“Even something like Transformers, which despite being a kids’ show made to sell cartoons, had a lot of heart and a certain integrity, which were obviously leeched out of the movies.”

I mean... prior to the golem body, he had a human body, and humans typically die eventually, so... I’m not sure how transferring him from one body that will die eventually to another body that will die eventually changes anything from a production point of view...

Someone had the idea that they do like 10 seconds of “young” Q, and then he changes himself to old explicitly to annoy Picard by constantly reminding him about aging, and I thought it was a great idea.

Thanks for the clarification! And I agree, that could be an interesting avenue if they chose to pursue it. Or, hell, give us Star Trek: Leverage and lean into the fancrack. 

It would have been better than the Deus Ex Machina that was the golem. At least Q is established as able to do things like this, and it would further play into the Trial of Humanity; which to be honest wouldn’t be a stretch considering the main themes of this season.

Because Alex Kurtzman is a talentless hack and this show was written by people that either flat out hate or at best don't care about TNG and are just in it for a quick buck, that’s why.

I just want to point out the equally elusive and obvious reason that Picard was put into the golem:

Maybe I’m mis-remembering this, but I seem to recall a conversation with Chakotay on Voyager where Seven casually dropped on him, in as many words as UPN and Star Trek in the late ‘90s would allow, that she was bi or pan. It was immediately forgotten about by the end of the episode, as so many things on Voyager were,…

The showrunner is the Pulitzer-winning author of The Yiddish Policeman’s Union and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. So yes, I think he did consider deeper thematic elements in the story. I don't think they did a very good job of exploring them but they were there.

Perhaps they didn’t know he was sentient in that single neuron remaining - and it only took Picard being in that neural state to realize it.  

That’s totally true! I didn’t even think of it that way.

What I don’t get is why wasn’t it Data? Or why didn’t they just build him a new android body instead of leaving him in that simulation? 

Yea as soon as they showed Chekhov’s Golem, someone important was gonna get resurrected.

I liked the finale, but at the same time, I kind of wish they let Picard die. Maybe it’s because Kirk got the hero’s death Shatner thought he deserved, but in the moment I thought, this is Picard’s hero’s death - he saved the day/galaxy, one more time after a period of giving up his identity and rejecting his role as…

For all the rushed ending that lead to oversimplification of the solutions and reliance of magical solutions (I’m still a little mad they didn’t use Borg cube to help stall the Romulans - it was right there and the xBs had a grudge) I likethis series.

I wondered as well why they couldn’t make Data a body.

On the other hand, Seven being randomly thrown together with someone in the final episode of a season is very on-brand.

did Riker show up with just a whole bunch of the same class of ship? It looked so weird.

I like that Seven seems to be straight-up gay, and all the VOY malarkey was just post-deassimilation confusion and finding her nonBorg identity. 

Holy crap. They really salvaged this out of the last episode. I was so worried but it was so so good.