I was re watching Discovery (Pray for my damned soul.)
Some suggestions on how they could have written Burned Ham in a more approachable fashion.
1.) Write her as a widower.
1a.) Leave the circumstances of her husband's death a mystery that unfolds over time.
1b.) Do not make this subplot a "save the universe." plot.
2.) Given her a boy son to raise, grieving over his Father death, and the father is a black man! I know, so shocking.
2a.) Does the son live on the ship w/ her, or living in a starbase somewhere? How can you show this tension/narrative without talking about it. Show us the tension, reveal it by character development, not offscreen narration.
3.) Write her as a First Officer, who gets promoted after a long character arc (I think this was the original intent)
3a.) Have captain be killed and force grieving, "I should have been killed, not him"
3b.) Have someone else promoted over her, "This was my job, because I suffered for it"
4.) Don't make her a marysue.
4a.) Don't make her related to Spock, drop all the Vulcan nonsense.
4b.) Make her believable, which is exactly what she isn't.
4c.) Don't make her mother a key plot point. The show isn't about Burned Ham's family. The family only relates to a single character's development.
5.) Don't give her a drinking/drug problem.
6.) Don't make her fat.
7.) If looking for some kind of character weakness to make her human, make her love her child too much, and be a little bit fearful of putting a ship in danger. If there is danger, she would be the one making the risk, which would annoy HER first officer.
7a. Make her a little bit unwilling to sacrifice her crew for an empty goal just to score political points (there are plenty of options here for political commentary without preaching)
Anyway, being that this is the end of the road for Nu-Trek.
I still think this was a failed opportunity to rebuild interest in a show that has no meaning/resonance to the under 40 crowd. How do you get them to identify with these characters without preaching, political messages, or virtue signalling?