Picard Episode 1 “Remembrance”
As a long time fan of Star Trek, I have been waiting on pins and needles for a series to tell me what the hell happened after Voyager returned from the Delta quadrant in 2001. Since Voyager’s end many fans like myself were waiting for the next show. I wanted to see crazier aliens, new technology and new adventures. We were given… Enterprise. A lackluster series that was so bad that it got canceled. Picard is seeming to be that show.
Fast forward a couple of years and we got Star Trek Discovery. Maybe this disqualifies me as a fan but I haven’t watched Discovery because I’m so over this obsession of going back in time in the Star Trek timeline. Even the motion pictures went backward in time. No! I want to know what the hell happened after Voyager came back from the delta quadrant, this is where Picard comes into play and let me tell you I’m here for it!!!
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Picard’s first episode “Remembrance” opens up to Bing Crosby, (fun fact Denise Crosby’s grandfather) singing “Blue Skys”. Space in all it’s glory shines brightly and the Enterprise D comes into focus. The focus goes toward the inside of the ship of Picard and Data playing poker, an old school nod to the enterprise crew playing poker. Picard is enjoying the game and diagnosing Data’s tale. Data is wearing his Starfleet uniform just like we saw him before he died in Star Trek Nemesis. Data notices Picard is stalling playing his hand and Data asks “Why are you stalling” Picard ever so loving says “Because I don’t want the game to end” Picard then looks out the window and sees they are flying on course to Mars. An explosion happens and Picard wakes up in his home in his vineyard Chateau Picard in France.
The next scene finds a couple in an apartment in the greater Boston area talking about some recent successes. The man holds the young woman’s necklace in his hand, two intertwined circles. All of a sudden a team of super stealth fighters transport themselves into this apartment and pin the young woman to the floor. The fighters ask “She hasn’t activated yet! Where are the rest of you, where are you from.” They then attempt to knock her out and one of the fighters yell “She’s been activated!” The girl jumps to her feet and defeats these mysterious fighters. To the girl’s fear, she’s not sure how any of this has happened but she sees her boyfriend has been killed in the fight. She then gets an image of Picard in her head.
The Episode Continues Greatness
We are then taken back to Chateau Picard with his lovely dog named Number 1. Picard has a couple of employees working at his chateau and a gentleman tells Picard that he was speaking in his dreams telling rubbish. Picard says:
The dreams are lovely the waking up is what I’m starting to resent.
Picard is preparing for the press to arrive at his chateau to interview him. His team of employees are trying to relax Picard before he does this interview. “The past is the past,” one of them says. One of the employees ensures Picard the interviewer will not inquire about his separation at Starfleet. Seeming somewhat relieved Picard continues to go forth with the interview. “Be the captain they remember?” one of them says.
FNN News of the Galaxy is speaking to Picard on the anniversary of the Romulan Supernova and the tragic events. Picard goes on to say raising the importance of remembering the Supernova is dear to his heart. The reporter then goes on to criticize Starfleet’s efforts to save the lives of the Romulans. She goes on to say that rogue synthetics dropped the planetary defense shield and hacked Mars defense net wiping out the rescue armada. Since the attack on Mars, there has been a ban on synthetics. Picard claims that ban w=was a mistake claims. The reporter then asks about Data because he’s not considered a synthetic.
Why Picard Left Starfleet
Turns out Picard resigned in protest. Because during the Romulan Supernova Starfleet’s actions of withdrawing from rescue efforts Picard called it not dishonorable it was criminal and he wasn’t going to sit back and be a spectator.
While this interview is playing the girl attacked by the mystery fighters sees Picard on a television in the street and recognizes him from her vision.
Picard ends the interview and walks out of the room.
Picard is seen sitting in his chair overlooking his vineyard and tells Number Nne “There is no legacy is as rich as honesty” all of a sudden the girl finds her way on to the chateau. He approaches the girl and she asks “do you know me?” “No” he responds. He then asks who she is and she recounts her attack in her Boston apartment. She states something inside her told her how to move and fight like it was lighting. The girl didn’t know where to go but something told her to find Picard. She kept seeing his face. The same lighting that got her out alive and the same lighting that guided her to Picard.
Picard Meets An Old/New Friend
Picard takes the girl in and points out the unusual necklace of intertwined circles. She states her father gave it to her. She reveals her name is Dahj. Dahj states she knows him, that its an older deeper way of knowing him but she’s unsure how. Picard has the girl stay overnight at the Chateau so she can get some much-needed rest.
Picard is seen waking up and spots Data in the vineyard painting. He approaches Data. They are both wearing their Yellow and Red Starfleet uniforms mostly recognized from the TNG Episodes. Data turns to Picard and asks if Picard would like to finish the painting and hands the brush to him. Picard sees the painting a person wrapped from head to toe in a white robe by the ocean. Picard responds, “I’ don’t know how” Data responds “That’s not true sir”
Picard then takes the brush and then wakes up in his study.
He stands up and turns around to see the painting on the wall is the one he saw in the dream and he says “NO!” at this point one of Picard’s employees comes in to inform Picard that Dahj is no longer at the chateau. Picard says he has somewhere he needs to go and to inform him if she returns.
The Next Generation Easter Eggs
Picard returns to San Francisco to the Starfleet archives. He is taken to a locker that has some of the old memorabilia from his Starfleet days. The Picard Day banner from a TNG episode is seen hanging. Picard finds a painting similar to the one in his dream. The painting in the dream and the study does not reveal the woman’s face. The one in the locker does, the woman in the painting is Dahj. Picard requests the help of the index to identify the painting. The painting was painted by Data in 2369 this was painting one of two. One was gifted it to him on the enterprise.
Picard wants to make sure no one has ever entered the archive. He requests index to check to see if anyone has been in the archive, even for service. No one has entered. Picard askes Index what is the name of this painting. Index replies
“This painting is called Daughter”
Dahj is seen running through the streets of Paris. She contacts her mother using some sort of device in the palm of her hand. Her mother tells her to go somewhere safe and Dahj doesn’t want anyone to get hurt. The mother states she has to go back to Picard Dahj refuses and says it too dangerous. But she tells her mother: “I didn’t tell you I was with Picard.”
The Great Revelation
The mother plays it off as if Dahj did tell her. Dahj states she hasn’t spoken to her mother since the first attack in Boston happened. She continues to ask what happened. Her mother instructs her to find Picard and to close her eyes. Dahj closes her eyes and finds Picard in San Francisco. She meets Picard as he is walking outside the Starfleet archive. She states she knows stuff now and she knew how to track Picard and she can hear conversations a block away.
Picard tells her she might be special, she tells Dahj about Data and that he was an android. Dahj asks if he was like the one that attacked Mars. Picard says no the word android conjures up negative connotation for people but explains Data was a decorated Starfleet officer. He sacrificed his life for Picard over 2 decades ago but that he was an artist. He painted Dahj 30 years ago.
Picard says tracking him takes a security clearance and the attack on Dahj was like a positronic alarm bell. She claims she was born in Seattle her dad was Zeno Botanist and the house was full of orchids. Dahj was named after an orchid. Picard is suggesting she was created and if she is who she is she is very dear to him. He suggests they go to Okinawa he has a hunch that she is the daughter of Data. Dahj then senses another attack from the mystery fighters from the Boston apartment.
Some Real Action
Dahj goes into fighting mode and defeats the fighters. She tells Picard to stay down while she fights these mysterious fighters in black. During the fight, one of the men’s helmets comes off Picard sees the man’s face and sees the pointy ears. These fighters are Romulans. One of the fighters spits out green slim on to Daja and it reacts like acid and Daja blows up sending Picard hurdling backward from the blast.
Picard wakes up in his chateau in France. Picard’s staff is tending to him and tells him upon waking up that Dahj was dead. They tell Picard the police didn’t say that. The security footage shows Picard was alone on that rooftop. They conclude that maybe Dahj had a cloaking device and the Romulans as well. Picard concludes she was synthetic. He says he owes it to Dahj and that he hasn’t been living but waiting to die and he vows to find out what happened to her.
Picard goes to Daystrom Institute in Okinawa to speak to Dr. Agnes Jurati. He asks if it’s possible to make a sentient android out of flesh and blood. Agnes said it’s not possible maybe in 1,000 years but not possible. She states the androids that attacked mars came out of that lab. So synthetics being made are against the galactic treaty.
The Big Finale
Picard is taken to the lab and shown B4. B4 was an inferior copy and Agnes says Data tried to download his neural net before Data died. No other synthetic created has never come close to Data and no one can replicate the science it took to create Data.. Agnes goes on to tell the story of Bruce Maddox who recruited Agnes out of Starfleet Academy and they came close to creating another like Data then the attack on Mars happened and the ban was enforced. Bruce has disappeared and Agnes has tried to find him ever since.
New synthetics would have to be made from Data. if you had the neural net you could but since they died with Data making a new synthetic would be impossible. Picard shows Agnes Dahj’s necklace of the intertwined circles. She askes where she got it from. Agnes is disturbed by the necklace and says this is the symbol of fractal neuronic cloning. This cloning is a radical theory. If Data’s entire code, even his memories, could be reconstituted from a single positronic neuron. Data and his essence would be alive in a synthetic. Picard said he always wanted a daughter. Picard concludes that Maddox might have made Dahj from Data’s painting. Agnes is confused a female was made and alludes “they” could be made that way. They are created in pairs. So the conclusion is there is another Dahj.
Some Romulan Reclamation
The final scene of this episode takes us to space and Romulan warbirds are flying and land in what is called the Romulan Reclamation site. A man appears named Narek, who introduces himself to Dr. Soji Asha. Dr. Asha is wearing the same intertwined circle necklace as Dahj. Narek claims he has read Dr. Asha’s work and he compliments the necklace and she states her father made it for her and her sister. He states he had a brother he lost a year ago but Dr. Asha spends time fixing people and that maybe she wouldn’t want to hear another sad story. The camera pans out and this intricate ship and low and behold these two were inside a borg cube.
So a couple of takeaways. The index states the painting was given from Data to Picard in 2369 that was the year the series Deep Space Nine started. A year before 2369 was the episode of Times Arrow where they found Data’s head in the San Francisco area. They eluded he was buried there 500 years prior to his time on the Enterprise. In date form, this happened in December of 2368
Great First Episode
The episode of Decent Season 7 Episode 1 &2 This is where the Borg known as Hugh was leading a group of aggressive borgs and their leader was Lore. Lore would say the Sons of Soong. This was the episode where Data started to feel good for killing borg. Lore at the end of the episode was trying to give Data a chip of memories and Data shot him with a phaser and deactivated Lore.
Data says he disassembled Lore but there was no other mention of Lore after this. The stardate of this event was December 25, 2369. This episode is important because I believe what happened in this episode is what spun Picard into existence. Hugh stated he couldn’t go back to the collective and he and the rest of the borg went off into the darkness never to be seen again. We know Hugh will return to Picard.
So the painting was painted in between Times Arrow and Decent. I believe if the painting is real, Data had to have been doing some work to create another offspring considering he came to terms with his death and knowing he would be sent back in time to die in the 19th century. I have a feeling Data started to create his offspring maybe he created the pairs. If you remember back in Season 3 The Offspring episode he created his first child Lal. In this first episode of Picard, I was waiting for them to reference the fact Data created a child before. This concept isn’t far fetched in fact it’s very Data like. My thought is somewhere down the line Data might have left some data behind and maybe this Maddox character found it and brought the twins to life.
Final Thoughts
Picard is modern and you can see the technology has grown with the times. A great backstory was told as to what Picard has been doing, why he left and why he was so mad at his beloved Starfleet. I’m curious to see if my theory is correct about Data’s daughter. I’m giving this episode 4 out 5 stars for compelling storytelling, amazing visuals, and nostalgia. Picard is streaming now only on CBS all Access. New episodes drop every Thursday.
