Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Picard Season 3, Episode 3 – "Seventeen Seconds"The disparate command styles of Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Captain William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes) came to a head in Star Trek: Picard season 3, episode 3, which also tacitly pitted the cerebral, philosophical pace of Star Trek: The Next Generation against the action-oriented machismo of the TNG movies. When Captain Liam Shaw (Todd Stashwick) is injured, he gives Riker command of the USS Titan-A and charges Will with getting his crew to safety, a task easier said than done. Meanwhile, the honeymoon of Riker and Picard's season 3 team-up is now over.
A bemused Admiral Picard slid into the role of Riker's "Number One," but amusing joke aside, Star Trek: Picard season 3, episode 3's crisis quickly placed the two at loggerheads over the best tactics to use against Captain Vadic (Amanda Plummer) and the Shrike. The Titan has major disadvantages: No matter where they ran in the Ryton nebula, Vadic is able to track them because of a Changeling saboteur aboard. Worse, the Shrike is armed with a portal-making weapon stolen from Daystrom Station. In spite of their decades of experience from commanding the USS Enterprise-D and E in TNG and the movies, as well as Riker's time as Captain of the Titan, Will and Jean-Luc's struggle against the Shrike turned into a conflict against each other.
