I'm still enjoying the show quite a bit, but I'm still confused as to what the hell people were expecting out of it. It's
Star Trek, a franchise that (mostly) collapsed under its own weight & self importance ages ago, what we had left were a few wonderful gems among a sea of either bland or dreadful sci-fi, with little respect for its own continuity most of the time.
I expected to find either the self-righteous smug moral certainty you could find in the likes of TNG, Voy or ENT, or just the general bland recycled science fiction plots that Trek had been serving for decades. Someone earlier said something to the effect of "
were expectations really that low ?", my answer to that is yes.
What we got is far from perfect, and can get downright facepalming at times, and in places it tries to overcompensate for Trek's own history, but I don't find it particularly infuriating like many people do. And it's hell of a lot better than what I was expecting. Does that mean it's good ? No, but I don't think it's dreadful either. Right now, I'm classifying it as "average with shiny effects", which is enough to keep me watching for now.
As for The Expanse, I had planned to watch it eventually but I had the choice between starting a show already two seasons in or finishing up Trek
Well, I'm sure if you'd asked around which one was better worth your time we would have told you which one to go for ^^. This is the kind of thing that happens when people remember that yeah, science fiction books are still a thing, and are where most of the really good ideas came from, originally.