The Dismal Frontier (Thinkpiece on Discovery, Star Trek and Utopian Science Fiction)
- Thread starter Donker
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I've said before, it's a mistake to assume that Discovery is a dark and cynical show. It may seem that way at first, but so would DS9's Dominion War arc if you didn't stick around to the end. So would "Yesterday's Enterprise" or "The Best of Both Worlds" if you didn't stick around to the end. The season was one long story, and individual stories are usually pretty dark at first before the heroes finally save the day.
If anything, DSC turned out to be far less dark and more optimistic than it originally appeared. Lorca's decisions that seemed to be the hard compromises a decent person might have to make in an amoral universe turned out to be just the self-serving manipulations of an evil man, and they were defeated one after another by Starfleet heroes clinging to their optimistic principles and refusing to accept the need for moral compromise. And the final arc was almost a beat-for-beat rehash of the end of the Dominion War -- an amoral party (Section 31/Emperor Georgiou) pursues the genocide of the enemy with the reluctant complicity of Starfleet's admiralty, but the heroes reject the genocide and find a better way to peace by reaching out to a representative of the enemy (the Female Shapeshifter/L'Rell) and making a deal with her. But the DSC version is actually more optimistic, because it shows Starfleet (in the person of Cornwell) actually being won over by the heroes' idealistic arguments, rather than just standing back and letting it happen.
One could certainly make the case that DSC is more violent than its predecessors, by virtue of being a TV-14/TV-MA series on a pay broadcast service. But The Wrath of Khan crossed that bridge 36 years ago, with all its bloodsoaked battle scenes and gruesome ear invasions and such. And DS9 was a lot more violent than TOS as well, at least in terms of onscreen depictions. In any case, it's a separate issue from whether the themes and message of the show are intrinsically pessimistic. Optimistic storytelling requires serious threats for the heroes' optimism to triumph over.
What? That makes no sense. First off, Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts have been showrunners on multiple series before DSC, including Pepper Dennis, Mercy, GCB, and Revenge. Second, they have been collaborators with Bryan Fuller on previous projects including Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies. The whole reason they were hired for DSC is because of that close association with Fuller, and they were the natural choices to replace him and continue what he'd started.
Third, after Fuller left, Akiva Goldsman was brought in as an executive producer to fill the void -- not as the showrunner, but as a major creative voice in the production. And Goldsman is a massive Trek fan. So lack of fans in the production staff is not the problem. Honestly, one of my biggest problems with DSC is that it's too fannish, too dependent on rehashing plot elements and characters from TOS rather than telling its own new stories.
If anything, DSC turned out to be far less dark and more optimistic than it originally appeared. Lorca's decisions that seemed to be the hard compromises a decent person might have to make in an amoral universe turned out to be just the self-serving manipulations of an evil man, and they were defeated one after another by Starfleet heroes clinging to their optimistic principles and refusing to accept the need for moral compromise. And the final arc was almost a beat-for-beat rehash of the end of the Dominion War -- an amoral party (Section 31/Emperor Georgiou) pursues the genocide of the enemy with the reluctant complicity of Starfleet's admiralty, but the heroes reject the genocide and find a better way to peace by reaching out to a representative of the enemy (the Female Shapeshifter/L'Rell) and making a deal with her. But the DSC version is actually more optimistic, because it shows Starfleet (in the person of Cornwell) actually being won over by the heroes' idealistic arguments, rather than just standing back and letting it happen.
One could certainly make the case that DSC is more violent than its predecessors, by virtue of being a TV-14/TV-MA series on a pay broadcast service. But The Wrath of Khan crossed that bridge 36 years ago, with all its bloodsoaked battle scenes and gruesome ear invasions and such. And DS9 was a lot more violent than TOS as well, at least in terms of onscreen depictions. In any case, it's a separate issue from whether the themes and message of the show are intrinsically pessimistic. Optimistic storytelling requires serious threats for the heroes' optimism to triumph over.
What? That makes no sense. First off, Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts have been showrunners on multiple series before DSC, including Pepper Dennis, Mercy, GCB, and Revenge. Second, they have been collaborators with Bryan Fuller on previous projects including Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies. The whole reason they were hired for DSC is because of that close association with Fuller, and they were the natural choices to replace him and continue what he'd started.
Third, after Fuller left, Akiva Goldsman was brought in as an executive producer to fill the void -- not as the showrunner, but as a major creative voice in the production. And Goldsman is a massive Trek fan. So lack of fans in the production staff is not the problem. Honestly, one of my biggest problems with DSC is that it's too fannish, too dependent on rehashing plot elements and characters from TOS rather than telling its own new stories.
Well at least one of the writers is a Star Trek fan, and has written several Trek novels
This seems about right.
Anyway, I'd hope that TNG would be more "evolved" or put more effort into the appearance of it than DSC, since it takes place later, and not the other way around.
The belief that only a "die-hard fan" can be a good Trek showrunner is just fan egotism and doesn't make any sense. Fans are consumers, not creators. Creation and enjoyment are opposite ends of the process and they have different requirements. I don't care how much my airplane pilot loves flying, I care how much they've studied flying. I don't care how much the chef at a restaurant I patronize enjoys eating, I care how much training they have at cooking. Fandom is irrelevant to skill. Sure, understanding the work is important, but you don't have to be a fan already to gain an understanding of a work, because you can learn. It's expected of any professional hired to do a job that they study and research and practice and learn how to do the job. Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer weren't Trek fans, but they researched the job they were hired for and learned everything they could about Trek before they made their movie. And most people liked how it turned out.
Indeed, it can be a bad thing for a professional to let their fandom get in the way of their work. Superman Returns was a disappointment because it was Bryan Singer making a Richard Donner fan film instead of making Bryan Singer's Superman. Steven Moffat's Doctor Who has been good in many ways, but has also suffered from the showrunner's excessive fannishness -- his glorification of the lead character, his overdependence on fanfiction-type deconstructions and continuity games, etc. Doing good professional work requires the ability to self-criticize and kill your darlings, but fandom is about feeding and pampering your darlings. So I don't want "die-hard fans" creating my shows. I want die-hard professionals creating them, so that I can be the fan.
Indeed, it can be a bad thing for a professional to let their fandom get in the way of their work. Superman Returns was a disappointment because it was Bryan Singer making a Richard Donner fan film instead of making Bryan Singer's Superman. Steven Moffat's Doctor Who has been good in many ways, but has also suffered from the showrunner's excessive fannishness -- his glorification of the lead character, his overdependence on fanfiction-type deconstructions and continuity games, etc. Doing good professional work requires the ability to self-criticize and kill your darlings, but fandom is about feeding and pampering your darlings. So I don't want "die-hard fans" creating my shows. I want die-hard professionals creating them, so that I can be the fan.
Uh, yeah...what causes you to imagine that people are "assuming" anything?
The whole "not Trek fans" thing is secondary. My main point is that similar to the first two seasons of TNG, it seems as though no one really has final authoritative word. There's apparently been a fair amount of behind-the-scenes drama, a lot of writer turnover already, and different EPs act as the public spokespeople (sometimes Kurtzman, sometimes Berg/Harberts). In addition, the seeming lack of coordination between the writers room, directors, and the effects folks suggests everyone is just sort of doing their own thing without a steady hand guiding it. And there's no way to look at the way the season ended and not come away with the feeling they were basically winging it. Even if there was a master plan to disassemble the priors of Trek bit by bit, I'd be along for the journey more, because I would feel like there was more of a journey than just boldly going for a decent CBS All Access subscription level.
Every show these days has lots of executive producers. Usually you have one EP who's the boss of the whole production company, and other EPs who are the showrunners for the individual shows from that company. For instance, Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter are in overall charge of all Berlanti Productions shows, but each one has its own showrunner(s), e.g. Todd Helbing for The Flash and Phil Klemmer for Legends of Tomorrow. Shonda Rhimes is in charge of the Shondaland production company, but every one of the many Shondaland shows has its own separate showrunners. Similarly, Alex Kurtzman and Heather Kadin are in charge of Secret Hideout Productions, and each individual show SHP makes has its own showrunners. It's all very hierarchical, like if the individual showrunners are starship captains and the EP of the production company is the admiral they all report to. This is utterly normal for modern TV.
In fact, it's been normal for longer than that -- like how Herb Solow was the Desilu exec in charge of Star Trek (run by Gene Roddenberry/Fred Freiberger), Mission: Impossible (run by Bruce Geller/Bruce Lansbury), and Mannix (run by Geller, as far as I can tell). The difference now is that the TV industry has become an organized system for cultivating writer/producers and promoting them through the hierarchy, from staff writer through various tiers of producer to showrunner of a single show at a time and ultimately to the head of a production company overseeing multiple shows. The fact that it's the same people getting promoted through that hierarchy can make laypeople confused about their relative status. But it's all a very orderly and well-established system with a clear pecking order. Berg and Harberts are the bosses of Discovery, Kurtzman and Kadin are the bosses of the company that makes it.
I'll agree there were some first-season growing pains exacerbated by the staff changes, but TNG's first season had far worse problems, and it recovered pretty well from those. Lots of shows have rough first years and then find their voices in the second.
My deepest fear with DIS is if CBS is serious about the rumored Pike show, then DIS will become irrelevant. Why do I say that? First, because CBS will likely learn from its mistakes with DIS, and the Pike show would have a far less tumultuous first season, and likely be a better product as a result. But that's also because there will be relatively little to distinguish between a show set on Pike's Enterprise and Discovery. They're both Federation ships. They both are set during the same period in Trek history. DIS has already abandoned its initial attempt at a "lower decks" perspective and has decided to focus on bridge crew. Maybe they can make the characters more compelling on DIS in the coming seasons, but I'm seeing this as a "three and done" series right now.
Since there's no substance whatsoever to these rumors (fan conjecture only), I'd say you have very little to worry about. I doubt this would be their plan, for all the reasons you've outlined, unless they are indeed starting to lean toward an anthology approach as originally envisioned by Fuller. If that's the case (and perhaps for the better), no single iteration of modern CBSAA Trek will be in it for the long haul.
Key word: "rumored." "Rumored" means it's not worth taking seriously. There have been hundreds of utterly ridiculous rumors about Star Trek over the decades. (My favorite was the one where Lindsay Wagner was going to be Captain Janeway. That would've been really cool. But that one came out within weeks of the rumor that they'd abandoned their search for a female lead altogether.)
Of course there is -- the characters. People forget that part of the reason NBC passed on "The Cage" is that its characters were kind of bland. And what personality traits they did have were just repackaged as the TOS cast. First-season Kirk, as written, was essentially Pike with his name changed. McCoy was Boyce with his name changed. Only the actors made them different. Spock absorbed Number One's stoicism and genius when that character was dropped. And Tyler and Garison were complete non-entities. A Pike-centric show would have nothing to offer that TOS didn't already give us. But DSC offers much richer and more distinctive characters in Burnham, Saru, Stamets, and Tilly.
You've got some great points in here, and I'm sorry but I'm going to pull it apart a bit so I don't miss any.
My larger point is that the GR's vision has changed over the years,
Also, we have seen one DSC admiral. Perhaps she is an anomaly?
No, not in DSC's case. It must be dismantled and never spoken of again /s
The idea that DSC somehow introduced dark to Star Trek is one that I find insubstantial. If any thing, there has been enough fan comments, productions, and the like showcasing an interest in some darker ideas.
Yes, but there are credits in TOS.
It is the serialized storytelling. A better example is Kirk moving from TSFS to TUC. I know you mention below not to mention it, but it's there. I'm not generally an advocate of ignoring things in a series I don't like.
The pilot was the pilot and GR got a rather unprecedented opportunity to do a second pilot. Yay, hair splitting
My larger point is that the GR's vision has changed over the years,
Sorry, Admiral Necheyev still wanted genocide on the Borg.
Also, we have seen one DSC admiral. Perhaps she is an anomaly?
So did DSC. As long as they try, right?
No, not in DSC's case. It must be dismantled and never spoken of again /s
The larger point is that Star Trek fandom is diverse, and that article went claimed that fans want utopianism and less dark. Well, the answer is, "No, not all fans." There are fans around here who clamor for a series where the Federation becomes more dystopian and splinter apart.
The idea that DSC somehow introduced dark to Star Trek is one that I find insubstantial. If any thing, there has been enough fan comments, productions, and the like showcasing an interest in some darker ideas.
The pilot was the pilot and GR got a rather unprecedented opportunity to do a second pilot. Yay, hair splitting
Not nearly as unprecedented as people think:
http://startrekfactcheck.blogspot.com/2016/04/second-pilot-episodes-before-star-trek.html
But yes, you're right that calling something a pilot has nothing to do with whether it succeeds or fails -- as evidenced by all the thousands of failed pilots out there in TV history. (They used to repackage those as episodes of anthology shows. Later on, in the '70s or '80s, they'd sometimes do "Showcase" specials in the summer where they'd burn off two hourlong failed pilots in a movie-of-the-week time slot.)
Yeah, it's like they never heard of Deep Space Nine.
I dunno. I felt like DIS was starting to build some good character work in act 1, but totally botched it in the second act, where they basically degraded into plot devices.
- The whole MU arc and two-part finale didn't really help develop Burnham at all, except arguably in the last 20 minutes or so. Her arc felt like it was moving somewhere at the end of Episode 9, and then the series essentially tortured her emotionally for five and a half episodes, with little in the way of resulting character growth.
- Saru was great, but I put it all on the shoulders of Doug Jones, and perhaps to a lesser degree the directors. His scripted lines, as read on the page, were 90% generic XO dialogue.
- Stamets was my favorite character initially, but he devolved into little more than plot device during the end run. His boisterous, positive attitude in many scenes after Culber's death in particular was just all kinds of wrong.
- I'm someone who likes Tilly as a character, I think Mary Wiseman did a great job with her, and she added some levity as a character to heavy episodes. However, they very obviously kept having to come up with contrived ways to explain how this cadet was being featured in every single episode. It would have been better if they decided what sort of story they wanted to tell about Tilly, and built an arc around her, rather than deciding their arc, and awkwardly shoving Tilly into it.
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You've got some great points in here, and I'm sorry but I'm going to pull it apart a bit so I don't miss any.
Yes, but there are credits in TOS.
It is the serialized storytelling. A better example is Kirk moving from TSFS to TUC. I know you mention below not to mention it, but it's there. I'm not generally an advocate of ignoring things in a series I don't like.
The pilot was the pilot and GR got a rather unprecedented opportunity to do a second pilot. Yay, hair splitting
My larger point is that the GR's vision has changed over the years,
Sorry, Admiral Necheyev still wanted genocide on the Borg.
Also, we have seen one DSC admiral. Perhaps she is an anomaly?
So did DSC. As long as they try, right?
No, not in DSC's case. It must be dismantled and never spoken of again /s
The larger point is that Star Trek fandom is diverse, and that article went claimed that fans want utopianism and less dark. Well, the answer is, "No, not all fans." There are fans around here who clamor for a series where the Federation becomes more dystopian and splinter apart.
The idea that DSC somehow introduced dark to Star Trek is one that I find insubstantial. If any thing, there has been enough fan comments, productions, and the like showcasing an interest in some darker ideas.
I agree to an extent with some of this, but..
The pilot wasn’t seen by Trek fans for a long time. Not tha majority anyway...beyond it’s splices I to The Menagerie.
The Borg genocide proposals were always something that were never carried out...for a reason. It’s also a bad comparison because the Borg are like an existential threat, a force of nature, the Klingons...aren’t. Narratively they serve different functions.
The dark in Trek...well...Ds9 does it with balance and flair. That’s the important difference. The mix is different. But the mix is different on TV in general now.
Bad as fans think it was, TNG's first year was massively more successful and creative than STD's. This is why it became a hit immediately, became a bigger hit quickly, and is still fondly remembered and discussed now - all on a scale that STD can't come anywhere near.
Completely agree. There are some good episodes in TNG season 1 “the battle”, “the neutral zone”, “heart of glory”, “arsenal of freedom”, “conspiracy” are some of my fav’s. Ok then there’s the one where they go to the racist planet and the one where they blatantly violate the prime directive by going to the aryan planet, but those seem like holdovers from the TOS days as many of the staffers were from the olden days. But compared to DSC, season 1 of TNG was a veritable fountain of good ideas (see who I quoted there? That was a reference on the level of the kind seen in DSC). I’d far sooner sit and watch old TNG episodes from season 1 than episodes from DSC - which I struggle to separate into distinct episodes if I’m honest. Granted s1 of DSC is more consistent in terms of quality than s1 of, say, ENT, which I think is all over the place, but I’m not inspired by it atm.
Relating all this back to the article in the original post, I think the one thing that is missing from DSC is the sense of hope and, dare I say it, fun of exploration that comes with, well, Discovery. And no, I don’t think Michael’s sanctimonious speech before the starfleet council counts in that regard. Maybe s2 will be better when Michael grows a beard.
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My larger point is simply GR's vision shifted and it wasn't always idealistic or optimistic in every outcome.
I agree that the mix on TV is different, and DSC is still finding its path in that environment. My struggle is largely that it will be condemned for things that Trek has done in the past.
I can watch DSC Season 1 multiple times over. While there are good episodes in TNG Season 1, on the whole, I have a hard time getting through it. A very hard time. I know because I tried to re-watch TNG on Netflix starting from the beginning. I probably should've just started my re-watch with Season 3 but it feels like cheating...
... so I've tried re-watching TNG three times. All three times, I couldn't make it passed somewhere in Season 1. The second and third time, I tried to give myself a leg up by starting where I stopped the last time. Still no luck. There'll be a good episode, then I'll hit one or two or three that I think are complete shit and I end up giving up again.
It's Picard. I cannot get past Picard in that first season.
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