So I've had some time to digest what I've seen, and while I would by no means call myself a PIC hater, when you really, really analyze what happens in the show, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, or at best, there are plot elements that are really unnecessary to the overall story.
And one has to actually start by asking, just what was the plot, story, point, etc. of PIC? Was it about the aftermath of the Romulan supernova? Was it about the ultimate fate of the Borg? Was it about the Federation 'losing it's way?' Was it about F8 and his fellow android slave laborers? Was it about the synth ban? Was it about a deep psychological introspective about Jean-Luc Picard? Well, in my honest opinion....no, it was none of those things, even if some of those plot points were actively advertised as what the show was about.
So what was PIC actually about? After four TNG films whose plots entirely revolved around Picard and Data to the detriment of the other cast, PIC is really just a continuation of that trope, taken to the extreme: PIC is about Picard on a quest to be reunited with his one true love, Data. The rest of the TNG cast sans Riker and Troi aren't even a part of this story because they have zero place in it, just like in the films. And the only reason why Riker & Troi were able to worm their way into the story was because Frakes is a director and Sirtis has a knack for inserting herself in Trek shows since Voyager (heck, she's even in The Orville.)
But this isn't a Riker/Frakes & Troi/Sirtis bashing post. Let's get back to Picard. The entire plot of the show is focused around Picard trying to find Data's daughter in the hopes of finding a part of his friend that he'd lost, but the audience already knows that he's going to actually find Data by some convoluted sci-fi means since they first saw Spiner in Picard's dream one minute into the first episode. The Romulans, the Borg, Seven of Nine, Admiral Pottymouth, Hugh, the Zhat Vash, the Fenris Rangers, the Qowat Milat, the _____ (fill in with any other Chabonesque pulling-funny-sounding-sci-fi-names-out-of-my-ass proclivity), were all nothing more than plot devices to move the story along to the point where we get to "the meeting." Like Picard meeting Kirk in the most convoluted way ever, Picard meets Data by similar means, and like Picard/Kirk, there's about ten minutes of exposition before one of the heroes dies and the other one is better for the experience (literally, in PIC's case, as Picard gets a new clone body which for some reason looks like his 90+ year old original body.)
Conclusion: PIC (at least season 1) was just a continuation of the Picard & Data Show from the movies. Hopefully season 2 will have a bit more substance than that, now that "the meeting" has concluded.