then they’ll slap a Trek skin over an Ursula K Le Guin short story

To be fair, it's a story I think should work very well with a Trek skin. It's a simple but poignant ethical dilemma, and there are plenty of interesting ways to rebut or expand on it if you wanted to give it a twist. It's short enough to be adapted into an episode comfortably. How they failed to stick the landing on that one is beyond me.

Thee biggest problem with the show is Captain Seth McFarlane who drags down every episode he’s in. He’s written as a sympathetic sexpest, it’s just afwul. Whenever you get an episode about him, he’s just begging to be back with his ex and being pathetic.

You're absolutely right, but it's both amusing and shocking to me that this was the real problem with his character. Like surely the self-insert character so the family guy-guy, not a career actor, can play out the fantasy of every nerd would either be embarrassingly "bad ass" or terribly acted (or likely both)?

Instead he's too pathetic and gross but honestly surprisingly well acted. I ended up thinking I could actually like Seth McFarlane playing a captain, just not writing one.