I think both DS9 and TNG showed how having that progress requires effort to maintain and be on guard.
I went with giving the season an 8. It's not perfect, has some plot issues, but it was still worth it to me. I'm honestly interested in seeing where they take the Picard being an Spoiler android plot. Wondering what the fall out will be and how others react to the news.
For what it’s worth, my favorite Trek show is DS9, then TNG. yes, I loved how DS9 took paradise, stretched it, bent it and showed the lengths it would take to defend it against evil. And examined it from the outside with alien main/supporting characters. I think darker Trek is possible if the writing and characters are good which hasn’t happened for All Access Trek yet.
That's fair. If one doesn't like or is engaged with the characters then it's harder to watch a show. I just see so much of TNG and DS9 themes in Picard along with character backstory it is easy to see them fit in. Mileage will vary.
If you add the words “for me” to the end of your post, I can 100% support it. As @fireproof78 suggests, if you’re not engaged, it’s hard to get behind what’s being presented. That is completely fair.
It's hard to believe that people can bitch and moan after all of the great, emotional moments ST: Picard provided, moments that are definitely among the very best in Star Trek history. I went with 8/10.
This show has great emotional moments like a rom com has great emotional moments: Immature and emotionally unstable characters, (who are in serious need of mental help), run from one big emotional event to the next. "IT'S EXCITING"
I remember getting into a similar argument with someone else 20 years ago on this very board. 20 years ago, possibly down to the month. Just change the name of the series. I think I'll pass on this go-around. I've been through it all before.
I rated it 8/10. If I had rated every episode, and just dvided the results by 10, the score would be much lower. And I do have a lot of complaints, mostly related to having too many ideas, resulting in them following up only half of them, some of them half-assed, and having unearned character moments...Sometimes going for cheap effects etc. However, the whole is more than the sum of its parts, and when they nail it (like in most of Broken Pieces or Nepenthe, even parts of, say, Stardust City Rag), they really nail it. Plus as a first Trek season, it was quite good.
That is exactly what Jammer argues in his review of the final episode: https://www.jammersreviews.com/st-picard/s1/arcadia-ego-2.php
That's a very generous view. One which I don't agree with, but also can't dismiss out of hand - it has some merits to it, if you see PIC strictly as a continuation to the TNG movies, instead of being it's own thing. Which - again - I don't agree with, but honestly think it's a valid interpretation.
I think I would land between a 7.5 or an 8. I enjoyed it a good bit. Not as much as I enjoyed Discovery season 1 which I loved and season 2. That being said Picard is such a different show it's hard to do a direct comparison. There was nothing I was really disappointed by I think. Now that introductions are out of the way I'm looking forward to were they go with the story. I do think they need to sort out the episode length. There is no need for short episodes since this is a streaming show. If it's because of Canada then have their broadcast version be edited but let everyone else have a longer episode or give them more commercials. All that extra time doesn't need to be spent on the cast it could be spent on world building. I feel it was more of an issue here then it ever was in Discovery. Discovery moves at a rapid pace so even when an episode is shorter there is still a lot that has taken place in any given episode. There is more action and more emotional hits in Discovery so that short run time does get masked a lot. Picard's much slower pacing allows for that shorter run time to really stand out and you get into the area where it seems like nothing is happening. For season 2 I feel they need to either make the episodes longer so they're covering more content in an episode or they need to greatly speed up the pacing and not make the show so slow. Move from plot point to plot point much quicker or add more action. Since Discovery is the action adventure show I would imagine the pacing might just speed up a lot more.
I mean, I could argue that most of Trek characters need this, especially O'Brien and Picard. Keeps me going.
I'm trying to figure out how this dude had to figure out the season was about "Picard saying goodbye to Data". I'm not hating, just ... wondering. It was obvious to me that the season revolved around Data from the very first episode--that's one of the reasons I wasn't expecting Chabon to go the shallow route that DSC went with synthetic life in Season Two (and he didn't.) I mean, I wasn't expecting Picard to get to literally say goodbye to Data, but I knew that saying goodbye is what it was about on a thematic level. Of course, I have encountered this phenomenon multiple times for both PIC and DSC since they started airing. The odd thing is I have attention span problems, and I don't tend to rewatch episodes before I come to post. (I mean, a lot of the time I will literally watch five minutes of an episode, go off and do something else for ten to fifteen minutes, and then start watching again.)