Actually, a problem of early TNG is that the production looks like TOS. The same cheap sets with painted walls as "sky", barely improved vfx, and generally the way of storytelling stuck up in the past (much like S1 of DIS is extremely similar to late Berman-era in production design and writing).
When TNG S1 looked significantly better, was when it was able to use the ressources of the TOS movies - having much more detailed starships (Excelsiour, Oberth), re-using that same, amazing spacedock scene. But the lack of new materials was obvious: THe one time the klingons appeared, they flew the same 100 years old D7/K'Tinga starship from TMP. (Though they cleverly addressed it in that episode, as being an old klingon ship). It's only later in the series they started to have new looking ships in that quality (The Romulan and Klingon ships of the TNG era).
What differentiated TNG right from the beginning from TOS was the characters: Right from the start, Picard (and thus the whole crew) would approach the same situations extremely different. Instead of Kirks head-first approach, the new debate-culture was right there from the beginning. The characters still needed heavy re-working though - the writing was everything else but smooth in the first season. But what made TNG great in the end, all was already existing in the early season. Just very bare and unpolished.
I hope the same is true for DIS (though that of course can only be said in retrospect). TNG S1 had vastly superiour stories than DIS S1, DIS really failed at that level, both the plots, and the overall plotting, sacrificing characters for cheap plot twists at the end of each episode.
But at the same time, IMO, DIS has enurmous potential. Their characters are good. All of them still have some problems that need fixing - Burnham is waaay too much defined by her backstory than her actual actions on the show, Saru is one of the most interesting aliens on Trek in general but is in some heavy need of focus, Tilly and Stamets need a bit more consistent arcs, and the rest of the crew are essentially blank slates that need to be filled. But this crew is a great ensemble - while each character is "good" on their own, the combination of them elevates each one. The few moments the show actually focused on the characters instead of trying to impress the audience with shock values, they completely stole the show.
What I think the show needs is to slow down a bit. Give the characters room to breath. So that when eventually shit hits the fan, we know these guys. They shouldn't fixate so much on what could be good "twist" in their storyline, but rather, what's a good challenge to test their characters. Oh, and overall more imaginative plots would be great - I'm sick of war stories and space battles in sci-fi, I can get them literally everywhere else, and superhero-movies do the bad-guy stories much better. A few high-concept stories and ideas would be nice - not trying to save the universe, but testing the characters to solve extremely difficult puzzles.
The trailer for S2 already hints at them taking some steps in the right direction. If they succeed, DIS could become a magnificent show. Or they continue to drop the ball. We shall see.
