No. They rejected me because my scripts didn't involve enough crying.Are you on the Discovery writing staff?
Why the hate for Disco?
- Thread starter David Hanley
- Start date
- Status
This is just not trek. Dystopian fare that strips anything hopeful out of looking to the future. Writing is lazy, doesn’t provoke thought, the changing of certain things is as arrogant as blaming the criticism on the leads gender. Can’t handle a female lead? Janeway is shaking her head at you. And at this new federation that seeks out new lifeforms and straps them to their engines. Look at voyager equinox if you need a comparison. If you took away the Star Trek title and derivatives would it stand on its own? Perhaps so.
Star Trek has always broken barriers, to label fans a racist homophobic whatever shows that you need to go back to Harry Potter. You obviously don’t understand the series if you think it draws in people with that thinking.
So, I've been posting on Star Trek bulletin boards since 1996. That's 25 years. And what I've seen is quite a bit different from what you'd think all Star Trek fans would be like. There's a very ugly underbelly that exists in pockets of fandom.
A
Amaris
Guest
Disco's still hit and miss for me, with more good than bad, though. Some episodes make me feel very good about it pushing the ideas of Star Trek, and then it will do an episode with so much ham and wood you'd have thought it was a Canadian lumberjack swinging an axe in any direction.
Anyway, this past season ended well, and I'm curious to see where they head next. As for why there's hate for it, there's always hate for new things. There's a new My Little Pony series coming this year, G5, and there are *already* people complaining about how it's the end of MLP, and you just have to navigate around that because it exists in every fandom. You can't get rid of it, as someone will always see the existence of something new as a personal insult to their beloved franchise, whatever it may be.
Anyway, this past season ended well, and I'm curious to see where they head next. As for why there's hate for it, there's always hate for new things. There's a new My Little Pony series coming this year, G5, and there are *already* people complaining about how it's the end of MLP, and you just have to navigate around that because it exists in every fandom. You can't get rid of it, as someone will always see the existence of something new as a personal insult to their beloved franchise, whatever it may be.
Guess I have not gone deep enough to see that. That is sad.
Every Trek has had its haters:
TNG: "Why is the French guy speaking with a British accent? There can BE no Trek without Kirk and Spock! Will someone PLEASE kill Wesley?"
DS9: "It's too dark! There's no ship! It doesn't go anywhere! Where's the optimism? Where's the exploring?"
VOY: "Janeway's an idiot! Seven sux! She's taken over the show!" (I remember when she was called "Borg Barbie" and "34 of double-D")
ENT: "There WAS no Trek before Kirk and Spock! You've polluted the continuity!"
Trek is an institution. It's bigger than any of us. It'll be here long after we're gone.
TNG: "Why is the French guy speaking with a British accent? There can BE no Trek without Kirk and Spock! Will someone PLEASE kill Wesley?"
DS9: "It's too dark! There's no ship! It doesn't go anywhere! Where's the optimism? Where's the exploring?"
VOY: "Janeway's an idiot! Seven sux! She's taken over the show!" (I remember when she was called "Borg Barbie" and "34 of double-D")
ENT: "There WAS no Trek before Kirk and Spock! You've polluted the continuity!"
Trek is an institution. It's bigger than any of us. It'll be here long after we're gone.
Last edited:
I am talking about flaws, mostly written thinking, it’s sci-fi, it doesn’t matter. Mind melds across the galaxy a thing now? Then why years of having to touch ones face? Surly they can manage a foot or two. That engineer seeing through the forest? I keep seeing wash talking about being a leaf on the wind.
Star Trek has never really broken barriers, though some of its makers have sold it that way and many adherents and followers and the pop culture histories have embraced that. Other shows got non white players in opening title billed roles (East Side/West Side, I Spy, Hogan's Heroes) even before Trek hit the air with its non-white recurring characters as minor characters billed only in the end-credits. The alien-forced non-kiss between Kirk and Uhura was followed weeks later by an actual consensual "interracial" kiss on It Takes A Thief (and we know of one more several years earlier, but we'll get around to that). The 1967 cop show N.Y.P.D. addressed homosexuality decades before any Trek timidly went where everyone had gone before. And a single 1968 skit titled "Bonanzarosa" on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour had as much social commentary via lampoon as an entire season of Trek.
Stat Trek was very progressive, but nowhere near the most progressive show on TV, and rarely on the cutting edge of anything.
And there are lots of very non-IDICy fans out there.
Tell that to all the fans who complained to their local television stations when the DS9 episode 'Rejoined' aired. Or better yet, ask Rick Berman why he was too afraid to allow a gay main character during his tenure, when trash TV like Dynasty, Melrose Place and comedies like The Golden Girls either featured prominent gay characters or had episodes dedicated to furthering the acceptance of Gay people.
The original series was before my time, so it's difficult for me to separate the reality of its diversity claims from the legend. I tend to take it as progressive in that respect, but not as ahead of the curve as its reputation would suggest.
TNG was largely on the conservative end of the diversity spectrum. The women not fainting into men's arms and generally being allowed to be more professional was just a reflection of the times, rather than anything special Star Trek did. The black guy is still a lieutenant, and the only 'outsider' they were brave enough to include was a Klingon - I get the point, old enemies are new friends - but metaphorically progressive is never quite as impressive as actually progressive. The women were still in caring roles with the exception of the abortive attempt with Tasha, and both remaining women had relationships with the leading men as core parts of their character from day one. DS9 and VOY placed women and minorities in more prominent and leadership positions, and presented a positive relationship between a black father and son which Brooks was proud of, but again failed to really do anything that wasn't being done elsewhere and retained an unfortunate obsession with catsuits. And they fell significantly behind the curve on many issues like LGBTQ+ representation. Watching Voyager or Enterprise alongside contemporary shows, they seem decidedly old fashioned, not pushing boundaries.
The area where I think TNG did set out a progressive stall compared to similar shows of its time, and since, was the approach to problem solving that emphasised ethics, diplomacy, justice, communication and finding common ground. Doing the right thing even when it's detrimental to yourself, and tempering power with morality. TNG ramped this up in a way that few dramas would do for risk of losing the pew pew fans. It was something I always admired about TNG and although it gained the label preachy as a result (not exactly unfairly) it was the show's main claim to progressiveness. VOY tried to do the same thing, less well. DS9 toyed with it when it suited, and by ENT it was largely abandoned.
In short, I think Star Trek's most solid claim to progressiveness is not one of pushing diversity boundaries, but one of pushing back on the narrative of violence as a solution to problems. To that extent, it did something special.
TNG was largely on the conservative end of the diversity spectrum. The women not fainting into men's arms and generally being allowed to be more professional was just a reflection of the times, rather than anything special Star Trek did. The black guy is still a lieutenant, and the only 'outsider' they were brave enough to include was a Klingon - I get the point, old enemies are new friends - but metaphorically progressive is never quite as impressive as actually progressive. The women were still in caring roles with the exception of the abortive attempt with Tasha, and both remaining women had relationships with the leading men as core parts of their character from day one. DS9 and VOY placed women and minorities in more prominent and leadership positions, and presented a positive relationship between a black father and son which Brooks was proud of, but again failed to really do anything that wasn't being done elsewhere and retained an unfortunate obsession with catsuits. And they fell significantly behind the curve on many issues like LGBTQ+ representation. Watching Voyager or Enterprise alongside contemporary shows, they seem decidedly old fashioned, not pushing boundaries.
The area where I think TNG did set out a progressive stall compared to similar shows of its time, and since, was the approach to problem solving that emphasised ethics, diplomacy, justice, communication and finding common ground. Doing the right thing even when it's detrimental to yourself, and tempering power with morality. TNG ramped this up in a way that few dramas would do for risk of losing the pew pew fans. It was something I always admired about TNG and although it gained the label preachy as a result (not exactly unfairly) it was the show's main claim to progressiveness. VOY tried to do the same thing, less well. DS9 toyed with it when it suited, and by ENT it was largely abandoned.
In short, I think Star Trek's most solid claim to progressiveness is not one of pushing diversity boundaries, but one of pushing back on the narrative of violence as a solution to problems. To that extent, it did something special.
It's true. Hogan's Heroes had Ivan Dixon in the lead cast as Kinchloe a year before TOS premiered and Kinchloe did more in the context of many plots than Uhura would do.
Ah, well, now I remember. Before Discovery every Trek series needed one of those...
Wait! Which is the "gay episode" of Voyager?!?
That would be "Body and Soul" (where the Doctor -- inside Seven's body -- propositions a man).
Wait, is it an "intentional" gay episode, or it's all in the minds of the viewers, like the "love story" between 7of9 and Janeway?
As I remember it, the Doctor was creeped out by the advances of the male alien captain while in Seven's body but had zero issue getting sexually aroused by the female alien first officer in Seven's body (because lesbians are hot *beavis and butthead laugh*). Which was something that Seven considered a violation. And of course it was all played for laughs.
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
