Overview

The new show takes place after the movies and the end of the Next Generation timeline. There has been what appeared to be an AI uprising and a catastrophic attack that led the Federation to ban all cybernetic organisms (like Data or more inferior copies) and to withdraw from helping the Romulans as their planetary system collapsed. Picard fought for both communities and lost, and he resigned from Starfleet. Now he sits in his vineyard estate and watches his body and mind slowly stagnate.

The first episode sets up the premise of the show with a bang. A young couple is hanging out, getting to know each other in an apartment, and suddenly shock troopers enter the room, kill the boy, and are targeting the girl. She goes into super combat mode, takes them out, escapes, and while she doesn’t know how she did any of it, she knows she has to find a man she has never met — Jean-Luc Picard. It doesn’t take long for them to figure out she’s actually an advanced android, a synthetic human, based on the neural pathways that Data had before he died. Making her basically Data’s daughter. One of two “twins”. She’s killed and Picard goes in search of the second daughter, Soji, before someone kills her.

Episodes That I Liked

Episodes 4 and 6 were pretty cool, with a warrior caste of nuns and some battles, plus Jean-Luc visiting a Borg cube to visit Hugh and the Romulan reclamation project. Can anyone say PTSD? I rated both episodes 5/5.

There are another 5 episodes that I gave a 4/5 rating to…Episode 2 where you learn about the reclamation project and Soji (with a great health and safety sign on the cube that says it has been 5843 days without an assimilation); EP 3 where they’re getting ready for the voyage and putting a team together; EP 5 where they meet up with Bruce Maddox again; EP 8 where they meet Noonian’s descendant; and the season finale, EP 10, with potential space battles, cubes, and androids galore.

Episodes That Were Watchable

EP 7 is a giant fan favourite because it introduces you to Riker and Troi and gives you some of their history after the movies. It has not been sunshine and roses, but they have found a way to make it work. And EP 9, the first part of the finale, shows you the life the synthetics have built, so highly watchable.

Episodes That I Didn’t Like

I described EP 1 in the Overview above, and it SHOULD have been awesome with the shock troops and the new synthetic. Instead, it was actually pretty slow. And the super genius who supposedly built her? Bruce Maddox. The same one who tried to have Data declared a toaster in Season 1 of ST:TNG and whose proposals Data found “intriguing”, yet he’s the God of Cybernetics who built the twin daughters? Yeah, right. I would have accepted his children or his protegé being the creator, but Maddox? He was fun in Season 1 but a bit of a joke.

List of Episodes from Season 1

S01E01	Remembrance	Really? Maddox is the new Noonian? Doubtful	🐸🐸⚪⚪⚪
S01E02	Maps and Legends	Best line was the sign: This facility has gone 5843 days without an assimilation	🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪
S01E03	The End is the Beginning	Can we go already? Yes, fine. Engage.	🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪
S01E04	Absolute Candor	Warrior nuns are cool, but Picard owes somebody a ship	🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸
S01E05	Stardust City Rag	Hey, Bruce, good to see you again	🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪
S01E06	The Impossible Box	If you can’t go home again, you might as well revisit your last trip to hell	🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸
S01E07	Nepenthe	When you need a refuge, find two old friends and couch surf	🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪
S01E08	Broken Pieces	Good news, the cyberneticist won’t kill anyone else	🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪
S01E09	Et in Arcadia Ego Pt 1	Well, as synths go, it’s better than Lal and Lore	🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪
S01E10	Et in Arcadia Ego Pt 2	One impossible thing at a time, plus an obvious one	🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The Bottom Line

This is not your father’s next-generation show.