What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

[JonnyQuest037]

I think not connecting it to real events allows the message of the story to not feel like you're being preached to. There's a danger that if Picard had started quoting Joseph Welch of it being cringe and corny.

Well, our mileage varies here. I felt like I was still being preached to and it was also cringe and corny, and to make it even worse, they were using fake history to do it.

The one place I will agree is that I do think the motivation for Admiral Satie is not really clear. Is she doing it as part of a power-play to gain influence within Starfleet and the Federation? Is she a true-believer (and a Star Trek crazy admiral) that really thinks she's protecting the Federation? The episode implies she might have daddy issues, living in the shadow of her father's image, given that Picard quoting her father is her ultimate undoing. So does she think this is her way of being seen as an equal to her father in the history books?

Excellent points. Satie doesn't really have any broader motivation. She just goes crazy midway through the episode because that's what the script says.

 

[kkt]

Here's a potentially controversial opinion: I find TNG's "The Drumhead" to be pretty trite and overrated.

It's incredibly obvious where the episode is going to go right from the start, and the investigation ramps up WAY too quickly since they only have 45 minutes of screen time. Jean Simmons becomes cartoonishly evil at the end with her "I've broken bigger men than you, Picard!!!" And once again Worf is TNG's Designated Wrong Guy, which is a trope TNG indulged in way too much.

I also think the final ending is weak, with Admiral Whatshisname just walking out of the court without ever saying a word, and Picard shutting Admiral Satie down with a completely made-up quote from Satie's fictional father. "With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably," doesn't carry any weight, because it's not some famous quote from history, it's just some fake quote Jeri Taylor made up on a deadline, and it ends the entire investigation way too conveniently.

Hell, if the plot called for Picard to shut down Norah Satie with a well-chosen quote from history, why didn't they just have him quote Joseph Welch from the McCarthy hearings, with "Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" That at least would've had some bite to it, since it's a real quote.

The Simon Tarses stuff was interesting, but the rest I don't really care for.

There aren't going to be any more quotable phrases uttered in the next few hundred years? That's sad.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

There aren't going to be any more quotable phrases uttered in the next few hundred years? That's sad.

Not what I was saying at all.

Of course there are going to be notable quotes in the next 400 years. That's so obvious I didn't think it even needed to be said. I was talking about "The Drumhead" as an episode of television made for a 20th Century audience, not as a document of future history. Because Star Trek is fiction, not a documentary.

 

[Lord Garth]

Let me turn this question loose… given the content, style and tone of the nu trek, who do you think they’re targeting?

Depends on the show.

Discovery - Any teen or adult age in general, but probably younger in particular. Not that anyone older can't like it, despite what some people claim.

Picard - Middle-aged and up. This show skews "older" in general but I think it's geared more specifically towards middle-aged people, especially those in their 40s. Terry Matalas was born in 1975, I was born in 1979. I'm dead-center his target audience. I can more easily tell a lot of things he's going for because we're so close in age and probably grew up watching most of the same stuff. But even before Terry, with Michael Chabon I'd say the show still skewed older.

Strange New Worlds - Younger and older at the same time. Younger because it's modern. Older because "It feels like Star Trek again!"

Lower Decks - With all the references to TOS through ENT, and the show looking so much like TNG, they're clearly targeting people who watched those shows as they were first airing at the time. So, once again, middle-aged. Younger people can enjoy it, but it tilts middle-aged.

Prodigy - This one is explicitly geared towards children. Parents who are Trekkies who get their kids into it are watching it too. And some of us, like me, who don't have kids.

Starfleet Academy - This is going to be teen and young adult. Though they'll probably write it on two levels so those of us who are either older or "young at heart" can get something out of it too.

Section 31 (TV Movie) - Probably no specific age in particular. Nothing I can tell. Probably any age, except children.

You're making the huge mistake of lumping everything together as if it's all one thing. It's not.

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

Not what I was saying at all.

Of course there are going to be notable quotes in the next 400 years. That's so obvious I didn't think it even needed to be said. I was talking about "The Drumhead" as an episode of television made for a 20th Century audience, not as a document of future history. Because Star Trek is fiction, not a documentary.

But as Jay Leno and others pointed out, Trek references real individuals with future fictions. So we may learn something from a fictional quote or two along with Satie.

 

[eschaton]

I don't think DISCO was intended for a younger audience. Not an "old audience" necessarily, but the show only really made tokenistic gestures at young characters (Tilly in the first two seasons, then Adira thereafter). Given Michael was relentlessly the lead of the show and no story was really ever presented from a youth POV, there wouldn't be much here for a young person to identify with. I could get behind the argument that DISCO was meant to appeal to people a bit too young to be Trek fans back in the Berman era (maybe 30somethings) but that's about it.

I do think it's true that DIS early on was trying to go for a GOT vibe. But Game of Thrones had a lot of young characters! Dany, Jon, Robb, Arya, Sansa, Bran, Theon, etc. were all meant to be teenagers when the story began, even if the show aged up a few of them from the books. Indeed, over half of the POVs across the early seasons are from the perspective of children or very young adults.

Michael is pretty explicitly a 30something POV - at the age where she's past being a "young person" but before any visible signs of middle age. And most everyone, with just a few exceptions are around her age or older.

 

[Citiprime]

I do think it's true that DIS early on was trying to go for a GOT vibe. But Game of Thrones had a lot of young characters! Dany, Jon, Robb, Arya, Sansa, Bran, Theon, etc. were all meant to be teenagers when the story began, even if the show aged up a few of them from the books. Indeed, over half of the POVs across the early seasons are from the perspective of children or very young adults.

Michael is pretty explicitly a 30something POV - at the age where she's past being a "young person" but before any visible signs of middle age. And most everyone, with just a few exceptions are around her age or older.

I kinda felt like the early episodes almost tried to create a GOT/Battlestar Galactica kind-of vibe as far as tone.

All of the characters are flawed. A lot of the characters are unlikable (Stamets is a prick for most of the first season). And, to paraphrase Quark, it's not the Starfleet we've known (e.g., they basically torture an alien life-form to get the spore drive to work for the first time).

If you then add in the Klingon perspective is at times sympathetic with Voq, similar to how Galactica gave the Cylons a POV that you could understand, I felt like there was at least some point where they wanted to go really adult and darker with the show, especially when you had things like Klingon breasts and depictions of sexual assault during that first season.

 

[eschaton]

I kinda felt like the early episodes almost tried to create a GOT/Battlestar Galactica kind-of vibe as far as tone.

All of the characters are flawed. A lot of the characters are unlikable (Stamets is a prick for most of the first season). And, to paraphrase Quark, it's not the Starfleet we've known (e.g., they basically torture an alien life-form to get the spore drive to work for the first time).

If you then add in the Klingon perspective is at times sympathetic with Voq, similar to how Galactica gave the Cylons a POV that you could understand, I felt like there was at least some point where they wanted to go really adult and darker with the show, especially when you had things like Klingon breasts and depictions of sexual assault during that first season.

I really liked Michael's arc for the first portion of Season 1, but Act 2 really felt at times like torture porn. Like there was no point other than to make Michael feel incredible mental anguish as everyone she put trust in turned against her.

It's all so jarring in retrospect, because Discovery ultimately turned into a show so toned down that the antagonists didn't kill a single person in its final season.

 

[Citiprime]

I really liked Michael's arc for the first portion of Season 1, but Act 2 really felt at times like torture porn. Like there was no point other than to make Michael feel incredible mental anguish as everyone she put trust in turned against her.

It's all so jarring in retrospect, because Discovery ultimately turned into a show so toned down that the antagonists didn't kill a single person in its final season.

You can feel the wheels come off of the season around the point they make the jump to the Mirror Universe.

I know Fuller's original intention was to end up there, but it's around the midpoint of season 1 that you can sense whatever mess that was happening behind-the-scenes. Because it feels like they took parts of what Fuller intended (which I've read before was to be a reinterpretation of the Mirror Universe as not just a goatee-evil-verse, but as a "road-less traveled" take on the differences between the universes, where horrible mistakes were made and that was supposed to connect to Michael's choice at the Battle at the Binary Stars), and rewrote it to make it more action-y and everyone overacting.

And probably then scrambled to come up with an ending once they come back to the Prime Universe. The tonal shifts and weird story jumps just scream troubled production.

 

[Lord Garth]

I would've given a different answer about how old or young Discovery skews back in 2017 and 2018. I would've said it skewed older, more mature. A few times, when I saw the narration, "Previously on Star Trek: Discovery", my mind kept wanting to replace it with "Previously on Battlestar: Discovery".

Then Season 2 came, along with Pike, and all of that changed. Except for "Point of Light" which feels more like a tonal holdover. "We have to wrap up the loose ends from Season 1!" It just wasn't the same show anymore. And this was even before Michelle Paradise took over in the middle of the season. Then it changed even more.

So, the rest of Season 2, and then Season 3 and Season 4 all didn't feel as dark/mature, but I still wouldn't have gone so far as to say, "It skews young!" I thought it appealed to a wide range of ages.

Season 5, I like it, but this is the first time I feel like it skewed young. One of the episodes felt like "We're going on a field trip!" In the same episode, another poster said it felt like a late-Voyager episode and I agreed. Years ago, during Season 1, if someone said that, I'd have ripped their head off. It would've been like Mortal Kombat. Times have really changed.

DSC Season 1 and PIC Season 1 felt like what @FederationHistorian describes as "Rated R Trek". That's what I like the most. In addition to PIC Season 3, which was pretty blatantly "Star Trek for Generation X!" That's what I like the most as well. I'll throw DSC Season 4 into the mix too because, even though it's not like any of those other three, I feel like it was the most Roddenberrian season of Star Trek since TNG Season 2.

 

[kkt]

I wasn't that fond of Drumhead either. That's the sort of injustice that the Federation has risen above.

 

[Citiprime]

I would've given a different answer about how old or young Discovery skews back in 2017 and 2018. I would've said it skewed older, more mature. A few times, when I saw the narration, "Previously on Star Trek: Discovery", my mind kept wanting to replace it with "Previously on Battlestar: Discovery".

DSC Season 1 and PIC Season 1 felt like what @FederationHistorian describes as "Rated R Trek". That's what I like the most. In addition to PIC Season 3, which was pretty blatantly "Star Trek for Generation X!" That's what I like the most as well. I'll throw DSC Season 4 into the mix too because, even though it's not like any of those other three, I feel like it was the most Roddenberrian season of Star Trek since TNG Season 2.

I remember there were criticisms of season 1 as being "too adult." I specifically remember people getting into a tizzy after Tilly said "fuck" during season 1, and there was an argument among a segment of the fans who complained and felt Star Trek should be a "family show" they should be able to "watch with their children."

I thought that "edge" gave Discovery something unique in the early years. And I think it was a missed opportunity when they turned away from the more adult tone.

 

[BillJ]

I think Discovery's first season was its best.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Except for the TNG angle, I always felt MUDD'S WOMEN was taking the same approach. For nearly five minutes Eve and Childress have a lengthy dispute with no Starfleet officers in sight. Even when the ship's decrystalizing, it's mostly the Mudd and Eve show.

That was part of the semi-anthology approach. The guest-stars were meant to be guest-stars.

 

[BillJ]

That was part of the semi-anthology approach. The guest-stars were meant to be guest-stars.

I do miss that about TOS. The more modern shows seem to be far more tethered to their stars.

 

[Frontis]

Hell, they should've had gay main character(s) in TNG. It's not like gay characters were unheard of in 1987. I was thinking Billy Crystal's character of Jodie Dallas on Soap was the first gay character on primetime, but Wikipedia tells me that there was another gay character on a short-lived series five years before that.

There is an interesting video about the idea of gay couples since Kirk and Spock...

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[BillJ]

Babylon 5 is a much better show than Deep Space Nine.

 

[Lord Garth]

Babylon 5 is a much better show than Deep Space Nine.

I'll find out whether I agree with you this fall. I'll be doing a re-watch of DS9 and watching B5 for the first time. I've only ever seen a few episodes. I'll have a running DS9/B5 combo thread in the DS9 Forum.

Getting through some other stuff first.

 

[BillJ]

I'll find out whether I agree with you this fall. I'm doing a re-watch of DS9 and watching B5 for the first time. I've only ever seen a few episodes.

B5 can’t really compete on production values, they simply didn’t have the same money to play with, but the characters and story are far stronger.

 

[Lord Garth]

There is an interesting video about the idea of gay couples since Kirk and Spock...

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Kirk and Spock are in love with each other. I've thought this for decades, and people have thought it before I was even born, but the YouTube channel Gaywatch really drove it home for me.

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I'll never buy Spock in a straight relationship. Any attempt he makes is doomed to failure because it's not who he is. (Somehow the butterfly effect of the Kelvin Timeline made Spock straight over there, so we're going to shove that to the side where it belongs). Spock is gay.

Kirk, OTOH, isn't. He loves women too much. So he's bi. He loves many women, but he has love for only one man.

Gaywatch argues that when Kirk is split in half in "The Enemy Within", Good Kirk is Gay Kirk and Evil Kirk is Straight Kirk. I can actually see it. Evil Kirk is every toxic straight guy out there.