Tag Archive: Star Trek: Picard


Shelter at home with Patrick Stewart with sonnets and Picard series–free

Filed under: Backstage Pass, Comics & Books, Con Culture, Retro Fix, Sci-Fi Café, TV — Leave a comment
March 25, 2020

PatrickPicard

Patrick Stewart is back again to save the day, and he’s doing it in two ways.  As Sir Patrick Stewart, he has begun reading sonnets and sharing his readings online.  And as one of our favorite Captains, Jean-Luc Picard, he’s sharing news of the ability for anyone to stream the first season of his new series Star Trek: Picard on the CBS All Access streaming service–free.

As most know, the master thespian was an actor in the Royal Shakespeare Company before appearing in Star Trek: The Next Generation and as Charles Xavier in the Marvel X-Men franchise films, including one of his landmark performances in James Mangold’s 2017 Oscar-nominated film, Logan.  On his social media (see his Instagram page here) Sir Pat has begun reciting a sonnet a day, in the hopes that “a sonnet a day keeps the doctor away.”  He has so far read Shakespeare sonnets 116, 1, and 2.

Patrick Stewart

And Tuesday he announced more good news for his Star Trek fans: “Our #StarTrekPicard season finale is Thursday, and starting today until 4/23, you can watch for free on @CBSAllAccess in the US with the code: GIFT.”  All you need to do is sign up for the streaming service and use the code GIFT.  Check out the CBS All Access website for full details.

Star Trek: Picard takes place twenty years after the events in the movie Star Trek: Nemesis, which resulted in the death of Brent Spiner’s character Data, and also after the events of Star Trek (2009), which resulted in the destruction of the planet Romulus.

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CBS is streaming first episode of Star Trek’s Picard series free on YouTube

Filed under: Sci-Fi Café, TV — Leave a comment
February 1, 2020

The pay streaming platform CBS All Access has posted the first episode of its latest Star Trek series free on YouTube.  That’s right, Star Trek: Picard episode one is available right now.  Unlike plenty of things on YouTube this is a legitimate, authorized release, but according to the studio it will only be available for a limited time.  So take a look before it’s gone.

Star Trek: Picard takes place twenty years after the events in the movie Star Trek: Nemesis, which resulted in the death of Brent Spiner’s character Data, and also after the events of Star Trek (2009), which resulted in the destruction of the planet Romulus.

Returning to the Star Trek universe is Patrick Stewart as now Admiral Jean-Luc Picard, along with Spiner, Jonathan Frakes as Riker, Marina Sirtis as Troi, Jonathan Del Arco as Hugh, and from Star Trek Voyager, Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine, along with a next generation of new characters.

Take a look at the first episode of Star Trek: Picard on YouTube below:

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Retro fix–Star Wars and Star Trek books serve up nostalgia from magazine back issues

Filed under: Backstage Pass, Comics & Books, Fantasy Realms, Movies, Retro Fix, Sci-Fi Café, TV — Leave a comment
October 21, 2019

Sometimes you wish you could go back in time, to decades past where life was simpler and you could grab a magazine at the local bookstore or grocery store rack to get a fix from your favorite movies or TV series.  Back in the 1970s and 1980s sometimes that meant Starlog, Starburst, or Space Wars, Fantastic Films Magazine, or even mags aimed at the younger set, like Dynamite.  Then people like Dan Madsen came along with fan clubs that resulted in titles targeted at specific, single fandoms like The Lucasfilm Fan Club Magazine for Star Wars, and Star Trek Communicator and other titles under variants of those names.  Titan Magazines inherited management of these legacies decades ago, and is still putting out both Star Wars Insider and Star Trek Magazine, and it’s the articles from those mags that fans can “read again for the first time” as Titan launches three new compilation books, Star Wars: The Best of the Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Rogues, Scoundrels, and Bounty Hunters, and Star Trek Picard: The Classic Chronicles.

The two Star Wars books are tied to the anticipation for the release of the final chapter in the original Star Wars saga as Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker arrives in theaters in December and The Mandalorian series begins streaming in November.  And the Star Trek book is primed to get newer fans up to speed in time for the release of the Star Trek Picard television series.  If you collect the magazines, you have already read this content, but if you haven’t or you threw out your magazines over the years, this is your chance to check out Titan’s targeted looks back at these big franchises.

Vintage photographs, tie-in toys and other products, posters, interviews, and articles full of trivia are reason enough to take a look back through these books.  And those photographs include many you’ve probably not seen before–or at least haven’t seen in a long, long time.  Clocking in at 176 pages, each book has something for every fan of these franchises.  Star Wars: Rogues, Scoundrels, and Bounty Hunters is a must for anyone after lots of detail photographs of Chewbacca and your favorite bounty hunters, something from every previous Star Wars film through Solo: A Star Wars Story.  Star Trek Picard: The Classic Chronicles isn’t just about Patrick Stewart’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard, but is an overview of the entire series and films featuring the NextGen crew.  Star Wars: The Best of the Original Trilogy is perhaps the most nostalgic, with those marketing photographs and accompanying 1970s magazine style art that could have come straight out of Dynamite magazine.

Below are previews of all three books.  Catch up on the past–order these books at your local bookstore or comic book shop or from Amazon at these links: Star Wars: The Best of the Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Rogues, Scoundrels, and Bounty Hunters, and Star Trek Picard: The Classic Chronicles.

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The old is new again–Original crew and more to return for Star Trek’s Picard series

Filed under: Retro Fix, Sci-Fi Café, TV — Leave a comment
July 20, 2019

For the new Star Trek: Picard series, a sequel to not only Star Trek: The Next Generation and its films–and now apparently to Star Trek Voyager, also, the hints from the production that the series was going to be something entirely new weren’t altogether accurate.  Brent Spiner, Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, Star Trek Voyager’s Seven of Nine actor Jeri Ryan, and Jonathan Del Arco, who played Hugh, all will be joining Patrick Stewart as Picard, appearing in the continued journey of the Federation.  But executive producer Akiva Goldsman insisted that this isn’t a sequel at a panel today at San Diego Comic-Con, appearing along with showrunner Michael Chabon and co-executive producer Alex Kurtzman.  The direction for the series that the members of the production are stressing is that the series will be new, yet the trailer for the series is all throwback goodness.

As the saying goes:  The old is new again.

Some nostalgia from the ghosts of Star Treks past includes Picard in similar TNG civilian shirt and First Contact jacket and combadge, he’s right where fans would expect him in the future: at his vineyard a la All Good Things… readying to be called upon to go off-world on some special mission a la the Unification, Gambit, Preemptive Strike, Chain of Command, Birthright, and Endgame stories, with scenes evoking Kirk’s final days from Star Trek Generations.  Spiner’s character is in a box (literally), appearing to be B9 (and not the exploded bits of the actual Data?)–not that it matters.  Seven of Nine is back (looking like she never left) with an only slightly updated cybernetic prosthetic on her forehead and more human than before.  Although they didn’t make the first trailer, other blasts from the past include the return of Riker and Troi.  And expect lots of the Federations’ original enemies, as Romulans return as one of the show’s key antagonists.

This appears to be exactly what fans have been after since the IDW Publishing comic book series prequel to the movie Star Trek 2009 (discussed here) put Picard back on the bridge with B9, and then Brannon Braga teamed up Picard and Seven of Nine in his IDW series (discussed here back in 2012).  New cast members for the series include a diverse group of new faces, including Isa Briones, Santiago Cabrera, Evan Evagora, Michelle Hurd, Alison Pill, and Harry Treadaway.

The wait is over.  Check out the first trailer for Star Trek: Picard:

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