. Thus declaims and repeats, on video and in hologram, General Jean-Luc Picard, on this day of the Eradication when, under the eye of a president with a familiar look, the enemies of the Confederation are exterminated.
The followers of the megafranchise star trek will of course note several aberrations in these few lines. The words of the person embodied by Sir Patrick Stewart for 35 years. The addition of a prefix in front of the inclusive “Federation” imagined in 1966 by Gene Roddenberry.
It is however the reality in which is parachuted that which directed theCompany in the seven seasons of StarTrek. The new generation (1987 to 1994) and the four feature films produced between 1994 and 2002. And which returned to service two years ago in StarTrek. picardwhose first episode of the second season will be available Thursday, in French and in English, on Crave.
A season that, like the previous one and like the next one (already shot), stands alone, exploring a completely new story. But, we suspect, being familiar with the different tone and rhythm (slower, darker, more focused on personal quests) and knowing the new characters present are big pluses to fully appreciate this new adventure. Especially since the said characters, all outcasts, outcasts, free and strong spirits, reveal themselves here more and gain in texture.
Basically, they are Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill), a bumbling and brilliant scientist; Elnor (Evan Evagora), both fearsome warrior and candid young Romulan who has put himself body and soul in the service of Picard; Cristobal Rios (Santiago Cabrera), a fallen first officer who seems above his business, but whose heart is in the right place; Raffaella Musiker (Michelle Hurd), too rebellious not to be outcast from Starfleet, but too resourceful not to be an asset, and who is now in a relationship with many a fan favorite, Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), whose tragic fate as a little girl assimilated by the Borg had been revealed in StarTrek. To travel.
Q puts it back
They are joined, as in the first season, by characters from past series who appear or settle in: the mysterious Guinan, played by Whoopi Goldberg; the Borg Queen, who once assimilated Picard, now played by Annie Wersching; and the almighty Q (John de Lancie). He is the one through whom everything happens.
He has indeed downright demolished the timeline in order to put Jean-Luc Picard to the test. An obsession he has nurtured since the inaugural episode of StarTrek. The new generation. This time, he amused himself by moving pawns (human beings, what) on the chessboard of the galaxy, so that the (Con)Federation becomes a totalitarian entity in the eyes of which all non-human life is n has no value. A society bearing an (intended) resemblance to the Nazi regime. Or with the mirror universe explored a few times in the original series and, currently, in StarTrek. Discovery.
In short, to “repair the past in order to save the present”, Picard and company must find/protect/rescue a lookout (watcher) of which they know absolutely nothing (the spectators either, after three episodes), except that it is in Los Angeles, in 2024.
Impossible, here, not to think of the fourth feature film of the franchise, Back to earth (VF of The Travel Home), by Leonard Nimoy, where the crew of theCompany traveled to San Francisco in 1986 to retrieve a specimen of a long-extinct species, a humpback whale, which would allow them to save the galaxy. Said like that, yes, it sounds funny. Let’s just say the movie wasn’t particularly well received at the time. And that its ecological message has completely gone into a vacuum. It was, however, premonitory.
In addition to its optimistic vision (some would say utopian, but do we have the right to hope?) of the future, the universe star trek has another great strength: using science fiction to address themes that affect us immediately or that will soon reach us. So, doesn’t the sound of military boots advancing, to crush it, towards a nation, a culture, a people, resonate these days? In this sense, the dramatic arc of this second season of StarTrek. picarddespite its air of deja vu, is right on target with our news.