Also an interesting comparison: bsg has several of the elements, harder sci-fi feel but with the supernatural, ensemble cast, dramatic bridge scenes, themes around the meaning of being human

And even when TNG is doing prophecy about ancient civilizations and origins of all humanoids, or when bsg is doing cool exploration mystery stuff, they've got almost opposite vibes.

Star Trek doesn't feel like a lot of other Science fiction programs because it is descended from soap operas.

Star Trek (like Space Patrol before it) took the large ensemble cast Soap Opera and stuck it in outer space.

This might feel untrue, because Star Trek:TOS is obviously not a soap opera, right?

But it has soap opera in it's DNA, because it is descended from Space Patrol and Tom Corbett Space Cadet which were absolutely Soap Operas.

Star Trek owes a ton of it's structure and setup to Space Patrol (etc) and from those roots it picked up a bunch of Soap Opera.

TNG was especially adept at doing character driven soap opera stuff while also doing SPACE Stuff, by often elevating the character driven stuff that would otherwise be the B plot to A plot status, and relegating the big SPACE stuff to the B plot.