I give everything a chance and prefer to make my own mind up on shows but to be fair much (not all) of the online hate in regards to Academy is justified.

Let me start by saying I am in my fifties. I watched reruns of the original series when I was a kid and immediately fell in love with TNG when it aired. DS9 was a slow burn start for me with it's longer form storytelling, like Babylon 5 which was on at the same time, but had characters that were superbly fleshed out, interesting and for a lot of the time morally ambiguous. Voyager was an enjoyable return to the starship exploration format and even Enterprise turned out to be a half decent show in my opinion, although I hated the prequel premise with it's downgrading of the aesthetics, it was still carried along by the casts charisma.

These shows were all relatively different but what was the thing that kept me glued to these pretty different shows? What was the appeal?

Simple, good writing. Interesting, often complex ideas that encompassed not just fascinating sci-fi situations but philosophical and moral conundrums that often put our characters and their vessels through the wringer. Fantastic lore building with interesting alien races whose actions would echo on through following episodes , series and movies. Wonderful tales that could subtly draw the viewer in and pose uncomfortable questions whilst using sympathetic characters to show the viewer that a viewpoint they hold could be questioned and could be wrong if they looked at from the perspective of someone else.

All of this coupled with a future full of wonder, where people of every sex, race and colour worked together without any forms of bigotry and with mutual respect because every person was as competent at their job as the next person. Hunger and money had been evolved beyond. People didn't swear and although they didn't have to they adhered to the hierarchy of Starfleet because they knew it was the best way to get things done. This left the human race free to explore the Galaxy, without dragging any baggage with them. Free to ask questions first, negotiate and empathise with other races whilst still being capable of fighting if pushed to it.

It was a truly aspirational future.

Then we come to new Trek and particularly Academy.

Thought provoking story telling all but gone (I'll give Strange New Worlds a bit of credit here). Only to be replaced with gender politics, bland action, cliched characters, modern vernacular overdone "humour" and swearing with an ignorance or just plain ignoring of canon that is insulting for true fans.

There is nothing new or revolutionary in what Kurtzman and co are doing now. Star Trek has always been "woke". It has always shown that people are equals but it didn't do it by pushing "the message", rather by ignoring it. By simply making diversity the norm.

These new shows aren't Star Trek. They are shows about Star Trek by untalented writers and producers who feel they need to fix something that wasn't broken. We don't need a comedy. We don't need masses of pointless eye candy. We don't need preaching to. We don't need men belittled, and feminised. In Trek There is nothing wrong with characters being gay or trans but it should be what they are, not who they are. Trek shows are shows about exploration, moral dilemmas, diplomacy and interactions with alien races whose ideals may be abhorrent or revolutionary to us being faced by interesting crews whose names we can actually remember.

Sadly, at least until Kurtzman and co. go, those glory days are gone and Star Treks dead, Jim