Maybe Picard's attitude was right

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Offenhouse makes an excellent point: If power over one's own life is an illusion, as Picard claims, then why is Offenhouse alive? His heart failure should have killed him, but it didn't. He knew he was going to die, so he took steps to prevent it. He exercised power over his life.

Besides, if people don't get to control their own lives, who does? The State?

 

[Herbert]

Offenhouse makes an excellent point: If power over one's own life is an illusion, as Picard claims, then why is Offenhouse alive? His heart failure should have killed him, but it didn't. He knew he was going to die, so he took steps to prevent it. He exercised power over his life.

I like that exchange between them. Offenhouse may have been kind of a dick but he (the hundreds year old 'primitive') puts one over on Picard's holier than thou attitude towards 20th century humanity.

 

[Nyotarules]

Thanks, with that novelverse info the ending of the episode is a lot less of a bummer. Sonny was a bigger hit than he ever was...

The novelverse is interesting, Offenhouse realises power lies in the Federation state
and gets a job there. Good for him! If he woke up in the TOS era then he could become as rich as Midas with a galaxy to economically exploit instead of one little planet called Earth. He could make our present billionaires look like paupers

 

[Nightdiamond]

Now, Riker, on the other hand.... "Well, from what I've seen of our guests, there's not much to redeem them. It makes one wonder how our species survived the twenty-first century." Riker is a douche. Especially since the musician guy was very friendly and not all that different from Riker himself and the woman just a normal person understandably distraught from an objectively terrible situation she had no control over. Meaning Riker was condemning all of them and their entire time period on the basis of that one guy who was really nothing more than mildly annoying and pushy.

Just better to forget this episode if only I could. I just think Picard, Riker and .Beverley come off really terrible in this episode.

Kind of on the fence on this one, because humans can be awful and deserve to be criticized by future generations just like we do when see how bad the past was. The problem comes with the preachiness with a little hypocrisy and smugness appears.

Idk, maybe they deserve to be a little smug.

On a second look, you get the impression that Riker was criticizing their very quality as humans. As in the way they dress, the clothes they wore, the way they spoke, being from such a primitive era with odd customs. As if the 24th century had a much higher quality of human period, due to evolution.

The show itself was hinting at it when it implied TV watching was an outdated thing 'primitive humans did. Or commenting on some other behaviors from this era.

Crusher seemed to criticize their choices, but a few episodes later they meet a 24th century human that wanted to stay alive so bad, he transferred his mind into Data's.

Picard and co. were condescending and "holier-than-thou" when it came to humans of our general era. If I was to be put into stasis and wake up centuries from now, I would much rather be discovered by Kirk and his crew, and be treated with dignity and be inspired rather than be looked down on.

One thing I do wonder is, why then do they immerse themselves so much in the early and mid 20th century when they use the holodeck? Picard, Riker, Crusher, Laforge, all have willingly done it.

.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Kind of on the fence on this one, because humans can be awful and deserve to be criticized by future generations just like we do when see how bad the past was. The problem comes with the preachiness with a little hypocrisy and smugness appears.

Idk, maybe they deserve to be a little smug.

On a second look, you get the impression that Riker was criticizing their very quality as humans. As in the way they dress, the clothes they wore, the way they spoke, being from such a primitive era with odd customs. As if the 24th century had a much higher quality of human period, due to evolution.

The show itself was hinting at it when it implied TV watching was an outdated thing 'primitive humans did. Or commenting on some other behaviors from this era.

Crusher seemed to criticize their choices, but a few episodes later they meet a 24th century human that wanted to stay alive so bad, he transferred his mind into Data's.





One thing I do wonder is, why then do they immerse themselves so much in the early and mid 20th century when they use the holodeck? Picard, Riker, Crusher, Laforge, all have willingly done it.

.

I still don't see any real evidence in the episode that Picard actually does look down on them like this. And, like you said, Crusher's real issue seems to be just the choices made like taking drugs - her holoprograms obviously don't involve that side of the past.

But I definitely agree Riker's position is bizarre. He seems to think that all people of the era were terrible, yet he pretends to be in that era for fun. He seems to think that Sonny's drug use is disgusting, yet he romanticizes alcohol almost as much as Scotty does. He seems to think that Ralph is disgusting for his general behavior, yet Riker's own behavior was often as bad or worse.

 

[Lance]

Personally, I've long abandoned the theory that we are the past of Star Trek's utopian future, in favour of us being the past of the mirror universe.

I always appreciated though that it was kind of baked in to Roddenberry's recipe for the series that it wasn't a totally clear path for humanity getting to that point, and that even in the regular universe things got a lot worse before they ever started to get better...

 

[Nyotarules]

One thing I do wonder is, why then do they immerse themselves so much in the early and mid 20th century when they use the holodeck? Picard, Riker, Crusher, Laforge, all have willingly done it.

The same reason some folks in England attend Civil war reenactments

 

[Tracy Trek]

Now, Riker, on the other hand.... "Well, from what I've seen of our guests, there's not much to redeem them. It makes one wonder how our species survived the twenty-first century." Riker is a douche. Especially since the musician guy was very friendly and not all that different from Riker himself and the woman just a normal person understandably distraught from an objectively terrible situation she had no control over. Meaning Riker was condemning all of them and their entire time period on the basis of that one guy who was really nothing more than mildly annoying and pushy.

The woman's husband made the choice for her. She was probably terrified when she woke up in unfamiliar surroundings.

The way TNG portrayed them, they came off smug sometimes. I mean smug as in 'look at that miner's clunky dirty ship. It's so not clean and advanced like the Enterprise. I'm going to turn up my nose now."

This makes me think of the episode Carbon Creek in Enterprise. T'Pol's grandmother sees the coal miners of the 1950's and speculates that they are slave labor. And wonders how the people of this planet managed to launch a artificial satellite (Sputnik). Based on what exactly? Because the humans of the 1950's still had people doing manual labor. In the TNG episode The Neutral Zone, no one knows what a homemaker is which is what Clare was.

Sonny is extremely friendly and easy-going and Clare is just upset at her circumstances (but makes no deliberate attempt to burden anyone else with her problems).

The scene where Clare bursts into tears and Picard demands Troi come and deal with them made me not like him very much in this instance (and it wasn't the first time).

 

[thribs]

That whole episode was strange with how dismissive they were all to them. You’d think finding people from the 20th century would be exciting for them.
I do like in the DTI novel that they follow the girl and she goes on to show how boring and creepy the 24th century is which I sort of agree with.
Everyone is all happy and smiley faced.
*shudder*

 

[Tracy Trek]

I do like in the DTI novel that they follow the girl and she goes on to show how boring and creepy the 24th century is which I sort of agree with.

Which novel was this? I've read some of the DTI novels, but I don't recall that story line.

 

[thribs]

The first one. The chapter that follows her.

 

[Commishsleer]

That whole episode was strange with how dismissive they were all to them. You’d think finding people from the 20th century would be exciting for them.

Exactly.
Kirk was very gracious with his 20th century visitor - even loaning them a uniform.
Was it because Captain Christopher was a military man and worthy of respect while a mother, a wall street tycoon and a country music singer were not.

I'm sure if somehow scientists found a 19th century person today everyone (in the world) would be interested (if we ignored the mechanism part) and want to find out how it really was to live in that era by a living witness. Of course later on their minders might not like the person given attitudes towards women, hygiene, racism etc.

The 20th century group inspired disgust on the Enterprise from the moment they were picked up for their meat-eating, alcohol swilling, sentimental ways. Picard's crew were as non-judgmental as Dr Phil.

 

[The Old Mixer]

People who were born in the 19th century were still around in our lifetimes.

 

[Nightdiamond]

Sometimes I think if Picard and others in the 24th century really live in a society where they solved the problems of poverty, racism, political problems, social problems, and war, they might have earn the right to be a little smug.


It's just that the more you study TNG, especially the first few seasons, the more utopian it seems to portray human society and the more preachy and unrealistic it appears, like the main characters seeming to being perfect all the time.

It also kind of avoided the 'what if' questions and scenarios that are bound to come up in this society.

Sisko was the only person to express discomfort about participating in a holodeck program set in a time of great discrimination. A lot of viewers criticized him for it too.

The show sent inconsistent messages about sexuality like how Crusher reacted to Odan or basically refusing to really show anything except same sex relationships.

It was disappointing to finally learn how humans evolved into culture they had by the 24th century; I always thought that WW3 decimated human society and they had little choice but to change. Humans started working together and solving problems until they made it out into space and they were able to improve even further.

It would have also explained why humans seemed so pacifist and hated war--they were almost wiped out by it.

Instead from FC says it was mainly because the Vulcans discovered them and landed on the planet. It was just after WW3, but people seemed to be living reasonably well in communes and even experimenting with rocket ships and talking about making money and "retiring" on a luxury island or something?

 

[thribs]

And they complain when higher evolved species like Q and Organians ignore them when Picard did the exact same thing.

 

[UnknownSample]

Trek refuses to be complimentary about our present day. Trek isn't out to reassure us that ours is the right way and that we are angels. Trek questions and criticizes. Trek says that we're on a course to destruction and that because of our failings, things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. WW3 in other words.
==========
All things considered, Picard was very tolerant and restrained. Gracious, even. It's best not to get too sensitive about a little disdain he has toward them, at first. He's just on his guard. They could be anybody. Violent, prejudiced, disruptive. They're painfully aware WW3 was building when they were frozen.

Look around. A lot of people around us aren't too tolerant or reasonable. Don't take it personally.

 

[Shawnster]

Trek isn't out to reassure us that ours is the right way and that we are angels. Trek questions and criticizes. Trek says that we're on a course to destruction and that because of our failings, things are going to get a lot worse before they get better

This. I see a lot of criticism at times about certain aspects of Trek stories that reveal the critic is forgetting /ignoring that Star Trek is a medium by which writers will provide social commentary on the times in which the episode was written. Overall I agree with some of the critiques. At other times I think the criticism goes too far.

Odan and Crusher, mentioned above, is an example. 1980s audiences and producers were not ready / going to accept any same sex relationship on TV in Star Trek. The reality of the times dictated how that scene was written and shouldn't, in my opinion, be used as evidence of 24th century ideals.

Just like an episode that deals with racism and has a hero character discuss how his people were treated in the past should not be viewed as stating 24th century characters cling to or fight against the same racial prejudice exhibited in the 20th century.

At some point we need to remember this is art and one purpose of art is social commentary.

But, then, this is trekbbs so what do I know? LOL

 

[Nightdiamond]

Odan and Crusher, mentioned above, is an example. 1980s audiences and producers were not ready / going to accept any same sex relationship on TV in Star Trek. The reality of the times dictated how that scene was written and shouldn't, in my opinion, be used as evidence of 24th century ideals.

True, with it being a network product of the 80' and 90's, but I think some fans have wondered, wondered, 'why couldn't she be honest and just admit she was only attracted to males?'

Instead she told him she couldn't keep up with the constant changes, which seemed a little dishonest since at first, she smiled and seemed eager to meet the new Odan, when she thought it was going to be male.

When she saw it was going to be a female, you can see the obvious disappointment in her face. And then the breakup speech.

It had the effect (for some people) of making Beverly look unintentionally homophobic. Ironically because she wasn't honest enough to admit she wasn't attracted to female that way.

She couldn't actually admit that either though, because it would ruin the perception of 24th century people evolving out of those types of behaviors.

Especially when TNG had claimed in earlier seasons about how judging by appearance was the last of the human prejudices.

 

[Tenacity]

Was it because Captain Christopher was a military man and worthy of respect while a mother, a wall street tycoon and a country music singer were not.

Picard probably would have referred to Captain Christopher's flight suit as a "costume."

Trek refuses to be complimentary about our present day.

Which is odd. The 24th century is built on the efforts of those who came before. It's almost like Picard and company think that all they have was their own doing.

At least LaForge acknowledges where their tech comes from and in some cases the basics haven't changed in centuries.

All things considered, Picard was very tolerant and restrained.

It would be hard to describe Picard as tolerant of the rescued survivors.

Gracious, even.

Picard: "Well, they're alive now. We're going to have to treat them as living human beings."

They're painfully aware WW3 was building when they were frozen.

They all would have died in about 1994, the Eugenics wars had recently ended, The third world war was 60 years in the future, it's very unlikely the causes of the war were building at that time, or that the three knew of the causes.

1980s audiences and producers were not ready / going to accept any same sex relationship on TV in Star Trek.

Which is strange, because some TV shows of that time did featured gay characters and same sex relationships.

So why not Star Trek?

 

[TommyR01D]

People who were born in the 19th century were still around in our lifetimes.

The last one died five months ago.