The new Star Trek series Star Trek: Picard makes its debut today on CBS All Access, and as a special treat, they have released the entire title sequence for the show. The new theme music is by Jeff Russo, the same man who wrote the theme for Star Trek: Discovery. You can watch this title sequence, including the soul stirring new theme, here.

You’ll want to turn this up. It’s gorgeous.

Title sequences for TV shows are supposed to tell you something important about what comes next. We see a crack in the sky, and a shard of sky comes slowly tumbling down through Picard’s vineyard to a technological underground, out into space through the heart of a badly damaged Borg cube. The shard joins other crystals and fragments in a dance of DNA, which resolves itself into the shape of Admiral Jean-Luc Picard, the original shard becoming part of his skin at final assembly.

This is symbolic on so many levels. Picard is the sum of all of his history, but the most devastating event in his life was being absorbed into the Collective, then recovered and returned to his fully human form.

“Chekhov’s Gun” is a concept that describes how every element of a story should contribute to the whole. It comes from Anton Chekhov’s famous book writing advice: “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired.”

What role, then, will the Borg play in the series?

Star Trek: Picard stars Sir Patrick Stewart, Santiago Cabrera, Alison Pill, Isa Briones, Harry Treadaway, Michelle Hurd, and Rebecca Wisockey, with additional cameo appearances by Brent Spiner, Jeri Ryan, Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes.

The first episode of Star Trek: Picard debuts today, January 23, 2020, on CBS All Access in the US, Space/Crave in Canada, and will be available on Amazon Prime in the rest of the world.  It has already been picked up for a second season, so CBS All Access is pretty confident that they’re doing the right thing.

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