I enjoyed large parts of Disco so far, and pretty much agree with you. The show feels like a decent Brian Fuller setup that was corrupted during the production of season 1, and continued to take course correction notes for each new season.
[They] EXTREMELY underestimated technological advancement across NEARLY 1000 YEARS. Everything basically looks the same.
Let me one-up you here: it looked like a step back. Not only in terms of in-universe development, but also just… uninventive production design. Trek gave us sliding automatic doors, flip phones and touchscreen tablet computers before they existed in the real world. Its conceptualisation of 32nd century tech and design on the other hand is swiped from actual 21c industry pipe dreams.
If this sounds very negative, I’ll add that I’ve really enjoyed the highs of Discovery, and there have been a good few throughout the show. I like that they’ve leaned into the emotional and therapeutic work that would go into an accepting, peaceful society — even on a daily workplace and social basis.
And hell yeah, will I binge rewatch all seasons as a warmup to the final outing!