I’ve enjoyed Picard so far, but I’m already seeing some opportunities for improvement via editing.
1) How much more interesting would it have been for the medical diagnosis scene from ep2 to have come right after the interview in ep1? Combine that with a removal of the Dahj apartment and street scenes, and you create much more doubt in our mind (and in Picard’s mind) that she’s real. The core question for the episode - between the dreams, the outburst, and the “damsel in distress” - would become whether or not Jean Luc is going crazy.
2) Mars. In Children of Mars, all we got were odd establishing shots using DISC models. In ep1, we got a bit of grainy footage. In ep2, we got an awkward flashback with uncanny androids and rude workers, and it seemed only designed to remind/fill us in on what we already knew - it wasn’t a dream sequence or archive, and I don’t think it added any new information. So why not cut it? Take the fleet shot and add it to Children of Mars. Maybe add some of the other footage there as well, or to ep1. Leave the interaction of the androids and workers to the imagination because all it does is make both unsympathetic.
3) Less transparent bad-guy stuff. I know that this is all just getting started, but why do I need to know about the Commodore and undercover Romulan? Why do I need to know about their connection to Narek? Wouldn’t those all be better as surprises? The agent could show up on the cube, and we could initially think she’s a good guy.
4) Tighter Narek plotline. Related to the last point, the Borg cube thing is starting to drag out awkwardly. We got it (and Narek and Soji) introduced as a surprise twist in ep1. In ep2, we got them in a relationship, the checkpoint, the lab, and the later scene w the sister. It looks like next week, we will pick up right after the lab scene. This isn’t bad material, but why is it so spread out? You could cut the bedroom scene and the sister scene. If ep1 ended on Picard at the Daystrom Institute, we could start ep2 with the Romulan ship approaching the cube. We’d introduce Narek and Soji like in ep1, then go to the checkpoint scene, the lab scene, and whatever immediately follows that in ep3. Narek remains intriguing and oddly romantic, but we get it all in a more cohesive flow. We also don’t have to wonder why Soji is sleeping with a guy she literally just met and knows nothing about.
Anyway, those are my initial thoughts. I’m excited to see where the series goes, but part of me is even more excited to see someone later make it even better.