Is Season 3 of Picard too “fan service”?

I’m rewatching season 3 of Picard. It’s a lot of fun and definitely serves as a much better send off for the Next Generation crew than Nemesis (A film I hated), but it feels a bit too “fan service” at times. Like characters show up just to get a pop from the audience (Shelby, Tuvok, Ro, etc). The one that really drove me crazy was Odo’s bucket. For one thing, DS9 made it clear that changelings don’t need a bucket and that Odo was using a bucket because he was “embarrassed“ and when he got over his embarrassment, he just flowed free when he was resting. He abandoned the bucket. The premise was that the bucket was Odo‘s idea, but he didn’t need it. Then suddenly they turned it into this thing where if you wanna know if there’s a changling , you have to find their bucket… And of course, of all the bucket designs in the entire universe, it just happens to be an exact replica of Odo’s?s

Ultimately, I enjoy season 3. It’s quite good. But I think it’s really overrated. I think Season 2 of Strange New Worlds is better.