STAR TREK: PICARD (S1E1) “Remembrance”: An Intriguing First Move

When the credits rolled on 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis, it seemed like the end of the road for the TNG crew. Riker and Troi had moved on, Data gave his life to save his friends, while Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) was right back where he’d started—still Captain of the Enterprise, after all these years.

It was hardly a send-off worthy of such iconic characters, especially compared to the show’s excellent finale, “All Good Things…”, but that was all we had. B-4 sang Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies” as Picard went dutifully back to work, bringing about the end of an era with little more than a shrug and a whimper. That was until Stewart, before a crowd full of fans, announced his return to the career-defining role.

Nostalgic Reunions

It’s fitting then, that “Blue Skies” kicks off Star Trek: Picard, the latest in CBS’s continued expansion of the franchise, as we open on the Enterprise drifting through space in a woozy dream sequence. The camera takes us into Ten Forward to a poker game between Picard and Data (Brent Spiner), where they discuss, among other things, how an android might hope to deceive somebody. This idea of deception comes back into play later, when it’s revealed that ‘rogue synths’ attacked Mars in the wake of Romulus’ destruction, causing a ban on all synthetic life forms.

Data successfully tricks his old Captain into going all in, but before the game can end, Picard realizes something is wrong. He’s forced to relive the devastating attack, as Mars looms outside the ship, before being jolted back to reality at the Château Picard.

Elsewhere, we meet Dahj (the first of two characters played by Isa Briones), who’s celebrating her acceptance into the Daystrom Institue when a group of masked attackers kill her boyfriend and attempt to take her away. Before they can do that, however, her instincts take over, as she activates like a sleeper agent to make quick work of her assailants.

Visions of Picard flash before her eyes, taking us into a fairly mundane opening credit sequence. “Remembrance” makes quite an opening statement, dropping you into a world where danger lurks for our new characters and nostalgic reunions are (for now) only a thing of dreams for the old ones.

The rest of the hour takes things comparatively easy—introducing us to Picard’s new home life, where he tends to his vineyard with the help of Romulan servants (Orla Brady and Jamie McShane), giving us important backstory and a good old Picard speech in a botched TV interview. We explore why he left Starfleet and what would make him get back in the fight, in a way that feels appropriate and is nicely tied into the show’s core narrative.

It’s perhaps a little too plotty at times—Picard jumps from place to place, finding new information and having plot-relevant discussions, most notably with Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill), who reveals that Next Gen‘s Bruce Maddox went missing after the synth ban and may be responsible for the creation of Dahj and her sister Soji.

Reconnecting with Picard

My initial feeling was that I’d wished we spent more time at the vineyard, getting a sense of Picard’s daily routine and what his life on Earth has been like in all these years, but having gone back and watched the numerous trailers, it seems there’s plenty more of that yet to come.

As for what we do get of Jean-Luc here, well honestly, it’s just pretty damn great to see the guy again, isn’t it? Whether he’s speaking French to his dog or drinking (decaf) Earl Grey, Stewart is so at ease with the character that it’s such a joy to see him in this role again.

One of the standout scenes in “Remembrance” is just him sitting down with Dahj after taking her in—the type of quiet conversation we rarely see on the breakneck Discovery—where he greets her with warmth and listens to her predicament. Any doubts about how the character would be treated in the show just wash away, as we’re instantly reminded of his capacity for kindness and how he’d always strive to do the right thing.

After searching through his old personal effects, he discovers an old painting of Data’s, which just so happens to feature a woman who strongly resembles Dahj. It was here that I began to grimace at the prospect of a season-long mystery about who this woman was (especially so soon after, well, you know), but the fact that she and twin sister Soji are the daughters of Data (in a nod to fan-favorite episode “The Offspring) was a surprising, emotionally resonant turn of events. One that puts the episode’s multiple dream sequences in an interesting context and makes clever use of the franchise’s history.

But before the mystery is completely unraveled, Dahj’s attackers, revealed to be Romulans, are back on the hunt and this time they don’t miss their target. Picard watches on as she’s killed in grisly fashion, but her story is far from over. The last trick “Remembrance” has up its sleeve is the reveal that not only is Soji working at a Romulan Reclamation Site, but the base is also in the wreckage of a Borg cube (unfortunately revealed in the trailers). Now that’s a hell of an ending!

Conclusion

It’s at this point that you start to notice the fingerprints of the episode’s five credited writers, since Picard is noticeably juggling rather a lot of balls in its early stages. We have the established backstory involving Data and Romulus’ destruction, the rogue synths and subsequent outlawing of artificial lifeforms, a new form of android with ties to Maddox and the addition of the Borg.

These threads all seem rather disparate—with the episode itself straining to connect these dots where it can—and while the season of course still has nine more episodes to bring all this together, it’s hard not to notice how “Remembrance” introduces numerous spinning plates in ways that can feel just a tad clunky.

Otherwise, though, it’s an intriguing start—an episode that hooks you from the offset and reminds you how much you’ve missed the good Captain (or should I say Admiral?) and, more importantly, why you’ve missed him. Is it entirely clear what this show really is yet? Not exactly, but as table-setting first outings go, this one hits most of the right notes.

Star Trek: Picard airs on Wednesdays on CBS All Access.