Picard — Countdown

It seems like almost everyone in my Twitter timeline is watching the new Picard TV series. We all love Jean-Luc, whether we are Star Trek fans or not. Quite a few people, however, including me, have been a bit confused, because the series assumes a level of fannish obsession with the Trek universe that most of us don’t share.

Much of this comes direct from Next Generation, which many of us will have seen. We have a reasonable idea of who Data, Bruce Maddox, Hugh and Locutus of Borg are. Other plot points arise from the move, Star Trek: Nemesis, which is not as bad as everyone told me it would be, but is nevertheless a bit silly. You can get away with reading the Wikipedia synopsis if you don’t want to watch it.

That much Trek lore is fairly accessible, but that still leaves a whole lot of mystery people. Who the heck is Raffi Musiker, whom Picard seems to know so well? Who are Zhaban and Laris, the two Romulans who live with Picard on his vineyard? I had no clue, so I Googled. It turns out that the TV series has a 3-part comic prequel. It is produced by IDW and written by the same creative team as the TV series. The individual issues are available for a very reasonable $1.99 each.

As comics go, these are not particularly great works of art. However, they do fill a gap in the narrative. If you are a little confused by some of the TV series, this will help you.