All the episodes of SNW so far have been great. Those producers don't need any "guidance" from the creative minds behind stuff like Picard and STD. Based on Trekbbs postings alone, this fandom should be divided. It's Trek's only hope.
What type of project would you like Matalas to do then? If not follow up TNG/DS9/VGR, then what? Later in the 25th century? An ENT follow up? The temporal cold war? In that case, you have structural budget limitations in your favor. If Legacy is semi-serialized a la say THE ORVILLE or a Stargate series, they just won't be able to afford all the "fanwank" that some people fear on an episode by episode basis. I guess this is all relative to where you're standing. If you like something that many people don't, that's just luck by semi-design. I'd just argue that the streaming boom has burst along with the low interest rate financial bubble, so series going forward will need to be more broad to justify their budgets and be more advertiser friendly. Although I do admit the Abramsverse and SNW could arguably be this, and I just don't like them on tone/continuity grounds. THE ORVILLE and PS3 at least demonstrate that other approaches can be successful as well.
Pretty much my experience with most franchises I like so this does not come as new or offensive to me. Of course they can. It's not a zero sum game but what the trend is, especially with Trek specifically, pop culture generally, is to go all in on nostalgia properties. It can work in some cases, but a lot of times it just wears out it's welcome because it just repeats patterns. It's not additive.
I'm partial to "Back to what works." Because too much of Trek in the last decade just hasn't been good enough in terms of basic entertainment values to be worth the watch.
At the very least, for Matalas to be a creative voice amidst the producers, someone who knows Trek continuity, respects the characters and the universe, and has a good pulse on what would be popular and successful with the fans (and general audiences). The positive reception to Picard S3 and the strong support for him to continue demonstrates that whatever he did... worked, in spades. I've seen this kind of positivity towards rockstar producers in Marvel (Feige), Doctor Who (RTD), but Matalas would be the first time I've seen this kind of thing for modern Trek. Paramount must have some awareness of this by now.
I always imagined it would be not as much as some people want and as not as little as some other people want. Too bad it's only most.
I can see where you are coming here actually. But we just go in a very different direction. My objection is to reboots, which the Abramsverse and SNW are de jure or de facto. I'd like SNW if it was Star Trek: Early Voyages. But it is far from that. A successful SNW would likely lead to a more overt TOS reboot. I'd like a continuation in the 25th century to preserve the existing continuity. I guess the only way that could work would be ousting Kurtzman. The goldilocks point can be pretty sustainable if you get it just right...
*Sighs* Existing continuity is not going anywhere. This is not historical revisionism. This is a dramatic interpretation of Star Trek in a more contemporary style. I would enjoy Early Voyages as well but that doesn't make SNW lesser for it. If I find it lesser then I'll go reread that, instead. If TOS is rebooted the original will still exist so nothing lost there. To me this is just a line too far for the objection to something new in the Trek universe. When's the "Oust Kurtzman" petition going to start?
Yeah, no. SNW is way better. Yes, TOS will be "rebooted." Picard is hardly evidence that Matalas "gets" Trek, only that he's a big TNG fan. I sure wouldn't want that kind of approach on SNW. SNW enlarges Trek in a way that nostalgia fests can't.
I'd love to know which fictional characters have been disrespected? I mean... you could make the argument that Lord Terry disrespected the characters from S1 and S2 of Picard... If Roddenberry chased what was popular, Trek would have been yet another Western. General audiences don't give a shit about nostalgia. Yes, take out the successful producer that hired Matalas, our lord, and Savior.
This is waaayyyy off-topic now, but: All Pike's crew had was one adventure: "The Cage". There's not a lot there, in terms of Canon. We had no idea how or when the TOS crew joined or met, or who from "The Cage" was still on the Enterprise by the time SNW takes place. Visually, if you had SNW look like "The Cage", it would look like something from Nick-At-Nite. No matter what, SNW wasn't going to look like, "The lost Star Trek season from 1965!" Expecting SNW to be just like TOS is like expecting PIC or Legacy to be just like TNG. I think SNW did a good 2020s translation of TOS, it's just not my thing these days, but it accomplished what it set out to do. I don't want things like, "She does a good job alright, I just get used to a woman on the bridge" or "the time barrier's been broken!" to be "respected". Nor do I want paper-printouts. I do like the goosenecks, but not enough to complain if they're not there. Anson Mount took the good from Jeff Hunter's Pike and left the bad behind. Majel Barrett didn't leave Rebecca Romijn much to work with for Number One. And Ethan Peck: I like him better as Spock than Zachary Quinto but not as much as Leonard Nimoy, but he feels like Spock. Jess Bush is great as Chapel. Celia Rose is good as a different version of Uhura. The only misfire, IMO, so far is Paul Wesley as Kirk, but maybe he'll grow into the role.
I wouldn't go that far. I've been to enough "80s Nights" to know better, Stranger Things is pretty big, and there have been enough late sequels out in theaters that I know it isn't true... ... but, yes, I do agree that if you're not very knowledgeable of the TOS Movies, TNG, DS9, and VOY, a lot of Picard Season 3 doesn't work. They didn't write it to be anyone's first Trek. They wrote it to be TNG's last Trek. I took it as what it was intended to be. I didn't (and don't) want an entire series like that, I would've been happy with PIC if it had continued in a Season 1 style direction (that's actually what I would've preferred), but I was okay with the way PIC Season 3 handled things for just 10 episodes.
To tell the truth, there's no evidence that the public at large has really embraced or even shown much interest in any version of Trek after the Abrams movies. All the streaming shows make it on the basis of relatively small, dedicated viewerships of a few million.