TREK REVIEW: PICARD 1-2 & 1-3

MAPS AND LEGENDS

THE END IS THE BEGINNING

Really, the first three episodes of Picard make up a broken pilot episode. Arguably, the three episodes could have been edited down to a single ninety-minute opener, and nothing significant would be lost. However, I like the slow burn of this series, and the extra time it spends exploring this future. The flashbacks to the backstory work really nicely, showing how the future Picard had feared if Maddox had his way in TNG was coming to pass. We get our first glimpse of Utopia Planitia, the much-mentioned Starfleet shipyard, where androids – or synths – are treated with contempt by the human crew. At least, before one of the synths, F8, switches to berserk mode and murders everyone, before dropping the planet's defenses and killing himself.

The event we briefly saw in Short Treks: “Children of Mars” and forms much of the background of this series is a clear 9/11 moment for the Star Trek universe. It's not the first – that was the Xindi attack in Enterprise. While that dealt with the immediate reactions of the public, government and military, Picard takes a longer view. 9/11 was over eighteen years ago, while in the Federation, fourteen years have passed between the synth attack on Mars and the main events of Picard. It's a significant event which has left deep societal scars on the Federation.

The nature of the synths isn't exactly clear at this point. They're clearly based on Data, with the same white-gold skin and golden irises, but they don't appear as sophisticated. How self-aware they are isn't exactly clear as yet, but Trek has shown time and again that intelligent machines can develop awareness when active and learning. It's not surprising that the Federation banned synthetic life afterwards, although it looks like a lot of people were looking for an excuse. An interesting revelation is that the Romulans already despised artificial life, refusing to ever research the possibilities. Whatever the truth of Soji's origins, it appears she won't be welcome in the Federation or Romulan space.

We learn a lot about the late 24^th century in these two episodes. Clearly the Romulan Empire exists in some fashion after the destruction of Romulus, although presumably it must have a reduced influence. However, the power running the Borg Artefact Research Institute is the Romulan Free State. Interestingly, Federation visitors are allowed, including humans, Andorians and Trill, so in spite of the bad blood between the two powers, officially they're not on such poor terms. As for the Federation, whatever we might like to think about it being a socialist paradise, there's clearly still privilege and a class divide. Picard has his inherited chateau, even after his fall from grace, and not everyone is so lucky.

All this ties into the two episodes' recruitment drive for the protagonists of the series. Starfleet is not a trustworthy or loyal organisation. Picard goes to them to ask for help, and is shot down. It's hard to argue with Fleet Admiral Clancy that he's displaying incredible hubris. It's later that we learn he went to Starfleet demanding they help with the Romulan evacuation before the supernova, and that he never believed they'd accept his threat of resignation. What's worse is that this apparently led them to dismiss his protege Raffi Musiker, who's now living on the outskirts of society. Rios's former ship, the ibn Majid, was supposedly wiped from the records after a terrible event that led to the death of its captain. Starfleet are not coming off very well in this series.

I love Picard's new crew. Michelle Hurd as Raffi is a perfect foil for Stewart's Picard, very much the McCoy to his Kirk. Some of her lines sound exactly like they could have been spoken by Bones. We only see glimpses of their earlier relationship in Starfleet, but they were clearly very close – she even calls him “J L,” and no one's ever gotten away with that before. It's good to have someone who knows Picard well but won't take any of his shit. Santiago Cabrera is very good as Rios, a character who's dripping with cliché but in a script that knows it and refuses to take him entirely seriously. A Starfleet drop-out who's now a pilot on his own ship, being so manly he refuses medical treatment for a cool-looking wound – it's clear the script is taking the piss out of such character and that it's a very obvious facade for the character.

I absolutely love La Sirena and its suite of holograms. Not only do we have a new generation of EMH, but we have an Emergency Navigational Hologram and such programmes are clearly customisable. Having all the holograms based on Rios, only played by Cabrera with a different accent and haircut is hilarious, as is the fact that they're clearly a lot more pleasant to be around than their captain. However, I really don't understand how or why holograms aren't banned the same way androids are. OK, it's entirely possible that Rios is operating a ship full of holograms illegally, but no one comments on this or looks surprised. They may not be sentient, but as we've seen in the past, holograms can become sentient by being left running too long or simply by programming error. Indeed, it makes me wonder why they're even bothering with androids if they already have holographic technology this sophisticated. I was really hoping that Picard would be following up on the holographic rights issue seen at the end of Voyager, but the writers don't seem to be interested in tackling this.

Lastly we have Dr. Jurati, played adorably by Alison Pill. She clearly has a great deal of respect for Picard, but I'm not convinced we can entirely trust her. Her interrogation by Commodore Oh, the dodgy Romulan plant, was left open-ended, and her apparent fear and eagerness to go with Picard seem overplayed to me. I'd be very surprised if it doesn't turn out that she's been working for Oh ever since she left the Daystrom Institute.

Moving via Oh to the Romulan plot... I still love Picard's ex-Tal Shiar staff, particularly Orla Brady's Liris. Picard must still have some sway if he can employ two not-very-secret ex-agents and have them live on Earth with him. It's a shame they're not joining him on his mission to Freecloud, but I guess someone has to stay behind and tend the vineyard and look after the dog (wherever he's got to). I'm much less enamoured with the Romulan baddies. Harry Treadaway is pretty cute and charming, and I can see why Soji would fall for Narek, but he's not exactly convincing as an operative of the dreaded Zhat Vash secret service. As for Rizzo, or whatever her name is really, she's just awful. The creepy incestuous vibe is incredibly tiresome, and her arch stalking about the place is pretty boring as well.

However, the Borg Artefact scenes are intriguing, as are the ongoing questions about Soji's background. She clearly believes she has a human mother and father, but has some kind of sleep command implanted that knocks her out whenever she talks to her (holographic?) mother. The Romulan survivors, all clearly mentally wounded from their experiences, are a powerful elements, although it isn't clear if their suffering is an after-effect of assimilation or the specific catastrophe that befell their starship, leading to this cube being rendered inoperative. As good as it is to see Jonathan Del Arco back as Hugh, he doesn't get to do very much here, except, rather intriguingly, pull rank on Narek. Lots of questions left to answer.

Still, in spite of a couple of weaker elements, notably the parts that don't directly involve Picard, this series is shaping up to be something rather excellent, and the drip feed of information is tantalising. Now, finally, Picard returns to space. Engage!

Future History: Episode two confirms that dating for the series: the attack on Mars happened in 2385, with the main events happening fourteen years later in 2399. It's twenty years since Star Trek Nemesis.

Observations: The old fan joke about northern and southern Klingons to explain the smooth and crunchy versions gets incorporated into the canon, only to explain the Romulans this time. Apparently, Romulans from the northern provinces have ridges brows. It's also finally confirmed onscreen that Romulus was located in the Beta Quadrant.

This is the first time in Star Trek that we see the iconic Vasquez Rocks actually represent Vasquez Rocks. It's turned up half a dozen times in Trek right back to the first season of TOS, standing for planets such as Vulcan, Capella 4 and Xyrillia and numerous nameless desert planets.

Hugh says the Romulans recovered from the Artefact are the only ones assimilated by the Borg. He's wrong – we saw Romulan ex-drones in Voyager – but it's not like he'll remember everything that ever happened to the entire Collective. Anyway, maybe the others were assimilated after he escaped.

Thoughts: It certainly looks like F8 is taken over by a some outside force, which lessens the impact of the crew's mistreatment of him. It would be a bolder statement if the synths rebelled on their own. Lots to be revealed, yet, though. It does make me wonder if Control will be involved somehow; after all, there has been talk already of tying Picard and Discovery together with shared elements.

Laris calls the Zhat Vash “cheeky feckers,” which is probably the most Irish thing she could say. Lots of planets have an Ireland, I guess.

A bizarre number of fans are complaining that Commodore Oh wears sunglasses when she meets Jurati. As a Vulcan, she shouldn't need them, as she'd have an inner eyelid to protect against the sun. Aside from the fact that this is a ridiculous thing to get worked up about, I assumed this was a clue that she's actually Romulan.

On that matter, how has Rizzo posed as a human in Starfleet for so long? I can buy a Romulan posing as a Vulcan, but wouldn't the first routine medical show up a Romulan posing as a human?

On a vaguely related matter, as soon as Oh's name was revealed, I shouted “It's the Master!” More apropos, this is the first time we've seen a Starfleet officer using the rank of commodore in the 24^th century.

It's possibly nothing, but the use of antileptons in the destruction of images might be significant. After all, the most common antilepton is the positron, as in the positronic net.

Is La Sirena a Vulcan ship? It looks kind of similar to 24^th century Vulcan ships that were occasionally seen in TNG.

Really, the first three episodes of Picard make up a broken pilot episode. Arguably, the three episodes could have been edited down to a single ninety-minute opener, and nothing significant would be lost. However, I like the slow burn of this series, and the extra time it spends exploring this future. The flashbacks to the backstory work really nicely, showing how the future Picard had feared if Maddox had his way in TNG was coming to pass. We get our first glimpse of Utopia Planitia, the much-mentioned Starfleet shipyard, where androids – or synths – are treated with contempt by the human crew. At least, before one of the synths, F8, switches to berserk mode and murders everyone, before dropping the planet's defenses and killing himself.

The event we briefly saw in Short Treks: “Children of Mars” and forms much of the background of this series is a clear 9/11 moment for the Star Trek universe. It's not the first – that was the Xindi attack in Enterprise. While that dealt with the immediate reactions of the public, government and military, Picard takes a longer view. 9/11 was over eighteen years ago, while in the Federation, fourteen years have passed between the synth attack on Mars and the main events of Picard. It's a significant event which has left deep societal scars on the Federation.

The nature of the synths isn't exactly clear at this point. They're clearly based on Data, with the same white-gold skin and golden irises, but they don't appear as sophisticated. How self-aware they are isn't exactly clear as yet, but Trek has shown time and again that intelligent machines can develop awareness when active and learning. It's not surprising that the Federation banned synthetic life afterwards, although it looks like a lot of people were looking for an excuse. An interesting revelation is that the Romulans already despised artificial life, refusing to ever research the possibilities. Whatever the truth of Soji's origins, it appears she won't be welcome in the Federation or Romulan space.

We learn a lot about the late 24^th century in these two episodes. Clearly the Romulan Empire exists in some fashion after the destruction of Romulus, although presumably it must have a reduced influence. However, the power running the Borg Artefact Research Institute is the Romulan Free State. Interestingly, Federation visitors are allowed, including humans, Andorians and Trill, so in spite of the bad blood between the two powers, officially they're not on such poor terms. As for the Federation, whatever we might like to think about it being a socialist paradise, there's clearly still privilege and a class divide. Picard has his inherited chateau, even after his fall from grace, and not everyone is so lucky.

All this ties into the two episodes' recruitment drive for the protagonists of the series. Starfleet is not a trustworthy or loyal organisation. Picard goes to them to ask for help, and is shot down. It's hard to argue with Fleet Admiral Clancy that he's displaying incredible hubris. It's later that we learn he went to Starfleet demanding they help with the Romulan evacuation before the supernova, and that he never believed they'd accept his threat of resignation. What's worse is that this apparently led them to dismiss his protege Raffi Musiker, who's now living on the outskirts of society. Rios's former ship, the ibn Majid, was supposedly wiped from the records after a terrible event that led to the death of its captain. Starfleet are not coming off very well in this series.

I love Picard's new crew. Michelle Hurd as Raffi is a perfect foil for Stewart's Picard, very much the McCoy to his Kirk. Some of her lines sound exactly like they could have been spoken by Bones. We only see glimpses of their earlier relationship in Starfleet, but they were clearly very close – she even calls him “J L,” and no one's ever gotten away with that before. It's good to have someone who knows Picard well but won't take any of his shit. Santiago Cabrera is very good as Rios, a character who's dripping with cliché but in a script that knows it and refuses to take him entirely seriously. A Starfleet drop-out who's now a pilot on his own ship, being so manly he refuses medical treatment for a cool-looking wound – it's clear the script is taking the piss out of such character and that it's a very obvious facade for the character.

I absolutely love La Sirena and its suite of holograms. Not only do we have a new generation of EMH, but we have an Emergency Navigational Hologram and such programmes are clearly customisable. Having all the holograms based on Rios, only played by Cabrera with a different accent and haircut is hilarious, as is the fact that they're clearly a lot more pleasant to be around than their captain. However, I really don't understand how or why holograms aren't banned the same way androids are. OK, it's entirely possible that Rios is operating a ship full of holograms illegally, but no one comments on this or looks surprised. They may not be sentient, but as we've seen in the past, holograms can become sentient by being left running too long or simply by programming error. Indeed, it makes me wonder why they're even bothering with androids if they already have holographic technology this sophisticated. I was really hoping that Picard would be following up on the holographic rights issue seen at the end of Voyager, but the writers don't seem to be interested in tackling this.

Lastly we have Dr. Jurati, played adorably by Alison Pill. She clearly has a great deal of respect for Picard, but I'm not convinced we can entirely trust her. Her interrogation by Commodore Oh, the dodgy Romulan plant, was left open-ended, and her apparent fear and eagerness to go with Picard seem overplayed to me. I'd be very surprised if it doesn't turn out that she's been working for Oh ever since she left the Daystrom Institute.

Moving via Oh to the Romulan plot... I still love Picard's ex-Tal Shiar staff, particularly Orla Brady's Liris. Picard must still have some sway if he can employ two not-very-secret ex-agents and have them live on Earth with him. It's a shame they're not joining him on his mission to Freecloud, but I guess someone has to stay behind and tend the vineyard and look after the dog (wherever he's got to). I'm much less enamoured with the Romulan baddies. Harry Treadaway is pretty cute and charming, and I can see why Soji would fall for Narek, but he's not exactly convincing as an operative of the dreaded Zhat Vash secret service. As for Rizzo, or whatever her name is really, she's just awful. The creepy incestuous vibe is incredibly tiresome, and her arch stalking about the place is pretty boring as well.

However, the Borg Artefact scenes are intriguing, as are the ongoing questions about Soji's background. She clearly believes she has a human mother and father, but has some kind of sleep command implanted that knocks her out whenever she talks to her (holographic?) mother. The Romulan survivors, all clearly mentally wounded from their experiences, are a powerful elements, although it isn't clear if their suffering is an after-effect of assimilation or the specific catastrophe that befell their starship, leading to this cube being rendered inoperative. As good as it is to see Jonathan Del Arco back as Hugh, he doesn't get to do very much here, except, rather intriguingly, pull rank on Narek. Lots of questions left to answer.

Still, in spite of a couple of weaker elements, notably the parts that don't directly involve Picard, this series is shaping up to be something rather excellent, and the drip feed of information is tantalising. Now, finally, Picard returns to space. Engage!

Future History: Episode two confirms that dating for the series: the attack on Mars happened in 2385, with the main events happening fourteen years later in 2399. It's twenty years since Star Trek Nemesis.

Observations: The old fan joke about northern and southern Klingons to explain the smooth and crunchy versions gets incorporated into the canon, only to explain the Romulans this time. Apparently, Romulans from the northern provinces have ridges brows. It's also finally confirmed onscreen that Romulus was located in the Beta Quadrant.

This is the first time in Star Trek that we see the iconic Vasquez Rocks actually represent Vasquez Rocks. It's turned up half a dozen times in Trek right back to the first season of TOS, standing for planets such as Vulcan, Capella 4 and Xyrillia and numerous nameless desert planets.

Hugh says the Romulans recovered from the Artefact are the only ones assimilated by the Borg. He's wrong – we saw Romulan ex-drones in Voyager – but it's not like he'll remember everything that ever happened to the entire Collective. Anyway, maybe the others were assimilated after he escaped.

It looks like Picard's Irumodic syndrome is developing in this future, as it did in the possible future seen in TNG: "All Good Things..." I liked the scene with Dr. Benayoun; we rarely get to see much about Picard's time on the Stargazer, although at first in incorrectly assumed we were supposed to recognise the character. He's a completely new character, though.

Thoughts: It certainly looks like F8 is taken over by a some outside force, which lessens the impact of the crew's mistreatment of him. It would be a bolder statement if the synths rebelled on their own. Lots to be revealed, yet, though. It does make me wonder if Control will be involved somehow; after all, there has been talk already of tying Picard and Discovery together with shared elements.

Laris calls the Zhat Vash “cheeky feckers,” which is probably the most Irish thing she could say. Lots of planets have an Ireland, I guess. It's even better that this was an ad lib by Orla Brady.

A bizarre number of fans are complaining that Commodore Oh wears sunglasses when she meets Jurati. As a Vulcan, she shouldn't need them, as she'd have an inner eyelid to protect against the sun. Aside from the fact that this is a ridiculous thing to get worked up about, I assumed this was a clue that she's actually Romulan.

On that matter, how has Rizzo posed as a human in Starfleet for so long? I can buy a Romulan posing as a Vulcan, but wouldn't the first routine medical show up a Romulan posing as a human?

On a vaguely related matter, as soon as Oh's name was revealed, I shouted “It's the Master!” More apropos, this is the first time we've seen a Starfleet officer using the rank of commodore in the 24^th century.

It's possibly nothing, but the use of antileptons in the destruction of images might be significant. After all, the most common antilepton is the positron, as in the positronic net.

Is La Sirena a Vulcan ship? It looks kind of similar to 24^th century Vulcan ships that were occasionally seen in TNG.