Kind of yeah, but Gene Roddenberry used allegories like the half black and half white dudes who hated each other - which took more effort than having characters just walk around in the present saying, "Wow, look at all the social injustice."
Roddenberry was both a genuinely progressive guy and an extremely 20th century man. "In the future we're going to cure disease and hunger and everyone of all races and creeds will work together there's gonna be a black woman, an asian guy, a Russian and an alien with funny ears on the bridge all working as a team and the women will all wear wrist length gogo dresses and there's gonna be an episode where the crew is utterly baffled at the very concept of racism. We're gonna paint some actors with half of their faces white and half of their faces black and they're gonna be really horrible to each other and when asked why they're gonna say "They're white on the left side and we're white on the right side" and it's gonna make racism sound really dumb."
I struggle to have a problem with a guy whose message is "Systematic hatred is extremely bad and stupid, let's look at sexy legs instead."
As transparent as Gene's little parables were, I vastly prefer that method of social commentary over just saying "They certainly were unenlightened in the early 21st century weren't they - shame on them!"
IMO Picard season 1 is fantastic and season 2 has some embarrassingly awkward social justice preaching but a good story about the Borg queen. Haven't seen season 3 or Below Decks yet.
Hey, i'm an old fart and guess how many times i heard people say that exact same shit about TNG? The pussy version of trek, nothing like its predecessor, all they do is talk about their emotions!
Your friend clearly does not appreciate the Picard maneuver of straightening the shirt, or the Riker maneuver of throwing one leg over the chair to sit
LOL I think it was only after about 3 episodes of season 1. He was very down on the whole idea of revamping Star Trek with new characters. I have to admit I wish they hadn't kept reusing the ship name Enterprise. Voyager breaking that pattern was a good thing.