Star Trek: Picard Spoiler-Free Review

Note: This is a spoiler-free review. While we touch upon certain basic plot points that have already been established in the trailers and marketing for Star Trek: Picard, we are avoiding discussing any major revelations here. [poilib element="accentDivider"] “That is the exploration that awaits you. Not mapping stars and studying nebula, but charting the unknown possibilities… of existence.” -Q to Jean-Luc Picard in the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation With those words, Patrick Stewart’s final adventure as Captain Picard on the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation culminated, as the all-powerful being Q imparted a lesson to his on-again/off-again frenemy. The final frontier -- that Star Trek concept and catchphrase that is as old as the franchise itself -- is about more than just exploring outer space, brave new worlds, and all the rest of it. It’s also the investigation of the human interior, of what it is that makes us tick… and of what untold wonders our continued evolution as a species has in store for us. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/patrick-stewart-why-did-picard-leave-starfleet"] So now, as Stewart returns to the small screen in the unlikely -- yet somehow also inevitable -- Star Trek: Picard, one must ask: Has Jean-Luc taken Q’s lesson to heart in the 26 years since that encounter? Or more specifically, have the writers and producers of the new show done so? (And a note: While Next Gen ended in 1994, Picard and his crew did get four movies on the big screen, ending with Star Trek: Nemesis in 2002.) Based on this premiere episode of Star Trek: Picard, "Remembrance," our tricorder scans indicate the answer is “maybe.” The show, which picks up essentially in real-time (about two decades after Nemesis), gives us an older -- one might even argue “elderly” as he’s depicted here -- Jean-Luc who, following a galactic tragedy, retired from Starfleet long ago. Retreating to the family vineyard in France to lick his wounds, Picard is no longer an Admiral, but simply Jean-Luc. And yet he is haunted by what transpired back then, by Starfleet’s response to the catastrophe, and perhaps most of all, by the memory of his friend and fellow officer Data (Brent Spiner, digitally de-aged to look as android-y as ever), who sacrificed himself for Picard in Nemesis. [poilib element="commerceCta" json="%7B%22image%22%3A%7B%22url%22%3A%22https%3A%2F%2Fassets1.ignimgs.com%2F2020%2F01%2F21%2Fstar-trek-picard1579620033587.jpg%22%2C%22styleUrl%22%3A%22https%3A%2F%2Fassets1.ignimgs.com%2F2020%2F01%2F21%2Fstar-trek-picard1579620033587_%7Bsize%7D.jpg%22%2C%22id%22%3A%225e2716c5e4b0e6d43845e189%22%7D%2C%22url%22%3A%22https%3A%2F%2Fr.zdbb.net%2Fu%2Fbltn%22%2C%22title%22%3A%221%20Free%20Month%20CBS%20All%20Access%22%2C%22store%22%3A%22CBS%22%2C%22additionalInfo%22%3A%22Use%20promo%20code%20JANUARY.%22%2C%22ourPick%22%3Afalse%7D"] But our beloved captain -- and make no mistake, Stewart instantly finds his inner Jean-Luc in the premiere, despite the almost 20 years since he last played him -- is shaken from the slumber of his self-exile when the mysterious Dahj (Isa Briones) arrives in his life, on the run, scared, and in desperate need of help. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=star-trek-picard-photos&captions=true"] Delving into what exactly is at play with this new character gets into spoiler territory, but suffice to say her plight resonates with Picard and where his life has taken him. And not just that, but it seems that the mystery behind Dahj could tie into Q’s “unknown possibilities” lecture from all those years ago. Additionally, even as Jean-Luc struggles with his past, the show is also setting up a philosophical argument that, if executed well as the season progresses, could do what Trek was ultimately designed for: To explore the here and now of our world, the issues we face in the year 2020, through the tropes of sci-fi. The show is decidedly earthbound, shot rather lushly by director and co-executive producer Hanelle M. Culpepper on Jean-Luc’s vineyard and at other future-Earth environs like Paris (which feels more Blade Runner than United Federation of Planets for some reason). Like Star Trek: Discovery before it, Picard takes Gene Roddenberry’s creation into the Peak TV age of television storytelling, tackling what will surely be a season-long arc, and doing so on a huge budget and with a (slightly) more adult flourish than what has come before. Along with that budget comes action, and while, again, this episode is mostly planet-bound, there’s still enough whiz-bang martial arts and phaser fire to keep adrenaline junkies happy. That Jean-Luc appears to have trouble keeping up with the action at times is a nice touch of realism, though one expects this will not always be the case as the show continues (we’ve already seen him in a sabre duel in the trailers). [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/why-seven-of-nine-blames-picard"] That said, the premiere episode does feel somewhat disjointed, as if some connective tissue between scenes is missing, and it also takes a perhaps too leisurely pace while setting up the bigger storyline of the show. One moment in particular had me thinking a character was dreaming, or otherwise hallucinating, only to realize that, nope, he was just waking up on the couch after a big action sequence that really should’ve had him at least checking into whatever 2399 Earth’s version of Urgent Care is. There’s also an abundance of exposition which, on the one hand, seems pretty impossible to avoid when picking up the story thread in this universe after so much time has passed, but on the other hand makes one wish that the writers had found more graceful solutions to imparting that information. (An interview between Picard and a news reporter which fills in back story largely doesn’t work because the actress who plays the reporter is tonally off from how Stewart is playing the scene, for example.) Like The Mandalorian before it, it appears Picard is also taking its time introducing its main cast. Beyond Jean-Luc and Dahj, we’re also introduced to Alison Pill’s Dr. Jurati, an expert in cybernetics who doesn’t have much to work with in the post-Data world (but who does have some fun interplay with Stewart), and Harry Treadaway’s Narek, a handsome, emo Romulan whose true motivations are unclear at the moment. The rest of the main cast -- Michelle Hurd, Evan Evagora, and Santiago Cabrera -- are nowhere to be seen in this episode, while the legacy players such as Jonathan Frakes, Jeri Ryan, Marina Sirtis, and Jonathan Del Arco are also mostly absent. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=jean-luc-picard-the-first-duty-gallery-comic-con-2019&captions=true"] Which is fine. Stewart is on the record as saying that he didn’t want this to be a retread of The Next Generation. And it certainly isn’t that. Instead, Star Trek: Picard looks to be building on the world that we last saw -- for a brief moment -- in the 2009 J.J. Abrams Star Trek film, as well as, of course, on where we parted ways with Jean-Luc in 2002. So far, Picard feels like a natural if surprising continuation of that era, but also one that, in tried and true Trek fashion, has something to say about our world as well. Questions and Notes from the Q Continuum:

• A couple of my colleagues who are not terribly familiar with The Next Generation said they found this first episode to be a bit overwhelming and difficult to follow at times in terms of info dumps and world-building. I, as a practicing, Q-fearing Trekkie, didn’t have that problem.
• I think my favorite supporting characters so far are Picard’s two Romulan friends who work for him and run his household (Orla Brady and Jamie McShane). There’s an affection and humor between them and Picard which really lands already.
• As far as I can tell, so far Picard is spot-on in terms of fitting into the canon. Whereas Star Trek: Discovery has been known to bump up against Star Trek “history,” Picard appears to have no such problem. (No doubt the presence of Trek novelist and expert supervising producer Kirsten Beyer is helping to keep that particular ship on the straight and narrow.)

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