Here’s another take.
We know that everything was reshaped to flatter and entice Patrick Stewart to come back and play Picard.
He kept refusing and keep on insisting on Picard’s life should be a reflection of his own.
But the suits at ViacomCBS (and later Paramount) put priority on greenlighting anything they could get with Picard as a character.
So, whatever initial concepts with and without Picard were all sacrificed in the end in order to indulge Stewart enough to play the role.
Heh, I don’t think I agree with either of these takes.
It seems to me like season 1 was very much Michael Chabon’s vision - indeed, they’ve said in interviews that it didn’t bear much resemblance to the original pitch that sold Stewart on the series.
I’ve always felt that Chabon had a lot of great ideas (and to be frank, I still think that first season is the best “Picard” season), but was perhaps too inexperienced to get those ideas implemented in a timely and affordable fashion.
Del Arco not being informed of Hugh’s death is a bit of a non-issue, I think - the guy was a guest star, so it wouldn’t be right to expect them to treat him like a principal cast member.
