Star Trek "died" because it had been riding a decade of bland mediocrity. It wasn't that there was too much of it--it was there was too much of it and none of it was particularly innovative or engaging.
But make no mistake, Discovery runs the same risk. It's a pretty safe bet to say "Discovery will be better than 90% of Star Trek." But what does that even mean? I say all the time that I think ST09's cold open is the best 12 minutes of Star Trek since season 1 of TOS. But is that really all that great of an accomplishment?
What matters is how it holds up to everything else.
The trap a lot of Trekkies - myself included - fall into is that good Trek automatically means good television, when that's rarely the case. Even now, I can still sit down for the random episode of Voyager or Enterprise and be entertained, but it's important to objectively recognize that that has as much to do with "because it's Star Trek" and that it isn't necessarily great--or even good--dramatic art.
The same will be true for Discovery. The only problem is, how it holds up against other content is so much more important now. "Television" (to whatever end the term no implies) is such a different animal than when even Enterprise was on. It's surpassed film as the primary cinematic medium. It's much bigger business than it used to be and the standards are way higher.
So Discovery can't just settle for being "great Star Trek." It has to be great television. Otherwise, 15 years from now, Burnham will be just as forgotten as Sisko.
