The much anticipated “Star Trek: Picard” premiered on streaming service CBS All Access today. Only the first episode is available and a total of 10 episodes will be released on a weekly basis. The story revolves around former Enterprise Capt. Jean-Luc Picard in his retirement from Starfleet.

There’s no way I can really describe what’s going to happen in future episodes without giving some major spoilers as to what happens in this opening episode. So if you don’t want to know what happens in the opening episode I will just say that I like what I’ve seen and if you are at all a Star Trek fan you definitely want to check it out. One suggestion I will leave you with is you should watch “Star Trek: Short Treks” season 2 episode 6 “Children of Mars” also available only on CBS All Access before watching this premier episode.

SPOILERS BELOW

The series takes place 14 years after Picard has left Starfleet. It opens with a dream sequence where he is playing poker with Cmdr. Data. Brent Spiner returns to play the role and somehow doesn’t look a day older than we last saw him years ago when he sacrificed his life to save Picard in the film “Star Trek: Nemesis“. One little bit of nitpicking, Data’s eyes didn’t look quite right to me. I don’t know if it’s the fact that we are seeing him in HD compared to the analog TV in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” or what the reason was. It just seemed that during the close-ups it was more obvious than usual that he was wearing yellow contact lenses.

The dream ends when they look out the window and you see the destruction of Mars. You might not immediately recognize it unless you’ve seen the Short Trek “Children of Mars” that I mentioned earlier. That short subject depicts an attack on Mars that devastates the planet but doesn’t really explain who is attacking or why.

Picard is living in a French château surrounded by vineyards that are being cared for by robotic machines. He’s accompanied by a pet bit bull which he affectionately refers to as “Number One”. He is tended to by what appeared to be a butler and maid who I initially thought were Vulcans but on further reflection they are probably Romulan. They show great affection for the retired admiral.

Picard is about to be interviewed for a news program and through the course of this interview we get a lot of back story about what has happened in the days since we last saw him. In short, the Romulan sun was going to go supernova. Picard persuaded Starfleet to help with a mass evacuation of the entire planet before it was destroyed. This was despite the fact that the Romulans were a long time enemy of Starfleet. Picard makes it clear he was there to save lives… the fact that they were Romulan lives was immaterial.

The rescue effort was aborted when Mars colony was attacked by so-called “synthetics” which are apparently androids. The reporter points out that Mars is still burning yet to this day. The end result is that synthetic life forms have been completely banned and all research into creating them has been terminated. By interplanetary treaty they are forbidden.

Intercut with Picard’s story we meet a young woman named Dahj played by Isa Briones. She is celebrating with her boyfriend that she has been accepted to a position at the Daystrom Institute in Okinawa to do artificial intelligence research. Suddenly three black clad assassins transport into her apartment, murder her boyfriend, and try to take her captive saying along the way “She hasn’t activated yet”. Suddenly she does “activate” and despite having a hood placed over her head she quickly attacks the three assassins and with almost superhuman moves ends up killing them all. It is obvious she has no idea how she obtained the skills to save her own life and kill these three assassins. As she wanders the streets in a daze, she sees Picard being interviewed on TV and is irresistibly drawn to seek him out.

Picard does not know the woman and has no idea why she would come to him even after she recounts the story of the attack and her unusual ability to easily dispatch her attackers. Through a series of events, Picard concludes that not only is she an android despite the fact she appears completely human (she bleeds real blood), he also theorizes that she is somehow the daughter of Cmdr. Data. Data had once painted a portrait of a woman exactly resembling her and titled the painting “Daughter”.

There are a couple of plot twists I have not revealed. So I didn’t completely spoil the story. I hope I just set it up for you to anticipate what comes in future episodes. The rest of the series will cover Picard trying to figure out who this woman is. Unfortunately (sorry spoiling) she is killed in a subsequent attack by more assassins who are revealed to be Romulan. Picard then goes on a quest to go in search of her twin sister.

Previews for upcoming episodes reveal that we will see Jonathan Frakes reprise his role as Cmdr. Riker a.k.a. Number One and his wife Deanna Troy played by Marina Sirtis. Although these will only appear in a single episode, it doesn’t appear that this is a flashback or dream sequence. Frakes is also listed as the director of 3 of the episodes. We will also see Jeri Ryan reprise her role as former Borg “Seven of Nine” from the TV series “Star Trek: Voyager“. Unfortunately IMDb.com does not yet list her as part of the cast so we don’t know how big her role will be. But the previews indicate it might be significant. There may be other cameo appearances from other previous Star Trek series.

Overall Patrick Stewart credibly re-creates an older version of his most famous character. We also look forward to seeing more of Alison Pill in her role as an artificial intelligence researcher named Dr. Agnes Jurati. I’ve been a big fan of hers ever since her role in “The Newsroom“. Apparently Picard will spend the next episode recruiting a crew and a ship for his quest so we will have new characters introduced soon.

With the exception of one brief shot, the special effects are state-of-the-art. The stunts and action sequences were well done. The plot has great promise leaving many mysteries to be solved over the course of 10 episodes. The show has already been approved for season 2 as well. What is the origin of these extremely human looking androids? Why did the androids attack Mars? And what are the surviving Romulans up to?

I’m sure somewhere along the way Star Trek fans will nitpick a variety of issues. I’ve loved every episode of “Star Trek: Discovery” for the past 2 seasons on CBS All Access but some fans say it’s terrible. I seriously disagree.

I’m giving it a strong rating of “I Really like It” and suggest you check it out. Together with the third season of “Star Trek: Discovery” and the excellent series “The Good Fight” CBS All Access is well worth the money. I’ve also been using it to watch current episodes of CBS programs because I am typically many weeks behind and I don’t have room on my DVR to record them all. Although I’m endorsing the service, of course I have no financial connection to it and the opinions are all my own.

Theologians and pundits have often wondered what kind of reception Jesus might’ve had if he had appeared in modern times or what would happen if the promised second coming came in modern times. The new Netflix series “Messiah” gives us a glimpse into what might happen if that occurred. Some spoilers included below.

A charismatic figure who looks like a stereotypical image of Jesus begins preaching in Damascus initially to a mostly Muslim audience. He claims responsibility for a giant dust storm that wipes out the terrorist organization ISIS. The crowd gives him the name “Al-Masih” Arabic for the Messiah. He then leads approximately 2000 refugees to the Israeli border demanding to be let in. As he crosses the border, he is immediately arrested leaving his followers alone in the desert creating a political and humanitarian crisis. Al-Masih is played by Mehdi Dehbi.

The story mostly follows an Israeli interrogator presumably Mossad named Aviram Dahan played by Tomer Sisley and an American CIA agent Eva Geller played by Michelle Monaghan. While being interrogated Al-Masih seems to have secret knowledge of his interrogators that gives him an air of mystical power that shakes them up considerably. He escapes the Israeli prison by an unknown mechanism and Aviram is suspected of releasing him although he did not. After appearing briefly in Jerusalem and miraculously healing a young boy of a gunshot wound, he disappears again and then reappears in a Texas border town that is wiped out by a tornado. Only the small church run by a troubled pastor and his family survives the devastation. Although he originally preached to a Muslim audience he claims to have no particular denomination affiliation and speaks openly to this Christian community challenging them reform their lives to live out their life in peace and harmony with their fellow human beings.

From there he leads a cross-country caravan to Washington DC but no one is sure exactly what his agenda is.

Eva spends much of the series trying to figure out who he really is. Is he a con man? What is his political agenda? There are hints of Russian connections and connection to a known terrorist who hacked Wall Street. All the while she and Aviram struggle with their own personal demons and are haunted by Al-Masih’s mysterious ability to know their life story.

The entire 10 episode series explores the nature of faith, fame, politics, and what it means to really live out one’s peaceful religious convictions. I suppose the main spoiler that I will include is that although his true past is revealed and there is ample evidence that he is a charlatan, there is also ample evidence that there are some supernatural forces involved and that he may in fact be legitimate. He never claims to be the Messiah himself only saying that that’s what his followers call him. He claims to be “The Word” sent from the Father which is a reference to the Gospel of John which describes Jesus as “the Word made flesh”. The series pretty much leaves you to make up your own mind about who or what he really is. Were the supernatural events simply illusions of a skilled magician or was something real happening?

Overall it is extremely well written and well acted by all involved. It is one of the most thought-provoking TV series I had seen up until the time I completed the 10 episode binge which took me just two days. However the title of “most thought-provoking TV series I’d seen in a long time” was eclipsed just a week later by another show that I will review soon.

I highly recommend this series to anyone of faith or those who are interested in religion and its role in modern society. I’m giving it a strong rating of “I really like it“. Check it out and form your own opinions. Would love to hear from you on Facebook about what you think of the series.

Moving along to our next review of a streaming TV series we have to take a minute to discuss the new Disney+ Star Wars series “The Mandalorian“. If you’ve been on social media at all the last few weeks you’ve already seen hundreds of memes about this series most of them featuring a character that has come to be known as “Baby Yoda”. This adorable little green creature is the same species as the Yoda character from the original Star Wars series. Unfortunately George Lucas never did tell us the name of the species of this iconic character. In this series he is only referred to as “the child” but immediately the Internet has dubbed him “Baby Yoda” even though the original Yoda is already dead at this point in the timeline of the Star Wars universe.

While Baby Yoda is central to the 10 episode plot of this series, it really is about the journey of the title character. Mandalorians are a race of fierce warriors who have a rich history throughout the Star Wars novels and especially the various Star Wars animated TV series. Our title character, often referred to as Mando is played by Pedro Pascal who is most known for playing Oberyn Martell in “Game of Thrones” and 30 episodes of the Netflix series “Narcos“. He is, as many of his people are, a bounty hunter and mercenary. He is given an assignment to retrieve dead or alive (preferably alive) an unknown subject. All he knows is that he is 50 years old and he has a tracking device which can locate the subject.

When he finally battles his way into a compound to retrieve the subject, he discovers it’s an infant Yoda like character. Star Wars fans know that when we met the original Yoda he was 900 years old. So a 50-year-old infant is not out of the question given what little we know about the species. Being duty-bound to fulfill his mission, he turns the child over to the client magnificently played by documentary filmmaker Warner Herzog. After turning over the child and fulfilling his contract, he begins to worry about what their intentions are for the creature and decides to steal the child back again to rescue it from whatever nefarious purposes the client might have. This sets off a whole wave of consequences in which his Mandalorian friends have to help him escape at the expense of revealing their secret hideaway. The entire rest of the series chronicles their journey to try to escape a horde of bounty hunters who are trying to retrieve the child.

Along the way we have a number of notable guest stars such as Nick Nolte who voices a CGI character that marginally resembles him named Kuiil. In later episodes we see Giancarlo Esposito as an imperial officer named Moff Gideon, Amy Sedaris as a spaceship mechanic and Ming-Na Wen as an assassin. Gina Carano also appears in three episodes as a former rebel soldier who accompanies the Mandalorian on a couple of missions.

Each episode is approximately 30 minutes and includes a great mixture of action and story. The Baby Yoda character is undeniably so cute he is irresistible but is not just about his cuteness. The real story is the personal journey of the Mandalorian who is trying to make his way in the universe and protect his new adopted charge Baby Yoda. Through a series of flashbacks we learn that Mando is not a native Mandalorian but is a so-called foundling who was adopted as a child by Mandalorian warriors. That helps explain his empathy for the child who is caught up in circumstances not of his own making.

I suppose if you’d never seen any Star Wars, you could enjoy this on its own as an action-adventure sci-fi series. But the real fun comes from all of the references to the original Star Wars stories and even deeper and more obscure Easter Egg references to the extended Star Wars universe especially the animated series which gives you much of the back story of the Mandalorian people. Along the way we visit Luke’s home planet of Tatooine including Moss Eisley spaceport and a familiar booth in a familiar cantina. A plethora of classic Star Wars characters including sand people and Jawas make appearances. There is a hilarious scene in one of the later episodes where a couple of storm trooper scouts are killing time by taking target practice and famously missing horribly. They are portrayed by Adam Pally and Jason Sudeikis.

As the title of this review suggests this is the best Star Wars we’ve seen since “The Empire Strikes Back“. All of the characters, not just Baby Yoda, are interesting and have memorable moments. The action sequences and special effects are state-of-the-art and worthy of theatrical film. Because these are essentially new characters, the fans don’t have a backlog of expectations about what they want to see so they have been free to enjoy the series on its own merits. The show has already been renewed for a second season and I suppose the fan fiction writers are already hard at work trying to guess what’s going to happen and unless it meets their predictions they are going to be disappointed. That’s a shame because such practices have destroyed the latest Star Wars films. Expectations about what the fans want to see have been so high that when they aren’t met exactly, the fans rebel as if they owned the franchise. Perhaps this new series will inspire fans to just sit back and enjoy it and not try to impose their own expectations on the plot lines or characters. It also helps that creator/writer/showrunner Jon Favreau has done a wonderful job extending the Star Wars universe to these new characters while maintaining a deep reverence for the rich traditions of everything that has come before.

I’m giving it a strong rating of “I Really like It” and it is recommended for any fans of action-adventure, sci-fi whether or not you have a deep knowledge of the Star Wars franchise.

Overall the Disney+ platform may be the most cost-effective streaming subscription service because it includes not only the entire Star Wars catalog but the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the entire Disney and Pixar catalogs. At just $6.99 a month or $69.99 per year it is quite reasonably priced. There is also an option to bundle Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ for just $12.99 per month which is a significant savings for what it would cost to subscribe to those individually. A number of Disney+ films and series are planned. We’ve already got the “live-action” version of “Lady and the Tramp” and more Star Wars series are in the works as well as season 2 of “The Mandalorian”. So there’s a lot to like here. By the way none of my reviews are sponsored by anyone and the opinions expressed are entirely my own.

I barely have time to write reviews of new broadcast TV shows so I rarely write reviews of shows on streaming networks. But there has been such a lack of interesting new shows on broadcast that I need to point out a couple of really interesting series recently released on streaming. (See my recent blog “Is Broadcast TV Dead?“)

We are going to start off with a new offering on Apple TV+ titled “For All Mankind“. It’s a bit of alternate history sci-fi about what might’ve happened if the Soviet Union had landed on the moon before us. In real history, once we had made it to the moon first, the US visited the moon 6 times but with nothing left to prove, the space race was over and decades later we still haven’t been back. But in this alternate history, the space race continued.

The series is created and produced by Ronald D. Moore who is most known for the reboot version of Battlestar GalacticaClick and the romantic time travel series Outlander as well as several Star Trek series and films.

Our main characters are fictional astronauts and their families but most of the other characters in the series are based on the real life people who worked on the space program. Fictional Astronaut Edward Baldwin is played by Joel Kinnaman who has been in a variety of TV shows but is most known for playing detective Holder in “The Killing“. We also have astronaut Gordo Stevens played by Michael Dorman, a NASA engineer Margo Madsen played by Wrenn Schmidt and a memorable performance by Chris Bauer as real-life NASA astronaut/manager Deke Slayton. Colm Feore appears in three episodes as former German rocket scientist Warner von Braun who oversaw the design and construction of the Saturn V moon rocket. You can click on the names in this or any of my other entertainment blogs to see their resumes on IMDb.com. I won’t bother mentioning their many roles.

Before writing this review I have seen all 10 episodes and I’m pleased to report that it is already renewed for season 2. There are going to be some minor plot spoilers in the rest of this but I don’t think it will ruin your viewing. After the Russians landed on the moon one month ahead of Apollo 11, the US goes ahead and sends Armstrong and Aldrin to the moon as planned. But I will spoil the story this much to say that this mission doesn’t go exactly as smoothly as history’s real Apollo 11. The series also covers Apollo 12 but makes no mention of the accident suffered by real-life Apollo 13. There is a time jump in the series and from that point forward all of the missions are fictional.

As mentioned before, the story follows the continuing space race between the US and the Soviet Union. It now becomes a race to build a permanent moon base. On one of the missions, water is discovered in the permanent dark areas of Shackleton crater near the Moon’s south pole. In real life, water wasn’t discovered there until a few years ago when satellite reconnaissance detected the presence of frozen water. This early discovery makes a permanent moon base feasible and both countries race to build a moon base on the edge of this crater some distance apart from each other.

The Soviets also get one up on us by landing the first woman on the moon paralleling the true life events where they put the first woman in orbit years before we did. In this alternate history, we respond by rapidly recruiting and training a group of female astronauts and several of the episodes through the middle of the season forward deal with that story. Not only does the series deal with women’s issues it also touches on LGBT themes. It dramatically illustrates the way such issues were dealt with or not dealt with in the 70s and 80s. We get a glimpse of the political background of this alternate history which has some interesting twists and turns as well. The world these characters live in feels very real. An excellent bit of alternate world building on the part of the show’s creators and writers.

The writing is excellent. The acting is wonderful. The drama is compelling. There are surprises and tragedies that will break your heart. I will warn you don’t watch episode 9 unless you are prepared to watch the finale episode 10 immediately following.

I have to admit a bias because I grew up in the Apollo era and have always been a spaceflight enthusiast. But I don’t think that you have to be a space history buff or a spaceflight enthusiast to really enjoy this series.

For the most part the science is reasonably accurate. There are a couple of places near the end where I thought they glossed over a couple of issues for the sake of keeping the story moving. However I found much less of what I call “plot driven technology” then I find in many sci-fi series. I should mention that the special-effects are excellent as well for a TV series. Also a big tip of the hat to the set decorators. On the wall of one of the astronaut’s homes there is a wall decoration identical to one that has been hanging in my living room since the early 1970s.

I was fortunate enough to get a free subscription to Apple TV+ when I purchased my new iPhone 11. There are at least 2 other series available on Apple TV+ that are worth checking out.One of them is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi series titled “See” starring Aquaman star Jason Momoa which I will review soon here. And a drama series called “The Morning Show” starring Jennifer Aniston which I have not yet seen but which earned a number of Golden Globe nominations. Ultimately whether or not it’s worth the subscription price to you is something you alone will have to decide. Overall Apple TV+ does not have a huge catalog of programming. There are less than a dozen original series but I suppose it will grow over time.

I’m giving this a strong recommendation of “I Really like It“. If you do have access to Apple TV+ this is something you should definitely check out. Really quality stuff with more to come next season.