Discovery is heavy handed woke clichés piled on top of GORGEOUS digitally enhanced cinematography. It really weighs the show down.

With your experience in sci-fi, you would have laughed your ass off at the episodes where Grey Tal gets to pick his new body. The kid is covered in severe acne. They have an inch of makeup on him to try and cover it. And he is given the chance to change anything he wants on his new body. And Mister Zitty-Face says something like, "Oh. Take that freckle off my left hand, please."

https://mylifestylemax.com/entertainment/star-trek-discovery-will-feature-franchises-first-transgender-nonbinary-characters/

His character was interesting for about five minutes, but the writers did right by sending him off to a Trill symbiote cave to get rid of him. Maybe they couldn't get the acne under control.

Super fat women, comically bad teeth, scaring acne, baldness, and general unattractiveness is the norm in this show. There are a very few attractive female characters. Oddly enough, I can not think of a single young fit attractive male character at this time. I'm sure there is one... umm...