Dull Humans?

[BillJ]

The problem with Roddenberry's evolved humans of the 24th century, who are so enlightened they can't even argue over the last sandwich on a tray, is they're insufferable sanctimonious assholes.

I like them.

I found the attitudes grating and the characters increasingly unlikable. By the time season five rolled around, I found TNG increasingly difficult to take seriously. I was watching the Blu-ray of season five and just hit the wall with "Ethics". I didn't care about Klingon honor anymore and I thought their "evolved" attitudes a joke. Fortunately, while still there, the "evolved" humanity wasn't as front and center in the other spin-offs.

 

[wulfio]

The problem with Roddenberry's evolved humans of the 24th century, who are so enlightened they can't even argue over the last sandwich on a tray, is they're insufferable sanctimonious assholes.

I like them.

I found the attitudes grating and the characters increasingly unlikable. By the time season five rolled around, I found TNG increasingly difficult to take seriously. I was watching the Blu-ray of season five and just hit the wall with "Ethics". I didn't care about Klingon honor anymore and I thought their "evolved" attitudes a joke. Fortunately, while still there, the "evolved" humanity wasn't as front and center in the other spin-offs.

I guess I just really enjoyed it because I've read a lot of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. And I liked recognizing familiar themes in existentialism, will to power, ubermensch, ethics, alienation, individuality, etc. I never found the writing to be sanctimonious, but rather an expression of those themes, with space ships and aliens. And yes, the aliens were one dimensional, but they were supposed to be that way since they were utilized as a social commentary on the human condition.

 

[RandyS]

You want to know the real reason people hate the evolved humans of TNG? Jealousy, plain and simple. Picard and co. are better than we are as people. We will never be that good, and, for some reason, that bothers some fans. The TNG characters aren't "snobs" or any of the other names that have been thrown at them. They're characters in a story depicting a much better world than the one we will ever have, and for some reason, this grates on people. It should inspire them to do better, to improve themselves, but instead, it brings out hate. Personally, I would much rather relate to the TNG characters than, say, the characters of New Battlestar Galactica, a show that most fans find "relatable". If those are the people you want to relate to, then we might as well throw in the towel right now.

 

[wulfio]

You want to know the real reason people hate the evolved humans of TNG? Jealousy, plain and simple. Picard and co. are better than we are as people. We will never be that good, and, for some reason, that bothers some fans. The TNG characters aren't "snobs" or any of the other names that have been thrown at them. They're characters in a story depicting a much better world than the one we will ever have, and for some reason, this grates on people. It should inspire them to do better, to improve themselves, but instead, it brings out hate. Personally, I would much rather relate to the TNG characters than, say, the characters of New Battlestar Galactica, a show that most fans find "relatable". If those are the people you want to relate to, then we might as well throw in the towel right now.

+1

 

[BigJake]

I think there's room for both, and also that a great deal of the talk about TNG's "evolved" humans and supposedly "dull" characters is way oversold.

The fact of the matter AFAICS is that TNG's characters got steadily more human and relatable as the show progressed, not less so. Picard, for instance, while he usually found a way to do the right and moral thing, is also really the only Captain we've ever seen break down under torture or weep in the arms of a family member about post-traumatic stress. Riker got to evolve from a second-string Young Kirk analogue into a character with his own dignity, gravitas and human vulnerabilities; Frakes' acting chops are taken for granted and lightly dismissed these days, like much else about the rather tiresome posthumous axe-grinding with TNG, but material like "Frame of Mind" would have been well beyond a lesser actor or one with a different skill set -- I don't think The Shat (PBUH) could have pulled that kind of material off as believably, for instance -- and it was largely Frakes' work that made "The Pegasus" a genuine TNG classic. Troi and Crusher both developed into much more considerable presences than either of them were in the early seasons, hence the classic Troi episode "Face of the Enemy" and Crusher holding her own with Picard in "Attached." So also with Worf, Data, and LaForge; TNG quite simply featured the strongest across-the-board character development of any Trek show to that point. Arguably of any Trek show period, although there's strong competition from DS9.

That the "evolved" conceit led to overly-cushy notions of the Federation and constrained storytelling in some ways is true, but this whole notion that it supposedly led to "dull" or "unrelatable" characters is a very hard sell for me. There's no accounting for taste, but on the whole I just don't buy it; if it were really true, TNG would never have become the most popular televised edition of the show. If anything, the worst character sins TNG committed were on the big screen, where all of that character work was basically tossed out the window.

At the same time, I liked NuBSG's take on character work, too. That's a radically different setting where people are living out a reality not too unlike one of those seen in "Parallels", where people are struggling to overcome desperate and extreme circumstances. That necessitates very different dynamics and stories, and NuBSG was right to go in that direction... albeit it would have been nice if they'd planned out the arc a little more.

 

[Jedi_Master]

I kind of liked seeing a fictional future where the majority of the characters were portrayed as decent, "good" people.
Keep in mind that TNG was produced in the late eightes/early nineties when (in America) there was a booming economy, the US had triumphed in the Cold War, democracy was growing world wide, and there was negotiated peace in Israel/Palestine. Peace, unity, and other ideals were looking more and more inevitable.
NuBsg and some of the other shows referenced in this thread were produced post 9/11 and reflect the increasing cynicism, political apathy, income disparity, and distrust of authority that have defined the past decade and a half.

 

[BillJ]

Picard and co. are better than we are as people.

I find people who turn a blind eye to suffering and death at the altar of some cosmic plan far worse than most people that inhabit planet Earth today.

"Too bad your planet is stuck in the path of that asteroid and you haven't evolved enough to know how to divert it. Sucks to be you."

You have a funny definition of "better".

 

[BigJake]

"Too bad your planet is stuck in the path of that asteroid and you haven't evolved enough to know how to divert it. Sucks to be you."

You know, you say this same thing every single time, but your memory seems a tad selective: the only two times the TNG crew ever even contemplated letting the Prime Directive play out this way, intervention won the argument.

On the other hand, the TNG crew issued General Order 24 to outright glass an entire planet on zero occasions, which puts them at least one up on Jim Kirk. From a certain point of view.

 

[BillJ]

"Too bad your planet is stuck in the path of that asteroid and you haven't evolved enough to know how to divert it. Sucks to be you."

You know, you say this same thing every single time, but your memory seems a tad selective: the only two times the TNG crew ever even contemplated letting the Prime Directive play out this way, intervention won the argument.

Intervention didn't win the argument in "Homeward". Worf's brother beaming a few Boraalans up to the Enterprise was the only way any of them were going to be saved. Picard had to be dragged kicking and screaming along.

Then there was the little girl who died during "Hide and Q", who could've been saved by Riker. Picard waxes philosophically about how it would have been wrong to save her.

I'm sure if I sat down and thought about it, I could pull up numerous other examples of how cold-hearted the people of the 24th century are.

 

[BigJake]

"Too bad your planet is stuck in the path of that asteroid and you haven't evolved enough to know how to divert it. Sucks to be you."

You know, you say this same thing every single time, but your memory seems a tad selective: the only two times the TNG crew ever even contemplated letting the Prime Directive play out this way, intervention won the argument.

Intervention didn't win the argument in "Homeward".

Intervention on a planetary scale wasn't an option in "Homeward," the atmospheric catastrophe took its course in hours and could not be stopped. Worf's brother does win his argument for saving a handful of them, and Picard's reservations are ultimately overcome, because he's a reasonable person.

Picard waxes philosophically about how it would have been wrong to save her

... because that would mean Riker accepting powers that permanently let a proven crazy, malevolent alien superbeing into his life, which is non-insane, unlike carping about that argument.

I mean it's not like "Errand of Mercy," where Kirk has to be dragged kicking and screaming into not making interstellar war by the fiat of some Omnipotent Space Dudes. Come to think of it, that puts the TNG crew 2 up on old Jim, God love him.

Three up, actually, when you consider they also had the good sense to never "implement the Prime Directive" by engaging in proxy Cold War arms races as per "A Private Little War." Seems to me like there's a lot more amoralism to obsess over in TOS if you're really determined to do so.

 

[BillJ]

Three up, actually, when you consider they also had the good sense to never "implement the Prime Directive" by engaging in proxy Cold War arms races as per "A Private Little War." Seems to me like there's a lot more amoralism to obsess over in TOS if you're really determined to do so.

And your pointing out exactly why people began drifting away from the spin-offs: the characters simply weren't recognizable as human beings by general audiences.

Jim Kirk wasn't perfect and had to learn numerous lessons while he was out there. Picard acted like a Christian missionary, out preaching the gospel of why humanity is so great and why everyone should strive to be like us.

I know which one I found more interesting...

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

TNG humans are not better than we are, because they openly GLOATED about how better they supposedly are. They rubbed lesser beings' faces in it. A truly enlightened people would not do that.

We real humans may be crass, blunt and unevolved, but at least we're honest.

 

[BigJake]

And your pointing out exactly why people began drifting away from the spin-offs: the characters simply weren't recognizable as human beings by general audiences.

No, you want it both ways now. Either Picard is the incarnation of arrogance and perfidy or he's so perfect as to not be human. Neither of those dogs will hunt. TNG didn't post record ratings using characters that "simply weren't recognizable as human beings by general audiences," that's revisionism.

Picard was just as susceptible to imperfections as Kirk was, they were just different imperfections. We saw if anything, as I pointed out above, far more of Picard's genuinely human and vulnerable side than we ever saw of Kirk's. This whole business about him supposedly being not recognizable as a human being doesn't fit with what was on the show. You may not like him as much as you liked Kirk, but that has nothing necessarily to do with whether he was recognizable as human.

As for audiences drifting away from later shows, there were problems with characterization sometimes involved there, but they had more to do (esp as VOY and ENT came around) with the characters being dull and poorly conceived than with their being "inhuman." If anything later shows backed away from the "evolved" conceit after TNG, in DS9's case a long way away. So the loss of audiences post-TNG can't plausibly be blamed on that conceit.

 

[Ryan8bit]

And your pointing out exactly why people began drifting away from the spin-offs: the characters simply weren't recognizable as human beings by general audiences.

No.

 

[dub]

And your pointing out exactly why people began drifting away from the spin-offs: the characters simply weren't recognizable as human beings by general audiences.

No, you want it both ways now. Either Picard is the incarnation of arrogance and perfidy or he's so perfect as to not be human. Neither of those dogs will hunt. TNG didn't post record ratings using characters that "simply weren't recognizable as human beings by general audiences," that's revisionism.

Plus, the household ratings (those that are available) didn't really start to trend downward until DS9, and you certainly can't put those DS9 characters in this same category. So using that as a major reason for viewers turning away doesn't wash. And the reason for those ratings started going down and the reasons for people tuning out are far more complex than any one person can try to sum up in a couple of presumptive and generalizing sentences on a fan board.

 

[BigJake]

Exactly so.

 

[wulfio]

I think the issue people have with the prime directive is the same thing that people don't understand about our environment when it comes to non-invasiveness, rather than the attitude that we are on a pedestal, and it's up to us to control our environment. The issue will continue to be circular unless the people understand the former.

The prime directive is not heartless, it is logical. Just agree to disagree.

 

[T'Girl]

Either Picard is the incarnation of arrogance and perfidy or ...

Picard was just as susceptible to imperfections as Kirk was.

Both are true, Picard was imperfect and I don't think anyone is under the false impression that he was perfect. His failing was his perspective that he and his society were perfect. That his was a utopian paradise and that unless you embraced (or had already obtain) his type of society he was better than you.

This is where you find the near universal observation that Picard was arrogance incarnate.

Kirk on the other hand was well aware that he was imperfect, and while he believed in his society, he didn't look down on people whose societies were different.

Now did the arrogance result in a loss of rating? Hard to say, but it was tiresome. It would have been (imho) an interesting improvement in Picard's character if he had gradually lost his hubris over the course of the series.

The prime directive is not heartless ...

That depends on the application, not simple on the existence of the directive.

I think the issue people have with the prime directive is the same thing that people don't understand about our environment

I would think that there would be absolutely no similarities in the slightest.

and it's up to us to control our environment.

It's up to us to control our surroundings to our best benefit.

 

[BigJake]

Kirk on the other hand was well aware that he was imperfect, and while he believed in his society, he didn't look down on people whose societies were different.

I find this observation counterintuitive.

Don't get me wrong, Picard's major weakness is certainly his idealism, his absolute faith in the abstract ideals of Starfleet and willingness to act on them. His need to act on them, in fact, which Riker in one episode points out as his "Persian flaw."

But Kirk bows to absolutely nobody, most certainly including Picard, as arrogance and willingness to judge other people's cultures goes. In fact his never-hesitating willingness to judge is a key part of his character; he is, in Sixties terms, an avatar of Whiggish privilege, certainty and assuredness, the incarnation of the same assuredness the "greatest generation" that fought WWII brought (sometimes effectively, sometimes disastrously) to complex problems. That's the source of his attraction... and also the reason later ages sometimes came to regard him as being kind of a dick.

 

[Jedi_Master]

So just for the record here, a show that went seven seasons, spawned four movies, two indirect spinoffs, and one "grandkid" spinoff, had record ratings, developed iconic characters played by actors who draw immense crowds at sci-fi conventions, and continues to serve as the basis for best selling novels was ACTUALLY populated by arrogant, dull, flawed, myopic, boring characters who's hubris and single-minded pursuit of a liberal utopia made the show tedious and terrible to watch? For the love of Chrysler some of y'all need a hobby.