Dr Who isn’t Star Trek. Doctor Who may touch on series themes, but it doesn’t take itself seriously. It appeals to all ages, especially children.
Doctor Who can get away with breaking the fourth wall and being self referencing. But those call backs to the classic props, vintage tardis, mondasian Cybermen and Daleks, while played straight, are still just a homage, a nostalgic indulgence to please the audience, just like Trials and Tribbelations, Relics, and in a mirror darkly.
Yes,
Doctor Who appeals to all ages. (That used to be true of Star Trek as well.) That hardly means it doesn't take itself seriously; if you think so you haven't watched the show much.
Moreover, I keep seeing this point raised again and again whenever someone offers examples of Trek (or any other show) actually
respecting its past... it's just an homage, just a tribute, just a nostalgic indulgence... as if that has some sort of self-evident meaning. It doesn't. These are still episodes of the show, meant to be just as entertaining for the audience and just as real for the characters as any other episodes... IOW, to be treated as canon.
And anyway, what is an homage except something made
by people who love the show,
for people who love the show? There's nothing wrong or un-serious about that; indeed it's a vibe that DSC could benefit by capturing a bit more often.
And what
is the appearance of the original
Enterprise at the end of the DSC season (and presumably beginning of the next) as well, if not an homage? After all, it's not as if Pike and his ship are going to take over the show; nobody's expecting them to be there for more than one or two episodes. So even if "homage" was the excuse for the looks of the ship and the bridge and the uniforms in all those episodes in earlier Trek series (and of the Daleks and the Cybermen and the Tardis and so on in all those
Doctor Who episodes), how is what DSC is doing now in any way
different? It's not as if redesigning the
Enterprise somehow marks the show as More Serious.