What will make it "Star Trek"?

[Maurice]

I'm not going to go into spoilers then in case you do watch it, but I'll tell you what I like about the show in general:

1. The mysteriousness and mystique of Don Draper.
2. The illusion of how "great" things were in the mid-20th Century versus the reality.
3. Showing women's perspective on the sexism of the time.
4. The thought process that goes into creating ads.
5. All of the characters and their personalities.

6. The show covers from 1960 to 1970 and you get to see how everyday characters are affected by the changes in society. You get perspectives from people who wouldn't have been on the frontlines of the Vietnam War or the Civil Rights Movement.

7. The production design is first-rate. It's so well done, you actually believe you're looking at the 1960s.
8. Character arcs continue from season to season, not just with Don Draper, but with all the characters.
9. Trying to figure out the double-meaning behind the themes of each season.
10. The insight into corporate culture and office politics.
11. The clash between the generations that becomes more prominent over time.
12. The slower and deliberate pace means that nothing is rushed.

13. The exploration of the different romantic relationships. Especially comparing the ones that work versus the ones that don't and their ups and downs.

I loved Mad Men but I felt it wallowed in the sexism a bit too much. Yes, it was there, it was bad, but a little of it goes a long way. The showrunner sometimes neglected the main characters for whatever new character was tickling his fancy (Bob Benson, Megan).

The show feels pretty authentic except—as is often the case with historical recreations—the dialog occasionally betrays the illusion. Language was still a little more formal back then and there are turns of phrase and lingo that were different then than now (i.e. "leverage" or "I need you to").

 

[Sci]

I’m sorry, I’ve never found a show’s writing “fundamentally dishonest”, they’re stories designed to be entertaining. Maybe that’s the problem, I’m looking for entertainment to serve the purpose of entertaining? I’ve got more than enough on my real world plate to take it THAT seriously.

And I would contend that a work of art that compromises emotional honesty for entertainment value is inhibiting its own artistic merit. Because art is about more than entertainment; it is a form of communication. And if you're inhibiting emotional honesty in the name of entertainment, then you're inhibiting your ability to communicate something meaningful.

ETA: Again, that's fine if all you're after is enjoyment. But enjoyment is transitory, and a work that cannot back up its entertainment value with artistic merit will eventually be forgotten.

Now, as harsh as I've been on TOS, I do think that TOS has a lot of artistic merit, and had more artistic merit than other shows. There's a reason people still remember and watch TOS, but shows like Bonanza, Daktari, or The Virginian are all virtually forgotten.

 

[BillJ]

And I would contend that a work of art that compromises emotional honesty for entertainment value is inhibiting its own artistic merit. Because art is about more than entertainment; it is a form of communication. And if you're inhibiting emotional honesty in the name of entertainment, then you're inhibiting your ability to communicate something meaningful.

You watch it your way, I’ll watch it mine.

 

[fireproof78]

If a show is setting itself up as entertainment then I think it is already being honest enough.

 

[Jadeb]

But it's not an anthology. It is a show that's borrowing the writing conceits of anthologies, but the very act of doing that with a continuing cast of characters renders the writing fundamentally dishonest.

It would be fine if TOS had, for instance, revealed that it was Captain Robert April who had seen Kodos the Executioner murder thousands of people as a child; and if it had been Captain Christopher Pike who had to let Edith Keeler die; and if it had been Captain James T. Kirk who lost his borther on Deneva.

But the mere act of presenting all three events as happening to Kirk while not depicting Kirk as fundamentally traumatized, renders the writing emotionally dishonest. The fact that it was borrowing a creative conceit from another form, does not render the writing that resulted emotionally dishonest. Nor does the fact that such conceits were common for the era. (There is, after all, a reason that so many people concerned with artistic quality condemned television in general in the 1960s as artistically inferior -- much of it was artistically inferior.) Emotional dishonesty in art is emotional dishonesty no matter what real-world constraints motivated the creative choices made.

TOS was a show put together by the generation that fought possibly the greatest evil the world has known, did and saw things that most of us can’t imagine, then came home and behaved much like Kirk did. That’s not to say they weren’t traumatized, but the standards for men were different then, and it would have been alien to them to have characters crying week after week, as Discovery likes to give us. (We get a touch of WWII PTSD in the early Pike portrayal, but even now people seem happy it was dropped.)

I don’t know that I buy the idea Discovery is any more emotionally honest than TOS. I don’t find Burnham, with her endless miseries, a believable character at all. She still delivers the stirring TOS speech at the end, just like Kirk did, only it takes 13 episodes of suffering after suffering to get to it.

 

[fireproof78]

don’t know that I buy the idea Discovery is any more emotionally honest than TOS. I don’t find Burnham, with her endless miseries, a believable character at all. She still delivers the stirring TOS speech at the end, just like Kirk did, only it takes 13 episodes of suffering after suffering to get to it.

Having met people like Burnham I can safely say she is more believable than Kirk at times.

Now, that doesn't make her more enjoyable to watch. That's a whole different thing.

 

[Sci]

TOS was a show put together by the generation that fought possibly the greatest evil the world has known, did and saw things that most of us can’t imagine,

That has absolutely nothing to do with the artistic merits of their work.

then came home and behaved much like Kirk did.

Not the same. Those creators may have themselves been suffering from the effects of long-term trauma and trying not to show it; but Kirk is not depicted as suffering from the effects of long-term trauma and trying not to show it. He's just depicted as not suffering from long-term trauma.

That’s not to say they weren’t traumatized, but the standards for men were different then, and it would have been alien to them to have characters crying week after week

Yes, emotionally dishonest art was normalized at the time. That's why very little American television from the 1960s has much artistic merit.

I don’t know that I buy the idea Discovery is any more emotionally honest than TOS. I don’t find Burnham, with her endless miseries, a believable character at all. She still delivers the stirring TOS speech at the end, just like Kirk did, only it takes 13 episodes of suffering after suffering to get to it.

Those 13 episodes of suffering make her a more believable character and make her decision to hold onto Federation values emotionally moving.

 

[jackoverfull]

I thought just the opposite. Being generous I'd say they had three episodes of show and they needed to stretch that out, so we got a Borg plot which went nowhere, and a Romulan plot which was stretched to the point of breaking, and a 7 of 9 plot which went nowhere.

Totally agreed, I’ve been thinking that an edit that brought Picard down to say five episodes would improve the series a lot.

About Burnham crying, it’s really getting into ridiculous territory for me, I hope they stop doing that every. Single. Episode. In season 3.

 

[Mudd]

If it's called "Star Trek," it's Star Trek.

Duh.

Everyone doesn't have to like everything called "Star Trek." In fact, no one has to like anything called "Star Trek."

 

[ChallengerHK]

If it's called "Star Trek," it's Star Trek.

Does this include Star Trek Continues and Star Trek New Voyages?

For what it's worth, those are more Star Trek to me than I expect, say, the Prodigy series to be. That being said, I'm guessing you meant (and I'm paraphrasing someone upstream) "Something called Star Trek that's released by the copyright holders". My opinion has always been that the Axanar debacle gave CBSmount the excuse it needed to hamstring fan productions because those productions were making official efforts look bad, and on top of that were available for free. That's to be expected, as the fan films were to one extent or another a labor of love, and the official productions are a money-making venture.
.

Everyone doesn't have to like everything called "Star Trek." In fact, no one has to like anything called "Star Trek."

Back in the day, I was inclined to be forgiving of TMP, since we hadn't had any Trek in 5 years and any live action Trek in 10 years. I felt like I had to support anything Trek, and as bad as I thought the movie was, I was glad that Trek had come back. Now that there's "Trek" coming out of our nether regions, I can afford to be much pickier.

But part of the point of the question is "Why call it Star Trek"? From the point of view of the people who are making decisions about what to produce, I think a large part of the answer is "Because there's a built in audience for almost anything we put that name on."

 

[Mudd]

Does this include Star Trek Continues and Star Trek New Voyages?

Ask the CBS lawyers. It's not like something has to be good to be called "Star Trek," and neither of those productions are good enough by "objective" standards for me to consider paying a penny for anything associated with either of them. But yeah, you shouldn't steal.

But part of the point of the question is "Why call it Star Trek"? From the point of view of the people who are making decisions about what to produce, I think a large part of the answer is "Because there's a built in audience for almost anything we put that name on."

That's the entire answer. It's what an entertainment franchise is.

 

[Mudd]

And I would contend that a work of art that compromises emotional honesty for entertainment value is inhibiting its own artistic merit. Because art is about more than entertainment; it is a form of communication. And if you're inhibiting emotional honesty in the name of entertainment, then you're inhibiting your ability to communicate something meaningful.

You've described all popular commercial art, including, of course, Star Trek.

 

[Sci]

And I would contend that a work of art that compromises emotional honesty for entertainment value is inhibiting its own artistic merit. Because art is about more than entertainment; it is a form of communication. And if you're inhibiting emotional honesty in the name of entertainment, then you're inhibiting your ability to communicate something meaningful.

You've described all popular commercial art, including, of course, Star Trek.

I don't agree. There are plenty of films and TV shows out there that don't compromise emotional honesty for entertainment value.

But even if I did agree -- my argument is about evaluating the artistic merits of TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT relative to DIS and PIC. Questions of relative merit are different from questions of absolute merit.

 

[BillJ]

There are plenty of films and TV shows out there that don't compromise emotional honesty for entertainment value.

Unless the writers have went through the situations they are writing about, they are compromising emotional honesty. They are simply manipulating the audience.

Questions of relative merit are different from questions of absolute merit.

There is no such thing as absolute merit in a subjective endeavor. No matter how many times you post about "artisitic merit", it is entirely subjective.

 

[Sci]

There is no such thing as absolute merit in a subjective endeavor. No matter how many times you post about "artisitic merit", it is entirely subjective.

If that were the case, no work of art would ever endure in a culture's memory, because there would never be a consensus on quality.

 

[Mudd]

I don't agree. There are plenty of films and TV shows out there that don't compromise emotional honesty for entertainment value.

Seriously, you need to analyze those things more closely.

Commercial requirements drive compromise, and popular narrative is founded in delusion-which is, of course, why it's popular.

 

[Mudd]

If that were the case, no work of art would ever endure in a culture's memory, because there would never be a consensus on quality.

Consensus is, by its very definition, not an absolute value or quality. Narrative art endures as a focus of popularity or does not based on its relevance to the values of a given era.

BillJ is correct in that there are no absolute or objective values, because there are no absolute or objective values, at all. They are a consequence and product of human perception and thought.

 

[BillJ]

If that were the case, no work of art would ever endure in a culture's memory, because there would never be a consensus on quality.

So, if Star Trek or Star Trek: The Next Generation are still in the public consciousness twenty years from now and Discovery/Picard fall to the wayside of disinterest, that means Star Trek or Star Trek: The Next Generation has more artistic merit?

 

[Sci]

So, if Star Trek or Star Trek: The Next Generation are still in the public consciousness twenty years from now and Discovery/Picard fall to the wayside of disinterest, that means Star Trek or Star Trek: The Next Generation has more artistic merit?

I think historical endurance is one key indicator of artistic merit, but I also think you have to look past 30 years because of the nostalgia cycle. Let's talk again in 40 years.

 

[BillJ]

I think historical endurance is one key indicator of artistic merit, but I also think you have to look past 30 years because of the nostalgia cycle. Let's talk again in 40 years.

Star Trek has already lasted 50.