I kinda wish the series, and this issue, had been made like ten, fifteen years earlier; but still glad they're here.

The new, and final, season of Star Trek: Picard starts today on Paramount Plus--if that's still the name of it; I know they're rebranding with Showtime. Honestly, Star Trek stuff is the only reason I subscribe: the Twilight Zone reboot was OK, but didn't knock my socks off; and I've resisted most of the other shows they've really pushed like I was allergic to them. (Literally saw a million ads for Infinite, yet still had to spend five minutes trying to remember its name: I can't stand Wahlberg and would never, ever watch it.) But, like I said, kinda wish Picard (and the other Trek shows) had been made a decade or more earlier: there would be less of a push to be an "event" and instead might've just been a proper TV season, like 24 episodes. Plus, some of the stars would be a little younger and more game: every scene Patrick Stewart had in season two, I just wanted to wrap him in a big ol' blanket and set him gently on a couch. You need something? We'll go get it, you sit down...Anyway, there's comics, at least: from 2019, Star Trek: Picard Countdown #1, written by Kirsten Beyer and Mike Johnson, art by Angel Hernandez. 

The way the colons break in that title; "Picard Countdown" sounds like a dance show. Which I would watch. This was a prequel series, set about 15 years before season one, as Admiral Picard is hip-deep in the Romulan evacuation: their sun was going to go supernova, soon. Maybe a year, maybe tomorrow, no one knew. While the Federation is trying to help (largely shamed into it by Picard, which I don't think is dwelt upon as much yet here) the Romulans were their foes for a long time, and sometimes still act like it. Paranoid and secretive, the Romulans aren't giving them free reign in their territories, resist scanning, and generally act petulant and shifty. Today, Picard gets word of ten thousand Romulans that need to be moved from Yuyat Beta, a planet the Federation had thought was uninhabited until then.

Picard beams down with his new first officer, Lt. Commander Raffi Musiker, to the Romulan colony. The governor seems somewhat bemused at the humans, and breaks from the usual hardline secrecy, letting them roam around. Picard is intrigued by the vineyards, reminding him of his home, then is stopped cold when he notices "native helpers," working the vines. Forced labor would be bad enough; but a Romulan notes there were four, five million of them on the planet...and never considered the idea that they might need to be evacuated as well. Picard is furious, but the governor's only interest is getting Romulans out of there, one way or another. In a holding cell, Picard feels he can still hear the unseen clock, ticking...

Star Trek can be surprisingly iffy sometimes in the astronomy department: if the Romulan sun was going to go supernova, I think bad stuff would've already happened to the planets in that solar system; but that event shouldn't have taken out as big a chunk of space as it did. There's some backfills on that, in other stories. Similarly, in the first J.J. Abrams movie I don't think Spock should've been able to see the destruction of Vulcan from (not) "Delta Vega", that was straight-up dramatic license. My nerdy nitpicks aside, I liked this one.