Season three of Picard trashed the characters. In my humble opinion, of course. Back in season one, "Nepenthe" gave us some of Riker and Troi's best moments ever. In season three, Riker and Troi basically said, remember that time we made pizza? Were we morons or what?
Beverly Crusher wants her son to be safe. So she takes him outside of the protection of the Federation and makes him a smuggler and criminal. Meanwhile, Picard luxuriates at his blissful and comfortable place in France, not at all threatened by whatever the hell Bev was so worried about that she had to keep her kid and her life a secret.
Data gets some great moments in season one. Forget about that, let's have fanwank data instead.
We get to see past characters like Ro Laren just long enough for them to be killed off.
I guess different people have different ideas about character stuff.