I still hesitate with 
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Spoilers Strange New Worlds General Discussion Thread
- Thread starter NewHeavensNewEarth
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Shit, maybe. That didn't really become acceptable on TV until early 2000s, South Park even celebrated the event. But damn? I don't remember a time when that wasn't acceptable.
Of course, I could be thinking of Canadian television, where even daytime TV can get away with nearly every swear word. Fuck and cock are the only ones that get bleeped.
Yeah, they even said 'damn' a couple times in TOS.
The 1960s were neither as liberated nor as puritanical as we like to believe.
Kirk to McCoy re. Spock, “I can’t damn him for his loyalty”. -Journey to Babel
There may be one or two others, just can’t remember the, at the moment.
There is also, of course, the infamous “Let’s get the hell out of here” line at the end of City, as well as the Milton quote from Space Seed.
There may be one or two others, just can’t remember the, at the moment.
There is also, of course, the infamous “Let’s get the hell out of here” line at the end of City, as well as the Milton quote from Space Seed.
N word use to be used a lot when showing a character to be racist. I remember it being used on Quantum Leap for example when Sam leaped in a Ku Klux Klan person. Also NYPD Blue. Jason
You can but it never feels authentic. Of course network TV has been dealing with this issue for along time and became more pronounced when Cable took off where they didn't have those restrictions. Jason
I grew up in a very sheltered religious household at the time
Sorry you'd have to go back to "Star Trek IV The Voyage Home".
The TOS Trek films V and IV definitely came across as TNG to me as all the sets (except for the bridge); like the briefing room, and especially the transporter room and main engineering, were just poor (read hardly even redressed at all) reused TNG TV series sets, and really stuck out like a sore thumb and all those films.
TFF. We see the warp core in TUC.
We never see the core itself in TFF, just Scotty talking to the bridge with one of the warp plasma conduits pulsating in the background of the scene. I could never tell if it was the TNG warp core but it probably was given how they shamelessly reused the Enterprise-D corridors without even changing the door labels.
It’s the ops officer job, which Data and Kim did, with Riker and Troi handling the HR stuff, which we saw.
They really struggled to find something for her to do, right? I remember when she was the ship linguist in Darmok, something that I suppose in a ship with a thousand people, there should be a person specialized just to do that. And she was the local legal expert in The Ensigns of Command too, right?
The weird thing is, all of these things make sense for the character, and she was probably more well used as a character in that regard in the early seasons. (Of course she would be good at languages, she had to teach herself to speak on a planet where everyone communicates with telepathy - hence her accent - of course she might have familiarity with laws, her mother is a diplomat, of course she does HR, she’s best buds with the XO and ships counsellor, and an empath) I think the problems come later, because some of the writers think in ‘superpowers’ terms, and singular traits. The character bible back in the early days wasn’t too badly thought out, but I would say the problems come more from narrow minded writers rather than poorly thought out characters. Though they did screw over Riker and Troi, and eventually Crusher, by introducing Guinan and never really dealing with that well enough in the show. (Her history with Picard is really clumsy as a result.)
As a result we good too much ‘he’s lying’ dialogue, and because of the strong move to bumpy head alien of the week, we don’t get much follow through on what was really strong in the pilot: ‘I sense pain’ in a truly alien and hidden being.
Sometimes, for all their complaints about being hamstrung by ‘no conflict between the crew’ even some of the good writers on TNG had some real blind spots. I think a ‘pure’ TNG early story is easy enough to tell and make good, even within the ‘genes dream’ limitations, and even now I think it’s the lazy route to ignore that. (As is in vogue once again. The mis-steps in Picard stem from it. Particularly the narratively ignorant/hollow ending.)
Edit: forgot my finishing point:
Which is something that could really effect SNW. The current writing teams are so far very slim on understanding of the allegorical nature of the SF that Trek grew from (preferring overt shows of messaging to the point in allegory... it’s the sugar to help the medicine go down for those that need medicine, not a vitamin supplement for those that are already well as it were... To make you think, not tell you what to, to lead to a conclusion, not thump one on the table.) and despite the budget, effects, and advantages of modern TV, I am not entirely expecting SNW to feature many actually Strange New Worlds, beyond perhaps visual appearance. There’s a huge cast of characters already, but series one of DSC showed that’s not something they are comfortable with. (Despite many protestations earlier in the thread, no, half those characters didn’t have *names* til series 2, and series 2 brought in *more* characters to appease various demands... canonicity was served, they even got a white male lead with blue eyes. Can you imagine if they had stuck Riker in command of DS9 for a season to get people watching? *shudder*)
I am also not sure, despite really liking the overall idea, that more Spock is what the franchise needs. It is likely to please very few overall. But now he’s here, it is unavoidable. (Picard suffers from too much Soong/Data in some respects too, but in a different way.)
I guess we will see what they can do.
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Star Trek and subtle allegory didn't happen as much as we think.
It doesn't have to be that subtle. Even if it's easy to tell what the allegory is for, a bit of emotional distance from the issue can be very helpful. It doesn't always need to be a Cardassian Bajoran situation where there is no 1:1 substitution.
Put it this way.... Let This Be Your Last Battlefield is subtle compared to some of modern Trek.
One of the problems with writing ‘issue’ Trek, is its supposed to be in a utopian future where most of not all our ‘problems’ are already done and dealt with. So Trek typically uses alien races to talk about ‘now’ in the ‘future’. That way, you get the message in without offending the part of the audience the message is for.
Trans issues in a human race that has advanced medical technology like genetronic replicators, pills that grow kidneys, access to full on telepaths and empaths, and literally disassembles and reassembles people on the molecular level like we go to bathroom (but conversely has banned genetic engineering) makes zero sense. 100 percent changing biological sex *would* be possible in Trek, probably at any point in a humans life, and diagnosis is as easy a Betazoid meeting a person and going ‘yup’.
So that’s the in universe reason for needing allegory. There’s no need for intermediate ‘they’ stages in the process.
Out of universe, if you are trying to get through to an audience hostile to trans issues, then it’s no good rubbing their face in it, because that’s how you alienate the audience you are trying to reach. Spock has a *ton* of stuff to do with the difficulties of being ‘mixed-race’ and living as part of two cultures, at a time where acknowledging that is even a thing was tantamount to heresy. But, not once did the audience complain about that that I know of. And maybe, just maybe, when Johnny Appleseed the Fifth met their half-Vietnamese granddaughter a couple of years later, Spock helped that relationship.
Re. subtlety: The early days of TNG were particularly egregious, by having the Enterprise visit other planets and cultures who were not as "evolved" as 24th century humans. Picard or one of the crew would arrogantly sniff their smug disdain at the backward little aliens, point out their faults and condescendingly browbeat and lecture them on how to be better people like them. Hardly any attempts at subtlety whatsoever.
That I think is more a product of current culture and social discourse than anything else. Discussion is not meant to demonstrated better ideas to another but just be right a lot of times, and art reflects that. I think there is also a trend towards not trusting the audience with any real allegory. I think current productions are past the point of messaging without offense.
