I was really hoping they'd do something with no hand-to-hand combat, no starship battles, just archaeology and the joy of discovery. You could have lots of mystery and intrigue, with practically zero violence. They could have went sci-fi instead of generic action.
Picard is doing his vineyard bs, sure, but also part-timing at university or some shit. There he works with archaeology related to his experiences, something that intrigued him that he felt compelled to dig deeper on. Over the course of the series the things that initially caught his eye develop into a beautiful sci-fi archaeology expedition, like the Hyperion novels or Revelation Space, mixed with Lovecraft's 'At the Mountains of Madness'. They could have hired a real sci-fi author and made it story-driven, instead of just another diversity checklist.
That has long been my dream sci-fi series setting.