You make me happy saying that because so many people in your socio-economic group (including voting intentions) complain that Star Trek 'went woke' without apparently noticing that it... was always that way, whether you want to talk about the diversity of the crew, the female second in command that was so radical the studio insisted she be removed (and was recast as the ship's computer, and also the nurse)
TNG is where it started for me - I'm too young to have seen TOS on original airing - but even as a kid I was around the 'we're killing the planet' and every night on the news we were at war with someone, and TNG represented a beacon that 'someone believes we can do better, we must do better'. It also resonated with me that fighting wasn't necessarily the first choice but that problems could be tackled non-violently.
I certainly grew up on the TOS re-runs, with Kirk, Spock and McCoy leaving an impression on young me: that it's not always about being the bravest or the strongest, but doing what needs to be done because it's the right thing to do. That both logic and heart are needed to reach the best outcome. And I suppose Kirk's general 'I don't like to lose' attitude rubbed off on me somewhat.
While I think TNG represents the humanity we should aspire to be, I can't help but admire DS9 for accepting that the world is sadly not as idealistic as TNG wanted us to be - it's for all the stories that happen when we leave behind the idealism, for when the Enterprise has left and everyone else just has to figure it out. But DS9 gives us some of the most compelling writing and acting in the entire Trek canon (I give you half of everything Garak says, but especially In The Pale Moonlight, as well as Sisko's standout episode, Far Beyond The Stars)
Voyager... I didn't enjoy Voyager on its first run. Lost In Space - Star Trek edition didn't quite work for me, and it didn't help that I just felt that half the cast were bland and uninteresting (Chakotay, Kes, Neelix). Rewatching it as I've gotten older, it's held up better but for the most part I dip in and out of VOY in a way I don't with TNG or DS9.
Enterprise... yeah, I liked it well enough. It had some interesting ideas about what the pre-Kirk era looked like, and they solved the 'it sorta looks newer' challenge without it coming across too weirdly. I feel like T'pol was a missed opportunity half the time, Trip annoyed me no end, but Archer often saved the day with it. Could have skipped the Mirror Universe stuff. Definitely should have skipped the finale - there was zero need to weirdly tie it into an obviously older + fatter Riker as a weird holodeck program. It's like the Augments stuff - when DS9 did their crossover with TOS for the 30th anniversary in Trials And Tribbleations, they acknowledged the whole 'Klingons look different' and Worf simply points out that 'we do not discuss it with outsiders'. And... that was *fine*. ENT did explain it and it wasn't awful but it wasn't necessary either... the ENT finale attempted to do the same thing by suggesting that ENT isn't 'exactly how it happened' because it was a holoprogram, but to me that diminishes everything ENT achieved.
Discovery was a disappointment to me. Not because of the obvious complaint, at least not directly: I have no objection to the various crew and their preferences. I just wish that virtually everyone on the crew was more than just a personality trait personified. Characters can be so much more than one note items often revolving around whatever point the writer is badly trying to make. Adira is the obvious example: what is there about Adira's personality other than 'non binary'? (Never mind that Trek had explored this before in TNG and DS9 in various ways, and less hamfistedly than here) There were all sorts of cool things they *could* have done with the character but she was reduced to 'the non binary one' as basically a personality, which isn't a personality. I also didn't like the retrofitting of yet another Spock sibling that we didn't know about until it happened and I think the entire cast was done dirty by the writing where they're all so much more capable than the material they were given - Sonequa Martin-Green especially, followed by Michelle Yeoh. Also the under-utilised Reno character, easily the best character in the show, if only because she's the one character whose personality isn't just 'the extroverted nervous one' or 'the angsty one' or similar.
Picard... where to begin. I always loved Picard as a character: this upstanding moral beacon, doing what was right over what was prudent because it was the right thing to do. I almost didn't recognise the Picard we saw in PIC S1. How did the character that I grew up watching, from moments like Measure of a Man or more poignantly The Drumhead, become *this*? The Picard we see in PIC S1 is a shadow of his former self. The plot arc is largely nonsense to go with it. S2 is even worse in that regard; I can accept the changing state of Q. The retrofit of Picard's family... just unnecessary in every respect, and the whole Borg arc in the season didn't really seem like it went anywhere AND we got rid of the two best characters in that sub-franchise, Rios and Elnor. Just unnecessary. S3 is of course much better, with an arc that makes sense, some actual characters, some actual character development and the mother of all fan service in how they get the band back together - and the finale, of course is a fan triumph. I'll admit I had to hold back the tears because this was in some ways a coming of full circle for me. It's the sendoff that Generations never had.
But in every respect, I'll agree that SNW is a triumph: doing what Trek always did best, holding a mirror up to us and going 'hang on a minute'. Right from that pilot episode of the first contact gone wrong, you just knew they had something special. We have a crew of characters who aren't one dimensional and defined by their behaviours in lieu of actual personality, it's full of life and hope again that things can be better - while accepting that humanity still has a lot to learn even in the 23rd Century.
I haven't seen much of Lower Decks or Prodigy, guess I'm not going to get to see much of the latter now...
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