The Dismal Frontier (Thinkpiece on Discovery, Star Trek and Utopian Science Fiction)

[BillJ]

What does "meaningful" mean in this context? Beyond establishing that they're still possible things in the setting, which the speech does well enough for me, what else would you have wanted?

I guess I'm spoiled by some of modern TV where they back up the talk of what their society is like. Of why the things that happen can no longer happen. I'm not so sure allegory and simple moralizing really works anymore for me.

If you're going to play a card, you better have the story goods to back it up.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I probably should've just started my re-watch with Season 3 but it feels like cheating...

Except it isn't. I only rewatch the episodes I feel like rewatching.

 

[Mudd]

But they had a line about food and hunger! Surely that covers everything!

Yeah...rote genuflection to the notion of morals and principles is sufficient for politicians, why shouldn't it work in drama as well?

 

[cultcross]

Real people also talk with a lot of ums and uhs. And we get to see our friends, family, and acquaintances way, way more than we do characters in media. For this reason to some extent any depiction of a character has to be considered to be intentional - emblematic of their normal behavior, and not just an "off day." Unless, of course, the "off day" is a part of the plot.

They don't have to be having an 'off day' in order to respond differently in different situations, they just have to be people. People who are awkward in certain one on one scenarios can open up while drunk at a party, for example.

 

[Spot261]

They don't have to be having an 'off day' in order to respond differently in different situations, they just have to be people. People who are awkward in certain one on one scenarios can open up while drunk at a party, for example.

Absolutely, I have what I think of as "awkward days" where despite being ordinarily outgoing and self assured I inexplicably become self conscious, doubtful and anxious.

 

[Refuge]

Besides, some people seem to forget that this isn't Lorca's show, it's Burnham's.

Oh yeah it's Burnham's show all right, that's why it's so fucking uncool.

 

[CaptainMurdock]

Oh yeah it's Burnham's show all right, that's why it's so fucking uncool.

1000 times this. Burnham is Discovery's Neelix in my book. She makes what could be great and interesting show into something boring and melodramatic. I don't mind a show that doesn't focus on the captain as the lead but I don't give a crap about Burnham and I don't like her character at all. Stapling her backstory onto Spock didn't help either.

 

[INACTIVERedDwarf]

As I've been saying, anyone who thinks Discovery isn't respecting Trek's values must've stopped watching pretty early. The heroes' commitment to Trek's values is what saves the day over and over

I usually find myself in full agreement when I read your posts, but I disagree passionately on Discovery. It's not grimdark. But it's also in no sense, absolutely no sense, inspirational in any way, where every previous Trek was. What is a core value of Star Trek, if it's not to inspire? To remove that is a pointless use of the material, akin to Marvel comics or Star Wars abandoning the inspiring morality that keeps audiences energised, consciously or not.

You can claim that it is dealing with the real problems of confronting jihadism, but in what sense was Star Trek ever about focusing on the forces of overwhelming ignorance? Trek was about transcending such ignorance entirely; showing a better world to that might inspire the ignorant. To show that giving people more freedom, or allowing uncensored fact, isn't as scary as half the world thinks it is; that letting people have freedom of conscious, to change their beliefs, to love whoever they want, will not lead to their daughters being gang raped in the streets and sacrificed on alters and whatever else this planet's conservative religious and cultural groups believe.

Where TOS, TNG, DS9, Babylon 5, SG-1, etc, made their moral cases very clear, and stood for their ideals clearly, DSC has never given us a single inspiring moment. No grand defence of democracy at a time when democracy is being intellectually assaulted from within and without. No grand defence of fact in a climate of rising anti-intellectualism. It depicts a stalemate with ignorance and extremism, instead of showing a better world.

I'm not sure making tough choices between WMD-assisted genocide and WMD-assisted mass blackmail is something that needs 'exploring' in a Star Trek show, what perhaps needs exploring is why these ignorant cultures are the way they are to begin with... or how a human society that transcended it looks and functions... and if that sounds too confrontational, well that's too bad, that is part of the reason why Trek disguised it behind alien analogies.

By the end of Discovery’s second episode, Captain Georgiou is dead, and Burnham has single-handedly started a war with the Klingons. The show quickly slides into grimdark chaos, lurching from one hideous crisis to another. A sinister new captain! War! Misery! Despair! A giant alien monster! A crewmember slaughtered by said giant alien monster! The giant alien monster is actually a helpless creature with useful abilities, so the sinister captain orders it hooked up to an instantaneous transport system, even though this causes the alien considerable pain! Oh no! Then there’s torture! Some more torture! Captain Georgiou’s corpse gets cannibalized by the Klingons! PTSD! The sinister captain was secretly from the Evil Mirror Universe the whole time! Burnham’s boring boyfriend was secretly a Klingon the whole time! Thrills! Chills! Explosions! Impossibly high stakes! If our heroes don’t blow up a ship full of people rightfuckingnow, it’ll be the end of ALL life in ALL the multiverses forever!!!​

So much for what kept people tuning into Star Trek. I guess Marvel and Star Wars is where people will have to get their inspiring stories in future, because Star Trek is intent on becoming Game of Thrones or Peaky Blinders; obsessed with that area of human experience where we are forced to choose the lesser of two evils, instead of looking at what we could accomplish together.

And DSC gives us the first canonically gay series regular and onscreen same-sex romance in Trek, as well as the first black female lead and probably the first Asian female starship captain.

Just because they have a gay character does not mean they are actually progressive on a thematic level. The show is visionless. I rather it stand for something like the end of "old hatreds" mentioned in that quote, than stand for nothing, even if that alienated some section of the audience. Showing a gay couple is not half so progressive as The Orville's message about society's oppression in "About a Girl".

"We believed that the often ridiculed mass audience is sick of this world’s petty nationalism and all its old ways and old hatreds, and that people are not only willing but anxious to think beyond most petty beliefs that have for so long kept mankind divided…What Star Trek proves, as faulty as individual episodes could be, is that the much-maligned common man and common woman has an enormous hunger for brotherhood. They are ready for the 23rd century now, and they are light years ahead of their petty governments and their visionless leaders." - Roddenberry
​

People like to say that TV has moved forward in the last ten years, but I'm not so sure it really has. It has a veneer of moneyed quality, but Star Trek was a populist show; a communicator of big ideas and concepts through simple and concise analogies. By snootily suggesting that drama has to be obscurantist, DSC's apologists may be unwittingly engaging in both elitism, and underestimating that ridiculed mass audience.

 

[Mudd]

STD's Starfleet officers solved the problem of "confronting jihadism" by giving a weapon that would destroy a planet to a religious fanatic so that she could rule by terrorism.

Forget "Trek values" - this show doesn't even stand up for common sense.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I've said before, it's a mistake to assume that Discovery is a dark and cynical show.

Who needs to assume, when we can simply observe? Exhibit A:

STD's Starfleet officers solved the problem of "confronting jihadism" by giving a weapon that would destroy a planet to a religious fanatic so that she could rule by terrorism.

Yep.

Forget "Trek values" - this show doesn't even stand up for common sense.

Yep.​

It may seem that way at first, but so would DS9's Dominion War arc if you didn't stick around to the end. So would "Yesterday's Enterprise" or "The Best of Both Worlds" if you didn't stick around to the end. The season was one long story, and individual stories are usually pretty dark at first before the heroes finally save the day.

And how did the heroes save the say? Oh, yeah, see Exhibit A.

Full disclosure: I've seen all episodes of DSC.

Uh, yeah...what causes you to imagine that people are "assuming" anything?

Yep.

 

[Jadeb]

STD's Starfleet officers solved the problem of "confronting jihadism" by giving a weapon that would destroy a planet to a religious fanatic so that she could rule by terrorism.

Forget "Trek values" - this show doesn't even stand up for common sense.

It's one of the most uncomfortable things Trek has ever done. And, worse, I suspect it wasn't even a deliberate choice -- just thoughtlessness.

 

[jaime]

I don't see it. Which is OK as long as neither of us is trying to pass off his personal perception as objective fact.

I think in their heads L’rell had undergone a more thorough conversation to acceptable Federation values than actually made it to screen. There’s hints of it, but I think the backstory they had for her Didi t make it to screen. We are left wondering if her desire for asylum and bond with Cornwell was genuine for example, and her love for Voq was only hinted at, so her sacrificing him, and his conversion to Federation values Ash, doesn’t carry as much weight, she was present for a battle against something that showed what T’Kuvmas portrayal of the Federation actually looked like...the mirror universe...except she was in a cell, so we have no idea what impact that could have made. Cornwell places her trust in two ‘baddie’ characters by appealing to higher ideals that we as an audience have no reason to believe exist...then ultimately it comes down to those characters experiences with Burnham. Burnham somehow space jesuses L’Rell and MuGeorgiou through shared history, except that shared history is not what it would need to be to create that bond. So I think thought went into it, I am just not sure it made it off the operating table. For a serial, it sure rushed things.

 

[Christopher]

I usually find myself in full agreement when I read your posts, but I disagree passionately on Discovery. It's not grimdark. But it's also in no sense, absolutely no sense, inspirational in any way, where every previous Trek was. What is a core value of Star Trek, if it's not to inspire? To remove that is a pointless use of the material, akin to Marvel comics or Star Wars abandoning the inspiring morality that keeps audiences energised, consciously or not.

It's trying to inspire. Whether you think it succeeds or not is one thing. I agree it's been clumsy in the execution. But over and over again it has had its heroes triumph by rejecting cruelty and violence and choosing compassion and understanding of the alien. The writers are obviously, obviously trying to tell stories that reaffirm Trek's values, and even if you don't think they altogether succeed, it is still grossly counterfactual to claim that they have intentionally "removed" Trek's optimism.

It's only the first season, for Pete's sake. Most shows have growing pains. And I've learned from repeated experience over the past 30-odd years that every new Trek series sparks vehement protest and condemnation from some fans, but is usually more highly regarded in retrospect. Lots of fans hated TNG in its first couple of years, were outraged by the very idea of Trek without Kirk and Spock. Many loathed VGR and ENT throughout. But all three shows have come to be more appreciated in retrospect, at least to some extent. Heck, I wasn't crazy about ENT myself the first time through, but I gained more appreciation for it when I rewatched it years later. So let's wait and see how DSC is remembered in 10 or 15 years.

You can claim that it is dealing with the real problems of confronting jihadism

Are you still responding to me? I don't recall saying a word about that, or any of the stuff you talk about afterward.

 

[eschaton]

It's one of the most uncomfortable things Trek has ever done. And, worse, I suspect it wasn't even a deliberate choice -- just thoughtlessness.

Again, I'm giving the writers perhaps too much credit here, but my own hypothesis here is they had a different ending to the Klingon War in mind - maybe something that would have stretched the arc into the second season, or required a bigger budget. We know the last few episodes didn't finish filming until after the prologue aired. I can't help but wonder if CBS got freaked about some of the negative fan reaction to the Klingons, pulped the planned script, and forced the writers to come up with something new in very, very short order which would put the arc to bed and allow DIS to move on to something else entirely for Season 2.

 

[Jadeb]

We are left wondering if her desire for asylum and bond with Cornwell was genuine for example

Where did they leave that plotline? I thought L'Rell ended the conversations with Cornwell by vowing to fight to the death, but maybe I'm remembering wrong.

I thought you had a good read on what the writers were going for, but, boy, what we saw on screen was a jumbled mess. Your post reminded me that, in addition to installing a crazy cultist as a dictator-by-terrorism, Discovery gave us that bizarre take on sexual assault. That Burnham's arc is a complete muddle is only a symptom of a much more systemic problem with the narrative. It all seems pretty thoughtless.

I think that's a big part of why people see the show as "dark." The dialogue suggests they want to deliver a positive, Trekkie-friendly message, but they're venturing into some very dark territory for cheap thrills, then refusing to engage with the implications in a meaningful way. That's pretty damning for a Trek show, IMO.

 

[INACTIVERedDwarf]

it is still grossly counterfactual to claim that they have intentionally "removed" Trek's optimism

I'm not claiming they intentionally did anything, I'm suggesting they might be too conservative or too postmodern in attitude to buy such a progressive conceit as Star Trek, and their scepticism is shining through. As much as ENT Season One might not have presented 'Trek values' in a way everyone immediately appreciated, it never felt so alien to those values. I can only speculate on why that might be, and my speculation is that they don't understand the appeal as a prospective audience would.

Are you still responding to me? I don't recall saying a word about that, or any of the stuff you talk about afterward.

No, I'm speaking hypothetically, i.e. "you could claim that"/"you could say"/"one might say".

I'm convinced that as a global civilization the greatest challenge we face is to alleviate ignorance. Scientific illiteracy is becoming a global public danger, that threatens the environment, threatens the stability of government, and threatens to elevate extremist views to the level of state policy. Historical and social illiteracy are likewise threatening to topple the global order, invalidate international law, and alienate billions. The battle for change is fought in the public sphere. Social media is flooded with propaganda.

In 200 years, our descendants might be able to wake up on Europa, look out of their pressurised window and see Jupiter rising across half the horizon, it's cloud-bands as clear as a marble. There are societies and cultural paradigms waiting in the future that we haven't even conceived of. Great philosophers not yet born. Forms of art and expression, entire ways of life, that don't presently exist.

But they will not exist if the global struggle with ignorance ends in catastrophic failure of our institutions or environment. Star Trek, speaking personally, was always a source of inspiration to me, and showed me what one possible progressive future society could look like.

I'm half asian, and in the part of asia where my family come from, there is a problem with cultural ignorance, and a rejection of modernity, amongst a significant minority. My father's country borders Pakistan, a state which openly funded terrorism, sheltered Osama Bin Laden near it's primary military academy (with or without knowing), possesses nuclear weapons, names it's ICBMs after medieval tyrants, and teaches quasi-racist things about Jews and Hindus to schoolchildren according to independent reports. The picture elsewhere in the world isn't much better, with many states openly criminalising freedom of religion. In my own country, Britain, many people influenced by these views could find themselves in positions of power and authority, and we already accept so called faith-schools funded by these states. The British people are being asked to accept more immigration from such states, as their own birth rates plummet under economic pressure. In America, the same struggle is happening with western extremists, with a culture war occurring over whether something as simple as climate change exists.

Speaking personally, I can't understand how seeing the Federation turned into a banana republic where individual ethical whims can dictate a genocide, or the fate of a sentient creature, is meant to inspire the world. If their choices ever reached this point to begin with, where was the Federation's institutional oversight? Do we really need to see a culture of unstoppable raving extremists glorified into a macho force the cowes the entire quarant? What message does that send? I find this Star Trek isn't inspiring me at all.

It's only the first season, for Pete's sake.

One of the great things we have in a free country, is to judge and criticise an entertainment product based on it's performance as it goes along. I would love my assessment of season two to read "what a startlingly inspirational show this has turned into". But I'll say that when it actually happens.

 

[Mudd]

Most shows have to sink or swim based on their first season - because if they're not good enough, they don't get a second.

The STD people are abusing the luxury of having a core base of support that will eat crap for a long time while hoping for improvement.

 

[Christopher]

Again, I'm giving the writers perhaps too much credit here, but my own hypothesis here is they had a different ending to the Klingon War in mind - maybe something that would have stretched the arc into the second season, or required a bigger budget.

No, it was reportedly always the plan to wrap up the war in one season. Indeed, Fuller's original desire was to do a seasonal anthology with each season featuring different characters and situations jumping forward through the Trek timeline.

We know the last few episodes didn't finish filming until after the prologue aired.

That's quite routine, except for shows with short seasons or Netflix-type things that drop all at once. And of course plans did change once Fuller was fired and Berg & Harberts took the lead, but that changed things from episode 2 onward, rather than being a late-season change.

I can't help but wonder if CBS got freaked about some of the negative fan reaction to the Klingons, pulped the planned script, and forced the writers to come up with something new in very, very short order which would put the arc to bed and allow DIS to move on to something else entirely for Season 2.

Like I keep saying, there's always some "negative fan reaction" to anything new in Trek, and it's usually just a few really loud people on the Internet who egotistically believe they represent the majority when they really, really don't. To hear people online talk about it, you'd think the Kelvin movies were universally hated flops, but in fact the first two were the most financially successful Trek movies in history. So studios and producers should know better than to take that kind of "negative reaction" seriously, because it's always going to be there from a certain portion of the audience no matter what you do. All that matters is the ratings or the box office.

And season 2 is not moving on entirely from the Klingons. We know that L'Rell will be back as a recurring character. The war is over, but the DSC-style Klingons are alive and well.

I think that's a big part of why people see the show as "dark." The dialogue suggests they want to deliver a positive, Trekkie-friendly message, but they're venturing into some very dark territory for cheap thrills, then refusing to engage with the implications in a meaningful way. That's pretty damning for a Trek show, IMO.

DS9 also went unprecedentedly dark for a Trek show, and fans loved it. "The Best of Both Worlds, Part I" had an incredibly dark ending, and that was the moment TNG really arrived and started getting embraced universally as a great Trek show. And it's nearly universally agreed that the greatest episode of TOS, perhaps the entire franchise, is the really dark and tragic one where the hero has to let the love of his life die at the end. It's completely out of touch with reality to claim that darkness somehow has no place in Star Trek.

Besides, it's naive to think that darkness and optimism are contradictory. It's totally misunderstanding the whole concept of optimism to think it means stories that are rosy and unthreatening. Optimism is not the belief that everything will automatically be fine; it's the belief that even the worst problems can be solved if we have enough courage, drive, and imagination to take them on and never give up no matter how bad things get. You can't tell a meaningful story about the triumph of the light unless you give it something really dark to triumph over.

I'm not claiming they intentionally did anything, I'm suggesting they might be too conservative or too postmodern in attitude to buy such a progressive conceit as Star Trek, and their scepticism is shining through. As much as ENT Season One might not have presented 'Trek values' in a way everyone immediately appreciated, it never felt so alien to those values. I can only speculate on why that might be, and my speculation is that they don't understand the appeal as a prospective audience would.

Every new Trek incarnation from the TOS movies onward has been accused by some of being unprecedentedly alien to Trek's values. The problem isn't the specific series, the problem is the kneejerk human instinct to mistrust the new. Which is why I'm never going to take such a claim seriously again, no matter how you present it to me. I've heard it too damn many times before. Sure, there's stuff I don't like about DSC, but there was stuff I didn't like about VGR and ENT, and to some extent all the others as well. I was telling people nearly 20 years ago that ENT was no different from the previous cases, I was telling people nearly 10 years ago that the Abrams continuity was no different, and now I have to dredge up the same old well-worn arguments and tell you that DSC is no different. And you're not going to listen, and neither will the people 10 years from now who insist that the next new Trek has totally failed to be as true to the spirit of the franchise as DSC was. I'm sick of the whole Sisyphean grind.

 

[jaime]

Where did they leave that plotline? I thought L'Rell ended the conversations with Cornwell by vowing to fight to the death, but maybe I'm remembering wrong.

I thought you had a good read on what the writers were going for, but, boy, what we saw on screen was a jumbled mess. Your post reminded me that, in addition to installing a crazy cultist as a dictator-by-terrorism, Discovery gave us that bizarre take on sexual assault. That Burnham's arc is a complete muddle is only a symptom of a much more systemic problem with the narrative. It all seems pretty thoughtless.

I think that's a big part of why people see the show as "dark." The dialogue suggests they want to deliver a positive, Trekkie-friendly message, but they're venturing into some very dark territory for cheap thrills, then refusing to engage with the implications in a meaningful way. That's pretty damning for a Trek show, IMO.

Yup.
Ash and L’Rell.
Can you imagine if it was Tilly Lorca brought back from the Klingon ship?
Two episodes of thinking she survived Klingon prison by accepting a fate as victim of torture, rape and ‘comfort women’ type analapgy....then they flip flop and it turns out she was a Klingon all along? The whole thing was in her head?
They would be putting out the internet fires till doomsday.
But it’s a brown dude with a beard, so no worries.
Tbhhis acting helps save that from the absolute total mess it is on the page, but only barely. It’s hard to work out if Ash is a victim of anything by the end, because of how muddled it all is.

 

[Mudd]

And all of those remain arguable - there is no consensus on any of that.

There may be fairly broad agreement that TNG is "true to Trek" - maybe - but not that Enterprise or the Abrams films are.*

So insisting that one's previous arguments have been proven out is rather pointless.

Perhaps that's why it evidently "has to be repeated" with every iteration.

*FWIW, I think that they are.