Strange new worlds definitely comes closest to scratching the nerd exploration/human experience itch.

Every other star Trek has been just daytime soap opera but in spaaaaace. It's really sad. Or maybe I'm just older now and my glasses aren't as rose colored anymore. I don't know.

I think all the treks are heavily influenced by the culture in which they were made. All are trying to say something in a format that will be profitable.

The ones nerds glaze are the shows normies complain about. IMO because there is tension between what the mainstream wants from trek and what niches like ours want. That's ok. It just requires trying to understand the era of creation as much as the art itself.

There’s a rumor that a lot of the old cast made a pointed appeal to Paramount about this drama in space change to Star Trek, specifically that they would actively and publicly oppose the current direction. The ratings and viewerships of the new Star Trek shows were falling like a rock - showing the Paramount showrunners cannot capture a new fan base nor the old one with the new form of Star Trek.

It’s unclear if the rumor was true, but the end of ST discovery and focus on strange new worlds gives some hope that - if only for the pursuit of profit - Paramount is adjusting future plans.

Others have said this, but "The Orville", once it goes past the first few "family guy"-esque episodes, is a fantastic Star Trek.

I enjoyed Strange New Worlds, but it has too many "weird" episodes.

As a Star Trek fan, i had fun watching the Orville, but it was cringe on many occasions and i would not recommend it. I felt like it was a very conservative remake of Star Trek that missed the entire point of the series.

Male-female interactions were usually really weird, Bortus relation with his partner is equally anchored in this idea that in male homosexual relations one has to "play the woman part", and i felt overall that the series had much more of an imperialist human-centered worldview, much closer to Stargate than Star Trek (despite not remembering the details).

It got less cringeworthy once they toned down the dated American culture references during the second season but, yeah, it's as if a homage to Star Trek were created by someone whose favourite Trek series was Enterprise.

My #1 beef with the Orville was always that they couldn't write a B-plot. Some of those later seasons have a 60 minute episode, with no B-plot. South Park always has a B-plot in a 22 minute episode. TNG always had a B-plot.

Early SNW was great. The problem isn’t too many “weird” episodes, it’s not enough “normal” episodes. In the 90s you could do 3 or 4 curveball episodes as you had 20 normal ones.

I think that's a very good insight, you're right.