With all due respect, TOS is hands-down my favorite Star Trek series, and the only one of which I have watched every single episode, more than once. I'll stand by what I said: the utopian futurism of the show was there from the very beginning. TNG may have extrapolated (some of) it further, but it didn't originate it and it most assuredly wasn't a retcon. There are plenty of people who were fans before 1987 who can testify to this.
It was clear that the Federation was a society built around egalitarianism and freedom. Nationalism has been left in the past, as had material scarcity and the vices it engendered. People didn't work "for a living," they worked for personal satisfaction and self-realization. The Federation was clearly a post-capitalist society, without money, as Kirk himself mentioned in STIV:TVH (still before TNG). When you bring up examples like Harry Mudd or Cyrano Jones, the thing to remember about TOS is that the Enterprise was out at the frontier, dealing with societies that were not part of the Federation, whether by choice or because they hadn't yet had the chance to join, ranging from colonies and outposts to full-fledged interstellar governments. (The Federation had no death penalty, for instance — Talos IV aside — so if Deneb V did then it obviously wasn't a member.) These other societies certainly could and did have economies of their own, and it makes sense that "Federation credits" were what the UFP used when it had to trade with such societies, but that says nothing about how things were conducted within the UFP. We never even visited any of the homeworlds (except Vulcan, just once, for a ceremonial occasion).
I'm curious what example(s) you're thinking of there, because none spring to mind.
What you say makes a certain kind of nasty sense... but the more I thought about it, the more I decided that nothing we've seen of Cornwell makes her seem that ruthless and conniving. Disillusioned, yes, but that's not the same thing.
I don't remember Khan ever being described as the most terrible dictator in history, much less a genocidal one. On the contrary, in "Space Seed," Scotty admitted to "a sneaking admiration" for him and mentioned that "there were no massacres under his rule"; McCoy specified that there were "no wars until he was attacked"; and Kirk called him "the best of the tyrants." His rule wasn't known for freedom, true, but comparing him to a bloodthirsty maniac like Georgiou is ridiculous.
Great post, calling out some real whoppers in the storytelling. Unlike you I rather liked the Stamets/Tyler scene, but other than that I think you're on the money. This whole storyline has been a mess. I'm beginning to wonder if this show has any professional advisers or consultants on military affairs, government, or diplomacy, never mind the science stuff. TOS always had experts consulting on its stories, but with DSC, sometimes it seems like the writers are just making it all up as they go, with no reality checks at all.
You know, you were offering some interesting (if disquieting) speculations about the show's themes... until you suddenly went full MRA in the middle of the post. Yikes. Speaking as a guy (stereotypical straight white male American, no less), I can assure you that even deep down in my heart I would not commit genocide to end a war... and I'd hope that the vast majority of civilized human beings, male or female, would say the same thing.
There are lots of ways to find "the will to survive" that don't involve sacrificing what makes us human, and that's not "sanctimonious tripe" nor "politically correct." Really, that's a big part of what Star Trek has always been about.
Umm, no. The law remains the law, in wartime as in peacetime. That's true even today, and I can't imagine the Federation would be less civilized. Why do you imagine otherwise?
One certainly does hope so. Unfortunately, revealing it will presumably also mean Cornwell takes the fall for it, which will cost us another good recurring character, one who showed a lot of potential until she was saddled with this storyline.
I also flashed back to her holo-appearance on the bridge at first, before I recalled that was on the MU Shenzou. Probably a side-effect of the bridge sets looking so similar, with almost indistinguishable color schemes, lighting, and camera angles.
That said, putting this in perspective, it seems shamefully obvious that the last few episodes were written as they were... right down to the Emperor being mysteriously nameless to most denizens of the MU... specifically (and only) so the writers could set up this "twist" with MU Georgiou replacing her counterpart. Evidently they felt so strongly that this was a story worth telling that they carefully constructed previous events, however implausibly, just to make it possible. I can't say as I agree... so far, I find it gimmicky and offensive, and I'm hard-pressed to imagine what could happen next week to change that impression.
Can't agree at all. I find her boring, clichéd, and tiresome.
The fact that you're comparing this particular contrivance to some of the worst stories in the history of Star Trek says a lot about the level DSC is operating on here.
Nothing satisfies quite like a good charismatic Kirk speech!
