I’ll start by saying I loved the musical episode. Don’t think it would, but I was very wrong. Watching season 4 now, and I have to wonder, are they just making the show all gimmick episodes now? Each episode isn’t bad on its own, but I really wish they would get back to telling Star Trek stories.
I’m enjoying them very much. I can see why they wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea. But to my mind they’re still Star Trek episodes, they just have another genre’s filter over them. Most of them share pretty standard Star Trek episode premises, they’re just borrowing flavour from some other genre.