Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Episode 4 “No-Win Scenario” Recap and Review

The third season of Star Trek: Picard continues to bring dramatic flair, great storytelling, and brilliant visuals. Even with only 4 episodes in and 6 more to go, this episode, entitled “No-Win Scenario”, may arguably one of the best episodes in this series to date, and could even be one of the best episodes in the entire franchise. This may not come as a surprise for some, but this praise can be the result of showrunner Terry Matalas working alongside Sean Tretta to write the episode, with series veteran Jonathan Frakes once again directing his second episode for this season. There is a lot to discuss from this episode, but this review will address some of the highlights.

Warning!! Reading Ahead Means Entering Spoiler Territory!

First, A Quick Recap – Changelings Are Back!

It appears that an old nemesis of Starfleet makes its return to the Trek franchise: Changelings. The Changelings were a race that made its debut on the TV series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. They have the ability to transform and shapeshift into objects and even take physical forms of another being’s exact likeness. However, the relationship between the Changelings and Starfleet did not end well at the end of The Dominion War in DS9. In Picard, the reveal came when a supposed crew member of the USS Titan took form of an ensign, who has been in some very peculiar shots this season, and attacked Jack Crusher after attempting to stop a leak that enabled The Shrike to easily locate the Titan. The crew of the Titan was attacked by a barrage of their own torpedoes, courtesy of Vadic using the portal weapon to fire the torpedoes back at them. After having listened to Admiral Picard’s suggestion, Captain Riker ordered Picard off the bridge and now leaves the crew in a very desperate and dire situation inside a bio-electric nebula, sinking fast into a gravity well.

Picard Recaps His Own Adventures

Much like the previous episode, we find Picard again at the 10 Forward bar, but this time, he is about to have a meal by himself. It’s not often that Picard has these moments, but a group of young Starfleet members, who look fresh out of the academy, crowd around his booth. They ask him about one of his past adventures when he confronted a hunter race called The Hirogen. Picard uses this as a teachable moment, and he shares the following sage advice:

“You know, there will be a time when you will need to remember that no matter how bleak or unwinnable a situation, as long as you and your crew remain steadfast in your dedication, one to another, you are never ever without hope.”

First, it’s interesting that the call out to the Hirogen was mentioned, and there was even a name drop of Janeway, referencing Kathryn Janeway, from Star Trek: Voyager. Janeway had her share of confrontations with the Hirogen before arriving at a diplomatic resolution; sharing Starfleet technology with the Hirogen, ending further hostilities. This is the second mention of Janeway after the first name drop in the season 3 premiere. While an additional mention may lead to some speculation about a possible appearance in a later episode, Seven’s role in this season does provide a nice connective tissue between Janeway and Picard. Cut to present day, and Picard’s situation is a huge contrast to the light optimism he shared with the young members of Starfleet in the past.

Supporting Cast Bring the Bridge to Life

As mentioned earlier, Picard stresses the importance and value of being able to rely on the crew working together. Therefore, some of the core moments are dependent on the supporting cast members’ dialogue on the bridge, especially in scenes requiring the use of Trek lingo all while having to coordinate their actions to the words and the scenes they are acting. In this case, Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut as Sidney La Forge, Joseph Lee as Lt. Mura, Stephanie Czajkowski as Lt. L’Veen, and Jin Maley as Ensign Esmar worked flawlessly to bounce off each other in the tense scenes for this episode. As new faces for this season and to the “Trek family,” it’s pleasing to see that the supporting cast are given equal importance in their roles while sharing the same stage with the veteran cast members.

Picard and Jack Share a Father and Son Moment

In a scene where Riker meets with Picard for a man-to-man talk, he advises Picard that he needs to take advantage of being able to get to know his alleged son, Jack. Riker reflects on the loss of his own son, and how it has affected not only him, but Troi as well, causing him to “take a break” in their relationship, so to speak. Picard then goes down to sickbay and asks Beverly to have a moment with Jack, to the delight of Beverly. Picard and Jack go to the holodeck where they re-activate a recreation of the fictional to spend some quality time together over some drinks. It was to see them begin to talk with each other, but it’s only logical (Trek pun intended) that Picard begin to ask the very basic question about Jack’s childhood. Such an open ended question is a very tough one to answer because, as Jack mentioned in this scene, he wouldn’t know where to begin. However, Jack manages to at least share a story of a past medical adventure. Later, Picard and Jack are joined by a group of young Starfleet members who are there to find some respite in the chaos of what is currently happening on that ship. Despite Picard’s attempt to gain some connection with his son, Jack stresses that he has had to grow up by himself.

From a Different Perspective

Sometimes, the audience doesn’t get to see or hear the aftermath of some of Trek’s huge events. At least, not on a more personal level. Joining Picard and Jack in the holodeck, is Captain Shaw in another one of the more emotional scenes of the episode. This time, Shaw, played by Todd Stashwick, recounts the traumatic events of “The Battle of Wolf 359”. Led by Picard, who was captured and assimilated by a race of cyborgs called the Borg, attacked squad of Starfleet ships resulting in numerous casualties. Carrying over from the premiere episode, Shaw continued to display his disdain for both Picard and the Borg in front of Jack and the Starfleet ensigns. Why Shaw would call out Picard in front of everyone may be questionable, but it’s possibly due to his ego that he has to resort to publicly humiliating him in front of Jack and essentially take Picard off the pedestal of his so-called legacy. It was a nice dramatic touch to add some of the sound effects and dialogue of the Battle of Wolf 359 while Shaw was describing the horrific event. To add further trivia, Shaw is not the only one who has shared that event and has had this disdain for Picard. In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s premiere episode, “Emissary: Part 1”, there was a sequence where Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Sisko (played by Avery Brooks), before he became Captain on DS9, was attacked while on a Starfleet ship by the Borg. He survived, but his wife didn’t. The trauma from this experience led to Jean-Luc Picard to be the target of blame for all that has happened. Stashwick performed this scene remarkably, and the type of character he is playing fits well into the dramatic retelling of that battle.

To Seek Out New Life

The crew of the Titan start to notice peculiar things about the nebula and its “bio-electric signals”. If there is one character that can analyze and identify what these bio-electric signals are, it would be Dr. Beverly Crusher. Dr. Crusher came to the conclusion that these signals and space waves are similar to the contractions a human being experiences when a person is pregnant. Seeing the crew of the bridge, Captain Shaw reliving his engineering days by opening up the ship’s nacelle engines with the assistance of Seven, and with the knowledge obtained by Dr. Crusher, they resolve to use these waves to basically “catch” the wave and “surf” their way out of the nebula. The end result was a particularly heartwarming scene of seeing, for lack of a better description, space jellyfish. Essentially, this was a nebula that gave birth, and as Dr. Crusher so aptly alluded to the mission of Star Trek, “To seek out new life.” This scene may be an homage to the premiere episode, “Encounter at Farpoint” from Star Trek: The Next Generation, where the crew encountered what appeared to be a space vessel, but was an actual life form that resembled a jellyfish. This episode did well with the continuity of Beverly’s character by allowing her to use her analytical skills to find solutions to given problems. Fans paying attention to her character from the TNG series can easily pick up on this, so when faced with this problem on this season of Picard, she resorts to doing what she does best.

Overall, there was a LOT to take in, both the main and supporting cast were very well balanced in terms of appearance and dialogue. Even the occasional flashback scenes do not deter from giving further background into the entire story. In fact, it helps the audience to provide some visuals rather than to have very specific lines of dialogue left to interpretation and debate. However, this also leaves room for further storytelling in future episodes or possibly future Trek series and tie-ins with current ones. Of course, only time will tell.

The access and stories of Star Trek: Picard can be watched in Paramount Plus.