[Brad]

Well, since we've bumped this thread, I guess I'll open up with my thoughts as another resident Trek super-nerd! (Within reach of the chair where I'm currently sitting, I have three different Trek insignia and a miniature light-up Enterprise D on a stand and a tiny shuttlecraft Galileo from a Kirk-era-movies AMT model kit, and on my bookshelf across the room I can see nine Star Trek tech manuals and encyclopedias and the box of Enterprise D blueprints.)

Although season 3 is much better than seasons 1 or 2, it's still been an oddly-paced sometimes-slog through a ten-hour movie that just couldn't resist going back to the well over and over again.

The "big reveal" in episode 9 got an eye-roll and a sad whimper out of me. Really? This is our antagonist? Again? I guess it makes sense not to introduce a whole new big-bad with only a couple hours of show left, but still, the convoluted mental gymnastics you have to jump through to connect the chain of events over the last 35 years and make logical sense is, well, dizzying. The writers are firmly out of original ideas and are leaning exclusively on the audience's memories and nostalgia for the golden era of Trek, all while giving us new plot holes big enough to fly a fleet of starships through.

I wouldn't think it too hard to strike a balance between respecting the universe canon and developing some new stories. Surely somewhere out there is a modern-day Ron Moore who is both a fan and a good writer, ready and eager to intelligently add to the Trek lore. Someone call up the writers from Lower Decks, Strange New Worlds, and Prodigy! At least this season tried to fit in the old universe. I think you could safely ignore all of season 1 and 2 with a two-minute "last time on Star Trek" recap showing that Picard met Seven, the Picard we knew died, and Picard's consciousness was transferred into an android that's every bit as old and frail as the man. Nothing else of value is lost.

I'm trying to avoid spoiling season 3 details for anyone who wants to catch up, but I will say that the very best thing to come out of the latest episode was

Picard praising the carpet and normal lighting of the D.

This must have been some writer's direct response to criticisms about recent design choices, and that'll be the last of that. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when that dialog was written!

I wanted this show to be great, or at least this final season since it seemed like it would be a major shift from the previous ones. Through all the grim dark, I thought we might be seeing rays of lights in those early season 3 episodes. It felt like maybe we were going to have some new ideas and adventures. Instead we got an endless parade of cameos and fan service, sprinkled with mystery boxes that have mostly unsatisfying answers. I'm bitter because of the squandered opportunities, and I'm bitter because most of the big surprises the show did offer were wantonly spoiled ahead of time by nigh-unavoidable marketing fluff. So much money and time and talent on a wet fart of a show that will not leave a cultural mark anything remotely like the 30-year-old show that inspired it. In another year or two, assuming CBS doesn't try to milk this cast further with the "Star Trek Legacy" idea, most will have forgotten that any of this happened.

It is nice to see the old crew back together for one last mission, though. They still have great on-screen chemistry, and it shows that they've remained friends off-set for decades.

See? It's not all bad!