The consensus is in. Star Trek: Picard is a winner. And for many, it has met or exceeded expectations. For me, it's one of the few instances where the promos and the build-up didn't do the actual show justice. They said the show would be slower and more pensive, but what we got is something new for a Trek show… A complex story and a mystery that's unfolding. Did the first episode give us enough? No, but it left a lot of people wanting more. I think that what we're getting is a step up from what we got with the four TNG movies. As with the TOS movies, time was what TNG needed before we could get something truly new.
- We've got a new take on Picard. The captain went though a lot on a weekly basis, with weird aliens and strange anomalies but this time the focus is on adding dramatic weight to one thing. The upsetting of the one constant up until now… Starfleet not being what it should be.
- It's a new era for the Federation. How exactly remains to be seen.
- We have the long-awaited return of some favorite characters. A lot of viewers haven't taken too well to the possibility of too much fan service, but many are also excited to find out what became of our favorite characters decades after we last saw them. By the way, I thought that they got Data to look right just in time. The show even puts him in a new light thanks to its focus on artificial life and what it means now at the dawn of the 25th century. What might the show do with the others who have yet to appear?
- We've been introduced to some interesting new players. Who doesn't already love Agnes Jurati and Dahj?
- And of course we got a pretty good look at future Earth, finally, and the production makes it look absolutely fantastic. Didn't get any of that with the movies and definitely not on TNG where they didn't get off the ship nearly enough (where did that budget go anyway?).
- Is Dahj really dead? It's been speculated that maybe she got uploaded to somewhere and can be resurrected (I won't call the show Capricard or BSP just yet). Or perhaps she can be recreated somehow from a fragment of something. A cheater of death? Someone like that could change everything. Coming back from the dead is nothing new for Trek, so what kind of angle might this offer in order to make it mean something?
- Is there a coverup? Romulans beam down to Starfleet headquarters, kill someone in an explosion and leave without a trace. Are they good at disappearing or did they have help from the inside?
- Why did Bruce Maddox disappear? And will he turn up again?
- What ungodly manner of dark experiments is being carried out inside the borg cube?
- Why did the synths destroy Mars? Was that another inside job from Starfleet? That's a big one right there. What happened with Romulus and Mars left me a bit shaken. Imagine… Starfleet is building ships to rescue the population of Romulus. Then a terrorist attack destroys the shipyards and the people of Romulus know that they now have no way to get off their planet and will soon die in a supernova. Talk about a death sentence. But why did Starfleet withdraw support after that? Our lone man Picard will get to the bottom of this.
