‘Picard’ Off To a Good Start Thanks to Patrick Stewart

‘Cutting the Cord’ By Mark Randall

Patrick Stewart is one of those actors that most people could listen to him read the phone book and be mesmerized by his charisma and acting ability.

That’s why it is a shear joy to see him back in his most famous role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the new ‘Star Trek: Picard’ television series on CBS All Access.

Stewart created what could arguably be the best captain of the Starship Enterprise during his run on ‘Star Trek:The Next Generation’, which ran from 1987 to 1994 and continued on the big screen in four movies.

If you are a fan of ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’, the arrival of a new series featuring the further adventures of Jean-Luc Picard is definitely something to smile about.

Although I have only seen the first episode, which is free to view on You Tube, ‘Star Trek: Picard’ will feature 10 episodes and has already been renewed for a second season.

But here’s the rub.

While Stewart is back as Picard, don’t expect it to be a reboot of ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ with Picard barking orders to a new crew as they chase down Klingons or other threats to the Federation. Based on the previews, there will a few Next Gen characters making an appearance, but Star Trek Picard is already setting up its own original storyline.

This is a Picard who is long since retired from Star Fleet.

When last we saw Captain Picard, he was mourning the loss of his friend Lt. Commander Data, the android who sacrificed his life to save the day at the end of the ‘Star Trek: Nemesis’ film in 2002. ‘Star Trek: Picard’ opens with Jean-Luc now retired and living on his family’s vineyard. Picard though, is far from content in retirement. He takes some pleasure in looking over the vineyard fields accompanied by his pit bull terrier named – what else? ‘Number One,’ but this Picard is now older and frailer than he was two decades ago.

A backstory establishes that Picard resigned from the Federation in protest after a mission to save Romulan refugees went horribly wrong and led to a ban on all synthetic lifeforms. Picard in retirement is now haunted in his dreams by the loss of Data, played by Brent Spiner ,who makes a wonderful cameo playing poker with Picard, just like the old days on ‘Next Generation.’ Picard’s life is interrupted by the arrival of Dahj, who we discover may be Data’s daughter. Dahj is being hunted by a team of Romulan assassins and Picard is ultimately unable to save her life.

But it leads him on a quest to discover why she was being hunted and whether it is possible that Data’s memories still survive. Fans will recall that Data downloaded the engrams of his neural net to look-alike android B4 prior to sacrificing himself at the end of ‘Nemesis.’ B4, though, has been disassembled because of the ban on synthetic lifeforms.

Based on the previews, it looks as though the opening episodes of Picard are setting the stage for Jean-Luc to once again take command of a ship and go off in search of answers. Look for Jeri Ryan to make an appearance in a future episode as the Borg, Seven of Nine, as well as Jonathan Frakes as Commander William Riker.

‘Star Trek: Picard’ is worth watching just to see Patrick Stewart back in action. He’s looking a lot older – dare I say even elderly? – and his voice is a lot thinner, but he is as delightful as ever to watch. I’m glad to see the show staying with the continuity of previously established storylines, but that may be confusing to viewers who haven’t watched ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ or the movies. It would help to stream ‘Star Trek: Nemesis’ so you can see what happens to Data.

There are also some plot threads drawn from a couple of episodes from ‘Next Generation’ as well, most notably 1991’s two-parter ‘Unification’ which establishes that Spock from the original ‘Star Trek’ series was on Romulus trying to reunite the Romulan people with the people of Vulcan, as well as in the J.J. Abrams 2009 big screen reboot. Also, ‘Picard’ revives questions raised from the 1989 Next Gen episode ‘The Measure of a Man” which dealt with the issue of whether artificial intelligence being like Data have rights.

While it can be a little confusing, don’t let that stop you though from tuning in to ‘Picard.’ The premiere episode has set up what promises to be an interesting premise. All I can say is, “engage” and sit back and enjoy the ride.