The inaugural season of Star Trek: Picard arrives on home video today. We have had some time to spend with the new Blu-ray release; here’s our review.
Star Trek: Picard – Season One
To say Picard was a highly anticipated show is an understatement. I had the privilege of being in the room at Star Trek Las Vegas 2018 when Sir Patrick Stewart came on stage to announce his return, and it was an amazing feeling as every Trekkie in the room burst with applause and excitement.
Picard was rather bold in that it finds our protagonist not quite so happy, and not among the stars. Being Earthbound for the first act of the 10-episode season was a bold and refreshing change. (Just ask the Enterprise producers how that idea was received a couple of decades earlier). Doing so gave the audience time to get to know this new cast, which includes a number of veteran actors as well as younger newer ones, all of whom were able to hold their own with Stewart on screen. While I didn’t love the big threat of the season being effectively yet another evil AI trope, the journey along the way was almost always compelling.
We at TrekMovie covered the individual episodes as they came out in reviews by our site founder Anthony as well as in our weekly episode review podcasts. You can find links to both the written reviews and the podcasts in our episode guide on our Picard overview page.
Picard ponders his next words carefully while being grilled for the holo-news.
The Blu-ray set
The episodes and special features are spread out across three Blu-ray discs. Each disc has the names of the episodes it contains printed on them, as well as a full listing for the set on the inside front/back of the case.
The Blu-ray set.
The menus have a loop of scenes from the first season, with a brief pause on the Picard season one title card running behind them.
A look at the Blu-ray menus.
Video Quality
Picard is a gorgeous show, with suitably high production values. Picard builds on the upgraded cameras, anamorphic lenses, and cinematic stylings of Star Trek: Discovery season 2. The director of the pilot, Hanelle M. Culpepper, set a style for Picard that’s slick and modern and also clearly its own show in this new CBS Trek universe, with calmer camera moves and the warmer hues of a vineyard in Autumn—lush greens, reds, and yellows. Having the higher bitrate available on disc means the image quality is just that much better than streaming. There’s an extra bit of sharpness’ every once in a while I was surprised to see a new level of detail I hadn’t noticed when streaming the show.
The Artifact crashed into a lake at sunrise.
Audio Quality
As we’ve come to expect, the episodes have losslessly compressed DTS-HD MA 5.1 channel soundtracks. This is pretty standard for a TV show release. Picard sounds great; with this being the third season of new Trek produced, it really seems like the producers and sound mixers, are on the top of their game.
Picard and Hugh are reunited.
Special Features (Blu-ray and DVD)
Short Treks “Children of Mars”
The (loosely) related prequel to Picard season one, Children of Mars which wasn’t included in the Short Treks home video release has been included on the Picard set. For fans outside of the US and Canada, this will be your first official way to see the short.
Documentary features
Bits of these have been sliced and diced and released online, but much of this is new for the home video release. Most of these are 10-20 minute pieces. Personally, I liked the sets, props, and Borg makeup features the best.
Story Log featurettes –
These are short 3-5 minute looks at the making of each episode
- Story Log: Remembrance
- Story Log: Maps And Legends
- Story Log: The End Is The Beginning
- Story Log: Absolute Candor
- Story Log: Stardust City Rag
- Story Log: The Impossible Box
- Story Log: Nepenthe
- Story Log: Broken Pieces
- Story Log: Et In Arcadia Ego, Part 1
- Story Log: Et In Arcadia Ego, Part 2
Make It So – The co-creators and Patrick Stewart discuss bringing the iconic character back to the screen, including what was compelling enough to warrant it and the obstacles they had to overcome to make it so.
Picard Props – Propmaster Jeff Lombardy walks through designing and updating the late-24th century for Picard. Head illustrator (and Inglorious Trekspert and industry veteran) Daren Dochterman is featured too, speaking about designing Squoodgy, among other things. We also see the making of the Golem body, and the re-designed year 2399 Starfleet phaser rifle.
Lombardy shows off all the configuration options of the new phaser rifle.
Aliens Alive: The xBs – A look inside the creative process behind the revised and enhanced Borg makeups done for the xBs. Creature Designer Neville Page discusses tackling the ideas for what former Borg would look like, and James MacKinnon shows us the process of turning Jeri Ryan into Seven of Nine.
Set Me Up – Production Designer Todd Cherniawsky tours the main sets for Picard including La Sirena, Picard’s study, and the Borg Cube. We also hear from Supervising Art Director Iain McFadyen and Set Decorator Lisa Alkofer.
The Motley Crew – Season one showrunner Michael Chabon introduces us to the characters of Picard. The feature takes a look at the actors, including a few glimpses of audition tapes, and their characters that come to make up the “motley crew” of La Sirena.
Video Commentary for “Remembrance” – Executive producers Alex Kurtzman, Akiva Goldsman, and Michael Chabon, supervising producer Kirsten Beyer, and director Hanelle M. Culpepper provide commentary on episode one of Picard. This is basically a Zoom video conference-style session on the right side of the screen while watching the episode.
A look at the video commentary for “Remembrance.”
Exclusives to the Blu-ray release:
Deleted Scenes
For many people, these are likely why people want to get a TV show on disc. Sadly, there are only four episodes that have deleted or extended scenes.
“Remembrance”
More of Picard in the vineyard, he surveys his land with a brass telescope built into the handle of his walking stick. Speaking in French, Picard gets upset with his field hands for mocking his Romulan friends.
“Broken Pieces”
Dr. Naáshala Kunamadéstifee (Soji’s Trill friend) mistakenly runs into the Borg area (the gray zone) and comes face to face with an xB. Her Gradient Badge would be made to blink green in post-production.
Ramdha is activated/awakened in her hospital bed as the cube regenerates itself.
“Et In Arcadia Ego, Part 1”
On the Artifact, Ramdha sees Soji and calls her the destroyer in Romulan.
Sutra talks to Altan Soong, he says knows he’ll die if they successfully summon the Alliance of Synthetic Life. He says he’d like to continue to exist and that he has an idea about that (hinting at the Golem).
“Et In Arcadia Ego, Part 2”
The XBs are now at Copellius Station mingling with the androids. Ramdha is seen playing Zhamaq with two of the androids.
Audio commentary for Children Of Mars – Executive producer and co-writer Alex Kurtzman and co-writers Jenny Lumet and Kirsten Beyer discuss the Short Treks episode.
Gag Reel – Found on the third disc. We can see the ease of the new cast, and how well they had gelled in the short time they were together. Some of the best outtakes include Jonathan Frakes as the director offscreen joking with and ribbing Sir Patrick.
Stewart and Pill crack up on the bridge of La Sirena
Final thoughts
For most people, this Blu-ray is the highest quality way to watch Picard, so for those who care about getting the best audio-video experience, this is the set for them. It’s also recommended for collectors as well as anyone who wants an offline copy of the show; this includes people who cannot or do not want to stream the show, and folks who have concerns about the fleeting rights to streaming media.
Special features video clips
From “Picard Props” featurette
Deleted scene from “Remembrance”
Clip from video commentary for “Remembrance”
From “The Motley Crew” featurette
More Season 1 Images
-
- Final scene of Star Trek: Picard season one
Available now in the USA
Picard Season was released on October 6th. It is available on Amazon on Blu-ray ($34.96), and in special Steelbook packaging ($39.99), and on DVD in the USA.
Keep up with all the home video and streaming news, reviews, and analysis at TrekMovie.com.
DISCLAIMER: We may link to products to buy on Amazon in our articles, these links are customized affiliate links that support TrekMovie by earning a small commission when you purchase through the links.
In regards to Enterprise season one, I really think the producers would’ve been right to have most the season on earth leading up to the launch of Enterprise, the way it happened, it just didn’t feel earned or important that Earth was launching their first warp 5 ship. Damn upn execs :-/
Enterprise takes place before the Federation was founded so that ship is really important.
Earth’s first warp 5 ship made humanity an interstellar power to be reckoned with.
Vulcans, Andorians, Klingons, and Romulans should take note.
Being on Earth for most of the season is not a bad thing.
That would have been a dull show. Thankfully, they did NOT go that route.
Why would that have been a dull show? It would’ve been grounded and different, more of a character drama. But a whole season does seem like a lot, not to mention it would be a total contrast with the rest of the series once they were out in the cosmos.
The First tried that concept and didn’t get a second season.
Perhaps a half season would have worked for Enterprise. 10 or 11 episodes on Earth and in near Earth space would have been more than enough.
Berman and Braga had failed on this, the first two seasons were ok, but had the ship. Without this, it had been a catastrophe. But if they had someone like Manny Coto and had showed the earth like we saw in season 4, this had worked. Especially if they had build more on the people totally crazy about traveling through space and see new races, the space truckers (maybe even have the Klingon delivery on one as disguise) and the human supremacists. That could have worked and had been a great setting for why humans went on war with Romulans and why they directly afterwards also came up with the federation.
Picard season one was meh so I’m not going to buy a Blu-ray anytime soon.
The Romulan storyline is a incoherent mess but it was nice seeing the Borg again. The Federation synth ban is just playing politics.
Picard could stay at his vineyard making wine. Starfleet doesn’t need the old guard like him anymore.
Seven of Nine saved the show for me. I enjoyed her performance. Seven is a badass woman.
From what I saw you could removed the Borg entirely and not effect the story at all. They were seemingly there just to give Seven the appearance of something to do.
The Romulan refugee crises seemed forgotten as soon as it was set up. Meanwhile the Romulans have a secret service in charge of their secret service, they indirectly influenced the synth ban in the Federation (screwing over the rescue efforts of their own people in the process), their military fleet’s as strong as ever, and their most senior secret service official works a daytime job as head of Starleet security.
And I don’t even remember all the problems with the synth ban, except that it seemingly applied only specifically to AIs created in the likeness of human/oid.
A lot of promising ideas for a good non-formula Trek show, just not a lot of evidence of any follow-through. And a lot of moving parts that turned out to be seemingly just a lot of arbitrary moves as filler.
Also, the whole idea of Starfleet using synths, before the ban, seems problematic. As shown, how is it not building slaves?
But, yeah, the season started with a lot of interesting, complicated possibilities – and none of it was really explored. It was just plot twist on top of plot twist.
Compare it to a show like Raised by Wolves, where everything that happens has impact and consequences (although I hope all that it was building toward wasn’t thrown away in that bonkers final episode).
Sadly have to agree with everyone here. Sooooooo much promise and potential they set up with all these different groups and dynamics only for it to feel like a big shrug in the end. You could not have found a more excited person about this show than me. I was very excited about all the things they had set up between the Romulans, Borg and the Synths. The crazy thing is I was really hoping the show would deal with the Romulan fall out of their star being destroyed which it did. That alone made me very motivated for the show.
On top of that, one of the reasons I wanted a show or film to go forward again because I wanted to see the Borg back. It was always a no-brainer we would see them again once we got a post-Nemesis show because who doesn’t want to see the Borg back lol. Most of us anyway. It had been 18 years since they showed up on Enterprise and I was very curious to see how they would be handled and maybe what changed them since Janeway gave them the virus.
And finally one of the things I always wanted to see more of in Star Trek was just more A.I. stories. Even though Trek covers every crazy sci fi concept you can imagine, A.I. stories doesn’t seem to get covered much outside of Data or The Doctor (or Kirk talking a computer into its own self destruction in TOS ;)). But we rarely got stories just about the advent of A.I. in general and its evolution in or outside of the Federation. So I was stoked to learn we would not just get a full A.I. story but something unique to Star Trek with Synths and fully realized machines that had become biological in nature. The implications of that was huge. Again, couldn’t wait to see more.
But then it all just kind of fell apart. The supernova didn’t seem to tie into the show at all beyond just seeing Romulans scattered on different planets but it wasn’t a driving force to the season at all. The XB idea was, once again, unique, but it went nowhere really. We still have no clue why the Romulans cared. And the Synth story line, which the entire season was about, set up some really interesting ideas but did nothing with them. Basically there were some evil A.I.s they had planned to call to help them, but that that was all mooted after a speech by Picard, suddenly the Synth ban was lifted and that was it.
Hopefully season 2 will be a much stronger season but season one was a half baked mess by the time it ended. I have no real desire to watch it again although I rewatched Nepenthe a week ago, but so much potential felt wasted.
Ooof. Man, that has to sting – getting everything you’d asked for on paper, but delivered as a steaming grey mess.
I think the producers mentioned (in interviews) that the synths used on Mars were much more primitive than someone like Data. So they were basically robots (although in human form) with a speech interface, but not sentient beings. Imagine putting Alexa or the Google Assistant or Siri into a robot body. As far as I remember, that didn’t really become clear from what we saw on the show, though.
I’d be surprised if they’re able to sell no fewer than 100,000 copies of this incoherent mess to third party customers.
You seem to think you just insulted the show. However, by saying “no fewer than,” you actually did just the opposite.
Maybe it’s habit or conditioning……I can watch TOS or TNG episodes over and over again. When it comes to Picard, I labored through it ONCE, with high hopes, but would never be tempted to watch it a second time.
Same here. I can’t imagine watching Picard or Discovery season 1 ever again. Even Discovery season 2 seems like a chore. Very optimistic about Strange New Worlds.
Don’t hold your breath on Strange New Worlds.
Of all the shows Kurtzman/Goldsman produced, SNW appears set to be the most conventionally Trek. I’m not very enthused about that at all.
Didn’t you just recently call Strange New Worlds the best thing to happen to Trek in a long time? What changed your mind?
LOL Faze Ninja, you said a month ago SNW was already the best Star Trek show on even though they haven’t shot an episode yet. Now you’re saying you don’t think it’s going to be that great now?
Dude why do you CONSTANTLY do this stuff??? It’s just so odd.
Woah, Ninja.
It sounds as though your optimism has taken a hit. You’ve been looking forward to SNW up to now.
I’m not watching Picard season one ever again.
Hmmmm, Faze. It seems a lot of us feel the same way.
self deleted comment
It’s like Amazon reviews. Many people rate the show/movie instead of the quality of the presentation. The only exception is when you sometimes get a release with really bad picture or audio quality.
Absosmurfly agreed, Diginon. Any chance to run the show down. But make fun of that cartoon show and you’re dead meat in these parts.
To be fair, Ninja didn’t trash Picard. He only said that he wouldn’t watch it again.
There seem to be loyal (sometimes to the point of coming off aggressively) fans of all Trek shows here. So you’re likely to offend somebody no matter which show you run down.
Yet. Give him 10 minutes.
I can’t imagine watching any of Kurtzman-Trek again in its entirety. The only two episodes I may ever consider sitting through are New Eden and Nepenthe, but only if they were free on some future streaming site. And if not, no biggie.
Interesting. I hated New Eden. It reminded me of a lesser Stargate episode. But maybe I missed something.
I felt that most of the interesting parts about the community on of New Eden was left in the cutting room. It seemed more of the promise of a classic Trek “go see a planet” episode than it delivered.
Knowing as we do now however that there was a lot of turmoil in the writers room over this episode (20+ changes to the symbolic church window during preproduction), it’s just as well that they left the details about New Eden murky.
I’m convinced that Terralysium has a significant roe in S3 of Discovery.
I’m not as hard on the new Trek shows as you and others (and I am really enjoying LDS) but it is funny how I can happily watch all the classic Trek shows over and over again decades later but just thinking of wanting to rewatch DIS or PIC almost feel like a chore. To be fair about PIC, I basically watched the season twice since I rewatched literally every episode twice the week they aired with the exception of the finale. I was so disappointed with that I only watched it when it originally aired.
I have decided I’m going to rewatch both seasons of DIS to prepare for season 3. And I’m going to do it in a week after LDS is done. I REALLY want to like this show and I been saying for literally years now I would rewatch season one, but keep backing out. But I’m going to finally go for it, but if I’m not really enjoying it, then I’m not going to force myself to keep going; especially since season one of DIS is my worst season of any Star Trek. I really disliked most of it that much. Maybe the rewatch will change that though.
I rewatched the first three episodes of Disco and it was a lot better than I remember, but I have no plans to rewatch Picard. I still gotta get thru S2 of Disco and it also isn’t something you could say I’m “looking forward to.” There’s just no time to watch mediocrity in this day and age.
I’m watching the “edited for broadcast” version of Discovery S1 showing on CBS with one of our kids.
It’s playing quite well. The shortened version seems to have been well edited.
So you’re one of the few people actually watching Discovery on CBS ;-)
The funny thing is I’m taping season one of Discovery on CBS now. Why, I don’t know lol, just am. BUT I have rewatched the first two episodes from it now as well (although I have AA, yeah IDK why). I have not watched either episode since they first aired and I would say they are slightly better than I remembered them. Still nothing amazing but enjoyable and sets things up fine. There wasn’t really a lot of story going on, but I did forget about a lot of the scenes with Michael and Sarek. Those were cool. I did enjoy them when they first aired, I was just never blown away either, especially for a premiere episode.
But since I decided to try and rewach both seasons before season 3 starts, obviously I can’t wait for the reruns on CBS and will just watch the rest on AA…or until I lose interest. Whichever comes first. ;)
I actually agree albatrosity. I rewatched the first two this week and they were a little better than I remembered as well. I plan to watch episode 3 and 4 today.
Its been so long since I seen most of season one, I only watched maybe 5 or 6 episodes more than once. I remember being excited for every episode at the time but after watching them, few made me want to see them again. Some NEVER again lol. But I’m going to give it a fair shot but as said if I’m not feeling it, I’m not going to force myself to watch it. I’ve already seen them all anyway, so yeah.
I’m thinking that some of the interminable Klingon scenes were crunched in the editing for broadcast.
Ah, well if true, that was definitely the right decision to go in. ;)
Yeah the Klingon stuff still bore me tears with all the stilted dialogue and man they still look too weird for me. I’m glad they made them look a bit more normal in season 2. And LDS they look like the classic Klingons again which was another HUGE plus for that show!
Same, it was truly awful. The improvements they have to make across the board from acting to story to canon is potentially insurmountable.
“It looks beautiful”? Really?
Can we say it’s eye-popping?
;)
We certainly could if we were discussing a different show, but there’s little about PICARD that is eye-popping, other than a character’s actual eye.
Ha. I’m curious as to how much leeway Frakes had with that scene.
I would say little to none. Remember, even Stewart couldn’t stop the swearing even though its one of the few things he was opposed to and it is not as consequential as the “eye-popping scene”.
Back to Frakes, the vast difference between First Contact and Insurrection shows even Trek movie directors’ hands are tied to the bigger TPTB, but a TV director traditionally has very little lee way. So I don’t blame Frakes for having to go through with this travesty – he still wants to be employed after all – but I do blame him for not offering any sort of measured criticism or mea culpa instead acting as if this was a normal episode and not season one’s most hated one by fans by far.
I was reflecting… was the depth of the Picard/Data relationship completely manufactured for the TNG movies? Picard Season 1 is about this desperation to deal with the legacy of Data… and to ultimately “euthanize his iCloud backup” (?) despite already dying in Nemesis.
Data’s relationship for 7 years was with GEORDI. Not Picard. In fact, Data was a borderline hindrance for Picard for those 7 years of TNG .
Every 5th episode he is losing his memory on the ship or on a planet… trying to take over the ship… dealing with Lore’s B.S…. etc.
Then when the TNG movies hit… specifically First Contact, all of a sudden since Brent Spiner & Patrick Stewart were the headline stars…. annnnnnd all of a sudden the characters are virtually father & son???
(and even in those movies, Data is STILL going rogue).
Hell… in the series finale of TNG… Picard isn’t even in regular touch with Data 20 years later… who is a professor at a University.
Nemesis starts off with Picard mockingly telling Data to shut his face in front of an entire wedding party.
So this simulated death of Data in “the cloud” this year, although undeniably nostalgically and depressingly touching…. you have to be careful not to give it too much thought or it really doesn’t make a tremendous amount of sense. Yes? No?
Their relationship certainly seemed to change in the course of the films. And I liked that Picard carried on that trajectory.
Whatever struggles the plot of Picard had its first season, I deeply appreciate the overall story for this character. While it continues to explore the depth of care for data, it’s often done through the lens of regret that he did not express this care more during Data’s life, something that he intentionally kept to himself for years due to his command position. At its core, Picard is a deeply existential story, and one I think succeeds in spite of all the plot clunkyness in other areas
Hard disagree. In addition to what Michael said about Picard regretting not being more expressive, Picard saw value in Data consistently in the series. Hence why “the Measure of a Man” was such a pivotal part of the plot in PICARD. No matter what their relationship was as the series went on, actively defending Data’s right to exist is a bonding moment that would cement their relationship forever. It’s a major element.
Did we watch the same show?
Out of 178 episodes, Lore was in four (“Datalore”, “Brothers”, and “Descent 1 and 2”). Data lost his memory in two (“Thine Own Self” and “Conundrum”, the second of which everyone else lost their memories as well) and he took over the ship once (“Brothers”.)
Picard acted as a mentor/father figure to Data many times, most notably in “Peak Performance” and “The Offspring”. We saw several other lesser scenes which implied this as well, the Richard V opening of “The Defector”, for example.
Every 5th episode is sarcasm that I see is being missed? But the episodes you quote are enough to support my thesis. Also… Offspring… right off the bat Picard is completely agitated that one of his bridge crew went off an invented a daughter android. He didn’t seem too thrilled to have to fight off yet another Admiral.
Data was a pain in the bum.
No, that’s not really sarcasm. Maybe you meant a different word? It looks to me very much like wild exaggeration, as was the bulk of your post on this subject. For example your claim that only in the movies did it become The Picard and Data Show, when really these two established themselves as by far the most popular characters on TNG from nearly the beginning. Worf was a distant third, the rest of the cast was forgettable (two were written out, and a third was written out but later returned.) Of course the movies were going to focus on Picard and Data.
I think that a big challenge for the audience is that this was a growing, evolving and deepening relationship, but that we saw little of the critical period just before Nemesis.
Picard had such respect for Data that he chose him to be First Officer. Likely, there was some resistance in Starfleet to that promotion. We saw the friendship with Riker as Picard’s first officer, but we didn’t get to see that with Data.
So, I won’t agree with not there or not earned, just that the movies didn’t adequately give us insight into that. Blame Nemesis.
I disagree, Picard was a father figure, so less hands on and visible than his friend Geordi. This was demonstrated countless times.
High production quality? Copy and paste ships? And that deleted scene, thank god. I thought there wasn’t money any more, let alone back breaking manual labour in a vineyard!
Don’t forget using Discovery ships that are ~137 years old because you don’t want to use too much of the correct aesthetic.
My only gripe about the Season 1 Blu-ray release is that there weren’t more audio commentaries. Having said that, and having seen what was involved in creating the one commentary that IS on the set, however, I see why. Just wish there had been more…. especially “Nepenthe” with Frakes, Marina, and Patrick!
Had Seven not shown up I would not have watched the whole season.
Star Trek does not work in serialised form, especially when tptb cannot clearly produce a coherent story.
It is the only Star Trek show I have never rewatched as It is not really Star Trek, takes its self far too seriously and takes a whole season to hit a reset switch.
Tng/ds9/Voy could have fit Picard season one into a two parter
Yeah Seven really did make the show for me too. Especially when she showed up in the second half which wasn’t nearly as strong as the first half with the exception of Nepenthe, but her presence made it more bearable at least.
I don’t know if I agree Star Trek doesn’t work in serialized form since DS9 became a much better show once that show became serialized and really loved how it was done in third season of Enterprise too although it probably went a bit too long. And yes those shows still had tons of standalone episodes in those seasons too.
I think in the new shows case, the writing just hasn’t been as strong as those other two shows in general. And probably because they do have a lot less episodes to work with, they seem to have problems pacing the story right. When you have 26 episodes a season, you have tons of room to make the story as big or small as you like. When you only have 10 episodes like Picard did, then yeah every episode has to count and they have to find a balance on how much story to give every episode. And yes also both shows are just new so everything is being learned from scratch where as DS9 and ENT had a few seasons under their belt to work out the kinks. Hopefully that will happen with the new shows too.
I don’t think that it’s just the short serialized season Tiger2.
We were reflecting on Braga’s comment that TNG and TOs are in their own way anthology shows with lots of different kinds of stories anchored by the crew. You called that the “what’s happening with the family” each week approach on another thread.
I’m increasingly convinced that one of the barriers to a coherent novel-like season on the serials is the tension of different visions in the writers room about what each Trek show is and how to mix it together. Horror, character study, action, classic trippy sci-fi can be worked out more easily when it’s not supposed to be a single story.
No, not completely obviously.
Buuuut, I’m sure you will remember season two of Discovery was only suppose to be 13 episodes. But the producers themselves admitted, there was so much story they still had to plot out and conclude in a satisfying way they literally had to ask CBS for an additional episode. That really says its all.
Every season so far of each show has just felt badly paced. Some areas of it just felt super rushed where other areas like Picard felt like more needed to be going on in a lot of the season just to get to the last episode and still felt super rushed.
I’m sure the LAST thing anyone was asking in the 90s shows was for additional episodes lol. I’m certain most would’ve loved to have less episodes to fill every season.
But don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying a shorter season itself is the issue because PLENTY of shows today have basically 10-13 episodes a season now and manage to use that time brilliantly. There are tons of shows out there that are well paced, extremely well written and everything (or most things) are satisfactorily concluded by the final episode. It’s just sadly none of these shows have been. So I think it’s more about this producing team themselves than the amount of episodes they have. I was only making the point with DS9 they didn’t have to worry about how many episodes to tell whatever story they want because they had plenty to play around with.
And I also agree part of the disadvantage of these novel like seasons is that it’s hard to just have variety like old Star Trek. You can’t have a monster episode one week, a court room drama the next, go back in time the week after that and so on when you have one single story and can’t stray too far from what the parameters of that story is.
In fact I thought about this the other day and Picard was probably the most grounded show Star Trek has ever done in a season. When you think about it, it was pretty straight forward. There was no crazy or weird stuff happening at all. No anomalies, jumping to another universe, time paradoxes, confronting weird creepy aliens, none of that. TNG did stuff like that every season like most shows. But Picard it was pretty standard fare in the world of Star Trek at least. And yes that’s because they had one story and ten episodes and they just didn’t have the time or veer off in other ways like Star Trek of old.
This is really the biggest issues with these types of serialized stories. THAT said, Discovery did some cool interesting things in season 2, but it also had more episodes to play with too.
We have a teen who stopped watching after Stardust City Rag because they were upset by the graphic torture in the episode and worried that Seven might be killed off.
Still haven’t got them to see the rest of the season.
I’m so getting this. Not as good as Discovery but I love the look into Picard we rarely even touched on in TNG, the emotional being.
Also loved how the Federation finally feels like a real place, makes me more excited to get there some day, it’s not perfection, but it’s far better than now.
love the show… the best first season of any trek series sans the original… didn’t mind the AI thing as it worked as it related to the romulans and grand conspiracy … i loved so much about the show but the ending happens too quick for me… wraps kind of easily as do many tng eps so maybe it’s proper… idk… but such a great show with so many fun nooks and crannies to enjoy… what is concern over the fleeting rights to streaming media? i know fans get upset a lot but what is that? can someone explain?
Just gotta say I think the comments on this board about sum up the dominant audience reaction to Picard. It’s not something I’ll be paying for any more than I already have. It’s funny I’ve subscribed to CBSAA for 3 years, and I’ve spent probably about ~30 hours on the platform that entire time. They got me good.
Do you mean you paid for three years in advance? If not, it’s not CBSAA’s “fault” that you have stayed subscribed for so long even though you rarely watch stuff on their platform.
When can i buy season 1 digitally? i don’t buy physical releases anymore.
I don’t think CBS is doing that unfortunately.
I think there’s just a hecking long delay on it. You can buy S1 of Discovery digitally on Amazon right now, for example, but none of the other streaming Trek shows. Could be CBS considers digital purchases the very lowest tier of the money ladder at this point, but still worth getting around to eventually.
Are they redoing the end of the season? If not then it’s all irrelevant.
Then they would have to redo episode 9, and 8 and 7, and 6, 5 and 4, and 3 thru 1 too. As Sam said above, almost everything in the show is irrelevant to the actual story, if you can call it that
I hate to, but I have to agree. The whole season was garbage in just about every measurable way.
Not going into the pros and cons of season 1, (not great, but nice to have some kind of Star Trek TNG). When is this going to get a Region B release. Its not great that a premium show like Picard only gets a Region A (1) release. I’m afraid Paramount/CBS really need to take a look at the people they’ve put in charge of the franchise, the standard (and amount) of “merch” is really dropping.
It was nothing like TNG sorry. The times it was were small and superficial.
Threatening to sack someone is not the Picard who pulled that, “He will have our gratitude” line on Gowron’s flunky. Here’s a possiblity:
“Look, don’t confuse them with Vulcans just because they’re stoic and have pointed ears. Pull that stunt again and…well, let me just point out that they’re both former Tal Shiar. Annoy them too much, and they can kill you forty ways to Sunday and make it look like a horrible grape-harvesting accident.”
Thank you for the review, curious is 4k no longer a thing? Dissapointed the non JJ treks aren’t get the 4k treatment but new releases are now being overlooked on the format. No sale
I think a lot of TV productions simply aren’t made in 4K to save money. So if they sold a 4K disc it would only be an upscaled version of the lower resolution master. Also, physical media sales have been in decline for years so I’m guessing the return on investment of creating a 4K version is simply not promising enough. Some studios don’t even release normal blu-rays of their shows anymore.
The rewatchability is low with this one, I fear. I have all of the TNG (including the movies) on bluray, but I think I will give this a pass.
I’ve felt like Picard had the plot of a 20-22 episode show condensed into a 10 episode show. This is why it feels like there is an introduction and a middle act but not any form of conclusion. This is why it is rightly very disjointed, especially towards the end. What I don’t get is if 10 episodes weren’t enough for them to tell this story why didn’t they ask for more? The same problem happened with the last two seasons of Game of Thrones as well. Those seasons obviously needed another 3-4 episodes to at least make sense of Deanerys’s heel turn.
If that were true then you’d expect the shorter season to be overflowing with plot and interest.. But the opposite is true, it mostly feels like filler.
This Blu-Ray set is a hard pass. Picard was a hot mess that was tough to get through once, I’ve got zero desire to see it again.
This is incomprehensible that they’ve neglected to include the extended scenes from Nepenthe with Hugh and Narissa. #BringBackHugh
I hate to say this but Picard season 1 was so poor I don’t think I’ll ever watch it again. It was so bad it was depressing.
Agreed, ser! I enjoyed the bits with Riker, Troi and Seven, but otherwise……meh.
Are CBS blu rays still region free?