Has Strange New Worlds returned to a more 'hopecore' vision of the future?

[I am not Spock]

I've seen people saying the new Superman movie gives them 'hope' and much needed optimism in today's times. For me, this was always Trek when i was growing up.

Trek was a future i wanted to live in. It felt comfortable, cosy, hopeful.

You could say some of the more recent shows have drifted away from that somewhat. Discovery and Picard were often quite dark . Has SNW for you returned to that more optimistic Trek feel of old? I feel it has. It's a show where i just want to chill , and hang out with the characters.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I don't want to ruin the tone right away, so I'll hide my reply in a Negativity Box for people to open and read later after others have said happy things.

Spoiler: Negativity Box

The whole series is tainted by a feeling of inevitable tragedy, and there's no hope of a happy ending for practically any character arc.

Pike and Batel: Pike is doomed to a future of beep chairs and illusions.
Spock and Chapel: They'll never find love with each other. Spock will become emotionless and suffer for it.
Spock and T'Pring: It'll end horribly.
Chapel and Korby: It'll end horribly.
M'Benga: He won't be chief medical officer for much longer, so something's going to happen.
La'an and Kirk: They'll never get together.
Una: The Federation will never end the ban on augments joining Starfleet.
Sam Kirk: He and his wife are going to die excruciatingly painful deaths due to neural parasites in a few years.

Over and over the series keeps setting things up we know won't work out, and the best we can hope for is that Una, La'an, Pelia, Mitchell and Ortegas will all survive.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Comfortable and cozy make for poor drama. I think all Star Trek has been hopeful.

 

[fireproof78]

I've seen people saying the new Superman movie gives them 'hope' and much needed optimism in today's times. For me, this was always Trek when i was growing up.

Trek was a future i wanted to live in. It felt comfortable, cosy, hopeful.

You could say some of the more recent shows have drifted away from that somewhat. Discovery and Picard were often quite dark . Has SNW for you returned to that more optimistic Trek feel of old? I feel it has. It's a show where i just want to chill , and hang out with the characters.

The overall tone is more optimistic, but I don't think other series were much darker in tone than before. I think that Discovery and Picard had a very U shaped style story structure, starting at the lower end by acknowledging the negativity that war and disaster had brought to the Federation. As well as the intense climb back to the light.

I love the tone of these series but I love the growth more.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Lots of TOS episodes had sad endings, but even so, they reached. Doing what's right no matter how painful and striving to improve the universe (world) was always the positive message.

 

[Noname Given]

I think the premise here is faulty.

Neither TOS nor Strange New Worlds has ever went away from a more hopeful view of Mankind's future.

(And I bring up both shows here because they are both set in the exact same time period of the 23rd century. And for anyone who thinks they are not remember that we saw Pike's Telus IV mission which took place in 2253 on TOS.)

 

[fireproof78]

I think the premise here is faulty.

Neither TOS nor Strange New Worlds has ever went away from a more hopeful view of Mankind's future.

(And I bring up both shows here because they are both set in the exact same time period of the 23rd century. And for anyone who thinks they are not remember that we saw Pike's Telus IV mission which took place in 2253 on TOS.)

I don't think Star Trek ever did. TOS, as noted, often ended on a downer note. It didn't always promise a "happily ever after" for the crew or the main characters. To quote Kirk:

Maybe we weren't meant for paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through, struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can't stroll to the music of the lute. We must march to the sound of drums.

 

[The Wormhole]

Yes, SNW is a generally optimistic and light hearted show.

 

[Mudd]

Yes.

About time.

 

[MrShinzoff]

SNW has a bit of a thematic relationship with a film I liked called First Reformed. In that film Ethan Hawke's character tells someone pivotal to the story that "Wisdom is holding two contradictory truths in our mind simultaneously: hope and despair". He was talking to a man who was in a state of despondency because he believed he'd brought a child into a world that was soon going to experience ecological devastation. That idea is played out in the film and I think SNW also explores it continuously. The hope in the show is counterbalanced by a dread - Pike's future being the most obvious one but you could also refer to La'an's and now Ortegas's experience of the Gorn, Una's belief that Starfleet would discover her secret, Chapel's knowledge that she will not be part of Spock's future. It's a show that seems to be telling us that we're right to forsee danger in our future but that life should still be lived fully and joyfully and that catastrophe can be overcome or we can still reckon with it in a way that's tolerable.