Old Men Take Command Of Starship... Does Not End Well

So, in our latest episode of Star Trek: Picard, my new favorite character in all of Star Trek, Captain Liam Shaw, is incapacitated by the enemy bird ship and transfer command over to Captain Riker, who subsequently takes in retired admiral Picard as his first officer. This disappoints me greatly because Shaw is genuinely one of the better characters on this show and he deservers better than to be written off in such a fashion. However, he does get to contribute one tidbit to the overall plot.

Anyway, the bird ship has portal technology that allows it to open a portal from one place to another. So they use this technology to keep the Titan from escaping its clutches by opening a portal in front of the fleeing Titan and having it show up in front of the bird ship. This is actually a neat idea for a offensive system and presents a big problem for our crew, since they'll have to find a way to overcome this portal tech.

They never do... not in this episode, but they do manage to distract the bird ship long enough to hide into the nebula. Riker suggests finding a way to escape while Picard pushes for an attack... an attack against the bird ship with portal technology that can redirect things from one place to another one on a whim. Parental conflicts aside, I'd agree with Riker on this one; no point in fighting an enemy that could possibly just send your shots right back at you. You could say that this is something that Captain Picard would do back in the old TV show.

Unfortunately, we don't have TV Show Picard to save the way. We have this old man Picard in a robot body who insists we attack this bird ship with the portal tech and so once the engines are sabotaged, Riker relents and attacks the bird ship. Predictably, it goes poorly and Riker is angry at Picard for giving him bad advice.

Moral of the story: a bleeding, possibly concussed Captain Shaw would've done a better job of escaping the bird people with his ship intact than the old timers would have. Because you see, Captain Shaw is not a fucking idiot.

Other than that, I'm actually enjoying the show for once. I like the interaction between Worf and Raffi, I like the re-introduction of the Changelings and the aftermath of the Dominion War. JACK continues to be an annoying little shit, making me wonder if the father isn't really Picard, but rather Wesley and there's a whole incestuous relationship going on here.

Hey, you know what? Three episodes in and this season is already better than season 2. Not a high bar, mind you, but that's something, at least.