Please ignore the large quote, I accidentally quoted everything. Is there no edit function on this forum?
What are your TNG unpopular opinions/hot takes?
- Thread starter WhatAnArtist
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Please ignore the large quote, I accidentally quoted everything. Is there no edit function on this forum?
Next Gen is the most conservative Trek of all. It's fans are the most aggressively anti-modern Trek for that reason. Because modern Trek actually follows through on it's progressive ideals, but in comparison Next Gen "did a gay episode" which ended in successful gay conversion therapy. The crew's reaction? To cite the prime directive and allow it.
I sort of agree and disagree. The show did play towards mainstream views for the most part but it still created a version of the future were all our modern day problems have mostly gone away. You also had a action adventure show where the heroes more often or not thought their way out of problems instead of just going pew pew pew. As for the gay episode it was not gay conversion therapy in my mind. More like giving someone a lobotomy. She is a victim and the show does acknowledge that this society is wrong in doing what it does to people like her.
I don't see how TNG is more conservative than TOS, a series which started in the mid-60s and shows its age quite a lot, in many ways.
TNG is not conservative at all, unless your main point of contention is that the majority of the cast are white and heterosexual (I sincerely hope this isn't your point of contention). TNG is by far the most utopian of all the Star Trek series'. Almost every problem the Enterprise encounters is resolved via diplomacy and negotiation rather than violence, even with overtly aggressive and hostile parties. Values like: respect for all sentient life, non-violent resolutions, and tolerance and respect for other cultures and people are the overriding values actively promoted in TNG, spearheaded by Picard, the most open-minded, tolerant and pacifistic of all Star Trek captains. Various smaller things mentioned in passing also contribute to TNG's progressive credentials such as vegetarianism/veganism, and Earth having no currency, and no poverty.
Your interpretation of The Outcast is totally incorrect; the conclusion of the story is explicitly pessimistic and negative in regards to the fate of the character that undergoes the operation (which is essentially a lobotomy, not therapy). Riker is devastated, and rightfully so. Riker argues at length against that society's values, to no avail.
I dislike your claim that TNG fans are "the most conservative". You know nothing about me, so don't you dare to throw around accusations of what my views and beliefs are, all because I like one show more than you do.
That is a valid point of contention, why do you hope it isn't?
TNG had a notorious history of promising gay inclusion but somehow it never made it to screen. Officially "the right story" never came along but in real life, LGBTQ+ isn't a story, it's a fact of life and time and again attempts at inclusion were rejected.
They say they're progressive, but situations like "The Outcast" crop up and they go
One of the things I love about ST: Picard, is old retired Jean-Luc seeing the failings of the organisation he dedicated his life to.
And so they just let it happen. How ideal. In utopia, they allow these things to continue because it's happening outside their gated community.
So you're saying in your thread looking for unpopular opinions that you find mine... unpopular?
Besides, I'm talking about a television show and not your personal beliefs.
Don't go off the rails here, newbie. FKD did not mention you at all and making a personal stink about it is foolish.
First of all, Riker and Worf did not. They put on black tac suits and raided the facility, and were unsuccessful only because of how fast the "treatment" was.
Conversion therapy is a weird direction to take things, truth be told. Given the absolute, savage hatred that most teens of that generation directed at their gay classmates... if conversion therapy had actually worked, many if not most of those kids would have opted in. Pete Buttigieg freely admits that as a teen, he would have given anything to be straight.
Sometimes, an episode's emotional impact is greatest when that episode does not end happily. Would "The Outcast" have struck as much of a blow against prejudice and intolerance as it did, had it not ended with the cruel establishment triumphing, Riker devastated, and the person he loved turned into a mindless drone? At least the Borg freely admit that they intend to assimilate you.
Regarding the lack of LGBTQ advancement in Trek of that era, try to remember that we are on the heels of a superbly executed decades-long campaign by the national media to legitimize it. In the 1980's, that hadn't happened yet. AIDS was new and terrifying and impossible to treat, and gay men were the "super spreaders". Ergo, homophobia was far more prevalent. I still remember the news stories, the dirty jokes, the urban legends, and laughing at stories that I should have found appalling. So, it would have been a much more financially risky proposition for Trek to challenge it openly. Social justice is a wonderful thing, but so is making a paycheck.
In my opinion both TNG and TOS are wildly overstated in their supposed "bravery".
But yeah, TNG is was a rather conservative show, if it hadn't been, we would have had a gay character, either Riker or Picard would have been non-caucasian, three female characters wouldn't have been deemed "too many" and the female characters (after season 1) wouldn't have been all relegated to care-giver roles.
But yeah, TNG is was a rather conservative show, if it hadn't been, we would have had a gay character, either Riker or Picard would have been non-caucasian, three female characters wouldn't have been deemed "too many" and the female characters (after season 1) wouldn't have been all relegated to care-giver roles.
We must remember that TNG started in late 80s, not all the things mentioned could be on the show, it would've been too much?
I agree that from what I read the 1980s were a more conservative time in the US than the 1970s were, but I don't think I'm asking too much, considering that sitcoms like the Golden Girls had gay (recurring) characters or while I haven't seen the show personally...but wasn't Mr.T the main character on the A Team?
The shows obviously became more progressive the newer they are
Yeah. TNG might have been progressive for it's time, but that was 34 years ago. I just saw Friends and knowing how much Friends is criticized now, it had the same fate. It was progressive for it's time, but things change and some of it's jokes do feel dated. There is nothing wrong with that, if you understand the time it was made is not "today". Now Modern Trek is trying to be progressive for the time that is made. Also, I'm a TNG fan, and there are other reasons why I'm not a fan of Modern Trek, namely the writing, so this blanket statement about all TNG fans being conservative and bashing modern trek for it's progressivism might be true, but is just too broad a brush to be completely true. I do look at episodes like The Drumhead though and how it really is poignant for today, no matter what side of the political spectrum you are on.
As for my unpopular opinions:
1. Pulaski was better than Crusher
2. Wesley was not a bad character at all, and I liked where he ended up
3. Picard was Mind-Raped in The Inner Light and it's downgraded my opinion of the episode a lot over the years
4. Sela was a fun villian.
5. The Best of Both Worlds has become a massively overrated episode. It's good, the shock value was only there a few times and it's not anymore. Visually speaking, Voyager's Scorpion is a much better episode.
But...it wasn't, in my opinion. That was my point. it wasn't even progressive for the 1980s, there is no aspect I can think of were it tried to push the envelope or tried to be daring.
I guess that's why I said might. I was 10 years old when I was watching TNG, so I really don't remember much of what was going on in the 90s (Other than this country having an economic surplus) politically or socially. At least not like I do now. If Star Trek was a show for the time it was created, the things I remember that I took out of TNG was the cold war (Federation and Romulans and Klingons), and the War on Drugs (Symbiosis). In terms of LGBTQ, I was pretty much in the dark on all of that in the 90s.
He was the most visible and memorable character, but not really the main. They were all more or less equal in that regard. And they were all straight and cis, so it doesn't matter.
I wasn't even born when TNG went on the air, I'm just concluding it from comparing it to other shows from around the time and from that perspective TNG looks run-of-the-mill for the time and like it's playing it rather safe with its characters and storylines rather than being progressive and envelope-pushing.
Same with TOS, their female characters were phone operators, nurses, personal assistants, at a time when the female agents on the Avengers (the British show) were kicking ass.
It's actually not that easy to judge a whole show. TOS had miniskirts in every episode, but it also had a black (and female), a Russian, and an Asian bridge officer, and message episodes like Last Battlefield and Taste of Armageddon. TNG had cheerleader Troi, but also male skants, episodes about how disabled people (Geordi, Riva) can contribute and even exceed 'healthy' people's abilities, and episodes like Drumhead, Symbiosis, Measure of a Man, Hunted, Who Watches, Outcast, Time's Arrow, Force of Nature, which had progressive messages. DS9 had strong female characters, a black lead, easy-on-the-pronouns Dax, the feminist revolution on Ferenginar, and episodes like Past Tense. VOY had a female lead and more strong female characters, but they wore lipstick and high heels XD
I agree they weren't progressive at all. They didn't even dare to mention homosexuality in ' The Outcast"! If there is one episode where they could have made the effort it would have been this one.
When you're heading onto thin ice (and like it or not, the ice was thin back then), you don't jump onto it with both feet. You tiptoe, you take baby steps, and if your weight suddenly shifts underfoot, you retreat.
I do wonder what happened, following "The Outcast" and "Rejoined". The viewer response to both seemed positive enough. Kate Mulgrew expressed disappointment that Voyager didn't feature a gay character/relationship.
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