oh damn that's pretty true. I failed to consider who is writing it. I just kept seeing them bring up interesting sci fi themes or philosophies and then just go "isn't that weird?" and throw it away after 43 minutes. They could have had a whole season about his wife's arc. They could have had a whole season about border disputes. This current season could have been a whole season about Pike's episode 1 predicted death.

Also they could have had Ortegas and La'an on screen for 99% of runtime but they chose not to for some reason.