I totally called Kovich being a time traveler, but them folding him into Daniels was a neat surprise, and felt like a naturally revelation. "Oh, of course he's bloody Daniels." It expanded both characters without diminishing their mystery at all.
Knowing that Calypso was meant to be the whole focus of season 6 is a hard blow, though. We'll likely never get that story now. I'm glad they were able to at least tie it firmly back to the show, but man, it would have been fun to see how it played out. Why does Kovich need this Craft, and why does it require the ship to be de-refitted? Maybe now that the show is done they'll give it a proper continuation in novel form. One can only hope.
I would begrudgingly accept a novel series like we got with Voyager post getting back to Earth. I know we are getting Star Fleet Academy, but I want this time in the universe to be greatly expanded on.
Nope - after they were cancelled, they were allowed to go back and film some additional scenes to add to the end of the finale to give it some closure.
I really found the coda/epilogue to be distracting. The end of the main story ended in a good place, with Burnham and Booker heading off on their next adventure. And then suddenly we're getting this long drawn-out "and then later after many adventures they... did something useless we can't explain but at least they saw their old friends again the end" just really took the wind out of it.
Hypothetically, I think I'd structure it somewhat similarly to season 5: a couple of episodes to establish the stakes, two or three more to gather information or materials, then a couple to put the plan together and enact it, and then ideally at least one to catch up with Zora after the events of "Calpyso."
As it is, there are so many unanswered questions surrounding this mission that I hope we at least get a novel or something out of it.