While I agree with most of your post, I think DS9 has easily the best cast of any Trek show. At least one full season with Prime Georgiou is the DIS I really wanted to watch. Basically the show it looked like before we learned she'd die in the pilot.
Enterprise wrote itself into a box imo and I don't see where the story could go past a fourth season. On the other hand, Discovery is bursting with ideas and each season has had a different, engaging (some more than others) storyline where the main characters have developed nicely. I loved ENT and most of the ENT cast by the end, but I found the bridge cast hard to emphasise with early on. Berman, Lorca, Tilly, Stamets, Saru on the other hand I instantly connected with. Not to mention Georgiou in both dimensions. I'll be happy to never hear about The Xindi again. So I'd disagree, but I can see how people would agree with your statement.
How did Ent write itself into a box? It was moving towards the to romulan war and founding the federation . plenty of ideas for stories.
I'm not a fan of ENT, but where they could've gone during the next three seasons was pretty clear. The Romulan War, the founding of the Federation, like @valkyrie013 said, Earth growing into its role as the glue holding what led to the Federation together, Vulcans going further into their cultural reawakening... it looks like the fourth season set up what would've been the second half of the series. Strangely, my ranking of the seasons of both series comes out similar: 4, 1, 3, 2. I think DSC works better in the 32nd Century, so that would put S3-S4 above S1-S2 in theory, but S1 has a synergy to it that makes it transcend its setting. S4 could've done some things better -- like cutting down on the pep-talks -- but it was an example of the show in the setting I think it should be in, with the right captain, and having a plot that was more Star Trek than Star Trek. ENT, to its credit, is more about how Star Trek became Star Trek.
I would say that it felt early on like it was leading to the founding, then stopped. Granted, it's limited series wasn't it's fault, but if I'm comparing the two that's a problem for me. Discovery isn't focused on one time period and therefore more interesting.
That’s debatable. Since S5 would have dealt with either the Romulan War or the mirror universe. Either way, it would have been another dark season like with the Xindi arc. If that’s what you mean by them writing themselves into a box. They are also threat of the season arcs. It gets exhausting after a while. I find that ENT and DIS are the same in how long it takes to like their characters. Even those that wrote about the Xindi don't want to deal with the Xindi again.
I would say, yes, it is a box. In much the same ways that DSC wrote itself in to a ridiculous box by being a prequel to TOS, only ten years removed. That is a box, as is the Romulan War, burdened by history and expectation.
The Romulan War wasn't going to be in Season 5, that's been confirmed by Manny Coto, there would have been lead up to it, but no war. And the Mirror one wasn't going to be the entire season.
While I agree with you to a certain extent, I don't think it was ever Bryan Fuller's or CBS's intent to even bother worrying about how their show 'fit in' with the continuity of TOS. I remember hearing some talk to the effect of 'Just wait! It'll all fit together! You'll see!," but that was just lip service (at least until they shunted the crew off to the 32nd century to 'fix canon' and created SNW.)
It wasn't Fuller's-he wanted it to be as different as possible. Which, in hindsight, was a damn stupid idea creating unnecessary rifts and hostility for a show he didn't even finish. CBS, via Kurtzman, then spent their time working inside because money had already been spent. So, it fits together as far as things like TOS and TMP fit together, but that's about as close as it gets. It works way better as a straight line from Enterprise to the USS KELVIN to DSC to TMP, but that's just me.
It's not just you. The clear intent (for the DSC and SNW productions at least) is to retcon TOS out of existence and make the implication that things actually didn't happen quite the same way as we saw them, and definitely didn't look the same way as we saw them. And at its core, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. TOS is incredibly dated, and I for one would never have made a new show in 2022 that's supposed to take place in the same universe as TOS and look and feel exactly as outdated as TOS is. The problem, however, is that as dated as it is, TOS still has a huge cult following, more than any other show that came after it. So pretending that it doesn't exist in its original form in order to promote some other show is ultimately illogical. It would have made more sense just to say that DSC took place in yet another continuity/alternate universe/etc. But CBS felt it needed to be tied to TOS while at the same time making it look and feel as different from TOS as possible.
Which is fine since TMP told me TOS didn't look that way any way. None of this is logical. Not a single one. It is an extreme emotional reaction due to attachment to something familiar, or something that feels the most familiar that gives us the warm fuzzies. Each person has their Trek; TOS will always be fine in terms of the illogical/emotional warm fuzzies. But, I'm not blind to it's dated look, or that most of the Trek fans I know in real life regard it as lesser. So, CBS ignoring it basically confirms what I knew back in the 6th grade. So, this is not a shock to me.
No offense, but I hate when people bring up this comparison, because it's a non-comparison. TMP took place after TOS. Technological change was logical. Hell, the entire point of the refit was that there was technological advancement from what we saw in TOS. DSC takes place ten years before TOS, and the technology is light-years ahead of what it will supposedly be a decade hence, according to the producers who say "It'll all fit!"
It doesn't fit. Am I supposed to be offended by this? Perhaps I will write angry letters to CBS. Start a fan group. Tongue in cheek, but at this point in time I don't know what to think. I'm supposed to believe that TOS and TMP are the same, changes and all, as TOS, not just from a technology point of view, but a character, point of view, a ship point of view, a history point of view. The discontinuity for me is too jarring all across the board, which is probably how people feel about DSC. It's too jarring. I somewhat understand that idea. I just don't worry about it because I don't treat it as strict literal history. And that's part of TMP's influence on me.
TOS was a '60's production, with '60's production values. TMP was a '70's production, with '70's production values. It was different from the '60's production, but was believable as a sequel because of the linear nature of a sequel. And it didn't erase the look of TOS because it showed the TOS Enterprise on screen. DSC was a 2000's production which claimed to be in the same universe as the '60's production. It's not believable as a prequel because 2000's production values were used rather than mocking the '60's production values from the show it was ostensibly meant to be a prequel to.
Believability is where TMP looses me. It isn't believe at all to me as a follow up to TOS. Mileage varies, clearly. And, as for the rest, well, this assumes a mean spiritedness to the production that I don't see.
Some of the characterizations, Kirk in particular, don’t seem quite the same as TOS, but it’s no different than how the character of Picard changed from TNG to PIC.