There was that argument made by JessieGender regarding how Star Trek TV shows always have to find their footing in the first 2 seasons, and then 3 is an improvvement, and from 4 onwards is full speed ahead.
That argument used to be true until ST: Discovery; that show never got good. It was also predicated on the standards and practices of 90s TV production where it really was a case of beta-testing the show and useful Nielson feedback took about a year to get to producers. Now? Assuming Youtube comments don't get censored or bot farm likes, shows can get statistical and qualitative feedback in about a day. They absolutely can figure out what is or what is not working with a show within a year (I'm including the production time to make episodes). Therefore, there is no excuse as to why it takes two whole years of production before they figure out what works and what doesn't.
I liked Discovery, but then again my tastes are varied to the point that the list of shows I won't watch are short and include an anime where a college girl that looks like a preschooler has the hots for her landlord's son that's a middle schooler that looks like a highschooler. And even then I watched at least half of it before accepting it was trash.
I enjoyed Strange New Worlds season 1, I thought it was charming enough and bright (in terms of actual lighting used on their sets) compared to others. I tried watching Discovery but I didn't get into it a whole lot, I should give it a try again in the future. I mostly remember Sonequa-Green from The Walking Dead and I did not like her in that show, so there's a little bias about her role in Discovery, and also I remember reading something how she claimed she was the first Black captain in Star Trek.
Well, the thing isn't necessarily that they can't. It's that they absolutely WON'T:
Let's see...Let's play a fun game! If you watched most or all of STD, name as many of the crew as you can WITHOUT looking them up.
You've won a producer's credit for the Starfleet Academy show.
I'll try to guess here.
Great job! You're now a writer for the next show Star Trek: ESG Score.
That girl from Black Panther, I Robot, Alan Tudyk, token redhead, Sasha from the Walking Dead, afropajeet, John Cho, Saru and Natalie Dormer if she starred in Sliding Doors and got up on that fucking train.
I gave up on SNW half way through the first episode when it was clear they shoved woke BS in it too. And the characters were modern day people on a starship, not future people on a starship
I thought only the faggots, fatty, black space jesus and the alien were main characters, the rest were unnamed background filler. Would smash the 7 of 9 knockoff though
Guinan Jr, a sex bot, guy from the wrong sci fi show, isn't this the one that gets really fat, the mary sue, love interest for the mary sue, knock off Sulu, 6 of 9 and token alien.
Not sure I buy that. Star Trek TOS got demonstrably worse in it's third season. TNG maybe. But there were other factors there like getting rid of Gene Roddenberry and a writer's strike that hampered season 2. I don't remember any seasons of DS9 being objectively bad. I can't rate Voyager because to this day I haven't seen the whole series. Ditto Enterprise.
Black girl who isn't the main character, token gay, slam piggie, Mr. Do Needful (or Mr. N. IGAR can't tell which), Sulu wannabe, current year hair girl with a thing glued to her head, some sort of apple product thing, Doug Jones.
TOS is the exception due to CBS having had enough of the show and sidelined it to the 10 o'clock friday timeslot. In general, 90s Star Trek did get better by the third season. DS9 had okay episodes here and there, but it's really seasons 3, 4, and 5 does it get exceptional. Enterprise does get better by season 4, but that was due to a change in management. In fairness to Picard, Matalas is a change in management... sort of. Matalas is a Dave Filoni-type and exerts the kind of influence a middle manager would. He still has to follow company guidelines such as extremely dark lighting, have a young character who's the key to everything, and a sword-wielding maniac that sneaks up on people first, but he has authority otherwise.