re: Why no new Star Trek tv series?

The main story arc is irrelevant. Star Trek just needs:

- A strong leader
- An alien or robot officer that the crew trusts completely but Star Fleet doesn't
- A hot chick officer
- A weekly threat, be it military foe, contentious first contact, space anomaly, or really weird and big alien mistaken for a space anomaly.
- Cool technology concept that the mainstream has never really seen in action before (transporter, replicator, holodeck)

This is not at all a dig at Star Trek, it's a good formula, especially when well executed.