‘Star Trek: Picard’ Season 1 Episode 1 Spoiler Discussion

We’ll have a review up later on, but for now this is a spot to discuss the episode with your fellow Trekkies.

Pictured: Sir Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard of the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: PICARD. Photo Cr: Matt Kennedy/CBS ©2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

For people have haven’t seen the episode yet… stay away from the comments of this article.

 

Episode title: Remembrance

Synopsis: At the end of the 24th century, and 14 years after his retirement from Starfleet, Jean-Luc Picard is living a quiet life on his vineyard, Chateau Picard. When he is sought out by a mysterious young woman, Dahj, in need of his help, he soon realizes she may have personal connections to his past.


Star Trek: Picard premieres today (January 23, 2020). It will be available on CBS All Access in the USA at 12:01 AM PT/3:01 AM ET. In Canada it will air on the 23rd on CTV Sci-Fi Channel at 6PM PT /9PM ET and will be available to stream on Crave. It will premiere on Amazon Prime Video for the rest of the world on Friday January 24. Episodes will be released weekly.

Keep up with all the Star Trek: Picard news at TrekMovie.

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My expectations were high, but somehow exceeded… its nice that we have some idea about what’s going on. The attackers are Romulan, she is basically a clone… the guessing game got old with the red angel.

YEeeeEEeeEESS!!!! That was amazing!!!!!

For me though, my expectations could not have been lower after that dreadful 2nd season of Discovery. So you can imagine why I was, much like Dahj, completely blown away by this!

What was that title of that episode again? I cant remember…

sorry wrong thread….

To each their own, the 2nd season of Discovery was great.

Agreed.

Pike FTW!!

Agreed!

I liked it too.

Yup second season was amazing

I agree. First season, ok, second, awesome. It pains me to see these so called fans hating because it’s cool nowadays to trash something, in order to seem cool.

Or… And stay with me on this… Maybe people critiqued Discovery they way they actually saw it? You know it is possible that people saw what was there really wishing they were going to like it and then being amazingly disappointed with the final product. Having nothing to do with with what may or may not be “cool” at that given moment.

I’m happy you liked S1 and 2 of STD. I really am. I personally thought it was terrible for a litany of reasons but I get there are people who enjoyed what they saw.

I had a similar thought: oh no, please don’t let this who-is-Dahj thing last the whole season. Nope, didn’t even last the whole episode. Good decision.

Right? If Disco writers had done this story, it would have played out like this….
Episode 1: Dahj comes into the story as just some random chick who needs Picard’s help.
Episode 2: Is Dahj Picard’s daughter?
Episode 3: Is Dahj Data’s daughter?!?
Episode 4: Where’s Dahj? She’s stolen a shuttlecraft!
Episode 5: Picard tracks the shuttlecraft down, but Dahj isn’t on it! Where’s Dahj?
Episode 6: Finally reveal that the attackers who tried to kill Dahj are Romulan!!
Episode 7: Picard finds Dahj in prison for straight up murdering those Romulans.
Episode 8: Picard breaks Dahj out of prison for some stupid reason.
Episode 9: I dunno, something about time crystals? Does that make any sense?
Episode 10: Dahj is revealed to be an android, then dies. Reveal that she has a twin to set up for season 2!

Get over yourself

Yes, I agree Disco is terrible. I refuse to watch (though I do like Anson Mount); CBS All Access literally has one show that interests me – Picard.

I loved everything Star Trek and I disagree with the comments about Discovery. I loved Discovery and felt that the show and the second season where great. I am really enjoying Star Trek: Picard. I love CBS All Access and it has more then two shows for me. I can stream all of the past Star Trek Shows like The Next Generation that I am now watching, Deep Space Nine and others. I am not sure if I will get Hulu as that has only one show that interests me and that is The Orville.

Right there with you Michael. DISCO is far from perfect, but it’s settling down into a solid series.

How can you think something is terrible if you refuse to watch it? It literally makes no sense whatsoever.

I actually posted the same reply before I seen yours mate. Well said. Hipsters think it’s cool to say they hate stuff without investing.

Or, maybe the saw the first season or part of the first season and THEN refused to continue?

How do you know it’s terrible? If you refuse to watch?

Episode 11: The Enterprise NCC-1701 turns up and launches 400 shuttles from the shuttle bay. A large space battle ensues in which random characters turn up and announce proudly that they’ve learned to fly shuttles. They good guys win the battle and agree to never discuss it again. The Federation News Network is sad about that.

lol while I don’t necessarily agree with you, I still find this pretty funny!

This was fantastic. You forgot to add that Picard said he wasn’t going to help her or search for her but then does it anyway cause F*** it.

Why compare apples to oranges?

That’s hilarious! :)

Definitely, great misdirection! I was totally open to Dahj’s potential storyline but loved that the trailers set up something very different.

I just watched the entire first episode… Like Brian, my expectations were also high and surprisingly exceeded. All I can say is just “wow.” This is more cinematic than any other episode of star trek I have ever seen and I have seen them all many times… I cannot fault any aspect of this episode’s acting, effects, cinematography, musical score, etc. Just… “wow!” If this is reflective of the direction that our beloved franchise is heading we have a truly bright future to look forward to. To everyone involved in bringing this series to fruition (and I am sure at least a few of them are reading these comments): Bravo!

I couldn’t agree more.

That was my exact feeling. I fell in love with this show immediately and I get it even more now with what Kurtzman is saying – that different shows will feel different so that fans can enjoy them without it all feeling like the same thing on repeat. There was excitement, mystery, great call-backs to TNG history. Oh and did you notice the rework of the Romulan theme from TOS that was used? Jeff Russo’s score was absolutely brilliant!

That throw back Romulan theme to the TOS was amazing. I hope we get to hear more!!! I had to rewind that part when I heard it the first time!

That was amazing. When the showrunners and Stewart talked about it, they said the series was more a “ten hour movie”. It truly feels that way.

I can’t wait for next Thursday.

Truly cinematic. But also so very Star Trek. And Patrick Stewart… Bravo!

Yeah I think I’m already in love with this show. I stayed up late to watch and was not disappoint one little bit. I can’t wait to watch again.

I’m too wired to sleep now. That theme song! The imagery of a shattered man becoming whole again. And I think we’ve seen more of civilian life in the Federation in a single episode since Sisko visited home in DS9.

I was dying to see what a 2020 drone looks like but alas will have to wait again!

Eh. The theme song was perhaps the one aspect I found underwhelming. I’ve only heard it once, though; maybe it will grow on me.

Yeah not really jiving with the theme song either but it will probably grow on me too.

I tend to agree. Like Discovery, it’s just too meandering. It does generally evoke the right emotion, but I like a theme I can remember well enough to whistle! Even ST: Enterprise got that right ;-)

BRUCE MADDOX!!!

I expect to see Brian Brophy by the end of the season.

Does he still act I wonder?

“Hello, this is Patrick Stewart calling. Your IMDB says you teach now and you haven’t acted in two years, but…Star Trek wants you back!”

Last role was in 2014 per IMDb.

It’s sort of great that — as far as I can tell — he now works at CalTech. (As director of their theater program, it seems, but still.)

LOVED IT! LOVED IT! LOVED IT! OMG, the 24th century is back and it feels SO good!!!

That first shot of the Enterprise floating through space and to see Picard and Data talking together was so nice. And loved that Data was back in his Nemesis uniform.

Loved the pacing of this first episode. A little slow but revealed quite a bit (some rumors already hinted at though). Patrick Stewart is definitely older now but he’s still every inch of Picard. In fact after doing a lot of TNG rewatches last two weeks I realized how uptight and stodgy he was and that slowly started melt away by the end of TNG. By the times the movies came around he was practically jolly lol. Now he’s so relaxed and easy going! It was fun to watch him.

It felt so cinematic and it made the shots on Earth so beautiful! And a MUCH better job than DIS did, especially that Paris shot. WOW!! it felt so cluttered and CGI to death on DIS for some reason.

But man, it looks like a lot is going to happen with this show. We now know that Dahj is (or was) Data’s daughter. Until the Children of Mars short I didn’t really think the story will have much to do with Android’s beyond maybe bringing Data back but at least so far that may be main drive of the season and revolve around him directly. I been wanting Star Trek to do a deep dive A.I. story line forever and I may finally get it! And that shot of the Borg cube at the end was amazing. We all knew that’s what it was but it felt ominous and it raises so many questions.. Synths, Borg and Romulans are all somehow part of the same story??? Can’t wait to see where it’s all going. I love it feels so different and yet very familiar. This how I wanted to feel after that first episode of DIS in it’s first season but it felt so cold, cynical and dark. This actually felt like Star Trek again.

OK, I’m going to watch it again now! :)

If this AI story-line is anything like DSC’s, I will be less than enthused. So far, I haven’t been too impressed with Star Trek’s handling of AI, though I suppose it’s better than most of sci-fi in that regard. But I’m wary about all this neuron talk. And also the part about sentience. I’m hoping for their sake that Agnes is strictly referring to a sentient ANDROID when referring to that 1000 year figure. The Doctor is already a sentient computer system, but I’m hoping she means it would take 1000 years to develop a system as compact and efficient as Data’s positronic brain, making it a hardware issue and not a software issue.

No I TOTALLY agree with you about DIS and it’s AI story line. I was very excited when I realized that was the direction they were going last season and truly thought they were going to explore it in a real meaningful way…until they didn’t.

And I’m not trying to put Discovery down but I’m ALWAYS amazed when people are surprised that so many others have an issue with that show, that story line is the perfect example. INSTEAD of trying to develop CONTROL into something more layered and unique, they just went for the same tired AI trope of the last 40 years and it became the super robot must destroy all man because it simply exists. I still can’t believe with ALL the potential and different ways they could’ve gone with the Red Angel story line it just ended up as more generic Terminator schlock…and I liked last season lol. But yeah that’s the problem with that show. ANYTIME it looks like we may get something more layered it turns into generic sci fi again and why the season ended with 1,000 controlled drones fighting each other. But whatever, it got them to the 32nd century, so…

As far as THIS show, yes it’s only been an episode but so far it has set up the AI story line and theme WAAAAAY beyond what DIS did and hopefully it can deliver at least something more than the Romulans want to build super robots to take out the Federation, but we’ll see. ;)

As for your point about Agnes talking about building sentient AI a 1,000 years later, I think she did mean android AIs but not just how they act or think, but look completely human inside and out, ie, Blade Runner. The Doctor is certainly more advanced but he’s still just a hologram and you can’t really fake not being a hologram lol. What she’s talking about is something that can pass completely human even when you scan them which Data obviously couldn’t do but Dahj seem to have done. She was bleeding which suggests just that. That would be revolutionary by anything we seen in Star Trek up until now. So that’s a pretty exciting story line to cover.

AND finally I honestly think when we meet up with Discovery in the 32nd century we will see Androids like this. Many are speculating that’s what the new guy Cleavland Booker actually is, a super advanced android that’s basically human. And its 800 years later post-Picard, so close enough. ;)

So, with the proviso that it’s been a while since I’ve watched Voyager:

*Was* the doctor truly “sentient,” at least in the way Data was? I feel like the show was fairly casual on this point — there weren’t many episodes that explored the question, it just sort of said, well, Moriarty became at least somewhat self-aware, and the EMH is self-aware, so there you go. But I do recall one episode (the name escapes me) where the Doctor’s memory was edited so he would forget a traumatic incident that was leading him into an infinite-loop of guilt/self-castigation; Janeway ultimately decided to let him work it out on his own, sort of sitting with him as he rehashed it for hours, and he eventually broke out of it by noticing how exhausted she looked.

Point being, maybe the EMH wasn’t quite Data-level sentient. This isn’t to say he wasn’t sentient — but maybe, to draw a biological analogy, he’s sentient in the way that a dog is: there’s definitely someone there, with subjectivity and concerns, but it’s not quite so nuanced and rich a subjectivity as with homo sapiens.

(As an aside, I do sort of appreciate that the ease of developing AI has been seriously dialed back here. For all of the handwringing by tech-celebrities like Elon Musk, real AI researchers like Andrew Ng generally feel that we are many centuries away from anything resembling artificial *general* intelligence, e.g. a Data. This does perhaps beg the question of how plausible it is that Noonien Soong could have been so far ahead of the mainstream state-of-the-art in his construction of Data and Lore, but maybe we could say they’re the artisanal, handcrafted fruit of an extraordinary genius’s obsessive work over the course of decades — like, maybe if some prominent 19th century physicist/inventor like Nikolas Tesla had the time, resources, and discipline, they could have spent 30 years in isolation and come out with a kind of nuclear reactor.)

Anyway, I am very curious to see if this gets explored more as the show goes on. I expect it will be — Kirsten Beyer having cut her teeth on Voyager novels, and Robert Picardo having commented publicly that he’s been approached for season two.

Even if the ultimate answer is, yes, he was fully sentient, then maybe it’s precisely as you say — the non-reproducible portable emitter and that one scene in “Author, Author” aside, with a bunch of Mark 1 EMHs doing grunt work — the EMH’s sentience required a large dedicated supercomputer (i.e. a starship’s), and thus doesn’t quite “count” in the same way that Data’s practically flesh-and-blood, free-range sentience did.

I’m quite sure the Doctor was sentient. He was very much self-aware, had his own desires, was as introspective as anyone.. I just can’t think of a box that hadn’t been checked off. So yes, I think the big difference is the hardware.

As for the potential for developing sentient AI, I’m also an AI researcher, and I already have a theoretical model for AGI that I’m developing. So I feel like it’s right around the corner, but opinions will vary. Some speculate a decade, others a century… and some think it’s impossible no matter the time-frame. But many of these opinions come from philosophers or strictly narrow AI developers, so I would take those opinions with a grain of salt, so to speak.

I see Voyager’s Doctor to be on the same level as Data. He is self aware but is it really an individual or just a tool for the so-called “sentient begings” to use? Like a wrench or a computer. And I liked the Voyager doctor. More so than Data if we are being honest. But even with all his learning capacity his is still just a program in the end. Just as data is just an automaton in the end.

BTW.. Even if Soong was amazingly ahead of his time, studying his creation and reverse engineering it means that his work for sure could be duplicated. More likely sooner rather than later. The idea that it was impossible to reverse engineer data is just absurd to me. I would think that would be the very first thing star fleet engineers would have done upon his discovery.

And we’re -just- wetware computers. I don’t see the point you’re making, aside from displaying human vanity. Sentience is sentience, whether biological or digital. Unless you want to argue the case that neither of them are actually sentient in the ways that we would define ourselves to be…

I’d probably scientifically categorize them differently in such that Voyager’s Doctor is on the same level as Moriarty. It’s nuts and bolts when it comes to all this AI stuff, but Data is engineered to be a self-contained unit that generally “behaves like a biological human”. He learns through interaction and memory growth, and while memories and information can be downloaded, that information doesn’t seem to affect his nascent ‘personality’ as much as first-hand real life experiences seem to build toward. Ultimately he is programmed and is computer-based, but in an ultra-special way that’s meant to imitate life, housed within a physical body that undergoes physiological experiences that are different from human but are certainly still his own unique experiences.

The Doctor and Moriarty are beings of pure information and programming. The incidental nature of the massive Computing Power of Starfleet ships results in their growing beyond the bounds of programmatic behavior into independent systems with existential awareness. They are AI constructs that by circumstance achieve sentience. I believe Data was built with sentience inherent to him, making him even more of an achievement, though it took some time for his full realization to … well, to steal a phrase from Remembrance, to have a positronic wake-up. But we saw it more or less in real-time, right? Data dabbles with all sorts of things and is always more human than even he realizes. It’s not just the crew, his friends, projecting. Then he dabbles with an Emotion chip, starts having dreams, and more and more and more. That’s the joke, sort of, the running gag. He was always human, in a way.

But I do really, really like that Remembrance takes the time, quickly, in context, to show us that the new synth rules apply to holographics as well. That means, most likely, somewhere out there, Robert Picardo is locked in a datafile that can’t be opened until new legislation is passed. There’s some very Asimov-type concerns going on here. Obviously there’s the overt Blade Runner overlap as well.

But everything you said applies to Data also applies to the Voyager EMH. He even had a personality. He had an ego. All sorts of things developed with him that somehow went beyond his original programming. But in the end, he was still a hologram. In the end, Data could only grow so far.

My point is that Data was built by a human. Not procreated. Constructed. He is artificial. That is what the A in AI stands for. It means, not genuine. There are certain parameters that currently are used to define life. Data meets some but not all of them. Can this change in the future? You bet and I will be open to them of course as the science advances.

I agree. Trek does not have a good track record when dealing with AI. For some reason other sci-fi has done a much better job of that. I also did find the idea that it only required one positron to clone data outlandish. And why would they be done in pairs? Have they learned nothing from the past? But, it’s only the first episode. Let’s see where it goes.

“A little slow”

That’s the best part! We need less explosion and more introspection.

Yeah I didn’t say it was bad. I don’t mind slow burns as long as the story itself is intriguing and this one definitely is. And they made it clear it wasn’t going to be fast pace like DIS which I think relieved a lot of people.

Agreed.

Agreed. Thoughtful and cinematic, with just the right amount of action.

I feel the same. I was happy to ease in and he a chance to absorb Picard’s world two decades on.

There seem to be critics out there who’d like all of this packed into a 10 minute cinematic feature introduction. They clearly don’t get that streaming means that we don’t have to have every show kick of with a 10 minute adrenaline rush in following the prescribed format of America movies.

I’m very pleased that to see that Secret Hideout is walking the talk of truly having different series with different tones, styles and formats.

I stayed up to watch the premiere, and it didn’t disappoint. It’s easily the best premiere of any of the Star Trek series, including DS9 and ENT, the better ones. The story is epic in scope and yet surprising character-driven. Bravo.

That was an excellent episode. After two muddled seasons of Discovery it feels like the new Trek braintrust found their sea, er, space legs. Also for the first time in 20 years we are moving forward with the prime Star Trek timeline.

If I understood all of the quite interesting techno-babble it sounds like Picard’s mission is to find the equivalent of a stem cell from Data so that he can regrow Data’s neural net from it. Does that sound correct?

And there is a deeper mystery about who and what the rogue synths are and why they sabotaged the rescue of the Romulan refugees.

Season 1 of Discovery definitely was muddled but it was extremely clear that season 2 was finding its way much more successfully. It’s unfortunate people are seeing it differently. Picard is a glorious slow burn which some critics aren’t liking from what I’ve seen around the web but for me, played out perfectly. Everything about this first episode was practically perfect.

I liked the first 2/3 of Discovery season 2. Then it devolved into a bad Terminator ripoff. The best parts of it were a great pilot season for a Captain Pike-Number One series on the Enterprise.

That was the problem for season 2 of DIS as well. It set up something I thought was going to be really unique and a bit more ‘Star Trek’ and then it just went into generic sci fi. And MAYBE I wouldn’t have mind it so much if I wasn’t on the internet reading all the fan theories for months and frankly had much better and original ideas. So my expectations were really high by the time we got there unfortunately.

I would agree that some of the fan theories surpassed the actual story.

And I see no reason to think Picard won’t follow the same path, to be honest. Maybe it won’t but I’ve been fooled twice by this group so far. I am not going to let them fool me again. The first episode was “meh”. Just like Discovery’s first was. Therefore, given the crew working on the show, I see no reason not to expect it to fall over the cliff just like Discovery did. I hope it doesn’t. But there is too much evidence to suggest it.

BTW… Another thing I did not like in this episode was that Picard was still presented as being right. He never stopped to consider that maybe Star Fleet didn’t change but perhaps HE did? But I doubt the show will go down that path. Picard just HAS to be the moral compass of everything. And he is always right and never experiences self doubt. I hope this is not how things will be as the show progresses but that is what I saw in this opening episode.

I’m also curious about whether Data-resurrection is in play here. I can’t quite tell whether they’re signaling that it is — due to the possibility of regrowing Data’s consciousness from a “positronic stem-cell”, as it were — or specifically that it’s not — because Maddox *did* do this, resulting in Dahj / her twin, and B-4 is boxed because his brain is just too primitive to host such a network.

I’m leaning towards the latter interpretation — they really made a point to show B-4 in a box, with that line about how “most of” Data’s memories/network/etc. were lost because B-4’s cup very quickly overflowed, so to speak. It seemed like an effective way to take resurrection off the table, narratively. All the behind-the-scenes talk about how Brent Spiner didn’t want Data’s sacrifice undermined or reversed also makes me think that this is a way for them to let Data live on, just metaphorically rather than literally. (And practically speaking, I can’t imagine they’d want to spend money on lots of scenes de-aging him. …although… Picard *did* make that comment about how “much like” Data B-4 looked. They could have achieved the same expository effect by saying B-4 looked “exactly like” Data. Maybe they were leaving some wiggle-room, to justify a Data-in-B-4 who looks a little more jowly than Data did?)

As much as the fanboy in me would love to see Data properly resurrected, from an artistic standpoint, I respect and honestly kind of prefer the idea that he lives on in his “daughter” — it’s a more mature take, I think, and would be in keeping with the overall spirit of this series so far. But I wouldn’t be disappointed either way — I can imagine a proper resurrection being “earned.”

Unless we’re also looking at the Full Pinocchio, where Data’s resurrection results in him getting a second chance … as flesh & blood. Where in death, via Maddox and Picard and some of the more major impacts he made in life, he can come back and get his wish, but will of course be subject to the ravages of aging, thereby allowing us to just have Brent Spiner not have to be de-aged. I could live with that, and it’s quite a sci-fi concept, sort of an inverse of the end of The Motion Picture … but also sort of an end-run around Data’s first lines from Farpoint about “he’d give it all up to become human”. I don’t think it’s the most poignant way to do things and think there’s a ton of merit to the “Real Human” concept of living on through your progeny which reflects the tone and age of the series and actors. But I wouldn’t hate it.

Happy Captain Picard Day! I can’t believe he kept the banner, the sentimental old fool. :)

There’s no way Picard kept that banner. I suspect a certain WILLIAM THOMAS RIKER snuck into that quantum storage place and put it up.

That does raise the question of how he got in there undetected. The Riker moves in mysterious ways.

LOL!

I suspect that Deanna Troi preserved it and had it delivered to him when he left Starfleet. She may have even helped Picard set up the storage unit.

Nice…

Truly amazing! To paraphrase Picard in the opening scene, I didn’t want the episode to end! If they dropped all 10 episodes at once I would watch it non-stop. I’m so happy with the visual continuity to the Next Gen era. And, unlike Discovery, there was no glaring canon issues that I noticed. This felt like visiting an old friend. It was quite the twist that Dahj died and her twin is the character that we will follow for the rest of the season. I can’t wait to see how the pieces of the story that were set up in the first episode come together…

Part of me wishes they did, because like you, I’d have watched them all in 2 days max. That 40 minutes absolutely flies you feel like it was more like 10 minutes!
But the one positive is the anticipation for each episodes keeps the series fresh in peoples mind and you can fully appreciate each episode as they drop.
And it keeps subscriber’s, subscribed of course.

” I’m so happy with the visual continuity to the Next Gen era”

That they kept LCARS around was nice.

Agree!

SO AGREED! It really brought us back to this era of Trek. I knew they wouldn’t just abandon them but I would’ve been fine if they did.

Totally agree! This finally looks Trek, respecting continuity by just updating the design. Nicely done!

They got rid of the horrible Next Gen ‘future clothes’ for what is obviously a more realistic approach to clothing even in that century. It also looks far more beautiful than TNG era shows and films. It’s a solid design approach that gives you the new look of Discovery married to the nostalgia of Berman era Trek. It works. In the short scene in Boston it even felt like there were some visual notes taken from the Kelvin films. And I liked that after all these years, we finally got a nice long look at civilian like in the Trek Universe.

I feel like they’d already started doing that as early as the TNG films, right? Actually … Deep Space Nine. DS9 civilian clothes started out a bit in the realm of TNG silly but very quickly became much, much better. So while these civilian clothes feel like a big update for TNG-tangent characters, I think it was a pretty organic process over the last few years and they really do feel like they have continuity, like just that fashions have changed and some of the silliness and camp of TNG-era civvies could just be … well, that the Federation was in a sort of golden age of comfort, complacency and decadence.

Boy, on the subject of uniforms … I REALLY like seeing the updated Generations/Early DS9/Voyager era black uniforms with the division-color shoulders. I’ve truly loved the purple uniform period from DS9 and the final three films, but sort of like the red uniforms of Star Trek II-VI, I feel like they’re very specific to a very specific period in Starfleet. The purple uniforms feel very much like the “Dominion War Uniform”. Like in-canon, on-purpose, Starfleet was like “we’re at war … we need to tone down the rainbow colors”. The same way the 80s TOS film period ran with such an overt burgundy nautical design because it’s the peak of the Klingon Cold War. Although, continuity-wise I suppose we know that the burgundy naval uniform was the standard from the Admiral Kirk days all the way up to when Picard was a Junior Officer, a mere, what, 20 years before TNG? And that the TNG-era uniforms had only been in play as far back as, what, a couple years before, when Riker was on the Potemkin.

Anyway long story short on the uniforms, I like the black shirt and pants with colored top. I like the modern variation of it and how it’s a tinge more stylized and futuristic/modern material, both an evolution of TNG and DS9. While I loved the “purple period” I thought, ignoring Voyager’s circumstances, that period of uniforms, which only lasted four years, was too short.

This is the first time in a very loooooong time that I am eagerly awaiting the next ST episode. Of course nothing, was more agonizing than wait between Parts 1 and 2 of “The Best of Both Worlds”

There is one glaring canon issue. Kurtzman and others said that the Countdown Comics were 100% canon. If that is the case, Captain Data in the Countdown story is alive and well.

I suppose it could be that the B-4 body was able to be Captain Data for a period before suffering a cascade failure similar to that of Lal. Obviously the show is presenting us with a Picard and storyline that kind of ignore that in favor of simplicity and only referring back to Data’s sacrifice 20 years ago, opting not to mention anything about an Alt-Data running around as short as 10 years ago during the Romulan downfall. You can logic that out as Picard distinguishing between the two. Or, it’s probably better not to think about it in the sense that Data “co-opting” B-4’s body, when we’ve had episodes dedicated to the acknowledgment of the sentience of Soong-androids, is morally completely f****d up and tantamount to what Ira Graves attempted to do to Data, so it’s probably best left forgotten.

It was amazing. I absolutely love it so far. And the connection to that particular TNG episode, one of it’s best, is a great story to continue.

What was that episode title again? I can’t remember…

I think he’s talking about Measure of a Man and Maddox dream to build more Datas. Looks like he got his wish and then some.

Kind of connects to Data’s Day, Measure of a Man and The Offspring

I’ve always found “The Offspring” to be highly underrated. It’s nearly as good as the likes of “The Inner Light” and is definitely a candidate for the top 10-15 TNG episodes. It was a true pleasure to see it center-stage on PICARD.

I think all the hardcore fans like me who decided to follow all those TNG rewatch lists for Picard are going to be rewarded. I assumed we would get easter eggs and references to some of it, I didn’t actually expect a direct story line outside of Hugh and Data dying in Nemesis.

The Offspring is so good. I remember my … second-to-last rewatch, when I came across it again, being floored. I’ve seen it too many times to count but it stuck in my memory as more silly. Aspects of it like the gender selection (stranger than fiction, more relevant with every rewatch), “species selection” (still pretty silly – but why aren’t there any Romulan-androids?), and the play with Guinan and bartending and Riker stuck out in my memory to the point where I’d forgotten how hardcore the last ten minutes are, and it’s actually one of only about 10 episodes of Trek that make me cry.

I wonder if Lal will get a shout-out at some point. It wouldn’t be strictly necessary, and could conceivably be confusing to new viewers, but maybe there could be some discussion of it if we ever see Maddox, or if Picard has some long talks with Jurati on the subject.

Dahj wasn’t created by data

Jimmy,

I think the question is whether, in part, Dahj was procreated from Data in some process similar to the processes that result in humans, i.e. asexually via identical twinning, a naturally occuring cloning, or something akin to the more common sexual reproduction?

Loved it! I missed the premier by an hour thinking I could get rest lol.

As the other comments mentioned one thing I’m curious to know. What happened to Bruce Maddox. The way he is mentioned he is pivotal to D and S creation.

Seems a man like that would have a giant target on his back.

Seems like a man whose work might not be legal in the Federation anymore, who is as hardcore as we know he is, might go work for people in need of a good cyberneticist because their planet just got blown up … might have the Tal Shiar offering him protection.

That set-up with Agnes means we almost have to see Maddox this season, right? Narratively how can you not? The question is, then, was the synth attack caused by the Tal Shiar or some other Romulan faction that … WANTED … the Federation to fail at rescuing their fellow Romulans for some reason?

Watched with tears in my eyes.

Welcome back, Star Trek. You’ve been missed.

+100!

Wow… I am stunned at the absolute love this episode is getting here. It’s just ONE episode! Does no one remember of the other 2 seasons started? They began with just as much potential and quickly bottomed out. This is reminding me of The Force Awakens. People loved that at first as well. And I think it was because they still had the awful prequel trilogy in their head when they saw it. But after processing it they realized, “hey, this is just A New Hope!” If you are starving in the dessert and you get offered a cracker, that cracker will taste like the greatest thing in the world. But then when you get past your starvation you eventually realize that was just a regular old cracker. I’m not saying that is this show’s destiny. Only that history of this group strongly implies it will be. Perhaps we should be cautious and wait to see what is to come before commending this as something amazing?

Hey! Heyyyyyyyy! Everyone! This one guy said we shouldn’t be excited anymore! So knock it off, I guess!

Is that what I said? Hmmm… I didn’t think so but this one guy says I did so….

You did. Don’t be weird.

Check again please. That is most certainly NOT what I said. The evidence is right there for all to read for themselves. Nothing weird about it. In fact, I find it weird that someone would make that the takeaway from what I wrote. I shows a clear misunderstanding.

loved it! the visual at the beginning of going into ten forward was amazing. I love those shots, makes it seem more real.

Forced to admit, it was a nice shot. I figured the TNG fans would have a fangasm over it! LOL. But since I was never really attached to that ugly thing it really didn’t do much for me. In fact, I was hoping it would get updated to perhaps look better. No such luck. I mean, if you are going to update an old franchise, The E-D is just screaming for one.

Eighteen producers! Six writers! Thousand elephants and a wolf-faced Romulan! In short, the whole circus. ;)

It’s sad to see all the amazing technical professionals wasting their best efforts on “writing” that wouldn’t be out of place in a soap opera. And it looked like there was a lot of reshoots, too.
Hopefully, it will get better in future episodes. The worst thing about Discovery’s second season was that they let you wait the whole week, and then they gave you something that definitely wasn’t worth a week’s wait. :P

How do you clone an android, anyway?

yeah? how could you tell the reshoots specifically? the number of producers and writers, did reading that on the title cards impact your enjoyment of the story?

seriously sometimes if feels like if you have to troll/nitpick, pick something more substantial

Oh shut up already

Jack,
Civilized discourse. Try it sometime. Then come back and prove you’ve learned something instead of sniping at somebody who bothered to actually articulate his point of view.

“How do you clone an android, anyway?”

That is a very good question and the answer gave made as much sense as “the dark side is a path to what many consider to be unnatural.” If this is the only time they make such a ridiculous leap and the rest of the show is intriguing and improves, then I can live with it. My guess is, and this is based on what this group did with Discovery, that it won’t be.

“How do you clone an android, anyway?”

Sort of seems like the whole premise. Borg nanotech, the broken Romulan legal system, Tal Shiar vaults that have the atomized scraps of Data’s remains, and Maddox, who is the top of the top? Or just fly to that planet that Nurse Chapel’s ex-husband was stranded on and spin the wheel …

I laugh like a maniac at all the producers on these things, though. And while I’m intrigued by all the sci-fi and continuity questions, I’m not without the ability to notice plenty of editorial critiques. This show so far, in the first episode, is superb when it slows right down to TNG peak slowness. Some of the cuts are abrupt in the way everything modern seems to be and feels rushed, rough and unpolished. It had classic Pilot Episode problems where it tried to establish tons and introduce tons and Sequel Problems where it had to waste valuable story time catching us up on 20 years missing. Plus the tell-tale tropes – some of which were nice to see subverted – and some cliche modern storytelling of feeling like you have to incorporate every notable detail into this particular story for it to feel like a “natural continuation of this character’s life arc”. Sometimes a story can just be a story. But again, the whole point of Patrick coming back was to tell a CODA to Picard’s life that has greater meaning and significance than some of the Planet of the Week dilemmas. That necessitates combing the back-log for lots of things with greater meaning and trying to combine them into a single story structure. This season is the fallout of post-humanist stuff, Data, borg, matched up with Picard’s powerful ties to the Vulcans and Romulans (Riker & Troi fit well here, though Geordi is conspicuously absent). Next season will likely come back to the other big thing – history, archaeology, past, present, future, and the relationships with Q and Guinan, the more cosmic mystical side of it (I could actually see Beverly & Wesley fitting into that storyline very well. Worf is an interesting one … he such a part of both TNG and DS9 that he basically deserves his own spin-off show that acts as a pseudo-sequel to both.)

I got to say this show confirms the 23rd century rocks. We had it sooo good with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn. I do love how Picard has Picard as part of a rich family (owns a winery), the TNG universe being so boring when retired everyone comes home to do “work” (camping, working on a winery in an age of replicators”) instead of heading out to “new life and new civilizations and where no one has gone before”, out with the humans and in with the super-AI and then we get to see all the responses like “this is awesome because it’s forward in the 24th century”. The cognitive dissonance is fantastic!
But really… dealing with aging characters… Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn. Kirk misses exploration, wants his ship. Finds out he has a son. His crew still at it. Spock trains Saavik, the first step to what should have been the real next generation. The Federation, to deal with the problem of shortage of food and resources is researching the ultimate Genesis Device. Kirk can’t cheat death, the Kobayashi Maru is coming wither you like it or not.

Carol Marcus: Please tell me what you’re feeling.
Kirk: There’s a man out there I haven’t seen in 15 years who’s trying to kill me. You show me a son that’d be happy to help. My son. My life that could have been… and wasn’t. How do I feel? Old. Worn out.
Carol Marcus: Let me show you something that will make you feel young as when the world was new.

I am more convinced then ever the future of Trek should be ignoring everything after Star Trek II – ignoring all the boring free energy, replicators, aliens all wanting to be humans. Get back to a universe filled with Kobayashi Maru scenarios. Recast David Marcus and Saavik. Do they end up with Sulu on the Excelsior? Does Kirk end up in the private sector out there? Doesn’t need to be with Starfleet, get them out there. That away.

I’m more convinced you should just stick to watching TOS reruns and the fan films on Youtube until you’re Picard’s age. The rest of us will keep watching Star Trek grow and thrive. Old fans who wallow in nostalgia forever and can’t let go is the same reason Star Wars is the shape it is now. I would hate Star Trek to have ended up the same way because of old fans who can’t get out of the 60s and 80s had their way. Thankfully it hasn’t and won’t.

And no one is forcing you to watch any of it chief. So…

Tig, you might be missing his point. He was interested in seeing more of a TREK that was hinted at but not fully delivered. The KHAN setup as written by Sowards originally had Starfleet giving up on exploration in favor of just holding onto territories, and that triggers Kirk’s crisis. It’s perhaps the most wonderful undeveloped notion ever for Trek (outside of Kirk & co going renegade after tsfs, which also looks to be an angle on the new show, based on the promos … I haven’t seen this series or DSC s2 yet), and is somewhat supported by how paranoid and post-watergate the Fed seemed to get in TSFS (“sir? That’s a discussion you shouldn’t be having in public.”) and TUC.

Following through on the unfulfilled promise of TWOK isn’t wallowing in nostalgia; it’s wanting to summon a future worth seeing. Now if the other guy had said, ‘we need to go back to all the old tropes of Kirk getting his shirt ripped (which actually happens in TSFS), then you might have a point about same-old/same-old. Telling ANYbody they should be watching fanfilms sounds like fighting words to me, or perhaps just warnable; I sure wouldn’t be wanting to hear anything like that, or watch more than the few minutes I’ve managed.

But that was literally over 35 years ago now. I mean yeah I get it, but sadly for us fans no one calls us and asks us what we want to see. It may have sounded interesting at the time but they didn’t go that direction and at some point you just have to let go and move on, right? You think I been happy with 17 years of prequels since I hate prequels? No, if I had it my way we would’ve been in the 25th century (or even farther) a decade ago. But I never once suggested all of it should be ignored just because *I* didn’t like it either. Because I know it’s not about *me* and that those shows and films have their own fans and I respect that even if I’m not a big fan myself like I wasn’t with Discovery and said so.

But that’s what irritates me the most and with certain fans. Because YOU didn’t like it you want to wipe out decades full of story telling for the millions of fans who did? Maybe just MAYBE you should just tell yourself Star Trek is not the direction you want it to go in and just stop watching it. I’m serious. In this case we’re not talking about a single show someone doesn’t like or even an era of it, it’s someone who seems disappointed that the entire direction of the franchise didn’t go their way the way they wanted it to in their from the 80s and yet they are still whining about it in 2020.

And another thing some Star Trek fans have to remember, YOUR version of Star Trek doesn’t mean everyone else wants to see it. For the record I wouldn’t have had an issue with that version at all but I don’t have an issue with what we have now either. Clearly the majority don’t or it wouldn’t have thrived and in fact got MORE popular later on.

I just feel sorry for some fans who constantly dwell in the past instead of being excited for its future.

I want “new” Star Trek, but new “Star Trek” (Wagon Train to the Stars). Does this mean a whole complete do over (minus transporters, phasers, dilithium recrystalization, etc)? Is it a whole new show, maybe.
I want investigations into violations by third parties trying to interfere with primitive Prime Directive planets inside the Federation. I want colonization, exploration and research. Or ignore post ST:II.
Pilot – Spock is dead. In the aftermath of the genesis incident, the Federation in an uproar, the Starfleet in crisis and the Romulan and klingons in a new partnership . The training ship Enterprise with David and Carol Marcus finds itself having to go rouge not only to save the Federation but hundreds of Prime Directive protected worlds being manipulated for unknown ends. Can Saavik live up to her mentors legacy? Can Kirk train up a new generation in time to save the Federation? Can David Marcus help put the pieces of the Federation back together in time?

sounds like you need to go write some fan fiction, or re runs

Maybe you really should try your hand at fan fiction writing, your pilot sounds like an engaging story

David Marcus has been dead since 1984 man lol. It’s time to let go already.

And while you will not ever get that *exact* story line, I’m sure in time there will be another Star Trek show to do exploring again obviously and yes maybe in that era some day. They have 24 shows coming and it looks like they will all take place in a different century so statistics alone should put probably two shows in TOS movie era lol. But we already knew this show wasn’t going to be about exploration they made that clear it wasn’t going to be TNG 2.0, which I know you don’t want anyway. But yes maybe if the Pike show happens, it will get back to some of that. I still wouldn’t hold my breath its anything close to what you’re describing based on what they did with Discovery, but probably the closest. It’s definitely not happening with Section 31 lol.

As far as that stuff you cited specifically, aren’t there tons of old novels out there that took place in that era you can read? That IS one of the virtues about books and comics being non-canon because you can just tell whatever story you want in that fashion.

But canon wise that ship sailed long long ago, literally decades now. This show and future shows had nothing to do wit it.

Ist was better than I expected. So I have to give it that. I must say it felt nice, having a look at civilian life in the future. Also that Interview scene was nice. A little clumsy, as It‘s just an exposition dump, they weren‘t able to do through dialouge or action, but as to what‘s beeing said: that felt very in character for Picard and was well delivered by Steward.

As for the Story so far: Im kinda tired of this „Starfleet turning evil“ and „going rougue“ Thing, so that might become boring fast. But the decision Picard quit over made sense to me, as a political play (I got some Star Trek VI vibes, which is nice). I really hope they don‘t treat it as obviously wrong or evil as political decisions usually have to sides that are equally valid.

The direction/editing is kinda mixed for me. It‘s not as hyperactive as discovery but still could be a little more subdued. Let the scenes breathe a little, let me have a look at the scenery. Get to know the People a little bit better. What‘s ten minutes more to a streaming service?

But my only real criticism is more of a personal preference. Every time an action scene startet, I thought to myself: „Why? It was so nice just now. Why didn‘t you just talk some more?“ — The hinted at Backstory for Dash is interesting enough as it is. I don‘t need to see her do Robot-fu. In fact you could probably cut all the fightscenes without impacting the Story — she feels, she needs to go to Picard but doesn‘t know why; He finds out, who she might be and there‘s your mystery. Detective Story for him (Dixon Hill anyone?) and (probably) coming of age story for her.

Not a huge criticism but I‘d thought I share.

On a final note: Anyone else feel like the TNG/Nemesis Uniforms looked really weird? Like they just bought them of the rack at Anovos or something.

They did. It was clearly a replica. The TNG uniforms must be easier to come by.

I don’t think Starfleet “turned evil.” All we know, from episode one, is that Starfleet was in the process of building — on Mars — a fleet to rescue the Romulans. We also know that Starfleet had learned, to some degree, to build androids, albeit not those of the same positronic type as Data and B4, called the Synth.

The Synth, for reasons unknown, attacked Mars and destroyed the bulk of
the fleet.

This had two consequences. First, it led Starfleet to suspend cybernetics research, which — absent more information — is not a wholly unwarranted reaction, even if Picard disagreed with it. Second, it either curtailed the Romulan rescue mission or stopped it wholly. We don’t know whether that was a political decision, with the Federation turning inward, or a logistical one because Starfleet had no ships left.

Even if it was a political decision, it may have been one over which reasonable people could disagree, rather than “evil.”

TNG is at its best when it takes a sophisticated view of things. It’s the JJ Abrams movies that feature mustache-twirlers.

There’s LOTS of Trek that feature mustache twirling, let’s not forget that.

“Even if it was a political decision, it may have been one over which reasonable people could disagree, rather than “evil.”

TNG is at its best when it takes a sophisticated view of things. ”

I agree, but that was a quarter of a century ago. Judging from what I read from “behind the scenes” just a few days ago, I’ll be really surprised if “both sides” get a fair shot in this show. They sure did not on Discovery.

Well … to be fair, Voyager had that Problem, too. Janeways decision was almost always depicted as being right and without alternative, even when it clearly wasn‘t.

But I do agree, that Star Trek was always at its best, when they hat two opposing viewpoints on a given Topic, that were both valid and – more importantly – were actually depicted as such.

I’m not sure Picard is ever going to go that way (not after Stewart’s remarks) but to me the best depiction of “embracing former enemies in a rescue mission despite all prejudice” was Star Trek VI. In that it didn’t shy away from making the hero himself, Captain Kirk, the ambiguous figure who resists the embrace initially, and, which is the best part of it, for totally understandable reasons (they killed his son). This complex topic – condemning an entire species to death vs. overcoming one’s prejudices – was done there already, and done beautifully, so let’s not pretend old Trek is somehow not relevant anymore to these so-called “troubled times”. And that Kirk would overcome his enormous personal burden, his self-interest, in favor of the greater good of the galaxy, is by far a more uplifting and constructive message than “old rightist can’t keep up with the times”.

True. That‘s why I brought up Star Trek VI in the original Post above.

That‘s also one thing, that bugs me. Star Trek VI was actually about that Story, wheras Picard seems to be about the consequences of that Story happening 10 Years or so ago.

However noone said, Star Trek is no longer relevant to modern times. And using the romulan supernova as an analogue for Talking about the refugee crisis and maybe political Extremism is kinda clever. The romulans were basically fascists after all.

However DS9 set a pretty high bar when it dealt with both these topics already (arguably before they became relevant) … so let‘s see, where this goes.

As opposed to Discovery there‘s at least something there, that could grow into something interesting…

In Another note: He sais to the Reporter „you‘ve never known war“ when the Dominion War was just 21 Years ago — I found that kind of weird 🤔

It was reasonable to tell the Reporter that she’d “never known war”. The Reporter was probably a young teenager 21 years previously and probably never had any direct experience with the Dominion War. The Dominion War had very little impact directly on Earth except for a quick and very localized (to San Francisco) raid and a brief few days when martial law was declared on Earth due to the preceived threat of Founder infiltration. The vast majority of Earth’s population was insulated from the war.

I can only recall one time where Picard had a personal issue he had to overcome. One time in 170+ episodes and 4 feature films. The man was nearly a flawless human being. And he is being presented in this first episode of this show as still the moral compass that everyone else ought to be following. As if his viewpoint is impossible to be skewed. I really hope this is not the case for this show. If he is a broken man we haven’t seen it in this first episode. He’s more disillusioned than anything else. But that is hardly broken. He is still as self assured as he always has been. Save that ONE time….

And it was even more interesting when the main characters had diverging views. It was pretty darn rare when Riker or someone else in the cast disagreed with the Captain on something more important than how to approach a situation.

“TNG is at its best when it takes a sophisticated view of things. It’s the JJ Abrams movies that feature mustache-twirlers.”

Not just TNG. ALL of Trek was at its best when doing that. Discovery is the show that mainly featured the mustache twirlers. The same people largely responsible for Picard.

Right! The synth attacking Mars is obviously a plot point. Just given the trailers and who is involved in this season, the question isn’t “WHAT? So not Star Trek!” it’s … okay, who did it – like a good Dixon Hill novel we have THREE suspects for who caused the synths to attack. Maddox himself. The Romulans. The Borg. Every one of them has had antagonism toward Picard historically, and Data as well. It’s not telegraphed just yet, but this is absolutely Picard in a Dixon Hill mystery, playing detective. We even had a damsel, who was almost a femme fatale, turn up at his Private Eye office (well, just his house) needing help, only to get killed by mysterious men in black. I’ll keep bringing up the overt Blade Runnerisms in play here, but there’s absolutely a Film Noir/Private Eye element in play here that’s so deep it even has Picard as the “old detective coming out of retirement” angle.

On the politics, while some of them are worn on their sleeve it’s early enough that I feel like there might be a solid level of subversion of the expected route they might take, thereby showing that sophistication and those shades of grey. But Starfleet “turning evil” is an extreme confirmation bias type of descriptor.

Isolationism is not necessarily evil nor bad. It obviously disagrees with Picard and we understand why, and no doubt generally even agree with him. But Isolationism is often a phase, a period, a strategic move in a society. Look … for all intents and purposes, this is Star Trek … Post-World War. Well, Worlds War. Galactic War. The War to End All Wars. This is America in the 50s. And we don’t even know if Every Federation World has isolated and bunkered down. Earth has. I’d hazard a guess that before very long at all we’ll find out EXACTLY what Vulcan’s logical course of action was and how it works with the Romulan refugee crisis. I’d speculate that Andoria would have become even more isolated than Earth, but that worlds like Betazed would not and would double down on openness. Just like the United States, frankly … oh god … there are Red Planets and there are Blue Planets in the Federation. Yeah, it’s a bit on the nose. I think I’ll be pretty okay with that arc in the Federation’s history so long as by the end of Picard we see that Earth tends to be a Purple Planet, it fluctuates, but like Churchill said, always does the right thing after it exhausts all the other possibilities. Oh man, Vulcan is definitely going to basically be California, right? Vasquez Rocks and Sanctuary Cities? It’s the only logical thing. Reunification, Leonard Nimoy, and it’s all so meta.

But I think I dig it.

“but as to what‘s beeing said: that felt very in character for Picard”

Yes, and that is where I have an issue. I am really hoping this is a misdirect because the fact is, people change. I’m hoping Chabon & Co don’t believe that perfect people don’t.

“I really hope they don‘t treat it as obviously wrong or evil as political decisions usually have to sides that are equally valid. ”

And THAT is a HUGE fear I have once I read stuff from Stewart about this show. I honestly feel this would be a lot better if it were Picard who changed rather than Star fleet. People change. I’m not the same person I was 20 years ago. And Mrs. ML31 isn’t the same person she was either. So I wouldn’t expect Picard to be the same perfect guy he was. Or at least, that was my hope.

Maybe not so much him being wrong but him not seeing the whole picture. He was like Kirk in that he never really wanted to get off the bridge of a starship. He was a skilled diplomat but never really a big picture guy or a strategist like Sisko for example.

You actullay see this in insurrection, where his decision makes basically no sense once you really think about it. Had they not written the Sona and the Admiral to be such obvious villiains, that movie could have been a lot more interesting.

Same here. He might not be wrong from his perspective but he just might have ignored the bigger picture. If they mange to explore that fairly and without bias, there‘s something there. And having Migration be the allegory used is pretty clever … if it doesn‘t just end up being „orange man bad“

To actually explore, where the limits of a post scarcity society are and if tolerance can bridge any cultural difference are great ideas.

But given Stewart’s Comments I too have little hope, that they make it work.

Hard to disagree with that.

Then don’t 😜

Brilliant Pilot!

*Slow paced start is great, allows time to get to know the world 20 years later, and really get a feel for what has happened since.

*The “Archive” was a wonderful bit of fan service, didn’t feel shoehorned in, but still allowed fans to get a glimpse of TNG memorabilia, and show it is indeed future canon.(Klingons look like Klingons with Worf being on TV!)

*Utopia Planitia being destroyed was quite sad :(

*Picard felt like Picard, definitely his years and experiences have changed him but character wise he is the same person from TNG.

*Production and cinematography were great, definitely looked amazing, will be great to see more ships and space scenes with this kind of camera work.

* As soon as Picard figured out what Dahj was I got a very Cylon vibe from her, which is fine as Battlestar was great TV, and this ties into Trek thematically due to Measure of a Man, etc.

Just compare the online feedback from fans to discovery lol, I enjoyed DIS, but this FELT like Trek to me, way more than Discovery ever did. I hope they continue along this path in future episodes!

Agree. Enjoyed the episode. Glad they even mentioned Maddox from Measure of a Man in there too.

I agree with pretty much everything you said. It just felt like it belonged in Star Trek and yet the entire episode basically took place on Earth and we didn’t spend a single minute in on any starships (not counting the dream sequence)…and it still worked!

It’s a testament to how well they captured the feel of that world and universe. And I was just happy to be back at Starfleet headquarters lol.

And yes I agree with you on HOW different the reception is to this show first episode and DIS which was VERY mixed to say the least and it’s been that way two seasons since. I think the producers on that show really learned from the mistakes and made sure not to repeat them (at least the more obvious ones) on this show.

And we know they HAD to get this show right. DIS is still new so people won’t really know how they feel about it overall until it’s a few seasons in like most new Trek shows. But Picard are part of people’s childhoods and so iconic to people if they really screwed it up out of the gate it could be a PR disaster on the level of TLJ and no one wants that lol.

And let’s just be honest, Discovery is also an easier target. You can do the same things in that show on another Trek show but if you have the familiar faces more fans will cut it some slack because of that alone. I’m not here to dismiss all of Discovery’s critics but they often go overboard and seem to get off more on insulting the actors and crew than pointing out something that bothered them. I liked season 1, I LOVED season 2 and I’m really curious about and looking forward to season 3. I think there was a lot of course correction that had to be done to fix the far-field creative vision of Fuller and you clearly see it in season 2. Picard also was always going to “feel” different than Discovery, as they’ll both “feel” very different from Lower Decks. It’s the vision Alex has laid out. So yeah, the future is bright for Trek and it seems there’ll be a flavor for everyone to enjoy.

I don’t totally disagree of course. Yes some fans were probably going to hate DIS no matter what, but same time season 2 DOES seem to get more positive remarks from people (certainly from me) because it was clear they DID acknowledge a lot of the mistakes and tried to steer it in a different path and many people, this board included, responded to it.

And sure we can say because they have familiar faces people are going to accept it more but the Kelvin movies are dragged through the mud in a lot of places (not by me though). Maybe because its not the original actors but I don’t think its that black and white either.

For me, the real difference in reactions between DIS and PIC seem to mostly come from the fact that Picard really does feel like a continuation of the TNG era even if it still feels and looks a little different. But as I said a thousand times prior people EXPECT things to be different when you go forward in time, especially 20 years forward in both story and production. But they obviously tried very hard to put us back in the TNG/DS9/VOY era and it paid it off.

But then you have Discovery. And they DIDN’T treat it as a continuation or a true prequel to TOS, they basically just rebooted the era completely. And again, its understandable WHY they did it. I never had an issue with that in itself. But the problem there was still two fold, one the changes in themselves just weren’t very appealing (ie Klingons, uniforms, Discovery herself, etc) and two so much of what they showed us seem WILDLY out of place for that era. As been said many times the tech and look of the show felt like it belong post-Voyager, not pre-TOS.

But in Picard I can’t think of a single tech that didn’t feel like it already belonged there. What’s more interesting they didn’t go wildly crazy with the technology, at least not yet. Everything we saw was introduced in one of the other shows before, just maybe a bit cooler looking but it all neatly fits. That’s the difference!

And we’re talking Star Trek fans here so they were taking a big gamble and it didn’t pay off as well for DIS. It looks like with Picard they wanted to make that world feel as familiar as possible even if it still looks a bit different but as said no one is bothered by that when you go forward.

“And yes I agree with you on HOW different the reception is to this show first episode and DIS which was VERY mixed to say the least and it’s been that way two seasons since. ”

And you know why that is the case? The DIS pilot started out as familiar Trek but then made it a point to “deconstruct” (read: destroy) it deliberately by turning the world upside down. And since that spectacularly backfired, they been trying to get back to any semblance of Trek ever since, with mixed results.

This show seems to go the opposite path: it starts out in an unfamiliar setting (for a Trek show) and with a broken man, but apparently its point is to get back to the familiar mission of TNG, filled with discovery (small D), diplomacy, history and so on.

I see the opposite path as for Picard they decided they weren’t going to change a thing. Nothing in PD nothing in character. I feel like they are either going out of their way to give fans what they expect (which is not always good thing creatively) or they just have more respect of the TNG era than the TOS era. And based on the response here, it seems to be working. I, on the other hand, am reserving judgement until we get more episodes under our belt. So far, this episode bears not much different than Discovery’s opening episode. As in… “OK. Let’s see where this goes.”

I loved it. I knew it wasn’t going to “be like TNG” but didn’t really know what to expect other than it would be visually stunning. It’s great that we seemingly have a a descendant of Data and I hope they floor us with making all the pieces of this story go as far as possible in the coolest ways.

Favorites:
-DATA!
-Making Maddox a part of the story even if just ends up being a name-drop
-His reason for leaving Starfleet was 100% Picard
-Captain Picard Day Sign
-Cube shaped Romulus

Dislikes:
-Theme song made me feel like I was watching Benji or some G rated family movie
-Picard coming to the conclusion that Dhaj was an android (let alone positronic)
seemed way too convenient.

Hopes:
-Att least a mention of Q and Picards’ experience representing humanity in the continuum’s trial of us.

The music has been missing the mark since Discovery.

“The music has been missing the mark since Discovery.”

There’s a reason for that and it starts with “R”.

How they could let the same guy botch TWO theme songs for new series in such a predictable manner is beyond me. It goes to show why we need more “diversity” in artistic talent too, certainly when the one who gets all the jobs clearly has room for improvement (and the same is true for Eaves, who’s been needing improvement for 20 years but keeps getting all the jobs). This is prime streaming or whatever you call that, as we are constantly reminded, not job training for rookies!

To be fair, the TNG (television) theme sounds extremely dated compared to the warmer orchestral version of the same track used in films. The age of catchy title tracks has come to an end – Game of Thrones was really the last one that was pretty catchy. And that’s ok, it’s just a sign of moving forward creatively. Title tracks now sound more like b-sides to an album than the catchier radio hits on an album if that makes sense. I think about The Crown a lot. The theme is dramatic, and warm, and heavy but it’s not a catchy theme you want to hum. I remember how bad Trek fans complained about the Enterprise theme. Now those same fans want to look back on it fondly. Different strokes…

Actually fans complain about the elevator music, sorry, “sonic wallpaper” of TNG (minus the theme) that Rick Berman mandated, and that’s one thing we surely did not need continuity for :)

Sure, that’s “OK” if you think muzak is the same as Mozart. I for one don’t.

I am afraid that Geordi is dead.
He was stationed on Utopia Planitia :(

He is not. Trust me. :-)

Even if he was at UP during the attack, he would have found a way out. He always did. But wouldn’t he be in command of the USS Challenger about now?

This show was so smart to make Dahj (and/or her twin?) connected to Data, suddenly she’s instantly loved in the fanbase and everyone seems very invested in her after just one episode. She’s the closet thing we have to a Baby Yoda right now lol. Androids don’t start off as adorably cute babies unfortunately.

well that’s kind of the point of writers creating characters in stories, to make the audience care about them lol?

That’s weird, I wrote a post to you before and it was even posted and now its gone. Oh well. Anyway I was saying yes OBVIOUSLY people would grow to like her on her own in time but the point I’m making is she seems to already be popular because of her attachment to Data. It’s not like they had to go that route, she could’ve been another synth and still followed a similar story. The fact they did it this way made her a much more interesting character out of the gate. Even Picard got immediately attached to her once he discovered who she was, that’s sort of what fandom seems to be doing now lol.

And it feels much more different than what they did with Burnham making her Spock’s sister which to a lot of people felt crass, cheap and shoehorned. And why the reaction was very mixed. And of course the WAY they did it is different since with Dhaj the point is it suppose to be a shock she came from Data and not just ‘yeah Spock just happened to had a human sister and also in starfleet for 50 years now, but we all know Spock never talks about family so we’ll go with that as an explanation and call it a day.’

Yeah well so far I have no reason to care about this person. She has more in common with Jason Bourne than anyone else. Connecting her to Lal or Data sill not endear her to me. I’m hoping we get something else. Something new and intriguing. But I fear that is too much to ask from Secret Hideout.

The whole “all of Data’s memories being contained in a single positronic neuron” thing was a bit contrived. Oh, and that guy Bruce Maddox knows all this stuff, but he disappeared. I’m sure that won’t come into play later. Oh, and those synths can only be made in pairs, because plot.

I didn’t view the “pairs” thing as a requirement, but only as “insurance” perhaps for whatever process is used to conceive/create them. Like Intel, making processors and chips in bulk, because some are bad right away.

Perhaps the Binars were involved in creating the Synth. It stands to reason they are experts on artificial intelligence. That’s enough of an in-universe reason for me.

The part of the memories all being in a single neuron is a problem, but was it was it really that was said or meant? or is it the fractal cloning of his postronic brain could occur from a single positronic neuron? and then if that occurred, then couldn’t he be uploaded to that brain? — Data’s data can be uploaded and copied – we know that- but the essense (as they referred to) is what is unique of data, and that could be recreated with a clone of his brain, and then have the memories uploaded to it.

Also, measure of a man left open Data working with Maddox in the future. In the 15 years from that episode to Nemesis, what’s to say that Data didn’t provide Maddox with the cells he would need, and to provide a core dump as well. This would make sense of why Maddox might leave Agnes and the Institute to continue that work and create Dahj and Dr. Asha.

Or perhaps it’s the android equivalent of our entire DNA sequence being stored in one single cell/atom/whatever. Maybe they can take that and expand upon.

Is it weird to anyone else the use of “synths” instead of “androids”? I feel like it would’ve tied it better into the established Star Trek universe to not switch terms. On the other hand, perhaps it could help to subtly establish the shift in attitudes toward artificial intelligence?

I took it as a new and derogatory term.

As did I. Notice Picard says the word android. He doesn’t treat them like they are all terrorists and even said the word conjures up negative things for people now.

I took it as a shortened term for Synthetic. Just as Droid is a shorter version of Android. Nothing more. I honestly cannot see why one would jump to “derogatory term” straight away with no evidence to suggest it.

I thought it werid but only because “shynths” was being used in another sci-fi show that I guess no one at Secret Hideout was aware of.

I thought it was meant to cover both android beings as well as sentient holographic beings. You can’t hardly call Moriarty or The Doctor androids, but they’re surely synthetic beings. So it’s a catch-all that’s a little smoother sounding than “Man-Made Beings” while avoiding just beating us over the head with Artificial or AI.

“those synths can only be made in pairs, because plot.” No. Because: Data/Lore.

Data and Lore weren’t a “pair.” Lore was an earlier attempt.

Not biological twins, indeed, but he certainly serves as an Evil Twin archetype, and there’s also the convention of the same actor playing both roles that we’re getting again here.

Although arguably, what with B-4, they’re actually … triplets.

RetroWarbird,

Except Soong told Data that he was physically identical to Lore and B4 has a data port that the other two don’t. Data & Lore being identical is an argument towards their being formed in the same manufacturing process with one programmed and activated much earlier than the other.

I didn’t take it as his memories, but as they said, his essence. It speaks to how complex he was, that by having that, would allow you to create something greater. It’s essentially the key to unlocking his DNA if you want to look at it that way, but not his memories.

“I didn’t take it as his memories, but as they said, his essence. It speaks to how complex he was,”…

“That makes as much sense as “the dark side is a path to what some consider unnatural.”

Re: “all of Data’s memories contained in a single oositronic neuron”:
Why the cynicism? katra-like downloading via mindmeld, anybody?!

Only if just one cell is required to get an entire Katra from. Which I would guess would not work.

Ooh, it is sort of “The Search for Data”, yeah? As long as the Romulan Borg Cube isn’t GENESIS.

I can clearly see that going with a “Data’s Daughter” angle is both immediate fan-service, and metatextual, and giving fans and Picard a cheap way to care about a new character and launch a story … while also being tropish … while also being a very organic, natural feeling progression in a story where a protagonist is getting older and needs to find new things to care about. TNG was always about Picard being somewhat stuffy and his younger crewmates really giving him a second chance to open up and enjoy not just exploration for his academic and introspective reasons, but to learn to feel and care a bit deeper. Now Picard is older and has taken some hits and yearns for that connection, so it seems like a fair use. I’m not sure if it’s clever for clever’s sake (a critique that I often level at New Who) or if it’s actually just clever.

Plus I like that Dahj and Soji not only stick to the twinning conventions of Data and Lore, but also frankly the four-letter naming convention.

Been looking forward to this for a long time, and I can’t wait to see more, but some of the plotpoints seemed a little contrived to me. For example, writers apparently don’t understand the difference between Starfleet and Federation. Was the Romulan rescue operation mandated by the Federation Council, but Starfleet called it off on its own decision? Or it wasn’t mandated by Federation and Starfleet was acting on its own? Decisions like these aren’t made and unmade on a whim, they require a consensus. If there wasn’t a consensus, they wouldn’t even start building the rescue fleet in the first place. And if Starfleet acted on its own and refused to comply with the Federation’s decision, it’s highly doubtful that Picard would be the only one to protest.

Bonus points for Picard employing the Mex…um, Romulans, like a proper rich Hollywood leftie would. They wouldn’t even wipe their bottom if it weren’t for their patient, obedient imported servants. Anybody else got some serious “benevolent white plantation owner” vibes from that Chateau Picard scene? ;)

I actually agree with you but Star Trek has been guilty of this SO many times where Starfleet basically seems to act for the entire Federation and not simply a member of it like the others. So while I agree with you, it’s not the first time this has happened. In fact I’m always surprised when you see some episode of Kirk or Picard facing down a Romulan outside of the Neutral Zone and yet they and they alone are thisclose to sinking the entire Federation into a war and no one has bothered to at least ring ahead to let the rest of them know things are getting serious before they fire.

And those Romulans taking care of Picard are actually former Tal Shiar operatives lol. They aren’t really there to be house keepers but probably more like an asylum situation and just grateful to Picard for helping them out in a HUGE way. It’s all in the Countdown comic so I won’t spoil anything beyond that and assume we’ll learn more about them. But they have an interesting story.

This is where analogies to 21st-century Earth, where we have real-time communications, and the military sophisticated command, control, and intelligence, begin to break down. Very little of that can exist in an interstellar society, even with warp travel (something that “The Defector” showed well). It would be much more like the 18th, 19th, or even early 20th centuries, where local commanders could very well stumble their way into a war.

If you’ve ever watched LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, note that the Arab Bureau or the British command in Cairo never ordered Lawrence to take “Aqaba by land,” or even to form an alliance among the Beduoin. He did so entirely of his own initiative, then rode across Sinai to tell his superiors — who where incredulous when hearing his story — of the outcome. The decision to foment rebellion in that corner of the Ottoman Empire wasn’t taken in London or even Cairo. It was a local commander.

Even today local commanders can plunge us into war. Look at what happened with the Ukrainian plane in Tehran, or the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Kosovo.

I don’t disagree with you River Temarc, I know a big part of it is that they are far away from Federation space and decisions have to be made on the spot at times. I’m really just talking about how you can sink an entire society into a war because two ships happen to cross and no one even knows its happening lol. That’s a very crazy thing when you think about it, especially when no one has even been given a heads up one can happen. But yes that is the weird situation even an advance organization like Starfleet can be in when things are so far away.

I recall in Balance of Terror Kirk informed Star Fleet of what he intended to do knowing he would not get a response before doing it. Only after it was all said and done did they get a message saying they supported whatever decision he needed to make.

I went to buy the comics from Amazon and only found digital versions. Is there not a physical version to purchase? I saw one but it’s not releasing until June, it looked like it was a single edition with all 3 volumes in one.

Nice they have that background but if it appears in the comic and NOT the show then how necessary is that information? (Yes, they could dive into that later but if they never do…)

My question was why did they even need to BUILD a rescue fleet to begin with? What happened to the Star Fleet? Were they are destroyed? It’s weird because the story still works even if the Martian station wasn’t building a fleet of rescue ships. Had they just been doing their regular thing the same result would have been achieved. So why add that silly bit?

I’m not even going to get started on the racial issues that were implied…

I’m absolutely certain that was intentional. And a more complex issue than being ironically tone-deaf, actually. An utterly overt allegory for any given refugee or immigrant scenario that doesn’t necessarily have an all-purpose “good” or “bad” brush to be painted with. Those people work for Picard because they feel they owe him for something huge and galactic to do with their culture’s survival, but he’s still keeping his old … old … jeez, almost as Old World Europe Earth as anything in Star Trek gets … traditional homestead operating. They get a home and haven and assist a man they have befriended … but there’s still an ethical question of whether he’s in turn somehow benefiting from their service in a way that’s incidentally hypocritical, no matter how benevolent his intentions.

But what’s better for those Romulans? Join the Tal Shiar and be part of a conspiracy to sabotage androids and pirate Borg tech or whatever? Double down on isolationist tendencies themselves? Or open up and check out Earth culture and get involved in it a bit and realize humans aren’t so bad and have some neat old traditions and culture that’s just as interesting and diverse as Vulco-Romulan history and culture? Obviously these Romulans have chosen that route, while down the road we’ll see some have gone to Vulcan and opted for something much more akin to Reunification.

Totally, totally, totally impressed! This may be the best Star Trek ever so far, but I do have nit-picks.
The good:
Patrick Stewart! In the beginning of the episode, he seems very down in a sort of “treading water of life” sort of way while walking the vineyard. But once Daj shows up and the plot kicks in, he seems very much the Captain Picard I remember, he became alive again. He made decisions that moved the story, investigated the mystery, and was the confident and intelligent Starfleet officer I’ve come to know the past 30 years.
The archives room (his storage locker lol) was filled with TNG Easter Eggs that hits the nostalgia button hard. I had those tears! But it served a purpose and wasn’t forced into the story: Picard had to look at that painting of Daj by Data. And I liked the hologram support system!
ALL the other callbacks to TNG episodes, especially “Measure of Man”‘s Maddox. And I just watched that episode two days ago! The picture with Worf absolutely confirms the TNG versions of Klingon make-up!
The pacing, while a little slow, was perfect in that it matched the story of Picard in this episode. Slow at first to match his humdrum life, then it picks up as he livens up with his investigation. Jean-Luc Picard is an explorer, not a wine-maker!
The action was great: like when we see Daj leap up those stairs!
The little hints: I knew those assassins were Romulans by the design of their disrupters and the little bit of green blood. I thought that maybe Daj was an ex-Borg at first, but then I liked the connection to Data. And this also connect to the episode “The Offspring” in that Data had to use part of his positronic matrix to create Lal, similar to how the scientist in this discussed the creation of these new “flesh and blood” androids.
I liked the progression of androids to have real “flesh and blood.” This also connects to the movie First Contact, when the Borg Queen grafted living skin onto Data. That has to be a Borg connection to this new series.
I loved how Picard resigned from Starfleet to make a stand. That he even stated in the interview it was not the Starfleet of old. He also chastised the interviewer for not knowing history.
There’s so much more I loved: the Romulans in the Borg cube, the story twists and surprises, the CINEMATOGRAPHY!! (No more silly weird camera movements like in Disco!)

OK, my nitpicks:
I’m not a fan of the theme song. I wish it felt more “Star Trek-y.” I get the “Inner Light” motifs, but it was very “meh” to me.
I would have liked some exposition to why there are Romulan care-takers for Picard, but that may be revealed in a future episode.
Also, this was made very much for Star Trek fans. I was thinking a non-Star Trek fan would be asking the following: “who are those guys with the pointed ears?” “how does Picard get from France to San Francisco to Okinawa so quickly”

Um, that’s it for nit-picks really. This was a great episode!

That was my first impression too. The theme song wasnt “memorable” or as epic as the other ones. Granted, I watched it at low volume today at like 4 in the morning lol so I will give it another listen later.

One episode that we’ve forgotten in all this: “Inheritence.” Data’s “mother” turned out to be an android as well. It’s not fully clear she was flesh-and-blood, but this was a strong inference (who doesn’t cut themselves ever)? So Dr. Soong may have been on that path as well.

That was my thought when Picard was at the Daystrom Institute. What about Juliana Tainer?

But upon reading this https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Juliana_Tainer it looks like maybe they will always keep her true nature a secret, thus Picard pretends that a flesh-and-blood android is impossible?

Either that, or when the creators/writers of the show went back and re-watched all 176 episodes of TNG they somehow missed “Inheritance”.

It’s all good though because that episode was amazing.

She was an Android like Data. Exact same composition. She even got banged up and we saw the lights and circuits in her. According to Dr. Crusher she just emites false bio signs. No error or oversight in this episode.

I always figured Dr. Soong put some algorithm in Juliana’s programming that she would automatically repair herself and delete the memory. How else could she have gone so long and not known she was an android?

I really liked the Dunkirk reference.

The romulan care-takers are introduced in the prequel comic books :)

Does this cloning of Data sound even half plausible though? Or is it more Kurtzman Trek pseudoscience?

(Litmus test question: if this were a Berman Trek premise, how many overused technobabble terms would you need to employ, using how many added lines of back-and-forth dialogue just so you could somehow [tech] all those terms in, before the Okudas or whoever gave it a pass? And how big would the resulting page of technobabble be before the scene could resume? 3rd season TNG size? 6th season TNG size? VOY size?)

I will never understand this obsession and all things hatred for ‘Berman Trek’ but I have much fewer issues with those shows compared to others and everyone has their hang ups I guess. Anyway, let’s just see where it goes first. You call it pseudoscience but that’s what most of Star Trek already is. I mean how many times did we see a clone Kirk on TOS? Maybe they didn’t use four pages of technobabble to explain it but it was still ridiculous and was still explained through some form of science.

Nothing that has been done in Star Trek in the last 30 years, Discovery included, hasn’t already been done on some level in TOS and the films. They may push it a bit more today (like the spore drive) but none of this is real, it’s all sci fi hokum. I wish people stop acting like Star Trek is suppose to be some grounded show when its the same show that invented the Mirror universe and found planets that can literally turn your thoughts into real life.

The only difference is how much they can convince you that hokum is possible and in a show like Star Trek where literally ANYTHING can happen it’s really not that hard anymore lol. I’m really intrigued where they are taking the Data story line but I’m just excited we are getting actual AI story lines in Star Trek again since Voyager left.

Our kids love Voyager best of the Berman-era Trek shows, and one of the top-line reasons they give is ‘Voyager has the best technology’.

Technobabble rules for some.

Certainly, much more so than “I love science” : a line that managed to get both a ‘That’s so cringy!’ reaction from our kids as well as explosive snorts of laughter from us parents who actually do science.

I’d argue that Trek pseudoscience aside, Voyager gave a much better representation of the feel of doing science and engineering than anything so far in Kurtzman-Trek.

So, I hope that the menu of Kurtzman-era shows will include one with as high quality technobabble as Voyager.

That’s also the same for me and why I like Voyager so much, because they did the crazy tech stuff the most. But they had to, they were trying to get home and came up with every crazy idea to get them there. Yes they certainly took it too far at times (I’m looking at YOU Threshold) but I agree Voyager tried hard to plants its roots in actual science and engineering. But like all Star Trek, when that failed they made up the rest. ;)

But Janeway has said the best line when it comes to this stuff: “We’re Starfleet officers, weird is part of the job!” ;)

You know my thoughts on this at this point. I don’t look at Star Trek as some true representation of science and our world. Yes SOME of it obviously but as a whole it’s speculative science on an extreme level that has probably crossed over into the fantasy realm a few times (the MU basically is more in tune with sci fi fantasy if we’re being honest). But we wouldn’t have some of the most fun and zany episodes if that wasn’t the case from time to time.

Even Discovery, what was the MOST popular episode in season one? It was Magic Makes the Sanest Man go Mad (yes I looked it up ;)) which is your basic time loop episode and something shows like TNG and VOY did in their sleep lol. But it was popular for that reason, it brought us back to classic Trek tropes and gave us a really fun episode even if TNG did the same thing literally twenty five years before it.

I don’t see Picard doing anything like that since this season is more ‘grounded’ but who knows? And I like the direction we ARE going in which obviously will deal with more highly speculative science stuff. I’m really excited to see where this is going. I was already prepared for this season to be crazy enough with the Romulan and the Borg, but rogue Androids, clones and Data ‘katras’ has made this show an even bigger dream for me lol.

“So, I hope that the menu of Kurtzman-era shows will include one with as high quality technobabble as Voyager.”

Could that be the episodic starship “space exploration of the week” show please? Maybe the Captain Pike one? I’m sure that one would meets its audience :)

The flesh and book androids feels more like an extension of Discovery S2. Terminators.

Now keep in mind I am a Voyager baby. My introduction to the franchise and my first love are to VOY. However, Ive grown to love DS9 and TNG just as much.
I love that this feels like a continuation of his life story, as opposed to a nostalgia filled series. The easter eggs and references ALL serve a purpose to the story. (Maddox, B4, ETC)
And while the story telling is different than we are used to, I appreciated the mystery and found myself gasping and wanting to connect the dots.
I love how they are giving the Picard more depth with the tragedy, the trauma’s and now this new mystery.
They also dont shy away from the fact that he is an older person (having to stop and gasp for air, when running).
It does make me sad to see Patrick aged, since I am so used to watching TNG and seeing him basically “frozen in time” but I do feel happy he is showing everyone he can still do this even at this age.

Hear, hear! Well said.

I’m SUPER excited for Seven’s arrival and fill us in to what she’s been up for the last 20 years although according to Jeri Ryan it hasn’t been easy. I’m hoping we get more Voyager characters in time too, but only if they are relevant to the story of course.

As far as your points about this episode, totally agree. They said we would see an older Picard and I think they are doing it beautifully so far.

Yes thought that was neat! Also anticipating Seven!
I also read a rumor about another VOY star appearing but I do not want to spoil it! If true, I will lose my ish lol

I’m also stoked for 7 of 9. And Hugh! I bet we will see Q eventually, there was that little hint with Data’s poker hand as all queens.

Totally agree. CBS has finally figured it out. I felt like giving the writers hugs. Star trek finally feels like star trek. Everything about episode 1 was so perfect please keep it up, please don’t bring in or try to validate anything about Discovery. This has finally got it right. So excited to keep watching.

I’ve been waiting for this day for so long and I fell in love with Star Trek all over again. Thank you Patrick Stewart for taking a leap of faith. I am so excited to see this story unfold and for Guinan to back in Season 2.

Since the day this show was announced I was excited beyond belief and now that we finally got it and its GOOD lol its even better. The show can still be bad but first good impressions and all that I’m totally in from this point forward.

It was good…. but in first 30 seconds there was a huge historical error! Ten Forward was shown from outside as being OFF center!! It is Ten-Forward, Not Ten-Off Kilter! Unless maybe it was just another lounge on deck 10. However from the outside there were THREE lit windows, but once inside there were 9 windows!? It was not ten forward, it was the Room Of Requirement. Anyhow technical error aside it was nice to see a virtual set of Ten Forward. And the Data de-aging in opening scene was great!

What we saw was Picard’s dream. Dreams often get details a bit wrong. Sometimes wildly wrong.

Exactly right Thorny. It was in my opinion probably the first clue to let you know, something’s not right here, this might be a dream.

In fact Picard said, ‘This is not right’ and looked about after seeing Mars in the window.

More likely a production mistake. But still forgivable in a dream sequence.

They probably got the combination on Kirk’s safe wrong, too.

Q will appear at some point. Did anyone noticed Data and his cards on the first scene!? I think Q will show up.

Glad you mentioned that. I kept interpreting it as “Queen” (as in Borg queen) but never thought of just plain Q. But yes, now I totally see it; Q should return!

Totally with you on the Queen thing. Who knows if they’ll go down that road but I would be up myself with joy and not at all surprised if somehow those girls are the daughters of the Queen and Data.

If it means we will either get the Borg Queen or Q back I’m good with both lol.

One thing I liked about that scene was that it showed Picard grew closer to his crew after taking command of the Enterprise-E. Remember that prior to “All Good Things,” he never joined in the poker games. As a result of his experiences in AGT, he concluded, “I should have done this [i.e., join in the poker] a lot earlier.”

To me, that scene felt uncomfortable. There was an undercurrent of annoyance that “the Boss” suddenly decided to join in on their little game night. I got the feeling that those games slowly faded from existence once Picard decided to horn in.

Wouldn’t be surprised if it is revealed that Q is “directing” Picard’s dreams to give him clues about how to proceed. I think the cards were a givaway, and then the second dream highlighting the painting. Maybe the “Data” of Picards dreams IS Q?

I did not think of that, interesting theory!

The cards couldn’t just be an Easter egg reference and leave it at that? The new show has to mine everything that TNG is remembered for in pop culture?

With Kurtzman in charge, the answer is YES! ;D

This episode had just the right amount of callbacks and the right amount of new characters and story about those characters to remind fans of TNG that this is the guy you knew, but he is going on a new journey. Since it is stated that this is a spoiler discussion, I was very happy to see a glimpse of a model of the Enterprise – E in Picard’s Starfleet archive. I was also impressed by the Maddox references. All in all, a very good episode to start off what I hope will be a great first season.

Yeah, I think it is abundantly clear that the writers really, really liked “The Measure of a Man”. I’m glad, because I do too.

I don’t know… I feel like there were WAY too many call backs to TNG. They felt like they were all shoehorned in to please the TNG fans out there. As perfect as Picard is, he never came across as a sentimental guy. I mean, look at how he nonchalantly tossed aside momentos from previous missions at the end of Generations when he was looking for his photo album. And BTW… I’m surprised so many items survived the crash. I found the easter eggs distracting more than anything else. But it’s just the first episode. I feel they are trying really hard to hook fans and that is a lazy way to do it. Perhaps as the story unfolds we will see less and less of that.

Great review of this at Entertainment weekly.

Talks about how Star Trek should be ‘endearingly nerdy’ not ‘swole’.

Also has good observations like “Kurtzman’s vision for Star Trek is loud and violent., ‘mature content’ for immature dumbos”, “serialization has become a haven for television’s hackiest writing”, and “streaming hysterics make you long for leisurely syndicated charms”.

Just read that review. I disagree with the review. The writer lamented the fact that Star Trek is different now. My response to that: go watch the old shows on Netflix, there are a LOT of hours of the old Star Trek. I Still think this Picard show is a great movement forward. I like the slower pace.

Not everyone agree on this. I feel the writer from E! is Nerdrotic. Why the hate guys? Pretty much all Trek Fans are thankful we have new shows! Picard. Discovery. Short Treks. And the upcoming new shows. Please add them all! Lower Decks. Nickelodeon. Section 31. Pike. Bring them on! Live Long and Prosper.

Who in their right mind goes to Entertainment Weekly for anything worthwhile? That’s like saying – oh I read an article in the TV Guide… You know what’s been loud and violent? Our past, our present, and I’m sure our future will be as well. The idea that it wouldn’t be the case is beyond naive but again, it’s a “reporter” for EW.

The same guy writing for EW delivered some of the most insightful reviews of the first twelve ST feature films, counting down to Beyond, that those movies have ever had. He’s no intellectual lightweight.

Sounds like they are not fans lol. And that’s fine, end of the day we have to remember everyone is going to see things differently. Now I haven’t read it so I can’t comment one way or the other but based on the ‘quotes’ you showed here its obvious a big reason they don’t like it is because of the story telling and format and I get that too but this is the world we live in today.

I know for a lot of people they want to go back to the 26 episode standalone stories and people on starships just going to a planet and seeing what’s out there. But I think that version of Trek is over, at least until another trend comes along. That’s why so many people are begging for a Pike show but my guess is they are hoping it goes back to that TOS/TNG format and I don’t see that happening if we get one or not. Every show will be heavily serialized and follow one story. It’s just how it is.

Well and they shouldn’t go back to that. Berman Trek used its high episode count not just to satisfy syndicated/network packaging requirements, but also to balance its budgets across with a lot of bottle shows. Yet it didn’t have the time to make sure (or perhaps care) whether its bottle shows and filler stories were recycled ones.

Whether CBS Trek can balance its budgets and bring in money I think remains to be seen. But going back to 22-26 episodes isn’t the answer.

Considering these shows cost $8-10 million an episode its no way we will ever get 26 episodes again lol. They literally couldn’t afford it. And then if you start cutting the cost down to make more episodes people will notice and complain. Everyone is saying just how amazing and cinematic Remembrance looked but my guess is they spent a LOT on it and its only one 45 minute episode. But then look at the Mandolorian, they spent even MORE per episode and those were only 8 episodes around 35 minutes each.

So that’s the trade off we are getting now, much less episodes and no longer standalones but basically 8-13 hour movie length (and quality) shows. The studios must think this is the better way to go even if they are getting less eyeballs on their channel all year but streaming is a very different animal.

There is so much TV being produced now, that shorter seasons aren’t even an issue for studios, anymore. The choice is huge.
Back in the TNG/DS9/VOY days a lot of people still didn’t even have cable, many had less than 10 channels, and even those lucky enough to afford cable subscriptions had little more than 50 odd channels, 25 of which were probably just rubbish non-descript channels.

Fast forward to now and cable (with 100s of channels) is on the decline and on-demand and streaming is rapidly on the increase.
With bigger choices the corps/studios have to concentrate on quality in a competitive business.

I’m certainly no expert, but my take is that, individual shows probably don’t need to meet such large rating anymore, but it’s more the studio probably evaluates the performance of all their shows that they produce across the year/tv season, and keep track of the numbers, look for trends, what people enjoy, what they are watching more of, what they seem to enjoy less, what they are responding to, and try to let all that information guide decisions on what shows they renew and also what they create going into the year or two ahead.

Look at the Obi-Wan series. Everyone wants it to happen and happen as quickly as possible, but The scripts apparently aren’t up to snuff yet, so instead of just making the best of them and going forward with filming within the next few months, they just put the whole thing on ice for a (long..?) while and re-write (some of it anyway, who knows?) it again.
Obi Wan series is now basically delayed by at least a year, the earliest debut now being likely late-2021, but I’d say early 2022 even more likely.
In a season with only probably 7 or 8 episodes they want to make sure fans tune in as much as possible and that nothing feels like ‘filler’. The novelty of Obi in a desert, while attractive, will ware thin quickly if the story is crap.

Delaying something to “make sure it is good” does not guarantee anything of the sort. Case in point… Remember how many wanted the ’09 Trek sequel to come out earlier yet Bad Robot delayed it and many were claiming better to delay it to ensure the quality than rush something out that may not be good. The end result didn’t work out too well, did it?

I don’t know… There is more TV produced today than ever before yet I find myself watching less TV than ever before. It seems the more options there are the less quality there is.

Personally, I’d rather get more episodes that look a little worse that have a few gems in them than have only a few episodes that have at best one good one that look fantastic. But then, I’ve always been more impressed with substance rather than how flashy and shiny something is.

All I can is that I’m a 62 year old man that cried the whole time I was watching. WOW
Live Long and prosper.

Well, that was worth the wait. What fun. And of course, I’m enthused whenever there are Romulans. Could their participation simply be revenge against the Federation, or to regain their galactic status technologically? I had hoped Dahj was Lal, and when she exploded it would be a Terminator endoskeleton thing, but as it turned out it will probably prove a better story in the long run. I eagerly await the next installment.

I wasn’t in love with the premiere episode but I definitely liked it! Here’s to watching next week’s episode and beyond.

Same.

Loved it. Just a few irks about the plot: 1. So, data just happened to name the painting “Daughter” (but it doesn’t look like Lal) and Bruce somehow knew of this very personal painting and created 2 synths that look like her? A little bit of a stretch but I’ll go with it. Maybe Data mentioned the painting to Bruce in his communications (like he was having on Data’s Day). 2. Why are Romulan agents out to kill synths (kidnap and reverse engineer maybe)? 3. How could they track her if Starfleet couldn’t? I guess we’ll get a lot more back story later. LLAP!

I don’t think the Romulan agents’ goal was to kill Daj. They put that bag over her head and were going to kidnap her, I think. If they wanted to kill her they easily could have before her programming kicked in.

I agree the painting is pretty contrived. I kind of wish they just went a more sci fi route on how they discovered she was Data’s daughter but they wanted something more lyrical I guess.

As far as the Romulans VZX said it, they weren’t really trying to kill her just apprehend her. But then they were shooting at her but maybe because they knew she was an android it wouldn’t outright kill her. But it does raise a lot of questions since her ‘twin’ is already working with the Romulans so why did they even need her in the first place? It’s all confusing but in a good way lol.

What exactly did Maddox create? What are these synths? Did they writers think to explore the ethics of creating these synths in later episodes? (Did Maddox lobotomize babies and then stick positronic brains into them? If so why do they have superstrength?)

Maybe we never learn how Romulans could track her. Or why they use transporters to attack her instead of simply snatch her away. Maybe like STD S2 this show already makes as much sense as it’s ever going to make. I hope not though.

What did the Romulan spit at her that melted her? Was it some hydrochloric acid pill? Or was it simply blood? It was green. If Kurtzman thinks it would be cool for Romulans to have acidic blood it might be time to check out.

I’m pretty sure Maddox is going to be VERY important going forward and a lot of that will get covered. Maybe not but it was so emphasized in the first episode I think that’s going to be a huge part if not the driving force of the story. And if so it would be crazy because I don’t think anyone thought the story line would have much to do with androids at all and now it’s what we’re all talking about obviously. You have to give them REAL credit of how secret they kept everything to be so surprised.

And a lot of us have been speculating we will get more TNG characters even in this season, but I don’t think anyone was thinking a smaller but yet still very known character like Maddox. But now it looks like he may show up too and that would be SO cool and not in your face fan service like if Worf showed up (but I still really really want Worf to show up ;)).

I’d prefer they held off on Worf. From what they have on their plate so far, Maddox, Hugh, Seven and Data (in whatever all forms he appears) all make sense. And then we’ve got Riker and Troi to satisfy the TNG “family” dynamic. That’s good enough for ten episodes.

Upon second viewing, I’m thinking of these flesh-and-blood androids as being essentially replicants (stronger, more agile, at least equal in intelligence and on the surface indistinguishable from human). Ironically Blade Runner was Flashback Cinema’s outing in theaters just last week.

Still really hoping whatever that Romulan dude spat wasn’t just Kurtzman’s idea of Romulan blood.

I took it as a last ditch solution to kill a synthetic being when the rest of the team was down and the last special ops officer was out of options.

That is, the spec ops team had orders to kill if they could not apprehend.

Or, having located the twin, capture was no longer the objective.

Great, so what did the dude spit out of his mouth?

There was always the chance trying to apprehend her in public was going to go badly. It seems clumsy to have them using transporters at all if the scene needed to end the way it did.

I guess now we know why Season 2 was greenlit. they have a pretty solid foundation to build on. it felt like a very good pilot for a show, a particularly Cinematic show.

For me, tone is key to Star Trek TNG, and this show absolutely nailed it. It’s an absolutely gorgeous show that treasures the small moments. Although I love Discovery, the tone is too dark and intense for me to really love it, it’s not a world I want to inhabit, but this show brings back the humanity and tangibility of the future. It looks and SOUNDS gorgeous, the music is PERFECT, I couldn’t have asked for better. Earth just looks beautiful as it should, that’s what TNG always did so well, it showed that optimism of the future.

I’m still sussing out the writing on the show, I have complaints about some of the exposition dumps, but it’s all very consistent with the way TNG talks. I love some of the iconography of the 24th century showing up here, it’s better than I expected from the previews.

The performances are all fantastic, I’m already loving everybody on screen.

If the writers and producers read these, I just want to thank them from the bottom of my heart for getting this so right!

Agreed re casting & performances. Nicely cast & good acting.

Agreed it was just nice to be back in the TNG world again. I rail against anyone who constantly says the 24th century is an utopia because its not, but yes it’s definitely still inspiring (I think this is a better word) and a place most would want to live. I think the 23rd century is just as nice as well (who WOULDN’T want to live on the Yorktown starbase in Beyond), the 24th century is just a little nicer and they have the better stuff lol.

DIS made the universe feel a little too dark and cold. We do have to remind ourselves we were looking at it through the lens of a war but it didn’t make me want to live there like the TNG era either. They just tried to make that show too ‘edgy’ and why so many fans have trouble with it. But in Picard, it’s a world most of us always known and missed.

It’s the first episode, and there’s already no less than nineteen producers listed in the OP. Crap. This IS going to devolve into a repeat of STD.

Continuing on…

Discovery started out a creative mess with its creator getting canned along with much of his original writing team, and that continued through season 2 with multiple show runners and creative dead ends. Picard has none of those problems, and the high quality shows it.

Creative dead ends? They took the show far into the future… it’s also impressively high quality…

I don’t think you understand what a producer title really means.

Why not explain to these hardcore film/TV enthusiasts what it “really” means.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SHhySoXDcA (18:07.)

They don’t understand either. A producing title doesn’t mean everyone’s involved with script and story contributions. Sometimes it’s a credit given as a pay raise. Sometimes it’s a credit agreed upon to someone who helped develop the show but now has moved on. Sometimes it’s just someone who’s working hard behind the scenes to get the production in on time. It covers a myriad of titles, not all of which involve creative decisions. But I’ve only worked in the entertainment business for thirty years. I’m sure you and two snarky losers– sorry, “enthusiasts”– on YouTube definitely know better.

Yeah ‘producer’ credit can mean practically mean anything in Hollywood. The ‘executive producer’ title is usually given to people who does nothing more than an obligatory title because they were involved with getting the show on the air and little else.

Steven Spielberg has been an executive producer on tons of movies and TV shows and majority of the time the only involvement he has is just getting the movie and show funded’ which is easier to do once he puts his name on it and gets his cut later. He has absolutely nothing to do with the actual making of the show or film in most of these cases.

Producer credit is more often associated with where the money comes from. It’s also something that can be given out as a gift in the form of pay. Many actors start getting producer credit just because they demanded more say in their character or something.

I call total BS. They wouldn’t create a messy title sequence with nearly four times the number of producer credits as main actors if most of their contributions were as insignificant as you imply. You can’t produce another example in which a series has done that. I completely despise your condescending tone and you are being challenged sir.

Sure they would.

Enjoyed this very much and already sorry that the first batch will only be 10 episodes.

That was quite excellent. I was a little worried but the first episode exceeded my expectations. I think it was Kurtzman(?) who called the show ”lyrical” I would also go with that description. A great start IMO.

Observation about the Romulans with Picard: interesting that the woman looks and acts like Romulans that have been seen before while the guy seems almost like, well, more of an older hippie type?

I almost thought he was from the “Who Watches the Watchers?” planet at first.

I just can’t believe they actually showed my home town, Boston. In all of Star Trek I don’t remember my home ever being represented. It was incredible to see. The one caveat though is that I don’t believe Boston would EVER let skyscrapers that tall exist. Even in the 24th Century.

We saw Greater Boston, Kyushu, San Francisco, and Paris. More Earth locations than have ever appeared in Star Trek before. I’ve been hoping for a show that takes more of a civilian angle, and it looks like Picard might be just that.

I lost it when I heard the old TOS Romulan theme

Dang I missed that! When was that theme played?

It’s right when we’re introduced to the shady Romulan near the end of the episode. The Romulan ship (new type of transport/shuttle possibly) is approaching the cube and it’s playing. It sounds great too.

Thanks! I will definitely pay better attention the second time (and lots more, I’m sure) I watch it. I hope they use the theme when we see the TOS Bird of Prey!

Someone on Youtube pointed that out to me. He replayed the scene and linked it in to TOS which is amazing. It really does look like these writers are doing their homework and tying things in whenever possible.

That was very clever I thought

I missed that and I normally have a pretty good ear for this sort of thing. And quite frankly, I was unaware that the Klingons and Romulans had their own cues in TOS.

Wow. I saw this at about two in the morning, I couldn’t sleep because I was so excited.

I liked it, I really did…I just didn’t want it to end. And I felt like it was a pretty short episode, especially for a premiere.

Not that it wasn’t solid. Because it was. It was written and handled excellently. I also think that at least at this point in the series, that many fans that were concerned about this show stepping away from the Roddenberry utopia and into more of a dystopia shouldn’t worry so much.

Things have changed, that’s to be sure, but it’s not so dissimilar to the way things are nowadays, in the real world. I think that the world we live in needs changes, but I wouldn’t totally categorize it as a dystopia. Not quite. Same with this “new” Federation. It just needs tweak or twelve.

I can also honestly say that I have no idea yet what to expect, so hopefully the rest of the series is going to be a strong surprise, and hopefully a pleasant one.

But people change too. Yet it seems Picard hasn’t. Which was disappointing to me.

This production looks and sounds amazing, in ways The Next Generation simply could not for its time. Additionally, it is a wonderful continuation of Jean-Luc Picard’s story, that in the first episode alone demonstrates that Picard is unwilling to betray his own moral principles, even if it means living in a life of isolation and depression. Picard does an amazing job of giving Patrick Stewart the same kind of latitude to explore the character and make the same powerful Picard-esque soliloquies and speeches TNG fans came to love as part of his character.
Becoming involved with Dahj immediately ignites a flame within Picard that very quickly re-ignites the spark we have all come to know and love from the good captain. Based upon what we have already seen it is quite clear that this story, is going to take Picard to places he, in his solitude; and us as fans could never have expected – and I look forward to seeing the rest of it!!!!

I liked how the opening song was the same as the one that ended Nemesis.

Can someone help with the dates?

Nemesis came out 18 years ago and was set in 2379. That would make “today” 2397.

Romulus was destroyed in 2387. This episode is supposed to mark ten years since then, which would indeed be 2397.

And yet Picard very clearly states that Data died over twenty years ago. Which means that either:

-The episode is set in 2399, and Romulus was destroyed in 2389.

-Nemesis actually took place in 2377.

Anyone?

It’s a little wibbly wobbly, but it’s beyond that (2399) so Patrick Stewart is now younger than Picard the character.

I guess they figure there’ll be enough time between seasons to catch up, as there was in the 80’s.

Didn’t you know “100” will be the new “80” in 2399? (And this “80” will have been the “new” 60 in 2200? ;-)
Since the lifespan will surely be expanded in the 24th/25th centruy (think about McCoy in TNG!) this should be logical.

Picard told Dahj Data sacrificed his life “over two decades ago”.

“I liked how the opening song was the same as the one that ended Nemesis.”

The recall of Blue Skies was a nice touch that I thoroughly liked. Although I did fear it would lead to B4 being up and running. Thank God that was not the case.

Well, delighted to say I loved it. Slotted in perfectly. Hopefully Discovery is watching and taking notes about how to unfold a story properly. Great stuff.

Discovery is doing what Discovery is needing to do. But yeah, Picard is so good.

I think the complete opposite happened. They learned from their mistakes with DIS and did a much better job of delivering something slower but still relevant. I’m hoping season 3 of DIS will go the same direction.

Yeah, I hope so too but I’m not holding my breath. That was a very confident pilot. I credit Chabon with being the adult in the room here. A calming, steady influence who understands the politics and dynamics of unpacking a story in a satisfying manner. Thus far, Discovery just hasn’t had that anchor. Third time’s a charm but I feel like perhaps the proverbial boat has sailed. I almost have no interest in what happens next there, sadly.

IIRC I know you weren’t happy with the show’s time jump, so I understand. But hopefully it will be better but yes it’s still a toss up.

Well said.

I’m forced to agree. The damage to Discovery is done. No amount of time shifting will help them. I expect nothing but garbage from season 3 at this point. If it comes out as mediocre I will be thrilled.

Just watched it for the second time. The show is so pretty! So, is last Romulan that she fights enhanced and can spit Alien-like acid blood? and that is what made the Disruptor overload and explode? If they kill of Riker, I’m going to be real mad. The rescue armada never made it to Romulus! Guess that is why Spock tried Red Matter. I predict that the Romulan talking to Soji at the end is Nero’s brother. (that would be cool, maybe?) It is cool to see Wil Wheaton on the Ready Room after show.

Dying Romulan assassin chewed a felodesine chip (https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Felodesine_chip)

Felodesine chip (look it up in MA)

THAT WAS AWESOME! im not reading the comments as i’m sure there’s either hate for this or random hate for discovery or kurtzman on and on. sad trek fans have turned into this. but wow i loved it. acting, fx, story… was so beautiful. so many issues and ideas… i can handle a serialized story vs stand a lone tng formula… sooooo happy. so happy so happy so happy. (background for me i love tos, tng, ds9 and discovery)

I think we’re cut from the same cloth. Those are my feelings spot on.

It’s actually not that bad. The hate level is at an all time low, at least for this board lol. Seems people really liked it. I’m a bit shocked, I thought no matter what there would be a big division SOMEWHERE but even the people fully not on board seem to like it enough to see where it goes next.

I agree I think Michael chabon and the directing of Hanelle Culpepper were a real winning team. They both clearly understand star trek and didn’t just try to slap logos and Easter eggs everywhere. It was so thoughtful and clever when tieins were made. I notice the producers list is longer too with Michael’s toward the top and includes Rod Roddenberry. Hopefully this means there’s enough reason in the room and hate keepers to keep std missteps out.

Have faith in your fellow fans, I went into this cautiously optimistic because of std but was blown away. I looked for a forum just so I could have somewhere to say hope awesome that post was. BTW side note ready room with Wesley crusher is kind of cool too recapping the episode. It’s like getting two since I definitely wanted more :)

There were a few scenes I felt were a little jarring. In particular the one scene where Picard really isnt given time to grieve a certain death of a particular character (which I was not expecting lol) but overall I loved it.

It felt like they took the time to include things that should be there like including the LCARS, the stargazer model, Maddox! I mean, I just watched that episode of TNG!

I like that when you hear Tea, Earl Grey, its not, BAM! ITS AN IN YOUR FACE CALLBACK! He’s drinking it with Data, he orders a decaf version in the beginning the way I picture a normal person would do it. It’s not, hey, I’m ordering this for you fans out there, wink, wink. I feel like he’s ordering it because that’s just his drink of choice.

I’m super happy with the pacing, the tone, Stewart’s performance. I’m glad that we haven’t been hit with a billion things within 1 episode like we were with Disco (which I do love, despite some of it’s issues)

I can’t wait for the second episode! I want it now lol

The twins are literally Data. B4 may have failed but I think Maddox took his “Katra” and created the twins. By the end of the season, I’m betting Data will take over and “return.” I also think Geordi might have some role in this as well.