Star Trek: Picard - 7 Ups & 5 Downs From Season 1

5. To Explore Strange New Worlds

Free from the shackles of Starfleet, the show was always going to be heading to new and exciting locations. There was always a sort of idyllicism to the worlds we visited where either it was a wonderful human utopia or, some troubled alien world comprised mostly of styrofoam rocks. Picard, instead, went fully into sci-fi noir.

Freecould, in particular, was a world unlike anything we've ever seen in the franchise before. Invoking the obvious comparisons to Blade Runner and the like it presented a corner of the Star Trek universe that's a melting pot of commerce (and easter eggs) not constrained by the predictable tropes of the usual major species.

The presentations of Earth were far more in keeping with those of the more recent movies, and locations like Vashti, Nepenthe and Coppelius were understated but nonetheless impressive.