I do hope Amanda Plummer had a good assistant on set, to help her avoid choking on all that scenery she is chewing.
Love Vadic already. She is going to be a fun villain, even if maybe not quite as mastermind of the whole season as the trailers lead us to believe. But, oh well, she will be very fun.
The whole conversation between Picard and Riker in the turbolift was great. Reminded me of the great bit in the GOTG game. Do the math Picard. Although, doing the math, JL Jr does look a bit old to be 22. But, then again, look at his dad. But it is nice to have a reason why a frenchman has a british accent. It is clearly genetic.
It was good to see the old school Ferengi make up again, even if it looked slightly cheaper than I got used to on DS9. Pyro as Sneed was great, pity he lost his head.
The Worf reveal got me. I did not expect him to be there. Him being in Intelligence is a bit of a surprise, but I do like pairing him with Rafi. They can bond over being bad parents. And as much as I want all the old crew, as much as possible, I am enjoying the slow build to bringing them all together.
Really enjoying Sydney LaForge so far.
As for Shaw I don't think you have to build this wide web of glup ****tos. Bigotry against XBs is nothing new. You don't necessarily have to have been at either of the 2 Borg attacks to not like the Borg, and distrust former Borg. And there are wide reasons to have him have issues in his psych eval. He definitely is old enough to have gone through the Dominion War. And him deferring to Picard once he decided to fight is probably just him knowing his limitations. I mean, wouldn't you want Picard and Riker in command to fight a supposedly superior foe.