[VIDEO] This review is by Steve Shives who's largely critical of the pacing where he says that some of these first four episodes could've been in only one episode. There was some threat bare stories and aimlessness according to him. It seems he doesn't like the direction so far.
As for my own take, I suppose I'm easily entertained. For some reason I'm enjoying some of the callbacks to the slingshot around the sun to the punk rocker playing his music loudly on the bus. In fact I literally found out that this was the same guy we saw in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home where Spock gave him the Vulcan Nerve Pinch to shut down his music. He wrote that song and performed it and acted in the movie back in the 1980s.
So anyway not as melodramatic as the first season although the only shocking thing happen to Picard in this season was Q slapping the taste out of his old antagonist's mouth. In the first season it seemed as if no one minded disrespecting the old legendary Starfleet Captain.
However as we see episode four end, can't wait for episode five.
