I just started this show. I haven’t really liked any Star Trek show since STNG, so I kept putting this one off. Mostly because Picard hasn’t been well received
I am halfway through season one. I am not sure what to say about this show. I don’t love it. Parts have a lot of promise and parts are just so clumsy. It has a serial story, but it is clear that whoever is writing it is still thinking episodically. Things are really sped up and the writers have an obsession with illustrating backstory in the worse way. So many scenes with laborious dialogue.
The show is also a lot more realistic view of the federation than previous Trek products I have seen.
Overall there is enough goodness to keep me watching and again, I don’t love it.
UPDATE
I bailed out of S1 around E8 it was just terrible. On advice from the thread I skipped to S3 and lasted three episodes. It was terrible. One the comically terrible parts is how all the 70 year olds had 20 something kids.
The series (the first two seasons) was mostly written by Akiva Goldsman. The book was written by Una McCormack, someone who has written a lot of Star Trek tie-in books. That’s most of the reason why her books elevate the property so much.
It’s a shame that book writers are not tapped to write the shows.
I realize there’s major differences between writing a novel and writing a screenplay, but yeah, they should definitely try to involve them. Maybe it’s just cheaper to hire screenwriters than it is to license a novel and adapt it?
Yeah, have television veterans doing the screenplay and directing, but have the story written or at least envisioned by someone who is used to taking an original idea and turning it into a finished product all on their own.
The more “producers” a single episode has, the worse it almost assuredly is.
Another problem is that we found out the hard way that Sir Patrick Stewart is a great actor but a terrible writer.