Great article about TNG and the Team Work

[Zaku]

The Underlying Assumption That's Necessary For Every Star Trek Mission

There are a lot of things you have to simply accept (like teleporters and faster than light travel) in the Star Trek universe. But there's also an underlying assumption in the show that has less to do with technology and more to do with its characters — and it's been hiding in plain sight the entire time.

In response to this piece on the reasons why "the smartest guy in the room" trope's cleverness may be waning, a discussion began about the different ways that different fictional universes dealt with their genius-level characters.

One of the most compelling examples, noted many commenters, was Star Trek: The Next Generation, which not only stocked its world with multiple geniuses, it also did something rather unusual with them: It had them, from the start, respect each other's abilities.

If you think about it, every modern show with an ensemble cast has often the characters bickering with each other when they have to work together.

I know that it's more simple for the writers to write Drama! ma it's also incredible unrealistic... In these television series the characters do not discuss in a constructive manner, but they are always trying to impose their opionions.

I work in the IT field, and the discussions with my cowoerkers are more akin to the TNG meetings than the vitriolic squabbles of the "professionists" in House MD or, I don't know, in the infinite CSI or NCIS series...

 

[Lance]

Nice article. What TNG did so well, and it's something that it often gets criticized for (even by people who actually wrote for it), was Roddenberry's creedo that the main characters avoid conflict. But to me, as that article so interestingly noted, what it instead portrayed was a group of characters who were professionals and didn't let ego get in the way of the overall mission objective.

The trouble with so many shows operating on the idea that "Drama Is Conflict", is that it means the characters arbitarily don't get along with each other, which stretches credibility, which leads to ridiculous situations where everybody gets hold of the idiot ball simply because the writers need to fabricate the conflict. I much prefer TNG's model, which was that the conflict would usually come from outside the main characters, and the interesting part was in seeing how our heroes then solved the problem rationally and professionally.

 

[Zaku]

^ I believe one of the best example is in "Remember Me". Dr. Crusher starts noticing people disappearing off the ship, and she's the only one who can remember they were ever there.

And the rest of the crew believes her, and tries to investigate the phenomen!

Now, compare how the crew in Enterprise deals with Sato when she feels that something is wrong in Vanishing Point (Phlox explicitly says that her strange experiences are related to emotional trauma caused by her experience with the transporter).

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I've also heard from some of the writers that they think not being able to have conflict between characters forced them to be more creative with their storylines.

It's a good idea to be able to have conflict between characters, but sometimes especially in shows with long seasons they fill episodes with cheap, childish conflict. There's a formula that is often used where you take two characters, pick a quirk of each character that conflict with each other, put them in some situation where they're alone and have to work together and have their quirks get in each others way until anger escalates and they almost come to blows, before they realize they have to work together and form some kind of understanding of each other (Usually accompanied by completely forgetting this lesson in the next episode).

Some of DS9 and Voyager's most annoying moments came from using this formula, like Worf's childish behavior in Hippocratic Earth. So I think it worked in TNG's formula that writers were not able to use this formula. But there are also reasonable conflicts that might have made the show better, like Crusher begrudging Worf over not giving blood in The Enemy.

 

[sonak]

This echoes one of the comments in the link, but teamwork like we see in TNG isn't unusual in a military environment or one with similar features. A lot of professions, such as teaching, encourage collaboration between professionals.

If one's experience with a work environment is a business one where you have a bunch of individuals competing for status, position, and money then it's more realistic that you'd have internal conflict.

 

[Salinga]

I know that it's more simple for the writers to write Drama! ma it's also incredible unrealistic... In these television series the characters do not discuss in a constructive manner, but they are always trying to impose their opionions.

Especially regarding deep space mission TNG shows a realistic work environment and mindset of the officers. Imagine the crew of the ISS would be in permanent conflict, NOTHING would get done.

And if you look at the characters of astronauts today, working on the ISS or the former space shuttle missions: They come very close to the TNG characters. Todays astronauts are VERY balanced personalities, able to concentrate on a task for long periods, work together with people from different cultures, solving conflict quickly and peacefully, providing a positive, optimistic, upbeat mood for their colleagues. Astronauts today ARE like the TNG characters already.

So in this regard TNG was the most realistic scifi show. Space exploration is ONLY possible with characters like the ones depicted in TNG. Thats not fiction, that is already common practice in todays space exploration.

 

[Lance]

Yeah that's right. ISS is based around the presumption of humans leaving their prejudices at the door before entering (or, more appropriately, leaving them on the planet before leaving ), and Star Trek essentially operates on the same principal: before we can explore the final frontier, we've gotta get over the mentality that makes us bicker among ourselves.

 

[ThankYouGeneR]

Nice article.