By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Despite a very rocky first two seasons, many Star Trek fans hail season 3 of Picard as what they spent decades waiting for. The season largely ditched the show’s new characters to focus on returning heroes from The Next Generation, and we got constant fan service in the form of delightfully unexpected cameos (Shelby, Ro, Tuvok, oh my!) and some unexpected villains (the shapeshifting Founders). The shapeshifters were just henchmen for the real Big Bad, and that brings us to the season’s one missed opportunity: the final villains should have been the aliens from the TNG episode “Conspiracy” rather than the Borg.
Certainly, I was one of many fans who groaned at the inevitable reveal that the Borg Queen was behind all of the murder and mayhem of the season. The Borg loomed large in the first season of Picard and were major antagonists of season 2 while also popping up in Prodigy and Lower Decks. These guys are basically Star Trek’s biggest storytelling crutch whenever they need a nostalgic villain, and it was disappointing that even Picard’s greatest season couldn’t escape their influence. It turns out resistance is futile when it comes to writers resisting the urge to do the same old thing rather than try something new.
These Should Have Been The Villains Of Star Trek: Picard Season 3
Honestly, the alien bugs from The Next Generation episode “Conspiracy” would have made much better final bad guys for Picard and his Enterprise crew to face during their final team-up. In case you need a refresher, these aliens were able to take over the minds of pretty much anyone, and the only sign that someone was infected was a weird “nubbin bug” (as the Greatest Generation podcast might say) sticking out of their necks.
Picard and Riker saved the day by killing the alien leader in the most explosive fashion, but this season 1 episode ended with ominous speculation by Data that the leader had activated a homing beacon that would attract more of these nefarious creatures. Ever since then, fans have waited for these aliens to show back up in Star Trek. They never did, possibly because they were originally conceived of as a way to introduce the Borg, but that connection was dropped by the time everyone’s favorite bionic baddies arrived in season 2’s “Q Who?”
Why The Conspiracy Aliens Are A Better Fit Than The Borg
Aside from the fact that the Borg are seriously played out, why do I think that the “Conspiracy” aliens should have taken their place? For one thing, these mysterious aliens have their own ability to assimilate Starfleet personnel. That means that much of Picard season 3’s plot could remain the same, with the Founders’ mysterious employers simply being another leader bug rather than the Borg Queen.
For another thing, Picard’s third season was pure fan service: the show addressed Picard and Dr. Crusher’s romantic connection, answered burning questions about whether Ro was still in Starfleet, brought back the Founders as major players, and so on. Amid all this delicious fan service, wouldn’t it have been great for the show to circle back to the “Conspiracy” aliens and tie a nice bow on Star Trek’s most infamous tease? As for this fan, I’d have much preferred to see that than watch the Borg Queen die yet again (but this time, it’s for real, y’all!).
A Better Reason For The Reunion
Finally, the return of the “Conspiracy” aliens would have provided a more logical reason for Picard and Riker to get the whole gang back together. For as good as Picard’s third season was, we still have to just sort of accept that a bunch of geriatric heroes are the only ones who can defeat the Trek’s most frequent menace in time for the early bird special. The return of aliens that only Picard’s crew had ever defeated would have made their return more logical, especially because the bugs’ presence doubled the risk that friendly faces may not be what they seemed.
At the end of the day, this is only a minor gripe, of course. Picard’s third season was generally magnificent, leaving fans clamoring for a Star Trek: Legacy show that seems destined to never happen. However, its reliance on the Borg as the Big Bad revealed just how much the writers were starting to run out of ideas. The “Conspiracy” aliens would have been a perfect replacement, but considering that Paramount has killed our hopes for Legacy and is currently working on a needless Trek prequel film, it seems fans must wait another few decades to see the return of the franchise’s scariest aliens.