I liked Star Trek before it got woke. /s

That's fair, the cartoon is apparently not bad, just not my cup of tea.
- Lower Decks is my favorite Star Trek since DS9. When it came out though, I was super against it. Didn't think Paramount had any right to be making fun of Star Trek after Discovery season 1. You can tell Lower Decks is made by people that love Star Trek though.
  
  This last season, they did a classic Audience-with-the-Klingon-High-Council episode, and when I saw it, I exclaimed to my fiance, "Yes! I love Klingon bureaucracy episodes!" and then later in the episode, there was almost that exact same line
  
  Strange New Worlds has been finding their feet too. We got a courtroom episode on Augment rights, that really felt Star Trek, and they've had some original stories as well that I've really loved, like Among the Lotus Eaters. There have been a couple episodes I haven't been a fan of, but what Star Trek hasn't had those?
  
  If you're open to it, I recommend giving both shows another chance!
  
  Lower Decks and SNW are FANTASTIC and some of the best Trek in a very long time. Almost as good as The Orville ;)
- Yeah it's good and agreed that discovery is pure ass so It's definitely a little bit of both

We have The Orville today for good Trek

I really tried to like that show but it's just ... Bad. To each their own but I'd rather just rewatch TNG or whatever other Star Trek. That show feels like it doesn't have an identity, the writers couldn't decide what kind of show they were writing and the acting is subpar.

Of course, if you enjoy it that's all that really matters - keep on watching and having fun!
- How far did you make it? Season 1 is a bit painful, Season 2 is better but Season 3 is a big shift.
  
  Seth McFarland's humor is not very good...
  
  Season 3 was a surprise. They just played it straight. Went from parody to homage.
  
  Not very far lol, a couple episodes to give it a fair shake though, do you have an episode recommendation?
  
  Season 1 episode 10
  
  If you don’t like it I don’t think you will care for the rest
  
  Season 2 Episode 8-9 is a two part episode that is good but I wouldn’t recommend jumping into it because it’s not as good if you don’t care about the characters
  
  Just echoing here that it does take awhile to get going.
  
  Honestly, despite what I'm about to say below, I probably wouldn't recommend it now (just on signal to noise ratio) if not for https://thecinemaholic.com/the-orville-season-4/ giving hope for more story, or unless you happened to be a superfan of Seth McFarlane.
  
  My .02 -
  
  Season 1 -
  
  First reaction - wow this DOES feel like TNG.
  
  Second reaction - WAY too much Family-Guy style humor.
  
  I like humor in my scifi, and I like Family-Guy style humor (during its heyday anyhow). Season 1 episode 7 almost made me turn it off. No one trying to pay homage to trek should be writing in something like this as a first contact "mistake". IMO in S1 we learned that Family-Guy style humor doesn't always work in live action.
  
  Season 2 - Better, but still trying to find the right blend. It's been awhile now, but I think S2 got better and better over time and had some pretty good eps.
  
  Season 3 - Really great, hit their stride, perfect blend of humor and drama, super disappointed when it was cancelled.
  
  Season 4 - See link above. If they can recapture S3 vibes I'm excited for it, but I'm not 100% confident they will. Fingers crossed.
  
  With all that said, if you are considering it at all, I'd just watch it all. That way you get the evolution of the show, the running gags, and don't miss any significant bits that are sprinkled through, and you know all the road that has been traveled when they get to S4. It's only three seasons and it's not a long show. Yes, some of it is cringe, but so was some of the early seasons of TNG.
  
  Thank you for the lengthy write up. You see though the problem with watching it all is I'd be watching it all... I do appreciate the time it must have taken for this reply though.
  
  That clip on YouTube you linked was super cringe. Agree with you on TNG there's definitely times and episodes where I think the writers phoned it in and I'm not going to pretend it's all good. Still my favorite star trek but I don't watch much so that's not saying anything considering I haven't even seen any of the new stuff.
Can't stomach McFarlane unfortunately. I'm told it gets better later on but his sense of humor is just like nails on a chalkboard to me. Couldn't get myself to finish the first season.
- My partner and I have a theory that MacFarlane pitched The Orville as “Family Guy in space,” and he got to make it because of his success with Family Guy. But the actual goal he had all along was to make Star Trek.
  
  In order to keep the game up and get a second season, he had to sell the pitch at least a bit. So the early episodes are like Star Trek with cringey Family Guy-esque jokes. But as the series goes on, the cringe stops, the jokes slow down, and the plots get deeper.
  
  I can’t stand cringe humor and did not consider myself a fan of MacFarlane, but The Orville changed that.
Exactly. Orville is more "woke" and i absolutely love it. It's supposed to be just a sort of comedy parody of star trek, yet it has more depth than the Discovery has.

Yes, but that's a reasonable take, so it gets drowned out.

True. We don't have masterpieces like "Spock's Brain" anymore. /S

Say what you want about TOS, it's campy and silly but it's not boring.
Even Platos Stepchildren, which everyone remembers for the first interracial kiss, was a pretty fucking terrible episode.

That’s basically all it is: Media getting “too big to fail” and then neutering its writing quality by committee. It tries to tell socially progressive stories at the same time, so people associate the two.

A streamer pointed out the cognitive dissonance people have, when “anti-woke” people played Baldur’s Gate 3. It was gender expressive and diverse…but it was also GOOD writing. So they decided it was”wasn’t woke”.

Yep, and they suck at analogies too. The old format usually had fairly enlightened people encounter an injustice, usually making it right in some way. It's morality theater. Discovery made the Federation itself dark and edgy and the people on board a complete mess, not a world I'd like to live in. Maybe that's what some people perceive when they complain about "politics".