Before taking over as showrunner for the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard, Terry Matalas worked on the second season of the series—which came with some challenges, according to the executive producer.
Time, money, and COVID hurt season 2
Terry Matalas was hired as an executive producer to work on the final two seasons of Picard, which included being brought in early in the development of season 2, which was transitioning showrunners from Michael Chabon to Akiva Goldsman. Together, those three three executive producers, along with writer and co-creator Kirsten Beyer, worked out the initial outlines for season 2. In his Master Replicas Collectors Club Zoom chat in February, Terry Matalas said the show was immediately under pressure to bring costs down after an expensive first season. Matalas suggested they could take a page out of Star Trek IV and incorporate time travel to bring the characters to modern day, which would save a lot of money for the production. His other thought was to bring back Q (John de Lancie) as he was so linked to the character of Jean-Luc Picard. Matalas says both of those ideas were immediately adopted: “This was all day one.”
Another big challenge for season 2 was shooting under the initial COVID-era production guidelines just when the industry was starting back up in early 2021. On top of that, it was decided to film seasons 2 and 3 back-to-back. During this extended shoot, production was shut down for a week due to 50 members of the production testing positive. Matalas explains how this impacted the team:
“COVID beat us up. We had to rewrite [season 2]. We had to try to find ways to make things cheaper. So we actually burned into our clock on Season 3 because we were struggling. Like if one person on the crew got sick at that point, the union rules were you had to shut down. It wasn’t until very late in the game after we had shot the first half of season 2 before we split off [to work on season 3], you’re running out of time.”
While elements like Q and time travel remained, Matalas said the second season kept being changed, and he acknowledges that had an impact on the finished product:
“There’s actually many, many different versions of season 2. I think you can kind of feel when you watch season 2 that there’s a lot of different ideas here.”
These production pressures along with differing ideas add context for the second season, which received mixed reviews here on TrekMovie and in the press.
John de Lancie as Q in contemporary Los Angeles in Picard season 2 (Paramount+)
Season 2 rewritten because first version was “too Star Trek”
The executive producer offered some details on how the second season had to be rewritten based on feedback from Paramount+:
“We wrote nine episodes at one point and the network was like, ‘No, we don’t really understand this, it’s a bit too sci-fi, it’s a bit too in-Star Trek.’”
Matalas shared some details about that first version of the season and described why Paramount+ asked for a change:
“There were Romulans—there was a whole thing. The idea was that Guinan’s bar was presented as a normal bar in Los Angeles, but if you knew the right thing to do, you could go into the back through the telephone phone booth and that was Rick’s Café and it was a stopping point for all these different species that were actually there on Earth with a ‘Do not interfere’ thing happening. So you had a lot more Star Trek happening in the backdrop of it. Ultimately, the powers that be at that time were like, ‘This is too much.’ But there were some really good ideas there that were pretty cool.”
While this sort of Men in Black idea of undercover aliens in contemporary Los Angeles would have upended some of the lore of Star Trek when it comes to first contact, it does sound like an intriguing idea that might have been more successful with fans than the final version of season 2. Of course, season 3 of Picard was full of connections to Trek lore, and it survived studio scrutiny. It’s likely the nostalgia factor and buzz expected with the return of the TNG cast mitigated any concerns.
Sir Patrick Stewart as Picard and Ito Aghayere as young Guinan (Paramount+)
Why the Jurati Borg didn’t return
Also impacted by the changes and shooting schedule was the Borg storyline where Dr. Agnes Jurati merged with the Borg Queen to form her own collective in the 21st century, which then returned in the 25th century to help Starfleet. Matalas acknowledged how this story created confusion that the Jurati Borg would have replaced the Borg collective in canon. He said there were scenes written for the season 2 finale that would have made the difference between the two collectives clearer:
“Jurati’s Borg, there is a misconception that they are the Borg in general, that the Borg were good [after season 2], which would have undone Wolf 359, which would have undone Picard, and none of the future they came back to would have looked the same. I was off working on season 3 as those final [season 2] episodes were written. And so we were reading scenes that didn’t end up getting shot. There was a brief scene with Jurati in which she explained that she stayed out of history’s way and they were a small collective of Borg, but they’re not the Borg of tens of billions of drones or anything like that.”
During production on season 2, Matalas and a group of writers split off to focus on season 3. He says that there was some work done to better integrate the Jurati Borg storyline into the third season including shooting additional dialogue:
“So while Jurati Borg was always going to be the payoff to [season 2], it was never really intended to be a longer-running thing. At the last minute, we added the thing where there was the hole that was going to open up and destroy—they added that to give a burst of action to the [season 2] finale, to give her a reason to do all of this. So that started to become retrofit into, “Hey could this be something for season 3?” But we were already way down the line on what we were doing with it. So you could say that she was guarding this thing. We did have a line on the Enterprise-D from Riker—when he talks about the Borg transwarp conduit at Jupiter and that the one that Jurati was guarding was a distraction, the Queen’s way of saying, “Go over here.”… We had a whole thing about it. But when we got to the cut, it was just like this big exposition dump that was like, nobody cares. His son is on board, Starfleet is assimilated. There’s this giant thing and now we are retrofitting and explaining the Jurati Borg.”
Matalas also revealed there was some discussion about having Jurati’s Borg show up to save the day in the season 3 finale:
“Let’s say you want to do in a in a final sequence—and we talked about it, having Jurati and her Borg show up. Well you have to get Alison [Pill]. Alison is not free. You’ve got to now build those Borg assets. And it sort of took away from what we were doing with Seven of Nine and what we doing with the Enterprise-D and how they’re the last resort and to then have the Borg cavalry show up and fight other Borg just seemed bad to us.”
Alison Pill as queen of her own Borg collective
Matalas summed up the issues with season 2 by saying “It’s all sort of the complicated parts of different people working on different things at the same. Making two seasons back-to-back like that is difficult.”
More from Terry…
See our earlier reports on what Terry said about Star Trek: Legacy and other cameos considered for Picard season 3 from his Master Replicas Collector Club chat.
The Master Replicas Collector Club offers discounts and early access to product releases and more including these members-only Zoom chats with celebrities. The next one will be with Battlestar Galactica star Jamie Bamber.
Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
Same happened to Orci’s ST3, a villain wanting to alter the kelvin timeline back to original and the return of Shatner Kirk was deemed ‘too star trek’
So instead we got Guardians of the Fast & Furious
Yeah, because we all know what great stories Orci came up with for Star Trek Into Darkness, Cowboys and Aliens and Transformers.
;-)
This is exactly why I don’t care about the movies, they have to constantly dumb down things because Paramount doesn’t want it too feel too Trek-y or cerebral and turn away the newbies. So instead of getting something more unique that at least try to present bigger themes and more inspired stories we get the formulaic villain wants to take down the Federation for vengeance and Kirk doing space jumps or riding motorcycles. There is never a sense of wonder ever just just more comic book type stories.
I don’t mind action at all since that’s what Star Trek does of course but it would be nice if one story was allowed be something else but that’s basically every movie now.
I feel this has been the issue with both the TNG and Kelvin movies. The mandate seems to be all action all the time. Insurrection tried to buck that trend a little and focus on a smaller more TNG like story but it was obvious they still needed scenes with space ships fighting each other and Picard being an action hero.
As you said that’s always been part of Star Trek but the movies seem like they couldn’t be anything else. They probably thought that was the only way to appeal to non fans although TVH showed you can have a bigger appeal without firing a single photon torpedo but the studio was in different hands then.
Yep!
That’s what disappointed me about the TNG movies, they felt it had to have Picard punching people out and riding dune buggies. And I know that’s what Patrick Stewart wanted as well because he felt Picard was too stuffy at times on the show. Fine but the movies lost what made TNG so special and that they tried to solve problems using ideas and not firing phasers in every episode. There was some of that obviously but that’s not what the show was about either. That’s all the movies were about sadly.
But at least they all felt like Star Trek. JJ verse was trying to be Marvel with big sweeping action set pieces and generic super villains. I didn’t like the first movie because of that (and being incredibly dumb) but I understood why they went that direction of course. They had to shake it up and wanted Star Trek to be seen as another big action blockbuster franchise popcorn movie.
But they still could’ve made it a little more Star Trek and came up with more complex ideas too. I liked Beyond too but still another missed opportunity. They had a villain who could’ve been more complex and layered who felt lost and turned his back on the Federation and wanted to take it another direction. Instead he just came off super angry like the last four generic villains who decided he would feel better if he just killed everyone instead.🙄
No nuance in any of these stories just bad guys you have to take down in every story.
Ok I know we have gone away off the reservation here lol but I’ll just add one more point and then move on.
But it’s funny you mentioned how you thought Beyond could’ve been a more complex movie. That’s what I thought too. It’s funny because I originally thought the story would be something similar to Dune.
No spoilers for a 60 year old story lol but watching that movie and its themes of imperialism, indigenous people being treated badly with a destroyed ecology I originally thought that’s what Beyond was setting up.
I honestly thought Krall was going to be someone who was angry at the Federation because they had somehow inadvertently destroyed his planet and made it barren through some of type of mining technology. But it was basically an accident and they never knew that people lived on it but it effected Krall and his people for decades.
Edit: Oddly enough that’s what Discovery season 4 was about too, but just on a galactic scale.
But I thought that was part of the movie was because of the line Krall says to Kirk: “This is where the frontier pushes back.”
He was a guy who saw his planet destroyed and saw the Federation as a colonizing force who just took whatever they wanted at the cost of another primitive society and he wanted revenge. It was basically similar to The Devil in the Dark just on a bigger scale.
Instead we got something much less interesting and thought provoking. It was just a generic planet they happened to be on, nothing more. Actually Krall himself still had an interesting backstory but it came down to being angry for nefarious reasons and launching yet another bio weapon to wipe out everyone. Something we seen multiple times in these movies by now.
Ok rant over lol. But yeah watching Dune that idea all came rushing back.
What did you think of Dune part 2 Tiger2?, I thought it was incredible. DV is a fantastic director and the art design in his films are so good. Bladerunner 2049 is one of my favourite films.
I would love to see Star Trek make a movie that isn’t an action comedy like Guardians of the Galaxy.
Star Trek the motion picture was a really good sci fi film that we rarely see in a franchise like Star Trek or Star Wars.
Oh absolutely LOVED it. I seen it twice now, the second time a day ago. I knew based on all the rave reviews that I would like it but I didn’t think I would like it as much as I did because I didn’t love the first one as much but still really liked it.
But yes it’s one whole movie and seeing the second part was fantastic. I’m seriously thinking of seeing it a third time.
And I seen all of DV’s science fiction films in the theaters when you also include BR 2049 and Arrival. Loved all of them. He’s really an amazing director.
I remember people here and other places was dropping his name to make the next Star Trek movie. Yeah that’s never going to happen lol, but I think it speaks to fans who wants a more serious hard science Trek film again like TMP.
I don’t think that will ever happen. Paramount thinks these movies will work for the masses if you make them light and action based which isn’t a bad thing. But same time it is disappointing they can’t seem to to do anything else other than the same formula over and over again.
You can do something more in the middle at least.
never a better time for that, thanks to the success of ‘interstellar’ and ‘the martian’
Yes Interstellar and the Martian are 2 great Sci fi films which did really well in the box office. Looking forward to the adaptation of Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary as I really enjoyed the book.
‘beyond’ lied about the nature of krall, promoting him as an alien with a valid push back to Fed/starfleet expansion when he was actually a rogue officer like garth or ron tracey.
As was revealed in the final trailer, spoiling the twist
I kinda understand why Paramount wants to ‘dumb it down’ for the movies, because – let’s be honest – that’s the only way it appeals to the general public (as opposded to just the fandom). That’s the main reason why Star Wars movies work for a general audience and Star Trek movies (mostly) don’t. Star Wars keeps it simple ‘good vs. evil’, aka: dumb.
Orci sounded like his idea was way more ambitious and interesting than what we got but it doesn’t mean better either.
I did like Beyond a lot and they at least tried to make it feel more like Star Trek than the first two movies which felt more like Star Wars and Marvel but it felt a bit too generic at the same time and the same Uber villain trope. Another reason why few fans are begging for another movie. It will probably just be more of the same.
The shows aren’t perfect but at least they do try to mix things up a bit like the old shows did.
I experimented with watching ST2009 then watching Beyond, tried to forget Into Darkness ever existed. It made the JJ universe more palatable. I doubt I’ll ever watch ID again – such a cop out movie f@#$ing up the Wrath of Khan legacy.
That is the crazy thing about STID, they set up so much in that movie that was obviously meant to be revisted down the line (Khan, Klingons , Section 31, Carol Marcus, etc) but because the reception to it was so bad everything in it was totally ignored. You really can skip it and miss absolutely nothing.
I can’t think of a single reference anywhere in Beyond and that was probably on purpose.
I wonder if the vocal negative ‘Trekkie’ reaction to ID (alot from on this site/comments, but there was also that Vegas poll voting it worst Trek film that the msm picked up on abit. Of course in the ‘real world’ ID was a sizable hit taking near 500m and generally liked by mass moviegoing audiences) in part dissuaded Paramount from continuing with Orci’s ST3 (considering he was one of the ID writers and Alice Eve was set to return as Carol Marcus etc), and instead wanted something closer to the well received 2009 film (similar mad villain, ties to kirks dad, ‘Sabotage’ in the trailer, that no one seemed to get) .
ironically his version of ST3 sounded closer to and tied into the 1st film more than Beyond! (plot dealing with the timelines, villain probably similar motives to Nero, Shatner as the legacy actor presumably with several important scenes like Nimoy in ST09). And obviously it sounded more apt for the big 50 anniversary with having Shatner and tying into the prime timeline in a plot potentially something like City on The Edge/Yesterdays Enterprise?
(and the only ID reference I can recall in Beyond was when scotty jumped in a torpedo as if he’d picked that up from seeing them get used to hide Khans ppl)
I guess we’ll never know what happened with Orci’s ouster since he’s obviously not talking about it but yeah I would’ve liked to have seen his movie and as said definitely sounds like it tied more closely to that universe.
As I said I liked Beyond but it probably just felt too generic for old fans and new fans didn’t seem that interested at all anymore. But this has all been said countless times. I do think Orci’s movie would’ve been more marketable for sure, especially with Shatner involved. But I don’t think the studio really wanted Shatner a part of it or they could’ve still requested that Pegg included him in his script.
It really is odd how things flipped so quickly but sadly it was more proof that Paramount just really didn’t have any idea where to take this franchise and it’s only gone downhill since.
I agree, Paramount most likely had enough of too much call back to ‘original’ Trek with ID and felt it was high time for the JJ crew to finally go it alone (like TNG with FC) on their own 5y mission at last..
And yeah, I still can’t quite believe how things have reversed.. One minute the JJ ‘kelvin’verse is all the rage. and original ‘prime’ Trek is dead. dead as a doornail. (aside Nimoy passing the baton like Shatner did to TNG which took the reins, only for it to come back to TOS in 2009) there was the rumoured hoohah about the merchandise JJ wanting only kelvin not TOS. no chance of any TNG return after Nemesis, and if there was to be a TV series it would most certainly be set in kelvin verse… Yet here we are.. Kelvin is dead. and Prime/TNG is flying the flag again ..in the greatest Trek since FC!
I was on another site a week ago discussing Picard season 3 and and I had an exchange with a college student who became a fan several years ago by getting into TNG and then DS9 and Voyager. He had watched all of Picard recently, the only NuTrek stuff he had seen but wanted to know what other new things to try next?
I had asked him has he seen any of the Kelvin movies? He said he seen
the TOS and TNG movies but not the Kelvin movies because he doesn’t consider it ‘real’ Star Trek and heard they are just action movies. I told him they are more actiony for sure but they are officially canon. He said he doesn’t count them as canon because they are not in the prime universe and therefore doesn’t count in his eyes.
This exchange really tells you how things have changed. I don’t know how old he is but he’s a junior in college so most likely early 20s. He was around 5 when the first Kelvin movie started but he didn’t become a Star Trek fan until he was in high school. But the Kelvin movies were a complete non factor to him, someone that was around the age these movies were supposed to appeal to as he got older.
He identifies Star Trek as the old prime universe stuff. But 10 years ago some fans assumed that would all fade into the ether and the Kelvin movies would become the new defacto prime universe with all the new shows and films being made for that universe instead. Obviously that didn’t happen.
It tells you how strong all the old shows and films have held up and has stayed very relevant for both old and new fans today.
Maybe it would be a different thing today if they struck while the fire was hit and just produce more films and maybe a Kelvin spin off show at some point. But the prime universe still reigns king and why so many people are begging for the Legacy show while so others just rolls their eyes when they hear of yet another movie announcement. It’s become it’s own punchline at this point.
Paramount could’ve had at least a modest but stable movie franchise but they managed to run it into the ground after just the second film.
And no one seems all that bothered these days. Certainly not that guy lol.
Whomever this college person is, I would like to be his friend please lol.
Nothing I ever hear about JJ surprises me
I never liked Orci’s idea because it goes against everything he said in ST 2009 about Kelvin being a separate universe. Once you have a separate universe in the multiverse you don’t just combine them. It would be like combining the Mirror and Prime universes.
Yeah, I was actually a bit flabberghasted that they didn‘t do more in it and maybe used the opportunities of a „fresh“ universe more. The comics at the time did an interesting job of exploring aspects like the Vulcans being essentially in a place like the Romulans of the late 24th century (what is now the Picard era). Or how about taking some of the characters in a different direction? Maybe Spock actually does leave the Enterprise and Chekov (who often took the Vulcan‘s place on the old TV show back in the day) becomes the new science officer? Or something cool happens with the Klingons? Hell, even with Khan they could have backed down from the evil-thing more and maybe Kirk and Khan become more solid allies. I actually liked that Beyond did have more of an original story and Krall was a cool villain in concept, but had too little interaction with Kirk to really make the thematic stuff stick and burying an actor like Idris Elba under that much make up was kind of not smart.
I don’t think I’ll ever watch season 2 of PIC again
I feel the same. It’s a complete waste of time. Also a total waste of a great character in Q.
Season 2 was utter shite.
The only reason I go back to Season 2 at all is to watch the scene with Seven and Raffi on the bus with ghetto blaster man. Love that! The rest… I try to forget.
Indeed! It is the only season of any Trek that I consider unpalatable to the point of perhaps never revisiting. I actually thought the plot about Picard’s mother was interesting although locking her in a room seemed barbaric and fed negative stereotypes about mental illness. It was basically incoherent as to what the plot around the mom had to do with much of anything. Letting go of the past and accepting love is important and all but how that led them away from the dystopian future seemed nonsensical. Why that was the point of Q’s “trial” of sending them into the past became utterly ridiculous. I like the idea of Picard’s “trial” by Q being more personal than about humanity, but … well … it just didn’t work!
The fact that it felt “half-baked” makes sense in light of Terry’s comments. I get the sense that they sacrificed quality on Season 2 to make Season 3 a success, which makes me feel bad for some of the Season 1 actors they jettisoned.
The worst/best part about that is that there is practically NO connection to any other Trek. Thankfully we don’t need to watch it, as it has already gone the way of TFF. It never happened… look the other way…
I don’t understand this article.
There is only one season of Picard ??? TNG Season 8.
I’m so confused…
Buzz off *eye roll&
Buzz on *eye stationary&
Season two was “too Star Trek”?? So they bounced back with season three, Trek on steroids… something seems off on that rationalization.
Paramount probably just heard, “Full TNG cast reunion, same bottom line cost” and just let him get on with it.
I think what they wanted to do in season 2 was make things a bit more cerebral like All Good Things or Tapestry. Something more thought provoking than Soong using mercenaries and killer drones to stop the mission from happening.
Season 3 is a 10 hour action movie. It has tons of explosions, fist fights and ships shooting at each other. I think Worf killed more people than people killed in the first two seasons combined lol. That probably appealed to them just as much as everything else.
Feels like Picard’s production was cursed and the universe came together to make sure none of it was good. At least it’s over.
Though that makes the news around it go past upsetting to funny, at least.
> “There’s actually many, many different versions of season 2. I think you can kind of feel when you watch season 2 that there’s a lot of different ideas here.”
Understatement of the friggin’ century. I know it would never happen, but I’d love a little more candid transparency about these things much sooner than later. I’d be far more forgiving of a bad season if I knew just how difficult things were at the time.
I hung on for so long hoping it would all come together and make sense by the end. I had faith. Faith of the heart. But it never really coalesced. Just an apartment complex dumpster right after Christmas filled with all kinds of assorted flashy, empty boxes waiting to get taken away.
Credit where it’s due: it looked great at times, and there were some individual moments and story threads that were pretty amazing. Jurati’s journey was interesting with both Pill and Wersching knocking it out of the park. The first handful of episodes were quite promising. de Lancie is always going to be great, and Q’s goodbye was a real gut punch (however irrelevant S3 made it). The Guinan they cast was surprisingly great. And benching Elmo the Ninja Space Elf the whole season? Chef’s kiss.
But then you’ve got bullshit like Guinan’s goofy Q-summoning genie bottle, everyone on both sides of the screen being far too clever, seemingly forgetting “10 Forward” was just name of the where the main lounge was on the D. Everything with Soong and his kid. Picard’s mother. An unnecessary car chase through the city. Dumping Rios in the past, essentially killing him off. Casting the same actress to play Tallinn, making reference to her ‘striking similarity’, and doing nothing with that. And probably a dozen other things I’m forgetting.
I get it, though. Nobody sets out to do this; making TV is hard enough by itself, but given the circumstances, it was even tougher.
Understanding the production difficulties that contributed to the outcome REALLY helps put it all in perspective. While knowing this won’t make me like it more, going forward I’ll be a lot more forgiving when discussing it.
I’m waiting for the book “The Making of Star Trek Picard Season II”
To me, , Picard Seasons 1 and 2 and Discovery, and the JJ movies, don’t feel like Star Trek, but more like a suit’s idea of what sells to the masses in our time, such as dystopian themes and mindless action. There is a lack of love- that’s the word that sums up the integrity, optimistic portrayal of humanity, and kindness shown in earlier Star Trek. Of course Star Trek always had action, but I’m talking about relative proportions.
When I say these things, some people react with criticism, me, telling me that Star Trek has changed, my Trek is obsolete, and the new Star Treks make money. I agree with them, actually. The suits know how to try to make money – that’s their job. But in my view that has created a new Trek which has mutated into something that is not a light in the darkness, but is now part of the darkness that is so profitable and popular in current society. Star Trek is now selling, but it’s flame is dimming quickly.
Couldn’t have said it better. That was the problem with so much of NuTrek, it didn’t feel like Star Trek but something else with the name Star Trek on it. It was too bleak and actiony. JJ verse and Discovery just felt like really bad reboots. Picard at least looked like it was part of the old universe again but it still didn’t feel that much like Star Trek, especially season 1.
You could also point out that DS9 isn’t Star Trek then. Also TNG season 3 was changing from Roddenberry Trek but DS9 was very different to what come before and was the pinnacle Sci Fi series of it’s time for me and arguably the most consistently well written Trek series.
Voyager was more Trek like but DS9 was much better because it wasn’t afraid to explore darker subject matters.
Which is why DS9 is still my favorite Trek show today.
Also DS9 introduced longer story arcs as opposed to TOS and TNG’s more episodic nature and it just worked really well. Gutted that they never release a HD version like the previous Trek series. About to start a rewatch of DS9 again on DVD as it has been a few years now since I have watched it
Well that explains why Season 2 of Picard was so horrible
I guess, but that original concept of Rick’s Cafe at Guinan’s sounds pretty bad, too.
Picard Season 2 was THE worst season of Star Trek produced and the only one I will never, ever rewatch. Thanks to Akiva Goldman, AKA the poster boy of “you fall upwards in Hollywood”. Worst writer to get his hands on Star Trek, by far.
It’d be interesting to make a list of worst creative influences on trek but ag would certainly rank way up there with gr’s attorney.
Same. Even though it’s not as bad, I doubt I’ll watch Picard Season 1 either.
I don’t agree that it is the worst (TNG Season 1 says ‘hello’) but it definitely was 3 or 4 episodes of interesting material stretched out to 10 episodes and dragged terribly because of it. It actually could have been a decent three-part episode or TV movie, just dump that awful “Picard’s Mommy and Daddy Issues” storyline.z
Someone creative could even try re-editing Season 2 into a movie and see how it works out.
I wouldn’t even want to watch a 3 ep version. “Scarlet Witch-Borg” is the most annoying main character in Trek History, and the Young Guinan character was laughingly bad…and another effing Soong to shoehorn in Spinner again was laughable. And I haven’t even started on the horribly ridiculous story.
My opinion:
WORST TREK SEASON EVER / NOT SALVAGEABLE
I rewatch all of season 1 of TNG a few years back and I actually enjoyed a lot of it. There are definitely some huge stinkers for sure but there are some decent ones too. And I always felt the season finale was good even when I first watched it.
The problem with Star trek today because it’s so serialized even the more decent episodes are hard to rewatch. I think the first episode is still great in Picard season 2 but it’s attached to everything else it’s still hard to just go back and watch it on its own.
The first half of TNG Season 1 is just abominable, though. Sure toward the end it was getting decent (Heart of Glory, Coming of Age, Conspiracy and Neutral Zone) but those are episodes 19+, where Picard Season 2 is only ten episodes total, and two to four of them are pretty good (the long slog in the middle is what kills it.) TNG Season 1
winsI mean, loses.And those are still way more episodes then I like for Picard season 2 lol.
It’s literally just the first two episodes of that season. I have no desire to watch the others ever again.
I also looked up Picard season 1 RT score and it has a 90% critic rating and a 70% audience score. I’m just as shocked as you lol. It just proves with time, people look at things differently I guess..in ten years season 2 of Picard may have the same rating.
I actually enjoyed season 1 of Picard, I was just really disappointed with the synthetic alien threat that was simplistically tied up in the last episode. I was hoping for a Alastair Reynolds’ Revelation Space Inhibitors like threat to the federation in season 2.
It’s nice to have something that isn’t just another Starship show.
Picard season 1 did something different and like DS9 I like to see that in Trek.
Yes the Academy show will be doing something different but if it is anything like the sit com nonsense and juvenile romances we saw in SNW season 2 I will be switching it off rather quickly.
I don’t really see anything to disagree with here…
Yep season 2 is the worst season of any Trek for me as well. Just awful all around after the first two episodes.
Discovery seasons 2,3 and 4 have entered the chat…
😂
I think pretty much all of Discovery is pretty bad, but even all those seasons were still much better than season 2 of Picard.
Season 4 of Discovery is the worst season so far but I still rated it a 4 out of 10. There were some decent moments and inspiring ideas in it. The other sessions gets around a 5 or 6 out of 10. They all had some decent episodes and ideas but still all bad as a whole for me.
But season 2 of Picard is rated 2 out of 10. Outside of the first two episodes nothing else in it was redeeming.
Any season of DSC is like Citizen Kane as compared to Picard S2.
The irony for me is Discovery season 2 is actually pretty good and one of the better season 2 when compared to most of the spin offs. It really comes off the wheels once the Red Angel is revealed but before that I really liked it and easily my favorite of the show far (even if it’s still not saying a lot lol).
Yum yum.
And I can’t get over the poor cleaner being disrespected and called Gene.
And the roller coaster lifts.
The roller coaster lift was definitely bad but that happened in season 3.
I’m lost over the cleaner bit?
Oh please! Have you seen TNG season 1 & 2?? I am quite surprised it didn’t get cancelled after those stinkers. Luckily, things changed.
I can think fo five or six that I feel were worse for one reason or another, but sure.
It wasn’t just bad Star Trek – it was some of the worst television I’ve seen (and I’ve seen a lot of bad TV).
It looked incredibly cheap (like a bad episode of Hunter), the story made no sense and, just ugh.
It made Trek V look like Citizen Kane.
I might be wrong but isn’t AG the showrunner for SNW?
Might explain a lot.
Yes he is the showrunner for SNW together with Henry Alonso Myers.
This explains the hot mess of season 2. Any executive who would use the phrase “too Star Trek” doesn’t understand Star Trek.
I can see the point. However, it’s also true that while success has many fathers, failure is an orphan. There’s undoubtedly some finger-pointing going on as to the critical failure of season 2, and before I deem the studio guilty, I’d want more specifics: what, exactly, did the studio nix? The “Rick’s Cafe” idea sounds as bizarre as some of the material that made it onscreen. In short, it’s also possible that Matalas is trying to deflect some blame onto the studio.
Season 3 should be called ‘Star Trek: Reparations’, and this isn’t just to make amends for Picard seasons 1 and 2, but for basically all TNG after ‘All Good Things’.
In my opinion, All Good Things is vastly superior to Pic S3. And All Good Things is a classic story that fits TNG, unlike Pic S3, which is a space opera/zombie/superpowers mishmash that bears little resemblance to what made TNG such great Star Trek.
Pic S3 did a good job on the reunion and gave us character fan service closure with great performances by the actors — and I enjoyed those aspects of it, so I will happily check that box as a success from that point of view.
But it was not a story that was consistent with what made TNG great. It was more Star Wars-like than Star Trek-like by a country mile.
👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻
I agree — All Good Things was the perfect conclusion for the show at that time.
I enjoyed Picard Season 3 as much as anyone, but my fear is that the Paramounts of the world will draw the wrong lessons from it and wrongly assume that we are motivated mostly by nostalgia. That level of nostalgia worked brilliantly that one time, but interesting, complex, and coherent stories are what we crave. Create those, and the “prestige television” folks will find Star Trek.
AGT is superior to S3. But if you’re gonna make a fan service reunion show, you could do a lot worse than S3 – I enjoyed S3 very much. I think I was prepared to bail after a couple episodes if it started to look like S2, but that’s just me talking.
I don’t think Jack was done particularly well, mostly, his immaturity didn’t line up with his age. Or maybe he just looked too old than what he was supposed to be. Having the Borg DNA in him was fine – and having the Borg DNA inserted into everyone via transporters was a good device – but I would have preferred if Jack was a bit more 22, and an actor who looked that way.
Also, I think it was a little too happy to have him spend a few weeks at Starfleet and then been placed in a command advisor position on a ship. He did after all almost destroy the entire Federation. There was more suspicion about JLP after Wolf 359 than there was after Jack’s business, and Jack was a lot closer to his ends. The fact that you have senior officers who still carry anger toward JLP is another reason you don’t just plop Jack out there- how is the immature hothead going to deal with an Admiral or Captain who is mad at him for the death of a spouse or other family member due to the borg attack at Frontier day?
I have to admit: when I was watching season 6 of THE CROWN, I wondered how the actor who played the college-aged Prince William would have done in the role of Jack Crusher.
Well the “Guinan’s Bar = Men in Black” thing doesn’t sound all that much better than what we ended up with.
Also, I could imagine that Paramount must have been delighted with Matalis’s approach to season 3. One might imagine the brass saying, “there we go, that’s much more Star Wars-like and not so much Star Trek; well done, Terry”.
Considering that Guinan once stated that one day, the Borg and the Federation will become friends, I see the Jurati Borg as the catalyst to this, with the old regime being the Borg Queen from PIC S3 as the “last gasp of the old ways”.
She didn’t say will, she doesn’t know the future. She just said it is possible (but for now the Federation is just raw material to them.)
I don’t think I will watch S2 of Picard again, either. It’s literally a ‘greatest hits’ season comprising of some of the best ingredients from the two most successful features with mainstream appeal – Trek IV and First Contact.
The disjointedness of the season definitely shows strongly. The story could have been told in two or three episodes without missing a beat but dragged on unnecessarily for the entire season. A truly wasted opportunity.
I’ve rewatched Picard season 3 about three times since it finished but I haven’t watched the first two seasons once since they finished. I could see myself maybe watching season 1 again someday but I will never watch season 2 again.
I rewatched both before Season 3. Season 1 is pretty good. Season 2 after the first two episodes you can definitely get up, make dinner and go sit back down in front of the TV and not missed much of anything important during that interval.
Yeah season 1 isn’t that horrible and was pretty good in the first half. And Nepenthe is still one of the best episodes in NuTrek for me. But the ending was such a mess it made me stop caring about the whole thing.
That’s how I felt about season 2 after episode 2 and it only got worse and worse.
Also agree. I don’t think season 1 was THAT bad, but I think the expectations was so high and they fumbled it so badly in the end it really gave a bad taste for a lot of people.
Sadly it felt like it was just too many cooks in the kitchen and they all had wildly different ideas where to take it. It’s still shocking we spent 9 episodes on a Borg cube and the storyline added absolutely nothing in the end. We still never found out why the Romulans were on it?
Just so many mind boggling plot threads.
Exactly! I felt like they were trying too hard to please everyone and as a result they pleased almost no one. I also felt that way about season 2. They had some good avenues to explore but then they focused too much on things that just didn’t mesh well. They needed someone who could have streamlined everything and just said NO if it wasn’t working.
It doesn’t surprise me at all that the studio wanted something less Star Trek. For decades they have wanted Star Trek fans’ money all while not seeming to understand what the franchise is about. I don’t have any hope that they will learn either.
Ha! Yeah, super decision there. I think that season totally Sucked. Didn’t even bother to watch the last episode. You have to wonder how many possibly great shows have been ruined by ‘the network.’
I remember how excited I was for season 2. Once I heard it was a time travel story and Q was involved I had such big expectations. We were finally getting Star Trek of old again with an ambitious and smart.
Instead we got something not even close to that. It was badly written all around with so many bad and boring plots. The finale was a joke outside the Q and Picard scene. I don’t think I will ever watch that season ever again either.
personally i love old old trek, old trek, and new trek. i dug season 1 of Picard and was sad to see them try to wash it away. but seriously… considering the number of regime changes at paramount, and the lack of faith in trek and using trek to launch networks and streaming services and all the clumsy things the studio has done for 60 years… it’s amazing trek has been so well put together and enjoyable all these decades. all thanks to the writers and producers who are real trek fans themselves and act like a buffer between the creative-less robots who give the money and us.
…
Yeah, you and I are in the minority, but I thought S1 of Picard was by far the best season of the series. It was legitimate science fiction and had TNG themes and TNG gravitas to it — Elements that I found lacking with the Picard S3 space opera and fan service reunion approach.
Season 1 was great.
I don’t know that I would go that far, but it was definitely good. Particularly if n a rewatch.
Would still love to hear the truth behind Michael Chabon being erased.
Yep and I also want to know more about what caused all of the problems behind the scenes on Discovery’s first 2 seasons. That in particular seemed to have a tremendous impact on the show.
Yes, absolutely this. Season 1 had a lot of grist for the idea mill, and I think that’s thanks to Chabon.
Supposedly he left to go produce a television adaptation of his novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.
But the irony is his TV show hasn’t been produced yet and I doubt it will anytime soon. There seems to be something more here regarding Chabon than just “walking away to make his own show”. This seems like an excuse more than anything.
Yeah I think while true it was also a cover for him to leave Star Trek. He left before season 1 even aired.
This guy got so much fanfare when he was announced as show runner for Picard. And then after season 1 he just basically disappeared after that. He doesn’t seem to have any connection with it. He doesn’t talk about it at all. I think a lot went down and he probably wasn’t given the control he thought he would have when he signed on.
I think there is a certain pattern here with names like Chabon and Nick Meyer not being able to fully work in these shows. Maybe too much ego clashes or not being appreciated enough in the writers room.
Yeah probably so. Oddly enough outside of Bryan Fuller those were probably the most well respected names working on modern Trek. We know what happened with Fuller and talked about Chabon but Meyers time with Discovery went absolutely nowhere and was fired after the first season. The guy is reduced to writing a Khan podcast… which we still heard nothing more about for over two years now when it was first introduced.
Just a reminder Hollywood is a tough business.
I think Meyer’s language and tone is too stuck in the 70s and 80s and he can’t seem to “modernize” his work. That is why he has trouble working in general these days and besides he seems like a guy who wouldn’t take crap from anyone so he doesn’t want to get involved with all the minute bs going in modern hollywood. He doesn’t seem to want to play the game.
That’s probably all true. As fanboys we all look at Meyer like a God but the reality is we have no idea what his work would be like today. And sure for people who like what he did back then want to see him continue but you have to be willing to change with the time as well.
I actually heard about this right before season 3 started on Reddit. I was private chatting another member who was a former entertainment reporter and he said the second season was supposed to be wildly different but the storyline was cut for both budget and story reasons. He said the story was way more ambitious than what we got and closer to All Good Things. But a producer came in and forced them to change everything because they wanted something simpler and the season was rewritten in just a few weeks.
It really does explain a lot. The season was hampered by so many things. It’s a miracle that season 3 was as good as it was.
We heard variations of that in this and other forums at the time, didn’t we? Except I don’t recall budgets being the issue, it was all “COVID, COVID, COVID…” as the reason the story was changed. I remember questioning at the time why filming on the La Sirena set was any more complicated than filming in the Picard’s Chateau set, COVID-wise. A set’s a set, right?
We certainly knew Covid was a big factor on why they went the direction with show. But I always thought it was so weird to try and do a premise that was based on so much location shooting because there were still many shooting restrictions everywhere. I’m from LA and and yes things were getting more normal but going outside was still a pain in a lot of places and filming was still really effected.
But I guess they thought it would still be cheaper overall since they could build less sets but they still went over budget due to the COVID issues so I do wonder how much they saved in the end.
Travel, for one thing. But then again, they managed to film EMILY IN PARIS during Covid.
But the actual plot of Season 2 involved more travel, didn’t it? All that location shooting in L.A.? I still don’t understand how that was easier than filming entirely on soundstages (which Season 3 in fact was.)
Was that producer Goldsman? That tracks
He never said who it was but I suspected it too. Could be wrong of course but yeah.
2nd season was wasted potential on the new characters who appeared in the first season – Soji/ Daj, Elnor, Rios, and Jurati.
Yep this is true! In fact that’s one of the many reasons why the first 2 seasons are so poorly written. There always seemed like a divide in the writers room where they were concerned. Some writers seemed to really like this group and others couldn’t get rid of them fast enough. Ultimately the two sides couldn’t meet in the middle which is why they got the ax in the final season. Shame as they all had potential but the effort just wasn’t there. I think the best episode for the group was the second season opener Stargazer. They all had good moments it’s just too bad they didn’t want that kind of show.
I actually enjoyed Season 2 in all its insanity and competing ideas. The wheels almost came off, but it was a fun ride for me. It’s nowhere near my favourite season of Trek, but I don’t think it deserves scorn it gets. Not when Enterprise Season 2 exists. Yeesh, now *that’s* a stinker for me.
Agreed. I can think of several worse seasons of Star Trek.
Too Star Trekky again? the problem with modern Trek is it wants to be anything but Star Trek, let’s make it Game of Thrones, let’s make it Walking Dead. Let’s make it like New Galactica. Let’s ripoff Mass Effect, let’s ripoff the Terminator story. Let’s rip off Aliens. We can make it like a CW show.
Sad but true. I would say Prodigy has been the one product in NuTrek that stayed inheritly Star Trek but some people felt it borrowed from The Clone Wars early on. But that changed pretty quickly after the first episode.
Thank you Paramount for butchering Star Trek for me with hand holding jolly singing Klingons (in strange new worlds). It’s not StarTrek anymore.
They re-wrote Star Trek because it was Star Trek?
I think I found their problem.
Behold, 21st Century Paramount. Look while you can, because they are not long for this world.
This was the problem going back to 2009 Abrams’ Trek.
I thought the first episode of season 2 was strong, with an interesting setup about whether or not they could trust the Borg and if they should help them. It was sort of like Star Trek 6 in that way—briefly. But then it rapidly turned into a mess with Q and… a lot of other stuff I can only half remember at this point. Something about a space launch and a magic bottle and Picard’s mom. Oh, and Wesley Crusher cosplaying as Wil Wheaton for a minute. A real fever dream, that season.
Well, with that goal in mind, they knocked it out of the park. Didn’t feel like Star Trek at all.
Dakota Johnson railed just this week on the danger of writing by committee. Her point was that it undermines the intelligence of the viewers by giving everyone a little bit of what various suits have determined that the people want, but without crafting a coherent or inspired story in the process. Everything Matalas describes here seems to perfectly validate Johnson’s argument. Season 2 seemed more “focus grouped” than “written.”
Exactly this, its seems as though “focus” or a “single vision” is disappearing in writing stories as every writer or producers want to put their ideas on screen. There doesn’t seem to be any respect anymore for the “story”. Everything seems to be about egos and messages.
Each writer can have his say within the overall framework, but mainly that works with standalone stories. Once you buy into this dubious notion of one big (read: bloated) story for a season, it’s a matter of piling on and diluting whatever was good about the idea in the first place.
Yup , this seems to be the biggest problem of serialized storytelling in general. However even with a serialized story I think you can have a main, major theme and have the other writers continue to work on that theme in a more focused way rather than the weird detours we most often see. Its a matter having the discipline to stay in the framework of that general story, this is why writers rooms need micro-managing in general, especially for serialized shows.
I also don’t know anything about the rules for how many executive producers a show can have, but this needs to be limited as well, if it isn’t already. It’s like everyone and their cousin is an executive producer on a show these days.
The rick & morty alien time cafe matrix phone booth MIB headquarters time citadel sounds like an awful idea. It would have been absolutely savaged and rightly so.
Ripping off multiple other franchises, making earth even more sooper dooper special than it already was and destroying First Contact. Picard S2 was rubbish but it would have been even worse with that nonsense.
“Mixed reviews”, LOL.
Matalas’ ideas for season 2:
Why am I not surprised
They did a great job! It wasn’t Star Trek so mission accomplished Paramount.
The first two episodes were very Star Trek. But then it fall off a cliff.
Agreed! I liked the first two episodes as well.
Also ageed. And those were the episodes Matalas was directly involved in.
So wait let me get this straight, you are making a “STAR TREK” show and you consider the writing too “STAR TREKY”. What am I missing here? Shouldn’t the goal be to make it “STAR TREKY”? If you don’t want Trek, go and make something else, or create your own original science-fiction property. Stupidity begets stupidity.
Every time I think about season 2 of Picard I just get annoyed because of all the things that I didn´t like or didn´t make sense. There was good stuff in there but the bad just takes over.
It ended up being garbage
I really think the executives underestimate how much damage they do when they abandon or rewrite story in Star Trek in the name of just getting the job done and under budget. This is something Rick Berman managed better than anybody which is how such a huge fandom got built and maintained. Now the shoddy quality of the storytelling and world building erodes enthusiasm and interest from old fans and new fans can see the disfunction in the franchise relative to others (Star Wars, Marvel, Disney etc.). Essentially we are being trained to think of the production rather than the story which is just unsatisfying. Anyway, this is why I think they really have no interest in going back to a Legacy show, it’s extremely treacherous after Picard.
“It’s too star trek” seems the most absurd criticism of a star trek show I can think of… like…. really?!
IMHO, S2 was an abominably written season. I personally liked S1 and of course S3 was a great sendoff to the TNG crew, but boy, with the exception of a few things, that second season was tough to watch. Now we have a reason why!!
I wonder if this happens in other franchises. “oh, that’s too star wars’…’you can’t do that its too James bond’ …’no, thats too batman’ etc
Not with Rogue One they were careful to bring back the feel and design of the original film, down to Darth Vader’s helmet and red lenses. The Disney trilogy did mess up Luke. I wonder if there is any regret, you get no do overs. Its like how Berman and co ruined and killed Kirk in Star Trek Generations. I can pretend Disney Star Wars is not canon but its official and permanent.
Why is it always Star Trek that is too much like itself for these suits? You never hear that Star Wars is too much like Star Wars or that Marvel is too much about super heroes.
IKR. Makes no sense. It’s almost that the suits are embarrassed to create Star Trek shows, like it is too “nerdy” for them. So they have to make it more “cool” for the jocks and preps.
Reddit’s trek sub labeled this article clickbait.
Paramount: “Hey, you know all that stuff that got the franchise millions of fans worldwide? Could you not do any of that? Thanks.”
so the next time you want to jump down the writer’s throats or Kurtzman’s just remember this article. You guys give them hell when it’s (as history has ALWAYS showed us) Paramount suits who have an issue with letting Star Trek just be Star Trek. Just like WB has been to DC properties.
I remember laughing out loud when they showed Jurati Queen… she stil looks just as ridiculous.
Man what a pointless season.