To many people, certainly those who identify themselves as “progressive” in the pro-welfare state, LGBT-rights, Roe vs Wade, race/gender advocacy sense, these are dark times. They feel besieged by a resurgent, activist conservatism which is itself a rejection of elitist globalism, excessively abused press freedom, overzealous business regulation and unfettered, unfiltered immigration led by dissonant, populist avatars electorally ensconced in addresses as diverse as 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the Kremlin, Zhongnanhai and Malacanang Palace
As is its wont, popular entertainment has reacted to this trend. The media, dominated as it is by those whose personal political beliefs are at odds with this dominant "Man on Horseback" style of leadership, has helped to foster an impression of nations at peril, with their democratic institutions threatened by encroaching limitations on personal and press freedoms. In print as well as on big and small screen, such as in ‘House of Cards’, ‘Westworld’ and ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ darkness and dire warnings abound as the present is portrayed in ruthless grey-hued tones.
Even the preserve of science fiction is not immune. ‘Star Wars’ fans bayed as ‘The Last Jedi’ seemed to belittle the traditional fanbase with SJW-inspired insipidness more obsessed with preachy heavy-handed political correctness. As for ‘Star Trek,’ the granddaddy of franchises, its latest incarnation, ‘Discovery,’ has divided the Trek community like nothing before with an uneasy mixture of summer blockbuster pyrotechnical lens flares and ‘Battlestar Galactica re-imagined’ faux “realistic” drama.
Television programs are designed to comfort us with visions of existence that are populated with lives differing from our own by cathode tube ticks on the wheel of fate. The generic, ambiguous term for this is “relatable.” That is, we see characters as individual avatars of who we aspire to be or would never want to know, and we process them via singular, separate lenses of a known universe.
Gene Roddenberry’s original Starship Enterprise crew were examples of what can be achieved were society to ever grow beyond petty arguments and discord, and in 'Star Trek' he gave us a multi-ethnic cast that made history by, among many other things, staging the very first interracial kiss on television.
'The Next Generation,' or simply 'TNG' to fans, which followed it is not as ethnically diverse, one of its noticeable flaws (somewhat ameliorated by granting the 'Trek' franchise its first African American Commanding Officer in subsequent series 'Deep Space Nine' with Avery Brooks’ Benjamin Sisko). What it achieved when it first aired, however, was to build upon the original by inviting viewers to once again think beyond the world in which they lived.
This may be part of the reason as to why so many normally “reasonable” people lost what’s left of their over-stressed minds -- metaphorically -- at the recent news that Sir Patrick Stewart will be reprising his iconic role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard for a new 'Star Trek' series on CBS All Access, the streaming home of 'Star Trek: Discovery.' 2019, the likely debut for this return bow, can’t come fast enough.
At its most elemental, Picard represents a welcome retro version of an imagined future, a character conceived of in a time when we believed we were almost beyond such primitive ills as racism, environmental decline, degradation of knowledge or a dismissive view of science. That halcyon moment was the late 1980s and early 1990s when 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' dominated the airwaves.
Its seven-year mission (1987 to 1994) saw the worldwide commodification of Earth Day and a popularized, commercialized version of environmentalism. Visions of the United Colors of Benetton danced through magazine ads, and well-meaning figures preached the necessity of "seeing no color" in a prelude to the idealism-driven election of the first supposedly “post-racial” POTUS in 2008. Back then, we all thought we were just shy of getting to a better place with regard to how we treat each other. Of thinking beyond ourselves, our immediate desires and thirst for gratification, and embracing our differences as strengths.
Oh, what a lovely illusion.
And yet Picard and everything he stood for looms large, real and true to us more than three decades after the show left the air.
That’s because ‘Star Trek: Discovery’s’ showrunners tried to update the ‘Trek’ formula to reflect contemporary sensibilities, in so doing presenting a world is more like the one we live in, and less like the equivalent we aspire to. Theirs was a gritty take on the utopian United Federation of Planets locked in a merciless conflict with the Klingon Empire, where diplomacy deferred to raw firepower and veiled allusions to religious fanaticism was the prime motivation for the bad guys. In short, an action thriller that asks philosophical questions along the way as opposed to the other way around. ‘Trek' fandom did not take to this world of acting first and thinking about the longer-term ramifications later. Neither did ‘Discovery’ win over enough new converts to establish the necessary viewership to sustain it beyond a second season.
Now the speculation begins, since few details have been revealed about this new generation of episodes, beyond knowing that the new series will follow the next (and presumably last) chapter of Picard's life. The series is still in its nascent development stages, so the only meaningful teaser Stewart could provide was that the series picks up 20 years after the last time we saw Captain Picard, which was in the well-meaning but plodding film 'Star Trek: Nemesis.' “He may not, and I stress, may not be a captain anymore,” Stewart told fans. “He may not be the Jean-Luc that you recognize and know so well.”
Understandable perspective. People change, and even characters cannot hope to remain static while their real-world counterparts -- the actors portraying them -- age (unless someone decides to recast TNG). But hopefully Starfleet’s finest captain hasn’t transformed so much as to be completely unrecognizable.
Among all “Star Trek” captains (there have been five so far, not counting the revolving command chair on ‘Discovery’), Picard remains the perennial favorite. Anecdotal evidence abounds -- entire relationships have been forged or broken with debates over who is the best 'Star Trek' captain -- but official website startrek.com in a 2012 poll of more than 50,000 people, asking users to rate the franchise’s captains on four categories found that Picard topped the lists for "Most Decisive," "Most Intelligent," and "Most Inspiring."
And why not? Picard was an exceptionally well-rounded character from the get-go, fashioned from the desire to make the starship ‘Enterprise’s new captain as different from his precursor, James T. Kirk, as possible. Where Kirk was brash, impulsive, outgoing and occasionally bellicose, Picard was cautious, conservative, cerebral and almost always diplomatic. This difference was most acute in their distinctive command styles: Kirk’s was mainly an action-orientated, testosterone-driven “follow me over the top!” model whereas Picard based his more deliberative approach around discussion and delegation. He’s a thinking man of action who knows when to seek advice as well as when to simply sit in silence, to listen, reflect and consider.
The 'TNG' writers also made Picard a man who supports his crew to the last member, whose attitude was one of paternal care as oppose to patriarchal lordship. By virtue of the fact that unlike the youthful Kirk, Picard is senior both in service and in life by the time he achieves command of the ‘Enterprise,’ and so, by default must be a father figure to a crew full of undeveloped potential.
Patrick Stewart, long regarded as both a mainstay of the Shakespearean stage and a great character actor, forged Picard into a renaissance gentleman of fierce conviction and boundless understanding -- a truth-seeker with the curiosity of an explorer, the heart of a romantic, the skill of a sometimes-warrior and the wiles of a diplomat who cherished the Prime Directive's credo of Non-Interference in the cultural, even societal, development of planets. Regal of bearing, thrifty of movement and with natural gravitas that makes his most prosaic statements sound as epic as a soliloquy, Picard could convert the fiercest adversary by the combined power of logical rhetoric alone.
This most English of supposed Frenchmen’s delegation-driven leadership style transcended televised fiction to become its own iconic brand, to be emulated by military officers and senior management executives the world over. The “Picard leadership model” has now become so entrenched in western culture that it’s taught at university level and in armed forces colleges.
Who wouldn’t follow a leader not because you fear him, but fear disappointing him?
To paraphrase a line in the 'TNG' series finale by the omnipotent being known as Q, Picard is a man willing to move beyond “mapping stars and studying nebulae” in favor of “charting the unknowable possibilities of existence."
This raises the possibility, even the necessity, of Picard’s series (rumoured to be called ‘Star Trek: Destiny’), offering an optimistic balance to the vitriol and Social Justice Warrior (SJW) political correctness that current characterizes so much of our socio-political discourse. In the 'Trek' franchise’s chronology, 'Discovery' occurs in the past. We need Jean-Luc Picard to remind us to visualize that even given our wildly tumultuous present circumstances, an infinitely better future is still possible.
Make it so.