Season 1 as a Whole
- Thread starter Lord Garth
- Start date
Somewhere between 8 and 9.
I’ll always pick a show with great moments and flaws over a good show with no flaws. That’s what Picard is.
I’ll always pick a show with great moments and flaws over a good show with no flaws. That’s what Picard is.
I thought it started poorly, picked up a bit in the middle (Freecloud/Nepenthe), and was rocky till the end. You had basically a creaking, painful, deadly dull 3-episode pilot. That would be a bad idea under any circumstances, but in a 10 episode season, that means nearly a 1/3rd of the season is the pilot. It took too long to get it moving.
Agree the Borg turned out to be a gigantic fart. Establishing that the Borg ship, the Romulan supernova and "Synth" attack and ban all happened around the same time suggested some connection between them. Alot of promising possibilities there, but ended up being another missed opportunity. Not sure what becomes of the Cube. Id have the androids help me repair it if I am Seven, since it was their bonkers Giant Android Orchids (whut?!) that had, for some bizarre reason pulled it down to the surface.
I think I'll give it a 7. The season felt really disjoined and uneven somehow, there wasn't payoff on certain things, and the new characters also felt somewhat underutilized and shallow. Despite problems I had with the season and certain episodes, I enjoyed the ride and overall l enjoyed the season. It was great seeing Picard back and I loved episodes 6-7. It fell apart for me a bit after that but I enjoyed the 2 part finale and the last 20 minutes of the finale were great and the ending felt VERY emotionally satisfying. Best first 10 episodes of any Trek series as far as I'm concerned.
Freecloud and Nepenthe were the best episodes. Laris was the best character and performance. Orla Brady nailed it. Unfortunately, she was left to watch the grapes. I rate it higher than you did, but there were many problems. I give the season 6/10. There were enough actors making enough of what they had to work with that I will give a fair to middlin score for the season. A separate score for pacing, plotting and writing would be closer to 3 or 4 out of 10.
I liked it a lot, but there's one thing that bothers me about it: the fact that the entire crew seemed awfully forgiving of Agnes murdering Maddox. They basically just slapped her on the wrist and said "Shame on you!" as though murdering someone is something people commonly do.....as if she just made a minor mistake. The hell?
Uneven, disjointed, shallow, and underutilized are good words for the show at it's worst. Along with unimaginative, unearned, manipulative, and lazy. Those all speak to pacing, plotting, and characterization. I gave it a 6 on the basis of actors who did some very good work with what they were given to work with. Fair to middling overall.
Dax assisting in the murder of the Albino.
Garak murdering a Romulan ambassador and Sisko kept working with him.
Kor threatening to wipe out an entire population and use of slave labor camps and becomes an ally in DS9.
Murder in Star Trek is only a big deal if the plot says so.
I voted 6, rounding from about 6.5. The entire season was really bipolar. What was good was excellent, what was bad was terrible. But I do think the good ultimately outweighs the bad, and the show has promise moving into a second year.
First, the bad: The plot. A lot of the season was senseless padding. Plot that wasn't actually in any way relevant. Characters outright wasted. Tropes and nonsense. I still think the serialized plot was pretty much a failure. They teased connections between threads they had no intention of paying off, and played up elements that ultimately had no real role in the story. The plot just kind of leapt along in places, and plodded in others without any real sense of agency from most of the characters.
But the good: The characters. The principle cast (La Sirena's crew plus Seven, and maybe Hugh) all got some fantastic and meaty stuff to play with. Lots of rumination on failure, regret, and missed opportunities. Some towering heights of hope and redemption as people see a way to move forward and keep going. Some absolutely fantastic performances, of which I will specifically call out Patrick Stewart, Allison Pill and Jeri Ryan. Almost all of the essential character work and emotional, meaningful meat is excellent. And Nepenthe deserves props just for being probably the best written moments in the entire history of Deanna Troi.
I'm trying to think of another show where I loved the character work this much, but absolutely loathed the plotting. Maybe Babylon 5, during it's final season? It's hard to say, because I had more attachment to those characters than almost all of these. I'm struggling to come up with any other example that fits what I'm feeling.
But man when this show is good does it sing. Hope, and joy, and thought provoking emotional interactions. If they can figure out how to continue to deliver the goods like that while fixing the mess that is the driving plot this could be the greatest of all Star Trek. For now it has to settle with being good, but not great, Star Trek. Kind of like Picard himself, it's highest highs remain behind it for now, but there is the spark of something new and potentially transformative in here.
First, the bad: The plot. A lot of the season was senseless padding. Plot that wasn't actually in any way relevant. Characters outright wasted. Tropes and nonsense. I still think the serialized plot was pretty much a failure. They teased connections between threads they had no intention of paying off, and played up elements that ultimately had no real role in the story. The plot just kind of leapt along in places, and plodded in others without any real sense of agency from most of the characters.
But the good: The characters. The principle cast (La Sirena's crew plus Seven, and maybe Hugh) all got some fantastic and meaty stuff to play with. Lots of rumination on failure, regret, and missed opportunities. Some towering heights of hope and redemption as people see a way to move forward and keep going. Some absolutely fantastic performances, of which I will specifically call out Patrick Stewart, Allison Pill and Jeri Ryan. Almost all of the essential character work and emotional, meaningful meat is excellent. And Nepenthe deserves props just for being probably the best written moments in the entire history of Deanna Troi.
I'm trying to think of another show where I loved the character work this much, but absolutely loathed the plotting. Maybe Babylon 5, during it's final season? It's hard to say, because I had more attachment to those characters than almost all of these. I'm struggling to come up with any other example that fits what I'm feeling.
But man when this show is good does it sing. Hope, and joy, and thought provoking emotional interactions. If they can figure out how to continue to deliver the goods like that while fixing the mess that is the driving plot this could be the greatest of all Star Trek. For now it has to settle with being good, but not great, Star Trek. Kind of like Picard himself, it's highest highs remain behind it for now, but there is the spark of something new and potentially transformative in here.
1 because they recast Bruce Maddox
And did not show Captain Crandall in the end. What!? They lose a whole point just for that.
I don’t think there’s a Star Trek show out there, at this moment, that can celebrate as strong a first 10 episodes as Picard. For me, Discovery might come close, but I honestly loved the character work in this season right across the board, so it edges ahead.
I can’t wait to revisit this whole season now, for a binge, but I think I can comfortably call episodes 1, 7 and 8 the absolute best of the lot. No stinkers in there for me, either.
My biggest surprise was the lack of cliffhanger to end the season. In the early days of pre-production, everything seemed to suggest that this would be a limited series. A one season and done, kind of deal. The show itself actually felt like that, too, especially in the final episode (right down to the closing credits), so I’m curious to see how the action will pick up. Should we expect Season 2 to be more of a separate sequel, rather than just a direct continuation of Season 1? I’m interested to find out.
Honestly, I’ve no idea how I feel about Picard no longer being within the body we have known him to always occupy (ie. his own), but this is sci-fi and I guess I need to open my mind a bit more. It’s certainly not an issue for me, though, in the grand scheme of things.
Honestly, at the end of the day, this series was a fine sequel to Star Trek: Nemesis, and has made that movie work a whole lot more for me. I never thought it a bad film by any stretch but, having previously considered it the end of the story of the TNG crew, there were indeed several moments that didn’t feel right given this was the last time we were seeing these characters. Picard fixed that, a great deal. Data’s death, for example, now almost feels kind of exciting, knowing that the story doesn’t end there, and that it wasn’t actually Data’s death, in hindsight. No, we saw that death in the first season finale, and it was almost uncomfortable to watch in just how beautiful it was. Trek has done a crap job of killing off key characters throughout it’s entire run - Picard changed that, with Data.
A great first run, and I’m excited for season two. Whilst the show is named after JL, I suspect we are going to see the other characters get a whole lot more focus and storylines, now that the writers have seen viewer reaction to them, etc. Same thing happened with Discovery, after its first year.
I can’t wait to revisit this whole season now, for a binge, but I think I can comfortably call episodes 1, 7 and 8 the absolute best of the lot. No stinkers in there for me, either.
My biggest surprise was the lack of cliffhanger to end the season. In the early days of pre-production, everything seemed to suggest that this would be a limited series. A one season and done, kind of deal. The show itself actually felt like that, too, especially in the final episode (right down to the closing credits), so I’m curious to see how the action will pick up. Should we expect Season 2 to be more of a separate sequel, rather than just a direct continuation of Season 1? I’m interested to find out.
Honestly, I’ve no idea how I feel about Picard no longer being within the body we have known him to always occupy (ie. his own), but this is sci-fi and I guess I need to open my mind a bit more. It’s certainly not an issue for me, though, in the grand scheme of things.
Honestly, at the end of the day, this series was a fine sequel to Star Trek: Nemesis, and has made that movie work a whole lot more for me. I never thought it a bad film by any stretch but, having previously considered it the end of the story of the TNG crew, there were indeed several moments that didn’t feel right given this was the last time we were seeing these characters. Picard fixed that, a great deal. Data’s death, for example, now almost feels kind of exciting, knowing that the story doesn’t end there, and that it wasn’t actually Data’s death, in hindsight. No, we saw that death in the first season finale, and it was almost uncomfortable to watch in just how beautiful it was. Trek has done a crap job of killing off key characters throughout it’s entire run - Picard changed that, with Data.
A great first run, and I’m excited for season two. Whilst the show is named after JL, I suspect we are going to see the other characters get a whole lot more focus and storylines, now that the writers have seen viewer reaction to them, etc. Same thing happened with Discovery, after its first year.
Overall, I'd say 8,
Ranked order of episodes, in terms of enjoyment:
The Impossible Box (Episode 6)
Broken Pieces (Episode 8)
Absolute Candor (Episode 4)
Nepenthe (Episode 7)
Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2 (Episode 10)
Remembrance (Episode 1)
The End is the Beginning (Episode 3)
Maps and Legends (Episode 2)
Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1 (Episode 9)
Stardust City Rag (Episode 5)
I feel like episodes 4, 6, and 8 are heads above the rest of the series because there was less clunky exposition, more genuine character moments, and actually thematic cores and identifiable character arcs. Other episodes had great moments - and in some cases had great A plots - but the B plot often had basically nothing t do with the A plot other than "stuff needs to happen."
The weakness of the season is actually similar to Discovery - the main arc just wasn't that good. It tells way more of a coherent story than either of Discovery's two seasons, but at the same time there's enough dangling threads from the early episodes to suggest they didn't totally stick to whatever their original plan was. I feel like the desire to add a bunch of fan favorites to the series - like Riker and Seven - probably helped to warp the season into something very different than it was originally intended to be.
The main arc not being that good didn't matter quite as much to me as it did with Discovery though, because the writing was much better on an episode-by-episode basis, and there were a lot of individual character moments in the best episodes which rang true for me. I really hope next season lets the characters take the forefront, and puts the plot on the backburner.
Ranked order of episodes, in terms of enjoyment:
The Impossible Box (Episode 6)
Broken Pieces (Episode 8)
Absolute Candor (Episode 4)
Nepenthe (Episode 7)
Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2 (Episode 10)
Remembrance (Episode 1)
The End is the Beginning (Episode 3)
Maps and Legends (Episode 2)
Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1 (Episode 9)
Stardust City Rag (Episode 5)
I feel like episodes 4, 6, and 8 are heads above the rest of the series because there was less clunky exposition, more genuine character moments, and actually thematic cores and identifiable character arcs. Other episodes had great moments - and in some cases had great A plots - but the B plot often had basically nothing t do with the A plot other than "stuff needs to happen."
The weakness of the season is actually similar to Discovery - the main arc just wasn't that good. It tells way more of a coherent story than either of Discovery's two seasons, but at the same time there's enough dangling threads from the early episodes to suggest they didn't totally stick to whatever their original plan was. I feel like the desire to add a bunch of fan favorites to the series - like Riker and Seven - probably helped to warp the season into something very different than it was originally intended to be.
The main arc not being that good didn't matter quite as much to me as it did with Discovery though, because the writing was much better on an episode-by-episode basis, and there were a lot of individual character moments in the best episodes which rang true for me. I really hope next season lets the characters take the forefront, and puts the plot on the backburner.
10.
Because despite some issues (and plot holes) it made me feel happy watching a Star Trek series again:
Because despite some issues (and plot holes) it made me feel happy watching a Star Trek series again:
- watching Sir Pat giving life again to one of the best TV characters ever.
- watching Seven of Nine, one of the best ST characters ever, back to our ST TV.
- to see these amazing moments with Riker and Data..
oh, the Nepenthe episode and this unique feeling of meeting an old best friend after many years... - cause it felt like ST again (whatever I feel like ST is for me)
- I have a new crew to really like.
- can't wait for second season of a ST show.. a feeling I thought I would never experience again after the disappointment Disco was for me.
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The season did a great job in reintroducing Picard and establishing a new World after all that happened. Heroes fall but they can redeem themselves. But now, where from here? I’d like this fleet to join Starfleet, or to potentially work with Starfleet. I hope we’ll learn more about the Dominion, the Borg, etc. I hope we’ll have intrigue and exploration at the same time.
The one thing I did not like of Picard is that all the locations seemed a bit disconnected in terms of space, and we do not know where anything is relative to Earth or Romulus. I hope that will be rectified going forward, because in the end that’s an important part of ST’s lore.
The one thing I did not like of Picard is that all the locations seemed a bit disconnected in terms of space, and we do not know where anything is relative to Earth or Romulus. I hope that will be rectified going forward, because in the end that’s an important part of ST’s lore.
True, but those shows handled it better IMO.
I went with an 8. More of a 7-8.
I liked the pacing of the earlier episodes better. Maybe episode 3-4 was a bit too slow. The middle episodes were really good, which perhaps raised my expectations too much for the last couple.
I would have wanted more episodes, not less. Make synthville more interesting. Don't drop the ball on the xBs & the Cube (memo, it is not just the synths getting marginalized).
100% agree with the post that said universe ending stakes is just too much every time. That ate up too much airtime and pushes character stuff out of the way.
Still optimistic for S2. Though I am not a huge fan of serial form. I felt there were a lot of needless gymnastics (plot wise) to get us where it had to go.
But at least Picard knew where it was going. Cannot say the same for Disco, where I think some of the best episodes were the least serialized (Saru & Burnham on the planet in S1 & the Cage redux in S2).
Even though I objectively say I like Picard better, Disco has probably gotten me emotionally more times (more at bats, as well).
I liked the pacing of the earlier episodes better. Maybe episode 3-4 was a bit too slow. The middle episodes were really good, which perhaps raised my expectations too much for the last couple.
I would have wanted more episodes, not less. Make synthville more interesting. Don't drop the ball on the xBs & the Cube (memo, it is not just the synths getting marginalized).
100% agree with the post that said universe ending stakes is just too much every time. That ate up too much airtime and pushes character stuff out of the way.
Still optimistic for S2. Though I am not a huge fan of serial form. I felt there were a lot of needless gymnastics (plot wise) to get us where it had to go.
But at least Picard knew where it was going. Cannot say the same for Disco, where I think some of the best episodes were the least serialized (Saru & Burnham on the planet in S1 & the Cage redux in S2).
Even though I objectively say I like Picard better, Disco has probably gotten me emotionally more times (more at bats, as well).
It is hard for me to rank a 10 episode season above a 26 episode season, period.
Might be the best first 10 since TOS. For sure better than the first 10 of TNG, DS9, and ENT.
Might be the best first 10 since TOS. For sure better than the first 10 of TNG, DS9, and ENT.
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