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Don’t forget that the whole Federation is a post captialist utopia which is a political statement in itself.
I like this idea too but ST only partially supports it.
In ST, the only reason they’re ostensibly post capitalist is because they’ve solved the shortage problem. The replicator and anti-matter reactors are mulligans that get them a post capitalist world without making any social decisions. They don’t restructure their society or economy to create an alternate method to distribute limited resources, they just get unlimited resources. That limits the usefulness of the analogy because we’ll probably never achieve that.
Later on ST goes further and starts discussing several resources that are, in fact, limited. There’s “latinum” which really only exists as a post scarcity exception. It doesn’t really seem to have any uses but the scarcity is enough to drive the entire Ferengi economy and it’s valuable enough that people want to trade with them.
The much bigger exception is the scarcity of trilithium. The Federation fights wars over it the same way real world Earth powers fight over oil. It’s the scarce core resource powering their entire post-scarcity economy.
Don’t forget that the whole Federation is a post captialist utopia which is a political statement in itself.
Great point!
“‘No need for/Evolved past the need for money’ … yeah, wtf, lets just completely ignore that ever-present bit, it’s too scary & perverted to comprehend.”
- avg capitalists Trekkie (or “Trekkie”)
Star Trek is and always has been deeply and inherently political
People whined about black hobbits and elves.
I never understood that complaint about Star Trek. The series has ALWAYS been woke since the beginning.
Kinda like people complaining Rage Against the Machine becoming political.
Always has been.
No mebtion of space communism? The federation is Marxist
Real. Star trek isn’t woke, star trek is tankie
Nah because they din’t glorify authoritarian violence
Violence against the Borg is to be celebrated isn’t it?
That’s violence against authoritarians
Which is the only violence tankies celebrate: killing Nazis and hanging landlords and capitalist owners
Well
End-game socialist
I mean Sisko kind of does when he describes how the Bell riots have to take place before we unite as a planet and join the Federation
Is there a single episode without politics?
I liked Trek before Alex Kurzman stuck his filthy fingers in it and made entire franchise a steaming pile of dog shit.
Haha, true that.
But he tried.
Oh, OG Trek was woke AF, but it wasn’t done as ham-handed and hackey as what is happening now. It used to feed open-mindedness into everyone’s living room and was generally welcome to do so. What we have now is just slapping you in the face with its floppy cock of wokeness every chance it gets. There is now almost no actual plot other than that. Doctor Who is doing the exact same thing. Can nothing of my childhood just be left the fuck alone? I mean, yeah, represent the marginalized. Make female heroes, or transgender, or whatever and whoever you feel needs to be represented or empowered. Do all of that, but do you have to rewrite absolutely everything ever written to do it? Have an original thought. Honestly, at this point, it is just lazy writing masquerading as woke.
but it wasn’t done as ham-handed and hackey as what is happening now.
I’d also drag out Angel One from TNG. It’s the laziest way to write a matriarchy: everything is the same, except women are in charge instead of men.
I’m sure if we tried hard enough, we could find hackneyed, ham-handed episodes across all Star Trek shows.
For example, this attempt at discussing gender norms:
I think this is generally what I hear when it comes to “woke” media. I always chalk it up to media having no clue on how normal humans function in a society.
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Explain more about how your childhood is ruined by political messaging in checks notes
Modern Doctor Who and Star Trek. The best written and acted shows of all time, obviously.
it’s done plainly in reference to real life now, as opposed to being integrated seamlessly into the show. a good example would be the episode where the doctor had to erase his mind and Martha (a black woman) had to try and protect him while posing as his servant because it was the 1800s when they were stranded. this was still in real history (aliens aside) but was integrated as part of the plotline and not randomly mentioned with no context. a good example of when they get this wrong is the special with the meep where Donna’s daughter says something along the lines of “I’m nonbinary because the doctor-donna is binary” which doesn’t make sense in the story because the doctor-donna is binary due to Donna literally merging with the doctor, not gender identity. these things can be integrated well and when you do they only enhance the story by making it feel more realistic, but you have to make them fit the story, not the other way round.
“I’m nonbinary because the doctor-donna is binary”
My eyes rolled all the way to the back of my head when i saw this bit
I get what they were trying to do but it was such a cop out instead of writing an actual explanation.
That, or:
Your brain wasn’t fully developed because you were a child.
I rewatched the whole show just a couple months ago and I didn’t watch TV much as a kid so I only saw a handful of episodes then. this is my current, up to date opinion.
I like scifi. I like to explore the strange and push past the walls of reality. I like dangerous visions. Big ideas.
But interpersonal drama, identity-stroking and, yes, politics. It’s just weak and boring. It’s small. Damn small.
Do you see the difference?
Unfortunately the majority of people prefer the small stuff so that’s who they write for.
Scifi will always be a niche culture.
This popular stuff is not scifi. It’s the old dumb crap dressed up in spaceships and aliens.
Sometimes startrek goes big. Sometimes it doesn’t.
politics is all-encompassing, it can be as big or as small as anything else
You need good characters to make a good show regardless of the setting, and also to help the viewers relate to the “big” stuff going on around them.
Don’t get me wrong, I think I like the stuff you like. I’d happily watch a documentary about all the made up technology and new science & life they discover, with zero need for conflict or personal growth or “feelings” or whatever. But that wouldn’t be the TV show, which is experienced largely through the eyes of the crew.
If first interracial kiss on TV is Woke then I don’t wanna be anything but.
My favorite detail of the TNG episode “The Outcast” is that the writers were pushing for an episode that touched on sexuality but Rick Berman wouldn’t go for it. So the writers gave a figurative “fuck you” and wrote an episode on gender identity instead.
And while Berman was occupied holding TNG back the DS9 writers had enough freedom to use the Dax symbiote’s multiple lifetimes to explore sexuality instead.
Does anyone else remember that TNG had a recurring background character who was just a regular crewman but he always wore a Star Fleet dress or skirt that would just walk around in the background of scenes? He may have had heels as well, I can’t remember. Regardless I always thought it was neat that they never made a big deal out of it or a joke
Its a type of uniform called a Skant. It was TNG trying to make the TOS miniskirts unisex. It only lasted a couple seasons I think, but it’s gotten a couple callbacks on Lower Decks.
Trek on gender: “Don’t care, will smash” – Kirk & Ryker
PS: Memba when Ryker was captured by a pre-First Contact civ and he had to bribe a nurse with an alien kink with sex in order to escape? Pepperidge Farms remembers.
Of course I to, I fucking love that episode. I think the Nurse was Lilith from Frasier and the aunt from Jumanji? Questionable consent vibes aside that episode is hilarious and amazing
*“Will smash, won’t even think about care”
And even when Wesley momma didn’t want to smooch with the nice parasitic lady it was respectfully addressed.
(How or why was all that kept quiet in the first place just remained a barely plastered-over plot hole.)Wesley’s momma is more into banging ghosts and getting a face full of ectoplasm, especially if the ghost was also banging her grandma.
Lol, true!
I don’t know about woke but I liked Trek before it got boring and poorly written -_-
We have The Orville today for good Trek
I really tried to like that show but it’s just … Bad. To each their own but I’d rather just rewatch TNG or whatever other Star Trek. That show feels like it doesn’t have an identity, the writers couldn’t decide what kind of show they were writing and the acting is subpar.
Of course, if you enjoy it that’s all that really matters - keep on watching and having fun!
How far did you make it? Season 1 is a bit painful, Season 2 is better but Season 3 is a big shift.
Seth McFarland’s humor is not very good…
Season 3 was a surprise. They just played it straight. Went from parody to homage.
Not very far lol, a couple episodes to give it a fair shake though, do you have an episode recommendation?
Season 1 episode 10
If you don’t like it I don’t think you will care for the rest
Season 2 Episode 8-9 is a two part episode that is good but I wouldn’t recommend jumping into it because it’s not as good if you don’t care about the characters
Just echoing here that it does take awhile to get going.
Honestly, despite what I’m about to say below, I probably wouldn’t recommend it now (just on signal to noise ratio) if not for https://thecinemaholic.com/the-orville-season-4/ giving hope for more story, or unless you happened to be a superfan of Seth McFarlane.
My .02 -
Season 1 -
First reaction - wow this DOES feel like TNG.
Second reaction - WAY too much Family-Guy style humor.
I like humor in my scifi, and I like Family-Guy style humor (during its heyday anyhow). Season 1 episode 7 almost made me turn it off. No one trying to pay homage to trek should be writing in something like this as a first contact “mistake”. IMO in S1 we learned that Family-Guy style humor doesn’t always work in live action.
Season 2 - Better, but still trying to find the right blend. It’s been awhile now, but I think S2 got better and better over time and had some pretty good eps.
Season 3 - Really great, hit their stride, perfect blend of humor and drama, super disappointed when it was cancelled.
Season 4 - See link above. If they can recapture S3 vibes I’m excited for it, but I’m not 100% confident they will. Fingers crossed.
With all that said, if you are considering it at all, I’d just watch it all. That way you get the evolution of the show, the running gags, and don’t miss any significant bits that are sprinkled through, and you know all the road that has been traveled when they get to S4. It’s only three seasons and it’s not a long show. Yes, some of it is cringe, but so was some of the early seasons of TNG.
Thank you for the lengthy write up. You see though the problem with watching it all is I’d be watching it all… I do appreciate the time it must have taken for this reply though.
That clip on YouTube you linked was super cringe. Agree with you on TNG there’s definitely times and episodes where I think the writers phoned it in and I’m not going to pretend it’s all good. Still my favorite star trek but I don’t watch much so that’s not saying anything considering I haven’t even seen any of the new stuff.
Can’t stomach McFarlane unfortunately. I’m told it gets better later on but his sense of humor is just like nails on a chalkboard to me. Couldn’t get myself to finish the first season.
My partner and I have a theory that MacFarlane pitched The Orville as “Family Guy in space,” and he got to make it because of his success with Family Guy. But the actual goal he had all along was to make Star Trek.
In order to keep the game up and get a second season, he had to sell the pitch at least a bit. So the early episodes are like Star Trek with cringey Family Guy-esque jokes. But as the series goes on, the cringe stops, the jokes slow down, and the plots get deeper.
I can’t stand cringe humor and did not consider myself a fan of MacFarlane, but The Orville changed that.
That’s fair, the cartoon is apparently not bad, just not my cup of tea.
Lower Decks is my favorite Star Trek since DS9. When it came out though, I was super against it. Didn’t think Paramount had any right to be making fun of Star Trek after Discovery season 1. You can tell Lower Decks is made by people that love Star Trek though.
This last season, they did a classic Audience-with-the-Klingon-High-Council episode, and when I saw it, I exclaimed to my fiance, “Yes! I love Klingon bureaucracy episodes!” and then later in the episode, there was almost that exact same line
Strange New Worlds has been finding their feet too. We got a courtroom episode on Augment rights, that really felt Star Trek, and they’ve had some original stories as well that I’ve really loved, like Among the Lotus Eaters. There have been a couple episodes I haven’t been a fan of, but what Star Trek hasn’t had those?
If you’re open to it, I recommend giving both shows another chance!
Lower Decks and SNW are FANTASTIC and some of the best Trek in a very long time. Almost as good as The Orville ;)
Yeah it’s good and agreed that discovery is pure ass so It’s definitely a little bit of both
Yes, but that’s a reasonable take, so it gets drowned out.
True. We don’t have masterpieces like “Spock’s Brain” anymore. /S
Say what you want about TOS, it’s campy and silly but it’s not boring.
Even Platos Stepchildren, which everyone remembers for the first interracial kiss, was a pretty fucking terrible episode.
