The Dismal Frontier (Thinkpiece on Discovery, Star Trek and Utopian Science Fiction)

[Mudd]

Well, the main defense of STD has been that its first year was the most "tonally consistent" of any Trek premiere season. No arguments there...

 

[Christopher]

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.

I assume by the former you mean "Code of Honor," which was written by Katharyn Powers. She never worked on TOS; her earliest TV work was on Kung Fu in 1973-4. She would go on to write for Stargate SG-1 and was responsible for its worst episode, "Emancipation," though she did some more decent ones too (and I think she created the Asgard, but was not responsible for the eventual revelation that they were "Gray" aliens).

By "Aryan planet" I'm guessing you mean "Justice," which was based on an outline by TOS's first story editor John D.F. Black, but was so massively rewritten by Worley Thorne (not a TOS veteran, though he did write an outline for the abortive Phase II revival) that Black used a pseudonym on it. Black's proposal was for a much darker story about rebels fighting tyranny but turning out to be just as tyrannical themselves. The only bit of it that survived was the idea of instant-death punishment zones. (And I'd bet that Roddenberry was the one who suggested changing it to a hedonist sex planet.)

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'm not sure that you can really compare them that way, since DSC was basically telling one long story, so it didn't have as many distinct ideas to offer as a season of TNG did. The problem with serialized TV is that if you don't like the story being told, you have to wait until the next season for another one, whereas in episodic TV you just have to wait a week. (Well, DSC did take that midseason swerve into a seemingly unrelated Mirror Universe storyline, but it turned out to be integral to the season arc after all.)

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.

Well, they were stuck with Fuller's Klingon-war idea. For season 2, they can start fresh.

 

[Kor]

I agree that the writer of the article makes the mistake of viewing all of Star Trek franchise through a TNG-tinted lens, as if TNG is the standard-bearer for the franchise. It isn't. TOS, the true Star Trek, didn't have the fairy tale Utopian universe of TNG. It presented rough-and-tumble life out on the wild frontier, a thousand light years from headquarters, with all kinds of flawed characters and bleak situations.

At the same time, TOS is an entertaining joy, an absolute blast to watch, and I find myself revisiting many episodes over and over again; while DSC is just a ponderous chore that I sit through merely to keep abreast of the Trek universe, and have not had the slightest inkling to re-watch at all.

Kor

 

[Gepard]

and I think she created the Asgard, but was not responsible for the eventual revelation that they were "Gray" aliens).

Wiki says that she wrote both Thor's Hammer and Thor's Chariot, so if she's responsible for the one, I would assume she can be credited with the other.

 

[AlanC9]

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.

Well, yeah, the Klingons weren't planning to outright exterminate Federation species. (Although neither were the Borg, technically.)

What would the fate of conquered Federation members have been? Trek's always been a little vague about how things work for the non-Klingons within Klingon borders. Caste system? Indentured servitude? Something else entirely?

 

[Groppler Zorn]

I can watch DSC Season 1 multiple times over.

I wish I could I really wanted to like it more than I do. Hopefully season 2 will do more for me.

It's Picard. I cannot get past Picard in that first season

The scene in “farpoint” where he asks Beverley if they can be friends is some of the finest acting I’ve ever seen /s
(In truth I tend to agree that Picard had some development to do character-wise!)

I assume by the former you mean "Code of Honor," which was written by Katharyn Powers. She never worked on TOS

I didn’t know that, thanks! I really need to start doing better research before posting things! Haha!

Black's proposal was for a much darker story about rebels fighting tyranny but turning out to be just as tyrannical themselves. The only bit of it that survived was the idea of instant-death punishment zones. (And I'd bet that Roddenberry was the one who suggested changing it to a hedonist sex planet.)

That wouldn’t surprise me - the bts stuff has an interview with berman where he says that they got to drool over a “bevvy of babes” when casting that episode. True Star Trek ideals it seems... (and besides I’m sure there’s a prime directive violation in that episode as the people on the planet aren’t warp capable... canon seems to go “shh we’re not going to talk about that...” in relation to that episode!)

 

[AlanC9]

... 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.

Have you found a TNG starting point which works?

 

[Kor]

I wish I could I really wanted to like it more than I do. Hopefully season 2 will do more for me.


The scene in “farpoint” where he asks Beverley if they can be friends is some of the finest acting I’ve ever seen /s
(In truth I tend to agree that Picard had some development to do character-wise!)


I didn’t know that, thanks! I really need to start doing better research before posting things! Haha!


That wouldn’t surprise me - the bts stuff has an interview with berman where he says of that episode that they got to drool over a “bevvy of babes” when casting that episode. True Star Trek ideals it seems... (and besides I’m sure there’s a prime directive violation in that episode as the people on the planet aren’t warp capable... canon seems to go “shh we’re not going to talk about that...” in relation to that episode!)

The stuff about having no contact with pre-warp species came later.

Kor

 

[Lord Garth]

Have you found a TNG starting point which works?

Season 3 is the best starting point, which is what I should've done. Maybe Season 2. But I know if I don't get Season 1 out of the way I'd never go back to it.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

The stuff about having no contact with pre-warp species came later.

Kor

In real life or in-universe? I think we’re supposed to assume that the PD was always like that in-universe, but yeh it took them til at least s2 of TNG where Data contacts that little girl whose planet is dying (which is suspiciously like the opening of Into Darkness...) to figure out that warp capability is inherent to first contact situations. And then it’s explicitly stated in the episode “first contact” and then in the film “first contact” (I said first contact way too many times there).

It never seemed to be an issue in TOS where in many cases they beam down to a primitive planet in full starfleet regalia and they just said “ah we’re travelers from a far away land” (the PD translated to mean “don’t worry, be happy” haha!)

I imagine conversations between starfleet officers in the early 2370s where they reminisce about the old days where they could just beam down anywhere, make an excuse to the natives, and it was all fun and games. Now there’s all these rules and we’re not allowed to do this or that... takes all the fun out of exploring... but at least our uniforms aren’t made out of spandex any more.

 

[The Wormhole]

What do you think about argument made in the piece?

I made it as far as the part where they accuse William Shatner of being a terrible actor and decided that was all I needed to declare the article Crap.

 

[DS9-31]

TOS wasn't overly optimistic but it did have a spirit about it. If it wasn't for Tilly's kindness, DIS would have felt very cynical.

 

[Christopher]

In real life or in-universe? I think we’re supposed to assume that the PD was always like that in-universe, but yeh it took them til at least s2 of TNG where Data contacts that little girl whose planet is dying (which is suspiciously like the opening of Into Darkness...) to figure out that warp capability is inherent to first contact situations. And then it’s explicitly stated in the episode “first contact” and then in the film “first contact” (I said first contact way too many times there).

In fact, "Pen Pals" never mentions warp drive as a parameter, only awareness of "interstellar life." The episode "First Contact" (exactly halfway through TNG's run, as it happens) was the first time warp drive was ever proposed as the dividing point -- presumably because its writers assumed that you'd have to invent warp drive to make contact with alien life. Which I've always thought was silly, because there's such a thing as SETI and radio telescopes.

It never seemed to be an issue in TOS where in many cases they beam down to a primitive planet in full starfleet regalia and they just said “ah we’re travelers from a far away land”

Hey, it worked for the Coneheads. "We are from France!"

... but at least our uniforms aren’t made out of spandex any more.

Velour, actually.

 

[Ometiklan]

Two things sum up my opinion of this article:

I made it as far as the part where they accuse William Shatner of being a terrible actor and decided that was all I needed to declare the article Crap.

+
Critiquing the show by pointing out that it hasn't explored the secondary characters as much as previous Treks (both TOS and TNG-era).

I agree with The Wormhole that I really checked out with that Shatner critique - and that really feeds into the rest of the piece. The writer takes some less-than-informed/half-remembered impressions of Star Trek, or Trek-related memes/misconceptions, or standards that arose in the Trek Universe from late-TNG or later, and paints all over Discovery with them. TOS rarely covered secondary characters in anything more than a passing scene; TNG gave Deanna and Beverly like 1 main episode a season, if that. But Discovery gets raked over because it covered the main 4-6 characters, but not the secondary characters in the 15 episodes that have aired so far? It's just on and on like that: wrong standards of comparison and critiques not totally applicable to 1 season of a show set in the 2250s.

That doesn't mean that there aren't individual complaints and issues that are correct, just that overall the slant is wrong.

 

[fireproof78]

The scene in “farpoint” where he asks Beverley if they can be friends is some of the finest acting I’ve ever seen /s
(In truth I tend to agree that Picard had some development to do character-wise!)

I will never knock Sir Stewart's performance. He worked with what he had. And, what he had at that point was an overconfident and braggadocios elitist who shot his own clone (or time loop version) to prove a point. it was all rather unsettling and left a rather odd impression on me.

 

[starsuperion]

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.

I have one retort.. you as a writer already know this as well.
when you write, you should know your audience. STD writers know themselves first. Their stories reflect as much.

 

[Refuge]

"..and at the end of the season everyone GETS AN ACTUAL FUCKING MEDAL FOR NOT COMMITTING GENOCIDE."

You know I just didn't know what gem of an insight to quote from the linked OP piece. That one will do ... for now

 

[Refuge]

"Everyone in Discovery agrees: since Burnham killed the Klingon messiah (more on THAT nonsense in a bit), the war is entirely her fault, which is a little bit like saying Franz Ferdinand’s assassin is solely responsible for WWI. And because the war is Burnham’s fault, she’s the Only One Who Can Stop It. She’s also the only one who can figure out a puzzle or blow up a ship or swordfight an enemy ..

So Burnham singlehandedly engineers a regime change via the threat of the planet-destroying bomb (because, as she says, “Klingons respond to strength.”) The mostly identity-less crew backs her; Burnham makes a virtually content-free speech about “values..”

That is funny! The bit about the 'content-free speech' is spot on!

 

[INACTIVERedDwarf]

Numerous people here have been saying all along - you cannot do justice to a popular franchise, without respecting it's original values - what else remains when they are taken out? A shallow husk. Marvel sticks to it's values. It prospers. Is the problem why the writers can't seem to write an earnest show, simply that they do not actually care for Star Trek's earnest progressivism?

The popularity of Trek has always been somewhat inexplicable. ... the imagined future is an earnest, treacly one where human beings have evolved beyond capitalism and cruelty into egalitarianism, do-goodery, and wide-eyed wonder.

This last part—Trek’s utopianism—is likely the key to its continuing prominence. ... People liked the Star Trek universe created by Gene Roddenberry so much that they wanted to live in it, or barring that, talk about it constantly with people who understood why the camaraderie of multicultural nerds in space meant so much to them.

PreviousTrek narratives, while differing from each other in setting and tone, all share a common dorky exuberance for exploration and cross-cultural understanding. While technically, yes, Starfleet has always been a military organization, its functions have tended to the diplomatic, scientific, humanitarian, and logistical.
​

Surely this is the most self-evident thing? People like to say that TOS was darker than TNG, had more interpersonal conflict, but that is hardly the only point of the show - TOS was also a show that claimed humans had evolved past prejudice, and learned to be delighted with difference, or had learned to treat criminality as a social disease instead of an opportunity for collective violence, or was willing to treat the concerns of a pulsating rock creature as understandable enough to excuse the death of several colonists who had killed it's young.

People who argue Trek always contained human conflict are not wrong, but they may not be seeing the full picture, fixating on one part of it's success - anybody, no matter how qualified, can have a narrow view of the full mosaic that made Trek popular, and I would say that both interpersonal conflict, moralist parables, and also earnest progressivism were important tiles in that mosaic.

"We believed that the often ridiculed mass audience is sick of this world’s petty nationalism and all its old ways and old hatreds, and that people are not only willing but anxious to think beyond most petty beliefs that have for so long kept mankind divided…What Star Trek proves, as faulty as individual episodes could be, is that the much-maligned common man and common woman has an enormous hunger for brotherhood. They are ready for the 23rd century now, and they are light years ahead of their petty governments and their visionless leaders." - Roddenberry​

 

[Christopher]

Numerous people here have been saying all along - you cannot do justice to a popular franchise, without respecting it's original values - what else remains when they are taken out?

As I've been saying, anyone who thinks Discovery isn't respecting Trek's values must've stopped watching pretty early. The heroes' commitment to Trek's values is what saves the day over and over, from Burnham and Saru's refusal to continue torturing the tardigrade to Saru convincing L'Rell to save Voq to Tilly showing kindness and acceptance to Tyler/Voq to Burnham trusting L'Rell to make peace. The whole season's recurring arc is about the Starfleet heroes refusing to compromise their values despite all pressures to do so.

People like to say that TOS was darker than TNG, had more interpersonal conflict, but that is hardly the only point of the show - TOS was also a show that claimed humans had evolved past prejudice, and learned to be delighted with difference

And DSC gives us the first canonically gay series regular and onscreen same-sex romance in Trek, as well as the first black female lead and probably the first Asian female starship captain. It also made a point of portraying the Terran Empire's evil specifically in terms of genocidal racism, more so than any prior production has done. It's also got an unprecedentedly diverse (for Trek) writing and production staff behind the scenes.

, or had learned to treat criminality as a social disease instead of an opportunity for collective violence,

And DSC shows the crew forgiving Tyler for his crimes and accepting that he's not to blame for them, rather than giving in to vengeful feelings.

or was willing to treat the concerns of a pulsating rock creature as understandable enough to excuse the death of several colonists who had killed it's young.

And DSC shows Burnham, Saru, and Stamets coming to recognize the sentience and innocence of the horrifying, deadly "tardigrade" creature, as well as learning to overcome their fear and prejudice toward Klingons and reach out to make peace with them.