CBS makes Star Trek: Picard pilot free on YouTube for a limited time

CBS has made the entirety of the first episode of its new series Star Trek: Picard freely and publicly available as a YouTube video. This is an opportunity for viewers curious about the show to see if Picard is worth subscribing to the network’s streaming service, CBS All Access, to watch the rest of the series.

The episode on YouTube is the same as the pilot episode that premiered on CBS All Access last week. The second episode of

Picard

began streaming on CBS All Access yesterday, and the network plans to release episodes at a weekly cadence. CBS has not said whether it plans to make other episodes available for free on YouTube in the future, but it seems likely.

The description for the video says the episode will only be available “for a limited time” and that it’s presented by Geico. It does not, however, clarify how long “a limited time” is or when the video might become unavailable.

Picard

has received generally positive critical reviews to date, but it’s early days for the series. The show takes place 20 years after 2002’s

Star Trek: Nemesis

, which was the last time actor Patrick Stewart appeared on screen as Picard in a live-action

Star Trek

production. It has already included some cameos from actors and characters from

The Next Generation

-era

Star Trek

. Stewart, who is also an executive producer on

Picard

,

recently said

that it’s his goal to see all the principal characters of

The Next Generation

in

Picard

before the series ends its run.

The series has also been renewed for a second season, set to premiere in 2021. CBS plans to bring back Star Trek: Discovery for a third season with a new showrunner, and it has plans for additional series set in the Star Trek universe, including one focused on Michelle Yeoh reprising her role as Philippa Georgiou from Discovery.

We’ve embedded the full episode of Picard above.

Listing image by CBS