And, being CBS, it's politically neutral or right-leaning in terms of content. The only thing really progressive about it is diverse casting, which catches the Franchise up with other television, finally, and was long overdue rather than being some bold statement by the producers.
DIS represents ST catching up in terms of representation for gay men and lesbians. It's riding the way of transgender representation (shows like
Transparent and
Sense8 having gotten there first). But I'm honestly not aware of any other major network, cable, or streaming show to feature a non-binary actor in a prominent role
as a non-binary character, so I think it would be fair to say that
Star Trek: Discovery is a leader in terms of non-binary representation.
Also, I think you're understating the progressive politics of DIS. DIS's political themes include the importance of multiculturalism over nationalism (T'Kuvma and Klingon chauvinists in early S1 and the Terran Empire's human-supremacist regime in later S1 being clear statements of opposition to white nationalism and Trumpism); the importance of not adhering to liberal democratic values (via both the crew's rejection of the use of hydro bombs to genocide Qo'noS and the depiction of Section 31's secrecy and abuses leading to the threat from Control); a rejection of capitalism (the Emerald Chain is explicitly associated with capitalism in the penultimate episode of S3). The importance of multiculturalism over nationalism is a theme the show keeps coming back to, in fact -- it's probably the most explicit theme of S3, with the crew of the
Discovery essentially advocating for multiculturalism against Trill nationalists, Earth nationalists, and Vulcan & Romulan nationalists.
These are all progressive themes.
I wish the producers would invest some of those millions in production costs in brighter set lighting.
I really like the lighting design of DIS. I find it much more cinematic. It makes the washed-out, overly-lit lighting of 1980s and 1990s television look cheap and amateurish by comparison.
As for the writing team, they're supposedly professionals who are supposed to have thicker skin
I mean, there's having a thick skin, and then there's a supposed-professional like Robert Meyer Burnett running around saying that "Unification III" writer Kirsten Beyer ought to be forced to walk the
Game of Thrones Walk of Shame -- which, to be clear, is literally advocating for her to be sexually assaulted by forcing her to strip naked and walk in public as people scream and throw food at her. There are a
lot of people who go from having criticism of the writing to engaging in what amounts to verbal abuse against the writers as people. That ain't acceptable no matter how "thick a skin" the writer is supposed to have.
I don't hate it. I don't like how urgent everything is all the time. I'd like for the show to slow down, tell a coherent story and develop the characters.
It's just the nature of modern television -- things are more fast-paced. That's the sort of thing where you have to evaluate the work on its own terms instead of asking it to be something else. You might as well ask
Sunset Boulevard to be a musical comedy.
DIS could be taken as a negative, so DISCO seems better unless maybe you hated the '70s?
