Spoilers Is Picard season 2 a failure?

[J C]

And I don't. I happen to prefer episodic Trek myself, but I'm not in the business of telling other people what they should like.

I wasn’t saying other people should agree with me. But I’ve only enjoyed season 2 and 3 of Discovery, seasons 1 and 4 were really bad. The problem with serialized is if the storyline is bad then you have an entire season that sucks. If a few episodes in a season are bad during episodic it doesn’t ruin a whole season.

 

[Lord Garth]

Season 1 felt like an extended movie, but season 2 was just a bad storyline. Maybe if they’d wait a year+ in between each season and really focus on the story then it’d be better?

Season 2 definitely wasn't as good as Season 1. I just don't believe in throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Season 1 felt like a movie. Season 3, it looks like, will also feel like a movie. So, I'm gussing Season 2 is the oddball of Picard.

 

[J C]

Season 2 definitely wasn't as good as Season 1. I just don't believe in throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Season 1 felt like a movie. Season 3, it looks like, will also feel like a movie. So, I'm gussing Season 2 is the oddball of Picard.

That would be great to see season 3 be back to form.

 

[Lord Garth]

I wasn’t saying other people should agree with me. But I’ve only enjoyed season 2 and 3 of Discovery, seasons 1 and 4 were really bad. The problem with serialized is if the storyline is bad then you have an entire season that sucks. If a few episodes in a season are bad during episodic it doesn’t ruin a whole season.

Holy crap! Your opinions are the reverse of mine!

I like DSC Seasons 1 and 4 better than Seasons 2 and 3. As big of a fan of the show as I am, I think DSC Season 2 was disjointed (yes, I know there were extenuating circumstances, but all that ultimately matters is what we see on-screen) and Season 3 took too long to get going and was a mad-rush at the end. I'm also disappointed that they didn't make The Future more different than it was (it's different enough, but it could've been so much more). I don't blame Season 4 because what's done is done, but I have to place the blame somewhere, so I place it on Season 3.

 

[J C]

Holy crap! You're opinions are the reverse of mine!

I like DSC Seasons 1 and 4 better than Seasons 2 and 3. As big of a fan of the show as I am, I think DSC Season 2 was disjointed (yes, I know there were extenuating circumstances, but all that ultimately matters is what we see on-screen) and Season 3 took too long to get going and was a mad-rush at the end.

Haha yeah, we all have a very different opinion of what is enjoyable. Not many will agree, that can be seen in the ranking post about movies and series. Almost nobody has anywhere near the same concept.

 

[Sci]

Season 1 felt like an extended movie, but season 2 was just a bad storyline. Maybe if they’d wait a year+ in between each season and really focus on the story then it’d be better?

Development on season one of Star Trek: Picard began in September 2018. Shooting lasted from April to September 2019. Season one premiered on what was then called CBS All-Access on 23 January 2020 and concluded on 26 March 2020.

Development on season two began in late 2019 and writing began in March 2020. Shooting began in February 2021, and ended in September 2021. Season two premiered on Paramount+ on 3 March 2022, and ended on 5 May 2022.

So, they did take a year+ between seasons.

 

[J C]

Development on season one of Star Trek: Picard began in September 2018. Shooting lasted from April to September 2019. Season one premiered on what was then called CBS All-Access on 23 January 2020 and concluded on 26 March 2020.

Development on season two began in late 2019 and writing began in March 2020. Shooting began in February 2021, and ended in September 2021. Season two premiered on Paramount+ on 3 March 2022, and ended on 5 May 2022.

So, they did take a year+ between seasons.

Then they have no excuse for the bad writing. :/

 

[Sci]

Then they have no excuse for the bad writing. :/

I mean, you're also forgetting that they had started developing the season before COVID hit, that production was delayed quite a bit because of the pandemic, that they had to re-jigger the entire season storyline around the contracts that had already been signed after COVID hit, and that they filmed the majority of the season before COVID vaccines were available... and that their star was (at the time) a 79/80-year-old man whose age made him extra-vulnerable to COVID.

S2 has problems, and made some decisions I feel were fundamentally bad. But I also think PIC S2 is miles and miles better than truly bad ST like most of VOY or ENT S1-2, and that there's a level of slack they deserve to have produced something as good as it was under such extraordinary circumstances.

 

[Danja]

Season 1 felt like an extended movie, but season 2 was just a bad storyline. Maybe if they’d wait a year+ in between each season and really focus on the story then it’d be better?

They DID wait a year (Hello, Covid-19?)

 

[J C]

They DID wait a year (Hello, Covid-19?)

Yes that was already discussed, a little late to the party. They apparently changed the storyline to fit the actors they could have at the time which lead to rewrites, so maybe the original story was better?

 

[Lord Garth]

I just finished re-watching DSC Season 4 and am moving on to re-watching PIC Season 2. Before I dive into it, there are some older episodes I want to rewatch: "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" and "Assignment: Earth" from TOS, "Where No One Has Gone Before", "Family", and "Tapestry" from TNG. Between all those we get Earth space missions, the Watchers, the Traveller, Picard's family, and Q teaching Picard a lesson about his past. Then I'm heading into "The Star Gazer".

So I'll have a fresh perspective on the second season and you'll see my more analytical reaction instead of my reaction from just taking it all in. I'll put it all in a separate thread.

I always try to watch these episodes at least twice, but Real Life has been making that less feasible lately, thus here we are months later.

 

[Danja]

Yes that was already discussed, a little late to the party. They apparently changed the storyline to fit the actors they could have at the time which lead to rewrites, so maybe the original story was better?

The studio had ITS input too.

 

[eschaton]

Then they have no excuse for the bad writing. :/

There was an interview with Chabon just prior to COVID where he was reassuring everyone that he wrote two scripts for Season 2, and sat in the writer's room through the whole thing.

Chabon had a partial story credit for the first episode, and no scripts.

It's pretty clear COVID required a huge rewrite to whatever their initial plans were on very short notice.

 

[Tuskin38]

Then they have no excuse for the bad writing. :/

more time =/= better writing.

 

[Sci]

Yes that was already discussed, a little late to the party. They apparently changed the storyline to fit the actors they could have at the time which lead to rewrites, so maybe the original story was better?

Actor contracts aren't the only thing. There's also the issue of location shooting budgets and contracts.

 

[J C]

more time =/= better writing.

Yeah; it was not a good season, it was almost like something written by a kid.

 

[Lord Garth]

My original thoughts for each episode, to put it all briefly, were:

1. "The Star Gazer" --> Interesting. Where is this going?

2. "Penance" --> Fucking Awesome!

3. "Assimilation" --> Still pretty good! I'm liking them going back to 2024.

4. "Watcher" --> Still good, I'm not a fan of ICE so I liked this. Guinan doesn't feel like Guinan but this character has every reason to feel the way she does about race relations today.

5. "Fly Me to the Moon" --> Now we're getting into the part of the season that's just okay. Liked the insight into Picard's family history.

6. "Two of One" --> I like the Mission: Impossible feel of this episode (the M:I series from the '60s and '70s, not the movies), with the crew infiltrating the party celebrating the Europa space mission.

7. "Monsters" --> I remember being disappointed that James Callis didn't have a bigger role. But I get a kick out of the thought of Baltar being Picard's father, on a meta-level. I'll always think of James Callis as Baltar.

8. "Mercy" --> What the heck was this, with Picard and Guinan being "interrogated" by the FBI Guy?

9. "Hide and Seek" --> After two episodes of spinning its wheels, things start picking up again.

10. "Farewell" --> They wrap up the story and most of the original cast of PIC. The biggest missed opportunity was Q kissing Picard. Why didn't they do this?

So my takeaway when I first saw the season was that I thought it started strong, it slowly settled into "okay", stayed "okay" for a while, kind of started dragging its heels for a little bit, then started to pick up again but never got back to being as strong as it was in the beginning.

I would NOT call the season bad. I just think it could've been better.

Anyway, that's my Before Post. As in before the Rewatch.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Been reading the thread with interest.

I've had a few months to reflect on Season 2 now.

I don't think it was a failure, but I do think it failed in some aspects.

I liked:

1) The concept of the Borg being moved forwards for the first time in forever. The Jurati-Queen is an outstanding creation and I loved the resolution.

2) It had a sense of fun compared to the rather melancholic Season 1.

3) TVH and Assignment: Earth links

4) The NASA stuff. I wish there had been more focus on all this stuff, like a Star Trek version of For All Mankind. It felt like in the end Picard actually barely spent any time with his ancestor at all.

I disliked:

1) Casting people from Season 1 in different roles.* I found it at best jarring and at worst... I'm not interested in seeing Brent Spiner play a C-List Bond villain. I know it's COVID stuff, but I wish they could have put some names into those roles. Charles Dance as the geneticist, or Kirby Howell-Baptiste as the time agent (just off the top of my head)...

2) Q and Guinan were both thrown away. This makes me feel pretty bitter toward the season generally.

3) Narratively, it was all over the place. I think it's good for Star Trek to have a message, but in Season 2 there were too many threads and any message the season has ends up diluted.

Though that's just my take of course.

The biggest missed opportunity was Q kissing Picard. Why didn't they do this?

This is one of those things that I didn't know I wanted until I read it...

Should have happened. Absolutely.

 

[MrPicard]

10. "Farewell" --> They wrap up the story and most of the original cast of PIC. The biggest missed opportunity was Q kissing Picard. Why didn't they do this?

Because HEAVEN FORBID we have JLP being kissed by a guy. For all their "Q is in love with Picard and in his own way Picard loves him as well" interviews, very little of it remained in the episode. And they banged on about this in pretty much EVERY interview about Q's return. Actors and producers alike. "Q is in love with Picard", "Q loves him"... yeah that's nice but how about actually having him show it in the episode?

"You matter to me" should have been "I love you", and yet they didn't even have THAT. But then I knew that, as soon as Goldsman was like "we discussed ALL - and I mean ALL - aspects of the Picard/Q relationship in the writers room but we didn't put all of it into the episode" I knew that they would shy away from ANYTHING that would have made Q's feelings "too" clear. It's the same old Berman excuse of "oh there might be something something someone gay somewhere on the show but we don't want to put this front and center, Star Trek is not about relationships" (sooooomehow this only applied to non-straight relationships, hmmmm, I wooooonder whyyyyyy), only in a more modernized outfit. Disappointing, to say the least.

I can only guess they felt it would be "impalatable" to that part of the audience that only accepts m/m when it's two guys who are explicitly established as gay and not when it's one guy who's supposed to be "straight" (lol) and the other is an omnipotent being who presents himself as a human male and is clearly in love with a synthetic-in-origin male but somehow not allowed to even say it.

I guarantee that, if Q was a female character, they would have had a sappy love confession and a kiss and absolutely NO one would have bat an eye and the writers room wouldn't have just "discussed all aspects" but they would have decided to put those aspects right there without even a hint of hesitation.

From a story point of view I would accept the excuse of "a kiss would have drawn ALL the attention away from the emotional impact of what was happening and we didn't want that" (because sadly m/m kisses still draw "attention" while no one cares about m/f ones), but honestly, if that was their line of thinking they could at least have had the love confession without a kiss. But since they didn't even do THAT... I am very much left thinking they deliberately shied away from anything too "explicit".

 

[StarMan]

I couldn't give two hoots what these writers spouted off in interviews.

You're reducing what had been an interesting and complex relationship between a man and an entity far beyond our scope to comprehend to a banal romantic one that frankly never existed.

Q had a fascination with Humanity to be sure, with Picard set as the focal point of his interest. I always felt Q held some affection for Picard, but never the romantic sort.