I don’t think there was any way that I wasn’t going to like Picard, the latest addition to the Star Trek IP. Star Trek: The Next Generation (henceforth TNG) was an important1 part of my life growing up and I remember it with a fondness which all but blinds me to it’s many flaws and absurdities. And I really like Michael Chabon who’s in charge of the writing on the new show, even his lamest books are fabulously plotted and solidly entertaining.

So anyway, yeah, the first episode not much happens but as a result we have almost a whole episode of Patrick Stewart playing Jen-Luc Picard and I loved it. I’m a fan and I feel abundantly served.

[ UPDATE: Originally the post eneded here but I felt like I want to add a bit about what I liked/ still like about TNG and the character Picard in particular which will also provide some context for the video at the end ]

What is it I liked about TNG? I like the setting (deep space communist utopia) and I like the mixture of highstakes peril (chain of command), thoughfulness (darmok), and absurdity (any episode involving the holodeck). Mainly I like the fact that the conflicts in TNG are on the whole not resolved by violence, phaser fire may be exchanged but it rarely makes things better. FWIW I think this is at the heart of my distaste for the MCU films, I’ve never seen one of those where the problems aren’t solved, essentially, by one man hitting another man harder – which is fine every so often, I like abunch of dumb action films, but when that’s all that films try to do I think it’s a problem.

When TNG first came out there was a bunch of people who felt the casting of Johnathan Frakes and Patrick Stewart was the wrong way around, I remember that being the default position for people of my parents generation who’d grown up with Kirk and the old series; the handsome tall macho guy should have been the captain and the bald slim nerdy one should have been his right hand man, but that reversal is the core of the series’ appeal and provides a rich seam of material as the it develops. Anyway, the non-macho-ness of TNG was good for me, in the character of Picard the show gave us a model of masculinity which doesn’t involve being the strongest or the loudest – we need more of that kind of thing. (Also, as male pattern baldness took hold it was good to have a reminder that “by the 24th century, no one will care”)

Anyway. In the years since TNG finished it’s been a joy to discover that the compasionate model of manhood that Picard represented on TNG is matched by Patrick Stewart IRL:


  1. Important? Feels weird to say that but I think it’s right. I remember clearly how I would genuinely look forward to Wednesday 6pm(?) BBC2 when I could sequester myself in the attic room with a cup of tea and our second TV and forget school and everything else for 45 mins. When I was a teenager – like a lot of people – I felt a lot of pressure to be cool and cynical and grown up (and I thought those were all the same thing maybe). Star Trek: TNG was resolutely none of those things and as such a great release from pretence. Kind of escapism, but also the opposite, a chance to inhabit myself.