>>149809191
I think the comedic nature of the show let them handle "everything is canon" better than a more traditional show could. And they got better stories out of it than what the "non-comedy" people were putting out.
I think if you knew and loved Trek enough to find things worth keeping in the Animated Series, you were a big enough Trek fan that you were going to stick true to the ideals. It took a while, but even goddamn Peanut Hamper, AGIMUS, and Badgey were won over by morality and redeemed. Meanwhile in Discovery, it turned out that Section 31 WASN'T a bunch of rogue actors creating a secret society of traitors, it was a legitimate secret branch of government, because "well obviously you have to jettison morals out the door to get things done, there's no way the Federation doesn't have a few hundred assassins on payroll, right?"