I disagree. Lower Decks and The Orville are both proofs that it's possible to make good Star Trek. Discovery and Picard just aren't good - and not in the same way TNG wasn't seen as good Trek when its first season aired; the new shows are completely disregarding everything that made the previous ones work.
> A recurring trend is recasting and reinventing Spock over and over again.
Wonder what's the franchise owners' obsession with Spock. In my perhaps generationally biased sampling, Star Trek fans would likely appreciate TNG-era shows more. But then, I guess Star Trek producers had a long-standing tradition of purposefully ignoring the fans. I guess it worked, at least for as long Berman and Braga were involved.
New Trek definitely lost what made Trek attractive in the first place, and replaced it with drama, action and expensive SFX. Maybe it's what the current market wants, although I doubt it.
Old Star Trek has self-contained episodes, and it wasn't afraid to dedicate a whole episode to a single character. Discovery and Picard are serialized, yet we know little about the characters and their motivations. Most characters are cartoonish, and the moment a random characters gets a backstory, you know it's because he will die with long and dramatic close-ups very soon.
When TNG's Picard was caught by that admiral in Captain Picard's Day Picard Day, and he says "It's for the children. I'm a- I'm a role model", we knew exactly how he felt without having his face full-screen because his character was well established.
When Picard's Picard reacts, you have to wait to be spoonfed his sentiment, because his character is inconsistent, not only with his canon, but with his current characterization.
Tried Picard as well, its selling point was Patrick Stewart but they had to bolt on a lot of stuff to sell it - injected nostalgia with characters nobody knows yet but they portray it like they go way back, and forced nostalgia that does not advance the plot with some old TNG cast. And a forgettable story. They tried to make something new with an unremarkable cast, then boost it with forced nostalgia. It didn't do it for me. I mean funny to see some of the old actors again, but they already played that card with some of the films that take place after the TNG series. They should have let it rest.
They should have let the whole franchise rest, for that matter. A recurring trend is recasting and reinventing Spock over and over again.