"Star Trek" as an abstract concept across franchises has always been a few things. It's always been about interesting, and generally likable, characters and a b

"Star Trek" as an abstract concept across franchises has always been a few things. It's always been about interesting, and generally likable, characters and a backdrop setting of extensive space exploration, a galaxy full of many civilizations and so forth. That's a comparatively small but still important part of Star Trek. Star Trek has always been a kind of anthology project similar to The Outer Limits or The Twilight Zone, except it has used a constant cast of characters and setting, which makes it easier to get to moments that have more significant impact on the viewer. You already know and are invested in the characters, and their different traits can be used to help tell the story. This is both the weakness and strength of Star Trek, leading to some of its worst but also some of its best stories, stories that show what literary SciFi is capable of achieving. TOS episodes like The City on the Edge of Forever, TNG episodes like The Inner Light or Chain of Command, DS9 episodes like Far Beyond the Stars, etc. Additionally, Star Trek has always had a strong set of progressive values (peace, reconcilliation, cooperation, honesty, etc.) and has used its story telling to further those values. It put a black woman and a Russian man on the bridge of the Enterprise during the height of the civil rights fight and the height of the Cold War. It's pushed progressive causes for decades, even when it was risky to do so within the confines of the television studio system. There was an episode of TNG that tackled issues of homosexuality and gender identity in the '90s, for example, and of course there's that famous interracial kiss on the original series. The new Trek seems to be substantially in the same vein here, though it's still a bit early to make a definitive call. The diversity of the cast is very nice to see, and the mixture of "episodic anthology show" and long-running plot is pretty well done and keeping with the tradition of Trek going back even to the original show. It'll take more episodes to see how good the show is ultimately, but so far it's doing pretty well.