So yeah I def felt they were trying to make a “changing demographic” and “resentment to others” thread by design. And honestly maybe it’s the continuity nerd in me but if that was the case I’d be fine with it, we’re it say, other franchise. Star Trek is my optimism fran. And I know I seem hypocritical as my favorite show ever, DS9 turned the “ideal” of Trek on its ear quite a bit, but it ultimately, while challenging Roddenberry’s vision, came back to faith in humanity (even if that was via an alien species). To twist Trek to push a single political statement pisses me off. Yes Trek has always connected on social issues (as good science fiction does), but at least Trek always/traditionally did so by challenging one to think, rather than being so in on the nose, and Trek always presented issues as complex and landing in shades of grey, often giving compelling counter argument in representing both sides. I do not feel Picard (series) did that at all. It was always clear what the writers felt. Shit my DS9 writers were/are blue bearded communists but they never made that known in the show! Also to circle back to using Romulans, it felt like the writers had ignored or didn’t bother themselves to watch 5 series worth of canon or OT/TNG movies and just rewatched the Abrams Kelvin-trek, maybe read some wiki notes about Romulans but that’s it. I get makeup evolves so I can accept Klingons appearances changed but, have tried to be semi consistent in the appearance and cultures - the Romulans in Picard don’t feel like Romulans to me. At all. They don’t look like them (a ginger, curly haired Romulan??), act like them (subjected to servant style labor), etc. and maybe that was deliberate but, to me it felt disrespectful and wrong to, within a literal single generation, expect a people to be so vastly different and removed. But I’ll grant you it was interesting and I’d gripe less were they a different race…not only because it’d insulting to Romulans but also, shat on all of Spock’s work to socially change Romulus, and shat on Jean-Lucy’s inroads made with them (and Data’s sacrifice there). TBH they almost felt more Bajoran to me. Sevens inclusion while interesting also -to me- was odd. I couldn’t help but feel the writer just pulled in a fan favorite from a different series just to have another strong female character. That she was so different from what I remember firm Voyager didn’t bother me as much as I never liked her character, and given the time that’d passed, I could accept it. And while different she was far more interesting than I found cat suit knockoff Data VOY ratings booster JeriRyan. But I am 100% there with you I liked Picard bringing Will out of retiascurity, and his scene where he brought the whole fleet and gave his cocky warning was great, and I geeked out (though I hated all the ships being the same. Like wtf, they should be diverse and such a great chance for some class-ship cameos but I digress…it was still a sting flex). But in the end my biggest gripe was Picard feeling like a weak, feeble, indecisive old man who was continually planing second fiddle on his own show, when he wasn’t disrespected, and having little chemistry with (most of) the new crew of characters, most of whom felt like cliches rather than fleshed out characters (though to be fair it was one season).