Star Trek Picard: Ranking All 10 Episodes From Season 1
5. "Stardust City Rag"
As an episode that opens with the gruesome torture and mercy killing of a (more or less) beloved legacy character, "Stardust City Rag" is Star Trek: Picard's funnest episode.
Actually, "Stardust City Rag" is Star Trek: Picard's only fun episode.
Fully dispensing with the intercutting to the Narek / Soji romance / mystery baiting plot line of the previous five episodes, "Stardust City Rag" takes Picard and company to Star Trek's Vegas planet, Freecloud, and brings our beloved Seven of Nine along for the ride. After Seven of Nine literally dropped in on the crew in the previous episode "Absolute Candor", the show follows a similar path as that episode, showing a piece of Seven's past and catching us up on where she is in life 19 years after the USS Voyager returned to Earth. Except "Stardust City Rag" throws a curveball, illuminating our understanding of who Seven is now, by placing her in a bizarre prisoner exchange storyline in which Picard, Rios, and even Elnor have to beam down to Stardust City in disguise.
It's a shame there weren't more opportunities in season one for the crew of the La Sirena to let their hair down, but Patrick Stewart and Picard himself are clearly relishing the opportunity to dress up. Stewart goes full camp for the first time in his 30 years as Jean-Luc Picard, affecting a terrible French accent (despite the fact the character has always been French), donning an eyepatch, and shouting his dialogue.
There will never be a line reading like when Picard reveals Seven of Nine to Mr. Vup and Bjayzl: "You will not see many more LIKE HER!"