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Originally Posted by Brad
Same. After the first couple of episodes of Picard season 1, the rest of the run has been squarely in hate watching territory for me.  |
I mean, I have a lot of thoughts about the show. There's things to like there! And I wish they'd focused more on those. And obviously, my opinion on which ones they are is universal.
The Short Trek Children of Mars sort of teased season one of PIC, and I wish they'd simply focused on those aspects. Romulan refugee crisis, Picard disillusioned by Starfleet's reaction, retires, grows bitter, realizes he has no friends, eventually turns around and starts a rogue crew to try and help them. That's it, that's the entire season 1. Instead, they muddled it with other stories, some of which were outright stupid, and some were interesting but weren't brought to a satisfying conclusion:
- OK, so there's a Borg Reclamation Project, and Hugh leads it. (Cheap fan service, but alright.) And ex-Borg are actually victims, not perpetrators. That's interesting. Except they get bored with that plot, so they kill off Hugh, and then have Rissa or whatever her name is airlock thousands of other drones. So suddenly, they're drones again, not individuals, and even though we've just established that they're victims, they don't really at all any more. MOVING ON WE ONLY HAVE TEN EPS!
- The Qowat Milat sound interesting. (In general, one of the things in PIC S1 that were sort of hinted at was way more Romulan lore. But, alas.) Unfortunately, as soon as they get introduced, they get dropped as a concept in favor of… space legolas, or something. I don't understand this character's purpose, and apparently neither did the producers, because he's unceremoniously dropped early in season 2.
- Soji and Dash are interesting, but as we get to that weird planet, I just rolled my eyes.
- We get a Borg cube, and that used to be very scary, but now it's just some thing you operate with a joystick and you land it on a planet and just exit out the back door. It's fine.
Also, Romulan incest, I guess. And Jurati murders someone and that's terrible but it's also OK because she was under mind control and so I guess we don't have to deal with that any more.
Generally, I felt that there was a ton of exposition, until like episode six, which was bizarre for a ten-episode show. Lots of interesting stuff there. I increasingly worried how they were going to wrap all of that app. The answer was: not very well.
As for season 2, I don't even know what the hell that was? Q wants a hug from Picard, but before that, let's first create a Mirror Universe that isn't the Mirror Universe, and Picard has to travel to the past, where Q conveniently is as well, and acts a foil for reasons that aren't explained; also, Brent Spiner needed a paycheck? And then Jurati becomes another Borg Queen-ish, Rios looks cool with a cigar and bangs a doctor who has zero ethics, Guinan is shown but plays no real role, Picard's mom killed herself because mental health treatment in the early 24th century is apparently worse than in the early 21st??, Picard's dad is kind of a dick, and eventually, Picard and Q do hug, in the room where Picard's mom hanged herself, because that's exactly the kind of cynical romance Pic and Q have always had with each other, maybe? Oh, and also, dungeons.
I… I really don't know what, if anything, any of that was. Were the writers trying to introduce another Borg collective? Or show us that Picard's childhood was traumatic? Why bring us to just the right time for the Bell riots and even tease that in multiple ways, but then not bring it up at all?
So anyway, yes, I'm very optimistic season 3 will be excellent.