Star Trek: Picard season 3's upcoming reunion of the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast can finally fix the biggest crime of the Star Trek movies. Season 3 of the TNG spinoff will reunite the whole cast of the beloved Star Trek series for one final adventure that is being promoted as their perfect send-off. This was denied to them by Star Trek: Nemesis, which ended up being the final big-screen outing for the TNG crew but was never actually intended as such. As a result, it was a frustrating ending that failed to capture the same bittersweet, end-of-an-era vibe of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, which brought the original Enterprise crew's adventures to an end.
There were multiple reasons for how Star Trek: Nemesis killed the TNG franchise, but the biggest was its failure at the box office, putting an end to any potential future TNG movies. This robbed the cast of the huge send-off they deserved. There's certainly a warm, end-of-an-era feel to the movie's opening sequence, where the Enterprise crew celebrates the wedding of Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), but the movie ultimately fails to end anyone's stories satisfactorily because it wasn't expected to be their finale.
Despite falling with critics and audiences, the final Star Trek: The Next Generation movie heavily influenced Picard seasons 1 and 2. In confronting Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) with his own clone, Shinzon (Tom Hardy), Star Trek: Nemesis attempted to explore the former's psychology, exploring whether the wrong circumstances could have led him to also become a villain. This is exactly the motivation for Q's creation of an alternate reality in Picard season 2, while Jean-Luc's improved relationship with the Romulans and the search for Data (Brent Spiner) formed the crux of Picard season 1's story arc. Therefore, the risk is that Picard season 3 may fall into some of the same traps as Nemesis, but in definitively setting out to tell a final TNG story, the show will at least give the crew the last hurrah that was cruelly dashed by the film's failures.
Picard Season 3 Can Fix The Problems Of Star Trek: Nemesis
Star Trek: Nemesis, with its exploration of potential peace with Romulus, feels similar to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country's Klingon peace process. However, the latter communicated the galactic import of the movie's plot better than Nemesis, and crucially, it closed the book on the adventures of the original Enterprise crew with a touching farewell scene. Kirk, reunited with his old friends, took the Enterprise for one last trip around the stars before being decommissioned. In his final log, he handed over the Enterprise to the next generation of Star Trek.
Because it was never intended to be the end of their era, Star Trek: Nemesis didn't have such a touching and emotional ending for the Next Generation crew. The movie killed off Data, albeit with a hint of a potential resurrection, and moved Riker to the Titan, two plot points that felt like set-up for another, final TNG story that never actually surfaced. Everything at the end of Nemesis is left disappointingly open-ended, with the legendary TNG crew forced to just fade out due to the movie's poor performance at the box office.
The upcoming reunion gives the crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation their perfect ending, with a chance to say their goodbyes to each other, and it should also satisfy the audience that has stuck with them for over 30 years. Star Trek: The Next Generation was such an influential part of, not just Star Trek, but '90s television as a whole. Its crew deserved a proper ending, rather than quietly side-stepping away from an embarrassing box office failure. At last, 20 years after they ended with a whimper, rather than a bang, Star Trek: Picard season 3 can give this iconic Enterprise crew the send-off they deserve.