Star Trek Picard: 7 Ups & 3 Downs From Episode 1 'Remembrance'

5. The Abrams Influence

It'll not be universally popular, but in Picard you can categorically feel the hand of the modern Trek movies. It's not loaded with lens flare and, as yet, there's been not a single note from The Beastie Boys, but there's a few subtle nods here and there. Just enough, I'd argue, to make the show feel consistent with its own present, rather than at odds with its own past.

Given that the series was co-created by Alex Kurtzman, one of the men responsible for the 2009 Star Trek reboot this was, perhaps, inevitable. Our opening scene that sees the camera close in on Picard at an awkward angle as the frame shakes and explodes around him is Abrams Filmmaking 101, and a lot of the scene-setting that follows on earth feels like it's taken directly from Into Darkness.

While this style won't be to everyone's tastes, shooting Picard with the same style as a 90s TV show would have been a disaster once the novelty factor had worn off. Modern TV has a cinematic care to everything, while 20+ episode seasons used to be filmed more like soap operas than anything else. To see a classic Trek story, and the people who inhabit it, realised this way is long overdue.