Star Trek: Discovery, season 2-4

Is season 2 better, or does it merely feel so because it embraces the familiar (captain pike and spock)? Are the returning regulars becoming characters we really care about? STD is watchable, because of quality dialogue and acting, but...the fact that the most exciting moment of the season comes in TOS flashbacks, is telling (that potential fizzles, however). The most disappointing moment of the season comes in the finale. It's obvious they saved a lot of budget for the visuals, but the grand action feels forced, and the pulse-pounding score an unearned manipulation. Having the season's overarching villain be a one-dimensional alien AI, dehumanizes the proceedings (TNG and BSG made artificial life so humyn it hurt, so it IS possible).
Once again, the show is hamstrung by being more serial than episodic. Serial can work for TREK (ENTERPRISE season 3), but perhaps only for a season at most. Too much of what makes TREK special is storytelling and social relevance, and it's harder to facilitate those in a serial format, where everything becomes more diluted. Yes, we appreciate the strides this show makes in dismantling both heteronormativity and the devaluation of non-attractive wimyn. But at this point, that's not enough. Give us something ahead of the curve, not directly on it, on terrain any second-rate show might tread.
Boldness, TREK. The interracial kiss! The russian on the bridge at the height of the Cold War! A ship with a female bridge crew! Or a non-violent manifesto! Or the first non-hierarchical Starfleet vessel! This ain't rocket science, kids - get off your asses and DO it, wouldja?
STD's glamorized violence is a step in the wrong direction (leave that crap to the other STAR franchise). For all roddenberry's failings, the last TREK to go boldly was TNG's ferengi-swipe at capitalism.
I can't muster enough enthusiasm for episode reviews. Has any STD cracked this reviewer's franchise-wide marathons? Not even close.
STAR TREK: DISCOVERY. Not awful!

Season 3...more of the same. Best characters of the series? Tilly and tig.

Season 4...perhaps the most legitimate sci fi Trek has assayed in a long time, as the Federation struggles to communicate with aliens...you can tell that the writers consulted scientists on what that challenge might REALLY be like. But still, not a single post-abrams episode worth adding to the ultimate trekathons.