In terms of ST, VOY was telling an overarching story about a crew trying to get home, so one should expect a very high degree of consistency, TOS and TNG was basically onto the next adventure with no real overarching story line so perhaps less consistency.
Why Do We Demand Internal Consistency & Continuity in Star Trek?
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In terms of ST, VOY was telling an overarching story about a crew trying to get home, so one should expect a very high degree of consistency, TOS and TNG was basically onto the next adventure with no real overarching story line so perhaps less consistency.
Don't you know that's apparently how retcons work?
As evidenced by the YATI acronym in all DITL episode entriesYeah, it really is. It's notorious for it. It's what has kept the fandom arguing for fifty years
Again, it's not all-or-nothing. The standard is not perfection. Consider: we'd all (or at least most) like to see any work of fiction have psychologically valid characterization and scintillating dialogue and taut, suspenseful plotting and thought-provoking themes and (if it's on screen) brilliantly nuanced acting and gorgeous production values and artfully compelling mise en scene, and so forth, in addition to logical consistency. None of these things by itself is enough to make or break a story; they all work together. And none of them is ever "perfect," of course. Perfection is a limit condition, a goal to be approached only asymptotically. But I think it's reasonable to say that in any of these areas, it would be nice to see the work avoid mistakes that are avoidable.
Yes, of course. Same standard. Why would it be otherwise?
You seem to be in this thread just for the sake of taking potshots at Trek. Not sure what you get out of that. FWIW, though, that last sentence basically sums up the concerns a lot of us have about some of the implications of DSC.
I love it! That's brilliant!
Not really, more to take pot shots at the way people miss the point of trek. It is an iconic and beautiful piece of TV which has had an inordinate cultural impact in the real world, but not remotely by building a consistent, coherently built world a la Middle Earth. Anyone who believes it ever achieved that, or even made a serious attempt, hasn't been watching very closely.
The fandom has a subset of people angrily obsessing how fast warp is, or how many decks the Enterprise has, or how far Qo'nos is from Earth, or "canon" (whatever that horrible word is being misused as today), completely missing the value of this thing we have been given which is about examining the human beings who watch the show and the world they created
.Star Trek matters in the same way Aesops Fables matter, or parables, or zen poetry, or the novels of Charles Dickens. It is about stories which pose questions and make the viewer think, not about creating an immersive universe, which is precisely why it falls apart with even the slightest attempt to analyse the setting.
People have spent fifty years making that mistake and getting ridiculously angry when they can't make it all add up, treating the inconsistencies like failings and mistakes rather than simply part of the nature of the thing they are examining. You could argue there's room for both, but that misses the point that only one of the two was ever really meant to be there at all, the other is something people have mistakenly imposed after the fact and failed to realise the error lies in their perceptions, not the show itself.
It's strength lies in it's impact on the real world, what it has to tell us about what is happening around us, how it makes us think about our own actions and beliefs, not whether Klingons have been done right, or the visuals match, or whether they have the right uniforms, or whether the technology doesn't quite fit.
It shouldn't, but some might expect a book series such as the Harry Potter books to be consistent, but might not hold that belief for a TV series.
I think with any television series you have to make at least some allowances. For example MASH is widely considered one of the best television series ever made. But it was set during the Korean War which lasted three years while the show last ELEVEN years. Thus anyone can see that it is pretty much impossible for the timeline of the series and real life to sync up.
I do think the emphasis on internal continuity has changed since the 1980s when new drama series started airing that had not only season long story arcs but series long story arcs. Needless to say in cases like that internal continuity and consistency is vital.
Not so in many television series of the 70s, 60s, and earlier. Most of them were very episodic in nature (including Star Trek). It didn't matter that a bad guy in Bonanza held a grudge against the Cartwrights due to events in the Civil War when the Civil War was just starting a few episodes earlier.
I do think the emphasis on internal continuity has changed since the 1980s when new drama series started airing that had not only season long story arcs but series long story arcs. Needless to say in cases like that internal continuity and consistency is vital.
Not so in many television series of the 70s, 60s, and earlier. Most of them were very episodic in nature (including Star Trek). It didn't matter that a bad guy in Bonanza held a grudge against the Cartwrights due to events in the Civil War when the Civil War was just starting a few episodes earlier.
Again, as I said from the start of this thread, I'm not just talking about Star Trek. I'm talking about the same standards I apply to almost all narrative fiction.
Well, TOS fits the description in that first clause... the spin-offs, less and less so over time. But Trek has also been engaged in worldbuilding on a major scale. The two things are not mutually exclusive, any more than any of the other desiderata about fiction I mentioned in my previous post. I submit that anyone who thinks otherwise has been watching less closely than those who recognize and appreciate this aspect of the show.
The appreciation for the continuity of Trek goes (at least) all the way back to Bjo Trimble's original Star Trek Concordance (which I loved and basically devoured when I first discovered it as a kid). Today, Memory Alpha exists. For heaven's sake, you don't get that kind of encyclopedic attention to a property that hasn't done a fair bit of worldbuilding.
You're indulging in two fallacies at once here, both a straw man and a false dichotomy. On the first count, I haven't noticed anybody in this thread getting "angry" about continuity, myself included. On the contrary, lots of us are posting thoughtful statements about why we enjoy it. On the second count, you have no grounds for assuming that anybody who disagrees with you about continuity doesn't also appreciate Trek for its commentary on the human condition — I certainly do! — because as I already noted, the two things are not mutually exclusive.
I've already addressed this point. Any work of fiction is bound to have imperfections of various kinds — not just in its continuity. The failings and mistakes are part of the nature of the thing. That doesn't invalidate criticism; on the contrary, it's the foundation of criticism.
But there is room for both. Why are you so insistent on calling an appreciation for continuity "error"? Seems to me you've set yourself a heavy burden of proof if you're arguing that Trek should be an exception to the basic reasonable expectations of logical consistency I've already outlined. After all, it's obviously not in the same category as something like Xena, nor does it qualify as a comedy or some other sub-genre that gets special allowances made.
Another example from a western. Granted, the western genre has always been notorious for making hash of real-world history.
That said... "didn't matter" to who, exactly? The producers, perhaps... but they're not the audience. I guarantee you, that sort of flagrant inconsistency has always bothered me, in any show I've ever watched.
And here's another perspective to consider...
But a lot of people disagree vehemently. They not only don't like that aspect, they'll insist it doesn't even exist. Trek, they will tell you, is just a silly, campy adventure show. It was never really deep or sophisticated; it only occasionally even tried to deliver a message that would "pose questions and make the viewer think," and even when it did was hamfisted and ineffective. Its real-world impact was negligible, they will say. It's a fool's errand for anyone to look to the show for anything more than escapist entertainment. To them, Abrams' ST09 was an example of Trek at its best.
Now, I don't agree with this point of view. But it's certainly a commonplace one that I've seen expressed by more than a few posters on these boards. They will insist that any attempts to find "meaning" in the show are just as futile and misguided as you consider attempts to find "worldbuilding."
Why can't we just accept that Trek is a complex phenomenon, not reducible to only one thing, and we're all just feeling different parts of the elephant?
You clearly appreciate Star Trek's philosophical themes and its commentary on the human condition. As I've already said, I agree — that's always been one of the main things I love about the show.
But a lot of people disagree vehemently. They not only don't like that aspect, they'll insist it doesn't even exist. Trek, they will tell you, is just a silly, campy adventure show. It was never really deep or sophisticated; it only occasionally even tried to deliver a message that would "pose questions and make the viewer think," and even when it did was hamfisted and ineffective. Its real-world impact was negligible, they will say. It's a fool's errand for anyone to look to the show for anything more than escapist entertainment. To them, Abrams' ST09 was an example of Trek at its best.
Now, I don't agree with this point of view. But it's certainly a commonplace one that I've seen expressed by more than a few posters on these boards. They will insist that any attempts to find "meaning" in the show are just as futile and misguided as you consider attempts to find "worldbuilding."
Why can't we just accept that Trek is a complex phenomenon, not reducible to only one thing, and we're all just feeling different parts of the elephant?
That is quite neat!I even made a chart to try to keep track!
Some fans feel a need to school us on how we should watch something, bless.
That definitely goes both ways.
What seems rather redundant is that often we've already seen the thing we watched the 'wrong' way! It's all very organic the way you appreciate something.
That's because the entire "western frontier" was largely a fictional universe of its own. Closer to science fiction than actual historic adventures. It wasn't even really created in the common "western" form until the first half of the 20th century when Tom Mix (among others) got ahold of it and radio dramas (precursors to television dramas) became such a big deal.
Very much so.
I know some fans demand that we see this message or that message and only if it is in this form or that form. Yet it's all down to the creators.
My very brief glimpses back to Western reruns left me thinking Daniel Boon and Davy Crockett were the same guy
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