I forgot that YouTube was given a promotion to stream the premiere episode of Star Trek: Picard, which means I actually did get to watch it while still boycotting CBS All Access.
In this setting, which is in relative real time from the number of years that Star Trek: The Next Generation went off the air, the Federation is in a dark place. After the implosion of the Romulan sun (which unbeknownst to most people in the ‘Prime’ universe, actually created the Abramsverse), Admiral Jean-Luc Picard led a convoy to escort Romulan survivors to Mars, only to be suddenly attacked by a conspiracy of androids which destroyed much of the Romulan ships along with the Mars colony and Utopia Planitia shipyard. As a result, the manufacture of androids like the late Mr. Data is banned. Picard (Patrick Stewart) is haunted by the loss of Data (who actually died in Star Trek: Nemesis) and by the Mars fiasco, and has retired to live on his ancestral vineyard assisted by some of those Romulan refugees, writing historical analyses.
But when a young computer student in America is attacked by mysterious figures to keep her from “activating,” she experiences a psychic vision that draws her to France to seek Picard’s help. And what happens to her sets Picard on a quest to get to the bottom of a strange conspiracy. And in the last scene, where both Romulans and Humans are investigating a certain artifact, the conspiracy is very sinister indeed.
I haven’t decided if I’m going to succumb and subscribe to CBS All Access for this, but Star Trek: Picard is well worth the effort so far, combining the humanist values of Picard’s best TNG episodes with the skullduggery and intrigue that the setting has gone towards since Deep Space Nine.