Star Trek Picard: Grading CBS All-Access’ new show

Design

The design of the shows and movies have taken a drastic shift over the years. From the original Star Trek of the 1960s to the early 2000s, the show had a unique feel and vibe. Conventional set pieces, a focus on practical effects, stunts, stage acting, and heavily worded scripts were the norm. Most of the fights, battles, and wars were shown through dialogue due to the lack of budget. With that came a certain appreciation and admiration for the simple production of the series. It felt stripped away from the unnecessary and highlighted characters, dialogues and plots. Sure there were some special effects and space battles but the bulk of each show was simply acting.

When J.J. Abram took over in the late 2000s, the entire focus of what was Star Trek shifted. Gone were the simple and fan loved design of the series and in were polished special effects, bright and fancy filming styles and of course the ever-annoying lens flairs. The movies became super-polished with each new iteration focusing more on style than substance. That’s not to say that the series and films after didn’t have substance, that’s not what’s being said. What’s being said is there was an obvious shift in focus on what was being prioritized. The bigger budgets given to the modern era of content have erased the classic DIY feel of the originals, meaning that innovations and workarounds are being forgone for the sake of re-shoots and CGI coats of makeup.

So while preference does matter here, the only question that needs to be asked is “…does this version of Star Trek do the best they can with what they have?” The answer is yes. It’s now a big-budget entity that CBS is attempting to turn more and more into Star Wars with each passing week it seems but the one thing you can’t say is that it’s being done poorly. You could argue that it’s not Star Trek in its presentation, but you can’t argue that it’s bad.

Design: 5/5