CBS Releases Star Trek: Picard Teaser Trailer

The world has had its first official look at Star Trek: Picard.

Yesterday morning, CBS released a short, one-minute trailer introducing us to the new series. As of me recording this show, the YouTube video has been viewed nearly 800,000 times. In less than a day.

The best roundup I’ve found of the trailer comes from TrekMovie.com, who gathered together not only the CBS All Access trailer, but also the international versions tweeted out by Bell Media’s Space Channel in Canada, and Amazon Prime Video in the UK. They also include the teaser poster that was released at the same time, featuring vines of grapes twisted into the shape of a delta.

The grapevines here are significant. Quoting TrekMovie: “The video features imagery of the Picard family vineyards, and a voiceover that wonders why Admiral Picard left Starfleet, ‘15 years ago today you led us out of the darkness, you commanded the greatest rescue armada in history, then the unimaginable happened…’ The teaser cuts to a dramatic shot of an aged Picard, and the video concludes with the tagline ‘The End Is Only The Beginning.’”

Star Trek: Picard Teaser Trailer Setting, Explained

CBR.com has a good article explaining the Trek history of the Picard family vineyards. We’re first introduced to the vineyard in the Next Generation season 4 episode “Family”. This was the first episode after part two of “Best of Both Worlds”, when Picard was assimilated by the Borg. In “Family”, as part of his recovery, he retired to the vineyard, which was run by his brother Robert.

We revisit the vineyard in the Next Generation finale “All Good Things…”, and again in the film Generations, when we learn that Robert, and his son Rene, were killed in an accidental fire, leaving the future of the vineyard in question. The closeup shot of the Chateau Picard wine in the Star Trek: Picard trailer heavily implies that that’s the same vineyard to which Picard has returned.

Where We Last Saw Jean-Luc Picard

Another good roundup of some background information for the trailer comes from TV Guide.

Here, they remind us of what’s happened to Picard since we last saw him in Star Trek: The Next Generation. The last time we saw Jean-Luc Picard on film was in 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis, when he faced off against his Romulan clone Shinzon. At the end of that film, we see Data sacrificing himself in order to save the Enterprise crew, but not before transferring some of his consciousness to the underdeveloped android B-4.

Fast-forward to the events of “Countdown”, the comic series that led up to the 2009 Star Trek film, in which we see the destruction of the Romulan homeworld, largely considered to be a major event preceding - and affecting - Star Trek: Picard. As TV Guide explains it: “[Countdown] follows Nero's efforts to save his home planet of Romulus from being engulfed by a supernova. At this point in time, Data had been revived in B-4's body and now served as captain of the Enterprise while Picard acted as the Federation ambassador to Vulcan. Nero and Spock's efforts to prevent the destruction of Romulus ultimately failed, and Spock's use of red matter to shrink the supernova resulted in him being transported to the past — leading straight into the events of the blockbuster film.”

In previous interviews, executive producer Alex Kurtzman has said that the “dissolution of the Romulan Empire” was a major event affecting Picard’s life. It’s also worth mentioning that Alex Kurtzman co-produced Star Trek (2009) and co-wrote the “Countdown” comic series.

Star Trek: Picard is filming now, and expected to premiere this Fall.