Adventure vs Drama, is there a place in Trek for both?

[Qonundrum]

Marc here (video to follow) posits a great point, comparing to when Trek used to explore strange new worlds - but replaced it with character drama/conflict (which Discovery isn't the first spinoff to do, but I'd wager (50 Quatloos) the issue is of degree, excessive or otherwise...)

Disclaimer: He's probably listened to Doomcock as he's mentioned the "they're changing everything because they want to destroy it" counter-pop culture belief (which I disagree with somewhat, but that's a separate issue), but he still has a great point that TOS let the imagination run wild but (TNG onward) hinges more on drama than things that could be seen as "weird" and, IMHO, sci-fi is supposed to be weird. As long as there's coherence in the storylines and no magic wands, LOL.

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Has Trek, over the decades, placed drama over imagination? Marc sorta points out the issues of imagination and diversity being there from the start. TOS is dated in some ways but a lot more seem rewatchable compared to a few decades ago...

 

[BillJ]

I prefer the TOS formula. But I'm a bit biased.

 

[Sarxus]

Has Trek, over the decades, placed drama over imagination?

Without having seen the video itself (will do that tomorrow probably), my answer to that core question would be: No. I mean, of course there's a lot of drama in modern Star Trek and character focused moments. But I don't regard that as something new, it's been always there. Maybe TOS hasn't been so character focused, but already in early TNG days we got so many of episodes where certain characters were in the foreground and that told deep and interesting stories about them. We see also lots of development in characters like Seven Of Nine from VOY or Odo from DS9. Speaking of which, it was the third ST installment (not counting the animated series) and had a huge focus on drama from the war point of view. One of the main issues the series speaks about is how war changes individuals, how one tends to cross lines in extreme situations like these, but also the importance of sticking to one's moral beliefs even during hard and devastating times.

So all in all, I'd say that the drama aspect is nothing new at all. It was always there and presented in different facets.

As for the imagination aspect and discovering new worlds etc. Well, that is so far not so strong in Discovery, that's true. But with ENT we have another modern Star Trek show which incorporates that a lot. Many of the ENT episodes feel to me literally like TOS episodes in modern presentation. The concept of discovering new planets, encountering new species and having to face difficult situations and moral or philosophic conflicts, it's really strong in ENT.

Of course, a franchise changes. We just can't expect something like Star Trek to be exactly like it was 60 years ago or something. But I'd say regarding the old shows and the newer ones, the core elements are still quite the same and I find it beautiful that they haven't really changed the "spirit" of Star Trek in all this time.

 

[Greg Cox]

Always seemed to be plenty of drama back in TOS back in the day. Do I kill my best friend because he's turned into an evil god? What do you with a troubled teen with god-like powers? What if that reclusive old actor is actually guilt-stricken former war criminal? Where is the line between justice and revenge?

Heck, "The Cage" begins with PIke in a funk because a landing party just got massacred under his command, leading to a heart-to-heart talk with Boyce about guilt, angst, the heavy weight of command, etc.

STAR TREK has always been as much about real people with real emotions as its been about shiny futuristic hardware and strange new worlds . . . ..

 

[Commishsleer]

Always seemed to be plenty of drama back in TOS back in the day. Do I kill my best friend because he's turned into an evil god? What do you with a troubled teen with god-like powers? What if that reclusive old actor is actually guilt-stricken former war criminal? Where is the line between justice and revenge?

Heck, "The Cage" begins with PIke in a funk because a landing party just got massacred under his command, leading to a heart-to-heart talk with Boyce about guilt, angst, the heavy weight of command, etc.

STAR TREK has always been as much about real people with real emotions as its been about shiny futuristic hardware and strange new worlds . . . ..

Yes and take "Amok Time" wasn't that an episode chock-a-block with drama?

 

[Lance]

To my mind, one thing that contributes to this was the holodeck. TOS was all about "exploring strange new worlds" because it was the new worlds that were the adventure for our crew. Stories were driven by an external rather than internal motivation. The holodeck makes the adventure, the unknown, something that stories can explore without even leaving the ship, which focuses the motivation inwards to character driven storylines instead (it isn't about our crew in Victorian London and what they find there, it's instead about Data's being faced with an adversary that matches him in intellect.) The holodeck makes space exploration feel almost domestic and ordinary.

My theory is that's one reason the (ironically stationary by nature) DS9 feels so much more like TOS, because they rarely fell back on holodeck stories and instead made big deals out of what was coming through the wormhole. VOY in theory should've been even more like this, seperating itself from everything and making the exploration the focus again, but in practice the holodecks were maintained. And overused.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Hasn't there always been both? There hasn't always been character conflict but they've always done the "Character has psychological issue, gets put in situation where they have to overcome said issue" thing.

 

[Greg Cox]

Yes and take "Amok Time" wasn't that an episode chock-a-block with drama?

Not to mention "Journey to Babel." That whole ep is built around Spock's family issues.