Well, I just finished my binge of the season and I have to say that it sucks. It sucks that it's over that it is, that was brilliant. Felt like I was watching Star Trek again, and not the trash that has been wearing its corpse for the past few years. It wasn't perfect by any stretch, but the parts that worked, worked so well that it was easy to just make up head cannon to get past it. I didn't tear up in episode nine, but I did find myself smiling like a fecking idiot ear to ear. What did get me though was the father and son stuff, having no relationship with my own father I always find stories about fathers and sons to be interesting.
Seeing the old crew back together again really did underline just how well these people played off each other. The chemistry they all share is just priceless, and hard to find in modern tv. Disco certainly never managed it. The characters, even fecking Raffi who I hated in the first 2 seasons is redeemed here with MUCH better writing for the character. Worf had some of the best lines delivered perfectly with the deadpan Worf style Dorn does so well. And Riker, absolute stand out. The first couple of episodes he slides right back into the role of protector to his captain, demanding respect be shown when faced with other characters putting him down. Something that was sorely missed in the first 2 seasons as Picard sat there being the punching bag for a generation of insecurities. Seven, who had felt out of place before, slots in perfectly and actually feels like Seven again. She's still the Seven for seasons 1 and 2, but theres a quality to her character that was missing from her Voyager days. A quit reservedness is the best I can describe it. Shaw I think was the biggest success. Todd Stashwick has made a career out of being the biggest prick in the room no matter what show he's been in. So to see Shaw get a full character arc that shows he's more than just some toxic white male that needs to be slapped around, and see that he's not only got a really good reason for how he acts at first, but that he's not a dick. He just does things differently. He and Ryan played off each other really well, and it's a shame we won't see any more of that.
And finally Amanda Plummer knocks it out the park as Vadic. I didn't think much of the character from the trailer, but once she got going she was awesome. Towards the end really made you feel bad for her as well considering her treatment at the hands of section 31. I won't say she's on the level of Khan, but she's pretty damn close.
As for the over all story, I felt it was restricted probably by budget as the high-ups had obviously given up on it and just palmed it off to Terry Matalas to write it on his own. The conspiracy in starfleet felt too out of the way, too remote. Not like in DS9 were you felt the walls coming in around in that show. Probably a matter of time constraints as well. The Borg at this point feel really over played. I understand the decision to go this way, but it's hurt by the previous two seasons also being Borg heavy. The changelings were a nice touch, and I liked the fact that they updated them and had them coming from a place of anger at how some of them were treated during the war as POWs and how quickly the federation had gone to bio warfare almost right out of the gate. It felt like a natural consequence of section 31s actions.
As for the fan service. I think it works here. It's done in a loving way as a love letter to the fans, rather than to do the heavy lifting for a substandard plot or characters. Memberberries are a horrible crutch in current tv trends, but I didn't ever get the feeling thats what was happening here. It was fan service, sure. But it was good, loving fan service for a franchise that has meant so much to so many people for almost 60 years. And this was a love letter and an ending to a particular era of the franchise. If youre between 40 and 100 years old, this was probably the Star Trek you watched growing up. And the Star Trek your mother and father showed to you when they want to show something that they grew up watching. This was more like flipping through an old family photo album that it was memberberry bullshit.
The really unfortunate thing is that while I loved this season, there are no plans to continue trek in this fashion. Star Trek legacy as Matalas has coined it has concepts in place should he ever get a green light. He says he's already talked about going forward with Ryan, Speleers and funnily enough, Stashwick. They are all on board for a spin off, yet we aren't getting it. What we are getting is more Disco, a Disco spin off called starfleet academy, more Strange new worlds in the form of seasons 2 and 3 which is just starting to film as well as more of Lower decks and Prodigy(Im shocked to say, this is actually really good. And its for kids!!). Kurtzman has been trying to get Section 31 done for a number of years now with paramount telling him no repeatedly. He reworks it and keeps coming back at them. They have finally given in and compromised for a tv movie. Kurtzman was supposedly really pissed off about Goldsman getting Strange new worlds greenlit as he had that production slot earmarked for Section 31. So really the Trek franchise going forward is more of the same. Which, Im ok with in terms of lower decks, prodigy and somewhat with strange new worlds. But the Disco stuff? Thats gonna be a hard pass. It really is astonishing that Terry Matalas managed to make something that is not only getting critical recognition but fan recognition as well, and the boys at paramount think more disco is the way to go. It's the same dumb nonsense thats going on at Star Wars. "How do we fix our broken franchises? I know, let's do more of the stuff people hated. That will work!!".
All in all, I loved Picard season 3. More a ten hour 5th movie than an 8th season of TNG. But I loved it. Respecting a franchise and its characters, who knew that was how to make good tv?