Perhaps it's admirably nonjudgmental, I don't know. I just can't get myself into that same headspace. I can't help thinking that when I (not a professional fictional writer, or a filmmaker, or a TV producer) can watch something and think of more effective ways the story could be told, the people being handed millions of dollars to tell it ought to be able to think of those alternatives as well. And if they consistently show that they don't, that they have worse storytelling instincts than I do (and/or than other viewers I discuss things with), then my patience wears thin fairly quickly.
Another example (from another franchise)... I vividly remember when Prometheus came out a few years back. I went to see it what a couple of friends, and we were all excitedly anticipating something awesome. Ridley Scott is a talented director, we'd all enjoyed previous Aliens films, it had a great cast, and basically it seemed to have everything going for it. But. The writing. Ohmigod, the writing. When we left that theater two hours later, we were looking at each other with looks of stunned disappointment on our faces. There was just so much wrong with the story. We dissected it mercilessly over beers, and that conversation was probably more entertaining than the movie itself.
Creating is
fucking hard. Critiquing is easy.
And it's not as if the fault always lies with the writers. More often than not, they are given shit notes from their bosses about what they had to do.
For example, while I think (IMO) my ideas for the worldbuilding in the Star Wars sequel trilogy are vastly superiour to what Disney cooked up - I'd have no idea how to tell an interesting story out of it. And
they definitely put their priorities in having a new cast, but still doing "the Star Wars stuff" - aka a bunch of misfits fighting against the evil, overwhelming Empire. That they destroyed their whole worldbuilding in the process was just an afterthought.
"Prometheus" is also an interesting case: Originally, it was a screenplay called "Alien: Engineers", that was a
direct prequel to the original "Alien", which explained how the Engineers starship crashed on that moon (the script is online for free, you can read it, it's quite good). And then...? Suddenly a producer came in and said: "People don't like prequels anymore. So let's cut all the connections. Also: Don't show the original alien" (in an alien movie!). Then the original writer quit. Understandably. And then they got Damon Lindelof as a quick "fixer" - to take the Alien prequel script, cleanse it of all direct prequel set-ups, and take the "Alien" out of it - but at the same time use the same plot structure, sets and characters that were already created, and set up "mysteries" for potential sequels.
IN THE MIDDLE OF PRODUCTION. It's unbelievably stupid - But it was not a creative decision, it was an objective from one of the money guys, and thus it
had to be done, no matter what.
Star Trek: Discovery seem to have been befallen by the same fate: Bryan Fuller wanted to do 1) A prequel set in his favourite timeline, that was also 2) a visual reboot. The producers of CBS All Access straight up came to him and said: "We have no plans, just do what you want". And he did. And then they came in and said: "Nope. Not this way". Fuller originally wanted to have tricolored uniforms, and a vastly different type of storytelling. Instead they canned his ass. And the current writers are the "fixers" - like Lindelof was on Prometheus: Their only job is: "Get this show running, ASAP. Without costing any more money." Thus, they cooked up some wild story that could take place on the already created sets with the existing costumes and vfx models. Make no mistake: This wasn't a "vision" being fullfilled by someone creative. This was purely about: "We already paid money for this - we need a result hitting the screen, soon, no matter what it ends up being exactly". And thus we are given a wild mixture of stuff Fuller wanted, of what the producers
forced Fuller to add which directly contradicted his stuff, and some "fixers" trying to generate at least
something out of that mess that can be sold as "content", no matter if any of it makes sense or is any good.
This is called "development hell". And apparently, it's the way Hollywood regularly operates.
