What does that mean exactly?
When looking at it from the the perspective that TOS and TNG were the 2 first Trek series (and created by Roddenberry) it might be reasonable to think those series are what Trek is supposed to be? Or at least what Trek was supposed to be during 90s.
The thing is, TOS and TNG are very different. Superficially they're the same: Starfleet crews on a ship called the Enterprise, cruising through space and having adventures. But Roddenberry had changed during the intervening years, having become convinced that he was a really deep philosopher, so in TNG he decided that Federation society, and humanity in particular, had evolved beyond any of our problems of today. He didn't want imperfect humans. He didn't want conflict between his enlightened, perfect new characters. And that's the opposite of TOS, which in episodes like "Errand of Mercy," "A Taste of Armageddon," "Balance of Terror," and several others showed that 23rd century humans were much the same as 20th century humans, still capable of stumbling into unnecessary wars, still capable of expressing bigotry, but making an effort to move beyond that. In TNG, Picard just says, hey, we're perfect. The meaning of the Prime Directive changed, too. We're supposed to see Picard as a hero even when he says, well, shame that whole planet's going to die, but if we interfered, that would be bad for their culture. The key thing about TNG, which all the writers and producers have talked about, was that there could not be conflict between the main characters, because they're so evolved. Look back at TOS. Most of the sparring between McCoy and Spock was, at its core, friendly. But there are a couple of episodes where things get genuinely nasty between them when Kirk isn't there. There are conflicts involving other Enterprise crew, too -- Stiles mistrusts Spock once they learn what the Romulans look like; McGivers betrays her crewmates to help Khan.
Every Star Trek series since TNG has tried to find a way not to be like TNG, not to be hobbled by Gene's perfect humans and their lack of conflict. DS9 and Voyager took us outside the Federation and, to differing extents, introduced key groups of characters who were not part of that happy utopian Federation: Bajorans, Maquis, and others. Enterprise decided to get around it by setting its show closer to our time, before everyone became perfect. Likewise, Discovery went back to the TOS era, and Picard took its title character out of Starfleet. Lower Decks is a comedy. What Roddenberry thought Star Trek should be in 1966 and what he thought it should be in 1987 were not the same thing, and everyone else running Star Trek since has rejected the 1987 approach or tried to work around it.
Maybe my original message wasn't clear enough. I have watched Trek series post TNG.
But yeah, I'm happy when I rewatch TNG =)
I have watched through TOS, TNG, DS9, VGR, ENT and enough of 'Discovery' to know it's not my thing, if memory serves 1st season and then about until they went into the distant future.
Sorry, I misunderstood.
Those series being decades apart that's to be expected?
TNG started 18 years after TOS ended. Discovery started 23 years after TNG ended, 12 years after Enterprise ended. But because 1987 is so long ago, and because so many fans started with TNG, a lot of fans think there's something wrong about new Star Trek being different from old Star Trek. They want Picard's brightly lit hotel in space with perfect people instead of what they see in the new shows, forgetting how different TNG seemed to those of us who were already adults in 1987 and had grown up with TOS and TAS.
Same can be said for the newer series from TNG. And that's largely why I let go of what Trek "should" be. At some point in time there is going to be a transition as to what era these are made in. It doesn't make it less Trek, any more than TNG was lesser because it had a bald Frenchman surrendering in the first episode vs. Kirk who threatened to blow the ship up.
Yep. What really gets me is certain Doctor Who fans who see 1963-1989 Doctor Who as very much one thing and 2005- Doctor Who as very much something else. Doctor Who completely reinvented itself several times in its first 26 years. The idea that, say, "The Sensorites" and "The Curse of Fenric" have substantially more in common than either one does with any Eccleston episode, for example, seems self-evidently silly to me. The show changed cast, producers, writers, and intended audiences repeatedly during its first 26 years. It never tried to be exactly the same thing for exactly the same audience decade after decade. Neither has Star Trek. Or anything else that started in the 1960s and is still going.
