The larger-than-life but intensely human stories of humanity out in the wilds of space continue in The Mandalorian season 3 and Star Trek: Picard season 3, both of which prove that whether, it’s a long, long time ago or way out in the future, that humanity will fight hard for what is good and right …
The Mandalorian (S3, E3-6)
It’s a case of slow-building ups and downs in the middle four episodes of The Mandalorian‘s third season.
Of course, if you’re a member of the Empire’s now living-in-the-shadows old guard, you might see the rise of someone like Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) as an up, an arresting of the cruel change of fortune that accompanied the New Republic’s rise.
But for someone like New Republic Pilot Carson Teva (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee), any sign, however intangible that the Empire is on the up-and-up is something to be worried about, a concern to be addressed and quickly.
But the New Republic is overstretched, busy with simultaneously dismantling the old and building the new, and it has no time for rumours or suppositions: so when Navarro, onetime home to Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and now ruled over by High Magistrate Greef Karga (Carl Weathers) is attacked and taken over by the pirate Gorian Shard (Nonso Anozie) he realises, after he’s rebuffed by the higher-ups, that will have to take matters into own hands.
He flies to the Mandalorian covert is hiding out, a covert now once again sheltering Din and Bo Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff), now neither is apostate having bathed in the Mythosaur-full living waters of Mandalore, and asks them to help Navarro uphold the rule of law.
The Mandalorians agree to do that, forgiving Karga for his past alliance with the Empire’s somewhat ascendant remnants, and Navarro is back to being independent, the Mandalorians how have a planetary base where they can live in the open (Karge promised Mando a tract of land if he hung around and that promise is honoured) and evil, ostensibly just of the piratical kind is defeated once again.
But Teva isn’t so sure, and after he finds a drifting New Republic prison transport floating in space, one that was supposed to be carrying Moff Gideon whose corpse is conspicuously absent, it becomes apparent this suspicions that something might be afoot actually have some substance.
Earlier in “Chapter 19: The Convert”, we see members of the New Republic’s idealistic Amnesty program – an initiative designed to rehabilitate Empire personnel who have expressed regret for their past sins; it’s a nice idea but incredibly open to exploitation which is precisely what happens – doing their best to make a way in a new more open and liberal climate on Coruscant.
Pen Pershing (Omid Abtahi), the geneticist we saw in the first season of The Mandalorian is part of the program and while he meekly accepts his new drudgerous role in the New Republic bureaucratic dismantling of the Empire’s physical remnants, he longs to reassume his genetic exploration, though this is expressly forbidden by the Republic.
Offered a chance by fellow Amnesty inductee and onetime shipmate, Elia Kane (Katy M. O’Brian) to do his research on the down-low, he finds himself betrayed, his mind wiped in a way that strongly suggests Kane is acting to protect her true identity so she can perhaps continue to do her master Moff Gideon’s bidding?
Whatever is afoot, it’s clear that Teva is bang on the money and that the Empire is, little bit by little bit, trying to stage some sort of comeback, an upward rising of evil that no one benefiting from the New Republic will want to see come to fruition.
People like the Mandalorians, for instance.
While they are fighting tooth and nail to regain their planet, their civilisation and their once awed position in the grand scheme of things, their hold on any kind of drawing back together is tenuous and they can’t afford to suffer even one step backwards.
Din Djarin, with Grogu now effectively a Mandalorian in training, part of the Foundling tradition which is a sacred tenet of The Way, is technically the leader of his people, thanks to his possession of the Darksaber but in reality, the one who stands the best chance of restoring their people to some level of previous greatness is Bo Katan, who manages to save the son of one of the covert’s fiercest and most influential warriors from a dragon-like beast, not long after she saved Din from an enemy who’d taken him captive on Mandalore.
With her sanctuary destroyed by Empire remnants, and with nowhere else, she emerges in “Chapter 22: Guns for Hire” as the one who can bring together her people and take them from being mercenaries and guns for hire to a people back in charge of their manifest destiny.
She’s given an extra imprimatur by The Armorer (Emily Swallow) who steps a little way away from her unrelenting fundamentalism and agrees that if Mandalorians are going to ever to rise up again, it must be by being led by someone like Bo Katan, who now helmet-less, can gather together the true believers and the more pragmatic among their number into one, hopefully unified force.
While season three of The Mandalorian doesn’t feel quite as strong as the first two seasons, it possesses real storytelling gravitas and the building of fortunes, both good and evil, which authentically suggest that the galaxy is a fiendishly complicated place and that any move towards betterment, in this case, the Mandalorians, is only going to come with fierce determination and a willingness to fight for what you believe in.
In many ways, that’s what’s driven Star Wars since 1977 when some plucky rebels dared to dream they could take down an entire Empire; it took everything they had but they got there, and while Moff Gideon’s rise cannot be discounted, and Teva is right to worry, you can only hope right will overpower might once again, fuelled by the intoxicatingly powerful driver that is freedom and the many benefits it bestows.
Two episodes remain in the third season of The Mandalorian which is currently streaming on Disney+
Picard (S3, E7-8)
With a scintillating moodiness that ably reflects the massive stakes facing the onetime crew of the USS Enterprise, the third season of Picard remains a tour de force in conspiracy-laden storytelling.
Let’s begin with what we do know.
Starfleet has been comprehensively compromised by a rogue faction of Changelings, led by Vadic (Amanda Plummer) who are swearing vengeance upon the supposed good guys of the universe who, it emerges actually did some rather dark and terrible things to Changelings prisoners in their care.
Throwing the Geneva Convention rather fulsomely to the wind, the Federation experimented on their prisoners of war, visiting horror and pain and suffering on them on an unimaginable scale, and while this doesn’t to justify the despicable things the rogue Changelings are up to, it does explain why it is they are so damn angry.
In fact, in one emotionally arresting scene, a temporarily captive Vadic lays open her heart and explains that while Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), and Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) likely assume that Vadic and her ilk are monolithically evil, that thy know love and innocence, they have people they love and care about and they know all about the dreadful pain of losing them.
It’s a revealing scene that doesn’t take away from the great terrors foisted upon Starfleet personnel by the Changeling terrorist cell but which reflects the morally nuanced storytelling of modern Star Trek storytelling which acknowledges that while idealism is a find and laudable thing to aim for, and the Federation has attained in far more a complete fashion than anyone before them, that humanity and their allies are still fallible and capable of making mistakes.
The kind that see a genocidal virus unleashed on the Changelings which, Vadic reveals, was only thwarted when they stole the cure right back (which goes against the usual narrative that kind souls released it to Odo et. al), and which demonstrates that while there is much good in the Federation, and nobleness in Starfleet, there’s also great and terrible failings too.
Failings so pronounced that Vadic is prepared to do whatever she has to prosecute her case, the culmination of which is leading up to the Federation’s Founders’ Day, which is just 36 hours away and which will see a fleet, largely under Changeling control, amassed in the Sol System for god knows what horrific purpose.
In two episodes full of awful deaths, ship takeovers, and a remarkable battle between Data and Lore (Brent Spiner) for control of an android body, and thus of the USS Titan which has been taken over by Vadic, the number of things that are confirmed begin to mount, with the length and breadth of the conspiracy becoming far more clearly delineated.
What isn’t known is exactly who, or rather what, Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers) is; he’s been having weird visions for a number of episodes now – and it emerges for all his life – and it emerges that these are being orchestrated by the weirdly fleshy skull-like figure with whom Vadic communicates and who is clearly backing the Changelings’ campaign in return for the delivery of Picard’s son – and it seems there’s something big and vast behind them.
Or, rather behind the big red door which keeps appearing in Jack’s visions and which Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), who enjoys some beautifully intimate and confessional moments with husband Will Riker in Vadic’s prison before they are liberated by Worf (Michael Dorn) and Raffi (Michelle Hurd), urges him to open and step through.
That is the big unknown of the piece – what on earth lies in wait behind the door and what does it have to do with Picard and Crusher, who frankly keeps losing sons to very strange, supernatural events.
Naturally episode 8 ends on a great big cliffhanger, and who know what lies in wait for Picard, Crusher, Riker & Troi, Data & Geordi (who’s touchingly overjoyed to have his friend back) and Worf – their gathering around the conference table in one key scene is the stuff of nostalgic bliss – but suffice to say, whatever is pulling Jack’s strings (which Deanna can feel is ancient and evil) will spell trouble in the remaining episodes of what is shaping up as Picard’s finest and most emotionally-rich and narratively taut season of all.
Picard is currently screening all three season on Paramount+