Quick TV Series Review – ‘Star Trek: Picard’ (Season 1)

Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley.

Okay, I think I’m breaking a few unofficial rules here with reviewing this ‘Star Trek’ series. Originally, I wasn’t going to review any ‘Star Trek’ shows that have been made recently whilst re-watching and reviewing a ‘Star Trek’ show I own on DVD. At this point, I’m currently re-watching and reviewing ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’. I’m currently enjoying Season 5 so far and I’m hoping to see more of it.

But as we’re currently living in a pandemic – please keep safe – and since I saw the latest ‘Alex Rider’ TV series recently on Amazon Prime Video, there’s no reason why I can’t check out this latest ‘Star Trek’ show that’s been made available on Amazon Prime Video and give some thoughts on it. 🙂

So yes! I’ve finally seen ‘Star Trek: Picard’! Don’t worry, I will watch ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ at some point. I do have Season 1 of that show already on Blu-ray. Maybe I’ll check it out and give some general thoughts on it before I approach Season 2. But I had to see this certain ‘Star Trek’ show first.

‘Star Trek: Picard’ is a series that tickled my interest greatly. Most significantly because it ties in to previous ‘Star Trek’ shows I’ve seen, including ‘The Next Generation’ and ‘Voyager’. The show also features the long-awaited return of Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard, who I was happy to see here.

The show takes place 20 years after the events of ‘Star Trek: Nemesis’. Picard is now a retired Starfleet admiral who has been deeply affected by the death of Data from that film. He also fell out with Starfleet following an attack on Mars by the Romulans against synthetic lifeforms 14 years ago.

When Picard meets a girl asking for his help and who happens to be a synthetic lifeform like Data, it sets off a chain reaction of events where the girl gets killed off by a group of Romulans wanting to destroy all synthetic life. Picard must go on a mission to find the girl’s sister and save synthetic life. 🙂

So overall, did I think ‘Star Trek: Picard’ was a good series. Short answer: yeah! I feel ‘Star Trek: Picard’ is a series worthy of my time to watch on Amazon Prime. Do I think it’s excellent? No, I wouldn’t go that far. There are some issues regarding story and character development throughout.

But I did find myself engaged and invested with the characters of ‘Star Trek: Picard’ more than I felt invested with the characters in the ‘Star Trek’ reboot trilogy. And yes, this leads onto an issue I have with ‘Picard’ as a series! The show overall doesn’t feel altogether that ‘Next Generation’ as I know it.

In fact, there are elements of the rebooted ‘Star Trek’ films in ‘Picard’. Which I can appreciate, since ‘Star Trek’ is a franchise that needs to move on with the times. And I do like it that they incorporate nostalgic elements from previous ‘Star Trek’ shows as well as new ones for fans to enjoy throughout.

But honestly, did some of the characters need to F-bomb a lot in some of the episodes? Seriously, I don’t remember that much swearing going on in ‘TNG’ compared to ‘Picard’. I always thought of ‘Star Trek’ as being a family-friendly franchise. ‘Picard’ did feel less family-friendly as I think about it.

Season 1 of ‘Picard’ is divided into ten episodes with eight standalone episodes and one two-part finale at the end. Mind you, I think all the episodes are connected as a single story, so I don’t get why they needed to have the last two episodes as a two-parter, as it’s all a ten-part story for Season 1. 😐

The cast is excellent throughout Season 1 of ‘Picard’. Patrick Stewart delivers a brilliant performance as ever in playing Jean-Luc Picard in the series. There’s also the lovely Alison Pill as Agnes Jurati, a former Starfleet doctor and an expert on synthetic life who joins Picard on his mission to find Dahj’s sister. 🙂

There’s Isa Briones as Dahj, the android girl who gets killed in the first episode, and Soji, who is Dahj’s sister for the rest of the series. There’s Evan Evagora as Elnor, a warrior Romulan refugee who puts his life in Picard’s hands; Michelle Hurd as ‘Raffi’ Muskier, Picard’s former Starfleet first officer who tends to drink a lot ( 😀 ) and Santiago Cabrera (who was in ‘The Musketeers’) as ‘Chris’ Rios, who pilots the La Sirena starship. There’s also Harry Treadaway as Narek, a Romulan who seduces Soji. 😐

There are also characters from previous ‘Star Trek’ shows appearing in ‘Picard’. There’s Brent Spiner who plays Data as well as Altan Inigo Soong, the son of Noonian Soong. There’s Jonathan Del Arco as Hugh, the former Borg drone who was in ‘I, Borg’ and ‘Descent’ from the ‘TNG’ series. Yeah, a Borg cube appears in this series. I was disappointed that there weren’t actual Borg drones in the series. 😦

Jeri Ryan returns to play Seven of Nine from the ‘Voyager’ series. I was happy to see Seven back in ‘Picard’. Jonathan Frakes returns to play William Riker from the ‘TNG’ series as well as Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi, Riker’s wife. Jonathan Frakes directed a number of episodes in the ‘Picard’ series. 😀

I was disappointed that characters like Beverly Crusher and Geordi La Forge didn’t return to the ‘Picard’ series. Beverly was a major character in Picard’s life. Why didn’t she return in this series? Ah well, maybe she’ll return in Season 2. I heard Whoopi Goldberg will be back as Guinan in Season 2. 🙂

Other characters introduced in ‘Picard’ are Jamie McShane as Zhaban, Picard’s butler and Orla Brady (who was in the ‘Doctor Who’ episode ‘The Time of the Doctor’ with Matt Smith) as Laris, who manages Picard’s vineyard and household in France on Earth. There’s Peyton List (not the one who voiced a dog in ‘The Dog Who Saved the Holidays’ TV movie 😀 ) as Narissa, a vicious Romulan spy and Narek’s sister, and there’s Tamlyn Tomita as Oh, a seemingly Vulcan Starfleet officer who is later turned out to be a half-Romulan operative of the Tal Shiar in this series.

So to wrap up, ‘Star Trek: Picard’ has been an enjoyable if flawed series in the ‘Star Trek’ universe. There are issues with the storytelling and the characters and there are more rebooted ‘Star Trek’ elements than familiar ‘TNG’ elements I know of, but this series was really compelling to watch here.

I’m hoping ‘Star Trek: Picard’ will grow on me and I’ll get to see more of it in its future seasons. The characters are interesting and there were twists and turns throughout. The ending slightly put me off, which I won’t give away here, but ‘Picard’ is definitely a series that has me say…”Make it so!” 🙂

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim. 🙂

Advertisement