Let’s rewrite season 1 of Picard using a synopsis per episode with as many or as few episodes as you like. One rule, no Zhat Vash. My season 1 is made of 5 two-part episodes. Picard the hero. Picard helps resettle the Romulans, and eventually retires from Starfleet to continue helping them as a civilian. Picard adopts Elnor and gets the family he thought he could never have. Picard goes to the Cube. As an expert on the Borg, Picard, Hugh, Anika Hanson (Seven), and Janeway go to negotaiate with the Romulans for access to the cube. Picard ovcercomes old traumas with his new friends’ help, each giving their own perspective on the Borg, assimilation, de-assimilation, and the fate of the Borg. Picard, amateur xenoarchaeologist. He has become famous in the field and runs a dig with students on an alien world. Together they fend off a tomb raider who is a little too familiar while rekindling an old romance. Picard and the old friend. Picard is contacted by Maddox, who went missing more than a decade ago, and asks to meet on an unimportant world. When Picard arrives in orbit he is surprised to find Geordi LaForge has also been summoned. When they land Maddox meets them with and old friend. Is it Soong? No, it’s a human looking Data who looks just as old as he would be if he aged naturally. Only slightly less surprising is Data has a family of his own. Napenthe: Riker and Troi invite Picard and Elnor over for a vacation. The Troi-Riker’s two kids miss Picard and Elnor and everyone wants to catch up. The Troi-Riker kids with Elnor find out the space port manager is smuggling tribbles, which has caught Klingon attention. Hi, uncle Worf.
Honestly, I would rather have had the show be about the loss of the Romulan Empire and the resulting consequences of that both in galactic terms and personal terms for Picard. That's actually what I thought the show was going to be about. The only reason why the Zhat Vash and their nutty 'destroy all synths' mumbo jumbo exist at all is because they were just a plot device to resume the Picard & Data Show from the TNG films. Granted, this gave Data a much better sendoff than he had in Nemesis; however, I'm not kidding myself that the whole idea of the Zhat Vash made any kind of logical sense to me. So if I had to rewrite S1 without the Zhat Vash (and by the same token, erase the P&D Show idea), I would have had Picard in charge of the rescue fleet (a fleet that was already assembled from what Starfleet already had available) but that in the process of trying to evacuate the Romulans, the supernova unexpectedly went off, destroying the planet, most of his fleet, and severely damaging the Enterprise-E and killing officers close to him. And with the added loss of Spock, we fast forward to 2399 where a retired Picard is tortured by survivor's guilt until he is contacted by surviving Romulans who have found something that they will only share with him. But once the Federation learns of it, they want it too and forbid Picard from going. Therefore, Picard hires a ship and goes out on his own. What is this mysterious thing the Romulans found, and that the Federation wants? Watch my show and find out!