Twas always the way, in the annals of human history
What happened to Pike/Kirk and the age of peaceful exploration?
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Twas always the way, in the annals of human history
What other options exist, and how do you get everyone across the universe to use those alternate methods? Klingons and Romulans were happily developing weapons - or taking scientific devices to pervert them as weapons (e.g. The Genesis Device, in convenient torpedo form since the script wasn't about to use the term "giant suppository" to describe its shape.)
The TOS era was hardly largely low-key and peaceful, if for no other reason than it would have made for shitty television. Of course Kirk (and Pike) had plenty of off-camera "adventures" which we can imagine were entirely routine and boring however.
That said, what made TOS work in a way that later series did not was the lack of any "epic" elements. Kirk wasn't really defined as anything special for example until the TOS movie arc. He commanded a Constellation class starship, but it wasn't the flagship of the fleet. From week to week the crew mostly dealt with "planetary level" crises. When antagonists were introduced, they were people of similar scale to him for the most part, like Klingon and Romulan captains and commanders. The result of all of this was to make our crew seem to be small characters traveling through a big, big galaxy.
Obviously since Trek is an established francise, it will never feel as big and open as it did at the beginning. And I suppose it can be argued that serialized plots need to "go big" in some sense. But I think it was a big mistake to have galactic-level threats back-to-back as the arcs of each of the seasons. The best stakes in any story are those rooted in the characters we see onscreen, meaning an arc which threatens the ship and crew alone is sufficient to generate interest. Further, while Star Trek's "small quadrant syndrome" didn't originate with Discovery, they've arguably done quite a bit of damage to the franchise insofar as the Trekverse seems a much smaller place today than before the series premiered. Of course the jump to the future should help this. Time will tell.
That said, what made TOS work in a way that later series did not was the lack of any "epic" elements. Kirk wasn't really defined as anything special for example until the TOS movie arc. He commanded a Constellation class starship, but it wasn't the flagship of the fleet. From week to week the crew mostly dealt with "planetary level" crises. When antagonists were introduced, they were people of similar scale to him for the most part, like Klingon and Romulan captains and commanders. The result of all of this was to make our crew seem to be small characters traveling through a big, big galaxy.
Obviously since Trek is an established francise, it will never feel as big and open as it did at the beginning. And I suppose it can be argued that serialized plots need to "go big" in some sense. But I think it was a big mistake to have galactic-level threats back-to-back as the arcs of each of the seasons. The best stakes in any story are those rooted in the characters we see onscreen, meaning an arc which threatens the ship and crew alone is sufficient to generate interest. Further, while Star Trek's "small quadrant syndrome" didn't originate with Discovery, they've arguably done quite a bit of damage to the franchise insofar as the Trekverse seems a much smaller place today than before the series premiered. Of course the jump to the future should help this. Time will tell.
It's been said before on this forum, but this is one of the most disappointing things about everything post-TOS/TAS. It's so much cooler and makes the universe feel so much larger when the protagonists are just one ship among many, and other captains on other ships are presumably having equivalent adventures.
It also makes it a real "oh shit" moment when a script introduces a wrecked/abandoned Constitution class ship like the Constellation or Exeter, because you get the feeling if the Enterprise had happened to get the same assignment, it could have been them lying dead in space.
I really liked the Glenn early on in Discovery for that reason, but sadly Discovery quickly became the most important ship in the universe with seemingly the most important crew.
Because a landing party under his command was massacred.
Yep, Star Trek literally begins with a ship's captain depressed because a peaceful exploration mission ended in bloodshed and slaughter--before he's captured and sadistically tortured by voyeuristic aliens trying to force him to mate in captivity.
But please tell us that DISCO isn't "peaceful" enough.
I still remember the NY POST reporter years ago who tried to tell me that TOS was known for being "non-violent."
"Come again? Kirk got into a fist-fight every other episode . . . and all those redshirts didn't die of natural causes!"
If the OP is not a troll, it tries very hard to be considered as such.
This isn't trolling, this is an opinion. One you (and me) might not agree with. But not more or less valid, even if very slanted.
If you think someone is "trolling", there is a notification button for the mods.
Otherwise, what you are doing right here, is reeeeally bad form, so much so that I think if @deckard1 would report this post for being personal, I think he would actually have a point.
Also - you can link people's names if you want to talk about them, then they get a notification. Otherwise it's just bullying: hoping other people agree with your opinion about them, but hoping the one you talk about doesn't see it.
Bingo.
Someone here once coined the term "Straw Trek," and it fits in this situation. The culture is very ambivalent about "peace through strength," and you see that reflected in how our vision of a utopian future keeps evolving. People are filling in the blanks and fixing contradictions in their head with this idea of it being just about exploration.
Nah. This era around TOS is quite unmapped. And it being already internally inconsistent helps. If it were *not* to be a prequel, and set right after VOY, it would create more problems, not less, in terms of fitting with established story lines. And setting it even later will threaten it being even less recognizable as Star Trek. We'll get there, but I can't fault them for starting this era of resurrection with a prequel. We will see this play out when the Picard Show airs and everybody gets their britches in a twist about how it violates Gene's Vision®.
It does often seem that newer Trek productions get compared not to TOS as it actually existed, but to some idealized, platonic version of Trek that bears little resemble to the actual 79 episodes. And, yes, it always bugs me a little when people try to impose TNG's "utopian" vision on TOS retroactively.
That being said, some of this rose-colored glasses effect probably stems from the fact that TOS may "feel" less dark to modern eyes simply by virtues of the changes in TV since the 1960s. Taken literally, TOS is full of violence and carnage and horror, but the impact is mitigated in part by the episodic nature of the show (in which any crisis is resolved in 45 minutes and forgotten completely by the time next episode rolls along) and also by the limitations imposed by the budget and censorship concerns of the time.
Take "Arena," for example. Back in the day, the massacred outpost is denoted by a few smoking ruins and tastefully inert bodies, and the atrocity is never mentioned again after that episode. Nowadays, the Gorn Crisis would probably gets its own multi-episode story arc, the massive loss of life would not be forgotten right away, and the assault on the outpost could be depicted much more graphically. So that even if the actual events of the story remained the same, some viewers might remember the TOS version as being less intense.
In other words, this is a subjective impression that has more do with the way modern TV compares to the more antiseptic world of 1960s TV than with any substantive changes to the 23rd century.
That being said, some of this rose-colored glasses effect probably stems from the fact that TOS may "feel" less dark to modern eyes simply by virtues of the changes in TV since the 1960s. Taken literally, TOS is full of violence and carnage and horror, but the impact is mitigated in part by the episodic nature of the show (in which any crisis is resolved in 45 minutes and forgotten completely by the time next episode rolls along) and also by the limitations imposed by the budget and censorship concerns of the time.
Take "Arena," for example. Back in the day, the massacred outpost is denoted by a few smoking ruins and tastefully inert bodies, and the atrocity is never mentioned again after that episode. Nowadays, the Gorn Crisis would probably gets its own multi-episode story arc, the massive loss of life would not be forgotten right away, and the assault on the outpost could be depicted much more graphically. So that even if the actual events of the story remained the same, some viewers might remember the TOS version as being less intense.
In other words, this is a subjective impression that has more do with the way modern TV compares to the more antiseptic world of 1960s TV than with any substantive changes to the 23rd century.
I agree. In fact it's interesting to me that many laud it for the "First Interracial kiss on U.S. television..." however in the context of the story as presented BOTH Kirk and Uhura are being forced against their will to perform it.
My point? In context of the story the scene it's two slaves be forced to perform an act to entertain their slave masters.
In that context, it's not that great/amazing a thing.
(And, yes, in the world of TOS there were interracial and hell inter-species couples - like Spock's parents, so yes, there could definitely be a situation where Kirk and Uhura of their own volition would decide to kiss and find it pleasurable - but again , that's NOT how it was presented in the episode's story.)
Yep. See also, for example, "Operation--Annihilate!" in which entire populations are wiped out (offstage) and Kirk loses both his brother and sister-in-law, only to forget about them by the end of the episode.
Now imagine a modern Trek show doing the same plot. It would be pretty harrowing stuff.
Now imagine a modern Trek show doing the same plot. It would be pretty harrowing stuff.
The TOS episode that always disturbs me, even through the veil of the "clean" way it's presented, is Dagger of the Mind. It's horrific, and gets worse the longer you think about it - how many people in the Federation penal system failed to do their jobs, that Adams was allowed to continue as long as he did? Were they still sending him fresh prisoners? Was the whole thing authorised in some way, even if only by one corrupt official? Can people like Lethe and Van Gelder be cured, or are they permanent mental zombies? (EDIT: Not Van Gelder, I just remembered they heal him. But Lethe? She was well gone.)
Not to mention the part where Dr Noel kills the guard by kicking him into the electric cables. Always hated that, seemed shocking (lol) by regular TOS standards.
Not to mention the part where Dr Noel kills the guard by kicking him into the electric cables. Always hated that, seemed shocking (lol) by regular TOS standards.
My question WRT "Dagger of the Mind" has always been:
What was Dr. Adams' ultimate goal here with the Beam technology?
Had he just snapped and become a psychopath, an was content using it just to satisfy his own whims/create his own small fiefdom to amuse himself?
Again, given how GR loved to say "Star trek was always 'intelligent and wanting to talk abouit social issues" (which as a old fan who LOVES TOS - I have to say: "Please...what a load of BS!"); because yes, while Star Trek did occasionally do such stories; no, the majority were just setup to broadly entertain - and "Dagger of the Mind" displays that because it is just a: "Mad Scientist uses technology for torture, and Kirk must stop him..." boilerplate of a story.
Yeah, I wonder what his motivation was too. I think the mystery of what the hell he was trying to do actually makes the episode more intriguing, but I freely admit that's me overlooking shoddy writing because I like the rest of the episode so much, and I probably wouldn't be so forgiving with many other shows.
Maybe he was just pumped about the potential to "fix" violent prisoners, and only after starting work on that (which is terrible enough) did he go nuts when he realised the potential of the neutraliser to rewrite anyone's mind.
The real question is how much of this anyone else in the Federation knew of.
Maybe he was just pumped about the potential to "fix" violent prisoners, and only after starting work on that (which is terrible enough) did he go nuts when he realised the potential of the neutraliser to rewrite anyone's mind.
The real question is how much of this anyone else in the Federation knew of.
Can't resist pointing out that this show about "peaceful exploration" boasted episodes titled "Operation--Annihilate!", "Dagger of the Mind," "Balance of Terror," "Arena," "A Taste of Armageddon," "Amok Time," "The Doomsday Machine," "A Private Little War," "Patterns of Force," "Wolf in the Fold," "Spectre of the Gun," "The Savage Curtain," etc.
Granted, there was also "Day of the Dove," in which the Klingons and the Enterprise crew spend the entire ep trying to kill each other.
Granted, there was also "Day of the Dove," in which the Klingons and the Enterprise crew spend the entire ep trying to kill each other.
