TL;DR – This is a wonderful start and the best thing I can say is that I want more as soon as possible

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Review –

Oh boy, if there is one thing I have been excited about this year it has been getting a chance to get my eyeballs on Star Trek: Picard. Well now it is here and I couldn’t be happier. For so long there has been this almost fear that you can’t go past Nemesis in the timeline, well now we have and it’s about time.

So to set the scene, it have been 20 years since the death of Data (Brent Spiner) during the events of Star Trek: Nemesis and the pain still wears heavy on the heart of  Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) who has now retired from Starfleet to run his family’s vineyard in France. He is burdened by his past, his losses and failures like with Romulus. Meanwhile in Boston, Dahj Asha (Isa Briones) is enjoying an evening when masked figures beamed into her apartment killing her boyfriend and interrogating her. But just when all is lost, something inside her is triggered and a killer is let lose. Now we will be looking at the episode as a whole so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

Full respect to this episode, because it had to do a lot of heavy lifting, and it made it look effortless. To start with, we needed to ground Picard with who he is and what drives him, which we see throughout the episode. It also had to frame the world as we have jumped 20 years into the future since we were last here. Which means contextualising both Star Trek: Nemesis but also the Kelvin-timeline Star Trek. Then it has to hint about what the main thrust of the series will be and what the stakes are and it does it all and more.

On the character side of things, we only get to meet a couple of the main cast, with the show having a little bit of a slow burn but I didn’t mind. I really liked the banter between Picard and his two Romulan totally not Tal Shiar operatives Laris (Orla Brady) and Zhaban (Jamie McShane). Also the scene with reporter Richter (Merrin Dungey) had some real punch and helps to frame some of the issues they will be coming across this season.

From a production side of things, goodness is this episode beautiful. It is rare that we get to see much of Earth, but here we jump from Boston to Paris to San Francisco to Okinawa and they all look amazing. There are also all those little moments to the past that they have championed. We get to see the Sovereign Class outside of the films for the first time, references to Kasidy Yates Interstellar Freights, and call backs to a number of TNG episodes both thematically and literally.

In the end, do we recommend Star Trek: Picard Remembrance? Absolutely. A simply fantastic episode. It is so great to see Jean-Luc Picard back in all his glory, and also with his Number One (Dinero) in toe. If the rest of the series is half as good as this, I’ll be quite happy.          

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen Star Trek: Picard yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Star Trek: Picard
Directed by – Hanelle M. Culpepper
Written by – Akiva Goldsman, Michael Chabon, Kirsten Beyer, Alex Kurtzman & James Duff
Created by – Akiva Goldsman, Michael Chabon, Kirsten Beyer & Alex Kurtzman
Based on – Star Trek: The Next Generation created by Gene Roddenberry
Production/Distribution Companies – CBS Studios & Amazon Prime
Starring – Patrick Stewart, Alison Pill, Isa Briones & Harry Treadaway with Brent Spiner, Orla Brady, David Carzell, Merrin Dungey, Jamie McShane, Sumalee Montano & Dinero