Fair enough.
What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
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I read a story of a man who lived through one of the concentration camps during WW2, enduring the labor and torture and other inhumane conditions.
When he was rescued he returned home only to discover it was his own son who turned him in. Sadly, that betrayal was the last straw and the man killed himself.
It doesn't have to be a monumental tragedy but rather a close personal one, that, as Tolkien would say, very near the roots. I think Korby was that for Chapel.
Mileage will vary.
I think you're right.
That wasn't best practices! That was one wacko doctor!
Having created SNW Chapel, I'd just as soon they left her the way she is without explanation.
I guess my controversial opinion would be that it's not so much TNG looking down, as it is Picard.
We get a snapshot of 24th century humanity almost entirely filtered on the most elite humans around - it's not just that they've all been rigorously selected and trained through the academy, but they've been further selected by Picard to meet his own expectations.
A lot of what Picard presents as fact on the show - humans are evolved, advanced beyond petty grievances and jealousies, no longer driven by acquisition, religion is primitive - turn out to be just his opinions, based largely on the people he chooses to associate with.
DS9 and some of the other later shows make that quite plain, which is partly why there was a backlash at the time. I think one of the interesting things PIC S1 did was to put Picard in a world where he could no longer convince himself that his view was the reality, and him coming to terms with that.
Ultimately, the in-universe version of "Gene's Vision" is "Picard's Vision".
There's a lot to be said for Ralph Offenhouse being an unintentional source of wisdom in Season 1 of TNG. He's a vulture capitalist of the worst kind the 1990s could produce but still has insights and sees angles Picard and Riker either can't or won't thanks to their enlightened late 24th century Federation values.
Offenhouse is 370 years out of his element, but somehow still helpful and teaching our heroes lessons.
Offenhouse is 370 years out of his element, but somehow still helpful and teaching our heroes lessons.
You've just changed my entire perception of TNG. The man needs help!
Clearly his vision is not entirely shared by, say, Miles O'Brien.
What we see of mental health in TOS is an amateur interpretation of the field of psychiatry in the 1960s. On the one hand, there have been huge paradigm shifts. On the other, the stories focused on abuse, and healing tended to occur off screen. Of course, screenwriters can't, and shouldn't, attempt to give detailed accounts of how medical interventions work, lest they pass incorrect information. I think we can push all those examples from TOS to the side.
I like SNW because I like the characters - whether or not they "line up" with the TOS versions. I find the show entertaining.
Of course, I also liked DISCO...
I like Disco as well. "Staying Alive" by the Bee Gee's is one of my all time favorite songs.
By that reasoning I should have been super into every post TOS TV show when it was the "flavor of the month". TNG is arguably the most successful Star Trek property ever and while I enjoyed it it never had my heart the way TOS and SNW do.
Seriously, I tear up a bit in Subspace Rhapsody when Chapel sings "I can't believe how much I'll miss this crew" because I know it's going to end someday.
There are certainly bunches of SNW that just don't fit with TOS. (CHAPEL! GORN!) But whatever witchcraft they are putting into this show I mostly don't care. (I only care when they try and gaslight me by saying either "Continuity is too hard" or worse "No really, it all makes sense". LIARS!)
As for silly, the short short short seasons mess with the balance. TOS would do maybe two or three sillier episodes a season. Out of 26. (Or 29!) SNW does two or three out of ten.
I really wish that 23rd Century TOS era (or even TOS movie era) Star Trek had been a playground for three or four other shows the way 24th century TNG era was.
That's how you get people saying there was never money in Star Trek.
I'm not quite sure how you are coming down on how to work with canonical material. Obviously, they wouldn't want to take audiences out of the story by redefining essential elements of the show. On the other hand, there are things that can safely go in the trash (like Janice Lester 's comment on women and the captaincy, which I always felt was figurative anyway ). There are many things about medicine, mental health, mind-body problem, etc., from the TOS era (not to mention the Berman era) that probably don't register as definitively Trek in its worldview. As much as New series should have strong foundations in the franchise's past, I expect a healthy future for Star Trek will emerge from an audience whose essential references are in the current series, not the one from the 60s.
"We learn by doing."
I suppose I always sort of knew this, but I've never seen nearly 4 decades of Trek verbalized at such an effectively executive-summary level as to truly see the big picture at this particular angle.
More that the secretary type in 60s tv usually had
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