I wasn’t really going to sign up for CBS All Access. Why would I pay for a streaming service based on a normally free TV network? It makes no sense. I said I likewise wouldn’t get it for one show. Even as a Star Trek fan, I wasn’t about to pay for a single new series of Star Trek.
But then I saw the trailer for the new series Star Trek Picard and the anticipated return of my favorite captain, Sir Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard. And man, did it catch my fancy. But I still couldn’t quite bring myself to subscribe to CBS.
But over at Gabbing Geek, I’ve been doing a Star Trek rewatch. Netflix seemed to have all the different series, and then, when I finished up the original series…I discovered the animated series was no longer on Netflix. Where was it? CBS All Access.
Well, at least that meant I could see Picard.
Picard opens with what looks like a flashback as Jean-Luc Picard (Stewart, obviously) is playing poker with Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) in what looks like the Enterprise-D’s Ten-Forward lounge. Picard knows Data has been dead since Star Trek Nemesis, but of course this is all a dream. In short order, we learn Picard played a key role in a mass evacuation of Romulans after their sun went supernova, and there’s a prejudice against “synths,” artificial people similar to Data who attacked a Martian colony for unknown reasons and are currently banned in Federation space. The latter doesn’t sit well with Picard, and he isn’t afraid to say so.
But then a young woman named Dahj (Isa Briones) shows up, looking for Picard and convinced he and he along can help her. Something bad just happened to her, she’s scared, and she has secrets even she doesn’t know about. There’s something strange going on, and someone is out to get her for reasons unknown. Picard, intrigued and not the type to turn his back on anyone in need, does what he can to figure out what’s going on and help the young woman.
As first episodes go, Picard sets up some mysteries, has some nice surprises, but hasn’t yet assembled the entire main cast for the show. Beyond Briones, we get a bit of Alison Pill’s synthetic expert and Harry Treadaway’s Romulan agent. Pill makes a good impression as a somewhat comic relief character, but Treadaway is a bit more mysterious by design. Briones also does fine, but let’s face it, no one is watching this show for these characters just yet. As for Spiner, he doesn’t get much screen time, but he does seem to be fitting back into his old role rather nicely, though it does appear as if his make-up can only hide how much he’s aged since Next Generation only so much.
No, the real attraction here is, as always, Patrick Stewart, and he’s delightful. His Picard here is a bit more world-weary, upset at how xenophobic and reactionary the Federation seems to have become. He’s an older man who isn’t happy to see how much the universe has moved on without him to become something that is generally hostile to his own ideals. Shut away for the longest while in self-imposed exile, he’s returning and finding a necessary vitality, particularly since the mystery, as much as he knows about it, connects to an old friend in ways that are special to him.
And then there are other aspects to the mystery Picard doesn’t know about.
As it is, I think I’m going to enjoy this one.
Grade: B+
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