“The dreams are lovely. It’s the waking up I’m beginning to resent.”
A single line from Star Trek: Picard’s first episode succinctly summarises its spirit. If Star Trek: The Next Generation (“TNG”) was a lovely dream, “too convivial, too sterile, and too light-hearted” to tempt its leading man to ever reprise his iconic role, then Star Trek: Picard is an indignant reminder to us all that humanity is still light years away from Gene Roddenberry’s utopia. Even once we’ve achieved Roddenberry’s idyllic future, it seems, the struggle to maintain it in the face of catastrophe and grief is sometimes too much for even the best of us.
Created for the American video-on-demand service CBS All Access (don’t be fooled by Amazon claiming it as an “Original” here in the UK and in other territories - they just have the rights to stream it internationally), Star Trek’s seventh live-action series is unique in that it is built around a single character, as opposed to an entire crew. As much a vehicle for Sir Patrick Stewart as it is the once redoubtable Captain Jean-Luc Picard, this clumsily-named show revisits the revered character on the eve of the twenty-fifth century, almost twenty years on from the tragic events of 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis and more than a decade after the disastrous supernova that destroyed the Romulan Empire in JJ Abrams’ lauded 2009 Trek movie. These two events, or at least their repercussions, have effectively broken the former Enterprise captain, leaving him “waiting to die” on his family’s vineyard in La Barre alongside a pair of asylum-seeking Romulan intelligence operatives who now appear to be as close to him as the crew of Starfleet’s famous flagship once were.
Patrick Stewart’s portrayal of an elderly, embittered Picard is profoundly upsetting on a number of levels – just as it should be. When I think back to my childhood and adolescence, popular culture was bursting at the seams with young anti-heroes; just and noble leaders in the Optimus Prime / Jean-Luc Picard mould were few and far between, making them all the more precious. Yet Stewart reportedly had little interest in reviving the inspirational Picard that we’ve all loved and respected for decades, instead preferring to use the Trek platform to shine a “reforming light” on “these often very dark times.” This, it has to be said, Stewart does magnificently.
“Remembrance,” the show’s first episode, brings the audience instantly up to speed on where the retired admiral stands through an ill-judged media appearance that probes the controversial circumstances surrounding his departure from Starfleet. It’s difficult to tell where Stewart ends and where Picard begins as the actor pours every ounce of his well-documented political frustrations into a tirade that denounces Starfleet’s callous behaviour towards Romulan refugees, the Federation’s increasingly insular foreign policy and its outlawing of synthetic lifeforms. Yet in a marvellous masterstroke, Stewart and his seven co-executive producers (watch that beautiful, drawn-out title sequence and count ’em all) then proceed to lift the veil on a man who has seemingly become the very thing that he speaks out against. The isolationism and indifference of the Federation is mirrored in the once great man who’s cut himself off from the rest of the universe and surrendered the last vestiges of his once paramount sense of duty. 
However, whilst the plot of “Remembrance” is certainly full of surprises, the direction of the series is quick to take shape as a desperate young woman (Isa Briones) seeks out the retired admiral, forcing him out of his self-imposed and self-pitying exile. No, we don’t like who Picard has become. Yes, it hurts to see Roddenberry’s perfect future torn down. There, we have a foundation for a thrilling story that will doubtless culminate in the rewarding restoration of both. Before we shed a tear for the loss of “our” Picard, we should remember that television has evolved considerably since the episodic syndication of TNG – the serialised storytelling that has evolved alongside video-on-demand platforms allows us to take characters, and even organisations as large as the United Federation of Planets, from A to B, enjoying all the gripping drama along the way, as opposed to just presenting us with B and telling stand-alone stories of limited scope.
Where I’m struggling a little with the series though is in its uneven approach towards continuity. Unlike the first season of Star Trek: Discovery, which really did a number on Klingon physiognomy and culture as it put the needs of the moment ahead of respect for the past, Picard instead treats the events of TNG and its four movies with great reverence, even going so far as to incorporate a lovely little bit of business to explain why some Romulans look like Eric Bana’s Nero in the 2009 movie while others look more like those seen throughout TNG and in Nemesis. Picard does far more than just learn from Discovery’s mistakes, though: it turns to the legacy of TNG for the very cornerstones of its plot and their emotional underpinning. Unfortunately, this engenders a sense of expectation in those intimately familiar with TNG which is not always paid off satisfactorily. The central positioning of characters like Bruce Maddox, who appeared in just one TNG episode and was Data’s absent pen pal in another, seems to point squarely towards a twist that is then squandered when the provenance of Isa Briones’ character is revealed. To misquote Breaking Bad, the writers use a half-measure when I was expecting them to use a full-measure. Such matters won’t trouble new viewers, of course, but for those like me with pre-existing knowledge of TNG, Picard can prove to be quite bewildering at times.
Nonetheless, though the dearly departed Data is the story’s main catalyst and we have both Jonathan Frakes (who directed the show’s upcoming brace of episodes) and Marina Sirtis (Titans, The Orville) waiting in the wings for cameos, Picard is not a TNG reunion show. Instead, the Enterprise captain is aided in his mission by a motley crew of outcasts and misfits, many of whom don’t seem to have got the memo about this being a one-man show, such is their screen presence. Alison Pill’s affable Dr Agnes Jurati, a synthetic researcher at the Daystrom Institute in Okinawa, has been already made the leap from exposition to entertainment, while Orla Brady and Jamie McShane’s Romulan housekeepers vest the first three episodes with a TNG-like sense of camaraderie. Brady’s Laris is one of the show’s standouts, particularly in “Maps and Legends” (there must be an REM fan on the writing staff…), and her failure to join the former Starfleet captain on his endeavour has been one of my few disappointments with the programme to date.
“The End is the Beginning”, this week’s instalment, solidifies both as Captain Cristóbal Rios and Raffi Musiker as key members of the ensemble, though there is clearly no sense of comradeship here – at least initially. Both of these characters subvert the enduring image of the beyond-reproach Starfleet officer but, crucially, without compromising their ethics. Indeed, the show implies that it was their integrity that led each of them down dark paths leading to, in Raffi’s case, substance dependency, and in Rios’s, a life of crime and superficial recklessness that Picard sees straight through. These characters’ demons only seem to make them more real, and perhaps more identifiable - they aren’t less, but more.
The opening scenes of “The End is the Beginning”, which take us back to the day that Picard resigned his Starfleet commission, are incredibly powerful - Michelle Hurd and Patrick Stewart are quick to conjure the trust and conviviality of the Riker / Picard relationship, only for it to crumble when the arrogant admiral’s failed gambit drags his aide down with him. Rios’s backstory has only been hinted at as I write this, but as he’s a man whose only companions are emergency holograms wearing his own face, he seems to fulfil the show’s prerequisite for loneliness and disillusionment while also providing viewers with some much-needed comedy - Santiago Cabrera evidently revels in creating distinctly different holographic versions of his character, each of which betrays an aspect of spirit buried beneath that simmering Han Solo exterior.
While Picard has been assembling his new crew, though, his quarry waits for him aboard an abandoned Borg cube - the Artefact – which is ostensibly under Romulan control despite its scientific operations being overseen by the former Borg drone Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco from the TNG episodes “I, Borg” and “Descent, Part II”). Body horror and surrealism combine in a narrative that challenges everything we think we know about androids, the Borg and especially the Romulans. The series has done a remarkable job of taking this often-explored race - TNG’s only consistent big bad, if truth be told - and fleshing out their post-supernova culture in the most beguiling of ways. What’s especially interesting about Picard’s approach to the Romulans is that its focus isn’t just limited to their present – the writers effectively reinvent Romulan mythology here, layering beneath it a secret and sinister loathing of synthetic life that alters how we perceive even long-standing organisations like the Tal Shiar. The extremist Zhat Vash faction is particularly intriguing, particularly as we have the alluring good cop/bad cop team of Harry Treadaway and Peyton List (Gotham’s Poison Ivy) following the same trail of breadcrumbs as Picard and his team aboard La Sirena. In a beautiful inversion of the classic trope, the female sibling relies upon acid-blasting shock troopers while the male employs seduction, yet both offer us a fascinating insight into an aspect of Romulan culture previously unseen.
Needless to say, like Discovery, Picard is a relentless visual and auditory feast. The look of 2399 strikes a pleasing balance between the idiosyncratic stylistics of TNG and the modern elegance of Discovery, as exemplified by the stunningly redolent Starfleet uniforms. Château Picard feels altogether more tangible than it ever did in TNG, and the series’ visual effects are, with the possible exception of just one or two ropey Starfleet Headquarters establishing shots, top-notch. Even the cinematography is stunning, with the show offering Abrams-like flourishes in certain shots but still embracing classic, natural beauty. Sadly though, the streaming presentation is limited to 1080p worldwide, which is tremendously disappointing given the series’ high profile. With Picard having been shot using anamorphic lenses (sheer fucking hubris - it’s made for television, not movie theatres!), this effectively leaves those of us who can’t stand letterboxing and have to zoom in with an 800-pixel-high image, which is scarcely better than 720p - thirty-year-old TNG episodes provide sharper resolution than that. I don’t know whether Discovery and Picard have been finished in 4K, but even 4K upscales with HDR would be preferable to the industry standard of fifteen years ago. Sadly, as both seasons of Discovery have already had Blu-ray releases, with no word on 4K UHD sets, 4K Trek releases seem unlikely - at least in the foreseeable future.
Inevitably, Star Trek: Picard isn’t going to everybody’s cup of earl grey. Whilst aspirational in its ideals, the franchise has seldom been actively political, inspiring change through example rather than allegory, and as such Picard makes for a much edgier Trek than viewers might be prepared for. However, for those who need their Picard caffeinated, there’s still an entire alternative future for him out there in print – one where Riker outranks him, Beverly Crusher has given him a son and Data lives again, but the man himself remains inviolate. Picard’s world-weary interpretation of the former Enterprise captain is altogether more interesting from my viewpoint, though, and I can’t wait to see where his adventure takes us next. Engage...
Star Trek: Picard’s first three episodes are available to stream now in the UK on Amazon Prime Video, with the remaining seven following each Friday until the season concludes 27th March 2020. You can start a 30-day free trial by signing up here (and if you’re only planning to watch Picard, you might want to hold fire until at least 27th February 2020 to make sure you can watch the whole thing).
