Captain Shaw Is Just Having The Worst Week In Star Trek: Picard Season 3

This article contains spoilers for season 3, episode 5 of "Star Trek: Picard."

The third season of "Star Trek: Picard" has brought back a whole bunch of characters from "Star Trek: The Next Generation," but it's also introduced one of my new favorite "Star Trek" characters: Captain Liam Shaw, the commanding officer of the U.S.S. Titan. It's easy (and fun!) to hate Shaw, played with the perfect amount of snark by actor Todd Stashwick, because he's a grumpy buzzkill who has replaced charm with "being an a**hole." He's also pretty bigoted against former Borg, though when we find out about his history with the horrifying aliens, it's kind of hard to blame him. It's also a little hard to blame him for being so cranky, too, when you realize that the captain has had one seriously no-good, very bad week. 

Not only does poor Captain Shaw have to protect the entire crew of the Titan from the escapades of fellow Starfleet officers Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and William Riker (Jonathan Frakes), but the very presence of Jack Crusher (Ed Speelers) on his ship means that they're a constant target for trouble. The events of the third season of "Picard" take place over the course of just a few days, it seems, which means that all of this misery has been back-to-back and Shaw hasn't even had a chance to breathe. Get this dips*** from Chicago a raktajino and a shoulder rub, stat!

Captain Shaw took over command of the Titan from Captain Riker, and he found that the former captain's tastes and leadership style weren't really in line with his own ideals. He got rid of Riker's jazz collection because he prefers "music that has rules," for example, and he's not pleased at all when Riker and Picard come aboard his ship. Initially, it seems like that's all just because he thinks Riker is a wild card and Picard is irresponsible and a magnet for trouble, but we later find out that the first time Shaw "met" Picard was when the elder captain was a part of the Borg collective, as the murderous Locutus. That might shade a guy's opinion of someone, especially when Shaw only narrowly survived the encounter and witnessed his comrades being massacred. 

He tells the rogue captains that he has no intention on getting the Titan involved in any of their hijinks, and that he doesn't want there to be any explosions. But there are explosions pretty shortly thereafter, and a whole lot of hijinks. Sure, they manage to get out of all of their myriad dilemmas because this is "Star Trek" and they're the heroes, but as Shaw points out, they have "a real chicken and egg thing happening" with heroic rescues. Every time Shaw thinks that things might finally start to be going his way and the troublesome captains will be out of his hair, something else happens to keep them entwined in danger. 

While fans of "Picard" are almost certainly watching the series to root for Picard and the rest of the Enterprise crew, it's hard not to feel a bit bad for Shaw and all of his misery as a result of Picard's arrival on the Titan. He goes from trying to protect the Titan and its crew to being seriously wounded and forced to give control of the ship to Riker during an attack by the mysterious Vadic (Amanda Plummer), which can't be good for the ego. He reports Picard and Riker's un-Starfleet-like behavior to the Federation and expects them to finally no longer be his problem, then Ro (Michelle Forbes) reveals that the Changeling problem the Titan has been dealing with is spread throughout Starfleet. Captain Shaw ends up stuck in the middle of this complex conspiracy, despite being a straightforward military man who has no interest in this nonsense. 

Shaw actually reminds me quite a bit of another Starfleet captain who infamously didn't get along with Picard and was a much more blunt sort of leader: Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) of the space station Deep Space Nine. Unlike the rakish adventurousness of Captain Kirk or Riker or the self-importance of Picard, these captains are just doing the best they can in increasingly ridiculous situations that are ultimately out of their control. 

What's great about Shaw is that while he's a total jerk in the season premiere, we get to see him grow and change as the season progresses. Heck, he even starts treating former Borg Seven-of-Nine (Jeri Ryan) with a tiny bit more respect. In an interview with /Film's Vanessa Armstrong, Stashwick shared his love for the character's arc over the season:

"[...] What I love about [season showrunner Terry Matalas] is the way he uses what I do to get people to hate me at first, and then slowly wrestle them into going, "Oh, he has a point. He's a little funny sometimes." I love the journey that Shaw goes on, the evolution and the new places that he comes to when faced with these dire situations. It's not that he hasn't faced his share of space adventure before. He's been in Starfleet, boldly going through the final frontier for at least five years on the Titan itself. He's a growing individual who, when we first meet him, has a lot to learn. And we watch him slowly evolve as these situations present themselves."

We are halfway through the final season of "Star Trek: Picard," and Shaw has begrudgingly worked his way into a lot of fans' hearts. Where he ends up by the end of the season is anyone's guess, but given the demand for a Shaw/Seven spin-off series, I doubt this is the last we've seen of this cranky captain from Chicago. 

New episodes of "Star Trek: Picard" debut Thursdays on Paramount+.