As part of Star Trek Day 2022 festivities, Paramount+ dropped a teaser for Star Trek: Picard season three. The 86-second trailer features the returning main characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation gathering together for one final adventure aboard the U.S.S. Titan commanded by Seven of Nine.
The trailer plays heavily on nostalgia while not giving much away about the plot. Decades-long Trek fans will feel a tinge of sentimental excitement seeing their beloved Enterprise-D crew back together again. However, we should channel our inner Vulcans to keep those emotions in check. We've been down this road before.
In 2019, Paramount+ released a trailer for the first season of Picard that showed us an aging Jean-Luc Picard, a dream sequence of the long-dead Lt. Commander Data, and promised an adventurous plot full of mystery and excitement. Instead, we got a 10-episode long mess of boredom, despicable characters, gratuitous violence, and a nonsensical plot that left Next Generation fans scratching their heads, wondering if our favorite captain was actually dead.
Similarly, the season two trailers showed us a television show where Q returns with a sinister plot reminiscent of the classic Next Generation episode "All Good Things" and the hit 1996 film Star Trek: First Contact. What we got was a meandering, tedious, badly written, poorly acted disaster that wasted the skills of a first-rate cast and production team. The show was so bad that the team at Paramount+ released a teaser for the final season while the second season was still airing. As if to say, "We know this stinks. But Geordi and Worf are coming back next season, so don't cancel your subscription."
Paramount+ has shown that its trailer production department is far more skilled and tuned to what classic Star Trek fans want than the people actually making the show. And while it's possible that season three showrunner, Terry Matalas, transformed Picard into something watchable, it's best to keep a lid on that excitement until we see the finished result.
Star Trek: Picard season three premiers on February 16, 2023, on Paramount+.