News Martin-Green: Star Trek Is About Universality

[Jayson1]

I don't think she fully understands all of Trek but that's not a big deal. I bet most trek actors had little Trek knowledge or any before being hired. As for the sexism argument. I mean that is one issue and it's most likely the only one she really gets. It's the one that is less nerd oriented. . Do you think many of actors sit around worring about if their show is in the prime universe or not or if it sticks to canon. Heck some of them I think only are concerned with how well their own character is doing. Also she works their and I guess enjoys it though that won't be known until the later years when the real behind the scenes stuff starts to leak out and nobody is worried anymore of promoting the show. Which is kind of what she is doing. I mean does anyone expect someone to rip into their own show?. I think it's rare even when it is deserved. What else can she really say on the subject? Any real criticism will impact co-workers. If she says this episode sucks then that writer or director who helped make that episode will know what she says and not forget it. I don't think anyone is going to be jumping this early to start throwing people under the buss for stuff they don't like assuming their is stuff they don't like.

Jason

 

[Qonundrum]

Her comments concern me. I know we can’t expect the actors to be familiar with much or any Trek, but it’s still sad to hear a voice of authority that doesn’t know much. On the subject of serialization, the first show that comes to mind is Voyager,(?) then DS9 to a lesser degree(?!). Yet DS9 was intrinsically THE show to rely on continuity, consequence, and increasingly serialized episodes, to the extent that the last dozen or so eps were essentially one arc. Having only beat that number by a few eps, (with STD building on other Trek shows, rather than many years of its own existence), DS9 blows STD out of the water in this (and every other) category. Also, side note, the unmentioned Enterprise had a great big 22 ep arc (season 3),followed by a season of smaller arcs, setting a record and standard many years back, and telling a heck of a cool story in the process.

Much more alarming is the implication that disliking or criticizing STD is the same thing as being inflexible, intolerant, homophobic, racist, behind the times, or otherwise at fault. I have many serious criticisms in regard to the quality and content and creative decisions behind STD, and I don’t believe for a second that the root of my dissapointment has to do with my own failings and morally flawed perspective. Wanting a better show doesn’t make me closed minded.
I’m amazed that season one was THE depiction of THE Klingon war, and we barely saw it. I’m deeply frustrated that they took an idea as goofy as the mirror universe, defined by the oldest evil twin cliche there is, and based the show around it, and then used it as a convenient way to unceremoniously kill off their best character/actor/hero of the war. And yes, I do feel my tolerance tested when I think the writers are more concerned with a pro gay agenda than a great Star Trek story, not because they cant coexist, but because quality has to come before agenda, or you end up with the current state of Star Wars: broken and insulting. Anybody agree? Anybody actually read this? Cheers!

I've to disagree on one point:

It's possible to have a quality Star Trek story with gay characters as much as straight characters.

I mean, look at "Yesterday's Enteprise" and Tasha's love interest. Would the subplot be any different if Tasha's interest was a woman? No. The soap opera would be equally forced and lame and tacky and tacked on despite the one moment of "If you see someone with gray hair and 20 years older staring at you from across the room, that's me" since obviously, 20 years later and one restored to the original timeline, both would somehow coincidentally meet in the right bar on Earth, though I'd imagine Starfleet HQ has just the one bar for officers.

So let's look at another story, "The Outcast" - the one where the big moral story is that natural birth is better than genetically controlled test tube babies. Oh wait, that was the big bold metaphor on gay vs straight - allegedly, it sure doesn't look that way on screen.

"The Inner Light", a story with a botched ending and charming mind rape, had Picard living the lifespan of another person within the span of 30 minutes. Everyone bleats about the mind rape and plot flaws and nobody claims the nitpickers are "heterophobic" as response, but if Picard's lifelong monogamous mate was another bloke, I'd bet real money that everyone would scream "HOMOPHOBE!!!!!!!!!!" until the mass of soundwaves shattered every window on the planet as response to anybody pointing out that the story is actually overrated and stinks. Trying to defend a badly written movie or TV show by making personal attacks of the critic being "racist" or whaver ist or ic is conveniently available is deplorable, especially when they point out why and the why has nothing to do with the ists or ics alleged.

"The Naked Now" is the closest at anything successful regarding relationships in Trek, because scarred Tasha is always longing for comfort... and somehow finds it in a mechanoid that was also programmed to be "fully functional". Why would the android's creator, who made multiple models of it, be sexually functional? Well, Soong did seem to live in isolation and apparently nobody liked him... but to make all his androids look like himself? I'm not sure if that's more or less creepy than making an android look like someone else and banging that instead.

Well, so far, Star Trek hasn't exactly getting heterosexual relationships done very well either...

I think the best one was in "The Gamesters of Triskeleon", except Kirk has to leave Shahna at the end of the story, largely in part because that's how 1960s standalone TV episodes just were. Imagine Lorca, if they weren't playing "Let's use this Trek cliché to appeal to the old fans that we otherwise will disregard and then find excuses to blame them with" with the mirror universe nonsense, doing the love exposition with a freed captive and actually takes her aboard, then have several episodes with an actual arc instead of the pile of spaghetti and mashed potatoes that Disco believes is a serialized arc of any importance.

Okay, so the fact is Trek hasn't done any good gay stories, but a lot involving straight people seem a bit underwhelming as well. If it helps, there was a male officer check out Wesley's crotch back in a season 1 or 3 story, on my next TNG marathon I'll be writing down the story name. But if Trek can't get hetero relationships right, it's got zero chance at other lifestyles and facets therein. (For example, you'll find many bisesexuals who are monogamous and/or dating people of the opposite sex (and for many possible reasons, including "ex-gay") despite the media finding it easier just to sell the stereotype bis are all polyamorous or whatever they believe will bring in the most empty cheers o' ersatz acceptance. In real life, you will find bisexual guys (and gay guys) being discriminated against by gay men for all sorts of reasons and reasons far worse than what hetero guys do against each other... Let's see Disco get into that level of complexity, and sincerely. Need a consultant? But it won't. If anything, it'll find a narrative that's subtly backhanded and will pander to stereotypes instead of fighting against them. Without depth. )

I'd rather not respond to the Star Wars stuff as it would be too tangential.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

Much more alarming is the implication that disliking or criticizing STD is the same thing as being inflexible, intolerant, homophobic, racist, behind the times, or otherwise at fault

When I read this I thought of this point in the article:

“What I think I learned, or at least it was reaffirmed for me, is that people are comfortable with innovation to a point. It’s hard for them to grab ahold of diversity and change, and what they consider to be ‘other'”​

The weird thing is she doesn’t give any examples of what she means here. Granted, in the previous paragraph she says:

“from the moment we announced what our show was going to be and who was going to be telling the story; there were lots of people who were rubbed the wrong way by that”​

But that’s it. Now I’m guessing that SMG doesn’t think that “what our show was going to be” and “who was telling the story” could have garnered “vitriol” and that people don’t tolerate what they view as “other”.

Unless from the outset there has been an “othering” of DSC in that it has set itself up as being different to Star Trek (“visual reboot”, updated for modern audiences, “hey we invented serialised storytelling in Star Trek so you can forget the points I just made about DS9 and Voyager and that I forgot about Enterprise which is the only series we actually reference”, etc etc etc.)

She seems to be getting at something else. And if she’s reacting to people having issues with gay or nonbinary characters, then good - she should call those people out.

But... many of the criticisms I’ve seen here and elsewhere relate to the storytelling of DSC. The quality of the stories and the depth of the characters. I wasn’t foaming at the mouth because Culber and Stamets were together. I thought they had really good chemistry and I was upset that Culber died. He was one of the more “Star Trek” characters the show had. I didn’t like that Lorca turned out to be evil all along. I preferred his character when I thought he had more depth before the reveal that many people saw coming. I don’t think these are unreasonable criticisms of DSC.

However there does seem to be an underlying implication in SMG’s words that DSC is fighting off more than just perfectly valid criticisms of poor storytelling and unappealing characters that we can’t relate to. Especially when she says “It’s hard for [people] to grab ahold of diversity and change, and what they consider to be ‘other’”.

What diversity and change is she referring to specifically? What has DSC done that Star Trek hasn’t done before? What “othering” is going on here that we’re all supposed to be tacitly aware of?

Wanting a better show doesn’t make me closed minded.

I agree wholeheartedly with this.

I’ll say for the record I don’t like the “visual reboot” idea. I can’t wrap muh brain around it.

But, I’d have dismissed all of that if the story had been more compelling. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that DSC season 2 improves. Maybe then some of the criticism SMG is heavily implying here will go away.

To finish: here’s a random reference to Mintaka III.

 

[Joshua C.]

Hi people- really enjoying your thoughts this morning.

Cutie Mc whiskers, I absolutely think great Trek can be told with gay characters, so if I seemed to imply otherwise, my mistake. The issue of priorities and execution are troublesome, however. As some have noted, the gay guys have been somewhat compelling characters. That doesn’t make me happier that one of the show’s top priorities and announcements was about character sexuality, or that the only healthy relationships in the entire show have been homosexual.


As far as Trek history goes, I found The Outcast compelling, way back, as a mild introduction to sexuality as something other than male/female. It was a bold move at the time. Still, when I heard someone throw out the idea of having Riker’s third gender love interest be played by a man instead of a woman, I realized they’d stopped short of a much more powerful episode. Likewise the DS9 ep with the lesbian kiss that wasn’t really quite gay, as though they still need to cop out on the message. Reminds me of how Shatner was instructed to make the black/white kiss more palatable for viewers.


Somewhere in there you mentioned finding an ep where Wesley gets his groin admired. Don’t go to any trouble on my account. I’ll totally take your word for it. I’d rather look up Tasha’s sister. And yes, Richard Castillo probably shoulda been a lady, but I like that guy.


Inner Light not a favorite? I suppose it might not hold up these days. Still, it had a great sci fi concept, a spooky twilight zone vibe, a Picard heavy drama, and a lovely running flute theme. Plus, the ending really sticks with me, of course.


It’s great to hear some good old fashioned jaded bashing. We can’t help being underwhelmed by Disco.


Groppler Zorn, I totally agree with your analysis. It’s a big problem when someone casually implies that your differing opinion is a sign of your moral inferiority. Personally, I haven’t heard anyone I talk to criticize the show for anything other than being disappointing. Nobody cares about the little things so much if the underlying product is excellent. I was cool with the doc and the engineer being decent characters and gay (both at the same time!!!), but still annoyed that I was watching a show that managed to have more agenda than quality. As far as I know, there was only one solitary straight white man in the whole first season...and he turned out to be a mustache twirling villain that had to die. Gay characters are a totally appropriate addition, but heavy-handed social agendas don’t tend to make for good Star Trek, Star Wars, or any other tales.


I like the tastey frozen desserts of Frocas 3. Just sayin. Enjoy you duck blind raktagino, or whatever.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Gay characters are a totally appropriate addition, but heavy-handed social agendas don’t tend to make for good Star Trek, Star Wars, or any other tales.

Discovery's handling of gay characters wan't very heavy handed. It wasn't all that different than the straight relationship in the show.

 

[BillJ]

...but still annoyed that I was watching a show that managed to have more agenda than quality.

I really didn't see an agenda, I really didn't see much in the way of quality.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

Hi people- really enjoying your thoughts this morning.

Cutie Mc whiskers, I absolutely think great Trek can be told with gay characters, so if I seemed to imply otherwise, my mistake. The issue of priorities and execution are troublesome, however. As some have noted, the gay guys have been somewhat compelling characters. That doesn’t make me happier that one of the show’s top priorities and announcements was about character sexuality, or that the only healthy relationships in the entire show have been homosexual.


As far as Trek history goes, I found The Outcast compelling, way back, as a mild introduction to sexuality as something other than male/female. It was a bold move at the time. Still, when I heard someone throw out the idea of having Riker’s third gender love interest be played by a man instead of a woman, I realized they’d stopped short of a much more powerful episode. Likewise the DS9 ep with the lesbian kiss that wasn’t really quite gay, as though they still need to cop out on the message. Reminds me of how Shatner was instructed to make the black/white kiss more palatable for viewers.


Somewhere in there you mentioned finding an ep where Wesley gets his groin admired. Don’t go to any trouble on my account. I’ll totally take your word for it. I’d rather look up Tasha’s sister. And yes, Richard Castillo probably shoulda been a lady, but I like that guy.


Inner Light not a favorite? I suppose it might not hold up these days. Still, it had a great sci fi concept, a spooky twilight zone vibe, a Picard heavy drama, and a lovely running flute theme. Plus, the ending really sticks with me, of course.


It’s great to hear some good old fashioned jaded bashing. We can’t help being underwhelmed by Disco.


Groppler Zorn, I totally agree with your analysis. It’s a big problem when someone casually implies that your differing opinion is a sign of your moral inferiority. Personally, I haven’t heard anyone I talk to criticize the show for anything other than being disappointing. Nobody cares about the little things so much if the underlying product is excellent. I was cool with the doc and the engineer being decent characters and gay (both at the same time!!!), but still annoyed that I was watching a show that managed to have more agenda than quality. As far as I know, there was only one solitary straight white man in the whole first season...and he turned out to be a mustache twirling villain that had to die. Gay characters are a totally appropriate addition, but heavy-handed social agendas don’t tend to make for good Star Trek, Star Wars, or any other tales.


I like the tastey frozen desserts of Frocas 3. Just sayin. Enjoy you duck blind raktagino, or whatever.

I think what’s going on here is very similar to what happened with ghostbusters 2016 and sexism a couple of years ago. The people involved in making it are drumming up controversy where I’m not sure one exists.

With GB16 you had people saying that if you didn’t like it you were a sexist misogynist who was a giant manchild whose fragile masculinity was intimidated by female ghostbusters
...
When in reality it’s just that ghostbusters 2016 just wasn’t that funny. For some people. Like me. (I did go and see it. I think I laughed once? I don’t think it ruined my childhood and the actors did the best they could with poor material). The furore created about the apparent sexism seemed to be the studio trying to create buzz about the film.

Compared to DSC describing itself as “woke” (cringe) and SMG hinting at people being intolerant, it looks like it’s the same thing going on - the generation of buzz for the show by creating a controversy around it where I’m not sure one exists.

I also didn’t think there was any kind of heavy handed “Gay” agenda or whatever while watching the show, but these points seem to keep coming up when people talk *about* the show.

Just as with ghostbusters, I get the sense of some people involved with DSC trying to create a furore where one doesn’t exist

...

Possibly to distract us all from the fact that their show wasn’t very good.

Did you think Ghostbusters ain’t funny? You’re a sexist.

Did you think DSC ain’t very good? You’re intolerant.

Now, I can’t prove my assertions here and I’m not getting on my soapbox (although I’m sure it seems that way haha!), but when I read interviews like the one in the OP, that’s certainly what *seems* to be happening. I hope I’m wrong.

Also, apologies if my Mintaka III comment came across as snarky. I was alluding to the tendency on the part of the DSC writers to stick in random references to better episodes of Star Trek from elsewhere in the franchise. The Mintaka III reference when Georgiou meets Tilly is a particular bugbear of mine as it served no useful purpose and reminded me of how good the tng episode was and how bad I find Discovery.

Hopefully they’ll drop all this “woke” description (whilst still trying to be progressive, just not yelling about it) as we get into season 2.

 

[BillJ]

To be fair, it was Entertainment Weekly that described it as "woke".

 

[Nerys Myk]

To be fair, it was Entertainment Weekly that described it as "woke".

Drowsy at best.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

To be fair, it was Entertainment Weekly that described it as "woke".

Well yeah, but didn’t cbs use that quote on the dvd screener? I forget who’s said what about which things as this point

My point is that the “controversy” that SMG seems to be referring to with people being intolerant may be a storm in a teacup. While I have seen some awful comments about women and gay people in online threads, they’ve been in a tiny minority. Which is what made me think of ghostbusters.

I don’t recall TNG being described as the “woke” of its day - although it probably was. I suppose the difference with DSC seems to be that it’s trying to fight against intolerance (both towards itself and in general) and I’m not sure that they’re going about it in the right way. Earlier Trek seemed to make those points in challenging stories, rather than doing interviews with cast members where elements of the fanbase are labelled intolerant.

Bring on season 2, I’m cautiously optimistic.

 

[johnjm22]

I was upset that Culber died. He was one of the more “Star Trek” characters the show had.

The death of Culber is a microcosm of the show's poor writing.

Compare the death of K'Ehleyr to the death of Culber. It's an example of good writing versus bad.

 

[BillJ]

I don't get the complaints of a show having an "agenda"? I watched the first season of The Last Ship, which is right-wing masturbatory fantasy and enjoyed it immensely. Heck, one of my favorite movies is the original Red Dawn, which is also right-wing masturbatory fantasy. Both push their agenda at the viewer.

Good entertainment is good entertainment, I don't get into a snit over an "agenda" as pretty much anything made is going to reflect the views of its creators.

 

[BillJ]

The death of Culber is a microcosm of the show's poor writing.

There's going to be a riot if Culber's Force ghost isn't in season two!

 

[Groppler Zorn]

The death of Culber is a microcosm of the show's poor writing.

Compare the death of K'Ehleyr to the death of Culber. It's an example of good writing versus bad.

Ooh that’s an interesting comparison: two people killed by bad Klingons.

Ok, Duras was more overtly “evil” and he had a decent motivation for killing K'Ehleyr in the context of the story insofar as she had found out Duras’ father’s involvement with the romulan betrayal at Khitomer.

Voq was also ““evil”” and I suppose he killed Culber so that nobody would find out that he was in ash tyler’s body.

So in both cases, we have a Klingon killing an innocent because they’ve stumbled onto their secret.

The difference was that K'Ehleyr‘s death made sense in the story. Culber’s death was seemingly for shock value.

If we assume that Tyler was more in control of Voq than vice versa, then he would have wanted Culber to help him - which is what Culber was trying to do.

The aftermath of K'Ehleyr’s death also had important ramifications for the Klingon empire too - Gowron became chancellor and that essentially led to the invasion of cardassia, which encouraged the dominion war, and ultimately led to Martok becoming chancellor.

The aftermath of Culber’s death led to



Well I guess we’ll see...

 

[Groppler Zorn]

I don't get the complaints of a show having an "agenda"? I watched the first season of The Last Ship, which is right-wing masturbatory fantasy and enjoyed it immensely. Heck, one of my favorite movies is the original Red Dawn, which is also right-wing masturbatory fantasy. Both push their agenda at the viewer.

Good entertainment is good entertainment, I don't get into a snit over an "agenda" as pretty much anything made is going to reflect the views of its creators.

I agree with you here.

This is why I find it weird that people like SMG make comments talking about diversity and change and that some fans are intolerant.

It implies an agenda, but not one that comes across while you’re watching the show.

Like when Mary Chieffo said it was a feminist piece. I didn’t get that feeling while I was watching DSC. It’s only in the comments from the people involved that these sorts of things seem to be turning up. Which I find odd. I just want to enjoy my Star Trek and have it be well-written haha!

 

[BillJ]

Like when Mary Chieffo said it was a feminist piece. I didn’t get that feeling while I was watching DSC. It’s only in the comments from the people involved that these sorts of things seem to be turning up. Which I find odd. I just want to enjoy my Star Trek and have it be well-written haha!

I guess it is because women were in the roles that pretty much drove the story. Georgiou, Burnham and L'Rell minimizing the role of men. But I definitely didn't get a "girl power" vibe from the story, just characters doing their things. I guess that is one thing the writers did get right. The three characters could've easily been played by anyone of any gender. They were just people being people.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

I guess that is one thing the writers did get right

There’s not much that I think the writers did get right in season 1 but I agree that this was one of them

 

[Jayson1]

Every show has a agenda. Agenda is another word for goal. The question is why is this wrong? Every show wants to be more than what is just on the surface. They want to have meaning and not just something to put on as background noise. I would say the show has several agenda's. One thing is it wants to be the most diverse Trek show. It wants to be edgy modern tv. It wants to have a strong female lead. It wants to make you think about issues.

It's had mix results on all of those. Diversity has been it's biggest success in terms of it's agenda. The show is on some level is the most diverse trek yet. I think DS9 still beats it terms of diverse idea's but this show has time to explore more theme's. It's failed at being edgy by modern tv standards. If this show was on HBO it would be more glaring just how gritty it really isn't. It does have a more modern texture on the surface but at it's core it's basically still Berman era Trek. It has a strong female lead. It's kind of failed in that Burnham isn't all that interesting but that has been counter balanced by having many strong and interesting female characters in the cast besides her like Tilly,Georgoui and Cornwall and those inconsistent moments when Burnham does work. Which is usually in being a bad ass fighter. Not exactly the greatest success because tv and movies have had strong female characters who do that several times before her but it's better than nothing at least. Tillly is the true breakout success. She is female character who gets to be the comic relief and everyman character. Kick-ass female characters are kind of common but women actually don't often get to play the role Tilly does until just recent history. You had Carol Burnett "The Golden Girls" and ELaine on "Seinfeld" and almost nothing up until Tina Fey on SNL and then the strong comic actors they started to get and then shows like "30 Rock" and so forth. As for thinking about the issues. Not really. The had a chance to say something about Trumpism but they didn't have anything new to really add. You thought they might have something to say about mental and or sexual trauma from things like War and sexual abuse with Lorca and Tyler but they dropped the balls on those things. Breaking gay sterotypes with Stamets has been it's biggest success in this area.


Jason

 

[Joshua C.]

Discovery's handling of gay characters wan't very heavy handed. It wasn't all that different than the straight relationship in the show.

I actually give them credit for the quality of the gay storytelling and characters. What I fault the show for is making a conspicuous priority of it, at the expense of other priorities that matter more, like making a great show. That’s where the heavy handed part comes in. If one of Discovery’s top three achievements is having a few decent gay characters, (and it might well be), then I am mighty unimpressed that it stands as an achievement well above story telling or character development (so far). Again,I’d point out that one of the first and ONLY things known about the show was the priority to have gay characters, which should have been an organic thing, not a spotlight announcement. And correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t the gay relationships clearly the ONLY healthy ones on the show? So while I do applaud the relative quality of those characters and scenes as being pretty good, I’m left wondering why more thought hasn’t gone into every other aspect of the show. They succeeded in having a few gay couples that seemed like real people, which I think is neat, but they failed to deliver THE Klingon war, or give us a main character I care about and want to see. As a fan of Star Trek, even if I were gay, I think I’d be pretty disappointed right now.

 

[Joshua C.]

I think what’s going on here is very similar to what happened with ghostbusters 2016 and sexism a couple of years ago. The people involved in making it are drumming up controversy where I’m not sure one exists.

With GB16 you had people saying that if you didn’t like it you were a sexist misogynist who was a giant manchild whose fragile masculinity was intimidated by female ghostbusters
...
When in reality it’s just that ghostbusters 2016 just wasn’t that funny. For some people. Like me. (I did go and see it. I think I laughed once? I don’t think it ruined my childhood and the actors did the best they could with poor material). The furore created about the apparent sexism seemed to be the studio trying to create buzz about the film.

Compared to DSC describing itself as “woke” (cringe) and SMG hinting at people being intolerant, it looks like it’s the same thing going on - the generation of buzz for the show by creating a controversy around it where I’m not sure one exists.

I also didn’t think there was any kind of heavy handed “Gay” agenda or whatever while watching the show, but these points seem to keep coming up when people talk *about* the show.

Just as with ghostbusters, I get the sense of some people involved with DSC trying to create a furore where one doesn’t exist

...

Possibly to distract us all from the fact that their show wasn’t very good.

Did you think Ghostbusters ain’t funny? You’re a sexist.

Did you think DSC ain’t very good? You’re intolerant.

Now, I can’t prove my assertions here and I’m not getting on my soapbox (although I’m sure it seems that way haha!), but when I read interviews like the one in the OP, that’s certainly what *seems* to be happening. I hope I’m wrong.

Also, apologies if my Mintaka III comment came across as snarky. I was alluding to the tendency on the part of the DSC writers to stick in random references to better episodes of Star Trek from elsewhere in the franchise. The Mintaka III reference when Georgiou meets Tilly is a particular bugbear of mine as it served no useful purpose and reminded me of how good the tng episode was and how bad I find Discovery.

Hopefully they’ll drop all this “woke” description (whilst still trying to be progressive, just not yelling about it) as we get into season 2.

Well put. And I agree, it’s glaring when a show reminds you of a show you’d rather be watching, or sells out something cool for a cheap reference. When done well, I really love the references. But they are often clunky, like so much of this new show.