The powers that be behind the scenes of the new Star Trek Picard claim that this show will not be Star Trek The Next Generation The Next Generation.  It’s going to be its own independent thing.  I can see where they are coming from with that, but at the same time it’s a character that existed through seven seasons of broadcast TV and four feature length movies.  He also made cameos in a couple of other Star Trek series as well.  In other words, the dude has history.

In post from a couple of days ago I mentioned that there are a few newly released items that serve as a sort of prequel to the new show.  There is the comic book series (two of three have been issued so far) called Star Trek Picard – Countdown, and there is an 8-9 minute episode of Star Trek Short Treks called Children of Mars.

Now that we have episode one of Picard we can look back to a few more things that could serve as prep work for the new series.  Two Next Generation Episodes and one movie.

First, there is an episode called The Measure of a Man, season two episode nine.  In this episode Commander Data is effectively put on trial to determine if Star Fleet should give him the same rights afforded to a life form, or if he should be considered property.

Second is an episode called The Offspring, season three episode 16, in which a bunch of punk rockers need to keep them separated even though they are pretty fly for a white guy.  No, that was a crappy band.  In the episode, Commander Data tries to create a child.

Finally, there are connections in the new episode to the final Next Generation movie, Nemesis.  In that movie Data does a ton of stuff and there are lots of Romulans.  It’s also the movie that was meh enough to pretty much kill the franchise in its tracks.  I think I have only seen it once and if my memory serves it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t that good either.

While it is nerdishly awesome to be able to connect the dots between the old show and the new show like this, you don’t actually need to see any of the old stuff to follow what’s happening in the new stuff.  Picard episode one will give you any information you need from the old stories so you aren’t missing out on anything.

Still, if there is one thing Star Trek is good at, it is building up the universe.  This is just more evidence of that.

Now, given that my last 2300 posts have all dealt at least in part with the new show, you might have pieced together the fact that I am really, really excited about this.  Almost as excited as I was for Star Wars episode IX, though nothing will ever touch the hype I felt for that.  Needless to say, I am very much looking forward to episode two next week.