She's the first one leaked. And therefore will be first one announced if it's confirmed. And if she's the captain that makes sense. She's also possibly likely to be the biggest star name too...so again, likely to be first mentioned (unless they originally planned to announce her for last as a big reveal marketing ploy.) So...I don't think we need worry about the effect on the May launch. Truth is they only need to get x amount of episodes in the can before launch, and it won't take six months to get two or three episodes shot and turned around, especially if they go big in the pilot, standard level episode for episode 2, then bottle show for episode 3, all of which would follow a pattern of 'here's a bit of everything and some spectacle' 'here's focus on X characters and also on our set up' then 'here's focus on X characters and don't you like the inside of our new ship' which works so well in Trek and scifi shows in general. The hard part is to not look like you blew your fx budget/are saving up for the finale and treading water mid-season. This applies even in more serialised shows as well as episodic shows (even House of Cards sometimes treads water mid season, and GoT for all its spectacle and ongoing plot twists goes for front and rear heavy seasons. It's a pattern that seems ingrained in the format rather than considerations around delivery medium or even budget.)
Don't forget you can also start shooting without a full cast in place, (or in the case of Voyager, reshoot the few scenes Janeway was in when the actor is changed.) and depending how you've blocked out your production, you're gonna be in a position to shoot solo scenes from a few episodes later before a full cast is in place. And all those captains logs? You don't need any cast but the captain in the sound booth for those....even though the format probably doesn't need that level of narration anymore, it will still be part of the Trek set up. I do wonder if the opening captains narration will still be a thing given the apparent focus of the show. You don't even need costumes or sets for some of these things.
However, the basic gist of 'they better pull their fingers out and make something' is pretty true. It's like the curse of Axanar. (Their choice of time period) At the current rate, they should have just picked up Tim Russ and Renegades....they would have half a season or more in the can by now, at least as a hold over before getting Discovery going. But that depends on the quality bar they are aiming at...it's closest competitors are gonna be SyFy original shows, and on the streaming front, Discovery is going to be Netflix's answer to 'The Grand Tour' which is doing gangbusters now it's launched.
