The first thing you should know is, Data is dead. That isn’t really a spoiler, at least not for Star Trek: Picard. Data sacrificed himself in Star Trek: Nemesis, the last of the Next Generation movies and possibly the worst. (I go back and forth between it and Insurrection. Generations wasn’t great either.) The android’s death was one of several ill-advised ways that Nemesis tried to mimic Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and even then, the writers lacked the courage of their convictions, taking time out to make sure there was a back-up on hand just in case. But all that really matters now is: Data is dead, to begin with. Everything follows from that.
“Remembrance” makes a lot of smart, strong choices, beginning with its opening (a dream sequence that starts with Bing Crosby crooning “Blue Skies” over images of the cosmos—just the right sort of light, off-kilter note to hit) and ending with its final shot (oh yeah, we’ll get to that), but the most unexpectedly strong choice is the way the script leans hard into some of the most controversial canon developments in the post-TNG Trek-verse. Again: Nemesis was not a good movie; and I’d argue that the time-line introduced in 2009’s Star Trek wasn’t all that terrific either, apart from the surprisingly excellent Star Trek: Beyond. But Data’s death is brought up early on as a key part of this show’s central narrative, as is the supernova that destroyed Romulus, the event which kicked off the ‘09 “reboot.” The strong temptation must’ve been to downplay any rough edges in continuity and try and give audiences the comfort food they crave. In offering a new vision of the future, one which, even just an hour in, is already considerably darker and more melancholy than the note TNG ended on, Picard makes it clear that it has higher aspirations than simple nostalgia.
Whether that aspiration will ultimately pay-off remains to be seen, but it’s a promising start. And if this sort of thing doesn’t interest you—if you couldn’t care less about the lore, and just want to see Jean-Luc Picard back on your TV screen again—you’re in for a fine time as well. This isn’t Next Gen, of course. That show’s pilot, “Encounter At Farpoint” told a single story, one with an open ending but still a clear beginning, middle and end. Modern genre shows are all about serialization, though, and Picard is no exception. The biggest complaint I have with this first episode is that it’s a little too methodical, not so much slow as not quite as focused as it needs to be. By the end of the hour, we have a vague idea of where things will go next, and a lot of questions; what we don’t have is a clear concept of what this is supposed to be as a television show. There’s no “five year mission” or anything like it. Hell, Picard isn’t even on a ship.
That’s a surprisingly minor complaint, though. And it’s satisfying just how much the episode gets right, and how little it strains to meet our expectations. (It’s nearly impossible for me to watch this without the tremendous pressure of needing it to be good—I went back and forth on my letter grade for a long time, and I’m still not sure.) There’s a reassuring confidence to the way the story unfolds, regardless of how you feel about its pacing, and while some of that confidence comes from following familiar tropes, that’s not necessarily a flaw. You could say Picard plays it safe, doling out small servings of reassuring fan service and leaning on structures which have been old since before Patrick Stewart was young, but safety can be a good thing. And I’d argue that it’s not entirely safe. Because, again, Data is dead; and Picard is no longer in Starfleet; and he is old. He is lovely and warm and kind, and he is old.
So: Jean-Luc has retired to the Chateau Picard, where machines cultivate the wine and time has come as close to stopping as one can manage outside of a temporal catastrophe. I just spent several sentences talking about how the first episode suffers from the curse of serialization, doling out information in morsels in order to sustain a kind of slow-walk momentum; and yet, I would’ve been fine to spend a whole hour at the Chateau, just watching Picard bicker fondly with his live-in Romulan caretakers Laris and Zhaban. Oh, and his pitbull Number One, can’t forget that. It so perfectly targets fans who miss the comfort food appeal of Next Gen that it borders on weaponized, and yet to the show’s credit, it doesn’t linger or wallow in the appeal. Picard is doing well, but he’s not quite as well as we might have liked. There are concerns—and he’s started having these dreams.
We soon learn, through a confrontational television interview, that Picard was part of the rescue effort back when Romulus’s sun went supernova; that a terrorist attack by synthetic life-forms took advantage of the rescue effort to basically blow up Mars; and that Starfleet’s greatest captain resigned his position when the organization used the attack to withdraw from helping Romulus and ban all synthetic life-forms. Another reason this episode has me hopeful is the surprising depth of this backstory reveal. It’s complicated, and yet the information is delivered quickly, deftly. Again, there’s that confidence. You don’t need to grasp all the specifics just yet. All you need to know is, Picard is angry and disappointed with the organization he devoted much of his life to; beings like Data are outlawed; and there are Politics at work which reflect some of our own problems without simply repeating them.
While Picard is dealing with his bad memories, a young woman named Dahj is celebrating her acceptance to the Daystrom Institute with her boyfriend, when a group of masked assassins teleport into her hotel room, murder said boyfriend, and inadvertently turn her into a killing machine. Dahj is devastated and terrified, and all she has to guide her is a feeling that she can trust Jean-Luc Picard, a person whom she has never met.
(I suspect most of us can relate; I’m also sure the writers understand this. The way the show uses Picard’s legacy as a character is canny without excessively manipulative. I’m particularly fond of the scene where the ex-captain visits his personal archives, and you see easter eggs from Next Gen episodes carefully displayed in a room no one ever visits, for no one’s benefit but his. And ours. If it’s fan service, it’s of the most tasteful sort imaginable.)
In short order, Dahj makes contact with Picard; he realizes she bears a striking resemblance to one of Data’s paintings; but before either of them can do much with the information, they are attacked by another group of masked assassins (who turn out to be Romulans), and Dahj is killed. Distraught over his failure to protect someone who sought out his help (and who also seems to be connected to someone else who died by his side), Picard decides it’s time to find some answers. He visits the Daystrom Institute himself, where we meet Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill, who I’d completely forgotten was in this), who explains to him that everything he’s thinking is impossible—although maybe it isn’t? Before the episode ends, we learn that beings like Dahj—oh right, forgot to mention, she’s a synthetic life-form built out of flesh-and-blood—are made in pairs, and Dahj’s still-living sister is off in the Romulan Reclamation site, working inside what absolutely looks to be a Borg cube.
As cliffhangers go, that last scene is a nice mixture of ominous and what-the-fuck, and while I wish the first episode had made more progress in getting to the point, I can’t begrudge it too much; the pacing feels deliberate in a way that I can respect, even if I have some qualms about, and the whole thing is never boring or indulgent or pointless in the ways I’d feared. Three episodes were available as screeners, but I’ve only watched the first one, which is how I usually approach weekly reviews. I have no idea where this is going, or how long it will take to get there (I’m also curious how a show with such a clear single story focus is going to build to a second season, but I’m willing to wait and see.), but as of right now, I’m happy and invested and more than a little relieved.
I haven’t really mentioned Stewart’s performance in this, have I. Well, it’s good, which is not a surprise. Stewart’s original run as Picard on Next Generation remains, in my opinion, one of the greatest leading performances in the history television. Even if the show had been garbage fire, Stewart would’ve been strong. (If you doubt me, just watch Next Gen’s first season. Actually, no, don’t do that, it’s very bad, but he somehow holds it together.) It’s unhealthy to invest too much in any fictional character or actor, but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t tremendous comfort in seeing him again, trying to do the right thing no matter how difficult or frightening it might be. In another protagonist, such a commitment to basic human decency could come off as trite or cliche, but in Stewart’s hands, it just plays like honesty. The universe is a frightening, turbulent place. It’s good to know that there are people out there who, no matter how bad it gets, will always feel like home.
Stray observations:
- I’d either missed or forgotten that Picard’s dog is named Number One before I watched this, and I was just absolutely delighted by the reveal.
- “Why are you stalling, captain?” “I don’t want the game to end.” I remember when trailers first revealed Data’s presence on the series, and being shocked at how the character looked; I’m not horrible enough to blame Brent Spiner for aging, but it seemed like a bad idea to bring the character back. It works very well in context. Spiner is as good as ever, and the fact that Data looks just a bit off actually adds to the strangeness of the dream sequences. (And the simple emotional value of putting those two actors together again can’t be overstated. I’m grateful that the show is spacing these reunions out, as I’m not sure I could take too many in one go.)
- Picard speaks French in this episode. Just figured I should acknowledge that.
- “Romulan lives. “No—lives.” It’s such a simple exchange, with Picard talking to the reporter about why he felt the Romulan rescue effort was so vital, but it feels like it’s something that hardly ever gets said out loud, even in a fictional context.
- I loved the casual dismissal of B4, a terrible character concept which should’ve never been introduced in the first place.
- Picard talking about how much Data wanted a daughter made me think of “The Offspring,” if anyone needed another reason to be quietly devastated by a television show.
198 Comments
The only thing I didnât like was the idea of a galaxy news network since thatâs something I donât ever remember seeing in Trek before so it felt like a hokey set-up. But Stewartâs acting was so devastating as the infodump was happening, I donât care at all anymore and would even watch a version a Federation version of The Morning Show if theyâd let me.I figured this show would pull at my heartstrings but I didnât expect them to use the memory of Lal to do so.Â
Well, there was really no reason for them to have ever told us there was a galactic news network, but no we did know that existed. Remember? Jake on DS9 was a war-time reporter for it.
They also showed a gaggle of reporters in Generations (during the beginning sequence on the Enterprise-B) so itâs not totally out of left field.
Exactly.
Which also very well may have been the first time we actually see a camera in ST, and I donât think the word âcameraâ is even said on screen until a S1 Disco episode!
Aw man, Jake shouldâve been the interviewer in this one. Not that I want to see Jake being a dick.
No, but that wouldâve been cool. I wonder where Jake IS in all this.
That would have been perfect since he would have blamed Picard for killing his Mom.
The universe is a frightening, turbulent place. Itâs good to know that there are people out there who, no matter how bad it gets, will always feel like home.Iâm sorry, Iâll just be over here, quietly sobbing. They are happy tears though. Well, mostly happy.Itâs really sad to think that with Picard, Star Wars, and Logan, the lesson has been âif you live long enough, you will see the institutions you help build either fall apart or withdraw inward.â Although I guess the lesson is more âBelieve in people, rather than institutions.â
âBelieve in people, rather than institutions.â
I also saw that as one of the most prominent themes of Person of Interest.
Plus The Wire and Star Trek: DS9. Itâs a nice theme.
Itâs comforting, but also rather dangerous. âBelieve in people, not institutionsâ is also the electoral slogan for fascism…Itâs comforting to think that our institutions can be repaired, or even superceded, if only we put Jean-Luc Picard, or Harold Finch, or indeed Cedric Daniels in charge. Itâs something that country after country has tried to do (indeed, âbelieve in people, not institutionsâ could practically be a Trump campaign slogan, if it didnât have too many syllables), and itâs virtually never worked. At best, the charismatic great man finds themselves unable to replace or repair the institutions. More often, it turns out they werenât that great, and they just steal all the money, because, as an older playwright noted, thereâs no art to tell the mindâs construction in the face, and you never really know what someone will do with power until they have it. And if they want to seize control, and are able to, it generally results in weaker institutions and more arbitrary, tyrannical reign (it doesnât help that the sort of person who wants the job, and can force their will onto a sclerotic institution, usually doesnât accept corrections, or their own eventual replacement – there arenât many men like Finch in reality, who have the will and ability to give themselves power, but also the humility not to use it)….sorry, didnât mean to be so negative. Politics graduate…
Thatâs the point of the message, though. Institutions are fundamentally dangerous, no matter which individual is in charge. Fascism/totalitarianism requires one to believe in the state, which is an institution itself. Focusing on the goodness of people and the individual, though it could be interpreted in the way youâre describing, could also be in opposition to authoritariaism.
But nothing is as dangerous as a lack of institutions!What does âfocusing on the goodness of peopleâ mean, in practical terms, if not confidence in the ability of individuals to fix problems? And a corresponding skepticism toward institutions? And the political effect of that confidence, and that skepticism, is a desire to, to coin a phrase, drain the swamp, to find someone you have confidence in and empower them to circumvent or reform those institutions, and disregard the warnings of the âdeep stateâ institutions that oppose your chosen reformer. And that results in a weakening of the institutions that underpin everything we take for granted.
Usually the person you chose to have confidence in wonât be a Hitler. But theyâll probably be a Collor de Mello, a Berlusconi, a Trump, a Chavez, a Peron, at best a De Gaulle. They probably wonât be a… well, I canât even think of an uncontroversial positive example.[On a historical/theoretical note: a big part of fascismâs programme was to make the state look less like an institution, and more like the goodness of individuals. Thatâs part of the point of totalitarianism: when everything is the state, there is no state. And fascism is particular was not a top-down totalitarianism in which the state imposed itself onto civil society (as soviet communism largely did), but a bottom-up totalitarianism in which the organs of the party and the ideology spread through civil society (for a good decade before it took power) to the point where it was impossible to tell what was state and what wasnât (even the local bowling league was part of the party). Itâs why it favoured the party over the government, and why its rhetoric was one of organic unity rather than institution, and why its chains of command were confused and highly dependent on personal authority, and contemptuous of conventions and norms and regular procedures. It didnât preach loyalty to the State, per se, but to the People, and to the Spirit of the People – it tried to make the State look like it was just Good People Like You all doing their part for the greater good, draining the swamp. Notably, both Hitler and Mussolini chose to be known by the simple, unburdened, non-institutional title âThe Leaderâ, rather than something bureaucratic and procedural like âPresidentâ (whereas the hyper-institutional Stalinism called its leaders âGeneral Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet [i.e. âConciliarâ] Socialist Republicsâ, about as bureaucratic as you could get…). But anyway, kind of on a tangernt now…]
Like I said before, your point is a good one and did make me think about how cults of personality are formed around individuals who claim they are the solution to all of societyâs ills because the current institutions are not working, or are corrupt, or whatever. But I think all of the shows we mentioned are a little more complicated than that. To start with DS9, I think DS9 wasnât necessarily against Section 31 or any morally questionable things they did, but was simply showing that they werenât perfect. It doesnât contain much power outside of the Trek franchise, so I think DS9 isnât all that meaningful overall.POI is far more interesting and profound overall, and I think thereâs a decidedly futurist bent to it thatâs sort of irrelevant to our original discussion about fascism, but I also donât think it was communicating that Harold should have absolute power or anything like that. He specifically stated on multiple occasions that he feared what he would do if he gained it, and was shown on some occasions to not be squeaky clean (the âKill them allâ moment from Beta comes to mind). I think it was more-so about how the government shouldnât abuse its power. So the show ends with Northern Lights being shut down.The Wire was simple diagnosis. Thatâs what made it so tragic for me. It didnât really offer any solutions because I donât think David Simon has them.
Although I guess the lesson is more âBelieve in people, rather than institutions.âInstitutions donât maintain themselves. The lesson is âfight to maintain the integrity of your institutions.â
Picard speaks French in this episode.
Well. He tries.
I always get amused by reminders Picard is supposed to be an actual French man, raised in France in his French ancestral family home by French parents.Â
I just assumed that the UK had somehow conquered France sometime in the Star Trek backstory, explaining his accent and Anglophone-ness đ
Me too. They make him so absurdly English, but insist that his family has been in France for ages. England conquering it was the only way it made sense.Â
Perhaps it was because of Brexit .. đ
I was wondering about that. I think there was a throwaway line where he told the dog heâd taught himself French in his old age?
Yeah, he told the dog that he knew the dog understood french bc theyâd been practicing.
No, he was referring to teaching the dog French.
Why would you teach a dog French tho
If a dog was trained in another language, youâd have to retrain him or continue to use the foreign language to give him commands. Case in point:
I think he meant he taught the dog French. I mean, given how Data called French âobscureâ once, it would make sense that the language somehow died out, everyone in France speaks English and Jean Luc taught himself a dead language.
But then again, that has never been established over 7 seasons of him being a very proud Frenchman…
I still think itâs more likely that he was teaching himself French and practicing on the dog. I mean, why would you teach a dog a language? Maybe he always wanted to learn it but never had the time before due to being captain and all.
He was born and grew up in France, if he has to learn the language that would definitely mean that it died out. Which is possible, but as I said… might have come up more often than that one time with Data…
I also wonder if English as we know it still even exists in the Federationâs time, and weâre not actually hearing the characters talk InterGalaxy Basic or whatever. Itâs all through universal translators, anyway.
They had that scene of the translator failing in Discovery, which made the impression that usually everyone speaks their native language.But then again, very little time later Chekov clearly didnât use one but spoke accented English. I guess English is supposed to be Lingua Franca on Starfleet ships, if not in the whole Federation…
Would the universal translators translate âLingua Francaâ to English?Is it much harder to be a snob by peppering your language with foreign sayings in the Star Trek future?
If itâs good enough to translate Alien languages lip-synced, Iâm sure itâll allow for some snobbery and recognize loanwords… đ
What the fuck
In the episode, the Romulans who attack Dahj refer to the language as âEnglishâ. This is a mistake, as the correct name for the language in that time period is Federation Standard.
(Kompreneble, se la homaro estus vere tiel avancinta, tiuokaze la âFederacia Normaâ estus tiu Äi lingvo.)
Or, at least, French has dwindled in significance.It might be like Irish: technically still spoken, but everyone also speaks English, the really native speakers live in remote areas (probably in the Alps?), and most of the other speakers have strong English accents…
This. I believe that, in the future, French is a minority language and itâs really only spoken by people of French ancestry as a kind of hold-over that reminds them of their past. Like American Jews speaking Yiddish.
The fun part was that itâs more or less at Stewartâs actual level of French rather than him showing the effects of a dialogue coach.If you watch him in his wonderful Who Do You Think You Are episode where he begins to understand why his father was so broken by the war, he does end up at a French-only house where he awkwardly but effectively makes himself understood.
Picard spoke French in an episode of The Next Generation, when he met Minuet in the holodeck.
Stewart has an interview in a TNG DVD extra feature where he talks about not having a French accent. He giggles as he mimics what it would have been like to read the opening credit monologue in thick French accent (âSpace â zee final Frrronteeerâ), and basically says it was an easy decision that the English accent just worked better.Edit: I think he made the joke a few times, here it is in an English chat show interview:
An âEnglish chat showâ? THE Graham Norton Show.
I mean itâs perfectly possible that French died out and heâs the only one speaking it, thus explaining why heâs not very good at it…But then I really think they should have gotten into it more in the show. đ
Picard reviews.Keeping track  of them is a full-time job.Â
Yay, Zack Handlen Star Trek recaps!
And you can also head over to his Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/zhandlen/ and read weekly Voyager recaps (just getting into S2) if youâre so inclined and want to throw a little cash his way.
Every reviewer, podcast host, or anyone who covers Trek that Iâve listened to or read has always been almost completely burnt out by the time they reach the end of Voyager. Curious if the same thing will happen to Zack.Â
Why would he? It was the best series of Star Trek…
Gonna have to disagree with you on that one.
Oh my God why would anyone do that to themselves
The very thing that brought me to this site in the first place.
I had no idea heâd be writing the reviews. Cool!
Quick, somebody get Rappinâ Jake Sisko a Kinja account!
Great review of the episode, and Iâm glad when you wrote it you knew as much about the next episode as I do. I need to watch it again though to let the details soak-in.
Just one little niggle – âcouldnâtâ care less đ
âcouldnâtâ care less :)This is an Americans vs. Everyone else thing, not just Zack.
Americans seems to have a habit of that with most things.
Itâs a colloquialism. It doesnât really have to make sense. I get why it pisses so many people offâitâs pretty stupidâbut I donât think itâs âwrongâ.
Fuck right off with that slander.
No it isnât.Â
Silly mistake, fixed.
I canât wait to watch this (the only thing that could have made me take the plunge with CBS All Access), and I am so glad Mr. Handlen is doing the reviews. I have been revisiting DS9 again recently, and re-reading his fantastic reviews of that show. But one minor quibble before I even see the show: Insurrection is far, far worse than Nemesis. Nemesis has deep, deep flaws (thanks Stuart Baird!), but Insurrection is absolutely the worst. I am as big a TNG fan as you will find anywhere, and I almost walked out on it when I saw it in the theater. I was on a date, and I was truly embarrassed to have exposed her to the movie (we got married later and have been together for 20 plus years, so everything turned out ok. But trying to explain to a date why I love TNG after sitting through Insurrection was……..awkward).Nemesis may have had the dumb dune buggy sequence and some inconsistent plotting, but Insurrection has Picard and Worf rescuing Data with the power of song, and an âactionâ climax with……drones and transporter tags? Or something? Case closed. And, after suffering through Insurrection before we married, my wife refused to even consider watching Nemesis with me. đ
Agreed, I re-watched Nemesis just to reset in my find how Picard had been left on-screen…and found the film much more entertaining than when I last saw it during itâs theatrical release 18 years ago.Donât get me wrong, itâs still not a good ST movie but I found it far less annoying than Insurrection and Dataâs death does leave an emotional mark. Stewart, of course, gives a great performance and Hardy is pretty good given the material.
I agree with everything you posted. I thought that Stewart and Hardy were pretty great, Dataâs death does indeed leave a mark (even though I do not think it should have been part of the movie) and the space battle that took up the last quarter was very well done. It is just that so much of the rest of it felt like a poorly edited generic action movie instead of a Star Trek Film. I truly believe the movie would have been a lot better with someone who knew Trek even a little bit directing it.Insurrection was horrible throughout, while also committing the worst sin a bad movie can: it was endlessly boring.Â
I concur. Insurrection felt like a first season TNG episode (specifically the notorious âUp the Long Ladderâ recently autopsied on Gizmodo) padded out to feature length.Generations struck me as about the most abrupt collapse of a movie I can remember. It was pretty darn good right up until the last 15 minutes or so, after the âNexusâ hits the planet. Itâs rare to see a movie disintegrate so abruptly.
.
I agree with you-Generations really does collapse abruptly at the end. Up till then it is pretty good. And I always think that movie deserves more credit for its pure ambition. It is not often that a major motion picture features a story about our mortality and how it defines us. Iâm not sure it fully works, but putting that theme out there as the main part of a major movie took some guts.All that said, the story had some core problems that doomed it before the last part of the movie. âLook! A Magical Space Ribbon!â was not a very solid foundation to build a story on.
Would anyone on here recommend watching âNemesisâ as part of an abbreviated watch guide for a newbie? Iâm contemplating including it, but I donât want to (because itâs bad and I donât want to show my friend any of the bad stuff). To fully understand whatâs going on, I donât think you necessarily need to have seen how Data died. They discuss that he did die during a mission, which you would be learning years later much like learning about the Romulan supernova. Maybe itâs actually more interesting that way, keeping the mystery alive?My only concern is the one minute when they pull B-4 out of the drawer. You would have no idea what or who the hell theyâre talking about. But if I include Nemesis just for that one minute scene, Iâd probably have to include all the movies for even Nemesis to make sense, which I donât want to do either.What do you guys think?
One of the things I think Star Trek: Picard did a great job with was setting it up so that you do not have to watch Nemesis to get what is happening. All you really need to know is that Data died on their last mission together-even the B4 section you are concerned about explains that Data tried to graft himself onto an inferior copy and it failed. The show may be more powerful if you see Dataâs death, but I think you can fully know what is happening without watching Nemesis.As discussed in the comments above, to me Nemesis is not wholly without merit (the only ST movies wholly without merit are Insurrection and V imo), so I wouldnât mind watching it again anyway. But I certainly think you can get by without it. I hope you and your friend enjoy the show!Oh: Be sure to include Best of Both Worlds, Inner Light, and the many other wonderful Picard episodes in your newbie primer!
Oh yes, those are for sure in there. Iâm basically abridging 7 seasons into a 1 season show that seems most pertinent to Picard, Data, the Borg and Romulans: Encounter at Farpoint, Datalore, The Neutral Zone, The Measure of a Man, Q Who, The Defector, Yesterdayâs Enterprise, The Offspring, Sarek, The Best of Both Worlds, Family, Brothers, Dataâs Day, The Drumhead, The Mindâs Eye, Darmok, Unification, I Borg, The Inner Light, Chain of Command, Face of the Enemy, Tapestry, Descent, Phantasms, The Pegasus, All Good Things…Also just my $.02, I recently re-watched all the movies and have to say I was surprised that Insurrection improved the most from my recollection, while First Contact didnât stack up quite as much with my memory of it. I still donât think any hold a candle to the best of the show, but I did find that interesting.
Excellent-Your friend is in really good hands!I am happy that you included The Drumhead on your list. It has always been one of my favorites, but I felt compelled to watch it again right after I saw the first episode of Picard. For some reason, Jean Lucâs righteous anger reaction to the actions of Star Fleet reminded me very much of that episode. One of the things that made Remembrance so great!
Thatâs a great selection! Any concern about the impact of âYesterdayâs Enterpriseâ if youâre not familiar with Yarâs death? I mean, âSkin Of Evilâ is a stupid episode but itâs fun if youâre willing to watch a stupid episode.
It was so much better than I could have hoped. First episodes tend to have a lot to carry and this carried it very well. Even if someone somehow did not know TNG I think they could still have enjoyed this on its own. But having that background, knowing the small nods and details, it was so wonderful and I canât wait to see what they do from here.
Fantastic review!
Iâm not a huge TNG fan (Iâm more of a DS9 fan), but I liked this a lot. The burn on B4 absolutely made me laugh.Patrick Stewart is a very good actor. The interview scene was actor-y, but in a way that made sense.
Something I really enjoyed was that this felt like a continuotion of both TNG and DS9. While Picard and the Starfleet he rerepresents is a huge part here, so is the Starfleet established by DS9. The organization that for all its lofty ideals is still deeply suspectible to fear.
Maybe itâll explore what Star Trek Into Darkness tried to only, like, well.
âBlue Skiesâ was used for a reason. In Nemesis, Data sang it at Riker and Troiâs wedding. Then, at the end, B-4 was humming it and Picard helped him a bit with it.I watched Nemesis right before I watched the premiere. Surprisingly, it wasnât as bad for me as I remembered it.
Insurrection is worse, I think.
Insurrection is definitely the worst TNG film, perhaps the worst Trek film overall as it craps on the overall message of Star Trek.Â
Nemesis at lest tried to be something more than a middle TNG episode with high production values. Insurrection was just mediocre.
The only real value of Insurrection is, itâs the one time we actually got to spend some time on the Enterprise E when there wasnât a massive crisis in play. Something about that was genuinely nice. But the rest of the movie is so insane and contradictory.
I liked the battle between the Enterprise and Scimitar as well, they actually put a bunch of thought into how the ships would actually fight, roll to present fresh shields and stuff like that. Maybe somebody played Star Fleet Battles or the old FASA starship combat simulator…But aside from that, the movie makes no sense. Shinzon manipulates the Enterprise crew into tracking down B4 and then lures them to Romulus to gain access to the Federationâs security codes in order to get past the sensor web that lets them detect cloaked Warbirds… In a Warbird whoâs cloak is so advanced it can avoid the Federationâs sensor net?
I would have preferred a dramatic rendition of Pop goes the Weasel over that scene… đ
Wow, cool Nemesis callback!
Also, raiding the Paramount music library is a longstanding Trek tradition.
I liked it a lot, but they canât get to this fast enough.
while Iâm glad to see her back (and hopefully some more DS9 and Voyager characters)…did they ever actually meet?Â
Not that Iâm aware of. Or at least not in the TV/movies stuff. Iâm sure they probably have in the comics or novels at some point.
This seems like crazy fanservicey, and Iâm not really liking that. That said, the trailers for this show made it look *awful* and itâs not, so hey.
âData is dead, to begin with.âAh, a nod to PStew’s one-man “Christmas Carol” show.
âOnce again, I must ask you to remember that the Marleys were dead, and decaying in their graves.â
âLight the lamp, not the rat! Light the lamp, not the rat!â
âbirthday bannerâIt was Captain Picard Day, set up by the school on the ship, not Picardâs birthday that prompted the banner. He never actually met with any kids in that episode.
Ah, dumb mistake on my part. Iâve removed that line.
Heâs a role model.
I do wonder why he kept that one, as he presumably had numerous Picard Days. It was a bit muchÂ
Well, since we donât see any others, this was presumably the only one where he bonded with a bunch of kids for the first time when he previously could barely stand them. Also, the ship got its butt kicked and they all nearly died. đ
The banner bothers me. It implies that he made the effort to keep that banner preserved, and then even to have it salvaged from the wreck of the Enterprise D. And then to have it put in a museum…? Like, itâs clearly meant to invoke our nostalgia for an episode of Star Trek, but makes no sense in the context of the life Picard was leading every day.
Itâs for the children. (Laughing while slowly dying inside)
It was a positron. The antimatter counterpart of an electron. It has android DNA!
Really great opening episode with some really neat twists. I was trying to get a handle on the Dahj as I couldnât understand why they established her as so powerful from the start, and then the death happened. That was a really brilliant narrative decision as now they have already shown what the sister can be while still having her herself be in the dark. It really allows the show a lot of room to move in when telling this story.
Another great element was that they signalled the twin thing really early, I just didnât stop to think about it. The reason Picard thought of Dataâs painting was because there were two of them.
Iâm wondering how theyâre going to handle the sister staying in the dark. After Dahj called Mom to tell her that she was being tracked by assassins, the natural next thing for Mom to do would be to call Dahjâs twin sister to tell her âhey, you might be in danger, so be on your guard a little and maybe send an email to this retired Starfleet admiral I know.â Maybe the Borg cube has lousy wifi?
Interesting that in one, the subject is looking at the viewer and in the other sheâs obscured, looking away. ART 101 FORESHADOWINGÂ
I hadnât even put that one together and feel dumb about it now. Still really good foreshadowing.
Iâm a little annoyed because Iâve been resisting signing up for CBS All Access and now for the first time Iâm feeling my resistance crumbling. Damn them for doing something right with Star Trek!
Resistance is futile. Sorry you just left that sitting there. I really had no choice.
Iâve actually been disappointed not to see more of those. I knew Iâd left it wide open.
I was content to follow Discovery by means of podcasts and blogs. But for Picard I had to get the app.
Protip: torrent the show, like anyone with a lick of sense will do.
After being disappointed by the second season of Discovery, I wasnât expecting much from this (other than that Stewart would be great in it, as always), but it was surprisingly good TV. Of course, as the reviewer notes, we have little to go on as to what kind of TV it will be yet, but I will be tuning in every week to see.
I feared this show would be all nostalgia and Patrick Stewart influence (like he did in the movies) but this first episode has me optimistic. I really enjoyed it.
I loved it, my only quibble is the âcharacter gets key information from TV in shop windowâ which is oudated now, much less the 25th century
It was such an interesting/weird environment to show in Star Trek. For that matter, the galaxy news broadcast was kind of odd too. And had the cheesiest opening graphics even by todayâs standards.
I missed this review when it went up last week, but my one comment was going to be about that silly tv shop trope.Are television writers actually allowed to venture out into the real world? Or are they all kept quarantined in LA somewhere, and they all still think that itâs the 1950s?
Zack, Iâm super happy to see you here. No other AV Club writer would be as right for this show. Hereâs hoping the viewing experience can match or even transcend the anticipation. I havenât watched this episode yet, and in fact Iâll probably wait for a fair number of episodes to pile up before I dive in. I just wanted to let you know that I expect the viewing experience of each individual episode, like the rewatches of the past series Iâve been engaged in over the past few years with my oldest along for his first exposure, to be incomplete until Iâve absorbed your take and that of our extended, long-time family of commenter Trek fans.tl;dr: Excited! Thanks!
Honestly I was really pulling for Dahj to be Lal
I have a feeling Lal will end up referenced in this. Dahj resembles Lal just enough, it could happen.
At the risk of guess-spoiling…..The scene at Daystrom just about screams âWEâRE BRINGING DATA BACK!â They still have a body (and flesh-and-blood versions can be created) and Alison presents the hypothesis that the whole of Data exists in each positronic whatever. Somewhat like the novels, I think itâs highly probable that weâre going to find out Data has been around for a while.
I hope not. I like the idea that the show is sorta about his legacy but I really hope he doesnât come back because old Data just isnât doing it for me.Â
Iâm not picky as long as the story is solid. That said, if they donât bring him back it seems weird that theyâd foreshadow that hard. It would certainly have been one of Bruce Maddoxâs primary goals.
I suspect not. Iâve only watched the first episode, but the whole âone drop of blood–â er âpositronic neuronâ thing sounds like itâll be a way to bring back [redacted/spoiler for the first ep]
Yeah, it seems like theyâre totally going there, but theyâll probably also have to âexileâ or hide Data somewhere due to droidracism, so I donât expect him to be just tagging along during the whole show. Iâm guessing Maddox will come back to the show only to be killed off saving Dahjâs twin or Data.Â
Iâm still skeptical. Itâs one thing to have Data look old and wrinkly in the dream sequences, but how are they gonna explain it when heâs reassembled? Especially if they can presumably just build him a new body or whatever. I guess if heâs in the Matrix or something, like an AI, they can just CGI it somehow? I almost feel like theyâre putting so much weight on his death that to bring him back would cheapen it.
Theyâre doing some deep cuts in this episode. When they mentioned the Daystrom Institute, and then Picard actually went there, I had hoped that Maddox would be there. I would have been satisfied with him being just an old researcher who Picard talks to, but it looks like theyâre setting him up to be the guy behind whatever is going on at that Borg cube. You donât have a character disappear just to never mention him again. I donât know about Data coming back, at least not as Brent Spiner. My money is on him being in a new body, or possibly being a shipâs computer, so they can still use Spinerâs voice.
Yeah, theyâre either going to bring him fully back, or just use that as the explanation for the daughtersâ memories. But the idea behind it, that they can use some fractal method to extrapolate his entire mind from the smallest piece of it, is pretty dumb.
My best guess is that Maddox is/was being held against his will and was forced to create the two girls, by the same people who staged the Synthetic attack on Mars, specifically for the purpose of cancelling the Romulan rescue mission. He programmed them to seek out Picard to facilitate his escape.
Since theyâve implied (through the Daystrom exposition) that these new artificial lifeforms were created from Data seed, I think itâs more likely that the desire/need to seek out Picard was a function of Data trusting him above any other human. After all, Picard was the one most responsible for preserving his rights as a sentient individual when Maddox came to take Data into slavery. Also, Picard would be an odd choice to initiate a rescue given his advanced years and the fact that he could hold a grudge given the aforementioned event.
Data was much closer to Geordie than he was Picard.
Pretty sure the idea is they used the part of data that was downloaded into B4 to make the twin androids, since they made a big point that nobody had been able to duplicate Dr. Soongâs science.
Thus the whole they are âhis daughtersâ things- they were born from him in a sense. Data is very much dead.
Really enjoyed the episode but was left with a couple questions. Mainly, how was she able to travel so fast? He was probably only at the archives for an hour or so when she arrived in San Francisco all the way from Paris. Maybe I missed something? Also, I found it odd that he woke up on his couch at his home back in France instead of in a hospital or something in SF.
Iâm probably just overthinking it?
She has the security clearance to track Picard, I donât think transporter access would be a problem for her.
His caretakers are Romulan. Never trust Romulans.
I really liked it. Â How many total episodes is the first season suppose to be?
Ten I think.
I also liked the Discovery pilot, and, uh, that didnât turn out the best. Hopefully this goes down a different path.
A little touch I noticed – âblue skiesâ was also the song Data sang at Riker and Troiâs wedding in Nemesis, and was also featured at the end (with B4 trying to sing it, with Picardâs help). Iâm guessing that wasnât a coincidence, but I donât know whether itâs a coded hint of something larger, or just another random easter egg.
(I wouldnât have remembered that if I hadnât rewatched Nemesis for the first time in over a decade in preparation for Picard.)
My one problem with this episode was the racial dynamics felt a bit off. Two black characters, one killed for shock value within the first five minutes, the other a mean bigot (what if black people were the REAL racists amirite) who gets dressed down on intergalactic television by our white protagonist. Probably not intentional, but a bit tone-deaf, to say the least. Hopefully theyâll do better going forward.Spoiler, though I guess if youâve read this you should have watched the episode: Dahjâs death hit me hard, and had the virtue of being completely unexpected. I wonder if sheâs in a neural net somewhere and can be brought back like Picard and Jurati were discussing? Also with the way they were talking about Bruce Maddox, I wonder if Brian Brophy will be showing up to reprise his role. That was a deep cut I didnât expect.
The character killed was an alien not a representation of any earthly race.
Oh come on
Not everythingâs about race.
Weak
So…..my choices for the motivations of the Trek producers and the director in casting the small, but showy, role of the alien boyfriend would be to either provide an opportunity for a young actor of color, with few credits, to get some high-profile exposure…..or……was done merely to promote the archaic trope of killing the black guy off as soon as possible.I choose the former.
More like, they hired a black guy for a small enough role that wouldnât overshadow the white leads and didnât bother or care about the fact that killing him off in the first five minutes constitutes a racist trope. Is it that big a deal to you that they get criticized for that? Because I feel like even the Firesign guys would get it.
Iâd say a man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest….Forward into the Past!
This doesnât answer my question
â…small enough role that wouldnât overshadow the white leadsâYouâre right, itâs J-L Picard that should have been offed in the first five minutes, and then we would have had more time to enjoy a series built on how the now-not-dead boyfriend – who adopts the name Picard – becomes such a household name that everyone forgets the balding geezer. What a twist!Itâs one episode in, we have little sense of which characters will be prominent, and Iâm quite sure there will be a diverse complexity of characters. It does seem like this is an issue because, for you, this is The Issue. Hanging on to the âblack guy is killed earlyâ trope as if it is still something prevalent in modern TV – which it very obviously and deliberately is not – is a bit passĂŠ. And as DrMemory so âweaklyâ said, not everything is about race. Though this series probably will be, to a large extent, via Romulans. Not, obviously, good enough for everyone.
It is if you look for it, sadly.There was only one Filipino actress in the show and she managed to both die and appear as a potentially evil twin, so I guess thatâs not a problem in recognitionsâ eyes.I didnât even see a Chinese person, but I assume that they have their own spokesperson somewhere in the comments raising awareness about that…
Agreed on Maddox showing up. As I said in another comment, you donât have a character just disappear unless theyâre gong to show up later. Might as well just say they died.
The comment on the racial dynamics of the casting are spot-on.
(I starred the comment; but stupid Kinja just erases the stars that I give. Hence my move to leave a response as well.)
I didnât have the same read on the interviewer character as a âbigotâ. My impression of her was that she was deliberately trolling Picard to react emotionally because it would make better TV. She knew he didnât want to talk about his separation from Starfleet or the Mars attack (Picardâs Romulan live-in confirmed it 3 times) which I think is specifically why chose to ask about it. She looks kind of smug and satisfied when Picard does snap at her, because I think itâs what she wanted. It may have been meant as a critique of new media that lacks a perspective and tries to stir shit up just for the views/clicks.
Ehhh. The insta-murdered boyfriend, maybe, if the show keeps up a habit of killing off POC characters. But the reporter? If anything, Iâd just complain that sheâs a cliche shark journalist weâve seen a billion times. Also I second Will Bâs comment. She didnât come off as a bigot so much as a representation of how the Federation and perhaps its citizens have turned inward. And his dressing her down was him dressing down the entirety of the aforementioned Federation and its citizens.Oh and if the Picard Countdown comics are anything to go by, weâll be getting a pretty cool black woman as a main character when Michelle Hurd shows up.
I guess we will disagree on this, as it seems like a HUGE reach. The boyfriend is some alien, of no ethnicity plot-wise. One can simply assume they just found an actor to play an alien, and rightly did not worry about skin color, since it could be anything. As for the reporter, she is not behaving as a bigot. She is trolling him for the ratings she is shooting for. And again, humans did see the Romulans as the enemy, not by race, but by a LONG period of war. Picard is just a decent human dressing down an ass.
yeah, that didnt register at all.
I dont think the boyfriend was killed for shock value, but to illustrate you were dealing with ruthless assasins.
Also, the interviewer struck me less as a bigot and more of a âtrying to stir up controversyâ up and coming ambitous young reporter type. That was how I read Picardâs response to her, like, youâre a shallow child who knows nothing and is just trying to generate hot clicks, a bit of a contemporary hit.
Was the music playing over the final scene a version of the original seriesâ Romulan theme or was I just hearing things?
fucking Jeff Russo putting the ressikan flute at the end of the opening creditsthis creative team is SO DAMN STRONG. Iâll stick with it through the growing pains, no doubt.
Deep cuts everywhere.
Starfleetâs greatest captainOdd, I donât recall seeing any reference to James Tiberius Kirk in this series.
Its âStarfleetâs greatest captainâ, not âStarfleetâs greatest captain at getting space herpes”.
ITâS STILL AN ACCOMPLISHMENT DAMMIT
I love Picard, like more than most other protagonists of other media I love, but thereâs only one G.O.A.T. captain and thatâs James T. Kirk. The fact that he was flawed only made his greatness more human and believable. Iâm a little late to the party but this was really good and Patrick Stewart was his usual excellent self.
I enjoy the idea that Data managed to become such good friends with Bruce Maddox, a man who tried to offline him to study him, that they shared ideas and artwork and Maddox created *children for him*. Â
A friend pointed out to me that Data was writing to Maddox in the episode Dataâs Day when he was logging his activities and feelings.
Oh, youâre right!
In that TNG episode Data says in his letter to Maddox âyour most recent letterâ indicating that they have been corresponding regularly since The Measure of a Man.
Yeah I was delighted that they brought him of all people back, and that Maddox was a changed person after his experience with Data. For a few minutes I didnât realize who they were referring to.Â
IG-88 replies on behalf of Data: âI am not a living thing.â Data isnât dead, since Data was never alive (unless we subscribe to spontaneous generation).
Yes Picard speaks French in this episode.Really horribly…. Still a nice touch.
I really liked this episode. It paid enough homage to the past without overdoing it. Iâd avoided all but the first trailer so I had no idea it was going to be about the android rebellion(until the âChildren of Marsâ Short Trek last week) and I canât believe that at some point it looks like weâre gonna be catching up with Commander Maddox from âMeasure of a Manâ, such an unexpected deep cut(Maddox himself, MoaM is obviously a classic)! As an aside, I got an unexpected chuckle at the obviousness of Patrick Stewartâs stunt double during the climactic action scene. I get it. Heâs 79 years old. He shouldnât be running up stairs or anything anymore, but it suddenly looked looked like Bruce Willis in his place.
Now that I have watched the episode, I want to dive back in and say I really liked it. And this review is really great, and articulated nicely all of the reasons that Remembrance worked so well. This is not a surprise given the quality of Zackâs other work, but it should still be pointed out.Also, Patrick Stewart continues to be wonderful in this role (and in general).
Gotta respect the continuity they are putting into this show. Bruce Maddox was a one-off character from Season 2 they are apparently choosing to make this entire series pivot around. At the same time itâs a little tonally weird considering TNG came before serialization was really a thing in television, and it was considered a pretty big deal whenever an episode made a callback to something from a previous episode.
As others have mentioned, the TNG episode âDataâs Dayâ has Data writing a letter describing that episode to Maddox. And he says âyour most recent letterâ indicating that they have been corresponding frequently.
Also, the actual Measure of a Man episode ends with Data essentially saying, âYour research sounds promising and I canât wait to see with you do with it, short of dismantling me.â I mean, heâs physically incapable of holding a grudge, so…
At the end of TMOAM Data doesnât have to hold a grudge but he could just as easily have said nothing to Maddox and never contacted him again.And âheâs physically incapable of holding a grudgeâ – the climax of âThe Most Toysâ would disagree with you.
Data will be back.
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/7d9e94d0-e28b-4685-a99e-b03aa3453d86
The one thing that bothered me, and I guess itâs meant to, is the death of Dahj so early on. Isa Briones did such a good job making Dahj empathetic that losing her so painfully, while sheâs still confused and terrified, stung a good deal more than expected. If thatâs to show this isnât your Dadâs Next Generation, OK, but itâs upsetting to me in a way I canât quite shakeÂ
And Iâm not really understanding how she died. I mean, I know the disruptor overloaded but what was up with a Romulan spitting acid? Or was that his blood? Thatâs now acid? Iâm confused.
I thought perhaps he was weak, and began chewing a âno captureâ disintegration pill, saw his chance, and spat some at her.
I appreciate the fact they didnât linger on the mystery of what Dhaj is.Once they introduced the plot point of the synthetics destroying mars and the whole first scene with Dhaj suddenly knowing kung-fu it was pretty easy to put two and two together.
What a messy and oddly paced pilot of a series I will watch every week and enjoy every minute.
Can someone explain how synthetics blew up Mars? As in, how are there synthetics? I thought Data was the only android in existence? Iâve only watched TNG (show and movies) and DS9, so maybe Iâm missing something.I found it kinda boring and derivative, not gonna lie (I say this as a person who watched Blunt Talk because of Stewart). Kinda Firefly meets Blade Runner.Good to see Dr. Frankenstein there at the end.
Allison Pillâs character says that the synthetics that attacked Mars were created in her lab (at the Daystrom Institute in Okinawa), so theyâre probably the result of Maddoxâs research on Data. I guess we can assume Maddox and his people have been working on them since season 2 of TNG.
The Borg cube really put the episode over the top, as the Borg are wont to do. The whole thing felt like half of a really good ST film.
We normally want our space heroes to be the rogue, swashbuckling king: Kirk, Han Solo, Starbuck, Mal Reynolds, Star Lord… Jean-Luc Picard is completely different than any of them, and itâs why the character is so enduring. Heâs our space dad! Heâs telling us what is right and what is wrong. He will protect us but also try to make us better so that we learn to protect ourselves. Heâs not who we aspire to be but he should be.The only character that comes close to be our space dad is Admiral Adama, another terrific character played by another terrific actor, but Star Trekâs eternal hopefulness and optimism gives Picard and Stewart an edge.
Finally saw it and I am so excited. It was so different from TNG, but Picard is exactly the same in all the ways you hoped he would be. A great line, âHave you ever been a stranger to yourself?â âMany, many times,â Picard says, and a half-dozen great episodes come to mind. Plus, one of the great things about TNG, when someone says some insane thing is happening to them, Picardâs first instinct is to believe them. I thought the pacing was fine. I was expecting this to be the set up for a single story and I am fine with them taking their time getting us settled in. The death was completely unexpected and changed the trajectory I was expecting, and it was nice to see that they are going to try to be a little shocking. The CG is great, there is some actual action, and the fan service suffuses the episode rather than overwhelming it. I am very excited to see where this goes.
Heh âloreâ
I canât believe no one else commented on that. Iâm just reading the this article for the first time and that immediately jumped out at me, too. đ
So Synths are banned but holograms are ok? With 7 of 9’s involvement we lnow Voyagerâs surviving crew are in the Picard show’s orbit. This makes me query- What about the Doctor – where does a sentient EMH that can move & be anywhere fall in this society? I’m also curious as to how this will affect the post-show books (especially Voyager ones). Really hoping they haven’t brought 7 back just to kill her.Â
Especially when Voyager established that at one point the Federation was using obsolete EMHs as slave labor. I remember a bunch of holo-Picardos digging in a mine or something (which seems like overkill…why not just use non-sentient digging robots).
I think they justify repurposed EMH mark 1’s as just being cheaper than the alternatives. & before Voyagerâs 7-year tour through the Delta quadrant, holograms werenât really considered sentient.
So why are all of Picardâs memorabilia locked up in the Starfleet archives, rather than at his home? Heâs not living in a 3-tatami mat studio in Tokyo. Heâs got a chateau all to himself. I can see that some things might be considered important Starfleet relics, perhaps to be put on display in the Starfleet museum. But surely Picard has room for some Captain Picard Day banners and paintings given to him as gifts by his officers. The âquantum archiveâ seems to only exist in order so that Dahj goes to SF, rather than just getting her synthetic ass back to Labarre. And of course so that she has to display her ability to hack classified Starfleet info, which Iâm sure will come in handy later.
He should have said âyes, livesâ instead of âno, livesâ if they were trying to invoke one of todayâs political questions the right way.
Prior to viewing, I kept hearing that the pacing was slow. It seemed perfectly fine to me. I am really looking forward to this season.
The reporter interviewing Picard reminded me of the podcaster interviewing Marashala Ali in season 3 of True Detective, so as soon as she appeared I knew she was going to ambush Picard.I also expect in future episodes weâll find out that sheâs sleeping with Picardâs male Romulan employee.
The look of S.T.Picard accessible and comforting. I think the reason I relax watching Picard is that the show is set in the âfutureâ, down the road from anything weâve seen in the Star Trek universe thus far. Prequel Star Treks are real-tough (to my eyes) because the contemporary designs of Enterprise, ST09 and Discovery seem incongruous to what is familiar to us as fans of the older shows.
face palm emojiWhy would the Federation decline to save Romulus?Yâknow, the 150 planet organization spanning thousands of light years committed to peace and science and exploration?Or hate androids?The Star Trek-iness of this show is really bad. The science is even worse. (Marsâ thin atmosphere can ignite? The Romulan yellow sun can go supernova and blow up its thousands-of-light-year empire tho thatâs more JJ/Kurtzmanâs fault tho Kurtzman started this series?)I dunno how itâll shake out as a TV show on its own merits, but, yikes.
Nice to have Orla Brady on my TV again. I miss Into the Badlands.
And if this sort of thing doesnât interest youâif you couldnât care less
about the lore, and just want to see Jean-Luc Picard back on your TV
screen againâyouâre in for a fine time as well.
Lore?