There's something that bothers me a little about the complaints that the Preservation Alliance team aren't "professional" in the show compared to the books, and I think it's just... I have a different idea of what professional science looks like.
Even in the books, we don't actually see the team do that much science. They take some "samples", and SecUnit thinks of them as professionals, but other than SecUnit's internal monologue, they don't do that much more than in the show. They actually talk more about their work in the show than in the books!
I wonder if some of it is that the Preservation Alliance doesn't fit what people's idea of a competent scientist, particularly a competent scientist on TV, looks like. They're expecting the Big Bang Theory, or Gurathin bent over a computer terminal muttering "I'm in" as green code plays across his face, or Arada rattling off a bunch of jargon while dissecting an alien creature, or Bharadwaj IDing the alien remnant based on rocks or something. And that's not really how science actually... works.
Honestly, as a scientist, this is one of the more realistic depictions of actual science I could expect from a TV show, unless you wanted to watch several hours of people working quietly at their computers with expressions of various levels of exhaustion, annoyance, and stress on their faces, or sorting samples, or wandering around staring at the dirt, or sitting around debating the nature of "nature" and the ethical implications of terraforming or whatever (which would be cool, but also, not plot relevant, I'll just assume it's happening off-screen). I could sort half my coworkers by which character they're most like: the upbeat professor who's always trying to help (Bharadwaj), the hippy biologist who freaks out about disturbing 'natural processes' (Arada), the extra-friendly super outgoing possibly ADHD guy (Ratthi), and the overly cynical constantly complaining about capitalism and swearing over his grants analyst (Gurathin). I don't know who's got the open marriage because I prefer not to know about the sex lives of my coworkers, but I know some are in pretty messy relationships - that don't spill over into their work. Because they are professionals.
Basically, I look at this show and I see - my office. So when people say that they're not competent, that they're bumbling or not good scientists, honestly, it's kind of annoying. They're people, not just scientists, with stuff going on outside of their work, namely: someone's trying to kill them, something that absolutely none of them are prepared for. You don't learn how to handle that in grad school! Of course they're going to be messy and make mistakes - that's what people do. Scientists too.
