It's taken me time to get there, but I've ultimately come to agree with Roddenberry's central principle for the show, which is his very optimistic, even utopian vision for the future or humanity. That's what makes it work for me, and it remains a rare premise for sci-fi. But that's a huge challenge for writers, who need jeopardy, conflict, and tragedy to maintain interest in the story and to make it relatable. On the TNG Blu-Ray extras the writers constantly talk about this tension between the demands of writing a show people actually want to watch and maintaining Roddenberry's vision.
You can still have darkness in this imagined world, but it needs to be conceptualized as bad things happening in a universe that is, on balance, good. Not cartoonishly good, but always hopeful. Many of humanity's major problems have been mostly solved. I think DS9 stays just on the right side of this. TNG is much more positive (probably the most positive Trek?) but has some pretty dark moments. Other shows have not been so successful at doing 'dark' Trek, or fall into more stereotypical Hollywood movie tropes that don't feel like Trek (the reboot movie series is like that for me).
These days entertainment seems to have a particular talent for wallowing in negativity. We suspect anything portrayed in a feel-good way to be some kind of advertisement or propaganda, or just lightweight. And with good reason! But, ultimately, I want something I can watch that allows me to let down my guard and isn't some kind of satire or cynically dystopian commentary. There is plenty of good (and a lot of bad) sci fi that does the latter, but Roddenberry's approach remains quite rare.
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