Picard seeks support from Starfleet and realises that the world has moved on since his time in the Admiral’s chair. A visit to an old friend may help him focus on what to do next, but how welcome will he be?

There’s a lot of story going on in the second episode of Star Trek: Picard, which is an observation that I made about the opener and is doubly so here. As well as propelling the narrative forwards, we’re taking time to fill in some of the 20-year gap between Nemesis and now. That’s not to say it’s difficult to follow – you just need to give the show 100% of your attention.

At the end of the episode you realise that we still haven’t met some of the key cast members, and it’s to the writers’ credit that each new character enters the story at the right time, rather than the earliest opportunity. Already we’re becoming aware of the duplicity behind the scenes, with hidden agendas and double dealing still being rife on the cusp of the 25th Century. We’re privy to the Machiavellian machinations playing out in dark alleys and behind closed doors – but who is playing who?

Patrick Stewart continues to remind us how synonymous he is with Picard, never afraid to accept the limitations of his age, but with a real fire in his belly to right wrongs and understand what’s going on around him. Harry Treadaway’s Narek gets to flesh out Romulan Narek beyond last week’s coda, while Isa Briones gets to show us a different face to Dahj.

Verdict: Intelligent, enigmatic and compelling, if this episode suffers a little from exposition overload, let’s hope that it’s because we’re being loaded up with ammo to boldly take us into part three. 8/10

Nick Joy

If an example were needed of the way American television has changed in the years since Picard and friends hung up their uniforms, this series would seem, so far, to serve well. The notorious “reset button” that allowed audiences to dip in and out of shows is long gone in much current drama. The ease of access to individual episodes via streaming, PVRs and downloading (legitimately or otherwise), has allowed creators to tell deeper and more consequential stories.

It now seems odd to our modern eyes, rewatching The Next Generation, that an event so harrowing as Picard being turned into a Borg could have been dealt with so summarily at the time. A few scenes in the following episode (admittedly with a spine chilling moment of pure emotional acting from Stewart) were deemed sufficient for the viewing audience. With this new series the horror of temporarily having one’s very humanity taken away can properly be examined, and there are hints that it will do so.

While the change in storytelling is to be welcomed, this can often come at a price – a lack of pace. Not such a problem for an “all episodes at once” show which is designed to be binged, but it can become a grind for a weekly TV series. I was happy to give the opening episode a pass over this, since it was reintroducing us to our hero and world (re)building. This week however sees Jean-Luc once again mooching about at home, once again doing a spot of investigating, and once again having an argument with someone at Starfleet, and he isn’t really moved along in the plot very much until the end of the episode (where we finally meet one of the other main cast members, not before time).

This isn’t to suggest his scenes are without merit. There’s some nice exchanges with his Romulan carers, and I particularly enjoyed Orla Brady’s Romulan housekeeper Laris (anyone familiar with the Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted can’t have failed to hope that at a certain point she’d insistently offer him another cup of tea in her distinctive Irish brogue). We also get a winking reference to Patrick Stewart’s well-known distaste for science fiction when he first took the role.

The issues with his health and mood are actually addressed directly this week in a scene that will leave many wondering why Doctor Crusher wasn’t involved, instead of the old friend we’ve never seen or heard mention of before (not the only TV trope this episode is guilty of deploying). I appreciate that they may not want to pay too much fan service, but it wouldn’t have been inappropriate in this context, and we get some namechecks for old friends anyway this week.

Aside from Picard, we get to know more about Isa Brione’s character. She has a natural charm and likeability, and I look forward to learning more about her and “the artefact”. The latter is a terrific concept, beautifully realised; part science lab, part theme park, and featuring a lovely Simpsons-inspired sight gag that made me chuckle. The nature and background of the artefact does unfortunately lead to quite a lot of awkward exposition of the “As you know, Bob…” variety which could have been smoothed out. We also have a couple of scenes featuring characters plotting while archly whispering to each other for no good reason. I half-expected them to tilt the camera for the full Dutch-angle of 60s TV Batman fame, or for one of them to suddenly ask “are we the bad guys?” A show that’s trying to be a modern take on the Trek universe should do better at avoiding these sort of old-fashioned tropes.

Speaking of “modern”, there’s one issue which may well bother some fans – that of bad language. There isn’t much of it, but when there is it’s very noticeable, and rather unsettling in a Star Trek series. I have no problem with swearing on TV in general but here it seems crowbarred in, along with some stilted pillow talk, as if to say “Hey, Star Trek is all grown up now”. It’s an adolescent’s idea of what makes drama “adult”, and put me in mind of early Torchwood with its awkward F-bomb and smutty innuendo, or Frank Miller’s notorious swear-fest comic series All-Star Batman. Or of course there were those rare times when the TNG writers snuck in a “merde” under the censors’ radar to make Jean Luc seem a bit French. Essentially my issue is that you should be able to watch Star Trek with your kids. I don’t think that’s a lot to ask.

Verdict: I have a tremendous amount of goodwill towards this series, and am in no danger of jumping ship, but I expected better. If I were a casual viewer I’m not sure I’d be champing at the bit for the next part. 5/10

Andy Smith