Star Trek: Picard - Season One - CBS All Access - starring Patrick Stewart (1 Viewer)

[Sam Favate]

EW is unreadable. Seriously, I went to their site and it is full of video ads that follow you. I couldn’t read it. I gave up.

BTW, their print version is now monthly even though it’s called Entertainment Weekly, and I haven’t gotten one since late November. No word in response when I tried to contact them. It’s dying.

 

[Josh Dial]

I am particularly interested in hearing from the other Joshes

I can tell you that it's becoming increasingly difficult to focus at work It's another five hours before it airs here in Canada.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I didn’t realize it was going to be on at 3am until I saw something very late yesterday afternoon and all of a sudden time slowed to an absolute crawl. On Tuesday, my wife had asked me to wait to watch the premiere with her, which meant not until much later today. When she saw that it was coming out at 3am and saw the look on my face and how many years, how many decades I had waited for a show like this, she gave me the free pass to go ahead and stay up and watch it on my own.

She went to bed at midnight last night and midnight to 3am freaking crawled. I killed time watching TNG bonus features I hadn’t gotten to yet - the hour-long composers conversation from the season five yet was fascinating and really helped on that front. But I felt every minute in a way I hadn’t for a long, long time.

To have that much anticipation and not feel let down after is really a tremendous win for the show in my book. I’m so excited for this to continue and also glad it’s coming out one a week, because I would not have the self control to make a Netflix-style dump of episodes last more than a day. And this is something I want to live with and enjoy for as long as possible.

 

[Chris Will]

I caved and resubscribed after receiving a "come back and get 1 month free" offer via email a few days ago. I was going to waiting until after the season and binge it all in a month. Will be watching episode 1 tonight!

 

[Sam Favate]

I have some questions for those who’ve seen it.

Spoiler

Will we see Maddox? Any chance he’s the big bad of the season? Brophy hasn’t been announced, and his IMDb page doesn’t show anything in 5 years.

Picard will obviously try to reach Dahj’s sister. Any chance she had her sister killed? She is working with the Romulans.

Could the season end with Dahj’s sister or Maddox transferring Data’s memories back to the B4 body?

Going to be hard to wait a week, but I am glad they’re doing it this way.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Spoiler

This is a much slower paced show than what your spoiler post is suggesting. I’m not saying that what you’ve written couldn’t happen, but there is not much in the first episode to indicate that those outcomes would be inevitable conclusions. We only hear Maddox’s name mentioned; we neither meet him nor see any visual or audio representations of him in the first episode.

 

[Jeff Flugel]

Lots of questions left after this first episode, but my main takeaway is just how great it is to have Jean-Luc Picard back in action on our screens. No surprise, but Patrick Stewart is on top form. Can't wait to see where this goes...

 

[Chris Will]

So, when did the CBS All Access app get updated to support Dolby Vision?

I’m using an Apple TV and noticed that both seasons of Discovery and episode 1 of Picard are now in Dolby Vision. I’m pretty sure when I originally watched Discovery season 2 last January it was not in DV.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

For the first time in almost 20 years, I actually am excited to see the next episode of a Star Trek series.

Feels good.

My one question is... did Romulus have an Ireland?

 

[Tino]

So, when did the CBS All Access app get updated to support Dolby Vision?

It didn’t. At least not on my ATV 4K. Just checked.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

I have'nt seen enough of Picard to make a judgement. What I saw was'nt the Trainwreck it could be. The original TNG Pilot was 90 min and this should have been also. What I like the Jeff Ruso music and titles, I like Discovery's and he's good here as well. Patrick Stewart was quite good. I don't like where they deposted picard it feels all wrong for the character, he resolved his need for home in the series and movies. I don't like the darkening of the Federation we are divisive enough in the real world i don't want that in my starfleet. have to see at least 4 episodes to make an overall opinion, like discovery this thing has gone thru showrunner like down thru a duck, so from what i hear it shifts tone as the powers that be fight on direction, this 1st episode gives me a firefly vibe we'll see after 4 if it still does

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Yep, that EW review is total garbage-clickbait.

i don't agree with that EW piece but he doe make a few valid points

 

[Neil Middlemiss]

Now THAT was some bloody good television!

 

[Jeff Flugel]

My one question is... did Romulus have an Ireland?

Heh. I was thinking the same thing.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

This show finally got me to subscribe to CBS All Access, even though I hate these boutique streaming services with only a few original shows.

It’s probably a valid simile to say that this feels like to TNG what the Twin Peaks revival was to the original. Anyone expecting more Rick Berman-esque 90s Trek will probably be disappointed. But if you’re open to something that honors TNG by taking its history seriously without being reverent to the trappings of its original production time period, there’s so much to love here.

That's an interesting comparison. The thing that struck me is how cinematic this show is, compared to everything else TNG with the exception of First Contact. Both stylistically and in terms of story construction, the first episode felt more like the first act of a motion picture than an episode of television.

Patrick Stewart is Picard here. Not Professor X, not the humorous Stewart of social media and self-spoofing, but Picard. He’s able to instantly convey that he’s still our guy but that so much has changed for him and around him.

This is the show's greatest achievement. Jean-Luc Picard is an iconic character, and the first episode got that character exactly right. Watching it, I got the same feeling I had watching Harrison Ford as Han Solo in The Force Awakens: Somehow, they caught lightning in a bottle all over again.

A huge part of that is Stewart's performance, but it's also about the writing understanding the character to support that performance.

It's even more of an achievement because the circumstances of the Federation in 2399 is drastically different than Gene Roddenberry's utopian vision of 2364 for "Encounter at Farpoint" -- just as 2020 is drastically different than 1987. We're presented with a Federation in the aftermath of a great test -- a massive humanitarian effort interrupted by an unimaginably calamitous planetwide atrocity on Mars -- that it failed. And the consequence of that failure is a more pessimistic and insular Federation. If the Federation of TNG was the United States after World War II, the Federation of "Picard" is the United States after Vietnam.

But into those drastically different circumstances is Jean-Luc Picard, who is exactly who we remembered him to be -- exactly who we'd hoped he would be.

Also, Isa Briones is tremendously good in this.

Considering what she's revealed to be, I thought her choices were really interesting.

EW is not a fan of the first episodes:

Can Star Trek: Picard recover from its bafflingly bad premiere?
https://ew.com/tv-reviews/2020/01/23/star-trek-picard-review/

I think part of the issue is that recent television had trained TV reviewers to have very different expectations than they would have had when TNG, DS9, and VOY were on the air.

If you're accustomed to Ryan Murphy's very melodramatic, very jam packed style of television, and you come into this with those expectations, you're going to be disappointed. This show is a character study. The plot and mysteries that drive it exist to illuminate character.

BTW, their print version is now monthly even though it’s called Entertainment Weekly, and I haven’t gotten one since late November. No word in response when I tried to contact them. It’s dying.

I'm probably not going to renew my subscription when it expires, but the one thing I'll say about the monthly issues is that they're closer to the glory days of the magazine in terms of the amount of content. The last few years, the weekly issues were pretty skimpy.

So, when did the CBS All Access app get updated to support Dolby Vision?

The first thing that struck me watching this was how bad the sound was. I had to really crank it up to hear the dialog, in a way I don't have to for my other streaming services. Not sure if it's a problem with the mix, or how the CBS All Access app downmixes the audio to my Roku Ultra.

What I like the Jeff Ruso music and titles, I like Discovery's and he's good here as well.

I was really impressed with the music here -- especially the credits sequence music. On "Discovery" the credits music veers sharply from the original composition to the Alexander Courage theme.

Every now and again, the music would reference the TNG music but unlike "Discovery" it all felt like a cohesive whole, speaking to this story.

like discovery this thing has gone thru showrunner like down thru a duck, so from what i hear it shifts tone as the powers that be fight on direction, this 1st episode gives me a firefly vibe we'll see after 4 if it still does

This hasn't had the turnover that "Discovery" has had. Alex Kurtzman got it off the ground, and then handed over the reins to Michael Chabon for the remainder of the season. Heading into the second season, Chabon will be splitting his team between "Picard" and the Showtime limited series adaptation of his novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, so it makes sense to have Terry Matalas take a more hands on role.

 

[Chris Will]

It didn’t. At least not on my ATV 4K. Just checked.

Well, it has on my ATV 4K.

I was mistaken though. None of Discovery season 1 is in DV and only a some of season 2 episodes are in DV (1, 2, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11 & 13). The first episode of Picard is as well:



My app version is 3.16.51 and it recently updated (can’t give exact date b/c the Apple TV doesn’t list dates for updates).

 

[Dave Scarpa]

This show finally got me to subscribe to CBS All Access, even though I hate these boutique streaming services with only a few original shows.


That's an interesting comparison. The thing that struck me is how cinematic this show is, compared to everything else TNG with the exception of First Contact. Both stylistically and in terms of story construction, the first episode felt more like the first act of a motion picture than an episode of television.


This is the show's greatest achievement. Jean-Luc Picard is an iconic character, and the first episode got that character exactly right. Watching it, I got the same feeling I had watching Harrison Ford as Han Solo in The Force Awakens: Somehow, they caught lightning in a bottle all over again.

A huge part of that is Stewart's performance, but it's also about the writing understanding the character to support that performance.

It's even more of an achievement because the circumstances of the Federation in 2399 is drastically different than Gene Roddenberry's utopian vision of 2364 for "Encounter at Farpoint" -- just as 2020 is drastically different than 1987. We're presented with a Federation in the aftermath of a great test -- a massive humanitarian effort interrupted by an unimaginably calamitous planetwide atrocity on Mars -- that it failed. And the consequence of that failure is a more pessimistic and insular Federation. If the Federation of TNG was the United States after World War II, the Federation of "Picard" is the United States after Vietnam.

But into those drastically different circumstances is Jean-Luc Picard, who is exactly who we remembered him to be -- exactly who we'd hoped he would be.


Considering what she's revealed to be, I thought her choices were really interesting.


I think part of the issue is that recent television had trained TV reviewers to have very different expectations than they would have had when TNG, DS9, and VOY were on the air.

If you're accustomed to Ryan Murphy's very melodramatic, very jam packed style of television, and you come into this with those expectations, you're going to be disappointed. This show is a character study. The plot and mysteries that drive it exist to illuminate character.


I'm probably not going to renew my subscription when it expires, but the one thing I'll say about the monthly issues is that they're closer to the glory days of the magazine in terms of the amount of content. The last few years, the weekly issues were pretty skimpy.


The first thing that struck me watching this was how bad the sound was. I had to really crank it up to hear the dialog, in a way I don't have to for my other streaming services. Not sure if it's a problem with the mix, or how the CBS All Access app downmixes the audio to my Roku Ultra.


I was really impressed with the music here -- especially the credits sequence music. On "Discovery" the credits music veers sharply from the original composition to the Alexander Courage theme.

Every now and again, the music would reference the TNG music but unlike "Discovery" it all felt like a cohesive whole, speaking to this story.


This hasn't had the turnover that "Discovery" has had. Alex Kurtzman got it off the ground, and then handed over the reins to Michael Chabon for the remainder of the season. Heading into the second season, Chabon will be splitting his team between "Picard" and the Showtime limited series adaptation of his novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, so it makes sense to have Terry Matalas take a more hands on role.

Chabon is gone he is off it

 

[Sean Bryan]

I thought this was excellent.

The first scene was like going home.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Chabon is gone he is off it

That’s not correct.

Michael Chabon was the season 1 showrunner in addition to his regular producing responsibilities. Work on season 1 is complete. Going forward, Chabon will be splitting his time between future Picard seasons and the Showtime (same ownership as CBS) adaptation of his novel. The novel was his Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece, so it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to make sure his baby is done right. Therefore, he will relinquish his showrunner role on Picard for Season 2 while remaining involved as a producer. This is a common thing that happens in television, and not a reflection of Chabon’s performance or anything else. Rather, it is a vote of confidence in Chabon’s abilities and an example of corporate siblings playing nicely with each other.

 

[Tino]

Well, it has on my ATV 4K.

I was mistaken though. None of Discovery season 1 is in DV and only a some of season 2 episodes are in DV (1, 2, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11 & 13). The first episode of Picard is as well:



My app version is 3.16.51 and it recently updated (can’t give exact date b/c the Apple TV doesn’t list dates for updates).

Hmm. My ATV 4K says it’s up to date with version 13.3.1