Trek has a formula, and it's not necessarily a bad thing, some of the best episodes have followed the formula to the tee. Some have gone way off piste and been fantastic, but Trek, especially the ship based shows, generally follows its formula. Bridge scenes, new thing we found, interact with thing, action set piece, moral dilemma, private conversation about moral dilemma, bridge scenes, outcome of moral dilemma, final bridge scene, here endeth the lesson. To a certain extent, if you wander too far from the formula, you've just got a different show that uses the same nouns. Now, I'm sure plenty of people here would be interested in that - a Firefly, or a BSG, or an Expanse set in the Trekverse. But the studio want Star Trek, so that means there are boundaries on how different it was ever going to be.