Well, judging from the comments, there is one thing we can always count on from "fans" of the Star Trek Universe, and that is nostalgically judgmental, pig-headed, fickleness.
According to the nattering nabobs, Next Generation O.G, Number One, Will Riker, the most excellent Jonathan Frakes, knows "nothing" about the Trek Universe, or pacing, or storytelling, and even less than all the basement dwelling fan fiction wannabe writers on the interwebs, who I guess would much prefer rehashed characters and storylines from their formative years, when they first got the "feels" for all that juicy federation Utopian goodness, and, like Brandon from "Galaxy Quest" are hoping that someday it will all prove to be real, and they can save the ship and the crew, if those dastardly devils at CBS would just let them write the scripts, or at least give them script approval.
Sidebar: A friend and myself were talking the other day about some of the cool cell phones we had in the past, that are now obsolete. Brick Phones, flip phones, (with pull out antenna's), phones with slide out keyboards, Blackberry's, the ubiquitous "IPhone" and all its clones, 3G, 4G, and now 5G. The thing is, as COOL as some of those phones were, technology moves ever forward, and, unfortunately, things become obsolete, unless of course you are a "hipster", Jethro Gibbs, Amish, or some other brand of Luddite. As nostalgic as it is to pine away for the high school sweet heart that got away, more often than not, when you finally see them at the 20 year reunion, they've put on 30 pounds and wouldn't recognize you save for your stick on name tag.
Star Trek TOS, The Next Generation, Voyager, Deep Space Nine, and yes even Enterprise, all got off to rocky starts, ALL had bad, OK, good and great episodes. And, while the original vision may have been created by Gene Roddenberry, dozens, if not hundreds of talented people have tried their hand at telling the stories THEY have wanted to tell, to move the franchise ever FORWARD., continuing the quest to BOLDLY go where no man (or woman, or non binary person of indeterminate color) has gone before.
Progress can sometimes be messy. Ford had the Mustang, and the Pinto. Chrysler made the Challenger, and the K Car. Pontiac made Burt Reynolds and the Trans Am, and neither are around anymore. The Star Trek Universe is just that....., a UNIVERSE. And I for one am willing to forgive a few missteps here and there, as long as they keep bringing us along.
As far as the episode. I think it was ALL about the characters motivations, losses, trying to recover from those losses, and then, finding a way to move forward, which sometimes means taking three steps backwards. Raffi reluctantly helped Picard because she decided to leave her drug addled pity party, and find the son she had all but abandoned. Her dedication to Jean-Luc and Star Fleets ideals, blinded her to the damage she was doing to her flesh and blood family until it was too late. Seven, realizing her nemesis was within her grasp, "assisted" Picard in his scheme to rescue Maddox, because she had unfinished business, whether or not that business met with star fleets code of conduct. Why? Because her hope and faith in humanity, which she has struggled with since her retrieval from the collective, was finally shattered, and she running on the rawest human emotion...., vengeance. I think her questions to Jean-Luc before she went full Pon Farr, were telling, as were his (2) replies.
And then there is Dr Jurati, I hoped it wasn't so, but, sadly it was. Made all the more poignant by the reveal of her past with Maddox, but more disturbingly, a motivation of the knowledge of something so horrible and appalling, that , she would take the drastic action she did.
We know that Soji is the so called "the destroyer", but, what if, like the Terminator, she can overcome her "programming" and self evolve? And if she cannot, and there are indeed more of her kind, what does this bode for Picard's mission to save her, and indeed Picard, when he must put his altruistic motivations to the ultimate test.
But then, maybe I'm over thinking this, and should have just fixated on the "bad accents" and "silly" costumes..., on second thought,..., nah, never mind.
