Posted in: Paramount+, Star Trek, TV | Tagged: paramount, patrick stewart, star trek, Star Trek Picard, Terry Matalas

Star Trek: Picard Showrunner on Jean-Luc's F-Bomb Dividing Fans

Star Trek: Picard EP & showrunner Terry Matalas shares why Jean-Luc decided to expand his vocabulary and pushes back on fans' complaints.

File this under "this is why we can't have nice things." While the greater Star Trek community is happy that the franchise returned in the streaming era under Paramount+, people are still finding reasons to complain, and this time about all things… a little "potty mouth" on Jean-Luc's part. For those of us caught up in the 21st century, broadcast standards have become far looser than in previous generations. In fact, the only no-no word these days is "fuck," but it never stopped being common on premium networks like HBO. Additional platforms like streamers are perfectly okay with that, but now Trek traditionalists' latest attack comes in the form of star Patrick Stewart's use of "fuck" in the Picard episode "No Win Scenario."

The Egregious Star Trek: Picard Scene in Question

The scene in question was when Jean-Luc was talking to his son Jack at the Holodeck at a bar, reminiscing about going on a shuttle with his namesake since Jean-Luc's son is named after Beverly Crusher's (Gates McFadden) first husband, who was also his best friend. Without the Starfleet instruments they're normally accustomed to, Jack and Jean-Luc had to do the bare minimum to get home, which foreshadows the plan the Titan eventually uses to get itself out of the nebula. "Ten fucking grueling hours…," Jean-Luc said of his original tedious journey. "That moment actually wasn't scripted that way; Jonathan [Frakes], Ed [Speleers], and Patrick had created this incredibly intimate moment between a father and son; they were rehearsing, and what they had crafted was so genuine and so intense, that came out in the moment. Patrick said it and felt it, and it was real, a couple of times," executive producer and showrunner Terry Matalas told Collider.

The way Matalas breaks it down accentuates a genuine moment where it has a purposeful meaning. "I wasn't there on the set that day, so I had not seen it," he explained. "When I got the director's cut, I was so taken aback by it, but it was so real, and everything you do as artists, as writers and actors, even as editors is authenticity; that's the thing you want to feel. I was really torn because hearing that word come from your childhood hero, Captain Picard? It throws you. But wow, is it powerful, and it's a moment between a father and son."

In one of several fan gripes, "Picard's character is a gentleman of great propriety and duty. Unless you are showing that Picard now has dementia, use of profanity–especially, very vulgar words–are not in his character or what we have come to expect." Matalas responded, "I didn't hear my grandfather drop an F-bomb until he was in his 80s telling a story about being an engineer on a Destroyer in WW2 as a shell whizzed right by his head, inches away. 'Fucking… inches.' He was ALSO a 'gentleman of great propriety and duty.' Don't judge."

Of all the things fans gripe about – despite the near-universal acclaim Picard season three has received – and that is the hill they choose to die on? Never mind the several instances of swearing in The Original Series from all of McCoy's (DeForest Kelley) "Dammit's" or Data's (Brent Spiner) "Holy shit" moment as the Enterprise-D was crashing at the end of 1994's Generations. Even today, the current Trek series that get the most hate is Discovery, where swearing is common enough and not a peep from the language police. For those who need a reminder about Jean-Luc's "class," Picard production designer Dave Blass served up this offering from The Next Generation that happen in the syndication era. So FFS, can we finally move on?! Star Trek: Picard streams Thursdays on Paramount+.

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