Hugh's death in Star Trek: Picard was not the original plan

Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Discovery should go down in history as the two worst, creatively bankrupt shows in franchise history. While each show had moments of success, the overall arching narrative from start to finish on both shows failed to generate or maintain interest. Yet we can at least say Discovery tried to be better, and for a brief moment in season three, was.

Picard? Yikes. A show that did everything based on what worked 30 years prior. Everything was about The Next Generation. Every moment that was built was a cameo or a callback. Its entire premise relied on better ideas that came before, and its finalie only proved the notion true; when it brought Q back once again to put humanity on trial, but this time with Jean-Luc Picard serving as the proxy standin for all mankind.

Weak.

What's even more weak is that the creative forces behind the show went out of their way to pull apart Star Trek at its core. They killed off numerous characters, and in some ways, destroyed characters at their foundations for little to no reason. Heck, in the case of Picard, they did both. They both killed him off and then removed his utter foundation, making him a shell of what he used to be.

All for no reason. Case in point, what they did to Hugh, one of the standout characters from The Next Generation. The episode, "I, Borg" introduced us to a young Borg drone named Hugh, and his growth and development as a character across the episode had fans raving about him. So much so that when he was brought back in the first season of Star Trek: Picard, fans were over the moon.

Then they had to watch as the writers butchered him for cheap emotional ploys. All to "further the story". A hack excuse if there ever was one. For the man behind the prosthetics, Jonathan Del Arco, that wasn't the plan when he agreed to return. When he was approached about appearing on the show, the writers of Picard had a much different story in mind for Hugh. A story that was butchered and thrown out when James Duff was removed from the show.

TrekMovie.com interviewed Del Arco and asked him about the whole situation, and the writer didn't hold back, saying;

"What I was not told was that I was getting killed, because that was not James’s plan. And James left the show before they began filming. He had a creative differences and left, I think, weeks before I even began. I’d signed my contract, and the people that were left, I think, then made that decision without my being told or even knowing about it through gossip."

Del Arco even went further, describing the way he found out as being not fun. TrekMovie would later ask Del Arco if he knew why his character was killed off and he didn't know, saying;

"I have no idea what the creative reasoning for killing Hugh was. I was told they needed it to propel the story. And maybe they thought, that’s how they get Seven onto the cube. I just think they missed a lot of really great storytelling opportunities with Seven and Hugh..."

It's beyond sad that a beloved character and actor was so unceremoniously dismissed from a show for little to no reason. The series tried to be this "love letter" to the fans but all it did was diminish and harm the reputation and perception of the characters for no real reason. Hugh wasn't the only one who got this treatment, however. Icheb was killed off, as well as a whole heap of people in season three.

Yet, the character assassinations were the worst. Everyone just felt like a cheap version of what we already saw 30 years before. So maybe Hugh's death was a merciful one, as we weren't forced to watch him become a fraction of what he used to be.

The only character who came out as good, if not better than she went in was Seven of Nine, who was more or less what we expected her to be. Not only that, but her arc saw her become what we'd always hoped she would. If only we got more of that.