SNW playing with the format we all know and love continues to pay off.
Trek has a very, very long history of the space anomaly of the week causing hijinks to ensue. And these hijinks were epic. Especially considering the sheer amount of raw broadway-class talent SNW has.
And the foreshadowing with the drinking-song-belting, sea-shanty-and-opera-loving Klingons getting pissed off about the “we have to sing everything” bit was hilarious (and Pike’s “WTF” face was the icing!)
Not every episode has to be about something. In fact most of them aren’t, they’re all one-offs. They go to a thing, some problems happen, they solve those problems. It can be thrilling, scary, intriguing, or silly.
None of these grand arc stories where every moment of every episode is so important that if you blink you’ll be lost for the rest of the show. None of these “very special message” episodes either. Just random space adventures most of the time. It worked in the 60s and it’s working today.