Star Trek Picard season 3 episode 6 recap – Geordi La Forge returns

Our Verdict

An empty nostalgia-fest leaves no space for plot development.

Star Trek Picard season 3 episode 6 recap. This recap contains spoilers for Star Trek Picard season 3 episode 6.

Last week’s episode of Star Trek Picard managed to combine a major cameo with a relatively significant plot development. We learnt that not only were the Changelings out to get Jack Crusher, but they’d also infiltrated the highest ranks of Starfleet too. It turns out Beverly’s “trust no one” advice had been apt.

This week on Star Trek Picard season 3, the Star Trek series gives the spotlight to a heist and a reunion, and there are plenty of references along the way, for better and worse.

Star Trek Picard season 3 episode 6 recap – finally together

The new episode opens after the discovery (which came at the end of last episode) that Ro Laren was working with Worf and Raffi. After her death, the pair of intelligence agents finally link up with the main crew and we now have all of our major characters in one place.

With their combined intelligence and ideas about what may be happening, the team establish that they need to break into Daystrom Station to recover the AI that protects the station in order to find what was stolen by Vadic and the rogue Changelings.

So, equipped with Krinn’s device, Riker, Worf, and Raffi head to Daystrom Station while Picard, Shaw, and the rest of the crew about the USS Titan leave for the Starfleet Museum which is ran by a certain Geordi La Forge.

Star Trek Picard season 3 episode 6 recap – will Geordi help?

The reunion with Geordi, who Picard essentially begs for help, is a frosty one. With his other daughter Alandra La Forge in tow, Geordi is far from eager to be breaking Starfleet rules, especially now that he’s in one of the most plum-jobs in the whole organisation. His former warmth and charisma seems to have evaporated too, perhaps impacted by the loss or Data, or perhaps from the friction with his other daughter.

To make matters worse, the USS Titan is still being pursued by both Starfleet and Vadic with the Shrike. Talk about double trouble. This brings in a ticking clock element to Star Trek Picard season 3 episode 6, as the team on Daystrom have to rush through the various corridors to try and find this super-powered AI.

Star Trek Picard season 3 episode 6 recap – the heist on Daystrom Station

As they creep through the eerily empty space, they’re confronted by none other than the holographic Moriarty: once again returned to life. Except, this isn’t the Moriarty we’ve come to know from before. This Moriarty is a blank-slate.

He acts as a security guard, preventing the team from accessing the central vault. But, Riker recognises what’s happening and manages to disable the hologram by humming the tune to ‘Pop goes the Weasel’, leading them to…

Star Trek Picard season 3 episode 6 recap – Datalore

Data. Or, is it Lore? Both and neither. The AI guarding Daystrom Station is a composite of each of the Soong-type androids. In a body that looks like Data and Lore, it hosts their personalities and experiences and histories, and is using that vast power to protect Daystom Station.

The team contacts the USS Titan and asks to be recovered along with this Data/Lore amalgamation. However, Starfleet security has finally caught up with them, and they manage to capture Riker just as Worf, Raffi, and the android are beamed up to the Titan.

Interrogating this amalgamation, we finally learn what the Changelings stole from Daystrom Station: the organic body of Jean-Luc Picard, who died at the end of Star Trek Picard season 1 before his consciousness was transferred to his new synthetic shell.

Now a hostage, Riker finds himself in the hands of not Starfleet security, but much worse: the Changeling Vadic. And, in order to make Riker talk, she’s also got Deanna Troi. So, that’s the whole TNG cast now in play and active in the story.

Star Trek Picard season 3 episode 6 recap – the verdict

There’s so much to unpack here, with Star Trek Picard season 3 episode 6. First of all, it is an unashamed all-out nostalgia fest. There are more references and winks to the camera than it’s possible to count.

But it’s not just the fact that the new episode is overflowing with nostalgia, it’s how it presents it. Shots of the Defiant, Voyager, and Bounty are each lovingly accompanied by their respective themes. Not only do we get Data, Lore, and Moriarty, but a literal flashback to Encounter at Farpoint and the first meeting between Riker and Data. The blunt force of all this nostalgia – and that’s all there is here – is enough to induce a concussion.

But there’s an even more fundamental issue developing in Star Trek Picard season 3. We’re now six episodes deep into a ten episode season – well over the halfway mark – and yet this all feels like an opening act. There is too much we still don’t know.

Why is Jack Crusher really having strange visions? We know it can’t really be the Irumodic Syndrome. Why is he wanted by the Changelings? What did the Changelings steal from Daystrom? Who is Vadic and what are her wider motivations? Simply saying she’s a member of some terrorist sect of Changelings is not enough. These aren’t the answers to minor plot points: this Changeling conspiracy is the whole plot of the show.

Dumping all the answers right at the end isn’t how this works. They need to be fed to the audience so that there’s some sense of forward momentum, beyond the occasional space-action sequence. As it stands, it’s all tease and no pay-off. The only thing we’ve really learnt is that Picard has a son who’s being hunted by Changelings, and the Changelings have infiltrated the upper echelons of Starfleet. This is not six hours worth of plot.

It all just affirms what we’ve always known: Star Trek Picard season 3 wants to be, and should have been, a movie. If it had been, it really could have been great. Lack of originality aside, its impressive moments of action and genuine instances of drama between the characters is significantly better than anything we ever saw in the TNG Star Trek movies or the previous two seasons of Star Trek Picard.

But, there’s so much wheel-spinning here because there isn’t enough plot to go around. We’re starting towards what should be the last segment of the season, and we don’t even really know who our villain is, or what they’re up to.

This episode is literally just nostalgia. That’s all it has to offer, and that doesn’t impress me.

For more on Star Trek Picard, check out our Star Trek Picard season 3 review, or learn more about the USS Intrepid. Or, find out what we know about the Star Trek Strange New Worlds season 2 release date.