When I heard about a new Star Trek series being made featuring Captain Picard I was dubious to say the least. I wondered how this series would fit in with all the other new Trek being churned out. Discovery was a mess when it started and only redeemed itself in the last few episodes of the second season where all the anomalies and everything else that was wrong with it was explained and tied in with the canon they said they were going to follow. Would Picard make the same mistakes? How would Picard the character handle being the central character in an action series considering his age? Then the trailer hit and I was intrigued, it deserved a watch at least to see how this would work.

Last week the first episode dropped and I thought, ‘here we are, let’s give this the benefit of the doubt and see where it takes us’. I sat down in front of the tv with no expectations trying to keep an open mind. I wasn’t expecting great things but if they at least kept with the tone of the Next Gen series then I thought it might be bearable.

I was hooked after the opening scene. The visuals were stunning, the action set pieces were what we’ve come to expect from modern cinema, and I say cinema deliberately because this episode had the grand feeling of a cinematic production, and the best of all, it kept to the ethos of what Star Trek was about. It was about the characters and the human condition and how that condition copes with developments in the future. Moreover it remained true to those characters from the Next Gen series and didn’t try anything new, or a reboot, it was a definitive follow on from where the last movie left off, which to be honest, I didn’t think they could pull off. At least not without tinkering with the story or characters. They did though and they gave us something of pure joy, a Trek adventure we can all celebrate and if the rest of the series keeps to this standard then it will be something special.

Personally speaking, after all the miss fires with the new timeline movies and the debacle that Discovery was at the start, this Trek is the Trek I have been waiting for.

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