rhibreads

The show is better and more wholesome than you think and more than the advertising lets on. It's not a travel show, it's a show about four old time legends having some fun. They've spent their entire adult lives in the public eye, always having to be "public figures" and do this and not say that, protect your reputation, the team, the show. Now they're retired and can finally travel, have fun, let loose a bit and they do. It's not necessarily "PC" every single second which is shocking in today's TV climate but if you relax, stop worrying about every joke or time they laugh being "offensive" then most episodes are actually funny AND heartwarming. The guys joke around, riff on each other, have fun in beautiful areas but at the end of every episode they get more serious and talk about what they experienced, what they learned, how grateful they are for each other and the local area and people. It's not educational as a travel show, so if you're going in thinking that you're going to get a near documentary then you will be disappointed. However if you want to unwind and experience something uplifting about four legendary old timers pushing their comfort zone, experiencing some interesting activities in different cultures and having some fun then it's surprisingly uplifting and positive to see that even into their 60s, 70s and 80s...you can still live, learn, laugh, change and have adventures.

Picard is continuing the tradition that virtually every show since Voyager ended has. It's having a midlife crisis where it's suddenly immensely insecure with its entire identity and has to get piercings, tattoos, a flashy car and act all badass.

Welcome to Picard. Everyone involved in this show clearly feels and (and shows) that Picard and Star Trek are old and "square" and they need to be "hip with the kids" by making it all dark and gritty and making all the characters cool hipsters who don't let the Fed(eration) keep them down. They swear, they vape, there's numerous sex scenes, there's incest. In any other show I wouldn't care about these things but this is Star Trek, not Game of Thrones or Rome or Spartacus or some other show that would likely air on HBO or Showtime.

Nothing in this show is Star Trek.

• The sets look ripped off from Star Wars or Blade Runner.
• Soji is basically ripped off from Summer Glau's Firefly character.
• Alison Pill is almost exactly her Newsroom character, just in space. Same "quirky" neurotic/anxiety/insecure and overshadowed character.
• Heck, they even had to plumb the depths of Voyager's plotlines for episode material and bring in Seven of Nine. Most Trekkers consider Voyager the worst of the 90s series so if Picard is having to dredge them for materials and characters what does that tell you?

The sad thing is that Stewart is almost pointless in a show that he's supposed to be the frontrunner in, that carries his character's name. He does the bare minimum to get things moving but is mostly just a passive passenger to the plot. Gone are his epic speeches, his fire, his love for Starfleet and law and order. Now he's just a lame, quiet old man who lets people walk and talk all over him and around him while he does virtually nothing. No one is expecting the 80 year old Stewart to do action scenes but he's constantly on Broadway making himself heard and yet he can't even speak up for himself when being insulted to his face and mocked repeatedly in this series.