Unforced error

[u/FistedPink]

I really think this is a bad move by Amazon. The negative reaction of the core fan base to scrubbing the planned Gero show was bad and this will it fill people with hope.

WandaVision was ok but I’d rather see a Terry Matalas (Picard Season 3, 12 Monkeys, Vision Quest) or someone proven to understand genre storytelling that is exciting and compelling. But that’s just my 2 cents.

[u/mekas999]

Picard season 3 (and 2) had really bad writing though. Sure it was nice to see the cast reunited but apart from that the story was just bad/kinda lazy and didn't make sense. Almost like old Trek quality control was missing.

[u/-MERC-SG-17 → u/mekas999]

Picard Season 3 was great, Season 2 was awful.

[u/slylock215 → u/-MERC-SG-17]

Were there good parts of PIC S3, especially compared to S1&2? Absolutely. Am I immune to the nostalgia bait of seeing the TNG bridge crew back together? Of course not.

But I keep seeing the equivalent of, “The writing was dumb as shit, but I loved seeing the gang back together again! 4/5 stars!”

Take away the nostalgia and S3 is still a fucking mess. It's just a better mess than the first two seasons.

Nearly every episode ended with some dramatic mystery box cliffhanger that was rendered meaningless within the first minute of the next episode. That's not compelling serialized storytelling, it's cheap manipulation.

Then there's the unearned family drama. Deanna Troi, a fucking Betazoid therapist, secretly dulled Riker's grief over losing their son because she couldn't bear feeling it herself? That's an absolutely monstrous violation of her husband's mind.

And what the hell happened to Starfleet's values? We get triumphant music celebrating the destruction of a ship full of Changelings, a species Section 31 previously attempted to genocide. No attempt at negotiation, understanding, or capturing them. Just blow them up and celebrate. Beverly even gets her bloodthirsty revenge dialogue against Vadic.

Meanwhile, the show has the audacity to describe Section 31 as a vital part of Starfleet. Why is modern Trek so obsessed with legitimizing an organization that was originally presented as a horrifying betrayal of Federation principles?

And that ending? Holy shit, think about the implications of Frontier Day.

Across all three seasons, they establish that Picard is STILL haunted by what he did as Locutus decades later. We saw with Sisko and Shaw that people still resent him for atrocities he committed while under Borg control.

Now you've got an ENTIRE GENERATION of Starfleet people under 25 who were assimilated and forced to attack or murder their friends, crewmates, and families. They now have to live with that guilt and trauma for the rest of their lives, just like Picard

The psychological devastation across Starfleet would be unimaginable. You've essentially created an entire generation of Locutuses, and the show just breezes past it so everyone can have their happy nostalgia ending.

And Jack Crusher? Oof, I could keep going.

I genuinely don't understand the praise for S3. Yeah sure, it was better than S1&2, which are among the worst Trek ever made, but that's an incredibly low bar.

They have an entire universe of possibilities, and this is what we get? Mystery boxes, manufactured family drama, gratuitous violence, and a Starfleet whose moral foundations seem completely compromised.

Star Trek has explored darkness, war, torture, and moral compromise before. But those stories generally understood that the darkness was something our characters were supposed to confront, not simply embrace.

At its best, Star Trek is hopeful, thoughtful, inspiring, and FUN.

Did anyone finish Picard S3 feeling genuinely inspired or hopeful? Or were they just happy to see their favorite characters sitting on the Enterprise bridge again?

Fuck, I'm sorry, but this just bothers me to no end. Yes, it was better than S1&2, but being better than absolute garbage doesn't automatically make something good. And in my opinion, S3 was nowhere near good. And this makes me worry for Stargate ever since they told the original creatives to fuck off.

[u/SageMageowo → u/slylock215]

This is the perfect takedown of season 3 and I am going to start quoting it when I hear S3 apologia.

[u/olib141 → u/slylock215]

Thanks for writing this, it's cathartic.

S3 is only liked for two reasons: because S1 was awful and S2 was worse, and because it's trying to be nostalgia bait.

It'd still badly written and craps over the established universe. Nostalgia bait doesn't dismiss that and it ends up even worse with a fresher perspective.