1. Terry knows there are things that are going to be nitpicked.
2. Riker kicking Picard off the bridge. Terry says you're not supposed to feel good about that.
3. "It's not just about bridge tactics." A man lost his son (Riker) and is now seeing a man who found a son who's rejected him (Picard). Riker is defensive of all the sons and daughters on the Titan. Picard's angry at not having the chance to be a father to Jack and Jack rejecting him. "Picard's all fired up. Let's go fight!"
4. Terry says, "It's messy. It's not 1992 Star Trek: The Next Generation. Which is hard to do. It is admittedly for fans who, including myself, who grew up with these characters, it's hard to see them in this context. It's not the same show. It's much closer to a streaming, emotional... it's messier. And so, I understand that when fans say, "This is not for me," but then I truly have to say don't watch this! Go back and watch Star Trek: The Next Generation. In your head canon, let Star Trek: The Next Generation end at "All Good Things". That's okay. For the longest time, it ended that way for me. I don't want Generations. I didn't like the idea that Captain Kirk died in Generations." "I get it. But if you can roll with it, I think we get to a really good place by the end of this thing."
5. Terry looks at it as Picard is an almost-human synthetic copy. "I just don't see him going "beep-beep, beep-beep, boop-bop!" "That's why Riker says he's still the same man and that's what I think the intention was."
6. Terry said, "What's the last unexplored relationship in the life of Jean-Luc Picard? His son. It felt like [the series] had done a daughter with Soji. How can we have a son that's reasonable?" "You go to Vash, you go to all these people, but the goal was it was a Next Generation reunion. And so in the back of your head, you go: Beverly. But how can that make sense?" Terry went over to Patrick Stewart's house to talk about it and didn't mention his idea about Beverly. He wasn't going to bring it up. Then Patrick Stewart said, "What if it was Beverly?" Terry says, "We never thought he would go there!" Terry told Patrick, "I have to figure out how that would make sense for both of those characters."
7. Terry went to his writing staff and posed the question, "Why would she keep his son from him? The first thing for me you go to is: she lost Wesley Crusher. She let her kid go off into the stars. That's got to do some psychological damage to a person to just let their son just leave her life. Then you start digging into her husband, her mother, and also this relationship. You go back to how harsh it was for Wesley in those early seasons and how he feels about family. It seemed less contrived the more you talk about. It's not going to feel good; it's going to feel messy, but that's what streaming television is and how it evolves. Would it make for some interesting scene work? As you see where this show goes, eventually you can feel good about this again, and you can earn it back."
