I think I’ve made my opinion clear on just about everything, including Sci-Fi, on this site. I love Star Wars, specifically Star Wars Battlefront 2 (the good one), for a space opera about war and overthrowing the tyrannical government. Meanwhile, I recently wrote about a game called Rebel Galaxy, which brings the Firefly space-cowboy feeling to video games. Meanwhile, I’ve never directly written about Star Trek. I’ve always done so through the preface that The Orville is what Star Trek would have been if it was still around.

However, a company called CBS (I’ve never heard of them either) are trying to bring back this long-forgotten franchise. Ok, jokes aside, I am of the opinion that Star Trek ended on June the 2nd, 1999 when Deep Space Nine ended. Sure, there have been a few movies since then, Enterprise and Discovery were both on TV in the interim, and there has been a lot of fan content. However, before I start crying over Stage 9 being kicked to death, we may be seeing the return of what I call “proper Star Trek.”

Yes, the highly anticipated Star Trek: Picard has released its first trailer this weekend at San Deigo Comic-Con, and I have opinions. Some are good, but some are larger grievances I have with modern “Star Trek.” Let’s start with one of the things I’m more or less happy about, the cast. Some of the cast are faces I’ve never seen before, some I have, and others I wish had stayed dead in the deep recesses of my mind, along with Heroes and BBC’s Merlin. However, I’ll refrain from talking about who’s returning in case someone doesn’t want to know about everyone that comes back in the trailer.

With that, I’m left talking about Alison Pill, probably best known for her roles in Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World and The Newsroom. As far as I know, the only “big star,” other than the ones who return. Unless we include Santiago Cabrera, who is bringing experience from the previously mentioned Heroes and Merlin series. My opinion on these castings is mixed. I don’t know how well Pill or Cabrera will do in a Sci-Fi setting.

Then we have the actors I have hardly ever or never seen before, most notably Isa Briones, who I mistook for Ashley Johnson of What Women Want, Recess, and The Last of Us fame. From the trailer, it seems Briones’ character Dahj is the MacGuffin or plot device used to launch us into the massive, ten-episode adventure. Another actor, Evan Evagora, is much like Isa Briones, is fairly new-ish to acting, and could be a surprise. We simply don’t know, as neither has had their big break yet.

As far as the more prevalent cast, the only three left are Rebecca Wisocky, Harry Treadaway, and Michelle Hurd. All three previously appeared in shows I categorize as, “TV for those in their mid-forties and older,” or “retirement TV.” Wisocky previously played Brenda Shettrick in The Mentalist, Treadaway played Dr. Victor Frankenstein in Penny Dreadful, and Hurd played Shepherd in Blindspot. Honestly, I have no opinion on each because I’ve yet to see them play any role.

The casting is strange for modern standards, to say the very least. If it is well written, we could see some fine acting. However, if the script is a weak point come 2020, we might see a wide gap in quality. My previously stated high standards for acting aside, the trailer is, of course, a series of highly quotable lines to talk about at the watercooler. Rather, I guess in these modern days, it would be more likely things you text to each other as you hype up your Star Trek friends.

Let’s swiftly move to the concern I have with the trailer. It is a little too “J.J. Trek,” for this to be twenty years removed from the events of Nemesis. Almost every shot we see inside is black, metal, or a modern-day office. Every outfit is black, black, or more black. Ok, it’s not, though my point is that no part of the visual design of Star Trek: Picard links up with the previously established series. Well, it does link up to one show, but the less said about Discovery the better. I’d rather bore a hole in the side of my head with a pneumatic drill than watch another minute of that drivel.

The previously shown explosion of color is almost what makes the series so enjoyable. I don’t know what that says about me, that I’d be happy with random shades of color and philosophy, or that I like light, happy, and enjoyable TV. However, when your show is less colorful than Deep Space Nine, a bleak show about hope before, during, and after a war, then you might have a problem. Though it is not just interior shots that look dull. External shots are grey concrete or generally boring shots too.

I may just be fatigued with the lifeless colors, but the direction isn’t too inspired either. While many shots have movement, they are minimal at best. It is very strange. This could be a consequence of the trailer focusing on the action, something Star Trek isn’t meant to focus on. Sure, there has been a lot of action, but Star Trek is about diplomacy and talking your enemy down. Picard may very well still be about this ethos, but the trailer may be trying to attract not only fans they already have but new fans as well.

I’m now about to step into speculation on the story, so if you’d rather not go the series with a theory, I’d suggest leaving now. Nothing I’m about to say has been confirmed, other than what was shown in the trailer, and I make no claim otherwise. However, there’s a great big bloody block in space, almost as if someone made a space mod for Minecraft.

Yes, the trailer features a few seconds of a ruddy big Borg Cube out in space. To make it all make a bit more sense, A young female character (capable of fighting) “doesn’t know what she is” but is likely connected to the cube in some way. I may be making something out of nothing, but I’d assume Bahj is a Borg something or other. My first inclination would be a weapon, my second would be an experiment, and my third would be a random guess in the dark.

This is where I’d like to talk about the returning characters. You don’t bring back Jean-Luc, A Borg Cube, and Seven of Nine for nothing. You also don’t bring back the previously dead Commander Data for the fecal matter and giggles of it all. Either Star Trek: Picard is going to be known as a nostalgia act to wrangle fans back into the franchise, or it will blow Discovery out of the water like a game of Battleship.

I have been excited about Star Trek: Picard since it was announced last August. While this trailer has dampened that a little with its drab suspense of what made Star Trek the geek powerhouse it is today, I still can’t wait for it to release next year. Which brings me to the competitor of Picard, Seth Mcfarlane’s The Orville.

While Picard was being welcomed back into Star Fleet like he never left, Disney has been shuffling their newly found Fox acquisitions. Earlier I said that The Orville would be what Star Trek was if there wasn’t a J.J. shaped hole in the franchise. The reason for this is The Orville has used several Star Trek alumni for several roles: Brannon Braga, Penny Johnson Jerald, Robert Duncan McNeill, Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, and Robert Picardo to name a few. Well, The Orville and half the cast of Star Trek are moving to Hulu in late 2020.

Not in direct competition of Picard‘s “Early 2020” release. Though, Star Trek: Picard will release much as Discovery did in the United States; each episode will be released on CBS All Access, and in Canada, it will air on Space (in English) and Z (in French) the same day as the U.S. airing. Both the French and English releases of Picard will steam on Crave in Canada. However, in 200 countries and territories outside of North America, Amazon Prime has the rights to stream each episode within the 24 hours after the U.S. airing.

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