I don't have a problem with Brains being Indian, in fact I think its quite funny and about time - it's the fact that it doesn't really redeem the reboot at all.
Charmless is a word I'd use to describe it - the characters are like robots, or dare I say it, "puppets", and the craft are no longer the "characters" they were in the original.
On the point of dramatic tension, if nothing else, Anderson was a great editor - that's how he started out, as an editor - and it's what gives the original series a sense of pace & excitement which is totally absent from the reboot.
