Some Kind of Star Trek: Picard: Countdown Issue 2 AND Trailer Spots

Monday, 30 December 2019

Picard: Countdown Issue 2 AND Trailer Spots

Picard is captured, the Romulans are in danger of extinction...

Sounds like an average day in Starfleet and probably a quiet one for Admiral Jean-Luc in this second issue of the Countdown series coming ahead of the January series premiere.

Picking up where issue one left off (shocker), the story continues on the three fronts; briefly the Romulans arriving at Chateau Picard and then on the surface of Yuyat Beta and, before you forget it's there, aboard the USS Verity in orbit.

Now, I'm going to say this pretty straight, I'm not sure I'm seeing much of the point to these three prequel comic issues ahead of January 23rd. The artwork is fantastic, the story itself is well plotted but we know what Picard was involved with that "leads" into the series and I can't decide whether these are clever spoilers, winks or just a general tease. These events have already "happened" if you will by the time we are reacquainted with the former Enterprise captain and this tale appears to be a story within the overall evacuation story.

So we can see that the Romulans are unwilling to aid the native population of Yuyat Beta from being destroyed when the Hobus star goes supernova and we can understand the moral dilemma facing Admiral Picard but will this be an incident that is closely linked into the events of the series? Will this be mentioned or is it going to be a never-mentioned sub-paragraph of one day in the life...?

Picard proposes to step out into new territory and with Countdown we are at least getting a hint of what that future and Starfleet itself is looking like from a physical perspective. It has linked in at least one of Jean-Luc's new crew into his backstory and I believe that the Romulans we are seeing in the "present" rather than the evacuation timeline may be the more prevalent element of the narrative yet to this stage are being incredibly well under-played as a footnote.

Over in trailerville though, we've had some new material on the show. Not a great deal of new info thrown out in the latest teaser but we do get more footage of Picard and Riker plus a little more of Seven and Picard's conversation at (what I expect) is the Picard vineyard.

Most interesting has to be the new shots of the updated-for-2019 Borg drone quite literally flashed into the opening seconds of the trailer as well as the Entertainment Weekly shot of Hugh's drastic new look which does have some lineage back to his heavily prosthetic-covered look last seen in the conclusion of Descent from 1993.

The makeup is definitely in line with the First Contact/Voyager Borg we were used to after 1996 but might this be a freed drone?

We also have Federation ships of a new and unknown design flashing by some form of starbase structure as well as what might be a good, clear crisp shot of the rear of the hero ship from the show. Unusually they're firing red energy weapons which we would expect from a Klingon craft.

I've included some of the new shots below for perusal - not a lot to discuss from these I feel but well worth a look over. Perhaps the best shot in there we haven't seen before is early on with Picard seated in front of what looks like the curved windows from Ten Forward. Could this be part of a flashback or dream sequence including Data? Are we going to be dipping onboard the D and E more than we have been let into?

New ship on approach?

Jean-Luc in Ten Forward perhaps? Or is this on another starship...?

At home with Seven - who also got her very own mini-trailer (shot below)

New Borg makeup in close. Still retaining the veined facial appearance with familiar looking eyewear and hoses. I don't think there's been a lot of changes from the '96 update.

New character we've not seen in the trailers before

Close look at the apparently damaged Borg Cube. We've been thinking the Romulans are in control of this but what if it's Starfleet?

Then there was a little second trailer that gave us a few more new looks at Troi, Riker plus the latest variation of the Starfleet uniform as below...