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Ranty Thoughts on ST: Picard, Season 2 So Far
Because our society has turned so negative, I want to open with some statements of affirmation. I'm glad to have new Star Trek. I'm happy to see Picard again and Seven, Guinan, Brent Spiner, and even Q (not a fav of mine), and I like the characters and cast of Picard. I thought the second and third episodes were quite good. Jurati is getting some good chances to shine this season. A lot of people are working very hard on this series just to give us entertainment, and it is somewhat entertaining, and that's a gift (even if we pay a bit to watch it).
All that said, I don't think it's a strong season. I want to focus on one reason why: it's not doing intelligent social science fiction (and ST has always been fundamentally social SF). This is not just a Picard issue, by the way; it's widespread in TV SF today, but I'll focus on Picard here.
(SPOILERS follow for S2 of Picard up to "Monsters" and very light spoilers for S1 and Disco)
Star Trek is premised on a sort-of utopian future, not a full-on utopia but a much-improved society with utopian leanings. It doesn't always have to be that; it's fine to explore how the Federation wavers when its values are put to the test. But ST:TNG was fairly solidly in the utopian camp, and this is where we got to know Picard. And that's one reason his new backstory doesn't make sense.
Picard is a child of from the heartland of a technologically advanced, quasi-utopian society. That doesn't mean his childhood must have been perfect; it's long been established it wasn't. (Disclaimer: I have not seen much of TNG in thirty years, so I'm sure I'm not remembering backstory and feel free to correct me.) People who recollect TNG better than me note his relationship with his father was established as prickly; I myself remember his relationship with his bro was too. But there's a difference between a prickly childhood and one so traumatic that even in his 90s he has apparently buried his true memories of it and erroneously believes his mother to have suffered domestic abuse at the hands of his father—and is so bothered by this he has bad dreams about it. In reality, we're told, his father was not abusive but was trying his best to manage his mother, who was loving but psychotic.
None of this would happen in the society Picard grew up in. His mother's psychosis would almost certainly have been treated/cured by some combination of advanced conventional medicine and advanced social structures. She and his dad would not have been left alone to fend for themselves while warping their children.
As to the very idea of domestic abuse, it would be an extremely rare occurrence because (a) individuals are quite empowered, so they could leave; (b) most of the stressors that drive it (isolation, poverty, oppression, misogyny) are eliminated or greatly reduced; (c) this is less evidenced but almost necessary to the quasi-utopia the Federation represents: communities would take care of each other, which means abuse would be easier to spot and intervene in. The idea that Picard would go through eight decades believing this abuse delusion is absurd. It's probably not a delusion he'd ever have in the first place because domestic abuse, as a concept, would not be very real for him. I'm sure he'd have heard of it, but it would carry little-to-no emotional weight, as I have heard of kids dying of scarlet fever but don't really have personal feelings about it because it's not part of my world. Thus, if I were to confabulate a childhood, it would not be about loved ones dying of scarlet fever, and Picard's would not be about domestic abuse. I find it kind of offensive to the idea of the Federation that the writers ran with this.
(I have similar feelings about Raffi's years of isolated alcoholism and Detmer's abusive family: this is not to say these things wouldn't happen, but they'd be much rarer than for us, and that deserves to be addressed as a worldbuilding point. The lack of ability to imagine the daily details of a substantially better society is frankly especially depressing in Star Trek, whose core purpose is to do so. It's similar to a 19th century work of utopian science fiction unable to conceive of a society where it's illegal for a man to beat his wife. We won't get anywhere better if we can't even imagine it, people!)
Worldbuilding aside, I also find Picard's tragic backstory implausible for his character. This whole season is hammering on the idea that Picard has this horrible psychological problem of not being able to connect with others. It's clear the writers intend this because multiple, unrelated characters yammer on it incessantly and Picard himself scarcely pushes back. I deny that that's Picard. That is not the Picard I know.
The Picard I know, back to TNG, is, indeed, a very reserved person who does sometimes have trouble personally connecting with others. Let me start by saying it is not psychologically sick to be reserved. Some people just are: some people are cerebral introverts for whom emotional intimacy is not a signal strength, and that's okay. Sure, intimacy can be an area to work on, but to suggest that Picard must have a catastrophic unresolved trauma because he's emotionally reserved reduces to pathologizing the man for having his native personality, and that is also somewhat offensive (and counter to ST's commitment to inclusivity).
Here's a list of ways Picard, even back in TNG, is somewhere on the normal spectrum when it comes to emotional intimacy:
* He has friends.
* He has lovers.
* He's been in love multiple times, including a long-standing friendship-with-romantic-overtones with Beverly (which ST: Picard really wants us to forget about).
* He tells Data he loves him in S1 of Picard, and before we say, "Well, that's after a lifetime of work," which it is, let's recall that Data said he'd always known that, so Picard must have been showing it—which I'd argue he did.
* He's pretty open about seeking counseling from Deanna.
* He loved his nephew and was shattered by his death. (And, yes, this was hard for him to express, but he did express it.)
* He married Beverly in what ended up being an alternate timeline but still pretty much our Picard in terms of personality and early life experience.
* He's dear friends with Guinan, and she's a significant confidante.
All that said, it is true that TNG Picard is quite buttoned up. Well, S1 of ST: Picard, for all its failings, does a bang-up job of showing Picard twenty-plus years later having already learned to be more emotionally open in a natural, beautifully written and acted way. As for example,
* Yes, he does tell Data he loves him—he's largely on this whole mission out of love for Data.
* He's chatting with Riker with Riker's arm practically around him, looking perfectly comfortable.
* His whole demeanor is much more open and emotionally engaged in talking to people in general: Elnor, Laris, Soji, etc.
And then we arrive at S2 and everyone is telling him he's a stunted basket case who doesn't know how to be close to people—first and foremost because he begs off from getting in a romantic relationship with Laris, as if choosing to be sexually involved with someone is the only way to show healthy emotional openness, which, again, is kind of offensive, and not only to asexuals.
Here let me pause and take a breath, and make a bad transition back to worldbuilding.
This season's choice to (a) spend the bulk of its time on 21st-century Earth and (b) fridge Elnor is paradigmatic of its inability to understand interesting social science fiction worldbuilding.
The one place we don't need to be for interesting social science fiction extrapolation is in our real world and dominant society. There's some good commentary there on ICE, etc., but it ain't (alas) science fiction. Now, while I wasn't thrilled to hear of the time travel angle this season, that in itself is fine: it worked well for Star Trek IV. It can be made to work. But they haven't made it work. It's been a whole season of nothing interesting about how societies are built or function, unless it be just commentary on how our society already is (ICE). (I will say this though: Rios as a privileged, empowered 24th century Chilean contrasts well with the more anxious, furtive Latinx people of the 21st century. For me at least, that worked well.)
And now I have to talk about Elnor. Writing on S1, I noted that I loved their concepts for where he comes from, that (a) he comes from a community that practices absolute candor and (b) he's a young man raised by an order of women and, thus, somewhat acculturated female. S2 completely forgot about (b) and makes maybe one or two passing references to (a) before killing off the character who is the most interesting example of socially extrapolative worldbuilding this series has produced. They did next-to-nothing with him in S1 and literally nothing in S2 so far—and that really shows where the writers' mindset is. I see little sign they care about social extrapolation, and this makes me sad because that is much of what Star Trek is for.
* Side note: I think Picard's backstory is, in fact, an interesting story; it's just not Picard's. It reads like someone had an original story, but since (almost) only franchises are getting produced today, it got pinned on Picard like the tail on the donkey. And that makes me wish for more opportunities for new indie shows to flourish too.
All that said, I don't think it's a strong season. I want to focus on one reason why: it's not doing intelligent social science fiction (and ST has always been fundamentally social SF). This is not just a Picard issue, by the way; it's widespread in TV SF today, but I'll focus on Picard here.
(SPOILERS follow for S2 of Picard up to "Monsters" and very light spoilers for S1 and Disco)
Star Trek is premised on a sort-of utopian future, not a full-on utopia but a much-improved society with utopian leanings. It doesn't always have to be that; it's fine to explore how the Federation wavers when its values are put to the test. But ST:TNG was fairly solidly in the utopian camp, and this is where we got to know Picard. And that's one reason his new backstory doesn't make sense.
Picard is a child of from the heartland of a technologically advanced, quasi-utopian society. That doesn't mean his childhood must have been perfect; it's long been established it wasn't. (Disclaimer: I have not seen much of TNG in thirty years, so I'm sure I'm not remembering backstory and feel free to correct me.) People who recollect TNG better than me note his relationship with his father was established as prickly; I myself remember his relationship with his bro was too. But there's a difference between a prickly childhood and one so traumatic that even in his 90s he has apparently buried his true memories of it and erroneously believes his mother to have suffered domestic abuse at the hands of his father—and is so bothered by this he has bad dreams about it. In reality, we're told, his father was not abusive but was trying his best to manage his mother, who was loving but psychotic.
None of this would happen in the society Picard grew up in. His mother's psychosis would almost certainly have been treated/cured by some combination of advanced conventional medicine and advanced social structures. She and his dad would not have been left alone to fend for themselves while warping their children.
As to the very idea of domestic abuse, it would be an extremely rare occurrence because (a) individuals are quite empowered, so they could leave; (b) most of the stressors that drive it (isolation, poverty, oppression, misogyny) are eliminated or greatly reduced; (c) this is less evidenced but almost necessary to the quasi-utopia the Federation represents: communities would take care of each other, which means abuse would be easier to spot and intervene in. The idea that Picard would go through eight decades believing this abuse delusion is absurd. It's probably not a delusion he'd ever have in the first place because domestic abuse, as a concept, would not be very real for him. I'm sure he'd have heard of it, but it would carry little-to-no emotional weight, as I have heard of kids dying of scarlet fever but don't really have personal feelings about it because it's not part of my world. Thus, if I were to confabulate a childhood, it would not be about loved ones dying of scarlet fever, and Picard's would not be about domestic abuse. I find it kind of offensive to the idea of the Federation that the writers ran with this.
(I have similar feelings about Raffi's years of isolated alcoholism and Detmer's abusive family: this is not to say these things wouldn't happen, but they'd be much rarer than for us, and that deserves to be addressed as a worldbuilding point. The lack of ability to imagine the daily details of a substantially better society is frankly especially depressing in Star Trek, whose core purpose is to do so. It's similar to a 19th century work of utopian science fiction unable to conceive of a society where it's illegal for a man to beat his wife. We won't get anywhere better if we can't even imagine it, people!)
Worldbuilding aside, I also find Picard's tragic backstory implausible for his character. This whole season is hammering on the idea that Picard has this horrible psychological problem of not being able to connect with others. It's clear the writers intend this because multiple, unrelated characters yammer on it incessantly and Picard himself scarcely pushes back. I deny that that's Picard. That is not the Picard I know.
The Picard I know, back to TNG, is, indeed, a very reserved person who does sometimes have trouble personally connecting with others. Let me start by saying it is not psychologically sick to be reserved. Some people just are: some people are cerebral introverts for whom emotional intimacy is not a signal strength, and that's okay. Sure, intimacy can be an area to work on, but to suggest that Picard must have a catastrophic unresolved trauma because he's emotionally reserved reduces to pathologizing the man for having his native personality, and that is also somewhat offensive (and counter to ST's commitment to inclusivity).
Here's a list of ways Picard, even back in TNG, is somewhere on the normal spectrum when it comes to emotional intimacy:
* He has friends.
* He has lovers.
* He's been in love multiple times, including a long-standing friendship-with-romantic-overtones with Beverly (which ST: Picard really wants us to forget about).
* He tells Data he loves him in S1 of Picard, and before we say, "Well, that's after a lifetime of work," which it is, let's recall that Data said he'd always known that, so Picard must have been showing it—which I'd argue he did.
* He's pretty open about seeking counseling from Deanna.
* He loved his nephew and was shattered by his death. (And, yes, this was hard for him to express, but he did express it.)
* He married Beverly in what ended up being an alternate timeline but still pretty much our Picard in terms of personality and early life experience.
* He's dear friends with Guinan, and she's a significant confidante.
All that said, it is true that TNG Picard is quite buttoned up. Well, S1 of ST: Picard, for all its failings, does a bang-up job of showing Picard twenty-plus years later having already learned to be more emotionally open in a natural, beautifully written and acted way. As for example,
* Yes, he does tell Data he loves him—he's largely on this whole mission out of love for Data.
* He's chatting with Riker with Riker's arm practically around him, looking perfectly comfortable.
* His whole demeanor is much more open and emotionally engaged in talking to people in general: Elnor, Laris, Soji, etc.
And then we arrive at S2 and everyone is telling him he's a stunted basket case who doesn't know how to be close to people—first and foremost because he begs off from getting in a romantic relationship with Laris, as if choosing to be sexually involved with someone is the only way to show healthy emotional openness, which, again, is kind of offensive, and not only to asexuals.
Here let me pause and take a breath, and make a bad transition back to worldbuilding.
This season's choice to (a) spend the bulk of its time on 21st-century Earth and (b) fridge Elnor is paradigmatic of its inability to understand interesting social science fiction worldbuilding.
The one place we don't need to be for interesting social science fiction extrapolation is in our real world and dominant society. There's some good commentary there on ICE, etc., but it ain't (alas) science fiction. Now, while I wasn't thrilled to hear of the time travel angle this season, that in itself is fine: it worked well for Star Trek IV. It can be made to work. But they haven't made it work. It's been a whole season of nothing interesting about how societies are built or function, unless it be just commentary on how our society already is (ICE). (I will say this though: Rios as a privileged, empowered 24th century Chilean contrasts well with the more anxious, furtive Latinx people of the 21st century. For me at least, that worked well.)
And now I have to talk about Elnor. Writing on S1, I noted that I loved their concepts for where he comes from, that (a) he comes from a community that practices absolute candor and (b) he's a young man raised by an order of women and, thus, somewhat acculturated female. S2 completely forgot about (b) and makes maybe one or two passing references to (a) before killing off the character who is the most interesting example of socially extrapolative worldbuilding this series has produced. They did next-to-nothing with him in S1 and literally nothing in S2 so far—and that really shows where the writers' mindset is. I see little sign they care about social extrapolation, and this makes me sad because that is much of what Star Trek is for.
* Side note: I think Picard's backstory is, in fact, an interesting story; it's just not Picard's. It reads like someone had an original story, but since (almost) only franchises are getting produced today, it got pinned on Picard like the tail on the donkey. And that makes me wish for more opportunities for new indie shows to flourish too.
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