Season 1 as a Whole

[Bad Thoughts]

I generally feel positive about the season, although I feel a little let down by the finale. The characters are great: the only character I am not connecting with is Seven of Nine. I don't mind that the series is, relatively speaking, low tech. Indeed, I rather enjoy that there aren't minutes of technobabble or detailed CGI shots of spaceships and such. The series feels a lot more human. I liked that the series had a relatively quiet tone throughout. The acting is phenomenal--the acting is pulling through even the weakest scenes. My favorite characters are (in order) Raffi, Elnor and Soji. I have some questions about where the series will go forward given that we only saw part of the crew gelling together. I am disappointed that the persecution of the Romulans and the synths was not really given a proper resolution: one is technically still ongoing, the other has been handwaved away. I guess Picard can now feel what it is like to be an outsider as a synth, but that would be using a rather poor literary device by making him walk in someone else's shoes.

In the end, I liked the season, I'm looking forward to the next, I still prefer Discovery among the contemporary series, and I would rate this as the third best first season.

 

[Midquest]

I'd give it a 9.

There were some bumps toward the end, but I'm impressed. They'd have been better off with an 11-episode season to help the finale play out with more detail and less shorthand, but the richness of character and place throughout the series was a real success for me. I am extremely impressed by the heft and lyricism of the Trek universe as portrayed here. This is likely to be one of my favorite seasons of Trek.

 

[Scout101]

^how is Elnor anyone’s favorite character? Had about 5 total minutes is screen time, sorta a one trick pony, and really had zero impact on the story. If you removed him, and his intro episode, from the series, I don’t think you even have to do any serious rewrites. There were like 2 away missions, and he was left off of both of them. Even Picard forgot he was on the show and was surprised to see him at the end

 

[Enterprise is Great]

People create ships between characters based just on one character glancing at another that they barely interact with. People can have a favorite character just based on a few scenes.

 

[Mach5]

The season starts off strong, but then sort of fizzles out. I hoped the Borg subplot would amount to something more. The aftermath of the Romulan supernova was the subject I was most curious about, personally. Nothing came out of it.

Production values were a big letdown as well. Great at the beginning, but overall, the show doesn't measure up well against the best contemporary TV has to offer.

 

[Aragorn]

It was fine. Not mind-blowing, not bad, but fine. Some stuff they spent too much time on, other stuff they didn't spend enough time on, but it was worth watching. I don't think prior Trek is necessarily better. It's just that they were episodic and easier to forget the bad episodes.

 

[cosmic mouse]

tentatively 8 for the entire season, but I need to rewatch the first 2 eps.
8, 10, 6, and 5 are the strongest eps for me...

 

[tomalak301]

I gave it a 7. I enjoyed it for the most part, but there were qualms I had with it, and Stardust City Rag did bring down my overall feels of the season. Looking back in terms of violence, that episode was a pretty big outlier, and it was the episode I was looking forward to the most because it brought back 7. I think that also had something to do with just being really disappointed and angry after I saw it.

 

[The Habs Fan]

I give this season a 9. I really enjoyed it and liked that the Zhat Vash, Borg cube, and apocalyptic visions turned out to be a red herring to what the season was really about: Picard’s guilt over Data sacrificing himself for him as well as Data’s desire to be human (and to die). With that said, hopefully the big bad race of synths we briefly saw in the final episode become the big bad of the series (and this was just a teaser).

 

[fireproof78]

^how is Elnor anyone’s favorite character? Had about 5 total minutes is screen time, sorta a one trick pony, and really had zero impact on the story. If you removed him, and his intro episode, from the series, I don’t think you even have to do any serious rewrites. There were like 2 away missions, and he was left off of both of them. Even Picard forgot he was on the show and was surprised to see him at the end

Same way R5-D4 is my favorite droid from Star Wars, Captain Antilles is one of my favorite characters, Lt. Giotto (not sure I spelled that right) is my favorite from TOS, etc.

This fundamentally misunderstands how characters become favorites.

 

[Terok Nor]

I give the whole season an 8.5 but the two part finale, despite having its moments, didn't really do it for me. I'm not crazy about Picard being an android and I'm disappointed Data wasn't brought back. Overall I love the new cast and I'm looking forward to Season 2.

 

[Captain pl1ngpl0ng]

What a crew!! I LOVED IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Rahul]

In a weird way, I like the season as a whole much less than any episode individually.

It all felt like a real story to me, up until the finale, where we got a completely underdeveloped new main baddie, got entirely rid of them most exciting part of the story (the Borg angle), and a "press this button to save/destroy the universe"-final conflict, which is probably the lamest schlock imaginable, and the biggest let-down of a great start since JJ Abrams Star trek.

 

[Crewman6]

Just a complete disaster. A total whiff. A top down, A to Z mess. There were maybe two episodes out of ten that I thought were mildly entertaining.

This show was poorly conceived on every level, with just a bunch of random star trek ideas jammed together, willy-nilly. Ugh, it's truly amazing how thorough the failure was.

Nothing. Worked.

 

[SJGardner]

Gave it a 9. Not perfect, it had a few weaker episodes (one of the opening three, maybe the third, as well as the ninth) but still easily the best first season in modern Trek for me. I was very afraid at first that it will be just milking nostalgia for fanwank's sake and Sir Patrick would be just basically playing himself, but I was very pleased that my worries were unfonded. I enjoyed to see Picard struggling to regain his confidence in trying to make a difference with the odds stacked against him, and the plethora of various characters with all kinds of emotional issues who have fallen through the cracks of Federation society were a great support to his story arc, not to mention they all had their own very interesting stories to tell and were played by superb performers. I don't think there were any bad characters in it, and unlike many other viewers, I even liked Narissa, if mostly in a "love to hate way," she was just a deliciously cartoonish villain.

And of course, despite being afraid of too much nostalgia, the ones we got (especially meeting the Rikers in Nepenthe, and the closure Picard and Data received in the finale) were nothing short of wonderful. My only gripe is that we didn't see much of Deep Space Nine, but I admit that isn't that well connected to Picard's story, so it's lack didn't exactly hurt the show.

I still can't really believe the season ended and that it won't come back for a while; also, I'm gonna miss that gorgeous opening theme very much.

 

[Lucky]

9. Better than I could have imagined. I love the new crew, Seven being a part of things was a very pleasant surprise, and I loved the journey the characters took together. I'm eager to see what is in store for us next season.

 

[Donker]

3, Literally the worst Star Trek show ever made hands down. So many massive plot holes, atrocious pacing, mostly everything that happened didn't matter nor even needed to be shown (Pretty much literally everything to do with the Borg cube or Maddox), Picard never acted like Picard and this entire season was him being an idiot and wrong about everything and put down by women every episode, another season of no fleshed out or interesting characters and no consequences (Does nobody care that Jumanji killed Maddox in cold blooded murder?), literally nothing was resolved around the state of the Federation and it's moral "fall", for some reason Picard is in love with Data despite never particularly being close to him in the movies or series and we get no Data, Geordie send off who were the real close relationship, The worst ship designs ever seen in a Star Trek series and on and on and on.

Nobody can seriously claim now these new shows aren't just written by people who want to be writing a Mass Effect TV show rather than a Star Trek show, something I repeatedly pointed out about Discovery and everyone denied, but this was straight up a copy paste of Mass Effect, giant AI tentacle squid monsters and all.

Seriously Kurtzmen Era Trek has just been a complete and total trainwreck on literally every conceivable level. I hope to god in 15 years or whenever Trek finally gets another reboot after this disaster era crashes and burns that they just conveniently pretend Discovery nor Picard ever actually happened.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

^how is Elnor anyone’s favorite character? Had about 5 total minutes is screen time, sorta a one trick pony, and really had zero impact on the story. If you removed him, and his intro episode, from the series, I don’t think you even have to do any serious rewrites. There were like 2 away missions, and he was left off of both of them. Even Picard forgot he was on the show and was surprised to see him at the end

Your question has a simple answer: almost everything you are pointing out are problems of plot, not character.

 

[guyute03]

I'd give season 1 an 8.
Excellent, not perfect.

 

[Roboturner913]

I'm going 8. Overall I really enjoyed it, and ep. 9 was the only one that was kind of a stinker for me. Other nitpicks throughout the season, but every show has those.