Paramount Home Entertainment, out now

After a young woman comes to visit him at his home in France, Jean-Luc Picard comes out of retirement to face a deadly new threat…

It’s a year now since Picard started airing on CBS All Access/Prime Video – since which time we’ve had both Lower Decks and a new season of Discovery. With a second season poised to begin shooting soon, it’s a good time to look back at those first 10 episodes, now available for home entertainment with a wealth of extras.

Picard’s first television appearances in The Next Generation rewrote Star Trek, and kickstarted it into a silver age of shows, and Jean-Luc’s return draws heavily across the board from those series, with guest stars from Voyager as well as TNG. The universe seems a less safe place in the aftermath of the destruction of Romulus (from the 2009 movie, once and for all sealing that film’s canonicity), and there are some very dark moments here.

I’m not going to discuss individual episodes (you can read our reviews of each one here), but overall, Picard hits more than it misses. There’s some odd pacing – something which also affects the most recent season of Discovery – and some arbitrary decision-making to service plot needs, but it stands up to a rewatch.

As far as extras goes, we get the Short Trek Children of Mars, which shows the key event prior to Romulus’ destruction (with a commentary), and a commentary on the premiere. There’s backstory pieces, if you need them both in and out of universe; items on the props, the sets, make-up, and a gag reel; and individual episode-specific mini documentaries.

Verdict: At the time the strongest season of the “new” Star Treks – a worthy addition to the Star Trek collection. 9/10

Paul Simpson

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