30% Of Star Trek Fans Said This Is Their Favorite Picard Character Not Named Jean-Luc Picard
(Welcome to Survey Says, a feature where we conduct a movie-related survey for a random group of people and explain why they're completely right, completely wrong, or somewhere in-between.)
"Star Trek: Picard" will be wrapping up its second season on May 5, 2022, and its third (and final) season is set to debut early in 2023. While the show does focus on Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) from "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Picard" did not come packaged as a reboot of that series. There were multiple cameos from legacy NextGen characters, which is to be expected from a show banking on nostalgia, but "Picard" was never meant to be a full-cast reunion. Spoilers ahead, but to date, Picard has received visits from Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), the disembodied consciousness of Data (Brent Spiner), and other minor characters like the former-Borg Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco) and Bruce Maddox (John Ales). In season 2, audiences also saw the return of Q (John De Lancie) and a few other surprise visits besides. But the makers of "Picard," while obviously happy to drop in these cameos, were seemingly determined to built up a whole new ensemble. "Trek" shows are, after all, ensemble pieces, and having a diverse crew of variously talented, bright-eyed, optimistic characters is de rigueur.
"Picard's" rag-tag cast included a bitter smoking ex-captain, a bitter drinking current captain, a bitter and murderous vigilante, a naïve but murderous doctor, a killer samurai, a sexy and murderous Romulan spy, another sexy and murderous Romulan spy, the above-mentioned Hugh, and an innocent young android woman who is convinced to unleash a robot-Cthulhu-driven apocalypse on the universe.
The crew at /Film carefully and scientifically put a poll out into the world (read: /Film, for funsies, asked 619 people who were likely on their lunch breaks) to determine what the best character of "Picard's" cast was their favorite, careful to omit the obvious answer that it is the title character. Read on, careful explorers, to see our findings.
The winner is...
Of those 619 people, a healthy 30.21% of them felt that Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) was the best of the new "Picard" characters. This is very obviously a cheat, as Seven of Nine is, in fact, a character who appeared in four full years of "Star Trek: Voyager" starting with the episode "Scorpion, Part II" from September 3, 1997. On "Voyager," Seven of Nine was a Borg drone assigned to aid the Voyager in an alliance to defeat and/or escape the mysterious and powerful Species 8472. At the end of the episode, Seven, broken from the Borg's machine collective, was welcomed as a member of the crew. Over the course of her four "Voyager" seasons, Seven would learn to become human again. The show's writers deeply loved the character, and she was typically highlighted over all the other characters. Some have attributed the success of the character to the massively uncomfortable corset Ryan wore.
On "Picard," Seven has more or less restored her humanity, although she still sports a few implants that couldn't be removed. She is now a friend of Jean-Luc's (there's no reason why they shouldn't have met in between the end of "Voyager" and the beginning of "Picard"; they were both once assimilated by the Borg), and has become a freelance vigilante who casually murders those who she thinks deserve it. The irony: Seven restored her humanity only to lose it to constant acts of vengeance.
In second place — and, again, this may be a cheat — is Hugh (Del Arco), with 15.02% of the vote. Hugh first appeared in the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "I, Borg," which first aired on May 10, 1992 (happy 20th anniversary!). In that episode, the Enterprise rescued a Borg drone from a crash site and found that, once separated from its machine hive, it begins to develop its own personality and sense of individuality again. He is eventually returned to the Borg to be re-assimilated. Hugh would return in the two-part episode "Descent" (September 10, 1993), wherein Hugh would show that his reintegration into the collective didn't go so well, and the Borg are now splitting off into cult-like factions. By the events of "Picard," Hugh has been largely recovered from being a Borg (he has had most of his implants removed), and now oversees a massive project to rescue other abandoned drones. Hugh works on an abandoned Borg ship now.
Hugh will meet a sad fate.
And the rest
Coming in third with 13.09% of the vote is Capt. Cristobal Rios (Santiago Cabrera), the alcoholic ship captain who once worked for Starfleet, but, in "Picard's" first season, lived alone on his own independent vessel with multiple holographic versions of himself. His ship, La Sirena, would be how Picard would get around. Eventually, audiences would learn why Capt. Rios was so bitter and why he drank so much (and I'm guessing that's not synthehol he's chugging).
Cabrera is a sparkling actor who brings a good deal of charm to an otherwise dour role, and it's entirely likely audiences are reacting to him rather than to the character. Cabrera, after all, also got to play all the holographic versions of himself, so, hey, the more the merrier.
Pairing up fourth place and sixth place are the evil Narissa (Peyton List) and her evil brother Narek (Harry Treadaway) who received 12.12% and 9.37% of the vote respectively. The two Romulan spies worked on the above mentioned Borg ship with Hugh, but both were up to something far more sinister. Narissa was a member of the Zhat Vash, a secret organization devote to destroying all androids in the galaxy (her quest is given to her in a vision, granted by a mystical, fortune-telling ring — maybe we'd better not talk about the Zhat Vash). Narek, meanwhile, belonged to the Tal Shiar, which is the Romulan honor police. Narek, with a hip, sexy haircut, will be charged with seducing and getting information out of Soji (Isa Briones) who is secretly an android ... maybe we'd also better not talk about Narek.
Soji, by the way, came in fifth place with 11.31% of the vote. Soji is a secret android who believes she is a human, and who must discover who built her and what her function is. Eventually, she'll have to find the android homeworld where she'll be expected to open up a space hole to another galaxy and unleash a mechanical Elder God hellbent on destroying biological life. Mystical fortune-telling rings? Robot Elder Gods? Are we sure this isn't an H.P. Lovecraft story? Actress Briones also played Dahj, Soji's twin sister, who will be the one to rope Picard into this mess. Remember Picard? He's in the show too.
The least favorite
Coming in last with a mere 8.89% of the vote is Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd), who used to be First Officer on a starship, but who has given herself over to hopelessness and drug abuse — early in the series, Raffi is seen living in a trailer smoking an e-cigarette; I guess some technologies won't change in the next 300 years. In a cute wink to "Star Trek's" legacy, Raffi lives at Vasquez Rocks, a popular shooting site for the franchise going back to the 1960s. Raffi reveals her increasingly painful backstory as the show progresses; she is alienated from her son, whose father appears to be long gone. Raffi will, at the conclusion of "Picard's" first season, romantically hold hands with Seven of Nine. Their romance will grow in "Picard's" second season, and they'll have a sweet bonding moment when they shove a knife into a man's eye socket together.
That accounts for 100.01% of the vote, with a .01% margin for error.
Not on this list is, perhaps shockingly, Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill), the cyberneticist who had, prior to the show's first season, never been to space before. Her good humor and naïveté served as a counterpoint to the sad, tired, murderous addicts that surrounded her. The fact that she, too, will commit at least one murder during "Picard's" first season did nothing to increase audience favor of her. Too bad. Pill is an amazing actress and brings more personality to "Picard" than anyone else. How she does not top this list is baffling.
Also absent was Commodore Oh (Tamlyn Tomita), one of the first season's central villains. She, too, was a member of the Zhat Vash, but had infiltrated Starfleet to become head of the organization's security forces. She was evil. No one voted for Picard's Romulan housekeeper named Laris (Orla Brady), who would play a large role in "Picard's" second season, nor was any love spread to Elnor (Evan Evagora), a Romulan samurai who readily decapitates multiple people as soon as looking at them. Elnor is a character lifted straight out of a Dungeons & Dragons game. Data, Troi, and Riker were not mentioned, nor was the mysterious third Soji clone, Sutra. And where was the love for Number One, Picard's loyal pit bull? Who can not love a cute li'l dog?
Of course, the best character of them all was the mysterious robot Cthulhu. What the heck was it? How was it in contact with our dimension? Was it communicating with androids? What did anyone know about it? What mystery! On second thought, let's all forget about the robot Cthulhu.