- I still hold to the belief that if the suits at CBS/Paramount thought Bryan Fuller's vision wasn't working they should have scrapped the whole thing and went back to the drawing board. Instead, they tried to use elements of his ideas and it becomes a muddled collaboration.
Hm, actually there is nothing wrong with keeping some of the ideas and elements. The whole "The XO is the actual star of the show" is definitely something, that I'd put in the "Win"-Coloumn.
- The show should have never been set in the 23rd century. It would have made much more sense for it to be post-Voyager in the 25th century, and the aesthetic of everything should have been closer to an extension of the TNG era. At the very least, that would have allowed synergy with Picard and had a forward momentum to Star Trek, instead of trying to wedge it in-between TOS' The Cage and Where No Man Has Gone Before.
Okay, that show us, what you would've liked to see, and yes, the idea of progressing is quite fascinating. However there is an era between Enterprise and Kirk and I think, one should not say "no, we don't want that" to this idea.
- The antagonists should have NOT been the Klingons. Create a new race and don't try to redo the Klingons into something that stands out so badly it becomes a distraction when people collectively say: "Those are Klingons?"
Why not Klingons? I mean, if you ask Krethi and Pleti on the street "Who are the most known Star Trek aliens?" They'll probably say Borg, Klingons or Romulans. And if one has such a recognized name, why not banking on it. Concerning the "strange looks" - that's something, that didn't irritate me the slightest. Yeah, they're Klingons, okay, they look like that, it's fine. Honestly, I never understood this whole "Mimimi, they're looking like orcs now"-drama.
- There are some great ideas in the first season which I think would have made for amazing stories. I like the idea of a culture that gets lured in by a zealot preaching "Make the Empire Great Again." The destructiveness of the concept of cultural purity, both on the grand and personal scales, and how that filters down into the way Voq is treated because he's an albino. On the other side, staying true to Federation values when those values are rebuked as a lie by an enemy. Do you still keep faith in peaceful coexistence, or is there a point where wholesale destruction of an implacable enemy becomes an ethical option? The problem with all of that was that no one bought them as Klingons. So all of the conflicts and drama gets drowned out by people not buying them as Klingons.
Again: this whole "They're looking like orcs"-'argument' is.. null and void.
- Michael's story should have been her own. It should have been a story of a woman who grew up in a society that claims to have solved all of humanity's worst sins, who has experienced tragedy and doesn't feel exactly connected to that society or totally believe in its virtues. I thought they could have done that without wedging Spock and Sarek into that backstory, and I think it would have worked better if she wasn't Sarek's adopted daughter.
Again: if you're asking people "Name me a Star Trek Character", most of the time, the names Kirk, Spock and McCoy will be brought up. I have nothing against Michael being an adoptive daughter to Sarek, the only question I have is: Why is a woman named Michael? And that's nothing, that Sarek decided, because he didn't know better. Her parents were there to give the kid a name and they decided "Michael is a good choice". So, give us the reasons. But the other thing, that she's an adoptive daughter to Spock, that he never talked about her... meh. He didn't talk much about Sybok, either.
- Killing Captain Georgiou was a mistake. This is my biggest regret from those two episodes. They should have kept Michelle Yeoh as the captain, and instead of a mutiny from Michael, let Georgiou's course of action at the Battle of the Binary Stars be a controversial decision that causes doubts and conflict with Michael. That should have been the major tension of the first season. Whether Michael, as Georgiou's first officer, stays loyal to Georgiou's values, or is seduced by someone like Lorca who advocates a more aggressive course of action. And let that play out as a reasoned, thoughtful debate on what a quasi-utopian society should do when faced with a threat.
Yup, that's where I concur. Captain Georgiou was killed off too early.
- Make the Spore Drive weird. Make it something that works if it's needed, but has serious consequences. Maybe travel causes odd perceptions of reality and time that come close to breaking people's minds. Maybe some people disappear in jumps. Maybe it works but some crew member has some form of body horror at the destination. Make the Spore Drive dangerous, but a tool that is there if things are absolutely necessary.
Isn't the Spore Drive weird in the first two seasons? Isn't it dangerous? Doesn't Stamets collapse, lapsing into a coma?
- Last one is a personal preference, but I always liked Georgiou's Walker Class ship better than Discovery, and wished the Walker Class was used as the Discovery hero ship. To me, it looks better, and I always loved the underslung bridge.
Actually, all of your points are personal preferences - however I have the feeling, that the walker-class was something they came up, as lots of self-proclaimed "Trekkies" were bitching and moaning, that the Discovery would look too much like the Enterprise from Phase two and even there, I have to say "Yeah, so what? I mean, it's good, that we see that ship in action."
And concerning the "Walker-Class" - the only thing, I liked better with this ships design, was the Bridge, that it was under the ship.
