Here's what Season 3 needs, for the Full TNG Movie Effect. The TNG crew and PIC crew are gathered together for a celebration. We get caught up about what everyone's up to. And Kestra's so tall now. Soong shows up. Who cares which one? The point is, we have to have Not-Data. Awkward comedy moment with Picard, Beverly, and Laris in the same scene. Until... Worf randomly shows up. Picard asks, "Worf? I'm glad you could make it! But aren't you a Klingon Governor?" Picard is interrupted by something and we never get an answer to the question. Picard delivers a one-liner. Picard randomly hears about some Bad News. Picard gathers the PIC Crew to go out on the Latest Adventure. Riker insists on helping. Picard says "No, no." Riker insists again. Picard decides the hell with it and accepts. La Sirena and the former Enterprise crews are both all in. The TNG and PIC characters head on their way to tackle this Crazy Bad News. Seven makes some off-hand comment about the former Enterprise crew, but Raffi likes them. Worf has trouble with Elnor being a Romulan, but respects him as a True Warrior. Then Big Bad shows up. He wants revenge. And I'll stop right there.
I agree with your prediction. I would add that the critics will likely complain that S3 has too much fan service and that S3 has "ruined the TNG characters". They will complain that the writing is terrible because Worf never would have done that back in TNG etc... And they will point to real or imagined plot holes and canon violations.
Its not a failure at all. This season Picard is having regret in not pursuing the woman he loves, and I'm guessing he will find the heart and confidence to go for it. Clearly, Laris loves him... even the Gary Seven doppleganger seem to like him as well; going through the obstacles to earn a chance with Laris is a journey worth doing. I hope he accomplishes it. As for living up to the legend of Star Trek: The Next Generation? That's up to you, and your expectations for compelling television programming.
Once you accept its a ten hour long movie it works better, and just like a lot of movies some parts work better than others. From what I have seen so far they did not need ten episodes to tell the story that they have shown, but I do not consider it a failure. A failure (to me) is if only a few people are watching the show, something tells there are more than a few people watching. (Even the extreme hate watchers are adding to the ratings. Fancy that!)
Perhaps you should spend less time over-evaluating the episodes and just enjoy them for the entertainment value they provide. Also, I would strongly suggest you stop watching garbage Yt video's that trash modern Star Trek simply because it gets them more monetary views. It seems to be heavily influencing your thought processes and does nothing but destroy your enjoyment of something you supposedly are a fan of.
Yes it's a failure. 8 episodes in and not a single dong or breast has been whipped out. Do these clowns not know how to make post GoT TV shows. Bring back REAL TREK
Considering how the critics flip out when a character drops an F bomb, they would really flip out if the show had nudity.
Objectively - I'm not sure if this can be answered since... some folks enjoy it and others don't. Enjoyment of a show, like beauty and treason, is in the eye of the beholder. I do think what can be said, objectively, is it is not a good look that they are already rolling out S3 teasers in the middle of S2. This may not be the case at all, but it does give an appearance of TPTB don't feel confident on the reception of S2 and desperately want to show they are rolling out TNG alum. Or maybe they just got overexcited and wanted to share the news. *shrugs* On S2 - I am pretty disappointed. I am not happy or gleeful about that. I'm not someone that hates PIC/DISCO/Any other Trek. It has some good moments (like even some of the worst Trek in the past had) but it really comes across like they had a good idea that could have been done in a three-parter. But they needed to fill out 10 episodes, so we have this drawn out plotline of the characters meandering through the 21st century. We have Rios getting captured and needing to escape. We have Picard being captured and needing to escape. We have this plot line about Picard's ancestor (it may still pay off). We have another plot line about Picard dealing with childhood trauma. We have this really odd, confusing plot about Soong that is connected to Eugenics ... but no real reference to the war itself or what his real endgame is with the clones (is it simply for his legacy?) Soong apparently has a lot of connections but not enough connections to finish his work. In the mix of all of this, the Borg Queen has hijacked Jurati and is on the loose. In the mix of that mix, we have Q who is ... dying (or something else)? We're still waiting to find out why he put Picard in an alternate timeline... None of those plot lines on their own are bad and has a lot of potential to be explored. It's just how it was put together in this season. It's a massive convoluted mess and it feels like a circle of writers each had an idea about where to go with Picard season 2 and someone said that we'll fit in all of their ideas. It's like that Key & Peele "Gremlin's 2" sketch where everyone's idea for a new Gremlin was thrown into the film.
Just like with Discovery season 4 I feel like I'm watching a three-parter turned into a whole season. There's just not enough story.
Or...they knew it was going to leak and had to get out ahead of it. Leaks are pretty much a production company's bane (just look at Marvel) and companies are trying their best to stay ahead of it. I don't think it shows a lack of confidence at all. They already poured in to having Q and Guinan in this season. Anyone surprised by more legacy characters? Exactly. The audience is still waiting for the end. How do we declare something a failure if we don't know the end? It's like how I hated "A Few Good Men" because I always stopped it right after Tom Cruise gets told that his partner would chose him as a lawyer. Or if I only watched Best of Both Worlds part 1. There is something missing here and declaring it a "failure" is, well, premature, to my mind. But, what do I know. I've already felt burned by legacy characters in Trek.
It started off really strongly, but it's just a bit boring at this point. With the ideas they're throwing around, it'd have almost have been better off being episodic.
The timing of that announcement struck me as…odd as well. It made me wonder if the ratings had gone down quite a bit and they wanted to persuade people to come back and stick at it. I often feel TPTB are extremely concerned with fan reaction…as is evidenced by DISCO, which, each season, has subtly (or not do subtly) adjusted itself to take any and all significant fan criticism to heart (and, I have to say, somewhat lost the mojo it had in its first couple of seasons in the process). Haha I’m a fan of classic Doctor Who and this reminds me of the days (mainly during the Jon Pertwee era) when they had a lot of six parters and basically to pad them out you’d have the Doctor and/or companions being captured, then escaping, then being recaptured, then escaping over and over again. And, ya know, it’s hard. Any story has a beginning, a middle and an end. It’s not easy to sustain it for hours and hours on end. Based on both DSC s4 and PIC s2 I think these seasons would have worked better as miniseries —maybe 4-5 hours. Or, what FARSCAPE used to do. It was arc heavy but the first half of each season began with standalone episodes and halfway through the season the serialisation kicked in until it culminated in a big arc heavy final run.
As each episode ends every week I turn the TV off feeling satisfied and entertained. So, no, Picard Season 2 is not a failure and is very much a success, by my metrics.
Same. They're clearly listening to some degree. I've just never seen a teaser/trailer in the middle of an ongoing season. S2 ends in 2 weeks - they couldn't attach it to the end of the show? Then again, I guess they needed some news for "First Contact Day". IDK. It just looked weird. Yeah, this probably would have been the better route to go. Maybe. I don't think anyone is surprised by the TNG alum appearing in the show. Just the timing of the teaser. Plus, the writers hyper-obsessed with making sure that this would not be TNG Season 8 when they revealed the news of this show's creation. At best, we'd get some cameos sprinkled in ala Riker/Troi or Data. Suddenly, S3 teaser (and finale of the show's run no less) rolls out and it comes across as one final hurrah for the TNG cast together. Rather than maybe some occasional appearances from the old cast across 3 seasons. As ananta said above - it comes across as trying to lure back the naysayers. True. I agree that the season can't really be declared a failure and it's not even over yet. It's all premature (barring that some will like it and some will hate it regardless of the show's end). I will say that even if the shows has a strong ending that ties it all together - that won't really change the middle act being slow, muddled, convoluted and several plot lines too many. (IMO)
A season which rates 5/10 for nine episodes and then has a 10/10 ending is still only giving people 5.5/10 or 5/10 quality episodes on average (depending on how you average them). (Note: I'm not saying this is how I'd rate Picard S2.)