Watching Star Trek Strange New Worlds, I'm enjoying so far after watching season 1, but I personally think Paramount appeals for nostalgia more than a new public, specially with lots and lots of reference who only fans will catch.
And I start to remembering those people who complaing about Star Wars or Fallout, with the idea of franchises which need a 360 grades turn to bring something new, for example, Fallout fans complain about the overuse of Broterhood of Steel, something I think is a silly thing to complaing since is almost the face of Fallout franchise is a whole.
But my question is; do Star Trek fans has the same opinions and thoughts? Of letting go the franchise?
Image as example, also, I'm waiting for respectful discussion and not flamewar.
To my eyes, the second season of Disco was way more nostalgic in its focus on Spock and Pike — they even had a whole episode revolving around the original TOS pilot.
And all of SNW basically takes place between "The cage" and "Where no man has gone before", filling in (sometimes pretty hamfisted) back story and foreshadowing events of TOS. It very much does appeal to nostalgia in and of the legacy characters, and the ways it references TOS. Unnecessarily so, IMO.
On the movie side of things, almost every film made or announced to be in development post-TNG have centred squarely on the TOS crew.
So I think it's natural for OP, upon watching SNW s1, to get the impression that Star Trek is retreating into nostalgic fan service. But for the most part, Disco did the opposite, paving the way for SFA as well.
The Section 31 one-shot was... a lot of things, but that didn't dwell on past lore either. The machine gun fire of deep cut references had Lower Decks walk a tightrope between nostalgia and mining a vast canon for its own purposes. I think it succeeded toward the latter.
Star trek as a whole is doing a less stellar (sorry) balancing act. There appears to be suits involved with the franchise, as well as creative staff, who need to have the TOS cobwebs shaken out of their heads, so the show can be allowed to grow without recasting Spock and Kirk every decade.
Yes thanks, I forgot all of the Spock and Pike stuff was S2, not S1. Also I apparently forgot Section 31 existed!
That's a personal life goal for me.