It’s about the glaring priorities. I don’t care if they want to have more ladies and gay people and whomever else on the show, so long as the show is great and the agenda elements are organic. When the overall effect isn’t enjoyment of the show, but tedious spoon feeding of someone’s social slant, then the whole endeavor was for nought. I like it when stories are socially progressive. I hate it when that’s all they are because I’m looking for a lot more. At its best, Trek has handled social issues without sacrificing story quality or show integrity or lore relevance.
News Martin-Green: Star Trek Is About Universality
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It’s about the glaring priorities. I don’t care if they want to have more ladies and gay people and whomever else on the show, so long as the show is great and the agenda elements are organic. When the overall effect isn’t enjoyment of the show, but tedious spoon feeding of someone’s social slant, then the whole endeavor was for nought. I like it when stories are socially progressive. I hate it when that’s all they are because I’m looking for a lot more. At its best, Trek has handled social issues without sacrificing story quality or show integrity or lore relevance.
I thought that was the doc’s best scene, and while his death was moving, it definitely felt like shock value. I think I’d have preferred he got put in emergency stasis so we knew he wasn’t written out. Bringing him back is likely a lot clunkier than just having not quite killed him. We barely knew him! I mean, tell me anything we knew about him other than his profession and sexuality. Yet I wanted to have him stay in the story and get more character traits.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...
One thing to consider though when looking at the shows agenda is that we don't know how any of it changed from what Fuller wanted to do and what CBS wanted and what the new showrunners want. Didn't several writers leave the show in the middle of the season? Most of them brought in by Fuller. I got a feeling that in the future the behind the scenes stuff that comes out about this show is going to give TNG season 1 a run for it's money in terms of dysfunction. I wonder who the big baddie will be. TNG it was Roddenberry and that Leonard Matlish(forget the spelling) lawyer of his and maybe even some Maurice Hurley. I have been reading in the Altman book about how people had some major issues with him as well. WIll this show have a Pillar type who comes in and transforms the show. Is CBS basically Berman in that your kind of stuck with them and hope someone can get stuff pass them to make even greater improvement. I also wonder who will be the Denis Crosby who leaves before it was expected. TIlly and Stamets fans should worry because I can see them getting chances to advance their career and wanting to leave early.
Jason
Jason
Star Trek has changed countless times in the past 6 decades. It isn't one thing. I don't agree that the fans are resistant to change at all. I think those who make Discovery are giving themselves too much credit.
I'd prefer if this show was inclusive rather than sprouting this politically correct mumbo jumbo in an effort to look edgy and woke. They act like we've never had a female or non white lead before. They act like DS9 and latter Enterprise weren't heavily serialized. We have memories for gawd's sake! Star Trek is not this backwards white males only tv show they're trying to portray it as.
The criticisms about the writing are perfectly valid. It's been a mess. Whatever Season One was supposed to be about did not come across clearly. It was a disjointed, poorly written anticlimactic mess. If that's the change they expect us to embrace they'll be sorely disappointed.
I'd prefer if this show was inclusive rather than sprouting this politically correct mumbo jumbo in an effort to look edgy and woke. They act like we've never had a female or non white lead before. They act like DS9 and latter Enterprise weren't heavily serialized. We have memories for gawd's sake! Star Trek is not this backwards white males only tv show they're trying to portray it as.
The criticisms about the writing are perfectly valid. It's been a mess. Whatever Season One was supposed to be about did not come across clearly. It was a disjointed, poorly written anticlimactic mess. If that's the change they expect us to embrace they'll be sorely disappointed.
Are you thinking of Up The Long Ladder?
The someone who threw out the idea was Jonathan Frakes, he thought the episode would have more impact if he was playing oppose a androgynous male actor.
There are episodes that go too far, Outcast is an example of where a episode didn't go far enough. To it's credit it works in it's final form, but given the set up it could have been more.
This is new to me, what are you talking about?
And who gave him this instruction, Roddenberry, the director, the writers, standards and practices, NBC, the affiliates, the ladies in makeup, who?
I'd probably describe it more as "military porn" than right-wing masturbatory fantasy.
I'm moderate right and I lost interest in The Last Ship after less than half a dozen episodes.
I agree so much with this.
I’m getting the feeling that the people who make DSC have only ever watched TOS and then have just searched Memory Alpha for the rest of their Easter egg references.
I’m not suggesting that SMG doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but I think her view of part of the fanbase shouldn’t be applied to all of it.
Some of the apparent “controversy” seems... artificial in nature. Ok we get it, it’s “woke”. Write some good stories in season 2 dagnabbit!
Wonderfully accurate assesment! Also, if you’re a lady then I’m pretty sure your opinion counts and is diverse.
But seriously, very well put, and refreshing to see spelled out.Good info. The tale of the filming of Plato’s Stepchildren came, I suspect, from Shatner’s (Kreski’s) Star Trek Memories book 1. Granted, the source may have been less than rock solid, but I believe I read it in the words of somebody who was there. The gist of it was that even once the line seemed to have been crossed, and they were filming an interracial kiss, someone insisted that the shock be lessened a bit for sensitive viewers. I think Shatner said something like “they specifically made me turn so that the camera angle wasn’t as good.”
As I recall the scene, it’s much more of a shot of HIS face, not both faces, in the kiss, and his kiss was about as passionate as a mannequin’s. They were brave and timid at the same time. So now you’ve got a bunch of unsourced tales, and no bibliography! Maybe somebody else recalls this better...
I find it irritating having things projected on the fan base. Tedious snide remarks about how some of the fans are resistant to change or worse... a bloody lecture!
Cheerfully withdrawnYou say that like it's a bad thing.
They were probably TNG kids.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all in terms of story, narrative, overall tone and style. I was mainly referring to the discovery diversity discourse (I like alliteration) that seems to come up every time there’s a discovery discussion.
I think it’s great that the DSC cast and crew is diverse. But they give a vibe that DSC invented diversity from time to time and I’m like “yeh of course it’s diverse - it’s Star Trek. It’d be weird if it wasn’t diverse”.
I want them to talk about *how* they’re going to deal with canon like they keep saying they’re going to.
But at this point if the s2 story is good, they could make all of tng irrelevant for all I care - and I was a tng kid (well, still am at heart - see my username for details haha!)
You mean the two Trills?
But STD said the F-word! And showed Klingon boobies! It's edgy!
I should hope that SM-G's exposure exceeds that of Sirtis and Frakes, since neither of them were the main protagonists on their show.
Why would anyone expect the actors to have anything more than a passing familiarity with a franchise's lore, especially one as huge as Star Trek's? Part of SM-G, or any lead actor in a series, is to publicly promote the show. And actually, I think she has a surprising amount of knowledge about the other shows I think.
She said that DSC was using "hyper serialization". She states in the article that both Voy and DS9 had degrees of serialization, just not on the same level of DSC, and she's right.
DS9 and Voy were structured like The X-Files, (Voy more than DS9), in that they had an overarching story, that stretched over multiple seasons, which were touched upon directly periodically, with stand alones filling out the rest of the seasons. Neither DS9 or Voy could be accused of being "hyper serialized".
But what she did forget ENT, season 3. No doubt, the producers didn't emphasize studying ENT, or maybe she never watched it.
Sounds like you're misunderstanding her as much as you feel she's misunderstanding you. This is not at all what she said.
Ah, the old "if there are other than straight white males in the cast, the quality of the show is diminished because there must be an agenda". Come into the 21st century, bro. The time when TV acting was the exclusive domain of straight white males is over, no matter the amount of bellyaching about it.
You should be happy about that because it decreases the chances that an actor is given a role because of his (or her) race.
It's actually less of a deal than two men kissing. Lesbians are fetishized by straight men, so it has less of an impact. Especially since it was just one episode, Jadzia was consistently shown as being straight (even her relationship with the other Trill was based on a past relationship that was straight) and they didn't stay together. Gay men face more of a stigma in society, not as severely now as it was in the very recent past, but it's still there. The fact that it's been called part of the "gay agenda" in this thread is all the proof you need. For what it's worth, there is no gay agenda other than wanting to be treated as equal human beings with the same dignity and respect as straight people. Anyone who objects to that should honestly deeply consider why they feel that way.Regardless of the technicalities of a fictional alien species, it was still two women kissing out of love on TV screens and was a big deal in 1995
The show honestly needs more people from the LGBTQ groups. Anyone who objects to that or has any hesitation on it is the reason why they should do it. If we as fans can accept Human/Vulcan hybrids, sentient machines, shapeshifting liquid beings, holograms, and various alien races as full members of a crew we love and look forward to seeing every week, we should be able to handle some humans who live on the same planet as us.
That was the change I was hoping for, lol.
The official Star Trek canon. Surprisingly for many it says nothing about continuity. That's a fan thing.
Do follow some of the links and read the comments too, Discovery has been savaged for it's "sjw agenda".
Why would that make you unhappy? Did TOS really become famous and iconic for the quality of the stories and acting?
Clue; nope.
A positive move, but hardly bold given the climate, other shows and movies were already going far further as a matter of course. In many ways we've actually made backwards steps in the meantime.
Ok, what exactly does make for good Star Trek? TOS and TNG were in many ways defined by heavy handed social agendas, whilst DS9 was notable on any intellectual level for deconstructing and reframing those agendas. We didn't see Nichelle Nichols in the White House, Whoopie Goldberg seeking out a role in the show which inspired her or countless progressive groups adopt Trek as an icon because of the Shakespearean scriptwriting.
Watch "The Omega Glory" or "Let This be You Last Battlefield" and then tell me Discovery is heavy handed and badly written by comparison. It really isn't.
This is precisely why VOY is referred to as "TNG lite", because it had all the superficial elements of the show sans the willingness to make statements, direct or allegorical. ENT suffered much the same faults, both shows lacked any substance and the spaceships, rubber foreheads and phasers started to look pretty crass without it.
Trek's cultural impact has been about social commentary, not shooty adventures in space.
It was just a relationship, plain and simple. It would have barely warranted comment if they had been mixed sex, much less somehow been highlighted as symptomatic of the shows failings. It seems to me bizarre that someone would argue in all seriousness their position isn't based on prejudice whilst highlighting a portrayal of a relationship which amounted to about twenty minutes (arguably amongst the best twenty minutes) of screen time across the whole season as somehow being the cause of the show's issues and openly stating that it was "heavy handed" simply because the characters were gay.
It was, as you say, pretty understated and mundane, which is exactly what was so positive about it, the characters and their relationship were shown in terms of normality, avoiding shock value at every turn. Yet still "I'm not being homophobic but......" keeps rearing it's ugly head.
I'll grant the show had it's flaws, but so did every iteration of Trek. Certainly it was far stronger than TNG season one which many would happily rate as the worst Trek ever made.
Can you, however, provide any causative link between those failings and the social agenda? Can you provide any clear argument or case backed by evidence that the show in any way suffered as a result? Can you make any remotely coherent case that the show could have been improved by removing those elements and taking a more conservative position with regards to it's casting?
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