Series A strong start and a disappointing finish.
Promising start. For the first time, Star Trek centred civilians; we got to follow up on plot points both from the Berman era and the Kelvinverse movies. We finally got a heaping helping of much-needed worldbuilding for the Romulan culture; we got a fascinating glimpse at the lives of Federation anthropologists; we expanded the universe with Coppelius, an entire planet of Soong-type androids, and a new cosmic horror threat from another galaxy. Above all, Star Trek: Picard season one gave us an entire cast of interesting new characters: Rios, elevated from your typical Han Solo wannabe by his existentialism and chorus of amusing holograms; Raffi, hyper-competent but pathologically obsessive; Jurati, brilliant but deeply unhappy, tormented by horrors beyond human imagination; Elnor, fundamentally innocent despite remorseless killing; and Soji, unwitting daughter of Data, whose entire life has been a lie. All are portrayed by some of the best actors in the history of the franchise.
Season 1 offers a thoughtful meditation on human existence in the shadow of death. The Federation has experienced mass death on Earth's doorstep for the first time in living memory, turning reactionary and xenophobic in response. The Synth conflict is driven by the fact that we die and they do not. And into all of this, we cast Picard, himself dying, but trying to repair the galaxy.
Season 1 is imperfect, though, suffering from modern TV's obsession with story arc, pointless, Anyone Can Die violence, and big whiz-bang season finales. It’s also overstuffed; the Synth, Romulan, & Borg threads could each support a whole arc, but they’re all brought together in only 10 episodes, and only the 1st was given any payoff. The finale was a poor end to a promising beginning, but it left me eager to see more.
The 2nd & 3rd seasons were unworthy successors. I have no room to discuss their many flaws, suffice it to say the new showrunner seemed uninterested in any characters or concepts advanced in the 1st season (or even the 2nd, which was mostly there to get rid of the new characters). Nor could he conceive of a Star Trek not focused on the military. New ideas are few and far between, but Continuity Porn is everywhere, pandering to the Lowest Common Denominator. Every surface detail of the TNG era is slavishly reproduced, but without the intellectualism or commentary on the human condition. The Federation is as dystopian as it’s ever been depicted, but now characters don't even bother to oppose this authoritarian turn. And then there’s Jack, the most blatant example of a Mary Sue that I have seen in professionally written fiction.
Can I recommend this? Well, I can recommend the 1st season. Of the 2nd, I recommend watching Youtube videos of the scenes with Jurati and the Borg Queen (the only arc that does something new & interesting). Of the 3rd, maybe some isolated scenes of Liam Shaw or the TNG crew getting back together. But as a whole, the series falls completely apart.
Series A mixed bag
This show certainly has its ups and downs, so here's a small overview of what I think was handled well, and what wasn't
Season 1
Good: Someone finally remembered that Hugh exists! Seeing Seven again was great, and the Reclamation project was an intriguing concept. I liked Elnor and it was nice to see some familiar faces from TNG.
Bad: Hugh, Icheb, and even freaking Data, are Back for the Dead, killed off purely for shock value with barely any impact on the plot, and the entire xB plotline was completely wasted. Riker and Troi are just kinda there, not really doing anything useful. Soji, who the entire season revolves around, is an incredibly unsympathic Jerk Sue Karma Houdini, who nearly commits genocide on a galactic scale without so much as a slap on the wrist. And the rest of Ragtag Bunch of Misfits have so many issues, it gets really annoying to watch. I mean... do these people even like each other?
Final verdict: Too Bleak, Stopped Caring
Season 2
Good: The protagonists actually act like friends who care about each other. Soji only appears for a minute or two, and her Suspiciously Similar Substitute Kore is far more likeable and sympathetic. Q and Guinan are back! The Mirror Universe plotline was pretty fun. And Raffi/Seven was really nice.
Bad: Everything involving the Borg Queen was an Ass Pull of epic proportions. Jurati is an idiot and things only work out for her because of Plot Armor. Q, an immortal omnipotent alien, dies for no reason whatsoever (wasn't there enough character deaths in the previous season?!) Cristobal's plotline is boring and unnecessary, and culminates in him being Put on a Bus without a return ticket. Elnor is gone for most of the season.
Final verdict: A definite improvement, but still plenty to harp on.
Season 3
Good: The TNG team is back together, given the space to interact with each other, and actually have relevance to the plot! The entire Changeling plotline was awesome. Seven and Raffi are great as always. Data is back! Lore, of all people, is back. Captain Shaw is great, and Sydney is just adorable. Vadic is a cool villain.
Bad: The last two episodes are terrible. The Changelings are completely sidelined and the Borg are shoehorned in for no good reason. Shaw is killed (sigh...), and Jack is a moronic Marty Stu who nearly dooms the Federation with his stupidity. Characters who should be there are not: the entire plot revolves around Picard and Crusher's family, but Wesley and Elnor don't even get a cameo? The Borg are the final villains who took over the entire Starfleet, but no one bothered to give Queen Jurati a call? Come on! Oh, and apparently, Seven and Raffi broke up for no reason.
Final verdict: Pretty good, so long as you ignore the existence of episodes 9 & 10
Series (Spoilers) Season 2: An unfortunate mess
As a lifelong Trek fan, I was optimistic about watching the post-2017 shows. That faded pretty quick; there's many cases of poor writing, wasted ideas, dodgy continuity and a lack of real Trek feel. And nowhere are these more apparent than in Season 2 of Picard, where the cast is hurled into another universe before travelling to 2024 Los Angeles.
The "Confederation", being another evil Federation, is already redundant—it's just the mirror universe again. But the Enterprise-D is named the World Razer, civilians look like criminals(???) and celebrate "Eradication Day"...it's so overdone, it's hilarious. Elnor is shot before they make it to 2024, giving angry Raffi more angst. Picard has little to say for his surrogate son.
Eps. 3-9 stay in LA. The social commentary is so poor, it's baffling. Old Trek explored topics with nuance, often detailing all sides. This show stops at "humanity sucks". Rios is arrested by strawmen immigrant police, Raffi beats an armed homeless man in self-defense but then steals his money, Seven waxes climate change without acknowledging ways to help...it's preachy and shallow. It's even implied that the Confederation formed here.
It gets worse. Picard feels more like Stewart than Picard, and gets traumatic flashbacks that look 400 years too old for ST's setting. Q barely shows up despite marketing, and speaks in so many riddles that he feels flanderized. Cigar-chewing Rios talks to a sassy nurse once and then falls for her. Seven and Raffi emphasize protecting the timeline, only to hijack police cars and free Rios using advanced tech in over-the-top ways. They also argue a lot—it took interviews for me to realize they're meant to be a couple. With Seven being a generic action girl and Raffi being bitter 24/7, I found zero chemistry.
Awkward, mopey Jurati got an okay dynamic with the Borg Queen that initially played on her insecurities. It dips when the Queen possesses her—suddenly, she needs endorphins to do it. Guinan, who's supposed to be the same no matter where/when she is, has a younger, angsty version of herself who's connected to the "Watchers". How do they work? She has no clue! Picard meets one who looks like Laris, which isn't explained. And we also meet Renée Picard, who has to go to space or the Confederation will form. Why? No one knows! History was wiped! The writing skips basic plot details, leaving Renée the flattest living MacGuffin I've ever seen.
The resolutions are contrived, too. Jurati somehow convinces The Borg ("Resistance is futile", anyone?) to respect free will, Rios stays behind to bang the chick he hardly knows, Picard's trauma comes from his mom's suicide (even though she appeared in TNG as an old woman), and Q orchestrated everything to solve Picard's issues, expecting viewers to ignore the deaths along the way as he fixes the plot for them.
The acting, visuals and soundtrack weren't bad, but they can't cover for an abominable script. With a heavy heart, I give this a 2/10.
Series Path of least intelligence and sense for maximum drama effect, engage.
The simple question is... whom was this series made for? If it was for the old fans who wanted a sense of the old star trek back, with Picard acting as the diplomatic and intelligent captain, they will be sore upon seeing that everything was changed for a darker and edgier tone, Picard delivering speeches without thinking of consequences and so on.
If it was for new people to get interested in Star Trek, it would be impossible to see the first episode alone without knowing a great deal of not only the Next Generation, but also all series and movies.
Then, whom?
The biggest issue with the series isn't the old battle between old x new, (I could make a whole paragraph about how the Starfleet is supposed to be utopic and problems that plague us today should be made into external problems to be deal with, this way it tells us that the problems that we deal with today can be done if we improve ourselves, etc), it's how literally everything that happened seems to be done in a way to maximize amount of drama disregarding potential backlashes and results, both from the universe itself, and the fans. (heavy spoilers ahead for obvious reasons)
Picard as a character was, originally, a diplomat. He first and foremost sought to understand the situation from the eyes of those who opposed him, in order to get the whole picture, yet here he will gladly trust newcomers blindly, don't allow allies to investigate said newcomers, and gladly chastise seven of nine in a different situation from the point of view of a starfleet officer. His whole quest is to find information about an android that knocked on his door, but he won't seek her mom (whom she talked to him about) nor the family of her boyfriend (who might have offered clues as to where they met originally and so on). And he is still traumatized by the Borg, because to the writers this seems like the only 'impacting moment' for him and, of course, ThereAreNoTherapists. You can guess who will betray whom not on a logical basis, but what would be seen as the most 'shocking', even if it wouldn't make sense. For example, a doctor is introduced, she spent her whole life studying synthetics, but only needs one moment with the bigbad to be shocked, betray her beliefs and turn into a mole, killing a source of info, and Picard won't question her further than a bit, not seeking logs or an autopsy. And of course the infamous intro of the 5th episode, that was more fitting for a grindhouse movie than Star Trek, where a character from the past series is brought solely to be butchered on screen in graphic detail. Why? Torture scenes happened before and were handled with the proper gravitas, Star Trek never needed cheap gore scenes to deliver its message, why now? For Drama.
The problem isn't changing the scenario or themes (or else I wouldn't have liked DS 9), it's demolishing everything and blaming ME for not liking the mess they made.
Series The series is what you make of it
A caveat: At time of writing, the sixth episode was just released this morning so it's too early to review the series as a whole. This is my review and perspective.
As a whole, the universe of "Star Trek" is about a future that could be. A world (not the galaxy, and certainly not the entire universe) where humanity (and other species) live without poverty, war or despair. Not only that, but being equals regardless of who or what you are. However, it's not a world that just came to be overnight. A lot of time, blood, sweat and tears went into building that world. What the people who worked hard to achieve, their descendants have taken for granted. That has led to problems, which is the setting of the series "Star Trek Picard".
When we see Admiral Picard again, he has become disillusioned and out of touch. He's no longer commanding a starship and no longer exploring the galaxy. Instead, he's tending to his family's vineyard. It's hardly a wonder then that when he's interviewed he gives a very blunt answer about why he left Starfleet. Though Starfleet had a very compelling reason to back out of the rescue, that's still no excuse. He's hardly blameless as he finds out throughout the subsequent episodes. His ultimate decision, giving up, has resulted in other consequences from old contacts at Starfleet giving him the cold shoulder to sword fights with bitter refugees.
What this series is about is someone realizing how badly he screwed up and doing something—anything—to make up for his own bad choices. But even then, he's stumbling because he's grasping for any help he can find. Any connection to his late friend. Which has lead to more trouble. But that's not as unbelievable as you might think. How many times have we been fooled into giving money or falling for a scam? Picard is portrayed as a flawed human being who makes mistakes and blindly trusts when he shouldn't. We've all done that.
Ultimately, "Star Trek Picard" is a mirror of what's happening in our own world today. We're divided and we're bitter. Some of us have done as Picard did and given up, while others haven't and continue to do work that's considered "hopeless, pointless and exhausting". Yet they keep going. Others, like Picard, come to realize how wrong they were and try—even if it means failure or even death—to do the right thing.
Like in reality, even when people try to do the right thing, they don't quite get it right. But they don't let that stop them. There's no doubt that Picard is going to have learn a few hard lessons and have reality slap him in the face more than a few times before he finds his footing.
In the meantime, enjoy the journey because the episodes are fun and fast-paced. Regardless of how you view this series, what Star Trek is ultimately about is making people think, inspire and debate. This site is proof of that.
The series is not about exploration or finding some higher level of being, but a story about people who are good at their core and at least try to make things better for others. There's no cut-and-dried completely good or completely evil or completely perfect characters here but people. Something that I think we've forgotten about at one point or another.
Of course, like any character in the show, I could be completely wrong.
Series Missing the point.
The MO of the Secret Hideout era has been, "Let's do popular genres in Star Trek!" DSC is the rollicking action-adventure; LWD is the Work Com; PROD was the kids' show. Picard stars the acclaimed Patrick Stewart, so his show was formulated as Peak TV Drama, Star Trek's answer to The Sopranos or Breaking Bad.
But such a series doesn't just need good acting: it needs good writing too.
Myth Arcs are in; almost every Secret-Hideout show has them. But Peak-TV dramas don't; their seasons are Random Events Plots held together by character arcs. Picard got this backwards, exchanging commentary on the human condition for spectacle. Things happen and then are thrown away — and their discarding lampshaded by the cavalcade of Continuity Nods. The show is too focused on the past to create a coherent present.
Poor writing additionally hampers the acting. Newcomers Alison Pill, Santiago Cabrera and Isa Briones; Brent Spiner, Annie Wersching, John de Lancie and Jeri Ryan reprising old roles: no actor make any impact beyond their own (formidable) talents because their characters have nothing to work with.
Stewart resisted a return to Star Trek because he wanted to avoid a nostalgia-fest. The first two seasons adhere to this at the cost of coherence and Character Development. The third dives headlong into this. Its two goals: first, to craft a better Grand Finale for TNG than Star Trek: Nemesis. To do this it reunites the core TNG cast, leading to stronger acting and storytelling; the fanservice is also more organic — I teared up when Majel Barrett's voice filled the bridge again — if still excessive. But its other goal is to send off the entire NextGen era (TNG, DS9, VOY) as a whole. It fails at this by using DS9 solely for Back Story; the closest we get to an appearance from a DS9 character is a photo of Odo. (Beverly has no need to consult Changeling expert Julian Bashir? Alexander Siddig is still working.) And while guest star Worf is a DS9 character From a Certain Point of View, Seven of Nine is in the opening credits and we get brief appearances from Tim Russ. DS9 helped invent the show PIC is trying to be; disrespecting it this way is poor optics.
One of J. J. Abrams' biggest problems is his ability to misunderstand what makes a franchise special, replacing that magic with empty plot twists and lens flares. Star Trek: Picard follows in these footsteps, failing to invent itself as Peak TV or as Star Trek. The generation deserved better.