I got into Star Trek by watching random Voyager episodes whenever they happened to be on TV. It’s from the same era as SG-1 and is overall pretty close to what an “average” Star Trek show would be IMO. You can give it a try if TNG doesn’t click with you for some reason. Or go with SNW if you want something that’s currently airing with new episodes being made - every other “current” Star Trek show has either finished production or not aired yet.

A hot dish? Sounds like Minnesota

The Androrians had left too, but the Tellarites hadn’t. It’s a fascinating thing for the writers to throw in there, considering that there aren’t any Tellarites involved with the story, and I’m intrigued as to what that says about their society and about the Federation in that time period.

That’s a good point about the Borg not using telepathy, etc. Perhaps the large mass of existing Borg have a bias towards the usefulness of such abilities that the collective, when acting as one mind, is not really able to self-interrogate? If so, that could be considered one of their major weaknesses.