Even beyond that, there is the problem that writers leaving those MFA programs don't have any life experience beyond reading and watching other stuff. Look at people like Roddenberry or Heinlein or Sprague de Camp or Hemingway or any of the greats of the mid-20th century. They lived life. They went to war, spent time living in Paris with other American ex-pats, got married, got divorced, had kids, lived in Cuba, flew planes, were cops, were gamblers, they had to confront their positions by seeing the world in action, they lived life and saw the world before they put pen to paper. Compare that to writers today who know everything there is to know about popular culture and have seen every tv show and movie and read every novel that matters but they've never been outside of school.
It very much shows and is at the crux of the issues. Even into TNG they were showing the characters as serious, competent and disciplined. New writers exaggerate the competence even more yet ditch the other two making any competence at all unearned. Characters are gifted brilliance with a slip of backstory sometimes but essentially it is just a fantasy of being special. With the TNG characters I get the feeling of long careers of hard work behind them. In DS9 we see with Nog that you don't just walk into Star Fleet academy. Right from the admissions process they're filtering and demanding you up your game. (And with Red Squad, we see that they can go too far with it).
Reading your post, the first thing that came to mind was the scene where Data disciplines Worf over his behaviour. It shows that the writers respect and understand the importance of hierarchy and discipline. I doubt you'd get that in the current shows.
Or the Jelilico episodes which are, in a way, a nice parallel to the difference in writers we're talking about.
The episodes show the tension when a long-established group that have social relationships is in conflict with their basis as a hierarchy and military structure. And you can maybe divide people's reactions to Captain Jellico along similar lines - those who think 'he's a military officer with experience, the crew should do as directed' and those who see him as a meanie that disprupts the group rather than seeking their approval. You can guess that the new breed of writers would align with the latter. The nice thing about the episode itself is that it's sophisticated enough that it doesn't show either side as unrelatable, though that's a little beside my point.
I don't honestly think Section 31 has a place in Star Trek.
Grim Dark political shit really isn't what Star Trek was built on. It was supposed to be a prosperous future where humanity has grown and evolved past the need for so much of the bullshit we in current year just deal with as part of life.
I do think it has a place, just not as protagonists. It's important to remember that Star Fleet
has an Intelligence branch. We see them active and they do espionage and undercover work. And they're not choirboys. O'Brien works with them against the Orion syndicate and they have to pull O'Brien out because he's just too soft-hearted. They're willing to let the guy he befriends die. We see them work against the Romulans. Section 31 isn't Star Fleet intelligence and Bashir and Sisko are shocked to learn of its existence and set out to
actively expose it. It's that offensive to them, culturally.
You're right - Star Trek isn't supposed to be GrimDark. But what makes a setting GrimDark isn't the darkness of the enemies - the Borg are frankly horrifying when you think about them - but the darkness of the heroes. That's why WH40K which gave us the term is GrimDark - not because the Tyranids or the Necrons are horrifying, but because the Imperium of Man is horrifying. "In the grim darkness of the 41st Millenium, there is only war". Star Trek can have terrible enemies, it can have complex moral quandaries. But the heroes must be hopeful and, like you say, noble.
https://trekmovie.com/2025/01/27/in...and-what-he-has-learned-running-star-trek-tv/
This is from an interview with Alex Kurtzman:
Clearly he needed to have his head stuffed down the toilet more often during school.
Honestly, this is pervasive and explains a lot of things, not just Star Trek. Writers are all in on viewing their audience as insecure losers desperate for acceptance and to be better than they are. Taking it back to the start of my post, it ties in with wanting their characters to be unearned special. Their fantasy isn't years of hardwork and earning their place. It's "I was born special / something happened to me to make me special and now everyone around me knows I'm special". Geordi was probably a bright kid but he earned his place on the Enterprise. Work has been through Hell and back in terms of loss and ostracism and keeps on standing. And when someone is a misfit (Barclay, Seven of Nine, Garrak) their arc is mostly to adapt. Barclay gets help, Seven sets about learning how to fit in with the crew but on her own terms without needing to give up what she likes about herself. And Garrak, well, he's just a simple tailor anyway.
