Thread by @PalmerReport

An immense thank you to Star Trek Picard season 3 showrunner @TerryMatalas for giving me my childhood back. Apologies for not trusting his vision earlier on. The finale ended up being… perfect. Paramount should greenlight Terry Matalas’ new #StarTrekLegacy show. Make it so!

I used to race home on my bike from middle school every Thursday to make sure I was home in time for the start of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I had the VCR programmed too, just in case. That’s the impact this show, its characters, and its ideals had on my upbringing.

And that series finale in 1994 was just perfect. PERFECT.

That closing overhead shot of them playing cards in the end has been burned into my brain since I was a kid.

“Five card, nothing wild, and the sky’s the limit!”

Then came the Next Gen movies. Some of them were good. But the insult of losing the Enterprise for no good reason, losing Data for no good reason. But I still clung to whatever was left of that fading movie franchise. And then it was gone, never to return. Some things just end.

And then three years ago they announced “Star Trek Picard” and I just about lost it I was so happy.

But the first season was just evil. Every beloved character got a shitty ever after. The whole thing seemed aimed at trying to destroy anyone’s ability to have ever cared for TNG.

They promised Season 2 would be different, and it was. I don’t remember much about it, but I remember that it at least wasn’t trying to harm us, and for that I was grateful.

Then they announced Season 3 would be a full TNG reunion, and it actually made me afraid.

Afraid of getting my hopes up.

Afraid of any show that started off as nasty and cruel as “Star Trek Picard” did in with first season, now being given free reign on the entire TNG case.

Afraid that even a talented and good faith attempt at getting back that TNG magic in Picard season 3 might be too hamstrung by the shitty outcomes that season 1 had already handed to so many of the legacy characters.

How could anyone turn that chicken shit into chicken salad?

So I held my breath and started watching Season 3, with low expectations and a lot of fear.

I was also very ill. More and stronger antibiotics for a resilient bacterial sinus infection. Later I learned the infection was pressing up against my brain. I literally wasn’t myself.

And here I was, brain shutting down in pieces, I could somehow still do my job just fine, but I also thought 5+5 was 2, and I was putting this faint desperate hope in the belated revival of *the* television show of my childhood. Except I didn’t trust it. I didn’t trust anything.

It was halfway through the season and I still didn’t know if I could trust what I was watching. It started off dark, which was okay. But was it going to find the light, like all good stories that start in the dark do, or was the rug just going to be pulled out?

Right in the middle of the season, there were a couple minor plot developments that made me really start to think it was headed the way of season one. I was preemptively offended at what I expected and feared was coming. And at this point I was too sick to leave the house much.

Then something happened with episode six. Maybe the season just finally finished landing the premise it had been setting up. That episode was one of the more enjoyable hours of television I’d ever seen. And I’d just started max dose antibiotics, which will mess you up.

I finally had a head scan done and that’s when it was determined that I needed surgery to drain the infection out my nose before it could eat into my brain. Nothing like simultaneously finding out that you’re that close to being gone, and that you’re about to be magically cured.

And through all this, I did my job each day but couldn’t do much else, and mainly just waited for the next episode of Star Trek to drop. Hoping against hope that it would stick the landing.

I think I watched episode 8 while high on five different prescription drugs at once.

The surgery worked. The infection was gone. And this star trek season just kept getting more and more rewarding toward the end. Even as I was getting my life back, I was also getting my childhood back. Episode 9 brought tears of joy. Over a mere tv show! Like, it was *that* good.

Then there was the series finale. And I found myself afraid again, because if they wrapped this up in offensive fashion, there would never be any opportunity to fix it again. These actors aren’t coming back to reset it all again in another twenty years, you know what I mean?

Then I had a death in the family. Other family members who needed me to be there. Then the doctor tells me I can’t get on an airplane yet. So I’m stuck here watching tv instead. Talk about feeling helpless and useless. All I had was this Star Trek finale, and the fear of hope.

And this week’s finale was maybe the best hour of television I have ever watched. Some of the best moments these characters have ever had – and they’ve been around since the 1980s.

It was the perfect bookend to the original finale. And repaired the 30 years of abyss in between.

After having been sick basically all year, and worried that there might be something degenerative in my brain, I now have my health back. Just a few more days of a bloody nose until I can get on that airplane.

And I also somehow just got my childhood back too.

I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but this season brought back things I was sure I’d never see again, because even if someone was in charge who wanted to fix certain things, how could anyone ever come up with believable storylines to make such things happen? AND THEY DID.

So I thank you again @TerryMatalas for making this magic. And thank you to these actors for coming back to these characters after all this time and somehow pulling off the impossible.

I always wanted this. I *knew* I’d never get it. And you gave it to me, when I needed it most.

And you know, @levarburton has been my hero since I was like three years old. Reading Rainbow, then Geordi, and these day with the way always speaks up for what’s right. To get to see LeVar as elder statesman Geordi, in such a heroic way… I lack the words. Just thank you, LeVar.

I once walked past Patrick Stewart in a bar. He was drinking with friends. I had no business interrupting him, but I couldn’t not very briefly say hello. And he was so warm and gracious during that brief encounter. Even drunk Patrick Stewart is a nice guy!

I always looked up to Dr. Crusher for her moral compass.

@gates_mcfadden has always been wonderful.

But what *this* season has allowed her to do with the character…

There’s a moment where the rest of the crew are all staring at her because of the badass thing she just did.

And again without giving too much away, this season may be the most rewarding acting that Brent Spiner has ever done in Star Trek. If you’ve watched it you know what I’m talking about. Holy shit.

While TNG was on the air, Jonathan Frakes and his wife came into the restaurant where my dad worked, and he got to talk to them. As a kid I thought that was the coolest thing ever. And my dad still tells that story. This is what I grew up with.

Watching this finale, I seriously think every other line was a reference, a callback, or an homage to something from TNG or another Star Trek series. How do you even do that, and still tell a compelling coherent story? I don’t know. But they did.

“Star Trek Picard” is now finished. But Matalas says he wants to spin it off into a show centered around the “other” characters from this season. And that would actually be amazing. I very much want to see more of them. This finale set that up in the best way possible.

So if Star Trek: The Next Generation meant anything to you, go watch Picard season 3. You can skip the first two seasons and you won’t be confused or anything. But go watch season 3. Trust the season 3 show runners. And enjoy the ride.

If you have watched season 3, and you got out of it what I got out of it, go tell @paramountplus and @StarTrekOnPPlus that you want them to greenlight “Star Trek Legacy.” Use the hashtag #StarTrekLegacy – seriously, they track this kind of engagement when making show decisions.

Now I’m off to watch the finale again. There are surely layers to it that I didn’t pick up on the first time because I was too excited at what I was watching.

Also, these stunning scenes of the [redacteD] are things they couldn’t do back when they were using a scale model 😁

For the record, the part of my brain that does math is working fine again.

And there are four lights.

Five card *stud* dammit! How did I leave out a word?

Just a typo. I’ve known that quote by heart from the minute I heard it.