'Space Babies' was a classic RTD dumpster fire. It felt like a first draft and the exposition dump at the beginning was very badly done. The script editor should have pushed back hard on this one.
'The Devil's Chord' was better although hamstrung by the fact that they couldn't afford the rights to any Beatles music.
Ncuti and Millie have quickly established themselves and I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of the season brings.
I think 'The Devil in the Dark' from the Original Series would be a good option. As would "Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach" from Strange New Worlds.
I would have it run until Kirk takes over as captain. Then jump forward to just after The Motion Picture.
This not only gives them about a decade of time before TWOK that’s barely been touched by the screen canon, they can do a design revamp to freshen the series up using TMP as a starting point, and they handle the fact that with a series per year the actors are going to quickly age ahead of their characters.
It’s also been suggested in the beta canon that the Gorn are made up of multiple reptile variants. The ones in SNW seem to be raptor based. It’s possible the less agile more tank like variants might show up later.
La’An theorises the Gorn have a weapon capable of rendering their enemies blind by interfering with comms, sensors and transport. In TOS: “Arena”, they were capable of faking subspace transmissions to lure starships in.
In Arena while pinned down by the Gorn landing party, Kirk also mentions that communications are being interfered with.
TNG: 'Q Who'
DS9: 'In The Pale Moonlight'
Voyager: 'Scorpion'
Enterprise: 'Carbon Creek'
Discovery: 'Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad' or 'Die Trying'
(I also have a soft spot for parts of Picard season 1)
I think Star Trek is one of Paramount/CBS' more bankable franchises so will continue in some form. I think for the moment that will be on streaming. I don't think the movie format works particularly well given the size and ensemble nature of the cast.
As for the future, Discovery is closing out after S5. Not sure if they will try and spin something out of that. Maybe that rumored Star Fleet Academy series?
SNW will get another couple of seasons with Pike in command. After that I suspect it will continue with Kirk et al. If they are smart they will jump forward to the point just after The Motion Picture and pick up there. That gives them the opportunity to lean into The Motion Picture redesign to make it visually different from SNW and a fairly clear 5-10 years of timeline to fill before the red uniforms and ST:TWOK.
I think having 2-3 shows with 10 episodes a season and a season per year is probably the right balance.
Is that also the first 32nd Century Klingon we've seen?