It almost did kill the show. S1 is regarded by most commentators as the weakest.
It did try to replicate the feel of TOS, true. Not perfectly, certainly, and throwing 'memberberries such as TOS props and models in various rooms was ridiculous to the level of pomposity. Right down to some episodes having "
The Theiss Theory". All that did was remind people of TOS, at best.
TNG1 did showcase societies on a macro level than on an internalizing/visceral level as well, and that was TOS's bread'n'butter, though but TOS and TNG did both types of storytelling.
That said, even in season 1 there were episodes that were showing the proverbial feelers and doing different things and strategies that could or would not have been done in TOS.
IMHO, after rewatching seasons 5-7 of TNG in reruns, there's a lot of season 1 that arguably holds up better - partly due for being experimental with the show finding itself. I remember a friend whose brother had walked in and he'd noted the same thing, which was cool.
I think that if Stewart had bowed out at the end of S3, leaving Riker on charge... by then, I think the show had enough goodwill to survive. As long as one, Jean Luc got a proper heroic exit, and two, they chose the right replacement. I personally found Shelby seriously irritating, but I think I'm in the minority there.
Seconded. It would have been a cultureshock, but the framework was there and Shelby would go down the same route Riker had. Though finding ways to get Riker down to planets would become more contrived, because the makers of TNG did not want to repeat the TOS trope of having the captain and first officer both beaming down to explore planets - Captain is supposed to stay on the bridge and the first officer gets to go down and report back. Which makes more sense, though they still place the bridge as an easy pickin's target that, in any episode of where an enemy attacks, that's where they should be aiming if they're actually serious. Then again, Romulan ships, Klingon ships, Cardassian space stations, et al, all have the bridge in easy pickin's areas, too... (Ronald D Moore got it right with the BSG reboot, keep the bridge in the most protected part of the ship!) Fun fact: "Cardassian" as perceived in my browser's spellchecker is corrected as "Circassian" or "Cardician".
As to how it would have managed with Riker running the show from the start? I don't know. It was foundering through most of its first season, so even being slightly weaker might have pushed it over the edge.
It'd not be any better. And, yeah, season 1's weaker episodes could be pretty bad. Heck, even TOS needed two pilots but then found its feet, even if critics of the time gave some episodes a pass for being "generic", "monster show", etc. TNG was in the right place at the right time as no other majorly successful sci-fi show was airing, and direct-to-syndication had some leeway that network-produced shows have.
