Star Trek: Picard - 7 Ups & 2 Downs From Episode 4 'Absolute Candor'
3. They Literally Cut A Man's Head Off
I feel slightly hypocritical for saying this, given that I marked the show down the other week for how jarring its use of expletives was, but the moment where Elnor comprehensively murdershagged three men in the Vashti streets elicited a huge reaction from me. A Romulan warrior-nun decapitated a man in the blink of an eye. That's cool.
It does feel like Picard is a show desperate to appear grown-up. In the time since The Next Generation television has changed (tears were shed over the deaths of an incestuous brother and sister pair last year) and through "the sheer f***ing hubris" and everyone smoking they want to show Star Trek is edgy now too. Yes it's forced, yes it's cynical, but cleaving a man's head clean off was great TV so, what are you gonna do?