Confession: Early in pandemic, while everyone was working on their sourdoughs, I lost my mind over how much I hated Picard S1. Literally spite-scripted screenplays for a series that used the same elements in service to something that felt more "Trek". (Hey, we all coped differently. 🙃)
I didn't watch S2 & S3, while my fellow #Trekkies hatewatched. I plan to pour my love of Trek into more new SF material, but... I think this review also neatly sums up the ongoing problem:
https://observer.com/2023/04/star-trek-picard-finale-review-to-not-so-boldly-go-backwards/
@MLClark i've been rewatching some of the episodes from the various series and not finding them as involving as in past viewing. they seem cliché and proposing directions that no longer resonate.
maybe i'm just getting old and disillusioned by the promise of the past that obviously never materialized, except some technologically, while we face an alternate world that has come about by ignoring the insights and experiences that could have made an entirely different outcome possible.
@MLClark yes, you're right about that, but it's disappointing when i can, for example, find ever new and currently relevant interpretations of, for example, Hamlet, which shed light on today's world in a fresh way, while too many Trek messages remind me of Polonius, pompous and superficial.
perhaps i just expected too much from tv writers.
@holon42 I wouldn't call that disillusioned! The flaw of Picard was nostalgia. Art is meant to build on the past, not linger in it.
E.g., I was underwhelmed when I first saw Soylent Green, because the concept had already informed so much else I'd watched before it that the ending *couldn't* shock me as it did its first audience, freshly experiencing the idea of people being indifferent to their food source.
You're exactly right not to glorify the past. Trek *should* be something we build upon.