Reading that made me wish Picard S3 was two seasons long (not that I didn’t already). All of those scrapped ideas would have been amazing (if expensive lol).
Agree on it needing breathing room, but I’ve also reluctantly accepted that’s just what we get nowadays with everything becoming so hyper-serialized and each season being a 10 hour movie. I don’t mind that trend too much when the story is good, but it does make me miss the longer seasons that could give you a few lighter / “filler” episodes to catch your breath. That critique is not just for Trek but a lot of other shows developed for streaming as well.
That said, I really do enjoy SNW being more episodic.