THAT WAS SO GOOD. Holy shit. Now THIS is what Star Trek: Picard should have been.Picard doing things he loves, being a mentor to cadets. A fully functional Starfleet that LOOKS like an evolved version of the Nemesis look. A starfleet filled with ships, new and old, that capitalized on the great bounty of technology brought back by Voyager.
Finally, an answer to the status of the borg.
And Q! Oh my. they made him dangerous again. This is Season 1 and 2 Q turned up a notch. I love it. And the surprise of making him younger for a moment... so needed. Good on them.
Some shows and movies really benefited from the pandemic delays. Discovery did. Spider-Man did. The Marvel shows on Disney+ did. Wheel of Time did. You can add Picard to the list. Compared to Season 1, which was billed as the most expensive Star Trek show ever (to which I say: SPS and Chambon must have made a made a pay day, this season in just one episode makes last season look cheap. Dozens of ships designs, new and old. New shuttles (no recycled disco shuttles). Considerable new late-24th century Star Fleet ship interior sets which probably cost millions of dollars. It simply looks like the show we always hoped Picard would be but fell a little short Season 1.
I'm really excited. This was the best opening episode to a live action Star Trek season since probably "Night" at the start of Season 5 (when Voyager was the only Star Trek show on the air for the first time). I just hope it can keep up the tempo. I'm excited to see this totalitarian alternate timeline (without the ridiculousness of the Mirror Universe). I just hope when they go back to 2024, the show doesn't become cheap and a Star Trek IV riff.
But man, Stargazer, Captain Rios, Q, Starfleet Academy Chancellor Picard, the new uniforms, the return of the Borg, the new ships, the story, the acting... there's been some great Star Trek episodes since it came back in 2017 (been a pretty big fan of the last 2 seasons of Discovery), but this is far and away the best one.
"The trial never ends", after an absence in Picard's life of 31 years, Q returns with that. Terrifying.
Oh yeah by the way, the year is at least 2401. Welcome to the 25th century folks. It took 35 years but we made it.