I can respect the ways in which it (sometimes) tries to deliberately distinguish itself from TOS—e.g., there's an episode where this guy goes on about how the TNG bridge crew are like family, but it was funny to me because they seem so much more like friendly co-workers than the ride or die for a lifetime relationships of the TOS crew. The Picard-Riker and Picard-Troi relationships in particular feel so Normal Professionals after TOS. Data fills a sort of Spock-ish position and so does Troi, but neither of them are like him in fundamentals at all, Riker only resembles Kirk in the most superficial of ways, Picard isn't analogous to anyone at all, etc. And some things are genuinely better—I prefer TNG's handling of Klingon culture (helped by getting them out of brownface >_>), TNG understands how Pulaski can and needs to grow while still loving her in a way that TOS only sort of gets at with McCoy (tragically she's only in one season ;_;).
Unfortunately, I find it painfully very much less ambitious thematically (one might say politically!) than TOS almost across the board, in a very complacent 80s neoliberalism way. TOS episodes are not always aware of what issues they're really dealing with but usually are and, by the standards of that kind of show at the time pushed the envelope a lot harder than TNG, IMO. A bunch of TNG episodes seem bizarrely oblivious to the real social issues created by their own premises and hyper-individualized in a deeply frustrating way), with very much more of Roddenberry being high on his own fumes. I enjoy plenty of episodes, but they feel much more tightly linked to the TOS movies than TOS itself in ... vision, I guess, and there's a lot that's just really difficult to reconcile to TOS at all.
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Unfortunately, I find it painfully very much less ambitious thematically (one might say politically!) than TOS almost across the board, in a very complacent 80s neoliberalism way. TOS episodes are not always aware of what issues they're really dealing with but usually are and, by the standards of that kind of show at the time pushed the envelope a lot harder than TNG, IMO. A bunch of TNG episodes seem bizarrely oblivious to the real social issues created by their own premises and hyper-individualized in a deeply frustrating way), with very much more of Roddenberry being high on his own fumes. I enjoy plenty of episodes, but they feel much more tightly linked to the TOS movies than TOS itself in ... vision, I guess, and there's a lot that's just really difficult to reconcile to TOS at all.