Liking and disliking something is an interesting process. You see a small green veggie steaming in font of you in a plate. It looks like a cabbage, but smaller, smells nothing like it. You don't know if you should eat it than you try it and suddenly all that flavour of that succulent little thing burst in your mouth and you suddenly realise that you have no idea why you did not try it before and that you will never be able to live without it. Than something funny happens... you get the same veggie with a dressing in a different form in a fancy "molecular restaurant" and suddenly you feel puzzled.

Well, here we are... a Pandemic. I think in my short life of 33 years I have been lucky to avoid major political conflicts that resulted in wars, international affairs and also virus outbreaks. However I guess nature - human nature - always brings something new to our doorstep. Not a long ago it was 2019 and it was a rough year. For me personally moving cross country; getting a job that turned out to be a disaster and leaving it after one day of working there; losing many people in our life most notably Aron and Rene and not being able to do things that would help getting closer to financial balance. I was happy that 2019 was ending. I was looking forward to change, to travel and to explore more in the northern hemisphere of the globe in Scottish land... until a small microbe happened to turn our world upside down.  

I'm not going to repeat the news or start using colourful metaphors about the panic buying or toilet-paper crisis... we all have enough of that nonsense and frankly I would just make myself feel bad before going to bed... and I don't want that. :) 

The reason why I just wanted to share my thoughts that I hope you are dear reader are OK wherever you are. I know that things right now looks really bad, but we can live through this. We have to live through this and grab that ray of hope that if we do the right things, things will get better soon. I cannot stress enough that I'm overwhelmingly looking forward to the day when we all go to our local GP/Doctor and just get the vaccine. The day when we can resume travelling to see the globe. The day when we can finally get together and watch an episode of Star Trek, or going to conventions and be surrounded with like minded people face to face. Will we still shake hands? I don't know...

For me, one thing is clear though: Humanity has to find a way to cope better with itself. We have to be more caring and less needy, more loving and less devious, but most importantly, KIND! _\\//

I cannot help, but with Star Trek Picard all I hear is the Romulan theme song. :) Don't ask me why and to be all fairness I have no idea why I start my review for this episode with this remark, but I feel that it is important to get it out from my head. I love what Jeff Russo did with the soundtrack with this series. I'm not the fan of the Discovery OST myself as I am a fan of the "classic scores" and when I say classic I mean from TOS till Enterprise and first ten movies...

It's interesting that how this episode reminded me of the great Majel Barrett and calmly brought the Nemesis soundtrack playing in my head. I might have been having a had time digesting that "bunnicorn" myself, or maybe the burned tomato... who knows. But this episode was certainly started to feel like a melancholy toward many things that Star Trek The Next Generation has brought to us... to me in personally. I'm still kind of dealing with difficult feelings here, but not because of the episode itself... the emotions that brought up me with from my heart towards everything I love about Star Trek. 

Let me star with that one of the best part of Picard is that it explains itself. I know starting off a brief episode review on this note is a bit unusual, but hear me out. With Discovery we got a lot of moaning from a lot of people - myself included - about the aesthetics of the show and how everything looks compare to TOS in about 1 years in the future... and the show dare not to explain it why. I love that in Picard we have subtle references for changes and also explanations that I'm super happy about.

I usually have a better understanding how to write down my thoughts about an episode, but this one took a while. My apologies to you if you were expecting this earlier last week, but as it happened I've had many things to take care of offline... and also this episode was a bit of a mouthful to write about in many reasons. It's different in ways that I've never expected. 

Ageing is a funny thing. You have certain views in your 20's that you think will stick forever, then in your 30's you change them, adapt them just as you change as a person. It's life after all, you always evolve... even when you get to your 70's just as Picard. When we got to know him 30+ years ago he said it Will Riker that "I'm not comfortable around children..." Obviously that has changed a bit over the years with many experiences interacting with various kids from the Enterprise and beyond...

I must say that following up on the episodes this adventure so far really does feel like a bit of a book that we read which is a good thing in my opinion. Each episodes are basically considered as one chapter in this first book and I do hope we gonna end up with a trilogy in this case. I love the show and how it presents the main character so far with all the returning guest as supportive cast. It's really just a joy to watch so far... definitely a Star Trek that I've been missing for a while. 

With new Star Trek in the air and in development, I must say that there's a lot of excitement in every level. While that is all good and fresh there's certain things that I miss from this brand new era... episode titles. Somehow with Discovery we lost them and they seems to be missing from Picard as well. I mean it does not devalue the episode in any way, but it would be nice to see that episode title just like we got to know from TOS, TAS, TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT over the past 50+ years. I had to bring this up before we go any further as the second episode is titled Maps & Legends and the Legends are clearly missing from the show...

"Blue sky, smiling at me... nothing but blue sky, you remember me..." I know technically the lyrics is not correct, but watching the first episode of Star Trek Picard that is where we really left off. Star Trek Nemesis ended with Picard leaving his cabin knowing that B4 still holds some of Data's memory at some form and that his friend is still alive it is just a beautiful ending in my opinion. But we are here to talk about Star Trek Picard and not Nemesis, and there's a lot to unpack here, so let's see what we are at in the very first episode of this amazing series. Engage!