To address the title - 'forced' is a critique term that belongs in the vague bin along with terms such as 'having heart', `fleshed out', and 'manipulative'. It's mostly a vibes-based term that shouldn't be taken seriously unless further elaborated upon with more tangible and actionable points. That's why usually when someone crits an element as "forced" and that's it, you will also have plenty of people disagreeing and pulling up their reasons why so-and-so is not forced, because everyone's idea on a vague term is predictably different. For this reason I try not to use this type of vocabulary during crits, much better vocab would point out whether this 'forced' feeling is a character, setting, or plot issue, and to what aspect of those parts. For example, instead of saying "character doing this is forced", use "character's personality as shown in x,y,z does not indicate that they are the type of person who would do this, and feels like the writer needed them to do this to move the plot along".
To address the content of the post (which I feel like the title was just a segue for you to critique Knights of Guinevere and not the other way around of giving an example of your 'forced' definition). I will have to break this response in parts. As a preface, I watched the pilot and I was invested enough in the mystery hook, though I have my own crits that majority I won't elaborate here due to irrelevancy, but feel free to inquire and I will expand upon them. I'll only state the points that are relevant. I did rewatch the pilot so I can properly assess your crit
1 - While I do agree Andi's character is weak, I feel like your crit and suggestions missed the mark. It hinges on knowing exactly what the writers have in mind with the characters just from one episode. Are there certain character establishing moments in the episode that could've been executed better? Yes and I will elaborate further down in point 2. But I think you're focusing too much on the "Andi is a victim facing discrimination for something outside of her control".
It's not yet immediately clear by the narrative that Andi is someone who should have 100% sympathy from the audience. That depends on certain consequences or elaborations that'll be needed in future episodes that would hopefully reveal more of the writer's intent. We see very clearly the park disregards the people below to the point of dumping trash on them, and messing up the environment where many become ill. We know Andi works for them, Andi would've likely made a conscious choice to apply for a job and then accept the job offer. How is this something that is completely out of her control? Based off one episode where we only see Andi and Frankie's pov, we are somehow supposed to immediately know the writers want to portray Andi purely as this sympathetic abused-by-the-system corporate slave, all this while knowing she works for a corp that actively makes the people's lives worse. Her ranting is reminiscent of many STEM grads trying to soothe their conscience while working for ethically questionable industries such as defense. "Oh I'm just doing a job, I'm not the one calling the shots making the weapons" "oh well we all have to pay rent so I have no choice but to take this job". Your suggestions to either a) try really hard in adding external scenarios to make her this poor oppressed girl or b) make her complain even more about people who may have understandable (not necessarily justifiable) reasons to dislike her would show clearly the writer's intention of wanting us to sympathize with her from episode 1...at the cost of making it clear the writers are going for a protagonist-based morality show.
Weak dialogue and unclear personality are just symptom's of the reason why Andi isn't compelling. It's simply that unlike Frankie, who has clear goals of wanting to work in the Park to increase proximity to Guinevere to relive some childhood memory, Andi just doesn't have any interesting goals in comparison. As far as we know currently, her only goal is just to "make money". Before we even consider flanderizing her character or creating the external conflicts she has to face, we should know what this character even wants. Then you can build the external obstacles and personality around that. We see this with Frankie. She desires reliving something with Guinevere, that drives her to sneak the android, and causes the conflicts in the latter half of the show.
2 - Your suggestion to show Andi's firing disregards the possibility that that scene may have been not shown on purpose. I initially thought that scene was a case of telling instead of showing that she lost her job, but then I realized the show did setup things before the "I got fired" dialogue to indicate that something bad happened at her job. So the dialogue scene seems to be more of a "big reveal" instead of just exposition of what happened. Except the scene was poorly directed where it's presented very mundane, as if the viewer is supposed to already know she got fired before this scene, and although we did get the foreshadowing, we should've had a proper buildup of maybe Frankie noticing something bad happened at the job and Andi not saying it until it explodes out of her, so the firing feels more "big reveal-like". This would also still add to the mystery with the viewer wondering what exactly happened at the job that got her fired. And be able to build up to a further reveal of the firing cause in later episodes. The stilted way it's presented instead is probably why you thought this aspect of Andi felt 'forced'
3 - Regarding the dialogue, I agree it is weak and heavyhanded. I suppose if I was using surface level descriptions I would describe this dialogue as 'forced', but not in the way you defined it of "payoff with no setup" (see how 'forced' is so vague?) I would define the 'forced' feeling more like the dialogue is clearly being made to try to make things clear to the viewer, even though a character wouldn't naturally say said dialogue because they're saying info they should already know, and the writing doesn't rely on subtext enough.
For example the scene with the vendor - Andi goes "I went to school with you! You know me!", then the vendor goes "thought I did until you put on that uniform, crownie". Not only is this dialogue stiff in delivering the exposition, it's actually inefficient. Why would Andi be telling the vendor they went to the same school and knew each other? The vendor would already know that. I know the intention is that Andi is trying to imply "we had some kind of relation so you should know I'm not like [the crownies]", but first of all, "went to school together" is unclear what the relation between the two were. I assume they would be close, if Andi is willing to assume the vendor knows her deeply, but if so, why would your declaration of relation be "schoolmates" then, and not dialogue that would indicate more closeness? In addition, why do we need 3 times emphasis that the vendor sees Andi as a crownie? He already pointed at the giant "no crownie" sign in front of her, say she "put on the uniform", and then topped it off with another "crownie". This line would be much better replaced with something that would better show exactly how close the two were before Andi became a "crownie". It's inefficient in that these two lines of dialogue is used only to deliver 2.5 piece of info - the two went to school together and had some kind of relation, and that being a crownie is a hard moral line that is more important than their past relation. However, because we don't know the nature of that relation, it's hard to gauge exactly HOW hard the vendor's moral line is. I'll present a dialogue that uses a similar timing and delivers more info (and possibly feel more natural with better use of subtext). Due note I add some "custom info" to better illustrate how much more information you can actually fit in subtext rather than explicit statement like the og.
Andi: "how could you say that after everything we've been through?! After I helped you get through x and y classes?" (Indicates they went to school together, more hint at what nature of the relation is, indicates she may either have a or perceive herself to have a helpful personality that would contradict the perceived notion of "crownie")
Vendor: "yeah and that was before you turned your back on us to join those terraformers" (indicates betrayal, and fit in the "terraform planet" info part of Andi's rant in there)
