With Picard under house arrest by the synthetics on Coppelius, and hundreds of Romulan Warbirds on their way, it’s up to the survivors of the crashed La Sirena and Borg ship to join up and face a common enemy.

There are many highs and lows in the season finale of Star Trek: Picard, and luckily it just about gets away with it. It’s impossible to discuss without going in to spoilers, so proceed at your own peril!

Let’s focus on the good things. There’s a couple of punch the air moments where everything just zings. The arrival of Starfleet, led by Riker (though why put Frakes’ name in the opening credits?) and his pithy retorts to Commodore Oh are beauties. The speech by Picard at the end, the shock that he actually dies (he really does) and those moments with Data are wonderful, but what of the lows?

Why on earth would Santiago and Raffi trust Narek? He’s a cowardly wretch and of course he’s duplicitous, and yet they follow him to the compound to do the old ‘pretend that Chewie is a prisoner’ routine before trying to destroy the beacon with a bomb inside a football! Agnes gets Picard out of the compound oh so very easily, and the retired admiral can now pilot a ship he couldn’t perform basic duties on previously.

Narissa is killed off far too unceremoniously; even the fight with her killer, Seven, cuts away when it gets interesting. The super AI overlords (metallic Lovecraftian tendrils by way of The Matrix) just fold back and go home when the portal closes and Starfleet decides rather rapidly that synths are no longer banned. I can understand the wish to wrap up everything neatly in case there wasn’t another season, but I wonder where this Altered Carbon version of Jean-Luc, living in a new sleeve, will take his crew next.

Verdict: I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this season of Star Trek: Picard, and I’m not letting a messy finale spoil the final analysis. The ace in its hand has been the emotional attachment to both its legacy and new characters and there’s a fine crew to take things forwards. And take comfort in knowing that if your many years in exile making Bunnycorn pizza don’t work out, you can be recommissioned to lead an entire armada, just like that. 7/10

Nick Joy