‘Picard’ Season 2 Was Rewritten After Paramount Deemed It “Too Star Trek,” Says EP

Click baity headline. Here's the actual quote:

“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.”

Sounds like they wanted to throw in a bunch of random alien species cameos that would have done nothing but distract from the plot. Frankly, there's too much of that in Season 2 already. We don't need young Guinan, Gary Seven's team, a Soong, visitors from Vulcan, the Borg Queen, and Q all mucking about with Earth. Pick two to three of those and actually develop them.

So, too many throwbacks?

It's sad to me that the dick jokes cartoon has been the closest modern trek to nail the feeling of older trek.

Paramount seems to think moody lighting, pointless drama, and special effects is all trekkies want.

You sound like the people that hated TNG when it came out. Things change with every new Star Trek. Lower Decks is way more than dick jokes, Strange New Worlds has been fantastic, and Discovery found it's slot in Season 3, and then improved on it in season 4, just like TNG. I'm excited to see what all three shows do with their next season
- I've not watched SNW and perhaps dropped out of discovery too soon. S1, 2, and what I saw of 3 wasn't my favorite.
  I mean, I gotta be honest, Picard somewhat ruined discovery for me. I get that they aren't the same show but they very much have a lot of the same feels going on.
- I dislike all of those
this person hasn’t seen strange new worlds
But feels like they can fairly say no modern trek has come close to old trek.
You yourself admit a few seasons of disco and Picard have framed your opinion of all new trek. If you don’t like it fine, but don’t talk shit about things you’ve not watched
- a few seasons of disco and Picard have framed your opinion of all new trek
  K. I mean, you are correct. I did let the recent trainwrecks from the studio stop me from watching another production from that studio. Are you saying that was wrong of me to do?
It has dick jokes? And Trek? I only made it like ten minutes into the first episode; seemed like it was just one big toilet humour jokey-joke. Not the kind about a toilet, but the kind that belongs in one. (Which makes this comment itself toilet humour! Aha-haa!)
- I'm using the term "dick jokes" more to describe the style of humor and less about a specific joke about penises (though, pretty sure there's at least one in there). That is to say, the humor, particularly in season 1, is often crude.
  That said, they have relied a lot less on crude humor in later seasons and oddly enough are far more serious than you'd expect from the first season at this point.
I liked the original series, Enterprise and Voyager. Deep space nine gets a honorable mention.
The problem with the new stuff is that it feels like it is trying to be something its not. Everything is overdone which ruins the feel.
- ENT & VOY above TNG & DS9 would have been a wild top three before 2009. Weird hit of nostalgia thinking about how much of an argument that would have stirred lol

Really sad that paramount thinks star trek can be "too sci fi". I hope they don't mess up any more of the new trek thinking like that.

A Star Trek show being called "too sci-fi" is stupid. A Star Trek show being called "too Star Trek" is beyond stupid.
- The sci-fi is secondary. What we want, what we crave is character development and smart social commentary wrapped up in a sci-fi package.
  TNG was great because it was mostly just commentary on society. DS9 was awesome because it was that with character development and with less rose tinted glasses.
  VOY was mostly forgettable because it was just sci-fi plotlines with no real social commentary (other than Berman likes big boobs).
  Now what we have is moody lighting, no plot, and what would have been an episode's worth of social commentary stretched out for an entire season with banal messages like "different people aren't necessarily bad".
- You know what fans want? They want Picard to be senile and stupid and to watch Allison Pill eat car batteries!
They didn't say "too sci-fi" though. They said "too star trek" the very thing it is meant to bloody be!
Biggest fumbles in franchise history since checks watch star wars

So what's their excuse for season 1?

It's season one of a Star Trek show. What more excuse do you need?
This might be an unpopular opinion but I mostly liked season 1. It wasn't perfect by any means but I think it did a lot of things right. I never wanted a TNG reunion (I still very much enjoyed season 3) but a story about an elderly Picard who has moved on. He has new friends, new things to do. Because that's life. You don't spend your entire life doing the exact same thing with the exact same people. And a lof of older folks nowadays feel useless and left behind. Giving them a positive role model in TV would have been nice. But unfortunately the writers/producers decided to do one of those end-of-the-universe stories that spans the entire season. That's what dragged the season down for me.
- Yup. It was really frustrating, too, because it's pretty clear that they wanted to do a season about trauma, regrets, and coming to terms with loss and life, but they stuck a random existential threat on top of it.
Same as Disco S1-S3 and the rest of it: shit writers make a shitshow
Season 1 wasn't too bad for me. It at least had some sort of understandable plot.

By far the worst season of Trek ever created.

That's a hard comparison

I personally loved season 2, Star Trek IV is my favorite of the movies and the whole thing was a love letter to it, but I know a lot of people didn't care for it. Looks like Paramount might've been responsible for that.

You are definitely in the minority there. It had its moments, but overall I didn't like it.
And I hated that it basically retconned Time's Arrow by having that be the first time Guinan met Picard.
Also-
- I'll do you one better: ::: spoiler spoiler It couldn't possibly be the worst deus ex machina in the history of Star Trek, because it has to affect the goddamn plot in any capacity to be a deus ex machina. I'm just not sure what the Latin for "some unmotivated bullshit that comes out of nowhere to tie up the already-irrelevant B-plot" is.
  ...Which makes it worse, I think, considering that season barely tied up the A-plot. :::
lol

this person hasn’t seen strange new worlds