An article from last month:
That was pretty cool. I notice his name didn’t even appear in the intro credits, so it was a nice surprise.
That’s where I’m at, too, and it’s a bit weird—I feel like when I look at all the individual parts, they’re not that great, but put together, I thought it worked surprisingly well. Perhaps it’s just pushed the right buttons in the right sequence for me. I think maybe it was in the right way human—sort of translating TNG’s optimism for a present (future) where it would otherwise seem just naive.
There's a few things I'm not so hot on, though:
After that speech by Q, ‘why does it always have to be a new galactic threat?’, what do we get? Yet another insurmountable galactic threat. 
Also, how exactly do the new and refurbished Borg work? Picard and Seven have still, in their timelines, presumably been assimilated by the ‘old’ Borg, but it seems like in this timeline, they never existed in that form. After all, we’ve seen that alterations to the past clearly change the future on whatever rules of time travel they use… Or were Jurati’s Borg something like a rival faction we just haven’t dealt with yet…?
There were a number of things that took me out of the episode - it was about the wrapup I expected it to be (for better or worse). All in all , a decent season even if they did crib just about all the good stuff from prior episodes.
‘The KHAN Project’ — really?
Hated it. They made every character I loved weak and ineffectual. This was not my Picard. He’s not a simpering, ineffectual person that can’t make a decision.
Star Trek, to me, was always about hope for the future. This just plain sucked.
Strange New Worlds, however, was AWESOME.
Heh. I was going to post this alone, but now i have a segue.
Its difficult for me to watch Stewart here and in a certain recent super-hero film, because my brain cant stop saying “Gawd, you poor frail thing. Retire! He’s so frail! He’s gonna break!”
Now I don’t feel that way, but my brain sure seems to.
That said, I thought the last Q scene was touching as hell. Though my head hurts when i try and put all his reasoning together.
I’m not sure the Q ending worked in a narrative/logical sense, but the actual scene worked for me in an emotional sense probably because of the performance of John de Lancie. Although it is pretty funny that “not everything has to be some galactic threat” and the introduction of the new galactic threat were about 5 minutes apart.
Seven and Raffi didn’t work at all. Wasn’t feeling the chemistry, seemed super forced. Both the character and actress for Raffi are kind of charmless.
The whole Picard’s mother arc just… eh. Picard doesn’t need some backstory to explain why he does what he does, and it was a pretty weak one that wasn’t really closely related to anything else we knew about his character. In general, Picard is just… there. He never really had a big moment all season that felt like it was worthy of the character. It’s weird to have a show about him and not really accurately portray his character, really explore his character, or even just have him do interesting Picard shit.
The reveal of Jurati having changed the borg by sort of hybridizing with the borg queen for 400 years and humanizing them and taking them in new directions was a decent plotline.
The whole fate of Elnor/surprise return got a big meh from me. Star Trek ninja is just sort of a bland character and bad idea.
Wesley becoming part of the travelers is a fun callback to TNG, but I’m not sure Kore ever showed anything that justified some sort of outside interest in her from them. It seems like they just wanted to wrap it up so that every character involved in the show had some special ending. Kore having the freedom to explore her own life now would be enough.
Speaking of which - I get that they like actors sometimes and want to reuse them but it’s just weird having actors play completely unrelated characters or loosely related ancestors. I guess Soong as played by Brent Spiner is different enough from Data that it wasn’t too bad, but reusing the android’s actress from last season as Kore was strange and of course the woman who played Talinn who I liked in both her roles but it just seems odd and amateurish to just decide to recycle actors like that.
They also never really addressed the weird history of Earth - in star trek canon, Earth of the 2020s was during? after? ww3 and widespread genetic engineering leading to supermen leaders, but the Earth of the show seems pretty close to our Earth. Except that they’re going to Europa in the early 2020s and Soong has crazy technology, so I don’t know what the hell is up with 2020s Earth in the show’s canon.
I think I’m only watching for TNG nostalgia and probably don’t think this show actually worth watching on its own merits.
The Orville is coming soon, June 2 IIRC. Better place to go if you like classic Trek that hasn’t been tainted by Kurtzman’s touch.
And a month or two after that, there’s Season 3 of Lower Decks, which is the best Trek since DS9.
At the end of the day:
Production values are beyond anything seen before.
I think the characters are great. With very little to go on…the actors have done a fantastic job. The Sci-Fi in Season one was top class. And it was only in episode ten that everything fell apart with them relying on ‘a magical speech’ (as repellent a trope as if they had Kirk seduce someone to save the day)…a copy/paste fleet…and completely forgetting that whasshername was about to end all life in the galaxy. And everyone just stood around and watched.
Season two? More decent sci-fi . Fantastic memberberries with the final Q scenes…but it all falls apart if you think too much…but overall? Fairly decent.
Season 3 Teaser Trailer.
Please please please don’t piss it all away this time…
A new villain, Lore and Moriarty seems a bit much for only 10 episodes. Worf and Geordi look fantastic.
And Worf now embraces pacifism. 
Lore I guess doesn’t surprise me, but Moriarty?! Who was clamoring for that to happen?
Goddam it, I want(ed) them to bring Ro Laren back.
And Amanda Plummer as the villain? Wow, we really are getting Tarantino Trek whether we want it or not.
I had a dream that Amanda Plummer and her cohorts were Stargazer crew thought lost in a transporter accident during the evacuation of The Stargazer after being attacked by Ferengai…as seen in TNG.
Yes, I have weird dreams but if this comes true…
More Grim Dark explosions everywhere Revenge “Star Trek”. Maybe it will surprise me and of course I will watch but I’ll be waiting for Strange New Worlds for something resembling the Trek I love.
Have you watched The Orville? There you might find the Trek you love.
Yeah really enjoying the Orville.
Am I the only one who at first went "Wait - the new villain is Frau Farbissina?
