Star Trek In Significantly Fewer Seasons, 14: Kelvin Future

Another really fun season that introduces the 21st century movie canon, as well as the sometimes needlessly dour Picard. I did do something a bit different this season as my Picard episodes are edited versions of what aired. Basically, there was a lot of fat to trim, and I managed to cut the episode count by two. (Wait until you see what I do with the second season of Picard). We get the entirety of the official first season of Picard's story in, and there are some more TNG, DS9, and TOS episodes sprinkled in to give context to Lower Decks and Prodigy. 

If there's a theme to this section of seasons (13-15), it's that The Romulans are way more annoying than The Klingons, and despite being less intimidating than The Dominion or The Borg, they still manage to be persistent trouble for The Federation, no matter when they are.

​In this season, one of them disrupts the timeline in such a fashion that TOS is rebooted with a new cast, and it sets up the main conflict of the first season of Picard. 

Is it a Lovecraftian cryptid or are the Romulans fucking up the timeline?

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Season 14:
The Kelvin Future

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1. That Hope Is You, Pt 1
(Burnham, Booker, Sahil)

We haven't had a Discovery episode since Season Four! That's when Burnham and friends were flung into the future, which is where we pick up here, as Burnham is off trying to survive in this new era, making new friends, since her entire crew is now hundreds of years behind her.


2.  wej Duj/First First Contact 
(Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, Rutherford, Freeman, Ransom, Shaxs, T'ana, Billups, Gomez)

The LD Cerritos crew is in the background of this story where Vulcan Lower Deckers and Klingon Lower Deckers each disagree with their respective bridge crews about how to deal with the Pakleds, who are headed to Earth in order to destroy it. Later, Mariner turns the Cerritos crew against her mother hoping to prevent her promotion, and Rutherford, while trying to preserve his memories of Tendi learns dark secrets about his cybernetic implants.


3. Far From Home
(Saru, Stammets, Tilly, Georgiou, Reno, Detmer, Owosukun, Rhys, Nhan, Culber, Burnham)

Oh, hey, Discovery is in the far flung future, too! And they're on a quest to find Michael. You know, if they can survive after their ship has crash landed on a planet so far in their future that their knowledge is pretty much useless.


4. People Of Earth
(Burnham, Saru, Stammets, Tilly, Georgiou, Booker, Adira, Reno, Detmer, Owosukun, Rhys, Nhan, Culber, Sahil)

Burnham tries to discover precisely what happened to Starfleet in the days between when she and Discovery disappeared and the time they arrived. And we meet a new Trill! We haven't seen any of these outside of Deep Space Nine's Dax.


5. Starship Down
(Bashir, Dax, Sisko, Quark, Kira, Worf, O'Brien)

And speaking of DS9 and Dax, let's flip back to an adventure about Starfleet making trade agreements with a planet in The Dominion. I know that doesn't sound exciting, which may be why we skipped it during the previous seasons, but it will be important to the next episode. And not because that also inolves trade negotiations.
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6. Reflections/Hear All, Trust Nothing
(Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, Rutherford, Freeman, Ransom, Shaxs, T'ana, Billups, Gomez, Quark, Kira, Aberdeen)

A recruitment drive goes awry turning Boimler into Starfleet's most prized attraction and revealing Rutherford's past and why he has his cybernetics. Then it's a very special adventure on Deep Space Nine as the crew has to undo Quark negotiations.
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7. Die Trying (D) 
(Burnham, Saru, Stammets, Tilly, Georgiou, Booker, Adira. Reno, Detmer, Owosukun, Rhys, Nhan, Culber, Vance)

The Discovery crew becomes part of the new, futuristic Starfleet after a successful mission that involves the seeds from their spore drive. Whew. They're lucky they didn't show up in The Enterprise or one of those other useless ships from the past.

8. The Trouble With Edward (Short Treks)/Crisis 2: Paradoxus (LD)
(Pike)
(Boimler, Mariner, Rutherford, Ransom, Tendi, Sulu)

More trouble with tribbles. Then, it's a Holodeck episode where Mariner tweaks a Boimler program after the crew gets sad news about the Boimler clone.

Serial 1: Romulan Reboot (M)
(Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Scotty, Sulu, Chekov, Pike, Sarek, Amanda)

It's a Not Quite Reboot when a Romulan travels through time to avoid a major tragedy to his his people creating a whole new ... timeline ? dimension ? where we see an entirely new cast as the classic TOS characters (and yet another Spock). It's like The Original Series with a Beastie Boys soundtrack.

11. Children Of Mars (Short Treks)/Remembrance (Pic)
(Picard, Data, Jurati, Raffi, Narek, Laris)

Romulan refugees from the movie's incident are prevalent in this episode about what Picard is up to as a retired admiral. There's also a return to studying the Singh/replicant storyline that was so prevelant in TNG and Enterprise.

12. Maps, Beginnings, Legends & Endings (Pic)
(Picard, 7of9, Hugh, Soji, Jurati, Raffi, Narek, Laris, Rios)

The Borg are back. Like, your favorite Borg from TNG and Voyager. They join Picard on his quest to save the assasin clone of the Data descendent we met in the first episode.

13. Asylum/Let Sleeping Borg Lie (Prod)
(Dal, Gryn, Pog, Zero, Rok, Murf, Janeway, Chakotay, Noum, Diviner)

The crew of the Protostar, along with Hologram Janeway are now being pursued by The Dauntless, which includes real Janeway and real Chakotay. But this chase is more of a curiosity and concern issue rather than a wrathful father's vendetta, so everyone should be fine.

14. Reclamation (Pic)
(Picard, Soji, Jurati, Raffi, Narek, Elnor, Maddox)

Heists abound!

15. Symbiosis (TNG)
(Picard, Riker, Laforge, Worf, Troi, Data, Crusher, Tasha Yar, Wesley)

A truly terrible episode about warring planets. But it's not as bad as "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", and it gets a nice callback in the next episode.

16. Trusted Sources/The Stars At Night (LD)
(Boimler, Mariner, Rutherford, Ransom, Tendi, Aberdeen)

In the last episode, Picard helped the Omarians overcome an addiction, and now the Cerritos shows up to see how how it's going. Well. So well that a journalist uses past secrets about Freeman to get her shipped off to Starbase 80 while the Cerritos has to deal with The Breen. Then Aberdeen is back. It turns out her financial backer is someone very familiar.


17. Conduits (Pic)
(Picard, Riker, Troi, Hugh, Soji, Jurati, Raffi, Narek, Elnor, Maddox, Rios)

Picard and Soji seek refuge from with some familiar faces from TNG. Meanwhile, Elnor and Hugh have an exciting teamup on a Borg ship that's been turned into a museum.​


18. Obsession (TOS)/All The World's A Stage (Prod)
(Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott, Uhura, Checkov, Chapel, Leslie, Garrovick)
(Dal, Gryn, Pog, Zero, Rok, Murf, Janeway, Noum)

Captain Kirk is the living embodiment of the Old Man Yells At Cloud meme from The Simpsons but his actions in this episode affect a planet that The Protostar visits when they receive a distress call.


Serial 2: Et in Arcadia Ego (Pic)
(Picard, Data, 7of9, Soji, Jurati, Raffi, Narek, Elnor, Maddox, Rios)

A trip to Soji's home planet is interrupted by a Romulan attack. Picard isn't just old, now he's sick. So sick that he ends up conferencing with everyone's favorite android crew member...which may have something to do with the fact that Soji's home planet is run by one of the Singhs.