I'm not disagreeing on you regarding Kurtzman being involved being a bad thing. I feel like this idea of a new show with Picard probably stems from the time of even before Discovery was aired. They had already received backlash from fans by then based on what they had presented in regard to the show so far. They knew they couldn't stop the production of Discovery and they had to roll the dice on it. When the show aired they soon found themselves in even deeper shit. They knew Star Trek fans are quite upset about the fact that the show doesn't jive with the pre-established canon. They have realized their mistakes, but are still driving a train which is on rails so they don't really have a way of veering off course and they mostly only have control over whether to speed up or slow down. Stopping is currently not an option as that would be publicly admitting to their failure. They should have just done that though, can the show and tell the fans they're going back to the drawing board, but I digress. In order to save their asses and that of the entire franchise, they came up with the idea that more Patrick Stewart and his Picard character would go down well with the fans. (And why wouldn't it right? He's awesome.) I have no fear that the Picard show will be worse than Discovery, it is highly likely that it will be a better show, based on their experience with the negative feedback and the fact that they have Patrick Stewart on board. What I am afraid of though is that they will try to create a show which sits somewhere in between the previous series and Discovery in terms of style and perhaps story. That they will try to use the Picard show as a means of justifying or redeeming part of their failure with Discovery. And that this would put the new show in a position where it's neither in-line with the old shows nor with Discovery causing it to end up in some sort of no man's land. That would be bad. I think I'd rather see Picard time travelling his way onto the Discovery bridge.
You make some great points there, and some accurate observations. I have watched about 5 episodes total of this show. There are three major things that they could have done to make Discovery a (possible) success:
1.
With the same exact show they introduced, which I don't like, they could have placed the show in the timeline AFTER Nemesis. Way after, like the 26th century. Discovery passes easily for a 26th century ship. Even the uniforms could be kept.
Why? So that they don't have to explain the tech, the look of the ships, the uniforms and the different look of the other alien ships, the behavior of Vulcans and the other aliens they have created for this show but do not exist in the prime timeline. In the future, perhaps these aliens came from new parts of the galaxy, like the Gamma Quadrant, or even the Delta quadrant. They can still have Klingons, Andorians, Tellurites, Romulans, Vulcans, etc etc...but no characters we have already met from any of those races. This would fix a lot of the broken canon.
2.
EXPLAIN the different look of those Klingons. Tell us why they look so different from the Klingons we already know and love. Perhaps they experienced yet another genetic holocaust which changed how they look. Perhaps their sun flared and made them darker and mutated them. The Klingons were the first rival enemies of the Federation before the Romulans. They deserve an explanation.
Why? Because...Klingons. You can't just change the Klingons and not explain why they are so much different, and be able to keep your audience.
3.
Add some science to the show. Not a clever, magical pseudo-scientific substitute, but actual science like what is taught in universities and practiced as applied and theoretical science that actual scientists can relate to. Spore drive is a complete fantasy. There is ZERO basis in theoretical science or any science whatsoever for it. It is magic. They could easily have replaced that tardigrade with a purple dragon whose fire made it so that the ship could go anywhere in a heartbeat. What was wrong with warp drive? It is a Star Trek, not a Star Blink.
Why? Because many of the stories seen in many episodes of Star Trek could only play out while the ship was en route to a destination. Dialogue in Ten Forward or the Ready Room, with the warping stars passing by gave us the feeling that this was a starship traveling at warp to a specific destination. You could break dialogue by showing the ship "coming out of warp" you could use space in such a way that space battles seemed more real...gaining on other ships, running from them, stopping dead in space, etc. Discovery has none of that.
But...they did not do any of that. Instead, they have done the equivalent of trying to insert Spiderman into the Book of Genesis and assume that Bible readers would accept it. Once tried, who is ever going to trust the revisionists EVER again for any reason? Star Trek Discovery is heinous crime against science fiction! Just scrap the whole damned thing and start over with help from REAL Star Trek fans.
