That enthusiasm basically halved every season after 2. By the time it was "wannabe vulcan chick in the far future for some dumb reason" I was pretty well over it. Strange New Worlds will occasionally throw up a "...you know that's actually really cool" episode in among the "ZOMFG who told you people wanted to see Klingons rap" episodes. I do think it's telling that critical acclaim for Trek parodies tends to vastly outstrip core Trek shows.
Honestly, to me, the world of the people making it is so insular and insulated that most people involved have been involved since the early days of Trek. If you read the roster there are a lot of former Trek actors moving on to directing Trek. Another produce is … Adam Nimoy famously son of Spock, who married a former Trek actress. These people are probably nice and have at least middling talent. But at the same time, there’s no fresh ideas, no interesting takes, no story ideas that haven’t really been done before. That means you end up stuck with either warmed over old stuff (Strange New Worlds clearly wants to be TOS but made by people who never understood what TOS was in its time) , deconstructions (Picard and Discovery) or remakes of other, better ideas … but in Trek (the upcoming Academy show sounds ridiculous, basically Hogwarts but Trek with none of the charm because Trek features overly serious Starfleet Academy and a distinct lack of Hagrid). If I were in charge, I’d start by cleaning house. Get some young hungry directors, producers, and writers passionate about really great science fiction TV, and tell them to pitch me the next Trek as if nobody had ever heard of Star Trek, Starfleet, the Enterprise, or Kirk. They’d be more or less bound by the canon, but even within that boundary, there’s a lot you can do with the universe. Set an entire series in the Ferengar. A series featuring the Marquis. Maybe and entirely Mirror Universe series set in a fascist Federation. Even the Klingon Empire could be somewhat interesting. But come up with a concept that isn’t “hey, look, we got the TNG crew out of retirement, please clap”, or “Hey, look, we pot Kirk and Spock on a set together,” or “Hey, we heard you guys like Harry Potter, but have you seen Star Trek: in school”. In short, start trying to figure out the interesting settings in your universe for great science fiction series, then make episodes that fully explore the concept and the settings. Just for an example, the Marquis show is literally about people who we consider insurgents or terrorists or freedom fighters. And in main it’s about people fighting for freedom in their home worlds against a much more powerful enemy. Fully exploring the concept of things like whether or not the Federation gives them weapons because of threats from Kardassia would be interesting. I think dealing with the topic of what happens to civilians in areas like that again could be interesting. You’d also have to deal with the tactics used, and the basic necessity of fighting a war like that. The Klingon one might look a bit like Game of Thrones, although I think it would also be a bit like Dune. Lots of political games and occasional actual fighting to secure your house’s position in the Empire. There’s plenty of drama in tha5 kind of setting. I’d be disappointed if they have.a dwarf, but political intrigue is probably good frame in the right hands. A fascist federation would be a bit on the nose ATM, but I think if you play it straight and lean into it, as in Warhammer levels of leaning into the fascism, it would be fairly interesting. Exaggerating th3 hell out of it, just doing really terrible things because of some supposed external enemies (maybe Borg or Q or something). Do an I can’t believe it’s not an exterminatus. Have fun with it.
This is an interesting discussion. I've had an abiding hatred for Kurtzman & Orci for more than a decade but I actually kinda like the direction they dragged Star Trek. A buddy of mine storyboarded the first couple movies; it was abundantly clear that they were doing something completely new while also doing what they could to preserve enough canon to keep the nerds on board. There's a tricky balance to strike there. On the one hand, Roddenberry & Co populated a pretty interesting universe that has lots of things to explore. On the other hand, it's been tromped through incautiously over the ages so you don't have enough internal consistency to explore it without tripping all over yourself unless you exercise some skill. Star Trek has traditionally followed a nautical metaphor, which is interesting because Gene Roddenberry was a pilot. Star Wars splits the difference between aerial & nautical with fighters whizzing around everywhere (and bombers... smdh) but Star Trek, for whatever reason, rarely ventures beyond "runabout." That gives you a basic "ocean-going vibe" that, whenever Trek fucks with it, turns to shit. At the same time, one of Roddenberry's maxims was anything that happened during an episode had to be resolved by the end of the episode, returning the show to ground state and enabling the episodes to be watched in any order. Kurtzman's direction has been definitely not that which started out interesting but collapsed under its own weight after a couple seasons. There are only so many places to go if you stick with the nautical metaphor and without the nautical metaphor is it really Star Trek? There was definitely an attempt at this. Kurzman and Orci were the it-girls of sci fi when JJ Abrams lens-flared the shit out of Star Trek in 2009. They blew up Vulcan and tied off the entire prior universe behind a time paradox just to shut up the convention-goers. But they also ignored Ron Moore & Naren Shankar, both of whom grew up on TNG and both of whom have done some stellar shit. Gene Roddenberry was a notorious pain in the ass to work with; I have no way of knowing this but I'll bet Eugene is definitely preserving enough canon that the Roddenberrys keep control of the show. It's worth pointing out that Deep Space Nine was originally envisioned as a vehicle for Ro Laren, newly-promoted Maquis double agent, to operate as a bordertown sheriff out past the easy enforcement of Star Fleet. Unfortunately Gene Roddenberry couldn't keep his dick in his pants and Michelle Forbes noped the fuck out of working in the Star Trek universe until both Gene and his wife were safely dead so we got Hawk from Spencer For Hire instead. Fuckin' they did an entire goddamn season of this on Discovery and it was super-tedious. I definitely got the sense that there was a Klingon gambit in the first season of Discovery. Unfortunately the new Klingons were tedious, uninteresting shithead analogs for Islam, rather than the promising culture developed by Ron Moore and explored through a few movies. Star Trek is home to what, 5? 6? different concepts and I agree, what started out promising with Picard rapidly became Return to Gilligan's Island. Discovery is definitely an exploration of 'return to zero' writing. Prodigy was a new direction no matter how you slice it. Lower Decks has been almost entirely bereft of vintage characters. The Starfleet Academy idea became Lower Decks, which knew exactly when it should quit. Clearly the team still loves that Starfleet Academy idea which, if it's done right, might be closer to Riverdale than Harry Potter. I'll withhold judgment as I have done since it first reared its head in 2009. I get the sense that they really want to make that one work which is why they keep shelving it whenever it gets dicey. Again, I feel like they're definitely trying to do this while also servicing the "we herd you leik Spock" contingent. Keep in mind that the median television viewer is sixty fucking five years old.Get some young hungry directors, producers, and writers passionate about really great science fiction TV, and tell them to pitch me the next Trek as if nobody had ever heard of Star Trek, Starfleet, the Enterprise, or Kirk.
Set an entire series in the Ferengar. A series featuring the Marquis.
Maybe and entirely Mirror Universe series set in a fascist Federation.
Even the Klingon Empire could be somewhat interesting.
But come up with a concept that isn’t “hey, look, we got the TNG crew out of retirement, please clap”
or “Hey, we heard you guys like Harry Potter, but have you seen Star Trek: in school”.
In short, start trying to figure out the interesting settings in your universe for great science fiction series, then make episodes that fully explore the concept and the settings.